THE NEW WHAT NEXT

BY NICHOLAS SENIOR

PHOTO BY EBRU YILDIZ

ACTIVITY Hometown: New York, New York Album: Unmask Whoever out now via Western Vinyl RIYL: Mysteries. The Unmasking. Happy Accidents.

“I've been in bands where it’s a fight to have it not be a train wreck when everyone plays together, and this one just never was,” Activity vocalist Travis Johnson reflects. “[Activity] always felt tight, and I guess, though we've never really talked about it, that we each just internally recognized what everyone was good at and got to where we could play off of those things, sense each other's instincts. I only realized that later, maybe when we were listening to the songs in the studio.”

That feeling of accidental purpose just pours out of the speakers while spinning Unmask Whoever. While the title may give off Scooby Doo vibes, there’s something much more intense and serious at play here. It’s like a masterful crime thriller, unraveling layer after layer of intrigue and suspense – if your favorite mystery binge were brought to life in the form of an experimental indie band, that is. The key difference, Unmask Whoever grows more addictive with each successive spin. This is glorious stuff here.

One of those interesting surprises is a song that references the best C.S. Lewis story, The Great Divorce (sorry if you disagree), as Johnson recalls:

“I never really think, ‘I need to write a song about this thing or that thing.’ I just sit down to write and see what comes out, and see what it could mean after a line or two, then go deeper into that. At the time, we were working on ‘Calls Your Name,’ and had been reading that Lewis book and talking about it, and in it, all of these people are moving farther and farther away from each other with no contact. They want to be left completely alone. Napoleon is in one of those houses, muttering bitterly to himself constantly. So, it just kind of came out as I sat down to write. I do think it’s a really terrifying, and also beautiful book. We can collapse in on ourselves and allow resentment to rot us from within. It’s very easy to do, and very easy to do without realizing we’re doing it. And a lot of times, we’d prefer the miserable satisfaction of that resentment to doing some painful but liberating turning around.” �� NEW NOISE

PHOTO BY JOSH VEGA

CONSTRICT Hometown: Los Angeles, California Album: No Eden EP out now via Flatspot Records RIYL: Snakes. Middle seats. Sheer Terror.

Everything about No Eden is meant to suffocate the listener and squeeze out every ounce of life from the listener. Their very apropos name means that Constrict are the anacondas of the metallic hardcore world – massive, heavy, and more than a little scary. They also want to snap your neck, but that is very good in this case, as No Eden’s very short and sweet runtime features some delightful death metal riffs, and a pace that no snake could keep up with. Wisely, the record’s themes are no less terrifying, as vocalist Anthonie Gonazalez notes.

“I wanted to play on the idea that maybe humanity deserves to suffer. It needs to be driven into insanity into chaos, because it needs a reset. What I wanted to say with this record is each of us has the capability of committing violent acts on each other, and it is our responsibility to admit we are the cause of all our suffering. We are pointing the barrel in our direction and pulling the trigger.” ��

SWALLOW THE RAT Hometown: Auckland, New Zealand Album: Living Room, out now via Shifting Sounds RIYL: Love Songs. Dreams. Traveling.

“Some might say I’m partial to being a bit dramatic and sensitive, so my subject matter is usually dark,” vocalist Sam Vercoe states. “My wife would like me to write her a nice love song, but so far I haven’t been able to bring myself to do that. Certainly loss, regret, and navigating life are core themes that underpin the album, but also the hope of getting to a point where people feel at ease with who they are and their surroundings.”

With apologies to Mrs. Vercoe, thank God this record isn’t weighed down by trite love songs – those are less appetizing than a cooked rat. Instead, Living Room, is imbued with a glorious duality. Its songs regale with tales of various harsh realities, while the psychedelic noisy post-punk revels in grimy yet transcendent dream worlds. In theme and music, Living Room is grungy, with a distinct haunted tone. Swallow The Rat imbue the record with delightful Sonic Youth vibes, and should please anyone looking for something different. ��

FEARING Hometown: Oakland, California Album: Shadow out now via Funeral Party RIYL: Computer Programming. Acceptance. Empathy.

PHOTO BY ADAM DEGROSS

“It’s a feature, not a bug!” Since the advent of computer programming, that’s been the standard excuse for any flaws in code. For those of us who feel mentally or physically broken, it can also be a mantra of acceptance – one that is much more easily repeated than believed. Coming to terms with that feature, and no longer calling it a bug, is immensely challenging, but it can also help us own our “inadequacies” rather than be owned by them. Fearing face that fear of personal failure head-on, through stirring dark post-punk that reveals more with each listen. Vocalist James Adam Rogers pours his soul out on Shadow, a resplendent record of aching pain and power, of coming to grips with the unfairness of life. “The songs on this album are undoubtedly melancholy and dramatic,” Rogers recalls. “Reading each song’s lyrics as prose makes them seem like a cry for help, but it really is me coming to terms with borderline personality disorder, and seeing depression and anxiety as a feature rather than my entire being.”

“I honestly try to start each new song with an idea of what I’ll write about,” Rogers continues. “I pick scenes from movies I enjoy, or try to think of alien abduction stories, but no matter where it starts, it always ends on hopelessness and despair, because that’s what my brain focuses on. I would feel comfortable calling it a cry for help if I was willing to accept help given, but it’s just me coming to terms with it, accepting it, and trying to make what I can from it. Having said all that, I recognize that these are not unique feelings, the majority of people in my life are heavily depressed and treat it in their own ways. I choose to focus on it, write about it, and feel it heavily while we perform.” �� PHOTO BY LINDA ONTIVEROS- RUGGLES HOLEHOG

Hometown: Sacramento, California

Album: Radiation Blues out now via Addicted to Chaos Records

RIYL: Bubbles. Friends. Fast-Paced Punk.

When you’ve named your newest venture after going all-out, you better fucking deliver.

Holehog laughs at any challenge, as Radiation Blues is about as aggressively full-on as any hardcore punk record I’ve ever heard. Formed from Sacramento punk royalty (DCOI!,

Brain Rash, Monster Squad, Ssyndrom), Holehog revel in two seemingly disparate mindsets: furiously screaming about the absolute shit state of the world, and imploring listeners to fucking do something about it. Hardcore punk has rarely been this positive and inspirational, and that’s clearly the band’s intention, as vocalist Jason Ruggles explains: “I've created my own bubble in the world in which I live and have complete control of. I guess I just want to share my experiences and shine my light through our music, and inspire listeners to do the same. So, this project didn't have a specific theme we wanted to talk really. I just wanted to live my best life with my friends, and we would find the words.” TONER Hometown: Oakland, California Album: Silk Road, out now via Smoking Room RIYL: Colors. Couples. Expressionist Art.

Do you remember a decade ago going to the store to buy printer ink cartridges? Remember how damn expensive those micro-batches of color were? Yet, if you had a decent printer, they produced wonderful, vibrant color printouts of whatever you had on your computer. The way they worked was by pairing batches of colors inside the cartridges to create unique color palettes. While the lovely musical choices that comprise Silk Road aren’t the result of a computer printer, they were completed in batches, which clearly resulted in such a wonderfully varied output.

“My approach to this record was a bit different than usual,” band mastermind Samuelito Cruz notes. “All the songs were all written in couples at different periods. So, when I would start writing the next two or three, I would try to stray from the last ones I wrote and channel a different influence through each track.”

I’ve never come across such a colorful record that oozes personality this pleasantly. Dream punk of the highest order is the name of the game here, and Cruz and friends have released the perfect Summer drive record – just keep your windows up for the

time being. ��

PHOTO BY WOMBATFIRE

MOON DESTROYS Hometown: Atlanta, Georgia Album: Maiden Voyage EP out now via Brutal Panda RIYL: Dreams. Great Films. Beauty.

One of the key attributes of dreams is their ability, no matter how short, to stick with you, but what lingers isn’t the images or sounds but the feeling you’re left to wrestle with. In the waking world, every aspect of our nighttime adventures is abstract – details are blurred, faces are familiar yet fearsome. It is within this other dream dimension that Maiden Voyage sets sail. Given that the duo’s past work includes Torche and Royal Thunder, it’s not surprising that these riffs are fuzzy and massive. What’s most impressive is how utterly immersive this short first excursion is. It’s not hazy and smoky in the way that only the best stoner metal is, nor is it angular like most prog would be. Instead, it exists, and it’s awesome, though it’s hard to define. That was very intentional, as guitarist Juan Montoya notes:

“Most songs develop from visions, either from a dream or that enthusiasm one gets after a great movie. I close my eyes, take a deep breath while holding the guitar, and put myself in a state of mind where I can let go of familiar sensations and get lost in my mind and my visions, all while consumed with the music. It runs through me as I forget about this world and take myself to an unfamiliar place. In this instance, it was that galactic journey.” ��

PHOTO BY ELLE SCHNEIDER

DISHEVELED CUSS Hometown: Los Angeles, California Album: Disheveled Cuss out May 8 via Sargent House RIYL: Cognitive Dissonance. British Swear Words. Art Projects.

There’s something amazing about hearing other cultures’ curse words – even if they don’t register as naughty to our American ears, they carry a certain verve and pleasure all their own. Like how ‘bollocks’ sounds much more endearing than ‘shit,’ Disheveled

Cuss uses the same alphabet but speaks a much different language than Nick Reinhart’s more renowned act, Tera Melos. Both absolutely feature fuckloads of dexterous fretwork courtesy of Reinhart, but there’s an elegance and comfort that’s immediately arresting the second Disheveled Cuss starts up. While Melos traffic in mathy prog rock,

Disheveled lean hard into ’90s alternative. Think Pixies or Teenage Fanclub, and you’re halfway there (living on a prayer!). Of course, it’s fun as hell, too. “I’d just wanted to make a band like this for a long time,” Reinhart notes. “These types of songs had been hinted at in Tera Melos for a long time. I love playing Tera Melos music – there’s just this magical, freak show quality to creating and performing it, but I don’t really care to listen to that sort of thing all that much. I think whatever the Disheveled

Cuss sound is, it’s just a big part of my personality that I haven’t exactly been able to ever express musically, and it’s really nice to finally have the opportunity to do so.” “I was real curious to make a record of my songs without all the flashy stuff, like weird sounds, or insane drum fills, or subversive musical concepts,” he states. “I had never really done that before. This band isn’t supposed to be an art project. It’s funny, because

I would describe it to my friends as my ‘normal’ rock band, and at one point someone was like, ‘Yeah, you should stop calling it that.’”�� PHOTO BY JULIA SULLIVAN NITE

Hometown: San Francisco, California

Album: Darkness Silence Mirror Flame out now via Creator-Destructor Records

RIYL: Pyromania. Cleansing. Phantom of the Opera.

I recently watched the Phantom of the Opera play for the first time, and underneath the classic love triangle at the center of the drama lies a very pernicious darkness. What’s most striking is how entrancing the music of the night can be, its meaning certainly subjective to each individual’s soul. NITE specialize in a rather glorious version of dark music, one that is equal parts familiar, fresh, and fucking fantastic. Their retro-styled heavy metal will bring listeners back to that date when Andrew Lloyd Webber’s famed play first debuted in 1986 – when extreme metal wasn’t clearly defined, so you could play dark and melodic and wild, and no one cared about genre labels. NITE is all of those things, but it’s most obviously the musical equivalent of two devil horns in the air. It’s music that speaks to and warms the soul. “This album and NITE as a whole is our attempt to honor the music that shaped us, while delivering honest songs about our own struggles and strife,” guitarist and vocalist Van

Labrakis says. “Our own paths. The underlying theme of this album is fire, as a poetic way to express struggle, perseverance, hope, and belief in one’s own strength. �� HELFRO Hometown: Reykjavík, Iceland Album: Helfro out now via Season of Mist Records RIYL: Contrast. Dopamine. Cacophony.

PHOTO BY VOID REVELATIONS

If you know, you know. Any batch of Icelandic extreme metal that is mighty enough to make it to American audiences is going to be a glorious batch of frostbitten fury. Helfro are somehow no different and impressively unique. Their brand of black/death is heavy on the atmosphere, but this way too purposefully frenetic to be atmospheric. Instead, the raging cauldron of dissonant riffs and masterful work behind the drum kit melds into an addictive musical substance that will grab hold of your ears, your mind, and most likely your soul if you aren’t careful. Aw, when shit is this good, just relish that sweet, extreme metal dopamine rush. Interestingly, their musical drug plays into the themes of

the record beautifully. “I wanted to talk about addiction and the emotional experiences that accompany addiction,” drummer and vocalist Ragnar says. “It started out very matter-of-fact, revolving around substance abuse, but in the process of writing the lyrics, the whole idea expanded, and it became more about how one can become addicted to negative thoughts, sadness, and hopelessness. Some of the lyrics also explicitly deal with loss and

loneliness.” �� NEW NOISE

IRIST Hometown: Atlanta, Georgia Album: Order of the Mind out now via Nuclear Blast RIYL: Captain Planet. Good Instincts. The It Factor.

You know those people who just have “it” – whether it’s a magnetism that makes people like them, the ability to always outsmart you, or even a seemingly natural athletic ability. Irist is comprised of five folks who are all individually impressive but came together to become something even greater than the sum of their parts. That goes for their collective musical influences, too. Bits of Gojira, Mastodon, The Dillinger Escape Plan, and Sepultura seep into Irist’s musical melting pot, but somehow Order of the Mind pulls off the rare trick of understanding why their influences were amazing, and channeling that rather than simply sounding like them. The name of the game here is thunderous, off-kilter riffing, and a progressive rhythmic bend, but what stands out more than anything is a continuous yet shape-shifting groove that penetrates the soul. It’s clear that Irist compose using the feel of the music more than simply writing interesting intellectual compositions. Guitarist Pablo Davila echoes that mindset: “Our priority is always to create a specific mood rather than to focus on technicality or staying true to a genre or tradition. We relied a lot on instincts and abstract ideas at the beginning of the writing sessions for this album.” It’s clear that Irist are destined to be mentioned among their favorite artists in due time. ��

NOBRO Hometown: Montreal, Quebec Album: Sick Hustle out now via Dine Alone Records RIYL: Sarcasm. Being Genuine. Josie and the Pussycats.

PHOTO BY CHRIS MCARTHUR

Asking about the story of a band’s name is the lamest fucking question ever (and I promise I didn’t do that here), but every once in a while, that story speaks to the heart of why a band is so awesome. NOBRO is – you guessed it – a band absent any bros, and this quartet of Canadians kick as much as their currently more famous loud rock bros, METZ. However, there’s a cohesion and sense of play that highlights how impressively these play off each other’s strengths. Rock records are rarely this brash, fun, and carefree. Let’s do some math: four ladies + four of the best rock jams in the past decade equals what exactly? A good fucking time, that’s what. So how did that name come about?

“I know this is going to sound super fucking lame,” they laugh. “But do you know that famous quote, ‘Be the change you want to see in the world?’ Well, I wanted to be in the most badass, shredding riffs, punk, garage rock, all-female band ever, but there weren’t any, so we decided to make one. When trying to find female guitar players, there were so many guys that offered to fill the position, and all I kept saying again and again was, ‘No, Bro.’ It was a joke… and now it’s our name.” �� PHOTO BY MICHAEL THORN TRUE BODY

Hometown: Richmond, Virginia

Album: Heavenly Rhythms for the Uninitiated out now via Funeral Party Records

RIYL: Paranormal Activity. Shared Community. Religious Imagery. The best music is a spiritual experience, a set of interconnected written and musical notes that smacks your soul around for good measure. There’s a transcendent nature to it that allows to speak to different people where they are and force them to reckon with their place in the world. These glorious records don’t have to wreck you. Instead, there can be a sense of shared community among those who connect with the sounds and syllables. Heavenly Rhythms for the Uninitiated is a fully-realized version of spiritual musical experience – a goth pop dance party that leans on traditional Christian imagery to tell soul-wrenching tales that really fuck me up. Yet, behind the despair and minor key moodiness belies a triumphant quality only the tippy top tunes of this style can attain. Interestingly, True Body’s latest body of work came in part due to seemingly paranormal events: “A lot of the songs seem to materialize outside of our control, as if our hands are being led,” vocalist Isabel Morena-Riaño recalls. “There are multiple cases of songs being written in fits of amnesia or files appearing on our hard drives. In terms of writing, there is no set process due to how ceaselessly our lives revolve around music in general. It is how we communicate, so it doesn’t necessarily begin or end anywhere.” ��

PHOTO BY DAN RAWE

WVRM Hometown: Greenville, South Carolina Album: Colony Collapse out now via Prosthetic Records RIYL: Iambic Pentameter. Rhyming Couplets. High RPM (riffs per minute).

You’ve heard about slam poetry, how about grind poetry? Behind the immediate outburst of sonic terror, WVRM slither into your cranium with some seriously thought-provoking audio violence. Their brand of Southern metal takes liberal doses of grind, sludge, and doom, but it’s the unexpected addition of unique instruments (violin, Chinese prayer bowl, cell, and Tibetan prayer bells) that lingers long after the distorted outbursts. WVRM rally against a society that has left behind the worker bees in favor of keeping each Queen Bee fat with honey. Colony Collapse beautifully reckons with a world gone mad, and is as insightful as it is filled to the brim with the best grind in years. Vocalist Ian Nix reflects on the album’s themes:

“We’re all experiencing something one way or another within society and within our own lives that also reflects what’s going on in society. I think we wanted to not only talk about real things that are happening, but also how that shapes our own lives, relationships, and thoughts. We wanted to do our historical moment justice through art and from every angle we could. It can’t just be straight-up political, it has to be poetic. It has to touch you in some way. It can’t just be angry and aggressive, it has to be about love, as well as loss. A commentary on everything the heart experiences in this current state of

civilization.” �� PHOTO BY JOSH BOOKHALTER

WARES Hometown: Edmonton, Alberta Album: Survival out now via Mint Records

RIYL: Equality. Anti-fascists. Revolution.

No one told me the anti-fascist revolution would feature such an enigmatic, soaring, and soothing score. Cassia Hardy and her band of self-described “Prairie Queers” might seem like unexpected leaders of said revolt, but Survival is as impressive a rallying call as anything else you’re likely to see or hear. Echoes of Arthur Russell, Against Me!, and even Metallica highlight this gloriously unique take in indie rock. However, it’s Hardy’s personal yet universal story from the fear of the closet to the power of community that hits the hardest. Survival is a literal scream for equality and a place in a hostile world, but it’s also a call out to those who want to unite under a more inclusive way of things. Hardy’s words do more justice than mine will:

“Talking or singing through past trauma, and unlearning harmful social norms, begins and ends in community,” she states. “Spending most of my life closeted built a lot of walls, preventing me from reaching out to people I knew could help me, or even love me. I wanted to talk about destroying those barriers in myself and in the world at large, meeting friends and lovers and comrades to build a network of mutual aid. That's the only way forward, to overcoming climate change, pandemics, and capitalism.”�� NEW NOISE