Persistence and consistency are the keys to Ringworm. Nothing on Seeing Through Fire should shock regular listeners, but that’s not the point. As with any act that garners a reputation for reliable quality, Ringworm have cultivated an impossible-to-fully replicate aesthetic, something that vocalist James “Human Furnace” Bulloch is aware of, though even he can’t quite put his finger on their X-factor. The surprise of a new Ringworm release isn’t the sound, but the fact that they’re still so good and worth listening to without changing too much. Like other legacy acts such as Motorhead, you don’t turn to Ringworm for innovation, you tune in for how they use their tools. Though, in the case of their latest album, there is a surprise guest solo from Voivod’s Daniel Mongrain, one that disorients Ringworm’s framework and, through deeper inspection, reveals Human Furnace’s approach to vocals.

Prior to Seeing Through Fire’s release, the gruff Human Furnace chatted with us about the group’s songwriting process, their longevity, and his side project Gluttons.

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Do you find that your influences have gotten newer and more modern as the years have gone on?

James Bulloch: It all starts with Matt (Sorg). He’s our songwriter. We’re all in our early 50s but mentally we’re all frozen at 15, and Matt’s one of those guys that if something came out after 1988, in his eyes, it sucks. That’s fine, it keeps what we do pure. It keeps us sounding the way we sound. Lyrically, I just add my two cents to it, and vocally I don’t have much range. My musical toolbox has three hammers in it – a large one, a small one, and a medium one.

You’ve mentioned before how Ringworm is like Motorhead or AC/DC where you can go into a new album already knowing what you’ll hear. As the new album shows, the music still holds up. There’s still music to be mined from an unchanging approach, and it’s interesting to think about it that way.

Yeah, we’ve never found the need to change anything. Everyone in this band plays in other bands. I don’t particularly listen to a ton of bands that sound like Ringworm. There are a ton of bands that play heavy and fast, and I listen to them and they’re great, but I don’t usually listen to that type of music a lot. But I’m not going to bring my outside influences into Ringworm because Ringworm is its own thing. And I think all of us in the band know what we do best so we stick with it.

We still try to improve on that and reinvent our own wheel, though not reinvent the wheel, but we keep it the same but change it up slightly. To the untrained ear, it all sounds the same. But you could say that to just about any genre. You could listen to a country song if you’re not a country fan and say it all sounds the same. But if you’re a country fan then you can point out if a song is different from another.

Looking at it from a musician’s perspective, some of it comes down to you pushing yourselves, even if that doesn’t come through. Making smaller advancements is self-fulfilling in a way.

It’s easy for Matt because he’s a riff machine. I mean, he probably has another record ready for us now, I wouldn’t doubt it. He has no trouble pumping music out. Whatever direction he’s feeling for a song or album in general. Baked into our DNA from the start has been hardcore, grindcore, thrash, and even some doomy riffs, we’ve mixed it all together. And from record to record, sometimes the percentages vary. But with the new one, we’ve taken it back to the early days when things were even across the board. It’s riff-centric. I mean, we’ve never been a breakdown-focused band. We have breakdowns, but some bands are 95% breakdowns whereas we’ve always been about the riffs.

Speaking of that, you have Daniel Mongrain on “Death Hoax.”

Oh yeah, that was such a score to be able to get him to do this. We’re all huge Voivod fans, and we’ve had the chance to tour with them a few times. On a personal level, it’s 15-year-old James’ dream. They’re awesome dudes and we’ve gotten to be decent friends with them. When we were getting to the end of the record it was a weird time cause it was the pandemic and the lockdown and everything was all fucked up. We were able to get ahold of him. We’re not huge on bringing in a ton of guests, but we thought we should give Dan a shot. He agreed to do a solo for Ringworm and we didn’t know what we were gonna get with it. We were so pumped when he sent it back to us because the style is so weird. It’s insane, his timing, everything about it is so unusual but it’s amazing. It contrasts with Matt’s style. They’re so different but Dan’s contribution fits the song so well. I love that song so it’s gonna be tough to play it live without Dan, so Matt is gonna have to buckle down and learn to play it.

What’s weird about it is that I didn’t do the vocals for it yet. I do my vocals last after everything gets done. When I heard the solo, it sounded bizarre, and I mean that in the best way. It sounded so out of Ringworm’s wheelhouse. So, you may not be able to hear it, and if we had a lot of time we could sit down and go through it, but I fashioned my vocal patterns after the keys in Dan’s solo. This is all techy, but simply, I tinkered with my timing, phonetics, and lyrics to fit his solo, so it makes the solo come in more smoothly and make a ton of sense. I use some of the keys from his solo in the lyrical timing. It blends a bit better, and it’s very slight, but I thought it helped make the song flow better.

That leads me to my next question since you’re responsible for the lyrics. “Thought Crimes” as you said in the press release, is about “trying to have your own thoughts amongst an ocean of controlled marketing, algorithms, and forced tribalism”, and I was wondering if you brought in those ideas yourself, or if you discussed it with the band?

Sometimes I have some stuff prepared that doesn’t have a home yet, but usually, I wait. How a song sounds dictates what I think the song feels like. It starts there, and a lot of times I won’t even know what the song is about. Sometimes I go into it with an idea, sometimes I go in just writing shit and I don’t know what it means until years later and I look at it down the road. But “Thought Crimes” was more focused on algorithms, marketing, and the constant barrage of commercialism, and people shoehorning opinions down your throat. We’re bombarded by it 24/7 and it’s been like that for decades. Someone is always trying to get something over on you. Sometimes ignorance is bliss, but if you stand back and look at it, you can see how someone is trying to sell you something. Then, everyone is selling something to you.

It’s funny you say that cause it seems like those market forces don’t affect Ringworm, given that you’ve stuck in the same lane for 30 years. It’s not a super commercial space. So were these topics about how they affect you?

Oh yeah, it’s all about that. Everything I do is about that. That’s what I know the best, or I think I do. I’ve never been one to preach about anyone or anything, cause who am I? I’m just some dude. I’m no better or worse than anyone, so I just sing about myself. I try not to be high and mighty. Some bands are very preachy, you know what I mean, and I’m sure you’ve seen it too, when some bands go up on stage and go into their spiel and you think, “Man, I know that guy or chick, and they’re a piece of shit.” That’s fine, but that’s why I try not to get into the preachier side of things. I still fuck up a lot, so I sing about what I know, which is being confused by life and all the bullshit that goes on after 51 years on this planet. There’s always more shit.

Topically that’s what the record sounds like it’s about. “Thought Crimes” “Mental Decontrol,” and “Playing God,” share a common theme.

Well, the world seems to be on fire, doesn’t it? That’s the analogy we’re going for there. You’ve gotta try to see through it, to the other side, if there is one. The whole world is on fire, so you can get lit up if you don’t try to see through it. You might not make it. Nobody gets out alive.

What helps you see it through?

It’s tough, like anybody else, you get up and go through life. You try to deal with the blows and bullshit that you’ll get. It’s not easy and it’s not easy for anybody to see your way through this life. Everyone has their setbacks and bullshit that they need to deal with. It helps that I have an outlet where I can scream and yell about it. It’s therapeutic, and it’s always been for me. At least I have that.

You have Ringworm for that and Gluttons where you can take a more backseat approach.

Yeah, and that’s more fun when it comes to playing it. Ringworm is a little more serious.

Do you spend more time thinking about Ringworm than Gluttons, or is it the other way around?

When it’s time to be in Ringworm mode, I snap a finger and I get into it. But in-between records and touring, we’re trying to keep Gluttons going. But that’s a bit tougher because that’s not a traveling band or a touring band. We don’t even have a label but we put out as much material as we can. We’re trying to get it on the road, but everyone is always doing other stuff. It’s the ultimate sideband. But the band does well and we’d like to get it out on the road, but it’s everyone’s side band.

But, I mean, I write all the songs and some of the lyrics. Our singer Kevin takes it from there. I build some patterns and vocal hooks but he does the rest. I maybe take it a bit more seriously than everyone else but that’s cause it’s my writing outlet. I get to write for that, you know. But it’s tough cause if we get offered to tour with someone for two weeks we’d have to seriously consider it. I’m used to that touring life, but some of the other guys would have to consider taking off time from work or who’s gonna take care of their kids. They’re not used to that life or that aspect of being in a band.

I find it interesting that you’ve never taken that songwriting responsibility from Gluttons into Ringworm.

You know, I can’t compete with Matt on that same level. That’s his bread and butter, so I don’t step on that. And that’s okay, he’s not looking for any help and I can’t provide it because he’s a fucking awesome guitar player and I do what I can. Ed Stephens is in Gluttons too and he’s a monster bass player. Fucking sick. So, with Gluttons, I write a basic backbone of a song with some trickery, I do what I can, and our guitarist Aaron (Dowell) along with the other players I trust them. They’re all awesome so I trust them to do their thing in their parts. Then it all comes together. I’m just the backbone but they’re the icing on the cake to make it a good rock song.

That’s good for you cause you get to focus on building a strong foundation.

That’s it, exactly. I work on the structures, dynamics, and timings. It’s fun building those songs. I work on them for a while so they don’t come together as quickly as Ringworm stuff, but Ringworm is much more streamlined.

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Seeing Through Fire released August 18th via Nuclear Blast.

Each Friday, Editors Ted Nubel and Jon Rosenthal [usually, but this time Addison!] will share their picks for Records of the Week—not necessarily what’s out this week, just whatever’s on our mind or on our record players.

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Addison Herron-Wheeler

Light This City

Remains of the Gods

It was 2005, a year when the newly minted fusion of metalcore still meant the best of both worlds when it comes to heavy breakdowns and melodic riffing. As a teenage girl seeing this band in a small, local venue while they were on tour, I was completely blown away. Not only were their song structures and solos something to write home about, Laura Nichol’s furious vocals smashed the gender binary, showing that femme vocalists were just as valid as men. And song titles like “Letter to My Abuser” expanded my mind as to how feminist topics could make it onto the final cut of a death metal record.

So yes, I still listen to this album on the regular, despite the fact that in some ways it does sound very dated and 2005. The music and concepts still hold up, and the songs still absolutely rip.

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Ted Nubel

Black Sabbath

Cross Purposes

I’m pumped to see the current wave of Tony Martin-era Black Sabbath acceptance: while the five albums he did with the band range from great to questionable, his stint bears a style distinctly different from the other singers’ Black Sabbaths– no doubt partially driven by the constant lineup changes and Iommi’s songwriting inclinations, but the fact remains Martin Sabbath is a fascinating era for the band. It’s just some excellent, gothic-tinged heavy metal that maybe didn’t invent any genres but rules nonetheless. Cross Purposes came immediately after Dio’s short-lived return in the form of Dehumanizer, and honestly, a lot of it does feel like it was written with Dio in mind. Martin does a quality job, though, delivering his signature powerful style and keeping Sabbath deeply connected to their doomy roots–helped in no small part by Iommi’s heavy, morose riffs. Songs like “Crown of Thorns” and “Cardinal Sin” are heavy-hitting tracks that deserve way more recognition.

I mean, I’m not going to try and slot this record into Sabbath’s top five, but I revisit it quite often and I suggest the unfamiliar give it a fair shake. And sheesh, could we finally get that fabled box set and get these records onto digital streaming?

Jesus Piece are one of the premiere hardcore bands in the scene today. Hailing from Philadelphia, they’ve powered through global tours and built a reputation for a commanding live performance, but they also deliver some manic music videos to go along with excellent recorded offerings. Two notable examples, both taken from their upcoming record So Unknown: “An Offering to the Night,” with its mayhem only balanced by the stompy riffs and breakdown towards the end and “Gates of Horn”, developing imagery of internal struggle complete with white backgrounds that offers a stark contrast to the band’s darkened lyrical themes.

With So Unknown coming out in April, I sat down with lead singer Aaron Heard to discuss the new things with the band, their current tour and the excellent album art that has a lot more going on with than on the surface level. We also spoke on how important visibility is to Jesus Piece as a hardcore band being fronted by a Black man and their upcoming festival appearance in Europe and what it’s like to try getting new songs into the setlist. After years of playing tons of shows and getting exposure, Jesus Piece are calling their own shots and the crowds that they leave in their wake are all the better for it.

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One of the first things that stood out to me was the artwork, which gave me serious Immolation Dawn of Possession vibes, is there anything to that?

Aaron Heard: Not necessarily Immolation, but the fallen angel shit has always meant something to me. What we really wanted to do with the art was to tap into our roots and what we were into while we were growing up and a big part of that was the airbrush aesthetic in the mid to late 2000s. We really like lazygawd’s work. I think that we didn’t exactly know what we wanted art wise either. By the time we figured it out it we knew we wanted to work with him.

It looks like some shit that would be on an FYE button up t-shirt. It was perfect. I was tired of seeing all this artwork with white people all the time. A big part of why I’m doing this is visibility as a black artist. I talk to publications and they don’t know what these black angels are about. I don’t need to walk you through an art experience. What does it mean to you?

I appreciate some of the song titles here, even doing a double take when I saw “FTBS” which I got correct right away as “Fuck The Bullshit”, which I 100% live by.

AH: Haha, that’s how I know you’re from Jersey. You know what that was? It was us trying to make one of those anti-conformity banger songs and see what would happen. But it seems to have really come out really well-done, because it rocks. Still trying to work it into the setlist by release day. So far we have been playing “Fear of Failure”, “Gates of Horn” and have been trying to get “Silver Lining” in the next couple of days. We are still playing shit off our EP too, all of the stuff that makes the people go apeshit.

How did this current tour package that you’re a part of come together? What does each band bring to the fold?

AH: All around everybody is a character and they have a lot of “pizzazz”. Between Zulu’s grind and powerviolence influence, Scowl’s aggressive punk and stompy situation going on, then shifting gears to poppier stuff, but still punk and they draw a much different and younger crowd after the tour with Limp Bizkit. Then there’s us, all around headbangers and Show Me The Body’s crowd is also different. Each of these bands has carved a niche for themselves and take matters into their own hands as far as touring. It’s a beautiful thing to see us all selling out shows around the country.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/CqOECqkAsPN/

I see you guys are playing Outbreak Fest in the UK this summer. What’s your history of touring outside the US?

AH: We have been all over the place. We did Australia with Knocked Loose. We’ve been to Europe a bunch of times, the first time we went by ourselves and then another time we played with Year of the Knife, then with Comeback Kid and Terror. A lot of these shows might not have gone that great for us, but the names on paper sounded awesome. We haven’t played Outbreak Fest in a few years, the fest has grown like tenfold. So, I’m very excited to go back out there.

How do you go about putting together tours nowadays?

AH: I just keep my head in the air and see what happens, luckily our years of doing support tours are over; we aren’t at the mercy of that anymore. The first couple of years we used to just go out with friends and push it, because we weren’t getting any offers. It helped to build a strong mindset for us, we don’t settle for shit nowadays.

Since I’m basically a New Yorker, do you have any uniquely Philly stories to share, some of Philly themes about the record?

AH: I think “FTBS” is the most Philly song on the record. It’s Jesus Piece’s YOLO track straight up. You’re from Jersey you get it.

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So Unknown releases April 15th via Century Media Records (pre-order the vinyl).

It was in the spring of 2011, near Easter (which Google tells me was late that year), and my life was an absolute fucking wreck. I had lost nearly every penny I had in the recession and my home that I inherited when my mother died had been foreclosed on. The home, to add insult to injury, was burglarized a few weeks prior by someone who tore the medicine cabinets apart and ran off with my guitars and game systems. In short, I’d seen better days. As I was trying to pack up the remains of my house, mostly under the cover of darkness as I was technically trespassing, and using any change I found to buy a pack of Mavericks and an apple a day I was contacted by a friend telling me he found me a job and told me when and where to show up. That’s how I ended up working at the record store.

It’s a pretty decent metaphor, being pulled back into the world of reality in the early spring right around the corner from a holiday whose root is rebirth and all that. I’d previously worked at two other record stores, one a local indie with a reputation for selling bongs in the front and later meth out of the back and the other being the corporate juggernaut of the ’90s, The Wall, where my boss would come in still drunk from the night before and yell at me. Would this be the third unlucky instance of hating a job or would my luck finally change? It didn’t matter at the time, it was income and an escape from my life falling apart around me.

There were two locations at the time, one on the Ocean City boardwalk that was half surf related horseshit and half record store (all free from the wonders of climate control) and other being a half filled storefront in the one local mall that still had some traffic in it. I started at the boardwalk store, mostly cleaning it up for the season and selling tourists with their shit traps constantly agape shirts that parodied the “Life is Good” brand that was popular with white, middle aged annoyances, called “Life is Crap.” Funny, right? About as funny as a puppy mill fire.

Eventually, life started to have a little more color to it instead of the weird bluish haze I’d been living with for a few years. I was even able to start smoking Camels again, forsaking Mavericks, which was a pretty big paradigm shift. I started finding my footing and through that I started getting interested in the things I used to love, mostly music. Being surrounded by it meant that I was able to check out certain things in a more traditional way (I was still averse to YouTube, etc.) and was more open about it. Time passed on and later that summer a record caught my eye based on the cover alone: All Pigs Must Die‘s monster God is War. It helped set the table for the second half of the year which was all about rebuilding my life from years of poor mental health, drugs and financial collapse.

God is War is a fucking beast, one of the heaviest records of the last few decades with a weight not only in sound but substance, plus it has one of my favorite cover images of all times.

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Considered to be somewhat of a “supergroup” since the members come from various monoliths of dark hardcore, All Pigs Must Die, alongside Nails, really launched Southern Lord out of just being a doom (or, briefly, a black metal) label, and this newly forged identity helped push some of my favorite records of hardcore and crust out into a larger audience, but, for my money, none of them touched “APMD.” They were like a liferaft thrown to me while I was drowning in a sea of my own creation.

Two years later, I found myself managing the record store and in a much better place physically and mentally (financially can be debated). It also found the release of the second All Pigs Must Die record, Nothing Violates This Nature. While God is War focused mostly on being the most pummeling metallic hardcore record possible, Nothing Violates This Nature is a more genre fluid affair, with notes of black metal permutating yet another heavy fucking Kurt Ballou production job.

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Time passed on the way it tends to do and by the time All Pigs Must Die released their third album, Hostage Animal, the life I was living when I first came across God is War was unrecognizable to the one I was living in 2017, and like how I’d changed, so too had All Pigs Must Die. Hostage Animal is a much rawer affair than the two prior, and even held a slight tone of melancholy to it if you listened closely enough.. or maybe it didn’t and I was hearing what I wanted to. Either way, this was another stellar release of dark and metallic hardcore that meshed genres together in such an organic manner that you’d hardly notice different influences because the intensity of the record doesn’t give you that kind of room to breathe.

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And so here we are, five years later and 11 since this tale started. In 2018 I was able to finally see All Pigs Must Die live at Strange Matter, the legendary Richmond club that shut down not long after, all but severing the vein that carried these size shows into the city. It remains one of the best shows I’ve ever had the chance to witness, and probably one of a handful of the last shows I’ve seen in the last few years. The band has continued to remain important to me, and I named God is War one of my ten favorite records of the decade in a piece elsewhere that isn’t difficult to Google. There’s something about this band (that album in particular) that just really hits home for me, from their sonics to their aesthetics. I continually missed it every time the hoodie with the cover was reissued, so consider this my official petition for the design to return.

Half a decade and nary a rumble of a new record. Sure there are a few other EPs I didn’t mention, and they’re all worth checking out, but beyond that it’s been quiet. That’s not unusual in dark, negative hardcore. Most of the bands that tickle my fancy are all a little slow to release follow ups. I’m sure we’ll get to all of them here eventually, but these are all bands who, if they decided they were finished, have left some incredible catalogs of work behind. But as it gets warmer, my thoughts will remain in springtime, only I’m thinking of one specific spring 27 years ago. We’ll talk soon, I’m sure.

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Chicago hardcore band Nequient‘s upcoming album was, much like the rest of the music world, cursed. Cursed for years. First recorded in early 2020, global setbacks and individual choices delayed this album over two years.

“[T]his thing has been sitting around forever,” says vocalist Jason Kolkey. “We went into the studio with Pete Grossman in January 2020 and did all the tracking then. Obviously the whole COVID situation happened, and every phase along the way got horribly delayed. From mixing to mastering to the artwork, everything got pushed back just because of various COVID related complications. By the time everything was pretty much ready just beyond the fact that it took forever, it was starting to look like we could finally tour behind the thing, so we pushed it back even further. This is definitely something we’ve been sitting on for a long time, so we’re very excited to finally release the damn thing and get people to hear it.”

Initially written in 2019, Darker Than Death Or Night, which is streaming in full ahead of its Friday release below, acts as a time capsule regarding Kolkey’s own thoughts and emotions from that time. Political corruption, the failing planet, and threats against democracy are all ferociously spit into the listener’s ears.

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“All those things have gotten worse for the most part,” Kolkey says. “Obviously it’s great that Donald Trump isn’t in the fucking White House anymore, but so many things which were scary about that moment have only become worse as far as the concerns of the decline of Western civilization, liberal democracy… all these things are getting increasingly terrifying and the ticking time bomb of ecological disaster behind it all begins to count down. I just feel like the things I was angry and scared about back then I’m only more angry and scared about now, so it will be interesting to go out and perform those songs for people in the current moment.”

When asked how he feels about revisiting these emotions in the current day, Kolkey remarks, “I sort of feel like it hasn’t stopped, so there is a catharsis every time I scream about that shit, but it’s also like… the death of truth, the illiberalization of the American political system… all this stuff is just continuing to decline and get worse, so in many ways I just feel more angry and concerned.”

It isn’t all misanthropy and worry for Kolkey, however, who envisions a brief utopia whenever he’s onstage.

“I’m having a lot of fucking fun when we perform, so that’s also a key factor,” he says. “I think the nature of hardcore especially, and we are a -core/hardcore band (though we delve into death metal and grind and these other directions) has to be about that very direct communication of feeling between the performers and the audience or else it really isn’t hardcore. That’s what defines it. It can be both this painful connection, but it’s also a lot of fun to share that with other people. There is that sense of community there, even if you have this massive deterioration in civil society, there is a space for that. It is a shallow comfort in a lot of ways, which is too bad. I wish that could do more to translate into bigger movements, and obviously there are people out there trying to make that happen. I don’t feel qualified, I don’t feel like I have the skills to make that happen, but it does in that moment feel like you’re building something utopian.”

“Any time you roll into a town where you’ve never been before and you go into some ratty ass punk house to play in the basement and there’s a whole community there of all genders, all races, who are there to enjoy themselves and connect through our music,” he continues, “you kind of feel for a minute like hey… that could be the world. That could be great. Is it worthwhile to maintain that microcosm of a better world so you have some sense of hope of some kind? Maybe. This is a project worth pursuing, because I emotionally need to have it. I’ve been involved to some degree in DIY music from at least 2001 or 2002. Either I was booking shows in my house or writing because I need to have that connection, however fleeting it may be.”

Darker Than Death Or Night features some of Nequient’s most adventurous work to date. Though Kolkey insists on calling the band a late ’90s/early aughts metalcore band, Nequient’s approach follows many paths to get to that general conclusion. “I think something that we tried to do throughout the album,” Kolkey explains, “is bring in a little bit more of some of that post-metally and sort of noise rock influence and try to sort of expand a little bit on textures while still writing cool riffs that you can mosh to.”

Though the aforementioned noise rock moments are peppered throughout the album, it’s “Death Bridge'”s, uh, bridge, which is a truly shining moment on the album. Pivoting to a melodic brand of post-and-doom metal, Nequient’s idea of “crushing” changes from a short, sharp shock to a slow flattening.

“[Death Bridge] was definitely written by Patrick [Conahan], our guitar player, and he was getting really into a lot of King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard and the idea of playing with the tones and sort of digging a little deeper as far as the instrumental parts,” Kolkey says. “That was a big part of it, but I also always encourage delving into the doomy and black metally sections. Now, I’m the only one who likes black metal in the band. Chris [Avgerin], our drummer, will get into the thrashier side of black metal like Craft, and Patrick digs like Emperor, but he’s not a serious black metal fan. However, everyone can appreciate when you bring in those explosive elements and the way they fit dynamically with those hardcore and grindy riffs we do more commonly. My own love for black metal gets to come in.”

It isn’t just noise rock and post-metal for the varied Nequient, however, as the band’s hardcore roots find a stronger footing through powerful death metal and grind influences. For as stylistically complex the album is (and for how long it’s taken to be released), Darker Than Death Or Night was written in a relatively brief amount of time.

“We did spend some time [on the album],” Kolkey says, “but not an unusual amount. There are a lot of things we do that are maybe not immediately aware to the listener, like bringing in those other genre elements. We always try to fold in a lot of influences from death metal, black metal, grind, sludge–all things we love–all into a song structure that makes sense as what we at our base are: late ’90s/early ’00s metalcore. Right? We’re taking all that shit and being like If Converge played this type of riff, how would they fit it into their song? Not precisely like that, but you get the idea. We’re going to have that center of thrashy, chaotic hardcore and then its going to venture into these other directions, but that gives us a center which ultimately has a structure which makes sense. We’re not just, a term that Patrick uses a lot, riff salad. He has a problem with any band that maybe has great individual riffs but doesn’t tie them all together. A way to explain this is Patrick’s deep abiding love for Death. Death is clearly the biggest influence on his songwriting style and the thing about Death was: always heavy riffs, progressive influence, and very tight songwriting. Chuck always made sure he came back to the chorus, that each song had a hook. We’re not there yet, exactly, but that type of ethic informs the whole thing.”

Nequient covers a lot of ground on this new album, but what can be gleaned the most from it is an overwhelming amount of justified negativity. We’re fighting a losing battle, and those who represent us, the people, simply don’t get it. We’re thrust into wars we don’t want, dependent on fossil fuels which destroy the environment, and taught to hate one another for superficial and shitty reasons. Nequient is the soundtrack of our frustrations, this angry, chaotic sound of distrust, anger, and voicelessness now given a megaphone.

“We’re going to keep going down this path of self-destruction unless there’s something that dramatically changes, and I have no faith. Do you?”

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Darker Than Death Or Night releases March 11th on Nefarious Industries.

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Nequient will also embark on a two-week US tour surrounding the album’s release, the chaos launching out of Milwaukee on March 10th, winding its way to the Northeast and back, ending in Cincinnati on March 27th. Along the way they’ll share the stage with Feral Light, Sarah Longfield, Plague Years, Somnuri, Juan Bond, Fed Ash, Pillärs, and many others. See current live dates below.

NEQUIENT Tour Dates:
3/10/2022 High Dive – Milwaukee, WI w/ Curbsitter, Emissary
3/12/2022 NorthStar Bar & Grill – St. Paul, MN w/ Feral Light, Witchden
3/13/2022 High Noon Saloon – Madison, WI w/ Sarah Longfield, The Central, Bashford
3/18/2022 Black Circle – Indianapolis, IN w/ L.I.B., Chaff, Indomitable
3/19/2022 Meteor Majeure – Murfreesboro, TN w/ Moru, Torsion, Scorched Vatika
3/20/2022 Boggs Social & Supply – Atlanta, GA w/ Plague Years, Somnuri, Hubris Cannon
3/21/2022 TBA
3/22/2022 Planet Nova Bar and Grill – Fredericksburg, VA w/ Undesiccated, Betty Grey
3/23/2022 Century – Philadelphia, PA
3/24/2022 Gutter Bar – Brooklyn, NY w/ Juan Bond, Astrometer, Sploot
3/25/2022 Chaos Compound – Rochester, NY w/ Fed Ash, Holy Grinder, Hallucination Realized, Zero Again
3/26/2022 Annabell’s Bar & Lounge – Akron, OH w/ Pillärs, Wallcreeper, Brain Cave
3/27/2022 MOTR Pub – Cincinnati, OH w/ Louise, Tina Fey

Chicago has proven time and again to be one of the most metal meccas of the world. With many well revered local music venues, metal-themed restaurants, longstanding print publications, and a vast array of talented bands, the Windy City can hold its own when doling out ferocious metal.

One such offering: relative scene newcomers and melodic death metal band Burned in Effigy, who bring an engaging and diversified sound to the underground metal universe. Formed in 2016, this quintet create a lethal musical concoction by combining a mixture of neoclassical elements, melodic death metal, and progressive metal segments with slight metalcore influences on their blistering debut full-length album Rex Mortem (independently released on January 28th, 2022). Burned In Effigy shows off their talent by forging new paths within the various metal subgenres that not many other newer bands have mastered.

During a recent phone interview, vocalist Mark “Smedy” Smedbron talked about how he joined the band, the creation of their new full-length album, his writing technique and lyrical inspiration, as well as Burned In Effigy’s future plans.

–Kelley Simms

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Where does Burned In Effigy fit into the talented Chicago metal scene?

Wherever you go in the city you’re going to find some really awesome talent. You could go into any bar, most bars that have live music… and you’ll find something that has a lot to do with talent. I guess you could say we fit definitely in with the more aggressive scene in the city. We play metal, so obviously it’s a lot more aggressive and more upbeat. As far as the scene goes, we’ve got a lot of buddies who definitely come out and have seen the few shows that we’ve played. I guess you could say we fit in with the underground bars and places like that.

There are many great venues around the city and you’ve opened up for some seasoned bands such as Scale the Summit, Angel Vivaldi, Oh, Sleeper, and Mushroomhead. It’s great that these local shows allowed you to hone your craft in the live setting, and I assume playing live is one of the things this band lives for.

We definitely love to perform live and as far as honing my craft, it’s taken me a long time for me to try and think about how a live performance (should be). You don’t want to be that band that just gets up there and plays your songs and then in between songs it’s boring and you can hear the crickets chirping! (laughs) I definitely strive to perform and give a really awesome show to anybody who wants to come and check out our set.

Your debut full-length album, Rex Mortem, is wonderfully varied. You seem to be blazing a slightly new trail within the several sub-genres with a modern familiarity that’s also fresh and energetic. What were you trying to achieve musically?

As far as achievements go, I just really would like to spread our music to as many people as we can. That’s basically been our number one goal that we’ve been trying to achieve. It’s still so fresh and new to all of us. We’re just five friends who wanted to put out an album and have a really good time and just make music and play music for the love of getting out there and seeing the crowd and interacting with people; finding out new music, being more inspired by other bands that are out there in the scene. There’s a whole lot of bands out there that have to do with influencing us and how we influence other bands.

The origins of the band existed before you joined, which at that point was still an all instrumental band. Were the other members actively seeking a singer after its 2017 Terrestrial EP? How did you meet the band or did you know of them beforehand?

That’s an interesting story and I’m glad you asked that. I used to sing for a band called Rhemora and we lost our drummer temporarily for a little bit. My guitarist found Eddie—this really kick ass, jazz-taught thrash metal drummer. So we went over to his house, we brought our amps and we all hung out with him and he seemed like a really cool kid. We jammed out with him for a little bit. But unfortunately, we got our other drummer back and we had to say, “Thanks Eddie, but no thanks.” Years later, I was jamming after Rhemora had broken up and someone mentioned that a band sounded like In Flames but they didn’t have a singer. I thought it sounded enticing and intriguing. He showed me a couple of songs off the Terrestrial EP and I could see where these guys were going. I looked them up and I saw Eddie was the drummer of the band! So I got ahold of Eddie and he said, “Let’s do this man!” So we rehearsed on and off for a few months and eventually I decided to jump in full time with these guys and I’ve been writing and doing lyrics and fronting the band ever since. And it’s been awesome, man. I’m really happy to be in this group.

There’s some great local instrumental bands such as Pelican, Zaius and Russian Circles, to name a few. How did the idea come about to introduce vocals into the band?

I think they had a vocalist for a little while and he was kind of flaky. They were still trying to pursue a vocalist at the time. I think Matt and Eddie came upon themselves to keep making music and keep doing this; to try and be an instrumental band for a while and maybe that’ll draw somebody in. And I guess it worked because I heard it and I was like, I’m all for this! What I’m trying to do as far as bringing vocals into this band, I want to bring a story. I want to bring more theatrics and more of an element of a theme going on. A lot of our stuff has to do with little stories, little tiny chapters of a bigger story of a tyrannical king who goes on a lot of terrible adventures through hell and things like that. With me bringing vocals to the band has definitely brought a bigger aspect, a bigger element to things. It’s not just instruments playing. Not that that’s not amazing and awesome on its own. The guys who are making that instrumental music, that’s awesome. I am not putting that down at all. I just feel like this band definitely deserved to have a vocalist and I’m doing my best to try and bring the best product I can to this band.

There’s some great storytelling going on with the lyrics that lean toward darker concepts, yet the music is rather uplifting with a positive message. Where do some of your lyrical inspirations come from?

Back when Vito (Bellino) and Brad (Dose) were still playing guitar in the band, they were always writing a lot of classical style stuff and especially Vito, he played a lot of classical guitar. He’d always have classical guitar in his hands, even if he was just having a conversation with you. So he was always plucking away at these Bach and Chopin-like old school, composer-esque styled riffs. And it kind of got the gears rolling in my head one day, like, what can we do? What could we bring to the table here? I’m a huge movie nerd; I love movies. And I like a lot of different genres of movies. I think at that time I was watching Braveheart and 300 and a couple other movies that really inspired me to want to write some really cool stuff. Because in the back of my head, this tyrannical king, I always pictured it like Edward Longshanks from Braveheart. But more evil and more seducing and more sorceress. The classical aspect of things definitely beamed my direction for wanting to write lyrics and stories.

The track “Nightfall” was originally an instrumental track on the previous EP. How did you go about applying lyrics and vocals to this track?

We were all just kind of jamming around and we were talking about different concepts and “what does this song make you feel?” It was a huge conversation about emotions; what major and minor chords make you feel certain types of emotions and things like that. And we were talking about “Nightfall” and I just got a picture of something in my head like it was dusk, like a vision of the sun setting in my head. It was kind of creepy and eerie and it snowballed into an idea of what if we wrote the song about the horribleness of being cursed with immortality to feast on the blood of the living. I only had so much to work with because the songs were already recorded; they were already set in stone before I started writing lyrics to them. I had to work with what I had. I took the spacings and how long the verses were, or how empty the parts were, and I did my best to try and write a story about a man who was cursed with immortality. He’s forced to feed on the flesh of the living; this horrible life, this horrible existence. And he has to continuously do it night in and night out. It just inspired me to want to continue to write even more awesome stuff, because that was one of the first ones I wrote, as far as lyrics go. And it definitely set the bar for the rest of the lyrics on the rest of the album for me to want to live up to something as good as that.

Your vocal style alternates between a raspy higher-pitched bark to a more mid-ranged howl with relative ease. Your range reminds me a little of Alexi Laiho from Children of Bodom. Who are some of your vocal influences?

There’s a lot that goes into that because as the years have gone by I’ve just picked apart things I liked from different vocalists and did my best to try and attempt to give my shot at it. I definitely say in my younger years I was very influenced by Cannibal Corpse; Chris Barnes’ stuff. To try and get that lower kind of element of things. Jesse from Killswitch Engage, he really opened my eyes the possibilities of how high you can really stretch your vocals. And Randy Blythe from Lamb of God, he really set in my head that mid-tone growl. There’s different types of influences that I’ve had throughout the years, and yeah, Alexi Laiho is definitely one of them. I can remember picking up “Triple Corpse Hammerblow” (from Hate Crew Deathroll) when I was in high school and thinking, “what is this?” I like patterns though, too, because there’s more than just growling and high pitch/low pitch/mids and anywhere in between. There’s more than that. Things that are more appealing to me are patterns and I listen to a vast array of different types of music as far as patterns go. I really like how the Righteous Brothers throw down a few different things in a few different songs that they’ve had. I really like the Commodores. I think that they’ve got awesome rhythmic patterns vocally that are inspirational to me.

The guitar work throughout the entire album is fantastic. Former guitarists Vito Bellino and Brad Dose performed on the album, but have since been replaced by Mike Hisson and Steve Bacakos. Could you explain the departure of both guitarists and then the new recruits?

Unfortunately, life happens, and Brad had a lot of personal things going on. It’s not that he wanted to depart from the band, but he had to take care of a lot of things. We’re all still friends and he came out to our last show and we were all hanging out having a good time. So, we lost Brad and we were a four piece. We had a couple other guys come in and try out, but nobody really fit with what we’re looking for or could live up to the talent, because these guys wrote some incredible guitar parts that not just anybody could play. Just as soon as I was going to bring in Mikey, Vito decided that he had a lot of things going on with his life. He really wanted to focus on his musical career and school. He really wanted to expand his talents and expand his capabilities, and he saw his school as something that was really important to him. Then out of nowhere, Steve got ahold of Eddie or Eddie got ahold of Steve somehow, and it was like butter on toast man, it just worked really well. He came in, he learned three songs and he just started ripping away. We all kind of looked at each other and we had that moment of, “Alright, I think things are gonna be okay!”

What will you be concentrating on mostly for the rest of 2022, including touring plans?

We’ve played one show so far with the new lineup and we’ve got three or four shows booked. We definitely would like to tour, depending on the condition of the world that we live in. We live in a crazy time right now. I can definitely see it in the future. But as of right now, it’s kind of unknown as far as touring goes, but we were not opposed to it. We’re definitely looking forward to seeing how far we can take shows and plan as many shows as we can for as many people as we can to build our fan base and give those people even better products when we’re writing our next material.

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Burned in Effigy released January 28th, 2022 independently through the band’s Bandcamp page.

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The List:

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Employed To Serve – “Conquering”

(Spinefarm, UK)

On their fourth album, Employed To Serve re-assert themselves as leaders of UK metalcore. They incorporate everything from melodic alt-rock to ’90s groove metal to ’80s thrash, and they do it all within the context of fresh, modern, totally pulverizing metalcore. The album’s eerie atmosphere takes things beyond mosh fuel into darker, more hypnotic territory, and Justine Jones and Sammy Urwin’s dual vocals are as effective and unpredictable as ever.

Listen here.

fallfiftyfeet – “Twisted World Perspective”

(self-released, USA)

fallfiftyfeet’s debut LP opens with a slab of melodic sludge metal, but it turns out to be a red herring. From there, the West Virginia band pivot to bone-crushing metalcore, and throughout the remaining 10 tracks, they incorporate progressive post-hardcore, sass, mathcore, melodic emo, and more. Aided by contributions from members of The Callous Daoboys, Greyhaven, Dr. Acula, and The World Is A Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid To Die, the record combines elements from all throughout metalcore’s history. From the raw production of the late ’90s to the big choruses of the mid 2000s to the fresh perspective and DIY ethos that many of today’s best bands possess, this sounds like a band on the cusp of something truly great.

Listen here.

Hazing Over – “Pestilence”

(Acrobat Unstable, USA)

Most members of Hazing Over used to be an excellent screamo band called Shin Guard, but they’ve shifted some people around, picked a new name, and now they’re an excellent metalcore/borderline-deathcore band. It’s hard not to make comparisons to fellow Pittsburgh band Code Orange, who underwent a similar change circa I Am King, and if you like that band’s ambitious metalcore excursions you should definitely be listening to Hazing Over too. With just four songs, Pestilence establishes Hazing Over as a force, capable of connecting the dots between mathcore legends Botch and Myspace deathcore purveyors Job for a Cowboy in ways that feel tasteful and fresh.

Listen here.

Frontierer – “Oxidized”

(self-released, UK)

Whether or not you think Oxidized is the best metalcore album of 2021, you’ll probably agree it’s the most purely chaotic. Pulling from mathcore, industrial, nu metal, djent, and more, it sounds like taking a jackhammer to the eardrum and living to tell the tale. It flirts with a lot of heavy subgenres that have crossed over into the mainstream in the past, but there’s nothing radio-friendly about Oxidized. It’s one of the most physically and emotionally taxing albums that metalcore had to offer in 2021, and I mean that in the best possible way.

Listen here.

Pupil Slicer – “Mirrors”

(Prosthetic, UK)

UK mathcore trio Pupil Slicer recently did a genuinely killer cover of Converge’s Jane Doe opener “Concubine,” a song that takes some serious chops to cover, let alone do anything interesting with that Converge didn’t already do. That should give you an idea of what kind of band Pupil Slicer are, and if that piques your interest, you need Mirrors in your life. As chaotic as it is devastating, it hearkens back to Jane Doe era metalcore and mathcore without ever feeling like a retread. It’s a dark, bleak album musically and lyrically — with hints of black and death metal and lyrical references to abuse, depression, and oppression — but it’s also crystal clear. When you’re this technically proficient and have this much to say, that’s the way it should be.

Listen here. Pick it up on transparent pink or red/black swirl vinyl here.

Dying Wish – “Fragments Of A Bitter Memory”

(SharpTone, USA)

After four years of promising EPs/splits/demos, Portland metalcore band Dying Wish finally released their debut album, and it raises the bar for an already-great band. Like their friends in Knocked Loose (whose Bryan Garris appears on this album and who featured Dying Wish vocalist Emma Boster on their 2019 album A Different Shade of Blue), Dying Wish have absorbed the sounds of all of metalcore’s different waves, and they pick their favorite parts and throw out the rest, coming out with an album that feels like a breath of fresh air for the genre. Their songs are in touch with metalcore’s hardcore punk roots, but they also deliver some of the catchiest melodic metalcore riffs this side of Poison The Well. When Emma Boster switches to clean singing, Dying Wish sound catchy enough to compete with the current pop punk revival, and when she screams, she’s one of the most vicious vocalists in the genre. And with her rage always being pointed at meaningful topics (like gender, racial, sexual, and environmental injustice), Dying Wish only sound more crucial.

Listen here.

Wristmeetrazor – “Replica of a Strange Love”

(Prosthetic, USA)

When melodic metalcore exploded in the early 2000s, it was often tied right in with emo-pop, but Wristmeetrazor imagine a much darker, gothier version of that genre. Their sophomore LP Replica of a Strange Love is full of infectious riffs that sound like the best parts of the Trustkill/Ferret Records era, but their soaring hooks and creepy industrial sections bring to mind White Pony era Deftones and Downward Spiral era Nine Inch Nails. The ingredients are all familiar, but rarely combined like this, and it’s a testament to Wristmeetrazor’s power that they’re able to offer up such time-tested thrills in a way that genuinely feels innovative. Matching the darkness of the music is that of frontman Justin Fornof’s lyrics, which pull equally from personal experience and classical philosophy and use vivid poetic imagery to tap into the depths of human emotion. On all levels, from the bone-crushing breakdowns to the lyrical melodrama, this album is intense.

Listen here. Pick it up on splatter vinyl here

Knocked Loose – “A Tear in the Fabric of Life”

(Pure Noise, USA)

Getting more accessible after a breakthrough is a common path, but after becoming leaders of metalcore’s current wave with 2019’s A Different Shade of Blue, Knocked Loose have only gotten heavier and weirder. A Tear in the Fabric of Life, their new EP/short film, further explores the death metal influences that poked through on Blue, and Knocked Loose have figured out how to fuse death metal and metalcore in a way that doesn’t sound like “deathcore.” They pull from death metal’s murky atmosphere and dissonant riffage, and they meld those things seamlessly with the crisp metalcore attack they’ve been perfecting since day one. Backing vocalist Isaac Hale and guest vocalist Matt King (of Portrayal of Guilt) bring the subterranean filth, and frontman Bryan Garris contrasts it with the piercing, higher-pitched shriek that’s made him one of metalcore’s most distinct frontmen. This all makes A Tear in the Fabric of Life Knocked Loose’s most aggressive release to date, but it’s their most experimental too, with industrial-tinged passages and a creepy Beach Boys sample that suggest Knocked Loose have ambitions beyond being one of the heaviest bands on the planet. They aim to be one of the most artistic too.

Listen here and pick up a black vinyl copy here.

SeeYouSpaceCowboy – “The Romance of Affliction”

(Pure Noise, USA)

The metalcore revival is in full swing, and there’s no question that SeeYouSpaceCowboy revive a ton of sounds from the early/mid 2000s — from straight-up metalcore to sass, screamo, emo-pop, post-hardcore and beyond — but nobody back then ever really sounded like SeeYouSpaceCowboy and nobody now does either. They use familiar tricks in unexpected ways; from harsh screams to clean-sung hooks, shimmering clean guitars to bludgeoning chugs, conventional song structure to chaos, SeeYouSpaceCowboy do it all, and you never really know when something’s gonna come in and what they’re gonna do next. On their best album yet, The Romance of Affliction, the band sounds tighter than ever, and Connie Sgarbossa’s lyrics are at their most devastating. She wrote much of the album about dealing with addiction, and shortly after finishing the album, she suffered a near-fatal overdose. The album captures Connie at a very low point of her life, and it’s a brutally honest telling of what she was going through. It’s deeply personal, it’s as real as it gets, and it’s no surprise that people have swiftly latched onto it.

Listen here. Pick this up on limited splatter vinyl here.

Every Time I Die – “Radical”

(Epitaph, USA)

20 years into their career, Every Time I Die have made their most vast, ambitious, and quite possibly best album to date. That’s an admittedly big claim to make for a band who helped define an entire wave of metalcore with classics like Hot Damn! and Gutter Phenomenon, but as many of their peers have broken up, plateaued, or faded away, Every Time I Die have kept pushing themselves to get even better. With 16 songs in over 50 minutes, Radical is ETID’s longest album, and it earns its running time by offering up the most musically diverse collection of songs this band has ever put out. It has some of the heaviest, most caustic moments of this band’s career (“Sly,” “A Colossal Wreck,” “All This and War”), and it’s also full of moments that transcend Every Time I Die’s metalcore roots: “Post-Boredom” is one of the catchiest rock songs of the year, “Desperate Pleasures” is as brooding as Swans, and the Andy Hull of Manchester Orchestra-featuring “Thing with Feathers” is a clean, soaring song and perhaps the most gorgeous thing ETID have ever written. Matching the musical ambition are some of Keith Buckley’s most incisive lyrics, from songs that take on the injustices of the world at large (“Planet Shit”) to songs that are more personal, like the aforementioned “Thing with Feathers,” a poetic, heart-wrenching ode to Keith’s late sister. It has all the makings of a classic, and it feels as definitive of today’s metalcore scene as ETID’s early records did in the 2000s.

Listen here. Pick this up on opaque lime vinyl here.

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End‘s music makes sense in light of the project’s overtly straightforward name: this concoction of blackened hardcore and grind is totalizing, complete, and downright savage. It feels like the end; or, it’s hard to listen to other music after listening to End. While most bands modulate the intensity knob to add dynamics to their music, this band is hell-bent on finding nuance beyond the cranked limit. It all started as a side project of Fit For an Autopsy guitarist and producer for many great albums Will Putney — now, on the verge of their debut full-length, the band comprises talent from Counterparts, The Dillinger Escape Plan, Fit For An Autopsy, Misery Signals, and more.

Enough said. These gentlemen have come together to summon a fury seldom heard on any album from the realms of hardcore, grind, metalcore, or even deathcore for that matter. Splinters From an Ever-Changing Face consummates total onslaught: it never relents, it never backs down, it never stops charging forward with hyper-focused guitar attacks and beatdowns worthy of fucking your shit up. Check out the singles streaming now; below, we exchanged with Putney about the new release and what’s next for End.

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So, what’s new/changed with End since 2017’s EP From the Unforgiving Arms of God? Did any feedback, reception, or lessons learned from the EP help influence the new album at all?

We’ve done so much as separate artists since the release of the EP. A few guys have toured the world non-stop, Greg and I have made a ton of records. We’re all just constantly exposed to music whether it’s writing, performing, or producing it, so I think everyone came into this new full length really sharp. Adding Billy Rymer (drums) to the band was definitely a nice turning point for us to push the music into more extreme territories. We all just felt really focused about accomplishing a certain vibe and aesthetic with this record, and I’m really happy with the result.

The list of associated bands by members – e.g. Misery Signals, Fit for An Autopsy, The Dillinger Escape Plan, etc. – are markedly different (but all awesome). Even though End began as a passion project by you, how have the backgrounds of each member influenced the final product on the latest album?

To be honest, the backgrounds of our other bands don’t really influence End, if anything, it’s the opposite. End started as an outlet to play a style of music and scratch an itch that our other projects weren’t doing. I think it’s helped bring some focus to Fit For an Autopsy and Counterparts writing approaches, too. Brendan and I have this lane where we can get this out of our system and the other bands feel more cohesive in their intent now to me. This is just music we love to listen to and know really well but it didn’t gel with our current projects. And everyone else’s collective backgrounds and knowledge of the genre just strengthens that.

Did you realize that when writing/recording Splinters from an Ever-Changing Face that you would end up writing perhaps the most pissed-off, heaviest album of 2020?

Well, I very much appreciate that. We had collectively talked about amping this record up from the EP. I really like that record, but it’s initial approach was to just do something quick and fun and throw it out into the world. When we realized how it had connected with a lot of people, we did decide to take this LP more seriously and put in the proper work. I think, thematically, it feels more cohesive, Brendan did a great job of tying together a lot of his lyrical turmoil into more of a collective theme this time. The whole album is loosely based around a person’s journey through this psychotic breaking point, and all of the emotions that come along with that. It’s all delivered in such a dark and unsettling way, where you can really settle into some of these uncomfortable moments. Getting this kind of content out of our system is a great release, I think it helps keep us sane if that makes sense.

Does the band feel like a “supergroup” of sorts, or is it still a “passion project”?

We’re just friends who make music. When I started End, I wanted to do it with musicians I respect so I just asked people I had worked with previously who I knew loved this style of music. The supergroup tag is funny, because this music by a default is not meant to be overshadowed by individuals. I am happy that it’s given us a bit more of a platform, and that there’s crossover with the fans of our other bands who aren’t normally exposed to this kind of music. But hardcore and grind is so the opposite of rock-star/supergroup/etc. to me that I think any inflated hype around the members of a band is silly. The music speaks for itself.

What’s on the horizon for End post-release? Aside from the coronavirus pandemic (and assuming it ends before we all do), where you want to see the band go and do?

We’d really like to play more shows, as I’m sure everyone would right now. There are so many places we haven’t been, and these songs are going to be really fun to play live. We’ve gotten such a great response internationally I feel like we owe some people a chance to see us in a live setting. So now we wait.

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Splinters From an Ever-Changing Face releases June 5th via Closed Casket Activities.

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In the case of Neck of the Woods‘s upcoming record The Annex of Ire, you very much can judge this one by its cover. Imagine the sound issuing forth from all these snarling lupine maws, imagine the rage that fuels their hunger, and you’ll know exactly what to expect from the Vancouver quintet’s second full-length release. Test the waters with our exclusive premiere of the entire thing below.

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Neck of the Woods grabbed me by the throat with their previous record The Passenger, released on Basick Records in 2017, and it left enough of an impact for me to include it in my year-end wrap-up that year. I’d been jonesing hard for a band with the right blend of progressive chops, metalcore heft, and emotional sincerity that made Misery Signals (touring with Neck of the Woods later this year) and Converge such powerful entities. This band stepped up to confidently carry that torch.

Neck of the Woods have since been hard at work refining their approach, pushing the progressive elements even further while still ensuring that each track bangs and slams as hard as it should. Vocalist Jeff Radomsky is back with his throaty howl, enunciating every syllable while fueling each with barely contained ferocity. And when bassist Ron Holloway slips into the warmth of his upper register, these notes ripple and shimmer with charisma. His solo in the title track, delivered over an acoustic breakdown that both seamlessly stems from and segues into crushing obliteration, is one of the record’s most memorable moments, and his stylistic presence is a considerable portion of the band’s sonic character.

Transitions like this pop up all over The Annex of Ire. Neck of the Woods is a restless band, never content to sit on the same idea for too long; in writing these songs, they’ve struck a balance between these impulses and the control with which they rein themselves in. The band gives their music freedom to explore, and in doing so, they’ve created a record brimming with life and enthusiasm.

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The Annex of Ire releases on March 20th via Pelagic Records (physical media available in North America, Europe, and Australia).

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Support Invisible Oranges on Patreon and check out our merch.

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