New Music Report – September 24, 2021
There has been a ton of hype around a lot of the releases coming out this week, and for good reason, really. None of them were huge up on my list, but I really was looking forward to them for their own reasons. It’s also nice that there’s a lot of diversity in the releases for this week, it should have a little bit for everybody.
Sleep Token – Sleep Token is very, very difficult to explain. They’re kinda metal but not super heavy, they have a very strong and talented vocalist and one of the most entertaining drummers I’ve literally ever heard, and have moments of real heavy music, but it’s more a heaviness through intensity than what you would traditionally expect. They also have the whole “masked band” gimmick with their own personas and story and so on, more like Ghost than Slipknot, but I’ll let that part slide. The album itself is, as the music would suggest, filled with a kind of slow burning intensity. Now, I like slow burning intensity, but this might be even a little bit slow for me. It’s a good album, don’t get me wrong, but definitely a bit out there, and something you have to be in the right mood for. But holy fuck, that drummer is a god damn monster. I’ll listen to this album on repeat for the drums alone.
Signs of the Swarm – For a while there, I wasn’t too hot on deathcore, it all kinda sounded the same and it was really difficult to do something new and innovative. Thankfully, that is no longer the case with excellent bands like Lorna Shore, Shadow of Intent, Mental Cruelty, etc, really pushing the boundaries of what you can do with deathcore, but it’s still easy to get lost in the deathcore scene. It’s so easy to just do the exact same thing as everybody else, and do it well enough to fit in but not stand out, but Signs of the Swarm are doing a damn good job at making sure they aren’t one of those bands. I didn’t care TOO much about this album on the build up to its release since it was, as noted, just yet another deathcore album, but upon first listen it was very clear that I did not give these guys enough credit. This is a hell of an album. It’s not going to reinvent the genre, and it’s not going to rise to the top far enough for me to mention them in the same breath as the bands listed above, but it certainly stands out enough on its own to warrant a listen.
Singles/Albums – Underoath (Metalcore), SeeYouSpaceCowboy (Screamo), Whitechapel (Metalcore), Fit for an Autopsy (Deathcore), 156/Silence (Metalcore), Attack Attack (Crabcore), We Butter the Bread with Butter (Weird German Electronicore), Rivers of Nihil (LP, Death Metal)