Archive for the ‘Recommended Streams and Videos’ Category

Tacoma, Washington mathcore/metalcore greats Botch have released a new song and video, ‘One Twenty Two,’ their first song in twenty years.

The track will be included on the re-issue of their wildly influential second album, We Are the Romans, which was also announced today, available as a 2xLP and CD on November 4th via Sargent House.

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There was never any intention for the band to release anything else, but when guitarist David Knudson went to write his debut solo album, it made sense. He explains:

“During Covid, I was writing my debut solo LP, and mentally, I was sick of everything in quarantine. Lots of frustration had set in at home, and I figured the best way to deal with it was to write something heavy. I had no intention of writing anything for Botch, but when I was thinking of a singer to collaborate with, I thought, “Hey, I know the best hardcore singer ever to do it,” so I hit up Dave V. He was super excited and so it just kind of snowballed from there. There was never any intent or conversation about getting back together or writing. It just happened so naturally and was a great release for all of us to make it happen without any of the traditional pressure an “active” band faces.”

Bassist Brian Cook, guitarist David Knudson, drummer Tim Latona, and vocalist Dave Verellen formed Botch in 1993, becoming one of the most ground-breaking and influential bands during a pivotal shift in heavy music. Their final show was June 15, 2002, the same day as the release of their final EP, An Anthology of Dead Ends. The members would go on to play in These Arms Are Snakes, Minus the Bear, and Russian Circles, among others, with acclaim for the band coming mostly post-breakup. We Are the Romans went on to become one of the most influential albums for the genre garnering posthumous acclaim across the board.

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Dead Cross, the SoCal band featuring Michael Crain, Dave Lombardo, Mike Patton and Justin Pearson, share a second single from their forthcoming album II (Oct. 28, Ipecac Recordings) with the release of ‘Heart Reformer’ and its accompanying video.

“’Heart Reformer’ was as much fun to write as it is to listen to,” says Crain of the song. “It’s a classic Dead Cross song. It’s a pit stirrer and a fist pumper!”

The short-film like clip, which takes the track’s title literally, was directed and edited by Dark Details (a.k.a. Chris J. Cunningham). Watch it here:

The band broke the news of II’s impending arrival with the release of ‘Reign of Error.’ The one-minute and forty-five second wake-up call of a song is matched with a Displaced/Replaced-crafted clip that offers a scathing critique of the U.S. Supreme Court.

II, while both a raucous hardcore collection, and at times, a politically-charged opus, has its roots in friendship, with the band rallying together after Crain received a surprise cancer diagnosis. "Words can’t even begin to describe how much this album means to me. It’s birthed of pain and uncertainty,” adds Crain. “The slow, excruciatingly painful, and nauseating recovery from cancer treatments were the catalyst for every riff and note on this album. However, my will to live and be with my brothers Justin, Dave, Mike, and co-producer Ross Robinson, got me out of bed and running into the studio every day to get it all on tape.”

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Dead Cross II cover by Eric Livingston

Cardiff electronic producer Conformist and gloom wave duo H O R S E S. ‘Heddiw’ ( ‘Today’ in English) collaborate for a collision of electronica and ominous post punk,  on a inventive framework of crunching beats and blips, haunted synth samples  and infused with the ominous vocals of duo H O R S E S, that bare more than a passing resemblance to Joy Division. A collaboration forged in the depths of lockdown, this haunting and bracing release is just a teaser of what’s to come in 2023.

Conformist says of the collaboration, it’s “a project that began by exchanging audio files between myself and H O R S E S on WhatsApp during the depths of Covid lockdown; I’m really pleased we can finally get this track out.  Vocals are by H O R S E S and production is by myself.  Hopefully this is just the beginning; we’re looking to follow up Heddiw in 2023 with a bunch of new ideas.”

Listen to ‘Heddiw’  here:

Conformist is one of the most respected names on the Electronic music scene in Wales, with early demos immediately catching the attention of Steve Lamacq, Huw Stephens, John Kennedy and Eddy Temple Morris.

Subsequent Conformist albums "Paid To Fake It" (2013) and "Lifestyle Bible" (2016) earned lavish praise:

"Paid To Fake It" is the sort of record that will take your breath away…bloody brilliant" The 405

"A musically kaleidoscopic head f***…brilliant" Louder Than War

"a head-spinning deluge of audacious beats and samples…staggering" Wales Online

Conformists’ production work is distinguished and full of unique character; staying leftfield but fresh and ahead of others; meticulous, dense and layered, revealing hidden detail with every listen – taking inspiration from Public Enemy’s Bomb Squad and cut n’ paste pioneers Coldcut, Steinski and The Dust Brothers to name a few.

Purveyors of dark hearted electronic music and inventors of the Gloom Wave genre, H O R S E S are formed by two gentlemen from a southeasterly part of Wales.

Casting a longing gaze on early 70s German electronica, mournful vocals escorted gently by cold beats and balmy synths evoke a brutalist image of Berlin, as the melodies wash between the brash concrete structures of your mind.

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Lonely Robot, the project masterminded by vocalist, guitarist & producer John Mitchell, are set to release their fifth studio album A Model Life on the 26th August 2022. With just a few days till release, a video for the album’s third single ‘Digital God Machine’ has been launched. Watch it now here:

John comments: “It’s the internet age people! And with every computer connected to it comes a free opinion. For some reason, the world of progressive rock fandom bears down on the timid musician struggling to make his way with the weight of said opinion. Said fandom LIKES and values it’s own opinion with much aplomb and shares it with alarming regularity from the bravery of great distance and safety. Thus is born the ‘Digital God Machine’.”

An album that brims with frustration at the state of things, while tugging remorselessly at the heart strings, A Model Life is plainly the most honest and vulnerable Lonely Robot record to date. From opener ‘Recalibrating’, which muses on the aftermath of a broken relationship, and ‘Digital God Machine’ – a sardonic tribute to keyboard warriors everywhere, to the boys-don’t-cry pathos of ‘Rain Kings’ and the absurdly moving, adoption-themed ‘Duty Of Care’, these new songs provide a scattershot but profoundly emotional soundtrack to a restless and uncertain world.

John comments: “Making A Model Life was very much a lifeline and indeed wake up call at the end of a particularly personally challenging couple of years. Creating it made me realise that ultimately, life is impermanent and the one true thing that gives me a focus and anchor is and has always been music. Long may that be the case.”

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La Pochette Surprise / Membran – 18th August 2022

Sitting on the intersection where indie-rock, shoegaze, dreampop and neo-psych all meet, ’Noise Between The Shades’ is the second album by Hamburg-based quintet Melting Palms and a record that deserves to seem them established internationally. The song ‘Aurora’ has just been released as its fifth single.

Watch the video here:

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A collective as much as a group, Melting Palms were founded in 2017 when Mike Krumhorn (vocals, guitar), Teresa Koeberle (vocals, guitar, piano, synth) and Johann Wientjes (drums, sound design) began both musical and romantic entanglements. A debut EP and 2020 album (‘Abyss’) were recorded as a trio while performing concerts and rehearsing endlessly in their basement in a rundown area otherwise comprised of animal shelters and street prostitution, before they eventually recruited Tim Dajan Thiele (guitar) and Lukas Schulz (bass) to complete their current line-up.

Recorded at Clouds Hill Studio in their home city, ‘Noise Between The Shades’ is intoxicating and daring, contains surprising musical and lyrical twists, and emerges as a cascade of euphoria and drama. Boasting a spatial yet highly concentrated sound, it is a stunning combination of guitar-based music, noise and emotion.

Reference points include Melody’s Echo Chamber, Wand, Deerhunter and much earlier reverb/delay-heavy bands such as Sonic Youth, My Bloody Valentine, Ride, Pale Saints and the late ‘80s Creation/4AD guitar aesthetic in general. However, these Kraut-Punks do it all in a box-fresh fashion and ‘Noise Between The Shades’ has the power and ability to reach far beyond the German border.

Melting Palms also have a common non-musical goal, even a socio-political claim: humanism and idealism are a real concern for these five DIY utopians, one that embodies the notable resilience of the Hamburg scene in both attitude and aesthetics. All five group members have also been in or performed with other outfits on the city’s punk scene and their own signature sound has emerged from this special togetherness, a patchwork of many creative energies, the beautiful but also painful noise between the shades that every life guards.

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Melodeath-infused thrash metal gang Katapult has dropped ‘Comfortably Dumb,’ the second single of their upcoming debut album, Play Stupid Games, Win Stupid Prizes. An explosive banger, “Comfortably Dumb” slams the hypocrisy of accepting the meat industry.

“Tracking the vocals for Dumb was such a blast,” states Johan Norström, vocals. “All songs prior to this I had tracked all by my lonesome, but for ‘Dumb’ we tried out software that allowed us to stream high quality audio in real time, directly from the DAW. Having Florian on the other side really pushed me to try stuff I didn’t even know I had in the arsenal which ended up really cool,” informs Norström.

“What a hate anthem,” states Florian Moritz, Guitars. “The feeling you get is ‘Fuck everything and especially you!’ and I fucking love it. It’s a hateful Punk Song that’s just meant to get your juices flowing,” says Moritz.

Check the video here:

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Play Stupid Games, Win Stupid Prizes is slated to come out on 25 November 2022 via Discouraged Records digitally and on digipak CD.

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Industrial / electronic black metal act Psyclon Nine has today unveiled a new video for the song  ‘See You All in Hell’ from the album Less To Heaven, also released today, 19th August.

Watch it here:

The music of Psyclon Nine is not for the faint-hearted. The brainchild of Nero Bellum, the dark, aggressive electronic assault of his group’s 2003 debut album ‘Divine Infekt’ immediately earned them popularity and notoriety worldwide. Its follow-up, ‘INRI’ (2005), displayed a marked evolution with a lyrical focus on religious themes. In the ensuing years, Bellum’s music has taken him down an even darker path, his distinctive whispered-scream vocals guiding us through an idiosyncratic take on modern underground music that has implemented elements of black metal and post-punk influences that, although often featuring haunting melodies, has often had an undercurrent of unbridled menace.

The brand new Psyclon Nine album, ‘Less To Heaven’, is a complex and immersive work that sees Bellum at a creative peak, with concussive, machine-precise drums, hammering guitars, scathing vocals and evil electronics all interplaying seamlessly. It also sees him charting undefined musical territory that bridges elements of metalcore with doom electronics, trip-techno with black metal, and experimental cinematic soundscapes with alternative rock. While many acts have a constant faster-louder approach to industrial-black metal, Bellum is unafraid to use all manner of tempos to build atmosphere.

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Doom metal meets dreampop on ‘Crows, Sparrows and Cats’ by Blacklab, the self-proclaimed ‘Doom Witch Duo from Osaka, Japan’. Featuring a lead vocal by Stereolab’s Laetitia Sadier, the Hawkwind riffs, motorik heavy stomp and fuzz fat guitars coupled with that cool pop vocal is a surprising combination that hits the spot.

Hot on its heels comes a new video, featuring Hanaka the thirteen year old daughter of Blacklab drummer Chia, who creates her own dance routine for the track whilst footage (from their recent stay in London) is projected ‘Liquid Len’ like, for full psychedelic overload.

Watch the video now:

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‘Crows, Sparrows and Cats’ is taken from their latest album ‘In A Bizarre Dream’ which is out this Friday (New Heavy Sounds).

Their debut ‘Under the Strawberry Moon 2.0’ saw them taking Sabbath inspired doom, mashing it with a Japanese sensibility and a fuzzed-up groove. It certainly caused a stir, but only hinted at their potential.

Album two ‘Abyss’ added to the mix. A Stooges like squalor to the riffs, dollops of lo-fi hardcore punk and loose riffing, pointing the way towards a signature sound.

So what of the ‘difficult’ third album? Not so difficult at all it seems.  ‘In A Bizarre Dream’ ups the ante considerably, to let rip and define what Blacklab are about.

The combined talents of Jun Morino on production and Wayne Adams (Big Lad, Green Lung, Pet Brick, John, Cold In Berlin) on the mix have conspired to produce a towering beast of a record. A real step forward for the ‘Doom Witch Duo’.

The drums have a humungous ‘Fugazi’ like welly, and the guitars are a boiling maelstrom of fuzz dense riffola and warped psychedelics, with added synth. Yuko’s throat shredding snarls are as mean as a pissed off Satan, and melodious, often within the same song.

This is doom meets hardcore punk, hooky melodies, and killer riffs, all cranked up to the max. Japan has always had a special take on ‘noise’ and ‘heavy’ and with ‘In A Bizarre Dream’ Blacklab add their own spin to that tradition.

Gone is the lo-fi approach, here is Blacklab in full effect.

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Edinburgh born Kendall based artist Celestial North has shared ‘Yarrow’, a haunting atmospheric ‘botanical’ soundtrack.  For fans of Nils Frahm, Olafur Arnalds or Sigur Ros, this reflective and meditative piece gently sways with a wash of pianos and sighing melodies. It’s a tantalizing other side of Celestial North’s artistry and a teaser for her album released later this year. 

Watch the video for ‘Yarrow’ here:

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She says of the song:  “I often think in ‘music’. My thoughts are usually awash with colours and sounds. I was sitting trying to meditate, or contemplate, beside the yarrow patch in my garden. I was finding it difficult to articulate how I was feeling and started to feel a bit frustrated. I decided to sit quietly and start again. I realised that I didn’t really have any words to write down as such but I did have a tune playing in my head. I decided to record this tune on my piano and added some other elements that I felt benefitted the song — a bodhran drum, a choir, the rustling of the yarrow patch and the roses recorded from my garden and some simple electronic sounds.  This botanical soundscape is representative of how I felt whilst I was sitting with the yarrow and the tune played on the piano is the tune that was playing in my head whilst sitting with the plant."

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Enigmatic Italian singer Elena Alice Fossi has released the lush single, ‘Poison Fresh’, which is taken from the forthcoming new full-length of her dark electro project SPECTRA*Paris. The fifth album of that band is entitled "Modernism" and has been slated for release on August 26.

Watch the video here:

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SPECTRA*Paris comment: "The new single ‘Poison Fresh’ is perhaps the most psychedelia-inspired song on the album", singer, composer, and lyricist Elena Alice Fossi writes. "It is a journey to unknown shores, where you learn how to free yourself from reptilian and poisonous empires. Getting on that spaceship has a price and takes you away from the known side of the world. But the dream is well worth living. ‘Plant your stigma on all dogma’!"

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