2014 Round-Up: 2015 Top Prospects

      Since we're already almost a sixth of the way through 2015, it's about goddamn time I got part 2 of my 2014 round-up posted, right? Lucky for me, none of the records I anticipate below have come out yet, but there's one or two that are right around the corner, so you'd better get reading!

Tool - ??? (???)
     I thought I'd get this one over and done with right off the bat. Everybody and their mother's dog knows that Tool operates on a much longer album cycle than virtually anybody else on the planet, but since it's been almost nine years now since the release of 10,000 Days even Maynard and company are getting to be about due for some new material. The last year or so has seen a number of rumours and vaguely enticing social media posts that seem to suggest work on a new record is ongoing, perhaps even nearing completion, but just when we might get to hear any of this new material is anybody's guess. I'll believe this one's coming when I'm holding a copy in my hand.

Uneven Structure - La Partition (summer)
     It's been nearly four years since France's Uneven Structure blew me and a lot of other listeners away with their so-much-more-than-just-djent debut LP Februus, but the band is finally putting the finishing touches on the follow-up to this masterwork of dense groove and atmosphere. The internet buzz seems to think that this one will be out by the summer, and I for one hope the internet is right for once. La Partition could well be a monster, so keep your eyes and ears peeled.

Chimp Spanner - ??? (???)
     Regular readers will know that I'm a fan of progressive instrumental music, so the prospect of new material from everybody's favourite one manimal army Chimp Spanner is something I'm 100% onboard with. 2014 saw a new track called "Aurora" unleashed upon the interwebz in demo and playthrough form, but Mr. Ortiz was otherwise largely silent, studio-wise, instead spending the year playing shows and festivals around England and across Europe. That's all well and good, but Chimp Spanner fans elsewhere in the world (read: me) are due for their own dose of Paul Ortiz, and a new record would be the perfect way for us to get it.

Blotted Science - ??? (???)
     Speaking of instrumental prog, tech supertrio Blotted Science also seem to be working on some new jams. Their 2011 EP The Animation of Entomology was an absolute beast, a labyrinthine slice of technicality and compositional virtuosity -- guitarist Ron Jarzombek utilized a "Twelve Tones in Fragmeneted Rows" system of his own design to cook up all the weird and wonderful riffs and chord progressions on the EP  (ask your music-nerd friends to explain it to you). Of course, you don't have to have a graduate degree in music theory to appreciate the madness contained on this EP, or to be excited about the prospect of further experiments from the Blotted Science laboratory.

Dance Gavin Dance - Instant Gratification (April 14th)
     By any standard of modern music you'd care to name, Sacramento post-hardcore act Dance Gavin Dance have had a pretty prolific run so far. Five studio albums, an EP, and a live record in the last eight years or so would be a good track record for any band in any genre, but for band that writes stuff that's a little heavier, a little more technical, it's downright impressive (even if DGD aren't the heaviest or the most technical band in the world...). DGD has undergone several line-up changes over the years, particularly in the vocalist department, so it's always good to get the news that the guys are back at it again with new material.

Coheed and Cambria - ??? (spring/summer 2015)
     Times flies when you're having fun, doesn't it? It seems like Coheed's stellar (pun sorta intended) double album The Afterman came out just yesterday, but second installment Descension is already two years old. Seen in this light, I guess it shouldn't surprise me that Claudio and company are gearing up for another record. Coheed and Cambria's catalogue has its ups and downs, but The Afterman was a bit of a return to form, so the prognosis (pun kind intended yet again) for album number eight looks good.

The Fall of Troy - ??? (???)
     Like Dance Gavin Dance, this is another one of those bands that tr00 metalheads might look down their nose at a little bit, but I've been a Fall of Troy fan a long time. As such, the news that they were getting back together definitely piqued my interest. The subsequent news that they might be working on new material hooked me even more. There's not a whole lot of word on what form new material might take, or when we might hear it, but the fact that singer/guitarist Thomas Erak has left his gig with Chiodos seems to bode well for a return to full-time TFOT recording and touring. The stars fell out of alignment for me a few years back when I had tickets to one of their farewell shows and the couldn't attend, so here's hoping that I'll get another shot to catch them on the road, preferably supporting a new record.

Deftones - ??? (???)
     A new Deftones record is always something to get interested in, if not excited about, and this one should be no exception. The chances of this one being the "lost" album Eros, the last recording the band did with late bassist Chi Cheng, may be slim to none, but the fact remains that Chino and Company have been pretty strong on their last couple of outings. Assuming that the band's next effort is more Koi No Yokan or Diamond Eyes than Saturday Night Wrist -- which might be a pretty big assumption, who knows -- new Deftones material could kick a surprising amount of ass.

Mandroid Echostar - ??? (???)
     As is the case with so many of the entries on this list, there's not much information to go on here -- no title, no release date, no single, nada -- but Facebook tells me that the actual recording process is indeed complete and the band has moved on to the mixing stage. These guys are not only "friends of the blog" (oh how I love being able to say that, even if it's only very loosely true), they're also stupidly good at crafting catchy, shredtastic pop-prog. Keep doing Canada proud, boys.

letlive. - ??? (???)
     I got into The Blackest Beautiful in a big way. Chief among the reasons for this is definitely the fact that, as I've said umpteen bazillion times before, letlive. feels like the successor band to perennial tease Glassjaw, and boy do I loves me some Glassjaw, especially Worship and Tribute. That album's got such a vibe, such an energy, and letlive. manages to tap into that same kind of vibe and energy in spades. I've have no idea what direction the follow-up to The Blackest Beautiful will take, nor do I even know what direction I want it to take, but I can't wait to hear it.

Tesseract - ??? (???)
     A new Tesseract record. With Dan Tompkins back in the mix. Need this Tesseract-loving, Dan Tompkins fanboy say more? No word on when this one's dropping, but in my opinion it can't be soon enough. For now I'll just have to content myself with waiting for the live album/DVD Scala/Odyssesy that's still, at the time of this writing, "coming soon".

The Ocean - ??? (???)
     I may be a bit of a latecomer to the 'The Ocean' party, but I got into the band's last record Pelagial pretty hard. Progressive post-metal with a veritable fuck-tonne of groove, and a high concept to boot? Sign me up. The guys in The Ocean have some pretty deep shoes to fill (see what I did there?) with a follow-up to Pelagial, but if they can pull it off, it would very likely be an Album of the Year contender.

Plini - The End of Everything (March 11)
     Last but most certainly not least is another "friend of the blog", namely Australian guitarist Plini, whose third EP The End of Everything will be coming out in just a couple of weeks' time. Since Plini's previous work is some of the most badass-yet-chill songwriting I've ever heard, the culmination of his trilogy of EP's is definitely something I'm looking forward to -- I've got my preorder in and everything. If guitar-based instrumental jams in which songwriting doesn't take a back seat to technicality but is rather served by it are your thing, The End of Everything should be perfect for scratching your itch. Now all Plini needs to do is stop going to school and traveling around helping people long enough to write an LP already.

     And there you have it: a small selection of upcoming and possibly upcoming albums that I'm looking forward to this year. I'm sure I've probably missed scads of records-in-progress by scads of great bands, but these are some that I've read about, or at least heard rumours about, that have got me stoked up for the next ten months or so.
     Now, you may have noticed a trend in the entries above, namely the profusion of question marks sitting in for actual album titles and release dates. You may also wonder why this profusion is so...well, profuse. In a nutshell, it's because that's the sum total of the information I have about these records. Contrary to what you might think, I have very little insider information about any of the above (read: none).
     But rather than just write about the few albums I do have solid title-and-date information for, I thought it'd be more fun to give you a cross section of some of the stuff I'm looking forward to, or just hoping for, in 2015. If even half of the aforementioned new material ends up coming out this year, 2015 is going to be nice and heavy.

Friday: letlive. - That Fear Fever

     Last night got a little sleepy, so I didn't get the chance to post a high energy jam to get your Friday evening going. Please consider this, then, a high energy jam to get your Saturday morning hangover start off right.

     By this point you should all know that I really dig LA post-hardcore act letlive., to the point that I have repeatedly called them the modern recipients of Glassjaw's more-or-less passed torch. Their last record The Blackest Beautiful only came out in 2013, but already I wish they'd get back in the studio and give me a follow-up already. It's that good.

     So if you're in need of some pumping and/or revving up this weekend, try some letlive. stuff -- "That Fear Fever", from the aforementioned The Blackest Beautiful, for example. It's a short, sharp demonstration of the frenetic energy Jason and company exhibit throughout their catalogue. Check that shit.

Monday: Stray From the Path - Counting Sheep

     I've never really been a Stray From the Path fan, but I recently stumbled across this song and decided it reminds me of some other stuff that I am a  fan of, so today I'm going to connect a couple of dots for you. Enjoy.

     Dot one: the song "Counting Sheep" from Stray From the Path's latest LP Anonymous. Dot two: post-hardcore godfathers Refused. Dot three: heirs to Refused's crown, letlive. Stray From the Path has the same aggressive energy and the same catchy-songwriting-with-a-ragged-edge as both of those bands. The latter's Jason Aalon Butler even does some guest work on Anonymous, so maybe it's not so strange that I'm mentioning Stray From the Path in the same breath as Jason's letlive.

     It's not techy or proggy, and it's not really even metal, so it's not necessarily the usual fare around here, but it'll move you, and maybe that's all you need right now.

Album of the Week: letlive - The Blackest Beautiful

     Well folks, it's another Monday, and time for another tired Garfield cliche. But your Monday doesn't have to suck. It could be awesome. Of what arcane devilry do I speak, you ask? Why, it's time for another Loud Noise Album of the Week (patent pending)!

     This week I implore you to check out The Blackest Beautiful, the most recent effort from Los Angeles post-hardcore band letlive. I know, I know, you regular readers are whinging at your monitors about how I've featured them several times before as the Song of the Day, and compared them to Glassjaw, and otherwise fawned over them.

     This album, however, works so well as a complete whole for me that I'm just going to pretend I don't hear you negative Nellies. Besides, these guys have awesome energy and are one of the best examples I can come up with of the idea that heavier music can still be catchy as hell. I recently picked up a copy of the band's 2010 sophomore disc Fake History, and while that record is proof positive that letlive didn't just get lucky with the calibre of material they produced for follow-up The Blackest Beautiful -- they've been crafting good shit for a while now -- I've chosen to recommend the newer album this week because it just has the feel of a band that's comfortable and confident in its skin and its sound. Give The Blackest Beautiful a couple of listens this week and I bet you'll dig it.

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?!

letlive. - The Priest and Used Cars

     I've written about letlive. before, but that was before I'd heard all of their latest album The Blackest Beautiful. Upon closer inspection I've decided that the catchy aggressive edge of "Banshee (Ghost Fame)" is not a one-off fluke. If you dig that sort of thing, The Blackest Beautiful has a bunch more where it came from.

     When "Banshee" was the song of the day, I believe my comparison was of letlive. to a bastard child of Refused and Glassjaw. While I stand by that simile, I would throw a bunch of other bands into the mix if I were trying to define letlive's sound. They're a post-hardcore band in the truest sense of the word, building on the hardcore genre in a myriad of ways.

      Case in point: today's song, "The Priest and Used Cars", which has a punky energy that brings to mind Protest the Hero and another helping of vocalist Jason Aalon Butler's virtuosity, which is often reminiscent of Claudio from Coheed and Cambria (if Claudio had a more frantic, manic energy). It's a tasty combination.

      But I could go on all night about who letlive. sounds like at one moment or the next. Why not listen to "The Priest and Used Cars" and see how awesome they are for yourself?

Song of the Day: letlive. - Banshee (Ghost Fame)

     Kyle Bishop and I (among others) agree, you should all be checking out the first single from the upcoming The Blackest Beautiful by letlive.