The follow up to last year’s full length Elysian Skies – a record as spectacularly beautiful as its name suggests – and the first body of work from the band featuring new members Cat Rowland and Marcus Gooda, The Stitches EP is just the sound of a band that’s impossible not to adore. A tall claim indeed, but existing fans of the band will surely agree and attest to such a sentiment. As proven across the band’s three records thus far, Lakes paddle in the luscious waters of modern contemporary emo in the key of post and math rock. It’s a fluid sound, warm, tranquil and inviting, and far from being host to some of the dark pollutants lingering in the current global emo scene. The Stitches EP, the band’s new three-track offering, is another dip into the soothing pool of organic emo the band inhabit.
This is the culmination of surely one of the most ridiculous stories in music of all time. Over nearly twenty years, Wintersun mastermind Jari Maenpaa has continued to promise to create the most elaborate melodic black metal album of all time. To give you an idea of how long this journey has been going on for, the initial delay to Time I was announced on message boards. You read that right.
Wintersun burst into life with their mesmerising debut Winter Madness, a frostbitten beauty of a record that captured the haunting majesty of the cold, unforgiving northern reaches that Jari calls home. Unfortunately, after this, he seemed to come to believe that he was some sort of kvlt messiah. He promised Time, an ambitious concept album said to be so elaborate that the sheer scope of it seemed impossible. After six years of waiting and sparse updates, the record got split into two parts and Time I was released, to admittedly great reception, in 2012. The fact it’s over a decade later for part 2 says one of two things. That Jari is a perfectionist the likes of which black metal has never seen, or that he just needed to raise more money because he definitely needs that sauna for creative and musical reasons, nothing else.
So, what went on over the last decade? What majestic, life changing movements await you once you press play? Well, the first track is a four minute long instrumental inspired by japanese folk music, which, while admittedly incredibly relaxing and beautifully produced, doesn’t scream black metal epic at you. This isn’t a new thing for Wintersun, as 2017’s The Forest Seasons and Time I both experimented with this element of sound but it’s not exactly the album opener you expect, though maybe that’s the point.
Off the back of an appearance at Portals 2024, a performance which enlightened and grabbed the attention of curious listeners, New Ghost present a spiritual experience. An enthralling and emotionally rich adventure, twisting and turning to genres a plenty showing us the many layers to their palette of sounds. New Ghost are a limitless vision of creativity; ‘Like Lazarus’ is a beginning drenched in hazy nostalgia, like a child’s first trip into Lavender Town evoking comparisons to Copeland with its lush and vibrant waves of cascading indie/alternative rock. It’s an introduction to comfort with warmth and sincerity while ‘Cherry Violence’ is an alt-metal/shoegaze tidal wave with washed out guitars and Deftones like inspiration but retaining a unique identity steering clear of imitation.
New Ghost within the first three tracks already wear many faces and each one is a joy in viewing, their ability to take to each sub-genre with such confident and assured ability is impressive. Fans of post-rock darlings Din of Celestial Birds will be sure to take New Ghost in as children of their own. Swimming in a pleasant pool of melody which is so versatile, in a clear ability to drift from a great heaviness into such a soft landing and place a blanket over the listener and make them feel safe creates a wonderful unpredictability. When tracks like ‘Viscera’ arrive you’ve been lulled into safety by ‘Dreamsong’ which is decorated with celestial vocals and quivering electronics only to be dragged back to your feet by the fuzz and crunch of guitars into an atomic crescendo.
Originally released as a physical EP during Record Store Day earlier this year, Vile Conduct finally has a digital release. Continuing Bodysnatcher’s journey to create not only brutal, but deeply personal, resonating and lyrically vulnerable deathcore, ‘Vile Conduct’ contains some of the most cutting and close-to-home lyrics and themes the band have ever put into music. 2022’s Bleed Abide lead the band out of the pandemic era with a bang. A refinement of the bludgeoning fight music that the band had honed over the years, it took them on a number of high profile tours, some even as a headliner. It wasn’t a million miles away sonically from their previous works but lyrically things began to fall into place. The themes of struggle, of loss and inner demons have been taken up a few notches on this EP though, but not to the detriment of the music, which remains as hard as ever. A blend of bands like Spite, Kublai Khan and Hatebreed, they’ve continued their upward trajectory since the turn of the decade.
Opener “Kill The Parasite” is a perfect encapsulation of their sound; a track driven by the scathing vocals of frontman Kyle Medina, it sits firmly in that slower, more insidious deathcore bracket. No 100mph blastbeats or synths, just levels of aggression that border on uncomfortable. That’s not to say the band can’t mix things up though, as they meld slower sections with blasts of speed with ease. The band haven’t used this EP to experiment or take risks, but to hone their craft and it shows, with “Severed” and “Human Disdain” tracks which should slot seamlessly into their punishing live set.
Among the band’s sound is a sliver of hope in the human spirit in its battle against adversity. However, the EP’s highlight will undoubtedly strike uncomfortable chords with some, due to its bleak lyrics. “Murder8”, which features guest vocals from one of hardcore’s most legendary figures in Jamey Jasta (who puts in the typically classy performance) is hard to stomach at times. The title of the track refers to one of the street names of fentanyl, a drug that is wreaking havoc on the US and was responsible for the tragic loss of Chris Whited’s two brothers. During the track, his line of “Fentanyl made me an only child” instantly creates a pit in your stomach and a lump in your throat. The whole track is a journey through the dangers and ramifications of addiction, yet one the band manage to balance in song and message.
It’s easy to make music that replicates being assaulted with a metal pipe, yet it’s difficult to make this kind of music stand out and possess something resembling a heart. Bodysnatcher do that in uncomfortable ways, making the listener take a journey riddled with pain and struggle, but aim to come out of the other side putting up a hell of a fight. They won’t win any prizes for breaking any boundaries but they stand amongst the best of the modern deathcore scene.
Trust.
This is the word that the latest record from noise merchants Uniform, is based on. The original foundation of the band has been supplemented with the bass work of Interpol’s Brad Truax and drummers Michael(s) Sharp and Blume. Each of the members coming together with a level of trust bestowed upon them to produce a sizzling expansive backdrop for the agonising painful vocals of Berdan. The record deals with Berdan’s long term fight against bulimia, his strung out pain rings over every second of the record, lingering in your ear even when he isn’t aurally assaulting you.
The opening track ‘American Standard’ is 20 minutes of exploratory SWANS like gazey noise, beginning with Berdan looking at himself in the mirror, “a part of me [a part of me], but it can’t be me [but it can’t be me],” screamed into glass and repeated back with a haunting gang shout as his own fractured reflection shouts back. Confirming and denying in equal parts the things that are shown in the facsimile of the perception of one’s self. The music sweeps with huge nauseating waves of droning angst whilst the vocals continue, eventually dropping into a doomy riff, only for the expectations to be undone as it moves back into the expansive shoegaze sound. Through all of this there is a constant tension, something that makes you squirm whilst you listen, it’s unsettling, but in a beautifully graceful way. As soon as the track seems to settle, you are swept back up into the maelstrom swirled around and spit out, bewildered, mesmerised, and left with more questions than when you started. The song rounds out with a black metal inspired faster section, here Berdan explores the deeper torment, calling back to familial times in his childhood and stories with his siblings, still the pain rings out but the instruments swirl about as though stood in the eye of a storm.
The last few years have seen a renewed interest in the world of deathcore. Fresh blood in the form of rising heavyweights Lorna Shore have pulled viral interest from TikTok into a resurgence in the genre and upcoming artists like Brand Of Sacrifice and Distant continue to further establish a place for Deathcore in the 2020’s. At one point having the reputation as one of the most dangerous shows in scene, today Oceano stand as one of the last remaining sub-genre titans that haven’t plainly stepped into pastures further afield like their contemporaries Whitechapel and Job For A Cowboy.
Up until the release of Revelation in 2017, Oceano were remarkably consistent with their musical output, their first five albums all arriving within two years of each other. Living Chaos comes after an extended time away through the pandemic and out the other side. Initially teasing this new vision way back in 2022 with teaser single “Mass Produced”, showing off the band’s intention to further explore different progressive and ambient elements to draft into their colossal deathcore skeleton. Its been a slow drip feed of shows and unquenchable anticipation from their eager fanbase, but Living Chaos is finally here.
