Colorado five-piece Mouth For War have left it late in the year to submit their effort for extreme metal album of the year, but as metalcore records go it’s hard to ignore as one of the best of 2023. Into their bubbling cauldron of influences you can almost feel the Knocked Loose adoration swimming around with the odd eye of newt, as well as some clear love and respect for bands like Counterparts, Terror, Malevolence and other acts peddling in outright aggression. They’ve already released one excellent LP in the form of 2019’s Life Cast in Glass, and after signing to MNRK Heavy they’re coming out swinging with their label debut Bleed Yourself.
Jumping straight in at the deep end, album opener ‘Roses In Place Of Your Ashes’ is custom built to create chaos in the mosh pit, with chunky riffage throughout and an easy set of lyrics to scream at the nearest person. Seemingly only interested in causing as much chaos as possible, Mouth For War have started their sophomore LP off with a bang. Coming up for the one-two punch is ‘The Plight Of Those You Left Behind’ which carries on the wild energy of the previous track, as well as the proper metalcore song-naming technique of a long, sad title that sounds like a theoretical Converge album. This is a slightly longer song than the first, but at just over three minutes it most definitely doesn’t overstay its welcome, still pummelling at the listeners ears then moving on to allow the next song to take its turn.
Their first album Splinters From An Ever-Changing Face and debut EP From the Unforgiving Arms of God before it laid down a blueprint of monstrous HM-2 laden noise that was practically an aural mugging; after a split with fellow nihilist miserablists Cult Leader last year, second album The Sin of Human Frailty arrives with much expectation behind it given both its predecessors’ quality and the names involved in the band – and it smashes all of them.
Opener ‘A Predator Yourself’ is 82 seconds of sonic annihilation, screeching feedback giving way to pummeling, frantic drumming as Brendan Murphy roars like a man possessed. Lead single ‘Gaping Wounds of Earth’ follows by dropping the tempo initially (though not for long) and keeping the grinding aggression at frankly irresponsible levels with blastbeats and buzzsaw riffing. So far, so terrifying and very much the END people already know and love. Where The Sin of Human Frailty departs though, is in evolving their maniacal heaviness to embrace industrial elements alongside the sonic equivalent of being beaten to a bloody pulp.
It’s namesake a righteous call back against the United States Supreme Court’s stance on abortion legislation, Set Your Pussy Free is two things. Firstly, it’s a body of work that wonderfully and playfully showcases how how the Montreal band have swiftly become a mainstay within the global punk scene, a riotous pop-punk presentation mirroring the sugar-rush of the band’s renowned live presence. Secondly, it’s a record champions the three crucial values of modern punk on-high; inclusivity, liberation and adolescent fun. Quire frankly, it’s a bootleg firework punk party of a record.
‘Set That Pussy Free’, the respective opener, establishes this with the grace of a firecracker to the face. Sounding wonderfully unsanitised and rough like all good self-respecting punk should, the song’s celebrity nature infectious and challenges the gravely serious nature of the subject of women’s healthcare with equal parts urgency and joy.The sardonic ‘Let’s Do Drugs’ follows with it’s lyrical refrain of demanding substance abuse being admittedly adolescent but still wholly fun, and ‘Delete Delete Delete’ laments the incomprehensible horrors of social media with nothing but breathless pace. These are snappy, knee-jerk barrages of punk that uphold the longstanding values of punk established decades ago whilst sounding re-energised for the modern youth.
The Guru Guru’s particular brand of chaotic, experimental art-rock could never be described as mainstream. Bringing together the chunky, dissonant riffs of Queens Of The Stone Age, the untethered experimentation of The Mars Volta or Radiohead and, through the band’s often pyjama clad frontman Tom The Bomb, the wide-eyed, deranged humour of comedian/performance artist Andy Kaufman. On their latest album however, the band seem to have found a brilliant midpoint between their outlandish sensibilities and a sound that won’t scare away mainstream audiences.
Make (Less) Babies gives The Guru Guru room to explore both their most experimental and most conventional sounding ideas yet without, like some of their previous work, becoming too inaccessible. Many of the album’s tracks, particularly ‘Lotta Tension’ which keeps the band’s distinctly tongue in cheek humour and frantic energy intact while shifting to a more garage rock feel, lean into tried and tested rock structures while putting a signature explorative spin on them. Everything about Make (Less) Babies feels deliberate and planned, from the tight, punchy drums to the politically aware, humorous lyrics, in a way that elevates their innovative songwriting instead of diminishing it.
It has been an incredibly long nine year journey since the 2014 release of Get Hurt. After the band announced their indefinite hiatus shortly after wrapping up touring supporting the album, the future of The Gaslight Anthem was up in the air for a little while. Lead vocalist and guitarist Brian Fallon spent his time curating a back catalogue of solo albums, but it wasn’t quite the same feeling as the band that brought his name to prominence. Now on the other side of a global pandemic and reunion tour, nearing ten years since their last release, the time is finally right for the plaster to be ripped off and for The Gaslight Anthem to reemerge in full with a new album in hand, self releasing on their own record label, Rich Mahogany Recordings, with a few special guests in tow.
History Books stirs to life with the bittersweet ‘Spider Bites’, immediately conjuring the atmospheres and energies of The 59’ Sound, the bands widely celebrated breakthrough album, a decision that holds true for the album as a whole. A dramatic and stomping rock introduction gives way to Brian Fallon’s emotive vocal performance and poignant lyrics: “We circle ‘round the sun until someday we won’t….And I’ll love you forever ‘til the day that I don’t”. Light notes of piano backing his melodies as the band builds a bit more before breaking into a melancholic chorus that embeds itself deep.
The fifth record from the R&Beatdown trio and their first since the turn of the decade, Garden Of Eden is once again wonderful proof of Bad Rabbits’ unique concept. A suave and swaggering collection of contemporary R&B fulled by the volatile energy only found within punk, hardcore and other genres often perceived to be removed from rhythm and blues by lightyears, this record is a wonderful body of work that once again proves that the only naysayers of Bad Rabbit’s work are those who simply have not heard it.
Titular opening track – heralded by Enter Shikari’s own Rou Reynolds – immediately establishes the plethora of reasons that makes this album and band as a collective so brilliant. Effortlessly radiating that sense of empowering 90’s optimism and vibrancy, ‘Garden Of Eden’ is joyous and infectiously in the fashion in which it fluidly harmonises classic R&B silkiness with the force and power of heavier music as a whole. Leading single and consecutive follow up ‘Goin Up’ continues this underpinning sense of empowerment with the swagger that characterised the band’s previous LP Mimi and the aptly titled ‘Beatdown’ mares messages of positivity with a vocal delivery that harkens thoughts of manic mic grabbing pile-ons only previously seen at hardcore shows.
