Showing posts with label Volition. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Volition. Show all posts

Wednesday, 24 June 2015

Sunday: Protest the Hero - Skies

     Wow, I guess I have to send a cartoon factory worker up a cartoon ladder to reset my imaginary "days since last accident" sign here at Loud Noises. At least this time I have the slightly-more-legit excuses of "visiting with family for Father's Day" and "being a lazy pile of crap for my birthday yesterday" for being behind the eight ball once again, rather than my usual "just falling behind on my shit". Catch-up rematch, anyone?

     Let's start with a little something tried-and-true for you Sunday song, to get back into the swing of things. I'm thinking some Protest the Hero, as it's been a bit since I last championed their cause. This time out I'm going with "Skies", the closing number from the band's 2013 album Volition. If you've ever listened to Protest and dug them, but never really gotten into them further, this is the song for you: six minutes of pure Protest shrenergy (that's "shreddy energy", for the uninitiated) bookended by just enough sparse guitar intro and outro to keep you from pulling something on takeoff and landing.

     It's not my favourite Protest the Hero record, but Volition is still rock solid, thanks to the strength of tracks like "Skies". This longtime Protest fan can't wait to hear what's next.

Monday, 11 August 2014

Sunday: Protest the Hero - Mist

     Some of you might be wondering what happened to Sunday's Song of the Day. I'll lay some of the blame on my recovery from Saturday's Mini-Olympiad, but the more exciting excuse is that last night was the long-awaited Protest the Hero show here in town, with support from Pomegranate Tiger and Mandroid Echostar.

     I know I've mentioned this show and its tour at least a couple of times here at Loud Noises (I asked the guys from Pomegranate Tiger in our Twenty Questions exchange, for example) but I've been busy at work, and I've had the mini-olympics on the brain for a bit, and somehow or other this show just kinda crept up on me. Not that I'm complaining.

     I had of course intended to drop a quick Protest song on you before we left, but much of my afternoon yesterday was consumed by napping, in preparation for my 4 AM start at work this morning. (Yeah, yeah, I know, it's a real sob story.) So the order of business when it comes to catching up on yesterday is most definitely a Protest the Hero song, and the boys have helped me make a choice as to which one by releasing a new video recently.

     Your song for yesterday is "Mist", from last year's Volition, an homage to the province of Newfoundland. The boys in Protest have apparently long had a soft spot for Newfoundland and the warm reception they continually receive whenever touring takes them there. And if the song is dedicated to the band's favourite province, the video is perhaps even more so. Crank "Mist" and be jealous of the time I had last night while you await my Pit Report later in the week.

Tuesday, 1 July 2014

Album of the Week: Protest the Hero - Kezia

     It's Canada Day today, so you know I'm going to take that excuse for a theme and run with it as far as I can. The end result as far as you're concerned is some Canadian stuff for your song and album today, starting with the rock-solid debut LP from one of my favourite bands.

     The success of their crowdfunding campaign for last year's Volition may have put them front and centre in the metal world for a bit, but Whitby's Protest the Hero were making their name on their tasty tech riffage for years before that. Protest has a great back catalogue, and I could comfortably recommend you spend the week with any of their records prior to Volition, but in order to fully appreciate how far they've come, I think you've got to start at the start.

     Kezia is one of those debut records that struck like a proverbial bolt out of the blue, an effect only compounded by the teenaged status of the band at the time of the album's composition and recording. It certainly depressed me, a guitarist in my early twenties at the time, that a bunch of kids several years my junior had come roaring out of the gate with such an impressive first album.

     Punky energy, metal technicality, Rody's phenomenal vocal range, high-brow concepts -- none of it is anything new for Protest. They've been doing that kind of thing since the beginning, and have only been honing their sound. Longtime fans of the band will know how good Kezia is, but latecomers to the Protest party who haven't delved into the band's early days should be implored to do so. Just because the guys don't play a whole lot of cuts off Kezia anymore doesn't detract from said album's awesomeness. Discover that awesomeness for yourself this week, please.

Friday, 31 January 2014

2013 Round-up: Loud Noises Ten Best of 2013

     Well, it's finally time to sit down and look back on the year that was and celebrate the fact that 2013 was a very strong year for heavy music of every stripe. My belief that we shouldn't judge a year until it's actually done, coupled with my very gradual (read: glacial) working pace over Christmas, has put me several weeks behind where I originally intended to be on this, but now that 2013 exists only in our memories, and I've got all my ducks in a row, I'm ready to jump on the bandwagon of musical criticism (every other metal website out there has of course had their "Top X of 2013" lists up for, like, two months now).

     Now, before you read the following list and then explode with rage at my selections, let's establish right now that these are my personal favourites from last year, the albums that I would say I spent the most time listening to and enjoying. I am in no way saying that these are definitively or objectively the ten "best" albums from 2013. Yes, the words "Ten Best" do appear in the title of this post, but in the context of being the Loud Noises Ten Best, not the Ten Best. So there. I refuse to take any responsibility for any butthurt you might incur from the omission of your favourite band or album.

     So, without further ado, and in no particular order, please enjoy the Loud Noises Ten Best albums of 2013.

- Tesseract - Altered State
     Tesseract's first LP One left me such a fanboy that I probably would have lapped up new material like a cartoon cat with a saucer of milk regardless of its quality. What good fortune then that follow-up full-legnth Altered State is so goddamned awesome. Call it metal, call it prog, call it djent if you feel you must, but whatever label you choose to apply to Tesseract, you can't deny their infectious groove and rhythmic power. More than perhaps any other band represented on this list, Tesseract are a band you can put on for your non-metal head friends and still reasonably expect them to enjoy it. Yeah, you read that right: Tesseract are an accessible metal or "heavy" band, but in a way that renders "accessibility" a good quality instead of a dirty word.

- The Ocean - Pelagial
     If you'll pardon the nautical pun, Pelagial is album with a very deep concept. The idea, if I understand things correctly, is that the sonic journey of the album from start to finish is supposed to represent or replicate the experience of descending into the depths of the ocean. Of course, Pelagial doesn't adhere to this template rigidly, but rather does so just enough to sketch out the concept's bones. The prettier, prog-rockier early parts of the record, replete with piano parts, give way to denser, more prog-metally parts, and things get doomier mood-wise as we get further down. Interestingly, Pelagial is also one of several albums I've come across lately (another being Tesseract's Altered State from above) that come with both a regular version of the album and an instrumental one. Regular readers will know I'm a fan of instrumental music, but it's a true testament to The Ocean's songwriting and musicianship that Pelagial is just as enthralling without any vocals at all.

- Revocation - Revocation
     Thrash is dead! Long live thrash! I've heard the whole movement of which Revocation can be considered part called retro-thrash, or re-thrash, but there's nothing retro about the Boston band's badass sound. What Revocation plays is decidedly modern thrash, an evolutionary leap forward from the kind of metal bands like Metallica used to play back in their heyday. And yet, Revocation has a classic feel too, like it would be at home alongside any era of fast and furious metal. Revocation is also one of those albums that satisfies with its own awesomeness at the same time that it whets the appetite for more awesomeness to come. Songs like "The Hive", "Archfiend", and "Invidious", to name just a few, make me very excited to hear what Revocation will come up with next time out.

- letlive. - The Blackest Beautiful
     Yet another year has gone by without a major new release from post-hardcore legends Glassjaw, making them the genre's equivalent of Tool in terms of productivity. An album like The Blackest Beautiful, however, is enough to make you say "go ahead and take your time, Glassjaw". I don't know that everybody would agree with me on this one, but I really feel that letlive has the vibe of a "spiritual successor" to Glassjaw, especially with The Blackest Beautiful. They've got the same blend of energy, aggression, and pop sensibilities and vocal stylings. Glassjaw's Worship and Tribute is still a classic, but letlive might have crafted the modern equivalent in The Blackest Beautiful. And if they haven't done it here, their next album is going to slay.

- Misery Signals - Absent Light
     This one is a little like Tesseract's Altered State, in the sense that I've been a Misery Signals fan for a long time and would probably have been satisfied with just about whatever Misery Signals came up with. I don't know if it's possible to re-bottle the lightning of earlier Misery Signals albums (2008's Controller is still my favourite) but Absent Light is still a rock solid balance between the dense technicality of Misery Signals' more recent work and the earnest aggression of their early stuff. As a supporter of the band's Indiegogo campaign, I for one am fully satisfied with the album that the band came up with, and would do it all over again in a heartbeat.

- East of the Wall - Redaction Artifacts
     A word I often like to use about the sound and style of the band above, Misery Signals, is "dense". This is a word that could also be applied to East of the Wall's latest, Redaction Artifacts. "Dense" in the sense that there's so much going on. If you read even the occasional post around here, you'll know I like to try and compare bands to other bands, to help all of you get a bit better handle on things before you press play. East of the Wall had me stumped, and in the best possible way. Redaction Artifacts is unorthodox, but not inaccessible, technical, but not overly so, disharmonious, but not amelodic... I could keep pulling juxtapositions out of my ass all day, but a better use of your time would be to just go on Youtube and find out for yourself exactly why East of the Wall and Redaction Artifacts resist my attempts at classification and description.

- Anciients - Heart of Oak
     As I've made clear in an Anciients Song of the Day, Heart of Oak is a hard album to pin down. It's a well-forged alloy of Mastodony post-metal, Opethian prog, straight-up death metal, and healthy helpings of classic metal and rock. Sprinkle in some impressive drum work, some vocal variety, and some truly tasty guitar leads, and you've got a delicious brew that is, incredibly, only the debut LP from this Vancouver band. I can only imagine what a little maturity will do for a band that's already this technically sophisticated.

- Plini - Other Things
     I don't know if it's cheating a little or not to include an EP on my list of ten best "albums" of last year, but I don't really care. Plini is an incredibly talented guy, and he's put out some incredibly rad music in the past year, but his first EP Other Things was how I initially discovered his work, and of all his releases so far it's the one that's spent the most time coming out of my speakers since I got it. More than almost any other act on this list, I can't wait to hear what's next from this rising star, and that's saying something. It'll be absolutely criminal if Plini doesn't eventually get huge.

- Protest the Hero - Volition
     Another longtime favourite of mine, Protest the Hero could almost do no wrong on this one. Me and thousands of other Indiegogo contributors basically said (or gambled) as much when we threw scads of money into a Protest-shaped hole in the internet. News of drummer Moe Carlson's departure disheartened as much as word of his session replacement Chris Adler excited. In the end, we needn't have worried about a thing: Protest's technicalilty is still top notch, and while the prog is dialed down, the songwriting is dialed way up. These are some of the best songs -- not collections of cool riffs and parts strung together -- of the band's career.

- Circles - Infinitas
     The debut LP from Australia's prog-djent darlings Circles demonstrated that not only can the band craft riffs but songs as well. That was the thing about the band's 2011 EP The Compass: it was full to the brim with tasty riffs and bits, but the songs weren't always cohesive wholes so much as these riffs and bits strung together serviceably (sound familiar? *cough* Protest the Hero *cough*). Don't get me wrong, I really really dig The Compass, but for the most part you can't really build any kind of a career with just a good collection of riffs. You need some solid songs. Circles seems to think so too, as they brought an album's worth of solid material to the party with Infinitas. With initial outings as strong as The Compass and now Infinitas, this is yet another case of me being well stoked to hear a sophomore LP.

     Aaaaannnnd there you have it. Not exactly ringing in the new year punctually, but as they say, better late than never. Right? Right?!

Saturday, 2 November 2013

Saturday Afternoon Double Header

     I wanted to post a song yesterday evening. I really did. But saving the world from the machinations of Nazi Germany (aka playing Axis and Allies for like five or six hours) got in the way. I apologize for defending your freedoms. No need to thank me.

     So first up this afternoon we have a song for yesterday, and since WW2 was the order of the evening, we're stepping into the musical history books of my youth and going with System of a Down's "War?" from their self-titled debut.



     For today's song we'll pick something a little more current. Well, a lot more current. Protest the Hero's Volition came out officially this past Tuesday (a couple of songs/videos had already been released before it leaked a week or two ago) and now that I've had some time to spend with my copy, I for one can say that it slays.

     I'm still undecided as to where I'd rank it in the Protest canon, but I have decided that it is, at the very least, a worth addition to said canon. Soaring vocals? Check. Badass, quick-fingered guitar riffs? Check. Bass that actually does something besides follow the guitar? Check there too. And tight, machine-like drumming from Chris Adler? Double check.

     "Yellow Teeth" has all of the above, so check it out as yet another example of just how solid a record the boys in Protest have put together in Volition. Unfortunately, there aren't a whole lot of rip of this album yet on Youtube, so you'll have to just have to go stream the whole album, paying special attention to track five for that yellow goodness. Have at 'er!




Sunday, 20 October 2013

Protest the Hero - A Life Embossed

     You should all know by now that I digs me some Protest the Hero. If you also enjoy some of these Canadian metal darlings, you probably already know that Volition has been leaked and subsequently released for streaming by the boys.

     You might even have gotten the chance to (legitimately) download a copy for yourself, if you happened to be one of those fans who contributed to Protest's Indiegogo campaign. But even if you haven't heard the whole album yet through means above board or otherwise, you just might have heard this evening's song, the latest track for which the boys have released a lyric video.

     No matter where you fall in the debate on Canadian pitbull legislation, there's a good chance you'll like "A Life Embossed". It's classic Protest, and while I wouldn't say it's my favourite song on Volition, it is further proof that Protest the Hero have still got it. Fans of the band should be well pleased with this record.



Wednesday, 2 October 2013

Protest the Hero - Drumhead Trial

     Thanks apparently to some early radio leakage, we've all got another new Protest the Hero track to help keep our appetites for the new album sated for a little longer.

     "Drumhead Trial" also gives us another example of Chris Adler's drum work with the band, and also happens to feature Ron Jarzombek (from Blotted Science, among other bands) doing some guest guitar soloing. All of this adds up to another solid Protest song. Does it matter that all people can say about the recently revealed Volition album art (which seems to me to be a pretty unsubtle statement about voyeurism and objectification in our modern times) is "ZOMG bird gang rape!!1!"? Not in the slightest.

     So take a few minutes right now to put on some "Drumhead Trial", and then take the rest of your evening praying to whatever gods you see fit in the hopes that this record will drop sooner.


Thursday, 5 September 2013

Song of the Day: Protest the Hero - Clarity

     Unless you've spent your day under a rock or otherwise completely cut off from the world somehow (lucky you), you've likely already jammed the brand spankin' new Protest the Hero song. But just in case you missed it, Beardy's got you.

Sunday, 25 August 2013

Song of Saturday: Protest the Hero - Sex Tapes

     Of course I would go to bed without posting a song AGAIN. But fear not, I've got yesterday and today covered. So read on!