Tag Archives: hardcore

KILLING JOKE and EMPIRE STATE BASTARD: TUNES OF THE MONTH

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APRIL REWIND: NOISE SUPERGROUPS, A LEGEND’S RETURN AND A BUBBLE-SWEET POP

Busy month, April. Record Store Day went back to its regular slot, Oxford stalwarts Desert Storm released Death Rattle and launched it with a gig (OK, that was March 31st but it’s close enough) and there was the tiny morsel of news that METALLICA DROPPED 72 SEASONS ON US.

But Metallica is too big a deal to blog share so they’ll get their own post another time.

Until then, some ugly beauties.

Like Empire State Bastard.

EMPIRE STATE BASTARD – Harvest

Let’s take a moment or ten to revel in the sheer class of that band name because it’s surely the best of the year, if not the decade. The track itself is pure Dead Cross on first listen – punk metal hardcore, jammed with tempo shifts and grinding riffs at pace.

But who’s driving Empire State Bastard? Only Mr Dead Cross Driver himself, Dave Lombardo. How good is that? He’s not the only big name either because Biffy Clyro and Oceansize are feeders for the rest of the line-up – Simon Neil and Mike Vennart do vox and guitar, just way harder than you’d imagine. Ace. Harvest video this way.

While we’re in a Lombardo state of mind, don’t forget his new solo album Rites of Percussion, just released on Ipecac.

JAAW – Rot

Lurching noise rock for subterraneans, Rot sounds like the slow decay its title suggests. Driven by the kind of monstrous bass that the late Caleb Scofield laid down for Cave In and Zozobra, Rot neither needs, wants nor gives a fuck about air, daylight and all that other lovely stuff. Nope, it’s a grimy beating of infernal industrial sludge decomposed by assorted guys from Three Trapped Tigers, Sex Swing and, get this, Therapy? – Andy Cairns lends a buried howl. Jaaw Rot: yours if you want it.

KILLING JOKE – Full Spectrum Dominance

Released in March ahead of Killing Joke’s Royal Albert Hall gig, Full Spectrum Dominance is both exactly like any other recent KJ track and somehow new sounding. Don’t know how they keep pulling off this sleight of hand but they do. There IS nothing new. But it sounds so great. Dark arts indeed.

So, Full Spectrum Dominance churns that dense, deceptively heavy power we love so much and adds just a little more mid 80s throwback with ghost-ish keyboards and softer vocals in the verse. And though it’s a headphones track for sure – check that bass separation when you’re plugged in – the chorus is built for a slamming live audience. Is this the most pure distillation of modern-day Killing Joke into a single track? It might just be.

SILVER MOTH – Mother Tongue

Psych folk and fuzz guitar combine with piano, sax and multi-layered voices to lay painterly textures brushed with squall. Hints of Espers, perhaps? There’s a menacing edge to one of the guitars as it moves in and out of Mother Tongue’s intricate web and it all feels timeless/ageless, perhaps drawing on the Isle of Lewis spirit where it was recorded.

And though it doesn’t make you think of Mogwai – not this track at least, it’s much more in the electrified folk sphere – Stuart Braithwaite is in the band. Go check it out.

DAWN RICHARDS – Bubblegum

Something completely different to finish with – an infectious, exuberant electro-dance soundclash that namechecks Beyonce and Prince with enough sex and attitude to outdo both. Reminds me of MIA’s Bird Flu but really, I have no frame of reference for this. Bubblegum bursts with filth-o perfection and unshakeable groove. As Richards says, POP IT. Or not…


’til next time!

Northern Quarter, Manchester
Manchester, Northern Quarter

3 GREAT 2022 ALBUMS: KINGS, CAVES AND CROSSES

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Festive greetings all! ’tis that time again and we’ve had some proper cold for once, which makes everything better and more seasonal and better and more seasonal. As does a stollen bread carbo-coma.

But what’s kept the music fires blazing through the year?

Here are three metallic diamonds (?) from 2022 – not a definitive shortlist but certainly albums that caused much excitement AND lived up to it. That’s what we’re looking for right now: true musical love and long-term listening, so let’s start with the big one from a very strange year.

KING’S X – Three Sides of One

King's X - Three Sides of One

It starts badly. Really badly. What in the name of Satan Clause has happened to Dug’s voice?

Hang on – wrong speed. Amateur Hour over here, the record’s a 45rpm-er. Anyway, King’s X. First new album for 14 years. Fan froth. Where will it sit in their staggering back catalogue?

Chances are it’ll slide right up towards the top of the King’s X table because it’s got the very things the first four albums had and XV somewhat lacked. Stylistic range. Acoustic guitars. Choppy riffs and rhythm shifts. Dark and light, not just groove, and – of course – heaviness, melody and harmony all over, aka the KX factor.

Record one, side A: Let It Rain rings out a pounding apocalyptic vision before Flood Pt 1 cranks a jagged riff as heavy as they’ve ever done and Nothing But The Truth takes you back to Dogman’s very own Flies and Blue Skies.

Not a bad start? No, a bloody great start – and so it goes on. Driving hard rock singalongs (Festival), glacial bass-heavy vibrations (All God’s Children), Hendrix-y screamers (Give It Up) and early-days recreations (Watcher). Swipe Up repeats Flood Pt 1’s punishing riff, but without the Beatles-esque sweetener this time around, it hits even harder.

So, again, there’s every chance that Three Sides of One will turn out to be a top-tier record. On first listen it’s the most King’s X-sounding record since 1992’s King’s X, at least to me – don’t know why exactly, not over-analysing it either, it just somehow brings back not only the sound but the feeling of that album. After a couple more plays, fragments of songs and riffs worm into your head and stick. Just how we like it.

Whatever issues Dug Pinnick, Ty Tabor and Jerry Gaskill had during the making of XV, they’re straightened out now and if this ends up being their last record then it’s a rich, vibrant, complete send-off.

King’s X are back. 100%.

CAVE IN – Heavy Pendulum

Cave In - Heavy Pendulum

Who’d have thought there’d be a follow up to Final Transmission? Me neither. Heavy Pendulum is Cave In’s first album of new material without the late Caleb Scofield, but with credits on three tracks and artwork space in the booklet, he’s still present. Nice. Brother-in-arms noisemonger Nate Newton keeps the bass close to home and the band carve out another molten post-hardcore trip. Tracks like Blood Spiller and Floating Skulls shred with barbed riffs and open aggression while Heavy Pendulum drops a proggy descender of a riff so sublime you wish it’d never end.

As is often the case with Cave In and their collaborations and crossovers, the slower tracks have a knack for nailing a transcendent, awesome beauty and we get two of those to close out the album. Reckoning‘s unplugged heaviness feels fit for a campfire ritual, while album finale Wavering Angel burns a 12-minute pathway to the ether. Only Cave In themselves know if it’s an epitaph for their departed bassist but it sure as hell feels like one, traversing from acoustic picks to juggernaut chugs to full-circle convergence. Class.

DEAD CROSS – II

Dead Cross - II

32 minutes and 11 seconds. That’s all you need for Dead Cross’s 2022 OTT hardcore goth-creep assault and it’s a grinningly perverse, relentless beating from Michael Cain, Justin Pearson, Mike Patton and Dave Lombardo. How can you not succumb to Nightclub Canary‘s full throttle discharge and skipped beats? Or Christian Missile Crisis with its sneaked-in Slayer riff? Or Imposter Syndrome‘s insane realisation of art-thrash/punk expression?

There are plenty of non-solos and shadowy breaks peppering II – the Tomahawk vibe oozes through in those moments – but, for the most part, Dead Cross don’t hold back. At all. Prepare to be flattened.

And there we have it, a trio of faves from 2022. What are yours? Do share – after all, it’s the season to give.

’til next time …Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

2020 MUSIC: 3 GREAT ALBUMS

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Festive greets to anyone who found this post! If you want exhaustive 2020 music tips, go to a proper source. If scant and quick is more your bag, here are three beasts that go down heavier than a frozen turkey on Christmas Day.

Ready? Let’s get stuffed. More to follow in later posts.

MR BUNGLE: The Raging Wrath of the Easter Bunny Demo

You know what it’s like when you haven’t played Slayer for a while and then, when you do, you’re left grinning and pulverised by their OTT? Giddy disbelief at the relentless ferocity in a song format. And it feels so good because it’s like coming home.

Mr Bungle The Raging Wrath of the Easter Bunny Demo
Mr Bungle: feelgood thrashing

This is what Mr Bungle 2020 captures too. Despite, or maybe because of, the pant-shittingly brisk pace whipped up by three core Mr Bungle mentalists and two Big Four godheads, it’s probably the feelgood album of the year. It’s frantic, vital and comes with a shitload of commitment and prep. Scott Ian said that to nail the complexity of the riffs, he broke them down into 1-2 minute parts and spent days at a time on a single fragment. Said he changes what he’s doing 93 times during Sudden Death. Said that only when he got up to 214bpm in warm-ups was he ready for the shows. Said he got arthritis from practising so hard. Coming from one of the longest serving riff meisters in thrash, this says a lot about the work that went in and you can really hear it. Theory nerd and scales master Trey Spruance had to learn how to play metal again so he could get through a track, then a gig, of intense metallic shreds.

Weirdest of all, they did all this to service a bunch of tunes by their 1986 teenage selves. Could it join the all-time thrash greats given that it’s both 30 years late AND of the time? Who knows. But the one thing you can’t escape is the love and affection oozing out of these speed metal grooves – love for the genre, for the source demo and for each other. This is not a band going through the motions.

And the more you learn about the backstory, the more magical the whole thing becomes. One day it might even become mythical: like, did it actually happen? It’s a proper sideways take on a reunion. But Bungle had the tools, brains and work ethic to do it. Treat of the year.

OLD MAN GLOOM: Seminar VIII Light of Meaning and Seminar IX Darkness of Being

The late Caleb Scofield was honoured post-humously on Cave In’s last album, Final Transmission. Now his distinctive bass force and song-crafting talent is honoured again on this double release by Old Man Gloom. Fucking hell. Every Gloom album is an event, such is their absurd mix of metalcore, drone, static, sci fi terror and primate myth-making, but these two albums hit a combined gear that shifts them nearer to their peak Seminar II-Seminar III-Christmas run. Has the loss of Scofield given the music a heavier purpose? Very likely.

Old Man Gloom Seminar XIII Light of Meaning
Snow Man Gloom: noise to the core

Across the two discs we get the full range of OMG moods and modes, amplified by Nate Newton, Caleb Scofield and Aaron Turner all sharing vocal duties. Also getting a mic spot and shaping the music is Stephen Brodsky – not a previous Gloom member but absolutely blood family. And the Cave In touch is obvious on tracks like Final Defeat and especially Death Rhymes, an acoustic sledgehammer to the gut and a peak moment from both sets. At the other end of the OMG spectrum, By Love All Is Healed‘s lyrical sensitivity is obliterated by Turner’s sub-human roar. And so it goes on. 11-minute sprawls, one-chord hammerings, deep space terror, super short concrete blasts, aching heavy beauty – all the Old Man Gloom elements you know and love, spread across two full-lengthers. Headphone bliss.

HUNTSMEN: Mandala of Fear

Never heard of this band until Stuart Maconie played the track Ride Out on his Freakzone show. Here are my words about the track from that month’s Rewind:

‘YES. Not the opposite of no, but Yes the band – because if that early vocal doesn’t remind you of Jon Anderson, you’ve never heard Jon Anderson. And if you have heard him, you’ve never heard him over a super dense prog thrash attack that’s Rush-taut (how tightly packed is that rhythm guitar?) but way heavier. Shit me, it feels good. Of course, Huntsmen’s Anderson is part-time and gets blown into next decade by a metalcore breakout, making this one of the most exhilarating tunes of the month.’

It’s all still true. And the rest of this double-disc album? A monstrous metallic rock effort. Doom and prog tinged but not remotely downer or indulgent. Aggressive vocals and clean harmonies. Flashes of brutality balanced by space-psyche soar. Everything in its right place. If Pelican had more range AND male-female vocals, this might be where they’d end up. A proper hidden gem.

Huntsmen Mandala of Fear
Huntsmen: just say Yes

So that’s that, three masterful metalworks from 2020. Check the next couple of posts for other 2020 music highlights.

’til then!