Speaker 1: Hello everybody, Welcome to That's Not Metal, and welcome to
Speaker 1: a big old episode for us this May. This is
Speaker 1: the reviews back here on That's Not Metal. We are
Speaker 1: your weekly rock and heavy metal podcasts. In this particular week,
Speaker 1: we are coming at you with a delectable selection of
Speaker 1: releases from the worlds of metal, punk, alternative rock, all
Speaker 1: things heavy to give to you, and we're going to
Speaker 1: give you the lowdown on why. These are some of
Speaker 1: the records that have come out this particular month that
Speaker 1: you should if you have not so far, you should
Speaker 1: check in on these and give you our thoughts on them.
Speaker 1: My name is Parnhish. With me to do this task,
Speaker 1: Elliot Paisley is joining me for this one. How you doing, man,
Speaker 1: very well?
Speaker 2: I've been enjoying the heat.
Speaker 3: Oh yes, it has been that weeks.
Speaker 2: It's been pretty I mean, for some of the albums
Speaker 2: we're doing, it could not be less appropriate. But there
Speaker 2: is there is one that really aligned nicely.
Speaker 1: So yeah, we have got some records, maybe specially selected
Speaker 1: to try and balance out the ones that do feel
Speaker 1: completely inappropriate. But we're not the ones who released them
Speaker 1: this month. They are so to blame them. But today
Speaker 1: we have got to talk about in the reviews the
Speaker 1: new albums from Basement Frozen Soul, Haggard, A Frozen Soul
Speaker 1: in Fucking This Heat, you know what I mean, it's
Speaker 1: just ready Basement, Frozen Soul, Haggard, Cat, Fire Tools, Prison,
Speaker 1: Eared Tom, A Forest of Stars, Pernopticon and Scimitar. We
Speaker 1: have got just a little dabbling in the news before
Speaker 1: we get into all of that. I'm gonna cheap these
Speaker 1: relatively brief, so we're not going to go into the
Speaker 1: latest inane thing that the Osbourne's have had to say.
Speaker 1: But we have got, in terms of live music announcement
Speaker 1: here in the UK, quite a few exciting things. First up,
Speaker 1: AFI have added another date to their now like it's
Speaker 1: coming up to like five or six dates or something
Speaker 1: that they're actually now in the UK, which is you
Speaker 1: never would have dreamed it unbelievable. They have added the
Speaker 1: thing that was lacking before all this, which was a
Speaker 1: London headline show at Shepherd's Bush Empire. This is on
Speaker 1: the twentieth of August, that is two days before what
Speaker 1: was the first date, which was the Manchester show. And
Speaker 1: I am convinced that this has been added because Davey
Speaker 1: Havoc has learned from some journalists that The Kure are
Speaker 1: playing in Manchester the day before them, and so I
Speaker 1: think that this has been rounded specifically to get that
Speaker 1: particular slot in for the man and I salute that
Speaker 1: if that's the case. So everybody in London, who was
Speaker 1: you know, holding off from doing the big outbreak or
Speaker 1: points East deftoned thing? You want to see AFI headline?
Speaker 1: Of course I understand that I want to say AFI headline,
Speaker 1: That's why I'm doing it. Then you now can do
Speaker 1: so in London. We also have extra dates added around
Speaker 1: not loose appearances with Metallica. Next month they are going
Speaker 1: to be playing along with the dates that have already
Speaker 1: been announced with Metallica. They are going to be headlining
Speaker 1: in Belfast, Dublin, Bristol and Nottingham. I am quite sad
Speaker 1: that I'm not going to be hitting up the Metallica
Speaker 1: shows with you know, not Losing Goodyear and everything next
Speaker 1: month there looks like it's gonna be great. But we
Speaker 1: also have a touring announcement from worm Rot, who for
Speaker 1: a band from literally OtherSide the world. They do come here,
Speaker 1: they treat us, don't they? They come here pretty often?
Speaker 1: These days, but they're gonna be playing They was already
Speaker 1: announce they are playing Core Festival, but they've added a
Speaker 1: whole string of dates around that, which includes Nottingham, London, Newcastle, Belfast, Dublin, Manchester, Leeds,
Speaker 1: Newport and Southampton, which is good old stuff. And considering
Speaker 1: that some of those shows again bands on Core Festival
Speaker 1: include Pig Straw and I Hate God, they are going
Speaker 1: to be also appearing on some of these dates with
Speaker 1: with with Romot. You could be tempted by that, surely.
Speaker 2: It's honestly mad. How often worm rot here by the
Speaker 2: Father's I'm going, ah, I should, I should make my
Speaker 2: way down to that, and you I was only like,
Speaker 2: what six months ago? Yeah, It's just it's fucking ridict.
Speaker 2: I am highly tempted by that Southampton date. So I've
Speaker 2: traveled quite far from when more in the past. I
Speaker 2: think the first one I saw them was at that
Speaker 2: White Hotel, which was a four hour drive for yeah,
Speaker 2: thirty five minutes of music, So.
Speaker 1: I mean, unfortunately, they've also had news this week that
Speaker 1: venue of the White Hotel in Manchester is going to
Speaker 1: be closing down next year, which is very sad. I
Speaker 1: haven't been there in quite a long time. I know
Speaker 1: they have like lots of like cross genre, you know,
Speaker 1: like they don't just book punk and metal shows. But
Speaker 1: unfortunately as a venue, it's gonna be going you know, disappearing.
Speaker 2: But nice.
Speaker 1: It was, it was appropriate, it was a good time.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I'm really and genuinely very sad to hear
Speaker 1: about the White Hotel. Let's move on to more heavy
Speaker 1: stuff though, because right before we have gone to record,
Speaker 1: we have a latest addition to the Damnation bill and
Speaker 1: Damnation this year they're just I applaud so much the
Speaker 1: sheer fucket energy they're putting into it, Like it really
Speaker 1: feels like they're going, well, we've you know, we've sold
Speaker 1: x amount of tickets before we can go to you know,
Speaker 1: start panicking. So let's just like manifest things that no
Speaker 1: one thought was going to happened, like more festivals. You know, obviously,
Speaker 1: if they have the ability to, should just go in
Speaker 1: with this, Like what because added one band to the
Speaker 1: Damandation bill this year today, but it is the Berserker,
Speaker 1: the Australian like industrial grind death metal band from primarily
Speaker 1: active during the two thousands, and it is their it's
Speaker 1: their only show in Europe for a start, this is
Speaker 1: an exclusive. It's also their first European show in eighteen years.
Speaker 1: Because the Berserker have not been an active thing for
Speaker 1: a long time, They've been playing in other bands like
Speaker 1: the Australian band where Walls, for example, features some members
Speaker 1: of the Berserker. But this is a real out of
Speaker 1: the blue thing.
Speaker 2: This is the sort of thing which it could literally
Speaker 2: could only happen at a metal festival, obviously, but only
Speaker 2: an extreme metal festival. Because the Berzerk are like a
Speaker 2: weird and niche band within a weird a niche thing.
Speaker 2: They're very enigmatic and very specific in their appeal, like
Speaker 2: is it industrial grind call that's not going to appeal
Speaker 2: to absolutely everyone. I'm kind of confounded by this. I
Speaker 2: obviously this is kind of the announcement that they are back,
Speaker 2: but the Berserka is just not a band that I've
Speaker 2: thought about, we even considered the return of maybe ever,
Speaker 2: because they've not been actually my time of following extreme music,
Speaker 2: and now it's like, oh fuck, in a few months
Speaker 2: I'll be seeing will they be in costume? Probably not.
Speaker 2: I'd like them to be, but it's just it's it's
Speaker 2: so weird that they that they exist again.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and Gavin, you know, very humorously. Right before Winter recorded,
Speaker 1: he posted in the That's Not Metal forum on Facebook saying,
Speaker 1: I'm booking these bands now just to hear parents' reaction.
Speaker 3: And I appreciate that.
Speaker 1: But I also thought, I mean, I, you know, the Berserker,
Speaker 1: I will well up for see and absolutely again like
Speaker 1: one of those part of that wave of you know,
Speaker 1: going into twenty first century, bands like Agrobet, Nosebleed and
Speaker 1: Anna Thrac who were like pumping up through the use
Speaker 1: of technology, just how fucking ridiculous extreme metal could be essentially.
Speaker 1: And I guess, like I said, I'm well in for that,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, it's an awesome thing that they're here.
Speaker 1: But I thought even more than me, I thought about you, Elliott,
Speaker 1: because I don't know if you're actually a fan of
Speaker 1: The Berserker, but that crop of like mad you know,
Speaker 1: like electro grind whatever type things. I just I had
Speaker 1: something in me. I was like, I bet The Berserker
Speaker 1: would be something that Elliot would be like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: I can't believe it.
Speaker 2: It's you know, they were a band that it'sn't be
Speaker 2: a long time to come around. Because I had a
Speaker 2: ridiculous bias against them because when I first got into
Speaker 2: extreme music, they were it was maybe not like the band,
Speaker 2: but they were like they're the fastest band to ever
Speaker 2: walk the earth, and I found it they had a
Speaker 2: drum machine and I was like, that's cheating, it's not allowed,
Speaker 2: it's not saying. It's like given the World Strongest Man
Speaker 2: Awards would a drawing of Superman. That's that's out of order,
Speaker 2: and and then the whole of them being a costume
Speaker 2: band and then giving it up. It was like, this
Speaker 2: is too weird. But in recent years, going back to it,
Speaker 2: they're fucking They were a cool bed like not I
Speaker 2: don't love them as much as say Alm the Thrack
Speaker 2: or Gorfobe, but Nose Bleed, but the appeal they have
Speaker 2: is kind of those things, but maybe like more they're
Speaker 2: a bit more coherent than I think than those bands
Speaker 2: were in their most extreme that some of their songs
Speaker 2: are really catch you not not quite melodic, might be
Speaker 2: a stretch, but like Carcass in their delivery, they're not
Speaker 2: as brutalizing as you might expect from it. Yeah, I'm
Speaker 2: not a huge fan. I'd be well for seeing them,
Speaker 2: and they are a band that I have grown to
Speaker 2: like more and more in recent years.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you say it's not as mad as you
Speaker 1: might think, it's still for the average person, pretty fucking
Speaker 1: mad and certainly a mad addition to to that bill.
Speaker 1: Great the Berserker added to Damnation. Not tons on the
Speaker 1: new music front outside obviously the average views that we
Speaker 1: are doing. But a couple of things that caught my eye.
Speaker 1: One is the tomb Mold. You know those guys. I
Speaker 1: spoke about them recently. I saw them Incineration in London.
Speaker 1: Three of their members have come out with a new project.
Speaker 1: They have signed to Run for Cover Records, which is
Speaker 1: the immediate indicate what's going here. And they're going to
Speaker 1: be putting out an album coming in July under the
Speaker 1: name day Dream Plus. And the album is called Second
Speaker 1: Last Day of Summer. And when I say you know
Speaker 1: members of two Mold, this is basically everyone the band
Speaker 1: apart from so you might know Derek Vella, the guitarist,
Speaker 1: who is the guy who outside of two Mold, he's
Speaker 1: done things like dream Unending his particular side project, the
Speaker 1: kind of like ambient you know, proggy sort of you know,
Speaker 1: atmospheric doom band that he does this is everyone else
Speaker 1: from the band, and I think the other guitarist, Patient
Speaker 1: is like the primary kind of creative drive by in
Speaker 1: this particular project. But the idea of oh an alter
Speaker 1: ego two Mold band, right, and you know the dream
Speaker 1: and ending thing is different to Mold that you can
Speaker 1: see how that would like fit into the same creative universe.
Speaker 1: Have you checked out the Daydream plus track?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: And from Too Old? Is it? No?
Speaker 2: I mean just I mean, first of I just saw
Speaker 2: the album cover and the songs that of the second
Speaker 2: Last Day of Summer, which is such a sweet and
Speaker 2: earnest song. It's lovely, it's it's delightful. And the weird
Speaker 2: point is I kind of can hear the two Mold
Speaker 2: in it because it's still got those liquid lead guitars
Speaker 2: that you know, sound like Mango Juice, but it's just
Speaker 2: outside of the concept of them sounded like cynic and
Speaker 2: just into like really breezy, lovely city pop. It's yeah, pleasant, Yeah, this.
Speaker 1: Is like an instrumental project of just like lovely little
Speaker 1: you know, as you say it, kind of city pop, instrumental,
Speaker 1: kind of power pop type deals. It's very light, it's
Speaker 1: very bubbly, I said, Run for Cover Records. I'm sure
Speaker 1: that many, many people who would never ever dream of
Speaker 1: listening to Too Mold would enjoy and get something out
Speaker 1: of this. Maybe we'll check in more on the album
Speaker 1: when it comes out. But yeah, that was the most
Speaker 1: I think, you know, head turning new music announcement of
Speaker 1: the week. I think we also have a new song
Speaker 1: from A Perfect Circle, which is called Stylus. They've released
Speaker 1: this ahead of their UK talk that's coming up sometime soon. Elliott,
Speaker 1: how big did you care at all for Eat the Elliott,
Speaker 1: Eat the Elliott fucking Eat the Elephant?
Speaker 2: I mean, my ego is only so big or if
Speaker 2: for starting bands naming it's gonna get to but it's
Speaker 2: more like a threat. Oh shit. Oh yeah, yeah. I
Speaker 2: don't like a perfect sirfle so my enemies, but uh
Speaker 2: they a few songs on it I thought were great.
Speaker 2: I thought I love so Long and Thanks for all
Speaker 2: the Fish. I think it's a great song. The album
Speaker 2: I found a bit flabby, a bit too ponderous. I
Speaker 2: kind of like the idea of them going arim more
Speaker 2: than I actually like them going rim so fine, but
Speaker 2: I didn't love it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I found it pretty tedious and I'm extremely lukewarm
Speaker 1: on a Perfect Circle largely overall. Anyways, I won't less
Speaker 1: surprised by that, and this song also does not change
Speaker 1: any of that. I hope that the actual Perfect Circle
Speaker 1: fans like it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's you know, I think it's cool. It sounds
Speaker 2: much more like the classic Perfect Circle music that that
Speaker 2: people would typically point out. But I'm kind of similar
Speaker 2: to you. I'm not that wild about that. In the
Speaker 2: first time, made of Norms, I think is a perfectly
Speaker 2: good record, but I've never understood people claiming it's one
Speaker 2: of the best side projects albums of all time ever
Speaker 2: in the history of rock and roll. This is maybe
Speaker 2: a step in the right direction compared to most of
Speaker 2: Eat the Elephant, But I only it's got the song
Speaker 2: power of the best songs on that record. So yeah,
Speaker 2: if it's just middling, yeah, well, there you go.
Speaker 1: A pervoc circles new track as ahead of their UK
Speaker 1: tour that's coming up, and we do actually now have
Speaker 1: a final concrete date for what will be the final
Speaker 1: Sepultura show. You might be confused over the past couple
Speaker 1: years when they did farewell tours and then just seemingly
Speaker 1: just kept adding more shows. And more, return trip to
Speaker 1: Europe's and all that all the time. But we have
Speaker 1: an actual date now of when it will come to
Speaker 1: an end. In November of this year, November the seventh, Saturday,
Speaker 1: November seventh, they are going to be playing their final show,
Speaker 1: headlining in South Paalolo, Brazil, of course, on a bill
Speaker 1: that features Metal Allegiance, which is like the one of
Speaker 1: those all star metal musician cover band type things, Christian
Speaker 1: and Sacred Reich. It's nice see Christian on there. To
Speaker 1: get some more Brazilian representation. I would like to say
Speaker 1: maybe a little more of that, but maybe they're not
Speaker 1: going to make up with I don't know, the guys
Speaker 1: from Sarcophago. After the whole chain whipping scenario, go and
Speaker 1: listen to our first part chair special on the Patreon
Speaker 1: if you want to hear the story behind that whole scenario.
Speaker 1: But yeah, the final Sepultury are happening in November, so
Speaker 1: if you have not seen them in between now and November,
Speaker 1: and they have a date in your area, then that
Speaker 1: is very much the time to go and do it.
Speaker 3: So that's the.
Speaker 1: News this week. Let's get on with things. Firstly, a
Speaker 1: little shout out to the Patreon have I've just mentioned
Speaker 1: our Sepultury Is Special from many a moon ago. Now
Speaker 1: right now we are in the zone of doing our
Speaker 1: Corn Special, and we just this week put out the
Speaker 1: part two of it, where we spoke about everything from
Speaker 1: follow the Leader up to take a look in the
Speaker 1: Mirror and heads departure hopefully in a couple of weeks time.
Speaker 1: You know, in June we are going to dive pretty
Speaker 1: you know quickly back into the third part, which is
Speaker 1: I think apart we all of us are quite curious about.
Speaker 1: But this, you know, second Glory Years up until it
Speaker 1: isn't part but mostly Glory Years.
Speaker 3: Was a lot of fun.
Speaker 1: I mean we also went into some side tangents, into
Speaker 1: some side projects and stuff, which are always interesting, this
Speaker 1: part particularly, but yeah, get one.
Speaker 2: It right, so much fun. This was the most daunting
Speaker 2: of all the episodes because it's, like you agree, covering
Speaker 2: the height of the band. It's four pretty huge records,
Speaker 2: and it's the stories that go into them and all
Speaker 2: of that sort of thing. I actually think the next
Speaker 2: half is gonna be where it gets more interesting and
Speaker 2: argumentative in terms of charting why they're the most like
Speaker 2: one of the most important metal bands ever and why
Speaker 2: they're one of the greatest. It's it's just been so
Speaker 2: nice to go back and revisit those records and discuss them.
Speaker 2: It's been it's been a pleasure.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree that it was the most daunting part
Speaker 1: because as well as having those four records, we were
Speaker 1: talking about everything that comes with these years. So we
Speaker 1: had like, you know, Woodstock ninety nine, that small old thing.
Speaker 1: We had to talk about the height of them as
Speaker 1: an MTV band, and all of the videos, how they
Speaker 1: changed fashion, all of that stuff. But it went down
Speaker 1: pretty well, and I say everything from like free Conner
Speaker 1: Leash up to we ended on the word up cover
Speaker 1: you know, like good good times, and you can find
Speaker 1: that over at patron dot com slash that's a Mattall.
Speaker 1: We also have recent album clubs up there. We discussed
Speaker 1: Cat Your Blessings ahead of the anniversary shows for that.
Speaker 1: That's happening. All sorts going on, and we will return
Speaker 1: soon for part three of Corn. But right now, what
Speaker 1: we are really here to do today is the reviews retrospective.
Speaker 1: I suppose we're at the end of the month here.
Speaker 1: We're going to look back over May and pick out
Speaker 1: some of the records that really really want to talk about.
Speaker 1: And it has been, first of all, a pretty notable
Speaker 1: few weeks for some major albums coming out of the
Speaker 1: alt rock side of the T and M spectrum. Some
Speaker 1: of them, I'm sure you're wondering where they are. Some
Speaker 1: of them were sticking a pin in until Sam's come back.
Speaker 1: Sam's obviously away in Asia right now, and there's a
Speaker 1: couple albums where we're like, we feel that this will
Speaker 1: get a truer assessment and a better conversation if you know,
Speaker 1: Sam was here doing this with us. So some of
Speaker 1: those we will get to, but as there was such
Speaker 1: a good crop of them, we figured we should at
Speaker 1: least hit one of them while we are here. And
Speaker 1: so the first with you today is from Basement, who
Speaker 1: earlier this month released their album Wired, and it is
Speaker 1: their first album in eight years, which is a sentence
Speaker 1: I feel like I've been saying a lot these past
Speaker 1: couple weeks, but this one really felt quite long awaited
Speaker 1: because for the past four or five years since COVID,
Speaker 1: Basement have been thoroughly about like it's been difficult to
Speaker 1: avoid them, which is kind of reaffirmed in your mind
Speaker 1: more that they've been around but without making any new music.
Speaker 1: And Basement are one of the leading bands of the
Speaker 1: twenty ten's alternative rock boom, particularly here in the UK,
Speaker 1: and in these last few years it feels like they've
Speaker 1: very much confirmed themselves as having a pretty seminal status
Speaker 1: for a particular generation of that crowd. Their album Colory
Speaker 1: and Kindness in twenty twelve is one of the most
Speaker 1: lovingly recalled classics of that period. The follow up to that,
Speaker 1: promise Everything in twenty sixteen, also very good, I think.
Speaker 1: And then the last we had from them, Beside Myself
Speaker 1: in twenty eighteen, changed haapt just a bit, and it
Speaker 1: saw them shedding some of the gruffer elements of the
Speaker 1: early twenty tens post hardcore stuff and embracing a more
Speaker 1: kind of adult radio friendly emo kind of side, akin
Speaker 1: to bands like jimat World and the like, mixed in
Speaker 1: with a bit of classic brit rock maybe, and I
Speaker 1: loved when they did that. I think it's at the
Speaker 1: very least up there contending to be their best record.
Speaker 1: I think it probably is if you look at the
Speaker 1: Tratlers and it comes down to it, and I think
Speaker 1: the band themselves would get annoyed at me for saying that,
Speaker 1: but it is what it is. It felt like it
Speaker 1: was maybe the beginning of a bright new dawn for Basement,
Speaker 1: and then they disappeared, and when they came back this decade,
Speaker 1: it felt a little bit more like the old Basement
Speaker 1: was back. Maybe it's just that beside myself, you know,
Speaker 1: naturally didn't arrive at the same point of life for
Speaker 1: you know, their fan base that Columby and Kayness did.
Speaker 1: But beside myself feels like it's unfortunately being forgotten a bit,
Speaker 1: a load of songs missing from their setlists upon their return,
Speaker 1: underrated by the band themselves, seemingly, and instead Columby and
Speaker 1: Kindness anniversary treatment became very much the order of the day,
Speaker 1: and playing shows in that kind of vein for it
Speaker 1: felt like quite a long time. It felt like Basement
Speaker 1: became a little bit of a nostalgia band for a while,
Speaker 1: which maybe, as I say, the wait for new material
Speaker 1: feel longer until finally here we are. I say all
Speaker 1: of this, you know, not to be too salty, but
Speaker 1: just because I think it's relevant context for this band story.
Speaker 1: That they came back after that period away, they weren't
Speaker 1: quite picking up from what was their most recent record,
Speaker 1: but rather from a time before that. Elliott I can
Speaker 1: speak as not necessarily a hardcore fan of Basement, but
Speaker 1: amongst their generation of emo bands, they are one of
Speaker 1: the handful who I as not really a die hard
Speaker 1: fan of that that music. Do really like You're maybe
Speaker 1: like a colder.
Speaker 3: Is that right?
Speaker 2: Yeah? They've They've always been a band that I've wanted
Speaker 2: to love more than I do. And you know, there's
Speaker 2: bands in this scene and bands of their generation that
Speaker 2: I love and I've clung to forever, even when some
Speaker 2: of them started making shit records. Basement, I've always been
Speaker 2: pretty amazed by their popularity. Like the fact that you
Speaker 2: like them is I think really interesting because it's there's
Speaker 2: not really anything about them that would mark them out sonically.
Speaker 2: It is kind of just a level of song craft
Speaker 2: or something I don't know, like they just the something
Speaker 2: which can, yeah, something which connects them to more people
Speaker 2: than you know, other bands their start. I've never been
Speaker 2: head over heels for any album of theirs, but I
Speaker 2: will also concede that they're not a band that I've
Speaker 2: given that many chances. I've sort of listened to the
Speaker 2: records as they've come out not connected that quickly and
Speaker 2: fairly swiftly moved on, and maybe that thing you'd describe
Speaker 2: about their presence but not commercial artistic contribution for the
Speaker 2: last few years has kind of made me feel even
Speaker 2: more distant from them or less interested. So this is
Speaker 2: the first time, I think only the first time ever
Speaker 2: that I've invested so much time listening to a Basement record.
Speaker 2: Maybe ever, Yeah.
Speaker 1: That's interesting, and it's an interesting one to do that with,
Speaker 1: I suppose, but Basement are coming at this album with
Speaker 1: a larger level of expectations, maybe than normal, because of
Speaker 1: the absence, and that in that absence they have kind
Speaker 1: of inflated into being, as I say, a kind of
Speaker 1: seminal band. I like this record. Having got it, I
Speaker 1: had to say this album hasn't hit me as immediately
Speaker 1: as I'd hoped, based on how much I do like
Speaker 1: particularly their last three albums and the long wait for it.
Speaker 1: That's not to say I don't like it. Like clearing
Speaker 1: that up straight away, This is not a negative review.
Speaker 1: I think this is a good record. I've got a
Speaker 1: decent bit of enjoyment out of it. And if so,
Speaker 1: if this scene is your you know, bread and Butter
Speaker 1: I can imagine how much some other people might really
Speaker 1: be loving it if they were, you know, even harder
Speaker 1: on Basement into Basement than I was, so straight off
Speaker 1: the bat. This is a recommend if you've somehow not
Speaker 1: heard Basement before and you are a big fan of
Speaker 1: contemporary alternative rock. I'm just a little milder maybe in
Speaker 1: my take on this. Then I'd hoped you as someone
Speaker 1: who completely apathetic to Basement basically before this, But as
Speaker 1: you're saying, you've invested a little more time into this
Speaker 1: one than other Basement records. I would be curious how
Speaker 1: much you, you know, differ or align with that.
Speaker 2: I suspect I like it as much as you do,
Speaker 2: but I'm coming it from the other direction mine.
Speaker 3: That's probably right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I suspect we're going to be agreeing the whole time,
Speaker 2: but it's going to be more positive because it's because
Speaker 2: I like this record. I don't I don't like everything
Speaker 2: about it. There's enough of me. There's enough about this
Speaker 2: for me to go, Yeah, I like this record, and
Speaker 2: when it's great, it's really great. There's enough features in
Speaker 2: it which I think are refreshing for banding their scene. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I just it's mild, but mild in a positive way.
Speaker 2: I guess. I don't know's it feels harsh, it feels weird.
Speaker 2: It sounds harsh the way I'm saying it. But I
Speaker 2: like this record.
Speaker 1: No, that's good, and I think that we can straight
Speaker 1: away from the top here we can go for the
Speaker 1: two of us two thumbs up.
Speaker 3: Yeah hoa.
Speaker 1: I think this album is good, and it does feel
Speaker 1: like it's a mixture of like it's very much for
Speaker 1: basement fans who are with them on columny and kindness
Speaker 1: and promise everything and have been going to see them,
Speaker 1: you know, since they return at these big outbreak shows
Speaker 1: and stuff like that, mixed in with also, you know,
Speaker 1: the developments in it feel like they are developments just
Speaker 1: for Basement, you know, rather than trying to necessarily, you know,
Speaker 1: assuage this and one way or another. I think that,
Speaker 1: you know, for the hardcore basement contingent who were like
Speaker 1: really pining for a record, there will be something very
Speaker 1: you know, lovely about that. I think a lot of
Speaker 1: the distancing from beside myself maybe comes from the fact
Speaker 1: that they signed to feel by Rahman for that one
Speaker 1: and this and then their return to primarily playing hardcore
Speaker 1: fests and the like. Seems to be reaffirming them as
Speaker 1: a more like grassroots, subcultural kind of band, and I
Speaker 1: respect that for sure. I think it's amazing that that
Speaker 1: album sonically turned out so well, avoided the fuel by
Speaker 1: ramification of like every rock band around that time, to
Speaker 1: be honest, but this one feels much more like, you know, hey,
Speaker 1: basement fans who remember us before, and maybe we're expecting,
Speaker 1: you know, we'd be curious about what that band would
Speaker 1: have matured into and grown into, you know, ten years
Speaker 1: down that line. This is that record, and these songs
Speaker 1: you can slip into those kind of environments. But as
Speaker 1: I say, simultaneously embrace a few production developments and such
Speaker 1: that mean even that kind of dirtier basement sound is
Speaker 1: put through a little bit of a blender on this.
Speaker 1: It is rougher than maybe any of their last albums,
Speaker 1: like since Colomyan Kindness may be like it not underproduced,
Speaker 1: but it's just sort of gruffer in the guitar tone
Speaker 1: and the drum sound, and they feel like they're going
Speaker 1: for a weight on things, like there's a drum beat
Speaker 1: on dead Weight just on its own, and it's kind
Speaker 1: of in uteroish, you know, and it's got that sort
Speaker 1: of that girth that a rock band in that kind
Speaker 1: of lane have. And there's a lot of like distorted
Speaker 1: vocal fry on songs as well, almost to the point
Speaker 1: of being deliberate backlash against what they sounded like last time.
Speaker 1: Like this feels a little bit with out being a
Speaker 1: you know, a berserker record. This feels like it's sort
Speaker 1: of maybe retaliating against the idea of making alternative rock
Speaker 1: to be played for radio.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's one of my favorite things about this record
Speaker 2: is how organic it sounds. You know, a time where
Speaker 2: basically anything popular and adjacent to this emo pop punk start,
Speaker 2: I say, anything popular there is there isn't a healthy
Speaker 2: underground or a healthy winger this start thing, which still
Speaker 2: feels organic, but a lot of stuff in the more
Speaker 2: mainstream wing bands about basement side Besize end up sounding terrible.
Speaker 2: This sounds like lovely and like a band like that.
Speaker 2: Bass really thick and robust, the dross, the drums have
Speaker 2: this hiss to them. This all of distortion in the
Speaker 2: symbol production which makes them feel you know, alive and
Speaker 2: in the room. And the guitars, the guitars and ice
Speaker 2: and Chunky Leeds have this cool sort of whining tones
Speaker 2: to them. I'm a big fan of It's like I say,
Speaker 2: it sounds like a band, and maybe that sounds like
Speaker 2: light praise, but it shouldn't because the production really suits
Speaker 2: the band, really suits the songs, and like I said,
Speaker 2: it's refreshing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but I think maybe if you look at column
Speaker 1: Kaina's promise everything, those are a little bit more like
Speaker 1: capturing the band in the room. This does have I think,
Speaker 1: like a little bit of extra intentional sort of fuzz
Speaker 1: on it, those kind of hisses and stuff that you're
Speaker 1: you're mentioning do again. They're trying to add a bit
Speaker 1: of kind of crackle onto this beyond a you know,
Speaker 1: a sleeker production like the head on the last record
Speaker 1: and beside myself, but I think you know, when you
Speaker 1: were saying about it's kind of interest that I like
Speaker 1: Basement so much when again this is not my like
Speaker 1: my absolute favorite world, but the song craft combined with
Speaker 1: there's an understated greatness about Basement all the time. Like
Speaker 1: they're not flashy or like outwardly charismatic or whatever, but
Speaker 1: their singer Andrew is a master of like dourly catchy
Speaker 1: vocal melodies like choruses that sore but also somehow feel
Speaker 1: like they're being delivered with a sigh as he does them,
Speaker 1: like their biggest song goes with You, and that's a
Speaker 1: fucking hit, you know, and they're at their best.
Speaker 3: They hit a.
Speaker 1: Sweet point between being like ultra melancholic and bizarrely sticky.
Speaker 1: There's a little bit of that flavor even in like
Speaker 1: an upbeat song like sever but it manages to make
Speaker 1: the ear worm just the downturn of Severn, you know that,
Speaker 1: just like that, Cadence is like classic basement to me,
Speaker 1: Deadweight I mentioned the chorus is so forlorn, to the
Speaker 1: point that the vocal itself seems actively to depress and
Speaker 1: like wind down until it comes to almost a sluggish halt.
Speaker 1: But then the verse like hits you back into this
Speaker 1: more steady teen But that's a cool trick that you do.
Speaker 1: And that's even a flavor in the guitar lines the
Speaker 1: opening song, time Waster somehow like the guitar riff it
Speaker 1: somehow it both seems to want you to jump up
Speaker 1: and down and slump down and cry. Somehow hit in
Speaker 1: middle point between these things that regardless of whether it
Speaker 1: is you know, super peppy like it was on Beside Myself,
Speaker 1: or very fuzzy. It is a here that sort of
Speaker 1: combination feels like the basement identity I suppose to.
Speaker 2: Me, Yeah, I'm hearing exactly what you're saying. You know,
Speaker 2: Satisfy for me sounds like a what's like a sixties
Speaker 2: do wop song but reimagined by the Pixies in the vana,
Speaker 2: like they kind of sucker all the effervescent joy of
Speaker 2: that thing, but the songs still there. You have this
Speaker 2: tasty pulp at the sense of it. It's embrace, which
Speaker 2: sounds like a kind of oasis bad in the way
Speaker 2: it's written. In the performance, it's got this kind of
Speaker 2: mogua quality where it sounds like the song's slightly too slow.
Speaker 2: It's going to like ninety five percent it's appropriate speed,
Speaker 2: and again it sounds like there might be a criticism
Speaker 2: of it's deliberately slow another the course of dead way,
Speaker 2: You're exactly right that one of my favorite things about
Speaker 2: this record is the way this band they sound completely
Speaker 2: free to change tempo in a way that a lot
Speaker 2: of bands in their scene don't like it, just for
Speaker 2: so many would be you know, maybe nervousness about losing
Speaker 2: attention by going We're going to slow down in the chorus.
Speaker 2: There's a bunch of the songs on this record that
Speaker 2: do that sort of trick, and it's it's a really
Speaker 2: cool one that's unique to them, and it's somehow doesn't
Speaker 2: make it makes the songs more exciting, not less.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And like we were saying, the kind of more
Speaker 1: over driven parts, like the first song has quite heavy
Speaker 1: elements to it. You get a couple of songs further in,
Speaker 1: like the tap track right on its heels is like
Speaker 1: Nirvana circa Incesticide, you know, like just a heavy old
Speaker 1: rock kind of stage diver pick up the pieces as well.
Speaker 1: It's like rowdier in a way that is. That's one
Speaker 1: of the ones was, like I say, feels more erratic
Speaker 1: and not as clean with its hooks, even as Basement,
Speaker 1: you know, we're in the mid twenty tens, like it's
Speaker 1: there is something deliberately overblown and unkempt about it, and
Speaker 1: in a weird sort of way, maybe you could liken
Speaker 1: that too, I don't know, like the Newest Food Fighters
Speaker 1: record or something like that and what they were attempting.
Speaker 1: But Basement, have you know, a certainly a stronger handle
Speaker 1: on how to you know, not make that feel so
Speaker 1: quite as contrived, you know what I mean, And when
Speaker 1: it does continue to go further outside of what is
Speaker 1: the standard basement template is say less like it is
Speaker 1: punching above its weight to really reach something like a
Speaker 1: larger you know, kind of a level like on something
Speaker 1: like a beside myself, but almost dialing it back to
Speaker 1: follow down these kind of subcultural rabbit holes. So I'm
Speaker 1: thinking about Broken by Design is like a Sunday real
Speaker 1: estate song, you know, like one more sort of indie
Speaker 1: type of emo, you know, with like both the the
Speaker 1: vocal and the clean guitar melody both take a more
Speaker 1: kind of insular approach. And again, once again, it's not flashy.
Speaker 1: It's not really going to get a festival crowd singing
Speaker 1: along as much as their bigger songs do, but it's
Speaker 1: nice and it's cool to hear them venture there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think again another one of the strengths of
Speaker 2: this record is the variety of styles of song. And
Speaker 2: that's a great example where that I was listening to
Speaker 2: that and going that's so slight and genuine. They managed
Speaker 2: to fill the space it doesn't feel like some extended interlude,
Speaker 2: total waste of time. It's like and you can tell
Speaker 2: that they're great players fundamentally, that's what makes those songs
Speaker 2: better than a lot of bands in their field trying
Speaker 2: to do the same thing. But the fact that rubbed
Speaker 2: shoulders next to what I already said, Embrace feeling like
Speaker 2: an Oasis song seven, We already talking about that. But
Speaker 2: the way I feel maybe my favorite song of the record,
Speaker 2: and it's so like Smiley and Earnest. It kind of
Speaker 2: sounds like Japandroids. It's like, it's it's great, And then
Speaker 2: there's a lot of stuff. Almost every time, there's a
Speaker 2: couple of excepts that I'm less keen on. Almost every
Speaker 2: time they try their hand at a different style of song,
Speaker 2: they do a stand up job of it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I agree.
Speaker 1: There are a couple of parts where they, you know,
Speaker 1: they kind of shoot for something and I'm not really
Speaker 1: convinced it totally. Lands Head of Light is the one
Speaker 1: that I've noted down, which kind of it cranks up
Speaker 1: the distortion on the bass and the beat so much
Speaker 1: it's almost going for like a sort of I don't know,
Speaker 1: like an acid trip indie kind of song, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean, And that's not their strongest suit. I
Speaker 1: would say I admire again the attempts to you know,
Speaker 1: paint for these different kind of songs on this record.
Speaker 1: I do think fundamentally Basement are best when they're bringing choruses,
Speaker 1: and I would say, like the last third of this
Speaker 1: album is the lightest on that. And I wouldn't say
Speaker 1: this album in that particular level quite tops any of
Speaker 1: the three records they made in like the really great
Speaker 1: run of three records they made in the twenty tens.
Speaker 1: I would say those all you know, for that element,
Speaker 1: outpaced this one. But this is them, you know, coming
Speaker 1: back and being a little bit more adventurous maybe and
Speaker 1: not focusing so much on strictly, you know, writing those
Speaker 1: type of songs.
Speaker 2: You mentioned Hit a Lie I That to me felt
Speaker 2: very obviously like, oh, you've been listening to Foxing like
Speaker 2: you're trying to do that thing of really blown out
Speaker 2: ballline panic attack starff. But it's like if you if
Speaker 2: you can't sell that, it ends up sounding a little
Speaker 2: bit embarrassing for me. The other one was the title track,
Speaker 2: where the verses are great, that chorus fucking bothers me.
Speaker 2: I'm not sure what it is about it, just it
Speaker 2: sounds like something that will play joining the Bumper on
Speaker 2: CBBC and Basement being the as R and where they're from.
Speaker 2: Maybe it's maybe it has and it's some sort of
Speaker 2: critsynesia or something. And again you mentioned pick up the
Speaker 2: pieces the drums on that are great, and there's some
Speaker 2: cool stuff on that song. But yeah, it's these this band.
Speaker 2: I imagine a lot of their songs quite often as
Speaker 2: they do here, they're only as good as their chorus.
Speaker 2: That chorus is kind of nails down a short board. Again,
Speaker 2: I struggle to explain to myself.
Speaker 1: Necessarily slariness about it, and like I said, that's what
Speaker 1: I'm trying to U. I suppose convey the like this
Speaker 1: is different to even take a promise everything right. Twenty tens,
Speaker 1: when they were again a more like run for cover type,
Speaker 1: you know, alternate rock band, there is a slightly more
Speaker 1: whoa kind of happened to this record to encaps it
Speaker 1: the exact feeling very articulately there compared to those.
Speaker 2: Which ahead yeah, and that thing when it's done well
Speaker 2: can be fantastic. There are plenty of bands who whether
Speaker 2: singer's kind of warming all over the shop and it
Speaker 2: suits it. But Basement to me just seemed like quite
Speaker 2: a nice, polite bunch of guys. So for them, but
Speaker 2: I'm a crazy you don't know what I want to
Speaker 2: do next. It's like I probably do. Actually, I probably
Speaker 2: can predict your behavior quite comfortably. It's it comes across
Speaker 2: as a bit like he wants to be Frank Black,
Speaker 2: but he's not as weird as him fundamentally, and it
Speaker 2: feels a weird thing to mark against someone that they're
Speaker 2: not weird enough. But that is kind of how I
Speaker 2: feel listening to moments like that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, maybe a little bit, but I would say that,
Speaker 1: you know, element that we're trying to articulate there is.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's like a ten percent, you know, like it's
Speaker 1: not a dramatic shifting of their identity. And that's why
Speaker 1: the record still does, for the most part work. It's
Speaker 1: not a yeah, consideringly, all the nostalgia stuff that's going
Speaker 1: on with Color me kind in this anniverse and everything,
Speaker 1: the fact that they've come back, and it's not like
Speaker 1: it does feel like it's a return to that fan base. Maybe,
Speaker 1: but it's not just a carbon copy of that sound,
Speaker 1: and there are you know, fair evolutions in it. I
Speaker 1: think that does mean that it's maybe not as immediately
Speaker 1: infectious to like an outsider then you know either of
Speaker 1: their last like couple of records before this, it is
Speaker 1: you know, if you had put it in their catalog,
Speaker 1: it feels like it's the one for them, which at
Speaker 1: this stage, you know, coming back, you know, work it
Speaker 1: like fifteen up to twenty years even after they started,
Speaker 1: like fair enough if you're going to come back to do
Speaker 1: it for the right reasons. I wouldn't personally call it
Speaker 1: one of their very best albums, but I also crucially
Speaker 1: after all this time, I wouldn't call it a letdown.
Speaker 1: It is good to have Basement back as a you know,
Speaker 1: creatively active, relevant band. And if you've not heard the
Speaker 1: albums I made before this, maybe you just no cover
Speaker 1: from when it got virally massive. Go and listen to
Speaker 1: Promise Everything. Go listen to Preside myself. They offer some
Speaker 1: of the great flavors as well. Elliott, if you have
Speaker 1: quite enjoyed this record, do you feel like there's any
Speaker 1: chance or two if you're going back and you know,
Speaker 1: getting a little bit more out of the classic Basement records?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think I will know if I had to
Speaker 2: come on and you said this is brilliant, this is
Speaker 2: the best one. Yeah, I probably wouldn't have done.
Speaker 3: But you.
Speaker 2: Know, I like this, but the previous stuff is better.
Speaker 2: That definitely has me curious, because, like I said, I
Speaker 2: like this record. I don't think it goes up against
Speaker 2: the likes of Pony and Joyce Maner the records they've
Speaker 2: had this year. But I like it as much as
Speaker 2: I remember liking Basement, and if this is weaker than
Speaker 2: those previous ones, I'm absolutely going to go and reinvestigate.
Speaker 1: Well, there you go, wired By Basement and then our
Speaker 1: bigger dog review on the more metal side is a
Speaker 1: more contemporary band, but they have rocketed up its Frozen
Speaker 1: Soul and no Place of Warmth, which is completely fucking
Speaker 1: untrue right now, isn't it. There are lots of places
Speaker 1: of extreme warmth, but you should know Frozen sol By.
Speaker 1: Now we have reviewed every one of their albums from
Speaker 1: crypt of Ice in twenty twenty one. Doesn't that sound nice?
Speaker 1: A Cryptodvice through to Glacial Domination in twenty twenty three,
Speaker 1: and now this Frozen Soul are maybe not the most
Speaker 1: particular of them, but I think in some ways they
Speaker 1: are the most archetypal of what has become the wave
Speaker 1: of popular young death metal bands in the twenty twenties,
Speaker 1: the stepping stones of like Maggot Stomp Records, to getting
Speaker 1: popular with hardcore kids, to signing to a big metal
Speaker 1: label and now getting call ins and favors from like
Speaker 1: actual genre icons. Frozen Sol's rise has been very emblematic
Speaker 1: of that particular trajectory for me. They've also been one
Speaker 1: of my preferred of those bands. I like them more
Speaker 1: than Sangue Sugarbug, I like them more than two hundred
Speaker 1: Stab Wounds. I like them more than Tribal Gaze. I
Speaker 1: think both of those first two albums are excellent for
Speaker 1: essentially straightforward, groovy, catchy death metal, the kind that makes
Speaker 1: you want to pick up a spiked mason clob on
Speaker 1: someone's head in I think that you could very much.
Speaker 1: You could come from a different angle looking for death
Speaker 1: metal that is more complicated or underground or elaborate or
Speaker 1: evil or what have you, but for striking the absolute
Speaker 1: core bulls of like what is death metal? And why
Speaker 1: do people like it?
Speaker 2: Good band Frozen Sol. Yeah, I really like Frozen Soul.
Speaker 2: The first two records excellent but in quite different way.
Speaker 2: Is the first one that murky, frosty sort of thing,
Speaker 2: and then the second one with that matthe heathw production
Speaker 2: way bigger and crisp, and I like the space they
Speaker 2: operate where they're not the most extreme any one thing,
Speaker 2: but they're not the nastiest, they're not the most pure
Speaker 2: are they're not the most disgusting, they're not the most
Speaker 2: ambitious or whatever it is. They just lean on the
Speaker 2: sort of commercial glory days of death Mel, like the Covenant,
Speaker 2: like Bolt Thrower, Heartwork, all of that sort of thing.
Speaker 2: Big Columbia Records Death Mel feels like the thing that
Speaker 2: they lean on, and it's nice that there's a band
Speaker 2: who are able to do that without sounding like, you know,
Speaker 2: a lighter, less interesting, less flavors and version than their peers,
Speaker 2: because they've got not just the frost thing when you
Speaker 2: can tell you're listening to frozen soul when you're listening
Speaker 2: to them.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, and they have made like clear for what you
Speaker 1: could describe as quite meat and potatoes sat They have
Speaker 1: made clear like jumps between each record, which not every
Speaker 1: band with a similar sort of you could describe that
Speaker 1: kind of sound, you know, makes those kind of leaps, because,
Speaker 1: as you're saying, Cryptovice, I think is probably still my
Speaker 1: favorite hour of theirs. When it comes down to it,
Speaker 1: that feel of like the cold school death metal as
Speaker 1: they describe themselves, where it is like some big prehistoric
Speaker 1: monster thoring out of a block of ice. I do
Speaker 1: think that is more than a gimmick because they evoke
Speaker 1: that really well. Like even the vocalist Chad, there is
Speaker 1: something about his growls where he sounds like he's huffing
Speaker 1: out big icy breaths crystallizing in the air, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean. And that first record gets it really well.
Speaker 1: It's the purest form of Frozen Soul, but glacial domination
Speaker 1: when it came to going you know a little more
Speaker 1: as you say, a little more like Mayhem. Thest above Ground
Speaker 1: co produced by Met Hafi, Glossier sounds stronger emphasis on
Speaker 1: the melody at times, even sort of like a monomath
Speaker 1: adjacent I think that was the right way to go
Speaker 1: about that particular step, I suppose if they were going
Speaker 1: to take it, because it didn't alienate the core things
Speaker 1: I liked about Frozen Soul, and it made that transition well.
Speaker 1: This album no place of warmth. It is the most
Speaker 1: openly we are a popular band now Frozen Soul have
Speaker 1: ever been. You know, when you look at the track
Speaker 1: list and some of the features they're calling in on it,
Speaker 1: this is only a buzz band could have had the
Speaker 1: capability to make this record. And I have started to see,
Speaker 1: you know, there was already a wing of death metal
Speaker 1: fans that aren't interested in these more you know, hardcore
Speaker 1: crowd adjacent death metal bands. I would rather listen to
Speaker 1: Necrofar instead. But particularly in the build up to this record,
Speaker 1: I've seen in certain areas like a real backlash against
Speaker 1: Frozen Soul and you know, again this kind of meat
Speaker 1: a potato style and what this record might be doing.
Speaker 1: This is a third Frozen Sol album that I do like.
Speaker 1: I still think that they are a good band worth
Speaker 1: keeping up with. Unlike the first two, I have some
Speaker 1: problems with this one that do cap my enjoyment of it.
Speaker 2: I'm again I'm the same. I was wondering if I
Speaker 2: was going to come on and be the Debbie Downer
Speaker 2: this time around, but there is stuff about this record
Speaker 2: that I think is great. I am noticeably less keen
Speaker 2: this time around than I was on the last two,
Speaker 2: I'm be curious to see if it's the same stuff.
Speaker 1: But yeah, yeah, so positives. First of all, Frozen Soul
Speaker 1: can fucking groove. Like that is when you're saying they're
Speaker 1: not the most puerile or brutal or whatever, I think
Speaker 1: that is their superpower as a death metal band. Like
Speaker 1: they're obviously not the most technical or brutal or the
Speaker 1: most scummy and evil, but they can groove and they
Speaker 1: make you involuntarily bob your head. Of all the bands
Speaker 1: doing like the bolt Thrower, you know, tank groove with
Speaker 1: the heavy rolling double bass, they have always been one
Speaker 1: of the chief inheritors of that. We're now an interesting
Speaker 1: point where we're hearing what that groove sounds like wild
Speaker 1: transfigurated into like a bigger band, you know, and that
Speaker 1: is that was part of what I enjoyed about Glacial Demonation,
Speaker 1: and to an extent that's still true. Here I mentioned
Speaker 1: the guest features, which I suppose are the immediate like
Speaker 1: headline grabbing thing about this, like when this particular single
Speaker 1: came out and then the week that he came out
Speaker 1: to perform it with them, as well. Gerard Way adding,
Speaker 1: like another extreme metal guest feature under his belt after
Speaker 1: you know, the black metal dalliance on the Ibaraki record.
Speaker 1: I like that he's clearly interested in and engaged with
Speaker 1: extreme metal and he wants a trying out and going
Speaker 1: like death metal on the title track, Well give big
Speaker 1: of that. It's definitely And what were saying about the
Speaker 1: features on this, they are things that no other deafinitteal.
Speaker 3: Record quite has. Features like this Gerard feature.
Speaker 2: I mean, I think he's got the best feature of
Speaker 2: the lot, and it's quite agree it doesn't if you
Speaker 2: didn't know that was Gerard Way, you have no way
Speaker 2: of working it out because he's not sung on this
Speaker 2: like this on anything popular, and even on the Ibraqi record,
Speaker 2: he's not doing this kind of gnulled, more necrotic style
Speaker 2: that he's doing. It's funny that, like, we live in
Speaker 2: a world where if you want to get a bath
Speaker 2: to do a guest feature on your record, you're actually
Speaker 2: pretty better off getting Gerard Way because he kind of
Speaker 2: is a similar thing, and he's more available and he's brilliant.
Speaker 2: I think that the test of a great guest vocal,
Speaker 2: and this might come up again later, is if it
Speaker 2: sounds different enough to be worth doing in the first place,
Speaker 2: but coherent enough to not feel disconnected. And the way
Speaker 2: that he comes in, even for just his pair of lines,
Speaker 2: he just adds this sort of like characterfulness to the song,
Speaker 2: and especially as the open I think that's great because
Speaker 2: the band with the riff and the like the sort
Speaker 2: of annual morricone thing intro at the beginning, they've done
Speaker 2: a lot of the world building and just having this
Speaker 2: voice come out of the darkness and sort of wretched
Speaker 2: at you for a couple of lines and know Hing's
Speaker 2: Gerard way, it is a really inviting an impressive way
Speaker 2: to open the record.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think the chorus in that song from Chad
Speaker 1: is great as well, and like really legible, Like I
Speaker 1: think he's worked on his diction and that you know,
Speaker 1: no mercy, no peace in this moment, you have.
Speaker 3: No power over me. That's killer. But jeredd I agree.
Speaker 1: Like there's another feature letter on with the guy from
Speaker 1: Sangue Sugarbok, and that is more like the kind of
Speaker 1: feature that you were saying that it fits in the world,
Speaker 1: but it doesn't jump out right because it's another you know,
Speaker 1: similarly brutal death metal guy.
Speaker 3: Whereas this one it is cohesive in the world.
Speaker 1: But it really leaps out at you and it makes
Speaker 1: the you know, because he has a completely different voice,
Speaker 1: really abrasive, works really really well and like straight into
Speaker 1: a two step part as well. The flip side of
Speaker 1: the one that like really stands out is Rob Flynn
Speaker 1: on invoke War and he is like not trying to
Speaker 1: do a you know, a voice. He's doing the typical
Speaker 1: Rob Flynn start low and then you raise your talking.
Speaker 1: But I said, which I know that we hate so
Speaker 1: many bands doing that. Rob Flynn, I feel like, is
Speaker 1: one of the people who owns that right, Like he
Speaker 1: was doing that in the nineties, so we're not demanding
Speaker 1: that he changes it. It's weird hearing it in a
Speaker 1: death metal record. I don't dislike it. I don't know
Speaker 1: if you're about to to maybe say you do dislike it,
Speaker 1: I'm not sure. But it is like it's the most
Speaker 1: like this is weird, and it's like it's bizarre to
Speaker 1: be saying that Rob Flynn is a more odd fit
Speaker 1: on the metal record than.
Speaker 3: I think.
Speaker 2: On one hand, it's cool, like the first time you're
Speaker 2: hearing you kind of smile and go, yeah, there's Rob
Speaker 2: Flynn and he's he's on these on the death Metal record,
Speaker 2: it also sounds pretty fucking stupid. I've got to be honest,
Speaker 2: Like the time that comes in on the realistens, it's like, Rob,
Speaker 2: this is like I know what you're saying, Like we'll
Speaker 2: let him off for doing it, because he did pioneer it,
Speaker 2: but it just it sounds dark now. It's it sounds
Speaker 2: silly even on Machine Head records, when he's coming in
Speaker 2: on this frozen Soul thing. If it was more like
Speaker 2: he's bombarded it more than was invited, it doesn't really
Speaker 2: add any I don't know, tension or even necessarily flavor.
Speaker 2: It's it's I'm listening to that. It's more it feels
Speaker 2: more like an interruption. It's like a weird cameo in
Speaker 2: a film. So, oh fuck Rob Flynn, right, okay, it's
Speaker 2: it kind of ejects me out of the record, which
Speaker 2: I don't know. Maybe if it was later in the record,
Speaker 2: they'd be more built up for me to stick around for.
Speaker 2: But track two that does feel a bit I don't know,
Speaker 2: a drastic.
Speaker 1: I mean it's bold as well to or more like
Speaker 1: it's trying to really, you know, make a statement with
Speaker 1: them that it's got those two songs with you know,
Speaker 1: the two celebrities on it basically you know, is track
Speaker 1: one and track two. Again, I don't mind the Robin
Speaker 1: so much. The Gerrard one is great and there are
Speaker 1: moments of what amounts you like rockstar energy in a
Speaker 1: definite record. I think Eyes of Despair, the shred that
Speaker 1: kicks it off is wicked because it has that like
Speaker 1: Texas crossover thrash energy that is part of the scene
Speaker 1: they're around with, Like you know, we mentioned on the
Speaker 1: New Show last week the Iron Age cover with one
Speaker 1: of the guitarist from Frozen Soul on it like that
Speaker 1: kind of like Texas crossover hardcore thrash is like part
Speaker 1: of their DNA because they're you know, in and around
Speaker 1: that scene and hearing it through come through on a
Speaker 1: death metal song like that is is killer. You also
Speaker 1: still have the mosh factor is very much up Ethereal Dreams,
Speaker 1: Death Weather, Skinned by the Wind, which is just a
Speaker 1: Mortician song like that is just a minute and a
Speaker 1: half of the spirit of wil Rama coming to raid
Speaker 1: their fridge for beers. A lot of this record does
Speaker 1: have that, like Mortician, you know, directly into beat down,
Speaker 1: pit ready kind of slam dance parts, you know, being
Speaker 1: funneled through this large again death metal filter. Some death
Speaker 1: metal heads might not want that, but it's a trick
Speaker 1: that does essentially work. The gloriously named Killing Time until
Speaker 1: It's Time to Kill at the end, which has a
Speaker 1: hook that is so genuinely gangster.
Speaker 3: Born to chill but bread to kill, I'm killing.
Speaker 1: Time and Dylan to Gil that is put plainly the
Speaker 1: most swagged out death metal song of the year.
Speaker 2: That is that could be a guass song. I love it.
Speaker 2: It's a I mean, the song's I knew I loved it,
Speaker 2: but it's a cool way to end the record by
Speaker 2: going a bit sort of rock and roll and swinging
Speaker 2: at the end like rue. Yeah. There's rockstar energy across
Speaker 2: the record, but leaning into it so hard on the
Speaker 2: last song. It's badass and it's so unlike anything else
Speaker 2: on the record. It's just it's so much fun. I
Speaker 2: almost wish they didn't save it for the end because it,
Speaker 2: for the other hand, it doesn't end the album. Want
Speaker 2: to high Yeah.
Speaker 1: I like it at the end because there is something
Speaker 1: a bit more you know, openly humorous about it, and
Speaker 1: it feels, you know, we've done the corn Special right
Speaker 1: almost the Glory Days. If you go back and you
Speaker 1: reach the end, it's like, oh, they having a bit of
Speaker 1: a laugh. But it also is, unlike a lot of
Speaker 1: those cool ones, is a genuinely sick song.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: You've got Absolute Zero as well, which was the pre
Speaker 1: release song that we spoke about that condenses the frozen
Speaker 1: soul sound into a fifty three second slam piece. Basically,
Speaker 1: it's so short that when I first heard it, you know,
Speaker 1: as the single, my major shortcoming the album wasn't really
Speaker 1: so apparent. But that is a great little blast. My
Speaker 1: primary problem with this and why I'm a bit reluctant
Speaker 1: to super endorse it as much as I like, you know,
Speaker 1: some of the actual songs on this this production was
Speaker 1: a massive mistake. Like I said, the last album co
Speaker 1: produced by Matt Hayfey, and they somehow there struck a
Speaker 1: balance between sounding like a big popular metal band and
Speaker 1: still being a heavy death metal band. This one, they've
Speaker 1: gone to Josh Schroeder, who most recently has become known
Speaker 1: for being one of the go to guys for the
Speaker 1: current wave of big death core bands. Like most obviously,
Speaker 1: he's produced the last few Lorna Shaw albums, but he's
Speaker 1: also done Mental Cruelty Signs, the Swarm of Sulfur like
Speaker 1: loads those bands. He's one of their guys. And as
Speaker 1: much as there are things that you know, we admire
Speaker 1: and compliment about Lorna Shaw, we have been sticklers for
Speaker 1: how their albums sound a little bit and it doesn't
Speaker 1: fit Frozen Soul at all because they've not even got
Speaker 1: the excess that a Lorna Shaw can mask it up with.
Speaker 1: You know, They've got like the little bits of you know,
Speaker 1: playing with eighties horror films, so synthatros and stuff like that,
Speaker 1: but that's not you know, the Lorna Shaw symphonics plastering everything.
Speaker 1: What you have the core fundamentals of, like guitar, drums,
Speaker 1: bass is what Frozen Souls bread and butter is. And
Speaker 1: the word I keep coming back to for this is plasticky,
Speaker 1: Like the drum sound is bad, like plastic snare, clicky bass.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, this is one of my two major issues,
Speaker 2: but maybe the most major of them. It just it
Speaker 2: sucks so much of the atmosphere out of the record
Speaker 2: for such a huge part about the first to where
Speaker 2: as much as they are hulking and as much as
Speaker 2: they are groovy and catch and all of that stuff,
Speaker 2: that feeling of it legitimately being cold is just kind
Speaker 2: of gone here. It insists upon how cold it is
Speaker 2: more than actually feels that way. And it means that
Speaker 2: a song like Skinned by the Wind musically, You're right,
Speaker 2: sounds like Mortician. That song will hijack your taxi. But
Speaker 2: with this production job, it's just kind of sounds tame
Speaker 2: and not nearly as dangerous as any Mortician song, which
Speaker 2: sounds like shit technically but perfect for the thing that is.
Speaker 2: It ends up just making the record sound sort of
Speaker 2: sluggish and dead. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I want death metal to have guts to it, you know,
Speaker 1: and this sounds thin like it doesn't have that depth
Speaker 1: to it. And because even as the odd bit on
Speaker 1: it where they go for a sort of like sub
Speaker 1: drop pish, you know, like big explosion moment and they
Speaker 1: clip the mix like Eyes to Despair, which I mentioned
Speaker 1: as being one of the better songs, has one in it,
Speaker 1: the drop bit right at the end sounds like it glitches,
Speaker 1: like it's not layered I executed well within the mix
Speaker 1: at all. I'm actually quite surprised like that someone let
Speaker 1: that go out you know, like on a professional sounding record,
Speaker 1: because it's not the thing of you know, a you know,
Speaker 1: this is a too shiny, too professional mix. Now there
Speaker 1: are things on it which sound more amateurish than when
Speaker 1: they were more DIY, you know, because how do you
Speaker 1: let that like awful again and kind of drop moment
Speaker 1: that breaks the like comprehension of the sound go out.
Speaker 1: But to me it's it's it's all about before. But
Speaker 1: how like there was a post to the hell Fire
Speaker 1: where suddenly every Death Course song it was just a
Speaker 1: competition to see who could have the most laughable breakdown part.
Speaker 2: This doesn't quite do that. But there are parts of
Speaker 2: this record I thought, this feels like it's been written
Speaker 2: for someone to react to on twitch where it's like
Speaker 2: if I pull the face at this part and go,
Speaker 2: oh my god, that's so loud and so heavy, it
Speaker 2: doesn't really matter if it has much weight to it
Speaker 2: or much of a pulse. It's just is they said.
Speaker 2: The loudness feels like it's compensated for something.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the chorus and the song frost fags as well,
Speaker 1: like somehow starts like buzzing like almost randomly, I don't
Speaker 1: know why, like it should be a more professional, leveled
Speaker 1: out production job, but actually sounds less. So it's really
Speaker 1: weird and it's kind of unpleasant and not in a
Speaker 1: way I want my death metal to be unpleasant, you know.
Speaker 1: And the core pleasure of Frozen Soul being this like hulking,
Speaker 1: you know, blood soaked mass writhing out of the ice,
Speaker 1: slithering around you.
Speaker 3: The riffs are still good, Chad is still one.
Speaker 1: Of the best, most recognizable vocalists of this crop, I think,
Speaker 1: but that pleasure is lessened with the recording being so obnoxious.
Speaker 1: What was your other You're saying you've got two primary
Speaker 1: problems with this. For me, the production is really the
Speaker 1: main one. What's your kind of other problem? Is what
Speaker 1: you were just sort of suggesting with the leaning more
Speaker 1: on the that's called on the twitch moments.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's connected to that. I mean, fundamentally, I think
Speaker 2: this record's too slow, which I know is really shitty
Speaker 2: things to say, but it's like like you said at
Speaker 2: the top, but like, they're so good at the hulk
Speaker 2: and the groove that I can understand why they would
Speaker 2: want to lean into that and do more of it.
Speaker 2: The songs here just so many of them feel like
Speaker 2: they don't get going, and it means it sounds like
Speaker 2: thirty five minutes long, and so much of it feels
Speaker 2: like a slog. And I just think that when you
Speaker 2: have those moments on previous records are so effective, when
Speaker 2: it really slams into me and it goes full you know,
Speaker 2: Bolt Thrower, Pantera, all that sort of thing, like Machine
Speaker 2: had that kind of influence. If that's only effective if
Speaker 2: you have some speed and some nimbleness to counter out
Speaker 2: those big punch moments when the whole song is just
Speaker 2: sort of going like dug a gun, dug a gun,
Speaker 2: dug a gun, and then the next song is going done,
Speaker 2: get gun, done, gig. It just it means that for me,
Speaker 2: like there's kind there's no real tension, and that the
Speaker 2: sensation of how heavy and powerful it is, especially not
Speaker 2: helped by the production job, is kind of gone three
Speaker 2: songs in.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I can understand what you're saying. I do think, well,
Speaker 1: that's what you know. Cryptovice, for example, did so well
Speaker 1: that kind of you know, the balance of those elements that.
Speaker 3: You're talking about there.
Speaker 1: For me, I'm at sort of an impasse with this
Speaker 1: where I like a lot of what they're playing here,
Speaker 1: it's still like they have a sound, and it still
Speaker 1: sounds like them. There is much to enjoy and I
Speaker 1: hope that Frozen Sou will keep up, you know, the
Speaker 1: momentum that they've got behind them. But this is the
Speaker 1: worst that that sound has sounded for them because they're
Speaker 1: not being complimented and popular death metal bands, please do
Speaker 1: not go with the trendy death core producers or anyone
Speaker 1: who's going to add a bit of octane into your
Speaker 1: sound or whatever. It does not make you sound good
Speaker 1: like You should embrace sounding like a real death metal
Speaker 1: band because that's what people like you for, you know.
Speaker 1: And yeah, like I said, I do still enjoy a
Speaker 1: lot of the record. Killing time until It's time to
Speaker 1: kill is a stone cold jam, right, But I do
Speaker 1: wish that I liked this record as much as they
Speaker 1: do their prior too, And there is a primary, like
Speaker 1: you know, reasons what I can point to is to
Speaker 1: be like that you should change next time around. But
Speaker 1: there you go, Frozen Soul, no place of warmth. We
Speaker 1: leave that behind to go to Haggard Cat and the
Speaker 1: Pain The Orbits. Haggard Cat, if you are not familiar,
Speaker 1: are a two piece made up of Matt and Tom,
Speaker 1: who respectively were the frontman and drummer of Heck Slash
Speaker 1: Baby Godzilla. Heck, the fantastic modern Matthey hardcore band who
Speaker 1: in twenty sixteen released one brilliant album and then unfortunately
Speaker 1: split up. They performed on and off to do isolated shows.
Speaker 1: They're playing what I think might be actually their proper
Speaker 1: final show at ARP Tangent this year. Aside from one
Speaker 1: random single that appeared a few years ago and gave
Speaker 1: us some hope before they disappeared again. Creatively, that band
Speaker 1: seems to be fully done now. Haggard Cat is the
Speaker 1: project that emerged in the immediate aftermath of Heck with
Speaker 1: half of those guys doing something, but it was a
Speaker 1: fairly different prospect.
Speaker 3: Elliott.
Speaker 1: We will share an appreciation for Heck. I must say
Speaker 1: the first two Haggard Cat albums that appeared in twenty
Speaker 1: eighteen and twenty twenty. Long gap between those one and
Speaker 1: you know this resurfacing now. I did not really go
Speaker 1: with Haggard Cat. I didn't mind them, but in terms
Speaker 1: of actually being you know, grabbed by what they were doing,
Speaker 1: in acting with them in a meaningful way, it didn't happen,
Speaker 1: and It wasn't that just oh it doesn't sound like
Speaker 1: heck or whatever you might say, because it made sense
Speaker 1: that breaking up that band you would do something different.
Speaker 1: But personally, for me, it was a case of, you know,
Speaker 1: I give you my blessing and I let you go,
Speaker 1: rather than being really drawn to go with them. Were
Speaker 1: you any different with Haggard Cat?
Speaker 2: Oh no, it's gonna sell like I'm copying you again, because.
Speaker 1: That's at some point today we have to disagree.
Speaker 2: That is that was? That was exactly my experience. It
Speaker 2: was for me, it was similar to when the six
Speaker 2: eight came out after the Chariot and it was like,
Speaker 2: we have a sharrier and now we have the six A,
Speaker 2: and that's I'm not I'm not a fan of the
Speaker 2: six or much worse than that fever three through three
Speaker 2: after let there is there is a if.
Speaker 3: We should not compare Haggard Cat too, that would.
Speaker 2: Be so especially it gets out of the moment for me,
Speaker 2: like that starle of sort of garage punk has pretty
Speaker 2: little appeal to me anyway, Like the absolute classics of
Speaker 2: that genre I like, but the two piece sort of
Speaker 2: bass player drama drama, I just find it that exciting
Speaker 2: even though it's best and I thought the Haggard Cat
Speaker 2: records were maybe better than a lot of stuff in
Speaker 2: that scene. But like you said, I just kind of went,
Speaker 2: it's not as remarkable as Heck was. You guys, you know,
Speaker 2: good luck with it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And as you're saying, they've they've gone from the
Speaker 1: kind of math core side of what they're doing with
Speaker 1: Heck into this more like really noisy, sort of blues
Speaker 1: rock thing with Haggard Cat. This album a lot more,
Speaker 1: you know, in the making than those other ones. Obviously,
Speaker 1: it's their first album post COVID they have resurfaced. And
Speaker 1: because I didn't really have any you know, anticipation for
Speaker 1: a Haggard Cat album, because I've been lukewarm on them historically,
Speaker 1: I was really taken aback when I heard this one,
Speaker 1: because it is it is doing something different, I think,
Speaker 1: and if you are someone who feels like you might
Speaker 1: know where you sit oh in Haggard Cat. The reason
Speaker 1: I wanted to review this is to go do check
Speaker 1: this out if you were gonna otherwise skip over it,
Speaker 1: because this feels like Haggard Cat shooting their shot to
Speaker 1: really make something out there and gonzo, you know what,
Speaker 1: I mean, this.
Speaker 2: Feels a bit like when Dinosaur Pile Up did celebrit Mansions,
Speaker 2: where it was like, oh, like this band you've kind
Speaker 2: of had been around, but it didn't seem like people
Speaker 2: were that excited by it. Making something really bold and
Speaker 2: fun and off the wall and throwing stuff in that
Speaker 2: you would never normally associate with this style of music
Speaker 2: and pulling it off. And I think this record kind
Speaker 2: of does that. Like it's I went in just purely
Speaker 2: expecting a sort of Queens of the Stone Age, you know,
Speaker 2: fu Man Chewy, that sort of thing, kind of the
Speaker 2: Black Keys, but hardcore. This has got all sorts of
Speaker 2: stuff in it.
Speaker 3: Nuts this record.
Speaker 2: Fundamentally, I was like the band names I was writing
Speaker 2: down to draw comparisons from, I thought I'd have maybe
Speaker 2: four at the end of it. They were like twenty
Speaker 2: bands that were come into mind, and some of them,
Speaker 2: again I would never have associated them with Haggard Cat
Speaker 2: before this record, but it's all here.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this it sturns its feet in what Haggard Cat were.
Speaker 1: But they have just somehow, for some you know, decision
Speaker 1: or whatever, they've blown up the boundaries of what was
Speaker 1: going on with that band on this record. It's much
Speaker 1: more massively minded, and I was thinking about, I don't
Speaker 1: know if this is a band one of the twenty
Speaker 1: you've written down. I was thinking about cave In a
Speaker 1: lot during this, and the jumps that they made from
Speaker 1: their earlier stuff into now we're going to be a
Speaker 1: space rock band and we're going to play prog. Except
Speaker 1: this is still so noisy at the same time as
Speaker 1: doing that, It's like if cave In were a malfunctioning
Speaker 1: robot or had like an anthetamine field meltdown. Like this
Speaker 1: is a nutty, nutty record. The first sound you hear
Speaker 1: on it is like science Museum. I'm in the observatory
Speaker 1: looking at the stars, synth oscillations and like again, kind
Speaker 1: of cave In e league guitar, and then you know,
Speaker 1: the riff comes in and it does rock in the
Speaker 1: way that you know both parts of the Heck record,
Speaker 1: and obviously Haggard Cat can plainly rock with a thick,
Speaker 1: old groove, but it feels at the beginning like you are,
Speaker 1: you know, clicking your starship into gear, and you can
Speaker 1: sense that there is going to be more to where
Speaker 1: this record is going to take you right from the
Speaker 1: opening seconds of it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, That's when I was completely caught off guard because
Speaker 2: like that riff kind of in the mold of things
Speaker 2: like refused at the drive and you can see where
Speaker 2: the influence has come from. But there's these layered techno bits,
Speaker 2: which not only is the weird for a band of
Speaker 2: this style, but just the makeup of them. It's a
Speaker 2: two piece bass player on a drama and obviously a
Speaker 2: studio project. There's a different or maybe a lack thereof
Speaker 2: of limitations there. But it just felt like they were
Speaker 2: throwing so much more at it, and it meant that
Speaker 2: the whole thing feel was more exciting, where that things
Speaker 2: are playing off each other in the way that they
Speaker 2: haven't done on previous Haggard Cat records, where when his
Speaker 2: vocal performance is elevating and there's now sort of these
Speaker 2: panic inducing sour synths to go along with it, it's
Speaker 2: so much more colorful than any other material I've heard
Speaker 2: from them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean this is one of the most You
Speaker 1: are brave as a two piece to be putting this
Speaker 1: many layers into your record album that you could possibly
Speaker 1: hear like, how the fuck are you going to try
Speaker 1: and pull all this off? Because it is jam packed,
Speaker 1: like absolutely spilling over with ideas a lot of the time,
Speaker 1: Like these songs have the core amount of ideas that
Speaker 1: they would have for the conventional song of their run time,
Speaker 1: and then they somehow jam an extra few minutes worth
Speaker 1: into like what was on top of already there. And
Speaker 1: like I said, these like you know, proggy post hardcore bands,
Speaker 1: I suppose is the main kind of realm that you're
Speaker 1: drawing through, but also some of the more hard rock
Speaker 1: stuff as well. Like during the track Saw, I was thinking,
Speaker 1: if you miss Black Peaks and that kind of progressively
Speaker 1: minded post hardcore, you might get a bit of it
Speaker 1: from a riff like that track. It has that kind
Speaker 1: of majestic gate to it. And then you've got a
Speaker 1: song like Apnea, which is this really odd ball off
Speaker 1: kilter drum and guitar groove that starts off a song
Speaker 1: that's nearly eight minutes long, and it goes through some
Speaker 1: crazy passages like really slinging out guitar parts left, right
Speaker 1: and center. The mega like stoner blues riff that it
Speaker 1: arrives at at five minutes in that it like marches
Speaker 1: through to the end with is wicked. But by the
Speaker 1: point it reaches that and you can just glide out
Speaker 1: on that rift. It feels like it has like whipped
Speaker 1: you around with no concern for your well being.
Speaker 2: Yeah, if that song relyminds me at aol in a way,
Speaker 2: that tool will like an idea for ages. They somehow
Speaker 2: managed to create that feeling while throwing loads of stuff
Speaker 2: at you, because it's not eight minutes of this you know,
Speaker 2: seven eight groove that hypnotizes you. It's this is more
Speaker 2: like undertow kind of tool, where it's you know, it's
Speaker 2: it's the dynamics of that thing and throwing different stuff
Speaker 2: out you and having these discord and passages mapped up
Speaker 2: next to these quite ellergic ones, which again really took
Speaker 2: me by surprise and some of the maybe this is
Speaker 2: a more direct reference, but I was saying, this reminds
Speaker 2: you of like Hawkeyes and Black Peaks, and like the sort
Speaker 2: of early twenty tens bands of this kind that we
Speaker 2: had here in Britain, who you know, in the case
Speaker 2: of both of those bands seems to have gone away And
Speaker 2: like you say, eight minutes long and it's captivating the
Speaker 2: whole time. It's they've got a few of those on
Speaker 2: this recer, not necessarily all long, but in the way
Speaker 2: that they're throwing things out there like halcion. This is
Speaker 2: a bit nerdy, I warn you now. But I was
Speaker 2: reading the other day about how Circumstances by Rush has
Speaker 2: nine time signature changes in its first eleven measures, and
Speaker 2: I was listening to and I was like, oh my god,
Speaker 2: they're I'd never noticed that. You have no idea listening
Speaker 2: to it because it works so naturally. This has a
Speaker 2: bit of that where it's like, I'm not sure what
Speaker 2: the riff quote unquote of that song is, but it
Speaker 2: also seems to repeat a lot, but it's different every
Speaker 2: single time without tripping over itself to be complex. It's
Speaker 2: I think that's again it's a that's a side of
Speaker 2: quality and man's like this or like with songwriters of
Speaker 2: this style and they've got it.
Speaker 1: And that song also has a rave synth in it,
Speaker 1: Like you've said all that that song, I've not spoken
Speaker 1: about how glowed sticks, the synth part.
Speaker 2: Woodblocks and the scrapy fish from music Class. It's just
Speaker 2: like everything everything's on there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think what there isn't really with this record
Speaker 1: is that much concern for making it more accessible. I suppose,
Speaker 1: like you know, we were saying this about basement. This
Speaker 1: is unshamedly noisy and abrasive. The hooks that do exist
Speaker 1: from matter are often like, you know, gargling, I hate
Speaker 1: it here or whatever. There's a bit in the After
Speaker 1: Love where he's briefly stuck in a wash cycle like
Speaker 1: genuinely turns into like an android. He is howling in
Speaker 1: your ear the whole way. Even when he does sing
Speaker 1: sometimes it's weirdly kind of left field. There's a song
Speaker 1: Landscapes he goes a bit never more like that's not
Speaker 1: what it's expected to write down. But they do their
Speaker 1: proga bettle ballad on Landscapes and that's weird as fuck.
Speaker 1: But with all of the you know, space rock production overload,
Speaker 1: it's like blasting a lot into your ear at any
Speaker 1: given time. And I say, this is you could categorize
Speaker 1: it as Haggard Cat's rock album, but it's not Sorry,
Speaker 1: their prog album. But it's not like they've toned down
Speaker 1: the chaos for that. If anything, it is more overwhelming
Speaker 1: for being so Yeah.
Speaker 2: When I saw this was fifty minutes long, part, we thought, ah,
Speaker 2: this is gonna be you know, repetitive, and it's gonna
Speaker 2: be a bit conbersome. Yeah, it's almost the opposite, or
Speaker 2: that's kind of true, bit of different way. It's like
Speaker 2: fifty minutes now when I look at that and go,
Speaker 2: this is this is an ordeal because it's gonna be
Speaker 2: so much stuff around me in that time, it's gonna
Speaker 2: be no time to come up for air. And as
Speaker 2: a run of songs like these songs aren't you know,
Speaker 2: there's ten of them, it's fifty minutes songs. These songs aren't,
Speaker 2: which again typical of this sort of band. That's just
Speaker 2: because they go all over the place, and like the
Speaker 2: first couple of listens, I was trying to track which
Speaker 2: parts belongs to which song, and I just I love
Speaker 2: that freedom of songwriting they've got.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And maybe it's because they are, you know, spicing
Speaker 1: up and varying it with these other insane ideas as well.
Speaker 1: But I feel like the rock stuff on this has
Speaker 1: kind of hit me harder as well, Like the Afterlove
Speaker 1: kind of reminds me of like the Hunter era Mastodon
Speaker 1: stoner grooves but with like hand claps in particularly right
Speaker 1: near the end in between some again Goliath songs, you
Speaker 1: get a little ditty called war Paths, which is your
Speaker 1: like rock and roll hardcore, you know every Time I Die,
Speaker 1: you know, the great hardcorese Windle Banger. But there's also
Speaker 1: like a UFO fifties theremine in it. It's like tailing
Speaker 1: after you know what I mean. But that stuff really
Speaker 1: really works. But then you have right after that the
Speaker 1: closing track, Zion, which is another Goliath, and it starts
Speaker 1: genuine epic heavy metal, like it's going to be a
Speaker 1: chemist song before going full galact post hardcore with a
Speaker 1: genuinely pretty fucking unreal guitar solo at the end of it.
Speaker 1: And that track and its totality and all the places
Speaker 1: that goes to it did make me think like, yeah,
Speaker 1: remember how amazing see the Old Lady was at the
Speaker 1: end of Instructions by Heck, Like these guys are capable
Speaker 1: of like fucking pushing the boat out and going maximalist,
Speaker 1: and you know, Instructions did show this aptitude for doing
Speaker 1: much more like multi dimensioned, you know, elaborate songs, and
Speaker 1: it kind of feels like, if you know, Baby Godzilla
Speaker 1: was what they needed to do to build up to
Speaker 1: then that with Heck, maybe it's the case at the
Speaker 1: first couple Haggard Cat albums have now built to a
Speaker 1: similar equivalent of like, now, using these tools we've got,
Speaker 1: we are going to fucking try for something. And wonder
Speaker 1: if there's also a degree of you know, these guys
Speaker 1: going back to Heck and then going back to Baby
Speaker 1: Godzilla and even other bands they might have had before that.
Speaker 1: I don't know, Like, these guys have been warriors of
Speaker 1: the underground basically for like fifteen odd years, you know,
Speaker 1: and they've not had apart from a brief stint either
Speaker 1: not opening a kerrangt or whatever, they've not had like
Speaker 1: re broad mainstream success. But they are still here. And
Speaker 1: at what stage do you go, you know, particularly making
Speaker 1: your first ab in six years, why not go crazy
Speaker 1: and like try and you know, make something that hasn't
Speaker 1: been made before. And as a result, this is like
Speaker 1: definitely the best most engaging thing the Haggard Cat has
Speaker 1: done today. So absolutely fair play to them.
Speaker 2: Oh fully agree totally. Again, I think you now about
Speaker 2: those bands I was comparing them to earlier, is the
Speaker 2: six say you listen, I go the Chariot was so
Speaker 2: wild and unhinged and adventurous, and you've just come out
Speaker 2: with this cumbersome, uninteresting like blues noise rock band and
Speaker 2: I Fever three through three the worst example of it ever.
Speaker 2: What's gone here? Let's find the one thing about let
Speaker 2: live which isn't really cool and just do that forever
Speaker 2: and make it more stupid, which is just not a strategy.
Speaker 2: Haggard Cat kind of leaning all the way in on
Speaker 2: the bluesy punk thing that that is a flavor in
Speaker 2: Heck for certainly not the thing they do, and then
Speaker 2: going Okay, now that we've sort of completed that, let's
Speaker 2: bring it back in some of the a lot of
Speaker 2: the adventurousness that we had in that band and what
Speaker 2: made Heck so exciting. And now Haggard Cat, I've gone
Speaker 2: from a band who I don't I couldn't really care
Speaker 2: less about frankly so now in a couple of years
Speaker 2: and another record's coming, I don't know what it's going
Speaker 2: to be. I don't know how far they're going to
Speaker 2: take this. And to make that turnaround with one album
Speaker 2: is I'm seriously impressed.
Speaker 1: Yeah, if you have ever liked any of these guys
Speaker 1: works from any of their projects, I think you should
Speaker 1: check this one out because it does feel like the
Speaker 1: next milestone maybe to come from their particular you know,
Speaker 1: combined creative universe. And if you do like bands like
Speaker 1: cave In or Mastodon or Black Peaks, like anything with
Speaker 1: that you know, galactic approach to heavy prog, then you
Speaker 1: should also definitely investigate the new album from Haggard Cat
Speaker 1: which is called The Pain That Orbits. And if that
Speaker 1: was a bit weird, next review, we are going in
Speaker 1: some really unknown territory.
Speaker 3: This band is.
Speaker 1: Called fire Tools with a Z and the album is
Speaker 1: called Lavendon Networks. Elliot suggested that it might be interested
Speaker 1: if we cover this. I had not heard of it
Speaker 1: until you brought it up, which it turns out is
Speaker 1: because all of the buzz that exists around this is
Speaker 1: not located in the traditional rock world. There is metal
Speaker 1: in this, else we wouldn't be covering it. But to
Speaker 1: give you idea of where this comes from, this is
Speaker 1: this project's first album for Warp Records, which is the
Speaker 1: iconic electronic music label associated with the likes of Aphex,
Speaker 1: Twin Boards of Canada and Square Pusher. What's the deal
Speaker 1: with fire Tools and why did you think to put
Speaker 1: the towrd?
Speaker 2: I was looking for records to throw into the reviews
Speaker 2: bag for this and I checked all the metal size
Speaker 2: and the rock sites that I occasionally frequency what's out,
Speaker 2: and there wasn't a ton that we weren't already talking
Speaker 2: about that was leaping out of me. And then overall
Speaker 2: like radio music spoiling music, which I'll occasionally check just
Speaker 2: to see some scores, but I don't live there. There
Speaker 2: was just this wave of interest for this. I was
Speaker 2: a experimental grime core or like metal. It was something
Speaker 2: like that, and I'm not seen a word about it
Speaker 2: anywhere else. But he had these super high scores and
Speaker 2: the praise that was being alloush to fin out the
Speaker 2: thing that it was describing, which you know it gets
Speaker 2: to in a moment. It sounded fascinating, and it was
Speaker 2: completely removed from the rock and metal circles that you'd,
Speaker 2: you know, typically imagine something like this would would operate in.
Speaker 2: And that's you know, that's happened more and more recently.
Speaker 2: There's stuff that's happening in rock and metal that we're
Speaker 2: not interested in that's become super popular. But to see
Speaker 2: that happening for an underground band, I think that might
Speaker 2: be new.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And if I was to, I guess try and
Speaker 1: liken it to anything that is in you know, the
Speaker 1: T and M past ouver of stuff that we have
Speaker 1: covered that you might like if you enjoyed the Blind
Speaker 1: Equation album we reviewed last year, and that like hyper
Speaker 1: online way it fused black metal and scream oh with
Speaker 1: like glitchy digital Internet aid electronic programming. That's the one
Speaker 1: thing that I could think of that again that we
Speaker 1: have covered before that you might you know, come from
Speaker 1: a similar place, but this is almost coming from the
Speaker 1: like the other side of that fence, so to speak,
Speaker 1: you know, moving towards.
Speaker 3: Us rather than than outwards.
Speaker 1: Like the Apple Music descriptor for this album listed as
Speaker 1: scream o, vapor wave, prog rock, and IDM, which is
Speaker 1: a mad bunch of words that might nonetheless actually give
Speaker 1: you a better idea of what it is. Fire Tools
Speaker 1: as a project has apparently going for like a good
Speaker 1: decade or so, coming up through the early vapor wave
Speaker 1: scene in the twenty tens, which might be a surprise,
Speaker 1: not seeing I was in on I've got no fucking
Speaker 1: clue what might have been going on back then. Here's
Speaker 1: a question never asked on TNN before. Where you a
Speaker 1: vapor wave guy?
Speaker 2: I wouldn't go as far to describe myself as a
Speaker 2: vapor wave guy, but that would be a stretch. But
Speaker 2: I do like that Macintosh Plus album, which I think
Speaker 2: is like the Black album for that thing, and I like.
Speaker 1: That the vapor Wave Black album brilliant. Yeah, that I
Speaker 1: suppose is where this project maybe started, but it's evolved here,
Speaker 1: as we say, into something much more cross genre pollinating,
Speaker 1: you know, IDM, the world of AFX, twin and Square Butter,
Speaker 1: et cetera. But also then, not only I think, does
Speaker 1: this have the extreme metally you know, hardcore cybergrime whatever
Speaker 1: side of things that's not too new, like lots of
Speaker 1: nerves on the Internet, like those things and what to
Speaker 1: glitch them up like that's not necessarily actually much of
Speaker 1: surprise these days. The thing that most of the about
Speaker 1: about this is you've got all of that, and then
Speaker 1: also the prog where this has two bookend songs that
Speaker 1: are around seven to eight minutes long, and the eight
Speaker 1: tracks in between do more violently sort of you know,
Speaker 1: theear back and forth between like very heavy and then
Speaker 1: very dreamy. The first song particularly though, which you know,
Speaker 1: all of these songs have like stupid gibberish song titles
Speaker 1: because it's the Internet but like, you know, try reading
Speaker 1: the second track on this album out loud. The brain
Speaker 1: will rot out of your head. But that first song
Speaker 1: starts with like lovely Brian Enoe ambient music until it
Speaker 1: hits this massive wall of not just black metal screams,
Speaker 1: but like Toto keyboards or eighties rush or dare I
Speaker 1: say it, dream theater, Like I feel like I'm listening
Speaker 1: to a Reddit translation of images and words there it's mental.
Speaker 2: Well yeah, because again saying progue, someone listens to this
Speaker 2: might go, oh, it's so like King Crimson. It's going
Speaker 2: to be that sort of extreme. It's like, no, this
Speaker 2: is like the more yacht rock and the it's bordline
Speaker 2: like just guitar virtue. Also stuff like Eric Johnson, which
Speaker 2: you just put it on in the Background's nice, shiny, shimmery.
Speaker 1: It's holding fire more than twenty one twelve.
Speaker 2: Yeah, totally, And and if you're anything like me, that's
Speaker 2: absolutely no bad thing. We're more than happy to have
Speaker 2: some hold of fire injects into any album of any style.
Speaker 2: And that was the thing where I put this on
Speaker 2: and I went in not really skeptical, but going, you know,
Speaker 2: if this is purely just interesting to people outside of
Speaker 2: rock and met What does that say about it? The
Speaker 2: quality of that element at least is really good. Like
Speaker 2: it's it's really well done. You can tell it's done
Speaker 2: with by someone who loves that styling music. I mean,
Speaker 2: you wouldn't put it in there if you didn't love it.
Speaker 2: But it adds so much color and dexterity to the
Speaker 2: sound where stuff which is in theory more mellow and
Speaker 2: more like pop orited where you're trying to bring the
Speaker 2: energy down just layering it with shreddy, bleepy blue pee gazars.
Speaker 2: I'm enjoying it.
Speaker 1: And again just to reiterate, there is still an actual
Speaker 1: extreme metal album that's often happening kind of simultaneously to
Speaker 1: these parts. But it is those those prog sounds, whether
Speaker 1: it be the flutes or those like hyper glossy aor
Speaker 1: style keyboards finding their way through this cyber dimension that
Speaker 1: I don't know if you're familiar that there's a very
Speaker 1: niche sub scene of electronic music that I've discovered lately
Speaker 1: that's trying to evoke the very specific sensation of like
Speaker 1: nineties nature education CD ROMs like Dawling Kindersley Eyewitness stuff
Speaker 1: that that kind of nostalgic tone of like I'm learning
Speaker 1: about science. Like go and listen to the ep Virtua
Speaker 1: by Trendy Trendy if that sounds like it's going to
Speaker 1: send you on some kind of nostalter trip. But there's
Speaker 1: a little bit of that flavor in here where it's
Speaker 1: like whoa, I mean the I mean the rainforest. You know.
Speaker 1: It as like those kind of prog flavors to it,
Speaker 1: and a lot of that first song is very serene
Speaker 1: in a nice way. Some of those short tracks, like
Speaker 1: I say, the more intense.
Speaker 3: Elements come out.
Speaker 1: Balam, which is what I'll call track two, is like
Speaker 1: a big electro beat with a screen vocal on it,
Speaker 1: maybe more akin to like a one hundred gex or
Speaker 1: something like that. But it also then starts blasting with
Speaker 1: these like diggy metalcore kind of riffs. But all the
Speaker 1: while one of those eighties prog metal League guitars is
Speaker 1: like flying over that like cybergrind feel, and so despite
Speaker 1: the glitchiness and the intensity, there is still something quite
Speaker 1: graceful and serene to it. The ocean Gratitude is like
Speaker 1: the grindcore band Gridlink, but they are playing sonic Green
Speaker 1: Hills level that rips, and that's before the smooth jazz
Speaker 1: solo comes in, the sack solo.
Speaker 2: I've said it before. The test of these things, the
Speaker 2: things that marks the great bands out from just the
Speaker 2: merely good ones, is if you can weave those things
Speaker 2: together and maintain a sort of thread through the different stars.
Speaker 2: That's the test.
Speaker 3: I think.
Speaker 2: I think this succeeds that. I mean, if you have
Speaker 2: this one like the Ocean Gratitude Ballam Purse examples, where
Speaker 2: they're often very extreme, very noisy, very discordant, but there's
Speaker 2: gorgeous melodies. Although it Kissed the Kiss the Bladed cat
Speaker 2: Is it sounds like a haunted house in a Sega game,
Speaker 2: but it's got that like vile black metal wretch over
Speaker 2: the top of it, and yet the pretty stuff on
Speaker 2: that it's shimmering all over the shop. It's, you know,
Speaker 2: sort of Barbie dream house like directed PC games, sort
Speaker 2: of mid two thousands esthetic. It's the amalgam of things
Speaker 2: works surprisingly well considering in theory, and they couldn't be
Speaker 2: more disparate from one another. You'd think it would have
Speaker 2: to be stop start.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know if there is like a super
Speaker 1: coherent world to the record beyond like the experimentation of
Speaker 1: like I am, you know, deep in a like Windows
Speaker 1: Vista wallpaper where things are melting. I don't know, like
Speaker 1: that Kiss the Blading Cat song. It sounds like the
Speaker 1: vinyl record containing a horror movie score is melting in
Speaker 1: the heat, you know, and the sound is warping and
Speaker 1: it's it's very weird. And there are these songs in
Speaker 1: the middle that are much more Nightmary noise, like code Name,
Speaker 1: Sparkly Lagoon Landline brings them a riff that is so
Speaker 1: stupid because sometimes we use terms like sludge or swampy
Speaker 1: or whatever to convey the feeling of a rift, but
Speaker 1: like literally that sounds like sludge, like it literally squelches.
Speaker 1: There's some kind of effect on what is basically like
Speaker 1: sort of low beat down riff that makes it sound
Speaker 1: like farting liquid, you know, and the vocal has similarly
Speaker 1: been distorted into like a toilet slam kind of fart sound.
Speaker 1: And then somehow that being the basis that you're going
Speaker 1: to try and build this like mental New Age magic
Speaker 1: of learning about nature, you know, keyboard part off the
Speaker 1: top of it is unconventional. I don't know how much
Speaker 1: it does cohere to something beyond being weird as fuck,
Speaker 1: but I do applaud it, and there are the points
Speaker 1: where it goes again full on embraces that like color
Speaker 1: and the New Age stuff like and Where's the Heart
Speaker 1: is just a dig prog song basically where it's the
Speaker 1: kind of music where somehow in the confines of that
Speaker 1: track you can envision someone wearing corpse paint and then
Speaker 1: also someone playing the pan pipes and they have a
Speaker 1: little dance together.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that song was really Disney. It sounds that something
Speaker 2: from in canto, but it's been fed through a shredder
Speaker 2: or something. It's it's a really wild and again, like
Speaker 2: just the ability to go that far with it is
Speaker 2: what impresses me because it's I think if this was
Speaker 2: just all the things happening at once for the duration
Speaker 2: of the record, that would get pretty tedious. But it's
Speaker 2: the way that they as much as they're willing to
Speaker 2: pick things up, they're just as willing to drop them
Speaker 2: because there's nothing really extreme in that song. It's it's
Speaker 2: just glitched up and you know, distorted and fucked about
Speaker 2: within glitchy. It's it's not like they've put loads of
Speaker 2: extreme metal into it, and I like that when they
Speaker 2: lean into something like that, they really lean into it
Speaker 2: and don't feel the obligation to, you know, counterbalance it
Speaker 2: with something for the metal heads.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it is a very strange time. I think for me,
Speaker 1: maybe raws a record it's more an academic listen rather
Speaker 1: than something I'm regularly putting on a pleasure. But it
Speaker 1: is a fascinating little record, and you know, I'm not
Speaker 1: expecting fire Tools to turn up a download or even
Speaker 1: a Damnation anytime soon, right, there is definitely something about
Speaker 1: this where it is what we specialize in plays, but
Speaker 1: one small part of it. It's one of those kind
Speaker 1: of genreles albums that the Internet has, you know, started
Speaker 1: to produce. But if you are into you know, IDM
Speaker 1: futuristic yet simultaneously nostalgic like electronic stuff, and you are
Speaker 1: interested in an extreme prog metal twist, you might not
Speaker 1: be aware of this record coming from the rock breast,
Speaker 1: so check it out. It's unique. At least fire Tools
Speaker 1: lave of the networks. We are going to dial a
Speaker 1: little bit deeper into the punk world next with a
Speaker 1: band called Prison Near de Tomp with pro De le
Speaker 1: Purvois Parlor Force. This was a real last minute edition
Speaker 1: to the schedule. I literally came across this about two
Speaker 1: days ago and I sprung it on Elliott fairly last minute.
Speaker 1: But for those two days that I've had this, I
Speaker 1: have listened to it many times over. Not that that's too
Speaker 1: hard a thing considering the length of it, but I
Speaker 1: just thought, we've got a slot and this record is
Speaker 1: fucking great, so I'm going to just use this as
Speaker 1: a recommendation real quick. I was looking for punk releases. Basically,
Speaker 1: I was like, I'm going to look for around for
Speaker 1: a decent punk album, and I decided to check in
Speaker 1: on the recent label releases of La Vida s Unmos Discos,
Speaker 1: which is the label that puts out home Front last year,
Speaker 1: and I found in their recent releases from a couple
Speaker 1: of weeks ago this little treat of an album. Obviously,
Speaker 1: as you might be able to gather from the name,
Speaker 1: this is a French OI record, a one man project.
Speaker 1: It turns out it's a guy called Jackie Cadu. That's
Speaker 1: him on the cover, I assume. And I would just say,
Speaker 1: if you are enjoying this recent wave of like great
Speaker 1: OI punk records that have been coming out very much
Speaker 1: check in on this because while you know, not as
Speaker 1: genre blending as like a Home Front or a Poison Ruin,
Speaker 1: for example, there is a really lovely, still quite dynamic
Speaker 1: touch to this that makes its twenty four minute runtime
Speaker 1: more engaging than merely twenty four minutes of like you know,
Speaker 1: no nonsense oil punk that just gets in and out.
Speaker 1: There is a similar outside the box sort of thinking
Speaker 1: at times to this. It's just a real delight and
Speaker 1: the foundation to it is still you know, very much
Speaker 1: to the point this style of music. So if you
Speaker 1: have any fondness for this kind of thing, I think
Speaker 1: you will be in and comfy. From the very first listen,
Speaker 1: we are talking slamming punk beats and extremely rowdy shout
Speaker 1: a long hooks, just all in French on this one.
Speaker 1: And these songs are absolutely righteous, blazing, anti fascist punk songs.
Speaker 1: The album title translates as seizing power by force, and
Speaker 1: you have La liberte so pla song which translates to
Speaker 1: freedom is Obtained by Blood and that song which is
Speaker 1: tracked two in the record, honestly literally, from my very
Speaker 1: first listen of the very first chorus on it, I
Speaker 1: didn't have to finish the song. I was already singing
Speaker 1: along and this is a song that isn't even in
Speaker 1: my native language, but that you know, Lala song is
Speaker 1: so catchy and so stirring like that is from listen
Speaker 1: one up there with like Lily of the Valley as
Speaker 1: the most infectious punk songs of this year. And going
Speaker 1: through this record again and again the eight tracks on it,
Speaker 1: I think this record fucking rips.
Speaker 3: Elliott.
Speaker 1: Having this, you know, handed over to you, you know,
Speaker 1: shortly before we were putting this reviews back together, did
Speaker 1: you also have fun with it? I have a suspicion
Speaker 1: that you might have, because this is a kind of
Speaker 1: punk that we very rarely perfect about.
Speaker 2: To be honest, Yeah, I just I love this style
Speaker 2: of music. I'm getting more and more in love with
Speaker 2: it as times, especially in the las few years, basically
Speaker 2: post Poison Ruin. I like discovering that band and then
Speaker 2: going back and hearing all the stuff that was influenced
Speaker 2: by them, and then Cox Sparrow last summer. It's been
Speaker 2: a very good tign. This thing fucking rocks. It's it's
Speaker 2: so good, like I the for the thing that it is,
Speaker 2: which is actually, like you said, quite varied and quite bolding.
Speaker 2: What it takes from it's pretty much perfect. I'm starting
Speaker 2: to believe that eight songs is how long all albums
Speaker 2: should be. For whatever reason about how long those songs are,
Speaker 2: there's something about eight songs that just makes sense. These
Speaker 2: songs are extremely hooky, so rousing, like punk songs that
Speaker 2: could come out anytime in the last fifty years and
Speaker 2: would sound just as tremendous as life affirming. It's absolutely sublime.
Speaker 1: The choruses are just so infectious, like the way that
Speaker 1: they in that Oi fashion, you know, regardless of language,
Speaker 1: just absolutely slam into your head and just get you
Speaker 1: going and lift you up. But also some of the
Speaker 1: other flavors that are sprinkling over the top. This record
Speaker 1: has a particularly bright sound the instrumentation I think that
Speaker 1: makes me think of like the acoustics at the start
Speaker 1: of the opening track probably go down an easy treat
Speaker 1: if you are into like the folk punk or even
Speaker 1: like mending as the type scenes you know, just before
Speaker 1: those oi drums cuts start coming in and go and
Speaker 1: get that skid daddling sound of them, which is just
Speaker 1: loads of fun. The fifth track, Dnier Regard just has
Speaker 1: the brightest ray of sunshine of guitar riff with this
Speaker 1: just you know, insistent Oi hook of.
Speaker 3: The d regard over what is this?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 1: Ah? Incredible? Absolutely, we've had frozen soul. We're gonna have
Speaker 1: another quite snow coated record in a little while. This
Speaker 1: has been my heat wave record for the week, right,
Speaker 1: Like this is exactly what has been going on. This
Speaker 1: is just so again sunglazed and bright and uplifting.
Speaker 2: You mentioned that the Dania regard and that and the
Speaker 2: song after it, Dan's Ladulia. That's definitely not right. The
Speaker 2: long title one track six. I think it is one
Speaker 2: band I hit a lot of on this, and I
Speaker 2: wouldn't surprised if it was a direct, direct influence. Is
Speaker 2: Stiff Little Fingers, who are, for my money right, the
Speaker 2: best punk band this side of the Atlantic has ever produced.
Speaker 2: And any time I can sense that their flavors in
Speaker 2: a record in a band, it just warms my heart.
Speaker 2: And those two songs in particular, they've got a bit
Speaker 2: more of a melodic mouse to them. It really brings
Speaker 2: to mind they're sort of turning to the eighty were
Speaker 2: like songs like you know you might know Tin Soldiers
Speaker 2: and Nobody's Hero, like less about Hack and Slash and
Speaker 2: more about soaring and I love that and it makes
Speaker 2: my favorite moments of the record. That one too, for me,
Speaker 2: is as good as this record gets. They somehow manage
Speaker 2: to feel even more stirring and urgent than the other
Speaker 2: songs of the record, which are pretty fucking stirring and
Speaker 2: mighty urgent. It just but the whole thing just bowls
Speaker 2: along that those moments might be my hands, but the
Speaker 2: way that they lean into pace and speed and fury
Speaker 2: when they need to. You mentioned Liberty and the first song,
Speaker 2: there's so much like holler along power to those choruses,
Speaker 2: and when there is some hack and slash in the riffs,
Speaker 2: they absolutely pull that off as well. There's so much
Speaker 2: again for a studio project, it sounds really alive and
Speaker 2: again like there's that that is a for bands playing
Speaker 2: in this soyle of music. It really helps if you
Speaker 2: if it sounds like a band is playing to again,
Speaker 2: that's what punk is really all about. He's able to
Speaker 2: sublimate that feeling while this necessarily being a studio projects,
Speaker 2: and I think that's really cool.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you know, there are some of the OI
Speaker 1: reference points. I'm sure that a lot of these bands share,
Speaker 1: Like you know, Blitz whoever it is. But like speaking
Speaker 1: of the unconventional bands that came to mind, I don't
Speaker 1: I might get crucified for saying this. I don't know
Speaker 1: about the particular record, but for some reason I kept
Speaker 1: thinking about the offspring during this, like that like hyper
Speaker 1: melodic guitar, everyfing you know, do new, new, new, and
Speaker 1: like whatever, Like they feel like basement OI versions of
Speaker 1: either like the Kids Aren't All Right. A lot of
Speaker 1: the time songs and pop punk has been a useless
Speaker 1: genre for ages, but this new wave oy scene is
Speaker 1: living at the moment. So if you can grab a
Speaker 1: bit of that flavor in a record like this instead,
Speaker 1: by all means do it. And it also has just
Speaker 1: a super light dabbling and not as heavy as like
Speaker 1: a Homefront for example, but a light dabbling just enough
Speaker 1: to make it feel felt in post punk. Where that
Speaker 1: La Libertay track, which is the one of all these
Speaker 1: I have been like rinsing over and over again. As
Speaker 1: well as having just the best OI chorus, it's got
Speaker 1: like a danceable feel underneath it that really makes it pop.
Speaker 1: And another my favorite tracks on this, lamad it On,
Speaker 1: is pure punched the air, like you know street punk,
Speaker 1: but halfway through you get this sick like twinkly guitar
Speaker 1: lead out of the post punk school that just like
Speaker 1: really catches the air and glistens in a really beautiful way.
Speaker 1: And the final track has like a little bit of
Speaker 1: tremolo melody. It's like a little TV taste of black metal,
Speaker 1: like nothing too extreme. Like it's not like when the
Speaker 1: Poison Ruin closing track went full black metal. It's just
Speaker 1: like a tiny little frosty icing on the punk cake
Speaker 1: on what is essentially a raging hardcore track that also
Speaker 1: at the end turns into a gleaming heartland rock song
Speaker 1: to end, like the final minute of the record.
Speaker 2: That rules that song again being thrown off course when
Speaker 2: that came in, espelicially with the rolling tom's and the
Speaker 2: the tremolo riffs, I was going, we had a bit
Speaker 2: of late two thousands dark thrown here. Very nice. Again,
Speaker 2: I'm sure she's just share influence, but that's the thing
Speaker 2: that came to mind. And then by the end you're right,
Speaker 2: you're going, oh no, that this guy also likes the
Speaker 2: Replacements and probably a bit of Tom Petty and he's
Speaker 2: throwing some of that in that level of musical dexterity.
Speaker 2: It's one of the coolest things about the sort of
Speaker 2: internet era of punk is the ability to go, let's
Speaker 2: just throw all sorts of things and like paper and
Speaker 2: share our own idea to it. This doesn't really have
Speaker 2: like a necessary I don't think this has a super
Speaker 2: easy elevator pitch in a way that something like a
Speaker 2: Poison Ruin does not say that's a measure of the
Speaker 2: record at all, But I do think it's much more
Speaker 2: dextrous then you might expect from this style of music
Speaker 2: generally speaking.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I checked out this is the second album
Speaker 1: from this particular project. I checked out the debut album
Speaker 1: as well, from a couple of years ago, and that
Speaker 1: record is also good, but this one seems more open
Speaker 1: minded in the influences, you know. And it's just it's
Speaker 1: fucking loads of fun, Like like eight songs twenty four minutes.
Speaker 1: Pretty much every song as a banger and has something
Speaker 1: cool to you know, hang, it's kind of name on. Actually,
Speaker 1: if you are wanting a punk record, check out this month.
Speaker 1: This is the one for me. Like, I highly recommend it.
Speaker 1: Prison Ere de tomp absolutely get in on that one.
Speaker 1: I'm very glad that I caught it, you know, just
Speaker 1: in time to slap it in this particular reviews bag
Speaker 1: because it's really there you go along with the more
Speaker 1: alternative records though that we have now covered this month
Speaker 1: in particular, this sunny month of May has been chock
Speaker 1: a block for black metal. On top of what we've
Speaker 1: got here, we had the return of dmu borg Hear
Speaker 1: after eight years. We had Dark Throwne as well, and
Speaker 1: those are the ones we aren't doing, some of the
Speaker 1: genre's biggest names, and the reason being is that we
Speaker 1: have got three count on three picks more from the
Speaker 1: underground that we want to shout about. And first of all,
Speaker 1: we have an album that the album that has most
Speaker 1: consumed my listening this month, a Forest of Stars, with
Speaker 1: also their first album in eight years, the magnificently titled
Speaker 1: Stack Overflow in Corpse Pile Interface. This is a band
Speaker 1: who have been veterans of the scene for you know,
Speaker 1: coming up to twenty years now, but with it being
Speaker 1: so long between releases and then not exactly being a
Speaker 1: household name, this I'm sure will be the first time
Speaker 1: that plenty of folks will be hearing of them. So
Speaker 1: an introduction of Forester of Stars were part of the
Speaker 1: wave of UK black metal bands that really reignited that
Speaker 1: scene at the tail end of the naughties into the
Speaker 1: twenty ten So I'm talking Winter, Philith, then Code Voices
Speaker 1: and that generation of bands were and are massive for me,
Speaker 1: Like being a teenage black metal fan at that time
Speaker 1: and finding this wave of bands who are much close
Speaker 1: to home rather than you know, coming from Norway or
Speaker 1: America and then often being you know, so interesting and
Speaker 1: different from one another was a big thing. And a
Speaker 1: Forest of Stars were in a scene often of Mavericks
Speaker 1: by far the most eccentric and out there of those
Speaker 1: bands a lot of the time. And you know, considering
Speaker 1: what we've discussed before about the likes of Code and
Speaker 1: how out their bands like that can be, that is
Speaker 1: saying something Elliott's, do you have a history with a
Speaker 1: Forest of Stars? And if you do, why don't you
Speaker 1: have a crack at conveying what the fuck their deal is?
Speaker 3: Because it's sure is something.
Speaker 2: Okay, So yeah, I do have a history of a
Speaker 2: Forest of Stars. I love this band. I didn't know
Speaker 2: this record was coming out. I somehow missed the announcement
Speaker 2: altogether until like I think it was the end of
Speaker 2: reviews last month you mentioned this was going to be
Speaker 2: and I thought, what the fuck? Like, yeah back, because
Speaker 2: we're getting to it. May it's been a while. Uh,
Speaker 2: they're They're not for the faint of heart. We'll put
Speaker 2: it that way, because even before you get to the
Speaker 2: most radical thing about them, which is so self explanatory,
Speaker 2: if you've heard it, if you've heard this band, you
Speaker 2: know you already know I'm getting at. Their music is
Speaker 2: so unusual. Their songs are long, liberin labyrinthine, unorthodox tapestries.
Speaker 2: I'd say they're black metal band. They've got much more
Speaker 2: common the likes have enslaved than they do I mortal like.
Speaker 2: They take so much from folk music, progressive rock, sort
Speaker 2: of seventies neo folks, psychedelia. You're You're just as likely
Speaker 2: to hear a male choir or like a church organ
Speaker 2: on their records then a distorted tritone. And this record
Speaker 2: might be their most off the beaten path yet for
Speaker 2: a reason, We'll get this. This band are about as
Speaker 2: idiosyncratic and strange a black metal band as you're likely
Speaker 2: to find in any point in the genre's history. They
Speaker 2: are that shit, for lack of a better word, Yeah.
Speaker 1: Like of that crop of as to say, UK black
Speaker 1: metal bands from like circa twenty ten, they are the
Speaker 1: one that you could most conceivably slap the avant guarde
Speaker 1: tag onto, like you know, Winterfhilith, great band, but Winterfith
Speaker 1: fairly straightforward in what they do. For as the Stars,
Speaker 1: just conceptually from the off, they're like a secret society
Speaker 1: of Victorian gentlemen, and like they often go by the
Speaker 1: nickname the Club, you know, like their their current promo picture,
Speaker 1: if you were to pull it up, is one of
Speaker 1: my favorite things, because you have this group of like stoic,
Speaker 1: forlorn looking metal people suited and booted, and then randomly,
Speaker 1: at the very far end of the group photo, one
Speaker 1: of them is wearing like a purple multi colored clown
Speaker 1: slash GiB mask and it's.
Speaker 3: Only him, like none of the rest of them, and
Speaker 3: I have no explanation for him.
Speaker 1: But they are like this extremely peculiar and hyper British
Speaker 1: as well collective like this is genuinely a sound that
Speaker 1: you would get nowhere else in the because it is
Speaker 1: this genuinely surrealistic concoction of English progue and folk and
Speaker 1: demented Victorian aristocracy with a frontman called mister Curse and
Speaker 1: other members going by names like mister T. S. Kettlberner
Speaker 1: and mister William White Barrow. Like they're a very odd bunch,
Speaker 1: but they are great, and they're twenty tens albums a
Speaker 1: shadow play for Yesterday's and particularly for me at the
Speaker 1: time be where the Sword you Cannot See are among
Speaker 1: the classics in my book that that scene produced. But
Speaker 1: this new album I think might have gone right up
Speaker 1: to challenge them. I think this is like an upper
Speaker 1: tier album of the Year contender, like this is just terrific.
Speaker 1: And if you are hearing that description and hearing it
Speaker 1: sounds off putting, it might well be like they are
Speaker 1: absolutely a very odd band whose flavor will drive some
Speaker 1: people insane, but also give it a go because it
Speaker 1: is a sonic concoction unlike any other band, and we've
Speaker 1: not gotten onto how spectaclely on this album they are
Speaker 1: also put these ideas off. There's also the matter that
Speaker 1: this album is seventy three minutes long. They do not
Speaker 1: do the things by halves. And it's only you said
Speaker 1: eight tracks is good before this one's six tracks and
Speaker 1: each one, let me tell you, is an odyssey and
Speaker 1: my goodness. It is a great beast two tackle. But
Speaker 1: for psychedelics, sprawling, swimming in and out of what is
Speaker 1: expected heavy music, you won't be hearing many better examples
Speaker 1: of it.
Speaker 2: I think no U for seventy three minutes. I'm not
Speaker 2: saying that it flies by or that it's easy listening
Speaker 2: for certainly thing it's by any means, it's absolutely not.
Speaker 2: This is probably their densest album to date. I would
Speaker 2: say sonically it's you can hear that this is a
Speaker 2: near decade of work going into it. But this thing
Speaker 2: doesn't wait around very long. Like occasional you'll do it
Speaker 2: deliberately open. It will make you wait for something. But
Speaker 2: the amount that goes on in those seventy three minutes,
Speaker 2: this is comfortably one of the most ambitious metal records
Speaker 2: you will hear this year in any style of music,
Speaker 2: purely on artistic grounds. You know, We've been listening to
Speaker 2: it for a few weeks now. I still feel like
Speaker 2: I'm scratching the paint off the aluminum surface or something.
Speaker 2: That this thing is such a monolith. And I say
Speaker 2: that in the in the most praising possible terms. I
Speaker 2: am like you in I am just in awe of
Speaker 2: this record.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but it is.
Speaker 1: It's a seventy three minute, dense what is going on
Speaker 1: record that I still have like actually wanted organically not
Speaker 1: just to be doing this, to put on again and again,
Speaker 1: like this is the record after neurosis this year that
Speaker 1: I've done that with of being like I need like
Speaker 1: I've got fucking seventy three minutes, fair, wow, I need
Speaker 1: to put for us to stars on like I've been.
Speaker 1: I've been to the rest of their catalog as well.
Speaker 1: And for a band who I you know, I liked
Speaker 1: ten years ago and then they went away for a
Speaker 1: while and I kind of organically by myself like rediscovered
Speaker 1: and re fell back in love with them about two
Speaker 1: or three year ago anyway. But getting this at just
Speaker 1: the right time and it just being as like delivering
Speaker 1: on everything I could want it to be has been
Speaker 1: such a real joy trying to get get inside and
Speaker 1: what the sounds are even going on here. I guess
Speaker 1: you know, among the main players that they have that
Speaker 1: make up what they do musically is they have a violinist,
Speaker 1: a lady going by Catherine, Queen of the Ghosts, who
Speaker 1: briefly played violin for My Dine bride as well, and
Speaker 1: that kind of strings work on an extreme metal record,
Speaker 1: particularly one as ingrained in like British folk music, as
Speaker 1: this is just really seems to be so strongly and
Speaker 1: that gives me a pretty central, like melodic focal point,
Speaker 1: you know, to hold on to as it goes through
Speaker 1: all these different elements, and so amidst everything else that
Speaker 1: goes on, you have these stunning, like incredibly rich, rich
Speaker 1: texturally you know, powerful violin melodies that opened the record
Speaker 1: with the first track Ofscension of the Clowns, slowly moving
Speaker 1: over this like beautiful, like spacey, atmospheric black metal passage,
Speaker 1: and it really draws you in. But then mister Curse,
Speaker 1: the vocalist arrives. He is just the most like alarming,
Speaker 1: off putting yet completely transfixing vocal focal point in an
Speaker 1: extreme metal band that you can imagine, because he's not
Speaker 1: actually doing a what you would call a black metal
Speaker 1: vocal traditionally, you could argue he's not even quite screaming
Speaker 1: in a way that you would understand a metal band
Speaker 1: to be screaming. Rather, he specializes in this kind of unhinged,
Speaker 1: ranting sort of spoken word poetry. But it is so
Speaker 1: fucked up, so attention grabbing and disarming, and like to
Speaker 1: hear a you know, an extreme metal band who have
Speaker 1: a vocalist where you genuinely do not know what he's
Speaker 1: going to come out with or what he's going to
Speaker 1: sound like or pull off any given line is so
Speaker 1: as I say, like you just like you have to
Speaker 1: fixate on him.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's one of the most idiosyncratic vocalists an extreme
Speaker 2: metal band that's ever had. And it just I think
Speaker 2: he's about a spoken word. If a lot of peoplehen
Speaker 2: they hear the words spoken word, they think, oh, you know,
Speaker 2: mellow kind of whispering, it's gonna be that sort of thing,
Speaker 2: like you know, slint or something like that. His spoken
Speaker 2: word is so panic inducing it's actually a relief when
Speaker 2: he starts screaming, when he starts.
Speaker 3: Wretching like a black mask.
Speaker 2: Oh thank god, thank god, some respite from that madman.
Speaker 2: He he is, his gibbering stream of conscious and it's
Speaker 2: also one of the most arresting vocal styles I've ever heard,
Speaker 2: and it's not one that I've ever ready gotten used to.
Speaker 2: I've listened to this band loads, and I've listened to
Speaker 2: this record loads, and there are still moments across this record.
Speaker 2: What is he doing and what the like? I mean,
Speaker 2: straight straight away the first song, you know, he's growling,
Speaker 2: he's snarling, he's he's chew chewing, like what just when
Speaker 2: you think you've put everything and you think, okay, I'm
Speaker 2: starting to get on the register, it says.
Speaker 1: Like yeah, like genuine just to reassert here three minutes
Speaker 1: of the album. I have no idea if this has
Speaker 1: ever happened on a black ma lad before he makes
Speaker 1: a train horn noise as of this mad like careening
Speaker 1: snowball of a track, he goes steady away, boys at
Speaker 1: that point, all better off to where you might be going.
Speaker 1: I mean, the very first line on the album, he
Speaker 1: comes in with this, I am my own maggot consuming
Speaker 1: myself and the only natural comparison point for what he
Speaker 1: does as to if you would like this ash Andspire,
Speaker 1: if you like them A Forest of Stars was a
Speaker 1: clear reference point for what they were going for, you know,
Speaker 1: like they share that kind of foaming at the mouth, lunacy,
Speaker 1: ranting and raving vocal delivery. But while Ashenspire is often
Speaker 1: very like pointed with the specificity of the political subject matter,
Speaker 1: a Forest of Stars is much more like Dardaist, you know,
Speaker 1: like it's so unpredictable the kind of thing that he
Speaker 1: will come out with. It's all wrapped up again in
Speaker 1: this like high society Victorian wordsmith language, and he is
Speaker 1: still ferocious and like angry and incandescent with rage, but
Speaker 1: it will spill out into the most like genuinely bizarre
Speaker 1: and absurdist stuff. There's a part later on where he
Speaker 1: hits an honest to god wow, and I think there
Speaker 1: is there is a quite politicized nature to what you
Speaker 1: can read into again these very dense lyrics, like when
Speaker 1: he's talking about Shitagatshit the Enshitenment, and I'm like, yeah,
Speaker 1: it does kind of feel like we're living in the
Speaker 1: Ensitenment right now. That's quite an app I think assessment
Speaker 1: of the world, but it's putrified to something that is
Speaker 1: so delirious. You know the title Corpses overflowing Crashing the world.
Speaker 1: You know, there's a track mechanically separated logic where he's
Speaker 1: painting this like hideous picture of I think the human
Speaker 1: race as the product of like a factory meat plant
Speaker 1: covering the earth or something. There's a lot in that
Speaker 1: and like root circle usurpers as well. That seems to
Speaker 1: reference climate change. But again and he's like, you know,
Speaker 1: really strung out kind of ways. But the instrumental is
Speaker 1: it's so strange and fluttery, with like you know, peculiar
Speaker 1: keyboard sounds and like space rock bas melodies and stuff
Speaker 1: you get as well. It feels like you're drifting through
Speaker 1: like a toxic poisoned you know, daydream and the whole
Speaker 1: time he is just off on one. It's like being
Speaker 1: in the presence of a man just threatening to set
Speaker 1: himself on fire over and over again. And while he's
Speaker 1: doing that, the band are flowing and creating these incredible,
Speaker 1: like shimmering, violent but psychedelic landscapes with those of those
Speaker 1: phenomenal violin melodies. It rarely actually stops between the tracks,
Speaker 1: like it does feel kind of constructed as like a
Speaker 1: continuous seventy three minute piece of music, so street level vertigo.
Speaker 1: That second track you get this ominous thudding percussion that
Speaker 1: swims straight out of essentially the clowns building for three
Speaker 1: minutes just getting more and more like antsy basically, and
Speaker 1: that's something he's pointing at things you can't see going yes,
Speaker 1: that one no.
Speaker 3: Not that one. It's like, what are we referring to?
Speaker 1: I'm so scared, And then eventually it bursts and you
Speaker 1: get like a Glockenspiel melody or something that's harmonizing with
Speaker 1: the tremolo, and this mixture of like really calming beauty
Speaker 1: with this crazed magnet at the center of it is
Speaker 1: really amazing. And considering everything we just said for me,
Speaker 1: like I said, how I've wanted to go back to
Speaker 1: this recond again, then there is a smoothness about how
Speaker 1: this one works together and flows that some of them
Speaker 1: more prickly albums haven't had that so much, but there
Speaker 1: is a level of grace to it and the prog
Speaker 1: rock side of it. When you get to like the
Speaker 1: back half of the song like street Level Vertigo, and
Speaker 1: it goes full into that world, it's unreal.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean just street up. Berger has one of
Speaker 2: my favorite couplets, even couplets my favorite bits of line
Speaker 2: on the song, way just goes a I see beasts
Speaker 2: on the periphery? Will they eat me?
Speaker 3: Will I eat them?
Speaker 2: What the what do you mean? Like you said that,
Speaker 2: the arrangements on that song are just amazing. The Glaucus
Speaker 2: Field melody sounds like something off, like a Cigar Oasa
Speaker 2: record somehow, And it's the juxtavision between something so I
Speaker 2: want to say, calming but sort of beautiful and cascading
Speaker 2: against the backdrop of that vocal is just so discordant
Speaker 2: and uncecily. And in the first three songs, which take
Speaker 2: up you know, over half an hour, you kind of
Speaker 2: feel like you get a grip on even if you
Speaker 2: don't know what's gonna happen. You know what the tools are,
Speaker 2: you know, like, don't get on the still fucking weird
Speaker 2: bits like mechanically separated logic. You're distracted just long enough
Speaker 2: to not notice that you said a float in the
Speaker 2: Great Urin or backed up in a service station. It's
Speaker 2: just like a.
Speaker 3: Thousand miserable piss artists.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like the imagery of this guy's coming out with.
Speaker 2: But then when you switch to root circle usurpers, suddenly
Speaker 2: we're not in Victoria in England anymore. We're in the
Speaker 2: wild West. There's slide guitars and like jaunty plut string
Speaker 2: intement and a mouth organ. It's just, you know, they've
Speaker 2: committed so holy to the secret society nineteenth century England
Speaker 2: feel and then thirty minutes off they're willing to just
Speaker 2: like being an offsc full howdy man, and yeah, it
Speaker 2: makes total sense. It doesn't feel like a wild swing.
Speaker 2: It makes sense in the context of the world they've made.
Speaker 1: Yeah, for me that that intro of Root Circle Usurpers
Speaker 1: really to me feels like sort of sixties seventies English
Speaker 1: folk rock. I guess, like it feels like you're like
Speaker 1: in a field surrounded by mushrooms, you know, and you
Speaker 1: have no idea from that point how that is going
Speaker 1: to koreeina to anything more stream, you know, And this
Speaker 1: album like it's you know, if you've never heard a
Speaker 1: Forestars before and then you listen to them, it's easy
Speaker 1: to go like, oh, yeah, that's the renting Victorian gentleman band.
Speaker 1: But the musicianship and how like ambitious and gradual. The
Speaker 1: construction of these like phenomenal pieces is like genuinely world
Speaker 1: class amongst like the best of the best. And this
Speaker 1: is like not full black metal for a good like
Speaker 1: fifty percent at least of the runtime. But there's always
Speaker 1: so much going on that your senses are just feasting
Speaker 1: the whole time that Root Circle Usurper's track ends up
Speaker 1: building to this phenomenal like cascading strings finale, and he
Speaker 1: the vocalist, he hits this like wordplay where he goes
Speaker 1: the only boar I don't a bore is a twelve
Speaker 1: bore bores to the wall, and that is like simultaneously
Speaker 1: a tongue twister. Yeah, when you think about it, hard
Speaker 1: as fuck. You know, he's basically threatening to shoot people.
Speaker 1: It's awesome. And then the final two songs, which take
Speaker 1: up thirty two minutes collectively Sway Draped Invade. It's the dreamiest,
Speaker 1: most space rock influenced song with really centralized female vocals,
Speaker 1: and then a full grooven psych rock passage in the
Speaker 1: second half. It's like you've drifted into the uncoll acid
Speaker 1: soundtrack album from the other year. You know, like that
Speaker 1: song goes so like leaves any sense of like we
Speaker 1: have to we are, you know, married to being an
Speaker 1: extreme metal bad all the time. You know, we can
Speaker 1: just upshop and explore these other textures and be fucking
Speaker 1: wonderful at them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think this is my favorite song on the record,
Speaker 2: having heard a bunch of times already. It's like it's
Speaker 2: the Texas Is Band are able to bring together. The
Speaker 2: opening cell of this song is as soothing as pretty
Speaker 2: much anything I've heard this year in any genre. It's
Speaker 2: it's it's kind of blissful that those guitars just shimmer,
Speaker 2: the violins sound great, that choral organ is so warm,
Speaker 2: and the basslines that just snake through it. It's it's beautiful.
Speaker 2: And so Catherine Queen of the Ghosts just to getting
Speaker 2: her moments to shine vocally, she is such a perfect
Speaker 2: foil to mister Curse because it's like, you're never going
Speaker 2: to match him for manic panic. So coming in with
Speaker 2: this stoic, controlled, much more level headed performance, it it
Speaker 2: readdresses your readdresses your metabolism for this sort of thing.
Speaker 2: And it means when he comes back in, you go,
Speaker 2: oh yeah, that is fucking mental what he's doing. I should,
Speaker 2: I should. It's good to be reminded of that.
Speaker 1: Melodically, this album is so strong, like whether it be
Speaker 1: her part or you know, the strings parts that she's doing,
Speaker 1: there are so many melodies across this you know Mammoth
Speaker 1: runtime that really really connect with me, and for me,
Speaker 1: it saved the best to last with the closer not
Speaker 1: Drinking Water, which I think is going to be one
Speaker 1: of the songs of the year. The opening seconds of
Speaker 1: that song might be the most English sound in existence,
Speaker 1: which is a lone, dreary violin melody against the patter
Speaker 1: of rain on a window, you know, like it just
Speaker 1: it's sets the scene and the tone so intensely. And
Speaker 1: that song is stunning. It's written about a Yorkshireman named
Speaker 1: Ben Hanson who threw himself into a reservoir in two
Speaker 1: thousand and one. And I don't know what the personal
Speaker 1: connection might be with the band for them to write
Speaker 1: this particular song, but it dedicated him in the lyrics,
Speaker 1: and there's so much like somberness to that song and
Speaker 1: this real, like really genuine depth of grief and emotion
Speaker 1: and it's like Agalock level majestic that song. But through
Speaker 1: the particular coiled prism of this like totally unique band,
Speaker 1: and the crescendo for the last like five minutes whatever
Speaker 1: it is, is totally gripping, and it's not like overblown,
Speaker 1: over egged whatever, but it's just so beautifully textured. There's
Speaker 1: this massive, like fuzzy synth bass sound that comes in
Speaker 1: and the width of the sound that they start to
Speaker 1: play with and achieve on record with the guitar solos
Speaker 1: atop it, and then like a legitimately incredible, otherworldly synth
Speaker 1: lead that comes in all while again the violins are
Speaker 1: in there as well, that've been at the whole time.
Speaker 1: It is a fucking knockout. The way this record, after
Speaker 1: what could be again an overbeary, exhausting whole album Runtime two,
Speaker 1: utterly like transfitt Me, the way it does in the
Speaker 1: last like five minutes of our entire record is really special.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think this is pretty second favorite song on
Speaker 2: the record, but I would say it's probably the most
Speaker 2: emotionally devastating of the bunch, and it just it sounds
Speaker 2: like the band pushing itself to the absolute limits, where
Speaker 2: every every single facet is operating on eleven and there's
Speaker 2: something inherently exciting about that, and it's just the maddening
Speaker 2: cocophony that it produces. But fundamentally it would mean nothing
Speaker 2: it It would not invite those repeated listeners we're talking about.
Speaker 2: If the song craft and the ability to write an
Speaker 2: epic metal song in this style wasn't just top notch,
Speaker 2: it would be a bit of a headache. If this
Speaker 2: didn't have a coherent through line for the listener to
Speaker 2: follow and the way it bows out, it's just it
Speaker 2: leaves you hollow. At the end of this, it feels
Speaker 2: silly the other of putting anything else on after this album,
Speaker 2: you you kind of have no choice but to listen
Speaker 2: to it again because it's like what what what goes next?
Speaker 1: After not drinking that That has been maybe my experience
Speaker 1: with this. There's only six tracks, like I said, but
Speaker 1: everyone at their full duration as well is just entrancing.
Speaker 1: And there's this such a durin sound, you know, where
Speaker 1: they've always sounded like you are attending the tea party
Speaker 1: from Hell or something with this like blabbering mad hatter
Speaker 1: figure at the front. That at the same time, what
Speaker 1: they're able to create sonically on this is so moving
Speaker 1: and so soothing at times as much as it is
Speaker 1: at other times like grotesque and nightmarish. Like yeah, naturally,
Speaker 1: it's a much smaller audience because it's so fucking eccentric
Speaker 1: and so peculiar. But I think you know, when you
Speaker 1: look at the latest records from Opeth or Blood Incantation
Speaker 1: or whatever, and those bands who are able to speak
Speaker 1: to that kind of you know, Floydian Majesty or whatever
Speaker 1: in a like boundary breaking extreme metal record. This strikes
Speaker 1: me as the Musclessen in that guy's this year. You know,
Speaker 1: it's it's much there's more to get past, maybe, but
Speaker 1: in terms of like breadth of record and what they're
Speaker 1: able to achieve, I don't see why this record should
Speaker 1: be any less you know, respected than bands like that.
Speaker 2: Oh, it's totally in the frame of sort of seventies
Speaker 2: progressive rock and world building like those records are. This
Speaker 2: is an absolute slam dug. But also if something like
Speaker 2: you know, we saw how popular the last Imperial Triumphant
Speaker 2: record was, and that's obviously a very different sort of thing,
Speaker 2: but that record showed and we talked about it is
Speaker 2: how much people are willing to go with mad shit
Speaker 2: if it's executed with pomp and drama and is maybe
Speaker 2: coherence enough for someone to grab hold of one thing
Speaker 2: here or there. The musical tapatries and the compositions on
Speaker 2: this record are just out of this world, and you know,
Speaker 2: kind of it's a bit like the Kalatan Brudos or
Speaker 2: whatever they was sort of sing directly to you, like,
Speaker 2: there's moments like that on the album, and enough of them.
Speaker 2: I think where if you have any interest at all,
Speaker 2: give it a go, like seventy three minutes, give it
Speaker 2: one spin and see if you want to come back
Speaker 2: for more. Because I suspend more people will get on
Speaker 2: board with this. Then the strict elevator pitch of what
Speaker 2: this album does, it kind of implies.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like I but where the sord you cannot see.
Speaker 1: I've had on the album Club standby for ages if
Speaker 1: we were to try and get Sam to listen to
Speaker 1: this band. But I think with this they might have
Speaker 1: just now made their masterpiece. So Forest the Stars, Stack
Speaker 1: Overflow in corpse Pile Interface and then released the very
Speaker 1: same day in what turned out to be a sensational
Speaker 1: day for black metal fans who like strings in their metal, which, hello,
Speaker 1: that's me. But from the other side of the Atlantic,
Speaker 1: we have Panopticon with debt hem sucks Heltet. There we
Speaker 1: Goopticon US musician, although he does use the Norwegian language
Speaker 1: from time to time because there are a lot of
Speaker 1: Scandinavian migrants in his in his region. We've spoken about
Speaker 1: Popticon on the show before album Club and so on,
Speaker 1: But if this is new to you, Panopticon has been
Speaker 1: one of the leading bands in American black metal for
Speaker 1: the past, you know, twenty years or so, the project
Speaker 1: of one man, Austin Lunn. He has developed quite a
Speaker 1: beloved outfit with Panopticon over the years, really at the
Speaker 1: forefront of, as I said, the American black metal sound.
Speaker 1: Sometimes he has incorporated more bluegrass and like overt American
Speaker 1: folk instrumentation, as on records like Kentucky or Rose to
Speaker 1: the North. Sometimes he incorporates a little more post rock,
Speaker 1: as I think he does on passages of this record.
Speaker 1: And again you go to the right corners like a
Speaker 1: Fortress festival for example, where Pinopticon played two years in
Speaker 1: a row recently.
Speaker 3: It's going to be an intensely.
Speaker 1: Beloved band Elliott historically as part of the two thousands,
Speaker 1: you know us black metal movement, where you might put
Speaker 1: them beside Agaloc or Walls in the Throne room, et cetera.
Speaker 1: Would you describe yourself as a Panopticon fan in the
Speaker 1: way that we would absolutely describe ourselves as fans of
Speaker 1: those bands totally.
Speaker 2: I love this band, and they're a band that I
Speaker 2: forget how much I love. My brain always goes to
Speaker 2: that run of Kentucky, Rose to the North and Auto
Speaker 2: maternal because when I was kind of becoming in a
Speaker 2: formative years a black metal fan, those three albums coming
Speaker 2: out quite quickly, one after the other. Yeah, just ideal
Speaker 2: that kind of could not have been better. And then
Speaker 2: for some reason I forget how much I love the
Speaker 2: Scars of Man and again Into the Light and the
Speaker 2: Rhyme of Memory, which are all spectacular as well. Quietly,
Speaker 2: the run that they've had is about as long as
Speaker 2: any black metal band this century of genuinely brilliant records,
Speaker 2: and it stretches back further than Kentucky, I should say
Speaker 2: as well. But for whatever reason, I I'll occasionally forget
Speaker 2: how brilliant they are.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I like some of those records you mentioned more
Speaker 1: than other ones, but I would think there are like
Speaker 1: there are separate as in like there are now distinct
Speaker 1: pinopticon runs that have occurred.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: You could even say, like the records pre Kentucky kind
Speaker 1: of form their own little period where He's yeah, maybe
Speaker 1: explored some more like oppressive sounds on some of those records.
Speaker 1: And then you have like the you can always describe
Speaker 1: as like the bluegrass era, you know, with those the
Speaker 1: classic twenty tens records, there were a couple of Panopticon
Speaker 1: records that came out last year, but those were more
Speaker 1: like sort of appendices, right, those were, like, you know,
Speaker 1: one of them was unnersing a lot of like fifteen
Speaker 1: year old songs. Another one was a full on country
Speaker 1: record like he sometimes does. This one is described more
Speaker 1: as the closing of a trilogy that includes and Again
Speaker 1: Into the Light from twenty twenty one and the Rhyme
Speaker 1: of Memory in twenty twenty three. And this is where
Speaker 1: I say they are like separate runs going on the
Speaker 1: latter of those albums. The Rhyme of Memory kind of
Speaker 1: reinvigorated my love for Panopticon in a big way. Like
Speaker 1: I had not like fully fallen in love with a
Speaker 1: record of his to the level that I would normally
Speaker 1: like since Autumn Maternal, But then that record came out
Speaker 1: and fucking knocked my socks off. It came out right
Speaker 1: at the end of that year, as we were doing
Speaker 1: our end of the year stuff, hence not really talking
Speaker 1: about it. But I think that that one is one
Speaker 1: of his very best, to the point that I always
Speaker 1: thought that Roast to the North was the Pannoticon album
Speaker 1: that I would hold dearest, but the rhyme of Memory,
Speaker 1: I can honestly say, I think is about as least
Speaker 1: as good, and it's got like a distinct tone I
Speaker 1: think to that great twenty tens run because it's almost apocalyptic.
Speaker 1: Like there's something about this run of records we're in
Speaker 1: now that feels like if this is a project with
Speaker 1: a heavy emphasis on you know, nature and the woodlands
Speaker 1: and these kind of sounds, sometimes that's more welcoming and homely.
Speaker 1: These are more like desperate and blinding, And the rhymer
Speaker 1: Memory is a record that has this real sense of
Speaker 1: destruction to it, like these landscapes are burning up, you know,
Speaker 1: and people are becoming more and more isolated. And if
Speaker 1: you go on the band camp page for this record
Speaker 1: and you're interested, there's like a whole essay that he's
Speaker 1: pretty much written about, like the themes of this record,
Speaker 1: which range from you know, kind of a metaphor of
Speaker 1: the Cariboo going extinct in the area where he is,
Speaker 1: to the mixing of like immigrant cultures together, to you know,
Speaker 1: dishonest fetishizing of like wilderness, you know, survivalist lifestyles or whatever.
Speaker 1: Like he's pretty much written a novel that goes through
Speaker 1: this record, but this album being positioned as a direct
Speaker 1: link in that chain had me very much interested and
Speaker 1: Elliott I will throw it to you if you know,
Speaker 1: think it's any different or whatever. But I also think
Speaker 1: coming of the back of a record that I loved
Speaker 1: in the time of Memory and for me was again
Speaker 1: a new dawn of me really loving this band following
Speaker 1: up this is basically exactly what I would want to
Speaker 1: continue that and it is again absolutely excellent.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is maybe my favorite since Auto Maternal, and
Speaker 2: I regree the best since then. Before this was the
Speaker 2: rhyme of Memory. I think the album was spectacular, and
Speaker 2: it's again it kind of I don't think it got
Speaker 2: discussed all that much of the time, and it took
Speaker 2: a while for me to really realize how much I
Speaker 2: love that record straight away. With this one, I am
Speaker 2: kind of in all of this band all over again. There's,
Speaker 2: for whatever reason, there seems to be a I don't
Speaker 2: know if like purpose is the word necessarily, but there's
Speaker 2: something so urgent and potent about this holm in particular,
Speaker 2: more so than there has been in a what maybe
Speaker 2: ever because those great records I earlier of Kentucky up
Speaker 2: to Auto Maternal, those film, more atmospheric and like love
Speaker 2: letters to certain regions, and you know the kind of it.
Speaker 2: There's an adventuring element to them. These are sort of
Speaker 2: more like panicked and sad, like desperately sad put times,
Speaker 2: but that makes them kind of achingly beautiful as well
Speaker 2: as furious, and that has always been the juxtaposition that
Speaker 2: makes this style of black metal great. And this is
Speaker 2: honestly really close with the Fosterstars from my album of
Speaker 2: the month this time I am properly head over heels
Speaker 2: for it.
Speaker 1: It's been a really good few weeks for this kind
Speaker 1: of stuff, right, because, Yeah, if you like your black
Speaker 1: metal that leans to the more wind sweat atmospheric side,
Speaker 1: and you somehow don't know Panopticon, yeah, then hopefully you're
Speaker 1: going to love this. And this is not a bad
Speaker 1: place to start. As we said, he's you know, really
Speaker 1: bringing it to a distinctly American tradition of black metal
Speaker 1: that feels like you in you know, the snowy woods
Speaker 1: of Minnesota where he's currently based. And this album does
Speaker 1: bring a lot more of the post rock flavoring than
Speaker 1: some of the records have done. Like I said, in
Speaker 1: conjunction with the Forest of stars. There are strings galore
Speaker 1: on this thing, just like stunning, exhilaratingly arranged string sections
Speaker 1: over I mean you mentioned cigaros for a previous record.
Speaker 1: The first few minutes of the opener, Woodland Caribou are
Speaker 1: like I Am in a fucking Attenburg documentary and isn't
Speaker 1: the world so enchanting?
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 1: And it's in absolutely no hurry to get to the
Speaker 1: fast metal stuff, but it's beautiful, and eventually, like seven
Speaker 1: minutes into its twelve minute runtime, it does hit the
Speaker 1: black metal blast and it's really earned it, and it
Speaker 1: really feels like it has, you know, steadily across that runtime,
Speaker 1: it has like developed a handful of core melodies, which
Speaker 1: is something that he does particularly well.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, totally. I mean, like you say, it's what
Speaker 2: seven minutes before the damn really breaks, and when it does,
Speaker 2: it's just the amount of fury that this has because
Speaker 2: a lot of bands in this style who operate more
Speaker 2: in the making music that's beautiful and patient, they don't
Speaker 2: really even ones I love like Wolves in the Throne Room,
Speaker 2: I wouldn't say they ever have much attack, if you
Speaker 2: know what I mean. It's a different sort of approach
Speaker 2: and not any worse one, of course, but there is
Speaker 2: something about when Pinopsicon put the pedal down which sounds
Speaker 2: particularly in vigorates, particularly exciting. I think Austin is one
Speaker 2: of the most distinct howls of anyone in Black Male.
Speaker 2: You can tell it's him the second he starts in
Speaker 2: just the way he's mixed on this to sound like
Speaker 2: he's bellowing up from the bottom of the cave. Was
Speaker 2: like the rest of the music is this smothering blizzard.
Speaker 2: It's just so evocative and let you say, because the
Speaker 2: song isn't in a rush to get going, when that
Speaker 2: damn breaks at the end, it just feels all the
Speaker 2: more propulse fro and powerful. And it's just that again,
Speaker 2: that level of song craft which carries you through the
Speaker 2: record and means it's not it's never predictable, but it's
Speaker 2: continually satisfying.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I think that he has a drummer
Speaker 1: is one of the most like crazy, erratic black metal
Speaker 1: drummers on the planet, and when he brings that flavor
Speaker 1: to the table. If there is one really odd thing
Speaker 1: of that Pronopticon that you will have to adjust to,
Speaker 1: is they are such an in house production like this
Speaker 1: is Austin's vision and his work. There are no pointers
Speaker 1: from a more mainstream metal label on how he should
Speaker 1: handle his production or anything like that, like for how
Speaker 1: comparatively popular within the black metal underground this band is.
Speaker 1: He often has really abtuse mixes, like the drums are
Speaker 1: so loud and his style is again so fucking intense,
Speaker 1: and then you mix that with the barrage of strings
Speaker 1: and cacoffon as sounds and they say the vocals are
Speaker 1: coming from half a mile away. It's not, you know,
Speaker 1: conventionally mixed, commercially minded black metal by any means. And
Speaker 1: I understand why that might be jarring for someone at first.
Speaker 1: Some of the albums he gets it less right, you know,
Speaker 1: there is a bouncing out that goes on. They are
Speaker 1: really dense, potentially quite ear fatiguing records. But these last
Speaker 1: two albums particularly do really work for me. And they're
Speaker 1: very full bodied and physically powerful, and the black metal
Speaker 1: is really raw and fiery, but these orchestral parts are
Speaker 1: genuinely or inspiring. Caribou is such a beautiful start of
Speaker 1: the record, but then you have following songs that, as
Speaker 1: you say, are kind of darker and more panicked and scarier,
Speaker 1: such as The Great Silence Extinct, which is a flavor that, again,
Speaker 1: out of this run of records, does jump out of
Speaker 1: me because the aral battery that you got going on
Speaker 1: with Rifts, that turd something a bit more intense. On
Speaker 1: songs like that that have this real panicked, you know,
Speaker 1: frightening feeling, this real aggravation and pain. There's a song
Speaker 1: called a Culture of Wilderness, which is essentially the song
Speaker 1: that most gives me more of what I loved about
Speaker 1: the rhyme of Memory, which is that intense, raging, wildfire
Speaker 1: sense of drama. Like the strings Rifts hit on that
Speaker 1: from word go. They are so crazy, Like they are
Speaker 1: so hammering and oppressive, you know what I mean while
Speaker 1: being an orchestral part.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but also that You're right, they're hammering and impressive,
Speaker 2: but they're also kind of light footed and playful and
Speaker 2: juxtaposed with the metal on that song, because that's some
Speaker 2: of the most menacing and ferocious black mel that has
Speaker 2: ever appeared on record, and it has these brightly but
Speaker 2: also scary uh string arrangements over the top of it,
Speaker 2: and it's just again, it's funny you say that thing
Speaker 2: about the mix because while I totally hear what you're
Speaker 2: saying and I agree that that is the case, I
Speaker 2: think it sounds so appropriate for these songs, like it
Speaker 2: would sound strange, stranger to me at least if it
Speaker 2: didn't have this cacophonous tontal. It makes those moments so
Speaker 2: fucking intense in a way I don't think they would
Speaker 2: be if the production wasn't so in house. And I mean,
Speaker 2: for me, the absolute krem de la crem at this record,
Speaker 2: and I just want to get to it. Blood and
Speaker 2: fur upon the melting snow. That is again contender for
Speaker 2: song of the Year for me. That I where the
Speaker 2: hell has that melody been all my life? I'm not
Speaker 2: sure there's another black mast when I've heard in recently
Speaker 2: is that feels so perfectly designed to reduce the listener
Speaker 2: to tears. It's so sweeping and again to much juxtaposition
Speaker 2: that dramatic, empowering swell or chestral arrangement over a fucking
Speaker 2: d beat.
Speaker 1: Come on, that's the little flavor that gave me some
Speaker 1: other it's something like dods, dods eat Feelings or something
Speaker 1: like that, you know, because I think the last album
Speaker 1: I found to be bleaker this one has songs like
Speaker 1: the Great Science Extinct and a Culture Wilderness that capture
Speaker 1: that as well, but this album also tempers it with
Speaker 1: these like gorgeous resolutions and a more back and forth
Speaker 1: sensibility and songs like Blood and thur Up on the
Speaker 1: Melting Snow. I challenge anyone to not light up a
Speaker 1: grin when that kicks in, Like it's just the winder
Speaker 1: in your sales, you know what I mean? As you say,
Speaker 1: like on a punk beat with these entwining like guitar
Speaker 1: and strings, melodies and stuff, and then it does still
Speaker 1: reach a point where it meets it simmers down into
Speaker 1: this like rolling post rock section with like a echoing melody.
Speaker 1: It's on like a xylophone or something. It sounds a
Speaker 1: lot closer to like Mono and bands like that, And
Speaker 1: it is this, you know, every turn through something like
Speaker 1: that is so fluid and so complimentary. I've even realized
Speaker 1: on my first like several listeners, because again the mix
Speaker 1: is like, you know, huge and swirling, but there's a
Speaker 1: different guest vocalist on every song of this. The opener
Speaker 1: has Alex from Fall of Fafar and Light Better on It,
Speaker 1: which is sick as how, and that part is great.
Speaker 1: Otherwise there's lots of people who are like very much
Speaker 1: in you know, part of the Pinopticon family, like bands
Speaker 1: like Falls of Raw Ross and Vaga Fluster and stuff
Speaker 1: like that. But because it is this you know, great
Speaker 1: mixing pot alongside those like hurricanes of string arrangements, you
Speaker 1: do have the more American country elements that come in
Speaker 1: from Time, like that, you know, the pedal and the
Speaker 1: lap steel and the last track basically just being a
Speaker 1: country song for the first few minutes with Austin's like
Speaker 1: really you know, raw, unpolished but really genuine singing voice,
Speaker 1: like proper genuine country as a part of black metal
Speaker 1: is a flavor that really does work.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that reminded me of the I'm forgetting what it's
Speaker 2: called now, the last song on that last Internma record,
Speaker 2: where it was all right, yeah, and it's just it's
Speaker 2: a change of gears that still feels coherence to the
Speaker 2: record but is really different but not kind of done
Speaker 2: this before and had done whole albums dedicated to this style.
Speaker 2: There's something about the Time doing it here, which for
Speaker 2: whatever reason, it just resonated that much more open sounding
Speaker 2: like Pink Floyd at their most cosmic, but it has
Speaker 2: got slide guitars in this really warm bass and again
Speaker 2: the fiddle, so I've given away there, but the violin
Speaker 2: on this song, it's not a sort of stiff performance,
Speaker 2: not that it is at any other point in the record,
Speaker 2: but particularly here it sounds like a fiddle. It's like
Speaker 2: it feels improvisational, and it just I get the ability
Speaker 2: to feel improvisational in a song which is so clearly arranged.
Speaker 2: That's remarkable. And as a way to close this album,
Speaker 2: which as you've said, has been such an up and
Speaker 2: down emotional experience where sometimes it's so triumphant and sometimes
Speaker 2: it's so furious, and sometimes it's even defeated. To go
Speaker 2: on this on a song which really does feel like
Speaker 2: the conclusion of that trilogy, it's such emotionally satisfying musical storytelling.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's like a fiddle in the White Cedars as well.
Speaker 1: That just that little part makes my heart saying I
Speaker 1: do think the strings that come in as are so moving,
Speaker 1: they're so filling. Once again, the same with the Forest Stars.
Speaker 1: The places that this is able to build to and
Speaker 1: the sounds that is able to achieve, like patiently following
Speaker 1: through each of its ideas are magic and the melodies
Speaker 1: are unbelievable. On this it's another really strong album Panopticon,
Speaker 1: where I think we might be in a bit of
Speaker 1: a you know, at least second, if not third, you know,
Speaker 1: Golden Nearer with them at the moment, which is it
Speaker 1: makes me very happy to say that you know about
Speaker 1: that Pronopticon, So definitely check out that new record debt
Speaker 1: hum Sottet. And finally, our last hour discussion in our
Speaker 1: Perusing of the Underground that's largely taken up this month's episode.
Speaker 1: This may be the freshest of the bunch, as we
Speaker 1: are not catching you up to speed with some ten
Speaker 1: to twenty ear our project. We are going to a
Speaker 1: newer band. It's Simitar and Cemetarium two is the album
Speaker 1: they've put out this year. If you have been a
Speaker 1: religious week in, week out listener of this podcast, you
Speaker 1: will have heard us reference Simitar before, where they put
Speaker 1: out their first album last year. Mark and I both
Speaker 1: mentioned them in and around the end of year podcast
Speaker 1: because it was absolutely wicked, but foolishly we didn't take
Speaker 1: time for a proper review. So I'm fixing that here
Speaker 1: and Cimitarium two very naturally follows hot on the heels
Speaker 1: of Cemetarium one. These guys are from Copenhagen and they've
Speaker 1: put these albums out on crips of the Wizard, which
Speaker 1: originally was just a record store in London. Brilliant place,
Speaker 1: excellent people, but as you know, turn into a label
Speaker 1: now and they have caused a real stir in like
Speaker 1: the deep underground, like just for a name drop. For
Speaker 1: an example, I had a chat with mister Lamper Murmur
Speaker 1: at the end of last year for a feature and
Speaker 1: when I asked him, like, what new stuff he'd been
Speaker 1: listening to, he was like that Simitar band rip. It's
Speaker 1: a real like you know, if you're in you know,
Speaker 1: you know kind of thing. At the moment, Elliott, when
Speaker 1: I put this forward, you said you had not yet
Speaker 1: listened to the first Cemetarium record from last year, so
Speaker 1: I suggested maybe you give that when I listened first.
Speaker 1: And I think that these two records together as a
Speaker 1: you know, here's a new band. They put these two
Speaker 1: records inside eighteen months of each other. They give you
Speaker 1: the best overview of what this band are about. Really,
Speaker 1: I am going to go in on why I think
Speaker 1: this band are brilliant and why they're one of the
Speaker 1: best new metal bands in the world right now. But
Speaker 1: in case this ends up being one of those ones
Speaker 1: where you don't quite jive on the same page as I,
Speaker 1: I will check in on you first. What did you
Speaker 1: make of your you know, newly introduced time with a
Speaker 1: scimitar across the two.
Speaker 2: Records well before I went into it forever reason and
Speaker 2: I can't explain it. I just decided in my head
Speaker 2: before hearing it that this was gonna sound like the
Speaker 2: Devil's Blood or Blood Ceremony stuff. I just thought that's
Speaker 2: what it was. I don't know if it was the
Speaker 2: crypt of the Wizard Association or the names. There's a
Speaker 2: little lick to it, there's a little bit of that.
Speaker 2: But I thought, if this is going to be the
Speaker 2: good Time sort of seventies proto boogie record of the month,
Speaker 2: and we're gonna be nice, I'm gonna be double thumbs
Speaker 2: up at the younger and yeah, what a nice time.
Speaker 2: And then they start and then I shot myself because
Speaker 2: this is way more outsider and subversive and perverted and
Speaker 2: straight's up dangerous sounding than I was expecting it to be.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 2: I don't I don't know what to how you described
Speaker 2: this record or what genre it fits comfortably into if
Speaker 2: it fits into one, I do know that it's fucking badass.
Speaker 3: Hell yeah, they are.
Speaker 1: I think they're one of the most striking and kind
Speaker 1: of fully formed from what I can tell sounds in
Speaker 1: a new heavy metal band in ages. I would ultimately say,
Speaker 1: at its core, this is a heavy metal band, because
Speaker 1: for me, when the first album came out, there was
Speaker 1: a lot of reference points from the more crazed, subversive
Speaker 1: end of the new wave British heavy metal, with bands
Speaker 1: like Satan and obviously outside of the UK you can
Speaker 1: point to you know, Merciful Fate and like basically dark
Speaker 1: classic heavy metal. But Scimitar are playing that with so
Speaker 1: much fucking piss and vinegar that that loops all the
Speaker 1: way around to being extreme metal. And it's it's almost like,
Speaker 1: it doesn't feel right to call it first wave black
Speaker 1: metal because it doesn't sound like Bathery or hell Hammer
Speaker 1: or stuff like that. It's, you know, something more primitive instead.
Speaker 1: I guess the most accurate descriptor would be like blackened
Speaker 1: heavy metal. They've injected a massive black metal flavoring from
Speaker 1: the underground backwards into the heavy metal they're playing, if
Speaker 1: that makes sense either way. The end result is so
Speaker 1: fucking like sparky and crackling with aggressive intense, and I
Speaker 1: agree danger in a way that most heavy metal bands
Speaker 1: ain't dangerous anymore. That's just the way it is. But
Speaker 1: this one, and we haven't even got to the vocals yet,
Speaker 1: which are like a whole other thing, entirely very little
Speaker 1: to do with either conventional black metal or heavy metal.
Speaker 1: But the overall package of this is something I would
Speaker 1: describe as legitimately unchained, Like this is heavy metal that
Speaker 1: you could not record on pro tools or anything like that.
Speaker 1: I'd be surprised if they use a click track. If
Speaker 1: you crave that old feeling of recordings that were genuinely raucous.
Speaker 1: And that doesn't mean you're just wanting a throwback, right
Speaker 1: like it's better back then, nostalgia or whatever. That's not what
Speaker 1: I'm talking about. That's not what this is. This is
Speaker 1: a really fresh sound, but it's a new band who
Speaker 1: authentically and genuinely sound so utterly violent and demented that
Speaker 1: Scimitar are like maybe just the most like freakish, deliriously
Speaker 1: so heavy metal band on the planet right now. And
Speaker 1: that is true in different ways. There are things about
Speaker 1: the second record that really took me back compared to
Speaker 1: you know, knowing the first one. But across the two,
Speaker 1: as I say, if you give someone these two records
Speaker 1: as I have with you and go, here's this band,
Speaker 1: that is very true across both of them. Just the
Speaker 1: fucking force at which they come out at you. Well,
Speaker 1: that's why I use the word outsider.
Speaker 2: I use it quite deliberately because it's it's not like, again,
Speaker 2: if you say black and Heavy Metal just tick something,
Speaker 2: it's similar like black and Thrash when we talk at
Speaker 2: something like Midnight, there's as not that. No, there's a
Speaker 2: joy to its simplicity. And we're listening to go like, oh,
Speaker 2: he does the thing that sounds like so and so,
Speaker 2: and he's doing that thing, and that's clearly a reference
Speaker 2: to bread and it's it's it's not necessarily a you know,
Speaker 2: things were better back then, but it's going I love
Speaker 2: all that stuff and I'm bringing it in and I'm
Speaker 2: winking and nudging at you. You listen to this and
Speaker 2: Black and Heavy mel it's not clear to me that
Speaker 2: these people even like think that's like Venom and Iron
Speaker 2: Maiden and you just priest. I'm sure they do, but
Speaker 2: it feels more like they're using those tools to produce
Speaker 2: something that is more in line with like d Amanda
Speaker 2: Gallas or something like that. But yeah, but also not
Speaker 2: outside of heavy metal. It still feels like something that
Speaker 2: you could put on, you know, maybe late at night
Speaker 2: on the Sophia Line caster stage, a bloodstock something if
Speaker 2: you want to sing a bit more extreme to bowl
Speaker 2: things out, but and yet connected to all that other stuff.
Speaker 2: It's it's a real paradox of a record. This where
Speaker 2: you're going, this is the thing that's great about it,
Speaker 2: but also that's not true, because this is the thing
Speaker 2: that's great about it, But that can't possibly be true
Speaker 2: because this is it. It's just it's really hard to
Speaker 2: get a grip on exactly what this is doing. And
Speaker 2: that's that is what makes it ultimately so exciting.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I saw them at the black Heart at
Speaker 1: the start this month, and what you just described is
Speaker 1: also the case visually, right, They were like an assault
Speaker 1: on the senses from all angles. You know, like a
Speaker 1: lot of the instrumental players dressed like seventies heavy metal
Speaker 1: metals from you know, Sweden or Denmark. But then they've
Speaker 1: got this, you know singer at the front who half
Speaker 1: the time is just like genuinely buggying and getting down,
Speaker 1: and then other half the time like staring at the
Speaker 1: in the front like you're going to eat their face.
Speaker 1: It's amazing. The first song a conitterm from the first
Speaker 1: album has some of the most like insanely catchy, ear wormy,
Speaker 1: rollicking heavy metal lead lines I've heard since the glory
Speaker 1: days of like in Solitude you know who I think
Speaker 1: would be again another comparison point, but only in some ways,
Speaker 1: because there are also many other ways where they really
Speaker 1: differ in sound completely different, some like in Solitude. But
Speaker 1: then you have the singer Sham who, as I said,
Speaker 1: is neither a traditional heavy metal singer nor a black
Speaker 1: metal screecher. She is definitely singing like this is a
Speaker 1: feels wrong to call it a clean performance, but it's
Speaker 1: a sung performance right. There are vocal melodies stuf where
Speaker 1: she would just like drift up into doing falsettos and
Speaker 1: stuff like that. But the impression is like a band
Speaker 1: who are being fronted by a whaling witch. There's a
Speaker 1: real sense of the arcane about what she's doing, like
Speaker 1: she is conjuring magic out of the air.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: She also comes from an Arabic background, and she brings
Speaker 1: a lot of that like tonality into the vocal lines
Speaker 1: as well. And she is such an arresting presence at
Speaker 1: the center of this tornado, channeling it all around her.
Speaker 1: She had like a career before they're doing that more
Speaker 1: like on the kind of psych rock, you know, post punk, strange,
Speaker 1: you know, side of things, but that element into a
Speaker 1: whirling dervish of a metal band. It's just an unbelievable combination.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's one of those things where you couldn't you
Speaker 2: know that there's no boardroom in the world where you
Speaker 2: would decide that that's a good idea. It's an idiosyncratic,
Speaker 2: mad thing that can only come from mad people. And
Speaker 2: realizing that's what this was going to be, which I
Speaker 2: did about halfway through Cemeterium to as the opener, which
Speaker 2: I think is one of the most attention grabbing introductionory
Speaker 2: tracks you could here to a band like that. A
Speaker 2: just that horrible noise at the beginning straight so I
Speaker 2: was like, Okay, well, this is not gonna be as
Speaker 2: good a time as I thought it was going to be,
Speaker 2: And that just gives way to that this snarling his
Speaker 2: for riff and the way the bass plays off the vocals,
Speaker 2: and then the vocals are already it's far from the
Speaker 2: maddest performance you'll get on the record, but already you
Speaker 2: just go, this is someone out of their God, this
Speaker 2: is not a normal person leading this band. And there's
Speaker 2: just something which it can't be trained, it can't be emulated,
Speaker 2: can't be faked. I don't think when it's like the
Speaker 2: Master of Ceremonies, your tour guide for the band is
Speaker 2: themselves mad. It's the King Diamond thing. It makes it
Speaker 2: so much more like White Knuckle as a listing experience.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and somehow this this second album, Cemetarium two, I
Speaker 1: mentioned that, you know, the Cemetarium one has these incredible
Speaker 1: like heavy metal galloping lead parts and stuff. It was
Speaker 1: still a very harsh, evil record, and I thought the
Speaker 1: second album might, I don't know, hone in on something
Speaker 1: a little bit more. This album is faster and heavier
Speaker 1: and more evil than the first one. And I thought
Speaker 1: that first album was fucking intense, right, But I thought
Speaker 1: I had a handle on what they were from the
Speaker 1: first album. The first time I put this second record on,
Speaker 1: I got sent fucking screaming back to the drawing board
Speaker 1: immediately right Like it was so blistering and crazy and
Speaker 1: frightening that I didn't feel like I had any preparation
Speaker 1: from a year of listening to the first album at all, Like,
Speaker 1: despite how much I had, It's one of the most violent, intense,
Speaker 1: dangerous first listens I've had with the record in a while.
Speaker 1: And this is again what you could still maybe call
Speaker 1: a heavy metal album, you know, but I'd say that
Speaker 1: both albums have like a lengthy intro track that is
Speaker 1: the title track of the record. The first one, that
Speaker 1: track was more instrumental. This one has got like evil
Speaker 1: Dulcimer's or some shit against it, like suffocate you black
Speaker 1: metal riffing, and then when that tension gets loose for
Speaker 1: the opener proper irreverence warning, it is like being stuffed
Speaker 1: into a cement mixer with an active beehive and then
Speaker 1: spun round at several miles an hour. It is fucking
Speaker 1: mental how rabidly aggressive that song is. And I think
Speaker 1: this is again they're towing different size of the line whatever,
Speaker 1: but I think this one is more of a black
Speaker 1: metal album than the first one was, which was maybe
Speaker 1: more of a heavy metal album because of how caustic
Speaker 1: the tremolo picking is, the dissonance to setply, it's more
Speaker 1: ear bleeding, you know. The drummer is just careening over
Speaker 1: the edge again and again.
Speaker 3: But you still have this.
Speaker 1: Like breathy banshee voice at the front of it, amping
Speaker 1: up the melodicism, but in a way that is only
Speaker 1: more disorientating and more ghastly.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: I'm really glad to hear you say that that this
Speaker 2: is more extremely the first one, because I listened to
Speaker 2: this first and I thought, what the fuck is that?
Speaker 2: And then of it, I went to the first one
Speaker 2: and it didn't It's still something mad, but it wasn't
Speaker 2: quite as hair brained, and I thought, is this just
Speaker 2: because I've worked out what's going on with this band
Speaker 2: and I've gone back with some context. This one, for
Speaker 2: the first record, is really good. I really like it.
Speaker 2: I am so in on how just insane. This one
Speaker 2: is just taking the black Nol thing. I'm going even
Speaker 2: further with it. And I want to say, as much
Speaker 2: as we're giving shouts out to the vocalist and rightly
Speaker 2: so the drummer in this band, it's fucking crazy and
Speaker 2: get that thing I was saying about not knowing if
Speaker 2: you can trust your guide through the record. Just as
Speaker 2: exciting as that is when you don't know when the
Speaker 2: drumm's is gonna lose it. It's the Dave Lombardo thing.
Speaker 2: It's the hell hammer thing when you're going, what is
Speaker 2: that beat you're playing? That's not a blastbeat, that's not
Speaker 2: a jacket jacket, that's not like a typical double bass part, Like,
Speaker 2: do you even know what you're playing in this moment?
Speaker 2: How long you have to play it for? It's like
Speaker 2: the drums are you know, they're not keeping the beat
Speaker 2: per se. It's like he's just reacting to what the
Speaker 2: rest of the band are doing. Here's the crazy part.
Speaker 2: I want to make it way crazier.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Lunacy Jewels is my favorite track on this second record,
Speaker 1: and it is punky speed metal abandon but dialed up
Speaker 1: to such a level speed that it becomes like almost untethered,
Speaker 1: you know, Like and the first few seconds of intro
Speaker 1: alone probably feature more snare hits and entire doom albums
Speaker 1: like it's fucking crazy, and then halfway through it does
Speaker 1: it's almost a relief. It transitions into one of those
Speaker 1: like pure Satan style New Ever Britay heavy matter of
Speaker 1: reffs the Man Man and it's just delicious, you know,
Speaker 1: and that the run of the trap list of Irreverence, Warning,
Speaker 1: Lunacy Jewels, Magnetic Venom is just like the hungriest frenzy
Speaker 1: of heading out that you can imagine. Magnetive Venom has
Speaker 1: a black metal blast bit with this loud, fuzzed up base.
Speaker 3: It's just like gloriously putrid.
Speaker 1: The sideb of this one does change tact a little.
Speaker 1: Both records have very long closers. A video on the
Speaker 1: first album is more like this overwhelming, you know, tie
Speaker 1: together string of rifts that just like dazzles you for
Speaker 1: ten minutes. This one does show a different side to them,
Speaker 1: and that's where when you mentioned bads like the Devil's
Speaker 1: Blood and stuff, this does draw a connection to that
Speaker 1: world as well. You've got through Lava lit Roads to Lavilender,
Speaker 1: which starts to introduce something more psychedelic, and then the
Speaker 1: closer Mobula Moblara is soul furic. You know, it's got
Speaker 1: this kind of like cool of Ctulhu vibe in the rifts,
Speaker 1: but while like dense pungent fumes are being forced down
Speaker 1: your orifices, you know, like it has that it has
Speaker 1: the wat aan thing of like I am in the
Speaker 1: sulfuric pit of hell.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I love that we're talking about this record as
Speaker 2: side A and side B because it is that's so
Speaker 2: clear in the track listing, and you know, like it
Speaker 2: was so welcome to have that change of pace as
Speaker 2: much as I was loving the previous stuff, that twenty
Speaker 2: minute nightmare you just can't other side of, and seeing
Speaker 2: that fourteen minute track fast approaching, I want to need
Speaker 2: at least a bit of recipite before we get there.
Speaker 2: And the lave of it rose to Lavelender, like it's
Speaker 2: it's kind of beautiful, like that vocalist is so capable
Speaker 2: at just carrying a more reserve melody, but it's still
Speaker 2: unnerving in the same way that things like Comers Current
Speaker 2: ninety three, but also a bit of the like poppy
Speaker 2: end of Mike Oldfield from the early eighties. It's it's
Speaker 2: that combination is so brilliant and it's such a great
Speaker 2: palate cleanser because then, how did you say it, mobular mobula?
Speaker 1: Mobular mobula, Yes, that's with it. It's it's got an
Speaker 1: R at the end of the second one.
Speaker 2: The way that'll do, the way like that song by it.
Speaker 2: It's a strange thing to say, but buding a fourteen
Speaker 2: minute song like this to your record, you've made the
Speaker 2: album so much more replayable because it just adds this
Speaker 2: depth to what happens to it, where you know it's
Speaker 2: this has no qualms slowing down, exploring an idea more fully,
Speaker 2: kind of letting you settle into a riff before changing
Speaker 2: the next one, allowing some real tension to build in
Speaker 2: a sussle way rather than just basically giving you electric
Speaker 2: shocks at random times like it does all the way
Speaker 2: through Side A. And this band is so good at that,
Speaker 2: even like just the way they're able to sloom from
Speaker 2: one idea to the next. And the voice acting is
Speaker 2: some kind of MC somehow managing which is a wild component,
Speaker 2: but somehow manages to root what the song's doing and
Speaker 2: the way it builds and builds and builds. It's We
Speaker 2: talked about a lot about epic songwriting in this reviews bag.
Speaker 2: This band have nailed it early on and in a
Speaker 2: style that you're mentioning what're saying. I'm definitely hearing that,
Speaker 2: but I don't know where I've heard a song quite
Speaker 2: like this before, and that is so exciting to me,
Speaker 2: and that's what made me keep coming back to this record,
Speaker 2: which I probably wouldn't have done quite as much as
Speaker 2: I have if it was just the stuff on SIDEA.
Speaker 2: For its duration.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that song they closed the set earlier this month with,
Speaker 1: and like, I didn't know whether I was doing that, so.
Speaker 3: I could could have told you how long they played
Speaker 3: it for.
Speaker 1: I'm just like I'm I'm gone, you know, I mean,
Speaker 1: amongst other things, on top of everything else, we're saying,
Speaker 1: you have a heavy metal band making proper usage of
Speaker 1: bass guitar as a distinct instrument, carrying its own melodies,
Speaker 1: you know, bring its own presence. This is a it's
Speaker 1: a nasty record, man, and nasty in a way that
Speaker 1: is beyond just listen to this tone, listen to these
Speaker 1: morsh parts or whatever. Like we were saying, it's it's
Speaker 1: dangerous in that it's nasty, the intent is diabolical, and
Speaker 1: you are being baptized in a bog of blood. I
Speaker 1: think one of the most exciting new heavy metal bands
Speaker 1: in the world right now. I vividly look forward to more,
Speaker 1: but already inside eighteen months. We have these two fucking
Speaker 1: delirious records from them, so it's a good time to
Speaker 1: get involved Simitarium one and two. Listen to them both
Speaker 1: for one of the best bands in the underground right now,
Speaker 1: and that is us next reviews bag, we will do
Speaker 1: the new Marmazet's records along with We've got New Converge
Speaker 1: again next time as well, along with hopefully some newer
Speaker 1: bands as well. But thank you so much for being
Speaker 1: with us through this one and listening to it this time.
Speaker 1: An eclectic, mad Cat whole bunch there wasn't it like
Speaker 1: some really freaky from Haggard Cat to a Forest Stars
Speaker 1: and beyond like crazy times. But let us know which
Speaker 1: ones you're giving with. Please do check out those names
Speaker 1: that you've not heard of before. That was a good bunch,
Speaker 1: I think for some of those newer names. Otherwise, we
Speaker 1: will be back soon with the next part of our
Speaker 1: corn Special. Part two is now fresh out. I will
Speaker 1: also be back here next week with a report from
Speaker 1: this year's Fortress Festival. If you are around seeing me
Speaker 1: this weekend, if you're continuing the black metal kick from
Speaker 1: our reviews here, We're going to see A Forest Stars
Speaker 1: this weekend, amongst other things. So I'm very excited for that.
Speaker 1: Going to be lovely and yeah, we will be back
Speaker 1: next time.
Speaker 3: Steady Away Boys,