Raymond Watts aka PIG has just announced a mammoth ‘Heroin For The Damned’ US tour in the autumn. The 40 date itinerary follows a headlining set at Cold Waves XII in Chicago on 28th September. The announcement coincides with a video for ‘Dum Dum Bullet’, a standout track from his just released new album ‘Red Room’ (Metropolis Records). The song features a choir of notable guests that include Emily Kavanaugh (Night Club), Chris Hall (Stabbing Westward), Burton C Bell (Fear Factory, Ascension of the Watchers), I Ya Toyah, Chris Connelly (Revolting Cocks, Ministry), En Esch (KMFDM) and Marc Heal (Cubanate).
Beak> surprise released their first album in six years, aptly titled >>>> out on all formats via Invada and Temporary Residence Ltd from 28th May, and received a massive thumbs up from us here at Aural Aggravation. They’ve now shared the music video for ‘The Seal’, directed by Tom Geens.
"I fell in love with the house when I first laid eyes on it. It was falling apart but in a really beautiful way. It was begging for something to be shot there, but as it was going to get demolished soon, I had to act fast. The last time I worked with Beak> was about 10 years ago on the exquisite soundtrack for my film COUPLE IN A HOLE and I felt their sound and the house were somehow a great match.” – Tom Geens
Watch it here:
Beak> on tour:
Wed 30 October – UK Cardiff, Clwb Ifor Bach Fri 01 November – UK London, The O2 Forum Kentish Town Sat 02 November – UK Brighton, Concorde 2 Wed 06 November – UK Manchester, New Century Hall Thu 07 November – UK Glasgow, Saint Luke’s Fri 08 November – UK Leeds, Brudenell Social Club Mon 11 November – FR Lorient, L’Hydrophone Wed 13 November – FR Paris, Élysée Montmartre Fri 15 November – FR Lyon, L’Epicerie Moderne Sat 16 November – FR Nantes, Le Lieu Unique Sun 17 November – FR Tourcoing, Le Grand Mix Tue 19 November – BE Brussels, Orangerie, Botanique Wed 20 November – NL Amsterdam, Melkweg – Oude Zaal Thu 21 November – NL Nijmegen, Doornroosje Sat 23 November – CH Winterthur, Salzhaus Mon 25 November – DE Munich, Hansa 39 Wed 27 November – DE Berlin, Gretchen Fri 29 November – DK Copenhagen, Pumpehuset Thu 12 December – IE Dublin, The Button Factory Sat 14 December – UK Bristol, SWX
Salt Lake City singer-songwriter/multi-instrumentalist/social-activist Talia Keys has released a cover of The White Stripes’ ‘Seven Nation Army.’
Though growing up an outspoken queer female musician in the conservative confines of Utah has come with a mountain of challenges, Talia Keys wouldn’t change a thing.
Through her sizzling guitar, pulsating drums, or bold, bluesy and ultimately believable vocals, she communicates the realities of her struggles and surroundings in song. On ‘Seven-Nation Army’, Keys’ third in a trifecta of tremendous cover songs, the activist-musician once again accomplishes this mission, revealing a magnetic reinvention of The White Stripes’ 2003 smash hit with all the venom, verve, and pizzaz we’ve come to expect from this fiery Salt Lake City siren.
“To me, ‘Seven Nation Army’ is about not giving up. If people are talking behind your back, you still push through. About fighting to exist, and then existing loud and proud.” explains Keys. “The track has always resonated with me; as I’ve pushed through barriers and biases just to be let into the music industry. I’ve been mocked, ridiculed, talked about and hated on since my career began. So to me, the song represents a battle cry – to not let anything hold me back.”
On Talia’s gritty reimagining, ‘Seven Nation Army’ is again driven by an assertive, four-on-the-floor drum beat, which introduces the tune faithfully, and powers a pulsating groove. It’s a humble nod to The White Stripes’ beloved drummer Meg White, who inspired Keys behind the kit as “a powerful woman owning her space.” The cut features a very-effective half-time switch-up on the bridge, creating an enormous pocket that just jumps inside your ear holes.
For our money, this beats the original. Hear it here:
ELEPHANT TREE are having a party and they’re inviting everyone to hitch a ride and join in! September 2024 marks ten years since Magnetic Eye’s release of the beloved British stoner doom quartet’s first album Theia (2014), and in observance of that milestone, the label is proud to showcase three releases celebrating one of the label’s landmark bands.
Theia (Anniversary Edition) and Habits (2020) are presented as reissues without additional audio content, but in new physical formats. The former comes packaged with updated artwork and significantly expanded background content (see below for more details).
The third release entitled Handful of Ten is a new full-length containing brand-new tracks, demos, and b-sides, and includes two of the first new ELEPHANT TREE tracks in numerous years, recorded specifically for this compilation. All three albums have been scheduled for release on September 6, 2024.
As a first delicious taste from Handful of Ten, the Londoners release the video single ‘Try’. You can see the video here:
ELEPHANT TREE comment on ‘Try’: “This was really a cathartic exercise in playing something a little different, written with an initial cast-away attitude after a few pints on a sweltering summer’s day”, guitarist and singer Jack Townley writes on behalf of the band. “We don’t play faster songs often, let alone get space to add them to records. The subject matter is about someone conforming to try be a model citizen, not wanting to step out of line in fear of the repercussions. He tries his hardest to not express his alternate views while others around him conform and in the end it all boils over, leaving him feeling ‘forever lost’.”
2nd August 2024 will see the return of Barbarian Hermit, Manchester’s leading purveyors of groove laden, stoner/doom metal.
Released on APF Records, Mean Sugar may just be the heaviest ever tribute to Northern life. Frontman Simon Scarlett comments,
“The album is about what we know, and that is the bitter-sweetness of growing up in a northern town. It’s a crude representation of what it is to be us these past few years: Lads catapulted against our will into manhood, at a time when everything is changing, and yet here we stay under the comforting and watchful shadow of the Pennine hills.
The north is an invigorating place, there’s a post-industrial beauty here unlike anywhere else. It’s also a tough place, precarious and on the edge. Sometimes we can feel powerless and unheard; our response to this, is to pick up guitars, make noise and hammer down a punishing rhythm.”
Written over a 3 year period, Mean Sugar is a cathartic creation, set against a back-drop that has seen people endure global pandemic, endless political turmoil, a cost of living crisis and war. During these times often the best coping mechanism is to go into a room with your friends and focus your energy on playing some very heavy and loud music.
Recorded by Joe Clayton at No Studio and mastered by Chris Fielding (Foel Studios), the album sees the return of original vocalist Simon Scarlett who helped craft the band’s debut ‘One’ EP, originally released in 2016 (and reissued on APF Records in 2021). First single ’Stitched Up’ was according to the band, "one of the first songs we wrote as a full band after Si rejoined and it was one of those where everything clicks and it almost writes itself. It just fell out of us. It features not only one of the catchiest riffs we’ve ever written but also one of the heaviest and most disrespectful. Lyrically the track is about perseverance. We are surrounded by disruption, things that trip us up, make us lose sleep and neglect our own fulfilment."
Seattle-based "turbowave" pioneers, DUAL ANALOG are set to make waves with their latest single & video, ‘Reborn.’
‘Reborn’ is a visceral journey through the dark corridors of human emotion and the haunting echoes of regret. As the band reflects on their struggles following their debut album’s release, "Reborn" emerges as a poignant anthem for anyone who has faced adversity and felt trapped in a cycle of obscurity.
With ‘Reborn,’ DUAL ANALOG steps into the visual realm of a story-driven narrative for the first time, signaling a new chapter in their artistic evolution. The accompanying music video, directed by Skye Warden (Nuda, DK-Zero, Abney Park) adds a visual dimension to this gripping tale of self-inflicted torment and redemption. This collaboration adds depth and dimension to their music, offering fans a multi-sensory experience that transcends traditional boundaries. Through a mix of their own haunting melodies, existential lyricism, and nihilistic outlook, DUAL ANALOG paints a vivid, yet inspiring portrait of a man consumed by his own ambition unlocking his true potential at the expense of his family.
Demon Head is proud to announce the release of Through Holes Shine the Stars on Svart Records. The album is the fifth full-length from the band that celebrated their first 10 years of existence last year, and it is undoubtedly another milestone on their tireless – and very own – path through the wilderness. It is a deeper, darker well of tones and melodies than before, while being significantly more extroverted than their last releases. All in the seemingly effortless, strangely catchy, and unique manner that Demon Head have become known for.
Bassist Mikkel Fuglsang reflects on the creative leap between this new material and their previous efforts: “Our first four records can be seen as the pillars creating a structure in order to reach the new level that this undoubtedly is forus.”
The eight songs were written collectively during several concentrated sessions from 2019–2022 and recorded entirely by the band themselves from October 2022 to March 2023 in their own studios in Copenhagen and the west coast of Ireland. Guitarist, vocalist and multi-instrumentalist producer, Birk Gjerlufsen Nielsen expands on the process: “This long and careful process has allowed us to reach a balance between structural precision and artistic expansion, melodic simplicity, and compositional depth. It feels like we’ve uncovered every possibility within each of these songs without losing track of the original nerve.”
In continuation of previous collaborations, Demon Head have mixed the album with the legendary engineer and producer Flemming Rasmussen (Metallica, Morbid Angel, Ensiferum, etc.) in Sweet Silence Studios. Vocalist and recording engineer Marcus Ferreira Larsen remarks: “Like any true master Flemming has created a direct and hard-hitting, transparent mix that does nothing but enhance what is already communicated in the compositions and the performance. He helped us place everything in the landscape that we’ve carved through recording everything ourselves once again.”
With a running time of 47 minutes, this is Demon Head’s most extensive work to date. Birk Gjerlufsen Nielsencomments on one of the songs: “’The Chalice’ opens with a discordant anthem that unbelievably enough combines the qualities of late Scott Walker with Europe’s ‘The Final Countdown’. It’s a good introduction to how Marcus and I have worked closely together on complimenting each other’s voices. It’s consistent that we sing together throughout the whole record. Between the two of us there’s a balance of equal parts raw charm and melodic desperation”.
Birk Gjerlufsen Nielsen continues: “Songs like ‘Our Winged Mother’ and ‘Every Flatworm’ move effortlessly through heavy riffs, woodwind arrangements and tape-manipulated percussion sections that certainly pays homage to Conrad Schnitzlers work on Silvester Anfang of Mayhem’s Death Crush.
“Birks excellently executed – and frankly, wild – singing is humble but devastating in its emotion, and this voice finally takes a more front-stage place on this record”, Marcus Ferreira Larsen says.
On the lyrical front, Through Holes Shine the Stars is also a leap forward, as the lyrics are both more immediate and more poetic, reading like short stories but wrought out with a nerve that leaves no doubt as to the meanings these carry for the singers and the band. It seems that they could all take place tomorrow or in the distant future or past. The threads that emerge from the stories weave through moments of explosion, moments of grief, existential despair, and faint but adamantine hope.
The musical narrative ends with the two lengthy cuts ‘Frost’ and ‘This Vessel Is Willing’. Birk Gjerlufsen Nielsen: “’Frost’ is a many-faced exploration of known textures. It’s almost a celebration of the rhythmic music that’s inspired us through the years. It culminates in an epic double guitar solo between Anders M. Jørgensen (Slaegt, Scimitar) and – on this rare occasion – me. ‘This Vessel Is Willing’ is sort of an epilogue if you will. The composition is part improvisation, part rearranged collage work of a blown-out and late-night session we had with Adam CCsquele from Slaegt (and a thousand other projects) on drums. A friend of ours, Jim Slade, joined on bass clarinet and my brother Thor picked up some detuned guitar and used a bow on it. I took the whole thing back to Ireland and supported the dynamics with different tape-manipulation techniques and woodwind arrangements. Marcus’ vocals are pure prophetic desperation, and I think you can hear how it physically hurt him to strain to the extremes he went through in this performance”.
This unearthly conclusion makes it clear that the determined musical exploration that Demon Head have practiced since the very beginning is not yet over but might suggest that a new era has begun. Vocalist and lyricist Marcus Ferreira concludes on the collective drive behind the work on this record: “These eight new songs are like a prism of despair through which we try to convey a state of liminality, where moments of faint hope urgency rub shoulders with bursts of surreal and playful absurdity, all cast against the background of despair as void as the night sky through which these stars shine”.
Ohio metal veterans Sea of Treachery, newly signed to Mutant League Records, are debuting ‘FEARBOMB,’ the second single which follows last month’s release of their label debut What’s Past Is Prologue.
Watch the video HERE:
Guitarist Christian McManama says, "Fear is a powerful motivator, and as a result it can sometimes lead to people doing the right things for the wrong reasons. FEARBOMB conceptually and lyrically is a meditation on both that notion, and how certain agents of the media and organized religion will drum up and capitalize upon people’s fears, doing their best to distill that emotion into something palpable that makes people feel more divided than we truly are."
Sea of Treachery’s summer tour with The Convalescence kicks off June 8th.
Tour Dates
6/8 – Toledo, OH @ Toledo Death Fest (w/Oceano)
6/10 – Fort Wayne, IN @ Pierre’s
6/11 – Des Moines, IA @ Lefty’s
6/12 – Sioux Falls, SD @ Bigs Bar Live
6/13 – Denver, CO @ The Rickhouse
6/15 – Jeffersonville, IN @ Wrong Side 812 (Knocked Loose Aftershow)
LIMBONIC ART release the third and final advance single ‘The Wrath of Storms’ taken from the forthcoming album Opus Daemoniacal. The new full-length of the Norwegian black metal legends is chalked up for release on June 28, 2024.
Check it here:
AA
LIMBONIC ART comment: "The track ‘The Wrath of Storms’ unleashes a relentless metal onslaught of dark negative energies", mastermind Vidar "Daemon" Jensen explains. "As nature’s destructive fury rages across the planet and lays the domains of feeble entities and deities to waste, this track relates a profound tale of horror through the eyes of the beholder."
the Jesus Lizard, undeniably one of the most iconic and influential bands to emerge in the late 20th century, return with Rack, their first new album since 1998’s Blue, on Sept. 13 via Ipecac Recordings.
A preview of the 11-song album arrives today with the release of ‘Hide & Seek,’ a track David Yow describes as “a perky ditty about a witch who can’t behave, and it’s got nearly as many hooks as a Mike Tyson fight.” An accompanying video captures the foursome of Duane Denison, Mac McNeilly, David Wm. Sims, and Yow as they recorded the “ditty” with Producer Paul Allen at Nashville’s Audio Eagle Studio.
Check ‘Hide & Seek’ here:
“There are definitely some references to the past,” Denison says, in reference to the album, adding, “but it’s more as a point of departure: We don’t stay there.”
the Jesus Lizard reconvened in 2009 for a finite number of shows, and have spent the intervening years as both friends in close contact with one another, and touring bandmates. “We literally only made the record because we thought it would be fun to make the record,” Sims shares. With McNeilly highlighting the strong relationship amongst the musicians: “We are bonded by the music we make, and also by the respect we have for each other.”
The band has also announced tour dates, stretching well in to 2025, with more performances to come:
June 6 Nashville, TN Third Man Records SOLD OUT
June 8 Pomona, CA No Values
June 9 Garden Grove, CA Garden Amp
September 7 Raleigh, NC Hopscotch Music Festival
October 13 Las Vegas, NV Best Friends Forever Music Festival
Aural Aggravation 