Releasing shortly after their recent tour with Bob Vylan, self-confessed sinners Witch Fever are back with their latest single in the form of ‘In Birth’. Depicting the experiences that vocalist Amy Walpole was subjected to during their regimented Christian upbringing, the track is a raw, gritty and downright sacrilegious flagellation of modern punk that’s tainted with subtle lashings of doom and riot grrl to sardonically articulate the misogyny of religion as a whole. An absolute cathedral burner of a track, the single is yet another single from an act that refuse to comply with strangling and regressive social norms and shows effortlessly why Witch Fever have become such a coveted and covered band in such a short amount of time. – Dan Hillier
Although billed as melodic death metal, The Agonist have never fit particularly neatly into that box; from their embracing of technicality and progressive elements as well as folding in backing choirs and other genre touchstones aplenty. Their latest single ‘Remnants In Time’, taken from their upcoming EP Days Before The World Wept, opens with sombre piano before frenetic guitars explode into life. Drummer Simon McKay is on as fine form as ever; blast beats meet galloping double bass drum work without ever seeming flashy or spurious. Vocally, it’s as diverse as ever; singer Vicky Psarakis switches effortlessly between melodic sung passages and full-throated screams. The song ends as it begins, with eerie and melancholic piano that merely hints at the storm to come. – Will Marshall
Taken from their forthcoming new EP Poltergeists, ‘Alone Not Lonely’ is the latest track from self-stated Exeter ‘sad-gazers’ Soot Sprite. A track documenting how one can thrive independently and an overall celebration of self-love, the single see’s the band further leaning into a more polished indie-pop and emo sound all whilst retaining the DIY fuzz that coated the material that helped the become such a celebrated band in the first place. Going from this alone, there’s no doubt that the Specialist Subject Records released Poltergeists is going to be an instantly loved body of work upon it’s release on October 29th. – Dan Hillier
Much adored doomsters Khemmis have unveiled their fourth album Deceiver and released its lead single, ‘Living Pyre’, alongside it. It’s classic Khemmis; their towering melodic doom is as captivating as ever with the melancholic, haunting vocals that are often layered to great effect. As emotionally heavy as it is instrumentally, ‘Living Pyre’ and Deceiver as a whole promises to be their darkest work to date. Guitarist/vocalist Phil Pemberton said of the record, “Thematically, all of the songs are about the many ways that we are tricked into believing these stories about ourselves–that we are broken, that we are not good enough, that our genetics determine our fate. This title is the label that we put on our minds as a force that tricks us into believing these stories. The record’s lyrical trajectory is similar to Dante’s descent into an Inferno of his own making.” – Will Marshall
“Yeah, so we pretty much started writing the album as soon as the first one came out in 2019. We managed to get in with John Mitchell to record ‘Nothing on You’ in the about the first week of January in 2020. We’d never worked with John before, we didn’t know what the dynamic would be like, whether we’d get on, etc.”
“We smashed that out over two or three days and it went really well, we went back home and booked in to do the rest of the album then, obviously, all hell broke loose.”
“It made things really difficult. Originally we were going to have John come up to Nottingham to do pre-production but then obviously it was lockdown, we weren’t allowed to see each other and a lot of work all of a sudden went virtual. It was really weird for us as we’re all used to being in the same room at the same time, working together as a team. We had the studio time booked, the deposits paid, all that jazz so it wasn’t really a situation where we could postpone things. But Lukas‘ (James, Drums) partner works with quite elderly and vulnerable people so what happened was a bit weird. Luke stayed at home for the first session whilst me, Timmy (Francis, Guitar) and Beth (Hunter, Vocals) went down and we basically isolated at the studio and lived there for about three weeks without venturing out at all. We recorded the whole album back to front without any drums, which was very weird, but it gave us more space to manoeuvre in terms of arrangements and it let us play around with stuff a bit more. We might do the next album that way!
“Oh we’re literally all over the place! If you ask Luke it’s either complete death metal or hip-hop and rap, that’s all Luke really listens to. Me, Timmy and Beth are a bit more united in terms of our music taste but still pretty different. I’m from more of a classic rock background, but then again one of my favourite bands is Panic! At The Disco so I’m still into the pop-punk and emo kind of stuff. Timmy is a bit weird at the moment, he’s going through a bit more obscure, singer songwriter kind of stuff. Beth is all over the place, her favourite bands are My Chemical Romance and Paramore, she’s probably the most pop-punk out of all of us.”
“Bands change their sounds over time, no one wants to be doing the same stuff for 30 years. One of my favourite records recently was amo (Bring Me The Horizon) and obviously that sounds nothing like Bring Me’s early stuff and they got quite a bit of hate from their original fanbase. For us it was never about wanting to do a certain style just to fit in. People kept coming to us saying if you wanted to get played on the radio, if you want to get good shows you’ll have to change your style, that’s very different to saying I want to make a pop album because I want to make a pop album.”
“So when we say we stuck to our guns it’s not disparaging anyone else.”
Yeah absolutely, so if on the third album we make a dubstep album it’s because we wanted to!
Originally creeping in from the deepest and dankest crevices of the South West scene at the tail end of the last decade, the Bristol void-lurkers have organically cultivated a strong reputation for their remarkable penchant for articulating the nature of the abyss that awaits beyond the veil. Their original and initial EPs, entitled DRUJ and DRUGS, where fantastic insights into their sound and identity, but it’s their immaculate and immersive long play debut The Live Long After that truly presents the almost unparalleled soundscapes that Sugar Horse originate from.
A record of sardonic absurdism that’s heavily reminiscent of Mogwai, The Live Long After amalgamates post-rock, shoegaze, doom and noise-rock to a point where even trying to summarise the album using such tags feels redundant and limiting. Instead, the group’s debut is a gorgeously translucent and vivid effort that scoffs at the face of genre-norms and conformity. With an almost glacial pacing, the album explores and intertwines an encyclopedic knowledge of genres and stylings in a way that’s glacial but never not once tedious in it’s prolonged ruminations.
With the record out now via Small Pond Records and Art As Catharsis, we got in touch with guitarist and vocalist Ash Tubb to break down The Live Long After, track by track.
After earning their reputation as one of the best names within progressive-metal through utterly defying the rules of instrumental music and jettisoning what the genre is capable of, Animals As Leaders are back with their first original music in half a decade. Coinciding with the announcement of their re-signing to Sumerian Records, the trio’s latest single ‘Monomyth’ stands tall as one of the band’s most urgent, sidewinding and textured works to date. A truly confrontational and curious exploration of how we as a species try and fruitlessly compute the nature of things beyond our comprehension, the single is a star speckled and fearless movement of sound from an already legendary band that is about to enter another era of pioneering creativity. “’Monomyth’ is part fever dream, part ritual”, states figurehead Tobi Abasi. “Its imagery represents man’s ceaseless attempts to translate transcendent ideas into movement. The conflation of struggle with meaning. Pain with significance. The ultimate failure of distilling perceived patterns in the world into knowledge.” – Dan Hillier
Another band announcing an upcoming album, London extreme metal troupe Voices have released their latest single ‘Beckoning Shadows’. Coming in November via underground tastemakers Church Road Records, the record is entitled Breaking The Trauma Bond and ‘Beckoning Shadows’ offers us a first glimpse of what’s to come. Their avant-garde approach to extreme metal folds in elements of black metal, death metal and gothic-styled vocals. There’s an uneasy undercurrent shot through the single, partly courtesy of the occasional keys but also from the unsettling vocal performance. Of the song, the band said “‘Beckoning Shadows’, as a song examines the beckoning shadows of a life capsized – when there is absolutely no hope to be found in a world full of delusions you must walk without fear into the abyss”. – Will Marshall
Whilst many artiness within the South Wales scene opt to emulate their often American and English influences, post-hardcore newcomers Breichiau Hir proudly embrace their colourful heritage, something they demonstrate with their new single ‘Hir Oes I’r Cof’. The title track of their freshly announced debut LP which drops November 19th, the group’s new single serves as an introduction to their home cooked and nuanced take on post-hardcore, one they articulate purely through their native Welsh language. Delicate, forward and aggressive when required, the track is an ode to the ruining nature of rose tinted nostalgia, something the album as a whole explores. “Halfway through writing the album, I noticed my lyrics were all following a narrative and theme around nostalgia,” details vocalist Steffan Dafydd on the record.“It’s a journey that follows the narrator getting totally engrossed in that feeling and losing grasp of reality. The theme of a river as a metaphor for time runs through the album.” – Dan Hillier
The awards of course, were dished out between live sets from tonight’s performing bands. Opening the night were post-hardcore wavemakers As Everything Unfolds, followed by fast rising pop punk stars Hot Milk, however tonight there was a secret extra performance in the form of the self dubbed skiffle-punk duo Glitchers, who turned up outside the venue performing from the back of a truck before the doors had even opened. Bonus band, what value for money.
Following these performances we have our first batch of awards:
Nova Twins took the first award of the night, beating out fierce competition such as While She Sleeps, Architects and Deftones with their video for ‘Taxi’.
Enter Shikari’s Rou Reynolds snagged this one for his work on Nothing Is True & Everything Is Possible, triumphing over the likes of Code Orange, Loathe and Bring Me The Horizon.
The absolute titans that are Bring Me The Horizon have been formally recognised with this one, having already been a staple of the UK’s heavy music scene for many years now.
This one was picked up by Dance Gavin Dance for the cover of their latest record Afterburner. The album art was created by Swedish artist Mattias Adolfsson, who has created artwork for every one of the bands albums since their 2007 debut Downton BattleMountain. Fun fact, he also was the creative mind behind the artwork for Weezer’s recent album OK Human.
This whopping title has been won by none other than Ghostmane, who took on the likes of Lamb Of God, The Pretty Reckless and even Corey Taylor to be called this years best international artist.
The Five Hundred have broke into the scene just over five years ago, tearing the door down with larger-than-life riffs and killer screams. While their first record was largely introspective and focused on personal mental health and addiction struggles, their sophomore album A World On Fire delves deep into the current state of the world. Leaving the global pandemic aside, the ongoing environmental decline is a serious and urgent issue that affects us all, and guitarist Mark Byrne knows just how bad it actually is. He shared his insight into the subject and the inspiration behind the album.
Related: The Five Hundred – A World On Fire | Album Review
We always knew we wanted to write an album on the topic of environmental disaster and the impending apocalypse… Perhaps it wasn’t a given that it would be the second album, but we would have done it at some point. It’s fair to say that it’s a passionate and sensitive topic for us, and myself especially. I live and breathe this stuff. Academically, I have two environmental science degrees, and when I’m not writing music, I work with organisations to deliver Flood Warning Projects for the UN, World Bank, and National Meteorological Services. It’s more than just angry screaming into the void for me…
At the time we starting writing lyrics for the album in summer 2020, fires were raging across California, Australia, Southern Europe, and many other places. At the same time, life as we knew had been flipped upside down, and torched in a dumpster fire. In both a literal and figurative sense, our world was on fire. That was the “catalyst”, if we ever needed one.
“Did the pandemic sharpen our focus onto this topic? Perhaps it’s fair to say that was a factor… The environmental catastrophe that is headed our way will cause more deaths than COVID-19 and the solution will be far more complicated than a simple vaccine. We are all lost our shit during this pandemic, but what’s coming next is so fucked up, we won’t know what hit us. We are simply not ready for this.”
