With a change of producer, Catherine Marks has worked with modern-day icons such as Paramore and Boygenius. Yet the overblown, tinny production of Ricochet mixed with only vaguely politically charged lyrical content hardly makes for an enjoyable listening experience. When compared to its predecessors that deliver biting political commentary in their discography, such as Siren Song of the Counter-Culture and The Sufferer and the Witness, it’s hard not to feel disappointed with their new release.
Their attempt to land the interesting production and the PA system-esque distortion ‘Nod’ certainly does leave an impression on the listener, but the impression is depressingly mediocre. Although Tim McIlrath’s vocal delivery and range is impressive for a twenty-five plus year career, it doesn’t leave much of a lasting impact and musically comes across very much like a forgettable Foo Fighters b-side at best. Even then, that’s being extremely generous.
‘I Want It All’ ventures into a garage-rock orientated sound which is more reminiscent of The Hives than Millencolin, but the distorted vocal effect added yet again fails to add any character to the track. If anything, it’s a further distraction from the rest of the record’s lacklustre material and ends up sounding like the type of song you’d hear in a car commercial circa 2012.
Tiles Whispers Dreams seem to be as disparate as the crazed riffing and jazz inspired drums purveyed by Car Bomb, it’s only 11 minutes long but boy does it run the gamut of what has come to be recognised as their particular brand of abrasive, deconstructivist prog metal.
‘Blindsides’, hovers between bitcrushy, wonky rhythmic sections and soaring metalcore inspired choruses to deliver a blow by blow show of Car Bomb’s repertoire. You’re left gasping for breath by the end of the opener, after being dragged through a psychedelic kaleidoscope of blast beats, chugging Meshuggah esque mathematics and sparse yet heavy hitting leads. The clean section at the end of the track might be the most straightforward section of the whole record, dreamily leading you into the wanton destruction of ‘Paroxysm’.
You might not be familiar with noisy Swedish four-piece Blessings, but their raucous new album Blodsträngen (aka The Bloodline) should really be circled and underlined on the new release calendar of any self-respecting metalhead. For a lot of folks, when they talk about Swedish metal they’re thinking specifically about death metal. Blessings‘ home city of Gothenburg was certainly an instrumental part of the Swedish death metal scene, but to try and pigeonhole this band into that singular genre would be doing them a disservice.
They’ve come a long way from the rough, gritty, we-recorded-this-in-a-garage-in-one-take feel of 2012’s debut album Bittervatten, the evolution of the band’s style and sound plain to hear in the opening few seconds of second album Biskopskniven which was a far more polished and ambitious affair that really started to show what the band was capable of. So what about their third album? How has the band evolved and changed in those intervening four years? One simple way to chart the band’s musical progression is through a track called ‘String(s) of Red’. There’s one track with this title on all three albums, a story told in three parts, and there’s no mistaking how much the band’s sound has matured and evolved from their debut album’s scrappy beginnings to the gorgeous, powerful, head-banging anthem we find on Blodsträngen.
The Armed are a band that operate with a philosophy, or if not that, a stipulation. With the ghillie suits, smoke and lasers that were common before revealing their identities for their last album (and not lying about it), the bodybuilding guides that came along with ULTRAPOP, the calls to refract, building everything on the foundation of an impossible love, there was never a time when it was just the music. The last album, Perfect Saviors finished with needing to rip open the vinyl sleeve to find the presave code for an extra EP. With identities revealed, and die hard fans destroying their old releases, what’s next?
THE FUTURE IS HERE AND EVERYTHING NEEDS TO BE DESTROYED is still The Armed, but with them covering so much musically, what isn’t? The calls for musical destruction have been present for much of their work, as well as their combination of noise, pop, and hardcore. Coming from their most polished album, the opening track and lead single ‘Well Made Play’ sets the scene. This album is here to be a soundtrack to burn everything down, if not doing that itself.
This suite began with the Toad King EP in 2018, which not only introduced us to the eponymous anuran monarch and his penchant for getting high on smoked goblin flesh, but also established Goblinsmoker as ones to watch on the UK doom scene.
Although Goblinsmoker was only ever supposed to be a studio project helmed by guitarist, vocalist and chief songwriter Adam Kennedy alongside his writing partner Michaek Guthrie on drums, demand for the band as a live project reached the point that they had no choice but to take the project on the road.
The next chapter, 2020’s A Throne In Haze, A World Ablaze, was written in between bouts of gigging and saw the band continue the story and fleshing out the swampy universe. The quality of this release landed the band support slots with the likes of Conan, Venom, and Eyehategod.
Now, the hype for the conclusion of the Toad King trilogy is so real that, at the time of writing, the record is the most pre-ordered release in the history of APF Records.
The Illinois trio have essentially been metalcore mainstays since their explosion on to the scene with 2009’s A Higher Place. In the years following, the genre hit its crossroads, hit the mainstream (for better or for worse), and is arguably now in a state of flux. Throughout it all, Born of Osiris – and their symbiotic relationship with Sumerian records – have been the constant.
Through the aforementioned (and shortly lived) vacation into the mainstream, BOO’s DNA as a technical/progressive metalcore band stayed firm. A tough feat when bands like Sleeping With Sirens and Of Mice & Men were reaching into the top 5 of the Billboard 200 with more diluted offerings of what the genre was defined by.
This is all prevalent because with Through Shadows, you press play already feeling a level of authenticity from and respect for the band. It’s technical. It’s visceral. It’s, well, it’s Born Of Osiris.
The opening one-two of Seppuku’ and ‘Elevate’ blend contemporary techno blasts with BOO’s patented double bass drum bite. This is as modern as the trio have sounded in some time. Yet, due to the proficiency and occasional audacity of the band’s patented riff work in place: pre-existing Osiris fans won’t feel ostracised here.
Where recent offerings have felt like grandiose showcases of guitar showmanship, Through Shadows satisfies a variety of desires. ‘The War That You Are’ is a beacon for everything the band have been and could yet become. A chorus begged to be sung in unison is wrapped in razor sharp riffs and dual layered vocals. Drummer Cameron Losch remains as dexterous as ever too, travelling across his toms like Thor through the nine realms.
