Album Review: Cancer Bats - Give Me Dirt

Cancer Bats seems like one of those bands who is perpetually in the youth of their career.  It’s something to do with the vitality of their sound, as well as their chosen genre.  Hardcore has a flair for sounding young by itself, and there’s an intrinsic quality to Liam Cormier’s vocals that denies the natural effect of aging.

It’s easy to forget then, that the band’s new album, Give Me Dirt, marks the twentieth anniversary of their debut record.  Which is worth mentioning in this context - as raw as Cancer Bats can often sound, there is no doubt that it is intentional; the grit and visible seams and loose ends are intentional and by design.  It’s impossible to have lasted this long and have that not be the case, and an equally notable feat to sound so brash and tread the line of noise without descending into madness.

That does not mean however, that the Bats (may we call them simply the Bats?) haven’t fine tuned or evolved.  Every album since 2012’s excellent Dead Set on Living has worked to refine the band’s signature chaos and come up with new and novel ways to craft great hooks while staying true to their hardcore roots.  It hasn’t always worked - Searching for Zero was something of a mess - but by and large the Bats have always found a way to keep themselves relevant and fresh by incorporating rock grooves into their sound.

Moreover, the veteran Torontoans have taken from their own previous experiments and combined that knowledge into this new record.  To hear “Ocean Crash” is to see a possible evolution of the slow thump that made the previous album’s “Hammering On” work so beautifully.  

As ever, what really makes the Bats stand out from their contemporaries in the hardcore scene is their invocation of the big, hook-laden rock and roll riff.  The spindly, groovy opening of “Long Tooth” is the same kind of sensibility that made most of the album The Spark That Moves such an automatic classic.  There are few artists who better understand that a big chorus and a memorable hook can connect disparate pieces of almost any composition.

That doesn’t mean that Cancer Bats can’t still hammer with the best of them.  Album closer “Fools Like You” is a ready-built, down-and-dirty hardcore banger that feels at home on the album, but also would be just as comfortable in the dirty, street-corner clubs of Brooklyn back in the ‘90s.

Now, there is a dark cloud over all of this.  As good as Give Me Dirt is, and it is, it seems very familiar.  As evidenced by what’s been said so far in this piece, the band is at their best when they sound like themselves on previous efforts.  It’s not unfair to say that Give Me Dirt is an amalgam of Dead Set on Living and Psychic Jailbreak and in so doing, this album lacks the pure visceral nastiness of the former and the refined exploration (such as one can have in hardcore) of the latter.  That’s not wholly a death sentence - but it does imply two potentially damaging things.  First, that in an effort to cannibalize their lessons and synthesize new avenues, the band has trimmed off too much of their edge and possibly done some regression to the mean.  Second and more concerning is the possibility that after twenty years the Bats have hit their creative limit.  It’s much too soon to make that judgement now - after all, Searching For Zero was a dud, but they followed it up with their best album in The Spark That Moves.

Anyway, don’t get too carried away here.  Give Me Dirt is good.  Really good.  For longtime fans though, it may be hard to escape the feeling that this record has been heard before.

Album Review: Cage Fight - "Exuvia"

Occasionally in this line of work, it’s difficult to explain why an album grabs attention.  Such is the case with Cage Fight’s new album Exuvia.  It’s an explosive record with a comfortable balance of hooks and brutality, and while that seems like an overly simple explanation for why the record is worthy of discussion…that’s more or less the crux of it.

Chris and I talk a great deal here about how one of the ways to stand out in a choked and overcrowded musical sphere is to do something familiar really well, and that’s the camp Cage Fight calls into.  Is there anything on Exuvia that makes the listener say ‘holy crap, I’ve never heard that before’?  No, not really.  Instead, the album offers a clever collection of established pieces - thrashy riffs, the relentless cadence of death metal bordering on grindcore, and big, thumping breakdowns like we’re used to hearing from Knocked Loose or Alien Weaponry.

Skip on down to the anthemic “Pick Your Fighter,” and you’ll hear what we’re talking about.  Sure, there’s a metal-on-metal crunch to the drawn-out second half of the song, but the big chorus that lends itself to crowds cheering along ties the piece back together.  It’s a similar phenomenon to Arch Enemy or the best works of Destrage, that no matter how far the band may go down the rabbit hole, there’s always a comeback hook to put it all back in sync.

Now, the differences between those two bands and Cage Fight are myriad, but the principal one is that while those bands strayed into other, sometimes abstract musical concepts, Cage Fight, when they venture into the unknown, defaults to being heavier than they were a minute ago.  ‘Heavier’ is the only word in metal that gets used more than ‘darker,’ to the point where both words have been rendered meaningless, but it applies here.  “Un Bon Souvenir,” is the perfect example.  There’s a melodic chorus (a rarity on the album, with clean vocals and everything,) but just when it seems like the track might get mired in melodrama, here comes the big 2/4-time breakdown to drag the track into the mud.  Which in this case is a compliment.

As the title track rolls around, it would be easy to think Cage Fight has shown all their cards, but this song brings another to the fore - suddenly, Exuvia becomes a melodic death metal record.  Where did this come from?  Who knows, and who cares, the song works, and provides an important and attention-grabbing change of pace just as the album was otherwise starting to lose its head of steam.

For all that, there is a ceiling to Exuvia. As stated earlier, what Cage Fight is trading on is the ability to be really good at the familiar; as with everything, there are levels to it.  To make a poor comparison - Cage Fight is really good at this music, but they are not, for example, as good at what they’re doing as Graveyard is at making blues rock.

In the end, what Exuvia really represents is a summer fling.  It’s a great, listenable record with many high moments and some unique puzzle pieces that fit together in interesting ways.  It’s an album that the listener will have fun with over the next few months, but by the time the leaves start to turn, attention may divert elsewhere.

Album Review: Spill Your Guts - "The Wrath It Takes"

 

Holy crap, this almost got past me.  Full disclosure, and at the risk of complaining, it’s hard to maintain a full life with all the associated occupations, responsibilities and relationships, and still keep abreast with all the movements in an ever-expanding and de-focused musical landscape.  Sometimes things fall through the cracks for a while.

Released just about a month ago, we come to Spill Your Guts’ new album “The Wrath it Takes,” the newest effort in blackened hardcore from a band hailing from just about every corner of the world.

Teamed up with the Scott Middleton, so recently departed from the Cancer Bats, Spill Your Guts offers up a refreshingly honest take on hardcore…through the lens of classic punk rock?

It sounds practically impossible, particularly with the additional adjective ‘blackened’ in the descriptor, but we have culturally moved far past the constraints of such restrictive genre definitions.  Just hit play on album opener “Die, Unified,” and you’ll see all the requisite elements performed in abundance.  And then, right there in the middle, as part of the hook, a melodic riff that sounds instantly familiar and reminds of the heady days of the Clash or Ramones, albeit better produced.  It’s just a small handful of notes, but it unlocks everything that happens before and after.

And then we come to “Reaper’s Toll,” and we’ve forgotten some of the pomp and circumstance of opening an album, but with good cause, as it makes way for the joyous smashing and banging of a mosh pit revival accompanied by a deep-seated groove that is difficult to shake.

We’ve only gone through two cuts at this point, and already “The Wrath It Takes” demonstrates versatility within its sphere.  The next two cuts offer variations on the theme – “Lift the Curse” could, frankly, be a Cancer Bats song, and then “Prey for Death” (which begins exactly the same as The Toadies’ “Heel,” just a touch faster, and I can’t break the connection in my head,) gives us what we were all expecting, a larger-than-life outro complete with easy scream-able lyrics that would make for good fist-pumping concert fodder.

What follows after that is more of the same, and I say that for efficiency’s sake, not as a discredit to the album.  If you’ve found something to like on the record to this point, you’ll enjoy the rest.  And if you haven’t found any aspect that appeals to your fancy, then it’s time to move on.

There is only one real pitfall on “The Wrath It Takes,” which is the song just about dead in the middle. “Blood Soaked Wolves.”  It’s the only song on the album that weighs in at more than three and a half minutes, which is fine, but by comparison to the rest of the record, this song is a screamy dirge, and it just plain carries on too long.  The point was made at the three minute mark, and after that we’re flagellating a deceased equine.  

But don’t let that minor criticism dissuade you from what otherwise is a fantastic experience.  Pick your associated genre: punk, hardcore, black metal, whatever – they could all use a shot in the arm, and Spill Your Guts, through their unique fusion of elements, offers just that.  It won’t be for everybody, as the performance is abrasive by its nature, but if you’re patient with it, there’s a lot to enjoy.

Album Review: Cancer Bats - "Psychic Jailbreak"

Bear with us for a moment here, because we’re going to begin by not talking about the album in the headline that grabbed your attention.

Many genres of music, but most prominently rock and rap, are at their level best when the band is capable of telling a story with some weight.  Whether that was the ethereal wish for better days espoused by folk music sixty years ago, or the explosion of politically-motivated rap in the late ‘80s and into the ‘90s, wordcraft and messaging have served as a vehicle for artists to succeed, different but equal from the place upon which pure musical talent has catapulted so many others.

Punk and metal have their own entries into this manner of storytelling, though it is worthy of admission that their history with introspection and poignancy is somewhat more infantile than many of the laudable artists of the past.  That doesn’t mean that The Clash or Nuclear Assault were any less impactful or important than luminaries like Public Enemy or Buffalo Springfield, it just means that they lacked for a certain subtlety.

Yet, hardcore, the alleged fusion of punk and metal into a single being, has never been as willing to go into messaging beyond the superiority of the individual and the basic, endemic struggle to survive.  (With the noted of exceptions of bands like Earth Crisis or Cattle Decapitation, single-issue candidates who are overbearing in their insistence.)

And now we come to the Cancer Bats and their new album “Psychic Jailbreak.”  The Bats are that most unique of all hardcore bands (perhaps in some part because of their ability to bend the conventions of genre,) which is to say that they are an artist who has things to say.

This is really the power of “Psychic Jailbreak.” Vocalist Liam Cormier, possessed as ever of his casual, out-of-tune, half-screamed style, manages to wend through a vocal wordplay that impresses with its creativity and delivery.  There’s a lot of themes tackled here, many of them dealing with internal torment, as has become fashionable for aggressive music over the last decade or so.  In any event, the Bats separate themselves by demonstrating that all their songs say something.  Personal or universal, there are yarns being spun here.

But Cormier writes his lyrics outside the margins, often refusing an easy rhyme to make sure he’s picked the words he wants.  To wit, in “Pressure Mind” towards the end of the album, he bites out “Here we are, another day and nothing's changing / Thousand miles starring with my eyes wide / What's the plan asking in the mirror daily / It's 3am, TV is my best friend.”  Other than a regular cadence, there’s little there to suggest that this is lyrical verse.  In some regard, this pattern is similar to the great songs of Clutch, where Neil Fallon essentially just tells a folksy story that happens to be set to music.

Seldom does the lister to “Psychic Jailbreak,” have to decipher dense patterns of metaphor, like one would with countrymates Rush, but that it to the record’s benefit – density, as discussed above, would be ill-suited to this, and would stain the elegant simplicity of Cormier yelling repeatedly in “The Hoof” “my life was saved by a skateboard.”

Within all of this is the reality that this is also the Bats’ first album as a three-piece.  With longtime guitar player Scott Middleton departing and bassist Jaye Schwarzer doing double duty, there was some question as to what this record would sound like, and if the Bats could keep their reputation for catchy, accessible riffs couched within all the standard discordant cacophony that the band employs.

The answer to this is mixed.  “Lonely Bong,” probably the album’s best single effort viewed through the traditional Cancer Bats lens, still rumbles along with a simple, repeatable riff that hooks the attention and carries into the big singalong chorus.  This has been the bread and butter for Cancer Bats for the past fifteen years, and it feels just as accomplished here.

There are, however, fewer moments such as those, where the music feels familiar and within the mold of the band.  Which does serve to make “Psychic Jailbreak” diminished relative to the sublime, full-octane presentations of “Dead Set on Living” or “The Spark That Moves,” which were both vital and defiant and vitriolic.

Instead, we are faced with a new Cancer Bats model, and in that vein, the album’s real gem might be “Hammering On,” a borderline stoner metal slog sang entirely as a duet with indie rock songwriter Brooklyn Doran.  Cancer Bats have played in small pieces with this model over the years, but never given in full-bore to this kind of song.  It’s a haunting and absorbing piece that speaks to the band’s adaptability and shines perhaps a small light on what this next phase of the band may be.

In summation, we see Cancer Bats focusing on one of their most unique qualities, their storytelling, as their other principal talent, that of writing infectious riffs, may be under reconstruction.  In the end, is “Psychic Jailbreak” as sublimely excellent as “Dead Set on Living” or “The Spark That Moves?”  No, it probably isn’t.  Especially not if the listener’s goal is to bash around and forget their troubles to some joyous, unconscionably loud music.  That said, it’s a different kind of record, and should be enjoyed for what it is, for it has many excellent moments.

Album Review: 8 Kalacas - "Fronteras"

The popular heyday of ska seems all but a hazy, distant memory now.  The colorful genre, which made brass cool again and gave us all an excuse to use the word ‘skank’ in public, had served as both the baseboard for pop punk’s surge to prominence, as well as the latter genre’s prime beneficiary.  Shortly after the turn of the millennium, it seemed like the party was over.

Nestled in there was the further niche genre of skacore, a term that, depending on who you talk to, was first coined by the Mighty Mighty Bosstones, and they became one of many who exemplified the style.  And yet, there was always a disconnect in the naming convention – it was hard to find the ‘-core’ in ska core.

We told you that story to tell you this one.  Enter 8 Kalacas from California, a ska outfit that has seemingly been necromantically raised from the skeleton of ska, and oh by the way, is pissed.  Finally, we have the answer for what a true fusion of hardcore, ska and metal would sound like.  

Their album, “Fronteras,” is as difficult to explain in common language as any album in recent memory.  The best analogy for the reader is to imagine if Overkill was asked to do a Spanish-language version of the Voodoo Glow Skulls’ all-time classic album “Symbolic.”  It took the better part of forty minutes to come up with that, and it still doesn’t feel quite right, so that hopefully gives some indication of how unique an experience “Fronteras” is.  

There are tangential comparisons to Gogol Bordello in the offing, as are vague reminders of The Agents’ arcane blend of ska, reggae and rock, but truly, it’s hard to imagine a band that displays the ready versatility of 8 Kalacas (pronounced ‘Ocho,’ and not ‘Eight’ for reference.)  Even Destrage, who we have lauded on these pages for their ability to maneuver between the reeds of genre, doesn’t blend them so thoroughly like this.

Because let’s be real here for a second – this shouldn’t work.  Hardcore and metal have been talked about with a vivid list of descriptors over the years, but the Venn diagram of adjectives used to describe those genres and the ones used to talk about ska has very little overlap, and certainly doesn’t contain words like “bright.”

And yet, that’s where we are!  If it feels like this very article is rambling, it’s because it is.  And all of that is because “Fronteras” is so novel as to defy stereotypes.  Which is, frankly, amazing.

Getting into the actual nuts and bolts of the album a little, it’s worth nothing that by the standards of ska and punk, “Fronteras” is full of very long songs, many over the four-minute mark.  But there are none that overstay their welcome, none that ever sound tired or worn-out.

Skipping about halfway down the record, “Luz Y Fer” is one of the album’s paramount singles, as it features the most sublimely effortless blend of the lounge party feeling of ska and the visceral teeth of metal.  There are many great cuts on “Fronteras,” but most of them lean slightly one way or the other.  “Luz Y Fer” is the only one that truly seems to stand on the middle ground.

Speaking of great moments, “Mutante.”  Because nearly every metal band since the genesis of the genre has written a breakdown, but none come to mind that have employed a trombone as part of the proceedings.  Let that sink in for a minute, try to imagine it, then just go listen to it, because your imagination isn’t quite adequate.

Those are two of the highlights on an album that doesn’t have a disappointing moment.  Even “Gato,” the album’s most earnest nod to its ska roots, eventually smooths out into a solid rock bridge, complete with righteous guitar solo.  We didn’t even get to talk about album closer “1941,” perhaps the most complete composition on the record in terms of pacing, emotion and focus.

There is a disclaimer that should be added – if you are not a Spanish-speaker (as we are not,) the context of the album may be lost.  Metal fans are used to this through years of listening to Rammstein, Erdling, Finntroll, etc, but it may be a new experience if you’re here for the ska.  Regardless, even if the precise meaning slips through, the attitude certainly does not.

It’s been a long time since we’ve seen an album release as unique as this.  The Mexican roots, the California styling, the ska pop, the metal edge, the hardcore pace…there’s a lot to digest with “Fronteras,” and all of it is excellent.  This is not to be missed.

Album Review: Jinjer - "King of Everything"

Part of the beauty of music that different genres can originate in one place and then be assimilated, permutated and regurgitated in a new but still recognizable form.  Punk, and the various derivatives thereof, were one of the cardinal genres to exhibit this behavior, as it became the music of choice for upstarts and protest groups the world over in the Cold War era.  Hardcore and metal, both spiritually descended at least somewhat from that paternal genre, followed suit, and now we have Jinjer, arguably the loudest and most explosive band to emerge from Ukraine.

Jinjer is a band that makes an amalgam of a plethora of different styles and throws them with intentional haphazard at the listener, dished out in any ol’ order, consumed in a frantic rush.  The base of the band’s idiom lies in the roots of dirty, unrefined hardcore, the downward pressure of decades of grime and distortion cooking a bizarre gemstone unearthed as a sort of anthropological study of the genre as it currently lives.

One part angry hardcore and one part punk sensibility, Jinjer also mixes in some metal, both experimental and conventional with a visual dose of a post-modern Rosie the Riveter, all messily blended together and turned irrefutably to eleven.

 Their new record “King of Everything” does a lot of things.  That’s the end of that sentence, it doesn’t require a qualifier like ‘well.’  It just plain does a lot of things.  The mix of clean and harsh vocals coming from front woman extraordinaire Tatiana Shmailyuk gives the album an interesting dichotomy, moreso becomes it seems somewhat impossible that such divergent sounds could all come from one person.  Nevertheless, her vocal performance as it rages through “Captain Clock” or “Sit Stay Roll Over” serves as a microcosm of what Jinjer is trying to achieve with their music on the whole.

The sludge of the album breaks up creatively in a few spots, most notably in a cut right in the middle, “I Speak Astronomy.”  It’s here that we see some real versatility within the structure (if it can be called such without insult,) where Jinjer varies the pace and the style to suit two different moods.  The beginning is the natural smasher and banger that fans have come to appreciate from the band, but the second half is a different story, an airy and much lighter idiom that injects some atmosphere into the record right when it reaches a stifling apex.

Which probably paints a solid picture of what’s going on here overall.  “King of Everything” does try a few tricks, but nearly always couched within their base musical style, which in many cases suffocates the experiment.  There are some interesting experimental sections, particularly on the back half of the record as it careens into “Pisces,” but there’s a lot of noise in the surrounding margins that can make it difficult to discern.

It’s hard to recommend “King of Everything” unilaterally, as the acerbic quality of the music and the brash confidence exhibited within can be a hard sell for many listeners.  For those patient enough to sift and dissect the album, it’s a record not altogether different than MaYaN’s “Antagonize” from a couple years back, though for different reasons.  A challenging listen, but not a wholly unrewarding one.