Flying On Clipped Wings

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'...

(Originally published on The Odyssey at  https://www.theodysseyonline.com/10-songs-get-you-into-post-hardcore?utm_expid=.cZCE7oX8QCubI-ziFLsOXg.0&utm_referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theodysseyonline.com%2Fuser%2F%40mal-andintheway)   Post-hardcore is a rather vague genre label, initially referring to bands that took the hardcore punk framework and twisted it into strange new shapes, now just a bracket for bands too heavy to be pop punk and not aggro enough to be metalcore. However it is a genre that’s produced many brilliant records and many brilliant bands, and I’d like to give ye all a brief wee overview with ten songs to show you just what this little subgenre can do at its best. 1: Big Black: Bad Penny Steve Albini is notable for having produced a number of brilliant albums, In Utero needing no introduction. Before that however, he was a member of Chicago’s Big Black, a band that took the anger of hardcore, the invention of post-punk and created some o...