FEBRUARY SHOUT-OUTS: HIGHER POWER, PROFILER, DESPIZE

Higher Power-"Absolute Bloom"

With a track that’s as much 90s alternative rock as it is hardcore, Leeds outfit Higher Power return with one of my favorite songs of the year so far in "Absolute Bloom." In terms of vibe, aesthetic, and to a degree sound in its framework of 90s alternative rock meets hardcore with a clear ear for the hook, "Absolute Bloom" feels like the younger cousin of Four Year Strong’s self-titled 2015 album, with vocals reminiscent of Perry Farrell of Jane's Addiction. It’s a cool, catchy spin "for the freaks, by the freaks."

Profiler-A Digital Nowhere

I characterize Profiler’s sound as nü djentcore, a modernized melding of influences from the past in late-90s and 2000s nü metal and alternative rock with contemporary djent-influenced metalcore. Illustrative would be the album’s first song "All In Forever," which showcases the band’s dexterity opening with what reminds me of the beginning of "The Mixture" by Volumes but nü metal-ified before segueing into something that sounds like it could’ve been on 311’s Transistor. From there, the track mines Deftones and Limp Bizkit with a contemporary metalcore flavor. There's a wide spectrum of sounds on A Digital Nowhere ranging from the more accessible "Delay," which feels like something off Morning View by Incubus with almost a little bit of Three Days Grace in there, to songs like "To Utopia" and "Zero," which get quite heavy. None of this range feels forced, though, or like it is a hodgepodge of assorted influences with no coherence. Among the several other surprising yet organic combinations throughout the record that hit, most notably is the sneakily really catchy "Operator," which feels like the love child of Filter and Vision of Disorder. It’s a record that exhibits a ton of potential from the group, much of it already realized.

You can check out my interview with vocalist and guitarist Mike about the album and more here.

Despize-Scotland’s Hardcore

If you’re going to position yourself as the hardcore of your nation, then you’d better bring the heat. Consider it brought. While Ben Brodie’s bona fides alone could enable him to speak for Scottish hardcore, this album isn’t a resting-on-laurels or phone-it-in affair for Despize, as if that would even be a possibility. This is a hard-as-nails, sweat-drenched, furious, no-frills offering of aural punishment. Listen at your own risk, as it’s going to feel like you’re physically smack-dab in the middle of the pit with appendages swinging by your face.

LITTLE SIMZ-DROP 7

Over the course of the past few years, Little Simz has gathered significant momentum behind her both in terms of a rapidly-growing fanbase and near-universal critical acclaim—and for good reason, as she is not just a towering talent, but remains unafraid of pushing her creative boundaries, an impulse on full display with this seven song EP Drop 7. Leading off with the intriguing paradox that is the danceable-yet-chill "Mood Swings," Simz serves notice that this isn’t going to be some paint-by-the-numbers affair with its mix of hip-hop, dancehall, and Afrofuturist dance; about half-way through the track, it picks up noticeably, shifting into a sound reminiscent of early M.I.A.

This M.I.A. comparison, particularly in the use of the kinds of percussion present and the melding of sounds, is apt for large stretches of the EP such as the next song "Fever," a sparser affair which includes a kind of Latin American vocal affectation from Simz, and "S.O.S," where Simz steps back from the mic for most of the track for the instrumental to take center stage; when she first comes in, she sounds a lot like Kelis in the chorus of "Milkshake." Track three, "Torch," has some M.I.A. vibes as well, but also feels a little like J.J. Fad thrust into the future.

Track five is "I Ain’t Feelin’ It" with its dreamy beat and strong performance from Simz, followed by the short-tight-and-emboldened "Power," where Simz boldly declares:

Got the power in my hands, now I can feel it
If you're lookin' for the truth, then motherfucker, I'm the realest
See them bitin' what I'm on so do not ask me if I peaked here
If I said that I'm the greatest then I mean it, mean it (Yeah)
I've been buildin' a new mansion up on Venus

Closing out Drop 7 is "Far Away," which showcases Little Simz’s singing voice over a jazzy, chilled-out beat; it’s a quieter, breezier, yet more reflective tune, a fitting way to see us out. If I had one critique, it would be that the song ends too abruptly; it would’ve been nice to hear her play it out longer, which speaks volumes—that the main critique is that I want more! Drop 7 showcases that Little Simz’s boasting on "Power" isn’t empty chest-thumping: she is, indeed, a special and visionary artist at the top of her powers.

SHORELINE-TO FIGURE OUT

In their third full-length and first for new label home Pure Noise Records, German band Shoreline deliver their unique combination of Fat Wreck-style punk, early 2010s pop punk (a la The Story So Far), emo, hardcore, post-punk, and new wave. I had the opportunity to chat with Hansol Seung from the band in January, and I would definitely check that conversation out as well as it goes into more depth on the band’s backstory, influences, a lot of what went into this album, and more, which can help paint a fuller picture of the band and give more context to what I’ll be discussing here in terms of To Figure Out’s contents.

There was much more of a dance-punk flavor on this record at times than I was expecting; "Health," for example, leans into Talking Heads-type territory, and "Workaround" reminds me a lot of Nuremberg post-punk/new wave band The Robocop Kraus. "Reviver" is an upbeat number that has hints of post-punk as well, but almost has more of a Monkees 60s pop rock vibe to it if it were to be executed by one of the cohort of those pop punk bands that broke out in the early 2010s. It’s a really cool song. "Yuppie Kids" isn’t necessarily in this bucket of songs in terms of sonic ground, but it is a relatively simple yet deceptively catchy number that adds to the feeling that although To Figure Out deals with a lot of serious subject matter, there’s often a lightness to the band’s approach that prevents it from getting bogged-down in overbearing earnestness. This also makes songs like "Needles" and "Seoul" that much more impactful. Along these lines of creating a variegated experience, the dynamics of a track like "Seoul" really serve it. The soft opening and the quieter moments of the track also draw attention to the lyrics, and set the driving chorus up to hit home. "Green Paint" and "Seoul" are encapsulations of the band’s influences from the first part of the list at the beginning of the first paragraph, with "Seoul" a meditation on identity, in Seung’s words from our interview:

I am talking about my experiences as a German-Asian. We started talking about this on the last record already (GROWTH 2022, End Hits Records), but the approach was a very different one. It’s much more introspective and realizing what my cultural heritage is, trying to unlearn internalized stereotypes that I did not reflect before and connecting with other Asian kids, trying to enter and create a community.

"Cold Feet" closes the album out on a high note, a straightforward pop punk number that doesn’t overcomplicate things and instead relies on the band’s ability to execute the style at a high level.

To Figure Out is a strong offering with a lot going for it. It’s full of pleasant surprises, a fresh combination of different sounds, all of which feel organic and flow together seamlessly. The future looks bright for Shoreline: they’re touring their asses off, they’ve got the support of a great label in Pure Noise, and they’re clearly talented and have something meaningful to say. I already can’t wait to see what they do next, but in the meantime I’ll keeping returning to this record!

JANUARY SHOUT-OUTS: ROUGH JUSTICE, SPLITKNUCKLE, BILMURI

I’m not sure if I’ll make this a monthly installment, but I wanted to do a post on a trio of noteworthy January releases I wanted to give a shout-out to, two from the UK that were actually released on the same day and one from the heart of America, the, to quote Bilmuri’s Tweet from January 19th, "OHIO EMO ANTHEM…BETTER THAN ANYTHING EVER WRITTEN BY HUMANS EXCEPT FOR THE 1995 DISNEY CLASSIC HEAVYWEIGHTS." Very advanced reference that was well-received in these quarters.

Rough Justice-Faith In Vain

Sheffield, UK outfit Rough Justice serve up their brand of chunky, metallic hardcore here with an album that’s 100% made for the pit. I always take it as a good sign when a band belts out their own name on a track ("Overruled"). MLVLTD is on a roll lately between this album and Guilt Trip’s phenomenal Severance from a few months ago. Amongst the otherwise pummeling offering, the instrumental track "Rusting" adds atmosphere (I was reminded of a couple tracks off This Is Hell’s Sundowning used to similar effect) and the surprising inclusion of clean vocals on the title track as part of the memorable chorus created as close to a genuine "single" as you’re going to get in hardcore, similar to Guilt Trip’s "Sanctified" or Bodyweb’s "Synthetic." The opening of "When It Comes" almost felt like it could’ve been on an early Pelican release. These guys can bang with the best of them, but it’s those other touches that add that extra something and round the release out.

Splitknuckle-Breathing Through the Wound

If you like a healthy helping of old school death metal in your hardcore—and it seems like these days very many people and bands do—then Essex, UK band Splitknuckle is for you! Adjectives like "nasty" and "filthy" come to mind. The album is generally unrelenting but not without some variety, such as the Leeway part in "Essex Kingz," the slowed-down more subdued "Gethsemane" and its clean vocals that strikes a much more melancholy note (although a track that still has plenty of opportunity to head bang over the last minute or so), and the "Gethsemane"-esque opening of "Stay Keeping Count." The band saves the best for last, though, with the final track "The Sickness" representing Splitknuckle’s punishing distilled essence, although a similar argument could be made for the title track.

Bilmuri-"Better Hell (Thicc boi)"

He’s done it again! Johnny Franck (Bilmuri) continues to level up with another country-core banger. Insanely catchy chorus? Check. Some djenting? Check. Relatable, evocative lyrics? Check. Short, sweet, high re-playability, 10/10 video. If not the second-best thing ever written by humans, it’s still damn good.

JERIS JOHNSON-ODE TO METAL

You have to credit Jeris Johnson for setting his sights high; for several years now in word and deed he’s wanted to bring rock (in some cases kicking and screaming) into the future. On October 23rd, 2023 he declared on X/Twitter:

i will be the most influential artist in rock/metal at some point. idc care how long it takes. it could be 2 years, 5 years, 20 years, or after i’m dead, but it is inevitable.

Enter not just Sandman but three 2023 singles now packaged together in "Ode to Metal," "When the Darkness Comes," and "Take Me Away." To that end, before I had even done any background research for this review, my first impression of "When the Darkness Comes" was that it sounded a lot like Metallica meets Nickelback, and sure enough in the former instance, for Johnson:

I've become obsessed with this idea of modernizing that super classic metal sound…That European metal festival shit with a dash of 808s to piss off the old heads. I want metal to be great. So I listened to the entire Black album (by Metallica) and thought, 'What if I put my own spin on pretty much the best, most iconic shit there is?' That's what 'When The Darkness Comes' is.

The Chad Kroeger of Nickelback comparisons are probably well familiar to Johnson fans—in fact, he even secured a feature from Kroeger on his "damn! (remix)." Collaborations with bands like Papa Roach only reinforce Johnson’s rock bona fides, but to his "808s to piss off the old heads" point, while the vast majority of the run-time of these three songs stays squarely in the rock and metal world, as with his earlier work there is definitely a rap influence, this time mostly haunting the edges, however. With a style dubbed by Finn McKenty as "butt trap," Johnson’s melding of influences feels like the more rock-oriented cousin of the genre-amalgamating emo rap and trap metal scenes, each known for pulling from a wider array of genres to inform the various artists’ sounds. As cases-in-point, among Johnson’s best songs are included "Friday" featuring Trippie Redd and the re-imagining of Slayer’s "Raining Blood" featuring ZillaKami of City Morgue.

"Ode to Metal" starts off with heavy "Hate Me Now" by Nas featuring P. Diddy vibes, with Johnson sounding a little like CORPSE. Interestingly enough, both CORPSE and Johnson have collaborated with Bring Me the Horizon. There’s a brief metalcore head-fake, seguing into a more straightforward rock-based beat before Johnson delivers the radio-ready rock chorus. From there, we’re primed some more for the song to then hit its next gear—having it already foreshadowed with the title, the "head-fake," and the lyrical references to bands like A Day to Remember and Avenged Sevenfold as well—ultimately roaring into Johnson’s rendition of an Avenged Sevenfold-esque part before we eventually get to the second time through the chorus. The song then closes out with a reviewing-the-contents-type outro before we get the previously-discussed "When the Darkness Comes."

The first two-thirds or so of the final track, "Take Me Away," despite its metallic energy has more of a dreamy, dazed feel to it, but with a dark undercurrent, like a perfectly pleasant day with an ominously-dark sky looming on the horizon or a trip about to go bad (lyrically the song is quite dark throughout with lines like "Now we got another dead one, uh / Palpitating on the bed one, uh / Suffocating in the head one, uh / Blood draining from the red wine surgery"). The trip does indeed go bad around that two-third mark, leading up to Johnson screaming "Die!" and this strange, unsettling kind of mini-breakdown, which is at least the best way I can think to describe it. On the other side of the last time through the chorus—another catchy one!—how does the song close? Breakdown. Chef’s kiss.

Johnson is clearly at the forefront of artists pushing alternative music in general forward, true to his stated intention. The distinctions of genre are in many cases becoming increasingly irrelevant, and Johnson is not just a case-in-point but part of the reason. In fact, he has described rock as an energy as much as anything else, and like one-time collaborators Bring Me the Horizon, his desire to push himself creatively and the ability to execute that desire in seamlessly-integrating various sounds and influences while still maintaining a distinct sound is yielding often-surprising and consistently-excellent results.

MANY EYES-"MYSTIC CORD" AND "REVELATION"

The unfortunate and contentious dissolution of metalcore legends Every Time I Die has a silver lining, at least, and that is that the former members have not gone gently into that good night but continue to body slam us in one way or another. Many Eyes, helmed by former ETID vocalist Keith Buckley, have now released two singles in “Mystic Cord” and “Revelation” that comfortably sit sonically between ETID and another of Buckley’s projects in the supergroup The Damned Things. This makes perfect sense, too, when you consider that as Buckley stated in an October 2023 interview with Brooklyn Vegan, after Hatebreed’s Jamey Jasta encouraged Buckley to meet what became the other two-thirds of Many Eyes in Charlie and Nick Bellmore, they bonded over “the alternative scene that we kind of grew up in, and we mixed that with the hardcore stuff that we had known.“ The early returns—which we’ll discuss shortly in more detail—are very promising. Further, for Buckley, it signals a fresh start, and in a much bigger and more important way than simply “a new band.” Similar to the journey of Caleb Shomo of Beartooth, Buckley has done a tremendous amount of work on himself, starting with the major decision to face his demons—or in this case devil—in alcohol. Though it may be tempting to read the lyrics to “Revelation” as referring to possible bad blood from the ETID break-up, in that same Brooklyn Vegan interview Buckley stated:

This was about me wrestling with the anger that I had, but not towards anyone specifically; it was about the idea of alcoholism and what it had done to my life and that it put all my relationships in jeopardy, and that eventually it just came to identify my relationships entirely. So I kind of anthropomorphized the vice of alcoholism, and then obviously because I was reading the Bible a lot, I used a metaphor of just seeing it as the devil itself, which, the more I came to think about it, the more it actually felt true. It really was the most powerful evil that I ever faced, and it had so many different forms and it was so sneaky and it was just such a liar. I felt like I could take all the anger and re-channel it into something that I could actually control and defeat, which was alcoholism, and it’s not just beating it and moving on; it’s beating it and facing it and showing it to other people.

Thematically, Many Eyes reflects this profound shift in Buckley’s life and worldview:

As time went on and I got more into my sobriety, I realized that I could start writing about the positive things moving forward instead of the negative things behind me. I realized that that came with the patience of the divine timing; I don’t know why it took so long, but when the lyrics were needed, I was at a position where I could really convey myself in a way that explains that I’ve overcome things, and I’m only looking forward, as a way to help people and to move on. There’s nothing in my view that’s materialistic, I don’t care about trying to play a Super Bowl halftime show, I’m not putting a band together so I could do things that I’ve never done before. I just really feel like this is where I’m supposed to be, and these lyrics that I have that came out are all about positive change, and trying to get that across to other people who need to make positive changes.

I can and will always support that.

“Mystic Cord” feels like a more straightforward version of something from ETID’s From Parts Unknown era, a song that is ready-made to cause a circle pit. It’s a high energy track that scratches all the right itches. “Revelation,” with a music video reminiscent of Nirvana’s ”Smells Like Teen Spirit,” pulls precisely zero punches sounding at times quite a bit like the beardier end of Every Time I Die’s spectrum, the heavier parts setting up the more polished chorus that showcases Buckley’s singing and the modernized 90s rock influences Buckley highlights in the aforementioned interview. The chorus also has to my ear the ghost of some 2000s Killswitch Engage-type metalcore choruses in there musically if not as much vocally. The part after the second time through the chorus and to close out the song—particularly that riff—would have to be my favorite part of the song; it reminds me so much of something and I’ve been racking my brain but can’t come up with the song. I’m going to source this one to the Comments section—help me out! Buckley’s line “I rebuilt this heart by hand” calls to mind something Mark Freeman has talked about with recovery from mental illness in the concept of rebuilding the engine while driving the car—driving the car being living one’s life and the engine being what powers that life. Will the engine be designed to run on the fuel of fear and anxiety, “a reactive engine” that takes one places one does not want to go, or can it be re-designed to run cleaner and more proactively, fueled by values and things one cares about?

According to Alternative Press, the band’s debut album will be released by Jamey Jasta’s Perseverance Media Group at a future date. I am eager to hear what more they have in store for us.

MEGAN THEE STALLION-"COBRA (ROCK REMIX)" FEATURING SPIRITBOX

It’s starting to feel a little like the height of the nü metal era when rap and nü metal regularly crossed streams with features, collaborations, and tours such as the Family Values Tour. Today, a new generation of artists are reviving this trend in the mainstream such as Bring Me the Horizon trading features with Lil Uzi Vert, with metalcore replacing nü metal (indeed, for a variety of reasons, metalcore is the new nü metal, if not at the same peak level of popularity). Lil Uzi Vert’s Pink Tape doesn’t just have the Bring Me the Horizon feature on “Werewolf,” a song that has some Korn vibes and a lot of Deftones, but has a System of a Down cover and a collaboration with Babymetal as well. Many of the current generation of both rappers and metalcore bands grew up on a steady diet of both rap and nü metal (and other types of heavy and alternative music), so the collaborations make sense and the influences are clear. Especially given the absence of heavy music from the mainstream for some time now—and with the evolution of both rap and metalcore—the trend is back with a wrinkle and very welcome.

Megan Thee Stallion’s style on this rock remix of “Cobra” has been “djentified” in what is largely standard fare for Spiritbox. From the Spiritbox perspective, staying close to their sonic hallmarks makes perfect sense; as with Bring Me the Horizon’s collaboration with Ed Shereen, for example, writing a song that deviates from the familiar risks squandering the opportunity to expose their music to a much wider audience as a song like this is not released specifically for the band’s core fans, but rather has the much bigger artist’s fans as their intended audience. There is no need to take any additional risks here when you know what works, as a new variable has already been introduced in the collaborating artist and incorporating their own sonic hallmarks. Nevertheless, and this is a credit to the talent of both parties, this “Cobra” remix feels fresh and in no way forced.

The spacey, eerie atmospherics add depth to the song and complement the lyrics dealing with dark depression, pain, and betrayal. The chorus features Spiritbox vocalist Courtney LaPlante’s signature ethereal and almost-otherworldly singing. Megan Thee Stallion’s delivery, especially when it gets more aggressive, and the lyrical content both feel entirely at home in these heavier confines, and LaPlante’s screams exploding onto the scene later in the track only underscore the barely-controlled angst coming from Megan Thee Stallion. Overall, the remix is extremely well-done and is yet more evidence on their part for why Spiritbox is one of the hottest names in metal. Credit Megan Thee Stallion as well for taking a creative risk that paid off in elevating the original.