P.O.S has been dogged by health issues these past few years. After struggling through kidney failure, and later recovering from a transplant for said kidney, he’s been off the road and out of the studio for much of the past four years. But thankfully, he’s back in fighting form and still creating vital, urgent music.
“sleepdrone/superposition” is a nine-minute track full of atmosphere, menace, vitriol, and even a little hope. It also features an absolute barn full of guests, ranging from Kathleen Hanna from Bikini Kill, Astronautilus, and Allan Kingdom. But for a track with as many guest musicians on it as this one, it works surprisingly well. “sleepdrone” is full of nuance and texture due to its constantly shifting beat, vocals, and lyrical topics, which range from self-determination and the will to continue fighting in the face of adversity, the murders of Mike Brown and Eric Garner, and even references to quantum physics.
If this song proves any one thing, it’s that Stef hasn’t lost any of the piss and vinegar or love of noisiness that made his name in the Minneapolis scene and beyond. If anything, he’s come back even stronger and more experimental than before, and even though it’s yet to be seen if this is from an upcoming album or not, the future looks bright for P.O.S.
I used to think Bring Me the Horizon were a pretty shitty band. I did dig the song “Pray for Plagues”, but I thought the rest of the album it hailed from was repetitive, breakdown-filled deathcore. I had some more contact with their later releases after that, but for me they slowly got lumped into that “scene bands teenage girls” like category, and I just couldn’t take them seriously.
Then, last year, I heard they were working with Terry Date (Deftones, Soundgarden, Incubus, The Fall of Troy), one of my favorite producers, and I just couldn’t help but give them one more shot. What I found was Sempiternal, an album which found the band miles away from their deathcore roots, instead writing lush, textured, melodic songs with genuinely emotional vocals. And now they’re gearing up to release the follow-up to that album, That’s The Spirit, due out on September 11th. Part of that process is this new song and video, “Throne”.
Like the album’s first single, “Happy Song”, “Throne” finds the band picking up where Sempiternal left off. They’ve retained the dense, layered keyboard and guitar sound they had on that album, and “Throne” in particular shows off the band’s new found penchant for electronics. It’s a surging, bubbling, and exciting track, even if it does breathe a tad too much of the same air Linkin Park has in recent years. But the biggest change on this song is Oli Syke’s vocals. On Sempiternal he was still trying to find his clean voice, often times still sticking in the middle ground between screamed and sung registers. But “Throne” shows that Oli can now be considered a legitimate singer, as the first few seconds show a side of him fans have never heard before. And now he can go back and forth between raspy singing and shouting, whispered coos, and screams as the songs call for it, giving the band a whole new dimension.
Bring Me the Horizon have been catching tons of shit for this new sound of theirs, but I honestly can’t help but applaud them for it. They’ve gone from writing pretty run-of-the-mill deathcore to growing as songwriters, trying new sounds and textures and moods. Yeah, they sound pretty poppy at times, but at heart I’ve always been a sucker for a good song. And coming from such a heavy background, it’s poppy music that’s informed by heavy music, giving it a different feel entirely. I can’t help but compare the leap to In Flames’ album Reroute to Remain, where they famously shifted their sound from classic melodic death metal into something more modern and loose. This is how bands stay relevant and interesting – they take leaps, and sometimes the fans hate them, but it keeps the actual humans in the band that make the music stay happy and inspired. And happy and inspired musicians end up creating inspired music, so even if they’ve switched genres, the music they’re making is probably still damn good. You just gotta give it a chance.
Good ol’ Frank Turner. The ever-reliable singer songwriter is back with another dose of his signature brand of rock-infused folkiness, with a new song entitled “The Next Storm”. From his upcoming album Positive Songs for Negative People (due out August 7th), the song doesn’t stray from Frank’s style at all, featuring vaguely inspirational lyrics and an upbeat bass line, with sprinkles of piano spread about. In all honesty, I don’t think it’s a very exciting song, especially after Frank’s promises that this album was supposed to be going back to his punkier roots – instead this track sounds like it could fit on pretty much any album past his debut, and that’s a bit of a let down.
Even though it’s only a little over a year since he released the Grammy winning Morning Phase, Beck has just released a new song. From the as of yet untitled record, “Dreams” features an upbeat, poppy sound he hasn’t explored much since 2005’s The Information. Flirting with touches of Oracular Spectacular-era MGMT and some garage-y guitars, the song is a welcome switch up from the claustrophobic feeling of Modern Guilt and the melancholy of Morning Phase. The song does go on about a minute longer than necessary, though, simply repeating it’s chorus after a late-stage breakdown of sorts. But that small complaint aside, this is the most exciting and excited Beck has sounded in quite a while, and it’s refreshing to have him back in the world of pop.
The Armed are a force of destruction, taking their brand of hardcore to the absolute limits, stretching their sound until it threatens to fall apart under a wall of visceral drums and cacophonous feedback. Right down to their motto, “Destroy Everything”, this is a band with a clear intent, and no time for any bullshit. With their new single and video, “Polarizer”, nothing has really changed. The Detroit punks seethe with the same level of vitriol they’ve had since their self-released 2009 debut, These Are Lights, and with this song are finally gearing up for the release of full-length no. 2 (after a slew of short EPs in the intervening years). There are some wonderful hints of Nine Inch Nails in the song’s “breakdown”, and some vocals approaching singing scattered about, but they only add to the band’s power to make incredibly chaotic music blood-pumping and catchy at the same time. And as always, you can get all of their music for name your price purchase on their site. Get on board with The Armed and Destroy Everything when this album drops on June 23rd.
Between the Buried and Me have released the first track from their upcoming album, Coma Ecliptic. The album, which follows 2012’s The Parallax II, is once again a concept album, following a man as he journeys through his past lives. “Memory Palace” is an incredibly proggy sounding track, sounding inspired by some of the same music that has inspired fellow progressive metal act Opeth’s past two albums. It features heavy synthesizer and organ work, pushing the guitars further into the background than most of the band’s material. It is also heavily focused on clean vocals, and vocalist Tommy Rogers’ range is wider than it has been since 2007’s Colors. He yelps, croons, and growls in a moment’s notice, giving the track a desperately needed infusion of variety. And like Rogers’ vocals, the music of the song jumps around too, veering from Pink Floyd-esque lead guitar lines, classic heavy riffs and growls, and ’70s sounding synthesizer effortlessly.
The biggest problem with Between the Buried and Me’s recent material is their refusal to grow in any meaningful way, but “Memory Palace” shows the band finally pushing themselves into a new direction again. By putting the laser focus on the proggiest elements of their sound, and driving the track with mostly clean vocals, the result is a song that still sounds like Between the Buried and Me, but finally delivers a fresher take on their sound. And for once, their genre skipping sounds natural, blending in elements of their influences without sounding like they were forced into the song with a crowbar. If this is any indicator of what to expect from Coma Ecliptic, it might just be the band’s best album in nearly a decade.
As the Jenny Death fiasco drags on longer and longer, Death Grips have released a second single from the elusive album. It’s the first taste of the album fans have had since Inanimate Sensation dropped in December, and it’s exciting for all the right reasons.
The track, titled “On GP’, is one of the most raw, emotional tracks in their entire catalog. Most of the band’s lyrics are mired in cryptic verse and ultraviolence, but this new song displays an entirely different side of vocalist Stefan Burnett. Instead of his usual obfuscation, On GP delivers some very straightforward, hard-hitting lyrics about being on the edge of committing suicide. It’s a striking view into the darkness that must exist inside Burnett, and the lines “Like a question no one mention/He turns around hands me his weapon/He slurs use at your discretion/It’s been a pleasure, Stefan” are downright bone-chilling.
However, the music of this track is a different story. It features elements both old and new, hearkening back to the guitar-driven style of Exmilitary, while complimenting it with intense live drums and a progressive song structure. The sound here is almost triumphant at times, and at others it dips into a lull, buoyed by an unsettling organ line, climaxing with tortured guitar bends and crashing cymbals. This sound was slightly hinted at on Fashion Week, but was nowhere near as developed – and it also begs the question, who’s playing the guitar here?
Based on the two songs released from Jenny Death so far, this album is going to be the most varied of their career. The contrast of the pounding, beat-oriented Inanimate Sensation to the guitar-driven, melodic On GP is huge, and one can only imagine what the other 8 songs will feature.
There’s no words for this one. A new Kanye West track has surfaced for the New Year, and of all the people in the world…Paul McCartney is part of it. The Real Beatle and the Black Beatle have teamed up to create a track that’s…actually pretty good. It’s got an 808s & Heartbreak vibe, with Kanye’s voice autotuned much more tastefully used than its been since that album. It’s built around a simple Rhodes piano line to start, gradually adding in more layers in a way that’s reminiscent of My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy (right down to some of the effects), but it stays pretty simple and bright. I had no idea what to expect when I had heard the two were collaborating, but this is definitely more than I expected.
After the experiment with BitTorrent’s new distribution model, Thom Yorke has now also made the move to Bandcamp. Besides uploading his newest solo album, Tomorrow’s Modern Boxes, he’s also released what appears to be a b-side from that album, featuring similarly themed artwork, as well as sporting a “pay what you want” download price.
The song itself is gorgeous, and more vocally-driven than most of the tracks on the actual album. It’s a very gentle, almost upbeat sounding song, with Yorke’s falsetto sounding much more sweeter than his usual forlorn wail. It’s reminiscent of the Amnesiac b-side Worrywort in a way, especially in its use of retro-sounding synths and almost chiptune styled sound effects. Honestly, it’s my favorite song from the TMB era of his solo work now, next to Nose Grows Some. Here’s hoping there’s a few more tracks like this still on the cutting room floor.
Fuck yes, it’s finally happening. Death Grips just dropped a new track and video from their ever-upcoming disc The Powers That B, and it’s one of the craziest things they’ve ever recorded. It sounds like a combination of the more pop-structured Money Store, but filtered through the most insane moments of Government Plates. Ride’s voice is glitched, distorted, pitch shifted up and down, all while a raging bed of apocalyptic synths and guitars smashed beyond recognition buoy and carry the song. And strangely enough, these are some of Ride’s clearest lyrics since Exmilitary – while still cloaked in crypticism, there’s also a surprising amount of pop culture references and social criticism. It’s a crazy ride for the entirety of its six minutes, and if Jenny Death is going to be anything like this, I think we’re in for some amazing music.
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