Protest The Hero‘s second studio album, Fortress, came out back in 2008, and they’ve decided to celebrate its 10th Anniversary next year by performing it live in its entirety! Continue reading
Tag Archives: Protest The Hero
November 18th, 2016 Heavy Metal Releases
Hear August Burns Red’s Amazing Christmas Cover – What Child Is This
Metalcore leaders August Burns Red drop a classic Christmas song cover every year. This year they have have released a take on ‘What Child Is This?’ (Greensleeves)’ to brighten your holiday spirits. Continue reading
Protest The Hero Announces The Pacific Myth North American Tour
Protest The Hero will be releasing Pacific Myth on Friday via Razor & Tie, and they’ve finally revealed the dates for their highly anticipated North American tour in support of the upcoming EP.Continue reading
Audio: Protest The Hero Releases Harbinger From Pacific Myth
Protest The Hero recently announced that they would be releasing Pacific Myth on November 18th via Razor & Tie. Continue reading
Valleys – Experiment One: Asylum
I had been listening to up and coming North Carolina based prog metallers Valleys and to review their ambitious début full-length new album, playing Experiment One: Asylum on a loop and making my notes as I usually do before putting fingers on keys. Then tragedy struck as Valleys co-frontman of Mikey Clements was killed just a week before the release in a tragic accident. Bravely the band is moving forward, treating the release of the album and future gigs as a tribute to their fallen friend.
Genre mashing used to be out of the ordinary in music, and now as a concession to music fans’ fickle tastes and attention spans, it is the norm. Valleys call themselves progressive metal, and they are a modern prog band. But in addition to sounds inspired by bands like Coheed and Cambria, Tesseract, and Protest The Hero; they also blend in electronics, deathcore and other stuff in the mix. It works well, producing solid songs, and not being too all over the place that they lack cohesion. They also display some high-level muscianship, which is needed to pull off these type of songs in the first place.
More impressive, Experiment One: Asylum is a concept album about suffering from schizophrenia/BPD/multi-personality disorder and a personal descent as a result of it. In this time in our world when people are quick to dismiss and stigmatize mental illness, this is very topical. The album opens up with several strong songs in a row with ‘A Tension’, ‘Unraveling’ and ‘Desperate Me’. Energetic riffs, off-time meters, and stop/start tempos abound and the tracks get even better on repeated listens. ‘Take Me Home’ is the high point of the album, and will call to mind Veil of Maya and Linkin Park, mixing up the brutal gutturals with clean lines traded between Clements and Jayson Mitchell. This band can play brutal, but their ability to write the a super catchy chorus is something to make note of, possibly leading them to great heights someday. Closer ‘The Death Of Me’ is also a very impressive tune.
Hopefully Valleys are just getting started on their path and can find a away through this hardship and pain to keep going. It seems like Experiment One: Asylum is exactly the medicine they might need right now.
7.0/10
KEITH CHACHKES
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Born of Osiris – Soul Sphere
Deathcore’s a funny scene. Like many of the fusion subgenres, it often fails to find a convincingly cohesive sound amidst the disparate elements that the bands are trying to marry together. What you usually end up getting is a bit like a kit car built by 5 guys with ADHD who’ve turned up with parts from 3 or 4 different manufacturers and half the required tools.
The first three albums of Chicago’s Born of Osiris certainly suffer from this syndrome, feeling bitty, derivative and repetitive. 2013 marked a turning point for the band with the release of the bemusingly-titled Tomorrow We Die Alive (Sumerian). Whilst still a soup of djenty math- and deathcore, the songs gelled more satisfyingly than the predecessors through stronger song-writing and expanded use of keyboard and synth sounds. They finally sounded like a proper band, rather than a group of music nerds showing off to each other.
Encouragingly, Soul Sphere (Sumerian) continues this development (as one would expect from a band with a 12-year career spanning 5 albums). The main evolution here is the death metal part of their sound is much more at the fore, with strong elements of Soundtrack-era In Flames (Toy’s Factory). The math bits also integrate much better with the rest of the parts, sounding more like lead-ins and accompaniment rather than random ejaculations of musical Tourette’s Syndrome. Less Dillinger Escape Plan, more Protest The Hero. I also wonder if someone in the band’s been listening to J-Metal (a wise move, as there’s a scene that effortlessly manages the kind of musical alchemy hoped for by <insert-flavour-of-the-month>core bands), as the keyboards have more spacey feel and greater presence across the album and serve to add more glue to the sound, providing firmer grounding and context for each song.
Soul Sphere‘s opener ‘The Other Half Of Me’ showcases the band’s progress beautifully. The 80’s horror intro floats throughout the piece, binding the rest of the track together into a symphonic slice of Gothenburg goodness that would do any of the Swedes proud. ‘Throw Me In The Jungle’ is an equally strong follow-up in the same vein, but with slightly more emphasis on math. ‘Free Fall’ harks back to their earlier work, but clever use of synth and industrial guitar effects produce a sound that is both consistent and original; an impressive feat, given what’s in the pot.
‘Illuminate’ is slightly disappointing, as it starts off sounding like a continuation of the previous track and would have benefited from being placed later in the album but ‘The Sleeping And The Dead’ changes gear into straight-up djent from the heavy end of the stable and ‘Tidebinder’ proves that it is possible to successfully combine melodic death with djent metalcore. Seriously Nice.
‘Resilience’ dusts off the math chops for a noodlefest very reminiscent of Protest The Hero. ‘Goddess Of The Dawn’ is a blueprint for what the genre should be. All the elements are present, but working seamlessly with each other to produce a deft end result which finally transcends the sum of its parts. ‘The Louder The Sound, The More We All Believe’ is straight melodic death that sounds like it could have been on In Flames‘ Soundtrack To Your Escape. ‘Warlords’ is funky djent. ‘River Of Time’ is a bombastic salute to symphonic metal. ‘The Composer’ closes the show with another reversion to previous fractious form, but once again being saved by the excellent synth work, which is given centre stage for an outtro that wouldn’t sound out of place on a Blood Stain Child album.
This is seriously good stuff. Put it in your ears immediately.
8.0/10
PHILIP PAGE
The Contortionist Streaming “Primordial Sound” Video, Euro Tour With Protest The Hero & The Faceless
The Contortionist is streaming their new video for “Primordial Sound” here.
The band is gearing up to hit the road with PROTEST THE HERO and The Faceless in Europe starting this week.
Dec 04: Trabendo – Paris (France)
Dec 05: Substage – Karlsruhe (Germany)
Dec 06: Live Forum – Milano (Italy)
Dec 07: Traffic Club – Roma (Italy)
Dec 08: Backstage – Munchen (Germany)
Dec 09: Arena – Wien (Austria)
Dec 10: L’Usine – Geneva (Switzerland)
Dec 12: Gaswerk Kulturzentrum – Winterthur (Switzerland)
Dec 13: Waraudio – Lyon (France)
Modern Proggers The Contortionist release video for ‘Primordial Sound’
Melancholic progressive rock band The Contortionist, who hail from Indianapolis, have released a video for the track ‘Primordial Sound’, taken from the album Language (eOne), an album rated 9/10 by Ghost Cult on its release earlier in the year (review here)
The band, who are currently on tour round Europe with Protest The Hero, teamed up once again with director Corey Norman who had worked on the bands previous video, to produce a consciously stripped down and minimalistic video focusing on the band members performing the song.
Guitarist Robby Baca states “I had so much fun writing that song! I can’t wait to share this video with everyone. The director did a fantastic job for us. The visual elements are extremely important to us and this is a video that we feel exemplifies the overall vibe that we are going for.”
Steve Tovey
Protest The Hero – Battlecross – The Safety Fire – Intervals: Live at the Middle East, Cambridge MA
It was a chilly night in a quieter than usual Saturday in Cambridge Massachusetts. The Middle East nightclub sits on a welcoming strip of culturally diverse shops and restaurants. A perfect location for Protest the Hero’s Volition (Razor & Tie) tour; a multi-national and eclectic metallic offering.
For all of the shows I’ve been fortunate enough to attend in the New England area, this marked the first time I’ve attended a show downstairs at the Middle East. A basement venue that resembles the ultimate metal mancave or what Rocko’s in Manchester New Hampshire could have been if the staff actually cared. An hour between doors and the opening band afforded me ample time to down some economy brews and admire the not particularly well-lit, but intimate locale.
First up were Protest the Hero’s Canadian brethren in Intervals. For an unsigned band they’ve garnered lots of attention in progressive and tech-metal circles, especially with their latest release, A Voice Within. With the room starving for some live volume, the boys in Intervals were happy to oblige. Heavy 7-string palm muting was underway with tunes like ‘Alchemy’ and ‘Ephemeral’ starting the evening’s first mosh-pits. It was modern tech-metal or djent through and through; Tesseract shirts and Ibanez/Steinberger guitar interplay aplenty. Obviously talented players with a lot of stage energy, the only problem being the repetitive nature of djent. Midway through the set the songs began to feel repetitive. However things livened up again at the end of the performance when they jumped into songs like ‘Automaton’ and ‘Moment Marauder’ which featured some catchy melodies and riffs not unlike Periphery’s.
London England’s The Safety Fire sieged the stage next with their frenetic, noisy art-metal. Since I had missed out on their last North American trek, it was very satisfying to finally catch them tearing into live numbers from last year’s sublime Mouth of Swords (Inside Out). To the best of my knowledge The Safety Fire is considered progressive metal, but to be honest I wouldn’t know what to label them as. As evidenced by live flow of offerings like ‘Red Hatchet’ and ‘Huge Hammers’ their sound is metal one second and sometime that you’d find in Spin magazine the next. And I liked that. A lot, actually. Now that I had gotten a taste of their live sound, I’m ready for a proper headlining turn from these British upstarts.
At this point the Middle East was a sweatbox and I needed some more Pabst Blue Ribbon relief in order to properly enjoy the awesome that is Battlecross live. After refueling at the bar I took a spot front and center to take in Battlecross’ brand of “Blue Collar Thrash Metal” as close and loudly as possible. The bearded Michigan metal warriors did not disappoint. Guitarists Tony Asta and Hiran Deraniyagala traded off blazing riffs and searing leads effortlessly. What I thought would be a very pro-progressive metal audience ate up Battlecross’ savage thrash stylings. Sure the argument can be made that they only have one speed (a very brisk one, thanks to former Black Dahlia Murder drummer Shannon Lucas holding down on drums), but is that really an issue when you’ve got most of the crowd buying what you’re selling? If you weren’t headbanging you were in one of the various circle pits that would break at the drop of a hat or raiding their merchandise booth. Audience reaction to pit-churners like ‘Kaleb’ and ‘Flesh and Bone’ was so raucous that frontman Kyle Gunther declared Cambridge to be the best crowd of the entire tour.
Protest the Hero faced the stiff challenge of following up Battlecross’ assault, but the Torontonians were up to the task. Armed with some truly respectable facial hair, Protest served their Dream Theater by the way of Botch sonic cocktail to a crowd that hung on to every word. The young Canadians burned through 12 songs in the span of an hour and ten minutes, ranging from Kezia era anthems like ‘Blindfolds’ to more recent stompers like ‘Underbite.’ Midway into their effort the many fans had forgotten about the “No Crowd-Surfing” policy and were attempting to join the band onstage. Having the best live-sound on the bill paid dividends as it showcased the band’s technical mastery and vocalist Rody Walker’s pipes. And speaking of Walker, his witty lyrics are only matched by his onstage banter. Walker maintained an easy charm with the crowd even though most in attendance were Bruins fans while he’s partial to his Toronto Maple Leafs. I mean if we can’t agree on how much The Montreal Canadians and Max Pacioretty suck, then what can we agree on really? Conversations on hockey and the integrity of modern Star Trek movies is how you make inroads to great international relations. They capped off their set with crowd favorites ‘Bloodmeat’ and for my money is their best song, ‘C’est La Vie.’
It was good night in Cambridge. Overall we got quality sets from great bands at a good price. If I had my way, Protest the Hero would have played for a little longer than an hour and ten minutes. And maybe I should’ve gotten a couple of more economy suds from the bar before calling it a night. But all things considered, a highly enjoyable time.
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Words: Hansel Lopez
Photos: Chris Small of CWS Photography