Feature: For Fans Of

A collection of my contributions to Heavy Blog Is Heavy's new feature on other great alternatives to much-loved bands...

This week: ISIS

As a band of ISIS-worshipping Belgian teenagers, Steak Number Eight‘s early work showed guts, heft and plenty of misdirected angst, but in 2013 they released The Hutch and everything changed. The presence of Matt Bayles at the mixing desk should tick the first box for ISIS fans, yet it is the music that lies within that will seal the deal. There are luminescent flourishes hidden within thick sludge, patches of rich, thunderous guitar squall, slack-jawed vocals, rotational riffs and dark melodious washes to drown in. Constantly shifting, the band weave in new elements; layering up as they progress. The post-metal meandering of the sublime ‘Pilgrimage Of A Black Heart’ feeds the muscle of ‘Exile Of Our Marrow’ and, before you know it, they’re piling malcontent upon disillusionment; sharpening the visceral edges for ‘The Shrine’ and ‘Slumber’. These sudden, thrusting, sharp stabs finally relent to reveal a sonic wasteland for the masterful ‘Ashore’ and the brain flips once more. For a final trick, you will hear young men exercising phenomenal restraint to allow ‘Tearwalker”s one-key rolling maul of tones and textures to run every second of its nine-and-a-half minute course. If you loved ISIS, Stk8 might just floor you, literally.

Recommended Album: The Hutch

Next week: TBA

Album Review: Axewound – Vultures

The trouble with supergroups is that they don’t tend to last and their shows and material only appear when their multitudinous commitments allow for it. Throw in the point that there is a tendency for their work to be seen as something of a gimmick, or the fact that their sessions together might well receive less than each band member’s full attention, and it’s a wonder how any supergroup ever makes it past the conceptual stage. Just imagine the scheduling nightmare that bands like Down, Them Crooked Vultures or Shrinebuilder must have – getting their shit in order must drive them nuts!

Of course, as consumers, there’s little that compares to the buzz that accompanies the announcement of a new supergroup. Imaginations can run wild at the potential of “this vocal” with “that bass” combined with “those guitars”. Such was the thrill when Axewound were first announced to the public. The concept was always going to live or die on just how well its constituent parts would gel. Throwing Cancer Bats’ Liam Cormier’s screaming punk vocal at Bullet For My Valentine’s Matt Tuck and Glamour Of The Kill’s Mike Kingswood and their carefully-placed shreds and smooth guitar tones was a big risk. Add Rise To Remain bassist Joe Copcutt and Pitchshifter drummer Jason Bowld into the package and you get a lot of eager faces banging at the venue gates and, with debut album Vultures, music shop doors and online windows.

I got a sneak peak at them back in June when they hit the UK’s Download Festival. My expectations for just where this particular collaboration was headed panned out pretty well. They gave us petulant, direct metalcore peppered with cleans and screams all underpinned by hefty double-kick and scattergun fills. The surprise for me with the album, if there was to be any, is the nature of the emotive crooning they decided to actually throw out there. Back then, wedged into a vast tent filled with thousands of people, it didn’t seem so obvious but here, with what is an obscene level of production slapped on it, it sticks out a mile. “Cold”, ugly and unyielding at every turn, and the somber orchestral ballad “Collide” are great examples of songs where the lead and backing vocals work against each other (the line “When these two worlds collide / There’s nothing left to hide” seems particularly apt), and “Post Apocalyptic Party” and “Church Of Nothing” highlight just how easy it is for the slick riffs, chord holds, slimy guitar tones and blasé song construction to suck the fervour out of these songs.

On the flip side, the title-track (featuring an unseemly, tacked-on Synyster Gates’ solo) and the thrashing “Victim Of The System” peel back the varnish and simply rip it. Head-banging, air-guitaring fury from beginning to end. Cormier nails it as the backing vocal stays suppressed to allow him to remain unsweetened. Tracks like this and the hammering drums and skidding strings of the Unearth-esque “Destroy” prove this band could conceivably have a future if they keep away from descending into the more predictable metalcore formulas.

Essentially, with the two main protagonists, Cormier and Tuck, pressing down hardest of all, Vultures (not to be confused with Rise To Remain’s 2012 debut City Of Vultures) is more likely to appeal to the Bullet For My Valentine posse than Cancer Bats fans. If you like disco rhythms to accompany your breakdowns, you’ll probably eat this for breakfast. For anyone who fancies something a little more visceral, slightly anti-establishment and with a handsome degree of integrity (all of which Tuck promised Axewound would be), view this as a project that Tuck needs to “man up or shut up” for or that Cormier needs to ditch in a hurry.

Also online @ The NewReview = http://thenewreview.net/reviews/axewound-vultures

Album Review: Funeral For A Friend - Welcome Home Armageddon

It’s 2005 and Funeral For A Friend are a band on top of their game. They’ve crept up and stunned us with their debut album and followed it up with a wodge of incredible live shows and a, supposedly difficult, second album that, if anything, makes our hearts beat even more rapidly. Fast-forward to the present day and, following the double cardiac arrests that two uninspiring, sterile album releases represent, and with guitarist Darran Smith following bassist Gareth Davies out the door, they now appear to be a band on the critical list. There is but one glimmer of hope, a faint pulse, that I, personally, clung onto before I span this latest effort, and that was that last year’s fan-funded EP definitely felt more urgent, passionate, grittier. To see a couple of tracks from it lurking on Welcome Home Armageddon is not necessarily a bad thing then.

Well I’m happy to report our patient is out and about and doing well. It’s softer and more subtle, but the 44-second guitar intro ‘This Side Of Brightness’ evokes the opening to the magnificent ‘History’ from their 2005 album Hours. Thinking about it, it’s a little stroke of genius and it sets you up for reminiscing fondly on times when FFAF albums used to weld themselves to our souls with triumphant melodics, containing both smooth and rough edges, and addictive lyrics delivered with feeling. The following track here, ‘Old Hymns’ disconcertingly speaks those thoughts back at us – “I used to mean something to you, but I turned and left you in the cold”. Spooky, no?

There’s no doubting there are instant big-hitters here but what marks this album out as a giant step up is the switch of anaemic filler for angry, slow-growers; complex song structures that worm their way slowly into your brain and end up surpassing the instantaneous high of the single releases. In the former camp, you have tracks like ‘Sixteen’, a soaring pop-laced anthem with plenty of top-end guitar noodling, ‘Front Row Seats To The End Of The World’, a glorious marriage of screams and cleans, and the rock punch of ‘Aftertaste’. Opposite them, you’ve got the intricate webs that are weaved by the spasming ballad ‘Owls (Are Watching)’, ‘Spinning Over The Island’s threaded grunt and the superlative 5-minute title-track with its multiple personalities.

Yes, the god-awful, faux-American drawl of Matt Davies-Kreye pops up every now and again and goads the guitars into riding roughshod over the softer tracks, but those moments are few and far between. It was probably inevitable when you consider the amount of aggression that the band have thrown at this album. Thankfully, with added angst comes added variety and this is exemplified by the skidding metal bursts lurking in ‘Spinning Over The Island’ and the speed-demon ‘Broken Foundation’ with its explosive guitar solo. If you also take into consideration the fact that Funeral For A Friend are already the undisputed kings of vocal harmonies and suddenly you’re talking about a band that can, again, not only look their peers in the eyes but can once more inspire them. Yes, it’s just one album but, put into context, it’s going to mean the world to a whole lot of people. Welcome home, FFAF.

Also online @ The Line Of Best Fit = http://www.thelineofbestfit.com/2011/03/funeral-for-a-friend-welcome-home-armageddon/

Free Album Stream: Funeral For A Friend - Welcome Home Armageddon

Funeral For A Friend are set to release their fifth studio album ‘Welcome Home Armageddon’ on 14^th March It's an album that vocalist Matt Davies-Kreye has described as “a fist in the face followed by a kiss on the cheek” and it is now streaming in its entirety pre-release at www.facebook.com/funeralforafriend. Produced by previous collaborator Romesh Dodangoda, the band homed in on the essence of their new material in a way which would present the new tracks as being as true to their live show as possible. The result of this approach will no doubt send shivers down the spine of many a FFAF fan.

Keep an eye out for my full review on this blog... it's due any day now.

Album Review: DevilDriver - Beast

Usually at some point, a band will hit a wall. It could be because a change of personnel or record label leads to new impetus or it could be that they want to go conceptual for an album; perhaps they want to improve themselves; maybe create something fresh, inspiring, outlandish, or simply that they’ve run out of ideas. Whatever the reason, in general, said band will either down tools and turn tail in frustration or find a way around or over that damnable wall. In DevilDriver’s case they’ve dispensed with getting cerebral and, instead, simply bought themselves a big-assed tank and they’re gonna roll straight on through.

The aforementioned armored fighting vehicle is their fifth full-length release, Beast, and it’s, by far, their most extreme, barbaric, unstoppable, sinister, behemoth of an album to date. As Dez Fafara has suggested, in reference to their 2007 release, “If you liked The Last Kind Words, this is like that on steroids and crank, driving a Buick Skylark 200 miles an hour straight to Vegas.” Basically, if you thought their back catalog was the equivalent of being hit repeatedly with a plank of wood, this is that same plank of wood, but covered in nails.

DevilDriver have always had a massive groove-based, swarming sound but here there are tracks that simply just don’t let up. It’s a constant attack that completely drowns your senses in one elongated hit. The vocals in the verses of “Hardened”, impossibly, don’t even pause for breath as the cyclical guitars pile on pillow after suffocating pillow. There is also an underlying, malevolent message that rips through everything, from the bleak chord choices to the scathing lyrics, revealing the kind of negative emotion that Fafara and co. were experiencing at the time of writing. Tracks like “You Make Me Sick” and “Coldblooded” feature the kind of soul-sucking gloom that are more likely to inhabit the black metal world of Samael or Moonspell. There’s also lyrics like “I don’t know you but I fucking hate you, you’re a marked man” that dominate “Blur” and what starts out as Fafara making a “Shitlist”, rapidly ends up with him compiling a “hit list” – now that’s dark. It’s also interesting that the more familiar, straight-up, muscle-bound style that marks out the stunning opening salvo of “Dead To Rights” and “Bring The Fight (To The Floor)” were both released as singles, because there could be a bit of a shock factor when you finally get your hands on this and realize just how evil it is.

There are several times that Lamb Of God come to mind – the mind-blowing depth of heaviness that powers out of John Boecklin’s drumkit is now comparable in so many ways to Chris Adler’s cacophonic battery, and when Fafara gets REALLY pissed he brings out the strain, reaching up to peak at Randy Blythe levels of rasp. “The Blame Game”, in particular, wouldn’t look out of place if you stuck it in the middle of Wrath. It rocks like an absolute bastard before pitching itself into a big Chimaira-esque beatdown.

I must admit I’m not a huge fan of their more melodic 16 Horsepower cover, “Black Soul Choir”, or their continued love of the fadeout or, for that matter, the rather bare artwork (but it’s still infinitely better than Pray For Villains comedic owl) but I guess I’m just being a pedant. Let me cut to the chase. There’s no other way to say this so I’ll just, like DevilDriver’s tank, plough on regardless. Beast is, well… a beast. That wall of theirs won’t know what’s fucking hit it.

Also online (with samples) @ The NewReview = http://thenewreview.net/reviews/devildriver-beast

Album Review: Quest For Fire - Lights From Paradise

According to singer/guitarist Chad Ross, this latest release is a “heavy meeting of all the music we love … pounding psych straight from the Canadian heart”. Clearly, “all the music they love” is a reference to the players’ wide array of musical backgrounds (Ross and guitarist Andrew Gunn were once part of indie rockers The Deadly Snakes whilst drummer Mike Maxymuik thrashed it up with metalcore’s Cursed); a fact that has shaped the band’s mind-blowingly varied output as they delve into the realms of stoner rock; and a fact that has enabled Toronto’s Quest For Fire to quickly switch from their self-titled debut’s tendency towards the sharply aggressive, raw punk end of stonerdom to where they are now, on Lights From Paradise, ekeing out passively-shifting, immersive psych (an experience tangibly reminiscent of something last felt whilst listening to The Warlocks) that steadily swells and abates. Throw in a guest spot from Sophie Trudeau (Montreal’s Thee Silver Mt. Zion) and her magic fiddle and it’s like being hard-wired into the music; being drip-fed adrenaline in one arm and morphine in the other.

Trudeau simply owns their oozing seven-minute introductory piece, ‘The Greatest Hits By God’, with her bowed notes gently placed above the grungy oomph of the chugged guitar and echoing vocal. ‘Set Out Alone’ and ‘Strange Vacation’ pick up the pace, kicking up the dust of the past with a Cream-esque wall of fuzz sounding off behind the garage blues drive so reminiscent of current bands like Dinosaur Jr and Dead Confederate. QFF’s party trick is their uncanny ability to knit the rough with the smooth, sucking you in for their punched hooks until you simply drop out with them as they ramp up the sustain and ditch the grunt for a smooth, rush of power chords and drifting vocal that doubles the track length. It’s an effortless shift in emotional direction that so few bands have truly mastered. The transmogrification from ‘Strange Vacation’ to ‘Confusion’s Home’ is the finest example of this and will undoubtedly leave you mouth-gaping at their mastery of moodswings.

Then, with a resounding strike on their division bell, they dig you out of your reverie and dump you, blinking like a newborn, in an unceremonious heap. Why they felt the need to suddenly throw obnoxiously clean acoustics, fatuous percussive breaks and glibly overwrought patterns upon their audience is beyond me. Both ‘Psychic Seasons’ and ‘Hinterland Who’s Who’ prove to be both left and right sore thumbs of this sophomore album. That’s not to say they don’t employ fuzz or Ross’ creamy, oscillating vocal; they merely eschew complex structure to simply blast through peaking rises, never clicking or settling until they shoot out the other side and fade to close. It feels like that switch from the relative safety of recorded programmes to the grainy, flickering image and seat-of-the-pants unpredicatiblity of live telly.

The final nine-minute cruise under the hammered rain of cymbal and drum, Pink Floyd-mimicking all the way, proves even ‘Sessions Of Light’ is more than enough to demand a return to the wondrous immersion that the first half of the album soaked itself in. All this is a bit of a shame because it doesn’t follow that a band with a potted history should produce such a potted album, yet ‘Lights From Paradise’ doesn’t deserve such a haphazard phrase being dumped upon it. It contains moments that transcend beauty, an album that delivers more than the sum of its parts. Put bluntly, a vaguely dim ending simply doesn’t dull the lighbulb of genius that precedes it.

Also online @ TLOBF = http://www.thelineofbestfit.com/2010/11/quest-for-fire-%E2%80%93-lights-from-paradise/