Speaker 1: Hello everyone, Welcome to Neurosis Neurosis, Neurosis Neurosis, That's Not Metal,
your weekly rock and heavy music podcast. Today we are
gathered here for the reviews Bag from March. We are
going to be reviewing some of the mightiest, most expected
and unexpected albums to have dropped from the metal and
rock worlds this past month. And what a bag we
have in store. In today's reviews bag, we have got
the new albums from Neurosis, Poison, the Well, Lamb of God, Garihea,
Hell Ripper, Aggressive Effector, Malavora, and Sweet Pill. My name
is Perenhish, Sam Dignon and Elliott Paisley are here with
me to do the honors. Hell of a week, wasn't it?
Speaker 2: I just Friday was ahead? Fuck?
Speaker 3: I was so just primed to be like new Poison
the World Day, Let's fucking go. This is the most
long standing back and to spend album like. I as
a point, I never thought we might ever get a
new Poison the World record, and I was like yeah,
hell yeah, and then Neuroses out of nowhere, like I
never ever thought we would never have any Roses album
ever again in terms of albums that it would seems
like an impossibility to never ever happen. Neuroses were like
high up on that list, and fuck me, this has
just been a week of trying to like process that announcement,
the album, dig into it.
Speaker 2: I'm still, you know, like we'll get into it in
the review.
Speaker 3: But like, it's been fucking wild that that is a
thing that's happened.
Speaker 4: It's been a remarkably stressful weekly because we had let
the reviews lined up and I was pretty I was
pretty comfortable, and then I was just having some bruskis
in the garden on a summer day, and then the
news comes in on Friday there's a new Neurosis out
and I've now got to dedicate the next week in
hell for this thing. It's been a lot.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm sorry to Exodus, who'se album we were going
to review, But sometimes someddy just steam rolls in right
into the news first of all, and obviously the biggest
news will park it for now because they've got a
whole review of it later. But in terms of other news,
it's also very exciting for us AFI have only gone
and announced around their appearance at the Outbreak Slash All
Points East show in London. They have gone and added
a few more UK and European headline dates in the UK.
They are playing Manchester, Birmingham, Glasgow and Bristol all around
the London All Points East appearance. And you know, when
the All Points East thing was announced, that was AFI's
first show announced in the UK since twenty seventeen, so
nine years in terms of headline shows. These make it
their first shows. I think it's since twenty ten. Like
the Crash Love tour is the last time that I
play KAY shows in a headline capacity. So this is
basically what we were, like even more heavily asking for,
isn't it bloody brilliant news?
Speaker 3: Yeah, this was very nice and very convenient that the
Manchester show just happens to land when I'm I just
happened to be up in Manchester for big goth weekend.
We were happy, you know, with well we took our
you know, festival show. But when you look at the
settless af I've been doing on their recent US headline
shows and how much they've been mixing things up and
pulling up really cool deep cuts, the headline show was
what we were really clamoring for, and we've got that
now nice couple of action headline shows as say, The
Cure on Friday, AFI on Saturday, and then bombing it
back down to London for Deaftnes and AFI and Deaf
Heaven on the Sunday.
Speaker 2: So that's going to be a lovely weekend. I am just.
Speaker 3: So overjoyed that you, like you wait seventeen years for
an AFI show and two come along at once.
Speaker 2: What a treat.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Absolutely, And this does mean, as you've said there,
that later in the summer, when we have a couple
of shows close together, we can almost bomb them together
in an episode of like an impromptu like festival almost.
We will have an episode later where we will have
seen The Cure AFI and then Death Tones with AFI
and Death Evan and Basement and everything else that's on
that All Points E show. So yeah, the drought is thoroughly,
thoroughly over, absolutely sensational. Two thousand Trees have also added.
I thought this lineup was basically done, but it looks
like there are a couple more bands to come, and
today they have added Thursday. They've added them, of course
to the Thursday today as we're recording is also obviously Thursday.
It's Thursday season all around great, you know, addition nice
and you know, prominent on the bill there. I don't
know if Thursday have played two Thousand Trees before, but
when you look at the you know, the lineup and
the likes of Sunny Day Real Estate and whatnot on
there as well, it certainly looks like a strong lineup
for that kind of post hardcore an emo type of world.
I also thought I would just you know, throw out
there something that I noticed today, which is that there
has been a Discharge, sub Humans and GBH tour announced
for the UK in January actually of next year, but Discharge, Subhumans, GBH.
They are playing Southampton, Bristol, Manchester and Glasgow. So if
you are a eighties nasty, grotty punk then that is
the night for you. I thought we were getting a
Weezer single today. All signs seemed to be teasing to
you know, Weezer announcing you know, their new album and
putting out a first single. They've actually not done that.
I think the single's coming next week. They've said they've
announced some like US tours and stuff like that, but
you know, placeholder here on the Weezer single, it will arrive.
We do have news in terms of you know, bands
of that era, Sublime are putting out a new album.
It is being kind of described as a certainly a
full stop, like they won't be putting out more after
this and not back to being a complete, you know, recording,
creative band. But they are describing as a sort of
epilogue album. It's called Until the Sun Explodes, and it
is with you know, Sublime current front man, who I
believe is the son of the you know, the legendary
deceased Sublime front man. So I have no stock in
Sublime at all really, so you know, whether this turns
out good or bad or whatever, But like in terms
of names, you didn't expect to see appearing putting a
new album out in twenty twenty six, because this is
another head turner. I suppose it's not.
Speaker 3: Quite Neurosis, But yeah, I guess when they came back
to you do, you know, do those slam dunk shows
and all that, it was kind of like I just
kind of guess this was like Sublime about using like
the official Sublime name.
Speaker 2: And just doing kind of like the nostalgia thin.
Speaker 3: I guess, you know, nice that they've decided we're going
to do something a bit more with it. I don't again,
I acquire a couple of Sublime tracks. I don't know,
like if I'm excited over the prospect of a Sublime
album in twenty twenty six. But good for them for
at least, you know, having having something a bit extra
to the reunion I guess, or sort of reunion.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, I really like Sublime, like the self
title and Forty Chances to Freedom, all time quality summer
rock albums. I could care less about the material they
did after that with Rome. The main problem with this,
it's probably with the two singles they've released, is they've
gone to Travis Barker. Oh god, you can tell, and
it just it's been barcinated, which is it's basically like
a syndym for spoiled, is what that means. It's not
the worst offender for that sort of thing, but it's
just it's just not as organic and analog sounding as
those Sublime records. So, you know, it's a very nice
idea and it is kind of cool, I guess to
see them w hu'sing the original name but hesitants.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Okay. There's also news that dmu Borget are coming back
with a new album. It's called Grand Serpent Rising. It's
coming out on May the twenty second, and it has
been eight years since their album Ionian, which was eight
years from their album Abra had Abra Demi Borga only
make out albums every eight years now apparently, but we
have we have rolled round to that point. So if
you are a you know, a current Debi bor Gear fan,
then we have something in May and that you're considering.
The weight is enticing, So good news there. And to
close off the new music news this week, Model Atras
dropped a little EP called Swan Songs is a three
track record. It consists of material that was you know,
produced around the Pirouet album sessions from from from last year,
that great album that you know we reviewed and came
up sort of semi frequently. We came to the end
of the year stuff, all that good stuff. It as
you would imagine, it sounds roughly like the Pirouet stuff
would There's a track on it called thank You by Dido,
which is a like very tender ballad essentially all about
the the grounding power of the song thank You by Dido,
rather than being a cover which maybe you would have
been interested in hearing, but you know, powerful in its
own right. Nonetheless, that is very quick roundup of the
other news that happened this week. Before we get into reviews,
I have to announced that we are doing album clubs
once again, because album clubs kind of went away for
a little while at the start of this year because
we were all focused and all possible time dedicated to
the nineteen ninety seven's special that we did for opening
up the first few months of this year. There's like,
I know, one hundred plus mini album clubs essentially over
the course of that special, so I didn't have time
for more album clubs. But having done that, we are
going to be doing that next week, bringing back the
you know, as regular as we can do it album
club packs. And in order to I suppose, you know,
with the ninet Night seven special, having a certainly you know,
a strict running order of what could what could be
allowed to go in just to sort of shake the
rust of that a little bit and lighten the load,
I just threw out immediately to these two here to go,
what do you want to do for this particular album
club batch? And so the albums that have been assembled
by by these two here first of all, and I
need everyone to know that, when I said what do
you want to do? Want to do one album club?
The very first thing that Sam said within about a
minute was Temper Temper album club. So bellow, my Valentines.
Temper Temper unbelievably not an album club before I presumed
it must have been. But Temper Temper by Aline is
finally getting official thirteen years after the fact autopsy from
us on TNM. Then Elliot has picked such a good
album Blue Oyster Cults Fire of unknown origin to really
rile back the pop rock years, absolutely brilliant. Then in
our kind of punk an alternative corner, we are going
to a seminal, you know, youth crew standard from the
hardcore world. It's Gorilla Biscuits and their albums start today.
And then as we get dingy in the underground, we
are going to be going balls deep into some gory
death metal with Skinlesses foreshadowing our demise. So you have
that to look forward to if you are a supporter
over at our Patreon that's patroon dot com. Slash that's
not Mettle. Thank you very much to everybody who chooses
to go and do so and help you know, contribute
to this podcast and keep us going. That is going
to be a lot of fun that batch of albums.
I have already revisited Temper Tempo and written my thesis
on what I think happened there. So we're going to
get all into it. So join us over from the
Patreon next week for that. But we can't spend any
more time than that really on everything peripheral, because the
most Bonker's piece of news this week is what takes
us right into the lead of the reviews this time
because out of nowhere Neurosis an undying love for a
burning world. Guys, what the fuck?
Speaker 3: Someone dropped the link in the discord and I was like,
wait what, I didn't double t this like Neurosis bandcam link.
And I was like, but Neurosis are done. You know,
for so many reasons, it felt like have never come back.
Speaker 2: I'm sure gonna, you know, dig into this.
Speaker 3: For a little bit, but like, yeah, it just it
seemed impossible that this band would ever again. I'm coming
at this as probably the most casual Neurosis fan of
the three of us. I've you know, I've blessed the
didam's up to times of Grace. There's all five albums.
Seeing this I've never really gone into because at the
time I was ready to deep dive in on Neurosis.
It all happened and I was kind of just like
the vibe ain't right anymore, and I was like I
need and now now now the vibe is is very
much right, and I'm gonna get into it.
Speaker 2: But yeah, this was just such a like hang on
a second, and then there was just.
Speaker 3: Everyone's Instagram story for like the next hour was everyone's
posting the track on this Neurosis album, being like what
the fucking and their announcement and you know, the festival
announcement that Kemelong and just be like, oh my fucking good,
what is what is happening?
Speaker 4: What?
Speaker 2: What? What are we doing right now? Like an insane
couple of hours on.
Speaker 1: Friday, The very first thing anything Euros to see that
I saw was Sam you messaged are like host you know,
group chat. And when I saw that message and it
didn't actually you know, you didn't say exactly what had happened,
You just mentioned Eurosis. My brain immediately went to Steve
von Till must have died, because that seemed more likely
than a new neuroseulb was suddenly appearing, you know, so
it was quite a rush of emotions to realize that
wasn't what had happened.
Speaker 2: My bad, I don't.
Speaker 4: I don't think I've ever been more bowled over by
news of the album in my genuinely my entire life.
The only thing I can think of that comes close
is when I was when I was thirteen, within like
two weeks of really getting into my Bloody Valentine, I
went on YouTube and it was just a new album,
right yeah, just like wait, what, no, hang on, this
is it? It just makes your headspin. This is a
band that I've loved for well over half my life,
and I've had such a huge impact on me, just
as as a listener to just suddenly one yeah, and
you're sitting in the garden having a beer and then
you check your phone. It's like there's new neurosis out,
like with Aaron Turner. No less, it's just it's it's
if there's a more baffling thing that happens this year,
I don't know if I want to see it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's it's possibly the most flabbergasted I've been at
an album just falling right into my lap that I
can recollect. I was like I was at the supermarket
and I got home and the album had been released
about twenty minutes earlier, and I just like I had
something approximating a bodily meltdown, you know, like I had
to just like sit down, put the album on as
quickly as I could fucking get the shopping away, and
you know, as it was playing, I just stared at
my screen for like an hour, you know, with my
eyes basically brimming because the emotional concoction of what you
had to unpack there, the surprise, the disbelief combined with
you know that the album that I was hearing was
of such quality was just like momentarily overwhelming. I think
it's rare as a music fan, honestly, that you get
the rush of combined emotions that so many of us
got last Friday, and looking out to see that everyone
else was feeling it too, and it was a communal thing.
I think that was a real moment that we all
experienced there. You know the backstory of this for anyone
who might not be so o feian neurosis and why
this meant so much. Neurosis are not merely a good
band who went away. They are arguably the best band,
like they're legend their artistic standard. I would say, with
the possible exception of Corn, they're probably the most important
metal band of the last thirty five years. They're basically
the inventors of post metal, like every band under that
banner just you know, bows to them. Without Neurosis, then
the landscap that we know of converge mastered on Cult
of Lunar Wolves in the Throne Room, Slip knot isis Oathbreaker,
full of Hell, Chelsea Wolf Sepultura Tool. None of it
happens the same way, acts as far away from each
other as machine Head and Primordial taking influence from Neurosis.
What Neurosis did to break down and renit the pieces
of heavy music in the nineteen nineties is as notable
a revolutionary moment in metal's history as any other. They
are the elite of the elite when it comes to
heavy music. You pit any band to ever play it
against Neurosis and you go, oh, this band is clearly
much better than them, and you have to have a
serious conversation about it. And they were always brilliant, like
they never fell off it took until their previously final album,
Fires within Fires in twenty sixteen for people to go
abd This one just kind of feels like merely a
good Neurosis album thirty years into their career and it
was still like one of a kind and pretty fantastic.
And maybe this is more a dark Horse pick, but
the album before that on a fan decay, is like
possibly a top five Neuroses album for me personally, pound
for pound, they are a contender to have the all
round best catalog of any heavy band. They were a peerless, unparalleled,
earth shattering, game changing live band, and then it all
fell apart in what appeared to us as an instant
when in twenty twenty two, Scott Kelly, one of the
two co frontmen of this band, made a public statement
that he had for a long time been engaging in
the abuse of his family and was stepping back from
music immediately. The rest of Neurosis corroborated that they had
learned of this in twenty nineteen and had cut ties
with him then and you chose to respect the privacy
of his family and had in essence been basically sort
of disbanded for three years already with the pandemic years
there in between, obviously accounting for what from the outside
was the perceived inactivity of the band. And that was that,
like suddenly, the name of one of the most irreproachable
artists in our world was marred in a lot of
grossness and tragedy and high and rather than try to
pick up the pieces immediately, the rest of Neurosis chose
to sink away into the background. And Scott Kelly, I
don't think you would really say that he was like
any more or less important than anyone else in the band.
Like Neurosis aren't one of those bands who are driven
by a primary creative figure. They are a collective. But
for whatever reason, maybe his guest appearances with the likes
of Mastered On, maybe it's just that he stood center
stage at their shows. He was the most widely recognizable
member of Neurosis. The last time Neurosis changed a member
within the core band was when Noah Landis, the current
synthesizer player, joined in nineteen ninety five, and enough time
passed that as he was saying, I think we all
just naturally assume that Neurosis had been laid to rest.
Speaker 3: Well, I mean, the thing with me. It was a
couple of years ago exactly. But when Jason Rohader drummer
said he'd retired, yeah, it's like I'm done. I'm retired,
I'm done. And that was for me, that was that
was the net, that was the fun. Now I was like, well,
that's it, Like the whole school kind of thing.
Speaker 2: Was that bad?
Speaker 3: And again like that that is one of those things
where like well, like the greatest artistics or bands of
the time have their reputation completely tirred because of one moment.
Speaker 2: Because he's sort of like the figurehead that is.
Speaker 3: Like the recognized one, it becomes so difficult to grapple with.
And obviously when it's the voice you're hearing for a
lot of it, when you put on for fans, that's
a difficult thing.
Speaker 2: And then when like another one of your sort ofple.
Speaker 3: Members says, yep, I'm retired, just you just don't see again,
how as you say, Neurosis were that unit. They were
those creative minds together. How you don't just kind of
replace that. So it it felt so final that Neurosis
were gone, and then again out of nowhere they are
a band again.
Speaker 2: But it was, like I say it really did feel
like an impossible thing.
Speaker 4: Even then. It's you know, even if hypertheestically the stuff
with Scott Kelly hadn't happened. Eurosis were an old band
when the last record came out, do you know what
I mean? It's like they were reaching the point in
their career from an outsider where they're probably going to
slow down anyway. So it's like, there's this thing happens.
They essentially disband the drummers says he's retired, there's no
word of activity. And the longer it goes on, it
starts to go, well, you know, neuro's been around for
over forty years now, like it's it just becomes less
and less likely the longer it takes, and the circumstances
where it would be possible and who they could get
and all those things, it just i'd I'll be honest,
I never really stopped listening to them, but I completely
discounted and accept that there'd be ever there'd ever be
more music.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And it was fucking sad man because obviously, the
primary feeling is one for Scott Kelly's victims, and I
sincerely hope that they are in a safer environment now
than they were then, but you know, on our part
of engaging with the music. I also I never pulled
any kind of like barrier over listening to Neurosis due
to the extremely admirable way that the rest of the
band just cut him out and made no excuses for
him immediately. But it did feel like we lost Neurosis
a few years, like, not just as an active band,
but as the idea of the band that we loved
and he kind of held up. You know, it was
tainted in some way. Maybe weren't publicly declaring your love
for Neurosis in the same way, And whether Neurosis had
decided to, you know, pick it up and continue what
was there, you know, all of their lives work or
themselves decided that maybe it was tainted and maybe now
is the time for it to end. I would have
supported that either way, because it's it's a tough call,
you know. But last Friday, Neurosis emerged and announced all
at once their reformation, their first live showback, which is
going to be at the Fire in the Mountains festival
in the US. I believe it's labeled as a worldwide exclusive,
so I wouldn't go running to your UK promoters just yet,
but you never know what will happened after that that
the co vocalist and guitarist position had been filled by
Aaron Turner, the frontman of Sumac and Old Man Gloom
and the former front man of Isis, themselves one of
the single most important heavy bands in this lane of
the twenty first century, which is one of those picks
so mad it sounds like one of those better Lovers
esque bits of unrealistic fancasting, And that they have an
entire new album, not just in the world, not just
coming out soon here's a release date, but right there,
right now, available to it straight away. And if anything
in our niche sub corner of underground heavy music has
the capability to you know, to use that old term
of breaking the Internet, it's surely that even thinking like,
you know who produced this, because Steve Albini produced every
Neurosis album from nineteen ninety nine onwards and he's now dead,
like so much has changed in that time, and obviously
Neuroses have been working for so long that they know
what they want their reckords to sound like. But I
think just that accounts for the frantic emotions last week
of like Hey, we're back with Aaron Turner would be
one thing. Hey, we've got an album on the horizon
would be one thing. All great news, but the brain
breaking news that the album was immediately out the second
we even learned that they were considering doing Neurosis again,
and it was over an hour long, much longer than
the last album they put out. Everyone was just listening
to this album on Friday thinking like, how is this real?
Like surely this can't be real, Like, imagine right now,
whoever your favorite band is, whoever you consider to be
like the pinnacle of artistry in heavy music, this same
situation playing out, and how you would feel and to
be this hush hush about it. Well, like normally if
there's a surprise drop, then some degree of the industry
might be in the know. But for months, however long
it's taken to bring all this together, everyone outside of
like directly producing and then releasing the records eased to
have had no idea.
Speaker 3: That's the thing that blew my mind the most is
that nothing this is. I can't think of someone where
like there's been this where there's been no teas or
inkling or sort of no one knew, like no one
knew anything obviously that they kept it so lockdown in
this Internet age where everything gets out there and everything leaks,
and you know, people use VPNs to get abouns and
all that shit in advance, but that shit happens. But like,
I can't believe that this was just complete lockdown. They
had this shit lockdown so tight to just provide the
perfect magic moment of just like everyone learning or all
at once at the same time. And again, like I
was a couple minutes from my lunch break when this
album dropped.
Speaker 2: I was like, well, that's my lunch break sorted.
Speaker 3: I've got to take an extra five minutes on it.
But I need to figure I need to sit down
in the office and figure out what the fuck is
going on, because the biggest surprise I think that could
have possibly happened this year. There are no bands I
think who could coding inactive that could be so quiet
and suddenly just out of nowhere like not exist and
then suddenly existing the most complete way. It's not just
you know, like I say, like if they said we're back,
that would have caused enough for a freak out, Like yeah,
like if you're break it down to any one factor
of this, it would have caused nothing a figure but the.
Speaker 2: Fact the album was there, it was real and we could.
Speaker 3: Go and listen it straight away, like it was the
one of the most kind of like I don't even
know what I'm listening to you. I couldn't quite kind
of like take in the album because it was still
just kind of like, it's the most surreal experience I've
had listening to an album in god knows how I
genuinely covering the last time I've kind of felt dizzied
and kind of like as of like, you know, the
head fuck apason, You've made me feel like German. I
was listening to it like this is most kind of
just confused, just by the sheer existence of it. I've
been by an album god knows how long, and I
think it's because neuroses have operated the way they have
for so long.
Speaker 4: Not only are they is their story so singular now
that they're the only band this could happen for They're
one of the only bands that could feasibly do it.
Because if you're on a label or you know, connected
to some sort of management firm or whatever it is,
if you're not working as independently as neuroses have for
you know, approaching three decades now. Like they say, something
gets out, someone leaks, if someone whispers, or some even
just someone who's really like paying attention will say, oh,
they've just started working this booking agent. They're gonna be
doing shut Anything like that would have been some kind
of hiccup and a leak, and it would at least
put it on your radar, even if you don't know
what it is, just getting all the information and it
being basically a dream scenario for a fan of this
band all at once. And I mean I didn't go
and listen to the record straight away because, like I say,
I was having a beer in the guar. I gave
myself a bit of ordinarily like zero point five yoch
to seconds before I hit play on this thing. But
like as it was, I wanted to say something nicely
and it's that thing. It's that it was so surreal
and I was really drinking in because I was going
I don't know if this will ever could ever happen again,
this exact set of circumstances, or not even this exact
set of circustance, but it's something even akin to this,
I don't know, how it happens twice.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I would just like to say, like everyone
who actually did know in terms of the industry, like
for example, the fire in the mountains, people who have
you know, put together this first new registrate back or
you know, people working for destroyers like Evil Greed or
whatever who are like handling you know, the vinyl or
the album. Like fucking props to all of you, because
I think the fact that you know, no one did
go out and sort of spoil it just meant that
that rush of emotions on Friday was like beyond anything else.
So like, you know, genuinely, like mastly because imagine sitting
on that information, but like.
Speaker 3: You understand the gravitas of the situation that I think
that's just it is because neuroses aren't an ordinary badge.
Speaker 2: You have to respect the situation exactly.
Speaker 4: Even Aaron Turner not saying like, you know, they've been
his favorite band for the thirty and you can't tell
anyone that you were in your favorite band. Impossible.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I think it's genius as well that what
it did is it bypassed all of the like none
of us wants Scott Kelly to come back to the band.
But if they'd announced their new lineup first with no
music yet, you might have had some of the conversation of, like,
you know, will it be the same without that classic lineup,
But by having the album right there, they just shut
down all of that immediately, because, let's get into it.
We were all learning of this and then suddenly having
this mammoth of a record immediately in front of us
to digest this album, you know, does have understandable and
obvious differences with the previous lineup, but it's also every
bit worthy of the Neurosis title and the processing of
the information. Not only they were back, not only was
the album good, but for a lot of people might
actually be in some cases, like some of the hardest
they have hit in a while, Like some of this
is like the most extreme aggressive Neurosis material in like
twenty five plus years, and they're dipping into these flavors
that we haven't heard so strongly from Neurosis in a
long time. This is not some obligated comeback where they
need it to just restart their careers or whatever. Like
this record is fucking urgency. Even the parts where it
is slow and patient, it's driven by this innate need
to get out this together to you know, this is
people who have sat on these emotions and this form
of musical catharsis for longer than the otherwise would and
then roaring back with it. It's called an undying love
for a burning world, which you should take in that
title for a second if you haven't already, because sometimes neurosis,
what they're actually talking about might almost seem a little
more kind of out of reach. But this is I
think about as upfront as they've ever been in you know,
this being a record for a time of crisis, both
for them personally and the story of the band, but
more broadly, it's not even you know, self centeredly about them,
but it's about us all. It's you know, the state
of the human species in the digital age, on the
precipice of environmental collapse, shut off from one another. Arts
with an intro track called we Are Torn Wide Open,
which opens as like jarringly as an neurosis record has opened,
maybe ever, certainly in a long time, with these voices
just straight away yelling at you the separation that burns
our hearts is the root of all our disease. We've
forgotten how to live, so we suffer. We forgotten we
are wild, so we suffer. We exist in isolation, so
we suffer. And then repeating the dissonance is deafening. The
dissonance is deafening. And it is this expulsion of like
pent up madness and frustration that really ends up being
sort of like the calling car for the record.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this is for you know, any kind of long
seven legcy band you expect a later aud in their
career to not maybe sound the most vital.
Speaker 2: And kind of live wise thing.
Speaker 3: And again obviously this is you know, sludgey post mel
but this hit M play on this and your grip
by this like insane layering of vocals and again that
that we've forgot how to die, so we suffer like
that sort of stuff.
Speaker 2: It's so de souring.
Speaker 3: But the media I was, I'm in I again like
that convisically the appas, but I was kind of like
I have to just kind of hang off this.
Speaker 2: There have been things where having almost feeling a little
bit more jaded.
Speaker 3: Towards you know, music at the moment, like a'll tell
music because of what's going on in certain eras of
metal and all that, and it and then I hit
pound this and I was like, this is why we
do it, this is why, this is what we come
to like. And again I said to someone who has
listened the first couple of euros to records, love them
and have it and have a gap in there, this
is a monument of a record that even again after
one week then and a couple of listens dent it
is an hour plus long.
Speaker 2: I am obsessed with this.
Speaker 3: I think this album for the moment hit play until
the end of again well again, but the seventeen minute closer.
There is not a second of this album that I
would not that shouldn't exist. I think this album is
un fucking believable because again you get what you're t
wide open and it's insane, and then that riff on
mirror deep hits and it is the heaviest thing in
the goddamn universe.
Speaker 2: And I'm like, album, yeah.
Speaker 4: It's it's You're right. Neuros is the way they open
their records. They're always striking, often slower. There's often layering
things up and building and building and building, and then
it kind of punches through a couple of minutes in
this just being fifty two seconds of shouting. It's like
something that crass or throbbing gristle would do, which is like,
it's that's always been in euroses DNA. Yeah, we're hearing
it that up front on a late career record and
an ALM under these circumstances. I was not prepared for that,
and you saying you're completely drawn in, ready for the
dam to break. And then when Mirror Deep kicks off again,
like not that I was going in schedule because I
love everyone involved with this. They're one of my favorite bands.
But if there was any even atom of me going
like is it going to be the same? Am I
going to get the same feeling from this that I
got from those classic records? It evaporated on contact with
Mirror Deep because the way a that riff comes in
and you go, well, where can you even go from there?
And then with the repetitions and there's those low backing
vocal punctual vocals are so cool, yeah, and that thing
that I don't know what it's saying with that sort
of high pitch shrieking thing that keeps coming in and
it's the trade off between that and the low vocal. Again,
it's just something which that riff is amazing already, but
so quickly. You know. This is why Neurosis are so
important and why they're so brilliant. It is because this
is not a song, however many pretenders are. This is
not a song that any of their copycats could write,
because the genius of the layering and the textures, the
tambers they choose, it's all so radically apparent in the
first twenty five seconds and there's still over sixty minutes
of musics.
Speaker 1: Ago, yeah, and then it gives you a brief minute
of pause, and when the band smack back into the
second half, it's even nastier and grimier and more purposed
and more terrifying, and that's the first time you get
Aaron's really distinctive voice as well. Scott Kelly and Steve
von tild together on the Old and Euross records. They
were a funny band in terms of like the co
vocalist approach, because they weren't one of those bands where
each of them was assigned like a clear you know
that you do the high as you do the lows whatever.
The Neurosis effect was a little bit more like a
two headed beast, like they seem to almost mirror each
other enough that they felt like extensions really of like
the same organism. Steve on Till and Aaron Taylor actually
do sound very different, and Steve on Till is like
the for me on this He's the familiar voice of
Neurosis of old you know, while Aaron Taylor his voice
is Aaron Turner even sorry, his voice is is much
more like best You'll like. His is the thick, growling
voice that you imagine on most like modern post metal records,
because Isis is obviously a big, you know, purveyor of
that style and he's got one of the best of
those type voices like so enormous, so powerful. And I
guess another emotional side of this is that you know,
Isis are many people's favorite post metal band. And yes,
he's got Sumac and he's got old Mangloom, but musically
something traditionally closer to the post metal idea Isis haven't
released an album since twenty eleven, so there's something really
amazing hearing him back on a record like this as well.
If you have you know that emotional attachment to the music,
even if you know Neurosis don't sound or feel like
any other band and He also introduces a new melodic
sensibility at times as well, like there's a sun vocal
melody towards the end of First Red Rays that I'm
assuming must be Aaron because it doesn't really sound like
Neurosis melodies before, and it works and it fits the
vibe and you are hearing you know, these fresh musical
textures in the form of you know, Aaron's influence come
into this forty year old band. How did you find
that he fits as the most obvious change on this well,
like you know.
Speaker 4: Is is another one of my probably number two post
metal band for me, and the band that again very
important to me and I've loved them for a long time.
It's it's interesting because their approach is quite different from Eurosis.
If you put them on side by side, there's the
same genre, but they're not really the same kind of thing.
Isis is more than the glacial, the atmospheric kind of
close to post rock rather than the hardcore and the
various things that fold into Eurosis sound. But his voice
is always the most extreme element of that band, and
it's not quite been so much on the later Sue
Mac and Old Mangloom records, So hearing him not just
bring that You're using all the words I've written down, bestial, enormous,
all of that stuff. Him bringing that back and being
on something much nastier and more extreme. It's a kind
of a beautiful thing where you go Aaron Turner's I've
never heard him do something like this, and he's so
well suited to it, and him getting to do it
in the band that inspired him to do it in
the first place. You're right, like, you know, Scott Kelly
as a musical personality is enormous and it was a
huge part of those classic Neurosis records, or really any
of them. So there's always gonna be doubts about that.
But I think Aaron Turner probably sensing the you know,
the demands being put on him. And we'll get to
there's a performance later in this record which just fucking
blew my hair back, but he steps up and he
fits in perfectly. Like it doesn't feel like Neurosis with
Aaron Turner, like Sublime with Rome or whatever. It's like, No,
this is this feels like the act too of Neurosis.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, Ice is one of those bands I've
never really gone in on, so I don't have much
kind of like context on that. I do like I
should listen to them at some point properly, but to me,
it just kind of just feels just such a natural
part of what I kind of know the sound of
Neurosis to be.
Speaker 2: I do agree that there's something more kind of.
Speaker 3: Like it's a best your and frost bout it, but
it's still very like human in its kind of emotion
at the same time, and the kind of like despair
and anguish and anger that he can feed through it.
But it just he just feels like such a kind
of natural like fit into what.
Speaker 2: The sound of Neurosis are.
Speaker 3: And again I'm guessing because Ice is being, you know,
a similar minded post Mail band, it's not a huge leap,
but yeah, I was kind of like, yeah, this, this
seems like what I would want a Neurosis record in
twenty twenty six to sound like.
Speaker 2: And he is as natural fit as you could possibly be.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he brings more of the modern idea of post
metal is obviously, like the modern idea of post metal
is basically based on like Isis and cod of Luna
and that sort of you know, feel and sound, whereas
Neurosis is so kind of strange and rustic and sort
of mystical and like unlike any other thing. He brings
that kind of more contemporary post metal edge into Neurosis,
but it doesn't like sand out those things that make
Neurosis special. You know, Like if Neuroses have come back
and they just sound like any fucking like post you know,
ices cot Lunary sort of post metal band, that'd be
such a That'd be such a shame, you know, because
Neurosis are so singular. But I'm impressed with how much
he is very much himself and feels of himself. But
while you know, letting Neurosis be neurosis essentially, you know,
and like I said, Steve brings that like familiar emotional
anchor if you have already you know, connected with Neurosis before.
And like his power moments when like all of that
sort of existential frustration of the record forces out of him,
like in Mirror Deep, when he does that we have
lost our way. One of the best songs on this
is blind and the like find our way through the
fields we have sown part the way he carries and
moves that like pained pit of his stomach melody as
the band around him is like swaying and creaming in
this like damaged grieving sort of way is so heavy.
And then the sorrow that comes out of through that
as well, that kind of like two thousands era, you know,
sun that never sets eye of every storm, particularly kind
of feel is like just a direct line into my heart.
And one thing that really like also blew my mind
early on is on top of the sheer primordial power
of the band and the orientation of the vocals, Noah Landis,
the electronics guy, is like swarming all over this record,
and I guess it's there from the moment that mirror
deep Rift comes in, you go, what the fuck is
all of this shit happening around this rift as well?
And I guess I could wagh, I could maybe to
relate to someone who's like, you know, not so much
Neurosis fan is. It's kind of like Deaftones, where there
are some records where Frank Delgado takes a back seat
and somewhere he's really front and center. He's always there,
And for Neurosis, this is like one of the more
like stand up records in terms of the use of
that element, because he creates this terrifying effect with like
the crackling, breaking down sound waves and stuff, along with
these really serene, beautiful parts that lean on this record
into more like overtly synthesized the Neurosis normally seem to
do like the beginning of First Red Rays and then
the second half of Blind with these like synth chords
are really weighty and beautiful. There is like it feels
like a more like electronic keyboard heavy record than again
when I described that, you use that word rustic or whatever,
you feel Neurosis is very organic, very of the earth.
But without losing that, they've also got a lot more
of those like overtly you know, synth heavy flavors.
Speaker 3: On this Those simps at the start of the first
red Rays, they are so like glistening you just.
Speaker 2: Can like glide along them.
Speaker 3: And again it kind of just that lures you into
force in security because again when the guitars hit, it's
so but yeah, such a like unique atmosphere is where
they've always kind of like lurking around and sometimes they
are quite pretty, but the other times, like Blind, where
it just piles on this eerie darkness. I Blind is
one of my friends songs as well, because it's it's
it's so kind of like unsettling in just how anguished
and like the vocals having that real kind of like
slurred edge to them. It's not like, don't rush to
get anywhere, but it's so captivating the entire time and
every element that they pile on, whether it is the synths,
the guitars, it always feels like these it's moving these
songs in interesting directions. So again, even when they're you know,
eight nine, ten minutes long, there's always a new discovery
to kind of like fine where even they're looping and
refround again suddenly they've added a synthh to it that
that just spices up a little bit, and it keeps
these songs feeling so evolving over the entire like run time.
And I think it's such a like marshalk of every
memory of this band kind of being perfectly in sync
with each other.
Speaker 4: We have no Onah Larandis. I think he's maybe the
most overlooked member of Neurosis in the sense that you know,
all the guys have such a distinct role and are
so acclaimed at the thing they do. No Alance, you don't
hear his name mentioned all that much, but you meant,
you know when you said he joined ninety ninety five
within next year. It's through Silver and Blood, which is
where whether your favorite album is. That's when Neurosis become
Neurosis and I kind of become the legendary band that
we see them as now. And I'm amazed on this record,
particularly because from what I read, this album was basically assembled.
There were three consecutive weekends, so they were like jamming
a lot, recording things. Kind of it's quite improvisational record
in some parts. Un blind, I think you can really
hear that. It's not surprising, and him being so impressive
on this album is almost more impressive because of that,
because if you're the synth guy and the samples and
you know all the textual stuff, you of the most
in a sense artistic freedom of anyone in the band,
because it's completely up to you what you do in
the way that it's not necessarily the same for a
guitarist or a drummer or a vocalist. You can either
you can even just not be there if you don't
want to. Him being so radically apparent across this record
and being so inventive and elevating these songs are already
brilliant and finding space for him. Again, it's just little
things where there's loads in Eurosis copycats. Why can't they
do the thing they do? And it's having someone like
Noah Landis in your band who understands what to add
and how and how to just make these things that
sound bizarre but beautiful. It just it takes it to
a whole different level.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And how they interact with the rest of the band,
like that the mid section of First Red Rays when
they hit that like heartrending kind of wandering clean passage
is stunning. The back part of Blind when it does
the starved eyes refrain, and again the texture around like
those voices is so incredible. And they have this like
just this this delicacy that they counteract their like ungodly
heaviness with. But it also comes through on the extreme end.
And for that, we've got to talk about seething and scattered,
which that fucking riff gave me like edge of my seat,
I'm about to go down from the top of the
roller coaster anxiety before it had even fully started. The
neurosis like peak post metal thing of each member of
the band as like another limb of this many armed
leviathing if you want to understand heavy without actually having
to go overboard on it and distorting the fuck out
of it or whatever. That song My God, and the
vocals are even more like there are literally more voices
in the midst because you've got Dave Edwondson the Bassis
coming in with vocals as well, doing that dwells deep
inside us again, pounding these like existential mantras coming at
you from all angles, and when they bring the fucking
hammer down at the very end of it, and that
extreme sound manipulation feedback that we're talking about there, that
squawlling metal. That's the kind of flavor that I associate
with through Silver in Blood Neurosis, which was like a
different ballgame that was a lifetime ago, you know, like
Neurosis at their most antagonistic and barbed, which felt like
a style that they had evolved past. Like if you
only know, for example, through Silver in Blood erein Neurosis,
then the level of like pretty and you know, sort
of leisurely that they reach in the mid two thousands
might feel quite you know, startling to you, but it
comes back at the end song and It's just like
nauseatingly heavy, and it just gave me that like shit
my pants feel that I haven't got from a record
in this lane. And I don't know how long since,
you know, fucking the last time neuroses were doing this.
Speaker 2: I mean seeing and scared.
Speaker 3: It's like you can trace the routes back to like
the hardcore and there were like again that phart a bit.
It is a breakdown, but it is the most like
skull crashing and like genuinely frightening breakdown I think I've
heard in god knows how long That vocal trade offit
where they're all just yelling over each other is crazy.
And like that opening rift is so just like mangled
and horrifying, where you like in efferent content. This can
always been quite a rocking rift, but neuroses make it scary.
And again I love the middle section, where again it
goes into the kind of like spacey droning Simpson. You
get these kind of like tribal drum pad and stuff
coming in and like this song just there's like.
Speaker 1: The sci fi sense I'm talking about. It's like that's
a weird keyboard sound that you wouldn't think to put
in Eurosis and yeah it works.
Speaker 3: There And this is all within one song, how many
different kind of like genres and styles and feelings. It's
one's and moves through, but it's always just so antagonistic
and menacing that I'm just kind of like this song
has more ideas. Again, it's more ideas in this single
song than countless bands having entire albums that.
Speaker 2: They did this over a couple of weekends, like jamming album,
like how can you operate up?
Speaker 3: This feels like it's something that's been poured over and
labeled over to sound perfect. Get that guitar to and
spot on, get all this sympings up. But it's like
it just seems to come so naturally to them, and
like it's just mind blowing.
Speaker 4: And then there's a voice on this song who and
I don't know who it is. I think it's Aaron,
but I'm not sure because I've never heard him sound
like that, But it sounds like Aaron, who sounds so
unhuman when he lets that raw happen. But he goes
into a sort of like Captain ahab Register, like Mad Preacher.
It's kind of like he's taking his voice and really
going out there to match what Neurosis is doing, which
I know sounds like a weird things like, well, yeah,
you are in the band that is kind of the
least we expect, but him doing something that's you know,
he's in a fucking weird place by being in Eurosis
and he's going on a limb and doing something even madder,
and it just it brings this song to a frenzy
where which is almost nauseating it and yeah, saying all
this one of the catches songs on the record, Like
they've got more patient, more atmospheric songs in this but
this one just it, Like I said, it gets that
part of your brain that through silver and blood. That's
what Enemy of the Sun, which I thought was long
behind them, I mean not that, like I say, I
didn't know we were getting an album, but if we
were to getting Euroses album, this is not the sort
of thing I expected they'd be doing in twenty twenty
six for sure.
Speaker 1: And then you have Untethered, which by comparison, is only
four minutes long, and it feels like maybe a little
bit like the anticipation of like the last two you know,
enormous tracks on the album, but it has this slippery
sort of noise rock riff in it. It feels a
bit more like Melvinsy or whatever than the rest of
the album, and it kind of rocks in the way
that you don't always link to Neurosis. It's really fun.
And then in the Waiting Hours and Last Light, two
tracks that collectively make up about twenty seven minutes in length.
In the Waiting Hours is the more wistful of the two,
I suppose, at least to begin with, you know it
kind of before it starts to rumble. And again, if
you are a fan of like Dusty Lonely early two
thousands Neurosis like I am, then I think it should
really speak to you. Last Light, as the closer, is
one of the most boldly experimental tracks Neurosis have maybe done.
Speaker 3: Like this is where they go like fully like psychedelic,
tripped out electronic kind of neurosis and again like I've
got that missing gapp and the sort of use thing.
But the way that begins of that, you know, like
throbbing electronics of isolated screams, and it feels Joe missing
and you can feel like the intensity building. But then
you get like like almost half of the song, you
find this light burst through it and you get these
like some of the most like gorgeous guitar melodies on
this album, and it kind of goes like super uplifting
for it goes like gospel almost like the final but
this song like over seventeen minutes, I was kind of
just like, I don't know somewhere else this album can go,
And of course this like final closing track. They're going
place that I had no expectation for. And again, like
me person who complains only time the song goes over
ten minutes, is like this seventy minute song might be
the best song on the album, Like it's insane.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean because Neurosis. Again, they've obviously used electronics
for a long time, but they've never felt so much
like an obviously electronic band, like it was always supplement.
And I don't know if maybe this comes from maybe
Aaron Turner like suggesting more of this side. I don't
know if no Ahlandi's just turned up and decided to
go crazy after ten years, but that insistent do do
like electronic heartbeat at the start of it is like really,
you know, unexpected and unusual, and the first voice on
it is Aaron's but he's not doing the best your
post metal voice. He's pushing his register into like these
deranged reaches like I'm guessing Earliert early when you spoke
about this performance later on, I immediately thought, this must
be the moment you're talking about, because when he's screaming
like they're all swept. Oh, it's so frightening. It reminds
me of like an ultra of plagued vocal or something like.
It's a really unchained vocal performance echoing out over this
like electro beat.
Speaker 4: Yeah. I mean, I was already in love with this
record before he got to this song, and this is
my favorite on the album. I think this is frankly
one of the most spectacular songs I've heard this decade.
I am in total away this and the moment where
I started to get a feeling that's what it might
be was when Aaron Turner steps up and with virtually
no backing, gives the most frightening vocal performance one can imagine.
And you know, I've been a fan of this for
about as long as I've been a Neurosis fan. This
is a contender for the best he's ever been on
a song, and it's that exact moment you mentioned that
like a wretch, but it's like his voice just cracks
under how much pressure he's putting on it. It's about
two minutes in and it's one of the most intense
vocal performances I've heard on a metal record in I
don't even know how long, and you go, this is
gonna be, you know, like you said, like the darkest,
most bleak, devastating song of the record. And then it's
not because when that big god speed rift comes in, Yeah,
and Jason Road is doing that incredible uplifting drum performance.
No one knows how to build tension like that. Guy
just builds and builds and builds the point where it's unbearable.
And then when it opens up like you're saying, and
it sounds like mono or explosions in the sky and
talk Talk and all these other things after the record
you've been putting yourself through, it's such like a breaking
of the dam. It's an unbelievable, like an unbelievably savvy
thing to do, you know, going on an hour into
this nightmare to just have this unapologetic, unmitigated a bit
of sunlight.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you know, like when Steve picks up the
vocal and he puts in his own like really pain
performance needs, you know, bellowing out the what have we
done to our own native clay? Like that whole part.
It feels like this is the fucking end. This is
the slow collapse. And even though they've had those you know,
sort of throwbacks almost to through Silver and Blood era intensity,
ultimately it's not through Silver and Blood and there will
be some kind of light to it. And halfway through
that seventeen minutes song, I was like, I have absolutely
no idea where the second half of this could be
going in like such an exciting way, like it had
painted out so many possibilities of how it could go.
And I agree, like when you know that Rift just
fucking sings in the second half, it's just like astonishing.
And for what you could possibly reasonably demand for a
returning Neurosis with the alchemy of the you know, the
Great Neurosis lineup having obviously changed, but now with the
introduction of Aaron Turner, it is pretty much close to
perfect this album for what you could reasonably imagine of
that being well, I just I wanted to applaud when
I ended to be honest, Like it's it's impossible to
separate the album from the story.
Speaker 4: And there's there's a triumphant telement to listening to it
that I think is inseparable from what came before it.
But if, like you say, you're going, I'm going to
put on this new neurosalum, what do I expect? What
would I quote unquote demand from them? Or what would
I hope that lives up to the name, And it's
it completely does, Like it's I can't believe we're here,
to be honest, because like the again, it's way too
early to start thinking about ranking these things. You know,
It's I won't be able to do that for another
six months at least. I suspect I need another couple
of dozen listens before I know where this is going.
But the fact that it's like not I'm not discounting
it from the ranking, if you know what I mean,
Like that's already a mental thing. I'm not going, well,
you know, so let's we'll park that and this is
its own thing and I'm not going to compare it.
You know, the sort of concessions you have to make
in almost every circumstance remotely like this and I'm not
doing that. I'm going like, oh, this is just another
fucking unbelievable Neurosis album. Like it's genuinely like what one
of I might just be caught up in the excitment
of all I don't know. It's one of the best
albums I think I've had the pleasure of covering on
this show. I am totally enamored by it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, just so much of it defies belief. Like, as
we said earlier, Jason Rhader the drummer, said he'd retired
from music and sold all of his equipment when he
randomly got fired from Sleep a couple of years ago,
and now here he is being one of the best
drummers ever again like all over it so like he
might be in like my top ten favorite drummers. You know,
it's such an insane comeback story, and it feels the
product of at the art here feels exactly right for
the world that you know they're entering back into. And
I mean it's mental that we got converged last month
and we were looking out of the release schedule being like, yeah,
nothing nut's coming out immediately. That should should like, you know,
come quite challenge that and then suddenly one month later,
we have another record of that level, and on top
of that, we've got Neurosis back, like I can't believe it.
We've got one of the best bands back. And part
of that rush of emotion was it feels like, you know,
for want of a better word, we're allowed to love
Neurosis again because because Last Friday was the biggest mass
outpouring of love for Neurosis since the last time they
would have played a show essentially, you know, and this
band means so much to people. They are so many
people's favorite band, and they were never like hard canceled
as a band because of the way that the rest
of them conducted themselves. But there were a few years
there where mentioning the Neurosis name or wearing Neurosis merch
whatever it get comments or looks, you know, and it
carried the vibe of this is, you know, somewhat tainted
material somehow, And obviously I think there always will be
a complex relationship with the Scott Kelly material. And that's
not to say that we all get off totally free
and never have to think about it again and can
forget about everything. But like, honestly, last Friday out of nowhere.
It felt like the Damn Burst on celebrating Neurosis, and
I've seen lots of people going like, oh, I should
really check out Eurosis for the first time. You know,
people seem to really love this band, and just that
that damn Burst thing, like it really does mean the world.
And I think that the album being this good on
top of that, just like it really does make a
world of difference.
Speaker 3: I mean, for me, like this is by far and
away my fare out of the year right now, and
that this is coming off the back of a Converge record.
I was ready to dive deep in Euroses and then
because and again, I still listen to the neuroslums. I like,
you know, I'll still spin through silk and blood over
this sort of the years, But I just I didn't
feel like I was in the mindset to delve further
into Neurosis and kind of like explore that.
Speaker 2: And now I'm like, again, it's still going to come with,
you know, the.
Speaker 3: Slight asterisks that Scott K's name will carry, But I
do now feel that excitement kind of like I'm ready
to reimmerse myself and listen to those Euroslams I haven't
listened to, and again, like this album.
Speaker 2: There are, like, you know, some of my favorite bands
who we hold in that.
Speaker 3: Kind of like upper echelon of like elite tier bands
who have released ams this year that I fucking love.
But this album, this just feels like on a different
level that mere mortals can't like create. It truly is special.
And again like this is now the bar to sort
of beat this year. And again I've not put any
thought into where the strengths as an Euros album because
I've not done the whole cat long, but it's it
is a just masterful and that there was kind of
through the ross and you get swept up in that,
and now a week on having lit to a bunch,
I'm like, no, no, it is just that damn good.
This isn't the kind of like oh my god, hype
sort of thing. This the album speech itself, and it
just I just say, it's a reclamation of kind of
like one of the most important metal bands ever and
kind of being able to like celebrate them and put
the respect that the remaining musicians put their back.
Speaker 2: On them and kind of acknowledge their their importance.
Speaker 1: Yes, a bit rude of them to steal every other
band's Last Friday's Thunder, particularly when we already had one
long awaited enough comeback album to discuss that was on
our schedule for a much longer period of time. But
let's get into it. Poison the Well. We're also back
class Friday with Peace in place. I feel fucking insane
having to do another intro for an album from a
band as important as this right after that, But Poison
the Well one of the most integral to the development
of twenty first century metal and hardcore bands, a top
three or four most influential metalcore band of all time.
If you want to know what is the crucial hinging
point between the early metallic hardcore of Integrity and Earth Crisis, etc.
In the mid nineties to then the commercial popularization of
it with Kills which engage in the early two thousands,
that middle point is Poison the Well. Records, like The
Opposite of December and Tear from the Red are the
template of how you get from point A to point B.
There and in the modern era, when metalcore has gone
in other ways, those early Poison Well records have been fetishized.
I think is the word I would use by those
factions of you know, hardcore and medical communities as the
examples of like this is what metalcore actually is, you know,
arguably in its most quintisential form. Again not the earliest
form of metalcore, but kind of the perfect balance really
between like the diy roots and the larger horizons, like
the falcrum point is Poisoned Well and this is something
that we tracked on a poison Wel band special on
the That's not a Patreon last year. They made five
albums in total up to two thousand and nine, and
then they broke up. And then they've actually been reuniting
sort of on and off for over ten years now.
But that moved them into another period that we know.
We know lots of bands to be in that period
where they exist and they come out and play shows,
but will they actually commit to being a real band again,
you know and mix some music that damn for Poison
Well broke in twenty twenty four when they announced that
they were making a new album. We got a first
returning single in twenty twenty five, good trembling level. It's
not a song that is on this album. It's a
truly standalone song, but that was a fantastic first taste
of like Yep, Poison wel can still rip the prelude
to the first album in seventeen years piece in place, Elliott,
you were not on that Poison Well special that we
did so for you, I have to ask, are you
a fan? Why are you waiting for this record that
the way the rest of us.
Speaker 4: Were, uh yes or no? I like them, I don't
love them. I'm probably the fourth place of the four
of us, including market like Poison the Well fandom in
the sense that the stuff there's some stuff I like
that I think is really excellent. I'll admit I haven't
gone in on the last two records, and i've heard versions.
Is you'd like that really quite good? All right, well,
I'll park that. I'll come back to that one. I've
heard the first three and there's stuff that I think
is pretty And I must say, maybe I'm part of
that fetishizing thing. Those albums are only sounding better the
worst metal core gets and tipping metal core gets you
go back and here tear from the reading. I'm like, oh, oh,
it used to this, this is what it used to be.
Why why change?
Speaker 1: But I yeah, I.
Speaker 4: Wasn't really following this super closely, and I can't wait
for more poison the World material, because I mean there
were there was already Poisoned Woe material that I wasn't
listening to. It would have been for me to be
demanding new stuff. But yeah, so this is I wouldn't
say new territories for me, but like it's I'm definitely
the least familiar of everyone here today.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that'll be an interesting perspective then, to compare to Obviously,
myself and Sam did the entire like catalog Rundown in
depth last year, and when we do those band specials,
they're often there's a there's like a narrative that kind
of organically develops through talking through the records. And with
Poison Well, the idea that really came through was that
the last few years we've existed almost in like this
metal core culture war of real metal core versus false
metal core and all those terms that people like to
throw around if they really really are invested in that,
and Poison Well became adopted as like unwilling participants, almost
like these records that they made twenty five years ago
became canonized as the standard and then used as ammunition
but Poison Well were already more than that, and they
were that standard of quintidential metal core for a couple
of years, and then they became something else, and for
many people, that is where they're interesting. Poison Well stops.
We went further to paint a more accurate picture of
what this band really are. They're a much more experimental,
multi dynamic, multidisciplined beast. So the idea of a Poison
World comeback out in twenty twenty six was really interesting
because they are entering into a world where their name
has this Pavlov's dog effect for metalcre fans, holding them
up as everything that it should be. But those people
are only actually really engaging with their first couple of records.
So I think there is a bit of a schism
maybe that you could see with you know, for example,
the reception to this record between the fans who have
been along for the ride and aren't expecting them to
make another opposite of December and then the people who
kind of were.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, obviously this is one of my most
antispared albums of the year. Also, amakuind have had to
temper expectations for because obviously where Poison Rold left off
in two thousand and nine, is there is their weakest moment,
Like it's not a bad album, but it is their
kind of lowest point creatively. And we are now as
entering the world where they're back for this newies in
an era where their first two albums in particular, but
well probably say first fie albums are kind of like
iconize and kind of hold it held up as like
the bibles of metalcore. And there are gonna be a
bunch of people who are gonna think they're gonna do that.
And I'm like, I even again, as much as I
think opposite sevent is, you know, a ten out of
ten perfect album, I wouldn't want Poison Ord to come
back in twenty twenty six and try and like squeeze
into sort of like the nineteen ninety nine like outfit
and and be that it would feel wrong and kind
of like inauthentic. Why I want it was kind of like, obviously,
do they pick up from where they left off, because
the dropping rotten versions do kind of like fit in
a similar kind of vibe. So I was like, do
you pick up that and do you try and like
sort of mold it again with kind of modern expectations
and all that, and it was like, this is there
are more rise on this Poison World record than there
would have been where they left off.
Speaker 2: Because of that, they're they're kind of like status now.
Speaker 3: But are those people kind of actually as you say,
aware of the bad and that poison we are creatively
as It's been a really interesting one to go into
and kind of like sort of see does the kind
of like not typically metalcore poison well, like where does
that land in the in the twenty twenty six where
they are held up as like the godfathers of modern
metalcore who are going to come back and save the genre.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because you know, by you come before you, Poison
Wel had kind of become as much a post hardcore
band as a metal one. And I would say like,
if you listening, consider yourself to be more of like
a post hardcore fan than strictly a metalcore one. You
might be actually the person more inclined to enjoy a
record like this. And then you get the records that
people really drop off for, which are versions in the
tropic rot and those are the experimental Poison Wel albums.
And it's not a blanket, yes, or no thing as
to if those are good or not, because if you've
heard our special you know that there's one of those
albums that we do generally agree is the weakest Poison
Wel album, and then there's another that we think is
like they're unsung near masterpiece. But the way to view
this album, I think is the way that they've made it,
which is, you know, it's the natural aging up of
all the places that they have been and you know,
the back I have in mind for this as comparison
points are more like Thrice an Alexis on Fire, where
those are bands that come from those post harcal worlds,
but by the time they've entered their you know, forties
or whatever, they've kind of sculpted themselves into these just
very individual to themselves versions of that. You know, I
think this album is really good. I think, you know,
obviously we've got it right next to Neurosis. It might
seem a litt damped when you can't say that it's
up there with the best things that they've done, but
it is still a little surreal to be here in
twenty twenty six with a new Poison Wel album and
going down this is really good I mean, like last Friday,
I could feel the Brexit shrinking away like new Neurosis,
New Poison, the well, what year is it? But this
is it's strong and it's not as you know, kind
of overt and like Octopus slimed inex experimentation, as like
a Versions or the Tropic rot Is, but it's kind
of baked into the template I think in a way
that's quite sturdy and quite stately because like those bands
I mentioned, it feels very assured of itself. It feels
like they know the kind of band that they are
and what they want to be coming back after all
this time. There's a power about it, not necessarily like
a wild eyed savagery if you're looking for them to
start coming in and going crazy like these new and
metal core revival bands. But there is a poise in
this Poison world that is beyond that. Because wax Mask
with that stuttering like engine revving up and down again
riff is like classic early two thousands poison well behavior
hits like a truck and then prime will bloom afterwards,
even harder fucking teeth going on over the pavement on that.
Speaker 3: I mean, wax Mask kind of like opening almost reminiscent
of Bochler in that kind of like isolated Jeffrey kind
of like doing that soft vocal and then that riff
hit and I was like, ah, yeah, people, I mean spoiler,
I fucking love this album. I think this is again
one of my favorite alums of this year so far.
It's not Eurosis because fucking like I was so like,
oh man, poison the world, this was meant to be
your moment.
Speaker 4: But I still to.
Speaker 1: Say, like, I think this is really strong.
Speaker 2: It's fantastic.
Speaker 3: It's not as constantly violent and savaga as you might
expect from like again the sort of like metalcore bands
who are kind of inspired by them.
Speaker 2: There's a kind of volatile nature to.
Speaker 3: It where it can kind of like bling off into
different directions and when it goes hard, those rifts fucking crudge,
and it's got that kind of earth feet tone. And
I think the the Frice Alex fan comparison is like
really apt because it is just like a sort of
aged up, slightly weathered but still hard hitting and very
sort of emotionally stirring metalcal band.
Speaker 2: And again, like.
Speaker 3: Primal Bloom is like probably the most kind of like
straight up metallic hardcore Mosha on the album, you know
it is big, stompy mosh riffs.
Speaker 2: The riffing is kind of like really at it. There
are the you know, softer moments in there.
Speaker 3: They coming at the right time to let these songs
breathe and give it the dynamics, and then you get
that breakdown and I'm like, yep, that final breakdown that
is so hard.
Speaker 2: I want this to be in the live set.
Speaker 3: I think this album comes out brilliantly because Firebreads, which
was like the lead single. I really liked the single because,
as we've sort of said, I love all of the
kind of like early two thousands of medical Revival stuff,
but it is all kind of doing the same thing
with the same riffs, and I'll take up, I'll lap
that up, but I mean poison. On these first couple
of songs, they show they're still hard, but there is
an inventiveness beyond a lot of the bands who are
kind of looking to them as kind of like like
the Sacred Idols, and.
Speaker 4: I think like, fundamentally they're a medical band of this
struket that know how to write songs. Because as much
as you know, the more traed meticalcore bands that are
popular now. They are absolutely preferable to the faceless, weightless
modern pop metal core bands that are super popular. But
I do think some of those bands aren't quite good
enough at songwriting to warrant some of the excitement that
surrounds it will certainly to get the comparisons they carry
with the clack like you're bleeding through and kills which engage.
Weren't just great because their snare drums sounded like that.
It's like they they wrote excellent aout of songs, yeah
and poisoned well. I kind of I feel about this
record the way I feel about them. I like this album.
I think it's occasionally great, but consistently. I can tell
the songs apart which I know might sound like it's
a valid thing to bring up, that's major. I can
look at the tracks, that's the one that's has that bit,
that's the one that has that bit.
Speaker 1: Nice, nice, nice.
Speaker 4: I've only managed to give this a couple listen so far.
I think this is like I say, I think it's
I like this record. I think it's occasionally great. There's
I must say, the relief when I hit play knowing
that Will Putney produced it, and I found out it
didn't sound like I feared it might.
Speaker 1: It's one of his best jobs in fucking forever.
Speaker 2: It's got one of his best elements in his production.
Speaker 3: About that drum sound that you ruined the Harriet album
by pointing out I need to like that.
Speaker 2: Reviewer lessons like you ruined it for me. Ah, God
damn it. And I was kind of like, is he
gonna do that to poison the world?
Speaker 3: But I'm like Chris Holbrook's two good drummer to sort
of let that kind of get in the way, Like, yeah, no,
will Partney Ace job on this one?
Speaker 4: Well, it does sound like he's understood the assignment, because
if he did just come in and go right, we're
gonna do all the plugins so we could sound like
the opposite of December, we'd all be listening going, see,
we know you don't have to do that. That is
that's patronizing to the listener, don't be silly. But he's
understood that you still want it to sound like poison
the Well and have the quirks of those early records,
but make it sound like it's still somewhat relevant to
twenty twenty six, which is, you know, that's kind of
what you want to come back album to be so
purely in the production, like the mechanical side of it.
I think they've done an excellent job and it still
sounds like them and all that. And then the songs,
I don't think every single one is you know, heardh
sized totally brilliant, but there's more than enough of them,
which I think again, even as a casual fan, if
I was go see them, I'd want to hear Thoroughbreds.
I'd be happy to hear something like everything Hurts or
drifting without him like them will mellow stuff on the record,
Primal Bloom, I think like, I think they've done a
really good job.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and the three main guys that have been the
consistent anchors of Poison the World. There's great contribution on
here from the two newer members as well, but Jeff,
Ryan and Chris are all like big personality players at
their instrument you know, like Chris is one of the
best hardcore drummers ever. I particularly want to highlight Ryan
Premac as one of those like Dynamo metallic hardcore riffers
who doesn't get spoken about as much as like a
Ben Winman or a Kurt Blue but he's always doing
really inspired stuff, and it's how those like unexpected influences
that really came to the fore and records like versions
are able then to be you know, like I said,
sort of baked back into what are mostly these quite
straightforwardly heavy three minute songs this time because it's the
you know, the surf rock and the country and those
kind of like left field approaches that come through in
the guitars. There's an almost bluesy lead at the end
of wax Mask, which adds like a really great stroke
of color to it. Awake of Vultures has these like
almost slide guitar inspired passages baked into the verses that
create that Really it's all that.
Speaker 3: Kind of versions rock and roll, like that that rock
and roll hipshaking sort of thing that they kind of
breached and every now and then and there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well that Songe's got that really sort of again
like road worn sort of atmosphere that those records do.
But as you know, we mentioned Thoroughbreds as the lead single,
and it has that kind of like raucous careening left
and right rock and roll thing that a song like
letter thing does, you know, it's just a bit less
unhinge and a bit more in the you know, in
the palm and their control, and Jeff is like really
strong in the singing across this record, like it's probably
his most commanding, clean vocal performance he's put on an
album because you know that the Thoroughbread's chorus with the
Haunt Me always has been really stuck in my head since,
you know, returning to that song on this album, and
then tracks like like Everything Hurts and like particularly Weeping Tones,
they lean really heavily on the choruses. Weeping Tones does
kind of remind me of Thrice, like that kind of
like weathered, hearty rock song, you know, and that is
just like a legitimately just good on its own terms
rock song in the middle of this like metalcore comeback record,
which does feel again, an awful lot beyond what most
of their imitators have been shown to be capable of.
Speaker 3: Well, when I get like Fries, I get cave in
from certain songs this record, like Everything Hurts and drifting
without end. They have that kind of like cave in
space rock thing going on with them, like everving hurts
in Lesser Hands, that would just be another kind of
like Shoegazy, a rock song that all the hardcore bands do,
but it's got a mega chorus.
Speaker 1: The yeah still really hard post chorus or of down
in it as well.
Speaker 2: And that's the thing. It's great.
Speaker 3: It's got this kind of like you were that kind
of like Shoegazy bass intro be it where it's kind
of massive on the chorus and then it slams into
a breakdown and it's like, yep, we're getting the mosh
thing and you get you know, weirder kind of droning
melodies on there, like as you mentioned Awake of Vultures,
you get that like ambient sort of outro bit to it,
where again they just they throw in nice little bits
of experimentation, bad bodies, and it's got like some real
burly riffs and it's like really rhythmically dynamic. I think
there is just a stronger texture and kind of composition
to what they're doing with these songs to what a
lot of other again metallic carcabands that I really.
Speaker 2: Like have been doing. I think it's a really just
strong body of work.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, Jeff has a real handle on like
how to deploy his voice melodically, like compare it to
the earliest Poison World material, and obviously the melodies are
so like tentative and so trembling, you know, whereas here
not only is he a great singer now, but he's
also able to bring this sort of eerie sensibility to
it beyond the like dreaded stock metalcore. Please describe this
song as anthem, you know, like thing, and his scream
on it as well, has this really like brilliant, husky
sort of quiet rage to it that really suits the
atmosphere of where the music has gone melted late on
stinkiest groove on the record, really bouncing around the place.
It's so fucking great. It kind of reminds me of
like a like a later period employed to serve groove
or something like an O zero, like a really bouncing feel.
But then the closing track Plague and the most I'm
sure like others, I saw nine minutes at the end
and thought, what have we got cooking here, only to
be bemused when there was an honest to god hidden
track on this thing.
Speaker 3: There were nineties bag you know, they can't shake It's
like they.
Speaker 1: Haven't acknowledged how the means of releasing music has changed
since the last time they were around. So here's a
hidden track for your CD. But it's nice to hidden track.
It's very nice, very pretty.
Speaker 2: I think the hidden track it's great.
Speaker 3: It's like a really nice, lot delicate emo ballad, like
it's a really cool kind of like again it works
in Tractice. It's a different vibe, but again I think
it's one of like Jeffrey's strong all things, and it
does sort of get quite swelling and little heartstring tonguing
at the end, Like I think it's really cool.
Speaker 2: And yeah, I think Plague.
Speaker 3: The most is kind of like darker and moodious and
that that's when when it started out, I was kind
of like, oh, this is going to be the.
Speaker 2: Dark, brooding kind of long form closer.
Speaker 3: But I was like, you know what, you didn't need
to do hidden track, but like you're a nineties band,
like and it's only three minutes of silence, I've got.
Speaker 1: To like shit track, Like, it's not if we've seen
twenty seven minutes at the end, we would have been
alerted a bit earlier on. I think that that's what
the scenario was. Yeah, it's not like as crazily experimental
record as like their last couple were. But I think
you can clearly tell that the band that made versions
of the tropic rock made this record. You know. It's
kind of a bit more consistently across the board, sort
of subsumed into the formula, you know, which you'd think
would make it more accessible to people. But like I said,
I think if you're into the way that bands, like
whether it be Thrice or Alexis on Fire or you know,
even like every Time I Die around low teens, late
period Dillinger, that kind of thing, how these bands coax
more of these sort of you know again like sort
of like like road worn stately sounds out of their elements.
I think you will really like this record. It might
be one of your highlights of the year for that
kind of thing. I can't imagine a more boring way
of engaging with this than having these dynamic bands at
your fingertips where you can watch how they morph and
they change, then going ooh, where are my angel statue riffs?
I have a baby brain. Like last time here iled
I was bitching about the people who think blood Moon
is the worst converge album. That's a perfect ven diagram
with people who only fetishize the first couple of Poison
World releases, and even on the post hardcore side, like
what that crowd want is that exact, perfectly replicated two
thousand and four MySpace revival stuff like you know, like
that I Promised the World EP and that kind of thing,
and just the sort of treadmill of new bands producing
models of the exact same sound and then the scene
collectively moving on from them when they age past it.
But if you're actually interested in following how your great
artists do age and are, there is a real wealth
of enjoyment here in this album.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and again I am you know, I'm partly to blame.
Speaker 3: I love all that kind of like scene revival stuff,
and I like that, but it's like I love what
it does, but I at the same time, I am
engaged with, you know, the evolving artists and I and
I again, I wanted Poison Weld to do what exactly
what they've done here. I didn't want them to just
like say, rehash old ideas.
Speaker 2: It's this to me is great And the.
Speaker 3: Thing is, by default this probably has to come like
fifth place for Poison the World because that's just you know,
the strength of the first four records. But I still
this album is fucking incredible, and I'm so kind of
just happy that we've got new Poison Weld and it's
of a standard that I'm like, yeah, this is up
there with like legitimately great modern bands.
Speaker 2: This isn't like again that even other like bigger legacy.
Speaker 3: Metal bands, Like I really liked that last Killswitch Engage record.
Speaker 2: I mean this is way better than that. I mean,
this is like really good.
Speaker 3: This is like you put this with like like the
Bleeding Through album in the in terms of the kind
of like early medicore bands who are still fucking delivering
top ten stuff like these aren't there with them. And
I think, like it's a real just sort of nice
comforting listening for me that still has loads of cool,
interesting ideas. It makes me want to throw hands, it
makes you want to get a bit of motion on sing,
and I mean it's going to go like, oh, I
wasn't expecting that. So for me, while I want from
Pointsonil album in twenty twenty six, it ticks every box.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree. I think the first three albums those
are they're widely agreed upon classics versions. As you will
know if you've heard our special is actually the secret
classic Poisono wel album that only the real heads know about.
And then you've got the tropic rock Bottom, which is
fairly good. This is better than that, and so slotting
in under four absolutely brilliant genre defining and then defying albums.
That's really good work. And you know, stick in the
landing of the comeback that we have wanted for so long.
So Poisono Wel Piece in place bumped down to third
incredibly but still a big release. Lamb of Gods, I
guess technically a much bigger band than those ones we've
been speaking of into oblivion. This is their third album
of the twenty twenties, very neatly divided also by those
being the three albums with the current lineup featuring Art
Cruise on the drums replacing classic member Chris Adler, and
the manner in which the feel in the band changed
and the way the conversation around the band shifted. You
can very neatly put these three albums together as a
still ongoing chapter of their career. Lamb of God, of
course one of the biggest and best metal bands of
the twenty first century. A fully classic run of you know,
four or five albums in the two thousands. Twenty tens
saw the absolute glazing of Lamb of God albums somewhat
slow down, but they were still in a pretty strong position.
We not long ago. We went back and revisited the
STM and Drag album last year as part of the
tenth anniversary TNM episode that we did, and I think
we all felt that it was a fairly strong album.
And then we reached the lineup change that I mentioned
there and these twenty twenties albums, and while still what
we could term fairly strong albums, for me, that is
where my relationship with Lamb of God shifts a little bit.
And I know, you know, some people might move that
forward or back an album or whatever, but that is
I think that a specific point entering the twenty twenties,
basically where lots of people did feel the same. Twenty
twenties Lamb of God. For me is the legacy Lamb
of God period where they have become one of those
bands putting out good records that I enjoy, but they've
moved in my mind out of the group of bands
where I'm like really looking for them to deliver the
top ten metal albums of any given year and instead
the you know, the well known to us. Give me
a couple of new tunes for the set list and
I'm good. Category.
Speaker 2: Yeah, pretty much agree with that.
Speaker 3: I think, like, what do you know for a band
at at Lamb of God's stage, It's about what you'd
almost expect from the majority of bands. They've reached the
point where most bands naturally kind of hit a point
where they'll they'll stop delivering all classmate, all the time.
Speaker 2: And I think self tired ALM's the only.
Speaker 3: One where I still kind of look back and be like,
there's not really anything from the album that I would
still reach to. But omens that you know, has a
handle of songs that I was like, yep, their bangers.
Slot them in the setlist and I'll be happy. And
if this is the stand of Lamb of God, Adams
get going forward, not really going to complain.
Speaker 4: It's kind of amazing how easily they can be divided
into decades where the two thousands, it doesn't even need
to say in the run is unbelievable. Twenty tens. I
think it's like very good albums that are occasionally patchy,
and then in the twenty twenties. It's almost like that's
been inverse where it's like patchy occasionally very good, particularly
the Self Ties, which I think only has really one
great song on it, and then the rest I really
don't really care about at all. Omens I was quite
keen on at the time, but haven't really gone back to.
It's weird that they've never done a shit album and
there isn't even a Lama Godlam that I think doesn't
have one incredible song on it. But we're definitely at
the stage where when there's a new Lamb of God
album coming, it's like you said, a couple of songs
of the set list, hope there's at least one genuinely
brilliant song, and you have to take that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think I like both of the previous records
well enough. I think I guess the self titled and
the switch in the band's chemistry at that point was
such a shift from the albums before that it did
feel quite stark. But I think it's a fine album.
I would give it at least two very good songs.
Omens in twenty twenty two, pretty quick off the back
of you know, essentially similar, but perhaps with the wheels
just greased a little bit. By that point, it was,
you know, a bit better than the self titled Into Oblivion.
The run up to this has felt a little bit
different than those albums. They have inexplicably used this album
to give themselves an asthetic rebrand, swapping out their iconic
logo for a cover that looks exactly like a basic
record sampler on a cover CD of Metal Hammer in
twenty twelve, and for this album that is essentially no
more or less important than anything else. I have absolutely
no idea why they've done that at this point, just
seemingly random decision. But as they started to release singles
from it, we started to feel a different kind of
excitement around them, and there was a sort of consensus
that you could see sort of building up steam by
the time this album actually came out a couple of
weeks ago, that this was you know, possibly what you
would call a return to classic form from Lamb of God,
and that this would be, as well as being the
easy best of like you know this again, this lineup's
output also probably the best Lamb of God album since
their two thousands glory years. I've got to open this
review proper by throwing out a question to you two,
do you guys understand what those people are yapping? Because
I've got no fucking I don't know. I mean, it's the.
Speaker 2: Same as the others. What's happened, It's the same. There's
like there's like one or two.
Speaker 1: Songs where there's something a bit different, but.
Speaker 2: It's the same. I kind of land a little bit
in the middle.
Speaker 3: Well, I'm like, anyone who says this is like the
return to the Glory years is yapping a way about
that yapp into a wall, Like I don't like, but
I do think, like, I think this is better than
the last two albums.
Speaker 2: I don't think it's kind of like, oh my god,
the Grand returned to form.
Speaker 3: I'm just kind of like, yeah, this is this is
twenty twenty Slam of God with a couple more songs
that I like. I think, like generally, I just think
the album. I don't know if it's the the chemistry
between the band members a little more at it, I think,
you know, or was it Sepsis was the lead single?
Speaker 2: Was it?
Speaker 3: It was like the first one, which that was different
and that that I think that did kind of like, yeah,
get on blow and scarp a little bit, and that
that is probably likely to blame for everyone kind of
like really getting caught up in the kind of like
swell of oh my God, Lamb of God and good
again that they were still good anyway. I just think,
I mean, this is probably I would say this is
the best way to went these Lamb of God record.
I would still put it below every other Lamb of
God record, but it's an improvement and I can see
why that's, you know, some people can get sort of
like caught up in. But I also don't see the
kind of like again, oh my God, Lamb of God
are amazing again.
Speaker 2: Brand returned to form.
Speaker 4: Who I'm I'm really baffled by this. I've got to
be honest, because.
Speaker 1: I'm so happy that we're basically the same page. I
was having a fucking I was having a meltout, and
I was like, what's happened? How has everyone heard a
completely different album to the one that I've heard?
Speaker 4: Because it's people who you know, a people I trustpot
it's people who are maybe more cynical than certainly we are,
who like more of the type people to go, oh
who cares about Lamb of God? These days, and some
of those people I know.
Speaker 1: Are going, then I'm a God album.
Speaker 4: It's really it's really something, and it's when that's the
framing of it, and it's about that I have this
long history of loving and I put this record on
and as song goes by and I'm not feeling that
I've like you say, but I became increasingly perplexed. I
was going at, when's this gonna become the album that
I'm being told it is? And often that kind of
excitement I think could be forgiven if there's something kind
of obvious about it, where so if they're going back
to a style or like an old members come back
or something like that. Getting swept up is part of
being a music fan. I don't blame people that. But
Lamb of God just making another twenty twenties Lamb of
God album, which I think has many of the same
problems as the last two. But going well, this one
sounds this is a bit of a noise rock tune
and this one's pretty thrashy.
Speaker 1: You're like, yeah, but okay, people think they sound like
the Algorithm now because the album cover looks like it.
You know, like, I think one of the most frustrating
things about regularly reviewing records is when an album sort
of a rise with a narrative already having developed and
you just can't speak to When you just like the
people who are saying this is the best since Wrath,
I'm like, what is this mass psychosis that are set
in where people are talking about a record that's essentially
exactly the same as the last two. It's suddenly really different.
The lineup is exact same, feels the exact same, the
track list operates basically the same, the sound is mostly
the same, and annoyingly that means unavoidably like if I
had been given this album to listen to and review
in a vacuum where I had no access to anything
anyone else has said about it, I would have come
in and going like, oh, yeah, this is another pretty
enjoyable Lamb of God album, so expectedly about the level
of where they've been. Here's a couple of highlights where
they do something a little bit more interesting, and instead
I'm here, I've sort of arrived, just already on the
backfoot of having to instead answer that narrative that's appeared,
and through that I have to reassert I do like
this album, and there are those moments on it when
it is worthy of some particular praise, but I just
have to put the disclaimer up front that I'm not
of this same mindset that has come through through like
other takes on this album. For me, the feel of
the band on these three albums is notable and distinct
from the old album, and part of it is the
natural thing that you can just sort of generically fall
back on and go, oh yeah, the metal band's age there,
the full throttle energy of it changes whatever. But with
Lamb of God, that is alongside the loss of Chris
Adler on the drums, who was so much of the
source of how classic Lamb of God moved in the
way that you can compare. You know, Joey Jordison Slipknot
to Sliptnot afterwards, and you know, Jay Weinberg did a
great job on his albums, but it's not the same feel.
The same is true of Lamb of God. And while
Chris Adler has that sort of liquid groove where the
way Lamb of God sort of slink and glide came
in big part from him, our cruise is much more
straightforward and the way Lamb of God approached rhythm is
much more like basic hammer on every beat rather than
sort of wiggle and struck, and it gives Lamb of
God this sort of stocky, more lump and feel than
they once had, and they can work that and use
it to their advantage, as they have done on these
three largely good albums. But the feel is not there
from the classic albums, and that's not magically coming back here,
and that is part of why I do think that
the two twenty tens albums that people don't really sing
the praise off so readily are still also much better
than everything that they've made since, and that state of
play has not changed on this album. That's still how
the bands feel. They've not done that magic trick, and
so that's how it is. And so that is my
primary clarification as to why I don't think this is
even really worth trying to stack against their classic era album.
So I won't do that from here on out. In
terms of this current period and approaching how we would
their last couple of albums. I think the opening run
of like three four songs on this is when the
album is at its best. I think that stretch is
really good and as we say, there are the moments
within that where there is some kind of detectable Lamb
of God doing something different approach that gives it a
bit of spark and character. It's not every song, and
I think the way that this album settles into essentially
the stock Lamb of God that we know is ultimately
what defines this album overall. But to say that there
aren't the moments of the fresh spark would be unjust
like hu'ed hope, a Lamb of God album to do
it starts strong. I think the title track is a
fine opener that particularly works with that almost sacrament esque
like quasi religious grandeur that even just Randy himself can
bring to stuff. When you're doing that, you know you
have known me by a different name. I am the
watcher outside the frame, like he's embodying some kind of
great being of power. It's really good. I don't think
it's an above average opener for them. In fact, if
you look at the last two albums, Momente Maury on
the self titled is actually really the song from this
current chapter of Lamb of God that has cemented itself
as like arguably the classic I remember at their headlining
Bloodstock twenty twenty two performance, their opening with that and
being like taken aback at how passionately the crowd responded
to that particular song, and then Omens opened with Nevermore,
which is like maybe more a dark Horse pick, but
possibly you know, a pick for the best single of
this era as well. Into Oblivion happily hangs with those
two songs, and it does its job as the great
Lamb of God opener. I wouldn't say it's like above
and beyond what they'd already been doing.
Speaker 3: I think it's I think it's a really strong sort
of start to the recorder. You know, it's very immediately
recognizable with lambacord. It is the kind of like the
stock Lamb of God groover in a lot of ways,
except the as right, it doesn't have you know, chrisad
on the Jobs, which does kind of which does make
it a bit more rigid how it approached those grooves.
But you know, it's a kind of hard hitting, nasty
but crowd pleasing metal banger. I think Randy is, like
I do think Randy on this album on a lot
of tracks, I do think he sounds really great.
Speaker 2: I mean, and again he always does. I think there
were songs on those.
Speaker 3: Other albums that he'd sent, but I don't know, like
maybe it's a bit more fiery, Maybe it's on these
first couple of songs. Parasocial Christ is you know, freshy
Lamb of God, which I think the first four songs
of this album are four of my favorite twenty twenties
Lamb of God songs that I'm probably part of the
of like Omens and Ditch. Really like I would either
in that sort of category, which again for Omens, it
was kind of Omens and Ditch of the two I
kind of lean on as they're like those two are
like top tier of the twenty twenties, and I would
put these sort of first four songs in that kind
of category.
Speaker 4: I don't already have any strong feelings about either of
these first two songs, to be honest into believing. I
think I quite like the Spidery Riff that has this
bit like walk with Me and Hell but a bit faster,
But the song itself isn't anywhere near as memorable as
that Parasocial Christ. It's a similar thing across these record
where there's moments where there's songs we're in the moment
of listening to it, you go, oh, this is cool.
Lamb of God going thrashy. That's a nice sound, but
the song itself isn't all that memorable and like the
best Lamb of God stuff, you hear it once and
it's it's like a nursery. Rather, it's in your head forever.
For me, the first song, Sepsis and the Killing Floor,
if we're talking about the first four songs, are two
with the highlights of the record. Sepsis I'm not I'm
still not totally taken with every single aspect of it,
but at least it's a very interesting song. The Killing Floor.
If there's a song on this sound which I think
does the Lamb of God thing successfully or like to
the highest standard in a way that Ditch did on
the last record Woman Mentory on the one before that,
that's the one I'm taking. I don't think it's as
good as either of those songs, but I I think
it's like that's when they sound most convincing.
Speaker 1: I think, okay, well, just to polish off these first
four songs, because I think we've all landed slightly differently
on them. For me, I like the opener, then the
album does jump up a little bit with Parasocial Christ
and Sepsis as a pair. That's my high point of it.
Parasosh Christ has what I like to call the contractor pace.
There's a certain Lamb of God feel that they clearly
can still rep very well with this, you know lineup,
which is that kind of jackhammer machinery cranking along a
high production line, you know, rapidly hammering into place sort
of feel. And Parasol Christ as well. It's just a
cool name for a metal song, and there's cool subject
matter there for Randy's spit about, and I do agree.
I think he has always been consistently been that. Like
you go back to a reviews of Omens or the
self title or whatever, and you're like, Randy is still
fucking amazing because he's never let the side down. But
Randy being a you know, socially conscious kind of guy,
he does always seem to have that fire in his
belly and approaching it with intelligence as well, and that's
no less true here Parasocial Christ. I think Rips that is,
for me, is going on the you know, the the
best of you know, twenty twenties Lamb of God list,
the song that did as a sort of set out
the stall that I don't think the rest of the
album really like follows through on, but is still very
cool its own right is Sepsis, which was a real
like what the hell is this as the lead single?
That doesn't feel like like, you know, if they put
out into Oblivion first, so that would be like, oh yeah,
that's the standard Lamb of God first single. This feels
like it kind of escapes the safe you know, sort
of grew that they normally sit in, and you hear
all about you know, Lamb of God and having these
roots loving sludge metal and noise rock, and you know,
Steve Austin from Today Is the Day produced their first
album and all of that kind of stuff. This song
is the most that has come out in forever, and
for me, it really works where it's great hearing John
Campbell push to the four of that there's that almost
like panic cord dialing just sort of thing going on
as it sways in. It sounds almost like a kind
of slowed down drunken prancer band, like genuinely, and the
way that Randy you know, slurs and moves his voice
in ways kind of unpredictable to the standard Lamb of
God approach. He speeds his voice up and down and stuff.
It's really good. But it's the switch halfway through where
they they sort of take the two modes of Lamb
of God that you'd think would be hard to mesh,
which are the languid southern sludge side and then the
tight composed modern metal side, and as that song switches
kind of halfway through, they do it really really well.
And it was an ear catching first single, and now
in the album, I just think it is, like again,
a really great standout track for this era. And then
the killing flow just again Brownethy's first four I do agree.
I think it's maybe not like its own mode as
like the first three songs all are, but does have
a hell of a nasty breakdown that goes into that
like tight almost like math mosh, you know, smash shit stuff.
First four songs this again all doing slightly different things,
really strong, and you want to add all those songs
to the best of modern Lamb of God, you know,
hit list, then by all means they all warrant their
place there. It's from there that this settles into the
being that kind of like half really good tracks, half
merely decent ratio that the last couple of albums have
also had, and I think it quite harshly hits that
with El Vassio, which it's the singy, randy Lamb of
God song post Overlord, you know, and and Overlord has
never been one of my favorite Lamb of God songs,
but it is ten years later and I can kind
of remember how it goes. You know, this one just
like really kills the momentum for me straight away.
Speaker 2: I mean, this is this is the kind of the
stick part of the album.
Speaker 3: And again I really like, you know, Stoman Janks are
those like sort of grungey kind of like sung songs.
I've got fun this for them. I think this is decent,
but it does of like hit the brakes on the
pacing of the album a little bit. And again because
the sound it does follow the sort of same struggle.
But it's like forty minutes ten songs. That's what the
last like two Lamb of God adams have been there,
so sticking rigidly to that. So when your midpoint does
kind of like really slow down half those sort of bangers,
it is a bit jarring. But I think Saint Kavin's
will come on the other side of it. I think
it's really fucking good as well. I think that the
main riff for that fucks. It's like got a bit
of like a nasty lurching thing to it, but it's
still kind of like a bett of a chorus. I
think like that's the other one where that that kind
of gets the album at least back on track for
me after el Vassio, kind of like just I thin
it's a bad one and I like this sort of
lane that lamb, but I do kind of see it
as it's the it's the one stumble on the record.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it s Saint Carin's Wheel is one
of the best songs on the second half of the album.
It does it taps into again the sort of the
mode that Parisits of Christ or the Killing Floor has.
It is only track sex on the album, so there
are a few more after that point that I don't
think are quite as strong at Saint Kavin's whil and
again just go back to El Vassio. It's it's not catchy,
it's too clean to have that much atmosphere to it.
It doesn't go anywhere, and I think it's you know,
not one of the strongest modes, not one of the
strongest songs they've done in a mode that isn't really
the strongest mode, you know, and then you get a
thousand years later on doing it again and again. I
appreciate the southern rock bass groove and the cow bell
and stuff as well, but the song is still a
bit trudgy and a bit drab, and I just feel like,
if these songs they haven't gone anywhere, and they haven't
improved from what they've been doing on it on the
last several albums, then what's the hubbub about them?
Speaker 4: I think some of the experiments on this record, and
it's there. I think my problems are not necessarily the
experiments in theory, where in almost every case I think
it's a cool idea. They come down to other problems
that I seem to have with Lamb of God in
the twenty twenties generally. First of all, we've sort of
been touched on it. But I art Cruise is a
very competent drummers in a basically impossible situation. But I
don't know if Lamb of God can make a genuinely
great album without Chris Sadler at this point, it's like
there's just something missing. And it means that in those
moments like Evasi, where you want someone who's got a
bit more feel, a bit more groove, a bit more
you know, a bit more loosey goosey, and you have
someone who's very leaden, it just it doesn't work for me.
And that's true across the record, Like when it's go Enforcement,
it's a bit more extreme, and it's the sort of
thing where you imagine Chris Addam would light this up
and Ark Cruise is merely playing the drums on this part.
At least that's how it sounds. It just lacks sparkle.
And then another thing which and I've not seen anyone
else mention this, and I might be completely alone on this.
I think Josh Wilbert does a very competent, not even competent,
like very expert production job. But everything sounds great. It's
well mixed, you know, there's it's just it's nice, it's
very palatable. I find these alms slightly faceless and lacking teeth,
and it means when you have those moments like El
Vassio or even Stepsis, which would depend on something a
bit more atmospheric, they end up sounding kind of sterile,
and they lack the jagged edge that I think those
experiments would sound much more exciting if it follow they
were at the bleeding edge of something.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I would like to see them go and work
with someone else as well. Not that again, I don't
I think they he does a bad job, but just
to add something fresh and I mean go to an
awn with Billy Anderson or something fuck it like, you know,
go and go and live your like genuinely slightly weirder dreams.
And I think for me, where again the Art Cruise
thing jumps out the most is like the back end
of the album, after Saint Catharine's Wheel, when it kind
of loses its pace and you get songs like blunt
Force Blues, and I think particularly Bully and Devise and Destroy.
They feel like they need to be played about one
point five times of speed that they're currently at. You know,
they sort of just you know, they trudge along in
that way and they are somewhat stiff and predictable in
the way that like Art Cruise Lamb of God is.
They don't have that southern metal octopus feel that you know,
classic Lamb of God has and again I still quite
like him.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: I like the main riff in bloom Forth Blues. That
ride symbol beat at the start is cool. I like
the bit with the air raid siren. But they basically
feel like every one of these tracks that they've done
since they're self titled, Like, am I mental? These are
these exact same Lamb of God songs when we've had
for six years. What's happened? I just for me, it's
another good album. I don't feel the need to inflate
it beyond that, and I'm a bit annoyed, you know,
maybe myself really like, if you really feel this strongly
about it, then by all means, you know, don't let
me take that away from you, that I have to
sit here and say that I don't really feel whatever
everyone else is feeling. I've seen again, I've seen it
said that because you know, this album is like thirty
nine minutes long, that it's got a bit of snappier
sensibility than the last few. But Omens is forty minutes
and fifty eight seconds. That's not a notable difference.
Speaker 3: So that's I think all ten songs all around forty minutes. Yeah,
it is quite funny. That's like, I think you might
be kind of like imagining that on a little bit.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's only a comparison to resolution, which I think
is proof that if you put fourteen tracks on a
Lamb of God album rather than ten, people will suddenly
act like none of it is up to classic standard,
because that is still even the more ambitious record. The
things people are attributing to this one, that's still the
more ambitious and eclectic and successful when it does it
record compared to this. And you know, I think of
the three twenties albums, I think anyone could be a
viable choice for someone's favorite. If you do want to
say that this is far and away your favorite of
the three twenties albums, then I think that's fair enough.
I understand that nod for sure. I think for me
it might still be Omens that hits the hardest overall.
But this does have its inventive highlights. And if you
were to say that this is the freshest Lamb of
God a sound of this decade, then I wouldn't argue
too strongly to say that this is dramatically better than
everything they've done since the Glory years, that ended in
two thousand and nine, I think is off its rocker
a bit. The albums that gave us Straight for the Sun, Desolation,
Ghost Walking, King Me, Cheated five one two, Still Echoes, Memento, Maury,
Resurrection Man, Never More, Ditch Omens casually dismissing all those
for Saint Catharine's Wheel and Bully in a Thousand Years
and like what.
Speaker 4: You on about?
Speaker 1: What's that's the modern level and this is on the level.
So like another pretty good Lamb of God record. Sorry,
everyone who really does like want to, you know, start
the party on this one into oblivion from Lamb of God.
Let us really continue. Now we've got past our biggest names.
We're gonna really interesting reviews, I think. And the first
one comes from Garrhea, a band whose name I'm still
not really sure how to properly pronounce. So that's what
I'm going with. It might not quite be it. This
album is called Loss, and this is a very interesting
album to me because every now and then you watch
in real time something happen to a band that just
feels unlike what you've sort of seen before, and Garria,
I think, have had possibly the weirdest it almost sounds
like mad libs when you try to describe it to someone.
Trajectory for a metal band in this decade that has
made this album one on the horizon where I thought, well,
whichever way that goes, we've got to talk about it
because it's so strange, and to explain why and how
we got to this point, you're going to have to
let me monologue for a bit. Garia are historically a
black metal band from Portugal. This year exactly marks their
tenth anniversary as a band. We first reviewed them on
this show in twenty twenty with their second album, Limbo
was released. Loss is now album five. So we've got
some gaps to fill in. First, we will zoom out
and look at the wider context that has produced Garria.
There are currently two genres that have become synonymous with
masks and anonymous figures in the presentation of bands, and
it is the bizarrest two genres to have found each
other like that, But they are black metal and metalcore.
With metal core that's obviously a recent phenomenon with sleep
Token and now President becoming the big things, and that's
obviously a very trendy way to present yourself to invite
some kind of law. If you just look at commercial
metal at large, obviously got ghosts and these other things
as well. With black metal. For when that became more
the zeitgeist, we have to go back about ten plus years.
Maguire from Poland are a band that we do not
tend to talk about very much because they have become
associated with some very sketchy, nasty things. But objectively speaking,
they had a massive impact on the black metal underground
of the twenty tens. And they were not alone in
creating this sort of mold, because you also had the
emergence of Batushka and Shamash and Cult of Fire, and
the boom of the Icelandic scene with bands like Starti Daldi,
and you mix that in with the impact of the
Satanist era Bohemoth and visuals like the Masks in the
Blood of Trumpet Gabrielle video and all of that as
a web of complex stuff. But basically, around that time,
if you were to envision, you know, the image of
a trendy new black metal band, that image changed from
the traditional corpse painted spiked bracer aesthetic, which is actually
now a much more old fashioned idea. If you would
to visualize a black metal band now into one more
like a gang of faceless, hooded figures in either robes
or leather jackets. And in the wake of all that,
you have bands like Yuada coming out, and you know,
Abduction and so on, and more and more black metal
bands who bizarrely, in a case of sort of convergent evolution,
look a bit like Vessel from Sleep Token like Canode
and fever Are did basically doing that but with like
a World War One theme, and they're really popular now.
And also Garria came through in that time, who musically
and visually seemed to be another band in that Maguarish
sort of mold. Garria were never one of my favorite
new black metal bands, essentially because I thought that the
bands that they were drawing from, like Maguarre and Shamash,
had already done that sort of thing much better. But
I did quite enjoy those first couple of albums for
what they were. I liked that sound. And then they
started to get really popular and kind of break out
as a black metal band. They started to build a
reputation as a really intense live band, and I can
attest to that like one of my first indicators that
something might be a bit different, but this band was
that their frontman, Lie You've, despite the faithless appearance, did
not feel like a black metal vocalist because he would
be doing this really flamboyant physical motion somewhere between like
a trained dancer, and then clearly behaving much more like
a metalcore or a hardcore vocalist in constantly riling up
the crowd to jump up and down or whatever, which
is not really like how black metal shows vibe. Like
just watching this guy, this is like again four or
five years ago. At this point, behind the hood, you
could tell that this is someone who has feet in
that world and had probably come through being at metal
core shows and that kind of thing. And their following
couple of albums started to clearly present themselves in a
way that suggested wider appeal. I had lost interest in
Garya a couple of albums ago. I enjoyed the sound
where they came from, but on their last couple of
albums they started to turn that into something way cleaner
and more toothless for my tastes. I just thought, like,
this doesn't really serve a purpose for me anymore. I'm
much more interested in this one because the transformation is
so weird. But their last two albums gradually like you know,
tidying and glossing up the sound, introducing some modern, pretty
post black metal sort of l's that kind of thing,
and they were undoubtedly more popular than their first albums were,
Like they were getting bigger all the time. I would,
in fact invite you now listener to pull up their
albums on streaming and chronologically track their album artwork, because
you can clearly see it there where their first two albums,
those are black metal albums. Undoubtedly they look like they
are born of the underground of the twenty tens, and
then they're following too. They look related to that world maybe,
but they are literally much shinier. Like Mirage has this
sort of their kind of signature symbol case in this
like metallic goal that looks much more digital than traditionally
illustrated coma in twenty twenty four kind of by that
point looks like it could not even necessarily be a
black metal album. I think you can look at it
and go, yeah, potentially like a post black metal albu
which is kind of what it is, that style of
prettier visual but it's a long way at that point
from the bands they started off with, and then the
cover for Loss as we finally reached this album that
not in a million years as a black metal cover,
that is a Silent Planet album cover, that is an
invent animate album cover. It even symmetrically aligns, and the
transformation is complete. I am absolutely fascinated by this album
because I have never before even had to consider the
possibility of a Maguire Behemoth esque black metal band becoming
an octane core band. It feels incomprehensible, like the conditions
have never been in place for that to happen. They're
kind of like there are detectable black metal traces still
within the music, which again I think makes us a
bit more stranger proposition than if it was just straight
like a transformation into a metal core album. But this
is not taking influence from those black metal bands anymore.
It is taking massive influence from contemporary commercial metal core,
and as a result we have one of the weirdest,
most unlikely hybrids that this decade in metal has produced
us far.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so I'm not coming at this from a perspective
of like black metal pur purity, like most of the
black metal I like, you know, comes with post or
gaze attached to it, you know, like that those the
bands I coind of mostly into I like, despite how
much we ran on it.
Speaker 2: I love metalcore, so the prospect of like a.
Speaker 3: Kind of metal confused black metal band like like I like,
you know, black and hardcore, that sort of stuff, Like
on paper, this could be my bag. I think this
is one of the worst aims I've heard this year.
I am like in with two feet on this and
maybe it is the hype around it around it this
to me like again like there are things that do
kind of give it a bit it is more compositionally
like interesting and kind of better arranged than as you say,
a Silent Planet or a Latter Day north An album
or a Daisy Crame will pick any of those bands
a've bit more to it than that. But when I
see this out, when I've seen this album, how does
like some bold and brave kind of like break Up Home?
I'm like, what is bold and brave about sounding like
the most popular thing in metal right now?
Speaker 2: Like I don't understand that, and that's that is.
Speaker 3: Almost what's made me kind of going with a pre
existing narrative as you had with LAMB of God.
Speaker 2: Just now I've had this with this gay career album
that I've gone.
Speaker 3: I hate every second of this like and I again,
maybe it is because my hatred of octane called modern
metal cord when it is done to a genre I
hold dearly, But this is kind of just that, but
with the and with a blast bit occasionally thrown in.
I hate that the vocalist is called Alpha.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Just had the worst time trying to sort of
work out what the deal is with this.
Speaker 4: So in a way I understand why Garia have done
this right because I agree, but I think they were
before they did this, just a purely average band. First
two records pretty cool. I never really listened to them.
Last two. I couldn't tell you. And there is something
we said, like, you know, why be an average black
metal band in a sea of average black metal bands
that you might as well do something unusual and if
you have these other influencers, fold them in. I see,
if it.
Speaker 2: Wins, you're a hero.
Speaker 4: If it fails, I don't know. At least you did something.
And I kind of admire that it's an id that
they've gone so two footed into something new, because you know,
this isn't a sound that I think I've heard before,
except as we've already revealed, it is a sound we've
heard before, because this isn't like a neat crossover of
these two disparate worlds. It's a modern metalcore record that
is occasionally a ship black metal record, which I've got
to say, Sam, you might have been too kind. I
think this is my least favorite thing I've heard this year.
Speaker 3: What I'm so it is piss And that's the thing
is if it was a like interesting fusion of black
metal and metalcore, great, but this is like, this is
the amateur affliction with blast beats popping up every now
and then. I like, it's it's not even like it's saying,
it's not even good metalcore and good black metal. It's
passable black metal and dogshit metal core coming together to
give you just a feast of shit.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: The last time I saw Garria was at four Festival
a couple of years ago, and they seemed a bit
too big and a bit too polished for it then
on the previous album. But now, like you can't put
this in between Dodheim's Guard and a Forest of Stars
and Mortis, you know, like I can't.
Speaker 2: Imagine them going back do give me Dodd's.
Speaker 1: Different world, But I can't imagine them going back to
that festival or are any sort of dedicated black metal
festival really off the back of this? Like I, I
don't like this album very much. I think I sound
like the incredible champion of it, connect texting two guys
by me merely saying that it's an album but I'm
not going to go back to but it is. It's
not good in ways that I've not had to quite
contend with before because it is. I do I understand
your points. I do think there are. It would be
a you know, it'd be dishonest to say that there
is not some colliding of two disparate streams here that
like I said, there were two separate histories that I
had to lay out before this, like how do we
get the world of Batushka and Shamash and these type
bands and simultaneously the world of President, Like how do
those things align? And I think it's very easy to
view this from the seasoned black metal fan mindset and
treat it like it's just pop music. If you look
at the other way, you know, the other direction that's
coming from it is more intense than a lot of
that stuff, and it's easy to see why people who
you know could be really into that. I think it
does have obviously these kind of intense, flying blast beat
passages from the post black metal world. That is potentially
a positive ingredient to be introducing into like the metal
core world. You know, it is a bit more atmospherically
inclined then, like a bad Omens or something. Production Wise,
it's you know, it's not what I want my black
metal to sound like, but it's not one of the
worst offenders when it comes to like the really gritless
metal core production. I think by modern metal standards, it
sounds okay. You take a song like hell Bound and
it has the sort of you know, the physical scale
with which they attack the metal core coming from the
extreme metal background. If you're into you know, LRNA shore
and modern architects and all this kind of stuff. It's
got presence, and I don't think the songs are again
arranged poorly. I think probably their experience in the black
metal world first of all, maybe give them a bit
of an edge when it comes to like the ebb
and flow of these kind of songs. I do find
they get same me very quickly. And the model of
this album has left less room for sonic breadth really
than what they were doing even before this, which, like
I said, I kind of lost interesting. It's gonna be loud, bright,
black metal influenced modern metal core songs with kind of
the odd ambient bits it's got, like you know, a
song It's Phoenix, has those sort of post black metal
guitar melodies that are you know what bands like Stalbard
and Harry Carey for the Sky or whatever, we're doing
better about ten years ten plus years ago. There's not
much depth to it sonically scream wise, he's you know,
he's obviously he's worked on the diction more than some
black metal vocalists, right somehow, like the opening verse of
Luminary somehow feels like he's split the difference between moon
Spell and Kublai Khan, Like I don't know how you
and them as that's a world to trudge. I Unfortunately
I can't abide the choruses, And like I said, Luminary
starts like your sort of average metal core song, neither
a good one or a bad one overall, really, but
that sort of melodic yell of the main hook. I
hate it. It sounds really cheesy, does it Like it's
cheesy as the word I have to use for it,
really like uncomfortable, and then no mad later on is
the same where they feel engineered to be stirring in
the way that those metalcore choruses feel.
Speaker 3: That half song half scream kind of like melodic milk
of it generally is like, and maybe the things I'm
going to hard in some it's because I don't listen
to any of this shit anymore. I like, there's an
error album people hyping up and I'm just not gonna
listen to. But I've had to listen to this game
album a few times down, and that's why I guess
I've come at it so hard. But I'm just so
tired of that half song, half screen chorus. I'm so
tired of these weightless electronics that sound like you're holding
a seashell up to your ear and it just whushes
around and means absolutely nothing. I'm tired of songs called
librum like the worst fucking shit that makes me like
genuinely angry, Like it's this album is just doing all
these things that I am so so done with and
that's again why I've just had such a kind of
like vendetta against this album. It is just all the
things someone to give occasionally throwing in something that makes it,
as you say, more compositionally interesting and great. But what
you're doing then is you're taking something good and like
watering that down. I don't think the black metal stuff
actually does anything to really enhance the metal core. I
think this is metalcore making black metal, which again a
genre I'm not the biggest fan of, but when it's
done right, you know, I fucking love that Worm album.
When that's in the full on like f these like
blastbeats and all that sounds fucking spectacular. And this is
taking those kind of moments light where it's all blast
beats and like big epic kind of things, and it's
making it sound like optane core sludge. I can't find
any really redeeming features to this album.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I don't think that this thing of you know,
if you're a metalcore fan, it's gonna be really interesting
because there's black metal in there that's like it's it's
like you're trying to put like a pill in a
piece of cheese to feed a dog. But in this case,
the cheese. The cheese is now the size of a car,
and you forgot to put pill in there. Like it's
just it's useless, Like it's just it does not achieve
that for me. What's like the black metal element doesn't
carry anything that I like about black metal with it,
So who cares the metalcore typically? So I mean, I
mean the sound of this, it just it initiates a
Pavlovian response in me, Like I just I listen, I
feel like a baby that can't hold its head up.
It's just it's rolling around on my shoulders miserably. I
actively found this. I found this really depressing, and not
in the way that I suspect they were going for.
It's not I wasn't left emotionally raw because it was
so powerful and you know, morose and well written.
Speaker 1: It.
Speaker 4: It wasn't the depression you get when you watch like
the Elephant Man. It's the depression you get when you've
you know, you're staying and watched Challenge TV all day
long and just you're.
Speaker 1: Like, what the fuck come up?
Speaker 4: There's nothing healthy or cathartic or useful about the way
I feel right now. I just it's a waste of time,
it's just I really I'm struggling to think of anything
not that I'm trying very hard, but and anything that
the like it just the whole time it's on, I was,
I was just miserable. Yeah, it's no fun at all.
Speaker 1: I think if that is your mindset with the world
that this is engaging with, then I would certainly encourage
you to not listen to this album. I've made these
guys to this album. It sounds like I've done I've
done a horrible thing because I wasn't get any other response,
Like I'm trying to weigh this up against again the
sort of the the world that it's like trying to
enter into, you know. And like Submerged was the lead
single that really baffled us, and I think it alerted
us that this album was going to be doing this
because there's something about that water theme that it's built around,
along with like the wind Swept aiming for like emotional
catharsis metal core melody. It does make me think about
the an affliction, like it's black metal Pittsburgh and.
Speaker 2: The moment as good as Pittsburgh. That's the thing.
Speaker 4: I'll take this.
Speaker 1: I'll go out on that them I'll take this, but
you know, the momentum it comes in with is pretty
It's got that. I think it is, you know, fairly
well arranged and well performed by the standards of these
sort of songs. But the part where it goes into
that kind of bringing the horizon esque like atmospheric limp
guitar bit with the little artificial clap sound, it is
like it's sickly. And then later on in the album
it moves into tracks like Cyclone and Labyrinth, the latter
of which is getting really close, so those like interlude
tracks on modern medical records of just like an electronically
filtered pop vocal for a couple of minutes, you know,
And then the closing ballad star Dust, which like I
know that they've said that this is about some you know,
very personal stuff or whatever. I don't want to, you know,
I don't know how cynical this album is, but just sonically,
the second it starts, I can't fucking hack it, like
I'm gagging.
Speaker 3: It's it's the full sleep tokenification of them. They become
full sleep token.
Speaker 1: He starts whisper rapping in that song. I don't mind
some of the earlier parts of this record that much.
But by that point I'm like, what has happened? That's
musically such a bad idea and it's too defanged and
it's too sopping wet, and like, I'm not here to just,
you know, dismissively call them black metal sleep token and
move on without further elaboration, as I know lots of
people in the underground are starting to do. Because as
I say, if you've been paying attention to to Gearia,
you could, if not necessarily see this coming, you could
at least pick up signs Like I mentioned the way
at the front man behaved on stage. Even when this
band was more straightforward in black metal, your metal core
radar would go off a bit and you could tell
that this is someone who likes metalcore. And the way
that he speaks in interviews, like if you read them
about the Metal Hammer or whatever, he speaks about someone
who's got into metal in the two thousands, loving both
black metal and like popular metal, and that could describe me,
you know, like I loved Bring the Horizon and Parkway Drive,
and I loved Enslaved and Natistium, like I got into
all those bands in the same year, and I'm not
thinking about this from the purest perspective, where, like I said,
the moment we realized this album was legitimately going to
be trying to fuse black metal and commercial metal core
was when it secured its placed on the review schedule,
because I was curious to hear it, you know, And
I guess if you really wanted to stretch, you could
say it's not entirely without spiritual precedent. Where on the
post black metal side there are bands like Bostonage or
you know, Heaven or whatever who have drawn stuff from
the post hardcore side into what they do. I think
for us, it's the brand of metalcore that it's drawing
from is just gonna like hit an uncomfortable place and
repulse us. There will be people whose minds haven't been
quite so worn down by it maybe who do find
that combination affecting. I think if you're, our example, a
big architects fan in the modern day, you might really
like this album. And it was really weird watching it
start again happening when the sort of roll out for
this record. It was really weird starting to notice other
areas of the scenes starting to talk about a black
metal band. But there was a q and a in
rock sound with this week, like I never spoke to Shamash,
what the Fu's happened like this again.
Speaker 4: If you think I'm coming this through, I'm not coming
this from a purest thing here, because I'll tell you
what the moment on the record which I didn't feel
depressed at, which was this is how bleak things got right.
The guitar tone at the beginning of Uncontrolled, I thought, ooh,
that sounds like the Browning. I don't fucking I don't
like the browning. The things have gotten so terrible. I was, Ah, yes,
Shit's electronic death core band from twenty eleven, beautiful Like,
it's just we're in a desperate place. No number of
rock sound features in the world is gonna make this
okay for me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but genuinely, like are the sort of the metalcore
influencer sort of world. They're twigging on this, and I
think in a way, Garya are like finding their natural
destiny as a band. I think even when they were
a part of the black metal scene, maybe they were
always going to find their way to this. I think
if this album, you know, does create some kind of
bridge for people who like these kinds of metalcore bands
to discover Shamash or even just a postbout black metal
band like alcest Or Death Heavan or whatever, then that
is something cool about it. I think the atomized way
that people seem to consume music now and the way
that those sort of places only started to pick up
on Garia when they started sounding like this, I think
makes that ever less likely. But at the very least
we can try and be that right here. You know,
if you like this, then keep going. Let it be
your black metal gateway. I certainly think the black metal
scene is going to reject them after this, because I mean,
they might be fine because they brought in enough fans
from elsewhere, but like in the black metal world, they
are going to be their punchline names. They're going to
be the Maguire that went sleep Token or the Challenge
TV black Metal Albums, which is weird enough phrase alone
to take stock of this. So yeah, lost by GARIEA.
Next we turn to a completely different part of the
necro world, appealing to a totally different type of fan really,
and I think we can, really we can start to
rebuild ourselves here and piece ourselves back together, because in
the twenty twenties, the world of black thrash has been
on the up. It seems like there's been more band
of that type than ever, and there is an act
from the UK that is very much at the four
of that You might well be familiar with them, even
if you're not keeping up with every single release coming
out of Hell's Headbangers or Dying Victims productions. That band
is hell Ripper, and then you Kornak is out now
it's the solo project with the live band behind him
of James McBain that has kind of a like the
face of this style in the twenty twenties, Like hell
Ripper has kind of broken containment a little bit for
what your average black speed metal band would do, which
is a genre that has been going in the underground
for forty years. And I don't think I really need
to say that much how well deserved that is. Like,
I think it's one of just the examples of meritocracy
at work, where this guy is so good at this
thing that even if you're not really a devotee of
that genre, it might have made you take notice. And
if you are into that stuff, then Hell Ripper is
your currently one of your favorite bands. And what's particularly
interesting from the nerdy critic standpoint, Black Thrash is one
of the ultimate does what it says on the tin
netal subgenres. It has endured for decades because it is primal,
It is youthful and energetic. It taps straight into the
pure vein of giddy run round in a circle excitement
that heavy metal should be more straight to the point
than maybe any genre under its kind of roof. It
is built for, you know, drinking and headbanging and just
generally being a little shit heed gremlin, idiot, warlocks, grim
and withered Hags in twenty twenty three is one of
the sort of elite releases in the genre ever really
to have gone yeap, let's keep that, but look what
more we can do with it. And when I think
about metal releases this decade that have really done something
surprising with their toolkit, I think of that one.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, the first her Ripper record I really liked.
I didn't go back to it loads, but it's, like
you say, one of those things where if you've got
an appetite for running around like a gremlin and smashing
a beer in your head.
Speaker 1: You go to that one.
Speaker 4: What that's grimbling withered hags. I still go back to
fairly regularly because, like you say, it's a very unique
case in this fairly niche sub genre where it still
maintains that we're gonna have a beer, we're gonna throw
across the room, we're gonna get in the moshpit, we're
not gonna have a shower. All of that stuff is
still there, but it folds in folklore and elements of
that more melodic metal and the sort of Celtic stuff
is becomes much more explicit on that album, and it's
real like one of a kind case, and it manages
to have its cake and eat it where if you
want to talk about the most ambitious and interesting records
by small British bands of this decade, it's one of those.
But if you just want to pick a record for
heavy metal jams, it's also one of those.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's so impressive not just to create this elaborate, winding,
progressively minded thrash record with a wide array of instrumentation
and like bagpipes, melodies and shit and tempost switches and
legitimate prog sections that somehow make it a black thrash record.
For Opeth fans as much as Midnight Ones and all
of that, but to through all of those like extra
bells and whistles, keep that core of just like blood
through the teeth, aggression and fun and not throw the
baby out with the bath water and lose why people
listen to this stuff in the first place. I really
like the early hell Ripper stuff. I think the Affair
of the Poisons is like about the best record of
that three minute in and out songs black thrash metal
that you can imagine him making. But then these next
two hell Ripper albums are this era where it feels
a bit like anything goes. You know, if we can
fit something unconventional and unexpected into this kind of black
thrash template and have it still work and still fit
the vibe, then we can do it and there's nothing
stopping us. And that's what Kornuch feels like to me.
It doesn't necessarily feel like a dramatic leap beyond what
Wallot's Grim was doing. Like, it isn't necessarily like, you know,
the Master of Puppets, so that record is Ride the
Lightning or whatever. But what this record does feel like
to me is that it has just confidence and the
freedom to do what it wants and not second guess
itself and if the audience are going to like it,
and it's broken through that ceiling of like this is
strictly what a black thrash record is and has opened
its imagination to all this other stuff and it's solidified like, yeah,
this is a part of what hell Ripper is. Now
we can just do this stuff and what you have
is another killer, exciting, fast paced heavy metal record that
again is full of like ingenuity and intricate detail, and
much like Walot's Grim in twenty twenty three, I can't
imagine in twenty twenty six that there's going to be
like a thrash or speed metal record much better than
this one.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this is you know, just like wild and untamed
and free, like those all those feelings that you want
from like I guess like black and fresh mat speed
mill weaver with like heavy metal. And again, like I
don't tell everyone that last album, and I think I
like this one a very similar amount.
Speaker 2: I think this is like just a wild time and.
Speaker 3: Again this still found way used to kind of surprise
me at which I think was like really nice, but
you know, is it depressed? Is like the opener, big ripping,
melodic speed, speedy riff.
Speaker 2: The energy is up right away, and I was kind
of like.
Speaker 4: Let's go.
Speaker 3: Like the vibes are like immaculate from the start on
this record, and it kind of just never lets up.
You know. The instrumentals are always wild, always google place
that kind of like mythic wilderness, like Scottish Highland, kind
of like element gives it a lot of character, but
you know, it just seems to go, Yeah, we just
want to go fast all the time. Though you know
the solo's coming in, We've got to go faster and
faster and faster. I'm just smiling and having a good time,
like for every second of this album. I like it
kind of just it does exactly.
Speaker 1: What I want.
Speaker 4: Yes, it's really hard to balance being atmospheric and being fun.
Those are often things that don't go especially hand in hand.
This album is a perfect case study in how to
do it. Where you know, the album cover, the themes
and the Oaklaw and all the things like that, that
all feels totally cohesive and writes a hell ripper, but
it's also just so much fun to listen to. Like,
if you want to get like a one two on
this record, you can just listen to the first two
songs because hunder Pressed, which just goes lightning fast, and
that the lead work has gone so dexterous on every
increasingly so on every single Hell Ripper record, Like you
can tell he's become a better and better guitar player
and he just wants to do more and more. That
this one almost sounds like Children of Bodom in points,
and the ejection of that wide eyed power mel makes
it even more exciting. But then that going into I
think saying that kinshile goat Craft and Granite the second track,
going from that like cosmic folk thrash opener into a
riff that's part Slayer, part Poison. It's just there's rust
on that riff, struck exactly like there's. Hell Riper've always
be unapologetic about their influences, and just the way part
of the fun of listening to their music, as much
as they sound of themselves, is going, oh, there's that,
and there's that, and there's that, and the way they
marry these things, it's just it's a thrill to have
on Yeah, we've got another.
Speaker 1: Track list full of ghouls and Beasti's from Scottish myth
and legend. We've got the hunder Pressed, who was a
vampire priest who rows from the dead and hunts alongside
his pack of hounds. We've got the Ba the Bavon Sheath,
who is a blood drinking succubus from the Highlands. There's
a lot of blood drinkers up there, apparently we should
check on mark. Hunder Pressed is the opening track, and
it's kind of fills the role of like the knuckle
Avey last time, where it's a wicked fast opener, but
it does air to the creepy side and the kind
of cold side, and it is so frenzied and the
main riff is fucking brilliant, like the lead accents along
with the vocal and everything those wild coked up Megadeth
threat dazzling parts with this like icier necrotic edge that
they have on it is so good. But the moment
where this record like really like lit me up and
let me know that you know the the again, the
kind of the open mindedness I suppose that Hellraper Now
Have is going to still be on show was in
the second half. It throws in these keyboards that I
can only describe as skeleton boogie like out and out
timber to thin troll getting down in the underworld organ shit,
and the vibe at that moment shifts in such a
fun way. It's like this GHOULI the Hunter pressed, he's
out in the night and he's loving it. You know,
he's crawling around the town. He's being a spook. And
it's that kind of stuff that this album isn't afraid
to throw in there if it's gonna make the song
more fun, you know. And it does that, and then
as you say, keen, hile go croffing Granite, it's just
a out and out rocker like engineer to put a
smile on your face. And if it doesn't, then fucking
go back to square one. And the verse riff might
be better than the main one that opens with me like,
it's so mischievous and so alive kin Karl. And this
is the thing that to me back to the album
Roulette we did with James.
Speaker 3: Yeah, when the funk comes in on that song, I'm
like that guy, fucking we know he likes red toat
chili Peppers and he bring that into his blackened speed
heavy metal thing and I was like, mental shouldn't work,
but again it is that just kind of like that
fearlessness and that again like you know that he loves
that shit, and you know this bitch of this album
goes like full on like yacht rock and like classic
rocks or things with the cowbell and all that sort
of shit, and it's doing that within these kinds of
like epic black speedit on. Again, these are things that
should not work in the slightest but because it's just
kind of like so mischievous and playful whenever it's introduced, Ye,
I was like, you got me again, your little rascal
keep doing these weird turns, and I think it's just
it just makes a man that never stops being fat.
Speaker 1: Yeah, go crafting Granite. It should be the sort of
straight motorhead good time bop on it, but in the middle,
when it moves towards the bridge, it cuts out for
this little delicate little bit of acoustic guitar that has
the kind of slight air of unease and unsettlement to
it that's kind of akin to like a creepier Opeth passage,
and even like the naturalistic way it's recorded where you
can hear the fingers against the strings and everything, and
it's real ability to make that transition work at all. Similarly,
Bavan Sheaf has a riffing is almost like sort of
trivium circu ascendancy or something like really like surging at you,
but it has these like unsettling the little tail end
of rifts being picked up by the little snippets of
acoustic that do doo doo dooo, like leave your question unanswered.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 1: That's such a small, subtle but clever touch to keep
it like hitting your ear in fresh ways before the
second half of the song starts using these really bright
major chords that sort of sound a bit like dream theater.
And it's not enough to make anyone, you know, spit
out their coffee if that's not their thing. But how
do you sneak textures and ideas like that into a
black thrash song and have it still function purely without
distraction as being a black thrash song.
Speaker 4: It's and then on the Art of Resurrection, the piano
riff at the piano iff that opens that song with
that tone he's chosen. I don't know what that tone is,
but it would sound just as right on a Paradise
Lost song as it would on a Hadaway song, and
how you manage I'm not saying that's an influence, by
the way, but the fact that it can bring to
mind such fun and irreverent things like that, to me
just says everything about the thinking that goes into this record.
And you don't get a Hadaway song, I won't surprise you.
You get sort of a gothic black metal jam for bikers,
which I think I prefer anyway. It's just like the
way this thing switches up despite having quite a cohesive
sound all the way through, but just throwing in little
fun ideas and little instrumental choices. It's just it's so
much more inventive then, you know, a black speed metal
album requires to be.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Like Art Resurrection is really melodic in a genuinely
quite beautiful way, but without either slowing down or cleaning
itself up. And I think just the solos throughout are
so good, like the one at the very end of
Undepressed with the full like Maiden harmony that's so singable
on its own light right, and that the groat crafting
Granite one just makes you grin because they're so expressive
and bubbly. They're not time filling lead guitars, right, they
are like, this is expression and this is something where
the song is going to really like take it up
a notch. I love that the exact same way as
the last album. You look down the track list and
you can guess exactly which song is going to be
the most to the point, be a sloshing crash metal
song on it you go, oh yeah, goat vomit nightmare. Yeah.
Of course it would be a crime if Black Satanic
Fuckstorm wasn't that song with this album, and it is.
But even that has got a mental sort of beat
switching part in the ridge where the drums keep swapping
the emphasis of where the beat is in such a
slick way underneath, like a sort of Metallica circa kill
them All sort of riff. There's just catchy earworm vocal
parts even while they're all just being yapped at you.
I'm particularly fond of the Sculptor's Cave and even the
way the ten pos hit you, which in thrash metal
can often be quite saying me. Mortar Shane is more
like a d beat almost, and it kind of drives
in a particular way that is different to any song
before it. That's where you have the cow bell Celtic
frost part in that song as well. And for me,
my favorite song on Wallot's Grim was the title track where,
amidst all of like the thrash and the speed metalmania,
hell Rip approved that they could write something with the
genuine weight and grace and majesty of classic metal, so
it's no surprise. I also absolutely love the closing title
track of Korinak, which goes for this like Celtic funeral
chant being bellowed at you, and it's fucking mega. It
sounds so enormous.
Speaker 3: At the start of that song, there's all the gothic
touches on that, there's like real fear to to it.
It's got you know, a bit of like Halloween to
it in kind of the playp for side to it.
But then it's got a sense of like grand as well.
And we have to talk about, you know, the way
the song begins, which had me just like howling with laughter,
and again weird coincidence. We're gonna get onto in a minute,
but the opening so of interpreting the funeral march into
that riff, I was like, fuck it yeah, why not.
But then it kind of just fits into this like
epic funeral thrash like black metal song, and like it's
a really bold swing for a closer, and I think
it's the one truck you know that isn't pure speed.
Speaker 2: It's over eight minutes, but it.
Speaker 3: Still has so many interesting flavors and ideas, and you
know when it locks into the speed in the second
half and just sort of barrels towards its sort of
climax with that epic guitar solo, it still delivers every
you want from this, but just like so much ingenuity
before it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, hell rip On this record, there are songs which
another thrash black and thrash metal band could feasibly write
if they would, if they were just good enough. Hell ripper,
the moments when they really shine or where they do
things that no one else is doing, and the title
track on this them taking that sound into a real
epic style songwriting, which they really nailed on the last record,
not being as concerned we're just you know, ripping your
head up and melting your face, but building a world
and kind of telling a story through an epic song.
That's a really hard thing to do, and especially like
at this point in the record, you could feasibly imagine
someone going, I just want more speed, give me another
hit of the speed. But they're so good at this
thing that it might be the thing they're actually best at.
So if you do have that hang up, you pretty
immediately forgive them. I know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, maybe they'll actually start playing these songs regularly live now,
which I would love. But that massive like sweeping in
over the mountains and hills quiet chart with the oh hell,
it's so rousing and like the diaphragms of the entire
Scottish population are oscillating down at you, you know. And
then yes, there are the pipes coming in into this
like Megadeth Washington is next riff, and then the insane
elongated solo section in the middle that just fucking flies.
It's like, what more are you supposed to really want
out of a heavy metal song? You know, Like it's
just ingeniously done. It's eccentric As an album, it's I
suppose the second album of this like weirder madder hell Ripper,
and it's not diminishing returns from the first one. It's
still totally command of its abilities and where to deploy
them and if you like heavy metal of any shape
or form, really then I think Hell Ripper, on the
strength of this run of albums are on are like
one of the bands to really be paying attention to.
So Kornak from Hell Ripper and then next released this
same day fantastically and similar in more ways than one.
We're gonna go to Aggressive Perfector and their album Come
Creeping Fiends. Sometimes when your scheduling reviews and there's two
things kind of from a similar niche out and about,
sometimes you don't want to go overkill on it, and
you might have one to kind of feel the niche
and it overwrites the other one. Sometimes you can also
try and make a complimentary pair out of it. And
I figured Hell Ripper are a very popular band right
now in that niche, that is a very good opportunity
right through the door behind them to just point people
straight onto another band that they might not already know.
So Aggressive Perfector another UK band, self described heavy metal
Horror from the Manchester Morgue. In twenty nineteen, I brought
their debut album onto the show called Havoc at the
Midnight Hour, and the response I got at the time
with this album is so fucking stupid, and I was like,
I know, it's awesome, right, but it's been more than
six years since then, and it's finally gotten a follow up.
In their defense, they have all been busy because all
three members of this band play in the UK black
metal band Wode, who have released a couple of fantastic
albums in that time. One of them was also in
the now sadly defunct great Newity of a British heavy
metal style band, Heavy Sentence, So they're part of sort
of a crop of like incestuous heavy metal bands. But
Aggressive Effector, as you might guess from their early Slayer
title derived band name, along with their stage names for
this band, which are Dan Holocausto aka Dan Chainsaw, Intimidator
and Mister six six six, is where they lean into
the particularly maniacle.
Speaker 4: I'd completely forgotten about Aggressive Perfector. I think nine Team
is a weird year in that you know, twenty twenty
cave along and it just no bands could tour, and
it just swept that album into the distant pass, not
to be thought about again. And then you said, oh,
we're gonna do this Aggresive Effector album in the next
review show. I thought that name sounds very leave pulling
up the album cover for Havoc at the Midnight Hour,
the wave that it dug it straight out from my
subconscious something that I hadn't thought about it in seven years.
I went, Oh, yeah, that record, that fucking mental Monike
Deverly horror metal record. I remember loving it at the time.
For whatever reason, I swiftly forgot it existed the moment
the pandemic happened. So before we get into this album,
going back to that, just to set myself up again,
what a thing that.
Speaker 1: Is legitimately outside of like Midnight in Hell Ripper that
might be my personal favorite in this like Black Speed
Niche in recent years, like I love that album. I
have the long sleeve with the fucking executioner guy on
it that says Turbo Evil down the sleeves. I can't
walk to cemetery without singing.
Speaker 2: Oh words to the cemetaria Like for me.
Speaker 1: It scratches the same itch of life, just like primal
head banging fun that all of this stuff does, but
for all of the silliness and the joyfully bone headed
way they go about it, where they are just one
of the most like cartoonishly ridiculous sounding bands in this scene.
For me, there's song power on that album that did
last Beyond Again at the time twenty nineteen, I think
it was really only Midnight who were delivering songs that
were that memorable at that point in time. In this
lane and this, it's not sophisticated in the way that
hell Ripper is. Instead, this is sleazy and dirty and
just the whole other side of why this music is brilliant.
The first song on this is already brilliant because it's
called Dead Undead. It's like when Bloodbath do those word
association things and that sounds sick, but they don't make
any sense, but it doesn't matter, and you know they
can play because they're in Woe, who are really accomplished band.
And this does have, you know, like strange companion as
some kind of disorientating timings and stuff like that. But
this is just gloriously barred music, like the old school
trad metal riffs, answering and filling in that dead un
dead chorus with and the scatter turns Crimson. That's the
environment that you were in when you were hearing this record.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's so up my street. This like, I just
love everything that goes it in somewhere in the ven
diagram between Motorhead, Slayer, Wasp, maybe even a little bit
of Saxon, I'll give them that. It's just sort of
classic metal made more evil and really taking sick glee
in how devilish and perverse and perverse as you can be,
and dead and then Strange Companion just kicking from the
off again. It just brought back all these memories are
hearing the album the first time that had long for Goossen.
It's that we'll get to it later, because I think
there's songs on this album which really really fly. But
the level of songwriting is so radically apparent from the off,
like they just have such catchy songs, and these particularly
these first two ones, they do some interesting things, but
they're real short, sharp shocks to the system. But each
one it has such a tapestry cool rifts. Again this
if I don't want to overstate how dumb this is
and compare comparison to Hellric because it does seem stupid
compared to that. But like you say, they can play,
and they write brilliant riffs and they're able to weave
them together compellingly like that they're not just this it's weird.
It's it's weird to call it stupid because it is daft,
but it's daft by people who know what they're doing.
If that makes sense.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean I didn't I need to listen to
that first Aggressive Perfect album. I never actually could of
checked out and I looked at the car. I was like,
that's a that's a faulty movie on the album cover.
Speaker 2: I need to listen to that. This rocks.
Speaker 3: I think this is fucking awesome. I just had so
much fun again just a being the hell rap happened
to this? I was like, yeah, you know what speed
metal Friday, Let's go dead un dead, all grease. It's burlliant, muscular,
it is daft, it's hard, but it's got loads of
like heavy.
Speaker 2: Metal fun to it.
Speaker 3: Strange companions are real headbanger that it's like so live
wire this music, it's like there's a real swing to it.
Like I had to listen bands with mo I put
Wasp Down, Slayer, obviously, motor Head. I mean there's you know,
a bit of Misfits in there and some of the
punkier side of it without the car horror influences.
Speaker 2: I mean, this is much fun.
Speaker 3: I mean the compact The worst companion came up when
I saw there was a song called Like a Beast,
and I.
Speaker 2: Was like, I wonder what that sounds like.
Speaker 3: And I was like, yep, cool, it's a sleazy hipshaker
with loads of bite. But man, the riffs are sick
and he sounds like a problem maniac on vocals.
Speaker 1: I mean, but the open line of like a Beast
is am a maniac. I'm obsessed. There's no polish on
the vocals at all. It's a guy slurring and wailing
in the way the music needs to be fun and
to be manic and to deliver these lyrics. And part
of the reason you might go for this sort of
black speed metal thing over just straight up extreme black metal,
you know, because music has gotten a lot more extreme
and you know, distorted or whatever than this is. It's
got color and fun to it. It's got attitude. It's
shown no mercy era Slayer, only Kill Them All era Metallica.
Only it's shit kicking riffs like Harlot's Spell and you
want to hear about the fiend in you, and you're right,
that main riff in that song is straight up new
way for British having a pub metal like Tank or Saxon,
but with this like unhinged vocal that's just so much fun.
You want return of the acts, you want Like a Beast.
Speaker 4: You're naming, I say, you're naming all the best songs.
You're naming all the songs. They're all fucking brilliant. Theending
You and Like a Beast the one two of that
was where this album steps up and not for me
love the opening too, but from there these are some
of the best heavy metal songs I've heard. This side
is steroid. Frankly, the number of like hooks per square
inch on both of them is outrageous, and it's you know,
a lot of stuff that sounds like this. It's it's
a wonderful sound and it can be kind of non descript.
The songs here are so catchy and so I realized,
and especially on Fiending You, the chorus comes in on
that and it's like a lost misfit song. It's so athetic.
Speaker 2: That's the one that I put misfits specifically, like Yeah
and You.
Speaker 3: Also, that song begins with a big all right into
a shredding guitar solo that's the best way to begin
in the song. I've decided like mood I was in
on this album. Yes, all the songs are beginning of
shang all right into a solo. Turns out that's the
missing like key ingredient.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there is another way to open a song, as
we've learned today, which is obscene cult opens with the
exact same funeral march interpolation that the ending song of
the hell Ripper song album does. These albums are out
on the same day. They can't have heard each other.
They can't have known that these are coming out on
the same day doing the same thing. And I really hope,
like you know, James from hell Ripper, if you're listening,
you probably no agressive effect to go listen to the album.
Just how weird is it that that's happened. But it's
like on this video record, it's over like an almost
sort of burly candle mass bewitched type riff that's really fun,
and then it switches into that like skipping seventies Detroit
rock City and M and M and M and which
is a teenpost that you don't get in heavy metal
anymore at all because they've got blused out but he's
doing like a Toma Rayer scream on it there aha,
which he doesn't do quite enough on this record, and
I liking compared to the first record, where he was
doing it every like minute on the fucking dot on
the first record. But you're telling me all of that
collectively isn't meant to bring me joy?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, like you say, the sound of that rift,
that's there's something in your brain which associates that with
fun heavy metal from the seventies, Like it's just it
doesn't exist anymore. So the moment any band starts to
tape that, it's just like again Pavlovian response. The other
one for me that does that is like again halfwits
that flight of vicarous style intro, which again you just
don't hear stuff like that. But then when that takes
off again, you're back to showing a mercy and kill
them all. It's like they can only have the genuinely happening,
uplifting metal for so long before they've got to get
sick and gleef again again. Return of the Acts coming
up next. Hilarious.
Speaker 2: It's been yeah, where's the guy?
Speaker 4: Well, yeah, because I can I presume he means actually,
I don't know if he means an actual axe or
a guitar, but oh yeah, the guitar has not been anywhere.
We've been shredding this whole time. And then when that
starts going fast like the way the vocals dragged behind
it is so brilliant. It reminds me of the verse
in Melt Meltdown by Judas Priest, but they make the
music sound that much more panicked. And then when he
bellows return of the Acts, I just want to cry.
It's so beautiful.
Speaker 1: Yeah, seven year wait for a half hour record that
sounds like this. It's quite funny, but completely expected. Really,
I wouldn't have it any other way. I don't know
if I like this quite as much as Havoc at
the Midnight Hour, which I do really love. But they're
just such a lovable band. It's a ton of fun.
It's fucking heavy metal throwing through. This is the kind
of band that it sounds so much fun to be in.
Heartily recommended right by virtue of what the releases have
been this month has leaned very heavy, very metal, very true.
So our last couple of releases are for those of
you out there whose tastes may not lean so much
towards those what we've just been talking about. First in
that regard, we are going to about called Malavora and
an album called What If Betta Never Comes? This band
from the UK. This is out also today on Church
Road Records, and it is their debut album. I was
not really familiar with this band's name, like prior to
this year, but you know, looking around to new bands
coming out of this scene right now, this name came
up quite a bit in the last couple of months.
You know, a head to this album. Apparently the singer
was on The Traitors last year supplying Banshee Whales to
one of the tasks on that. So okay, that's something
mad that you can put in your press releases. I suppose. Anyway,
this is more on the sort of you know, alt
metalcore end of the spectrum. There are a few clear
names that we can throw around as comparison points for that,
but I think there is if you are looking for
that world and you're looking around and going, okay, like
what is coming out of that scene? There is a
bit more character to this and certainly certain elements of
it than you know, the endless conveyor belt of pretty
interchangeable bands that comes out of that world right now.
And if your tastes do lean towards that lane, but
you want something with a little more spark and a
little more identity, I think this is a decent release
to check out this month. Sam, what are you? What
are your feelings on that?
Speaker 2: I'm coming down from much the same as you like.
Speaker 3: I feel like this is something I would have really
been into ten or so like years ago, I would
have been right up my alley sort of thing there.
I'm less attuned this thing now, as you know, as
I kind of ragged on my feelings on the kind
of the step of modern metal core and or major metal.
But I think they this does have a bit more character.
With the vocalist, I mean, she is like the kind
of like real spark. She's really different to a lot
of what like the kind of vocalists are.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, like she's almost got like.
Speaker 3: A kind of like symphonic metal approach to her sort
of clean vocals at times, She's kind of got that
kind of like grandeur and sort of power to it,
And I think that that does lend this band more character.
Speaker 2: I think when they go hard.
Speaker 3: They go kind of actually quite unexpectedly hard. I think, like,
you have this intro track, and then when the first
one probably comes in, it's kind.
Speaker 2: Of alarming, how kind of like ragged and aggros.
Speaker 3: I was like, oh, okay, I was kind of expecting
this to be more in line with a kind of
like when I just saught sort the pr shots and
all the sort of the metal things.
Speaker 2: I was kind of expecting a bit more of the
kind of the worgasm side of things. I was like, Oh,
this is a little bit more. It's got a bit
more bite, it's got a bit more kind of like
genuine weirder energy.
Speaker 3: I think, like, I'm not dug into the Four Deachers,
but I know there's quite a lot of like the
messaging and the kind of like lyrical content, and that
they're very kind of like conversation about certain subjects that
they really are quite passionate about, which I think gives
it a bit more substance. So I think, like, all
and all for doing something that I'm not super keen on,
I mean, this is of a higher standard than a
lot of the things it's surrounded by.
Speaker 1: Yeah, just some of those subjects that are referencing there
just to sort of be more more more clear about it.
There's a lot of kind of themes about essentially like disability,
access and drawing attention to those kind of you know
issues over this record. I agree where you're talking about
the opener proper I suppose Smile, which you know, again,
if your mind was going Wargasa or whatever, that song
reminds me a little bit more like bands like Vexed
where they are, you know, a bit more for the
kind of you know, modern you know, crushy metalcore thing
a bit nastier, and it does put its meaner foot
forward a little bit with that track, and then you
get into the song Waste and you go, okay, yeah,
this is your kind of gent floor filler sort of thing.
Certainly that the singer Jessica is definitely the element that
gives it the sparkle. She comes from like a more
Middle Eastern background, and there is that sensibility in the
melodies and the way that those big clean melodies with
that like Eastern touch to them weave through the chunky,
bouncy riffing that is, you know, the band and how
they play this is the you know, it's like radio
one Rock Show, two thousand Trees main stage metal right
Like it's that subsection of the UK metal scene, the
sheen of spirit Box with the slightly more tech metal
feel of like a ginger. That's the area we're looking at.
But you add that vocal element in and she's really
skilled vocally, both as a singer and the proper like ah,
you know, harsh, hacking up blood kind of wretch that
she does, and it does it gives it like an
element that catches the ear. And as a song like
Lilith and Esther, which has those like you know, modern
metal bounce, but with that Eastern sensibility mixed in, it
almost has like a twenty twenties feel of what a
band at Lacuna Coyle were doing on a smash single
like Our Truth right where it's based around that big
kind of Eastern style.
Speaker 2: That's why I get that symphonic kind of metal sort thing. Yeah,
like things that there's a bit of like Epica.
Speaker 3: These things were just where she just has a bit
more theater and character to her vocal melodies that I
do think make this more interering like Hopeless as a ballad,
she again just brings a lot more to that and
very sort of sincere approach, which means it's not just
another kind of stodgy, wet modern metalcore or metal ballad.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's a song letter on called Walking at the
Edge of a Knife that is built on a big
bouncy woe that is a bit it's borderline a bit
too whoa, you know what I mean.
Speaker 3: But yes, that was the one though that made me
like not so keen on that just because of the
feelings it kind of other artists.
Speaker 1: But but it just about clings on because it has
that distinct melodic feel that isn't just like us radio fodder,
you know. And I think the production for what this
brand of metal is wanting to go for, it's nothing
boundary pushing. The tones are all pretty standard and in offensive,
but it does sound like a real band who have
actually recorded it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's thing.
Speaker 3: I think like someone was like a birth son, has
a bit more of that kind of aut pop thing,
but as well, it kind of gets a bit genuy
heavy as well, so it feels it doesn't feel as
mechanized as all these things do.
Speaker 2: Like that sounds like a band playing.
Speaker 3: It doesn't sound like someone's pushed a button on a
laptop to get that guitar sound.
Speaker 2: It's gotten like it is highly polished. It's not yet
anywhere near as.
Speaker 3: Well, but it doesn't sound as kind of like corporate
and soulless as the worst of these sort of bands do.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think if anything, this is so like proficiently
put down, Like I wouldn't call it soulless because it's
too like you well done for that. But it is
quite dry, you know. There's not a lot of room
for excitement or imperfections or fun. You know, I don't
really feel much tension in it, Like when it moves
into you mentioned hopeless, which is the totally melodic territory,
it's pretty lacking in any tension for me. Like it's
the kind of pretty metal ballad that through not having
any sonic depth or atmosphere or discomfort or anything to it.
I just don't really have any time for it. I
you know, when you said that you would have liked
this about ten years ago. I think as a podcast
we've kind of moved on a journey away collectively from
these sorts of metal, just because they have a tendency
to be a bit boring and a bit stagnant and
from where my tastes are at in twenty twenty six,
this is not not that you know, but we also
want to keep looking around and going, okay, like, what
are the bands in these realms coming through who have
a bit of identity to them and some authenticity and
on a debut record to do more Malavora, do you know?
They do kind of fall into that category And like
I was certainly full of all the mid paced gent
riffs I could need before we got to the nine
minute closer. But the fact that on a Deaby record
you go for a nine minute closer, it's gumptious. I
think this is all right. Ultimately, it's not my thing.
I wouldn't call it world class, which is essentially what
it has to be for this kind of like safe
old tech metal to at all capture my attention. But
there's some character, there's some choruses like empty where you
do find yourself humming them by the third go round.
If you are in the market and the scene for this,
then it might well be something that you would enjoy
with again some promise that it might be going somewhere.
So Malavora and their debut record, what if Better Never
Comes and finally really moving away from heavy, there are
a couple of newer name albums to pick from the
worlds of like Emo an alternative rock. This month, Sam,
we asked you which one we should go for, and
you named Sweet Pill with Still There's a Glow. This
is their second album. I confess I didn't know a
thing about this band prior to this record. I hear
that their debut album a few years ago put them
on people's radars a bit. Apparently Hailey Williams and Doja
Cat are fans. They've toured with big names like the
Wonder Years, but this one dropped a couple of weeks ago,
and again, not like the hugest month for this kind
of thing, but this seemed like the Emo record to
capture people this month. So Sam, what do you reckon?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: So again they kind of calm where I did out Break.
But I remember hearing quite a bit a buzz about
when they played out Break a couple of years ago
and people like really enter.
Speaker 2: I was like, Okay, I'll keep an eye on that
when they have an album out.
Speaker 3: So I mean, this is very much my my sort
of wheelhouse in that it's math rock, emo kind of
throwback but with big pop vocal hooks, and it does
kind of really hit hit a spot for me.
Speaker 2: I think there's very much like of the.
Speaker 3: Kind of like modern emo sort of pop punk sort
of stuff that's kind of like crossing into the main
sort of things like Hot Malligan and so all that
this has a real kind of like fondness for the real,
like the real.
Speaker 2: Like Mafy Woodley guitar like emo stuff, which I think does.
Speaker 1: Give this feels more traditional than a Hot Mulligan.
Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, it does, even though it's still got like
big pop melodies all over it. So I think that's
one of the things that does actually make this stand
out of it more some blind as an opener, you
get kind of some clattering punk drumming mixed with like
that all that they said, the emo guitars or tapping melodies,
and I think it's kind of like yep that that
they have a fonance for that. It's jaunty and upbeat,
but it never kind of costs into twee sweet pop melodies.
I think the vocalist is ay and that she's got
a real kind of attitude to her vocals, which gives
it more character. I think this is very just again
it's not groundbreaking in the kind of like worlds of
pop punk and emo, but at the same time, I
think this is a really pleasant listening experience that I've
had a lot of fun with.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this very much is it's it feels like, you know,
it's come from the diy emo scene that would be
familiar to us from you know, the twenty tens or
even older than that, but you know they're now on
Hopeless Records. Is a bit more resources behind second record. Yeah,
the stuff that I vibe with the least like this,
I'll use I guess, you know, a last example that
we did of something really in this world, something like
the Pool Kids album last year. That's where it feels
like really like empty and kind of energyless for me.
And I think that album a little bit more of
like the end the modern old pop influence. This feels
again very like it's just based in you know, sort
of ninety style emo, a little bit closer to like
even your early Milk teeths a little bit where there's
like some skip in it. So I liked this more
right the opener sun Blind, as you mentioned, immedia energy
even with the Kata tone being really breezy and lovelorn.
There's those like fun little noodly math guitar lines, but
it's immediately like upbeat and zippy. It's got a pop
punk sensibility to it, while only you know, being what
your emo enjoyers might call proper pop punk, you know,
like not that pop punk. And again it kind of
reminds me a little bit bit like like Nervous in
that regard, but more American or you know, like Adventures,
you know, like Midwest emo based but with a bit
of pep rather than fully lazy. There are points where
you know, obviously dips down and brings down the temper
and everything, but it has a little bit of that
just you can imagine them jumping around on stage a
little bit, you know, which adds something like I really like.
Speaker 3: Him in the song is like Glow where it goes
all kind of like cozy emo, very smooth, but well,
you know, bits where it gets a little bit spiky.
Speaker 2: I think slow Burn.
Speaker 3: There is one where they like again they cut loose
a little bit and the riffs have a bit of
like jagged edge to it, and again they say they yes,
they will be jumping up and down on stage for
these sort of songs, and I think that that's a
really fun kind of element to add, which again just
makes this very much something I've just found very re
listenable and just like like just.
Speaker 2: It goes on.
Speaker 3: I think my only gripe with this album. I does
say it's too long, but fourteen songs is a few
too many. I think some of the songs in the
back half do kind of like recycle ideas, where again,
I think, like the best of this song is really great,
and I think like ten eleven songs of this and
I'd be really into shouting for it. I do think
towards the end it just kind of like retreads familiar ground.
Speaker 2: A little bit too much.
Speaker 3: But when it's good, you know, there are songs where
you've got the guitarist Sean you can like training vocals
and he's sort of screaming every now and then. Just
to add it again, that's where that milk teeth thing
kind of comes. Yeah, that's with the occasional screams and
a bit more bite to it, which is which again
a sound I'm very happy to sort of have. And
it's all it's all well and good. I just think
like maybe a less is more approach would have would
have like benefited this album.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree with essentially everything you have just said.
The word I wrote down for the riff and slow
Burn in my notes was Neurotic's that kind of just
like frantic, you know, chugginess to it. Tracks like Shameless
and again, how those math guitars here. If that's your sound,
then there's gonna be a wealth of those, like they
fill the pockets with just flourishes, and recording wise, it
sounds very full those parts, as we say, where like
another member of the band does the back and forth
like there's the it got me by the throat in Shameless,
or the bits of screams and no control that is
again really reminded me of like early Milk Teeth, but
not as like maybe unwielderly abrasive as that. Like it
feels like they've got a bit firmer of a hand
than a bit firm control on it, this band. And
then they do go into full emo pace on Glow
and Tough Love and it's still pretty nice and easy
to drift off with. I very saey thirteen tracks when
there's basically two types of song they go back and
forth on I got to about track seven before I
started feeling very fatigued by it, which is often my
thing with these records. But you know, you get rotten
a little way past like that, and that's like they
add a little bit of spike back into it, even
if the guitar riff essentially sounds exactly the same as
the earlier ones in that lane. I've seen a couple
of people who clearly have a relationship with the debut
album rate this poorly in comparison, but I just can't
speak to that. To my ears, if this is your sound,
then there's some really nice stuff going on in this,
even if quite one dimensional. It just sounds like some
very decent modern emo.
Speaker 2: I think, yeah, I think that that's a fair someone
who lives at this.
Speaker 3: I'm probably just more naturally fond of a kind of
like Yeah Poplin in modern emo album and I just
have a very good time with this. But I yeah,
I think it's if you're into that sort of thing,
this is just kind of like delivering a healthy dose
of that. Again, I need to go back to the
debut album and kind of give proper go I don't
I've listened once. I don't see how this is any
worse than that really may maybe because this is just
a bit more polished and poppy, some some of the
more purest people are maybe gonna be a bit less
kin on this. But I could see this doing numbers
and people really sort of latching onto the Specif it's
getting you know Hayley Williams endorsements.
Speaker 1: Yes, certainly, so check it out. That is sweet pill
album is called Still as a Glow And that ends
this particular reviews bag, which absolutely started with a fucking bang.
But do not let some of those smaller last albums
We've got to you there at the end slipped by
you either if they sound like they would be your thing.
So thank you very much for being with us and listening.
Let us know what your opinions again on these you
know bands I've heard, but also the return albums from Neurosis,
Poison the Well. Are we off the mark on the
Lamb of God album, I don't know what do you think?
Let us know everything that you want to. Let us know.
We will be back next week with a Hyperblast. We
will also be back within the next week with the
album Club Return to the that's time I'll pay, which
will be sparked off by it being time to explode before.
We also talk about some death metal and nineteen eighties
pop rock and youth crew hardcore and all the good
stuff that makes up the TNM. That's not that the universe,
so check out if you want to get get involved
over there at the Patreon. We will be back here
next week, and yeah, fucking neurosis and poison the Well.
Our back recording artists AFI are doing headline shows in
the UK. Clap Clap, Clap everyone.
Speaker 2: We live