Finnish post-metal collective BESRA have recently shared a music video for a new song off the band’s second full-length album Transition, which was released in late September on Suicide Records.
Titled ‘Valor’, this new video was directed by Atte Heinonen and Ville Kaisla and is now playing here:
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The band’s vocalist, Hannes Hietarinta had this to say about this new track: "’Valor’ is a good example of the journey we have taken from our debut to the present: from a slow, almost sludgy post-metal groove to a dynamic, progressive, and tighter rhythmic groove. While the new album explores very vast landscapes, ‘Valor’ is definitely on the more energetic side thematically as well: the familiar melancholy and distress have been replaced with courage, honor, and a yearning for lost virtues. In our opinion, a tight song overall!”
Recorded at Rødhouse Studio and mixed and mastered by Cult Of Luna’s Magnus Lindberg, the follow-up to their critically acclaimed first studio album Anhedonia is the result of a long and arduous writing and recording process and sees BESRA circling through a vast spectrum of emotions and sonic textures encompassing elements of post-rock, post-metal and ambient.
New year, new lineup, new project… having wrapped up their ‘open-ended’ album project Songs from the Black Hat and been whittled down to a three-piece, the prodigiously productive Argonaut herald the arrival of 2024 with a song for Dry January. They describe ‘The Hole’ as ‘A ten minute hymn to sobriety, hibernation and transcending the January blues. A lullaby of heartfelt harmonies trailing into ambient drone to aid deep, meditative alcohol free sleep…’
Lyrically, it’s sparse, and self-explanatory:
People say it’s hard
Because there’s a hole
A gap in your heart
A space in your soul
But I say it’s easy
Because the hole is a bin
To throw the self destructive thoughts
And all the alcohol in
I’m not one for dry January myself, although I certainly respect anyone who does, and I certainly get it. A lot of people do very much overdo it in December, stretching festivities out over the entire month. There are work dos, friends and family to catch up with, and more often than not, doing so involves feed and drink. It’s no wonder people feel like shit and feel the need to quit booze, go on a diet, do Veganuary, and take out a gym membership while making a new year’s resolution to lose the stone or so they gained the previous month.
Perhaps what’s every bit as hard as demonstrating brutal discipline in January – the darkest, bleakest month of the year – is maintaining moderation the whole year round. Such asceticism isn’t easy in such grim times: people naturally seek comfort in food and whatever else makes them feel better – and it’s alright if it makes you feel better, to lift a line from Shellac’s ‘Song of the Minerals’.
I digress: ‘The Hole’ does mark a significant shift for Argonaut, who have pushed forth strongly pursuing a trajectory of snappy to the point songs best defined as choppy lo-fi indie / post-punk crossover with lots of fuzz and reverb. This is a dreamy, drifty dronezer, dominated by thick reverb-soaked synths which surge and swell, ebb and flow. It very much does transport s back to the early 90s on so many levels. It’s not quite The Orb, but it is a very spacey effort which is predominantly instrumental and built around the repetitio of a synth wave and looped bass – or xylophone, or something – sequence of a handful of notes. And so it goes (and yes, I’m referencing Vonnegut there). And it goes… and it goes. It is every bit as meditative and ambient as they suggest, and I can feel my blood pressure dropping as the track progresses.
Counterpart release / nominal B-side, the ‘ambient mix’ runs for some twenty-two minutes, and it’s a thrumming buzz, a piece which stings like a swarm of bees frustrated at their confinement. It’s more of a track to let drift over your, rather than one to listen to intently. But this ‘Post-industrial ambience for urban meditation’ is far from soothing, even by candlelight. The tones are serrated around the edges, and possess a certain edge of aggression. Perhaps I need another whisky. Make it a double.
Farhood Nik and Anis Oveisi have reunited to form a new electronic group called Delusive Relics. After touring internationally with the band they had in China, Iran, Turkey, France and USA. Farhood reignited his love for electronic music and finally followed his childhood dream of being an electronic artist Delusive Relics describe their music as a culmination of genres such as Synthpop, Industrial, EBM and Electronic Rock and are inspired by artists such as Depeche Mode, Massive Attack, NIN and Tangerine Dream.
Their reminiscent love for older forms of electronic music allow for them to create music in a style that is a breath of fresh air in today’s electronic scene. Delusive Relics’ 2018 debut went off with a bang as they released their single ‘A Woman’s Diary’, the first in an 11-track series titled ‘Chaotic Notions’ was release in February 2019. ‘A Woman’s Diary’ has already been broadcasted on MTV and VH1 and racking up thousands for views on YouTube. Delusive Relics pride themselves on addressing taboo issues with their music too as they dedicated their debut song to gender equality.
In 2019, Delusive Relics was nominated to New England Music Award as Best Band from New Hampshire. The band released the "Blind Owl" album in 2021, They are currently working on an EP called "Mycelium" which is set release later in 2024.
The noisy punk band from Los Angeles, CA are back with their second album release for Ipecac Recordings, Thoughts & Prayers (29th March). Pre order/pre save here.
The band features guitarist and producer Mike Crain (Dead Cross, Retox, Festival Of Dead Deer), drummer Kevin Avery (Retox, Planet B) and vocalist Matt Cronk (Qui).
Today, they share a first taste of their second album, the track ‘Smart Mouth’.
Watch the video here:
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Following a devastating car accident in which frontman Matt Cronk lost his vocal cord – couldn’t speak, let alone sing – the band thought they might have to call it a day. Then against the predictions of his doctors, Cronk’s injured vocal cord began to heal and within two months his voice returned, as did CNTS.
“We got together and ran through a song and it sounded good. We kept playing and my voice held up, sounded cool, and we all felt good playing together. It was clear immediately that we could do it again, that we’d really missed playing together and we wanted to do it.” says Cronk. “Personally, the experience was a significant marker in my recovery. I got a little teary after that first song.”
Reinvigorated by Cronk’s recovery, CNTS spent the rest of the year hard at work on their new record, Thoughts & Prayers, the title inspired by the banality of our collective reaction to crises. With a great deal of inspiration from their recent challenges, CNTS have channeled several years of frustration and hardship into a well articulated and aggressive statement. Songs such as the aforementioned “Smart Mouth,” and “Thoughts & Prayers,” chronicle Cronk’s pain and anger throughout his various injuries and subsequent recovery. “I Won’t Work For You,” and “Eating You Alive,” deal with the inequity inherent in modern life. “For A Good Time (Don’t Call Her)” is a screed about the age-old theme of fighting with one’s romantic partner.
Guitarist Michael Crain adds, “I really wanted to have SONGS on this record. Hooks. Choruses. Shit I listen to. In all times of confusion or indecision during the making of this album we’d stop and ask ourselves… What would AC/DC do?”
Equal parts catharsis and blood-letting, CNTS as a live entity is an unapologetic display of rage and sex, of belligerence and contempt, a warm gob of spit in the eye, all done with a sarcastic smile.
Ahead of the release of their debut collaborative album Orchards of a Futile Heaven, out February 23rd, The Body & Dis Fig share potent, affecting new single ‘Dissent, Shame.’
The track’s devastating force lies beyond pure noise or abrasive textures, evoking weighty emotions with a minimalist drone dirge that gradually builds into an enchanting choral passage. Suffused with a raw vulnerability and a longing for catharsis, Dis Fig’s voice searches for escape in the midst of oppressive atmospheres as if determined to find relief from guilt. She elaborates on the track: “It’s about the act of abandonment, and the guilt and shame that comes with it. Running away from something, seemingly towards your own safety, but as your conscience picks you apart the entire way.”
Orchards of a Futile Heaven affirms The Body & Dis Fig as skilled sound sculptors who have an exceptional ability to make deeply affecting music, bracing as it is touching, harrowing as it is awe-inspiring. While sampling has long been essential to each, The Body & Dis Fig deftly meld their differing approaches to sampling and creating extreme sounds until the boundaries are entirely blurred. The group transmute weighty emotions into bristling sonic atmospheres, buoyed by Dis Fig’s ethereal vocals. She elaborates: “I love the balance. You could never connect to just a machine as well as you could a human. Which is why the combination is so potent for me. I don’t want to hide. I think nothing connects you more empathetically than another human’s voice.”
The Body & Dis Fig plan to tour throughout the US, UK, and Europe in 2024. Dates and details incoming soon.
Listen to ‘Dissent, Shame’ here:
The Body & Dis Fig are a natural pair. Each has pioneered instantly recognisable worlds of sound all their own that defy any traditional categorisations or boundaries. The Body, Lee Buford and Chip King, continually challenge any conventional conception of metal, collaborating with myriad artists and from the folk-leanings of their work with BIG|BRAVE to their groundbreaking work with the Assembly of Light Choir to the intensity of their collaborations with OAA or Thou.
Dis Fig, aka Felicia Chen, pushes electronic music into dark extremes, from warped DJ sets to avant production, from being a member of Tianzhuo Chen’s performance-art series TRANCE to being the vocalist with The Bug. The Body and Dis Fig find kinship in reimagining what it means to make “heavy music”. Their debut Orchards of a Futile Heaven is the perfect synthesis of two forces, twisting melodicism and intoxicating rhythms, layering a dense miasma of distortion with intense beats and a soaring voice clawing its way towards absolution.
The two found kinship in their desire to find new avenues to make heavy music that looked beyond tropes of metal and electronic music by merging the two. “I always wanted the heavier stuff but I also didn’t really like heavier guitar music,” says Buford. “None of it really felt quite heavy enough to me. A human can’t be as heavy as a machine.”
They may have switched labels and stepped things up a bit, but you couldn’t exactly say they’ve sold out.
Watch the video here:
The video was filmed in a barn in Roxbury, NY, and follows their Partisan debut single ‘It’s The Magic’, which earned them praise from Rolling Stone (‘Song You Need To Know’), NME (“on their way to becoming the next great NYC band”), Paste (“an apocalyptic wasteland of NYC’s best underground punk”) and more.
‘The Heart’ is a high-speed train of delirious percussion (two drummers!) and wonderfully demented electronic samples, weaving in and out of frontman Bret Kaser’s lyrics that inquire into the state of spiritual marketplace and the isolating results of consumption. It’s an exhilarating and singular piece of hardcore electronic punk, with Lip Critic using a broad palette of only the most extreme hues of emotion, each marked by a distinctive danceable mania.
Fresh off dates with Screaming Females for their last-ever tour and shows in London and Pitchfork Paris, Lip Critic will tour extensively in 2024. Their first-ever headline tour will kick off this summer. Prior to that, the band will play a special hometown show on 22 Feb at Elsewhere (Zone 1) in Brooklyn and stop at SXSW for a string of shows.
The fact that Jack Flint and Carl Donoghue had been in a band called the Tango Pirates before forming Sea Gods with Marty Taylor isn’t entirely shocking: continuing the nautical themes of the bands’ names, there’s something of the buccaneering roustabout to the verses of this, the trio’s debut single with the core riff being built around an up-and-down fret run that has a kind of surfy, rockabilly vibe. Not that, despite its uptempo delivery, it’s not some shanty knees-up, but more a song about being all at sea, as they outline the song’s meaning as being ‘about the difficult times we’re facing, thanks to increasing hardship, and encourages us to live life in the present to the fullest.’
But if the verses are a shade indie with a roguish dash, the choruses spring to life with a gut-busting explosion of punk energy, and it’s here that the blend of frustration and positivity both come to the fore, with exhilarating results, calling to mind ‘Babylon’s Burning’ by The Ruts in both riff and energy.
There can’t be many bands – or that much else doing – in Clitheroe, being a small town in Lancashire. But this is the kind of place where like-minded people form strong bonds and dream of escape as they vent their frustrations. ‘Are You Here Now?’ finds Sea Gods channelling that energy into something raw, fiery, real – and maybe this could be their ticket out.
Aural Aggro faves Hammok follow a brace a monster EPs – Jumping/Dancing/Fighting and Now I Know with a new single, with ‘Seance’ providing the latest taste of their upcoming debut album look how long lasting everything is moving for one. The single is served up with an explosive one-take music video produced in the childhood home of vocalist Tobias Maxwell Osland.
‘Seance’ shows the band’s most direct side yet. The song barely rounds out two and a half minutes and at that time gives you a masterclass in hardcore chorus flair. The soundscape is controlled by a constantly forward-propelling drum machine and a metallic synth bass where vocalist Tobias Osland is given plenty of room to dominate the listener’s eardrum.
With fragmented images inspired by horror films and occult traditions, ‘Seance’ brings out a deeply dark and disturbing reality where the protagonist finds themselves in their worst nightmare. A feeling of being haunted or persecuted, a life where your reality is terrorized. Where it all began, in a SEANCE.
Standing alone in the cold north, militant DIY dance punk duo, Polevaulter toil and labour to explore the limits of underground achievement. Known the land over for their hypnotic live performances home and away, the Northern noisemakers have built from nothing something few can argue with.
The sonic assault the two create is almost arrogant, fathered from the marriage of seismically sharp bass and loin-grinding beats. The words are quipped and brayed atop the aural landscape. They are boastful, accusing, repellent and inviting, they question and skewer the veins of masculinity, sexuality, the order of things, the music industry and the miserable reality of the North. Toured with JOHN, shared a stage with Thank, Mandy Indiana, Pink Turns Blue, Bambara, A Place To Bury Strangers, VR Sex, and others.
New Polevaulter single ‘Violently Ill’, is as the title suggests, a hard-hitting dark and fiercely off-kilter slab of awesome sickly noise and follows recent acclaim for the duos work from the likes of The Needle Drop’s Anthony Fantano and Louder Than War. The track combines pulsating beats and glitchy electronics with intense repeating shouts to create an intoxicating and exhilarating experience. With the track, Polevaulter announce their debut album ‘Hang Wave’ for release on 26th January and UK/EU tour dates starting February.
On ‘Violently Ill’, Polevaulter’s Jon Franz explains- “I created the track out of a sample I found from a free library, it was inspired by our trip to Tallinn in April. I demoed the track pretty much as is as soon as we got back, and Dan liked the sampling a lot, so we moved forwards. The lyrics were the first things I thought out at practice, and I like the fact that it has more sparse vocals than most of our tracks, gives our music chance to shine. Its maybe my favourite song on the album.”
Watch the video here:
Alongside the single release, Polevaulter are set to perform the debut album on repeat for 8 hours straight from 4pm to midnight on 13th January via a livestream to raise funds for the Gaza Sunbirds, a para cycling team based in the Gaza Strip. The team is currently providing emergency food parcels and aid to families sheltering around the Gaza Strip. For more info and to donate visit: https://www.justgiving.com/page/polevaulterforgazasunbirds
Aural Aggravation 