Flying On Clipped Wings

Any hack journalist working in the arts sphere can get a few thousand clicks by writing a “rock is dead” piece, because the kids are all listening to Playboi Carti now, and dad rock no longer reigns supreme on the airwaves. While it is true that the current genres favoured by the zeitgeist at the moment are guitar free for the most part, this take fails to consider one significant factor: extreme music has been having a great time. The Internet may have destroyed the ability of bands to make money solely off their music, but its ability to connect listeners across the globe made it far easier for bands to find audiences. You weren't tied to geographical location or needing a big label to do your distribution for you when it could all be put online. As the commercial side of heavy music withered in artistic and commercial terms,the artists on the extreme side stuck to their guns and pushed themselves further to make great art, and they won in the end. Look at how Deafheaven’s Sunba...

In order to properly convey my love of hard-hitting, abrasive, underground music, I’d need a far larger word count and the ability to use hyperlinks in this piece. Instead, I chose a particular album that was released last year, Svalbard’s It’s Hard To Have Hope . It stands up, not only as the band’s finest moment to date, a fact recognised by many of the scene’s major media outlets, but as a shining example of what hardcore can do and be at its very best. For a genre that’s often pigeonholed as being formulaic and one-dimensional, hardcore has managed to weave a number of different elements and approaches into its tapestry. Svalbard are no slouches in this department. Their approach is a really interesting mix of the beautiful melodies and rich soundscapes of the recent wave of post-rock leaning black metal bands, but underpinned by a very straightforward pummelling rhythm section, keeping things grounded and the attack very in-your-face. There’s sweeping beauty and a thunder...

As a myriad of hardcore bands plumb the depths of the 90s and early 2000s for inspiration, it was perhaps inevitable that we'd see a revival of the emotionally charged ferocity that bands like Poison The Well, From Autumn To Ashes and Remembering Never in particular dealt out, and for a band playing this sound to get picked up by a label. The band in question, Wristmeetrazor, the label in question, Prosthetic Records, and here we are with their official debut album. Fortunately for the band, I'm quite a fan of that strand of early 00s metalcore, and fortunately for me and the other listeners, they don't just retread those waters on this album. They take their name from a Usurp Synapse song, and the fragmented, blistering ferocity of that strand of screamo, emo violence, is all over this album. Song lengths seldom go past the two minute mark, the guitars squeal and screech with wiry feedback, the vocals are a tortured pterodactyl cry. Yet it's Wristmeet...

Those of us who find ourselves in low moods a lot of the time often find comfort in sad songs. We wallow until there's no more sorrow to be let loose, and we can pick ourselves up again. Very often there's particular songs that get put on repeat, a feedback loop of sadness, a downward spiral. For me, Grouper's song Call Across Rooms , off her 2014 album Ruins is the one song among the many songs fitting that description that's under the microscope today. It's one of only a few songs that completely broke me emotionally upon first listen. The day after first listening to it, I ended up in hospital for a suicide attempt. I was afraid of it for a little bit afterwards, but I tried listening to tricot in the ambulance n I haven't gone off that band at all, so I return to Call Across Rooms at my lowest points. The song is essentially recorded in one take, Liz Harris singing over sad piano, a faint air of feedback in the air. I've heard music critics re...

Well, 2018. It was a year. Honestly whether it was a good or bad one depends what lens you're looking at it through but it was definitely a year that'll be etched into the history books. Fortunately it did produce quite a bit of good music, which I'll document here in the form of my favourite tracks released. Calvin Harris & Dua Lipa: One Kiss Calvin Harris makes his return to more traditional dance music with this silky smooth cut. Dua Lipa continues to exude the effortless cool that's become her trademark of sorts, the instrumental has some lovely 90's house vibes I'm a sucker for, the true big song of the summer. Vein: Virus//:Vibrance Vein are one of the hottest bands in hardcore at the minute, and this song is more than sufficient justification for that. They've taken the white-hot aggression of their early EPs, and teased it out more into an almost sickeningly forceful groove, losing none of the power but far more refined. It's as catchy a...

​ In the second edition of Song Of The Day, we're sticking in the punk realm, but with a song I feel more of ye might actually give a listen as it's not screamy af, it's  RVIVR's Wrong Way/One Way . It's a brilliant rough edged pop punk jam, but also one of the songs that validates just why this genre, punk is one of the most important artistic things our species has been able to create. Punk was created by misfits, the drug addled, the ethnic minorities, the working class, the alienated, the ones aware of how shit everything was and wanting to change that. Yet despite all of this history, it's still been a really hostile and reactionary place for a lot of people, especially if you're queer or gender non conforming, like one of this band's vocalists, Mattie, formerly of Latterman, another sick rough edged melodic punk band. They've put themselves on the line, not only by writing songs about these issues and talking about them, but by pressing ...

I'm a sad person a lot of the time, but there's a few songs out there that make me very happy indeed, and I'm going to share them with all you lovely readers here. They may not be your typical example of a "happy song", but they do make me smile at times when it feels like my facial muscles can't contort themselves into that shape. 1: tricot: Omotenashi First off we have Japanese all girl math rock quartet tricot, purveyors of the most lovely, warm, technical, beautiful, comfy yet powerful math-pop-rock in existence, This is a track off both an EP and their debut record,  T.H.E. , and honestly picking just one song is a difficult task, but it's a more straightforward cut, my first introduction to the band, and it packs such a punch. 2: Crossfaith: Wildfire Staying in Japan for this next song, we have Japanese electro-metalcore warriors Crossfaith. Despite how that genre description might sound, they do have a grasp of how to write songs, and pr...

2017 has been a terrible year on most fronts, however for heavy music it has actually been one of the strongest years for the genre. What stands out most about heavy music is just how many new bands rose to prominence, and how many bands were able to achieve both artistic and commercial success while staying true to their artistic integrity. It's a brave new era, and while I'm excited to see what 2018 brings, here we will be getting reacquainted with the best albums of 2017. 1: Counterparts: You're Not You Anymore "YANA AOTY" was a bit of a meme this year, but in the case of Counterparts, that is more than justified in my opinion. They've always been one of the most distinctive bands within their vein of melodic hardcore, blending together the roughness of the early '00s metalcore scene with intricate technicality, a really intuitive sense of melody threaded throughout the chaos, and a whole lot of passion. Despite losing a few members, they'...