When someone uses the words “It’s a grower”, it is invariably journalistic shorthand for a record that they wish they liked more than they did on first listen. There are lots of reasons for this: the time taken to listen properly to the music may not have been as acute as required; the fact your mates like it more than you do may now be playing, rather unhelpfully, on your mind. You get the drift. Continue reading
The British Metal scene has well and truly been spoilt for choice when it comes to exciting and hugely important releases in recent years. Whether it being in the case of killer new bands causing waves on their first full release such as Venom Prison or The King Is Blind or follow-ups that build massively on the previous potential such as Employed To Serve or Architects with All Our Gods Have Abandoned Us (Epitaph), British Metal has shown its greatest period of abundance for quite some time. Continue reading
As the dust begins to settle on what will undoubtedly go down in a history as a fine year for heavy and progressive music, the Ghost Cult crew present our favourite albums of 2017. While a year with only a couple of genuine life-changing, genre redefiners, nevertheless 2017 has seen an absolute plethora of very, very high quality releases. With over 400 albums reviewed this year, at an average of 7.5/10, there was a deep pool of quality releases selected and dissected throughout the year. A genuinely democratic inner sanctum here, we now present Part 1 of an official Ghost Cult Album of the Year (2017) run down that s truly representative of Ghost Cult, our writers, and our musical position as a site. Please share your thoughts and comments on the music we collectively love, as we countdown from 50 through to 26…Continue reading
An oft-used phrase is that a band/song feels like it’s going to fall off the cliff at any moment. Well, Aussie Hardcore punks Idylls are back once again to make your brains descend from your earholes, actively looking for the precipice, and then some, with their new album The Barn (Holy Roar). Continue reading
Running at around the 22-minute mark you’d be forgiven for thinking that Debt by Helpless (Holy Roar) would be somewhat light on the ground. You’d be wrong, what’s on offer is in fact incredibly densely packed and utterly intense assault on the senses. From opening track ‘Worth’ until the last track ‘Denied Sale’ there is one of the rawest and intense musical experiences I’ve heard in a long while. Simply put if this album was any longer it could be legitimately dangerous. Continue reading
Following a few excessively raw and highly abrasive EPs, the UK’s Employed To Serve turned a few heads in 2015 with the release of their hungry—nay, starving and salivating—debut full-length Greyer Than You Remember. Now, with The Warmth Of A Dying Sun (both Holy Roar), they are poised to turn quite a few more.Continue reading
It’s an unquantifiable, ethereal thing, is atmosphere. It is can be created accidentally, or cultivated with utmost planning and precision, and shattered and changed by the slightest inaccuracy being present. It’s clear from the shimmering clean guitar note that slips into understated vocal of intro/opener ‘Shadows In Hibernation’ that on their début album Silently, I Threw Them Skywards (Holy Roar) Brighton, UK, based quintet We Never Learned To Live are meticulously aiming for a pervading atmosphere of deep, immersive melancholy.
To achieve this, there is detail and precision at every step of their emo-meets-post-rock catharsis, and that an incredible amount of thought has gone into things, from the reflective and meditative backing and complimentary guitars to the connections and meanderings that link the songs. At their peak, such as on the jangling, progressive, Karnivool-esque ‘Vesalius’, WNLTL show not just an understanding of how to meld post-rock and depressive music into a meaningful output, but also that they are able to craft it into songs that provoke the desired response in the listener of drawing them away from the outside world into the introspection and immersion required to genuinely get something out of this music.
Yet, fastidiousness doesn’t always equal results, particularly not emotive ones, in the music field, and constancy is even harder to maintain than atmosphere. Sean Mahon’s vocals are inconsistent, jarring and grating as often as his flat cleans croon down another cul-de-sac. Alongside this, the creation of a continuous, similar soundscape serves to feed the feeling of monotony; as, alongside a re-occurring lack of vocal hooks – and I don’t necessarily mean choruses – there is a gaping hole in terms of dynamics (having a section that comes in with a bit of shouting and a some distorted chords is not a crescendo), and the song-writing element seems to have been lost in amongst the being neat (and boring).
Post-rock, particularly of the more morose, introverted kind, treads a fine line at the best of times, and despite moments of promise, We Never Learned To Live, more often than not, are unable to consistently produce the emotive, powerful compositions required to stand out in this field; fading, as with several of their tunes, into the background, defined as much by their inadequacies as their strengths.
5.5/10
STEVE TOVEY
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
Whilst all the talk around ‘Technical’ Hardcore may well be surrounding Palm Reader at the moment, and deservedly so, don’t let that stop you exploring other releases of the same ilk. Delivering that violently erratic smash-mouth style a la The Dillinger Escape Plan, Employed To Serve’s breed of music will hit you square between the eyes right from the word go.
The opening few tracks pretty much set the tone for the rest of the album – the band doing their upmost to not go down a path whereby you can predict what comes next. They’ve shunned the idea of a ‘normal’ song structure and instead launch through complicated arrangements, and mind bending riffs. A lot of the time, this level of description ends up putting people off checking this kind of music out, and like many of the bands playing a similar style will attest to, it can take time to get in to it. If you take the time around an album like this you will feel rewarded and some of these tracks won’t just become fodder to skip through on shuffle. Alongside the Dillinger type vibes on this album, there is an all round sense of bleakness, something made instantly plain by the track names, ‘Watching Films To Forget I Exist’ and ‘Greyer Than You Remember’ serving as clear examples. The absolute star of the show across the album is vocalist Justine Jones who delivers a performance containing so much venom you get a genuine sense that had she not been involved it would have been a lesser album as a result.
Overall then, this is some seriously high quality Hardcore music, whether you want to throw them into the Technical Hardcore bracket or Post Hardcore, it doesn’t matter – Greyer Than You Remember (Holy Roar) genuinely an exciting album which will hopefully hoist Employed To Serve on to more of people’s radars.
8.5/10
TOM DONNO