Speaker 1: Hello everybody, welcome to That's Not Metal. We are your
Speaker 1: weekly rock and heavy metal podcast. We are here this week,
Speaker 1: the final week of August, for our monthly reviews roundup.
Speaker 1: I will let you know what we're going to do
Speaker 1: in that regard in just a moment. But first, it
Speaker 1: should be said, it has been a very special week
Speaker 1: here at TNM Towers for myself, Perrin Hayesh, Sam Dignon
Speaker 1: across from me. Boy were we busy.
Speaker 2: Oh what a weekend what a like from Thursday to
Speaker 2: Sunday for me was just like on a goth cloud
Speaker 2: like just treating myself to the best shit ever it
Speaker 2: finally happened I like to say everyone who heard last
Speaker 2: week heard how giddy with excitement I was that I
Speaker 2: was mere hours away from it but yes it was
Speaker 2: uh it was a hell of a weekend.
Speaker 1: It sure was. For time purposes, considering this is, as
Speaker 1: I said, our review show, we have got albums to
Speaker 1: dive into and talk about. We are actually going to,
Speaker 1: on Hyperblast next week, is when we are going to
Speaker 1: go fully divulging the details of, as we, you know,
Speaker 1: kind of started to call it, Big Goth Weekend, where
Speaker 1: we have The Cure to talk about, we have The
Speaker 1: Return of AFI, finally, to talk about, and we even
Speaker 1: had Deftones, all points east slash outbreak and everything else
Speaker 1: that was on that bill to talk about as well
Speaker 1: so we're going to do the full you know crazy
Speaker 1: review rundown of certainly one of the biggest live music
Speaker 1: weekends in in our recent memory um on next week's
Speaker 1: show um but it should be said elliot paisley you're
Speaker 1: here as well and and even you got in a
Speaker 1: little bit of the action on that uh that final
Speaker 1: sunday with uh deftones and co as well did you
Speaker 1: have a nice time did you enjoy yourself.
Speaker 3: I uh the best time i absolutely enjoyed myself it
Speaker 3: You know, it's so weird. It's been 10 years since
Speaker 3: I saw Deftones. Last time was subbing to Black Sabbath,
Speaker 3: a download, like 2016 or something.
Speaker 4: And.
Speaker 1: Times change.
Speaker 3: It's just mad seeing them be that big. And again,
Speaker 3: when I went to that, I was not just the youngest.
Speaker 3: I was the youngest person there by about 20 years.
Speaker 3: It was me and 40 guys with beanies. That was
Speaker 3: the audience. And now, I go... And I genuinely feel
Speaker 3: like one of the oldest people there.
Speaker 1: And it's just.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's a completely different experience, I wouldn't even
Speaker 3: know where to rank it in terms of, like, the
Speaker 3: Deftones shows I've seen, but it's just their rise to, like,
Speaker 3: genuine all-time rock stars now is just one of the
Speaker 3: most heartening things, and getting to be there and experience
Speaker 3: it in person, and it's happening the coolest way, I mean,
Speaker 3: TikTok isn't necessarily the coolest way it's become super popular,
Speaker 3: but just the way it's not been, like, they've not become, like,
Speaker 3: a one-hit wonder, where it's a bunch of teenagers waiting
Speaker 3: around to hear one song, it's They have huge songs
Speaker 3: now throughout the set, and weird choices, like just the
Speaker 3: way the crowd popped off things like Rosemary and Entombed
Speaker 3: and like Mascara, which, you know, I've said that's on
Speaker 3: a classic record, but when they went into that guitar line,
Speaker 3: which doesn't scream catchy hits, you know, and then everyone
Speaker 3: loses their mind for it, it kind of places them
Speaker 3: in a unique spot where there's no lulls in the set,
Speaker 3: because their last album was big, they've got deep cuts
Speaker 3: that are huge that they can pull from now, and,
Speaker 3: you know, the hits are the hits, and You know, Deftones,
Speaker 3: maybe they were once a slightly patchy live band. They
Speaker 3: seem to be just uniformly brilliant now. And the whole
Speaker 3: day was fantastic. Again, seeing AFI for you guys the
Speaker 3: first time.
Speaker 1: Did you enjoy AFI? Did we get you any more?
Speaker 3: You know what? Because the weeks coming up have been
Speaker 3: so AFI-centric just in the talk. I almost started to
Speaker 3: develop a countering yin-yang thing with AFI. Guys, come on.
Speaker 3: They can't be that good. Is Davey Havoc really a god?
Speaker 3: He's a guy. The guy's got aura. There's absolutely no denying.
Speaker 3: When that guy comes out on stage, it's something else.
Speaker 3: I didn't know half the songs because my AFI knowledge
Speaker 3: is much patchier. I bumped into you earlier in the
Speaker 3: day and you were describing them as a bit like
Speaker 3: Clutch where they might pull from anything at any time.
Speaker 3: But again, I looked at the set list afterwards just
Speaker 3: to reacquaint myself with some of the songs I didn't know.
Speaker 3: And I might have to go and listen to Crash
Speaker 3: Love again, because I think I have heard that, but
Speaker 3: the song they played off that was a Stone Cold Jam,
Speaker 3: so there's... Two, right? Yeah, Across the Day, Death Heaven
Speaker 3: were great. I saw a little bit of Interpol. They
Speaker 3: were nice and boring. That was fine.
Speaker 1: What else?
Speaker 3: Salem was fucking ridiculous. I don't know if either of you.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I didn't see that. That was.
Speaker 3: Do you remember Lil Xan? Do you remember that guy? Yeah.
Speaker 1: He was sort of like that. To be clear for
Speaker 1: everyone listening, this is not the Will Gould Salem. This
Speaker 1: is a completely different Salem.
Speaker 3: This is Witch House.
Speaker 1: The Will Gould Lil Xan collab would go hard.
Speaker 3: Different guy. Different guy entirely. My association with Salem is
Speaker 3: they had an album in 2010, which was kind of
Speaker 3: popular at the time, but mainly there was a viral
Speaker 3: video surrounding them where people were going, is this the
Speaker 3: worst live band ever?
Speaker 1: Of all time.
Speaker 3: It was like catatonic youths before catatonic youths. And it was,
Speaker 3: it wasn't like that, which is a shame because that's
Speaker 3: kind of what I was hoping for. But it was,
Speaker 3: it was kind of like, like SoundCloud rap, Witch House with,
Speaker 3: they've taken Sun's fog machine. It was just like, you
Speaker 3: couldn't see it. That with the dust, it was an
Speaker 3: absolute punishment.
Speaker 1: Have you cleansed yourself yet of the, the already infamous
Speaker 1: All Points East dust?
Speaker 3: Oh, mate, I, I came back, I got home at
Speaker 3: like 1.30, and I was like, I'm not going to
Speaker 3: be able to sleep, I need to have a hot
Speaker 3: shower to clear this. It was like, do you remember
Speaker 3: when Drag Me to Hell, when she starts vomiting blood?
Speaker 3: It was just like, yeah.
Speaker 1: I was Prometheus Black Goo in all that. I went
Speaker 1: to fucking Victoria Station bathroom afterwards, blew my nose, looked down,
Speaker 1: and I shit, this is not an exaggeration, this is
Speaker 1: not a bit, it was black. I was black snotting everywhere.
Speaker 1: It was terrible. I was fully going to turn into
Speaker 1: a fucking xenomorph.
Speaker 3: You start to get scared because you go, the dust
Speaker 3: wasn't even black at the site. It's gone black in
Speaker 3: my head. What chemistry has happened where now black is
Speaker 3: just pouring out of my skull? But yeah, no, deftones
Speaker 3: were good.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it was good. As said, full details, full
Speaker 1: AFI Lovefest, I suppose, along with the cure and deftones
Speaker 1: and other things, to be coming on next Friday's show
Speaker 1: when we've got more time to waste, I suppose. But today,
Speaker 1: we haven't got that time to waste because we are doing,
Speaker 1: as I said, the review show for August, and we
Speaker 1: have got just six records that we're going to be
Speaker 1: talking about in depth today. But there is, I think,
Speaker 1: a good comprehensive spread of the TNM universe and our
Speaker 1: genres in those six records. We're going to talk about
Speaker 1: the new records from Weezer, Chelsea Wolfe, Electric Cowboy, Living Weapon,
Speaker 1: The Night Eternal, and Zorn. A little bit of news
Speaker 1: round up before we get into that. First of all,
Speaker 1: everyone was going all the rage for this across last
Speaker 1: weekend when we were hanging out together. The news dropping
Speaker 1: that Turnstile... are going to be releasing a kind of
Speaker 1: a reimagined, reworked version of Never Enough. featuring a very
Speaker 1: large amount of guests. Turnstile, right, we're very used to
Speaker 1: at this point seeing a Turnstile tour poster drop and
Speaker 1: it having, like, everyone from the most, you know, kind
Speaker 1: of dingy underground things that you could feasibly put on
Speaker 1: with Turnstile through to, like, bands and artists who we
Speaker 1: would otherwise never be talking about on this show. And
Speaker 1: it pretty much is like one of those tour posters
Speaker 1: put into record form. But specifically, the fact that the
Speaker 1: names were presented in alphabetical order, meaning that... dying fetus
Speaker 1: and elton john came directly next to each other on
Speaker 1: this list i hope they're on the same song i
Speaker 1: hope that that's the way they've organized it uh all
Speaker 1: together anyway uh The fact that those are the two
Speaker 1: names brought together, everyone obviously had a lot of fun
Speaker 1: with that. The thing that I really hope, I think
Speaker 1: the best case scenario out of all this, is that
Speaker 1: this is how Elton John hears Dying Fetus. He goes, oh,
Speaker 1: that turns that record. I'm on that. I wonder who
Speaker 1: else is on it. Looks up, sees his name. It's
Speaker 1: directly next to John Gallagher and co. And then he
Speaker 1: goes and hears fucking Destroy the Opposition. I think that
Speaker 1: is the ultimate dream scenario. We may never know if
Speaker 1: that comes true or not, but in my head, I'm
Speaker 1: hoping that that is what's happening.
Speaker 5: I'm sure Owen Dunne will have given the record at
Speaker 5: least one play.
Speaker 2: He talked about how much he liked Never Enough as
Speaker 2: a record and would listen to it a lot. So
Speaker 2: maybe he will decide to check out the reimagined version.
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm down for just this. I think Turnstile
Speaker 2: are continuing to just be a really cool big band
Speaker 2: at this point. I think it's amazing the level of
Speaker 2: names they can pull from. You've got Hayley Williams... like
Speaker 2: i think like angel dust are like one of the
Speaker 2: things that so i'm guessing they've probably got like that
Speaker 2: link going on but like i said the dying fetus
Speaker 2: elton john one was just kind of like the a
Speaker 2: that's such like insane sort of one two whiplash to
Speaker 2: go from but yeah i think you know turnstile just
Speaker 2: like a year on from that i'm going we're doing
Speaker 2: a reimagined version of it with the most batshit list
Speaker 2: sort of guesses ever that just feels very in keeping
Speaker 2: with what turnstile is now and i'm kind of excited
Speaker 2: to hear how it plays out.
Speaker 3: Well the thing that was weird for me was i
Speaker 3: sent it to my friend and he like you say
Speaker 3: it's all in alphabetic order so you read it naturally
Speaker 3: and he seemed to stop reading it dying fetus because
Speaker 3: he just went dan deacon and dying fetus how mad
Speaker 3: it was like what got one line down the next.
Speaker 4: Line was he reading it with a ruler he was
Speaker 4: trying to reveal it slowly to himself to keep suspense
Speaker 4: i think it's again it's just one of the again
Speaker 4: it's this is the sort of thing where you go,
Speaker 4: this will not happen again.
Speaker 3: Like maybe, another band will become as popular where they
Speaker 3: can collide those two worlds but to like for a
Speaker 3: band to be able to reach have one tentacle in
Speaker 3: sort of a place where dying fetus might will be
Speaker 3: you know able to hang and then another where it's
Speaker 3: like they can reach Elton John it's It's a pretty
Speaker 3: generational move. It's the sort of thing that even five
Speaker 3: years ago sounded completely stupid outside of pure novelty, and
Speaker 3: even then you wouldn't get a name that big. I
Speaker 3: almost don't care if any of it's good. It's purely
Speaker 3: just the cojones to give it a go. I think
Speaker 3: this is fantastic.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, hopefully it's the start of a great
Speaker 1: budding friendship there. And a long time ago, as a
Speaker 1: wise man once said, Why not Dying Fetus? So, that
Speaker 1: is the thought over in the Turnstile camp. Speaking of,
Speaker 1: I know, slowly revealing something to ourselves, this is news
Speaker 1: here of a, I guess, a Guitar Hero, it's not
Speaker 1: officially Guitar Hero, it's called Stage Tour, but it's, you know,
Speaker 1: kind of from the lineage of Guitar Hero, a new game,
Speaker 1: and I know that you two here in Throat of Me,
Speaker 1: as you bring up every single time various bands come up,
Speaker 1: most recently Social Distortion on Album Club, um, have very
Speaker 1: strong feelings about Guitar Hero, not that I blame you
Speaker 1: at all. Um, so, uh, I mean, Elliot, it was
Speaker 1: you who, uh, you know, brought this forward and was like,
Speaker 1: look at this list, um, of tracks that have been
Speaker 1: revealed for this new upcoming, uh, you know, Guitar Hero
Speaker 1: quasi sort of spin-off game. Um, the, the rise and
Speaker 1: fall of Guitar Hero itself is, uh, It feels very
Speaker 1: tied to, I don't know, a time of different fortunes
Speaker 1: in rock music, I suppose. So it always feels, I
Speaker 1: don't know, slightly like we're trying to recapture something when
Speaker 1: something like this comes out. And the list here of
Speaker 1: songs is really weird because on one hand, about 70%
Speaker 1: to 80% of it is, like, not stuff that you
Speaker 1: would think is right for a guitar hero at all
Speaker 1: because it's just, like, you know, boring, pop, doesn't rip, whatever.
Speaker 2: And then.
Speaker 1: there is a small percentage, and then you go, oh,
Speaker 1: but Castle Rat are there. And Beast in Black are
Speaker 1: on there. Like, a couple of really weird... Certainly Castle Rat,
Speaker 1: it's fucking cool to see them graduating into, yeah, we're
Speaker 1: on a Guitar Hero of sorts game status, but do
Speaker 1: we really need Walk the Moon to be on it?
Speaker 1: It's an odd bunch, isn't it?
Speaker 2: So, I mean, I pointed out when we were discussing
Speaker 2: this earlier, the thing with like the Guitar Hero, Rock
Speaker 2: Band Games, the moment they became sort of full band experiences,
Speaker 2: the songs, the track list did change and become generally
Speaker 2: less ripping because it became less about just ripping out
Speaker 2: the guitar stuff, which is why Guitar Hero 3 is
Speaker 2: the peak of the entire thing because that was the
Speaker 2: last one that was purely guitar, had the best set
Speaker 2: list of songs that are like crank out the riff,
Speaker 2: rip out the solos, like big tunes.
Speaker 1: I mean, look at the Muse song. The old Guitar
Speaker 1: Hero 3 infamous staple is, of course, Knights of Cydonia.
Speaker 1: And there are so many songs from the Muse catalog. Muse,
Speaker 1: not short of ripping guitar playing. That's something that everybody,
Speaker 1: including people who hate Muse, can generally agree on. That's
Speaker 1: why they've gone and picked Starlight, the song I'm sure
Speaker 1: we all immediately think of when it comes to heavy,
Speaker 1: ripping Muse guitars. I love Starlight. It's a... perfect pop
Speaker 1: song it's not the one you put on a fucking
Speaker 1: guitar here again is it yes like stockholm syndrome or
Speaker 1: even a recent single but fucking won't stand down or
Speaker 1: whatever would be a better choice than starlight.
Speaker 2: Yeah that feels sort of emblematic of the sort of
Speaker 2: like full band thing but i will say i was
Speaker 2: looking i was like you know like megadeth are a
Speaker 2: rubbish band for the most part but tornado of souls.
Speaker 1: Is an unbelievable choice like we got you with rust
Speaker 1: in peace last year and you're already trying to walk
Speaker 1: all this back No, no, no.
Speaker 5: I've just said Tornado of Souls is fucking brilliant.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but you said it like it was an outlier,
Speaker 1: which is the problem.
Speaker 3: It is an outlier.
Speaker 2: And the other one is like Motley Crue. Again, terrible band,
Speaker 2: but fucking kickstart my heart. Is there one undeniable, unbeatable tune?
Speaker 5: And that's simply on there.
Speaker 3: Sense of Los Angeles.
Speaker 2: But then I'm looking at it like, you know, there's
Speaker 2: some fun stuff. As we were talking last week, Sharp
Speaker 2: Dressed Man on there.
Speaker 1: That's a banger.
Speaker 5: You're going to have a good time cranking that out,
Speaker 5: will you, mate?
Speaker 2: I think, you know, Square Hammer's one I can go like, yeah,
Speaker 2: that's the one that should be on the revival of
Speaker 2: Guitar Hero. If you're going to pick a ghost tune,
Speaker 2: Square Hammer is one of the most ironclad modern rock
Speaker 2: and metal classics. Really cool to see that on there.
Speaker 2: The Motherlode as a Mastodon pick, I'm like, cool to
Speaker 2: see the sort of staple metal bands who've been on
Speaker 2: these games before getting more interesting picks. A couple of
Speaker 2: bait choices, Psychosocial, that's been on one of these before,
Speaker 2: but I'll take it. I think there's enough cool stuff
Speaker 2: on here.
Speaker 5: I'm happy to see Red Flag as a Billy Talent pick.
Speaker 2: I think that's a classic tune. And then there is
Speaker 2: a bunch of weird pop songs on there, like Avril
Speaker 2: Lavigne and Olivia Rodrigo. But as you said earlier, that
Speaker 2: being alongside Castle Rat, I guess it's pretty cool.
Speaker 3: For me, the only criteria for whether something should be
Speaker 3: on Guitar Hero is, do you want to air guitar
Speaker 3: to it because if you don't why have a game
Speaker 3: which simulates yeah do you know what i mean like
Speaker 3: that seems like that and that's that's the only criteria
Speaker 3: you can have any genre music you want like i
Speaker 3: mean guitar hero 3 you're quite right sam is the
Speaker 3: absolute best creme de la creme guitar hero game and
Speaker 3: that's got you know for every one or number of
Speaker 3: the beast or raining blood there's like cliffs of dover
Speaker 3: like there's nice breezy stuff which is just still like
Speaker 3: you know stuff that sounds fun to play on guitar
Speaker 3: And there's, you know, there's a lot of that. You've
Speaker 3: mentioned a lot of them, like Get the Funk Out
Speaker 3: by Xtreme. That's great. You know, Photograph by Def Leppard.
Speaker 3: I believe in a thing called love.
Speaker 5: I thought the law, that'll be a fun one. Even
Speaker 5: more sort of like basic punk stuff, that's as good
Speaker 5: as you could get for that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but there are a lot of songs where you go,
Speaker 3: I don't even know what the guitar on that does.
Speaker 3: Some of the songs I might like, and I don't
Speaker 3: even know what the guitar part sounds like. The one
Speaker 3: for me where I do go, whose idea was this,
Speaker 3: is Static X with... with Terminator Oscillator, and I'm not
Speaker 3: a Static, as much as I might have given the impression,
Speaker 3: I'm not a huge Static X fan. I was like,
Speaker 3: where is that song from? And it's from 2020, and
Speaker 3: it's like, what's a 2020 Static X? In your opening gambit,
Speaker 3: to go like, and there's more to come, we've got
Speaker 3: the return of Static X, like that's, and again, the
Speaker 3: riff for that will just, I've not heard it, the
Speaker 3: riff will just be, da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da.
Speaker 1: Fine.
Speaker 3: I don't know, I'm sort of, I'm hoping that when
Speaker 3: the game comes out properly, let's have a little bit
Speaker 3: more shred. A little bit less modern Rolling Stones and
Speaker 3: a bit more... I feel like there's a lot of
Speaker 3: songs which... Square Hammer's a perfect example of the mother load.
Speaker 3: There's a few songs that came out in the interim
Speaker 3: between Guitar Hero games where you go, I'd love to
Speaker 3: stick that in. I don't need it to all be
Speaker 3: like Rings of Sasson, but do the Blood Incantation stage.
Speaker 3: That would be cool. Please, just do Absolute Elsewhere in full.
Speaker 3: That's a perfect final boss. don't know if we need
Speaker 3: all-star i think that's sort of been.
Speaker 1: Done yeah the majority of this to me looks boring
Speaker 1: but then there's castle rat and you go fucking hell
Speaker 1: yeah that that feels like a major win for them
Speaker 1: like that's the major part of the the story of
Speaker 1: this i think is like damn castle rat really really
Speaker 1: going somewhere so uh good for them at the very
Speaker 1: least a couple of new album announcement this week comeback
Speaker 1: kid I've got their new one, the Canadian hardcore stalwart's
Speaker 1: Chosen Hell is the name of it. It's out on
Speaker 1: November the 6th. And then we also have news I
Speaker 1: wanted to drop in of Smolder, and that's in their
Speaker 1: new album. Smolder, one of our favourite more recent epic
Speaker 1: heavy metal, traditional heavy metal bands, started off more as
Speaker 1: a doom metal band, but over the years, and certainly
Speaker 1: by the lead single for this album, Standards, have gone crazy. Like,
Speaker 1: faster and faster and faster, where you can call them
Speaker 1: Doom No More, really. And this album has got a
Speaker 1: whole kind of, you know, strange, almost, like, aesthetic reinvention
Speaker 1: going on for them. It's called Witch Wife in an
Speaker 1: Alien World, and it looks very, like, freaky and sci-fi
Speaker 1: and progressive compared to the, you know, more... medieval epic
Speaker 1: you know stuff that you could associate with smolder but
Speaker 1: that's coming out on october the 9th uh again a
Speaker 1: small band who we like to shine a light on
Speaker 1: new tour announcements the big one that everyone's been talking
Speaker 1: about this week comes from both trivium and in flames
Speaker 1: uh who have been recently uh doing a tour together
Speaker 1: across the us now they have announced it together bringing
Speaker 1: it to europe and the uk as well um trivium
Speaker 1: and in flames it's sort of the way like Trivium
Speaker 1: in particular, because they did the Poison and Intensity thing,
Speaker 1: they almost have these big press conference style rollouts for tours.
Speaker 1: It's kind of being pitched as a co-headline in that
Speaker 1: kind of way. Obviously, compared to Bullet and Trivium, In
Speaker 1: Flames and Trivium has more of a geographical disparity, where
Speaker 1: it looks like In Flames are going to be headlining,
Speaker 1: certainly the Scandinavian tour. dates perhaps some of the other
Speaker 1: european ones as well uh trivium are the band going
Speaker 1: on last uh here in the uk um within flames
Speaker 1: as sort of main support uh they are going to
Speaker 1: be doing that here in the uk between march 29th
Speaker 1: and april 4th and then also going across uh the
Speaker 1: rest of the Stop at Alexandra Palace in London... This
Speaker 1: is going for arenas... It's got the Co-op Live in
Speaker 1: Manchester for example... The Hydro in Glasgow... And opening acts of...
Speaker 1: Paleface Swiss and Vola... And Trivium and In Flames together... This...
Speaker 1: To me personally... I find this more tantalising... Than the...
Speaker 1: Bullet Poison Descendancy thing... That they did... Mavis Bullet... I'd
Speaker 1: seen the poison before... Whatever... But like the combination of Trivium...
Speaker 1: And yeah I know... Recent In Flames... They're not the
Speaker 1: Jester race anymore but the combination of those two together
Speaker 1: is i feel like i would be more likely to
Speaker 1: uh you know try and find my way to this
Speaker 1: particularly um considering in flames recently Just this week, actually,
Speaker 1: they were playing a show in Gothenburg, in Sweden, and
Speaker 1: I believe that there was a big Thomas Lindbergh memorial
Speaker 1: focus going on with In Flames and Dark Tranquility and
Speaker 1: so on, covering At The Gates songs and that kind
Speaker 1: of thing. But part of this In Flames... set they
Speaker 1: did this week as well um they busted out a
Speaker 1: bunch of like cool old songs they played gyroscope from
Speaker 1: horacle um for the first time since 2012 and particularly
Speaker 1: uh artifacts of the black rain from the jester race
Speaker 1: with matt hayfee coming out on guest vocals because that
Speaker 1: is apparently matt hayfee's favorite inflamed song that he's been
Speaker 1: pressuring them to do for ages and guess who else
Speaker 1: would select that as their favourite In Flames song? That's right, me, bitch.
Speaker 1: And if this continues, and Matt continues to bully In
Speaker 1: Flames into playing cool Jester-y songs, particularly that one, then yeah,
Speaker 1: maybe they won't do that. But to me, like I said,
Speaker 1: Trivium and In Flames together, this does sound like a...
Speaker 1: If you're into melodic metal, particularly of the Swedish Gothenburg-y variety,
Speaker 1: which is of course very influential on Trivium, then I'm alright, yeah.
Speaker 2: This reminds me of the, um, not the, the toilet
Speaker 2: a couple of years ago with heaven shall burn, where again,
Speaker 2: it was that co-headliner, but like the UK, but like.
Speaker 1: But much bigger because they're in arenas, right? Yeah.
Speaker 2: But in flames feel like the sort of the perfect
Speaker 2: kind of like leading for that. Again, I have quite
Speaker 2: influenced on this podcast ribbed in flames and their fans
Speaker 2: a little bit, but I have now kind of like, again,
Speaker 2: I know that the early in flames records up to
Speaker 2: Oh six in flames rip post Oh six post come clarity.
Speaker 5: It's all a bit naff to.
Speaker 2: Me, but, um, if everyone wanted to come out and
Speaker 2: just play a 45 to 50 minute sort of big
Speaker 2: support slot of bangers into Trivium, that's a good fucking time. Like,
Speaker 2: that is, like, if you want, like, again, like, melodic,
Speaker 2: kind of, like, death metal teen sort of metalcore sort
Speaker 2: of influential sort of music.
Speaker 5: That's a great old time.
Speaker 2: It's weathering flames to do that, whether they kind of like, no,
Speaker 2: people want to hear the new songs and no, they don't.
Speaker 2: But yeah, I think this is that as a pairing,
Speaker 2: it's one of those ones you kind of go like,
Speaker 2: how has it taken until now for this to kind
Speaker 2: of like be a really, again, a big deal tour.
Speaker 2: I know they've toured together in the past, but it
Speaker 2: feels like one of those ones that could have been
Speaker 2: a big deal tour for a good while now.
Speaker 5: And I think like, it looks cool.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I mean, Trivium, Trivium, Always reliably great. In Flames
Speaker 3: do seem like a band where they are more dependent
Speaker 3: on what they choose to play on the night, because
Speaker 3: I saw them in 2017. I think that was the
Speaker 3: height of, we're not a melodic death metal band anymore.
Speaker 3: We're the future. We're battles. And it was like 60%
Speaker 3: of the... I think the oldest song they played that night,
Speaker 3: if I'm not mistaken, was Take This Life, which is
Speaker 3: not old enough, to be honest, if you're going to
Speaker 3: do an In Flames set. But it does seem like,
Speaker 3: with that last record, which was very consciously... going for
Speaker 3: the old school and if they're bringing out deep cuts
Speaker 3: like that it sounds like they've sort of bucked their
Speaker 3: ideas but have a bit of a healthier balance if
Speaker 3: if they come out and bring it other i'd like
Speaker 3: to see an inflamed sort of renaissance of the kind
Speaker 3: they deserve because i think you know sam speaks to
Speaker 3: something where a lot a whole generation because they were
Speaker 3: naff for quite a long time and on record still
Speaker 3: aren't great they've sort of been swept under the rug
Speaker 3: but my god that that run we talked about it
Speaker 3: before but like when inflames were on it oh baby.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, last time they played Bloodstock, they played
Speaker 1: Behind Space from the first album, so I think that
Speaker 1: they are capable of doing some cool shit, and I
Speaker 1: would just hope that does continue into this particular tour,
Speaker 1: because I think, I don't know, coming out in front
Speaker 1: of a Trivian crowd who are obviously, again, there's that
Speaker 1: lineage of influence there, and kind of giving them a lesson,
Speaker 1: you know, like, here's where all this stuff comes from,
Speaker 1: Artifacts of the Black Rain, Behind Space, whatever, and then,
Speaker 1: you know, obviously you do throw in your big anthems
Speaker 1: from the, you know, throw in deliver us whatever you
Speaker 1: know from from the more modern records as well um
Speaker 1: i know there has been a bit of discourse around
Speaker 1: this about ticket price as kind of increasingly seems to
Speaker 1: happen with every big tour that's not unique to this
Speaker 1: one i think people are maybe going god trivium and
Speaker 1: in flames together that's the package that i might have
Speaker 1: seen again 15 years ago like i did on like
Speaker 1: the metal hammer defenders of the faith tour and now
Speaker 1: suddenly it's 80 quid you know to do it but
Speaker 1: i know that's just kind of uh the the price
Speaker 1: that's being paid with basically every like you know tour
Speaker 1: that's going to go through places like the carp live
Speaker 1: or outside of palace whatever um you know down to
Speaker 1: your own discretion and uh is is a shame but
Speaker 1: as i said as a pairing um that is uh
Speaker 1: of the the bigger metal tours coming around In next year,
Speaker 1: that is one that I find kind of appealing So
Speaker 1: there you go, Trivia in Flames coming around If you
Speaker 1: are more of a hardcore alternative rock persuasion Then Basement
Speaker 1: Are going to be doing their Big full on headline
Speaker 1: tour Around Europe and the UK For their album, it
Speaker 1: includes a date at the Roundhouse In London And those
Speaker 1: sort of equivalently sized venues Across the rest of the
Speaker 1: UK In February of next year And just because Sam
Speaker 1: hasn't been Privileged enough lately Chelsea Wolfe, more on her
Speaker 1: in a little while, but Chelsea Wolfe, having just fucking
Speaker 1: played one date in London alongside, of course, her headlining
Speaker 1: date at Elk Tangent, decided that that is now the
Speaker 1: only place she will play in the UK because the
Speaker 1: dark world tour has been announced and the only UK
Speaker 1: date is in fucking London again on the 17th of December.
Speaker 1: You've just played there, Chelsea. I love you, but please,
Speaker 1: you've just done it. Do... The rest of us, please.
Speaker 1: And if that's not enough, fucking Oathbreaker. Also, in the
Speaker 1: post-Arctangent announcements, added one more UK show in London at
Speaker 1: the Village Underground, which is not a venue that I know.
Speaker 1: And it's on my fucking birthday, no less. And I
Speaker 1: kind of didn't want to have to go to London
Speaker 1: again for the rest of the year, but maybe I must.
Speaker 2: I was so glad because when Portrayal of Guilt announced
Speaker 2: that tour recently and there was no London there I
Speaker 2: was like you fuckers not coming to London and then
Speaker 2: suddenly I was like oh that's why you're not coming
Speaker 2: to London because you're doing something even better coming to
Speaker 2: London with Oathbreaker I am ecstatic about this I've seen
Speaker 2: so many of my favourite albums of all time in
Speaker 2: full life this year because then this is just like
Speaker 2: topping it off with Raya is going to be just
Speaker 2: oh I am very very excited yeah Oathbreaker hell yeah
Speaker 2: let's go Yeah.
Speaker 1: And then the cool live announcement from the other side
Speaker 1: of the pond this week, I think from over in America,
Speaker 1: is Interama announcing their 20th anniversary as a band tour.
Speaker 1: Interama have, in fact, been going for 20 years. You
Speaker 1: might not have heard of them until... I don't know,
Speaker 1: five or so years ago, perhaps ten when they released
Speaker 1: Paradise Gallows, but 20 years as a band. This year
Speaker 1: they're doing a kind of short tour around primarily the
Speaker 1: eastern side of the United States, but the support acts
Speaker 1: for that tour are the current kind of buzzy, really
Speaker 1: horrible sludge band called Chain to the Bottom of the Ocean,
Speaker 1: and then also Antichrist Siege Machine, which is the hardest
Speaker 1: possible inter-armoured support act. Fuck me.
Speaker 3: I wonder what Van Halen song they'll do.
Speaker 1: I do wonder, but yeah, if you are, again, in
Speaker 1: that area of the United States and you have not
Speaker 1: seen any of those bands, god damn it, fucking Antichrist
Speaker 1: Sea Machine, unbelievably hard, and then you get Inter-Armor as well,
Speaker 1: brilliant stuff. Right, let's move on with our show here.
Speaker 1: A quick little mention for our most recent antics over
Speaker 1: on the That's Not Metal Patreon. The most recent thing
Speaker 1: is our Black Breath. Retrospective special that we did Four
Speaker 1: hours on a band who we think Fucking deserved her
Speaker 1: four hours spent On them and their catalogue And their
Speaker 1: legacy and the other things that they've done The other
Speaker 1: bands that they've done And just What a wonderful thing
Speaker 1: that they were In their time and hopefully can be
Speaker 1: Again now if they Are gallant enough To do so
Speaker 1: in our area Elliot this was fucking a joy Wasn't it?
Speaker 3: Such a pleasure to revisit that catalogue Like, I mean,
Speaker 3: I don't need much excuse to listen to certainly the
Speaker 3: first two at the best of times, but so rewarding
Speaker 3: to go through it in order and think about how
Speaker 3: that band changed. Because, you know, they weren't around for
Speaker 3: very long and, you know, kind of maybe stretched to
Speaker 3: say forgotten, but so many people of maybe the generation
Speaker 3: after and before don't seem too familiar with who they are.
Speaker 3: But it's like, if you were there then, you know
Speaker 3: how exciting it was. And going back through the records,
Speaker 3: charting that short, sharp career they had, And it just,
Speaker 3: it's made me so yearning for them to come back
Speaker 3: to the UK. Like, now I've gone from seeing, like, oh,
Speaker 3: I'm glad they're back and, you know, the Americans can
Speaker 3: enjoy it. So, like, now I must, I simply must
Speaker 3: see them. Surely someone's going to get, some festival's going
Speaker 3: to be there. They've got to come over. It's just, yeah,
Speaker 3: so good.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the campaign for that to happen. to happen certainly
Speaker 1: does begin here and that does follow on from our
Speaker 1: just before that recently completed Korn special four parts on
Speaker 1: that band the real breadth of the T & M
Speaker 1: spectrum there of one of the most influential giant bands
Speaker 1: of all time in the world of heavy music to
Speaker 1: a band who we think deserve more of a light
Speaker 1: shone on them and we will see where that particular
Speaker 1: pendulum takes us to next over there but if you
Speaker 1: want to hear all of that you might also want
Speaker 1: to hear for example the T & M Does Horror
Speaker 1: series that me and Sam do, our most recent entry
Speaker 1: of which was talking about Obsession and Evil Dead Burn.
Speaker 1: You can find all of that good stuff, all of
Speaker 1: our longest, best podcasts over on the That's The Metal Patreon.
Speaker 1: And if that is where you choose to support us,
Speaker 1: then that is the best way to support this podcast
Speaker 1: and keep us alive. So thank you very much for
Speaker 1: doing so. Let's get on with today's reviews. And like
Speaker 1: I said before, six albums, but a good spread, trying
Speaker 1: to cover as many bases as possible within six albums.
Speaker 1: that this month's release has presented to us and we
Speaker 1: start off with the return of the most rascally band
Speaker 1: on the planet Weezer with their self-titled once again it's
Speaker 1: the gold album it has been labeled as their 20th
Speaker 1: studio album But that requires you to, one, count the
Speaker 1: Teal album as a covers record, and even more egregiously,
Speaker 1: requires you to count every individual 20-minute season's EP as one. So, no,
Speaker 1: it's really more like their 15th album of original material,
Speaker 1: maybe 16 if you were to generously bundle all the
Speaker 1: seasons into one. I thought that number seemed high when
Speaker 1: I heard it, and it's not quite right. But Weezer,
Speaker 1: the band that we love the most, that we also
Speaker 1: hate the most, the 2020s.
Speaker 1: Like the 2010s and the 2000s before them, have been
Speaker 1: a juddering series of highs and lows for Weezer. We
Speaker 1: started them off with a bang, with the 1-2 in
Speaker 1: 2021 of OK Human and Van Weezer. Two very fun
Speaker 1: Weezer albums. We were having such a good time back then.
Speaker 1: And then, oh, strike while the iron is hot, why
Speaker 1: don't you? 2022, why don't you release four seasonal mini-albums? Oh, God,
Speaker 1: for fuck's sake, no. It has been... Five whole years
Speaker 1: since the last official Weezer studio album, which is a
Speaker 1: massive amount of time for Weezer. For context about that time, Elliot,
Speaker 1: you weren't on the show the last time that Weezer
Speaker 1: released an official studio full-length album. We were still doing
Speaker 1: our old three-review-a-week show structure when the last two 2021
Speaker 1: Weezer albums came out. I needed space from Weezer after Seasons.
Speaker 1: I did not want any more Weezer material right after that.
Speaker 1: That's the time where I personally felt like you have
Speaker 1: Demanded my attention And pissed on it for a year
Speaker 1: straight I want you to go away for a couple
Speaker 1: of years Until my being mad at you Has had
Speaker 1: ample time to dissipate And I can start wanting for
Speaker 1: Weezer again And here we are in 2026 and I'm
Speaker 1: quite pleased they did.
Speaker 2: That Yeah I remember that seasons kind of epilogue for
Speaker 2: the weasel special we did and we were just what
Speaker 2: a christmas that was yeah we we were not in
Speaker 2: a good place on that one it was the most
Speaker 2: kind of just like exasperated and burnt out we were
Speaker 2: and i was the same i was i maybe i
Speaker 2: don't think i needed you know five four or five
Speaker 2: years of sort of weasel silence but i did i
Speaker 2: did need a break and i'm glad that uh we
Speaker 2: got some time to kind of like refresh and and
Speaker 2: weasel could Find a different tact and season being different
Speaker 2: after the exhausting undertaking that was Seasons.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Seasons, it's the nadir of the career for me.
Speaker 3: The highs and lows before that are still quite fun
Speaker 3: and enjoyable and there's hilarious things that happened all along
Speaker 3: the way. The only thing about Seasons that's kind of
Speaker 3: remotely amusing is the press photos we got. That was
Speaker 3: genuinely the best thing. the whole year was seeing like
Speaker 3: what's River's going to be who's going to be an
Speaker 3: elf or a Roman soldier this time that was the
Speaker 3: height of their four mini album series and it's the
Speaker 3: fact it came straight off the back of Van Weezer
Speaker 3: which I think is a lot of fun it's a
Speaker 3: flawed record but I like that it exists I like
Speaker 3: what it does and OK Human which for me that's
Speaker 3: on the Mount Rushmore of Weezer records if I'm doing
Speaker 3: my top four Mount OK Human is not even in
Speaker 3: that conversation it's the fourth one but within two years
Speaker 3: of that record coming out you know, between that and, say, Winter,
Speaker 3: it's like, I'm fucking, I'm done with this band. And
Speaker 3: this is my first time talking about Weezer on this show,
Speaker 3: I think in any capacity, because the only time was
Speaker 3: when I gave them Disappointment of the Year four seasons.
Speaker 1: We spoke a little bit about Everything Will Be Alright
Speaker 1: in the End on the 2014 special we did, but
Speaker 1: this is their little dips and pieces. They have been
Speaker 1: kind of silent, mostly, for this tenure.
Speaker 3: And they're one of my favourite bands, so it's been
Speaker 3: weird not talking about them when they're one of the
Speaker 3: most active bands that I love. And But I think,
Speaker 3: you're right, taking this time away, just shy of four
Speaker 3: years without any new music at all, and you can
Speaker 3: kind of hear in the record that that was a
Speaker 3: deliberate move. It feels like they've really knuckled down. It's
Speaker 3: like the exam's tomorrow. It's like, all right, come on,
Speaker 3: we're not going to fail. We're going to do this properly.
Speaker 3: There's a feeling on this record of kind of bucking
Speaker 3: their ideas, of taking it seriously. And you're right, I
Speaker 3: think that's about the minimum amount of time I needed
Speaker 3: to go from fuck this i can't take any more
Speaker 3: weezer to actually go in that's quite another weezer record
Speaker 3: would be quite good.
Speaker 1: Now sure yeah um we've got a colored album now
Speaker 1: and once upon a time back when uh youthful naive
Speaker 1: me first started doing this podcast we always used to
Speaker 1: say hey weezer they go wherever they go but you
Speaker 1: can always rely on the colored albums to be good
Speaker 1: with green red white and then we And to a
Speaker 1: lesser extent Teal So even that measure of reliability is
Speaker 1: not a given anymore But this one has been marked
Speaker 1: with the gold standard If there is any particular Defining
Speaker 1: gimmick to this one So to speak Although that's a
Speaker 1: harsh word to use It looks to be that the
Speaker 1: songwriting process Is the most collaborative between the members That
Speaker 1: they've maybe ever done Where the songwriting credits for these
Speaker 1: ten songs Rivers Cuomo is obviously on a lot of
Speaker 1: them But there are two whole songs Entirely credited to
Speaker 1: Patrick Wilson Brian Bell also has a number of credits,
Speaker 1: and then a few other kind of outside songwriters as well.
Speaker 1: It doesn't read as much just Cuomo, Cuomo, Cuomo as your, like,
Speaker 1: average Weezer release does. And that, I think, is kind
Speaker 1: of fun and kind of heartwarming for a band over, like,
Speaker 1: three decades into their career. Whether that comes out with,
Speaker 1: you know, career best results is, you know, a different matter,
Speaker 1: but I do think that's kind of cool. What do
Speaker 1: we think of The Gold Album?
Speaker 2: I was saying, like, because, like, this has been one where, again,
Speaker 2: it's easy for the, like, oh, it's the best Weezer
Speaker 2: album of the 2020s kind of thing to come along
Speaker 2: because it is the most back-to-basics, kind of, like, straightforward
Speaker 2: Weezer album. It's the coloured album, all that. I think
Speaker 2: this is the most agreeable, I would say, Weezer album of...
Speaker 2: This is a good Weezer album. I think there is
Speaker 2: very little about this album to dislike.
Speaker 5: I think it is, you know.
Speaker 2: It goes down really easy. It's 10 tracks, 33 minutes.
Speaker 2: I don't think there is a particularly bad song on here.
Speaker 2: I think it's a very pleasant time. For me, it
Speaker 2: doesn't hit the highs of OK Human or Van Weezer.
Speaker 2: I think the best moments on those records are peak
Speaker 2: 2020s Weezer.
Speaker 5: But at the very least, it's kind of like.
Speaker 2: I don't see how anyone who likes Weezer could dislike
Speaker 2: this album as a whole because I just think it's
Speaker 2: just so... easy to sort of stick on and have
Speaker 2: a a good time with i just think maybe it's
Speaker 2: not like the exact kind of like oh my god
Speaker 2: we's are back let's throw up the w this is
Speaker 2: the white album all over again kind of thing that
Speaker 2: i maybe some people have initially found themselves getting caught
Speaker 2: up in because it's not.
Speaker 3: Seasons it's a weird one because the white album the
Speaker 3: feeling that still emanates from that record for me, which
Speaker 3: I get from when I first heard it, is I
Speaker 3: didn't know they still had this in them. And that
Speaker 3: excitement still persists on that record. The same is true
Speaker 3: for OK Human, where that was announced eight days before
Speaker 3: it came out, and then you're listening to this symphonic
Speaker 3: chamber pop album, which I think is virtually perfect, and
Speaker 3: it's done with a real orchestra. I didn't even know
Speaker 3: I wanted this, and it's so fucking good. The gold
Speaker 3: album's in a weird place where I think the album's really,
Speaker 3: really good. There's basically nothing I dislike about it, but
Speaker 3: that thing you were saying about it being agreeable plays
Speaker 3: to its strength and against it, in a way. Because
Speaker 3: the album sounds brilliant. I think it's the best sounding
Speaker 3: Weezer album in years. Like, OK Human Again, it's a
Speaker 3: production marvel, but it doesn't sound like a Weezer album
Speaker 3: at all, really. This sounds fantastic. The collaborative element, I
Speaker 3: really like that about it as well. It sounds like Weezer,
Speaker 3: but That's not... It feels harsh to say this, because
Speaker 3: that's not super surprising. Maybe it shouldn't do. And it's
Speaker 3: nice to hear them sounding like a band again after Seasons,
Speaker 3: which I'm not convinced some of the other members even
Speaker 3: played on those things. But I will agree that this album...
Speaker 3: On the other hand, it's maybe short on moments where
Speaker 3: you can't believe how good the thing you're listening to is,
Speaker 3: which Weezer Arms in the last decade have had those.
Speaker 3: That being said, I do think it's a really consistent record.
Speaker 3: And the thing that it's aiming for, I do think
Speaker 3: it kind of smashes at its goal.
Speaker 1: It's pretty, like, basic Weezer, isn't it? Like, it's got
Speaker 1: a particular sort of nuts-and-bolts feel to it at times.
Speaker 1: And I, again, when this record came out last Friday,
Speaker 1: and I was, you know, looking at some of the
Speaker 1: response to it, maybe this is just, you know, where my,
Speaker 1: I don't know, algorithm was curated, but I was, like,
Speaker 1: a little surprised at how really positive people were being.
Speaker 1: And I think that maybe there is some of that
Speaker 1: related to, as you're saying... relief of like four years
Speaker 1: without any weezer material and you know absence makes the
Speaker 1: heart grow fonder and then when it comes back it's
Speaker 1: not some seasons bullshit it's just like straight weezer the
Speaker 1: heavy power pop thing that they do basically like you
Speaker 1: know we we all hate weezer but we all yearn
Speaker 1: for weezer that's just how it goes and if they
Speaker 1: come back after some time away and they deliver something
Speaker 1: that gives that familiar weezer tickle it's hard not to
Speaker 1: go oh come here you and welcome them back because
Speaker 1: you know we're only human and it is nice having
Speaker 1: an album that I agree. The last thing they did,
Speaker 1: I think, is the worst overall project of their career.
Speaker 1: There's not a single song on it, when even the
Speaker 1: likes of Ratitude or Hurley or whatever have bangers on it.
Speaker 1: It's nice having something after that that puts me on
Speaker 1: good terms again with Weezer. That feels like a press
Speaker 1: of the reset button for me, and I like that.
Speaker 1: I think it's fun. I do think there are a
Speaker 1: couple of great moments on this that really make the
Speaker 1: endeavor worthwhile. I also feel like this album has a
Speaker 1: little bit of the air of the throwaway to it,
Speaker 1: and it kind of lands in the you know good
Speaker 1: not essential Weezer column for me and I do think
Speaker 1: like it's 10 years since the White Album which you
Speaker 1: mentioned that right this year and if that is the
Speaker 1: bar for like we've had this rodeo before basically is
Speaker 1: what I'm saying like where Weezer have been in the
Speaker 1: wilderness doing weird shit And then they reset to factory settings.
Speaker 1: And we had everything will be right in the end,
Speaker 1: which I think is a fucking great album that's near
Speaker 1: the top of the Weezer albums for me. And then
Speaker 1: following that up with the even better White album. This
Speaker 1: is nowhere near as good as those if that's the
Speaker 1: bar of Weezer getting back in touch with being Weezer again. Weezer, right?
Speaker 1: There's not a lot of musical deviation on this. It's
Speaker 1: quite thin. They're very slice of life-y in the lyrics
Speaker 1: a lot of times. which is, you know, endearing as
Speaker 1: long as maybe Rivers doesn't make it weird, yo. It's
Speaker 1: a very easy listen. It's produced by Kenny Beats, who
Speaker 1: is quite well-known in the hip-hop world, but his approach
Speaker 1: here with Weezer as a rock band I think is,
Speaker 1: you know, pretty admirable, considering that is his background, because
Speaker 1: he really just dials into, like, you know, guitar tone,
Speaker 1: like I said, that heavy power-pop thing that we associate with, like,
Speaker 1: Blue Album Weezer, you know, that their sound was established on.
Speaker 1: This is really, you know, just very much in that
Speaker 1: vein but the songwriting at times is a little bit
Speaker 1: ropey and thrown together and it is certainly at points
Speaker 1: very overtly self-referential and backwards looking as well but as
Speaker 1: much as there is that I think it's fun there's
Speaker 1: some really fun stuff it's a hard album to be
Speaker 1: mad or upset at considering how great one of the
Speaker 1: lead-off tracks from this was it's not as great an
Speaker 1: album as I hoped. I think when We Might As
Speaker 1: Well Be Strangers came out, a lot of us went, oh, fuck.
Speaker 1: Weezer might be onto another modern classic here. And it's
Speaker 1: not that. Certainly not. But I think it is... I've
Speaker 1: enjoyed my 33 minutes of time when I've gone to
Speaker 1: spin it, even if it's not hit at that level
Speaker 1: that I kind of was crossing my fingers for.
Speaker 3: Yeah, my way of almost... My way of assessing Weezer records,
Speaker 3: and this isn't the best way of doing it, but
Speaker 3: it's just a way of compartmentalizing in my head, is...
Speaker 3: I have a playlist that's just called All The Weez
Speaker 3: You Need, and it's every song by Weezer, which I
Speaker 3: think is fantastic. This is great. I never want to
Speaker 3: skip it. And there's three albums on there, which I
Speaker 3: just have in full, which are the first two in
Speaker 3: the white album. OK Human, I think I missed one song,
Speaker 3: and then it's basically variations on that. I haven't added
Speaker 3: this album yet because I've been waiting to live with
Speaker 3: it a bit more to see where it lands. I
Speaker 3: see this putting in five to six songs, which is
Speaker 3: actually pretty good for a band this late in their career.
Speaker 3: I think having five or six songs where I go,
Speaker 3: this is great, is a pretty good standard. And some
Speaker 3: of those, you've already mentioned one of them, I think
Speaker 3: are really great. And the songs which I don't think
Speaker 3: would make it, they're not bad. For me, there's not
Speaker 3: a song where I go, what are you doing, lads?
Speaker 3: This doesn't work. There's a couple which are a bit odd,
Speaker 3: or maybe take a few listens to get going, but
Speaker 3: there isn't one where I go, this is a shambles.
Speaker 3: And It's been a bit of a while, again, excluding
Speaker 3: Ogre Human, which is its own beast, I think. It's
Speaker 3: been a while since that's happened, where there's not at
Speaker 3: least one song on the record where you're sort of
Speaker 3: scratching your head. Although, actually, I'll say that. You are
Speaker 3: scratching your head, but it's not too brutal.
Speaker 1: In this case. I agree.
Speaker 3: I think that if someone came out and said, this
Speaker 3: is an unbelievable record, this is fantastic, which I saw
Speaker 3: some of, I find that a bit weird. But if
Speaker 3: someone came out and said, oh, the gold album, what
Speaker 3: were they thinking? What do you mean, what were they thinking?
Speaker 3: It's Weezer. Occasionally great, often very good, sometimes sort of middling.
Speaker 3: But generally speaking, I think this is kind of the
Speaker 3: album they needed to make right now. This is sort
Speaker 3: of the minimum they needed to hand over after the
Speaker 3: last years of funniness.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a Weezer, Greg sausage roll, isn't it? Job done.
Speaker 2: Yeah i think like um we might as well be
Speaker 2: strangers being the lead single was like a hard bar
Speaker 2: to then sort of top because that is i think
Speaker 2: by far the best track on the album and i
Speaker 2: kind of wish we had a bit more on that
Speaker 2: level but i do think outside of that again i
Speaker 2: i think the the the heavy guitar sort of crunchy
Speaker 2: power pop thing whenever they hit on it i just
Speaker 2: kind of go like yeah Yeah, that's what I want
Speaker 2: to hear.
Speaker 5: Say Yes is an opener, you know.
Speaker 2: It's got the kind of bittersweet melodies, that kind of
Speaker 2: slightly neurotic alt-rock thing. But on that chorus and the hey,
Speaker 2: it's with these like heavy kind of squalling guitars come
Speaker 2: in on a big sort of pop vocal chorus. i'm
Speaker 2: just like yeah give me that they're like it like
Speaker 2: weezer why don't you just do this more because it's
Speaker 2: so good whenever you hit it and they kind of
Speaker 2: like keep doing i think shine again is maybe one
Speaker 2: of the the like it's kind of awkward going from
Speaker 2: say yes is such good opener into shine again as
Speaker 2: kind of like that one the bigger missteps on the
Speaker 2: record i think that's maybe one of the slightly clunkier
Speaker 2: sort of stodgy songs it takes too long to get
Speaker 2: to the big melodies. So it's kind of like a
Speaker 2: bit of a, like a great start, old bit of
Speaker 2: a stumble. But outside of that, I think the album,
Speaker 2: like there's not much else to kind of like, don't like,
Speaker 2: don't make it weird.
Speaker 5: I think it is great.
Speaker 2: I think it's a great bit of awkward, nerdy pop
Speaker 2: rock from rivers, that whole, from weasel, the whole people
Speaker 2: call me river, but then they said that I don't
Speaker 2: got any flow. And the kind of, the deliberately clunky,
Speaker 2: unyielding delivery of that is just kind of like, that's that,
Speaker 2: that's really weird.
Speaker 5: Fun, smart songwriting there from Weezer.
Speaker 2: I think it's like really, really cool that don't make
Speaker 2: it weird chorus.
Speaker 5: Is infectious as hell.
Speaker 2: And it's like, yeah, when this album is hitting it,
Speaker 2: it's not, it's not giving me, you know, all my
Speaker 2: favorite songs, like Sad or Foggy, which I think is
Speaker 2: like sublime or the very best moments of Van Weezer
Speaker 2: in terms of just like sort of pure unfilled pop
Speaker 2: rock brilliance. But I do just kind of like, every
Speaker 2: time the songs hit the chorus, I'm like, I'm smiling.
Speaker 5: I'm having a nice time.
Speaker 2: Again, that fusion of sort of chunky, distorted guitars with
Speaker 2: these pop melodies, it hits me all the time. I
Speaker 2: just think like, yeah, Weezer, why do you have such
Speaker 2: a hard time doing this thing that you're so good at?
Speaker 2: And it's so easy, seemingly. And there are moments where, again,
Speaker 2: the album, the sort of looking back bitterness of it
Speaker 2: gets in the way of the songs a little bit
Speaker 2: on certain moments. And it is sort of self-referential to
Speaker 2: its detriment. But again, I don't think those ruin the album.
Speaker 5: They're just kind of like slightly odd moments in the
Speaker 5: sort of overall picture.
Speaker 1: Well, yeah. We Might As Well Be Strangers, I do
Speaker 1: think is, when you were saying about the highs on
Speaker 1: some of the other albums, I think this is one
Speaker 1: of the best Weezer singles of the last ten years.
Speaker 1: But I would say it's the only world-wide song on
Speaker 1: the album. And kind of testament to this is you
Speaker 1: said it was the lead single. It wasn't. Shine Again
Speaker 1: was the first song from this that they released. Was it?
Speaker 1: yeah and then we might as well be strangers came
Speaker 1: out and had like a proper music video everything and
Speaker 1: it was like shine again might as well not have
Speaker 1: existed prior to that point that was the way everyone
Speaker 1: oh weezer's back and just completely wiped over it as
Speaker 1: a single and i think that's kind of the album
Speaker 1: in a microcosm where we might as well be strangers
Speaker 1: is fucking excellent i think it's the kind of weezer
Speaker 1: song that everybody who has ever liked weezer hears it
Speaker 1: once and then goes yeah that's great and again i
Speaker 1: said this when the single came out but it reminded
Speaker 1: me of They had very recently had the unexpected viral
Speaker 1: success for Go Away from Everything Will Be Right in
Speaker 1: the End getting huge on TikTok, which features Bethany from
Speaker 1: Best Coast. And I don't know if that was a
Speaker 1: deliberate inspiration or just a weird coincidence that these songs
Speaker 1: happened at the same time, but this song kind of
Speaker 1: has a similar feel to me with a duet between
Speaker 1: Rivers and a guest singer. Works really, really well. And
Speaker 1: the melodies in that song are just aching in that
Speaker 1: Weezer heartbreak where through all of their silliness, which they
Speaker 1: often are on this album, sometimes they can just pang
Speaker 1: at you in a way that you can't deny. And
Speaker 1: then Shine Again, on the other hand, is completely fine. Like,
Speaker 1: I don't feel any way about it. It's just really throwaway.
Speaker 1: And Say Yes, the opener, is kind of sort of
Speaker 1: the middle of that spectrum for me. Like, it's not
Speaker 1: one of the great Weezer openers. It feels deliberately quite
Speaker 1: raggedy in terms of, like, the way the verse just
Speaker 1: suddenly smashes into the chorus. It's, like, a little bit ropey,
Speaker 1: considering Weezer normally have songwriting down to such a science. But,
Speaker 1: you know, it's fine enough. And I think that that is,
Speaker 1: like I said, the spectrum... of the album where there
Speaker 1: are some songs I really like and some that I
Speaker 1: could immediately feel really after one or two listens, the
Speaker 1: kind of bubble gum flavor of them, you know, running out,
Speaker 1: definitely nothing too bad. The, the songs on it that
Speaker 1: I think are the weakest on it again are more
Speaker 1: like kind of head scratchers more than they are hair terrors.
Speaker 1: You know what I mean? But, um, the, the, the
Speaker 1: amount of like the world-class material, like I was saying,
Speaker 1: is a little bit lower than, um, you know, even
Speaker 1: some of the other, not necessarily world-class all the way through, um,
Speaker 1: weezer records like a van weezer um for for example
Speaker 1: um i mentioned those sort of like slice of life
Speaker 1: songwriting ideas on this like rivers looking around just going
Speaker 1: like what have i got lying around i think there's
Speaker 1: some particular fluff on this album right like i said
Speaker 1: the way that the music on say yes feels literally
Speaker 1: thrown together that's almost how the vibe of some of
Speaker 1: these lyrics are for me where this album feels i
Speaker 1: listen to the white album and the white album is
Speaker 1: like such a like perfectly put together pop record basically
Speaker 1: like sonically structurally often lyrically whatever uh and this has
Speaker 1: this like ramshackle thing to it with you mentioned don't
Speaker 1: make it weird where rivers is just narrating the story
Speaker 1: of some woman that he knows and then it got
Speaker 1: weird yo um where it's relatable rivers in the most
Speaker 1: just like mundane unexciting fucking menial way possible and then
Speaker 1: you get hoops which is a song about qr codes
Speaker 1: and how many hoops you have to jump through in
Speaker 1: modern living when he's like trying to build a hamster
Speaker 1: wheel for his kids and he's getting upset about the
Speaker 1: guy not putting it together properly and there are a
Speaker 1: couple songs like this where like Again, I wasn't angry
Speaker 1: at them in the way that you were describing some
Speaker 1: of the worst Weezer songs, but I did just go,
Speaker 1: this is just pretty silly, isn't it? I don't think
Speaker 1: I can say these are great songs, they're just kind
Speaker 1: of amusing in their odd quirk.
Speaker 5: I really like Hoops. Like, I think Hoops is really fun.
Speaker 2: Like, the whole arbitrary, the bitterness over arbitrary modern bollocks,
Speaker 2: like scanning a QR code to use a toaster, is real.
Speaker 2: I get the frustration from Rivers on that one.
Speaker 1: I'm like, nah, mate, you're right.
Speaker 2: Whoever comes up with this, like, you have to sign
Speaker 2: in to use your fucking toaster, like, bullshit.
Speaker 1: Like, yeah, Rivers, you're right.
Speaker 2: And again, I think that song's got a really fun
Speaker 2: catchy chorus. Like, there's a load of bunch of, like,
Speaker 2: cool little solos on this record where they do the
Speaker 2: Weezer trick of, you know, kind of like, doing the
Speaker 2: melody as the solo.
Speaker 5: It's fun.
Speaker 1: There's a hilariously stanky riff after that first chorus. Like,
Speaker 1: what right does that riff have to be in that
Speaker 1: song where Rivers says, Calvin Brodus warned us all about
Speaker 1: hoes over the top of it. It's like, you've taken
Speaker 1: a really hard riff and you've made it really fucking daft.
Speaker 3: I think this record, again, it benefits and it's a
Speaker 3: bit of a drawback of it. It has a really
Speaker 3: weird sequencing where Weezer Arms... even some of the patchy
Speaker 3: ones kind of come swinging out the traps with all
Speaker 3: great songs. And then it's sort of towards, you know,
Speaker 3: the second, third or something, you start to get a
Speaker 3: bit patchier. This album, I think in the opening run
Speaker 3: is so up and down. Say yes. I really like,
Speaker 3: I hear what you're saying, Perrin, but I, I found
Speaker 3: it very refreshing to hear a Weezer song that actually
Speaker 3: felt like it was, you know, written and recorded in
Speaker 3: a room. Whereas so many, it's the sort of Excel
Speaker 3: spreadsheet way of doing it. It's like everything goes right
Speaker 3: on the grid at the exact same time, especially as
Speaker 3: an opener. I think that really was going into shine again,
Speaker 3: which I don't, I don't dislike that song. It's okay,
Speaker 3: but it is a bit of a, you know, like
Speaker 3: momentum killer. Don't make it weird. I kind of agree,
Speaker 3: slightly fillery, but then We Might As Well Be Strangers,
Speaker 3: best song on the record, fucking fantastic. And then that
Speaker 3: going into CEO to sort of close out Side A,
Speaker 3: which I've seen some people not vibing with that song.
Speaker 3: And I kind of get it because first time I
Speaker 3: heard it, there was something a bit, like maybe too
Speaker 3: bitter about it the first time. But I think that
Speaker 3: chorus is just superb like it's grown on me so
Speaker 3: much i and it's such a testament to their amazing
Speaker 3: lyric melodic ability where none of the lines in that
Speaker 3: chorus rhyme and yet it's so catchy and just the
Speaker 3: way the thing spirals around it's just excellent then hoops
Speaker 3: and i so basically the first six tracks are sort
Speaker 3: of up and down all over the place in mood
Speaker 3: or whatever for me the strength of this record and
Speaker 3: i might be alone in this it sounded like i
Speaker 3: might be tracks seven through ten i think are all
Speaker 3: great which I don't know if that's ever happened on
Speaker 3: a Weezer album which isn't fantastic before. Do you know
Speaker 3: what I mean? Even some of the ones which are,
Speaker 3: I might love them, but I appreciate there's flaws, like
Speaker 3: the Red album. It ends brilliantly, but there's a couple
Speaker 3: of funny ones towards the end. This, for the first
Speaker 3: time ever, is a good but not great Weezer album,
Speaker 3: which just goes on a tear for the last four songs.
Speaker 1: Yeah, definitely there are a couple of my favourite songs
Speaker 1: towards the latter end of the record. I want to
Speaker 1: go back to CEO and not skip over that, because
Speaker 1: that is one of the more notable songs on the record,
Speaker 1: because it is... The most overt self-referentialism... Weezer have ever done.
Speaker 5: It's a deliberate callback.
Speaker 1: Yeah because it's a reprise of the Sweater song... Basically...
Speaker 1: Where the Sweater song in particular... Is such an oddball
Speaker 1: song in their catalogue... Because it has that... The Blue
Speaker 1: album subtly has this genuine... Borderline avant-garde quality to it...
Speaker 1: At times... And that's a great example with the mixed
Speaker 1: in conversational voices... On that really daydreamy kind of twanging guitar...
Speaker 1: That song in particular... it's utterly unmistakable if you were
Speaker 1: to try and like do it again you know um
Speaker 1: and it's very self-conscious of that because it is this
Speaker 1: like you know sort of comment on like i don't
Speaker 1: know being asked to do what they do in the
Speaker 1: 90s or whatever um and i suppose i was going
Speaker 1: to ask like what do you think of them doing
Speaker 1: like a self-conscious remake like that because i uh i
Speaker 1: think i agree with you in that i like it
Speaker 1: a little bit more now than when i first heard
Speaker 1: it it had to warm up to me And what
Speaker 1: warmed me up is the chorus. I particularly like that little,
Speaker 1: I presume, Brian Bell backing vocal in the chorus with
Speaker 1: the Gotta keep the rocket in the sky. Like, that really,
Speaker 1: the chorus individually is great. And I think in a
Speaker 1: way it's impressive that they have, like, come up with
Speaker 1: a new great chorus for a song that basically already existed,
Speaker 1: you know? Like, they've just, like, wiped over the chorus
Speaker 1: and done a new one that's still really good. But
Speaker 1: I think, particularly when I first heard it, there was
Speaker 1: this sort of uncanniness that I often get of, like,
Speaker 1: you know, hearing it and you go well that's just
Speaker 1: a sweater song you know i get what you're doing
Speaker 1: i get that you're delivering uh you know uh directly
Speaker 1: referencing the idea of nostalgia and you're kind of aware
Speaker 1: of what you're doing but i think a part of
Speaker 1: my brain does go i'm having fun with this but
Speaker 1: in the long term i'm likely to just put the
Speaker 1: sweater song again you know what i mean.
Speaker 2: So i sort of agree my thing is again this
Speaker 2: thing that chorus is fantastic and i think because it's
Speaker 2: so consciously kind of like making a comment on do
Speaker 2: the 90s thing and like um we we've talked about
Speaker 2: you know rivers the mad professor of his spreadsheet kind
Speaker 2: of like writing songs that way and him kind of
Speaker 2: kind of having to acknowledge people don't like that and
Speaker 2: i i kind of feel for him on on this
Speaker 2: and where he him having to kind of come to
Speaker 2: terms with people don't like his most out there kind
Speaker 2: of like approach to songwriting we're doing all these different
Speaker 2: styles the whole approach to seasons which feels like the
Speaker 2: most kind of spreadsheet like rivers sort of scientifically like
Speaker 2: trying to put together these songs and it being a
Speaker 2: complete disaster this feels like the sort of the pushback
Speaker 2: of that of acknowledging we're better at writing heavy power
Speaker 2: pop tunes but like we don't want to feel like
Speaker 2: it's corporate mandated writing of power pop tunes and like
Speaker 2: i think this song is it is bitter and it
Speaker 2: is kind of like jaded in that way but at
Speaker 2: the same time it's kind of like come in terms
Speaker 2: of we are fucking good at doing this and and
Speaker 2: testament to it is that absolute sort of belt of
Speaker 2: a chorus i think if the song wasn't such a
Speaker 2: like very pointed kind of commentary on it and was
Speaker 2: them just doing oh wink wink nudge nudge it's the
Speaker 2: sweater song again i think it would be a bit
Speaker 2: of a disaster but because it is so like it
Speaker 2: actually does have it's one of the things that like
Speaker 2: on the time that like rather than just kind of
Speaker 2: being kind of like weird slice of life quirky sort
Speaker 2: of rivers or livers is them kind of like really
Speaker 2: making a kind of like referential point of their own
Speaker 2: career and where they find themselves.
Speaker 5: I I think it does, for me, work in that way.
Speaker 2: It just, it is, again, it just kind of takes
Speaker 2: them getting used to the opening monologue.
Speaker 5: But when that chorus hits, I'm kind of like, yeah,
Speaker 5: I'll take it.
Speaker 3: Well, yes, because I wasn't sure at first because I
Speaker 3: was taking it quite literally and I thought he was
Speaker 3: literally talking about the CEO of their record. He was
Speaker 3: talking about someone else, not himself. I did think like, Rivers,
Speaker 3: when you did this sort of song before. Yeah, but
Speaker 3: before when you did that topic, it was Pork and
Speaker 3: Beans and it was so life-affirming and brilliant. It was like,
Speaker 3: and now it's quite sort of, defeated and bleed, but
Speaker 3: when it's, you know, you understand that he's talking about
Speaker 3: himself as the CEO, that's like, he's sort of recognizing
Speaker 3: that quality of himself. And again, Weezer just have ways
Speaker 3: of making me laugh that other bands don't, and the
Speaker 3: bit in the second chorus towards the end, when he goes,
Speaker 3: here comes the founder and the CEO.
Speaker 1: Whoa!
Speaker 3: Like, that's the appropriate response to the CEO coming your way.
Speaker 3: But the song, again, I think just in terms of sequencing,
Speaker 3: the way that rings out to end, like, the opening
Speaker 3: run of the record. In a way, it's a weird single,
Speaker 3: but at the same time, it kind of, like, it's a,
Speaker 3: I don't know, it's a slightly dour thing to put
Speaker 3: out ahead of your record, basically going like, oh, we're
Speaker 3: just sort of doing the 90s thing, because that's what
Speaker 3: people want, but I think in the sequence of the record,
Speaker 3: it's an interesting thing to write a song about, which
Speaker 3: some of these songs are not, and I think, again,
Speaker 3: it's that Weezer magic. Just by the skin of their teeth,
Speaker 3: they manage to do things which other bands would fall
Speaker 3: flat on their face doing. And they sort of pull
Speaker 3: it off with panache.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, even the kind of self-referential elements. Nowhere
Speaker 1: has this kind of acoustic guitar arpeggio thing in the
Speaker 1: post-chorus that's very like the intro of My Name Is Jonas.
Speaker 1: It feels like there are these very deliberate sort of
Speaker 1: throwback winks and stuff. in there about the closing run
Speaker 1: of it I don't love the whole like closing run
Speaker 1: that you mentioned that you know brings the record to
Speaker 1: its end but certainly aside from We Might As Well
Speaker 1: Be Strangers the other couple of songs I do particularly
Speaker 1: like are in that sort of back end with when
Speaker 1: I mentioned that like mid riff in hoops that suddenly
Speaker 1: gets really dirty there are a couple tracks towards the
Speaker 1: end where the album leans more in that direction um
Speaker 1: and i think for me one of like the defining
Speaker 1: north star moments in the whole weezer history is the
Speaker 1: bit in back to the shack when he goes maybe
Speaker 1: i should play the lead guitar and pat should play
Speaker 1: the drums doof And the bits in their career when
Speaker 1: they reconnect with that kind of teenage rock fan wanting
Speaker 1: to play loud, I mean, that's what made Vanweezer fun
Speaker 1: as well, right? And in the back end of the record,
Speaker 1: you have the show most go on, which has the
Speaker 1: album's fattest riff. the tone is so killer in there
Speaker 1: Pat sounds like he's in fucking crowbar the way he's
Speaker 1: swaggering on that groove like he's suddenly become 40 stone
Speaker 1: to play that particular beat and they're singing about being
Speaker 1: bros together and continuing to rock no matter what comes
Speaker 1: their way like Scott stubbing his.
Speaker 5: Toe it's great I love the Show Must Go On.
Speaker 2: I think it's one of these most like just honest,
Speaker 2: straightforward rock song that like Weezer when they sort of
Speaker 2: plug in and do that, it just feels like four
Speaker 2: dudes jamming in a room together and you and they
Speaker 2: capture that on that song i think since i haven't
Speaker 2: seen many people talk.
Speaker 5: About i'm like why show must go on he's like.
Speaker 1: Oh it's my second favorite song on the record for
Speaker 1: sure top three probably for me i don't know if
Speaker 1: i'd like i really like nowhere because again i really
Speaker 1: like that my name is jonas kind of like thing
Speaker 1: and the whole like why did they clear the trees
Speaker 1: to build some shitbox apartment or shitbox condos whatever that
Speaker 1: has a touch of the sort of the workers are
Speaker 1: going home kind of thing build to it so like
Speaker 1: i mean that song was great but yeah i mean
Speaker 1: i think the back in this record really strong stuff
Speaker 1: and the show must go on is like just a
Speaker 1: just great example of again just like straightforward fun rock
Speaker 1: song writing like and and you see more of that
Speaker 1: sometimes when we's are in the pocket they have ways
Speaker 1: of making you smile which like i say no other
Speaker 1: band can do the bit in the show must go
Speaker 1: on for me which maybe is give you the biggest
Speaker 1: smile across the whole record is just it's so red
Speaker 1: out on this but the bit when he goes a
Speaker 1: The world's out to get us, and we're out to
Speaker 1: get the world. This is big-time football, in case you
Speaker 1: hadn't heard. There's just something about when Weezer get cocky,
Speaker 1: which I know for some people rubs them up wrong,
Speaker 1: but for me, I find it so endearing.
Speaker 3: That song is just.
Speaker 1: The more River sounds like he's wearing a cowboy hat,
Speaker 1: the better. Always.
Speaker 3: Bring the moustache back. The whole thing on that song
Speaker 3: is just... The solo's great, the chorus is dynamite. Again,
Speaker 3: a Weezer chorus to the standard of basically any album
Speaker 3: you want to name. And it's just, it's so feel-good, which,
Speaker 3: you know, for this album being the gold album and
Speaker 3: a lot of it sounding quite positive, things like Say
Speaker 3: Yes and Shine Again and things like that, there are
Speaker 3: stretches of it where it can sound a bit defeated
Speaker 3: and down on itself. I think the last four songs,
Speaker 3: but especially the last three, are where it's just like
Speaker 3: that wheezy euphoria, which only they can do, is so
Speaker 3: present and correct. And it's like, this is the stretch
Speaker 3: where you go, I can't really fault this.
Speaker 1: And then speaking about re-embracing some of that Blue Album
Speaker 1: weirdness as well Suddenly a really chilling outro On the
Speaker 1: end of that track It's just a horror score Really
Speaker 1: bizarre The penultimate song I don't really feel as strongly
Speaker 1: As you're suggesting there do But then I would also
Speaker 1: say the closing song The LA Sound Maybe it's a throwaway,
Speaker 1: disposable song But I agree, Weezer writing a song about
Speaker 1: rocking I'm not too good for that I will say
Speaker 1: again about the production It genuinely sounds better and more
Speaker 1: organically rocking, and more live in the room, like you
Speaker 1: were saying, than the vast majority of rock band production now.
Speaker 1: So Weezer, on a song like that, genuinely teaching you
Speaker 1: poses how to rock. And I think those are the
Speaker 1: parts of this album that I do maybe most value.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think LA Sound is a great close.
Speaker 5: It's kind of the moment of accepting.
Speaker 2: you're old but you still got a rock the whole
Speaker 2: club smells like piss and there's three flights of stairs
Speaker 2: that's like such a real lyric but then it's like
Speaker 2: again that chorus is wicked i do again new yorker
Speaker 2: rivers showing us the la sound is just quite a
Speaker 2: funny like bit i know obviously we are like a
Speaker 2: like kind of on your band but um it is
Speaker 2: just funny hearing the la sound from rivers but i
Speaker 2: think it's you know just a good time rock song
Speaker 2: about how rocking is like something we've got to do
Speaker 2: we've got to enjoy doing and that's how i want
Speaker 2: a weezer album to close i think it's a really
Speaker 2: nice kind of like just like warm embrace of a
Speaker 2: closing track.
Speaker 3: Yeah i mean the song is this i was reading
Speaker 3: an interview about this song and apparently they wrote this
Speaker 3: for the white album but jake sinclair who was producing
Speaker 3: that basically songs about being in a band are boring
Speaker 3: like they're rubbish we don't want them so they dismissed
Speaker 3: this and they ended up writing L.A. Girls instead. And
Speaker 3: I think we live in the right universe because L.A.
Speaker 3: Girls is one of the best Weezer songs of all
Speaker 3: time and we finally got this. And I kind of
Speaker 3: get the thing, those odes to the suffocated glory of
Speaker 3: being in a rock band, those can be tedious, but
Speaker 3: Weezer are among the best at them in the world.
Speaker 3: And this is just a sublime example. The way they
Speaker 3: kind of make their own myths is one of the
Speaker 3: most endearing qualities. And just as a way to close
Speaker 3: this out, which feels... Again, after the last four years
Speaker 3: of the last thing Weezer having done being that shit,
Speaker 3: and now getting an album that's pretty good, often fantastic,
Speaker 3: and closing it on one of the best songs, basically going,
Speaker 3: you know, it's been a wild ride, but we're still
Speaker 3: here together, we're still rocking. It feels a bit like,
Speaker 3: I mean, I hope not, but it sounds like Weezer
Speaker 3: was riding into the sunset to the point where it's like,
Speaker 3: if this was turned out to be the last Weezer album,
Speaker 3: that wouldn't be a terrible way for them to go
Speaker 3: out on their career. I mean, they're not going to
Speaker 3: next year. They're going to have another eight album series
Speaker 3: for us, which will undo all of this goodwill. But
Speaker 3: in terms of listening to them for the first time, well,
Speaker 3: even on repeated listens, for me, it's one of the highlights.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I feel like a bit of a killjoy on
Speaker 1: this album because I think in terms of really, if
Speaker 1: I'm going to carve out, not that it demands a
Speaker 1: lot of time, but when the blue album's there and
Speaker 1: the white album is there, you know what I mean?
Speaker 1: Or even the green album, whatever. Taking the half hour
Speaker 1: to listen to this entire record I think the purpose
Speaker 1: this will serve in the long term is I've already
Speaker 1: listened to the Blue Album 99 times this week. Maybe
Speaker 1: I need that 1 in 100 to be something different.
Speaker 1: Because you mentioned that idea of if you've got the
Speaker 1: bank of all of the really great Weezer material that exists,
Speaker 1: for me, I'm going to have two or three songs
Speaker 1: off this, maybe. Full album rotation, I don't really see
Speaker 1: myself coming back to this one so much. And like
Speaker 1: I said, when the bar for getting back in touch
Speaker 1: with the Roots Weaver, they've already done that way better.
Speaker 1: with Everything Will Be Alright at the end and the
Speaker 1: White Album back-to-back, and it's not the best Weezer album
Speaker 1: of the 2020s, because both Van Weezer and particularly OK Human,
Speaker 1: I think are, like, it's not a competition, it's above,
Speaker 1: way above this, like, way, way better. That album is fabulous,
Speaker 1: and this is patchy. So I do feel like I'm
Speaker 1: kind of downplaying the praise and the, oh, Weezer, you know,
Speaker 1: about this, because I'm like, well, it's not that good,
Speaker 1: you know, but I did get some smiles, and I
Speaker 1: got a couple of tunes, so... i'm not upset with
Speaker 1: it either it is certainly better than the last thing
Speaker 1: we got from them.
Speaker 2: I think i will say at least it's the biggest
Speaker 2: sort of jump up in quality from the record that
Speaker 2: came before it with weezer i i generally because again
Speaker 2: i i think everybody around the end like i was
Speaker 2: a great on that i still have you know fondness
Speaker 2: for a fair chunk of hurtley i think the album
Speaker 2: is not great but there's good stuff on there that
Speaker 2: we've gone from like i say the complete nadir of weezer.
Speaker 5: To this is another good Weezer record.
Speaker 2: I mean, that is a sizable jump, which is like,
Speaker 2: is reassuring at the very least that like, the quote
Speaker 2: can be that even if it isn't, as we say,
Speaker 2: the best of the back to basics, let's plug back
Speaker 2: in and be Weezer again records.
Speaker 5: But I still think, you know, I.
Speaker 2: Can easily throw on this record and have a nice
Speaker 2: time with it. I can, there's enough of this. I'm like,
Speaker 2: put that in the live set list and I'll be
Speaker 2: singing along. It's not going to be in my end
Speaker 2: of year list. It's not going to be in like
Speaker 2: my kind of like classical rotation but I also still
Speaker 2: I value this record's existence it's given me enough like
Speaker 2: kind of Weezer songs I really like that I'm like
Speaker 2: yep album's justified its place.
Speaker 3: Yeah if I I wouldn't know exactly the order but
Speaker 3: I'm thinking in my head like if I were to
Speaker 3: rank the Weezer albums where would I put this it
Speaker 3: would it would probably be like 9th or 10th to
Speaker 3: be honest like lower middle yeah yeah like Below the
Speaker 3: first four, below Everything Will Be Alright in the end, White, Okahuman, Red,
Speaker 3: which I love. I can't do the math to my
Speaker 3: head right now. It's probably 9 or 10. Somewhere in
Speaker 3: that ballpark. But there's albums below it that I like.
Speaker 3: Or at least I think I have some good songs.
Speaker 3: Van Weezer, I think, is an okay record. Occasionally a
Speaker 3: great record. I probably have this above that, to be honest, overall.
Speaker 3: I think it's more consistent and it sounds better. The
Speaker 3: thing that I was thinking, which... It feels a bit
Speaker 3: outdated now because that rule about the coloured albums always
Speaker 3: being great has been disproven. But I was thinking, if
Speaker 3: 2019 never happened, would this feel appropriate? It wouldn't be
Speaker 3: to the sky-high standards of blue, green, red and white,
Speaker 3: which are just fantastic records. But I wouldn't be mad
Speaker 3: about this being a coloured album. It kind of suits that,
Speaker 3: and I think that's all I can ask. And again,
Speaker 3: like you were saying, Sam, in terms of a jump
Speaker 3: from where they were, we knew this out, we had
Speaker 3: this in them, and they're coming from the worst stuff
Speaker 3: they've ever done.
Speaker 1: I'd give this.
Speaker 3: Album a sort of solid 7, coming up from a 3,
Speaker 3: wherever they were before.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, fair. The gold standard, perhaps. Let us know
Speaker 1: if you think it is so. The gold album, of course,
Speaker 1: from Weezer. It should come as no surprise that I
Speaker 1: think the best album that we're going to review today
Speaker 1: to come from these last few weeks of August comes
Speaker 1: from Chelsea Wolfe. It's her album The Dark. She is
Speaker 1: another pretty prolific artist. This is her 8th full-length solo
Speaker 1: album not counting the Blood Moon collaboration she did with
Speaker 1: Converge since her debut in 2010 that works out to
Speaker 1: an album every couple of years doesn't it and unlike
Speaker 1: Weezer they are always quality but she does have a
Speaker 1: few albums I think that act as landmarks across her
Speaker 1: journey that feel of particular artistic weight and 2024's She
Speaker 1: Reaches Out to She Reaches Out to She, I would say,
Speaker 1: is one of them. That was my personal album of
Speaker 1: the year in 2024, and I think that was a
Speaker 1: sentiment that was pretty shared across the board in terms
Speaker 1: of the particular acclaim for that one. It is one of,
Speaker 1: I would say, her modern classics, alongside the likes of
Speaker 1: Abyss and Hispun, but no rush for The Wicked, because
Speaker 1: here we are a couple years later with The Dark Elliot!
Speaker 1: I imagine that Sam and I are just going to
Speaker 1: be fawning about this, so I would like to start
Speaker 1: with you first of all, perhaps a more objective voice
Speaker 1: about Chelsea Wolfe, I don't know. How are you finding
Speaker 1: your time in the dark? Because as we tend to
Speaker 1: get with Chelsea Wolfe, it's quite a notable shift from
Speaker 1: the last time we spoke about her, but also having
Speaker 1: definite shared kinship in some other areas. What are you
Speaker 1: making of it?
Speaker 3: So, you know, it's no hot take to say Chelsea
Speaker 3: Wolfe has a fantastic catalogue. Like, all the arms are
Speaker 3: varying degrees of great. Some are She's one of those
Speaker 3: figures in modern alternative music who seems to have a
Speaker 3: bit of a Midas touch, which is why it pains
Speaker 3: me to say for the first time that I'm not
Speaker 3: wild about this record.
Speaker 2: Really?
Speaker 3: It might be a case of too soon. to say,
Speaker 3: because the most frustrating part about all of this is
Speaker 3: I've been trying to write notes to explain myself, and
Speaker 3: I don't know why I'm not super keen on this one.
Speaker 3: It's possible that in a month or two will come
Speaker 3: the end of the year, I'll have got my head
Speaker 3: around and I'll go, I don't know what I was thinking.
Speaker 3: But I can only ever be honest. And I really
Speaker 3: like the concept... of what she's going for here, and
Speaker 3: she doesn't do anything wrong, and there's some stuff on
Speaker 3: this which I think is excellent, but for whatever reason,
Speaker 3: I've been listening to this record, and I get to
Speaker 3: the end and go, yeah, nice, which is the most
Speaker 3: mild I've ever felt about anything she's done by far,
Speaker 3: so I'm curious to hear what the case for loving
Speaker 3: it is, because I've been listening to this, and kind
Speaker 3: of coming up short, Okay.
Speaker 1: Well, Chelsea Wolfe, even though I think we generally do
Speaker 1: agree that her hit rate is really, really consistently high,
Speaker 1: because she does mill about stylistically, it is only inevitable
Speaker 1: that there are going to be some records that other
Speaker 1: people gravitate more to than others. Like I've got friends,
Speaker 1: for example, who aren't wild about, let's say, Birth of Violence,
Speaker 1: just as a record pulled out of a catalogue, as
Speaker 1: much as they might be about Abyss or Hispun or
Speaker 1: whatever it might be. And this record perhaps does... go
Speaker 1: in directions that are... I mean, to me, I found
Speaker 1: them quite natural, but kind of intellectually speaking, I can
Speaker 1: maybe see why not every Chelsea Wolves fan out there
Speaker 1: in the world might maybe not dislike them, but not
Speaker 1: love them so strongly, which is kind of the impression
Speaker 1: I'm getting from you. And I think it's an interesting
Speaker 1: app to categorise because the Chelsea Wolves canon does reach
Speaker 1: very far sonically. but often her albums have a very
Speaker 1: contained specific vibe like Abyss is largely like an industrial
Speaker 1: doom album Hispun is her grunge rock album Birth of
Speaker 1: Violence is like a haunted folk album and She Riches
Speaker 1: Out to She Riches Out to She was very much
Speaker 1: like an electronica album particularly leaning on industrial and trip-hop
Speaker 1: sounds and this one is much less electronically based for
Speaker 1: the most part than that one was and we're often
Speaker 1: back to more kind of analog and acoustic instrumentation but
Speaker 1: if you were to compare that to Birth of Violence
Speaker 1: is the last time she did that. Birth of Violence
Speaker 1: is so stark and desolate. It really feels like a
Speaker 1: dusty wasteland, this record. Whereas this is quite lush and
Speaker 1: it does still have an array of instrumentation that ranges
Speaker 1: from the pure folk music but then up to integrating
Speaker 1: at times rock, bits of metal, at times still even
Speaker 1: some of the industrial sounds. They're just more sparingly used
Speaker 1: to accent the appropriate moments and I think it's quite holistic.
Speaker 1: as a chelsea wolf album but at the same time
Speaker 1: i i don't feel quite right saying a jukebox quality
Speaker 1: because i think it's more cohesive than that but within
Speaker 1: the paradigm of chelsea wolf albums you know what i
Speaker 1: mean like it this does sort of um it feels
Speaker 1: a little bit more like a a greatest hit so
Speaker 1: to speak where you've got 10 songs that um it
Speaker 1: is you know it's concise as a record and uh
Speaker 1: it maybe like reaches out and plucks different things rather
Speaker 1: than really like sitting in one world i think maybe
Speaker 1: at her most fully immersive like on an abyss or
Speaker 1: a she which that's she which that's she it's like
Speaker 1: she creates a portal into something that you are just
Speaker 1: like stuck there for the duration of the record whereas
Speaker 1: this maybe is a little more i don't know broad.
Speaker 2: I agree this is not like one where again like
Speaker 2: abyss or she was actually are like the perfect examples
Speaker 2: of like that is a holistic experience where you are
Speaker 2: like in that one zone for that entire record and
Speaker 2: i think that's the thing i love about chest wolf
Speaker 2: is all of the records have that different zone places
Speaker 2: you in but those are the ones where you kind
Speaker 2: of go like you are surrounded by that album that
Speaker 2: particular sound in that moment this is i can kind
Speaker 2: of see why those quotes made that this is her
Speaker 2: this is the pop chelsea wolf record because i think
Speaker 2: it is like definitely the most pop kind of the
Speaker 2: songwriter has ever been and again that kind of like
Speaker 2: slightly broader eclectic approach kind of lends to that as
Speaker 2: well but i don't think it is like exclusively just
Speaker 2: kind of reduced down to the pop chelsea wolf record
Speaker 2: but it is just kind of like it touches on
Speaker 2: you know country there's bits of rock there's bits of
Speaker 2: metal there's goth it's kind of just sort of living
Speaker 2: in that dark world that she creates but through a
Speaker 2: kind of just i guess something that's a bit more
Speaker 2: inviting overall rather than just kind of like sucking you
Speaker 2: into like a black void like abyss does this is
Speaker 2: kind of just like come with chelsea wolf on this
Speaker 2: kind of like dark sort of journey but it is
Speaker 2: it's an easier journey to go on this time because
Speaker 2: it's it's a bit more kind of varied there's different
Speaker 2: tones different moods and it's got some of her like
Speaker 2: hookiest sort of songwriting she's ever done even if a
Speaker 2: lot of it is still in kind of like quite
Speaker 2: delicate sparse country songwriting it's a really like interesting and
Speaker 2: it is one of the harder records to categorize because
Speaker 2: it is just kind of broader in tone but i
Speaker 2: have found this album just to be such a delight
Speaker 2: and a joy to listen to because i i just
Speaker 2: i am the character that chelsea wolf brings to her
Speaker 2: music is just so sublime to me that I will
Speaker 2: hang off every word, and it's no different on this record.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because we were discussing sort of the advanced material,
Speaker 1: like what kind of Chelsea Wolf album this was going
Speaker 1: to be, because the double lead single she put out
Speaker 1: of the title track from this album, and Death Is
Speaker 1: Not The End, those two songs, they are quite different
Speaker 1: to one another, but they are both like, you know, quiet,
Speaker 1: acoustically based songs, so that kind of put us in
Speaker 1: one place. And then we got to Cold, and then
Speaker 1: particularly when Seed came out, like a week before the
Speaker 1: album actually came out, and those started to blow open
Speaker 1: the doors a bit of what we thought this was
Speaker 1: going to be, And one interesting detail about this album
Speaker 1: is she's working with a songwriting collaborator on this one,
Speaker 1: rather than just the usual sonic partners who are always there,
Speaker 1: like Ben Chisholm and et cetera, but an actual songwriting
Speaker 1: co-songwriter who's named Jen DeSilvio, who is a Grammy Award-winning
Speaker 1: pop songwriter who has worked with, amongst other people, Hosier
Speaker 1: and Miley Cyrus. And Chelsea said about this album that
Speaker 1: she wanted to really hone in on traditional songwriting structures
Speaker 1: and choruses, which is so funny, because you wrote Iron Moon...
Speaker 1: you wrote 16 Psyche, you wrote Deranged for Rock and Roll.
Speaker 1: You have choruses, you're not wanting for hooks. But that,
Speaker 1: I guess, was a particular focus this time around. And
Speaker 1: I think this does end up with this record feeling like,
Speaker 1: to me, it's still Chelsea Wolfe. It's still absolutely in
Speaker 1: her wheelhouse. I don't personally feel any alienation at all,
Speaker 1: if you're already a fan of what she's doing. But
Speaker 1: there is a little bit of that accessible, relatable polish
Speaker 1: to this one that is a little bit akin to
Speaker 1: that sort of alternative pop sound that so often from
Speaker 1: the actual pop world, I'm really not interested in. Like,
Speaker 1: I don't listen to Hosier, I don't listen to Lana
Speaker 1: Del Rey, etc. But conversely, I love acts like Chelsea
Speaker 1: Wolfe because of how, again, enveloping and shadowy and immersive
Speaker 1: they are. A huge problem I have with a lot
Speaker 1: of contemporary pop is how actually uncatchy it's in, and
Speaker 1: that kind of direction, that, like, softly spoken drab quality
Speaker 1: that a lot of pop now has is not what
Speaker 1: I want in pop.
Speaker 5: So.
Speaker 1: I think this record could have almost ended up in
Speaker 1: like a strange middle ground that maybe for some people
Speaker 1: out there it would but I don't know you give
Speaker 1: me Chelsea Walsh like more dark hearted answer to it
Speaker 1: and I do just like find myself really involved and
Speaker 1: lapping it up and there's one song on She Which
Speaker 1: Is After She Which Is After She that I highlighted
Speaker 1: at the time called A Place In The Sun that
Speaker 1: is the most like alternative kind of pop ballad on
Speaker 1: that album that to me it sounded like it's almost
Speaker 1: like Chelsea Walsh like darker mirror image to Lana Del
Speaker 1: Rey and even Billie Eilish and that kind of thing
Speaker 1: and I doubt she may have thought of it that way...
Speaker 1: But I think if you liked that song... That's a
Speaker 1: little like a gateway into this next record... And I
Speaker 1: think the most drastic example here... Is the first song Cold...
Speaker 1: Which is... Earlier I think when some of the singles
Speaker 1: were coming out... You compared them to like Goth, Florence
Speaker 1: and the Machine... And when the final chorus of that song...
Speaker 1: Has like this gorgeous bright... Like semi-gospel kind of instrumentation
Speaker 1: coming in... And melodically it's so fucking strong... That pre-chorus
Speaker 1: lifting the central hook is just incredible... It's like we're
Speaker 1: at Goth Glastonbury dancing around with our shoes off. It's sublime,
Speaker 1: I think.
Speaker 2: That song threatens to go gospel in that sort of
Speaker 2: final film.
Speaker 5: The backing vocalising. It is huge sounding. That song has
Speaker 5: so many hooks on it.
Speaker 2: When you go straight into it and you get the
Speaker 2: I'm letting you go, I'm letting you win thing, or
Speaker 2: the crying underwater, screaming at.
Speaker 5: The surface, there's like.
Speaker 2: so many sort of great vocal lines that like Chelsea
Speaker 2: and it still feels again I haven't that song it's
Speaker 2: so so good to me because it feels so true
Speaker 2: to the sort of dark gothic songwriting that Chelsea does
Speaker 2: but it's just bringing in these like sublime sort of
Speaker 2: vocal hooks with an electrifying performance from Chelsea that that
Speaker 2: does mean that it does avoid that kind of like
Speaker 2: dour alternative pop thing that it could have so easily
Speaker 2: fallen into and by the end where it does does
Speaker 2: swirl into something so stirring and so just evocative it's
Speaker 2: sort of example of like where going more pop has
Speaker 2: actually been the more interesting kind of songwriting curveball for
Speaker 2: Chelsea to take because of how she's fed it through
Speaker 2: her lens and it's just added a new dimension to
Speaker 2: her songwriting I think works brilliantly.
Speaker 3: See I this conversation has actually sort of revealed what
Speaker 3: it is that maybe my problem with this record is
Speaker 3: because Every reference when you made it, when you said hosier,
Speaker 3: I just want my shoulders to go.
Speaker 1: See, I don't like that stuff is the thing. I don't.
Speaker 1: I just think Chelsea, for me, she is a songwriting
Speaker 1: voice that I feel so connected to that I just
Speaker 1: think that she's just able to take something that I'm
Speaker 1: often not wild about and just, for me at least,
Speaker 1: turn it into magic.
Speaker 3: Oh, yeah. Listen, Chelsea is such a magnetic presence that
Speaker 3: she can overcome... some of the quirks or some of
Speaker 3: the style of songwriting on this record that i'm less
Speaker 3: keen on and there are moments where i think it
Speaker 3: really was you know the dark i think more stuff
Speaker 3: like big thief and phoebe bridge that stuff which i'm
Speaker 3: more keen on than the hosier end of things and
Speaker 3: when it's done by chelsea wolf i think that's great
Speaker 3: death is not the end really reminds me of grouper
Speaker 3: which is again no bad thing but some of these
Speaker 3: songs like dancer in the sky halo Humours, some of those,
Speaker 3: I don't want to cast aspersions. When I listen to
Speaker 3: those songs, those kind of feel like cut-off cuts from
Speaker 3: one of those other artists you mentioned. And it's like, okay, well,
Speaker 3: you don't sing as you want them. I'll give them
Speaker 3: to Chelsea Wolfe. There are certain songs in here which
Speaker 3: feel like they.
Speaker 1: In.
Speaker 3: The songwriting itself, sort of lack... that Chelsea will flare.
Speaker 3: And she brings it in the performance, so you almost
Speaker 3: don't notice, but I think it's why those songs haven't
Speaker 3: enraptured or enveloped me the way that pretty much every
Speaker 3: record she's done since I've been a fan has managed to.
Speaker 1: Right, because there's a song, I'm Not There, later on,
Speaker 1: which is one of the most straight-up prettiest, fragile songs
Speaker 1: that she's ever done. But I hear that chorus, and
Speaker 1: I don't know... You know when... unsuspecting ballad songs from
Speaker 1: like major pop artists just get really fucking huge on
Speaker 1: TikTok or something I could imagine that happening to that
Speaker 1: song like you know I don't know what the rules
Speaker 1: are if that was allowed to happen or whatever but
Speaker 1: the way it has that kind of like real high-pitched
Speaker 1: angelic kind of elements to it like I think the
Speaker 1: chorus itself is just strong enough to kind of transcend
Speaker 1: into that kind of realm um it's interesting you mentioned
Speaker 1: Halo because Halo to me feels like the most old-school
Speaker 1: Chelsea Wolfe song on this, where it's the most, like, birth-of-violency, really, like, downtrodden,
Speaker 1: Americana kind of Chelsea Wolfe. Like, I love those kind
Speaker 1: of acoustic riffs that sound like they are coughing on
Speaker 1: the air of all points east the other day, actually. But, like,
Speaker 1: this kind of folk music, I just have to admit
Speaker 1: that no one has ever really done it in a
Speaker 1: way that I like more than when Chelsea Wolfe does it. And...
Speaker 1: I think that's an example of the foundation of what
Speaker 1: she was doing. But then you take that kind of
Speaker 1: sound and you inflect it with that more vibrant flavour.
Speaker 1: Going back to The Dark and Death Is Not The End,
Speaker 1: now we have a better idea of the album. Both
Speaker 1: of them have a really interesting quality. I think both
Speaker 1: are Hall of Fame Chelsea Wolfe songs. The Dark is
Speaker 1: a straight-up pure folk song. It's just Chelsea and an
Speaker 1: acoustic guitar almost all the way through. But there is
Speaker 1: something about those melodies, even the picking pattern on the
Speaker 1: guitar when it comes in, it just feels bigger. It
Speaker 1: feels like every bit of space that needs to be
Speaker 1: filled is being done so. And that is a basically
Speaker 1: flawless song, a heart-achingly, perfectly beautiful piece of music. And
Speaker 1: that refrain of, you know, to be the bee, the
Speaker 1: darkest thing in the woods, it is, to me, maybe
Speaker 1: as quintessential a song Chelsea Wolfe could do that you
Speaker 1: could imagine, because it's about finding... beauty and comfort in
Speaker 1: the dark and in the you know the quiet and
Speaker 1: untouched places of the world that's why the album is
Speaker 1: called the dark you know and this album the way
Speaker 1: it has that you know slight you know, brighter for
Speaker 1: her standards pop flavour, but it's coming at that from
Speaker 1: the shadows, right? Like, from the other side of the coin.
Speaker 1: It is like a massive warm embrace of night, and
Speaker 1: like a reassuring cloak of shadow, which is something that
Speaker 1: I've always loved about Chelsea's music, but this song is
Speaker 1: like a, well, it's a manifesto for that, and when
Speaker 1: it lifts, and you get that dirgy bit of doom
Speaker 1: metal guitar at the end, it just feels like it's
Speaker 1: like you're flying, you know, it's somehow, like, the inverse
Speaker 1: of what that guitar should make you feel, but in
Speaker 1: her hands, it just fucking goes like that, and then
Speaker 1: Death Is Not The End is equally, if not more stunning,
Speaker 1: and once again, it's using those, you know, kind of
Speaker 1: gothic language in those fixations, but it's about hope, you know,
Speaker 1: it's reassuring, and I think this song is the work
Speaker 1: of just, like, a major, major songwriter, like, even just
Speaker 1: the imagery of, like, keep hoping that death is like
Speaker 1: an ocean and I'm floating like an angel in the
Speaker 1: kelp is something that's stuck around in my head, like,
Speaker 1: since I first heard it. and the way it goes
Speaker 1: from the sparsest, most hushed song on the album, to then, again,
Speaker 1: that wall of trademark Chelsea Wolfe doom guitar hitting that
Speaker 1: you wouldn't get from anyone else, you wouldn't get from
Speaker 1: any of those old pop artists or whatever. You have,
Speaker 1: in that last drop, an incredible percussive industrial beat, which
Speaker 1: are actually contributions from Robin Fink, formerly of Nine Inch Nails,
Speaker 1: that have been naturally laced into what was originally this
Speaker 1: very analogue acoustic song, And it shifts the whole song
Speaker 1: on its axis in a way that's just exactly right.
Speaker 1: It is... Moments like that, I think, are just transcendently brilliant.
Speaker 5: Death is not the end. It's not working. Because it's like...
Speaker 5: It's so fragile and so delicate to begin with.
Speaker 1: But like.
Speaker 2: Chelsea was such a way to be still commanding in
Speaker 2: her presence. Even when she is at her most kind
Speaker 2: of like... Porcelain and ethereal.
Speaker 1: And like.
Speaker 2: It's genuinely like... Captivating. And when you finally get to
Speaker 2: that kind of like... Doom bit in the middle... And
Speaker 2: that gorgeous kind of like guitar that comes in with
Speaker 2: Chelsea soaring over it. I'm like, this is where, again,
Speaker 2: all the sort of pops on that capacity you can make.
Speaker 2: They can't do what she does on this album where she, again, the,
Speaker 2: the Paula things you can call from genuine love for,
Speaker 2: for dark shadowy music and like, not just music, but
Speaker 2: like the culture that surrounds kind of like on the dark,
Speaker 2: on the outskirts of society. I think the title track
Speaker 2: is just, so amazing how that's from just so much
Speaker 2: with so little and you can say about every track
Speaker 2: again 10 songs has its place has the thing it
Speaker 2: does like some of them might sort of start in
Speaker 2: similar kind of acoustic terrains but they'll take it to
Speaker 2: different things like halo i think like is the coolest
Speaker 2: song on the record this almost like kind of like
Speaker 2: a bit of sleaze to the dusty country thing the
Speaker 2: whole get up let's go for ride got my halo
Speaker 2: on the other side the kind of delivery of that
Speaker 2: is so just like captivating and she just sounds like
Speaker 2: the coolest person in the world delivering those lines i
Speaker 2: think like every song here and this place we have
Speaker 2: like we haven't we've kind of skipped over what is
Speaker 2: the like the real ace on this record it comes
Speaker 2: right at the start but i'm sure we'll get to
Speaker 2: it but i mean this record is full of just
Speaker 2: like so many moments of beauty of pain of sorrow
Speaker 2: of all the things i kind of go to a
Speaker 2: chelsea wolf record for it's just there's less of a
Speaker 2: kind of like I don't want to say a wall,
Speaker 2: but it is, she's holding a hand out to you more,
Speaker 2: this one, to sort of guide you into the world,
Speaker 2: where again, I could quite easily hand this to people
Speaker 2: who I would not hand Abyss to, because I think
Speaker 2: they would just be put off by how suffocating that
Speaker 2: record is, this record doesn't have that, I just say
Speaker 2: it has that warm embrace of the darkness, that it's
Speaker 2: not a bright, fun, pop record, it is still a dark, shadowy,
Speaker 2: moody record, but it's just, it welcomes you more than
Speaker 2: anything she's fought, and I think that is like, To
Speaker 2: be able to make that work, have something that is
Speaker 2: so dark and shadowy, but so comforting and nice to
Speaker 2: listen to, is such an amazing balancing act, and I
Speaker 2: think Chelsea Wolfe is just so superb at it.
Speaker 1: For sure, and I believe that you're referring to Steve there.
Speaker 1: I am referring to Steve. There's also an interesting thing
Speaker 1: she does on this record where even on the The
Speaker 1: songs which really have those dark edges in the heavier sense,
Speaker 1: they still have a more pronounced accessibility to it. You've
Speaker 1: also got, one of my favourites on this record is Swallower,
Speaker 1: which I think is a fucking fantastic song. The main
Speaker 1: riff and the melody that that is built on, such
Speaker 1: a really strong foundation to it. It's got a kind
Speaker 1: of Pixies Where Is My Mind quality. but through the
Speaker 1: spectral filter of Chelsea Wolfe, that she just crushes it.
Speaker 1: And when Troy Van Leeuwen from Queens of Stone Age
Speaker 1: comes in with the wailing lead towards the end, which
Speaker 1: is another of those great partnerships that I'm glad is
Speaker 1: still being maintained between the two of them when he
Speaker 1: sticks his head in occasionally, is just fantastic. And it's
Speaker 1: catchy from the second the song starts, but it just
Speaker 1: has these powerhouse moments that her and the members of
Speaker 1: her band just absolutely crush. But Zeve is just a growling, lurking.
Speaker 1: Rocker with incredible groove to it like the fill that
Speaker 1: brings in the main beat after the intro and the
Speaker 1: little drum grooves that you get like throughout the verses
Speaker 1: and stuff that really keep it alive i think production
Speaker 1: on it is phenomenal like the kit alone sounds perfect
Speaker 1: but when you heard that it was like oh damn
Speaker 1: like you know she has done you know rock songs
Speaker 1: before again you know 16 psyche whatever but there's something
Speaker 1: like just um so so grooving about that one that
Speaker 1: does feel like a little fresh for the catalogue It's.
Speaker 2: A floor filler in a way that I don't think
Speaker 2: she's ever, like again, like you said, she's done rock songs,
Speaker 2: but Steve is a genuine kind of like gothic sort
Speaker 2: of dancey floor filler. It's got intensity that, the way
Speaker 2: it comes along, there's a sort of thrumming bass that
Speaker 2: sort of pulsates along. chelsea like she sounds pissed off
Speaker 2: and angry in a way that she doesn't always do
Speaker 2: and it's like brings real intensity when she's like got
Speaker 2: my knife in my pocket and you're top of my
Speaker 2: list like that's a hard line from chelsea wolf and
Speaker 2: and again when you get to that chorus it's it's
Speaker 2: a simple chorus and her voice is doing the more
Speaker 2: ethereal thing but it is just propulsive and driven and
Speaker 2: just like like in terms of where she's just going
Speaker 2: in this like delicate way she better run but it
Speaker 2: it just brings a menace one of the coolest songs
Speaker 2: she has ever done i think it is one of
Speaker 2: my absolute favorite songs this year hands down i think
Speaker 2: is just a total instant classic for me hearing it
Speaker 2: live the other like again like hearing it live i
Speaker 2: was kind of like jesus christ this now in the
Speaker 2: middle of the set where she's done all these like
Speaker 2: really dark songs and acoustic songs and then just dropping
Speaker 2: this absolute banger out of nowhere like it's unbelievable i
Speaker 2: think like the best release attention that like builds on
Speaker 2: the verse of that chorus i like again i can't
Speaker 2: say enough good things about steve i think it is
Speaker 2: like so good Yeah, this is, of.
Speaker 3: The three songs on the record which I do think
Speaker 3: really work, Seed is the third that I haven't mentioned.
Speaker 3: It's the most full-on pop song on the record, but
Speaker 3: it's so well arranged. The timbres are just right, which
Speaker 3: is always a thing with this sort of goth pop thing. Again,
Speaker 3: Chelsea Wolfe is so sophisticated when it comes to production
Speaker 3: that it's no surprise really, but all the crackles that
Speaker 3: you get from that, it's so textured. more so than
Speaker 3: a lot of artists when they do this sort of thing,
Speaker 3: it sounds like a plug-in, but it just sounds alive
Speaker 3: and breathing, and it's a really catchy vocal melody, and again,
Speaker 3: delivered by someone of her talent, it's superb. I think
Speaker 3: maybe that was a song, other than the other two
Speaker 3: I mentioned, where I thought that's where the record was
Speaker 3: going to go, because people were saying this is her
Speaker 3: pop album, and I was thinking less hope, and Lana
Speaker 3: Del Rey and that sort of thing and I thought
Speaker 3: are we going to be getting the jams from Chelsea
Speaker 3: Wolfe and the album is absolutely not that and I
Speaker 3: think maybe it's a framing issue because the songs I
Speaker 3: went in with more knowledge of or at least could
Speaker 3: hit more to my expectations I was able to glob
Speaker 3: onto more quickly and Seath was one of those.
Speaker 1: Right yeah um for me there are these like i
Speaker 1: said sonic elements that are so quintessentially chelsea wolf that
Speaker 1: i didn't feel any again sense of too dramatic a
Speaker 1: shift or throwing the baby out with a bath or
Speaker 1: anything like that because even when like i said the
Speaker 1: first two songs were these kind of primarily acoustic songs
Speaker 1: we thought that could be the direction of the record
Speaker 1: the i was quite surprised when i got these more
Speaker 1: industrial leaning elements on it but it's very subtly and
Speaker 1: seamlessly layered in throughout it, where a song like Humours
Speaker 1: has these little pops of electronica throughout. It's almost like
Speaker 1: a Chelsea Wolf with a goth pop song that really
Speaker 1: quietly simmers, but it has these really, again, bubbling around
Speaker 1: the peripheries, seamless elements to it. Turn the Key was
Speaker 1: a real head turn within the album, just because when
Speaker 1: that swamp of doomy synth at the start comes in,
Speaker 1: with those strange echoing percussion sounds, that's way more like
Speaker 1: something you'd hear on abyss like a song like color
Speaker 1: of blood or something but what you get here is
Speaker 1: um you know that mention of like real traditional songwriting
Speaker 1: structures and stuff like when a song like that with
Speaker 1: those sonic elements when it moves into like there's a
Speaker 1: big bridge when the slide guitar and everything comes in
Speaker 1: and there's a really big like bridge melody that's really
Speaker 1: like pronounced and focused on it feels like those elements
Speaker 1: within the songs are just again it's like they're hammered
Speaker 1: in a little bit more like there's a really huge
Speaker 1: moment in the song and then you mentioned earlier the
Speaker 1: closer dancer in the sky which is definitely on this
Speaker 1: album it's maybe the brightest song leaning like the most
Speaker 1: into that kind of balladeering territory but in such like
Speaker 1: a beautifully like angelic you know the layers of vocal
Speaker 1: arrangement I can definitely see like why that song might
Speaker 1: feel a little left of centre for me for me
Speaker 1: it still really worked and I think for me the
Speaker 1: thing I was impressed about on this is just how
Speaker 1: naturally all this stuff sat on her like cold even
Speaker 1: though we described it in the way that we did
Speaker 1: i think melodically in her inflections and her voice it's
Speaker 1: still a chelsea wolf song through and through the dark
Speaker 1: and like i'm not there are these kind of you
Speaker 1: know indie folk songs but they have her artistic dna
Speaker 1: stand all over it um there's i never felt any
Speaker 1: point in this where even though they're it she's had
Speaker 1: this bit of help on it there's nothing where she's
Speaker 1: like deliberately chasing something and i think if she was
Speaker 1: a lesser artist i we could feasibly end up with
Speaker 1: something that, you know, makes us want to gag, you know,
Speaker 1: like I'm sure a great number of albums in this
Speaker 1: sort of contemporary lane, you know, relatable to this might
Speaker 1: well do, but instead it has a pinch of that
Speaker 1: to it. And then all these other things that I'm
Speaker 1: already really connected to with Chelsea Wolf. And it's just
Speaker 1: continued to like with every listen I've given to it,
Speaker 1: just continue to really impress me.
Speaker 2: I just want to like chime in on Dancing in
Speaker 2: the Skylight. That is such a, just this beautiful, classy
Speaker 2: kind of like, closer and the thing is is like
Speaker 2: you said the things that make it so central like
Speaker 2: lyrically as well when some of the lines she's delivering
Speaker 2: another it still fits within her world at like and
Speaker 2: which is like dance from the sky reach between the
Speaker 2: veil to find me that that just sounds like that
Speaker 2: could fit on a chelsea wolf song that that because
Speaker 2: it has that element of like i guess kind of
Speaker 2: like etherealness and and that to it which again stops
Speaker 2: it from feeling too much like uh a twee folky
Speaker 2: kind of like pop song that it could land you
Speaker 2: know this is not taylor swift folklore evermore kind of
Speaker 2: like attack approaches that something which again like it it's
Speaker 2: not a million miles removed from what like those albums
Speaker 2: were attempt to do but this is just doing that
Speaker 2: again with that veil of darkness with that shadow behind
Speaker 2: it that feels so authentic to chelsea wolf but just
Speaker 2: brings in the elements of pop and it what it
Speaker 2: is is it's not her changing herself to fit pop
Speaker 2: music it's her changing pop music to fit her style
Speaker 2: of songwriting which i think is the key to what
Speaker 2: makes this album work for me where if it felt
Speaker 2: as if this felt so much like chelsea wolf realigning
Speaker 2: herself and changing her approach and everything about it like
Speaker 2: and again maybe she has because she had a collaborative
Speaker 2: songwriter but it never feels like she is forcing herself
Speaker 2: to sound a different way to what is not the
Speaker 2: natural chelsea wolf thing and that's why i think the
Speaker 2: sort of deviation she makes this record works so well
Speaker 2: because it's her making that her own rather than changing
Speaker 2: and that that is the key to why this album
Speaker 2: for me is is up there like it's not you
Speaker 2: know she's actually his spine is like my favorite kind
Speaker 2: of stuff so i wouldn't put it on those records
Speaker 2: but i would really like this is still just a
Speaker 2: sublime record from what someone who i think he's just
Speaker 2: one of the best artists in our sphere and it
Speaker 2: is worthy of her catalog.
Speaker 3: Yeah i think for me it's going to take more
Speaker 3: time than that there's there's like i said there's nothing
Speaker 3: to it where i can point to and go oh
Speaker 3: she's fucked that up hasn't she like it's You know,
Speaker 3: she's not really capable of that. I think maybe it's,
Speaker 3: like I said earlier, it might be something of a
Speaker 3: framing issue. It might take a few weeks for me
Speaker 3: adjusting to whether this is the album and sort of
Speaker 3: taking it on its terms. As of today, like I said,
Speaker 3: I can only be honest, and this is probably my... Well,
Speaker 3: it feels wrong saying it, because it is still, like,
Speaker 3: very well made. It's probably my least favourite of... Certainly
Speaker 3: since Apocalypse, I'd have to go back to the debut
Speaker 3: and have another think. But I'm willing to say, you know,
Speaker 3: It's not you, it's me. I'm always willing to accept
Speaker 3: responsibility this time.
Speaker 1: Sure, I will concede. Like I said, this is one
Speaker 1: of the major milestone albums in the catalogue, even though
Speaker 1: in some ways I'm sure that every album to a
Speaker 1: degree is, and some of the developments this has and
Speaker 1: the collaborations she's had and the connections she's made are important.
Speaker 1: I don't think this is going to be my album
Speaker 1: of the year again, the way the last one was.
Speaker 1: But it's still going to be up there. So Chelsea Wolfe,
Speaker 1: The Dark. And we move on from there to the
Speaker 1: hottest topic, I suppose, right now, of all the ones
Speaker 1: we've got in this particular batch. We are going to
Speaker 1: talk now about Electric Callboy, who the other week released
Speaker 1: their album Tans Need. We are six years now into
Speaker 1: what we might call the decade of Callboy. They, of course,
Speaker 1: had been around for a long time under a different name,
Speaker 1: but their dramatic turn of fortunes truly changed in 2020.
Speaker 1: in the midst of the pandemic, with honestly maybe the
Speaker 1: song I associate with that whole period insanely, Hyper Hyper,
Speaker 1: which started a snowball that truly none of us could
Speaker 1: have seen coming. Their last album, Techno, in 2022. cemented
Speaker 1: that uh that hyper hyper train and really capitalized on
Speaker 1: this newfound momentum they've had and now bam would you
Speaker 1: look at that electric cool boy are fucking massive now
Speaker 1: four years between techno and this new studio album tans
Speaker 1: need but for reasons we are certainly about to get
Speaker 1: into it never feels like electric cool boy went away
Speaker 1: for even a moment they have done an exceptional job
Speaker 1: of forcing themselves under your face whether you like it
Speaker 1: or not at all times truthfully for a long while
Speaker 1: there when we were getting you know singles drip thread
Speaker 1: from this album And they were threatening to gear up
Speaker 1: for another album release. I was thinking we might skip
Speaker 1: reviewing this one because I figured we had probably said
Speaker 1: at this point the vast majority of what needed to
Speaker 1: be said about Electric Cowboy. The Hyper Hyper EP and
Speaker 1: the Techno album I think are fun releases, but I
Speaker 1: don't know how much of like, you know, how more
Speaker 1: of a consistent rate I need, a growing boy really needs.
Speaker 1: I figured this album, we almost certainly knew what Sam
Speaker 1: was going to think of it. I kind of knew
Speaker 1: what I was going to think of it. And Elliot,
Speaker 1: I can't imagine you were going to come out with
Speaker 1: some dramatic revelation either. People know at this stage whether
Speaker 1: you were into Callboy or not. But two things happened
Speaker 1: with the rollout of this album that made me reconsider
Speaker 1: that it was worth having a chat about. One is
Speaker 1: that they were announced to be headlining both Vakken and Bloodstock,
Speaker 1: making them a genuinely massive band in a way that
Speaker 1: we haven't quite truly reckoned with before this. And second,
Speaker 1: the actual rollout campaign for this album... Was weird in
Speaker 1: a way that seemed quite different For a rock band
Speaker 1: of that size So we are going to talk a
Speaker 1: bit About the actual music on this album Spoilers, I
Speaker 1: bet Sam hates it I think there's a couple tracks
Speaker 1: I'll spotlight them later But I think actually what is
Speaker 1: more interesting And a little bit different about this review
Speaker 1: Is the actual Release strategy of this album And the
Speaker 1: time leading into it I think deserves some conversation Because
Speaker 1: it seems kind of abnormal for us.
Speaker 2: So ignoring my feelings on the songs this is i
Speaker 2: feel like the least an album has actually ever felt
Speaker 2: like a one that we've reviewed a poured over piece
Speaker 2: of art that has been assembled and put together by
Speaker 2: a band who give a shit about what they're doing
Speaker 2: And instead they have assembled a product to sell.
Speaker 1: This is worthless.
Speaker 5: This is garbage. And that's where we can get into
Speaker 5: the songs.
Speaker 1: We're back.
Speaker 5: Here's the thing.
Speaker 2: A year ago, I was softening on Callboy because I
Speaker 2: saw them live when I'd been at a slam dunk
Speaker 2: where they'd seen some terrible music and Callboy were actually
Speaker 2: not that. i'm back to having the claws out for
Speaker 2: this band i like i think this album is just
Speaker 2: what's the point why the bands don't care about this
Speaker 2: record why should we care like this is a like
Speaker 2: again i'm not going to say they don't care about
Speaker 2: every song there are songs on this album that i
Speaker 2: i think that i've clearly actually had a bit of
Speaker 2: time poured into them there are other songs that's the
Speaker 2: same fucking electric cowboy song again doing the same fucking
Speaker 2: tricks being lazy as hell because they're hacks um and
Speaker 2: they can't take anything seriously and everything has to be
Speaker 2: drenched in irony and it's just full of annoying shit
Speaker 2: like that And there are a couple of songs that
Speaker 2: I'm like, okay, fine, that's pretty good. But as an
Speaker 2: album as a whole, this is so just, again, worthless
Speaker 2: to me. I don't see why anyone should give a
Speaker 2: damn about this.
Speaker 3: It's a weird thing to do if you're a band
Speaker 3: who ostensibly should care about making art. Because the release
Speaker 3: strategy for this record, by releasing eight of the ten
Speaker 3: songs before it comes out, some of them two and
Speaker 3: a half years in advance, because that Rata Tata song
Speaker 3: I'd forgotten existed, and then I went, when did this
Speaker 3: come out again? It came out earlier in 2024 or something.
Speaker 3: These songs are old by the time this has got
Speaker 3: to you, and I've been thinking about it since listening
Speaker 3: to this record. Is it possible to make an album
Speaker 3: that is satisfying as a whole but also you can
Speaker 3: release basically the whole thing as singles completely separate from
Speaker 3: it and then compile them later when you've heard them
Speaker 3: all and it'd still be a rewarding listen because I'm
Speaker 3: not sure it is it's a completely different incentive structure
Speaker 3: to making a good interesting album I'm not saying they
Speaker 3: have to come out and try and make Crack The
Speaker 3: Sky I'm not asking Callboy to do that but even
Speaker 3: the big rock albums where we think every song's a
Speaker 3: jam like Back In Black Hysteria Let's pick something more
Speaker 3: modern like Impera or whatever. Those albums still have ebbs
Speaker 3: and flows and ups and downs and pickups and drop
Speaker 3: downs in energy. And that can only really happen when
Speaker 3: you're making an album in the context of trying to
Speaker 3: make an album, when you're considering those things. Electric Callboy
Speaker 3: might not have done that anyway. I'm open to that.
Speaker 3: Maybe they're less interested in the idea of... Actually, they're
Speaker 3: quite interested in things going up and down, I'll say that.
Speaker 1: But....
Speaker 3: In the sort of flow of an album, maybe if
Speaker 3: they were forced to think about albums in terms of albums,
Speaker 3: they'd think about it a bit differently. But, listening to
Speaker 3: this record, it doesn't sound like they're capable of it. Which, fine,
Speaker 3: there's nothing wrong with releasing singles, but when it, like
Speaker 3: you were saying, when it comes time to release the record,
Speaker 3: it can only ever feel like an afterthought, like an obligation,
Speaker 3: or let's just park these songs and then now that's done. Like,
Speaker 3: that's kind of what it feels like, which, if you're
Speaker 3: not that fussed, it's hard for someone like me who
Speaker 3: i might describe as like a corn boy agnostic to
Speaker 3: come over to the other side.
Speaker 1: Yeah this is what i thought was interesting about this
Speaker 1: album you know interesting to talk about because i think
Speaker 1: hearing what we have to say about the music on
Speaker 1: this album is not the interesting part of this conversation
Speaker 1: really um but the question of like when is an
Speaker 1: album not an album is one i'd like did really
Speaker 1: start to consider um with this because If you look
Speaker 1: at the track that's for this album, you might say
Speaker 1: that the campaign for this started with Rattata, the collab
Speaker 1: track with Babymetal, which was released May the 23rd of 2024. Which,
Speaker 1: for a comparison point, because we were just talking about it,
Speaker 1: Chelsea Wolfe's previous album, She Which Is That She Which
Speaker 1: Is That She, was released about three months before that.
Speaker 1: And remember when she did those re-workings EPs over the
Speaker 1: course of that year with the re-mixing and acoustic versions
Speaker 1: and so on? The first of those EPs came out
Speaker 1: in August 2020. So the rollout for this album that
Speaker 1: we are reviewing The same week as the new Chelsea
Speaker 1: Wolfe album Started before the rollout campaign For her previous
Speaker 1: one that she has now followed up Had finished And
Speaker 1: when I put this album on the other week And
Speaker 1: that song came on I couldn't believe it because it
Speaker 1: was already on Babymetal's album It was on Babymetal's album
Speaker 1: I've already heard this on an album last year And
Speaker 1: I feel like I've been hearing that song for so
Speaker 1: long Never actually by choice I've never sought out Rattata
Speaker 1: In terms of Babymetal collabs It's no Kingslayer, it's not
Speaker 1: one of my favourite Callboy songs I don't mind it,
Speaker 1: it's fine, but, like, the fact that the collab song exists,
Speaker 1: that then appears on both albums, as if it's trying
Speaker 1: to maximise, you know, streams and audience across both of them,
Speaker 1: it's a very pop strategy. When you look at, like,
Speaker 1: pop album rollouts, and you might have, I don't know,
Speaker 1: Zara Larsson or someone, or I bet loads of, like,
Speaker 1: major EDM artists will do this as well, their album
Speaker 1: will have a single that was released, like, two years
Speaker 1: before or that will then be put on it as
Speaker 1: kind of promotional afterthought and it might have again the
Speaker 1: collabs across both records or whatever even though the rest
Speaker 1: of the album was clearly created like away from those
Speaker 1: songs it's much more from that mindset and when I
Speaker 1: like do the news for the hyperblasts and I tend
Speaker 1: to you know we tend to look for like a
Speaker 1: first single from an album because that is the confirmation
Speaker 1: that an album is coming and it might give us
Speaker 1: a like an insight into what the album might sound
Speaker 1: like and then when it comes to the point where
Speaker 1: I'm looking week upon week and it's like here's the
Speaker 1: fourth electric cowboy single here's the fifth electric cowboy single
Speaker 1: I just kind of look over them for that new show.
Speaker 1: Like I don't put them in, um, particularly with a
Speaker 1: band like cool boy where, you know, basically you're going
Speaker 1: to click on that single and it might have a
Speaker 1: different gimmick every time, but every time that single is
Speaker 1: going to be, it's fun, it's upbeat, it's silly, you know?
Speaker 1: So it's kind of not interesting to talk about over
Speaker 1: the course of like six separate conversations over the course
Speaker 1: of a year. You know what I mean? That's why
Speaker 1: we do an album review. Um, and I admit that
Speaker 1: like my mind is programmed to view the album as
Speaker 1: the end goal and the singles lead into it. Um, Because,
Speaker 1: you know, the album is the kind of umbrella that
Speaker 1: they belong to, is like the interesting thing to talk about.
Speaker 1: And that is the rock mindset that I, as a,
Speaker 1: you know, fundamentally a rock fan, that's my traditional perspective.
Speaker 1: Whereas the way that they've approached this is much more
Speaker 1: like the release of each individual single is the goal.
Speaker 1: And then the album is just kind of like the
Speaker 1: binder at the end, where it's just, you know, the
Speaker 1: cherry on top, where they get filed into one place.
Speaker 1: And I think it is almost down to an interpretation
Speaker 1: of what is an album, because... You think about the
Speaker 1: Word album, you might have a photo album, and a
Speaker 1: photo album doesn't tend to be crafted all in one
Speaker 1: place with a specific narrative or one point in time.
Speaker 1: It is a binder of disparate snapshots. But I think
Speaker 1: a studio album, we do think more aspirationally about what
Speaker 1: they might be. Past the Ratatat Colab song, you might go, okay,
Speaker 1: that's an outlier, that's a separate thing. The first solo
Speaker 1: Electric Cowboy single for this album was Elevator Operator, which
Speaker 1: was released in January 2025. At some point they changed
Speaker 1: drummer during all of this because they got the Sum
Speaker 1: 41 guy in. And it is interesting to think about
Speaker 1: how this might impact the end product because this album,
Speaker 1: even though they are now headlining a major UK festival
Speaker 1: next year, this album landed at number 62 on the
Speaker 1: UK album chart. Which, yes, is not a terrible score
Speaker 1: compared to all the rock bands we talk about who
Speaker 1: don't really chart at all. But considering that's the position
Speaker 1: they're now in, that suggests a big disconnect between the
Speaker 1: people who are going to enjoy them at live shows,
Speaker 1: who will absolutely be there for that Bloodshot headlining slot,
Speaker 1: and maybe the people who bump the single on their
Speaker 1: gym playlist when it comes out or whatever, and then
Speaker 1: the people who are actually fucking buying a vinyl copy
Speaker 1: or whatever this might be, even if their album did
Speaker 1: come with a Lego set or whatever. And so you
Speaker 1: might say by that metric, oh, the albums have failed. Look,
Speaker 1: it's not charted super high. But the album kind of
Speaker 1: being a non-event is like incidental for Coolboy, I think,
Speaker 1: and their strategy, because their strategy is to be omnipresent
Speaker 1: with singles and viral moments and so on, rather than
Speaker 1: having the big crowning moment of the album to hang
Speaker 1: their reputation on, the way we view almost every other
Speaker 1: band that we review. You know what I mean?
Speaker 2: So I get you but the other thing then it
Speaker 2: feels like is like no one's actually talked about this
Speaker 2: album outside of the arguments we've had in our discord
Speaker 2: I've not seen anyone actually talking about oh yeah the
Speaker 2: Electric Cowboy album is out it's been.
Speaker 1: A complete because it's not as important as the singles
Speaker 1: this is what we're saying.
Speaker 2: No because that's when everyone's heard the singles so by
Speaker 2: the time the album came out and it was like
Speaker 2: eight of the singles were there and like you know
Speaker 2: when you actually get the album you get four remixes
Speaker 2: and two new songs Really, you have 10 songs on
Speaker 2: this album, one of which is a fucking cover. And
Speaker 2: most of the others have been out there. Again, I
Speaker 2: saw them play that cover at Slam Dunk last year.
Speaker 2: I saw them play Elevator Operator. I saw them play
Speaker 2: a huge chunk of this album at Slam Dunk last year.
Speaker 2: And it feels like there's been nothing new. And again,
Speaker 2: I was willing to, again, soften my stance on Callboy
Speaker 2: a year ago. And this album is just kind of like, no,
Speaker 2: because this band are anti-art. They do not care about
Speaker 2: the art they're creating. They want to sell their Lego set.
Speaker 2: But the overall experience for Callboy now is just so
Speaker 2: exhausting where I'm just sort of... The wacky Eurodance sort
Speaker 2: of electronic symphonic band shouldn't be boring. I think this
Speaker 2: album is really fucking boring. I think the entire experience
Speaker 2: is like genuinely just tiresome because it's all been out
Speaker 2: there for so long that when you hit play on.
Speaker 5: This album, there's nothing to actually... catch your attention.
Speaker 2: And it so quickly becomes background noise because that's what
Speaker 2: these songs have just sort of been allowed to be
Speaker 2: because they've been out there for so long and not
Speaker 2: something that anyone anyone involved has sort of put any
Speaker 2: care or.
Speaker 3: Effort into see I think if an album's great it
Speaker 3: can survive almost anything and this rollout strategy being kind
Speaker 3: of tedious and boring and taking all the excitement away
Speaker 3: from it If the album was fantastic, it's possible that
Speaker 3: in five, ten years, we'd almost forget that that's how
Speaker 3: it was released. We'd just remember this collection of bangers. And,
Speaker 3: you know, techno, which isn't now my love, is still
Speaker 3: an album that people talk about fairly often. And people say, oh,
Speaker 3: that's a great song, and that's a great song. And
Speaker 3: that had like five or six singles come out ahead
Speaker 3: of it. Like, that was, you know, released maybe in
Speaker 3: like half of the majority, and songs come out months
Speaker 3: and months before it came out. Nothing quite as egregious
Speaker 3: as this. But that feels like an album which... No
Speaker 3: one treats it like it's a London calling or whatever,
Speaker 3: but it's like people still go like.
Speaker 1: Techno is the Electric Callboy album experience in a way
Speaker 1: that this isn't.
Speaker 5: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3: And it's like... So I was trying to think of
Speaker 3: albums to compare it to and going, if this had
Speaker 3: been released a similar way, what would we think? And
Speaker 3: it's like, honestly, I think if Permission to Land had
Speaker 3: gotten this kind of release strategy or I Get Wet
Speaker 3: or Chocolate Starfish or whatever big party rock anthem... Party
Speaker 3: rock anthem? Party rock album you want to talk about,
Speaker 3: I think those could survive it because the songs are there. Again,
Speaker 3: I'm not maybe the person to ask, but listening to
Speaker 3: this record, I could think of maybe two songs, and
Speaker 3: one was the Babymetal song, where I could remember virtually
Speaker 3: anything about it, in terms of how it actually sounded.
Speaker 3: It was that and Heart Club, which has that I
Speaker 3: was born enough hook, which isn't amazing, but it's fairly catchy.
Speaker 3: It at least isn't pure Eurodance.
Speaker 5: That's the one where they try and actually just do
Speaker 5: a metalcore song, yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and maybe it's... remarkable for being less remarkable i
Speaker 3: don't know but like listening to this record it's it's
Speaker 3: not like again it's compared to something a bit more
Speaker 3: pop like whether it's i was gonna say the prodigy
Speaker 3: but let's even say like cascader and scooter and stuff
Speaker 3: like that maybe those bands aren't about really great albums.
Speaker 3: But certainly something like The Prodigy is there's great singles,
Speaker 3: there's variety, there's all sorts of other stuff going on.
Speaker 3: So the fact it's more single-oriented doesn't really matter. In
Speaker 3: the case of this, I really just think the album is...
Speaker 3: It's a bit of a shrug. Like, even with or
Speaker 3: without the release, I think if you went into this
Speaker 3: having not heard any of the songs at all, you'd
Speaker 3: come away and say, oh, that Babymetal song was quite big,
Speaker 3: the rest of it.
Speaker 1: Like.
Speaker 3: So, as much as the release strategy has kneecapped the
Speaker 3: enthusiasm for it, it doesn't help that the album's not
Speaker 3: all that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the thing that I thought was academically interesting I
Speaker 1: wanted to talk about here was the, again, the different almost...
Speaker 1: viewing of what an album is and what purpose it
Speaker 1: serves compared to the average rock band where callboy strategy
Speaker 1: with this like i said the album being a shrug
Speaker 1: isn't doesn't matter to them because they've already won with
Speaker 1: all of the singles they've been putting out for ages
Speaker 1: right their strategy is again viral spread maximizing streams playing
Speaker 1: the chart game whatever and i'm not anticipating that because
Speaker 1: electric callboy have done that that like you know the
Speaker 1: underground bands we're going to talk about later are going
Speaker 1: to start doing this like i think it is particular
Speaker 1: to maybe cool boy and their their model so to
Speaker 1: speak i just thought it was an interesting case study
Speaker 1: in that we are you know unapologetic rock fans who
Speaker 1: do maybe hold a more traditional idea of the album
Speaker 1: in some kind of higher esteem and i don't think
Speaker 1: we're used to being presented with something like this and
Speaker 1: i do think that um like coming up with lots
Speaker 1: of separate ideas for like what would be a viral
Speaker 1: single and then putting them together now you can really
Speaker 1: feel that track to track right because you've got you
Speaker 1: know ratatouille leading the way of the made not collab
Speaker 1: And then they go, okay, who else can we ring
Speaker 1: up to try and also get a bit of cross-demographic spread?
Speaker 1: The Offspring with Let the Good Times Roll, which is
Speaker 1: not something I need in my life. Elevator Operator, I
Speaker 1: don't really like. It feels somehow even more like a
Speaker 1: novelty song than just like... The thing I like Cool
Speaker 1: Boy doing the most is when they do just a
Speaker 1: legitimately good, catchy Eurodance chorus. They have a specific kind
Speaker 1: of melody that I think they're brilliant at. And when
Speaker 1: they do a different kind of melody, anywhere else outside
Speaker 1: of that, it falls flat. Like the fucking Oompa Loompa
Speaker 1: hook in Reverie is not what I need them doing.
Speaker 1: There's also then a hideously transparent attempt to re-execute the
Speaker 1: gag from a song from the last album with the,
Speaker 1: wouldn't it be funny if we started doing a really,
Speaker 1: really pop song?
Speaker 5: And at the end the backstreet boys yeah the.
Speaker 1: End we do a big crazy heavy breakdown with the
Speaker 1: way you are and the song hurricane from the last
Speaker 1: album i know that the joke is tired but hurricane
Speaker 1: is genuinely fun and brilliant before it goes all greeby
Speaker 1: and heavy because like the joke transition there is not
Speaker 1: the entire appeal of the song to me like the
Speaker 1: first part of it is really fun and this maybe
Speaker 1: it's because i i mean i know you do sam
Speaker 1: so this will be you know um kind of the
Speaker 1: other side of it but i have no like attachment
Speaker 1: or affinity to the music that they're parodying here like
Speaker 1: the backstreet boys or in sync or whatever like i
Speaker 1: don't hold any love for it so it's less fun
Speaker 1: to me than them doing like the big schlager thing
Speaker 1: that they did at the start of hurricane because that
Speaker 1: also felt so uniquely german that felt like a joke
Speaker 1: that only they could do whereas this is a much
Speaker 1: i don't know tackier broader more cynical joke then you
Speaker 1: have like we said The Sum 41 Still Waiting cover.
Speaker 1: And I think, you know, maybe to a degree we're
Speaker 1: being hypocritical because, like, Unto Others covered Halloween by the
Speaker 1: Misfits live for ages and then they finally recorded it
Speaker 1: on their EP last year and that was like, yeah, good,
Speaker 1: we've had that around for ages in a live environment,
Speaker 1: it's good to get a recorded version. But because this
Speaker 1: is part of this album where every other element is
Speaker 1: like this, this just feels more cynical and more like, hey,
Speaker 1: people like that one, bundle it into the album. So
Speaker 1: that also means there's even less new material on the
Speaker 1: album again because there's that on there. And then there
Speaker 1: are four remixes. tacked onto the end of the standard
Speaker 1: edition of the album. So there is something like two
Speaker 1: tracks from this that are totally original to the moment
Speaker 1: when the album was released in its entirety. As someone who,
Speaker 1: you know, I do at least enjoy when Electric Callboy
Speaker 1: hit full capacity, there are two songs this album that
Speaker 1: I would say I like. Neither of them are even
Speaker 1: ones that you've mentioned, but me as the person, like
Speaker 1: I said, I like when Electric Callboy do essentially like
Speaker 1: Cascada or Scooter, but set to, you know, Metalcore, like
Speaker 1: that kind of Eurodance chorus. So the title track. yeah
Speaker 1: tans need at the start which actually that kind of
Speaker 1: electro groove that it has really reminds me of a
Speaker 1: funk groove and uh the king of funk is of
Speaker 1: course cord hell it really sounds like the song murder
Speaker 1: on my mind his huge hit mr cord hell of
Speaker 1: course is mick kenny from anamnothrack so the anamnothrack influence
Speaker 1: on major metalcore does continue in the most unlikely of
Speaker 1: places um but like i said i like when they've
Speaker 1: got those cascadery type hooks and tans need has that
Speaker 1: and the best one I love Hypercharged And I have
Speaker 1: no fucking knowledge or interest In Brawl Stars Which is
Speaker 1: apparently a video game Online mobile.
Speaker 2: Game Exploitation or gacha shit.
Speaker 1: It has a credit on the actual song On your
Speaker 1: streaming services I thought it was an artist because of
Speaker 1: that But I looked it up and it's a game
Speaker 1: I'm an old man, I don't know what Brawl Stars is,
Speaker 1: but I do like when Electric Callboy sounds like Caramel Danson,
Speaker 1: because I can't help it, it unlocks some latent 2009
Speaker 1: part of me, and that, I think, is a monster tune,
Speaker 1: and they drop that at Bloodstock next year, and I
Speaker 1: will be pumping like crazy. I think they do have earworms,
Speaker 1: there is an art to nailing those Eurodance melodies, and Callboy,
Speaker 1: when they decide to do them and not other nonsense,
Speaker 1: are masters of them. And to be honest, that's all
Speaker 1: I need, like, those two songs, fine, they're not going
Speaker 1: to be in my album of the year list, are they? Like,
Speaker 1: I'm Look at me, I'm a serious man with serious tastes.
Speaker 1: What do you take me for, a fool? But give
Speaker 1: me a couple of absolute ragers to have some fun with,
Speaker 1: fill in the set list, and sure, fine. And Tanznid
Speaker 1: and Hypercharged, I don't mind Heart Club either. Sure, great.
Speaker 1: As an album, it is like techno, but in every
Speaker 1: capacity more forced and more like they're trying to, you know,
Speaker 1: bank on the same thing going well again. And I
Speaker 1: think some of the charge of, certainly I think about
Speaker 1: the big Hyper Hyper moment for them. And the charm
Speaker 1: of that was this like, almost magic fairy tale story
Speaker 1: of it didn't feel so machinating. It was this band
Speaker 1: who nobody paid any mind to for a decade and
Speaker 1: they suddenly came out with arguably the song of the year.
Speaker 1: And I fear that spontaneity of that is something that
Speaker 1: we will never get again out of Electric Corp. And
Speaker 1: we will be chasing this in this more, just as
Speaker 1: I said, banking on it again and again and again
Speaker 1: kind of fashion.
Speaker 2: That's the thing though, we are six years into riffing
Speaker 2: on Hyper Hyper. For me, this is just another nail
Speaker 2: in the coffin of what commercial mainstream metalcore is becoming,
Speaker 2: which is, again, the nadir of heavy music and just
Speaker 2: the worst thing to be going on. And as someone
Speaker 2: who should love metalcore, the cool boy are just kicking
Speaker 2: it further down the line. And I was kind of
Speaker 2: praising them for not being the worst of that sort
Speaker 2: of thing. And on this album, give me techno over this.
Speaker 2: Techno as an album is so much more valuable to
Speaker 2: the tapestry of music than this album is. Because at
Speaker 2: least that has a handful of songs, again, I hated
Speaker 2: at the time, but have existed in my mind. I
Speaker 2: will erase, whether it's like Ratatat and the fucking Sum
Speaker 2: 41 cover, the rest of this album is going to
Speaker 2: be gone from my memory tomorrow to never be thought
Speaker 2: about again. And I mean, that is again why I
Speaker 2: think this album just has no value, no worth, no
Speaker 2: purpose in what we do.
Speaker 5: And I was like, why review this?
Speaker 3: And I get it.
Speaker 5: You're your kind of case study.
Speaker 1: Of like, Mate, you could have listened to the album
Speaker 1: one and I would have accepted that because I really
Speaker 1: wanted to talk about the album strategy. I'm not surprised
Speaker 1: you think it's bollocks.
Speaker 2: And the thing is, if this becomes the norm, again,
Speaker 2: bands I like that are probably going, like, I like
Speaker 2: Ice Nine Kills, they're going down the street and I'm like,
Speaker 2: I've stopped caring about them now because I'm, fucking bored
Speaker 2: of them putting out a single based on a different
Speaker 2: movie every six months.
Speaker 5: And it's like, just release a goddamn album. You release
Speaker 5: two great albums in a row.
Speaker 2: And then you've thrown away that strategy to do this
Speaker 2: drip feed, always in the streaming, always just going to
Speaker 2: come out in the moment thing.
Speaker 5: And I've just stopped caring. And I'm more and more
Speaker 5: bands are going to do that.
Speaker 2: And again, like I say, and it's going to be
Speaker 2: in the metalcore sphere where it's happening the most, because
Speaker 2: that's what is popular metal. And that's all of these
Speaker 2: bands who can't have an original thought to save their
Speaker 2: life are going to copy that. I mean, I think
Speaker 2: you could even chase this line back to sort of
Speaker 2: bring me the rise a little bit on some of
Speaker 2: the post-human stuff. Well, they were sort of drip-feeding singles
Speaker 2: for a long time before that second post-human album came out.
Speaker 2: But this feels at the peak of like, oh, the
Speaker 2: end result, it actually doesn't matter now. Because at least
Speaker 2: post-human next time was like, bring out a proper album there.
Speaker 2: This is not an album. This is a hodgepodge of
Speaker 2: half-thought-out songs that you released and that you've then slapped
Speaker 2: some remixes on to sell a Lego set with to
Speaker 2: say you can then charge 80 quid for the album
Speaker 2: or some shit like that.
Speaker 5: Fuck it.
Speaker 1: Worthless.
Speaker 3: So for the first person I ever heard talk about
Speaker 3: this release strategy before Bring Me The Horizon started doing
Speaker 3: it or like Machine Head looked like they were going
Speaker 3: to do it. The first person I remember hearing say
Speaker 3: that they might give this a go was Weird Al
Speaker 3: Yankovic because he realized that in the modern age songs
Speaker 3: come and go too fast. You record a parody by
Speaker 3: the time the album comes out it's gone. So maybe
Speaker 3: just release the parodies when the songs are relevant and
Speaker 3: then compile them all later. And he decided that that
Speaker 3: would be... That that would cheapen his art. So I
Speaker 3: think if you're a band, considering going down this route, go...
Speaker 3: Big love for Weirdo Yankovic, by the way. Great guy.
Speaker 3: But if you think he finds it a bit daft, silly,
Speaker 3: and cheapifying of what he does... Actually, I'm saying that.
Speaker 3: I was talking about Electric Callboy. Of course I don't
Speaker 3: fucking care. Obviously they're doing this. But I think even if.
Speaker 3: Even with its strategy, if this record was great, it'd
Speaker 3: be fine. This album is like pale imitation of techno
Speaker 3: for me, which I'm not even that keen on.
Speaker 1: But what's going to happen next is Electric Cowboy will
Speaker 1: release a new single rather soon. They'll probably have a
Speaker 1: couple out by the time those Vakken and Bloodstock headlines happen.
Speaker 1: And then that will appear on an album that's out
Speaker 1: at 2028, at the earliest. This is, again, the strategy
Speaker 1: they're going down where the album is not the, I mean,
Speaker 1: we probably won't review, you know, Callaway albums from here
Speaker 1: because the albums, if that is the strategy, because the
Speaker 1: albums are not the thing that they're wanting to be reviewed,
Speaker 1: so to speak, you know what I mean? And I
Speaker 1: thought that was an interesting case study. Hypercharged is really big, though.
Speaker 1: Justice for Hypercharged. That's the best song on this record. Anyway,
Speaker 1: it was quite a busy month for Punk and Hardcore
Speaker 1: with quite a few prominent releases, you know, prominent names
Speaker 1: releasing records. But it did feel quite obvious which one
Speaker 1: we were going to go with. We are going to
Speaker 1: talk now about Living Weapon and their album A Death
Speaker 1: in the Family, a debut album that is a whopping
Speaker 1: 23 minutes in length. This is the newest band to
Speaker 1: come from the Vain slash Fleshwater stable. Not got the
Speaker 1: FM bit or whatever that was going on there for
Speaker 1: a bit, but they share the majority of their members
Speaker 1: with Vain, just not playing the same instruments. There's some
Speaker 1: swapsies going on. There had been a bit of bubbling
Speaker 1: for a couple of months before this release that those
Speaker 1: guys had something cooking. This record was going to be
Speaker 1: one to look forward to, even as a new band.
Speaker 1: And the kind of impact that I'm always chasing with
Speaker 1: something like this is when Vain released Arizona in 2018...
Speaker 1: which is a genuine modern classic now. Not just because
Speaker 1: we like it and we remember it fondly and think
Speaker 1: it's good, but now a lot of time has passed.
Speaker 1: The amount of people you see in Hardcore talking about
Speaker 1: what a huge album that was for them. I'm really...
Speaker 1: It warms my heart to see how well that album's
Speaker 1: aged and how fondly people remember it and that it
Speaker 1: has been kind of canonised because it really was that
Speaker 1: good and I think it's awesome that an album that
Speaker 1: we lived through and can speak about in being in
Speaker 1: somewhat recent memory can impact people's lives the way that
Speaker 1: that seemed to do. That splash of Davey Alma Rives,
Speaker 1: new band, they've got a couple of splits or EPs
Speaker 1: before it, it's 20-something minutes long and it fucking tore
Speaker 1: down the place. That's the sort of feeling that I
Speaker 1: think a lot of us are chasing. Not just from
Speaker 1: Vain themselves, who unfortunately seem to have just drifted into
Speaker 1: hiatus status, but any band like this. This, in a
Speaker 1: number of ways, is very different to that record and
Speaker 1: that band. I think it very clearly is a new
Speaker 1: band for creative reasons. But it is amongst the most
Speaker 1: caustic on impact debuts from the hardcore world that we've
Speaker 1: gotten in a while. So I figured let's talk about it.
Speaker 2: I just want to throw out, this band is not
Speaker 2: actually as new because this band formed whilst Vain was
Speaker 2: still active.
Speaker 5: They had an EP out in like 2021.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So this band was like that.
Speaker 2: And then put on the shelf for a while. So like,
Speaker 2: this has been sort of long time cooking. But when
Speaker 2: it kind of reemerged that like, oh, Vain, we're getting
Speaker 2: this going again. I mean, I was a little bit
Speaker 2: as I'm like, Vain, come on, do something. But this
Speaker 2: was shelved. This clip was shelved when Fleshwater became the
Speaker 2: kind of all encompassing primary focus because Fleshwater got massive. Like, so,
Speaker 2: this song's on the Vanguard shelf, but now they've come
Speaker 2: back with this, and my God, does this album just
Speaker 2: tickle the spot for me. If you like mathy but
Speaker 2: sludgy hardcore in the vein of, like, Code Orange on
Speaker 2: I Am King, like, that kind of, I mean, this is, like,
Speaker 2: that's kind of the closest kind of, like, something, if
Speaker 2: you like that, this album is just serving that up,
Speaker 2: and oh boy, is that album, is this album for me.
Speaker 5: Like, the moment you hit play on this, and.
Speaker 2: You are just onslaught from the first level with this
Speaker 2: like mix of chaotic glitchy hardcore those like insane guitars
Speaker 2: doing laser pew pew noises and scratching and something like
Speaker 2: the guitars are like breaking under the intensity of how
Speaker 2: they've been played with just the most oppressive horrid sounding
Speaker 2: sort of hardcore squall this um from here in plan
Speaker 2: i'm like yeah i'm just in i'm just in on
Speaker 2: the sound of this it's not necessarily got the song
Speaker 2: strength of like vein on arizona but um just as
Speaker 2: a kind of like sonic explosion this album constantly just
Speaker 2: makes me smile and feel all giddy and sort of
Speaker 2: like yeah make the heaviest noises you can with this
Speaker 2: sort of mappy sludgy hardcore fusion yeah i mean i.
Speaker 1: For once i would downplay the code orange comparison because
Speaker 1: obviously the natural comparison that people have made is vain
Speaker 1: because it's those guys um and i think it's you
Speaker 1: know there's a bit of pushback to that because people
Speaker 1: go oh yeah it's a different band it doesn't just
Speaker 1: sound like vein which is true it is obviously relatable
Speaker 1: to them because it's got their fingerprints all over it
Speaker 1: but for me it's if you like the kind of
Speaker 1: math core of vein but what this really um deviated
Speaker 1: far into um is like if you took vein as
Speaker 1: like you know the starting point but then you took
Speaker 1: it a different direction cross that with the hugest streak
Speaker 1: of bands like Frontiera and Carbom. Like, the genuine brain-crunching
Speaker 1: sonic abuse of that strand of, like, sometimes not even
Speaker 1: what you could call hardcore, but just, like, skronky metallic noise.
Speaker 1: That's what, if we take this with, again... Laser pew-pew guitars. Yeah,
Speaker 1: within the sort of, again, vein, flesh, water, stable of bands,
Speaker 1: that is the sort of terrain that this particular band
Speaker 1: seems to be, you know, built for.
Speaker 5: Would agree i just.
Speaker 2: Think he's got the sludgy thing that's why i can
Speaker 2: i kind of go with the i am king thing
Speaker 2: but it's definitely got that that real kind of full-on
Speaker 2: mathy metallic chaos of something like frontier for sure.
Speaker 3: That was the thing that leapt to mind for me
Speaker 3: and uh full disclosure it's been a very busy week
Speaker 3: and i really needed this to be a straightforward once
Speaker 3: in once out beat down hardcore for the first time
Speaker 3: ever i was like give me the most basic room
Speaker 3: temperature IQ hardcore album you can offer me, and I see, like,
Speaker 3: they're called Living Weapon, the logo looks pretty, like, that
Speaker 3: way inclined, the length, it's nine songs, 23 minutes, I'm going, perfect,
Speaker 3: that's exactly what I'm looking for, and then I am
Speaker 3: greeted with one of the densest, most, like, knotty, and
Speaker 3: just straight up fucking loud hardcore albums that I've heard
Speaker 3: from a new band in some time, and all the
Speaker 3: reference points, like, Frontier, Carbon, like, Quite naturally, there's some
Speaker 3: stuff like Meshuggah in there, Coalesce. In terms of just
Speaker 3: all that attack, when it gets really frantic, not far
Speaker 3: off stuff like The Locust or the math core of
Speaker 3: the late 90s, stuff like Dillinger, stuff of that ilk.
Speaker 3: Like I said, I love all the things I mentioned.
Speaker 3: On the particular day that I sat down to listen
Speaker 3: to this, I was not in the mood, but thankfully,
Speaker 3: I think these guys are seriously good at it. When
Speaker 3: this band go off the chain, in the same way
Speaker 3: that Frontier and Carbond Those bands sound wild... And... Feral...
Speaker 3: Even when it's technical... And it's dense... It's clearly a
Speaker 3: studio built project....
Speaker 1: It just.
Speaker 3: It sounds... Legitimately nasty... Yeah.
Speaker 1: Because the thing that amazed me about Vain... Is they
Speaker 1: were so ultra violent... That every... Like beat... Of that record...
Speaker 1: Every second where it pounds you... Like... Counted for something...
Speaker 1: Like it has so much precision... And in the second album...
Speaker 1: They lent even more... Into kind of the atmospheric stuff...
Speaker 1: And like the horror darkness... This, much more just like,
Speaker 1: seeks to overwhelm you. Like, it is so much noisier.
Speaker 1: I think it's way less groovy, for one thing, even
Speaker 1: at the high speeds, and it's much more spin you
Speaker 1: round in the washing machine and let you stumble and
Speaker 1: flop out afterwards. I think, even though there are definite
Speaker 1: mosh parts on it. But I think you would find
Speaker 1: it harder to mosh to this than you would Vain,
Speaker 1: for example, because it's just so much more obtuse. And
Speaker 1: I think for those reasons, I've not connected with this
Speaker 1: as strongly as I did the two Vain records, but
Speaker 1: that's fine. It's doing a different thing. For the ugliest
Speaker 1: violence you could pull out of these realms, it is
Speaker 1: hard to beat. There are basically no catchy songs on
Speaker 1: this thing. It is just being beaten and pissed on
Speaker 1: for 23 minutes and from directions that you had no
Speaker 1: way of preparing for them coming from. The first song,
Speaker 1: the first element, has these manic panic chords, but then
Speaker 1: it's like they're played in reverse. It's like they're being
Speaker 1: sucked up back into a vacuum cleaner from which they came.
Speaker 1: It's like a real whirlwind of an album intro. And
Speaker 1: then it has a minute of what amounts to an
Speaker 1: alarm going off and clearing a factory room floor until
Speaker 1: it finally hits its central mosh part. And when that
Speaker 1: does come in, it is fucking glass shattering. And then
Speaker 1: the outro of the song is a full avant-garde borderline
Speaker 1: jazz like drum kit freak out and that is your
Speaker 1: welcoming into the record and the reason I mentioned bands
Speaker 1: like Car Bomb and Frontier as I think the major
Speaker 1: you know if you like that for fans of thing
Speaker 1: is it has that similar level of what in the
Speaker 1: ever loving fuck are they doing to get these noises
Speaker 1: I think it is more hardcore based than those because
Speaker 1: it does have the mosh parts and it does have
Speaker 1: big breakdowns and so on But the thing that my
Speaker 1: brain is mostly doing is trying to keep up with, like,
Speaker 1: what are these laser beams being directly fired into my
Speaker 1: temples at an alarming rate? Like, this is a big
Speaker 1: noise record. Not in the harsh noise music sense, but
Speaker 1: in the what-the-fuck-are-those-noises sense, which is a distinct, you know,
Speaker 1: separate thrill, its own kind of category of album. Like,
Speaker 1: when the first two songs are just so, like, you
Speaker 1: get light speed and disorientating, but then when Dead Like
Speaker 1: You comes in at track three, and the bass at
Speaker 1: the start is, like... broken like it's like you've had
Speaker 1: it's almost like the first two songs were the normal
Speaker 1: band and then suddenly you get the chopped and screwed
Speaker 1: version at chapter three where they were at least recognizable
Speaker 1: as hardcore songs and then suddenly this fucking slurred industrial
Speaker 1: squelch noise comes out to follow them these moments these
Speaker 1: kind of intros on tracks just like just really keep
Speaker 1: you on your toes for the duration of it and
Speaker 1: just let you know you're never safe i.
Speaker 2: Mean like metastasis like was like track two like that
Speaker 2: is one where again the the sort of the sounds
Speaker 2: they are forcing out the guitar it just gives me
Speaker 2: such a kick i mean like the hardcore stuff comes
Speaker 2: from um because uh jonathan um he's like i think
Speaker 2: the bassist in veins the vocalist one he is like
Speaker 2: got much more like a typical kind of like that
Speaker 2: that hardcore sort of barked harsh vocal with less of
Speaker 2: the kind of like really shrill like frantic scream that
Speaker 2: um that he had on the um vein records but
Speaker 2: he is just kind of commanding and shouting at you
Speaker 2: and it is just kind of like going all over
Speaker 2: and then when they hit like this thing is the
Speaker 2: mosh parts when they do lock in someone this record
Speaker 2: are fucking unbelievably hard like it's they don't come around
Speaker 2: as sort of frequent as you might expect because again
Speaker 2: it's the record is more interesting kind of like doing
Speaker 2: all this other stuff and dizzying you around but like
Speaker 2: again the one at the end of metastasis just like
Speaker 2: clobbers you and that then going into dead like you
Speaker 2: which just has this like deranged cyber dirge sort of
Speaker 2: spiraling around and this song just kind of like uncurling
Speaker 2: into these sort of fast passages and Like, the song
Speaker 2: structures are, like, really unpredictable, and they are just designed
Speaker 2: to sort of dizzy you and leave you kind of, like,
Speaker 2: trying to piece together exactly what's going on. And it means, again, like,
Speaker 2: there's not the amount of, like, kind of shout-along hooks.
Speaker 2: It's kind of like, Rain were never the most hooky band,
Speaker 2: but they had the sort of, like, the pile-on mic-grab moments.
Speaker 2: There's really none of that here, because the songs aren't
Speaker 2: into that. It's just kind of, like, all about overwhelming
Speaker 2: you with, like, the sonic sense of belief, either, like,
Speaker 2: crushing riffs or... just the most fucked up, unpredictable sounds imaginable.
Speaker 3: But they do, you know, in terms of sequencing, they
Speaker 3: know how to pace themselves over the 23 minutes, because
Speaker 3: you get a path into Genesis, which is right in
Speaker 3: the middle of these four songs on either side of it.
Speaker 3: And after that just barrage nightmare that comes before it,
Speaker 3: you get this thing which is somewhere between a song
Speaker 3: and an interlude. It's as long as pretty much anything
Speaker 3: else on the record, but it's like I say, barely
Speaker 3: a song. It's heavy and it has live drums, but
Speaker 3: there's no electric instrumentation, really. It's like a sort of
Speaker 3: jazzy chiptune song, and there's just this.
Speaker 1: It's an absurd track.
Speaker 3: It's a crazy thing to put on the record, but
Speaker 3: also it provides a really nice respite. Yeah, it's still
Speaker 3: not quite feeling like respite, but then, I mean, you
Speaker 3: were talking about mosh parts. When that then introduces interspecies
Speaker 3: quality assessment, which just does the new level riff, but
Speaker 3: carbomifies it. It's like, who could possibly complain about that?
Speaker 3: And I do think there are enough of those on
Speaker 3: the record where if the idea of listening to stuff
Speaker 3: that sounds like Frontier and Car Bomb and the bands
Speaker 3: we've been mentioning so far sounds a bit daunting, there
Speaker 3: is enough of the swing-your-fists quota to make this... It's
Speaker 3: the spoonful of sugar that makes the medicine go down.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, when interspecies quality assessment comes in, it's
Speaker 1: quite relieving. because it's the thuggiest thing on the record.
Speaker 1: That normally would be so oppressive, but it's like, oh,
Speaker 1: sweet fist-swingy relief after Path of Genesis, which is... just
Speaker 1: a malfunctioning robot in the dead centre of the album,
Speaker 1: and I love that that song, it almost starts off
Speaker 1: like it's gonna groove, and then, oh no, actually it's broken.
Speaker 1: It's just completely abrasive, and too much of such, you've
Speaker 1: just gotta kind of let it do its thing. I mean,
Speaker 1: Dead Like You, before that, there's a bit in that
Speaker 1: that just legitimately sounds like a dentist drill, which is
Speaker 1: probably quite triggering to certain people. There are, I guess
Speaker 1: you would say, lead guitars all over this album, but
Speaker 1: they're just doing paranoid freakouts as tunelessly as they can.
Speaker 1: It's a very, like, bionic mechanized like you know computer
Speaker 1: feedbacky kind of record it's like you're looking into the
Speaker 1: whirring you know brain of a machine that is rapidly
Speaker 1: breaking down while you're like trying to fix it um
Speaker 1: and yeah the way they like offset and pronounce the
Speaker 1: mosh parts quite well um like the penultimate track is
Speaker 1: just a pure sludge dirge wall the noise but it's
Speaker 1: clearly setting up the closing track when no like compared
Speaker 1: which is slower than most of the record but it
Speaker 1: just feels like scary and violent and oppressive and that
Speaker 1: song does have an actual riff in it like a
Speaker 1: full-on kind of like a slower nail style honest to
Speaker 1: god riff which most of the songs like if they
Speaker 1: do have those they're at like warp speed and they're
Speaker 1: gone in a second but it's just so battering and
Speaker 1: like you know certainly considering the last record we spoke
Speaker 1: about it's good to get these examples of like legitimately
Speaker 1: extreme you know boundary pushing metalcore that is you know
Speaker 1: this is metallic hardcore but taking such a warped extreme
Speaker 1: i i don't think this is like vein level great
Speaker 1: or scratching that exact itch that i'm i am missing
Speaker 1: having scratched um since they decided to to vanish but
Speaker 1: you know that's again it's agreeable it's aiming for a
Speaker 1: different thing sometimes you need to have your brain reset
Speaker 1: by just an absolute fucking racket like it's like getting
Speaker 1: in an electric massage therapy chair you know and just
Speaker 1: go and then you get out and your joints have
Speaker 1: loosened up and that's kind of what this record does.
Speaker 2: Yeah i've just had just so much for me i
Speaker 2: mean it's kind of like the leaving process has like
Speaker 2: bits of like new metal in there almost which again
Speaker 2: like we're in this like crazed side of something that
Speaker 2: there are moments where they kind of like oh this
Speaker 2: is approaching a banger but they just can't like resist
Speaker 2: fucking it up so that's almost like a like almost
Speaker 2: like corn-esque kind of like bouncy new metal riff but
Speaker 2: then they just kind of like fuck with it and
Speaker 2: and anti starts laying in these like crazed backing vocals
Speaker 2: so like It's an album that just wants to constantly
Speaker 2: kind of like rattle you around and say like, you know,
Speaker 2: you can't sit anywhere for too long. If you thought
Speaker 2: you were getting comfortable with this record, have some of
Speaker 2: this batshit stuff. And that's just like a nice reset
Speaker 2: of an album that is just unafraid to just constantly
Speaker 2: throttle you and just sort of be a bit more
Speaker 2: kind of out there and explosive, which I think like, again,
Speaker 2: with the concept of hardcore, I think this is an
Speaker 2: album that has kind of just sort of stood out
Speaker 2: by just being so... batshit relentless. And that's why, in
Speaker 2: a way that, like, Carbom and Frontier haven't necessarily crossed
Speaker 2: over into your more typical hardcore train. This has kind
Speaker 2: of got hardcore kids excited about that kind of, like, insane, cyber-maffy, noisy,
Speaker 2: kind of metallic sort of sound. So I think they've
Speaker 2: clearly found a way to tap that into the more
Speaker 2: mosh-ready hardcore thing. And that's why, for me, again, I've just...
Speaker 2: Just had such a fun time with this rocker. And again,
Speaker 2: 23 minutes in and out. It's only really on the
Speaker 2: last song where it slows down a little bit. And
Speaker 2: even that avoids feeling like the typical slow down, hardcore
Speaker 2: dirge closer. Because it's still got enough mental shit going
Speaker 2: on in it.
Speaker 3: I just can't believe Perrin compared this to a massage chair.
Speaker 1: It's more like, have you seen Crimes of the Future?
Speaker 1: The more recent David Cronenberg film. For anyone who's seen
Speaker 1: that film, the chair that Viggo Mortensen sits in now
Speaker 1: when he's trying to digest food. That's what this album is.
Speaker 1: Go watch Chromes of the Future, Ellie.
Speaker 3: It's a great film.
Speaker 1: It's better than probably some of the films that you'll
Speaker 1: watch this year for your one-year quota. There you go.
Speaker 1: Living Weapon, A Death in the Family. As we, again,
Speaker 1: start to take a little perusal around the underground here,
Speaker 1: we are going from hardcore to heavy metal. It's been
Speaker 1: a minute since we reviewed just a proper heavy metal album,
Speaker 1: I think. The Night Eternal is the name of this band.
Speaker 1: Cold Velvet is the album. This is a name that
Speaker 1: you might start to see popping up more and more.
Speaker 1: It's definitely one where you look at the Euro festivals
Speaker 1: and they're starting to creep up those a little more.
Speaker 1: I don't know to what degree it's happening here in
Speaker 1: the UK, but maybe off the back of this one.
Speaker 1: I saw them supporting Blind Guardian here two years ago
Speaker 1: and I thought they were pretty good. These guys are
Speaker 1: from Germany. They released their debut album in 2021. This
Speaker 1: is now their third album. But we have a label
Speaker 1: jump here. Their first two albums were released on the
Speaker 1: very cool smaller German label Van Records, but now they
Speaker 1: are signed to Metal Blade. So I thought this would
Speaker 1: be a good moment to check in with this band
Speaker 1: and upcoming band and assess what we've got here. Obviously,
Speaker 1: I've given it away, the name of the game is
Speaker 1: Heavy Metal, but particularly with the Night Eternal, it is
Speaker 1: a kind of gothic-leaning strand of... of heavy metal where
Speaker 1: if you are a fan of unto others or in
Speaker 1: solitude that is very much the kind of target demographic
Speaker 1: we're talking about here or you know other bands we've
Speaker 1: had around in the underground like spell or sonia uh
Speaker 1: in a lot of cases this sort of wave that
Speaker 1: we've had you know kind of starting around 2019 ish
Speaker 1: um it's bands who heard what in solitude were doing
Speaker 1: around 2013 and have gone why don't we actually try
Speaker 1: and like make a go of turning that into a
Speaker 1: career and picking up that bat and running with it
Speaker 1: and in basically all those cases it's never as like
Speaker 1: genuinely sort of occult and real feeling with its like
Speaker 1: darkness and dangerous and in solitude but maybe a little
Speaker 1: bit more broadly accessible where we can play big festivals
Speaker 1: and support big heavy metal bands and the crowd will
Speaker 1: hopefully have a good time that's the kind of thing
Speaker 1: we're talking about with the night eternal it's probably not
Speaker 1: a surprise to you guys that i like this quite
Speaker 1: a bit right these are all my favorite things are
Speaker 1: you guys down.
Speaker 2: Yeah i like this i'm not kind of like wowed
Speaker 2: by them as a whole there are tracks on this
Speaker 2: i think are fucking brilliant i think when it hits
Speaker 2: it really does hit i think it gets a little
Speaker 2: bit one note but you know i think um where
Speaker 2: the world ends as an opener that that kind of
Speaker 2: just sort of gives me everything i could want in
Speaker 2: terms of like rock star kind of like power vocal
Speaker 2: that's drenched in mel and sort of melancholy but over
Speaker 2: you know galloping heavy metal riffs and it's got air
Speaker 2: grab potential and throw the horns potential it's got a
Speaker 2: grooving kind of bridge riff um it's got like pristine
Speaker 2: glistening sort of gothic guitar solos that whole where this
Speaker 2: world ends i stand alone is a big hook that
Speaker 2: final chorus sounds even bigger it kind of hits all
Speaker 2: the nice one notes where i think there's nothing on
Speaker 2: this album i dislike i think it's just kind of
Speaker 2: like it throws its all best foot forward with that
Speaker 2: opener and then kind of over the course of an
Speaker 2: album offers up seven or so other versions of that
Speaker 2: that are all pretty good but don't wow me in
Speaker 2: the way that the opening necessarily does but i still
Speaker 2: have a nice time when this is on.
Speaker 3: Perrin, you continue to surprise me. I can't believe you've
Speaker 3: brought us a German gothic heavy metal album called Cold
Speaker 3: Velvet with an inverted boost pitch and a cloaked statue
Speaker 3: on it.
Speaker 1: They've signed to Metal Blade! I thought it was worthwhile!
Speaker 3: Yeah, so as far as the record goes, yeah, I
Speaker 3: think this is very good. I'm not doing cartwheels about it.
Speaker 3: I think there's maybe a lack of personality to this record, maybe.
Speaker 3: Or a a distinct identity you mentioned in solitude none
Speaker 3: to others and those bands that are so distinctive and
Speaker 3: so extra especially in the case of unto others like
Speaker 3: so dexterous in their songwriting the nice eternal kind of
Speaker 3: they focus more on the specific thing that they do
Speaker 3: uh but i do like their take on as well
Speaker 3: as the gothic end of things the way they take
Speaker 3: from classic heavy metal that isn't just iron maiden and
Speaker 3: priest and motorhead and you know no slot on those
Speaker 3: bands but those are the back the classic heavy bands
Speaker 3: newer bands tend to lean on this is more like
Speaker 3: I'm like, Queensryche? and europe that sort of classy like
Speaker 3: that particular melodic style has been carried.
Speaker 1: Over queens reich i could definitely say being a comparison which.
Speaker 3: It's no bad thing at all i think like the
Speaker 3: songs on it are There isn't one song where I go,
Speaker 3: fucking hell, they've nailed, that's amazing. That's absolutely brilliant. But
Speaker 3: there's also not a song on it that I think
Speaker 3: is less than good. They kind of all do roughly
Speaker 3: the same thing to a good standard.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think we are all roughly on the same
Speaker 1: page here. I do think there are a few jams.
Speaker 1: on this. I think it sounds great production-wise, for one thing. That,
Speaker 1: you know, Where This World Ends, the beginning, has this
Speaker 1: great intro with these huge thudding drums, but then also
Speaker 1: these really, like, nocturnal, glistening, goth, clean guitars that slip so, like,
Speaker 1: naturally and powerfully into then a heavy metal gallop. I
Speaker 1: think particularly the star of the show is their singer,
Speaker 1: Ricardo Baum, is a really strong singer. Like, his clarity
Speaker 1: and his control. Particularly, he has that gothy expressiveness where
Speaker 1: he is able, you know, he can cast the figure
Speaker 1: of a heavy metal singer. where he could probably hold
Speaker 1: a sword in a spiked gauntlet if he wanted to.
Speaker 1: But he also has that sort of, like, rosiness in
Speaker 1: his voice, and the way he, like, really mulls notes
Speaker 1: over to bring that gothic colour. He's kind of duel-ish
Speaker 1: at points, like on that first song when he's doing the,
Speaker 1: you know, it's if you kind of enjoyed the singing
Speaker 1: and the melodic approach on that last duel album. but
Speaker 1: you want something a little bit more like denim and
Speaker 1: leather about it, I would point you to this. There
Speaker 1: is a single on this called Caught in a Spell,
Speaker 1: which features a music video, by the way, of a
Speaker 1: knight in full plate armor just riding a motorcycle around
Speaker 1: the woods. I love that that's kind of a visual
Speaker 1: trope and a style that all these bands in the
Speaker 1: underground seem to be doing now. But not only does
Speaker 1: that start off with a super reverb-y slide guitar for
Speaker 1: some reason, like going goth western mode, maybe similar to
Speaker 1: some of what was on the last Mesa album, But
Speaker 1: the way he milks the fuck out of that caught
Speaker 1: in a spell is just so awesome to me. And
Speaker 1: they've got that real, like, 80s pop metal sensibility that, like,
Speaker 1: the last Summerlands album, Dreamkiller, absolutely nailed. But with, again,
Speaker 1: a more gothy element to it. And that kind of
Speaker 1: MTV gate that Caught in a Spell has really does
Speaker 1: it for me. And I think some of their choruses,
Speaker 1: you know, like, Eurydice, Don't Look Back. It's just, like, really...
Speaker 1: air grabbing and skipping out the night and it's just
Speaker 1: like you know quintessentially 80s in a way that absolutely
Speaker 1: hands up guilty i know many people out there listening
Speaker 1: will feel the same i can't have a better time
Speaker 1: to it.
Speaker 2: I think I'm caught in a spell that has like
Speaker 2: kind of goth sunset strip, but with like melancholy. So
Speaker 2: like when you're saying the video is a night on
Speaker 2: a motorcycle, I'm like, yeah, that's a song that I
Speaker 2: would ride a motorcycle around because it has got that
Speaker 2: kind of like sunset strips or four, four eighties pop
Speaker 2: metal stomp and sleaze. But it's got like, again, that
Speaker 2: kind of like gothic melancholy that, that kind of goes different.
Speaker 2: I mean, that's a pretty, cool sort of thing i
Speaker 2: i kind of wish they did more of the the
Speaker 2: gothic slide guitar thing because again reminds me a little
Speaker 2: bit of some of the stuff i really liked on
Speaker 2: the last afi record well they kind of like played
Speaker 2: with that a bit um but like again i think
Speaker 2: like is i think maybe the first of them like
Speaker 2: i think um don't look back again loads of drama
Speaker 2: in the vocals it's major and triumphant but like it's
Speaker 2: got that's got that kind of cool goth disco beat
Speaker 2: on the drum that kind of like lets it sort
Speaker 2: of shuffle along and kind of has it has a
Speaker 2: cool that sort of little goth.
Speaker 5: Dance vibe to it that i'm always going to enjoy i.
Speaker 2: Think like i said these songs i don't dislike any
Speaker 2: of them i think some are just kind of like
Speaker 2: a bit more disposable when the last candle dies i'm
Speaker 2: like ah oh no no is that that one um.
Speaker 1: Yeah i think that the first three songs i think
Speaker 1: are really great and then that's the fourth track i
Speaker 1: believe and it's the first one that to me kind
Speaker 1: of feels like a snap track you know.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that's something I'm like in the hands of Unto Others.
Speaker 2: I think that song would be fucking brilliant because they
Speaker 2: could bring so much more character and dynamics to it.
Speaker 2: Whereas in here, I'm like, yeah, it's a decent goth
Speaker 2: metal song, but it doesn't like in my notes. I
Speaker 2: was kind of like running out of things to say
Speaker 2: about it because it was just kind of like, yeah,
Speaker 2: it kind of exists. And they've kind of shown me
Speaker 2: all the things I do. But I still don't think
Speaker 2: it's bad. I still kind of like was having a
Speaker 2: pleasant time with it on.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, When the Last Candle Dies, for the record,
Speaker 3: I really like that song. I think it sounds like
Speaker 3: a training montage for the Grim Reaper, but I will
Speaker 3: concede that by that point in the record that we're
Speaker 3: not getting many new ideas beyond that. But I do
Speaker 3: think they saved some of their more interesting, well, not
Speaker 3: even more interesting, but just more rousing choruses. Like The
Speaker 3: Shape of Sorrow comes right near the end of the record,
Speaker 3: and I think that's got one of the most striking
Speaker 3: choruses of the bunch. Or The Watcher of the Burning Veil,
Speaker 3: which they go a bit more nightfall candle mass on
Speaker 3: that one. but it also goes a bit faster at
Speaker 3: the end. That's one of the more dynamic songs. I'm
Speaker 3: not sure they have quite the aura to carry off
Speaker 3: going off full Doug Bradley at the end, like the
Speaker 3: way that Craig LaFilth do it. It's so good. It
Speaker 3: doesn't quite map onto them so nicely, but it's not
Speaker 3: a bad thing to throw in something that bold towards
Speaker 3: the end. I do think maybe the album could do
Speaker 3: with a bit more punch, more of those moments where
Speaker 3: it really grabs the ear. But at the same time,
Speaker 3: there's nothing wrong with putting a record on that's consistent
Speaker 3: and pleasant all the way through, and fulfills its mood.
Speaker 1: For sure. I mean, The Veins of Time has, dare
Speaker 1: I say, a bit of Thin Lizzy in there, where
Speaker 1: that chorus, where he adopts that kind of lower register,
Speaker 1: it's a bit like, oh yeah, that's what Phil Linnet
Speaker 1: would sound like if he had a Sisters of Mercy
Speaker 1: phase in the 80s, which is a cool flavour I'm
Speaker 1: here for. The Watcher of the Burning Veil, I think,
Speaker 1: is my second favourite song on the record, because I
Speaker 1: love when they can't help sounding particularly German as well.
Speaker 1: It's like, you can... dress up like an English goth
Speaker 1: rock band all you like but I know you have
Speaker 1: spent far too much time at Wacken Festival and that
Speaker 1: I seek the truth and ride through forlorn lands followed
Speaker 1: by a woe doing the same thing and then that
Speaker 1: demonic monster voice spoken word bridge you're talking about it's
Speaker 1: pure like maiden worship by the German heavy metal circuit
Speaker 1: utterly unafraid of cheese and I'm here for it I
Speaker 1: think it's cool and it is like a really well
Speaker 1: arranged song I do think again we've all kind of
Speaker 1: said it the problem with the Night of Turtles is
Speaker 1: they're doing a thing i think very well that already
Speaker 1: has a handful of world-class bands occupying it and they're
Speaker 1: not as absolutely you know mercurial as unto others or
Speaker 1: in solitude were they're not as i think even though
Speaker 1: i think they do this flavor well they're not as
Speaker 1: absolutely anthemic fuck me why aren't this band massive as
Speaker 1: you know summerlands with with dream killer coming out um
Speaker 1: it's not as like high energy and attitude fuelled either
Speaker 1: as like, you know, when Unto Others go the other
Speaker 1: way from the goth stuff and knock out a really
Speaker 1: crazy one. Or, you know, another example, the trad metal
Speaker 1: album from this year that we spoke about recently at
Speaker 1: the end of our Black Breath special, right? This, I
Speaker 1: think it is like all, you know, pretty yearning all
Speaker 1: the way through. And I think as a result, you
Speaker 1: do get into some of the album tracks and they
Speaker 1: come off a bit like, you know, lesser versions of
Speaker 1: the singles. They've not caught quite as many modes. It
Speaker 1: is basically just a lot of like, you know, over
Speaker 1: the course of the album. But I think, you know,
Speaker 1: Four out of the eight songs on this, I think,
Speaker 1: are crackers. And the other four are pretty fine. And
Speaker 1: I think that they have got enough accessible, broader appeal. Again,
Speaker 1: I saw them supporting Blind Guardian. Maybe with this record,
Speaker 1: you could see them supporting a ghost or a merciful fate.
Speaker 1: Or even, I imagine, if they can pull them away
Speaker 1: from their children for one tour. Really giving it a go. So,
Speaker 1: if you are a fan of the kind of things
Speaker 1: that we are talking about, here is another, you know,
Speaker 1: goth heavy metal joining the fray, who I think are
Speaker 1: really enjoyable with it. So, The Night Eternal and Cold
Speaker 1: Velvet is the name of that album. And finally, our
Speaker 1: real delving into the underground picks this month, although this
Speaker 1: one came out a little while ago, but Elliot, you
Speaker 1: have brought it forward. The band are called Zorn, like
Speaker 1: John Zorn. Unfortunately, no connection there that I can tell,
Speaker 1: but Z-O-R-N and Return to Castle Death is the name
Speaker 1: of the album. We have gone full castle fucking... dungeon
Speaker 1: crawling in the last couple of these reviews. Elliot, how
Speaker 1: did Zorn come onto your radar, and what made you
Speaker 1: bring them forward?
Speaker 3: Well, you've just preempted it there, but I'd been hearing
Speaker 3: the buzz that the new Zorn album was really good,
Speaker 3: and I thought, John Zorn? Like, what's he up to
Speaker 3: these days?
Speaker 1: John's back!
Speaker 3: The Johnny boy!
Speaker 1: You're wearing some weird makeup these days!
Speaker 3: Well, literally, I was like.
Speaker 1: What's with the cape?
Speaker 3: That's not a very John Zorn-y title. And then I
Speaker 3: found it out. I put it on. I found it
Speaker 3: wasn't John Zorn, and was... an atom of a millisecond,
Speaker 3: slightly deflated, but then was entirely inflated once again, because
Speaker 3: this has been one of my favourite underground discoveries of
Speaker 3: this year. I wasn't expecting to talk about it, let's say,
Speaker 3: on the show, because I got to it a bit late,
Speaker 3: but the more I've listened to it, the more I've
Speaker 3: wanted to, and again, for a band as off-kilter as
Speaker 3: we're about to get into, and weird, and on the
Speaker 3: face for off-putting, I've come to know that among you
Speaker 3: guys and among the audience and stuff like that, there
Speaker 3: is a serious hankering for maverick, weird, underground metal which
Speaker 3: operates somewhere between the dungeon synth and the speed metal
Speaker 3: and the crust. And Zorn, they live in that Venn
Speaker 3: diagram as well and are arguably one of the most eccentric, batshit-sounding...
Speaker 3: Of the bands in that whole world And Without saying
Speaker 3: too much I am head over heels for what they're
Speaker 3: doing Yeah well.
Speaker 1: It's interesting that this is part of I think what
Speaker 1: we have seen developing recently Is a clear like codified
Speaker 1: wave Of like a certain kind of sound Where this
Speaker 1: is like absolutely That sort of feral, demented Black metal
Speaker 1: punk Of you know Characterised by bands such as Devilmaster
Speaker 1: Who are inspired by Japanese punk bands Like Jizzm but
Speaker 1: then mixing it in with like vampiric black metal and
Speaker 1: a bit of death rock i wasn't at all surprised
Speaker 1: when i pulled this up and they were from philadelphia
Speaker 1: pennsylvania because that's where devil master and spider and cape
Speaker 1: of bats it's like where all these bands kind of
Speaker 1: scene sort of hangs out you know and I think
Speaker 1: it's fun you know just academically that we are here
Speaker 1: in the 2020s you know so many years into you
Speaker 1: know punk and extreme metal and all these things history
Speaker 1: and we are still getting these like specific strains of
Speaker 1: underground extreme music that are becoming like their own codified
Speaker 1: thing like I don't know if this really has a
Speaker 1: quite a name yet but this sort of like you
Speaker 1: know devil punk thing that this and Devilmaster these kind
Speaker 1: of bands and Spider deal in does feel like it's
Speaker 1: it's very now you know in a way similar maybe
Speaker 1: to what we said about some of the recent oy
Speaker 1: stuff and how that feels like you know very now
Speaker 1: and that's like poison ruin and that kind of thing
Speaker 1: and obviously We like that stuff. So yeah, it's good fun.
Speaker 1: Second full-length album, one of their earlier demos was called
Speaker 1: Castle of Death. So I guess that that is what
Speaker 1: we are returning to. I presume there are lore reasons.
Speaker 1: I don't know. It's another 20-minute record. It's even shorter
Speaker 1: than the Living Weapon one, actually. So we have got
Speaker 1: some brisk ones for you this month. And it is erratic, mad.
Speaker 1: I knew this band would be cool when their promo
Speaker 1: picture on Bandcamp has one of them in a coffin
Speaker 1: and the rest of them in hooded robes standing around
Speaker 1: that coffin pointing guns at him. Like one of them
Speaker 1: has a fucking AK. One of them has a fucking
Speaker 1: AK-47 that they're pointing at, I think their singer, buried
Speaker 1: in the coffin. Nosferatu would have been very different if
Speaker 1: one of them pulled up with a Kalashnikov. And that's
Speaker 1: the vibe that Zorn are giving off. And also, one
Speaker 1: of them is called Zbulba, like the Star Wars character,
Speaker 1: the Podracer from Phantom Menace, the Zbulba. But yeah, it's
Speaker 1: simply a right laugh, isn't it?
Speaker 2: Elliot, thank you for putting this on my radar. I
Speaker 2: have had so much fun with this. Again, this kind of, like,
Speaker 2: blackened punk thing, it's been a bit of a new
Speaker 2: over to me, but, like, I've come to it and
Speaker 2: I've just sort of found these bands so.
Speaker 5: Easy to just sort of fall for because.
Speaker 1: They are mavericks.
Speaker 2: They are renegades. They are marching to their own beat.
Speaker 2: And what that beat is, is just ragged... black and
Speaker 2: crusty punk yeah and here's the thing like like i
Speaker 2: mean the first song i was like this is pretty
Speaker 2: good and like ending with him coughing because he's been
Speaker 2: screaming so hard just made me laugh yeah then the
Speaker 2: moment you get into catholic girls and that punk attitude
Speaker 2: cranks up and you're getting this hacking riff this rocking
Speaker 2: beat and the dude screeched like a maniac which i'm
Speaker 2: guessing he's screeching about catholic girls i haven't read the
Speaker 2: lyrics so i can't be sure i was like this
Speaker 2: is recently has like completely rewired the way my brain
Speaker 2: works in reviewing albums but i'm like this has speed
Speaker 2: it rips it is heavy it is loud it's doing
Speaker 2: all the things that i think all good albums should
Speaker 2: actually do and i think this is unbelievably good fun
Speaker 2: curse of the black witch fucking hell yeah that half
Speaker 2: time stomp is so hard and the thing is also
Speaker 2: as like scrappy and speedy as this album is got
Speaker 2: really locked in rhythm section who keep it fucking like
Speaker 2: together the drummer is fucking sick and that's the thing
Speaker 2: that really sort of stood out to me in this
Speaker 2: album is that like it's scrappy and all over the
Speaker 2: place but their rhythm section is fucking holding it down
Speaker 2: and that's what keeps these songs from ever kind of
Speaker 2: like falling apart and getting too unwieldy because it's got
Speaker 2: that sort of like that core that's sort of like
Speaker 2: punching and hammering away fucking sick.
Speaker 1: Stuff yeah the thing that actually surprised me about this
Speaker 1: is how tight it was like even in the in
Speaker 1: the recording i think the recording on this is really
Speaker 1: good and like yeah it's not going to sound like
Speaker 1: the fucking new beartooth album that's come out today right
Speaker 1: um the production on this kind of thing you have
Speaker 1: to have some kind of like reverb castle dungeon quality
Speaker 1: to it but uh you listen to the drum kit
Speaker 1: on this and it there's real clarity to it this
Speaker 1: really direct punch to it and the lead guitars are
Speaker 1: shredding and they're quite gaugeable as well the bass guitar
Speaker 1: is really thick like it is a nicely put together
Speaker 1: punchy yeah kind of punk metal record and that means
Speaker 1: that when it does start going like you know when
Speaker 1: the beat in the bass line at the start of
Speaker 1: curse of the black witch going or whatever it just
Speaker 1: sounds so again punchy and um clear that it kind
Speaker 1: of gets you in the door with with minimal problems
Speaker 1: compared to maybe some of the other slightly more um
Speaker 1: you know slipshod kind of records in this vein do
Speaker 1: are out.
Speaker 3: There Yeah, you compare this to one of the really
Speaker 3: early Poison Ruin albums or, you know, Fel Omen, stuff
Speaker 3: that gets really sloppy, and that stuff has immense charm
Speaker 3: to it, and there are brilliant songs wrapped up in
Speaker 3: that sort of puzzle box they force you to contend with,
Speaker 3: but the reason why I was happy to bring this
Speaker 3: on is because I just think it's weirdly, I don't
Speaker 3: want to say agreeable, because it is mental sounding, but
Speaker 3: the band are locked in, and it's easy to go
Speaker 3: along with it when the band sound like they know
Speaker 3: what they're doing, and again i just love listening to
Speaker 3: a band where it feels like everyone's competing to be
Speaker 3: the mvp and that's exactly what it sounds like everyone's
Speaker 3: trying to play louder everyone's trying to play faster some
Speaker 3: it's like that great uh napalm death joke about like
Speaker 3: their band practices whereas first gets the end of the
Speaker 3: song wins like it's it's got that to it whereas
Speaker 3: i keep speeding up and going harder and faster and
Speaker 3: just inexhaustible and that stretches to the singer who has
Speaker 3: one of the most striking ear-piercing yowling wretches that i've
Speaker 3: heard from a young band in some times the point
Speaker 3: where like you say at the end of kill him
Speaker 3: with poison where oh it ends with a reverb thing
Speaker 3: of him sputtering and it's just like that's two minutes
Speaker 3: in and he's completely exhausted like you don't know he's
Speaker 3: going to make it all the way to the end
Speaker 3: but then even between these again he is singing about
Speaker 3: catholic girls he's not really doing it in a teacher's
Speaker 3: pet way it is more like the catholic he's terrified
Speaker 3: of the catholic girls but it's you're right but he's
Speaker 3: that's what that is what he's screaming about But along
Speaker 3: the way, he does manage to find the weirdest hooks. Again,
Speaker 3: I've not heard on an album since Venom, or perhaps
Speaker 3: before that. The one, and I don't know if anyone
Speaker 3: else has picked up on it, but I was driving...
Speaker 3: I had to pull over because I was laughing so hard.
Speaker 5: All right, all right, all right.
Speaker 1: Okay, okay, okay, okay.
Speaker 5: I'm howling with laughter. That was the moment where I
Speaker 5: was like, I love this album. I need a bit
Speaker 5: to be critical.
Speaker 2: Went on Black Dog Marks. So I go like, yeah,
Speaker 2: this is a stupid album. But my God is that
Speaker 2: stupidity endearing. And it's just like ripping hard. And I
Speaker 2: just want to shout, all right, all right, all right.
Speaker 3: Okay, okay, okay.
Speaker 5: All right, all right, all right.
Speaker 1: It's such an unhinged performance compared to, again, some of
Speaker 1: these other, like, devil punk type bands. He does have a,
Speaker 1: he's not just doing a black metal rasp. He does, like, really, like,
Speaker 1: he veers maniacally from, like, gruff to super shrill. And
Speaker 1: he sounds like he's, like, you know, being tortured into
Speaker 1: the form of a bat. And then he starts doing
Speaker 1: such a weirdly fun rock and roll thing. that like
Speaker 1: you know turban negro or someone would do like on
Speaker 1: that and it is like it's really fun and then
Speaker 1: like flip side ready to kill he is just pure
Speaker 1: screeching violence which also bingo card insanely sick roto tom
Speaker 1: phil all around yes in the.
Speaker 2: Middle like mention that my notes well always love a
Speaker 2: good roto tom yeah keep i think.
Speaker 1: The drummer is really good like he he's Really, like
Speaker 1: I say, fast, energetic, trying to get to the end
Speaker 1: song for everyone else, but he does swing through a
Speaker 1: bunch of different rhythms. He'll throw in, like, a blast
Speaker 1: for a bar, and then some kind of, like, kooky,
Speaker 1: swinging post-punk feel. Like, it's very dexterous, and the best
Speaker 1: moment for me is the comparatively lengthy closing track, Guests
Speaker 1: of the Mad Prince, which... It does waste no time
Speaker 1: considering that Like it is straight into the cross punk
Speaker 1: beats But it does have like I think Curse of
Speaker 1: the Black Witch is similar They go through quite a
Speaker 1: lot of actually like Feels and sections Like it's dexterous
Speaker 1: with the feel changes And that leads to the point
Speaker 1: in that closing song When all of that spooky Playfulness
Speaker 1: instrumentation Peaks when the fucking organ comes in And that
Speaker 1: is just Literally that is right at the end of
Speaker 1: the record But that is the moment where the record
Speaker 1: just fully Sealed itself and came full circle To be
Speaker 1: able to be like yes.
Speaker 2: I can't believe I love, I can't believe I love
Speaker 2: a keyboard solo, but the keyboard solo in that closing track,
Speaker 2: maybe the only good one ever. Like, um, it is
Speaker 2: like just, I cackled with laughter again when that came
Speaker 2: in and it's like, yeah, this is what you, you
Speaker 2: throw this in at the end on your, like your
Speaker 2: whopping four minute closer, that kind of, again, that song
Speaker 2: kind of just mashes together a lot of the course
Speaker 2: of you've kind of heard across the record, but then
Speaker 2: just kind of frozen even more insane ideas like a
Speaker 2: keyboard solo. And I was going to just like, I
Speaker 2: can go for it, Zorn. You are the maniacs who
Speaker 2: can pull this shit off.
Speaker 5: It is a joy.
Speaker 3: You can only imagine how I ascended when that double-handed
Speaker 3: keyboard solo comes in. And it fits so well. It's
Speaker 3: not like it's sat atop the mix like a joke.
Speaker 3: It's woven into this vampiric swords and sorcery world, which
Speaker 3: they're working on the same record as Catholic Girls and alright, alright, alright, okay.
Speaker 1: Okay, okay.
Speaker 3: And gotta say, talking about the lyrics... Not that you
Speaker 3: can tell, because it does sound like he's being burned alive,
Speaker 3: but you read some of the lyrics to this, and
Speaker 3: they're hard as nails. One of the best comes on
Speaker 3: Guest of the Mad Prince, where there's these four lines,
Speaker 3: where it goes, Lone assassin on a mission from God,
Speaker 3: armed and on the loose, like a spider weaving his web,
Speaker 3: tying a cobweb noose. Fucking, like, that's good goth work, that.
Speaker 3: And again, I just love that, again, just the whole,
Speaker 3: the fact, seven songs, 20 minutes, some people might say
Speaker 3: it doesn't count as an album, It's like Seasons, in
Speaker 3: a way. It's a similar structure, but in terms of
Speaker 3: bang for your buck, this feels too larger than life
Speaker 3: to be an EP. Do you know what I mean?
Speaker 3: This is a record, because there's so much going on,
Speaker 3: and they throw so much at you with such devilish abandon,
Speaker 3: that by the time you get to a keyboard solo
Speaker 3: at the end, as brilliant as it is, and though
Speaker 3: it is a left hook, it doesn't sound completely mad.
Speaker 3: It's just like, yeah, go on lads like you've.
Speaker 1: Earned it yeah they're live shows look wild they've got
Speaker 1: all sorts of like fire breathing and like big monster
Speaker 1: props and like it's like a real carnival bazaar unfortunately
Speaker 1: i can't see him making it over here because it's
Speaker 1: such a small thing but i if you like this
Speaker 1: kind of new strain of like you know spooky black
Speaker 1: and punk that's kind of codified over the last couple
Speaker 1: years like we said then this is another band for
Speaker 1: you that we recommend it's called Zorn and it's Return
Speaker 1: to Castle Death that is our six album review gauntlet
Speaker 1: for the last few weeks of August let us know
Speaker 1: what you made of that bunch next time on the
Speaker 1: review show obviously of course there are a few albums
Speaker 1: out today one in particular the Mastodon album I think
Speaker 1: we will need a couple of weeks to digest that
Speaker 1: one but that will be in the next reviews bag
Speaker 1: we do right now as we said uh what do
Speaker 1: you make of that little bunch uh very curious about
Speaker 1: people what people make about for example the you know
Speaker 1: just the the um the strategy and the kind of
Speaker 1: structuring of the electric cool boy album for instance what
Speaker 1: side are you falling onto with the chelsea wolf album
Speaker 1: what side are you falling onto with the weezer having
Speaker 1: the gold album uh living weapon in the night eternal
Speaker 1: as well and next week will be a look back
Speaker 1: as we said it will be returned to hyperblast but
Speaker 1: we are going to wrap up what this past week
Speaker 1: has been for us with huge UK shows, with Deftones,
Speaker 1: The Cure, AFI. All of those feelings will come out
Speaker 1: next week, so you can join us there. Thanks, everyone.
Speaker 1: All right, all right, okay, okay.