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)
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New Music Report – March 12, 2021
Trying my best to get back on schedule with my new music posts this week, and I’ve got a few pretty obscure ones that I was actually pretty excited about, and a long list of very strange singles that are also worth combing through. And, as the result of several requests, I’ve started compiling a Spotify playlist of these posts. I’m still working out the specifics so I’m down for suggestions, but I think it’s going to be a big playlist that I just add to every week so by the end of the year it’ll be a compilation of everything. I’m working on going back and backfilling everything from January, so it’ll be up to date from here on out. But if there’s a way that you’d prefer, please let me know.
Pupil Slicer – First off, let’s get this out of the way, this band has an awesome name. I’m not gonna lie, that was about 50% of the reason I checked them out in the first place. The other half is because it said they were for fans of The Chariot and Dillinger Escape Plan. So, you know, I’m already sold. Conversely, however, there are moments where it does feel a little TOO like The Chariot and Dillinger, following very closely to the tried and true chaotic mathcore formula as opposed to leaving some breathing room for creativity and originality, which was something that made The Callous Daoboys stand out so strongly a few years ago. So, I’m not quite sure I can say this is on the same level as that album, but it’s still a wonderfully chaotic heavy barrage of sound. And if only for that, I’m a huge fan. But in actuality, it really is so much more than that. This album looks somewhere in the middle of mathcore, grind, and even a bit doom, which is really just a brilliant combination of frenetic, world ending magnitude. So, revolutionary or not, it’s still an incredible, busy, heavy, disaster of an album and I love it.
Rise to the Sky – From a crazy mess of an album, to the completely opposite end of the metal spectrum; a crushing, meandering, oppressive atmospheric doom album that reaches out into eternity. As slow as the album may be, the one man project has been hard at work over the past year, putting the rest of us musicians that said we’d make something brilliant during this pandemic to shame. After two EPs and now this full length in just a year’s time, Rise to the Sky might just be one of the hardest working people in music. And while each release may not be entirely unique from each other, they are all absolutely brilliant and sorrowful doom metal mixed with dark elements of death metal and teeming with a thick, dismal atmosphere that blankets the album from start to finish. It’s awesome. It’s deeply sad, and feels just so immense, you can barely tell where the soundscape starts and ends; you get lost in the immeasurable depth of this album. The entire experience is hauntingly beautiful. There’s a lot to digest here, and just an incredible amount of talent on an album that you can really immerse yourself in.
Singles/Albums – Erra (Metalcore), Phoebe Bridgers (Special version of Kyoto), Darko (Deathcore), Annalynn (Djent/Progressive metalcore), EyeHateGod (LP, Sludge metal), To the Grave (Deathcore), Sion (Metalcore, Howard Jones from Killswitch and Jared Dines from YouTube), Devil Sold His Soul (Metalcore/Post hardcore), NovelistsFR (Metalcore), Convictions (Metalcore), The Drowned God (Post metal), Eternal Void (Metalcore/Deathcore), Left to Suffer (Deathcore), Trapt (MAGAcore), Our Hollow Our Home (Metalcore), Trophy Scars (Bluesy post hardcore)
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New Music Report – March 5, 2021
Apologies for the delay on the new music post this week, it’s been an exceptionally busy week at work. As a result, there are a few albums that I really enjoyed but haven’t been able to devote the time to writing a full review of. The Wolf King, Mork, and Gulch/Sunami albums were all very, very good and definitely worth checking out. But I feel like I covered two of the more notable albums this week, even if one was… disappointing. I’ll be back on schedule next week, so stay tuned.
Brand of Sacrifice – Haha oh my god, this album is insane. As I’ve said before, I’ve had a very interesting relationship with deathcore. I guess it just gets stale easily; it can become very formulaic and repetitive if artists aren’t really pushing yourself to write something unique. But lately I’ve been coming around and Brand of Sacrifice is an absolutely perfect example of how innovation and creativity can really bring out the best in a genre that took me forever to truly get. The first thing everyone ever says about any deathcore album is how heavy it is, so I’ll get that out of the way: this is incredibly heavy. I cannot overstress how heavy it is. But there’s so much more to it, it’s one of those albums with incredibly complex rhythmic structures, all moving at a million miles a minute, it feels like your brain is working in overdrive to process all the sensory input you get from a single song. It’s exhausting to listen to, but in a good way, it feels more like a rewarding challenge than a burden. It’s so much more than breakdowns and blast beats. It’s a truly unique experience in a genre that isn’t always known for being fresh and exciting, and that alone is worth checking out.
A Day to Remember – I try not to write bad reviews, but this entire album is just a god damn disaster. After being postponed from the original release date back in November 2019, and seeing countless other delays, the new album is finally here. Initial delays were blamed on album art issues, then further delays were blamed on the pandemic, but about a year and a half later, I have to say, the result is incredibly lackluster. It’s very clear what they’re trying to do, they’re trying to bridge the gap from their signature easycore sound to more radio friendly rock. They absolutely defined the genre with 2009’s Homesick and have been able to hold up admirably since then. Nothing has been able to quite reach the bar set by Homesick, but they were still putting out great albums. This isn’t. Honestly, it just sounds like fill in the blank radio rock. Literally any band could write these songs and they could get played on your local rock station, it doesn’t matter that it’s A Day to Remember, which is the disappointing part. They’ve gutted a very special band and turned it into something incredibly bland and forgettable.
Singles/Albums – Wolf King (LP, Blacked hardcore), Mork (LP, Black metal) Tigers Jaw (LP, Emo), Zao (Metalcore), Gulch/Sunami (EP, Hardcore), Mental Cruelty (Deathcore), Elitist (Metalcore/Djent), Being as an Ocean (Post hardcore), The Armed (Noise punk), Void of Vision (Numetalcore), Atreyu (Buttrockcore), Knoll (LP, Mathcore), Spill Canvas (LP, Indie rock), Escape the Fate (Post hardcore), Chevelle (LP, Radio rock from 2003), Wolvennest (LP, Weird experimental sludge/black metal), Bog Wizard/Dust Lord (Split, Doom/Stoner metal), Acid Mammoth (Stoner metal)
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New Music Report – February 26, 2021
I ended up being a little later than I expected this week, things have been pretty busy, but here are the notable new releases from last week. A few of these are actually really big ones. I know the Architects album was very highly anticipated, and I’ve been looking forward to new music from Julien Baker for quite some time. Add to that a ton of really good new singles (specifically Veil of Maya), this has been a pretty great week for music.
Architects – Full disclosure, I was absolutely getting ready to hate this album. I respect this band too much to talk shit, but I was anticipating them going from the kings of metalcore that literally wrote the formula that modern metalcore bands have been following for a decade now to writing sell out dad rock. But honestly, that’s not at all what happened. And even if it was, if one of the most successful bands in metalcore wants to move forward with their career and make something more widely palatable, then more power to them. And yes, it does have a more LinkinPark-core alignment than All Our Gods, but it still very much feels like an Architects album. Which is to say, another absolutely wonderful piece of music with superb songwriting. I’ll miss some of the heavier riff, but everything they do, they do incredibly well, so this was still a joy to listen to. It’s not all gone either, there are still a ton of breakdowns and Architects riffage, it’s just sprinkled around rather than being a nonstop onslaught, which honestly creates a bit more diversity in the sound anyway.
Julien Baker – Now this is a very important album; this is the Phoebe Bridgers album of 2021. Which is really low hanging fruit, if I’m honest, since they work together all the time. But there’s a reason for that. The two of them have a remarkable knack for creating incredibly personal, touching, and frankly very sad songs. But while Phoebe went with a more grandiose production on her latest album, Julien took a bit of a different direction. She added more expansive instrumental selections and gave herself a bigger canvas to work with, but at the same time it felt even more isolating and introspective than before. Her voice alone can convey so much emotion, and when her powerful yet pained voice combines with her heartbreaking storytelling, the result is absolutely breathtaking and no matter what the soundscape provides you with, you feel like you’re left with just you and her voice. To the point where some of the added production feels intentionally jarring, adding more pain and discomfort to the hauntingly beautiful and deeply personal story told in this album.
Other Albums/Singles – Veil of Maya (Metalcore/djent), NinDjent0 (Djent cover of the Ocarina of Time OST), Long Distance Calling (EP, Post rock), Northlane (Remix EP, Numetalcore), Of Mice & Men (EP, Metalcore), Offspring (Dad punk), NoFx (LP, Also sorta dad punk), Brand of Sacrifice (Deathcore), Bodysnatcher (Deathcore), We Were Sharks (Pop punk), The Drowned God (Post-hardcore), LANDMVRKS (Metalcore), Eternal Void feat. Courtney LaPlante (Metalcore/Deathcore), Tillian (DGD singer solo project), Hollow Front (Metalcore), Pupil Slicer (Metalcore), AFI (Alt rock), Bright Eyes (indie)
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New Music Post – February 19, 2021
This was a really cool week for new music for me. I’m a huge fan of all of these bands and honestly, they couldn’t possibly be any more different from one another. I always like to think I have a pretty diverse taste in music but really, most of these albums I write about are metalcore or some variation of that. This week, however, changes it up quite a bit, so I hope you can find something you enjoy here as much as I do.
The Hold Steady – I found The Hold Steady years ago via a recommendation from my late-best friend – who I got all my best music from – while I was in that deep americana-punk rabbit hole after I discovered The Gaslight Anthem. The pure, classic americana instrumentals and a fusion of that theme continuing into the lyrics while also being met with modern thematic issues told through incredibly vivid storylines, all crooned out through an incredibly unique a quirky vocal delivery by brilliant front man, Craig Finn. Sure, they can be mentioned in the same breath as their contemporaries in bands like Lucero, but there is no mistaking The Hold Steady for anyone else. And it’s this distinctive and eccentric style mixed with a deep honesty and ability to be sympathetic with the listener on an incredibly personal and identifiable level that makes this band one of the absolute best. And this new album feels even more personal, reminding me somewhat of Finn’s solo work, while maintaining the grandiose composition of a typical Hold Steady album.
Mogwai – Last week, I mentioned in my God is an Astronaut review that Mogwai is one of those household names in post rock that are pretty much guaranteed to put out a top tier album every single time they try. One of those bands that are really only judged against themselves and their back catalog cause anything else would just be unfair. And for a band like Mogwai, with over 25 years in the game making everything from genre-defining albums to movie soundtracks, that’s simply an amazing accomplishment. And with this new album, I’d say it stacks up incredibly well, sitting among their best. It doesn’t feel as revolutionary as Young Team or as emotional as Happy Songs for Happy People, for example, but this might just be their most cohesive and communicative album to date. It feels incredibly familiar while also reaching new levels of maturity without losing their edge. It’s incredibly special. This is one of those albums that you want to fully ingest; it deserves your full attention from start to finish, and I encourage everyone to take some time and really experience this album.
Harakiri for the Sky – Now from genre builders to one of the most underrated bands in their respective genre. Harakiri for the Sky are, in my very strong and not so humble opinion, the most criminally underrated post-black metal band out there. Their last album set an incredible foundation and really polished the band’s songwriting and helped them find their own sound, but in a few very important ways it, sort of fell short of true icons of the genre. It showed incredible promise though. Promise that became fully realized with their newest album, Maere. This feels like the pinnacle of what the band had always set out to do, a remarkable, creative, thoughtful piece of post-black metal that absolutely deserves to be mentioned in the same circles as band’s like Alcest (whose front man/songwriter Neige endorsed this project with a guest spot). This is an incredibly massive undertaking, clocking in at about an hour and a half long, driven by blast beats and signature black metal shrieks mixed with immense post-metal arrangements, all combined to create an absolutely immense, beautiful album.
Singles/Other Albums – Agent Mulder (EP, FFO The Chariot), Stick to Your Guns (EP, Acoustic), August Burns Red (Live album), Gojira (Metal), Genghis Tron (Cybergrind), Eyes Set to Kill (Metalcore/Post-hardcore), The ’68 (Noise punk), To the Grave (Deathcore), Ov Sulfur (Deathcore), Ghost Iris (Metalcore), MouthBreather (Mathcore), Hail the Sun (Post hardcore), Manchester Orchestra (Indie), The Crown (Thrash/Death metal), Senses Fail (Super special fuck Rush Limbaugh track)
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