Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to I am President. We've got so
much to go through today that I don't want to
dedicate more than thirty seconds to bitching. But Sam, we
speculated last week about whether you'd be wrong about your
suspicions that would not be the best. Just to an update,
you were not wrong. I was not.
Speaker 2: Wrong, was I.
Speaker 3: Ah. But it's been a week just hating the entire
concept of presidents now because of.
Speaker 1: That, I mean, I've had a week of being quite
amused at the I don't know, seeing people like twitching
tongues or whatever. I decided to pick a fight with them.
All funny stuff anyway, for real, this is that's not metal.
Of course, this is your weekly heavy metal, heavy music
discussion show, and this time we are back here with
a pretty significant, meaty episode of reviews. Before we get
into them proper, I will talk about, I guess you know,
the few weeks we have had and how big they
have been and so on. But just right off the cuff,
we can say that today in this review show, we
are going to be talking about the new albums finally
from Ghost, Machine Head, Behemoth Pop, The Callous Dower Boys,
Model Actra's Age of Apocalypse and sidge In and as
you can imagine from reviews that are so substantial, we've
got to be quite efficient with the news here. But
there's also quite a lot of note that has come
up in the last seven days as well over there.
So you know, we could start by devoting ten to
fifteen minutes to talking about President and that whole you
know shebang. We could start with sleep Token receiving their
first ever number one album in both the UK and
the US. They broke the massive vinyl sales record that
we spoke about ghost setting like only just a couple
of weeks beforehand, and it's amazing how all those things
considered how I don't know, inevitable and not that much
like news that actually felt crazy as it definitely is,
you know, seeing a you know, ostensibly a metal band
landing like an entire like album bomb on like the
actual like Billboard Hot one hundred Songs chart, like the
individual songs from it appearing in that thing. Anyway. But
let's get into some stuff that we'll go into a
bit more about. My name is Perenheish you heard there,
Sam Dignon, Elliott Paisley as usual is also here with
us to do the reviews. But let's start with some
news and I guess we'll just quickly go off the
fact that today, as we were recording, we've had the
announcement that Metallica are going to be bringing their big
old was it No Repeats weekend for some of the dates,
not all of them, but that style tour they have
been over a couple of years. Now they're going to
be bringing it back to the UK and certain dates
of Europe as well. Well. Here in the UK they'd
only done was it two years ago? They did Download festival,
So they're doing this for kuh a while, aren't they,
you know, really kind of extending the amount of years
they're doing this particular thing. But as well as several
dates around brownd Europe that they didn't get to last time,
we here have got We've got dates in Dublin where
they are doing a no Repeats weekend. There's individual dates
in Glasgow and Cardiff, and there is a double you know,
no repeats date in London at the London Stadium that
is that the one that's west Ham's ground.
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Is that lovely stuff would probably be going to one
of those shows hopefully.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And supports differ depending on the date, so you'll
have to check and see which one the date you
are eyeing up has, but Goodjira and Not Loose are
supporting at some dates, Pantera and Avatar are supporting at
some And if you have a no like a double
date like the Dundon one for example, each date has
those differing support bills. So if you were to, for example,
by the I think there's some kind of combo package
deal to buy like the two you know, tickets for
the two dates in a certain city. If you were
to buy that for London, you would get to see
across that weekend as well as Metallica, Kajira, Not Loose,
Panterra and Avatar. So that is, you know, it's maybe
not quite the whole Black Sabbath thing we got going
on in July, but it's a pretty sizable amount of
like mega bands in there isn't there and the Metallica
no repeats weekend. I haven't seen it yet. I've been
very jealous of everyone who has seen it. I was
jealous when Mark was on here last year talking about
going to see it in Finland and whatnot. This is well,
it's Metallica in it. It's obviously one of the biggest
events of the year, even in a well even in
a year we actually this is into twenty twenty six,
isn't it, But it's one of the biggest events of
next year.
Speaker 3: There we go, Yeah, and I've not seen the metallic
of a repeat yet, so I've been like, ah, I probably
really should get to this, and yeah, like I say, again,
it's just funny how like we've already had this sort
of talk going around for like a year and then
it's come again.
Speaker 2: It still feels like a huge deal.
Speaker 3: I don't know that's because you know, the support bands
they're bringing across, like Metallica, Gadjear are not loose. That
is a kind of like you look at that and
go fuck me, that's a that's a night out right there.
Speaker 2: That is a real tree.
Speaker 3: But it just yeah, like this Metallica seventy two Sea
like again, it's on the seventy two Seasons album albums,
which is not, you know, a particularly exacting album, but
because there's no repeat set, it's just meant the cycle
for this album has felt kind of like MEGA for Metallica.
So I'm eyeing up this and hopefully going to be
going to on the London date.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Elliott, you are the one of us who has
seen them doing this sort of thing because you went
to the download they did. But it was great, wasn't it.
Speaker 4: I saw people kind of giving those sets not the
most praise, and I just didn't understand it. It was
the best time. Everyone in there I could see was
having an amazing time. And looking at that set again
and like the people who they've got supporting, I'm tempted
to do it another time, like just do another weekend
with Metallica and seeing that Gajira and not loose built
in particular, I remember not that long ago Meta all
going out with Avenged and Goodjura and now Goadjira steps
up into the Venge slot and then not lose to
Light in the Goadura position.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: It just the fact that that now makes sense is
kind of wild, but great.
Speaker 1: Perfect, isn't it. I have to kind of try and
hope I get a ticket closer to the time, because
I've got in like the immediate, you know, weeks when
this is going on sale. I've got Fortress and then
I'm going to Poland as well. But I of course
really want to be you know, hitting this up because yeah,
now's the time I'm supposed to see the big Metallica event.
A little bit before then, we have got you know,
two of our kind of favorite festivals here in the UK,
both announcing final headliners. First up, Damnation announced their headliners.
This is a very particular Damnation because this is the
twentieth anniversary Damnation where they have decided to do it
as a two day event rather than a just a
single day with the kind of pre night before that
kind of generally escalated into what was essentially a first day,
but they put it to bed. Now we have two
proper days of Damnation for a and if it's this
year only, if it will go ahead, I guess it
depends on how successful this is. But that does mean
they've obviously had to book twice as many headliners as usual,
and I know that the Damnation organizers have been quite
open about the particular pain of booking headliners this year.
Where we were kind of discussing, we were like, who
would you get to headline Damnation this year? And every
band that we could think of at the top of
our head was either you know, probably unbelievably expensive or
already accounted for elsewhere, like the amount of bands who
are doing their own tours or another festival like a
bloodstock or something I didn't envy. Damnation trying to book
their headliners this year, and that's on a year where
they have twice as many of them to book. So
with that in mind, they have managed to pull it
out of the bag. Here. The two headliners they've got
are Corrosion of Conformity and Napalm Death, the Damnation you
Know crew. They've also said that was always kind of
the aim to have one headliner more kind of like
a store water long part of Damnation and UK extreme
metal history, So that's obviously Napalm Death, and then in
Corrosion form they've got a band that I don't think
I've played Dannah before. So when you look at those
two again, considering the amount of you know, I think
some people might have been dreaming, oh, get acid Bath
or whatever it might be you can insert you know
X dream probably unlikely banned in the position, But considering
the the slight termoil that seems to have happened in
terms of like trying to pull one out of the bag.
When you look at Corrosion conformity and Napalm Death. Does
that sing to you?
Speaker 3: I mean Napalm Deaf is kind of like, well, yeah,
fucking nap I'm definitely they must have headlines.
Speaker 1: They have, yeah, a few times.
Speaker 2: Before, surely I don't know if they, like I can't remember,
but like.
Speaker 1: At least once, You're never ever, You're never going.
Speaker 3: To complain about getting Napalm Deaf as a headliner, are you,
Because it's Napalm Deaf. They're always fucking brilliantlive and like
Crozer conformity, That to me is I think, like you
said it in that on the group, that's like just
riff some beers to sort of end the day, just
like the best vibes. It feels like that's going to
just be a good like as close to sort of
good times. Dam Nation headliner I whan you can get,
isn't it?
Speaker 4: The calling about Damnation and seeing the bill every year
is they have such a widespread of who they could
book where it just makes sense. And there was a
lot of teasing kind of leading up to this, like
months and months ago and headliners coming soon, and then
in that last post that Gavin, I think maybe one
of the Damnation forums of saying it's not this person,
it's not this person, and all the bands starting we
see and I was looking at it just going I
can't think of who else which is in that world
which will make any sense unless I've had a real struggle.
They've got like cephalic carnage or something that they're just
going to try and spin it as a headliner. And
then Corrosion of Conformancy. The first reaction is like huh,
and then another second pass is just go that makes
total sense. Like for all the sludge and hardcore and
stone of stuff the Damnation book, it fits perfectly and
paired with Napalm Death, you know, such different headliners scratching
such different itches, and I've never seen Corrosion and Conformancy.
They're one of those bands who I've wanted to see
for a long time. So I think if it has
been trouble for them getting headliners, you wouldn't know it
from looking at the bill.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think worth noting with this announcement as well.
It's not just those two bands. They have also added
on Arm and Raho against such just Nation staples always
fantastic live Castle Rat which I'm quite excited to see.
I was quite keen to see Castle Rat and also
Ted Male, which is a reunion of a band from
kind of the mid to late noughties. And this is
a band who even though they you know, they have
kind of ties to Aca Coccer and Voices and some
of those sort of London extreme bands who are some
of my favorite bands. I think Ted mall Or are
one of those who maybe did not pick up any
fans after the point when they stopped existing. So this
is why where it was announced and everyone who was
there in two thousand and seven just went, oh, ted
More and everyone else went we considering like even you know,
the name being a brass eye reference and everything, it's
all just so particular to a certain time. But you know, cool,
I'm happy for the longtime Ted More fans. Maybe I'll
check it out if the you know, schedules a line
seems fun. But back to the headliners, Yeah, Napalm Death.
I think the tantation with Napalm Death is to say
they're around so often, like it's not again, it's not
an acid bath or dilling Dura in terms of like
that oh my god, I could I never thought I
would see this again or whatever it would be Napalm Death.
They just did their big UK tour. I don't know
whether this means that they'll not do one of those
campaigns you know in what was it like March that
only be a few months. I don't know, but it
is worth noting that this will be essentially Napum headlining
a like what was it like a sort of small
arena sized or large.
Speaker 2: Like six thousand nasty shed like.
Speaker 1: Larger large academy sized. Again, I haven't got the start
off the top of my head, but it's been kind
of banded around that it's like nape I'm the like
largest UK headline show or something along those lines. It
wouldn't surprise me if that was true. That will be
quite by me. Uh And I said, they're just such
a core part of the UK scenery. Good nice end
to the thit things. Corosia Conformity does seem more the
again the sort of story because again it's a band
who I haven't played mndation before and I'd similar to you, Elliot.
I looked at it, I was like, ah, Korrosia Conformity,
and then I went ah, yeah, and like I I
have seen Coroagion Conformity. But I realized I haven't seen
them since twenty sixteen, so that's like almost a decade
that they haven't really been at least on in you know,
immediately in front of me in the uk Li I've
scene or anything, and I saw them. I've seen them
a couple of times, but the one that I really
sticks out in my memory was I saw them headline
Desert Fest in twenty sixteen. And if I just can
just kind of basically, you know, supplant that experience over
into this Damnation thing, because what it is is, at
the end of the day, the best vibes, right, particularly
something like Damnation. Maybe not every headliner is good vibes, right,
Like it's great music, we love them, But bands like
Carcass or Colt of Luna or Electric Wizard or whatever
it might be, right, it's not like, oh yeah, happy
festival fair, whereas Corogia Conformity is one of the only
bands maybe that Danation could book in that who are that?
And again, if you're not that familiar with Coroagial Conformity,
but like seeing a load of extreme, heavy, nasty stuff
or whatever, and at the end of the day, you're
a bit tired or whatever. Suddenly you've got who got
the fire, clean my wounds and all of that, just
like proper just riff sing along. It's gonna be such fun.
I think that's what that is. Yeah, left field from
what I was imagining, But as you're saying, the more
I've kind of thought about it, the more I've gone like, yeah,
like coroji befomy will be really something to enjoy there.
So yeah, happy for Damnation on that front, pulling those
headliners out, and I think there's still a fair number
of bands to go, even though the poster is looking
pretty damned full already. And then not to be outdone.
Just a day or so later, Art Tangent have completed
their lineup as well. They had one final headliner to announce,
which I again I also understand, was kind of a
bit hard going back and forth asking different bands they're available, whatever,
But they've landed on the not so bad is it?
God Speed You Black Emperor basically like arguably the best
post rock band of all time. You know, you can
have your debates about that, but they're certainly one of
the key competitors for that, and so for a festival
like Art Tangent that specialized in that kind of stuff
that's basically a dream, isn't it. And so your headliners
for Art Tangent if you're going this year, there's War Drona,
God's Bed You, Black Emperor, Carnival, and Tessa Rat. So yeah,
fair play both Art Tangent and dam Nation doing some
cool stuff over there. Let's talk about a couple of
new singles before we really get into all the new
albums and everything. And the first one we're going to
talk about is the lead single for the new album
from Lorna Shore, which is called I Feel the Ever
Blackfestering Within Me, which is a very metal title but
also still just not as cool as the Black Dahlia
Murder just doing ever black, isn't it. It's funny how
that works. But the new Lawna Shore album is going
to be out September the twelfth, and they've released a
single from it called Oblivion and Lorna Shure. I mean,
it's an eight minute single. And the thing with this
is I go that's the trend now, isn't it? Like
it stopped being like, oh oh my god, eight minute single?
That's just what like you know, low sleep token, It's
what everyone does now.
Speaker 3: I was trying to figure this out as to what, like,
is it a generation who seemed to like not have
the attention span to go back and listen to Jane
Doe or like go back to the old albums, but
put an eight minute song in front of them and
they're like, oh my god, I'm like what what?
Speaker 2: What is this specific?
Speaker 3: And I've kind of taken it as as long as
the song is constantly changing things up so they don't
like switch off and there's always something new.
Speaker 2: To sort of catch her attention. They're so downward a
song about how long it is it is.
Speaker 3: It's been a really sort of intial for me to pivot,
and I was kind of like, do we need an
eight minute Lorna Shore song.
Speaker 2: As a lead single?
Speaker 3: I was like, Okay, we'll see it is. And I like,
I think this is, you know, pretty good as a
sort of eight minute Lorna Shore lead single goes. I
think like it sounds like Lorna Shaw. You know, it's grand,
it's heavy. Will Ramas's vocals are particularly disgusting. Don't you
hear a load of evolution from the last album. I
think like, I don't know if I'm the simples if
they could start going big on it, but I do
think like as a lead single, if you're into Lorna Shore,
I don't see why you wouldn't lap up all eight
minutes of this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, it's pretty epic. I think they you know,
they're they're obviously pretty massive now, like their headline towards
a mega at this stage, and they bizarrely seemed to
be almost tapped into I hear this, and I thought
a decade ago, when people were saying about Falloojiah that
like skyscraping, you know, cinematic technical death metal or whatever,
this is sort of I guess the promise of that.
And I thought this was good. I thought it's obviously
it's very maximalist in terms of in the production, it's
all very loud and overblown and all on ten as
you would kind of expect, and maybe not a lot
of room for peaks and troughs and dynamics as I
would maybe prefer an eight minute song to have. But
I thought the orchestration line throughout it kept it pretty tethered,
and it sounded to me like maybe one of their
less flamboyant songs, like the pain, remain stuff and more
kind of moodia, which I enjoyed about it. They don't
really do like hooks so much, do they. They do
like here's a big, grand epic orchestration thing and then
here's Will doing his disgusting animal noises rather than like, again,
the real I don't know that, the burst out moments,
but they're you know, those things are present and correct
and they're not. I hear this and I go, well,
they're not aiming to dumbed down or simplify anything at
this stage. Like you know, if If them When Slaughtered
to Prevail are like the biggest death core bands in
kind of popular mainstream metal right now, I know which
one of those has more brain cells? Oh?
Speaker 3: Absolutely, thinking like maybe something I've been done, so I
do like this living This is good.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like I was not blown away by it.
Speaker 3: But I do think there's you know, a whole lot
to pay about, Like these bands are massive, are they
benefiting the scene? Are they good things that should have
been selling?
Speaker 2: Like laws Sean can go like, well yeah, because there
they are extreme.
Speaker 3: They they're not you know, dumbing things down there, not
compromising what they sort of see as this kind of
like grand orchestral epic black metal tinge deaf called They're
They're They're they're putting that front and the center, and
they're getting massive for the backet, which I think that's like, yeah,
they're bands you can celebrate for what they're achieving in
terms of just like being extreme and getting massive off it,
and then you know, taking the Black Dahlia Murder out
supporting them, which I think is like fucking cool that
a bunch of people who like more on the show
and else are going to get see the Black Dahlia Murder.
Speaker 2: That's that's cool.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, I maybe have some personal knit picks
about them, but I think largely I agree they are
sort of net positive for you know, the state of
metal right now, and this is a good song. Then
we also have, rather than a preview of an upcoming album,
we have a full stop here because Ithaca, who feels
like for quite a while now they've been kind of
unfolding their you know, their farewell which you know fair enough,
you know, lap it up, you're going before your time,
might as well enjoy the farewell run. But Ithaca this
week put out what they are saying is their final
new song. It is a self titled song. It's just
called Ithaca. And so obviously this being the last piece
of new music we are going to get from a
band who we have champions and are very fond of,
it's onny right to give it its moment. I put
on the new song Ithaca by Ithaca, and the lead
guitar in it, what's it sounds like Chemists or something
or like fucking obsequii. It's like heavy metal, And I
was like, oh, now I want heavy metal Ithaca. I
want like epic leaning heavy metal Ithaca. And I know
I won't get it because this is the last thing
and it's left me go And no, that's.
Speaker 2: Like a taste of what could have been.
Speaker 3: I mean, like for me, like I could remember like
you ever die here or live long become a villain
of metal or band these days.
Speaker 2: So in a way, I'm almost like, you know, what.
Speaker 3: Ifaca bow out now with this fucking majestic song, like
those lead guitar lines, thats just so emotive, but like
pure heavy metal are amazing. That closing passage, whether you know,
don't cry because it's over.
Speaker 2: Or that's it, like like they know what they're doing.
Speaker 3: And I was like, oh, you are getting me in
on this, but I think like if this is the
full stop you're ending, you're like, band on what a
what a song to bow out on is a kind
of like this is what we could have done, you know,
and it real tease from them, but it is fucking
brilliant and they are going to be such a huge loss.
But I hope all the members of Effica, whatever they
go on to do, just have the best time with it,
because like I want that lot to sort of just
do well with whatever they're doing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, again that proper like epic guitar hero lead, but
then into the panic chords, right, it's got that bit
of you know, sort of old.
Speaker 2: School we've still got all of that in their life.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that kind of bit of you know, impulse crush
what we initially kind of fell in love with that
band for. But then before you know it, it's into
that sort of jazzy sun kissed flavor and like the soulful,
clean singing and stuff. It's got a bit of everything,
and then as you're mentioned, the kind of the last
minute explosion of everything with the counter melodies like and
it it really meeters itself out as a song like
it's not like a straight banger like they Fear Us
or again like one of the older ones or something,
but it feels like maybe the widest, most evolved form
of Ithaca that we'd yet had. And that's both beautiful
for a last song, as we're saying, but also like
ah man, so yeah, a final track from Ithaca. I
think I've start and saying that they're doing their final
live performance at ar Tangent, so maybe they'll play that
and it sounds very good. But yeah, rip Ithaca for
a musical last out in their great fucking song else Where,
let's quickly breathe through. What have we got? Josh Freese,
the drummer who had been brought into phil obviously void
left by tailor of Hawkins in the Food Fighters, He
announced that he'd been let go this week for currently
kind of undisclosed reasons. But I guess that the Food
Fighters are probably gonna maybe flip between drummers for a
little bit, which maybe to a degrees. Again, I don't
know what's happened here, but you know, considering the loss
of Taylor, you know, I wouldn't be surprised if they
threw around a few candidates. But you know, if you've
seen Josh Frees drumming for the food fighters, he is
no longer drumming for the food fighters. Then this is
this is just it's both funny and sad. But Black
Flag this week have announced that they are back once again.
Black Flag, which for a long long time have basically
been you know, Greg Gin and some guys. And you know,
the last time they came with anything significant was or
you know, i'd say significant anything noteworthy was the twenty
thirteen album called What the Dot Dot Dot, which is
very I don't know if I've ever listened that album
in full, but I know it's very reviled.
Speaker 3: I can still pitch that album cover. I'll never forget that.
Speaker 1: Yeah. That kind of says it all, doesn't it. But
there back again Greg with another new reframped lineup like Flag,
and the band picture they've put out for it is
so crazy. I love the fact that they've got Greg
on the end, so you could almost crop him out
right because if you look, if you just focused on, go, oh,
here's a hot new young three piece of the three
people who are standing to the left of Greg in
this photo, all right, that could be any new band
who comes through in kerrang or you know what rock
sound or whatever it would be of just kind of oh,
you know, kind of some kind of gen Z upcoming
rock thing. What will this be? Some alternative thing? And
then you pan slightly to the right and then there's Granddad.
It's like, what why if you brought you're like your
fucking nephews out? Like what is this.
Speaker 3: Was like Greg Jinn's school of rock, like which I
mean I'm either always like what are the odds that
collectively the other three members aren't as old as Greg
jin Like? The image is so surreal to look at,
and I think everyone's just like had a real chuckle
with it as to like, just like this insane image
of like the black myhand father them in a warehouse
and these like three people who look about twenty and then.
Speaker 1: But they're so perfectly style, like the hair and everything.
It's like they look like a trendy young gen Z.
And then there's just Greg just very awkward smiling.
Speaker 4: I think as chat Pile said something like these kids
are probably six when what they came out. They're not
even vaguely close to anything that Black FuG I've ever
done this relevant I was having a discussion with some
friends with the like who are the most famous bund
why you wouldn't feel remotely nervous about joining? And I
think Black Flag's the answer, Like if you if you've
got an email, so do you want to be in
Black Flag?
Speaker 1: Right? That just seems it's like it seems like anyone
can have a chance. It's a proper like the school holiday,
like or like going to the summer camp to play
in Black Flag affair.
Speaker 2: They're playing London in like July, and I'm kind of
tempting to go, just as I see what the hell
it's like Baby's first Black Flag is like. But this
is the.
Speaker 4: Fact it's Black Flag is the most mental part because
there are other bands from around that time where it
wouldn't seem that weird to have a bunch of fresh
faced gen z kids joined the band like this is
this is black Flag. It's like one of the most
bleak depressive punk bands ever. And he's I know who
I need some thirteen year olds that will bring about
the gravitas I the Black Flag requires.
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely mental, But I feel like I just have
to say this is like I don't know, there are
some people out there who don't keep up to date
on these things, and they would get a band's in
town notification that Black Flag are playing, and they'll go,
oh my god, I love Henry Rollins. And then they
go and be like, I don't know, like fucking Nova
Twins or something with great chin in the corner. Absolutely
out of this world. There you go. Black Flag of
sorts are around. Basements are also around. They've announced a
UK and European tour with a lineup consisting of Anxious,
Dynamite and Midriff Sam. Is that a good lineup?
Speaker 3: That's a really good lie Basement and Anxious is like
a real sort of great pairing.
Speaker 2: Anxious one like that.
Speaker 3: They're unfamiliar the year we didn't review it, but like,
if you like Emo right now.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they're the band of those three that I know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Dynamite really good hardcore they put out on an
EP a couple of weeks ago, if you like kind
of just the modern hardcore thing they're doing. That Midriff
I'm not too familiar with, but yeah, it is like that.
I was like, Oh, that's wicked, and then realize it's
the same time as a hard festival time and on going,
So I was like, you have to give that a miss,
but yeah, Basement anxious as a pairing in particular really cool.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's happening in September. And then finally, if
you want in reunions and you want in returns, Sam,
I have to go to you again and ask. Right,
So this is a band that I knew, right, not
a band that I'm you know, I don't think this band.
I knew the name, right, I did not understand the
wording of what they put out here where they're like,
what do you mean your debut album? Who are Francesca? Like?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 3: So when I every now and then, like I belly
your face from now, but I have like I'll open
it on occasion, maybe some checking the messenger for what
you guys said, And oh was you know pages that
I followed from fifteen years ago when I was getting
into all the Twin Times britrock stuff. And when I
saw a Francisco post saying like we're back and we're
releasing our debut album, I.
Speaker 2: Was like, what the wait?
Speaker 1: What?
Speaker 3: Because Francesca were like young guns, like reserves, almost like
they were like.
Speaker 1: If you fought young guns, youngest guns.
Speaker 3: Like had if you wanted them with less charisma, like
Francesca were there for you. I mean they had one
song I didn't realize what we and they released like
a couple of EPs and like the late naughties, only
twenty tens, which I didn't mind.
Speaker 2: But again, like there's a reason why no one.
Speaker 3: Outside of like probably ten people remembers Francesca. I'm sure
they'll probably a half people are like ecstatic about this
for Union because theyre always are.
Speaker 2: But when I saw it.
Speaker 1: I showed this news to my girlfriend and she just
walked into the other rimed later.
Speaker 3: But when I, like I said, when I saw that,
like again, this band too, and this is not the
they've They've tried coming back I think, like in the
sort of mid twenty tens at one point, and that
didn't go anywhere, and they're like now again twenty twenty five,
like some sixteen years after their first EP. I think
it might best nine their first EP. I can't remember exactly.
They're coming back with their debut album. I was like,
this is fucking insane.
Speaker 2: Who who is this for?
Speaker 3: Like I'm so morblicious that I am going to have
to listen to the debut Francesca around when it when
it does eventually come out, but it was just such
a like wait what Like when I when I saw
this post was like that is and I had to
show it with Mark because I thought Mark is the
only person I know who would find this hilarious. And
I'm glad Mark did get a chuckle out of it.
Speaker 1: It's the longest promise for Davis. It's like seventeen years.
I think we don't need that debut at that stage. Like,
I don't think the members of Black Flag were around
when you were.
Speaker 5: You could probably probably leave it were black Flag alive,
but maybe maybe a review. I don't know, Francesca are
back right, let's I can quickly just say over on
the Patreon for That's Not That Old, which is where
everybody who is nice enough to want to keep us
alive basically goes contributes.
Speaker 1: Thank you ote very much everybody. The last thing we
have got over there is we did a Tea and
does Horror very you know, not very long ago, where
we spoke about the incredible new Ryan Coogler vampire Western
movie Sinners. We also spoke about the quite ridiculous Until
Dawn video game adaptation that was very fun. Looking forward
to the immediate future, our schedules are really quite mad
at the moment in terms of trying to get us
all in the same place, but we do very much
have a Poison the World special to finish, so asap,
looking over the immediate kind of future, we are gonna
knuckle down and get the second part of our ongoing
band special about Poison the Well underway, which will be
the part when we look into I guess we're starting
with their last major classic in You Come Before You.
We still have that yet to talk about, but then
we have their latter two largely undiscussed albums to talk about,
as well as their general legacy and kind of place
in history. But that is very much on the immediate
horizon of stuff that we have got to get underway
over on the Patreon, So if you want to hear that,
you know, part one is available to you right now
where we spoke all about the opposite of December and
tear for the Red. But patron dot com slash that
not mel is the place where you can find that,
as long as everything else that we have done over there,
which is piles and piles and piles of podcasts at
this point, speaking of piles of podcasts, let's add another
one here because we have to get into our album reviews.
This comes a little bit later than a would of
light the nature of the monthly window that we're covering.
One of the albums we're doing is out today, But
even if you just sit on something like for three
weeks or something, this has felt like a seismic few
weeks where at the very least the two probable biggest
albums of the year, you know, from our world, have
both come out right after each other. And again we're
not even reviewing all of those, but Ghost and Sleep
Token they both got Billboard number one albums. This has
to be one of the biggest selling kind of new
released months for rock and metal in recent history, right,
So that's noteworthy. And that's before we then get onto
some of these other names, which are most slatches in themselves,
and some of these albums, again, albums by big names,
it feels like they've barely been spoken about or even
registered because everyone's stuck on talking about you know, the
same ones and then fucking president or whatever. So maybe
as well we can kind of refresh ourselves on some
of these couple couple week old albums and jimmy up
some conversation. We are going to start with Ghost and Skeletor,
released a little under a month ago. As said, a
whole swathe of releases have come since that have maybe
moved the conversation on a little bit. But with this
one we can kind of, you know, say how it
is sitting with us. After that time of listening, we
observed the day one reactions from people on the internet.
Some people absolutely loving it, some people more disappointed. I've
noticed that Ghost albums, while the band themselves have always
been divisive amongst people who get it and then people
who don't. Amongst their established fan base, I feel like
the albums have seemed to become a little more are
in opinion as they've gone on. I know several people
who flat out just don't like Impirah and thought that
that was, you know, their stinker where they dropped the ball.
And I don't know how many of those people are
maybe just conflating twenties with the rest of the album.
But I think a kind of one size fits all
response to a Ghost album doesn't exist that strongly anymore.
What we can say for sure with skeletor is It's
sold very well, as we reported a couple of weeks ago,
sales records through the roof until sleep Token came along
and broke them again. And what it feels like to
me with Ghost is this is the first time where
it feels to me maybe like Ghost are kind of
already there now, like we're past the first decade of
Ghost career where we were all thinking, oh, they're going
to do it? When are they going to do it?
And each new album is almost viewed as like a
step toward that kind of point. They've arguably done it now,
like concert film in global cinemas last year feels like
the only thing that's evade them the star is headlining
Download and that just feels like they'll do it. They
just haven't got around to it yet. Twenty twenty six. Surely,
I don't want to say they're at the two big
to fail stage, but after the you know, the double
smashes of Prequel and then in Perr, this is maybe
the first time a Ghost album doesn't feel like it
needs to be a breakthrough, but just continue on.
Speaker 3: I felt that because Arter you've had the movie and everything,
and Impero felt like the one where that this had
to be huge because this was the one where they
were going bigger than ever.
Speaker 2: It was glitzier, it was more glamorous.
Speaker 3: You know, you had Hunter's Moon on the Halloween soundtrack,
all of these sort of things. So it was like
Ghost going Blockbuster on Impair. I think this was like
that was almost like a make or break moment where
they had to smash with that because it was.
Speaker 2: Their big blockbuster release and it succeeded.
Speaker 3: So now they can just kind of go, Okay, now
we can just be Ghost on a massive scale, and
so I think almost like kind of takes the pressure
off them with Skeletons kind of like do what they
feel was more natural rather than kind of like pushing
to sort of have that breakthrough success.
Speaker 2: Because they found it now they can.
Speaker 3: Now like not coast but like ride the wave that
they've now built for themselves.
Speaker 4: I think with bands in a sort of commercial and
popularity ascent in the way that Ghost have been for
the past fifteen years, there's always that thing with each
new record where it kind of not that you think
they might drop the ball, but like at any moment,
theoretically they could, and if they released a record that
people didn't like, it would kind of creen off the
tracks again with five arms under their belt, and these
five records in the may run across phenomenon and all
the other stuff that's happened. Not saying that Ghosts can
get away with releasing bad alms from here on it,
but it's like there isn't that same weight of expectation now.
It's just how far does the glory run carry on?
Because I think everything they've done today, every studio record
at least, has been fantastic. So to me it is
like they didn't need to make another amazing record for
me to love them even more to or even for
anything else to be afforded to them. It's just a
matter of how long can this run go? Is the
sort of new question you're asking, which is a great
thing for a new band.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like this is the lowest stakes I've ever felt
reviewing the Ghost album. It's strange that way. They're massive,
They're still going to be massive. It's just down to
how much do I like this one? And I think
maybe the response I've observed this one has been a
little more muted compared to the last couple times around,
but only comparatively, and I think Ghost just make the
most listenable albums in the world to me, Like Impero
was my album of the Year for twenty twenty two,
and it's also like my fourth favorite Ghost album. They
just make like pop metal candy floss for me. And
when so many of the biggest, most kind of current
representatives of the mainstream heavy bands feel very divorced from
kind of heavy metal culture and history to a degree,
I'm increasingly thankful for Ghost being the one kind of
holding that element, you know, down on the kind of
biggest stage. And even as they have kind of transitioned
away from some of the vibes of what I initially
loved about them very early on, I think with this
being the follow up to IMPAIRR, they're sparklier than ever right,
Like this does feel like quite a different band now
from that kind of Opus Eponymous through meliora sort of
first era, but that there is no one operating on
their level when it comes to these like pop heavy
metal tunes. I think we need that, and that's my
I don't want to say bias, because I don't think
it's not like I'm just kind of blindly consuming everything,
but that's my you know, predilection towards Ghost Like, I
love this band so much. I am a sucker for
their way of writing songs. I've also I've never been
cold on anything they've done. The closest is, Oh, this
one isn't quite what I loved about the last one,
but that's okay. I love this too. I think this
record is so much fun. I think this record is
like maybe a bit of a baby brother of Empia,
Like it's not a breakthrough. Maybe in some ways it's
a step back, but after you know, nearly a month
of letting the songs into my head, I feel essentially
the same way. Right. This is that pop metal candy
floss for me that I love.
Speaker 2: I completely agree.
Speaker 3: I mean, I think it's funny that Ghosts are the glitsiest,
poppyist kind of like most like vaudeville camp theater, sort
of bad we've got, But they're also of the As
for Massive now Pod, who are most in line with
actual say that lineage, that history of heavy metal again again,
you know the debate with the other band of mens
he Broke Records, What do they have that like through
line to what we look to in metal?
Speaker 2: Current said that about them ghost.
Speaker 3: You can pick songs even on this you know this album,
which is again such a glitzy like bubblegum candy floss.
Speaker 2: Wherever you want to lay the album, you can go.
Speaker 3: We have that still Black Sabbath, you can you can
find that lineage right there.
Speaker 2: And for me, like I.
Speaker 3: Kind of didn't undersand where this album was turning device
for I was like, this just feels like the most
ghost that ghost can ghost.
Speaker 2: Like it touches on every kind of.
Speaker 3: Like bit of ghost for me, where like there are
songs that are just you know, pure pomp, and there
are songs that have got the little bit of the
kind of the scooby Doo thing going on, and they're like, oh,
there's a bit of like actual ominous kind of like
heavy metals while creeping in there, and it's all just
it's all there for me, and I'm like, I'll just
I'll just fast on all of it. But I'm so
here for ghosts doing it and doing it like we're
again with such an infectious here for melody.
Speaker 4: Well that thing you were saying earlier, it kind of
happens to all the massive bands at some point where
you can't please Everyone and the Thing we Ghosted. Over
the past five records, they've done so much in terms
variety of their sound, like the Peer of being this
kind of glam metal record, prequel being partly like a
soft rock record, but also one of the most maybe
the most eighties kind of pop rock record to date.
Each of their records are really defined personality. For me,
the personality of this one is almost like they've boiled
off some of the I want to say fluff, but
the things on other records, where there's normally instrumentals and
interludes and really wacky instrumentation, This time it feels like
a less detailed record, more focused on the sort of
standard rock set up where you get ten fully fledged songs.
And you know, people have complained about the last couple
Ghosts record saying like, oh, there's these fillery bits to
even need them, And then they deliver this record, which
is super succinct and to the point will also being
their longest record, and people kind of I've seen people
complaining about that as well. For me, it's same question
comes down to with every Ghost record today, it's are
the songs good? And the quality of songwriting for me
is yet to dip and spoiler alert today this might
be my least favorite of the six. I still think
this album is excellent. I've still been listening to it
all the time, and there are songs on here that
I don't want to ever leave the live set like,
and that this on the record that might be for
me the weakest of the bunch.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Like, my favorite albums of the first leg of
twenty twenty five have been things like Wake or Imperial
Triumphant or piss Grave or something, and it's nice to
have one that's like and here I can just sing
along to every track, you know, because it is this
album is probably the most lightweight ghost have ever sounded.
It's it's bawdy, it's quite silly. Where there is this.
I think there's some kind of a misplaced idea that
Ghosts were always like a comedy band or something, which
is not true. But the punniness or whatever that's made
its way into the recent albums is, you know, kind
of there. But it does make me grin. Prequel and
Impera are such shoot for the stars albums. This one,
I guess you say, is more comfortable. So if you
need Ghosts to feel newly dramatic each time. I do
understand maybe feeling this one's a bit more, a bit
more shallow, a bit boring, but you know more than
I would doun that with Imperio, which is kind of gonzo.
But I can't pretend that this isn't one of my
favorite sets of songs to come out this year, the
one two of lead singles from this, if we're going
the inarguable first off Lachrama into Satanized, as it is
on the album, you know, reverse in the order they
released them, total fucking smashes, Like two of the songs
of the year. Satanized is every Ghost album, there'll be
a couple songs where you go that is genius. Only
Ghost would write this how rhythmically strange and offbeat that
is from that sort of like Tears for Fearsy, but
with a heavy metal gallop of the verses into a
chorus that, like I said when I first heard it,
it sort of breaks itself up where it interjects what
you think the natural flow of the chorus is gonna
be with the blaster he did, but when you are
in it, it feels so like newly exultant every time.
It then rejoins the rest of the chorus. It's just
completely outstanding, clever, engaging, melodic hook writing on another level
to anyone out there.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think like as far as singles go, it's
basically a perfect ghosting with that melodic refrain that the
thing that opens the song and ends up being in
the verse that like that could be on a Paradise
Lost song. And yeah, like you said, with that Tears
for Fears drumby and that shimmering pop sparkle chorus coming in,
it manages to marry those two worlds brilliantly. And yet
and the song still kind of harks back to classic
ghosts with that sort of pitch shifted priest bit that
opens the second verse like this, and then why Old
hair Brains, and the way the song ends, like the
final forty seconds of it, where the bridge is suddenly
playing a sort of my Cold Field on the Dawn
folk style before kicking back into that massive hair Brain
chorus again. It it's just exquisite, And like you say that,
there's no one else writing songs like that, and as
much as ghost in many ways of retro band, I
don't think there's anyone maybe ever, who's writing songs quite
like that. Let's not say there aren't palm that or
songs that have been you know, says and infused and
devilish and delightful and all of those things, but that
specific kind of song does feel new, despite almost all
of its greeds being from forty years ago.
Speaker 3: Since I first heard it, it was kind of a
weird sort of versicisen, but I've had I'm Sitting Nice
stuck in my head for weeks and weeks and weeks
all of these kind of weird sort of line deliveries.
They are weird, but they're so undeniably catchy and for
pop metal. So what you want is it you want
those choruses to stick in your head. And again, like
there's sort of the bass skip on, the sort of
verse with the drum bait. Every sort of bit of
this song is just kind of designed to worm its
way into ears and stay there while still being really
kind of odd.
Speaker 2: And I think it's just.
Speaker 3: Like that to me, is kind of like a perfect
kind of like ghost single in that regard.
Speaker 1: And then Lachryma, which that to me feels like almost
more like the eighties metal horror movie soundtrack song than
Hunter's Moon did because it's the perfect mix of like,
you know, stranger thingsy nightmare on Elm Street, kind of
child's bedroom at night, like moonlight synth and spooky choirs
and stuff creeping around the edges and a massive fuck
off hook. As great as Satanized is and as excise
I was for the recorm when that came out, Lachryma
was the one where I just suddenly I was just
frothing at the mouth at the prospect of more of it.
Speaker 4: This is basically a perfect Ghost song. Anything you can
like about Ghost is present and correct on this. It
sounds almost like something that could bridge the gap between
in prequel, where it has the weight and the drama
of that previous of the preceding record and the fun
and like stylishness of the latter. Those verses are so
the ultimate sin, which is in that conversation you guys
are having about like lost eighties classics, not on the
same level as some of those others, but that album
is disgracefully overlooked.
Speaker 1: I think that that embark at the Moon the j
Lee stuff are the ones I reference the most. They're
the ones I reference the most in regards to kind
of influence on modern stuff, maybe because it's just hard
to do Randy Rhodes. But like whenever the new eighty
style metal is sick, I go, oh yeah, Jake e
Lee Yeah.
Speaker 4: And then and then when the guitar solos come in,
they are so Swedish, pure europe worship, and I'm sorry
that chorus is outrageous and that thing we also like,
you know, pop songwriting and metal, how's it done? Like, oh,
this band is working in, this band are working whatever.
That is just a brilliant pop song that happens to
be a metal song. It's not a metal song where
they've crow in some pop chorus to try and sell
it to you. It's an exquisitely written song that even
really down to the lyrics whatever. You're not trick that
it seems to being like, oh, this is a poppy,
merciful fate song.
Speaker 1: It's a pop song. Yeah, and I love I say
with complete affection. I love the slightly shit guitar tone
when the heavy rip comes in, it's like a bit wank.
It's a like a weird tinny tone. I swear we
haven't heard or a big album in decades. I love it.
It's like a bit ugly in Satanized as well. Under
the kind of monk bit, there's like that slightly crap
guitar sound. I think it's brilliant. It just really feeds
into a very particular kind of eighties atmosphere for me.
But the songwriting with it in Lacroma is flawless. How
naturally the verses escalating too, the pre chorus and then
the chorus and so on, like I can't not go
in the middle of an added feod when it hits
that part the pre chorus, which to me feels a
little bit like it's maybe quoting better by you better
than Me from Judus Prieste with everybody knows, and then
absolutely after that heavier build up, just a timeless like
MTV chorus. I love how ridiculous the backing vocal is
right on the key change when it goes cray like
it's just so you're taking.
Speaker 3: You're taking all of them. One of my favorite things
goes so I'm just gonna get it now. That is
is that two pronged chorus that they do all across
their career.
Speaker 2: It's what goes the best. And when you get first one,
I heard that.
Speaker 3: Okay, that's the kind of chorus I wasn't ready for
that first and cry.
Speaker 2: I was like, oh, my fucking god, they've done it.
Speaker 3: They've written maybe the greatest ghost chorus ever, just kind
of that pop maximumism. And again when that keyshade with
the added backing vocals and lead guitars hits on the
final chorus, I was like, go start the greatest band
ever when they can deliver this, I'm like, I won't
hear a bad word against Ghost when they can make
me feel this kind of euphoria and like la because
even on the verses it does have a little bit
of that seventies doing And again, you're right, the guitar
time probably is a bit shitty, but it adds that
kind of like that slightly like creaky occult kind of
feel to it. And I'm like, I love that we
can have that go into the most blockbuster ghost chorus
that we can get both of them at the same time,
and it can remind me of like a verse that
could be on Emphasism Arm and a chorus that could
be on Imperia coming together to just deliver what is
like an absolute ten out of ten perfect ghost song.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's so funny there has been some interesting, less
immediate stuff to get to grips with. Though Peacefield is
the opener, it's not a Kaise Arion right, Like, it's
not Papa going ah and you know, barrel and full
throttle into something super hype. I think it kind of
marks how much of this album will be, you know,
quite delicate, that kind of AOII sensibility that crept in
on Impia. This has tons of that. Peace Field in particular.
You know, a lot of people are pointed out how
particularly journey ish it is with some of the melod
I also think it generally has a bit of like
Manhattan Skyline by a Heart to it as well, but
that is maybe more emblematic of the whole album for me,
where it maybe didn't wow me initially or my first listen,
but I had to let it unfurl a bit and
then it did because Peacefield seems to start kind of slow,
like it is quite funny that it starts sounding a
bit like Ali Jones walking in the air, but by
about the second or third chorus, I'm dazzled.
Speaker 3: I mean, like this one Dream's main bit was like
again the two form chorus that kind of got me
after I was like, this is a bit of a
slow start.
Speaker 2: That chorus was just so.
Speaker 3: Immediately magic to me that I was like, yeah, I'm
seld In, I'm here for like big you know ao
R Ghost with that fuddy huge arena drum sound, which
I'm coming round to this this shit more and more
and again when Ghost of doing it, I'm like, yeah,
this is this is just like this rocks and I'm.
Speaker 2: Sort of seld In and it kind of does over.
It's quite like grand.
Speaker 3: Sort slow moving thing, but again just fitting in a
solid gold pop chorus.
Speaker 4: Would be the exception of maybe Spirits. Every other Ghost
opener proper really feels like we have arrived moment, and Peacefield,
despite being six minutes long, doesn't really have that like
it kind of feels like the door opening letting you in.
And then Lachroma is when the band itself survived, which
sounds odd because it's not like it's an instrumental or
an overture. It is a fully fledged song with chorus'
pre choruses, bridges all the components, and yet to me
it kind of feels like it still builds and builds
and builds and doesn't capitalize on it. And the first
couple of times I heard, I wasn't sure if that worked.
You know, for a band whose songs are so enjoying
by isolation, they also do work so much better in
the context of a record.
Speaker 1: And this song.
Speaker 4: Initia I thought that's that's a good opener, but it's
a slightly puzzling choice.
Speaker 1: Now I just think.
Speaker 4: It's now when I put it on, I think the
next forty five minutes is going to fucking rock starting now.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And I feel like when there was that first
set list from the first night of the tour and Darkness,
Heart of My Love was the only song from Emperor,
maybe that's a bit of a clue because that's the
song almost that seems to carry over to this album's
vibe of the most. I think it is a it's
the least edge of any Ghost album, Like there's not
a lot of watchers in the sky or faiths or whatever.
I guess you'd say. Lachryma is the closest, Like that's
the riffer, even though the chorus and that one is.
Speaker 3: Dave Profundis goes pretty like hard when they're sort of
going to overdrive towards the end.
Speaker 2: That's got like we're a riff into it like that.
Speaker 1: There's pace. I wouldn't say there's a lot of like
again huge I mean those those big, weighty you know
or something style you know, doom riffs or whatever. There's
the least of that here, But the intricacies of the
melodic writing and the song structure assembling everything like word
saying it's ghost are like one of the only bands
in the modern way who can touch your journeys and
Toto's and at the same time your death Leopard scorpions,
what have you in that regard, and it is again
it's a bit more lightweight and shiny maybe, but if
you appreciate stuff like that, there's so much to marvel
at here. You've got, you know. Frederik Gakerson from Opeth
in the guitar solo still that's great. Guiding Lights is
another one that more slowly got his claws in me.
But this side of he is which is pretty untouchable
of their kind of like modern glam ones. I think
this might be the best ghost ballad really. Yeah, of
like again a prequel on this sort of style of
very lighters in the air style ones they've done. This
one has really kind of sunk him with me.
Speaker 2: I was sewing on guiding Lights.
Speaker 3: From the moment I heard it, I was like, the
air grabs are going, like the road that leads to
Nowhere is long. I'm so here for big cheesy eighties
power ballad goes. That chorus is just glorious.
Speaker 4: This was one of the ones that really took a
while for me to get scripts with. And those glammy
power balls you're talking about, I've loved every single one
of them. Darlasa the Heart, I love life Eternal, see
the Lights if you include that in the same sort
of thing this. For a while, I was gonna think
this is good, and I'm really enjoying that melody. It
is kind of hard to resist. But for some reason
it wasn't quite grabbing me, and something occurred to me,
and I think it's true of a few songs on
this record, but it kind of switched the perspective with
which I was viewing it, and then I liked it
a lot more. And it's that for the first time
on this record, Tobias doesn't feel like he's playing any
kind of character for some of it the other records,
it really does feel like the Pappa is singing something
like Guiding Lights just sounds like Tobias. There's nothing really
about that song that would lead you to think this
is a ghost song per se, other than obviously it's
so recognizably his voice.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's fair. I think in terms of
the character and just the things that Tobias himself is
kind of just maybe putting out there in his feelings,
they have gotten more and more fused, and I think
maybe there's something I'll touch on more kind of later.
But in regards to the just the general kind of
vibe and theme of the album, right in Perror kind
of cast its you know, it's glare so wide and
was kind of more looking outwards, and with that you
could embody the character more in terms of how it
interacts with again the politics, the landscape, whatever, the culture.
This one is a more kind of intimate, I don't
want to say introverted, but more kind of introspect, you know,
that's the word I'm looking for exactly. I think ghost record,
And maybe in that sense it does just feel more
like Tobias himself is just singing to you. So I
think that's valid. Again, I don't necessarily know if that
makes it a you know, if that's a pro or
a con, I think it's just an observation maybe, But
Guiding Lights, I just think as it still has the
ghost thing for me of you know, to use a
really like cheesy, soppy piece of language or something, but
ghost have this ability to just make you really feel
held by a song, you know, like something that's just
so warming and soothing. And sometimes they're doing it in
the arms of Satan as they are on he Is,
and sometimes it's just pure glam like this, but they've
always excelled in finding comfort in something very shadowy. And
that is the most air grab chorus you've ever heard,
but also it's subtle. But I think it is still
inflected with some of those European influences of like the
kind of classic horror scores, that kind of the piano
and the sort of like dumb dumb, dumb, dum dumb
dumb like harpsichord or whatever it is makes me feel
like I'm in like Darry Argento's phenomena or something, And
that's sort of you know, the pendulum of the like
subversive cult horror rock to outright glam rock, you know,
percentage it might have swung more that second way. But
if you're still looking for those moments, you can feel,
you know, those kind of them in there and you're
still in tune with them. And when this record does
go up beat again. Quite a few of the deeper
cuts actually they have this very like bubbly pop energy
to them. You have got, as you mentioned Sam deeper
Fundus Borealis, which is a you know, less cheeky, maybe
more again comforting sort of song because every time it
hits the chorus and that every time you hear the
wimblow and the pace is going, it's powering forward. You've
got the lead guitar kind of call and response. Dazzling
is a word that I would use again. I do
feel like I've got like stars in my eyes and
you know, Papa's got my back and we can take
on the world, that we can do anything with a
moment like that. That one, to me is again another one.
Speaker 4: For a long time it was eluding me, and then
once I kind of had the perspective switch, it really clicked.
This one is so Disney. In that chorus, it just
soars that thing you were saying is probably I can
show you the world like.
Speaker 1: Just that's magic carpet. Absolutely.
Speaker 2: That's probably why it might be one of my favorite
songs on the record.
Speaker 3: Because it has that quality, but it does that whilst rocking,
like and as I don't like, I don't like, you
know it's Disney to sort of go oh, that means
you know, it is pure fluff and cheese like, and
sure there is a lot of cheese on that song,
but like the guitar that bit because you get that,
you know, that old delicate piano intro thing, and I
was kind of like, oh two balance and no, no,
here comes the big riff and it is a pure
rocking thing and it just kind of gets more like
overdriven each time. It's all come around, so by the
end you are fully like this in the air, like yeah,
let's go, Papa, let's let's let's do this together on
this like pure cheese chorus, And that to me is
again just what I want Ghost to be at this point.
Is that just pop glory but with like being done
with a heavy metal drive to it.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Marks of the Evil one later on maybe has a
similar kind of energy in that regard where it is
quite wind swept and bombastic. I do think the chorus
sounds a bit like you're going to break into that
day or day every time, but it's not. It's very
it's a similar kind of feel. Elliott, your favorite lyric.
You put it out before i'd actually press play on
the album the first time. The way he describes the
four horsemen, this is so how is that the lyric
you've taken to the final take? The third rider looks cool,
and then he just goes straight onto the fourth one
is death, but it's just the third one in isolation
looks cool. It is a shit lyric, but I'm really
happy it's there because it made me smile so much.
Speaker 4: I don't know why that is so funny, And I
don't know how much of why I like that song
is that one lyric. But I couldn't believe it when
it first came in, when it's just like the first
rider is this?
Speaker 1: The second rider is this? That chorus comes in, the
third rider looks cool. Then it's like.
Speaker 4: You just for some reason, the third rider, which everyone
that is has shades and a leather jacket, is looking
over the top and like is slicking his hair back.
It's like it's so pure ghost to go like to
having a song about the four horsemen and describe one
of them as looking like.
Speaker 1: A groovy guy like that, I think you just forgot
his lyric and at that point and hadn't written it
down some of the fits. But I love again speaking
of the crazy backing vocals every time, the kind of
gospel one that comes in on Serpents just a lifts
me every time. And it's the touches like that throughout
the record.
Speaker 4: The one on that, for me is one of the
things that goes to great is the way they can
repeat things but change it ever so slightly so it
feels fresh like that, going back to lack of the
final I'm done before the last chorus, just going up
again a bit higher, Yeah, just sets it. The one
on here Where's there Watch? Yeah, Yeah, that punched through
moment where again, like above and beyond, not necessarily the
song's great anyway, it just it makes it so much
more exciting. It just lifts the song that like a
couple of degrees higher every time it comes in. And
it's little things like that which you know, maybe slightly
more gun shy bands wouldn't think to do. And it's
it's the reason why ghost leagues ahead of anyone doing
the same sort of thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Cenotaph is a funny one because that feels almost
to me like kind of in their more than sort
of eighties glam Guys, a bit of a successor to
some of the early Ghost songs. I'm kind of forgotten now,
but some of my favorite songs like Giga o'harmon and
Idolatry that have that kind of like vaudeville to tap
a sort of energy that I thought they'd kind of
left behind. But I was sort of waiting for this
to go full show tune like those do. It doesn't quite,
but translating that energy into this kind of you know,
modern death journey thing that they have going on that song.
I've loved Moral when every listen because it is such
pure joy and again that sense of kinship and connection
that you know, like kind of wherever I go, you're
always there riding next to me with that like stateless
quoke guitar that comes in afterwards. Like that's another one
that's gone from being a song that I wasn't so
fussed about to like one of my favorites.
Speaker 2: Actually, Yeah, Cymotaph makes thing. Maybe yacht rock can be
good actually is like when like.
Speaker 3: We all know, I mean, I just I have got
Oh the sort of jeweling guitar keyboard solo can be good.
Actually take notes, that's outrageous, like is really fun, you know,
because it's all it is, all the twinkly keys and
major key melodies and then again there's like skip on
the drum beat, but it's so infectious and again that
I like, I could add about every song on this
album and infectious quality to every song here and that
maybe two different levels, but there wasn't Well, I don't
like that. I wouldn't want to see that live. I'm like,
you can put all these songs in the live setus
and I'd have fun seeing them because the melodies and
just the energy of the song just sort of takes
over me.
Speaker 2: And I'm just having fun whenever they're on.
Speaker 4: I think for all that stuff I was saying about ghosts,
some of the songs that theyre maybe not sounding so
ghost I should selling more just to bias for drying
rock songs.
Speaker 1: That is probably true of Cenotaph.
Speaker 4: I hadn't thought that thing you said, paring about it
pointing back to some of their older songs. But I
see what you're saying there. In this case, I think
it's my favorite song on the record. I have loved
Cenotaph from the first time I've heard it, and I've
loved it more and more and more. That melody is staggering.
I can't imagine not getting swept up in it. That
like crazy little thing called love like guitar riff and
that's a little skippy ballop and that solo, that thing
we're saying about little things that just improve the song
in the second ones that in.
Speaker 1: The heat of the moment, dan Ow.
Speaker 4: It's like that's been done by a million bands a
million billion times, and in the hands of Ghost it
just sounds fresh and fun and makes the song feel alive.
And that combination of like Toto and Queen again. Almost
all the Merciful Fate or the Angel Which or any
of the other kind of more hard edged influences they've
been completely shed off here, but thankfully Ghost. As such,
Tobias is such a tremendous songwriter that even in something
which I'm sure it informs it sound, but doing something
really quite a step away from what is in his
general comfort zone, and it just smashes it out of
the park, and whether you like the song or not,
you're never going to forget which song Cenotaph is looking
at the track list, It's just it bursts out of it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I just I can't imagine just not fully getting
swept up in that riding next to me like every
single time it comes around. And then the album just
starts to get really horny, because like we were saying that,
you know, in perror casting its gaze outwards so much
and taking that sound of like opulent, decadent empire or
all of that skeleton does feel more introspective. And if
I didn't know that Tobias was a married man with kids,
it would be a bit like, oh, what's this a
new lady in your life? Perhaps because this just turns
into such a infatuated recently you know, fallen in love
type energy of an album, but at the same time
delivered with what I can only describe as kiss love
gun energy, like if sleep Token are talking about the
baddest baddies in the room. This comes from the well,
I guess I'll just whip my dick out school of
like lific songthing when it comes to that, which is
where we get into Missilia Amori, which is probably the
twenties of this album in terms of whether people can
hack it or not. But I am a Scorpions fan.
I think love Gun rocks. Most of us are all
right with ACDC doing let Me Put My Love into
You Again. It's a very specific kind of like, oh,
we haven't heard songs written in this body sort of
way since the eighties, and musically it kind of it's
almost like an intentional homage or something, because it very
it veers into that like Scorpions deaf leopard hulking, quite sluggish,
like you know, particular sort of eighties hard rock stiffness.
To forgive the wording, right, I think you know. Tobias
said an interview that he was thinking of those kind
of like eighties sleeze rock stripperanthem type songs when putting
that one together, and it it properly is quite tacky
as a song, right with the fucking you know you
show me yours, I'll show you mine. And I can
again the people who just roll their eyes when Ghost
do puns, I can imagine hating it, but I can't
help myself going love Rocket every dome.
Speaker 3: I mean, when I first heard this chorus my jaw
dropped on that course to Bias, I love this Naughties,
It's so funny, Like again, I can't quite believe it
every time I'm hearing it. That again, in twenty twenty five,
someone has come out with the chorus love rockets shot
right in between your eyes, like this is the kind
of songwriting that we should have liked. Again, by all
the gods, we should have left this behind in the eighties.
Speaker 1: Panther almost yeah, but with ghost like.
Speaker 2: I know Tobias is winking at me the entire time.
I know it is.
Speaker 3: It's like ghosts have a level of camp to this
thing that stell Panther, don't where none of this comes
across as like ced or lecturers or or misogynistic, because
ghosts are just so lovable with it, whereas still Panther,
you're gonna be like, oh, you're just disgusting, like horrible
men like Tobias.
Speaker 2: I would never think that about him.
Speaker 3: But it is like again the chorus, the verse even
gets kind of like a bit ced but and it
has got that sleazy, big kind of Eighties like you
like strip around from kind of hard rock stomp to it.
But at the same time. That chorus is so fucking catchy.
Even if I like.
Speaker 2: I shouldn't sing these words out loud.
Speaker 3: They shouldn't be saying about my love rockets shot right
in between your eyes exactly with your demise, like, oh,
but I can't help but smile this again.
Speaker 4: It was another one where when the reviews of this
rep start coming out and they were going, Ghost have
done a stripper anthem, I didn't know whether to clap
or put my head in my hands. I couldn't work
after that sound like a brilliant or a terrible idea,
And you're right. The second half this record is certainly
hornier than the first, and Umbras will get to you later.
That's a song which it feels like more of a
conscious effort has been made, maybe to make that topic
more relatable to Ghost. We'll get into the lyrics of
that song, but it's a bit more clever. Let's say,
where's in this one? He's kind of gone.
Speaker 1: We'll give it a Latin title and that'll be fairly
Ghost Cilia and Maury is such a funny title. What
it's like they've written love rockets and then god, we
can't call it that? What's that in Latin, because.
Speaker 4: I was looking at it and I was thinking, I mean,
I don't know Latin at all. You can try and
do like some you can try and work backwards.
Speaker 1: And I got a maury. I think that's love miss iliat.
Speaker 2: Love, missile missiles of love like missiles of love.
Speaker 4: Uh, I kind of And then as soon as as
a strip around for you, I see it's it's it's
really it's only it's barely above lick my Love pump
as like a rock song title. But again maybe the
first I think, once you kind of settle into what
it is, I used to accept it. It's pretty irresistible,
like that riff. I think does walk the line between
classic like say Scorpion strip around them and something that's
close close, something like Series or Faith. It's a bit
more menacing than those kind of songs. And again, ultimately
he's just great at writing eighties metaled songs of any guys.
He's he's clear like a student of the game, and
he knows why the best songs in this style work.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and then you mentioned Umbra, which I agree with you.
Maybe is in terms of how they've wrapped it up.
Maybe it's more of the kind of Monster it's clock
Spirit of Things or something in that regard. But Umbra
is the like one of the ones that I will
absolutely ride or die for on. I think it's one
of the best songs on the record because that that's
like a fuck that's a rock opera song about coming
or something like. It's just it's so you've got sounds
popping off from everywhere with that kind of the meat
loaf style done done keyboard accent after every line and
the chorus like in the Shadow of the Nazarene, I'll
put my love in you. I laughed at that more
than I did love Rockets, I think because it's such
a curious mix of like both worlds that Ghost have inhabited,
where it's a strange mix of like black metal language right,
like phrasing you only hear in that world in the
Shadow of the Nazarene, and then halfway through the line
deciding to turn into like body kiss orrys DC or something.
I've never heard it done like that, and it's really
strangely memorable. And then the back half of the song
going off the rails for fucking dueling organ solos like
I'm sorry if you don't think that section is sick.
You need to fibrillate in. It's just I mean, like
again Sam, if the Cenotaph or whichever song it was
key what this one is a whole other level about radius.
Speaker 3: And this song becomes a runaway ghost train going completely
off the rails.
Speaker 2: The draining solos fucking amazing.
Speaker 3: You haven't even mentioned the again in the seven Nazarine
loving you great lyric the cowbell on this song. Yeah,
that just don't fucking stop because you can never have
too much cow bell. It is just going and going again.
This is another like just full on, just momentous. I mean,
this is like the late album highlight for me is Umbra,
where again that chorus is glorious. It goes completely batshitt
insane with the solos, but it's so the energy is
just completely infectious from start to finish that I can't
see how someone could, like like Ghosts and not have
the best time with this song.
Speaker 4: If not Cenotaph, this is the best song on the
record for my money. As far as the thing of
it's Sabbath bloody Sabbath Worship mixed with Billie Idol with
John Lord doing the organ solo, which as far as
like the promise of a song that's pretty up there
and it completely delivers on it. And when that organ
lead guitar trade off bit comes in towards the end,
all I was thinking is it's tragic that we live
in a world where there's no new guitar hero games,
because as soon as you hear that, you just go
this is made for that, Like the excitement of sweeping
guitar leads.
Speaker 1: It's it's so infectious. Would go crazy on that part
if you like rock music from.
Speaker 4: This era of basically any stripe that's that sensation, that
thing you like is so radically present on a song
like Umbra. It's so exciting if that's your bag.
Speaker 1: And I mean, when was.
Speaker 4: The last time that a seriously popular and somewhat new
rock band was doing something that balls out nonsense rock
and roll in from the old school. It doesn't really happen,
And why is into every day? Like why isn't this
a near constant in our world? It's just it's the
best sound.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And then Ghosts, I think they've settled into a
structure now where they often have like the penultimate track
is something quite bombastic in that regard and then the
closer will almost feel like a bit of a wrapping
things up epilogue. Sometimes that can go, you know, almost
counter to what you would think quite epic in the
way they did last time with a Respite on the Bittlefields.
But they do often. You know, you look at Life
Eternal or Prequel, you look at that, and then you
look at Excelsis. Here they they go for closes that
are less kind of eyes popping out of your head
ear candy. Then a lot of the songs come before it,
so maybe at first they feel a little weak in comparison.
I think Excelsis is you know, it's my least favorite
song with the record. It's I think it's the least
exciting one. Again, if you're feeling really harsh, you could
say it's the most sort of dreary song on the record,
But I say that again liking the song. I thought
similarly about Respite on the Bittlefields when that first came out,
and then you know, in the years after for Imperior,
it just firmly lodged itself in my head, and it
functions really well as the closer of the record here,
because you know, it's quite delicate and touching in the
way a lot of the record is kind of themed
around being and the way it ends with those you know,
the final notes of I Am Afraid of the Eternity
Too is just really nice.
Speaker 3: So this was the one where I was just as
I like, thinking back to the movie and some of
the themes the movie was trying touch on and not
touch on particularly well on kind of mortality and that
sort of thing. I was like, those are doing that
much better here on this album. Where this album is
kind of a very for all we love it. It's
a very human record where the songs are you know,
there are songs about kind of like coming to terms
with death and the ballads and kind of just falling
in love in that and that's what I think they
were they were going for in the movie, which I
think kind of serves as quite a nice lead into
what this album is. So I liked this as a
closer kind of like touching on those themes. It's not
the most dazzling ghost ballad ever, but again the current
met to the Rainbow's end coming to the Holy Land
like the like the hooks of Stuck Me, and I
think it's you know, nice, and it does again, build up,
it adds in some things and you get that big
guitar shanded sort of like take you Home towards the end.
Speaker 2: I think it's a nice closer.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I mean, when I first heard this record, this was
the only song in it, which, as much as there
were others that wasn't totally solid, on this one I
actually thought was kind of unfortunate. I would go as
far to say I thought it was a pretty poor song.
But that's one of the reason I'm glad we're doing
this a month later after hearing it for the first time,
because this has grown on me loads, and I think
part of it is I've grown accustomed to a level
of quality or like that Genesis, Monstrance, Clock, Dair Sneabsentia, Life,
Eternal Respies on this Spittle Fields. They are, like all
of them, pretty dramatic, bold, attention grabbing closes, even if
they're not the most high energy, like you say, eyes popping,
crazy sort of songs, and this one is very subdued,
particularly contrasted with the run of songs we just had
before it. But I'm really taken with this song now.
I think it's so much better than I actually gave
it credit for It's not the catchest, it's not the
most dazzling, and there's an argument to saying maybe it's slightly
a little bit too long, but I love the question
that it leaves the record with the fact it doesn't
feel like it's super conclusive finale, the way that we've
gone accustom to a Ghost that final line you're talking about,
it almost feels like the album finishes slightly too soon.
It leaves you wanting more in those final moments. And
I would agree it's probably my least favorite song on
the record, but I like what it does to the package,
if that makes sense.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I absolutely agree. Again, I felt the same about
Respout on this bit of fields on Impairer. I felt
maybe sort of similar about Life Eternal and Prequell. And
I was thinking about this record again, trying to be realistic,
think with a critical eye, whatever, and I was thinking
that maybe this is a less consistent Ghost record, and
then I was going, but I love every song on it,
so how can it be less consistent?
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 1: And it doesn't even have, as you're saying, this sort
of feel bits of interludes or whatever. It's just ten
tracks of tunes. So I think it is a less
sensational Ghost album maybe, or like you know, kind of
from front to back. I think, like my my least
favorite of the preceding five Ghost records was Prequel, which
tons of people would give me stick for because they
think it's the best one, But like one of them's
got to be the bottom, right, and it wasn't going
to be one of the other ones for me, So
it's just is that one by default, even though it's fantastic,
and this doesn't have a dance for Carb on it,
So this is probably now that I agree earlier, but
I have already for the last month, you know, listen
to this so much. It will end up being one
of my most played albums of the year when I'm
not burying my head in the unlistenable shit. They just
write for me the most perfect pop, sing along heavy
metal songs, and I think it's so in tune with
again that lineage of kind of classic rock and metal
spirit that I think very much. You know, it needs
someone preserving it right now. The craftsmanship is just like artisanal.
Even saying, you know, maybe this is a less sensational,
consistent whatever Ghost album. Every song is different in way
that works in its favor, like talking about just the
kind of horn dog songs like Missilia Amori and Umbra
are totally different in feel right and Messillia Amory. I
think part of the big reason it works because it's
the only one like that, rather than what def Leopard,
for example, do, which is make a whole album of
there's ten of those, whereas this is one. Then you go, oh, sick.
That's that. It's it's a bit more measured, a bit
more aor than really outright metal. Maybe this time I
think some of the darkness has certainly trickled out. It
is sweeter and cuter than they've ever been, but they
are the best. Yeah.
Speaker 4: I mean, like I said at the top of this,
at the time of recording, having had the album about
a month, this is probably my least favorite Ghost record.
I mean the one beforehand, which was Farmer the Pile
and this might come as to either of you, I'm
not sure, but was in Fastisimum, which took me a
long time to really get to grips with, and I
guess like that record, this is the only one where
I wasn't totally and utterly addicted to every single song
from the moment I heard it in the way that
was with the Debut and Meliora and pre Kill and
Imperial Last time Out. And there are still songs on
here that I'm not totally head over heels taken with
without any reservations whatsoever. But I've already grown to like
those a lot more than I did initially, and I
suspect I'll continue to do so. And you know, if
this is their worst record, what a fucking band, Because
on their quote unquote worst day, you're getting Peacefield, Lacroma, Umbra,
Marks of the Evil One, Satanized Cenotaph, and what I've
named six or seven songs there, and the other ones
are really good as well. That's a pretty remarkable standard.
And if you're committed to classic metal bands, it's six
records in not many of them are doing are hitting
that sort of batting average.
Speaker 3: I mean, I feel like I might be the most
positive about this all of us. I've just you know,
kind of just come into this like I don't think
my explosion would go to just kind of like give
me the pop metal songs, but I've just gobbled up
every little sort of like second of this album just
had a lovely time with it. We'll have a different
least of a ghost album and this or that, but
I would probably right now put this in the kind
of the middle of the pack. I really have had
a great time with this record, and I'm gonna keep
having a great time for the rest of this year
with it and onwards, because it's just delivering. And again
maybe it is because it's more Disney and that's more
my sort of thing.
Speaker 2: We're gonna roll with that now. But it's infectious. I
can keep just going back to that word.
Speaker 3: It is just sort of these songs have wormed their
way in and I hit play on this album peaceful starts,
and I'm gonna smile and I'm not gonna stop smiling
for the next forty odd minutes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I absolutely essentially agree Ghost Skeleton. Now we come
to another big record that was released the same day,
right at the end of April, before we move on
to May stuff, machine Head Unatoned. I really don't like
the state of play right now where we have to
come into a machine Head album review with this sort
of tone in our voices of here we go. Because
Machinehead are one of the best metal bands, arguably of
all time. Like I'm sure that they are a seminal
band for so many of us, and I personally believe
and have often stated, there was quite a long period
where I felt they were getting a lot more shit
than they deserved. I mean, even going as far back
to like you know, the dim Bash incident and Rob
Flynn making that video about Phil Andselmo, and he was
like one of the very first people to kind of
call him out from the kind of the metal community,
and it's like some people just decided that he was
getting above his station or something and being too loudmouthed
and turned him into this punching bag ever since, and
it feels like it has been upwards of a decade
since machine Head were a pretty universally beloved band, but
their career has been quite remarkable, with so many classic
songs from different decades and eras. I mean, certainly like
at least around twenty fourteen, but some would arguably as
recently as like twenty twenty two, they were making you know,
classic machine Nearer material. But in twenty twenty five, enthusiasm
for machine Head seems thin on the ground, doesn't it.
Speaker 3: I Mean, it's funny because you know, so obviously go
back to was it twenty twenty two?
Speaker 2: Was that? Yeah, that kind of like seemed to be
you know, everyone was getting back on the boardom the
shine Train.
Speaker 3: And again that album's not amazing, but it seems to
you know, right the ship little bit steady, things out
and you know it's good.
Speaker 2: Become the fire Storm and that is a fucking rage
of that song.
Speaker 3: So it kind of felt like, you know, things were
going back on the right track, and next time along
it seems to have just completely fallen apart. I mean,
I will just preface this io ioson Dumond's an apology,
I have been very, very wrong about that album. We'll
get that out there right the way.
Speaker 2: My bad.
Speaker 3: That's all I'm gonna say before we get into discuss
on this, because I can be like, oh no, no, no, it.
Speaker 2: Could get a lot worse. It really can. So yeah,
prebas with that.
Speaker 3: But yeah, enthusiasm for this album in particular, even before
we got to you know, when we didn't know if
it was gonna be a single or the obviously the
scars went to find us like it felt kind of
like there was a loo kind of like, oh yeah,
Machin had a back off an now and that people
seem to generally be on board of and it just
seems to, you know, be a steady decline of excitement
for this album with each kind of like passing new
bit of information or new single, and then you know,
the album's just kind of like plopped out and we're here.
Speaker 2: Having to kind of be like machine Head about it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's on one hand, it's wild that we are
coming in with this sort of tone because for a
long time, certainly for the first few years of me
being into metal, machine Head were one of those it
felt like a sacred cow, like no one had a
bad word to say about the me. And when something
Bloodstone and Diamonds came out, which was a great record
that got really positive reviews, the story was almost how
can people aren't saying this albums even better than it
is than they are? And now, like you say, following
up of Kingdom and Crown, which at the time was
pretty well received, To be honest, I think, and I thought,
then it's a fairly unspectacular record. I think the only reason,
not the only reason, maybe, but I think a large
part of why people were so enthusiastic about it was
because directly beforehand, they had been as big a slump
as any classic metal band I think has ever been,
and this time it's like whatever enthusiasm was still radiating
from that last record and for reasons that are kind
of unclear, had evaporated before this record came out. I
didn't really see anyone going, oh, this new Machine had
a record, Hopefully they can capitalize on off Kingdom and
Crown and where they've been recently seemed a lot better.
The album just sort of arrived and people seemed resigned
to not liking it straight away, and upon hearing the record,
it was a pretty depressing recognition that that was maybe
the right attitude to have.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I didn't even listen to this record until my
trip back from Incineration Festival, about a week after it
came out. I just didn't have the desire in me
to like put it on. And that's quite sad considering
for myself this it almost feels like things coming home
to roost a bit, and a few things that we've
been worried about potentially being problems with machine Head kind
of catching up with them, because obviously they have been rocky, right,
They've had great successes, you know, I don't want to
paint over you know, a Kingdom and Crown. They were
back to happily being like a you know, sort of
mid sized festival headline or anything like that, the level
you'd want them to be. But in terms of the
state of their band, who is in the band, you know,
being on any kind of sustained runner form, it has
been up and down of Kindom and Crown is not
a record that I've gone back to very much because
I you know, unspectacular I think is certainly a way
you can put it. I don't think it has the
real magic of that you know, late twenty early twenty
tens kind of second golden era of machine Head, even
if sonically that is the period that it is the
most like perhaps just it's down to it doesn't have
the real worked out band chemistry of those records, because
nobody can remember who is on any given machine Head
these days. But what was being written on that record
was largely good, right like It's a worthy, respectable how
I think, and if they are past their absolute creative
peak Shock Horror, three decades after their debut album, so
be it right like you could live in a happy
world if that is the kind of standard of what
they're doing, and machine Head are strange like that, Like
if you squint at it, you could arguably give them
credit for I mean, Elliott, you've said something about machine
Head arriving on these albums are as far into their
career as Slayer or Megadeth were when they were putting
out Repentless or Dystopia ten years ago, right, like, and
you can go beyond that. Rob Flynn was in Violence
putting out Eternal Nightmare in the late eighties. Thinking about
that guy being in the same room as Jordan Fish
is crazy, where like no one from that generation like
Slayer were not coming back to work with Jordan Fish, right,
machine Head have been not defined by being eighties thrash
guys in the same way despite literally being a e
thrash guys. But if you remember in twenty sixteen, they
put out a single is There Anybody out There? That
inexplicably became like their most stream song by a mile,
and a lot of people were worried, like, oh, machine
Hare going to go in a sort of like radio
metal direction or something. And then you fast forward to
the twenty twenties and the lineup instability, and you know,
that Rob might as well have the kids from Black
Flag on any given record in terms of like who
he's choosing to record with. And Machine Head has unavoidably
felt less like a band of four dudes you can name,
and more Rob kind of with different collaborators. Those worries
that we've had about those things unatoned is unfortunately what
the kind of the outcome that we were all sort
of fearing for those several years sounds like it's just
finally sunk together after a few years into the process.
And machine Heads other generally perceived as miss records, I've
always found something like Catharsis. Obviously, I know it's a
mixed bag, but I have always said there's like thirty
to forty minutes of a strong record in there amongst
the bloat and and everything else that's going on there.
And I think it's a record that people characterized much
more for its failures than the stuff that it did great.
And Supercharger, the thing has always been, well, if at
least there's nothing else's Bulldozer a song that no one
is upset to see live, right, this record is pretty dire, Like,
maybe not completely every song an absolute stinker or something
but I find it the most draining experience out of
any machine Head album, and it's only forty minutes long
compared to some of those. It's just it's just it
feels very distasteful as it is entering my system.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think this is the worst machine Head album
by some margins. Again, I think Cathasis for all its flaws,
and it is way too long. That Alm has character,
Like the album has weird swings that maybe are misguided,
but you know, I'm not going to forget Bastards because
it like it was so out there for machine at
the time. You know, Super has Bulldozer, Like this album
has nothing. I don't like a single thing on this album,
and I don't want to give a sound of kicking
because I don't want to know. I think Rob Flynn
has you know, become a bit of like a punching
bag at times where I'm like, does he deserve it?
Speaker 2: But this album, for me.
Speaker 1: He's earned a lot of respect, right I say that.
Speaker 3: Dude wrote you know, like the Blackening Locus like absolutely
like ten out of ten albums, Like I fucking love Locus,
like that is one of my favorite machine albums because again,
one of the first ones that came out when I
was fully in the machine head like ever, that album
like it gets such a kicking when it doesn't deserve it.
But this is now where I kind of just listen
to it and there is there's nothing here and Rob
sounds tired for the first time ever, And that that,
to me was the real like thing like that I
found really hard. I was like, for the problems you
know last album, He's still sounded pretty fired up on
it and was kind of it here.
Speaker 2: It just sounds like a bit of a shell of
Rob Plin at times.
Speaker 3: And that's before you get onto how horrible the production
of the record is, how unmemorable the songs are. I
just this is one of least face like again, I've
given a few bands I really like a kicking this year,
and this feels like just another one of them where
I'm just like, I get no I get no pleasure
from this.
Speaker 2: This is this is not like when.
Speaker 3: Those negative views are going to be like laughing and
hollering about as we kind of like love how stupid
and dumb it is.
Speaker 2: This is just it just it was just a really
disheartening listen.
Speaker 4: Yeah, this record is just it's a bit sad, and
it's a record where for how bland and openly formulaic
it is. I've saw an interview with Robie was breaking
down each of their records, and something you're saying about
this record is he had certain rules about the songs.
Speaker 1: Can only be this long and has to have two choruses.
It was.
Speaker 4: It was all the stuff where structurally he insists on
each song being basically identical. And just what I'm not
saying that there's no benefit to putting rules on your
art and like doing stuff like that to test yourself
and try and write different songs. But why you would
do that when you're Rob Flinn and you've written such
brilliant songs which don't adhere to any sort of formula
and really do and I've written, like you say, on
things like Catharsis and Supercharger, which records I don't like,
at least interesting songs because they don't adhere to a
formula what's expected a Machine Head. I was surprised a
record was coming out this quickly at all, because it's
not even been three years since the last one in
the Machine Head of you know, for the last you know,
two decades it's been more like three to four years
between records. Part of that gave me hope. I thought,
or maybe he's really fired up and he's written this
bunch of songs and he's just itching to release it again.
I'm not, as I'm saying, he and not machine Head anymore.
That just seems like it's gone, and then the records
to come out and it to be so formulaic and
sound so tired and so unimaginative. It's the first time
I've listened to a machine Head record. I don't know
if it is the worst one, but it's the first
time I've listened to one, and I thought, I really
don't know why this exists. There's not much urgency or
passion or fire in it for better or for worse,
which which has always been the case in the past,
even the worst machine Head records. He sounds interesting in
what he's doing. This time, it's like I don't notice
it going. Is there anybody out there? Times twelve? How
many songs on this record? I don't ever remember. I'm
kind of baffled by how plain the whole thing is.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it starts passable. Maybe Atomic Revelations is probably
one of the best songs on the record. I think
it's it's kind of undercut by the strange effect that
Rob's harsher voice has on this album, which we'll get into,
but it's okay. And then the chorus. I don't know
why they've started. I don't know if it's the fact
that it's you know, Jared as the other kind of
somewhat consistent member in Machine Head these days, and here's
kind of rolling doing the backing vocals and stuff. I
don't know if that's a factor, but they've started to
lean more and more on like the really dour melodic chorus.
And it was stuff like my hands are Empty on
the last album, which I didn't mind, but I never
fully loved that. And it's kind of jarring when this
has this bluster of momentum and then it's almost like
that leave me the fuck alone while she sleeps thing
right like, and it's yeah, it's not that, but it's
a little.
Speaker 2: Straight every chorus.
Speaker 3: It feels that that happens every time, where it feels like,
you know, we should be building this kind of.
Speaker 2: Like like mis Courus.
Speaker 3: When you think about like the best Reviles, they are
like chest beating, like anthemic, and every single time it
becus you're about to get that, it just kind of
drops into this weird, like kind of almost monotone, droning
chorus that just SAPs the energy out of these songs.
And again, I don't know if it is at the
backpak thing, if it's a production choice, if it's Rob
just can't muster that level of power.
Speaker 2: Now, and maybe maybe you can't.
Speaker 3: Who I'd sort of judge him for that, But every
chorus on this album falls completely flat for me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, let's talk about Rob vocally a little bit, I guess,
because I find it genuinely hard to put my finger
on what's happened here because we've all liked Rob Flinn's
voice for many albums, right, and he's not majorly shifted
up what he does, So why is suddenly the most
common complaint that people have time and time again that
his vocal tramples over everything? And like it's it's my
major problem with particularly the title track, the way he
comes in with that unbound unbreaker, but it's like eating
a sour grape. It's that weird. The gruffer register that
he works in has somehow slipped over into this slightly
more grating side. And I don't know if it's a
thing that he's doing on purpose or just his voice
is a bit shot. I don't know, but it's like,
rather than really riding the kind of force of the music,
he kind of overrides it these days. And he sounds
really bad on that hook in particular. He sounds kind
of slobbery and obnoxious.
Speaker 4: Imparts this record where there's moments where like you say
something that sort of beat your chest, like red blooded power,
where it's meant to go over the top, where it's
meant to sound like a berserk or something, he just
sounds he kind of lose control, He loses control of
his mouth. It sounds like when he's screaming like that,
and it doesn't end up sounding frantic or exciting for
those reasons. It sounds kind of punch drunk in those
moments where it's meant to sound triumphant. And it means
that when he's not doing the dour, quite toned, back down,
pared back thing, which just isn't that exciting on a
machine heead song. When he's not doing that, he's kind
of it feels harsh to say, almost like embarrassing himself
by over exerting in a slightly unnatural, uncomfortable way.
Speaker 3: I can't quite put my finger on what it is
that isn't working on this album because there's so many
possible outcomes. Is because I think I don't think you
can put it onto just one problem. I don't think
if it is the melody hooks aren't like they're just
a bit lumping and wildy, the production rob just it's
a whole convert of things that just all seems to
come together time and time again to just completely like
shoot these songs in the foot whenever they feel like
they should sort of take flight.
Speaker 1: Yeah, these guys won't define us. I guess the version
here is not quite the same as the Weird Tour
edition where I remember we spoke about that was a
bit too distracted by like here's everybody then really judging
the song. But I think like the first song is
a pretty decent thrashier song. But again, some of those
problems kind of quell it a bit. I think the
metal on this record largely sounds fine, like I'm never
quite fully allowed to enjoy a track to the fullest
for the reasons we're saying. But in terms of the
you know, recording and everything, and it's done by the
same engineer they always have. I think it sounds fairly solid.
The drums are a bit clinical. Maybe I still don't
really know why they've got the guy from Eastern Front
End Devilment when it's like your your machine Head, right,
you just have Dave McClain, like you could surely get
like any number of drummer in the world. And it
sounds a bit stiff. But anyway, generally I will find
myself passively nodding along to a riff like Outsider or something.
So that's why I don't want to say the record
is like completely you know, devoid of any merit at all,
but hook wise to really sell that, they've gotten quite
weak either generally unmemorable, a bit you know, sort of flimsy,
like we're saying again Outsider to use that same song
or have actively kind of shat upon it with some
of the other ones. The woes they've they've not been
adverse to a woe in the past, necessarily, but every year,
since there's anyone out there, we have somehow crept closer
and closer to the worst kind of woes in Machine
Head which the millennial woe right, and that generally, as
we know it generally kills a metal song stone dead.
Why in twenty twenty five have we got machine Head
songs with choruses built around millennial woes?
Speaker 3: That's why I think I really hate Outsider, Like I
think Outsiders Almo is so overproduced and it just again
like they should be building something and it feels like
it should roar and come to life. And then that
woe happens, and I was like, oh, I just completely
deflated any hope I had for this record.
Speaker 1: It's not the worst one of the record, by.
Speaker 2: No, I mean it is, but it's the first one
that happens on the record.
Speaker 3: And that was that was the turning point for this
album where I I I don't yeah, I gave up
on the album at that point and I was like, oh,
this is this where we're at now? And again we
mentioned earlier, you know, Rob Hamilton Fish. I don't know
how much input Jorda Fish has having this album.
Speaker 2: I don't really know.
Speaker 3: I'm more than happy to blame Jordan Fish for everything
right now. I don't know how much blame you should
take for this album. These are songs like I can
almost feel like I can feel like Fish might have,
you know, had a little bit of a nudge here
or there and that sort of thing, and it just
it is just the worst for like, of all the
bands to do. You're right, the millennial imagine Dragon's woe
Machine had worked, are like right down the bottom of
that list of bands who'd even be thinking about doing that,
And it is just the most like ugly fitting thing
for them to ever do.
Speaker 4: I think using a woe in a song isn't intrinsically
a bad idea. I love a good time, oh when
it's done well. It's great when it feels like a cheat,
or when it doesn't suit a song, because when it
feels like it's trying to force an anthemic moment that
isn't necessarily there, and something like Bone Scraper, that melody
is totally fine. It's not great, it's not bad. But
in the way that a song like Fear of the
Dark and It's Shootio Woodin doesn't need woes and I
was to make people want to sing that melody when
they go see Iron Maiden. This doesn't have that. The
melodies are not that strong performance isn't that's invigorating, so
they almost have to artificially build the moments go this
is when you do the woe, this is when we
all put our hands in the air, which maybe when
you go see it live it makes a lot of sense.
Sitting at home listening to this record, it just comes
across as a bit desperate.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and combined with the really bizarre touch which is
the electronics, because that really took me off guard because
that you don't associate machine Head with electronic percussion or
anything like that. And I was listening to the record,
I was like, why the fuck do these things sound
so like cheap and out of place? As an interlude
dust Maker, which to me immediately it sounded like the
slightly dub influenced interludes that are on Bringing the Horizon's Ammo,
which I really like on that album. But I was bemused,
thinking like, what the hell is that supposed to add
into the track list of like an obnoxious, groovy machine
Head album, Like it's really out of place. And then
I saw the headline about Jordan Fish. I went for
fox sake, and apparently he's been involved for you know,
doing subtle things for multiple albums, so I can imagine, right,
can imagine listening to I Know Now We Die on
Blostone Diamonds or something and thinking, yeah, he's maybe a
bit involved with doing the strings or something. They're sure,
but if this is the one where he's been invited
to be a more kind of integral presence, You've got
like the little trap flutters and kind of fake edm
strings in Not Long for This World? And then the
parts of the record where it goes from a bit
drab to genuinely awful? Are we in agreement that songs
like to me? The two that really stand out are
Bone Scraper and Bleeding Me Dry are among the worst
machine Head songs they've ever done.
Speaker 3: Bleeding Me Dry is agonizing, beginning with the most generic
simps I think you'll ever hear?
Speaker 2: Oh that that riff could be quite good, but then
it's mumble rap rob Flinn over a trap beat, and
I'm like, what is going on here? What are we
fucking doing? Like? I A awful?
Speaker 3: One of my problems of this album is it feels
quite unambitious a lot of points, and the moment they
try something different are like again I said about that
you know is having these weird swings that like maybe
it did work, but were memorable bleeding me drive fills
almost this AM's kind of take at that, but it's
one that's not gonna stick with me because it's so
like paper thin in its actual kind of like sound,
ideas and execution that like I had to just reminded
of my notes, which one was blieving me dry Oh,
it's that fucking song like and it is just like can't.
It's one of the most misguided songs you that I've
ever done.
Speaker 4: It's the only song on this record that I think
I'll remember which one it is in three months time,
and it's because it's terrible, like some nothing you said
earlier about you've been too harsh on Bloodstone and Diamonds,
I've been too harsh on Catharsis, which is a bad record.
Speaker 1: Give me triple Beam over this any day.
Speaker 4: That you took the words right out my mouth, Triple Beam.
It is Davidian basically without exaggeration. I appreciate that Rob
loves hip hop.
Speaker 1: I believe him.
Speaker 4: He doesn't need to keep proving it with low grade
wraps and then when it comes in with the when
it goes into the metal bit, I don't know if
it's trying to overcompensate. But that thing I was saying
about him occasionally sound like.
Speaker 1: A slobbering mess.
Speaker 4: That's the worst example of it. So not only is
they're one of the few experiments on this record and
it's bad, but to try and write the ship it
does the worst aspects of the rest.
Speaker 1: Of the record.
Speaker 4: If you're doing like the worst machine he had songs, ever,
this is like first draft pick.
Speaker 1: It's shocking. Yeah, And I don't want to put a
hard limit on a band's creativity, but I think we
can probably say machine Head do not benefit from electro
trap beats. Too unreasonable to say, and then I can
go back to Bone Scraper, which I do think is
really bad. That was the point of the record where
I kind of just went, oh, fuck sake, because when
machine Head hit a melody, I want it to lift
me into the heavens, right like Halo and Locust and
Now we Die. They make me genuinely feel and they
were doing that, you know, as recently as I unhallowed
on the last one in kind of small moments. Not
this just like trite hockey stadium bollocks. And again that's
kind of all the ingenuity there really is on the
record going like his bleeding me dry. So I think
maybe with this one I am doing to a degree
what I accuse Catharsis's harshest critics of doing a little bit,
which is that my lasting takeaway of this album is
being formed by the stuff I hate the most of it.
The record's not all that bad, and I was almost
surprised when I put it on for a second go
and I was like, oh, yeah, that song is not
totally terrible, because I was thinking about fucking bone scraper
or whatever. But it's that at its very best moments,
it caps out about a six out of ten and
then it just drops off into the abyss. And I
don't want to rag on Rob Flyn because I think
Rob Flinn is cool, right, Like he maybe doesn't sound
on this record, and he hasn't in a while, but
as a figure in our world, like we said, he's
been making records since the eighties. He's made so many
records that we love, and I think he still comes
off like I love watching interviews with him because I
think he still comes off as a passionate, down to
worth sort of guy. And I will happily listen to
him spout off about the stuff he loves. I think
he's a real one and he will always be a
metal like on for that reason. And I think it's
taking machine Head a much larger time than usual for
a metal band to kind of lose the plot of it.
So I'm not, you know, rubbing my hands together taking
glee in tearing him down the way I think a
lot of people out there have in the last several years.
But creatively it's sad on this one for sure.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean the thing we said earlier about them
being as far in their career at this point as
Slayer and Repentiless, Mega Enough and Dystopia Metallicron Hardwired. Part
of me wants to give machine Head some slack for that,
and I think I will, like I shouldn't go to
their records, and as I haven't for a while, but
I shouldn't go to their records expecting things to sun
and maybe what Masters on Goodjira and Whu younger bands
are doing at the moment.
Speaker 1: Blood Incantation bands like that the invention, the.
Speaker 4: Brilliance that might come from a machine anymore in the
same way that we don't expect it and we didn't
expect it from.
Speaker 1: Those thrash bands at that time.
Speaker 4: I just wish I liked this record as much as
I liked any of those, Like if if Machine had
put out an album as good as Hardwired in a
couple of years time, I'll be clicking my heels.
Speaker 1: But we haven't got it yet. Yeah, next, the spicy
stuff still coming fast because we had another huge metal
record from Behemoth. I am, of course referring to the
Shit of God in the words of Patrick Stump, Are
you smelling that shit right? Let's do the top line
really quickly. The week this album was announced and they
released the title track as the first single, I had
a big moan on Hyperblasts, hoping to basically cover it
there and then not have to spend too much time
on it again. How NRGYL becoming this kind of edge
Lord celebrity has with every subsequent album, taken up more
and more of how people actually critique and engage with
Behemoth albums. And then after that, having already maybe in
the past released some kind of critical mass, coming out
with one called The Shit of God. That was just
it right, you know, it wrote itself. There's a whole
faction of metal. Fountay just won't even entertain the idea
of this record because it'snurgle calling an album the Shit
of God? Does a silly title an album make.
Speaker 4: No like this. This isn't completely new territory for Behemuth.
I remember when it was announced that the first single
off I Loved You at Your Darkest was going to
be called God Equals Dog and that was follow up
the Satins. I remember the time going oh, okay, and
then the song came out and it was fucking amazing.
And then the record came out and it was utterly brilliant.
And I don't even think twice about that song being
called God Equals Dog now in And I knew that
when this record was announced and I looked at its
more laughful attributes with the title that mental track list,
it was funny and I absolutely joined in on the
fun of poking at it. But I also knew at
the time that if the record came out and it
shut me up, I would completely forget about all of
those things.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I find here so frustrating because they're about they
don't need to do the Shit of God. They're like,
I have some you know what this says they have
such like an incredible like head for like striking artistic
statements that aren't edge Lord nonsense. And again I keep
forgetting that God was that God was. Dog is called
that because it's a great song. But I do look
at the Pepe people of God and go like, come on,
I can't I really struggle to look past now called
the shit of God. It is eye rolling and cringe
And I'm like, if I at the end of the
en talking about like sight spoiler, probably not gonna be
my top to him. But if I was gonna sing
in my topen albums of the year, the Ship of
God is there, I'd be a bit like.
Speaker 2: It just it hurts to say, but.
Speaker 3: It is frustrating because again, the art the album is
the music that should be what we're talking about, not
the not the song titles, not the edge Lord ship,
but it is. It becomes so hard that it happens
every fucking album.
Speaker 2: Now that there is something.
Speaker 3: Like this, we have to kind of like and in
a way this is maybe one of the less controversial ones.
Speaker 2: It's just maybe one of the more embarrassingly.
Speaker 3: Cringe ones that we've had to kind of like discuss
about with a Behemoth album.
Speaker 1: I think I was more exasperated in terms of knowing
how people would knee jerk react to it then by
the title itself, because, as I said on that previous episode,
I love Dayacide, I love Sarkophago, I love Profanataka, I
love some of the stupidest, boneheadedest, base level fuck you
extreme metal provocation that in many such cases with some
of those bands, people would make out that it's cool, right,
like people love Sarkofago, it's coming from Behemoth and that.
So you know, in many such cases, someone in Urgle
they've already made their minds up on and his edgelaor
tendencies that it rubs people the wrong way. He has
elaborated a bit in interviews one with me. I don't
think he's doing many interviews this time around, but I
did talk to Nogel about this a few weeks of back.
There's quite an amusing, silly piece of branding with it,
where there is the symbol that is known as the
christagram or the christagram, which spells our ihs with the
kind of cross in the middle, which comes from a
Greek translation of Jesus. Nrgel noticed that if you turn
that symbol upside down because of the cross going through
making the tea, it spells shit. So it's a very simple,
very on brand defiling of a religious symbol because it's
black mail, right. And he also spoke about wanting to
get away from some of the intellectualism on this one.
I think because Bahemuth have had their worthy titles, right,
like I Loved You at Your Darkest on Opu's Contra Nataran.
I like those titles like I can remember them even if,
like you know, I Loved You your Darkest. People seem
to dick on that title a little bit, I guess
because it has love in it, But I always loved it.
I think always sounds like a cool like Gothy Leonard
Cohen title or something. It has a bit more character
to it with this one, He's gone, Okay, you don't
want Latin, fine, I'm gonna rub your face in the shit.
Is it base confrontation? Is it crude? Yes? Is it
self awarely so? I think yes. Is that a legitimate
artistic choice that might inform the rest of the album.
I think it can be. We're all Behemoth fans to
one degree or another. It does feel again like quite
a long time ago that everyone was united on Behemoth
being like one of the greats. But it is only
just over a decade ago that they put out one
of the best albums of all time in The Satanist,
and I don't think the wheels come off that dramatically. Elliott,
what's your quick estimation of Behemoths output in the years
after The Satanist?
Speaker 4: I absolutely loved I Loved You with the Darkest, not
the same standards I love The Satanist, but it was
one of my favorite albums of the year.
Speaker 1: It came out opus.
Speaker 4: Contrastum like a lot of albums of the twenty twenties, initially,
it kind of came in whence I listened to it
for a few weeks when it came out, didn't go
back to a ton after that. Saw them at download
and they played some of the best songs off it,
and the power of those songs, even in unideal circumstances
of like thirty degree heats in the middle of the
of a sunny day. I'd kind of underestimated how great
those songs were, mainly because the production was slightly odd
on that record. But I've gone back to that record.
I think it's very good kind of it's been going
downhill since The Satanist, but nothing that would cause me
to consider getting off the train.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm I'm a total fan. Like I certainly recognize innergule,
the tendencies to do this, that or the other. But
in ten years, you know, ten years ago, I would
have called him one of the single like coolest. I
have belief in everything you are saying and doing musicians
in the world in the way that you know today
when he's selling christ Is Cringe T shirts or whatever, Like,
I wouldn't necessarily say that, but I think through it all,
Behemoth have remained a fucking great, nearly peerless band. I
love Do It Your Darkest. I think that record is
like total classic Behemoth. Like, if you're someone out there
who doesn't like that record, I just I just don't
get it, Like that is what I wanted. In the
follow up to The Satanist, Oprahs, Contra Nataram felt a
little more contained, but it's still a bunch of bangers
and a cool pepperin of experimentation as well. The Shit
of God. The first thing you will notice about it
if you actually bother to listen to it this is
an album with no time for fucking around, Like this
album is concise and it is almost entirely unrelenting. Did
that surprise you, given their post Satanist predilection for grandiosity?
Speaker 4: It would have if Behemoth haven't been taught a nergle
specificly hasn't been talking about making this record for a
little while. I can't if it was before I Loved
You with Your Darkest or Opus contradastran, but in fact
it might have been like twenty seventeen. He was talking
about doing a Rain and Blood style record, which would
be seven to nine songs like you say, no fucking around,
no interludes, go for the throw, And initially I look
it looked like what it might be. What the followed
to the Satanist was almost like what Wattaan did and
ended up not being what we got.
Speaker 1: But I always wanted that.
Speaker 4: Record to come along, because as much as I love
Behemoth being sprawling and experiments with things and soundscapes and
all of that, I just love when they go by
Bruce Lee heavy and a whole record of that was enticing.
I'd kind of forgotten that they were going to do
that and or even thought about doing it. So them
doing it now, I suppose that that was a surprise.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's the shortest Behemoth album since nineteen ninety nine,
and I remember thinking that Oprah contriinataam I guess because
it came off the back of I Loved You Your
Darkest and The Satan This, which both represented those kind
of peaks of bombast for Behemoth. That in comparison was
a pretty like, you know, straightforward record, but you know
it's tight. Its songs are often to the point, but
in hindsight it does have more of a mix of
songs right even before you know that the closing track
on that record, which is one of the most out
there things they've ever done, there's kind of like groovy
hard rock Behemoth songs on it, like Once Upon a
Pale Horse. There's big kind of choral songs like the
Deathless Sun. I think Versus Christus and maybe more specifically
playing Versus Christis Live was a bit of a straw
that broke the camel's back for Nrgel, at least for
the immediate follow up of after doing that, going okay,
I can fuck that off. I just want to play
some fucking metal and I want to rip the natural
comparison point. You've really kind of brought it up. I
had in that sense of trident War for clips Boat,
which is just a thirty five minute go for the throat,
fuck off all the extravagant shit that we can very
capably do. But we'll get back to it later. It's
kill time. I don't think this is necessarily as like
Rabid Wolf rasor sharp as that record is, but this
is as straightforward as Behemus have been. I think it
ripped pretty hard.
Speaker 3: I mean, to me, this felt kind of like behem
of going okay with you know, bricks and academy, like
download mainstage with a big band. Let's just make an
album that is big, mean, kind of stompy anthemic metal,
like cut the like shit for one of a better word,
and and just go for again like kind of like
more kind of traditional not verse chorus sort verset course,
but you know, put more hooks in, put more kind
of like fist pumping, like punch the air, just kind
of festival kind of like anthems in there.
Speaker 2: Put more rifts that are just designed to get people jumping.
Speaker 3: And like, to me, that kind of limits this album
compared to the last couple of Human albums. For me,
I think it's it's the most repetitive I think Human
album's been.
Speaker 2: But it does, you know, if you just want to,
you know, switch.
Speaker 3: Off and listen to thirty seven to odd minutes of
just like kind of hard hitting, like evil sounding, but
still kind of grandiose metal does it does the job
for what it sets out to do.
Speaker 4: See, I think that thing you're saying about it being
straightforward and repeating ideas more than previous Behemoth records, I
think for some songs that's true. But I think one
of the things that's great about this record, and probably
my favorite thing about it, is it doesn't it really
does let the thing off the reins in that when
this thing sounds wild, it sounds really wild. And that's
another thing about Behemoth I don't think they get enough
credit for. But there are some songs on here where
it properly feels feral, and not saying that hasn't been
a quality of the last few records, but that stateliness
that certainly defined the Satanist and I Loved You Your Darkest,
that sort of thing. It's hearing flashes, but it's kind
of been shaken off and for thirty five minutes.
Speaker 1: It's I think.
Speaker 4: That's such a great change of pace those other records down.
Speaker 1: Sure. The other thing about the Shit of God's title
is I think Behemoth are very tune towards actually making
quite communal music. Right, it's supposed to be rallying. You'll
notice how often he uses the word we in hooks, right,
we are the shadow elite, we are the shit of God.
And what Behemoth do is they turn that kind of
blasphemous imagery into rallying heavy metal songs about standing side
by side with your your kinsman like man O war
would do. Right, the Shit of God. There's a thing
there about it being like the kind of underbelly, the
thing that is ugly and tainted, but kind of owning
it and weaponizing it against the Holy then thou creator.
It's in everything you are we are not kind of
you know, told in very simple heavy metal turns thing.
And that's what makes this record good because obviously this
is not the fastest, most bewilderingly terrifying black metal record ever.
It's not the Codex Necro, it's not Fallen angel A Doom,
but it is as Behemouth are the kings of very
anthemic and that kind of real heavy metal immediacy on
top of these fast, furious riffs is what continues to
give Behemoth their power. The Shadow Elite total banger like thundering,
powerful stride, really excitable snare to begin with, but then
just absolute death metal might. The production of this album
is basically back to kind of the classic modern Behemoth
sound obrahs contrainaturam. Again. I Askednurgle about this because it's
the thing I was really curious about with that last
album is they got Joe Baresei to mix it on
that last one, and they were going for almost like
we wanted to have something that didn't sound like a
conventional metal album and has this more sort of hard
rock Behemoth sound. I think it did sort of flatten
out the great music on that album. This record, i'd
estimate is pretty close to that one in terms of
quality of song, but they've obviously felt that for a
fast paced record, it just needs some of that metallic
attack back in, and there's an almost old school Behemoth
vibe around at times. Like you're saying, Elliott, there's a
really like the bridge of the Shadow Elite when it
just goes to that really tight blast riff sounds like
it'd be off Denner God or something like. It's real,
like the refusal to slow down about it. It does
with kind of the current tools of what modern day
Behemoth is sort of harkened back to that kind of
bloodthirstiness a bit, and then you've got you know, Sewing
Salt is even more ballistic. Luciferion just has that real,
like pure traditionalist black metal riffing snaking all over it,
which to me ignites a very particular fire, and it
just it has that. I think all the things you
can say about Behemoth, I do think consistently they still
manage to sound like they're hungry.
Speaker 3: I mean, I think the album starts brilliantly with Shadowly
and Sewing sort I think those two songs, like, for again,
some of the poems I have with the album, those
two songs are you know, like showcase of him being
the masters of the kind of like blockbuster black metal,
because it is that like certainly sounds evil and like
blasphemous as all hell, but it is huge, it is grand,
It is catchy, but it goes fucking hard and like
they weave in those sort of more passages and the
moments of drama with you know, the chance and all
that with the kind of just more like ferocious going
for the froat moments, and it really hits saying about Norgel,
But when he gets it right, he's one of the
most charismatic and like engaging vocalists in sort of extreme music.
I think, like when he gets it right, which he
does on something like Sewing Salt, I do hang off
his words, so like I can like fully buy into
that sort of side of behem if when it's delivered.
And there are moments again like LUs Fair on the
the I Am God hook less cringe than the Shit
of God, so I'm like, I'll allow it, and again
I'll hang off his words.
Speaker 2: So there are like some really brilliant moments on this album.
Speaker 3: And again I don't think this sound ever goes completely wrong,
even again the title track, which again once you get
past the title that's a fucking riff. That is a
fucking riff on that title track, And that's again moments
like that that I just you know, big metal moments
that I want. They deliver them and make them sound
really evil, and so I guess that is you know
job done.
Speaker 2: For behem if on an album like this, Yeah.
Speaker 1: That that hook in Luciferroon you're talking about there's the
real the human force and crack Innrgul's rule that I
always love. That gives it that real, tangible conviction and
it's even like a I guess you could say a
harsh vocal key change at the end of it with
that hook and it works.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think like the kind of more I don't
eve necessarily want to say straightforward.
Speaker 4: I suppose they are straightforward. It's things like the Shadow
of the Ships of God. Those songs are good. I
typically have found that I've gone back to them less
and less and that the tear is for the eyes,
for the h is for thing in the Ships of
God that has got to go George Lucas, that I
just it's just.
Speaker 1: Not a good idea.
Speaker 4: It's not it's not even like great in that bone
headed blasphemy blast me where I don't think it just
it it's unforgivable but so insult. But you're kind of
in touching on the songs that really stood out to me,
but so in Salt that's my favorite on the record,
three minutes long, sounds completely fucking mad. I love when
extreme metal bands can use clean vocals to sound terrifying,
where it doesn't make the music any softer, it makes
it sound more wild and more unhinged, to the point
where it's probably not even accurate to call them cleans.
But they're just not fully fledged growls, if that makes sense. Yeah,
And it just the use of those sort of differentiate
in the track list. It's a thing where as much
as other bands can do it, but Hee Muth have
such a way of injecting that in songs at exactly
the right moment to just make it sound even more
sort of unbridled.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean to drown the Sun in Wine is
one of my favorites on this because when he smashes
in or in that Captain, my Captain, it just cuts
straight to the part of my brain. It's like, yes,
go on. And I do think gravelly belt along vocal
hooks like that are what you're not gonna get on
most other black metal records, right, because you know they're
not trying to compete with fucking Anti Crisis Machine or something, right,
They are writing massive metal songs, that's what they do.
I think the title track which like, yes, the evil
cheerleader chance spelling bit is silly, but I regret to
inform one of the biggest bangers of the year because
the main groove is just const It's a fucking riff
and you go, Okay, who else in extreme metal could
write a song that feels like, you know, like evil
black death metal. But the obviously also commands a kind
of festival stage like that. Like if they had that
song when they were opening for Slipknot in Arenas a
few years ago, it would be game over, you know,
and a lot of people might not necessarily want that
in their black metal. Okay, but that's the thing that
has taken Behemoth to places no other extreme metal band
has reached before, Right like within the realms of the corpse,
painted and blasphemous and Nurgle still largely gurgling every word.
They're hit makers, like even going back to conquer All
or champ Escaton or whatever their banger merchants, and their
skill at that has not been blunted. The choirs on
that main riff sound incredible. I think they stop it
just being kind of one note because it's carried by
that you know, Loocitherian kind of Behemoth bluster and the
solo as well, that remains an area where Behemoth show
a bit more classic metal showmanship than most as well,
because that proper heavy metal guitar solo in a big
stomping metal banger, that's what we need more of. And
you do have the structuring of the record four tracks aside, right,
And I'm guessing from kind of what you're suggesting, Sam,
maybe it is because it's more sort of straightforward black
death metal. You maybe tail off in interest as it
goes on.
Speaker 3: So I do like to drown the son in wine
I think is fucking great. That's the last song that
I go like, that's great. Like I don't think any
of the songs are particularly bad. My frustration with the
last few songs comes from the fucking abuse of v's
like and again call it petty, but o Venus Come
and Auger the dread Vulture spelled as Ovinv's come and
the the Again, I'm consistent with.
Speaker 2: The v's is a v A.
Speaker 3: You are an f on this album, Like it's a
petty thing, but it's it did Like really, I was like,
I come on, behem of so hard to defend some
time with this silly bullshit, But I do think like
like Ovin has Come is maybe that and Norman Barbarium
or whatever it like, like Norman Barbarian, like like I
could take or leave them that they're pretty forgettable to me.
I mean, aug is a good closer, like it has
a lot of the same positive and negatives on the album,
but you know, it builds in a really.
Speaker 2: Nice dramatic way.
Speaker 3: But I'd say up to to drown the sun in
the wine or the vant in wine as they want
to put it, this album is pretty on it again,
even with cringe title track aside that oh Captain, My
Captain hook is fucking outstanding, and again the way Noble
spits that line out it is rallying, and I'm like,
this is this, this is why I buy into that
whole like black metal hit makers thing that you're saying,
because yeah, they fucking nail it on a song like that.
Speaker 2: And then he said that the second half of that song.
Speaker 3: Opens a bit when you get those kind of like
weird other kind of like really frenzied screams going against
Nobles or points, and it adds a kind of like
mania to it that does make the salt that that
kind of does kind of that blasphemous evil that being about,
so they're still getting that and the and the hits.
Speaker 2: I just think it tells of a bit past that
I guess.
Speaker 1: Yeah, as someone who does not entirely judge a song
based on how many visa it has, I think this
record is tight and I do love I think every
song basically hits Norman Barbarian again, a bit more shadowy
with the choirs maybe, but still an absolute like double
bass fest and there's a really killer heavy metal guitar
lick in the chorus. They're kind of and you know
that just like finishes Nurgel's words for him. It's great.
The structure I think is interesting when you get to
the last two tracks, because the closest you come to
a like more extravagant Behemoth track is Ovenus Come, which
really goes to that, you know, that classic kind of
Bathory March type feel with some acoustics laying as well.
It's maybe more akin to like a Ben Sahar really
then I know, father I say in No Sun, but
it's the closest you're getting to that sort of satanisty feel.
But crucially it's not even the ending track on the record,
because instead they model this after the like the Damage
Ink DIA's Eve structure and just go after the opera
Tick one absolute speed Monster and Uga the dread Vulture
is so fucking sick. That song really has a taste
of chance for Escaton to me as the kind of
respective closes on the record, because I mean, evidently I
just love Behemoth songs about birds of prey being let fly, clearly,
but it's that kind of beasts of war being let
loose a gallop right to the death of the song,
a proper fucking extreme metals on. Yeah.
Speaker 4: I mean I I do judge a song by how
many visa on it, provided that they're flying vis hell yeah.
And when this record let's rip, which when it you know,
whether that's in the solos of a Venus Come, which
I felt I'm just repeating myself. Just sound crazy. They
managed to make Shredding sound legitimately wild again, not in
just to show off like a guitar clinic way.
Speaker 1: And I didn't know it was called or well I
thought it was called anger. I just lost track of what,
so I don't know what's going on the point stands
choose your own adventure in it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it that that was one where initial I thought, oh,
really smashy heavy ones to close the record nice, And
then going back to it, there's like a weird theoremon
noise that comes in where it's like, even in your
quote unquote straightforward ripper, yea, you can't help but throw
some eccentricities in there. And that's what I think stops
this record feeling like a like a Reed Tread or
like Behemoth just doing something on autopilot. Not only are
they playing it with full ferocity and full intent, they're
throwing in things that I don't think they would have
done twenty years ago.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and Sam, you mentioned in the vocals which this
woman appears and starts houring, and I think grink grink
a fucking Greek. Yeah, because it sounds like the bits
on the later period Rotten Christ albums when they include that,
and it's because this thing has been on Rotten Christ albums,
but it has that very like heathenistic gurgle, the load
of milk before singing, just kind of maddened. Ah and
I love that as a feel. It's just so black metal.
And I Thinknrgel again, like on that last song, he
matches that kind of wabbling mania when he does like
that I Am the Last Living God kind of tails off,
and the back half of the song, you know, of
trailing off into that kind of last you know, kind
of fly my dread Vultures fly before punching back into
it again. Yeah, there's a load of hooks in that song.
I wouldn't say this is one of the most impressive
Behemoth albums because it is pretty back to basics, you know,
there's nothing really that new going on, even compared to
you know, open contr nat around which had your versus
Christos or whatever. Although I've noticed maybe a number of
people who were pretty ready to write this off based
on the title actually going oh, this is better than
I expected. And maybe it's the people who you know,
didn't like the extra stuff that they'd kind of cut
back on a bit a little bit. They feel this
probably will be in my top twenty. I just think
they feel so good when they write big metal songs,
and I said this about the last one. They are enormous.
They are a machine. They have probably been overexposed to
people to some degree, but I think at their core
they're underniged Yeah, I feel like.
Speaker 4: I'm going to kind of repeat something I said with
the Ghost record earlier, but this is probably bottom half
Behemouth record. In fact, it almost soaly is, but only
because they have such a wealth of brilliant records that
this could feasibly be their tenth best. And I still
think it's great, you know, I mean, like it's it
probably is a mark something of a step down from,
if not where they were directly before, where they were
before that. But I just love the sound of this thing,
and I love the songs. It's banned, right, So even
if it is a slightly less dazzling and spectacular record
than even recently we'd come to expect from them, I
think it just scratches an itch that I have.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Okay, we're switching over from metal to the worlds
of kind of punk and alternative for a bit, which
also had a few kind of notable releases this month.
We're gonna start with Pup. If for no of a
reason they are such an established longtime T and M favor,
they ask the important question, who will look after the dogs?
Love the cover amazing, It's taken PUP this long to
have an album literally with dogs on the front, even
though the context's drawn from the lyrics is very specific.
The Canadian punk band who kind of broke out maybe
to a degree, of the indie DIY or whatever you
want to say, scene of the twenty tens, to become
one of the only bands, arguably from that scene to
kind of really stand on their own popularity, to break
just a little bit into the mainstream, become such an
established touring act and draw Pup you could say they're
one of the success stories of the past decade, even
if you could always say they could be bigger, but
just you know, released three albums and twenty tens that
are all essentially classics of that kind of scene and style.
Whichever one you like the best, I tend to favor
the very first one the best. But the dream is
over morbid stuff, all fantastic. Then on their last album,
The Unraveling of Pup, the Band, they kind of did
what it said on the tin that is a mad
messy maybe one of the most neurotic albums released in
recent memory, all by design, right like, after three albums
developing the core Pup sound, they shot for something that
is you know, like its cover arts just splashed with
every color of paint over the canvas. It was perhaps
the most interesting move could have made at that juncture.
I also don't think it's many people's favorite PUP album. Sam,
we've spoken about a Pup before, Elliot. You're a pop fan, Yeah,
I like pop Up. I think the first few records
are really good. Un raving a pop the band. I
love the idea. I'm kind of fascinated by it.
Speaker 4: I like I like when punk and emo bands go
high concept, like you know, zen Arcade and things like that.
And the ida of an album about the band itself
falling apart, I thought that was so cool. I didn't
really go back to that record, and for whatever reason,
I haven't really gone back to the preceding record since,
but I do think I think the one two of
the Dreamer is Over and Morbid Stuff. I think represents
something of a high water mark for that scene in
the latter end of that decade.
Speaker 1: Yes, so yeah, yeah, we're a fan cool and yeah,
me and Sam fans. We had album clubs on Pup
and all sorts of.
Speaker 3: Stuff gone on about this band a lot. One of
my favorite just scrappy little Canadian punks.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so who will look After the Dogs. I don't
think it's a major surprise that this album is more
along the lines of what you would expect Pup to
sound like than The Unraveling was. I think that very
much seems like an album where you go ah and
Rainbow puke it all out. I did notice that this
has maybe been the most muted discussion of a pop
album I can ever remember, Like for a band who
their album's in the twenty tens, Increasingly each time I
would expect the the TNM forum and then outside even
onto you know, when they were getting like late night
TV appearances or morbid stuff or whatever, you know, infusing
about a pop album. The Unraveling, you know, had some
kind of reaction. This seems like it's sort of come
and gone without a peep from anybody. Am I wrong?
Speaker 3: I don't know, because where I sit, I've kind of
just seen like the Pup fans, I know, we're like, yeah,
cool pop album.
Speaker 2: We all like this.
Speaker 3: We were having a good time, but we're gonna go
see him live, and like, I don't know if it's
kind of like crept Beyond that, it's just kind of
like in its only little community.
Speaker 2: Been very well received. And that's kind of where PUP
might exist. Now they're still.
Speaker 3: You know, sizable and the vises they're playing. But I go,
what you mean, what hasn't you know? There wasn't a
whole load of buzz to it. I think it was
just kind of like PUP, you know, their five albums
in this is an have a good PUP album. We're
all going to have a good time with it, and
that'll be that like that. It's just because you know,
there's not a whole lot of discourse.
Speaker 2: You can have around this album.
Speaker 3: The last album had the kind of like batshit insanity,
kind of like freak out breakdown stuff. This is you know,
PUP kind of not going back to basics, but PUP
doing what PUP do, maybe with just a slightly sad
tinge rather than angry sort of sound to it. So
I like I was gonna listen. I was like, yeah, cool,
I like all this. I don't know how much we're
going to discuss all the ins and outs of it,
because it is pretty familiar at this point.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't think it would necessarily be like, you know,
a harsh dumping on mass after the unraveling, so much
as it is as you're saying, you know, with more
than a down. Yeah, this is their fifth album. If
it's not the top, top, top of what they've done,
there's just a bit less chat about them. And I
do you know, I wonder our pup becoming in the
twenties a band people are maybe taking for granted more.
I don't know. I mean, it would be a shame
because I think they are some of our brightest from
this side of the rock spectrum. But you know, and
maybe I am a little muted in my right reaction
to this album because I don't think it's as you know,
shit hot as like the first three album run. But
I like it plenty, you know, like I have fun
with this album. I think it's the things that pop
excel in over any band in their scene that make them,
you know, I think maybe the most characterful, immediately identifiable
punk band like this in the world. They're here rhythmically
with that sense of kind of free spirited technicality for
want of a better word, those Spindley guitar leads, particularly
the drumming on this one. The guy has really given
the lion's share of kind of the mix to violently
thud along. That's that's you know, it's there. But I
also think when you say slightly sadder than you know, angry,
there's a I don't want to say a softening, but
I think there is a more of a crue control
feel to a record like this that maybe represents again,
you know, the second decade of Pup we're heading into.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it doesn't feel like again.
Speaker 3: Like one of the things I've said that every pop album,
one of my favorites about them was ways their abas
feel they could fall apart any second. There is perhaps
a little bit less of that on this album. I'm
just gonna say, I fucking love this album. The sound
of Pup is just like sweet music to my ears.
I love this band again. The unraveling took a little
while for me to kind wrap my head around, cause
it's so weird pop kind of going back to what
they do, like I'm so inn it, you know, like
there are still odd turns, but like Concrete, right, the
opening guitar lines on Concrete is a comfort. It's a
warm blanket wrapped around with that kind of goes like
I love this sound. I love this band that kind
of like they've still got that scrappiness too. Then they
still got those kind of like weird o freak guitar
melodies that are so infectious and again and it's got
a chorus, so you know, the I don't give a
shit about your problems, like all of the lift, all
of that sort of stuff. I'm just having a great
time with this album start to finish because it's Pup
doing what Pup do.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I feel that way about No Hope
at the start, which just with the ah I don't
need help, it just puts the grin on melodically straight away. Yeah.
Speaker 4: I feel like I have to leave this one mainly
to you guys, because I I'm pretty middled by this record,
to be honest, and it's not for any failing of
the album. Like on paper and in reality, there's nothing
wrong with it, you know, twelve short blasts of noisy
power pop. It's not reinventing the wheel, but there's nothing
to dislike about that. Papa really good at doing it.
I feel similar to this record. It's how I felt
about the Last Choice Manor record, who I think still
are probably my favorite band from this scene of their generation.
And I don't know what the context of this record
is but that album was sort of the band cleaning house,
putting together a collection of songs and sort of putting
out half the COVID and going like, ready, read on
for the next thing. I don't think that's necessarily what
they've done here, But this album feels maybe like the
least essential of the bunch. I don't know whether it's
better or worse than The Unraveling, but as a record itself,
I don't see myself going back to it much in
a month's time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I don't necessarily think you're wrong. It
inspires maybe a little bit, because I think there are
parts of this where it feels like they're getting their
wheezer on more than any previous Pup album. But I
do understand what you're saying they do. I think actual
rock songs, like not just for the kind of the
punk clatter, but the sort of like spiked up gel
in your hair, knee slide guitar shit, like for as
much as this is a slightly more subdued record, get
Dumber right stuff like that. When they do the probably
inevitable at some point move of getting Jeff Rosenstock to guest,
but they have those you know, broken discordant guitar noodle
parts in the verses, but it manages to not detract
from the particular like flame t shirt energy of a
song like that. And again that kind of Jeff Rosenstock
school of punk which they come from, is not usually
a thing that I have any interesting really that sort
of angst indie jangle stuff. But Pup for me, they
have like both the most exuberant hooks and the wallop
that you kind of have there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean like get dumb into me.
Speaker 3: That's sort of the quintessential Stephan's going to drop his
guitar when they play this live and just got to
like jump in the ground. And those are pop songs
are always ones I'm fully on paranoids and every one
like that.
Speaker 2: But yeah, for me, there was just like even when
I said this is a.
Speaker 3: Sadder, like a bit more somber pop album, there is
still any exuberance to the melody when they're going to know,
fuck everyone on this planet except for you. Papa a
band who can pull off irony to me, like again
we comas about having being too irony poisoned. Papa Will
always got the sort of the right balance of like
having that bit of irony whilst kind of delivering actual
kind of like exuberant, joyful melody. So it does get
the contrast right, and there is when they need to
be they will be sincere at the right moments, so
it never feels too irony poisoned.
Speaker 2: But I just you know, need to hear it.
Speaker 3: You know, you get those big guitar leads and they
sound a little bit mangled, so again it just feels
like Papa never gonna stand the edges off too much,
even when they are, you know, settling down a little
bit more. And that to me is the character to
the band, where when you think they're you know, gonna
just fully just settle down and become a normal band,
they'll still kind of be like, now we're a little
bit weird every now and then, and we'll of like
for this weird melody that's still super catchy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, because stuff like Olive Garden the bass
is so overblown. It's like yeah, and it's again for
a band who have had these little tastes of success,
they've they've not gone the way of polishing themselves up particularly,
and it's really just fun to hear rattlely it is,
and you know, the first two songs are like one
minute fifty seconds something, But I wouldn't necessarily characterize them
as having become more obtuse with age, because the music
itself is a little more rained in. There are the
real moments where you know, you're saying the weird stuff
cruel sticks out where it has these big, you know,
quite heartwarming rock rifts deliver with this kind of unkempt
punk production, but then it has the most hilarious what
on earth is this guitar sophy in the end?
Speaker 2: What's that bit for?
Speaker 1: I don't know, I'm all for it, and I guess
you know. The most kind of of the singles, the
really like asset rickety punk one is Paranoise, which is
just the furious kind of borderline thrashing pot which I
really love. Yeah, I think Waiting from Unraveling is like
the song that really stuck in my head from that record,
and this, you know, getting the Teeth In like that
does a similar thing. I mentioned it how it has
it's almost like almost like two thousands post hardcore corp
poressional or something in the birth, which is really cool.
But there are well I mentioned them getting their Weezer
on and stuff like that, and I guess, you know,
it's more generally, you know, Eli you said power pop.
I think that element seems to be slightly more maybe
when they just again they settle into a groove and
they let them alodies kind of carry themselves, stuff like
Hunger for Death. When Stephan opens up doing this almost
like fifties lullaby, you know, fuck everyone on this planet.
He has this very innate likability in his voice to
get away with that kind of stuff. And there maybe
is a sense that, you know, the foot's being taken
off the pedal just a little bit compared to you know,
the stuff they were writing when they're in their twenties,
and it is more kind of stopping to smell the
roses a little bit and just letting a song breathe
like that.
Speaker 3: I'm fine with them kind of like stepping off because again,
you know, you get paranoid falling out and then you
get you know, falling out of love, and it is
a bit more of a mid tempo head Noorder and
you're just kind of like, yeah, this's just really cheer
and comforting. Hallways is like again another one where it's
so kind of like introspective and kind of just like
reflecting on foud relationships and the whole, like there might
not be no other doors all that sort of stuff.
Like there is a kind of like a more reflective
side to put rather than the kind of like frantic,
manic lashings out that was all over the unraveling. They're
kind of like taking stock of things and looking in
wood and kind of like asking who will look after
all the dogs?
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, there's a lot of heartbreak on this album.
I think the album that will come from Hallways, which,
like many songs here, is absolutely a breakup song. But
you're right, it's not as spiteful or nihilistic or even
as even as you're sort of lost, you know, a
pup could be there. There's a feeling of just sort
of like, I mean, my thirties, I need to resolve
to kind of get through with this. And I think
some of the slower songs on this are actually some
of the best ones, Like fall Out of Love is
like a kind of has it a sort of like
a Beach Boys e lament sort of feel, which I
really like, I really need to hear it, which again
has that wheezery quality of yeah, mid paced, intimate, but
in some way also kind of classic rock sing along
on a song like that, and I just felt like, yeah,
like I'm quite down for slightly melancholy but holding firm
with a beer seventies rock pup, which is what I
feel like I get on certain songs on.
Speaker 3: This Best Revenge, there's not one like that, where again
it's got really lushly guitars, and then of course all
the best Revengers living well, I've been living like shit.
It's been fucking up my sleep. Like that is what
I want from Pope. I want to, you know, just
have a rousing signal. And that's kind of a little
bit like, yeah, well, you know, being in your face
is kind of shit right now?
Speaker 2: Relatable.
Speaker 1: That's a classic style kind of pop hook delivery, isn't
It's quite a beautiful and again the song that may
be amongst the most kind of like nineties radio feeling
they've ever done, I guess is what I'm kind of
getting at Elliott. You know, I understand not being crazy
about the record because I don't think it's a necessarily
spectacular fair I just think it's very innately likable. But
do you have any sort of just last feelings you
want to ge out there.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean I feel like maybe I was too
wuch of a Debbie Downer, too earlier or happy to.
Speaker 1: Do that job for me.
Speaker 4: But like the album, I should say it is really
pleasant when it's on. The production's great, it's melodically really satisfying,
well performed. I do think there's really nice melodies all
over it. The bands sound good, and if you are
someone who is really invested in like the arc, the
artistic arc of this band, I imagine there's something quite
comforting to them putting out album that sounds this nice
and not quite so anxious this time around. I think
I suspect that I'll continue to have the impression that
it's the least essential pop record, But you know, such
is the way that you know that last choice Matter
record I still think had a couple of really good
songs on it. It's for when to go back to
least to this day, but certainly not a bad record.
I think there's very pleasant things about this that's it.
Speaker 1: Really Yeah, I think this record overall works better than
the unraveling of Pup the band did. I think I
understand what you're saying and that the Unraveling Popper band
is so you know, innately interesting that it it's maybe
more of a like you should hear that rather than
this or which is just a good band. You know,
it's not as kind of hook a minute, you know,
guitar lick or vocal jammed into every single second of
space as the earlier ones. I think Morbid Stuff maybe
represent the kind of like most refined, ready for wider
accessibility version of that approach, and then they went crazy
with Unraveling, and then this feels a bit more like
a beginning of an act to sort of Pup. Maybe
it's a bit slower, bit more considered, but I still
think a lot of their key characteristics are really well
represented in it, and it's worth a listen. So who
will look after dogs from Pup? Next we go to
the Callous Dowboys with an album called I Don't Want
to See You in Heaven. This is I mean, speaking
of things that I guess the opposite of our cruise
control taking it easy. This is the quite anticipated follow
up to the Callous Dowboys twenty twenty two album Celebrity Therapist,
which maybe it's a bit of a low situation where
that's not actually their debut album, I don't think, but
it seemed like on that album they came from pretty
much nowhere to immediately and massively blowing up on everyone's
radars for a newer band. The release of Celebrity Therapist
was one of the most like madly hyperactively received albums
in recent years. Everyone just shouted the album of the
year is banded the best off the back of it
in a world where I guess the old guard of
it no longer really exists. In the same way, it's
probably accurate to say that the Callistal Boys are like
the hottest mathcore band on the planet right now.
Speaker 2: Right now, I think absolutely they are.
Speaker 3: Well here's we will be into it like they are
selling bonkers math cords. People who would never touch a
Dyllinger record. They have somehow crossed over to that sort
of lane as well. They they're in a position to
do like big things to Callistal Boys. It's a real
kind of interesting time for that band.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I remind us how you guys felt about Celebrity Therapist,
particularly you Elliott, because I think that that would have
been maybe one of the last reviews episodes we did
before you then joined us.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think that record has some brilliant stuff on it.
For a long time, I really didn't know how I
felt about this band generally, and that record was by
pushing everything they do as far as possible. It was
the most intense. I felt kind of polarized by their
sound because there are aspects of it which I think
are brilliant, really inventive, and their take on math core
can be really invigorating. On the other hand, they do
sometimes tip over into that sort of I don't know,
like Elder Emo theater Kid energy sometimes.
Speaker 1: Which yeah is it's fine. It does make me want
to bury myself alive a little bit.
Speaker 4: A little bit. It can be quite annoying, which is
two extreme feelings pulling me in prett opposite directions, and
it ultimately left me feeling sort of not ambivalent, but
stuck in the middle.
Speaker 1: I didn't really know. I couldn't really put myself on
either team.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean doing the kind of crazy math cord
thing with theater Kid energy of course.
Speaker 2: I mean. I really loved their debut Dion Mars as well, Sime.
I love that. I think it just missed out in
my Top twenty that year.
Speaker 3: Because I mean there was there was a lot of
good stuff that year, but it's now my ded of
a very good time with and made me kind of
very excited to see where they go next, because again
it did suddenly kind of like go from this band
that me and a few others will kind of go like,
oh that that Dan marlesdabum, that's really cool. I'm excited
to see that to go and like everyone's or like
Calstar Boys are hanging off everyone's tongue. Right, So, yeah,
this was this was one of my most anti spated
albums of this year right now, the follow up to
a celebrity Therapist.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I guess how do you think it? Uh?
If it was one of your most anticipated has it
delivered for you?
Speaker 3: I mean, like, this album has been all I can
think about for the last week is been ahead.
Speaker 2: Fuck.
Speaker 3: I was kind of like when I first I was like,
I don't know if I like this yet. Good on
you Calistar Boys for going this this hard on being
the most calloustal boys you can possibly be. And now
after listening to a bunch of the week, I'm just
I'm so into the delirious madness that I kind of
get from this album of the theater kid math core
or math core thing with like naughty'sy emo and all
of that. Like, I'm fascinating what you t we are
gonna make of this because I have genuinely no idea.
Speaker 2: I'm I'm I'm being brought.
Speaker 3: In, but I'm like, you're either lovers will hate this
all because I have no fucking clue.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was taken aback for one thing when I
saw it was nearly an hour long, because Celebrity Therapist
was eight tracks, right, and for an album coming out
the world of sort of math core, the explosiveness of
that is generally best suited for tight packages. Even the
Dyllander Escape Plan never made an album more than a
few seconds over fifteen minutes. Yeah, right, and Celebrity Therapists
was such a kind of explosion in a ballpool album
of just like aggressive sloshing around of color and pop.
I elliott I think I share largely the same feeling
as you, but I think collectively we have seemed to
have a slightly outlier's opinion on the Calistal Boys, because
again I quite like their albums for their just sort
of intensity and fizziness. It also you know, Celebrity Therapists
didn't really stick with me. There's one hook at the
end when it just turns into a musical song, and
that's the one bit that jammed itself in my head.
But I thought, if they can build an album, you know,
to a point like that, what are they going to
do with this where I think, to really survive this
kind of long duration they've done, there needs to be
an arc of sorts. And uh, I guess it's quite
funny doing this after Pup and talking about the unraveling
of Pup the band, because this shares a sort of
like almost meta quality of it's very concerned with their
own band and their own art. You've got the intro
sort of like nineteen seventies Paranormal Science Museum exhibit narration
framing this album as like something preserved in the future.
And I don't really know what they're on about it.
Kind of it's enough getting your head around what they're
fitting in musically before getting to what the hell they're
saying about themselves. But for myself, it comes to me
still more as an album of sounds more than an
album of great music. I hear things like the beginning
seconds of two headed trout where we're in some kind
of flamenco hall and then it kind of flutters back
to life during the hook, sort of strange sounds like that,
and I go, oh, yeah, that grabs my ear?
Speaker 2: What is that?
Speaker 1: But I don't really pick up on the momentum of
the kind of songs they're writing and then how that
translates into, you know, again an excessive kind of listening experience. Elliott,
where do you kind of fit with this? I think
I learned somewhere between the two of you. I think
it's I think I think it's better than you do Poent.
I don't know if I'm quite as convinced by it
as Sam.
Speaker 4: Is that the whole framing device of this record? Like
you say, it's quite similar to that pop album. I'm
more endeared to that pop album, mainly because it's like
punk's doing it, whereas when theater kids do it, it's
like it feels a bit like listening to an improv troupe.
It's like, oh yes, and it's like no, no, no, no,
no no no, we're.
Speaker 1: Playing rock and roll. Okay, there's no improv.
Speaker 4: I'm my rock and rollercords, please, So that I kind
of just dismissed, and I found a way of tuning
that aspects out. I think I hear what you're saying
about this being the most the most Calloustalboys Calistal Boys record,
and if you had told me that's what we were getting,
I might have been wincing a bit going into it.
This time around, I feel like the band are more
artistically bold, more confident in what they're doing, but less
amused by themselves, which has been a bit of a
problem for me in the past, where it's like there's
a kind of winking element of lock oh, can you believe, well,
bloody mad, aren't we doing this? You're probably you're probably
weirded out. You already think we're really random, and it's
like no, no, no, no, no, Like this combination is
not that novel. But this time if it was, like
they've focused more on the things that make them good,
or that the things they do and making them good,
and the record is much better for it. Of all
the stuff I've heard them do, I think this is
my favorite.
Speaker 3: I mean, I think it's frankly hilariously said, they're less
amused with themselves when this album has Ugga buggabo uga
boo boo ugger right now you've got that like again,
like I should maybe know better, but I like when
that hit, I was like, am I like going insane?
Speaker 2: Or is this song built on the ugaboo ugaboo?
Speaker 3: I was like, you know what, when you commit to
the bit, it's so brainless, it's genius, Like is so
like I am just so here for every weirdo turn
this album takes. Because at the same time, for all
of these weirdo turns and like ficked nonsense bits, when
this album fucking goes, it goes. When the Beatdown's hit,
they are like stupidly hard. There are some crazy good
rifts they've got, like the laser gun sounding guitar sounds
that are like all over there. You know. Two Headed
Truck has the most like weirdo symp touches with the
most super jazz hands vocal melodies.
Speaker 2: The band of like done and I'm here for it.
Speaker 3: It's so like it's just such a like roller coaster
of like this, this is stupid, none of this should work,
but there is a commitment to doing it.
Speaker 2: And I guess as much all of that, I.
Speaker 1: Think you're right.
Speaker 3: They're like weirdly more serious about it, whilst maybe being
more stupid because they're kind of tying in with this
whole weirdo concept of this a I'm just kind of
being a celebration of being a bit of a freak.
I don't know, Like, I just have so much fun
with this album for the entire fifty seven and again
we say it's fifty seven minutes. Twelve minutes of that
is the closing track, so like you can still enjoy
the bulk of this album as as as the concise.
Speaker 2: Package that it perhaps works best at.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean speaking about the riffing you're talking about,
you know, whether it be Schizophrenia Legacy, which those sort
of like car bomb ish you know, spaceship dive bomb stuff,
or I like Full Moon Guidance, which just has that
real that has kind of a present as it hits,
and I like when they just lean into like a
sort of depth charge, you know, slamming guitar sound. Yeah,
the break before the clappy bit in that feels like
it's just going to explode. It's that's good. I like
the main riff in Tears on Lambou Level, which is
just really freakish, like quite kareeming and almost like a
dial as being turned up and down as it plays.
It's quite strange. And then that moves into a sort
of like R and B finger CLICKI bit. That kind
of tricks you to thinking we're going to sit there
for a bit, but then it just uses that as
a jump scare to come back with the riff, you
know that, And that made me smile, you know.
Speaker 3: I think they do the shotgun sample into the riff
after that, like R and B bit, which is the
best thing a band can ever do.
Speaker 2: Always great.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there is something about this where, you know, for
a math corp, it's very modern kind of taking advantage
of like this is not your nineteen ninety nine to
two thousand and whatever style of math cort. The guitars
are thick and they have a mass that I would
associate more with your kind of you know, your more
contemporary hardcore, your you know, like Will Putney stuff or
whatever it be. I think there's maybe a bit of
a trade off there where you know, you say rock
and roll, Elliott, I don't think there is as much
rock and roll in what the calistyal boys in their
riffs do compared to let's say a mathcore band from
like the two thousands or something. They don't swing in
the same way. It is more that just like koreening
crazy sound kind of mangled into the shape of like
a beatdown or something. But I do like again, there
are parts where, like Schizophrenia Legacy goes into an almost
like kind of two step feel, and they have like
these snippets of like straight up hardcore that exist inside
the kind of crazy house of cards of other elements
they've built before, then go into like a sexy saxbridge
or something like that. But they often they really like
they pile it through with stuff like the Demon Unreality.
First forty five seconds is a pretty classic Sandy mathcore song,
just reminds you why you like that kind of stuff.
Cool good, but then it explodes with like almost like
half seconds snippets of just like here's a drum and
bass beat and then it's gone right or like some
bongos in the middle when it goes all samba or something.
And I just think the recording track for this album,
if you were to look at it on the fucking
studio compute must be mental looking, and it like those
moments almost reminds me of stuff like machine gul when
it is just so like kind of absolutely where do
I look with it?
Speaker 3: Maybe it could be a bigimmick and they could focus
in them of it, but I'm kind of just down
for that, Like which way is it gonna go?
Speaker 2: Again?
Speaker 3: I just have a bunch And there are still some
of those bits that catch me off guard. And I
mean again like deep bit of reality. You get that
fucking dog bark in the beat down, So again there
is moments of like just pure like knuckle dragging, like
almost amure level stupidity in with kind of like freak genius,
and that that to me is kind of one thing
that really endears the Canastal Boys to me is that
like they're not afraid to like celebrate the kind of
like more knuckle dragging elements of like hardcore and death
cores and that kind of stuff whilst throwing in the
kind of like mad like scientist experimentation.
Speaker 2: And that is just that is really fun for me.
Speaker 4: It's a weird thing with this record because when I
was listening to it, I just started writing down like
those moments you talk about, why it's just half a
second of this ten seconds of that I started just
writing down the stuff that I would hearing, and then
the whole time, I was going, I'm quite enjoying this.
I'm liking this a lot more than I've liked the
other stuff. And I've read the list back to myself
and I thought, that sounds shit. That album I've just
written down in my notes where I'm going, like fall
Out Boy, Maroon five for l Williams, like the reference
points that were coming to mind in moments like that.
I was going, this sounds awful. This sounds like the
worst album I've ever heard. And then I mean, Samon
said it immure the ingredient that saves the recipe. And
yet everything we've all taken notes of I think is
in there. We've even said like the sort of attitude
of this band is kind of marmite in itself. As
a combination of things, it sounds a bit like a nightmare,
especially for an hour long but I was kind of
I was entertained the whole time, And every time I've
put this record on, I've been paying attention to each moment.
It's never drifted off into the background. And I also
just think the songwriting's improved. I don't it sounds mental
and like it's all coming out of place, but it
kind of has its own internal logic, I think, And
I've been listening to this shole a few times now,
I feel like I'm starting to get to grips a
bit more with the sort of vibe, the atmosphere, whatever
it is they're going for, whereas in the past it's
kind of felt a bit unhinged in a slightly unflattering way.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, definitely, you can say, considering as you're
saying the elements that you'd write down then look back on, right,
it is not anywhere near as bad as that would see. Absolutely,
And in terms of the kind of sweeting of the album,
I suppose, you know, about five songs in maybe I
was thinking like, okay, this is very maximist again, how
is this going to meet her out over an hour?
But then Lemon and Body Horror for Birds come in
as a kind of like cool down pair almost, and
they reset the stage a little bit, maybe a little
bit long collectively, like Body Horror Birds is like five
and a half minutes long by itself, and that comes
after Lemon. But in terms of like looking over the
horizon and kind of going stealing yourself, what's going to
happen next? It does the trick, and I think it
always it seems to have something that wants to newly
put the center of attention all the time. And in
terms of as you're saying, keeping your interest, keeping you engaged,
keeping you entertained, to use your word, I agree, I
did the same thing. I still don't really love this
band's melodies myself, and it is it's such a hard
stop and start again because for me, when they do it,
the guy essentially has a glee club voice right like
it's it's a preaming kind of you know, we know
it was saying Disney musical fitter voice that the grit
just falls all the way out of it. And I
think of it like I never really got into a
band like Protest a Hero who have like some of
those like similar soft jazzy breaks or whatever, but then
a hook comes in and to me, it just lacks umph.
And I mean, like keep in mind, I don't even
really love prime era Jason Butler all that much, right Like,
so this kind of like sort of pop R and
B post hardcore vocal just isn't the thing that gets
me like hot under the collar like everyone else's that's me.
But around the structure of the songs, I think there
are parts where he just stops and sings a line
and then moves on and I go, I don't really
know what that part was for, Like was that a
hook or is it you just kind of making something up?
I don't know. And there are parts where they lean
into actually going, here's a centralized like song basically where
I go, okay, right, you can you can center something
like that Two Headed Trout, for example, is a real
like the used style kind of skipping you know, pot
ark or song like that. And then you know Lemon.
Maybe you think it odd what I would say regarding
what just about his voice, but I think that they
succeed when they allow themselves to like develop a feel
a little bit more when they have this like electro
harsh kind of noiry pop song thing, and it kind
of to me it works a little bit better than
where he goes here's four seconds of a fall Out
Boys song and then I'm off, you know, and that
there's something like Lemon, I go, it has a bit
more on that flamencoy edge, But it reminds me a
little bit when Code Oorrig would do stuff like Mirror
on the last album, and you go, oh, here's a
flavor that we can sit in for a little bit more.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think, like I'm distracted by the moment.
Speaker 3: Leash is one that the really good examples of the
more monodic songs that has got a bit more mph
to it that isn't as like because I think Lemon
is gonna be the one that a lot of people
are gonna like draw to us the kind of the
sad moment, because it is one where they they do,
you know, really let things sit and it is super
slick in its production, but I think it's still got
like an emotive chord to it and and it does
really burst life in the end.
Speaker 1: But there are like.
Speaker 2: Again, I'm just down for the weird slips a melodies.
Speaker 3: I'm down for when they actually go Okay, we're gonna
write a song and the ones where they kind of go,
we're writing up a song there, you know, two headed Trout,
Lemon and probably againstracked by the mod Lisa, but that
they're they're cool kind of like pieces of the puzzle
where everything else is just completely jumbled and out of place,
and they're the moment where it does kind of all
just settle into place for a couple of minutes, which
are just nice kind of ways to resent yourself before
Againstracted by the Molassa comes right before you're into you know,
the twelve minute closer, so it's kind of like settling
you down before the final stretch.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Detractor of the Mona Lisa is really like a
two thousand and four used kind of MTV song. Isn't
like I can see these.
Speaker 2: That's a good thing. That's a good thing.
Speaker 1: Parent I'm not saying it's not. I'm saying, you know,
it's not my favorite thing, but they're not bad at it, right.
But I was like, I can see in my head
the fucking two thousand and four music video for that
song if that had come out, then you know, uh
and I they're almost like lifelines at that point when
you're into your fucking you know, like fifteen minutes into
the record or like you know, forty minutes into the
record and you go, okay, cool, like here's I can
catch my breath for a moment scream hook wise. You know,
you mentioned the fucking the one where you was half
half half and then about twenty seconds later in a
different song. Oga boo boo boo, whatever it is, Yeah,
there's the one that stands out in tears on lambo
level when you just yells read it's okay, there's something
to grab on to as well. This is all before
they end on a nearly twelve minute track country song
in reverse. How do you think they pull out off?
Speaker 3: I really like this because I think it like for
too much, Like it feels almost again kind of it's
got that free act structure where you have the kind
of like patient build up in and then three mini
mark pretty much bang on like heaviest ball sort of
rift drops. It's a bit slower than sludgier goes finding
it needs to and again like it has like bitsally
like the samples and thing are kind of gliding together,
like again you've got scrimplets like that you would look
less pretense on thirty five millimeters. It's kind of got
all the things you've got of the Dowboys just kind
of de live there and then it like you know,
it stops and you get the violin solo.
Speaker 2: To kind of take you into the final stretch.
Speaker 3: I think it's kind of like they nicely sort of
meet her out the kind of like weird shifts and turns,
saxophone solos in there. So it's got all the things
you want, but it's just like spread over twel minutes,
which again over now, which kind of does that across
and now. But maybe it's not needed to do it
in a twelve minute song, but I guess they must
want to kind of sort of.
Speaker 2: See can they do it on that?
Speaker 3: And I think, again, this what we're talking about with
that eight minute Larna Shore song. Is this order like
down for long songs if they are constantly throwing out
new ideas every thirty seconds, so it never gets boring
And maybe is that, but I think as a Twelvet
song it's so it's a cool statement when the album.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I would agree it's a cool statement.
Speaker 4: If there is one christism of this record that I
have in terms of like its structure and form, it's
this song kind of feels like a microcosm of the record,
almost like a it's trying to capture everything the record
does and kind of bring that back into again, which
isn't a bad idea. I don't mind records doing that,
but when a quarter of your record is basically a
recap of the album you've just heard. It does mean
that I think I was reaching with this record in
terms of re listens slightly less frequently than I might
have been if it wasn't there, because I don't think
it offers much that the rest of the record doesn't.
I like it in theory, and I think it's a
cool idea, but I think this would have worked maybe
as an isolated song at least in a few months time,
and then the record just being the forty five minute
thing if if that needed resequencing or whatever. So a
very cool idea, and I think it's done well and
it's some of their best long form songwriting to date,
but it makes the record slightly less replayable for me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think there are ambition has gotten away from
them a bit. I think it's beyond their execution someone.
I'm not saying it's a terrible result, but I was
quite taken in by the intro when it has these
like dusty guitars and drum brushes and stuff, and all
of a sudden my brain was like, Oh, it's a
cot of lunar album or something. I like these kind
of mega songs. It does feel a little bit like
the actual song then could just start where it starts
about three minutes after that, And I think that's a
sort of an issue with it, because I mean, if
we're gonna laugh at like dream Theater for writing an
epic song every album where that four minutes in you go, Okay,
what are we doing with this song? I think, you know,
let's be fair because I kind of I laughed when
it crests at that kind of intense scream a bit
where I'm guessing there's a guest on there as well,
and they're just shrieking, and it coalesces there and transitions
out with that with some chimes. It's very moody, and
then it goes into that stupid fucking vocoder I love you.
I think that's the point where whatever this song was
meant to be was kind of lost to me as
a whole. And I listened to Heck Instructions after this
and gosh, that laught epic song there, you know, like
we should have had more of that.
Speaker 2: I mean, yeah, fair enough, that's a hard comparison to make.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the artistic breadth of en Ametters is really impressive.
I think, you know, you can make the argument that
in the worlds of punk at least, albums like this
are the closest we have the kind of the genre bendy,
maximalist sort of albums you'd get from bands and even
like Faith them Are or someone. But even though again
I like, I was entertained by it and I like
the kind of intensity of it, I don't really know
what makes this too different from something like like when
Between the Burieder Me did Colours two or something like
where it's just it's it's not more than the sum,
but it's many, many, many, many many parts. Yeah, that's
a good comparison.
Speaker 4: Actually like that that tracks a lot of me or
someone like a band that I always sort of similar
to this was someone like the Ongoing Concept, who I
thought had great individual moments and it's some really cool ideas,
but sometimes you kind of put it well like sometimes
got Away with Themselves, I think weirdly for being probably
the most ambitious record this that is the least I
feel that's true of in.
Speaker 1: The Calistalboys catalog, because I do think they sort of
nail it more often than they don't on this record.
Speaker 4: I don't know how much I'm going to be going
back to this come the end of the year, I
suspect one place in my top twenty. But this is
the first time where an album as a whole, even
if I think it's somewhat flawed in some places, I'm
starting to hear and see the appeal that other people
are getting out of this, which is nice.
Speaker 3: I think, like I'm just that cose to comparison. Like
for me, I guess it's the concoction of like ideas
on this album. They're drawing on a lot more things.
Speaker 2: I really love them. What like between the Bury of
Me would do.
Speaker 3: Is That's why for me, I'm so here for the
mad mix of like shit I love, WHI shit I
probably hate, but it all comes together to be something
that I find just a really fun and exciting listen.
Speaker 2: So I'm here for it.
Speaker 3: But I can I can see why it won't like
I can this time that I love that. I would
not say anyone who says they don't love I'll be like,
you know what, fair enough because it is an odd
ball of a record.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I understand that I'm not as hot on this
as a lot of people, probably for those reasons that
you know, it's just not entirely on my wavelength, and
I think I'm sounding more down on it than I am,
because again, I had a good amount of fun with it.
I was entertained by parts. There are parts when it
maybe want to stomp about or whatever. I think it's just,
you know, reviewing a second album of theirs. Now, I
can conclude that The Calastal Boys are not my band
emotionally speaking, because while I find myself going oh, what's
that several times throughout a song, throughout an album, and
enjoying that side of the experience, I don't think I'll
come back to this very much because ultimately I don't
get what they're trying to emotionally convey to me, you know,
And as a result a fifty minute album, I have
very little desired kind of relive that because it's just
falling onto the kind of look, how many different ideas
we have, okay, you know, side of math call that
for myself personally, and I can see that it's very
much the hooks they are putting in not really my
style of personal preference. It doesn't make me feel a
great deal outside of being very loud and very cooky.
Do the Cowastalboys haves like this is a legitimate question
to people who resonate with it more than me, because
if we look at a band like Dillinger, for example,
they were mad and they were crazy, and they did
every style under the sun, but they were able to
tie it up with songs that everyone really remembered, like
Black Bubble Gum and Milk Lizard and setting Fire to
Sleeping Giants and Farewell Mother Lisa and Prancer or the
Countless Faith No More songs where you know they headline
festivals with those songs. What are the calas Dowboys songs
where they're like, yes, it all comes together on that one,
because I think at this stage they need to start
tightening if it's going to stick around.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that. I think that is a fair point.
Speaker 3: There was someone that the EP they did in between
the album and the stars like that's a proper banger.
Speaker 2: I can't remember what the song was called.
Speaker 1: Head.
Speaker 2: The songs have weird titles. That's why I can't remember that.
Speaker 1: There was like there was like God Smiles upon the
Callous dow Boys. There was an EP like that wasn't it?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: That ap either one of the songs that we were
like that that this is like the actually banger. I
just kind of it was called because again that their
songs have stupid. It was like pin I can't remember.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was a really good song, but their song
no I love. I realized this.
Speaker 3: Album, I can't remember the song titles of them have
reading in front of me because they're stupid song titles.
Speaker 1: Yeah, what they are like obviously like one of the
most ambitious, widest reaching albums of the year. I do
get if someone really loves it. I'm not going to
tell someone that they're They're not accurate, they're not right
to whatever. It's just not entirely personally come together for me.
But if it is for you, then let us know.
Great quite complimentary as well. Our next album is we
are staying in forms of punk that are brash and
out there. It's Model Actress with a now called Pirouette.
This is the second album from the band. I'll credit
Alistair Dunn from the fantastic band Ash and Spire for
bringing this band to our attention last year when we
did an album Roulette episode with him. He brought on
their debut album, Dog's Body, and we had a really
good chat about it where Elliott and I didn't you
know much about this band, but we were both quite
taken aback with what we heard with Model Actress.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and since then, I've gone back to that record
loads Of all the albums that we discovered, which was
most of them, I think for both of us, it's
the one that has certainly stuck in the memory most.
For me, I felt the post punk moment has kind
of crested in the public consciousness. That album is one
of the best to be offered up in that genre
this decade. For my money, I get those songs stuck
in my head all the time. They write some of
the catcher songs of anyone in that scene. I think
the record's fucking great. But because I only got into
it recently and I still haven't gotten sick of it,
I was bowled over that we have a new record.
What feels so soon afterwards.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a really striking debut in terms of it
almost feel like a coming of age record or something
in terms of some of the life experiences it's talking about,
but in a really delirious, belligerent sort of way. Because
Model Actors are in one sense, a punk band are
in one sense really like an a noise rock band.
I think it draws a lot from that sorde of things,
but that first time, I think I've got a lot
more buzz in like the kind of like indie critical sphere,
from the kind of people who like, you know, liars
or preoccupations or stuff like that, which is why I
didn't really cross like my path until Alistair brought it
to us. But this one I thought we should do
because they're playing Outbreak next month, and you know that
it's it's having heard the record. It's an interesting rct
to be playing Outbreak on because it's less punk maybe
than the previous record. But I think also it'd be
interesting to see that's being embraced by the hardcore scene
because they do this sort of noise punk thing really
filtered through a very queer sensibility with a lot of
emphasis on kind of dance music and club music. And
that first album, Dog's Body is almost like the audio
equivalent of kind of the messiness of like spilling out
onto the streets, flitting from club to club, and it's
a real high of an experience, but also with the
kind of like unpleasant, kind of somewhat kind of vertigo
of that it's dance punk, but way way wilder than
what you would think of that usually. And I really
like the kind of hedonistic, you know, insistent with its hooks,
like you're being dragged out there behind him, you know,
with her BodyCount higher than a mosquito, but combined with
the chaotic, nasty side. It's kind of like just pounding
its way through a nightmare and a dance floor. This
album is a bit more as sure and a bit
kind of you know, it's steadier, it feels less like
it's in the really dark atmosphere of Dog's body and
less unhinged and maybe more it's kind of gone through
that experience and can stretch its wings a little bit.
What do you make of it?
Speaker 4: I kind of went it went in with no expectations
at all because I didn't know. I didn't follow the
art to this record or where I thought they'd go
afterwards it at all. I this to me, it's a
funny record because on one hand, it's more danceable. There's
more pop on this record. It feels like there's more
like depesche mode than there is killing Joke as it
was the last time around. There's more kind of dazzling
fun instrumentation woven into some of these songs, but also
it has some of the most downbeat, depressive, introspective material
on it, and the kind of weaves between those two
things in a way that on one hand you'd say, like,
does it really setle on a mood in the way
that Dog's Body does wear That feels like such a
complete and fully realized statement that might not be true
of this one, But I love how free form this
is as a follow up. It kind of takes all
the stuff that they would do on that record and
stretches it into like completely different directions.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I mean, so obviously I wasn't there for the chat
on Dog's Body, but I made sure to check out
the album after you guys spoke about it, and I
was like, oh, that sounds, you know, like I've really
got taken back by that. I think this is fucking great.
I mean, the vibes on this album are just super cool,
but the whole is the whole Postmon thing might have
had its day, but I think this is doing that
in a sort of more interesting way. You know, like
it's been on you know a lot of repetition of
the beats and the loops and all that sort of stuff, but.
Speaker 2: They are like.
Speaker 3: Mesmerizing in their sort of infectious quality, and then then
just kind of like mixes them in with those kind
of like harsher stabs every now and then. And I
think like Cinderella, which is I think was the lead
single on this I mean that is fucking amazing that song,
like that kind of like pulsating industrial dance be on
a song that's like all about exploring queer identity and
looking back at the past and you're kind of like
frustrations of you know, as a child wanting this this
Cinderella birthday party and then kind of backing out on
it and the sort of like frustration that pours out
of that. Like obviously framatically, there's a lot on this
album that I kind of listening to, Like yep, cool
got on board all of that. But I think as
a vibe, this album is such a like cool sound.
And maybe it's not as kind of like exciting, kind
of like attention grabbing as the previous one, but just
the air of the sound does I'm just so on
board with.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think you know that they're a funny band
to try and just you know, convey to anyone listening
he's not heard them. What, like, you do you think
this bad will be for you or not? You know,
but I think you can really feel the kind of
industrial dance hand guiding its way through the different things
that they do. So I think if you're a fan
of like nine inch Nails, right, I mean, I think
throwing words around like noise rock or no or whatever
is a bit scary, but I think if you are,
then you can totally vibe on that level. I mean
the specific record by anyone out there that this band
make me think of the most is hesitation Marks, because
there's a very similar kind of hypnotic beat production that
that record has. I mean, Cinderella really has the kind
of hitting a pipe with a stick kind of clank
that anchors the beat. That's I love shit like that,
you know, and vespers The opener is total like electronic
club throb. But the front man, Cole, I think he does.
You know, he still is in this very dour range
a lot of time, but he does sing a little
bit more on this album. The first album he spent
the whole time basically on this kind of verge collapse,
but this he has a bit more varied subtlety in
his approach and definitely more melody. And on Vesper's he
kind of hits this like repeating falsetto like eow, almost
like a kind of nineties euro dance thing. And I
think one of the only other bands that we talk
about who have done that is Na Shakari, right when
they kind of land on like a nineties dancer like that.
And this is almost like a super underworld gothic kind
of you know of that where you know, Departures has
that feel again with a very quiet repetition of this
kind of dark pop. And I love the way that
stuff like Vespers or again Cinderella very much again speaks
to the nine is Nails loving part of my brain
of like building up and up on kind of singular
constant electronic beat, getting harsher and harsher scrapping metal over it,
but that core is always there. I think it's a sound.
Speaker 4: The thing that I always thought that this bands something
like the exact center between is the lung ZP by
Big Black and Dead or Alive, And if you can
imagine the exact middle point between those two things, if
that sounds like your bag get involved, and for me,
the sequencing of this record kind of shows why that
combination works, because the first three songs of Vespers, Cinderella,
and Poppy, they all move at a fairly similar tempo.
They're all kind of that upbeat, hypnotic, super deliberately repetitive
dance dance pop.
Speaker 1: Nois, noise, no way whatever.
Speaker 4: That combination we've been trying to put into words is
which feels like a slightly more emotionally rich version of
what they would do on the last record, which again
moves at a very similar temple, but it's a bit starker,
and it just kind of sets up that this album's
going to have a bit more of a palette to
play with than the last one. And then after those
three songs, when you move into something like Diva and
then later into Acid Rain, and it just feels like
this band who had completely nailed that style of songwriting
down in tools and applying themselves to something else and
I think doing it as well, and doing some of
the best songs of their career in a style that
feels so totally removed, and drawing on totally different influences
that time around, things like Radiohead and George Harrison. It
feels so fresh and it feels like such a natural
progression despite being so different from some of the stuff
they were doing last time out.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I kind of edm thing they do. But
I was thinking, I was like, I wonder where the
outbreak of this is gonna come in, you know, because
I think the actual guitars and stuff are sort of
kept more of a minimum on this, but it's often
so heart rate inducing and harsh with the production the
stuff that they're piling on poppy or the really nasty
moments in audience that just it makes it rattle. I mean,
Ring Road is probably the harshest song because that kind
of turned into like a no wave gabba thing like
that Ring Roads.
Speaker 3: Blow out your speakers of how like harsh and intense
the beats are like audience in that Ring Road is
kind of the most like at it moment on the
record where I'm like it is more agra and those
like noisy stabs that come in on Audience that keep
you on edge. And like I said that Ring Road
the like they're like almost like harsh static coming through
the beats just because they're like blared at you that aggressively,
Like that to me is the kind of thing where
I'm like, yeah, I can see a crowd like really
getting like moved into sort of a physical action just
from how intense that is. And and that's the thing
is like them that it's kind of like almost of
from like steady quite proposal, but steady Beats. They can
just throw these sudden like stabs of noise and sort
of explosives at you that do can like just startle
you into action, which are really cool.
Speaker 4: Well, Ring Road, it reminds you that ultimately you're listening
to a noise rock band, which you'd be forgiven for
forgetting for some of these souls. Because I'm listening that
sounds a bit like Lou Read, that sounds like Grace Jones.
The stuff they're pulling from feels pretty far removed from that.
Speaker 1: And then suddenly you.
Speaker 4: Go, that's just Melt Banana, this dark, shadowy dance record
suddenly as a song that sounds like Boredom's on it,
And that might not be for everyone, but it certainly
suits me. And I think just throwing in stuff like
that throughout the record, it just doesn't because, like you said, Sam,
a lot of this record is deliberately repetitive to have
that hypnotic feel and just throwing stuff like that to
throw you off balance. It's so much more effective when
you can get sucks into these grooves that are just
interrupted on a dime or something that feels so left field.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think my favorite almost record maybe Diva, which
in terms of both the having a bit more of
the industrial rock side, it was fels like three Teeth
or something with that kind of like just really you know,
beefy properly menacing almost base frequency kind of drum parts
coming in. But also you know, the frontman in his band,
even though he is often again almost doing this kind
of monotonous spoken word thing, I think he is really
a thing that you focus in on and the hooks
that he does where he's just like barely mumbling drawling,
like drawing it out. When he does that, I'm such
a fucking bit girl. Like it's a real like yeah,
dark camp. I guess you would describe it as like
it's really cool, and that is the thing for this
record that has just like glued itself in my head.
Speaker 2: Departures is the one for that for me, with that
whole I want to be embodied. Let me be Your Girl.
Speaker 3: Weirdly catching sort of like they're almost like they're like
anti melodies, but they're just delivered so incessantly as a
mancha that they do catch on in the end.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, in Diva, you could call me a
small business owner living in a well, trapped in the
body of an operatic diva. It's a bewildering lyric. Diva
ring is my business, and business is good. But you know,
as you were saying, Elliott, the stuff that Dog's body
doesn't really spread into songs like Acid Rain, which is
basically a kind of melodic centerpiece, and that does sound
a bit like Radiohead. You know, it's kind of so melancholy.
And I think that if you are thinking of this
as like an EDM record essentially, or even industrial like
a health record or something, that would take you off guard,
but it also fits within the world because there's something
about this where even when this band are super quiet
and not sonically heavy, there's almost like an invisible layer
of kind of like weighty smog over it or something
pushing it down, and that song somehow is on the
same register as something like Diva, despite how different the
approaches are. It's an interesting record. I think if you
hear this and you want a bit more intensity and
more of that kind of raw noise rock sort of freneticism,
I would go to the previous album Dog's Body, but
that very like shadowy, slinky industrial quiet intensity does work
for me here. If you like the heaviest, gothiest bits
of the new Lady Gagar album, go for this. It's
definitely more on the fringe of what T and M
would cover, but it's really cool and you can see
an outbreak in a few weeks. If you're going and
that name would passed you by on the bill, go
have a scary dance. Apparently their live shows are amazing.
Cole has also co written one of the new Miley
Cyrus songs. So who knows where this band are going next.
We're going to move to a more kind of metal
and meaty side of hardcore. Now we've got Age of
Apocalypse and in Oblivion. This band are from New York State.
This is out through Closed Casket. It's produced by Taylor Young.
It's got some familiar guest features. Even if you've not
heard this band before, that feels pretty tried and true
in terms of the particular breeding ground of hardcore it's
coming from, and you know if you want to hear
that or not. But Age of Apocalypse are a name
that when I saw they had a new record coming up,
that jumped out at me as a good reviewed choice
more than many of those things, maybe because they put
an album in twenty twenty two called Grim Wisdom. Sam,
you must be in on Age of Apocalypse.
Speaker 3: I think the Age of Apocalypse away kid. The hardcore
kids yearned the heavy metal apparently, Like.
Speaker 1: I am so glad you said that first, because I
I remember hearing Grim Wisdom when it came out, and
a few of the people who I know on the
hardcorese I were raving about it, and I put it
on and it was an instance of you guys like
heavy metal, like you might sneer at someone wearing a
patch jacket or something if they turned up to a
hardcore song. But but you like heavy metal because it
is very New York hardcore on one hand, and with
the kind of you know, you're a feel of a
vocalist doing a kind of like kind of melodic vocal
you can obviously go oh yeah, life of Agony, right,
you know, right, rightly?
Speaker 2: So?
Speaker 1: But at the same time combining that with riffs that
legitimately have a trad metal edge. It's the closest that stuff. Like,
you know, we often said that stuff like Eternal Champion
is heavy metal made by people who bridge the kind
of scene between like us, power metal and hardcore. Basically,
this is that stuff bleeding over into a more true
hardcore band. That's what age of a pockets right like
to me, I mean.
Speaker 3: Obviously you've mentioned some of Thames with it, but it's
picking up the bat on that twitch and tongue sort
of laid down, but where they you know, had a
bit more frash and golf and dooming and that sort
of thing with the hardcore. This is this is pure
swords in the air heavy metal used with your hardcore,
which again does then link it to all of the
heavy metal bands that the guys in hardcore have as
side projects like Champion and stuff like that. But this
is like again, when you hit play on this and
the first thing you get is those league guitar lines,
I'm just like, you can't deny this is heavy metal,
more coil like that big mothereg intro, Like it's just
heavy met just get but it does like it does
just fuse that with clenched fist, knuckle dragging sort of
New York hardcore, and that to me is a really
fun kind of like battle between the two elements kind
of coming together.
Speaker 2: Because that just is triumphant and epic but so spin kickable.
Speaker 1: Yeah, to the point that this band actually have a
metal archive page, right, but it is like it's a
cool mix. Elliott, I know this flame. I don't know
maybe way where you would sit with it, but I
know you you're a big Life of Agony fan, right,
so kind of what do you make of this? Am
I a big Life of Agony fan? I swear you've
said that to me maybe or not.
Speaker 4: No Life of Agony are one of those. It's the opposite.
They were a band who I've won tokay for a
long time, but I never.
Speaker 1: Broke the wall with ignore what the fuck I've said? Then?
What did you make of this? Anyway?
Speaker 2: Listen?
Speaker 4: I you were saying the thing that the twitching tongues
connection has just clicked something in my brain because I
was going into this almost like pulling my hair going,
Am I going to come on and say I don't
like the hardcore record that sounds like eighty speed Meal,
surely not. But if you remember, we had a similar
conversation to this, yeah, back when we talked about twitching tongues,
and I was sort of aghast. You guys going, I
don't know why. I can't explain myself. I'm ashamed. But
this combination of thrashing, hardcore and goth forever reason doesn't
land with me.
Speaker 1: And it's an a quiet taste. Yeah, but arguably this
is even more honed towards me as a thing as
a package, and I can't.
Speaker 4: Really work out where I'm landing with this record. I've
never heard of this band before, so I'm going in
completely blind. The thing I love about this record is
also the reason why I'm struggling with it, which is basically,
commit so hard.
Speaker 1: To the thing, do you know what I mean?
Speaker 4: Because it's not like it's a power metal alum that's
a bit punk or a punk helm that throws the
odd you know, token twin leading every now and then
when it's being hardcore, it is like sick of it
all level.
Speaker 1: It sounds like leeway.
Speaker 4: I mean, it's just pure bread, beat down hardcore from
the nineties and from New York and when it's going
heavy metal, it is Sword in the Stone. Some of
it actually sounds helloween. I love both of those things.
I am rarely in the mood for both of them
at the same time. Yeah, I think that that's fair
because I think they are a quiet taste. I mean
even you know, I'm not personally a huge Life of
Agony guy. And with the type of negative sorry the
twitching tongue comparison, I would say there's less goth with
Age of Apocalypse, and they are. They're less typo negative
and more Life of Agony, right, But to me, they
kind of take what someone like laf of Agony do
and then cover it in chain mail. And then I go, oh,
I like this now, you know, And yeah, the vocals
and everything in the same way that someone like Life
of Agony might be him doing a hard because my
hot take about Life of Agony as they sound like
Volbeat and I like Vulby and I don't mind Life
of Agony. But you say that to a Life of
Agony fan, they sound a bit like Vulby and they
will punch.
Speaker 1: You in the face. But it's true, it sounds like
Volbeat from New York. But as they you know, take
that stick, a bit of candle mass or something in it,
and a bit of I was gonna say Helloween, but
I'll take it. Sure. I like that kind of strange mix.
I like the spinkick energy with more dramatic vocal you know,
melodies and you would normally expect and then slap a
few sick lead guitars in there as well, and I'm
into it.
Speaker 3: I mean again, like Gilded Hatred when he shang Unholy War,
like can you get more metal than that?
Speaker 2: Like and those things? Is like, I'm not gonna make
the Helloween comparison.
Speaker 3: I refuse to, but if Halloween had beatdowns, maybe Helloween
would actually.
Speaker 2: Not be a rubbish band.
Speaker 1: Like taking this very much like I'm sorry, but I do.
Speaker 3: I just want to point out, like, like the leads
that open in Oblivion, the people who fucking love this
band would sneer at those lead guitar lines in any
other context, and I would probably do it if it
was Helloween doing them. But when they're in that context
and you get those like that, that breakdown that comes
in afterwards, like ah, it's a fucking good sound.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it's paced like a hardcore album for
the most part. I think it's two minutes half an hour, yeah, yeah,
But the opening track is the longest on the album,
and that feels again a real like bringing it in
with this like spooked, you know, doomed kind of thing
where if you think about most hardcore today that's in
that guttural register, this sort of sounds a bit like that.
But then it starts picking up steam and it's more
kind of like up here and a bit more really
like had that drama to it. You've got your hardcore
guest features, right. Gilded Hatred has the guy from Demonstration
of Power on it when it goes very like knuckle
dracking towards the end. But I like the chorus in
that song that has a real like hookey, almost poppy
kind of bounce to it. They're kind of like borne
into this chaos. Like that's that's quite pleasing to me.
Equalizer has some of the most like barking dog like
gang vocals I've heard in a minute, which is totally
from the other side of the spectrum, which again I
can I can see it from your point of view,
Eliet of like I was just enjoying a man singing
his melody and now I've got his mates going.
Speaker 4: But I like it, I say, well, yeah, that basically
is the problem with this record that mine. It's like,
if I want to listen to power metal, I don't
want someone to stomp on my head. And if I
want to listen to hardcore, I don't want someone handing
me pan pipes and being made to dance with the
with the bars and the gestures.
Speaker 1: It's like, I the thing is is I kind of
want to observe judgements.
Speaker 4: I've only managed to give this a few listens, and
it's possible that when this clicks, it will unlock a
whole new genre of music that I love that only
one band is doing, and in which case I will
come racing back to this thing's arms. At the moment,
those two things are just so far apart in terms
of like when am I going to rub my hands together?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 1: You know what I want? It's never. I'll take Halloween. Oh,
but if you've got hate, reed will do that. Like It's.
Speaker 4: I'm not in the market for both. But I do
applaud the fact that they I've gone all the way
with it and they've not been shrinking violence and taking
bits of from each and tried to dilute it somehow.
Speaker 3: It is.
Speaker 4: It is so gung ho guns blazing this record, So yeah,
it very least it gets credit for that.
Speaker 1: And I like that there's a second in Mortal Coil
after one of the big kind of harmony choruses before
the breakdown, where there's a tiny bit of acoustic guitar,
and I thought for sure for a second it was
gonna go all barred in the forest, and instead it's
a breakdown after that, which is great, But I just
I like that for a second it threatened to go
all ruin escape, and I think you don't get that
from demonstration of power, right, so come in.
Speaker 3: Like I'm here for bringing the warring tribes of the
heavy metal bards and the knuckle dragging moshes together.
Speaker 2: I mean like.
Speaker 3: Of that, like like, well they will they'll they'll be
out of the bards and steal their lunch money.
Speaker 2: But like abus is my family of that where maybe
from higher Viz comes in and just like.
Speaker 3: Does that like snarling orven swagger onto this like heavy
metal thing and you don't raise your face and time
to just cleanse your mind. Obviously you've got the twitch,
the obligatory twitching tongues, guests vocal which you have to
have this album because there. But I love that you
have that kind of like hardcore gang mentality on a
heavy metal record.
Speaker 2: I think it's such a just fun thing, two completely
cashy worlds coming together.
Speaker 3: And again, I don't think hardcore fans are gonna take
the right lessons from this, and they're still gonna sneer
at a lot of heavy metal stuff, and like, I mean,
it's a bit of a shame, but for like at
least a brief moment that it can all come together
on this album and everyone can have fun with it.
And again, like the thing is, I think the hardlands
are gonna be so much more receptive to this, like
the heavy metal coming into hardcore of this. Then, say,
if you put this onto the raid of a lot
of Meal fans, they would probably say.
Speaker 2: The the hardcore stuff ruins it.
Speaker 3: That's my heart take on this is I think like
weirdly you could be their way around, But I'm just
so here for the combination as like it makes it
a genuine kind of like one of a kind hardcore record,
which for someone who fucking loves all of the me
and Pat's hardcore with game right now, I think there's
a real high bar for that sort of stuff, so
genuinely unique is a bit harder to come by.
Speaker 2: An age of Apocalypse are offering.
Speaker 1: That, Yeah, I think, you know, I like both of
the things. I think the playing is a bit of
a step above a lot of their contemporary I think
In Oblivion has a call kind of prominent bass part.
There's a really sweet sound. There's a lot of slayerisms
in the guitars, obviously when it goes metal, but you know,
if you're still jamming the Spirit World record and you
want more, you can kind of slip this in. Obviously
not if you're Elliott, but you know it does work.
I gotta go back to the Trap with Graham from
High VI's is so mental because that song speeds out
of the gate with an almost speed metal riff. Yeah,
and then Graham from High VI's comes in, who you
would expect to find nowhere near anything to do with
speed metal or like a candle mass part or anything
on swords. Yeah, and it's it's so insane hearing him
on anything else, because such a distinct diction and it
seems to live so much in that high Vears world
him coming on yapping on this like you've got on
the ship from New York to Birkenhead. It's one of
the most unique, like ex voice in why setting hardcore
features you'll ever hear. It's mad again the Colin Young
one is like that just makes perfect sense, but it's
not as like what the fuck is hearing Graham on that.
I think like the full epic metal ballad stuff like
the closing track, for example, I love the sound of it.
I think has songs because they are doing them in
these sort of hardcore structures. Essentially, they're not as like
fully spread the wings as you know what like an
actual doom metal band or heavy metal band would achieve
with it. I think, you know, they're not as good
at that as Paul Bearer or Chemists, Visigoth, whatever you
want to say, right, but it's the effect of a
hardcore band doing it with that kind of tone and girth,
And I just love hearing a solo like the one
on that last track get ripped out in a record
like this. It's fun. It's brutishly hard, but also like
well well dramatic and quite extroverted, which are kind of
applaud about it. It's got the soul. They have a
UK tour coming up in September with Balmora in support.
Speaker 2: That's what I'm going to the harg first in Brighton
for yeah, and I just heard the.
Speaker 1: New Balmorra ep with the Northman sample at the start
of it, so maybe that is the hardcore show to
bring your sword to. So there you go. That band
are called Age of Apocalypse. They're one of the more
unique hardcore bands you're here, which is why I wanted
to bring that forward. That record called in Oblivion last
album We're Gonna Go full Metal again with Sigeon, who
put out an album about a month ago, but I
wanted to bring it back and give it its proper discussion,
in part because I think it's fun and also a
more unique record than you might usually hear. But they've
also been announced as the opener on the Blood Incantation
Absolute Elsewhere tour with Rancy Pezuzu that's coming through the
UK in October. Imagine they're probably on some of the
European dates as well. Basically, I don't want people not
turning up because they don't know who the opener is.
So this is Sigin with Helgin Combat. They are I
think German Spanish band I guess primarily they're kind of
coming out of the ashes of a German who I
may have named Ropped once or twice called Necross Christos,
who in certain kind of very underground circles of a
really revered death metal band when it comes to kind
of late twenty and twenty tens death metal, a band
who produced such genuine death metal rockers as Necromantique, None,
Black Bone, Crucifix, and one of my personal favorite death
metal song titles of all time, Baptized by the Black
Urine of the Deceased. They're acal band because of sort
of how long, how long running. They were kind of
like pre date old school style death metal becoming really
trender and popular again, and so because of that they
also carry this real aura of, despite the playfulness of
what I've just said, being really like legit and serious
about it writing about the esoteric and the occult. Necross
Christas were a band who were quite known for having
like fifteen interludes of strange, mystical ancient music on any
given album. Right, they were really like putrid, obscure, deathy
kind of band sign carry that element on quite perfectly.
We've got references to things like Sumerian mythology and zoroastrian
is and ancient Middle Eastern religions and stuff. But the
riffing and the feel of the band is also in
a new, different sort of way, maybe even more throwback
in its personality. Elliot, this one's really here for me
and you, though, I don't know if this will be
your first exposure or not to these guys works Helgin Combat.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean it was my first experience to sijn
Neck was Christos. It's a name that I've heard banded around.
I had recommended a couple times, but I've never really
gone all in. I might have heard a couple that's
the plan then, I mean, I was gonna say I
went into this blind, but it's not. I didn't go
because I saw the album cover, which means I felt
I had a pretty good idea, because you see the logo.
And again, if it's not been stressed enough, if your
logo is not just a typeface, but there are objects
spelling out the word, your band is good. That is
the rule universally applied. This has yet to fail me.
I like the title I liked the image. I thought
I had some kind of idea where this is going
this sort of technical black and thrash bordering on death metal.
I guess that's what the combination is. I just love
that sound, like super present bass, bendy, flexible guitariffs, like
drums that just they just hit the spot. It's maybe
not the most revelatory combination in terms of its like
bare bones ingredients, but I think these guys make really inventive.
Speaker 1: Use of it.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think this record is really weird because it's super
old school in terms of the death metal inspirations, Like
it's all before the nineties, right, Like, this is a
record doing a thing that I personally really appreciate, which
is tapping into the kind of the point in the
eighties when death metal was kind of being born out
of thrash metal. And it's also really complicated. It has
really abtuse structures. The songs can be kind of riff mazes,
and as a record it has that kind of like
gnashing like raised axe metal baniasism thing of eighties extreme metal,
but with the kind of like developed complex palette coming
from age and maybe returning to that sound in the
present day rather than just doing an eighties worship thing.
Because of that, I wouldn't say this record has like
an especially wide appeal. I think this is very much
what again for a kind of a developed palette. I
will say this record is quite niche of what it's doing,
and I think it's a bit more difficult to understand
what it is than your average contemporary death metal record.
Where we go, it's gory, it's stinky, it's bloody, you
know what that is. But I think it's worth doing
because you won't really hear another death record is here
that sounds quite like it when there will be a
ton doing some of that other stuff. I also think,
because of how thrash and heavy metal the guitars are like,
the riffs are not downtuned kind of rift soup. The
tone is super dry, but it's many of these rifts
you could say belong more to straight eighties thrash than
what you would know us death metal. And so because
of that, if you can get into the windy structures
and the kind of particular hellish esoteric atmosphere of it,
that actually makes the riffs a lot more kind of
classically decipherable than a lot of what extreme metal in
the following decades maybe became because the very first thing
you hear with a really pronounced bass part, it sounds
a bit like megede f. Maybe in modern terms it
could be havoc, and that's not what you'd expect for
something that we're talking about with is literally when I
was saying, I wanted to go back and say that
thing I said earlier about it being technical that in
the realm of extreme metal, that makes the thing of
Nile and Cryptopsy or obscure as to pickle more modern band,
but not that tall. No, havoc was the sound that
was playing in my head when like I was seeing
of the time is uproof when I was describing that
is that kind of technicality. Well, I don't know if
it's necessarily super difficult to play, but it's a just
a bit more inventive with it's uh, you know, the
scales are used and that sort of thing to me,
And I don't know if I'm reading so much into it.
There are just too many things on this record that
seem to directly point to that dawn of extreme metal
thing that we talked about. We did the Sepultur special
where those bands when they're first moving out, thrash melt
into death metal and black met and they're kind of
working out the rules as they go. And the thing
that I was waiting for initially listening to the TRUG
for the first time, I wonder what kind of vocals
they're going to go for, And then when they come in,
and not only they kind of unusual, they.
Speaker 4: Are so fucking loud and like front and center in
the mix, and in this sort of thing, it's quite
normal to slip those into the back and they end
up being just kind of part of the musical tapestry,
and it comes in and everything else seems to melt
into the background, And part of me is like, that's
a bit giant. That's a weird decision, Like you know
that this is a weird thing for this band to do.
And then I thought, oh, that's like best your devastation.
But if it was played by people who knew how
to tune and play their instruments, it's like they've taken
one of the things about that record that to most people,
they'd think it was a mistake, and these guys, imagine, went,
I fucking love that about that record. I love how
wrongheaded it sounds. What if we did that but properly,
like with all these skill as we've honed, you know,
doing other Stars music and that sort of thing. And
once I kind of got my head around that, it
started to work out what this combination was. I just
I realized that thing you said about being a niche appeal,
it's it's me.
Speaker 1: I'm the niche. Yeah, it's our niche. Yeah. Because that again,
that develops into essentially a multi sectioned eight minute progressive
thresh track to start the thing, and it is kind
of it's like if you imagine a bunch of like
crusty zombie death metal ghoules climbing out of a musty
grave in hell playing fucking Havoc songs like it's a
really weird edge, and that's what made me go, I
want to bring this to the table for more people
to hear. Sam. I know that you haven't been able
to spend a lot of time with this record, but
where you struck by that very particular oddness.
Speaker 3: I was kind of just surprised with a hit playing
it kind of like swags about for a little bit,
that opening riff, like, yeah, when they look into that
sort of four four stomp on the interro. I was like, oh,
this is pretty like throw the horns up and then
again like freeming us in Onto is like quite spalling song.
They do just lay into that frashy death metal. I
kind of see where you come from. I did have
fun with this though, like with the kind of like
peculiarity of it the vocals. Actually I like that because
I was like, oh, there's a bit of character to
the vocals. There's kind of doing the kind of like
death metal crowd, but it's decipherable and it's not, as
you say, it doesn't just kind of blow into the
background and just become part of the musical tapestry. Again,
I've not, you know, spent malpulus in to this, so
I've got more to kind of get from it. But
I do think there is loads of character to this record,
like the leads that open Religious.
Speaker 2: Insanity Deny Slavery, which is my favorite.
Speaker 3: Songe that that song, Like, I mean, it's got a
like big sort of groove to it, got the iaids
on bass groove bit the title hook just they you know,
get really catchy, Like that's solo coming out of complete
left field, being mental like that song is fucking wicked.
And again, I don't really dislike any of the songs yet,
but that's one that I could kind of immediately latch
on going to, like ah, yeah, no, I'm so into
what they're doing here.
Speaker 2: That I really Death Opens the Graves is it?
Speaker 3: That's like peak mid tem post slayer at points like
in the kind of evil guitar leagues and it goes
fast and freshy, like there's clearly this kind of like
all encompassing love for like frash and death mol and
I agree it is kind of in that like crossover
a point where like death Moel hasn't been fully defined
it so it's kind of just like really extreme frash metal,
which I think. I'm like, yeah, I'm cool with that
and the more vivisions made. But if that is, if
it's done, like right, I kind of see where you're
coming from with that, and yeah, no, I've had a
good time with this, like so if I know, I'm
gonna definitely listen to it beyond this review. But there's
just a couple of songs they're like Dak mccurs like
big evil leads, mid tempost or menacing points in the
middle of it like when they like groove, they like
grew really hard.
Speaker 2: And I'm always down for that. So yeah, it just
it just hits on a lot of like cool things.
Speaker 3: And again because they're kind of like us quite things,
I guess that is what makes it a bit more
peculiar with it's kind of where it lands in the
kind of like progressive death metal kind of lathes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, the Slayer influence I think is more
like Hello Weights than you would usually think, where it
is kind of you know, that fiery spirit with that
spideriness you ever wouldn't expect even the way like the
Possessed influences less seven Churches and more beyond the Gates
or the sepulture of this kind of sort of schizophrenia
that kind of like wiry esoteric death thrash thing, horrific
distortions has a bit more of the morbid Angel of
kind of counteract just the thrash stuff. Death opens the
grave ends on a breakdown. The Age of Apocalypse would
be would be happy with? Five Blades is another one
where the first groove riff is like, you know, we're
talking about this weird esoteric, underground death metal thing, but
that's like Hey, we can do a bit of metallica
as well, and just yeah, stomp on it. The thing
that it shares with Netcross Chrystos is that extreme dryness
that feels like setting your foot down on a path
made of kind of cracking bones, you know, which really
translates into the vocal because Malta he is one of
the rare contemporary death metal vocals where you really do
know it's him the second he comes onto a track,
Like to the point that I put this on for
the first time, I'd forgotten who was in the band,
and then I went, oh, fuck, yeah, it's the neck
was crystals guy. Isn't it like immediately because he's so
characterful and he has the clearest diction while being absolutely putrid,
just a disgusting, rotten gurgle of a voice, but really
pronouncing every word the chorus in the first track not
only does it like rock your shit when it goes
into that kind of halftime thing in a way that
any power trip type band would be happy with, but
the vocal acts thing of fear not the tommentor is
so awesome and you look down the track lits and
you go like, okay, trance of the Mummy fied that
one's gonna be catchy, you know, tracks of the Bubby Fine,
which also has just the sickest, tightest kind of fast
Slayer riffs. You know. I mentioned dak a Curse, and
again the centerpiece where I knew that would pay off
is Religious Insanity Deny Slavery, which is such a slightly
convoluted song title that I can't help but think about
eighties extreme metal from Brazil or Grease and just immediately
love it. But it's a pure, out and out anti
organized religion song and it just gets very crude and
very unfiltered in its anger. And that was the moment
when I was listening to this, I was like, I'm
gonna make Sam listen to this because him croaking you
kill other people because of minor decrees. It ain't fucking
holy to fall on your knees just sounds so fucking cool.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And that's exactly it is.
Speaker 3: When you like, if you want just like things that
sound like nasty and metal, that song kind of hits
on that and again, but it's done in a catchy, clear,
concise way where it doesn't lose me like some of
these other bands like Might do and I think I
was like, yeah, cool, I'm on board with sign.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I do think you say, you know concise.
I think obviously every single song exceeds five minutes, you know,
and they are windy structures, but the record itself still
feels like it has some kind of struc's to the
point it does.
Speaker 3: It does feel to the point and kind of delivering
that in a way that like the songs never disappear
off up themselves. Everything's always kind of like happening and
it never feels tedious.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I just like the ambition of just like this
odd album in the extreme kind of underground. You know.
It's the kind of death Mamata record that I like
to talk about because it's not doing something that everyone
else is doing. It's kind of organically, through its own interests,
found its way to It's this specific niche place that,
as me and Elliot are saying, is a niche place
that we want to live in. And it's frequently great.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean it's it's inventive and unusual in a
way that's not like super attention grab in the way
the Imperial Triumphant, you know, when you pitch that band,
it's very easy to see what that band are doing
differently this band. It's like it's just it's like, I
know this sort of students of the game. Like if
you've heard early Seplateur and you've heard the work of
people like Chris Poland, and you've heard Voivod and you've
heard early death metal things like more than Angel, Than
Death and all that sort of thing, you can tell
where these guys are getting their ideas and how they're
combining them, and it just again small twists, little bits
of eccentricity here and there, and it sounds fresh all
over again. Unsurprisingly, I knew this one as soon as
I saw that there were items in the band logo.
Speaker 1: But this was great. Yeah, And I would encourage everyone
who likes thrash to give it a bash, whether you
know much about the kind of cult death metal stuff
or not, because you might hear it and go, Actually,
this is for me in a way that I didn't
expect because machine Head aren't doing the long form thrashing
things very well at the moment, so why not listen
to Sigeon instead? And then you can catch them with
Blood Incantation at the end of the year Elgin Combat.
Speaker 2: There you go.
Speaker 1: That's our final review for the May review show. Thank
you so much that I surely that will be the biggest,
if not one of the biggest bags of reviews we
do all year, because there's obviously some juggernauts in there.
Let us know what you think of them, let us
know your takes on all these records. Which ones do
you love? Which are the ones that you haven't heard
of before that you are now enjoying. That's what I
really love to hear, whether it be Sigeon or Age
of Apocalypse or even if you haven't given yet a
try to the Callous Dowboys, or I mean you've probably
heard Behemoth, haven't you, But you know, tell let us
what you know about these records, and thank you very
much for being here and listening. We will be back
next week with a shorter podcast than this, But this
is what happens when you have eight records of magnitude
like those ones. So yeah, cheers, everybody, will be back
again next time. Bye bye,