Speaker 1: Hello everybody, Welcome to That's Not Metal. This is your
weekly rock and heavy music podcast, and welcome to at
least here for us. We are in the midst of
another bloody British heat wave again this year.
Speaker 2: I genuinely thought I'd escaped, like the high thirty degrees
when I came back from Thailand and Vietnam.
Speaker 3: I was like, you know, had it all that was
that I'm back to England.
Speaker 2: It's gonna be a bit cooler and fucking this week
it said to be as hot as that, only with
like the horrible English humidity and instead buildings and work
for our air condition that works.
Speaker 3: It's bad times.
Speaker 4: It's genuinely scared about Acid Bar tomorrow, un ironically quite
worried about what that's going to be.
Speaker 1: Like, Yeah, we are that you might notice the show
is out a day early, and the reason being is
tomorrow night, Elliot and I are going see Acid Bath
in Manchester in a sold out venue inside in in
this the swamp is truly coming to town. I've I've
been with you. I've been terrified, mortified all week. Elliott
is sat here and a wife beat getting ready to
talk about warning, none of this makes any sense known
as scan dealing at all. But today we are here
with the reviews show for June and we have got
a really nice batch to talk about. We've got the
new albums from Converge, Marmozette's Static Dress, Turnover, Guilt Trip, Warning,
storm Keeper, and Funa Brahm. I was at Nuova Testamento
this week, the incredible Italian slash American synth pop band,
and I realized because it was, you know, the start
of this week, I realized Outbreak have seriously fucked up
by not booking them when they're in the country, like
Outbreak is this coming week. They they're in that scene
they play in and around it, and I was like,
this would be an incredible like palate cleanser, Like they
are literally there in the country the week of Outbreak.
They have seriously fucked up. There was a guy in
front of me, like a full on crust guy with
a spiked jacket with like drop Dead and Nausia patches
and stuff, and he was dancing, literally swinging his T
shirt around all night. Elliott, you were at the fucking
Dylinger Calculating Infinity show the other day.
Speaker 3: How was that? Yeah?
Speaker 4: So I had no anticipation, but I wasn't going to
go until Saturday evening and I saw that tickets were
still available and they weren't too expensive, And you just
get these like pangs of fomo sometimes in life, and
you feel like you have no choice. It was. It
happened there and then, and supported by Frontier and Vaur
both did great jobs. And Frontilla were much more silly
than I expected them to be. The stage to mean,
it was a bit more like Black Dahlia then I
was anticipating. I thought it was going to be, you know,
very serious. All of them are sugar thing, but they
were a lot of fun. Went down well. Vaa wasn't
really my sort of thing, but they went down very well.
Obviously the it's all about Dillinger's That's the reason I
was going.
Speaker 1: And have you ever seen Dylinger in their you know,
prior form.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so I saw them twice on the final cycle
once it reading. When I saw half of their set,
I had to leave to go watch the Red Hot
Chili Peppers in twenty sixteen.
Speaker 3: Was that the one where Greg was sitting a couch
for most of the set.
Speaker 4: Yes, And they were followed by Mastered, on which I
also missed, so just exemply the decision making all around.
But then the second time I saw them and I
was kind of happy for that to be the last one,
was when they did download the year after headline the
third stage. At the time it was their final UK show.
Fucking incredible, like real gig that sticks in the memory.
So I was kind of happy to a bit, like,
you know, I saw people saying with Sleigh, I'm not
seeing them on this reunion run because the last time
was so special. I kind of had it like that
until it got forty eight hours away and thought, now
I've got I have to see this because it'll be
different enough, and I want to see it with my
own eyes. And I went in with fairly tempered expectations
because i'd heard some ropies, maybe so harsh, but I
heard some people being a bit sniffy about this reunion,
some people saying that it's done down the Dillinger legacy
or you know, so on and so forth. And I
have had such fond memories are seeing them on the
final run last time. It's such an important band to me.
But I kind of went and going, you know, this
will be this week something to see whether even if
it's not as good, genuinely might be the best time
I've seen them, which I was not expecting. I kind
of understand why some people will have been grumbling about it,
because it's, you know, they're not playing so much their
most famous music, and Dmitri is no Greg and this,
that and the other. In terms of playing to their strengths.
On this run, they fucking they nailed. I happen to
love all the material they were playing, but the first
two EPs they did, the come to Daddy cover y
was great as well.
Speaker 1: I saw a video of that and I was like, oh,
I didn't realize we were dipping into irony as a
dead scene. That's pretty exciting.
Speaker 4: Well that was because he Dmitriy introduced it. But by
the way, Dmitri in terms of stage packs that he
could not be more different from Greg. Greg's got that
like he's wait, too cool for school. Greg, you know,
he's you know, I kind of got that boy band
thing to him almost. But Dmitriy is just like a
middle aged guy who works in graphic design, so he
just can't believe his luck. They gets to go around
the world playing these songs, and when it came to
that come to Daddy cover. He goes, I've been going
you know, we've been touring this record and every night
I asked this question and no one seems to know.
But do you know who Richard D. James is? You know,
outside of England. I imagine that might be a harder
thing for people to recognize. Whole crowd lights up. He
absolutely loves it. There was a slightly odd moment where
I kind of was in arming an orring about getting
in the pit when that's I kind of I decided
that I was going to pit at some point, but
I hadn't decided when. And when they went to come
to Daddy, I thought, I'm never going to chance to
pitch this song, not only by this band, but by anyone.
And Dmitriy leaked into the pit at the same time
that I was walking towards it. And as you start
saying the words come to Daddy, Come to Daddy, I
find myself striding towards him and it felt if it
felt peculiarly, I've got to say, but the I mean,
the fucking ferocity of this band, like still, that was
the thing that I thought might be knocked back after
ten years away they just I don't know what is.
They don't seem to age, and with that materials, like
especially the most extreme stuff, it's just it still sounds
like a tornado in this thousand cap room. I I can't,
to be honest, I'm strolling to put into words because
it was just I was smiling from ear to ear.
Oh yeah, and they did a they did an I
don'te of his impromptu I presume no, I don't know
if they're doing anywhere else, but they randomly did a
cover of just One Fix by Ministry, so just out
of nowhere. We were miming to the news. It was fantastic.
And yeah, just again I went in with I want
to say, low expectations, but just not expecting anything on
the level I've seen before, like I say, maybe my
favorite show I've seen by them. And there's a lot
of talk about this, like this has been confirmed as
the last run of dates on this cycle. Initially I
would have been fine with that, but now I'm genuinely
kind of hoping that they do more with this. I'd
like to see them do a few more laps or
new music or something. I don't know, but the form
there on now the chemistry in that band. I thought
they were spectacular, and again maybe that's because I went
it with the expertise they have, or because I have
particular predilection for that material. I'm absolutely shuffed I went
I thought it was excellent.
Speaker 1: Anyway, let's get into the show proper bit of news
before we get into the reviews. And this was a
really fucking bizarre story. I don't really know how this
has happened, but a couple of days ago it just
sort of popped up on the internet that eeros the
long sort of mythical shelved Deaf Tones album that they
were working on prior to the unfortunate death of Chi Chang.
The former basis of course that there was then famously
shelved and they went on to make Diamond Eyes and
everything they've made since as long been said that they're
probably never going to release it. Really out of the blue,
it seems to Again I'm not entirely sure how legitimate is,
but the response everone seems to have had is that
it seemed to be somewhat legitimate. Just emerged on the Internet,
and it wasn't for long. It was up for maybe
a few hours, and then presumably Deafton's team, who do
not seem to be behind this crack down on it,
and it's long gone again, but Eros, very briefly for
a couple of hours, was out there. I did not
listen to it, both out of a sort of I
saw it and was like, I don't feel the need
to like rush to hear this thing that they didn't
want out in the world, I suppose, And then if
I had had a change of heart later that you know,
obviously it was vanquished and gone. So I can't comment
at all on the music that was actually on this,
you know, this upload supposedly of Aeros but really fucking
random thing to see on like a Tuesday or whatever
it was.
Speaker 4: It feels like it's as soon as people stopped clamoring
for it, something like this happens. And you know, the
same as you, I didn't hear it. I won't pretend
on my part that it's not some that it's some
like moral crusade or monk like abstinence. I just I
couldn't find it, missed it. Yeah, And yeah, you're right,
it's a strange one because it's not that the album's
finished and having not I don't know how close it
was to finished, I know, like Smile, and there was
another song called Dallas floating around and they were like,
those are the only two that had done And have
you heard Smile? I love that song And if the
rest of the I was anywhere close to that, you know,
I'm sure it's fantastic. It's a bit of a weird
one because you know, the band of Overtime more and
more gone, you know, probably never going to release that,
and now that this has happened, it feels like that's
been reduced from near zero to absolute zero. Like I
don't think we're ever getting an official release of Eros
after this, which I don't know is that a shame
or not. I do still want to hear it, I
will admit, like, despite everything, I would like to listen
to it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, very strange, but more official releases. Chelsea Wolf is back.
She has put out two new songs called Death Is
Not the End and The Dark These a company an
announcement of a world tour that's going around you know,
America and several places in Europe and so on. Unfortunately,
not any more UK dates, I guess because she is
you know, still of course lated to be headlining Tangent
Festival in a couple of months or so. I would
imagine we're probably gonna get a new album twenty twenty seven,
if not the very end of this year. No announcement
for this right now, but two new tracks, of course
with Chelsea WLF. You wondering what kind of world we're
entering into here. The last record, which was so fantastic,
was more of the electronica kind of side of things,
and of the two here, I listened to Death is
not the End first, because that's the one that you
put out like the music video for and so that
was my first impression of it. Turns out the Dark
is a more like fully acoustic song, I suppose, but
DEA's not the end. Starts for the first couple of
minutes like very like, very delicate, quiet acoustic, and that's
a vibe that you know, Chelsea Wolf is no stranger
to I'm no stranger to enjoying and loving it. So
I was really appreciating that, really pretty, really really nice.
And then at the end the big doom chord came
and the noise that I made that first time was diabolical,
like I was actually not expecting it at that point
and when that lift comes, it's genuine. I think the
last minute or so of that song is the closest
she's comes since to the particular kind of really organic
doom sound of like orbit Abyss for example, And that
just really really wowed me in the way that she
so consistently does.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think like the two things the g like
that's from the video, because that feels like the Cholsey
of kind of experience of like the beautiful delicate into
that good.
Speaker 4: At the end.
Speaker 3: This is like, this is everything you're going to go
to her for.
Speaker 6: I mean, their song is cool, but the first one
two like, I don't again if it's like I mean
on an album of feature Stalin Syncrame, but it's I'm
always going to be happy to hear new Chelsea Wilf
And this is as good as you would expect from her.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think when you released two singles early from
a record, it's good to have them different enough to
show the spread of where that record might go. And
I mean controlsting that with the Dark, which I mean
this in a very flattering way, really sounds like Florence
and the Machine Like it's got that soaring gentle. Almost
Again this sounds really backhanded. It's almost like John Lewis
quality to it. But again, like in the hands of
Chelsea Wolf, it happens to be good. I actually I
think I prefer that of the two songs, I don't
you know in Okay, So I'm happy for it to
take the record wherever it's going to go. But if
it's either one of these, I'm chuffed.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Really we're looking forward to if this, you know,
come through on a record. But even if it doesn't
need to standalone songs, they're fucking cool, you know. As ever,
this is some crazy news. Heal Fest happened this past weekend.
Seemed like the warmest place on earth. They were limiting
beer sales and whatnot, which is crazy for a fest.
We're considering the money they'll obviously making on alcohol all weekend,
but that hot anyway. Next year, of course, will be
another year of health Fest, and they have announced headtime
that for next year's Healthfest they have expanded the thing,
which if you have any familiarity with the Hellfest we
of course talking about the French European one at all,
you would go. That's a festival that doesn't need expanding
that's already has been for some years now, the festival
that most consistently will pull out the lineup and you
don't know where to look in terms of where your
eye goes with the so like the strength and depth
they get off their stages is ridiculous. But next year
they have announced there is going to be ten stages.
I think that's up from I've not been to hell first,
but I think there's something like five or six currently
of the main ones. There's going to be ten stages
at Helfest next year with over three hundred bands between them.
Speaker 5: And.
Speaker 1: Where how would you even function at a festival like that.
They're expanding the capacity as well. Like I said, it's
already arguably the biggest metal festival in the world, they're
expanding the capacity to go with this. This essentially becomes
like a small nation of metal fans fit in one place.
There is no way you're going to get from A
to B.
Speaker 3: This is too much.
Speaker 2: Like I look at this and you're like, on paper,
that sounds amazing.
Speaker 1: Ten stages.
Speaker 3: How does it work?
Speaker 6: Because to me, like the commune is that well, just
the way you can get a bit more bans on it.
You can charge more for tickets, but people are only
still be able to see the same bands gonna be
unless you know, the stage is just like side.
Speaker 3: By side, like alternating stage.
Speaker 6: And that's the only way I could possibly see ten
of stages at festival working if pixture of them are
side by side alternate alternating stages, because it just it
feels too much at this point, three hundred bands and
it's like, that's that's a nightmare scenario of just like
all of these bands on the suf that I'm not
gonna be able to see because they're all clashing or
they're you know, on the other side of like a
small country, like like the size of the festival scope,
it's it could be amazing.
Speaker 3: But I was just like it was insane.
Speaker 4: Yeah was it twenty twenty one, I guess with the
first post covid ure and they had that two weekends
in a row, it's yeah, seven days, And it was like,
what do you like this? This isn't tenable, Like that's
that's someone's holiday for the year taken out just to
go to a music festival. And that thing you said
about alternating stages that I guess that could work, but
I don't think it's with three hundred plus bands. There's
no way that's possible. You can't have it. So half
the stages on off creating at any given time. Honestly,
I look at that and think the poster is going
to be, you know, drool inducing, but.
Speaker 3: Need a magnifying glass to reaching the bands the.
Speaker 4: Actual acts of being there. So you go to download,
which has four stages that could be that can be
stressful enough at times and times you're walking away from
stuff you love to try and catch something else. Health
Fest I think these days put together a more like
compelling and competitive lineup. The amount of bands which you
if you go to this firstival, the amount of bands
which you love who go, I can't see a minute
of that because they're clashing with four other bands I love. Yeah,
I mean, unbelievable things to complain about, but it just
it does make me stressful.
Speaker 1: Yeah, my my cynical head says that I can't help
but feel like this is essentially for the brand and
being able to say that you are the biggest you know,
you have for most bands whatever. When realistically you pull
up a Healthfest clash finder now with the five or
six stages that they have and you are seeing some
brutal you want to be in three places at once,
even with them putting sort of roughly different subgenres of
metal on other stages, you know, approach to it. Put
in ten or when you have the same amount of
days and you're you know, double in the amount of
stages you have, you're not doubling the amount of time
you have to see bands. Right, So it is, it
doesn't I think, help the what the average individual attendeal
the festal is going to be able to consume. So
the more festivals pilot, it's the same with the sort
of six New World effect, right when it's like you've
got a million bands on and they've all got twenty
five minutes to play. The more festivals pile on this
kind of stuff for the sake of like a eye
popping poster, the less appealing actually is to me. But
in terms of the numbers game, yeah, obviously fucking mental thing.
And I am very curious, of course to see when
they drop that initial lineup poster, to see what the
hell they have got on there. Blink twentity two. I
suppose we can do a little a festival speculation of
our own here, Blink twentity two have announced three dates
in Europe in Berlin, Milan and Paris. They are playing
with Pierce de Vale and Billy Talent on those and
they are for early to mid June, with when I say,
our speculation currently, these dates sort of wrap around the
weekend of Download Festival next year, so naturally heads heads
get a turning. Are Blink twenty two going to be
a pic for headlining Download next year? Based off the
back of this and in terms of a realistic or
a you know, a desired picker band who lots of
people would want them to get finally, then I think
it seems like a pretty safe, if not a nailed
on bet, certainly a safe one you can go like, yeah,
I think that could happen.
Speaker 2: Yeah to me, this year was like a kind of
a no brainer for download to book Blink one A
two as when your headline is because that era of
like the late nineties since noughties is the kind of
like being nostalgia classics or of boom for Download now
and Blink of net I think ever done. They've never
headlined download, but I don't know if they've ever even
like played it. I can't remember my head because obviously
it kind of took off in their absence initially, and
then since coming back they did reading and they've done
their own tours, but I don't think they've ever done downloads,
So this to me, yeah makes total sense. I mean,
I'm going to fucking Berlin Toto yet because was like,
do you want to come to Berlin see Blink and
BILLI tant and I was like, I could do a couple.
Speaker 3: Of days in Berlin.
Speaker 2: So that's me next year, rather sitting like a big
amphithear and watch Blink one a two, then go to
download and watch them at this point because like, just
download just intimidates me now.
Speaker 3: But yeah, I.
Speaker 2: Think like Bling way two kind of back on the
touring festival circuit, there will be a good fun summer.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it does seem like what has been one
of the sort of white whales again that pop punk
well that Downo has leaned more into in the last
few years. Blinker, you know, obviously right up on that list.
So if it's going to be the year they pulled
the trigger on that, then yeah, why not. I suppose
for the same fan base. I am sure Integrity have
announced a European run where they are playing the thirtieth
anniversary of their record Humanity is the Devil, an absolutely
seminal piece of mid nineties metal cores, and along with
them on that run they're also bringing Ringworm, who are
doing the twenty fifth anniversary of another you know, metallic
hardcore classic Birth Is Pain, and also a band called
World I Hate as well. No UK dates right now,
and Integrity never played the UK. I would love to
see Integrity, I never have. They're like my favorite of
these bands and this pairing. Please someone bring that. I'd
be all over that.
Speaker 2: Integrity are doing one random UK date in Newcastle this year,
just so you're aware of.
Speaker 1: You really, what the hell?
Speaker 2: Yeah, one of those sort of like hardcore weekend of
festival sort of things. Integrity are doing that as like
a UK exclusive, I think at the moment. So I
was like when I was sort of like, oh, yeah,
bring the to one them, and then I remember that
was happening, so I was like, out there goes my
dreams of this particular Integrity, Ringworm, horrid nineties metallic hardcore
turk coming to the UK.
Speaker 3: But if you're in Europe, that is like that's a
sick Night.
Speaker 1: I think they should do it anyway because I want
to see it over in the US. While we're on hardcore,
I suppose Turnstile have announced another leg, another jaunt of
their you know, massive, ongoing Never Enough tour. The main
thing that has you know, garnered attention with this is
the support bill they have under it, which features loads
and loads of acts, because lots of different dates have
their own, you know, variants of the support, but in
Turnstile fashion, I suppose it's the variety. It's the breadth
of the supporting acts that has mainly got tongues of talking.
Where on the one end, the extreme hardcore side, they've
got Agnostic Front, they have got Hate Breeds, They've got
hay Wire, and then on the other end they've got
hip hop acts like Clips, they have upcoming pop acts
like Slater. They've got Thundercat in there. Yeah, real, real,
who's who of every genre you can imagine supporting Turnstile.
Speaker 3: It's Slater's name being right next to Terror on the post.
Speaker 2: And it just kind of like I was like, because I
really like Slaters of the sort of POPACS think she's
really fun, but it's just so like random seeing that
next to terror.
Speaker 3: I was like, and the joke everyone came up about.
Speaker 2: I saw about five people include myself is the agnostic
front slater, Like, please someone make that happen as a
pairing because that would just be the most, like I said,
the two most extreme ends of it.
Speaker 3: But yeah, this is kind of just what Turnstile are now.
Speaker 2: Like these US tours where they have like fifty different
sport bands reminds of you know, the Michromical Romance one
from a couple of years back where we were laughing
at like Devil Master and Pierced the Veil being on
like the same kind of supporting bill. It's that again,
but for like trendy hardcore and indie kids basically. But yeah,
I think this is really cool.
Speaker 4: Yes, it's the sort of thing that's only possible when
you're almost literally a peerless band, like there's no other
bank like Turnstile even to like there's lots of times
you mimic them to have come up since but you know,
you're looking at this line and we're going, like, who's
done that before? Like the only things that even seem
kind of similar you look like the Deaftones, the festivals
they put together and stuff like that, but that's not
the same as a touring package and turnstile being uniquely
placed in the position they're in. It'd be frustrating almost
if they didn't take advantage of it like this and go, yeah,
we're gonna have trash Talk and Vince Staples on the
same night, we're gonna have Agnostic Front with vas Tumor.
It's just like it's it's fucking brilliant.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Down under. Parkway Drive have announced that they are going
to be, of course in their home country of Australia,
taking a little run around, playing two dates in each city.
They'll go into alternating nights, much smaller dates than they
you know typically now are playing as obviously a huge
arena fessel handline in metal band. They go into some smaller,
more you know, places of their historic past venues and
they are going to be on alternating nights playing killing
with a smile and horizons. Of course, a real dialect
back to the earliert thing. The thing that gets to
me with Parkway here is that, obviously, you know, this
is not a new concept we have, you know, literally
like coming up in a couple of weeks time. We've
got the brim of the Horizon outbreak cat Your Blessings thing.
But unlike that, for example, Parkway haven't actually ignored this
material of late, because the last arena tour they did,
they were doing a fucking like ten minute medley of
like old school killing with the Smile Washers. So it's
not like even this is the you know, first time
they brought this stuff out, But I like the I
don't know, the following through on the train of thought
and being like, yeah, let's really dial it back.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think you.
Speaker 2: Mean, like this is gonna be really cool for some
of those like deeper cuts that like I've seen play
fair few songs with those albums, but some of the
real like deep catching gain that's gonna get those crowds
going absolute bananas. And I think it's just like a
good kind of reset moment for Parkway Drive and just
kind of like getting back in touch with the past,
have fun cut loose for these shows.
Speaker 3: And have to worry about the kind of wider impact.
Speaker 1: Yes, And finally on the tour announcement front, happening in
April and May of next year of twenty twenty seven,
mister Ian Gillen of Deep Purple, very briefly Black Sabbath,
several other acts. He has announced a speaking tour a
night in the presence of mister Ian Gillen is titled
the Talking Gibberish Tour, and he's taken on like it's
a long tour, like lots of dates here, lots of
like sizeable venues across the entirety of the UK and
Elliott in terms of big tour announcements for next year
for you, this is bigger than Rush, isn't it.
Speaker 4: This is led Zeppelin with Jesus on drum. I mean,
I would say when I was seeing the toy, like
the announcement of this was a bit of a roller
coast because obviously at first instincts you laugh your head off,
you go, oh my god, and then you go, actually,
I would kind of like to go to that because
a Ian Gillen and be that guy's probably got some
great stories. We know he does, we know, but he
won't tell them because then I remember his blog and
he finds interesting the stuff. So you'll go to this
and you'll be thinking, we're gonna get all the gossip on,
you know, where what fell up with Richie Blackmore and
what really happened on the Born Again cycle and being
in and out of Purple, and he's gonna be chatting
about Marmalade and Paddington and like just his favorite film
about Battle of Britain, gonna it's gonna be so there. Therefore,
I'm going, of course, I don't know where yet I
will be. I don't think this needs to be announced
a fucking year in advance. It's like a month long
tour as well of him ranking department stores by the
toasters which they sell. Coming up the Talking Gibbers store
next year.
Speaker 3: Fucking unbelievable scenes.
Speaker 1: Love it all right over on the Patreon right now.
A preflott of plug just to reminder that we are
currently in the midst of our Corn special. We are
Corn Again, if you will. The last thing that we
did was we covered through the years they went without
head on guitars, which are their most experimental and crazily
all over the place years. We're talking reuniting with Ross Robinson,
We're talking dubstep, we're talking pop producers, we're talking unplugged
with Amy Lee. We're going all over the shop and
obviously we are going to be you know, going to
outbreak next weekend and we'll be back with a report
from that. But on the other side of that, we
will be looking into putting out Part four, the concluding
part of the Corn Special, and then of course we
can look into doing other specials and other bands and
what not into the second half of twenty twenty six.
But right now, the main beef of this particular episode Sandwich.
We are getting into the reviews right now, and we
are going to start with deja vu everyone. We're starting
with Converge again, the hum of Hurt for the second time,
not even just this year, but it's the fact that
it's like four or five months. The second album we
have got from Converge February, of course, graced us with
Love Is Not Enough, the first new solely Converged studio
album in nine years, and then just as we had
gotten our teeth into that new started rumbling of a
second Converged album, Love is Not Enough. We described overall
what a frenetic, bloodthirsty Converge album that often is. It
is one of, if not the shortest Converged albums, and
it felt like having done things like the Blood Moon
colab in the kind of indimdiaary they were, you know,
shaking off the dust by going really wildly on the attack.
You wouldn't necessarily call it the most compositionally ambitious or
far reaching Converge album perhaps, but it simply goes like crazy.
With that description of that album in mind, I think
it's a particularly good or apt year for Converge to
put out a second album, because it means while allowing
Love is not enough to to be what it is
to be this fucking you know, grenade of a Converged album,
we then also get to, you know, deliver and explore
another side of them. And that is certainly when it
was announced it kind of made sense to me. I
was like, okay, I that's kind of what I'm expecting
hum of Her to be.
Speaker 2: This year, Convergion manage to sort of deliver a hyper
condensed version to my ears of acts to fall into
all we love we leave behind again of that kind
of like super hard, violent Converged record, followed by then
a couple years later, you know, a more measured comage record.
I've found find that is you know, a bit of
a sly record times and here on this one, we've
got Love is not Enough, which was as we say,
the most like violent, atic, kind of like pure Musha
scary converged record in quite some time for them, and
so I kind of was expreded them that the follow
up to be the immediate fants be something so different,
and here we have again a slower, darker, very different
kind of mood converge record. And it's kind of given
me that that similar feeling to when those two records
were because that was the time I was getting into
conversion was about those records and the difference in those
sort of sounds and these are a much more of
like condensed and like tighter version of it.
Speaker 3: But it just I got a similar kind of feeling
to that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, if I had one hang up about love is
Not Enough, which again I didn't really have because I
love the record too much for that, But it's that
it was after such a long wait, it being their
shortest record and maybe the most straightforward since like the
Real like even like the pre jel maybe outside of
something like No Heroes, their most straightforward record a long time.
And there was a part of me thinking, oh, you
were gone for so long, and you promised that you
had these twenty songs in the back and it was
going to be you would try all this new stuff,
where's that? But you know quickly forgive them because the
record is outrageously good. But then just like a few
months later, to get the second half of that, it's
and to not feel like b sides or even a sequel.
This isn't like a reload or a hypnotized situation where
it's we're all going to remember the first one and
then the second one came out and it was good
but not great. This is like a very different converged
record in terms of approach, sounds sonically on every level.
You can kind of think it's it's it's a departure
from the last one, and that's exactly what these sort
of sister records should be. Just then being the lesser
version of the former one, it just sets them up
for failure. But I feel like, without skipping too far ahead,
going forward, these records will feel distinct in the converged
cattle of the fact they both came out in a
single year will feel much more incidental.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I do think the phenomenon of two albums in
a year we don't, you know, get super often from bands.
It does provoke the discussion of how you relate such
albums to each other, like, are they completely separated the entities?
These aren't described as a double album, but you can,
of course if you like, as a listener part the
two up back to back. They have described essentially the
realization and when they were right in the sessions for
what became these albums, that they were writing two different albums.
And obviously that conveys a distinction in the fact that
they felt that these belonged to different projects, But fundamentally
it does also mean that the two albums were written
around the same time, and so they capture the artist
at about the same point in their life. And if
we are to you know, kind of describe albums as
time capsules in that way which artists themselves often do,
these two records, you know, emerge from the same point
for conversion. So I think that there are ways, even
though they are distinct records, just through that there are
ways in which they are kind of innately connected. So
taking this as basically, you know, the flip side the
other side of the mirror to love is not enough.
I maybe I'll provide the asterisk that this sort of
in isolation is maybe the least like Blowing Your Hair
Back converge album of this century, which is about the
highest par imaginable all. Do not get me wrong. When
we were talking about Lovers Not Enough, we were talking
about an album that was, you know, guaranteed to be
joss for People's Album of the Year position. I imagine
this one, you know, when we do the audience poll,
I would probably bet that this one will score a
little bit lower than Lover's Not Enough does. But at
the same time, it doesn't really feel quite right to
be saying that about it, because it does provide one
of the most distinct and contained moods of any Converge album.
So I would say it's essential as a fan right
to get your teeth into it and appreciate that mood
coming from them. I think it is it's less of
a crowd pleaser than lover Is Not Enough. But I
have seen some people say that this is the one
they prefer of the two. I don't think that's outlandish
at all. Ultimately, I think we are very lucky to
be receiving such productivity and such considerate, you know, artistic
exploration from one of our best bands. This record is heavy,
isn't it? And I don't mean in the explosive heaviness
that Lovers Not Enough gave us. Instead, it is lurking
and deliberated. It quite brilliantly matches its title in that
sense which Jake Bannon has described it as the sort
of base background frequency of all pain that exists in
the universe. And this album is, I imagine on a
pure wayform level, like if you were to look at it,
I think it will be a lower frequency than most
Convertent albums are.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: It exists in the slower, darker corners of what their
band can be. I even you know, I remember staying
about love is not enough. The production on it actually
how kind of almost bass heavy, and mean that album
sounds compared to some of their other ones. And this
following it up like taking it, taking that bat and
and running with it. I mean, I love how the
the opening four seconds kind of trick you because it
is this lumbering Deomie record, But straight away Ben Coller
opens the record with one of his like wild high
tempo drum fills. It could easily go into like I
could tell you about Pain or something like that, but instead,
straight away it snaps into that mid tempo groove on
Slip the noose and the whiplash of that switching tempo alone,
it's like you're a crash test dummy, you know, it
just breaks your neck the second you start the record
by going slower.
Speaker 3: I love that both.
Speaker 2: Albums to Do essentially start with an insane ben colla
drum feel, like obviously you have the little bit of
intron loves enough, but then you get that roads on
feel and from that you are, you know, frashing and
fading away on that. On this one, you hoging like
great swinging this is and nasty and thick, such a
distinct moved like the wiry guitars. It like you go
for convergs like they're kind of used purely for discomfort
this time, and just kind of like snaking over like
the that bass home is like so goddamn heavy, and
you get to that final like sit the news breaking
and the like bucking under the weight of the ton
of like a real statement opening tracks. Same way as
Lovers and Enough Ways, even if it's not as like
initially flashyat it's not got all these like crazy flailing
guitar riffs and breakdowns with big mores calls. It still
hits all the sort of things I want from Converge,
just in a in like say, a sludgier, thicker, more
horrid kind of way.
Speaker 4: Well, what we we sort of said about Lover is
not enough that that might be the most metal Converged record,
Like the things they're pulling from there is you know,
god flesh and in toned Slayer like the things we
were bringing to mind there were very particular to that record.
This one, for me, is much more noise rock. It's
the things that's pulling from it. It's not bands like that.
It's stuff like the Jesus Lizard and shell Ack and
melting Bolts, Melvin's exactly and slip the news that it
kind of it communicates that straight away after that frantic
drum field the guitar. If it's not you know, the
way bad faith, we were saying like, oh, it's so
good to have a rift like that again, a riff
that's actually a riff. We're kind of back to rifts
that aren't riffs for a lot of this record, where
it's just discordant noises and rumbling and angular stabs of sound,
and that is a juxtaposition where it's it's not. You know,
in some ways it's a heavier record because it's it's
nastier and nattier and more difficult to listen to, but
it doesn't really have the same wallop of love is
Not Enough. But I think that suits these songs. These
songs are more sort of testing, and you kind of
have to be more depth keeping up at them, keeping
up with them, and slip the News as an opener
just throws you around so much, and it juxtaposes amazingly
with the follow up track. But just as a way
to set things up, it's it's a nice setting out
of the staller going like this is gonna be like,
there's gonna be more challenging. You're not just gonna be
able to head bang and spin your kicks around.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And yet at the same time, maybe it's because
you know, different people have different sort of like I
don't know how seasoned they are as a converged listener
or whatever, but the vibe of this record and kind
of that consistent you know, noding your head along these
even as they are topsy turvy kind of grooves, you know,
going up and down that kind of slide is like
a really it's another fairly short, like half hourish record.
Light Love Is Not Enough was, which does again kind
of make them complimentary in that sense, a really really
sick ride, and I imagine that Nate as the doom
rider in the Bunch, can really happily slip back into
There's a lot of Nate on this record, like not
just on base but in vocal capacity as well. They
feel really considered in terms of like deliberately testing out
what they are able to do. You know, it's almost
like it's a training exercise. It's like, what can we
get out of ourselves by existing within this particular framework
of this record In these kind of feels, I wouldn't
quite call it a minimalist album, but it does feel
like they are squeezing the bass elements of these songs for,
you know, everything that they are worth. The news the
opener is like one minute forty four seconds long, but
then Doom in Bloom, the first more kind of bulked
out track comes in, and it's those queasy, nasty guitar
licks that bounce off that crawling kind of rhythm that
really does lock you into the rhythm of the record,
and it is more of a vibe record in that
there are you know, several other tracks that kind of
follow up in a similar kind of gait and tempo.
Like the sort of the consistent rhythm of this record
is you know, more lulling in that way than like
Love is Not Enough, which you know fucking speeds up
and slows down and go side size and all this stuff.
But they are able to like offer different tweaks and
sort of come at those base things from different angles
and as a real you know, intricacy in even just
like a rhythmic like a beat level. Right while being
so brawny and slugging it out on this record, there's
real intricacy in what they're able to kind of pull together.
And there is still enough brute force about this record
that is it's different to that live Wire approach of
Love is Not Enough, I guess, is what we're saying.
It is more like being that I love that kind
of noise rock Jesus slizzardy type, you know comparison, because
something like it only gets worse on this feels like
being fucking, you know, getting slugged by a bare knuckle
boxer in the same kind of way as bands like
that Doud like that real drunken gate where you're not
sure when they're just gonna go like a run, you know,
throw out of a punch that kind of you know,
vibrates and oscillates side to side as the core of progresses.
It's an amazing feel that I think they on this
record demonstrate a real handle on this it only gets worse.
Speaker 3: It's probably my my favorite track on this record. It
feels like the.
Speaker 2: Middle ground between the kind of more chaotic mafe converge
with the kind of like I just say, bludgeoning sort
of noisy sludge converged where again that song it is
like hammering you, but it does shift around the time
signature is a bit more. There's a slightly more frantic
energy where it kind of like gives me the best
of both worlds and the rift like that hits you
on on that song, like because the whole record that
every song will have with rift that will just kind
of like completely knock the wind have you because you're
not prepared. Like again, it's a consistent kind of vibe
converged record, but every every song will have one moment
where they will slam into a rift that you're just
not prepared for. Not with the window and you go like,
fucking hell, this is the heaviest band around at the moment.
I mean, it's such a great one for that in
early before you then you know, you follow it with
detonay To that goes even slower and just like gets
quite sparse and tightly wound and eerie, and so they
they keep like from like the thing.
Speaker 3: I think it's for a vibe record, but we said
it's slow. It's more this and the other. They're still curveballs.
Speaker 2: They'll they'll still keep you going for it never feel
too dull or repetitive or monotonous. And I think that's
again just the genius of Convergion, how much they can
do even within kind of like a more rigid framework.
Speaker 3: I guess that they kind of assigned for this album.
Speaker 4: I don't know if he possible for them to do
a dull and monotonous record, because you have Ben Coller
on drums, everything in his power.
Speaker 3: To throw you about.
Speaker 4: And it's like the way he every time he kind
of takes the lead on a song, like the way
he opens up when it only gets worse is just ridiculous.
The stuff he's throwing it all over detonator and then
it's not up to us opening with an almost like
reggaeton beat. It's just everything that he's got on his locker.
It's coming at you. So even though these songs, you know,
they might tell themselves to a particular idea for longer,
or explore something or lean moys that slippery hypnotic thing,
at any moment, he might just come in and pepper
you with a thousand fills in ten seconds. And it's
it just not that they needed any help, but it's
one of the reason why I Converge are still so
exciting after so long.
Speaker 1: I agree that the fact that the rhythm section is
so elite tier in these kind of terrains, as well
as the faster stuff we know that they can do,
like the intro and dream Debris is pure like what
what Ben has been playing on High and Fire, basically
right tribal terms. Nate Newton of course mentioned going all
the way way back to your hell to pays right
these kind of converged temposts, he can really shine and
put himself forward as like a potential man of the match.
And the bass tone all through this record, snaking around
in the gutters of it is brilliant. You mentioned Detonator,
and I love that strange beat that Ben builds, like
pinging off the symbols at the start, and then they
can like build these songs from the ground up, brick
by brick, and it's just such a pleasure to hear
them hear them do that. The riff at the end
of Detonator on there like.
Speaker 3: Don't be blown up, Papa, your mistake, dude, now.
Speaker 1: Just rolling lolling its head side to side is so
nasty but so intoxicating at the same time. And like
I said, there are a few songs where they do
deliberately build on a sort of consistent, doomed out kind
of tempo. The closing track Nothing is Over, really hammering
on like quite a simple by their standards, but really
colossal riff. And going back to Dream Debris, that's almost
like the centerpiece of the record, I think, because it's
it's the one song that breaches like six minutes long,
and it is this like hypnotic marathon effect of it,
you know, sprawling out the whisper to a raw effect
over that track's six minutes literally in the case of
Jake's vocals, but the overall effect is a band, you know,
drawing energy together on that core pattern and then hitting
you with the fist. There's that really consistent chug the
kind of did it did it?
Speaker 3: Did that?
Speaker 1: They kind of they hammer on throughout it all the way,
even to the false finish for the last fifteen seconds,
like you thought you had enough of just us hitting
those same notes again and again, but you haven't one
last wallop. It's rules.
Speaker 2: That's how you make it more drawn out song, kind
of keep me locked in because it's like a sloky
to build, but once you kind of get to the
rocking part, it's so and again that that falls finish
is such a like again every time that's the record,
I kind of forget it's coming because the songe's going
to load me in and then it's like bam, hit
you with that one more time, and it like I
think the second half of this record is where they
really do experiment and push out their sound a bit
more because you get you know, it used to matter,
having almost like doomed Western kind of thing with like
the twanging guitar sound and as like again it's a
bit of an interlude, but it's a cool thing to
sort of slot into the back half of the record.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and it talk about false endings. It's not even
the only false ending on the record, because nothing is over.
I guess we should have known from the title, but
like it. That kind of descends into a sound collage,
and then for the last few seconds that fucking boots
off again. It's a trick that I frankly never get
tired of and converged our excellent asset that I think
you're saying, but you used to mass at that being
an inslute. It almost works in intro, or not not
even almost. It segues masterfully into the title track, which
when you've already heard as a single, has maybe the
disadvance of being less surprising, but just that bit of
sequencing so genius because you're listening to this new piece
of music, and you're right, it's throwing this kind of
Americana slide guitar thing to it, which if we're comparing
interludes with this in the last record, you compare that
to Be on Repair, which was just cavernous and terrifying,
and the way this tees up hum of hurt to
then boot off with maybe the most traditionally converged song
on the record, or songs which a more casual fan
with know things like dark Horse or Single Tier or
even like make Me Forget You on the last record,
that style of converged song, which I don't think there's
another band that does that thing better than them. It
just creates such such drama, and like the first half
of this record, drama isn't really the thing that's going
for It's it's like I say, it's slimy, it's it's slippery,
it's it's slightly evasive and a bit more cumbersome. But
then you get to that moment and it just takes
off and it's like, Yeah, this is again, this is
why this band of the best is. This is the
thing that they can do which no one else in
their scene even comes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean we skipped over in the track list
I Won't Let You Go, which I didn't even twig
this until I sat down to do the notes for it.
That's originally one of the songs that they contributed to
the Cyberpunk twenty seven to seven soundtrack a couple of
years ago, and like they've updated it for this album
and that's blown my mind. Cind of like, what do
you mean there was a converged song, this Good, that
was just out there for like two three years, and
I wasn't really you know, cognizant of its existence really,
but that start of that song is like it's almost
like an out and out homage to Keroscene by Big Black,
like that almost like yeah, orchestra of corrugated iron type
fool and the guitars, and that as it progresses, really
goes into that. As we're saying, that kind of almost
like Melvin's Houdini like up tempo for this record, but
less a hardcore band, more a strange, bustling noise rock.
At It's really like, even though that is a song
that has been around a little while, it fits the
world of this record so like seamlessly. That's obviously the
reason they thought, okay, this actually like we should put
this one on that record. It just slips in without
any pons whatso weather. But to go back to it
used to matter, that's almost like the moment that kind
of completed the circle with Lovers. Not enough for me
because as well as having like a really for you know,
an instrumental, it's always helpful when you give instrumental a
quite an evocative title, I think because the words aren't
there to do it for it, and that like you know,
sort of languid, disassociated sort of sense of being of
you know, the world that this album is entering into.
But it was almost like a musical twin to Beyond
Repair on the last record. Not that they are you know,
exactly the same piece of music or anything, but how
many times have converged done solow atmospheric guitar interludes on
records before twenty twenty six? Not many, if any, I recall,
and now into twenty six on two different records, we
have two of them, you know, and that kind of uneasy,
really unsettled effect that you know, that track introduced to
that previous record where it's an interlude, but you do
not feel like you're safe with it. You know, there
are different you know, there are different points on the
record literally in the track list. But it did kind
of like almost you know, it lit me up a bit,
drawing that connection and that through line between the two albums.
And even though these are very different sort of you know,
vibes and approaches of albums, they managed to kind of
draw a an emotional connection with something like that, that
kind of you know, helps usher one part of the
record into another in the same kind of way. On
both records and the title track, I always love when
Nate gets to majorly carry some vocals, whether it be
in you know, converge or in cave in as well,
and that raw and gushing effect like a waterfall with
him just bellowing full pelt through that midsection on that
kind of more melodic guitar line is just sublime. I
agree the fact that the record is only you know,
thirty three minutes long. It lives in a more you
could say, a slower paced world than Love is not enough,
but it's ultra disciplined right in that kind of tempo,
it delivers exactly what it needs to to make the
punch of it feel just as you know, kind of
contained and felt as they're more erratic records, it makes
it very easy to go back and want to experience
it again and again as well. And yeah, they might
not be intended as deliberate companion records, I do think
that they nonetheless compliment each other. They both feel like
they are you know, processing the particular sort of you know,
emotional disconnection and bitterness of the modern world, but through
these different filters of what they do as a band.
And you know, I think potentially, because this is a
less you know, immediately wild eyed record, this would be
for particularly on a first lesson, maybe the less eye
popping of the two for a lot of people. But
we've just we've had a master class this year, haven't they.
It feels like we've attended the converged workshop and we've
just gone and seen like the most skilled artists in
the world, you know, do their thing in these different ways.
Speaker 4: I think you're right. It just nails the thing it
needed to be as a sister record, where if you
want to enjoy it on its own terms, you absolutely
can because it's maybe the more ambitious of the two records.
It's the more I guess, like demanding of the listener
in some sense, rewarding in a way that love is
not enough because it's such a smack in the mouth,
doesn't require anything of you. But if you want to
just lose your fucking mind and let your eyesballs pop,
you got.
Speaker 3: Love is not enough.
Speaker 4: But like you said, so, you can listen to them
individually without connecting the two, but if you do contrast them,
both records are enhanced by that experience. I think. I
think if you ab these records, you get more out
of them than you would just in isolation, which is
always the test and is the hardest thing to do
and converge like they do. Everything just absolutely passed with
Flying Colors.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Our other lead review though, is Within the T and
M World, one of the most anticipated albums of the decade.
Maybe you might notice May was extremely busy as a
month for big records for us and our tastes. Last month,
Elliet and I kind of went off the beating track
a little bit and we pulled out some more obscure choices,
which I'm very happy we did and got to do. Today,
we're kind of mopping up a few of those bigger
names that we missed from last month that we've got
to do obviously, and having Sam back as well, we
thought it best to do some of these here. So
next we have Marmozettes and their album Cowardice, which feels
like it enters into a completely different world to the
last time Marmozet's release material if you are newer to
the scene, which is entirely feasible as it been eight years.
Marmozettes are one of the most beloved rock bands to
emerge from the UK scene in the last fifteen years.
Their debut album, The Weird and Wonderful Marmazettes, tore a
hole through the UK rock scene that at the time
was dominated by all of the boring, useless, soggy toilet
brush likes of View Me at Six and Young Guns
and all those shit bands that Sam liked. Suddenly here
comes the new rock UK rock band who are electric
to the touch, like drawing on everything from garage rock
to mathcore with this genuine knockout star of a front
woman and one of those rare, instant classic debuts, with
a set of songs more full of life and character
than anything that scene had produced in years and years.
Their next album, Knowing What You Know Now Change tapped
a bit but was also essentially brilliant. Took four years
to make that follow up, which felt back then I
recall like it was quite a long time, but little
did we know it'd be the third album where the
real weight would come. Eight years on, the band essentially
has gone on high for a while while they focused
on family matters. A pandemic split that period into the
industry has changed the bands around them in the scene
have changed. A different generation of rock fans has come
in and changed things. As people who remember twenty fourteen,
we were looking forward to new Marmers as material. But
they're one of the hardest bands I think to gauge
how relevant they would actually be through this new mid
twenty twenties world.
Speaker 2: Well, that's thing was like they've never fit I think
think Mamas is they never actually fit in necessarily with
what was going on as I obviously the garage rock
thing in twenty fourteen was you know, starting to bubble
up again when you had you know, Royal Blood and that.
Speaker 3: Sort of stuff.
Speaker 2: But even then Marmas were doing that, but with so
many other weird tax and that's what made them stand
out is that like you couldn't put them in with
the Uniit sixes, but you can really put them in
with Royal Blood or that thing, and they just with
this eccentric kind of like Ireland of a band. So
when it comes to sort of like placing them in
the sort of the landscape of the twenty twenties, like again,
they don't fit in again because they're never gonna be
draw on what is the popular trends of music right now.
But we weren't going to be getting you know, a
baddie core Marmazette's record, or or like any kind of
thing that draws on you know, the all pop worgasm
whatever you want to like all of those bands. So
like they were, they weren't going to come back in
and immediately follow the trend. So I was kind of like,
I was like, it's not gonna be for everyone, and
I think this is where they're gonna land as a
cult band now. They're not gonna, you know, be quite
as like the sort of positioned world conquering band that
we once hoped they might be.
Speaker 3: But I had hopes that you know, marms that come
band just do you just be. It's one of the
kind of mishmash of all different ideas.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because I mean, amongst other things, right, Marmosettes are
They're not a younger person's band now, right, like people
who are getting into this kind of music through you know,
TikTok and these avenues we have now, Marmosettes isn't what's
what's coming through to that like that that's our generation
what Marmosettes are for obviously, because we are doing this
a month later than in ten. We've got a sense
of how it's settled into the wealth this album, and
I asked on our socials to try and get like
a gauge on it, because I said there was so
much between it, particularly our you know, the t and
m audience, the Marmosettes, you know, follow up album to
the previous record was so long in the waking. I
wanted to know with new people felt that it lived
up to expectations, And on that post, the responses I
got was quite a lot of like, I like it
a lot seven or eight out of ten rather than
the gushing that we've come to expect before this, and
then a you know, not insignificant amount of people who
were just kind.
Speaker 3: Of like eh.
Speaker 1: And it does feel like perhaps it's gone quietly down
well within their loyal core fan base, which I think
ultimately is what they'll be pleased with. But the larger
ripples that were used to from the first two Marmers
that this album haven't happened with this, I think for
one thing, and I won't go too long on this,
but I think that the scene that they're surrounded by
is worse than it was in twenty eighteen, because twenty fourteen,
like I said, they really helped shake up what was
a very stagnant scene then. And by twenty eighteen nineteen
we had Milk Teeth and Black Peaks and the Rise
of Creeper and your Dinosaur Pile Up came back with
their best ever record, and Frank Carter and the Rattlesnakes.
There were great bands everywhere you looked in sort of
the UK, you know, commercial leaning rock scene. But by
twenty twenty six, the best bands in the UK rock
scene are the few of those bands who are still around.
And instead the past few years it's been the years
of you know, Nova Twins and Hot Milk and just
band too. At the very least, we feel much less
of a connection with I think brit rock, if you
want to very loosely use that term, I unfortunately think
is bad again. And it's been a very long time
since of those kind of bands who you know, the
kind of bands you'd expect to be played on the
radio one rock show or get pushed in Kerrang or
so on. It's been a long time since the UK
produced one that stood out. I know that people love unpeople,
for example, but it's still very early days for them,
you know, it's prior to them putting out their first album,
we've sort of been desperately waiting for someone to follow
up and deliver on the level of that those bands
were delivering on. And that's part of why I think
the wait for you Marmsetes felt so long because nothing
else was doing the job. And for me, it's had
this effect where this kind of rock band I've just
listened to so much less of it than I was
at the time that the last Marms's record was coming out.
So even just putting this record and hearing the production
job on it and how the guitar sound and how
the snare sounds felt weird because nothing like this enters
my rotation anymore. So I've got this like dual effect
of feeling out of sync with it. But also nothing
as good as Marmozet's has come out since then, so
it's like it at the same time, it's something of
a return to it. I mean, do you feel like
this sort of say this Maybe it's I think it
probably is quite subjective and uniquely to me and my
taste and where I'm coming from, But I do feel
this strange sort of like returning to the world that
produced Marmozets in twenty twenty six is quite I don't know,
it's like an out of body experience for me. Somehow,
I I agree with you because it's like, I think,
you know the im that I could most competitor in
terms of how I actually feel about it. And is
a band you mentioned there, which is the last Dinosaur
Pilot record, which again is a sort of long awaited
comeback record where you go like, yeah, this is not
as good as you're kind of like your classic record
that you will be part of your last one. But
it's still giving me that sort of feeling that we
don't really get these kind of like brit rock bands
anymore because, as we say, it's all doing the at pop,
Nover Twins or.
Speaker 3: President and all that shit now.
Speaker 2: So because no one's doing that sort of thing, I'm
kind of really happy to go along with the the
fuzzed up eccentric garage rock by way of like indie
disco with a bit of math cork and of thing.
Marmosett's kind of made the kind of like most base
elements of their sound, and I'm happy to.
Speaker 3: Go with that.
Speaker 2: And for like part of this album, I'm so away
and and I'm like, yeah, I hit play on this
and you know, you get a kissed from my mother
and I'm like, Marmozet's a fucking back.
Speaker 3: This is everything want with this band. This is amazing.
Speaker 2: And that doesn't quite ride out for the whole album,
and other times I was just kind of like, yeah,
this is Mama's I recognize, but I don't know if
it's because, as you say, the world around it just doesn't.
It doesn't feel like we can get excited about this
kind the British rock anymore.
Speaker 3: But it doesn't. It doesn't excite me as much as
I hoped it would across the whole record.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that the Weird and Wonderful is what it is, right,
It's one of the seminal albums of the twenty tens.
I actually think Knowing what You Know Now is at
the very least about as good like I think. There's
obviously there's a there's a magic around the Waird and Wonderful,
But songs like Major System Error and Play and Meant
to Be and Run with the Rhythm for me, they
are up there with Move, Shaking, Hide and Born Young
and Free and all those records, songs from the first record.
If there's any disappointment with this album is that it
is a clear undeniable third place, like they've got these
two worldies going almost neck and neck, I think. And
then what, in my mind is an album that is
very obviously not as good. It's the question of is
that acceptable expectations give in the ludicrously high level of
there's albums or is that more of a letdown? And
I feel like I'm sort of getting to grips with
being somewhere in the middle of those feelings. Elliet, I
must ask, because for as significant as Marmosettes are as
a pivotal T and M Universe band, you don't necessarily
strike me as the kind of fan for whom maybe
as important. So maybe your expectations are slightly different. I
don't know if that I'm just assuming, So so what.
Speaker 4: Is it that's that's correct? They're a band who I admire,
and I love the effect that they haven't the scene
more than the actually love their music. I think they've
got some great tunes, especially on that first record. I'm
not very familiar with the second one, so I'm going
into this but basically not blind, but without much way
to ex.
Speaker 1: Going into this record knowing the first one and not
having the intermedia the second one I can imagine being
like what's happened?
Speaker 4: Yeah, there was that, but based on like what you
two were saying, it feels like Marmozettes. I'm not saying
that you're putting this pressure on them, but for them
to have an effect like those first two records, it's
kind of impossible because the thing that made that so
interesting and exciting and invigorating for people was it was
an album which took from other places but were still
relatable to that boring brit rock scene where if you
liked U Me at six and Mallory Knox, it wasn't
inconceivable that you would like the Marmosets. Yeah, even though
they were taking from so many different things in.
Speaker 1: This way, I think lots of people got into them
because they would open for those kind of bands, and
people who were you know, you liked those kind of
bands because they were their gateways into rock music went
and saw whoever it might have been, and then these
guys come up opening and they go, WHOA, this is
like a real, actual live way a crazy rock band
I've never seen anything like this before.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And whereas now, if you were to do that
for the boring brit rock bands today, you're thinking, you know,
you're going to make a record that's appealing to people
who like President and it's like, well, we still have
the death tones, so like that's just that. Then they'd
have to completely change their sound for that to even
be possible. But for me, going into this record without
the intermediary and just taking it as is, I was like, oh,
I like Sparks, I like Queens of the Stone Age.
That's this is a sort of combination of the two.
This is this is an all right time. And as
someone who's I don't have this wide eyed adoration for
those first two records, that was that was good enough
for me. I like this one enough. I don't adore it.
It's I kind of hear what you're saying, where that
the song craft of song quality isn't overly consistent all
the way through, But for the time that it's on,
I'm I was happy on my foot. Maybe that's not
enough for some people, but as someone who's yeah you
get you go on trying to get out.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know what I feared that you would really
dislike this record. So I'm actually pleased to hear that
and I'll take the same four.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was like, you know what I can that
is a win, like if it like because that things
I think this record is. I can't see how possibly
like really dislikes. I think it's still hitting a pretty
good level of quality throughout. I mean I said, we
just have that that connection to the previous two records,
and that bar is so high, like those are like
nine out of ten, like maybe would one if you're
pushing a ten out of ten on that to go
from that to like a seven out of ten, like
I think like the best I think that like the
best Monsters record. I take over a chunk of that
second album at least, Like again, like Kiss from My
Mother I think is so good.
Speaker 3: I think that song is really great. That song that's
really stuck with me.
Speaker 2: But there is they just feels a little bit less
kind of like stuff to really get excited about Puss record.
But it's I don't think it's ever bat I don't
think like this ef there could ever does anything particularly wrong.
I just don't think it's It's not as good as
what I did the mythical kind of Marmozettes thing of
the twenty tens that we built up.
Speaker 3: It's on and off.
Speaker 1: For me, I was I was maybe selfishly hoping for
more kiss from my mother because that was the first
thing that they put out. And they are in like
UK rock terms, they are like sticking your extremities directly
into a socket, right like they are just such a fucking,
you know, shot all around your body. And that is
the first song that we got. Is that is like
on the level of attack and fizziness and energy of
the earlier Marmozets. That like Western Entering the Saloon, any
Amricney thing. It's about the coolest, most exciting way you
could announce your return to you know, being back and
making music. And that Jagg guitariff is irrepressible, that fucked
up evil disco beat and Becker, who is one of
the greatest front women this genre has produced, when she
hits that kind of ah is just bonkers and that
track alone makes this album worthwhile in a success, I
think that is it could be a top ten Marmazete song.
I think it is that brilliant and that is again
it lives up to it but as the first single,
it g'ed me up for an album that's only that
in places. It's the one bit on the album where
she hits the full fucking like ah scream as well,
which is one of their great weapons. And the energy
in the band is obviously different. They are now legitimately
kind of you know, adult parents with kids marmozettes. This
is their third album, but they've only they've been around
for like, you know, a decade and a half. They're
not going to be as mental as they were starting out,
and it's very welcome that they you know, they turn
it on in the concentrated doses that we get. I
love that they can to kind of flit into it
at precise little moments, but it often sort of, you know,
it follows on mainly, I would say, obviously from the
last record, which was a noticeably more commercial rock effort
than The Weird and Wonderful, had more in common with
you know, titans like Meuse and all these kind of things,
but it did still have for me, an electric kick
and a real consistency of just tune after tune after
tune that album. This is a roughly natural step on
from that, so I don't think it's a big, ill
fitting gear shift or anything. I just think that the
consistency of it does not match that, and there are
ways in which that sort of sound in twenty twenty
six just comes off on the record a little bit
less convincing and alive than it did in twenty eighteen.
It's a lot of bargaining for an album I think
is largely decent, right that it has at moments that
are brilliant. Like I said, by and large, it is
pretty good when they shift into that, you know, built
to be played on the mainstay of two thousand and
trees kind of contemporary dance rock thing. I do think
they do that better than basically anyone else around. Right.
It's not always setting the place alight on this the
way I think it was on the last record, maybe
because the production is so stiff and inorganic, but it
is quite hard to not have some fun with at
least the upper tier of songs on this going into
you know, the next track on the record is New York,
and I think that's a good example of that's just
a fun, dancey rock song in that kind of vein.
Maybe there is too much interference in the production on
Becker's voice, Like on this album overall, there is this
sort of staticky sound where it's like you could just
be letting her be one of the most naturally charismatic
in the singers and the scene, but she is having
to kind of fight her way through to make that
chorus feel alive. She's doing it. I think it's a
great chorus. But that's a sort of a running sort
of impression that I get with this record.
Speaker 2: You've got exactly what I said about New York. I
think that's a really fun kind of like dancey garage rocker.
Production kind of smothers it a little bit. And it's
odd because I don't think the production does that on
Kiss My Mother, because that song sounds you know, yeah,
live wire in eccentric and bold New York like I mean,
you know, it's got that kind of like fuzzed up
Queens of the Stone age worship riff that all of
sort of the bands or the garage rock bands from
like the twenty tens onwards did and moment.
Speaker 3: It's a fun one.
Speaker 2: Like but I feel like the drums, you know, like one,
I think the drumps and pre moments because they like
Pound and clatter About and you never really get that
and and it's just it kind of self for being
a fun, as you say, main stage rip rock kind
of track, but it doesn't pop off. And I think
the production contantly holds these songs back. I thing, like
even songs like Cutback, which kind of like has his
weird interesting electronics that kind of add in now and
I'm like, that's kind of cool, and it's got, you know,
the hip shaking disco beat, but it doesn't ever like
it doesn't ever do enough to totally come alive and
be more than just like decent. And that that I
think that's my frustration of the record is every song
almost almost like there's ingreeents for this to be fantastic
if there's just a few little tweaks to the sound
of the record, the production. I mean, I mean, I
do agree with the thing on Becker's focus in Fit,
but I think she never disappoints to this record. She
is like great the entire time, and I think, take
some of these songs that could be like with a
lesson focus, these could be bad, really like flat, stodgy
brit rock songs, and she kind of like drags them
up with such a like on ten performance, but at
the same time I assume mean where there's sort of
stuff interfering with that performance.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean you mentioned cut Back, which I like
Cutback going full spaceship rock like it's a kind of
straight up dance tempo with these futuristic synthesizers wibbling all
over it. And you know, stuff like Running with the
Sun in Your Eyes has a sort of like Death
from Above nineteen seventy nine feel to a lot this
record as well. It kind of it reminds me of
was it the third Royal Blood record where they just
went really hard on like the again Death from Above
queens dance rock feel, and you know, maybe stuff like
cut Back when it breathed the synsize as well, you
start to think of like bands like Orgasm and their Ilk.
But this is like doing it a whole lot better, right.
I think it is major. It's missing the real that
come in that radio rock lane when you think about
your plays, your major system errors that the last one
has where you go, this is an irrepressible rager taking
the roof off it these songs past the opening track,
and I think one other that I'll get to in
a minute. They don't really do that for me, but
I find these that innate tempo just something that is
easy to kind of bustle along with. You know.
Speaker 4: See, it's weird because I'm coming out from a very
different place where I have a real problem with. I
don't like Death of Above. I really hate Royal Blood.
That's sort of expensive garage rock. Just it does something
to me which I'm not keen on. And this I
can hit now that you're talking, I can hear that
this does share a lot with that, but the way
that I was hearing it, well, yeah, but like I
mentioned Sparks earlier, who are a band I love, and
this has loads of that. And they've got this thing
with their like camp and over the top and flamboyant
and super colorful, but the performances and the recording of
their records is really stiff and really disciplined, and it's
this strange juxtaposition of styles, which for some people it's
the worst thing ever. For me, I absolutely love it.
And in this case, on this record, I don't know
if it's deliberate or not, but I hear a lot
of that, and when I'm seeing it through that you
know that lens. It makes a lot more sense, and
maybe why I'm kind of okay with these songs and
not booting off or clattering and all the things which
you're saying, which normally I'd be crying out for with
songs like these, but I'm kind of willing to go
with it for reasons that are confusing even to me.
Speaker 1: Okay, interesting, I want to mention the other I think
absolute fucking rager on it, which does helpfully to kind
of help bring the record alive again. It comes more
in the back end You Want the Truth, which is
not a like debut Marmosettes type song, because it is
much more in that sort of robo rock feel falling
off from the last record. But it really reminds me
of again why I love the last record, the real
up tempo, how alive they can make songs like that
feel that tell me what go in and on with
the band just hammering behind, you know, Becker like really
fucking nervely, like firing off in all these directions in
the chorus, and then this pure queensy like Little Sister
or six six Sick or something kind of noisy psychedelic
guitar lead the answers are that is what Marmazetes can
sound like in full flight. That is an absolute fucking banger. Again,
but a lot of this record does I don't know,
it sits in a pocket a little bit more than
that maybe, and maybe Marmosettes are a little bit more.
I think Marmozet's their eccentricity is a big feature of
White what makes them great. And I know that's something
that actually people, you know, people like when they sort
of take it a little bit more straightforward sometimes. But
I like, for example, on the last record, there were
parts where Becker was really fucking going out there and
trying on weird voices and stuff like that, and those
were the bits that people you know, tended to, you know,
kind of go back and forth and whether they were
into it or not. I really liked all of that stuff.
And when they allow that eccentricity to fly on this
it even if it's not on great songs, because sometimes
on this record isn't on great songs, but it's at
least interest to the ear. There's a song made made
of which.
Speaker 2: That and you want the truth of the back end
of the album of the two I really like because
Made's ear is so weird where Becker's going like operatically,
like baroque pop Becker like on the Marma Struck, And
I think that's that's really cool because it's something different
to the ear and then you get what you want,
the truth as you know, in your face confrontational ragia
that those are the two in the back end of
the record.
Speaker 3: I'm like, but I'd keep them in the set, like, yeah,
maybe's there.
Speaker 1: I don't think that's necessarily a standout song. It's got
this really almost like a dad rock arena rip, like
slightly generic kind of you know, uh UK festival TV
package kind of riff going on there, But I like
that it lets Becker off the leash go in again
those like operatic registers, and it's those moments of eccentricity
that give them so much character that I really crave
from Marmozettes. Sometimes this record, maybe it is burying it
in production and stuff like that, but it doesn't entirely
allow that to go out. And some of the slower
songs I think are some of the real casualties of that,
which for a band who, for all of their frizzy
haired mania, Marmozettes are a band who when they've be
able to slow things down to a lull, they can
really make your heart sore, or like I mentioned on
the last record, songs like Insomnia where they go really
strange you when expecting things swear I'm alive on this
is Okay. It's a kind of a production experiment and
again going to a basicier, deeper kind of sound. But
Becker is so obscured with the static there that that
in rapturing focal point that like Marmosette's you know, Quasi
ballad or whatever could have, doesn't really feel like it's there. Flowers,
I think is actually a complete dud, like doesn't pick
up any momentum as a song at all, and I
think it's actually quite unpleasant to listen to. I think
that's the first at least on the studio album of
first like subpart marm that song.
Speaker 2: I mean, that's the worst song on the record, Flowers.
It's the it's the general I'm just like, could I
could cut that from the record? Like it is really
clunky in a weird way that it's kind of overblown
but boring, And that's the one that's the one song
on this record.
Speaker 3: I really don't like.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree, it's the low of it for sure,
and then there is dandy as well, which is the
most like think it back to a delicate level. I
think it's really pretty. I don't think it necessarily it
brings the emotional wallop that when you think about like
a me and you or you know, run with the
rhythm or something. It doesn't really go there, But I
do think it's a pretty song and I'm fine with
it on the record. Keep going dull in the seven
minute closer, I guess, is where they push for that
kind of transcendence the most, because it's not a ballad
or anything, but it's like this long form, sort of
jangly indie song almost, but it's really stirring and it
really feels like they come alive at the end there
after Flowers always arounds me of hive Is or something
with that kind of distortion effect that it has.
Speaker 3: It's got a kind of heartland rock kind of thing
going on, and it keep going darling.
Speaker 2: I was like, there is like Springsden influence on that intro,
like a little Tubibit has that kind of like big
and like like say stirring. It's all gonna be all right.
You know, you've got a big chorus and it's just
very breezy and uplifting. I like that as a close
because it kind of taps on things that I'm into.
I feel like you guys are talking to me out
of liking this record, which.
Speaker 3: It's like we're saying that it's good, I know, but.
Speaker 4: Just it's just in the last five minutes, the things
that come off, I'm going, oh, oh yeah, forgot about that?
Oh yeah, now did mention that there was a patch
of it there? But it's a yeah, that bit with
the where it was a bit Springsteen, I thought Tom Petty,
but you know, splice the me in for each other.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4: That is one of the times where the production does
feel like it hampers the record for me, where you
go that would really help from being more organic, but
because it still sounds a bit synthetic and processed, it
it loses a bit of that flair. Maybe.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think there's a few quite forgettable tracks, and
I don't think it sounds sonically as appealing as there
are other records. And I think maybe part of that
is that I have moved so far away from anything
like this. But I do think if you were to
put this on one to one just with the last record,
I think there is the robotic side of this feels
like it has, you know, grown a little bit forward.
I gets from a mother New York cutback, you want
the truth and keep going darling, really good songs. I
think I can sort of leave the rest. And I
think the thing we're caught between is the standards that
marmas Thatts have set for themselves across two unbelievable albums.
You know, they're both released in what might as well
be for them another lifetime right because they are so
far ahead in their lives, But those standards are higher
than this album. On the flip side, there is way
more quality here than in their peers at the moment,
Like this isn't really the kind of rock muses that
I'm always looking for, But good luck finding an album
in this lane released in the last five years with
higher highs than this one. With the exception of the
Queens of Stone Age, of course, who are just so
much better than anyone ever to have done this sort
of thing, but Marmozettes have they've kind of wandered in
doing it part time, and they've sort of shown everyone
up trying their hand at like dance a UK festival
rock with like one absolute worldy song and then at
least a couple of others without actually having to bring
a spectacular album.
Speaker 3: People a depressing way.
Speaker 2: To look at the state of like UK rock music,
where by their standard subpar Marmazets album is still the
best thing to come from that scene right now.
Speaker 1: Like ah, I think in terms of what to expect
out of the Marmozettes come back, I think this is
a record that feels like they're happy to be here
rather than you knowp scraping to be the big thing.
You know, even though now they are back, yeah, and
the album is out, it doesn't feel like the band
is the number one focus in their life, which is cool.
You know, we're very happy to have them back, even
if it's in a part time capacity, and you know,
maybe we're saying about half of the record is of
the real quality we expect from them, But it does
feel like this is a a different chapter, and I
suppose it's just a different way we should be looking
at Marzetes going forward during you know, compared to during
the twenty tens when they were running shit.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think, like, I think that's a fair way
to do it. Is because like I said that they
are you know, parents, how they've got kids. This is
the sort of the casual marmozette. Apparently they are still
insane live Apparently like live shows have been like as
electrifying as you remember them being, which I think that
that's you know, at least that they've got in there
in their arsenal where if you're gonna go see this live,
I imagine these songs will yeah, pop off in a
way that they might not draw on record, so that
that kind of adds a bit more.
Speaker 3: Mph to it.
Speaker 2: But selfishly I would love the you know, the excitement
of that twenty tents moments. But I am if they're
happy to just kind of come back and jam out
some songs and just kind of do it casually for
fun and not have the kind of the stress and pressure,
I'm happy for them.
Speaker 3: At the same time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it's quite nice that we can move
on from that point to talk about a band who
have been rising within the last few years, and we
can talk about hopefully you know, lifting something up Static
Dress with injury episode. Now Static Dress are by no
means new. They are kind of alongside the likes of Loathe,
one of the most established newer contemporary heavy bands in
this country. And maybe it's a case that they got
pushed too quickly, but I after about five years a
Status Dress being around, I've seen them open up arena
bills for bringing the Horizon right off the back of
like one album or whatever else. I'd kind of checked
out of Status Dress being a band I was particularly
interested in because they came out doing this you know,
nostalgic early two thousands post hardcore thing, and it got
a lot of buzz early on, but for basically half
a decade there it merely felt like Statu Dress were
a band who were all right, and that feels harsh
after basically like a debut album and a couple of
EPs whatever. If I didn't have a second thought about
Status Dress again after that point, I wouldn't have been surprised.
But it does feel like they've stepped up to the
plate and made an album that lots of people were
wanting them to make. With this album, I am not
inherently a mark for this sound like I do not
actually worship at the feet of Glass Jaw, like everybody else.
I don't like under Oath, even the ones that people
say are good, and I think this album is really good.
So if you are much more in the market for this,
that should be even more of an endorsement on paper.
Speaker 3: Statuic Dress are a band perfect for me.
Speaker 2: I've been all over so many of these kind of
scene revival, post article throwback bands, and I'm with you.
I thought Status Dress were all right. I thought, you know,
they had a couple of really good songs, and it
never really will blow me away. I fucking love this record.
I'm so happy they have come out, and again they
are all doing that kind of just like throwback two
thousands post harkpin where again there are songs that you
can pinpoint that's who they are, you know, homaging there
that that you can feel the influence and they're not
hiding them you can hear. I mean, there's a fucking
Under Oath guest feature on this record, but you can
go that's Thursday, that's Glass Draw.
Speaker 3: That's Michael mcrumman's, that's Finch. Because you have the most
funeral friend like being you.
Speaker 2: They're all over this record, but what's that just just
done is gone let's just write fucking good songs doing
this thing and it can be done.
Speaker 3: And I think this album is like just so good,
Like you.
Speaker 2: Get that some intro, but then they're on that angular
post hardcore riff comes in with that d like pop
rock bounce, and then that first scream Ollie lets out
like is like, oh yeah, we're in two thousand and three,
let's fucking go Like I mean, this album just grabs
my attention right away, and for the entire thing, it
just keeps doing stuff I am a mark for to
a really high standard.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they haven't massively changed tapped kind of the style
or anything, but I did. The quality and the level
of songcraft is much much higher than what statg Dress
have been doing before. I know there's a larger like
sort of conceptual like cross textual interactive world this as well,
but purely in the song stakes. I don't Knowssari know
how much identity I could ascribe to Earlie as a singer,
Like he kind of does the yelpie scratchy post hardcore
thing and then swings into this like you know, MySpace
early two thousands MTV melodies, but the hit rate of
those is higher than the majority of albums that are
released in this style completely agree.
Speaker 2: Like Pharmacy Film that's the second track, Like that is
a like riff, that's Paul strevving what it is to burn.
Its super kind of glossy pop post hardcore, but it's
still got that grip. So it's catchy and it's got
like strong melodies, but it doesn't feel sanded down like
the worst of this kind of like seeing stuff and
particularly some of like the ReViral stuff in it, which
sounds like doing this bit through the modern horrid like
synthetic twenty twenty sound. This is just hitting all the
right notes of like catchy memorable songs that still sound hard.
They have bits where you are I want to throw
hands to their bits. I won't want to tug my
shirt and do an emotional cry. It just is delivering
that exact thing I want. Again, we're out changing tact,
but just nailing the craft better this time.
Speaker 4: This has been the surprise of the month for me
because I went into this with my with my back
all the way up. I saw that it was fifteen tracks.
I saw the lowercase song titles. I saw the band
folks were only one of them is in a mask
that drives me nuts. And then I saw the under
oath on this thing, and I'm going, oh, why do
we have to do this? Surely there must have been
something else, And I started thinking back to that record
we did a couple of years ago where I was
sort of in this having a bit of a mental
breakdown about I was nostalgic for something which I didn't
even like.
Speaker 3: Cowboy Yeah, and.
Speaker 1: I was I was.
Speaker 4: I was going, I don't want to go I don't
want to go through that again.
Speaker 3: That's why I thought you were gonna hate this. That's
why I'm so sure you're going to I hate this.
Speaker 4: I did wonder and when it kicked off, I didn't
just start smiling. So I thought, it's like playing skate
three again or watching top ten Heaviest Bands in the
World slide shows on YouTube from twenty ten, like this
is it's all one of the warms and fuzzies. And
then very quickly I started to go like, hang on, now,
these songs are absolute jams. And by the end of
the record, I was so one hundred percent on board,
ready to listen to it again. And this is you know,
I am not a mark for this. This is not
a slam dunk for a band, and you know, if
you reference all the right things, I'm gonna love it.
This is not that style of music for me. And
yet in spite of that, purely through song power and
your pairing, maybe not personality but conviction of performance, which
is such a sorely lacking thing in a lot of
these retroactive bands. Now this is this record is excellent.
Speaker 1: It's so nice and unexpected, which is what makes it
nice that a band that we can all come together
on this episode is Staty Dress, who, like said I,
I essentially didn't give a shit that's diacist. Before this,
I thought they were the most okay band in their lane,
and yet here they are with like songs that if
you put them on MTV in two thousand and four,
would pop the fuck off. I agree, Pharmacy Film is
the first like undeniable chorus of their career. I would
say that and break me here so wackon I feel it.
Obviously you're you're referencing Glass Jaw, but I get like
Prime Era thirty six crazy swists feel to choruses like that,
which I'm into as well, Like lip Critic really gives
me that as well, and either way, you know, whether
you're going to the PoTA or the medical side, it's
stuff that I said you would you would. You can
envision it prime to carve that place in that kind
of rotation. And I'm thinking that this is a band
who's formative years together playing as a band, well obviously
during the COVID era, right, And it's been four years
since they put out their technically their debut album. And
when they were pre you know, writing that thing, the
you know, the world hadn't too long opened up and
they wouldn't have had too many shows under their belt
compared to what they have now. And these four years
in the interim, I imagine when the vast majority of
their touring and live performances has happened. And you know,
maybe it's a good thing they took those four years,
because they seem just so much more well oiled here,
like so much more together. They used to have this
sort of scrappiness that was you know, violent that it
didn't really congeal to anything, but this feels like an
album where they know which songs will work live and why,
and there is still a variety, like they are still
playing within the rough wheelhouse of things you have heard
before in this kind of style. But within that, on
the riffier side you've got stuff like Nostalgia Kills, which
did amuse me in having the under oath guest feature,
because you cannot get fucking rid of them, like any
album like this, Throw a dart at a modern post
Harper album and you will find an under oath guest spot.
It's ridiculous. They're not that good. We don't need to
revere them and invite them that hard to everything. But
the core if on that song is like a genuine
jackhammer that will sound good on big stages, like heavy
in the way that will you know, carry rather than
just really getting lost in the sound system. A bit
of Coheed on that chorus as well, with they close
your Eyes like choruses are consistently great on it. And
also on that rowdier end, I love how stupid rowdy
male Bomb is, which has just got this yes stump
truck of a riff. But then that Dear Reader is
like melodic pot hardcore, you know, Darryl Polumbo Mei's China
Marino one oh one, and it's suddenly like OLLI has
He's stumbled into a gold mine of melodic hooks. Like
he's just pulling them out left, right and center on
this album in a way that I didn't know he
had in him.
Speaker 2: That's the thing, is so like i'd like to know
on the older stat just stuff that the really chaotic
kind of mathy songs over the cool, but they never
had anything to actually make them kind of stand out
other than that kind of like brahs or blast of excitement.
Here's songs that they say like nostalgia kills having like
ad you can like a groove to it, and like
Ollie kind of flailing him out vocally but also looking
in and going here's a chorus that like breakdown where
he goes like full on guttural with it. It's so hard,
and then like male bomb, You're right that just that's slammed.
But then again has of course classic death pots, has
you know again just a two minute musha that kind
of like staccato panic chord ending bit. It's got all
these sort of things, but these feel like more well realized,
fort out songs rather than just the kind of like
explosions of noise and cares that they were on the
last record, And they sit so nicely along you know,
the more ballad tracks and all of those sort of things.
So you know we have like the internet of this
farewell is into hospice like that's you know, this shimmering
microgram is ballad and it just sits so nicely against
the more violent moments, the poping moments. They they cover
a lot of ground, even if again it is all
within like kind of thrown back to bands of the
two thousands, but they have that kind of the jukebox
thing about it, just feeling like covers because they're still
putting their own personality on the song.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Classic Deadpots, which you mentioned, is like legitimately brutal,
like it's not afraid to be really heavy. Within the
style of USA that it is. There's an interesting sort
of production approach where it's not a like one size
fits all, like things like the volume and the mixing
actually do like EBB and flow even inside the same songs.
It can do sometimes which can be a dangerous, like
messy approach to take if you get it wrong. And
I'm not gonn necessarily say it's done completely perfectly frantic back,
but more often it is that kind of careful attention
to detail they do manage to pull it off. You
get a little things like in Pharmacy film there's like
a chopped up vocal sound on the screen that actually
lands quite well, you know, and that there's a glitchiness
of the record that does show I think some attempt
to like not just completely fall back into nostalgia right
like it is. It's definitely this kind of you know,
the heritage of the style of music, but done during
the Internet era. And then the choruses they still hand
up on the quiet end of the record as well,
because like Adapter goes down really smoothly with that you know,
again manages to a vote deaf tonesiness, but without just
being a pitiful deaf tones rip, because it's mixing that
real two thousand emo wistfulness as well, and down to
the key change at the end, like genuine beautiful chorus
to see all the deal. And then Hospice as well,
which you mentioned almost reminds me of like the dreamier
end of Naughty's Paramore, like all we Know is falling
or maybe brand New Eyes or something like that huge
fountain of a guitar riff sounds really assured and confident
with like what it's trying to deliver emotionally.
Speaker 4: Hospice was the one for me, where like the Foot,
the opening run of this record was excellent. When Hospice
comes through, that's when I thought, this is this is
a clearing of the standard that I had set for
this because that song sounds like you're saying early Paramore,
I thought that the guests up kids like something like
something shot home about and honestly to a stand that
isn't a million miles away from that record, which which
I don't say lightly, and just quickly going back to
that thing you were saying about the bespoke mixing on
each track of this record, I think that shows up
why so many bands who try this song of jukebox
playlist kind of style record where it messes up. And
it's those songs that male bum and classic death buds,
which are so much more bruising and brutal and you know,
draw on much heavier, much nastier, gnarlier things than than
the vast majority of this record. You you kind of
need that bespoke mixing because if you don't do that,
if you just go one size fits all, you end
up with stuff like that one hardcore song on the
last Architects record where it just sounds daft, it goes, no,
you're you still sound safe, You're not leaning enough into
the thing that you're trying to lean into here, And
it means that this record, because it can pull you
in all sorts of directions, and you're right, it's maybe
not completely seamlessly done, it makes it thrilling and it
keeps you on your toes, and it means that for
a longer record that does a lot of different things,
it never feels flabby.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and the track list is it's not just the
best that that address have done to date, but pretty
much more than anyone in this kind of style has
done in a long long time, unless there's some really
really obvious one slip in my mind, but it's ten
years since the last let Live album, right, are there
many albums in that kind of you know, naughty style
post hardcore lane in that time with more hits on
it than this. It's tighter, it's more confident, really good
fucking record to release right before those Bringing her Eyes
and outbreakshows as well, where they're also playing, so you know,
just get some of these on that stage in that arsenal.
It it just feels really good to finally be able
to move Static Dress out of neutral into the you're
a really good band camp Like Static Dress were fine
if you are if you're looking, if you're in the
market for this kind of thing, they are an approximation
of it. This is the first Static Dress album that
I will give unambiguous thumbs up, and by the sounds
of it, we all are, which is great.
Speaker 3: Yeah. No, I completely agree that that add them in
the same position.
Speaker 2: And again maybe I was just a bit more like
akin to just go with that because I again I
this is my my sort of area. But that's the
thing is because it was my own I was always
willing Static Dressed to do something more and just getting
this album kind of going, like I heard the Pson
was like, this is better. This is a kind of
good sign for the album and the album delivering even
you know, when you get to Adult Diamond where they
go full acoustic ballad that's not even totally well and
that has like really interesting kind of detailing with some
of the electronics and sort of stuff they weave in
through it for the band kicks at the end. I'm
like they're doing all of these things and they're doing
them well, and it's just this has been one of
the real Again, it's weird to say that a post
hardcore throwback record.
Speaker 3: Is one of the big surprises of the year for me,
but this genuinely is.
Speaker 1: Yeah, big step up, major props to start address for
injury episode next. We're keeping it pretty emo though, because
we are going to go to Turnover with their album
Down on Earth. Turnover ascended to emo godhood in twenty
fifteen when they release their album Peripheral Vision, which is
one of the most outrageously unavoidably beloved albums of the
modern era, covered on Album Club last year, followed it
up with another very good record in a similar style
of good Nature, and then abruptly turned into relaxing beats
to revise to. There were a few years there where
the relationship between Turnover, who were heading into more indie circles,
and the you know, the hardcore slash emo community which
they came from, kind of fragmented a bit. Does that
mean those records are bad? Not too much, as a
couple tracks that I'm somewhat fond of, like the one
with Brendan Yates on the last record, but they were
definitely playing away from what had made them so beloved,
that being pretty much the very best to have done
that emo slash shoe gaze hybrid. Recently, though, like some
of those bridges were being repaired a bit. There was
the Peripheral Vision tenth anniversary tour last year where all
of the loving feelings that people have for that record
came right back up, and then the first rumblings and
first tracks from the new album, people started to wonder
whether the turnover had come home. Maybe. I suppose the
questions we have to answer here is how much is
that true or reflective of the album that we have,
and independent from that question, how good is what they've
made Sam.
Speaker 3: I think this is definitely has more of that kind
of emo shoe gaysing go.
Speaker 2: I don't think it is an entirely kind of like
we're back to doing the Perifle Vision style sort of thing.
It's definitely way more present, but I think they they
clearly have their interests outside of this so that they
can't help but bring in. So I think it's kind
of like not quite fifty. I think there's definitely more
of the emos of the film here, but it is
still a bit of a mixture.
Speaker 3: I'm happy to go with.
Speaker 2: Though I don't love this entire record, but this record,
for a lot of it is it's a cozy, knitted
jumper in autumn. Like it's that kind of like just
a nice comfy vibe for this record that I think
would have got on I'm having a pleasant time, Elliott.
Speaker 1: You're already let slip to us off Mike that you
think this album's very boring.
Speaker 3: It's yeah.
Speaker 4: I I was really jazzed at the thought of turnover,
coming back and making another record, even if not fully
like more leaning as the pRIFLE Vision thing, because as
we said it last year that I was, you know,
it's incredible for the thing that it does. There's maybe
not a better one release that decade. And while this
isn't a fully flaged return to that sound, this is
the closest they've been to it by a long way
since then. So I went in with with hope and
I feel nothing about this record. It just evaporated on
contacts with their and.
Speaker 3: I think you're saying.
Speaker 4: About it being a warm, wooly jumper of an album
that's I sit here in a wife beata now I'm
not in the mood for that fundamentally, I can see
what you're getting up there, but it just it had
a distance to it. Well, I just I never connected that.
I never felt the nourishing warmth of the record. I
just came away. I've listened to it three or four times,
and every time I come away with nothing, just a vacancy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm not completely mad at that assessment, Elliott. I
think this is the most I have enjoyed a turnover album.
So it's good Nature, which I do think is a
great record. It's not quite on that level. But if
there's a sort of intermediary tear between like the real
eightier stuff op Top, which obviously you know peripheral vision
is the best. But for the sake of argument, I'll
put Good Nature in that level as well, and then
the last couple of albums would be below those. I
would put this in that sort of intermediary between those
two levels. And I suppose that is reflective of you know,
if the idea was out there that after doing the
return to perihle vision and all of that, that they
would slip right back into that style. This is definitely
the most of that flavor they've had in a record
in you know what, like eight nine years something like that,
But in terms of going back in time and the
time capsule, it doesn't really work like that realistically speaking,
and instead it is mixed in with the markers of
the more experimental material they've played with since, which this
is a weirder record I think than certainly what you
might term classic Turnover, and when you were describing it
as like, you know, a nice cozy jumper, for me,
it's like a cozy jumper that might have some fucking
novelty ball balls hanging on it or something like. There
are parts that really feel like classic Turnover and then
parts where you go peripheral vision. Turnofth would definitely have
never put that particular choice in the record, and I
don't think it's all essential. I found it at least
quite enjoyable hearing them basically sprinkle in that like the
weirder sort of south By Southwest Indie hipster instincts that
they have onto at least a foundation that is more familiar.
I think this record plays to their strengths more than
the previous two do, but while still letting them, you know,
have their fun and go off the leash and fuck
around a little bit essentially.
Speaker 2: Well, it's funny because like you get weely from one
opening and it's like musically that has that kind of
like shimmering or rock thing, and then that was just
the weird vocal effects and you're trying to do them
at the same time.
Speaker 3: Here it's really jarring.
Speaker 2: But then like you get these really nice twinkling guitars
and pretty melodies, the catchy chorus even with the weird
vogue effects, and I'm like, yeah, cool. And then you
get Nijar, which was one of the singles, and I
think Nigi is the best turnover song since I will
take over a lot of the ourt market for Vision.
I think nija is amazing. I really like that song.
I think it just nails that emo vibe for me.
I was like, that's great, That's that's what we want.
But then again, they do so many other weird stuff
across the record, like I See You Realize has these
like real nice potime it's been this is like weird
kind of again like brooding basically a vocal and they
just they never wanted to talk like again. Whilst one
it is a very cozy album selling, they're clearly still
trying to be experimental and a little bit eccentric within
the kind of framework of nice emo music.
Speaker 4: Yeah, because we've.
Speaker 1: Got those those two songs you've just listed there were
like a you know, A and B single they released
right Nightjar and I See You Realize, and Nightjar is
absolutely the closest thing we've had since Good Nature nearly
a decade to classic Turnover, like and if you like
that style of like gorgeous autumnal you know, wistful melodies
at dusk kind of emo shoegays that they, of all
the bands who tried their hand of that thing, are
the one who perfected it. Night Jar is such a
welcome throwback and like those descending guitar lines that connect
the verse the chorus, like it heart breaking in that wonderful,
wonderful way. And then I See You and Realize has
elements of that that are again familiar to Turnover, but
it's almost like it's come out of the other end
of a mixer, you know, and the really caught my
ear with that like peppy post punk rhythm. It's like
a really excellent like Smith's or kind of chameleon Z
dream pop track. Basically, I think like those like if
that as a two track single, as they put it out,
could on its own be like the best emo or
like indie rock release of this year. Like those two
songs are fantastic, top class, but they do off again,
they show some different size of what's going on. We
leave for No. One as the opening track is much
more and again the side of it of bittersweet indie
emo guitar chords, really settling in the mood. But when
Austin comes in, he's singing through this like worring my
bloody Valentine kind of liquid filter, which which I quite like.
I think it gives it this trippiness that they were
aiming for on the later material. I think it's a
question of how consistently that quality is maintained, and I
do think it's more of a grab bag based on
what they're trying on eat song, because I think after
the first three I think distinctly pretty cool songs. You
get My Hand as a Curtain, which is very truggy.
I think it's fairly pleasant and maybe melodically again a
little closer to the peripheral vision side of things, but
I can definitely see how that hits like a turgid rhythm,
and I think that's around the point where you could
slip into gosh, this is dull. There are numerous of
those amusing little bits across the record where he sings
with that lower register and it sounds like the album's
been chopped and screwed almost. It's like artificially slowed down,
and he does sing differently like song to song, which
I think for some people maybe would be disruptive of
an album. Flow. You've got I'm Up, I'm Up, which
is like them doing a sort of Oasis song, but
it's vibrating and distorting, like My Bloody Valentine, which I
think sounds more interesting than it maybe actually is in practice.
Speaker 2: That's one that's just you know, you've got a bit
of a riff and he's doing that the weird kind
of falsetto vocals on the chorus.
Speaker 3: I mean that.
Speaker 2: I quite like I Mup, Come Up, because it's just
it brings a bit of pacing after the kind of
like the first few songs are a bit more kind.
Speaker 3: Of like laid back, and it's just kind of different.
Little Bees Don't Bite.
Speaker 2: It's like the weirdest one for me, where you've got
these kind of like worrying, fizzy sound all over the track,
and it just can like it's trying to be again
this emo song with like a bit of like an
indie sort of disco thing going on, but then it's
just got this like odd like buzzing filter going on
over it.
Speaker 3: It's such a like bizarre choice.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's my favorite track on the back half after
like the first few songs, because it does it embraces
those distorting shoegaze effects. But you can maybe argue that
that song is like because it's so buzzy, it's almost
like the harshest on the ear that for be right
at least, and to be at least since they used
to be a heavier band. But it's it's up tempo
and it delivers those kind of alien, my bloody valentine
ish you know, guitar melodies with an actual spring in
its depth. So I do enjoy that. But Elliott, I
suppose during like some of the other mid section tracks,
is where you are having little bee nap time.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, I mean to be honest, all this talk
about the most exciting and interesting of azarre. It's like
arguing what's the spiciest blemonge it's it's just there's so it's.
Speaker 3: This album.
Speaker 4: Listening to it was like it's not listening to the
teachers in Charlie Brown Cartoon. Is I was zoning out
for song for songs at a time. That's why I've
listened to it so much, to keep going back to
God have I which songs that again and are yeah,
vaguely and then by the time it gets the end,
I've forgot and again. And you know, it's not bereft
of quality, like there are those nice guitar lines woven
through it, and you the general sound of the record
is very pleasant. It's it's kind of a hard thing
to dislike. But those odd curiosities aside that you guys
have kind of mentioned, the moments which the stretches of
this record that are bereft of it. It kind of
feels like dream pop music which A and other band
could do. And that was the thing. It almost showed
up what made porofle Visions such a special record, because
that album's not playing with many fascinating or innovative tools.
They just wrote, like Brian Wilson Paul McCartney level songs
in a style of music that I've been crying out
for songwriting of that standard for over a decade at
that point. It has been since. It's just there's lots
of this record I think honestly could be anyone. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's not like they're giving Loveless run for
its money here, right. We are still essentially at the
stage of this music was knocked far out of reach
of anyone thirty five years ago. And that muzac quality
that you're describing there, that was, you know, very prevalent
on the previous two Turnover albums. It does creep back
in on a good like half of this album. But
I do think that the balance of more experimental material
and the classic Turnover feel that they themselves do best,
and we kind of missed that for a while. I
do think that balance is at least better on this album,
and at its best. It reminded me why Turnover our band,
who I fell for, and how sublime they can be,
even if those moments are inconsistent.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that's sort of a fair assessment.
Speaker 2: I kind of again, just I'm happy to sort of
settle into the vibe because it's got enough of those beautiful,
just kind of wistful emo things I'll go with and
then just a couple like funny little Quirks, I just
can going. Ah, that spices up a little bit, So
I think it's a ad same record. It's the most
consistently enjoyable thing they've done in a while.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's the spiciest prom one that they have put
their name to in the fucking in the baking tent
for a little while. So down on Earth from Turnover,
our trip into full blown hardcore this month comes with
Guilt Trip and Armor of Angels. I heard the previous
Guilt Trip albums that you know, caught a little bit
of buzzer a few years ago. The first one I
thought was was decent. I was like, okay, you know,
one of many many hardcore bands who were coming through
carving a bit of the name themselves. We'll keep an
eye on this. By the second one, I thought that
is some perfectly okay meat and potatoes hardcore really, but
nothing that majorly impressed me. After a couple of albums,
and then while I was sort of looking the other
way at bands, I found more interesting. They started to,
particularly in this country, get really put and yeah we're
not talking like a not loose or anything in terms
of skyrocketing popularity, but they have become one of the
bands emerging brushing against the upper ceilings of like, you know,
hardcore events and so on and so. Sam, when asked
what from the world of hardcore we should check in
on this month, when we had a few options to
choose from, you were like, I think we should do
the Guilt Trip happen because they are you know, are
they pretty much the biggest British hardcore band right now.
Speaker 3: Malevolence is the only one you'd take over them? Really
there are.
Speaker 1: I'm obviously there's there's a connection, but I'm counting them
as more of a metal band, full on hard. It's
Guilt Trip.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Yeah, Guilt Trip are the band blowing up in
the UK hard and that that's pute much the reason
why to do it, because again, like I've seen Guilt
for a bunch, you know, they they've been going since
the late twenty tens. They were always I think I've
always liked Guilt Trip. I think they I just say, yeah,
they are meeting Poto's hardcore by when they we did
it to a good standard, good live band and then
but I'd kind of was like, yeah, cool, you know
our cats guild when raycatcham and then they say, and
I just want it's not just over here.
Speaker 3: They are blowing up globally fair like like I said,
they're recent to in America.
Speaker 2: They co headlined with Malevolence in America, Like I know,
No Malevolance are kind of a bit of like a
recent kind of thing America, but guilty of I'm on
level pegging there, and like they've been playing on big
outdoor festival stages in America and in Europe like it is,
it is happening, and that that is why I kind
of wanted to sort of pick this album as when
we talk about it to kind of go like, so,
what's going on?
Speaker 3: Why why Guiltrum? What have they done that has kind
of blown up?
Speaker 2: Why have they gone from being you know, the band
that opens the pre show at Outbreak Festival the first
year I went in twenty twenty two to four years
later being the biggest UK band around, Like what what?
Speaker 3: What? What changed?
Speaker 2: And I kind of like like, because that's what I
do like this record, but I also just think there's
a weird So what is the sort of the thing
that has kind of like grab on because as someone
who likes the record.
Speaker 3: I'm not entirely sure I can explender the party.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because they we've mentioned my levelnce there they are
for a little while. They've been the sort of like
little brother band and I'm sure at some point they'll
got tired of that descriptor. But like they have had
this sort of like leg up from through them Malevolence Popularities.
Speaker 3: Also on the same label.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Malevlence's popularity is obviously skyrockets sort of after after
COVID and they've had their label and stuff like that,
and Guilt Trip were like almost one of the flagship
bands for like you know, the sort of Malevolence family
and the kind of that side of the industry. Uh,
this record they've made them move on to road Runner,
So like some of the you know in bigger, more
established historic sort of you know, heavy music industry names
checking in now. And I guess again, after that popularity
increase that they've had, you would they had a fucking
added dask Co lab like a month or two ago,
like how and I know that you know they got
they got.
Speaker 2: Picked to replace the Cavalira's like Hellfest on the main
stage like the other day, like after the Calos had
to put out Guilt Trip with the band who were
kind of like plucked to fill in that slot. Like
it's such a bizarre thing where like this band is
just everything that is happening, it's going on through Guilt Trip.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so I suppose, you know, for the record, I
agree that we should be talking about Guilty for this
reason because it is a fascinating little phenomenon that's been
going on for a couple of years. I suppose what
we're looking for to see if they have something like
a real breakout record, you know, like something that musically
comes through and you know, makes that statement for them
in the way that you would hope with all of that, Sam,
what do you think about that?
Speaker 3: So?
Speaker 2: I think with this album, I do like sound quite
a bit because it's just kind of like Miimto's hardcore,
but it also, you know, it worships out the Auto
machine Head quite a bit, which I think is a
fun flavored to kind of like filter into your hardcore.
But at the same time, this to me, like als
is going to go Yeah, this is just as kind
of like glossy and shiny and wide screen as hardcore
and sound while still being hardcore. So I guess that's
the reason why it's really crossed over. I think there
are like a couple of really really cool tracks on this,
and you know when it comes to just like big
Larry groovy hardcore that makes you want a mosh every
song of this like it's that.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I think this is a step up for Guilt Trip.
Speaker 2: I think this is probably their strongest record, but I'm
still gonna wait for that kind of like that's exactly
why they are the band becoming hugely popular because I like, again,
I do like this record, but I'm still gonna wait
for it to kind of like have that holy shit moment.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean they might have done it. I don't know.
They're definitely a we cover Davidian Live coded hardcore band.
Speaker 3: They haven't covered Davidian Live.
Speaker 2: There's an amazing video of someone getting drop kicked off
of some guy stage Potato in so someone drop kicks
them off the stage.
Speaker 3: I'll find that video because it's amazing. But they have
Davidian Live yet.
Speaker 1: Well you can tell that from the record, because I
would say it's entire personality, Like they've got the little
harmonics and stuff, the clean intro at the very start,
has that like darker, spookier end of nineties machine Head,
you know, cleaner stuff. And I can get down with
bands embracing that, right because I you know, I love
that sound obviously, and there's definitely a boisterous attitude that
I can see being infectious in the live arena, like
the if this is the Will of God mosh call,
but in in Blood of Tonement that's hard, that kind
of thing. I can see that carrying across live. There
are parts where they use some more clean vocals I
suppose on this, I think maybe in comparison more so
to what they've done before. So dirt and Veins have
these sort of courses through and I guess that's them again.
The sign is a road runner, being like, we're taking
this nineties metal influence right, we want to you know,
carry the flag of some of that you that mid
nineties road runner, that big metal band type spirit into this.
So a natural next step when you're making that again
leap up to the label and everything is to inject
a little bit that in and there is that kind
of fear factory ish, you know, like slightly roboticized your
hardcore chorus melody in there, except not really especially good,
Like they're so half asked, they don't actually add anything
to speak of, Like there's no hook in the songs.
And I don't know how they decided on for your
big hardcore guest feature on the album, the singer from
Pod like you could Die better than that for your
big roadrunner debut good is Yeah, I know, sure what
the the.
Speaker 3: Choices there were.
Speaker 2: Maybe again it's just because that they like the nineties
or thing and they're bringing a lot of that in
on the album, and he was like available.
Speaker 3: But yeah, I mean I'm fine with clean vocals, Like
I prefer the clean vocals on this.
Speaker 2: To them being like a whiney, octane core kind of thing.
If they've done that on this, I would have like
tuned out. They're kind of like fine but not particularly
like attention grabbing kind of rock and nineties clean vocal
find whatever, it is a different flavor you can you
can develop that and maybe get some natural chorus out
of it next time. But yeah, I think, like I said,
this album is like always pretty good. I don't think
ever does anything that I think it is like outright bad,
but it just it feels like it hits a ceiling
pretty quickly and and kind of settles.
Speaker 3: At that point. Yeah, I.
Speaker 4: Going in with the context of how popular this band are.
This the fact we're doing this makes a lot more
sense because listening to this, it's the one arm this
month I haven't made any notes for because it would
have just read like Jack, It would have read like
fucking the book in the shining, just going machine Head,
hate breed, hate breed, machine Head, machine Head, machine Head,
hate breed, like. I mean, yeah, it's for those things.
It's fine, but it's not even like if you are
just gonna what's the world like, it's kind of appropriate
a sound and go, we're gonna write songs in this style. Weirdly,
the expectation of songcraft is almost higher because you haven't
got anything else to distracts away from it. So it's
like if you are just going to go, it's hate breeding,
machine Head, and we're just doing those two things for
the thirty minutes of this record plays for fine. I
everyone that's very agreeable. I'm sure everyone who's interested will
we'll get along fine with that. But to go over
the top, it's like you've got to have songs which
punch through that comparison where you can't just easily go Okay,
well I've heard, I will be heard, and I've heard
the video it's and this record, for all the pod
features in the world, it doesn't it doesn't break through
that glass ceiling.
Speaker 3: No, I agree.
Speaker 1: It's that any of the grace notes that give Back's character,
like the unpredictable turn of pace, the extra detail in
a riff, or even a particular atmosphere or a tone
in the record that makes it theirs. These are the
things that seem a bit beyond guilt Trip and I
think about right, yeah, the obvious band comparison Malevolence, how
much insane personality they have. That's what makes them special.
In a sea of medical bounds you don't even seem
to like metal, here come Malevolence with all of these
crazy fucking things going on in their rifts and this
like in like absolute Cone and the barbarian of a
singer and marrying that with you know, hardcore beatdowns, and
with it a sense of ambition where I remember when
Malicious Intent came out, which was similarly their third album,
and that sense of holy shit, they're playing for the
big leagues here, like they're shooting for the stars. Was
really invigorating. And I'm not saying that Guilt Trip need
to start like jamming these choruses into every song or something,
but any of that interest in basically having any originality
at all or willingness to push things a bit beyond
the bog standard doesn't seem to be there with them.
For a bad two of being signed posted so much
with this kind of it's going to happen. The thing
that is head turning with Guilt Trip is how unhead
turning it is for how big they are. It's not
as legitimately brutal as a you know, a Jesus piece
or something we review this year, like that Killing Pace
record for example, So it doesn't even have that pure
violence ampac. Instead, it's more like half paying attention at
a festival when hate breeder on every riff is so
middle of the road. Every vocal part is exactly what
you'd imagine your head before hearing it. There's barely any variety.
It's just the songs that have the limp singing parts
and the ones that don't. I think it's very safe
entry level hardcore basically, and is that a bad thing
to have in the scene, Not at all. Fine, but
if you've been around the block a couple of times,
there's basically nothing on this album that leaves a distinct
impression that would encourage me to return to it.
Speaker 2: I'm that's fair. I'm very happy to have this album on.
I'll very happily watch Guilt Trip at festival. There's you know,
some fun moscols where they even just shout Guilt Trip
as a moss call at one point.
Speaker 3: I'm like, cool, that's fun. But I do agree it
is very ancient level.
Speaker 2: If people who don't listen to hardcore are gonna get
to hardcore through Guilt Trip because Guilty again popular in
that scene, then I'm willing to let give Guilt Trip
the grace to be that band because I think that
I think they can from Guilt Ship get into more interesting,
better bands than if they were, you know, just listening
to I don't know, Silent Planet or whatever octane core
band who's on the main stage at download festival.
Speaker 3: Like. Put Guilty in that position, and I think that
is a win for at least the music I.
Speaker 2: Like, because it's gonna get that sort of thing in
front of people who could then maybe get into something
more interesting. But at the same time we're talking about
about them being the intro Harker band, not Loose are
right there doing being the sort of the interine of
a hardker band on a much bigger scale with way
more ambition and craft, So like, do Guilty needs to
be the inter of a harkerband.
Speaker 3: It's kind of a bit of an odd one.
Speaker 2: I just thought it was kind of like an interesting
kind of like this is happening, Like what is it
that is many people to go for it?
Speaker 3: Maybe just the meat and potatoes.
Speaker 2: People want a mosh kind of thing, and maybe Guilty
we're just kind of like serving them up at such
a decent rate that people are so happy to go
along with it. Because again you see videos they are
pulling crowds at these festivals, and these crowds are going
hard for it. So it is working, even if it
isn't doing anything to make someone maybe a bit more
of sending here get really excited.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's just a bit like being told like, if
you heard this thing that's really popping off chips, you
should get in on chips really early. They're crazy, Like
I'm not mad about having the bat in the scene,
of course, I'm not but I just like, where's the quality,
you know, where's the magic? Anyway? Our last three albums
is why we move it to underground metal, and this
is the album of the bunch where the most disbelief
that is here, not a second Converge album, not the
first Mars that this album eight years. It's the first
Warning album in twenty years. Rituals of Shame the third
Warning album ever. The UK doom band led by songwriter
Patrick Walker, who in two thousand and six released their
album Watching from a Distance that many people would put
forward as the possible greatest doom metal album of all time,
a massive formative influence on everyone from Pallbearer to Twitching Tongues.
Patrick has described how that phenomenon grew like at the
time in two thousand and six, that album was not
the monolith that it is today, and even as someone
who got into his music in the twenty tens, even
I feel like I've somewhat watched it grow in real
time from a relatively cult thing when I first heard
of it into a unavoidable, immovable mountain, like one of
the albums that truly carries with it this aura. I
think in a way it has become bigger than its creators.
That album is one of those watching from a distance,
is a symbol of what it means to absolutely pull
your heart out for everyone to see through the medium
of heavy music expression. We covered all of this on
an album club last year ahead of them performing that
album at Damnation, but we did know by the time
of that performance that the unthinkable was coming and we'd
beget a new material because for years, Warning we're in
that category or of what you might term something like
exhibition bands where they play live and you could see
the classic material, but no one's actually thinking there's any
expectation of there being new material, like Emperor being the
Quid essential example, or even Slayer now and instead Patrick
was releasing albums with his project forty what Son. But
we're almost getting to a stage where there aren't actually
many bands left who could still come back and release
music at this stage. But of those ones, Warning was
one of the odder ones.
Speaker 4: Yeah, because in that interim period you always had forty
what Son, who released four like they weren't super active,
but across that time away you had four forty what
Sun records, which stylistically meaningfully distinct from Warning absolutely, but it.
It made you more like, what is it that Patrick
Walker needs to purge? Where he needs to go back
to Warning because he has this other project where he's
you know, the Master of the Affairs and it's not
as popular as well known as one who are a
more popular band certainly these days. But you know, he's
been doing fantastic work elsewhere. What's is it that's drawn
him back to his initial project which ended in I
don't know about the personal level, but musically you can
just hear it on that record like such a you know,
you know, it's like an exorcism of pain and melancholy
on the album. It just like you say, it's one
of those which you didn't even debate it in your head.
It just it never seemed possible. It's it's as Mad
Emperor's a great example. If the Empress said were doing
a new album next year, you go book obviously brilliant,
but why.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree. I think in a way, having that
little obligation to do it right, because Patrick already having
a creative outlet on the go, I think that lack
of obligation to even like people expecting you to make
a new album kind of makes the album better, and
it gave me more hope for it because it's not
like he you know, has not been making music. We've
got that oh my god, can he still do it
up twenty years away? Instead, it feels like you just
described in terms of like what would bring him back
to this when it was announced we got Warning back,
I just naturally went Patrick has to have something to like,
something's formulating with that guy, like something he has made
a decision that whatever he has been you know, working
on and wants to express, he feels it's appropriate to
do that with warning rather than forty what Sun, which
kind of does prompt the question are you okay? But
it does it feels totally on their terms rather than
like conceding to some demand that they come back or whatever.
You know, And this album it got'll be thinking about
the phenomenon of like specifically underground metal comeback or reunion
albums after really long periods away following up you know,
seminal records or legacies, and how disproportionately many of them
actually do live up to expectations in this scene, like
we are extraordinarily lucky as a genre to have as
many of these stories over the last fifteen twenty years
as we do. But all of those, I think this
album is it has one of the bigger challenges in
terms of having one specific albatross over their head. Maybe
At the Gates is comparable with having to follow up
Slot with the Soul. But Warning, they're not just following
up like, oh, it's a new Warning album. They're following
up Watching from a Distance, like one of, like I said,
the most symbolic, reverential, you know, records ever made in
this style. And like when this album was first announced,
I was having a conversation with it about with a
friend and about those expectations and how this album could
possibly live up to an album that people have, you know,
all those years of in built emotional relationships with and
he was like, yeah, that's an album I've listened to
after every breakup I've ever had. Like, no matter how
good this album is, it's going to be impossible for
it to be what Watching is from a Distance already
means to people, you know what I mean, It's that
classic case, that classic story. So I tried to go
into this with as sort of blank slate a mindset
as I could, which is of course essentially impossible but
I think this album is just sublime, like just wonderful.
It is the gift as a Warning fan that we
didn't imagine even' even entertain getting, and it is phenomenal.
The reason I sort of like that particular context out
is it's phenomenal that with all of that sort of baggage,
how effortlessly my experience with it as a listener just
slipped into like, Okay, this is the new Warning album.
Speaker 4: You've put that absolutely spar on. It's amazing how effortless
this record was, because you're all the ways of expectation
and even the stuff which maybe your thinking brain is
trying to quash down and go, you know, it's been
twenty years and even though patrich Walker, you know he's
still got the juice and it's all this, that and
the other. That album is a time and a place.
It's a circumstance that the legend of it, nothing's ever
going to come close. So just park that and enjoy
this album in its own terms. That's very hard to
do when Warning sound as distinct as they do, even
from four see What's Sun Like, you know where you're
listening to Warning, when you're listening to Warning and when
the noise comes in for the first time, I was
just swept off my feet, just their guitar tone, Patrick
Walker's voice, the way their rhythm section moves, even though
it's not the same lineup as on that record. You're right,
it just it washes in and all the all my
critical faculties for the duration of this record, they just
evaporate because it's so emotionally stirring, so powerful, so distinct
is the thing that it is. You kind of have
to just surrender to it.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, even just hearing them with like a you know,
pretty perfect modern day production job rather than the particular
like dinginess of watching for distance was sort of somewhat
surreal because you've never heard them sound like that, you know,
But I very very quickly just went okay, yeah, this
sounds natural. And I think it does help to have
followed forty what son as well, because you've not had
a you know, a twenty year you know gap in
the resume where you wonder where that guy was. It's
like you've if you followed him in real time. There
is that through line even across the two projects. And
you know, the musical basis of this is really so
clearly Warning in that it is like doom metal rift
based rather than so kind of open chord based, you know.
But like, we got to scent this album the day
that they released the first single from it, and I
just went straight to putting the album on rather listen
to that track. So the first notes I heard of
this were the opening title track and just like I'm
watching from a distance, along with basically other Patrick Walker
album I've ever heard. But the second his very first
vocal line comes in, and it's that were the shadows,
that high piercing through the darkness voice. It's it's that
sucker punch while being sublime.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 1: It's like the sensation of Warning hits you so squarely
in the chest, but with something just so like, you know,
transcendent about it. There's this incredible sorrow that feels so
good essentially like and wraps you in it like a blanket.
Engineering wise, is sound is like exactly on point, because
Warning's music is so sparse. They're they're you know, they're
not a doom metal band who overwhelm me with like
sonic weight. Like listen to this tone, all this fuzz
filling every gap. It's deliberately minimalist, and there you have
to make every stroke on the guitar and on the
drums count, and it's a really beautiful sounding record. I
always have the sense with warning riffs that they're heavy,
but they often leave off of these kind of like
unresolved cadences, so they kind of hang in the air
and there's always this unresolved tension to them despite how
sparse they are, and then maybe a little while later
in the song it will be resolved. Like the first
riff in Richard's A Shame really hits that feeling for me,
and then five minutes later on the I Can't Close
my Eyes to It section, it brings that like counterwinging,
you know, sort of stability to it. And just like
his other albums, you know, the songs wander, they take
the scenic roots to their destination, and a big part
of the pleasure is essentially the feeling that these songs
are living organisms that have their own, you know, their
own intentions, their own way of approaching things. But when
they eventually decide that they're reaching the point where they're
gonna bring it home, no one does the bridge slash
outro like Patrick Walker. And to go back to that
title track, and it's that vocal line that seems to
like tumble out with him, like it's carrying over the
end of the line, almost just all out of him
in one go. That hit me for the first time
in the way that Warning songs can do, you know,
Like it's just so impactful. And when that happened, I
knew this album was going to be okay, you know
what I mean.
Speaker 4: Fully, And one thing that I do think maybe has
technically improved in the absence of Warning Records is Patrick
has become a better and more confident vocalist in terms
of his range. Like, yeah, obviously we've talked at length
in the ALM Club about the unbelievable emotional weight he's
able to communicate on that record, but that just the
confidence in his voice is present on this record where
it's not on that album, And maybe that's better suited
to its mood, but it means that in those moments
you're describing where it really lifts, which it almost every
track on this record, the last few minutes where it
really takes flying, it opens up and it's it's the
sun cracks through the clouds for the first time. He's
so much better equipped to do that now then maybe
he even was on You know, I think I think
it might be the best do metal album of all time.
But if there's one thing which I might even say
this album improves on compared to that one, it's the
moments like that he is on the form of his
life on this record, not just in the rifts, not
just in the compositions or anything, but pure just in
the voice, if nothing else, he is smashing out the
park and the way that he creates these natural mood
shifts just by opening up his voice a bit more.
It means that these songs, which you're right, are sparse
and I wouldn't necessarily difficult, but like goes slower than
you think they should go. They have so much depth though,
even when when if nothing happens for nine seconds at
a time, you're still recovering from the last thing that happened,
there's still something to pick out in the in the
tapestry almost it's and You're right from you get it
from the first song. For me, it's one of the
best songs of the year, the title track, and its
probably my favorite song of the record. I don't know
if that's just a sequencing thing because it's every time
I put this record on, it's so overwhelming. But the
band had just on totally spellbinding form right from the off.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I agree that Patrick is putting in one
of his best performances. Like on its tail you get Stations,
which is so fucking sad, and that verse melody is
crushing and it just glides along on the sort of
river of tragedy. But exactly like you're saying, the way
his voice just like cuts through when he really lifts
on it, and halfway through you get that again, that
sucker punch moment with that air to night. There's nothing
that can reach me, you know, in the world outside
that part. Every moment like that, it makes every sort
of you know, beat you've taken along the journey absolutely
worth it. Sam, you are I was gonna say more
of a neutral participant to this, like your impression of
watching from a distance when we did it was like,
fuck me, this is bleak, but not necessarily one of
your favorite albums we've ever done, which is fine. And
you know, I'm not expecting you to become a full
blown comfort as much as Warning hilariously have become a
bad with real name recognition. In the hardcore world just
through being unrelentingly sad as fuck, just bite having nothing
to do with it. They're on hard Law this week,
Like I think the day this episode out as well,
which I can't wait to listen to. You've been evasive
going into this record.
Speaker 3: I think the distance I having that album is fantastic.
I have like like kept that album quietly secretly.
Speaker 2: When I've gone back, I think back to that here
I am wide open ber and and I die inside
because that is as perfect as music gets basically at
the moment in that song, and I'm like, fuck yeah,
if that.
Speaker 3: That that's what then? Then like, because that was that
I kept going.
Speaker 2: Back to when we did it anyway, I was like,
that is you know the bit on the album, and
it's what can going back to watching the Distance and
did you come out to be like this.
Speaker 3: SAP is brilliant.
Speaker 2: Ask me how I feel about this album Rituals of
Shane in a couple months time, once I've listened to
it staring outside a kind of like rainy.
Speaker 3: Autumn day window. But I do quite like this for me.
My problem right now is.
Speaker 2: As the untrained ear for Warning, it is quite similar
to watching the Distance, but doesn't have the moments of
like true magic that that album has. I think Stations
is the best song on the record. I think, like
like Watching Distance track two. I don't know what it
is about Warning albums and like track two for me,
but they they come alive, like you have this really sad,
drawn out opener that kind of lures in the world,
and then track two is where they kind of like
you're in now, let the magic happen. I think like
Stations is incredible. Holding on Cradle to the Bruised Black Skies,
the one was like, what.
Speaker 3: Does that mean? It's poetry, not a lot, but like
it is Proba.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it's pro in his delivery. Like I
do think it's interesting that like this album sounding a
bit more put together than Watching with Distance makes me
like it a bit less, Like I mean, Watching this
has been so uncompromisingly raw in every facet makes that
that album again Aura all those things you want to
say that Adam has it all and right now this
time doesn't quite have the same impact for me. But
I think if you have been a Warning fan waiting
for someone like this, more of Warning doing their very
I think like again, like as a kind of.
Speaker 3: Again a bit more casual. I mean, Warning have a
very distinct sound within doom metal.
Speaker 2: That the kind of the sadness, the poetry, the wobbling
sheep like delivery, that like piren Slates for all my
pop punk emo bands that do it, and that Patrick
Walker just does it in a slightly different guys and
suddenly it's the best together.
Speaker 3: Like I am slightly joking, So I don think he
is a very he can sing very he is a singer. No, no,
I think he is a fantastic vocalist.
Speaker 2: I think like it's funny how like not funny, like
maybe one word, but he is so hysterical points in
this album in the kind of like drama and the
way his voice is shaking, and it's like, dude, it
can't be that bad. Can't be that bad, surely not,
but it's so buy it as him putting on an act.
I think he is clearly exercising some intense pain when
he is singing and Warning. There's not a lot for
me talking about individual songs, but outside I think Station
being the best track. I think Teacher is like quite
very really good closed as well, but as a vibe piece,
I do think this is pretty good so far, and
when I've lived a bit longer, I may come back
and say I realized a lot more.
Speaker 3: But I wanted to be.
Speaker 2: Evasive because I didn't want to like give away that
I'm like, I'm a warning convert. I wanted to have
you a bit worried that this is going to be
me cooping on your party again. But I can't do
it to this album. I think this album is too
well crafted for me to kind of be negative about it,
even if I'm not totally like all in and I'm
not going to say this is no the second best
album on RTE your music.
Speaker 3: Wherever I saw someone say it was like positioned, I
was like, yeah, I get why people like this.
Speaker 1: It's come in again pretty hard in terms of how
people have responded to, which I think is really affirming.
Like I said, for a record that had potentially so
much baggage around it, I agree, like, come back to
this in six month and you'll realize that you were
wrong again.
Speaker 3: And no, no, no no, But I'm not saying I'm
wrong because I do like this record.
Speaker 2: I just I just can't quite like it's just a
scorching hot summer at the moment, and each time I've
listened to it, even today for we recorded, and I
was like, I like this even more of each passing listen.
Speaker 3: Firstly, forty five minutes perfect length for this sort of thing.
Five songs.
Speaker 2: They're long song shore, But I don't actually think this
album ever drags on or gets boring because they are
engaging listens and it ends at the exact right moment.
Speaker 3: It should end like the sort of like discipline, as
we still mentioned there.
Speaker 2: I think there is discipline in this record as well,
even with slow, drawn out doom riffs that Cane the
and on that first song he says I can't open
my eyes whatever about one hundred times. Like there's things
like that, which again could be really patio sesting for me.
But I think the song craft is very good and
very well constructed that I can't be negative about it,
even as much as it be really fun to upset.
Speaker 3: The pair of you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but yeah, I put a forty what sunset on
an outbreak on one of the smaller stages and watch
people come out in their tiers. I think that the
first two tracks on this in terms of what you're
saying about, you know, the world of watching for a distance.
But for me this really has those same you know,
it's hard to again gauge it against like the Bridge
of Footprints, which is one of the most legendary you know,
pieces of music do emerge in that world ever, but
those same moments that just knock me for six. This
brings those again. The title track at the start brings
those and again just fully like brought me into the
world the record immediately the second track has those. Then
we move into kind of darker and bleaker sonically territory
with with Night Comes Down, which sadly is not a
Judas Priest cover, and bizarrely that's one of the pre
songs I would actually love to hear Patrick Walker sing
like I'm of thinking, yeah, crush it. But anyway, that
is like a true true doom song, like guitar sounds
plunging down into icy waters, and it's those quintessential British
doom riffs in the lineage of My Dying Bride and
Airilk that feel like more land and you know, desolate
coastlines and decaying churches. Night Comes Down has I'm not
sure if it's a base lead in the same way,
but it almost sounds like a melody here on a
bell Witch record at the start, like it's really beautiful
to hear.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I had the exact same thing when I saw
Night Comes Down. I did think I would not be
mad if after twenty years you came I did a
Judas Priest cover, that would be fine. Heartbreakingly it is not,
but even more heartbreakingly it is a warning song. And
after like those first two, which are you know, if
everything's about melancholic and heart string yanking and all of that,
Night Comes Down leans more into the you know, something
like Bridges on the last record, where it just it
kind of tumbles out of the speakers in a way
that those first two songs stride. Even if they are slow,
and they saw at points Night Comes Down and landing lights,
they're more cumbersome, They lumber about. They've got that thing
which I was saying early about where it feels like
that's the song's going a few em slower than it
should in your head somehow, like it's kind of impossibly dragging.
You know, it's a song that doesn't exist going too slowly.
But I think it has a really cool change of
pace and it really opens up the next sort of
acts of the record. And again talking about a thing
I was say knowly about the second act of these
songs where they really elevate that bit when his again
his voice opens up, is that the night comes down
over me fucking hell. Like for a song which is
a bit more awkward and less perhaps immediately emotionally resonant,
it still has that going for it. And then when
it punches through you've had a few minutes in this
you know, no Man's Land, and that happens again, and
it's it's even more powerful.
Speaker 2: There's kind of like a sadness and a sorrow to
those tracks, but Night comes down to it. It goes
like as a mood piece in the middle of this record.
I think it is really effective. And that's why where
I'm like, I'm engaging with these songs, trying to get
more into the sort of mindset these songs, and I
think that comes down to one way, like I can
kind of piece together the sort of the sadness of
those landscapes.
Speaker 3: I think it's like very evocative songwriting.
Speaker 1: Patrick is such an unbelievable ranger of melodies. Like what
he's able to do on a song like Night Comes
Down where the vocalize the almost take the full verse
to like come back and loop background on themselves and
resolve themselves to where they started. I mean, it's really funny.
If you have like Apple music on your TV, it
will like almost like carryo Key style shade in the
lyrics as they go through, and it takes so long
to get through each word, so it's like.
Speaker 3: Love it's great.
Speaker 1: But from you know, forty what Son into Warning, he's
really naturally able to shift what he does because forty
What's on his vocal approach is often quite sort of
delicate and rested, whereas here Warning he's able to read
like throw himself out there and any sense of kind
of barrier is gone. You know, it's just like crying
out into the darkness. And in talking about the darkness
of the record, the final words of the title track
with an ever living, self defeating horror that follows me
wherever I fall, like, it's just it's so intensely vulnerable
and open in the way that you know, you know
previous Warning material to be. He's just he's one of
the best things we've ever produced, Like an absolute emotional magnet.
Landing Lights is full of that kind of longing that
is like a you know, a maturated through line from
like a watching from a distance. This really wonderful chorus,
it's just like concentrated yearning. But then what really knocks
me on my ass is as sad you're throwing forward
to teacher at the very end of the record, which
is already beautiful and full of melody, but man, when
it decides it's got into where it wants to be
and he belt on that, Oh what to learn? And
it's like the revelation at the end of the record,
like and so much light is flooded into those dark
confines of this record. There's something about that that just
it unlocks that like almost innate communal desire you have
as humans to like join in choirs of song. You know,
we're just like how much warmth that fucking tsunami through
into the last couple of minutes of the record, Like
that's gonna have people in floods of tears, that the
show is like footprints all over again. You know, you
just kind of have to exhale at the end of
the album.
Speaker 4: Just like after that, I don't know if we're going
to get None of us know if we're gonna get
another Warning album after this, or if this is a
one off, then they'll go back to business usual. But
if it is, what a swan song like you know,
watching from a Distance ending on Echoes, which is a
perfect closer for that record. But we sort of said
in the Alm Club it's like that they helped the
band and defeated before that song even begins, and it's
like the last wheeze before they completely fall apart. This
it's not it's not full we are the champions, but
there is something about it which does feel like, you know,
the sun coming up, like there's some hope there, like
the storm has passed. And as a closing statement for
especially for a band like this where them is unremissent misery,
that's that's an immensely powerful way to bow out. And
I think it makes this record, even if you're not
totally attuned to this style of music, with not a
big Warning fan in the last few moments, makes it
so inarguably dynamic that it ends up being a really
rewarding and satisfying listen rather than just I'll go to
that when I've been done, Okay, It suddenly becomes a
record which you could put on basically as and When,
which I don't think that Warning album existed before this one,
so for that alone, it serves an invaluable purpose. Yeah,
I agree.
Speaker 1: I think Watching with Distance is obviously a record that
you recommend with this incredible hush tone in your voice,
but it is quite an ordeal to get through to
the very end of it, whereas this ending the way
it does, I think, you know, kind of conversely, it
makes it a more inviting record maybe than Watching the
Distances and you kind of like you reach the end
of it and you're like, fuck, man, I want to
spin it back to the beginning, which I've been doing
about a fucking Warning album, you know what I mean.
And I think the first Warning album, the Strengths the Dream,
is like a really cool, kind of underrated record if
you're interested in the UK doom scene of the nineties
that produced bands like Cathedral and Electric Wizard and so on.
But it's not really what people think of today when
we say classic Warning. So in that style, when people,
you know, say Warning, they've pretty much been talking about
one record for twenty years, and now suddenly we have
a second one in that lane. And so every morsel
of that is precious, and it's not so much picking
up right where they're left off as it is again
very organically come into the conclusion, I think I have
something I want to express with heavy music in this
band again. So it comes with all the same genuine
depth of humanity that their previous record does.
Speaker 3: And I think, on one.
Speaker 1: Hand, this is the twenty years in the making follow
up to one of the greatest albums of all time
that manages to not fall down under that weight. And
on the other, if you bring you know, forty what
sign into the equation and you know, Patrick's wider kind
of career, it is part of what has been a
continuous songwriting lineage that has been consistently fantastic over you know,
for twenty years. I think this is both one of
those great comebacks that I was alluding to with all
those you know undergrand metal bands too have come back
and delivered something special after all the years. And at
the same time it's a very genuine, almost unassuming next
step from one of our greatest living songwriters. I think
this is a breathtaking beautiful record.
Speaker 4: Yeah, considering it was an impossible task, it's a total
home run. Twenty twenty six has already given us some
really special comeback records or even if not strictly comeback albums,
like otherwise triumphant albums in the underground and extreme music sphere.
This is one of the absolute best. This is walked
into my top five of the year so far. I
adored it from first listen, and every time I listen
to it I like it more, if that's even possible,
I think for the thing that it is, which, like
I say, there's no living up to the album that
precedes it, and yet they have. It's like, literally what
more could you ask for?
Speaker 1: Yeah, unbelievably done. No one's ever said this about Warning before,
but rejoice everyone, they did it. Our black metal stop
off this month comes from storm Keep and the Nocturns
of is Willim Wherever or whoever that is. This is
also the first album ever released on Vespirian, which is
a new label that started up by I believe some
people who involved with Century Media. Maybe we'll see more
coming from them in the future. It's one of the
records from this scene with the highest amount of expectation
around it, I would say, as it is the follow
up to the incredibly popular debut story album Tales of
Other Time. This is one of the Colorado blood Incantation
family of bands that collectively includes some of the most
vital bands in the extreme metal scene right now. Isaac Folk,
who is the drummer in both Blooding Cantation and Wayfarer,
is the primary creative behind storm Keep. There are other
members of Wayfarer that play in this band as well,
but Isaac is handling the drums, the vocals, much of
the guitars and keys. This is his baby, really under
the name Offane Verma thaks in this band, getting his
name there from the eighties fantasy film Dragon Slayer, I
must imagine, but immediately that obviously positions this in relation
to some of the very best bands of the entire
world right now. The debut Don't Keep album, Tales of
Other Time, was released in late twenty twenty one, and
it really put forward Isaac's kind of initial vision for
this project, which is, if you've ever watched a drum
cam of Isaac playing with Blooding Cantation, you may have
noticed the massive Emperor tattoo on his arm, and compared
to say Wayfarer, who have that like Western black metal
thing going on. This is fantastical, bombastic, kind of symphonic
leaning black metal in line with you know, the Swedish
and Norwegian greats of that style and Tales of Other Time.
I can attest five years on from that record. It
is one of the black metal albums of this decade
that people within that you know, dedicated niche have most
firmly taken into their hearts. Like if you were to
go around Fortress Festal for example, and poll what are
the best albums of the twenty twenties, I reckon Tales
of Other Time would pretty easily crack that top ten
for that kind of audience there. It's a really beloved
album for its ability to tap into that like epic,
grandiose black metal that people you know again associate with
bands like Emperor or you know, Dissection, etc. It's got
bright blue cover art of a fortress in the snow
and the fact that literally the opening lyric of the
first track on that album is quite quickly became iconic
for simply being a wizard. Elliott's as one of the
decades more popular black metal records. Did you get into
that's Donkey plbum?
Speaker 4: I'm looking at it now and I'm getting flashbacks because
this must have come out, not maybe not during COVID,
but around then. And there are so many albums that
I heard around that time, which many of which I loved,
but then forgot they exist, and years later I'm rediscovering them,
and I'm looking at that album coming out. I have
definitely heard it, and you're saying that a wizard that
definitely rings about. I was planned to go back to
it again before this to recontexturize because just a slightly
further head. This album is very, very good, but I
definitely recognize I've certainly seen it around since. So everything
you're saying rings true.
Speaker 1: Yeah, people love the album, I'm telling you, and so
I think naturally the follow up was quite anticipated. But
there are a few places where this album and its
rollout has sort of a you know, zigged where that
album z act, because the overall genre of you know, grandiose,
fantastical European style black metal has remained in place. But
I think I can only draw you to the cover
arts of the two albums. The former, as I say,
is bright blue, magical, whimsical in a way. It reminds
me of records like in the nightside of clips, you know,
the day of a Winter Sun Minnis Morgl maybe where
a certain kind of like ethereal winter magic that comes
out in those records. This one massive titted goth sorceress
writing an evil black dragon in a dark cavern environment
of some kind. It's moved more into like the late nineties,
early naughties kind of style of you know, Cradler Felth
and Demu and satiric con as well, where they were
trading and that like more lustful van piric sort of esthetic,
you know. And the music, while still recognizable as storm Keep,
has subtly of old in that direction as well. That's
the musical context of where storm Keep were coming from.
And I think what is relevant in the change going
to the second Holur. I think if you do you
know A and B these albums, they are quite interesting
in their contrast to each other. Elliott, you said that
you like the record, Sam. It's a style of black
metal that I know that we can have some fun
with from time to time. So overall, do you guys
like this record?
Speaker 3: This is my favorite black male record of the year
I've heard. I fucking love this.
Speaker 2: I have just been having so much fun with this
because this just gives me the exact thrill I want
to go to black metal for it is evil, over
the top, bombasket, bombastic, a little bit camp, but just
so so much fun. The thing is, it's really varied.
It's it sounds huge while sounding shit at times, like
it's mailed on the kind of like Timmy symphonic shit,
but make me it sound as big as possible.
Speaker 3: The riffs on this fucking go. There is one songs
has a fucking two step riff in there, like there's
so much like fun shit on there.
Speaker 2: Like so obviously here's the drummer from Blowing Condess see
drumming on this as well, or yeah, because he is
fucking putting in a shift behind like the drums on this,
like doing some insane shit. I think this is so
relentlessly enjoyable. I like I'm grinning the entire time.
Speaker 3: This album is on. All the song titles are hard,
you know.
Speaker 2: Taste Mortal Blood has this like big bombastic intro and
then it sounds evil and then you get the shit
symphonic stuff that sounds fucking awesome.
Speaker 3: Like I can't say enough good things about this record.
I think this is.
Speaker 2: Fucking brilliant, and I haven't even listened to the last
Tomcup record, so I've got into this complete fresh as
I heard the single Office, where I was gonna like
I can hear the empering with a bit more dimu,
but then there's like, this goes so hard on the
demmy ball and stuff, and I love that shit, so
I'm I'm so in on this.
Speaker 4: There's something special about really talented, smart musicians willfully being stupid,
and when that's done right, it is joy beyond joy.
And the amount of talent in this band is absolutely ridiculous.
Every single component you can hear is played expertly, but
they're using powers. They're using their powers for silliness because
this record they are not shy about showing their influences
or randomly doing like you say, two step parts or
The thing about the symphonic blackmail edge to this record
is I'm really glad we're doing this not long after
doing the ninety ninety seven special, where going back to
those records, you're reminded I remember when I don't remember,
but there was a time when this style of music
was for genuine mad men in the frozen tundra and
not for you know, the Berlin Orchestra to play on
and it's that spirit that's captured on this record, and
it means all the records that I'm thinking as reference
points to this, you're going there's a bit of anthems
to the Welk and at Dusk the Cradle record that
kept coming to mind for me was Midian because this
thing is halt up and muscular and cruis at points
of the way that the albums before it don't really
are the ones after it. They're doing other stuff as well,
but just as a way of like the best of
both worlds where it's kind of naughty and difficult and
esoteric but also loads and loads of fun. It's a
high it's a high wirebout that's really hard to nail
and they've absolutely smashed it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's sort of shift into again the more
ott kind of seductive, vampiric black metal. You might have
noticed that's kind of back in vogue again like the
last couple of years, and with you know, Worm's Necropalace
that came out at the start of this year that
we reviewed and their shift into like ridiculous Castlevania, some
Vonnit black metal, Worm and storm Keep, both some of
the more hyped bands in the underground of the past
couple of years, and then shifting gears into this style.
The popularity of that kind of esthetic in the merch
and the promo pics and stuff, which if you like
the vibe of this record, I encourage you to go
and look at, you know, everything surrounding it in the
world they built for it as well. It's a flavor
that's coming back into fashion a little bit with that
again kind of campiness. I think in storm Keeps case,
it's absolutely so sincere, but a real loving embrace of
like the cheesier elements that some people reject in Black Bettle.
And I do know that there are people who really
like the first storm Keep record who are not down
with them going this far in this direction. On this one,
I have always liked those things, and I think it
does make an interest comparison with that Worm record, because
that might be one of the most maximously silly and
loving it albums in this style ever made. Storm Keep,
I think, is more tightly focused on the songwriting in
the details. And that's not to say that that the
Worm Records doesn't have great songs. It does. It's my
favorite thing of that band have made. But when you
think about that record, the image that is conjured is
twelve minute songs of all guitar solos, right, and it's
just so ragingly ott. This storm Keeper is in a
similar playground, but it's I think it is a bit
more tasteful in you know, the nailing the variety between
the songs, that kind of thing. It's a little more,
a little more finely crafted than quite as exuberantly in
the end. I think both of these albums we're describing
here at the sort the vanguard of this trend are
both really strong in some different areas. This one, I've
been getting a lot of pleasure from getting into. This
record offers seven distinctly interesting songs. The first trap that
tastes with Mortal Blood is the like inspiring Galloper where
it starts all fucking like, you know, vampiric and dark lord,
but also I swear he Trojan horses a straight up
blooding cantation riff in it. There's this bit of a
bell well well, when I know about two and a
half minutes in and it's it's it's blood cantation tech death.
It's like he can't help himself. You know that you
can just tell that it's the same hand that has
written several riffs throughout their catalog. But then it also
has this like really catchy, like euro folky black metal
chorus refrain, And I can't believe.
Speaker 2: How much I like that chorus, the folks of that chorus.
It's super catchy. I couldn't believe. I was like, God,
damn it, get me into this shit.
Speaker 1: That's the fucking earworm of the month. I swear like,
that's the catchiest vocal line of all these records. I've
been huddling that to myself over the last couple of weeks.
It's such an earworm, which you don't always get in
this kind of black metal, you know. And then they
even key change it as well, and it's like at
that point you're listening to like dark power metal, it's
like power metal, but make it golf.
Speaker 3: That's such great, great thing. Yeah, that's that.
Speaker 2: Key changes when I was like, I fucking love this chorus,
God damn you pern, but it's so catchy.
Speaker 3: But I agree because it's kind of got this like dour,
kind of like clean vocal is.
Speaker 2: It is GoF I mean that's what makes it more
palalerable for me and especially I think so is it
imperious Sanguine? Is that the one where it goes like
fully into the into the gothing and that that's one
of my favorite tracks because that is just so seductive
goth moody vibes, but again just has a slight wink
and kind of like glimmering it side of the Madman
at Work. This is no album like I've now decided
give me this kind of symphonic sound over what Lorna
Shaw and Ilk are doing.
Speaker 3: Give me. I'm with you guys now. Stuff needs to
sound a bit shit, it turns out because at least
then it sounds.
Speaker 2: Like someone has kind of been like, how do we
actually arrange in the way that that's good, or someone
looks going dial everything up and make it sound as
big as possible. It's like, No, there's some actually like
really cool symphonic melodies weird into these songs and they're
done with limitations. That means the melodies actually have to
stand out more. Yeah, that's the sort of magic trick
of this record.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I actually think this record production wise is perfect, and
I don't think it's as you know, it has an
element of it for sure, but I don't think it's
as like proper.
Speaker 3: I'm exaggerating it a bit, I agree, but it's still
flavor to the album. Sure.
Speaker 1: But sometimes me and Elliot will rave that albums and
they're just like proper, like you know, biscuits in cassio
and that's great, whereas this it has tons. It is
more like again Turn of the Millennium Cradle and Dimu
and stuff like that. Like the intro of the Black
Dragons of This Woman has this descending strings line which
is really it sounds and it's a range like death
cut on the gedd and Ship. You know, it's just
in this more sort of tech tight contained world. It's
it's particularly I think when you start hearing the pianos
and stuff and they are allowed to really echo out
in the mix. I actually think it's really masterfully mixed,
Like it's not a cheap, low fire record. It just
toes the line really precisely. There's that bit in really
echoes in the vast of sequestration, which has this really
like eccentric mid period Emperor or demo demo kind of
submerged castle kind of bubbling around synth, and that that
track is really then channeling like the Loss and Curse
of Reverence, like that kind of rampaging black battle, but
with strings mischievously running rampant all over it sacarine subjugation,
which incidentally is what it feels like to review modern
metalcore albums. Super fast and obviously you have the dramma
of blooding cantations, so the blasts are going fucking crazy,
and this is really heavily riff based, like for all
the flowery stuff and the synth and everything, this is
not skimping on the heaviness. Like it's a really powerful,
monstrous record.
Speaker 4: We have those bits like on a you mentioned echoes
in the Vast of Sequestration. Sequestration, there's a bit in
that where it feels like the guitars and bass was
all give way and you're left with this warbling dungeon synth,
but the drums don't stop blasting, which is an insanely
challenging thing to mix properly. I don't know how you
did it. It's not a challenge, John, Like what we said,
We've reviewed the Mantle Wag a log and it was like,
how have you made acoustic guitars that sound that loud
and yet still feel like acoustic guitars. That there's a
similar feat of production there where it manages to sound
quiet and subtlet and you have to lean in to
hear it, and yet it's Isaac Fox on the Isaac
how do you say that name? Isaac Folk on the drums,
who is just.
Speaker 3: He's tearing it up.
Speaker 4: And that's the only thing about this record, which I
think if we're contrasting you with the Worm record for
Earliar this year, which is very playful and colorful and expressive,
this thing is also just hard as nails when it
needs to be. When when that slam comes on, imperious
sanguine eroticism with a oh succubus slide, it's so fucking evil,
and it's it's just it's a it's a gut punch, which, again,
records of this style they can be a bit lightweight
in a frothy and they could be brilliant for that,
but it does create a cool dynamic interchange when he's
able to swap down and you go, oh, yeah, this
is a guy who plays in the best current death
metal band.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like Carnal Tapestries of nail torn flesh is you know,
it's better be brutal or that. And I think you
know that this record is it kind of in comparison
to the first storm Keep record, I think it helps
counterbalance that. It is maybe more embracing those slightly campier elements,
but with it it's also heavier than the previous one
because it's gone in this darker direction and that just
really sells it. And yeah, like Imperial Sanguine Euroticism is
one of my favorite tracks as well, because it's it's
really reminiscent of like mid period like going into like
equilibrium era Emperor when they would starts singing clean a
lot more frequently, or even since when Gals sings it's
got a little bit of that as well. And iSER
like he's not, you know, a knockout singer, but he's
got this real depth of character in his like cleaner tone,
this sort of baritone that he has, and that melody
in the beginning of that song. It's this real sort
of like beautiful Sombernus, like he is this like dark
ruler sat atop is throwne, you know, looking outing, having
conquered everything, and that trade off into the sucky bus
growl hook is just so fucking rad. It Also it
has these like you know, tracks like that alongside the
rages where it lets the dark majesty of these songs
get really slowly teased out, and you particularly have that
in the closing track, Ballad of a Fallen Star, which
is like nine and a half minutes long. There's this
fucking phenomenal bit where the backing vocal choir chimes in
with what I imagine has to be an intentional callback
to how that first album starts, because the backing vocal
goes a wizard but it's done with so much gravity
and conviction. I love it, and as well as the
obvious again blackmuton names or Emperor's Demus and that I
think there's a definite like undercurrent of Winter Sun Love
in Storm Keep. It was definitely there with the first record,
and then here that like wonder and grace in the
melodies that like playing to the back of the theater
kind of overwrought vocal deliveries that we've spoken about Yai
doing right, they come they come through here. But then
there's also a full on like Classic two thousand and
four interfereum folk metal riff after the incredible lead section
of that song, and it's so so welcome hearing someone
evoke that kind of thing with seriousness instead of it
being like this bloodstock second stage novelty gibberish, Like yes,
I never get anything like that that's done with this
sort of like artisanal hand anymore. That's this good anymore.
Speaker 2: I mean, that's why I can stomach that stuff on
this record, because it does feel like again what it
is a playful want to say, there's a bit of
a wink to it.
Speaker 3: It is as are as craft and the songs.
Speaker 2: It's taken seriously to fit it in with the songs,
and you're right, this doesn't feel like bloodstock second stage
shlock that I would find really irolling and annoying. So
when it is playing with folkmo and stuff like that
and alongsid all the symphonics of the black metal, it
sits naturally as just feeling part of like the world
and the tatty of these songs. And I think it's
a really vice element to the album.
Speaker 4: Well, dare I say Ballad of a Fallen Star, when
those clans come in towards the end, it's a bit Arcturus,
which we have argued to the hills on this show
and now we're all gonna hold hands. They say, are
a brilliant band, always have been well maneuvered.
Speaker 2: Maybe like do you know what, maybe this is like
storm Keeping, static Dress, like bringing black metal and Naughty's
post hard Poe emo together, Like they have similar things
in that they're doing that kind of like juke box
throwback sort of thing, which is the main in songwriting.
Speaker 3: So who knew that though those bands would make strange bedfellows.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and then the last like twenty seconds of that
song end almost exactly like Inoa Satana. It's great. I
think if you put this band, you know, next to
the other bands in the sort of membership family like Blood, Incantation, Wayfairer,
et cetera. Storm Keep obviously isn't, as you know, innovative.
It's the one that is the most like it's operating
in a pre existing artistic sphere and is a real
love letter to those things. But when you've got someone
as unbelievably talented as Isaac writing this stuff and letting
all of his passion for this kind of music out,
and he has pushed himself here to not just do
the same thing again that as he did in the
first one. I I certainly like this as much the
first storm Keep album my hot take, as I actually
think this is quite a bit better, like I love
them going darker and more gothic. We're at the halfway
point and it's been a really good good year for
black metal up to this point. And this is not
quite my top top pick, but it's definitely in. You know,
it's worthy of being in that conversation and it's a
must if you enjoy this style of black metal. So
storm Keep and the Nocturns of iswallin the final extreme record.
We've got very good, well rounded, you know, representation here
with doom, black and death metal. And this is another
one finally cleaning up from the last week of May.
But when it came to death metal, I didn't hear
anything else. I wanted to shout about more Funabram and
beckoning the Void of Eternal Silence. This is another long
in the making record, as they are a smaller name
and they haven't had a record in ten years. I
imagine this is the first time that many people will
be hearing about Funabreum, but they've actually been around for
Bloody Ages. They formed in nineteen ninety nine, but it's
definitely not been a case of quantity. This is their
third full length album. The others came out in two
thousand and one and two thousand and nine. In twenty sixteen,
they put an EP called Exhumation of the Ancient, and
that's the first thing that I heard. So I've been
a fan for ten years and they haven't done anything
at that time. But it's quite great that Finebrem despite
being what you could easily on those terms you know,
call a veteran band, can come out of activity and
just very smoothly slip into the current continue of underground
death metal. And if I told you this was a
brand new band, you'd probably believe me, because basically, if
you like anything in that realm that's come out in
the last ten years, I'm gonna assume I speak for
everyone here. I'll be shocked if I don't, and feel
free to shock me. But I think we could pretty
easily recommend you this Suniborum record.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I like again as the sort of the least kind
of like in on the Deaf mel thing. I think
the sound taps into a lot of like divin AERA's
deafel that make it very easy to recommend. It's it's
it's got the Cavaners kind of like crypt death mel thing,
but it's got you know, slamming.
Speaker 3: Hard rifts and like technical bits.
Speaker 2: I think I think this ABMs really cool and again
I will wasn't you was gonna like it as much
as you'd hope I would, But I think this is
very good.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's a record which is certainly quirky and has
some production and songwriting oddities to it, which maybe on
first lesson for some people they might find odd. But
if you like death met this the thing we've said,
well maybe a depressing absence of times more recently, but
the death mol which really feels like death This has
that quality where the album feels like it's rotting as
you listen to it. And if you like that, which
you should, I feel like death metal. This has that
in spades.
Speaker 1: What you've just described described is exactly the sensation that
maybe a fan of you and a bra and it's
what this record has delivered to me in spades. This
record is so juicy, like if you like groovy, nasty
death metal, this is a stinky beautiful steak of the
good stuff that even though this isn't even though this
is an underground death metal record, I think this is
maybe one of the more universally appealing of those amongst,
you know, people with a taste for the style, because
this thing is so primordially satisfying that I just struggle
to imagine anyone who likes death metal not getting a
kick out of it. My favorite funebre in fact, and
you'll appreciate this, Sam, He's probably tired of getting wheel
out reviews at this point. But Daryl, who is the
front man's bands It's nineteen ninety nine, is one of
the punks in Jason Takes Manhattan who Jason scares away
by taking his mask off in Times Square honestly true story,
but otherwise are a more recent claim to fame is
they have added since the last time they recorded anything,
They've added to their lineup. Phil Tugas, who is the
ultra prolific guitar whiz who is in As it Happens
Worm as well as his own universe of bands such
as Catiarist and Psycaradius and Exul and so on. He's
been in the band for ages now, but they just
haven't put anything out before this. I think I've heard
somewhere during the gestation of all this that they might
have recorded this album in like twenty nineteen or something
like that and then.
Speaker 4: Just sat on it.
Speaker 1: I don't know why underground bands behave this way sometimes,
or if that's correct, but anyway, the great thing about
this branch of death metal is there's no effect from
that in the record coming out, because it comes out
and it sounds primal and guttural and belching. It's an
unchained style of music. And that's not saying this album
doesn't have quirks, because I'm glad you're pointing those out, Elliott.
It really does. But the core of it is bloody
hunks of meaty death metal. That basically the best record
of the year so far for that particular thing in
my opinion, Like it's just so fucking honkin I love it.
Speaker 4: All the adjectives were deploying here are so like unique
for metal record, and it calls upon that because the
way this record sounds, even though in many ways it's
classic and vintage and use word primordial, it's it's also
just strange and there's things on here which are like
I say, sort of rarity, and like the guitar tone
on this album. It's not heavy in the way that,
oh it sounds like a chainsaw. Well, that's a nice
HM two pedal. It's heavy in a way that's kind
of hard to quantify with words. It feels heavy the
way when you're at the bottom of a pool of water,
the way the water on top of you feels. It's
like it's it feels like the act of playing it
would be actively exhausting. Or so when this band lean
into a real death doom riff, it's it's like chewing
through overcooked meat. I mean, I'm making it sound I'm
making it sound much more unpleasant than it is. But
it's a sensation which is hard to come by in music.
And I saw I listened to it, and I don't
know how you've managed. I don't know if it's in
the way the rifts are written or just it's purely
in the tone of it. But there's something kind of
like physically challenging about this. The way this record sounds.
I mean that in the as the highest possible compliment.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the riffing is in that kind of incantation realm
that like gurgly intestine squeezing, you know, squishy kind of sound,
and some of that like finished death doom feel the
next it's presence felt as well. But it's not just
a slow death out of record, because the drummer, by
the way, is so fucking propulsive on the blast, like
some prime pete zandervial shit going on on a good
amount of this. It's it is a really physical listening experience,
the way it slips inside the same track from like
utterly doomed and frigid to then just like lightning off
the mark. And part of the reason I wanted to
bring it on is I feel like it's the kind
of record that could unite the tribes of the more
underground you know, death metal heads who like things to
be more evil, and then the people who are coming
in through you know, your Frozen Souls and Sagway super
Bowls and those kind of bands who have that more
sort of caveman feel. Because I think this excels at
both like it does exist on the more underground side
of it, and I'm going to bring up some of
the stuff that this does in regards to atmosphere, but
I think this is also amongst the most accessible records
of that kind of camp because it is just as
fucking ass beating as those other bands who are talking about.
Speaker 2: That is why I really like this record. It coind
reminds me of I want to say, Spectral Voice. Is
that the one that's like really cavinous and evil and
decaying I've read on their albums before.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's got that kind of feeling to it. But
then a song like.
Speaker 2: Through the barren Halls of even Imptness, they drop the
most fugged out riff like like like swaggering I say,
ass beating like that definite hardks the thing in there.
So when you've got that alongside the real kind of evil,
atmospheric like dank reeks of death kind of thing, it
does kind of just like Unit the tray rapping, like
it can make me find that sort of stuff that
can be a bit be obbrotused to be hard to
get into. It makes it easier because at the same
time that you're doing that, I know at any moment
they're gonna start dropping in like a million and one
dive bombs and start shredding out loads of crazy solos
and blasting every hard and doing kind of swaggering grooves
whilst always kind of lett out that kind of like
evil grunt vocal, it kind of just hits on all
these things on these songs, and it sounds like that
could be messy, but they kind of tied together weirdly cohesively.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that track that you mentioned is maybe my favorite
because that that riff is all muscle. It's got that
rolling tank feel that we always talk about with Bolt Thrower,
but with like the extra sliminess on the riff of
like an incantation, you know, and the overall sonic weight
of that is fantastic. The grooves that the drummer does,
like that thick, cracking snare. They're cave man without being stupid,
you know, because he would just switch fill switch feel
on a fucking dying like so mightily. And then you
have like in the Dark Domains, which the intro riff
the low end how it is that like, oh my
intestines have fallen out of my ass onto the floor
With those lowest notes, it's morticition esque, just stinking and rotting.
But then halfway through it like slips into like a
punk beat, and you're halfway into the record at that
stage with that song, and you haven't had that particular
groove yet. Like it's pretty versatile for a seemingly straightforward record.
Speaker 4: And the other thing that I think really balances those
two worlds that we're talking about is in the vocal interplay,
where the thing that really reminded me of is Symphonies
of Sickness, where you have these low growls which are
so just burpy and gross, and they primordial is the
word there, because it's like they come from time where
death metal vocalists hadn't exactly worked out where the death
metal gral was going to be. And the tone that
the tone that Bill Steering nails on that record, which
I've never really heard anyone else nail quite the extent
that he does there. This record has that, and the
absolute perfect thing to juxtapose that with is the Jeff
Walker retch, which this also has. It's this high, fairal
shriek that really cuts through the mix, and I think
that could appeal to both sides because it's much more
legible than the more than the really extreme death metal
vocals where it is just you know, the toilet noises
well familiar with, but it still sounds alien and strange
and dangerous in a way that you know, like the
Frozen Soul, Like Frozen All are a great band, I
don't get a lot of danger from that band, and
like the vocals are. I mean, the fact that Rob
Flynn could be on that record at all kind of
tells you everything was he would have nowhere to go.
This just does not sound really It's legible and yet
doesn't sound like a person, which is like the two
things which are the hardest things to do with death metal,
and they nail it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't want to go back to just criticizing
the Frozen Soul that we did last month, that Elliott
you and I had had some problems with, but that
this record came out like three weeks after and it
has a similar kind of cold atmosphere that.
Speaker 6: They go for.
Speaker 1: But as much as I enjoy parts of the Frozen
Soul record, this record just really gave me like the
complete experience that I was looking for and kind of
showed how it should be done because the production, the
recording of this, the guitar tone, the grooves, it's so
thick and mountainous, but also then like three dimensional because
this record also for some reason they've decided to go
really hard on adding this like snow capped icy packaging
to it in a way that you would more so
expect from the black metal that we've just spoken about
with storm Keep, and it's quite here like unique hearing
it apply to a death metal record, where it has
a full on fucking symphonic intro track like you would
hear on a symphonic black record, and then beyond it
just being like here's an intro and then an interlude
as well. It's kind of quite closely integrated into some
of the death metal tracks, Like the third track has
these full I'm not sure what exactly language that that
title is in, but it goes really hard on like
that looming, droney ambience that works really well with the
death metal, like you are entering some kind of like
ancient musty crypt or something with all the you know,
decrepit old art effects hung off the walls. And then
the final track, the Whisping Whispering Cathedral Brackets epilogue. Very
bold to label that your epilogue, because it's really the
eight and a half minute closer, you know, but it
has this like crepuscular texture with the organs and everything,
and it does IgA and it adds this like third
dimension to what is you know in the meathead crews
of the record that really like it seals the deal.
It brings it all together.
Speaker 3: I think on this, I think that was one for me.
Speaker 2: Where again I was like, by the end of it,
I was like, ah, do I really eight minute close
of this sort of thing? Because I do really like
this record, but I was like I was going to
feel like I'd had my fill of it, and then
that close of frozen some like gothic doom bits and
like all the spooky keys and all that sort of stuff,
and I was like, oh cool, they're still finding ways
to keep this sound alive and different and get some
curls in that I wasn't necessarily expecting. Where like Sam,
where it does kind of deliver on like either big
rus crasos or like evils ort of things that are
like the like I say, the cavenous crypt sort of stuff.
They keep finding some little pockets and songs to throw
something a more interesting sound in there.
Speaker 3: That that was sort of catch my ear and go like,
oh cool, I can go for more of this. Yeah.
Speaker 4: I think that the songs themselves, they don't really write bangers,
not that you're going to expecting it. But it's not
like you could say it songs like this or the
songs on this record, you couldn't pull them out of
context and shown to someone who's new to death Mount
and say, hey, check that out. But if you sit
down and listen to the record and you allow it
to invite you into its world, they like you said something.
They throw those moments out frequently enough where if you
ever Filly starts to get a bit lost in the noise,
there's these life rafts to grab onto it along the
way where it's like, Okay, that's a hulking, big riff,
that's a fact groove, that's a bomb. And as far
as a best of both words or like a crossing
the barrier between those two things, I think it's a
really cool and it's got an appeal beyond just that.
It's not like a just a compromise, it's an all
and that's got so much character of its own that
I think can appeal to pretty much anyone's interest in
death metal.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and then there is also the final element on
top that Phil tugas. My favorite thing that he's ever
made is his death metal band Catialist who also haven't
released an album in ten years, or even his funeral
doom and band Atrementous who haven't had a record in
six years. Here's like distinct le guitar feel in the
realm of like uzzy Pussy death metal has kind of
given me a double fix where it's given me a
little taste of that as well as like Funebreum coming back,
It's got again these like real funeralistic components that are
so dark and imposing, but then you know it's not
as solo mad as like the World album for example,
but you'll be enjoying some really hard, awesome death metal
groove and then one of his unmistakable crazy tappy leads
will just take off and it is just like a
beautiful cherry on top, and it adds this real proficiency
and musical flare to where other bands can be more
brain dead. It's absolutely killer death metal in many ways
compared to what I just said about twenty twenty six
for black metal, I think the death metal has been
a little slower with any reviewed like three four records
so far, but this is one of the big highlights
for sure. So Funebreum with Beckoning the Void of Eternal Silence.
That is the record we have got for you this time.
Thank you very much for joining us and bearing with
us through the heat and some of our tech difficulties
and whatnot that we've got going on. But let us
know what you make of the returns of Marmazettes and warning,
whether you've got new discoveries in the likes of storm
Keep and Funebreum, the second Converge album of twenty twenty six.
There's a lot there to be sinking your teeth into
from all across the musical spectrum. Do get into it
and give us your thoughts. Next week we'll be back
with Outbreak Festival, because that's where we are headed this
very weekend and going to watch the like of elect
Us on Fire and Hate Breed and Convert and Suicide Tendency,
all sorts going on there. So we'll be back with
a report from that if we survive these these sweltering rays,
but if we don't, we hope to see you back
once again.
Speaker 3: See here's everybody for being with us.
Speaker 2: By