Too much time has passed since the last iteration of Findings From The Underground so let's skip the pleasantries and jump right to it. Today's line up is just as diverse as you could expect but this time around I kept things in the realm of rock and metal so no wonky rap or jazz... this time. Let me show what I got for ya!
I think I can speak for a lot of us here that THAT feeling of stumbling upon something with zero expectations only to be blown away is one of the best rushes of dopamine available if you're addicted to the arts. Cassels and their third outing A Gut Feeling did exactly that as I found myself on yet another Friday scouring the Interwebz for new releases. My go to is always Heavy Blog Is Heavy, an absolutely wonderful page and they of course showcased this. One innocent click was all it took to completely take my focus as "Your Humble Narrator" started churning before suddenly stopping. "Oh shit" I gently whispered as muted chugs started getting accompanied with more and more elements. I stopped there, finished my release day thingy and immediately jumped in the full thing the next day.
Most of you aware of what's happening in the UK music-wise and I myself mentioned that multiple times so let's not dwell on that. We shouldn't anyways because Cassels are not a post-punk or indie band. Kinda. You read sentences like these a million times but I can't go around it. It's honestly so impressive how these two brothers flirt with so many sounds, textures and tones and end up NOT sounding like a concoction of their influences. And you can hear they're not trying to do that, they just write music they want to and it comes out like it does which in this case is a collection of gritty, unrelated stories that hit hard both narratively and instrumentally.
The embedded "Mr Henderson Coughs", being one of my favorites from the whole thing, announces its arrival with a nasty bendy riff. It's catchy but there is something evil about it and sure enough, there is a clear reasoning behind it. Poor Mr. Henderson, a teacher, is suffering from cancer and what was once a calm and generous man turned into an irritable and twitchy character struggling with his morality. Students, being the dicks they are, did little to help, on the contrary, they made him snap and attack one of them which created another conflict inside Henderson and let me tell you, the resolution is not what you expect it to be.
It's moments like these which set A Gut Feeling apart from so many bands in the scene. As you can tell by my needlessly long paragraph, I am a fan of the album and consider it a key 2022 release so plan your next move accordingly.
Moving on we have a melodic death metal debut. A one man melodic death metal debut... from Australia. I know, I am just as surprised as some of you considering how critical I've been towards a genre I used to love so much. But Hollow Decay's The Frozen Trail is so impressive that it reignited a tiny spark for something I was cold on for years, barring few very special bands. Think Insomnium, Aether Realm, Omnium Gatherum newer Amorphis, all that good stuff but unlike the aforementioned Amorphis or countrymen Be'lakor whose latest offerings were dull slogs, The Frozen Trail has that something that kept me WILLINGLY come back to it on multiple occasions.
Daniel Lovriha used just about every trick in the book and it worked wonders.
You've got your acoustic passages, whispered vocals, the classic Gothenburg drum beats, blastbeats, epic solos or licks, well placed synth lines, tapping, slightly proggy songwriting tendencies, the lot and all of it works. We even get some tech-death inspired guitarwork on songs like "Polaris".
In that way The Frozen Trail is unique but in reality it sounds like a distillation of everything you love about melo death and that, in my opinion, is why this succeeds where numerous bands, big bands, failed. And sure you could trim some fat in shape of a song or two considering this beast is almost 62 minutes long but quite honestly, I am content with all of this. Why? Because it was so easy for me to just let go and be wherever I am while this played. Me submitting my innate need to dissect, analyze and allowing my other innate characteristic of letting my numerous thoughts guide me and "float" away to take over tells you everything you need to now but let me just remind you once more that this is a god damn debut made by a single guy. This is what what Findings are all about baby, hell ye.
And thus we leave the thick forests of Queensland and move... up. Up into the clouds because that's what SOM's The Shape Of Everything feels like. Yes I know it's a tired way of describing these type of bands but how else should I feel when I'm surrounded by later-era Deftones or Mountaineer textures, Lantlôs-like guitar tone and vocal approach reminiscent of Astronoid? Exactly. So what's the deal here? Well it's 34 minutes of well-polished shoegazey alt metal. At one point the songs start to feel indecipherable from one another, excluding some cool licks or choruses but this is where that run time pays dividends as well as immediacy of some tracks like "Wrong" here.
No time is wasted in setting up the song which some bands struggle with because how easily one can become immersed when those sexy clean guitar tones and gentle bass rumbles are in question. You know what I mean, it's those intros and outros that take perhaps a bit too much time to get going or a certain mid song passages. OK let's get back on track here and praise SOM just a bit more before I unveil my last act for today.
The production... is good ayyy. It has that sense of airiness that started this whole paragraph off but make no mistake, most of the sounds coming from the quintet are of the heffier, nay, chønkier kind so if you like things with "post" or "gaze" in their name, you really can't go wrong with The Shape Of Everything.
And now for the final reveal, another Australian act, Darkmatter. A metalcore one and that means only thing, that they're probably good. Which they totally are. They seem to be following the glitchy breadcrumbs left by modern Northlane which is a big hit in these realms but where Northlane flirt with techno, industrial and EDM, Darkmatter are more comfortable with nu metal and trap-influenced beats, the notorious 808. This may sound like a disaster waiting to happen but this facet of their sound is far from the dominant one. In fact the 808 sections are extra spice on an already very spicy package. You've got your standard culprits: downtuned guitars, punchy and groovy drums, angery shouts, catchy choruses and get this, clean vocals that are not insufferably whiny or high pitched. Woah. Instead they sit in a healthy register that makes sense regarding the instrumentation that never quite lets up, even when the lighter sections arrive.
There's always a sense of this cyberpunk-like filth lingering in the air. Very cool stuff and the band knows it. In multiple ways, their approach to textures (my word of this day it seems) remind me of Loathe which is among the reasons why I am very excited for this band's future as it is bright! Well, as bright as it can get in these neon-lit and slimey streets.
Before I leave you with the final link of today, remember, Google Darkmatter NOT Dark Matter as that's another band I am not interested in. Thank you for your attention and hopefully you'll be seeing more of me this month. Will see... ta-ta!
A Gut Feeling was released through God Unknown Records on February 4th of 2022, The Frozen Path independently on February 12th of 2022, The Shape Of Everything through Pelagic Records on January 21st of 2022 and Project Darkmatter was released independently on February 17th of 2022.
Comments