New Noise Magazine Issue #37

Shining a light on the joys and heartaches that lie at the intersection of the LGBTQIA community and the world of alternative music…

PHOTO: AARON EHINGER

about finding the best possible road trip snacks as we are about our music. In a feeble attempt to write a jingle—not unlike The Muffs’ Fruitopia commercial in the ‘90s—here’s a quick rundown of my favorites: Bugles: How could you possibly argue with a snack that doubles as temporary nails? They also come in some fab new flavors, aren’t super bad for you, and don’t cause intestinal distress. Hello, WOW Chips? […]

FEATURING BEVERLY RAGE OF BEV RAGE AND THE DRINKS Is your stomach rumbling? Your throat parched? Can’t find the right tasty treat to satisfy your ravenous urges? Then take a big bite of Chicago’s saltiest drag chanteuse, Beverly Rage, and wash it down with her rowdy queercore compatriots, The Drinks. On their debut EP, Honk If Yer Hungry—released Aug. 18 via Midwest Action—Bev Rage And The Drinks sate your craving for delightfully crunchy and deliciously snarky garage-pop. Produced and engineered

by Brian Tepps at Million Yen Studios and mastered by The Boiler Room, the four-song record extols the virtues of everything from snacking and hooking up to big, sexy thighs and being too old for this shit.

man beard during a song, and made costume changes behind a shower curtain spray painted with the slogan “Make America Rage Again”—the latter was pre-Trump, and now, just seems a little too real.

When you’re a band who fills a very specific niche, you oughta strive to be the best one out there, and I’d say we’re the greatest drag queen-fronted pop punk snack rock band in the land! If you can find a better one, please let us know! As it so happens, we’re just as passionate

Fruity and refreshing, Bev Rage And The Drinks serve up the perfect blend of silly punk mayhem to quench even the thirstiest fans. This round’s on Bev!

6

NEW NOISE

Combos: Hungry-hungry-hippos gotta have some combos for a good time. Eating too many of these can tear up the inside of your mouth, which makes the nutrition easier to absorb.

ON COMFORT AND COUTURE One morning after a show, when I was looking especially disheveled, a friend stopped by and, after looking me up and down, declared that I looked quite “comfortable.” I may have looked like a dumpster with hands, sure, but I was quite comfy. “Comfortable” has since become a favorite insult among my friends, but it’s also an apt description of all that is Bev Rage And The Drinks.

Bev wears comfy costumes because they’re stretchy and breathable, which is very necessary when you’re essentially a sweaty pile of hotdogs in a jumpsuit. The band brings a sense of comfort to every show because we don’t know how to be anything but welcoming to everyone.

Comfort is sometimes a struggle, and figuring out how to find your place in any community can take time. I think that we are still finding ours.

ON GIMMICKS AND SNACKING We take great pride in putting on an entertaining show, which we believe should include some theatrics. While our music is somewhat simple, a Bev Rage And The Drinks show certainly is not. In the past, we’ve catapulted snacks into the audience, raffled off the opportunity to shave our guitarist’s mountain

Candy Buttons: I often eat these with my lovers, like those dogs who eat spaghetti.

Paper is digestible, right?

PHOTO: AL ROBINSON

Comfort is certainly not a given when you are queer, a drag queen, or in any way different from the norm. We, as a

queer community, have fought battles to be comfortable in our weirdness, and we certainly shouldn’t backslide because of how we present in our appearance or in our art. There is way too much infighting in our communities these days, which I would like to see stop. […]

I suggest that everyone start to embrace their comfort. Whatever my little band can do to help that, the better. Be nice, dude. It makes everything much more fun.

ON MY STOMACH...

OR ON MY BACK I write music about my real-life experiences, which I think is quite apparent. I am extremely sex-positive in my music, though my experiences often end up less than positive. It turns out that being a 33-year-old single gay man is actually pretty boring. However, when you throw in some wigs, snark, and a crippling inability to function in the dating world— some fun content can pop up here and there! I tell my stories through my music, and my stories are usually pretty laughable. […]

I’m basically a broke-ass Taylor Swift.

I love telling stories about my dating misadventures and hope that they’re entertaining for others. I write sex music that’s relatable—as long as you don’t get much sex, or at least not much good sex.

PHOTO: AL ROBINSON

SCENE NOT HEARD SHIFTS THE FOCUS FROM THE INDIVIDUALS WHO CREATE THE BEST ALBUMS TO TAKE AN INSIDE LOOK AT THE BEHIND-THE-SCENES JOBS THAT KEEP THE INDUSTRY RUNNING. GO BEYOND THE MUSIC AND MEET THE PEOPLE WHO KEEP YOUR FAVORITE BANDS IN THE PUBLIC EYE…

been working with a bunch of artists that are incredibly talented and have a bright future: Mom Jeans, Hodera, Oso Oso, Prince Daddy & The Hyena, and a bunch more. Those have been the ones that have really blown me away, like, ‘Is this real life?’”

When did Cole begin to even consider pursuing this career?

“I’ve always been a diehard music fan—punk, indie, hip hop, those are my jams—and I love working with creative people. In high school, I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. I had never considered becoming a lawyer, and I wasn’t the best at staying awake in school. Then, my friend showed me this book, ‘All You Need To Know About the Music Business’ by Donald Passman. He was like, ‘Hey, dude, there’s this job called a music lawyer where you work with bands.

How cool is that?’ So, I bought the book, and I was hooked. Learning about all of the negotiations and contracts behind the music business that make or break artists’ careers was so intriguing. I also learned how frequently artists were screwed out of profits or damaged their careers due to legal mistakes. That’s when I realized this might be the way I could help creative people and work in a field that I love.”

In Cole’s eyes, what mistakes are often made by bands that can be so easily fixed by a person like him?

“Can I do two? I would say the biggest mistake is that artists—in general, but especially bands—don’t realize they might need the help of a lawyer or don’t think they can afford one. Obviously,

H

enderson Cole is an entertainment lawyer in New York City and New Jersey. In 2017, he opened his own law firm, Henderson Cole Law. A scary task, but the loving support of his family and friends has helped him—even affirming to his parents that this is, in fact, a real job. Before that, Cole helped book shows around the area and created his own music blog, The Alternative. What began as a college radio show is now a site covering the grassroots of the industry; 100 percent volunteer based, it highlights the up-and-comers who will eventually land a contract—another area Cole knows plenty about due to his legal studies.

I’m biased on this, but the help of a lawyer when negotiating deals will be far more valuable than you think, and a mistake when signing a contract can doom a band’s entire career. I see bands too often leaving money on the table, because they run into a record label’s legal team and they’ve never negotiated a contract before.”

“The second one is related. Bands often forget to negotiate. Getting offered a recording contract is awesome and exciting, and they just want to say yes and get working on music. But if you take the time to look the deal over, you can find areas you would like to improve, or maybe you’ll realize that someone else will offer you more.”

For Cole, asking questions is an important aspect of negotiating contracts and making them benefit the creative intellect when producing on someone else’s money. The dedication that Cole displayed allowed him to intern with Levinsohn Associates, P.C., while still in law school. During that time, he worked on big name contracts with 50 Cent and Eminem, as well as the Marvin Gaye / Robin Thicke copyright infringement litigation. Now, Cole gets to combine his love for music and his site to help out up-and-coming bands in creating contracts that benefit them—and he gets to write himself a paycheck in the process.

People like Henderson Cole are hard to come by, but they are some of the most important players behind making your band—and the bands you love the most—a success!

So, what exactly does he do as entertainment lawyer?

“It’s a job many people might not have heard of, but basically, what I do is help artists of all types—people involved in music, film, etc.—to protect their work and negotiate contracts. An entertainment lawyer is somewhere in between an agent and a manager—or at least that’s how I like to think of it. I mostly work with music law; that’s what I know best and enjoy most.”

“That said, working on contracts for my favorite bands for my own firm has been the most exciting. I have recently

PHOTOS:JESSICA LAVERY

NEW NOISE 7

laughs. “I ended up studying acting in college. I’m not really sure why.”

PHOTO: MAYA FUHR

At NYU and USC, Folick continued her singing and eventually picked up a guitar after working at music venues on campus.

It wasn’t long until she was seeking band members via Tinder—why not?—and social media. “I knew the reason music was going to make me happy was that it allowed the freedom of expression I didn’t feel like I had when I was acting in other people’s projects,” she notes.

FINDING HER VOICE, LEARNING TO SCREAM- MIYA FOLICK INTERVIEW BY ZACKARY MILLER

“It’s hard to not think, ‘What if I had started playing music when I was 14? Where would I be now?’ The conclusion that I’ve landed on is that I probably wouldn’t be here now. I probably would have explored and moved on to something else.”

This is Miya Folick, musical late-bloomer and future avant-garde pop “It Girl.” On Nov. 3, her second EP, Give It To Me, was Long Island’s Hangman are back with their third EP, A Vile Decree, released on Flatspot Records Nov. 3. “Vile” is an appropriate moniker for this ugly and enraged declaration of disgust.

Not many bands cite Neglect as an influence.

Hangman do. They even feature Neglect vocalist Brian Zoid on the EP’s third track, “Abandoned.” The song utilizes a frenzied riff and tough sludge rhythms.

Guitarist Michael Smith says the connection was logical. “Being from Long Island, Neglect was an important band that you either loved or

released via Terrible Records. The stunning five-track collection of voice-led guitar-pop is highlighted by a gut-wrenching title track on which Folick’s voice repeatedly erupts from wistful flutter to righteous fury. The music video for the song is suitably filmed on a rollercoaster.

Raised in Santa Ana, California, Folick dabbled with playing the piano and violin as hated,” he asserts. “They have their own style, and no one will ever come close to them. I met John Lafata, [the drummer for Neglect, who also played with Madball and Mind Over Matter]. Lafata brought Brian to a Hangman [and] Agnostic Front show. It was his first show in over 15 years, and he came up to me after our set and said, ‘You guys gave me the itch.’” Hangman deliver a classic Long Island sound: robust, furious, and fueled by isolation and misanthropy.

In 2015, these high school friends and hardcore faithfuls joined together to bang out loathsome cuts filled with bitter breakdowns. A Vile Decree keeps the band’s formula, but elevates the quality of Hangman’s scalding delivery. “A lot more time and effort went into this release,” Smith confirms. “We wanted to be certain that these songs would showcase the sound we’ve wanted to achieve. Working with [producer] Greg [Thomas] was a unique and inexplicably valuable experience. We could tell that he cared just as much about the songs as we did, which was very important to us.”

Now that A Vile Decree is pummeling the masses, Smith says 2018 will see Hangman touring “as much as possible.”

8

NEW NOISE

a child, along with Taiko drumming in her Buddhist temple. However, a career as a professional musician and songwriter never occurred to her. Even as she pursued classical voice lessons, Folick claims they were more or less a “nerdy” excuse to learn more about Mozart. “I [thought I] would go to medical school or something. I didn’t really know anyone who was a musician or artist at all, who was making a career out of it,” Folick

Folick credits the compressed time between learning guitar and her first EP, Strange Darling in 2015, as essential to her early success. “I don’t feel any sort of allegiance to any genre or even group of people,” she says. “I would never want to be tied down by people’s expectations of me. That is like my worst nightmare. It makes my skin crawl. I want to make whatever I want to make.”

In this case, it’s an EP that mimics the live sound Folick was chasing on tour. “This EP was written out of a desire to have a live show that shook people and was a little bit abrasive,” she shares. “The first EP was so quiet, and I didn’t want that cerebral, ‘Oh, that was nice’ sort of show. I wanted it to be louder, and I wanted to scream.”

A VILE DECREE OF HARDCORE DISSENT-HANGMAN

INTERVIEW WITH GUITARIST MICHAEL SMITH BY HUTCH

There’s a certain frantic energy that comes with the uncertainty of adulthood, as well as an assuredness that follows once you come of age. That existential tension and release plays out beautifully on the delightful debut LP from England’s shame. Songs of Praise—out Jan. 12 via Dead Oceans— is full of honesty and a certain grace that comes from not taking yourself too seriously. It’s got some dance-y, Gang Of Four-esque call-and-response jams, but there are hefty doses of bristling, aggressive punk amid the more reflective respites. It all sounds a bit bonkers—and often is—yet, Songs of Praise is carefully constructed: hooky and angular in equal measure.

Guitarists Eddie Green and Sean Coyle-Smith share how that kinetic and frantic energy was harnessed into something special, explaining, “As a

band, I don’t think we have ever set out writing a song with a particular genre or sound in mind. We pretty much just take whatever sounds good and hash it out until it feels right. A lot of the songs on the record were written in our old practice space above The Queens Head—a pub in Brixton—a room we shared with some questionable characters, at best. It was a lawless place. The only way I can really describe it is it was as if the entirety of ‘Spinal Tap’ just took place in one pub. I think, without us realizing it, the environment of the place had a massive effect on the songs we were writing at the time and the reason why we are the damaged and disheveled characters we are today.” shame’s ability to soak in their environment led to an album that is sneakily socially conscious, showcasing a

CHICAGO PUNK NETWORKING 101- SINCERE ENGINEER PHOTO: JEN CRAY

INTERVIEW WITH VOCALIST/GUITARIST DEANNA BELOS BY JOHN B. MOORE Deanna Belos has been playing solo throughout Chicago for years. It wasn’t until she set out to record her latest LP under the name Sincere Engineer that she decided to bring in a backing band.

“I had self-released recordings of solo acoustic stuff in the past. It was originally [producer] Matt [Jordan]’s idea to

bring in a full band, and I was quickly sold on it after hearing the first track we recorded,” she says. “There’s so much more to listen to, and it made my songs sound so much stronger.”

Benjamin Tod is a singer-songwriter from Tennessee. In recent years, fans have found him drifting about ramshackle bars and smoky speakeasies in Lost Dog Street Band. Along with his fiddle-playing counterpart, Ashley Mae, Tod’s Lost Dog material hearkens back to a bygone era that predates digital music distribution. The band’s minimalist and haunting take on country music puts flesh on words like “lonesome” and “heartache.” Somewhere in a saloon in purgatory, the ghosts of Hank Williams, Johnny Cash, and Townes Van Zandt are listening to Lost Dog and nodding their heads.

expected to exceed the amount. I know the fan base and knew how much it had grown this past year especially.” While the release of I Will Rise had some fans fearfully speculating about the future of Lost Dog, Tod assuages those concerns, saying, “I’ve also gotten a lot of questions about Lost Dog and the future of that and people freaked out. I didn’t expect so much attention to this project.”

On Dec. 15, Tod self-released his first solo album. Christened I Will Rise, Tod’s record was entirely a crowdfunded venture, receiving an overwhelming response from fans during its active Indiegogo campaign. Of accumulating 152 percent of his intended goal, Tod says, “I

That track is one of 11 on Rhombithian, released on Oct. 20 via Red Scare Indus-

Fans eager to hear the material from I Will Rise can stream live performances of the title track, along with the heart-wrenching dirges “Hungry for You Blues” and “Using Again,” via YouTube. Filmed by GemsOnVHS, a Nashville-based video production company, these live renditions capture the afflicted soul of Tod’s narratives. Tod explains, “‘Using Again’ is about falling back into drug addiction and the hopelessness and isolation within that feeling. ‘Hungry for You blues’ is about losing the one you

IN PRAISE OF LEARNING, GROWING, BECOMING- SHAME

INTERVIEW WITH EDDIE GREEN AND SEAN COYLE-SMITH BY NICHOLAS SENIOR band ready to rail against the world around them while growing along with it. “Well, a lot of these songs were written [when we were] between the age of 17 and 20,” the guitarists note. “I think this record captures our development as both musicians and lyricists. For us, a lot of these songs—

namely ‘One Rizla’—already feel nostalgic. I don’t think we ever had a clear message that we wanted to convey with this record; it’s just a tangible coming of age, you could say.”

tries. Belos first met Red Scare founder Toby Jeg when she was 20. He was based out of Chicago at the time, and she ended up driving him home from a show. “I’d been friends with him for years before I even started writing songs or playing shows,” she says. “At some point along the way, he heard I had some songs and offered to let me open for Brendan Kelly.

I hadn’t played in front of anyone before, but I knew I’d kick myself forever if I declined opening for my hero, so I said yes and practiced a shit-ton.”

it,” Belos says. “I guess I knew it was time once we started making our way through the recording process and all the songs started fitting together better than I thought they would.” Belos even waited until she had all the songs completely written and worked out before she got in touch with Jordan about recording them—mainly because she didn’t want to waste his time. “It wasn’t a rushed process or anything,” she clarifies.

Fast forward two years. Belos started recording music, and Jeg would occasionally ask how it was going. When Sincere Engineer were finally wrapping things up and getting Rhombithian mastered, Jeg said he’d be interested in putting it out on his label. But what made this the right time to finally put out a proper studio album? “I just had enough songs for it to be a full-length, so I just went with

Living in Chicago, Belos says she couldn’t help but be influenced by local music. “I grew up in the southwest suburbs of Chicago, [and] I am very influenced by bands from the city,” she confirms. “Specifically, ‘90s Chicago punk bands. Alkaline Trio was one of my first favorites, and in seventh grade, I found The Lawrence Arms. They’ve been my favorite ever since.”

LONESOME, AFFLICTED COUNTRY DIRGES- BENJAMIN TOD PHOTO:ERIC OSETO

INTERVIEW BY GRANT SKELTON love and your only shot at happiness in the world.”

I Will Rise further distinguishes itself from Tod’s prior output in that it features no additional instrumentation apart from Tod’s voice and guitar. “I look

at the careers of all my favorite artists and find that those acoustic albums are always the most special,” Tod says. “I think people crave authenticity more than ever in our plastic culture.” If I Will Rise does not have authenticity, then it has nothing at all.

NEW NOISE

9

“East Coast trash. Swingstyle forever,” vocalist Brett Colvin says. It’s a phrase he uses to describe his band Downswing, a hardcore outfit from Albany, New York, who recently signed to Rise Records.

“Swingstyle is basically the word that we use to set ourselves apart. It is our live aesthetic, our persona. I can’t really explain it; you’re just going to have to come out and see it for yourself.” The band just completed their first-ever tour and released their debut EP, Dark Side of the Mind, on Nov. 10 through Rise.

“Everyone in this band grew up on Rise bands,” Colvin says. “I honestly never would have guessed I would be debuting on a label like this and the fact that we’re a hardcore band on a label like Rise is also surreal.”

Downswing have only been a band for about a year, but have dropped some pretty heavy-hitting tracks, like the

more traditional hardcore jam “Cut the Brakes” and their latest catchier single, “Enough.” “Downswing is the rising of ashes from, like, failed bands. We came together and were like, ‘We’re going to try to do this the best we can and in the smartest way possible’ and just kind of made power moves,” Colvin explains.

“We played a hometown show with Kublai Khan and Vincent Bennett [of The Acacia Strain] was there, and I guess we impressed him.” Bennett introduced Downswing to the crew at Rise, and now, the rest is history.

SWINGING HARDCORE, EAST COAST TRASH- DOWNSWING

Downswing wrote and recorded Dark Side of the Mind in a house with no producer, the same way they did for their early 2017 demo, SwingStyle. “Our demo was just a typical demo tape of hardcore tracks,” Colvin says. “[For] Dark Side of the Mind we kind of stepped out of the box. Every song is its own entity. The last

thing that we wanted to do was be someone else. We wanted to write songs that we wanted to write, that are the songs that we wanted to be.”

NOISY POP WITH A SIDE OF SHOEGAZE- GINGERLYS

PHOTO: ANDREW WILCHAK

INTERVIEW WITH GUITARIST MATTHEW RICHARDS BY JOHN SILVA Something magical happens when a person influenced by one style of music decides to explore a genre outside of their wheelhouse. Guitarist Matthew Richards—one of the founding members of Long Island’s noisy pop group, Gingerlys—came from the world of krautrock and shoegaze, but fellow

Gingerlys guitarist Colin O’Neill helped him explore a poppier side of music.

While winter boredom often feels like an endless curse, it can also spark some fantastic creative endeavors. Who Is She? is the result of such boredom. The Seattle-based supergroup—featuring members of Tacocat, Lisa Prank, and Chastity Belt—formed when guitarist Robin Edwards and bassist Bree McKenna were living together and looking for something to pass the time while their bands were between tours. “I think we both had a lot of free time on our hands, and we were hanging out a lot,” Edwards says. “So, we wrote some silly songs.”

Those silly songs are now collected on the band’s debut full-length, Seattle Gossip, released Oct. 6 via Father/Daughter Records.

You, [a section in the Seattle weekly, The Stranger], as a songwriting prompt, and we wanted to do that too. It just turned into us writing songs from those a bunch.” This marked the birth of several odes to various awkward romantic encounters, such as seeing a cute stranger on the bus, but not talking to them.

McKenna goes on to explain that the band were initially formed around the idea of writing songs inspired by missed connections ads. “I was talking to Robin about how one of my friends uses I Saw

10 NEW NOISE

With catchy hooks and vocal melodies, Gingerlys are a pop band through and through. Nevertheless, there are some fuzzy parts in which it is easy to hear their shoegaze influence. Richards

From there, the project spiraled into subject matter about everything from Courtney Cox and David Arquette’s “off the hook” chemistry in the “Scream” movies to time-traveling boyfriends destroying the present-day world with their good intentions. “It’s kind of like, [the time-traveling boyfriend] keeps bringing us presents,” McKenna elaborates, “but we’re like, ‘No, you really shouldn’t do that.’ He messes up our reality every time.”

Although the lyrics are tongue-in-cheek, the escapism fans have found in the

PHOTO: ANA MASSARD

INTERVIEW WITH VOCALIST BRETT COLVIN BY NATASHA VAN DUSER

Downswing are currently putting together a promising touring schedule for 2018. “This is what we signed up for,

says that he and his bandmates look for interesting ways to work various sounds into their music. “You could just incorporate a lot of really beautiful songs that have these nice layers of noise on top of them,” he explains, “not necessarily making it shoegaze, [but] making it more in that vein of noise-pop.”

The band released their self-titled debut full-length on Nov. 17, three years after their first EP, Jumprope. The gap between releases was due to their busy lives and a lineup change. “People were going to school; people had jobs and obligations,” Richards shares. “So, [our original vocalist] had to leave the band, and we decided to carry on without her. Our friend introduced us to Jackie Mendoza, who just came here from California and was looking for a band.

So, we tried her out, and it instantly clicked.” At that point, the band knew they had something special and were

and there’s nothing else we’d rather be doing,” Colvin notes. “We’re excited for next year. [We’re] going to be on the road a lot more often, so we’re just getting our feet wet right now.”

ready to head back to the studio to record their next collection of songs.

In addition to putting out Gingerlys’ new album, Topshelf and Babe City Records agreed to donate a portion of the proceeds from the preorder sales to The Trevor Project, The NAACP Legal Defense Fund, and Planned Parenthood.

Richards says that Gingerlys are not necessarily a political or mission-driven band, but they wanted to do something to support organizations that serve people in situations similar to many of their friends. “Why wouldn’t it be a good idea to donate some of the proceeds to something we all really care about?!” he says. “It all came together very nicely.”

COURTNEY COX + DAVID ARQUETTE 4EVR- WHO IS SHE?

PHOTO:SARAH CASS

INTERVIEW WITH ROBIN EDWARDS AND BREE MCKENNA BY JOHN SILVA band’s music has been a source of relief in trying times. “We felt a little funny at first, having it come out during such political turmoil,” Edwards says, “but people have told me it’s really brought them comfort.” There is indeed something

quite comforting about this fun-loving friendship band from Seattle. Simple, sweet, and silly, Who Is She?’s humorous songs provide a lighthearted reprieve from the anxiety of everyday life.

Underneath all the big riffs and classic rock flourishes, Philly hard rockers Hound are really all punk. Lead vocalist, guitarist, and legendary artist Perry Shall—the driving force behind the group’s retro ways—has the spirit of peace and anarchy deep within his heart.

His music fits everywhere—even though it doesn’t really. “You know, we’re not metal enough for this crowd, and we’re too metal for this one,” Shall notes, “but punk is really the bones of the group, and I think people can really feel it.”

Hound’s newest record, Born Under 76—released Oct. 20 via Let’s Pretend Records—is an extension of a vision. It rips hard and accents a huge appreciation for the city of its birth. “I was born and raised in Philly proper, been here my

whole life. I’m obsessed with it,” Shall laughs. “The city’s a huge influence. It’s a weird place. From the outside, you might think it’s full of these real giant A-holes, but actually, most of the people are really caring. And the music scene is amazing.”

Born Under 76 is direct. The songs are mighty, confrontational, and a little hazy. There’s a psychedelic smoke that rises and swirls throughout. The band are tight and loose, and you can really feel it. They’ve seen many bassists and a few drummers come and go during their existence, but this current lineup is a special one. “This is the fifth bass player—fourth really, one friend just filled in,” Shall laughs, “but this current version feels like the band I envisioned. It’s the original idea, which I love.”

BREAK THOSE CHAINS THAT BIND YOU- HEAVY HEARTS

THE MEANEST SON OF A BITCH IN PHILADELPHIA- HOUND

I N T E R V I E W W I T H VO CA L I ST / G U I TA R I ST P E R RY S H A L L BY C H R I STO P H E R J. H A R R I N GTO N Think Motörhead, Sabbath, and Deep Purple, and you’ll be in the ballpark.

But Hound also have this vibrancy that is totally diverse. It’s an amalgamation of everything Shall is in love with—and his love runs deep. “The Beatles. I mean, fuck. They’re so good,” he notes. “I was

obsessed with Ringo as a kid. Michael Jackson, Harry Nilsson, Metallica, all that stuff. It was all part of my musical upbringing.”

someone had a new idea,” he says, “or ‘til we hit a wall. With [the new songs], our drummer Davis Maxwell has a studio attached to where we practice, and we record demos with him, so if anyone had an idea, we would just go into his studio and start recording it right away.”

attributed to idol Elliott Smith. The lyrics are crafted by Glatt, who sees the role of tastemaker, alongside lyricist, as one of his primary jobs in advancing the music of Heavy Hearts.

“Anytime I find myself listening to a [new band] a lot, it just inspires me to at least play guitar and create something,” he shares, “especially if it will make me want to learn something that wouldn’t be typical for our band.”

Over the past several years, Heavy Hearts have consistently pumped out moody alt-rock tunes from their home base in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario. But, as vocalist and guitarist Justin Glatt puts it, the band’s new EP, On a Chain—released Oct. 27 on New Damage Records and Failure By

Design in the U.K.—is the first step on a longer journey, one the band were not sure their hobby could ever afford them. As Glatt has learned, sometimes opportunity comes to those most willing to be themselves.

“We would, like, normally just practice [songs] over and over again until

On a Chain seems to represent the exorcism of temporary aimlessness and, according to Glatt, is also the collection of songs the band are most proud of. “‘On a chain’ means being attached to something without passion,” he says, “just stuck where you are and having to work your way into being comfortable with where you are.” The music is liquid, moving from shape to shape without losing any mass. Tune in to the first minute, and the listener will hear cathartic walls of guitar-driven sound. In the next minute, quiet minimal callbacks

The past year has marked many significant turning points for the U.S., and along with the protests and disorientation, it seems musicians are rapidly working to present their own views on society. Pure Hiss—who emerged on the scene in late 2016—couldn’t have chosen a better time to give this world a piece of their mind.

now eager to play more shows all over the country and hope to put out an LP by the end of 2018.

CHANGE YOUR MIND, CHANGE THE WORLD- PURE HISS

INTERVIEW WITH VOCALIST/GUITARIST JUSTIN GLATT BY ZACKARY MILLER

The Detroit group initially put out a limited run of their self-titled debut EP on July 5, courtesy of Time Will Tell Records. It received such a phenomenal response, they reissued the record on limited-edition vinyl via Skeletal Lightning on Dec. 15. Guitarist Maxxwell Lange says he’s known label co-owner Sean Hermann for years.

“He’s always been a stand-up person, and I immediately wanted to reach out about doing a vinyl version of the release,” he says. “We couldn’t be happier to form this partnership.” The band are

Pure Hiss are a socially conscious, female and queer-centric hardcore band with a raw, violent sound and a diverse skillset. Their short, in-your-face songs bring a classic punk feel to a new take on the scene. Lange admits he’s always been a fan of bands who “throw it all at you with no frills attached.” Their lyrics spread a countercultural message that he hopes will cause the world to “wake up a little” and see beyond the surface of what’s considered normal.

“We need to focus our energy in the right places,” Lange asserts, “and that’s not to say to turn the [other] cheek on egregious actions or ideas, but we need to also be able to decipher intentions and what someone is trying to convey and help reeducate people who are problematic.”

Following the release of On a Chain, the band have eyes on their first European tour and have already started thinking about a full-length LP for 2018, both of which Glatt sees as the next step in their professional path.

The goal: to keep pushing and not give in to the “chain.”

INTERVIEW WITH GUITARIST MAXXWELL LANG BY NATALEE COLOMAN He shares that most of the material on the EP is based on self-reflection and growth, while also taking the listener to dark places. “No matter how far we progress, there’s always changes that still need to be made, room to grow,”

Lange adds. “If you want to be part of [the movement], just be the best person you can. We all slip up, we all make mistakes, and we’ve all learned bad opinions and ideas. Thankfully, we can unlearn them.”

NEW NOISE

11

The new year has big things in store for Chester, England-based singer-songwriter Lizzy Farrall. From releasing new music to a European tour with Seaway, 2018 brings Farrall closer to seeing her long-awaited dreams realized. “I think I knew from quite a young age that music was a passion of mine,” she expresses. Early on, Farrall found herself inspired by the music around her. Starting with a love for performing and singing, she discovered a deeper need to create, “writing” her own songs. “I never used to write them down, but I used to sing random words and stuff,” she laughs.

As the singer grew into a budding artist, she found herself drawn to the honesty of music. Farrall wanted to cultivate the sort of raw connection she felt toward

the music she loved. She sought to make the kind of music that listeners could find themselves in. “For me, it was like a way to express and help me go through things I was going through,” she explains. “I used to listen to writers who were honest.

You could tell that their lyrics were really heartfelt, and I would connect better with their music.”

Back in April, the U.K. songstress signed with Pure Noise Records and is now on the brink of releasing her debut EP, All I Said Was Never Heard, on Jan. 5. Farrall has come a long way from a musical hopeful to a musician realizing her potential.

“It’s scary,” Farrall admits, laughing. Remembering a moment from her performance at Slam Dunk Festival back in May, she relates, “I played ‘Broken Toy,’ and

THOSE WHO CAN’T DO, DO IT ANYWAY- SAMMI LANZETTA

PHOTO: MIA MALLORY GREEN

INTERVIEW BY J. POET “I didn’t know I could sing until I was 16,” Sammi Lanzetta says with a laugh. “I did an open mic thing, and it didn’t go that bad. I’d always liked singing, but never knew if I was doing it right. For me, part of the charm of performing is just winging it.”

Lanzetta and her trio—featuring bassist and guitarist Tommy Crisafulli and drummer Caleb Knight—applied her open-ended approach to her debut EP, For Avery. The record hit the streets on Oct. 6 via 6131 Records, and they band have been touring steadily to support it.

“I had some things I wanted to record.

The Last Gang have had some fits and starts over the years, but with a reinvigorated lineup, some fantastic songs, and a record deal with Fat Wreck Chords, the Orange County band have a whole new focus. “Around 2009, I felt like the band lost a lot of its momentum,” vocalist and guitarist Brenna Red says.

“Though I loved the music we continued to create, we hit a wall. On top of that, my finances were weighing me down personally. Another band who needed a singer had contacted me, and I did both bands for a bit. At a crossroad, I made the decision to hang up the gloves for The Last Gang.”

sion to try to gain some serious traction,” Red says. They have now put out a two-song 7”, Sing for Your Supper, on Dec. 8 via Fat Wreck, with a 10-song LP, Keep Them Counting, to follow in February.

The band got back together a few years later with Red and longtime drummer Robby Wantland bringing on Sean Viele on bass. “In 2013, after we reestablished from a hiatus, we made a definite deci-

12 NEW NOISE

“[The song] ‘Sing for Your Supper’ is all about putting your everything into your passion,” Red explains, “even if that means failing. Regret is more detrimental than not even trying. We didn’t just test the waters with this album, we jumped all the way in and didn’t look back. This is the only thing we want to do with our lives: recording, touring, creating, inspiring. A healthy fear of failure is sometimes needed to push us past our points of apprehension.”

The band spent the summer on tour in the U.K., and they are looking to do their

HONEST MUSIC AND HUMAN CONNECTION- LIZZY FARRALL

INTERVIEW BY ANNETTE HANSON there were people I didn’t know singing the lyrics back to me. It was like, ‘OK, this is quite odd,’ but a really good feeling.”

With her music soon to be released to the world and a tour on the horizon, Farrall only hopes to continue to grow that sense

When I won some free recording time in a raffle, I went to Russ Lacy’s Virginia Moonwalker studios and did it,” Lanzetta explains. “I recruited Caleb and Tommy, and we did the whole thing live, totally unplanned. Tommy, Caleb, and Russ all contributed ideas to what we were doing. After some thought, I retracked my vocals and guitar parts with Scott Lane. I was lucky to work with people more versed in the recording process than I was. I just brought in the songs; they helped me bring it together. All I did was quit smoking for a month before we recorded, so I could sing better.”

The tunes on For Avery are perfect bursts of intelligent lyrics, outstanding melodies, and infectious energy.

Lanzetta’s ardent vocals describe difficult emotions with a straightforward candor and a hint of arch humor. “Circles” warns a misogynistic musician to keep his hands to himself as Lanzetta’s guitar alternates between crisp lead

of connection with anyone who’s ready to listen. “I think everyone goes through similar things, similar stages, in their life, and it makes it kind of humanized,” she says. “It makes you feel like you’re not alone.”

lines and thick, distorted rhythms. A descending melody line opens “Anxiety Olympics,” a meditation on the art of dealing with the difficulties of everyday life, while “For Avery” is a ballad dispensing advice to a young girl growing up in an uncertain generation.

“A friend of a friend gave birth to a little girl named Avery, so I started thinking about what I’d say to any female born in 2017, what she might have to handle growing up,” Lanzetta shares. “As I continued writing, I saw the advice I was giving her was the advice I would have given to my past self. I want to be an example for women who think they may have missed the boat if they don’t have a lot of musical experience. Creativity— and life—isn’t about being good at it, it’s about doing it. I’m not a guitar wizard, so I played live shows. That forced me to get good, because I didn’t have any other option.”

O.C. ’77 PUNKS SING FOR THEIR SUPPER- THE LAST GANG

INTERVIEW WITH VOCALIST/GUITARIST BRENNA RED BY JOHN B. MOORE first full European tour in April and May of 2018. “We’re hoping that we can be out there at the same time as our labelmates, The Bombpops, so we can tie some dates together,” Red says. “We’re still working on getting a U.S. tour to-

gether as well; we’re just not sure if it will be before or after Europe, but it’s definitely happening.”

DEATH OF LOVERS If nature has taught us anything, it’s that even while things appear to be lying dormant, this sleepy state may belie vigorous change and new life preparing to spring forth. This is certainly the case for New York City-based band Death Of Lovers, who released their debut fulllength, The Acrobat, via DAIS Records on Nov. 24.

The LP is also the band’s first new output in four years, following up their 2013 EP release, Buried Under a World of Roses. “[Bassist] Nick [Bassett] and I have been talking about this since the EP was released,” says vocalist and guitarist Domenic Palermo, who—alongside Bassett and Death Of Lovers drummer Kyle Kimball—splits his time with Philly’s misery titans, Nothing.

“Time constraints due to other projects made it next to impossible to write and record anything, though,” he continues.

“I remember seeing a three-week window when we were both available, and we jumped at it, even though it seemed like it was going to be more of a

headache not using that free time to be in the comforts of our own reality away from music, which is very necessary in terms of not burning out yourself and [your] creativity.”

Though hesitant to commit the time, the result is a group who are focused and discovering a newly polished approach.

However, that’s not to say that The Acrobat isn’t grimy in its dystopian subject matter.

“I don’t think you’ll ever catch me not writing on dehumanization or cataclysmic decline in society, but I looked at it from a different perspective around this album,” Palermo recalls.

“Instead of feeling hopelessness in its usual negative face, I tried to look at it in a not-so-cynical light, to try to look in the eye of confusion and pain and horror and bleakness and bask in it. This isn’t to be confused with optimism, though—just more comfort.”

Though the record is a stylistic evolution for Death Of Lovers, it also carries with

GUERILLA POUBELLE Guerilla Poubelle live by a simple, commendable philosophy: “We try as much as we can to make everyone feel safe and welcome at our shows. We play for the weirdos and the underprivileged,” declares Till, the band’s vocalist, guitarist, and sole original member. “Punk rock should be accessible for everyone.” The French band—who started out in 2003— are purveyors of thoughtful, powerful punk with a staunch DIY ethos. Their fourth album, the spirited La Nausée, was released on Nov. 17.

While their previous albums have been self-released via Guerilla Asso, this time around, the band partnered with Red Scare Industries, feeling it would help the record gain more traction on this side of the Atlantic. Red Scare was the band’s first choice. “I love a lot of bands on Red Scare,” the frontman says. “It’s an honor.”

Of La Nausée—which translates to Nausea in English—Till says

14 NEW NOISE

I N T E R V I E W W I T H VO CA L I ST / G U I TA R I ST D O M E N I C PA L E R M O BY T I M A N D E R L it an aura of familiarity. “I was listening to the [1985] ‘To Live and Die in L.A.’ soundtrack by Wang Chung leading up to studio time,” Palermo shares. “I’ve always been obsessed with the time that this was released. Film, music, and culture around drug trafficking just always appealed to me. I definitely started digging around for inspiration in that time.”

Although the band haven’t announced any immediate tour plans in support of The Acrobat, they will perform a trio of

live dates in Los Angeles, Brooklyn, and Philadelphia with labelmates Choir Boy in early 2018.

Is Palermo anxious to show off their evolution? “I really tried to let myself loose here and not let my inner self try to keep me in my usual comfort zone of hiding behind reverb and staying whispery,” he shares. “It was a hurdle for sure, and I couldn’t believe that, by the end, I even enjoyed it a little when listening back.”

PHOTO: ROMAIN ETIENNE

the title refers to the 1938 novel by Jean-Paul Sartre. “I wouldn’t say it’s a concept album around the book, because there’s a lot more in it and a lot of contemporary stuff,” he clarifies, “but almost.”

Logistically, this record was a bit more difficult to write than prior albums, as Till and drummer Paul live in Paris, while bassist Antho resides in the South of France.

As such, they don’t practice often, though they do play plenty of shows. “Ten days before our studio dates, we haven’t had practice for more than a year!” the frontman exclaims. A few days before they hit the studio, they holed up in a friend’s house to write material. Till says it was stressful, but he liked the “spontaneity” of it. “[We’ve] never done anything so urgently,” he emphasizes.

Subject matter-wise, when told the three-piece are known for their social conscience, Till says, “I never really considered Guerilla Poubelle as a ‘political’ band,

INTERVIEW WITH VOCALIST/GUITARIST TILL BY JANELLE JONES but we always had that radical social-awareness background.”

“We don’t use those didactic slogans we usually hear from political bands,” he adds. “I’d like to think ours are more subtle.”

On that note, the frontman believes punk in France is becoming political again. “It seems like the punk scene, in general, was more political in the ‘90s, and [it] kinda slowly lost that radicalness,” he explains.

“So, I guess the band became more political as the standards dropped.”

Of the noticeable political stances being taken nowadays, he posits excitedly, “Kids are pissed! Punk can be dangerous again.”

Guerilla Poubelle will be touring in support of La Nausée quite a bit in 2018, including a host of shows in France, a Brazilian tour—their second—and an extensive U.S. tour in the summer. Till also says the band will play their 1,000th show in the fall. “[We’re] not sure what we’re gonna do,” he confesses, “but it should be a cool party, right?”

AVAILABLE NOW FROM FAT! fatwreck.com

CANE HILL “I’m really big into Top 40, mostly just because of the hooks,” says Elijah Witt, frontman for the metalcore turned nu-metal revival band Cane Hill. “The science behind it is really interesting, because it’s so simplistic, but so difficult to get a grasp of.”

The New Orleans-based four-piece grew to popularity in 2015 with their self-titled EP before revealing a grungier, more industrial side with their debut full-length, Smile, in 2016.

Now, to follow up the success of their prior releases, Cane Hill have started to draw inspiration from pop music for their sophomore album, Too Far Gone, out via their home label of Rise Records on Jan. 19.

“All the hooks that we did, I’d sit down with a producer with an acoustic guitar, and we’d go through scales and try to pick out things that only had three or four notes on them,” Witt explains. “It’s mostly the idea of cutting out fat. That way, what we do put out, it’s singable, it’s catchy, and it’s something that you can immediately sing back to yourself after hearing it the first time.”

Though Witt derived a lot of his ideas

from the structures of pop songs, fans won’t be hearing any Taylor Swiftesque jams on Too Far Gone. Citing the greats like Metallica, Alice In Chains, and Pantera as other major musical influences, Cane Hill created a powerful, true-to-genre metal record.

“We went back to the early ‘90s and the late ‘80s,” Witt says. “[We] tried to steer away from anything that we listen to that’s modern so that we could put our own twist on it without being influenced by anything else that’s coming out nowadays.”

“We took all of the polarities of Smile and just stretched them,” he continues.

“We just wanted to exploit ourselves as much as we could, because, as songwriters, we wanted to just push our limits. […] We matured as people, and we stopped doing any kind of gimmicks in our songs.”

You won’t find anything on Too Far Gone like the Socker Bopper commercial sample from Smile’s “Strange Candy,” as the record’s core subject matter revolves around Witt’s reflection on his former self. “I think a lot of lyrical content comes from the past year of my life,” he notes. “When we put out Smile, a lot of the lyrics

INTERVIEW WITH VOCALIST ELIJAH WITT BY NATASHA VAN DUSER were about pushing your own physical limits and your emotional limits.

There were a lot of songs that had to do with, like, living young and fast. I think I genuinely had convinced myself through a lot of really bad highs that I had to live on an edge and push myself over it to continue creating the music that I was creating. It was making me realize that there is, in fact, an end; there is a definite path of destruction you can go on with that, whether it’s self-destruction or destroying things around you.” “[Too Far Gone] is mostly about understanding that you can fall into a deep hole that you don’t know you can get out of and kind of accepting that

you are only human,” Witt continues, “that you have your own limitations, that the decisions you make affect your relationships that you have with other people and affect your personal well-being, and that you are as finite as anything else in the world.”

Cane Hill will kick off 2018 with a European run before heading back to the U.S. to support Of Mice And Men on their Defy tour, which starts Feb. 1. “I don’t think we think too much about the future of the band in terms of where we’ll go,” Witt concludes.

“We more just care about what we’re doing at the time, making sure that it’s the best we can do and that we’re just slaying it one day at a time.”

CENTURIES In this currently turbulent political, social, and environmental climate, it is a terrifying enough prospect to exist in the world day-to-day, much less bring new life into it. That is the concept behind Centuries’ new record, The Lights of This Earth Are Blinding, set for release on Jan. 26 via Southern Lord Recordings.

to move forward in an even more developed direction, incorporating new influences into their sound.

“I usually tend to write about personal things,” guitarist Phil Trona explains.

“This record in particular focuses on how fucking terrifying it is bringing a child into this world.”

Originally based out of Florida after forming in 2008 and now spread across Pittsburgh, Nashville, and Manchester, Centuries have a distinct tinge of doom and sludge to their sound, despite the fact that they play hardcore punk. The combination of this unique flavor and their introspective, thoughtful lyrics makes for a uniquely cerebral listening experience.

This is a concept the newest record from the transcontinental hardcore band embraces full-force. Song titles like “Bow Across a string” and “May Love Be With You Always” hint at a deeper meaning and a subtle beauty behind the tracks.

The second record of their career, after 2013’s Taedium Vitae, The Lights of This Earth Are Blinding finds the group ready

16 NEW NOISE

“I’m stoked about the progression we’ve made in our songwriting,” Trona says.

“It’s definitely a little more thought-out than our earlier stuff. I feel like our influences are always changing.”

Drawing influences from bands such as Mastodon, Baroness, Martyrdöd, and The Blackbirds, Centuries are haunting and whimsical, but still catchy and

INTERVIEW WITH PHIL TRONA BY ADDISON HERRON-WHEELER heavy. Although the songs they play can be classified as straightforward hardcore, other influences tinge their sound and make it distinctive.

In January, The Lights of This Earth Are Blinding will offer a new perspective on Centuries’ music. The group will also embark on a European tour with Austin-based punks Portrayal Of Guilt, kicking off on April 28 in Greifswald,

Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, in Germany; traversing Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium, and France; and wrapping up on May 11 at Miss The Stars Fest in Berlin.

Be on the lookout for Centuries and their musical mission in 2018.

HUSBANDRY In the midst of a 13-city cross-country U.S. tour, Brooklyn-based post-hardcore quartet Husbandry were searching for something homey to counteract all the unfamiliar. “Fucking Trader Joe’s: all day, every day,” guitarist Jordan Usatch notes. “I’ll pop a vitamin in the morning too to really get the party started.”

The band utilize soaring melodies—emphasized by vocalist Carina Zachary’s spiritualized chops—to conceptualize the punk, hardcore, metal, and rock the group are rooted in, and there’s a most exquisite energy-booster tucked underneath all the surface. Husbandry write some seriously memorable and varied songs. They sound much older than they really are. “We tend to approach our writing in a way where the listener can find many different things to grab onto,” bassist Arnau Bosc says. “I find that having a variety of tastes and styles can be a really good asset when it comes to crafting a collaborative piece of music. It keeps things interesting and surprising.”

Husbandry’s sound is certainly all over the place in a super nifty way, fusing elements that all have a solid and noticeable purpose. Each song on their newest

PHOTO: NATHANIEL SHANNON

EP, Bad Weeds Never Die—released Dec. 1 via Aqualamb Records—is crafted in mountainous form, concerned with the hook and the memory while delivering bursts from all surrounding tastes. It’s a record that is both straight and blind, a classic that you can sink into and explore infinitely. It’s varied, yet singular.

“The new record was challenging in many ways, and it was a conscious decision to try tapping into other vocal ranges and delivery, balancing aggression with vulnerability,” Zachary explains. “I was listening mostly to a lot of Soundgarden and Chris Cornell’s solo work. I wanted to channel a lot of the soul of the ‘90s and iterations of rock music I first fell in love with as a kid.”

“I appreciate any band that creates strictly for the sake of creation and self-expression without any other outside influences or motivation,” Usatch adds. “Dillinger Escape Plan, Converge, and Russian Circles all come to mind.

I am also a big Self Defense Family fan who is really always inspired and appreciative of their constant creative output.”

The sound on Bad Weeds Never Die is huge. Clear and full-bodied. It resonates

INTERVIEW BY CHRISTOPHER J. HARRINGTON with your memories in a timelessness sort of way. Like a smooth desert, the record drifts like an alt-punk ‘90s classic: reinforcing each member’s mindset and desire. It was crafted in style.

“We got to record in a nicer studio where a lot of legendary R&B and hip hop artists had worked in the past,” Bosc says. “So, I guess that contributed to us sounding good. Also, we have better gear now. Before starting the recording phase, I remember us talking a lot about Shape of Punk to Come by Refused or even Antichrist Superstar by Marilyn Manson. Very iconic records that are known for their raw and aggressive sound, but extremely well put together.”

BOSON A boson is an elementary particle theorized in quantum mechanics to be one of the building blocks of the universe—and an incredibly fitting name for a riff-heavy, soundscape-driven sludge metal band. Boson, based out of Minneapolis, debuted with their first record, Domain of Ember—an opus of sludginess and hard riffing—on Nov. 3 via Anxious And Angry.

Thematically, Boson’s songs focus on varying subjects, from science to the occult to the everyday.

“I think we pull from all kinds of bands across all genres,” guitarist and vocalist Jim Adolphson explains. “We love bands like Neurosis, Yob, and Sleep, but we also listen to classic rock like King Crimson, Boston, and Emerson, Lake & Palmer. I play in a D-beat band called Hive and a death metal band called Noose Rot as well, so I never try to limit anything I write with Boson. I always have the same approach to writing.”

“I personally have been fascinated with the occult ever since I was very young,” he adds. “[I] heard ‘Mr. Crowley’ by Ozzy [Osbourne] when I was 9 years old. That song opened my eyes to another world.”

18 NEW NOISE

You can throw Bad Weeds Never Die into that mix. The album runs quick, five songs that soar and rage: three originals, a remix by John LaMacchia of Candiria, and one awesome Blonde Redhead cover. It’s the perfect little ditty. Punk as hell, with a full sound that’s truly maximized.

“For me, punk is more a state of mind,” Zachary opines. “It’s about not letting people or your circumstances define who you are or who you can become.

It’s about choosing to defy the norm and having the ability to bend the rules. If there isn’t a path or a door, you grab a sledgehammer and create one.”

PHOTO: BRONSON KARAFF

“Lyrically, I tend to focus on expanded realities and the process of moving through everyday depression and grief,” Adolphson says.

“I deal with internal turmoil constantly, and writing lyrics is the best way to get it all out.”

Now that Boson have finally released their first full-length, the plan is to play live as much as possible to make up for time lost while working on Domain of Ember. They are also working on writing new music, as well as lining up gigs.

INTERVIEW WITH GUITARIST/VOCALIST JIM ADOLPHSON BY ADDISON HERRON-WHEELER “[We will be] playing live a lot more than we have been,” Adolphson says. “We took a long break to work on this record, and it took away from that part of things. I feel like we earned the right to play shows again. We started writing for a tentative split with some close friends of ours. No tours in the works at the moment, but a few weekend stints with some pretty awesome bands that aren’t announced as of yet.”

The debut record, Domain of Ember, is available digitally via Boson’s Bandcamp page, and the LP— pressed on 180-gram vinyl—is up for grabs over at Anxious And Angry’s webstore. Look out for more announcements about show dates and releases in the upcoming year!

CUSTOM PRINTING For Bands Big or Small 1000

FULL COLOR STICKERS

Regularly $169

135

$

4×3” White Vinyl / Full Color / Full Bleed 3 Business Day Turnaround

5000

FULL COLOR FLYERS Regularly $99

80

$

4×6” 100lb Gloss Text / Double Sided 2 Business Day Turnaround

One

Great for Merch Booths & Backdrops!

8×4΄ VINYL BANNER

Regularly $56

45

$

Gloss Vinyl / Full Color / Full Bleed 3 Business Day Turnaround

Save 20% CALL 877.246.3132

144 T-SHIRTS WITH ONE COLOR PRINT | REGULARLY $3.99

3

$

.19 each

Alstyle 1301 Black / One-Color / Standard Print Location / Priced at 144 Qty.

Use Promo Code at Checkout

TOUR17NOISE3

20% off any order up to $1000. Call for custom discounts on orders over $1000. Valid on retail product pricing, only. Cannot be combined with any other promotion or offer. One-Time Use. Discount does not apply to taxes, shipping or rush charges. Prices shown above in red with promo code applied. Ends January 31, 2018.

CLICK JAKPRINTS.COM

BEANS ON TOAST The beauty of folk music is how aware it is of the surrounding world.

While the times are always a’changin’, music is always being created to help us understand and cope with those developments, and it is rare to find songs as perceptive as Beans On Toast’s delicate folk tunes. The solo project of English singer-songwriter Jay McAllister, the project is constantly churning out new material in an effort to get a grip on reality, bringing with it an oeuvre of comforting, honest music.

Cushty is the ninth Beans On Toast album, released via Xtra Mile Recordings. McAllister has released a new record every Dec. 1—which is also his birthday—since 2009, and Cushty keeps the tradition alive in 2017.

Calling McAllister extremely prolific is accurate, but doesn’t capture just how crafty and open-minded the singer-songwriter truly is. For instance, “Open Door Policy” starts Cushty off with a look at the world’s rapid technological advancement.

“We do currently live in an age of insane amounts of information, which can be bamboozling,” McAllister explains. The need to be entertained, consumption of propaganda, and use

PHOTO: JEM MITCHELL

of questionable resources from the internet leads many to be misinformed, forming another obstacle for humanity to overcome aside from trying to find the beauty in life.

Layering the political landscape into his songs has always been part of the recipe. The track “I Think Everyone Should Be Terrified” discusses privilege and the horrors humanity has shown it is capable of. With Trump, Brexit, and social inequality constantly providing worry, McAllister believes, “We live in troubled times, but worrying never helped anyone. Maybe it’s time we start doing. I think the best way to help the big, huge problems that seem out of reach is to concentrate on the small but important problems around you and your local community. Fix them, and hopefully, it will pass upwards.”

it was needed. Women should be back in charge by now in my book. So, it was kind of about that—and, also, about the power of music festivals. It’s such a huge culture now and generally brings together open-minded people, so maybe it’s an idea to merge that with protests.”

song was inspired by “myself and a friend on a long drive, chatting about the ultimate piss-up. It could be who you’d like to have a drink with or who you’d tip your hat to. I think everyone’s got that list of heroes, idols, or just people they respect and would love to hang out with, so I put mine in song.”

Another standout track is “That’s Why I Came to Okeechobee.” The song opens with McAllister recalling that women were once in charge and finding himself at a march for women’s rights. The singer goes into detail, sharing that the Women’s March in January 2017 was “obviously very important, but it blew my mind that

Not every song from Beans On Toast’s Cushty chips into the current political landscape of the world, with “Taylor Swift” positing a hypothetical pissing contest of who would be more fun to have a drink with, ranging between Tom Waits, John Lennon, Conor Oberst, and even Joey from “Dawson’s Creek.” McAllister reflects that the

The track also features a rolling piano line that sounds worry-free, making it feel less like a song one would scream at a rally and more akin to a ditty one would sing with friends around a campfire—with nothing but beans on toast for all.

I N T E R V I E W W I T H S I N G E R - S O N GW R I T E R JAY M CA L L I ST E R BY S E A N G O N Z A L E Z

FLAMES OF GENESIS As humans, we are obsessed with the cold vortex of space. Something about its mysteries and vastness have inspired countless science fiction movies, shows, and books. It has also inspired music, and some of the latest dark, ambient space music was made by Flames Of Genesis, a mysterious one-person project dedicated to capturing the very sounds of the great beyond.

“The whole Flames Of Genesis concept grew out of some other music I was writing for my Dreamfire project,” explains The Voyager, who writes all of the music and arrangements for Flames Of Genesis. “As it took shape, it became clear it was manifesting in a way that didn’t fit into that particular concept, but the creative process quickly took on a life of its own. Over time, its story unraveled into the first part of the Interstellar Transmigration trilogy, A Bridge to Further Realms, under the Flames Of Genesis banner.”

Thus, the singular vision of Interstellar Transmigration Part I: A Bridge to Fur-

20 NEW NOISE

ther Realms was set adrift in the universe on Nov. 10 via Italy’s Minotauro Records.

Although space and the unknown have always been major fascinations, The Voyager was particularly drawn to this theme because of an interest in the expansion of consciousness.

“When listening to the album, at the very end when the journey reaches an event horizon, a heartbeat punctuates the musical textures and hints at a change to come on a different level,” The Voyager elaborates, “a new horizon unfolding both internally and externally that will be explored in the second part of the trilogy.” This second installment is expected to be released in 2019.

The music on A Bridge to Further Realms is dark and ambient, cold and layered. To some, it may appear to be a sound experiment or noise music, but The Voyager asserts that there is structure and purpose in his arrangements—and in the coldness and darkness of space. Flames

INTERVIEW WITH THE VOYAGER BY ADDISON HERRON-WHEELER Of Genesis claims to find inspiration in “anything with a vast atmosphere enveloped in textures of light and shade.”

The first part of the Flames Of Genesis journey will reveal to listeners the first key, help them pass through that initial threshold. “The art and images represent a key to another place,” The Voyager confirms. “The key will change as the trilogy progresses, but this is the unlocking of the first part of the journey.”

According to Flames Of Genesis, there

will be much more creation where that came from. Although there will not be any live performances, as this is entirely a writing and recording-based project, The Voyager has a lot more to say.

“Ultimately, everything comes from the fire of creation,” the mysterious figure intones, “and fire can represent change and the birth or rebirth of everything.”

ACCUSER

Accu§er—the thrash metal veterans of Siegen in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany—are back with another monstrously heavy record: The Mastery, scheduled for release on Jan. 26.

While this follow-up to 2016’s The Forlorn Divide is only their sophomore release with Metal Blade Records, the band have been putting out influential material for over 30 years. This lengthy career has helped them fine-tune their unique sound and reach listeners on an international scale. In many ways, The Mastery acts as Accu§er’s own anatomy book: they dissected their lengthy discography, harvested the most valuable innards, and reconfigured them into what is quite possibly their strongest album to date.

The record is far more than a rehashing of old concepts, however, as the band still managed to add some new flavors into the mix, even after all these years. “The songs on The Mastery were supposed to be different from songs on The Forlorn Divide, while still retaining and evolving our trademark sound,” vocalist and guitarist Frank Thoms asserts. “Every song on the al-

bum was written to be unique, but still instantly recognizable as part of this album specifically.”

This diversity keeps the album forward moving. Face-melting solos dropped over wickedly fast drumbeats and rhythm guitar riffs are abundant, reminiscent of Bay Area thrash pioneers like Exodus. Anthemic choruses, like in the fourth track, “Time for Silence,” simultaneously deliver distinctly Germanic qualities. These motifs are packaged in a way that protects their raw, influential energy while still committing to impressively technical performances.

Thoms attests to their decision to artistically steer the album in this direction. “We wanted to have a brutal, crushing sound and great clarity and nuance at the same time,” he says.

Working with the band’s trusted producer, Martin Buchwalter, helped Accu§er achieve these ambitious goals.

“Working with Martin is always a joy, because we’ve become close friends over the years, and every new record with him is a very positive experience,”

ICARUS THE OWL Times were bleak for Portland, Oregon’s Icarus The Owl nearing the end of 2015. While on tour in Europe, the band faced adversity, first dealing with tour-mates Closure In Moscow’s van being broken into, then the Paris terrorist attacks, and finally, a canceled show.

“I kind of wanted to stop being [on tour],” vocalist and guitarist Joey Rubenstein explains. “I love touring more than anything, and it is one of the best moments of life, [but] for me—I just wanted to lay in bed and watch ‘The Office’ and be comforted by that.”

A brief hiatus set the band back, but led to a new kind of focus “It got scary,” Rubenstein admits. “I wasn’t sure if we were still going to be a band. It was a wake-up call for all of us. We wrote an album that we thought was exactly what we wanted to make.”

“I think even the title Rearm Circuits is a reinvigoration of who we are as a band and what we want to do stylisti-

22 NEW NOISE

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 F R A N K T H O M S B Y A N D R E W H U M P H R E Y Thoms shares. “He knows exactly how to capture and convey our music. His ideas are great, and his support enables us to achieve the best results every time.”

Thematically, songs like “The Real World” serve as a horrific reflection of humankind, both in its present and forthcoming shapes. Despite this inherent grimness, Thoms reflects on these lyrical themes in a fairly positive manner. “On one hand, you’ve got songs that deal with the future as a warning of sorts, how things could turn out if we, as a society, don’t change our ways,” he explains. “On the other hand,

there’re songs on there that deal with the past and the lessons that can be learned from that.”

For the past few years, Accu§er have been playing occasional festivals in Germany. Though no formal tour has yet been announced, Thoms reports that they are currently planning some dates for 2018 that they hope to announce soon. In the meantime, fans should mark their calendars for the Jan. 26 release of The Mastery and prepare for what is already shaping up to be a kickass new year for heavy metal.

PHOTO: AARON ZIESEMER

cally,” the vocalist continues, “which is try everything until we think it sounds good. It’s a testament to longevity.”

Across the incredible landscape of Rearm Circuits—which was released Dec. 1 via Blue Swan Records—are the usual elements of Icarus The Owl’s sound: there’s winding guitar leads that showcase an extreme technicality, brazen pop-influenced hooks, and a detailed map to each song that unearths the band’s attention to detail. The opening track, “Failed Transmissions,” features a rawer vocal style, starting off the record with a darker, more direct tone.

Rubenstein reflects, “We wanted to keep and preserve as much of the raw emotion in the track as we could.”

That emotion is brought to life in various ways, but it’s especially potent on the last four songs, illuminating the rhythmic intricacies in the band’s songwriting. “I think that is how I like to format albums,” Rubenstein explains. “It gets a little bit darker and a little more layered. It’s not as tech-

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 J O E Y R U B E N S T E I N B Y S E A N G O N Z A L E Z nical; the guitar wizard isn’t crazily there. It’s more moody and rhythmic.”

This comes to fruition forcefully on “Shadowboxing,” with a looped ‘80s retro Suzuki Omnichord and plenty of intimate vocal lines, making the record seem like it is taking its final breath.

It’s an expansive yet more simplistic approach, focusing on the atmosphere and letting the song’s pulse reach a natural end.

Rearm Circuits is a victory rally for

Icarus The Owl. Delivering unmatched emotional twists in their songs—such as “Coma Dream,” about two individuals on the same electrical current of a life support machine who experience a shared dream that is better than their reality—the quartet are proving their tenacity and becoming a mainstay in the world of progressive rock music.

MONOTROPE

Monotrope are a new instrumental post-rock band comprised of scene veterans, guitarist Edward Ricart, bassist Matthew Taylor, guitarist Dan Wilson, and drummer Joe Barker, who come together to merge the heavy with the heady. On their debut album, Unifying Receiver—which was released on Ricart’s New Atlantis Records, along with Sleeping Giant Glossolalia, on Nov. 10— the band deliver a master class in the art of making passionate, complex, and exciting instrumental music.

vBarker confirms that they were just excited to find each other, whether or not they were playing vocal-less music. “At least, from my point of view, it’s been challenging enough over the years to find likeminded musicians to create with,” he says, “especially with the fairly specific style and tonal interests we’re steering towards. Vocals always seemed to be the last hurdle to rounding off a band lineup. If it happened, it’d generally be someone just giving it a shot, for better or worse.”

Their formation was quite organic. “My last band was winding down after a few years of really intense work, and I wasn’t sure what to do next. I started sending demo ideas to Matthew, Dan, and Joe, really just looking to share ideas as they happened,” Ricart says. “Joe’s last band, Unraze, was essentially a solo project, and I was really blown away by how much he was able to accomplish on his own: tracking drums, layering guitar, and then maybe bringing in friends to add vocals or additional guitar lines. I was assuming I would try to chart a similar course, but everyone came onboard for this project really organically, and the four of us suddenly became Monotrope.”

“For Monotrope, we were just psyched enough to find each other, and none of us were into the idea of ‘just giving it a shot’ to the detriment of the music,” Barker adds. “Who knows, though? I heard a demo Ed sent me once with some nice, delicate little vocal lines, and it kinda reminded me of Jason Noble [of Rodan], one of our favorite vocalists.”

Monotrope’s members are spread out all over the country. When it came time record Unifying Receiver, this proved to be a bit of a challenge, but one the band conquered through sheer will and determination. “For this record, we assembled for a couple days of concentrated practice, went on a quick tour, and then, went into the studio to record

SLOW BLOOM The members of the San Francisco Bay Area band Slow Bloom are intent on making their new EP, Hex Hex Hex, count.

The EP will have a double release: in the U.S., No Sleep Records are rolling it out on Jan. 26, and over in the U.K., Dog Knights Productions are taking care of things. Guitarist Timmy Lodhi explains that Slow Bloom got signed

by No Sleep because of the label’s connection to a band some of their members used to be in called State Faults.

Lodhi himself was also in a band before Slow Bloom, Strike To Survive.

Through that band’s relationship with State Faults, Slow Bloom were born.

24 NEW NOISE

PHOTO: JAY DIVINIGRACIA

INTERVIEW WITH EDWARD RICART AND JOE BARKER BY THOMAS PIZZOLA together,” Ricart says. “In one sense, the distance has forced us to be really focused and efficient when we’re together.

Frankly, practicing often doesn’t always equate to tangible growth or progress in the short-run, and it can also lead to feeling burned out doing something that should be fun, exciting, communal bliss. We were able to really hit a stride very early on, and we basically made this record after four days of practice and a handful of shows.”

The fruits of their labor show up on the recording, as Unifying Receiver is an excellent first shot from the band.

It deserves to be heard by all fans of progressive heavy music. But Mono-

trope aren’t finished just yet. “We do have a new batch of songs ready to go, but now, we need to write and do our independent legwork to make the arrangements happen,” Ricart says. “I think the plan is to meet a few times over the next few months, ideally tour again, and record in March with Jason LaFarge at Seizures Palace in Brooklyn.

I think we all plan on hitting Europe at some point, and we’ve been talking about finding someone to tour with in the U.S. too. We also have a double-7” split on the way [with] one unreleased side each from various Monotrope-related bands: Hyrrokkin, Unraze, Bellini, and Monotrope.”

PHOTOS: TOMMY LY

Lodhi is happy with his musical past and where it’s brought him. “I think I’ve been playing music since I was 13,” he says. “Me and my friends all realized that we needed to start a band, but nobody knew how to. Towards the end of high school, I joined Strike To Survive. That band was kind of a big learning process. We did a bunch of U.S. tours, and it opened my eyes to what it takes to be a real band.”

Back in the present day, Lodhi says that Slow Bloom’s Hex Hex Hex is not meant to be quite as dismal as it may sound at first. The songs, a melodic take on post-hardcore, are “not supposed to be that sad at all,” he recalls vocalist—and Hex Hex Hex’s lyricist—Jonny Andrew explaining to him. “They’re about trying to see the positive in a world that’s full of misery and anxiety.” For the musical side of the release, the band members “all kind of chipped in on songwriting,” he shares, adding that they’ve “been sitting on these songs for quite some

INTERVIEW WITH GUITARIST TIMMY LODHI BY CALEB R. NEWTON time.” Once in the studio, he says Slow Bloom just “wanted to finalize these five [songs] and knock ‘em out.”

“It’s a weird mix of all of our influences,” Lodhi says of the musical content on Hex Hex Hex. “It’s a step up from all of our older bands. Now, we’re writing songs that have melodies and are a little more accessible.

We all bring in such different things.

By the time we finalize a song, you can’t pinpoint exactly one influence.”

Lodhi concludes that with touring, Slow Bloom are “essentially kind of just waiting for the right opportunity.”

“With this band, we want to wait it out a little bit longer and get music out there rather than getting ourselves out there,” he adds. “We’re super excited about the future. Once we kind of find the right time, we’re going to hit the road.”

SPOOK THE HORSES The latest full-length from New Zealand-based outfit Spook The Horses, People Used To Live Here—released Nov. 10 via Pelagic Records—is decidedly less heavy than the band’s previous outing, 2015’s Rainmaker. Deliberately so, as it turns out. “It was a way to explore some new ideas, take a few risks creatively, maybe weird some people out,” says multi-instrumentalist Callum Gay, who supplied guitar, drums, vocals, and synths on the album.

When asked what the band were specifically trying to capture on People Used To Live Here, Gay mentions “big, open, natural tones” and “the sounds of a band in a room together.” That may not sound all that controversial, but the band were initially apprehensive about how the material would be received.

Once Gay and crew really got to work recording the album, those concerns quickly dissipated. “At first, we were worried about how it would sit production-wise in our catalog—being among heavy albums, we were worried it

would seem very isolated and aberrant,” he says, “but as we fleshed things out in the studio, it all knitted together in a way that feels coherent. The songs take on a huge new life in a live setting, which is also very exciting.”

According to Gay, the change of pace arose because his bandmate Zach Meech had already written some of the songs in full prior to the band entering the studio.

“We try to make each album consistent in tone or general mood,” he explains, “and the songs he had were great, but not consistent with something like Rainmaker. We knew we wanted to do something with them, and the idea of doing an entire album in a similar style came up.”

To capture this new sound, the band isolated themselves in a totally new environment. “Normally, we operate out of a tiny little two-room studio we built,” Gay says, “but since we wanted to change the sound so radically, we didn’t want to stay in the same old space. We were lucky enough to have access to an old orchard

I N T E R V I E W W I T H M U LT I - I N S T R U M E N TA L I S T C A L L U M G AY B Y M I K E G A W O R E C K I belonging to Zach’s grandparents, about two hours’ drive away from where we all live. That’s where we did almost all of the songwriting and demoing. It was a different space with a different feeling.

We were writing at all hours of the night and had to be very quiet, which ended up being quite useful for the style of music we wanted to produce.”

Every member of Spook The Horses plays multiple instruments and contributes to the songwriting, which Gay says is responsible for keeping their sound fresh. “Everyone contributes

TERROR UNIVERSAL Timeless, lethal, cloaked in mystery, and possessing very sharp hooks.

No, that’s not a crossword puzzle clue for the underrated slasher, Candyman. It’s the debut album from Terror Universal, Make Them Bleed, out Jan. 19 via Minus Head Records.

The masked collective are cut—and sliced and diced—from a different cloth than similar acts, and they refuse to allow their costumes to act as a spooky crutch. Make Them Bleed truly is a bloody good time, and the music is an addictive mix of thrash, groove, and industrial rock that’s as unique as it is memorable.

To build Terror Universal, drummer Massacre—a.k.a. former Ill Niño member Dave Chavarri, the only member with a known human vessel—assembled current and former members of Machine Head, Soulfly, and Upon A Burning Body. This is one lethal foursome. Massacre explains, “It all came together very smoothly and without that much effort. I wanted the band to be heavy, but I wanted it to be groove-oriented, and there’s a

26 NEW NOISE

to everything,” he affirms. “It can be draining having so many influences, but ultimately, I think it’s a strength.

Someone will bring a song to the band that’s maybe 75 percent complete, and we’ll all dissect and digest it and hash it out and, ultimately, make it a better song that sounds a little bigger than the sum of its parts. I don’t think you get that spark when you have music exclusively written by one person.”

PHOTO: BANNER WOODS

lot of my favorite bands in my whole life in here: Pantera, Sepultura, Rob Zombie, White Zombie, early Ministry. You can hear it in the record. We wanted to do a band that was more industrial, yet heavy, but with hooks—like Rob Zombie.”

So, how did Chavarri transmogrify into Massacre? Childhood fears, naturally. “I had seen a horror movie back in the late ‘80s—I can’t even recall the movie—but it was a guy whose face was completely burned off,” he says. “I was really fucking grossed out by it, and it’s stuck with me ever since. I realize now it was just a great makeup job,” he laughs. “So, when I sat down with the artist to do the mask, I explained that I wanted my mask to be flesh laying on bone, whether from a burn or something [else]. It took a couple incarnations, but we got it nailed down, and it was really fun.”

When asked where Terror Universal get their ideas, the Candyman comparison begins to feel more apt. “A lot of our inspiration for the lyrics came from slasher movies,” Massacre says. “My vocalist Plague is very knowledgeable and wellread on horror movies and serial killers.

I N T E R V I E W W I T H D R U M M E R D AV E " M A S S A C R E " C H AVA R R I B Y N I C H O L A S S E N I O R It’s fucking crazy. He’s like an encyclopedia. He’s a gruesome bastard,” he laughs.

“I really do love the first three ‘Friday the 13th’ movies,” he continues. “The first ‘Halloween’ too. The problem with a lot of the slasher movies in the ‘80s—like those and ‘A Nightmare on Elm Street’— is that I think they were all really scary in the beginning, and as they progressed, they started becoming comical. I don’t think horror is meant to be funny, you know what I mean? If you want to combine horror and comedy, then watch ‘Evil Dead’ or [‘Evil Dead] II.’ Those were

funny and so out there.”

Despite their lyrical darkness and how seriously Terror Universal have taken their creative process, Massacre does reveal one unexpected secret to the band’s success: it’s fucking fun. Their passion is infectious and results in the members’ joy shining through the music.

“We’re just a bunch of gruesome bastards, man,” he laughs. “We definitely are having fun with it, and I’m very happy with how it all came out.”

SKINNY LISTER

BEAN ON TOAST CUSHTY CD | DL

TOGETHER WE ARE STRONGER LP | CD | DL

MASSIVE US HEADLINE TOUR FEB-MAR SUPPORTED BY WILL VARLEY

CATCH HIM IN APRIL ON THE SALTY DOG CRUISE PLUS MORE TBC

WINNER BEST LIVE BAND AIM AWARDS ‘17 SPRING TOUR DATES TO BE ANNOUNCED

THE DEVIL, THE HEART & THE FIGHT DELUXE EDITION 2xCD | DL

COUNTERFEIT.

NEW RELEASES FOR 2018

GET CAPE. WEAR CAPE. FLY YOUNG ADULT LP | CD | DL | JANUARY 19TH

WILL VARLEY

SPIRIT OF MINNIE LP | CD | DL | FEBRUARY 9TH

DUCKING PUNCHES

ALAMORT LP | CD | DL | FEBRUARY 16TH

VISIT OUR WEBSITE AND JOIN THE MAILING LIST FOR INFORMATION ABOUT THESE ARTISTS AND MORE, INCLUDING TOUR DATES AND EXCLUSIVE MERCHANDISE

NEW NOISE

27

KINDLING According to Kindling vocalist and guitarist Gretchen Williams, it takes a certain kind of person to live in Easthampton, Massachusetts. Located approximately two hours west of Boston, it’s a secluded college town in the rural countryside, but thanks to its vibrant university culture and affordable cost of living, it’s uniquely well-suited to supporting creative lifestyles outside of the city. For evidence, it’s also the place indie rock luminaries like Dinosaur Jr. and Speedy Ortiz call home.

“It’s the only place I think I could make music,” vocalist and guitarist Stephen Pierce says, citing its open space and lack of distractions.

Living in an area conducive to maintaining their focus may help explain Kindling’s prolific output. Since their formation in 2014, the shoegaze-influenced punk outfit have put out eight releases overall, from their 2016 fulllength, Everywhere Else, to a litany of splits and EPs. Their sophomore full-length, Hush—which was released on Nov. 10 via 6131 Records—builds upon their dreamy-yet-dirty shoegaze sound, welding walls of noise with thick riffage and an uncommon sense of song structure. “I just wanted to write the best record I ever have,” Pierce says, “and render the previous work obsolete.”

PHOTO: REID HAITHCOCK

That’s an ambitious goal considering the quality of the band’s previous work and their prolific output. However, when you’re labelmates with critical darlings like Julien Baker and Culture Abuse, confidence is a valuable asset.

While it would be presumptive to say Kindling are the on the cusp of a big break, their open-minded approach to combining familiar sounds in new ways aligns them well with their buzzed-about brethren.

If Kindling still seem like an outlier on the—historically hardcore-oriented—6131 Records roster, the move may make more sense given their members’ hardcore roots. Pierce also plays in screamo cult favorites Ampere and cites acts like Born Against, Discharge, and Void as influences, in addition to early British proto-folk act Fairport Convention. Pierce and label owner Joey Cahill also realized they’ve been at many of the same shows and places over the years, without always realizing it, prior to the band’s signing.

Those hardcore roots show through underneath the band’s sparkling melodies, and they cop riffs from Slowdive and Black Sabbath in equal measure— in fact, Pierce credits Tony Iommi as an all-time favorite guitarist. However, there’s also some subtle experimental instrumentation mixed in with the

INTERVIEW WITH GRETCHEN WILLIAMS AND STEPHEN PIERCE BY BEN SAILER standard Big Muffs and delay pedals.

Guest collaborator Anthony Saffery added sitar to two tracks—“For Olive” and “Everywhere”—and Pierce picked up a 12-string guitar for added chorus-like texture.

The band also borrowed Dinosaur Jr. frontman J Mascis’ Mellotron, a rare 1960s polyphonic keyboard-based instrument that works by manipulating tape reels—think the disoriented flute sound on The Beatles’ “Strawberry Fields.” Due to its sheer size and difficulty to move, the band actually used and recorded it in Mascis’ home. Score one more point in favor of staying in the band’s under-the-radar hometown. It’s more than a mere novelty, though, adding an extra element that elevates the

WITHERED BONES

Arizona hardcore band Withered Bones’ new album, In Search of Self-Evidence—released Dec. 8 via Blood & Ink Records—is a harsh, grim, yet forward-looking portrayal of the realities of life. According to vocalist Russell Ullrich, the record reflects the struggles of life on the road as a band, the struggles inherent in various personal situations, and the struggles wrought by the current “political climate.”

The album tackles a lot of heavy subjects head-on. “I guess it’s just everything on my mind,” Ullrich says of his lyrical inspiration. “I guess those were just the things that were heaviest on my heart at the time.”

He adds that his perspective as an artist has “absolutely” developed since his band’s last release. As he puts it, “Before, I’d try to turn everything into something positive, and I just wanted to be as encouraging as possible, but I feel like as I became older—maybe I became more jaded or something, but I started writing a lot more intentionally. […] I was tired

28 NEW NOISE

whole of the record. “It adds something that we didn’t know was missing until we heard it together,” Williams says.

Experimentation aside, the biggest change on Hush may have been Kindling’s level of collaboration. While their earlier output was written between Williams and Pierce, this time around, the tracks were written with a full band in mind. The result is a cohesive sounding record that slams as hard it soothes while reflecting on themes of loss and mourning.

All critical and journalistic descriptors aside, the band may offer a more concise summary of their songwriting approach: “We just roll with what sounds good,” Pierce concludes.

PHOTO: KYLE BERGFORS

of beating around the bush, and I just felt like I needed to say what was on my heart. I would say that as a band, we’ve become a lot more intense, but a lot more intentional as well.”

Some songs on In Search of Self-Evidence, like “Hole in the Guardrail,” draw inspiration from real-life experiences, while others—like “A Hope Worth Losing,” which deals with issues of personal identity—are more “illustrative,” Ullrich says. The song “Indoctrinated” tears apart blind obedience, communicating an important facet of the band’s message. “I just hope that people are being true to themselves and, like, following what they actually believe,” he offers. “I think that if I had more opportunity for self-discovery, then I wouldn’t have been so upset.”

The process of creating the album did help Ullrich in his own journey of self-discovery. Since January 2017, when the album was recorded, he’s had to pore over the songs and really dig deep into what he was feeling. Ullrich

INTERVIEW WITH VOCALIST RUSSELL ULLRICH BY CALEB R. NEWTON says that for Withered Bones, In Search of Self-Evidence is “intense.” “If people like it,” he adds, “hopefully they’ll end up searching for the truth in themselves.”

The band plan to start touring in January, adding the new music into their sets. Ullrich says that “once the weather starts warming up,” they’ll “definitely start doing some months on the road.”

They recently came off a tour with the hardcore band Conveyer, who Ullrich

speaks very highly of, praising the members for their “energy” and ability as performers. He says it was “probably one of the most fun tours” he’s ever been on. In the future, Ullrich says he would enjoy touring with bands like Tigerwine and Church Tongue. As he puts it, “mixed bills” featuring bands who don’t all sound similar are “a lot of fun.”

SHIFT

TH

Screen Printing, Chicago, IL FourthShiftPrinting.com

Custom screen printed clothing, posters, and more Get shirts from us or you will probably die

OUT NOW

BAD WEEDS NEVER DIE Featuring an incredible cover of Blonde Redhead’s “Misery is a Butterfly” and a remix by John LaMacchia of Candiria / Spylacopa

“ Sounds like the bedlam between Mars Volta and Dillinger Escape Plan” – Revolver

DUE THIS SPRING THE SPACE MERCHANTS KISS THE DIRT

ALSO OUT NOW LO-PAN IN TENSIONS

ORDER NOW AT AQUALAMB.ORG

30 NEW NOISE

NEW NOISE

31

PHOTO: ALAN SNODGRASS

C

olumbus, Ohio’s Like Moths To Flames are pumped about their new record, Dark Divine, released Nov. 3 via Rise Records. The band went out on tour in fall of 2017 with Fit For A King, In Hearts Wake, and Phinehas, and drummer Greg Diamond says that show attendees responded almost surprisingly well to their new material right from the start of the tour, singing along to parts the band didn’t expect them to know yet.

The positive public image of the album mirrors what went on behind the scenes, with Diamond explaining that the band went in a somewhat new direction for the production. In the past, they worked with Will Putney of Fit For An Autopsy, but this time around, they went with Erik Ron, whose style helped put a new spin on things. According to Diamond, “We did the record in halves. We basically wrote out everything we wanted to do for the record and recorded six of the songs first. Once we finished that, we listened back through them and picked what

32 NEW NOISE

went with those songs the best. […]

We really wanted to avoid having an album where the songs mesh into each other.”

For Dark Divine, Like Moths To Flames “wrote the whole record as a unit,” and Diamond says that they produced way “more songs than we ended up using.” He personally gave “influence for the rhythm and drum stuff,” and he’s happy that, as he describes, “we kind of were able to do whatever we wanted.”

Their methods of developing their songs have “definitely” gotten better, according to Diamond. He says of the recording process, “We went in with a huge ton of music, so we could pick the best songs.

I think it was a much more open experience. We didn’t have to settle for things.”

He knows that Dark Divine might not be as heavy as some would like, but he’s not fazed—neither are the vast majority of their fans according to Diamond’s description of their fall tour. “We’re

a heavy band, and we have heavy past records, so you’ll get the proper amount of those saying it’s not heavy enough, but we have more to offer,” he asserts. “I think there’s something in there for pretty much everyone.”

Part of that has to do with vocalist Chris Roetter’s performances, and Diamond says, “I think we kind of never really stepped out of the box and let him do his own things.”

Diamond has been into making music for most of his life, so he has a lot of experience to draw from. “I started playing drums in middle school. At one point, I was in a jazz band. I either started or joined a band in eighth grade,” he recalls.

“I’d known the guys [in Like Moths To Flames] for a long time before I actually joined the band. We all actually got along really well. When the drummer they had at the time left, I came on. It all just happened at once.”

On tour, Diamond likes to stay away from listening to metal and

hardcore, preferring stuff like new Post Malone, Knuckle Puck, and Turnover. Although he doesn’t think Like Moths To Flames would ever end up on a tour with a pop punk band, there is one group he would love to tour with: UNDERØATH, who he calls his “favorite band.” “If we could ever tour with UNDERØATH, that would be great,” Diamond says, adding that he looks up to Aaron Gillespie as his favorite drummer.

He cites a show at the Starland Ballroom in New Jersey, while on their Rebirth tour, as the “first time I’d been in the crowd actively participating in a while.”

Ultimately, Diamond concludes, “I hope everyone goes out and gives Dark Divine a listen. Hopefully some people come out and jam along.” He’s sure Like Moths To Flames will be announcing tour dates for 2018 in the near future, so fans will get a chance to jam along soon.

I

t’s been five long years since Texas metal-punks Mammoth Grinder have graced us with an album, but that is all about to change. On Jan. 26, the band will release their new full-length, Cosmic Crypt, on Relapse Records.

In the gap between albums, mainman Chris Ulsh has been busy playing drums in up-and-coming thrashers, Power Trip, who have taken off in the past few years. However, the long wait between albums didn’t just have to do with his other touring and recording commitments. That was part of it, but Ulsh also didn’t want to put out another Mammoth Grinder album just to put one out. He had to be satisfied with it. “I wanted to make sure the LP was something that I would be content with listening to and performing for a long time after it comes out, rather than rushing something because we have a tour coming up or some other kind of deadline like we’ve done with some previous records,” he says “I also spent a lot of time rewriting and scrapping ideas. Combine that with a busy touring schedule, and you get four or five years or however long it’s been.”

The new album further refines Mammoth Grinder’s sound. They have al-

ways played a raw and ripping combination of old-school death metal and hardcore, along with some crust punk. Cosmic Crypt is another fetid gem in an enviable discography. “Sonically, I wanted it to be a lot dirtier, which is why we recorded mostly live to tape,” Ulsh says. “Riff-wise, I tried to string together some winding guitar leads and use some scales or melodies that we hadn’t really done before without changing things too much. I think it gives the record atmosphere that we didn’t have previously, which fits well with the theme of the record and artwork.”

“Lyrically, I would rather leave the interpretation up to the listener,” he adds, “but people can expect something in line with the last two LPs.” The record also features a new lineup.

Mark Bronzino of Iron Reagan holds down guitar duties, while his Iron Reagan bandmate, Ryan Parrish—who has played in Darkest Hour—handles the drums. Adding these two to Mammoth Grinder was a no brainer for Ulsh. “I met Mark when Mammoth Grinder was on tour right after [2009’s] Extinction of Humanity came out. His band was playing with us at 538 in Brooklyn, and [we] were getting stoned in the stair-

well together, traded tapes and kept in touch,” he recalls. “We talked about Mark joining the band for quite some time, but our schedules never really lined up until we did a tour with Toxic Holocaust and Mark flew out to come to our rescue. He’s been in the band ever since.”

“I met Ryan the first time we toured together,” he notes, “and we were already talking about him playing in the band a few days in. Plus, he put out a death metal demo when I was in second grade.”

In addition, the new album finds the band returning to Relapse, who teamed up with Cyclopean Records to release their second record, Extinction of Humanity. The band put out their next record, 2013’s Underworlds, on 20 Buck Spin, but the return to Relapse was a logical choice for them. “Releasing music ourselves or closely working with Cyclopean was easy when we had been actively touring for years,” Ulsh explains, “but since we haven’t, we needed some help that only a label like Relapse could give us to make the record we wanted.”

metal cover artist Joe Petagno for the cover. It wasn’t hard to get him onboard. “I just emailed him, just like every other time. This cover is my favorite one of his so far that he has done for us,” Ulsh says. “We’ve also been working with an artist called Vrugarth Doom for quite a few years, and I think he really outdid himself this time with the artwork for the gatefold.”

In the time Mammoth Grinder have existed, many bands have popped up that merge the buzzsaw guitar attack of Swedish death metal with hardcore punk—a subgenre some people have termed “Entombedcore.” Ulsh doesn’t see his band as purely a death metal meets hardcore punk band, though those influences are there. “We have a lot of other influences, but that seems to be the main comparison we have always gotten,” he says. “Our idea for this band was to have death metal riffing over punk drumming, while being obsessed with bands like Master and, also, Discharge, who I know were a big influence on a lot of the early Swedish bands.”

So, it all comes full circle.

Not only have they returned to Relapse, the band have again tapped acclaimed

NEW NOISE 33

F

or White Wizzard founder and bassist Jon Leon, music was the place where dreams could happen: the place to go to feel the truth.

He’s the Bruce Dickinson of the band, you know? And James is just such an amazing guitarist.

The stuff he’s doing on this record is ridiculous. A lot of people are going really trip about this album. We’ve been written off by many, but this is a serious return.”

“I’d wander downstairs, head to my parents’ liquor cabinet, grab a bottle, and put on Rush’s Exit…Stage Left,” he laughs. “I was obsessed.”

Leon explains the record’s sound as “heavy, in-your-face Geddy Lee of Rush and Steve prog,” and it’s quite that, with Harris of Iron Maiden were Le- deep Maiden and Rush vibes on’s main inspirations back in that coalesce with the fantasthe day—the reason he picked tical element the band have alup the bass in the first place. ways created. It’s magical stuff.

“Yeah, I mean Geddy and Steve, and Geezer Butler in Sabbath, those guys were the definition of sound for me,” he confirms.

“Exit…Stage Left and [Iron Maiden’s] Powerslave laid the course. I always felt like the bass was the true rhythm and power.”

“We were always totally into Lord of the Rings and that whole universe,” Leon laughs.

“Gandalf the White, you know?”

“I think it’s amazing,” Leon notes. “With [guitarist] James [J. LaRue] and [vocalist] Wyatt [“Screaming Demon” Anderson] back, it really feels like old times. Wyatt and me have this great musical partnership. He can really interpret my meanings and directions like no other. It’s this really fluid process.

Infernal Overdrive is dense.

Like the classics of old, it carries a deeper weight. A thicker light is carved throughout.

There’s direct and social density to Infernal Overdrive as well.

Without ever stuffing anything Ten years ago, Los Angeles’ down your throat, Leon manWhite Wizzard sprang onto the ages to tackle complex issues scene with a retro and progres- with simple and important sive sound, a throwback in an messages. age of core and extremeness.

The band have continually “Like Rush, I’ve always pursued stuck to their old-school ways, a lyrical and philosophical apand their newest record, Infer- proach with White Wizzard,” nal Overdrive—due out Jan. 12 he explains. “There are deeper via M-Theory Audio—is a giant themes here. ‘Storm the Shores’ slab of that refined vision. It’s is about my family’s military the band’s most powerful re- history. I feel like a lot of musicord yet, with a hypnotic and cians look down on the military, architecturally driven sound. and I wanted to write a song The original gang is back for about how important the milithis one: older, wiser, and loos- tary is and the sacrifices these er than ever. people have made.”

34 NEW NOISE

“It’s really a quantum leap,” Leon says. “The production, the writing—this is the best stuff yet.”

F

ormerly of the Seattle-based punk rock band 7 Year Bitch, vocalist Selene Vigil self-released an LP, Tough Dance, on Nov. 17. Her first solo album since her 2010 debut, That Was Then, Tough Dance is rife with the same pure punk aggression that surrounded the singer and her former bandmates during the ‘90s riot grrrl movement.

Vigil stepped away from music for a bit—as she was “quite honestly musically heartbroken for a while,” she says—and spent time raising her two young sons and focusing on family. In the almost decade-long interim, several small events reignited her interest and involvement in the scene. “I was asked to sing a song for a Music in Schools benefit in Seattle about three years ago, which I enjoyed doing, though at the time was quite a leap,” Vigil admits. “It started me thinking that I’d like to sing again.”

Around the same time, 7 Year Bitch released a live record, nearly 20 years after the band played their last show. Live at Moe, recorded in 1996 at Moe’s Mo’Roc’N Café in the band’s hometown, sparked a new motivation for Vigil. “When the 7 Year Bitch live record project came up, I did think that perhaps we would play some shows around it and was excited about the prospect and offers, but in the end, the others weren’t interested,” Vigil says. “At that time, I was [also] asked to sing at a benefit for a friend with cancer, and that was the start of my singing, writing, and recording again.”

At the heart of this record, Vigil seems to be cathartically moving on from the events that have shaped her over the years. As she eloquently puts it, Tough Dance is about “burning down, letting go, holding on, and waking from and looking at nightmares.”

Like much of the music from 7 Year Bitch—which was informed by the passing of the band’s founding guitarist Stefanie Sargent and the murder of The Gits frontwoman Mia Zapata—Vigil’s solo effort exudes an air of hostility, yet reflects the same unafraid and authentic temperament that she has always embodied. “I am motivated by the authentic, by the truth, by the elements, the natural movement, the waxing and waning,” Vigil shares. “People’s lack of respect has, at times, hurt me quite badly. It neither inspires nor stops me, just changes my direction.”

Vigil’s latest release is reminiscent of the raw and raucous sound that defined her previous projects. The grunge aesthetic that 7 Year Bitch so effortlessly embodied has been reimagined on Tough Dance.

Along with slick vocals from Vigil, the album also features bassist Drew Church, who has worked with Mark Lanegan and Jeremy Enigk; drummer Davey Brozowski, who has toured with Modest Mouse and Broken Bells; and guitarist, producer, and all-around musical heavyweight Ryan Leyva of Brent Amaker And The Rodeo and Full Toilet.

NEW NOISE 35

I

f you’ve ever wondered what Mediterranean post-doom would sound like, look no further than Sinistro. The five-piece straight out of Lisbon, Portugal, are ready to kick off the dark New Year with the release of their new album, Sangue Cássia, on Jan. 5 via Season Of Mist. The new record keeps building on the ambient sounds of their previous release, 2016’s Semente, but this time with heavier guitars and production.

The themes of their Portuguese lyrics are often centered on feelings and emotions, placed over a backdrop of cinematic, dark, ambient post-metal doom. According to lead vocalist Patrícia Andrade, each member brings their influences to the table, inspirations that range from metal to classical music. Themes are also picked up from the Portuguese folk tradition, Fado, which is characterized by mournful tunes and lyrics filled with fatefulness and melancholia.

36 NEW NOISE

Sinistro started in 2011 as an instrumental studio experience with a heavy focus on cinematic and ambient sounds. They released their debut self-titled full-length the following year. In 2013, Andrade joined the band for a successful collaboration entitled Cidade, and they decided to permanently add the former actress and voice-over artist to the lineup.

Coming from a more experimental background, having collaborated on spoken word and electronic music projects, Andrade started to get connected with metal. “The only experience with metal was with Moonspell and the album Night Eternal, where I had done some vocals with Carmen Simões [of Earth Electric], Sílvia Guerreiro [of The Goodspeed Society], and Sofia Vieira [of Cinemuerte],” Andrade explains.

She had never pictured herself being in a band with a heavy sound before collaborating with Sinistro. “It

was a challenge when Sinistro invited me to collaborate with them,” she admits. “Nowadays, this is my place to be and where I want to stay, develop, and improve as a performer in music. Sometimes, you find yourself in the most unexpected places—and that is beautiful.”

guage. “The songs are about people, their feelings, moments in life that make you think about your existence,” she explains. “‘Cosmos Controle’ is a memory about love and its end. The impermanence of feelings, the way you look and deal with it, really deep inside of you.”

Sangue Cássia is full of wonderful Portuguese song titles like “Cosmos Controle” and “Cravo Carne.”

Andrade says her reason for singing in Portuguese is that she feels more connected to her feelings when communicating in her native lan-

The closing song, “Cravo Carne,” is a reflection on getting old, solitude, and the time before the end. From start to finish, Sangue Cássia is a stunning reflection on the universality of human experience.

PHOTOS: INES ACHANDO

featuring former and current members of Ill NIño, Machine Head, Soulfly, Upon A Burning Body

will haven

available now on Minus Head records

DEATH VALLEY HIGH CVLT [AS FVK]

KillThe Precedent Some Version of the Truth

ALL HAIL THE YETI Screams From A Black Wilderness

minusHEAD.com

ALL HAIL THE YETI Feed the Pigs

INCITE Oppression

NEW NOISE

37

PHOTO: SVEN MARQUARDT

N

oise music can trace its roots way back to the early 20th century. The Italian futurist Luigi Russolo wrote a manifesto on it, creating sounds through his sleekly designed experimental instruments, the intonarumori. Russolo proposed that as a society, with the industrial revolution underway, it was an apt time to appreciate a much broader palette of music and sounds. Thus, noise music was birthed—sort of.

Dominick Fernow—the man behind the legendary noise and experimental band, Prurient—has been a leading figure of the contemporary noise scene for some time. He started Prurient 20 years ago, and now, the group’s newest release— the colossal Rainbow Mirror, released Dec. 1 via Profound Lore and Hospital Productions—rushes like a wave of thought reverberating down the infinite highways. It’s very much a movement.

“I’m very much influenced by the Surrealists and Dadaists,” Fernow says. “Surrealism is really a simple concept, and Dada is entirely reactionary. The two are like a great counterpoint. They’re like brother and sister. I think it’s the root of all this stuff I create, the paradoxes, the connections—they’re all arms of the same cell.”

It helps to keep modern art in mind when approaching noise music.

It’s as much a visual and literary process as a musical one. And for Fernow—who is a world-traveled multimedia artist—the vision for Prurient appears, first and foremost, separate from any sound. “It never has to do with the sound,” he states. “I never start with a recording. It’s just not enough. It’s what surrounds the music.”

Prurient is typically a solo excursion for Fernow, but Rainbow Mirror features three members. In

38 NEW NOISE

many ways, it’s a return to the roots of the project. Twenty years ago, Prurient performed their first show as a trio. It was an artistic attempt: a gamble for some sort of evolution.

“It was a concept based on the spirit of collective limitation,” Fernow explains. “For that first show, we all had one instrument—so, we were really restricted to that role. We were a band in that sense. I wanted to take that idea and transform it.”

When you think of noise, you may picture a musky, garbage basement housing individual artists and their pedal boards, churning out feedback and amplified aggression— and you’d be right on. That’s what a lot of noise is. But Fernow has been there from the beginning, and Prurient have always felt like more of a collaborative effort, even when, on paper, it has appeared that Fernow was the only man behind it. Starting as a trio with that first performance left an undeniable consciousness within the band’s limbic system. It had a unique and substantial spirit forced upon it.

“Prurient has a special dichotomy,” Fernow says. “It’s really following the traditional rock model in a lot of ways. Classic rock and metal are generally centered on a producer— somebody who has creative and editing control—and I think that’s a concept lost in editorial music today.”

Rainbow Mirror sparkles and hisses, drifting from realm to realm.

There are nightmares and swoons, layers of roads like water in space, and there’s always a direct humanness present, even in the midst of alien forms. Prurient’s music isn’t really cold and disparate, it’s connective and collaborative.

“The interaction of the people around the music is what is really important,” Fernow notes. “Just by people being present. Music is a visceral and abstract art form, unlike reading and film. You hear a sound, and it’s an instantaneous reaction. There’s this primordial, visceral quality. No other format can achieve this.”

NEW NOISE

39

40 NEW NOISE

PHOTOS: JOE CALIXTO

NEW NOISE

41

T

here’s an aggression and ostensible anger inherent in punk, thrash, and hardcore music that often leaves it marred by baseless stigmas. However, more often than not, the raucous, seemingly violent energy the bands in these scenes emit is fueled by the same deep emotion and powerful messages found in quieter genres. Their shows may elicit more bloody noses and loose teeth than your average pop-rock concert, but hardcore fans can certainly take a roundhouse kick or two.

Primal Rite, a six-piece crossover band from the San Francisco Bay Area, are on the come up with a debut LP titled Dirge of Escapism, to be released on Jan. 26 through Revelation Records. The band’s full-length introduction delivers a sound that can be traced back to the earliest days of hardcore punk— pioneers like Dead Kennedys originated in Primal Rite’s very region—but with shredding, metal-inspired guitar solos and influences like Obituary, Nine Inch Nails, and Alice In Chains, many moments on Dirge of Escapism may catch the unseasoned listener by surprise. “I feel like we have a lot of growing to do, but it’s a good representation of where we wanna go,” guitarist Jake Dudley says modestly.

This isn’t the empty, gratuitously violent noise so often maligned in ignorant diatribes aimed at hardcore and punk.

This is an outlet for expression. This is fast and ferocious music with a purpose, and it lends itself to a community of outliers who feel like they finally belong when surrounded

42 NEW NOISE

by likeminded fans at a local show. “I got fucked with a lot in school—beat up and shit,” bassist Max Wickham attests. “I felt a kinship with the punk scene.

It wasn’t easy to make friends, so I found a bunch of fucked up kids and a bunch of fucked venues that would book our terrible bands. It was more about the energy than anything else.”

“The community feels very powerful right now. Fuck the past, support what your friends are doing.”

“It’s raw power,” vocalist Lucy Xavier adds. “It’s transparency, and it’s ethics. I remember going to shows as a teenager and feeling like people were talking about things that were important to me in such a way that I could connect with them. It was inspiring to be a part of, because I felt empowered to think and take action and enjoy music with my friends. I didn’t feel like anybody was controlling me or telling me what to do. So, now, I want to keep that alive for other kids to find.”

As a transgender woman, Xavier has seen her fair share of struggle, and her life experiences have helped form Dirge of Escapism’s thematic backbone.

“The songs are about the tension between the aesthetic self and the extrasensory self,” she explains. “Much of it is about identity. I tried to relay the genuine fear and despair that I feel, while also speaking on life as a journey and allowing yourself to change, constantly renew, and be fluid.”

“I was inspired a lot by nature,” she continues, “and its being in

perfect order and beauty while also being chaotic and uncompromising. I hope people who read the lyrics feel empowered to be honest with themselves and explore their inner world.”

associated genres. “Punk and hardcore is cooler now than it ever was,” Xavier posits. “People are just continuing to expand upon the classic sounds with new ideas. There are just so many great voices and muThe onus isn’t on Xavier to use sicians active in punk right her platform as a beacon for the now. There’s something for evtrans community, but she does erybody. The community feels think Primal Rite’s music could very powerful right now. Fuck potentially be of use to those the past, support what your who’ve shared similar experi- friends are doing.” ences. “Ultimately, we’re just a hardcore band, and the focus is Looking into 2018, Xavier says really on the music,” she says. Primal Rite’s plan of attack is to “While I have a very politicized “play as many gigs as we can” and and oppressed identity and ex- to “play with our friends’ bands.” perience, that is not the focal point of our music. Although, I Thinking more long-term, Duddo hope that maybe the way my ley is optimistic, but practical. experience translates in my lyr- “Hopefully, we’re still a band ics could make sense to or help in five years,” he says. “Punk someone who is struggling with bands are lucky if they see the similar issues—or [someone end of two.” who] has a hard time understanding them from the outside, because they can digest it better through heavy music rather than mainstream media.”

For a band who began by salvaging scrapped material from most of the members’ previous endeavor, Scalped, Primal Rite have taken on a life of their own. Dirge of Escapism is a testament to the determination of six musicians who have seen hardship and failure on multiple occasions yet pressed on regardless. They’ve developed their own identity, and they’re creating during what they believe to be the apex of their

17 albums

17% off all of january use code: TSRNN17 topshelfrecords.com

NEW NOISE

43

PHOTO: JACKI VITETTA

44 NEW NOISE

I

t’s rather fitting that Chicago progressive metal giants Veil Of Maya found lyrical inspiration for their soon-to-be-classic sixth album, False Idol—out now via Sumerian Records—from a hypothetical tyrannical leader.

It’s appropriate, because these djentlemen, in writing about a futuristic king, have created the record that seals their status as one of the greatest heavy acts of our time. False Idol— their second album featuring vocalist Lukas Magyar—contains Veil Of Maya’s most varied and progressive songwriting to date, featuring a lethal dose of neck-snapping riffs and contagiously catchy hooks.

There are even some throwback tech-death moments to remind listeners that these Midwesterners still know how to throw down. Prepare to bow down to your new masters.

Magyar wanted to create a story that captured the album’s dark and heavy nature and was eager to tackle the challenge of forging a futuristic world for their titular “False Idol” to lord over. “One of the main things that I wanted to portray lyrically,” he explains, “especially watching shows like ‘Breaking Bad’ and ‘Narcos,’ is that these people are still people. As much as they seem like they’re not human—like they’re pure evil or just these forces—it’s amazing to me how relatable these people can be. So, even as terrible as this person is, there’s this underlying trait to him that is human, that you could almost be in the same room as him—or her, we never specify whether this character is a man or a woman—and see the good, or at least the humanity, in them. It was just in these specific moments that he or she was always consumed by something else—by their legacy, if you will.”

tween brightness and darkness. Magyar laughs at the image of sunshine and tyrants together, but notes that this textured approach was intentional. “There were songs where I wanted fans to be able to hear the compassion in the character and be able to tell that he really does see what he’s doing and he understands it,” he shares. “The same way, I went the other route in melodies in ‘Whistleblower’ and ‘Pool Spray,’ and even a little bit in ‘Graymail,’ where I wanted you to be able to hear the anger and the intensity in his voice, because those lyrics are far more about him not having any sort of regret.”

“These people are still people.

As much as they seem like they’re not human—like they’re pure evil or just these forces— it’s amazing to me how relatable these people can be.”

Magyar wanted to find out how far down the rabbit hole he could go, and the results surprised him. “I can definitely relate to him at times,” he admits, “but there are many It’s interesting how Magyar’s things that he or she has done vocal melodies and inflections that I would never do, and that play off the different sides of was the part that was so interthe character, switching be- esting. Lines in ‘Tyrant,’ like

‘All your organs will be mine, take out their eyes’—actually physically writing that and recording it, knowing that was coming from me and reflecting on it later—you wonder where that comes from. Where did I draw that from? Maybe it was just from horror movies, but it’s crazy to really dive in, to see how far from your personality you can really get.”

of music or watching TV shows to pull influence from, I’ll just sit in a quiet room and think about what it is I want to create and how I want to go about doing it. I’m not trying to recreate something that’s out there. Everyone’s going to pull influences from around them, but I’d rather those be unintentional and just there—and have people notice them if they want. But I want it to sound “There’s something wrong original and refreshing and with this guy for sure,” Magyar [like] something that I created, chuckles. “When you get into rather than just something I writing something that dark, it refabricated.” puts you in a weird place for a bit too. So, I was definitely in a Regardless, one spark of inspibit of a funk trying to wrap my ration did find its way through head around what I was creat- the cracks, Magyar explains. “I ing. I drew all sorts of visuals was watching [the TV series] from it. I would visualize the ‘Westworld,’” he admits. “I accharacter in his castle, over- tually sat down and watched looking the land and visualiz- the whole first season in one ing everything that was com- sitting, and that might have ing. The lyrics were often his been where some of the lyrithoughts about what was going cal content in ‘Follow Me’ was to happen as he’s sitting on his pulled from.” throne.”

The album wasn’t written in a Magyar notes that while it near-perfect vacuum, though, took a little time to regroup and Magyar found himself after this immersion into the writing about a dictator in an character’s darkness, he found era rife with sociopolitical the experience more invigo- context. “It’s not about any rating than exhausting. “I like specific person in the past or writing, in general, and with present,” he states, “but I’m all of the records I’ve worked sure that the way things are on, there’s usually some sort of going on around me had an instoryline, because it makes it fluence. I can say for sure that more exciting to me,” he says. some of the lyrics in the song “Instead of getting music and ‘Tyrant’ were based on current blindly writing to it, I like the events. Something had just times where I just sit and con- happened as we were writing template and figure out how I that one, so we threw it in the want to put it together and how song.” detailed I can get with it. That’s just more fun for me. I think Fortunately for listeners—and part of that is what helped me Veil Of Maya—Magyar was able drive through it and not get ex- to plunge deep into the darkhausted, because it propelled ness, resulting in an album that me through the process.” is captivating, fascinating, and most importantly, a joy to listen Since there are no real po- to. It’s the type of concept altential tyrants in our midst— bum that is rich enough to warahem!—where did Magyar find rant further exploration rather his inspiration for False Idol? than being bogged down by de“I don’t really go out of my way tails. By writing about a truly to seek inspiration,” he says. bad king, Magyar and compa“Honestly, I spend a lot of time ny have become kings in their just thinking about what it is own right, ruling the metal I want to create, so instead of landscape with this mammoth going and listening to a bunch release.

NEW NOISE 45

T

he pedigree of SECT is incredible. Stacked with hardcore punk vets in each slot, their five contributors have cultivated a rich history, but none seems interested in touting any one single member’s past. The music and, more importantly, the message are immediate, harvesting concern and motivating fury from the present tense. Blasting ugly, confrontational D-beat crustcore, steeped in savage commentary regarding society’s conflicts, SECT presented No Cure for Death on Southern Lord Nov. 24.

The members’ histories are an inevitable point of discussion. Vocalist Chris Colohan has been screaming since 1992. He has fronted The Swarm, Left For Dead, Cursed, and, most recently, Burning Love. Guitarist Scott Crouse has been in Earth Crisis and Path Of Resistance. Joining on guitar is James Chang, formerly of Catharsis and Undying, and bassist Steve Hart, formerly of Day Of Suffering. Notably, Andy Hurley—of Racetraitor, Fall Out Boy, and Enabler fame—joins on drums. Still, the members have little interest in dwelling on audiences’ potential sense of awe. Colohan explains, “We came together because of our own connections to each other and because we share a common starting point and background, not to consciously combine credibility or ‘scene points.’ [We] are happy to work hard for anything we get out of it based on SECT alone.”

In that spirit, Colohan distills his motivation to the same youthful impulse and connection that have united outcasts for four decades. “Catharsis. Just as it was at age 16,” he admits Politically, 2017 and the years roiling to this point have been perfect fodder. Colohan continues, “If music is a vent for your frustrations, and you’re drawing those on the bleak, authoritarian, unfair realities of the world around you, you could hardly have a more urgent moment in history to find things to scream about in all directions than the present.”

“That system is so thoroughly rigged and safeguarded against genuine threats to its underlying order, I don’t know if it is changeable from within, but props to anyone really trying,” he says of musicians who are pursuing political careers. “I think [boycotting] is the biggest threat and leverage left, and it connects directly with the attempt to scatter all forms of real talk amongst people. We need to tune out the divisive bullshit, make lists of where our money goes and organize true and permanent boycotts of those things we don’t like or the powers connected to them. This one—pessimistic as I am—I can see raising fear in the powerful, as evidenced by the swift and nervous backlash to contain the [Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions] movement, [a global campaign to end international support for Israel’s oppression of Palestinians]. That’s usually a sign that this is a direction we should be looking into, regardless of how else we’re fighting and voting.”

“Is politics garbage? I mean, yeah,” Colohan concedes.

46 NEW NOISE

“When attached as it is to religion and economy, politics is a pendulum that swings from right to left to keep us blabbering about our teams, while a specific agenda sails on unchecked under all the chaos, dead on schedule while we burn out trying to fight ghosts.

Of course it’s garbage.”

When it came time to record, Colohan recruited the best in the genre. Luckily, thanks to Burning Love, he had a relationship with Southern Lord and producer Kurt Ballou at GodCity Studio. On Southern Lord, Colohan comments, “They’re always great to deal with. They put a lot of love into the records they put out. I like the mix of classic hardcore, doom, and bands like ours—all under one roof.” When SECT decided to fuse their sonic inspiration with that of noise monger, Ballou, the world made sense. “I was the only one who had worked with Kurt before that, and [I] have known him for 20 years outside of that,” Colohan adds, “but I knew from the sound everyone was going for that Kurt would knock it out of the park, and he did. He has great toys, the right amount of input and guidance in the process, and he’s got it so dialed in at GodCity that it sounds done pretty much right off the floor.

No Cure for Death features irreverent titles, like the callous “Crocodile Prayers,” which eviscerates the “pro-life” movement and their hypocrisy. The lyrics expose hollow actions with gems like: “Loss of inventory, loss of capital / Save your crocodile prayers for the living!” Placed over Hurley’s brutal blast beats and tom fills, the track is monumental—in under two minutes. The mid-paced groove of “Day for Night” rides thunder and guitar squeals, lyrically twisting and turning through inflicted depression and medication.

Other tracks conjure vile tones while disassembling patriotism, dismantling automation’s impending ubiquity, and disavowing police militarization and economic slavery.

Unfortunately, Colohan cannot outline the band’s itinerary for 2018, but he says, “We’re gonna hit any places we didn’t get to yet, go back to the E.U.—go anywhere we can that’ll have us.”

With No Cure for Death as currency, borders will open.

PHOTO: DEE X GEE

NEW NOISE 47

PHOTO: ALAN SNODGRASS

48 NEW NOISE

“I couldn’t write a fucking heavy riff to save my life,” says Robb Flynn, vocalist and guitarist of groove metal powerhouse, Machine Head.

“Alls I could write was these horrible Fiona Apple piano ballads.”

Of course, in the end, the band decided that “Bastards” expresses something that Machine Head did indeed need to say. Many of the songs on the album express similar sentiments, but not all of them—again, it’s a pretty eclectic album.

If there’s one thing tying all of the tracks on Catharsis together, it’s that they all express something the band felt needed to be said.

The band had gotten a solid start on writing their new album, Catharsis—set for release Jan. 26 via Nuclear Blast—but about a third of the way through the songwriting process, Flynn came up dry. To push through this creative block, Machine Head—who are all still based in Oakland, where the band was founded over two decades ago— just kept showing up to their jam room and writing.

Eventually, they got over the hump and came up with perhaps the most eclectic record they’ve ever made.

“I think music, in general, is always very cathartic, especially when it’s done right,” Flynn says. “I think with this record, there were just so many different emotions being expressed.”

Both “Bastards” and leadoff track, “Volatile”—which Flynn wrote after seeing the news about a white supremacist running over a protester in Charlottesville, Virginia—have pretty clear sociopolitical points to make, but he describes “California Bleeding” as being “just like, ‘Let’s get fucked up!’ Which is its own catharsis.” Meanwhile, the album’s closer, “Eulogy,” is about depression, and “Heavy Lies the Crown” is a period piece about Louis XI, “the Spider King of France.”

“I feel like we challenged ourselves. We’re way out of our comfort zone on more than a few songs on this record,” Flynn admits.

“I’ve been telling people, ‘You know, lower your expectations for the heaviness. It’s a very grooving, very melodic record. I can’t honestly sit here and tell you this is our heaviest record, and while it may freak you out a little bit now, I feel like come Jan. 26, you’ll appreciate that I was being straightforward with you.’ Doesn’t mean it’s not a great record. I think it’s a phenomenal record—maybe one of our best. But is it our heaviest?

Nah.”

Machine Head may be exploring new terrain on Catharsis, but that in and of itself is nothing new for the band. “When we start writing, we never know where we’re gonna go,” Flynn explains. “That’s kind of the beauty of that journey. It’s a little bit scary, you know?

You’re going to write a record, and you don’t really know where you’re going to end up—but that’s also the exciting part.”

the heaviest Machine Head album to date, he is likely thinking of this song.

He originally wrote it as a folky, four-chord acoustic number and released it online, but its lyrics kept appearing throughout the tracks the band were writing for the new album.

“There’s the line in there: ‘Stand your ground / Don’t let the bastards grind you down / Be bold, be strange / Don’t let their fears make you afraid,’” he recounts.

“Those lyrics popped up in ‘Hope Begets Hope,’ they popped up in ‘Catharsis,’ they popped up in ‘Eulogy,’ they came up in ‘Grind You Down’”—and at that point, it was like, ‘You know what?

Maybe we should do a band version of ‘Bastards.’”

Sometimes, the first song written for a Machine Head record ends up setting the tone for the entire album, Flynn adds. For instance, the first song the band wrote for 2011’s Unto the Locust was “This Is the End.” “We were like, ‘Holy shit, we’re fucking killing it!’” he says of the band’s response after that album’s The song still features an first cut was complete. acoustic guitar and clean vocals, making it almost defiBut that’s not how it always nitely the least heavy song works. “First song we wrote Machine Head have ever put for [2007’s] The Blackening to tape. As soon as they were didn’t even end up on The done writing it together, they Blackening,” he reveals. “It realized, “‘Yeah, this is realwas early fucking bullshit ly out of our fucking wheelthat was horrible.” house here,’” Flynn remembers. “There was definitely The song Flynn credits no confusion about that. It for starting to tie every- opened up a discussion: ‘Can thing together on Cathar- we do a song like this? Do we sis is “Bastards.” When he need to do a song like this? warns fans not to expect Can Machine Head say this?’”

If “Bastards” pulled the whole record together conceptually, it’s the title track, “Catharsis,” that “crystallized everything we were trying to say,” Flynn notes.

He points especially to the lyrics: “The only thing keeping me sane / The music in my veins / And if these words are my fist / This is my catharsis.”

NEW NOISE 49

PHOTO: CATHERINE PATCHELL

50 NEW NOISE

T

he internet gave us everything and nothing at all. Access, but not ownership. Knowledge, but not truth. Action, but not power. Filtered through this instant gratification, the music industry now asks the basic question: “If you could listen to anything, what would it be?” But algorithms can’t give you what isn’t there, and for the 15 years since their last full-length album, Worship and Tribute, Long Island’s own Glassjaw have been anywhere but here.

enduring touchstones of post-hardcore with 2000’s Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Silence and 2002’s Worship and Tribute that still lord over the many bands who have tried and failed to replicate the same balance of emotiveness and head-bashing.

To Beck and cofounder and vocalist Daryl Palumbo, this was less a result of the musicians and more the fault of the commercial cycle looking for more talent to eat.

“TO MAKE A RECORD EVERY 15 MONTHS, TO STAY ON THE ROAD, THAT SHIT IS HYPER-DETRIMENTAL TO HAVING FUN.” Since their inception, the post-hardcore godfathers have been trying to write their own grassroots story outside of the machine. With the release of their new album, Material Control, on Dec. 1 via Globochem Music, Inc., and Century Media, the band may have finally completed the goal they set for themselves years ago: to sound like the grimiest fucking band of 1993.

“The goal was to finally do it right,” says Justin Beck, cofounder and guitarist of Glassjaw. “Our last records, they had all their little angles to them, but we never really captured what we sought to do when we first started. We didn’t have the capacity to do it.”

“[When we started], we were signing with horrible labels and assholes trying to tell us how loud different things were supposed to be on a fucking record, and they’ve never played an instrument in their life,” Palumbo says.

“To make a record every 15 months, to stay on the road, that shit is hyper-detrimental to having fun. [Young bands] get into situations where they don’t have the upper hand and can’t say no.”

Glassjaw, unlike some of their contemporaries, frequently opted to say no—whether to Roadrunner Records at the beginning of their career or even to fans during the wait for Material Control. Their trajectory has been one of their own making.

Despite “not having the ca- “We tried less,” Palumbo says. pacity,” Glassjaw created “I feel that if you keep beating

a dead horse for 20 years, it’s gonna fuck with your business. It’s music. It has to be fun, it needs to be in harmony with whoever your partner is. Don’t push it and take it to a place where you’re mortified by the decisions you’re making. I don’t think people would want to hear a record if we were doing it nonstop.”

more concerned about letting it happen naturally and making sure it remained fun.

“When the timing is right, shit just normally comes together when the opportunity presents itself,” Beck says. “I would say that we are pretty effective in the collective hours that we put together a record, [and it] is actually a lot shorter than people think.

Material Control is purpose- It’s not like we’ve been writful chaos, certain to upset ing this same record for 15 the modern nu-metal and years.” emo-minded fans who may be looking for something more Glassjaw recently completlike the bands Glassjaw in- ed a month-long tour with spired. Band favorite tracks The Used, then returned to like “shira” and “pompeii” Brooklyn for a record release reintroduce the crushing, show at Saint Vitus. Across dirty guitar sounds the band the bridge into Lower Manare known for, with shallow- hattan at Five Points Tater production and melodic too, the band paid for Glasstics more reminiscent of a jaw-inspired tattoos for the live show than a studio al- fans who came to purchase bum. The vocals are more the album: another marker reserved, allowing the heavy of their cult status, and yet bass to form the true connec- another way to keep the band tive DNA of the album, which fresh in the minds of those makes for an insane listen who may wonder what will with a high-quality sound come next. system or headphones.

“Imagine you’ve got [an] aunt, “[We try to embody] the ir- and she makes the best apple ritants present in the people pie,” Beck explains. “Every who live in New York. It’s not few holidays, she pulls it out, just acting like it’s a brutal and […] everyone goes aperecord,” Palumbo explains. shit, because everyone at that “There’re a lot of bands over table knows your aunt makes the years who referenced the best apple pie. It’s the Glassjaw or referenced hard- shit. But all of sudden, she’s core, and it’s supposed to be going into business, renting this really heavy and tangible out a space, selling apple pie, thing. Then, you hear it, and convincing people to eat her it’s just a major label fucking apple pie, and now, everyrecord. We were very cogni- thing changes. Now, you’ve zant of maintaining that vis- got to chase your overhead, ceral, irritated intent.” and […] your aunt’s pie is gonna start to suffer. For us, Though it took 15 years for we’re occasionally baking a Material Control to materi- pie when it’s ready.” alize—with the occasional EP and many side projects occupying the interim—Palumbo and Beck are adamant that they felt no pressure to release something just because of the time gap. They were

NEW NOISE 51

PHOTO: CATHERINE PATCHELL

F

ate brought Pepper Keenan to Corrosion Of Conformity in 1989. And after a decade removed from the band—he left, somewhat unofficially, in 2005 to focus on his New Orleans-based supergroup, Down—fate brought him back.

To hear him tell it, he certainly didn’t plan to do it like this.

But C.O.C. fans can rejoice, because the vocalist and guitarist has officially returned. After rejoining lead guitarist Woody Weatherman, bassist Mike Dean, and drummer Reed Mullin—the original nucleus of the band birthed out of Raleigh, North Carolina, in 1982—for a few shows in 2015, the word was that there would be new music. That time is now.

Corrosion Of Conformity are set to drop No Cross No Crown on Jan. 12 via Nuclear Blast Records and set out on the road with Black Label Society to close out 2017 and ring in the new year. Keenan is rightfully proud of pulling off C.O.C.’s 10th studio effort. “We’ve just been real busy, let me put it that way,” he says. “We’ve been trying to put everything back together and see what we can do, and I think we did a pretty damn good job.”

“We knew what we had to do. It wasn’t some giant tall order. We came in with a blank slate and really created something from scratch,” Keenan adds. “It wasn’t a really fun thing to do; it was very challenging to have a record not sound like a buncha washedup reunion guys. You gotta be real.”

The band again worked with producer John Custer, and Keenan says the 15 songs on No Cross No Crown fit right into the crossover thrash turned sludge masters’ established body of work. “We don’t take this lightly,” Keenan says of generating new output. “It’s not some money-grab bullshit.

We just wanted to make a solid record. […] We’ve kind of broadened our horizons a bit over the years, and that’s an important thing to do as an artist: to create and see it through.”

So, the chemistry is still there.

The inspiration for the new record, however, was to be found across the pond in England,

where C.O.C. were performing in a repurposed church now used as a performing arts center. Underneath ornate stained-glass artwork depicting some poor guy being persecuted was the phrase, “No cross no crown,” which stuck with Keenan.

In today’s polarized culture, in a world seemingly on the brink, Keenan says it’s imperative to listen to your heart. “I think everything’s kinda, out of balance, you know?” he offers. “I’m not gonna sit on some soapbox and tell you who’s right and who’s wrong, but I think we need to learn how to help each other off the ground.

If someone’s not doin’ well, pick ‘em up, pat ‘em on the back, and make sure they get to where they need to go, you know?”

“We don’t have to get into beliefs or anything, but we’re all in the same boat here,” he adds. “It doesn’t have to be so complicated. But the cross and the crown have been one of the problems for,” he pauses, then chuckles, “the last few hundred years, for sure.”

For Keenan, maybe the most important connection—aside from the enduring friendships he’s made over the years with his bandmates—is the one with the fans. Corrosion Of Conformity fans frequently snap pictures of themselves hanging out with the vocalist at shows and post them on the band’s Facebook page.

“It’s an important thing. That’s kind of how the whole thing works, you know? We can’t do it without them,” Keenan says of their fan base. “I’ve always kind of prided myself on just being able to go out there and talk to ‘em. I’m no different than those guys. I pride myself on being able to hang out. And, you know, you get feedback, and you do—it sounds kind of weird, but you do touch people. People really latch onto your words, and it means something. That’s important.”

And, what about fate? Was getting back together really the plan all along? “You don’t make plans,” Keenan admits in summation.

“You gotta shoot from the hip.

You can try to control things, but you’ll be wrong at every turn.”

NEW NOISE

53

I

t’s a rainy Seattle morning, and vocalist and guitarist Awsten Knight is on the first leg of his band, Waterparks’ headlining tour. Chalking it up to “brand loyalty,” he says he is definitely going to get OG Starbucks.

Jokingly, he says, “It legally has to rain here.” Much like Seattle, Waterparks may be “Gloom Boys,” but there is nothing dreary about how much the band have accomplished since signing to Equal Vision Records in 2015. In the midst of talking about their album Entertainment, set to drop Jan. 26, Knight says he hopes this record will bring their recognition as a “boy band” or a “pop band” to the forefront.

“I’m excited for people to finally hear it and think, ‘Hey, maybe I was wrong when I kept calling them pop punk,’” Knight says.

“All the songs are so much bigger and so much tighter. As far as the lyrics, melodies, and shit, I’m not

going to get worse, that just won’t happen. It’s going to be tight.”

off a lot of social media while we were recording on the down-low.”

In relation to their hit record, Double Dare, which was released in 2016, Knight says the band have changed immensely and that Entertainment is the “best Waterparks album for sure.” The first single, “Blonde,” is the only track on the album similar to Double Dare. A sugary, electro-pop-rock bop, the song was chosen as a single to “ease into” the release of Entertainment—a metaphor for the different eras of Waterparks à la Knight’s famous array of hair color choices, even though he is no longer blue or blonde.

Hopping off their 2016 EP, Cluster, they played every date on Warped Tour, supported All Time Low, then released Double Dare.

All told, Waterparks have been on a tear for the past year. With no time to slow down, Knight says, “When we’re not touring, I’m still making music.” Yet, the Houston trio still get surprised when their management team at MDDN tell them they’ve sold out their overseas tours. As one of the hardest working bands in the scene right now, it’s clear their hunger is paying off.

“I wanted a clear distinction between then and now,” Knight says.

“This was the first album made while people knew who we were.

Double Dare was written before we did a tour and before people knew we were signed. I try not to let it affect me too much; I stayed

“I’ll wait till I’m burned out, and I’ll start picking up bad habits and begin my downward spiral—I’ve got it all planned out,” Knight jokes. “All people and experiences over the last year and everything that has happened since people know who we are [has been inter-

PHOTO: ALAN SNODGRASS

54 NEW NOISE

esting to see]. It’s been cool, but a cool, crazy, stressful, weird blur.”

With two guitarists and a drummer, the three-piece boy band mix elements of hip hop with Knight’s personal, poetic approach to writing lyrics and the trio’s affinity for twinkly synth. While they’re still on the rise, the group are making some massive waves. With similarities to bands ranging from Fall Out Boy and Panic! At The Disco to Twenty One Pilots, Waterparks could be the next big name in music. According to Knight, they are well on their way.

“Entertainment is the best album in the world,” Knight says. “It’s the best Waterparks album for sure, and if anyone doesn’t like it, they’re a poser. They only like the other ones better because they had an emotional connection to that time period, and it’s not really about the music because [Entertainment] is objectively the best.”

OVER 250,000 ITEMS FROM YOUR FAVORITE BANDS

Rockabilia.com offers the largest selection of music merchandise you will ямБnd on the Web - period.

For a free catalog, visit rockabilia.com, call 952-556-1121 or write: PO Box 39 Dept 133 - Chanhassen, MN 55317 - USA

T - SHIRTS HOODIES JACKETS JERSEYS TANK TOPS SWEATERS LONG SLEEVES SHORTS BABYWEAR HATS BEANIES JEWELRY BACKPACKS BAGS POSTERS COLLECTIBLES TOYS FLAGS PATCHES PINS BUTTONS STICKERS WALLETS KEY CHAINS DVDS VINYL AND MORE

L

emuria are full of surprises.

The three-piece indie rock ensemble has earned a dedicated following over their career, owing largely to their experimental but catchy songs, combined with their industrious touring and promotional efforts. Four years have lapsed since they released their last full-length album, The Distance Is So Big, so the band wanted to do something special to thank their most loyal fans.

In line with Lemuria’s unconventional songwriting, they marketed their newest record, Recreational Hate, by not saying a word about it.

Though its proper release came on Dec. 15 via the band’s newly minted Turbo Worldwide label—with a little help from Big Scary Monsters and Asian Man Records, who licensed the physical release—the first fans to buy the album did so unknowingly, receiving it as a mystery add-on to what was coyly marketed as a secretive bundle package.

They’ve offered similar deals in the past, but those mystery items were merely demo cuts and studio outtakes, nothing nearly as comprehensive as a full album.

“We entered into this project without letting deadlines contribute to any decisions in the creative process,” drummer and vocalist Alex Kerns reflects on the album’s secrecy. “I think, for a while, we became caught up in trying to stay present in a very saturated industry of media and content, and we realized that it was stripping away the enjoyment of what it is to be a few friends—or siblings, [which] is what it really feels like—expressing ourselves artistically. We have a core group of people who have blindly purchased our surprise releases in the past. […] We had great success with those self-released records that pretty much exclusively targeted people who want to hear our rare tracks, instead of our more casual listeners.”

“We’re forever grateful to the people who have supported our band,” Kerns asserts, “and we want to give them our new album first.”

raphy includes Weezer, Bob Dylan, and Public Enemy. “There is no musical law when you work with Chris,” Kerns attests. “His catalog is decorated with maybe the most eclectic mix of artists I know. […]

I can’t thank him enough for giving us the opportunity to make an album that I think, if you listen to, you’ll get the most candid portrait of who we are.”

Lemuria’s eclectic personality is palpable, as songs on Recreational Hate lean in harder to some of the band’s more experimental qualities than previous releases. Whether it’s their ability to twist irregular rhythmic patterns into danceable songs like “More Tunnel” or their use of horns and other diverse instrumentation on “I Wanted To Be Yours,” few artistic tactics appear to be off-limits. New musicians interested in writing songs that are both catchy and genuine should treat this album as a crash course.

“Just make it sound like you,” Kerns advises aspiring songwriters. “It certainly won’t pay off in the shortterm, but it will probably appreciate over time. Create art, not content.”

Despite what grim mental images the title may evoke, Recreational Hate is a wholeheartedly charming and tender record. “Although it doesn’t directly apply to the lyrics and mood of the album, [the title] pretty much wraps up the climate of civilization for the past year,” Kerns admits. “We’re hoping that when people put on this album, they can escape the surreal reality we are living in, where the world is being usurped by villains while media opportunists bathe in it. We hope that they can enter a lush climate where they feel connected to us personally and [can] ignore everything outside of their earbuds.”

Thanks to this fan support from past releases, the band could afford the expertise of producer Chris Shaw, whose accomplished discog-

PHOTO: JACKI VITETTA

56 NEW NOISE

䄀䤀刀匀吀刀䔀䄀䴀 䘀唀吀唀刀䔀匀

吀䠀䔀 䨀唀䬀䔀䈀伀堀 刀伀䴀䄀一吀䤀䌀匀 6131

䌀伀䴀䤀一䜀 匀伀伀一℀℀ 倀䄀倀䔀刀䄀一䐀倀䰀䄀匀吀䤀䌀䬀⸀䌀伀䴀

58 NEW NOISE

NEW NOISE

59

60 NEW NOISE

NEW NOISE

61

62 NEW NOISE

NEW NOISE

63

With another incredible year of music come and gone, it’s time to check out the hot and heavy releases, tours, and projects coming up in 2018. These are the bands we at New Noise are keeping in our sights as we head into the new year!

PHOTO: NINA OTTOLINO

ANDREW WK

Known party enthusiast and general all-around best person in the world, Andrew W.K., is preparing to launch a new album in 2018.

Fun fact: Andrew W.K. may still be best known for his debut album, I Get Wet, from all the way back in 2001, but he can still party your ass off no matter how familiar you are with his discography. There’s nothing better than seeing Andrew W.K. live—nothing—and knowing that more glorious tunes will be coming from this gracious and dignified human being means 2018 is sure to trump all the shit we dealt with in the six years since his last album. Head of The Syndicate, Jeff Kilgour, comments, “What you can expect from him is his new album, out March 2, and a global tour!” That new release will be called You’re Not Alone, an echo of his ultra-positive party ethos.

Seriously, he should be knighted for his partying.

A garage-infused, hazy dream-rock band from California—who have always been a favorite of New Noise—Culture Abuse are preparing to follow up their 2016 debut full-length, Peach. The record served as an outlet for plenty of interesting instrumentals, both bright and crunchy, and that sound has continued on the few singles that have been released. Now signed to Epitaph Records, this team of punks are going to forge an even more alluring and glittery soundscape to dazzle listeners’ ears off. “Our new record is exactly what I’ve always wanted to make,” vocalist David Kelling states. “We are continuously growing and learning as songwriters and musicians. A bunch of punks with the world behind ‘em.”

PHOTO: JACKI VITETTA

DRUG CHURCH 64 NEW NOISE

PHOTO: ALAN SNODGRASS

CULTURE ABUSE

This driving, energetic act are gearing up to release their first new record in over two years—and their first for Pure Noise Records—and we could not be more excited! Judging from their two incredible full-lengths, 2013’s Paul Walker and 2015’s Hit Your Head, 2018 is sure to be an explosive year for cathartic alternative music thanks to the likes of Drug Church. As vocalist Patrick Kindlon shares, “Plans to implode with a terrible metal record or radio rock album have been postponed. We’ve decided to add another sickass alt rock classic to our catalog. It’s basically The Jesus Lizard playing Goo Goo Dolls songs. Spring, 2018.”

PHOTO: MEGAN THOMPSON

KISSISSIPPI

“2018 is going to be a huge step forward for Kississippi. I’m wildly excited to share this first full-length record with the world once and for all via SideOneDummy,” comments Zoë Allaire Reynolds, the mastermind behind the Philly band. Kississippi are a delicate experience, surging through powerful and emotional tunes with an atmospheric grace. Their 2015 debut EP, We Have No Future, We’re All Doomed, featured intimate songs weighing in on heavy subjects, and 2018 will finally bring the full-length fans have been anticipating ever since. “We plan on touring hard throughout the year and have some pretty sweet ideas about where we’d like to be and who we’d like to be there with!” Reynolds continues. “While we have some solid plans in store, there’s a lot of mystery behind where the next year is going to take us. I’m looking forward to following this path we’ve paved and uncovering some surprises along the way.”

PHOTO: ALAN SNODGRASS

HIGH ON FIRE PHOTO: KYLE CAMARILLO

LIGHT THIS CITY PHOTO: JEN CRAY

NOTHING PHOTO: NICO POALILLO

SKELETONWITCH

2018 will mark the 20-year anniversary of High On Fire, and the band are celebrating by hitting the road—they’re taking requests for the tour’s setlist on their Facebook page—and expanding on the sound they’ve cultivated over the last two decades. Known for their organic blend of thrash and extreme metal, they insist on remaining heavier than ever in the new year. “We’re experimenting with different contours and textures and different ways we can murder the fuck out of heavy,” vocalist and guitarist Matt Pike says. “A level of heavy that will make you want to punt a millennial.”

Preserving the title of epic music, Light This City create songs and albums that sway with a purpose, every second feeling like the listener is mere moments away from the heroic glory of battle. While they maintain a certain speed that keeps heads banging for hours, they have dabbled in melodic giganticness before, and 2018 will be the year that the recently reunited band’s dual approach fully jells to kick our asses with intense rhythmic satisfaction. “We enter the studio in one month, and I think I can safely say this is our most dynamic, melodic, and crushing record yet,” Light This City attest. Set for release in March via drummer Ben Murray’s Creator-Destructor label, it will be their first new album in a decade. “The melodies are huge, the thrash is intense, and we are fucking pumped,” the band say. So are we…

So are we.

Philly band Nothing will continue to present their music in its dark, ethereal ambience in 2018. It is hard not to get lost in thought while listening to them.

Actually, it’s hard not to get lost navigating the world while listening to their music, as it captivates your soul and takes over your body. Vibrant and moody textures comprise the group’s soundscape, and 2018 is sure to expand their musical sphere into an even more mind-altering realm. Founder Domenic Palermo opens up, “It’s been a couple years since Tired [of Tomorrow], and we’re running out of money, so we decided we’d better hurry and release some new music before we’re all homeless.”

Guitarist Scott Hedrick shares what they have planned for their spring 2018 LP: “Guitars. So many guitars. If I’m not mistaken, we got into double-digits guitar parts on one particular intro,” he laughs. “This time around, we unencumbered ourselves with the limitations of a live show—or, more to the point, embraced the limitlessness of the studio. This freedom was not restricted to the layering and density of the songs, but extended to the length, tempo, and tones. It’s a good thing [producer] Kurt Ballou was behind the board to keep us grounded and make it sound incredible. Easily the most diverse thing we’ve done.” We can’t wait!

NEW NOISE

65

sic, or drawing or whatever.”

The independent gaming label made its debut with “Snow Day,” a short card-based title inspired by a dream and conceived in a single afternoon.

Its primary mechanic revolves around attempting to get home safely on a frigid winter night while derailing your competition, presumably leaving them to freeze. The dichotomy between its cute art and premise and dark motivational underpinnings are emblematic of Vass’ style, prompting players to consider the consequences of ruthless self-interest.

B

oard games have been experiencing a pop cultural resurgence for the past several years.

As the market for niche titles expands, so too do opportunities for designers at all levels to experiment with the medium.

That includes La Dispute guitarist Adam Vass, whose upstart World Champ Game Co. specializes in releases that push the format’s emotional and narrative boundaries. Founded in 2016, it’s a passion project that provides the multi-talented musician and visual artist another creative outlet.

Looking ahead, Vass has a couple projects in the works, but his most recent release might be the one to get even the most skeptical hardcore and metal fans rolling 20-sided dice: a role-playing book based on Converge’s 2012 full-length, All That We Love We Leave Behind.

Released in October, it explores the record’s themes of distance and isolation. While he stresses that it’s not a licensed teamup, he seems to have the label’s blessing. “I did get a retweet from the Deathwish Twitter account the other day, so I feel pretty good about the status of it,” Vass says.

The World Champ Game Co. catalog has since expanded to four titles overall, including “Protect Your Brand,” about defending your reputation on social media; “Carder Harmonies,” a setlist-building card game from La Dispute; and “Tat’s All Folks!” which pits two tattoo artists against each other in one shop. Vass has also written a book entitled “Critical,” a beginner’s guidebook for the Current titles are available fifth edition of “Dungeons and through World Champ Gaming Dragons.”

Co.’s website, worldchampgame.co, Amazon.com, and the The production scale for each webstores of La Dispute and World Champ game is mod- Vass’ side project, Mush. est—at least for now. Vass venture for a seasoned veteran of heavy music. However, Vass has long had an interest in the pastime and began developing his own out of curiosity about how they’re made. This isn’t a short-term dalliance for novelty’s sake, either: He chose the name World Champ Game Co. for its timelessness, settling on something that wouldn’t get tired over the long haul, while alluding to the triumphant spirit of professional wrestling—another of his interests.

“If I get into something, if I really like something, I kind of want to know how it works and Starting a board game compa- pick it apart,” Vass says. “I think ny might seem like an unusual that’s how I’ve gotten into mu-

66 NEW NOISE

works with small printers to manufacture and package limited runs. That approach has its advantages, including the ability to maintain a prolific release reschedule, but his development timeline has extended slightly, from around a month to two or three from conception to completion.

PHOTOS: JOHN MOSETICH

ARMAGEDDON RECORD SHOP

PROVIDENCE, RHODE ISLAND INTERVIEW WITH CO-OWNERS BEN BARNETT AND CHRIS ANDRIES BY HUTCH “At the end of the ‘90s, most of the Providence, [Rhode Island], record stores were closing,” Ben Barnett explains. Barnett is the co-owner of Armageddon Record Shop and plays guitar—as he has for 25-plus years—in Dropdead. Creating a soundtrack for the end of the world is easy when you are embedded in local and international DIY and underground scenes. Armageddon specializes in metal, hardcore, and punk, but the 484-square-foot space boasts many genres and formats. Set upon a quiet street, the unassuming façade explodes with decades of rebellious music.

A few years ago, Barnett and co-owner Chris Andries were able to open a second location in historic—in terms of both the U.S. and punk rock—Harvard Square in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Barnett—standing at six feet with a long goatee, always clad in black—elaborates, “I thought that Providence should still

have a store of underground stuff and independent music.” Surrounded by years of flyers, vinyl box sets, VHS horror films, and an expansive magazine and book selection, he admits, “It took a couple years of hunting stuff down and trading records with people to get enough to crack open the doors.” Barnett “opened with a couple thousand LPs, a thousand CDs, and a thousand 7”s” on Friday the 13th in January 2001.

The space at 436 Broadway, on the West Side of Providence, sits among large Victorian houses, mostly converted into law offices and shops. There’s an independent film and music venue in a Vaudevillian theater, The Columbus Theatre; many upscale cafés and brunch spots; a bike shop; another record store; and a few vintage clothing shops. But back in 2001, Julian’s—a mainstay culinary and craft beer restaurant—and White Electric Coffee were the only DIY businesses running. “When we opened, we were a destination. The students did not move here yet,” Barnett says, depicting the colder version of Broadway: a mid-section for people wandering through from Olneyville to get downtown. And the Columbus was showing porn.

As far as being a destination, Andries adds, “It still is. People between here and Boston come here because it’s easier to park.” He continues frankly, “Now, we get some brunch runoff on the weekends.”

Barnett contributes his tenacity to their approach. “This is our primary thing that we do,” he says. “We don’t have side jobs. We’re pretty serious about it.”

Andries adds, “In the beginning, we still had side jobs. But as it snowballed, we were able to focus. Which is great. Plus, Ben’s a machine.”

Reflecting back on the collapsed indie stores, Barnett concludes, “They didn’t hit it quite as hard. They were more like hangouts than stores.”

Andries again lauds Barnett, “It’s hard to match his work ethic—which is amazing.”

Barnett quips, “I’m slowly turning into a pile of dust.”

Barnett also helms the Armageddon Shop label, which, since 2010, has released such current bands as Elder and Magic Circle and repressed Deep Wound, Fit For Abuse, and Brainbombs.

Barnett states, “The shop label is way more active than what I do. That’s just to keep Dropdead stuff in print and have something to sell at shows.” They also build their brand, for lack of a better term, by featuring live bands—seriously big bands—from all corners of the globe.

Barnett and company just do it because they like having shows for kids—and really old dudes—to enjoy. Andries confirms, “Shows we just do for town and for fun.”

Armageddon has always sold all formats and genres, despite what tidal fads are crashing on the sands of the market. Appearing as a paradox, Armageddon casts a wide net while remaining niche. Today, visitors come in talking about old jazz CDs and Allison Kraus. On another day, some guy just wants to talk ‘70s metal.

But their foundation is the music fan, the record buyer. “People who come in every week; dudes who buy a bit of everything. They come for an hour and hang,” Andries says, adding that it’s “still metal dudes who buy CDs. That’s still a thing.

It’s hard to put a finger on which genre we sell the most.”

Barnett laughs with satiated pride, “Somebody today came in and bought three CDs. It was a perfect Armageddon pile: a Geto Boys CD, a black metal CD, and an F.U.s CD. This is exactly what it’s supposed to be. Three totally different things. One person. All cool shit.”

NEW NOISE 67

NEW NOISE BOOK NOOK PRESENTS...

“From 1983 to 1988, I did xXx. It was an entry point or my way of participating in a scene that, from a musical and ideological point, completely spoke to me. The zine lasted 20 issues over six years,” Gitter distills his pitch. “My emphasis was having a strong pictorial content and the writing not being bad, and we covered a lot of stuff as well.”

INTERVIEW WITH AUTHOR MIKE GITTER

BY HUTCH

M

ike Gitter is from a suburban Boston town called Marblehead on the North Shore, which juts into the Atlantic. As an energetic teen, he was immediately drawn to the raucous music spewing from Boston.

Represented by bands such as The F.U.’s, Gang Green, Jerry’s Kids, The Freeze, The Proletariat, Negative FX, Last Rights, D.Y.S., and, of course, SS Decontrol, the Boston scene was nefarious. Its notorious crew built a reputation that spread all the way to New York and D.C. The brotherhood of

hardcore and punk—and straight edge, for some—solidified this cohesive bond, but Gitter loved it all: every band from either coast.

As 1983 began to stretch, many people involved were growing bored with hardcore, but Gitter embraced this next impending wave of hardcore punk and documented it throughout the decade. Now, Bridge Nine Records founder Chris Wrenn and Gitter have joined forces to print a gorgeous hardcover collection of Gitter’s work, released Nov. 10.

Gitter explains that he and Wrenn extracted two interviews from each issue. They would need to track down photographers to get new pictures and add commentary on the 30-yearold material. The project was first discussed by Wrenn around 2007, but setbacks happened. In 2012, Gitter was “surveying hundreds of mostly unseen photographs. Lots of flyers. Lots of stickers” when he was prodded to contact Wrenn again.

Though Revelation Records were also interested in publishing the xXx collection, Gitter divulges that he “felt a draw to go with Bridge Nine. First, it’s a Boston hardcore label. Second, it is one of the best-realized and run underground music labels in America. […] Great label, great people. It was the right place to put this book.”

They decided six to seven months of work would be needed, but that estimate forfeited to the reality of the four and a half years it took to gather materials. A whopping 288 pages were needed to capture even the trimmed two-bands-per-issue approach, which lent substance to the highlights of this punk journal. Gitter himself was moved by the tangible product encapsulating his youth’s efforts. “I just a got a copy of

it,” he says, “the final hardbound, fourpound, 11-inch by 11-inch beast. I’m very proud of the results.” Thirty years later, this edition sat in Gitter’s hands, beautifully edited and designed by Wrenn in stark red, white, and black.

“It feels like part of my journey has come full circle,” he adds. “One gets to reconnect the reasons and motivations and that naïve sense of wonder that, as a young person, you approach music with: that once in a lifetime feeling of ‘This record is speaking to me.’”

“Stepping back from the book, I was most pleased with how varied those scenes were, the depth of those scenes,” he continues. “You got the sign-off from hardcore’s first generation, but you got the metal punk crossover, New York hardcore, youth crew, indie rock.” Gitter revels in the splintered genres and residual scenes generated from his Boston hometown. The other benefit of resurrecting xXx was that it “brought me back in touch with friends and acquaintances,” he notes. Gitter was excited by “Bubba Dupree [of Void] coming to my office and talking about the never-released second Void album. Or being on the phone with Greg Graffin [of Bad Religion], how ambitious and instrumental and influential they were as the beloved punk band that re-sparked punk rock in Southern California with Suffer in 1987.”

Ultimately, Gitter’s trajectory through nostalgia and fascinating memories finds him existing again as a fervent adolescent, trying to watch and produce simultaneously in this subculture in which so many have found solidarity and an outlet. In conclusion, he boils it down to a single record: SSD’s Kids Will Have Their Say. “In 1982, as a teenager, from the music to the lyricws to the artwork to what the band was about to the scene that record created to their impact on the world,” Gitter is in continuous awe of it all.

“Mind you, this is from people who live one town over from me,” he adds.

“Seeing people you know having that impact, that’s liberation. Being able to make a difference or writing your own script as a young person—I recaptured that feeling.”

68 NEW NOISE

INTERVIEW WITH TOM MULLEN OF WASHED UP EMO BY JOHN SILVA

T

he connotations of the word “emo” have evolved over the years. It was once used to define emotional post-punk bands— predominantly in the Midwest—such as The Promise Ring or American Football. But at a certain point in the early to mid-2000s, emo took on a new meaning. Many of those seminal groups were pushed aside, and emo became associated with the bands gracing the cover of Alternative Press and the front window of Hot Topic.

Music industry professional Tom Mullen started the Washed Up Emo blog and podcast during a time when people had largely forgotten about the emo bands of the ‘90s. Alternative music circles had adopted a new view of emo, and it wasn’t positive, with many punk fans viewing the redefined genre as a corny and juvenile expression of teen angst. “There is a tendency to see that word and for a person to think of one set era of bands,” Mullen says. He compares it to the way the Oscars don’t take comedy films as seriously as dramas, adding, “I think the genre is not respected; I think it’s given a slight. It’s given a marginalization versus other genres.”

Mullen set out to assemble the “Anthology of Emo: Volume 1” to counter the false perceptions of the genre that evolved throughout the 2000s. Several years after starting the Washed Up Emo podcast, Mullen had an arsenal of interviews with genre pioneers. Ten of those interviews were transcribed and make up this first volume. “I had originally thought about [writing] a history book,” he says, “[but] I realized I have a full-time job and not really enough time to do that if I still needed to pay my rent.” Mullen then realized he could simply leverage the content

he already had. “‘I’ve already got these stories,’” he thought. “‘Why don’t I put them together and, in volumes, show the history of the genre through these interviews? Because the interviews themselves are evergreen.’”

The interviews in “Volume 1” tend to focus on icons from the early days of the genre, but Mullen says that in subsequent volumes, he will likely include newer acts from the emo revival of the past decade. The number of future volumes depends, in part, on the success of “Volume 1,” as the process of putting the book together has been just as DIY as the bands it covers. “I did this all out of my own pocket,” he shares. “I hired my own PR person. I hired the designer. I don’t have anyone funding it, and I didn’t do a GoFundMe; I didn’t want to do it that way. I want [people] to buy the book and get something.”

Mullen says he is a firm believer that good things happen when you do the work you love. That passion gives him the drive to continue educating people about the music he adores. “If one person takes up the book and understands the genre a little bit more and understands that it’s bigger than what they might think it is, regardless of what era they love, then I’ve won,” he says.

Perhaps he has already won. Over the past decade, many bands have formed who sound quite similar to the emo veterans from 20 years ago. There is something about the music of the ‘90s that clicks with younger artists.

“There’s a validity and an [honesty] to that time period, and I think it resonated,” Mullen says. “It’s awesome to feel that those bands are still mentioned, those bands are still revered, and to have a younger person see that is amazing.”

INTERVIEW WITH PUBLISHER AARON TANNER

BY JOHN B. MOORE

W

hen Face To Face founder Trever Keith was looking for an inspired way to celebrate his band’s 25th anniversary, fellow musician and graphic designer turned independent publisher Aaron Tanner was one of the first people he thought of.

Tanner originally established his company, Melodic Virtue, as a graphic design studio in 2004. “For a number of years, Melodic Virtue provided design services for bands and labels, but ultimately, I still wasn’t satisfied,” he says. “That’s when I decided to shift the focus of my business and became a book publisher. But unlike most publishers, I want to exclusively focus on bands and their visual histories. Fast-forward through a year of preplanning, I pulled the trigger and made the announcement to all of my clients that I was no longer available for hire.”

That’s when Keith reached out. “He and I had worked on a few things together over the years,” Tanner explains, “but he was looking for a way to celebrate his band’s 25th anniversary, and I was looking to start publishing books. The timing couldn’t have been better.”

The result is “Face To Face: 25 Years of SoCal Punk, The Visual History,” a stunning nine-inch by nine-inch hardcover coffee table book that follows the band’s evolution—from their start in Victorville, California, through their 2008 reunion to the present. The book is crammed with rare photos, artwork, and other memorabilia and features exclusive stories from contemporaries and fans, including members of Rise Against,

Dashboard Confessional, Say Anything, and Less Than Jake. A limited run of 1,000 copies was released on Dec. 1.

“Face To Face is a band I’ve known about since 1996,” Tanner says.

“My first exposure to them was on the Saturday Morning: Cartoons’ Greatest Hits compilation. It was a pretty goofy album, but had a fantastic lineup: Matthew Sweet, Butthole Surfers, Helmet, Ramones, Violent Femmes, and Face To Face. While I’ve never been a huge fan of punk, after getting to know the guys and listening to their music regularly throughout this process, I can wholeheartedly say that I am a Face To Face fan now.”

The photos in the book were gathered from past and present members of the band, people they’ve worked with over the years, professional photographers, and fans. Tanner also reached out directly to the poster designers they’ve worked with, legends like Shepard Fairey, Jim Evans—a.k.a. TAZ—and Frank Kozik.

When selecting musicians to quote throughout the book, there were plenty to choose from. “All of the musicians who submitted quotes have a connection to the band in one way or another,” Tanner says. “Some have toured with Face To Face, and others were early fans who were so heavily inspired by the band that they decided to form bands of their own. It was great to learn how much impact this band has had on so many other wellknown acts.”

NEW NOISE 69

SPLITS THE RAGING NATHANS / PIZZATRAMP: SPLIT 7”: RAD GIRLFRIEND RECORDS Out Feb. 2, this four-track split from Ohio grump-punks The Raging Nathans and South Wales’ Black Flag-influenced skate punk trio, Pizzatramp, is a pissed-off, middle-fingers-in-the-air, beer-canchucking, halfpipe-shredding rager. Pooling punk aggression from both sides of the pond, it will leave you wondering whether to angry-tweet 45 or the Queen—or both! “Our side is two songs leftover from the Cheap Fame recording sessions,” Raging Nathans vocalist and guitarist Josh Goldman says. “We had one other leftover song that went on a four-way split with some European bands. Trashcan—from the legendary Lima, [Ohio], grindcore band, PIZZAHIFIVE—did the artwork.” –Tim Anderl

EPs GATECREEPER: SWELTERING MADNESS: CLOSED CASKET ACTIVITIES Arizona’s Gatecreeper just closed out a national tour opening for Cannibal Corpse—and buddies, Power Trip—and gave us some new material to indulge our misanthropic moshing. Delivering these Kurt Balloumixed recordings on vinyl for the first time—with artwork by Visions Beyond Darkness—Gatecreeper offer two tracks of hardcore-inspired death metal to remind fans why their full-length debut, Sonoran Depravation, blindsided metal communities in 2016. Closed Casket Activities presses 250 on hot pink in “Highlighter Yellow”; 500 on “Swamp Green,” splattered with silver; and 750 on clear with black splatter.

Released Nov. 21. –Hutch

REISSUES FRIENDSHIP: HATRED: SOUTHERN LORD RECORDINGS If a grindcore band shredded with dial-up internet modems instead of guitars, one could argue they picked up where Japanese outfit, Friendship, left off. The band’s debut LP, Hatred, punishes listeners with high-pitched amplifier feedback accented by disgustingly heavy rhythm guitars, blast beats, and guttural screams. Most songs are less than two minutes in length, and consequently, riffs change rapidly and rarely repeat. Hatred is raw and straight to the point, but also highly creative and dynamic. The LP was issued on CD in June by Japan’s Daymare Recordings, then on vinyl via Southern Lord Oct. 20. –Andrew Humphrey

HOT SNAKES: AUTOMATIC MIDNIGHT, SUICIDE INVOICE, AND AUDIT IN PROGRESS: SUB POP RECORDS Hot Snakes are alive and well and hitting 2018 hard. Come Jan. 19, Sub Pop will reissue their three classic full-lengths—Automatic Midnight, Suicide Invoice, and Audit In Progress—on CD, vinyl, cassette, and digital download. The new year also takes them back on the road for a nine-day stint in the U.K. They’re touring with both drummers and cruising through hit after hit with barely any time to clap, blink, or breathe as they tear through their sets. The reissues are currently available for preorder through Sub Pop, and the LPs come with a new sticker set and a single-pocket jacket with custom dust sleeve. There’s even a new t-shirt design ready for preorder as well! –Kayla Greet

70 NEW NOISE

NOCTURNAL GRAVES: SATAN’S CROSS: SEASON OF MIST These death metal demons from Down Under—Australia, that is—are rereleasing a classic album to share with their fans. “For a long while, we have received regular requests from fans and labels alike about repressing the Satan’s Cross album, which has been out of print for many years now,” Nocturnal Graves explain. “We are proud to have it rereleased through Season Of Mist, and for this occasion, we have included the preproduction demo, which includes raw and untamed versions of many of the album tracks.”

This rerelease is long-awaited by fans and promises to bring a crisper version of its previous brutality with the new remasters. Available on 12” clear vinyl Dec. 8. –Addison Herron-Wheeler RICHARD HELL AND THE VOIDOIDS: BLANK GENERATION: 40TH ANNIVERSARY DELUXE EDITION: RHINO ENTERTAINMENT Every punk rock mom or dad will tell you: if you don’t know Richard Hell And The Voidoids, you don’t know good music—or, at the very least, you are missing a major piece of the puzzle when it comes to the foundations of punk. Blank Generation is one of the albums that defined the early New York sound. Now, you can score the entire record, remastered and tuned up beyond its former glory.

Even better, this 40th anniversary edition is available on double-LP deluxe edition gatefold, along with an extensive interview with Hell himself and never-before-seen excerpts from his notebooks.

Put simply, this is the perfect gift for any punk nerd. Released Nov. 24. –Addison Herron-Wheeler

RARITIES, BEST OFs, AND OTHER FUN STUFF ANGEL OLSEN: PHASES: JAGJAGUWAR Indie singer Angel Olsen’s Phases is a rarities album released through Jagjaguwar on Nov. 10 that shows off 11 of her lesser-known songs. It also includes a new one: “Special,” a ballad about wanting more out of life that starts slow, but rocks hard as it reaches the backend of its seven-plus minutes. The pace picks up around track six with “Sweet Dreams,” a brutally honest Jefferson Airplane-sounding selection from her 2013 Sleepwalker 7”, which then leads into “California,” the lighter-sounding B-side of the same record. Olsen brings it home with a dreary-but-hopeful folk tune, Burn Your Fire for No Witness bonus track “Endless Road.” Available on olive green or black vinyl, CD, and digital formats. –Cody Fitzpatrick SWINGIN’ UTTERS: DROWNING IN THE SEA, RISING WITH THE SUN: FAT WRECK CHORDS Three decades into their career, one of the Bay Area’s longest-running punk bands are finally set to release a Best Of album. They have whittled the track list down to 33 selections, an impressive feat given how many great songs the band have to their name. Out via Fat Wreck Chords on LP, CD, and digitally on Dec. 8, Drowning in the Sea, Rising With the Sun serves as a great primer to 2018, with Swingin’ Utters planning to record and release new music and tour throughout the year.

–John B. Moore DIMEBAG DARRELL: “DIMEVISION VOL. 2: ROLL WITH IT OR GET ROLLED OVER”: METAL BLADE RECORDS Fans were given a glimpse behind the scenes of Dimebag Darrell’s life with 2006’s “Dimevision Vol. 1: That’s The Fun I Have.” The Nov. 24 release of “Vol. 2: Roll With It or Get Rolled Over” will no doubt please Dimebag stans just as much. Like its predecessor, the second Dimevision is chock-full of video footage.

“He had a unique way of seeing things, and he always lived with a video camera,” his long-time girlfriend Rita Haney says. “In putting out these videos, I just want people to see the way he was 24/7. What you saw onstage and backstage, that was how he lived.” Along with a DVD, “Vol. 2” comes with a CD containing five previously unheard demos. –Mike Gaworecki STRIFE: LIVE AT THE TROUBADOUR: WAR RECORDS One of the fiercest and most passionate hardcore bands of the ‘90s still conjure fury and intensity with recent killers like the 2012 Witness a Rebirth LP and 2015 Incision EP. In 2005, Strife recorded a furious live set in their home base of Los Angeles. Recorded, mixed, and mastered on 24-tracks—and filmed on five cameras—the intimidating 43-minute set finds Strife reaching into their landmark three albums: 1994’s One Truth, 1997’s In This Defiance, and 2001’s Angermeans. WAR Records issued this for Record Store Day and Black Friday on Nov. 24. Prepare for stage-dives, pile-ons, and finger-pointing to blistering anthems in your own living room. –Hutch

NEW NOISE 71

ANATOMIA: CRANIAL OBSESSION: CALIGARI RECORDS Japanese rippers Anatomia make death metal that feels like ‘80s sci-fi.

Crackly riffs hypnotize within a dark and arty semblance, while progressive and experimental doom extensions move at glacial speeds. Headbangers and psychedelic bursts intertwine to pace to and fro in your skull, around the meaty brain stem, and on toward the inner-soul—which an invisible nightmare surgeon wearing hot pink tights has sold. You’re basically along for the ride, and it gets sharp and edgy, a punk-inspired death metal that is dangerous and stirring. Anatomia have been around since 2002: they’re one of the best groups out there. You’ll be ripped and moved.

MOURNING: DEMO: CALIGARI RECORDS Mourning’s debut is short—three songs of crusty old-school hardcore—but it packs a punch. This is some lean and mean death metal-inspired punk rock, complete with film soundtrack intros, thick bass, and thrashing grooves. The aura is ‘80s and early ‘90s, with barrel riffs, big and fast drums, and vocals that soar and conceptualize angst and fury—and fun. This demo is a good time, first and foremost, and you’ll be flipping it from side to side over and over like you’re in the 1997 Molly’s Balloon dish pit—complete with the sweat, the stink, and the realization that monsters run the world, and it’s your journey to find inner-truth and justice in a corrupt society. Twenty years later, things have only gotten infinitely worse on the outside: all the more reason to give yourself some internal therapy with a tape like this.

72 NEW NOISE

SHREDDED NERVE: TROJAN SELF IMAGE: CHONDRITIC SOUND Shredded Nerve are out of Ohio, but their sound is not Midwestern. It sounds like the landscape the Cenobites come from in “Hellraiser.” This is some scary stuff. There’s a piercing and repetitive twitch to the two tracks that make up Trojan Self Image, with enough variance and diversion to make you appreciate the symbolism and rebellion in the otherwise—and possibly overlooked—acute quality of the structure of the tape. One assumes Shredded Nerve are ultimately about extension and breaking through the chains and barriers that hold humans in place. That’s why noise is really cool, because it really makes use of your imagination. The viewer and the artist must work equally hard to make sense of this stuff. You will probably never find any answers, but it’s the journey that counts.

GRID (NELSON, DAHL, PODGURSKI): GRID: NNA TAPES Offering New York City free jazz that delves into the dark, gritty corners of the subway and beyond, GRID are Matt Nelson on sax, Tim Dahl on bass, and Nick Podgurski on drums—and the trio rip it hard. Their debut self-titled record is four tracks of edgy Last Exit, Naked City-inspired dark jazz, but it formulates as its own singular expression, with carefully manipulated effects and slow and maddening timing. Nelson plays a mountainous sax that builds glacially: widening, then suffocating when you least expect it. Dahl’s bass is low, low, low: covering each song like a musty gel that sticks and dampens. Podgurski is modern art on the skins: cubistic, then flowing, accentuating evenly and then diverting. This is a great cassette from a really cool Burlington, Vermont-based label.