New Noise Magazine Issue #27

MORE INFO: PURENOISE.NET / BETTERASHTHANDUST.COM

knocked loose laugh tracks CD/LP/Digital September 16th 2016

New Album Dungeon Bastards July 27 on LP/CD

Kicker “Rendered Obsolete” LP

Deny the Cross “Alpha Ghoul” LP

Victims “Sirens” LP/CD

Necrot “The Labyrinth” LP/CD

Spazz “Sweatin’ 3 Skatin’ Satan & Katon” CD

www.tankcrimes.com

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ver the past 10 to 15 years, the film industry’s interest in comic book adaptations—especially those that are rated R—has skyrocketed massively. Specifically, independent titles like “Dredd” 3D, “Kingsman: The Secret Service,” and “Sin City,” as well as 2016’s runaway hit, “Deadpool,” have hit major home runs critically and only further increased audience demand.

tinely killed in the line of duty, he is resurrected each time to return to his patrol.

Now, with his directorial debut, “Officer Downe,” having premiered at the L.A. Film Festival in June, Slipknot percussionist Shawn “Clown” Crahan has thrown his hat in the ring in a major way with a film that will excite not only Slipknot and comic fans, but fans of ridiculously violent, colorful action movies as well.

In the comic book industry, the main draw for creators doing independently published titles is 100 percent creative control. For creator Joe Casey, however, he took things a step further by also writing the screenplay for the film adaptation. “Joe wrote [the comic] and he wanted to make it a movie and see if he could bring it from that, which is really cool,” Crahan enthuses. “All it ever was, was the one graphic novel.

I really liked it, because it has a lot of drawings and extra stuff that showed the thought process behind it and kind of left it open-ended; leaving it open-ended is perfect for a director to come in and go, ‘Okay, this is the dream, and I’m going to turn it into the nightmare.’”

Adapted from the Man Of Action/Image Comics title by writer Joe Casey and artist Chris Burnham, the film centers around Officer Terrence Downe, a supercop so committed to cleaning up crime in Los Angeles that, despite being rou-

As a father of four, a business owner, and the percussionist for one of the biggest rock bands in the world, Crahan is one of the busiest men in the industry. However, like his film’s main character, he will never let small obstacles like life—or

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the lack thereof—stop him from completing his mission. “We did two weeks of preproduction and four weeks of the movie, totaling six weeks altogether,” he explains. “I left on a Friday, the next day I was in preproduction for our next tour. So, I went from a tour to a six week movie to a tour; I wasn’t in my own home for six and a half months.” around, but I’m very particular, and it was very cool. They were In addition to the movie’s over laying around because they the top action and its juxtaposi- were waiting for the right motion of gorgeous colors and hor- ment, and they just fit.” rid filth, it is also complemented by a wonderful soundtrack While Hollywood has grown that further enhances the ex- fond of huge ensemble casts in perience. “With a movie and its hero films, former “Sons of a budget like this, there’s only Anarchy” star, Kim Coates— so much everybody can do and who plays Officer Downe himyou wanna do all the best things self—proves that all one really while you can,” Crahan says. “I needs to fight crime is a badge, write songs every day, whether a gun, and a shit-eating grin. “In it’s a voice memo or something this [movie], there’s one superon my computer—guitar, piano, hero and his name is Terrence drums, whatever—I write ev- Downe. And it’s motherfucking ery day, music’s my god. I have restricted,” Coates says. “So, if a partner named Kyle Sherrod, you want to come along for this we have a company called Psy- ride, trust me, you’re going to chosis Industries, so we make love it so much and want to see sounds that mess with your it again and again and again, behead. So, the movie is he and I cause the action scenes are so messing with your head a lot. off the charts.” .....

I have a lot of things laying

Portland, Ore.’s Kelley O’Death is not only the Content Manager and sole copyeditor of New Noise, they also created this column dedicated to bringing queer and trans musicians to the forefront and asking them to speak their minds. Aside from editing and writing, they spend time volunteering at SMYRC, Portland’s Sexual and Gender Minority Youth Resource Center. In this special edition of FQP, I want to shed light on the inspiring work and mind of an individual attempting—and in my estimation, succeeding—to help spread awareness of these important issues and individuals. Whether they are mindfully digging into the abstract world or sending me motivational cat memes, O’Death is someone I turn to when trying to grasp the depths of the conversation and has helped keep my own mind open and full of hope.

the ugliness the world throws at them. […] It’s something I absolutely wish I had when I was young. Maybe I wouldn’t be as fucked up now.

ON AWARENESS

ON FACING THE WORLD

I don’t fit neatly into any of the popular narratives of what it looks like to be trans or queer, so explaining my identity and convincing others to accept it without argument is always a challenge. […] Instead, I immerse myself in that world by doing work that I think will benefit the community, like providing resources for queer youth or helming the column, but I still mostly feel like an outsider and an alien.

Sometimes it feels like bringing cake and ice cream to a party I wasn’t invited to. [Laughs]

ON DOING CRITICAL WORK

Part of my impetus for getting involved with SMYRC and starting the column was to assert myself as a member of the community without asking to be accepted based on my own merits as a human. Call it fear of rejection or low self-esteem.

[Laughs] But, selfish, neurotic bullshit aside, the thing that keeps me going is the hope that supporting inclusive queer spaces will help others—especially young people—feel valid and important, and help them find resources to circumvent

As awareness of issues surrounding gender and sexuality grows—and it definitely is growing by leaps and bounds— there are a lot of conflicting ideologies circulating about the direction we should be moving in.

My opinions are no more “correct” than anyone else’s, but what I personally hope to see as we delve further into these conversations is a focus on inclusion and respect for one another’s humanity above all else. […] I think it’s counterproductive to focus only on fighting people rather than systems or on pigeonholing individuals based solely on identity rather than ideology, and I hope our endgame looks less like a revised stratification of identities and more like an acceptance of their fluidity.

ON SUPERHEROES

My favorite comic character is a woman-abusing rapist pile of shit, which totally won’t win me any points with my fellow feminists. [Laughs] As an absurdist, I have to admit to loving The Comedian from “Watchmen.” […] He chooses to be free from our culture’s imposed morality, but is wounded by its absence, so instead of choosing to create his own subjective meaning that is pro-humanity, he becomes violently misanthropic. Ultimately, he ends up miserable, alone, and dead on a

New York City sidewalk—spoilers! I see him as a reminder to create positive meaning in my own life, to force myself to be accountable to other people rather than allowing myself to be seduced by meaninglessness and fatalism. I took your fun question and made it all heavy.

[Laughs] It’s my curse!

ON BEING FEATURED IN THEIR OWN COLUMN HAS META GONE TOO FAR?

Meta can never go too far! Everything is a reference to a reference to a reference. History is made of circles, not lines… and other things Jaden Smith has probably tweeted before... Seriously, though, I always strive to make FQP a place where queer individuals’ voices are presented relatively unfettered by outside perspectives, including my own. […] But, to pull my own covers, I probably also utilize that policy to avoid having to discuss my own worldview and, therefore, risk being drawn and quartered in the square of public opinion. Which is unfair and hypocritical when I’m asking others to do just that. I don’t love being the center of attention, but I think I have a responsibility to come correct about who I am if I’m going to continue preaching the gospel of honesty and self-acceptance.

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To support SMYRC, go to newavenues.org/get-involved.

FQP also encourages you to seek out the queer youth centers and outreach programs near you!

NEW NOISE 7

we’re definitely just getting started and stoked on seeing where this goes.”

In spring, the band teased the world with a three song preview of the glorious maelstrom to come via their official Bandcamp page. The politically charged lyrics in “Scourge of Empire” feel right at home during this sideshow of an election year. “We wanted to go for the throat like that and not pull any punches,” Colohan says. “It’s definitely an insane moment to be living through, and for all the reasons that angry political or protest music was ever relevant, it’s urgently needed now.”

HARDCORE SUPERGROUP SUPREME- SECT

PHOTO: CHUCK JOHNSON

INTERVIEW WITH VOCALIST CHRIS COLOHAN BY JAMEZ ALVAREZ

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esperate times call for desperate measures. While our country, world, and species face wildly uncertain times ahead, it’s no wonder that the fates have willed the wildly prophetic and abrasive music of SECT into existence.

The hardcore supergroup features luminaries from bands like Earth Crisis, Fall Out Boy, Catharsis, Burning Love, and Cursed. Boasting a wicked pedigree and desire to simultaneously open eyes and shatter ear drums, SECT dropped

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hree friends in love with crafting songs à la Motown decided to get together and create the contagious act that is Empty Houses. The Detroit based trio are riding behind the blast of energy that is Daydream, their debut LP released by Sargent House in June. What separates Empty Houses from most bands is their exceptional contrasting of sad, nostalgic lyrics with the bliss of upbeat swing pop. Pianist and composer Adam Mercer comments on that dichotomy, noting, “I love that kind of contrast.

I feel it’s a little more interesting and unique.” This allows the songs to be sung and played honestly and the band to find new waves to keep structurally simple songs interesting and fun.

This honesty embeds a familiarity in the 10 tracks on Daydream. When playing the songs, vocalist Ali Shea finds new ways to attach herself to each part. “I find something different about [playing

8 NEW NOISE

their crushing self-titled self-released debut record—with some help from their pals at Deathwish, Inc.—on Aug. 5.

“I spent a summer on the road with [drummer] Andy [Hurley] when he played in Enabler, on a Southern Lord tour with Burning Love,” vocalist Chris Colohan says of SECT’s origins. “We got tight and talked about wanting to do something like this together. All the other guys in the band knew each other the songs] that feels like an emotive kind of thing, where you’re singing along and it’s super upbeat and fun and catchy, but it has this heartache to it,” Shea reflects. “I think that’s how a lot of people live their lives day-to-day.” In that sense, Empty Houses rally behind taking sad thoughts and finding a way to make them hopeful, pushing forward in the process.

“Falling Away” is a tune that highlights infectious melodies unique and innate to Empty Houses’ songwriting, sprinkled with a hopeless optimism in the lyrics.

Shea comments on the song, “It is such an upbeat thing, and it has a sense of all of these things that you want, but you don’t have in your life.”

Empty Houses know how to step aside the usual and express themselves in other ways, with “Mercy” sitting smack in the middle of Daydream. The track is a jazzy tune without much of a kick to it. “That’s not the kind of stuff that I

through Earth Crisis—which [guitarist] Jimmy [Chang] and Andy have both played in—and other bands through the years, and they also wanted to do something new. The two just merged together into SECT.” “We’re all really far apart geographically, we don’t have the luxury of jamming out the evolution of every song,” Colohan continues. “It’s just a logistical juggle getting all our schedules lined up, but

PHOTO: RINA MOVSISYAN

In the wake of the violence and social unrest of this past July, SECT released a new song online entitled “Curfew.”

“The song is a year old at this point,” Colohan shares, “written in the wake of Baltimore and Freddie Gray. But, there’s a new Freddie Gray every other night of the week at this point, so unfortunately, it is prescient. […] It’s really a matter of how many more people have to die before we realize that we’re missing the real conversation, which is about the protection of money and power over the well-being of people, and how much longer we want to dignify the entire system that racket belongs to.”

Pick up SECT’s blazing debut album before society completely unravels.

SECT is angry, passionate music for angry, impassioned times.

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SWINGIN' SADNESS- EMPTY HOUSES

INTERVIEW WITH ALI SHEA AND ADAM MERCER BY SEAN GONZALEZ normally write,” Mercer comments. The song’s jazzy piano chords were strung together even though Mercer wasn’t entirely sure what to do with them. Much akin to the band’s ability to continue for-

ward in spite of anything, a melody was attached to it—in part, thanks to guitarist Dave Mackinder’s persistence—and it became just one of the many highlights of this dazzling, dreamy album.

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anadian folk punk Seth Anderson’s latest album—part of Joey Cape’s One Week project—came to be thanks to AC/DC. “KJ Jansen, [guitarist and vocalist for Chixdiggit], had been on most of the western Canadian dates [on Cape’s tour],” Anderson says. “But he had taken that night off to watch AC/DC in Edmonton, so a couple hours before soundcheck, I received a call and got to play. KJ loves AC/DC.”

and focused headspace. I think that working under pressure brings out the best sometimes.”

ANOTHER WEEK'S WORK- SETH ANDERSON

Some of the songs that made it onto the record—which was released on June 21—had been written nearly eight years ago, while others were less than a year old. “Before I went to San Francisco, I sent Joey almost 50 songs and let him decide what would make the best record,” Anderson says. “There were some that I thought would make it for sure, but didn’t. It was really interesting to see which ones he wanted to go with. Most are really personal, so I was a little terrified, but in the end, it was nice to get them off my chest.”

INTERVIEW WITH SETH ANDERSO N BY JO HN B. M O O RE

Prior to putting out the One Week album, Anderson self-released three full-lengths of punk-inspired folk and alt country. “Releasing albums independently is really fulfilling, and everything can be 100 percent on your own

terms, which is nice,” he says. “The main objective is for people to hear your music and, hopefully, connect with it in some way though, and I think having a label behind you can be very helpful for that, given that it is the right situation.”

For now, Anderson plans to connect with fans via a fall tour he is currently working on pulling together. After that, he’s thinking about heading back into a studio to record new music.

PINTS & POLITICS- THE BAR STOOL PREACHERS

right now that political systems are failing across the world. I’ve always thought that if you’ve got an opportunity or a soap-box from which you can try to effect positive change, you’ve kinda got a duty to do that.”

done it before, and he wholeheartedly believes in the band. Plus, when we play together, their rider fucking owns, so we get to steal a lot.”

Clearly. But his last minute ditch worked out well for Anderson, who met Cape that night and was eventually asked if he was interested in recording for One Week Records. True to its name, the concept of One Week Records is that a musician records 10 songs in seven days in Cape’s studio. “I find that, no matter how much I prepare for the studio, it is always more difficult than expected,” Anderson says. “Being under the time restraints we were with this project, it kind of forced us into a more creative

INTERVIEW WITH VOCALIST TOM MCFAULL BY JOHN B. MOORE

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rom “God Save the Queen” to Rock Against Racism, punk rock was born out of politics, but for many, punk has morphed from railing against Thatcher and Reagan to singing about farts and high school crushes ignored. Thankfully, The Bar Stool Preachers aren’t against

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s a band who espouse musical diversity, it makes sense that the Austin, Texas, five piece, Fire From The Gods, would preach about unity. Their Rise Records debut, Narrative, is due out on Aug. 26, and the band are using it to protest the rifts in our society. Vocalist AJ Channer explains, “We are a beautiful people; our country and we have to put that out there. It’s more about unity than division from our standpoint. That’s where the name Narrative came from: it’s personal, but at the same time, something we can relate to. We’ve been going on with this whole concept of ‘Unite or Die,’ and that seems to be resonating with people.

I’ve been beaten up by the cops, and I’ve been racially profiled, so I know about that. But I also know how hard it is for our civil servants. It’s more than a racism thing. It’s about social engineering where we are as a people and a civilization.”

It’s clear that Fire From The Gods set themselves apart from other protest

mixing a little politics with their music.

“Writing the lyrics, I don’t want to pull punches, especially in today’s political landscape,” says Tom McFaull, singer for the Brighton, U.K., based punk/ska band. “Proportional representation has died, and I think it’s pretty widely felt groups. “Rage Against The Machine are one of my favorite bands,” Channer says.

“They definitely have a social view that was saying, ‘Fuck the man!’ Instead of saying that, I’d like to kinda hear the man out, but at the same time, tell him, ‘Don’t tread on me.’” The band started out playing more straightforward metalcore, but wanted to take their sound to the next level, so they decided to utilize Channer’s unique upbringing: he was born in the Bronx and raised by a Jamaican family, living in London, L.A., and even Ghana for a time.

Collaborating with producer David Bendeth also worked wonders for the band.

Channer explains, “We were going one direction, like with our song ‘Pretenders,’ where we sound like more traditional metalcore, more what’s recent. So, within December of 2015, when we went to [Bendeth’s studio], House Of Loud, this record basically took a whole new shape.”

PHOTO: SCHOVANEKPHOTOGRAPHY.COM

The Bar Stool Preachers do their duty really fucking well on Blatant Propaganda, their debut full-length. Oakland, Calif.’s Pirate Press distributed the album in the U.S., and the band used crowdfunding to scrape together the capital to record and press on CDs and vinyl. Blatant Propaganda draws on a varied set of influences. “There’s actually a really diverse mix of bands that we listen to,” McFaull says.

“It’s nice, as there are four songwriters and everyone brings their individual styles to the table.” Also certain to have some influence on the band is McFaull’s dad, Colin, who cofounded the classic punk band, Cock Sparrer. “I’m lucky to be really close to my dad,” McFaull says.

“As you’d imagine, it is incredibly helpful to have someone this close to me that’s

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Along with playing a few festivals this summer, The Bar Stool Preachers will be touring Europe and the U.K. with the Street Dogs, and later, with The Slackers. Then, it’s time to start working on their follow-up. Given the recent decision by England to break away from the E.U., they should have plenty of material.

When asked his thoughts on the Brexit vote, McFaull responds, “Apart from it being just mindbogglingly fucking stupid? That democracy is hard when it’s being governed by fear. People are hurting right now, and the Brexit vote was a clear sign of a nation of people scared witless and looking for things to change.

It just broke my heart to see it done so divisively. If people want to effect real change, it’s gotta be inclusive.”

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NEXT GEN RAGE- FIRE FROM THE GODS

INTERVIEW WITH VOCALIST AJ CHANNER BY NICHOLAS SENIOR “It [became] something that was going to change our lives and our perspective on the way we look at heavy music,” he says.

“I don’t mean for the scene, but for us as a band. We grew tremendously when we wrote this record.” Narrative is as unique as Channer, drawing from groove metal,

hardcore, hip hop, and reggae and recalling Sevendust, P.O.D., and Candiria. The music doesn’t fit into any neat labels, which suits the band’s unifying message very well. Many are happy to place blame, but Fire From The Gods seek to bring everyone together.

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NEW NOISE 9

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aging at the speed of light with barreling hardcore punk anthems both wicked and lean, Helsinki’s rapid wrecking ball of a crew, Kohti Tuhoa, waste exactly zero seconds with their intense and punishing onslaught. Glistening feedback transforms into whipping pit excursions, fist to the sky headbangers, and scorching dark noise. This is a band with a real spirituality: mean and true, frothing with a burning anarchic spirit. The band’s debut full-length, Rutiinin Orja, hit the masses July 29 on venerable label, Southern Lord.

“Everyone’s pissed off and frustrated since everything around us is getting more and more fucked up,” guitarist Ville Valavuo says. “I grew up with punk rock.

Everything about it had a huge impact on me when I was a kid, and there were a lot of things that really stuck: political views, values, and understanding you didn’t need anybody else to get things done. I never felt like I needed a lot of money or a career in some company that’s doing stuff I’m not even remotely interested in.”

The sheer and bracing speed of Kohti Tuhoa’s music is both a visual and metaphorical glacier, channeling the rage and will of the proletariat and juxtaposing it with a sort of optical spectacle of contemporary industrialization. The band chug through thick barrels of destruction and hope, dissecting, rearranging, and illustrating. “What they’re doing to the landscape in Finland is direct inspiration for the band’s orientation,” Valavuo explains.

“Natural resources have been turned into a marketing tool here, and the new government seems to be willing to destroy anything for profit.”

Great punk stands beyond the riff; it echoes the voice of the people and turns the self ever so inward, illuminating and spatial. It helps spill the beans so to speak, a triumphant stance: integrating and devastating. Kohti Tuhoa drive naturally, with an honest and instinctive intuition.

“Songwriting for the new album was pretty much the same as before,” Valavuo notes, referencing their 2014 debut 7” for Svart Records. “We didn’t plan it

MILLENNIAL DREAMER- DOLFISH

I N T E R V I E W

W I T H

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merican sociologist Kathleen Shaputis labeled millennials The Peter Pan Generation due to its members trending toward delaying adult rites of passage for a longer period than most generations before them. To some degree, the term fits troubadour Max

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he first vinyl record I ever bought was KISS’ Destroyer, and the vision of what everything looked like in it was truly something,” explains Peter Tägtgren, the lead singer, guitarist, creator, producer, and multi-instrumentalist behind the industrial-symphonic metal behemoth, Pain. “I think if you can achieve strong visuals in your music, you really nailed it.” Pain’s newest album, Coming Home—set for a Sept. 9 release on Nuclear Blast—does just that, tenfold. A feverishly catchy and dynamic slab of varying musical realms, the album achieves just about everything you could want a record to achieve: rip your face off, strain your neck, and make you run to your library to check into weird scientific happenings.

Tägtgren is also the founder, frontman, and guitarist for the death metal legion, Hypocrisy, as well as a world-renowned producer whose resume includes work with the bands Marduk, Dark Funeral,

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Sollisch, aka Dolfish, although he is a bit conflicted about it. “On one hand, I notice a ton of entitlement in my generation and a ton of slacktivism,” Sollisch observes, “but on the other hand, we start our adult lives with more debt than the Boomers can truly comprehend giv-

FINNISH FURY- KOHTI TUHOA

INTERVIEW WITH GUITARIST VILLE VALAVUO BY CHRISTOPHER J. HARRINGTON too much, we just wrote songs and picked the ones we wanted to have on the record.

Writing with this band has always been very spontaneous; we just meet up at the rehearsal room and see what comes out of it. Punk rock helped me realize you didn’t have to be a super talented musician to be

able to play in a band or go on tour. Virtually everyone has a chance to just get out there and do it.”

en the cost of college or no college and a fucked economy and shit housing market. I’m conscious about not being such a millennial, though I spend my days as a copywriter trying to target them.”

sleepy, blue-collar beach town where restaurant prices, beer prices, and house prices have been suspended in time since the ‘80s.” Although he was falling in love with his new home and community, the irony that he was benefiting from someone else defaulting on their own “American Dream” wasn’t lost on Sollisch. The more he thought about it, the clearer his vision for American Foreclosure Dreams became.

Rather than settling into the job market and starting to chisel away at his own debt upon graduating from college, Sollisch released his 2012 debut LP, I’d Rather Disappear Than Stay the Same, and embarked on self-booked tours across three continents. After 120 dates, Sollisch pumped the brakes a bit due to an engagement, home purchase, and career prospects. Although he was settling into a more domestic life, he couldn’t ignore the artistic muses calling to him from the community he was making his home. Their call eventually resulted in American Foreclosure Dreams, a hifi, soulful, quirky record that Sollisch self-released on Aug. 16.

“I bought a foreclosure home and moved into North Collinwood,” he explains. “It’s the neighborhood of Cleveland that this record is largely about. It’s this weird,

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Although self-releasing and promoting the record seems like a daunting task, Sollisch is optimistic that the DIY route will prove rewarding. “I’m definitely out of practice, having the luxury of a publicist for my last LP, but I’ve got super helpful friends and have made some great allies in the scene,” Sollisch says. “They make it less of a drag. On the other hand, it’s really nice to set my own timeline and know that I can work hard for myself and make shit happen. That puts more ownership on me, which brings me closer to the victories. You know, like how a meal always tastes better when you cook it yourself.

That kind of thing.”

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FEEL-GOOD METAL- PAIN

and Immortal, among many others. As a major producer, Tägtgren is the kind of artist who builds structures with a total vision in mind. You can feel the lightning slick quality throughout Coming Home: sparkling, dimensional, and whole.

Songs move from Ministry-like industrial groove to gigantic symphonic balladry to punishing death metal fortitude.

“Coming Home is really about me coming home to myself, coming back to writing songs and diving into the challenge,” Tägtgren notes. “I brought the studio into my bedroom for this one and really took my time on everything. Particularly the vocals; I really wanted to sing on this album. A strong chorus is very important to me, and with Pain, I’m really moving further away from the music I do in Hypocrisy. When you work with other bands, they’re ultimately the decision-makers, and my job as a producer is to push the musician without getting them to crack.

With Pain, I’m the musician, the song-

Real punk is about essence and courage.

Kohti Tuhoa live in a realm filled to the brim with it.

INTERVIEW WITH PETER TÄGTGREN BY CHRISTOPHER J. HARRINGTON writer, and the producer. I can push myself into different areas easier this way.”

Coming Home is futuristic in its themes, its production, and its overall mindset.

Techno and industrial variances forge with the slickest of death and power

metal to create a visionary work. “I’m inspired to write good music,” Tägtgren admits. “Pain is catchy rock ‘n’ roll, kind of like Billy Idol in 2017. Something you like to play when you’re getting your night started. It makes you feel good, you know?”

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ulia Louise’s debut EP for No Sleep Records, entitled Insatiable, is a slow-burning chronicle of the singer-songwriter’s relationships.

The intimate songs tackle unhealthy romances, her mother’s addiction issues, her father’s absence, and misguided methods for dealing with anxiety. Louise says her cathartic songwriting garners shared reactions from the uninitiated.

“Most new listeners are surprised by how literal and sad the songs are,” she laughs. “Some people seem concerned.”

As timeless as the tunes seem, they evoke very specific times and places for the Washington, D.C., native. “Hazy”— the track that closes the EP and deals with Louise’s perilous self-medication— is a song she wrote five years ago, while still in high school. In early 2016, she brought a handful of tracks to a friend, Planet Red Studios owner and engineer Andreas Magnusson, who helped craft her first solo EP and its distinct sound.

“It was just for fun,” Louise recalls.

“It was just something for me to have. […] With the help of Andreas, the final product came together super smoothly.

I’ve always been obsessed with heavy vocal layering and echoes. All the sounds and noises, aside from the drum machine, are just edited guitar tones.”

No Sleep didn’t ask for changes or new recordings of the tunes when they signed Louise earlier this year.

Insatiable was released, as is, on June 10. Now, while crafting the songs for her debut full-length with No Sleep, Louise looks to change things up, while continuing certain threads. “Some of the new songs are slightly reminiscent of the downbeat songs on the EP,” she says.

“Most are a bit faster-paced with some dream-pop elements. I’m envisioning a lot more diversity on the full-length.”

Even though some of Insatiable’s narratives are years behind the artist,

RHYTHM AND PUNK- MARTHA

INTERVIEW WITH DRUMMER NATHAN STEPHENS-GRIFFIN BY SAMANTHA SPOTO

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artha—a four piece DIY punk band from County Durham, England— released their sophomore album, Blisters in the Pit of My Heart, via Dirtnap Records and Fortuna Pop on July 8. The band, which consists of four lyricists— including siblings Naomi Griffin and Nathan Stephens-Griffin—formed from

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want Versace Summer to help the dread subside,” Matt Diamond states.

Diamond is the vocalist, guitarist, and lyricist for Philadelphia’s JANK, and the Versace Summer EP—which was released July 27 via Creep Records— follows up their full-length debut, Awkward Pop Songs, rewarded for its nonsensical lyrics backed by feel-great, anthemic shout-alongs.

Diamond records their songs live with drummer Sam Becht and bassist Ruben Polo, giving a raw and powerful feel to their catchy tunes. Versace Summer is like JANK’s “The Lion King 1 1/2,” written with equally giant melodies and even wonkier lyrics. Not many acts can take a song that touches on death itself—“Grim Reefer”—and make it a fun to lose your voice to.

Diamond’s lyrics may come off as a bit “out there,” but his ability to transform distinct stories into compassionate

the desire to do something equal parts punk and Motown. Each member brings a unique taste to the quartet’s overall sound, but ultimately, they all share a fundamental understanding of the band’s essence. “We’ve all been into punk since we were young, and no matter how much we try and do pop stuff, anything we do allyrics is admirable when set against the current state of the world. The titular track, “Versace Summer,” may be about garlic bread, but Diamond exposes its greater meaning. “The world is real shitty, especially right now,” he admits.

“We’re a band that promotes the idea of having fun, but when you go home from having fun, think about the world around you, because it’s equally important.” It goes to show that even a “joke band” can be just as socially aware as any other.

JANK even donated profits from an early release of two Versace Summer tracks to the community fund benefitting victims of the Pulse tragedy in Orlando.

To marginalize JANK as purely a joke band is a cop out. “It’s really a shame that modern songwriting peer pressures and bullies younger songwriters into having all their shit be about tragedy, pain, and heartbreak,” Diamond remarks. Instead, JANK’s songs are about coping with

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performing her raw, straightforward tracks live still stirs emotions for Louise—and even for the crowd. “It really depends on where I am and the audience,” she says, “but it can be hard

sometimes, especially when it’s people I’ve been close to and are not quite as open [with]. It’s not as hard with people I don’t know.”

ways ends up sounding a bit rough around the edges,” Stephens-Griffin says. “That’s what Martha is: rough around the edges punky power-pop.”

by the wayside, yet Martha have worked tirelessly to keep their passion burning.

“The album is about the struggle of trying to be creative when you’re working and tired and annoyed and stressed, how important and nourishing music and art are for the soul,” Stephens-Griffin explains. “That’s the central theme: staying passionate and trying to conquer the depression, anxiety, and work-related things that inevitably act as an obstacle to the creative process.”

Like most small, DIY punk bands, the members of Martha work every day to balance music-making with full-time employment. Their new album focuses on their struggle for stability, having to go about their day jobs like the rest of their peers only to transform into the punks they truly are once they punch their time cards. “We all constantly felt like we were on the edge of chaos. Like a bundle of excessively anxious people crammed together doing all these highly intense things interspersed with incredibly dull, mundane day jobs,” Stephens-Griffin says. “We burned the candle at both ends last year, and it was like we were all leading these secret double lives. I think a lot of people in punk can empathize with that.”

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If Martha’s first album, 2014’s Courting Strong, was about punks growing up, then Blisters in the Pit of My Heart is about grown-ups staying punk, something the band have mastered despite living in a world that makes it difficult to follow your dreams full-time. At the end of the day, everyone defines punk differently, but to Martha, it means “staying true to yourself and your beliefs, and not letting the creeping anxieties of adulthood douse the flames of your passion.”

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When trying to find that equilibrium, it can be easy to let music and artistry fall

SILLY SINGALONGS- JANK

INTERVIEW BY VOCALIST/GUITARIST MATT DIAMOND BY SEAN GONZALEZ the world’s shit in a way that promotes building paths to hope. For instance, “Alligator” is about having a “loan shark alligator” after your money, but when the alligator is in need of help, Diamond extends a hand. “You’re not as scaly as you think,” Diamond cries out, and in

a way, the song might be discussing the idea that it’s difficult to be comfortable in our own skin in today’s world… Or it could just be about the loan shark alligator needing a place to stay. You decide.

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NEW NOISE 11

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n medieval times, map makers branded unchartered territories with warnings of great mythical beast by posting “hic svnt dracones,” a Latin phrase that, when translated, means “here are dragons.” Ironically, in mid-emo times, guitar-centric indie bands charter new ground with obtuse lyrics and big, mathy riffs, ignoring warnings of tinnitus and feelings. Columbus, Ohio’s Vis A Vis—who released Hic Svnt Dracones on July 9 via We Want Action—are a brave, fire-breathing quartet cut from that Jawbox, Quicksand, Fugazi mold. “[Guitarist] Jacob [Wooten] had thrown the idea for the band out there to me in 2012 after a trip to New York to see the Refused reunion,” vocalist and guitarist Mike Finch remembers. “At the time, I was still really busy with Ease The Medic and Jacob was working round-theclock at his venue, Kobo, so it was just a matter of finding the time in our schedules to get together to write and find a rhythm section.”

For the LP, the band rounded out their rhythm section with Kyle Frith of The Phantods handling bass, and Nathan

Keister, formerly of Kopaz, behind the kit. Frith has since left the band and was replaced by Finch’s former Ease The Medic bandmate, Eric Payton. The band recorded their debut with friend Jon Fintel at Relay Recordings in Columbus, and released it via Finch’s We Want Action label. Although they wear their ‘90s indie rock influence on their sleeves, Finch believes that there are some first glimpses at new and progressive songwriting voices present on their debut.

“Jacob writes a lot of riffs,” he says, “and this is really the first time he’s had a vehicle to see them through into fully realized songs, so I think his enthusiasm was the real catalyst for the record. I think the sheer volume of Jacob’s ideas is what really got things moving.”

In terms of his own lyrical pursuits and inspirations, Finch took those from both literature and current events, explaining, “I think there are some common themes across the record of fighting apathy in both personal growth and problems in the world at large, not just blindly accepting things as they are, as well as searching for personal connections in darker moments. ‘Pildoras de Papel’

AN ALBUM OF ICE AND FIRE- VIS A VIS

PHOTO: CHRIS CASSELLA

INTERVIEW WITH GUITARIST/VOCALIST MIKE FINCH BY TIM ANDERL is a reference to a passage in Sherwood Anderson’s ‘Winesburg, Ohio,’ but it’s an exploration of stepping outside yourself to find compassion and empathy, as opposed to Anderson’s take on the odd coping behaviors of everyday people at the turn of the 20th Century.” Finch continues, “I tracked the vocals for ‘Get on the Bus’ the night of the Baltimore Riots, so although the song was already written, that influenced a few subtle changes and

SOUNDS OF A FRACTURED MIND- ODD DATES "I

s art inherently a message?” ponders Jeremy Dye, vocalist, guitarist, and mastermind of Odd Dates. The Grand Rapids two piece features Dye and Sam Padalino—both from another local act, The Cardboard Swords—unwinding their minds into an eight song record that flows without uniformity. Deep Cuts Don’t Keep the Mansion Running—out since July 22—is their self-released, distinctive communiqué.

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n a lot of ways, Germany’s psychedelic doom-gazers, Motorowl, appear to have stepped right out of a barreling time machine. The last place the band probably frequented was some crazed London dive bar in 1973: soaking in the swirling atmosphere of a massive acid trip. Colors, progressive jaunts, and a unique convergence of a great many decades come boiling to a head in this young quintet. There is darkness in the band that is pure and a drive for melody that is original and honest.

Losing yourself in their eddying twin guitars, crunchy riffs, and timeless retro organ is a vivid dream, the monsters of space travel sweeping you wholly into the void. The band’s newest album, Om Generator, is set for release on Century Media, Aug. 26.

“We seek inspiration from everything we get. Music is a timeless thing, and our influences are very spread,” guitarist and vocalist Max Hemmann notes. “Think of

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Witchcraft’s Legend from 2012. That’s one of the albums that opened our minds to the kind of sound we are doing now.

At The Gates’ Slaughter of the Soul was released in 1995—a year before I was born—and it still sounds like a record coming up in 2016. We love everything that sounds rad and organic. For me, it’s the same thing listening to a black metal record from the ‘80s as it is listening to Jon Lord play with Deep Purple somewhere in the ‘70s.”

Where Motorowl really take flight is in their varying layers, a sea of clouds evaporating through the psychedelic ether.

Contemporary heft meets vintage dirge, and the resulting form is thoroughly curved: dimensional, clean, and heavy.

As musical time travelers, the band choose to look to the future for vision, showcasing the progressive bent that truly defines their art. “’70s progressive rock has a big amount of everything we love—guitars, jazzy riffing, organ, and

Odd Dates decided not to settle on one genre for this release, instead flying through the realms of different genres with every song. “Games” plays out like a hardcore fistfight, “The Boy” is an acoustic reconciliation, and opening track, “Teenage Dreams,” runs tough with a post-rock beat. “I have always let my writing go wherever it wants. I try to never hold back,” Dye comments. This focus on not being constrained helps the two piece be an honest representation

the feeling behind that song for me in the performance.”

Although the band will favor regional shows over extensive touring due to work and family commitments, the possibility of some traveling to new territories isn’t completely off the table. “Anyone want to bring us to Europe or Japan?” Finch inquires.

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of Dye’s mind, an organic brain that encapsulates multiple feelings into an erratically paced album.

With that honesty comes the unveiling of a lifetime, as Dye reflects on the blatancy in the music. “I work in an office; we show different parts of ourselves to different people,” he explains. “Am I willing to show this part of me that is diving into this other life of mine?” The cathartic pulse of the music features a fractured mental state, correcting itself only by having a medium to play through.

“I’ve heard other artists talk about this, where it can kind of fuck with you to get into that raw headspace all the time,” Dye remarks. Even with that unhealthy dive, Deep Cuts Don’t Keep the Mansion Running plays like an artist in control, forcing their mind to put on display a message, and that is what Odd Dates are meant to portray.

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THE DREAM OF THE '70S IS ALIVE- MOTOROWL

I N T E R V I E W W I T H V O C A L I S T / G U I TA R I S T M A X H E M M A N N B Y C H R I S T O P H E R J . H A R R I N G T O N fat grooves—but to be honest, we do not know many of those bands,” Hemmann admits. “Focus, Yes, and Genesis are bands that I like, but inspirationally, I guess we are more into the present. We really dig what Steven Wilson [of Porcupine Tree] can do with music and its

sound. Our keyboardist Daniel [Dettlev] is totally into progressive metal and knows nearly every band, supergroup, and side project that is around in that genre. He is the one that tries to serve progressivity in our music. And I think that’s cool.”

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harred Walls Of The Damned understand what makes metal fun: riffs, huge choruses, guitar solos.

The supergroup contains members who have played in Death, Iron Maiden, Iced Earth, and Testament, among others, so their metal pedigree is not in question. However, as much damn fun as their previous two records were, their third album—due out via Metal Blade on Sept. 23—ups the ante in every conceivable way. Creatures Watching Over the Dead is joyously metal.

“Metal has always been something that has taken me out of the stress and worries of real life and into a world of headbanging and fun,” drummer and chief songwriter Richard Christy says.

“If you watch the news these days, the world is such a scary place, and it’s nice to have an outlet where you can just decompress for a little bit and forget the scariness of real life. I grew up on metal bands that had huge choruses like Dio, Iron Maiden, and Stryper—which [Metal Blade owner] Brian Slagel gives me such a hard time for liking, but I think they wrote great songs, simple

GREAT APES San Francisco’s Great Apes are not ones to shy away from a concept album. Their last effort, 2014’s Playland at the Beach, was all about their hometown, past, present, and future. So, it’s not hard to believe that the band have once again sought a consistent theme to tie together the songs on their latest album. California Heart is a stellar, at times tragic, collection of songs that center on a creative and thoughtful adolescent with substantial alienation and mental health issues, living in Fresno.

“The theme was developed before the writing process began with the band,” vocalist and guitarist Brian Moss says. “I may have mentioned this in prior interviews, but a while back, I became pretty disenchanted with writing about myself. It started to feel too easy and repetitive.” To keep things challenging and less self-indulgent, after the band’s initial 7” releases, Moss made a personal commitment to keep his band’s lyrics focused on other people and bigger issues.

California Heart comes out on Asian Man Records on Oct. 14. The band’s

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as that, and I like what I like, I can’t help it! When I sit down with a guitar to write songs for Charred Walls of the Damned, I just want to have fun and write riffs that make me happy and, hopefully, give me chills when I hear them. I hope the people that listen feel the same way!”

Christy’s joy plays out in his desire to keep Charred Walls Of The Damned a positive experience, musically and lyrically. “I use personal observations and experiences as inspiration for my lyrics. Living in New York City, it’s a great place to people watch, so I use things that inspire me and even worry me to write lyrics about,” he explains.

“Even when I’m writing lyrics about things like nightmares or things that frighten me, I try to do it in a way that’s inspiring and uplifting. That’s just the kind of person I am, so it feels natural for me to write that way.”

tain category and just be a metal album,” Christy says. “I want metal fans to enjoy it no matter what subgenre of metal they’re into. I grew up on such a wide variety of music. I’m also a massive John Carpenter fan, and I love all ‘80s horror soundtrack synthesizer-type music like Tangerine Dream and Alan Howarth. All of these influences I’m sure creep into the music that I write, but when it comes down to it, I wanted this album to be melodic, catchy, high-energy, and fun!”

It may sound like such a singular goal to non-metalheads, but to the converted, keeping it metal makes complete sense. “My basic goal for this album was for it not to try to fit into any cer-

The only thing keeping the band from a more regular release schedule is how busy everyone is, as Christy notes how much fun it is to record together and with producer Jason Suecof. He

INTERVIEW WITH DRUMMER RICHARD CHRISTY BY NICHOLAS SENIOR is also hopeful that fans won’t have to wait another five years for the group’s fourth record. “There are actually a lot of great songs left over from the songwriting sessions, and I have a lot of cool riffs already in the works for the next album!” he assures. “It looks like we also might be recording some cover songs later this year that we’ll be releasing sporadically as well!”

The formula for Charred Walls Of The Damned is pretty simple: make it metal and make it fun. With the long-awaited Creatures Watching Over the Dead, it’s clear they have far exceeded that bar with an album packed with sonic joy.

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second full-length and sixth release overall, it is easily their best. Its smart, melodic punk rock that brings to mind bands like Dillinger Four and Jawbreaker. Opting to set the record in Fresno was a bit of a challenge as Moss did not know much about the area at first. “I wanted the songs to paint a picture of California’s Central Valley. I wanted to portray a location in the state that didn’t involve beach stereotypes, major cities, or common reference points,” Moss says. “The culture and lifestyle out there is so drastically different than what many of us are used to or what we think about when California gets brought up.”

Drummer Matt Kadi grew up in Vacaville and guitarist Chris Chapel grew up in Grass Valley—both smaller California towns—so discussing the subject with them was helpful. Moss explains, “The Central Valley makes up a large portion of the state, is often overlooked, and for some reason, writing about a kid stuck in a farm city’s suburbs in the heat, dust, and cultural doldrums, trying to navigate life and a troubled mind interested me.”

By his own admission, Moss grew up as an outcast as well, so that part of California Heart hits a little closer to home. As a teacher, he’s also worked

PHOTOGRAPHY BY ALAN SNODGRASS

INTERVIEW WITH VOCALIST/GUITARIST BRIAN MOSS BY JOHN B. M O O R E with children and young adults who are having a difficult time internally and with the world or social groups around them. “It’s pretty sad to witness it, and a desire to help kids dealing with those issues was a huge motive in my decision to go into the profession,” Moss says. “Both through personal experiences and in my work, it’s evident that, while youth can be a wonderful and inspiring time in life, it can also be intensely painful and isolating. I’ve always thought people who claim high school was the best time of their lives are fucking miserable and insane.”

Great Apes have a few Bay Area shows set for October, but are taking a break from writing. “At the moment, I think everyone—perhaps me most of all— feels creatively exhausted from the last record,” Moss says. “I can’t imagine jumping into new lyrics at the moment. After a new release comes out, we usually take a break from writing to reset, hone a new set, and let the next step appear naturally. Forcing material never works for me; it comes in natural creative rushes, and that’s when I do what I think is my best work.”

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he idea of a progressive band looking to the past for inspiration feels counterintuitive, but that’s exactly what Vermont based progressive metal group, Barishi, did with their astounding Season Of Mist debut. Blood from the Lion’s Mouth, due out Sept. 16, is elegantly melodic, hypnotically gritty, and psychedelically hypnotic. Barishi have a sound that is gloriously unique, yet laudable for how little it cares about anything other than being metal.

The album feels acoustically driven, and that’s no accident according to guitarist Graham Brooks. “The record was pretty much entirely composed on an acoustic guitar,” he reveals. “My girlfriend and I had gone up to Maine, and I wrote ‘Graves of the Creator’ in this cabin on an old 12 string [guitar]. I think there were other factors, like we moved into an apartment where there are neighbors, and I can’t play electric guitar,” he laughs. “In a lot of ways, it became more chord-driven, and it resulted in us using more chord melody rather than having

a riff-driven album. Also, I’ve been going on this two year Led Zeppelin kick, which didn’t hurt.” Two years is a long Led Zeppelin bender. Brooks laughs, “Yeah, I worked at a record store, and there’s so many things we listen to, but I probably listen to Led Zeppelin five times a day for the past two years. I know that sounds pathetic, but it hasn’t gotten old for me yet.”

Much of Blood from the Lion’s Mouth gives the listener images of the ancients, and the area where Barishi wrote the album played a part in that. “We practice and rehearse in a place called Jamaica [in] Vermont” Brooks explains. “We wrote [the album] last summer. It was pretty cool to go out and take a swim and come back in and write the record. It’s such a green and pristine area. It manifested itself in a weird way in some of the songs. The swimming hole that we also go to is where a bunch of Abenaki Indians massacred some English soldiers in the 1700s. I think knowing about that and going there every day, there’s definitely a certain vibe the area has that I feel when I’m playing.”

Blood from the Lion’s Mouth has the potential to be just as critically acclaimed

PHOTOGRAPHY BY MORGAN LAURIE DAY

INTERVIEW WITH GUITARIST GRAHAM BROOKS BY NICHOLAS SENIOR as Mastodon’s Leviathan—no joke—but it’s utterly humorous how low the band’s standards were when writing the album.

“We were just trying to shoot for a more coherent record than what we’ve done in the past,” Brooks explains. “The first album was more stuff that we had laying around, and we weren’t really thinking about how it would flow together.

Honestly, as I listen back to that one, it has some cringe-worthy moments for me. The overall goal was to negate any cringe-inducing sections with this one.

I think we took a different approach to writing it, where we were harsher on

ourselves and edited more. We’d go back to a song after a week and think, ‘This part kinda blows. Let’s try to polish that up and make it smoother.’ I don’t know if we had a finished product in mind. We just came up with so many riffs and song ideas, we were able to rifle through and find the ones that stuck.”

By looking to the musical and environmental past for inspiration, Barishi have released a modern prog metal classic… even if they don’t realize it.

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GEMINI SYNDROME W

hen Gemini Syndrome first burst onto the scene in 2013 with their Warner Bros. Records debut, Lux, they did so as relative unknowns with a unique look and an equally unique stage show. In the years since, the band have exploded, becoming a fixture on huge festival bills, tours, and modern rock radio playlists across the country. Now, three years removed from Lux, the band find themselves with a new label—Century Media imprint, Another Century Records—as well as a dynamic new album entitled Memento Mori, out Aug. 19.

In addition to their new record and new label, the band’s lineup also features two brand new guitarists. “[Former guitarist] Mike [Salerno] left in early 2015 for family reasons, and that was right when we needed to start writing the album,” drummer Brian Medina confirms. “We had been on the road for almost two and a half years straight, so [vocalist] Aaron [Nordstrom], [bassist Alessandro] ‘AP’ [Paveri], and myself just jumped right into writing. I built a home studio, and Aaron basically moved in with me. Everything just flowed

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completely natural. We found [new guitarists] Charles [Lee Salvaggio] and Daniel [Sahagún] right before we were leaving to Las Vegas to start tracking the album. I knew Charles—we were in a band together before—and Daniel we met from mutual friends. Both felt like the perfect fit and balance, with and to each other.”

Though entering the studio without a guitarist can be a scary proposition for any band, instead of worrying, Gemini Syndrome quickly got to work anyway.

That choice paid major dividends. “As far as the recording process goes, we had the record written already going into the studio,” Nordstrom recalls. “Brian, AP, and myself did the vast majority of the tracking, then we brought Dan and Charles into the studio to add their flavor at the end. They are great players and singers, and the ideas they brought to the table really shine through on this record.”

Gemini Syndrome could have been under considerable pressure while working on Memento Mori, but the multigenerational production team of

INTERVIEW WITH VOCALIST AARON NORDSTROM AND DRUMMER BRIAN MEDINA BY BRANDON RINGO legendary producer Kevin Churko and his son, Kane, provided a huge boost to their recording sessions. “The only pressure was from ourselves to make a better record than the one before, and we will always have that mindset,” Nordstrom admits before adding that “working with Kane and Kevin Churko is always a pleasant and fun time for us.”

Now that the record is complete, Gemini Syndrome are quite satisfied with the end result of their hard work. “Listening back, Memento Mori unquestionably feels like the perfect evolution from where we left off with Lux,” Medina says.

Among all of the big changes the band experienced between the releases of Lux and Memento Mori, the most important is the rapid growth of their fanbase. Nicknamed “Synners,” the band’s fans are as rabid and devoted as any you’ll find, which has helped make their short career hugely successful already. “We are incredibly grateful for the love and support we receive,” Nordstrom enthuses. “It’s humbling and encouraging to know that what we do inspires people and gives them inspiration. We are blessed to be able to do this with our lives and share it with so many wonderful people.”

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PROPAGANDHI ERGS!(REUNION) MUSTARD PLUG A WILHELM SCREAM SMALL BROWN BIKE DEAD TO ME KNAPSACK LEMURIA MEAN JEANS THE MENZINGERS LATTERMAN(REUNION) AJJ

LESS THAN JAKE

DILLINGER FOUR OFF WITH THEIR HEADS SAMIAM STRIKE ANYWHERE TIM BARRY MASKED INTRUDER BOYSETSFIRE BRAID F.Y.P(FINAL SHOW) PUP

3 DAYS. 14 VENUES. 350+ BANDS.

BIG D AND THE KIDS TABLE / YOU BLEW IT / FLOOR / THE FLATLINERS / TENEM ENT / SHELLSHAG / PEARS / ELWAY TOYGUITAR / GOLDEN PELICANS / RADON / SAVE ENDS / CAPTAIN WE’RE SINKIN G / DOWSING / GUNMOLL(REUNION) RED CITY RADIO / WAR ON WOMEN / TIMESHARES / SOMOS / PRAWN / AFTER THE FALL / FREE THROW / ANNABEL BIG EYES / BROADWAY CALLS / PINK RAZORS(REUNION) / AUDACITY / VACATI ON / TOYS THAT KILL / UNITED NATIONS UNDERGROUND RAILROAD TO CANDYLAND / RVIVR / ROZWELL KID / THE COPYR IGHTS / IRON CHIC / NIGHT BIRDS TWELVE HOUR TURN(REUNION) / PLANES MISTAKEN FOR STARS / JEFF ROSENSTOCK / SLINGSHOT DAKOTA / TORCHE CHEAP GIRLS / MAC SABBATH / NEGATIVE APPROACH / SMITH STREET BAND(AU) / CHIXDIGGIT / J ROBBINS DRUG CHURCH / SUNDIALS / CHRIS CRESSWELL / ERICA FREAS(RVIVR) / MICROWAVE / EAST CAMERON FOLKCORE / WET NURSE SIGNALS MIDWEST / DIKEMBE / STEVE ADAMYK BAND / POST TEENS / ANTARCTIGO VESPUCCI / ARLISS NANCY / ARMS ALOFT CHRIS FARREN / THE UNLOVEABLES / WE ARE THE UNION / OSO OSO / DIGGER(REUNION) / COASTER / TIRED FROM NOW ON(REUNION) MAX LEVINE ENSEMBLE / COKE BUST / WORSHIP THIS / LIFTED BELLS / BROADCASTER / HOLD TIGHT!(FINAL SHOW) / TILTWHEEL PRETTY BOY THORSON & THE FALLEN ANGELS(FINAL SHOW) / THE BROKEDOWNS / RUNAWAY BROTHER / NORTHBOUND / REGENTS CHOKE UP / WOLF-FACE / HOSPITAL JOB / IAN GRAHAM(CHEAP GIRLS) / WHISKEY & CO. / TEEN AGERS / SUCH GOLD / SUCCESS ROGER HARVEY / FRAMEWORKS / CREEPOID / DIRECT HIT / BAD COP/BAD COP / BLACKLIST ROYALS / SONIC AVENUES A**HOLEPARADE / JOE MCMAHON(FULL BAND) / HAVE GUN WILL TRAVEL / MIKEY ERG(FULL BAND) / LOOK MEXICO / CLAIRMEL SCOTT REYNOLDS / THE TIM VERSION / SHALLOW CUTS / PAT GRAHM(SPRAYNARD) / BASEMENT BENDERS / GATEWAY DISTRICT

AND MANY MANY MORE.....

MORE INFO AT THEFESTFL.COM

DWELL N

orth Carolina’s Dwell mix chaotic tech-metal chops with vicious, emotional hardcore spirit. Their new album, Innate, expand on their intense revision of ‘90s metallic hardcore. Blood & Ink Records released their first EP and will push these 10 new tracks of brutality on Sept. 9.

When speaking of their home scene, drummer Isaac Gilchrist is humbled.

“It feels like everyone is your extremely proud mother and father rooting you on,” he says. As he continues, he speaks on the camaraderie that inspires their whole state to unite. “It’s not just one city in North Carolina that comes out to shows,” he clarifies. “If there’s a hardcore show in Wilmington, people from different cities will come out. The scene has grown tremendously fast with talented bands like Invoke, Joy, Refocus, Substance, and Low Roll.”

Tapping their youthful energy and excitement for spreading new music,

Dwell have been extremely busy with touring. They recently did a three day run with Advent, which Gilchrist calls “possibly the best shows we have played as a band.” This past spring, they toured Canada with Shai Hulud. “Such a beautiful country, and everyone is so nice that you start having trust issues,” he jokes. “We are actually on tour right now with No Zodiac. We are hitting a lot of new places.”

For the members of Dwell, the message is just as important as writing challenging music, and Gilchrist expresses enthusiasm and sincerity when discussing Innate. “We wanted to make music that we personally enjoy,” he says. “These songs are technical and have weird time signatures. We kept songs from being redundant.” Dwell’s music taps into the frantic guitar work of the ‘90s when metal and hardcore surged with exponential creative dynamics. “We tried to make certain riffs unexpected,” Gilchrist continues. “Our influences are Turmoil, Advent, Converge.” Dwell further lauded the ‘90s by having their album cover painted by Dave Rankin, who has worked with Turmoil, Zao, and Further Seems Forever.

PHOTOGRAPHY BY JOSH HUFF

INTERVIEW WITH DRUMMER ISAAC GILCHRIST BY HUTCH The release of Innate is a relief to Gilchrist, who saw his bandmates work fervently and painstakingly to accomplish their goals for the record.

“We started writing a year ago,” he recalls. “We got the entire album written, but we absolutely hated it. We started over again. Our guitarist, Jeremy White, recorded and mixed the entire album at White Noise Studios.” White’s work allowed the band to move at their own pace and tinker with nuances as well as grander ideas.

Gilchrist explains the lyrics as embracing a “general theme [of ] living and dying and the natural human feeling of doubt. To put it simply, we believe we’re not made for this world.” This intensity triggers crowds into what Gilchrist calls “controlled chaos.” Blood & Ink cites their frenzied live shows as their main draw for signing the band.

Catch them as they burn stages coast to coast.

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THE ALBUM LEAF T

hough many have been eagerly waiting for San Diego’s The Album Leaf to resurface, one can’t blame Jimmy LaValle for taking a leave of absence after 2010’s There Is a Wind, The Album Leaf’s last proper release. LaValle wasn’t holed up in some cabin, contemplating the meaning and trials a 17-year career can bring. Rather, he was contributing to soundtracks and collaborating with anyone he could get his hands on.

Still, the time-lapse isn’t lost on him.

“There’s somebody just graduating high school who was just discovering music at 12-years-old the last time I put out a record,” he says. “That’s a pretty good realization to have.”

The Album Leaf haven’t taken a backseat to these other projects. In fact, the multi-instrumentalist has been working on a new release since 2012, finishing the record over a year ago. Though a long absence can cause anxiety among diehard fans, LaValle saw the need to reintroduce The Album Leaf brand, which takes careful planning and patience. The result of the slow burn and endless tinkering has yielded LaValle’s best work, Between Waves, out Aug. 26 via Relapse Records. “There wasn’t a rush to get it out,” LaValle explains. “There was time to release a couple songs and rebuild the

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awareness of the band rather than getting anxious like I have been for the last year and a half.”

As LaValle’s personal life added two children and a whole new schedule, finding time to create posed challenging.

Forcing creativity can be tricky. Usually a night owl, LaValle now has fatherly responsibilities and cannot necessarily create at the drop of a hat. “It’s a funny feeling to go into the studio and say, ‘Okay, time to be creative,’” he says. “You can sit there and noodle and nothing happens. The way I work is that I’m just constantly creating, so if I’m not feeling something, I just stop,” he laughs. “I have to trust when the spark happens.”

When a musician’s career is approaching two decades and the full gambit of genres, it can be difficult to navigate the forever changing waters of the industry. Between Waves needed a home, and LaValle got busy changing his support team. Eventually, Relapse became the home for the songs, and The Album Leaf now have a record that fans may consider their boldest leap yet. “With this record, I took away the Rhodes piano,” he explains. “Not seeing a Rhodes piano on stage may freak some people out, since I’ve been playing it since 1999.”

INTERVIEW WITH JIMMY LAVELLE BY JAMESON KETCHUM Vintage piano groupies aside, The Album Leaf is known by fans far and wide for their visual performances. It’s the kind of show you wish the venue provided pillows for, an experience that takes you out of your head from the first note forward. LaValle admits that fans will be seeing some changes in the coming tours. “I’m thinking of taking away the focus on visuals, which is going to be important and more of a leap, because we’re so associated with live visuals,” he admits. “I just want to present them in a different way, more abstract and less focused. My idea is to create more of a museum art installation setting that we’re playing in, rather than the stale band you see every other day of the week on the same stage.”

Bold and beautiful, The Album Leaf will leave you breathless, and with Between Waves carrying the torch for a whole new demographic of fans, LaValle’s creative well is anything but dry.

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BAD SPORTS A fter taking some time to work on their numerous other projects following the release of their 2012 album, Bras, Bad Sports are back, marking their momentous return with a seven song record, Living with Secrets, which came out on Dirtnap Aug. 12.

The three piece self-described pop band—who started almost 10 years ago in Denton, Texas, and now call Austin home—have also been touring a bunch lately. They played some dates this past June where they previewed the new record, then hit Europe in August. Anyone who plans on seeing the guys can expect to hear a whole lot of new material and nary an older song.

“We’re kinda trying to move past all the old crap we’ve been playing for almost 10 years,” explains bassist and vocalist Daniel Fried.

Of Living with Secrets, Fried declares, “In my opinion, it’s the best thing we’ve done,” before catching himself, “but I guess everyone always says that!” When asked about the number of songs included and the release being called an EP, he explains that the record works well with the seven tracks and that they could’ve added more, but decided it fit well the way it was. Initially, Bad Sports were going to release these songs in clusters on 7”s, but Fried mentions, “Once we got it all recorded within a month or so of each other, we decided these [songs] actually all work together” and it would be better to release them on one record.

Fans of the band may also notice some differences between this record and past releases like 2012’s Kings of the Weekend. As Fried says, “Live, it’s like a different band, because our other songs were a lot

As aforementioned, the guys— Fried, drummer Greg Rutherford, and guitarist and vocalist Orville Neeley—are all in different bands.

On Bad Sports’ June tour, they played with Radioactivity, who

HARM WULF I

night and some houses’ windows are illuminated by the television’s glow? I wanted to capture that.”

:

"

faster, more rocking, but these are definitely a lot slower [and] more melodic.” Still, they do rock out on songs like the straight-up punk “Done to Death,” powerful opener “Don’t Get Your Hopes Up,” and the tough “Anymore.”

wanted to make something that was the slow motion feeling you experience when something devastating is happening.” This is how George Hirsch—of Philly hardcore outfit, Blacklisted—explains the sonic impact of his new project, Harm Wülf. In 2013, he released Harm Wulf ’s debut on Deathwish Inc., There Is Honey in the Soil. On Aug. 26, its follow-up, Hijrah, is set to be released.

Where the first LP was Hirsh as singersongwriter, Hijrah has Jon Nean of Blacklisted on bass and engineer Arthur Rizk—who has worked with the likes of Inquisition and Prurient— on percussion, allowing an expanded vision to manifest. The quiet and disconcerting sounds of Harm Wülf manage to allay and unsettle. “A car crash in a snow storm would be a good example,” Hirsch continues. The slow wonder of the moment is explored in Harm Wülf ’s strewn tones. The guitars’ dissonant, repetitive blur ensnares the listener. “A certain shade of the color blue was always a reference,” he adds. “You know when you are walking down the street late at

20 NEW NOISE

Hijrah’s somber wrenching pares the listener’s defenses until isolation is all that’s left to grasp. This is no coincidence. “A little over two years ago, I moved away from my home to a place where I don’t know anyone besides my girlfriend,” Hirsch unveils.

“She worked during the day. This had me alone playing music, trying to write parts that I felt connected to because I feel so disconnected. Which isn’t a bad thing. I am just not too good at things normal people find easy.” This solemn realization is not disarming, but engrossing. While the songs were written by Hirsch alone, for the recording—unlike There Is Honey in the Soil—Hirsch recruited Nean and Rizk. “It was a huge help, because they are both much better at instruments than me,” he admits. “Living where I don’t know anyone has its benefits, but also has its pitfalls: no one to bounce ideas off. This was especially beneficial on bass, because John had a more unique sense of melody than me to offset my guitar parts.”

Those melodies on Hijrah accent the dark plains of seclusion emanating from the reverbed guitars. With nods to Strength Through Joy, Angels Of

PHOTOGRAPHY BY PAUL SILVER

INTERVIEW WITH VOCALIST/BASSIST DANIEL FRIED BY JANELLE JONES also feature Fried and Rutherford.

Interestingly, Fried divulged that, on this stint, Radioactivity also included Neeley, meaning all three guys played two sets a night. One has to wonder what that experience is like. Fried actually prefers it, saying, “We’ve been playing in bands for a while and to drive eight hours to play for 20 minutes, it’s a bummer. If you play for an hour, it’s better.” He admits, “It gets a little tiring, but after a couple of shows you get in the groove of it.”

Neeley also plays in OBN IIIs, while Fried and Rutherford lend

their talents to Video. Being busy with other projects improves Bad Sports, according to Fried. The bassist explains how, during the time after Bras came out and after they toured on the record, Neeley was working on his other band while Fried and Rutherford worked on Video’s second record. So, the guys took some time off from Bad Sports. “We had a little bit of a breather,” he says. “We didn’t get too sick of everything, and we got back into the writing process and everything just started flowing.”

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PHOTOGRAPHY BY NICOLE KUNTZ

I N T E R V I E W

W I T H

G E O R G E

Light, and Earth, Hirsch has written an album soaked in stark atmosphere.

“Atmosphere is the most important part of any art, period,” he asserts.

“I spend so much time alone. I am always trying to create a pleasing atmosphere.” As much as Hirsch’s intent is to impose these feelings of isolation, he is also celebrating the strength in solitude.

Hirsch expounds on Hijrah’s meaning as a word and as a concept: “It means flight or journey; emigration to a place more desired. I moved away from my home. It was a difficult decision, but I had to go. It also has to do with

H I R S C H

B Y

H U T C H

exile, which is something I felt. There is a lyric on the album, ‘Exile is what escape became / How do you kill your name?’ I spend a lot of time alone, a sort of self-exile. Much like watching television or reading or listening to music. But, sometimes it is dangerous and those escapes become a self-exile, which is a slippery slope.”

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HELMS ALEE S

eattle trio Helms Alee conjure a sonic blast of dark, heavy, mathy riffs with their fourth LP, Stillicide, due out Sept. 2 via Sargent House, an album sure to appeal to fans of brutal and cerebrally engaging music. With the follow-up to their previous albums, the trio are tucking a decade of existence under their belts and performing with striking strength and confidence, although you wouldn’t know it by talking to vocalist and guitarist Ben Verellen. “We’ve never had much of a mission when we go to make records or even songs,” he says. “We practice regularly all year long, so it’s really just looking back at the pile of ideas that amassed over the last couple years and trying to organize something that makes some kind of sense to us all. When the record is done, it almost feels like someone else made it.”

“I got mixed up with playing in bands when I was 13, and coming up with parts and working everything out has always been the most satisfying part,” he admits. “It’s real special with Helms Alee, because the three of us are coming at it from totally different angles, so the result is always surprising. It’s shocking

THE AGONIST

I

n life, just as in making music, there’s what you’re good at naturally, and there’s what is true to yourself. Occasionally, those things are at odds and you have to make a decision. For their upcoming fifth album, aptly titled Five, Montreal’s The Agonist chose the latter and to fantastic results. The album—due out via Napalm Records on Sept. 30—is their most accomplished and impressive yet. While they haven’t left their melodeath past behind entirely, Five sees the band harboring more dynamic and melodic songwriting. Vocalist Vicky Psarakis’ voice shines throughout these excellent tunes.

Guitarist Danny Marino explains the reasoning behind the more song-based approach. “It’s what [Psarakis] and I are truly interested in,” he says. “The things that hit me the most are the ones where I feel like it’s a really well-crafted song, rather than focusing on what the guitar is doing or a certain drum fill, this or that. I like getting lost in the song and feeling how the lyrics connect with the music. We’re trying to bring that into our music. I find that’s much harder to do than practicing a technical run over and over until you get it down.”

This evolution was hinted at with their

22 NEW NOISE

that it’s been as long as it has. From my view, the band has only gotten stronger and more fulfilling as the years go on. I hope it keeps on growing for a long time.”

Even if the band—which includes bassist Dana James and drummer Hozoji Margullis—didn’t deliberately conceptualize Stillicide, the LP is still a surprisingly cohesive endeavor, bolstered even further into the stratosphere by the recording and production expertise of Kurt Ballou at God City Studios. “Kurt’s name came up pretty much right away when we were starting to talk about recording this record,” Verellen remembers. “Everything is very efficient at God City, and it’s a super creative environment he’s got set up there. Kurt rides a great line where he’s got lots of structure and attention to detail, but he let us do our weird [thing] and embraced our ideas as they came together. He had lots of ideas to contribute too.”

Stillicide isn’t just the band’s strongest collection of songs, it’s also their heaviest and most melodically creative. “We did work a lot on the harmonies, but the ideas for them would kind of spring up while noodling around,” Verellen shares.

“Sometimes, one harmony idea leads to another, and we tried a lot of things out for this record working like that. My hair stands up in the vocal harmony at the end

last record, 2015’s Eye of Providence, but it’s fully realized here. Marino agrees, “I think you can see the evolution happening. It’s what we want to do. We just feel it more. I feel like I could easily write more Agonist songs that have the death metal tinge to them, like it’s a bag of tricks that I can just pull from, and I don’t want to do that. I want to do something new that’s true to myself. I feel like when you do that, it comes out better than when you’re trying to do something else. We have our moments when we let loose throughout, and we love them, but we really wanted more dynamics in our music. We found when something’s always at level 10, you don’t feel it when the big swell comes, because it’s already at 10.”

Five features 13 stories, and one feels quite prescient to Marino as he watches the U.S. from Canada. “Our single, ‘The Chain,’ has a political connotation to it regarding to the state of affairs in the United States right now,” he elaborates. “It wasn’t to take any particular stance, but it was to focus on the idea how there’s revolution-like sentiment from all sides at once, whether it’s left or right, race and the police, or [the] Occupy [movement]. It seems like the whole country is on edge at once, and it’s certainly something to see. Something’s gotta give. People aren’t happy for various reasons, and I tried to equate it to the fall of Rome, how they got fat and wealthy on power and stopped focusing on what the little people want, and it im-

PHOTOGRAPHY BY RYAN RUSSELL

INTERVIEW WITH GUITARIST BEN VERELLEN BY TIM ANDERL of ‘Tit to Toe,’ but there are some super heavy moments that are real satisfying, in ‘Meats and Milks’ and ‘Untoxicated’ and some other ones. And the weird melodies in ‘Creeping You Company’ feels different for us. I know we’re all real psyched on the record and have lots of favorite moments.”

The band began a run of tour dates in support of the record in early August, some of which were with the legendary Melvins, as well as labelmates Russian Circles. “It’s surreal,” Verellen says excitedly. “Early on, when Helms Alee met, we bonded over our love of the Melvins. […] Brian [Cook of Russian Circles] was in Botch with my brother, and he and I

played in bands together over the years, and I think I met Mike [Sullivan] and Dave [Turncrantz] something like 10 years ago. Some of the most hilarious humans I know, and superhuman athletes of music. They’ve been super supportive of Helms Alee.” Also exciting for Verellen is the new material Helms Alee have begun writing. “We’re already waist-high in more song ideas, so I’m looking forward to getting deeper into those too,” he says. “The three of us are all immersed in lots of other artistic outlets outside Helms Alee as well. No signs of any slowing.”

.....

INTERVIEW WITH GUITARIST DANNY MARINO BY NICHOLAS SENIOR ploded from within. I don’t know if that will happen in the United States, but it’s strange to see other western countries seem to have it more in check. The song, to me, had a vibe of coming together to fight against something; that’s what I felt with the riffs when I wrote the song.”

The album has more meaning than a number, as well. Marino explains, “We called it Five, obviously because it’s our fifth record, and there’s five of us. Beyond that, when [Psarakis] joined the band [in 2014], we changed our logo. It’s taken from the quintessence, which is the fifth element. The idea is that the fifth element is considered the ether or the element that you can’t see or touch. It’s the

element people have claimed to access through meditation or spirituality or hallucinogenic drugs, or losing yourself in this moment. I find that music is one of the main ways of accessing this. If you can truly wipe away everything else and get lost in music and not remember that you’re sitting on a bus—it’s one of the best ways without taking drugs.”

The Agonist have a massive North American tour lined up with Epica and Fleshgod Apocalpyse in the fall. With a mesmerizingly addictive sound and the ability to let listeners get lost in themselves, The Agonist are primed to slay over the next few months.

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BRAND NEW ALBUM 10/07/2016 fatwreck.com

nofx.org

SURVIVE

I

f you’ve fallen in love with the soundtrack to “Stranger Things” and haven’t yet had your fill of ‘80s synth nostalgia, let us introduce you to your new favorite band. Two members of the Austin, Texas, based synth quartet, S U R V I V E, scored the Netflix hit series—and contributed to wwAdam Wingard’s “The Guest—and the band’s upcoming Sept.

30 Relapse Records debut is a huge treat for lovers of classic ‘80s horror and sci-fi movies.

RR7349 was originally the number Relapse assigned to the album, but the name conjures up images of secret government files and sinister experiments.

S U R V I V E fit comfortably in the new synthwave movement, but definitely hone their own version of ‘80s nostalgia.

The band’s production style carves character and personality out of every aspect of their diverse sound, and their ability to be equally adept at sparse and complex arrangements is striking.

While Relapse feels like an odd label choice, metal fans are quite receptive to other ‘80s influenced artists like GosT and Perturbator. “It’s interesting to see the positive reaction we get from guys in metal, punk, and noise bands,” Adam Jones admits. “I think, for a lot of people

PANSY DIVISION T

he world has changed a lot since Pansy Division first got together in 1991, but all the while, the successful queercore band have continued to churn out some of the wittiest, strongest political pop punk the genre has to offer. When asked if he imagined that the band would still be making music two and a half decades later, vocalist and guitarist Jon Ginoli answers emphatically, “No! I was too young then to imagine life that far ahead into the future. Back in the mid to late ‘00s, I wrote my memoir, ‘Deflowered: My Life in Pansy Division,’ and [bassist and cofounder] Chris [Freeman] helped put together the documentary film, ‘Pansy Division: Life in a Gay Rock Band,’ because a lot of time had passed and we weren’t sure how much longer we’d keep going, but here we are!”

Many wondered if Pansy Division had finally called it a day, since it had been seven long years since their last album, but now, the wait is over. Quite Contrary, their ninth release, comes out Sept. 9 on Alternative Tentacles. Ginoli partially blames geography for their absence.

“We’re in Boston, New York City, Los Angeles, and I’m in San Francisco,” he says. “We have always played at least a handful of shows each year, […] but didn’t want to organize our lives around

24 NEW NOISE

who don’t know anything about electronic music, our sound is comfortable to digest, because it’s reminiscent of certain soundtrack aesthetics that everyone likes. We still try to compose the majority of our music in a pop structure.”

As a group known for soundtracks, did the band have anything different in mind when writing RR7349? Michael Stein shares, “As we are working out the arrangement and writing each song, a story would sort of unravel and start to influence our decisions on what to do to the track next. Whether it was a full movement, melody, or just accent SFX for a song. We would imagine these scenes and use that as motivation for writing, but ultimately, I just view the album as another completed endeavor for us. I would love to see a movie entirely scored by this album. That would be sick.”

Jones touches on the band’s influences, saying, “The scoring work from Tangerine Dream on ‘The Thief’ and ‘The Keep’ were big influences on all four of us. When we actually started to put our hands on real synthesizers, we discovered right away that the possibilities with composing on electronic gear are much broader in scope than, say, a guitar. Way more fun too.”

As impressive as RR7349 is, the band’s live shows are even more noteworthy.

“Sometimes, performing our recorded material can be challenging, but we do

INTERVIEW WITH MICHAEL STEIN AND ADAM JONES BY NICHOLAS SENIOR play most of the songs from our records live using way too much vintage and modern hardware, amps, DMX-controlled lighting, and lots of fog,” Jones says. “We will be touring this fall and winter for sure, probably a lot next year too. We are getting those plans together right now, so look for tour announcements soon—domestic as well as international trips, most definitely.”

Few bands are so uniquely able to transport the listener into the scenes of a mental movie. As prolific as they are talented, S U R V I V E are ones to watch— and likely hear in the next hit series or movie.

.....

the band anymore.” He started demoing with Freeman in 2010, and in 2014, they began the album’s writing process in earnest, realizing that their 25th anniversary was just two years away. This marked the first time they put together an album via email. “I would prefer not to work that way, but we didn’t have any choice,” Ginoli adds. The only song they’d played as a band before recording was their cover of Pet Shop Boys’ “It’s a Sin,” a live staple that made it onto Quite Contrary.

Despite being written several years ago, the album is still remarkable relevant, as the Republican party just adopted their most anti-LGBTQ agenda in recent history. Pansy Division have always used humor to get their point across, and when asked if he considers himself political, Ginoli says, “Yes, but with a small ‘p.’ I’m a political person, but I don’t like being preached to, so I try not to do so in my songs. I’d rather tell a story, even an opinionated one, and let the listener decide. We do break the rule occasionally, like on ‘Political Asshole,’ but not too often.” Another song that gets that point across fantastically is “Blame the Bible,” a catchy, brilliantly wry track about politicians using religion to justify homophobia. “Chris wrote the bulk of it, and I think it reflects a mountain of crappy, irritating incidents rather than one specific incident,” Ginoli says. “It felt like an important song to do this year, but I think, sadly, it will remain relevant beyond 2016.”

PHOTOGRAPHY BY MARTIN MEYERS

INTERVIEW WITH VOCALIST/GUITARIST JON GINOLI BY JOHN B. MOORE The band have already scheduled a short tour to coincide with the album’s release, with East Coast dates set up for September and West Coast dates in November.

“I hope people who want to see us will be able to get to a show this year, ‘cause I don’t know when we’ll be able to have this much time for the band again going forward,” Ginoli warns, before reflecting on the band’s 25th anniversary: “Things have changed so much in the 25 years since we started. There were other gay rock ‘n’ rollers around when we began, but they weren’t out and weren’t singing about their desires in any specific way, which we always have—it was an opening for a band like us. Now, there are queer bands everywhere, some will

be opening our shows. So, it’s great to see things progress as time marches on.”

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ALLEGAEON

U

nfortunately, due to the lowering attention span of the music buying public and the lowering patience of record labels, it is becoming rarer and rarer these days to see young, talented bands last long enough to reach their creative apex. However, in the case of Fort Collins, Colorado, tech-death savants Allegaeon, after eight years and three full-lengths, the band are set to unleash Proponent for Sentience via Metal Blade Sept. 23, their fourth LP and by far the creative high-point of their already successful career.

Musically and lyrically, Allegaeon aren’t strangers to creating fast, incredibly technical death metal with sci-fi lyrics, but Proponent for Sentience stands out as the band’s first full foray into creating a concept record. Much like the album’s concept, the creation process started off simple and innocent enough, then grew into a monster.

“It was never the intention to write a concept record; it just developed slowly over the writing process, some of which even materialized in the studio last minute,” guitarist Greg Burgess admits. “The second movement of the ‘Proponent Sonata’ was the catalyst

SHALLOW CUTS

I

t’s a familiar story: friends gather for a weekend and turn into a band. As the best music comes from the heart, it’s also a recipe with a good success rate. Sprinkle in some ingredients from Dear Landlord, Dan Padilla, and Madison Bloodbath, put them in a studio, and Shallow Cuts are born. Guitarist J Wang and bassist Matty Kirkley have played together for years, most prominently in Dan Padilla. Through that band, they’ve toured with drummer Brad Lokkesmoe of Dear Landlord and The Gateway District. While the pedigree suggests a certain melodic punk base, they’ve approached Shallow Cuts as a new three-headed monster.

Shallow Cuts released their debut fulllength, Empty Beach Town, July 8 on No Idea Records. After two previous 7”s, the band’s full-length is a true collaboration. “All three of us had pretty much equal songwriting,” Wang says.

For the most part, the writer of a song takes the microphone, except when Kirkley sometimes handles vocals for Lokkesmoe.

Empty Beach Town shares similarities to their other work, but it’s more focused. “I have a writing style that’s rel-

26 NEW NOISE

for the whole concept. The themes that appear in that intro, I wrote back in 2007 when I first joined the band.

We used it as our intro music for a few years, and I always loved it.”

The band have always been fond of including scientific themes in their lyrics. Therefore, it’s only fitting that the new record’s lyrical concept was inspired by one of the greatest scientific minds ever. “The ‘Proponent for Sentience Sonata’ is based on a pair of interviews that the renowned theoretical physicist and cosmologist, Stephen Hawking, did with the BBC,” Burgess explains. “In these interviews, Hawking discusses the advancement of technology, the development of artificial intelligence, and the probable outcome of said artificial intelligence. Our story is just a fleshed out, elaborated version of events that Hawking described.”

Unsurprisingly, the band’s elaboration on Hawking’s already terrifying theory quickly took a turn into something far more horrific. “In one of the interviews that Stephen Hawking did with John Oliver, he told the story of scientists asking the first intelligent computer if there was a god, and the computer shot back, ‘There is now.’” Burgess says. “This thought is the final exclamation point of the record. We went from the second movement to where it was humanity that considered themselves God to the machines claiming

INTERVIEW WITH GUITARIST GREG BURGESS BY BRANDON RINGO the title. It’s a pretty grandiose, albeit not very original story. Just ask Arnold Schwarzenegger.”

things effortless. Also, the learning curve of doing four albums—we know how to come in prepared.”

Though the process of taking an album from soup to nuts is rarely easy, it’s even more difficult when the record is a massive, sprawling conceptual masterpiece. In the case of Proponent for Sentience, the process was a little bit of both. “The recording of the album was by far the easiest session we’ve ever had,” Burgess explains. “Working with Dave Otero [of Flatline Audio in Denver] now for four albums and our EP, we have a great working relationship and a great friendship that just makes

“The writing, on the other hand, was extremely stressful,” he adds. “[Guitarist] Mike [Stancel] and I really were feeling the pressure of following up [2014’s] Elements of the Infinite, and we didn’t think we were going to have enough time to write the record because of how much time we were spending on the road. I like to say this album was written out of desperation, depression, and self-deprecation.”

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atively similar to every band I’ve been in, except the different people playing make it sound a little different,” Kirkley says. “I don’t think it would be as authentic if we tried to do something outside what feels natural to us.” However, he says in Shallow Cuts, there’s an emphasis away from the gruff “Leatherface reference” vocals. “I tried to actually sing,” he says.

Wang jokes that “Matty sounds like Neil Diamond,” but his voice has a remorseful, pained tone, on display in the drunken journey to “find my way back home” in the aptly titled “Cynical Hearts.” His tone is vulnerable, eschewing the shielded immediacy of shouted vocals. In “Decision Tree,” Kirkley delivers his lament with an understated hint of pop sheen, a departure from the coarse frustration his rougher vocals reflect in some of his other bands. Lokkesmoe adds the distinctive drum pattern that kicks the song into gear and gives it a new burst of energy. “It’s not this conscious effort to sound different, but there is something,” Wang says.

Shallow Cuts are highly efficient, a result of only spending time together a few times each year. Lokkesmoe flies from Minneapolis to San Diego for rehearsals, followed by either a recording session or a West Coast tour.

“Whenever we get together, we make it worth it,” Kirkley interjects.

I N T E R V I E W W I T H G U I TA R I ST J WA N G A N D BAS S I ST M AT T Y K I R K L E Y BY L O R E N G R E E N “When you’re in a band and practice once a week with your buddies, it’s almost a pastime thing,” Wang continues. “It’s not this urgency for a sense of accomplishment. When Brad is here, we get so much done. It feels really good to me, and I need that in my life.” Ironically, both Wang and Kirkley admit that Shallow Cuts are probably more productive than some of their locally based projects, such as Chagrin.

That focus comes through on Empty Beach Town, which is complete and pointed, yet just rough enough at the edges to have real heart. Wang feels some of his other recordings have been

sloppy, but can listen to Empty Beach Town start to finish without hearing any mistakes. He says the attention to singing conveys more complex emotion that melds with the shared songwriting duties across the record.

Shallow Cuts are collaborative at their core, melding three points of view into a single product over 12 new songs.

There’s a well-established catalog among the members already, but Shallow Cuts are forging a new sound.

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SOILWORK

D

on’t let the title fool you: Soilwork’s new album, Death Resonance, isn’t as much about death as it is rebirth and evolution.

The Swedish melodic death metal band had a problem: they had a lot of killer songs that had only been released in Japan, and their fans were clamoring for them. The solution was to embrace the idea of Death Resonance, a 15 song (mostly) rarities collection, set for release Aug. 19 via Nuclear Blast Records. “I’m really excited about it,” vocalist Björn “Speed” Strid admits. “We made sure that it was going to have a little bit of an album feel, even though it’s a compilation.”

The band set out to give new life to songs, remastering some that have been around since 2005. “I think it showcases the development, or how we are evolving, both as songwriters and as musicians. It’s a pretty diverse compilation,” Strid says. “In many ways, it’s about giving back to the fans, but it’s also important that it was going to make sense, and I think it does tie those 10 years together. It’s just hard to explain how.

HORSEBACK

S

imilar to actually riding on horseback, listening to the band Horseback can be an experience of both great exhilaration and incredible uncertainty. They also both require an mind open to new experiences, as well as an appreciation for unique exploration. The brainchild of North Carolina native, Jenks Miller, Horseback is a band that is in a constant state of evolution. While his 2012 Relapse Records debut, Half Blood, represented a large change from his previous albums, his sophomore release for the label, Dead Ringers—out Aug. 12—is an even bigger shift, something that was partially planned. “The sound of each record develops organically, but it’s usually a product of a conscious decision to push my musical practice into new places,” Miller informs.

Though he knew Dead Ringers needed to have a different sound from Half Blood, the creation of both records was very similar. “The process always starts with a sort of trance-induced and wide open improv sketch,” Miller reveals. “Sometimes, an unwieldy number of ideas comes all at once. Sometimes, I have to hold

28 NEW NOISE

But if you listen to the album, you will be taken on a little bit of a journey and see how we’ve evolved since 2005.”

Soilwork’s journey took a bit of an unexpected turn this summer, when longtime drummer Dirk Verbeuren left to join Megadeth after filling in for Chris Adler. “Obviously,” Strid says with a pause, “we didn’t really know what was going to happen with Dirk. When I saw him playing with Megadeth at Sweden Rock Festival this year, after I’d seen that show, I knew that Dave [Mustaine] was going to pop the big question, so I was prepared for it. […] It’s interesting, I started this band 20 years ago, when I was still living with my parents. Who would’ve thought that the Soilwork drummer would join Megadeth? But I’m really happy.

He deserves it. He’s probably one of the top three metal drummers in the world. It’s cool to see.” Soilwork recruited Verbeuren’s protégé, Bastian Thusgaard, and haven’t skipped a beat. “It’s pretty cool how he came in and nailed the songs,” Strid says.

“There’s always that time where it will take to kind of lock in perfectly with the band, you know? It was the same with Dirk when he came into the band in 2004.”

Death Resonance’s new songs, “Helsinki” and its title track, assure that

I N T E R V I E W W I T H V O C A L I S T B J öR N " S P E E D " S T R I D B Y N I C K H A R R A H the band still have the fire inside, 20 years on. “I’m just so happy that we still have the love for the music we write,” Strid says. “We still get a kick out of it, and our music is still vital. It hasn’t turned into a corporate metal circus. Every album we release, it’s not a matter of an excuse or a tool to get out there and tour and make money in order to survive. It all starts with the love of the music.”

Soilwork will return to the U.S. to headline the second Fury Tour starting Oct. 14. Looking ahead to writing new material for the next

Nuclear Blast release, Strid says Soilwork fans should be rightly stoked. “Who knows what’s going to happen with the next album?” he muses. “Those two new songs that are on Death Resonance maybe give you a little bit of a hint where it’s going to go, like with the dynamics.

I’m really excited about that, to find new ways to express ourselves, and still remaining true to our roots.

That’s always a challenge, and I like a challenge.”

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onto ideas for years before the proper context brings them to life. The most significant difference between Half Blood and Dead Ringers is the instrumentation used as the foundation for the tracks. Half Blood largely used typical rock band instrumentation—at least on the A side—whereas most of Dead Ringers is based on electronic and/or synthetic textures and sequences. But the method of composition I use most frequently in this project—i.e. keeping things as loose as possible for as long as possible, then doing very detailed and obsessive work to bring everything into focus—is found throughout both records.”

As the current sole member of the band, Miller wrote and produced the entire album by himself. While he hasn’t always been Horseback’s lone rider, it certainly wasn’t unfamiliar territory. “I taught myself production methods nearly 20 years ago as a matter of necessity, because I was having trouble finding other musicians who wanted to do what I wanted to do with any dedication,” he recalls. “Since then, studio work has become a common practice for me, in both solo and collaborative settings.”

Though he enjoys working by himself, Miller still appreciates collaboration in the studio. “I like each approach for different reasons,” he

I N T E R V I E W W I T H J E N K S M I L L E R BY B R A N D O N R I N G O says. “Solo studio work is much more efficient in many respects, because there’s less deliberation and compromise than there is in a collaboration.

The focus is entirely about connecting a set of musical performances with a vision. However, when I try to do everything myself, I miss out on the fresh ideas—and the sounding board—that other musicians provide.

So, even on records that are largely ‘solo,’ I try to involve other musicians on some tracks to keep things fresh and to threaten whatever little world I’ve been building. You don’t want to play things too safe, after all.”

.....

Celebrate 25 years of The Mahones’ Irish punk rock legacy with re-recorded versions of their most beloved songs, featuring Scruffy Wallace, formerly of Dropkick Murphys.

IN STORES AUGUST 26

NO JOY

I

f trudging out to a farm building in the middle of a Canadian winter sounds brutal, that’s because it is. However, when that barn is the same place bands like Preoccupations and METZ have recorded with Holy Fuck masterminds Graham Walsh and Brian Borcherdt behind the boards, it’s easy to see—and hear—why Montreal noise pop act No Joy put themselves through such conditions to record their July 15 EP release, Drool Sucker.

“It’s an old barn, but it’s stacked with really cool gear,” guitarist and cofounder Jasamine White-Gluz says. “It was fun to look around.

There was a bunch of old MIDI stuff laying around. But outside—it was in Hamilton, Ontario, and so it was super cold—there were wild turkeys running around attacking the building. […] That’s the closest I get to being at one with nature.”

Ironically, the band’s choice of recording locale was predicated on practicality, due to the availability of the space, but it also lent the EP’s three tracks a more live feel than the band have aimed for in the

ARMS ALOFT I t’s been four years since Eau Claire, Wisconsin’s Arms Aloft released Sawdust City. With a full presidential term in between their debut and the new What a Time to Be Barely Alive— out Sept. 9 on Red Scare Industries— the band have kept busy playing shows, figuring out their future, and observing the spectacle of modern times. “The name was a very hungover utterance the morning after FEST,” says vocalist, guitarist, and primary songwriter Seth Gile. “We were laying there dreading the day ahead, and somebody said it.”

That gives the impression of a postparty album filled with life’s mistakes set to music. It’s cynical, but deeper, more explorative.

“The bigger answer is it’s a fucking weird time to live in in the U.S.,” he continues. “This weird post-democracy U.S. that we’ve got going makes day-today life kind of a circus.” The album has yet to be released, and friends are already sending him Twitter memes on real topics, tagged with the phrase #WhatATimeToBeBarelyAlive. Gile is direct and political, yet tongue in cheek. “The GOP’s official platform includes having the FDA label internet porn a health hazard,” he mocks. “That

30 NEW NOISE

past. Where previous records relied heavily on layering, a condensed recording schedule and harsh climate influenced the band to record each of Drool Sucker’s three tracks similar to how they’d be played live. The results, teased by preview track “A Thorn in Garland’s Side,” see the band capturing a perhaps warmer and more focused studio sound than before.

What hasn’t changed is the band’s defiance of clear genre boundaries.

Too energetic to be neatly categorized as shoegaze, but too dirty to be called dream-pop, Drool Sucker finds No Joy continuing to pull together disparate elements into one cohesive sound. Picture the powerful distorted drive of contemporaries like Pity Sex blended with the mournful swirl of influential acts like Slowdive, and you’ll be halfway there. The EP’s cover art, featuring black metal lettering, serves to further confound snobbish shoegaze purists, possibly alluding to shoegaze and black metal’s seemingly increasing audience overlap in the wake of Deafheaven’s Sunbather, a band No Joy have also shared stages with.

This may be what helps the band stand out. While heavy indie bands with fuzz and delay pedals have seen a resurgence since No Joy dropped their debut LP, Ghost Blonde, in

INTERVIEW WITH GUITARIST/COFOUNDER JASAMINE WHITE-GLUZ BY BEN SAILER 2010, White-Gluz says she’s not concerned with external expectations for how their music should sound, preferring to do what keep things interesting to themselves. “As a musician, I get kind of bored doing the same things over and over again, regardless of what other people are thinking of it,” White-Gluz says. “I like to change stuff up.”

Drool Sucker also marks the band’s first release with Topshelf Records.

It’s a fitting move that came about organically through discussions with the label, and one that could also continue to broaden No Joy’s cross-genre appeal by raising their visibility with emo fans, whom White-Gluz counts herself among.

“It felt really natural to start working with them,” she says. It may seem like a stretch, but fits well with No Joy’s typically atypical style.

.....

seems like something out of a movie, that they would give a shit… It’s fucking nuts, man.”

After releasing their first full-length through Tampa label, Kiss Of Death, Arms Aloft moved to Chicago based Red Scare for its follow-up. Despite four years between, it wasn’t a conscious decision to take time and hone their craft. Rather, the band were caught up in the slow-build momentum behind Sawdust City, supporting the release with regular touring and multiple trips to Europe. “It’s been exciting how many people ended up hearing the record, but it definitely took a while. We’ve stayed busy on the backs of playing the same 12 songs for six years or whatever,” Gile laughs.

After primarily composing Sawdust City himself, What a Time to Barely Be Alive is more collaborative, even if the liner notes show mostly Gile’s name in the credits. “A lot of it is a spark from someone else, and I do a lot of the arranging myself,” he explains. Bassist Matt Keil also contributed songs to the album, which adds dimension. Keil was in the band at formation, leaving in 2008 to tour with Comeback Kid before rejoining the group last year. “I end up in the de facto ‘band dad’ role,” Gile says, but the floor is open to ideas.

When Keil shared “…And a World to Win,” Gile was immediately into it. It was a no brainer that the song would be

INTERVIEW WITH VOCALIST/GUITARIST SETH GILE BY LOREN GREEN on the new record. “It was, ‘That’s the last song on the record and my favorite of what we had so far,’” he says.

Arms Aloft’s sophomore effort comes with a little more anxiety than its predecessor. “When we did Sawdust City, we could have done anything and it would have been in a vacuum. I still don’t think anybody knows us, but [this time], we knew there are at least a few hundred people who will have an expectation,” Gile says, admitting this may have contributed to the lag time between albums.

With more road miles than some bands

twice their age, Arms Aloft are moving at their own pace and forging their own path on firm ethical ground. Playing hundreds of shows and watching their peers has taught valuable lessons that influence their own process. “There’s a difference between a punk band and a band that plays punk music,” Gile says.

“We want to be a punk band. We want to operate a certain way. Everybody knows who the shitheads are, and at some point, you have to make a conscious decision: ‘I don’t want anybody to think we’re shitheads.’”

.....

OF MICE & MEN INTERVIEW WITH VOCALIST/BASSIST AARON PAULEY BY NATASHA VAN DUSER

32 NEW NOISE

“Separate skin from the bone / Digging at my flesh like a schizophrenic with a blade / Fingers tracing scars / Mapping out reminders of just how much I can take,” Of Mice & Men frontman Austin Carlile screams on the track, “Pain.”

Those are some pretty gory lines to drop on fans in a first single.

However, the words embody the predominant theme of the California rockers’ upcoming full-length, Cold World, out on Sept. 9 through Rise Records. “The song is really about Austin’s life, essentially the last year we had off,” bassist and clean vocalist Aaron Pauley explains. “People have been wondering what we are up to on a daily basis, and for him, it’s that song.”

Carlile’s fragile health has been a major factor in Of Mice & Men’s career, but only shapes part of the lyrical and musical content on the new record. “I think that everybody kind of understands that we live in a very cold world, with current events, with everything that’s going on,” Pauley continues, “but, you know, as much as a few songs on the album have to do with the actual literal world, I think a lot of it has to do with the cold world that we can sometimes create for ourselves. Whether we can get lost in this day and age with anxiety and depression, and it’s really, really easy to create a cold world that you live in. So, I think a lot of the songs are very introspective in that way.”

Of Mice & Men have reached a height in their career, allowing them to tour with giants like Linkin Park and Slip-

knot. Yet, this time around, they chose to take time off to really hash out their fourth studio record. “When we did [2014’s] Restoring Force, we were basically writing the record on the road on off days or back stage in dressing rooms,” Pauley says, “but this record— given Austin’s health and the fact that we basically took a year off—we had a year to kind of congregate and write organically. [We would] just get together into a room and jam and just see what kind of songs we could write that way. […] I think a lot of the more rock influence just came from writing a record like the old rock bands used to, which is just sit in a room with people and you write songs.”

The five piece initially began as a metalcore project, but have since greatly evolved into a more modern rock style, with Cold World being

the most commercially accessible album the band have written to date. “I think we were listening to a lot of ‘90s music,” Pauley explains of the band’s go-to playlist during their writing process. “We were listening to a lot of Alice In Chains, Tool, and Deftones. I think we also kind of went back—like, we had a ‘90s summer. It was really, really hot in California where we were writing, so we just kind of listened to Alice In Chains and hung out in the heat. So, I think probably that had a bit of an influence on the songs.”

Fans can pick up on this array of throwback sounds in the nu metal vibe of “Pain,” the Enya-esque “Game of War,” and the rap rock flows of “Contagious” and “Relentless.” “I feel like it’s always really hard for us, being on the inside looking out, to kind of see where the band is compared to where it was,” Pauley says. “It doesn’t feel like we’ve changed anything. It feels like we’ve kind of consistently done the same thing, which is just that we give 100 percent into everything that we do, whether it’s the live show, whether it’s songwriting, whether it’s recording the album, whether it’s doing interviews. It’s anything that we can do, we try to do 100 percent, because we really love doing this, we love our fans, and we love the way that music speaks to people, because we all grew up as fans. […] We were fans, and now, we have fans. It’s cool that we get to be able to be that band that maybe we wish that we had when we were younger, so I think it’s hard to say where we’re going to end up, but I know that we’re going to keep doing what we’re doing and, hopefully, end up somewhere good.” .....

PHOTOGRAPHY BY ALAN SNODGRASS

NEW NOISE 33

I

f extreme metal were a suburban neighborhood, prog rock wouldn’t exactly be a stranger. While it may act and dress a little differently than its long-haired counterparts, it is still a perfectly acceptable party guest. However, Stockholm legends Opeth have taken things further by moving prog rock into their house and letting it massively overhaul the decor.

While the band’s transition away from death metal on the 2011 release of Heritage came as a huge surprise to their hardcore fans, the shock has since worn off and has transformed into acceptance. Now, with Sorceress—out Sept. 30 on Nuclear Blast and Moderbolaget Records—that acceptance has transformed into appreciation, as the band have continued to slowly creep back toward heavier riffs.

The main example of the band’s slight return to heaviness on Sorceress is the album’s title track, which starts innocuously enough, only to be interrupted by a monstrous riff that dominates the rest of the song. While it’s easy to assume this was an intentional burst of heaviness, it was more like a stroke of luck. “It kind of came out by accident, you could say,” vocalist

34 NEW NOISE

and guitarist Mikael Åkerfeldt confirms. “I just came up with the little keyboard lick that started off the song, and then, I kind of came upon a song, so to speak. I didn’t have any more ideas, so I just went, ‘Fuck it,’ and tried detuning the guitar a little bit to see what comes out. I came up with this kind of heavy themed riff or whatever.”

Though it might sound weird that these icons of early death metal “accidentally” wrote a heavy riff on their new record, it’s that same spontaneity that has helped guide them from the beginning. “How I write—I have so many influences and so many types of inspiration. If I set out to write something heavy, it’s equally likely that I will end up with something really soft,” Åkerfeldt admits. “I just love music, so it doesn’t matter where I go. As long it sounds good to me, it doesn’t matter if it’s heavy or not. Seeing as we’re considered to be a metal band or a death metal band, of course I think, ‘Maybe that will go over well with the metal fans,’ but me personally with my own taste, even though I love the heavy stuff, it might end up being a soft song. It just happens.”

One of the main tenets for most artists is to create for their own

enjoyment more than anyone else’s.

For Opeth, this has always been the rule rather than the exception. “The thing that makes writing music fun—or rather, the thing that makes writing music boring is when you put too many limitations on yourself as a songwriter,” Åkerfeldt affirms.

“You keep thinking, ‘Oh fuck, I love this, but I can’t do that, because we’re supposed to be this or that type of band,’ and I hate that. That goes against, as far as I’m concerned, the whole idea of being a musician.”

For hardcore fans, the band’s attitude toward their music may seem a bit cavalier, but it is not without precedent. “I want music to be free, and [I think] that’s something I got from back in the day, because I listen to a lot of old music, and it seems like it was a more open climate in the music world back then,” Åkerfeldt admits. “Everybody was doing what they wanted to, and that’s what made them popular. We kind of try to maintain that idea that we do what we want to, and hopefully, people are gonna like it— and if not, that’s a shame.”

As much as the band love their fans and want them to be happy, Åkerfeldt also acknowledges the subjectivity of fan reaction. “You

can’t really control what people will think,” he says. “You can try to write the heaviest record ever, and there’s still a possibility that everyone is going to hate it. So, it doesn’t matter at the end of the day what the general public opinion is, because it’s not going to change anything.”

The unpredictable nature of how each new album will be received can be a major cause of concern for some bands. For Opeth, however, their refusal to adhere to any particular audience or sound has made their creative exploration a far more fulfilling experience.

“It’s just a new record at the end of the day, and the next one is gonna be hopefully completely different again,” Åkerfeldt asserts. “I want to evolve and explore music. I think it’s such a beautiful and important thing in my life that I want it to constantly—I don’t want any moss on us, I want to constantly move forward or backward or sideways or anything. I don’t want to stand still.”

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PHOTOGRAPHY BY JOE CALIXTO

U

pon their 2007 formation, Touché Amoré exploded onto the Los Angeles post-hardcore scene with gritted teeth and a sense of alarm, embodied by the band’s debut 7” the following year.

“Honest Sleep,” the pulsing track that closes the release, offers the line, “If I’m doing fine / There’s no point in this.” Three records and 10 EPs followed, featuring that consistent, trademark angst against the backdrop of a gradually shifting, melodic sound. As the band edge toward the 10th anniversary of their christening and consider that passage of time, vocalist Jeremy Bolm isn’t entirely fine now, either: “That’s just downright upsetting,” he laughs.

Yet, here the Los Angeles hardcore outfit stand, prepping the release of their fourth record, Stage Four, for Sept. 16 and finding a new home in Epitaph Records. An initial scan of the LP’s title makes sense in terms of chronology— this is their fourth release—but there’s another meaning here.

Stage Four refers to the diagnosis of terminal cancer for Bolm’s mother, who passed away in the fall of 2014. “Palm Dreams,” the first single from Stage Four, explores the questions we never ask our loved ones. In this case spe-

cifically, Bolm wonders why his mother made a fateful move from Nebraska to California in the 1970s. Bolm’s feeling of loss swells throughout the entire record, with tracks like “Displacement” linking his mother’s death to other real life incidents: “Last week, I crashed my car and I walked away unscathed / Maybe that was you asking me to keep my faith,” he sings. Bolm was involved in a four-car crash as he was driving home from practice in January.

When asked if “catharsis” is an ongoing element to performing these songs live, Bolm quickly confirms, “Absolutely. ‘Catharsis’ is the exact, appropriate word.

And when you sing these songs over and over, it’s like a suspenseful movie or a thriller with wild parts. It doesn’t affect you the same way when you watch it over and over, but when you see someone in the audience with a certain look in their eye, you think, ‘Maybe they have their own narrative.’ That reaction, it pushes you to go extra hard.”

Even when the subject matter is this specific, Bolm says he enjoys how fans can “make it your own,” or even attach themselves to a specific line. He laughs as he recalls a rock song he once enjoyed that he

thought was about a relationship between lovers. It turned out to be a song about God. But that’s part of the deal. “I like it when people invent their own narrative,” he says.

Touché Amoré recorded Stage Four early this year with producer Brad Wood, who produced the band’s 2013 LP, Is Survived By, as well as releases from the likes of Sunny Day Real Estate, Say Anything, and mewithoutYou. Even with his own hardships and thoughts steering the band’s lyrical content, Bolm credits his fellow bandmates—guitarists Clayton Stevens and Nick Steinhardt, bassist Tyler Kirby, and drummer Elliot Babin—for the band’s sonic evolution. And more than that, he says Touché Amoré’s cohesion is rooted in how they navigate issues together. “I think the most important thing is that you need to make sure you are friends with your band,” Bolm says. “You hear about musicians not talking to each other and traveling on separate buses. I don’t understand how you can do that. […] We’re always within a couple feet of each other. We’re in the front seat of everything we’re going through.”

Another thing nearly 10 years of activity has brought the band is efficiency in the studio. Since those first recordings, Bolm “re-

alized I didn’t have to do it all day.” That makes an emotionally draining record like Stage Four more than a rushed effort. And the singer still cites clarity as an ongoing aspiration, even when it’s time to scream. “You can scream all day, but people have to know what you’re screaming about,” he says. The band’s first demos bring back memories of Bolm figuring that out. “I can laugh and appreciate it now,” he says. “I hear myself having no idea what I’m doing.

I couldn’t ever explain how to scream properly. I never learned how to scream properly. I just yelled until it stopped hurting.”

It seems easier to appreciate, too, in an appraisal of how far Touché Amoré have come. And as Bolm looks ahead, he finds “appreciation” chief among his feelings. “It sounds cheesy, but I’m always just astonished by how talented this band is,” Bolm says. “I’ve known these guys for so many years.

When we started, it was pretty generic. Punk rock doesn’t have to be wild creatively or complicated. But I watched these guys study and care about their craft. I just try to keep up and get better.

If you’re in a band and you’re not impressed with [each other], you should probably find someone else to play with.” .....

NEW NOISE 37

PHOTOGRAPHY BY JACKI VITETTA

A

few months ago, Fat Mike opened up about his band’s book, “NOFX: The Hepatitis Bathtub and Other Stories.” Now, he’s opening up about the band’s newest album, First Ditch Effort, which comes out Oct. 7 via the vocalist and bassist’s own label, Fat Wreck Chords. The record features the band’s darkest material released in a very long time. “I bet I was still doing drugs when you did the interview about the book,” is how he gets the conversation rolling.

Fat Mike is open about his struggle with addiction in conversation, as well as on First Ditch Effort. He says that after co-writing “The Hepatitis Bathtub” and laying it all out for fans to see, he found a new place of freedom to write from.

“Lyrically, I think it’s kind of like me peeling off my skin for most of it,” he explains.

“Musically, I think it’s kind of a place where it’s prettier and more depressing and more hardcore than anything we’ve done in a long time. I think this record is kind of an extension of the book; it’s like, once you put all your personal shit out there, it’s really freeing and it’s really liberating. So, I just thought I’d go into more detail, and I didn’t mean to, it’s just, you write songs that are about what you’re feeling.”

my 30s, and maybe a year or so ago, I started taking painkillers a little more,” he says. “I went to go see a specialist for getting off drugs, and I said, ‘Can you help me get off them, because I’ve kind of had it?’

He said, ‘You gotta try this Suboxone shit,’ and I said, ‘Oh yeah, I’ve heard of that, my friends have done that and they taper down over a week.’ And he said, ‘Oh, well you can’t do that here, you have to do a three-month program.’ And I was like, ‘What? Three months? I’m not doing heroin.’ He said, ‘Well, if you don’t do three months, you can’t get it.’ So, I did it, and the next thing I know, I’m strung out on this fucking drug. And that was the first time I really felt like a fucking addict, because I couldn’t leave without doing the fucking drug. So, that’s when I decided I had to go to The album’s most personal detox.” qualities most likely come from Fat Mike’s own Suboxone is a narcotic disastrous experience with a typically used to treat doctor who was supposed to pain, as well as addiction help him get off painkillers. to painkillers.

While “I didn’t try drugs until there has been success in

NEW NOISE 39

using it to treat addiction, the drug is also highly addictive itself and can cause respiratory problems or death if combined with other substances such as alcohol. When Fat Mike did go to detox, he was given Suboxone for a week, which is how the drug is meant to be used. He was off painkillers in six days. Out of this came “Oxy Moronic,” track number five on First Ditch Effort. “‘Oxy Moronic,’ that’s just a battle cry. It’s a war on doctors,” he says.

“I mean, I was doing fine on street drugs for a long time. You know, booze and cocaine. Then, doctors just fucking dug into me, and really, I blame them for [my] becoming more of an addict.

They shouldn’t be giving you these pills that are so addictive, and all you’ve gotta do is ask for ‘em.”

felt exciting, and the song is kind of exciting, because I’m excited for being sober for this long. It’s the first time since I was 16 that I’ve had almost three months sober.

And not that I’m staying like this forever probably, but I sure am having a good time.

I really don’t want to drink or use drugs. At all. I had a good run, but it really was the last year—when I got too deep, and I had to do drugs just to feel good—and that’s not a good place to be. So, the song is—I was preparing myself for drying out.”

Fat Mike delves further in to his own life with “Happy Father’s Day,” which is about his late father. “‘Happy Father’s Day’ is: ‘What the fuck, man?’ As I get older and spend time with my daughter, I just get periods of time where I’m just so fucking pissed at my The rest of First Ditch dad,” he admits. “Everything Effort follows suit with one personal track after another.

It’s less political than most NOFX material, as Fat Mike feels that they have said all that can be said on previous releases like The Decline and War On Errorism.

However, the full-length is anything but short on lyrics that actually say something paired with familiar, NOFXsounding riffs.

He goes in-depth on the song “California Drought,” noting, “The most interesting thing about that track, to me, isn’t the lyrics; it’s the guitar rhythm that I think took an hour and a half to come up with. I was like, ‘That’s it. That’s something I haven’t heard before.’ It just

40 NEW NOISE

I do with my daughter, I’m like, I never did this with my dad. It’s not like he was in the Army or something; he lived near me, he just never did anything with me.

It just pisses me off. Me and my wife are in the process to change our names, because I want his name to die. A lot of people won’t talk shit about their parents out of respect, and I don’t have respect for that. I think I’m kind of a little bit of the fucked up person I am today in some respects all because of him.

Any insecurities I have are for sure from him.”

the whole dialogue is about [being] transgender. No one’s really discussing the ‘Rocky Horror,’ dressing like a girl because it’s fun or because it’s sexy or because you want to or because it’s punk.” Fat Mike laments that the accepted categories for defining and expressing one’s gender are still so limited, adding, “I prefer to label myself more of a ‘transvest-lite.’ It took me a long time to actually be out about it. I don’t really seem like the type, I guess, but it feels really good to walk down San Francisco Street in a dress like no big deal or “I’m a Transvest-lite” play shows in a dress.” explores one of those past insecurities, but one that Fat When asked if he thinks Mike no longer holds onto. people don’t expect him “I think after the book, I was to wear feminine clothes like, ‘Shit, it’s all out there,’” because he generally has a he says of his penchant for masculine appearance, Fat dressing in traditionally Mike laughs, “Well, that’s feminine clothing. “These because they haven’t seen days, it kind of bugs me, me in drag.” .....

ALL PHOTOGRAPHY BY SAM VELGHE

F

or Norma Jean, Polar Similar is a bit of a ghost story. It’s about being haunted by their surroundings, by memories, and by the notion that we’re not so different.

The band’s seventh album—due out via Solid State Records on Sept. 9—saw them hunkering down deep in rural Minnesota at the legendary Pachyderm Studios (where Nirvana recorded

In Utero) last winter and literally using the studio to its fullest extent. Fittingly, when the band arrived at Pachyderm, “The Shining” hit Netflix.

The film stayed on a loop during the creation of Polar Similar. Whether watching the film repeatedly in an old cabin in the woods was a good idea is debatable, but it spawned the group’s best outing yet, so the results are unquestionable.

“"We were coming out of snow almost to our knees, driving straight down south to Arkansas. We could see the color coming back as we drove, and it felt like us physically leaving that environment behind..."

44 NEW NOISE

So, why record in the middle of nowhere during the coldest months? Vocalist Cory Brandan explains, “It’s half excitement and half fear that we have of: ‘Once this is done, we can’t go back and change it.’ We’re gonna die, and this record is going to keep going.

I guess that’s a bit of a morbid direction,” he laughs, “but that’s what we tell ourselves.

We want to have this classic feel where, lyrically, the song isn’t going to lose its meaning in a year’s time because we’re talking about current events or the social climate. I feel like those things change like waves of the ocean. We want to have something that we know is going to last for a long time.”

That mindset manifests in their classic, “Memphis Will Be Laid to Waste,” which Norma Jean still play live 14 years after its release. Brandan agrees, “Totally, and we still love playing that song. One of the main reason is because the fans like it so much. There is this thing where we’re writing music for ourselves, but there’s also this big give thing to it. Don’t forget to give and take. I think even Polar Similar has a few tracks where we realized, ‘This is for the fans.’”

This is evident on “Death Is a Living Partner,” which has a speedy riff that could lay waste to 100 Memphis-sized cities, and “Forever Hurtling towards Andromeda,” which feels like a future live staple with one of the band’s best breakdowns yet.

That’s why we wanted to isolate ourselves. We tried to find out what the record really was, tried to find that intention behind the music that pushes it.

We found it in the studio. That place has this old, grandma’s house feel to it. We used it a lot; it has this atmosphere.

Once we realized that, we literally had a meeting and realized we needed to change things.

We went through every song and added elements of the atmosphere of the rooms of the house and studio to the record.

It added some cohesiveness we didn’t expect. This record would’ve sounded like [2013’s] Wrongdoers if we hadn’t used the room, putting mics in the ceiling cavities to get the echo.

Any reverb you hear is from the room.”

Lyrically, Norma Jean had no issue finding emotion for Polar Similar. The record touches on abuse in its many forms.

Brandan states that it was difficult to dig up those subjects again, but doesn’t hesitate to admit that it was all worth it.

“I always say, if I’m going to spend time away from my kids, wife, and home, I’m going to do it right,” he says. “Some of [the topics] are pretty near to me at this time, and I think that comes through.” After recording, the band were certainly ready to get back home.

“I remember the drive home; it was this really beautiful drive,” Brandan remembers.

“We were coming out of snow almost to our knees, driving straight down south to Arkansas. We could see the color coming back as we drove, and it felt like us physically leaving that environment behind.

It was a neat visual after that isolation. We were laughing, saying, ‘That got pretty dark.’”

Brandan explains that he was haunted by the divisions he sees in this world, which inspired the album’s title. “I feel like Norma Jean kinda started over when we wrote [2010’s] Meridional,” he says. “We took a left turn, in a way. It has this weird meaning that even I have trouble explaining what

it means. Then, there’s Wrongdoers, which everyone knows what it means. I think Polar Similar is a little bit of both.

There’s a phonetic simplicity to it, but it’s not a phrase that exists. Everyone always says, ‘Oh, we’re polar opposites.’ Maybe it’s a little bit of the hippie in me coming out, but when you think of polar opposites, you think of these two poles, but there’s also this hidden part where those poles go, where they meet. Those poles may be on opposite ends, but they meet in the middle; they’re close. From there, it’s meant to be interpreted how you want.”

“In this climate, with how crazy it is, I don’t see people getting along out of nowhere,” he continues. “I don’t think that utopia exists, but I think we find those things that are in common that are hidden inside, and we can change the conversation. That’s how we find similarities in each other: understanding that you’re not the same, and that’s OK.” .....

.....

Polar Similar ushers in a new sonic direction for Norma Jean, and it’s clear that isolating themselves in the winter wilderness was vital to that move. “It was fun to be in that state of mind, and the longer we were there, the more we loved it,” Brandan recalls.

“The whole property is a big house with this old ‘60s look that’s been remodeled. When we were writing the record, we had all the bones of the songs written, but the album didn’t have any emotion yet.

NEW NOISE 45

PHOTOGRAPHY BY ALYSON COLETTA

"I selfishly wanted everyone to experience my suffering.

I didn’t just want sympathy, I wanted cooperation" INTERVIEW WITH VOCALIST KEITH BUCKLEY

BY SEAN GONZALEZ

46 NEW NOISE

“If I have to walk alone, I’m giving up / I can’t stay here knowing love is not enough,”

Every Time I Die vocalist and lyricist Keith Buckley howls on “Petal.” The lyric is in reference to the adversity Buckley’s wife faced when she experienced a life-threatening pregnancy complication and gave birth two months early. Having their world torn apart will leave an impression on anyone, and the event had a particularly lasting effect on Buckley’s mindset when writing Low Teens. “I can’t yet know what the ‘reason’ for that was, why her birth was so problematic,” the vocalist comments, “but now that everyone is healthy and there are no residual complications, I wonder if it was to push me into a place to make this record what it is.” The album is the eighth offering from the Buffalo, N.Y., act and will be released Sept. 23 via Epitaph Records.

Low Teens is named for the incredibly cold winter months Every Time I Die faced while writing the album. Warmth seemed to be absent surrounding Buckley’s mental state as well. Uncertainty cast its shadow over the singer as he dealt with the chaos that was brewing in his life. “I would see smiling faces [in the hospital] and wonder how it was possible for one person’s ‘reality’ to be so hopeful and positive while my ‘reality’ was so bleak and unfair,” he says. “I selfishly wanted everyone to experience my suffering. I didn’t just want sympathy, I wanted

cooperation,” Buckley explains in regard to the album’s closer, “Map Changes.” It’s a moment of vulnerability in which one finds themself unprepared to deal with the universe’s pull.

The song starts with Buckley and company spiraling out of control at a maddening pace, only to come to a thoughtful ending with pristine vocals and an emotive guitar riff. “I had never before experienced such grief and uncertainty,” Buckley states, “but writing this record gave me a focus when everything else was blurry. It kept my mind sharp and out of the swamp.”

The clarity that Buckley was able to find led to the most ambitious Every Time I Die record to date. The vocal deliveries range from visceral screams to gripping serenades. “Two Summers” is a rock song littered with a Southern groove and shines without any screamed vocals. “I just did what the song told me to do,” Buckley states, continuing, “I really wanted to let the instrumentation shine.

Vocals are a distraction sometimes. That was an important lesson I learned working with [Glassjaw frontman] Daryl Palumbo on the TAPE record,” the debut release from Buckley’s electronic side project. “Vocals aren’t something you slather on the top of a song, they’re something you carefully weave throughout.” This awareness helps Low Teens beam as the most dynamic record Every Time I Die have written.

The album was produced by Will Putney, a necessary binding. “Will was an essential part of this process, and I know bands say that about their producers even when they step in and sprinkle some studio magic on top of the product, but Will burrowed into the heart of our songs and made pivotal

changes at the source,” Buckley explains. This attention to detail—by both Putney and Every Time I Die—allows Low Teens to hit harder and with more schemes in its attacks.

“The more people I see slow down, the harder I press on,” Buckley comments. “And that isn’t a macho, ego-driven, ‘eat the weak’ approach, it’s just an affirmation that this is what we’re supposed to be doing, exactly when we’re supposed to be doing it.”

Opener “Fear and Trembling” is a bloodthirsty track that whips the reigns of the four horsemen, kick-starting the record with a thunderous clap. It’s vicious, ravishing, and finds Buckley pitting himself against death, offering to crack the reaper’s scythe with his own bare hands. “I Didn’t Want to Join Your Stupid Cult Anyways” and “1977” are rooted in punk rock vibes, charging the gates of Hell with blistering speeds. Guitarists Jordan Buckley and Andy Williams bounce frenetic, discordant riffs off of each other with a youthful vigor—despite being veterans of the industry—creating a sludgy raucity for “It Remembers,” which features soaring guest vocals from Panic! At The Disco lone survivor Brendon Urie. The rhythm section of Steve Micciche and Daniel Davison solidifies the framework by running with nothing but pure energy, making the five-minute “Religion of Speed” feel like a blur of intricate patterns. Lead single “The Coin Has a Say” combines all of their efforts and influences into one feel-good, beatdown song

with vivacious melodies and ear-shattering crashes.

“When I look back upon the process of making this album and everything that went into making it—from the inspiration to the manifestation—I feel fulfilled in a way I never have with any other record,” Buckley attests. Each Every Time I Die release has surpassed expectation, resulting in a consistent chorus of “No, this is their best record yet” from critics. Low Teens has that same pep in its stride. Buckley has been sober since the beginning of the year, embedding an extra layer of fulfillment within the release. After seemingly being chased by devils all winter—a reference to the song “Glitches”—Buckley found a better way to deal with them rather than drowning them out. “I see them and learn from them and move on with one less thing haunting me,” he remarks. “I can’t promise I will never have a drink again, but it’s good to know how much I’m capable of without it.”

Despite all the factors that seemed to stand in the way, one can hear the resiliency spilling from Low Teens’ guts. The band have paved their own path, finding a way to continue evolving without ever losing their spirit. Every Time I Die are more of an active rallying call than merely a band people passively listen to. “This doesn’t have to be and may not be the most ‘successful’ Every Time I Die record, but this is the one I will refer to if people ask what we, as a band, are capable of,” Buckley comments. Capability flies across the 13 songs, and Buckley is proudly able to assert, “This is the masterpiece.”

.....

NEW NOISE 47

I

f you’ve ever found yourself alone in the middle of the night, driving through a titanic rainstorm with zero visibility, no air conditioning, and nothing to keep you company but the smell of your own body odor in a car that’s quickly increasing in humidity, then you’ve felt what it’s like listening to Neurosis. For three decades now, these extreme metal luminaries from Oakland, Calif., have made a career out of creating music with so much emotion that it sounds as if many of their songs have crawled and scratched their way from the deepest depths of your nightmares.

While Neurosis do have a major penchant for writing songs that are emotionally heavy and unrepentantly soul-shattering, they also have a touch that’s slightly more mellow, almost melodic. On Fires Within Fires—the band’s 12th fulllength, out Sept. 23 via their own label, Neurot Recordings—they managed to marry both of these elements in fairly equal measure. Here, the band’s sound is the most balanced it’s ever been, and considering the fact that they started out as a straight-up hardcore punk band on their 1987 debut, Pain of Mind, their evolution has been quite mighty.

One of the many reasons for the band’s continued evolution is simply time itself. “I think it’s refusing to stagnate and learning over the years,” vocalist and guitarist Steve Von Till admits. “We’ve learned more and more how to channel this thing, how to just surrender to this music, and how to let it flow through us, and I think each time we come to the point where we’re ready to listen to the new sounds and bring them into existence, each time we get a little bit better at it. Each time around, the spiral towards the center of what the original idea, what the core fundamental be-

ing of Neurosis is, we get closer and closer to it.”

gig, so we took a little time and said, ‘Hey, let’s get together a couple of weekends early this When listening to any Neuro- year instead of playing gigs and sis album, it’s easy to envision see what happens.” these songs being written in a dark room lit only by candles Though the band’s lack of time and an ethereal glow. However, together does make it more for lead vocalist and guitarist difficult to write new material, Scott Kelly, it’s not quite that it makes the moments when complicated. “We usually start they are able to gather far more out with some sort of skeleton productive and enjoyable. “Our of riffs and stuff and just kin- time together is absolutely preda flesh it out from there. But, cious,” Von Till says. “Having it doesn’t always go that way,” found this music and being able Kelly explains. “I mean, it can to make this music is a gift, and start any possible way; it can since we don’t have that time, start with a keyboard loop or and since it is so difficult and it a drum beat or anything. The is so precious, we do not mess majority of the songs start out around. We honor it, and we sit with guitar riffs, and we just around and work at it. Not fuck start building it up around around or waste time with so there and coming up with an many of the stupid trivial acarrangement and feeling it out. tivities or partying or ego bullAt a certain point, we try to let shit that would get in the way of the song write itself and try not that.” to push it too much.”

While the band’s drive, deterWhile the band don’t have to mination, and experience have conjure or defeat any evil spir- aided the incredible evolution its to craft their slabs of aural of their sound, another importdecimation, simply meeting up ant asset has been legendary for writing sessions requires producer Steve Albini, who has grappling with both time and produced each of their albums geography. “We live quite far since 1999’s Times of Grace. from each other, so we don’t One of the many reasons they spend time rehearsing and continue to record with Albini practicing,” Von Till states. is because he acts as a facilita“When we see each other, it’s tor to the sound they’re seeking, usually flying somewhere for a rather than being its gatekeep-

er. “He just gave us this confidence that what we did [and] what we wrote would be captured exactly as we did it,” Kelly says. “He’s not really a producer or anything, where he tells you what he thinks you should do; that wouldn’t work with us, we wouldn’t be very receptive to that. We know what we wanna do, we always show up at the studio ready to go, and we don’t need anybody to help us in that way.”

When crafting such aesthetically complex music, having a friendly environment to record in helps make great use of the band’s limited time with each other. “He’s just a really good guy and creates this kind of atmosphere at his studio where you just get to work,” Kelly explains. “It so lends itself to who we are and how we do things, it just supports it in every way.

Over all these years, he’s become a really good friend, and it always feels like you’re kinda going home in a very weird way.

It’s one of those places that kinda feels like a home to us.”

In addition to having a sound that perfectly displays everything that makes Neurosis one of the most ferocious bands in extreme metal, Fires Within Fires is the band’s most aptly-titled album as well. Discovered by bassist Dave Edwardson while reading “The Crucible,” the title is a perfect allusion to the ever-burning flame that keeps the band coming back together again and again despite the odds against them. “We thought about it for a while, and it didn’t make a big impression,” Kelly admits.

“Then, we came back to it and we were like, ‘That kinda really describes exactly who we are, how we work, and the drive within the band to do this and to create.’” .....

NEW NOISE 49

ALL PHOTOGRAPHY BY TOMMY CALDERON

A

t This Age—the fourth long-player from Cleveland’s Signals Midwest—out Sept.

2 via Tiny Engines—is a reflective record that dives headfirst into the nature of living: the inevitability of growing older and experiencing joy, heartbreak, adult relationships, and coming to terms with death. Vocalist and guitarist Max Stern, bassist Loren Shumaker, guitarist Jeff Russell, and drummer Steve Gibson have experienced all of these things, and while they are no longer young and punk, they retain a youthful optimism and remain devoted to a life of music and their friendship.

“It’s much better sonically, for sure,” he says of the record.

“These are some of my favorite lyrics and melodies I’ve ever written. More concise, focused songs that I think do their best to make individual points, rather than being stuffed full of every riff and idea we could think of. We were really picky on this one.”

were cemented into the structure of the song.”

ing songs. Stressful and fun and everything in-between.”

“Evan asked us a lot of questions about our reasoning behind things,” Stern continues. “‘Why did you want to write this part?’ ‘What’s this lyric about?’ ‘What were you trying to evoke in this section?’ He made me picture certain places and people I was singing about, The band recorded the LP at and the takes would come out Atlas Studios in Chicago with completely different. I’d never help from producer Evan Weiss been coached like that before. of Into It. Over It. “I played an It was a really cool experience acoustic show with Evan back and yielded results I otherwise in 2011 at the Kling Thing house wouldn’t have gotten.” in Akron, Ohio,” Stern recalls.

“Jeff, Evan, and I stayed up real- Despite differences in the rely late prank-calling Walmarts cording process, Stern realizes and Denny’s and bonded pretty that the endeavor pushed the hard over a collective affection envelope of what he and the of absurdist humor, Budweis- band were capable of and reer, and Longmont Potion Cas- sulted in their best record to tle. We kept in touch from that date. “Recording it was a very, point forward and would see very different process from each other on tour and such.” what we were used to,” he says.

“Every other record was just “He produced some great re- ‘show up with the gear you play cords for our friends in Anna- live with, play it all together bel and You Blew It!, and when in a room, punch in the little we were talking about people mistakes, and call it.’ This was we might want to work with a multi-layered approach with for At This Age, he was at the more time, better equipment, top of the list,” Stern says. “It and a team in place to push took a while to get the timing to things forward and get the line up because he’s such a busy best out of us. A collaborative dude, but I’m glad we held out effort that changed the way I for him and made it happen.” think about writing and record-

For Stern, growing older has only sharpened his resolve to retain the punk ideals he developed as a young man. Signals Midwest have ambitious plans to bring their message and music to fans on tour supporting their fall release. “We’ve accomplished way more than what we initially set out to do, which was to release a record on vinyl and go on a tour,” Stern says. “As an 18-year-old kid, that seemed pretty next-level.

Now, we’re on our fourth LP and have played, like, 300-plus shows in 13 different countries!

And we’ve essentially done it purely through an international network of friends and helpful people. It’s been insane, and I don’t take any of it for granted.

And we toured with Braid! That was insanely cool.”

“I definitely didn’t want to make a record that just said, ‘Shit, we’re getting older,’” Stern says. “I think that’s a tired narrative. Sure, there are negative aspects of getting older and taking on more responsibility, but there’s also the other side of that: as you navigate through life, you figure out the people and places and things that are most important to you, and those things only develop and refine themselves with time and age. So, I guess it was more of a question of how to write a record about progressing as a human being while retaining the stuff that made me excited about traveling and meeting people and playing music in the Despite the band’s friendship first place.” with Weiss, all quickly realized that the status quo wouldn’t Another important part of work for At This Age. “We sent growth and development, es- him a bunch of demos, and pecially as a musician and his initial feedback email was performer, is recognizing something along the lines of, your weaknesses and focusing ‘These are the best songs you’ve on sharpening your skillset. ever written, but there are still This pursuit was paramount some bad habits in there that in Stern’s mind while writing I want to try to break. It might and recording At This Age. “I get a little uncomfortable, but got kind of sick of people tell- at the end of the day, my goal is ing us that our records didn’t to make the best record we poslive up to our live shows,” sibly can,’” Stern recalls. “It was Stern admits. “It’s strange to slightly intimidating and kind admit, but there was a bit of a of hard not to take personally sense of personal pride lurk- at first. We were all married to ing in here. I wanted to make certain parts, fills, vocal lines, a record that sounded as good and taking his constructive as playing these new songs criticism largely meant letting felt.” go of things that we had thought

“[For At This Age], we’re touring from Sept. 10 to Oct. 14.

We’ll have some very talented friends out with us: Choke Up from Boston, Prince Daddy & The Hyena from Albany, and The Gunshy from Chicago are all along for different segments.

There are also one-offs with bands like Bear Vs. Shark and Violent Soho, which will be sick!” .....

NEW NOISE 51

PHOTOGRAPHY BY ALAN SNODGRASS

P

rior to launching toyGuitar, Jack Dalrymple had already built up a fair amount of punk rock credibility thanks to his time with One Man Army, The Re-Volts, Swingin’ Utters, and Dead To Me. With the addition of Swingin’ Utters’ and The Re-Volts’ Miles Peck on guitar; The Re-Volts’ and Primitive Hearts’ Paul Oxborrow—who recently left the band—on bass; and drummer Rosie Gonce, there was more than a little attention paid to the band’s 2015 debut LP, In This Mess. The response was impressive: the album popped up on numerous year-end “Best of” lists and the San Francisco band managed to convert fans across the globe, thanks in part to spending much of that year on tour.

So, just how nervous were the band when heading into the studio to work on their follow-up? “Nah, definitely not nervous. I think all of us were excited, actually,” Dalrymple says. “To be in this position, to be able to play music and make records, is everything. We are super appreciative.”

On Sept. 2, Fat Wreck Chords will put out toyGuitar’s Move Like a Ghost. The six song EP boasts all new songs with the band’s impressive blend of ‘70s garage rock and hard-to-resist melodic pop and punk rock.

“We started going through songs and parts in October 2015,” Dalrymple says. “I just looked through the photos on my phone and found a bunch of video snippets of these new songs from then. Looks like we had everything done and in its final form by February, 2016.”

The biggest change that occurred for the band between In This Mess and Move Like a Ghost was developing the newfound ease with which they play together and collaborate, an evolution that only happens after spending a lot of time with each other on and off stages.

“I think everyone just kinda knows what to expect from each other, maybe?” Dalrymple offers. “There’s this sort of

52 NEW NOISE

intuition thing that happens when people play together for a bit. Miles, Rosie, and I send songs back and forth. Sometimes, Miles and I go and work stuff out with him on drums. He plays everything! You name it, he can play it. The three of us get lines together, drum ideas, then start jammin’. Vocals usually come in towards the end.

It’s been that same process since we started.”

Although there’s not a huge departure in sound from In This Mess to Move Like a Ghost, Dalrymple does admit to changing up the vocals a bit on this outing. “All that falsetto business: it’s my favorite stuff I’ve ever done,” he admits. “I have never had any lessons or anything, so being able to do things with my voice I wouldn’t have thought possible is motivating for me.”

He continues, “I like to keep pushing the limits of what I can do with this shitty voice I got. There’s a song the record called ‘Swan,’ which I’m a little attached to more so because my kid sings it to me. He really tries to get the cadence and inflection too; it’s super cool to hear.”

The past year has been pretty monumental for toyGuitar.

Among the highlights, several of the members got married and the group played some phenomenal shows in Japan as part of the Fat Wreck Chords “FAT 25” quarter-century anniversary show. “FAT 25 felt like a super awesome, traveling family tour,” Dalrymple says enthusiastically. “It also gave us the opportunity to get out East, which is sometimes hard for us. That whole tour was a highlight!”

Now a three piece, the band plan to play a few shows here and there in California, but so far nothing is slated for the East or Midwest. “We promise to make a concerted effort!” Dalrymple assures. Once the EP comes out, they have some European festivals lined up for the fall and Awesome Fest in San Diego in September, followed by more tours and a promise of more new music. .....

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W

ithin the first few notes of the first track of Heaven Shall Burn’s upcoming eighth album, there’s no mistaking who’s playing. The long-running German band have honed a signature crushing sound and haven’t strayed too far from it over their 20 year career. That doesn’t mean Wanderer—due out via Century Media on Sept. 16—isn’t excellent; it’s everything a fan could want from a Heaven Shall Burn album and more. “We really want people to realize after 20 seconds that Heaven Shall Burn is playing, but there should still be something new here and there to not be boring for people,” guitarist Maik Weichert says. The album has a certain focus and vigor that really elevate the music. It may be meat and potatoes, but it’s filet mignon and whipped potatoes, and it’s incredibly sonically delicious.

Weichert sums up his thoughts on musical evolution with a neat metaphor: “I’ve listened to Bolt Thrower for 25 years now, and I don’t care if they evolve or not. I just want what I like. If you go to your grandmother, and she does your favorite dish, you don’t want her to change the recipe, right?” he laughs. A theme of hunger is palpable during the interview.

Focus and vigor are also central to Wanderer’s message. During confusing and troubling times, one occasionally needs to retreat from all the madness that surrounds them. That allows them to gain new perspective, energy, and focus, so that they can attack change with a refreshed and strengthened mindset. Weichert wants to be clear that this is a strategy to effect change. “It’s the step before getting sick of everything,” he clarifies. “What politicians want most is that people just get sick of things so they don’t care anymore. That’s what I try to avoid. I still want to care about the world and want to change things. So, this is a kind of self-protection that you go that one step back. Then, you come back with fresh powers and have your thoughts arranged. It’s more like a strategy to come back victorious.”

To augment the experience, the band chose to capture the majesty they sought out in nature.

The deluxe edition of Wanderer

comes with a gorgeous 60 page coffee table art book to reflect the beauty they saw while writing the album. The book certainly enhances the experience.

“The pictures in the artwork are the inspiration I had, the power you feel from these images,” Weichert says. “The pictures for the booklet are mostly from Iceland, with some from Germany. Some of the lyrical ideas and some of the work I did in Iceland. Certain pictures in the booklet and certain lines I came across while being in a certain landscape in Iceland. This is something you can’t download, so I hope people will realize how special it will be to hold it in your hands.”

Wanderer is a positive outlet, refusing to take a negative approach. Weichert agrees, “It’s so easy to be against things. We want to give people a positive point of view, give them an idea of how to change things. That was always our approach. We’d rather stand for something than against something.”

In highlighting that positive paradigm, Weichert expands, “There is a song called ‘The River of Crimson’ that is special, because it’s about blood, which is not very special for a metal song of course,” he laughs. “It’s about blood in a positive way. A very close friend of the band, his son has blood cancer, and this kid just came along and said, ‘Blood is so

important, and you should write a song about it. Nobody cares about blood. It’s just about atrocities and everything, but blood is so important.’ So, I wrote about this red army that is protecting you and is a miracle flowing in your veins. It’s important that the song is not about sickness. It’s a positive song that gives you power, not a sorrowful one.”

In the same vein, “Prey to God” certainly rallies against religious leaders, but the message is one of personal responsibility.

“It’s really strange, it seems if there’s a predisposition that people have to believe in something, like a void in their soul that has to be filled by a supreme being or a higher power, whether it be Christian, Muslim, Hindu, or whatever,” Weichert muses. “It seems that people need that like they need food or water. The song is about my anger about how this need is exploited by organized religious groups. You could also fill that void with a lot of positive energy. Believing in a supreme being doesn’t have to be something negative. Because people don’t get a direct answer from God, they try to get it from some interpreter or translator like Joel Osteen or the Pope or whoever.

That doesn’t work. If you believe in God, just accept that responsibility. The gift of life you got from Him; just get your shit done on your own. That is the gift: being free.”

.....

NEW NOISE 55

PHOTOGRAPHY BY ALYSON COLETTA

I

t’s a Wednesday afternoon and the poppunk-meets-metalcore band, A Day To Remember, are supposed to be at practice for their summer and fall tour with Blink-182. However, something’s got them seriously distracted. “We literally ran from the practice space to find a Magmar,” frontman Jeremy McKinnon says. Apparently, the band and their crew have been completely absorbed in the new smartphone game “Pokémon GO” for the last few days.

“There were, like, seven of us trying to find it. We legitimately hunted it down, and it popped up on my phone first. I found it before everyone else got it,” McKinnon concludes with satisfaction.

What’s most surprising about arguably the biggest metalcore band in America is that the five guys who make up A Day To Remember are some of the most laid back, normal dudes in the scene. From playing “Pokémon GO” to jamming out to the new Blink-182 record, simply as fans, A Day To Remember are pretty humble guys, even though they are about to self-launch their sixth studio album via their own label, ADTR Records—with distribution through Epitaph Records— and tour the country alongside the most well-known pop punk band in history.

non explains. “It was just time to switch it up. […] We needed to keep it more real, just get into a room, get out of our hometown so we can actually focus on it, and not be equally distracted. So, we went to Fort Collins, Colo., at The Blasting Room with Bill Stevenson and Jason Livermore and just wrote a record like a real band again.

We haven’t done that since [2007’s] For Those Who Have Heart, so it was fresh.”

The group chose the dream team of Stevenson and Livermore due to their prior discography, citing Stevenson’s history in the punk scene and work on Comeback Kid’s bass tones as some of their biggest influences. “Working with Bill, even if it was subconscious, like, he’s in the Descendents, so [the album] is obviously going to have a more punk sound, a more raw sound, just because of the way they do things,” McKinnon says.

“We had Andy Wallace mix it, and he doesn’t use any, like, random effects or anything. He’s just mixing on the board, like people used to do before you had a mil-

lion plug-ins you could use on everything. So, it’s just a completely different kind of approach to an A Day To Remember record.”

them afloat. “Every decision we’ve ever made has been based off of what has been the smartest thing for us to do right now for ourselves,” McKinnon explains, looking McKinnon seems high- back at his band’s career. ly pleased with this more stripped-down version of After surviving a lawsuit his band, as best seen on the against Victory Records, record’s lead single, “Para- self-releasing their fifth noia.” “That song just kind and, soon, sixth studio alof took on a life of its own,” bums, and putting on their McKinnon notes. “I’ve al- own major musical festival, ways wanted [our sound] to Self Help Fest, A Day To Rebe more punk, less pop punk, member have taken some and I think we achieved that insane risks that have unin that song. It feels like a leashed incredible rewards. real punk song, and you also “I never expected anything,” have, like, the real hardcore McKinnon continues. “We riff breakdown, and that’s were just kind of writing always what I’ve been drawn music for ourselves, and we to when I listen to hardcore wanted to see the country, bands. So, it’s just a good and that’s really as far as we mix, to me, of what I always took it. […] The goal for us as wanted us to be.” a band right now is to keep adding to this. Like, if there But have no fear: Bad Vi- is a top 10 best A Day To Rebrations still features some member songs ever written, classic A Day To Remember from here on out, the goal components, like the edgy is to add as many songs to pop jam “Naivety” and the that list as possible [with] melodic-meets-beatdown each album. That’s our new nature of “Justified.” While goal.” With Bad Vibrations’ ADTR may not sound like release on the horizon, this the most typical punk band, target may well be in range. their do-it-yourself, nev- ..... er sell out ethic has kept

PHOTOGRAPHY BY JOE CALIXTO

Their newest album, Bad Vibrations, hits everywhere Sept. 2 and is the band’s first release in years to take them back to their songwriting roots. “The mindset [for Bad Vibrations] was let’s just do something different than doing the same process for the last three albums in a row,” McKin-

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It Off vocalist Cody Carson says.

“We’ve been Set “Two days ago was our eight year as a band. I think about doingthis for anniversary shows when we first started out. We eight years,” would book our own shows and no one would come. […] Now, where we used to watch main stage, standing in the crowd, we’re now able to be a band on that main stage.” Carson is calling in from the band’s tour bus in St. Louis, while touring the country on the Vans Warped Tour and preparing for the release of Set It Off’s upcoming third studio record, Upside Down, on Oct. 7 through Equal Vision Records.

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Like all bands, Set It Off have definitely gone through the ringer a few times to get where they are today, but luckily, all of the hard work that has pushed them forward became the key to the theme of their latest record. “We’ve been through a lot throughout our entire career,” Carson explains. “If you want to be successful at what you do, you’re going to go through a lot of ups, you’re going to go through a lot of downs. And, when you go through those downs, you have two choices: either let it defeat you or you turn it around into a positive. […] Our band’s entire mentality is that we always try to find the positive in a really negative situation, and so, this album is basically us saying screw all the negative that we’ve been through. We’re coming out stronger than ever, and we’re going to find the positive every time and keep moving forward.”

Upside Down was written and recorded between October 2015 and January 2016, with the band using the summer to promote singles like the dancey pop jam, “Something New,” which was cowritten by All Time Low’s vocalist Alex Gaskarth. “That song that we wrote with [Gaskarth] was the most difficult songwriting process we had. But not in a bad way,” Carson says. “Alex is really great; he’s a great songwriter, melodically and lyrically, but when we were working on melodies, like, everyone was throwing out melodies that sounded awesome, so it was so hard, because we had [too] many melodies that we loved to find the

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one that we really liked. We ended up having, like, 10 verse melodies or so. […] But we got our second single out of it.”

Carson cites everyone from Eminem to Taylor Swift to Earth, Wind & Fire as some of his major musical influences, making Upside Down an eclectic genre mash-up that still flows with Set It Off’s signature energetic pop rock vibe.

“It all complements each other,” Carson notes. “It’s all in the same family of songs, which is why I’m happy about it. I feel like, with albums, you have to take risks; like, you have to try things you wouldn’t normally do, otherwise, you are kind of just sitting still. I’d be way more afraid of playing it safe doing the same type of song over and over again that I think would do well; I feel like that’s how you plateau. So, we always like to try something new. Get it?” he laughs.

Oddly enough, even rap factored into the mix. “It’s funny that we even went down that route,” Carson says of the track, “Hypnotize.” “It was going to be about how I first saw my girl, […] then, as it kept going, it didn’t feel very genuine or thorough. At the same time, while we were working on it, someone close to us just did something really terrible to us, so […] I became livid.

I was just so mad, and I had no way to get it out other than just writing down lyrics. I was like, ‘We’ve got to change the topic of the song. I think this is going to be an angry song.’

So, I started writing it out and I was like, ‘These lyrics are kind of like rap structure,’ and so, [producer] Brandon [Paddock] started putting together sort of a rap beat, and we started trying it.”

Carson has a lot of faith in the work and diversity Set It Off put into Upside Down. The training wheels are officially off. “I would be lying if I said that I don’t see us being ‘the next band,’” Carson concludes. “I mean, who doesn’t want that? But I really feel like we have what it takes to make that happen, and I think this album is going to show that.”

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PHOTOGRAPHY BY JOE CALIXTO

B

etween its snowy mountaintops, the film “SLC Punk!,” and the 18 year reign of Utah Jazz greats, John Stockton and Karl Malone, Salt Lake City has been the backdrop for magnificent beauty. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that the city also gave birth to one of the most beautiful sounding bands in all of extreme metal, SubRosa.

Since the release of the band’s 2008 debut full-length, Strega, and their 2011 follow-up LP, No Help for the Mighty Ones—SubRosa’s first record for their current label, Profound Lore—their signature mixture of gorgeous violins and vocal melodies with gut-wrenchingly heavy doom riffs have helped them carve their own niche into the genre with a big fucking knife. With their newest album, For This We Fought the Battle of Ages—out Aug. 26—SubRosa are launching into a new stratosphere of both heaviness and beauty.

“This is the first album that I did have a thematic and lyrical approach in mind, and even a musical approach in mind, before I wrote the first riff,” vocalist and guitarist Rebecca Vernon admits.

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“I had read Yevgeny Zamyatin’s book, ‘We,’ in 2014 and wanted to write an album inspired by it. A few of the songs are directly related to the book and some are indirectly related. Musically, I wanted to reflect the approach of a symphony or opera, with lots of different movements within songs.”

Though the band had an exact roadmap of the album in mind, they still took a few detours. “Trying to execute a vision in reality, though, changes over time,” Vernon confirms. “The way the album emerged and the way we began to shape, chop up, and rearrange the music was very organic. We knew we wanted to get to point B, but we barely knew how we were going to get there. It was an adventure we made up as we went along.”

While the end product of their preplanning came out sounding extremely lush and complex, the songwriting process started out quite simple. “I work out all the ideas on my guitar first, either through a riff I have in my head and transcribe to guitar, or just through jamming ideas out on the guitar,” Vernon states. “I come up with all the parts to the song, design a basic structure, and then, show the band. They then write

their own parts and get involved in the structuring, polishing, and rewriting of the song: cutting parts here, improving a transition there, telling me certain parts suck and to go rewrite them,” she laughs.

While the most striking aspect of SubRosa is their music itself, one thing they’ve gotten particularly good at is naming albums. With previous titles like No Help for the Mighty Ones and 2013’s More Constant than the Gods, each subsequent release will have a very high bar to jump over. Fortunately, when it came time to christen For This We Fought the Battle of Ages, Vernon had to look no further than her own lyrics for inspiration. “The title of the album is pulled from the Italian lyrics of [track five], ‘Killing Rapture,’” she explains. “‘For this we fought the battle of ages? / To be torn apart, to be reduced to nothing?’

It’s referring to free will, and the main thing the album does is explore the tension between control versus free will. The album raises a lot of sarcastic, probing questions, and that lyric from ‘Killing Rapture’ is one of them.”

While the use of one violinist, much less two, is relatively un-

heard of in extreme metal, SubRosa’s genre of choice is one in which there is more than enough room for experimentation. “In the underground doom metal and avant-garde metal scene, I feel like it’s more acceptable than in other metal subgenres to be daring and really stretch the boundaries of the genre,” Vernon states.

“The doom metal genre is one of the most open to interpretation and ‘looseness’ and overlaps easily with opera, punk, rock, stoner, chamber music, folk, goth, even art rock, prog, and more.”

While SubRosa have had very little trouble being accepted for their unique differences, the band are nonetheless thankful considering fans’ chilling reception of some of their contemporaries. “In other metal subgenres like black metal, when some bands dare to [experiment], they face a lot of heat—i.e. Deafheaven. So, I think it kind of depends on what metal subgenre you move in,” Vernon concludes. “But it does take an extra step of open-mindedness, I guess, to accept, let alone like a band like SubRosa. So, I am glad that we’ve been fortunate enough to attract some affection from areas of the larger metal scene.”

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f you look real close, you still can’t see it: this morphing vision from beyond. Glowing in patterns lengthwise, crossways, and cutting through the dark night like a geometric blade, the artistry of black metal legends, Baptism, is inspiring. Birthed from the dark lands with a distinct purpose, the Finnish realists are a paradigm of expanding form. With a raw and epic old-school approach to the wild and fluxing black metal sound, the band are a meditation on individuality and form. There is no in-between for Baptism: they take a straight path toward the prophetic shadows. Their newest slab of satanic energy, V: The Devil’s Fire, was released July 22 on Season Of Mist.

“I know many occultists, and I like what they’re doing,” says Baptism founder and ofttimes sole member, Lord Sargofagian. “From the early 2000s, I have been collaborating with my good old brother Johannes Nefastos, [author of ‘The Catechism of Lucifer’], and he’s given me his opinion about lyrical

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themes that follow the Gnostic side of Satanism. With the song ‘The Sacrament of Blood and Ash,’ I had conferred with Gorath Moonthorn, [drummer and lyricist for Alghazanth], because I think he’s one of best in Finland, and he’s also one of my old friends from the dark past that was the ‘90s. I remembered when we talked about some Baptism lyrics in the sauna back in the day, and I thought, for the new record, he would be great for some creative output. I had some ideas about the themes of some of the new songs, and he finalized them perfectly. He is true occultist like Nefastos.”

Black metal in its most powerful form conjures the dark spirit of the infinite universe. In this natural state of profundity, the individual is pushed to strive for a special path: a destiny of righteousness and bravery. This means something different for each individual. The power of the imagination and the strength of each distinct interpreter are the vital cogs of this deepening nexus.

When all points align, the form’s lucid perceptions sparkle and shine.

Black metal is forged to transcend, and Baptism are true masters of this sorcery.

“I do believe you have to practice and strengthen yourself to live better,” Lord Sargofagian offers. “It’s more important to make decisions regarding life paths yourself, rather than just following some pathetic soulless group culture. I think everyone needs to know where he or she belongs, and everyone needs to develop his or her own idea of the Devil. You have to follow your own path. I don’t belong to any organized groups. I walk my own path and my follow my own ideology.”

V: The Devil’s Fire is flush with quickening and grim thrashes, melodic apexes, raging headbangers, and a darkness that’s sealed in the existential stardust of eternity.

It’s a hell of an album that drives, pushes, and transcends your every fiber, mixing the occult, a crushing lineup, and a deep spirit of vivid

and epic propulsion. You feel the power with every jaunting note and skull-dazzling riff.

“When I start to write new material, I always need to make some illustrations and lines about what the concept will be,” Lord Sargofagian notes. “The new record was started with a strong vision, and it’s always meditative. There’s always a strong sense of new energy.

I wrote all the songs on my own, and after that, I started rehearsals with my awesome drummer LRH and guitarist TG. When the songs were finalized, we booked a studio and every member performed their respective duties. Bassist Syphon did his own lines, and also, Spellgoth [of Horna] was involved with synth parts. When we perform live, he plays my guitar parts and does some backing vocals as well. We have the best lineup right now, and we changed many things around for this new album: the studio, engineer, artwork, and promo shoots.

I’m more happy than ever with the results.”

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INS PHOTOGRAPHY BY JESSE RIGG

S

inger and guitarist Kait Eldridge of the New York based band, Big Eyes, found herself immersed in the Long Island punk and DIY scenes right on the cusp of her teenagedom. It’s no coincidence that soon after, around the age of 12, she picked up a guitar for the first time.

For a few years, Eldridge fumbled around in her former collaborative groups, Cheeky and Used Kids. When those bands called it quits circa 2009, she formed Big Eyes, a band “too poppy for the punks” and “too

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heavy for the indie scene,” Eldridge admits.

The band’s third full-length release and first for Don Giovanni Records, Stake My Claim, is about Eldridge asserting herself, redefining her place in the band, and not letting anybody stand in her way. “I’ve played with various friends throughout the years in Big Eyes, and I always felt like I was kind of hiding behind the band even though I’ve always been the sole songwriter,” Eldridge confesses. “With this album, I’m finally stepping forward and claiming the band as my own.”

The Aug. 19 release—which was recorded with Eldridge’s friend and now drummer Griffin Harrison—opens with the title track, on which the Joan Jett inspired singer shouts, “‘Cause nothing stays the same / Stake my claim.” Channeling post-adolescent frustrations and her dissatisfaction with where her past was headed, Eldridge takes back control one track at a time. “The lyrics on Stake My Claim are all about reclaiming yourself after losing your way for a while,” Eldridge says. “They’re about taking responsibility for your life and not letting anybody control

you. They’re about self-reflection and becoming a stronger person.”

While Eldridge continues to find her place and stake her claim, she’s taking to the road to secure her spot on stage.

Big Eyes have big plans ahead, starting with a tour through the Midwest and a stopover in Gainesville, Fla., for The FEST in October. The band also plan to make it to the West Coast and scope out the scene in Europe sometime early next year.

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sually, people judge a band by the words that are put together to help nail down what they sound like on wax. Dallas based band, True Widow, have been described as “stonegaze,” meaning they merge the heaviness of riff rock with the otherworldly quality of shoegaze to form an exciting hybrid. Vocalist and bassist Nicole Estill has her own way of labeling their music. “I’ve always described our sound as ‘pretty/heavy,’ meaning the melodies and sound structure are not entirely inaccessible to those that aren’t into metal or heavy rock. However, the space between notes and the actual volume at which we play live are more akin to heavier bands or some stoner rock,” she explains. “I think that’s why our audience ranges from indie kids to stoners with some goths in between.”

lation, Estill says the band— which also features vocalist and guitarist Dan “DH” Phillips and drummer Timothy “Slim” Starks—felt no pressure. In fact, they relished the opportunity to record new songs. “Going into the studio is always a sort of getaway for us,” she explains. “It’s a relaxing diversion from our everyday lives that we always cherish, so there’s never any real stress about it. Just an excitement to solidify our new songs and enjoy the experience.

We’ve always recorded music for us, written songs that we want to listen to. So, the goal is always achieved if we like what we hear.”

The result of this fresh, exultant approach to recording is Avvolgere, which takes the heft of True Widow’s previous releases and adds a sense of urgency and accessibility to the mix. “There are a few When it came time to record songs I would say have more the follow-up to their excellent approachable melody,” Estill 2013 album, Circumambu- says. “There is an overall feel of

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a bit more movement. A swifter current than previous albums.

The low-end is heavier, the drums are more driving. It’s got a groove that makes you want to drive long into the night for no reason.”

Once again the band used producer Matt Pence at Echo Lab in Denton, Texas, who has recorded all four of their albums. Their working relationship can be described as truly symbiotic. “We have done all our albums with Matt because we love what he does. He just gets it,” Estill explains. “He understands the motion of our music and provides a calm but challenging atmosphere at the same time. We bond over topics relating to music, but also thrive on tangents like the psychology of human nature. He’s inquisitive and always eager to learn and explore something new. He’s a drummer in several different bands, so the drum recordings are meticulously detailed.

He’s just damn good at his job.”

When Avvolgere drops on Sept.

23, it will come out on Relapse Records, who also released Circumambulation. This may seem like a strange fit, but Estill disagrees. “Four years ago, when we signed with Relapse, we were definitely the weirdos at the family reunion,” she admits. “I knew heavier bands on the label that, when I told them we had signed, didn’t quite know what to think.

You could see the confusion on their face, faintly masked with vague congratulatory smiles.

It was funny. Relapse has been branching out since, and I’m sure they have seen some backlash from the metal purists, but overall, I think it was a great move for them. Since then, we’ve seen many of our friends like Nothing and King Woman join the ranks, and we are so glad they get to be a part of the big, eclectic family.

They will always be the iconic metal label, but their legacy is changing.” .....

PHOTOGRAPHY BY STEPHANIE HAGEMAN

C

hris Farren has built a solid following thanks to his work with Fake Problems and Antarctigo Vespucci—his duo with Jeff Rosenstock—but it took a goofy t-shirt he made featuring a picture of Will Smith and his family under the logo for the classic mope band, The Smiths, to finally get his work on “The Tonight Show.”

Host Jimmy Fallon held up the Farren-designed shirt for the cameras in 2014, before offering it to Smith in front of a television audience of millions. Despite the response, Farren says not to expect a full t-shirt line anytime soon. “I’m super lucky to have had that happen to me,” he says.

“It really gave me the opportunity to focus on music full-time. I was able to fly to New York a bunch to record with Jeff Rosenstock and get Antarctigo Vespucci off the ground. My focus is and always has been songwriting. I had that idea for the shirt and tossed it online, and it just kind of went crazy, totally unexpectedly, but I don’t have any desire to sit around brainstorming novelty shirt ideas.”

That focus on songwriting resulted in his first solo LP, Can’t Die, out Sept.

30 on SideOneDummy. “I started writing the record in September of 2015 and started recording in December,” Farren says. “Jeff and I had just completed working on [Antarctigo Vespucci’s] Leavin’ La Vida Loca, our first actual full-length, and I was in a really good, active place creatively. As soon as I got home from tour that summer, I started writing. I wrote probably a song a day for about five weeks, and then, went back and reviewed it all and tried to figure out what worked best together, what sounds and themes I gravitated towards, chose my favorite 15 songs and edited them from there.”

Despite having recorded music for more than a decade, Can’t Die is Farren’s first full-length with his name front and center. He no longer has a full band to share the spotlight with.

Good or bad, all of the responsibility will fall on Farren—but, spoiler alert: the album is pretty damn good!

“I wasn’t nervous necessarily going

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into it, more so excited and curious within the first 10 minutes to see how it would all turn out,” he I was in his apartment,” says of making his first solo effort. Farren adds. “We both sep“I’ve been collaborating for so long, arately had this realization: and that’s my comfort zone. I wanted ‘Oh no, what if this doesn’t to push myself to make a complete work?’ Thankfully, we got piece where I had the final say on the right into listening to reend product. I think forcing myself cords and talking about to step out this way will help me as music and really hitting it a songwriter and as a collaborator off and making something for future projects. And, I will say, I super special to both of us.” did have a lot of great minds involved Now, Farren can with this record.” say he’s made Among those helping out were Far- something super ren’s longtime friends and band- special all on his mates from Fake Problems, drum- own, as Can’t Die mer Sean Stevenson and former continues to push guitarist Casey Lee. As for the future this freshly mintof Fake Problems, even Farren isn’t ed solo artist into sure about what the fate of the band the spotlight. will be. “If we think of a cool idea for a record, I’m sure we’ll do it,” he assures, “but for now, we’re closed for business.”

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Farren is equally open to working on another album with Rosenstock. The two are always talking about making another record, be it an EP, a single, or even a full-length. “I think we will always release Antarctigo music in some regularity for as long as we are alive—or until we hate each other, which, so far, we are only growing more and more in love with each passing second,” Farren says. “That collaboration really changed my life. I was in a dark, dark place with music. I was frustrated with a lot of things going on with Fake Problems and my personal life, and I felt really hopeless. Jeff had just put Bomb The Music Industry! to bed and wasn’t sure if he would keep making music.”

The two started casually talking about making something together. Then, The Smiths shirt happened, affording Farren the opportunity to fly up to New York where the duo made the first Antarctigo LP, Soulmate Stuff. “We didn’t really know each other that well, which we realized

PHOTOGRAPHY BY ERICA LAUREN

A

fter 12 years of writing songs as Andrew Jackson Jihad, vocalist, guitarist, and lyricist Sean Bonnette and his bandmates have traded their careless name for the familiar abbreviation by which most fans referred to them for years: AJJ. While the Phoenix based quartet have considered changing their tag for quite some time, the fear of losing their distinctive character halted the shift. “We didn’t do it sooner because we cowardly felt like we were stuck,” Bonnette confesses. “The thing that made the switch possible was maintaining our identity as AJJ, which I admit is a very boring name, but sometimes exciting bands need boring names.”

band’ anymore, we are the band that can do The Bible 2 or anything else we want to do without sending a confused message,” Bonnette reveals.

While AJJ continue to tread topics like religion and politics, the overarching theme of their latest release is anything but confused.

Based on images that Bonnette created for himself, the tracks on The Bible 2 tell a cohesive story about coming to terms with one’s boyhood at a later phase in life, while putting the tumult that travels in tow to rest. From the kickoff, Bonnette confesses, “When I was a kid, my whole reality split, I was living a lie.” He continues to intimately reflect on his childhood through a collection of scuzzy screeds. Between songs about abuse and youth lies the album’s thesis, “No More Shame, No More Fear, No More Dread,” the reappearing mantra that Bonnette repeats again and again to help move past his isolation. “The main reason I write songs is to tell myself the things that I think I need to hear. Every song is a declaration of myself,” the songwriter shares.

With their simplified acronym comes room for greater opportunities without sparing their existential uniqueness and vulnerability. Out now via SideOneDummy Records, AJJ’s newest LP, The Bible 2, stands as a sonically expansive record grown from a space where their music—not their band name—defines them. “The idea of AJJ as a name or an art entity is that it’s easier to adorn it with dif- Like with 2014’s Christmas Island, ferent things. We are not the ‘jihad the band’s previous full-length,

PHOTOGRAPHY BY JACKI VITETTA

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The Bible 2 came together in a blink. Stressed for time based on everyone’s availability, the arranging process for the album ensued over the course of a three week tour through the South. Bonnette and his pals picked up a few cheap guitars to play during what he has now coined “van jams.” When they made it to the various venues for soundcheck, AJJ opted for extended practice sessions on stage to test out their new songs. “Between working things out in the van, taking a lot of notes while doing that, and bringing that to a longer soundcheck, we figured out this particular record,” Bonnette says.

“To my ears, it sounds like a live record, one that we arranged on a stage.”

The recording process happened even faster than Bonnette’s visually informed writing routine.

For the second time, AJJ teamed up with seasoned producer John Congleton. In just nine days, The Bible 2 became a living, breathing record—a feat that wouldn’t have worked out nearly as well if not for the experienced engineer and his resilient partnership with the band. “He commits to decisions on the way in rather than agonizing over the mixing process,” Bonnette

says of Congleton. “His way of doing things differently influenced the writing process; it brought me back to the joy of pure creation with less focus on the fine-tuning.

Writing it felt like it hasn’t felt in a long time.”

With their sixth studio album complete and equipped with a more mindful moniker to boot, Bonnette is hopeful for the future and the ability to progress in a way he couldn’t have before. What were once dreams for AJJ now seem like goals. “A goal is just dream that’s a little bit farther along, a little bit more realized and little bit more possible,” Bonnette expresses.

AJJ will take to the road this September to tour the Midwest and Southwest with Diners and Kepi Ghoulie. With their cut-rate guitars packed, who knows what Bonnette and his bandmates will write next, but whatever songs come out of their prospective van jams will end up serving as some broken-down kid’s sworn religion, as their sacred scriptures, as the book that made them believe in the divine power of punk.

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BRUJERIA W INTERVIEW WITH VOCALIST JUAN BRUJO BY BRANDON RINGO hen looking ing for the next gig to happen, so back on the we just got together and started year 1993, it’s writing songs. That’s when we pretty obvious started, and we probably got, how important it was for death like, three or four that we kept metal. Most major bands from from that little session back the classes of ‘90 and ‘91 were somewhere in Belgium. Every putting out their sophomore time we got together, we just records, and some of the genre’s kept adding more songs.” future stars were just heating up. One band in particular who While there were a few reasons took the death metal scene by for the delay, one of the main storm were the mysterious issues was that, while the band Brujeria, a band who stood out claim Mexico as their home, not only for their all-Spanish its members are collectively lyrics, but also for the fact that spread out between California, those lyrics were spreading an Sweden, and the U.K., and most extreme message that made of them are constantly on tour even Cannibal Corpse look with their other bands, which slightly less psycho. include Carcass and Napalm Death. Normally, band memNow in 2016, after a 16 year bers being spread out wouldn’t absence, the band are back be a problem, but for Brujeria, with new label Nuclear Blast their insanely busy schedules who are releasing their fourth pushed the album to the backstudio album, Pocho Aztlan, on burner. “Getting everybody Sept. 16. Though the album is together to do it all is always brand new material, according the hardest thing. It’s really to vocalist and founder Juan time-consuming,” Brujo adBrujo, its origins started quite mits. “‘I have a couple of days a while back. “We started in ‘07 off in three or four months,’ or ‘08, and we had, like, a week you know, that type of stuff. off in Europe with no gigs,” he But then, the other guys don’t recalls. “We were all there wait- have it off either, so you have

to work in pieces like a puzzle, a lot of emailing things back and forth. It’s supposed to make things easier online with email and stuff, but it made it harder.

It made it harder to get things back and forth and get ‘em all worked out.”

“When we first started, it was in 1990, and Mexican guys here in California weren’t treated the same,” Brujo says. “It was so—I don’t wanna call it racist or whatever, we were different, and back then, it was frustrating to be out here. Little by little, it’s been about 25 years, and Due to the band members being there’s not that much racism so far apart, they had to take like there used to be.” their opportunities whenever they could get them, even if it However, thanks to a certain meant using multiple studios, political candidate, things are some not in the best of envi- becoming more difficult again, ronments. “We started in Mon- thus making Brujeria’s lyrics terrey, Mexico,” Brujo begins. even more timely. “Here comes “We went from a tour we did Donald Trump and [he] starts in Texas, and I drove the guys everybody hating again,” Brudown into Monterrey through jo laments. “He set us back 25 a narco warzone and started re- or 30 years, so the way it was cording there, and from there, it when we started, it’s back to just went on. We probably used that again. It’s pretty frustratabout four different studios ing: you get old enough to see that we used to get the whole how things were and get fixed, thing through the process.” and then, they go back to the way they were in a second. So, One of the main overarching that Donald Trump guy is sure themes in Brujeria’s music a character. He’s already ruined over the years has been the a lot of things in the nation, so I racial tension experienced by hope he doesn’t get president.”

Mexicans in the United States, ..... something that eventually became less and less of an issue.

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“I don’t think the other projects we do influence Dysrhythmia too much,” guitarist Kevin Hufnagel says of the band’s creative process. “If people notice similarities here and there, then that’s fine, because I do think that the three of us have pretty particular ways of playing and writing that can be identified no matter what the different musical settings are.” Regarding The Veil of Control, Hufnagel explains that “the writing process began very shortly after the last album was finished back in 2012. The title track was the first song we worked on. [Drummer] Jeff [Eber] requested that I experiment with programming some ideas for him. We had never tried that before,” he reveals. “He was able to take my primitive ideas and make them his own.”

“For this album, [bassist] Colin [Marston] and I both wrote an equal amount of songs,” Hufnagel continues.

“Usually, for my songs, I’ll make a guitar demo and Colin will write bass parts to that on his own time, while I teach Jeff the basic structure in rehearsal. Then, Jeff and Colin really go to town together on the rhythm section arrangements as the bass parts are being written. For Colin’s songs, it’s a similar process, except I’m the one working at home on my own parts to his ideas, while he’s teaching Jeff the structure. Writing parts to Colin’s songs is always a challenge for me, but I love that it makes me think in a different way and arrive at ideas that I would probably never generate on my own out of thin air.”

The Veil of Control is a gorgeous and sprawling affair: six songs and 35 minutes of hypnotic soundscapes and jaw-dropping rhythms. Dysrhythmia’s technical chops are always front and center amidst dazzling technical runs, while the album’s pristine sound helps turn even the most complex, oddly timed riff creations into inviting sonic voyages. Think less abrasive metal shredding, more trippy jamboree in Hell. “I’m using a 12 string electric guitar for this entire album, with not a ton of gain,” Hufnagel explains. “This allowed for a very clear and shimmery sound. It’s a sound I’ve always loved in other forms of music and wanted to experiment with in a more metallic and progressive setting, where it’s not as common.”

T

he expert riff architects in Philadelphia’s Dysrhythmia are back with their seventh full-length album, The Veil of Control, out Sept.

23 on Profound Lore Records. Not only are Dysrhythmia some of the most virtuosic musicians in the universe, they are also some of the busiest, with members doing more

72 NEW NOISE

than double duty in bands such as Gorguts, Krallice, Withered, and Sabbath Assembly.

Fortunately for the progressive metal fiends out there, the lads in Dysrhythmia are once again holding court, and the mindboggling tracks on their new record prove that they haven’t lost any of their technical wizardry or magic.

Songs like “Black Memory” and “Severed and Whole” represent the variety Dysrhythmia have served up on their new album. Blast beat drum passages blend with strategically timed guitar yelps, interwoven with gorgeous melodies throughout. “I think our work gets more cohesive as we continue,” Hufnagel says of Dysrhythmia’s distinctive sound. “At the moment, I’m maybe most fond of the track ‘Internal/Eternal.’ That’s a song Colin wrote first on bass, and then, Jeff and I wrote our own parts to it. It was probably one of the hardest times I’ve ever had creating parts to a song that I was happy with, but I’ve learned by now that the songs I struggle with the most always end up being my favorites in the end.”

The Veil of Control might seem intimidating to those unfamiliar with the joys of a well-executed instrumental onslaught, but as Hufnagel says, sometimes the most challenging experiences wind up being the most rewarding ones. .....

W

hen a Deathwish, Inc. band work with producer Jack Shirley, there is an expectation of greatness (see also: Deafheaven’s Sunbather). So, to say expectations were high for Belgium’s greatest hardcore export, Oathbreaker—especially after their excellent 2013 release, Eros|Anteros—is a bit of an understatement. The fact that Rheia—due out Sept. 30—is so stunningly able to break the band’s own mold is quite the accomplishment.

This isn’t just a pink-hued metal record for hipsters. This is truly transcendent music of the highest and most beautiful order.

So, was there any concern about repeating that success, or did it make the band more confident that they were onto something special? Vocalist Caro Tanghe explains, “That Eros/Anteros was that well-received came as a surprise to us. We didn’t want to repeat making an album like Eros/Anteros; that was our biggest challenge. There’s something about third records, expectations and anticipations. I didn’t want to repeat what we already explored in our previous records.

It’s way more interesting to keep creating new ways of approaching and experiencing music. I guess challenging ourselves was the main focus when we started writing Rheia.”

Rheia is the kind of rare gem where a band exceeds the promise of their

last album. While Eros|Anteros felt like Oathbreaker getting comfortable with their progressive hardcore, Rheia finds them bold enough to experiment. Tanghe agrees, “I believe the things we were able to do touring on Eros/Anteros gave us the confidence to explore our sound more. We pushed our boundaries. I also started experimenting more with different vocal sounds.

Looking back now, Eros/Anteros feels like a transition to me, laying down some foundations, but without this, we would have never been able to write Rheia. We knew what we wanted to make; it just took a lot of time to get all the stars aligned.

After two years of touring on that record, we felt like it was the time to go into hiding and write, because when playing, you can’t fully focus on writing. So, a good year and a half and a lot of soul-searching later, I’m glad we can release Rheia extremely satisfied with the outcome.”

What’s especially impressive is how unified the album sounds while Oathbreaker blaze new sonic trails. However, Tanghe shares that Rheia didn’t come easily. “Writing this record was definitely a struggle,” she admits. “[Bassist] Gilles [Demolder] had been talking about this combination of musical factors for several years. In the end, I think we were searching for over two years, trying out different types of clean vocals over heavy music, but in our own way. We recorded demo after demo in our flat, lashing out

in the dark. Even when we arrived with Jack Shirley in San Francisco, giving him a listen to everything we’d been working on, we had no clue anymore what was good and what wasn’t. He helped us not have a nervous breakdown. I was so glad Shirley is the most calm and reassuring guy to work with. Perfect guy, perfect timing, perfect place.”

Rheia is a very personal record for Tanghe. “The lyrics are the result of a pretty weird and heavy time in my personal life,” she clarifies. “I felt like I was having an existential crisis. The loss of my grandmother and a lot of suppressed anger dating back to my childhood are two of the things I was dealing with at that time. I’m used to keeping a lot to myself. In the past, when writing lyrics, I tended to beat around the bush a lot. I wanted people to be able to identify with issues occurring in my life by disguising them with a lot of adjectives and pretty language. Rheia is a lot more straightforward. For the first time ever, I feel like I was able to open up and write down the feelings I had in the most honest way possible. Rheia is as self-reflective as it’s going to get. We chose [the title], Rheia, not particularly because of the Greek mythology link, but [because] the theme throughout my entire life and this record is that I’ve been taking care of people around me with nobody ever taking care of me.

That’s why we went with Rheia, a caring, mother figure, who never

really got any credit for the things she’s done.”

Oathbreaker are known for their surreal artwork, creating odd physical works to fit their albums. Rheia is no different. Tanghe expounds, “Just like with the maypole [on the cover of Eros/Anteros], we wanted to create something different and use as little Photoshop or digital technology as possible while doing this, but rather, create something real and tangible. To best reflect the feel of the entire record musically, we wanted to capture visually what it would be like to have a sort of second skin peeling off the human body. Therefore, we filled up a water tank, poured wax on top of the surface, and dipped body parts— and eventually, my entire body—in it. The result of the hot wax reacting to cold water and sticking to my skin was so beautiful. Photographer Jeroen Mylle—who also took the pictures of the maypole—captured interesting sculptures around my skin, breaking off at times, like I would break out of an outer imaginary layer.”

The sum of these many parts is a band who have successfully redefined themselves to the point where their old identity is not entirely recognizable in this wonderful new creation. Rheia is certain to be on many year’s end lists. Catch Oathbreaker on their huge U.S. tour with Skeletonwitch and Iron Reagan this fall.

.....

NEW NOISE 73

D

erek Hess rose to notoriety by creating some of the most impactful show flyers and concert posters of the ‘90s. His unique style and imagination spawned a memorable chronicle of punk, hardcore, and noise rock shows, cementing his legacy. While he has become so much more than the rock art guy from Cleveland, he still focuses his arduous discipline and compulsion on the underground. Hess’ style embraces the foundations of figure drawing, while also exaggerating aspects of the human form. He embraces the comic book approaches of forcing perspective and bleeding out of the frame, harnessing motion and action. Hess is a man who struggles with demons to forge a sternly focused work ethic balanced by a humility that makes him feel like a neighbor.

Hess answers the phone with a tempered, but excited voice. His frankness and wonder combat each other to level out his enthusiasm.

There is a darkness to his stories, and much of his art focuses on a wounded heart. However, as seen in Nick Cavalier’s award-winning 2015 documentary about Hess, “Forced Perspective,” he is a working class guy, and his genius is unassuming and humble. He begins by talking about his city. “[Cleveland has a] decent music scene. Decent art scene. Not too big, not too small.

I’m comfortable with it,” he says. He should be. In a sense, Hess helped propagate it, creating a portion of the gravity that attracted so many eyes and ears to it in the early ‘90s.

His artistic process for a few of his early classic posters that still resonate today was to create simple, but powerful literal translations. “I like to key in on the [band’s] name—translating their name—and stay true to their music,” he explains. “Guided By Voices was a no brainer: an angel and a devil talking to a blind man. Supersuckers, I did a vacuum. That’s my interpretation, plus they are a rocking band. I didn’t want anything timid.”

Hess dissects his process in simple terms, void of pretense. The Cleveland ethos manifests quickly. “I put pen to paper,” he states. “If I have something in my mind, I’m working on it while I’m watching TV—or whatever, driving a car. I’ve already been thinking about it. If I don’t have an idea, I put pen to paper. I see what starts to form.” As Hess notes in “Forced Perspective,” he noticed that he had natural talent at a young age, while taking an art class. Overconfident, he would skip

classes, but when he returned, he found that the people with less talent who had been working hard had reached his level. Hess has pushed himself ever since. He now embodies an artistic compulsion mixed with an ardent work ethic. “More often than not, I am up every day and drawing. I get up and give it a shot,” he says, but Hess also knows not to force the urge. “I have my own hours. Normally, I don’t have any creative stuff in the morning.

Just coffee and my dog walk.”

Hess has had some downward slopes throughout his life, including a struggle with alcoholism. Now that he has realized he was merely self-medicating for his Bipolar disorder, he is planning to remain stable and productive. “I am a big proponent for meds,” he says. “This condition is chronic. It needs to be treated, not cured.” Hess takes responsibility for his role in maintaining a healthy life, adding, “I have to recognize the red flags.” And as far as the potential for medication to numb his creative instincts, Hess is blunt: “I’d rather be on the meds and alive than unmedicated and dead.”

He also dismisses the notion of his meds stifling his art with a laugh, admitting, “I am more on the depressive side, so as long as I can find a bad relationship, I’ll be fine.” Heartbreak is forever an inspiration.

Hess’ rejuvenation has been coupled with a busy schedule of screenings and signings for “Forced Perspective.” He also recently did 100 commissioned pieces riffing on ‘60s Playboy covers. But mostly, the hardcore icon has been drawing flowers.

“Inanimate objects, like a car, I don’t draw well. I play to my strengths,” he explains. “So, I have been drawing flowers. They are fun to draw. I like orchids. They have a sensual feel the way I lay down the lines.” Hess gathers inspiration and subjects from his walks and the Internet. “Some are direct from life, but sometimes, I Google daffodils and print out a few.”

While he is no longer doing his famous rock posters, Hess reports continually finding inspiration in hardcore, punk, and metal. “I am just seeing what is out there,” he says. “A few nights ago, I went to see Amon Amarth. So, I started drawing a Viking skull, incorporating flowers. I am just doing fun stuff.

The more I draw on an idea, something will come out of it. Like with the Playboys. I mean, I won’t do an Amon Amarth series, but something will come out of it.”

.....

NEW NOISE 75

TURNSTILE: NONSTOP FEELING ROADRUNNER RECORDS

Back in May, Roadrunner announced signing Turnstile, the young hardcore band burning with momentum. Their live shows are legendary already. The early year showed Turnstile’s sound was developing. When Nonstop Feeling, the band’s third release and their first full-length, dropped, their youthful energy was infused into their blend of hardcore, punk, alternative, and pop. Roadrunner is creating another wave of stimulation until we get the band’s first major label album. Pop Wig Records (the imprint founded by members of Angel Du$t, Turnstile, and Trapped Under Ice) will be releasing their Move Thru Me EP on Sept. 16th and their two initial 7”s—Step 2 Rhythm and Pressure to Succeed—will also be reissued on Reaper Records, on gold and clear vinyl. Turnstile will also incite crowds into frenzied melees at Back To School Jam 2016, Not Dead Yet 2016, Sound On Sound Fest, and some single shows. Cop the limited edition gold vinyl 12” on Sept. 9!

THE DETROIT COBRAS: MINK RAT OR RABBIT / LIFE, LOVE AND LEAVING THIRD MAN RECORDS

Back in May, Roadrunner announced signing Turnstile, the young hardcore band burning with momentum. Their live shows are legendary already. The early year showed Turnstile’s sound was developing. When Nonstop Feeling, the band’s third release and their first full-length, dropped, their youthful energy was infused into their blend of hardcore, punk, alternative, and pop. Roadrunner is creating another wave of stimulation until we get the band’s first major label album. Pop Wig Records (the imprint founded by members of Angel Du$t, Turnstile, and Trapped Under Ice) will be releasing their Move Thru Me EP on Sept. 16th and their two initial 7”s—Step 2 Rhythm and Pressure to Succeed—will also be reissued on Reaper Records, on gold and clear vinyl. Turnstile will also incite crowds into frenzied melees at Back To School Jam 2016, Not Dead Yet 2016, Sound On Sound Fest, and some single shows. Cop the limited edition gold vinyl 12” on Sept. 9!

HEY MERCEDES: EVERYNIGHT FIRE WORKS RUN FOR COVER RECORDS

15 years ago, after the breakup of Braid, three of their four members resurrected their indie rock and punk love in the form of Hey Mercedes. Many 2001 top 10 lists embraced the jaunting guitar that blends harmonies with hints of Fugazi, Shellac, Get Up Kids, and The Promise Ring. Today, we get the 16 tracks—which include the Weekend EP—remastered by JJ Golden and explosively delivered on a limited, 1600 unit run double LP on clear vinyl spattered with green, blue, and white.

THY ART IS MURDER / THE ACACIA STRAIN / FIT FOR AN AUTOPSY: THE DEPRESSION SESSIONS NUCLEAR BLAST

The Depression Sessions feature three metal bands spitting disdain for our society with their own dark visions. Thy Art Is Murder, The Acacia Strain, and Fit For An Autopsy recorded with Will Putney, who enhances the sounds of many metal and hardcore bands of today. In a rare move, this release has Putney’s pure stamp on it, as he produced, engineered, mixed, and mastered this record at Graphic Nature Audio in Belleville, N.J. The bands involved state that The Depression Sessions is a call to unite against the world: “We live in a very competitive and selfish world. This is proof it doesn’t have to be like that.” The vinyl features one original track from each band, while the limited edition vinyl’s B side captures three surprising covers. Thy Art Is Murder cover “Du Hast” by Rammstein; The Acacia Strain, “Black Hole Sun” by Soundgarden; and Fit For An Autopsy, “The Perfect Drug” by Nine Inch Nails.

THE MAHONES: 25 YEARS OF IRISH PUNK SAILOR’S GRAVE RECORDS

For 25 years—as of St. Patrick’s Day, 2015—Kingston, Ontario’s The Mahones have been pummeling crowds with their Irish fueled version of punk. Blending the best aspects of sorrowful Irish music and the visceral immediacy of punk, The Mahones tell tales that all punks can relate to, with the emotive instruments of Ireland: tin whistle, banjo, accordion, bagpipes, and mandolin. Now, they have rerecorded their favorite songs from their discography for an official greatest hits record via Sailor’s Grave. A release date for 25 Years of Irish Punk is still pending, but European fans can get their Mahones fix live this fall.

76 NEW NOISE

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light for Beach Slang’s merch table. [Vocalist and guitarist] James Alex told us we could use a Slang song on a promo video my friend, Joey, is putting together, so we made them a light in return.”

Despite having successfully created a thriving business out of little more than boredom and ingenuity, Novak and Miller aren’t done pushing Whiskertin Lighting forward. “We are hoping to open a lighting supply store that will carry our lights, but also the plugs, wire, switches, and other materi-

T

hough Aaron Novak may be most recognizable as the vocalist and guitarist for Ohio punk/ indie band, Worship This!, it was his experience in heating, ventilation, and air conditioning that led him to cofound Akron based craft lighting company, Whiskertin Lighting. “I’ve played in numerous bands over the years.

Worship This! has been my focus over the last six years,” he explains. “We currently have two full-lengths on A-F records, and are writing our third LP.” Of his business partner, Glenn Miller, he adds, “Glenn plays the drums, but has never played in a band. He has also always had a huge passion for music.”

als for makers to build their own,” Novak says. “We would be relying a lot on Internet sales, but would love to have a storefront. My house has become a warehouse at this point, and it would be nice to have my space back,” he laughs.

To purchase your own custom lamps and fixtures, email whiskertinlight@gmail.com or go to whiskertinlight.com. To follow Novak and Miller’s ongoing projects and events, add them on facebook. com/Whiskertin and on Instagram @whiskertin.

.....

plugs to finish off the look. We basically just started selling them to friends.”

After 20 years in HVAC, Novak clearly possessed the skillset required for this career move, but where did Miller’s interest and ability stem from? “Glenn has taken some electrical courses and has fixed up old lamps as a hobby over the years,” Novak explains.

“Whiskertin started while I was going through a breakup,” Novak recalls. “Worship this! was only practicing one day a week, and I needed to find something creative to do with my time.”

The business began in Novak’s basement in late 2015, and since then, business has been good.

“My friend Andee Wells—who is a huge part of the development of the Akron [and] Cleveland music scene—hit me up and told me he wanted to create a logo and website,” Novak recalls. “Andee has done tons of work for bands, and I’m sure some of his photos have landed in New Noise. He took pictures of our lights and made the logo. We got shirts printed and they have been selling like crazy.”

“I always thought that ductwork looked really cool when it’s exposed in a bar or restaurant,” he continues. “I took a piece of pipe home from work and called up [Miller]. I asked him to come help me make a light. I’m pretty sure he thought I was crazy. We drilled holes in a piece of pipe and ran to Home Depot, bought a socket and a shitty white extension cord. We cut the end off of it and wired it into the socket. We hung the light and posted a picture on Facebook, and everyone was stoked on it.

We decided that we might have something cool and started painting them all different colors. We also started using cloth-covered braided wire and vintage style

Novak and Miller’s backgrounds in HVAC and electrical may have birthed Whiskertin’s products, but it is their background in music that seems to be informing their business model. “We are basically marketing this thing like a band,” Novak confirms. “Constant new designs, stickers, and buttons.

Our first commercial project was for Great Lakes Brewing in Cleveland. We made lights out of kegs that are now hung in their bar. We then did some for The Matinee in Akron, which is our favorite local watering hole. We have new designs coming from Craig Horky and Ryan Ford. These are both artists who have designed Worship This! shirts. We even made a

NEW NOISE 79

I

had been in China for a week. The night before our first day of filming, I was informed there would be an “Opening Party Ceremony.” This is basically like a wrap party, except instead of partying after you finish shooting the show, you party the night before you start. Since I was a foreign director, I was set at the head table of the banquet hall. At my table were my boss, Mr. Chen, his son and my co-director, Xiaofei—or Tony, as he preferred to be called—and 10 or so Chinese Communist Party officials from Beijing. The reason the Party officials were in attendance is because they needed to read each script before the episode was made. That way, the Communist propaganda officials could make sure the show represented China and its Party in their best light.

It was a somewhat tame dinner. Everyone drank like a fish, and after a couple hours, I was properly fucked up: six sheets to the wind and ready to puke off of Chinese rice wine. After I swore off anymore alcohol, one of the Party officials stood up to make a final toast.

He toasted to Mr. Chen and to me—he was pleased with our U.S. and Chinese partnership for this TV show. Everyone was all smiles: they toasted to “The Party,” they toasted the elected officials, and then Tony, a bit drunk, chimed in with something in Chinese. I couldn’t make out what he said except for the words, “Mr. Obama.”

Suddenly, the mood shifted and the official who originally began the toast turned red.

80 NEW NOISE

U.S. Army fatigues, which he wore exclusively the whole six months I was there.

The General followed no speed limits through the streets of Jiaxing, and every time he approached an intersection, he flipped a red switch on the dashboard of He slammed his cup down and his black minivan that flashed turned to Mr. Chen. He was blue and white lights and a very obviously pissed at the idea of loud Chinese police siren. In toasting to Mr. Obama and be- short, we never had to stop for gan reprimanding Mr. Chen for any sort of traffic rules. I must his son’s ignorance. Mr. Chen stress to the reader that this apologized as Tony pulled me wasn’t an official government away to go have a cigarette. vehicle—this was completely illegal. This dude was just reAs we smoked across the room, ally into the idea of being a cop: I saw the tensions at the table complete stolen valor. calm down. The officials started to disperse. The asshole who The General pulled up to a karefused to toast to Mr. Obama raoke building with a five-stogingerly walked passed me and ry neon facade adorned with was visibly piss drunk. As he ex- Chinese lettering. The Genited, he raised a full cup of wine eral was told to sleep inside in the air and slowly poured it the car, which he did happily. out onto the entire line of buffet We entered the spot and were food in the center of the room. ushered to a private karaoke He laughed with satisfaction at room right away. Once inside, ruining the 10 different dishes the room servers brought in of perfectly prepared duck and fantastic spreads of peanuts, vegetables. The waiters looked chicken feet and gizzards, along at the floor as he dumped the with several buckets of beers. wine all over the dessert plates Once the food was in place, and finally threw the glass the either or so police officers down to the ground. He exited, insisted that they bring in “enand the waiters quickly picked tertainment.” I assumed they up the plates and scurried into meant the microphones and the back in an attempt to save tambourines that are usually the food before the wine soaked the source of entertainment in. in a karaoke place—but not this karaoke joint. A string of Tony took me over to a table of pretty girls in a single file line young police officers from the entered the room. They were city. They would be working for all between the ages of 18 and the show and weren’t in uni- 25. They ranged from pretty to form. I’m usually not the type plain, but mostly consisted of to get along with the police, but local girls dressed up in their these guys seemed chill—they best club attire and way too were all shitfaced. They want- much makeup. ed to keep the good times rolling and invited Tony and I to Tony spoke in sharp Mandago out drinking with them. We rin to the Bossman, and a girl headed for the parking lot. Tony was instructed to sit down told me to call his driver “The next to me and drape her arms General”—he always wore avi- around me. Tony eyed the girls ator sunglasses, even at night, up and down, and he couldn’t and his wardrobe consisted of choose, so he selected two. He

sat down, and one rubbed his neck as the other opened beers for everyone. The policemen all chose a girl, and we sat down for a hearty session of karaoke.

One or two people would sing as their dates cheered them on with big, fake smiles and clapped—because that was what they were being paid to do—as the other cops in the room played grab-ass with the girls and tried to get them to drink some more.

Now, this situation was a trip for me. I’m not into paying for sex. I was cordial to my date, but I never made any advances. I’m also not into hanging out with cops. Luckily, I didn’t have to for very long, because before I knew it, I was alone in the room with my date. I noticed that, one by one, each police officer slipped out of the room with their lady friend and went to another private room. I asked my “date” where everyone went, but she spoke no English. She looked at me, almost annoyed, and made a circle with her index finger and thumb. With her other hand, she took her finger and put it through the circle. You guessed it: the international hand signal for fucking!

I wasn’t surprised, but it did make me feel a certain type of way. I knew about the corruption in Communist China. I’ve read stories about crooked cops and, hell, we’ve all seen “Serpico.” But it doesn’t really twist your stomach until a group of cops invite you out for a few drinks, only to split off and fuck hookers. Talk about leaving a bad taste in your mouth. I had had enough and headed for the exit. The night was a wash. I flagged down a cab driver and gave him a piece of paper with my hotel written on it. As I headed home to get an hour’s sleep before work, I developed a whole new outlook on the police and the whole fucked up world we live in. .....

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