Tuesday: Novelists - Echoes

     It seems like bands with tons of groove and melodic sensibilities for days are a dime a dozen lately. But they don't always also come complete with tasty techy noodling like British band Novelists. You know what that means, don't you? Oh yes, it's Tech Tuesday!

     Novelists aren't a tech death band, or a band that's driven exclusively by instrumental prowess like Scale the Summit or CHON. But their djenty sound certainly has some interesting spice to its riffage -- more like a Monuments or The Safety Fire. All of these comparisons getting to you yet?

     OK then, let's let Novelists speak for themselves. Join me in jamming the band's latest track "Echoes", taken from their debut LP Souvenirs, which conveniently drops this Friday. I know that shreddy solo in the middle is guest work from one Pierre Danel, but damn if it doesn't get "Echoes" the Tech Tuesday nod on principle alone. Check it out kids.

Good Tiger - Snake Oil

     The social media watchers among you have likely already heard of Good Tiger, a low-level supergroup born from the ashes of The Safety Fire and fronted by one Elliot Coleman, whose fairly deep resume includes some time in Tesseract, you'll remember. Well, now you get to hear Good Tiger, in the form of the first single from their successfully crowdfunded first album.

     "Snake Oil" has moments where it sounds like you'd expect it to -- something written by a significant portion of The Safety Fire -- but on the whole it feels more post-something than anything else. Truth be told, Finch comes to mind pretty readily on this one, but that's not a bad thing. It just means Good Tiger sounds less djenty and more... something else than I'd thought it might be.

     We're probably going to have to wait a while for the full album to finish brewing in the indiegogo money the guys in Good Tiger have gotten, but so far, you'll find no complaints here.

Saturday: The Safety Fire - Glass Crush

     Next up is a Saturday post, except that this week I'm going with a bit of a "Sadder Day" theme. Why so glum, chum? Because we're mourning the loss/celebrating the career of Australia's The Safety Fire, who, in an April Fool's joke that wasn't, actually broke up a few months ago...apparently.

     The guys took to Facebook last week to confirm what many probably thought was a fully legit joke. As usual, who knows exactly what factors into the demise of a band? All I can say is I'll actually miss this particular outfit, as their melodic, often-groovy prog-djent tickles my fancy. But rather than be too down, let's do this thing Irish wake-style and remember the good times.

     To that end, your Sadder Day song is "Glass Crush" from The Safety Fire's 2013 sophomore disc Mouth of Swords. Pour yourself a drink (sensing a theme around here lately?), fire this bad boy up, and then try to not crush your glass... See what I did there? Yeah you do.

Friday: My Project Ghost - Wrap Around Porch

     By now you should know that I likes me some post-hardcore, even if that is such a broad genre label that it can arguably shelter virtually anything under its prodigious umbrella. But today's band is decidedly post-hardcore (if that makes any sense) and I've got Metalsucks to thank for the heads up.

     Of course, they have one of the dudes from The Safety Fire to thank for the heads up in the first place, as apparently said dude is friends with the guitarist in British post-hardcore trio My Project Ghost. This haunting musical endeavour (see what I did there?) has only released one song so far, but it's that one song that I'm really digging on.

     "Wrap Around Porch" is big and laden with grooves, with equal helpings of melody and disharmony. Think Architects if they were less metal (which makes a little sense, since apparently said My Project Ghost guitarist Morgan Sinclaire used to be Architects live guitarist). I'll be interested to hear what My Project Ghost comes out with next.

The Arusha Accord - Last Rise of the Fallen King

     Whether or not it's a bad word in your household, the "metalcore" umbrella can cover so much ground, can't it? Case in point: when first hearing British band The Arusha Accord, my initial thought was "OK, some tasty strain of metalcore then..."

     But there's so much more going on with The Arusha Accord than some chugga chuggas and some screamed vocals. They're techy, proggy, and even mathy -- think a little Dillinger-esque, maybe some The Safety Fire, or some early Architects -- but they've also got some cleans and harmonies in there that leather-clad metal purists might deride as "emo" -- a heavy, techy, Silverstein comes to mind.

     It's a well balanced mix of tech and melody that makes The Echo Verses an interesting listen from start to finish. That finish is where we're stopping today, with album closer "Last Rise of the Fallen King". It opens with a very Toolish guitar and bass part, and it only gets better from there.

The Safety Fire - Yellowism

     It's a bit of a cartographic trope or cliche that the edges and unexplored regions of maps often have dragons drawn in or on them, leading to the phrase "here be dragons"*. Well, if I were mapping the proggy depths of the sound of today's band, I might mark the fringes with the phrase "here be moustaches".

     Check out any recent photo or video of British proggers The Safety Fire and you'll know what I'm talking about, as one or more members always seems to be sporting something hairy and hipster on their upper lip. But don't let the look fool you: The Safety Fire's debut LP Grind the Ocean was the real deal, and now they've got a solid sophomore record under their belts in the form of last month's Mouth of Swords.

     Mouth of Swords has a veritable fistful of cool parts and songs, but for today I'm going with "Yellowism" for the sheer chugga-chugga riffage quotient. It might not be the band's proggiest tune, but it's got enough heavy to make up for it. I don't know if I dig Mouth of Swords quite as much or quite as immediately as I dug Grind the Ocean, but nice meaty songs like this one certainly don't hurt.

* Let's ignore for the time being the fact that Wikipedia tells me the actual phrase "hic sunt dracones" only actually appears a couple of times on real maps, shall we?

Song of the Day: The Safety FIre - Animal King

     All the talk of late re: The Safety Fire seems to be about their forthcoming sophomore disc, which is all well and good. But let's not forget the strength of their first album.

Song of the Monday: The Safety Fire - Red Hatchet

     Yeah, I know. I owe you a song. And I was all ready to post it yesterday, along with a little something else, but then I fell asleep at like seven o'clock last evening and that plan went out the window. So we're going to do a little time-warping today (you'll see what I mean in just one second) and get right back on track.

Song of the Day: The Safety Fire - Grind the Ocean

     While we're on the subject of better-than-average djenty records that came out last year we might as well feature another song by British techheads The Safety Fire.

Song of the Day: The Safety Fire - Huge Hammers

     Today I've got some new stuff for you, even for me. In other words, even I am just discovering British metal band The Safety Fire, so we get to share the new band experience together today. I just picked up The Safety Fire's first full length disc, Grind the Ocean, the other day, based largely on hearing today's song a while ago.  After my initial listen to about half the album on my way home from work this morning, I'd describe The Safety Fire as an above-average metal/metalcore band with some djenty leanings and flashes of Protest the Hero and Between the Buried and Me. The potential to grow on me is definitely there. I'll have to finish up with it and give it a few more listens before I really make up my mind.

     In the meantime, you can enjoy your song for today, Grind the Ocean's first single and video "Huge Hammers". It's a pretty good song, and so far it seems like a decent indicator of what the Safety Fire is all about. Let me know what you think, and I'll see you tomorrow.