Week 40 – Oct 3rd
This week features black metal masters AGRICULTURE, alt-rock legends Idlewild and post-hardcore bonafides Thrice.
This Spiritual Sound
Agritulture
A molten bed-rock of abrasive black metal and lush melody lines, This Spiritual Sound plants a band wholly unique and captivating to witness. The Los Angeles band took what they had from their self-titled in 2023, and pushed even further. Songs are written, dismantled and rebuilt back together in a tropic confrontation of forward thinking at its best. While it may not be your stylistic preference, you can’t deny its originality.
Idlewild
IDLEWILD
Scottish alt-rock outfit Idlewild return with their flourishes with their self-titled – a mighty tenth record in their 20-year tenure. Since establishing in the alcoves of Edinburgh in 1995, the band of Idlewild have been many things. Teenage punks, classic rock heritage, sprawling art-pop getups, funk flair. In a grandiose display of what makes their ‘sound’, Idlewild return to lament their big ideas into world of alternative rock. Settling in to warm piano-led ballads with ‘It’s Not the First Time’ and fuzzy feel-good anthems with lead ‘Stay Out of Place’ that stoked the fire, the ten-track length plays out like an old friends playbook; a musing of bittersweet memories and laughter.
A testament to the groups’ determination in an equally moving and disparaging changing of the times, Idlewild remain as one of the continuing greats to ever do it.
Horizons/West
Thrice
A collective so steadfast and convicted in their approach, Thrive have been a striving force of post-hardcore grit since their heyday in the late ’90s. Known for their emotionally-driven anthems, every record always leaves footmarks of bold exploration, never reliant on the easy way out.
Fed on the frenzy of 2003’s The Artist in the Ambulance, Horizons/West comes at a time for the band who are three records deep into a reunion – and they still have so much more to prove. After 25 years and 12 records, Thrice deliberate fear and identity on Horizons/West, their eleventh full-length record – and companion to sister record Horizons/East in 2021. A two-part Scorched Earth catalogue of moody imaginings and emotional crises, it sees Thrice embrace a sombre ambience to life’s most potent. It’s deeply moving at times – but all the while lacking that little bit of sustenance we’ve all grown to lean on from this band.
manvmusic.com 
Leave a comment