Speaker 1: Hello everyone, and welcome to That's Not Metal. We are
your weekly rock, heavy metal, hardcore hard music podcast. We
are coming at you every single Friday letting you know
everything you should know that has been going on this week.
It is a big week because it is the reviews show.
We have left it for, you know, the very end
of February, because there were just a couple of last
things squeaking out there that we wanted to catch and
make sure we're covered and h here. But we have
got a really really strong array of reviews to hit
you with. First, I initially joined My name is Paren Hairsh.
I'm initially joined here by Mark s Anderson. Hello, Mark, Hi,
my old chum, Hello, Hello, Hello you are here. Because
before we get into all of these great album reviews
that we've got to do, we also need to talk
about last week on the hype Blast, I was talking
about what just a crazy jam pat week of awesome
live music. I had a wentzy high veers, I wentzy tribulation,
YadA YadA. A couple of days after that, a tour
for me happened that also, you were at a couple
days later or before or whatever it was. We are
talking about the Heathen Neverland Tour, which was a really
cool name I was alluded to kind of thinking me
as the Unto Lungs Tour, the or the Green Others.
It's the Green lung and Unto Others combined tour that
went around Europe in the UK last week. And Mark,
you were at the Glasgow date? What venue was at
any Glasgow for all the Glasgow heads out there, the garage,
the garage, good stuff. I was at the Manchester date
at the Ritz and so collectively we are going to
talk about it because this for me was one of
the kind of event tours of the year. I think
I know that you were excited for this. I don't
know how similarly you feel in that regard, but for me,
it's like, you know, two bands, like real TNM bands
right like two bands kind of in their prime right now,
plus a really cool choice of opener. It was a
really great package that was kind of it offered you
diversity and simultaneously, you know, a coherence as a as
a night out with a certain theme to it, and
as it happened seeing this show. These are big dramatic
words here, but I think I can you know argue
what I mean by them. This tour was one that
gave me faith in the future of heavy metal.
Speaker 2: Mm hmm.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I I will say I was very excited most Like,
obviously I like onto others a lot. They were in
my Albums of the Year list, but Green Long just
basically my new favorite band in the UK. So I
was just chomping at the bit for this. And I
have to say, because I wanted to see Satan City Ears.
I got in like five minutes after doors and there
was a lot of people. It was very busy already
and like a massive line for merch so it really
felt like, oh, there's something here. There's a lot of
excitement for these bands.
Speaker 1: Yeah, definitely. It's two bands kind of at the top,
you know, of the game right now, who both released
their their debut albums in twenty nineteen, right like within
the time that I've been doing this show. Both of
them came out pretty close to each other. They've risen
around the same times, and collectively they were now playing
venues like these. You know, they did like two and
a half thousand cap in London at the Forum. They
sold out the Ritz here in Manchester, which is you know,
whey five hundred two thousand and something like that, and
it felt like you're saying, it felt busy, it felt
like booming, and that many people coming out for bands
you know, who are primarily based in just sort of
an old school classic heavy metal tradition. They're not part
of any particularly like tied to twenty five twenty twenty
five trend or anything, but just like you know, just
great heavy metal bands, and you know, Green Lung crowds particularly,
I've noticed they're one of those crowds where everyone's wearing
the shirt because like they they must make a killing
or merch, because the queue for the merch exactly what
you're saying, was genuinely massive. But also everyone's wearing a
shirt when they arrive anyway, so they must they must
have some good things going on there. And then you
also have that kind of you know, the visible unto
others contingent as well, and I was just looking around
at everyone, being like, fantastic work, everybody, you know, like
this should happen way more often bands like these hit
in this stage. I was excited also about the support
band Satan Satyrs or Satyrs, not only because they fit
in with the general kind of vibe of like kooky
outsider art, spooky metal of this particular tour. But I
have a long history with this band. I was quite
amazed to see them turn up here when the tour
was amounts, because they're the veteran band on the bill
by it by a mile. They had, in fact, like
you know, broken up by the time onto others in
Green Lung were kind of hitting their strides, and they've
just recently reformed again and put another album. But like,
I've been a fan of this band for a long
time and it was bloody nice to her to see
him there as part of this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm a I have sort of a history with
them as well. I don't know if you remember, like
eleven years ago when we first became pals, you made
me a do metal playlist because I didn't like any
doom metal, and you were like, check this stuff, I
would see if you like any of it. In Satan
citys were the only band I liked. I liked a
Wizard and all those stupid guys, so that, like, I
have a long history with them. I was very excited
to see them and flipping hell, I loved it. Like
from the second they take the stage, the fuzzed up,
thick riffs, the swagger. This SE's like Hollywood glam, the streat.
Speaker 4: They were just.
Speaker 2: Oozing with riz and like old school glam, you know
what I mean.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I'm glad that I remember now the
order of us seeing this, because you messaged me being like,
holy shit, Satan Laters are awesome, and I was like,
I'm glad because I hadn't seen them since like twenty
seventeen or something, you know, since before they kind of
went on hiatus, and it's nice to see them, you know,
kind of again still picking up some steam because you know,
their debut record while beyond belief it'll turn up on
a ab Roulette or something at some point, I'm sure
because I was obsessed with that record it came out,
and I did make lots of people try and pay
attention to it. Since then, they've just become this like
a like a real like stooge esy take on like
kind of psych rock and like old doom and stuff.
Like there's a real sort of glint of you know,
grindhouse rock and roll mania about them. So that was
nice to say. I hope some people, you know, caught
them and enjoyed them unto others. I think in Europe
this was billed as a co headline tour. In my
heart it was a co headline tour because you know,
it was when you look at the package, it's the
two bands together both like at this moment for them
that made it an exciting tour. It wasn't one overshadow
in the other. And if you look at like the
set lists online, the mainland European dates unto others had
like a good like six more songs in the set
green Lung maybe slightly short set, and you know whether
that's a mix of you know, unto others being slightly
more popular in Europe than here, or Green Lung obviously
having like the big homeland advantage, which you know, fair enough.
I do wish it was a co headline tour here personally,
because of course I want to see some more unto
other songs and it's wild some of the stuff I
had to cut out here, like no, when will God's
Work be done?
Speaker 4: What?
Speaker 1: No nightfall they were doing? Why at some of the
other dates, which is one of my favorites. I don't
know if they've actually played in the UK. Yeah, I
was really wanting to see Sailing in the Darkness from
the Strengths I'd Be, which they were doing at some
of the early dates, and that whole kind of you
can have the pearl, that whole part that I love,
you know, a single solemn Rose and Summer Lightning both
like arguably top five unto other songs and aren't to
be found anywhere. I think before the Green Lung tour
even started, they landed first in Greece and did like
a headline show there and if you're an unto Others fan,
go look up that set list, because it's like twenty
two songs, it's it's beautiful. There's a whole ass encore
on it of songs that they didn't play at all
with on the Green Lung run. And seeing as their
next over here opening for King Diamond in the Summer,
I hope we do get like some headline shows for
for Never Never Land here in the UK at some point,
but even still an hour of unto Others as part
of this you know package that is filling this venue
like this. I think, you know, you could see the
crowd here was mainly a Green Lung crowd, but there
was the sort of the cult of unto others among it,
which is very real, and the contingent there who were
super enthusiastic made it so fantastic.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think like you say, it was mostly a
green lung crowd for us as well. There was like
you know, smatterings of people you'd see like fists in
the air, and you can tell, oh, those people know
the songs, much like like when I used to see
Creeper support bands back in the day and you just
all congregate at the front, all the Creeper fans. It
was a bit like that fronto others, a similarly gothic affair.
I would have loved to see, you know, Fame Sunshine
obviously all the Never Never Land songs, but this was
my first time seeing.
Speaker 1: And to Os, So what do you think I've wanged
on that enough?
Speaker 2: I mean, their stage presence is so funny to me
in like a great way because is a Gabe the frontman,
He's just so stoic, He's so Gothic. He's like Glenn Danzig,
you know. And then Sebatian the guitar player, has so
much hair metal energy.
Speaker 1: He's a wonderful part of their their presence.
Speaker 2: He has like this long flowing like duster jacket and
twirling around and doing moves I can only describe as
like the guitar place guitar player from Poison and coming
from me, that's a compliment.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you know, obviously incredible surf, and they also
had It's funny that we did the Visigoth Album Club
just recently because they had Jamie from Visigoth filling in
on the bass for a particular tour and I wanted
to catch him somewhere afterwards.
Speaker 4: To be like a goth. Please release a new album,
come to the UK.
Speaker 1: Again, anything, because I'm still excited after we were talking
about the Reverend King recently. But as soon as that,
you know, open with Butterfly, but then as soon as
the drum fill kicked in for Mama likes the door
close just like coming after that. I love particularly, I
love the intensity of unto others when they go into
stuff like that. Particularly Heroin is always like genuinely heavy
and extreme, like beyond a lot of actual extreme metal,
because it just feels ferocious, like there's none of that
kind of sanitized precision about when they do a song
like that, The hollering that Gabe brings out in his
voice when he's doing I Swear God like always, it's
like actually scary life, and there is like a legitimate,
unhinged mania that you don't really see particularly coin of
the really oppressive red lighting and stuff they have for that.
But then at the same time there's Jackie, there's can
You Feel the Rain. There's where we're talking about the
cult of unto weathers. I love looking around at the
people around you who are going to do the who
in the right places on songs like that. Imagine having
can You Feel the Rain on your first ep? You
know what I mean? Suicide Today was probably the popper
of the night to me, like that song every time
it popped into that chorus run but who.
Speaker 3: Clean up the brains?
Speaker 1: That splatter like staggering level of hip power.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's sort of a this song should be played
in a much larger venue moment. You know, that song
is an absolute like keeper. I fucking love it. Obviously
the highlight for me. They played a Ramone song.
Speaker 1: You say, you're a ramonesman, so you must have had
a nice boogie for a pet Cemeterian.
Speaker 2: I forgot that even did that cover when of like
on the day I forgot that even could have been
a possible and as soon as I started, it was like, oh, yeah,
this is the best moment of my life.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that was the right move putting that in. Therefore,
again like a mainly Green Lung crowd, because you know,
it's like here's one that you know, you know. I
was chuffed that we've got Time goes On because that's
one of my favorites from from never Neverland. Every time
I see this band, it's just like me and you know,
my friends and the people where I swear, like over
the last few years, I've had more listeners come up
and talk to me at Unto Others shows than any
other band, you know, like that, Like I say, the
cult of Unto Others is is real. As I say
in my heart, it was a co headline, but in
terms of the actual headline from from Green Lung Mark,
I know that you're like a really big fan from
at least Black Harvest, but this was your first time
seeing them. I have seen Green Lung three times within
the last twelve months. There was the first UK headline
tour for This Heathen Land and when they played the
Arts Club in Liverpool's in the venue where I saw
High Viz last week, and that was a moment of
like cool, like you know, I'm in on this band.
Now they've got a bunch of great songs. Now they've
got something cooking. Then I saw them on the main
stage of Bloodstock, where they played about kind of like
twelve or one o'clock or something like, you know, early,
but clearly drew a lot more people to that slot
than it usually would get in a moment that sort
of received historically for the likes of Power Trip and
so one who have done that kind of thing. This then,
you know, coming on the other side of that, this
was the most I have kind of been convinced that,
oh shit, like this is happening with Greenland.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I want to correct you. I've seen them once,
I think before the debut even came out.
Speaker 1: Great so the first time as a fan.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I saw them supporting Puppy in twenty nineteen, and
the days it's very surreal thinking that this is the
same band conquering a venue as big as the garage
who I saw like in the upstairs of the garage,
in the tiny attic.
Speaker 1: Venue, basically a different band. Then by this point, surely.
Speaker 3: Yeah, completely different.
Speaker 2: I I mean, I guess I shouldn't be surprised, but
the sort of shawmanship this band have is unreal, and
like the willingness the crowd has to go with it.
Like it felt like a big band doing a small show.
Speaker 1: You know what I mean.
Speaker 2: Those some of the biggest sing alongs I've heard in
a venue that small.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean the stage show was I mean, if
you have seen Green Long in the last couple of years,
it what you're you're kind of you know from them,
so you know, big head at the back of that
kind of thing, but like blown up to a larger
level of I always feel like you know something's big
when they've got a tiered staircase, you know, with like
you know, the keyboardist at the back going crazy playing
is duel keys at the same time, you know Opeth
deep purple style and you know Tom are able to
kind of walk up and down them as he pleases.
It just gives that sort of appearance of depth, you know,
to something that helps. And they opened early stuff heavy
actually at the beginning, wasn't it. Like I mean, I
am of the opinion that woodland rights and black harvest
are good even at times very good to eight records,
but this Heathen Land is noticeably a step forward, particularly
in the realms of like chorus delivery, not even just
the strength of the chorus melodies, but like delivery of
them on the record in terms of, you know, thicker production,
more powerful vocal presence, et cetera. But those older songs
live when you get to them. People like so passionately
know the words to those ones as well. So like
you know, like in my mind, the Forest Church and
Maxine Witch Queen whatever, like those are the standouts, and
they would go like quite long stretches, like three four
songs stretches without touching one of those. But you know, Leads,
the Blind, Templar, Dawn Woodland Rights, which they open with
those choruses around me from like you know, the Long
Time Faithful were loud.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I because the venue was so packed. I ended
up sort of congregating near the back, and even there,
like people even at the back at like the bar
knew all the words that these songs. It was like
so exciting and just watching I don't know the sort
of the stage presence this the vocalist has, he's like
playing it like he's playing in the arena to use
that cliche, like all the air grabs, all the like
throwing the horns to individual people. It's just like that's
a rock star in the making.
Speaker 1: I mean he's just having fun. I mean he's doing that.
What is it like, you know, the kind of forest dwelling,
mushroom beating, that whole thing that they do at every
show now. Yeah, because when they open with Woodland Rights,
you know, that's a record that I have listened to
quite a lot less than you know, this Heathen Land
by it by this point, and that's kind of reminded myself.
I was like, yeah, which, which song is this again?
But everyone around me was like, yeah it was. Which
was you know, really cool to see. They had a
section around where, you know, they have for the past
you know, kind of year, been doing this thing with
song and the Stones where they kind of get these
drums out and stuff and do this sort of, you know,
very chill version of that song. But they're sort of
extended it here because like half of the band disappeared,
Like normally it's like the bassist or whatever who's been
you know, doing the drums, and they had this kind
of trio of women with like strings and stuff coming
out for what ended up being a sort of like
a mid section of about two three songs of like sort
of these slow folky ballady type songs accompanied by these
you know, string sections and whatnot. I thought the highlight
of that bit was, like, you know, Song of Stones
is always good, but a may Queen from the first
record when it went all kind of like bluesy sort
of you know loungees swing for a bit and with
that sort of setup sounded really great. That middle bit.
Speaker 2: It's sort of commitment to the bit in a way
that really suits them. It suits their vibe, it suits
their whole like the woodland thing they're going for, and
again the crowd good for it, Like it's I don't know,
maybe they just have rez like is the type of
thing on paper. If I heard another band was doing that,
I'd be like, okay, maybe not lads, but their energy
is there for Green long they can do. They're a
little like you know, chanting Circle hour and.
Speaker 4: It still works.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And then they got it was like Hunters in
the Sky and I appreciate it, be like this is
something about hunting aristocrats because you remember, green lungs are
actually pretty cool and I mean hearing again the amount
of people around me or trying to go for.
Speaker 4: The you have a pretty helperd note.
Speaker 1: That was a big laugh. I mean, speaking again of
the older songs, you do look back and you go, yeah,
they have like they've always had this potential to kind
of go kind of massive, because like let the Devil
In is so fantastic life like in that sort of
end stretch that they do of songs now, that song
is really like a kind of anthem for them, and
I do love that their established closer now is seems
to just be One for Sorrow, which I will always
sing loud for. And it's a song with you know,
like a merciless doom cathedral riff, like it's so heavy.
There was a wall of death for the fucking Breakdown,
which which I always forgetting there. And it's still like,
you know, it's based in deep purple and Sabbath and
the stuff. But that was like, Okay, this is the
march moment.
Speaker 2: God, that's got to be a great sign like One
for Sorrow. It always it's so like I always forget
how moving it is. It just yeah, stirs something up
in you. It's like like the Sentinel. You know, it's
just one of those epic heavy metal songs that does
something to me, and we gossip Forest Church and Maxine
come on, oh yeah fuck.
Speaker 1: Mega jamsa the last Forest Church chorus when it kind
of you know, had that little moment again, big crowd response,
and I think, you know, they're definitely gonna play bigger
venues in this, Like I'm I'm not gonna be the
guy who comes out of this and goes they're gonna
headline Bloodstock and then Download and then fucking tea in
the park, like because you just you kind of cheapen
every nice thing you say bye by bowing it all
early like that. But they're definitely going to play bigger
than the Kentish Town Forum where they played in London.
Speaker 2: Man, Yeah, they sold the garage awfully quick and like
I say, it was sold out sold though it was
jam packed. I mean when I exited the gig, I
was a bit like, oh what next to the Barrelans,
Like I just believe soulfully in this band, Like the
records are great and the live show just is even
more convincing, Like this is one of the most exciting
bands we have right now.
Speaker 1: Yeah, next stop is to get unto others into the
same headlining you know, these venues. But if we can
just keep lifting all of those bands up, you know,
another kind of peg or two, then we will be
seeing some some very good things now. As if by magic,
Mark has de materialized and in his place is Elliot,
Paisley and Sam Dignon. Hello, we are gonna do the
reviews for the rest of this episode. The albums that
we have got on the ducket today come from kill Switch, Engage,
Bleeding through Dream Theater. We're known a Fighter, piss Grave, Vacuous,
and Grab. But we have a little bit of news
to get onto before that. But hello, Sam Elliott. I
have been having quite a lot of fun with a
good amount of the records that we've got to be
talking about today. I imagine there are highs and lows,
but you know, we got some excitement in the house.
Speaker 5: I mean, I was about to say there have been
soaring highs and bottomless like crushing lows on this week.
Like is a roller coaster of emotions for me this bunch,
but I'm excited to chat about it either way.
Speaker 6: There is one album that I think is kind of
future and disgusting, and there's also the piss Grave album.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, so we'll get onto all of that. As said,
a little bit of news beforehand, not too much. First off,
Corby Taylor and bad Omens have released a cover of
Kansas for some reason, the song dust in the Winds
and not even the cans of song that you would
immediately think of. The reason I mentioned this because Sam,
this is for a wrestling thing, right.
Speaker 5: Yeah, So when I think of like tralblazing female wrestlers
who like change the industry in the nineteen thirties, I
think of Corey Taylor and bad Omens covering Kansas we do,
and doing it in the worst kind of serious video
game trailer music style cover rubbish, Like.
Speaker 6: It doesn't even sound like bad Omens. This is what
I don't understand. It's like Corey Taylor, fair enough, like
that's quite a distinct voice. Bad Omens do have a
distinct sound, but you it might as well be a
sort of musaic version or like a sort of disturbed
sound of silence rendition, which it's and Kansas sort of
all things like that does not the idea of like
bad Omens covering Kansas in the first place even in
like the best of all possible worlds is not a
great idea.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I add no responses to this at all. Really,
I just like being not a hardcore wrestling guy. I
wondered how I don't know of what signific because this release.
Speaker 4: Is like about a woman who changed the industry.
Speaker 5: I'm exactly the movie, but I just, yeah, what context
this song has for it?
Speaker 1: Just yeah, there you go. Dying Wish have also released
a new single. Theirs is a currently a standalone track.
It's called I Brought You My Soul Your World Brought
Me Despair. As said, they've stated that this is to
be currently a standalone track. They've also said that it's
kind of I don't know, maybe just flexing the muscles
a little bit between albums, seeing what kind of you know,
where the winds take them. Dying Wish, I think, you know,
while I think we all to some degree kind of
you know, liking respect Dying Wish, we're not looking for
the craziest creative pivots maybe from about like Dying Wish,
but for like a two and a half song or something,
I did like feel like this it kind of ticked
a lot of boxers of what I imagine Dying Wish to
be like. It starts with like an almost a sugar
type groove, and then it's got you know, one of
their kind of cleaner choruses, and then at the end
it's got a borderline Dying Feet is beat down. So
I mean all the boxes ticked really as far as
I can said.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I love everything about this shocker, you know, like
metal core, Like, like I love that they've kind of
up the kill switch engagey big chorus call with that
that be down at the end made me chuckle at
like legitimately how hard it goes. I was like, of
course you've wrote one of your bigger choruses and then
you have just thrown in one of your like nastiest
sort of like scuzzies beat downs at the end. Yeah,
I think this is great and I'm excited sort of
where danguish go.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean, like you say, it's not the most
radical change. We're already looking for them for that, but
it's is kind of box sticky, but in the sense
what I like everything that's on the list, So that's fine,
like just another tasty slaber sort of naughties metal core,
which is kind of hard to complain about when it's
done well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, live music announcements that have come our way this
week over in America. I know everyone's been talking about it.
Louder than Life, the one that announced the bit the
big line up them, Yeah, I kind of. I find
it very difficult my agular English mind to tell these
festivals apart but that one's there. But I guess it did,
you know, kind of jump out of grass and headlines
that there is a big core touring bill going around
North America, the Summer of Loud Tour, which is not
even including the various kind of guests at different dates
of the tour, which include the Anti Affliction, the devil
Worth prior Alpha Wolf. But the fours you know kind
of key bands who are going around a part of
it are Bear Tooth, I Prevail, Kill Switch, Engage, and
Parkway Drive, which is an amazing like both halves of
what's great and shit about current metal core, isn't it?
Speaker 5: I wish I could say it isn't like halves, but
you know, with where Bear Tooth currently are at, yeah,
it is.
Speaker 4: Half It's enough like I no, no, I'm not gonna argue.
Speaker 5: I wish I could argue, yeah, you know current like
current albums and all that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, No, it's fifty to fifty years.
Speaker 5: Like if you had the you know, kils and Parkway
on first, you'd have a lovely time and get an
early night.
Speaker 6: I mean, it's like if the Big Four was Metallica,
Megadeth and and Ville and Saxon.
Speaker 1: Oh no, that would be a higher ratio than that.
Speaker 3: Sounds quite good.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'd go to that. But yeah, I mean there
was a bit of conversation about the way they're arranged
on the poster. We I think we're going to give
it the benefit of the doubt of being alphabetical order.
Speaker 5: I think every band has actually posted their version and
their top on the so I think it is a
four way rotating headline.
Speaker 1: But it is just unfortunate luck that Bear Tooth and
I Prevail come first in the alphabet then, because it
does on the main poster look like they are above
kill switching Parkway Drive and you go, what is going
on over there? But you know, big huge metal court
talk going around the US this summer. Over here in
the UK, we had the news today that subheadlining to
bring you the horizon this year's Reading and Leeds Festival,
which I keep forgetting, is you know, like an event
that's happened that brings Horizon headlining Ready and Leads. But
I guess you know, yeah, I'll watch it when it
goes out or whatever. But subheadlin into that if you
are going along and you want a big stupid mettle day,
it's only Limp Biscuit who are doing it, which I
mean it's a bit of a party.
Speaker 5: I think it's literally going Shaikhari Biscuit, bring me as right,
and if it's how they do it normally. Now with
the all take stage, is there literally might be those
three bands about breaking.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it might well be, but that there
is on the poster sandwiched in between those bands poor
Becky Hill for some but you know, Shikari Becky Hill
didn't Biscuit bring the Horizon. Even still, it's pretty it's
a day out.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I'm honestly kind of tempted looking at you know,
a run of Shaikhari, Biscuit and.
Speaker 1: Bring was the last time I get paid?
Speaker 5: Leeds Reading and Leads haven't done it, I think twenty fifteen.
I think it was like it for a while And
again this is just what we're saying about, you know,
Naughty's new metal bands playing their big outdoor show to
just whill themselves into being like we're you know, at
the top of a bill now, because last week last
night I played, they were like sub headline on the
second stage, like the enemy tent at Reading.
Speaker 4: So they've come back and gone.
Speaker 5: Like, no, we're we're just below bringing the horizon now
right at the top.
Speaker 6: So yeah, I think I'm going to go because Reading
is like the town over me, and I'd like to
see the run of limp Biscuit and then might even
just go for that and then catch the train back
home in bed for ten thirty.
Speaker 3: Why not.
Speaker 6: It's it's just mad that like Reading is, at least
in the years sort of recently, was so far away
from a rock festival.
Speaker 1: And then that, yeah, that little run there, so that
would fit perfectly well at download MM people will be.
Speaker 4: Raving about that if that was like a download sort
top three.
Speaker 1: I mean limb Biscuit as a you know, in to
Bring Me is a very like, uh, I don't know,
for bring Me, It's feel very obviously there a completely
different generations because bring Me tap into that kind of
nostalgia market. To some degree, it feels like a very
like you know, I bet bring me a stoked that, like, yeah,
limbs get into us is going to be like, you know,
the kind of we're going to bring the party to that.
So yeah, that's I guess a pretty pretty fun time. Now,
this is interesting. Slayer have posted a little teaser of
you know, the Slayer, you know, robbed from the fucking
third Reich Eagle. We're two flags on it, not that flag,
two flags on it. One is an English flag, the
other is a Welsh flag. Shout out you know which
other our listeners it was who said, this is a
very funny way of saying, you're not playing Glasgow, but
Slayer are teasing UK shows. We know Slayer have one
UK show announced because they're at the Big Black Sabbath Extravaganza,
but this teaser, and specifically the fact that there is
also then a Welsh flag next to the English one,
suggests some more dates. Now, as far as I'm aware,
the only dates that Slayer have announced over in North America.
There's been quite a few at this stage, but they've
all been attached to big festivals, right. I don't think
Slayer are going to suddenly turn up a download at
this stage with what they've kind of you know, laid
out obviously, you know, bloodstock, whatever is accounted for. If
they are going to add more dates alongside the Black
Sabbath thing, which is what this suggests, I guess we're
looking at maybe like a big out or in a
fucking you know, the Welsh Castle, but funeral for a
friend play or like whatever, something like that.
Speaker 5: I would guess that, and like O to Arena or
or you know, like the sort of Gundry Park thing
or something like that, like one of those like yeah,
which if if they know Gundry Park, I'll go because that's,
like that said, that's a twenty minute walk for me.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean I hadn't anticipated this because the the US
thing had been so explicitly tied to festivals, and I
know that, yeah, they have said that, you know, they're
only going to be doing basically like one off dates
and stuff. But if they are now actually doing their
own one off dates rather than again attached to a
larger festival thing, I hadn't considered this, and I certainly
hadn't considered it here in the UK because I think
again obviously we'll have to see what they actually announced.
But you know I said before when the Slayer union happened,
I was like, I don't think even though they're like
arguably the best mental band of all time, I don't
think that I would like feel the intense need to
buy let's say, like a download ticket just to go
and see Slayer, right, because I've had my Slayer goodbye,
yeah and so on. But a Slayer one off headline
date somewhere again. I hadn't anticipated this, and now I'm like, hmm,
could it be.
Speaker 4: I mean, if they're playing London, I'm going to try
and get a ticket. I didn't. I never saw them
on that Farewell run.
Speaker 5: I've only have ever seen them once before on the
headline Bloodstock in twenty thirteen. So I'm like, yeah, I'll
pay for the mosy Slayer again just to sort of
like catch them again because I'm sure they'll have a
good deal.
Speaker 4: They do some of that.
Speaker 5: But yeah, curious and excited and interested, but I'm sort
of wait and see what it turns out to be.
Speaker 1: A guess.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it's just funny this whole lot, because when they
came back, it was it's it's three shows, and that's it.
We're doing three and then we're gone again four.
Speaker 3: Then that really is that that's only because of that,
it's only going to be and now it's like.
Speaker 1: And then the well shast us really nicely if we
come and play.
Speaker 3: And now we're going to support the Blackout.
Speaker 1: Slayer to start the party in twenty twenty five. Lovely stuff.
Although starting some parties will be Biffy Cairo, who have
announced I think a first ever Cornish date, apparently doing
the the Eden Sessions. The Eden it Now. I was
not a Biffy Clio fan at all really when I
lived in Cornwall, so I wouldn't have met much to
me if they've done it back then, but I do
consistently look at the Eden Sessions and go, man, where
were you when I was a teenager? But if you are,
you know, down in those those dead dead ends, then
Biffy Claro are coming your way on July the tenth,
and No Over Twins are there as the support as well.
Disturbed have announced their twenty fifth anniversary tour for The
Sickness is going to be coming around the UK and Europe.
They're going to be doing obviously big, big Arenas. They're
doing the two Arena and Megadeath are supporting them, and
it's an unreal tour when Megadeth have the moral high
ground and are the band I would feel less shitty
about going to see but they manage it.
Speaker 4: Yeah awful.
Speaker 5: So like me, you know are my feelings on Megadeth
in twenty twenty five. I look at this is going
to go like who wants to I'm and the problem
is it will sell well because they the two thousands.
Nostalgia's at a record hard.
Speaker 1: It's annoyed me because I would like to go see Megadeth,
but I don't want to see him supporting Disturbed, you know.
Speaker 6: Yeah, well, look on the bright side, they'll get to
play their super Collider song together.
Speaker 1: Now that has unearthed the memory that I again I
was not was not considering. I mean, at least it's
a good conversation for Megadeth not being on the Black
Sabbath Extravaganza. Right, they get to play with the star
of it, David Draymond. Arenas around the UK probably nicer people.
Pupil Slicer and l ll n N have announced a
UK co headline tour. You know, obviously not playing the
O two but playing some you know, some some some
cool venues up and down the country in the underworld
in London, Rebellion in Manchester that is happening in I
believe those dates say November. So I think people slices
are probably should have an album. I guess at some point, you.
Speaker 4: Know, hope, hopefully some new material to the very least.
Speaker 1: Yet Yeah, I feel like they've they've been quiet for
maybe like six to twelve months at this point, and
I guess it's because they've probably been doing something. But
you know, people's slice of activity in you know, is
a foot and I imagine that might lead to something
else and dropping something else in quite stylish fashion. There
was a story that has rocked you know, certain areas
of the kind of alternative music world this past week
because the Mars Vaulta have been out playing shows and
they did one where they just went out and played
the entirety of an unreleased album. Just which would you,
I mean, I don't know to the Mars Bottle personally,
to me mean like almost nothing, Like they're not a
band who have a particular you know, spot in my
listening at all. But I know there are like you know,
obviously really hardcore fans out there, but either for the
Mars Vault or just like any band that you are
like a fan of, how do you feel if you
went to see a band and they played not just
like oh, here's a new song or whatever, but an
entire unreleased with the Mars Vaulter, You've got to imagine
that's a fucking hour or something of material record. Like
would you be I guess it depends on how good
it'd be, obviously, but like, how would you feel?
Speaker 5: Yeah, this this would not appeal to me, Like I've
kind of gradually come around to the Mars well because
I love out the drive in and the Mars were
always kind of like when I was like I should
probably you know, try at some point, and some of
those sort of earlier records I quite like. I know
that some of the later records are kind of seen
now as quite ponderous and boring.
Speaker 4: So if this.
Speaker 5: Is like latter day Mars Volta, where it is, you know,
a bit tedious having an entire and released down with
it played that.
Speaker 4: You live, I would just be like, oh, this hospital.
Speaker 5: But again I would say that about a lot of bands, like,
you know, I'd go see if the Menzingers and they
decided to play an unreleased album live. But like, what's
the point, you know, because I like, I'm from the Men.
Speaker 4: I want to lose my voice? Yeah, how I'm gonna
lose my voice to songs I've never heard.
Speaker 1: But I guess it's worth pointing out here is that
I think I'm right in saying that the Mars Wet
have not released a new album in quite a long time. Right,
So this is two years ago? Did they fucking know.
Speaker 4: It was before that?
Speaker 1: Okay? I had completely blank through my mind that the
Mars well I had in fact reunited release the album.
That shows how invested I have been. But if we
ignore that for a moment, they've not released a ton
of new material in the last ten years, nor the material,
this actually makes it less exciting. I thought people were
freaking out because they were like, oh my god, Mars
have released their first, you know, new album in ten years,
but they've not even done that. Okay, this is rubbish.
Then we're moving on. They're gonna bookend the news actually
with WWE, apparently because there is the WWE two K
twenty five video game, which has a big old metal
and hardcore laced soundtrack architects are on there with Curse.
Gadjira are on there with Only Pain, which is like
a ten year old song at this point, but you
know it bangs, so fair enough. Baby metal and electric
core boys, Ratata, spirit Box are on their joviahl Anson
bray pack a Punch is on there, not Loose and
Poppy Suffocate.
Speaker 4: Poppy had to be on there.
Speaker 5: She's the queen of wrestle metal now she is like
ww's favorite artist exactly.
Speaker 1: There you go and Sam again. I WWE video games,
I imagine probably has a fairly sizeable demographic of people
who are into it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, no that they they the w video games. They
sell like big to that audience every year.
Speaker 1: So it mean a while since they've done one like
this with a bere very metally soundtrack.
Speaker 5: Well so normally they have like an artist curate the soundtrack.
So I think they had like Machine Gun Kelly do
one a couple of years ago and it was like
there was some rock on that, but you know it
was rock was picked by Machine Gun Kelly.
Speaker 1: So who Yeah, nice to see a bunch of I
guess you know what. You traditionally kind of imagined to
be like contemporary wrestle metal arriving on that particular soundtrack.
So yeah, quick little dose of news there for us.
The main thing we have got to talk about today
is of course our album reviews. First of all, we
should just do a little mention of the stuff that's
been going on over on the Atcenttle Patreon this, I
guess you know. This month we've been pretty busy, pretty
productive because Sam, last week we struck while the iron
is hot when it came to the Tiernan does horror
series that we do. Because beginning of February we were
talking all about the Nostra Ratu films. We had a
full you know, vampire extravaganza, and then last week we
as said, we dove right back into a similar pool.
We spoke all about the Wolfman films, inspired by the
release of the new quite long awaited Blumhouse Leewenell Wolfman.
Compared to the Nostratu thing, I said this on the show.
We were not receiving requests to do the Wolfman in
the same way because nobody saw the new Wolfman, but
I wanted to do a similar kind of history basically
that we did use the excuse to talk about something
that we otherwise may not have had the US need
to do. We haven't had yet which to talk about
like the universal monsters from the thirties and forties. And
then you know, we did speak about maybe what went
wrong with the new kind of Wolfman. But I would
particularly say, if there are any Wolfman twenty ten heads
out there, there are dozens of us. It was a
really great time getting to you know, to chart that
Wolfish history for a while.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 5: I mean, for me, the thing with this was, you know,
getting the kind of like tap like tap into the
universals or classic monster movies that that was really fine,
and actually to discover that the Twin Tin Wolfman wasn't
the disastrous kind of like like terrible movie that I've
been led to believe for all these years. But I've
just been you know in a nice little gothic horror
bubble recently, and it's all I kind of want to
watch right now, So like.
Speaker 1: Been nice, absolutely so. As I said, you know, in
the last kind of three to four weeks, I guess
we have put up two T and M does horrors.
We have a huge pile of material just you know,
within those two episodes, but we of course have a
long history of stuff to do that. I guess it's
the Oscars in like a week or two or whatever
it is, and you know, we had the substance.
Speaker 4: I'm on the substance. Ye.
Speaker 1: We did that episode over Christmas. Before that, we were
doing our Black Sabbath without Ossie special. The last thing
we did was the you know, the the Gillaen and
then Seventh Star and the beginning of the Tony Martin
years and just the absolute fucking chaos that is I
think one of the most just like fun, bizarre, what
the hell do you mean? All of this happened parts
of any band special we will ever do. We will
be coming up pretty shortly to finish off that particular
special as we go into the into the late eighties
and the early nineties and really kind of round off
like the period of Sabbath that people don't talk about enough.
So that is a lot of fun that we are
having doing that, and that you can find over on
patreon dot com slash That's not Metal. The support over
there is what has kept this podcast functioning all these years.
So it is an absolute, you know, treat to have
you guys you know, kind of help us like that
and help us along and keep us afloat. So thank
you everybody. Let's do what the bulk of this episode
is here to do, which is talk about album reviews
of some of the best, most high profile, most interesting,
hard and heavy releases to have been released over the
month of February. First of all, I guess you know
I should note today, you know, the twentieth of February.
I know there is like another notable metalcore album as
this episode goes out, that people will be talking about
the next review show. I think we're gonna have a
bit of a state of the address of like the
very contemporary metal core, because we have the likes of
you know, spirit Box and so on releasing records as well.
This time, as we look at the last couple of weeks,
we instead have it handed to us that we are
going to lead with a pair of the forefathers of
the two thousands generation of metalcore, both returning with new albums,
both bands that you know, this podcast has a long
history of talking about and diving into, and we open
with the band you know maybe most emblematic of that generation, Killswitch,
engage their new record this Consequence is also it's not
titled it, but it is also their ninth album, and
it marks now a decade having passed since the return
of Jesse Leach to Killswitch Engage vocals, which so rejuvenated
this band more than ten years ago. So it's the
first time ever they've released four records in a row
with one singer. There's a fun fact for you. It's
the third album, if you like, of the post Disarm
the Descent era, because if that record is the last
really you know, universally regarded absolute classic this band have
released when Jesse first came back. The three albums that
have been released since have marked out maybe what Killswitch
Engage really is in the modern era. This one's been
quite long in the tank. We had, you know, times
of grapes return in between this album and the last
kill Switch, which itself feels like a good old while
ago six years since the release of Atonement in the
pre COVID era, kill Switch kind of feel like a
man who just take a long time now, like you know,
whether it's Jesse just getting himself into the headspace to
write or whatever. Four years ago we did as part
of our series of Mega Deep dive specials on the
that's not Patreon like the Black Sabbath one. I was
just talking about a Killswitch engaged one. And it's been
a long time now since that. It also comes off
the back of them headlining Bloodstock for the first time,
which was a really great show I can attest to.
But to take us back when we did that band
special covering everything up to that point, one of my
main takeaways from that special was realizing that Atonement next
to Incarnate, of those two albums they released after the
Sun and Descent. We came away from that special talking
actually about how much better Atonement was of those like
latter two twenty tens albums.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think like Incarnate to me still the kind
of embodoment of like two great singles and then I
would I don't ever feel the need to listen to
anything else off the album. Atonement was just you know,
kind of like a nice, fairly consistent sort of helping
of Kills to Gauge doing what they do and me
liking it. It wasn't you know, set in the Mold
on Fire for the most part, outside of again certainly singles,
but it was you know, a nice sort of like
just tozy record to me Atonement these days, Like.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it suffered from being the second not quite classic
kill Switch Engage album in a row of people kind
of coming back down to earth after the high of
Disarmed Descent. But when in Karna a couple of those
standout singles you're saying aside, was like genuinely like a
more disappointing album Atonement. If you play it right after Incarna,
it's clearly a much more satisfying product. It's got great highs,
it's got a good variety in the track list. I
really appreciated how in that you know realization where we
did that special And I think if we look at
the Jesse Return era, there are maybe three tiers of
quality that emerged then on those twenty tens albums. You've
got Disarmed Descent as the highest tier, the kind which
you know maybe is the one we're not putting all
of our eggs in that busket of them coming out
with something like that. Again, we have in Karna as
the lowest tier of like it's got hated by design
on it, which is better than nothing, but it's a
bit wetter as an album than we'd really want Atonement
kind of occupies a comfortable middle tier of something that
is actually, you know, pretty good. The reception for this
consequence has been what you'd maybe call kind of reservedly warm,
like no one's really being able to bring themselves to
kind of do the full exaggerated like return to disarmored
descent thing that people have to do bands. But there's
been a sort of quiet appreciation for this and maybe
perhaps just being a little little rower than they've been
in a minute. I think you put this consequence comfortably
on that middle tier that I was describing, like whether
you would say it's better than a tonement or not,
it's that second category of like not necessarily a real
moment for them, but pretty good and likable. We on
the same page.
Speaker 5: I think with kill Stitch in general, their entire catalog
splits into three tiers of like the classics, the kind
of like that middle tier out of a tone, and
I would put you know, the Debut and as do
like Dies in that sort of middle tier, maybe as
kind of like the really good amms I like a lot,
and then second self titled Incarnate at the sort the bottom.
Speaker 4: So I think they've always sort of had that, And yes,
I would agree.
Speaker 5: I would put this consequence comfortably in that sort of
middle tier of like I really like this kill Stitch
Engage album. It's not going to set the world on fire,
but I just think it's a very good metical record.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Elliott, that special was so long ago that you
weren't actually with us as part of that, So I guess,
you know, just to clear out what what's your kind
of attachment if you have one to witch Gage.
Speaker 3: I really like the classic material.
Speaker 6: Obviously a live were just breathing and heartache, I would say, obviously,
like you two Disarmed the Descent, that's the sort of
holy trinity. I know a lot of people rag on
the second self titled record. I think that's quite okay.
I don't actually think that album is any worse than
Certainly Incarnate, and I think Atonement is only marginally better,
to be honest, Like, just to focus on the last
couple of kill Switch records, those really sounds to me
like a band kind of not just running out of ideas,
but sort of running out of steam, running out of songs,
and arriving at this record. I hoped that with the
time away, either they'd come back and do something that
would really turn people's heads and kind of change the
formula up a bit, because it started to feel a
bit like certainly on Atonement, that it was against like
into tread Ward's sort of moving circles.
Speaker 1: Listen to this.
Speaker 6: I think I would say the alum is probably above Atonement.
I would put it not a full tier above Atonement,
but slightly better. But it's still for me, quite a
way away from the great kill Switch material.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I think that's you know, ultimately fair
in terms of this is not trouble in the high
end really of what they do. And I think maybe Kills,
which are a band where they have fans who are
kind of only really interested in them, like at their best,
and then there are the fans who have like you know,
really kind of been with them through thick and feling
kind of you know, we'll we'll take the sort of
the more you know, sort of reliably decent records, which
is where ultimately again this I would say Atonement kind
of fit. I think we have a tendency to almost
underestimate Kills which engage these days of kind of when
we did that news episode a while ago where they
we had like a bunch of metalcore singles, all released
at once for some reason, and the one that we
came away being like that one was good was forever
lined from Killswitch Engage. And I came at this kind
of not wanting to like overestimate its quality and make
it out to be more dramatic in improvement or where
they've been or whatever than it is, but also not
wanting to do them dirty and dismiss you know, the
kind of the kill Switch touch that I do think
they consistently kind of put in there. There is a
balance to be struck there of you know, infusing and
you know, the album being thirty five minutes for a start.
I mean, like you look at Incarnate and that's nearly
forty five minutes. It's quite a bit of stodge on
that record. And you know, even if it has been
you know, six years between them, I think having a
more kind of like hardcore type brevity of album was
probably a good choice because even if I don't think
every song on this is like consistently batting at their
highest level, there's not really a point in this album
where I, like I get bored and I'm itching to
turn it off, you know, And I think if there's
a narrative to this album, which you know can be
hard to find at this stage for a band like
Killswitch Engage. But they've been talking about how there's almost
more of like a slightly hardcore attitude of like tracking
it live together in a stuff, And I would say
there maybe is a there's a certain spontaneity to moments
of it that maybe kill Switch at their lowest points
have been missing.
Speaker 4: Yeah, no, I'd agree with that.
Speaker 5: I like, I mean, I think the sound of the
album is probably gonna be one of those things that
gets kind of like discussed.
Speaker 4: I love it. I'm down for kill.
Speaker 5: Switch kind of tapping into a sort of raw hardcore
sound For me, the new kill Stitch album, it's always
going to be a moment of like new kill Switch.
Speaker 4: I love it.
Speaker 5: It's my favorite thing because I'm just like I at
the best. I adore this band. It might be one
of my favorite sounds the band can make. Is like
Pete kill Switch. There's always with the new album. I
do kind of get swept up in the I'm hitting
planning the new kills Subum. I'm gonna love it and
it's kind of like okay, a couple of weeks later,
a couple months there, how do I feel? And this
would have been I've had it for a couple of
weeks now, like so I'm kind of a point now
where I've I've sort of well like did did that
initial rush of like hitting Planel nu kills will be
like yeah, new kill Switch sustained And I think this
has sustained longer than that rush has on the last
two I think the fact that you like thirty five minutes,
I don't get bored of this because I'm just like
it's on.
Speaker 4: I'm just going with them, Like, I mean.
Speaker 5: There's there's kind of like no real low points it
out for me because it's just really to the point.
Maybe again it doesn't consistently bad at like the highest highs,
but I do think like the high points are really
I some are like legitimately gray, I think for ever
aligned that song that was one I've been listening to
loads since it came out, but it just it never
really dips me either. I think it just kind of
consistently hits something I have a very good time listening to.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean that kind of touches on what I'm
feeling as well. Because with this record, I don't know
if the songwriting is necessarily any better than it was
an Atonement, let's say, but I'm just more more impressed
by the sensation of it. And I know some people
have complained about the mix and the sound of it.
I quite like it. It's kind of a lot more rattically,
a bit more light footed, and not not really as punching,
weighty and metallic as kill Switch often are. But I
think it's nice to have a pacier, more attic kill Switch,
you know.
Speaker 3: On this record.
Speaker 1: And I said, let's not say the songwriting is bad
per se, sort I think there were some really strong
songs on this record, but I think it does make
up maybe for the slightly less anthemic songwriting that we've
found on the last couple of records. Yeah, I think
not to say it is of the same quality, because
I do not believe that before anyone you know, jumps
on it. But I think in terms of approach of
the style of songs they're writing, I think this maybe
is a little bit more similar to Disarmles's Descent than
the kind of other two because it is quite punchy,
you know, short to the point, and it is you know,
it has that kind of light footedness that you're talking about.
There's quite a lot of slightly more extreme leaning songs
they you know, switch up the tempos a good bit
in terms of those like you know, just turned from
one thing into another, and you know it starts kind
of no mucking about straight into like a really rowdy
kilsehch engage riff on abandon Us, which I think is
a you know, really cool kind of start in terms
of it slightly throws you about with the timing of
it at the beginning before then settling into that just
like really pale to the Nettle stomp one of the
records more immediate choruses like really good to just kind
of get you into the record straight away, and you
can feel, I think they're Jesse's ability to just like fully,
you know, let you into his heart with a melody
very on display. There You've got a good little opening
run of Discordant Nation, very again similar to the Call
from Desalmon Descent where it has that like the Jesse
melody over the blast really kind of almost took me
back like a decade there and then particularly for me,
I think Aftermath at track three is one of my
probably one of my favorite kill Fit songs of the
last you Know again, the post Desimon Descent era. I
think that that chorus of you know, the kind of
really from the aftermath is really impassioned. And I don't
know if that's a I don't know, a reflection on
the sort of COVID years whatever that's happened since their
last album, but I think that's a vocal on there
where it just it feels like Jesse cares, you know,
it just like needs you to kind of feel what
he's getting across there, and I think that is something
that really marks out, you know, Killswitch kind of when
they are able to really get it going.
Speaker 5: I mean I almost always get that thing from Jesse
as a vocalist. I'm just he's one of those I
will just hand out the words. And I think I
think the opening run this album is like legitimately great.
I think abandon Us like that that sort of like
classic kilterge to Gay, just big a band in us
chorus with that melodic lifting the guitars, you know, like
a little bit of like a key change bit towards
the end of.
Speaker 4: It sounds huge.
Speaker 5: Discordingate is kind of like raggedy almost like crusty nasty
kill Switch with the blast beats, but again with a
big melody going off of it, and and Art of
Us has this kind of like really just raw sincerity.
I think that just serves really nicely in the sound.
I think they're like that fruit for Everlind and even
I believe it's just kind of like this like great
run of like, oh, this is everything I want from
Kills to Gage. It's giving me big choruses, It's given
me a kind of like emotional sincerity, and like bits
are like really quite surprisingly heavy and how hard they
can go, but with a kind of like a hardcore
kind of just like brevity and battering kind of onslot,
and it all just like just ticks all the boxes
for me.
Speaker 6: I think Jesse really steps upon this record compared to
the last couple like Kills, with some riffs which are
sort of iconic for their ear and that sort of thing.
But one of the reasons that I think they got
so popular is they at their best had like the
best frontman in the scenes, the person who could connect
with the with the major audiences, and as I'll say,
Jesse I think has been lacking necessarily in the last
couple of records, but it's been slightly more maybe like
Lumpen and Lethargic, and I've not I've found his lyricism
to be slightly lacking there here is, as far as
I can tell, like much more on form. Like the
quality of courses on this record for me, is way
better than it has been, and that to me makes
all the difference. Like this record, the moments which still
stick out to me now are the ones that Jesse
sort of brings to the table.
Speaker 1: Yeah, which, like I said, that aftermath chorus in particular,
I think is really Jesse kind of hitting at that
higher levels. I think that one is really really strong,
really tastes will kind of add and vocal that I
like as well. That comes out thought the outro at
that moment like gets me. I think, you know, you
both mentioned the mix a little bit. I think for
me it need more low end. I think is what
the kind of the little you know, the nitpicky thing
is it kind of it's it sounds overall okay, right,
But for me, if I'm going to make the stomp
sections really able to kind of cave your head in,
I think that's sort of the lower end and the
bass guitar is very clean, and I just think it
needs to be a little bit more kind of dirty
at the lower end. But like you know, the Adam
d guitar tome is there, and I think the standout
that gets over that kind of heaviness Hill was the
one that we heard first because forever aligned, that riff
recks the place in a way that you know, kill
Switch maybe haven't hit so often since I mean, I guess,
you know, even like a live or just breathing, you know,
because that is a real, like legitimate down tuned hardcore
at the start, and the unrelenting rhythm in that verse
is like if you fucking go on kill which engage
you know, and it's got those you know, we pointed
out those like old school fixation on the darkness style
sort of yells that Jesse does in the in the
pre chorus, So that's very much there. But then what
tops that song off is like an almost unexpectedly top
draw chorus, like you could imagine that song being just
slightly more than the you know, the thug song in
the track list, but the way they end up, like
you know, making it kind of fly rather than the
derailing it into a stodgy clan chorus or something. It
feels like, you know that the savvy songwriting trick that
Killswitch can do that A lot of their you know
kind of successors never quite pulled off the ability to
make both elements work there, and again, particularly I think
the run at the start, the likes of abandon Us
after Math, and particularly that song, they pull off that
trick in a way that I do find again Eli
used the word light footed before that kind of just
like that that effortlessness of how it works I think
is more there maybe than again the lowest lows of
Killswitch's career.
Speaker 5: I just think it's a lost art in metalcore for
so many bars of pulling off or something that like
like Foreverlyne is that opening intro, that that first riff,
that verse is so hard and it and that makes
the course better coming out of it because it's like
making miracles. The courses always worked best when they've come
out something so heavy, because it's that contrast. It is
that shifting mood and when you can just saw off
like that that kills wage at their best can it
is is magic to me, and it is one of
those sounds that I will never ever tire of, and
I think so few bands right now are able to
do that to any sort level, even bands who once
could have kind of lost the magic for it, like
sort of modern contemporary Mecal bands that that could do that,
they they seem to have gone to know because they're
writing the most kind of like dour mainstream choruses.
Speaker 4: And kill Switch.
Speaker 5: There's nothing kind of dow or downcast about these choruses.
They are big, soaring anthems that just happens to come
out of like fist swinging like hardcore verse parts, and
I think it just it sounds great and it is
Thomas and again like the sort the tapping guitar melodies
in that chorus that just kind of like lift it
up even more. It is such a like it's a
sound that I were just hanging off of because it
just it's sounds incredible to me, and I think we
need more of it, and we just few Sophie bands
in this sort of sphere I want to do this now.
Speaker 6: I mean, my favorite example of that is the song
that I haven't really seen anyone discuss, and it's The
Fall of Us, which comes in the second half that
a lot of people seem to have overlooked that to
me might be the best chorus on the album. But
like you say, something, the way the song rattles along
and how ferocious it sounds when it does go heavy,
it's that juxtaposition that makes it pop because it's the
closest to extreme metal that I think He'll Switch have
sounded since The Son of the sound like some of
the vocals there. It doesn't even sound like Jesse. It
sounds some full on extreme metal vocalist. And like you said,
it reminds you of why that juxtaposition of clean and
harsh vocals, soaring sections, and just pure filth, why that
works so well and was so popular for so long
when it's done properly, because both aspects are so much
more satisfying and put next to each other. And I
think that song, like you're saying, pound about like Forever
after My being one of your favorite songs of the
poster a song, I think this is as good as
anything they've done since that record.
Speaker 1: Well, The Fall of Us has a riff in it
that I swear sounds like nil, like the highest pure definite,
like the high kind of techie definital tremlo barsro in
the beginning of the song, it's it's peeling out of
the catacombs of deafron Car. You know that did.
Speaker 5: And I like that, and then right, I mean, we know,
obviously Adam has always been a huge sort of death Jesse.
Speaker 1: As well, they're in on it, and you know and
and and Mike as well, but like, you know, the
legit kind of tech deathie nil riff there collusion after
that is probably as ignorant as like modern Kills, which
can get because that has like a suffocation style breakdown.
And that was the one where I was like, you know,
is that a guest vocalist, But I don't think they
need one. It's just Jesse can do just kind of
that sort of death meat of vocal. I think maybe
that song is slightly more lump and compared to like
the faster approach on you know, the Fall of Us.
But I think the kind of you know, the exoticized
again death metal tremolo and the thrash in the Fall
of Us really like kind of tears you a new one.
The chorus on that one has very much if another
time I mentioned remind me of the call that one
kind of gave me a bit of like the hell
in me flashback from the sum because again it's that
like the way they send Jesse over the top on
a blast like that, It's a flavor that again, a
lot of their successes are a little scared really embrace. I
think all of this is again maybe slightly tempered by
while they they draw on those rifts and they play
those rifts, again, the delivery in the kind of the
studio maybe is not as like, you know, frenzied and
like razor barbed and as heavy as kind of their
their influences, which is maybe slightly kind of holding people
got back from and go like, oh my god, you
know Kills, which have made a fucking extreme metal record
or anything like that. But I do think that those
turns of pace and those ability to flip between mode
and like, you know, we don't think of Kills which
as being like the most dynamic of bands, but their
ability to flip between one mode and another is kind
of what made them, you know, arguably the great at
this particular melodic kind of style of metalcore songs that
you know kind of veer away from that approach into
something else, you know, I believe is maybe the more
kind of like they always have one per album that's
the more kind of purely radio rock song they get
like always on this arm of the sent Yeah, normally
they're not my favorites you know, on the record, but
it's it's perfectly nice, you know, it's it's inspirational, you know,
for for for for believing, I'm not having a bad time.
Speaker 5: I mean again that that US radio rock sound is
something I've ranged a lot. I'm fine with kils Is
doing it because they eat like it's just doing it
as a vocalist. He has so much more conviction passion,
and he's so much more believable as a vocalist, and
like that that's song to me, I'm fine with that
because like I'm cool with a sort of a big
emotional kind of like mid tempo ballad and they don't
do it too much. It's that one yeah on that
song on the album, in the middle of this kind
of killer opening and it's cool. And then you get
a run of like the like the hardest songs on
the record where you go where it does collusion for
all of us, Like cool, fine with that.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean I basically all the same. I think
the song's okay. I say, I'm sort of glad there's
only one song of the record that's like that. But
I mean part of me thinks the facts I almost
forgets it happened, and in a good way.
Speaker 3: I kind of go, well, we're.
Speaker 6: Back to the heavy stuff afterwards. You think, if that's
the big radio song and the benefits, I've forgotten it
was on the.
Speaker 3: Red that's idea.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but I almost you as as not being the
target demographic for it, Like we're the people who are
going to go mad when they're doing Nile Riff, whereas
the people again.
Speaker 5: I do land in the kind of like the middle,
and I'm well, I'm totally on board with all of it.
Speaker 4: I think I believe it's great.
Speaker 5: I think for all of us where they are just
like going absolutely filthy and doing bending notes on the
breakdown to make it sound even heavier, I'm down with
it all.
Speaker 1: Yeah, But actually, you know, we're going to get inside
about that stuff. You know, the people out there who
have got you know, kilt gauge on their their gym
playlists or whatever. You know, I believe he's going to
get them through that. And that's good too. They're going
to have that, you know, as kind of appeasing every
demographic that they've got there. And you know, just going
back to you're talking about Jesse being kind of, you know,
a highlight on this record. He seems to have unlocked
this like slightly higher Ruspier scream on the last couple
of albums. That really gives it the kind of like
intensity at points, and you hear it on like the
you know, the kind of the the final we are
aligned in forever aligned even in I believe when you're
doing they keep the faith. It like it really you know,
it kind of makes your hairs stand up, and that's great.
The couple ending songs passed, I think the Fall of
Us in the track list duck a little bit more
to slightly more you know, kind of forgettable kill gay
territory for me, even if Broken Glass is almost like
them going for like Crowbar or something proving.
Speaker 5: Like I quite like, I quite like Broken Glass that
kind of like swinging grooves or things. It's not not
the best thing now, and I think the last two
are probably the weakest part of the record, but it's
a it's a cool kind of like shift.
Speaker 1: It's it's like a nollary sludge song with like a
droney Alison Chain's vocal as well, And again I don't
think maybe with the the tone and the mix and
everything that they usually have, like you know, Kills, which
they're not an atmospheric or bluesy band, you know, which
I think is what normally ends up being the Achilles
heel for bands who try and do you know, we're
going to be fucking swamp thing for an afternoon. But again,
it's not bad. The last song perfectly okay closer, but
I don't think there's any song in here that really
brings things to like it again, like a crushing halt
or anything. I think it's ten tracks, six or seven
of them, in my eyes, are like pretty strong.
Speaker 5: Yeah, No, I would say, like most of the album
I think is pretty great. I get if people aren't
gonna be totally on board of it, but I just
I kind of a bad time with any moment of
this record. I'm just so like, again, it's just hearing
Midlecord that does this done to a good standard, I like,
and due to a good standard at its worst, Like
this worst album is a good Midalk album at its best,
I think it's a really great one that is more
than enough of me at this point from like a
band in the sort of the stage of their career
at that Kilstuch Engage rat like I'll take it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I sort of feel similar to this record how
I felt about that Lamb of God record when we
reviewed it years ago, Like it's a better album from
where they were, one that benefits from being something less
sluggish than its predecessors. It's not a classic, but I'm
actually more excited about the next record for this one existing,
and that's purely off the strength of this one, which
I think is a success. Like, you know, if I'm
not expecting brilliance, it's nice to have a record that's
moving in the right direction. Yeah, I think, you know,
Aftermath and Forever Aligned, you're throwing up the Fall of
Us and stuff as well. I think at the upper
end of the Killswitch Engage songs released in the last decade,
and you know, I wouldn't imagine this is going to
end up being one of the standout metal albums of
the year, you know, but it's it's a fine work,
I think, And I think if we had that dip below,
like what we would kind of comfortably like Killswitch Engage
to be at when we had in Karna. In my eyes,
this and Atonement again whichever one you prefer, but the
two of those together have been like more. Yeah, that's
just kind of like a happy, engaged Killswitch Engage doing
what they do, and I think there are you know,
a few really strong highlights in it. If not necessarily
if you're looking to kills Engage to write the standout
metal records of twenty twenty five, I think those days
have probably part. But if you're still with them, there
are some you know, some treats to be had. There's
a nile riff, you know, and as better than nothing.
So this consequence by kill Switch Engage is out. But
talking about metalcore bands of this generation maybe tapping into
a bit of the violence of their older days when
you talk about bleeding through, because this is not some
like oh they've got They've put a bit of the
pace back in, almost like patronizing praise. This is like
the two thousand metal core equivalent of when Cannibal Corps
come out with a new album and you go, fucking
Jesus bleeding through. His new album nine, released on Valentine's Day,
How lovely this is. It's a great co lead review
with the new kill Switch, because it's not only another
metalcore band of that same generation, but it's another band
we're very passionate about. I like to think we're maybe
the Internet's primary Bleeding Through historians, because I don't know
if anyone else has done what we did, which is
like a seven hour retrospective of the whole career and
creative evolution of a band like Bleeding Through, who historically
have often gone overlooked. They might not always be put
on the same level as the Kills which engage, but
they bloody well are to us.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean Bleeding Through on those bands I think
are so like ything.
Speaker 4: And the thing is is they are solidly one of the.
Speaker 5: Most important bands on the current state of a lot
of modern death core and metal cores, and they've just
kind of gone unsung for it. You know, you don't
have like most of some whites, whole stick has always
just been ripping off.
Speaker 4: Bleeding Through.
Speaker 5: They are on those bands that are just like the
unsung heroes of the noises metal cores, and I'm glad
we at least we are kind of way like flying
the Flag being like Bleeding Through our fucking great evon
sort of get on our level, right.
Speaker 6: I mean, they're what are the great discoveries that I've
made through doing this show, and the worse and worse
like modern metal core gets as the years go by,
the more.
Speaker 3: And more I appreciate them.
Speaker 6: Like when you hear like like bad Omens and stuff
like that and you go back to like this is love,
this is murder, you're, oh, that's more like it. And
so for me that the first time a Bleeding Through
record coming out in my time as being a fan, Yeah,
it being this one, that's all right.
Speaker 1: I was excited to talk about that. Yeah, it's been
even longer than the Tank. Actually, seven years since the
release of Leaning Through's comeback album after the hiatus, Love
Will Kill All, in twenty eighteen, makes this actually longer
coming than they were broken up in the first place,
although you can imagine that, you know, COVID has much
to do with that whatever, but that's that's you know interesting.
Bleeding Through being back in general has been a joy,
hasn't it? Because Love Will Kill All again, we had
a big love in about it when we did our
special and we ended off the story at that point there.
It's absolutely like, you know, their disarveed descent for a
band kind of having a second win, knocking what they
do out of the park. It's just on a much
more cult level, because that's what Bleeding Through are. They
have a dedicated, fanatical portion of the metal audience that
is theirs. They've played two shows in the UK in
that time, and at least in the form of me
and Sam, you know, the three of us are another one,
but we have been at both and you get from
just their gusto on stage, like how all or nothing
passion this band just seems to be for them. There's
it's not a job for them. It's not you know,
a kind of a contractual obligation, you know, obligation I
must give a I had some nerves about this album
kind of over the couple of years that it's kind
of been building up to it, because it's it's been
so long now since the rush of like the Bleeding
film Comeback, you know, and our little group of like
mined friends getting so excited about the lovel kill all
teasers and so on, and we've had for what felt
like a bit of a protracted period after COVID drip
fed bits.
Speaker 5: Of music like Rage and Yeah, a series of like
singles and EPs remastered tracks off of This Is Last.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it was it was a kind of like quite.
Speaker 5: I was like, come on, give give me more, give
me something, and like I like some of those singles,
but they weren't. It felt kind of like they weren't
at that level of level kill all.
Speaker 4: So it's kind of bit. I was like, Oh, how's
the kind of like holy.
Speaker 5: Shippling through moment kind of been and gone and now
they're kind of selling into a sort of a comfortable position.
Speaker 4: So it was curious with this album.
Speaker 1: Precisely what I felt. Some of those singles are on
this album, Some like like you know, the Rage GP
they did you know, are not and like I didn't
feel quite as excited by those as I wanted to
be by Bleeding Through and you know, Rage as for example,
as the kind of lead off track from that EP
they did. It's good track. I like it, but it's
not the standard of Love Will Kill All. And the
following couple of singles that we got that are actually
on this album. Initially I didn't connect with them too
strongly and I worried that. You know, for one thing,
their last two albums have been made with Mick Kenny
from a Now on the Thrack in the studio producing,
but the same thing that's put an now the Thrack
on creative hiatus, Mick Kenny getting insanely massive and like
actually real music industry popular with his is edm cord
Heale project. It's also removed him from the Bleeding Through studio.
He does not produce this record. It's also the last
album that featured longtime member Ryan Wanbacker on bass. He's
been absent from the stage for a while now, and
he announced after the release of this that he's stepping
back permanently. I didn't put it in the news last
week because we're talking about it here, but executor of
maybe the finest music video spin kick of all time
on the Love Lots and Ahilo Gunfire a breakdown. Respect
salute for that, But you know, there were elements of
the delivery on some of those advanced singles they just
didn't fully gail with me. And I don't know if
the versions on the album are souped up from what
was put out there, or if just the experience of
getting an album as a whole, as sort of you know,
and not just a little bite to sort of smooth
it out for me. But I am elated to say
Bleeding Through they're still the best. They're still the hardest
bad of their generation. I have been having such a
fucking good time with this record.
Speaker 5: I had just like when I put this on and
a hip plane, I was just like the smiled at
my face when it starts with a fucking sermon. Yes,
like Bleeding Through, Kings of opening their band with six
aren't completely this Like this isn't quite you know Willem Dafoe.
There was a firefight, but that ceremony, some of that
opens gallows.
Speaker 4: I was like, those who oppose us, it's cool. And
then that.
Speaker 5: Blast of just like gothic black and melkcore that just
kind of like comes out of you. With the way
this album starts, I was like, ah, fucking no one's
doing it like Bleeding Through. They are like even again
in the sort of like the classics or of metal
coalpping I love. They just have have the thing to
me with that when they're at their best, which I
think on this album is pretty much the majority of
it is them really.
Speaker 4: Firing on all cylinders either.
Speaker 5: This album is fantastic and I just have a great
time from start to finish, even more so than the
kill Stitch album, like which again, like I really do,
like I fucking love this album.
Speaker 6: Oh this We were all pretty positive by that kill
Switch record. This lapse it so hard for me, Like
I mean, I to us, I share the thing you
were saying earlier, paring about like that some of the
advance things not being so sure about. I'm pticuarly on
our brand is chaos, which I remember when I came out,
just thinking this is a.
Speaker 3: Bit I don't know.
Speaker 6: When I saw it was tracked too, I thought, I
don't know if it's gonna I'm not am I gonna
be convinced By then, Literally all I needed to hear
was Gallows And by the time that comes in, I go,
let's say what you want is this record is so
at it and ferocious, Like I'm not even sure this
is a metal core record, Like this just feels like
a basically thoroughbred fucking metal record to me, Like it's
so it might be the most metal thing they've done
outside of like Declaration.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, if you don't know bleeding Through. They
are basically the necrotic metalcore band, like they have long
carved out a niche and flavor for themselves of metal
core that is draped in the macabre, drawing tones from
black metal and from goth and that's what kind of
makes them so delectable. But they do also come I
think with this particular confrontational, no bones about it, take
it or leave it sort of aggression that again you
get in a fucking saramund sample, you get in that
kind of track that you're you're talking about there, Gallows
is a kind of generic like I've definitely heard that
riff before, but it gets me so excited hearing it,
and it just sounds cruel in a way that most
bands playing that don't, which is the thing with Bleeding Through.
It's not just heavy, it's kind of vicious and sadistic,
and it's I mean that it's lost. The thing that's
some you know, their last two records, the Great Fire
and Level Kill, all had which is riffs that sound
really like a now on the thrack because of mc
kenny being heavily involved in the making of those. But
you've got here this kind of maximalist car compactor of
a sound I mean this album. Maybe it's the very
similar layout of the album cover that's putting it in
my mind, but the way you hear like the last
Knock Loose album and it's like about as over the
top heavy you can imagine the tone of like a
hardcore album like that being this has a bit of
that for that sort of two thousand's metal cores like
it's unrelentingly bowel busting, and there are times on this
record when they hit a burst of pace and it
is genuinely kind of awe inspiring in a way that
most bands like wish their metal was the fuck it
the wind up for like the first twenty seconds of
Dead but So Alive and then it just goes and
the keys are going crazy in this like high pitch,
like this wide eyed panic to it legitimately made me
think of acid, which also like kind of like Halloween,
you know, like Goblins and Ghoules tone on, but the
absolute just pedal to the metal carnage of like flying It,
you know we're talking about you know, the fall of
Us on Kill such with the Nile riff and stuff.
You know, great, it would be the weakest track on
this record. This thing is so just like teeth gnawingly
frenzied fucking rabbit, I.
Speaker 4: Mean devs like that.
Speaker 5: We'll talk about again that that thing of like the
chorus coming that's something stricting because that verse is so
frantic and fastest and extreme and like those like Keys
going absolutely like mento over it, and then you get
that chorus which is like downcast and gothic and gloomy,
but it saws coming out of it because again it
just that switch goes off and it's like a kind
of momentous bleeding through chorus like when you're getting martyr
or like doing the backing vocals on it, and that
draoling vocal bit towards the end. It just is so
propulsive and exactly and there's so much that across this album,
where this is like one of the most maximums sort
of bleeding through albums. I think just every element of
it is just kind of dared up to the max.
Our brand is chaos being the most kind of like fuggish,
this swinging beat down track, whether that chorus is just
fuck with us and find out then you're getting that
well again, the Keys going absolutely mental is such a
fun contrast that like should have worked, but it sounds
so fucking good.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, just go to a debit so alive.
That was one of the songs that released as a
single I wasn't sure about and I think I was
maybe like second guessing the vocal production on the chorus
or something. But the turnaround I've made I love that
chorus now and it's got that Baritoni goth edge. The
only Brandon really brings to like this style of medical
choruses and is like, you know, it's a motive. Our
brand is chaos. Just to I know exactly where you're
coming from, Elliot when you said like when you first
heard that song, because I felt similarly. I think Bleeding Through.
I mean you think about fucking like BT twenty eighteen
starting you know, no Friends on the last one. Yeah,
they you know, they made like the ultimate necro gym
metal song. They have this tendency to do quite bone
headed obnoxious songs, which is like, again it's almost a
odds with like the flowery romantic side they do, but
they do have that thing in them. I mean you
go back to you know, the truth just starts with
like oh I don't give a fuck, Like they skirt
subtlety quite a lot when it comes to just clobbering
on you. And for me, it's the way we've said
this about slip Knot. It flirts with what, in the
hands of many bands would be cringe, and you look
at that and you objectively almost go like, oh, you know,
that should be cringe. But it's like you have to
put your money where your mouth is, and when you
play it like a motherfucker, then it it, you know,
it transcends that and just becomes hard as hell. And
that is again the Bleeding Through trick that again only
like a Slipknot, I think have kind of done in
quite the same way because the riff is the right
level of obnoxious and the fact that it has just
funeral church organs accenting that riff, which is the thing
that makes Bleeding Through is more basic riffs pop because
they're backed with like summoning the demons of hell kind
of flavor to them.
Speaker 5: It's a bit that stopped our branders chaos being in
a mule song, yeah, because that kind of just like
slamming breakdown. He riffed with plus and find out that's
a mule That is what I'm your trade on, like,
but when Bleeding Through, you can like decorate it with
these like grandiose organs and keys that kind of give
you the perfect balance of pure like boneheaded muscular ignorance
and gothic spookiness. Like it sounds great and you get
that break down with that big kind of just.
Speaker 1: Like guttle Despised Icon bit yeah almost pig squeal.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, so good.
Speaker 6: I mean, one of my favorite things about this band
is every time we talk about the reference points that
come up, because just in the last minutes we've said
in Mure and Despised Icon. But when I was when
I was I started writing numb bands in the mind,
it's like dead but so alive. It sounds like strapping
young lad and maybe think of that hail destruction. It's
the most haunted house Bleeding Through song in forever.
Speaker 3: It sounds like carrak Agrin.
Speaker 6: But yeah, that was probably better. And then Emery like,
I don't I haven't thought about this band in a decade.
I was like, this sounds like if Draconian had beatdowns.
Oh my god, this is It's not something I was
in the market for. But it's fucking brilliant and it's
like most metal core bands, we might get excited to go,
oh they've put some Iron Maiden leads in here, and
now it's like no, this is everything from like new
metal death cores to symphonic fantasy black metal, and it's
all folded and mixed and it all makes sense.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, well you speak speaking of the leads.
There is the leads jumped out on me on this record,
actually maybe more than some other Bleeding Through records. And
I don't know if it's the new guitarist that they've
been playing with the last few years, whether he's like
to get involved with this record or something, but the
leads jumped out on this, and not in that kind
of Iron Maiden way. There are leads on this that
sound like Naughty's Tech Death, like the Faceless, like that
really kind of alien, tappy like strange.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 1: There's one in Our Brand and Chaos that's like that
Lost in Isolation has some end of held structure as
like a full on fucking war abuse thing. And the
solos on this record they they feel expressive to me,
but not in like a swap one in, swap one
out way, like they feel like, you know, they've really
thought about what kind of lead would fit the tone
of each particular chorus.
Speaker 5: I mean, the solo on Lost in Isolation is one
that that really propels the song nicely. In the middle,
that song is like fucking great, like while I taking
the sort of more of a lead on the sort
of the vocals that cold embrace or deadly grasp, like
hell yeah, this is peak goth.
Speaker 4: It rocks. And then like I say, it just goes into.
Speaker 5: This chorus and you just kind of like that energy
just kind of finds a new level. And I think
that's the one where they do on this album is
they always kind of find new ways to kind of go, Okay,
we've done like either this blast or this like kind
of be down a bit for so long. Now let's
switch it up. Let's let's up the gothness or up
the metal. Let's go melodic hardcore for one bit, like
all kind of like all these different things I'll pull
on to just keep it really interesting and kind of
not one note.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean the record is largely just kind of
all violence, go go go, but it has different strokes
of the brush on it. Just what I was saying
about the guitar leads is also true. For the keyboards,
which they don't just kind of slap one generic layer
of like you know, spooky symphonic black metal keyboard or
whatever over it. Sometimes they're you know Church organs. Sometimes
they're a little bit more sort of strings, you know,
Cradle of Filth like. Sometimes they're just those ballistic, frenzied
things that we were talking about before, you know, kind
of harkening back to like the you know, the famous
siren in The Love Loss and the hail of gunfire breakdown. Sometimes,
like in part of Her Disease is a really tasteful,
spooky piano line. So there's dexterity there. And the way
they've promoted Marta up to like almost a co vocalist
on this album. I didn't see that coming, right, because
she's done the odd backing vocal again like on the
last album. But you know, she's been in the band
for twenty years at this point, and now on their
ninth album, they've gone, oh yeah, what if we, like,
you know, bring forward this weapon that we have in
our arsenal like a little bit more. It's the kind
of mix up an approach that you rarely actually see
from a band of their kind of ILK and and
style like at this point being like, yeah, we're gonna
just like fully bring this element out too the four
and she has moments that just makes me like punch
the air on it. The final chorus you were talking
about Sam when she's doing the lab or Dead but
So Alive.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that makes that song for me absolutely. I mean
that so incredible.
Speaker 5: I think, like I Am Resistance like No Part five Disease,
where like they give her more of those vocal leads.
I think such a great call in making that song
stand up more because like, like well them lots but
Bluefood do have a kind of like a transisted sound
of like what you expect from them, particularly with Brandon's vocals,
you know, like he has that kind of like baritone,
sort of clean vocal.
Speaker 4: All those just the most attic scream you're ever gonna get.
Speaker 5: But when you are like mixing in like Martin's like
cleans and like, they sound great, like and they put
you on the more gothic moments, they're such a like
added sort of like texture to it that makes it
so much more interesting and a really cool choice to
make on this album.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, like on Lost in Isolation, her and
Brandon had that almost like your kind of like goth
duet thing, which just really works, and Brandon doing more
of like the response it's backing vocal is a nice
kind of reverse or how it might normally be. But
I really appreciate just to go out to a path
of our disease. There's still like a creakiness in her
voice on that there's like a slightly off quality to
the way she sings that chorus, which feeds into the
kind of morbidity of the atmosphere. And she, you know,
for her first record doing it certainly this extensively. She
takes to it like a duck to water, like not
just the singing, but like hitting the right notes of
creepiness to fit the atmosphere of the band and not
the derail it. It's just it's a brilliant trick that
they've just like now brought out to this degree.
Speaker 6: I think, I just see, I'm so impressed by a
band we've been around for this long. At this point,
even if you're not going to make your classic record,
I would like to have you put out records where
you go, oh that's the record where they did this,
or there was this on it, or something like this,
and this record, frankly, there's enough on here which would
make it distinct if they hadn't brought into the four
And it's maybe the most significant change they've made. It's
it's totally befitting of the other change they made by
pushing the extremity, and so we'll now we're going to
add this element which sort of shuckstaposes and brings it
out the other way. It's it's as much as of
this band have always been inventive. It I was surprised
by that sort that kind of leap, yeah, because.
Speaker 1: Again you go back to when we did the special
on it, and we kind of said that about almost
every single record we did. It's like, this is the
one has this certain kind of flavor to it or
within that general bleeding through kind of house that they
exist in. And I guess, you know, if that wasn't
a feature on this record, you might talk about, for example,
the three songs that have guest vocalists on this album,
all of which are kind of immediately of bleeding through
his peer group, not just an era, but in terms
of like popularity, which is kind of a nice touch.
Like none of the guests features here are Jesse Leach,
Matt Hayfey, Randy Blive. Right, it's almost like the the
B and C tier of their like direct peers of
the kind of two thousands of metal and hardcore scene.
And I love that about it because almost like a
you know, it's a celebration of the kind of you know,
that level of kind of fame band I suppose, and
it's really brilliant. I mean, it made happy that, you know,
we avoided a fill l Bonti appearance, who maybe could
have fit that, but the God Forbid guy on Lost
in Isolation and that breakdown is hilariously to fucking cool.
Aid Man just absolutely that's how you execute it. Just
shit me. Wartime with with Brian from Shadows Fall, really
a lot of momentum on that song, just really flying
across those rhythms. The record overall flies by with this
like surge of just purpose but the stroke of magic.
The song with Andrew from Comeback Kid fucking standing ovation.
Speaker 5: Bravo, honestly them going full on like melodic hardcore in
the pace and just adding the keys. I'm like, I like,
i mean, I'm like, you know, coming in again. One
of my favorite brands I'm bad. I love and like
basically doing a comeback Kid song with him, but adding
these like gothic keys, having like the vocal trade off
of that kind of like hardcore passing the micath and
you're kind of getting the big on the like the
chorus and like doing these kind of stomping about with it.
I think this song is just like crack to me.
I'm just like so hooked on it. I can't get anything.
Speaker 1: This is the song that on my first listen to
the album when I was getting used to most of
the song just completely blew me away, Like I can't
handle how exciting this song is.
Speaker 6: I think, like in the case of Wartime and the
God Forbid One, Yeah, like those are kind of more
in the bleeding through Wheelhouse that blewed through a lot
more than those bands, but those things that all the
flavor of it, they're kind of a lot of cordicer
that Comeback Kid do is sort of enough of a
stretch where it really does. It's the one of the
three thing that feels like I'm meeting in the mines
and I'm amazed at how seamless it feels transitioning out
of the other stuff because you know, the other reference
points we've raised are so far away from that, and
suddenly it's not runaway ghost Train. It's like grabbing the
mic at Outbreak, And for just those few minutes it's so.
Speaker 3: Emboldening.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean it's like Outbreak was full of vampires.
Speaker 1: Yeah, an outbreak of vampirism. I mean, for a start,
the opening few seconds with the since generally for a
moment to me sound like a cross face song, like
it's kind of hyping up like a and then it's
that again, almost d beat or something like just that
it's so exhilarating the way it pulls you along, like
when was the last time again? Any band like this
wrote an out and out hardcore song like this, and
not just a thuggy hardcore song, but a pacey hardcore
song with this much energy, and you have the keys
on it, which have almost that sort of declaration style
like worrying fan, too fucking hot to get a handle on,
and the chorus is just absolute bag like that. That
is the best song of twenty twenty five so far,
Like I cannot get enough of it. It is such
an absolute walloper of a track. It's just a perfect
meeting of the things that like if you saw Bleed
Through featuring Comeback in, what would you want.
Speaker 3: It to be?
Speaker 4: Lily?
Speaker 1: You want this?
Speaker 5: That is exactly when I saw there was like Andrey
from The Big Files was like, oh come on, And
and like Danueally for Shung songs is kind of like
he does it all the time.
Speaker 4: He pops up everywhere. He's one of those vocalists you
know you.
Speaker 5: Can just get into a guest spot and it all turn
up and you'll always kill it. But this is one
of these most like fully featured, like full on duet
songs or like and it just sounds so incredible and
it just it is exactingly and again just me of
two bands I love coming together to just absolutely deliver
the exact fusion of their sounds I want and hit
it so far out of the past.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And there's there's nothing tentative about the album, the
kind of creative touches like where and when they decide
to utilize different things. It's all just like fully committed to.
The melodies are consistently top drawer again, like tracks like
Emery later on it's like, oh yeah, here's another really
really great chorus. It's all unmistakably bleeding Through, but it's
not identicate, and no one was playing as hard as
bleeding Through in this lane back of the two thousands
you know on this is Lover's murderous on declaration. The
fact that The Truth is seen as their kind of
radio record from that classic era, and so.
Speaker 4: Is so funny that album is like the sellout records.
Speaker 1: And seventy five percent of it sounds like Slayer. Really
none of their peers are playing as hard as this now.
I mean, this is a fucking absolute barking dog of
a thing. And I mean, I don't know what people
could say. I mean, I would say it's actually closer
than I maybe would have even expected it to be.
But like if you were to say or Bleeding Through
his last two albums since they've come back, this could
be the second best, right because level killer is a
very high bar. It's almost just expected of Bleeding Through
to be this kind of cataclysmic, but it's It's better
than any Kills which Engage album released since Disalm the Descent.
It's better than any Lamb of God record in over
a decade. Even Trivia, who have maintained the level of
quality they aren't like ravenous like this, They aren't terrifying
anything else that that sort of you know, mid tier
of new over American heavy metal bands have done. Of like,
it's not even in the same stratosphere as this, it's
still relevant to the kind of revival metalcre that is
all the rage. You know, we reviewed a Dying Wish
track earlier. You can still look to Bleeding Through as
kind of bringing the ruckus and competing on that level.
But this is the first album this year that I've
just wanted to listen to, like again and again. I've
got a moment. Let's put the Bleeding Through album on.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, I mean, in a way, I'm like,
it is a shame that I have to turn to
you have to turn to the sort of band of
like veteran level with metal cord to be excited by it.
But when I just look at what is going on
all around sort of in metalcore and how soulless it
all sounds. When I can hear them, when I can
put this bing for album on, and I can just
be like blown away by something that sounds exciting and energized,
exhilarating and scary and spooky and just so violent and
just nothing feel about it feels shy or shrinking. It's
so dial up to the MAXs at all times, and
they don't think they're too cool for anything, and it
just every element about it is just designed to just
hit like some set of all the positives on theones
in my brain.
Speaker 4: It's like, this is what music is, this is what
excites me.
Speaker 5: And I'm so glad that, like, even if you have
to wait a while from now that Bleeding Through can
come back. And if it's just gonna be a shouting
about this being the best thing going on a metal
corp right now, so be it. But like you, if
you have not got on with Bleeding For at this point,
you are missing out on a band to have sort
of so rarely put a foot wrong, and it's just
like such a trait.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I think you've kind of explained there why I'm
always hesitant to even call it a metal core record,
because metal core is so boring now and I put
this on and go, well, no, this is exciting and
thrilling and engaging and inventive. It can't possibly be the
same thing, but it just sort of shows up all
those other bands, contemporary and classics. To be honest, we're
still doing it where it's like you're getting lapped boys
like Bleeding Through And just like I said, I this
is the first Pinion Through records come out since I've
become a fan. And even though that's sort of the height
of my excitement for it, it's better than that. It's
just this thing is like say, it's one of the
albums of the year so far.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a whole lot better than Blink when eighty
two is nine Bleeding Through. Next up, we have another
big moment in metal and a big moment for samdig
Non because we are blessed with a new album from
Dream Theater Parasomnia. It's the six deeph album from Dream Theater. Sam,
you listen to all six Yeah, no, there's sixteen Dreamer
abs and still on the only ones when the this
was the fucking astonishing. Yeah, there is a lot of
this one. Dream Theater are maybe the most like quintessential
prog metal band on the planet. Like their emergence in
the early nineties really defined that scene and that sound
for better or for worse, you know, they changed metal
like They are undoubtedly a significant, significant band and with
their classic era that the drumming and the kind of
I think particularly even more so the musical and conceptual
involvement of Mike Portnoy was a big part of the identity.
Parasomna is a noteworthy record for Dream Theater because it
is the first album with Mike Portnoy returning to the
kit after his departure in twenty and ten. So it's
over fifteen years since the last time we had a
Portnoy Dream the record, and that just has a kind
of uh, you know, creative relationship. We spoke a bit
about this back, you know, at the end of twenty
twenty three. I think it was when Portnoy rejoined, Me
and Elliott were like, even as people who are not
necessarily like you know, dedicated at all time to the
Dream Theater, cause we did take stock of it as like,
oh shit, because the schism of Portnoy and Dream Theater
was almost one of those moments that like, I became
a full on follower of what was going on in
metal music kind of between around two thousand and nine
and twenty ten, and some of those big cultural events
I remember happening are like Pete Steel dying, Doo dying,
the rev dying and Mike Portnoy leaving Dream Theater and
then drumming for events some of old it was like,
you know, an early moment, and to have that almost
like come full circle fifteen years later, was like, oh shit,
you know some time has passed.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I think to me.
Speaker 6: As someone who, like I said, I'm not a huge
Dream Theater fan. I think they've got some very good records,
but you know, they've been a punchline for a while,
and I'm I'm not sure it's unfair because they haven't
put out Not all their records are great, but all
the records that are greats have Portnoy on them. And
if I was ever gonna be excited about a Dream
Theater album ever again, he would have to come back.
And I just sort of wrote off because he's so busy,
Like he's been friends with the other members of the
band for so long, so if it was going to happen,
it would have happened by now. So when that press
thing came out, going you know, he's back in the band,
I almost despite not being that unbelievable, I kind of
didn't believe it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I when I said we were going to
review this, Sam was actually like, oh for real, I
thought you were joking. But you know, if we were
going to review a dream Fitter record, it would be
this one because it is the most you know, notable
change about them in you know, some time. Their last
two albums, the ones released since I think the last
time their album of there has got a slot on
this show was The Astonishing you know, almost ten years
ago and really one of the funniest flop creative decision
records released in that decade. The last two they've really
since There, I mean, they won a Grammy for one
of them. If you remember they are they're much better
than The Astonishing, right, Like that is a sort of
a one off moment of catastrophe for them. But neither
of those records have particularly you know, stuck around too
much or let the world on fire, Sam, Dream Theater
are a band it's easy to hate. I have my
own feelings about them. That again I can I can
share with Elliott. They have a lot of haters. For you,
I understand where you're talking about. Is it an exaggeration
say one of your least favorite bands of all time?
Speaker 5: Well, I mean they have pulled me under, like I
do they have pulled me under so that that kind
of keeps them off that very they also have James LaBrie.
Speaker 4: Is you know it's a principle like I have.
Speaker 5: I have multiple like Dream Theater friends who have tried
to make me not hate this band. They were like, oh,
we know The Astonishing is a like casual.
Speaker 4: Disaster, but you know, is it Metropolis?
Speaker 5: Yeah, or like your likes some of them And I
was like, no, I won't and one of like one
of the other like non Portnoy ones, the one that's
got like I think just like the sort of dark blue.
Speaker 4: Cover, like the logo on it, like that one like that.
Speaker 5: I've listened to multiple dream fare abams that aren't The Astonishing,
Like they have really tried, and I will give them
pull me under, but I will not give them anything else.
Speaker 1: Yeah, just the self Tutter record, which one you mentioned
with the covers, the the one non Portnite which had
a few songs on it where I was like, this
is a bit of a banger. But I've realized that
as much as I might like to antagonoze you with this,
I don't actually like Dream Theater as much as I
maybe thought I once did. Even historically. And what I
mean is I don't actually really love Dream Theater albums
like that. They have songs that I think are great,
and they do have somethings from different you know, pockets
and phase of their career, even a couple again from
the kind of the mid twenty ten years, like you
were just saying, but I can't say there's a Dream
Theater album that I really truly hold it because even
like you know, Metropolis Part two, which is often their
kind of most critically revered album that's like their their
Latteralis or their Blackwater Park sound. I appreciate, but I
can't say it'd be anywhere near my personal list of
you know, the greatest met labs of all time, and
there are bits of it that I really know, and
I think the closest I think I'd get would be
images and Words. I do like that kind of early
nineties slightly more heavy metal based sound the most, but
even that, there's not another song on it anywhere near
as good as Pull Me Under, right, Like I put
this on my Instagram story the other day, but like
it's wild. It's wild that a band who can write
a heavy metal song as perfect as Pull me under
never really bother to do it again. And if if
you know, people out there who make a big deal
out are being too cool for progue, those people hate
on Rush, get the fuck out of it. I'm affronted
even in you know, metal and Dream Theatre's kind of
more immediate peer group, like bands like never More or
like classic era Queen's Rick or something obviously of course
Opeth like. I know that those people will not see
heaven and that I am more enlightened than them, but
the Dream Theater I get it. And while I do
like a good bit of material, I can't really muster
much of a defense because I'm just as often inclined
to agree with the exact things that they say about them.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think.
Speaker 6: This is the thing that I've sort of discovered as well,
is that even the quote unquote classic Dream Theater years,
you listen to those records, and sometimes even someone who
you know I have quite the stomach for progue and
for virtuosity and you know, prog nonsense. And there were
times where even I I was sort of like pinching
the bridge in my nose and just going, oh please.
Speaker 1: They made roughly sexy, like what the fuck.
Speaker 4: I think like in.
Speaker 6: Terms of like the good records, for me, the two
stands are images and words, and I quite like Train
of Thought, which is sort of the dark, heavier one,
and I think like they've got loads of great moments.
Maybe not loads, it's got a bunch of great moments
throughout the port Noir years, but like you say, just
as often as they're great in that time, they're just
sort of annoying. And it's not just a matter of
like other music's rape, but it's James Librie. It's like
now the music is also quite often annoying. I think Metropolis,
I think with full house on that, I think it's
one of the most overrated classic metal records maybe ever.
I've never really understood why that is the one people
go for, because I know people who don't like Dream Theater,
they go, well, obviously Metropolis's great, that's the that's.
Speaker 3: Often just as annoying.
Speaker 1: The ballad at the end is one of the one
of the wettest thinkers in the history of like actually
popular metal ballads.
Speaker 5: I think like dream Fitter closes the way, then the
records might be my personal hell, well we would get
onto yeah, Like.
Speaker 1: The last Open album for example, a cartoonish example of
what's great about prog. Right, all that eccentricity is its flight.
The fancy is all brilliant. I love it.
Speaker 4: I like that album even more.
Speaker 5: I'm just gonna say off the back of this, I've
gone that open album is fucking great.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I say Dream Theater are almost a cartoonish
example at their worst of what's bad about you know,
progue in the context of metal and I I didn't
know where my expectations would be for this because you know,
the last album that Portnoy's on, Black Clouds and Silver
Linings as a couple of the dream Fitter tracks that
I do have in my personal sort of list of
like the ones I really really but it is it's
too baked into their DNA that they would also do
some shit that's naff as well. And it's not just Portnoy,
you know, being present that stops that from happening, because
like we've said, it's it's always happened, and there's a
sort of feeling that even when Dream Theater are on
a comparatively normal track, you can kind of hear the
band that made the Astonishing in there, Like you know,
they've got that in them, and you know, we've got
a concept here about sleep and sleep paralysis and nightmares,
and you already know it's not gonna be a byss
by Chelsea Wolf. Is it Like it's gonna be Dream
Theatre's interpretation of that. And you can tell that from
the Shike cover, which is so like it's like their
art direction has not it always like it may be nostalgic.
I was like, I can't believe a Dream Theatre album
cover from the two thousands has been unearthed and is
still here. I thought we'd move past covers like.
Speaker 4: That, I mean, and that's things even had a note
of this record.
Speaker 5: I see that cover, I see the title Parasomnia, and
I was like, fuck off, you like arrogant pricks, Like
I like, it's the most like, Oh, we're gonna be
so deep talking about sleep and evil dark things that
happened in your dreams.
Speaker 4: Oh I hate.
Speaker 6: So much and dreamed this or like the ultimate cases.
But I love the band Zoo. They do like concept albums,
and they make no effort to weave the concept into
like the sonic into play of the music. Because another band,
if Tuol or Mogua or whoever, like sig and I'm
about sleep and sleep paralysis. It would be this unnerving,
patient sort of meditative like low ed and you're listening
to this.
Speaker 4: This is is like that is my sleep paralysis right there, like.
Speaker 3: James Liberty at the end of the Bed.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think ultimately this record it almost handed to
me like the exact record that they could have made
directly after the last one that Portnoy was on, Like
it's like no time has kind of changed at all.
And for some people that would be an absolutely glowing
like they've plugged right back into the classic year. You know.
For me, it's kind of the pros and co of like,
you know, dream theater in the two thousands, they had
some good stuff and they had some kind of naught stuff,
because that's just dream theater at all times, every day
of their life. So you know, a few of the
riffs on this thing, I'll say that they go there,
they're pretty good, and then there are other things where
you go that's just dream theater at it again. I
was actually almost for as kind of exhausting dream theater
can be, there was something very familiar about like, yeah,
I just this is exactly what I would expect dream
theater to be doing in this situation. Yeah, that basically
captures it, to be honest, because it's like nostalgia's exactly
the word, which is odd to say about a new
album because you're listening to it and it's you can
tell port noise back on the drums, But I think
it makes a huge difference, not just to the songwriter,
but like his performance.
Speaker 3: You can say he's clearly more of a rocker time.
Speaker 5: On the drums. It feels like the amount of drums
he is playing, Oh yes, this record, like he's every
drummer everything.
Speaker 1: He'd been playing an adrenaline more but he's like, ah,
I missed my twenty four toms. Like he does play
with the sort of explosiveness that Mangenie, you know, like
the Berkeley Lecturer didn't.
Speaker 3: Have, And I think that's one of the reasons that
amon sound is so tired.
Speaker 1: So this record.
Speaker 6: Listening to it, I was kind of smiling pretty much
all the way through it, and at the end, I
was like, Oh, the boys are back, Thank God, that's over.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I like, you know, it's got an overture track
of kind of galloping riffs and sincelo and stuff. It
starts like a big eight string at the start with
the alarm clock, you know, for the concept, and that
you know that big eight string. It's heavier than I
remember Dream Theater being in like you know, a good
old while overture track is pretty dumb for the record,
like it has a heavy riff in there, but it's
such a wanky introduction.
Speaker 5: Again, I'm, you know, musical theater person. I'm always down
for an overchorge, you know, get me in the mood.
And I was just like, okay, cool that there's like
I think that the guitar tone that there's no crunch
or power to it when it's trying to be heavy.
Speaker 4: And then you get fucking keyboards.
Speaker 5: So and I'm just like, ah, for fox sake, i
haven't even heard a note of vocals, but I'm like,
then again, it's James le Brae, keep the keyboard silo.
Speaker 1: There are a lot of keyboard sellers on this record.
Speaker 4: Keyboard sellers on this record.
Speaker 1: And then we get into Night Terror and it would
it's almost the exact kind of like every prog metal
band since Dream Theater's started it right, which is one
of you know, one of their kind of things that
they do is like you can say, this hasn't changed
in thirty five years, but they are kind of, you know,
the inventors of a certain thing. But like the stock
spooky Dream Theater chords at the beginning, I go, that's
exactly what I would expect a song called night Terror
from Dream Theater to sound like, you know, still sort
of picturesque and can't go too ugly, but kind of discordant.
It's just a mode that Dream Theater have often been in.
You know, I'm kind of down with it. I just
wasn't surprised by it. It's got a good like faster
riff when when when it when it gets in a
ton of fucking you know, keyboard battling type parts through it,
which when I'm in the groove, I didn't mind, but
I was there going, Sam is going to be tearing
there like the min it's minutes of solo section exemplifying
how scary a night Terror is go.
Speaker 6: It's it's the thing with Dream is for me, and
it's true with a lot of prog bands. Is you
think if you were that good at your instrument, you'd
almost get bored of being that good at it, and
you wouldn't feel the need you be down, like well,
I don't like Michael Jordan he went and played baseball
because he was too good at basketball. Was like dream,
They've not gone. Jordan Rudets is not remotely sick of
playing the organ. He absolutely loves it and he would
take every single opportunity to do so. I think like
and I think it's true for like a fair few
songs on this record. I quite like hearing the band
sound fired up, even if it's dream Theater fired up,
which isn't you know, it's not not loose, it's still
whines and it's still super indulgent, but at least they're
packing more of a punch than they in a.
Speaker 1: While, like Broken Man, Almost Dream There Panic chords. Dare
I say that one did take you by surprise a
bit of like, oh, you know, kind of intense to
start with verse riff it settles into is very generic
but again very pretty like Hefty and screw Facy. But
I do love like again anything like that. They will
just come in with a keyboard sound like the one
that comes into about five minutes on that song that
is for what is their darker more nightmare is song
just hilarious and like, I'm totally capable of having fun
with a kind of daft keyboard sound, right, But there's
an element of dream Theater where I'm like, do you
know how funny this is? Because Dream Theater take it
so seriously and really believe they are exploring the powers
of nightmares or whatever through and it kind of tempers it,
Like why does that song when you were saying earlier
about the kind of concept not matching the sound, why
is that the song that has like a lounge like
swing part in it, like we'd jazz break bit, Oh
we're in a nightmare?
Speaker 4: I mean again that dreamfit.
Speaker 5: I've discovered my nightmares with this album like that, Like yeah, like,
but this is part I think was like again, compared
to the Opef album, that album was so like, so
assured of its concepts.
Speaker 4: Even when you had those kind of mental swings.
Speaker 5: They felt part of the what they felt like they
made sense with the content of the album.
Speaker 4: They're kind of like austere, like stark dark atmosphere at all.
There's none of that hearing, none of it feels like that.
Speaker 5: I think they've kind of gone, Oh, because it's about dreams,
we can do whatever the fuck we want and it
all makes sense because it's dream I.
Speaker 1: Don't think that makes a difference at all. This is
just what they do everywhere.
Speaker 5: Maybe maybe that is just dreams that way about it,
and they just slapped a lazy concept on there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think there's definitely some sense of rejuvenation of
like again touching back into a certain era of the
core kind of you know, era of the band, even
though again those heavier riffs, like I said, they remind
me of the records they were making during the two thousands,
towards the kind of end of Portnoy's original tenure. And
like I said, this, it could come out after train
of thought, it could come out right after you know,
black Clouds and silver Linings. You wouldn't really blink an eye.
And I guess, you know, if those were records that
meant a ton to me rather just having like a
track here or there, I really like I could imagine
being stoked on it. I think you could. Also. What
you draw from that is, like you know, what we
were saying, there's not much real progressiveness. It's a return
to dream theater of the mid two thousands, and it
is quite safe and familiar than it rather than it
being you know, revelatory for how frantic it's anticks are.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I think the sort of story of this record
being the port Noise back, I think it kind of
capitalizes that and that it proves certainly to me that
port Nooy is the missing ingredient in this band and
was in his time away. I think like folding some
more of that metal edge into the recipe does make
a difference albums, at least in parts more exciting and
dynamic than what they've been doing.
Speaker 3: For a while.
Speaker 1: It is.
Speaker 6: It is funny just how much they've picked up where
they left off. I mean, I just started smoking. It's
all about the concept that not applied. I just remember
when they did Distance over Time and made this whole
fuss about the album being to the point and we're
going to really go for it, lads, it's seventy five
minutes long. There is no distance over time. It's the
same sort of thing against like the concept as barely impeded,
or like work just way into the record this album,
Like if this has come out in twenty eleven as
the follows of Black Cows and Silver Linings, yeah that
would make sense too. So I just thought your miles
will vary, but I think if you are mad for
Dream Theater, it kind of ticks the boxes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, my big LaBrie laugh moment on this was Midnight Messiah,
where it has two minutes of trying really hard to
build this like monstrous, tentacled, writhing beast of an intro right,
and then he knocks the whole thing tumbling down the
second he comes in and goes last tam Then God,
that's my mind, just sounding like your Nan playing the
devil in a fucking theater production. Like it's incredible how
tactless he moves into that.
Speaker 4: I almost admire his conviction, like he so believes in himself.
And now that's a level of delusion.
Speaker 5: We could all aspy too, like awful vocalist on this,
like when he comes into that chorus on nine to
Night Night Terror Hysteria, and I'm like, fucking hell, this
is some of the lyricism is like nursery rhyme level,
basic rhyming. What are you gonna like for all of that?
There's ambition, ambitious like musicality.
Speaker 6: It does completely baffle me that a band like Dream Theaters,
who are clearly such sticklers for quality and precision and
like musical theory and all those things, and James Lebrie
should being quiet, right, I mean, he should not be
in a band with all these guys from Berkeley and
just again, this is a bit of an insight into
the mind of a real dream the as a fan.
I suddenly saw this stuff because living on tour recently
and I saw a bunch of saying, oh my god,
James LaBrie sounds great again. This is fantastic, And I
was like, what, There's no way he does not He
does not sound great again. He sounds exactly as bad
as you remember him sounding. I'm kind of I'm not
convinced that anyone likes James. I do think he's like
just something people put up with.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean personally like I more, he has really
like funny moments like that part I just mentioned. Generally,
I don't take sort of great umbrage with him, but
I think it's more like a lacking than an egregiousness.
You know, I think he kind of caps them by
also not being interesting because I think, I mean, his
best moment again, you know, go back to that like
to pull me under when it's like, oh my god,
that's an enormous heavy metal chorus, right, and back then
he could kind of you know, hit the higher notes
and everything a little bit more convincingly. But like ever
since they in their songwriting stopped prioritizing choruses like that,
I suppose, and he's been brought more into the maya
of like long form conceptuality. He is just he's like
an element that's there, you know, like he's not the
interesting part. He's not emotionally very compelling. You do just
sort of put up with him, and he's just a
you know, he doesn't make you throw your horns in
the air anymore like that did. He's just a weird
nasal guy in the mix, singing a bunch of like
really samey stuff that doesn't make you feel And I
think my dream theater listening ever since those nineties days, right,
it has been you know, enjoy the riffs and you know,
the instrumentation when it is particularly good. But James Lebrie
almost never catches my attention unless it is to do
something funny. And I mean he kills every ballad track
Stone Dead Again, like those are the shite parts, and
even their classic records, so it's not a surprise it
hasn't changed here when they weren't even good on your
most legendary album. The final you know, drawer of the
album is the last track, the shadow Man Incident, which
is nineteen minutes long, which is not in the slightest
bit new for Dream Theater. There was a twenty minute
song on the previous album, but it is just a
you know, how can they trample subtlety the next time?
You know? And it goes the route of a you know,
dramatic orchestral kind of marching thing to begin with, and
then into a kind of sort of a love Craft ballad.
I guess where where Dream Theater become the first band
ever to include the lines that is not dead, which
can eternal lie and with strange eons, even death may
die in a song. Can you believe they're the first
one's ever to make that leap? But I guess it's
it's just weird how mundane it is, Like there's nothing
particularly it's kind of, you know, everything is more dramatic
than everything else, So there's nothing particularly ear catching about
when dream fit to do a song like that. These
days they kind of do it in their sleep, so
there's not really a lot to remember about it.
Speaker 5: Quitting the podcast never looked more appealing than these last
two songs.
Speaker 4: Like Ben the Clock has this like awful, horrid ballad.
Speaker 5: I was like, oh, end it already, And then I
was like, and then I saw the twenty minutes, was like,
fucking all the worst is yet to come, Dear God,
end my suffering?
Speaker 1: Were you're not going back by the bit of honky
tonk that's in there. That's the one thing I've got
written down about it.
Speaker 5: The problem is is it's twenty minutes and I did
just zone out. This doesn't end it. It's nothing, Nothing
will end my suffering. Like could not do that shadow
Man Instant song. It was just too much.
Speaker 6: I Mean, there's there's a thing a lot of people
say about progue generally all the epics where they just go, oh,
they just you know, they're just doing it for the
sake of it. That song doesn't need to be twenty
one minutes.
Speaker 1: It's like, no, no, no, when it's done, when it's twenty
one twelve, or Shine on Your Crazy Diamond or Larks
Tongues and asket.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I've been loving twenty one twelve over the last
couple months. I've got sewing on Rush, So a twenty
one minute song is not like totally out of the question.
Speaker 4: For me anymore.
Speaker 6: No, but that thing is, yeah, that thing which people
say on I just doing it for the sake of it.
That kind of does feel true about almost all of
the dream theater epics where I.
Speaker 1: Have so many, like how many of those do Rush have,
like what over the course of their careers?
Speaker 3: Twenty on twelve hemispheres?
Speaker 1: There's a fair few that like eleven, but like, yeah,
twenty minute maybe three or four exactly dreaming at least
fucking one on every album, And how many can people
remember it?
Speaker 6: Just like it's so I wonder if even the guys
like when they're in the studios go oh fuck having
on the twenty minute one shit a OK, plug back
in guys, and then they just like run out the
clock because it feels so about for five minutes. Yeah,
like listen, you guys, you can play. You have nothing
left to prove, Like I know, the ballt would be
a bit of a rubbish way to win, but like
this is even with someone who's been a bit of
an apologist for some of.
Speaker 3: This record, that is a bit much.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I found this record quite easy going,
to be honest, because it's it's Dream Theater leaning on
a you know, a heavier riffing style that they were
using at the time when you know I found them,
and it kind of as like bizarre as any of
the turns theoretically should be. It made quite good background music.
Like it's just like, oh, you know, there's Dream Theater
newly around doing that thing they do. That's something almost
cute about Dream Theater just you know, still doing that
that thing. But I don't think it will be you know,
marked a particular stirring return to form or anything except
maybe outside of the most hardcore of Dream Theater circles,
which I mean, to be honest, you can say that
as for almost anything they've ever done, so I mean,
to some degree, I guess, you know, mission accomplished. Again.
I don't think it's a person I didn't find it
to be a terrible upsetting record. It's just a it's
a dream Fitter record and everything that that entails good
and bad. If there are any big you know, dream
fitterheads in our audience, let us know what you make about,
you know, the kind of the big Portnoy return is
this like exciting or is this just you know, the
latest in a long line of a Dream Theater Records,
Dream Theater, Parasomnia. Perhaps the complete antidotes to Dream Theater
would be We're knowna Fighter and an album that's called
My Apology to the Chef. This is a debut album.
This band had a few singles kind of scattered over
the course of twenty twenty four, and I've had my
eye on this for a while in terms of, like,
here's a new band that we can talk about from
the realms of something at least describable as potpunk, right,
because you know, there are so few and far between
these days of things that would really, you know, kind
of warrant to mention on this show. So a new
band from that realm garnering a bit of steam and
putting out a daily record here on Ryse Records. I
was like, cool, you know, there's something that we can do.
They're a three piece, and I think you can gather
from the name that this is going to be quite
you know, brash pop punk. I don't like this record
very much. It turns out, in fact, more often than not,
I find it quite annoying, and that's sad. Because I
wanted to like it, but Sam as the one of
us who I would guess falls most in the target
demographic for this. Did you also you know, have eyes
on on an own a fighter?
Speaker 5: I kind of known then, Nay, I've seen the name
kicking about for a while, and I was kind of like,
I seen they, like there was like some EPs and singles.
I was like, right perpo in that, because like that
they were kind of weird band who exists like I
saw pop punk band, but in the sort of spheres
of like the DIY punk scene and that and sort
of stuff.
Speaker 1: I like more think they're playing one of the smallest
stages at Slam DUNP this year.
Speaker 5: Yeah, but and they're like kind of lumped in with
just sort of bands that you wouldn't necessarily associate pop
punk with, even though something they they're not not a
million miles to each other. So I was kind of
like curious as to how they kind of flirt between
like the sort of the DIY punk scene, which is
kind of like really earnest and sincere, and the sort
of big modern pop punk sort of thing. So I
was I was curious about this, and I actually found
this beak quite a sort of pleasant surprise for a record.
Speaker 4: I can see why, Like you might.
Speaker 5: Not be totally on board of it, but a good
pop punk album feels like such a rare treat these days,
like maybe even more so the metalcor that genre is
in like the deepest pits of solar slot. And I'm
not saying this album is a revelation, but I did
have a very very pleasant time kind of just like
plugging into of like, oh, hey, it's a pop punk
bands who have heard a bad religion record. At least
one member of this band, you know, has heard a
bad religion record, and some other like actual punk music.
Speaker 4: That's kind of enough of me at the moment.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I guess how would you describe the sound?
I guess because what you exactly were saying about them
sort of like I would call it pop punk, and
again myself, in my own taste, it does adopt a
very like contemporary, kind of conventionally produced pop punk sound.
It's not one where we go, oh that sounds stripped
off of kind of you know, like mid nineties, you know,
Nitrous records or anything like that. Like it's sonically, it's
very twenty twenty five even though the style of chorus
and the mix and stuff, but it does also you know,
it's not like State Champs or as it is or something.
You can feel the kind of element of like a
power trio putting these songs together. H And again that's
generally absent in a lot of kind of very you know,
polished kind of pop punk, and it does it falls
somewhere between, you know, something that is very very put together,
but also something kind of really kind of garage.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 5: I mean, I think that's the appeal with for me
is it does sort of land in that middle, that
sort of round of like this is poppy, muse this
is like like I said that they listened to Baranasi,
and like it's just because it's a little more roughed
up at points then say the band you've listened, like
Stage Champs, it's not so polished to like such a
gene that there. You know, it feels like free Mates
kind of rocking out in their garage a little bit,
like because they heard some like cool punk records in
the nineties. But it is still like I guess cause
it's like it's kind of that with like a little
bit that kind of like modern pop sort of thing
on some of the vocals. I think, like it's gonna
be very easy comparison to make, but there is a
shit ton of riot on this album. Like like I think,
like I'm not dismissed, like I don't know, you know, no,
let's put a pin in that because there is one
song in particularly where it has to be mentioned.
Speaker 1: Yes, I totally. I mean, that's certainly a kind of
a stylistic kind of template for kind of what they're generally,
you know, doing here Ellie. I mean I was listen
to this and again I was thinking I didn't really
like this. It would be I've fucking shocked from hell
if Elliot somehow came out really really guting for a
record that sounds like this, I mean, are we mainly
letting Sam kind of take the limelight on this?
Speaker 3: Uh yeah?
Speaker 1: Because yeah, listen, Like the length of time that's passed
since I've liked a new pop punk record, is it's
reaching critical mass.
Speaker 6: I'm starting to get worried, Like I don't honestly I was.
I couldn't remember in the last new pop punk record
I loved came out like maybe No Closer to Heaven
if that counts. But I saw loads of people I
trust talking about this record and saying how great it was,
and the people who aren't particularly apologist for pop punk.
I don't know if this is the great White Hope
of the scene. I think maybe things are worse than
I thought. I've found this quite annoying.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I can there are bits on this record that,
again where I particularly kind of felt my cuffs going
like hmm, And I can always imagine them being the
exact same points that you were as well, But I.
Speaker 4: Can I forge have a good idea what some of
those points are as well, to be honest.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but you know, Sam, I guess, you know, for
the people out there who are really good, you know,
look looking for you know, a record like this and
a band like this to kind of do something you know,
kind of of of worth. What would be like kind
of you know, your your kind of highlights about this
in terms of either songs, but also just like elements
of their sound and kind of pieces of their what
kind of character are they bringing?
Speaker 4: Well?
Speaker 5: I think that I think that's thing is they actually
do have a lot more character than a lot of
the sort of pop pun bands around them. I think
of vocalist. She has got personality that she does bring
to it. Perhaps again that can maybe be a little
grating at times on some of the bits where she
really leans into it and that someone the like well
like kind of ad libs with the bits with like
she's almost like talking directly at you, like I quite
like them. I think, you know, it's kind of put
in the personality to the front. I think for me,
you know, songs like Trumper Cable as an opener, it's
a big, kind of bright, bouncy pop punk number. Like
I think there are times where it's a bit too polished.
I think like part of me kind of wish down
was a little bit of the more DIY.
Speaker 4: Punk sort of sounding its production.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I agree, But I think songs like Hams in
the Glass that's one where it does kind of like
rattle on a little bit more. There's a lot of
run of like that and Talker kind of like this
is got a bit more energy, a bit more kind.
Speaker 4: Of like umph to it.
Speaker 5: It feels like, again, these are people who've grown up
playing Tony Hawk's pro skater games and listening to the
soundtracks of that and trying to sort of channel a
bit of that into this into a modern pop punk thing,
and I'm I'm really okay with that. I make other
bits where it kind of goes into the real bubblegum
pop stuff like like all that sort of stuff. It's
just a fun it's not revelationary. But if you if
you are down for a pop punk that is that
is clean produced like well and big, but isn't like say,
polished to a complete kind of like identicit sheen, I
think you'll have a good time with this. There are
some songs, you know, Swimmerzear kind of goes into the
sort of swimmer Zere's dorm where you can kind of
go ah, that's why I can see where you're coming
from the DIY punk scene, where that's got a bit
more that kind of fuzzed up guitar mellowness to it.
And again I think that song's really great. It's not
as good as the sort of the bands they're clearly
drawing from, but it's a nice kind of added flavored
to sort of show this band have the capability.
Speaker 4: I think, I don't see this.
Speaker 5: Some one is like the Great Hope pop punk, but
I think it's a good sort of starting point for
this band to maybe if they can figure out their
identity and iron out the sort of things that they
do really well on, this could do something great.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'll take the agreeable position and say that that's
pretty pretty fair. I don't see it with this one.
Like I said, I wanted to like it because I
did want something a bit scrappier instead. This is fourteen
songs I found of very much kind of interchangeability, and
the killer is I really don't like the vocal style
and you know, being songs where you know, there's not
really a lot going on in this music aside from
the vocal hook. That's basically the deal breaker, right, And
I know they're literally from feel with that kind of
americanized yelpie pop punk tone a lot of the time,
mainly in the louder register when she's going a bit
more on your face. There's a song called subar Root
on here and it's a little bit more disaffected and
she kind of backs off a little bit, and that's
you know, I'm more able to sort of just sort of,
you know, sit and vibe with that one. But the
songs where I guess what they're thinking of is like
the more confrontational songs from the opening track, My my
hackles were just kind of a bit up And I
really don't like the thing that you said where every
other song has to have a line where she stops singing.
Instead we have a talk sing song a bit like this,
and it makes you know, those are the bits the
hay clo you know me.
Speaker 5: Yeah, in the opening track, I was like, if that's
gonna be the soting where you're meally gonna be like
is this for you or not?
Speaker 4: If that kind of yeah, because if we.
Speaker 1: Have one of those in every single song, it will
make it more badass. The intro of Hams in the
Glass when she hits that like blowing my fucking brains,
like it just hits a wrong note for me, And
I mean that song, I quite like that. The guitar
riff reminded me of Volbeat of all things, Like it
has this like roller king kind of growling rock and
roll guitar feel that has that like, oh wait, we're
sealing the deal and we're buggying element to it, you know,
knuckle dusters on. But the you know, the main hook
was was not for me. If it was like one
moment of like you know, on a bridge or something.
But there are some songs where the actual hook is
built on I think you should leave. That is built
on that like slipping in and out of talking delivery,
and it's just dead on arrival. Every time they repeated it,
I just shriveled up a little bit. There's this kind
of gnawing like playground taunt style of vocal melody writing
to like I'm in the Market to Police No One
or Wilburn Street Tavern, and it's just I find it unpleasant.
Speaker 5: I quite like in the Market to Police no And I
think that's got a fun chorus, But I do again,
I can see what you mean like with that kind
of like, yeah, vocal delivery being a bit grating.
Speaker 6: I see for me the problem with this record. But
it's not the production or the sound of it. I
think I don't mind quite sugary punk, and I don't
mind real like.
Speaker 3: Sort of skate punk stuff.
Speaker 6: Like it's for me, it's the middle ground, which what's
sort of having how its cake and eat it where
it's like a lot of this band seems to be
selling itself on the thing of like, you know, we're
just some punks in a garage, but then you listen
to me like it doesn't sound like that. It's like
you kind of I don't know, those two things don't match. Yeah,
but I've got to say the vocals.
Speaker 3: It's I agree with it.
Speaker 6: You're saying about having personality, and a lot of punk
punk vocalists are so faceless that it's hard to even
like differentiate them. That's not true of this vocalist and
her sort of straightforward singing style, like you saying things
like swimmers here, it's not too bad. Like maybe that's
a little bland, but I'm not strongly adverse to it.
Sometimes I again, it sounds I think you should leave.
I think that's something that suits your voice. I think
that sounds good. But that sort of faux song, faux
spoken thing that she dips into whatever the opposite of
catnip is. Yeah, it's like a battery acid like it's just.
Speaker 1: I yeah, I completely agree, and I just I also
just need to mention the fact that so I mentioned
h Wilbourne Street has a line about Shiptok, which is
I appreciate is making a joke about TikTok, but also
I just can't believe that line is in there. I
know it's a faux pa to compare any female fronted
pop punk band to Paramore. I don't normally do it,
but you like a drunk feede Bridges literally is misery
business like it makes good for you sound like it
was actually drawing its inspiration from poison the well the
level of similarity to misery business, and is it just
open season now that like Olivia Rodriguez had a hit
with it, that we just all do our rewrites of
misery business. Because first of all, it does the woe,
which is you know, yeah, that's misery business. But then
it does the same tempo exactly the bit in the
latter half the chorus where the drum do that dundn't.
My brain is going guddy, what I wanted now? And
it's that after the woe. It makes it so blatant
that I actually don't even know if I feel good
criticizing it, because I feel like it's so flagrant. They
have to be self aware, like I've not read if
they've made a comment or something about this being a
single where they were like, yeah, we've interpolated misery business
for the song, because it's so it has to be
like because Surely no one could expect people to not
notice that. So if it is a completely intentional, open,
you know, nothing shade about it interpolation, then you know
fair enough that's your choice. For me, the effect was
the same of like, man, I wish I was wished
listening to Misery Business instead because it's it was the
most extreme example of what I felt about this record,
which is kind of reheated leftovers.
Speaker 5: I mean, that's what I mean that Riot in particular
is the one they are I think on this album,
not just on that song.
Speaker 4: I think just the general kind of vibe.
Speaker 1: It is that this is twenty twenty five kind of
slightly more old poppy Riot.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and it is. I think this song is good,
but I do think I was like, oh, it's good
because it is. Yeah, maybe that that is.
Speaker 5: A little too on the nose, but has good for
you just opened the floodgates on it.
Speaker 1: It's really bizarre. Yeah. I think like Talk is one
of the better choruses for my years in terms of
not straying into those really egregious elements. Some of the
guitar riffs, okay, like stuff like Johnny's Dead and Are
You Famous? Has a little bit more like when Basement
go for something a little bit more guitar heavy, like
spoiled right, like kind of squealing things. If you like
your polished end of pop punk, I think those are
you know, pretty immediate in that regard. And Swimmers here
you mentioned, you know, it's not as flagrant as the
misery business thing, but it's got like an ever long
kind of flavor in there, which is, you know, not disagreeable.
I just think it's quite generic, Like I don't really
get much personality from this, aside from being the latest
in a line of brash, kind of overly witty pop
punk records. And I think fourteen of these in a
row probably makes me feel like it's a lot worse
than it is. Like I could handle five to ten
minutes of like the better songs on this, but like
I said to me, it felt reheated. But I'm also
I'm not personally in the market of looking for new
pop punk like this. I mean, I wish there was
more to it than grating versions of songs that were
written in two thousand and six. But if you are
in that market and you're kind of more on the
wavelength of, like, you know, thinking of those ash vocal
moments are kind of you know, like you know that
they hit something in you or whatever. This is one
of those where you know, I mean, if the band
were to hear this one, I'd just be like, you know,
we swim in different circles, right Like me and Eliot'
stance on this is like not the make or break
for their career path. We are miles away right what
they on that to come, Like, sure, you know what
they think is far nor how they choose to express
their anger or whatever. It just wasn't compatible. But if
you are in the market for a kind of again
brash snotty pop punk record that is just very upfront
about kind of having all those things about it, and
maybe you haven't heard something like that of you know,
a decent quality in a while. The Bandicle were known
a Fighter and their record is called My Apologies to
the Chef. We're gonna run to the end of this
episode now with a run of underground metal records. I
think two of these are likely to be unless you're
really plugged in names that you don't yet know. But
there is one name there's become a byword for everything
that is sick and twisted in death metal, and it
is piss Grave and their record Malignant Worthlessness, which is
out the third and if you're paying attention, probably last
album from the nastiest death metal band maybe there's ever been,
Like I think what we've seen with piss Grave is
something special, because I don't know if we have seen
another death metal band who have tested the limits of
what people can actually stomach like piss Grave in recent years,
because people who love and listen to death metal all
day long, there is still there's another limit above of
what you need to kind of muster yourself up to
in order to listen to piss Grave. Death metal has
become commonplace, I would say the last few years, it's
kind of become more accepted across different you know, demographics
and scenes. Then it's been at least since the mid
nineteen nineties when death metal bands were getting on MTV,
and then there is piss Grave.
Speaker 6: They one of those things where it's hard to imagine
what a metal band could do that would be more
extreme than piss Grave, do you know what I mean?
Like at some point it tips over into like harsh
noise or fucking like danger music, and I don't think
there's another certainly currently active band that capture the sort
of giddy, diseased thrill of death metal quite like Pisgrave.
Like you said it about Spectral Law last year, how
they capture the mood and the atmosphere of like death
in their music. Piss Grave for me like they're in
that sort of lineage of like Barn Zero, Cannibal Corpse
or Topsy that truly like disgusting like cryptic death metal,
but they take it so far that, like I say,
even death metal fans are going, lads, ease up.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, they haven't overexposed themselves, which is one
thing because, like you know, with this album, they now
have as many studio albums as Undeath and Undeath First
long as twenty twenty, so there's not been much time
to get used to them. And it's been like something
I per personally value being there for the release of
Suicide Euphoria in twenty fifteen and in those ten years
watching piss Grave go from like a crazy new death
metal bands to almost bordering on legendary because to see
that happen in real time through just unwavering status as
the death metal band it requires that bit more Fort
choose to actually brave and survive has I think been
one of the coolest extreme metal stories of that decade,
and no one else has caught up to them. You'd
think in those ten years after suicidey Fouria, someone would
start trying to surpass what they do, but no, no
one's been able to do piss Grave, so Malignant Worthlessness
described as closing a trilogy that started with Suicide Ephourior
and then continued with I think their best record Costumeous Humiliation.
If we are to view it as that sense, then
I think it is one of the great achievements in
modern death metal. I mean it's different to Blood Incantation
releasing and Absolute elsewhere, right, but I think it should
be considered an event within the scene because we have
long been told there's no further place of nastiness or
extremity that you can take death metal and then pisk
grave over. These three albums have done it. I have
been waiving the pisk Grave banner for almost ten years.
I still get a shock of combined fucking vomiting adrenaline
when this record starts.
Speaker 6: I mean, I think I've been serving the trenches about
as long as you have. I've had plenty of time
to adjust to the pisk Grave sound, and then this
came in and it was no more discernible, no more
digestible than what like posthumous Humiliation by the slimmest Margins.
Might be a more coherent, easy to get your head
around record than Suicidal for it, and I think this
album is more feral and unhinged than the last one.
So it's like if anything had softened and become like
remotely more like understandable, it doesn't matter because we're back
up to like piss Grave on eleven out of ten.
This album is fucking.
Speaker 1: Frightening inhertic Blood Christened is the most maniacal start to
a death metal records in pisk Grave last album. Right,
it's the guitar time that is really truly serrated, like
what the pisk Grave guys and Arthur Rizzik in the
studio are able to kind of cook up together. It's
like an electric knife of a guitar sound, just like
buzzing at you and the blast of kind of garbled
vocal tracking. I think actually if you play if you
would say, take one song of each record and play
them together production wise, I think this is the most
conventionally well produced one, and that is saying something right
because it's it's not about the production really. I mean
the production is a factor, but obviously it's just about
how these guys play and the sound they've been able
to going to tune themselves into sam death metal enjoyer,
death metal lover. We reviewed many a death metal record,
but there's nothing quite like a pisk Grave record. How
did you find thirty three minutes of just absolute?
Speaker 5: It's like, I don't want to be the person who like, ah,
it's too much. I have problems with records beyond the
kind of like pure extremity of it, Like I I
can respect and maya a commitment to kind of being like, no,
we are gonna just be the most extreme band possible.
I'm just like, there are any single song here apart from
maybe Inherited Blood Christens.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think you're wrong there, and I think that's
I think that's respectable in terms of like most people
on Earth would hear this and go nah. But it's
always been with piss Grave. You know, you get through
the sound. But they have always been the sickest rift writers,
and there are riffs on this thing that are beautiful.
Speaker 4: There are riffs, I agree, I don't think there are songs.
Speaker 5: I mean they're the kind of just I mean Inheriting
Blood Christs, like the rifts go so hard on that
was like I was kind of like cautiously optimistic when
when that song, I kind of was like quite on
board with it, but the feeling just kind of like
drifted the way with each passing song.
Speaker 6: See for me, like the comparison the thing it's saying
about like there's riffs but not songs.
Speaker 1: I don't.
Speaker 6: I don't agree, but I kind of see what you're
getting out. For me, a comparison would be just to
the first couple of Napalm Death records, and it's like.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's not really like hits.
Speaker 6: There's there's not like a hammer smashed face or you know,
like god e emptiness or something like that, which is
a clearly like just traditionally written metal song. Maybe they
are just collections of riffs, but the sensation is such
that that's absolutely fine, Like the force of it and
the way they arrange the riffs, which I guess is
what song is really like, the way they weave them together.
It makes for thirty three minutes that if you're on
if you're on their wavelength, it's just pure magic.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think the song point is almost kind of besides
the point because I would use the examples Full of
Hell right, Like do Full of Hell records have songs
on them? I mean they've got you know, tracks that
I remember and stuff, but they're not bangers. I mean,
some of them are bangers, but like you know that,
you know what I mean, They're not like full on
defined verse chorus, verse, chorus, No, No, they're not. They
are you know, sonic experiences that are jammed with parts
and stuff. And I think pist Grave and a Deathite
around doing something very similar and this is there are
lots of parts on this that just make me grin,
make you want a bang my head, that do have
the kind of cemented themselves. I mean, my fucking my
vinyl record of this actually turned up today, so I
was listening to it and just you know, having so
much fun with each new riff, and there are parts
that have, you know, put themselves into my head. And
that's what I love about Pittsgrave is they are genuinely
some of the sickest death metal riffers. You know around
right now, but they have plugged into a sound that
is it's okay to be more challenging to people's sensibilities
than you know, the average deafthmat bad is that's kind
of their thing, right, Like, this is not like ooh
an undeath record, Oh to understab Wins. Records like Pitsgrave
have always gone beyond that, and to some that will
kind of lessen their appeal, but it is also what
has made them and out And if you're in with
piss Grave, then you're fucking in. And this is the
third record again in a trilogy that has delivered for
me just some of the most exhilarating death metal of
that entire period.
Speaker 5: It's why I don't want to rag on this album
too much, because I totally agree with what you're coming from.
Where like the the aim and the thrill is in
that extremity, and so I'm like, this is just so
out of my lane, even as someone who is like
all in on like a lot of death metal now,
because it's just so pushing that thing to like the most,
like the vocals are the the issue if I like,
the biggest sticking point I have that just every time
I saw them, like, come on, come on, I'm.
Speaker 4: Getting ah no, he's making that noise.
Speaker 5: I don't like that noise, making that noise please, But
I like again, like for me, this is just so
out of my kind of like wavelength that I'll talk
up to just not for me. I ain't gonna ra
kind of like, go, isn't this the best most horridly
like viobent.
Speaker 1: To mad and boy is.
Speaker 6: But I totally get it though, because when I first
got into Pisgrave, I I just thought it was like
Last Dais of Humanity or something like one of my
favorite extreme records ever is Puture Faction in Progress by
Last Dais of Humanity. Now, there was that thing you
say about not having songs. There is not a song
on that record. It's like forty to fifty tracks or something,
the most obnoxious gore grind and I just put it
on and it's almost it becomes white noise. I just
let it wash over me. Yeah, I'm sort of like
addicted to it. And when I first heard suicidealf where
I thought, oh fucking someone's done that thing and they've
taken it further. And then it was only on repeated
listens that start to go wait, hang on, No, these
are these riffs fucking rock. And it means that when
I put this record on and for the first time,
I'm already kind of tuned into the frequencies that even
if the sound is still shocking, I kind of know
what to expect. And there are so many on this record,
like heaping Pile of Electrified Gore, which might be the
best song title of the year so far. Like that's
just like an avalanche of riffs. Every single one is fantastic.
I don't have to say this ignominy a putre.
Speaker 1: Faction, which, by the way, I have a long sleeve
from the last pis Grave album cycle with that title
on it, so that has been kicking around. This is
like when Spectro Voice did be Kadaver right, that these
bands just come up with cool phrases and then sit
on them for years and then it has turned up
on the next record. Iuldn't believe it when I saw that.
Speaker 6: I mean when I saw that, I didn't think I
wonder if parents.
Speaker 1: Gone on a ship? Almost always yes, but that the
most riff on that it that see that to me
wouldn't sound out a place on a Nails record, which
might be like a hair less extreme than this sort
of thing, but that's the sort of reference point I'm making,
like Intimone Orgy like that record, like it's chop on.
Speaker 5: That unreasonably hard. That might be one of my record
That riff is wicked.
Speaker 1: That riff is fucking awesome. Like you know, when we
said when the single came out, the main verse riff
that hits forty seconds into Inherited Blood Christened is just
death battle with real behind it. Like it makes me
grimace and then grin after I've grimaced, because it's just
it's sado masochistic what a riff like that does for you.
And the whole second half of that then kind of
grinding into this like slow, you know, forcing your head
under tempo and the beginning of three degrees of darkness
with a kind of pitch shifted vocal intro. It's almost
like you're under the surface now kind of drowning in
like whatever scum concoction you've been immersed in vocally. I
mean like yeah, I mean, I love the extreme, Like Daft,
one of the only things that's taken the you know,
vocal distortion pioneered by the likes of Glen Benton on
the very early day side, but you kind of into
a new level of whatever. I love it, but I
do love the moments when weird curve balls come through it.
Like there's a really unsettling section towards the end of
heaping part of electrode Gore when he almost says like
a spoken word part or something, but like through the
vocal thing and it almost sounds like godflesh or like
that kind of when that weird droning spoken and you know,
just in broader it thing or you know, a really
nightmarish kind of ritualistic kind of you know, piece of language.
It's really really dark and kind of unsettling. And what
has made me stick with pisk Grave all through these
years is I mean, there are tons of fucking ear
gorgrind records or whatever that are shocking in sound, maybe
not in the way piss Grave is, but like most
of them don't stick with me. Piss Grave top draw riffers,
and there are just so many parts That main riff
in in term and AUGI, which you've mentioned, is so
hooky and immediate as a groove. The main riff in
the title track is almost like a kind of fettied
upgrade on like a Steve Tucker Morbid Angel rift, Like
it has just like horrible rolling tripler sensation. There's a
very similar kind of feel on Dissident Amputator as well,
but that has this like jackhammer kind of snare kind
of going through it as well. That has a different,
slimy sort of feel. And I really was taken aback
by the intro of Heaping Pile of Electrified Gore has
this real like kind of old school and accentuation kind
of like dead. It almost sounds like it could be
the intro to like pull the plug by Death or
something like. It has actually a bit of eighties death
metal thrash era kind of you know sound in it,
and it's you know, a case of that not being
i know, less evolved or less extreme because it has that.
It's just a remarkable moment in the song that they
have taken up to this kind of level.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean, I think I don't know where to
rank this in the Pisgrave catalog, but I think it
might be it might be their best record for riffs.
I'm not sure that it's maybe too early to say,
but like I I mean, the fucking title track like
that slam that's so insistent to me if you can
get on its wavelength, I don't see how even like
a fairly casual death metal fan.
Speaker 3: I mean, like, there's stuff on this record.
Speaker 6: I think the point you're making like, I think there's
stuff only that a more casual death metal found will
relate to.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I think they've utilized like mental war
dissonant solos about as well as anyone since Hanamon and King,
like the one that opens Lamentation of Weeping Wounds is
just like truly disorientating. But I've always loved when pisc
Grave do slow and I think it's it's almost an
antidote to what Sam was saying about kind of the
lack of songs, because I think it's easy to draw
attention to how hilariously cartoon extreme they are when they
go fast, and they always they open their records that
way for a reason, right, it's maximum audio battery. But
when they draw out and ride on a rift for
a long time, dissident Amputator on this it's so queasy
and necrotic and rotted, and it gives me that sensation
that you know, death metal's kinds supposed to to give me.
And I think the approach of Pists Grave have of
death metal that is still based on great rifts on
great grooves, but it has the power to be genuinely
antagonistic with that in a way that most death metal
bands who play great rifts and great grooves have kind
of stopped being The way this album ends just a
trick that I can't believe. I didn't see coming. But
it is such a I mean, that's a curtain call.
You know.
Speaker 6: It's like the CD itself is giving up. I mean
like like it gets to the end of the hour
and it's like there's nowhere to go, like curtain call exactly. Put,
it's like the band are bowing out. How do we
go out as extreme, as nihilistic, as like sickening as
we possibly can? Just descend into harsh noise? Yes, take
it to a point where the limits of recorded sound
won't take you any further.
Speaker 1: You see again, I was staring at my LP spinning.
I'm just like, when will it end? You know?
Speaker 4: It's just going and going.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And this is what I'm saying that I think
they do have this like experimental sludge or grind like
approach to death metal, and I think obvious peer and
when you look at it, like, yeah, that's something that
like Full of Hell would be expected to do. But
how many bands in the world of kind of old
school death metal are able to push those same sort
of buttons. I mean, obviously if you like stuff like that,
but you've never really got into death netals so much,
I would say, piss Gravear. You know one who could
kind of, you know, grab your interest a little because
they go to those out there places and it just
co copronizing itself, blendings into this wall of harsh noise
is I mean, I was eating my dinner while listening
to this album yesterday, which is already a bad cool
I know, but like I ate a bit of sausage
that was a bit too hot, and I had that
horrible burning sensation in my chest exactly as that noise
bit was hitting, and for a few seconds I thought
I was gonna die. It was amazing. I mean, we
praised the likes of Undeath and so on for being
fun death metal, and that has its place. They're great
at it. We need those bands. This is not fun
death metal. If there is fun to be found, it's
through how evil and antagonistic it is, but I think
it's good as well that we have death metal bands
who have real conviction still in death metal being antagonistic
and harmful and like, you know, it's like the least
gentrified death metal you know. And with that with pis Grave,
it's always come, you know, just in the way something
like some black metal bands who take being antagonistic or
edgy whatever like too seriously. That will come with a
level of like is that for you or not? Do
you find something powerful in that? Or would you rather
listen to extreme metal that doesn't take itself quite so
seriously or whatever and is a bit more welcoming to people.
That's you know, your discretion as a listener. But again
they unapologetically made up that isn't for everyone, and the
result is that has made them stand out in the
last decade of death metal. I mean, this is one
of the handful of death net records that's got on
reviewed in pitchwork of late, like they are still kind
of turning heads even though it is just all out violence.
And this is the the capping of a kind of
almost mini project of death metal that I think has
seen that kind of be revived in a way that
we haven't really seen since it's heyday.
Speaker 5: I mean it's exactly again why Like I'm totally like
hesit to sort of call like to criticize some because
I think it is so it is so successful at
its aim. It like it is for what they want
to do. It's probably a ten out of ten in
kind of achieving in that. I know, I can totally
respect that anyway, it is not that not all it
has to be for everyone iRED percent back that as
a sort of sentiment, and I think like extreme art
that is too extreme should exist, And I'm glad pisk
Grave have like had this trilogy where I've gone, like,
ay for fucking me that first song. You know, I
get my fill of it on that first song, and
like call that that that fucking goes, But I don't
need thirty one minutes of it. But as a sort
of boundary pushing sort of pushing the limits of taste
of extreme and all that, I can take my half
to pisk Grave and kind of be like you've fucking
done it, Like you are impressive in that regard. Even
if I were kind of like I'm unlikely to revisit
this anytime the world.
Speaker 1: Was more interesting for having piss Grave in it.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean that that kind of like nearly some
of my feeling. But maybe I'll come back to this
at some point of mentioning kind of go like, ah,
there's those riffs that they're cool, but good on piss
Grave what they've done.
Speaker 6: I'm I'm weirdly comforted by the existence of piss Grave
in the sense that, like, if we were to talk
about the most distressing, appalling, upsetting music made in the
last decade, the two artists that come to mind, and
for completely different reasons, are piss Grave and Linguid Ignota.
And there's a sort of a perverse pride I feel
that one of those bands is a metal band, because
we're so often told that, you know, not even just
definite but mestal itself, it's not gonna get more extreme.
If you really want to get too extreme stuff, you have
to enter the realm of the sort of the avant garde,
or like all the limits have already been pushed, and
for this ostensibly sort of scuzzy death metal band to go, nah,
it goes further. I it makes me so excited. Yeah,
I mean, it's February, and I think unless one of
the giants come out with a stonker even then I'd
say this is the death metal event release of the year,
wrapped up like no one else is going to strip.
Speaker 1: The flesh from your body the way. I've ordered this
album on tape as well, because that's the that's the
right way to do it. Piss Grave Malignant Worthlessness. We
are going to be bringing you a bit of a
feast of guey death metal because alongside piss Grave, our
next album is from Vacuus. It's called In His Blood.
I think if the piss Grave is still a bit much,
I mean, I hope the Vacuous guys don't get, you know,
too upset with me for saying this might be slightly
more accommodating two people, but this is still some really
filthy death metal that you should be scoopinging to your
ears like bloody pulp. Vacuus are a UK death metal
band formed around I guess the pandemic. The first time
I heard of them was the twenty twenty two edition
of UK death Fest that we had. They opened up
the pre show and that was cool and you know,
someone my friends and you know people in the know
and the UK death metal scene like the Crypts of
the Wizard and some places like that very much backing
them kind of in their earlier stages. And then I
learned that the drummer in this band, Max, is the
live drummer in hell Ripper's band. So if you've seen
hell Ripper live, it's that kind of animal from the
Muppets energy on the drums that you see in that band,
their power and the kit here on this record. Their
first album is a really just good piece of kind
of gross underground death metal. But I was really stoked,
like for them when they signed to Relapsed Records for
this album, like a legendary US label label baits now
with with Pig Destroyer and you know, Incantation and Dying Fetus.
I sort of just expected them to stay on you know,
some of the smaller death metal destroyers. So that was
a really cool announcement to see, I mean, go on me,
you know, interested in this album because I thought, you know, hey,
like with that kind of backing, could this be another
death metal band who you know, like you know, start
to make a few more waves and kind of impress
a lot more people. Second album from Vacuus maybe the
first one that we've come into contact with in his blood,
what do you reckon?
Speaker 5: I think this is wicked, Like as on we lad
like a tough time with Pispay, I've I think this
fucking ripsa.
Speaker 4: It's definitely.
Speaker 5: It's kind of got a bit of like power violence
and grindcore going on, all these sort of other elements
going onto it, and it's just kind of like hard
album hard album title, like let's just fucking rip out
the riffs in like frantics or pain violence sort of
like I think this is, yeah, just a really cool
kind of bombard things that does as it goes on
fine kind of new little pockets to sort of tap
into to keep it interesting.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, I was vaguely familiar with the Vacuus before
we decided to do this record, and I thought i'd
heard some of their last record, But I question now
if I have, because I feel like i'd remember if
I did if it sounds anything like this. I think
that the last one is more straightforward than this. This
has an interesting kind of like they've decided to experiment
a bit, which I think is again like commendable. Well, yeah,
because On my first rung through this, I was almost thinking, like,
I'm I suppose it's death metal, but that doesn't really
capture what it is like.
Speaker 4: To me.
Speaker 6: It almost speaks to that great tradition of like British
extreme metal, which doesn't really fit into any one box
or that neatly because it's like there's you know, like
you say, power violence, hardcore, there's a sort of industrial
aspect some of it like noise rock. Like to just
call it death metal doesn't really capture all that.
Speaker 3: But what I think is great.
Speaker 6: About this record is, you know, typically with an extreme
metal allow if you go there's all these different, various
influences bloody, bloody blah that would typically denote some kind
of like uber complex like seventy minute labyrinth of a record.
This seems like thirty minutes long, and it makes for
a super like densely woven listening experience, like it's like
a sort of tightly coiled spring. It's just there's a
tension all the way through it, which isn't typical of
most death metal bands.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was really again encouraged and impressed by some
of the kind of boldness of different places to I
guess just open mindedness of like, we've got some death
metal riffs that you know, we're very accomplished at playing.
We've kind of you know, we've been playing this already.
What kind of shape can we arrange them in? And
how can we you know, twist them to ether into
an album. It does some things that are slightly less
common with that style of music that I think is
where again you're starting to see like Vacuous being a
band who have a bit of a you know, an
identity about them. I mean, I love that, you know,
it starts with first is kind of neat little drum lick,
but then not a gutterer, but a whale, like a
real kind of ah. And it's got this feel of
something that is embracing the slightly more evil, unhind sides
of extreme music, not just limited to the fundamentals of
groovy death metal. Like it's got a bit of a
crazy eyes, unpredictable personality about it that I think the
fundamental and the foundation is still like meaty, groovy, gory
death metal, but it has a bit more of that,
as said, unpredictable spirit than you would normally expect from
that kind of fundamental basis and to me it makes
it a bit more exciting than some of the more
slightly stock stuff in that you know, realm. I mean again,
just like the cover art, it's not quite a conventional
death metal artwork, but it's really skin crawling, you know,
just sort of the walls of some torture dungeon or something.
And that opening title track it's got that, you know,
sort of manic punk like the fast end of Autopsy,
you kind of drunken maniac feel. There's a song called
Immersion later which is really speedy as well, and they've
got that real elasticity of rhythm that works for them
on the turns of pace. You look at the opening
minute alone of stress positions and the way that they
kind of catapult themselves through different tempos like each one
really kicks. The way this moves around, like the sort
of the the yanking back and forth of it. And
this might sound like quite dizzying praise, but I sort
of qualify it.
Speaker 3: It wasn't too disimilar to.
Speaker 6: Something like Code Orange with Forever, like the way that
sort of introduced glitchiness and of the sort of horror
movie soundscapes and those uneasy riffs. It seems to operate
on their own logic. I saw quite a few parallels.
And I'm not say this is as good as that record,
you know, because that's sort of seen as a classic now,
but it kind of got me thinking that somehow that
the fact this album is almost more avant garde than
used to called death Mel record might actually allow it
to have some sort of appeal outside of death Mel.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's funny. There's one song in particular where that
exact thing, comparaicony point did kind of come to language
I'll get to, but yeah, I do agree. I think
there's a again, just an open mindedness in their reference
points that I think, yeah, helps a record like this.
I mean vocally, I like that it's a lot of
the time it's quite fast, you know, in and out
of death metal. But you can tell they like things
like spectral voice for example, where they have that like
slightly more malleable approach to vocal delivery, because he'll do,
you know, the gut are all thing, but then he'll
lift it into the chorus on stress positions, that sort
of mid range gargle that he actually delivers that you know,
palpable hook with and then he'll like tail off on
lines and stuff like that, and it is a bit
like it's really like a performance rather than just like
you know, another rhythmic sound in the mix, like a
lot of death metal vocals are.
Speaker 5: I mean, that's one of the things that I really
appreciate about this record is the vocals weren't like that
kind of stock death metal crowd.
Speaker 4: There's there's a.
Speaker 5: Lot more kind of like like flax men and melebility.
Like it just all kind of feels like part of
like the chaotic, violet unpredictability of they like they twist
melodies and something like really unsettling.
Speaker 4: I think I go back that Thriving comparison.
Speaker 5: I think it's a really kind of good point and
just kind of their approach of like being like, well,
that's a hardcore record that then kind of like branched
and it supported to dive. Like that's doing that within
the sort of a death metal framework where again, you know,
you've had like the first tracks and then Hunger sort
of immediately kind of like track three starts to slow
things down and really start to like move into that,
but then this feeling that like it's going to burst
into complete chaos and violence at any moment, which is
it does it does kind of like when it that
song down, then when it does go, it kind of
hits into this like steam roll of a riff that
like crushes and they sort of double up and go
from faster. There's there's like I was a surprising the
amount of depth of this album. Kind of like I've
like the first song, I was kind of like, okay, cool,
it's kind of like fast, violent, chaotic kind of power
violence death metal, and then every sort of song that
goes on kind of goes peels back a layer and
it kept like it. It means just like flesh Parade,
bringing in kind of like black metal touches like to
kind of go with the blast and this kind of
like vocals like adding to this overwhelming noise. It was
constantly kind of keeping on my toes as a listener.
Speaker 1: I think that's exactly it, because the bridge in Stress
Positions has this almost that it brings you like a
little bit more of an ambience and that kind of
sets you up then for Hunger, and I think Hunger is,
you know, maybe the first real deviation the band had
made at that point, and it feels like more I
mean it's a weird to call it a ballad, right,
but like the clean guitar, which is heavily what it's
based in for the first couple of minutes reminded me
of like DSBM stuff like I was thinking about, like
Silence though, and like Bethlehem and stuff like that, with
those kind of tones going on there. And that's a
cool flavor in a like a you know, a death
metal record. But then the song evolves its temper. I
mean often, like aside from the closer, these are like
three four minute kind of packages, but they have this
death doom approach to like atmosphere within them, which is
an interesting kind of balance to be struck. Contraband is
the song where I Go. Is that a rock song
like through death metal? And it reminded me of Bleeding
in the Blur. It's got that like really regimented, like
kind of you know, approach on the drums, and it's
built around like a big burst of a death metal
rock chorus. I swear like, I'm glad that you did
the same thing, because I'm not making these comparisons up.
Like that exists as an element within something else that
you know, you could feasibly compare to and there's something
on Maggot Stump or something.
Speaker 6: You know, I think totally like through a lot of
the record that it's quite similar like that, you know
that Piscobram sort of sounds like a swarm of bees,
but that's that's not true of this. Like it's really
like clearly accented and defined in its gatar tone. I mean,
like it kind of sort of locks in and it
works like a machine. It's not just this you know
Tornado of Nails that a lot of underground death matl
records are, And I think that really was, like it
hits as hard as any beatdown album we'll I need
to talk about while also doing all this other stuff
like just go back, just go back to the vocals,
because I think that's.
Speaker 3: Also one of the sort of great aspects of this,
called those yelps.
Speaker 6: I was trying to think what they reminded me of,
and I was racking my brains and eventually it hit me.
Like the band from the New York postmon Man in
scen it's called Suicide right, and they have this song
called a Spit of Talent. They have a song called
Frankie tear Drop. It's the last song on there, and that's.
Speaker 1: The famous like scary songs.
Speaker 6: That song still freaks me out, like I could see.
Speaker 1: This being a bit of a suicide the band you know, Laced. Yeah,
definite a record, definitely, Yeah, Well it.
Speaker 6: Was that and particularly that song because I remember I
showed it to my younger sister when I was a kid,
and if I start even talking about it now, she
leaves the room. That's like later and the bits where
that singer starts yelping like it makes me sweat just
thinking about it. And I've always thought, like, why isn't
an extreme band not done something with that, because it's
as frightening as any extreme music, and this is the
first time I think I've ever heard a band do it,
and it does just add a sort of mania to it,
which I think if that sort of edge wasn't there,
not that it would feel like rudimental. But I love
that you get these real locked in, sort of almost
basic moments of the record, but it's juxtaposed with this
kind of unhinged quality.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and Contraband is is a banger. It's like a
noise rock, death metal banger. I really like the solo
section in Public Humiliation, where the guitar tone goes really
like mournful and melodic and kind of tasteful. It's like
a real leaf out of the Doom playbook.
Speaker 3: On that say, Public.
Speaker 5: Humiliation is like quite doomed anyway to start with them.
When they kind of get those melodies, I mean that
might be my first one with the record. I think
that really cool.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think these are all just these things we're saying.
They're great embellishments to the fundamental basis, which is nasty,
pummeling death metal rift. It's like they do that thing
very well. They did that well on their first record,
and it's nice to see just a bit of you know,
ambition in texture for a band like this. On top
of that, I think there's an awful lot of promise here.
I think they have good instincts for, you know, feeling
stuff out and not just doing the obvious generic thing
at every single you know opportunity. I think if you
like things like you know, two hundred stab Wounds and
so on, but you're ready for something that is also
a bit more experimental and a bit more kind of
malleable and dynamic in like approach to atmospheres and textures.
I think you'd like this the band of Vacuous Again,
UK band the record in His Blood released on Relapse Records.
The last album for this episode is my personal black
metal pick of the month. The black metal records coming
out next month are more your sort of block bluckbuster
bands that we got a Cradle Health record and Death
Heaven and stuff, So I thought this would be a
good opportunity to stink something a bit more underground in
their The band called Grab and the record is Cremess.
Grab are a black metal band from Bavaria in Germany,
which I believe has a specific kind of distinction with
this project, because you know, I'm not as up on
my dialect as any of our German listeners might be,
but my understanding is Bavaria has a distinct kind of dialect,
some slightly different linguistic approaches to the rest of Germany,
as well as the specific kind of regional folklore, and
that's kind of what this project is very much sort
of themed around it and utilizing Grab I believe translates
in kind of sort of like old and gray, you know,
kind of like wisened and Kremes is a funeral feast
and so you can imagine this record the kind of
and you can see it there on the cover with
the reaper figure coming knocking on the wintery door of
a little boy. You know, very dark, melancholic, morbid vibes.
The band is spearheaded by a vocalist, Grant, who has
He's gone by a couple different names in different projects,
but he was the original vocalist in Dark Fortress, who
the first like few records that he sang on, like
Tales from Eternal Dusk and Profane Genocidal Creations I think
are like some of the most underrated European style black
metal records ever. Like those things are amazing and I
love them. So when I learned that you know, it
was him, it kind of got me intrigued about grab.
But this has a very different identity to it sonically,
which I'll detail in a minute. But this has been
like kind of like my favorite new discovery for the
start of twenty twenty five. Like, I've been really loving
the hell out of this record. I think obviously very
specific things like the kind of black metal it is.
I think you're probably know whether it's the kind of
thing you'll be drawn to or not. But for my sensibilities.
I've been really really into this one.
Speaker 4: Yeah, this might be one of my favorite discoveries as well.
Speaker 1: Really nice.
Speaker 4: Do you know what I will say?
Speaker 5: I think our time spent on the streets of Visborg
has kind of like put me in to like just
be down with what grab a up to you here.
I genuine was like just that feeling of like not
so I was just playing in my head through so
much of this and again, like you say, like the
other regional things. I like, I don't like generalize Germany
too much, but like that kind of gothic melancholic sense
of death that hangs over it from the artwork.
Speaker 1: From everything Wintery. Yeah, it just it.
Speaker 5: Poured me straight in the I was kind of like
parent has picked the perfect time to drop this record
in my lap and me to just be swallowed up
by I think this is fantastic.
Speaker 6: I mean I'd never heard of this band before, and
you know I was only always give this a once
over today before we reviewed this full house.
Speaker 3: This thing is fucking r Yes.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean you're like so chuffed now, like, yeah, well, sometimes.
Speaker 1: I bring Blacknet Records on and not only does Sam
sometimes go it's not for me, but Elliott will sometimes
just be like, no, this one's bad. I'm like, oh no,
whereas so I'm pleased that you know this we got
like a yeah, cool, this is good because I really
think this one is excellent.
Speaker 4: Yeah, no, I know, I think it is.
Speaker 5: I think like the moments of like those tremblone melodies
kicking on, like is it a I'm going to budgetl plentations.
Speaker 4: I was kind of like, I'm wonder most of wavelength
for this.
Speaker 5: All of a sudden it was swelling in like immersive
and again like lyrically, no no idea of the lyrics,
but like the emotional core of these songs hit with me,
and I think I love how every song has a
shift at like at one point that completely changes the tone,
and they all kind of like there was all kind
of exist in this sort of two act structure that
keeps them like from being really that keeps them being
really engaging and never kind of like setting in twenty
fourth too long And I just from start to finish
was just swept up by this record.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well, so to describe some sort of distinct you know,
sounds that this uses, I've been really into of like
this kind of black metal derived of the nineties that
has this really like medieval atmosphere in regards to like
the folk influences and stuff. So the obvious touchstones there
are stuff like early satiric on like the Shadow Throwne
and dark medieval time satiric on early gi Henna like
the Spell records, and like first album Olvera, and like
this really nicely slips into it, you know, like a
twenty twenty five example of that kind of spirit. But
there's also things that jump out about it because you know,
this record is not Norwegians, it's German, very specifically Bavarian,
because there are elements in the instrumentation here which are
very regional. Most prominently along with like the keyboard or
whatever that you might expect, there's a lot of hammered
dulcima on this record, which is like an instrument that
is present, I believe in like a lot of Bavarian
folk music. So that's kind of the regional identify of
this particular record. And like almost every song has like
a little hammer dulcamer melody in there somewhere, and that's
you know, it has been used in black metal. There's
bad like botanists who have kind of been like really
radical with it and made it their whole thing. But
it's not like two comments still and I really love
the sound of the dulcimer in uh maybe something is
again a little bit more traditional in it's black metal
like this, This record is like really cool mournful super Winterry,
but has laced through it these really great melodies on
the dulcimer, and there are these like embellishments on top
of the black metal that for me are like really
really carefully arranged. Like I think a lot of the
black metal is very you know, like well done, but
pretty primal and pretty like you know, to the point
and you know what's going on with it. It's the
embellishments they put on top that kind of elevates this
to kind of like a bit of a world class
sort of example of the kind of thing it is.
Speaker 5: When it goes into the sort of more like I
don't know if it's folk like, but they kind of
more traditional elements and those sort of things they decorate
these songs with, it does just make them that much
more kind of like ear catching. In the different tones
like the black metal stuff when it is kind of
going just straight black metal blasting with those big travelo
melodies and all that, like that sounds great, but when
they can color it and find like these real kind
of like immersive folk elements that make it again just
that much more transportative. Those are things that I think
that this to being something like genuinely quite special to me.
Speaker 6: It's brilliant that all those references that parents drawn out
I saying that. Now I listen to the thing back
to the record and go, oh yeah, I remember hearing that.
I haven't written down like nearly any of the bands
you've mentioned, And I think it's because basically, I think
if you like black metal in almost all of its
guys is, you'll find a place in your heart for
this record because it doesn't particularly fit neatly into any
of those small boxes. And you know, satiric on Oliver,
that's all absolutely there. The thing you say about the
dulcimer that really reminded me of like the early Enslaved records.
I think it's a very similar tone on those. Like
vocally there's a big old heap of immortal on bits
of this record that sort of panza faust like super
blizzardly black metal yeah.
Speaker 1: Well vocally obviously, vocally it takes me back to listening
to like the early two thousand Stark Fortress records because
it's the same guy. There are parts so I was like, oh,
what's that, and then I realized, oh, I'm thinking of
fucking Proflegeen aside of creations, you know, it's like there
is a history. First track is maybe even the more
sort of straightforward headbanger black metal track on the record,
but even that has like these big booms of timpany
and drums on it that might make you think of
stuff like summoning or whatever, and it has that touch
of like the epic medieval about it. And after that
the record slows down quite you know, a good portions
of the record, and it really shows its trops compositionly,
I think in some of those sections, because that steady
pace which they meet around some of those like little
melodies and little instrumental parts. It's like the wider black
metal of this record is almost like haunted by all
these like little individual sprites and spirits and stuff. Like
it's real you know, quality in the arrangements there. The
title track is there's like this big wall of like
haunted ghostly Keys. That's really like out of the nineties playbook,
And it does feel when it's operating at kind of
a more meditative tempo like that it's like you're in
the Bavarian Alps, you know, like in the in the
coldest months, in the snow, following some kind of like
funeral procession. I feel like it make a great double
bill with the latest X Vessel record, not because they
use the same components really, but because they just they
capture that like dead of winter only lit by the stars,
kind of like still and quiet about them.
Speaker 5: That was one of the sort of comparisons I made
just in terms of just like the tone and the vibe.
But I me mean, but I think the title track
genuinely this sort made me feels like this is what
Black Molt should make me feeling. Kind of its scope
and that kind of like natural kind of vible, like
you like being out there in like the wilderness and
like hearing this kind of unearthed ancient music kind of
like coming to life in front of you. Really emotionally
powerful in like the sort of the things it doesn't.
They just strike this great balance between being like glacial
when they need to be like propulsive when they do
grand and epic and in extreme and heavy and really
emostly powerful. All these things just constantly hit me at
every point across these songs.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean the centerpiece for me is there's there's
a two part kind of partnerships.
Speaker 5: The middle tracks in the middle five, is it. Yes,
That's what I've had is like the centipiece of the
record for me as to stand out, Like Yeah, and
the first.
Speaker 1: Part of that with the dulph melodies really lean into
that kind of spidery and spectral, like the real kind
of like you know, the sort of chill of someone
walking over your gray field. The second part hit something
really uplifting and kind of equal parts delicate and mighty,
where it has this like thick, advancing heavy metal riff,
but then the dulcimer just popping up the right spots
and that kind of little main dulcimer hook and that
kind of the durnd durnd. Like those melodies have been
like really swirling around in my head, and I think
the dulcimer has a really like wonderful emblematic of the
you know, kind of equal parts eerie and contemplative side
of black metal. I just really love how it's deployed
here on, particularly on a song like that kind of
you know the middle two parts.
Speaker 5: There, I mean those two songs like just nail the
atmosphere and again like an eerie acoustic intron the second
one like kind of pulls you in. It just builds
up to this gorgeous emotional crescendo where they're like everything
kind of swells up. But like like I said, or
doesn't like, the lead guitar melodies at that point are
like absolutely jaw droppingly good. I think, like there's just
somebody and again there are big places, like just big
heavy MeTL riffs kind of coming at you as well
that like keep it getting just quite fun and enjoyable
whilst being a kind of like really emostly resonant experience.
Speaker 6: Well, I think sometimes when we pair the wood atmospheric
with black mel it kind of denotes some sort of
shapelessness or.
Speaker 1: Like a lack of risks.
Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, and that style don't know, it can be great,
but I think some bands do it who are fairly popular,
who just happen to get away with not writing any songs.
No such problem, because when this thing slams Yeah, it's
slamming as hell and it, but it somehow doesn't detract
from the atmospheric thing, you know, some of those bands,
and I understand why they drift into this ambience and
it's like, it can't sound like it's too connected to
the things like Motorhead or Venom, because that's an atmospheric
that's not the sound of the woods, do you know.
Speaker 3: What I mean?
Speaker 1: And yet this band somehow managed to again have their
cake and eat it like it's all that stuff you'll
say about it.
Speaker 6: It pairs all that hex Essel record will sound like
it gives like a snowy wood and yet that when
it does lay into a riff, it's as hard as nails.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Like personally, I mean, maybe I'll have the epiphany
at some point, but personally I'm not like a big
like posaty Eva fan, And for me, it's kind of
he turns up every couple of years, releases a two
hour record and there's barely a memorable riff in the
entire thing, where it's like this this is you know,
perfect for that a really cool use of In dapher
Zeig as well, there's a there's a kind of acoustic
guitar in there, and that's the moment where it goes
super berg tat, you know, like very much in that realm.
But the end of the same song, it integrates just
for this one moment on the record, like a Gregorian
monk chant.
Speaker 4: That was really cool.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's not like a Botushka where it's like a
major feature of the songwriting element. It's just throughout the
whole band. It's just this one part where it appears,
and I think there's a just a really like evocative
wilderness sensibility. Right. It's one of those records where you
can you can feel the soul of the place that's
been kind of born from in the sounds of it,
you know. And again I think vocally as well as
you know, coming off of the Vacuous record, it's another
record where he doesn't just take a kind of one
size fits all approach. Sometimes he will just be bellowing
something out into the wind. Sometimes, like on Diphozike, he's
almost like throat singing through bits of it, and then
there's this harder riff that kicks in halfway through and
he does this amazing like throat clearing laugh over it.
It's it's great, and I do love, you know, the
sound of kind of sort of Germanic languages with with
black metal vocals. I think there's just something very complimentary
about the you know, the kind of the croaking throatiness
of this. When he goes to those guttural areas. There
are points where like he's coughing something up or knocking
out and ooh, and he sounds like he's like an
old novelly creature that lives in an ancient tree or something.
And it's brilliant. And the final track of the one
that again even an Englishman could tell is called The
Last Winter, is so evocative of that you can hear
the winds blowing outside. By the end, it does it
feels so wintery, like you are locked up in a
cabin with the snow piled up six week high outside
the door, just a tiny little fire for shelter. It's
very just definitive of the viae that aims to achieve.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean I think that that closing track is like,
this is the final sort of journey into frosty wilderness
before like ext like on the vocal and that was
one of the things I did notice that again where
something I can sometimes struggle with black Mail Bets albums
is whether the vocal can just be kind of a
one note thing that they just hammer out throughout the
whole record.
Speaker 4: And I do like that they change at the vocals
from that sort of like they do promogues.
Speaker 5: Isn't that kind of traditional black Malt vocal, but they
just he just mixes up enough each time. And again
I think that closing track one of the most where
he does kind of like try a few little things
with it to just keep from ever feeling to one
note and all of these things again, like the closer,
that's someone with like the guitars are super emotive and
they again even will not understand the angers kind of
get on the waving for the record through the sort
of feelings conveyed in the music along with the kind
of I think you're right, the language with the sort
of black mail delivery does create a very kind of
authentic sound, which adds to that that wilderness feeling of
the record.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah.
Speaker 1: If I have one criticism of this record, it's that
it came out in February rather than last November, because like,
just as we're coming out of the winter, this thing
comes out and it's like, I want to listen to
this as it's getting cold and not as we starting
to have some sunny days.
Speaker 6: But I don't think it will make a difference because
it is so evocative of that thing that you know,
we could be in Mauritius in August and so when.
Speaker 4: You're boiling in the summer and you want to cool down,
stick this on, like.
Speaker 6: Yeah, and suddenly you're looking for your gloves. This it's
just it's things so fucking great.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that last track as well, the guitar sign
of that ends of record guest appearance from a Visanura
from Triptcon who used to be in Dark Fortress with
the singer here, but like he's basically my favorite metal
lead guitarists. I like, really a way to like see
all the and gives it that extra like emotional, really
excellent folk confused black metal. Really you can tell just
the experience that's going to kind of arrange in these
types of songs, and you know, being tasteful with the instrumentation.
It's never cheesy or caricaturist or anything. It's just like
an authentic slice of kind of dark European fairy tale grimness.
Which exactly is what makes it a great album to
have come out while we're still in nos Ferratu season,
and that is going to do it from us. Next
review show is going to be pretty chuck a block
as Mark Choys is, isn't. It's gonna have some of
our biggest names. But for now you can go listen
to all those records that we just spoke about. Do
check out, you know, especially with the likes of Vacuous
and some of these smaller bands that we've been talking about.
You can hear our ongoing special on the less discussed
eighties and nineties years of Black Sabbath over only that
some Patreon. You can hear our te and and Does
Horrors on nos Ferratu or The wolf Man, along with
of course the whole back catalog of music specials and podcasts.
We'll be finishing up that Sabbath special pretty soon and
then moving on to something else new and exciting. If
you've enjoyed today's show, it'd be really appreciate it if
you could check us a review or a rating on
your podcast platform of choice on iTunes. I remember about
once a year that I should tell people to do that,
but it's great to keep that stuff up to date,
and so it would help us out and that would
be lovely. We will see you back for all of
that good stuff. We'll be back again here next week. Cheers,
Bye bye,