Speaker 1: Hello, everybody, welcome to That's Not Metal. We are your
weekly rock and heavy metal podcast. My name is Parenheish
with me across from me today it's Sam dig Non.
Speaker 2: Sam.
Speaker 1: You're back from well last week we spoke about two
thousand trees. How are you feeling this week?
Speaker 3: I mean, as we're going to get on too, it's
not been you know, particularly nice week, has it like
when well, that's the kind of like the over rocky story.
There's a there's a there is a sadness to this
week that we're kind of going to get into.
Speaker 2: I have just been listening to a ship ton of
black Sabbath as a result. But yeah, yeah, I've.
Speaker 1: Been in a art being in a contemplative mood. I
suppose for a couple of days this week that you know,
the main event, as it was planned in our schedule
for this week's episode, is it's going to be the
big July reviews episode. July is generally a quiet a
month for like high profile releases and stuff, which is
actually quite exciting for us because it means we have
got a whole, you know, platoon of albums, mostly with
only a couple of exceptions, mostly from bands that we
haven't covered before. So if you are looking for totally
new music, totally new bands to you, hopefully our reviews
today are going to get into some of that and
give you some of that. So up top, the reviews
that we will be doing today come from The Dirty
Nil Blood Vulture, Psycho, Frame, Blind, Equation, Crown of Anguish, Stanger, Egal,
and Nouveola Scura. If those names sound like a mouthful
and things that you won't remember, then hopefully that's a
good thing because it means by the end of this
we will have drilled to some new names into your head.
So that is the aim of the game. When it
comes to the end of the episode today up top,
we've got one essentially new story to talk about because
obviously the news that we were you know, not accounting
for come in this particular week is the news we've
got a couple of days ago at the time of recording,
which is the passing of Ozzy Osbourne. And as said,
we've had a couple of days really to mold us
over now at this stage you as you've just said,
along with everyone listening, I'm sure everybody in our entire
sphere of you know, cultural influence, whatever everyone around us
has spent the last couple of days talking thinking about
listening to classic Black Sabbath and Ozzy Osbourne. It still
feels like an event of almost cosmic proportions, right, like,
like the the the level of stature within everything that
we hold dear, the entire foundation for why we are
here talking to you right now, that that Black Sabbath
and Ossie as the you know, the front man of
it is held in, I cannot think of a moment
that feels quite as I don't know, broadly unifying as this,
I suppose in terms of recognizing someone's loss.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, like obviously we've you know, talked about
musicians who've passed on this podcast effect, and this feels
like the first thing, you know, we're talking about someone
who was pivotal in basically realization of why we're here.
Ozzie is sort of one of those figures who was
bigger than and again, like you look at his pop
culture reagion, how like it is not just ourshor world
that is morning and he had had such an impact.
So it's been such a hard one to kind of
like pro some piece together exactly how he feels in
the impact his passing is going to have yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and Ozzie is I think it goes without saying
really in terms of I don't think there is much
else you could say to kind of counter this. He
is the most famous an iconic person that heavy metal
has ever produced. You know, like that there are people,
you know, we've lost the likes of Lenny in years
gone part who are similarly iconic to the culture and
to metal culture. But as said, you just literally who
is the most famous person who ever exists in metal?
It is Ozzie And because of you know, his both
his role as a pioneer and then also the way
culture has gone and the way metal has progressed and
the world has progressed, he always will be like we
probably can never produce again someone who becomes as universally
iconic and identifiable a figure as Ozzy Osbourne. Where you know,
I got into Black sat and Ozzie's music when I
was a young teenager, but I remember knowing who Ozzie
was for several years before that, right, because he's one
of those guys you know, like Michael Jackson or somewhere
where you just instinctively know who that is without even
really being told, I guess, and thinking about again the
rush of emotions and the rush of thoughts that we've
had in the couple of days since learning this news,
they go so wide, right, like part of my it's
hard trying to wrangle all the thoughts because part of
my brain is existing in nineteen seventy and thinking about
the genesis and every stop of the journey along the
way in those fifty plus years. My mind kind of
takes a pit stop at every part of that journey,
right up of course, to the back to the beginning
concert that we spoke about just you know, a couple
of weeks ago. I think it was like seventeen days
between that event and Ossy's passing, and some of my
firth thoughts were just how on earth did he do
that show? You know, like if he was obviously we
all knew he was ill and has been for some time,
but to go seventeen days after it, how did he
have the strength to do that concert? It's it boggles
the mind.
Speaker 3: I Mean, this was the thing where like, well I
looked at us you can kind of romantize this or
look at his really tragicalvion into it, but like that
show being the thing that doing this sort of final
stamp on his legacy, the thing they kept going and
did he like give everything to that final performance.
Speaker 2: And that's the kind of like the romantic view of it.
You can still say like this was it.
Speaker 3: He had that final moment and then everything just kind
of took its course following that, which is again doesn't
make it any less tragic, but it like by all
the reports of Halley was how it was like, how
is this going to you know, go ahead? And then
it went ahead and it wasn't just you know kind
of like obviously he was in the throne the entire time,
but you you everyone saw and one was like, Ozzie
was fantastic.
Speaker 2: Ozzie was as good, good, like.
Speaker 3: As a vocalist as you could have hoped you'd be
in that fun performance and that just kind of then
then brings it all home. Its kind of like that
was it. That was him leaving that final lasting image.
I guess it's that we now have to remember him
as the iconic, as the most famous metal vocalist ever.
Him there on a throne, performing the final time and
giving it everything, and I mean that is I like,
that is incredible and I think that's the sort of
like things sort of cling onto and remember among all
of the like the sort of overming things of sadness
that will have hit in the immediate aftermath.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Like, I try not to do this and think
this way because I try and think in a kind
of realist sort of manner, and I don't want to,
you know, try and romanticize anything where there might be
you know, something that is less romanticizable, I suppose. But
the way this has happened almost feels like just it's
one of those dislike belief defying in its possible poetry. Yeah,
moments where you know, Tony I Am this Week has
said that, you know, similar to what you were just saying,
that it kind of felt like he was just holding
on to do that show basically, and you know, say
goodbye to everyone one last time. And the shock that
we've all felt of him going because most of my
podcasting career, I feel like I have been, you know,
aware of the fact that Ozzie's health problems were you know,
a kind of constant part of what we'd be talking about,
I suppose, But the shock that we all feel of
him going so suddenly after that concert is bewildering, But
there is something so can mind boggling about holding onto
the strength to do that show and then almost as
if that was the last thing he had to do,
going so shortly after it. And maybe you know, it
could be considered that that show just I don't know,
exerted him too much and took too much out of him.
But my god, I mean, you know, a beek or
so ago, there was a headline that the back to
the beginning black side of the show. Obviously this is
I don't know if this is adjusted for inflation and
all of this stuff that we have to consider now,
but like it was the highest grossing charity concert ever,
more than you know, Live Aid and all of these famous,
you know, globally famous things. And I think a lot
of us took some kind of great pride that it was,
you know, a heavy metal event that did that. But
some in our discord put it very well by saying, doing,
you know, one final show with your old band, the
same four blokes so you started or with all those
years ago, ten minutes down the road from where you
grew up, surrounded by all of your friends and you know,
connections that you forged through decades in this music. Raising
one hundred and fifty million pounds for local children's charities
is the most heroic ending where we we should all
wish to leave this world with such an impact of positivity.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's the only thing.
Speaker 3: Again, Like I'm sure you know in the comics, people
will kind of like dig into you, like oh or
do this that the other I'm like, ah, fuck all that.
At the moment, like the guy ended his sort of
like said amazing insane amounts of money. Well again, like
people he inspired, friend's family, people who just looked up
to him.
Speaker 2: All of that said, the bands who wouldn't.
Speaker 3: Be here about Ossie. It was such a kind of
like a feel good, sellatory moment. And again, if that
is your final stamp on the world, it's a hell
of a marketing. And again, like he's left so many
like positive marks you can say like that is a
kind of final just sort of like seal on your
legacy as good as you could possibly hope or isn't it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And it's one of the most difficult things that
I've had to do. You know, doing this is staring
at you know, paper earlier basically and knowing that you know,
people listening will expect us to formulate these words in
a certain way with a certain amount of eloquency or
dignity or whatever. But how do you sum up a
life and a legacy like Ossie's, you know? And the
I have to just go to the top down thing
first of all, which is that we are united by
these kind of moments and that these you know, these
deaths of these people who have been so significant to
us because you know, we're here doing this podcast, you're
here listening to us, many of us, the vast majority
of our friends. You know, the connections that we have
and are you know, our sphere of culture, as I
was saying, that we exist in and kind of interact
with the world in all stem from people like Ozzie. Yeah. Yeah,
And a loss of an individual like Ozzie is just
as much a moment of collective cultural consideration, I suppose,
where it's not just that we've lost the man Aussie,
it's stopping to think about how how interlinked our identities
are through this thing that we share. And I truly
I cannot think of a more culturally unifying figure than
Ozzy Osborne in our world, because like, if you are
here no matter which strand of this music we talk
about that you prefer you love Ossie. And you know,
even if you somehow don't love Ossie, because you are here,
some part of your DNA going back does. And it's
not just that it's Aussie, but it's also the first
original member of Black Sabbath to go, because any one
of those four guys who we saw on stay together
at the back to the beginning of a couple weeks
ago is in their own way, individually momentous. I think
we all knew that it would be Ossie, first of all,
because he has been so well for so long. But
the fact that one of those four guys who we
have all seen countless images of together, who created our
universe together, is gone. That is an event of like
I say, like cosmological galaxy rendering in terms of our
prism of how we perceive the world significance.
Speaker 3: I mean, I mean that is it is again, It
is the scope and like scale of what Sabbath and
Ossie did. It is essentially Black Sabbath that that debut
album is ground zero for like heavy metal as we
know it and every sort of like and.
Speaker 2: Again people say them like I bet you still.
Speaker 3: There is at least one Black Sabbath song you fucking
love like they were that band, or an Aussie solo song,
something created by again Ossie or the other guys about
subth that change the way you engage music, whatever metal
you listen to, it's going to trace back to that
Daby Black Sabbath album in some way.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and capturing the life that he led just feels
beyond words.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: If you were going to try and a biture it
in terms of how individual a human that we all
know he was, you know, and how the absolute most
insane thing that could ever happen to any of us
in our lives, it would just be a Tuesday in Ausies,
you know. Like one of the first pieces of like
fan art I guess I saw after this news broke
was someone that had drawn a headless bat waiting for
him at the Pearly Gates, you know, and it's like, what,
There's no other person who could have that piece of
art applicable to their life. The fucking Alamo paid tribute
and opened up talking about, Hey, Ozzie pissed on us once,
but then he you know, tried to find redemption and
we Reford, that relationship and just the most absolutely bewildering
things that could apply to no other person because of
what a life he led. One of the most magically
gifted creators of melody is one of the things that
I think of because he you know, at various times
he kind of expressed that he felt inferior to the
other three members of Sabbath because they're the instrumentally talented ones,
you know, and amongst the like giants of each of
their instruments. He's just kind of just a brummy who waiales,
you know. But to put down what he did, like
that he was extraordinary, Like from that first Sabbath album
through to Sabbath Bloody Sabbath and Sabotage and even you know,
Never Say Die and so on onto those first solo albums,
all the way through to you know, like in the
in the twenty first century, there's not necessarily as much
material that I really personally loved, but like just a
few years ago, there was that post Malone hit with
the big Aussie chorus, and like hearing that on the
radio and in movie trailers and shit, and it's just unmistakable, like,
oh holy shit, that's Ozzy, you know, and some of
those melodies that he would pull out from thin air
just seem again like divine. You know, he might be
the most specially gifted vocal melody writer that our music
has ever seen. You know, he's in the conversation and
he's a guy who always said he didn't know shit
about music theory or anything. He's just a working class
dude who'd you know, never fully give himself or at
times be given the credit by others for it. But
in that particular area, he was plugged into something magical.
Speaker 3: That's one of the things I want high because you
I've seen a few people say like, oh, you know
he was you know, the least hand to member.
Speaker 2: He was not, you know, the greatest smell Vosse.
Speaker 3: I was like, yeah, maybe he's not the greatest metal
vocals ever, but in terms of someone who could just
come out with melodies that just stick with you and
just were so perfectly aligned with the music, Like there is.
Speaker 2: A knack to that that you kind of go go
like that. You've got to have some kind of like magical.
Speaker 3: Ear to be able to kind of go like, yeah, whatever,
I hear someone that's gonna just like sing along with
that so perfectly, and I mean even again you go
back to again Black Sabbath, Black Sabbath, Black Sabbath. The
vocals he comes up on that song are some of
the most authentically like this is new, this is a
new type of singing that you haven't heard yet, and
that again, he's like redefined so much of like help sing.
Like again, everyone say he wasn't you know, the most
important vocals on metal like whatever, because then you kind
of go, you maybe you're only listening to one sort
of strand of mel I'm sure you used it as
a do metal fan. How much is like like do
melo vocalists are always just gonna be like doing Aussie
like Yeah, But.
Speaker 1: I also think he's a very difficult vocalist to have
actually done, you know, because like I say, it's that
conjuring of melody you try coming out with something like
hole in the Sky or Sabbath, Bloody Sabbath or fucking
you know, supern or into the like. One of the
songs that I've just really kind of fixated on this
week is Solitude, the ballad track on Master of Reality,
And that's a track that for years a lot of
people have gone like, is that even Ozsie, because he
sounds so enigmatic on it, and he for all of
this kind of talk of how technicality was never what
you would associate with Ozzie as a singer. He had
ability to do things that other people could not do.
It's as simple as that. And for me, I think
about of all the you know, the myriad of things
that make up this figure who we've all kind of
just collectively we all know as Ozzie, he has so
many more things than just that, right, Like, you know.
Part of being an Ossie fan, I think is learning
to connect to both the part of his you know,
the idea that his voice and his music could be
genuinely scary, you know, and their impact on people in
that sense, while at the same time the character we
all know, the larger than life icon, and the fact
that he was so clearly just fun, you know, like
he is one of the most pure embodiments of fun
in rock and metal there has ever been. That's why
he was so huge and lovable, one of the purest
embodiments of just the idea of rock and roll who
has ever lived. I think Ozsie, probably most purely in
his heart, was the guy madly clapping his hands on
stage getting an audience to sing along to Paranoid and
Crazy Train. You know, the guy who just loved to
share that joy with people. And on that level alone,
he is a hero. But I think a lot about
if you're here and you're into metal, then certainly I'm
speaking for myself here, but I'm sure many other people
will connect with this idea as well. There's a part
of you that perceives the world through the lens of
dark art, right and even if that you're not an
especially overtly miserable or downtrodden person or whatever, which I
don't especially consider myself to be. But there is something
about the world that only makes sense when this prism
is applied to it. And what Black Sabbath summoned up
as nineteen sixty nine became nineteen seventy, this wider cultural
moment that seems so integral to the direction of global culture,
with the summer of love dying out, the hippie dream
melting into blackness. Even if they were not entirely aware
of what exactly they were doing, they sensed that and
they channeled it. And when you hear Ozzy at that
moment of like epocal change. What is this that stands
before me? Is this the end? My friend Satan coming
around the bend? And that gutter or cry of oh no,
that the impact of black Sabbath in that moment is
just like a massive black tide crashing across the world
as we knew it in popular culture, reflecting the most
anything in popular music had all of that global poison.
And he is there. He is the lovable prince of
darkness and all of this stuff. He is Sharer and
all of that shit. But he is, in that moment,
the voice of the end. He is a voice from
the void as yet untapped in popular music like that,
and you know, to be incredibly dramatic, but humor me.
I often think of the world that we live in
as not just in direct musical influence, but in its
tone and its texture and the reverberations of cult. Truly
what that moment could be, It's the world of Sabbath.
You know, we all live into the void. We are
children of the grave, and the way that I perceive
the world is colored, if not directly by Sabbath, it's
the texture of Sabbath. And that is something that I
cannot say to the same degree about any single other
artist we can talk about. That is what makes Sabbath
and Ozzie, even as you know, not my personal favorite
band who have ever existed. Many many people listening, I'm
sure will have their own favorite bands. But that is
what makes Sabbath the kings of everything, the alpha and
the omega. The fact that the very the wallpaper of
the world that we live in is Sabbath's. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Now, that's the point I've ever been wanting to draw home,
is that feeling of like, again, they might not be
my favorite band ever, like, but there is none more
important band out there that they they changed the well
they created this particular light world and again actually that
that world viewed for like a lens of a dark
and how they did that, and how they brought that
to popular culture, like just shifting that the whole world
such a like huge impact. I youture remember what come
try to think about how tenence is, Like you you
cannot say enough words about the change and the importance
that Osi and Sabbath bought.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I you know, I surround myself in the
rappings essentially of this kind of art. You know, whether
it be movies or you know, writing or music or whatever.
But this, this texture of Sabbath is something that surrounds
me and like I said, it is my kind of
filter with the world. And Sabbath are the most single
most instrumental artist ever in forging that kind of tapestry.
And again, thinking about that moment on that first you know,
guttaal letting forth of it all, it's almost like he
is at that moment, almost even entirely in control, you know,
but it's like what the moment in history calls for.
He is like almost hijacked by the moment to create
what is necessary. And then what Ozzie fully as his
own you know, onto his own devices. What he does
himself is he dresses up like a werewolf and bucks
at the moon and all of this stuff, and he
turns the the after ripples of that moment of you know,
explosion into a thing of such joy and fun and
becomes the you know, the kind of clown prints of
darkness that we all love. And he kind of creates
the framework in which we can all enjoy ourselves under
this dark macarb thing that has been made. You know,
he creates the framework for us to cut loose with it,
but in that first moment he is like a conduit.
And you know, I've seen it kind of positive a
couple times this week that in terms of influence and
someone whose very existence changed the trajectory of popular art
and culture, this is one of the only things that's
happened compared rible to a loss of a beetle. Yeah,
and I'm always wary of kind of overstepping anything and
putting anything just because I personally love it onto that
kind of like broader level, because heavy metal seems so
niche in comparison, but stopping to think about it with
Black Sabbath and particularly as the breakout cultural icon of it, Ossie,
I don't think that actually is wide of the mark,
Like when you think about it, even as heavy metal
has become over the years a more niche, underground genre,
the cultural ripple effects of it, like in the mere
iconography of pop culture, like not just what it means
to us and our world as metal heads, but what
would the world look like without heavy metal as part
of its kind of artistic tapestry and as one of
its cultural signifiers, of which, like we said, Ozzie Osbourne
is the single most recognized bly iconic person to be
associated with it. Ozsie is in his relevance so specifically
to a subculture like heavy metal. It's easy to feel
like he's he's just ours and just matters to us.
But he is in his effect on why the musical
culture a John Lennon, David Bowie and Michael Jackson like
just a giant.
Speaker 3: I mean again, like I obviously I knew it was
he way before I'd even heard the name Black Sabbath,
because like the Osbourne's, you know, there was that like
that's when he sort of first came into my raidar
was that sort of thing and then kind of going, oh,
you know, he's the focus of this.
Speaker 2: Metal band, Black Sabbath, and then the heard Paranoid and
all that.
Speaker 3: So like, but he He's impact on culture went so
far beyond just told And again his impact on metal
is what's most important to us. But as a pop
culture icorn, as a sort of like celerity as a
musician who zar did you know, make such a like
huge impact he is on you sit on the level
of the Beatles, David Bowe, those kind of like stone
cold like icono classic like legends. He is every bit
one of them and his word bit and then this
is this is us, you know, trying to be like, oh,
you know he's the metal guy.
Speaker 2: Put him on that pedestal.
Speaker 3: He's like, no, he's every bit as kind of like
vital to art and culture as those are.
Speaker 1: He's probably in the top ten most recognizable musicians of
all time. Like you have to think about who you
put there, but he's a genuine first draft pick. And
like I'm wearing right now an Electric wizardshirt, the band
who I consider to be the truest heir to Black Sabbath,
not just in sound, but in terms of that existential
suffocation and bleakness that I was just talking about that
they kind of like ruptured fourth into the world. There
was also a tribute from Kermit the Frog. Like both
of those things are valid, you know, like both both
have truth. Like Adam Sandler World of Warcraft. It's like
every area of pop culture you could think of, Ozzie
had a hand in, whilst also being directly responsible for
the existence of the most underground of subversive heavy rock
art forms.
Speaker 3: I mean, there's about thirty years worth of clips of
him in wrestling over the years from like WrestleMania two
through to like a couple of years ago when he
re recorded War Pigs and did like a voiceover introduction
pick for the War Games, Like he was so pivotal
to that pick. Any kind of like subculture and pop
culture thing, and you'll probably find at some point Ozzie
has been involved in it. And again like the tributes
pulling up again, I say, the Muppets and films again,
like amount of people just sharing that clip from Little
Nikki where Ossie like teleports in bites ahead of a
bat and teleports out and it's like such a like
weird little came in this movie, but it's iconic as
just about every other appearance he made in wherever he
turned up.
Speaker 1: And seeing all of the tributes that have come out
this week, one thing also really hit me because I like,
when I heard the news in my own head, I
of course went straight to Ozzie's own you know, musical
output and the importance of it to me in my
relation to it. But all the personal stories that are
coming out in the ways in which Ozzie intersected with
the careers of like so many of our favorite bands,
right the way that he and specifically through Ozfest as well,
like put on so many like generations of bands. Right.
It's like in the eighties Metallica were opening up for him. Right.
So there's fucking you know mark one if there's not
one before that of a way in which a fundamental
pillar of our again our existence is given the leg
up by Ozzie Osbourne, all of your then Ozfest generation
of bands. Yeah, you know in the nineties, you know,
you think about slipnot famously in the late nineties and
everyone who was kind of surrounded with that scene at
that time, and then the same thing going into the
two thousands. I think, like Ozzie and the kind of
you know, the Osbourne empire or machine if you will,
I think it'd probably right to say that they are
also responsible for creating more new stars beyond just themselves
than just about anybody in metals history also, and that
is a thing of unbelievable magnitude to think about as well.
Speaker 3: I mean, I supse it is the branding was, you know,
a rising tide to lift all ships. That I think
that is one of the things about Ozzie and like
oz Fester is it did like they did give back
to the metals of scene and kind of like and again,
sure it was all Aussie branded and it was all
to get himself over you can sell what but it
was still again done, it wasn't you know, Justica.
Speaker 2: There were so many bands that you kind of go.
Speaker 3: Well, they came up through Ozfest and you hear about
like legendary kind of performances and Ozfest and how it
kind of changed bands careers and.
Speaker 1: That that's why everyone was so in for the back
to the beginning thing, because it was almost like they
were by appearing they were giving back to someone who
had helped them on, you know, on their journey up.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I think that's it. There was a kind
of a feeling of like there was always giving something
back to metal and kind of boosting metal's profile and
culture no matter what it took.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's it. It feels like we would need
to spend hours and hours more to even scratch the
surface of what this means, you know, Like I I've
written multiple things in the last couple of days just
trying to tap into some level of elemental truth about
what Ozzie meant and what this means. And we've been
talking for half an hour or something, and it doesn't
feel like we're getting remotely close to the magnitude of Yeah,
but you know, and we've got the gift that was
given to us by that portal which Ozzie and Sabbath
opened up, which is new music to keep enjoying and
talking about throughout the rest of this show. But I mean,
like just looking at the just the reviews we're doing today, right,
the spectrum of what we cover sometimes can feel very
desparate and like that there are albums that are to
be enjoyed by like totally different crowds and people. But
from the Dirty Nil to Stanger Egal, the commonality between
those two things is Ossie. Like that is the connective
tissue between us all.
Speaker 2: I dontal I think that's the thing?
Speaker 3: Is that again you can say like that's one of
those of like this like extreme blamabanlon Is, you know,
big monic punk, but there is a Ozsie through line
and a sab of DNA and all those things that
are just kind of that that just somehow make these
bands makes sense in like the same world.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so we're gonna We're gonna go any other news
week this week. Really, it just felt like this is
straight away out of the gate what we have to
dedicate the most time to. I am going to jump
back into something that hopefully Ozzie would approve of, which
is talking about the amount of fun. I had a
heavy metal show this week. The thing I was going
to open up this show talking about before we got
that news is I went to see man O War
this week after well, after many years of being a
manor War fan, after we have had a bit of
a man of War, you know, a few weeks talking
about them and so on. It was all for me.
It was building up to seeing them at Bricks and
the Academy last last weekend. Man O War are a
rare beast to catch, sometimes in major part because of
their own ridiculousness and the evasiveness which they kind of
you know, they make themselves less available. But they did
do a European tour for the last couple of months.
I guess it's marking the fact that forty one years
ago man O War released two albums that year. I
think I'm right in saying two of their most classic albums,
Hail to England and Sign of the Hammer. And on
this European tour they have been doing at various dates.
It's kind of been a bit hard to keep track
of what they've been doing where because some countries they've
been doing like more than one date, some they're only
doing one whatever. But they've been alternating basically doing one
of those albums hel Toll sign the Hammer, playing that
as a record while also surrounding it with a Greatest
Hits set. So it's kind of a forty plus year
anniversary of some of the prime eras of man o War.
This was my kind of what I've had a few
of lately, but certainly this feels like a bit of
a capstone on It was I have an opportunity to
tick this one off, you know, and I have opportunity
to see this band. And there are many things that
are very bizarre and daft and maybe less appealing about
seeing Man of War live, but I did not want
to go without, you know, ever seeing Man of War live.
So I went a lot at it. And yeah, and
my you know, a gang of my close friends who
we all share this Man of War connection, you know,
speaking about the connections of absolutely the connections of heavy metal.
We were just talking about with Aussie. It was it was
the right group of people to see man O War with.
We went down to Bricks and Academy in London. They
have no support act because other bands only play man
O War Kills, so there's no one you can go
on before man of War. A surreal evening in so
many ways. I guess, you know, the acknowledgment of man
O War in twenty twenty five, again over forty years
into their career. They have been a questionable bande quite
some time. And yeah, and you know, I've heard over
the years many strange live reports and stuff like that.
The you know, the divatism of man O War. There's
the famous Hellfest story from many years ago when they
didn't actually end up playing. But there's all sorts of
like mad reports and stuff that have been going down
with just I don't know the quality of a man
of War show. I've heard some people say they're fantastic.
The last like a couple decades of material like released
output from man of War has been very strange. They
haven't actually put out an album in a long time
at this point. But the kind of the answering only
to themselves in a similar way we might say to
someone about Metallica, right kind of having no one to
tell them no and only releasing stuff that is as
man O War want it. That does sometimes go out
of the realms of what you would describe as sensible,
you know, recording output or anything like that. There are
elements of the live show which do stray into that
as well. They have a very weird mix where I
think you kind of have to like understand the version
of man of War you're seeing live, right because.
Speaker 2: How high is the base?
Speaker 1: Yeah, the Manu War thing for the past couple decades
is for as much as they preach about, you know,
being the loudest band in the world, the guitars are
actually not very loud. The drums are also actually very quiet.
Like the guy was at the back, you know, pounding
along doing double bass and stuff. It's just kind of like,
but of course the bass is what's really there, driving
the riffs and stuff like that. Eric Adams, I say,
was fantastic, Like he's still brilliant, even if he might
not necessarily have the range he had forty years ago,
he can still let out an absolutely mean like ah
clips that scene.
Speaker 2: He seemed to be on pretty good form, I will
agree there, Like he.
Speaker 1: Was brilliant and he was still you know, fully able
to you know, rally the Man of Warriors behind him,
behind this cause and all of that stuff. So that
was brilliant. What really made this was particularly with their
rare appearances in the UK over the past I don't
know even how long at this stage, like certainly at
least ten fifteen years, they've played very very few shows
in the UK, despite literally having an album called Hail
to England. Is the sense formed, wasn't it, you know,
like they formed on English crowd exactly. But the people
who are there through thick and thin with Man of
War and they take their opportunities right, like the people
who have been waiting for years for Man of War
to come back. That the manor Warriors made this a
fantastic occasion because you know, it was not completely sold
out bricks and Academy, it was full, but seeing it
was one of the loudest Academy shows in terms of
voices being put on show that I have attended in
quite some time, because you have to when it is
these songs, right. So they opened with a so they
kind of broke the set up into a couple of
different runs and the opening of this set is one
of the most overwhelming things experienced because they open with
the song man O War from Battle Hymns Born to
Live Forevermore. It's basically their theme song, so it's perfect
to open up with. When they came out and hit
a huge like indoor pyrotechnic went off, so it just
went like book and just like absolutely exploded. And that's
I guess why they have maybe still the claim to
be the loudest band in the world. It is just
because of the explosive they will set off inside. So
they opened with man O War and then into a
little opening run here of Kings of Metal, So that
is man O War, man O War living on the road.
Other bands play man O War kill that whole song,
straight into without missing a beat, Fighting the World, and
then into Brothers of Metal. If you know man O War,
those are hits like those are everything that I kind
of when I preach the gospel of man of War,
the sensation of arms around your brothers, you know, singing
these songs the Brothers of Metal. Uh, these are some
of the songs that best encapsulated. And this run was
so overwhelming. Our mutual friend Nathan, he had very quickly
downed his pint at the beginning of this too, because
they were coming on stage and then got some kind
of like pent up built up gas. And when they
moved from Kings of Metal straight into Fighting the World,
which another piece of context here is Fighting the World.
There is our sort of collective jukebox in the pub song.
Speaker 3: I've been at like Predamnations, where Fighting the World has
been played on repeat a few times.
Speaker 1: Fighting the World is something of a theme song for
just sort of our little friendship group. And when they
moved into Fighting the World, he looked at me with
a look I have seen on very few faces in
my life. It was this insane combination of like excitement,
stress and panic. A it was the most overwhelmed face.
And then of course into Brothers of Metal. Then we
got the Hell to England set, which again in terms
of like the sign of the Hammer of Hell to
England thing. Obviously they're only doing one set here, and
then some countries where they've only done one show have
like mixed and done sort of half and half. But
I guess in England you had to do Hell to England. Unfortunately,
that meant we didn't get anything off of Sign of
the Hammer and another our favorite Man of War songs
is all Men Play on ten, which I would have
loved to have loved to have seen Never Gonna Turn
Down Again. What a fucking tune. But obviously we got
the Heil to England set. They didn't like out of
Order as well. It was very weird. They did like
the slowest version of each door and I die but
blood of my Enemies, fucking massive Kill with Power. Yeah.
Speaker 3: I listened to How to England this week and I
was like this, Sam is like nine fucking amazing heavy metal.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And they had like the full on Pyro going
off on the killed, Killed with Power Hail to England.
Of course, uh there were multiple guitar and bass duet
parts while the rest of them would disappear just visually
as well. But like I said, Eric had is doing
fantastic work. Joey DeMaio has one of the weirdest stage
presences where he like he stands out with his bass,
but where normally you would imagine someone having like a
power stance, right, maybe legs slightly spread apart or whatever,
he tends to stand with his legs like firmly together,
and he's got like this huge, like you know, body
kind of armor piece on, but it gives the impression
of like he skipped leg day and he's just standing
there with his bass. And then they've got another guy
a few years ago, for i'll just say reasons, Man
o War had to change their guitarist. And a guy
they've got at the moment is a guy called Michael
Angelo Battio, who is sort of semi well known in
those kind of like ingway mound steam, sort of like
guitar shred virtuoso circles. He's famous for playing like double
necked guitars, but I don't mean double neck poking in
the same direction as in like two guitars put together
pointing out. I've like, I don't know, it's baffling. He
did didn't have that. I guess it's too much for
Man of War. But that's where he's famous for doing
in his own, you know, career. But he also looks
at he's got a bit of like a Claudia Winkleman
fringe going on like that. We didn't see his eyes
all night, and he's just a very strange looking character.
And you've got him a Joey DeMaio like flanking either side,
Eric in the middle, and then they would come together
and they did like a several minute guitar and bass duet,
and then right after that, for the first one of those,
Joey then played Black Arrows, which is the bass solo
track on Maile to England and one of the genuine
most stupid things to have ever been recorded in the
history of heavy metal.
Speaker 3: It was that moment I was like, how many Manoir
albums are like so amazing? And then the second to
last track is is the worst deal you've ever heard
by someone who's forgotten how to play his intent and
decided to play every note all or what like baffling,
but like I can imagine it's just like that following
from that might have been enough to kill me, Like
it might have been too much.
Speaker 1: There were portions of this evening that were like, you know,
are you strong enough to handle I would not have been.
Speaker 3: I'm the poser who has to leave the hole the
extended bass instrumental.
Speaker 2: It must have those.
Speaker 1: Two things together. It must have collectively been about six
or seven minutes of like it's a bit like Elliot's
Deep Purple Keyboard story that we spoke about on the
Special Lately, but then you know, the closer always brings
it back on those records where they do that. Because
Bridge of Death, the nine minute epic song, I think
it's one of the most actually seminal and formative songs
in the development of not just epic metal, but extreme
metal and all of these things. And that was an
enormous moment. And then they came out back out for
another round of hits. These were more like, uh, you know,
latter day, more kind of modern material. They picked like
mostly the best songs of the bunch that I was
happy to have seen, particularly when they get into the encore.
There's a song called Warriors of the World United. That
is it was kind of like their like early two
thousands comeback single, Like it's a little bit to them,
what's something like the Wicker Man is to Why I'm Maiden?
Right from my understanding, in like the early two thousands,
when mana War came back to Warriors of the World United,
you know, it was a big moment for all the
man of Warriors and it has the biggest fucking chorus
in the world, and when you hear on record, it's
about ten times as big live with the full you
know man O warrior crowd effect. It was fucking biblically enormous.
There's a there's a whole bridge part in there, which
is kind of similar to like the battle hymn mid
section part, where it's this this whole thing of if
I should fall in battle, my brothers who fired by
my side, gather my horse and weapons, tell my family
how I died, and as this whole building part, and
people were singing it so loudly into the last fucking chorus.
It was just phenomenal. Sadly, we did not get back
for him the song. I knew they weren't playing it
on this run, but again, if you heard our album
Club Packet, it's like one of the greatest songs ever.
I was also surprised that what they weren't doing Metal Warriors,
which is though literally the WIMPs and posers leave the
whole song. So there were a few songs that were like,
you know, left out of the mix, but they did
because they had a fit in more guitar sos. But
obviously we did got a serious round of like heavy
hitting songs, and then the rest of the encourt was
Hale and Kill, which they played without the intro. They
just kicked straight into the fast part, presumably because they
didn't want to do the lyrics that are at the
beginning of it, or then they still did so the
lyrics that are later in the song, but hale and
kill My God, and then ending on another like classic
older song black Wind, Fire and Steel, and at the
end right, they did black Wind, Fire and Steel. And
then it took them about five ten minutes to actually
leave the stage because they had a whole thing of
like doing bowels and stuff, but jerky right. First of all,
him and Michael both handed their instruments off to Eric
and they both left the stage, but just like very
muscly holding a guitar in both hands, banging them both
against the sides of his body, like creating a hell
of a ruckus while walking around the stage. And then
the other guys came back on. Joey took the bass
back and he went up to the stage and with
his hand he just pulled one of the bass strings
off of it, big thick strings, you know, powerful thing
to do, and as he did it, one of those
big indoor pyrotechnic bangs went off, and it was powerful,
and he tied the bass string up in like a
little like a little knot, and then he handed it
to someone in the front front row. He proceeded to
do this with every single one of his bass strings,
and every single time the fucking bang went off, and
he really made a meal of it, you know, like oh,
pulling it off, and we were all there like fingers
in our ears, trying to predict the bit when the
fucking firework was gonna go off. I swear it felt
like about two or three minutes at least of him
pulling base strings off and how do the into the crowd.
It was a bewildering evening, but it was of such
mighty epic cosmic proportions that I'm very happy to have
had that particular manner or experience. Let's finally get into
the reviews for today's show. Obviously, you know, a show
of some significance there, and you know overwriting everything news
about Ozzie to talk about there. But we are here
for the rest of this to do our our review
show for this month. And like I said, July tends
to be a much lower profile month for releases, probably
only after December when everyone stopped right, So we have
got quite a nice, actually selection of records to talk
about that you know, might struggle for space in one
of the bigger months, but we've got plenty of room
here to talk about some up and comers from across
the metal spectrum. Case in point, are like really big
guaranteed hit with the audience. Album that we've got to
talk about this month comes from the Dirty Nil. It's
called The Lash, and that's out today. I believe now
the Dry are in the grand scheme of the world,
still a relatively small band, but putting this together, I wrote,
this is the fifth album now from the Dirty Nail,
and I think when you get to five albums, you
can no longer really be described as like a newer,
up and coming band, you know, like the Dirty Nil.
Whether they're level you feel is appropriate to where they
are or what they deserve whatever they are long established.
Now they are a rock band with their own tropes
to a degree, their own like long held identity as
a band, and amongst their fans, they are some of
Canada's favorite sons and a beloved cult band amongst audiences
like the T and M crowd, But they're also still
kind of like Plucky underdogs in the wider world of
rock music, but I think we're a few years beyond
now the Dirty Nil being like one of our great
new bands, and now they are more in the position
that I don't know, like pup or the Menzingers or
Joyce Manner whoever you might say, like our come albums
five or six of kind of really speaking a largely
established language to an established audience. Yeah.
Speaker 3: No, I think like Puppers, like not just because they're
also Canadian, but like a very good comparison point of
like one of our bands who over the past how
many years kind of emerges this exciting new thing and
have now just kind of really cement themselves and some
pisodes as like we're going to take notice when they
do it. The wider world might not, but it's still
going to be in our in oursphy in particular, a
big deal. We know what kind of like we're getting
from them. We know what to expect and that there might,
you know, be some surprises, but this is you know,
just you know, I like, I say, album five from
an established punk rock band that I personally fucking love
at this stage and are like kind of just well
liked enough by everyone else. I don't really know anyone
who dislikes the dirt and al has heard of them, like,
they're kind of like in that's opposition. Emond's kind of
got like if you know, if you know they're doing, know,
you've probably got at least a bit of time for them.
Speaker 1: Sure. Yeah. Just over two years ago we reviewed their
last album, Free Reign To Passions, which is an album
that was fairly you know, expectedly positively received. I'd actually
forgotten it got all the way up to number six
in our audience polls, So maybe I have to be
somewhat careful about what I say here. I felt after
Fuck Art, which is, in my opinion, easily their standout
moments so far. Yeah, Free Reine Passions was not an
unenjoyable record, but it's not one that I went back
to at all, really, And when I think about my
favorite dirty Nil songs, many of them are on Fuck Art.
There's a few on Master Volume, maybe one or two
on Higher Power. There's not many of them that are
on Free rein To Passions.
Speaker 3: Even again, I really liked Free in Passions. I think
it's still you know, made it into my top twenty.
But I do agree I think it's always the difficult
one of when you've kind of you've hit your defining
album on fuck Art, which is like the one where
everyone was kind of like unanimously it came out on
New Year's Day and everyone was kind of like, this is,
you know, album of the year day one done? It
was it was it was it was like it was
like for you know what kind of a monumental record,
and that meant there was there was at pressure on
Free Range of Passions, which.
Speaker 2: It did slightly under deliver it.
Speaker 3: If you're looking for a follow up to an album
as good as Fuck Art, iceling album is great.
Speaker 2: I think a lot of people who like it still
would agree.
Speaker 3: But I do agree that you could say maybe it
was the first time their trajectory had dipped, because I
think every album up to funk Art was like better
than the last, and then this was the kind of
one it was like at best, you could hope it
was probably a leveling out, because when you're releasing like,
there's always gonna happen. I think like most bands, naturally
they're going to kind of go up up and hear
peak and then it's either going to level out or
dip or whatever. For me, it was you know, maybe
like a small step down from Fuck Art. But I
do I do think like the wider sentiment that it
probably was, you know, the first time they had it,
you know, I do think they just got better than
where they were.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So going into this one, I'm always be you know,
well up for a great Dirty Nil record, like a
Fuck Art. I imagined it would probably be at least
a pretty solid one, because all of their records do
have that ground floor of quality. But I wasn't necessarily
going to be too surprised or let down if it
turned it out to be another just kind of pretty
solid one. I suppose that's the stage I'm at with
with Dirty Nil, where I take the ones that are
stella and are you know, respectively, nod and tip the
hat to the ones that are decent because they're so
reliably productive anyway, there's always something in the tank. Sam,
you are maybe my most resident kind of Dirty Nil ambassador. Obviously,
the build up to this album, the kind of asthetic
choice around it was it looked more heavy metal. The
album cover is designed to look like a heavy metal
casset tape from the eighties, like the metal Massacre comps
or something. The first single we got, Gallop of the Hounds,
was also more like eighties heavy metal inspired, with like
detectable Iron Maiden influence. As a full album, I wasn't
necessarily sure how much I was expecting that to like
be the guiding force, because there's always a degree of
kind of classic metal imagery going on with the Dirty Nil.
Because that's the sort of spirit they've got going on.
It would probably be very natural for the Dirty Nil
to put a metal asthetic on what turned out to
be a completely normal Dirty neilbum. Anyway, this I do
think has some differn is about it, but also not
in the ways that you could have so easily I
don't know predicted from that. How much do you feel
about that?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think Like again, like I was wondering, you know,
when you got Gallop of the Hounds and you saw
the art cars, like are they kind of going all
in on doing their their.
Speaker 2: Heavy metal album?
Speaker 3: And I was like, I want to think if it's
a slight misdirect That was kind of my initial sort
of thing. I was like, I think this is probably
gonna be you know, the seven Il start, and then
they're going to do as do anyone knowed to do,
because once they have a really distinct sound, they are
quite a sort of weird band at times where they
they they they will go in different directions and they'll
play about and like have like different moods and vibes.
And I was kind of like, I think we're gonna get,
you know, probably the most heavy melt they've been, but
I think we're also going to get a couple of things.
I expected this to be kind of like a bit
of a no rules kind of like we're gonna see
where the vibe takes us and do what we want
to do and kind of take the pressure and almost
get back to just doing what we're gonna do for fun.
So about that was kind of the thing I was
expecting this, And I kind of think that's what we've
got is a sort of a dirty album where they
feel like they're not trying to please anyone but themselves.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think Gallup of the Hounds is you know,
very tailor to my ears with as said, it is
a you know, it's kind of standard dirty Nill foundation,
but with an additional like power Slave era Maiden style
like lead Element which.
Speaker 2: Galloped to it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's got a kind of a flavor of
the epic that Dirty Nil don't usually have, even though
it's still like a three minute Dirty Nil single. It's
got a bit of you know, grandeur to it, beyond
your usual Nil song that I like. And it's got
a fun chorus as well, but it is it's a
bit harsher and a bit heavier this album as well,
where like you know, the falling track, failing Times riff
hits in a very kind of unwieldy, slightly more odd
ball end of grunge maybe rather than just like the
Three Chords Nirvana simplicity thing that they have done sometimes
in the past. The chorus makes it a very like
oh reliable, dirty ill rock and roll song, but it
is a little bit more kind of raggedy. I suppose.
It's also got a great like fake out riff ending,
which is the trick they do a couple of.
Speaker 2: Times break down like yeah, like again I haven't found
in time.
Speaker 3: It's wicked because I was like, this is don't knil
that I know in the melodies that chorus that I
got feeling in my spy and this will fail in
time like the hooks are there. It's all there, but
you're right, it's just a bit more kind of ragged
and unrefined. And again like just again the thing is
that thing cut loose and again that altro breakdown that
is like really big and they fake out and then
they hit it back in such cool trick. Like there's
loads of really fun ideas across this record.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that the recording I think definitely feels rawer. And
that's interesting because the Dirty Nil part of their descriptor
has always been that they've been kind of scrappy, right, Like,
there isn't any record which you would say is like
an especially overproduced, you know, shot for the big time
type dirty Nail record. Their thing is always been the
band who just bring kind of like big raw amps
and stuff, you know, kind of rocking out rush of energy.
But this, I don't know whether it's just sort of
the final mastering job or something. They haven't like tried
to put the level of accessible polish onto this that
even their previous couple did have to some degree. Like
this feels like they've you know, kind of left the
raw recordings as literally touched up as they can within reason,
you know, and the intent does seem to be getting
that energy of like something ripped and booted on a
tape deck being you know, jammed in your cast area
and off you go. It's tapped into that similar wavelength,
which is I guess what I would would have predicted
from again the announcement and the artwork and the single
and all of that stuff. The other side is that
it's also more like brooding than we've come to expect
from the dirt, you know at times, which I found
very interesting to kind of get to gorict with.
Speaker 2: I think that's one of the things that there's a
really cool dynamic.
Speaker 3: Between this sort of being this sort of raw diy
punk album whilst being like just that little bit more
brooding and experimental again, like you know on that I mean,
it won't stick or this is me warning yet like.
Speaker 2: Like there's me one of your sounds like really weird.
Speaker 3: It's like kind of creaky and there's like strings and
the sort of delicacy to it, but it is it's
not your typical dirty ill ballad, which you know, they've
always been quite playful when they've.
Speaker 2: Kind of gone into a ballad sort of mood.
Speaker 3: There is a sort of sort of a I guess
just a slightly somb a touched to it where you
say brooding is the word.
Speaker 1: Yeah, those songs you mentioned, actually I really you know
that don't mean it won't. Sting is like a real
sort of drowned in your sorrows dirty n Il song,
which we're not used to a degree, and I quite
like it. There's a really good solo in that that's
kind of like throwing its girth around like it's too
big to handle. Yeah, it's like he's trying to wrangle
a big python to place on that zone.
Speaker 2: Antagonistic but playful at the same time. That so I
really like it.
Speaker 1: Yeah. But then into you know, this is the Warden Year,
which you mentioned, I really like it has this It
reminds me almost like a kind of like sixties or
seventies kind of psychedelic rock, you know, slow Burn. It's
got like actual string and stuff in there. I don't
know if it's like finger picked on the guitar, and
it has this reverby feel on the vocal, and it
has more like sonic depth than I would expect in
a you know, recorded dirty Nail song, Like I couldn't
have predicted a song that feels like that on a
Dirty Pil record at all. And then later on there's
a song called Spider Dream, which is kind of like
their most country moment, you know, and it's like a
really woozy slow jam kind of side from that, and
you know, the song. I don't think this area is
the best song on the record, but it does. It
seems like the record has a lot more dynamic range
than your prior NIL records, and it's quite cozy in
that regard. And I actually did appreciate in the track
list having both these, you know, more against sort of
slightly the epic metal or angry metal songs in there,
but also rather than something I have leveled at the
Dirty Nil sometimes, which is they kind of write the
same song again and again a lot of the time,
having these like real detours in the track list. And
it's not a long album, you know, half an hour
or something, as you do expect them to be, but
it made it more kind of, I don't know, continually compelling.
Speaker 3: On's the thing, I think, like every song kind of
feels different to the song you hear before. There are
songs on here that are as typical Dirtynel song as
you could be, Like, so you're being rock and are
bad like come on that that that that that song
is the most like classically on here. But that, like
I say, that is when you then go into this
semi warning you and that is immediately followed by do
You Want Me, which is the most like raucous like
fuck it burst of energy that drum feel that kind
of comes in after the fuck It. It's like Jesus,
there's there's whiplash there, which you I don't normally associate
tonal whiplash with the dirty nil they you know, kind
of just like good vibes, let's all have a drink
and sing along and that they like. That song is
kind of like again it's hard rocking party punk rock like,
but it just clatters and rumbles about with all the
bubble of melodies.
Speaker 2: But just come over the back of this ballad. It's
kind of a shock to your system when it hits yeah,
do you want Me?
Speaker 1: I feel like has to be like the side B
vinyl opener, you know, it feels such like a a
reset point of like you flip it over and then
this explosion of just proper punk on it going back
to a rock and roll band though, which you know
you kind of said sonically is fairly typical. Nil, I agree,
but I do feel that song is more like barbed
than they would usually do when Dirty and He'll do
a song about rocking out and being with your friends,
and it sounds like a kind of classic, you know,
punk called rock and roll song. There's always a level
of you know, even when they are a bit pessimistic,
not pessimistic, but a little self deprecating. Maybe the word
I'm looking forward to, that's the thing. I yeah, Yeah,
there's still a sense of fun about it, whereas this
song is genuinely angry, you know, like it feels like
this is maybe Luca's just been in a slightly more
kind of burned out patch or something of doing what
he does, because that song feels like a level of
sort of disillusionment with maybe.
Speaker 2: Anyone else is getting rich.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly right. But it's on this song. I think
the positive thing about it is obviously it's being turned
into this kind of frustrated Catharsis, but that you know
someone else is getting rich part. It doesn't sound like
he is, you know, gonna quit being the good time
rock guy or something for the sake of what he's
expressing in that song, but it feels like he is
there genuinely channeling frustration of what exists around what the
Dirty Nill do, and it's you know, sort of accepting, Okay,
it's a shit life at times, but that's the price
we pay for this feeling of what we do that
you might feel in all our other songs, but like
that is a genuinely that's the angriest the Dirty Nill
have actually sounded.
Speaker 2: I see exerctally, but I also want to look at that.
Speaker 3: It's kind of like the like that there's the kind
of likes Paul you want to be a rock and
roll band with your face on the Instagram or like
right a wrong reasons.
Speaker 2: I love when he does those little sides.
Speaker 3: And then like Luke is just such a charismatic like
and likable vocals and I do agree like it is
a bit more barbed, but like it reminds me the
what's something of usking about that I don't ever want
to work your jobs again? Like it's kind of like
it feels like this ams mose of that, but just
because it is, you know, as you say, a bit
more of like not Harsher record, but a less kind
of like playful one. It does come across as that
slightly more sort of spiky and antagonistic, but that chorus,
every time it hits like I'm just arms in their
singing along. And again when I see him live, I
will be having the best time when they play that,
because I'm sure that feels like that's got to make
it into the settlest.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, it's a really good song. And you also
have the maybe later on the record you have a
kind of relief from the more jaded bits when you
get something like they Won't Beat Us, which kind of
has like a like a hash pipey, you know, sort
of feel with the riff, and I love the cruel
weather Big Fellas which is great, and another real big
and of like a fake finish, you know, drop book
kind of moment as well. So there are these moments
of cutting loose as you would expect them to do.
But I do I do feel it is a again
a slightly nastier and more antagonistic Nil record. It's good
that it's just got a big, you know, nasty growler
of a guitar tone. Still, you know, I was a
henchman at the very end. Yeah, really fucking good thing
there and as a bridge bit in that song where
it goes into like a genuine like Matt Bellamy size
muse like digga doga diggad sort of riff, which is
pretty righteous. But the thing as a record, it's, you know,
it's I don't mean this to say less enjoyable, because
actually I think I'd like this more than the last record,
but I think it's maybe a less fun record. I think,
you know, I know at least one person who heard
this and said they weren't really into it because it
essentially it sounds like the Dirty Nil. So it will
have those moments that you've just described of doing the
heavy lifting in terms of having something in the song
to grasp onto and sing along with. But it's interesting
to hear them go a little bit more kind of
jagged and off the beaten path, so.
Speaker 3: Like I was a handsful one where I did saw
pickup and go like there is maybe some more frustration
in this as your album closer, like where he does
just sound like a little bit a little bit more
just can like jaded, but I think it also comes
in to like like they're doing what they want and
now that's what matters. But yeah, I I assume mean,
I still found this to just be like, I don't
know if I'm just so tuned to just like I
hear Luke's voice, I hear that guitar tone, I'm having fun,
even if it is on the sort of fun songs
maybe a little bit less like purely playful, but I
still just think this is like I mean, the is
I do furtherest to free range the Passion, which I loved.
I think like this album is more interesting, and I
do think the big hit moments are more memorable to
me that they really hit out of the path on them.
So I think it kind of just delivers both for
me in terms of like big catchy punk rock songs
that I'm gonna have at the best time singing along
too live, whilst also just kind of taking the dirt
yil on a slightly different, maybe more interesting route.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, I can add you know, Gallop of
the Hounds and a couple others onto that list of
my favorite dirty Nail songs I was talking about that
is mostly populated by the likes of Fuck Art and
Master Volume and stuff. But like, you know, it's interesting
to hear because I think, you know, free rent of
Passions somewhat felt like, you know, here's the Dirty Nil
doing what they do now with little real development. This.
You know, I don't know if it's necessarily going to
be anyone's favorite record, but it's at least like a
one degree angle of us werve and yeah, they've got
a bit of I don't know, a bit of juice
going on with it. So the Dirty Nil, the Lash
they're out on. The Lash at out today, from an
album that is out today to one that came out
just under a month ago. But when I was looking
at what was going to go in this episode, I
knew this is one that you know, could do its
share with kind of the heavy lifting up alongside the
Dirty Nil comes from a band called Blood Vulture. The
album is called Die Close. This is a debut album
from Jordan Olds, who you may better know as Guarsinio
Hall from the Two Minutes to Late Night YouTube show,
that guy who wears the funny kind of corpse painting
makeup who acts as the the lynchpin of like a
combination of I Guess Internet sketch series and like music
channel that for several years has been producing like a
long stream of heavy music all star cover versions. I mean,
this week, for obvious reasons, I found myself back on
the Chelsea Wolf singing crazy train one, like genuinely so
of the best rock covers that exist on the internet.
If you've not been exposed to them yet, there is
like a gold mine. You will be on a playlist
for hours on YouTube of them and all the faces
that pop up throughout them. That's what Jordan is you know,
known for. We should note that Blood Vulture, this project
is separate to that, you know, it is not part
of the sort of guarsenio hall talk show host character
that he does there. This is kind of the musical
equivalent of that old thing of like comedy guy having
to make pains to separate himself from his comedy persona
and do something more serious. But the reason I think
it's important to make note of, you know, what he's
done previously is for what is a debut album from
a new band, that combination of the musical and studio
professionalism that you'd expect from a guy who has been
like wrangling and assembling these cover versions from this myriad
of great musicians for all those years. Plus some of
the you know, the connections and the friends on Tap
to come with that both make themselves felt on this album,
and this is a debut album that feels to me
like it's it's kind of an extra step ahead from
where you would expect, you know, most new bands to
be starting at.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think like to misslet something that could have
been you know, oh, it's a YouTube cover channel, all
those things that I can have such a verse reactions.
Speaker 2: To that sort of thing.
Speaker 3: But that always because like the sort of the All
Star car Seed Assemble, how legit the covers were, how
they would do really interesting different things with the covers
sometimes that were like kind of way out of left field,
and and again how it has to like metal and
hardcore and all these sort of things and put it
all together in this sort of just really fun way.
It was like he is clearly like a totally legit
like musician who knows his ship, knows all these sort
of things. So what it's sort of realized, Oh he's
doing Zambana, was like, yeah, I think this is gonna
be really together from the sort of the word go,
even before I'd seen you know, the guest spots, so
I was gonna like, not surprise planet, this is like
it's so assured of itself almost immediately, and I think
it's a really interesting album.
Speaker 2: From from someone like who is a YouTube personality.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think this is an album that displays some
and this is again a big difference between like what
the two minutes of Late Night thing has done and
like if we would say YouTube covers and you go
like pop gone gent or something. You know, like a
big difference that separate it is really good taste, right, like,
which is sometimes that's an element that's not highlighted enough
when it comes to discussing art, right you know, this
album is really slickly done and as I say, as
a real skill that has clearly been worked over. But
what you know, Jordan applies that to here is a
really delectable combination of things that just show some good
fucking taste, right like from the guests that show up
here to the styles and reference points that are kind
of brought together. This you could, I guess sort of
loosely describe as like a kind of vampire doom album.
Like the color scheme of it is very red. This
is a very sanguine, seductively decadent kind of album. It's
a doom album to enjoy a big goblet of red
wine two, but also like Umpire, Doom as a descriptor
could encompass a lot of different sort of musical touch points. This,
I would say, and again a big part of why
I knew we had to put this forward because I
think what it does so many people listening will like
it's kind of like pall Bearer, alis In Chains and
type of negative all had a baby conceived inside of
Dracula's castle. Like it is this kind of thick, luscious
like if this album had curtains, maybe some damn high
quality red velvet curtains, you know what I mean.
Speaker 3: This is vampire alis in Chains. This is like the
most gothic Alison capes. Yeah, yeah it was. But it's
so because the thing is is like you can even
point some of the sort of like the points of reference.
Speaker 2: Is this draw and are just you know, alis change.
Speaker 3: It's some of the things that you could say were
inspirations for Alison Chains.
Speaker 2: I think like there's so many things like when I
was listening.
Speaker 3: Like that's a really cool sort of frame reverence where
it's not just leaning on like Doom that it's cleansed
inspired by so much doom and grunge and or rock,
but there's so many other sort of things that you
accept palls on even going into sort of pop music there,
you know, kind of like some really nice harmonizations, which
is like full on like Beach Boys sort of shit,
Like it's all over here, and it's all kind of
brought together a really delectable just like interesting and clearly
sort of passionately poured over like sort of supergroup project
wherever you want to sort of lay it as I
don't know, like who actually else is in the band
obviously outside of some of the like amazing guest spots
he gets in on.
Speaker 1: It, I think he's maybe apart from the drums, he's
done basically everything. Kind of yeah, it's his project, and
you can really he can clearly write a riff as well.
When I think of like like those the two minutes
of Late Night covers sort of the house band on
that show, if you will, And people who show up
a lot in those are Mutoid Man, and they share
a similar kind of like fat juicy guitar tope, a
lot of that Stephen Brodsky type stuff, but here it's
combined with that, you know, really gorgeous Paul Bearery or
maybe Baroness as well, sort of doom tone that's this
big dollop of grace in it and embracing the flood
has this like lovely sort of gothy electronic element that
really sounds to me like the Black Queen that band
Greg Pricatto used to do, and I love getting that
kind of feeling. But then you get the guitar riff
coming over it that brings this like real Leviathan like
beauty with it. And if you love that kind of
like graceful guitar harmony approach that like Paul Bearer or
a Baroness and their ilk do, this record is a
must for you this year, I think, because there's loads
of them to a really high standard and a really
like high quality of sound to really get lost in.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, like straight like all the riffs on
this album just fucking are monstrous.
Speaker 2: But again, there's this brilliant sort of.
Speaker 3: Balance between the sort of brightness and darkness. Like it
is like really heavy and dark and gothic, but there's
like both in the guitars and vocals are these like
wonderful kind of like bright soaring melodies that kind of
collide with it. And again that's why again I think
of like Alison chains on those kind of like vocal
harmony moments like yeah, that is you know, that's that
Addison change thing, where like the vocals pierce through these
like thick, dark, dirgy riffs and it's such a cool sound.
And again you're on and embracing the flood like it
is mostly heavy, but they just mix all these like
electronic touches on those vocals and it never feels oppressive,
and it's kind of like waiting darkness. There's always kind
of like a weirdly comforting sort of feel to it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and in the verse as well, it starts chirning
and just goes properly disgusting. Like the bends with this
massive tone are so good. There's a full on like
sludge beat down in the second half of the song.
Speaker 3: Yes, about three and a half minutes in, where like
that riff hits and I'm like fucking hell, like right
before the solo, like.
Speaker 2: They just beat.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but the songs have a really great push and
pull kind of between those those modes and complimented by Jordan,
as we said, clearly worships the fuck out of Alison
Chain's vocally, he's actually he sounds quite a lot like
Jerry Cantrell maybe if he was a bit more into
like an eighties heavy metal yeah, as well as you know,
doing that thing. But it will clearly, you know, it
will fire off alis In Chain's receptors in your brain,
but I think it stops maybe just short of being
caricature as well. It's maybe a bit more, a bit
more kind of up to interpretation for people, but I
think for me it works because his actual vocal melodies
are very strong as well, Like there's a there's a
melody refrain that is like woven throughout the album, which
again feels like maybe slightly beyond what your average debut
album would be expected to do as well, but they're
kind of like, you know, yeah, you're dying close to
me thing, which shows up basically across three three tracks
spread across the album every time it comes back up,
and it's kind of a bit bigger and a bit more,
you know, newly backed by something. My brain just kind
of like you know, automatically starts firing off some kind
of dopamine you know, sensors. But it's the third one
was well, the kind of like that every night I'm
dreaming that I'm starving to death. That kind of like
has a real hymn feel to it as well, that
sort of multi part pop harmony every and I'm dreaming,
And that's a real or like pop sensibility with this
like lovely thick doom romanticism. That really marks out as well,
because it's a really quite delicately arranged pop doom ballad
with this like great vocal focus.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, that's the song work.
Speaker 3: And the pop really jumped out to me because that
begins with that kind of anna that's on barbershop harmonized
sort of I said, vocal intro, and and that was
like a really cool thing.
Speaker 2: I was like, oh, you know, he's clearly like got
a pool of.
Speaker 3: Influence that's so much wider than just I want to
do a doom record. He's like pulled so many cool
sort of things together, and it is just this like dramatic,
somber but kind of like touching pop mal ballad that
you right, is sort of like him at their very
sort of the peak of their powers, were like doing
this or thing, and it's it's great to hear that.
Speaker 2: It's a sound.
Speaker 3: I'm just so like, oh yeah, I love to hear
that sort of blend of like gothic down us with
like irresistible pop melodies.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and the total lip side is then gray Morning.
It's just like the Batters its way in with the
most like you know, sort of Billie big Bollocks like
them bones kind of gate to it. It sounds like
Dracula walking into the wrestling ring, like it's so meaty,
and that descending one that he does kind of between
the verses, which is like there's a bit of definiteal
influence in there without ever going quite so serrated, but
it's really nasty. And talking about taste, right, if you're
thinking of like brainstorming what guitarists you could possibly get
for like a guest solo, you know, Jade from Afi
is not a name that would maybe come to immediately
for a lot of people, but it is such a
cool shell and such a marker of taste, and when
he comes in, it's a really like twisted metal like
evil shreddy solo from him.
Speaker 2: I was like I was out a minute, like because something.
I was like, oh cool, he's got Jade on here.
I was like that's a cool point.
Speaker 3: And then I was like, I guess that's what Jame's doing,
but that was maybe not what I was expecting, But
I was like, no, it makes sense. It fits actually
really well, and it's cool to get like who brings
a distinct flavor to their guitar solo playing and it
like and again, like a guitarist guests book can sometimes
just kind of be a bit of a faraway solo.
This feels like it really is. Yeah, it feels entailed
to the DNA of this song, because again, this is
one of the heaviest songs on the record, just one
of the meanest kind of like stompious or doom metal crushes.
And having him just rip out this like proper metal
solo really cool.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And the song where that kind of takes the piss,
I suppose is Entwined, which is a doom duet between
Jordan and Kristin Hater formerly known of course as Lingering
nota and that is an outrageous thing.
Speaker 3: To do, the vocal dynamic between the two of them
on that song. I was kind of like, this on
your debut album, just mates in, yeah, calling it a
favor from your friend whatever, like look.
Speaker 1: I'm Jordan Old's I'm really talented and funny, and I've
got Christin Hater on speed dial to sing a duet
with on my debut album Fuck You.
Speaker 3: Literally like and the thing is is that you have
this amazing vocal sort of interplay between the two of
them that just just doesn't stop. It's just like whirlwind
of the song that I was kind of like just
trying to like piece together, and again that I think
they get where there's you know, there is drama and
theater to it alongside of the metal, and then it
still just ends on the hard is fucking rift imaginable?
I was like, yeah, you fucking show off.
Speaker 1: It sounds phenomenal that like she sounds so good kind
of coming in on the lines where it's a song
that that that push and pull that I was talking
about before really kind of like lets loose because Jordan
actually kind of carries those more graceful again sort of
like doom floating over the earth sort of passes and
then when the rift goes sickly, Kristin Hater comes in
and like lifts those lines into this realm of like
demonic biblical terror as this like you know, gurgling nightmare
portion of the song comes in and it just it
sounds so good. I think, you know, that opening run
of like four tracks part of the intro is fucking
like some of the best material you would hear on
a debut album this year. It's really strong. I think
it maybe front loads its best material a little bit,
but then going forward you've got burned for it. With
Brian from Shadam's Fall, who he's gotten about a bit recently,
I think that's really good. It's got another one of
those like just ass beater riffs on like a thumper
disco beat, but along with this sort of like fluttery
synth element.
Speaker 3: Again that I said, there's like symphonic touches to that
one which give it a bit of character as well, which.
Speaker 2: That's the thing I think.
Speaker 3: I do like how the song's all kind of like
he tries to find way to make the songs feel
distinct from each other and not just you know, a
throwaway track, which I think is admirable, even if it's
like pulling loads of ideas.
Speaker 1: In Yeah, and then the Silence of God is like
a kind of lovely Paul Bearery, you know, tear jerker
doom track, but then the closer Die Close I think
really like ends it on a high as well, because
it's when that like you know, overture melody that's been
the through line gets fleshed out into a full piece
with everything behind it, and it's like building level of
like choral harmony almost is it is fantastic and just
such a warm, like reassuring bath of a finish.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the the Diacose Over Tours, I was like, oh, yeah,
this is just that. The sound of this record is
just really just fucking good. Like all the elements just
feel sort of poplar lined up. And someone was like,
it is no mournful and sad with the sort of doing.
But the melodies that like soar over it in the
gars and vocals, they are obliftering and it absously just
rocks like abomination.
Speaker 2: The one before as well, that's another word. It's just
that's just a rocker.
Speaker 3: Like there are times in the sound does just cut
loose and rock out, and I think that's really cool
and it gives it like for a doom record, I
actually think this is really accessible. I think this is
very yeah, like totally kind of like again I'm again
more and more doom. I'm coming up too, But this
was when I was like, yeah, I did not feel
sort of held back at all, but this I was like,
this is I mean, noise amazingly like but like it again,
it catches like the sort of Ladies comparaison, but like
the Sabbath thing of like these like pop metal songs,
but again they're they are really inch cut and layered
and full of so many interesting ideas, and it does
end with this like grand outro that mirrors you know,
the start of the record and SIGs that's gonna bewhere
and it's something like just weirdly joyous about the whole thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, obviously totally different sounding bands, but like
both him and Alis in Chains right are bounds who
take that sabbathy thing into kind of their own realms
of sort of you know, melodic magic, I guess, and
are both you know, really quite accessible, you know, really
successful obviously bands. And you know that's not to say
that this is immediately a band punching in those realms,
but like that's the sort of lineage that this is
kind of going in. So like this is, yeah, if
you are a fan of those or if you are
a fan of just like the Meat Riff, you know
you've got to get on this one because I think
this is one of the records that would most you know,
appeal to that sensibility. This year, so Blood Vulture with
Die Close Day record following on from Blood Vulture. Like
I said, this month, we really trying to kind of
put our focus on, you know, new, not yet fully
established bands. We've got a few debut LPs here following
on from Blood Vulture. And it's quite nice actually to
do this for reviews, I found because I found myself
writing so much less like pre existing context to go
through for all these and I just got to go like,
what does this sound like? You know? Is this good?
And we are for the whole rest of the show
basically reviewing bands who we've never reviewed before. One who
have been maybe guarding a bit of buzz, and you
may have heard the name a little bit more visibly
than others, are a band called Psycho Frame and their
album is out today as well, called Salvation Laughs in
the Face of a Grieving Mother, which is very fucking intense,
isn't it. We've had a bit of a few options
for like a death cord choice lately, because the death
cored trend for you know a few years has been
the kind of post lawn ashore massively you know, flamboyant,
quite squeakily, cleanly produced and of death Corps. But in
the past couple of months we've seen you know, quite
a few bands coming through kind of taking a claim,
swinging back towards a more like two thousand's MySpace style
of death court as well, essentially like the death core
world answer to the like two thousand throwback metalcore bands
that we've had in the hardcore underground for a few years.
So just in the past few weeks we've had thus
spoke Varathustra. Another option for this review space was a
band called The Killing of a Sacred Deer who released
like a seventeen minute record or something in the other
week of just like slopper evil deathcore. Yeah, and the
one who have kind of been maybe poking their head
into the most spaces is this band's Psycho Frame. Sam.
When we were talking about like, you know, through those
you said that this band is the one that you
had been like keeping some tabs on where you know
where where Psycho Gap Frame come from. Where they come
into your realm of lineage.
Speaker 3: They popped up one day with this like EP, and
Itone's like, yo, this is a Death Go bad and
again they really to be like hardcore circles was with
the immediate thing I kind of found interesting to know
straight away, I was like, it's been a while since
like a death core band has been heavily touted as
this is something you've got to get on in hardcoresees
because Death had become so far removed from the hardcore
side of things, as you say, because of the symphonic,
very highly produced nor the source sort of thing. So
I was kind of immediately kind of had my interests
peaked by that. And then the you know power couple
like singles and EPs. The art work was very like striking,
and I was like, oh, yeah, cool, this is like
as throwback manchers get while still sounding like really current
and like cutting edge at the same time. It kind
of that was striking the sort of balance between being
a throwback thing but also not being total nosalgabetic and
sort of trying to have some kind of modern element
to it, which kind of made it like quite interesting.
But I was kind I was like, right, cool, I'm
into these epis singles bring on the Fall length.
Speaker 2: I want to see what you know, what you've got?
And they have you been making waves?
Speaker 3: Theyre obviously they're opening the Malevolence tour that's coming up,
so like that, they're they're, they're, they're they're a prosper
that people have been like keeping an eye on.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, this one's on Sharp Turn Records, where
like a lot of the newer metal core and hardcore
stuff that's kind of making you know, waves does come
out from rather than again, some of these other ones
are maybe more sort of independent releases or whatever. So
the impression that I get is that Psycho Frame are
maybe the most ready of like this particular crop of
bands to try and sort of stage a breakout. You know,
like if you are wanting just some pure disgusting noise
of this type, you can go to like the Killing
of a Sacred Deer record or something, but Psycho Frame
are again, they're the one that you are currently seeing
popping up opening bills and stuff like that on some
of these larger you know, death core medical shows and
death cor is a funny old thing because like I
like Lorna Shore and I love you know, great symphonic
extreme metals. So death core going that way has produced
some stuff that I think is cool, but it's also
become sanitized very quickly. And the death core where my
heart lies is the stuff that I loved in the
late two thousands and early twenty tens. So I think
it's a good thing that some bands are like kind
of recognizing that and trying to recapture some of that
violence that made it special that's maybe been lost along
the way. On the flip side, there are a lot
of mediocre bands or copying Ea Chess's homework back then,
and not everybody was gonna be Suicide Silence or Whitechapel
or or Shall Perish. So a movement of bands, you know,
just sort of following that is not necessarily any more
creatively fruitful than a flood of bands or trying to
do poison the well, you know, a fraction as well.
So I like the vibe of these bands. I have
yet to find a sort of MySpace style deathcore band
in the twenty twenties that I have really attached onto,
and like, I feel, do it as well as the
classic stuff that I love. But Psycho Frame, you know,
do it about as well as most of them to
have tried.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's fair.
Speaker 3: I mean I did laugh my head off when this
album in twenty seven and you've had this like big
gut roll, a pig squill, a sample gunch and a
blaste it all hitting. You've been like say twenty seconds
of him playing on this record. I was kind of like, cool,
you're you're doing it all. You're not, just like you
are doing everything that is deaf core.
Speaker 1: Is probably the biggest hook on the record, Like the
opening just anvil drops and then guttural breeze and then
breaking up for do a heavier attention boy, Like that's
the moment on the record, Like that was.
Speaker 3: I was just like, yeah, cool, you're you're throwing it
all in there. It's a it's a head of a
way to make an impact. I do like this a lot.
I do agree it's maybe not like a revolutionary game
thing that's gonna save death core, but I just got
to kick out of how nasty and violent this sounded,
and again just frequently hilarious of how how obnoxious it is,
like again just scheckless of everything.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 3: There's there's occasional genty rifts there's sub drops. There is
you know, a kind of a sort of almost a
slightly spoken a bit.
Speaker 2: Going into a scream.
Speaker 3: There were just these rapid jackhammer drum blast is got
it all. It's got all the beatdowns, all the kind
of like discordant, panicky.
Speaker 2: Sort of riffs. There was a thing like we're just
gonna do it all and like turn it into maybe
things that almost resemble songs.
Speaker 3: I think, you know, having that's that's probably the biggest credit,
and you're gonna lovel it this is. There aren't the
most distinct memorable songs yet, but as of just so
pure sonic thrill. I do have a lot of fun
with this record.
Speaker 1: I mean it has tin Can snare for a start,
which is evidence as ever that people do accept Saint
Anger if the music is discussing Moss music like Lars
was ahead of the tide and they've been the runs
around things, but people love it here. There's also got
elements though of that kind of newer, you know, sharp
tone production that is you know, obviously it's very very
maxed out. It's very overwhelming, but also has some subtle
moments of kind of ingenuity. I suppose there are parts
when the guitars just like kind of test the waters
a little bit with their limbs into that kind of
like laser gun, you know, pp sort of territory. The
blueprints for Idle Genocide breakdown. Two minutes in there's a
tiny little transition that almost sounds like a DJ winding
it back, you know, like the tiny little moments like that, there's.
Speaker 3: Manipulation and like they play around with the layering and
stuff like that. Again, that's why I say like the
modern sort of touches come into a raging yeah, just
pure nostalgia bait.
Speaker 1: It's not like like like brand of sacrifice level electronic integration,
which makes them, for example, a thoroughly modern could not
be around in the two thousands death core band. But
it's it's got like a taste of these more contemporary
kind of techniques on top of a general engine which
is pretty old school. I think. You know, you can
tell that these guys listen to like the Infinite Death
EP more than post hate Viator's Murder, but they also
have that modern, souped up kind of you know, futuristic
production sound at times sort of on top of that,
which was an interesting thing I guess to get my
heads around with in terms of like you know what
school of death core, I guess this belongs to, Yeah, like.
Speaker 3: Black Wave twos or somewhere like that has that real
kind of like heavily producing, but then it also feels
like it's got, you know, a drum machine going at
a million miles an hour.
Speaker 2: To sort of make it seem like, you know, moving.
Speaker 3: From about to like like internt an Nilo and the
daftest of like that early death cord.
Speaker 2: There is stuff.
Speaker 1: I'm so glad you brought them up as well.
Speaker 3: Like, but there was stuff in this that does sound
like that school of just like how can we be
the most obnoxious discussing everything there?
Speaker 2: And it just.
Speaker 3: Blends it with like kind of modern like production things,
and it just it feels like it's all in an
effort to push the just sheer extremity of it, where again,
I think the modern production is kind of used to
make it sound more extreme and frightening at times where
it's kind of distorting things and making it sound like
kind of horror influence and unsettling.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Like it was the double bass at the start
of the portal, which has like the lead guitar racing
over it as well, which I thought was just like
speaker breaking, and like there are moments of these like
more sort of techy, nudely weirdly weirdly guitars which are
sort of charmingly nostalgic at this stage, even though lots
of them were nonsense at the time. And I think
again Apocalypse through Life Serenergy procession, when they combine that
with the blast, it does tip over into kind of
infot annihilated territory. And you know, we had an album
club some years ago where we went over how absurd
that was as a moment. Inverted Spear of Heaven has
like a bit of a maybe slightly more moshy slip
knock feel, which put its like very slightly closer to
the other really big contemporary mainstream deathcore band that we
haven't mentioned, but if it was like less obsessed with
bears and conservative family values and actually a lot more
demonic as well, because this has like little bits of
like dbeat parts and stuff as well where it's sort of.
Speaker 2: Hit on the album I'd say is Inverted Spirit of Heaven.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, it just sort of flies off the handle,
but it's a lot of that tempo changes and sort
of new you know, battery parts into just over three
minutes the parts when it did, you know, sort of
wind the clock back. Like Black Wave two has a
sort of like thrashy, rampage, aging death metal tempo that
I used to like about like two thousand and seven
death Cores that kind of got lost along the way somewhere.
And there's one groove probably my favorite single moment on
the record and my favorite riff. There's one groove thirty
seconds into endless agonal devotion that so specifically took me
back to that kind of sensation that I couldn't help
but kind of grin and bob my head a little bit.
There's absurd fucking like frog gurgling, breeze and shit all
over the record, filleted and fucked particular. It is like
welcome back two thousand and nine, ingested I missed you.
Speaker 2: It's at the end of the portal.
Speaker 3: There's like the pig squirrell beat and then full on despised,
I like, I've missed that. It is such a daft sound,
but it is just again weirdly comforting. All these kind
of like little touches that like have been lost to
time and it's nice to have him back here.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think you know, part of the again, the
fetishization of that, Like I said, maybe infinite death over
the hate or whatever. But with this very again souped up,
I would say maybe slightly more ear exhausting than how
the the rawer way this stuff used to be produced.
There is very little the way of hooks, you know which,
which Yeah, again, those best bands, even on their earlier releases,
right you look at the Somatic Defilement or the Cleansing,
they had some hooks even at those bands most like
volatile stages, and this band they've not written their like
prostatic fluid association. Yeah, there's there might be a moment
in I think endless agonal devotion where I think he
just goes get fucked, which if I've heard that correct,
it would be good. I'm still at the stage where
I may never listen to this again because I do
I get slight infant annihilateor syndrome more than I feel
it living up to the records I actually think are
classics of this scene. But sonically it's very heavy and
it's very explosive, and they're probably well obnoxious live.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I want to see this live because I want
to see again how they recreate the most like out
there obnoxious moments on there and again. This is not
filled the potential that i'd hope star from ye, but
I do just think it's a very enjoyable listen for
me where I can just go of like sit there
and just gonna go like, yeah, just just play all
the loud noises. Let me, let me just get a
little bit of that like sonic feel from again hearing
death course sound, this kind of blood soaked again.
Speaker 2: It is a rare treat these days.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, if you want some noises, maybe our next
album will also fix you up with those. Because our
next review comes from a bat called Blind Equation, who
released an album last week called a Funeral in Purgatory.
This is actually the third Blind Equation album. I think
I'm right in sane. I think I remember their previous album,
Death of Weights coming out and having it in hyperblast
one week. But it does seem like this one has
spread out a bit more since its release last week. This,
I think is the most people have really begun to
pick up on them. I thought this would be quite
interesting to do. It's something that you know, both you
and I Sam could maybe appreciate from some like slightly
different perspectives. The album art is basically like your sort
of you know, risk meets Razor style, Naughty's emotional MySpace
metal core thing meets anime and it looks like it's
a weeb downloading anime off the internet in the mid
two thousand's album cover and musically in some you know,
inventive ways, but it really quite unmatches that image as well.
Speaker 3: I this is been one of those things in Tybego listeners.
I have no idea how parents are going to be
out there. I mean, welcome back to the Bunny and
the Bear.
Speaker 1: Like it.
Speaker 2: It's like something but like this is one of the
most kind of.
Speaker 3: Like garish, unwieldy, kind of frequently hilarious, kind of fascinating.
But I kind of really like sort of like takes
on metalcore that is like really refreshing. Again it is
do you like MySpace here music? Well, this is you know,
the corner of the Internet for you right now.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think there's actually more to it than that.
I thought. I hope that you would like this. I
imagine it would maybe connect to some deep dark part
of your brain that there's a lot of music to
process in this, like not especially long record because you know,
you say, you know MySpace and all that stuff. But
I also think that the closest genre descriptor to this
would be cybergrind, you know, like it's a really fucking
full on, fast, musically explosive at the seems, you know,
but it's not a agrophobic, nosebleed style like ott you know,
headache or the you know, early genghist tron maybe slightly
more art house take on what that word is. This
is like a very you know, online culture, y two
K flashback video games soundtracks, chip Chune, you know, DG hardcore.
Maybe I think you can compare it to things like
you know, Igor or like Machine Girl and all of
that realm of just like really like head fucky type stuff.
Speaker 2: It was like a reference pot.
Speaker 3: I definitely sort of picked on this of just that
kind of like terminally online kind of hyper pop leaning
alternati music where it's not quite hype hoop, but there's
a definite element of that I've come for, like Castlevania
metalcore up points, because there are like again the video
game soundtracks for that. Really it's like the Nintendo DS
Castlevania games, like that is the sort of specific element
of the sound like they're leaning for on that which
I used to recall again.
Speaker 2: Either this is now me rather gonna love Aye.
Speaker 3: I do like it's just landed just on the right
side of ridiculous for me, where I've had so much
fun with this despite kind of like frequently being like
this is silly, isn't it? This is daft? But like
I'm always just thoroughly entertained by this.
Speaker 1: Record emotionally though, Like I also I get some similar
vibes off of like the the last Pupil Slicer album Blossom,
which I think is a more you know, organic band
record than this, which is saying something because that's very
like electronically pimented in its own way, you know. But
that like for as you know, garish and all these
things you're saying, this is it has that like I
am a digital spirit trapped within the kind of ghostly
realm of the Internet of you know, anime forums in
two thousand and six type music that does it does
intrigue me because I got emailed this a while ago,
and I was intrigued straight away when I saw the
press release site, both Corn and Seminole DSBN band Life Lover,
and I was like, Okay, they're cooking something here, you know,
and there is that kind of you know, dejected misery
about it. I think I'm right in saying that the
guy tweeted out there's no guitars on this album, like
I guess, it's all just samples and electronics and stuff,
but it still behaves like grind or hardcore. The very
first sound you hear is like hyper aggressive program blast beats,
but alongside it, rather than a metal riff, it's a
really like beautiful, flourishing video game synth melody. It's like
you've put agrophobic Nosebleed's drum machine into the legend of Zelda.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's gonna like because those things is when.
Speaker 3: It goes hard, it is really hard and at it
like this feels like a very metallic leaning record. It's
not like sort of soften, but like, is that kind
of playing against these like synth melodies that are occasionally
like really like uplifting and sort of soaring and other
times hilariously garriss But it's always of like colliding with it.
That is again initially a bit of a head fuck
to listen to, and I think it's funny how like
the simps, I don't want to say they're cheap, but
they're you know, they're not like the most high text
sort of something simps.
Speaker 2: They are of an era.
Speaker 3: They are leaning into that sort of sound or like
something a little bit dated, I think deliberately. So it's
kind of like to sort of, yeah, conjure the sort
of thing they're doing, but it actually does work bizarrely.
Speaker 1: Well, there's a certain thing you get about like certain
kinds of pixel art I suppose of like you know,
late nineties or early two thousands video games that has
a kind of, I don't know, an intimate naivety compared
to like you know, just full blockbuster graphics games and
stuff that has you know, a different kind of emotional
element to it. And the music yeah matches that right,
And I agree, like the synth in this it never
goes symphonic in its texture it but it is like
it's really beautifully orchestrated, Like the melodies are really well
done and kind of they interact with each other in
compelling ways, but the sound is that like same kind
of emotional intimacy that you get from the like slightly
you know, lower five sounds of like Turn of the
Millennium video game sound trucks and stuff, And I really
like that about it. But then what you also get
it's halfway through that first song it goes into what
you could describe as like an emo crunk beat. When
it goes to that, it's like, oh, okay, we're really
the buddy in.
Speaker 2: The Bear comparison.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it has that kind of like texture to it,
and it is just like the screams are like the
most grounded part of this record at a lot of points,
because they're the most kind of like, oh, that's just
a typical screen vocal, because the clean vocals are really weird,
like the melodies that he saw comes out with, Like
the entire thing just has this kind of like weirdo,
dejected energy to it. It feels again that this feels
like kind of like an outside of our record.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I really like again those kind of you know, Turn
of the Millennium sort of chiptune style, but also actually
I think chiptune is one of those words where people
automatically like kind of assume a certain level of silliness
or novelty. Or whatever, but like done to act in
a you know, an emotionally kind of heartfelt way, and
some of like it feels like the end. You know,
those melodies are really like filling up space as they can.
And if you are someone who can find those melodies
kind of you know, affecting and sort of a motive
and a nostalgic out of body sort of capacity, there's
a lot of them here, but they're glued onto these
like veering from right to left head Fox. But the
thing I appreachi about this record is I didn't find
it mad to the point of like dissipating atmosphere. You know,
there is a quite vivid environment and specific tone that
I think this this, this gets you with, which is
why I compared it to like that Pupil slice of record,
because like the song of Funeral is at first very
slow to the point of almost feeling like a chiptune
doom metal song like that is a very you know,
save point in uh Dracula's Castle sort of moment of respite.
But because this record is very melodically led rather than
just kind of tenpestuous, I don't think it's actually as
hard to follow as you'd think even when it is
throwing in like mad rave parts and whatever else, there
is that kind of guiding hand to it. And when
you get the like absolute dizzying vomit of that songs,
then second part in Purgatory, it's really fucking at it.
But compared to like some other albums in this lane,
there's a there's a world and a tone here that
I can relate to. You know, that kind of melancholic
sad ghost within a cold digital realm atmosphere is really potent,
like and I know what this record is like trying
to get me to feel. Even as it veers from
place to place.
Speaker 3: I mean like as you get like near the back
of the record that something like Morn is one where
it does all kind of like come together on that track,
which is like because again it is like hyperactive at
times and kind of considering. But then you get to
like Mourn, where it does down and lets you sort
of take into it and set and you kind of
like everything that's come before it kind of like finds
its place and it's like right cool, I'm now like
centered in this kind of like really dark again, that
kind of like desolate online world, and that that's so
closing on the record of like Morning to Relinquish Dreams,
which is like almost like eight bit industrial at times,
were like the sort of like kind of mechanized thing
on like that again makes me think of like a
video game sort of level where it's like almost like
a Terminator game from the nineties on the snares or
something like that is like where you can imagine the
soundtrack to that being and it does kind of create
this like consistent world and mood that you can finally
sort of sell down into it. And again I say,
any think before it makes a little bit more sense.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And uh, morn is one of the ones I
really kind of like have my head turned by it
because that then leads into a closing track as well.
That Morn is basically a Dungeon sent song, right, like
not for the last time today, It's a Dungeon scent,
and it's Dungeon sins by way of like this particular
anime video game kind of template, right, but it is,
and the pianos in that song are straight off of
My Dying Bride's Turned Loose to Swans, And that following
closer at the beginning is kind of like a nineties
Pieceville Goth Doom song via the world of Chipchune. It's
like they've tried to write your River on a snez,
you know, And I don't think I've heard that specific
mix before. And like I never would have imagined going
into this album that I could then come out and go,
if you like this, put on turn Loose the Swans,
but I can, and like it reminded me of my
It gets me into my Dying Bride, and it reminded
me of My Dying Bride more than the Vampire Doom
album that we just really that it's so bewildering, but
like that's a really inventive, cool thing. And at the
same time, on the other end of it, you have,
you know, basically like hard corey mosh parts, Like there's
a one note synth riff in Relinquished Dreams that feels
like you are silly walking like the Harm's way fucking guy,
And they have like mosh drop parts. Nothing is another
one that has like big fuck off breakbeats and stuff
like that. But the screams again, they're coming at the
scream Oh world, and they do feel human amidst everything else,
and they do feel appropriately kind of real amidst what
this is. Then you have the clean vocals, which, like
you said, are like the biggest like jarring moments in
the record because they are heavily computer affected, veering into
as we say, like borderline crunk core nostalgia. Like genuinely
I still think, you know, well, I don't necessarily love
that sound. They are still more sort of melancholic in
their approach rather than like, you know, is anyone up?
You know? So they still they fit the world of
the record to a degree.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: No, there is a kind of like mournfulness to the
melodies where it is it's downtrodden.
Speaker 2: And again there are.
Speaker 3: Times of like some of like the other like I
don't know if it's like guess volks on a bit where
they like lean heavily into the origin where that does
get a bit more like knocks in your face, but
the main lean back a lot. They're still quite gothic
and sad, so it never gets too kind of like,
oh aren't we a bit silly? Now? Like I think
this album like, I think this is as kind of
crazy and like all other places, is it is never whacky?
Speaker 2: Is I think it is always.
Speaker 3: Like doming sort of handled with an element of like
they're taking this seriously, even if the sounds are kind of.
Speaker 2: Like a bit of an insane head fucker points Yeah.
Speaker 1: And I love as well that the song Flashback, the
main melody riff, feels like a particularly epic boss battle
in some eight bit game, Like it takes me back
to my days of playing Undertail about ten years ago,
you know, but it feels like it has been exploded
into this like onslaught of like grindbeats and programming and
stuff like that. And the record I didn't think goes
by pretty quickly as well, because it's such a onslot
of ideas. I think, if it's you know, if you
like genres placing electronic heavy music, I suppose with a
temperament towards maybe the kind of you know, sensations of
nostalgia and stuff like that, but also in a very
emotive way, I think this is gonna be a fair
I think it could be a hit. You know, this
is a fair bit of a claim, but potentially sort
of ruminating here. It's really cool, really unique. The band
called Blind Equation, that record is called a Funeral Impurgatory.
I have two extreme metally picks next from the Underground
from Blands. We haven't covered before, as I say, for
your enjoyment this July. Both just kind of weird, slightly
left to center bands. Again, we might not usually have
the room to chuck in, but I thought it'll be
interesting to talk about. The first one is a band
called Crown of Anguish and their record is called Giants
of the Twisting Sun. This is a band that I
heard of for the first time, like a week ago,
so sure put it in. They are from Preston, of
all places, which you could sound even funny. Yeah, unless
Preston sits atop a vault of love Creftian power, which
is possible, you would not traditionally imagine it. Totally new
band to me. Like I said, they apparently released the
debut album last year, which I don't think I heard.
But this is the follow up, which is very complicated
music to be churning out once a year, but that's
what they've done so far. I got turned onto this
record by Derek from Too Mold, who posted about it
saying it sounds like it if Nile tried to write
Splendido Hotel. The record by the nineteen eighties jazz fusion
guitarist Al Demola, which is not a record I know
anything about, but Derek probably done a quite eloquent, more
accurate job there than I could. This is basically like
some like odd you know, muso, but very brutal death metal.
I think Nil is the best comparison point to see
if you would be into this or not, because the
you know, the ancient Egyptian thing is totally different. This
draws more on like I guess, it's kind of global,
like it's got Eastern you know, or.
Speaker 2: South music flavor to it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, but it's not almost from any one place.
Like again, there's the kind of South Asian stuff, but
there's also a lot like Spanish Flamencoy type stuff. It's
kind of a mix of regional influences. But the way
like a tone or atmosphere is created around like some
very heavy, filthy death metal, is very much of that
kind of school of thought.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean I was kind of a little bit like, oh,
where do we land on this? Because obviously I'm a
lot more open to sort of thing now, I was
still unsure, you know, when I saw sort of like
a deaf my band I've never heard with three hundred
monthly listeners on Spotify, and I was kind of looking
at some of the song lengths and I was like,
if parents stitch me up here? Like so I was unsure,
but I did find this was very effective at what
it sort of sets out to do, which is combined
kind of very brutal but sort of technically proficient and
polished but not like sanitized death metal with progressive world
music leaning tendencies. And I found this to be like
a surprisingly cool and enjoyable listen.
Speaker 2: So yeah, yeah, I.
Speaker 1: Mean you start with this, you know, kind of like
East Asian style scale on some stringed instrument. The tone
of world is set very immediately, but then inside ten
seconds you have this like furious, churning, horrid, morbid angel
immolation sort of death metal type riff. The vocal obviously,
they're kind of, you know, monotously monotonously gutt role, but
they're I think they're well placed in the mix to
add that sort of percussive element. It reminds me a
lot of like the first three like Sourn Decapitated records
in that particular element, and it's produced really well, like
for a very small band. The guitar tone and recording
and everything is like pretty close to how I would
want a death metal record like this to sound. And
even though the music is you know, complex, and the
songs are long and they kind of cram a lot
of different ideas and stuff, in the actual death metal element,
I don't think is amongst the most sort of like
demanding or inaccessible stuff that we you know, would would
review on the show. It's pretty like pommeling until the point.
Speaker 3: I mean, that's I think that's the thing that really
like helped me is that, like the death metal stuff
does just go like like it crushes, like like I
was listening and I was like, other think so I
was like, yeah, well this is behaving. I was like,
I was wegs, like the shift's gonna happen and they're
gonna do that the big prog switch and they're gonna
like do something Egyptian or whatever. I was like, So
I was setting there watch and like cannon the time
was like there is I couldn't know it was coming,
but it was like it's well implemented. And then when
they come back out of it, the way it like
goes so hard off the back of that and that
foot and the is it a book of Fanian or
Fanian or something like that, like the way when they
lock back into the metal after that middle kind of
like progressive sections so hilariously hard.
Speaker 2: I was kind of like, yeah, to be fair, like the.
Speaker 3: Death metal stuff on this is just like rusing and brutish,
but again it's technical, it's proficient, it's not sloppy.
Speaker 2: It just crushes and it's like like real power.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, like some of the first death metal
stuff that I got into, and I can probably then
assume it's also true for some other people that some
of the first stuff they got into was stuff like
Decapitated a Nile that has that real mix of like,
you know, proficient technicality but also like groove and this
real like dirt of tone and this. You know, it's
in that realm. But what crowd of Anguish then do
is they'll blow you with that. But they do like
stop dead and then transition into like an extended multi
minute you know. I think when I put this record
off for the first time, I was maybe expecting, you know,
some flights of fancy, but I was actually taken off
guard when the first song like rifts for a couple
of minutes and then stops for an extended like several
minute Flamenco break. I was like, oh shit, we're really
going there. There's like a great sort of Arabian section
in the middle of the Kingdom, but dueled as well.
And they're good at them is the key thing. Like
they're not just sort of like splatted on for flavor,
you know, Midi sinth or whatever. Like these guys are
clearly capable in the worlds of stuff like fusion or
Spanish guitar, and like almost an equal part in terms
of what the songs are made up of. They draw
together that with old school death metal, and you know,
the songs are quite lengthy, often between like eight and
nine minutes. They do take you on some indirect routs.
The Book of fane In has this part around the
five minute mark with this scary ominous instrumental sort of
like crash and drone like atop the death metal is
really out of the Nile playbook of the kind of
stuff we were talking about on the Black Seas a
Vengeance album chat like the other week on the Patreon,
but this feels like they're translation of it, you know,
where they will also bring in again like the Flamenco
stuff that comes back in on Great Devour the Writhing King,
and it sounds really good, Like it sounds really like
professionally high quality done when they go into that stuff.
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, I think it lands me. It does sound great.
I was gonna bit worried at first off the first
couple of songs where it felt like metal bit and
then experimental one bit it was feeling a little bit disjoined,
but then when you got to I think it was
forbidden a philaty of the Demi loon.
Speaker 1: That's how they do.
Speaker 3: Start to like like they do start to like merge
it together like quite seamlessly. And when that kind of
goes full on like ambient space prog by the end
that when that like really sort of goes through, that's
what I was. I was like, oh cool, So it's
not always just the same kind of like yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like they they do sort of things.
Speaker 3: And there was a thing it was like Great Devour
of the Driving King like again like that was like yeah, cool,
Now I'm fooling because that tightens things up a bit
and just like goes mean and heavy with it, and
like the outro where the vocals get particularly like sort
of beastly.
Speaker 2: That's really cool.
Speaker 3: That part that was someone else like, yeah, like I'm
now in on what you're going for here.
Speaker 1: Yeah. You know. The other key thing is the death
metal rifts are fucking good. Like the low end really hits.
Kingdom Moduled has that sort of like tight mix of
like heads down sort of knucklehead groove and this threat
weaving intricacy, as well as like a really kill a
sort of melodic doom passage a bit further in where
the lead guitar sort of blows off some steam that
main sort of like kind of groove in great devour.
The writhing King really works, and when the songs do
wind and take the scene, it root well. Like I said,
you know a definite record that opens with like a
couple of like eight nine minute songs or whatever. Putting
it forward to you, I was like, you know, it
could be an ask, but I think the songs start
so at it a lot of the time, and they
do carry this sort of like innate sense of momentum
in a destructive capacity that does keep them moving at
all times. And you know, a forbidden off feel the
tray from the of the forbidden off, the lattery of
the dem Loon Yeah, might be my favorite track as well,
because it's really like it almost has like a punk
beat at the start into like a straight up brutal
death metal blast and they're like the drummer I think
is a real They've got a beast of a drummer
on their hands. And a track later that really displays
that as well is Descendant by the Blood of the
subter Realm, which has a kind of suffocation flavor because
it's that some.
Speaker 3: Onnge where they just kind of go three minutes lock it, yeah,
fucking like rip your head off.
Speaker 1: The straight rip of the bunch of only three minutes long,
and it has that like it's so fast and tight.
Speaker 2: That song is like they ain't got time for the
sort of the flourishing. There's there's very slight sort of
like still that that sort of decorate it nicely.
Speaker 3: But this is one where you kind of go like, yeah,
this is the all out extremities or of rip on
the album and it fucking goes and like the drums
on that punishingly like powerful.
Speaker 1: Yeah. But then there are those you know, quite special
moments in music like that when you've been rocked to
a paste for like four straight minutes or something, and
then suddenly you're in the desert or like an ancient
walled city, or like standing atop a portal of demons,
and as you said, the the jazz fusion solo that
ends the forbidding offulatory song and stuff like that, and
I just think it's I was kind of taken off
guard when I heard this because I thought it's been
a while since I've heard a death metal record in
this kind of style, you know, evoking more of a
world music thing than like a cosmic other world thing,
which has been more in vogue for the past few years,
with that like Nile or Decapitated approach to like dirty
groovy technicality that has intrigued me, like like this one.
Did you know, I've barely seen a thing about this band,
like I said, I only got onto them because Derek
Veller recommended them. It's a very small band, as you say,
about like three hundred monthly listens on Spotify right now.
This isn't on like one of the big central death
metal labels you would expect to be putting out stuff
like this, but it is one of the more accomplished
and kind of creative death netal records I've heard this year.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, I would agree.
Speaker 3: I mean, like again, the fact that it's definitely on
this underground I can like you know, this is like
this groove, it goes hard.
Speaker 2: The sort of prog deviations are always interesting.
Speaker 3: I think this is a really accomplished and impressive sort
of like project from a bunch of guys.
Speaker 2: From Preston, like surreal but like I mean, it's going.
Speaker 3: I think I think a lot of people if you like,
you know the Blood Incantation, tim old About record, those
kind of really expressive experimental definitely have been hugely popula is.
I see no reason why you wouldn't hear this and
also get a similar kind of like thrill from it.
Speaker 1: Yeah. That band called Crown of Anguish and the album
their second one is Giants of the Twisting the Sun.
My second niche extreme metal pick comes from a band
called Stanger Eagle with an album that I'm going to
read as zastribonu Horru. Mainly, I want to put this
in because this came out last Friday, when I didn't
have it in the release roundup. Because their label Medieval Prophecy.
Speaking of underground stuff is is very bad actually letting
you know when their albums are going to come out.
I've known this album was coming for ages, but with
no actual release date, and then all of a sudden
it was out. You know, it's a proper archaic way
of operating, which is in a way amusingly appropriate for
the kind of music this is. But like, you can't
even hear this one on streaming, like it's on YouTube,
and then obviously if you order the CD or the record,
so we are digging deep. But if I didn't pick this,
how else would I get to talk about trolls and
goblins this month. Stanga Regal are a Slovakian band. They
put out a great debut album in twenty twenty two
and then an EP shortly after that. This is the
second full length as well. And if you remember about
eighteen months ago, we reviewed the new album from a
band called Mala Carpatan that Elliot and I raved about
and Sam completely rejected. You might know some of the
reference points we're going to get at here because one
of the two members in this band is also the
guitarist in Malacarpatan, and we are in a similar realm
of like mystical Eastern European magic and folk claw here,
but where Malacarpatan is a bit more musically freewheeling, maybe
like it's heavy metal and it's prog and its first
wave black metal and it's all these eccentric things. Stanger
Eagle is a lot more therm and specific maybe in
what it's doing, Like this is second wave style black
metal of the more folky and mystical variety. It's the
stuff that feels like you are immersed in an enchanted woodland,
like early all the first couple albums, Satiric on first
couple of albums Behemoth even with Along all sort of
niche examples, particularly because of the sort the slavic mythology angle,
but you know, similar realm of stuff that we spoke
about with like the Grab album that we reviewed at
the start of this year, but that is obviously very Germanic.
This is very Slavic. The album cover on this has
a massive troll with I think trees growing on his
back swinging a big hammer. So I think you can
basically look at that image a workout if you're like
this album based on whether that appeals to you. I
really rate the debut Stanger Egirl album and I fucking
love Mala Carpatan, so I was looking forward to the
second one Sam Woodland Trolls and Slovakian atmospheric black metal.
I did say to you, I warned you. I was like,
this one doesn't necessarily scream that it will be for you.
I just wanted to give it a mention, But did
you give it a quick listen?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I give this isn't. I had to refresh on
what Mala Carpatan was. I was like, which one was that?
Which one was? And I was like, oh yeah that one,
fuck that al was ahead.
Speaker 3: Fuck.
Speaker 2: I listened to this and I was kind of like,
I want a really tricky one review because I was.
Speaker 3: Like, I wasn't disliking anything I heard, really, I just
I was sort of kind of going like, if you're
really into your kind of like atmosphere black metal, this
feels like a really accomplished or take on that. And
there are moments on this album that I'm like, a
really quite impressive it just as a whole. Was it
enough to sort of constantly keep me hooked in? You know?
There's like I think I'd comemember the song titles and
I should have burned down I was like, they're all
very long, and they're all.
Speaker 1: In Slovakian, so let's just refer to them by track
two three, Track five.
Speaker 3: I think it was one where it's like like coming
in sort of like I was goin of like getting
a bit, and then that came in. I was like, ah,
this is most triumphant like and and it's like, again,
cool is not the right word, but it did sort
of lock me back in and I was like the
back off of the record.
Speaker 2: I actually think I kind of preferred to the first half.
Speaker 3: I think like the last couple of songs where they
have like some really cool kind of stirring moments to them,
where there's like an amazing melodic riff here and there
and like a really sort of dramatic kind of build
to something. So like again like I didn't dislike this,
I'm just kind of like I was kind of in
and out of here as it went on, kind of
like certain moments caught my ear and really sort of
stirred me. Opening riff on like track two like is
really cool. There's a fun galloping riff in that you've
got you know, United Casio keyboards. It's all kind of
like a little bits here and there that kind of
was like, that's cool, but I wasn't in fraud by it.
Speaker 1: I guess I'll say, well, it's ultra specific in what
it's doing, and it's making this album four, right, Like,
this is not a it is not an album that
I would put in front of or expect someone to
love if they don't love this realm. And that's okay,
you know, because, like I said, this is four people
who like music that feels like passing through a magical
veil into ancient Slavic forests full of fairies and beasties
and whatnot. And one thing I appreciate about Stanger Eagle is,
you know, something that maybe people who don't quite you know,
fully appreciate the fal spectrum of black metal, don't fully
get it from the outside, is it's how much of
it is just meant to like let your imagination fly,
you know, rather than just be kind of all about
pits of despair and hatred in nihilism and all whatever. Like,
there's a real mischievousness about it in the way that
that's a major defining feature of Malacarpatan. Like I think
that's just a big part of Adam's personality in his
writing style, Like I said, Stanger Regal tend to be
more sort of focused on a particular vibe rather than
like the koreeming band of drunken goblins that you get
in Malacarpatan. But you can still feel the sense of
like play about, you know, and it's combined with an
atmosphere that is very you know, foggy and like you're
sort of surrounded by an enchanted mist, which is not
the dojure thing in black metal maybe the way it
once was. I just think it's really good in this
case to have someone who is clearly very adept doing
this particular style that I love and keeping it, you know,
really alive. You know. The vocal is very gobliness. The
production on this one amusingly, when I first listened to
this album at the weekend, it kind of took me
back that the production was almost too high death because
the EP they put out in between albums was really
like whushy and lo fi. The first album I think
is maybe the bulls eye of how this band should
sound is kind of the happy medium. This record is
on the cleaner end of what they do. You have
like big thick pounding drums rather than like really far
back in the mick ones. And there are some like
proper riffs on it that have like a real sort
of thunder and girth to them. But you have these like,
you know, really wide feeling black metal core progressions that
have a sense of wonder to them. You know, they're
not over the top. It's not to be bored it, right,
but they just have a sort of warmth about it.
And you have a lot of melody that I think
this record and why Stanger Eagle I think are a
standout example of their world rather than any sort of
number of dime a dozen ones. Is this band really
get the intricacies right rather than just sort of like
washing over you with a wall of reverb or whatever.
There's always like an undercurrent of keys melodies as this
like particular strand of black metal thrives on that gives
voice to all of these elements beyond just in the
guitar and the vocals. You get fun, you know, very
particularly to the region. Things like there's a sort of
jaw harp type sound that appears in the third track
that's kind of fun. There's the twinkly keys in the
fourth track, which I would say, if you like, like
a principle of Evil era Cradle of Flesh, Cradle of
Filth even, but it then puts them on top of
like a mad disco beat that's really fun, and there's
a lot of guitar melody as well. Some of the
riffs they draw on things like the great eighties Hungarian
black metal band tormentor specifically the song Elizabeth Bathory, rather
than all the thrashy ones. The second track on this
is that exact school of like Foreboding, still fol key,
but also a bit darker, scarier black metal, and it's
a particular feel that I love. When you said the
fifth track, that really makes me smile because that is
unusually the most this band have gone into malacarpatent zone
because it's heavy metal right, and it has a galloping,
runaway maiden feel.
Speaker 3: I mean, that's why That's why I hear me though,
because I was like, oh, I liked the shift into
heavy metal. Yeah, Like I mean, like I can appreciate
this an was very fantastical and it does kind of
come to that kind of like Lost and in Charted Woods.
It's not as dark and oppressive as a lot of
black metalaks, so that tonally does sort of distinguish it.
I just think there're only like to say, the vocals
and some of the reffing where it felt a little
I don't really just felt a little same throughout. And
so then that shift into a kind of heavy metal
gallop was kind of like the change of tone and pacer.
I was like suddenly kind of like caught my attention
the way that maybe the two tracks proceeding it hadn't.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, you know, as a band they are
they've got a very specific vision of the kind of
music they want to evoke, right, and it's you know,
playing within that realm, and it's catering for you know,
disciples of that particular sound of which I count myself.
But then you do have the real eccentricity moments again,
like that sort of I think the guitar licks are
just really great. And the last song is labeled into
two parts, the second one the closing track, being a
dungeon synth outro, but it's actually longer than the first part.
It's about four minutes long to the metal song first
half three minutes long, which did make me laugh. But
that part one of that two part song, I suppose
the guitar melody and that like, since I first listened
to this earlier in the week, that has been lodged
in my head, like it's this really delicate and acrobatic
heavy metal guitar line and it's really like wonderfully composed immersive. Again,
mischievous is a word I really love in relation to
this that you can't apply to all black metal, you know,
mystical black metal. And I know it's not especially broad appeal,
but I think they're really good. And who else over
here was going to shout about it? So you go
that band called Stanger where you go? Like I said,
it's not on streaming or anything, but if you search
the name then you will find them somewhere. Lastly, we're
going to go do something you have put forward Sam
a band called nouvela Scura with an album that came
out recently called How This All Ends. When asked about
smaller stuff that you had been listening to lately, you said,
I've been listening to this screamo band lately, Nouvlascura, And
I thought, great, you know about this time a year
ago you did the same with a screamo band called
Blind Girls, which was a really really great record. This
record is also like twenty three minutes long, so if
you don't like it, it's a pretty easy time investment.
So Sam Nuvalis Gura.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so this was just one that I could have
been digging about in sort of the underground of like
metalcore and hardcone Screamo just sort of like through various
things recently and related artists. I kind of came across
these and I was like, gave him a listen. I
was like, oh, I'm really into this. This is another
like cool Screamer album that they've been a band. They've
actually been going for a little while, and their last
AWM was like five years ago, and then they kind
of had to go quiet because I believe their vocalist
had like cancer diagnosis and so that she was like
recovering from that, which kind of like you can you
can see where a lot of that's probably been channeled
into this album after so long. But yeah, they've lak.
I believe it's La or California, like scream O band.
There's just like a lot of really cool Screamo.
Speaker 2: Stuff going on at the moment that every time I
saw a Stomachus and the Nuns.
Speaker 3: I'm like, yeah, I just really like, you know, twenty
three minutes of like spiky, anguish, sort of like pained
metallic hardcore screamo sort of stuff, and this kind of
just gave me my fix of that.
Speaker 2: It's violence Stabsuty.
Speaker 3: There is like a real shrill, volatile scream time change,
like sort of tempo changes and like moments of like
serene beauty in there. But this is just like, like
I say, if you liked that Blind Girl's album, I
think again this is kind of offering up.
Speaker 2: There's some slight differences between them.
Speaker 3: But if you just want more just like really emostly
sort of intense, volatile screamo, this really hit the spot
for me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think there's actually you know, I only mentioned
them because it's the last time we covered something like this,
but I think that's actually a lot of differences. And
you know, we are in this sort of new age
of screama for whatever reason, where you know, to wear
Blind Girls or like you know, we've seen like Jillian
Carter at Dannation all this stuff. There's so many bands
at the moment for whatever reason kind of coming out
that you know or emo, violent, sort of sort of worlds.
This one is really technical. Is the thing that really
like surprised me because when I think about a Blind
Girls or like you think that someone like a portrayler
Gilt or something, and you know they're they're a really
ambitious band, you don't you think about that sort of
half classical last album they did, But in their riffing
and everything and their sort of tech luxury as a band,
it's filthy. You know. This is like really fucking complex
and really like almost like light beaming in your face technical.
And the fact that it's those are wound up in
like disorientating like one and a half minute songs a
lot of the time is really like overwhelming a lot
of the time and really something I have to wrap
your head around. But I was really surprised actually going
into again what I just thought, okay, a Screamer album,
I was really surprised by the like metallic hardcore athleticism
that's really going on instrumentally.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's the thing, is like it's kind of got
that that converge you kind of like riffing at times,
and that's sort of thing that immediately grabbed my attention
for this is that like this is fast and technical
and quite hard, and again it has you know, melodies
that are in there, but it's always kind of like
fills on a knife edge of like kind of like
lashing out into like some crazy like technical rift that's
just gonna like come out of nowhere, and it musical
just like keeps you on edge for that the whole
listen in a way that I want this music.
Speaker 1: Too, Yeah, I mean, even the main riff of and
in the end you threw it all away, that melodic
rift that seems to kind of pulse around in this
alien sort of world. It's like gagirity, you know, but
in the context of a minute and a half or whatever,
like metallic hardcore screamerby type song and that kind of
again metallic athleticism. It reminded me of stuff like you
know that the debut Ithaca album. Maybe I think obviously
you know, if you like stuff like that or Rollo
to Massy or like anything Jack Shirley Producers basically who
I think he has had has some involvement with this
band in the past. This, you know, didn't feel to
me the same as that, like you know, blind girl
style raaking your nails across like the bloody pulp of
your soul, for example, feel where you feel like you're
in some kind of dingy cave and you've been locked
away for eternity. This is like a really like confident
in its complexity, fucking threat board going ape shit with
eight arms, like the crazy tech runs on Conderform Projection
are just like absolutely just so agitated. Like I said,
it's sort of a beaming level of intensity going on
here rather than that really dark intensity.
Speaker 3: Well I think as well, there's like the songs are
quite like sort of multi sort of layered and sort
of like different parts going on, like figuring off reality
begins with like this like kind of like bouncy riff,
which is a little bit out of character of the
screen bands. It trades with the vocals, and then it
like springs in you know, bits of spoken word and
cleaning vocals. Towards the end, it's it's all quite dimising,
but that there are moments of like kind of brighter
textures frozen all of these elements like that, Like I mean,
you never sort of set into one mood bit misery
or anything else. It's always been like coming at you
with something new Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think My Reality is a song that, like I
noted down a few like just different things that happened
over that course of a couple of minutes. There's a
lot that goes on. It starts with that riff you're mentioning,
because it's like a twenty two minute record comprised of
a number of like one to two minute songs. It's
sort of a sweet in itself, you know, and that
open riff could just as easily basically be the breakdown
continuing on from the track before, you know, that sort
of collage like experience. But then that track it moves
into this sort of you know, slightly post rockish, you know,
oath breaker ish kind of building waterfall kind of dynamic
with guitars that seem to kind of bleed with this like,
you know, earthly kind of sense of sorrow rather than
you know, what the vocals are doing, which is the
really like abject, you know, screaming kind of paint sorrow.
But then there's a also like a lead guitar about
sort of like in the final thirty seconds or so
that I think, you know, it could just as easily
be a synth or something, and it sounds like the
cry of like an alien bird just like verbratting out
there into the mix, and there's really you know, bizarre
kind of touches like this if at all, is like
a proggy you know, brutus or Russian circles or something
that happens to have like scream oy vocals. And then
halfway through it moves just into like a harsh industrial
factory floor kind of ambient setting and it just stays
there in a moment that seems to stretch out like forever.
Like I thought it would just be a little beat,
but it ends up just putting you in the sort
of quivering noise purgatory for the length of most of
the other tracks on the album.
Speaker 3: It keeps you immersed in there. I mean, like again,
there's amazing guitar meds in it, and it is a
bit more sort of spacious, letting those lead guitars really
flourish for you. Like say, you just go into this
industrial kind of like ambient harsh noise hells gape cordiphone
projection that follows that is all that Like that one
was like as a multipart track, like that one goes
all over the place where you get this insane like
relentless riffing in the first half, and then it almost
kind of goes into like almost like these sort of
like post hardco bands into that kind of like post
punk thing like what Tuche Moray have done on some
of their like later records, where it kind of like really
shimmers for a little bit and it's like it's a
cool again sort of turn that comes out now, and
they only really do it on this song, but it
feels kind of like they've they never want to set into.
Speaker 2: Just one song being one move, and they're there again.
Speaker 3: They're short songs, but they're still sort of these multi
part suits in their brevity, which is a really kind
of like interesting and ambitious move to make.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and there are so many melodies on the guitars
basically at all times, but they don't really like spot
like any of them or let any of them really
become a hook per se, because they're not conventionally catching.
They're just really slippery, like you can't get handle on them.
And you know something like that that the songs are
so volatile and unpredictable any sustained sense of well again,
I might mention about like Rothera Toamassi or something like that.
Any sort of build that you would expect them to
do is pretty fleeting, because then all of a sudden
you are like abducted by aliens or you're thrown into
a pool of slime, or just like something violently bewildering
happens right until hilariously. Probably the only predictable thing about
this record is that is that all the songs are
one minute long until the closer, which is six minutes closer.
It's just that where you go, Okay, yeah, we're at
the end.
Speaker 3: Like I think the Blind and Crazy Thing has a
similar sort of thing where that alimends in like a
six minute but.
Speaker 1: At least that one's a death doomed that that's a
might dying bride track at the end.
Speaker 3: It just went love that all these bands just have
to end on their six minute closer. And the thing
is that, as I like lit Bigley says it is,
I mean, it's a really good closing track where it
does build into like edge of things and you get
like really somber, haunting, sort of beautiful moments, and then
it just rides out this like agro riff that just
eventually gets swallowed into feedback, so like it might be
you know, a little bit predictable that it ends on
the six minute closer, but it's a cool track to
end on.
Speaker 1: Yeah. The the level of feedback is like sort of
through silver in blurds like metal rods, just contorting and
bending around your ears, just kind of violence. Yeah, I
mean again, I would I would need to listen to
this a hundred times to like remember anything particularly that
goes on as I from just like ah, but the.
Speaker 2: Like yep, there's there's a riff there. You need to
listen to that song again because it lasted thirty seconds.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but there is a lot jammed in from a
band called a nouvela Skura with that album that is
titled How This All Ends. So that is the end
of again sort of kind of smaller band bracket of
album reviews and stuff, which I'm very pleased to have done.
Please do go and listen to everyone of those records.
Some of them are very short. I don't think any
of them are too demanded give your time, to be honest,
but there is I think guaranteed to be something that
you think is really interesting and will grab your ear.
Amongst those from you know, some and you maybe deserve
a few more eyes on them, So as well as
doing that, let us know which are the ones that
you're really impressed by and will you keep tabs on
these bands as they move forward? So cheers everybody for that,
and yeah, like one more time to the Prince of Darkness.
Bye bye everybody.