Album Review: Five Days Of Rain – Taste My Breath After The Fallout

The dark, starkly industrial “Intro” soundscape combined with the maniacally skidding entry, colossal breakdown and elongated scouring howl that adorn “Feeding My Own Entropy” supply you with everything you need to know about Five Days Of Rain’s credentials. Their biography – formed in Italy 2004, EP recorded 2006, change of line-up 2007/8, signed to Rising Records 2009 – neatly wraps up the facts, but it’s their music that is the most revealing.

Taste My Breath After The Fallout is a hefty slab of sonic obliteration that owes a great debt to the vagaries of modern American deathcore but also clings onto the speeding coat-tails of early Swedish death metal. Easily identifiable are the crushing half-time vortex breaks and double-kick battery that bands like Black Dahlia Murder and Suicide Silence delight in, the furious palm-muted riffing and harsh, throat-scraping vocal style pedalled by Whitechapel and Job For A Cowboy, and screwing it all into place are the incessant galloping rhythms and buzzsaw guitar characterized by bands like At The Gates and Entombed.

The polyrhythmic assault and buffeting verbal squall that power “Searching Within Their Memories” and the jagged shreds, riff sweeps and power chord harmonies that litter the otherwise spacious “Corneal Ulceration” show off both the band’s impressive technical ability and their wild, imaginative songwriting ability. They’ve found a distinctive, addictive style and they seem reluctant to give up such a position of power, nailing each song to their snot-slicked flagpole, proudly repeating their own colors over and over again.

Certainly, one downside to the pinpoint accuracy of the drums is the naff metallic click on the kick drum – it sounds like a particularly indignant conductor tapping on his lectern. At times, it’s so incessant it becomes mildly hypnotic but that sensation soon develops into a nagging annoyance. But when you’ve got a monumental, balance-shifting sub boom that explodes into each beatdown and spine-tingling layers of crash and ride on tracks like “As An Ocean Rebuilt The Life” to contend with, it’s easy to forgive such small inaccuracies.

We’ve had to wait a while for it, the release date having been pushed back due to “a series of misunderstandings, delays and mistakes”, but it’s been a debut album worth waiting for. An extra layer of recording polish, a more generous running time and just a little more variety and Five Days Of Rain will seriously have something to shout about.

Also online @ The NewReview = http://thenewreview.net/reviews/five-days-of-rain-taste-my-breath-after-the-fallout

EP Review: 65daysofstatic - Heavy Sky

Emerging from the debris of the recording sessions for latest album We Were Exploding Anyway, comes this craftily-compiled EP featuring six brand new tracks (and one new edit), because surely nothing is too good to throw away. The band obviously feel strongly enough about how special these songs are, as they’ve compiled limited edition artwork for the release and are offering two tracks (unavailable elsewhere) to folks who place a pre-order. Another sign of how serious they are about the content comes with the announcement that they’re about to take it out on tour. So it must be all killer and no filler, right?

Well, kicking off with a bit of a duff extra we find that ‘Tiger Girl’, having been cut down from an admittedly lengthy 10:37 to a mean 3:36, has its emotional peaking effect blunted somewhat. Allowing yourself to dwell and soak up the rhythm is often far superior to the short, sharp hit. A bad start then but, thankfully, the remainder of the EP is jam-packed with crackers.

‘The Wrong Shape’ ebbs and flows dynamically and, as such, is somewhat reminiscent to ‘Crash Tactics’. Comparison between the two actually results in this new release sounding just that bit stronger. ‘Pacify’ crawls into view, sounding much like the bone-chilling opening to Baroness’ ‘Rays On Pinion’, like a hundred fingers running their way round a hundred glasses, whilst ‘PX3′ expounds further on that progressive element pulling in a wholesome heartbeat bass to help out the manic piano. ‘Beats Like A Helix’ grabs great fistfuls of computer-generated beeps and throws drum and bass at it, whilst ‘Guitar Cascades’ is a collapsing, submerged, massively cathartic wall of noise. The real find here, though, is ‘Sawtooth Rising’ which is exactly the one missing element from 65DOS’ exploration of dance music that so inspired ‘WWEA’. It’s colourful, rich, buoyantly building, exceptionally brutish and fused with the classic buzzing signature of mind-melting euphoric trance.

So instead of finding six that didn’t deserve to make the cut, ‘Heavy Sky’ marks the brilliant completion of a stunning and, clearly, devotional body of work.

Also online @ TLOBF = http://www.thelineofbestfit.com/2010/11/65daysofstatic-heavy-sky/

Interview: 65daysofstatic @ Sonisphere 2010

Being strong advocates of playing live, 65days were never ones to turn down a hearty festival slot, but it still beggars belief that John Skibeat finds them preparing to play at a hard rock and heavy metal festival like Sonisphere! Joe Shrewsbury (vocals/guitar/keys) and Paul Wolinksi (guitar/keys) seemed almost as stunned as our interviewer.

You’ve played a wide range of festivals already but this must be the heaviest you’ve done so far.
Paul: Ever. We were quite surprised when we got the call ‘cos it is really heavy but as we’ve realised heavy metal music fans are fairly open-minded. Hopefully they’ll give us a break and we’ll get away with it!
Joe: We’re not going to pretend to be anything other than what we are.
Paul: We’re not going to get our Jacksons out and start down-tuning them.

You've played a wide range of festivals already but this must be the heaviest you've done so far.
Paul: Ever. We were quite surprised when we got the call 'cos it is really heavy but as we've realised heavy metal music fans are fairly open-minded. Hopefully they'll give us a break and we'll get away with it!
Joe: We're not going to pretend to be anything other than what we are.
Paul: We're not going to get our Jacksons out and start down-tuning them.

Are you changing the set-list at all to suit the occasion?
Joe: No. We're just gonna do what we do. We're loud too. We're certainly not going to be out-louded. We've got a lot of sub-bass, we may not be down-tuned but we certainly fill all the right frequencies.

Do you think it's an advantage or disadvantage to stand out from the other bands?
Paul: It's got its disadvantages on occasion but it's usually an advantage. We wouldn't want to sound like any other band. In the past we were probably quite stubborn about not sounding like anything else whatsoever. These days we've got a new appreciation of genre music which is a totally different discipline, but it's not for us. I think we'd get too restless.
Joe: We've got four heads. We do write together a lot so we have to find a middle ground between all that.

You seem to tour almost endlessly, cramming in hundreds of shows a year. Where does your desire to play live come from?
Joe: Well, firstly touring is our bread and butter and we're very lucky to love it. Long story short, we exist on a shoestring really so it makes sense for us to be on the road as much as possible. Also, until the last album, we always felt we represented ourselves best live. And it's a really great thing to do.
Paul: When you're locked away playing music it's really hard to know how useful you're being. It's quite a selfish thing being in a band and we want to know we're doing something that has an effect on other people. On the road, you get to experience that every single day. It's quite addictive really.
Joe: It's not like anything else. If you like it, you want more... like skag!

[Laughs all round]

The new album, 'We Were Exploding Anyways', is a whole new ball game to your previous material. Even your PR was claiming that you were "a band reborn". Where did the inspiration for it come from?
Joe: Oh, so many things.
Paul: It was a strange couple of years after our third album.
Joe: We're not a band that takes a concept into a studio. We're very hands-on. Our whole lives are the band. We've been doing it coming up to ten years so that really dictates everything we do. It would be hard to pinpoint a single inspiration. But we certainly felt that with 'The Destruction Of Small Ideas' we'd really side-stepped and explored a way of making music that was very satisfying in a studio sense but not in a live arena. The only thing we agreed on when we came back into the studio to write 'Exploding' was that we wanted to be the band that we were when we started who made people feel something visceral.
Paul: We wanted a record that could be recreated live from start to finish.
Joe: Except for Robert. He plays the only instrument on the album who doesn't turn up. [Joe and Paul exchange knowing smiles]

So, are there little bits of ideas taken from the dance music that you grew up on?
Paul: I kind of grew up listening to dance music instead of guitar music at first. Even when “65” started we didn't have a live drummer. It was all electronic beats and less weird time signatures. So it wasn't wholly new to us but, like I was saying before about genre music, listening to house music before and as we wrote this record revealed to me that you can use obvious rules in your favour. It's not cheating or being lazy, it's things that are effective. It's a totally different skill being inventive and being exciting within a genre. So we definitely pulled a lot from Daft Punk and Underworld and amateur producers.
Joe: To write something behind a 4-4 kick, and very little else, is actually a lot harder than to write melodies behind 5-4 time signatures which is what we've done in the past. So that was almost a learning curve for us. It was actually more about taking things out. 'Tiger Girl' is a really good example, because it came at the end of 18 months of writing when we'd already thrown out maybe 40 songs that we thought were old “65”. So we thought 4-4 kick and a melody and let's do what we want. So that was a really enjoyable song to write. That song is kind of an indulgence really.

How would you describe the album to someone who hadn't heard it yet?
Joe: Everything all at once... with no singing! [Laughs]
Paul: Hopefully not inaccessible. It's noisy but not without melody.
Joe: Mid-level band finding its place in the harsh face of stardom. [Laughs]

Robert Smith does guest vocals on 'Come To Me'. Did you write it specifically with him in mind?
Paul: Not at all. It came really late in the day. We were working on trying vocals in different songs but it didn't work. We'd tried recording it and abandoned it. It was finished and arranged but we just needed something to lift it. We talked about trying vocals on this and we were thinking about which vocalists we knew. We know Robert Smith.

From your tour with The Cure?
Paul: Yeah. So we thought, send him an email, what's the worst that can happen. And he said “yes”. He didn't come to the studio 'cos we were busy, so we sent him some tracks and he recorded them in his studio. He sent them back a few days later and said we could do what we want with them - which is cool in itself, because he's very precious about everything he's involved in. So to get permission to cut him up and cover it in distortion was... well... he liked it!
Joe: We didn't want to do it just to have his name on the record. We wanted it to fit; to sound right.

Have you any plans where to take your music in the future?
Joe: We never have a plan. I don't think people believe us when we say that. Schedule-wise, we know… but we never know what we're going to write. And this time, we really mean it.

So the next album could be heavy metal after all!?
Joe: Yeah, we could write a metal album! Could be anything. I think we're still enamoured with the idea of how to write a good pop song without it compromising the integrity of your music. I don't know if there is a way.

Also online @ TLOBF = http://www.thelineofbestfit.com/2010/08/tlobf-interview-65daysofstatic

EP Review: Fell On Black Days - Bring Out Your Dead

'Tooth And Nail' is, predictably, full-bore groove with all guns blazing; the bastard son of Machine Head's 'Bulldozer' and DevilDriver's 'Bound By The Moon', and, as such, is a fine opener to set the mood, whilst 'Mea Culpa' and 'Cold Rapture' open a whole new musical Pandora's Box to reveal a dirty, black interior which Matt Hall and Mark Tranter's guitars proceed to explode from in all directions. The latter introduces a cleaner vocal on the chorus, a choppier rhythm and a flurry of double-kick that add a whole array of extra layers to focus on...

Full review = http://www.metalteamuk.net/june10reviews/cdreviews-fobd.htm

Album Review: 65daysofstatic – We Were Exploding Anyway

My review - originally appeared on TLOBF:

We Were Exploding Anyway is a wonderfully amorphous fusion of instrumental, percussion-heavy electronica with incessantly progressive patterns which sees delicately-layered splinters of sound slotted firmly into place only to be achingly withdrawn without warning. What 65daysofstatic have created here is a beautiful piece of art with bold, colour-soaked flourishes and flowing rhythmic structures, yet still characterised by razor-sharp lines and perfect finishes. Before I get all Antiques Roadshow on you, let me explain where we are in the band’s life-cycle...

Full review = http://www.thelineofbestfit.com/2010/04/65daysofstatic-we-were-exploding-anyway/

Film: 30 Days Of Night

Adapted from the graphic novel by Steve Niles and Ben Templesmith, 30 Days Of Night whisks us to Barrow, the most northern town in Alaska. Bleak, barren and freezing, only the hardiest of souls can survive in such an environment. As the sun falls below the horizon for the last time for 30 days, the first of many brutal killings alert the townsfolk that they’re not alone.

Eben (Josh Hartnett), the town sheriff, is handed the task of protecting his own and in the middle of the mayhem he manages to get as many as possible holed up in a hidden attic from where they view a killing spree initiated by a large group of particularly brutal Nosferatu hell-bent on the town’s complete annihilation. “Their heads must be separated from their bodies. Do not turn them”, drawls head-vamp Marlow (Danny Huston).

The director, David Slade, has made a good attempt at translating the grim novel from page to screen and employs some clever camerawork in places. The overhead pan as the vampires attack their victims is particularly effective; a bird's-eye view of bright-red blood stains on pure-white snow, gun shots fired aimlessly, and dark figures fleeing and chasing; an eerie detached way of viewing the carnage. Unfortunately, he subsequently allows the continual doom and gloom to suffocate the film without respite.

There are some particularly gruesome effects and, in places, the make-up work is terrifying. Danny Huston’s is particularly effective as he’s transformed from everyman into the worst kind of walking nightmare. Barrow's isolation from the world certainly comes across well as it slowly becomes a ghost-town, resembling scenes from a Western only with snow in place of dust.

The casting of Josh Hartnett is both a blessing and a curse. He’s particularly adept at depicting the off-camera horror in his face but, in general, having a well-known actor for the lead detracts from the impact of the film. Ben Foster, bringing a particularly nasty evilness to his role as The Stranger, and Mark Boone Junior (Beau Brower) were both deserving of more screen-time.

It’s, at first, a particularly intense and effective vampire chiller, but eventually it ends up overwrought, wallowing in its own bleakness, and lacking in innovation. The final nail in the coffin is the ending which is both rushed and inconsistent. Those 30 days have passed and I still haven’t seen the light.

© Johnskibeat

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