Speaker 1: Hello everyone, and welcome to give the substance best picture. Please.
This is That's Not Metal, your weekly rock and heavy
metal and everything associated podcast who comes at you every
single Friday, or I guess this time it might be
a Saturday, but we usually here at the weekends to
let you know everything that has been going on in
rock and heavy metal over the past seven days, and
this particular time we are also here with our first
reviews bag of twenty twenty five, the January twenty ti
twenty five reviews Bag. And so even though it has
been as I've alluded to a couple of times, I
think a drier than usual January has been somewhat slim pickings,
we have picked out six this time of at the
very least the most noteworthy, interesting conversation records to dissect,
and so that is what we are going to do.
We also have a pretty juicy and sizeable news bag
as well to get into. So firstly, we are going
to be reviewing later on in the show the new
albums from The Night Flight Orchestra, Ward Rona, The Halo Effect,
The Great Old Ones, Trauma, Bond, and Grief Ritual. But
we have that news to clear before We then get
into that a little while into the show. So let's
get underway. My name is Parenhirsh with me, Sam Dignon
and Elliott Paisley are both here. Are we ready for?
I guess you know this always feels like the year
truly beginning when we have our first album to really
actually talk about.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, this has been not my sort of
usual sex of album bags review, but like it, there's
there's gonna be interesting discussions. I'm excited to talk about
these albums either way. I think it's we're gonna hit
the ground and it's gonna be a fun one.
Speaker 3: I mean, last January was Green Day, Saxon and All
of the Lost, so it's at least sensible this time.
Speaker 2: True, Oh my god, that was that was because that's
a year ago now, crazy and I discovered Saxon's one
good song.
Speaker 1: I wonder we will have some kind of repeat occurrence
of similar type bands later on. Anyway, as said, we've
got some news to clear. Some of it is going
to follow up the small little news episode that I
just myself put out last week, So off the Dome
their very first thing is last week when I did that.
There are a lot of rumors flying around about a
leaked and postponed nine Inch Nailed World Tour announcement. As expected,
they've come through and done that, and so the nine
Inch Nail twenty twenty five World Tour is going to
be kicking off all throughout the summer. There are three
UK and Ireland dates which are in fact the very
first dates of the whole thing. So if you are,
you know, in our more local vicinity, and you are
in Dublin, Manchester or London, then you could have the
opportunity to go and see nine Inch Nails, which is very,
very exciting. We have our whole load of album announcements
and new singles and stuff at one of those like
slightly stressful lights start, there's too many right now. I'm
already I'm getting to that stage where I look at
certain dates in March and April and I think, with
our review heads on, and I go through my little crisis.
I go through every single year of what we're going
to do. So rattling through the latest additions to those
Scowl who released their first bits of new music at
the end of last year, didn't they But we have
the news that their album is going to be called
Are We All Angels and that is out on April fourth.
We also have the new Cradler filth album is going
to be called The Screening of the Valkyrie and that
is out March the twenty first. Something which has some
music that we are really going to go into here
in terms of at least a lead single is We
have the news of Employer to Serve's new album, which
is called Fallen Star, that is gonna be on April
the twenty fifth. They've announced a UK headline tour that's
going to be happening through April. Not coming near me
sadly this time, but if you are in the vicinity
of you know, any of the cities where they are
headed in the UK, then you can get your Employee.
Speaker 3: To Serve fixed.
Speaker 1: But on the Fallen Star front, I feel like Employee
Serf have been and they're alluding to the fact that
they have got a new album in the can for
a little while now, so we've been expecting this. The
first single from it is called Atonement and it features
none other than Will Ramos from Lorna Shaw on guest vocals,
which immediately feels like I like when because obviously Employer
to serve for us are very local. They are very
like kind of you know, they're one of our home bands. Yeah,
and to a degree that has also turned into like
slightly lamenting that. You know, there are lots of metical
bands who are bad, who are internationally successful, and employed
to serve for a little while felt like our little
you know, our kind of home school champions. So I
like when employe to serve get some like Biggins too involve.
When you look at this track list, you know, for
the record, there are like others as well that fall
under that. But even just like you know, looking on
the video for this employe to Serve song, all the
comments on it right now are like, oh I came
here for Will, but like this band is great, this
is really cool, and that's you know, mission accomplished. They
love to see that. Now you have a you know,
a decade long back catalog of you know, one of
the best metallic hardcore metal core adjacent bands, like of
that whole period to dive into. But from our perspective,
longtime employed to serve fans, new song Atonement it does
you know, it's it's familiar to at least the last
couple Employeerve Records, but there are also some new elements
around it that are a little bit kind of like, hmmm,
where's that kind of going? So what do you make
of a tonement?
Speaker 2: The chorus took me by surprise, and yeah, and the
way it sounds because obviously they've had the clean vocals
on choruses before that.
Speaker 4: You know, there was a fair few of them on.
Speaker 2: Conquerence for that, but this is the first one where
it sounded like and again I slagger the sort of
sound off on them, So I was a bit like
when I heard the Employee stuff doing it. It is
the most radio metalcore chorus they've done. I think like
it is leaning on that a little bit. It's better
than a lot of those bands because they're not all
just trying to sound like Chester Bennington or.
Speaker 4: Anything like that.
Speaker 2: But it is the sound of it does feel a
bit more in line with that strand of metalcore, which
almost sinks up with them getting Will Ramers in. This
feels like them kind of going Okay, let's shoot for
the big leagues a bit on this one and go
bigger with our sound, go a bit more accessible, while
still not abandoning what makes employed to so fucking great,
and I still really like the song. It just that
chorus was the thing that Meally starts with is like,
that's a different take on what you've done on this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree, because you know the idea, if you
raise the idea of I Employed Server are going to
have some clean vocals on this album, that wouldn't really
turn my head very much because it has been a
factor for a while. Even go back to you know,
you think of the last album. There's like that kind
of swaggery crowbarry thing on Mark of the Grave, but
you go to the amb before that, and even there's
like a kind of a songs like Force Fad or whatever.
There was that kind of trade off between like a
slightly mormlodic vocal and the full, you know, throatshread in
thing that Justine is doing. So just the prospect of
like more clean vocals on Employed Serve record that doesn't
like shock me. It was the as you said, the
kind of tonality of it where I went, oh, okay,
and it is like I am in theory, I'm all
for Employees. I've including more melody, particularly because I'm thinking
of the you know, the warmth of a Dying Sun
era kind of your warmth of the kind of expansives,
and they had a lot of guitar melodies and stuff
like around that time. That is the thing that I
would always love for them to kind of reintegrate, I
suppose heavily in the fear is any band going for
that kind of soccer in chorus octane radio thing. And
again on paper, this is employed Serve the doing their
closest version of that. But I don't think it's bad,
you know, I think it's it throws me on the
very first chorus, but you catch up, You kind of
catch onto the melody of it pretty quick. And there
is some of that, particularly around the kind of the
solo section, which is a great fucking solo, but there
is some of that like familiar warmth of the kind
of core progression under there. That is that kind of
thing I'm thinking of. So it is a I don't know,
almost like in the middle kind of shift where it's
like you're moving into something that maybe is less kind
of what we would traditionally kind of appreciate, but it
hasn't gone full hog into like, ah, I can't go
with this anymore, you.
Speaker 3: Know, Well, I feel like the same thing happens with
me with the last the same thing that to me
happens U combination of words, it feels like the same
thing happens with me, at least the last couple of
times they've released a record where it comes out and
I'm not sure about it, and then a year or
two later it really clicks with me. Like I wasn't
like keen on a ton a forward motion when it
came out, same We're conquering, and then, like I say,
a year times eighteen months later, it sort of slots in.
So when that chorus came in and it sounded like
a data remember to.
Speaker 1: My is that's a bit harsh but sure, Yeah.
Speaker 3: What I even means an insult, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't mean harsh of the word actually more sort
of far, I guess.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Yeah, that was the first thing that came to
mind for me. But funnily enough, even though I'm not
sure exactly how much I think it works this time,
I kind of feel confident that I'll like it in
eighteen months. So in a way, even though it's a
single that I'm not sure about, I'm no less optimistic.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and then Will comes in and the kind of
what has grabbed the headlines is that you know, we
saw again the teasers I employed server Will Ramas. You're
expecting some full fucking rolling around in the slot, disgusting stuff,
and you know, he screams a little bit, but he
primarily actually picks up singing some of the chorus on it.
And Will's singing voice, it turns out he has more
of a kind of mid range sort of level, so
it's not like a the fear is someone like Will
ra Mos, who obviously has this amazing, you know, growled,
guttural voice. But if he was to start singing because
his band does, and then it leaned towards the clean
sonically and everything, that it would just be some fucking
like design the skyline situation and he'd come in with
a kind of like kind of horrible clean tone, which
I was, you know, pleasantly surprised, But that's not really
what his singing voice brought to that, No.
Speaker 4: I think it was. It was it was very unexpected
use of him.
Speaker 2: But I'm glad he's not got the most kind of
like stereotypical again like whiny us metalcore clean vocal. It's
you know, and that's what mid range where it's a
bit more palatable and it sits nicely in the kind
of slightly gruffer train employed to serve can exist in.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and then the riff, the main riff is just
one of their sort of like thuggier, chuggy, beat down
hardcore kind of things. Yeah, I think I'm I'm along
the same kind of lines as E. Elliott where I
feel like this is my first go so kind of
threw me, but I over the course of it sort
of get jelled into what they were doing a little
bit more. And I think, you know, certainly more than
the previous lead singles, whether it was you know, Exist
or Forthfead or whatever. This is one that I think
I will have to like settle into more. But I
can see myself, you know, doing that, So yeah, we'll
see kind of how more of that develops. We also
a long awaited album announcement. We have a new piss
Grave record and a song from that. The album is
called Malignant Worthlessness. The song that they have released from
it is called Inhertic Blood christened This is the first
piss Grave album in six years. It was sort of
March time of twenty nineteen that their second album, Postuous Humiliation,
came out, and I'm glad that. You know, obviously in
that time six years past, podcast lineups change or whatever.
I know that, Elliot, you in particular kind of you
have a similar view and like relationship with piss Grave
that I do, which is not only is it just like, yeah,
what a stinky, horrible death metal band? Great, I like that,
but they represent a certain kind of like pinnacle of something,
and they represent a like pisk Grave or pisk Grave,
and no one else doing the stinky death metal thing
is gonna hit what pisk Grave are able to hit.
And having six years without that again, you know, when
Tim did the guest vocal on the speptru of Voice
album last year, that was kind of like, oh my god,
the first time I'd heard that voice in like five years.
Following that up with this press player on the single,
it immediately made me recoil. And if you know, if
it was the fact that, like, you know, like last
year I would say was the best year for death
metal since twenty nineteen, basically when Pisgrave and Blooding Cantation
at All were all releasing their last records, I would
say that this has the best death metal riffs that
I've heard in a long time. For pure this is
what I've been craving, This is what I need in
my death metal.
Speaker 3: I am so fucking happy they're back. Like I feel
like I've had ten years to get familiar with their sound,
and even still I'm not quite used to it, because,
like you said, that first ten seconds comes in and
it's like, yeah, oh I feel sick. I feel like
I get you're you're embracing for it, and it still
manages to bowl me over it. Maybe that's why they
go away for so long, like they want you to
forget just how disgusting it is. But you know, the
recipe for stinky death metal, it tops out on everything.
Like the title is horrible, the cover is disgusting, those
vocals are It's two mics they use, isn't it where
one's very Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think there's certainly some kind of strange overlapping and
you know, yeah, frequency is fucking with each other kind of.
Speaker 3: Approach, that snare tone needs to be hung in the loop.
It's just it's perfect. And even you know that was
the album cover, Like it's probably the least outright disgusting
of their album covers to date. But personally speaking, I
have a bit of a thing about maggots and I
don't think anyone likes them, but they really make me
feel quite physically sick. Maggots, yeah, just like and piss
Grave kind of sound like a swarm of carnivorous flies anyway,
So it's yeah, it captures it perfectly. This is just
this is this is the best news.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean obviously, you know, I like a lot
more definitely than they did when the last Piscrave album
came out. This still was just like, I'm quite glad
it kind of it settles down a touch once you
get past that opening blast, but opening blast is like
Jesus fuck what like the like Honestly, that first ten
to fifteen seconds, I was like, if it's more this,
then I can't handle piss babe. And then you get
some like you get you get some cool riffs and
stuff in there, it's still way too extremely even.
Speaker 4: For my taste. And I respect that about pisc Grave.
Speaker 2: You know, they are they're the bands who want to
like be the nastiest, most disgusting, Like everything about them
is like offensive and gross out and again, like you know,
I looked just like, what's the least initially shocking pis
Grave album cover? Because I don't have a clue what
I'm looking at this time. I kind of like, you know,
the post musumiation one that you know exactly what the
fuck that is when you see it, and then the
first one is just like that first album Come it
still makes me feel icky, like it's one of the
most revolting kind of like images. And this one, I
don't know if a cull what it is shows a
magazine like, yeah, you know, pisk gave you still just
want to like make people feel bad and gross and
good on you for that.
Speaker 3: I guess it's the titles like suicide, euphoria, posthumous humiliation,
malignant worthlessness. It might be the best run of album
titles in the history of.
Speaker 1: Rock and roll as a trilogy of two word statements
that there is a there's a syllogy throughout it that
is just like hard as pissed ironically, Yeah, I mean
the death metal versus in the riffs. As you say
that it comes at you with just like but then
when it settles into the rifts those other ones, I'm like, yes,
like you are actually not just you know that they're
great rift writers, you know, and that that serrated barbed
aedge that they have is just so so great. I'm
sure the record is going to have loads of that again,
the the visuals, it's it's a strange cover because it
looks to me it looks more like a joint of
meat or something, think, yeah, than human. It looks like,
you know, a hog roast that has been left out
for too long or something like that. But I almost
feel like it's the pisk Grave ethos is probably like,
I don't know, the fact that it's pisk Grave makes
me think it's probably human even though it doesn't look
like it's human, And that kind of adds a strange
other you know, so in a weird way, it's on
brand for pis Grave, and it's totally again it's part
of the through line of what they've done. But it
may be like, well, I knew there was piss Grave coming,
and I was preparing myself for a kind of a
wave of like discourse basically of you know, them unveiling
some album cover maybe in line with what the last
couple was, and you know, every time they were around
it caused up a discussion and again I was preparing
myself for you know, last year we basically had a
whole discussion about this kind of thing. I believe that
was an episode that was just called something like is
real death on album? Are okay? Or something along those lines.
So if you want to hear our thoughts on that,
then you know, you can go and find the episode.
But in a weird way, it's like this is a
very piss Grave album cover that doesn't quite result in
like people getting upset to the degree that we have
to open up that conversation again, which I guess to
a degree is kind of you know, good for our sanity.
But yeah, very excited for the third in the trilogy
of pisth Grave albums, which is going to be on
February the twenty first. Some tour dates we have again
follow up on something that we were recently sort of
alluding to, but now we have more on it. Comeback, Kid,
They're Wake the Dead anniversary tour is going to be
hitting Europe. They are doing I think it's totally about
seven dates across Europe, which does mean they are only
doing London in the UK. So Sam, you are the
Laight ticket, You are the lucky one in this scenario.
Who can go and do that if you find yourself
interested in one of the album reviews that we are
going to do later, there is news that Cult of
Fire are going to be doing a European tour, bringing
the Great Old Ones along with them on tour, and
there is a London date of that whole European thing
a venue I don't know two two nine in in London, seeing.
Speaker 2: Creeper play there. Creeper played their comeback show there after
they broke up for you.
Speaker 1: All right, Well, that that is on the thirty first
of March. That looks like if you want to see
again the Cult of Fire show that we were talking
about with the Past Damnation and along with the Great
Old Ones and so on, So that's going to be happening.
We jump over to longingly look at a couple of
tours that have been announced for our over the Atlantic brethren,
because Obituary have announced they are doing a big old
tour for the thirty fifth anniversary of their classic Cause
of Death album. But it's the support bill with them
that has really turned that into kind of a night
to remember, because they are going to be bringing along
with them Nails, Terror, Spirit World and Pest Control. Nice
pet Control getting on a big like US tour like that,
But that is one for like Obituary, one of the
death metal bands who have like a pretty sizable hardcore following.
It's quite funny that they've booked a tour seemingly solely
for the hardcore kids in their fan base. Like, if
you are a hardcore fan who likes Obituary, this is
your tour.
Speaker 2: How do you think I'm feeling right now seeing this
pity tour with this fucking support lineup, I'm like, it's
the perfect Obituary tour for me.
Speaker 1: God damn it, it's pretty amazing. And Exodus, who you know,
last week on the show, I was talking about the
fact that they have gone through this quite interesting vocalist
carousel where they've now got their former vocalist Rob Dukes
back in the band. The first thing that they have announced,
you know, post that, is they are going to be
doing in California two shows to commemorate the fortieth anniversary
of their classic, classic essential debut album Bonded by Blood
in the California area on the weekend of April the
twenty fifth, And so that is I guess the exciting
stuff in this news round up, well, Unfortunately, there's quite
a line here of negative things to also come out
of this week, or at least things that deserve some
you know, some some pondering and some morning to a degree.
The first is that Orange Goblin have come out and
said that twenty twenty five is likely to be their
final year as a band, that they are looking with
this being the thirtieth anniversary of their their debut record,
with them having put out I believe their tenth record
last year and it being really well received and everything
that this is kind of their point where they want
to hang it up, and so over the course of
this year they're gonna be doing what are they're slated
as their last shows that includes, for example, a Bloodstock show.
But then they are going to be calling it quits.
The wording of this did leave it.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 1: It's one of those ones where it's like yea, you know,
they maybe they'll appear at some point, but certainly Orange
Goblin the active Proposition, look to be making twenty twenty
five their final year. And I love Orange Goblin a great,
great deal. I think they are in terms of British
rock and metal bands. I think they are one of
our genuine sort of national treasures. I think in terms
of like stoner rock metal bands, if that's what you
want to call them, I think they're the case to
be like top five of all time, Like the Highs
are incredible, and I frankly don't think they had very
many or very low lows about thirty years of just
consistently really good fun material, A really brilliant, hard working
live band who have, for my money, a handful of
genuine classic albums, particularly obviously within the kind of British
stoner rock and metal scenes. And Elliott, I'm wondering, I
guess you know, whether those are feelings that you might
share and kind of have you know, thoughts about Orange
Goblin choosing to retire here.
Speaker 3: It's one of those where those feelings for me have
kind of come up in light of this announcement. Because
I'm not gonna point fingers because I feel like I'm
guilty of it too. But I think they're a band
that we kind of took for granted in this country,
Like Britain has a good history of doom bands, but
we don't really have too many stone of rock bands.
To boast about and Orange Goblin were like our one
that could hang with the American bands, and like you say,
top five for me, that's totally justified. I'm just looking
at the catalog. I have a couple that I tend
to go back to, but the whole thing's basically bulletproof.
Like you say, the lows aren't low and there aren't
really many of them, and then going out on the
last one, which I think is back to the high
standard that they established on some of their classic records.
It's not that you want them to go, but it's like,
this really feels like a if you are going to
bow out around this time, this is a great time
to do it.
Speaker 1: If it is a shame, yeah, it feels like a
really admirable career to hang a hat on in that
because again, like last year, I mentioned it a lot
because we didn't review the last rog Goblin album and
it was just a case of, like I don't know
what it was, it landed in a particular month or
something where we didn't quite get the turnaround. But then
we spent the next few months basically like a toning
for that being like that Hardy Goblin was fucking brilliant
because it was and I was pleased. I think it
was Mark had it in the Album of the Year
shows at the end of the year, and again I
saw them on the tour for it, and they were
fucking brilliant. I've seen them quite a few times sort
of post COVID, and they've been really, really at it.
But going back to you know, like over ten years ago,
the kind of eulogy for a Damned Cycle and that
record and stuff like absolutely like a worldly of an album.
And then going back to even further too, their late nineties,
very early two thousand's period, sort of like the boom
of the Stone of Rock years, when I think they
are producing records that are up there were like you know,
people will rave about like like Power Trip by Monster
mag not whatever. I'm like, sure, yeah, great record, but
like on a smaller scale for some reason, never quite
getting the MTV attention or whatever. But Orange Goblin, Fucking
Scorpionica and a Quaet Fanatic and all the kind of
thing like those are some of the greatest Stone of
Rock riffs and tunes that anyone's ever made. And yeah,
like we say, an admirable, respectable point to kind of
hang it all up, because I think they have become
a just through perseverance and like road Dogs or whatever,
they have become a kind of a an iconic, kind
of to look up to kind of band for bands
of that particular school, and you know who kind of
aim to be like the Orange Goblins of that scene.
But any of these like farewell shows or whatever, if
that's what these turn out to be, I feelk will
have a really like Pousi energy around them, and certainly
it probably won't be the last time we talk about
Orange Goblin because they'll turn up on an album Club
or an album Roulette or something, because they are really,
I think, one of the great bands of that particular
world that's ever been. And then we also have the
news that Dollar Signs are also going to be calling
it quits. Dollar Signs not a band with as widespread legacy,
shall we say, as an Orange Goblin, are much more
recent in the scheme of things. Band. Dollar Signs are
a band who on the kind of like emo alternative
rock end. We've viewed a couple of their albums over
the years, so I felt like, at the very least
we should acknowledge that, you know, that band are not
going to be around to produce any more of those anymore.
They were not a band for me at all. Whenever
we reviewed them, it was you know, it was not
one of those that connected with me in any way.
In some ways, it was quite the opposite. But as
I said, as a band who you know, we picked
and brought forward to represent that corner on a number
of occasions. Again a top of the hat to you know,
kind of do that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think they're twenty twenty one album we review
that felt like a bit of Roger, both because I
really liked that record and I think this is a shame,
like never get into just for them to go over
here and see them.
Speaker 4: So I'm like, I'm kind of glad about that, but yeah,
it happens.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean this will haunt me. If you do
like that sort of post Andrew Jackson g hard folk
punk emo, I don't know, you do, Peran like that
record is really good. I don't have much the stuff
in that scene that I like, I really like, and
I do still find myself going back to that record
seven years later in a way that a lot of
bands I've just sort of forgotten about, like very character
all really quirky and genuinely managed to carve at a
sound in that scene where it feels like in that
scene it feels like loads of bands just trying to
ape the same thing, and Dollar Signs genuinely sounded like
dollar Signs. So for that alone, like you say, tip
of the hat, yes.
Speaker 1: And then in this last week we also we bid
farewell to John Sykes, the guitarist who I feel like
it's I guess, most prominently associated with White Snake during
the eighties and it's been quite amazing actually seeing in
the aftermathods news of his passing a lot of the
kind of I don't know it slightly older guard of
like metal icons. Really like you know, if you are
maybe of our age or younger, you probably might not
know the name John Sykes off the top of your head,
but like seeing people like Michael akkerfelt and like Tom
g Warrior and stuff being like, oh no, John Sykes
was like one of the heavy metal guitarists who I
love when I was like growing up in the early eighties.
But again, along with the early Whitesnake, my most per
association I guess would be joining Thin Lizzy for the
incredible heavy metal album Thunder and Lightning, which we have
done a full album club on and so you know,
cheers for Cold Sweat and those riffs. John. But then
we also last week, about two hours after I recorded
that quick little solo Hyperblast, I did recorded that, we
sat down to do our Black Sabbath special that we
put out, and the news in between those two things
broke that David Lynch had also passed away. And David Lynch, Now,
obviously we are a music podcast and David like, you know,
we can't even say that he's a non musical figure
because a he made music and b like he did
have direct involvement in some of our most significant bands.
Like he pops up in our nine Inch Nails special,
he pops up in our Ramstein.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Like like David Lynch absolutely like has direct fingers in
the pie of like you know, heavy and alternative music.
But if we, you know, think of someone who is
like primarily known for, you know, an art that is
you know, a non musical one. It's a visual one.
David Lynch, I think would be if we had like
a TNM mount rushmore of people from outside of just
like you know, making heavy music.
Speaker 4: We do a horror podcast. We're allowed to We're able
to talk about David Lynch.
Speaker 1: I think it goes even beyond that, Like David Lynch, again,
that amount rushmore of like sort of non musical figures
who are absolutely all yeah, you cannot remove them from
the culture at all. I think David Lynch is easily
on there, and he, you know, one of one of
the patron saints for this kind of sort of left
field culture of which you know, alternative music and what
we talk about is is a part of it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2: I mean, like Lynch as an artist, like his influence
goes so many different places, even beyond film and TV,
which is what he's most commonly associated with. But I
feel like like the obvious ones I feel about is
like Ramstein being used on High Away and all of
that sort of stuff, Like was the like put these
bands and sort of gave them a light that more
people kind of then checked out. But just as like
the whole idea of what Lynch does and that his style,
the whole Lynching thing and how that can spread into
music and all kinds of other creative avenues like is
just so like cannot be understated. And it's like it's
like a genuine monumental loss for all kinds of art.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and seeing the again, we're over a week now
from this news and the last time that we saw
this kind of sort of you know, sustained people still
posting tributes and just wanting to re engage all the work.
It is. You know, you're going back to when the
likes of David Bowie and those kind of people we
were passing. And I don't think it's out of the
question for me to say, I think that David Lynch
is like again, across all mediums, probably the most important
artist of the last fifty years in terms of like
bringing something to that conversation and opening up possibilities of
how to tell stories and how to convey emotion, and
the influence that then had on people. It's again, if
you like art of any stripe, he is again one
of the true giant figures of the last century.
Speaker 3: If you're any kind of creative person or just admire creativity,
I can't think of many people who are more of
a bastion for it than David Lynch in any field.
There were a few people with as enviable a legacy
as I mean, Sam the fact that you said Lynchin,
how many people get like a word name after them,
like cath esque David Lynch. It's like the list is
so small, and you know, without sounding crass or anything like,
I think there's two levels of sadness that you can
feel when a public figure dies, Like there were those
who they might not have been producing great stuff anymore,
but you're sad they're gone for the stuff they did produce.
Those ones typically old. They're the ones where you feel
like you've lost something by them being gone. David Lynch
was nearly eighty, and he was firmly in that latter camp.
I still held out hope for another David Lynch film
up until the moment I heard this news and has
someone with a fifty year career, and I was desperate,
like still looking at anything that sounded like he was
going to release something else. And it's is genuinely like
a singular voice has gone. There isn't a substitute for
the thing that he does. But I mean, looking at
that catalog, what's mad is he didn't actually make that
many films, but there isn't a single one that is
remotely disposable or forgettable, Like he never stopped taking risks
and doing strange things, and yet there's not one. Miss.
I don't know how that's possible.
Speaker 1: He's got one of those filmographies that is kind of
succinct enough that you can like rattle them off in
your head in order, you know, and that kind of
adds into like that that is the canon right there,
and you know, when you're saying about the different kind
of sadness, you can feel like Obviously, again we're recording
this over a week now since we heard the news,
so we have a week of having had it set in.
But again when it hit that, you know, last Thursday
and then into Friday and so on, it was like
a heavy loss in terms of someone who genuinely like
like change the lives of like god knows how many
people who not only inspired them in their art but
also made people feel you know, kind of seen and
heard in their art. Because even the character and the
fact that David Lynch almost felt like a friendly uncle
you could have, whether it be you know, the the
guy who did the weather reports, you know, clear golden
skies all along the way, and you know, on this podcast, however,
many times have I referenced if you can believe it.
It's a Friday once again, and all of that stuff
down to the fact that you know, fix your hearts
or die.
Speaker 2: That's the one, like the because I've not seen the return,
I've seen that clip. That's been like a major part
of like my life, just that clip for the last
how many years.
Speaker 1: It's one of the most just like memorable impactful statements
about like allyship essentially that anyone has ever come out with.
And of course it had to be him because of
that instantaneousness of like feeling of language. And again, one
of the things that I saw when everything was coming
out here was just someone saying, fuck, I think the
best human ever just died. And it's like, yeah, maybe
maybe you know, like someone you who viewed the world
like that, like you could say that, I guess, you know,
going back to you know, the canon and so on.
I take it we're all, to some degree, you know,
fans of the work. What was your what was your
first you know, David Lynch, your media experience.
Speaker 4: Twin peaks.
Speaker 2: I got round to the Lynch movies quite late, but
I've watched Twin I've watched I still have to watch.
I've not watched those yet. But I've watched the original
like two seasons of Twin Peaks so many times I
think it might be. Even the bad half of season two,
I think still might be the greatest TV show. And
there is a genuine argument for me and Twin Peaks
is that. And because because I'm going Twin Peaks through
so so many other things outside of movies, in like
the early twenty ten's, video games decided they all wanted
to be Twin Peaks, Alan Wake is just twin Alan Wake,
the comminition these games will do. And that's what made
me go, Okay, I should watch Twin Peaks in like
twenty eleven, twelve or something like that, and it blew
my mind, And eventually I got around to a copy
that actually watching the Lynch movies, I've.
Speaker 4: Still got a few of them.
Speaker 2: After we finished that Sabbath podcast, I sat and watched
Lost Highway for the first time, and like felt sad
watching that movie because that's like a fucked up, weird,
demented movie that is like heavy watching. But I still
just like I felt this just undereniable sadness of being
like a guy who did this, like he's gone, and
it just the weight of like the loss of Lynch.
And I watched Elephant Man for the first time the
day after, and I cried because that movie is beautiful
and heartbreaking and like they're like just yeah, like Twin
Peaks is the one for me. It's like, but I'm
making sure this month to like get it, get all
the Lynch blind spots ticked off.
Speaker 3: Now, I mean you talk about like people whose lives
have been changed by David Lynch. I wasn't alive for
decades before like erase ahead when that comes along. And
I saw that when I was still fairly young, and
I still think about the first I saw that film
and it really felt like anything could happen, and it
kind of explew up my my universe of what art
could do and how much you could just follow your
own vision. If you have an idea, do it. You
don't have to explain it to anyone. And then I
went down this rabbit hole of you know, Mulholland Drive,
which I still think has the most nightmarish film sequence
I've ever seen in my life, and Inland Empire is
that the way that guy it felt like he could
get into my brain and show me images that would
frighten me, which I can't even other direction has been
able to do that. And then later I got round
to things like The Elephant Man, and finally I think
it was the last Lynch film I saw, The Straight Story,
and that's.
Speaker 1: The one that I haven't yet seen. That's the one
I'm gonna tick off in the coming weeks.
Speaker 3: Well, I won't say like the end of it. You
I presume you know the press.
Speaker 1: It's about a bloke on a farm and it's normal exactly.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'll get that true story one, isn't it that?
Speaker 3: It's the true story? It's the Disney film that he made.
And my uncle, who watches something like three hundred and
fifty new films a year, one time I asked me, said,
what's your favorite film ever? And he said The Straight Story?
And I said, oh, what's it about? And he said, oh,
it's this guy. This is before I knew it was
a David Lynch film. He said, I was a guy
who he writes a lawn mower for the whole film,
the whole movie. Yeah, that's your fate. You've seen tens
of thousands and that's your favorite film in the world. Yeah,
And that's right. Okay, foolish but fine. And then years
later when I kind of got back into Lynch stuff
and I sat down and watched it, I won't say
how wet, Like I've not wept to any other film ever,
like the most touching that guy. Just his ability, to
his death control of a viewer's emotions without ever resorting
to like cliche or mawkishness. It's it's unbelievable.
Speaker 4: I think this is the thing when everyone.
Speaker 2: Obviously knows all Lynch it's weird, it's surreal, it's all that,
and that's kind of like the surface of but his
movies are so human and like so emotionally impactful, even
his weird ones. There is such a like twin picture
that's such a weird one, but there is such a
like intense human story going on, and you're you're getting
to all these characters and you're feeling with them. Like
the Elephant Man is kind of like the most obvious
kind of example of this.
Speaker 4: But like I mean, that's just one of those.
Speaker 2: Qualities that it's just so remarkable about him, is the
real human emotion he will make you feel in these
surrealest stories.
Speaker 1: I think David Lynch is one of his like key characteristics,
and maybe something that he has almost over any of
the filmmaker is absolute emotional sincerity where which I think
is why you know in a in an era when
things have been kind of irony poisoned for a certain
amount of time and you're kind of maybe seeing people
wanting to like push away from that. I think that's
almost why someone like David Lynch continues to find new
fans with like younger generations and stuff, because it is
so like the literal event of what happening might be
so fucking weird and obvious gated, but the emotional core
of it is there is not a hint of irony
about it. It is about conveying that feeling to you,
whether it be again something as more straightforward in that
as like an elephant Man for example, or even something
as like utterly like indecipherable as like Inland Empire, there's
still some kind of like you're left with a certain
feeling about it by the end of it. The first
one I saw was a razorhead. For me, I'm most
the opposite of you, Sam in that like Twin Peaks,
because it was like a long TV series is like
the last thing I got around to and I watched
like mainly the horror films, Like first of all, so
I saw what Raizorhead was the first one I saw.
I watched Lost Highway for the first time, I guess
about five years ago now when we were doing the
nine inch Nail special and it was like, oh, you know,
Trent Reznor produced the soundtrack and did an original song
for it and stuff, and I watched Lost Highway as
part of that. So he is always kind of to
a degree integrated with again the kind of the story
of rock music and metal music and this kind of
part of our culture. But my favorite one, and now
I have seen again almost everything, but my favorite Lynch
movie is is fire Walk with Me, which I think
is not only one of the most like like that
his most horror film in my opinion, like it is
one of the most genuinely petrifying, scarring pieces of cinema
I've ever seen, but also at the end it has
like maybe the most moving final images you could argue
of like any piece of media ever, because of how
much he cares about that story you're telling and the
character that he's he's dealing with, and that I think
it will last forever, you know, as cheesus might be
to say, that is the kind of the art that
stands up for generations and generations, and even the fact
that like so much, particularly the sort of you know,
some of his later movies, like More Holland Dry, even
In an Empire and so on, they so much they
deal with, like the mythology of Hollywood and of Los
Angeles and stuff, and the kind of the consumptive nature
of it, like there's the good and the bad of
a place like Hollywood in the in those movies, the
fact that it was you know, essentially kind of put
out there and stated that the Los Angeles fires of
the last couple of weeks are essentially the reason that
David passed away because he'd been suffering from mphasema from
his heavy like lifelong, you know, years and years of smoking.
It reached the point where last year he was dying
as with eversema, couldn't really go outside much many more
or move around very much, and then kind of being
displaced and having to move from one place to another
with the fires ultimately kind of you know, led to
him taking a turn for the worse. And it's obviously
that's so fucking tragic, and it's so like genuinely just
awful that a you know, a climate change induced natural
disaster like that literally in this case, took away one
of our creative greats. But that's almost like that's in
some weird way, there's mythology being made there, you know,
like a guy who made all of those movies about
Los Angeles and the place around it and the fire
burning inside of it. To a degree, it's there's something
about that there. And again just bring it back to us,
you know, in Twin Peaks, the return the fact that
you've got Nine Inch Nails in their performing in the
episode which is basically about like witnessing the birth of
evil and kind of before that, you go and here
is the Nine Inch Nails as they are credited in
that performing that weird fucking song from the Not Natural
Events EP. She's gone away, Like yeah, just like one
of as said, the maybe the most significant artist of
the twentieth century, even going into the beginning of the
twenty first, but certainly someone who was very much a
unparalleled piece of the you know, alternative culture and alternative
music world as well. So yeah, that's that's a loss
that we're gonna be thinking about for a while. But
hell of a fucking career, hell of a body of work,
eternal you know, pats off to mister David Lynch. So
that is a heavy dose of news. Let's move on
with the rest of this episode. First of all, mentioned earlier,
we put out the Black Sabbath Special, the first part
a couple of weeks ago, which is the do Year's
era Apart. That was a lot of fun to do.
We've had some really cool feedback and conversations with people
about whether they had like maybe never ever listened to
the doo years, or maybe like that is their Black Sabbath,
their associations and so on. That special is you know,
going to be picked up and continuing that story going
forward very soon. But as it is the first review
show of January, we also have the matter of the
first album clubs of the year that we are going
to be getting to first and so I'm gonna let
you know those right now as we get to them.
First of all, at the end, this is a Doozy,
this is the good Ones. At the end of last year,
we had been having some conversations with Elliott about Elliott
essentially at this comparatively late stage becoming saboton pilled, and
so we are going to be kicking off album clubs
with I think their most cohesive album statement, their twenty
twelve Swedish concept album Corollas Rext and next after that.
So I was looking for names here and I thought,
what can we do? And I've got a name written
down here that Sam has brought up on multiple occasions.
And so this is totally like, this is I am,
this is on you whatever this is, because I don't know,
but it's a name that you have brought up multiple
times Family Force five with an album I believe it
is called Business up Front Party.
Speaker 4: In the.
Speaker 1: So we're going to find out what that is, I
guess to kick off twenty twenty five, and then Lives
will claw out some credibility from that because in our
punk and hardcore corner, we are going to be talking
about one of you know, for the past nearly thirty years,
the most revered texts of hardcore, Hate Breeds nineteen ninety
seven debut album Satisfaction is the Death of Desire. And
then to finish it's going to be quite an epic
start to the year as well, because we are going
to throw back about ten years to one of the
kind of standard bearers of what became the sort of
heavy metal revival with Visigoth's debut album, The Revenant King.
So that is the album club Slight.
Speaker 2: On all the Family Force five songs coming flooding back
into my mind and how I know the lyrics to
all of them still.
Speaker 1: I've never heard them before, but I will. So there
you go. That is going to be covering up. So
if you want to hear all that and the Black
Sadder Special and so on, patroon dot com slash that's
Lamel is the place to do. Let's spend the rest
of this episode doing our album reviews. As said at
the top of this show, we got six albums that
we are going to be talking about, and the first
one of them comes from the Night Flight Orchestra. Their
album is called Give Us the Moon's First time we
are reviewing an NFO album on T ANDM, I believe,
but they have been mentioned many a time, primarily in
the live environment, but they've also they've been around for
ages like this is their seventh full length album, but
it's been the last kind of half decade or so.
When I've like really woken up to them because Knightflow Orchestra,
for a quick primer, kind of don't sound like much
other things that we would review within the T and
M universe. It makes them like a real fun oddity
to do at a time like this when an album
there comes along. They are a band led by Beyond
Strid from soil Work. They also feature, for example, the
long time basis of Arch Enemy, so you know this,
I guess along with the band the we review later on.
They're almost like a fun alternating path of like what
veteran melod death dudes can do at a point in
their career to cut loose. But Knifefight Orchestra are the
one who have nothing to do with death metal or
maybe even much metal to be honest, because they are
in twenty twenty five the world's greatest yacht rock revival band.
We are talking full aoar seventies eighties classic pop rock,
and it's been quite shocking to see a band, you
know again, starting as an offshoot of some old melodath
bands storming into that position. Elliott, you are a fifty
year old man in the body of a twenty five
year old surely as the guy who regularly in our
TNM group chat will just unprompted start talking about the Eagles.
That has to carry some weight here.
Speaker 3: It carries a great deal of weight for me. It
gets you pretty far in my books. If you just
evoke AOAR quality.
Speaker 1: Be damned.
Speaker 3: Frankly, Like, there are bands that and songs that I
like that I appreciate. Maybe aren't all that good and
aren't all that credible, and some even among us right
now wouldn't be considered worth the time or day. But
if you can deliver some AOAR yacht rock to a
decent standard, we can be friends.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I basically view them as like the rightful Airs
to Toto, like that kind of thing. I first, and
I mean that fully complimentary, like that, that's some quite
a title to hold in twenty twenty five. I first, like,
I checked them out really on their twenty twenty album
A Romantic and I thought, wow, this is great, some
really great songs on here. And then immediately the next
year they released Romantic two, which was even better. Aromatic
two is fucking crazy good, Like the hits on that
thing White Jeans, how long burned for me? I became
just so for like, oh shit, yeah, like this band
have got the sauce for this kind of thing, Like
this is real, and they have a ton of like
great songs from the you know, the prior records as well,
and when they pit all of those together, they can
be one of the best party bands in live music
as well, like Bloodstock twenty twenty two when they ended
the whole weekend legitimately one of the most delirious everybody's
inhibition's gone, everybody having the time of their lives festivals
that I personally ever experienced. Sam, We'll get onto you
and your your acts of spiritual violence in a minute,
but give us the moon, you know, a longer break
than the two Romantics. I had been left waiting for
a little while. I was just looking for more of that,
because they are, you know, again, in terms of bands
at leads who exists within the kind of contemporary rock
and metal scene that we might review, they are pretty
much in a niche of one of delivering on the
thing that they do. And so if I want someone
to provide the thing it's got to.
Speaker 3: Be then yeah, I mean I was I was trying
to think about this earlier, but is there anyone else
who delivers on that niche to any meaningful stand out.
Because it's been a long time since The Darkness about
a great record. The last band do I think really
put out some brilliant songs of this standard, of this
kind even was Foxy Shazam, and they disappeared and then
came back and were shite like. It felt like I
was hearing what other people were hearing in a fox
eya Uazam for the first time.
Speaker 4: It was.
Speaker 3: It was heartbreaking. So I was definitely in the market
for some high quality AOI yacht rock and they've delivered. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean in the press kit they've got, there's a
quote about their mission of protecting true aor and I'm
amazed that we haven't got like defend ao T shirts
from the Nights like Orchestra. I've like, in general, my
thing with Nightville Orchestra is it's part of a wider
thing of like I've lamented before. I was really saying
this around the time that like Imperor by Ghost and
the Last Summer Lands albums were both coming out, because
they were like some of the I guess only antidotes
to it, but that like the classic pop songwriting in
the tried and true, like mid twentieth century tradition has
all but disappeared from like popular mainstream rock and metal,
and with it has gone a great deal of like
the joy because rock tunes that are you know, purely
about good vibes and good times like that's why we
love Judas Priest and all these type of things. And
what has replaced it in again, it's been replaced with
different things. That's not me saying that sort of modern
mainstream metal is completely devoid of anything worthwhile, but I
do that is an element that has gone missing over
the years when it's been replaced by primarily metalcore and
you know, post the new Metal booms and that kind
of thing, and you know, NFO, you know, they aren't
metal in the same way as you know, Ghost or
Sumerlands or whatever, so there's less of that like crunching
power that you might get from those, but they do
just dollop out that pure, unbridled like classic old school
joyous pop sensibility in very generous helpings, where as well
as your totos and so on. Eighties rush like the
keyboard line that opens the first song proper Stratus just
to Me has like grace under pressure written all over it,
and then it just hits this like four on the floor,
dance floor bat and it's like, yeah, this is like
this is totally what just everyone would have been having
the best time listening to back in nineteen seventy seven.
Speaker 3: I think there's I don't think it's just in rock music.
I think it's in maybe media generally. I think there's
a bias against happy things. Believe that if something is serious,
we perceive it to be somehow more worthy of praise.
Like there's when was the last time a big acclaimed
rock and metal band did a song about rocking who
weren't considered like it just it doesn't happen anymore. That's
a perfectly fine thing to write a song about. Why
can't a band dresses flight attendants like we accept like
abject nonsense in extreme metal? Do? I mean, like bands
dressing as animals and cult means and that sort of thing.
But if something just has a smile on its face,
there seems to be this presumption that it's stupid somehow,
And Nightflight Orchestra kind of are stupid. But that's not
to say that it's not good, And it's if you're
doing this thing. Stupidity is not the worst thing to have.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I wil also like to say that it's
one of these were like stupid in one sense, but
also this is not stupid music like this. The thing
that Nighteflocks to really have going for them, I think,
is again like a Toto or someone, right, it's like
Toto of fucking musicians, man, and like Toto people worship,
but the altar of Toto because of like, oh shit,
you know, like can you hear these guys? Can you
hear this craft of these songs and so on? And
it's maybe you can say Nightflilks are kind of silly,
but I think they're also very clever in how they
go about constructing their first stuff.
Speaker 3: Well, I do I feel I should I should correct
the thing I just said, because I've fallen into the
post gen X trap of calling something uninhibited stupid, which
is something that really bothers me about other people, and
I've just done it myself, Like joyous fun unrestrained is
just labeled stupid now because it's the idea that you'd
have to be stupid to do that, not at all,
Like they're fully aware of what they're doing. And I
think it's a good idea.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's every one of their tunes is just like
custom built for buggying. That shooting velvet groove that comes
in between that like the backbeat and then that keyboard
riff is unreal. When on like the beating of a heart,
this like survivor fucking guitar lick comes in, I legit
went like, oh, like hell, yeah, we are going. They
have got two full time members who are just there
to do like harmony backing vocals. So every chorus, like
you know, like that shooting velvet one has got them
the get together now now we're never in miraculous is
so good. And again on the just the playing from
when this band hit solo sections, the guitar tone and
the kind of melodies that they put out of the
air is so like eighty Skylines, the flighter is in
cruise control. It's pure top gun, you know, it's it's
so just so slick, and you seem exactly on the
same page as it is. It is of a pre
you know, grunge, new metal, whatever mindset where it's like, yeah,
we're having fun and we are exceptional at writing songs
with real craft and real song power behind now, which
for me is real what shine through with a band
like the Nightflight Orchestra above, like so many of their
peers who might go for the same kind of thing
but just don't have the chop to quite do what
these guys can. It's not all been so lovely here though,
because Sam, you have dismissed and laughed at this band
at every turn as we've been bringing it to the
table with.
Speaker 4: Good reason, frankly. But so here's the thing.
Speaker 2: I stand by a lot of whites and say they
are a silly, gimmick band, Like you know, they're in
Flight tenn costumes is wearing a cape and a silly
hat and a silly sparky jacket, and they are of
like classic music that's kind of like mudging and winking
at you.
Speaker 4: It is gimmick music, but.
Speaker 2: On occasion, and I don't think it's across the whole album.
But I can't deny that I had a life changing
moment when I heard shooting.
Speaker 4: Velvet from a gun.
Speaker 2: Shooting velvet is incredible. Like I was like, oh, this
is this is it? This is what Nightfly? This is
that feeling, and like they don't hit it across this
whole album. That's so that's why I'm gonna like kind
of like draw my line is, I think parts of
this are absolutely incredible. I think it's too bloated. There
are way too many keyboard solos. Like fucking well, piss
off of the keyboard solos once you get about the
fifth one. Every song does like, guitar solo is fine.
You know, if you wanna put guitars in every song,
I'll allow it. If you're gonna do a guitar solo
and a keyboard solo in pretty much every song, behave.
But when that chorus, like I mean, the thing is
Stratton's and Open Hours kind of like actually pretty good,
actually you know, aggressively cheesy. But when the backing vocals
coming on the chorus, the lift is there and you know,
like it is big. You've got those massive eighties ao
R guitars. The synth is like glistening and shimmering all
over it, and you're right with the eighties rush thing.
I was like cool, you know quite like this, Yeah,
playing gimmick gets annoying really fast.
Speaker 4: I'll say that that's like one.
Speaker 1: Of the even that big a deal on the album
is the thing they do too many of those silly
airplane interludes.
Speaker 4: There's two is on at the start and what at
the end one of the middle as well.
Speaker 2: It's called but the opening sort of free run song
three song run on this album of Stratus, Shooting Velvet
and like the beating of a heart is fucking incredible.
Speaker 4: I can't deny that.
Speaker 2: Again, like I want to emphasize, like Shooting Velvet is
my supercharging moment, shall we say.
Speaker 4: I'm kind of.
Speaker 5: Like like this song when you can believe that chorus
has not left my head for the last week, and
I hate that it's stuck in there, but it is
absolutely incredible that when he sets to come on and
turn it.
Speaker 2: Around before the guitar, so I think it is. I'm
like fucking yeah. And again they kind of like when
that course comes back in for the last time and
it's just even bigger than every I's like, god, this
is it.
Speaker 4: I get it. I really do get it.
Speaker 2: This is amazing, Like the big of the brings in
that like disco beat and it's a real hipshaker. Again,
don't it a chorus, but don't need a keyboard, sellow,
but that chorus is great.
Speaker 4: And I'm like when they when that when they hit it.
Speaker 2: I can't deny they are writing really big pop rock
songs in a classic sense that are gimmicky. I will
stand by that statement. I don't think that is anything
wrong to say about that, but they are big. Probably
is Sam goes on way too long, the songs that
need to be five minutes long, all of them are
like most of them, and there are too many keyboard solos.
Speaker 4: I'll just emphasize that again.
Speaker 3: I just I don't think the songs are gimmicky like
they I know they dress funny and there's that framing
device of We're on a plane, but it's not like
every song is the pilots want to play, you know,
want to play the.
Speaker 1: Not ale storm of the sky like.
Speaker 2: You know, Cloma is like eighties for the like cheese
ballad that feels like it's like like, I guess the
gimmick thing is slightly downplay when you actually get to
the music.
Speaker 4: Fine, man, Yeah, a bit too much for me.
Speaker 3: But the thing Palom is great, like it was the
best song.
Speaker 2: But Polomer is a song that could be in any
eighties movie when like the two leads are off somewhere
being in love, like it's so like schmaltzy and cheesy
and all those things, but it is big, like like yeah.
Speaker 3: It's it's sweeping. I know what you mean. It is
kind of it feels absurd, but it's like a lost
Eurovision winner. It's it's like a meat loaf song that
never was and I simply cannot be upset about that.
The chorus is irresistible and I'm sure someone else has
done that melody before, Like that's a thing across the
truck and you kind of pick the influence something, Oh
that's Boston. That miraculous. The's a bit of dire straits
on there, which, yeah, you know, there's no problem in
my Runaways is like pure feel Collins like exactly, and
like give Us the Moon sounds like ThunderCats Love Island
like that. You can just play, you know, spot the
reference all the way through. But when we hit those
highs and I'm I kind of know what you mean that.
Maybe thirteen tracks, they're not all of the sky high standard,
if you will, But Paloma is fucking glorious.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I think that essentially. I agree, Like
you know, Knife Flighter is normally like again going back
to the previous records they do normally like they give
you slightly more than you need, I think, but they
always have Like every album I think has about three
or four songs that are of that, like Upper Tiers
Shooting Velvet, Like I mean, if you could make the
supercharge of comparison, the idea that that this is the
first time in the night focus, I.
Speaker 2: Need to listen to the older albums properly, Yeah, but
give them a chance.
Speaker 4: But chem velvit did.
Speaker 2: It was my eye opener moment of like, maybe I've
been a little harsh on that exactly.
Speaker 1: Because again, throwbout it again the previous album, like I mentioned,
songs like burn for Me and White Jeans and how
Long are Fucking Incredible? And like, fundamentally, I just I
disagree with the idea that good band who dressing costumes
equals gimmick band. I think that's I think that's a limiting,
kind of stupid way of looking at it, because then
you look at Okay, I Mono Martha a gimmick band,
ghost like.
Speaker 2: Gimmick gimmick doesn't always have We've started to take I'm
a wrestling fan, right, Gimmicks are not a bad thing.
Speaker 1: But you've been using it as a pejorative. You'd been
like a nightfel Orchestra, silly gimmick band. It's like, well, no,
they're just a great band who dresses costumes, and like again,
I think like ghost, like the ultimate antidote of like
a band whoever like people for years called a gimmick band,
but fundamentally they write amazing music. And again, we were
having this conversation a little bit in the prelude and
I think you Elliott said something like they don't dress
any sillier than Elton John does, and it's like, yeah,
it's it's larger than life, glitz and glamour pop music.
And when you take the music, I think the songs again,
when they're really at it, are pretty much timeless outside
of the look. And so the idea that Knightflocus are
in some way a I feel like when you call
something a gimmick band, it inserts again that like exactly
what we were saying, the idea that something is less
worthy or less serious or less of quality if there
is some kind of like wink or whatever.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't think gimmick is always again, I've a band.
Speaker 4: I don't think gimmick has to mean bad.
Speaker 2: I just think that there is you know, there is
a thing to it beyond the music that kind of
like catches you.
Speaker 4: You see him.
Speaker 2: If you saw my market, the festival, the Aris festival,
girl would see them dressed up doing their thing and
would be like, oh, I'm having fun with this because
it's showy and flashy and all that, and there is
just a touch that the difference is is they do right, Yeah, songs,
they are as much as a gimmick band. They're still Panther,
a gimmick band. They're just not nearly as repulsive and
terrible songwriter as are still Panther.
Speaker 1: Infinitely infinitely preferable, and like again, those people would stick
around because the songs great. And I became a fan
of Night Phil Wadre because the songs were great, Like
I liked the records before i'd seen them live for
the for the first time. And there's a famous quote
in certain kind of music critic circles. I believe it
was primarily used to kind of talk about Taylor Swift
and the wider sort of like poptimistic kind of movement.
But the quote is respect motherfucking craft. I don't give
a shit that they dress like air hostesses and have
the audacity to at a show that is all about
good vibes, encourage people to do a conga line. The
craft is top drawer, who is writing better songs like
these right now? And again people sneer it the likes
of Toto and Kansas or whatever for zen for years
and listen to the rhythm section in Miraculous that like
pop and the drum part underpinning of the keyboards is
pure like quality musician ship, which is always the thing
that a band like this can kind of pull out
of their sleeves if they're really worth their soul to
kind of silence anything else, because like the intricate drum
pattern that grounds Cosmic Tide is crazy good. Like I
feel like I'm at a drum clinic during that song
learning about poly rhythms, but also one where everybody's wearing
flares and dancing. And you go through this album and again,
like not every song as a shooting velvet standard chorus
or whatever, but like that I think is a real
consistent that makes it so pleasurable to go through, where
the baseline in something like a Paris point of view,
this goes on really good yeah, on seventies disco base
and it's like, what a pleasure to have that on
an album that we can review on TNM. I think
Beyond is such a great expressive singer, which you really
hear in something like Paloma like like you mentioned, which
to me is almost like you know when bon Jovi
channel Springsteen, you know, like in the eighties and they
have that kind of you know, Runaway Springs to the
type feel that has like a touch of that to it.
So if you are a Jovie head, you are going
to lose it for that tune. And even when you
get into the latest stages of the album, there were
songs where I was going, oh, holy shit, because fucking
Way to Spend the Night is like Giorgio Moroda is
in the house, like maximum Blondie American Jigglow cores Absolutely
it's brilliant. And then Runaway, which you mentioned earlier, to
me that it's almost like something eighties Alice Cooper would do.
It feels like a song that I haven't heard anyone
right in a long time, and it's there are one
of those bands that are just like it's a weight
off your shoulders when you're listening to them. It's just
like it's comforting, no troubles here type music.
Speaker 3: I think I just for me, it's always been a
matter of take the band on their terms, like yeah,
an aor, and that's the sort of thing you should
expect per se. But it shouldn't be that weird to
you in that if I want to go to your
hardcore band, the guys in the band being ordinary down
to that whole thing of it's they're people like me.
They're just like me. I could be one of them,
you know. That's great for that sort of thing, maybe
makes it more relatable. I don't want the people making
my ao R albums to be just like me. I
don't want the I don't want to be able to
just see them in the pub like leave your Ian
Mackay Henry Rollins principles at the door. I mean you
mentioned wrestling, like you want people who could be wrestlers,
you want live cartoon characters. That's the people you want
making this music, because if there was any you know,
inhibition or some sort of self self awareness, it wouldn't sell.
And it's the fact they go for it as far
as they do, and the thing the references were making
it that's why it's like you said, that's why it's
a weight off your shoulders. It's it's infectious, how like
not insecure? They are so like.
Speaker 2: I because I did the whole meat the album on
its terms. I that's kind of mindset. I tried to
go into this with all of my like like and
I think that's when when I was enjoying it the
most was there. I think there was just there's too
much of it that it gets exhausting, like is it
twelve waste ofm denight that like sugar rush of that
song coming in is like genuinely it's like Jesus Christ
are doing this this late in the album. I think
that the real kick of me was the closer. Was
kind of soured me on this quite a bit because
that goes on weight. That's the one where I kind
of go like, Okay, this album's already been a lot,
and now you're closing on a seven minute song that's
quite dull and lifeless in comparison to some of like
the real Skyscraper skyhist if.
Speaker 4: You've been doing earlier.
Speaker 2: I mean, you cut that, you cut the sound down
to ten songs, You pick any ten songs I'm not
gonna say, like cut off at certain point, you like
take the best things on this, And I think I
would actually come at this way more positive than I have,
because I think, like it would you cut out the
bits that made me kind of just get a bit
like roll my eye, I said that bit going on
a bit too long or that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think I think that's fair. But then we've
also got nine to ten songs of an absolutely fucking
cracked record, And yeah, I mean I don't I don't
think it's I think that's normally a problem they have.
But I also like, I don't think this is their
necessary their best album overall, But I think it is
just another great one with a whole bunch of brilliant
junes that I'd love to see live. I am enjoying
myself thoroughly all the way through, really, and I do
think they have a lot of different kinds of like
grooves and feels and so on that give tracks a
kind of an individual pop and there's just no one
doing it like it.
Speaker 3: No, I feel more or less the same. I will
say something I agree on the last track probably being
my least favorite, Like when I saw there was eight
minutes long and it's called Stewardess, Empress, hot Mess and
the Captain of Pain. I was pretty excited. I thought
we're gonna go full meat Loaf here. It's going to
be for crying out loud, I do Anything for Love Paradise.
Speaker 2: By the dashboard light, and I think that's what I
was hoping for, because knowing how bombast they've been doing,
I was like, okay, if you gonna do that, and
then it's just this.
Speaker 3: Kind of like like yeah, sleepy. It did feel a
little bit lethargic at that point, but like you said,
nine ten songs of a really high standard in a
style that not many people are doing at standard. Even
approaching this that can only be accepted as a triumph
in my book.
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, that's the Nightfly Orchestra we are. It got
a very sort of like Scandinavian Metal Hammer kind of
coded start to review there, so say we will get
to your area in time. But the next album we
are going to talk about is from Wardrouner and their
album is called Beena. This is an interesting slot because
you know, not because this is like a new Prospect
or anything. But again, I don't think we really dedicated
a review slot to something like this before, or at
least in a long long time. Wardrouner have been for
a very long time one of the more interesting and
kind of unique projects to exist kind of adjacent to
the metal sphere, because we are talking here about one
of the like og and kind of core names of
the kind of exhibitional pagan European folk music that has
really embedded itself into at this point, I'm not even
just gonna say the metal scene, but like far beyond
it we are talking I guess, you know, the kind
of stuff like high Lung that bizarrely has become a
thing that everybody kind of knows, like whether you're big
into it or not, whether you know anything about this
kind of music or not. You know, this sort of
pagan whether it be Norse or otherwise. You know, again,
almost like art exhibition type projects that have become huge
like live draws in recent years, is a proper phenomenon
that this kind of music has ended up being like
as large a deal as it has become. What is
your guys, you know, kind of relationships been with you know,
let's just the general sphere of the kind of thing
that we are talking about around something like Wadron.
Speaker 2: If this is soundtracking a God of War, a hell
Blade video game, or a Northman start like that sort
of thing as a soundtrack, I'm totally down with a
lot of what's going on here.
Speaker 4: It has to be accompanying some other medium.
Speaker 2: To kind of like bring more life to the world
like God of War ragnavok has I don't. I don't
think it's wardering exactly, but it has. The soundtrack of
that game is so full of stuff like this, and
in that context, I really like it because it's the
perfect kind of like things do it this by itself
like this, any of this one music highlum all of them,
because Hilong did like the hell Blade soundtrack for the
last Helplad game and again really cool works that saying,
but the music on its head I from them, listen
to it, I do.
Speaker 4: I don't get along with it as well.
Speaker 3: I mean, I love folk music and I can get
on with some real hey nonny nonny stuff, Like my
favorite film is The Wickerman and I listen to that
soundtrack all the time. I think this phenomenon is so
heartening because it proves to me that the there's no
such thing as a formula for success, like we kind
of think all rock bands if they want to get big,
not that obviously these aren't rock bands, but to be
big you have to play slowly for four, simplify the riffs,
make the core of sound that Lincoln Park, whatever it is.
It's like the idea there's a shortcut. But the popularity
of things like Wardrouna and Hireland, at least in the
live environment, they kind of exist somewhat outside the festival
paradigm we have here in the UK. But the popularity
these bands Wadrouna play red rocks when they go to
America now it's yeah, it's remarkable. And they play a
form of authentic, like you say, like exhibitional Nordic folk
that pre dates the tropes of popular music, like before
distributed music was even an idea, and yet they're popular.
I just think it's one thing. It's not surprising that
I like this thing, but I'm still kind of bowled
over by how much it connects with other people.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's the kind of thing that you know,
they can and is a whole load of kind of
academic writing about what this could suggest, I suppose, like
is it I don't know, in an increasingly kind of
digitalized world, a symptom of people I don't know, pining
for some kind of history or you know, like relationship
with the past or the earth or whatever it may be.
I don't know, but like certainly, like I think High
Lung taking off was like a really mad moment where
that is you know, an actor, I guess, primarily on
the legend of its live show has become like like
a festival headliner of a certain mid tier, like they've
done Our Tangent and that kind of thing, and you know,
then they've played like Glastonbury and they get huge magazine
magazine slots all of their like you know, they have
like clearly a huge like advertising budget at their label
and stuff like that, like Highlight are a huge deal,
and it was post Hi Lung that we got like
a whole huge wave of like other stuff like that,
and that point I kind of find it hard to
gauge almost like how many of these projects are really
the ones where there's like something there to really dig into,
and how many any of them are like a guy
chopping a log because they've come through like the hole
in the damn that's been burst open by you know,
high lungon Wardrouner. It's one of those things where it's like,
what should be the most niche niche that we could
possibly talk about, has actually in the last ten years
become a massive trend and anywhere like a vaca or
a bloodstock, there will be something like this around the corner.
You look at labels like Season of Myst or so on,
and they all like rushed to pick up a lot
of signings in that kind of area. This war Droner
album that we are reviewing, this is not on Season
of Myst or Napalm or even like Nuclear Blast or
something that you would expect a kind of metal culture
type label. It's on Columbia, just straight up major label
Columbia current label mate Lil nars X and Adele. Right,
there's a song on this album Leafierberger. I think it's
the last one that was released like a few years ago,
quite before this album. That song has nearly twenty million
streams on Spotify. Like, this is the biggest thing we
are viewing this week easily, and it is you know, Sam,
the avenues that you're mentioning stuff like video game soundtracks
and TV soundtracks, that is I guess how this style
has like become a very bizarrely large cultural presence. But
Wardroner are the one that I would choose to review
because they're the one that I just respect the most.
And that's not to say I don't respect various other ones,
but with Wardrouner, they've been doing this thing for so long,
long before there was any of that kind of cultural
presence for this kind of thing at all, and where
sometimes it might be a little bit hard to like
separate again the week from the chaff, when there's so
many of these type projects, with Wardroner that I've just
got like a guarantee that like what is being done
here is really genuine and really you know, a genuine
kind of artistic drive and it's not jumping on a
particular bandwagon or whatever. I think they should be given
particular credit as like kind of the pioneers of bringing
this ancient style of music back into the zeitgeist again
and then allowing the likes of high Lung and so
on to really come on afterwards. Where you know, they
started this back in the early two thousands. They were
originally formed by main Man, Aina Selvic and Gal who
are both members of Gorgoroth, so it originally spun out
of the black metal scene. They've done collapse with Enslaved
and that kind of stuff, which is always put the
more on my radar. But they are the one of
these projects who are like, have made albums that I
have loved and I've spent like significant time with that.
Of all these, they started off with a trilogy called
runal Lyod and the middle one Extra Sill in particular,
I was a really big fan of and I listened
to that record a lot around the time it came out.
And I think it's probably right to say collectively that,
you know, we are maybe not so in tune with
some of the critical nuances of ancient Norse folk music
in the way we might be reviewing a metal album. Certainly,
you know, we don't know as much as the people
who are really dedicating their lives to making this. Maybe
we have a general base of knowledge taken from things
like you know, luodyite media like movies and video games
and so on. But I also think that's probably true
for ninety nine percent would hear these records, And I
think that we can act as a sort of like
gauge for you know, sort of the every man type
person who might hear these records and what they might
get out of it. As said Wardrouna are the one
of these bands who I have been a fan of
for quite a long time and do make records that
I do resonate with Elliott, You'll maybe suggesting something similar. Sam,
You're saying that, at least on its own, it can
be hardgoing, which I appreciate because it's not I mean,
it's not conventionally you know, in the pop tradition kind
of structuring songs at all.
Speaker 2: Just not my muting, like this is just moms gy.
I'm the list too. Like again, if I'm doing it, it
might be like a background listen whilst I've got like
if I want to put something that I didn't need
to like look into too much out one of that
just sounds interesting in the background, something like this, which
is why I normally lean to a lot of video
game soundtracks, which again, this sort of sound has been
so heavily lifted into I'm quite.
Speaker 4: Alright with it.
Speaker 2: Just sitting down to review this as an album was
kind of I was like, ah, okay, so how do
I feel about this?
Speaker 4: Actually, like kind of engage with it on that level.
Speaker 3: Yeah, see, I am sympathetic to that. But for me,
it tips almost into the realm of things like ambient
and new age music, where I don't sort of sit
there looking at my laptop with my notes open, thinking,
you know, what's what's it doing here? What's the course
or the transitions or the production and things like that.
To me, I listen to this in a way that's
not disimilar to the way I might listen to like
an early Earth record or something like that. I kind
of put it on and let it sweep over me,
which I mean my sort of the flip side of
what you're saying is I find this sort of thing
quite difficult to review because it almost feels like the
point of listening to it is to kind of clear
your mind. And yeah, yeah, I've.
Speaker 4: Really struggled with my review notes for this as a result.
Speaker 3: Well, it's that sort of shamanic thing where it's so
like hypnotic and ritualistic and repetitive. It's almost like it's
trying to lacks those critical faculties. The fact that we
was satis laptop listening to it feels some sort of blasphemy,
like it doesn't feel it doesn't even feel like I
should be getting, you know, an email with this record
in it. That all just feels wrong somehow.
Speaker 1: Yeah, totally, But again I can appreciate it's it's what
you were saying, Sam. For myself, I almost go the
opposite route, where like, this is a band who you know,
consistently going back again some time that I have made
records that I kind of like to just dedicate a
moment to, and I don't get as much out of
them if I am just fucking, you know, doing anything else,
or like, you know, my focus is somewhere else, because
they have that very meditative quality of like you you
put yourself at the center of it and it you
allow it to surround you. And I think again, Wardruner,
of all of these type bands are the one who
I find at least in how I personally connected to it.
Do that the best They've got the six records Now
this one Berner, it means bear and there's a sort
of concept around this record relating to the sort of
the spiritual concept of the bear, and it's kind of
you know, struggle sort of reconciling that sort of rustic
ancient environment with sort of modern day society, which is
very much again the kind of like existential sort of
topics that you would associate with this kind of music,
with the past and present, changing world and so on.
But it's all about, you know, immersion and atmosphere and
this great sense of history where they are records where like,
I don't know what the hell these musicians must have
like gotten into and studied in order to learn how
to do this, you know, like to feel like you
are authentically channeling something from fifteen hundred years ago, when
everybody who originated this kind of music is long dead,
you know, but these records feel like they are textured
with history. And when again, when I really give myself
to them, it's like you can feel the forests around
you and you can breathe the sea air as you're
hearing it. And sonically, I think they do a fucking
tremendous job where these records are so immersive. The mixture
here at the start here of like the kind of
jaw harp that it doesn't is that like it's one
single source. It's almost like it's all around you. And
they use this sort of like animal hyde drum that
has this very particular earth fee rumbling in the depths
kind of sound, which if you've never heard anything like this,
if you've not ventured in this particular style we're talking about, oh,
if it hasn't kind of you know, crossed your path,
we're obviously we're talking something that has no like rock
instrumentation at all. Like there are not electric guitars here.
There are not you know, there's not a drum kit.
It does not do things like conventional rock beats or
anything like that. But percussively, they build from these like
hypnotic almost like heartbeats. Like the way that that ancient
kind of drum rhythm is so again like deep within
the sound, it almost feels like it's coming directly from
kind of the the center of you know, the record,
and biproxy you and they they layer a lot on
top of that, and it's a really amazing trick when
they like fully extend it as far as they can go,
which I do think you hear some excellent examples of
that on this particular record.
Speaker 4: I mean, is it hurt Ann or that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the first track, that first track is incredible.
Speaker 2: I think that first track I was gonna like, right,
I get it because again I mean The commitment to
authentasty on this album is draw droppingly commendable. How Like
it genuinely doesn't sound like an album released in twenty
twenty five, as from you know, the production being clean,
it does still just sound like you are there in
the drum circle or whatever, like like you're in the
forest as you people are just playing this music. It's
so it's so earthy, it's so nuteres. They're all like
the same cliches. But it's the only way you can,
I think, describe this music when it's being done to
this level. But like Hurt and the way it like
builds on that steady drum beat and they're layering in
more chanting and it.
Speaker 4: Is really stirring.
Speaker 2: I think, like towards the end of that song where
it's all kind of like comes together, I was like, fuck,
I get this. This is this is great. And again,
like there's no kind of contemporary thing. This is not,
you know, like kind of like a folk with like
a modern twist. It is so classical in its approach,
which I think is like that I guess that's the
thing that we're trying to do. That they're they're they're
not even trying to bring anything modern to this. They
are so focused on accurately conjuring this kind of like
pagan musical feeling, and I think that, like on that print,
they clearly succeed.
Speaker 4: At it well.
Speaker 3: I think one of the main challenges this kind of
music faces is how do you produce it in a
way that feels both authentic and light. You're getting the
full picture because I mean folk in a way, it's
not dis similar to black metal in that you want
it to you want to feel like you're right there
listening to it. But we also don't want the clarity
of being able to absolutely everything, every single thing, and
everything being perfectly mixed and perfectly mix because then you're
kind of conscious of the fact that it was recording
the studio and like you say, released on Columbia, Will
Drownan managed to sound so sweeping and atmospheric and yet
also massive, like this thing that it booms and yawns
and there's these echoes. It sounds like you're at the
bottom of a cave, sort of surrounded by the players
I get. I think that's why it's so easy to
just drift off and let it wash over you. Bas say,
from that first track, you don't have to. You don't
have to ease yourself into this record. It so quickly
puts you where it wants you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it still can be heavy. I think when
they like really lay into it, like the title track Burner.
Every time they do this like low note on the strings,
it all has like a foghorn effect. If it's just
been like it just like properly locks you in. And
the particular instruments they use have this really incredible tonality
to them. There's this one I believe it's the Tagler Harper,
but it's that kind of stringed instrument that particularly again
in that first track, that kind of harsh, twangy kind
of string you feel is really again, I just adore
that sound. It just really, to me is really expressive
and has this really rich, emotional kind of depth to it.
And then they'll layer in again melodies of choirs and
other instruments and so on, and the compounding of th
x of each element. A song like the ostil Jord
brings in like flutes and again like lots of choirs
and stuff, and it's this feeling of being like surrounded
by like these presences and like I don't think like
menacing would be the right word, because it's not scary.
It's more kind of just like enigmatic, you know, it's
a real feeling of like being somewhere else. And again,
the centerpiece of that is there's a song called Davil Drama,
which is the fifteen minutes centerpiece, and Sam, you are
rolling your eyes. I know exactly what you're gonna say.
It's five we don't have to say it. It's fifteen
minutes of like quiet, but it opens with like several
minutes of sounds like you're underwater, and then there's this
kind of heartbeat pulse to it that feels like it's
slowed to an almost like hibernating kind of pace, like
rippling through these layers of aquatic muffling. And it's not
in any hurry to really like move on from it,
because it's not a it's not a fifteen minute epic
metal song. It's almost like like a Dead Can dance
songward or something. It's just kind of like eking this
magic out of the air, twinkling, centering you type thing.
And then I read in the press release that apparently
that the pulse rate of a hibernating bear is in
fact a rhythmic basis through a lot of this album
and like works like a through life for her. And
I was just like you clever bastards, because like, that's
so it was genuinely tangible at least on a subconscious
level that affect in there and that this album sounds
like something great and huge and powerful in stasis, kind
of waiting to wake up and break out again. It
is music in that sense feels just genuinely drawn from
like the natural world and our surroundings in a really
unique and powerful way.
Speaker 3: And then when they strip things down, they remind you
of the human element. I think like Hibbie Awning, which
is just three minutes long, and there's maybe three musical
parts to that song, and it's fantastic, Like it almost
acts as like a ditty to break up how oppressive
and demanding of you so much this record is, and
you're reminded that that, Yeah, there's there's people playing this
like this is a kind of living, breathing band producing
the sound that feels so much grace than some of
its parts.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean there's not many bangers, you know, but
there is a when when I like when when him
and Dotter starts picking up that pace on the drums
and all these women are start going like oh, it's
like oh shit, boys hitting it.
Speaker 2: And then and scug Heston like those are the two
for me, And I'm like, you can call these bangers
comparatively to the album that you know, Hidden dott is
the women dancing around the fire. Scuston sounds like the
dudes getting ready to go to war in the Northman,
that kind of moment, Like like, there is one song
on this album I dislike and it is Veil Drama,
Like I think it.
Speaker 1: Is just time wasting, which to me that is that
is like the heart of the album and it.
Speaker 2: And again I respect the artist, like I don't want
to come as like as a total like Heaven and
all that, but I respect the artistic integrity behind doing
a song like that.
Speaker 4: It just it was just not for me.
Speaker 2: We'll say it's funny, but like I don't want like,
I don't want to be like old Sam's coming about
the long song again because you know that's just it.
And yet I think I'm just finding a thing about
this one in just like kind of like you have
to be so locked into what they're doing to even
register this as and yeah, I.
Speaker 1: Think in that case it's it's they're uncompromising at what
they're doing, you know they are.
Speaker 4: I totally respect that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and for me it really works. And again, just
going back to someone like Scugar Heston, that's the one
that has that kind of galloping rhythm that at that
point is kind of new to the album. And it's like,
not that I would ever manifest something as vulgar and
bad taste as this, because Wardrina are so much better
than that. But that's the one song where you could
imagine some hack YouTuber going mettle cover of this Viking
folk track, and I was like just thinking, keep Peyton
Parrish as far away from this is humanly possible, Like
put a restraining order on him, Yes, if you have to.
Speaker 4: This actually like stands as art compared to all the
shit he does.
Speaker 1: Yeah, which again is what I think really stands out
by someone like Wardrone is how just like pure in
its intentions and that it is. And I'm seeing wardroner
in a couple of months because they're doing a UK tour
and I'm very excited about it because, aside from the
slightly knockoff ones that open the bloods Dot main stage
every now and then. I've never seen anything like this
on this kind of scale, and I think I think
this record is just like really beautiful and meticulously kind
of craft. I think they are the best in their
field and genuine just like iconic class for whom you know. Again,
channeling this kind of art for them is just it's
so so serious.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, I mean, I'll be honest. They're not a
band I listened to regularly, but I often go through
phases and I don't know how to compare this to
other Wardrouna records, but I wouldn't know where to begin
ranking them because they're not the sort of band where
you can like go, oh, I like these I'll put
them on my wardrone A playlist, do you know. I
mean it's like no, you just you take the album
as it is. This is up to that standard they've established.
So next time my month in my Wardrouneer phase, I
think this will be in the cycle.
Speaker 1: Yes, Wardruner. The record is Berner. Next we stay in
cold and icy lands up north because we are going
to the Halo Effect, who put out a record called
March of the Unheard. This is the second album, the
follow up to their twenty twenty two debuts. That's about
two and a half years ago. This band called a
bit of a stir when they announced their formation and
debut album, because essentially this is a bunch of Gothenberg
old hands. The band is fronted by Michael Stanner, who is,
you know, the longtime singer of Dark Tranquility, but considering
he sang on the debut in Flames album, technically everyone
in this band has been in in Flames at some point.
It's not quite a lineup that has ever existed in
Flames history, but about three of them were there during
the Colony Clayman era. And when this band emerged, it
was a lot of like all finally kind of sized
from people who had been wanting some of these old
legendary names to tap back into what they are kind
of primarily known for. And the debut Days of the
Lost came out, and I think generally maybe kind of
went either one of two ways. People either went like
total heart eyes, this is the best malodic death metal
album in years, or a shrug of that's fine, it's okay.
I think there's a middle ground to be had of
that generation of Scandinavian melodic death metal bands from the
mid nineties. To be honest, the only one who i'd
say producing something close to classic workers being at the Gates,
and they've not done it by going back to Slaughter
of the Soul. They've gone like darker and weirder and
more difficult. But in that category, I think something like
the Halo Effect was better than we'd gotten used to,
I suppose, which is why it caused such a splash
to begin with.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I remember it coming out and I thought it
was cool. I think it was helped by at the
time it Flames on the mother of all losing streaks
and like to hear some of those former members get
together and craft something that felt much more in line
with that band's glory era, and that Gloria is a
Glori era. The classic in Flames Run is as good
as metal gets. I never really went back to the record,
but I liked it when it came out.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think Shadow Minds, which was the I believe
of sort of the launching single for the Bound as
a whole thought it was a really great track if
you're into this kind of like let's call it late
stage melodic death metal, because it doesn't sound like it
did in the nineties, but it's clearly guys who were
doing it in the nineties, you know. It's that sort
of age and feel of that strand the rest of it. Again,
I don't really recall other parts of that record as strongly,
but it did dependently do the thing. They immediately went
on the road. I saw them opening a very empty
arena at that early stage for that Machine Header Monomath tour,
but they were good, you know, and then they quickly
plugged into a second one, which going off you know,
marchally N heard. I've seen a couple of different opinions
are like, oh, I wasn't into the debut, but I
like this one more, or the debut is much better
than this one. I'm gonna say that's essentially just noise
down to like people where they subjectively are in the
moment one record to another. Because what I get from
the Second Halo Effect album is a second Halo Effect album.
It's the band who were formed to tap into this
particular tradition and they've carried on doing that. And I
think the result largely depends on how much the Halo
Effect as a whole excite you.
Speaker 2: I think this album has really suffered from the fact
that Melo Deaf got really good last year.
Speaker 1: Again between Halo Effect albums, isn't it It's like the
stand had suddenly risen.
Speaker 2: I don't think there's much of a gap and quality
between the two Hall Effect albums. I just listened to
some get very little from it because I'm like, if
I want to listen to Melo Deaf now, I'm going
to stick on that Gatecreeper record or upon Stone.
Speaker 4: Bands that sound hungry, that sound powerful.
Speaker 2: I don't know if it's the production this album, but
this is one of the most like weightless mellow Deaf
albums I can think of. There is no like I
don't think the song's a bad I think there were
good songs on here. Detonate I think is like really
good in the title track. I think they're good songs.
But there are a song about the production that just
like the big Melow Deaf leads don't actually sound big
and lift off the vocals so processed like there is
just some of the some that it just it feels
like it's I don't easy that that sort of elder
states and the thing where they're just going to sell
it in but there's no bite to it.
Speaker 4: There's no heft to it.
Speaker 2: All those things that I loved about, how like at
it that upon Stone album sounded, or how huge and
heavy that Gay Grouper album sounded, I get none of
that from this, and I'm just kind of left for
an album that I don't think the songs are particularly bad,
but I also just feel nothing listening.
Speaker 3: To I feel like we have to start calling melodic
death metal and mellow death different things, because.
Speaker 1: Melodic death metal like metallit or a metal core.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's it's like, you know, you put on that
Gate Creeper record or the upon Stone, am you go? Oh,
that's a death metal album in energy and ferocity, and
it's melodic melow death for me now describes that sort
of halfway house that doesn't really satisfy either. The fact
that there's a review of this record on spotank music
and the opening line kind of perfectly captures my view
on the sub genre as it stands to that, and
it's it might be the first genre in the history
of music to be solved, like it's basically finished. It's
kind of washed, Like this melow death thing doesn't really
get improved when you can kind of put your own
twists on it here and there, but you're not going
to make I'm a death metal record that's more like
bang At Tasted than Clayman, more my slaughter of the Soul,
you know whatever, which isn't the stand that I'm holding
the halo effect too, It's not the thing I expect
from them. But you know, I put this on and
I think, Yep, that's the sound of melow death done
well by people who have done this before. I'm left
with almost no impressions after this record ends, I'm left
with nothing.
Speaker 1: Okay, Yeah, I mean I am. I think, you know,
a melow death as well as the melodic death metal.
But melow death, I think is an area that I
can maybe more comfortably sit in maybe than either of you,
just in terms of, like, you know, just just giving
this stuff and I'll be fine, right. And I think
a band like this at this stage similarly to again
any of their peers, of a similar sort of level
of again dark tranquility, soil work, whoever it might be,
Arch Enemy, whatever, I think there's a level of like
class around a band like this at this stage that
I appreciate that does not necessarily translate into like hyper excitement. Well,
I'm not gonna throw a record on like this if
I really want my blood pump in, you know, And
I appreciate if that's what you like want in melodic
death metal you might tune out, particularly when again, in
the last couple of years between Hall Effect albums, we've
had the likes of a pond Stone and Gatecreeper who
do that as a back called Majesties as well, Like
there has been like we haven't been quite as starved
for great melodeath bizarrely as we were in the years
proceeding twenty twenty two. But as a fan of a
bunch of these type bands, I think a lot of
them have developed that sense of like quite austere class
over the years, where like you know, Amorphous have it,
Cattonia have it at the Gates. Even though they've like
they've gone harder and darker, they also have that sort
of level of classiness in their modern guys, And I
think it's nice to hear old hands at this craft.
I think they're writing a bunch of like really nice
melodies and strong guitar parts in a production job. Again,
I think it is fine on this. I don't think
it's a bad production job. It's just kind of a
part of the course of what this kind of music
has sounded like for the previous you know, like twenty
years prior to a band like a pond Stone going,
what if this was like really crunchy again?
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: I think maybe Shadow Minds is still their best song,
if I would have one over the other. But the
impression I have between these two albums is largely the same.
There's a couple of like clear lead off tracks that
do get me going, and I think are really again strong,
because these are guys who are proven in this lane.
As the album progresses, you slip more into a like
we're not really rocking the boat, you know, kind of
rhythm and formula. And I think, you know, even though
this is you know, it's a new band, these are
musicians who found their niche long ago and then aged
into that niche. I think it would be unexpected for
them to mix up very heavily at that stage.
Speaker 2: Well, I think this album drops off when they do
try and really mix up the sort of the interesting,
the completely lifeless, monotone, clean vocals and so in fairness,
but no, no, but and the symphonic elements that sound
kind of cheap and don't make the song sound epic
in the way that symp symphonic elements do.
Speaker 4: I think those like the worst moments on there.
Speaker 2: I think, like say, the songs that they are you
know a little bit more blood pumping, even with the
kind of like sanded down edges like decinate like the
Tar Truck.
Speaker 4: I'm like, cool, this is this is as good as
I can get from this thing.
Speaker 2: And I'm like, you know, like there is you know,
nice guitar parts I like, and that that again as
fist pumping, and this just sort of gets I'm like
fine with that. But when they do try and like
branch out make it a bit like class of Us
of that, I think it just it falls down flat.
Speaker 3: I think, yeah, you've kind of touched on something there
where when the great moments happen, it's mainly because it
reminds me of the classic moments from the bands they're from.
Like on Our Channel to the Darkner says it's bit
in it where I thought, oh, that's good, and then
I realized, oh, it's only for the week, or there's
there's a bunch of times on record where I start
to go, oh, this is actually this is pretty good,
and then and then I just go, well, I feel
like that's on Colony or I feel like I'm listening
to Horror coord you know what I mean. It's like
and I love those records, so it's not a disaster,
but it feels a bit like a cheat code.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there are several guitar lines. I don't know if
we're even thinking of the same ones. I think it
might be a thing where I don't know if it
actually is directly derivative in that way or just the
general vibe is so specific that our brains make the
jump to those connections. But there are several points where
I go, I'm sure that's an old Inflame song, you
know the ones I like, you know, when they most
hit it, they do light me up a bit. I
readly like the opening track and Inspire to Deceive, which
I don't think was one of the advanced singles, but
it's very well picked as a as a kickoff, and
it is. I know, that's that's that's Yespa. You know,
like he wrote Colony and the Gesta Race, he can
do those like acrobatic leads and they're great in there.
Even though it's not the most like again crunchiest, most
biting thing ever, I think there is a wind in
the sales and a life behind them when they do
get it most going on tracks like again you've mentioned
Detonate Sam. I agree when that one, like the drums
really just start walloping really great, and I think again
the lead guitars in that when on the the we
just close our eyes like pre chorus part. It's uplifting
and it kind of warms the cockles of my heart
because this stuff is kind of in built into my DNA,
you know.
Speaker 2: I do again think the production kind of muted a
little bit, but I can see the quality in that
guitar line, and there's just the kind of like I go, no,
I know that's a good guitar part.
Speaker 4: Production be damned, like yeah.
Speaker 1: And another one I think is again right at the
top drawer of what they're doing, is cruel perception, which
for me has this very like uh kind of like
Michael Amor in arch Enemies prime type lead melody that's
sort of immediately win swept and I'm air grabbing. I'm
pushing through that darkness that they wanted me to do.
It's not like we've had tons so far, but I
think that's probably one of the best songs I've heard
in the last month, you know, of the beginning of
this year. And I think between you know, the opening
track and then the ones that they've selected as singles
and so on, they do seem to quite well. I
don't know gauged which ones are the ones that have
the most kind of magic in them. And back when
I was like, you know, sixteen, and I was getting
into the bands that you might call more mellow death
than melodic death metal, you know, your Omnium, Gatherums, insomnium whatever,
you know, melodic and flighty but also pretty clean. This
would have fit in, you know, just well. And I do.
I like that, and I do find at least within
what they're doing, the engine does go at points where
like our Channel to the Darkness is another one's quite
quite thrashy as well. Fundamentally, you know, a twelve track
album from a bunch of musicians more than thirty years
into their careers who seem to you know, largely have
variations on the same trick. And this band was kind
of formed to specifically dial into a certain trick that
you had maybe moved away from in their other bands.
There is going to be a point where it exhausts itself.
And while I'm totally down with the trick, I would
say it's, you know, not at all unexpected that this
album eventually halfway through or whatever kind of reaches that points.
I just I like the leads, you know, but they're
largely kind of the same thing. I think it's the
couple of standouts, like your choral perceptions and so on,
that that hit it. I'm you know, when I listen
to this record, I'm wrapped in my little Melodath blanket.
I feel like I'm safe and no one's going to
pop that. You know. It's I like that, but my
attention is not like really intently held because it is
essentially for the reason that both of you guys have
have pointed out.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I it doesn't really do anything wrong.
You know, it's forty five minutes long, twelve songs. I
don't think it wildly outstays. It's welcome, but it like
even the last in Flames record, which felt like a
something of a return to form, there was stuff and
the wre you go oh cut that like that's not great, lads,
there's nothing that bad on this record, but that kind
of leaves us without something to talk about, like, yeah,
I mean sorry you were Well, it's just like these
guys still still clearly have their chops, and I'd probably
say it's this in the last record or are as good,
if not better than anything in Flames have done since,
maybe a sense of purpose. And I'm not personally a
Dark Tran quality fans. I wouldn't know when their last
really good record was, but you know, not great, not terrible.
If it feels very this is almost like the definition
of a six out of ten metal record.
Speaker 1: For me.
Speaker 3: It's totally serviceable, very proficient, very proficient. Nothing I'm going
to be returning to in two or three months time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I don't even necessarily mind the clean
vocals that much because I think it's different to Again,
I want to avoid just ragging on in Flames all
the time when you're reviewing the Halo Effect because feels cheap,
but it's also the obvious thing to do because they're
literally like the spin off members. But when Anders hits
the cleans in the worst in Flames stuff and he
sounds more like he's drawing on that kind of like
angsty radio post hardcore thing. Michael is not doing that.
He's not coming from that tradition. He's got more of
that like, you know, sort of mid range smooth again,
like Swedish progressive metal ow with a glass of ye
type thing that I totally get why someone might be
turned off from that, because it does sap away from,
like again the aggression in the intensity of the music,
but it doesn't hit me in the wrong way in
the way for example, bad Inflames choruses do, so I'm
kind of okay with them, but that is kind of
you know, it's the main trick that they throw in
at the backstages to go here. It is something else,
you know, Yeah, it is is not an album that
I will be likely thinking about much as the year
really gets into swing, but in a particularly dead January,
I think especially again, this record came out in like
the one of the first two release weeks of the year,
and there was like nothing when this came out. It
was like, ah, the first race of the year that
I can you know, I can trust that we are
in reliable hands and I'm gonna like this well enough
and I think, you know, again, this is now the
second hal Effect album, unless they like really hit on
some particular vein of extreme quality, or it's just super
dead again like it is right now. We might not
necessarily need to like come in and do full length
reviews of like every Halo Effect album now, because you know,
they've got their thing. It's quite self explanatory. But I
do think, you know, I think demanding them to be
operating at the high standards of in Flames circa ninety
four through two thousand is you know, setting yourself up
for a fall. It's just quite nice to hear them
channeling that stuff to like a respectable level. The way
I look at it is like, is if in Flames
are your favorite band, like your number one, but you
have been frustrated by their later material and you have
to kind of segregate it that bit more. The Halo
Effect is a little bit like if in Flames had
been one of those bands who just sort of settled
into being quite good at the thing. It's like an
alternate path of like, yeah, I can take that, you know,
like they're not rehevnit in the wheel, but you can
at least expect them to be delivering something that feels
true to that band that you fell in love with.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, like you say, I think if this
was as much as it feels harsh and cheap to
keep comparing to it in Flames. On the other hand,
if this was a new band with no one from
in Flames in it, we probably wouldn't be talking about it,
And if in Flames were brilliant, people might still not care.
Do you know what I mean? But I take it
that if you love in Flames and you've been hurt
by the last decade or sort of in Flames output,
I can imagine, you know, embracing this. I think I'm
kind of to move myself from this somewhat because it's
not really my personal sound, But if it was, I
can totally see why people connect with this the way
they do.
Speaker 1: Yes, So we are going to move now further underground.
We're going to move to a different portion of Europe
as well. We're going to talk about a band called
the Great Old Ones and a record called Cadath. If
you don't know, let me teach you all about the
Great Old Ones, which sounds like a very scary sentence.
If I wasn't talking about a band. The Great Old
Ones are a French black metal band who you may
recognize their name, drawing basically all of their inspiration from
the HP Lovecraft missofs. Lovecraft is such a staple presence
within the metal scene, ever green you know, lyrical inspiration,
but it is a select few bands who go quite
as far as the Great Old Ones do with it,
where their entire thing is to just be like as
authentically love Cruftian as they can, both lyrically in you know,
all of their albums focus on specific Lovecraft stories, but
also musically in conjuring up this kind of like you know,
this suffocating hugeness within their rifts. And even though they're
not really part of the same sub genre, I would
say like an obvious parallel to my mind is someone
like ahab in following a very specific like literature through
line album to album and then also in their music
that particular like maritime destruction and desolation and so on,
and in the process, like them, they've kind of gone
the route of like creating and perfecting their own niche,
like they are the kings of their own small adopted
little hallmark. And I'm a big, big fan. This was
the first extreme release this year that I was like
really looking forward to. I think every one of their
records has been great. Their twenty fourteen album Takilli Lee.
Despite the joke that adopted they're like, oh, Perron put
eighteen million extreme metal records into the twenty fourteen special.
But this is the kind of album that like would
have warranted a good half hour of discussion, and we
only could give it like a minute or two in
that special because we had to be real ruthless in
that thing. But that record is like a semi masterpiece
of the style that they are carving out. I also
really love the follow up that one EOD, But they
are all good, Elliott, because we were so brief and
really flying on that twenty fourteen special, remind me, have
you any you know similar reverence for the great old
ones again, the way that we were able to unite
on something like an Ahab.
Speaker 3: I have an immense reverence for that record you're talking about.
That's when I got into them, and I thought it
was fantastic, And then I've done an absolutely disastrous job
of following them because for some reason, their fields never
their records never crossed my field of vision. And I
didn't make the necessary effort to seek they at least
anything new. So when this came up, I thought this
was their first album and eleven year and then you've
been a badge.
Speaker 4: You've you've been a real band.
Speaker 3: And to be honest, without jumping the gun, if it
was the first time in eleven years, that would be
fine too, because this band are brilliant and this thing
is brilliant.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and uh, just I don't know, if you've gone
back a list of the other ones in between those two,
they're both like as good as this one, you know.
It's it's just they're one of those bands, that's what
they do. This record adapts the Lovecraft story The dream
Quest of Unknown Cadath, which I dusted off my tone
of Lovecraft from the shelf to you know, align with
this record, and that story is nuts. It's Lovecraft at
his most like kind of daft and psychedelic, which is
it's all to do with dreams and traveling through dreams,
and he populates it with all sorts of like like
zanier than you would usually think with Lovecraft sort of stuff,
like there's like cat people and mushroom forests and the
main character writes a zebra and all the sort of
like fanciful trippiness and the Great Old Ones, it's not
really in their style to go full sort of like
dadaists like that, although there is on the cover of
this record, now that I've mentioned that the guy's riding
a zebra, you can spot that in there. They've just
like very well honed it into their sort of black
mettally looking imagery. And there's a big multi voice choir
on one song that talks about a legion of cats.
But you know, obviously what they've tried to do is
they tried to achieve that kind of you know, cosmic
trippiness and horror in a record like this. And I
think the Great Old Ones they're kind of in a
nice spot because they're on a sort of spectrum in
black metal that includes some really out there things like
when you move into the avant garde end and you
reach bands like Bluetouse Nord and that kind of school
of trippiness. There's elements of that in the Great ol
Ones music. But compared to that, I think they are
they're much more accessible because they're riffy and they're heavy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I would just come in and say
way more accessible. I had a fucking great time with this.
Speaker 1: I'm glad. I thought this could go one of either
two days.
Speaker 2: What I saw was like seventy three minute song and
I was like, ah, for Fox ape.
Speaker 4: Pair, you've done this again.
Speaker 1: To me, it's about an hour of the record.
Speaker 2: Oh this is the Bone track anyway? Well cool, No,
this is great. This is so good and because and
again it's because kind of like like they have everyone
bloody goal with that. This is a lot more kind
of like at it than the I have record. It
is kind of but what this is me, I was like, Oh,
this is Lovecraftian horror black metal. It is so fucking
good at realizing the concept through just kind of like
these songs that kind of blast you with these like
dizzey barrages of rifts and like horrid screams, and then
as each song goes it just kind of gets more
of a worldly and mad and you are just descending that.
Like first half of the track is the first half
of the opening track is like a demented thrill ride,
and then it gets like collapses in itself and then
it comes back feeling like dangerously insane, where the riffs,
they're more jagged. There's there's kind of like there was
a bit of a mologic lyft in the first half
the song that's gone now and it's just chaos and
like building this like cosmic epic conclusion. I was like, I'm, i'm, I'm,
I'm in the world of the album. I'm not familiar
with that particular Lovecraft story. Lovecraft's kind of more just
like Lovecraft adaptations and like kind of things that kind
of borrow what.
Speaker 1: It's worth you. You don't need to read the story
to understand the record. I just did that, yecause.
Speaker 2: But I just think anything that kind of borrows Lovecraft
and half I think it's such a great like the
whole unknowable. If you find out what this thing is,
it will drive you insane. I mean, there's a song
called fucking in the mouth of Madness. I'm like, yeah,
fucking let's go. But yeah, this this song all of
like how vast and epic and long it is.
Speaker 4: I was locked into this album the entire time.
Speaker 3: As far as bands capturing the aura of writers or
text something inspire them, there aren't many better cases than
great Omens and HP Lovecraft, Like this whole thing sounds
gigantic and strange, which is sort of the the point
of any of his stories, exactly like you want it
to sound larger than life itself and something that's almost
impossible to get your head around. And from that, from
that perspective, the sonic storytelling is basically unrivaled. But like
you say, it's not just abstract and trippy to the
point of incomprehension. They're able to drag you into their
world the way that Enslaved got so good at doing
in the mid twenty to the early twenty tens. Like
there's riffs on here that are so catchy and musical
motifs that borrow into your psyche in a way where
other bands just wouldn't even attempt. They just try and
make it ethereal and incomprehensible, just to dizzy you. They
managed to do that, but you can follow each trick
where it's going.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think technically you could maybe call them a
post black metal band, But rather than like the shoegazy
like outset Death Eavans side of thing, we're talking more
like a thick miory influence from Isis and Cult of
Lunar type of post black metal. So in terms of like,
you know, if you're a newcomer coming in here in
this we're talking about you know, long winding, progressive kind
of structures. But I think if you're down with bands
like The Cold of Lunar or The Ocean or whatever,
and you're able to connect that to a more black
metal mindset and start of everything, that you could follow this
where again, like the proper weirdo black metal stuff might
be a stretch, but if you are, you know, for example,
one of our listeners who doesn't really know or like
much black metal, but you are like a Cult of
Lunar fan, for example, this is a band that I'll
go maybe try try this one out, because I think
they are I look at them as a really good
example of like a modern black metal band where it's
super black metal in vibe, but it's not like overly
beholden to standards of the nineties or whatever. It's not
traditionalist in that way, and I think they have some
of the best sounding contemporary black metal as a result,
where it's it's equal part sort of gargantuan and atmospheric
and transportative, but also like really crunchy and brutal and
that first track, you know, the Dreamer opens with a
cadaff call and they're just like this fully you know,
you're riding your zebra into the horizon, you know, on
a proper like metal riff in a way that you
might if you're going into thinking like, oh, trippy, cosmic
black metal, and you might not expect it to just
like wallop you like that, like like against Sam. I
bet you were expecting some horror show dot hins guard
type thing. Yeah, for these guys fucking rock.
Speaker 2: The moment I fell in love this album is about
five and a half minutes into those from Olfar. It
just locks into a motherfucker of a groove it does
that is so sick, and I'm it comes out there
like weird discording melodic part that's like weird and creepy,
and then this groove hits and I was like, ah,
fuck yeah, and then the blast meets going. I'm like,
this is fucking sick. I don't care like and having
those kind of moments in there along with all of
the weird shit just made it such a fucking brilliant
hip to go on. I mean, there is again a
song in the middle of this length is a fifteen
minute instrumental, and at no point I go, oh, this
is an instrument.
Speaker 1: I was kind of like, that's the point I'm worried about.
That's the part I thought that would lose you.
Speaker 4: Like when it got to a hard field, I was like,
the box ever come in yet?
Speaker 2: And I was like, I'm just digging this because each
new part of that, like because it's not a slow burn,
it's fucking straight in there without rumbling drum beat propelling
you in. It's it's immedia and it's just doing loads
of crazy shit over fifteen minutes without any vocals, And
I'm like, the highest come I can give it is
that I just didn't care that this was a fifteen
minute in to rental truck because I was so in
the zone. And I think they did the legwork on
the songs beforehand to make to immerse me in the world.
So when you get you know, the gathering as this
kind of like moment of like grief calm before you
get this gargantuaine epic instrumental, I'm just so immersed in
it that I.
Speaker 4: Was so down for whatever trick they took me on.
Speaker 2: And then you know that answer, you get that peak
Lovecraft in spoken word stuff going into astrovoid, and it's
all just taking all the right beats for me for
what I want from anything themed on lovecrafting and horror.
Speaker 3: I mean, the force of this record is something to behold.
Like so much black metal, it can be great for
this is like Frosty Tremolo based, really treborly. It's all
in the high end. The base tone on this record
is it sounds like an anaconda being sick. It's just
like the most ruising, lumpen thing, and yet yeah, it's alive.
It sounds like it's breathing. It's again that In fact,
I couldn't get into Lovecraft for many years, as it
was one of those references that loads of bands are
like loads of writers would mention, and then I tried
to read the stories and that whole cosmic horror thing.
I really struggled to get my head around the fact
that he wouldn't actually.
Speaker 1: Just the writing is hard work. Well, that was it.
Speaker 3: And it was also just the fact that for years
it just felt like he was going, oh mate, this thing,
it's it's massive. How massive on.
Speaker 1: You seen it?
Speaker 3: Couldn't I can't tell you, what does it look like.
I wouldn't even know. It's high man, just crazy. It's like,
fucking hell, can't set You've got two pages explain the
thing to me. And then when I finally got into
and I've got and I went back to that great
old One's record and thought, okay, yeah it makes sense now,
and going back to this it captures why that stuff
is scary. But under the sign of cough it rocks.
But it's got this uneasy shuffle to it. It's like
going down uneven stairs into some dungeon full of rats.
It's just the I keep saying about the world building.
It evokes that feeling his books too peerlessly.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it. It does not fuck about in
terms of like dragging you down into this world in
this narrative. But then they like meter the really twisted
parts quite well over the course of a song, where
again that that first track really like immediately comes at you.
It's got like beatdowns and shit. But then when it
moves into those like kind of really dissonant stuff getting
kind passages, it's like it's it's brought you in first,
you know. And again melodically they'll do the enormous tremolo
type leads, but they feel more like these kind of
siren songs more than the icy tip of call Nordic stuff,
like they are coming from some kind of deep well
beneath you. Where the conclusion of that first track is
is sensational. I really I love again the way that
the melody kind of leading the way on in the
mouth of madness.
Speaker 3: Just like stomps on you.
Speaker 1: I find them like really stirring, and they are able
to mix all these things together in a way that
does sound like phenomenally huge, almost like in the beginning
of those from All Far, it's almost like mirage like
of kind of swimming and shimmering before your eyes. I
think they're one of the best bands in their field
at creating that kind of like sort of mind's eye quality,
but they do it while also keeping it like pretty metal,
you know, Like there's a riff in the second half
of that song. I think it might be the one
you're talking about, Sam, that is just like horns up,
you know. And I think if you are thinking of
the post metal route of like you've got to look
at your watch before the song really starts to hit,
you know, under the side of carth you mentioned it's
hype as shit. The drummer is almost like a it's
like a punk post black metal song if such a
thing existed, Like the drummer is just like hammering it.
And this was like a.
Speaker 4: Thrashy riff at the start of that song. Yeah, it's
so hard.
Speaker 1: And just the physical mass of them. I think that
one of my I was like, like, this is what metal
can do. You know, like metal better than any other
kind of guitar. Bassed music creates this sort of like
horricune of energy and just this raging storm of a sound,
and the great old ones just do that, you know, impeccably,
even when it is a you know, fifteen minute instrumental
that is just like twisting and contorting over those fifteen minutes.
Speaker 3: Wellout fifty length of fifty minute instrumental. One of the
things that came to mind, which it would evoke something
completely different in your in your head, was I thought
it really sounds like Envy, and I didn't care for
that Envy record from last year so much, and it
feels like in one song I got the follow up
to the Fallen Crimson I was hoping for, and they
managed to take that thing which you know in that
band sounds always sounds like mournful and depressive, and they
again they make it sound so imposing from the opening,
but all the way through it just sounds got gantuan.
Speaker 2: I've not made that conversing, but I get where you're
coming from. With like the sort of the guitar lines
and stuff like that. I do see where you're come from.
It just takes it that they did bit in a
totally different, monstrous.
Speaker 4: And less kind of like beautiful way.
Speaker 3: And the other point of reference which I wasn't expecting
to make is on a second rendezvous, which I'm now
is that the bonus track.
Speaker 1: That the track eight that we had, that is the
one that is labeled as the bonetrack.
Speaker 3: Yeah, right, Well, when this comes out, go listen to
the bonus track, because where's a rocking guitar solo of that,
But when the groove comes in that could be a
deaf tone song. It's that level of liquid, but they
cover it with accoutrements that take it so far away
from that. Like just the level of musicianship in this
band is something else. And I can't believe that's a
bonus track. That's one of the best songs here.
Speaker 1: Yeah, one of the more underrated black metal bands today.
I think like they have been amazing for more than
a decade now. Every record is consistently very strong. This
one the first like really good metal records of twenty
twenty four. I think it's called Cadath, the band with
the great old ones. We are going to close on
two records that are going to take the the fifteen
minute instrumental than the scope and all of that, and
condense it down quite a bit more as we move
into a couple of records from the world of kind
of hardcore and adjacent genres coming out this January that
might be of interest you and worth your time. And
the first one comes from around called Trauma Bond, and
the record is called Sumner Ends. Some are long gone
this band, I only know what I've learned in like
the last week. I've never heard of them before. But
when it came to just looking around at the releases
in January and thinking like, what's something that you know,
our audience might be interested in hearing they haven't heard before,
this fit the bill. Trauma Bond are according to their
band camp at least, which is like the main presence
they seem to have from London, so UK based band.
They have been releasing records since twenty twenty one in
a sort of seasonal series, so they've done Winter Spring,
This summer is the third one, and supposedly there'll be
a concluding autumn at some point. Like I said, this
is the first one I've heard, so I haven't been
following that particular series. But this is hardcore I guess
you'd call it on the more experimental end. The bands
that jump out to mine for being like for fans
of someone like Full of Hell, but also like bringing
it closer to the hardcore stuff like Candy that kind
of plays in that realm of like hardcore fuckery, you know,
not to mention converge considering this also has some additional
guitar contributions from none other than Kurt Balu on it,
which I don't know how that relationship came about.
Speaker 2: That makes sense, I didn't know about that, and now
going to go, of course it fucking does.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that was how I found out about it, because
he posted it on his Instagram. Anyway, But that little
list of names, I think you can get an idea
of whether this is the kind of thing that interests
you or not. And you know why I might throw
this out, was like, hey, you know, what do we
make of this? But also bear in mind, this is really,
I think, on the avant garde end of that spectrum.
Even by some of those stands, this thing is absolutely
bewildering for a lot of the time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I kind of I was kind of expecting a
kind of artsy hardcore record in the vein of Converge
at their artsyists.
Speaker 1: And any any death wish type thing, right, yeah.
Speaker 2: Like that, and there is there's a lot of that
on there, you know, Like it kind of starts with
this slow burn atmosphere, menacing whispers, sludgey rears, all that,
and there are moments where it just kind of like
bootshead off and goes for a hardcore and there are
moments where it goes absolutely batshit insane. This this album,
Like how many ideas this crams into like twenty nine.
Speaker 4: Or so minutes like this. I fucking love this album.
Speaker 2: I knew nothing about this band, really and I can't
get enough of this. I'm so in on every mental idea.
And there are two piece like and then they got.
Speaker 4: Fucking like there is a drum machine.
Speaker 2: I swear on this album that is goes absolutely mental
on one song, and I normally hate that, and I'm
in on it here because it just fucking is part
of the chaos that I'm so in on.
Speaker 3: I mean, I went into this totally blind. I didn't
even go in expecting hardcore. I saw the an cover
and saw the name and thought I was just gonna
be like sort of maggot Heart or maybe even Marmosettes,
something of that kind, and then the buffet you're served.
It's even now, I'm not sure hardcore is the best
descript It's like it's more like grindcore but with noise
rock and scream. Oh there's like bits of post metal
sort of experiments and music, and you get basically none
of those in the opening track, which is more like
slam poetry, overthroat singing and war drums. And at that
point it was like, right, I I already have no
idea what's going to happen now, But when this thing
kicks off, I was full heart, eyes swept up in it.
I think this is fantastic as well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I I've heard this record and I
still don't really know what happens. I don't necessarily know
if I I mean on like fully like loving this
record yet, but I was just like fucking know, there's
a lot going on here and there, like it's one
of those records. It made me feel almost like when
you listen to like The Armed or stuff like that,
and it's like just baffling, is like making heads or
tails of like how one thing connects with the like
the other is genuinely like this puts you through the
ringer in that kind of time period. As you say,
there's like a sort of weird ambient like you're entering
some kind of like death sacrificial arena or something opening.
And then this like big low like sludge bass, which
kind of like really kind of eggs that on further. Again,
the first that there are two pieces that must be
so much like just playing around in the studio to
really create this larger than life atmosphere because the you know,
the second track is then about half the length of
that intro one, and it just fucking rips it just like, Okay,
here you got like this is a grindcore song, like
grind coreps.
Speaker 4: Blast sabbing riff, like is so violent.
Speaker 2: The vocals are kind of like destoryed a muddled support
where you kind of don't even know what what's being
screamed at you.
Speaker 4: It's just kind of like noise.
Speaker 2: There's this mental electro breakdown in there and chugging stobby bits,
and I'm just like, okay, this is in like a
short grind Cores song.
Speaker 4: Cool, what have you got for me?
Speaker 1: Really like loudly mixed in a kind of like overwhelming,
popping your ear drums kind of way, like intentionally and
being abrasive like that, and that Bizarrely that track ends
up being the most familiar to Grafting about it like
at least makes sense, like, yeah, that's a grindcore song,
Like I know grindcore I do like. I like when
they lean into the kind of the more like noisy
sludge end, like something like Chewing Fat, which goes to
this like unforgiving doom kind of tempo, when they let
the kind of more sort of the god flesh type
thing emerge out that really like gets their sheer sonic
texture and weight approach. But then they would just rip
that up as well and just like douse everything in
some crazed whirlpool of like you know the song regards
as this sort of mailstrom, that is, the opening seconds
are like a whirlpool of death metal opening up underneath it,
and then halfway through you stop dead into the sort
of moment of anticipation for them, just like this monolith
low tuned like drop riff to stomp your head in.
And it's sort of paired as a one too with
the song Son of Scum, which is has that like
converged like phoenix in flames type effect on it where
it's like it's too hot to the touch, And collectively
those two songs are about three minutes of music that
you kind of I almost don't keep up with what's happening.
It's just like such an aggressive release of like being
like chewed up and spout again I think regards on
what the drum machine just going like insane parsenal planet.
Speaker 2: It's just like it's that one like that, and then
even like Repulsion kind of flowers about and this like
this just it's just this whole mistarction of the album
is just fucking crazy. So a Scum like is that
like really like nice relations But then you have again
this real kind of like sick mid tempo stomping rift
that it kind of rides out for the rest of it.
Wolfing the Lamb to Mutton is maybe the most insane
moment on the record, where like we're full on in
kind of like electro, a hardcore noise, drum and bass
drop in the middle of this oppressive like like.
Speaker 1: And it's so fucked up in the mix, like it's
so mega distorted, like the foundation for that song. It
starts off like electro, but by the latter stage, I'm like,
is this even a song? Like it's just melted the
way into like the noise and trauma.
Speaker 3: Well, that song sounds like if Early Converge wrote and
recorded the Broken EP, which you know, if anything like
you should be should be music to your ears. I
love when bands like this make use of the production.
I think one of the most we haven't mentioned so
far that I suspect is an influence on them is
gengis tron like that for me, something like a repulsion
but Wolving the Lamb to Mutton making something that sounds
so garbled and panicked and in a way that you
actually couldn't do if it was recorded live, like if
it's a two piece I presume this is all just
you know, sort of a bedroom project and making full
use of that and making the music more frightening by well,
we kind of we didn't even mention it. On Good Grief.
They put some sort of like brato on the vocals,
which I've never heard before, but I didn't think that
was like they take the share trick and put it
on somebody's sounds like Jacob Bannon. It's fucking it's head exploding.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Thumb Skin for Dinner wonderfully sicko title that is almost
like they've taken one of the weird like whirring riffs
from like a debut Slipknot album track and then fashioned
it into like a avant garde noise piece. It's just
fully so sick. Yeah. And then you know, twenty eight
minutes long, such a classic trick. The last nine minutes
of it are one track called Dissonance, and they just go, yeah, okay,
now we're just gonna immerse you like you've gone through
the Ringer here, We're just going to immerse you in
hell for the ending. That mix of kind of industrial
and noise and a bit of sort of maybe melodic
kind of yearning for something else going on there as well,
the way it keeps varying up track to track like
the I think the trade off is I don't particularly
settle into like a rhythm with this release, Like it's
it's just absolutely unforgiving in terms of like throwing you
from one thing to another. And it's so again sonically
like mastered, like it's wrapped in barbed wire. It's quite
hard to breach. It's so mangled into a thousand pieces.
But for twenty eight minutes of just like violent invention
that will just leave you like completely disorientated. It's the
first release I heard of the year to do that,
that's for sure.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's kind of why I'm just so
damn it you can't sit into this, but I'm kind
of that's part of the thrill for it. For me,
it's just going twenty eight minutes of just going like
the fuck is going on? The fuck am I listening
to and just being poured along for everything, and and
I'm just hanging off of everything. I'm like, no matter
time I can, I forget what twist is about to come.
And so it's not lost their excitement yet for me.
I've listened to a bunch and I'm like, oh, yeah, fuck,
that happened next. I don't expect that, and I've listened
to four times radio.
Speaker 4: I should expect that.
Speaker 2: But because it's just because it's thrown so much at
you in such a relentless way, I do.
Speaker 4: I like, it still feels surprising.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think, you know, Stylistically, I would agree it's
not the most cahering record we're going to talk about
this year, but just the things we've none, you know,
like Converge, Godflesh, Genghis Tron, I mean for me that
the kind of four to four if on sunder Scum.
I thought that's a bit now diabolical, which how often
do your sort of hyper cybergrind bands mentioned something like that?
It's yeah for me, it's it's like they've just kind
of looked at my wish list and made a record
in that style. So it's double thumbs up for me.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: If you want to really go like out there in
head fucky with your heaviness, that's your record this month
to go to. If you want something a little bit
more no nonsense about it is thuggery. The last record
we're going to talk about might be your Pickets from
a band called Grief Ritual. The record is called Collapse.
This is a debut album. It's out on Church Road Record.
So you can usually rely on to pick up the
kind of like promising UK bands that you're likely to
see at shows in and around the UK scene, you know,
like the ones that are going to kind of flow
their way to the top a little bit. Sam, I
guess through probably similar reasons, you had some familiarity with
the name coming into Yes.
Speaker 2: I'm not, I assume my but I've kind of seen
their name about, and.
Speaker 1: I think I saw them supporting under Dark last year.
Speaker 3: Like.
Speaker 4: They've only done the London there or not.
Speaker 1: I don't think that wasn't the Devil Master time a different.
Speaker 2: I've seen the name about, I've checked out a few
songs going into this, and this is just sing I'm
kind like, yeah, I like what that what grief rich
will do?
Speaker 4: There's I haven't got like loads.
Speaker 2: Say about this because it's that they're not doing anything
radically new. But if you just want gnarly, nasty, kind
of metallic again, like would you call this milkoll would
you call it hardcore like metallic hardcore death metal, death
core like it's kind of like within that realm of
just kind of like metallic nastiness. I'm down with it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think, you know, we've got forty minutes here,
which is a bit more than EU Trauma bonds. And
I wondered, yeah, my impression. I looked at the cove
and stuff, and I was like, you know, the logo
it screams to be like, you know, sort of like
terror hardcore, you know, And I wondered to what degree
it would be that, or to what degree we might
lean over into more sort of like you know, posty,
you know, kind of territory or whatever, a bit of
conjurer or so on. And to give them the credit
and the first time to hear on the record, they
aren't thuggery. It's kind of eeriness and creeping dissonance. But
I guess the closest parallel of at least, like, you know,
slightly more established bands who people might you know again
kind of have more reasiluly kind of heard of, I
guess someone like Harriett.
Speaker 2: That's the obvious point to me is if you like Harry,
I think you really did.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because it's it's got mush moments and it's clearly
all about that, just like Monster, you know, smashing ship
up kind of vibe, but when it goes into the
darker passages, it also it really likes to kind of
peel the skin off you as it does it. So
that's the sort of flavor we're talking about here.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think it. I mean, looking at the album cover,
you say, Tea, the first thing I thought was Earth Crisis.
Speaker 1: I thought, to be sure, yeah crisis, Yeah, yeah, totally yeah.
Speaker 3: And for me, this sits more in the realm of
the sort of post Code Orange, post Jesus piece uber aggressive.
Speaker 4: It's got the.
Speaker 2: Dust real bits that all of those bands have. It
touches on a lot of those sort of same beats,
which again I'm totally here for.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly like there's a bit of like the horror
thing that those bands do woven into it. For me,
I feel like I've got to leave most of this
to you guys, because this isn't typically I mean, I
love Code Org and Jesus, but typically the beat down,
hardicle thing is It's something I find myself gravitating more towards.
And I feel like I repeat myself when we cover
these kind of albums. But my got feeling about this
is pretty much similar to those ones. It's like, it's good,
I think they could do something great. It's at the
moment listening to this record, it's a case of I
think they need something else before I really get excited
the way that bands like Code Orange and Jesus Peace do.
But if you like this sound, it's it's quite nasty.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I generally agree with basically everything you've just said. Again,
if we take that the Harriet comparison, I don't think
they have like the the full scope of imagination yet
that someone like Harriet have hinted at in their music,
the different facets of their new The flip sidea is
you know, not to rag on an old thing, but
like some of the sonic problems that we kind of
felt about the Herriott record, this is uh, it's probably
because it's just cheaper, you know, but like it's just
it's a very just sort of meaty, nice in the
middle kind of like crush crush, crush calibrated pretty well
kind of sound. The tone is just like over the
top nasty. The drums are big and fat and beefy,
but they're also kind of human. It's like it's a
kind of humble, no frills kind of sound of people
making something really fucking heavy. And again that first track
Spiral does have probably the most ignorant breakdown I've heard
the far in twenty twenty five, so that was like, yeah,
I was, I was down with that, and the record
it just kind of terrorizes the fuck out of you
in a fairly standing kind of way. You know, there's
a one quite high on the frets blasty riff in
the song Bile that's genuinely kind of stressful and panic inducing.
Speaker 2: Bile's one of my favorite moments of the record of
just kind of undertwo minutes a blast of pure aggression.
A lot of the songs they kind of have those
fast moments were like the vocals because you kind of
switched if to like being those higher screams of the
more lower, guttle screams. He does that quite a bit
on the songs Bier Was Gone one, where it's almost
all of that feral thing and then it does just
slow down into the stupidly heavy beat down.
Speaker 4: Which like they do that trick a lot. It's this
is a one trick album that they kind of lean
on a lot of the same things.
Speaker 2: But when they hit it, and when they go from
those really fast savage bits into just a much heavy
beat down, I'm putting the stink face. I'm like, I'm
nodding along, being like, yep, give me, give me, give
me more of that. I will lap that up. It's
not a reasonable or massively inventive, but it fucking goes.
Speaker 3: No, it's it's it's I mean, it kind of reminds
me of the thing we said earlier about the Nightfly
Orchestra record in a way, like you kind you have
to meet it on its terms. Like you know, I'm saying, Oh,
they kind of need to do this. Maybe if they
bring something else to the table. Maybe they're just some
guys who thought, shall we make a really fucking heavy
hardcore record? And they've absolutely succeeded that that like it.
It's not the sort of thing that I think it
would be returning to all that much personally, but like
you said, so it succeeds at making you pull the face. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I like in In Fault the sort of raging d
beat field they do at the start, because of course
I like that that was a moment in the track
list that kind of you know, rejuvenated me and pet
me up a little bit. And then some called Putrefy
which has this almost like early period death call like
the Cleansing SUICIDEI it's riff or something that's pretty nasty,
and there has this mosh call.
Speaker 3: Of our Parker lips that's really great.
Speaker 1: There's a few spots that there are definitely there are
a few guest spots in here, and some of them
like might be just a particularly well spotlighted vocal moment,
and other ones might be again where there is another
vocalist coming in. But there are points where it really
takes the four in recursion. There's this really necro, spindly
kind of voice that comes in and goes like broken
body as a living hell, and it's just again very
it makes you feel icky. It's the kind of record
that just makes you know your your extremities shrink up
a little bit. It's it's it's nasty. As you said,
there are the sprinklings of kind of industrial as you
might expect, and I like when you know bands like
that's when the base metal element is kind of stuff explanatory.
I'm always for them, you know, opening up more of
those kind of textures and particularly horrifying type elements to
give it a bit more personality. I do find I
imagine Eliot you might feel the same way. There's a
couple parts where there is like a spoken word delivery
about the kind of social topics of the record, which
are basically just about you know, kind of the elite
ruining things for everyone, be it fiscally or through climate
change or whatever. But the way they're deployed in the record,
it's basically you get a big barrage of like heavy parts,
most of which you know you're not really grabbing a
lot out of the lyrics necessarily, and then in the
middle some bloke will shuffle forward and go, yeah, and
the price of eggs is going up public services, and
then shuffle back and then play a beat down. It's like, well,
they're certainly not wrong, but it's not the most you know,
gracefully or imaginatively executed kind of use of those moments.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that was if there is, if there is a
criticism out of this record, it's no more of that.
Please like try to find a different way of weaving
it in, like get some samples from a movie, just
something else, because that does feel a bit like I
don't know that the crony he's hanging on the sidelight. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
yeah what he said, Yeah that.
Speaker 1: There are some more fluid, complimentary ways of conveying that
message maybe, But I do think, you know, it's essentially
a very one dimensional kind of approach, where it's almost
it's the polar opposite of the Trauma Bond, where I
didn't know what the fuck was going on track to
track there. This got on with it, you know, much
more kind of easily. It's pretty heavy all the way through,
and your head is nodding. I think if you like
the you know, the heavy end of the current state
of UK metallit, harcore and so on, the stuff that
has like no flickerings of hope or melody, This is,
you know, quite stupidly agro and I'm relenting about it.
The record is called Collapse. It's by a band called
Grief Ritual. And that is our last review for today's show.
So thank you very much for being here with us
on this slightly lateter than usual but out for you
now review show for January. Let us know which are
those records are the ones that you are really really
vibing with, even though like I said, it was a
pretty dead month. I think we found a few real
gems there to talk about and celebrate together. So go
and check them out, and as said, let us know
which ones you are really really loving. We next week
are going to move on to album clubs with that
quite delectable selection I picked earlier, where if you want
to know who the Family Force five are, or you
know the fact that Saboton isn't the daftist thing in
that particular pack.
Speaker 2: Honestly, that's the insane part is like that Sabaton a
normal compared yeah.
Speaker 1: And some pretty amazing fucking you know, mosh hardcore music
and so on as well in there. Then you can
jump on over to patron of com slash that's not metal.
I believe the very next thing going after that will
be me and Sam talking about all the non ferratus,
because of course we have to get to that, and
then we will be resuming the Black Sabbath Special, moving
on to the Gillan years and the Glenn Hughes years
and all of that wonderful stuff going on in that
particular story that I'm having a lot of fun right
searching and telling. So Gonta get involved with all that.
If you desire whatever strikes your fancy, cheers for being here.
We'll be back next week. Uh and yeah Jeerio,