Weekly Roundup: November 16, 2020
Featuring The Chats, Tribulation, Pales Waves, Emma Ruth Rundle & Thou, and more.
MOSH PITHY:
A curated selection of cool shit for you to listen to.
The Chats – “AC/DC CD”
Proving that all facets of Aussie life can be mined endlessly for punk credentials, Sunny Coast hooligans and Dave Grohl’s best mates The Chats have dropped a catchy new single paying tribute to our Patron Saints of Rock. Check out the blasphemous video below.
Post Truth – Responses To Trauma
With the most relevant of band names for our modern era, brawlers Post Truth have dropped a new album through Aussie staple Resist Records. On the eight-track Responses To Trauma, the Newcastle quartet deal exclusively in churning post-hardcore and muscular post-metal, mixing aggression and emotion into a potent brew of angst-riddled dissatisfaction. Stream the full album here (Bandcamp/Spotify).
Waxflower – “Again” (feat. Caitlin Henry)
In the sugary sweet pop-punk stakes, Brisbane boys Waxflower sound like they have another banger on their hands with latest single “Again”. The track also sports the commendable pipes of Eat Your Heart Out’s Caitlin Henry and will be a shoo-in for fans of the nasal vocal line and earworm chorus hook. Check out the track here.
Blunt Razors – Early Aught
While I eagerly await a new Planes Mistaken For Stars album, Gared O’Donnell and Neil Keener are going off on a like-minded tangent with their new project Blunt Razors. Hitting many of the same moods as their main outfit, the two tracks already on offer from their debut EP, Early Aught (out November 20th) give us a taste of the duo’s vivid rendering of Mid-western dystopia and crumbling Americana. Check out “Speeding” and “Amber Waves” here.
Tribulation – “Leviathans”
Swedish blackened doom crew Tribulation are ramping up for the release of their fifth LP, Where the Gloom Becomes Sound, and new single “Leviathans” proves that their gothic leanings are more than just aesthetic, with booming instrumentals, snarling vocals, and a truly otherworldly aura. Check out the track here.
John Carpenter – Lost Themes III: Alive After Death
The Master of Horror is back with another full-length scream-fest of stabbing synths, haunting guitars, and intense atmospherics. The third instalment in John Carpenter’s Lost Themes album series (coming out February 2021) finds the famed director working with his son Cody and godson Daniel Davies, keeping the soundtrack scares firmly in the family once more. Stream the singles “Weeping Ghost” and “Skeleton” now.
Pale Waves – “Change”
Is it ironic that a song about change and moving on and emotional dynamism also happens to be a pitch-perfect, time-travelling nostalgia trap for 90s pop, pushing all the “member-berries” buttons from those midnight sessions of Rage I watched as a kid? Possibly. It’s still catchy as hell, though. Suss out the Pale Waves video below.
Mustard Gas & Roses – We Are One
On this four-song EP, ISIS guitarist Michael Gallagher takes his multi-instrumental project Mustard Gas & Roses in a few interesting directions, recontextualising older tracks and two covers into sprawling and megalithic acoustic dirges full of open space, terse rhythms, and pensive arrangements. Stream the full EP here (Bandcamp / Spotify).
You also can find all these tracks on the TPD November playlist, updated each week.
HEAVY METTLE:
A closer, more in-depth look at a new record that ticks all my boxes.
Emma Ruth Rundle & Thou – May Our Chambers Be Full
Collaborations can be tricky to navigate. Often when artists meet to combine their respective talents, it’s to shine a light on the legacy of others, or in the hopes that new perspectives will yield interesting and creative ideas. Sometimes the results of such a union can be electrifying. Other times, not so much. Fortunately, this phenomenon is not entirely alien to Emma Ruth Rundle & Thou. Fusion powers May Our Chambers Be Full, and not the clean kind either.
Rundle’s folksy ethereal vocals stretch and strain against the lumbering weight of Thou’s churning molten sludge. “Killing Floor” has a pitch-black soul of shoegaze. “Monolith” could be mistaken for apocalypse grunge. “Ancestral Recall” is a funeral rite cast as an atavistic libation. It’s a witch’s brew of styles and moods; a messy and entertaining union, combustible and volatile. But that’s the thing about fusion: it takes energy. And that’s what makes May Our Chambers Be Full feel like perpetual motion, forever restless, grinding away at the darkness.