Speaker 1: Hello everybody, and welcome back to That's Not a Metal.
Speaker 1: We are your weekly rock and heavy metal podcast. We
Speaker 1: come here every single Friday. We let you know what's up,
Speaker 1: what's been going on this edition This week is our
Speaker 1: biggest episode of the month because it is our reviews
Speaker 1: bag episode for July. July traditionally, I always view it
Speaker 1: this way is a lower key month. Less of the
Speaker 1: big names are releasing their albums, but considering the couple
Speaker 1: of very highly notable, long awaited releases the Absite to
Speaker 1: drop in July, and a couple of records from just
Speaker 1: like the end of June, for example, that we hadn't
Speaker 1: got to yet, we have managed to piece together quite
Speaker 1: a sizeable I suppose it's up for debate and question
Speaker 1: that we will answer whether it is a tasty reviews batch,
Speaker 1: but definitely some prime T and M names that we
Speaker 1: have to be getting into. So later in the show
Speaker 1: we are going to be reviewing the new albums from
Speaker 1: Loathe Muse, the Mensingers, the excerpts Fuming Mouth, No Cure
Speaker 1: and Arise from Worms. My name is Paren Haish and
Speaker 1: with me to enjoy all of this stuff we had
Speaker 1: ahead of us is Sam dign on here. Hello, Sam,
Speaker 1: how are you doing?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Not it's a bad excited about some of the news.
Speaker 2: You've got to talk about interest to chat about some
Speaker 2: of these albums and kind of get into thinking. I say,
Speaker 2: it feels like a big July batch actually compared to Yeah,
Speaker 2: it usually is because normally, you know, it's the summer,
Speaker 2: it's festivals, that's all that's really going on, and the
Speaker 2: albums are a little bit sort of sparse. But I mean,
Speaker 2: I've my summer album dropped last week and I haven't
Speaker 2: stopped listening to it. No spoilers on what that might be,
Speaker 2: if anyone knows my taste, but I.
Speaker 1: Wonder what could it possibly be. It's also it's the
Speaker 1: oddyssey week, so I've been looking around for cyclopsters. I've
Speaker 1: been being wary of any trojan horses left on my doorstep.
Speaker 1: I'm absolutely might my surveillance levels, my wariness is up
Speaker 1: to a peak.
Speaker 2: I'm seeing it again on Saturday on like the big
Speaker 2: seventy milimeters screen in London. I'm not I can't get
Speaker 2: to like the Imax one because that's sold out until September,
Speaker 2: but they're still like the massive seventy millimeters one, so
Speaker 2: I'm seeing it again on that because yeah, that's a
Speaker 2: movie that I want to see again on like as
Speaker 2: big as thing, because like, yeah, good movie.
Speaker 1: It is good, it's bonkers. It's also obviously very very metal.
Speaker 1: I always feel like any sort of big, grand fantastical
Speaker 1: mythology type spectacle we have gone on it always chimes
Speaker 1: quite well with We've normally got some album or other
Speaker 1: dealing with some of this stuff. But that's what has
Speaker 1: been filling our weeks before we get into reviewing those albums.
Speaker 1: We are, as you were saying, we have got some
Speaker 1: news to run through, and our top story that we
Speaker 1: are going to open up this week is not one
Speaker 1: that I was anticipating, you know, arriving this time last
Speaker 1: week when we were doing our last episode. The first
Speaker 1: news story we've got to talk about comes courtesy of
Speaker 1: some little band called Gallows, who we don't know what yet.
Speaker 1: Maybe by the time that you're hearing us on Friday,
Speaker 1: everyone will know. Obviously we're recording this Thursday night, so
Speaker 1: if they have confirmed anything, we don't fucking know yet.
Speaker 1: But we don't know what they're up to. All we
Speaker 1: know is that they are up to something, and that
Speaker 1: is considerably more than they have been up to for
Speaker 1: a very long time. Actually, twenty nineteen was the last
Speaker 1: time that Gallows were like a genuinely active band, when
Speaker 1: they played a handful of shows, including the House of
Speaker 1: Van show in London, followed by then Slam Dunk that
Speaker 1: same weekend that you know, we attended. But that's the
Speaker 1: last time Gallows actually concretely existed and seven years past. Right,
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about some of the things that
Speaker 1: have gone on in that time involving, you know, members
Speaker 1: of Gallows that have made it seem like Gallows was
Speaker 1: in no way really a top concern, but it looks
Speaker 1: like something's going on.
Speaker 2: It feels crazy to me because like when Gallows came
Speaker 2: back in twenty nineteen, it felt like they'd been away
Speaker 2: for age, yes, and it'd been like it really did,
Speaker 2: like it has been like three four years. I can
Speaker 2: remember exactly how it was, but it felt like they
Speaker 2: they were done. And then they still had come back
Speaker 2: and was like, yes, Gallows are back. And then COVID
Speaker 2: because they had plans to tour like twenty twenties for
Speaker 2: that as well. I think they were doing reading festival
Speaker 2: or something. And then COVID happens, and then the Gallows
Speaker 2: reunion just vanished off the face of the earth and
Speaker 2: that was it.
Speaker 1: No more, no more Gallows again.
Speaker 2: And then as it eight year passed on and it
Speaker 2: was like, I think Gallows are done. And I mean
Speaker 2: we in our discord were having a discussion the other
Speaker 2: week literally about Gallows and yes, the likelihood of them
Speaker 2: ever coming back. What iteration of Gallows is it? Who's fronting,
Speaker 2: who's doing what this and what and whoever? And like,
Speaker 2: And the point we saw came to was like, regardless
Speaker 2: of Gallo's come back and play shows, I just want
Speaker 2: the Gallows catalog, all four albums, both ears, to get
Speaker 2: the recognition it deserves again because it feels like Gallows
Speaker 2: have kind of been lost to time a little bit,
Speaker 2: like obviously definitely outside of the UK, but even in
Speaker 2: the UK now where they were still you know, they
Speaker 2: had a reputation, they had an aura to them that
Speaker 2: just feels gone regards with whatever Gallows it is. So
Speaker 2: it was really nice to sort of see initially just
Speaker 2: a blacked out Facebook page and then an Instagram link
Speaker 2: of sign up to get news, which I've signed up
Speaker 2: for again. I don't well, I don't know when it's
Speaker 2: dropping in or we could be tomorrow, it could be
Speaker 2: a couple of time, but something's happening. I was just like, right, cool, Fine,
Speaker 2: at least we're going at least we're getting Gallows back
Speaker 2: in the conversation. And as a bunch of people to
Speaker 2: and again that's what I like, a bunch of people
Speaker 2: getting excited about Gallo's come back. And I was like, good,
Speaker 2: this is what we need. If anything, just Gallows being
Speaker 2: back in the conversation. Then we're kind of remembering what
Speaker 2: a fucking great band they are. And again, right now,
Speaker 2: I don't care who's running, who's doing what, what the is?
Speaker 2: I just want Gallows back in the conversation. Everyone's kind
Speaker 2: of go, oh, yeah, all four of those albums are
Speaker 2: fucking awesome. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I agree, because you know, we've been speaking for ages
Speaker 1: really about what a you know, unprecedented place hardcore is
Speaker 1: at right now as a cultural force and as like
Speaker 1: a genuinely mainstream force, and the way you generations of
Speaker 1: bands like Obviously Not Loose and Turnstile and you know,
Speaker 1: Code Orangine their time and all that, you know, all
Speaker 1: these kind of domino effects that have gone on where
Speaker 1: hardcore is so ubiquitous right now, it does feel like Gallows,
Speaker 1: for whatever reason, their part in that has fallen away
Speaker 1: from major discussion. And when people talk about the greatest
Speaker 1: hardcore bands of all time, I know, obviously there is
Speaker 1: a absolutely a cult following that we would certainly count
Speaker 1: ourselves as a part of who do regularly tout that.
Speaker 1: But that when people talk about you know, hardcore on
Speaker 1: Twitter all the time, which is as I said, all
Speaker 1: the time, right because it's it's such a you know,
Speaker 1: a unavoidable scene, Gallows do not come up anymore anywhere
Speaker 1: near as much as I think they should. So I
Speaker 1: agree that that is like, out of anything that could happen,
Speaker 1: I just want, I just think they should be recognized
Speaker 1: more so about what this actually you know, will be right,
Speaker 1: because we have a little trail of evidence here, as
Speaker 1: you said, started off with you know, blacked out social
Speaker 1: media pages, which always just sort of a sign of
Speaker 1: like you know, battle stations everyone, something is coming, but
Speaker 1: the scale of what that might be is unknown. Then
Speaker 1: we got the email link, which, like you said, which
Speaker 1: to me at least indicates that that sort of you
Speaker 1: know takes up or not right, that there is something coming.
Speaker 1: Are we looking at you know, live shows being announced
Speaker 1: like something like that, you know, tour dates, whatever it
Speaker 1: could be. But also I want to touch on, like
Speaker 1: you were saying, what form of Gallows could actually come
Speaker 1: back if we assume that this you know, piece of
Speaker 1: activity here is in fact the band again re emerging
Speaker 1: from their slumber to play some shows. It's not just
Speaker 1: a reissue or something like that. We obviously don't know
Speaker 1: what that actually means in terms of Gallows because the
Speaker 1: different version of Gallows that have existed, we have, like
Speaker 1: you were saying, when we've had conversations kind of off
Speaker 1: Mike about Gallows, I have said actually for a little
Speaker 1: while that if Gallows were to come back soon, I
Speaker 1: had started to believe it was more likely that we
Speaker 1: would actually get the Frank reunion than the you know,
Speaker 1: the last known active version of Gallows that was threatened
Speaker 1: by Wade McNeil coming back. And the reason I sort
Speaker 1: of felt that way is as the more time passed,
Speaker 1: I suppose, the more again the WAYE version of Gallows
Speaker 1: looked like it had run its course, in the way
Speaker 1: that the original Frank version of Gallows had had run
Speaker 1: its course. Obviously, you know the fact that there was
Speaker 1: a hiatus after they released the second album with Wade
Speaker 1: that then resulted in them coming out of you know,
Speaker 1: hiding for those shows that we mentioned took like four years.
Speaker 1: That was like, yeah, Gallows is of not the top,
Speaker 1: you know that Again, the primary concern of all the
Speaker 1: people involved right now, the fact that everything that's happened,
Speaker 1: you know, since the turn of the decade really only
Speaker 1: made me feel more that way. Where obviously we have
Speaker 1: Alexa on Fire becoming you know, a much more active
Speaker 1: band again after that with their new album and very
Speaker 1: constant touring and stuff like that. On top of that,
Speaker 1: Wades even during Thursday and has been playing with them.
Speaker 1: He's got his you know, pig pen exactly like other
Speaker 1: hardcore bands that he's been doing. So he's like he's
Speaker 1: a very busy man, Like if I wanted to grab me,
Speaker 1: always just's he's always somewhere. So I didn't know how
Speaker 1: much time Gallas would have in the schedule. The other
Speaker 1: members of Gallows, you know, Lags has been doing then records,
Speaker 1: I know that, you know, Steph Carter's doing stuff, stuff
Speaker 1: with Marshall, Like they just all seemed like they were
Speaker 1: doing other things and the wide version didn't seem like
Speaker 1: it had a you know, an immediate demand to exist,
Speaker 1: I suppose, And the longer that drifted away, the more
Speaker 1: I think the maybe the nostalgia call of getting the
Speaker 1: original guys together. And I don't mean a nostalgia call
Speaker 1: in terms of like trying to bank to an audience
Speaker 1: or something. I meant in themselves, right, because we've seen
Speaker 1: over the last however many years now, all these you know,
Speaker 1: the great photos of like, oh, here's Frank Carter and
Speaker 1: the Gallows guys. They're just hanging out, being buds at
Speaker 1: a show or whatever. Clearly like all on good terms.
Speaker 1: And I started to believe, like if Gallows were to
Speaker 1: come back, which I was not convinced would happen prior
Speaker 1: to this event that we are currently talking about, I
Speaker 1: was not saying that it was a guaranteed thing, but
Speaker 1: if it was to happen, I had started to believe
Speaker 1: the Frank you know, incarnation of Gallows was the more
Speaker 1: likely thing to re emerge then the way version. The
Speaker 1: only you know counterside to that, obviously is Frank has
Speaker 1: the matter in his you know, touring schedule of playing
Speaker 1: with the sex Pistols, which I know because that's not
Speaker 1: a creatively active band. Maybe that does leave room for
Speaker 1: him to go and be, you know, the front man
Speaker 1: of Gallows and the front man of the Sex Pistols,
Speaker 1: but obviously being with something busy also. I think it's
Speaker 1: worth noting earlier today, I believe, as we're doing this,
Speaker 1: Frank Carter posted on his Instagram story because I guess
Speaker 1: people had seen the Gallows announcement and have just started
Speaker 1: like reminiscing and posting stuff on social media, all this stuff.
Speaker 1: He posted something basically recognizing how often he was being
Speaker 1: tagged in things, and he said something along the lines
Speaker 1: of like it was an old tour poster. And he
Speaker 1: says something along the lines of, like, the best thing
Speaker 1: about whatever the fuck Gallows are doing right now is
Speaker 1: just me being reminded of all this great stuff we
Speaker 1: did to get right. And the wording of that obviously
Speaker 1: implies that Frank Carter does not know what Gallows are
Speaker 1: doing now. Could he be doing a kerry king about this, right?
Speaker 1: Could he be? He like he hasn't said I do
Speaker 1: not know what Gallows are doing. He said the best
Speaker 1: thing about whatever the fuck Gallows are doing, which he
Speaker 1: could well be involved with, We don't know. He could
Speaker 1: be Kerry King Slayer reunioning this. It's difficult to know.
Speaker 1: So with all that in mind, let's speculate again. This
Speaker 1: could happen tomorrow as this episode goes up, but we
Speaker 1: don't know right now. What do you think and what
Speaker 1: do you want to happen with this? Gallows And I.
Speaker 2: Think this is initially going to be a tour. I mean,
Speaker 2: like I love the way Hearer Gallows stuff. I want
Speaker 2: to see Frank Carter Gallows because I've never got to
Speaker 2: see Frank Carter Frank Gallows, Like I would love to
Speaker 2: see those songs performed by him, because like I never
Speaker 2: wanted to miss way from those songs because he was
Speaker 2: fucking brilliant at doing none of his reason and misery.
Speaker 2: But the idea of seeing Frank Carter perform them has
Speaker 2: always had that kind of I mean, like Great Britain
Speaker 2: is in my top twenty albums of all time. I
Speaker 2: think that album is a masterpiece. It's one of the
Speaker 2: most like brilliant stories in hardcore, one of the most
Speaker 2: forward thinking, unique hardcore records that doesn't get nearly as
Speaker 2: much praise as it deserves for fucking with the rules
Speaker 2: of just about every genre and every kind of like
Speaker 2: business practice in alternative music. It possibly could. I think
Speaker 2: it's like one of the great kind of outlaw stories.
Speaker 1: I think it stands next to Jane Doe is the
Speaker 1: greatest hard grabbing full time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I would not disagree, and I would the idea
Speaker 2: of seeing that is something that I've clung on too
Speaker 2: so long. I've always goind of made peace of I probably.
Speaker 2: I don't think he's gonna do it the whole whatever
Speaker 2: gas anything. He's not gonna give away on an Instagram
Speaker 2: story that he's coming back to Gallows. He's gonna play
Speaker 2: it coy like regardless of what something happens. Like, I
Speaker 2: think everyone deep down knows that the dream is to
Speaker 2: see Frank Carter come back, and that's what would make
Speaker 2: this Gallows reunion explode more than if it was just
Speaker 2: another waveun Like. I think the Wave union would be
Speaker 2: that same kind of like cult fan base who all
Speaker 2: like rocked up to House of Vans and went fucking
Speaker 2: meant like that gig and had the best time. But
Speaker 2: I think the idea of like a Gallows of Frank
Speaker 2: would be like a hope. I think Frank Carter needs
Speaker 2: something like this as well. I think like him doing
Speaker 2: the sex soff has been cool, but I like but
Speaker 2: I think his reputation is one of like the incendiary
Speaker 2: figures of UK music has diminished in the years, and
Speaker 2: I think it like a return to Gallows could reignite that.
Speaker 2: I would love this to be a tour that then leads.
Speaker 1: Onto an album.
Speaker 2: I again, like anything that's wrong that puts Gallows back
Speaker 2: in the prompt position is what I want. Realistically, I
Speaker 2: think we're getting a Gallows tour ten end of this
Speaker 2: year or early next year, and then maybe into like
Speaker 2: festival season next year, some extra eight and then that
Speaker 2: might be it. It might kind of just be like
Speaker 2: a one of those this is you know, the last
Speaker 2: ride of Gallows, be it with Wade and Frank We
Speaker 2: coming come back for one last actual like properly build final, right,
Speaker 2: That's what I think is most likely to happen. What
Speaker 2: I want to happen is tour, it go really well
Speaker 2: album and then Gallows are back.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I just would say for the record, I
Speaker 1: do agree. Obviously, I have seen the Wade incarnation of Gallows.
Speaker 1: I have loved the Wad incarnation of Gallows, but like you,
Speaker 1: I did not see the Franco Carnation of Gallows, and
Speaker 1: as someone who loves those first two records as well
Speaker 1: as the two with Wade, I would love to see
Speaker 1: It's the dream, like you said, everyone would want to
Speaker 1: see if they never saw it the first time out,
Speaker 1: that to happen and it would be a feel good story.
Speaker 1: The only thing I would all so add on to
Speaker 1: that is the worst thing about Gallows fan base going
Speaker 1: back over ten years, has been this tribal act about
Speaker 1: even while the weighed version of Gallows was active and
Speaker 1: around and people weren't fucking appreciating it because they were going, oh,
Speaker 1: get Frank back, right, Yeah, if they post this you know,
Speaker 1: teaser and get people excited, and they get those people
Speaker 1: excited and then they come back and it's the Way
Speaker 1: version of Gallows. Which if we got the Way version
Speaker 1: of Gallows back, particularly if they were to then make
Speaker 1: an album, right and if it wasn't just like twenty
Speaker 1: nineteen and we got actual new music because the last
Speaker 1: Wade record, fucking Desolation, sounds brilliant record. Barely anyone's heard
Speaker 1: it because people are fucking stupid about that band, but
Speaker 1: it's an incredible record there are very few punk wo
Speaker 1: Hargo albums released in the decade since that are better
Speaker 1: than that one. But like I said, if they post
Speaker 1: all this and they get the Frank purist excited, who
Speaker 1: have spent you know, the following fifteen years diminishing the
Speaker 1: activity of that band, and then they come back with
Speaker 1: the Way version of Gallows and those people start going, oh,
Speaker 1: you got us all excited, when it's just for the
Speaker 1: Way version coming back, I would just absolutely say once again,
Speaker 1: fuck those people, and it would be tremendously excited. So
Speaker 1: whichever version of Gallows does appear, I will be happy.
Speaker 1: I agree that the one that would be more cause
Speaker 1: for like, oh my God, would be obviously the Frank version.
Speaker 1: But either way, like I said, prior to you know,
Speaker 1: a couple of days ago, I did not we didn't
Speaker 1: have any Gallus activity. Considering the esteem that we hold
Speaker 1: that band in and all of their you know catalog,
Speaker 1: that is absolutely cause for celebration. So maybe it happens tomorrow.
Speaker 1: It certainly has to happen soon. Obviously we are waiting
Speaker 1: to see what's going on with Gallows, but they seem
Speaker 1: more alive than they were before, so good news. There
Speaker 1: some bad news. To sort of trade off that with
Speaker 1: talking about bands in the UK rock scene is Marmozettes
Speaker 1: have announced that they have split with Sam McIntire. Sam
Speaker 1: McIntyre obviously the sibling of Becker formerly McIntire now Becker Bottom,
Speaker 1: leave the front women of the band. The Marmoset's comeback
Speaker 1: has been like oddly, I don't know, it's it seemed
Speaker 1: on and off, isn't it. Where they came back released
Speaker 1: the album. We spoke about how the album maybe like
Speaker 1: wasn't as tremendous as their their first two albums, but
Speaker 1: it's still got a good amount of love. I know
Speaker 1: that when they went and did the you know, some
Speaker 1: shows for it, people talking about how great it was live,
Speaker 1: and then they even like released I'd forgotten about this
Speaker 1: until this announcement came out, But they released another song
Speaker 1: like beyond the album, like a couple of weeks ago.
Speaker 1: There was another extra single, so they seem to be,
Speaker 1: you know, have a lot of material hanging around. But
Speaker 1: then we've also had news like this where the kind
Speaker 1: of you know, chemistry within the band and they've said
Speaker 1: that it's due to the the you know the relationship
Speaker 1: between these members of the band, by which I had
Speaker 1: just been Sam and the other members, the other three
Speaker 1: primarily of the band becoming unworkable seems to have you know,
Speaker 1: had had its bumps already, even though it doesn't seem
Speaker 1: like they've been that, you know, that long since they
Speaker 1: have gone back.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean obviously, like the film with this one
Speaker 2: is like it was kind of known they were going
Speaker 2: to be taking a break after the Simc Becker is
Speaker 2: like several months pregnant again, so like that was coming
Speaker 2: to But it just feels weird that that that, like
Speaker 2: this has kind of been the sort of ending point
Speaker 2: of this initial first one of their reunion is one
Speaker 2: of the sort of members leaving. And again because it's
Speaker 2: like Marmosets has always been like a family unit, it
Speaker 2: feels extra odd then when you're like there is strong
Speaker 2: creative or like like differences in how things are going,
Speaker 2: and that's clearly caused the rift and the marmos Its
Speaker 2: union's kind of like just been very much like yeah,
Speaker 2: it's good, and then it's kind of stalled out and
Speaker 2: then it's kind of got but going and the like
Speaker 2: people say, like the two Thousand Trees set, the vibe
Speaker 2: did seem off. I didn't, I can't come out. I've
Speaker 2: just seen people say that, like you could. They felt
Speaker 2: like there was tensions on stage, which might be what
Speaker 2: then just led to this thing of kind of like
Speaker 2: you know, I'm done and that's it. It's yeah, it's
Speaker 2: just it feels like an odd kind of place to
Speaker 2: leave this Marmots union at this point.
Speaker 1: Yeah, very weird. Ghosts have confirmed the details of their
Speaker 1: next concert film. We've already got a second one. It's
Speaker 1: pretty crazy that where they haven't even taken you know,
Speaker 1: a number of years between them, and they've just gone right,
Speaker 1: next album, next tour. Immediately. It's almost becoming a regular thing,
Speaker 1: the Ghost trip to the cinema. But their new film
Speaker 1: is called Too Big, Too Rig and that is going
Speaker 1: to be out in cinemas and imax as well August
Speaker 1: the twenty sixth. This one obviously captures the Scaler tour
Speaker 1: in the way that the previous right here, right now
Speaker 1: film did the Emperor Tour. I guess the curious part
Speaker 1: but this is how different will it be from the
Speaker 1: previous film. Obviously, I know the tour is different, but
Speaker 1: I mean from a filmmaking sensibility, the previous film famously
Speaker 1: had a lot of the sort of skits and like,
Speaker 1: you know, the comedic narrative elements and stuff around the
Speaker 1: actual concert film part. I don't know if they will
Speaker 1: be doubling down as much on that. Interestingly, I watched
Speaker 1: the trailer for this, which is only like a you know,
Speaker 1: one minute thirty seconds long. There's not a lot to
Speaker 1: take from it, considering most of it is obviously going
Speaker 1: to be you know, the concert footage of them playing
Speaker 1: live and stuff. But there's nothing in there in that
Speaker 1: trailer that you know, there's none of that usual you know,
Speaker 1: fucking what's her name, Sister Imperator or like, you know,
Speaker 1: the characters of the Ghost Universe. None of them are
Speaker 1: in there. And there's actually more like little interviews and
Speaker 1: stuff with what appears to be the crew and the
Speaker 1: people like putting on the show, and there's more like
Speaker 1: shots of again the assembly of the stage and stuff
Speaker 1: like that. So I don't know if this film is
Speaker 1: going to maybe have a little more more realism to
Speaker 1: it in terms of like peeling back the curtain a
Speaker 1: little bit and talking to like some of the you know,
Speaker 1: the production side of what's gone into the Ghost stage show.
Speaker 1: Maybe instead of the narrative elements I don't know, but
Speaker 1: like that's all I can go on are really from
Speaker 1: the again like the ninety second trailer, but that's that's
Speaker 1: too big to rig.
Speaker 2: Well when it's called two big rig that has a
Speaker 2: kind of feeling, yeah, setting up the stage show and
Speaker 2: that kind of like the production aspect of it. So
Speaker 2: I do wonder if this is going to kind of
Speaker 2: be you know, the concert film with the kind of
Speaker 2: the behind the scenes sort of thing is quite a
Speaker 2: popular thing at the moment. Again, like that that kind
Speaker 2: of like peak behind the currency you're the artists like
Speaker 2: off stage and like ghost through that, but actually doing
Speaker 2: it seriously and not with these like with the silly
Speaker 2: comedy skits.
Speaker 1: I mean, that could be. That could be interesting.
Speaker 2: It might justify this being you know, another concert film
Speaker 2: really so quickly if they bring me different to it.
Speaker 2: I wondered it and mind this thing. When I heard
Speaker 2: that we're doing, sayone was like did they just realize
Speaker 2: the skit thing were bad? And they were like, right,
Speaker 2: when you just want a live document that has got
Speaker 2: that without the comedy and the characters interrupting the flow
Speaker 2: of the concerts. That was my again, biggest gripe with
Speaker 2: right here, right now is like the con stuff is great,
Speaker 2: and then every now and then you'd have to be
Speaker 2: pulled away from that to have these like silly behind
Speaker 2: the backstage sort of bits of all the characters that
Speaker 2: I just wasn't invested in. But then, yeah, I think
Speaker 2: like Ghosts are the band who can pull off multiple
Speaker 2: concert films. I feel like that again because each tour
Speaker 2: is such a different spectacle. So if you didn't like,
Speaker 2: I didn't see I didn't see the skill of tour,
Speaker 2: so I might go on to this just again to
Speaker 2: get a glimpse of that.
Speaker 1: But I think, yeah, it could be good fun. Yes,
Speaker 1: here is an interesting stat for you, Sleep Tokens album
Speaker 1: Take Me Back to Eden, which was the twenty twenty
Speaker 1: three there third album, and I think we would all
Speaker 1: sort of largely say the album where the sleep token,
Speaker 1: you know, rising cults became genuinely like the dominant global
Speaker 1: metal force that they have been. That album has been
Speaker 1: officially certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America,
Speaker 1: so that means platinum in America. Obviously, there are other
Speaker 1: countries around the world who have their own sort of
Speaker 1: version of UK platinum whatever, but America obviously the biggest market, right,
Speaker 1: That's that's the big one. This is, you know, obvious
Speaker 1: a combination of sales, but also over two billion global streams.
Speaker 1: And I saw this thing and I was just sort of,
Speaker 1: you know, it occurred to me. I was like, I
Speaker 1: don't know, off top my head, how many you know,
Speaker 1: big metal releases or rock releases in the past. However
Speaker 1: many years have actually been certified platinum because it's something
Speaker 1: that we associate a lot more with, you know, the
Speaker 1: kind of golden age of record sales. Right, yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: just going to say a lot of older stuff, like you know,
Speaker 1: obviously you know, if you say that hybrid theory or
Speaker 1: fucking you hysteria or whatever is however many times you
Speaker 1: know certified, then it makes sense. But in the modern era,
Speaker 1: when sales are not what they obviously used to be,
Speaker 1: it's something you see less often. And I was like,
Speaker 1: I don't know, like what other albums have done that
Speaker 1: in recent times. And if anyone, like again I was
Speaker 1: just doing a cursory google, that might be completely wrong.
Speaker 1: So if anyone has like other knowledge or information on this, like,
Speaker 1: do share it, because I would be interested but I
Speaker 1: was just thinking like, Okay, what are the other recent
Speaker 1: really big, like really like again prominent heavy bands, right,
Speaker 1: so obviously a google Ghost, I was like, do Ghost
Speaker 1: have like a platinum album? And as far as I
Speaker 1: could tell, they have one in Sweden, but they do
Speaker 1: not have an American certified platinum album in the way
Speaker 1: that taken back to Eden's would be. And then I
Speaker 1: was like, what about Bringing the Horizon, And as far
Speaker 1: as I could tell, they do not have one. And
Speaker 1: you might look at records like Send Paternal and that's
Speaker 1: the Spirit which obviously be around way longer than sleep
Speaker 1: Tokens albums, and as far as I can tell, they
Speaker 1: have not been either. So a genuine rarefied air thing
Speaker 1: that that album from three years ago has gotten to do.
Speaker 1: So that's again an interesting stat Nonetheless, otherwise, we have
Speaker 1: got a whole bunch of just album announcements really to
Speaker 1: rattle through. Chelsea Wolf, who obviously shared those two singles
Speaker 1: the other week, she has shared a third one called Cold,
Speaker 1: but also the news that her album is called The Dark,
Speaker 1: sharing the name of one of the previous singles she
Speaker 1: put out, and it's going to be out on August
Speaker 1: the twenty first, which is the same week that she
Speaker 1: headlines ARC Tangent and also plays a show in London,
Speaker 1: which I'm very fucking jealous of, you know you having
Speaker 1: trying to.
Speaker 2: Get tickets for that because I've not fingers and sell Tomorrow.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna I'm gonna try that because I've not seen
Speaker 2: Chelsea Wolf yet and her I think she's doing The
Speaker 2: Dark in full in the Dome in like a time,
Speaker 2: which is a small Yeah, that's going to that's going
Speaker 2: to be a kind of a cool show to see
Speaker 2: some you. I'm gonna try and get to that.
Speaker 1: Yes, but just obviously know I don't want to talk
Speaker 1: about too the song too heavily, but just to confirm
Speaker 1: off the back of the previous two songs, which are
Speaker 1: more of again the kind of the you know, earthy
Speaker 1: folk music type route of her material after obviously the
Speaker 1: previous album was more like electronic. This new track cold.
Speaker 1: I remember when we were talking about the previous singles,
Speaker 1: it might have been The Dark, but Elliott compared one
Speaker 1: of them to Florence in the Machine and we sort
Speaker 1: of giggled a bit. And then I heard this one,
Speaker 1: and I think this one is actually a little bit
Speaker 1: more like definitely going that kind of alt folk, you know,
Speaker 1: sort of direction for this one.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's it's it's one of the cool
Speaker 2: things about Chelsea Wolf where she can kind of like
Speaker 2: climb out for it and it still feels kind of considered.
Speaker 2: But this is I said that that old folk thing,
Speaker 2: that from Streme thing. It's probably the most she's ever
Speaker 2: sounded that. I think it's cool, though, I'm down to
Speaker 2: storp here. I wonder for again, the album will kind
Speaker 2: of go into like sha like more shadowy trains with
Speaker 2: this particular sound I'm guessing against versically they kind of
Speaker 2: hint that that, but yeah, I'm I'm intrigued. It's I'm
Speaker 2: glad it's going to be a very different vibe to
Speaker 2: the last.
Speaker 1: Album you always imagine it will be. I'm on a math.
Speaker 1: I've announced their album. It's called The All Father Awakens.
Speaker 1: It's out October the second, and yes, it does feature
Speaker 1: that acoustic song that I briefly mentioned on I Think
Speaker 1: last week's show. I Hate Breed have got their new
Speaker 1: albums called Fatal Paradox and that is going to be
Speaker 1: out later in the year. That was going to be
Speaker 1: out in November. I believe as much as we love
Speaker 1: Hatebreed right, and we do love Hatebred and we talk
Speaker 1: about them regularly, I will say the last Hate Breed
Speaker 1: album is the most like completely memory hold by the
Speaker 1: world at large has happened. Like even when it comes
Speaker 1: to their festival settlists. I know that some people say, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: everything passed two thousand and nine or whatever. It might
Speaker 1: not be as good as the Glory Days, but you
Speaker 1: can trust, like, you know, looking down the Barrel today
Speaker 1: became their biggest song, like literally, whereas the last album
Speaker 1: they don't play anything off it, like it completely came
Speaker 1: and went. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I think that last album was decent, but it was
Speaker 2: it landed before Hatebreed kind of re cement themselves in
Speaker 2: the hardcore scene fair yeah like, and they were just
Speaker 2: kind of like riding off the wave of sort of
Speaker 2: them in the melt scene. So I think this new
Speaker 2: album might actually make more of an impact. I think
Speaker 2: the lead single off It Killed Can Increase is a
Speaker 2: fucking banger and ends with one like the sickest most
Speaker 2: parts Hatred have written in a long time. So I'm
Speaker 2: like they are channeling their hardcore side. They are getting
Speaker 2: back in touch with that kind of vibe. It's like,
Speaker 2: so I wonder if that's gonna make this album. Maybe
Speaker 2: won't do so well with you know, the download festival.
Speaker 2: You're kind of like Fest of Masais crowd. But if
Speaker 2: you want just kind of pure, like violent mosh anthems,
Speaker 2: I feel like Hate we might actually delive on that.
Speaker 2: I'm kind of excited. And you know, there's a John
Speaker 2: Tardy guest spot on the album, on the track this,
Speaker 2: there's a CC cover, So I'm like, I was just
Speaker 2: uite like, I'm kind of down for this Hate We
Speaker 2: record like I've got a good, good feeling and it
Speaker 2: could be, could could come, and it's like, oh yeah,
Speaker 2: that lead single is good, the John Tidy guess what's called,
Speaker 2: and then the rest of it does get kind of
Speaker 2: memory hold again. But I want to.
Speaker 1: Believe, all right. Also in that Vain Pain of Truth,
Speaker 1: who had a pretty well liked Daily album a few
Speaker 1: years ago, they have announced their second album, which is
Speaker 1: self titled, and that's out on September the twenty fifth.
Speaker 1: And also on the confirming album fronts, you know records
Speaker 1: that we've already had music from, but now we have
Speaker 1: news about the albums. Uncle Assen and the Dead Beats,
Speaker 1: the Eternal Enemies of Damon, Albara and the Guerrillas. Their
Speaker 1: new album is confirmed. It's called Shapes of Midnight and
Speaker 1: that's coming out on September the eighteenth, again September. Shaping
Speaker 1: up pretty well at this stage in time, employed to serve.
Speaker 1: Speaking of bands we've had music from recently, they have
Speaker 1: dropped another potentially I guess, standalone single. They had a
Speaker 1: single called Dead Reckoning, which came out in May, and
Speaker 1: obviously this is you know, they've had their their Fallen
Speaker 1: Star album last year, wasn't it. So I don't know
Speaker 1: if this seems like it would be quite soon to
Speaker 1: be expecting another album, but they are dropping like a
Speaker 1: series now of individual tracks. This one's called a Moment
Speaker 1: Gone Too Soon. And when Mark and I were speaking
Speaker 1: about on the show of the Week that they released
Speaker 1: that previous record, and we were like, this is, you know,
Speaker 1: considering fall and Star had experience more melodies and electronics
Speaker 1: stuff like that. That track was like, oh suffocation, like
Speaker 1: more of the brutal death, no influence, And this one
Speaker 1: I was sort of expecting, you know, a second track
Speaker 1: in a row to go in a differ direction, but
Speaker 1: this one actually still very death metal influence, like very
Speaker 1: clearly drawing on, you know, Sammy's love of death metal ripping.
Speaker 1: And then there is a really fucking cool, like proper
Speaker 1: naughties metal corese style heavy metal lead guitar flourish that
Speaker 1: comes in the chorus as well, So full on, we're
Speaker 1: back to like genuine ripping metal stuff after maybe the
Speaker 1: previous record still had that for sure, but you know,
Speaker 1: again explore some of the other shades as well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and again I liked that last Employed SEF but
Speaker 2: it was the first one I kind of had to
Speaker 2: kind of like grap all of them doing things that
Speaker 2: were again a bit more commercial leaning, and and I
Speaker 2: was like, they do it work better than a lot
Speaker 2: of bands, but it was kind of like a flavor
Speaker 2: was going they had to adjust to them doing these
Speaker 2: two songs. Again, I wasn't there to review the first one,
Speaker 2: but I was like, this is like so fucking good,
Speaker 2: and this new one, I think I prefer the previous
Speaker 2: one to this new one, but I don't know if
Speaker 2: this is going to be you know, just in between
Speaker 2: alms out where we'll get there the sort of the
Speaker 2: real gnally employed to stuff. And then the alms might
Speaker 2: again play in a bit more of the sort of
Speaker 2: like modern metalcore thing that they were doing on the
Speaker 2: last album. But I mean, this is a really fucking
Speaker 2: cool single and if it's to go along with this tour, like,
Speaker 2: that's sick. If we get a new album an ounce
Speaker 2: soon off the back of these singles and they're on
Speaker 2: it's that's sick as well.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I'd love an EP, like, give me a
Speaker 1: five to six track EP of the employees.
Speaker 2: I'm just doing a deaf metal EP where it's.
Speaker 1: Just like blasting and slamming employees. Yeah, like twenty five
Speaker 1: minutes of that. That would That's what I would manifest.
Speaker 1: And they are doing a UK and Europe co headline
Speaker 1: tour with the Danish death core band Cabal going through
Speaker 1: November as well, so they might well be coming somewhere
Speaker 1: near you. And finally, also on the touring front, Warning
Speaker 1: have announced a UK headline tour around of five dates
Speaker 1: supporting their new album, which came out a month or
Speaker 1: so ago. And I'm really excited for this because I've
Speaker 1: seen Warning twice and both times they've done Watching from
Speaker 1: a Distance in full, because that was basically the only
Speaker 1: material that they had that people wanted to hear alive
Speaker 1: and I as someone who I still fucking love that
Speaker 1: new album they put out, and the idea of go
Speaker 1: and see Warning like not at a festival, but headlining
Speaker 1: their own show in a you know, a smallish venue
Speaker 1: as they are doing with a combination of like you know,
Speaker 1: tracks pulled from like a real proper band, you know,
Speaker 1: like a just setlers drawn from you know, across their records,
Speaker 1: old and you is really exciting to me. So in
Speaker 1: December when they are playing Birmingham, Glasgow and Manchester, Bristol
Speaker 1: and London, if you also want to share in that,
Speaker 1: then Warning are coming around. So let us move on
Speaker 1: with the show. And firstly I want to talk a
Speaker 1: little bit about what we are doing over on the Patreon,
Speaker 1: which is the place where we do our best stuff. Essentially,
Speaker 1: like you want the best podcasts that that's not metal makes,
Speaker 1: they're on the Patreon because that is where we designate
Speaker 1: a topic and we go in deep. The most recent
Speaker 1: thing that we completed last week was the final parts,
Speaker 1: the fourth concluding part of our band special on corn
Speaker 1: a special that in its totality across those four parts
Speaker 1: I think is something like a bit under sixteen hours
Speaker 1: of diving into the band who invented new metal and
Speaker 1: spread that across the world and the influence and the
Speaker 1: long term effects for our world that has had, but
Speaker 1: then also went off and made a whole string of
Speaker 1: their own albums kind of in their own bubble to
Speaker 1: all sorts of varying degrees, really really fascinating. This final part,
Speaker 1: we were looking at the four albums that they have
Speaker 1: made since Head returned to the band includes some real
Speaker 1: like career highs records like the Nothing that we were
Speaker 1: going in deep on, like why they were such standouts
Speaker 1: for them at that point in time, and also summing up,
Speaker 1: like I said, the strange last couple of years they
Speaker 1: had had where they haven't even put out an album
Speaker 1: in the last couple of years, and yet the paradigm
Speaker 1: has shifted, yeah, if you like, in terms of where
Speaker 1: corn City we were trying to get to the bottom
Speaker 1: of that and assessing that and where they overall sit.
Speaker 1: And as I've said a couple of times, that was
Speaker 1: a special of one of the most influential bands that
Speaker 1: we were talking on the show, Like I think that
Speaker 1: they are batting around the top five of the most
Speaker 1: influential heavy metal bands of all time and the bands
Speaker 1: of that statue that we had left to do. They
Speaker 1: are the one that was like they were a specter
Speaker 1: over us for many, many years. People wanted us to
Speaker 1: do it, and having done it and having completed it,
Speaker 1: I'm proud of the effort we've given it. So that
Speaker 1: is out there over the next couple of weeks. Having
Speaker 1: completed that, that obviously took a lot of our time
Speaker 1: and attention working on that over the last few months.
Speaker 1: But over the next couple of weeks, we've got some
Speaker 1: other stuff that we want to be doing. We do
Speaker 1: want to bring back T and M does Horror, which
Speaker 1: has been essentially on you know, kind of a hiatus
Speaker 1: slumber over the summer as we have been busy, Sam
Speaker 1: was away, etc. But we do want to bring that back.
Speaker 1: And it turns out it's been a crazy few months.
Speaker 1: Like you dipped at a time when horror went fucking
Speaker 1: mental and.
Speaker 2: Like the two movies coming out whilst I was away,
Speaker 2: being like the two most like talking point horror movies
Speaker 2: of the year, I was like, great, cool, missing out
Speaker 2: on all of it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but we're going to sort of, I suppose try
Speaker 1: and sum up a little bit what's been going on
Speaker 1: over the summer. Obviously, we have to talk about the
Speaker 1: obsession of the season, right obsession, which has if you
Speaker 1: have been following just movies, let alone horror, but just
Speaker 1: sort of movie numbers and stuff, it's been a genuine
Speaker 1: phenomenon in a way that very few movies achieved. So
Speaker 1: we're gonna have to talk about that. We also want
Speaker 1: to talk about the new Evil Dead movie that's just
Speaker 1: come out, Evil Dead Burn as we always want to
Speaker 1: talk about Evil Dead. So those will be the two
Speaker 1: primary movies of discussion in our next episode there. But
Speaker 1: I think we're also maybe a little you know, to
Speaker 1: just touch a little bit on again some of the
Speaker 1: stuff that's happened over the last few months, movies like
Speaker 1: you know, backrooms and so on, everything else has been
Speaker 1: going on, so we have that to get to. But
Speaker 1: we're going to be doing an album club episode. The
Speaker 1: last one of these we did was a couple of
Speaker 1: months ago when we looked at the likes of bringing
Speaker 1: the horizons count your blessings ahead of what has now
Speaker 1: happened with the twentieth diniversary celebrations and all of that.
Speaker 1: But we are going to get back to it myself,
Speaker 1: Samon Elliott, and the four albums that we have got
Speaker 1: assembled for this upcoming album Club Batch are a really
Speaker 1: odd ball bunch in a way that has a loose
Speaker 1: theming around it that I think is very interesting and
Speaker 1: will be interesting for us to do and we can
Speaker 1: get some stuff out of it. First of all, with
Speaker 1: the news of the band's return and one of the
Speaker 1: most acclaimed, enormous in stature albums that has never been
Speaker 1: on album Club, so we had to get around to
Speaker 1: doing it. This is the right time, Faith No Mare's
Speaker 1: Angel Dust. Then we have one of the most revered
Speaker 1: but also one of the most unique, never really to
Speaker 1: be quite replicated bands from the goth sphere. We're going
Speaker 1: to be looking at Dead Can Dance and their eighties
Speaker 1: album Within the Realms of the Dying Sun. Then we
Speaker 1: are going to be having some cowboy punk, I guess,
Speaker 1: with the self titled album from One Social Distortion. And
Speaker 1: then finally again another really weird album to throw in here,
Speaker 1: but we're gonna have some fun with it. I think
Speaker 1: we are going to be looking at Alva's healthcare themed
Speaker 1: orchestral noise rock album Blood Inside, a proper weirdo album
Speaker 1: that most people, I guarantee will have not heard, but
Speaker 1: we're gonna have a discussion about it and see what
Speaker 1: the hell they were cooking on that one. Those four,
Speaker 1: like I said, really eccentric records all over the shop
Speaker 1: are gonna be going under the album club microscope next time. So,
Speaker 1: like I said, if you want to hear that, as
Speaker 1: those episodes go out live, you can hear them on
Speaker 1: That's Not Metal Patreon, patreon dot com, slash That's Not
Speaker 1: Metal right into the reviews today and looking at this bunch,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna warn people up front, it's not smooth sailing.
Speaker 1: I don't want people to sort of tune out of
Speaker 1: that and go, oh, they're just gonna be negative nancies whatever,
Speaker 1: because we're not broadly painting with the brush right tar
Speaker 1: this that or the other. But I think certainly I
Speaker 1: can speak for myself even in some ways that maybe
Speaker 1: you don't. I don't know, but I think collectively we
Speaker 1: might have some difficult feelings about some of these albums.
Speaker 1: But these are some massive albums that are some of
Speaker 1: the most again noteworthy in the T and M calendar
Speaker 1: of this particular year. So let's get into them. And
Speaker 1: the first one of those is Loathe with their new
Speaker 1: album A Stranger to You, which is one of the
Speaker 1: most anticipated heavy album releases of the decade. Actually because
Speaker 1: finally after six years five if they count, and the
Speaker 1: Little Ambient one. But yeah, after six years, we have
Speaker 1: got the new Loathe album in twenty twenty, I let
Speaker 1: it In and it took everything, became one of the
Speaker 1: biggest breakout metal albums of this current decade, an album
Speaker 1: that made them incredibly central to the modern metal conversation,
Speaker 1: to the point that, like, I know, they did have
Speaker 1: a debut album in twenty seventeen, but twenty twenty felt
Speaker 1: like when Loathe blew up to the points of almost
Speaker 1: leaving anything before that in ancient history. You know, It's
Speaker 1: almost like Rose to Judah into sun Bath. Like they
Speaker 1: were peripheral to the conversation in twenty seventeen, and in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty, very suddenly they were unignorable. And that album,
Speaker 1: in its reception and the way people continually down the
Speaker 1: line have taken it to heart is one of what
Speaker 1: I think you might call the gen Z metal classics,
Speaker 1: where if you talk to people under the age of
Speaker 1: I'll say under twenty nine because I'm twenty nine right now,
Speaker 1: and I feel like this is something that I have
Speaker 1: sort of distantly observed rather than being actively part of.
Speaker 1: But what are you know that demographics favorite metal albums?
Speaker 1: I let it in and it's if everything I think
Speaker 1: is an incredibly popular choice. And if you were to
Speaker 1: look at, you know, the massive medical bands of that generation,
Speaker 1: you might say that the kind of the big three
Speaker 1: of that are like Sleep, Token, bad Omen, spirit Box,
Speaker 1: Loathe or almost like the artistic favorite, like a little
Speaker 1: bit of rung below those bands in terms of size,
Speaker 1: but the love that people have for them and the
Speaker 1: praise that they lavish upon them is kind of a
Speaker 1: step beyond and in his own world to the point that,
Speaker 1: like I said, back in twenty twenty one, we reviewed
Speaker 1: an ambient album that they put out just because there
Speaker 1: was so much interest in what Loath were going to
Speaker 1: do next after le and it took everything and instead
Speaker 1: of carrying on that momentum and striking while the eyron
Speaker 1: is hot, they have taken six years to follow it
Speaker 1: up properly. We have been talking for so long about
Speaker 1: the next Loath album. Recently, when they played Outbreak, I
Speaker 1: went back and I looked at some coverage of the
Speaker 1: last time I went and they played, which was Outbreak
Speaker 1: twenty twenty three, and their people were saying, let's not
Speaker 1: wait too much longer for the new album now, and
Speaker 1: that was that was half the time ago, and Sam,
Speaker 1: you and I have had conversations in those six years.
Speaker 1: How you know, interest has seemed to ebb and flow
Speaker 1: in that time, as you know for everyone else musical
Speaker 1: life has had to simply carry on.
Speaker 2: It's such a bizarre to me this in this amount
Speaker 2: of time, like for so many people, that the interest
Speaker 2: of low will have like come and gone because they
Speaker 2: took so long. But the idea that a new band
Speaker 2: could take six years to follow up an album ten
Speaker 2: years ago that would have been like Chris suicide taking
Speaker 2: three years to follow up album was considered too long
Speaker 2: and you were past there and you were thrones to
Speaker 2: the side. The fact that there is now the patience
Speaker 2: to let Loaf take this long is feels insane. And
Speaker 2: the fact that actually in the long run it is
Speaker 2: the smartest thing they could have done because it has
Speaker 2: let their legend grow in the six years they like
Speaker 2: Ireland and took everything was like a big deal in
Speaker 2: the UK. I think when it came out, But over
Speaker 2: that six years now this album has kind of like
Speaker 2: spread and they are like it is earned its place
Speaker 2: as like like as seen as like one of the
Speaker 2: great metal albums of the like I said of the
Speaker 2: twentifefth century, that crowd, that octane gen z, metal core
Speaker 2: crowd whatever, like the sort of thing they look at
Speaker 2: Eilean and like it is it's their white pony. It
Speaker 2: has that level of like like And again I like,
Speaker 2: I really like that a lot. It was in my
Speaker 2: top twenty of that year. I don't I don't look
Speaker 2: at that. I'm on that regard, but that younger audience do,
Speaker 2: and I think fair enough because it was I mean
Speaker 2: to me, it was now that exposed that metalcore crowd
Speaker 2: to more sounds that were just metalcore and pop music
Speaker 2: like that, that's all that sort of we're kind of
Speaker 2: getting from their metalcore and love kind of like offered
Speaker 2: additional flavors and that, and then you know, the ambient
Speaker 2: album kind of showed that they could do more. And
Speaker 2: again I was very much like, come on, guys, come on,
Speaker 2: you just get the album. Like and I My interest
Speaker 2: did wane over the years, but for a lot of
Speaker 2: people taking so long, it's just meant that legend has grown,
Speaker 2: that buzz and that e Simon has grown. And so
Speaker 2: this this new album is this mythical like fear and
Speaker 2: oculum style long awaited like biblical second coming album because
Speaker 2: because that six year wait has allowed Loaves kind of
Speaker 2: like stature within that Again, I'm insing that is within
Speaker 2: this core like fan base, that is where this Loaves,
Speaker 2: that is what Loath I'm mainly marketing to, and that
Speaker 2: is where Low are going to have their most success now.
Speaker 2: And they have kind of like deified Low in the
Speaker 2: build up to this album, and it's meant the long
Speaker 2: way it has meant the album is more exciting than
Speaker 2: it could have possibly been if it had come two.
Speaker 1: Three years after after I let it in. It's covering.
Speaker 1: I do agree about again the sort of you know,
Speaker 1: tool esque mythical reputation, even in just six years compared
Speaker 1: to you know, fucking thirty.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the time rames are different and the scalars different,
Speaker 2: and it is, but again I want to that's gonna
Speaker 2: be saying the album in general is that. But for
Speaker 2: again the metalcore crowd who are oh yeah yeah.
Speaker 1: For that demographic, it's absolutely comparable, like you were saying,
Speaker 1: and my relationship with Loathe is a bit of an
Speaker 1: unsteady one, I would say, because this is here obviously
Speaker 1: as lead review, because as we've said, this is one
Speaker 1: of the most anticipated and I would say important albums
Speaker 1: of this year. But it is also I think important
Speaker 1: for us as people approaching this reviewing this to establish
Speaker 1: that there is that bit of a disconnect in that
Speaker 1: we are reviewing the new album from a band where
Speaker 1: to their primary fan base they are a already legendary band.
Speaker 1: They are, to their converge, their death tones, right, they are.
Speaker 1: This album is everything to again that that demographic who
Speaker 1: have been waiting for it in that way, and we
Speaker 1: merely thought they were good to begin with, and I
Speaker 1: let it take everything. I agree it is a good album.
Speaker 1: I think one of the best of their contemporary scene,
Speaker 1: even for the reasons that you were saying, But it
Speaker 1: is not within one hundred miles of being in contention
Speaker 1: what for what I think the best heavy albums of
Speaker 1: this decade are right, and you again agree, very fine album,
Speaker 1: But you've suggested, like you said, that you've maybe drifted
Speaker 1: away from the little bit in that time when I
Speaker 1: let it came out, I remember saying this, like they
Speaker 1: are a clearly really talented and able musicians with a
Speaker 1: dynamism way beyond what mostly passes for metal court these days.
Speaker 1: I hope they can come out with something more original
Speaker 1: next time, and to be fair, they have like this
Speaker 1: album is less van fleet for Deftones than that record was.
Speaker 1: This album does show I think the kind of creatives
Speaker 1: that Loathes are primarily interested in being in what they
Speaker 1: have made after six years is not just part two
Speaker 1: of that record, nor is it even really an expansion
Speaker 1: of the things that might make Loathe more sort of
Speaker 1: broadly universally appealing, you know, like this is, whatever else
Speaker 1: we might say about it's one of the densest, most
Speaker 1: complicated albums made by a major metal band this year.
Speaker 2: For a commercial metalcore band to do an album like this,
Speaker 2: I think is really admirable because this album it is
Speaker 2: like I don't I'm not gonna say's slow band because
Speaker 2: I don't think it's like a slow burn, but you're.
Speaker 1: Right, it is dense.
Speaker 2: It is weaving in so many different styles and elements
Speaker 2: and even again not just playing to what the metalcore
Speaker 2: crowd go for. I know, like obviously we've gone here.
Speaker 2: Like Sleep Took can have somehow managed to sell kind
Speaker 2: of like weirdly ambling long form of like gent instrumentals
Speaker 2: with a pop vocal like that that do kind of
Speaker 2: like go into weird places. They've managed to sell that
Speaker 2: to a crowd, and Loath are like not doing exactly that,
Speaker 2: but it is. It is just fascinating how the milicle crowd,
Speaker 2: who I associate with some of the most just cookie cutter,
Speaker 2: they will lap up anything sort of thing. And maybe
Speaker 2: this is this is the why Loath have been so good,
Speaker 2: because they fit in that sort of crowd, but they
Speaker 2: offer they do offer more and again on this album
Speaker 2: they offer even more.
Speaker 1: So I think that's why this album.
Speaker 2: Might be like a mind daughtering, like oh my god,
Speaker 2: there's so much more out there experience for all that crowd.
Speaker 2: I do think that ambition is going to be the
Speaker 2: is one of my sticking points with Loath on this album.
Speaker 2: It's a really like my thing of this album are
Speaker 2: really complicated because I admire the fuck out of the
Speaker 2: swing Loath of Taken.
Speaker 1: And We'll get and I think there are things about
Speaker 1: it that work.
Speaker 2: I think there are things about it that I've just
Speaker 2: left me completely cold. But it is like again, like
Speaker 2: someone who really likes I think this album for my
Speaker 2: taste and what I think is and just in terms
Speaker 2: of actually like for all its ambitions and sort of things,
Speaker 2: I think it is a worse album because I don't
Speaker 2: think it works nearly as well as that album, but
Speaker 2: it is in a way a more interesting album.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree. I'm very mixed on this. I think
Speaker 1: this album is in many places very cool, and I
Speaker 1: would like to say that, like I said, I admired
Speaker 1: Loathe Dynamism compared to their peers on I Let It In,
Speaker 1: and here they are continuing to stream in that direction.
Speaker 1: Our biggest criticism of so many bands like that is
Speaker 1: how interchangeable they are, and that's certainly not Loath At
Speaker 1: this stage. They are like pretty wildly at times, striding
Speaker 1: into their own direction of things, and quite a bit
Speaker 1: on this album I would also say is really good.
Speaker 1: I don't know if this album congeals and is able
Speaker 1: to become more than the sum of all the different
Speaker 1: things they've thrown in the pot together, and particularly how
Speaker 1: they have tried to package and wrap up those things together.
Speaker 1: It is a series of moments for me inside a
Speaker 1: package that is just as often quite amusing, and I
Speaker 1: think it would be maybe easy to go overcooked, right Obviously,
Speaker 1: it is one of these really really fucking long in
Speaker 1: the making, you know, Chinese Democracy esque albums. It could
Speaker 1: be easy to say they've spent too long on it.
Speaker 1: I can't say if that is the case. Overall, I
Speaker 1: would like to applaud this album because, like we're saying,
Speaker 1: there is very evident ambition on show. This is an
Speaker 1: album that wants to innovate, and they have taken six
Speaker 1: years from their breakthrough album with the intent of coming
Speaker 1: out with something that goes far beyond what they had
Speaker 1: done before. This is again it is a metalcore album
Speaker 1: that it's base, but it contains hip hop music, industrial
Speaker 1: shoe gaze, R and B dance music, and it can
Speaker 1: be thrilling like the fact that Low with what already
Speaker 1: a band who are aiming towards that kind of cinematic
Speaker 1: sort of appeal in their albums, and then they get
Speaker 1: to the first track on this entrance bringing you into
Speaker 1: the world of the album. It genuinely it sounds much
Speaker 1: more like the intro to a jazz rap album like Legitimately,
Speaker 1: and that alone is a massive statement and it sounds
Speaker 1: beautiful genuinely, and it's such a beguiling introduction to the album.
Speaker 2: I was like, right that immediate kind of opening gambit
Speaker 2: or entrance with like I say, like this like sort
Speaker 2: of like jazz club intro with a sort of spoken
Speaker 2: word poach you've been going on over it like it is.
Speaker 2: It is a way to sort of say that this
Speaker 2: is more like than just a sort of metcore intro track.
Speaker 2: We are that the soundscape stuff they were doing on
Speaker 2: the on the Ambient album, there's bits of that in there,
Speaker 2: and it is very kind of like classy sounding. I
Speaker 2: was kind of like I could see some people kind
Speaker 2: of bouncing off of this and maybe, oh, it's very
Speaker 2: pretentiou because I think is quite financial by taping album.
Speaker 2: But at the same time, I think there is a
Speaker 2: real conviction behind it. I don't know who it is,
Speaker 2: the guy they've got doing the prior's I know it
Speaker 2: is like a guest contributor, but like he like is
Speaker 2: doing it again with like a gravitas to his delivery.
Speaker 2: The backing music is like classy and more interesting than again,
Speaker 2: what any of Love's peers could could think to come
Speaker 2: out with, So I think it's a it's a cool
Speaker 2: way to start the AMP and it does grab your attention.
Speaker 2: I think it is a strong like even if it's
Speaker 2: one that I'm like I remember saund I might sometimes
Speaker 2: to skip over it just to sort of get the songs,
Speaker 2: but I think it is an interesting and I say
Speaker 2: bold way to kick off what is a bold album?
Speaker 1: I really like the way again just a meet. When
Speaker 1: I put this album on, the first few seconds of
Speaker 1: it makes me feel like I'm going to be, you know,
Speaker 1: really experiencing something. The album takes three minutes and forty
Speaker 1: seconds for a metal guitar riff to come into, and
Speaker 1: it's not you know, fust about attention spans. At the
Speaker 1: same time, there are parts like that I think again
Speaker 1: sort of particularly that the beginning of that second trackers
Speaker 1: into and then you look at the long outro of
Speaker 1: Gifted every Strength as well. There are quite a few
Speaker 1: parts of absolutely the superfluous extensions of things undercutting momentum.
Speaker 1: Eventually block of Flats, which is that second track comes
Speaker 1: in and it has this like other guitar riff that's
Speaker 1: much more like a really gleaming like shaft of light
Speaker 1: kind of refracting at you and odd angle. They are
Speaker 1: again clearly not from just the opening two minutes this
Speaker 1: album alone, not a diamond does a metical band. They're
Speaker 1: clearly amongst their scenes mostalented musicians. I don't know if
Speaker 1: they are as good overall across this album at being
Speaker 1: hyper experimental as they think they are. And we kind
Speaker 1: of felt this when when we had Gifted Every Strength
Speaker 1: came out as a single over a year ago. I'm
Speaker 1: kind of shocked it's on the album because it felt like,
Speaker 1: considering it came so long ago, like it was, you
Speaker 1: know again, almost to stand alone thing. And I wonder
Speaker 1: if the fact that that song came out over a
Speaker 1: year before the album does speak to the the overall
Speaker 1: tweaking and gestation. Yeah, the idea that they were working
Speaker 1: on this album even past that single coming out, you know,
Speaker 1: but when that track came out with that first big
Speaker 1: piece of new Loath music in year and a lot
Speaker 1: of people were like, what is this like big long
Speaker 1: chain of genres and experiments non song. And the thing
Speaker 1: that gets me about that song is it's got actually
Speaker 1: a massive riff. But I do come out the other
Speaker 1: end of it and I go, would it pain you
Speaker 1: to write a memorable tune, boys, and that is exacerbated
Speaker 1: by the production on this album is fucking baffling, and
Speaker 1: I am conscious that for regular listeners here we might
Speaker 1: just sound like old bitches at this stage, constantly yammering
Speaker 1: on about one key production jobs on particularly metalcore albums,
Speaker 1: going ooh the mastering. You know, there are albums coming
Speaker 1: up in this review show that are going to say
Speaker 1: some things about as well. But it is utterly bizarre
Speaker 1: some of the choices that have been made here, to
Speaker 1: the point that it has to be I think one
Speaker 1: of the major talking points about this album, like, it's
Speaker 1: not just us who are highlighting this, it's a clear
Speaker 1: stylist decision what's going on here, And it's not just
Speaker 1: the usual bad production that all metal bands have. Now,
Speaker 1: it's uniquely weird decisions going on with this album. And
Speaker 1: I think with Loathe right, their albums are done basically
Speaker 1: in house, like they are a quite fiercely dry about
Speaker 1: it actually self producing band, and in one element maybe
Speaker 1: you can respect that, but for the love of God,
Speaker 1: we've got to stop their guitarist from producing their records.
Speaker 1: Because when this album is heavy, it is the muddiest
Speaker 1: sound I've heard on a record. This side of My
Speaker 1: Name is mud by Primus, Like it is so oddly
Speaker 1: mixed where the bass drum is so dry and upfront
Speaker 1: where it sounds like it hasn't been mixed properly compared
Speaker 1: to then the guitars, which are like water logged. It's
Speaker 1: this weird thing of sounding underproduced and overproduced simultaneously, and
Speaker 1: it's not consistent. Right there are again, like we was
Speaker 1: saying about the cogestation of the album, it veers from
Speaker 1: track to track block of flats. When it comes in
Speaker 1: with the full on riff is like really overstimulating with
Speaker 1: the way it has this like dance feeling there as well.
Speaker 1: And I actually find that when the way that song
Speaker 1: hits you, it is quite exciting, I think. But then
Speaker 1: you've got songs like Fortress Down, which is this like
Speaker 1: higher end, quite dreamy song in the guitars, except you
Speaker 1: can't hear that because you've got this graceless, fucking wet
Speaker 1: hamhock of a bass drum all over the top of it,
Speaker 1: or Harder to Pretend, which is a shoe gay song
Speaker 1: except someone is flicking an elastic band against your ear
Speaker 1: approximately once every second. It's demented that portions of this
Speaker 1: album have gone out the way they have, like.
Speaker 2: The heavy parts of the bits, where again that the
Speaker 2: production immediately jumps out to me is like and again,
Speaker 2: this isn't me going all the horribly overseused guitar tone
Speaker 2: the guitar.
Speaker 1: To on this is just different. Yes, it just there's
Speaker 1: something wrong.
Speaker 2: Like it feels that they have pushed all them up
Speaker 2: to make it as loud as possible, but it just
Speaker 2: sounds like like there's like like blown out sound. It's
Speaker 2: like I like I I again, I think they're trying
Speaker 2: to avoid falling into the traps of a lot of
Speaker 2: like modern milcor production. They're not trying to do that
Speaker 2: kind of like pro guitar sort of jake sound that
Speaker 2: all these band's doing. But what they've hit is like
Speaker 2: something else that just sounds off that you're right with,
Speaker 2: like the drum thing where it's like drying wed Like
Speaker 2: I think, like the production with some of the melodic
Speaker 2: bits is really nice. There were something like the more
Speaker 2: like dancy riffs that sort of skip along and I
Speaker 2: think they sound really cool and I'm like, great, you're
Speaker 2: you're doing round this. But every time the distortion kicks in.
Speaker 2: There's distortion on like Kideam's focus at times where he's
Speaker 2: screaming and it like it's drowned down. I was like,
Speaker 2: I was like, what is the reason for these decisions?
Speaker 2: It's it just it takes me out so many of
Speaker 2: these songs and it isn't again, it's not consistent throughout
Speaker 2: the whole record. The production changes and like like they're
Speaker 2: clear trying to like play with different sounds depending on
Speaker 2: what they're doing on the songs. And I think that's
Speaker 2: a cool idea in practice, look in theory, but in
Speaker 2: practice and what they've actually come out with, I just
Speaker 2: don't think it works. Like the most parts in this
Speaker 2: album just sounds so like overwhelming, but not in a
Speaker 2: like oh my god, that's really heavywhere it's just like
Speaker 2: blowing out you speak, because in a way that doesn't
Speaker 2: sound cool to me. It's it's mean banging out. Production
Speaker 2: isn't my again, it's not my usual metalcord production complaints.
Speaker 2: I just think this album's production is just messy and
Speaker 2: weird and it and not conducive to getting the best
Speaker 2: out of these songs.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Like I say, it's uniquely odd in how the
Speaker 1: production because it does again fluctuate it you can clearly
Speaker 1: tell it's a kind of an in house job rather
Speaker 1: than just again the other extreme of what we were
Speaker 1: talking about, where everyone goes to the same producer and
Speaker 1: puts the same.
Speaker 2: Same sim sound and the same guitar. Yeah right, name redacted. Yes,
Speaker 2: Like this is the other extreme end of it, where
Speaker 2: it's just like a bit of a car crash at times.
Speaker 2: And obviously there is there is a Code Orange link
Speaker 2: in that. There's the presence of Nowhere to Run on
Speaker 2: the song Revenant, which those you know very distinctive like
Speaker 2: noise squalls and stuff, and I do like that a
Speaker 2: fair bit. It's great to hear Jamie in there as well.
Speaker 2: But I was thinking about when when Under and Underneath
Speaker 2: by Code Orange came out, which is their densest record,
Speaker 2: when that came out, and they a lot of expectation
Speaker 2: off forever. Obviously there was a.
Speaker 1: Vocal contingent of people who were saying this is so
Speaker 1: messily produced, like it hurts my ears, this doesn't work,
Speaker 1: And I didn't agree in that case, but this I
Speaker 1: can kind of hear what they were experiencing, and the
Speaker 1: school of like twenty twenty six, even what we were
Speaker 1: saying about the Static Dress album when we reviewed that.
Speaker 1: On the last episode, Rath reviewed Bag, which we will
Speaker 1: largely praise that album, but we were talking similarly about
Speaker 1: the kind of bespoke production from track to track and
Speaker 1: how it fl fluctuates. It doesn't. Not every song sounds
Speaker 1: as neat and tidy as the next song, and then
Speaker 1: lo and behold, I look, that's produced by the loathe guitarist. Right.
Speaker 1: I think that's a guy who this is his approach.
Speaker 1: And I think if bands aren't going for the interchangeable
Speaker 1: plug in sounds, there's this other direction of bands who
Speaker 1: have this instinct for messier production. And I don't know
Speaker 1: if it's a thing of everyone who's got too many
Speaker 1: tools at their disposal now or what, but the big
Speaker 1: low genty guitars on this sound messier than the original
Speaker 1: mixed version of Much Sugar's Nothing from two thousand and two,
Speaker 1: and they were basically inventing that as they went. Like
Speaker 1: I said, that hard to pretend song is wildly aggravating.
Speaker 1: You cannot tell me that that song is served better
Speaker 1: by that mental bass groove that they've cranked up the
Speaker 1: way they have in that the guitars on Gemini, which
Speaker 1: is one of the heavier songs, are this like absurd
Speaker 1: computer regurgitated sludge, and I don't know if that is
Speaker 1: a case in that song of them trying to match.
Speaker 1: Later on, there's like a mad, like gabberish kind of
Speaker 1: hard bass bit that comes, but it's I don't know
Speaker 1: if they're trying to you know, match the heavy part
Speaker 1: of the song to when that part comes in, but
Speaker 1: it's a horrifically blown out sound, and to me, for
Speaker 1: as dynamic and involved as this album is with all
Speaker 1: its components, it's the thing that makes it sound amateurish.
Speaker 1: It's like it can't keep a grip on all of
Speaker 1: what it's doing. And I was thinking about like that song,
Speaker 1: for instance, I was thinking about AFI and their song
Speaker 1: Death of Seasons and it has this rave edm break
Speaker 1: that comes in and like the middle of a punk song.
Speaker 1: And how with the grace of like proper high end producers, right,
Speaker 1: they pulled that off and it sounds seamless, and it
Speaker 1: seems a lot more impressive now after hearing something like this,
Speaker 1: which is you know, wild eclectic, I would say, almost
Speaker 1: completely graceless.
Speaker 2: And this is again why I don't think that. Wheen
Speaker 2: of people think, you know, it's a slow Burn album.
Speaker 2: I was like, I don't think it is.
Speaker 1: I think it is.
Speaker 2: There's a long songs and the long one, but it's
Speaker 2: rushing to get some of these ideas out and it
Speaker 2: sort of froze them in there well, like I say,
Speaker 2: with a sort of a lack of grace, so that
Speaker 2: the transition between genres and styles it doesn't always hit
Speaker 2: with like these like the seamlessness that you would like,
Speaker 2: say that Death of Seasons one. Some of them just
Speaker 2: feel so jarring and it's kind of like, yeah, we're
Speaker 2: doing a heavy ban now and there's a pop bit
Speaker 2: and the shuegos ben it's a dance bit, and and
Speaker 2: they don't flow in the way that makes the song
Speaker 2: was kind of like, oh, this is a cool sort
Speaker 2: of industrial rave metal song. It's kind of like it's
Speaker 2: an industrial song, and then it's a metal so and
Speaker 2: it like and it just it leads to again a
Speaker 2: clunky stort thing. And again part of that is times
Speaker 2: of production. I think part of that is just down
Speaker 2: to the songwriting. And again, where they have I don't
Speaker 2: know if they've just quite kind of figure out how
Speaker 2: to sort of tastefully weave these ideas together. But it
Speaker 2: does just it does just make the songs kind of
Speaker 2: feel very slap dash at points and again just kind
Speaker 2: of rushing to show to show their hand. I think
Speaker 2: the second half the album is has problems in a
Speaker 2: different where I think it slows down then too much
Speaker 2: in the second half and we get songs that that
Speaker 2: languishing ideas for too long where they should maybe.
Speaker 1: Tren sort of experiment things a bit too much.
Speaker 2: Like the first half the album is kind of like
Speaker 2: overloaded with ideas and it's like impressive in a way,
Speaker 2: but it also then just it's none of it kind
Speaker 2: of flows into making the best songs. I think Revenant
Speaker 2: it's probably my first sorong there and they know where
Speaker 2: to Run sort of thing is there.
Speaker 1: But I think it's the most.
Speaker 2: Cohesive song and kind of like just doing this kind
Speaker 2: of like stabbing electro hardcore kind of like what the
Speaker 2: code on is no where to run something within just
Speaker 2: think it kind of it hits on that for just
Speaker 2: the entire sort of thing of the song. It is
Speaker 2: the most abrasive, glitchy electro hardcore thing that Code Orange
Speaker 2: perfected and it's doing it, and the like the Demonic
Speaker 2: Jamie Guessp is like pierced on Fews, and that's one
Speaker 2: was like, You've delivered the most cohesive, considered song the record,
Speaker 2: and I'm like, that's do the heavy songs.
Speaker 1: That's the clear standout.
Speaker 2: And then other songs have like moments and ideas I
Speaker 2: think are great, but they never stick around for long
Speaker 2: or they kind of just clunkily collide into the next
Speaker 2: idea and.
Speaker 1: It kind of makes me like, ah, you've kind of.
Speaker 2: Spoiled the vibe I was enjoying there, and it just
Speaker 2: it just means I can never fully settle into the
Speaker 2: groove of what this record is going for.
Speaker 1: Yeah, of the heavier songs, I agree about Revenant, but
Speaker 1: to swing it back to some of the stuff that
Speaker 1: I think really works, I think some of the better
Speaker 1: stuff is when they stop interfering with themselves and loathe.
Speaker 1: I think it was already kind of a thing in
Speaker 1: their identity that they were bringing in more of this
Speaker 1: kind of soul element into both their melodies and the
Speaker 1: instrumental textures as well. And because part of the problem
Speaker 1: is that the heavier stuff it's so overdone. There's barely
Speaker 1: any actual hooks, like for a major mainstream metal album,
Speaker 1: and considering their last album did have at least a couple.
Speaker 2: Two mirrors when they're best sort of vocal melodies that
Speaker 2: they've come out with.
Speaker 1: I don't think it's everything their strongest suit, but choruses
Speaker 1: are swallowed up in the morass on this and ultimately
Speaker 1: coming out the other end of this album, I could
Speaker 1: barely sing you, certainly a vocal melody. I can't sing
Speaker 1: from you, which is a major problem. But when they
Speaker 1: throw themselves into some of those like more soulish textures
Speaker 1: while same simultaneously showing the you know, the restraint to
Speaker 1: let them breathe. I think some of the best stuff
Speaker 1: is the Way It Breaks, which is basically a shoegaze track,
Speaker 1: but it has both this sort of cybernetic trill that
Speaker 1: the record has, which is quite engaging sonically, and then
Speaker 1: gradually it brings in more of those things like those
Speaker 1: R and B derived bass parts and a guitar lead
Speaker 1: as well in that which cool flavored Oh yeah solo nice.
Speaker 1: I like this, this is this is good? Yeah, I
Speaker 1: said that mixture of like you know, they've taken shoegazy
Speaker 1: ort rock, which is fucking again Diamond Dozen. All these
Speaker 1: bands want to do it, but at least they've given
Speaker 1: it again that kind of like soulish r and bish
Speaker 1: influence and texture, which to me makes that mixture feel
Speaker 1: soon per Low like that feels like a trick and
Speaker 1: a combination of things that is theirs. I don't really
Speaker 1: like the song the Ladder, That kind of acoustic guitar
Speaker 1: rhythm feels a bit too.
Speaker 2: I think it's, yeah, the one that's really misjudged in
Speaker 2: the back half of the record. I think this is
Speaker 2: like acoustic ballad sort of thing. Is it's sappy in
Speaker 2: a way that I don't think Loath have ever been,
Speaker 2: and it just it feels again, just a bit misjudged.
Speaker 1: There's something about that kind of slightly sort of syncopated
Speaker 1: like again acoustic strumming that feels a bit too like
Speaker 1: quirky indie chirpy for me. But and again it has
Speaker 1: an absolute for a ballad type track, It has an
Speaker 1: absolute vacancy of a chorus. But I will say sonically
Speaker 1: again that song is more inlaring with what I'm talking
Speaker 1: about in terms of it does have a kind of
Speaker 1: more of control over itself, harder to Pretend, which I
Speaker 1: mentioned is a ghastly song sonically for the first two
Speaker 1: minutes of it. But the best bit of that song
Speaker 1: by A Miles is the outro where you get this
Speaker 1: little lounge break with the piano again chimes, that kind
Speaker 1: of that intro track that the album had, and then
Speaker 1: the interlue track that follows as well, and I think
Speaker 1: that element on this record, when again it's not being
Speaker 1: interfered with, those parts do sound actually fantastic and they
Speaker 1: give it some shine. And then you get Fangs, which
Speaker 1: is in a heavy sense, like because it's built off
Speaker 1: a big fuck off gent groove, right, but it's still
Speaker 1: basically are kind of R and B almost funk song,
Speaker 1: and it's almost like the kind of shit that I
Speaker 1: hate about Sleep Token, except Loathe are much much better
Speaker 1: and more authentic with it. It's not completely mortifying hearing
Speaker 1: them go there, and it actually complements what they do
Speaker 1: really well. I really like Fangs.
Speaker 2: I really like Thangs because I like that R and
Speaker 2: B mixed with down tune mosh grooves. It's one of
Speaker 2: the I think against one of the best songs in
Speaker 2: the sort of the second half of the record. I
Speaker 2: think Fangs and what's me and my makers? And when
Speaker 2: you say that, those are the two that are like
Speaker 2: in the back off of the record, I think are like,
Speaker 2: this is cool you You've got an idea. And again
Speaker 2: in Fangs case, it is a genre mashing idea, but
Speaker 2: it's cohesive and consistent and you've kind of just zeroed
Speaker 2: in on doing this R and B kind of flavor
Speaker 2: over like I say, just like fuggish down tune mosh.
Speaker 1: And that like that works and I bet the Issues
Speaker 1: found in You is speaking to that as well. Exactly.
Speaker 2: No, but that is exactly And when you said the
Speaker 2: Cio comparaison, it's like, yeah, but I think because again
Speaker 2: it's the one time with the heavy thing doesn't actually
Speaker 2: totally sound awful, like I don't know getting the heavy
Speaker 2: productions on that song. Maybe maybe just because the vibe.
Speaker 1: Of the song is a bit more interesting. Could well
Speaker 1: it has a clear riff rather than just a fucking
Speaker 1: pile up right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exact, but yeah, no, that's it. And that's why
Speaker 2: I think that song works for me, because it is
Speaker 2: it is, like I say, there is a riff. It
Speaker 2: is big and chunky, but the vocal stuff is just
Speaker 2: more interesting and it's a it's a nice genre meld,
Speaker 2: whereas some of the other things that they mel and
Speaker 2: the genres they don't. They kind of just go one
Speaker 2: genenre wandrument and just sort of flip between the two.
Speaker 1: This kind of puts the.
Speaker 2: Two together on top of each other and like and
Speaker 2: they gel in a way that you wouldn't think they would,
Speaker 2: but it works really well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I would say that those couple of songs with
Speaker 1: Fangs and the way it breaks and stuff are the
Speaker 1: best tracks on the album for me, where they they
Speaker 1: balance all these things that they are doing the best
Speaker 1: on the album. I do wish even in some of
Speaker 1: those cases, I wish I actually loved the songs, and
Speaker 1: I think that's actually even more than the nightmare mixing
Speaker 1: job that's going on lots of this. I think that's
Speaker 1: my biggest thing that stops me coming back to Loath
Speaker 1: because on an intellectual level, and it's very tempting to
Speaker 1: do this when you're doing a review, right, you look
Speaker 1: at all the different things an album does and you
Speaker 1: go like, Wow, isn't this incredible. Look how dynamic and
Speaker 1: forward thinking and all the stuff it is. But even
Speaker 1: some of the things that I think work, like particularly
Speaker 1: the soul element I was talking about on a track
Speaker 1: like Fangs, I don't actually go much love for them
Speaker 1: as songs because the record is mostly hookless, like the
Speaker 1: riff and Fangs is really big, but again, what's the chorus? Right?
Speaker 1: And in a way that stopped me loving. I let
Speaker 1: it in and took everything as an album because I
Speaker 1: had a couple of standouts. You know, is it really
Speaker 1: You is the one that I always think is really
Speaker 1: great on that album, But I don't think it's a
Speaker 1: phenomenal collection of songs, and this, while it is much
Speaker 1: less derivative and much more commendably like genuinely original for them,
Speaker 1: I think is worse in that regard because it's so
Speaker 1: again like like overstuffed, and it feels like the element
Speaker 1: that they've paid the least attention to is are these
Speaker 1: songs memorable? Are they impactful? Are they you know? Do
Speaker 1: they connect with the listener rather than just shoving everything
Speaker 1: into them? And I think it's worth saying that it's
Speaker 1: certainly it's one of the most more original amount of
Speaker 1: records this year. It's certainly among the most ambitious, and
Speaker 1: you always want to praise that, but yeah, maybe it's
Speaker 1: it's the amateur production. Maybe it's that they are experimenters
Speaker 1: more than they are great songwriters, which I will always
Speaker 1: say in the best bands, those are not mutually exclusive things.
Speaker 1: In the best bands, they're experimenters and they write great
Speaker 1: songs with those things. Either way, I'm left admiring some
Speaker 1: of the swings this album takes more than actually connecting
Speaker 1: with very much of it, and my head wants to
Speaker 1: praise this album way more than my heart actually does.
Speaker 2: I'm exactly in the same position with you on this
Speaker 2: one again, like I kind of like came in more
Speaker 2: negative and then kind of fumal listeners kind of like,
Speaker 2: well that, okay, I can see where they're going with
Speaker 2: some of this, sure, but I do just like I
Speaker 2: mean again, like there is nothing on the level of
Speaker 2: Two Way Mirror, which again, Two Way Mirror is one
Speaker 2: of the most kind of like this is just a
Speaker 2: deaftone song, but it has a hook, It has that
Speaker 2: melody that's stuck with me for six years, and I
Speaker 2: think it's still Low's finest moment where that is the
Speaker 2: song that see him live. It is the standard moment
Speaker 2: of the set because it is that single or moment
Speaker 2: that that actually the song stands above just the kind
Speaker 2: of like vibe almost and that's what this album is missing.
Speaker 2: And I'm not saying, you know, they should ditch Experimentation,
Speaker 2: but just if they could have found a way to
Speaker 2: weave choruses and hooks and memorable sort of things I've
Speaker 2: been trying so hard to not make.
Speaker 1: Let's just say there's another band who achieved.
Speaker 2: That that thing is there is and I'm like, they
Speaker 2: have hooks that have stuck in my head for so long,
Speaker 2: and I'm like, it is possible to do it. And
Speaker 2: that's again where that that experiment a great songwriter thing
Speaker 2: that you still mention that to not be meet excuse
Speaker 2: of that as an example, and again I want loath
Speaker 2: to carry on being experiment as being the sort of
Speaker 2: these sort of mavericks they are, because I think they
Speaker 2: may the metal cores scene that again a huge by
Speaker 2: of this words, I'm just so I'm so tapped out
Speaker 2: of that metal cores scene. It is the commercial medical
Speaker 2: scene I like has lost me like and that that
Speaker 2: is one of the big differences between me and twenty
Speaker 2: twenty and me now is I'm so out of that.
Speaker 2: I feel like a lot of metalcore but the commercial
Speaker 2: out of it is just not for me anymore. I
Speaker 2: want Loath to continue to push that scene and fuck
Speaker 2: around and ben the genres that and it's hopefully expose
Speaker 2: those fans to more into music and if they get
Speaker 2: into over and then they do broaden their horizons into
Speaker 2: more interesting mans. If they discover cool shoegay stuff off
Speaker 2: the back of this love record, great. I just think
Speaker 2: as an album, it's ultimately not what I want to
Speaker 2: listen to, and I think that that's the simple st
Speaker 2: I think this album is worthy of praise in a
Speaker 2: lot of ways, but I think has huge issues that
Speaker 2: just mean I'm not gonna go back to listen to
Speaker 2: it in the way that I would the previous Loath album.
Speaker 1: Yeah Where Are You Sitting With It? A Stranger to
Speaker 1: You by Loath And next up we are going to
Speaker 1: obviously the biggest band in this particular episode. I don't
Speaker 1: know how many people will have been awaiting this quite
Speaker 1: as feverishly as the lower one, but we have it. Nonetheless,
Speaker 1: it's Muse and the Wow Signal, the tenth album from
Speaker 1: one band that will always bring us together. Muse absolutely
Speaker 1: one of the biggest stadium rock acts in the world.
Speaker 1: I won't believer the intro beyond the point of laying
Speaker 1: out what Mews for anyone who might have come to
Speaker 1: us in the last couple of years since the last
Speaker 1: time we reviewed a news record what Mews particularly mean
Speaker 1: to us in that you and I Sam have a long,
Speaker 1: long relationship now of you know, following Mews together in
Speaker 1: real time from different perspectives, and then every few years
Speaker 1: we get our little state of the address together about it.
Speaker 1: They are to me one of them single most important
Speaker 1: bands in my musical life, Like they are the band
Speaker 1: that I was all consumingly obsessed with when I was
Speaker 1: eleven twelve years old. They're pretty much the band who
Speaker 1: taught me what the idea of progue was, for instance,
Speaker 1: and that basically clued me up that I would like bombastic, grandiose, ambitious,
Speaker 1: you know, forward thinking kinds of music. I know that
Speaker 1: they are muse and their long past being considered cool,
Speaker 1: but that to me was enormous and I think that
Speaker 1: makes them hall of famous. In the two thousands, they
Speaker 1: were one of the single best bands in the world,
Speaker 1: and I'm not interested in debating that with anyone who disagrees.
Speaker 1: They just were for that period of time, Sam, there
Speaker 1: was a point around the Resistance and the Second Law
Speaker 1: where you and I were at polar opposites on them.
Speaker 1: If we were to track ourselves on the graph, I
Speaker 1: was still up high, still loving those albums. You were
Speaker 1: at a drastic low. And then over the following albums,
Speaker 1: our graph positions began to sort of invert and meet
Speaker 1: in the middle where I began to sink in my
Speaker 1: assessments of the albums, and you, I would say, primarily
Speaker 1: through the sheer power of comedy and willful stupidity, began
Speaker 1: to climb and warm on them. And so on. The
Speaker 1: lone last couple of albums, which have generally, I think,
Speaker 1: at large like they are perceived as the low's like
Speaker 1: simulation Theory and will of the People are overall the
Speaker 1: worst reviewed, I think, particularly one of the people of
Speaker 1: the worst reviewed MWS albums. We've sort of met in
Speaker 1: the middle. It's been a long journey together, but certainly
Speaker 1: in our time doing this podcast together our muse positions.
Speaker 1: Actually we're not so different after all, are we? No?
Speaker 2: I think I think that's a fair assessment. I think again,
Speaker 2: like I'm with you two thousands of mus I'm like
Speaker 2: I will not dare to say the two thousands of
Speaker 2: music albums are bad.
Speaker 1: I think they are.
Speaker 2: Like I don't care so much for the debut, but
Speaker 2: like from the nineties anyway whatever, ARGI symmetry, great record
Speaker 2: for the record, but like, yeah, like it's not what
Speaker 2: I'm as into, but it's a good I think it's
Speaker 2: a good record. I think like like say obviosly symmetry,
Speaker 2: hysteria and backwards and relations like unbelievable records. They are
Speaker 2: as good as two thousands rock music gets.
Speaker 1: Like I won't dare.
Speaker 2: Say a bad word against those records. They are they
Speaker 2: stand on their own. And then the resistance like began
Speaker 2: the downfall. I lost him from the album the second
Speaker 2: law killed it. I was like, this is fucking dreadful.
Speaker 2: Oh my good Drones of a rock band again, No,
Speaker 2: Drones is boring as shit and stupid. And then simulation
Speaker 2: theory just through sheer like darkness kind of like started
Speaker 2: to crack my like cold like icehold like news heart,
Speaker 2: and then the One of the People. It had the
Speaker 2: first MWS song that I would genuinely think, I like
Speaker 2: since like black holes in my revelations sort of muse
Speaker 2: in you know, you feel like it's Halloween. I mean
Speaker 2: that song is fucking great. It's stupid, it's daft.
Speaker 1: I think that song is brilliant.
Speaker 2: So yes, I am like generally, even if I think
Speaker 2: though those museums aren't good, I can get enjoyment out
Speaker 2: of the last two music albums in the way I
Speaker 2: couldn't out of particularly the second Law and Drones.
Speaker 1: I would say, it's been this funny period of sort
Speaker 1: of throwing our arms together and going, you know what,
Speaker 1: at least we've got you make me feel like it's Halloween.
Speaker 1: At least we've got properand and these things that are
Speaker 1: so outwardly ludicrous that at least we could have a
Speaker 1: laugh about them. I do think as a genuine News
Speaker 1: fan actually trying to find some real merit in those.
Speaker 1: Both of those last two albums have moments and tracks
Speaker 1: here or there that have a bit of spark to them,
Speaker 1: but very clearly there is no comparing them to the
Speaker 1: period when News were credibly a brilliant band. And now
Speaker 1: here we are at the Wow signal And despite the
Speaker 1: stupid title, this one has been getting a different sort
Speaker 1: of buzz to those last couple of News albums. Enemy
Speaker 1: called this their best album in twenty years. Kerrang have
Speaker 1: called it their best in a while, Louder called it
Speaker 1: their best in a while. Athney Fantano gave it a
Speaker 1: four out of ten, but did say that makes it
Speaker 1: their best in a while. And there has been talk
Speaker 1: from several people kind of you know, in and around
Speaker 1: our community going, you know what, that New News album
Speaker 1: is actually pretty good. It's much more like the old days.
Speaker 1: And there is a world Sam where we come into
Speaker 1: this review. And as the historically hardcore MWS fan, that
Speaker 1: is my view, and I cannot imagine a world where
Speaker 1: that was your view. But there is a world where
Speaker 1: I come in and that is my view. And we
Speaker 1: have a big argument here about this album, like it's
Speaker 1: two thousand and nine and it's the Resistance all over again.
Speaker 1: That's that's not the world, but I'm in instead, I
Speaker 1: am going to be the voice of everything that is
Speaker 1: opposite to that particular view, where not only is this
Speaker 1: not any sort of return to form to the golden years,
Speaker 1: I actually think this mus album might have the least
Speaker 1: going for it of previous News albums.
Speaker 2: I think this could be the worst mus album, Like
Speaker 2: I think this could be as bad as the second law.
Speaker 1: I think the second law is fucking dark side of
Speaker 1: the moon next to this thing.
Speaker 2: I mean, I saw him, you.
Speaker 1: Likes fair enough.
Speaker 2: I think this album, like, I mean, firstly, it is
Speaker 2: the worst kind of mus album in that I think
Speaker 2: it's boring. I think this album there are moments of
Speaker 2: kind of like bombast and all that, but for me,
Speaker 2: this is a band tasting the glory years and just
Speaker 2: sounding washed. Like this is my big one with this
Speaker 2: album is it's so clearly they're trying to recapture the
Speaker 2: peak years of Muse, But there's so much about this
Speaker 2: I think like is bad that Like it's got it's
Speaker 2: all blust and bomb bass, but there's no actual drama.
Speaker 2: Like there's loads of like orchestra, and when I think
Speaker 2: that's like, you know, I don't like the resistance, but
Speaker 2: the orchestral stuff on the album, what's.
Speaker 1: The the extra Genesis suite, which is fucking unbelievable. Brother
Speaker 1: the way, and if people ever dismissed that album, I
Speaker 1: go at least it has that and you can't fucking.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Like, I don't know the album, but I can
Speaker 2: admire that as a kind of like exercise in maximalist
Speaker 2: insanity and I think that I can, I can kind
Speaker 2: of go, well, you know, fair enough, there is that.
Speaker 1: I mean, the or carera stuff on this sounds so.
Speaker 2: Like just blur and just kind of like it's there,
Speaker 2: but it's not actually exciting and maximalist I think, I mean,
Speaker 2: I'm just gonna I'm gett all my negives out the
Speaker 2: way because like I'm just going in. Like my biggest
Speaker 2: is on this album is Matt Bellamy's vocals. I think
Speaker 2: he has It's the worst he's ever sounded. I like
Speaker 2: he is trying so much this album to do this,
Speaker 2: to do the full set of thing that he's you know,
Speaker 2: always kind of been in a single thing, but like
Speaker 2: he can't actually hit it anymore. He sounds like he
Speaker 2: is straining through it. And maybe they're like they've tried
Speaker 2: to give him more human production sound on it, but
Speaker 2: I'm like, it just sounds like he's struggling to sort
Speaker 2: of sing like that anymore. I think it's all blustering melodrama,
Speaker 2: but there's no actual like power to it. The songs
Speaker 2: don't stick around in my head that the best riffs
Speaker 2: are like like cryogen is if plugging baby or shit,
Speaker 2: like he is trying to tap into that kind of
Speaker 2: like classic wirdily kind of like alien music guitar if
Speaker 2: that like the plug Baby one is one of the
Speaker 2: greatest of it of its era, and then the Cryogen
Speaker 2: one is fucking rubbish Cryogen I can never cry again,
Speaker 2: What the fuck are we doing? Like like like I
Speaker 2: think he is so bad on this album and outside
Speaker 2: of it, like there's no songs that are funny. The
Speaker 2: songs just like I've got a lot notes of some
Speaker 2: of the songs and other songs, I'm just like, it's there,
Speaker 2: it's the Muse song. It's it's I'm doing the thing.
Speaker 2: I'm sory as you'll go through it all kind of
Speaker 2: chiming and what my issues with some of these songs are.
Speaker 2: But I just I found this to just be the
Speaker 2: biggest chore of all the albums we're reviewing this week
Speaker 2: to actually get through. I was so bored and just
Speaker 2: kind of like struggling to find things to stay about.
Speaker 1: So many of these songs. Yes, Simulation Theory I actually
Speaker 1: think is half good. It has some awful bollocks on it,
Speaker 1: and it was significant to me as a Muse fan
Speaker 1: in terms of where my brain like finally fully divorced
Speaker 1: from the band in their current state, but there is
Speaker 1: a madman's streak to it that creates some brilliant material
Speaker 1: on it as well, Like if you've not heard it
Speaker 1: in a long time and you can't remember the song,
Speaker 1: I mean, go back and listen to the song, break
Speaker 1: it to me. What the fuck were they cooking? It's
Speaker 1: delirious And then will of the people, even Patria, I think,
Speaker 1: but as well as a couple songs like kill or
Speaker 1: Be Killed actually being pretty straightforwardly satisfying, you know, heavy
Speaker 1: Muse riffers. It is where we fully decided together that
Speaker 1: as long as Muse were making us laugh, we couldn't
Speaker 1: actually get mad at them because the moments of straight
Speaker 1: up nonsense, it's like trying to review, like trying to
Speaker 1: critique Crusty the clown. You know, it's just a level
Speaker 1: of silly that we accept it together. And Mews haven't
Speaker 1: made an album on the level of their elite tea
Speaker 1: for a long long time, but as long as they
Speaker 1: continue to make a smile, I did accept that the
Speaker 1: wow signal of all of those publications I mentioned to
Speaker 1: put out their reviews of it, the one that I
Speaker 1: actually chimed with the most believe it or not is
Speaker 1: the Pitchfork one who very neatly laid out the wow
Speaker 1: signal is defined by the meuse paradox, too sincere to
Speaker 1: have fun and too obnoxious to take seriously, and that
Speaker 1: is the problem with this album. It's nowhere near either
Speaker 1: fun or actually good enough to exist on its own merits.
Speaker 1: And it's one of those albums where when it's described
Speaker 1: as like a return to form or the classic sound,
Speaker 1: I've seen a couple people go like, oh, this one
Speaker 1: actually sounds like mws instead of them just doing like
Speaker 1: whatever silly bollocks comes into their heads, it is primarily
Speaker 1: dealing in like thelassic mew sound. For me, it's one
Speaker 1: of those that makes the gap of them doing that
Speaker 1: you know then and now much more transparently clear in
Speaker 1: a way that's similar to whatever the fuck that last
Speaker 1: Green Day album was called, where it came out and
Speaker 1: people weren't yeah, it's not Father of All Motherfuckers, But
Speaker 1: if you're going, oh, it's classic green Day again, it
Speaker 1: just makes it abundantly obvious how far they are away
Speaker 1: from being that classic band that we knew them to be.
Speaker 1: Because this album is limp and unwieldy in every place
Speaker 1: where the Mews of twenty years ago were like powerful
Speaker 1: and lively and dexterous. And I can see what people
Speaker 1: mean when they're saying old Muse are back, even if
Speaker 1: it's unfounded, because it does as in it trades and
Speaker 1: sounds that are familiar to a Muse fan's ear right.
Speaker 1: The Dark Forest, the opening track, is the most absurd, pompous,
Speaker 1: queen bullshit they've done in about fifteen years, and it
Speaker 1: starts the album in a similar manner to songs like
Speaker 1: take About Starting Black Horle and Revelations, where you are
Speaker 1: brought in, you know, not with a big rock banger,
Speaker 1: but are really like larger than life, larger than most
Speaker 1: bands could conceivably in the studio, you know, pull off
Speaker 1: orchestral pop prog song basically, and that is the shit
Speaker 1: that I once loved from you is like take about
Speaker 1: the United States of Erasure Survival. It's the shit that
Speaker 1: turns off lots of people who have more delicate tastes,
Speaker 1: but I would lap it up. This one. I don't
Speaker 1: think is bad, but it doesn't make me feel anything
Speaker 1: like for how expensive it sounds and how elaborately arranged
Speaker 1: all those strings and the choirs are and it feels
Speaker 1: like it should have this sort of like you know,
Speaker 1: nice of Sedonia esque space gallop rhythm that they do,
Speaker 1: but it's so flabby and meek, and it somehow kicks
Speaker 1: the album off not with a big bang like that,
Speaker 1: but more more of a whimper. And I think that
Speaker 1: it's so percussion light and driveless. It is that way,
Speaker 1: but even when the actual rock beat does come in
Speaker 1: towards the end, it's really stiff and graceless in the
Speaker 1: way that again, News Are twenty years ago fucking walloped?
Speaker 2: You like that NICs side, don't you Carason I've Got
Speaker 2: My Notes' is the second half of that song where
Speaker 2: they go into kind of like the space western kind
Speaker 2: of like bit and like this you're trying to recapture
Speaker 2: that Knights of Sidonia magic, and like all you're doing
Speaker 2: is you're like reminding me how good Knights of Sidonia is.
Speaker 2: And I don't want to hear this limp, stiff like
Speaker 2: reiteration of it coming off the back of this already
Speaker 2: kind of like over the top but not amusing and
Speaker 2: kind of like engaging orchestral intro and it's like the
Speaker 2: topic that kind of just got me off on a
Speaker 2: on a bad notework, kind of like you've kind of
Speaker 2: like done this big intro and then gone into a
Speaker 2: worst version of one of my favorite Mews songs that
Speaker 2: that that it was like, are you just kind of
Speaker 2: like going like, look, remember the band wants where this
Speaker 2: sounds like that?
Speaker 1: You like that?
Speaker 2: And it's where I'm going to go, like, sure, you're
Speaker 2: you're you're training on sounds that are familiar, like I
Speaker 2: say that Green album is a really good passion where
Speaker 2: you are trading on sounds that are familiar to what
Speaker 2: your classic sound was, but you can't deliver on that
Speaker 2: anymore for whatever reason. And it stands out more when
Speaker 2: I'm hearing like this iteration of mus trying to do
Speaker 2: Knights of Sidonia or as I said on Crouch and
Speaker 2: Plugging Baby, when I hear them trying to do it,
Speaker 2: and it just doesn't sound anywhere near as convincing or
Speaker 2: and vigorating as it did on those albums, like I
Speaker 2: say in the two thousands, it does just make this
Speaker 2: album feel even worse to me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and then quite hilariously, what they immediately follow that
Speaker 1: big concerto shit Up with is the space dance floor song,
Speaker 1: and this is how dire things are on this album.
Speaker 1: I think night Shift Superstar is one of the best
Speaker 1: couple of songs on it. It's a song that I,
Speaker 1: if you were to tell me it's utter shit, I
Speaker 1: do not feel compelled to defend or disagree with you.
Speaker 1: But I quite like it and in a statement that
Speaker 1: I think equally would make as many people gag as
Speaker 1: it would attract them to it. It reminds me a
Speaker 1: little bit of Automatic era Don Broco, that very particular
Speaker 1: kind of like white Boy Funk with the big fat
Speaker 1: bass line and Matt doing those hilarious falsettos where you
Speaker 1: can perfectly envision in that song the stupid fucking novelty
Speaker 1: sunglasses he is going to wear on stage when they
Speaker 1: play that song, and the thing pointings strutting dance movies
Speaker 1: he's going to do, which mus are not strangers too,
Speaker 1: and they have they have a fewer songs like that
Speaker 1: in their catalog. I don't think this is one of
Speaker 1: the best ones, but it is one of the only
Speaker 1: songs on the album where it has that little bit
Speaker 1: of a viv to it and that little bit of
Speaker 1: like oh, mus you devil's kind of charm that we
Speaker 1: were speaking about on the recent albums.
Speaker 2: My notes for Nightshift Superstar is KnightShift Superstar is the
Speaker 2: eighties song, you know, the song, that eighties song, the
Speaker 2: eighties song.
Speaker 1: Fine, yeah it is, And to be fair, it is
Speaker 1: probably one.
Speaker 2: Of the best songs on the record because like, like
Speaker 2: they're having that like I think they're probably it feels
Speaker 2: a woman when you can look like, oh, they're having
Speaker 2: a bit of fun with it, and and that that
Speaker 2: automatic comparison. It is that that modern rock take on
Speaker 2: us of an eighties funk thing, you know, like what
Speaker 2: like some of like the ninety seventy five have done
Speaker 2: a few times. It's that but with a bit more
Speaker 2: kind of like silliness to it because it's mus not
Speaker 2: taking it as po fa seriously. I just I mean again,
Speaker 2: it's this is one of the false set of vocals
Speaker 2: Matter is doing. They just sound really bad compared to
Speaker 2: what he has done in the past. You can you
Speaker 2: can hear the cracks showing, and I'm just like I
Speaker 2: would have scrubbed out in production, but I don't know,
Speaker 2: like it's it's it's not the worst one on the record.
Speaker 2: It is one of the least offensive songs. I can
Speaker 2: kind of see it, but it also is just the song.
Speaker 2: And then they follow it with Shimmering Scars, which is
Speaker 2: the Bond theme, you know, the one the Bond.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I actually think that Chris, just to go back
Speaker 1: to Scond, I think Chris Wilson home is the player
Speaker 1: who gets out unscathed on this album, like he's the
Speaker 1: star on it. Most of the best stuff, and even
Speaker 1: on some of the bad stuff, he is at least
Speaker 1: putting a shift in. He can come out with his
Speaker 1: head held high. But the songs where they go you know,
Speaker 1: classic news as in the more rocking end. You've already
Speaker 1: mentioned a couple of very prominent examples. The rock songs
Speaker 1: on the last album were going much more for that,
Speaker 1: like big distorted influence from modern seven string metal kind
Speaker 1: of sound, and there is a little trace of that here,
Speaker 1: But there are much more songs on this that go
Speaker 1: for like again a two thousands mus sort of rock sound,
Speaker 1: And like you were saying, they're the ones that make
Speaker 1: it clear to me how much better they used to
Speaker 1: be at that. And there is a kind of uncannoness
Speaker 1: about hearing them reinhabit but so so meagerly, and you
Speaker 1: know you've already said it, but just to address it,
Speaker 1: cry a Gin that riff might as well just be
Speaker 1: plugging Baby played backwards, and I don't think cryogen apart
Speaker 1: from that little you know, the chorus line that you
Speaker 1: mentioned is funny. I do quite like the little cray
Speaker 1: a Gin chorus like it's again it's one of the
Speaker 1: better songs on the album, but it is weird and
Speaker 1: uncanny hearing them like borderline self plagiarized like that, and
Speaker 1: then in the process also remind me how much more
Speaker 1: alive and explosive plug In Baby is. Very weird bit.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you felt this as well as
Speaker 1: a bizarre bit. In the last minute of that song,
Speaker 1: they do a turnstyle break down like in the same
Speaker 1: way that obviously he was talking about this that on
Speaker 1: the previous album. Matt has been paying attention to it,
Speaker 1: listening to like, you know, newer gent metal course stuff.
Speaker 1: I wonder if he's also heard a bit of Turnstile
Speaker 1: on God, I gonna have a little cracker, because there
Speaker 1: was a genuine mus does Turnstile riff at the back
Speaker 1: end of that song, which is it is fine it's
Speaker 1: just weird. But the rock songs, they are delivered with
Speaker 1: a sort of stiffness that again, they used to be
Speaker 1: so much more fluid with Hexagons has that like galactic
Speaker 1: space rock field that again, I can see why people's
Speaker 1: brains are being tickled, going that sounds like news to me.
Speaker 1: My familiarity senses. They're going off and Hexicans is not
Speaker 1: quite Bliss in the way that Cryogen is not quite
Speaker 1: plugging Baby, and sonically I'm into it well enough. It
Speaker 1: is one of the better songs. And again as those
Speaker 1: those fluttery space since are going along like I. Again,
Speaker 1: I'm a muse fan, I'm trained to like that sound.
Speaker 1: But you go back and listen to Bliss and how
Speaker 1: it fucking blasts you like you are stood near the
Speaker 1: back of a jet engine. And this song is much
Speaker 1: more I don't know, sort of just well behaved about it.
Speaker 1: And then you get the Sickness in You and I,
Speaker 1: which is just more of a sort of like lump
Speaker 1: and modern rock song that doesn't really have much much
Speaker 1: going for it. It's much more like politely organized back
Speaker 1: when they were wild. And then we flip over to
Speaker 1: the ballads, and this is where I think I've said
Speaker 1: this for a long time. Somewhere in the mid twenty
Speaker 1: tens Matt singing approach. I think he must have obviously
Speaker 1: got some vocal lessons or something, because if you go
Speaker 1: back to listen to Origin and Symmetry or Absolution, that's
Speaker 1: not a trained guy. Like that's a shrieking, huffing ball
Speaker 1: of electricity. And at some point he learned to sing properly,
Speaker 1: but I think he sounds worse. It's just the game,
Speaker 1: Like the mat of the last ten years. Is clearly
Speaker 1: a very different singer to how he used to be,
Speaker 1: and he has this much more composed quality to him
Speaker 1: that also makes it sound just a lot more po faced.
Speaker 1: And the ballads on this they are a world away
Speaker 1: from the great Muse ballads like falling Away from Me
Speaker 1: or Invincible or what have you. Shimmering Scars is very portentous,
Speaker 1: but without really being impressive in the way it needs
Speaker 1: to be. To get away with that and then be
Speaker 1: with you is a fucking sleeper, My goodness, absolutely urgent.
Speaker 1: That song.
Speaker 2: That song is like Coldplayer, imagine Dragons Coded. I mean
Speaker 2: that song is that might be the worst one on
Speaker 2: the record for me. Oh maybe since down the Botto
Speaker 2: Done Them part. I think that song is awful. I think,
Speaker 2: like I said, like Shami Scars like it, that to
Speaker 2: me is trying to do the modern Bond theme kind
Speaker 2: of the Presties bonds or themes or thing. I'm always
Speaker 2: surprised mus have never done one because it feels like
Speaker 2: the sort of thing that.
Speaker 1: The Survival would have been the one if they missed Survival.
Speaker 1: They never going to do one better than that, is
Speaker 1: what it is.
Speaker 2: But like Smiy Scars feels like he's trying to do that,
Speaker 2: and you know, because supremacy, I mean not yeah, I
Speaker 2: agree with you, but like those those ones like Beer
Speaker 2: Review is the one that is like the absolute worst
Speaker 2: of it in terms of the ballads on this Yeah,
Speaker 2: and Space to It at the end of the record
Speaker 2: actually is rubbish as well.
Speaker 1: Gospel matt In twenty twenty six is like, let's leave
Speaker 1: that shit to cold By, like you're saying, and then
Speaker 1: say Space Debris quite boring. And then really bizarrely, mws
Speaker 1: in over twenty five years have never had a guest
Speaker 1: feature or a duet or anything like that, or an
Speaker 1: album of theirs, and they've decided to do one, and
Speaker 1: they've gone. Who would be a particularly on the Pulse
Speaker 1: twenty twenty six pick to put alongside Matt Ah, Yes,
Speaker 1: Ellie Goulden with this really bizarre bass groove that sounds
Speaker 1: like other than like heavy Portugal the Man or something,
Speaker 1: and then even weirder vocal parts absolutely half inched from
Speaker 1: Billie Eilish's Bad Guy. It's so weird, like what is
Speaker 1: any of this? Why are we doing this?
Speaker 2: Ellie Gordon doing that kind of breathy vogue against Matt
Speaker 2: doing that. The full set of vocal is a nightmare.
Speaker 2: Like I was like, oh my god, end my torture now,
Speaker 2: like I'm raveling. It's just like, oh no, that's the one.
Speaker 2: It is it hushes, the one with the hush, yeah
Speaker 2: hush of the the duet one.
Speaker 1: It's yeah.
Speaker 2: I was like, why in the twenty tens are we
Speaker 2: doing this? Like this is a duet that should have
Speaker 2: happened like ten years ago at the latest, Like it
Speaker 2: is a real and again it's it's a really unconvincing
Speaker 2: rock song as it is anyway when it tries to
Speaker 2: get a bit more riffy, but like the duet vogue
Speaker 2: thing just really you put me off.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I just because you mentioned Unraveling. That's my favorite
Speaker 1: song on the album, and it's probably the one song
Speaker 1: that I would unambiguously say as a Muse song that
Speaker 1: I like, and that was one of the singles that
Speaker 1: when we were released, we you know, weren't overly wowed
Speaker 1: by it. But I do think as a continuation of again,
Speaker 1: there were those songs that won't stand down on the
Speaker 1: last album where they were doing that like Mick Gordon influenced,
Speaker 1: you know, down tune modern metal sort of sound. I
Speaker 1: think on that one they fleshed that out into one
Speaker 1: of the better songs that they have done in that lane,
Speaker 1: and that great operatic lift as in the chorus I
Speaker 1: think is Matt at his best on this album. So
Speaker 1: that song I think is good actually as just a
Speaker 1: modern Muse song rather than them like impersonating themselves in
Speaker 1: the past like they are on other bits of this album.
Speaker 1: I do think, obviously I have a much higher tolerance
Speaker 1: for mus bullshit than you do. I think most of
Speaker 1: this album is merely okay rather than outright bad. It's
Speaker 1: very listenable for the most part, but not having you know,
Speaker 1: what the fuck are you playing at here? Cartoonish lows
Speaker 1: that their last two albums have had. Maybe that is
Speaker 1: something in its favor overall where I could, at least
Speaker 1: from that perspective understand where someone could say this is
Speaker 1: a better album than will other people, for example. But
Speaker 1: because of that, it is the one where I find
Speaker 1: myself most lamenting the loss of the Muse of Old
Speaker 1: because it's not filling in that space with something mental
Speaker 1: and hilarious for you to look at. Instead, it's just
Speaker 1: a fairly meek reminder that they used to be the
Speaker 1: best in the business. And you know, part of this
Speaker 1: is definitely me being a bit sad that mus aren't
Speaker 1: making me feel the way that I did when I
Speaker 1: was a literal child, which always has some element of
Speaker 1: unfairness on the band to be doing that. But go
Speaker 1: put origin and symmetry on, or absolution or black holes
Speaker 1: and revelations if you haven't a long time, and this
Speaker 1: album has reminded you, because it's easy to forget sometimes
Speaker 1: in our contemporary news poisoned world. But those albums are
Speaker 1: still unbelievable and this album, while not terrible, is not
Speaker 1: up to them. So there you go, the wow signal Muse.
Speaker 1: But there is salvation for you, Sam, because If there's
Speaker 1: anything that you need to cheer you up after a
Speaker 1: Muse album, it's the Men Singers with their eighth album,
Speaker 1: Everything I Ever Saw Sam. Obviously it's the Mensingers. A
Speaker 1: bigger question than asking if this album is good is
Speaker 1: to ask, have you ever or do you think you
Speaker 1: could ever not love a Mensinger's album I'm not crazy
Speaker 1: about Like the first one.
Speaker 2: I think they're cool, but I don't like love them.
Speaker 2: But from on the Impossible Pass onwards, I love everything,
Speaker 2: and I don't think I can not love everything because
Speaker 2: the Mensingers just do my favorite thing in the world,
Speaker 2: how basically, and they're doing it again on this album,
Speaker 2: and guess what, I love it. I cannot be impartially
Speaker 2: on this one. The Men's this is just this is
Speaker 2: my shit. I'm so locked in. I think there are
Speaker 2: ancient discussions have around this album, and like I understand,
Speaker 2: the last few Mensingers albums haven't been as kind of
Speaker 2: like feverishly received.
Speaker 1: I still really like.
Speaker 2: Them, but I think this one it just I'm a
Speaker 2: sucker for it.
Speaker 1: I can't.
Speaker 2: I can't help it. Like I'm going to just be
Speaker 2: gushing about this record and it's going to be on
Speaker 2: you to offer the more reasonable takes and I'll kind
Speaker 2: of like and yeah along with them, I.
Speaker 1: Guess, yeah, But please don't be offended by some of
Speaker 1: the things I will say. And just for the record,
Speaker 1: I also love the Men Singers. For me, they are
Speaker 1: the best band to ever play this kind of music
Speaker 1: that they are playing, by which I mean this sort
Speaker 1: of heartland rock derived lighter strand of punk rock. To me,
Speaker 1: they're the best to ever do that, and part of
Speaker 1: that is their highs are I think better than anyone
Speaker 1: else is in that lane. But also now at this
Speaker 1: stage you can start to say longevity as well. Like
Speaker 1: it's nearly fifteen years since the record where they first
Speaker 1: started to get real acclaim with On the Impossible Past.
Speaker 1: Next year it will be ten since what we deem
Speaker 1: to be their landmark classic album in After the Party,
Speaker 1: and here they are, you know, a decade later, and
Speaker 1: they are in fact still good and they have not
Speaker 1: suffered any kind of cataclysmic drop off. I will say
Speaker 1: for me, while that is true, and like I will
Speaker 1: enthuse about the parts of this album that live are
Speaker 1: the things that only the Mensingers can quite do. I
Speaker 1: think we are quite comfortably in the sort of third
Speaker 1: phase of the Mensinger's career, which is being you could
Speaker 1: kindly say over the peak of it. The twenty tens
Speaker 1: run whichever is your favorite, and for the record, Hello Exile,
Speaker 1: I think is fucking brilliant as well. For me, there's
Speaker 1: a four album run of Mensinger's being absolutely at the peak,
Speaker 1: which is again from the possible pass onto that one,
Speaker 1: but that twenty tens run is definitely them at their
Speaker 1: best right whichever your favorite is, and the twenty twenties,
Speaker 1: I think we are certifiably entering more of that punk
Speaker 1: rock middle age. The last album Some of It Was
Speaker 1: True was the first album where I really started to
Speaker 1: feel that and we reviewed it and you were a
Speaker 1: little bristling a little bit at me when I came
Speaker 1: forward with that. To be clear, I still really like
Speaker 1: that album plenty. I've never said it was poor. Hope
Speaker 1: is a Dangerous Little Thing is honestly a top tier
Speaker 1: Mensinger song for me, Like for the past three years
Speaker 1: since that album came out, that's kind of been my
Speaker 1: go to song of theirs, Like that's in the dream
Speaker 1: set list, in the Mensinger setlist easily, and it's not
Speaker 1: the only one on the record. Because you also have
Speaker 1: There's no place in this world for Me a couple
Speaker 1: of the deeper cuts as well. It's a very fine record,
Speaker 1: but I did note that it was quite a bit
Speaker 1: slower and lower energy and just less driven than them
Speaker 1: at their best. And I don't see much point in
Speaker 1: ignoring that that is happening to them in the way
Speaker 1: that happens to most bands like them, because if you
Speaker 1: look at the generation of the bands before them, whether
Speaker 1: it be Right It's Against or Alkaline Trio or Against
Speaker 1: Me or the drop Kick Murphy's whoever, they all have
Speaker 1: that point where the records take a dip, even if
Speaker 1: we still like them overall, the Mensingers aren't really a
Speaker 1: band where we have a dramatic overhaul or you know,
Speaker 1: direction breathed into a record to record, you basically know
Speaker 1: what you're getting. The main point of interest for this
Speaker 1: one from a hardcore fans point of view, is that
Speaker 1: they're back working with will Yip again. Is that right? Yes?
Speaker 1: That is that.
Speaker 2: That is the big kind of different differential factor between
Speaker 2: this and the last records.
Speaker 1: For the record, again, I agree they have slowed down.
Speaker 2: I am just again I love Springsteen, like them showing
Speaker 2: down means they're getting a bit more Springsteen, I would say,
Speaker 2: and that is fine by me, and that I think
Speaker 2: that's just where some people when we come up with
Speaker 2: different taste, I understand, like you're going to be really
Speaker 2: worried about the same things and getting me upset. I
Speaker 2: have made peace with people being less infused with the
Speaker 2: Mensingers at this point, I think I get it on
Speaker 2: the last album. I think this album has a lot
Speaker 2: more to like. I think this like has a lot
Speaker 2: more going for it than that last album does. I
Speaker 2: think this album is like a step back in the
Speaker 2: right direction, or back in the right direction, a more
Speaker 2: kind of Aners with more conviction behind it. I think
Speaker 2: that is a part of that might come down to
Speaker 2: I think the will yet production job. I think Greg
Speaker 2: is standing closer to the microphone, like like there are
Speaker 2: things like that. I get a lot more of that
Speaker 2: from this record. I think again, like I'm not going
Speaker 2: to say this is a perfect album, but I also
Speaker 2: have nothing I dislike about this album is as simple
Speaker 2: as that. I am just so this is my ship.
Speaker 2: This is the sound of like one of my maybe
Speaker 2: my favorite band at this point, doing the thing I love.
Speaker 2: And again I've got eleven songs of it that I
Speaker 2: think are all pretty much like. I really like all
Speaker 2: those songs. I have one like, the one criticism I'm
Speaker 2: willing to hear about this album is the first eight
Speaker 2: seconds of it sounds like when we when You Were
Speaker 2: Young by the Killers. The one like, the opening riff
Speaker 2: on Chancing Counters is very similar to the riff when
Speaker 2: You Were Young.
Speaker 1: I don't think the whole song, the whole thing is rip.
Speaker 2: I'm like, no, it's it's literally that opening riff, like
Speaker 2: the rest of the song sounds nothing like When You
Speaker 2: Were Young by the Killers apart from the fact that
Speaker 2: the Killers are ripping off springs and as well at
Speaker 2: that point.
Speaker 1: But whatever.
Speaker 2: But yeah, that's that's the one criticism I I I
Speaker 2: will hobbs like, if you're saying that, I think that
Speaker 2: is fair enough thing to point out that there is.
Speaker 1: Believe it or not that that that did not occur
Speaker 1: to me. I actually think the ceiling on this one
Speaker 1: is lower than on the last one, in that the
Speaker 1: first two tracks on Some of It Was True are unbelievable.
Speaker 1: And the way I was saying that hope is a
Speaker 1: danger little thing is genuinely like a all timer men'sing
Speaker 1: a song For me, I'm not actually getting anything to
Speaker 1: quite that level here. But I think the trade off
Speaker 1: is what you're saying about the production is it is
Speaker 1: perhaps a more consistent listen. It does feel, you know,
Speaker 1: the Mensingers supplying what they reliably supply a little more
Speaker 1: than that record, and there isn't this large gap between
Speaker 1: like the lead off singles and then the album tracks.
Speaker 1: I think this album is really it's really nice, Like
Speaker 1: it's a really good record. It's very cozy, it's very pleasant.
Speaker 1: There's a couple of great songs on it. There's not
Speaker 1: a lot to write home about. I think that it's
Speaker 1: absolutely outstanding, but the thirty nine minutes of it do
Speaker 1: you breeze by? There are a couple of less tracks
Speaker 1: on this as well compared to the last album. That
Speaker 1: maybe helps. I think this is one that the absolute
Speaker 1: die hard Mensingers fans like yourself might take to heart.
Speaker 1: But if you are a listener who you are a
Speaker 1: little bit more like I go with the Mensingers when
Speaker 1: they are really world class, I don't think you might
Speaker 1: be as interested on this one because it doesn't really
Speaker 1: bring anything new to the table, and it is just
Speaker 1: I think still in that like middle career Mensinger's sort
Speaker 1: of mid ground, but it is still really good, right.
Speaker 1: And the thing that gets me with this is maybe
Speaker 1: this is because I don't love many of these bands anyway,
Speaker 1: but even with what I was just saying about the
Speaker 1: Mensingers kind of being over the hill, they still sound
Speaker 1: so much better at this than everyone else. Like if
Speaker 1: we think about the Mensingers when they came along, they
Speaker 1: were kind of picking up the baton that someone like
Speaker 1: the Gaslan Anthem had put down right before it. And
Speaker 1: if we look at the bands to have come after
Speaker 1: the Menzingers who are doing this now, I guess Spanish
Speaker 1: love songs. Even on the contemporary emo side, you've got
Speaker 1: someone like Hot Mulligan who feel like they've sort of
Speaker 1: filled the space at the Mensingers where maybe filling ten
Speaker 1: years ago. That's what you know, this demographic of rock fan,
Speaker 1: that's what they are into right now. And I don't
Speaker 1: think the Menzingers, even at this stage in their career,
Speaker 1: have been surpassed. Like they're just way better at this
Speaker 1: kind of songwriting than anyone else around. And that is
Speaker 1: evident to me from chance encounters, which I think does
Speaker 1: if not again, as it's not a telling lies it's
Speaker 1: not in America, You're freaking me out. It's not a
Speaker 1: hope as a dangerous little thing. But it is continue
Speaker 1: the tradition of great Menzinger's album openers, where it is
Speaker 1: you know, it's not as purely energizing as though so,
Speaker 1: but it is still fucking great and it is inspiring
Speaker 1: with that Greg lift in the chorus where they may
Speaker 1: never stand a chance, you know we still got to try.
Speaker 1: I love that it's great, and I would say this
Speaker 1: album is very cozy and familiar to the point that
Speaker 1: you know you are getting those Greg song Tom song,
Speaker 1: Greg song Tom song flips in the track list in
Speaker 1: just such a like expected order, like Better Angels coming
Speaker 1: right after Chance Encounters. Tom adds that kind of blunter
Speaker 1: approach without that tremble that Greg has and a punk
Speaker 1: skip as his song to do, and you get that
Speaker 1: right as you are expecting it when Chance Encounters ends,
Speaker 1: and then you know romanticism flicking back to Greg, which
Speaker 1: is really trademark Menzingers with this kind of beautiful, vibrant
Speaker 1: guitar lead before the vocal hits all the way down
Speaker 1: to listing specific locations that he and this girl have
Speaker 1: been at. It's a very like, you know, heart tied,
Speaker 1: very besotted, you know, kind of song and paints that
Speaker 1: into the canvas outwards. It's it's very very nice.
Speaker 2: I mean the thing that I think this is the
Speaker 2: closest been to a literally like a fifty to fifty yeah.
Speaker 1: Greg Tom Greg Tom.
Speaker 2: Like I think obviously last album it lent a lot
Speaker 2: more on the Greg side of things, and I think
Speaker 2: in recent times Greg is obviously like the sound up
Speaker 2: Menzing songs that everyone members are generally the Greg songs
Speaker 2: because I think like he is the more immediately like
Speaker 2: heart on sleeve. You're gonna get those mensingrisms that the
Speaker 2: we were sixteen months we will never be again, lyric
Speaker 2: and chancing counters the way he just sort of belts
Speaker 2: that like it's irresistible. But I think the Tom song
Speaker 2: of this, all of them just kind of like it
Speaker 2: just means you get a nice percent point. You just
Speaker 2: get the strong dynamic of like these two dident vocalists
Speaker 2: who can bring different flavors. I think like Better Rangels
Speaker 2: has that kind of like folk punk jaunt to it.
Speaker 2: It's catchy and fun. It's got a nice sort of
Speaker 2: sing along romantism, like you know your way around my dreams,
Speaker 2: I know my way around yours. It seems it's like
Speaker 2: just Greg doing it. The fact he sings for too long.
Speaker 2: We were dancers in the dark. That was my Leo
Speaker 2: pointing me moment.
Speaker 1: I was like Springsteen song.
Speaker 2: He said it, like like, oh it is not everyways.
Speaker 2: Don't mean ship to us now, like come to your
Speaker 2: heart out with me. It's just these are just mensing
Speaker 2: and sort of things that I want to hear. I
Speaker 2: love hearing and I'm just so happy to hear.
Speaker 1: Other people's money. You get that kind of ease.
Speaker 2: Off on there, and it's like this like Dusty Springsteen
Speaker 2: kind of piano kicking in.
Speaker 1: Very fun little vocal hook on that one. That's one
Speaker 1: of those ones that you know when you're singing those
Speaker 1: fun little fucking tom vocal hooks.
Speaker 2: Like yeah, it's got all that all over it, Like
Speaker 2: I love that ship gasolinea matches.
Speaker 1: When you were saying you were about to talk about
Speaker 1: the intro of a song that sounds weird, I thought
Speaker 1: you were going to say that one because for the
Speaker 1: first ten seconds it sounds like I don't know a
Speaker 1: ghost tracks by nine, Its Nails or something before suddenly
Speaker 1: the Heartland Chords and the Spring The Spring. Yeah, after
Speaker 1: this weird little synth indra, I was like, I was
Speaker 1: gonna joe it. I was like, Oh, they're doing a simPRO.
Speaker 1: I was like, oh no, No, they're just going the motion,
Speaker 1: just a Springsteen song.
Speaker 2: Yeah, sure, and Greg setting into that sort of story
Speaker 2: tell a thing on gasoline and matches. It's so such
Speaker 2: a natural sort of thing where I'm just happy to
Speaker 2: sit there and he even gets that sort of Springsteen
Speaker 2: vocal quiver going on that. I was like, Ah, you
Speaker 2: are going your most Springsteen on this track, and keep
Speaker 2: doing it please.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I do get a bit of a sense on
Speaker 1: this one that I again, as every song comes out,
Speaker 1: I listen to earlier today and I was like, you know,
Speaker 1: these are you know, I'm enjoying all of these, but
Speaker 1: I can't get away from the idea that the best
Speaker 1: versions of all of these songs have been written by
Speaker 1: these guys before, because better Angels and other people's money
Speaker 1: and those songs were talking about. They have that coziness
Speaker 1: when they hit that formulaically swapping between the Greg songs
Speaker 1: and the Tom songs. But they're not hall of fame
Speaker 1: Tom songs, Like they're not fucking thick as fees, you know,
Speaker 1: they're just they're just not. Nor do I think Gasoline
Speaker 1: and Matches or Romanticism are hall of fame Greg songs
Speaker 1: because I think a lot of them they don't really
Speaker 1: rise above themselves. Like they're very well tempered, very mild mannered,
Speaker 1: even as they might swear in some of them, you
Speaker 1: know songs, but them this album moves with it's lacking
Speaker 1: that kind of that last ride desperation, you know, that
Speaker 1: characterized something like after the party, that urgency about it,
Speaker 1: and I do think maybe that had its last hurrahically
Speaker 1: so far on a song like America You're freaking me
Speaker 1: out from Hello Exile, that sort of like fizziness take
Speaker 1: my hand, because this is the most important shit in
Speaker 1: the world type feeling that those songs have. This is
Speaker 1: much more leisurely than that. It's much more unconcerned with
Speaker 1: doing anything above the tempo of life that it wants
Speaker 1: to take it at. And every song hits with that
Speaker 1: recognition of familiarity. This is the men's thing. Is it's
Speaker 1: a thing that we like, you know, and they are
Speaker 1: all good, But I don't think they're a great deal.
Speaker 1: More than that, it is a really unhurried again sort
Speaker 1: of leisurely album. I would say a majority of the
Speaker 1: guitar riffs aren't especially memorable. I do like the one.
Speaker 1: I do like the one and Breathe with Me that
Speaker 1: go throughout the song as a sick, little kind of
Speaker 1: rock and roll silo in there as well. I do
Speaker 1: really like In terms of the album tracks, I do
Speaker 1: really like the Fool. I think that is Tom's best melody. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: of course self Deceiver, and it's got a weird sort
Speaker 1: of like novelty trumpet answer to the chorus, which is
Speaker 1: a fun part as well, and some like cool countermiloity
Speaker 1: arrangements in the final chorus. Well that is again I
Speaker 1: am taking my song from this rank. I'm like, yeah, cool,
Speaker 1: that's that's a really good one. I'm having the full
Speaker 1: I'm having chance encounters, a couple of strange like party
Speaker 1: instrumental touches that they've added into the mixt with that,
Speaker 1: and there's a kind of organ that's at the start
Speaker 1: of Nobody's Heroes as well. I think when you get
Speaker 1: to the kind of last stretch of the album, it's
Speaker 1: nice at that point to hear Greg finally, like nine
Speaker 1: or ten songs in he decides to put a little
Speaker 1: bit more of a gusto into his voice and it
Speaker 1: lifts above that sort of standard comfort zone for a
Speaker 1: little while. You get that with when She Enters My Dreams,
Speaker 1: when again he starts adding that little bit of kind
Speaker 1: of urgency into it a little bit. Even of that
Speaker 1: song is just like again pure heartland lushness. That song
Speaker 1: reminds me a little bit of the kind of thing
Speaker 1: the band we're about to review were really good at
Speaker 1: previously a couple of our to go definitely one of
Speaker 1: the best songs songs on the record. And then the
Speaker 1: ending title track really like maintains that as well with
Speaker 1: a really worthy kind of final you know, grace note
Speaker 1: for the record.
Speaker 2: So the ending the title track at then is the
Speaker 2: is the exception. I said that that is Almo like
Speaker 2: this is up there for me with like those I
Speaker 2: think that that song like it has that kind of build,
Speaker 2: that passion. That chorus is just like unbelievable kind of
Speaker 2: just like Greg going at it. It is so good,
Speaker 2: like you guys said, said the good and bad, the
Speaker 2: half with the sad like it is again that because
Speaker 2: that this ALP has a kind of feeling of like
Speaker 2: kind of like they you know they are, they're getting
Speaker 2: on there, that they're the Heartland punk unks at the moment,
Speaker 2: and they they've kind of seen a lot of shit. Now,
Speaker 2: like there's the paradeday before it is no Tom kind
Speaker 2: of lamenting the loss for friends and kind of like
Speaker 2: here's I see you again at the end of time.
Speaker 2: Like so there is a feeling of the solum like
Speaker 2: we have you know, we've been through stuff, We've seen stuff,
Speaker 2: and that kind of like that feeling is all there
Speaker 2: on the kind of like everything ever saw the I
Speaker 2: don't want to real Lilyve, I just want to remember
Speaker 2: everything I ever saw, kind of like going on these
Speaker 2: journeys and having these memories. I think that that closing
Speaker 2: track is the kind of thing where that's maybe why
Speaker 2: I'm so fond of this album, because the last thing
Speaker 2: I hear on it is my favorite thing on the album,
Speaker 2: and it ends on just such a kind of like
Speaker 2: romantic note for what I love about the Mensingers, and
Speaker 2: I'm just kind of like my heart is so so full.
Speaker 1: By the end of that title track, I was like
Speaker 1: I can't say it.
Speaker 2: I can recognize again, I can recognize where you're, where
Speaker 2: you're coming from. Where, Like this is a consistent Mensing record,
Speaker 2: but it maybe doesn't have those those peaks as much.
Speaker 2: But it ends on such a high note for me
Speaker 2: that I'm just so I'm so enamored. I'm just so happy.
Speaker 2: I'll put the album on again and just be like,
Speaker 2: this is all I want to listen to right now.
Speaker 2: Sam's come out in July. We're in a heat wave.
Speaker 2: And then when I put it on, I don't mind.
Speaker 2: I'm just like the sun is shining. I'm listening to
Speaker 2: new Mensingers and I'm getting, you know, these moments that
Speaker 2: just sort of fill me with joy.
Speaker 1: I'm just sewing on this sort of thing.
Speaker 2: And again, because it ends on such a high note,
Speaker 2: that's the lingering memory of the record for me that
Speaker 2: I'm just I'm happy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a really good song. Again, that sort of
Speaker 1: desperation that I'm talking about that comes through in select
Speaker 1: moments now for the Mensing. Yes, that like I just
Speaker 1: want to hold onto everything I've ever experienced, you know,
Speaker 1: I don't want to relive, I want to remember is
Speaker 1: in that and it adds it's more driving than the
Speaker 1: majority of the album. I think part of what's happening
Speaker 1: is you've reready said it is they've aged out of
Speaker 1: being ragged Springsteen punks and in the process just more
Speaker 1: into straight up Springsteen and I can take or leave that,
Speaker 1: whereas you're having that pride out of your cold dead hands.
Speaker 1: But I think that that dichotomy between us does maybe
Speaker 1: convey again to people listening to us what kind of
Speaker 1: mensing As they're getting and what they might be interested
Speaker 1: in it. And I do think I think it's a
Speaker 1: good album. It's a good album. It's got a few
Speaker 1: great songs on it. It's way ahead of their peers,
Speaker 1: and so if you love this music, even when it's
Speaker 1: slow and old, you will probably love of this as well.
Speaker 1: So everything I ever saw by the Mensingers, but onto
Speaker 1: alluding to something a little bit there the excerpts and
Speaker 1: their album I Think I Want to Go Home Now.
Speaker 1: This is another of the bands like the Menzingers, who
Speaker 1: we as a podcast would generally describe us as one
Speaker 1: of our longtime, all time favorites when it comes to
Speaker 1: like rush of blood to the head, emotionally urgent, heart
Speaker 1: on sleeve, melodic rock songwriting, one of the straight up
Speaker 1: best bands in the world at that throughout the twenty tens,
Speaker 1: their first couple of albums, particularly then going into twenty
Speaker 1: fourteen's There Is Only You, which is a fantastic, earnest
Speaker 1: alternative rock sort of power pop album, and then my favorite,
Speaker 1: twenty eighteen's Hold Onto Your Heart, where they took that
Speaker 1: and further embellished it with these real timeless classic rock touches,
Speaker 1: two absolute powerhouse albums there for a long time, criminally
Speaker 1: overlooked as a band. Every time I'm out and about
Speaker 1: and I hear like a Sam Fender song in a
Speaker 1: shop or something, All the Killers, right, I'm like, why
Speaker 1: the fuck couldn't this have happened? For the excerpts on
Speaker 1: Daydream or Shaky in the Water or something like that,
Speaker 1: Like no, you know, no shade against those artists, but
Speaker 1: these are songs of that same caliber. Right, we have
Speaker 1: this unbelievable world class classic rock songwriting band just kicking
Speaker 1: about in our scenes, comparative underground for like fifteen odd years,
Speaker 1: right who for whatever reason, they've built up, you know,
Speaker 1: a passionate cult fan base, but they never seem to
Speaker 1: be afforded any of the opportunities to break it much
Speaker 1: bigger than that, despite the fact that they are packing
Speaker 1: songs that literally everybody in the world should like. Like
Speaker 1: the excerpts I think are one of the biggest disproportions
Speaker 1: in how big their audience is versus how universal their
Speaker 1: songs actually could be. Right when you look at first Kiss,
Speaker 1: Feeling and Drive Me Wild and you go these should
Speaker 1: be fucking standards, like what is the world doing here?
Speaker 1: Where these are just songs from some tiny rock band
Speaker 1: from Scotland. The excerts in full Flight we have been big,
Speaker 1: big champions off But their last album, Learning How to
Speaker 1: Live and Let Go in twenty twenty three, there's not
Speaker 1: too much more to be said about it being about
Speaker 1: the rush. It was a catastrophe, wasn't it. Yeah, like
Speaker 1: we we like.
Speaker 2: I don't want to give album much more of a
Speaker 2: kicking we we we went and it. I was like
Speaker 2: even slightly generous to it. But it just it like
Speaker 2: in terms of like drop off from albums that I
Speaker 2: will consider maybe my favorite album of the year, it
Speaker 2: came out to an album that I just don't ever
Speaker 2: go back to at all, Like this is like you
Speaker 2: don't get bigger drop offs in that really like.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we had to wait five years for it from
Speaker 1: the previous record, and everything that was enjoyable about the
Speaker 1: band had just been excised. And I don't even think
Speaker 1: it's just the production, which is certainly one major point,
Speaker 1: but the songwriting was way off that. Yeah, yeah, there's
Speaker 1: a song on there called Eke with Sam Carter, and
Speaker 1: it's one of the more energetic songs on the album.
Speaker 1: And then before it's actually allowed to like arrive and
Speaker 1: deliver the big hook or whatever, it's just done because
Speaker 1: these like bite size micro songs aren't their strength at all.
Speaker 1: And then you've got the problem that half the track
Speaker 1: list on it isn't actually those ZIP songs or those
Speaker 1: big gearish experiments like Gimme for example, that became the
Speaker 1: kind of you know, the stick to beat that album with.
Speaker 1: But half isn't that. It's these wet ballads that aren't
Speaker 1: complemented at all by the sonic approach of that album
Speaker 1: and how it sounds. Everything about it was just creatively misjudged,
Speaker 1: and like I said, I don't want to labor it
Speaker 1: or add too many criticisms onto it beyond what we
Speaker 1: said at the time, because you know it's one bad album.
Speaker 1: The Excerpts are a band who we historically love and even,
Speaker 1: as I say, kind of feel a sense of injustice
Speaker 1: for right so to trash all of that because one
Speaker 1: album didn't work for us, it's not necessary. There's even
Speaker 1: a song on this album, pretty Ugly, which very directly
Speaker 1: responds to that album's criticisms, which I think we often
Speaker 1: say when you start writing songs about people commenting about
Speaker 1: your music on the Internet, you should probably take a
Speaker 1: step back a bit, because you're just creating a miserable
Speaker 1: feedback loop at that point that no one's happy with.
Speaker 1: But I can at least understand it a bit with
Speaker 1: the Excerpts, because they're not this massive band who have
Speaker 1: a comfort blanket like in a data remember for instance,
Speaker 1: who have done that and it is the first time
Speaker 1: in their career really where they've had to face that.
Speaker 1: So I imagine as a small artist is quite alienating
Speaker 1: to suddenly have so much backlash when they had only
Speaker 1: really up to that point been love from your fan base,
Speaker 1: and then be like, what the fuck am I doing
Speaker 1: in my life? You know? Can I move on from this?
Speaker 1: I don't like that song on this record, but I'm
Speaker 1: at least trying to relate to the headspace that Murray
Speaker 1: has wrote that song from. Anyway, I think I want
Speaker 1: to go home now. We are all hoping for us
Speaker 1: to be the return to form, essentially, Sam, to what extent,
Speaker 1: in your opinion, have they done.
Speaker 2: It depends on what you call a return to form,
Speaker 2: what is formed for the excerpts.
Speaker 1: I think this is a film for the excerpts. Really
Speaker 1: is there is there is any you? And how much
Speaker 1: are we get into that?
Speaker 2: Yeah, And if we're comparing it to that, we're not
Speaker 2: getting there, like simple as that, we're not getting to
Speaker 2: the heights of those records. I do think this is
Speaker 2: a big improvement on the last record. And I think
Speaker 2: this is you know, pretty comparative like three and quality
Speaker 2: like not far off the the like the the very
Speaker 2: early Excerpts records. I think what this album is is
Speaker 2: it is more recognizably the exit. It's going back to
Speaker 2: just doing the kind of like twenty tens power pop
Speaker 2: Brit rock stuff that they kind of made their name on.
Speaker 2: And I think for the most part, I think like
Speaker 2: there are still some quibbles with the production I have.
Speaker 2: I don't think it's it's the best production job they've
Speaker 2: gone through. I don't think it's as garish as the
Speaker 2: last album, and I think that, you know, there is
Speaker 2: a steady stream of pop hooks across this area record
Speaker 2: and kind of just stirring a motive, all rock songs
Speaker 2: that I kind of get and go, Yeah, I like this,
Speaker 2: this is this is the excesting way I want to do.
Speaker 2: But again, I don't want to call this like a
Speaker 2: return to form record because the the bath what I
Speaker 2: know the excerpts are capable of, this doesn't cur And
Speaker 2: maybe again that's really harsh to do this album, because
Speaker 2: I do for the most part, I like this album.
Speaker 2: I think it's it's good, but it's not. There is
Speaker 2: only your hon chart. It's not delivered. Like again, there
Speaker 2: is nothing on this album that even comes close to
Speaker 2: like album tracks on those records. And again, those albums
Speaker 2: are the best of their kind of era and that scene.
Speaker 1: So it's mixed feelings. I come into this album with
Speaker 1: what I do.
Speaker 2: I am way more positive on this album than I
Speaker 2: was the last album, but I'm not gushing about it
Speaker 2: like I wanted a kind of like a oh my god.
Speaker 2: The excerpts are back. They've never been more back.
Speaker 1: This is it. We can all be celebrating again. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think the majority of excerpts, fans who you know
Speaker 1: didn't like the last album are feeling like you on
Speaker 1: this album in at least being you know, pleasantly, you know,
Speaker 1: reassured that their band sounds like their band again. Right.
Speaker 1: So I think that if that is to be the
Speaker 1: overall sort of lasting legacy of this album, how it
Speaker 1: lands to people, I'm okay with that. I suppose I'm
Speaker 1: personally feeling quite down on it in a way that
Speaker 1: I really don't want to be like. It makes me
Speaker 1: unhappy where I'm sitting on this, because essentially where I'm
Speaker 1: sitting is I don't like anything on it, and I
Speaker 1: don't want to listen to it again, which I find
Speaker 1: really disappointing, both on a musical but also a kind
Speaker 1: of personal level, because if this was one of those
Speaker 1: albums where we could go, all right, let's just put
Speaker 1: that last album down to a failed experiment, doesn't matter,
Speaker 1: We're all friends again. That would be the easiest thing
Speaker 1: as a reviewer to do. It would make the audience
Speaker 1: the happiest, it'd make the band the happiest. It would
Speaker 1: make me the happiest because the excert seem like nice people.
Speaker 1: I want them to do well. I don't want to
Speaker 1: be digitally knocking them down or whatever it was that
Speaker 1: Whilst you Sleep said, But this album makes me feel nothing.
Speaker 1: It is better than the previous album. I will not
Speaker 1: disagree with that, but I do have to put it
Speaker 1: with that album in the excerpts albums I don't like
Speaker 1: compared to the two for that, which are the experts
Speaker 1: albums that I do like. Right, I don't think this
Speaker 1: is a or at least they're back on it type record,
Speaker 1: because that would imply that it has qualities that I
Speaker 1: love about the old ones, and for the most part
Speaker 1: it doesn't. To me. They sound a bit lost on
Speaker 1: this album, and I find that discouraging because the last
Speaker 1: album what's wrong with it is so garishly obvious. You
Speaker 1: can very easily go, well, you tried a big swing there,
Speaker 1: it didn't work. Oh well, dust yourself off and move
Speaker 1: on this. At least when we're I'm saying, it sounds
Speaker 1: more like they've forgotten how to be that band that
Speaker 1: we loved, which might be worse because it's more like
Speaker 1: there is a void that isn't being filled. Rather than
Speaker 1: it being filled with something blatant. You know, I want
Speaker 1: to start positive first. For you, Sam, what are the
Speaker 1: parts of this album where you can feel the excerpts,
Speaker 1: you know, clicking into gear again. I think, you know,
Speaker 1: do it to myself as an opener.
Speaker 2: It's it's got that kind of fizzy, upbeat power pop
Speaker 2: excerpts thing that that they that they do nail on
Speaker 2: a lot of the tracks on something like there is
Speaker 2: Only You that the sat propulments and that. I think
Speaker 2: it just it feels a bit more natural. It has
Speaker 2: a pep to it, which I think again the last
Speaker 2: album didn't have. I think like there is some nice
Speaker 2: sort of just touches again. I don't think it's my
Speaker 2: from with the sound is I'm gonna just be saying
Speaker 2: things like it's nice, it's good. There's nothing to like
Speaker 2: really get excited about, rather than like, I I'm having
Speaker 2: a pleasant I'm listening to this. I think, like I
Speaker 2: like that song. I think Sinking Feeling has you know,
Speaker 2: a bit more strike to it. I I think I
Speaker 2: could have to just isolate hold onto Your Heart as
Speaker 2: a one off kind of like they're doing this thing
Speaker 2: on this album and I don't know if we're ever
Speaker 2: gonna get that again, because they threw everything at it
Speaker 2: and it didn't pay off, so they don't and this
Speaker 2: is this This does just feel like them returning back
Speaker 2: to a comfort zone of twenty tens or of power
Speaker 2: pop or rock, and for the most part, I think
Speaker 2: it is doing that pretty nicely. I think if you
Speaker 2: go to the closer, which again we sort of mentioned
Speaker 2: about the ballads on the last album, I think in
Speaker 2: Your Eyes is like that stirring heartfelt actually sort of
Speaker 2: sincere exits ballad. Again, it's not as good as the
Speaker 2: title track on There Is Only You, which is which
Speaker 2: it feels most closely comparable to whether again they're they
Speaker 2: going for that, but at least I can kind of
Speaker 2: get a real emotion from it, which again I couldn't
Speaker 2: really get from the last album. I think just for
Speaker 2: most places that like I'm just I'm having a nice
Speaker 2: time when this is on, like and again this is
Speaker 2: like the damning with faint praise or problem I have
Speaker 2: with this album is that I think it is consistently good,
Speaker 2: but like if anyone was a Gogin to sort of
Speaker 2: come to something I can't reach, sort of like Mount
Speaker 2: the Strongest defense because I think it rarely, it rarely
Speaker 2: excels where in a way that I think exces albums should. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that's what that's it. I'm having with this sad where
Speaker 2: I don't dislike it like I like like the Last Aime.
Speaker 2: I don't think there is like bad decisions, a bad songwriting.
Speaker 2: I just think it feels like a retreat to kind
Speaker 2: of like a safety sort of thing that the of
Speaker 2: a sound they've done in the past. But at the
Speaker 2: same time, it's not as good as that thing in
Speaker 2: the past, So I guess I can see I mean
Speaker 2: where it feels a bit lost as an album.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I actually have it's not so much for
Speaker 1: me again, like you're saying that it's it's fine, but
Speaker 1: there's nothing much to say about it. I actually have
Speaker 1: do genuine abject criticisms of this record, about things about
Speaker 1: it that annoy me, and I'll get on to those
Speaker 1: in the moment. But they are definitely going for types
Speaker 1: of songs that are more in the traditional spirit and
Speaker 1: wheelhouse what the excerpts is right, Like you're saying the
Speaker 1: slowest songs particularly, I think you know you've got Rinse Repeat,
Speaker 1: which feels very trademark when it comes to the slower
Speaker 1: stuff or dream you in when it goes ll gim
Speaker 1: meet World Emo towards the back end of it are
Speaker 1: really again, I think those are pleasant songs. I think
Speaker 1: they're perfectly nice, and I don't doubt the sincerity of
Speaker 1: any of these songs or what they emotionally mean to,
Speaker 1: you know, those writing it. Like I was saying, even
Speaker 1: a song like pretty Ugly, which falls into a type
Speaker 1: of song that we usually find to be quite repugnant,
Speaker 1: there is a clear vulnerability about that one, in an
Speaker 1: almost Pinkerton ish way of like putting a sentiment out
Speaker 1: there and showing people how you feel, even if they
Speaker 1: were to perceive that feeling as quite off putting. Like
Speaker 1: obviously the song is called pretty Ugly, right, and is
Speaker 1: admitting essentially that it is shaken and unhappy, and it's
Speaker 1: putting it out there. My major stumbling book with this,
Speaker 1: and the thing that I think is keeping me totally
Speaker 1: at arm's length from even the songs that I should
Speaker 1: be okay with is it's much less obvious and garish
Speaker 1: than last time, but I still think it's nonetheless suffering
Speaker 1: under the weight of modernity in its constructure fair even
Speaker 1: on like a shallow surface level. We were talking about
Speaker 1: like yea, the all lowercase song title, we would all
Speaker 1: you know, we describe that as like a hallmark of
Speaker 1: like that came out and we were like, maybe this
Speaker 1: isn't going to be so Ba's the Glory Days as
Speaker 1: we hoped, because it's such a trope of like zeitgeisty
Speaker 1: twenty twenties rock music. But sonically this album is sort
Speaker 1: of coarse and unpleasant in a way that I don't
Speaker 1: find the excerpts to excel in. And maybe that's the point, right,
Speaker 1: Maybe it's trying to be this sort of difficult, you know,
Speaker 1: little brother record, you know, trying to bounce back and
Speaker 1: find direction, and it's sonically meant to be a little
Speaker 1: ugly and a little rough, but it's not an abrasiveness
Speaker 1: that either suits them or sounds any good to begin with.
Speaker 1: I think a lot of the power pop sensibility because
Speaker 1: this record is sorry, sort of downcast a lot of
Speaker 1: the time. A lot of the power pop sensibility that
Speaker 1: was in their songs is gone, and there's there's no
Speaker 1: fun in this at all, And again, it's not the
Speaker 1: record for it. Maybe like maybe that's not where they
Speaker 1: personally are right now. It does have this it feels
Speaker 1: like a more emo in mindset approach of even having
Speaker 1: like the things like the little voice notes, like the
Speaker 1: intro track or losing it as well, where they have
Speaker 1: that like you know, intimately recorded sort of snapshot of
Speaker 1: a moment that finds its way onto a record that
Speaker 1: I was associated with that Midwest emo, except it's on
Speaker 1: a like quite unpleasantly produced twenty twenties UK rock band
Speaker 1: and they sound at odds with the rest of it.
Speaker 1: The first song, Do It to Myself is this like
Speaker 1: up tempo, nervous energy kind of song that should be
Speaker 1: the starting gun for the record. And then the vocal
Speaker 1: processing or Murray comes in on the verses and I
Speaker 1: don't know why they've done that to him, Like he
Speaker 1: was perfectly capable of carrying these songs for years before this,
Speaker 1: and he's one of those vocalists who works best when
Speaker 1: there is no barrier between him and the listener, so
Speaker 1: he can just reach right out of that mix and
Speaker 1: you know, pluck into, you know, the heartstrings of the
Speaker 1: listener and he comes out sounding like a fucking deep
Speaker 1: fried jpeg version of himself. And it sounds gross, Like
Speaker 1: the first time I'm hearing his voice on the record,
Speaker 1: past that little intro track, my immediate reaction is just
Speaker 1: to recoil and pull backwards because of how he sounds.
Speaker 1: And once I'm over that again, it's not a bad song.
Speaker 1: It is better than anything on the last one, and
Speaker 1: it probably could be much better live, right, But why
Speaker 1: is my first response to this being revulsion? Like why
Speaker 1: does it have to be that? And it keeps going
Speaker 1: all the way through. Wow sounds a bit like Feeder,
Speaker 1: but with contemporary compression on it, and then particularly you
Speaker 1: get sinking feeling afterwards. There's this sort of instrumental sound
Speaker 1: that marks contemporary attempts at recalling nineties old rock radio hits.
Speaker 1: It's like nineties rock as remembered by TikTok, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean? That really regimented way the beat hits
Speaker 1: and the guitars click on and off, the vocals going
Speaker 1: tinny for the ah, can'd shake the sinking feeling. It
Speaker 1: reminds me of a bit of machine Gun Kelly, which
Speaker 1: is not the comparison I want to be making. And
Speaker 1: as this sort of sound that I immediately in my
Speaker 1: head associate with disposable, and it's not a song that
Speaker 1: I'm gonna still want to be spinning in a year's time.
Speaker 1: The guitar riff at the start of Bury You has
Speaker 1: that same kind of tinny fiercely beaten squarely into its
Speaker 1: box type presence in the mix, or like I said,
Speaker 1: how sort of contrived to sound raw and underproduced like
Speaker 1: losing it is when it sounds the opposite, And it
Speaker 1: baffles me because when I read about what they've been
Speaker 1: saying about this album and how it was then getting
Speaker 1: back into with making a rock record and letting things
Speaker 1: ring out and capturing the sound of them in the room,
Speaker 1: and that's not what the record sounds like at all.
Speaker 1: That's what I want you to do, Like that's what
Speaker 1: you're desperately crying out for. You need to go and
Speaker 1: find a proper analogue rock producer to go and do
Speaker 1: this with. But this sounds that they are still working
Speaker 1: for the twenty twenty standards of you know, rock radio
Speaker 1: play still when as a band who clearly have never
Speaker 1: had any real flirtations with the mainstream pain them any
Speaker 1: real interest, I think they should be running as far
Speaker 1: away from that to provide the alternative.
Speaker 2: I think that's fair. Again, I definitely agree. I don't
Speaker 2: like the production's record. I think I can get through
Speaker 2: to the songs more on this one than when I could.
Speaker 2: Why I couldn't really do on the last one, because
Speaker 2: I think there is there is strength of songwriting that
Speaker 2: is present here that wasn't therefore, But I do agree,
Speaker 2: like the vocal processing is one of those things that
Speaker 2: I've just I've just had to kind of like get
Speaker 2: used to, and I'm kind of just.
Speaker 1: Sort of like, Okay, I can kind of handle that now. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I do think it doesn't have to be that way,
Speaker 1: Like why should I have to do that? You could
Speaker 1: just not do that and make a good record that
Speaker 1: sounds good, please because.
Speaker 2: The things I don't And then in a song and capacity,
Speaker 2: I think they are trying to get back to that,
Speaker 2: like say that kind of like rock songwriting things they're doing,
Speaker 2: and I think they are showing it, and i'd say
Speaker 2: in my capacity, it's then just kind of been smothered
Speaker 2: a bit where yeah, I actually I have to put
Speaker 2: in a bit more work to get to these songs.
Speaker 1: It's why I'm kind of like taking songs.
Speaker 2: I think if produced different, I could probably be all
Speaker 2: in on and I have to kind of go like,
Speaker 2: I think they're fine because they're they're good songs that
Speaker 2: have been compromised.
Speaker 1: I mean, we've we think we don't have drawn a lot.
Speaker 2: Of similar conclusions. I'm just kind of a bit more
Speaker 2: kind of like, well, I can still kind of go
Speaker 2: with the songs. I think you're like that, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: And I think that's totally fair. And I again would
Speaker 2: come up for the same points, but I just it's
Speaker 2: why again, I can recognize this album is better and
Speaker 2: it does do a lot while out with the excepts,
Speaker 2: but it's why again I can't wholeheartedly throw myself behind it,
Speaker 2: and I kind of have to just be a bit
Speaker 2: more like, yeah, you know, I mean it's pretty good,
Speaker 2: Like it's it's a shame that that's what I have
Speaker 2: to feel about about the excepts again and not like
Speaker 2: gush about it.
Speaker 1: I can definitely see why.
Speaker 2: I like again, I've seen some people like, no, this
Speaker 2: is a return to form, Like no, it's it's it's
Speaker 2: better than the last album. It's a return to them.
Speaker 2: What you like what it's why I come back to
Speaker 2: what is formed for the excerpts, and I have had
Speaker 2: to kind of like potentially just embrace her. That hole
Speaker 2: onto heart is is it's the bubble, It's that it
Speaker 2: was that time and place, and I'm glad I've got
Speaker 2: to witness it. Look to this song's live, but I
Speaker 2: just don't think it's I don't know they're going to
Speaker 2: go back to writing those just amazing influence eighties influenced heartland.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but like I said, I'm not going just make
Speaker 1: hold on too Heart again, even though that is my
Speaker 1: favorite record of theirs, and it's where I think they
Speaker 1: I think they found on that record the thing that
Speaker 1: makes their band sonically sing the most. But that's not
Speaker 1: my exact complaint about this record. I mean, like pretty
Speaker 1: ugly to go back to it, it's one of the
Speaker 1: worst ones in terms of, you know, they've tried to
Speaker 1: match the sentiment of that song by being spiky and
Speaker 1: embrace it, but it sounds ugly in a cheap way.
Speaker 1: It's not the worst song on the record.
Speaker 2: I think that is like the worst on the record,
Speaker 2: where again, the production really doesn't know where they're trying
Speaker 2: to be spiking, and like if that song had like
Speaker 2: a raw, like a rawer production, where that like anger
Speaker 2: and kind of frustration could actually lash out for me.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Really, it's like artificially distorted and it's got a
Speaker 1: not quite the plot to bomb the Panhandle riff and
Speaker 1: then a cheerleader chance towards the end. For some reason,
Speaker 1: I'm just like, why do you, as a band who
Speaker 1: work best when you are lush and you organic insist
Speaker 1: on making your albums tinny? Like, why do you make
Speaker 1: a singer as talented and charismatic as Murray McLeod sound
Speaker 1: like a robot so often? And it doesn't feel like
Speaker 1: they've learned the right lessons from learning how to live
Speaker 1: and let go. They've learned that people didn't like Guinea
Speaker 1: and Murray sounding like a literal chipmunk, even though still
Speaker 1: not quite enough to not do it on do it
Speaker 1: to myself, But they haven't had the real full reconnection
Speaker 1: of identity, aside from easing off on some of the electronics.
Speaker 1: They've got to remember, they're classic rock band, I think,
Speaker 1: and that doesn't mean old or out of touch or whatever.
Speaker 1: It's just about what kind of band you are spiritually
Speaker 1: and what suits you. There is only you when it
Speaker 1: was surrounded by all of the other brit rock bounds
Speaker 1: who are all making there like Radio One, you know,
Speaker 1: pop things. At that time, it stood out because in
Speaker 1: parison it sounded timeless and like it was part of
Speaker 1: a songwriting tradition that went back way further and you know,
Speaker 1: hold onto your heart. They perhaps they doubled down more obviously,
Speaker 1: and they made that comparison more overt, but that's essentially
Speaker 1: what I want them to do, right Yeah, And it's
Speaker 1: so frustrating. It's because I don't want to just make
Speaker 1: that particular record again and again and again. I'm not
Speaker 1: asking for fucking saxophone intros on every single track, but
Speaker 1: it's mental to find your calling and then run as
Speaker 1: feasibly far as possible from that right afterwards. No one
Speaker 1: has ever gone, what if we took Tom Petty and
Speaker 1: gave him to Travis Barker to produce, Because that's a
Speaker 1: fucking stupid idea, And that's what it feels like we've
Speaker 1: been stuck at with the excerpts, even if this is
Speaker 1: a much less extreme example than last time. And I
Speaker 1: don't think this is a horrible record, you know, to
Speaker 1: bring us back down to earth a little bit more,
Speaker 1: but it is more of a case of when I
Speaker 1: know how brilliant this band can be hearing them not
Speaker 1: capitalize on that potential. They have to be like a
Speaker 1: genuinely timeless rock band who stand completely outside of any
Speaker 1: trends of what's going on right now because of these
Speaker 1: things that they do on a record that come out
Speaker 1: unflattering to them and immediately a bit dated and just
Speaker 1: having going like why have we done this? Like you
Speaker 1: don't doesn't have to be this way, you know, And
Speaker 1: I would love this to be the thing that they
Speaker 1: get out of their system after the last thing that
Speaker 1: they had to get out of their system, because a
Speaker 1: step in the right direction. It is absolutely the majority
Speaker 1: of this album is pretty all right, and maybe actually
Speaker 1: at their core, you know, what they are is more
Speaker 1: for other people than it is for me. And it
Speaker 1: was almost a freak occurrence of how much they leant
Speaker 1: into that timelessness I'm attributing them so much on those
Speaker 1: two records in the twenty tens. Maybe I'm learning here
Speaker 1: that they're not as much that band as I thought
Speaker 1: they were. But I just think there's definitely still a
Speaker 1: lot of work to do to really be fulfilling what
Speaker 1: they're capable of rather than what's here, which is essentially
Speaker 1: just not as horrible as the last one.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's fat. I feel like I said,
Speaker 2: we are we are similar direction. But again, I just
Speaker 2: is where I just can't go on, like I said,
Speaker 2: the return to form narrative, because it is still they're
Speaker 2: handicapping themselves for reasons I don' quite understand, and it
Speaker 2: means that these songs that again, I having a lot
Speaker 2: of these songs I could love, but I can't love
Speaker 2: on this record, and it just means I'm kind of
Speaker 2: having to just sell. And we're like, yeah, I think
Speaker 2: we should know. This is a pretty good excess record
Speaker 2: that's still probably like again, kind of in line with
Speaker 2: some of the other stuff, but would we will probably
Speaker 2: have to be their second worst record just through the
Speaker 2: strength of the other catlo where there's again more to
Speaker 2: pick apart on this record than there is the others.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so there you go. But we are going to
Speaker 1: move on to something a little bit harder edged, and
Speaker 1: it's finally time for me to stop being a party
Speaker 1: pooper because we are going to Fuming Mouth and the
Speaker 1: Ringing Bell. In all honesty, I have thought Fumi Mouth
Speaker 1: up to date have been a pretty decent band, and
Speaker 1: I think this is a perfect point to give this
Speaker 1: band some of their flowers a bit, because they arrived
Speaker 1: in twenty nineteen with their debut album, The Grand Ascent,
Speaker 1: and at the time, at the very end of that decade,
Speaker 1: it felt like a bit of a throwback or a
Speaker 1: carrying of the torch of some of the hardcore slash
Speaker 1: death metal bands from the beginning of that decade who
Speaker 1: had gone by the wayside, like Trap Them and Black
Speaker 1: Breath and Mammoth Grinder like that point.
Speaker 2: At that time, that moment in Time Nails, they were
Speaker 2: a well right full on like entombed core, you know,
Speaker 2: hn two cruss death metal.
Speaker 1: That wasn't the hardcore zeitgeist anymore by twenty nineteen the
Speaker 1: way it had been in twenty twelve, and while not
Speaker 1: to the obscene quality of those bands that we have mentioned,
Speaker 1: it was enough to remind you of them and go,
Speaker 1: I'm glad at least someone's doing that thing well, you know,
Speaker 1: And that has mostly been my relationship with fuman Mouth,
Speaker 1: but they have shown at times a little bit of
Speaker 1: ambition beyond that base level. There was a point on
Speaker 1: their last album, Last Day of Sun, when they started
Speaker 1: to integrate these more like melodic doom influences, almost in
Speaker 1: a similar way to like when we were speaking about
Speaker 1: Gate Creeepinglack on the Black Curtain, which is something that
Speaker 1: again at times does yet picked up here as anyway.
Speaker 1: The Ringing Bell is the third four length album from
Speaker 1: Female Mouth. It's out on Triple B Record, which is
Speaker 1: absolutely like Capital HC, a hardcore label, but they like
Speaker 1: a band that black breath. I think they're pretty much
Speaker 1: equally positioned to appeal to like metal fans and hardcore
Speaker 1: fans are like I will explain why I think this
Speaker 1: album is perhaps their most noteworthy album so far in
Speaker 1: a minute, but sam plain and simple, this is the
Speaker 1: kind of thing that it would be a shock if
Speaker 1: we didn't enjoy.
Speaker 2: I don't trust people who wouldn't be immediately won over
Speaker 2: by the intro to Cheap Death the moment you hear
Speaker 2: that guitar tone.
Speaker 1: If you don't like it, I don't trust you.
Speaker 2: Like I'm not saying you have to love this record,
Speaker 2: but if that hitting play and hearing that tone doesn't
Speaker 2: just make you feel all giddy and like, ah yeah,
Speaker 2: I like that, I can't trust a person because I yeah,
Speaker 2: again I like femal Mouth. I've never been like that
Speaker 2: the best of it, but their sound is just so like,
Speaker 2: come on, guys, like, we can't not like this.
Speaker 1: This is this is that good shit? Yeah, it's crust
Speaker 1: death metal played by hardcore folks. Right. It's recorded by
Speaker 1: Kurt Blue, which is the most obvious stamp approval that
Speaker 1: you need for something that sounds like krusty death metal
Speaker 1: play by hardcore folks. This album also features the talents
Speaker 1: of one Jay Weinberg, formerly of Slipknot, on the drums.
Speaker 1: I don't know if he's actually joined the band full time,
Speaker 1: as in like will be touring or recording future albums
Speaker 1: with them, or if this is just a one off,
Speaker 1: but at the very least he has done this, and
Speaker 1: from a metal historians perspective, it's great to hear him,
Speaker 1: you know, coming out of Slipmark, where it did end
Speaker 1: kind of badly for him, and then joining up with
Speaker 1: something where he can just go full extreme metal and
Speaker 1: fucking blitz it, you know. And obviously, yeah, he's tearing
Speaker 1: up the kit on this thing. But for as big
Speaker 1: a name as you know, Jay Weinberg and Kurt Blue are,
Speaker 1: you know, they both contribute what they do to this
Speaker 1: record admirably. This is an album that feels powered by
Speaker 1: Mark Wheelan, who is the guitarist and frontman of this band.
Speaker 1: And to fully get why, there is a little bit
Speaker 1: of context. Mark Wheelan had a diagnosis of leukemia in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty one. And he's a young guy, right, He's
Speaker 1: in his mid thirties now, and so this was a
Speaker 1: case where like someone in our scene could have, you know, well,
Speaker 1: have been taken tragically early. He was able to come
Speaker 1: through all of that cancer treatment, entered remission in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty two. And this was something that was going on
Speaker 1: around the time that their last album, Last Day of Sun,
Speaker 1: came out, and that was dealing with you know, there's
Speaker 1: songs and they're called like kill the Disease, right, it's
Speaker 1: very much in there. But I guess that album, you know,
Speaker 1: being written and coming out around twenty two twenty three,
Speaker 1: it must have been sort of more in the midst
Speaker 1: of it, I suppose. Whereas this album The Ringing Bell,
Speaker 1: as well as having a title that perfectly matches a
Speaker 1: scary nighttime photo of a church as you have on
Speaker 1: the cover art in cancer treatment termology, the ringing of
Speaker 1: the Bell refers to this little kind of ceremonial gesture
Speaker 1: that is done when the treatment is complete in order
Speaker 1: to kind of symbolize like a re entry into regular
Speaker 1: life and a new dawn, so to speak. And the
Speaker 1: album from the title of track one to the title
Speaker 1: of track eleven is unavoidably I think about even if
Speaker 1: it's not directly about, you know, his cancer, which I
Speaker 1: think I've read that he's maybe pushed back on that
Speaker 1: a little bit, it is undenoyably about a sort of
Speaker 1: re emergence out of such a period into a reclaiming
Speaker 1: of personal strength and essentially right, it's HM two and
Speaker 1: tumbed core. You know what that sounds like. It's done
Speaker 1: really fucking well. It kicks and rocks in all the
Speaker 1: right places. We know what we're getting and we are
Speaker 1: enjoying it. But I also find that this album has
Speaker 1: this particular animating purpose about it that really brings it
Speaker 1: to life. Where this album feels like a rush of
Speaker 1: blood and a fuck you in the face of death
Speaker 1: that just makes it like kick that little bit harder.
Speaker 1: I think that's it.
Speaker 2: I think, like again, the relative like the song way
Speaker 2: isn't so far removed from what I think females are doing,
Speaker 2: but there is an energy to this album that just
Speaker 2: feels so invigorating, and again it's what makes it. It's
Speaker 2: about that intro and cheap death. That tone is so good,
Speaker 2: but the way they attack it, the way this album
Speaker 2: just comes flying out at you and the first thing
Speaker 2: you hear is him shouting live and cheat.
Speaker 1: Death, Like, yeah, that's so invigorating, and it sounds like
Speaker 1: the physical remains of like, you know, whatever has been
Speaker 1: in his path are lying vanquished below him. He's just
Speaker 1: leany and going hah in its face, you know, like
Speaker 1: I Have Survived, I Refuse to Die is the lyric,
Speaker 1: and it's a really great example of like this kind
Speaker 1: of extreme metal, which is obviously it's dark and evil
Speaker 1: and all that stuff, but it's empowering, right. It's a
Speaker 1: massive show of resilience and strength. It's gone through this
Speaker 1: kind of tribulation, but it's coming out stronger on the
Speaker 1: other side. And that's what metal does, right. It makes
Speaker 1: you feel strong, it makes you feel invincible. And channeling that, yeah,
Speaker 1: channeling that chest puffing demeanor out of this like very
Speaker 1: real brush with human mortality. It's just really genuine in
Speaker 1: that feeling.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's what the hard thing of that,
Speaker 2: like that community and that uned like that fighting back.
Speaker 2: It's things that, again I love so much about hardcore.
Speaker 2: Getting that in a kind of just more like crusty
Speaker 2: death metals or thing. It just feels so like it
Speaker 2: brings out the best in all of the hardcore and
Speaker 2: the metal like this Some just captures all the best
Speaker 2: of things about that and just sort of throws it
Speaker 2: out there in this explosive, invigorating It is a heavi.
Speaker 1: As balls album, but it's so uplifting.
Speaker 2: There is just something about it where again, it is
Speaker 2: dark in it, sound is heavy, is violent, but I
Speaker 2: feel good that I feel good and I feel powered,
Speaker 2: and I feel like the record wants to pick me
Speaker 2: up with it and take me on. And at the
Speaker 2: same time you're then getting that bendy riff on the
Speaker 2: chorus to Cheat Death, which just sounds like so unbelievably hard,
Speaker 2: and I think this is am though I've hit plowing it,
Speaker 2: I've just been like, I this is my favorite thing
Speaker 2: in the world right now, because it just is just
Speaker 2: what I want to be hearing at this exact moment.
Speaker 1: That isn't the Mensingers.
Speaker 2: It's really this album has, like this week been my
Speaker 2: sort of like alternating thing. If I don't want listen
Speaker 2: to the Mensingers, I want to put this on, because
Speaker 2: I've just pad this on and again. You know, it's
Speaker 2: barely over thirty minutes. It's eleven songs. The songs are
Speaker 2: punchy as hell, and it's just so invigorating to listen to.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the next track is called Self Exhumed, like I
Speaker 1: myself have climbed out of the grave that was meant
Speaker 1: for me, you know.
Speaker 2: And there's this middle Fearless, Like all the songs have
Speaker 2: that kind of thing to them, there's.
Speaker 1: This middle bit where it drops out for this just
Speaker 1: eye popping raw of I'm Alive. It's just so fucking cool,
Speaker 1: I say, uplifting through you know, extremity and violence and
Speaker 1: all this stuff. You do have like a song like
Speaker 1: a Blaze of Nihilism, which is obviously darker from the title.
Speaker 1: It's crunching and destructive and that's tight on the death
Speaker 1: metal end. On the hardcore front though. You've got the
Speaker 1: opening riff of Finally, Fearless is like what HM two
Speaker 1: pedal hate Breed would sound like. It's just spin kick
Speaker 1: central and there are these classic gang vocals in the chorus,
Speaker 1: you know, to match that feel and it's all about
Speaker 1: you know, pushing forwards and moving onwards. The entire second
Speaker 1: half of that song almost is a breakdown into the breakdown.
Speaker 2: It's fucking like the solo basically being the mos call
Speaker 2: for the breakdown as it like it's so hard and
Speaker 2: like again that's when that is like more evil and
Speaker 2: just kind of like chunk of it. But it like
Speaker 2: it just hits the spot for me. And I mean
Speaker 2: they like a feel blaze of nihilism, has that kind
Speaker 2: of like scraping sort of antagonism on like this thing.
Speaker 1: But it's got that again, this.
Speaker 2: Big chunky groove and the spooky am shit at the
Speaker 2: end that all the songs just cause hill and just
Speaker 2: that I want from this music. It's the constant stream
Speaker 2: of the sickest sounds possible. Everything does it, and I
Speaker 2: think like it's what it's meant. It has then been
Speaker 2: like this is the best collection and I think ultimately
Speaker 2: because of the vibe and the spirit of it that
Speaker 2: fumal Mouth have come out with.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think there's really admirable lead guitar work on
Speaker 1: it as well. Like you're mentioning some of the solos
Speaker 1: in a blaze of nihilism and such vivid revelations, opens
Speaker 1: with like a dive bomb, but then screams back up again.
Speaker 1: It's so fucking cool. But do you also start to
Speaker 1: get some of those divergences I was talking about, like
Speaker 1: into kind of the doom territory and like increased emphasis
Speaker 1: on building atmosphere, which I think is one of those
Speaker 1: touches that you know, it gives the music another dimension
Speaker 1: beyond just being crunchy.
Speaker 2: Hardcore all the way through, more like smack bang in
Speaker 2: the middle of the record just leaps out to you.
Speaker 1: I think that legal guitar, That's.
Speaker 2: What I was like, Oh yeah, this sort of the
Speaker 2: definitely hardcore bands going, We're going to throw some doom
Speaker 2: metal in there, and it's going to give us actual bangers,
Speaker 2: Like and is that is that paradise lost kind of
Speaker 2: strand of the throwing it into that sort of thing
Speaker 2: gave him and Viewmale for both just kind of gone
Speaker 2: this actually, like is really conducive to writing bangers, Like
Speaker 2: it's really cool, Like.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like that song, it's got that kind of anchor
Speaker 1: of a lead line that it always like returns the
Speaker 1: song to it. And yet the type of drag as well,
Speaker 1: and that has that like a big booming melodic vocal
Speaker 1: that's more classically like heavy netal on top of the
Speaker 1: hardcore root of where they've come from. You know, it's
Speaker 1: a brilliant combo. And Barbarian Scourge is the one that
Speaker 1: to me really has that again a sort of gate creeper,
Speaker 1: black curtain kind of grandeur of that like peace fill
Speaker 1: type lead added on to a crusty death mold stomp.
Speaker 1: And then in the bridge it does what has to
Speaker 1: be like an exact deliberate callback to in Left Hand
Speaker 1: Path by Entombed. There is the mid section where it
Speaker 1: interpolates the Phantasm score on the keyboard, and the same
Speaker 1: thing happens here, like the exact melody line. It's like
Speaker 1: a nice homage to like I don't know where this
Speaker 1: all started, Like we're allw it's thirty five or eight
Speaker 1: years later, we're still doing the Phantasm score on the
Speaker 1: keyboards and it's still great. It's still sick. I mean, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that that song.
Speaker 2: It's it's really cool that okay that you get that
Speaker 2: like and you get so loo from out of that
Speaker 2: as well, and all these sort of things they just
Speaker 2: they're just good things to hear. And again, it's not
Speaker 2: game changing. It is throwing back to literally like the
Speaker 2: Bible of this sort of thing. But at the same time,
Speaker 2: it's always going to feel good to hear those nods.
Speaker 2: And I think I've got to just like you know
Speaker 2: that and say, like, yeah, do that reference Left Hand
Speaker 2: Path because that shit is the sickest, and hearing stuff
Speaker 2: that sounds like that is still the sickest.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And then you also have I really like the
Speaker 1: way on the last track, which is called respect Mortality.
Speaker 1: Like I said, You've had this incredible sense of like
Speaker 1: you know, strength and resilience and determination all the way
Speaker 1: through this record, but then it almost has like an
Speaker 1: epilogue where it ends on this sort of recognition of mortality.
Speaker 1: And you know, even if it's not this particular time, right,
Speaker 1: there is the inevitability of the end, right, and it's
Speaker 1: not yet, but it's coming. And I think there is
Speaker 1: there's a cool arc to this record actually in a
Speaker 1: way that like you know, gnarly death metal or hardcore
Speaker 1: albums don't often have. You know, the way again, it
Speaker 1: expands and grows from cheap death through to barbarian scourge
Speaker 1: and then like I say, it has a sort of
Speaker 1: coder at the end, it's like quite well, you know,
Speaker 1: just executed very good record. I still think that Feman
Speaker 1: Mouth are essentially like a really good band rather than
Speaker 1: necessarily like an elite one. You know, I'm not saying
Speaker 1: this is like a you know, Top twenty contender for
Speaker 1: me or anything like that, but I think just the
Speaker 1: really evident heart and like realness of intent that they've
Speaker 1: put into this one really shines through. Like if you
Speaker 1: can't tell, it's been quite a poor release month for
Speaker 1: me personally and my tastes, but this is one that
Speaker 1: I can like wholeheartedly recommend. The new Female Mouth record
Speaker 1: is great.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm completely with you on that. I think because
Speaker 2: I just have such example as that. Maybe I'm just
Speaker 2: coming out this even more fondly, but I just I
Speaker 2: think if you like heavy music, it's such a like
Speaker 2: I just couldn't imagine listening to this and not just
Speaker 2: kind of getting swept up in the end the attack
Speaker 2: and again, like it ends on the Dirge song that
Speaker 2: all of these HATM two krusty hardcore records have to
Speaker 2: end on nels did it? But as you say, there
Speaker 2: is a there's a through line to respect more time
Speaker 2: to where it's doing the dirge and kind of having
Speaker 2: a weighty message to kind of like match up to it.
Speaker 2: I think it's a really cool end of the record.
Speaker 2: I think the whole record, front to back, like perfect
Speaker 2: length of this sort of thing has actual songs beyond
Speaker 2: just kind of like HM two guitar tone is sick.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I think like this is like a real kind of
Speaker 2: like like statement from Human Mouth that they that they
Speaker 2: are kind of like seriously coming to play, like.
Speaker 1: Yes, let's keep the bruising going. Though No Cure it
Speaker 1: is going to get dark. These guys are a hardcore
Speaker 1: maybe a little sprinkling a death court as well, I
Speaker 1: suppose band from Alabama in the United States. Spiritually, I
Speaker 1: think they do. Obviously they sit very much on the
Speaker 1: hard core side of the spectrum, not least because they
Speaker 1: are one of the most very like vocally confrontational straight
Speaker 1: age straight edge messaging bands around at the moment. That
Speaker 1: actually on their Facebook bio it reads the World's most
Speaker 1: evil straight edge band. That's that's the self description of themselves.
Speaker 1: I'd seen the name and the logo as well. No
Speaker 1: Cure around so much I didn't realize that. I think
Speaker 1: this is technically maybe dependent how you look on it.
Speaker 1: Their first full length like this racks up a respectable
Speaker 1: thirty two minutes long compared to their like their couple
Speaker 1: of releases they put out in the past couple of
Speaker 1: years are like ten to twenty minute EPs, I suppose.
Speaker 1: But this is the first time that we are talking
Speaker 1: about them Sam No Cure in the hardcore world. Like
Speaker 1: I said, I'd heard of them. They already had a
Speaker 1: bit of buzz before the release of this album, and
Speaker 1: I think this album has only increased that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they are like in the kind of like post
Speaker 2: not loose sort of world of like hardcore where that's
Speaker 2: kind of something it's got a bit mainstreamed by being
Speaker 2: kind of nastier. Nuku have kind of landed themselves in
Speaker 2: that category.
Speaker 1: It's been a weird one.
Speaker 2: I quite like Nucure because they just do bruising kind
Speaker 2: of like death metal tinge like very sort of spring
Speaker 2: of deafinal hardcore in the way that like we're not
Speaker 2: loose with springs, but they kind of deliver on that,
Speaker 2: but in a real kind of like antagonistic, straightage way.
Speaker 2: And that's suddenly caught wind and got people who again
Speaker 2: wouldn't go for any of these bands normally, like people
Speaker 2: probably never heard of Earth Crisis, like No Cure, and
Speaker 2: I'm just kind of like, huh cool. And then and
Speaker 2: they said this, I think it's it's a it's one.
Speaker 2: But like for me, like No Cure, it is just
Speaker 2: angry marsh music. It like it's there's nothing here that's
Speaker 2: kind of radical or I don't want to say not exciting,
Speaker 2: like but like game changing. But if you want music
Speaker 2: that you are going to spin kick too and stomp
Speaker 2: on heads too and just kind of like get get
Speaker 2: really angry with, they kind of just serve up a
Speaker 2: very very nice helping of that sort of thing. And
Speaker 2: this album doesn't really change up the formula much. But
Speaker 2: if you're if you're down for what they're doing, I
Speaker 2: think this is you know, this is a good time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean the primary appeal I think of No
Speaker 1: Cure as there is absolutely no subtlety about what their
Speaker 1: vibe is and how they intend on delivering it. Like
Speaker 1: this is sledge hammer music through and through. There is
Speaker 1: a song on it that is less than a minute
Speaker 1: long called I Am Still Fucking Straight Edge, which is
Speaker 1: it's almost like a line in the sand, or I
Speaker 1: could see plenty of people deciding not to go with
Speaker 1: them as well because of like the you know, very
Speaker 1: little room for grace sort of straight edge messaging. You
Speaker 1: know that people if maybe if they've had experience with
Speaker 1: the adiction or whatever, they might be alienated by. But
Speaker 1: that exact splitting of people, I think it's pretty much
Speaker 1: what no curer about. Because if something is, as you know,
Speaker 1: unrelentingly agro is what appeals to you, then this is
Speaker 1: going to get your blood pumping right. And and some
Speaker 1: of the harder albums we reviewed on you know, previous episodes,
Speaker 1: when they have been a little one dimensional, they've not
Speaker 1: even been as like heavy or violent as needed to
Speaker 1: kind of punch their way past that. This one the
Speaker 1: name of the game is fucking punishment. And like, I
Speaker 1: don't I don't think this album is essential listening or
Speaker 1: you know, spectacular, but it is for half an hour
Speaker 1: just invigoratingly mean, And I can't say I didn't enjoy that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's I mean, you know, when you've
Speaker 2: got songs called Brain out of Displacement, like it's like slow, stompy,
Speaker 2: mid tempo grooves, Like all the songs are violently like
Speaker 2: the first song, even the song like the first song
Speaker 2: being called when the Spasms come like that is like
Speaker 2: a confrontational kind of like first song to put in
Speaker 2: your album. It's just full on crush kill, destroy like music.
Speaker 2: It has no like to say, no room for grace
Speaker 2: or I think the crazy thing is how they're crossing
Speaker 2: over without again putting in a single chorus or anything
Speaker 2: like that. They have no interest in doing that. I mean,
Speaker 2: it's just that that because that sheer extremity of the
Speaker 2: like the violent nature of it, that's what's kind of
Speaker 2: got people in and and I think that I think
Speaker 2: that's cool that a band this violent and like this
Speaker 2: confrontational can kind of like get a bit more traction.
Speaker 2: And I think that is like really fun.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I will actually say that, why are you we
Speaker 1: right about that? There are a few points on this
Speaker 1: where the vocalist is able to you know, deliver. There
Speaker 1: are hooks like I'm not yeah, Like there are past
Speaker 1: when they deliver a line with a little bit of
Speaker 1: like you know, charisma, basically like in that first track
Speaker 1: when the spasm scene. Care Now, I would say we've
Speaker 1: all been sold down the river, so you thank them
Speaker 1: with cirrhosis of the liver, like when he delivers that line,
Speaker 1: it does like, you know, it hits your ear right
Speaker 1: with a certain kind of zing to it, and it
Speaker 1: has like a few little kind of heavy litt harmonies
Speaker 1: at the beginning as well for good measure. But it's
Speaker 1: it's just really obnoxious. I think the beat down riffs
Speaker 1: are so sludgy and stupid on this. I was thinking
Speaker 1: about like Desolated and that period of beat down bads.
Speaker 1: We had a little bit like iron Clad the silly
Speaker 1: Walk riff going on in that is boundless in that
Speaker 1: particular area. There are some great little like rallying call
Speaker 1: and response bits, like at the start of Starved in Sanctuary,
Speaker 1: there's that they want you sick, they want you fucked up,
Speaker 1: they want you feeling like you're oh of options. I
Speaker 1: think that again, it carries the spirit of the am
Speaker 1: pretty well in you know, trying to you know, bite
Speaker 1: back against this idea of societal sickness. I am still
Speaker 1: fucking straight edge, even as I am not straight edge.
Speaker 1: That is a banger, right, I can see what you
Speaker 1: look at that that album tracktlist and that song immediately
Speaker 1: springs to mind, which is when you're reading the words
Speaker 1: before hearing it and then you put it on and
Speaker 1: it is about as again ferocious and sticky as a
Speaker 1: fifty second song called I Am Still Fucking straight Edge
Speaker 1: needs to beat, I suppose, and like I said, without
Speaker 1: without having commercial elements, I think there are bits where
Speaker 1: they are able to deliver, you know, in the wording
Speaker 1: and just how again those those those you know, those
Speaker 1: vocal parts hit you a bit, you know some singers, right, I.
Speaker 2: Mean again, I was mentioned on bringing out displacement, shouting,
Speaker 2: smash of scoll over a beat down that's gonna stick
Speaker 2: like that, that that that sort of thing like I'm
Speaker 2: showed being like a fifty second punk song where that
Speaker 2: I Am Still fucking straight Edge, or of shouting look
Speaker 2: at the end, they pepper those moments through the album
Speaker 2: where again it like again, even it hasn't got like choruses,
Speaker 2: as we said, like it does just deliver catchy, like
Speaker 2: ear catching moments of pure violent confrontation and aggression.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and some of some of the it's not even
Speaker 1: being strictly about the straight edge stuff, but some of
Speaker 1: the environmentalism as well. On a bliving crusade, there's another
Speaker 1: chemical spill and presses it to disaster. They shill again
Speaker 1: it Yeah.
Speaker 2: No, that's what I think. Like there is a conviction
Speaker 2: to the delivery, but you know, they get the loads
Speaker 2: of guest spots and to add that kind of hardcore
Speaker 2: gang kind of like vibe to it. I think it
Speaker 2: just it hits something like I think my Wooden Flames actually,
Speaker 2: you know, brings in a bit of drama. I think
Speaker 2: that that's one of the songs where they do again
Speaker 2: so build the scope a little bit where it's not
Speaker 2: just completely one note, Like I'm not like, I'm not
Speaker 2: this is one of those arms I have a good honeson.
Speaker 2: This is not probably going to be in my top
Speaker 2: twe of the year. But at the same time, I've
Speaker 2: got this on and I'm just like, yeah, I'm moshing,
Speaker 2: Like I think it just it just it hits the
Speaker 2: spot in the way you want it to. I think
Speaker 2: there's like cool evil definitely riffs on there, the sort
Speaker 2: of panic cord bits that again I'm like, keep serving
Speaker 2: that up and I'll always go for it. It's not
Speaker 2: as sort of derivative and one note. And again it's
Speaker 2: not They've not compromised their sound or their identity to
Speaker 2: go along with their new found kind of popularity. That
Speaker 2: they are ading true to what they are and I'm
Speaker 2: always down for that.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And I will just add as well to maybe
Speaker 1: sort of buck against a little bit of the idea
Speaker 1: that this is just a really sort of, you know,
Speaker 1: stupid beat down type album. I think these guys can play,
Speaker 1: and I think I can tell that because there is
Speaker 1: a little more flare in the guitars riffs like some
Speaker 1: of these bands who there some of these bands who
Speaker 1: are like just more basic and lumpen. You mentioned My
Speaker 1: World in Flames or Everything I Love as Dead or
Speaker 1: Dying has that as well. They're sort of like genuine
Speaker 1: cool kind of metalcore riffage going on. They're convulsing in
Speaker 1: the Dark has the most big, bolt thorough riffs, and
Speaker 1: I like those Slowly Turning Blue has these kind of
Speaker 1: wonky squeal riffs that do feel like ill and rotten,
Speaker 1: like the subject matter. And then to go back to
Speaker 1: you mentioned the guest verses as well. Again, it is
Speaker 1: primarily hardcore, but they tag in these little bits of
Speaker 1: death metal both in the riffing or Purity Spiral has
Speaker 1: like Vincent from the Acasia Strain come in just you know,
Speaker 1: bringing the demon on what is basically a two step
Speaker 1: hardkore song, Brain Matted Displacement has that call and response
Speaker 1: a all thing going on on a song that is
Speaker 1: seemingly just about braining people over the pavement, and there
Speaker 1: is I was also as a full hip hop guest
Speaker 1: verse in there that it reminds me of when Iced
Speaker 1: Tea turns up on the six feet Under song One
Speaker 1: Bullet Left, which is a real compliment if you know song.
Speaker 2: The vocalist he's in the hardcore band Bayway, like who
Speaker 2: are on those sort like like grid iroon kind of
Speaker 2: hip hop fromview Tarkle band. But he's doing the full
Speaker 2: on wraps of thing on this and it is again
Speaker 2: it adds a load of character to that song. I mean,
Speaker 2: that's one of the really fun moments on the record.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think if you like the really you know,
Speaker 1: brutal end of current hardcore, you can do a lot
Speaker 1: worse than giving this ago. So No Cure is going
Speaker 1: to get dark. I've even said I've seen a few
Speaker 1: people on Twitter saying like this album maybe you know,
Speaker 1: younger people being like this album's encouraged me to try
Speaker 1: giving straight edge ago and you know, you can never
Speaker 1: be sure how many of those people are going to stick.
Speaker 1: But if an album is already having that impact on people,
Speaker 1: then you can only respect it. So they yeah, no cure. Finally,
Speaker 1: we are going to pivot over into full death metal
Speaker 1: for our underground pick of the month. It's a band
Speaker 1: called a Rise from Worms and the album title is
Speaker 1: a fucking mouthful. It's a bleeding tree hanging self destruction
Speaker 1: and it doesn't really get more sensible from there. This
Speaker 1: is a debut album, but from a supergroup of sorts.
Speaker 1: On the drums, a serial supergrouper but one of the
Speaker 1: most legendary drummers of all time, Flow moon Air from
Speaker 1: Cryptopsy on vocals is Morbid Angels vocalist Steve Tucker, the
Speaker 1: voice of such monstrous records as Formulas Fatal to the
Speaker 1: Flesh and Gateways to Annihilation. Pretty death metal, fair right.
Speaker 1: But then we start to veer off a little bit
Speaker 1: because the guitarist, and I believe the primary brain behind
Speaker 1: this project, like it's his band, is a sort of
Speaker 1: a guy who's played in death metal but also has
Speaker 1: a lot of training in the world of jazz and
Speaker 1: classical and stuff, a guitarist named Sunny Lombardozzie who's also
Speaker 1: played an incantation, and then oh, what's this Derek Sherinian
Speaker 1: keyboard player formerly of Dream Theater and Ingram Mounsteam and
Speaker 1: Joe Bonamassa. What Clearly this is not the brutal death
Speaker 1: metal which it first may seem. You scamp, you rascal
Speaker 1: care and making me listen to this.
Speaker 2: Uh you got me with a people tump. You had me,
Speaker 2: you know, in on the avn't gar death metal stuff
Speaker 2: and you thought I'm gonna throw this at them, and like,
Speaker 2: you know what, I I don't like this record at all,
Speaker 2: but I also I kind of admire the like Shier
Speaker 2: zero five.
Speaker 1: I find this album is so funny.
Speaker 2: That's the things I did. I laughed frequently on this album,
Speaker 2: like some of the moments and the thing that there
Speaker 2: there's there is actually thanks if I do like this album,
Speaker 2: but at it's called this is like, we don't care
Speaker 2: about songs. We're here to wank off our guitar and
Speaker 2: keyboards and just play as technically as possible and like
Speaker 2: and if you are down with that, then I think
Speaker 2: you will have a all with this record, if you
Speaker 2: just want to hear like some of the most insane
Speaker 2: virtuoso guitar playing keyboard solos and then occasionally a little
Speaker 2: bit of brutal death Moel tucked in there, like it
Speaker 2: is there, but I have to throw I'm going to
Speaker 2: deferred to you.
Speaker 1: All of this one. I just like, I was just
Speaker 1: kind of like, what do you expect me to say
Speaker 1: about these songs?
Speaker 2: There? You know a little bit, so I like, there's
Speaker 2: like the odd vocal I'm like, oh, that was pretty hard, actually, babe.
Speaker 2: I was like, oh, yeah, he's tossing off his guitar again.
Speaker 1: Like, go have fun. It's achieved his purpose in the
Speaker 1: You've called me a scamp for putting this, making listen
Speaker 1: to this, and that was my that was my aim
Speaker 1: for sure.
Speaker 2: I knew it was I knew it was hit playing.
Speaker 1: You Rascal, you pairings. I can just imagine you being like, Okay,
Speaker 1: arise from worms. The color looks pretty met. It's got
Speaker 1: a more of an angel vocalist. I know. I'm probably
Speaker 1: like yeah, and then and then hearing it be like
Speaker 1: and again that that I wanted to achieve that impulse
Speaker 1: when I say I find this album really funny. That's
Speaker 1: not me saying that it's bad or like a laughing stock.
Speaker 1: It's just it is wickedly mischievous. I think yeah, because
Speaker 1: it came my way, because this is on Church Road Records,
Speaker 1: and Sammy Irwin was buzzing about having Steve Tucker and
Speaker 1: you know, Flow from Cryptopsy on his label, as you would,
Speaker 1: but it was like, this is a weird progressive death
Speaker 1: metal album and it's it's maddening, right. It is pretty heavy,
Speaker 1: like if you do like the tight, smothering approach of
Speaker 1: like Steve Tucker's era more of an Angel albums, there
Speaker 1: is certainly much to like about the nasty riffing on
Speaker 1: a song like Forgotten Keys, Forgotten Kings, even that starts it.
Speaker 1: Steve is sounding demonic and he's lurking in the belly
Speaker 1: of this mix as he does. But you get those
Speaker 1: you know, those snaking sort of you know, az a
Speaker 1: goth style riffs. You also then get mad Shred that
Speaker 1: is actively comical in how widly it is, and I
Speaker 1: understand that again the guitarists who wrote this saying he's
Speaker 1: renowned for using like strange, unconventional note scales and stuff
Speaker 1: like that, and stuff that I'm far too stupid to
Speaker 1: really like, you know, fully, fully really comprehend, but that's
Speaker 1: what all this is composed out of. And you also
Speaker 1: get like piano stabs and then two minutes fifteen seconds in,
Speaker 1: so that first song, it's been pretty overwhelming as a
Speaker 1: start of a song, but you do it. You know
Speaker 1: it's death metal. You're having a pretty good brutal time.
Speaker 1: You go in with the blast beats all that, the
Speaker 1: full dream theater keyboards come in and it like like
Speaker 1: full synth, and it is such a wild sound to
Speaker 1: be hit with at that point, it is. It's ridiculous,
Speaker 1: and it's almost like the song just unwinds over the
Speaker 1: course of it, like it starts off death metal before
Speaker 1: just losing the plot completely in the back half turns
Speaker 1: as this like manic prog bullshit. All complimentary by the way,
Speaker 1: I think. There are like grooves on this are pretty
Speaker 1: sick like when it goes stinky and low and suffocating,
Speaker 1: you get some like demented circle pit thrash rhythms on
Speaker 1: like power Obsessed, but they are never more than a
Speaker 1: few seconds away from having their feet yanked out from
Speaker 1: under them as they fall down. Some like Won key
Speaker 1: instrumental rabbit hole. Like if you have waited over twenty
Speaker 1: years for a necrophagious record and you like the idea
Speaker 1: of them resurfacing but coming back wearing a cape and
Speaker 1: having raided a nearby keyboard imporium for the largest, most
Speaker 1: wizardly shit that they have, then this is the album
Speaker 1: for you. It also reminds me a little bit of
Speaker 1: bad like Blotted Science for the sheer, sort of like
Speaker 1: instrumental lunacy of it, but it is, it's pretty bonkers.
Speaker 1: And then you're going through the record, you're almost getting
Speaker 1: into the flow of what's going on. You hit the
Speaker 1: halfway point and there are two back to back instrumental tracks.
Speaker 1: The first one Nine Walls. It is like the mid
Speaker 1: album Divide in that it doesn't start straight away. It
Speaker 1: has like the sort of desolate jazzy break at the start.
Speaker 1: But then as well as being the longest one on
Speaker 1: the record, again, it's a complete instrumental track, just playing
Speaker 1: you with the most ridiculous like dueling, jarring, starting and stopping.
Speaker 1: Got guitar and keyboard parts, which is the other thing, right.
Speaker 1: It rarely just hits the rhythm and stays on. It's
Speaker 1: always blocking you off. It just always goes over the like.
Speaker 2: Power obsessed, right, you get it. There's that genuinely sick
Speaker 2: riff and then after a couple of seconds and then
Speaker 2: back and then just like I was like, can you
Speaker 2: please just keep the rib going for more than a
Speaker 2: few seconds before doing that? I can't like this is
Speaker 2: me Like yeah, I know you said, this is me
Speaker 2: being like extremely stupid. I am way too simple for
Speaker 2: this sort of stuff. But it was like, come on, Wolves.
Speaker 1: Has a perremine in there as well, and when that
Speaker 1: starts coming, I'm like, you are off your rocker mate.
Speaker 1: Like that was it.
Speaker 2: It was no more something like like like kind of
Speaker 2: like jazz kind of like evil jazz Matthew sort of thing.
Speaker 2: And then going from space with the like pherom and
Speaker 2: I was like, right, yeah, all bets are off. I'm
Speaker 2: I surrender myself to your madness. Arise from worms and
Speaker 2: these are like that long too is again it's like
Speaker 2: this runaway train kind of like instrumental sort of thing
Speaker 2: where it's again throwing so many different things that I
Speaker 2: was just like, why have we got who's was it?
Speaker 1: In a row?
Speaker 2: And then the more baffling thing is so when you
Speaker 2: get to then Axes of the Violode Part one and two.
Speaker 1: Why not just have it as one long song?
Speaker 2: Why parts?
Speaker 1: It's so weird.
Speaker 2: But again, that song has my favorite part of the album,
Speaker 2: which is the Avenges in the Name of My Father,
Speaker 2: my brothers and I.
Speaker 1: That is hard.
Speaker 2: That bit goes hard. I'll give the album that.
Speaker 1: There are some hard moments in there. I think the
Speaker 1: breakdown in Psionic being near the end is pretty tough,
Speaker 1: you know. And like I said, Acts of the Voivode
Speaker 1: begins with this sort of like epic classical instrumentation, which
Speaker 1: I think it's a little bit of again of a
Speaker 1: sort of an Asian influence going on. If you look
Speaker 1: at the cover right, it looks sort of like, you know,
Speaker 1: sort of Samurai s, doesn't it. They drag a little
Speaker 1: bit of that. Yeah, a welcome divergence at that point
Speaker 1: to give it a little bit more solid variety than
Speaker 1: just but it does then indeed return to that past
Speaker 1: that you're after the races once again, I think because
Speaker 1: the death metal element, right, you know, when Steve Tucker's
Speaker 1: growling and it's doing the dirty riffs, it is so
Speaker 1: dirty and evil. This album definitely avoids the problem for
Speaker 1: me of full tech death that I don't vibe with
Speaker 1: because it's kind of polished and devoid of any fun.
Speaker 1: Like this is a mad man's album, which is why
Speaker 1: I wanted to review it. It's so fucking odd and surprising.
Speaker 1: I am not anywhere near as much of like the
Speaker 1: shred wank maniac as the guy who wrote this album.
Speaker 1: So I can't say that this is my favorite death
Speaker 1: metal record of this year, but it made me smile
Speaker 1: a lot hearing these sounds colliding into each other. Every
Speaker 1: time that daft Dream Theater keyboards since sound came in
Speaker 1: over like a slimy death metal riff. I just couldn't
Speaker 1: help being dear to it, you know, I.
Speaker 2: Mean that that keyboard sound is again Wow, it's like
Speaker 2: we should destroy all keyboards.
Speaker 1: Well it was in dream Theater, so it makes sense
Speaker 1: that you feel that way.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. Again, Like I have my beef with this record,
Speaker 2: but I do like I can kind of admire just
Speaker 2: the sheer mad scientist approach to just throwing every other
Speaker 2: and not and again like this is this is now
Speaker 2: for a very particular type of person. But if you're
Speaker 2: that person who is down for just the most obnoxious
Speaker 2: kind of like guitar virtue to keep up virtue, So
Speaker 2: we don't.
Speaker 1: Care about classic song structures.
Speaker 2: We want to just do what we want to do.
Speaker 2: Like I could see people really liking this record. For me,
Speaker 2: I again, outside this review, I'm never going to go
Speaker 2: back to this. But I didn't hate this.
Speaker 1: I didn't. I didn't have a bad time with this record.
Speaker 2: It is not my least favorite record that we reviewed
Speaker 2: this week. Like is not the worst thing, even if
Speaker 2: it's like something that in the past, maybe two three
Speaker 2: years ago, I'd have been pulling my hair out. I'm
Speaker 2: threatening to quit the podcast over having to Now now
Speaker 2: I can kind of go like, well, you know what
Speaker 2: it is mental and daft, and I mean because it's mischievous.
Speaker 2: It gets away with doing things that I hate, because
Speaker 2: there's is a kind of like mischievous that or like
Speaker 2: twinkle to it that I'm willing to give the album
Speaker 2: a bit of a bit of leeway. But I still
Speaker 2: never ever planned to this ever again. So like you
Speaker 2: got me, you had a good rib on my behalf,
Speaker 2: you got me, well done? Yeah played.
Speaker 1: I had a lot of fun, like you know, messaging
Speaker 1: some of my friends who love Morbid Angel and being
Speaker 1: like if you heard this new Arise from Worms album
Speaker 1: Steve Tucker's on it and be like, oh okay, and
Speaker 1: then coming back two minutes into the first rap, but
Speaker 1: you're like, what the fuck It's brought me joy this album? So, Elliott,
Speaker 1: if you're listening, this is the one album this time
Speaker 1: I want to hear so Arise from Worms, a bleeding tree,
Speaker 1: hanging self destruction. I'm sorry if we, you know, were
Speaker 1: a little bit DeBie downer during some of those album reviews.
Speaker 1: I do trust that next month will be a bit
Speaker 1: there for us, but still some really good stuff in there,
Speaker 1: and absolutely even some of the albums that we were
Speaker 1: maybe warm on, interesting discussions to be had about them.
Speaker 1: So do let us know what you think about all
Speaker 1: of these albums we've spoken about, from Loath to Muse
Speaker 1: to the excerpts to Arise from Worms, A lot still
Speaker 1: to get your teeth into their next time. Obviously, in
Speaker 1: August we will have our next reviews. Batch can't top
Speaker 1: Hendry remember what's in it, But I know there is
Speaker 1: some pretty high profile awesome stuff to come next week
Speaker 1: here on the you know, the regular weekly show. I'm
Speaker 1: going to be an awful fest this week so I'm
Speaker 1: continuing to get down and dirty. I guess I'll be
Speaker 1: back with a report from that, speaking about wading through
Speaker 1: the slam rivers as will be doing. But we will
Speaker 1: see you once again for that, So cheers everyone, Bye,