Ghost Cult once again brings you another “End Of Year” list, as we close out 2016. Today we get a list from David Gates of Nashville sludge and doom rockers Season Of Arrows. The band just signed a new record deal with Argonauta Records, Give it to the Mountain, due out on March 24th 2017. David puts down his axe, and picked up his laptop to send us in his essential list of albums from this past year, and it’s killer!Continue reading
From what I gather, Candiria’s new album (and first proper LP since 2009’s Kiss the Lie), While They Were Sleeping (Metal Blade) is a concept album centered on a “failed musician who rises up against a monarchy in New York City.” While that is a novel concept to dedicate an album to, you wonder is there are any parallels with Candiria’s own near-tragic story.Continue reading
False Flags 2015
As the build-up continues ahead of the release of False Flags‘ debut mini-album Hexmachine, Ghost Cult are pleased to continue our association with the technical-hardcore miscreants from northern England by bringing you the stream of a new track, ‘Pet Wolf’ from the soon to be released mini-album.
Ghost Cult recently caught up with vocalist Chris Jenkinson (in a feature you can read here), who had this to say about the subject matter of their new outpouring:
The lyrics are kind of weird, really. Each song has a theme but they’re not really about anything in particular. Most of the time we come up with the title first, then I try to write around that. Charlie came in one day and said “Can we call a song ‘Pet Wolf’?” So that ended up being about one of my Chihuahuas being a little shit!
I’m a big fan of lyricists like Cedric Bixler (The Mars Volta) and John Congleton (The Paperchase) so I try to do that “interpret it how you like” kind of thing.
False Flags – ‘Pet Wolf’
Hexmachine, which the band will be releasing themselves, spurts abrasive, disjointed rock and takes inspiration from the likes of Unsane, Breather Resist, Botch and Coalesce. It will be released on 20th November.
The album launch show takes place at Bad Apples in Leeds, also on 20th November.
Call it unpredictable, call it spazzy, call it powerful, and in the case of Employed To Serve, call it where it’s at. Polyrhythmic, aggressive, acerbic and ascending, hailing from Woking, England, a very “nice” and Conservative (both capital and lower case C) part of the country, Employed To Serve are lighting a fire and blazing a path on their debut album Greyer Than You Remember (Holy Roar) and introduced themselves to Ghost Cult.
While progressive / technical hardcore is this years’ Sludge Metal in terms of being bang on trend, there is enough about Employed To Serve to suggest that the critical acclaim isn’t due to them being in the right time at the right place, with Employed To Serve in it for the long haul. “Not being concerned about being a leader or keeping up with the trend is a good way of keeping the longevity of a band” is the bands collective response. “We never really set out to be a technical hardcore/post hardcore/whatevercore band it just happened from growing up loving bands like Meshuggah, Botch, Norma Jean etc.”
“Employed To Serve is the embodiment of that kid who had so many aspirations growing up, but they got lost somewhere along the way to being an adult and they eventually succumb to the norm of working a job where you’re under appreciated and hate every minute”, state the quintet, showing the negatives of a “Nice” middle-England existence. The band name, song/album titles, all indicate a very cynical view of life. “We only write about topics that are close to home so there’s weight behind our lyrics and songs in general.”
“At the end of the day the reason why we play music is so people can listen to it. Hardcore/metal is supposed to be a sanctuary for all the people who didn’t quite fit in or wanted to listen to something more challenging. We would never want ETS to be perceived as an ‘elitist’ band whereby we turn our noses up at someone who couldn’t name the first Cannibal Corpse album (Eaten Back To Life 😉 ) or someone wearing a Black Veil Brides shirt at one of our shows.”
Read Ghost Cult’s review of ‘Greyer Than You Remember’ (out now on Holy Roar) here.
Employed To Serve live:
Jun 25: Ekko, Utrecht, Netherlands w/ Rolo Tomassi
Jun 26: Asteriks, Leeuwarden, Netherlands w/ Rolo Tomassi
Jun 27: Capsloc, Cappelle Aan Den Ijssel, Netherlands w/ Rolo Tomassi
28 Jun JC Kavka, Antwerpen, Belgium w/ Rolo Tomassi
09 Jul Camden Underworld, London, UK w/ Biohazard
STEVE TOVEY
When a band describes themselves as “music for troubled weirdos”, it’s pretty safe to assume we don’t have the next incarnation of Mötley Crüe on our hands. Brooklyn-based trio Meek is Murder look like they would be happier engaging in a mammoth World of Warcraft session then doing blow with hookers on the Sunset Strip but that’s not to say the music they make won’t get one hell of a party started, for new double EP release Onward/Into the Sun (Rising Pulse) is one of the most exciting things you’ll hear all year.
Known for their blink and you’ll miss it song lengths seemingly tailor made for the ADHD brigade, Meek is Murder play a raucous style of mathcore that will have fans of early Botch and Converge foaming at the mouth with wide-eyed delight. It’s no surprise that the band has previously worked with producer extraordinaire Kurt Ballou, for his influence is all over the brief tracks that comprise first EP Onward, from the lurching dissonance of ‘Foreword’ to the manic violence of ‘Downward’ which features some seriously heavy drumming and a devastating false ending that will have circle pits erupting in any sweaty basement it is dropped live.
The other EP in this release Into the Sun actually came out in 2012 so the re-issue here is a welcome one to those who missed out the first time. A tribute to classic 80s sci-fi flicks Aliens and Back to the Future, this effort is a tad more emotive and plays around with slower tempos than Onward, but is still madder than a box of frogs as the hyperactive ‘Doctor Emmett Brown (Endless in Our Fleeting)’ demonstrates.
This kind of hardcore works best in short, sharp snippets and Meek is Murder have clearly done their homework. At only fifteen minutes in length but with more going on than it’s possible to mention, Onward/Into the Sun shows a band bursting with ideas and incapable of sitting still.
8.0/10
JAMES CONWAY
San Diego band, Globe And Beast released their first full length Grandfather’s Axe on March 19th, 2013 through Melotov Records, following their 3 track demo Tides in 2011. Just the fact that it was recorded and mixed by Alex Estrada at The Earth Capital, an engineer/producer who’s worked with the likes of Touche Amore and Nails led me to think, damn, it’s got to be good.Continue reading
With their previous album Canadian sludge/noisecore outfit KEN Mode made quite an impression. Their latest record, entitled Entrench, is another mucial tour-de-force. Ghost Cult caught up with with guitarist/vocalist Jesse Matthewson to see what’s going on in the KEN Mode world..