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Kick off the last few weeks of summer with five new tracks that they don’t need all the blah blah blah from yours truly. Check out songs so good they speak for themselves by Spectral Planet, Luke De-Scisco, Tripper and the Wild Things, Ruth Lyon and Valère Géron after the jump.
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Posted in Friday 5x5 | Leave a Comment »
The Omega to the Week Starter Alpha, Week Ender is the song we want to send you into the weekend with.
“Progeny” from Chicago’s Dust Biters is a flammable mix of At the Drive In style post-hardcore and straight ahead hard rock riffs (and cowbell) that will light up your weekend. It’s loud, it’s fast and it vibes at the intersection of ambitious punk, greasy metal and righteous hardcore with a sound that we’re dubbing post-sleazecore. Suitable for opening up the pit, or standing in the back of the room with a cold one raised while you head bag un-ironically.
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When the world turns to shit it’s good to have the escape that is music, and sometimes you want the escape to be a bit more escapist than usual. It is in these times that we praise Jebus (or Hail Satan if you prefer) for over the top metal. Bombastic and soaring and if you buy in: totally badass. Jonathan Young steps up to save the day with “Wolf Within,” a symphonic metal banger that will have you putting your foot up on the office paper shredder like a monitor wedge and throwing horns while you give your voice a workout trying to sing along to the menacing lows and Dickinson-esque highs. Definitely in the wheelhouse of hook oriented metal like Ghost, but with a hint of 2000’s hard rock thrown in. Some music fans can’t get on board with this type of metal, saying that it’s a bit silly, but you know what else is silly? Bowie pretending to be from Mars, Dylan pretending he didn’t steal Woody Guthrie’s soul and Stevie Wonder pretending to be blind (jk – we’re not part of that internet conspiracy, which is an actual thing – google it). Our point is you will enjoy metal, and life in general, a lot more if you buy into things. Take the ride, have fun with it and start here with Jonathan Young.
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The Midweekly is our column from Mike Jeffers; lead singer of Chicago punk stalwarts SCRAM, music junkie and all around righteous dude.
Roaring out of the underworld in a retro hot rod, transforming into a starship bound for the cosmos, driven by a neon shadow. The soundtrack to this scene is Leather Terror, the latest from French synth lord Carpenter Brut. Somewhere between techno and metal, this record throbs with electro riffs and pounds with double kick beats. There’s an even darker theme than the music behind this release that involves violence, revenge, and toxicity (it’s the second installment in a trilogy to be exact). Joining CB on this horror inspired ride is a great collection of guests such as Greg Puciato (The Dillinger Escape Plan, The Black Queen), Ben Koller (Converge), Johannes Andersson (Tribulation), and fellow darksynth makers Gunship. Careful when jamming this one in your car at night. Supernatural forces might take over and send you chasing something imaginary into the darkness.
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The Midweekly is our column from Mike Jeffers; lead singer of Chicago punk stalwarts SCRAM, music junkie and all around righteous dude.
There are two souls in one body here in the band Rolo Tomassi. Sometimes in harmony with each other, and sometimes in conflict. The metal group from Sheffield, England know how to use both dynamics to their advantage on their recent release, Where Myth Becomes Memory. The first soul comes in the form of a dream pop ballad, with a beautiful, angelic voice from singer, and founding member, Eva Korman. Right alongside those vocals are the keys, both piano and synth, from other founding member, backing vox, and brother, James Spence. The keys are at the forefront during these parts, and together Korman and Spence create some lovely melodies. Now for the other side of things. That voice has now become a blood curdling scream, and with it comes a barrage of heavy guitar riffs and drums, both produced and stylized with mechanical precision. Dizzying time signatures give way to epic half time breakdowns, and vice versa. Lyrics about existential dread, and the search for enlightenment. It’s a fine slice of emo metal that RoTo has been perfecting for a decade and a half with their own DIY approach, and this new record presents great results. Maybe these two musical souls inside this band are really just one, but sometimes on this album it sounds like a legion.
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The Midweekly is our column from Mike Jeffers; lead singer of Chicago punk stalwarts SCRAM, music junkie and all around righteous dude.
Take an old sound from a young country, and a new sound from an old country. Build a bridge between them inspired by an ancestry from both. That’s what avant-garde metal heads Zeal & Ardor are all about, and what they continue to do on their latest self-titled release. That ancestry lives inside the lead singer, songwriter, and guitarist, Manuel Gagneux. The child of African-American and Swiss parents, both musicians themselves, Gagneux embraces the differing cultures, and transforms them into something new. Metal being the genre he grew up loving the most, it takes the front seat in Z&A, but almost every track has elements of blues, and old spirituals. A stomping, rhythmic beat, accompanied by hand claps and a woeful chant, reminding you of the American south, easily segues into lightning double kick drums, shredding guitar riffs, and monstrous shrieking out of the Nordic hinterlands. To give it all an extra touch of atmosphere, synths, piano, and even distorted horns play a key part in the production. The album’s lyrics for the most part are what you might expect from the genre. Reflections on the worst parts of humanity, controversial and otherwise. There are a few takes that get into the question of faith, or American hegemony, as well. All delivered through the dueling vocal ranges of either a soul singer, a grindcore screamer, or an amalgamation of both. Even bridging the languages of English and German. At the risk of becoming outliers, dismissed by the black metal scene, or scoffed at by blues aficionados, Zeal & Ardor forge ahead, taking their style of metal to new, and surprising places.
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Today we keep it brief and the let the music do the talking with new songs from TUYS, Jeremy Roscoe, Preamp Disaster, The Zealot Journal, and Gaijin Smash. See our sparseness and hear their greatness after the jump.
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The Midweekly is our column from Mike Jeffers; lead singer of Chicago punk stalwarts SCRAM, music junkie and all around righteous dude.
There’s something churning in this flavorful stew of hard rock. Flashes of silver, like the steel of guitar strings, pulled out of the icy depths. Thrown onto a crackling fire, hot as the electricity in those amps. And sitting around it, cooking up what they’ve caught and created, a group of good-timers enjoying it all. That group is Arctic Char, and the stew is their self-titled debut. It’s an album that hauls out many sizes of rock and roll, from classic sounds to modern, and there’s no mistaking that midwestern heart from these Indiana boys. Groovers reminiscent of the 60s and 70s pioneers. Screechers cut from the hair of 80s and 90s metal. Even a blues number, or indie rock ballad here and there. You can hear the patience in the production process. Tight and polished. The instrumentation mostly speaks for itself, but also with help from some studio seasoning, to keep it spicy. Things get pretty wild in the lyrics. Adventurers, giants, and even cannibals pop up in these stories. But there are regular people, too, with regular people problems. The ingredients of great rock tunes. When the songs are biting, the stew is plentiful, and it’s ready for your consumption.
Posted in The Midweekly | Leave a Comment »
The Midweekly is our column from Mike Jeffers; lead singer of Chicago punk stalwarts SCRAM, music junkie and all around righteous dude.
The nails are sharp and painted black, and there’s a whole lot of dirt under them. Just like the debut record, Self-Surgery, from rock duo Mrs. Piss. Its doom metal maiden Chelsea Wolfe, and bandmate Jess Gowrie, both based out of Sacramento. Gowrie took over on drums for Wolfe’s full band back in 2017, but their friendship and songwriting collaboration goes back even farther with an earlier band. This project though is just for the two of them. Those familiar with Wolfe’s style will expect the dark and heavy here, and they’d be right. But there’s a quicker energy to some of these tracks as well. The riffs, provided by both members, are dragged through sludge, then whipped into a frenzy, splattering everything in its path. Menacing electro rhythms also make a few appearances, showing the experimental approach Piss took to the production. Lyrically, the songs emit a feminine power that encapsulates strength, and pride, but self-deprecates in cathartic ways, too. The filthy claws on this banger will leave you muddy, bloody, and ripped wide open.
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No one should be surprised when an absolute banger of a metal song is released from Sweden, it’s basically their number one export, but a lack of surprise does not make for a lack of “oh hell yeah!” “Legacy” by Unfound Reliance rips from start to finish. Brutal and melodic it’s everything we love about metal in one tight package. Turn it up and then turn it up some more.
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