i think i better follow you around

Just announced that Guadalupe Plata have partnered with Mike Edison for their new release “The Devil Can’t Do You No Harm” out April 16 via Everlasting Records.

Additional details such as runtime and tracklist have not been released yet. What they have released is the first single for the album: “Who Ya Gonna Call”, and it’s as good as anything that Guadalupe Plata have released before.

Mike Edison began his recording career back in 1987 with Sharky’s Machine. He also recorded and released a couple of albums with G.G. Allin. As Edison Rocket Train he has released a couple of albums that were produced by Jon Spencer. Edison is also an acclaimed and accomplished writer and editor.

The album was recorded in Seville, Spain in 2020 but was delayed due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Tomahawk have released their first full-length album in eight years, Tonic Immobility (Ipecac Recordings), and with it they have shared a video for “Predators and Scavengers” directed, animated and produced by Diego Cumplido.

Duane Denison (The Jesus Lizard/Unsemble) said of the clip:”‘Predators and Scavengers’ started out as a general observation on the current ecological climate of our planet. Perhaps it could also be applied to the socioeconomic climate as well? “

Stop if you’ve heard this one before…Four guys from a bunch of other bands walk into a studio and walk out with a record. That’s sort of the story of Tomahawk, but it’s not the whole shebang. The guys—guitarist Duane Denison [the Jesus Lizard, Unsemble, etc.], vocalist Mike Patton [Faith No More, Mr. Bungle, Fantômas, etc.], drummer John Stanier [Helmet, Battles, etc.], and bassist Trevor Dunn [Mr. Bungle, Fantômas, etc.]—show up just when we need them. The first time was in 2001 with the self-titled Tomahawk. Following Mit Gas [2003] andAnonymous [2007], they dropped Oddfellows during 2013.

NOÊTA will be releasing their second album titled “Elm” on April 23rd via Prophecy Productions.

Tracklist: 1. Dawn Falls
2. As I Fall Silent
3. Disillusion
4. Above And Below
5. Fade
6. As We Are Gone
7. Elm
8. Elm (II)

The duo, Êlea and Andris, released a video for the song Dawn Falls: Êlea says about the song: “The song “Dawn Falls” revolves an inner struggle that tries to balance between giving your trust to someone and holding back for self-protection. We can be so hopeful in our relationship with other people and give them power over us with our trust, our desires, our honesty. Yet in human relationships high hopes can betrayed leading to the inner abyss of loneliness and from there to isolation and resignation. When being alone becomes the easier choice, then pain might also offer an opportunity for strength and with it new hope.”

Something dark, melancholic, and at times even sinister is haunting each of the eight tracks collected on NOÊTA’s sophomore full-length, “Elm”, which is lyrically based loosely on emotions connected to the eponymous poem by the celebrated American writer Sylvia Plath. The music of the Swedish duo comes with an inherent ethereal beauty, which is carried by Êlea’s both lucent and lucid voice. The focus on the singer’s bewitching vocals is further underlined by a subtle and nearly minimalistic instrumentation by her long-time collaborator Andris, who masterly captures and enhances the musical moods.

Taking their name from the ancient Greek philosophical notion of universal thoughts or ideas that exist independently of any agent having them, NOÊTA embark on their musical journey into the otherworld with the highly praised 2015 EP “psykhē”, which also refers to classical Greek philosophy where it denotes the wholeness of a person. This was followed by the equally acclaimed debut album “Beyond Life and Death” in 2017, which added more depth and audible confidence to the duo’s compositions.

With the recording, production and mix again firmly controlled by NOÊTA, mastering of “Elm” was for the first time left to the expert hands of Tore Stjerna at Necromorbus Studio (MAYHEM, WATAIN). Guest contributions by KNOKKELKLANG and P.Stille of STILLA and BERGRAVEN also hint to Êlea’s roots in black metal that remain present although her darkness takes a different stylistic direction.

“Elm” witnesses NOÊTA charting their very own left hand course through the rising tide of unique female artists such as KRISTINA ESFANDIARI, ANNA VON HAUSSWOLFF or EMMA RUTH RUNDLE to name but a few of the highly individual female voices claiming their territory in the world of dark music.

The Horrors released on March 12th via Wolf Tone titled “Lout”

The tracklist: 1 Lout
2 Org
3 Whiplash

The band released an audio video for Lout:

Faris Badwan said: “’Lout’ is about the relationship between choice and chance, compulsive risk-taking and pushing your luck. As a band, particularly live, we’ve always had an aggressive side and as we began writing new songs it became clear that we were heading in that direction.” Bassist Rhys Webb added: “It’s the nastiest music we’ve made since Strange House. An intense barrage of industrial noise. A return to the spirit and attitude of our debut LP but blasted into the future.”

Indeed as the statement reads the 3 songs are louder, heavier and more of a Skinny Puppy / Ministry industrial sound to them. The songs sound amazing. We cannot wait for touring to start so we can see them again.

“Acid/Slow Decay” was initially released digitally on May 1st, 2020. It is now being physically released for the first time on March 12th via Three One G Records, limited to 1000 copies, with one side of the 7” vinyl being specially printed by The Black Moon Design, and featuring cover art by Jonathan Bauerle.

As explained on METZ’s Subpop artist bio, “‘Change is inevitable if you’re lucky,’ says guitarist/vocalist Alex Edkins while talking about Atlas Vending, the fourth full-length album by Toronto’s METZ. ‘Our goal is to remain in flux, to grow in a natural and gradual way. We’ve always been wary to not overthink or intellectualize the music we love but also not satisfied until we’ve accomplished something that pushes us forward.’ The music made by Edkins and his compatriots Hayden Menzies (drums) and Chris Slorach (bass) has always been a little difficult to pin down. Their earliest recordings contained nods to the teeming energy of early ‘90s DIY hardcore, the aggravated angularities of This Heat, and the noisy riffing of AmRep’s quintessential guitar manglers, but there was never a moment where METZ sounded like they were paying tribute to the heroes of their youth. If anything, the sonic trajectory of their albums captured the journey of a band shedding influences and digging deeper into their fundamental core—steady propulsive drums, chest-thumping bass lines, bloody-fingered guitar riffs, the howling angst of our fading innocence.”

If you’re part of the group of people that continue to miss the noise of what (early) Nirvana was and all of those 90’s bands and you have not yet attended a live show from METZ or, disappointingly so, not even heard an album from them then you’re doing this listening to great music all fucking wrong. Go and get this 7” or the amazing Eraser 7” and enjoy.

Godspeed You! Black Emperor have released “G_d’s Pee AT STATE’S END” which is available now via Constellation Records.

TRACKLIST:

12A
A Military Alphabet (five eyes all blind) (4521.0kHz 6730.0kHz 4109.09kHz) / Job’s Lament / First of the Last Glaciers / where we break how we shine (ROCKETS FOR MARY)
[20:22]

10A
Fire at Static Valley
[5:58]

12B
“GOVERNMENT CAME” (9980.0kHz 3617.1kHz 4521.0 kHz) / Cliffs Gaze / cliffs’ gaze at empty waters’ rise / ASHES TO SEA or NEARER TO THEE
[19:48]

10B
OUR SIDE HAS TO WIN (for D.H.)
[6:30]

Recorded and mixed by Jace Lasek.
Tracked live at thee mighty Hotel2Tango, 6-11 octobre 2020.
Mastered by Harris Newman at Greymarket.
Illustrations by William Schmiechen.

we wrote it on the road mostly. when that was still a place.
and then recorded it in masks later, distanced at the beginning of the second wave. 
it was autumn, and the falling sun was impossibly fat and orange. 
we tried to summon a brighter reckoning there,
bent beneath varied states of discomfort, worry and wonderment. 

we fired up the shortwave radios again, for the first time in a long time.
and found that many things had changed. 
the apocalypse pastors were still there, but yelling END TIMES NOW where they once yelled “end times soon”.
and the transmission-detritus of automated militaries takes up more bandwidth now,
so that a lot of frequencies are just pulses of rising white static,
digital codexes announcing the status of various watching and killing machines.
and the ham-radio dads talk to each other all night long.
about their dying wives and what they ate for lunch and what they’ll do with their guns when antifa comes.

this record is about all of us waiting for the end. 
all current forms of governance are failed.
this record is about all of us waiting for the beginning, 
and is informed by the following demands=
empty the prisons
take power from the police and give it to the neighbourhoods that they terrorise.
end the forever wars and all other forms of imperialism.
tax the rich until they’re impoverished.

much love to all the other lost and lovely ones,
these are death-times and our side has to win.
we’ll see you on the road once the numbers fall.

xoxoxox god’s pee
montreal, quebec, kanada
1 march, 2021

GYBE returns with another soundtrack for our times. As the heretical anarcho-punk spirit of the title implies, Godspeed harnesses some particularly raw power, spittle and grit across two riveting 20-minute side-length trajectories of noise-drenched widescreen post-rock: inexorable chug blossoms into blown-out twang, as some of the band’s most soaring, searing melodies ricochet and converge amidst violin and bassline counterpoint. Field recordings and roiling semi-improvised passages frame these fervent epics, and two shorter self-contained 6-minute pieces find the band at its most devastatingly beautiful, haunting and elegiac. Poignant atmospherics, noise-drenched orchestration, drone, hypnotic swingtime crescendos, inexorably-layered towers of distorted clarion sound: STATE’S END encapsulates every beloved facet of the band. Twenty-five years on, this new album is as vital, stirring, timely and implacable as any in Godspeed You! Black Emperor’s storied discography.

Just as STATE’S END summons the gamut of Godspeed’s constituent sonic trademarks, so the album artwork spans the entirety of the band’s visual history: the grainy monochromatic photography of recent releases finds its way onto the inner sleeves, while the gatefold cover art harkens back to the iconic graphics of earlier classic records like Slow Riot For New Zero Kanada and Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas To Heaven. STATE’S END features illustrations by William Schmiechen, with the front cover taijitu flowers and back cover tear gas canisters rendered in raised thermographic black ink on the double-vinyl album jacket. The illuminated cross from Godspeed’s debut F#A#∞ also makes a reappearance on the inside gatefold drawing, in recurrent homage to the electrified hilltop landmark crucifix of the band’s Montréal hometown.

STATE’S END was recorded and mixed in Montréal in October 2020 at the group’s homebase studio Thee Mighty Hotel2Tango by Jace Lasek, the veteran award-winning indie producer (and co-founder of The Besnard Lakes) who works with Godspeed for the first time on this recording.

Thanks for listening. OUR SIDE HAS TO WIN. (R.I.P. D.H.)

The Bronx, the Los Angeles’ “rabid, feisty… and unrelenting” rock band whose sequential discography has seen the group through a nearly two-decade career, release the Joe Baressi-produced album Bronx VI on Aug. 27 via Cooking Vinyl.

The tracklist for the album is: 1. White Shadow
2. Superbloom
3. Watering The Well
4. Curb Feelers
5. Peace Pipe
6. High Five
7. Mexican Summer
8. New Lows
9. Breaking News
10. Jack of All Trades
11. Participation Trophy

“I’m excited,” says guitar player Joby Ford. “From day one we really decided that we wanted to make a record that went in different directions and places. The thing I like a lot about it is that everybody contributed songs. It’s not just Joby J. Ford guitars with Matt singing over it. I loved listening to what other people wrote, and I think those differences and nuances really come through.”

“We’ve known each other for a long time,” adds singer Matt Caughthran, “and we’re such good friends and we’re so tight creatively, but we’re still learning stuff about each other, especially when it comes to the process of creating an album. Brad and Ken are just coming out as songwriters and we’re learning to write songs as a group around ideas they bring to the table. This is a really important record for us growth-wise because it kicked down a lot of doors that needed to be kicked down. I feel like now going forward the sky is the limit.”

An early taste of the 11-song album comes via the single “White Shadow”:

Matt describes this track as “a song about spiraling. Wild eyed Guitars, drums, and bass mixed with a high speed chase and a frantic mind unraveling. CLASSIC FUCKING BRONX.”

Bronx VI was produced by Joe Baressi (Tool, Melvins, Bad Religion) at his House of Compression studio in Pasadena, Calif. Baressi is someone the band had wanted to work with for many years. “We’d been talking about doing a record together since 2005,” explains Joby, “and it finally aligned schedule wise.” Matt adds, “He was just the perfect guy for this record. We went in feeling really good about all the songs, and we just needed someone to make them sound fucking badass and take it to the next level. That was definitely Joe.”

On Friday, March the 26th, the “Baphomet” track will be an instant gratification track when the Satanic Planet album is pre-ordered via Apple Music. It will be released by Three One G Records digitally, as well as on CD and vinyl, with three limited edition vinyl variants on May 28th. Preorder HERE. There will also be an additional vinyl variant released by The Satanic Temple. Preorder HERE.

The tracklist is: 1. Baphomet (feat. Jung Sing)
2. 999
3. Grey Faction
4. Passage
5. Invocation
6. Devil In Me (feat. Nomi Abadi)
7. Unbaptism (feat. Travis Ryan, Shiva Honey)
8. Vete al Infierno (feat. Jung Sing, Carrie Feller)
9. The Hell
10. Strangers
11. Exorcism (feat. Travis Ryan, Shiva Honey)
12. Satanic Planet (feat. Eric Livingston)
13. Liturgy

Video for “Baphomet” was edited by Displaced/Replaced, directed by Luke Henshaw, with cinematography by Becky DiGiglio.

“Goat headed, human bodied, and three-horned, the Baphomet is an icon symbolizing the reconciliation of opposites; dueling binaries combined and transcending into something greater than the sum of their parts. The track we have titled Baphomet blends the electronic with the medieval, the drone with the sceam, the raucous with the orchestral. These conflicting elements, we hope, blend to create Easy Listening for the Apocalypse.” – Lucien Greaves

With the release of this album under a name like Satanic Planet it would be very easy to think that censorship would come steadfast in an era like Nancy Reagan 80’s or even with certain religious groups gasping and clutching their pearls at the idea of their children listening to a backwards Led Zeppelin IV record and that you would magickally invoke dark forces and don’t even forget about Black Sabbath. And now we have here a band that is the creation of Lucien Greaves (The Satanic Temple co-founder and spokesperson), Luke Henshaw (Planet B, Sonido de la Frontera), Dave Lombardo (Slayer, The Misfits, Mr. Bungle, Suicidal Tendencies, Dead Cross), and Justin Pearson (The Locust, Dead Cross, Swing Kids, Deaf Club). With the birth of Satanic Planet, hip-hop producer Henshaw and punk provocateur Pearson joined co-founder and spokesperson of The Satanic Temple, Lucien Greaves– the most prominent and outspoken contemporary Satanist in the world. Greaves has gained international attention as an advocate for religious liberty and the voice of the Satanic Reformation, delivering lectures nationwide and featured in national media outlets including MSNBC, NPR, Huffington Post Live, CNN, Harper’s Monthly, Newsweek, Fox News, Vice, Salon, Rolling Stone, and many more. As the trio were diligently working, and nearly completed with, the music for their debut album, the worldwide pandemic hit, seemingly bringing things to a halt. However, with the onset of this new way of living, the newly-formed band was in a unique position to enlist the legendary Dave Lombardo, who found himself not touring for the first time in years, and suddenly having more time to work in his home studio on projects that interested him. With the addition of this iconic drummer, Satanic Planet was complete. Along the way, an eclectic range of guest appearances arise, including Cattle Decapitation’s Travis Ryan, Nomi Abadi, Silent’s Jung Sing, Shiva Honey, Eric Livingston (also known as his artist moniker, First Church of the Void), and Hexa’s Carrie Feller. This collaboration embraces the avant garde to create sci-fi sermons that range from doom and industrial to evil exotica.

We believe it will be interesting if we have evolved into a place where we could sit down and enjoy this (or any) album in a family setting (your children included, no one excluded) without being held back by some sort of religious guilt. We wholeheartedly believe that there are still people, families that are bound by this cloud of religious fear that will look and use this band as a scapegoat. Hopefully their children will find the album or maybe the music will find them.

(If there is a regret about the news of a Satanic Planet album it would be that this wasn’t announced on Good Friday.)

Tomahawk, who recently announced their first full-length album in eight years, Tonic Immobility (March 26, Ipecac Recordings), have shared a second track from the twelve-song album, debuting the graphic video for “Dog Eat Dog”, directed by Eric Livingston.

“It’s a statement about competition, oppression, and unity–served up with a healthy dose of slapstick humor,” said Duane Denison (The Jesus Lizard/Unsemble) of the Eric Livingston directed clip. Mike Patton (Mr. Bungle/Fantômas) added: “Dogs patiently wait, obediently, for humans to snuff each other out…so they can take over the world. Dogs rule!!!!”

The band, rounded out by Trevor Dunn (Mr. Bungle/Fantômas) and John Stanier (Helmet/Battles), set tongues wagging with the January album announcement and concurrent release of the “Business Casual” single (https://youtu.be/_tAJuKu04R8). Brooklyn Vegan said, “it’s the kind of loud, dark, eccentric rock song that Tomahawk have always done so well” while Revolver called the track “slithery and venomous.”

“Tonic Immobility could just be something in the air we’re feeling,” explained Denison. “It’s been a rough year between the pandemic and everything else. A lot of people feel somewhat powerless and stuck as they’re not able to make a move without second guessing themselves or worrying about the outcomes. For as much as the record possibly reflects that, it’s also an escape from the realities of the world. We’re not wallowing in negativity or getting political. For me, rock has always been an alternate reality to everything else. I feel like this is yet another example.”