I’ve been late to the letlive. party despite many folks around me going nuts over them. Hardcore isn’t exactly the genre for me anyway save for crust bands, but I finally gave the group a chance with their latest single ‘Banshee (Ghost Fame)’ and was floored. Since then, I’ve heard the group described as progressive hardcore, which isn’t far off the mark. I sort of see them as a mix between Rage Against The Machine, Glassjaw, and Every Time I Die. Make of that what you will, but it truly rocks.
The surprisingly so-so All Stars Tour now has tour dates! The trek — featuring Every Time I Die, Veil of Maya, iwrestledabearonce, and more — will run through July and August. Special guests Volumes will be performing July 26th-August 11th and Structures will appear July 19th-25th and August 12th-17th. Here are the dates:
I tend to think of these yearly summer package tours that Sumerian Records and the Pantheon Agency put on as falling on a certain spectrum. One one end you have Summer Slaughter, meant for fans of more extreme music which has now branched out to appeal to prog fans. On the other end All Stars Tour appeals to more hardcore/scene fans — think a selection of bands that you could see on the heavier end of Warped. I tend to align myself with Summer Slaughter Tour and avoid All Stars like the plague, but this year’s All Stars tour has at least three bands I’d LOVE to see!
When it comes to a lineup that includes the likes of Every Time I Die and The Acacia Strain, it should go without saying; YOU’RE MOSHING. Resident curly fro Maclyn Bean hit up his local stop at Union Transfer in Philadelphia to shoot the show (also featuring Hundredth) in case you couldn’t make it yourself, so live vicariously and mosh at your desk (imagination!) while checking out the photos below:
Coilguns are one of those perfectly hidden secrets in the metal underground, so consider this an olive branch — this is your chance to get acquainted with them. Comprised of a large portion of The Ocean (yeah, seriously!), Coilguns take art-y angular hardcore and intensify the energy in a way that only members of that aforementioned German collective could and, their debut, Commuters is the imagining of exactly that. Metal.de has a full stream of the album, the article may entirely in German, but thankfully soundcloud players are a universal language so get stuck in.
Fans of The Chariot and early days Every Time I Die will find qualities to latch onto here and there, but the main difference being that Coilguns aren’t afraid to slow things down to a funeral march and explore the sparser tempos of post-metal as in the 11 minute long ‘Commuters Part 2‘ or the brooding album closer ‘Earthians‘. But if you don’t have time to fit in a whole album today, at the very least, lend your lug-holes to the minute and half bruiser of ‘Plug-In Citizen‘ — you’d be hard pushed to find another track so instantly satisfying this year.
If you want a visual accompaniment to the track however, there’s an in-studio performance video after the jump!
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If you’re like myself, then you love you some hardcore music. Everything from The Chariot and Every Time I Die to Terror and Converge, when the feedback kicks in and the sound turns up, your blood gets pumping and all you want to do is mosh. I saw Intronaut on Sunday (interview coming soon!), and there was one of two opening bands that go by the name of Carnivores At Grace. They play a mix of hardcore and sludge, and it works really well. This trio of dudes really go hard with their music, and while watching them live I couldn’t help thinking to myself, “Wow. These guys are really freaking good.”
They have an album out right now on their Bandcamp page, and at six bucks, you really can’t go wrong. It also doesn’t hurt that their record was produced by Jamie King, who has worked with Between the Buried and Me and Last Chance To Reason. So go follow them on Facebook and download their album, because you would seriously be missing out if you didn’t.
- SS
Who the hell is Famt Wang, you ask?! He’s a graphic artist who has done shirt designs for the likes of Reflections and Bound by Exile, he is the creator of a line of limited edition guitar picks for Carnifex, Dweller, and Ophidian I, and member of up-and-coming death metal band Blue Waffle (for the love of Christ, don’t Google them). He reached out to us concerning his very own Top 10 list and we were happy to oblige! Read his thoughts on the year below.
So, I wanted my top 10 list to not get lost in my 1,000,000 blog posts a day on Facebook; so I asked my friend over at Heavy Blog is Heavy to post it for me. Luckily they all think my music taste is great and that I’m funny as fuck, or I wouldn’t have been worked into the last day of publishing. 2012, has been a year full of jacking off, bad relationships, and somewhat decent music; at least for me. Communications was my focus for this year, and laying low. I think I got high more then anything in the last year and just blasted music. 2013 will be much more productive; my band will actually make real music and not fuck up splits with other bands, I’ll produce more guitar picks, and I’ll still smoke way too much weed. Here’s my top 10 releases of 2012.
T’is that beautiful time of year again. A season of good will, understanding and compassion towards your fellow man — a time for giving, loving and appreciating. The cold may have rolled in and the trees may have shed their once vibrant foliage, but the world finds solace in the love and company of others. It’s a time to reflect on the memories of the year and plan ahead for the next.
But most of all it’s a time to listen brutal fucking metal and drink a fuck tonne of Advocaat, because 2012 was full of great releases and now’s your chance to catch on releases you may have missed or may have never even heard of. My first draft of this list was composed of 30 albums, which then shot up to 37 when I realised that I had forgotten to include EPs. Everything from new bands that came out of nowhere to blow my mind (We Are Knuckle Dragger, Bloodshot Dawn, Oddland, Exotic Animal Petting Zoo etc) to the old guard continuing their brilliant legacy (Gojira, Aborted, Napalm Death, Deftones etc) all unfortunately fell by the wayside in the ruthless culling exercise that produced this list. And I regret cutting every single one of them, but alas, if I was talk about every album this year that was great, I’d probably lose your attention pretty quickly. Who am I kidding? You’ve most likely already skipped on to the list and you’re not even reading this bit. I could write anything I want here and no one would notice. Anything at all.
When the upcoming Converge tour with Torche and Kvelertak was announced, it looked like it was going to be one of the more energetic and crazy live US tours we were going to be seeing in the coming months. However, Every Time I Die want in on the action as they announced their upcoming headlining tour featuring The Chariot, letlive., and Kills and Thrills! Every Time I Die are all about The Party™ and The Chariot are one of the most energetic and chaotic live bands the scene has to offer, so even without considering the other half of the bill, this tour’s promised to rock faces.
Here are the dates:
11/29 Louisville, KY @ Headliners
11/30 Springfield, MO @ Outland Ballroom
12/1 Dallas, TX @ Centennial Hall (Fair Park)
12/2 Corpus Christi, TX @ House of Rock
12/4 Nashville, TN @ Exit/In
12/5 Columbia, SC @ New Brookland Tavern
12/6 Richmond, VA @ Canal Club
12/7 Poughkeepsie, NY @ The Loft
12/8 Providence, RI @ The Met
12/9 Holyoke, MA @ The Waterfront Tavern
12/11 Baltimore, MD @ The Ottobar
12/12 Pittsburgh, PA @ Mr. Smalls
12/13 Bloomington, IL @ The Castle Theater
12/14 St. Louis, MO @ Firebird
12/15 Omaha, NE @ Sokol Underground
12/16 Madison, WI @ The Loft
12/17 Palantine, IL @ Durty Nellies
12/18 Lansing, MI @ The Loft
12/19 Buffalo, NY @ Mohawk Place
Get stoked and make it out to a show, ya jerk.
- JR
Feed The Rhino01. Flood The System
02. Nothing Lost
03. The Burning Sons
04. I Am The Curse, I Am The Cure
05. Kings Of Grand Delusion
06. Song Of Failure
07. Razor
08. Left For Ruins
09. Fountains
10. Death Of The Swine
11. Tides
12. The Compass
As far as ‘verb the noun’ band names go, Feed The Rhino is definitely one of the odder contributions around. It really doesn’t do much to describe the band’s particular brand of angular rock ‘n’ core, where Every Time I Die, Gallows and Hawk Eyes all clash head on. The Burning Sons marks this British quartet’s attempt at ‘the difficult second album’ and sets the soundtrack for a jaunt of high profile shows alongside the aforementioned current kings of UK hardcore, Gallows, as well as an apparently crushing set at the legendary Download festival. It would seem the murmurs about this band have gone from a dull whisper to a dense industrial hum in the short time since the release of their debut and The Burning Sons only gives you more reason to buy into it.
