New Music Report – March 19, 2021
Oh my god, there’s so much good music that came out this week. I don’t even know where to begin, I’ve been looking forward to Erra for ages now, but all the singles have been nuts too; Johnny Booth, Northlane, Born of Osiris, Zao, Wristmeetrazor. It’s just all so good. I always try to include interesting singles, but this is one of those weeks where I highly, highly recommend taking some time to check those out as well as the full lengths. As I said last week, I’m now keeping a running Spotify playlist with all the music that I’ve mentioned here, so if you want to hear everything, check out the link below.
Erra – There have already been a number of very good albums released in 2021, but to be honest, this is the first album that I’ve been anticipating for months. And let me tell you, it was worth the wait. Good god, what an album. Every once in a while, a band comes along and raises the bar in metalcore. It’s usually for a different but very specific reason; sometimes it’s innovative like Loathe or Thornhill, sometimes it’s super technical like Invent, Animate, etc. And sometimes, it just takes everything and moves the goalposts of what people thought was possible from a genre. That is what Erra just did. They’ve always had the capability, Drift was incredible, Neon felt rushed but was good, but this album is just where everything clicked, you can tell they really pushed themselves creatively and musically for this one and the payoff is incredible. It’s technical, heavy, the songwriting is top notch, the contrasting vocals are perfect, the production is leagues ahead of Neon. It’s just got everything. As far as I’m concerned, this is now the golden standard for modern metalcore. Everyone else better bring it if they wanna top this.
LANDMVRKS – Tough break for these guys, honestly. Initially, their album release was up against Architects and then got pushed back to a date that put them up against Erra. It’s hard to win that one. And that’s kinda what I was expecting, really, a good album that was difficult to get through cause I kept wanting to get back to the new Erra, that wasn’t the case at all. Honestly, French metalcore has kinda been on a roll lately and LANDMVRKS have been at the front of that with very solid, innovative, and interesting music. And while it may not be a heavy hitter like Erra, this album features some incredible diversity that’s captivating from start to finish. There’s so much variety in this album, it’s very easy to get sucked into it. Everything from straight up hardcore, metalcore riffing, pop punk verses, post-hardcore vocal melodies to… French rap? It sounds weird but it just works. And I think that’s a really cool thing to be able to pull off. No matter what sound they were playing off of, the whole album had me vibing hard, it all sounded cohesive, and it just worked. I definitely enjoyed this.
Distant – This album is fucking disgusting. I’ve made it very clear lately that I’ve been on a deathcore kick and I feel like that’s been kinda painting myself into a corner with all the super techy blackened deathcore type stuff that’s been going around lately. And yeah, that’s all really cool, but man, this hits just right. Distant has been absolutely killing the sludgey, downtempo side of deathcore. There’s no chasing bpms here, it’s just slow, filthy, crushing deathcore. And being able to do that effectively is incredibly difficult. Deathcore as a whole, if not done well, has a tendency to drag and get very boring and repetitive very quickly. Now, when you take that formula and intentionally slow it down to make things plod along even more to develop a sense of weight and burden, it’s bound to drag just a little too much and create something heavy but borderline unlistenable. Somehow, Distant have mastered the formula and created something absolutely brutal and cumbersome without dragging or becoming boring. It’s really remarkable, this album gets so low and is so cumbersome but in the best possible way.
Singles/Albums – Northlane (A+ Numetalcore), Johnny Booth (Metalcore/Mathcore, this shit is INSANE), While She Sleeps (Metalcore), Zao (Metalcore), Born of Osiris (Metalcore/Djent), Wristmeetrazor (Metalcore), Genghis Tron (Cybergrind), Batushka (EP, Russian black metal), Depths of Hatred (LP, Death metal), Rise Against (Punk), Hail the Sun (Swancore), VCTMS (Numetalcore), Fleet Foxes (LP, Indie), Beartooth (Post-Hardcore/Poppy metalcore), Mono (Live album, Post rock)