Active for over thirty two years now, Japanese post-hardcore legends envy have honed their craft for a cult fanbase. Depending on who you ask they’re considered a heavily influential band in screamo, post-hardcore and post-rock circles. Their blend of white hot post-hardcore and delicate post-rock auras has been a staple since 1998’s From Here to Eternity, being early adopters of stark textural differences. After a lineup shakeup and the return of their original frontman Tetsuya Fukagawa, envy went on to craft 2020’s excellent The Fallen Crimson, looking back more on their screamo past with a fresh lineup and returning members whilst furthering their exploration of post-rock spaces. Now they’re back with Eunoia, refusing to rest on their laurels and planted forward facing confronting the future.
One of the primary focus’ with Eunoia was to only write material they would be able to replicate in a live environment; the band’s ambitions have often exceeded their live capabilities with complex arrangements. Even with those understandable limitations, envy still create vast compositions with plenty of emotional depth. Introductory track ‘Piecemeal’ sets the stage with atmospheric guitars stirring to life and spoken word vocals read like excepts from diary entries setting an intimate stage before fully blooming with ‘Imagination and Creation’. It makes for the perfect showcase of what makes envy themselves, a cohesive blend of infectious melodies scored over the top of frenetic blast beats, post-hardcore intensity and shoegaze inspired walls of noise. It’s a blistering introduction that is a perfect reminder of how powerful the band are when they’re firing on all cylinders.
Chat Pile shocked listeners with the release of God’s Country in 2022 for its uncompromising depiction of modern life in small town America. Painting a canvas with a painful dose of reality for many, it left one hell of a lasting impression and fuelled international demand for the band’s intense live shows. Now two years removed, Chat Pile are ready for their second helping of suffering with Cool World. Opening with the unhinged lead single ‘I Am Dog Now’, it exudes a sleazy and uneasy aura from the get go. Almost heavenly sample sounds break with a snare hit into jarring instrumentals, swaying and crashing like a knife-wielding meth junkie backed you into a corner screaming their incoherent threats. The angular, syncopated rhythms are nauseating and effective at laying the foundations of Cool World’s brutality, whether overt or simmering under the surface waiting to reach boiling point.
Immediately breaking the white-knuckle intensity, ‘Shame’ shows the band further embracing their cursed take on noise-fuelled grunge. It starts off a little lighter, the vocals almost sounding passive aggressive as vocalist Raygun Busch speaks of atrocities and continues to fester as it goes. He reaches a breaking point speaking of the disregard for life, freeing demonic vocal growls and gurgles. “Frownland” continues the slightly lowered intensity with a gnarled bass line and industrial noises, conjuring a harsh energy from the start. The instrumentals are highly infectious as they dissolve into an atonal nightmare and come back together again.
Blood Incantation have been plugging away on the fringes of death metal for just over a decade now. They piqued interest and gained attention in the underground for their unique approach early with their debut EP Interdimensional Extinction and even more so when they revealed their debut album Starspawn. Their otherworldly philosophies have been worn on their sleeve since the beginning, but they truly hit the death metal zeitgeist with breakthrough album Hidden History of The Human Race. Fully showcasing their intricate process for melding old-school inspired death metal ferocity with progressive sensibilities, helped greatly by the eye catching, if somewhat cheesy, ancient aliens-esque artwork. The band have always toyed with trippy, celestial atmospherics in their crushing death metal, with 2022 EP Timewave Zero they shocked their fanbase with a purely instrumental synth odyssey exploring psychedelic and new-age realms. It came as somewhat of a curveball at the time, but clearly it was just a step towards their grander plans.
With an album title informed by an obscure extraterrestrial side project of progressive royalty King Crimson, Absolute Elsewhere is compromised of just two tracks (although separated in six movements on streaming platforms), named ‘The Stargate’ and ‘The Message’. Both are lengthy, twenty-plus minute arrangements exploring various realms, genres and textures, fully embracing their wide scope of influences and crafting a one of a kind progressive death metal experiences. Throughout both extended odysseys, the band transition from pummelling atonal horror into expansive progressive synth-scapes and new-age atmospheres. On paper it sounds like a disaster, however only a band like Blood Incantation could not only bring their idea to life, but pull it off in spectacular fashion. It truly is an interdimensional journey on Absolute Elsewhere, invoking a variety of sensations while being hurtled through the expansive galactic voids.
Throwing their hat into the ring with party math greats like Aiming For Enrike, Bicurious and Battles with a hearty dose of electronic noise, Bristol based duo Socks And Ballerinas take their complex beats and live looped guitars and synths and inject them with a playful, danceable spirit. Where other bands approach technical, progressive music with an almost clinical, scientific accuracy Socks And Ballerinas experiment with an almost childlike whimsy on A Bit Jumpy! in a way that’s impossible to listen to without losing yourself in their wacky sound.
The album’s introductory track ‘Vanta Black’ hits like a brick wall, immediately throwing the listener into the deep end of Socks And Ballerinas’ mind-bending sound. Guitarist, bassist and synth player Leonardo Calamati acts as the band’s neurological centre, live looping parts individually to create a rich sonic texture while drummer Katalin Helfenbein provides driving beats which ground the swirling guitar and synth parts. ‘Vanta Black’ acts as a fantastic introduction to the duo’s world with whirling, choppy electronic textures devolving into a cacophony of euphoric, danceable noise. From the outset Socks And Ballerinas make a strong impression, sounding much more developed than a two-piece should have any right to.
While A Bit Jumpy! does make a very impactful first impression, a few of the songs fall into the trap of self-indulgent noodling making the experience a little flabbier than necessary. Most of the album’s nine tracks stay firmly in their lane, keeping well under the four minute mark for a swift hit of electronic math, however, ‘Muscle Monsters’ clocking in at almost six and a half minutes outstays its welcome a little, losing a lot of the punch that makes the rest of the duo’s work interesting and the almost five minute closing track ‘The End Of Fiona’ slows down the pace to a steady, melancholy thump in a way that lurches the momentum of the album to a halt for a less than satisfying ending. Socks And Ballerinas shine when their songs have an end goal, speedrunning through a maze of intertwining instruments and tight, intricate beats, when they deviate from this formula the outcome is often less electrifying.
Full of perceptive humour and storming riffs, Bureau De Change have been quickly turning heads in the UK’s thriving post-punk scene in their relatively short time as a band, showing off their brilliant live presence at support slots with up-and-coming favourites Knives and Peach. Now, on their debut EP, the quartet are ready to translate their raucous live show into an equally rip-roaring recorded experience complete with wry social commentary and hefty instrumentals.
Despite only lasting for four relatively swift tracks, Are You Flirting With Me? covers plenty of sonic ground from artsy dissonance and thoughtful, poetic lyrics to stomping riffs and cathartic screams. Frontwoman Flora Kimberly takes centre stage with a vocal delivery that lies somewhere between Joe Talbot of Idles and Ren Aldridge of feminist post-hardcore icons Petrol Girls, waxing poetic with a stabbing shout that cuts through the chaos like a machete. Despite immediately fitting into the flourishing post-punk world Bureau De Change stand head and shoulders above the countless faux-edgy, privately educated post-punk boy bands thanks to a no nonsense approach to their unfiltered noise.
Some songs need a library’s worth of scholars to paw through cryptic lyrics and decipher deep meanings; EP highlight ‘Shaken, Not Stirred’ is not one of those songs. Kimberly lays out the track’s thesis with six jabbing, shouted words “James Bond is a fucking prick”, taking aim at the secret agent’s disposable view of women and the culture that glamourises it. Using Bond as a framing device the band take aim at a misogynist society that pushes violent incel ideals against a backdrop of a stomping rhythm section and quickfire guitar stabs. While obtuse lyrics can be a great way to weave deeper meaning into an artist’s work, Bureau De Change show that sometimes a sledgehammer is more effective than a scalpel.
While multi-instrumentalist Manuel Gagneux may have been made a star in heavier circles through his genre-bending black metal meets gospel and blues project Zeal & Ardor his solo experimental pop alter-ego Birdmask, which predates Zeal & Ardor by two years, has quietly been releasing off-kilter, experimental pop since 2011. Allowing Gagneux to lean into his eccentric tendencies more than his other projects, Birdmask’s latest EP Isolde leaves a strong impression, displaying a cohesive identity while soaring freely above genre boundaries.
Fans of Birdmask may be familiar with the broad strokes on Isolde with Gagneux’s crooning, melancholy vocals dominating the sound over hip-hop inspired electronic drums and guitar-led melodies. It’s clear from the outset however, that this EP is a more mature, developed version of the project. Opening track ‘Dial Up’ stands out not only as the EP’s most fully realised song but also one of Birdmask’s best to date, building up from understated electronic atmosphere and staccato clean guitar stabs to a confident, dubstep inspired drum break. While the rest of Isolde still has plenty to offer, ‘Dial Up’ takes a strong first step, offering those familiar with the project something to connect with before blindsiding them with a completely unexpected twist.
Elsewhere on the EP Gagneux explores numerous different genre conventions, from psychedelic rock to jazz, funk and ambient, creating a nauseating swirl of conflicting sounds that somehow comes together to feel cohesive. Where the track ‘Placebohead’ channels Hendrix style psychedelic guitar theatrics through Birdmask’s modern lens the song ‘Go Idah’ leans heavily into dissonant, shoegazey atmospheres, both manage to feel distinct yet part of a cohesive whole. Birdmask’s signature crooning vocals act as a lifeline, grounding the project, allowing the instrumentals to go off the rails.
