Hailing from the small Italian town Faenza, Matteo Vandelli (vocals, guitar), Margherita Mercatali (guitar) and Michele Leonardi (drums) first got together in 2016. Mondaze released their first demo ‘Healing Dreams’ in 2018 and across 3 tracks they showcased a dreamy but pleasantly heavy shoegaze sound and left audiences wanting more. Now, three years and one pandemic later, the quartet have released t heir long-awaited debut full-length, Late Bloom. Having all the time and space necessary while the world stood still for many months, the quartet have crafted a beautiful and immersive album.
The album’s first half is a gloomy daydream, featuring slower plaintive melodies, taking its time to unfurl its wings. ‘Worlds Undone’ finally does that with full power as it dives into the best tradition of shoegaze. Building up slowly, the track reaches its peak with the distant cacophony of cymbals and comes crashing down like a tidal wave, leaving a single tune as an afterthought. ‘Honest Feelings’ then changes the pace significantly, coming in with energetic rhythms and a screamed intro.
Following 2020’s Wanna Sell Your Soul? EP, on latest outing III, Zebrahead deliver five tracks of a mind at the end of its tether. Across the near 16-minute run time, we hear a mental state ride the rollercoaster of what it means to fall apart.
“This life is getting old” Estrella confesses over the soft piano of ‘Lay Me To Rest’. Where punk rock is typically bright sonically, the opening riffs here are dark and menacing. Estrella and co-vocalist-cum-rapper Ali Tabatabaee slip into an effortless exchange. It was expected there would be some teething problems but much like the collision of punk rock and hip-hop, it simply works.
As III rolls on, we notice these songs are slower than they should be. Ed Udhus’ marching drums broil through the fuller melodies of ‘A Long Way Down’. “I hate the drugs on my nightstand” speaks to a notion many with any kind of affliction have. This love-hate relationship with yourself, your mentality, and your physical being can sometimes be exhausting, and that phrase encapsulates it perfectly. The toned-down pacing of the song throws us slightly but as Tabatabaee addresses the troops with a battle cry style rap section.
Taking direct inspiration from NOLA sludge metal bands in the vein of Eyehategod, Crowbar and the rest of their ilk that crept from the Louisiana swamps in the 90’s, Rotherham’s Swamp Coffin are a grim affair. However, considering their respective history, such putrid stylistics and tendencies are easily understood. Essentially, Swamp Coffin are a band born from heartbreak and turmoil. On the day they where due to take to the studio to record their 2017 demo, the brother in law of frontman Jon Rhodes passed in a car accident. Following that, Rhodes and his family where left homeless following a devastating house fire nine months later. It’s these devastating events that fuelled the respective demo and it’s consecutive 2019 EP, and whilst the band persevered, it seems the passage of time has only amplified the fallout. Noose Almighty, their debut LP, see’s Swamp Coffin delving deep into that mire of trauma in a way that’s revolting, rancid – but ultimately – cathartic.
Related: “We wanted something that sounded completely vile” – Introducing Swamp Coffin
Noose Almighty – which was named after a light bulb moment at Disneyland Paris out of all places – doesn’t shy away from exploring it’s trauma outright. Instead, it pulls oneself right into the putrid and inescapable sludge such mental and psychological grief manifests as. Opener ‘Your Problem’ is a vice grip to the throat that pulls you under into the mire. A granulating central riff that harkens thoughts of the absurd density of acts such as Mastiff and Slabdragger drags the track forward – or to be more precise, downward – all whilst Rhodes barks with such intent it’s impossible not to visualise spittle and phlegm being incorporated into the mix. Following tracks ‘Jaegerbombsaway’ and ‘Barbarian Windsor’ continue things in a slow and oh-so-low fashion. The riffs to be had here are absolutely monstrous in size, flexing harder than the great Loui swamp monster Rougarou himself, but are also complete with brilliant motifs from doom, groove and death metal. Nods to the likes of Black Sabbath, Conan, Wode and labelmates Video Nasties are plentiful, and only add further engaging variation to the hulking musicality on display here.
After drumming up hype and anticipation over the years with a slew of brilliant EPs, the band dropped their fantastic LP debut Lovecore just as the world dropped off it’s axis 18 months ago. Instead of blasting off into the stratosphere, any and all promotional tours where immediately postponed, festival slots failed to materialise, and overall, the year that should have belonged to them became one to forget. So with that in consideration, it’s no real surprise that the band’s new EP Trust Issues is their most direct and outspoken offering to date.
Releasing November 26th via Big Scary Monsters, Trust Issues – like it’s moniker slyly implies – is Orchards’ most confrontational and direct body of work to date. Whilst a large portion of Lovecore’s lyrical contents served as musings on romantic misfires, mental health struggles and finding one’s place in a callous world, Trust Issue is the moment where Orchards drive their stake into the earth and demand a far more empathetic and inclusive world. Opener and leading single ‘Leave Us Here (We’re Fine)’ establishes this steadfast defiance immediately. Against the loose indie energy and tight math hooks the band have become renowned for, the band forgo the slight insecurities from their youth in favour of brazen conformation, with frontperson Lucy Evers adamantly ascertaining their position with empowering confidence. It’s a kickback, one against the world that’s wronged them and continues to wrong countless others that’s articulated with withheld rage.
Brighton’s alternative scene has been thriving massively in the past few years, with a steady flow of exciting newcomers storming the fronts, snake eyes among them. The grit-pop trio from the south coast put out a successful first EP Skeletons during the pandemic last year and have no plans of slowing down. For their next release, the lovehate mixtape, they’ve decided to go with a transitional format. It’s not an EP and not a full-blown album just yet, but rather a collection of the latest new tracks with some amusing sketches in between. This format and side A/B divide already gives the release a nostalgic vibe, and paired with fuzzy guitars and slightly dark undertones the record sounds like it’s fresh from the 90s. …mixtape features 8 full-length tracks and hilarious skits that work as a cohesive whole; they aren’t there to stretch out the time. With each one, the listener gets a glimpse into the recording process and the band’s personalities. This fly-on-the-wall approach is decidedly entertaining, arresting and personal.
The record kicks off with a skit that unequivocally explains to the audience why snake eyes have chosen this particular format. ‘Dig’ is the opening track and the first single released back in July, introducing the side A selection of the mixtape. It features a wildly catchy melody along with the signature thick and gritty sound. ‘Happy Pills’ then follows in the similar fashion, while delving into the heavy topic of anti-depressant addiction. ‘Hello Stranger’ is a bizarre one but amusing nonetheless – a short track of barely a minute and a half, imagining an awkward encounter with an ex.
Converge are heralded as one of hardcore’s most important bands, and with good reason. Jane Doe still stands head and shoulders above a lot of what’s come since then and the band have only continued to push themselves while churning out fantastic records. That desire to push the envelope, to explore and reinvent themselves led to an-all-too-brief outing under the Blood Moon moniker in which they joined forces with Chelsea Wolfe, Ben Chisholm from her band and Stephen Brodsky of the mighty Cave In, amongst others. Their reimagined versions of Converge classics is widely heralded as a classic moment in live music history, not just hardcore and fans have looked back on it fondly for years.
All of this is to set the scene for an announcement that immediately sent expectations and hype levels sky high – the musicians would once more reunite, but rather than redoing existing material, there would be an collaborative album of entirely new music, formed by all involved together. That album is Bloodmoon: I, a name in itself (thanks to the inclusion of the ‘I’) that meant people were instantly excited not only for this but the prospect of further Bloodmoon releases. With such a reputation preceding Converge and their collaborators, if it were any other band there might have been serious questions about whether they could deliver on them.
