Speaker 1: Hello, everybody, welcome to That's not a UK Day AFI,
but you are getting closer. No, it's That's not Metal,
your weekly rock and heavy metal podcast. And here we
are in twenty twenty six for the first review show
of the year. We're a month in now to this
year what was big. We've got the records that maybe
you most want to hear about. Our names are Pernhaeish,
Elliott Paisley and Sam Dignant are here as well. Sorry
that the show is a bit late. We didn't actually
make the Friday. Between the three of us, we had
work scheduling issues, we had illness, and we had like
electrical breakdowns so that the metal gods did not want
us to record for Friday. But here we are. We
made it. Everyone.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm healthy again. I just it was on further.
Speaker 3: I was strugg down for cold and I was like, yeah,
it's happening today for some of the other things that
you'd mentioned, was like, yeah, we like, you know, scrap
it and reroof at the weekend when I'm feeling a
bit more alive and you've resolved your various things.
Speaker 4: It's the it's the restorative quality of Dave Mustain that
has brought you back from the it get to that
libel of put a bit of credit on the man's name.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, so there he is. He's been mentioned. Our reviews
for today, our albums from January that we are going
to run through for you come from Megadeath creator Earn Mull,
Joyce Manner, The Ruins of beaver Ust and backing Grillin.
There is quite a lot of news, mainly loads of
like one of those again weeks where just like the festival,
avalanches kept coming. I'm going to try and blit through
this news as swiftly as we can so we can
really get into the meat of this show, which is
the album we use. But stuff that has happened over
the past I guess sort of like nine or ten
days or so at this point. Firstly, new music wise,
I guess a lot of people will be interested in
keeping eyes on the new single from the Excerpts, which
was released in that period. It's called do It to
Myself and you know, won't go over what the last
album was too heavily, but there were there were eyes
on this. Elliott, you very rightly pointed out, oh no,
all lowercase song title Prepare for impact. Everyone but Sam
I haven't actually got around to hearing this yet, but
I know you have, so you can answer for us.
Is this more along the lines of, you know, what
we kind of have in mind when we think of
the excerpts and why we like them.
Speaker 3: So the song itself, Yeah, the song they're you know,
they're back to writing actual kind of like framing it
kind of like anthemic pop song. At the production is
a choice that that still feels like they're kind of
like trying to appeal to that gen Z kind of
market that the last album was like zeroing in on.
Speaker 2: But at least it does sound like the skin.
Speaker 3: There's just a weird vocal effect on Marria, which I'm like, dude,
you've got an amazing voice. You don't need to muddle
with it. I mean, it's a step back in the
right direction.
Speaker 2: We all have a case. I as like I had
a bit of an aro seeing that.
Speaker 3: But the song itself, it's got catchy chorus, like the
guitars are a bit more present in the mix. Again,
it just it feels a healthy step in the right direction.
If not the kind of like grand return to form
that we're all kind of like a lot of us
are desperately praying for From the excerpts.
Speaker 1: Okay, what I have heard is there was also a
new EP that dropped in the last week or so
from Final Dose, one of our favorite bands of last year,
really based on their album they put out last year.
It's nice to see them following up that momentum because
you know, their records are short and sweet, aren't they,
So give us give us something a year and I'll
be happy. New EP is called Endless Woe. Nice way
to start off the year. If you enjoyed the record
last year, with that very particular combination of you know,
black metal and kind of like cider throwing over the walls,
crusty punk with little bits of like noise and you know,
more like depressive and scary sounds and stuff like that.
Maybe this one leans slightly more towards like the tremolowy
black metal than a lot of the album did, which
was a bit more punk, but it's still in that
ballpark of combinations of flavors. It's very good stuff if
you enjoyed what you heard from them last year. So
I want to throw that one a bone and mentioned
that one was out as well. Like I said, festival barrage,
one of the festival's Arctangent, that announced two things like
separately this week for some reason. But first of all,
we got the news that I guess is worthy of
its own, you know kind of announcement if you are
so inclined that Arcane Roots have returned into action one
of the you know, sort of staple to some degree
another but in a very kind of cult underground sense.
I suppose British rock bands of the twenty tens very
much in the two thousand Trees and Arctangent side of
the audience, so it makes sense that have been added
to both of those festivals. They've also got a new
single out, which is their first single in eight years.
But Arkin Roots coming back, and then following up on that,
Arctangent decided to announce a whole load of other bands
as well, adding to what was already an incredibly stacked lineup.
And now we have all sorts that has been added
on top of that, including pupil slicer Jamie Lehman appearing
for a live performance nothing Marooge. Really. One that jumped
out to me is Scorpion Milk have been announced for
a UK show at Arctangent and the whole Like the
Arctangent lineup is looking so good. The whole weekend is
a right off for me, unfortunately, But with this announcement,
I am looking at the Chelsea Wolf Day and being like,
do I need to just get down for Chelsea Wolf
and Scorpion Milk on a Thursday? Because God, whichever one
you like, throw a dart at, whichever day you managed
to arrive to if you weren't doing the whole weekend,
there is really something special.
Speaker 4: I mean that day with Primus and Napalm Death together, yeah,
is it's just it's wild. Like there's so many bands
on this lineup who I've been meaning to see I
would love to see again. Octanda is one of those
festivals which I've been meanings to go to for years
and it's never been quite on the cards, and I
would like to. I might try and make the trip
for the Primersday because that's one of my real bucket bands.
But like you say, the whole thing is just it's rocky.
Speaker 1: Yeah. If I wasn't otherwise it's engaged. The whole weekend
would be the thing because it looks unbelievable, Like I said,
I am, I'm looking at that Chelsea Wolfan Scorpion Milk
that is really really a bit of me, but more
great stuff coming from art Tangent. Outbreak have expanded their
lineup as well. Particularly they have added a lot of
bands onto the Friday, which is the kind of separately
you know, ticketed sort of part of it. The Saturday
and the Sunday has a lot of the really heavy
hardcore stuff that we've been raving about before, but the
Friday of that Break now includes the Front Bottoms playing
their album Talon of the Hawk. It has a bouncing
composure doing a set mainly themed around their first couple
of albums. It has Tiger's Jaw free throw pool Kids, Sam.
I know that the bizarre sort of like alternate ticketing
system with like different you know, chunks of Outbreak I
suppose kind of throws a bit of a spar in
the work sometimes. But do you think that's a solid
looking first day? Obviously more of the emo and punk
side of the Outbreak equation. Does that look good?
Speaker 3: I think if you're into that kind of emo, being
like the front Bombs on those bands. I never gone
boarding and haven't gone back to how have they haven't
won me back. Yeah, me and either, But for like
twenty ten's Emo, they were one of the like the
real seminal bands that people like, they're all the most popular,
kind of like.
Speaker 2: Mainstream pushing of those bands.
Speaker 3: So I get like, they haven't done anything for a while,
so then come back to do that album. That's definitely
a big draw for people who are into that sort
of thing. And then when you add in you know,
Tiger's John bands composed underneath them. If you are like
purely looking at the kind of the emo side of Outbreak,
I think that's a very enticing sort of like pre
show extra day to add on. So I think like
like not ness not normally won me over this time,
just because again as a headliner, I'm not massively into
the front bottoms, but I think if you want that
side of Outbreak, definitely get along for that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, up over the wall into Scotland Core Festival, which
is one of those funny looking festials. I always look
at their lineups and this one in particular that jumps
out with me is going this is a really like eclectic,
strange combination in trying to nail down an audience. I
suppose it's hard to pin down what Core does beyond
its own kind of subtag where they describe as a
celebration of noise, because they have added a bunch of
bands onto this year's lineup. One includes on the Sunday,
we have the likes of Pig Destroyer, I Hate God,
Worm Rot Wake are on there as well, like lots
of the essentially your Damnation type bands. Several of those
obviously are playing Damnation. I don't know if that's the
case of, you know, some of them exclusive to Scotland,
some exclusive to to you know, England, whatever, But if
you are in Scotland and just cannot bear the thought
of entering into English territory, then that day is there
for you. But you also have prior to that, there's
the with Setia as a UK exclusive, and the Saturday
is very like punk and hardcore theme looking where Incendiary
the headliner for that day. And there's also the likes
of Petrol Girls and Tac Beer on it. So obviously
not as kind of esoteric as some of the heavy
stuff that's on the Sunday, But as it says, a
celebration of noise picking up a whole bunch of stuff there.
Damnation themselves have also added a little bit more onto
their already pretty great looking lineup. We very recently got
the latest announcement from them was Stacked, but they've added
three more bands onto the festival this week, which includes
the Danish kind of metallic hardcore band Eyes, Walls in
the Throne Room and right there currently on the top
you know rung of the poster, although no headline is
still announced, Health added to it. And this is a
thing for me where I Health make sense as a
Damnation band. You know, they are heavy, their stompy industrial stuff,
they make sense. They're just as much as the likes
of Perturbator do, who of course played there last year.
And I know that Health are a like a bigger
than average band of what you might get at Damnation
in terms of they you know, they cross over into
lots of other territory that is not the Damnation audience,
so it makes sense they will be high up. But
it really it kind of threw me for a loop
still somehow seeing this Damnation poster with you know, such
beloved like long running iconic in some case Damination staple
bands like Wolves in the Throne Room and obviously I
Hate God as well. And then there's this massive Health
logo at the top just in there, like very plain
font text, and you know, the Damnation kind of team
have been kind of suggesting that this announcement has been
like flogging a lot of tickets for them in terms
of like the weekly uptick of what they do. So
I think Health really gonna be bringing in a lot
of people.
Speaker 3: Well, there are contemporary They're a band, the one of
these bands that they are deceptively big in how many
kind of yeah, different areas they cross into where they
do appeal to, you know, fans of industrial fans have
got fans of the kind of like the synth waves
sort of stuff that you're into. But also then like
Needle Drop kind of liked crowd that people like that
sort of stuff, and that's all things so that they
have that and I would love to see some of
that crowd go to Damnation and then have to watch
some of the other stuff at that first one, and
that'd be a good look.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's called booking.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, Health are a crazy band because they're
one of the most universally liked bands in metal, but
they've not only are they not a metal band that
they've never been a metal band, and like this industrial,
more metallic end of things. Even though that's like the
last ten years. When they I think it's like get color.
It is two thousand and seven, two thousand and nine,
they sounded like lightning bolts or boredoms and stuff like that.
So it's fascinating to see how this crossover has happened. Again,
it's it's only you mentioning it now that I realized, oh,
there is a bit od Maybe it's because I was
teed up by Perth Based and Goss last year, but
when I saw that, I just thought My initial reactions
was just well, of course it makes total sense.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I agree. It's just like I said, you
just get hit by that. Oh yeah, you are a
genuinely big band now. Yeah. And as they have this,
like you know, leap into a different kind of areas
of the metal audience beyond just what is kind of regularly,
even though it does I agree, it does very much
make sense at a damnation and still more festivals just
popping up and existing. If that wasn't filling your books enough,
this is looking interesting. The London Metal Fest is something
that's been announced in the last week. It's taking place
in just the Underworld, I think, which is mad because
the headliner is Candle Mass, which I would look at
that and went, surely you must be including the electric
Boarnm or something as well, But there you go. London
Metal Fest happening on the twelfth of September since been
all day thing. Candle Mass are there and Duel have
also been announced as one of their kind of rareer
you know, UK appearances as just underneath Candle Mass there,
So if you are in the region then I'm sure
there's something to entice you there and just on the
kind of the trip of London getting uniquely awesome looking
stuff that the rest of us go, oh fuck you.
There are two metal tours going around the UK this
month that particularly jump out as like, do you just
like fucking metal? Then these are things that you might
be attending right. One of them is Heaven Shall Burn
doing a UK headline tour where they are bringing along
the Black Dahlia Murder and Frozen Soul. Another tour that's
happening is Silosis headlining around the country bringing you along
Revocation as well as a bunch of other opening bands.
As well as far as I'm aware, everywhere else those
two tours are happening. You know, I am definitely going
to at least one of those. I would like to
go to both, but you know how it is, you
kind of you have to pick your battles. If you're
in London, you don't have to do that because they
smushed them together, which means at the Too Kentish Town Forum,
there is I don't know when this must start, but
there is a massive day of matter been.
Speaker 2: Bumps, like a four pm start headlined.
Speaker 1: By Silosis, which that's pretty cool to see them headlining
the Forum atop all of these, you know, incredible iconic
in some cases bands just kind of where they've kind
of arrived at these days, so good for them. But Silosis,
Heaven Shall Burn, the Black Dahlia Murder, Revocation, Frozen Soul,
and then I mentioned the couple of Silosis open as well,
so they've got a distant and life cycles there. That's
a crazy day.
Speaker 2: I didn't have a ticket for even of those tours.
Speaker 3: Now I'm looking at that and like I should probably
just get a ticket for that, Like it's like less
than forty quid for that many bands like it's one
of those where like they're obviously both tourn Airs and
the land On London at the same time, and there's
definitely no yeah faging into each other's ticket, so they've
probably gone fuck it, like half day, let's get everyone together.
Speaker 2: And I'm just like, yeah, I'm sorry. I'm not even
like the biggest Himiho Berth fan.
Speaker 3: But when I go like Revocation, black Dot, like Froze
of Revocation, Black Doll.
Speaker 2: Heavnship and Silosis, the amount of rifts and like, I'm
just gonna hear and that's a pin.
Speaker 3: I'm like, I should I should just get a ticket
that that's ridiculously stupid.
Speaker 1: Just like brilliantly straightforwardly metal rifts as well. Right, there's
no one there trying any panderin. Yeah, there's no one
there trying to know, like tap into some trend or
market that they don't really fit. It's just such a like,
oh yeah, I love this, this is why we all
are into this unanimously brilliant run of riffs there. So yeah,
fuck you everyone in London. That's a ridiculous day. But
fair enough. As I alluded to earlier, AFI Watch continues
because AFI have announced an appearance in France. Right they
are playing the Rock and Senne Festival in Paris. There
is a day which seems, you know, the more t
and m friendly day, headlined by Deaftones, also featuring Turnstile Amalon.
The sniffers landmarks are very high up. I guess they
are French. And underneath all his bands there is just
a little AFI name tucked in there. AFI don't come
to Europe very much. They come to the UK even
less than they come to the wider continent of Europe.
But if you are looking at well, they are across
the channel at least on that particular date. Does this
mean it's the closest to an AFI UK date we
have had in quite a while. So the binoculars are out,
I'll just put it that way. The binoculars are out
spying across the channel to what might be going on
over there.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm looking at like what could possibly like likes
it's very close out the Outbreak London weekend. Deaftones are
on that, So I'm on the differend. So like I'm like,
you could say a FI into the Outbreak London line.
I think I think you can do it, Like I
know that's the same weekend as like as our Tangent
and The Cure, Like there's so much going on that weekends,
it's like is it a worthing alane? But like I'm
letting the A Fi delusion ride, like we're keeping it going.
Speaker 2: AFI are going to play the UK next this coming summer.
Speaker 1: We have to believe, just my luck, AFI will announce
a fucking headlining show at Bricks and Academy on the
day that we're seeing The Cure as well. But AFI,
which continues, they are, They're getting close, They're getting close.
And the best rock and metal news story of the
week is that Chuck d from Public Enemy and John
Densmore from The Doors to Ban they're putting out a
record for Record Store Day and just this alone, the
cover art. The first thing I saw of this was
when you Elliott sent us the cover art and the
record cover. It looks like you know those fake AI
movie sequel posters that go around boomer Facebook because they
don't know any better, right, And it's like Titanic two
is coming this year, featuring Leonardo DiCaprio reprising his role,
you know, and there are just all these faces blurred
over each other. That's what the cover looks like with
John Densmore and Chuck d like in the clouds of
I don't know, some like rubble or something. But the
name of this project, which apparently has been like long rumored,
I wasn't aware of this seems like a weird combination
of people anyway, Like musically, I don't know, like I
like both those artists, but that's a weird, weird, you know,
fucking egg and I don't know, like like salsa like
weird thing going on there. What they have done is
they have taken the name the Doors, taken it down
to just d O lower case, as the Door's logo
often was, so it's d O. Then they've taken public
enemy PE and they've put them together to create Dope.
Could have been worse, and as many people would if
you are familiar with rock bands from the turn of
the millennium, I suppose you go, hang on, there's already
a band called Dope, and mister Dope himself has come
forward saying, hang on a minute, that I own that
that's my band. What a weird confluence of characters here.
Speaker 4: It's it's just like the guy from Dope who's been
slugging away in the new metal trenches for the two
of the most famous, iconic influencial musicians of all time
get together to steal his band name, and it's it's
not even gonna be good, Like you just know this album,
like not to write it off, but it's not going
to be good. I love that it's called No Country
for Old Men. I don't know why that makes me
laugh so much. The whole thing is just like it's
it's like it was designed to be NAF And it's like,
we have two bands called Dope now and we yet
to have a good one.
Speaker 1: I mean credit to mister Dope his statement. He is like,
now I know you both legends, Like I've grown up
listening to both of your bands. I love you both.
I love the Doors, I love Public Enemy. He's not
gone scorched earth on them, right, He is like, can
we can we work this out? Please? Like I don't
want to get into some kind of spat with these
musicians that I admire greatly, but I do own that.
Speaker 3: It's crazy when if you Dope is being like the
voice of reason in the whole situation, like how have
we ended up here? Liked reckon the thing of like, oh,
we've got d O and we have pe, like we
have those two things together. Well, you know, if he
wants to rearrange it then maybe no, No, we're gonna stit
with dope.
Speaker 4: Actually, like that's the better way around.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I wonder why. Well, there you go. That is
the news in rapid fire for this week. Let's get
into the main course for today's episode, which as said,
we have picked out the albums that we most wanted
to talk about that have come from the first month
of this year, and we are going to start off
with the new album from Megadeath. It is a self
titled album came out a bit over a week ago.
Now most of you have either heard it or just
decided that you are going to not listen to it
out of some principle. So we are here to give
our takes on it because it is a moment and
whatever else we will say. There will be things that
are amusing on this album that we will highlight. There
might be things that we laugh at kind of lovingly.
There will be things that might be worthy of derision.
But I would like to reassert because so little of
the discussion around this album actually seems to be doing
so that I think there should be some serious consideration
of it and some level of weight to it, because
this is regardless of how long ago the last Megadeth
album that you liked was, even if you've never liked them,
without any serious argument, what's whether it's worth considering. Megadeth
are one of the most integral and definitive heavy metal
bands of all time. This is a band who helped
revolutionize the genre and have for forty years been an unstoppable
presence in our world. Many times. They were nearly stopped
Mustange's cancer, his debilitating arm injury over twenty years ago
when he broke up the band, only to say fuck
you and start it up again a year later. Momentum
derailing albums, line up after line up after lineup, throw
it all, Megadeth have not thrown in the towel, and
they have to show for it. Some of the most perfect,
quintessential metal albums of all time, and you know that
have been never beaten or replicated in their lane and
across a yes sometimes spotty catalog, still a towering collection
amongst the most size all the genre has ever produced
of classic and timeless songs one of the literal Big Four,
probably one of the ten most classic heavy metal bands ever.
Them finally calling an end to their career is magnificance.
And while we had the you know, the disclaimer at
the start there, I've been a bit disheartened by the
jeering that seems to have primarily accompanied this album online.
From what I've seen, I know that Megadeth are not
a cool name in contemporary metal music. I know that
they are not a band that particularly appeal to gen
z at the moment, because Dave Mustaine's stick is about
as far away from a white boy R and B
singer in a mask that you could possibly get. And
I know that the future of metal as it appears
right now is not massively made in Megadeth's image, And
in recent years they've been, you know, somehow relegated to
slightly humiliating spots of opening for bands like Disturbed and
Five Finger Death Punch who have not as yet died
away in popularity in the same way. So when Megadeth
do funny Megadeth things like basically the entire rollout for
this album, it seems even more odds with the rest
of us. Are all that in twenty twenty six and
it provokes derision. But if that extends to revisionist history
about the respect and the credibility that MegaDEF have rightfully earned,
I have to stand in the way of that and go, sorry, No,
there are lots of you listening who are waiting for
us to get completely our knives out for Megadeth the
way that you have. And there are also lots of
you listening who have a really strong relationship with this
band going back, I don't know how many years, and
I would like, if possible, to strike the balance between
that in this review, because it is our last time
ever to do so with a new Megadith album.
Speaker 3: So I wan, you know, come in as the the
Megadeth hater of the group. I will say you are
so right with a lot of what you said there.
I think here's the thing is, I think MegaDEF have
been worthless for twenty plus years.
Speaker 2: We'll say, like in terms of cretive.
Speaker 3: Output, with one good album in the middle of that
sort of twenty year period, I think they're like twenty
first century output has been mostly rubbish. It's been loathsome
at points in some the sort of like things Dave
has said and done on songs whatever, all that sort
of stuff.
Speaker 2: But I was kind of.
Speaker 3: Looking at this album kind of like they are a
huge in punk band, and it is weird that this
album isn't being kind of greeted with ceremony in a
lot of places, and I think that's our own fault.
I think they have entirely self inflicted the sort of
situation where they are being ridiculed and laughed at with
this album. I think you know we're gonna we've We've
spoken about this song a bunch already, We've laughed at
this song alade I Don't Care is awful, and it
might not even be the worst one on the album,
but that going being like your second single afterget like
we I gave them the kind of like the gentlemen,
sort of like the golf clubs, like tipping point. You
know what, if this is what you're leading your fan
album with, fair enough, this is not the worst way
to kind of.
Speaker 2: Like send off MegaDEF. And then they immediately shat it.
Speaker 3: If I don't care, And I was kind of like,
fuck it, this album is not gonna be worth taking seriously,
But I like I do agree like megaef at their
best are like classic timeless albums that even though I
even you have got me begrudging you kind of going, yeah,
these albums are fucking unbelievably good.
Speaker 2: Like they are.
Speaker 3: Like, as much as I wish I could hate all
of Megadeth, i'd be lying to everyone if I said
it was all bad. I think there's a lot there's
a lot of bad in there, but I just think
regards to this album, they've just painted their own target
on their on their backs to just be laughed at
and mocked. And I would have, you know what, I
would have been quite happy to come to the fan
O MEGANI family and go, like, you know what, you
bowed out respectfully.
Speaker 2: There's some dignity there, you know.
Speaker 3: I would have been more than happy to kind of
like eat this st humble Piet and give Megadeth the
sort of the tip of the cap on the way out.
But no, this album is fucking terrible, and I'll let
you two say what you need to say to defend
it for I get the knives out.
Speaker 2: But yeah, that's kind of like my preamble out the way.
Speaker 4: Well, I just like, you know, Megadeth are one of
in my life. They've been one of my favorite bands
for most of it. And I think, as I say
what you're saying something about the painted of targets on
their back. And I'm not asking people to I'm not
expecting people to like Megadeth because it's far too late
for that for most people. But I can only speak
as my experience. I think it's a shared experience among
other people, is they are one of the most fun
and rewarding bands to be a fan of in all
of metal. And it's it's because it's not all perfect.
It's because you can't you don't look at it and go, well,
they really nailed it the whole time, and they never
messed anything up, and they never embarrassed themselves and nothing
ever went wrong for a moment. It's because sometimes they
do fuck up, and sometimes things are like laugh out
loud hilarious, like you're buried over laughing at this band
that you adore. But the only reason you care, or
the reason why the stakes are so high, is because
when it's good, which it often is, and I think
pretty much throughout their care there's like the stretch between
Gold and Megadeth material I think goes larger than most
people give them credit for and the stuff that's great,
like we did the Rust and Peace Alm Club last year.
It's as good and as exciting as music has ever been.
And for Megadeth to be I was trying to think,
are they the most popular? Not the most popular, maybe
it's not the world, but like most well known metal
band to be bowing out deliberately like this where they're
going out on an album and say this is our
last time. We don't really get many of those. Often
it's in the rearview miror you look at fine lambs
and judging them. So it's like this album, would we
see it differently if we weren't looking at it through that lens?
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 4: I appreciated recognize that there's wild stuff on this record
that people aren't gonna like, and there's stuff that it's
very easy to laugh at. But I think, like I
said that thing I was saying at the beginning about
then being one of the most rewarding and fun bands
to be a fan of, because it's so exciting getting
their records and not knowing how much of it's gonna
be good orw much it's gonna be about what ways
it's gonna be good and bad knowing that this is
the last time I'm when you get that experience, and
again one of the more active classic metal bands in
my lifetime, the fifth or sixth time I got to
do that with new records. I do think it might
not map onto some of the songs on record, but
the way to that it certainly wasn't lost on me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think the problem with the band as divisive
as Megadeth easily by the way, I think they are
the most rabidly divisive band to ever come out of
thrash metal, and certainly again of that like that list
of as you're saying, sort of the most the ten
most iconic class metal bands ever, they're probably the most
divisive in that list as well, and again they've survived
for over forty years continuously. With that being the case,
The problem is they result in extreme confirmation bias because
much of both sides here in their records, the exact
record they are already predisposed to hear, and almost every
album they've made in the last twenty years has been
subject to that. I think, particularly the last run of them.
You look at Dystopia and the Sick, the dying and
the dead. You look around when those albums are coming
out and you will have seen opinions being aired ranging
from these albums are definitely just as good as Rust
in Peace actually, and this is irredeemable shit, let's all
point and laugh at Megadeth. I think the most fair
review I've seen of this album is the Pitchfork one
believe it or not, who gave it a five point two,
And yeah, I think that's fair. I think if you
think this is the worst metal album you'll hear this year,
then I am envious of your shallow musical intake and
it's definitely not deserving of much higher than that. Megadeth.
I think ultimately the End of the Day lost their
ability to be truly great a bit over a decade ago,
and it's kind of was just a casualty of time.
Endgame is their last truly top draw album. There's that
three album run of you know the System has failed,
United Abominations and Endgame maybe up to thirteen. If you
like where you look back now and you go like, yeah,
that was the last Hurrah period for Negadeth. Really. Super
Collider is their last calamity album. The three since then,
and increasingly each so as that creep of time has
moved further over them, they're ultimately their gradual limp to
the finish line, with flashes of inspiration now and then,
but unavoidably a shadow of what they once were. And
I had no expectation going in that this album would
be anything more than that. For me, this was just
about the full stop that will be placed by a
band who objectively are very important and personally are very important.
And from that mindset of pragmatic realism, I have had
particular moments of that full stop carrying something. But the
album essentially is thoroughly, thoroughly mediocre. Tipping point, I think
I've ruined for myself because when that was the first single,
we were like, yeah, yeah, that's pretty good, you know,
in the vein of the last couple of albums had
lead singles that were largely stronger than the rest of
the albums. It's tight, pacy, catchy. But now every time
the hook comes in and he goes, I'm on that
tipping point. I just think about Ben Sheppard and I
can't believe we didn't mention we've just done the first
part of our nineteen ninety seven special. Looking at the
metal from that year, and coincidentally, there was an negative
album from that year as well, and there's a track
on Cryptic Writings called Mastermind. I can't believe we didn't
make the Christian connection before, but yeah, tipping point standard
modern Megadith single, and then you get, just as we
did in real time, I don't Care, and the lines
for this album were drawn I don't care. I think
I've gone the opposite way to tipping Point, where I
cannot argue to you that it is a good song,
but it makes me smile so much.
Speaker 3: Here's the thing, I think, I don't care if the
second best songe on this record, it's the only other
song that gets to react that like makes me happy
because it is rubbish, but it's at least memorable, Like
like when Dave is going I don't care, you can
kiss my ass, like he's a teenager in the nineties
and not a sixty four year old man in twenty
twenty six. That is incredible that you can't come up
with any greater lack of awareness than that, Like the
dude has not progressed since the nineties. I think like
it is animal that he's clinging on to his youth
that like the the again we make the Steve you
send me how you do fellow kids saw jokes when
the song came out, and it just it's so true
about the song. And the thing is is like it's
the only of a song again that has remotely stuck
with me because of how funny it is. And that's
why I'm like, you know what I'll give, I'll give you.
I don't care, Megan if you can have that one,
like I'm glad you gave us like a hilarious turkey
on this album.
Speaker 2: Because my problem with this album past, I don't care.
Speaker 3: I think this is a lefargic, tired, boring album and
that is kind of the worst case scenario for this
album for me.
Speaker 2: I would I would have much.
Speaker 3: I would have welcomed a like stinker of like hilarious calamity.
There is one other moment of like hilarious clamity on
this album, which we will get to. But for the
most part, I think this album is just boring. I
was gonna just listen to these these songs. Drag on
the Hey God like.
Speaker 2: Ist no energy at all. It's draining that song. The
riff is nothing.
Speaker 3: It's like the solo, like every solo on this album
holds the momentum of the songs like a good guitar sok.
We've talking about like kind of like accelerates this or
the end of the songs like the finals or big
you know, none of them do that on this album.
They drag things to a hold every time. And it's
so like I say, it is a draining listener. And
that's why I've got when eyes up with this record,
not because I've kind of like out some sickly of
like haha, let's all point to laugh at Megadeth.
Speaker 2: This is just boring. There are worse albums than there are.
Speaker 3: There are better arms on this that we have given
an absolute kicking, and I don't like because they are
also again bad albums. I don't think this SEMs to
be given any kind of grace's fun on megative album
because it is just a boring album.
Speaker 4: See I kind of I kind of get what you're saying,
because for me, the songs on this record do fall
into one of two camps. There's the ones that are
sort of, if not good, they're fine, but they're kind
of forget me, And that's your tipping points. You obey
the calls, you're made to kill, so on and so
for I outside Iron Waller, outside of Tipping Point, I
couldn't tell you how those songs go. And then there's
the kind of bad quite memorable, which is the sort
of poison chalice of this record, where the songs that
got stuck in my head that I remember, that will
remember going forward from this record and we'll probably define
it in years to come are the ones where you go,
I don't think that's a very good idea. And there
are a few like like I Don't Care as a
perfect example, where tip and Point came out as a
single and I can't listen to it for the first time.
I went, okay, that's sort of like a We'll be backstyle,
latter era, totally serviceable, not special Megadeth song. Then I
Don't Care comes along and you go, that's going to
be a memorable Megadeth song forever now, like in ten
years when we're looking back on the catalog in a
way that like Breadline is like it's just it's in
the history books forever, and that song is wormed its
way into my brain. It's so catchy despite the hook
being I kind of agree like bafflingly rubbish, and there's
a few of those on this record. And maybe this
is the confirmation biasing again where I was kind of
enjoying when stuff would come and I go like, wow,
that was a fucking that's a a good idea. But
I kind of like they're swinging for the fence on
the last record, and I approve of that more than
the stuff that's actually quite well handled.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm curious what songs aside from I don't care
have that factor for you, because I've got a couple
of moments they read okay, well, let's let's arrive to
it soon. I've got a couple of songs that again
are in my you know, in my notes as like
the ones that do jump out by and large album
track wise, I if not, maybe in a stronger words,
I essentially agree with Sam because a lot of this
album is not When I say that Super Collider is
their last Calamity album, when you just mentioned Breadline there, right,
The title track of super Collider is another one of
those songs that is in the Megadeth infamat book, you know,
ah that rolled all of that stuff like it's one
of their funny songs. This album doesn't make bad choices
as often as you know they're real that the two
that always will jump out our risk and super colider right,
And I think obviously it is at the lower end
overall of what they've done, but it's not disastrous in
that way because it often stays and it's lane. The
problem is out of the most out of any Megadeth
album I think they've ever made, really is it's very
middling performance of by and large safe ideas. The performance
isn't on this record. The word I would use to
describe them is just very mild. Right, here's a complaint.
I don't see many people airing because everyone's just caught
up on the original subject of like oh, Dave's vocal.
Dick v Buren, the former soil Work drummer, this is
his second down with Megadeth. The drums on Megadeth albums
are fucking boring now, and I'm not a fan of
the drum sound on this record. It sounds like a
practice kit or something, by and large record weird production,
like it's worse produced than either you know, the City
of Dina Dead or Dystopia, which I'm not saying that
you know with obviously Dave's vocal range being what it
is now and everything, they have their own sonic limitations,
but this sounds like pre production for some reason, for
like what those records should sound like. I don't know
how that ended up happening for your final record. But
compounding that, the actual parts are so stock where every song,
whether it be a fast one or a mid tempo one,
the engine behind them is so straightforward that it just
doesn't bring anything extra that might help the riffs along.
And I remember being excited back when he was announce
as their new drummer because I thought, oh, cool, like
an extreme metal guy, right, that's what they need to
inject some energy back in, and it just never happened.
And mad amount of years. He is the longest serving
drummer of Megadeth ever because he's been there for ten years. Right,
he's only on two albums because they slowed down the output,
but he's been there for ten years. And when you
think about the drummers who gave Megadeth extra kick, be
it Gar Samuelsson or Nick Menza, this is just so basic.
And when I say that Megadeth has lost their ability
to be great with time it's not just that Dave
has gotten old, it's that they've lost the chemistry that
did exist in the band, you know, with some of
these more recent lineups, because Dystopia is a better record
than this one, at least in part because it has
Dave Ellison on the bass and Chris Adler on the drums,
musicians who brought some personality. And we used to get
a Megadeth album every two years. The last decade, it's
even out kind of every five years, and they've not
built up the chemistry. And the guy from Winter Sun
who they've got on this album, obviously a supremely talented
guitarist because he's in Winter Sun, but he does just
feel like he's a guy here. You know. He's on
hand to do solos without any tension in them. James
Lomonzo on bass, he does the job, but there's no
catchy bass parts or anything that the way there are
on Dave Ellefson records. I think the last really strong
Megadeth lineup overall was the Sean Drover and Chris Roderick one,
and ever since then, even though like everybody in this
band's whole history, of course, to some degree has been
a hired hand, but for some reason the last ten
years it feels a little bit more like recent machine Head,
where it just doesn't really matter who's there, right, it's
Dave and guys, and as it is, it means that
the entire musical juice of this album has just fallen
down to sixty four year old Dave Mustain, and Dave
is at a place in his life where he's only
really able to just about keep a hold of what
Megadeth historically has been and guide it to a gentle landing,
but certainly know more than that. And that's why a
lot of this record is not you know, it's not
going further fucking jugular. A lot of it's actually styled
more on nineties Megadeth than eighties Megadeth. It's lots of
like mid tempo, verse chorus, commercial metal style Megadeth songs.
But do they got the juice that countdown to extinction? Does? No?
Speaker 3: That was my point was again, like the rest of
the band, the playing is just it feels I say
so safe, I want on relos. That was the guy
from Winston on guitar. I was like, where is that
that juice? Where's that source that he has? This know,
it's becoe And again, I think Dave is probably the
MVP on this record, shockingly because he's the only personality
you're gonna go, well, that's Dave Mustaine. You you get
a sense of him and his character and it is
you know, tired rebellion and lyrics where it's impossible for
him to not write lyrics that speak in cliches over
and over again, like some of the most like laughably
like clicheving and lyricism he's come out. But at least
it's something, at least there is you know, the days
and character that and he doesn't sound as like rabid
and unhinged as he does want the best Megadeth material,
which is again, you know, one of the things that
was always kind of like the character MegaDEF he's a
terrible vocalist, but you wouldn't swap him out on any
of those older records because he's the right guy to
sing that unhinged sort of stuff in that in that delivery,
and it is you know, when you haven't when you've
just got kind of older Dave than that and you
don't have that, it does immediately remove some of the
appeal of what made good Megadeth good, but the very
least again I get, I can get the Impesson were like, well,
this is what Dave is in twenty twenty six, and
at the very list he's staying true to himself, which
is you know, the most gotten too man in metal,
like rambling away. But hey, it's him, let him go,
let him do it. But I just wish there was
a bit of extra source now. And that's why I
went back and listened to the last two album in particular,
which again I'm not a fan of. I was like,
there's a bit more juice in those records. The engines
a bit like it's gonna bit more. The riffs do
sound a little bit more at it. So like I
wondered why those I didn't like, they least had, you know,
a bit more substance in the kind of like whole
kind of like creator of the album. And that's that's
what's missing here. And again that's why I would put
this album as a noticeable step down from those previous two.
Speaker 4: See, I'm not a dystopia lover at all. I think
that album's fine. Sick and Di'm the Dead, I'm really
not keen on I'd probably say this is about on
par with that, but maybe it's because it's shorter and
that there aren't as many things in there which are
just I mean, it's not to say so much about
this record, but like that record has some real ugly
choices on it which have never gelled with me. This record,
I the one that strikes me as waste of potential
in terms of the performances is let There Be Shred,
which when I saw that song title, you know, because
I'm a twelve year old boy, I can't help but
be excited by a mega death song called let Them
Be Shred and like you say, with teamm from Winter
Sun on it, and you go Dave Mustain, one of
the all time great shredders and team of one of
the best you know, living guitar players in more modern metal,
and the leads on that which it's so comically overstuffed
with a completely unmemorable like there's nothing on their work
which sounds dazzling to the ears. And maybe that's a
dated thing, because it's very hard to be all that
dazzling with that sort of guitar playing in the twenty
twenties when it's such a you know, such it from
the eighties tradition, but it just it doesn't translate to
an actually exciting song. And when Mega Deth don't have
that conviction in the performances or it's just not as
convinced that you can personally like that to you know,
fucking head crusher, which is all shred. Yeah, And it's
like when there's just some fire in the engine and
a bit of personality, you suddenly have a fucking brilliant song,
and as soon as it's not there, you go, oh, well,
you know, the bass ingredients aren't that good this time?
Speaker 1: Yeah, see, let that be shred for me in the
the You know, if you if I was a rank
every yet song on this album on a scale for me,
it would be like, you know, probably top three or
four songs on the album, just because it is got
that kind of speed metal energy in it. And I
totally agree it is undeniably and obviously a you know,
a watered down operating vary within the comfort zone version
of what that is compared to any number of the
brilliant songs in that vein from Megadearth history, I agree,
But just in the concert album, and a lot of
it is you know, songs like hey, God and stuff
like that, which I agree are pretty tepid. You go, ah,
you know there's something And like I said, the biggest
problem fucking boring drum parts. Where if that song and
those riffs had a drum or with any spark, right,
if gar Sam you're simply playing on that song, it
could be flying. You know. There's been a lot of
meming about the lyrics on that song. I yeah, they
are funny, Yeah they are, Like it's a very basic
dumb rhyme scheme. I'm not going to get upset about
them because I mean, if Luke from The Dirty Nil
was saying the exact same words, everyone would fallen over it.
I'm sorry, you just don't like it's Dave Mustain saying it.
And yeah, the weakened delivery of sixty four year old
Dave Mustain saying it and you kind of deliver it
the way he does does affect it. But Davids Stain,
I also think he has a greater history shredding that
was anyone else alive. Right, It's not like this is
being written by the bloke from Wargasm or something, right,
facts is he brought the shred like the capacity for
shred and metal got higher because Davis Dade exists, He's
got the resume, so I'm not embarrassed by him on
his final album looking back and going like, yeah, we
did a bit of that, and I don't mind on
your final album when you have the legacy of Megadeth,
a bit of nostalgic self mythologizing kind of like something
that I don't care whatever, I'm not gonna necessarily die
on the hill. I think it's a great song because
I don't. But I wasn't offended by him singing about
playing guitar the way that some people out there just
seem like horrified by the very idea of that. Right,
it's Megadeth, right, fine, sure.
Speaker 3: It's just it's a boring song about rocking out and
how did you get that? Like I was like, you
know what, Mega jing a speed must on the last album,
Fine do it, But it was just like again, because
there's no like.
Speaker 2: Fire in that engine. It does. I was like, oh,
this is such a hard comparison.
Speaker 3: But whenevering like the random speed metal song clucked into
the middle of an album, the Big Give Me the
Painkiller on the Last Nails, which that is kind of
like Spein again, but it's the same thing. It's the
it's not a Spein metal album. We're gonna pluck a
speedmal so on Randman this album. And it's the kind
of like jewel in the crown of that album that
just kind of makes me go, it makes me give
an excitement and let them be shred.
Speaker 2: Not that it is lively is boring. And I was like,
I just want to enjoy.
Speaker 3: I will always want to enjoy songs about rocking out,
you know, They're one of those things that should bring
joy to us all.
Speaker 2: And this ain't that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I just I think it's again, it's mild. I
just I don't mind it. I suppose in part because
I said it was kind of a relief from what certainly,
if we remove the singles from now track three through
to like track nine on the record, with the exception
of of let thet Be tread in, there a lot
of it are those, as we were saying, kind of
counter to extinction euthanasia style mid tempo melodic Megadeth thongs,
but being played without the lineup that gives those things character.
And obviously Dave has been operating within you know, ten
percent of his vocal range for years now, by and large.
When I hear those songs, the problem isn't that they
are like, oh my god, they're so embarrassing. It is
just that meekness I was talking about. They don't muster
up the crazed manic energy that Dave at is best.
Did they put out the track Puppet Parade alongside of
those kind of model songs on this album? That was
the one that got put out as like the advanced
track from it? And I think of again, yeah, I
am wars your hey gods, whatever you're in other bad days.
I think puppet Parade is the at least the most
memorable of them, I suppose because it's got a kind
of hummable chorus. I think if you remember, if you
have a fondness for the likes of Angry Again and
you die dead enoughs and stuff like that. I can
hear Megadeth in that melody right like. It sounds like
a Dave Mustain melody. It's just not being sung by
a top of his Game version of him. So I
can kind of mindlessly hum along with something like Puppet
paradecause it's not a bad melody right again, and it
speaks to my love of Megadeth melodies. It's just unavoidably
a much meeker, lower, unable to really reach out and
grab you by, you know, the Scraphia neck version of
that song when they historically have the ones that do.
Speaker 4: I would agree that it's better than those other ones
you mention. I don't know if it's more memorable than
Another Bad Day.
Speaker 3: That's you know what I remember, because another Bad Day
is a day of a new Megadeth album.
Speaker 1: It is.
Speaker 4: That song is quite bad, you know, like it's I think,
like Dave Mustain considering, he gets a lot of credits,
not the word. He gets painted as a very like
one note performer, and I sort of understand that because
the big Megadeth songs he's sort of doing the same thing.
But he can pull off quite a variety of emotions.
He does paranoid very well. He does angry, he does despairing,
he can do scared. He even he's done like love songs, yeah,
which are quite good. He's not great at moping, which
I know ironic. He's had about half a century of
practice at it. But like Sad Whiddle, Dave Mustaine is
not appealing like this song. It's it's not another Bad Day.
Mega A song called not Another Bad Day in nineteen
ninety two would be about how is Boss Tom to
fix the photocopy and he shot him in the face.
This is more just like a van splashed me, and
now my trousers are wet, and I forgot to bring
my lunch to work, and now I've got to go
out and buy one, and that means going to stay
like it's just it's so it's very unflattering for Mega Death,
especially kind of on your last album. Like I know
it doesn't have the whole thing is not going to
be super triumphant, but it's it's such a downer song
on this record. It's just if there was any energy,
which there was very little of. If there was any,
it's just depleted by having it in the track list.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree, And again that's why I I'm kind
of all right with stuff like that that'v be shred
because in comparison, it's a bit like, oh, we know,
at least it's kind of this is celebrating something. You know,
we can all agree that whether you enjoy how he's
writing about it, whatever, we all like a bit of shred. Right,
there's it kind of gives you a bit of that kick,
and it it's being stuck next to songs like Youain,
like Hey God and Another Bad Day that does kind
of make it stand out a little bit more in comparison,
and it is better I think this album when it avoids,
as you say, like the slightly more mobile side and
goes for a little bit of that. As I said,
nostalgic self mythologizing, considering you weren't. I just don't think
we were going to get really any top draw Megadeth
on this last album, right because the time has come
and gone. The element of the album that I found
most valuable as a farewell is that, just like we
were saying, what fall stop can you put on it?
You know, the records playing it's safe, it's bowing out,
kind of tired. At the very least, hopefully it can
offer a bit of a nostalgic goodbye that long time
fans of this band can appreciate in the same way
that like the epilogue hour of the mostly naf final
season of Stranger Things, Right, as we were said, you
get a load of nonsense, but then at the last
hour you go like, oh okay, you know, we had,
we had some times together. That's what I wanted at
this essentially, and that's why I knew this album was
gonna be lacking. But I still carved out the ritual of,
like you know, pressing play at midnight and all that
because I knew it was gonna be the last time.
And when it reached the last note, I did sit
still and quietly and I took it in. And that
is my favorite song on this album by a long
long way. Yeah, because it's the song that has any
kind of significance to me. Sam, you're pulling a face
like you're gonna shit all over this. You're gonna shit
over the Megadeth fans dreams enjoying their final song, Say
what you have to say.
Speaker 2: No, the thing is, if this was the last song
on the album, I like it.
Speaker 1: Let's just say it is the last original Megadeth song
on the standard edition of the album. We know what's coming,
we know we will get there, we know, but this
is the last Megadeth song.
Speaker 4: I like it.
Speaker 3: It is I think, you know, at the very least,
they are trying to make an effort to put a
full stop in it and kind of like look back
and it's I don't think I still think it's pally
be good. But the very least, it's kind of like
paint this picture, you know, the weary Gunslinger kind of
like riding off into the sunset. Megane are allowed to
paint themselves in that way, must aim again year like
airing that guy's been through and again fuck with that
guy in so many ways. But the stuff he's created,
that the hardships he has because he has like as much.
Speaker 2: So I like the guy.
Speaker 3: He has faced hardships more than a lot of like
metal musicians that we all love have and so like
I will again tip back to there if he wanted
to have this like final moment of kind of like
mythologizing himself as the kind of like the last gun
slinger riding off to the sunset. You know what, again,
it's cliche, it's a little weary, but it's the one
that kind of the weary side of it.
Speaker 2: Actually adds to the character of the song.
Speaker 3: And when you get you know, those spoken word bits,
and he's kind of like trying to put all stop
and I'm like, you've almost tapped into really poignant here, Dave,
Like I almost want to give you Creddit for this,
and then the catastrophe happens afterwards and completely underes anything
and makes it one of the most insincere kind of
like why the fuck would you do.
Speaker 2: That moments on the record, like but you know, say
the nice stuff.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So I have been for someone who I don't
feel I don't have any feelings at all really about
like a lot of this album, Like it just makes me,
It washes over me. It doesn't really make me feel
a great deal, which is kind of sad considering Megadeth
when I was, you know, when I was a teenager
discovering metal, I would have told you they're one of
my absolute favorite bands. And I still would say that
one of my favorite bands. But for someone who doesn't
feel anything about a lot of this album, even with
how it's structured whatever. In you know, the week or
so since this album I have been, I found myself
thinking about this song and just you know, remembering it
more than the rest of it. And even musically, I
think just the chord progressions on it, the riffs are
a bit more striking than the rest of it. It's
just not quite as like stock chunky as sort of
the mid tenpost stuff they do. It has a little
more just kind of sparkle on the riff, and it
does have a bit of gravitas about the finality of
it because it is a mix of like it reasserts
Dave's character as this brash figure, right yeah, when he's
like I came, I ruled, Now I disappear, and again,
like I said earlier, be cocky, right, be arrogant, You're Meganeth,
that's what made you. But also reckoning with that that
can't go on forever. And the chorus with you know,
the final curtain calls a quiet end to it all.
Now it's just memories in my mind, considering like our
probable major reason as to why Megadeth are calling it
quits right now is Dave's wrist problems that have made
it like painful and difficult for him to play. When
he says, you know, each show became a battle than
a fight. It's sure it's a cheesy lyric, but like
it it's true to him, right, I think it did.
And it's a guy who like was once in his
youth the best in his field, like fucking burning up
the world, acknowledging his age and simultaneously being proud of
his achievements. And I know we're about to talk about
a bonus track, which for some people might completely downplay
that experience. It's a shame that we are in an
era where everything is on streaming. Bonus tracks don't have
a de facto separation anymore. So everyone will have listened
to this album going straight into the bonus track because
of just the era. Win it's what happens. But I'm
not going to pretend that that song didn't move me,
and I'm not going to pretend that even in the
week since hearing the whole album, I haven't continued to
dwell upon that song. In some way. I think it
is easily my favorite song on this album. And it's
the thing about this album that, despite everything else, I
will go I value the experience of getting that song.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's easily the best song on the record anyway,
but I feel the same. It's almost like that, you know,
in the late two thousands, whenever it was when Mike
Tyson had that last fight and he wasn't very good,
and then he's in that post match interview and he
goes like, I don't think I should do this anymore.
I haven't got it in me, you know, I haven't
got the fire in me anyway. She's got that used
to be the baddest man alive. Yeah, and now he's
just sort of older. There is that thing where I,
you know, I think everyone there's certainly people who like
Mega Death more so than the people who don't. Like
you have a complicated relationship with Dave Mustaine, but he's
someone who's been there, you know, for all of our
lifetimes playing this music and has crafted some of the
best of it that's meant so much to us that
there hasn't.
Speaker 1: Ever will be.
Speaker 4: And you know, it is cornball, that stuff with the
like the sort of western riff at the end of
him doing his poem over it. Like it is cheesy
and it is self aggrandizing and it is cocky and
all of that, but it's befitting of Megadeth and very Bufiftically.
It was when I heard that acoustic with for the
first time, I was sadly like what Metallica song is
that I could swear that's something from somewhere, which did
slightly distract the first one I heard of it. When
I've gone back to this record, I do find myself
maybe despite myself, I don't know, but when that song
comes in, I do find myself getting a bit yeah,
like swept up in it and more like more so
than that any other song on this record by a
country mile.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And for everything that can be said about Megadeth's
up and down to their career, they obviously have albums
that are calamities. I can personally say that Megadeth have
never released an album that doesn't have at least a
single song that I enjoy. And Sam, I know you're
pulling faces like that, That's fine, you're not a Megadeth fan, right.
There are like individual like three minute songs on Risk
and Super Collider that I quite like. On Super Collider, yeah, Kingmaker,
the first track is great. I'm not saying they're great albums,
but lord knows they ain't. I'm just saying they've never
released an album that does not have a single song
that I can at least go. I like that one.
And this album I think Tipping Point and you know,
Let the Be Shred are like fine, you know, I
don't care is ironically funny, but the last note I
think is great and I genuinely really like that song,
and at the very least that pattern, even on their
worst albums, has continued with the very least that final song.
If I was taking the totally cynical position, I would
say the last note gets completely undermined by following up
with a reminder of the band that he spent his
whole career chasing after. If I was to take the
slightly more forgiving position, maybe there is some poetry in
meeting the end as he does on the last note
and then transitioning from that into a almost like a flashback,
a reminder to where it all started and where the
legend was built. Look, this was always the part I
was least interested in in this album, and again I
was quite disheartened to see on the release for this
album last Friday, every metal news outlet was running the
headline Megadeth released cover of Ride the Lightning as if
it's not attached to a whole ass album that is
collectively to serve as the epitaph of one of the
best bands ever. And like you said right at the start,
Sam Dave shot himself in the foot by handing people that,
but it's not the most significant bit on the album.
I'm not going to pretend it is. And if people
just go forward and go yeah, oh yeah. The final
Megadeth album wasn't that Ride the Lightning cover? Shit, There's
more to it than that. Be more interesting, be more
original in your discussion points. I think Don Lawson in
the MetalHammer review summed U quite sucinctly by saying it
probably means more to Dave Mustaye than anyone else. I
agree if he finds some sense of closure by you know,
as he said when it was announced, and we laugh
when it was announced because he thought, what a fucking
mental thing to do. But he did say it's ah,
I'm closing the circle to where it started out, so
be it. It's obviously not a great thing to have
to listen to.
Speaker 3: I this is again I understand where you're coming from,
but I don't think they deserve the charity for this.
This is like such a self inflicted, like calamitous move.
Speaker 2: And again, like we there are so many of a bands.
Speaker 3: If they did something this calamatus on the record, we
would have the knives out and we would be gleefully
kicking them. And I again, this is from someone who
doesn't have that connection to make it f you do.
But I do think this is one of those things
that should because it is terrible get the kicking, And
that's why I'm kind of like and because it completely
undermines what should be a pointed ending to the record.
Speaker 2: And I understand your point.
Speaker 3: Of like the streaming age, the bonus something like that,
but again, this is a constitution that they know that
the version of Someone's Gonna Get has rided the lightning
on there. If they decided to, you know, release that
cover separately or only put it on you know, the
physical addition like some bands do that they literally ask
the man too, will only have those mant trucks on
the physical just you have to go and buy Then
then I wouldn't hear it because I'm not gonna go
and buy this makeing f record. So like fine, but
the fact that they have made the decision to have
the ambum that's going out to everyone undermine their poignant
closer with like again those a moment when.
Speaker 2: It hit I was like, oh yeah, right, the lid no,
like it was one of the when you first right,
that opening round like is so good.
Speaker 3: But then the song that's off the cover and again
the production is terrible. Dave sounds like he's trying to
pass a shit on the chorus, like it's so painful,
and I was gonna like, again, I would have been
much happier if they had ended the record on the
last note and that'd been that, And I've been like,
you know what, Megan f go go enjoy your final hurror,
Go do your world tour, Go celebrate your legsy because
you did do good shit, even if I like haven't
liked a long time of it. But the fact they
ended on this, I was gonna like, I can't not
give you the pass because I wouldn't give other bands
the past for doing something this shit, and that that's
just kind of how my hands are tied, Like I
wouldn't give other bands, I like a pass food for
ending a record on something this disastrous, So I don't.
Speaker 2: I can't give Meganef the past.
Speaker 1: Yeah, No, I do agree. I agree that self inflicted.
I Also, I'm not trying to say that we shouldn't
criticize the cover. What I'm saying is is I don't
think we should make as I have seen again a
lot of the you know, the conversation out there doing
I don't think we should make this cover. The entire
conversation of the album is my point. The cover's bad,
like we all know that. I think instrumentally it's functional, right,
Like Ride the Lightning is still a great song obviously, Yeah,
and I'm you know, I'm I'm still tapping my foot
when I listened to it. I think the faster part
towards the end, the you know that someone helped me,
please go help me part still mostly works. The biggest problem, well,
the two biggest problems. One is that there is no
because it's produced the way this album is produced, Ride
the Lightning is such an evocatively produced album, like for
as the best Metallica album, like conversation for a different day.
But I just mean sonically, right, there's so much atmosphere
in that production, right, Like it's a thrash metal record,
but there's so much mood and tone in it. Maybe
this is kind of par for the course of modern
thrash metal recording versus now, but there's none of that
in this version obviously, And as we said, the album
overall does sounding a weird like pre production, so it
doesn't help. Dave's voice does not fit, particularly the verses.
I think at all, I don't even know if peque
Dave Mustain could have made that work because his cadence
is so different to James Hetfield, right, They're two totally
different vocalists, and it's kind of unfortunately, Like the worst
bit of the whole cover for me is the very
first time he opens his mouth and he is the
guiltiest charge, like he puts his worst foot forward with it,
and that just kind of carries your, you know, your
perception over the entire rest of the thing. Again, instrumentally,
I don't think this is like, you know that what's
that that insane clown posse version of epic or whatever?
When you've gone like you've got what have you done
to this? You know, like this is it's by and large,
it's a safe, predictable, poorly produced redo with a rope
vocal on.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's I mean worn on the same page is
a pretty terrible cover. And to me is what you
just said there about the production where the production for
the rest of this record it's not good. But I
have nothing else to directly compare it to, so I
just go where it's a modern one. It's a modern
flash band, an old flash band trying their hand at
a modern record, and those often don't sound that great.
But like you say, Ride the Lightning it's always been
my favorite Metallica record. But a huge part of that
is the sound of it, Like there's an I can't
think of another Meta record that sounds quite like it.
It's so like Reverby and Cold. It just it's amazing.
And the way that, particularly the title track kicks off
from that, it sounds frightening. And this sounds like when
you go to a cheap karaoke bar and they can't
afford the licensed backing track. It's like it's an imitation
sludge version of Ride the Lightning. It's just it's and
you know, it's I think the other thing about it,
which is disappointing because I was curious about this before
it came out, was I thought, is he gonna like
mechanics it up and we're gonna get some new lyrics.
Is it gonna be faster? Is it gonna have some
parts drops? Like who knows? And by covering it so straight,
he is sort of admitting that Metallica really nailed it
the first time, which is not the poetic end that
you know, as much as the last note is the
poet sic end if in the last few moments he
just went, oh, by the way, he's a better version
of Ride the Lightning is what it should have been.
It's four minutes long and it's got eight solos by sea.
That would also be like Megadeth to its logical conclusion.
So as it is, you kind of feel like you
can't escape it as part of the record, and it's
it's not great.
Speaker 1: Yeah again, like you were just saying, if it was,
for example, the mechanics to the original Ride the Lightnings
for Horsemen, right, and it was noticeably, you know, had
had a very different energy to it, then maybe it
would have something. But like I said, those days Agne ultimately,
like I said, Megadeth lost their ability to be truly
great some years ago, and they weren't suddenly going to
get that back just because it's the final one. You know.
I saw some people were like, it's the final one,
So I thought they might have like pulled the stops
out of the bag. Right. That's easier said than done,
isn't it. You know, Like Megadeth are, they're past that point.
Dave's gone. The lineup they've got on it, even though
I'm not saying they're bad musicians. Obviously they're not. One
of them is in fucking Winter Sun, right, But the
line up together as a unit, they haven't got the
spy together to make it. So the album's not a
mental case overall, right. It gives them the opportunity to
bow out how they want. Most of it is listenable,
if unexciting, and even if I am going to listen
to it in full, exceedingly little. It probably is like
right down on that lower rung of Megadeth albums, just
above the ones where they did actively go mental. They
had to bow out some way, right, And the little
moments of reflection that I get on this record there's
some poignancy in them. I think this is a record
that I'm both glad to have gotten it for those
moments and very glad on the strength of it that
they are finishing and that there isn't more after this.
Speaker 4: Yes, it's a bit like going overrom the casino and
you've got enough of your money left where you don't
feel too bad about it, because if they'd done another record,
it could have been an absolute shiter. That's always on
the cards with Megadeth, and the likelihood you got off
to play one more round of Roulette. It's going to
land on thirty six, and I'm going to go home
a millionaire. It's like, yeah, but almost certainly not. So
let's just we'll cash our chips now.
Speaker 1: And we could have been in the timeline where they
stopped before giving us. I don't care. So I think
we ultimately looked out.
Speaker 4: I think really best of both worlds, frankly, and I
think again, like, comparing to their other records, you are right,
like Risk Super Collider, those are maybe they're more memorable
with their worst records, there's more shit on them. This
is more low level. I don't know that the fucking
world needs a hero stuff like that. It's like just
the kind of fine to bad Megadeth records rather than
the terrible ones. And I don't know, but maybe this
is me, but it's because I like them so much.
I think they've done an okay job, Like the album's
not okay, but considering my expectations at Megadeath in twenty
twenty six, it's like, all right, you know, stop the clock,
We're done now, there's no more time to ruin it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, when they do the farewell tour over here, right,
I will go and I will sing my ever loving
heart out too. Yes, all of those incredible vocal melodies
that Dave Staid has written, he has, they're all there,
They're on the fucking records, and I'll probably be very
emotional about the affair. The overall history of Megadeth, this
album is subpar, there's no denying it. But also, what
can you do really, I think you take what means
something to you when you get it as you get it.
So that's the final album from Megadeth, self titled As
It Happened. Our other big release for January, we start
off the year with a fresh Juggernaut double because we
also have Creator with Crushes of the World with a
K of course, what a different state of play we
have for Creator than Megadeth, because Creator are the Golden
age thrash band who are in the last decade as
big as they've ever been and have had the trajectory
of you know, being violent, cutting edge of the extreme
thrash in the eighties to kind of forgotten about by
the zeitgeist in the nineties as most thrash bands not
of Metallica size were too in the present day, being
a touring and festival headlining Behemoth on a scale much
more comparable to the likes of A One A Moth
or Sabaton or what have you, and their return to form.
Era always like to remind people comes earlier than a
lot of their generation. Violent Revolution in two thousand and
one marks the beginning of what you would call modern Creator.
I'm gonna say there's probably a couple people listening who
weren't born in two thousand and one, so that is
twenty five years now that this chapter has been going.
I don't think I need to cite how many bands
entire careers of all of their ups and downs, right
like the entire Bull if my Valentine catalog exists in
that time. Creator just the daddies, aren't they.
Speaker 3: Creator have been amazing for almost as long as Megadeth
have been shited.
Speaker 1: Sorry, had to give one more jab in the late
naughties when both of these bands were good. What Halcyon Days? Yeah,
and I say this, I am about to say this
is by far my personal least favorite Creator album in
that twenty five year period. They're so consistent. One has
got at least dip like a point below the other
one sometime. But there was something so pleasing lighting up
the release schedule for this year and seeing right there,
along side the new Megadeth we would also have the
Creator because I knew, okay, people are gonna be disenchanted
with the Megadeth one. These are the reliables. Though it's
hard not to be pleased with a new Creator album.
Speaker 3: You said that, I was like, that's hard, Like, maybe
it does have to just because of the strength of
those other Creator albums.
Speaker 1: That's not a damning thing to say, is it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like iving this album is still great.
Speaker 3: I think like particularly the first sort of like six
or so songs on this album are like up there
battling with the best stuff on the last couple of
Creative albums. And maybe the back half is where this
album does dip down slightly.
Speaker 2: But yeah, I mean that that is just kind of
that that.
Speaker 3: Is less a damning sort of stem on this record
and more just that's how good Creator have been for
so long now.
Speaker 4: I mean, yeah, They're catalog in the twenty first century
is just maddening, and I feel like depending on when
you come in, people are gonna have different favorites. Like
my two Creative records, a choice in this period are
Phantom Anti Christ is my favorite, and then God's Violence
right after it. I just absolutely love those records.
Speaker 1: And or Chaos for Me of Chaos for me as well.
Speaker 4: Yes, I love.
Speaker 1: Phantom Antichrist, I really do. I love God's Violence as well.
But if I was picked one, I mean, fucking violent
Revolution has.
Speaker 4: The violent resolution is right out there the.
Speaker 1: Greatest hits of just twenty first century creator.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's honestly that of the probably the only classic
thrashmhen This is true of almost sersaing where if you
went to go see them and they only played twenty
first century stuff, you still have an absolutely great night.
And I hate tuber alas. I know some people who
weren't that keen on that record for whatever reason, And
I don't know if some people maybe who listen to more,
you know, typical mainstream metal, they didn't care for Arthur
Hysic's production job, or weren't sure about how the melodic
mouse that record or whatever. I love those qualities about it.
I thought they were really interesting. This album to me
reads like a bit of the It's kind of on
one hand, it's crazy as you come to expect them to.
My is it sounds a bit more melodic then you
typically expect from them, but maybe return into that more
crisp can of cool well oil production job that you
expect some things like like Fantom Anti Christ and God's
Violence or you know, the Saytan's Real single and things
like that. And maybe maybe similar to your point, maybe
that's why of the twenty first century stuff for me
at ranks certainly on the lower end, but because it
doesn't have such a strong flavor in that sense. But
even then I look at the track list and it's like,
next time I see Creator, there's a bunch of songs
I want to see.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because obviously that period insanely commendable in terms of consistency.
I do think the flip side is there's something of
a formula for Creator and their modern sound as born
on Via Revolution. Is they take Scandinavian style kind of
melow death heavy metal harmonies as introduced with the guitarist
who joined on that record, Sammy, meld that with the
old school German thrash aggression, and then you pump out
these massive, fist pumping euro festival metal choruses as well.
They do that exceptionally, they've not had big lineup changes
in that time. There is only the one basis change
that whole period. So they are a very well oiled machine.
They know each other, they know what they bring to
the table. For me, the magic that Creator could produce
them on an era comes when that template really meets
some genuine like vitriolic anger and purpose which has always
separated them from some people. Again, maybe if you're a
really old Quit fan and you only like pleasure to
kill and that kind of stuff, and you look at
them now and they're very shiny and very slick and
again very eurometal, you go, oh, it's just like those
bands I don't like, like Archenemy or I want a
Marth or whatever again who to very degrees, I love
those bands, but they are proud accused sometimes of kind
of you know, putting out safe records just to play
those same festival metal crowds. Creator plays similar songs, but
they spit them at you. And once again, bunch of
bangers on this when they really land that that mold
open a seven Serpents that really sparkles like it's fast,
but it's got this mad effervescent in the note choices
in the riff that are just like dazzling when those
guitars coming out of you. Chorus wise, the next one
really hits you. Because Satanic anarchy. That's the winner in
terms the tradition of Satan is real to anti Christ,
hotter chaos, like your modern day Creator bangers that are
fast and heavy. The main riff I almost thought that
could be, like, you know, for the younger demographic, that
could be a couple of alevelence riff or something. But
then but then on the chorus when Mick, when Miller
is like, you know, he says something really rousing and stirring,
but against like a really epic melody, and the rise
up confront create a new reality absolutely bangs.
Speaker 2: So that's things.
Speaker 3: My favorite Creator song is Rotten, where they suddenly become
a punk band in these kind of epic heavy metal sense.
And that's again, firstly, how has it taken until twenty
twenty six for Creator to call a song Satanic anarchy?
But that is by far like my favorite song on
the record because it is just like it's fired up,
it is mean, and it is like bruising the start
that bit, and then again that chorus hits and it
is rousing and it is kind of like a big like
it feels like a big rousing, kind of like fish
in the Air punk song, which again they've done quite
a lot, and it's so cool that they can do
that while still having this epic heavy metal sensibility. The
sort of opening one on this album basically serves every
kind of Creator.
Speaker 2: Song I want.
Speaker 3: It does because Seven Serpents is your epic kind of
like dramatic, is even got you know, the symphonic touches.
There's incredible melody in that riffing that adds a magical
sparkle to it. Satanic Kanarcky fucking just goes. It's hard,
it's violent, and then you get Crushes of the World,
which is the festival crowd bouncing, just fist pumping mid
temper again.
Speaker 2: You know, it's the satan Is reel.
Speaker 3: It's that kind of It's one of those on this
album where it's like designed to just make you pump
your fist in.
Speaker 2: The air sing along. It is chunky, it's stirring.
Speaker 3: It is not anything new for Creator, and I think
you know, at this stage, maybe expecting new things from
Creator is like you're going in a bit fullish if
you're expecting them to completely reinvent the world and change
things up. But if they're still dropping these kind of
like Creator staples at this level up to like Barbarians,
that is just hitting everything I want from Creator.
Speaker 4: But I think also what I like about it is
that's all that stuffs absolutely true, that uro metal vacking, festival,
fist in the air, whole crowd bouncing, it's sticking all
those boxes. But one of the things that I like
about Creator which marks them out from you know, bands
like I think Arch Enemy or Amon a Math or
a Saber Song, where maybe that criticism that their music
is safer now doesn't exactly lamb for me. Maybe it
sounds safer than say, Pleasure to Kill It in the
mid eighties, but it's hard to imagine anything sounding more
frightening than that back then. But they've always managed to
maintain enough of that wilder bandon that makes those records
so hair raising, like Barbarian, which again super catchy song
and when it slams in, it's a super satisfying groove.
But the way Vental is like just he's just on
one on that song where he's just throwing in double
double bass flourishes all over it. Which adds so much
frantic energy in a way that like, you know, you
listen to something like the Blister Exists by Slipknot and
it's like, that's a very ca actually fest with ready
metal song. But because Joey Jordison is losing his mind
on the drum kit, it just sounds madic that he
adds that kind of energy to their music, which you know,
if you are like a pop producer, you got that's
in essential. That's CLASSICALO the mix. But you know, to
someone who's if you love classic thrash, that's the flavor
you still want.
Speaker 1: Yeah, as you're saying, you know, title track track three
on it hits you with that very like it again.
It's the groove single. We've skipped over the fourth track,
which is called Trananna Plast perhaps, which is where they
go literal goblin mode because when I don't know again,
this is one of thing about if you know it,
you will immediately hear it. Go hang on, what if
you don't. If you don't know, it just goes Oh.
That's a kind of a strange, slightly different, more haunted melody.
Trannon Plast is a reworking of the Goblin theme for
the Dario Argento movie Suspiria transposed into Yeah, that's why
you know it, That's why you recognize it. It's the
Goblin transposed onto like a tremolo metal riff, which was
and that's why the choruses oft going Suspiri are right.
It's not subtle, it's not hidden like it's it's a
Suspirior Creator song for some reason. It's also got a
guest vocalist on it. Apparently she's like an extreme metal
vocal coach that I presume that Miller has worked with.
I genuinely found it quite strange hearing another voice on it,
because I'm so used to just hearing like, you know,
Miller's very particular tone on Creator records. Hearing like a
more sort of harsher death metally voice was a bit
like what's this going to s and the chorus and
having what does sound pretty great on like an almost
black metaly tremlo guitar version of it, fun song, an
incredible Miller on the bridge. I swear on this record,
Miller he goes overkill on like the ah, he does
this thing. It's very particular him where he tails off.
He'd he delivers words and at the end of the
word he moves into like the more old school miller
growl to he'll go ah. He does it so much
on this record, it's like every other fucking line, but
it's just, you know, it's quirks to him character. I
think this album does stack itself. I think you can
see for a fact the first four tracks are all
the singles, right, and they've made that choice. They've gone
those are the ones that are gonna win at the festivals,
you know. And the album as it goes on I
find to be it's more openly displaying of the formula
I suppose hate luberellas. I agree Elliott. I don't know
why anyone would not love that album. For me, it's
very consistent. Some of the album tracks on it, like
Demonic Future when he's like screaming about punching a Nazi
in the face or whatever, are like the most fired
up on it. And there's also a good variety in that.
But where you have they have the sort of the
mid pace anthem like Strongest of the Strong. You have
a more sort of nostalgic heavy metal feel on Become
the Mortal, The closer Dying Planet was this like really oppressive,
doomy kind of song about the climate catastrophe. That so
it maintains the quality and keeps it fresh past the
first four songs of this, which are those singles which
offer you, as you were saying, Sam, very different like
modes of what like a Creator single is gonna be
up to this really weird left turn in the Suspiria song.
It's a little more copy and paste in the second half.
That doesn't mean I don't like it, because the energy
is kept up the whole way and certainly compareson to
like the previous album we've just reviewed, Right, that's the
thing to reassert it. This album hits hard and fast
all the way. I like going Barbarian Barbarian. I like
the death scream. I like hearing about whatever a psychotic
Imperator is. You know, like they're fun songs. They just
do feel a little more like, yeah, you know, these
are Creator songs that we've already heard over the last
twenty five years. This is the first Creator riff. This
is the part where your chant along got it. It's
kind of seme you as an album. Then the last
couple have been I.
Speaker 3: Mean I mean that is I think that's fair. I
think I would just include Barbarian in that run of
like killer tracks. That is what the most like ridiculous
mosh part breakdown from in there as well, which is
like again I was like, go on, creer, I may
want to throw fiss like and that. Like ever think
it's like blood of our Blood and combatants and maybe
like the two are kind of like, yeah, these these
are the close you get to disposable songs, but they
are so at it. Combats has that kind of like
heavy metal gallop, which again just kind of offers a
bit of a change. I think the psychotic imperature, like
that's really cool. There's like nice heavy melon medoy. There's
a really violently unhinged riff on that record All to
the Grave, which is again that that is a copy
bas song because it is again just doing crushes of
the world kind of like fist pumping, rousing, heavy melt
bang again where you're just shouting one phrase.
Speaker 2: Over and over again for the chorus. But it's big.
It's a fun way to close out the record.
Speaker 3: And I'm like, even if again this does become copy
pasts beyond the first sort of five songs, it's still
you know, it's what ten tracks.
Speaker 2: It doesn't outstairs Welcome.
Speaker 3: The energy never dips, it doesn't ever sound tired or
like lifeless. I think, like I say, Turning Past, like
when that came in and I was like, is that
the spear thing? And then when he said sings on
the course like yeah, and to you you still do
get cool surprises like that. It just I think it's
just such a fun album to listen to, where because
of the band's energy, because Miller just had like such
an unhinged lunatic of a vocalist even at this stage
of their career, and the fact he still sounds like
a madman.
Speaker 2: And every time I f I'm just at live shang.
Speaker 3: Kill like and you still get that of course one
of these songs. I just have the best time listening
to this, even if it is maybe not as kind
of like consistently like insanely good as the last two
records were.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and you know, there's nothing revolutionary about this record
in the sense where if someone has heard creator and
didn't like it, you wouldn't go, well, you've got to
try Crushes of the World, because that's going to be
the one that gets And if someone was getting into
Creates and say, you know, which album should I buy?
This wouldn't be in the first half dozen or more
than that that you'd say, like you must get those,
you know, right away. But it's like if you are
a Creative fan and you should be, I maybe you're
saying like there's there's dips in the record, like I
can see that, there's only obvious highs. It's definitely front
low that I can see that. But I'm still having
a good enough time in the second half where it
doesn't feel like, Okay, I've had the first four songs,
I'll put something else on now, it's like I'm leaving
it playing if I'm putting this record on. And the
fact that Creator one of the only maybe the only
classic thrashband of that time operating at that sort of
at that standard where they're putting out an album where
because it's only really by the chances that Megan have
to putt out the last album, that we're even comparing
the two, Like ordinarily Creator put out a new album
and you're comparing them to you know, Warbrigger or have
Acre like with the other like younger thrashbands and they're
going toe to toe with any of them. It's it's it.
They're still They've still got the They've still got the mustard.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I totally agree. Here's the energy of it. Like
the closing stretch on this, it's not as distinct and
memorable as God's a Violets, Right when you look at
like tracks nine and ten on Gods of Violets and
you're like fallen brother and side by side and stuff,
is like, how are these songs still this good? Like
this deep in the closes, are on this low to
the grave. I like, I suppose they have a bit
of the orchestral touch on this record. Maybe that's its thing.
It's there in Seven Serpents at the start, and then
it comes back around again for the end, big you know,
lovely stirring, heavy metal guitar melody throughout basically the whole thing.
They're twenty five years into the just the streak of
their modern golden age, right, that's more than half of
their career total at this stage. If this is the
first one where I've gone this maybe feels like a
January album rather than one I'm still going to be
talking about come December. It's still bloody great going it
like it's my second favorite album of this month, and
it's still obviously very recommended creator crushers of the world.
We keep it metal as we move into our third review,
which comes from Urn and their third album, which is
called Setting Fire to the Sky, one of the UK's
most I don't know, maybe centrally positioned dependent on where
you're looking at it. Metal bands of the twenty twenties
Surpent and Spirit in twenty twenty one really quite hype
debut with a lot of promise on Show a Feast
on Sorrow. In twenty twenty three, even more praise lashed
upon it. They were doing mad things on that, like
going and working with Joe Deplantier as their producer. Here
they've got a Troy Sanders guest vocal like Earn. They
seem like they are somewhat you know, they're being noticed by,
you know, some of the the higher ups in this world,
I suppose, And if you are maybe a slightly aging
UK metal fan at this stage, I would say you
may remember that this band kind of emerged out of
the aftermath of several bands from the naughties and twenty
ten's metal scenes here, including Malathie and Hang the Bastard
and Anterior and Ern feel like by far the most
any of those bands have achieved, any of that kind
of quite beloved darling status. Is that fair?
Speaker 2: I think so? Yeah?
Speaker 3: I think like again I do one of it's them
coming from you know, bands who were very kind of
like like be in a very cult way and in
them kind of coming together Earn.
Speaker 2: They still feel like a bit of a UK underground bander.
Speaker 3: They're not the biggest thing, but they are real darlings
of that kind of like ukmet scene where like I
very rarely see people kind of like saying bad things
about I think a lot of but there's a lot
of good will towards them, and I think it's everyone
so glad to see them getting the attention of, as
you say, Jodi plantieratoy standers like those sort of names
of taking attention to this sort of little UK.
Speaker 2: Band of like well liked hard working musicians.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I know that you will have probably you know,
speed to see the likes of Hanging the Basket or
whatever in their day. Are you do you like Earn?
You're a fan?
Speaker 2: Yes, I am a fan of Hern. I do very much.
I like the last two albums.
Speaker 3: I think the second one in particular was like a
really interesting kind of pivot for them in that kind
of like more emotionally raw, kind of like take on
the kind of like big just kind of like progressive
leaning metal.
Speaker 1: Yeah, what you were saying about them kind of still
feeling quite underground in some ways is what I was
thinking about with this, because I was like, Okay, this
is the third album. Now, they've been around for a
little minute now, and they are very well, you know,
very well reviewed. People seem to really like their albums.
I was wondering, is there something of a middle valley.
I suppose that Ern have maybe found themselves in where
the most recent time that I saw Earn was opening
for the Orange Goblin Farewell run last month, and Ern
are kind of in a position where their albums always
get like glowing praise right for a magazine, like a
good chunk of our listenership, Like people really love the albums,
but they're not actually like a really like crossover big
band from the world of metal at this stage. And
I feel like their first two albums, there's been a
lot of this kind of anointing of them with all
of these things as if people were, you know, expecting
them to blow up. There's always that thing, right there.
Can name many of the bands from the last ten
years in the UK particularly you look at the thats
I know, like Conjura or whatever, like bands who people
throw everything in on early and go like this is
going to be one of the definitive metal bands this generation.
And I'm not saying these are, you know, not good bands.
Obviously that's not the case. We love a lot of
these bands. I'm just saying that in terms of like
their their their crossover potential, it's not actually happened. And
I'm not pinning that on Earn themselves because Earn are
a very like, just hard working, unpretentious band who I'm
making the art they want to make, right, and they
seem very honest about it, and they're not really much
in common with the metal zeitgeist, right, and I respect
the fuck out of that. And I've also I've kind
of realized that I personally I like the idea of
Earn more than I actually love their music, because I
listen to their records and they are a sort of
split between all these things that I love, where they're
kind of they're like a sludgy post metally band at times.
Sometimes they're like a thrash band, but with these more progressive,
like machine heady kind of structures. They have the kind
of modern progressive but just very crunching mainstage metal feel
of you know, be a good year or a mastard on.
But I don't really find myself returning to their albums,
and maybe it's that they are leaning more into with
these like expansive emotional songs, which again their last album
really dealt with a lot of those, But texturally they're
produced so much like a crunchy modern metal band, I
don't find myself like swimming in the atmosphere so much.
And on the flip side, while they absolutely they can
knock out a rift right they've got plenty of riffs,
their elaborate approach to arrangements, I don't think it's produced
any anthems, you know. And I'm looking at their position
in that sort of middle audience split like I was saying,
and I think they're a band who are good at
a many number of things, but at least for me,
they haven't completely transcended into nailing the mixture of elements
that they're going for, which would make them undeniable to
a mass amount of people in the way that all
those inspiration points I'm mentioning are you go what I'm saying.
Speaker 2: I do what you're saying. I'm definitely kind of more
interest than I think you are.
Speaker 3: But I do agree because I think the appointment is
like they're so unconcerned with the kind of like mainstream
melt zeitgeist and this sort of some because they are
cleagues doing what they want to do. There you can
hear all of their interests, you know where it is
again post metal, there is no like occasional bits where
you can say, well, like I've seen we there's bits
of milk on this. I wouldn't necessarily necessarily say I agree,
but back and see where like some of them are
kind of like interesting kind of metallic hardcore bands.
Speaker 2: Of some of the riffing could maybe be kind of
like and to a.
Speaker 3: Convergens like that at times, but it, you know, to me,
this is very much the band who they like machine Head,
they like mass On, they like of Luna, and they
want to you know, just kind of like do their
take on this kind of big kind of like earthy
but still like chunky, emotional, but still kind of like
fist pumping and nothing. And so again I come in
some way you said whether this complimence of these ideas,
It isn't the most conducive for the most kind of
like either stirring sort of like emotion songs or the
most like rousing, fist pumping bangers. But I still find
when I've got this on, I'm just kind of like
really into it. You know that the first rift that
kicks in on the opening track, after that kind of
like intro, I'm like, ah, yeah, I'm smiling because I
like that riff is chunky, it's hard hitting, and and
it kind of gets me fired up.
Speaker 2: I do agree that there's kind of like.
Speaker 3: Maybe there's maybe I think they're close when they've got
to a proper bang is on this record in the
Spirit live and that's when we can go that I
can see crossing over on a festival main stage, so
that they're kind of they're starting to get that down.
Speaker 2: But I do still seriously what you Meanwhile.
Speaker 3: I'm like, there's been a lot of kind of like
positioning that poisted upon them that they maybe they've not
kind of like asked for or anything, but it does
kind of like make you look at the album in
a in a different way.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Elliott, I know that that sort of rough descript
with the elements and whatnot. I think you sort of
feel similarly maybe to what I was kind of trying
to get at there.
Speaker 4: Yeah, they're a band that's sort of eluded me since
they came onto the scene, because that first record was
so beloved and you know, people were selling it. It
was all the same things they've been saying. It's mastered
on machine Head, there's Metallica, There's just all these metal
bands I adore, and I think this can go either
way with bands, where in the case of Earn, I
struggle to see what their id their strict identities. I mean,
like the sort of the X factor, the thing that
can't be nailed. And if your sound's not quite definitively
yours enough, then you really are depending on your songs.
And I don't think they write bads songs with any
stretch of imagination, but they don't write amazing songs in
the way which would maybe overcome their lack of really
obvious originality. I don't know if that sounds harsh. I
don't mean for it too, But it's just a reason
why maybe they fall in the middle split for me
where I never find myself reaching for own records or
find myself all that drawn. I don't find them that
magnetic in the way that I see that pretty much
everyone whose shares my taste does.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I know exactly what we're getting it because I
think I don't mean this to be damning, because ern
are so impressive in merely elements of what they do.
They are guys who are just playing like unabashed metal
right is celebrating the primal power of what that is.
And they're also, you know, trying to build that into
songs that have breadth and scope and express a variety
of feelings. And I think they're very proficient at what
they do. I'm just I'm trying to express what has
maybe kept them from going from a good band, which
I think they are, to one of my favorite bands, right,
like one of the elite, and why I think that
sentiment might be shared by a certain amount of people
like there. And I look down at the track list
and I think it's very good, you know, it's very
good at the pieces that Earn have gradually been putting
together Be Not Dismayed. Has the kind of you know,
the classical acoustic guitar intro that lead you to feeling
like you're going to undertake something grand. The press release
directly compares it to battery and clenching the fist descent,
and you go, yeah, the pr has done my job
for me, because that's exactly right, Like that's Those are
the standard bearers for what that sensation it's going for is.
And the riffs they're satisfying. They do do good riffs.
They're technically proficient. The best ones are the ones that
aren't simplistic. They have a lot of detail in them.
They do have a few more kind of straightforward like
chuggy breakdown parts, but when they like really you know,
when they electrify you with a riff, they can fucking
do that. The soloing work, particularly, I think is really good.
Like some of the more emotionally stirring passages in their
songs are the solos, things like weeping to the world,
like really like you know, it gets something out of you,
And I think it's great when a band can prioritize,
you know, feeling in their lead work over just technical ability.
The guitar tone is very like hitting right at that
heart of that common uniting thread of people who like metal,
which is why I think ern have gotten like, you know,
quite a lot of people who do think you how
have really gone all in on them because it's the
way bands like Kajira and machine Head and stuff. We
all love them because they all hit right to like
a centrally unifying point of what we all like about metal,
right and they're rifts that you're gonna want to nodg
your head to and like the title track on this
secnified to the sky, that riff, it's gonna make you
do that. I like that Joe's screamed vocal. It doesn't
feel like he's doing a you know, like a modern
metalcore lifted from any one of those type of thing.
It does have that. I think the voice like does
feel particular to him. He has a good bit addiction,
so it's not just kind of you know, guttural animal noises,
and when he gets a bit of kind of extra
welly on annunciation like the fear not in the first track,
it pops the clean vocal that he does. It's obviously
very styled on Mastard on which does make it amusing
when oh shit, the real one appears on this record.
But you know, Harken the Waves, that's the sort of
long form, stirring, epic quasi ballads song they kind of
do you know it's decent.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think like for me, I like, you know,
when he's doing those more pains games, it seems like
he's actually hurting his throat. I'm always like, yeah, I
like I get them from it. It's not like again,
like I look around and like whatever kind of like
mains from commercial stunning metal alb not metal crowns, but
something like to say or big culture album from last
year that a lot of people. I was like, I
get so much more character and personality from Arne than
I do, then say a cure. I think the production
this is a lot more kind of like the elements
are allowed to breathe more, you get the detail.
Speaker 2: I think they added like a second guitarist in now,
which I.
Speaker 3: Think is where they like those melodic guitar passages, and
the color and flavor there has kind of up, and
I think that's when I.
Speaker 2: Was with this ALM album has stepped forward nicely. I think,
you know, I.
Speaker 3: Get more just compared to like, well, again, like the
last Machine Headed album, any kind of like bands who
are just doing big metal capito a metal with like
chunky and that I think earn have been the most
I've kind of like going like, ah, yeah, I like
these songs more.
Speaker 2: Again, I think the Spirit of Life has a really
big chorus.
Speaker 3: Someone like hit a few more of them on the
next album and I could really start to cross over more.
Speaker 2: And I think it's nice.
Speaker 3: You know, seven Fire to the Sky that's got a
but it's got like interesting time signatures where it's not
like it never feels kind of like a stock chugging
riff as you mentioned they do. They do find ways
to mix up these songs, and I think for me,
it's just one of these things where again it's not
the most amasoning. Again you can sort of say, like
the Mass song comparisons are there, but it does just
go down so well for me. You know, the Ancient
of Eyes and has a nice kind of like meaty
four four stomp rift before it gets into kind of
like there's more melancholy side on the vocals, and it's
just like it's a nice mix of sadness and chunky
rifts that are kind of like I'm just having good
Like I like listening to this, these sounds are pleasant
to me. I do think that again, like a lot
of these songs maybe aren't gonna stick with me as
much as some of the others, Like I think the
Qualit songs can be a bit up and down in
terms of how memorable they are. But again, I'm still
never really having a bad time with this album.
Speaker 1: Yeah you know I I'm exactly the same when that
says like I enjoyed the whole way through it. There
was nothing about it that maybe go that could you know,
cut that one out? Like everything is so like well composed, used,
well arranged, well performed, well put together. There's just maybe
something of a sterility in how they sound that stops
me getting completely abored. And I kind of felt this
about the last record, and I think maybe this is
just that this is the third album. It's like, Okay,
we know what earn on now, you know that I'm
just thinking about that. And I find myself listening to
this oddly passively for something that should be like so
front and center, you know, like holding your attention, and
I think it is all it's so like, you know,
it's so just objectively well put together, Like this feels
like a really mean review on my part. And I
don't because like, yeah, because I really respect Earn and
I really like them, But I just I don't want
to call this like one of the elite metal albums
of the year just for the sake of it, because
it's well put together, you know. And I'm just trying
to think about why isn't it make me feel as
much as I want about like this to make me feel,
And I think maybe it's so straightforwardly metal without really
delivering the hits either. I mean, I would in terms
of like a I don't know an idea of what
I'd be interested in. I would like them to see
them kind of express more genuine light and shade, going
down the long form type route in terms of more
psychedelic textures and stuff like that. Maybe, like you know,
if you've got that slight little bit of post metal
energy in you, I know that maybe that that's alienating
the fans of theirs who do want to know, pump
their fists and have big Pantera riffs or whatever. But
it's just there's something that's kind of stifled about them
to me, like it's so consistently tight, and they do
these again, like nine minute songs, but there's barely a
minute on the record that like surprises or blindsides me.
It's just so kind of I don't know. It's a
really heavy, aggressive metal album also somehow feels polite and
contained in what it's doing. I'm just trying to think
about what would be what's the missing X factor, because
that's my thing with it. I think they're a really
good band. I think they what they're doing is something
I love, and they are objectively skilled at it. But
what's the missing X factor as to why I don't
love them?
Speaker 3: I think it's again because they're suggling that you have
to put on that calor of bands that do have
that X factor that we're talking about. And that's the
thing is like they're so far above the kind of
like tier bands below them, but they can't quite punch
into that tier of bands that they are clearly kind
of like aspiring to. And again i'st I think it's
that ern I are kind of like they want to there,
you know, they want to like throw hands with the
big boys, and I would much obviously do that and
try and push themselves and do that and maybe they
maybe they just need to find on the next album
just that extra secret source, and I think they have
it in them.
Speaker 2: I don't think that. I don't think this is like
the ceiling for Earn.
Speaker 3: I think this is maybe the kind of like they've
refined their sound too, like the most kind of like
clear coughing of this is what Ernie is going forward
next album, maybe we can like add that spice to to.
Speaker 2: Really find that extra kick.
Speaker 3: But in the meantime, I still like, I have very
little negative to say about this album because I think
it's just so good at what it does. I do
just I do understand the kind of like it needs
that one extra thing to be like a special album.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I really wish earned success, Like I would love
for a band that is just you know, without pretense
or extra gimmicks or anything, just trying to like long
form involved metal do as well as they can, you know,
and to really pay off. And I recommend this record
to anyone who has a taste for these flavors they're
pulling together, because you might be one of the people
who really does connect with it and they are, you know,
there are something of a distinct band in the overall
one landscape. Do check it out. I just I wish
they would maybe like I fly off the Handle a
bit more often or something, and I kind of I
wish it excited me more personally as all, but I
do still recommend it for that, so they're earn Setting
Fire to the Sky. Also a very well liked band is,
of course Mull, who have released an album called dream Crush,
also a third album from another quite acclaimed band in
the last ten years of metal, I suppose Moll from
Denmark one of the most popular bands within the kind
of post black metal, black gaze kind of world. To me,
they're almost like the archetypal post Death Heaven band in
the post black metal as a style is actually so
varied and so murky with all of its different variations,
Like there are bands that have fucking nothing to do
with death that exist somehow within like fucking like Ash
and Spire or whatever you know, or like early older replays.
It might be if that term even collectively describes a
particular genre, because it's so nebulous. It's a varied one.
But when Death Heaven achieved this massive crossover success, the
most widely heard and popular form of it became this
very warm kind of even more so shoegaze influenced black
gaze as it came to be known style. And the
band who most rode into kind of picking up that
baton and going right, we're going to take that even
further down that road was Mold. We like Mole.
Speaker 3: I this album has been like a really trickle for
me because I can't think, really why Mole don't quite
do it me?
Speaker 1: Do you know what one of those reviews bags, isn't
it great?
Speaker 2: It really is?
Speaker 3: I was ever lord you were saying about n I
said about Mole right now because again, like this to
me like feels that they are trying to take the
sort of like I say, they are the most post
Death Heaven black gays band, a black postman I'm going
to do.
Speaker 2: I totally agree, And.
Speaker 3: They are trying to make it as kind of like crystalline, beautiful, warm.
Speaker 2: Like and I think they're clearly very good at that.
And I'm like, why don't I love this?
Speaker 3: Because I love Death Heaven and I can't put my
finger and again, like I think it is.
Speaker 2: Maybe it's just because it feels almost like safe. This album.
Speaker 3: It feels like doing the most safe take on Black
Gays and post back metal, which is why I can't
and again, like them, I don't want to criticize some
cause I think there's really great musicianship, Like it's really accomplished,
it's really well put together, but it doesn't exam And again,
maybe it's harsh coming off the back of that last
Deaf Eavy album, which kind of like really figure out
again this style. But there's nothing on here that you
know that catches the ear in the same way like
any kind of those like strongest moments on that Death
Eavy album did. And it really frustrates me because I'm like,
I really want to like this and it just hasn't
happened yet.
Speaker 1: See.
Speaker 4: I think this is this is Alwa's proof of the
expectations thing, because I probably like this album about as
much as you say in that I agree that you know,
it doesn't punch through, It doesn't shock me. There's nothing
on it like the Death Heaven record. You're reready taken
off guard, but I just go, oh, this is a
lovely album, and I'm sort of satisfied. It's like watching
an episode of Blue Planet and you're not going like,
why is nothing exploding? This is ridiculous? Happy to look
at the penguins and listen to David Asenborough.
Speaker 1: For me, it's just it's nice, get it.
Speaker 3: I think you're right, But like, I don't know, I
like this obviously thing. This should almost be like my
like the post Batman thing, that should be.
Speaker 2: The most for me.
Speaker 4: And I was like, you know, I get that.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Do you know the Agriculture album last year, which another
one was off it's tits mental kind of take when
it was like I kind of wish this album was
a bit more off its tits, Like.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think we've probably full house in this regard
in that I think we all probably think this album
is good, you know, and we all like it. Send
another I think it sounds really nice, you know. I
for one thing, I think we need to stop calling
More a black metal band. And trust me, I have
a liberal idea of black metal. There are some people
out there who go, death Heaven's got nothing to do
with black metal. They're not black metal. I'm it's got
blast beats, it's got big tremolo guitars, it's got a
primarily screen vocal. It's it's black metal enough for me.
Mole have removed so much of the black from the
black gaze, right. I thought that about Diorama, right, and
this is even more. This is essentially a shoe gaze album,
right it with occasionally a screen vocal.
Speaker 3: I think like at times this album, like, I mean,
the only thing that's black metal about it is is
that more kind of like shraw screamed vocal. That's the
only kind of remnant of the black metals. Love them
because it doesn't really blast.
Speaker 2: It doesn't have like the the Tremler stuff, but like
it's just yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: Because when Male turned up, I like them because again,
the whole post death heaven thing, while I think it
did run its course, I like in the sound well enough,
you know, and I thought, Mol, you know they've got
some you know, some great rifts and stuff in that style.
Then Diarama came out and Diaryma got some really like
big words from people like this is the best fucking
black gas album since Sunbather or whatever. And I think
what I was resisting was that post death heavenication of
the post black metal world, where that is a style
that to me is so compelling when it is so varied,
right and more shadowy, more you know, out their forms,
maybe twistier forms have as much representation as what felt
like it started to get very homogenized as the black
gaze style. Right and Mole were always like positioned as
like the new face of the genre, despite having removed
most of the black metal from the equation. And this
is even more so. And it's another one of the
things where I recognize that's not entirely Mole's fault. And
as much as I would like other forms of this
music to also get their jews and have eyes on it,
it doesn't mean that this lighter form of it shouldn't exist.
And I think Mole are very good at it, and
like generally there have been I listened to this record
first of all, and it kind of confirmed all the
things that I was thinking. And then I listen to
it again and I went, actually, you know, there are
guitar melodies and songs on this that actually have been
like knocking around in my head. There are really like
there are fine pieces of work on this and it's
so lush and it is really uplifting and if that's
what you're looking for in this, and it will do
that for you exactly I did. I had an interesting
idea about this where I was like, okay, like, yeah,
album last year that was like, I mean, it was
our you know t and m Audience started album of
the year. One of the most critically acclaimed across the
metalsfeld last year was the return of Death Evan to
this style, and they reasserted themselves as the fucking guys right,
and they showed I think how few of their imitators
had done anything as compelling in those years where they
weren't maybe as entirely focused on doing that style. And
I was curious, okay, like new mol album, are they
going to feel like a bit of a relic at
this point of like twenty eighteen or will they now
be free of kind of narrative baggage, And by and large,
I would like to say it's the latter. Like I said,
I think Mole are coming even more into what I
think their destiny is, which is to be a very nice,
pleasant shoegaze band with a slight little bit of a
metal engine in there, you know, because this is the
most like accessible, digestible, not edgy version of black Gays
as you could possibly imagine where I think there's a
reason they are. By and large, they're much more popular
amongst like post metal or prog fans or whatever than
they are actual black metal fans, even more than someone
like Death Evan are. It's because they made black metal,
you know, Like there was so much hubbub made about
Infinite Granite being like they're not a metal bout it anymore.
It's about as metal as this album is. This just
has like a scream on like every other song.
Speaker 2: I'm with you.
Speaker 3: I think, like, like again the album is there's like
notice where you get like you go, that's the shoe
gazz rift right there that they're playing, and then like
and it is.
Speaker 2: It is nice, you know.
Speaker 3: I think it's like hud mixeding like some of the really
nice shoegazy bits. There's around the middle where it does
kind of like lean some of the slower mood or
something like there's so little metal beyond the vocals going
on here, And that one was like I wish you
would kick up a gear at times, but at the
same time, I'm like, but it is still just a
very pleasant thing to have on, Like I'm never not
liking what I'm hearing I'm just kind of like, this
is cool, this is good, this is nice, whereas again
that there just waiting for some a little bit extra
And there are you know, some really nice solos on
this record, like the guitar like that are really really nice,
and they do that again, they do lift some of
these songs into that kind of up ace here where
you kind of go that you get that soaring beauty
that more clearly you got sort of striving for, and
those are of the best moments on the record. But
it is just kind of like hitting a nice sore
feeling rather than kind of like a truly exhilarating one.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And like for me, like the Black Gays, I
love the most is when it has it uses the
best of both worlds, right, and it uses the best
of those worlds to create a sensation that you don't
otherwise get in either of those worlds just on their
own separately, and when there's tension, you know, between those things.
This doesn't really do that for me. Essentially, it's like
a Jimmy Eat World album or you know, a good
Smashing Pupkins album or something, but with like a a
bloat screeching on it. As I judge it as what
it is, right, which is a jimmat World album with
a screamer on it, and I go, yeah, I like it.
It's nice a lot. Even the blast beats are gone.
Speaker 4: Is they just like that?
Speaker 1: They're a rock band like that. The drums are just
rocking along and I like them. I think songs like
the two that really jump out of me are Young
and Garland, which four like big almost like arena emo
style guitar melodies like those bands would go for really
fucking good, Like so they swirl around my head and
it does like it it lifts you up and it
bounces and it's it's just it's so like happy and
innately pleasing. I think I was thinking about so like
Asterronoid last year. Right, It's like there's a band who
started off as almost like a black gays band, and
then they went off and found their own thing. And
essentially the only reason we still talk about MOL in
this kind of way is the vocalist. But that's essentially
what Mal have done as well. Right, they are a
bouncy kind of Susan. I don't think they're as distinct
and unique and like weird as Asternoid are, which does
make Asternoid kind of more interesting to me. But like
I said, I did, I enjoyed this album. It's very
well produced. It has that kind of shooting for the
stars appeal in the big league guitars for it, and
it's just so lush and lovely. I think it's hard
to not have a good time with it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think it. You know, I haven't seen this, yeah,
but if someone was, hell this is like some kind
of new classic for the genre, that would feel a
bit rich. But it's just the mole thing delivered to
a very high standard and like you say, softening the
edges even more than they had before. And I'm okay
with that. And it's a special nice to get an
on of this around this time of year, where it's
like this crisp, refreshing, happy clappy. Like you said, I
don't think it is a black metal record. I don't
know what you call the sing It is just sort
of upbeat, breezy rock music with the occasional streak on it, which.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's not black gazing. It's just sort of metal gaze,
isn't it.
Speaker 4: You know, your your minders will vary, But I was
just perfectly content having.
Speaker 1: It on yeah, I think getting compared to something like
an astronoid who have gone on a similar jetory, it
lacks the vocal melodies that really lift my heart. He
does sing more on this, like mainly verses, which is
obviously the difference is that it kind of it has
these soft, nice, you know, sun kiss kind of verses
and then it will kick into a screen for the chorus.
The guy got a pretty good voice, you know, some
of those verse melodies are are really nice. I think
it's not as you know, it doesn't have the breadth
or the dynamism of obviously something like The Only People
With Power, where you go, fucking hell, there's so much
here to unpack this. You just got forty minutes of
just like a pretty nice time, you know, just being breezy.
And again maybe in terms of my my regular listening rotation,
they also have a middle split that they're kind of
falling into with that. But this is another good record.
And I will say again, of all those like bands
to have been pronounced the next Death Eavan or whatever,
Mole at least had an approach that feels like it
is their's. Like they are this again almost like post Hardcoris.
As you said, it's not the most dramatical daring to me,
but they do. I wouldn't call them like a completely
redundant band. The way that like quite a lot of
the post deaf Evan black gay stuff was they earn
their place, and I think this does even more so
by going even more down the route of just basically
being like a sunny emo record where occasionally a bloke
goes ah it, they're kind of going further to what
their actual destiny is and I think they're very good it.
So there you go, moll. That record is called dream Crush.
Let's move on to weirdly. You know, you would put
these two bands together on paper, but maybe actually they are.
Joyce Manner is where we're headed next, who put an
album this month called I Used To to Go to
This Bar, one of the most beloved emo or punker
alternative rock gave going to call them bands. Over the
last fifteen or so years, seven albums now from them.
So that's like two hours, isn't it. They forget they've
got a few albums. I think to some degree with
Joyce Manor, you kind of know the deal by now.
If you're in, you're in. If you're out You're out.
One slight little bump in that trend is that Joyce
Maner throughout the twenty tens seemed like unkillable, you know,
like they were like absolute do no wrong, darlings, Never
hung over again, Cody million dollars to Kill Me, like
they were all greeted with so much love from this scene.
And then forty ounces to Fresno in twenty twenty two,
kind of a bizarre record that I still today don't
entirely like grasp what the deal with that was, But
like because everywhere I see, you know, lists, it as like,
you know, this is ours the sixth studio album, normal proper, studio,
ammals per, But the way fans were talking about it,
it seems like it's more like, I don't know, like
a bunch of half finished demos or something.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's like you say that first decade twenty ten
through twenty eighteen, where there were these five albums every
two years that the most dependable, beloved band in their scene,
where every single record they're all different from one another,
they're all utterly brilliant. They disappear for four years and
they come back with this record. It's like you say,
it's somewhere between a B side collection and a studio album,
because it's like it opens with a cover which is
three minutes long. Then it's eight songs, a couple which
had already been released, and it's someone like re recordings
or They said like these were held back off previous albums,
and they were kind of I think the band were
fairly open when it came out of going, this is
sort of us clearing shop before we do the next record,
and then he went, all right, fine, so I imagine
we'll have a brand new Joyce Manner album up to
scratch next year. Then because you're let's go, it's like
another four years. So it's the second longest gap to
get to the next record. So in a way, it's
kind of been eight years since the last fully fledged
Joyce Manor album.
Speaker 1: That's what I felt, because it feels unavoidably like Joyce
Manor have been less solid in their presence than they
were throughout the twenty tens, when like every two three
years they put out a record and their fans would go, wow,
this is incredible. They're the best ban in the world,
and then you know, four years past, we've got an
album where weren't Act's okay, and then another four years
past and Joyce Maner just you know, obviously've They've done
nostalgia runs, They've played Never hung Over Again, an Outbreak
and that kind of stuff. Joyce Manner. It does feel
like the last eight years, you know, it's been the
do was to Kill Me? They have been more in
a oh oh Joyce Maner really actually still the band
kind of phase. But that being said, here we are
I used to go to this bar. I have to
largely hand this one over to you guys, because I'm
just not interested in Joyce Manner like. I find their
music largely drab and unengaging. It doesn't really appeal to me.
Their records are like brief and brisk, but with no
aggression or intensity, like there's no gata too, and there's
no nothing. Their melodies don't move me, which is essentially
the entire thing, past Constant Headache, which is weirdly one
of the biggest earworms ever. I couldn't sing you a
song of theirs when I've heard so many of them,
because I've spoken about four of their records now on
the show, coming up to nearly a decade of me
a guy who doesn't care about Joyce Manner talking about
Joyce Manner with no change in my feelings on them whatsoever,
which is several more albums than by bands I absolutely
love and actively listen to all the time. So that's
basically it for me, right, Me and Joyce Maner ain't happening.
But the response to this once, from what I've observed,
seems to largely be a sigh of like lovely relief
from the long time fans. But this is much more
like it and much more true to form than that
last odd record.
Speaker 3: Was Yeah to me, this as like really submitted for
forty for as this kind of like weird speed bump
in this near decade period of like yeah, this is
like near decade on drought for Joyce Manner. I was
kind of like cautious with this album Cuism, like all
my friends so depressed with the first thing. When I
was like, oh, you know, it's the kind of like
slightly acouty, kind of like almost like folky ballad that
like Joss Man I can do. I was, but it's catchy,
it's got more, it's already the course I had already
won't went to my ear more than anything off A
four in pres No, So I was like, cool, okay,
maybe this is like.
Speaker 2: A bit more like it.
Speaker 3: I think this might be the most kind of like
just immediate kind of gut is of him play. After
my first lison, I was like, this is like again,
like say, this is the most like the joyce Man
album in years. Is kind of odd because there's only
been one like like in the like yeah, in the
amount of time. But I don't think in about ten years,
I might like this as much as like code. I
think I pray this like million dollars to kill me.
I think like just on immediate gut listen to kind
of like him pound this. This is just you know,
ten songs where every chorus has hit with me and
stuck me. I mean, this is exactly what I want
joyce Man to be, which is again they're back to
write the micro songs where they are getting in under
two minutes. You're getting verse chorus, verse chorus, bridge chorus,
kind of like great songs that worn away and there's you.
But they're all just you know, sub two minutes, and
they're just so jubilant to listen to while still having
enough other kind of like emo kind of like sardonic,
melancholy and all that sort of side of things, and
it's just hitting everything I want from Joyce manor of
course this record. I don't know if it's the same
for you, Elliott, but like for me, just on the
kind of like the two days we've had this record,
I've not stopped listening.
Speaker 4: Well, because I went into this with fairly tempered expectations,
because over that sort of eight year period, it's like
I'd lost a fair bit of interest in this scene. Anyway,
I think the scene kind of got worse in that time.
And then if my favorite band in that scene put
out far and away their worst records, the only album
of theirs that I don't think is SUPERB. Basically, I
just thought, oh, well maybe I don't know if it's
me or them, but maybe, well we'll see each other
another time. So going into this record, I kind of went,
you know, I'll take what I can get. I'd like
to hear if they're back on form. And it was
just like song after song being great, one after the other,
just got oh, oh, hang, I want to run now,
Oh We'll five songs in. It's all good. Like there's
it's left of the record, it doesn't stop, and it's
like that was. That thing you say about it being
like a sigh of relief is exactly what the feeling was,
because this was for me, far and away the best
band of their scene, of their time, and that last
record was really uncharacteristically, I don't know, just sort of
it lacked spirit. It would it would just it was.
It was hard to be enthusiastic about it. And this
time it's like that Alm also really lack character, and
this time it does feel like a bit of the
greatest hits of Joyce manner looking at those previous five
years and Okay, what works because it's like you say,
it's the micro songs are back, which is one of
the things that made them interesting in the first place.
But it's pop you again in the same way that
Cody and Willian donster kill. We just have these unbelievable
power pop books. Yeah, just like some of the catchier
songs of that time period, and incredibly simple and marrying
those two worlds together kind of for the first time,
where you know, the first few records are very short,
a bit more angular, bit more odd. Then you have
the couple there, which are really poppy slightly longer songs,
a bit more diverse, having a record that is willing
to cross the streams a bit. It's like that's not
just it's not just a great record for to come
back with, it's stylistically a perfect record for them to
return with, because it's like, here's all the stuff you
like beforehand. Sorry about that little bump in the road. Yeah, together,
I think like it's so.
Speaker 3: Soon when you hit play and you get I know
where Mark Chen lives. I was like that opening guitar
licks immediately infectious. You know, there's a skip and an
energy that was lacking on the last album. And then
you cause there coming down the chorus was like here
we fucking go a chorus, let's go, and it's like
so joyous and infectious, and like they cram that whole
song into under two minutes, and when that final course
comes around, you get that kind of like you for
it a bigger final chorus thing and it's only been
ninety seconds of the song and then you know you're
getting falling into it and it's you know, a bit
more of the laid back slack of thing that they
can do.
Speaker 2: But the again, the hook is there.
Speaker 3: There's harmonies, there's actual kind of like text when the songs,
there's nice guitar melodies. And again, it just go through
the track list and you could say similar things about
all of them, but each song has its own character.
At the same time, it's nineteen minutes, it's ten songs.
It flies by, and the amount of times I listen,
I was like, I'm just hip playing that again because
I'm having such good time.
Speaker 2: I don't want to know. I don't want the feelings
to end.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And it's way too early for me to know
how i'd rank this compared to the first. It's definitely
been the last one, but the first. It's really possible
to know. But what I will say is this sounds
like the most they've enjoyed being a band since Cody
Because Million Dollars to Kill Me. I still love that record,
but I think the band of a slightly troubled relationship
with it. They're kind of open about which songs they
do and don't like. Off I don't they play much
off It live, and it's probably their most downbeat record
of that five. This one, it's like, not only are
they back to writing songs which feel comfortable and well
suited to them, but just throwing fresh ideas and they're
like falling into it. It is more slacker, but it's
like all these playful synths and lead lines in it,
which sounds like Amy can fly. And that's kind of
in a way, it's surplus to requirement, but it's like
it makes it better. And then after all you put
me through again on the face of a very straightforward
Joyce mant of song, but they put this like talking
heads guitar iff in there, which just makes it better.
The a Possum, which is that and the Great Guitar
protably my two third songs on the record. The Apossum
is compositionally, it sounds like something that could be ont
of all things. I'll soon grow tired, but it's got
a bit of the blue grass.
Speaker 1: C to it.
Speaker 2: It's got that rolling drummert. It's really fun.
Speaker 3: And then you're gonna well, dude, see like the way
the tracks flow into each other and everyone is just like, ah,
new life. I just keep every song gives me that
hit and I again, I just think it's so listenable.
I think when it's kind of a bit more dour,
I feel like Greg I just mentioned that's gould a
bit more bite to it. That's you know, the kind
of like stream of contrac kind of ranting on the verses.
It's a little bit more kind of like just a
little bit spikier than like the kind of like dubling
thing off and go to Joyce manaform. But it's a
cool thing to add in at the end of the
record to just kind of keep this again very brief
nineteen minutes album kind of like varied and interesting.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And it's in a way they had an insurmountable
task of you know, it's been eight years really since
a choice man of record proper. They come along with
nineteen minutes of music, which I know is what we
came to expect from in the first place. But it's
like it's been eight years and you only got but
it's like getting you know, when Every Bridge Burning came out.
Speaker 1: This is like that.
Speaker 4: But for Whimps, it's like really good, Like the gap
is fine because it's like you gave us nine songs
and they all smash it out the park. So honestly,
this because I went into this, like I said, with
fairly low expectations or a lack of expectations, but by
the time I got towards the end of the first run,
I was just beaming because it's like the band's back.
You just you can hear it, not just in the
quality of the songwriting and not in the quality of performances,
but just in the spark on the record. It's like
you kind of got Oh. That's why I like Joyce
Manners so much. That's why every two years their album
come out and it would just dominate my summer.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I will say for the record that the nineteen
minutes that you spend with this, I thought this record
was quite nice, you know, like the the sort of
blue grass meets the Smith's thing that you were talking
about that's on like the Apossum and all my friends
start pressing like Johnny mar meets Johnny Cash. Decent combination
of words there, Like, you know, I'm all right with that,
falling into it. I did write down at the since
sound like Amy can Fly. But then after all You
put Me Through has more sort of new order, since
I quite like, well, whatever it was sounds a bit
like smash Mouth. It's got a kind of breezy sorter
along in the sun pop rock song feel to it.
The title track is the riff is a little bit
like their answer to fat Lip, you know, like as
you're saying every bridge burning for winds, that's like fat
Lip for weeds. But you know, it's a kind of
a serious indie punk song version, a fairly pleasant record.
You know, all the things that mark Joyce Manner when
they're on it seem present and correct. Hopefully a good
start to the year in kind of alternative rock if
one of it's you know, maybe slightly lost former front
runners are back to delivering the goods.
Speaker 4: Definitely, this is all. This was not an alum that
I was especially looking forward to off the strength the
last one and the time away, but I'm going to
be listening to this all year. I already have that
feeling about it, you know, so that I.
Speaker 3: Have the same kind of like feeling like i'd I
wanted to be good, but I wasn't expecting it. But
I'm like, this is already kind of like a marks
for like, give me this in the summer. I want
to see these songs live. I want to you know,
be of a mate jumping up and down to this,
like can't wait.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there you go, Joyce Maner, I used to go
to this bar a record that is over three times
as long, I think as it is the Ruins of
Beaver Ast and Temple Schlaff, which is the I would
say the key underground metal release of the month this
time is the Ruins of beaver Rus. They are a
German black doom metal band. I suppose you might call
them primarily the project of one man, Alexander von Meelenwald.
They have been going at this stage for over twenty years,
in which time they have become one of the real
iconoclasts of the twenty first century black metal underground. Elliott,
I've spoken much about the Ruins of Beavers before, and
you have the advantage on me in having seen at
least half a set of theirs live. Why don't you
describe for us roughly how they sit for you and
and what your feelings on the Ruins of b Rus are.
Speaker 4: I really like the Ruins of Beavers. I've never been
quite as fanastical about them as many of my fellow
black metal fans. I'm not sure quite what the reason
for that is. I think some of it was in
life time I listening to this record, but I've always
thought they're great. Some semin like one of the best
black metal bands operating the world to and they're certainly
one of the most distincts. Like they're one of those
bands where when you're listening to them, you know precisely
what it is that. They're this really cool blend of
fiery but cavernous Germanic black metal, but it's got this
gothic flavor to it as well. It's one of the
most distinct combinations you'll find in underground metal today. But
I will they're not They're not a band that I
go to regularly, But I also suspect maybe they're not
the kind of band that you're expected to go to regularly.
Their music is really dense and difficult. My relationship with
them is more like every now and then I'll return
to one of their albums and just go, you know,
BlimE me and then leave it for a bit. I'm
always super impressed.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think they've grown into a really intriguing band,
where like they've always been compelling, but they're you know,
the their earliest albums are kind of much rawer and uglier,
but they have particularly on in like the twenty twenties.
On these albums they've taken on like a real grace,
and particularly the word I would use is vastness. You know,
like there's a particular texture that's really identifiable to them,
I think, which I might describe like psychedelic subterranea, Like
there is this really hallucinogenic sort of quality, like you
are spending the whole record breathing in the fumes of something.
But it's also you know, used the word cavinists. The
whole thing is so low in frequency that it feels
like it's coming out of the bowels of the earth.
Like it feels as a real width to their records,
like they're not tinerly or thinly produced blackmail records at all,
but it all feels like it's beneath your feet at
the same time, you know, So it's like there are
these vast expanses but in the underworld realm of hades,
you know, like it's a very particular like sensation that
is quite unique to them, particularly then with some of
the other musical tails they bring in, because their last record,
The thul Grim was is my favorite record they've ever made,
and really what made it so was this surprisingly big
emphasis on like big basy gothic clean vocal melodies, which
to me, despite how like inherently like imposing and negative
and all that that ruins, the Brest records are also
made that record like surprisingly memorable by their standards for
like a actually the crossover pitch is it really sounds
like type of negative like if you like a record
like World coming down on the bleaker, slower end of
the typo spectrum, and you wonder what like an underground
black metal answer to that kind of record might be.
The Full grimis is there five years on? Which is
You're right, it's about as regularly as you need a
ruined to leave Rest record because they are comparison to
what we just worke about very slow burning experiences. This
totally it offers some different, you know, some kind of
similar feels and textures from what I loved about the
Full Grim was so as the follow up to that,
I'm satisfied absolutely, but it also like deviated in ways
which maybe go ugh, that is like not the sensation
that I was expecting at all. It's a nice mix
of kind of you know, familiarity sinking into this kind
of like slowly manifesting mind all through what experiences the
records are and then Surprise particularly, I was surprised how
fast paced and aggressive some of this record is, where
their recent material they had not been leaning so much on, like,
you know, the kind of more aggressive blackmatal side and
more on that moody goth doom feel. He described this
record as being like comparatively a little more geared towards
the live band out of his albums, which is an
interesting prospect because the ruins of Baver's like, they're never
gonna write mos songs for people to pump their fists too, right,
They're not that kind of metal band. But the songs
are actually of shorter lengthy overall than the budor of
their record. Only one of these songs is one of
those big, like thirteen to fourteen minute juggernauts, and there
are several that are like six to seven minutes long,
which for the standards is like that's a really combat track,
you know, and a lot of them, like Day Are
the Poacher, when it hits off the open track, it's
got like an aggressive, like punky metal riff with like
a punk beat underneath that really fucking heavy tar like
tone that they have. But that's not what I was anticipating,
you know, and has a little bit more of the
black metal vocal again from what the last record was
as well, and that just me would maybe go like,
oh again, I've I've been lured into this like underworld
that their records are in and I love that vibe,
but it also kind of slapped me around the chops
in a way that I wasn't expecting the new Reuber
to be Russ record to do.
Speaker 3: You've tapped into why I've enjoyed this one a lot
more than that last album that we again very early
days on the show. For me, that was like in
the deepend record, this was like one of the first
ones I'm kind of like, oh, is this what it's
going to be now as parents making them listening to
did like that last one to be best album much
this one, I'm not crazy about it because again, like
it's not entirely my sort of thing, but the kind
of blend of slower gothics of melancholy kind of like
progressive sort of expense songs with like Dare have of
the poach, kind of rollicking punky black metal kind of
like faster stuff. It's cool actually, like and again you know,
you get some spooky symps. On some of those faster songs,
it's like you then like you know that song even again.
Honest on the poach, which is you know fast met morevio,
you still get weird chanting towards the end of it.
Speaker 2: It's not entirely like kind of removing that kind of
like spiritual, kind of like darker rage to it.
Speaker 3: I found this surprisingly like an engaging, listenable experience that
I was kind of like, yeah, cool, I could you know,
give this a couple more listens and not be like
entirely hating myself.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I mean I've only managed to give this two listens
in the last couple of days, so I'm quite far
away from final quick to talk about something as you know,
of this scale and difficultness. But my overriding feeling is
I think it's super impressive, but it we're returning to
a complaint that I feel like I often have about
black metal alms that come on this show, where it's
not amateur enough, it's simply too well crafted, it's too
compositionally impressive. Then if there was something a bit more
rubbish about it, I think it would get a bit
more managed with me. But like the productions not one
key The drums sound huge, the keyboards don't make me
laugh at all. It sounds like someone who knows what
he's doing. And as it's not a universal rule, but
for black mel I need I need a little bit
of that for me to really go with it. And
there's nothing wrong with this record, which is a harsh
thing to criticize it for, but I would I think
maybe that's the thing which if there is something maybe
about like the rumors of beavers, which prevents me from
really connecting with them, maybe it's that, and that's president
on this record.
Speaker 1: But I do like that.
Speaker 4: And you said about it being faster and a bit harder,
I appreciate that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it's not a bloody heap album, right,
so absolutely what it's saying, it's not that, But I
will say it's not a like everything just perfectly in
its place kind of predictable commercial black metal record.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: The ruins of Beat for Us are fucking weird like this,
So they're a really strange, experimental, esoteric kind of band.
This weirdly is at least riffwise, probably the most accessible
they've been. Yeah, the fact that they can knock out
something like like outa fluid as well. It is like
galloping right out the gates. But because the band are
so like weighty and wide screen, like they were saying
when they put the pedal to the metal, it's like
you're being like chased by a whale or something like.
It's fucking mad. It's such like a huge sensation. And
then this switches into like a crust beat and the
drums are just like beating you, and they have really
strange like string bending rifts and stuff. There's one at
the end of that song that's like on top of
a blast beat while the low end of the string
is being like bent and it's so topsy turvy. It
feels like a balloon animal is being made out of
your insights and it's just like everything is being squeezed
out of you. And then that's also then before there's
like a theremine ish synth melody then grabs a hold
of them.
Speaker 3: I laughed at that. I couldn't believe when that came
in on. There's like again, it's like when the fast
more at something you get this ram.
Speaker 2: I was like, what this band again?
Speaker 3: This was? This is a band who who I look
off their tits and kind of the weird kind of
things they take, and like again the kind of like
back and forth between the fast songs those songs, you know,
some like Cathedral Beheading of Bleeding Statues got a hard
song and that's solosing down to the more gothic thing.
Speaker 2: But then it kind of like developed into like inching.
Speaker 3: It is where it is like evil and menacing but
has like it does have a surprisingly kind of like
not catching but like strong melodic cook and looking of
like the goth side of things. Baby you Scarlet Queens
when they really start to you know, get weird on
the kind of extreme metal with the kind of like
chance and atmosphere, and it gets kind of like frantic
and volatile within that sort of framework. Because I was like,
maybe I should go back to that last animal, because
maybe again this is just where like five or so
years of the podcast with the journey I've been on
that I can find ruins of being rest more kind
of like engaging as an experence. But I think this
album like again just adding in a bit more riffy,
faster kind of light attack.
Speaker 2: Does I just mean I'm I'm kept on.
Speaker 1: My toes a little bit more by it for sure,
but they still have a lot of that, like you're saying,
that very sort of ceremonial quality. They have these big, booming,
heavy tom patterns that feel like you are being like
indoctrinated into some like you know, hades circle. The gothy
like clean guitars are a big part of that as well,
and then the gothy clean vocals, which often have this
strange almost filter on them, like they're almost like shimmering underwater,
you know, like they have these like gothy vocal hooks,
but they add to the psychedelic quality, and it means
that there's so much feeling of depth in their sound, right,
And like I said, when they go intense, the scale
of the sound is like quite overwhelming when it's also
played fast at you whatever, so you wouldn't want to
be fast all the way through. But they do like
fucking awesome transitions like switching between like these like thumping
quasi tribal sort of drum chant parts and then these
like faster, more typically extreme metal passages. The lead guitar
work is really sumptuous and so like you know, well composed. Well,
there's a tapping melody in the first track near the
end that's just like again, like it kind of shimmers
up your whole body. Cathedral Bleeding Statues has those like
scary gregoryan Monk sort of sections. You know, there are
just there are so many layers of sound, like bass
playing as well, like prominent weird head scrambling bass play
in a black metal record. They are there's still so
much of that like gorgeous sleep, you know, slowly seeping
into the kind of your pores, gothic metal kind of tone,
but it's maybe a bit more of an even mix
of feels on this record. I think the last record
maybe has to me the biggest like overtly melodic, memorable
kind of you know, clean vocal refrains and stuff like
it's a dense, weird record, but there are melodies on
that album that I actually found myself like humming all
the time because that, like those song parts were super sticky,
and that's what helped amongst my favorite records of the year,
this one. The mix of tempos and feels is maybe
a little bit more varied while sounding like sonically again
immaculate all the way through, but still crucially very weird
and very out there and very like totally following their
own you know, creative destiny makes it a really invigorating listen.
I'm gripped for the whole thing. I think this record
is fucking great. Once again, if you don't know the
Ruins b Rest at all, but you like, just don't
be put off by black metal or whatever because they're
so weird, right, it's just involved immersive, open minded, heavy sounds.
You know, if you've got a bit of an attention span,
you know, I would really recommend this record. It's one
minute under an hour, which does make it the most
approachable thing they've ever done. The Ruins of beaver Ass
and Temples Schlaff and finally, speaking of approachable, let's end
it that way back and Grillin with a self titled album.
We were, you know, we're a little bit then on
the ground again for like really big records or a
lot of them in January that we wanted to cover
and then voila last week we thought, all right refused
one of the greatest post hardco bands of all time,
revolutionary band in some sense, you know, right as we
were saying in the beginning of these reviews, it's an
end of an era when one of these great bands
calls it quits. Isn't it fascinating to have something new
from them so soon? If you are not aware, this
band back in Greeland consists of three now x refused members.
It's got Dennis Lickxon on vocals, Magnus on bass, and
David on drums, and they are also joined here by
a saxophonist slash fluortist called Matskus Stafferson, which should be
your first giveaway as to what this might be like. Really,
this is what I would say is a pretty low
states review in that this is clearly total creative shrugging
off of the confines of what they might have just
been doing right. Supposedly, this entire record was composed during
their first ever rehearsal as a band, and what you
are hearing on the album was recorded two days later.
So this is a record that is not a result
of you know, meticulous hair being torn out perfectionism, nor
does it have any commercial ambitions whatsoever. This is out
on Spark Records, which is the finished label that in
the past has released records from the likes of a
Ranci Pazuzu, Waste of Space Orchestra. A lot of interesting
stuff comes out of that label. This is a record
that does not care how many people like it, and
so ultimately pretty hands off what we might have to say, really,
you know. But nonetheless we just thought it might be
of interest if you are super curious about what some
of the guys who made up Refused might be pursuing
in the immediate aftermath of that band's retirement, and again
shrugging off all of that energy from them. According to
That's not Metals Swee on the inside Alex Chillingworth, the
name of this band translates to something like outdoor Hill Barbecue,
So Elliott, the question arises, does this meet the standard
of good grilling music?
Speaker 4: I think it would cause food poisoning, it ruin the grill.
I'm more than happy to one occasion commit myself to
a session of horrible and terrifying noise, but not when
manning the grill. You're working with fire and food. That
is not a time to be distracted or surprised anyone.
That is a time for CCR and Blue Oyster Cult,
not a time for Swedish sexophonists playing sludge met but
away from the grill, I quite like this. I don't
know if I've got an appetite for this sort of thing.
Generally speaking, it's not the sort of thing I got. Oh,
I'm want to be cranking this all the time, but
when I'm in the mood for that session of horrible,
terrifying barrage of noise, it absolutely scratches that itch.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this record is five tracks, four of them are
around the nine to ten minute mark, and I think
it's cool because Refused, you hear so much about them
as being like a properly outside of the norm in
their mindset band, and like, even at their final shows
last month, we were talking about them doing like anti
CinEx covers and things like that, whilst also being the
band who have songs that have appeared in like Oscar
nominated hit movies or whatever. But the comeback Refuse period
war music, I think has generally gone down as a
bit of a letdown for what ends up being the
final Refused album. Freedom has some strong aspects, but I
don't know if Refused really fully felt like that game
changing band during their reunion period. You know, that radical
a band, but it's testament to them that this is
the first thing they do outside of that. You know,
it's just total free form jazz, noise, cacophony, and the
ability like like this got reviewed in kerrang and stuff
because you can go, oh, it's the first thing from
former members have Refused and it's something the majority of
people would never want to listen to otherwise.
Speaker 3: I mean, Refused are like in the call of like again,
They've released one of my favorite albums of all time.
I do like, you know, the comeback Refused albums. They're
not classics, but there's stuff in that I really like.
And I'm like, the thing is is I was kind
of like, well, yeah, like they've always been kind of
out there, sort of thinkers, even though chap pumps come
that's got you know, jazz influence all over it. It's
that they've never been like for a long term, just
a straightforward hardcore band you look at like any of
the projects Dennis is done in between oh, Refuse like they.
Speaker 2: Are creative Mavericks.
Speaker 3: So I'm like, I am actually like again spoiler like
as an album not my this is not my thing
at all.
Speaker 2: What the sound represents. I'm all, I'm all in. I'm like,
you know, what for it? Be creative Mavericks.
Speaker 3: Go for it, Like if they if this was a
Refused album, I would be a little bit distressed and upset, like,
oh my god, one of my favorite bands have just
decided to I said.
Speaker 1: We were going to review this, and you were like, hey,
I like refused.
Speaker 3: I was like, yeah, one of the things I was expecting,
because again, there's a reason why they've immediately finished Refusing, gone,
we're doing a new band. So I was like, it's
not going to be refused. There is no I was like,
this is not going to be a punk album. I
knew like the fact that. I was like, like, they've
cast off the shackles of Refuse, the expectations, the way
of that, so they can go and be whatever the
fuck they want. They can be the lunatic like jazz
sludge doom like maniacs that they want to be. And
I think that's amazing. I think, and now I'm like
this that has no commercial aspirations at all, that's purely
the creators, kind.
Speaker 2: Of like free form will. I can respect and admire that,
even if I never want to listen to this album ever.
Speaker 1: Again, Yeah, the riffs on this are like if you
thought Chappile grooves too much like Limp Biscuit, if you
just go no only anti music please like no groove whatsoever,
Thank you only the dirge. They're weirdly they I think
it's I think it's the sacks. The sax adds a
fun element at times where it saunters along, so like
the first track, it's got sort of like no wave
kind of bass and the sax riff just carrying the hook.
They just repeat for the whole time, hammering on it
until it doesn't feel like a riff anymore like Swans
or whoever would or you know, like stuff like the
birthday party or whatever. But it's like stretched to breaking point.
It's so lump and and dumb. The saxophone makes it
sound like a theme tune for like a Sneaky Cat
cartoon character, while Dennis's vocals are just drunkenly screaming through
like it sounds like he's using one of those like
those things you get in the playground where you get
like a paper cup on a string and another word
at the end, like just and he's just hollering whoo
down like no. And it does that for about seven minutes,
you know, and then you get an in what feels
like an outro of about a minute of like poping
tuneless sacks and then the exact same riff just comes back.
It was like a prank. It was so amusing.
Speaker 2: That that that d a little bit of one.
Speaker 3: But because they hammer it for so long of this
song and it is it's kind of like wobbly drunken
tunus something like this, like funning bass.
Speaker 2: And it's gonna like lump and drumbears for like what
am I? Like? What is happening?
Speaker 3: And like, to be fair to Dennis, he sounds live
wire on this record. He is like he's not in
on what he's doing. He's like feeling it. And I'm like,
that's again, I can't totally this because I'm like, it's
kind of just got a spark of kind of like
insanity that I'm like I can fully respect admittly right
door for.
Speaker 2: Lang Lang Oh again, sometimes I'm not gonna be good with.
Speaker 3: But the second track insane flute solo for most of
the song, I was like, flutes are just you know,
we all we all praised the flute in hardcore on
the Speed record.
Speaker 1: This ain't that. This is no the only thing one
of my only reference points for how that would win
sounds just going mental in your whole you know, your
ear the whole time is. In the nineties, there was
like a death doom band called Pandimonium who were led
by Dan Swano from like Edge of Sanity and Amelion
other bands, and they would use like flutes and saxophones
and stuff just kind of break it apart until it
basically sounded like you were trying to listen to like
an old anathema tape on, like an old walkman, but
while being attacked by a swan in the process. And
that's what that track that would have reminded me of.
There is one slightly shorter song called Repeat two. I'm
not sure what Repeater one is exactly, maybe Fugazi, but
that's like the most accessible in terms of having a
pulse to it. You know, it's got a kind of nasty,
slinking proto punk bassline, kind of sounds a bit like
maybe the slightly more out there end of like mid
eighties Black Flag or something with the saxophone like popping
up and you know, the closest thing to a hook
from Dennis when he's doing like the hey repeat it again.
The one on this that tested me was because I
was having a pretty good Time. The one of them
that tested me with the title track, which is basically
like heavy breathing over a bassline that feels like it
can like barely lift its feet out of ten feet
of snow, and it is that for again about ten
minutes or something, and I thought that one might have
stayed on the rehearsal room floor.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's one of those songs that was bad for
me as well well. The whole thing of what we
wrote with it in you know, we wrote it in
one day and as soon as place we came back
and recorded it, it's like, how do you even know
what you didn't didn't right at that point, like what
you're considering a song that you can put on your
record if you go to come back and put that
on it. But again, it's maybe it's the King Crimson
fan in me. I kind of like the commitment of it.
I like that they've just gone like, we're gonna put
something on that's really not a song on our debut album.
Speaker 2: It.
Speaker 4: I think it's interesting like this this combination of like
free jazz and like extreme noise rock, sludge, that sort
of thing. It's it's not a new thing, but I
kind of admire how another band like Naked City would
do something similar, but they'd also veer into like funk
and disco and surf rock and Western music, and it's
you know, there's a bit of levity to it this
outside of Repeater two, which isn't even that much lighter.
There really isn't a breather at all on this record.
Like it's it's pretty exclusive considering it's a follow up
band for one of the more popular punk bands in
the last twenty five years.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's what I kind of just admire about
that is because they're a band who played you know,
prey cozy venues I suppose as refused towards the end,
like what was their farewell date in London, like Britain
Academy or the Forums, Yeah, something like that, and then
fucking it off and immediately knocking out this, you know,
like it's it's very true to the band that they've
always told you they are. You know, apparently they're immediately
onto making a second album, which, considering the turnaround of
this one, doesn't surprise me. I imagine there'll be more
of this coming very soon. If you're into it, I
admire it, you know, even if I'm probably not going
to be listening to it again very much, and it's
the most unlistenable album review of the year out early.
So there we go. Thank you for listening to this
here show. Thank you for your patience in terms of
getting this one slightly out the door later than usual.
But what are your takes on those album the highs
and lows of those seven records from January? Because like
this has kind of like skewed our schedule a little bit.
I kind of don't want to come back in like
three days time for whatever news has happened there. So
I say we'll be back next Friday with the podcast
for the week, but we will later in the week
if you are over on the Patreo and there will
be more podcasting because we have the first T and
M does Horror of the Year coming this week. It's
one for the gamers, I'll say that much. There's something
else that is going on, so it's one for the gamers.
And then sometime after that we will be picking up
once again with the nineteen ninety seven special over the
Patriot as well, So go check us out over there
if you want to fill your boots for the remainder
this week. Otherwise, we'll be back here next Friday to
really pick up the schedule once again and let us
continue covering everything that's happening in rock and heavy metal.
So cheers, everybody, Bye bye, I don't care.