Weekly Roundup: May 23rd
Featuring Duvel, Funeral Chic, Speed, and more.
MOSH PITHY:
A curated selection of cool shit for you to listen to.
Funeral Chic – “Spit and Crawl”
Back in 2018, I described North Carolinian crust punks Funeral Chic thusly: “[The group] appear to revel in their own violence as an exercise in perverse torment: an empty glass cracked on your skull; the jagged twist of a prison shiv; the sizzle of the electric chair; a hand grenade clutched between two closed fists.” The band’s previous LP, Superstition, was one of my favourite records of the 2010s, so to say that I’m excited about its full-length, ten-track follow-up is an understatement. Roman Candle is out on July 29th through Prosthetic Records, and you can watch the video for lead single “Spit and Crawl” below:
84 Tigers – Time In The Lighthouse
84 Tigers are the latest in a long line of curious collaborative projects from established musicians in legacy alternative acts. The Michigan trio features Mike and Ben Reed of Small Brown Bike and Jono Diener of The Swellers, and they’re set to release their debut album, Time in the Lighthouse, on October 21st through Spartan Records. Andrew Sacher from BrooklynVegan described the group’s sonic profile as a “90s-style post-hardcore/alt-rock fusion that brings to mind stuff like Quicksand and Jawbox,” and that sounds right on the money to me. Stream the LP’s pre-release singles here (Bandcamp/Spotify).
Your Old Droog – “Go To Sleep”
In this post-pandemic era, Your Old Droog’s output has been nothing short of prolific. Since 2020, the NYC rapper has dropped four (!) LPs, not to mention three collab projects with Tha God Fahim. Those are some straight-up Griselda numbers right there! Droog’s upcoming record, YOD Stewart, is out later this week (May 27th) and you can listen to the smooth and hypnotic final single “Go To Sleep” here.
Psycroptic – Divine Council
Aussie tech-death exports Psycroptic are back with a new skull-crushing album. Divine Council, the group's long-awaited eighth LP, is scheduled for release on August 5th through EVP Recordings/Prosthetic Records and acts as the full-length follow-up to 2018’s As The Kingdom Drowns and 2020’s The Watcher of All. If history is any indicator of future events, fans can expect a shit tonne of intricate riffage, tectonic grooves, and some gurgly, demonic vocal runs from inhuman throat-shredder and lyricist Jason Peppiatt. Stream the LP’s pre-release single here (Bandcamp/Spotify).
Object of Affection – “Through and Through”
With a curious cross-section of member credentials, including time spent in hardcore bruisers Fury and Aussie ex-pat post-punkers Death Bells, Object of Affection offer up something enchanting and slightly left of the alternative centre. “Through and Through,” the group’s debut single, out now through Suicide Squeeze, bristles with melancholic guitar lines, hazy atmospherics, and vocalist Colin Knight's dejected lyricism. Listen to “Through and Through” here.
Boris – Heavy Rocks
Legendary experimental rockers Boris have been pushing the boundaries of heavy music for three decades. The latest effort from the Tokyo trio adds to their already hefty back catalogue with the third instalment in their Heavy Rocks series, following their eponymous albums from 2002 and 2011 respectively. Across ten new tracks, Boris synthesises 70s prog rock and heavy metal with snarling punk, D-beat and spacey doom to create something strange, alien and idiosyncratic. Stream the LP’s pre-release singles here (Bandcamp/Spotify).
Speed – “Not That Nice”
Look, I already said a bunch of nice things about this latest Speed cut for the good folks over at No Echo, so you can jump over there and have a read. But here’s what you need to know: Sydney’s hardcore kings are back with a new six-track EP titled Gang Called Speed, and it drops on June 24th through Flatspot Records/Last Ride Records. Watch the official movie for “Not That Nice” below:
Duvel – Don’t Fall In Love (With Me)
Less than a year after the release of their spectacular self-titled album (and one of my favourite records of 2021), the self-confessed “alpha-dandys of the Oslo underground” are back with a shiny new banger. “Don’t Fall In Love (With Me) finds Duvel doing what the young quartet do best: singing about forlorn relationships and clouds of nose beers over the top of bright Brit-pop arrangements, aching acoustic guitars, and an upbeat, dancefloor bridge section. It rocks. Stream the standalone single here (Bandcamp/Spotify).
Listen to all these tracks and more on the TPD 2022 TUNES playlist, updated weekly.
HEAVY METTLE:
A closer, more in-depth look at a new record that ticks all my boxes.
Cave In – Heavy Pendulum
If there’s one thing you can set your clock to, it’s that Boston rockers Cave In will arrive at least once a decade with a revelatory rock record. They did it on Jupiter (2002), warping past their metalcore contemporaries and evolving into something infinitely more complex, and then once again on White Silence (2011), folding an aggressive sense of doom and gloom back into their alt-rock schema.
Now, with their first studio album in eleven years, the Massachusetts quartet are back once more, this time armed with a gargantuan sound and a personal story of triumph over grief. Following the tragic passing of the band’s bassist and dear friend Caleb Scofield in 2018, and the release of the ominous posthumous demo collection Final Transmission in 2019, many thought that Cave In had come to a sad and sudden end. And yet, fate clearly had other ideas.
Reinvigorated by the isolation of the pandemic, the band returned to famed producer and Converge guitarist Kurt Ballou (who produced their beloved 1998 debut Until Your Heart Stops) and God City Studios in 2021 to record what would become their colossal seventh LP.
With the inclusion of good friend Nate Newton (Converge, Old Man Gloom, Doomriders) as Scofield’s replacement, alongside some instrumental shuffling, Heavy Pendulum finds Cave In operating at the height of their creative powers, with powerful riffs that are once crushing and lush, bottom end dense enough to shake planets, and driving percussion that propels the quartet through fourteen stunning compositions.