SeeYouSpaceCowboy / secondgradeknifefight - Split (Grindcore / Screamo, 2018)

SeeYouSpaceCowboy and secondgradeknifefight are both DIY bands that haven't been around for very long (2016 and 2017, respectively) but are already crafting incredibly enjoyable and cathartic music that combines several genres such as grindcore, screamo and powerviolence and this split is a superb example of how they could (and do) all work together.

All aspects of secondgradeknifefight's (the work of only one person, known only as Jonah) performance combine to create a sound that's blistering, intense and yet consistently engaging. The production for the instruments is raw and heavy, but yet clean enough to make out the subtleties of the twists and turns these songs whiplash through. They are perfectly matched with mostly screeching vocals at ear-piercing levels and low growls to supplement them. The only disappointment here is the inclusion of samples in the intros of "don't tell me you like the police..." and "my heart is broken..." that serve to unnecessarily break the pace and go on for slightly too long (over 10 seconds in songs that are only 58 seconds). A staple of the genre, perhaps, but not used to great effect, unlike the "shut the fuck up" sample near the end of "who what when where why..." and the unnerving moaning in the latter half of "glass vampires..." that sits somewhere between pornographic and painful. The latter track is easily the album's standout track, with a slow, dreary emo-tinged intro that transitions perfectly into the usual breakneck intensity of their sound before retreating to a position somewhere between both.

SeeYouSpaceCowboy, who describe their sound as "DIY sasscore" have a larger following than SGKF and even from their first song, it's not hard to see why. The whole band is as tight as SGKF, but even within these four, short songs, there's an incredible amount of variety. The "grind" sections are broken up with a breakdown or two here and there and brooding, cleaner interludes where the whole band, but especially Connie's vocals really shine. Connie's vocals go through many styles, including growls, high-pitched shouts and most intriguely, clean semi-spoken word vocals that mostly sound like she's mocking you with every word she uses. The willingness of the band to incorporate all these different elements is admirable, but their mastery of it is nothing short of stunning. Every song on here uses them to great effect and spit in the face of formula, with no song feeling lesser to the others and never overstaying their welcome.

This was a spectular introduction to both bands, and I'm now excitedly waiting to see what they'll do next while I trawl through their older material. Both sides are very much worth a listen if you're even vaguely interested in this type of music, and especially if you find a lot of bands in the scene very typical.

9 / 10

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Listen to SeeYouSpaceCowboy's side of the split here
Listen to secondgradeknifefight's side of the split here

Darke Complex - Point Oblivion (Nu Metal, 2016)

(originally published in November 10th 2016, republished with minor alterations)

My first exposure to Darke Complex was Anthony Fantano's short Twitter video regarding their music video for Void - his take was that "30 year old me is avoiding this band like the plague, but 15 year old me is seeing them on the second stage of Ozzfest." While I'm not 30 (21 at time of writing this), this is somewhat similar to how I feel after seeing that same video. At least that was until the Frankie Palmeri-lookin' motherfucker came on screen and started spittin’ some sick lines (that is – sick as in nauseating).

I still hold some fondness for nu metal bands such as Korn, Linkin Park, Deftones, Ill Niño and for the most part this song captures that sound fairly well (mostly connected to Linkin Park's take on the genre), even when a lot of modern bands are failing to do so. They got the deep, crunchy guitars, electronic flourishes and those tortured, angsty vocals that speak to the teenager within you. Unfortunately, they also feature the less fondly remembered parts of the genre such as awful rapping and simplistic lyrics.

If you haven’t caught on by now, I’m probably gonna be bringing up the rapping quite a lot in this review. You’ll probably be as sick of it as I was of hearing it by the end of the album, or even during the album. There are actually two rappers on this album, the aforementioned Frankie Palmeri-lookin mofo Moth Tracy and then there’s Okage. Okage isn’t anywhere near as bad as bad as the former but he isn’t great either. But jeez, I wish he was doing all the rapping if there had to be any because every single second of Moth Tracy’s rapping is absolutely horrendous. The tone of his voice is perpetually attempting to come off as angsty and "tough" as possible, and every single syllable is emphasised as much as humanly possible, which only draws more attention to the atrocious, basic lyrics and simplistic rhyme schemes.

An example of some of his lyrics, from the chorus of Dead to Me:

“You try to break me with the words you speak / But you're already dead to me
You can't rewrite the history / Cause you're already dead to me
I'm shoveling this debris / From out of my memory
But alone in your misery / Guarantee you'll remember me”

If that doesn’t sound bad in text, believe me, it sounds worse on the track. Okage’s lyrics don’t seem quite as bad but that could be because he employs a much chilled-out flow that doesn’t draw attention to them quite as much. They remind me more of Mike Shinoda rather than Frankie Palmeri or Chris Fronzak, and that’s a very very good thing.

Even though overall the style is very much nu metal, there are some surprises here and there that give the album some variety. The electronic sections aren’t exactly typical of the genre as you’d expect, such as the synth arpeggios on One of Us that are reminiscent of Muse. There’s also two songs that can only be described as trap (yes, seriously), Cold Blooded and Marking Targets. The beats are acceptable but the rapping is still horrendous save for the middle verse on Marking Targets.

The songwriting overall is pretty solid. If you tore out the rapping sections and the two trap tracks, this would be a fairly enjoyable nu metal album. In its current state however, it’s hard to recommend as a whole. There’s a lot of potential for this band and I wish them success. I can only hope that they continue to grow and change like they did from their EP (which was closer in sound to the likes of Sworn In), and that it’s for the better.

5 / 10

Highlights: Nothing Within, One of Us, Detox and Void

Hand of Mercy - Last Lights (Hardcore / Metalcore, 2012)

(originally published on August 16th, 2012, with minor alterations upon republication)

Ever since 2007, Hand of Mercy has been gradually building up a fanbase with the releases of their EPs Trash the Party, and Scum of the Earth, in 2007 and 2008, respectively. But with their first album The Fallout in 2010, they were on track to join Australian metalcore giants such as I Killed the Prom Queen and Parkway Drive. The album introduced several elements such as more melodic guitar work and clean vocals that saw them playing bigger and bigger shows, supporting overseas bands such as A Day to Remember and August Burns Red on their Australian tours. And when the announcement came that the band were flying to Boston to record a new album, there was no shortage of hype for what they could come up with next. Well, the wait is over and Hand of Mercy are ready to display their new work.

Before the release, the band had released three singles to build the hype, Absence Makes the Heart Go Wander, Rumble in the Grundle and 23 Hour Lockdown. Rumble was released first, and while enjoyable at first, the song wears thin quickly. Absence thankfully is a song with a lot more variation and it gave me hope for this album; that it would be a good progression of the style they were beginning to meld on The Fallout. 23 Hour Lockdown, however, was rather worrying. It is incredibly similar to Rumble and thus serves to diminish the power of both songs. The lack of clean vocals in any of these songs was also a concern, as they were one of the aspects which made The Fallout such an enjoyable release.

Unlike the infectiously catchy start of Sick For It from The Fallout, Last Lights' Dexter begins with simplistic pounding from the guitars and drums and a scream of "Murderer!" Even from this opening song, some differences are clear: the production hits a lot harder, no doubt a result of the production work of Shane Frisby, who has worked with other bands such as The Ghost Inside and Bury Your Dead. The guitar tones of Adam and Josh has been tuned down noticeably, and while this results in a heavier sound, this is to the detriment of the memorability of the riffs; they sound rather muddy and don't sound quite as fun as the riffs from earlier songs such as Ankles to the Wall and Claim to Lame. The drumming and bass work is typical of the genre; nothing to write home about, but nothing to complain about either. Scott's vocals are similar to that of their previous work, but the absence of clean vocals is a massive disappointment. The counterpoint provided by them is surely missed and makes this release more repetitive. The best example of the repetition the album suffers from is the song Can't Stop, Won't Stop, Did Stop, being without a doubt the poorest song on the album, beginning with a breakdown and consisting primarily of breakdown after breakdown.

Breakdowns are a staple of modern metalcore, but it never ceased to disappoint me when predictably Hand of Mercy fell into the trap of saturating their songs with them. Despite these issues, however, a couple of songs stand out. Absence as mentioned earlier was a standout, the melodic guitar work being a much yearned for break from the constant deep crunchy riffs that the rest of the album is dowsed in. Strong Armed is also another standout, starting fast and hard, with the gang vocals being a good reminder of their earlier EPs. The track is fun, with a rather catchy breakdown in the middle and will no doubt be one of the best tracks to mosh to in their upcoming shows. Last Lights is definitely the strongest track on the album, and being the only one with clean vocals greatly benefits from them. If more of the songs were like this one, the rating would definitely be higher. While lyrics were never one of Hand of Mercy's best features (like most other bands of their type), there are some great memorable lines with the final track as well.

Hand of Mercy are nothing if consistent, but did they believe Parkway Drive was what was to be strived for when it comes to creating music? Like the aforementioned band, their songwriting is beginning to stagnate, and I'd hate to see Hand of Mercy to succumb to the temptation of laziness like them. Creativity seems to be short on this release, but I truly hope they can bounce back from this and that it's not an indication of their future work.

(repub. note: Parkway Drive actually did come through with more interesting music on Atlas, released later that year! And even though I didn't particularly enjoy what I heard on Ire, credit must certainly be given: they clearly didn't want to stay the same and keep rehashing their sound)

4 / 10

Highlights: Absence Makes the Heart Go Wander, Strong Armed and Last Lights

Emmure - Look at Yourself (Deathcore, 2017)

 

 You might be surprised to find out that the person who wrote songs with titles like Bring A Gun To School and Girls Don't Like Boys, Girls Like 40's And Blunts might not have been the biggest pleasure to work with behind the scenes. This was confirmed when in late 2015, every single member sans Frankie Palmeri left Emmure and in 2014 Ben Lionetti, their founding rhythm guitarist called Frankie “a disgusting human being”. Nevertheless, Frankie assembled a new lineup and Emmure presses on – much to the disdain of metal listeners everywhere. However, interest was piqued when the members were revealed to be from Glass Cloud and the single Torch dropped. It was definitely an improvement from much of the trash that littered their last album – was Emmure gonna bounce back to (at the very least) the decency that was Slave to the Game and Goodbye to the Gallows?

Well, almost.

The biggest positive right from the get-go is that the album is a lot shorter this time – only 31 minutes compared to Eternal Enemies’ extremely bloated 44 minutes. The album begins similarly to how nearly all their albums start – with a song that’s little more than a glorified breakdown. “Get the fuck up! / Gahh! / Blerghhh! Move!” No doubt that took a long time to come up with.

The third track Smokey doesn’t really feature much more than the breakdown either, although it does have better lyrics and generally hits a lot harder – it would be preferable if this was the opener for the album and You Asked For It was just discarded.

Shinjuku Masterlord, as the first real song, reminds me why I disliked the previous Emmure album in the first place. It could fit right there too – it features a middling riff, along with some embarrassing white boy rap lines. The only real difference is a lower tuning. Flag of the Beast is much the same, just chuck in some lyrics that Corey Taylor could have written for earlier Slipknot albums.

However, Natural Born Killer is instantly explosive, with groovy throttling riffs and beats. It gives you a bit of hope for the record – that is, until it is sadly soiled halfway through by Frankie’s rapping. If it wasn’t for that, it would be easily the best song on the album. In the end that honor has to go to Russian Hotel Aftermath. Everything about it sounds pained and it all comes to head during the climax where the breakdowns actually seem to signal a descend into a madness and self-hatred. You could say it’s almost deathcore’s answer to Kendrick Lamar’s u.

Unfortunately, most of the songs are honestly pretty forgettable, just more of the usual Emmure. Ice Man Confessions is a little more experimental, evoking a sense of forboding and feels like it actually has some progression. The shorter songs like Major Key Alert and Derelict on here are complete throwaways, more interludes than anything. The biggest surprise here is the incredibly brief usage of clean vocals on Turtle in a Hare Machine. They work surprisingly well, so it’s a shame that they aren’t used more often instead of Frankie’s usual styles that become grating quickly.

If you expected to hear more the melodic prog Glass Cloud influence from their self-titled album on this due to the new members in the band, you’ll be disappointed. The best you’ll get is more djent-inspired riffs similar to that from their EP Perfect War Forever. The instrumentation overall has definitely improved, but not consistently and fully throughout the entire album. Too many throwaways sour the experience, and I can’t help but feel like with more time this could have been a pretty damn good album.

In the end, mixing Emmure with more recent Glass Cloud turns out to be like mixing skim milk and milk. And I guess that's fine if you like milk enough.

If you really have a hankering for more Emmure, I'd suggest making a playlist containing the following songs (which are the highlights of the album):

1. Smokey
2. Natural Born Killer
3. Ice Man Confessions
4. Russian Hotel Aftermath
5. Turtle in a Hare Machine
6. Torch

6 / 10


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CONTENT WARNING: Disturbing, flashing imagery featured in the below video.

Anal Trump - To All the Broads I've Nailed Before (Grindcore, 2017)

CONTENT WARNING: Holocaust imagery and reference in review of other Anal Trump reviews

(review for To All the Broads... originally written on January 24th, 2017)

Travis Ryan, usually involved with more serious grindcore (such as Cattle Decapitation and Murder Construct) and Rob Crow (of Pinback, which is an indie rock band funnily enough) have teamed up to put together another EP for their satirical Donald Trump-themed project, Anal Trump. Considering how short their ‘full-length’ album was at roughly 3 minutes, it’s no surprise that this release barely reaches 1 minute long, with 10 tracks to boot.

Even though this album was released to ‘commemorate’ Trump’s inauguration, it honestly sounds like they could have conceivably written and recorded it on that same day. There is so little thought seemingly put into this that I was wondering whether I should even write a review for it. The humour is about as obnoxious and on-the-nose as any of the Trump SNL parodies, and it wears thin before the minute duration of the album is even up. The most clever thing about it is the album cover that depicts a flower gets urinated on and the decision to press the release on “piss yellow” yinyl.

Sonically, even though the band name references Anal Cunt they sound more like they’re channelling Agoraphobic Nosebleed. Minus most of the appeal, unfortunately. The things that work best in Agoraphobic Nosebleed’s sound are the insane, overbearing fast drum machine beats, meaty riffs and wacky over-the-top lyrics that go together to craft a surreal atmosphere of debauchery, violence and general extremity. Anal Trump doesn’t even come close.

When it comes to Anal Trump, the vocals are at the forefront of the mix. There is mostly nothing special about the guitar work and the drum work is decent but fairly buried within that mix. Songs are mostly indistinguishable save for two. Although that can be par for the course with grindcore typically there are memorable moments throughout a grindcore album – although you might not be able to remember which song they were part of, they will still likely resonate with you later and I feel like nothing on this release will accomplish that for me.

The two songs that stand out for me are The Fat Picture and The Trump Rule. The Fat Picture has the single best vocal performance on the album and I wish I saw that kind of variety and ferocity more often. It reminds me a lot of Devin Townsend at his most insane. The Trump Rule features Travis’ higher pitched clean vocals which Cattle Decapitation fans will be familiar with and even though I don’t think it works too well here I appreciate attempt at variety.

I can only hope if Anal Trump does another release (which they probably will) that they put just a little more thought into it. I’m not expecting the most socially aware satire to come from this project, but I’m hoping for a little more considering the talent involved.

Ultimately, this EP is about as well thought-out as a Donald Trump tweet.

0.5 / 10

Highlights: "The Fat Picture"

You can find and purchase this EP digitally here. All net proceeds are donated to Planned Parenthood. The vinyl is sold out by now and incredibly unlikely to be repressed. (you're probably not missing much)


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Upon republication of this review, I decided to check out another Anal Trump release to see if they had improved any.

If You Thought Six Million Jews Was A Lot Of People, You Should've Seen My Inauguration (released 2 months later) is definitely an improvement over this. The lyrics of Christian Discount satirise the topic at hand (immigration) better than the completely on-the-nose jokes on To All the Broads. Nuclear Football Photo-Op's lyrics also paint a pretty funny mental image of exactly what the song title implies. Race Detector and Nuclear Football Photo-Op feature more of the vocal variety I liked on The Fat Picture, with an engaging double drum / guitar pattern on Race Detector that transitions into a slow section at the end. The biggest surprise, besides having some of the jokes actually land on this album, is the intro of Does This Cross Make Me Look Fat?, which begin with an unwinding guitar line that is joined by a pounding drumbeat. It almost sounded like a real song. Maybe it's un-grindcore-like to say this, but I would definitely like to hear more like that.

3 / 10

Persona 5 (PS4, JRPG, 2017)

Where to begin with a game this large? I think I'll probably just break it down into the usual 4 different areas that game reviewers typically do, and I'll be mainly comparing the game to the previous two in the series and also the mainline Shin Megami Tensei games, so keep that in mind while reading this. Spoiler-free.

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GRAPHICS (8.5/10): Stylistically stunning. Considering that Persona 3 and 4 were a step backwards visually compared to 2003's Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne, it's great that they've finally surpassed that once again. However, it's pretty obvious that this was originally a PS3 game - there are corners cut in some of the environments and it's somewhat disappointing that they didn't bring it a bit up to par with what you might expect from a PS4 game. At least the upside with that is that graphically the PS3 and PS4 versions aren't too different visually, except in terms of the resolution.

Persona games have had great looking UIs since Persona 3 and still Persona 5 manages to be a huge step up from the previous two in that regard and the looks never get in the way of functionality.
Plus it's great that we're facing the demons again instead of the previously boring, frequently palette-swapped shadows of the previous two games. Fighting them is much more satisfying than before and the HD versions of the original Kazuma Kaneko designs are glorious to behold.

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SOUND (6.5/10): The Persona series has mostly excelled with its music and this game is no different. However, it's a huge gripe for me that there's literally only one song, "Last Surprise" for 90% of the game's battles. This is only exacerbated when you consider the sheer length of this game (my playthrough logged in at 85 hrs by the end). I found myself muting the game sometimes when I was going through a dungeon. It's a good song, but any song, no matter how great will become grating with repetition. (why I'm sick of Bohemian Rhapsody!) Even Nocturne managed to have more than one encounter song, so why not Persona 5 with all that additional Blu-Ray space?

In addition to that, the voice lines are incredibly repetitive and annoying. I played with the English dub, and to a degree, I regret that. Do we need to have characters saying the same, exact line every time I down an enemy? It became yet another reason why I was muting the game at times.

"BONA FIDE MONA-FIED!"

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GAMEPLAY (7.5/10): The previous 2 Persona games had the issue where the two main sections of the game (the daily life and the dungeons) feel very segregated from each other. For the most part now, the social links feel like they have greater implications on the dungeon gameplay thanks to various buffs you acquire through leveling and maxing out the social links.

The devs must have been listening to my prayers as well, since the negotiation system returns from the mainline SMT games (it was previously in Persona 1/2 but absent in 3). It makes a lot more sense that you're collecting / convincing the shadows to join you vs getting a random Persona drop that you did in the previous games. The battle system ultimately still isn't as great as the Press Turn system of Nocturne and IV, but they've made great strides to making it much more viscerally satisfying than before with the addition of guns and the menu changes.

Like the previous two Persona games however, the game is simply too fucking long. It actually felt far longer than the previous two games despite being maybe 5 hours longer in the end. I took a long, long break once I reached the second-last dungeon due to how sick of the game I was by that point. Maybe this would be less of an issue if this was the first game in the series I'd ever played but by this point I had already played two that we were very similar and it just left me as fatigued as the characters did in Tarturus in Persona 3.

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STORY (8/10): One of the biggest issues with the previous 2 Persona games is how long it took for anything interesting to happen in the plot, but right off the bat Persona 5 gives a much more compelling beginning than before, with you entering the first dungeon within the first hour. The pacing is still slow as fuck though, and just like Persona 4 especially, it's hard to reconcile the lack of urgency you'll feel given that you have several weeks to complete each dungeon. No matter what story reason they've given for some terrible event to happen some weeks later instead of happening very soon, they still feel incredibly contrived. The reasons they give are definitely much more well thought out than Persona 4's "oh, you should take a break, don't push yourself too hard" while one of your friends is trapped inside a fucking shadow world though.

They seem to have made a greater effort to touch upon societal issues, but their handling of it can be hit or miss at best and downright abysmal at worst. Many people have already brought up the poor handling of gay characters in the game, but this is not exclusive to this entry in the series as the previous two games had bungled their treatment just as badly. It's just sad that even 10 or so years later that not much has changed since then, and the lack of gay romance options is an additional disappointment in a game where it seems important to self-insert (why can't I date you Yusuke??)

Despite the pacing issues, the story is mostly compelling throughout, with every consecutive villain you face throughout the game being perfectly hateable, and a surprisingly nuanced look at the grey morality in terms of what you wind doing to those villains throughout the game. However, there really isn't the same level of nuance afforded to the villains you face - they're almost always the biggest bastards on the planet with minimal redeeming qualities.

The lack of urgency and pacing issues definitely hurt the motivation to continue going though, and I can only hope future Persona games are much tighter in future (although I obviously doubt that'll happen).

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Overall, definitely the best entry in Persona franchise thus far (despite my soft spot for Persona 3, being the first game I played in the series) and despite my various complaints, gives me a lot of hope for the future. I can't keep but think however of the phrase "The more things change, the more they stay the same," and considering the theme of this game, I can only hope they don't remain complacent with future entries.

8 / 10

Saosin - Translating the Name (Post-Hardcore / Emo, 2003)

I have a preference for shorter, tight releases and Translating the Name is probably one of my favourites in that regard. This is Saosin at its best - before their self-titled release, and before Anthony Green departed to Circa Survive, they were a band that was messy, poppy and all around fantastic. If more post-hardcore was like this, I have no doubt the genre would be a lot more appreciated.

There's so much happening in nearly every song - they manage to sound chaotic and yet subdued, an embodiment of the adolescent emotional contradictions that plague every teenage mind and leads them to write embarrassing things like this very sentence. Despite the band’s biggest strengths on this EP being their ability to manage the chaos, the best track on here is probably the most straight-forward, accessible one, 3^rd Measurement in C.

Some of the lyrics on this EP are downright strange, such as "I have your voice on tape in a Southern accent screaming at me" and “And I'm sad that you'll be gold upon / gold in my veins  / tango with daddy and separate only / smile my only rights of passage”. It’s difficult to grasp exactly what they mean but the emotion behind them makes you feel like it doesn’t really matter so much.

The only song on here that doesn't hold my interest much is the finale, They Perched on Their Stilts, Pointing and Daring Me to Break Custom. Most of the time when I listen to this EP, I skip this track but when I give it a chance, I’m reminded of why I do. Most of the song is fairly simplistic and subdued compared to the rest of the EP. It’s a bit closer to the sound that future Saosin songs would pursue, and that’s probably why it doesn’t work all that much for me.

It’s a shame that Anthony Green departed Saosin – as much as I enjoy Circa Survive, the potential displayed here could have led to something great. Instead Saosin dumbed down their sound, and they’ve never been able to capture the magic of this EP even with Anthony’s return.

8 / 10

Highlights: “3^rd Measurement in C" and "Translating the Name".

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