Weekly Roundup: April 5th
Featuring Amends, SeeYouSpaceCowboy, Tilian, and more.
MOSH PITHY:
A curated selection of cool shit for you to listen to.
Tilian – “Is Anarchy A Good Hobby?”
It’s hard for me to parse Tilian’s effort’s from his day-job as the angelic mouthpiece for post-hardcore luminaries Dance Gavin Dance. And yet, his latest single pulled from his upcoming solo record Factory Reset (out April 23 through Rise Records), might just be a departure that makes sense. The chorus-less track has a lot going on structurally, but I’m totally here for it. Watch the mesmerizing video for “Is Anarchy A Good Hobby?” below:
Assertion – Intermission
The project of drummer William Goldsmith (Sunny Day Real Estate, The Fire Theft, Foo Fighters), Assertion feels like a 'Best Of' compilation for the heyday of 90s guitar-rock. Intermission (out April 9 through Spartan Records) sports angular post-hardcore riffage, anthemic grunge choruses, fuzzy layers of shoegaze distortion, and wave after wave of pedal-driven chord progressions. It’s loud and interesting and that’s all I ask of my alternative music. Stream the LP’s pre-release singles here (Bandcamp/Spotify).
Gojira – “Amazonia”
Returning with another pre-release single from Fortitude (out April 30 through Roadrunner), French metallers Gojira wade into the debate of political tribalism on their newest cut, “Amazonia.” A sprawling face-melter woven through with indigenous folk instrumentation and labyrinthian grooves, the atavistic track sounds like Cave In on steroids. Listen to “Amazonia” here.
Unwed Sailor – Truth or Consequences
Okay, so, I don’t really know much about Unwed Sailor, the instrumental vision of Johnathon Ford (Pedro the Lion/Roadside Monument). Truth or Consequences (out May 14 through Spartan Records) appears to be slices of pleasurable post-rock ambience with the occasional left-of-centre foray into new wave and synth soundscapes. But truthfully, the record is here because of that stunning album artwork. Just look at that thing! Gorgeous. Stream the LP’s pre-release singles here (Bandcamp/Spotify).
Cannibal Corpse – “Murderous Rampage”
It’s a total cliché to say that a band or group needs no introduction. But, seriously, this is Cannibal Corpse. Need I say anymore? Ace Ventura’s favourite death metal act are back on that gore-soaked grindstone, churning out furious neo-classic OSDM that is not for the faint-hearted. (Yeah, I know, more clichés. What exactly is a “faint” heart anyway?) Listen to their new single “Murderous Rampage” here.
Ratboys – Happy Birthday, Ratboy
I don’t know what or who a ‘Ratboy’ is exactly, but if I had to guess based purely on listening to Happy Birthday, Ratboy, I’d say it might be a very sweet, warm and well-intentioned, somewhat-country inflected, indie-listening dork who cops way too much shit for wearing corduroy non-ironically. That said, Ratboys do a bang-up good job of making that type of existence sound all too appealing. Stream the LP here (Bandcamp/Spotify).
SeeYouSpaceCowboy/If I Die First – “bloodstainedeyes”
Well, I guess MySpace is back, folks. “bloodstainedeyes” is a killer team-up between metalcore revivalists SeeYouSpaceCowboy and emo-rap-via-screamo stars If I Die First, and the lead single from their five-track split EP, A Sure Disaster (out May 14 through Pure Noise Records). It’s a messy and abrasive take on the honey-and-vinegar vocal dynamic, and it’s also got some big mid-00s, Drop Dead, Gorgeous energy. Hit up the chaotic video below for the full xRaWrx experience:
Amends – Tales of Love, Loss, and Outlaws
A little off the beaten path for Aussie hardcore mainstay Resist Records, Amends offer up the kind of country-folk hybrid that recalls cross-Pacific acts like Lucero and Chuck Ragan. On their debut full-length, Tales of Love, Loss, and Outlaws (out April 23), the Western Sydney quintet combine swaggering riffs and marching rhythms with whiskey-soaked vocals and stories of suburban darkness. Stream the album’s pre-release single through Bandcamp here.
HEAVY METTLE:
A closer, more in-depth look at a new record that ticks all my boxes.
We Set Sail – Ritual and Ceremony
Everything about Ritual and Ceremony, We Set Sail’s long-awaited third full-length, screams nostalgic revelry. But not in that wistful, lamenting of lost futures kind of way. Instead, LP#3 finds the Brisbane group savouring the passage of time rather than desperately trying to change its flow.
On 2013’s Rivals, the quintet were a loose jam band, riffing on “15-minute songs that [they] somehow managed to get down to 7 minutes,” littered with vocal snippets that faded in and out with varied, if somewhat uninterested purpose. 2016’s Feel Nothing incorporated a more streamlined approach to songwriting that yielded tighter and more impactful storytelling, propelled along by massive hooks and guitarist/vocalist Paul Voge’s delivery taking central focus with notable self-assurance. It’s been a hard four-year journey since, but the band’s next chapter is finally here. The format remains unchanged: long, overly wordy song titles, ubiquitous film and pop-culture samples, album covers made expressly for vinyl packaging and a guitar-heavy approach to noise that playfully references the last thirty years of underground sounds.
Opener “The Valium Phase” is a mid-tempo ode to escapism and unspoken acts of devotion. The bridge of “Hurry Up, I Wanna Fuckin’ Leave” rises and crests on a glorious wave of guitar distortion and soaring vocal harmonies before dipping into a plaintive post-rock outro. “Cycle Has Charm” pushes and pulls with aching melancholy and delicate leads befitting of Pianos Become The Teeth, while pre-release single “Ordinary” charges on with upbeat energy and pounding rhythms reminiscent of Moving Mountains. Album standouts like “Palm Mutant” and “Meshuggah Ray (Space Jam 2)” are devastating in their simplicity: the perfect synthesis of the band’s sprawling, dense, incredibly earnest guitar-rock ethos.
We Set Sail emerged from dilapidated warehouse practice spaces and the empty stages of local live-venue haunts now long dead and shuttered. While the quintet would likely bristle at being hailed as a Brisbane institution, they have existed for over a decade as a living relic for a bygone era of alternative music, one driven not by mindless algorithmic consumption but by the deep, yearning passion of a collector’s hunger. They make this connection to place explicit, dedicating their new record to friends lost along the way, those lost souls who “felt like they had nowhere to go.” They understand that the power of nostalgia doesn’t derive from a particular time, place, or even one person. It’s the collective power we wield with the memories we choose to keep inside ourselves, in the here and now of the present moment. So, I implore you, as the vinyl fold-out for Ritual and Ceremony says, “Put on a record, make some memories.”
Stream here: Bandcamp | Spotify
Listen to all these tracks on the TPD April playlist, updated each week.
ERRONEOUS BOTCH:
Links to some of my other published work across the Web. Take a look, share if you feel like it, and help a brother out.
Last week, I published the next entry in my monthly column for New Noise. This edition of Yesterday’s Jukebox was a deep dive into the back catalogue of Chicago punks Alkaline Trio. It’s a fun piece with some great, diverse tracks. (I still can’t go past From Here to Infirmary though—what an absolute banger.)