Tag: hard rock

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Artist Spotlight: Badflower

Committing blood, soul and mind to their art, Badflower are a cathartic Los Angeles-bred quartet that you require to be on your rock radar.

Hailed for their triumphs of their debut album, OK, I’M SICK in 2019, their rock stardom catapulted to them to unimaginable scenes, as they achieved commercial success with their hauntingly powerful punches of Ghost, Heroin and The Jester.

The confessions of musicality are in droves as the album implores the discussion of sleep, sex, sadness, mania and pain in doses of hot flashes. Relevant, fresh and fresh, Badflower are continuing to be the thorns in our side as the rock powerhouse we have to listen to as part of our rock ritual.

Recent releases of 30 and Family in 2020 has allowed them to clock up to 280 million streams collectively, and they only plan to go further with their music.

Even if you don’t believe the hype as such, be sure to not miss it – because you can be sure you will. I almost did.

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Artist Spotlight: Black Peaks

There’s rarely a band that makes me stop in my tracks and listen intently. Then again, there’s rarely a band like Black Peaks that exist. Swollen in the deep, dark trenches of exploring the extent of mankind, Black Peaks is simply heavy music that understands.

Similar to that of Sleep Token – a familiar face to the Artist Spotlight series, their heavy undertones of chaos and angst is blended with this perfect mix of beautiful musicality that just works.

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We simply weren’t ready for their debut drop in 2016 with Statues.

Sheer velocity and power trawls through the album catalogue, as we’re torn from clinical favourite of Glass Built Castles, swayed to the screeching Say You Will and pushed to time oddity out-and-out of Saviour. The album saw them grace uncharted territory into the realms of heavy rock, as our favourite residents were forced to turn their heads and be made aware of the newcomers.

From their seemingly endless tour with impressive time on the road, the arctic giants returned with Can’t Sleep in 2018, and eventually – All That Divides. With music that was predominantly more higher in pitch and melodic in places, it still featured the sprouting roots of Black Peaks’ iconic sound that cemented their place firmly in the heavy and raucous.

With little to show since 2019 – with King displaying their efforts – I’m looking forward to seeing some new music hopefully within the autumn of 2021, where hopefully they’ll chart the globe with an emphatic tour – which I’m looking forward to even more.

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Artist Spotlight: Kenny Hoopla

– Pop-punk lives// –

In a state of punk decorum and expertise, Kenny Hoopla is the adventurist into the grandeurs of alternative rock, new-wave and …

pop-punk.

With the figurehead of pop-punk, Travis Barker behind the sticks, Hoopla became first known to us with his first debut EP, how will i rest in peace if I’m buried by a highway?// in 2020. With plastic door and sore loser, it was a more misanthropic, personal exploration of Hoopla’s ideas of lyricism and sorrowful tones, in terms of musicality.

how I rest in peace if I’m buried on the highway?//

For 2021 – with Barker no doubt barking orders for it to feature more angst and energy – SURVIVORS GUILT: THE MIXTAPE//, features a stronger competency to writing catchy and anthemic punk powerhouses that certainly has speckles of fellow punk counterparts of nothing.nowhere. and Blink-182 in the 8-track EP listing.

SURVIVORS GUILD: THE MIXTAPE//

Featuring the song that pushed Kenny into this genre in the first place, estella//, aswell as hollywood sucks// and my personal favourite, smoke break//, it is an exciting turn of events for this new-wave 23-year-old Ohio-born singer and rapper.

Worth a listen for any avid punk fans and for anyone who wants to let loose For this week, worthy under Artist Spotlight.

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Cleopatrick – “BUMMER” Album Review

Back in April, I implored you to witness the dazzling rock mafia duo madness of Cleopatrick with Artist Spotlight for the month.

Now, two months later, I’m back with an album review as it’s finally here. Since they’ve been young, the Canadian lifelong childhood duo have always wanted to release a debut album they’ve been immensely proud about. Well, in June of 2021, vocalist/guitarist Luke Gruntz and drummer, Ian Fraser managed to do that.

Simply loud and rife in the dirty and gritty, BUMMER has neither a lethargic or dull moment in its 10-song length longevity.

Emphatic, bold, specially written and so well richly produced – considering its the sounds of just two blokes – it is the one album I’d love to get sweaty with a bunch of strangers in one of those intermingling cesspits of tomfoolery, when they head off on their BUMMER tour in August.

With this album, it is also safe to say that Cleopatrick love to get their money’s worth out of stuff. The amount of sheer fuzz and distortion inclusive within the opener, VICTORIA PARK and WHY JULY, is frivolous manic punk and it’s f*cking fantastic.

Not dearly refined in some moments – and rightly so, because it’s well within the discomforts of punk – the debut is simply a fashioning for the love of music that these two boys have, and this comes out in the bucket loads.

GOOD GRIEF and THE DRAKE mark the end of doing anything by halves and release the handbrake with full rock powerhouses. The album tones it down with oozy drones of 2008 and Great Lakes, but still implores a different edge and style that the band incorporates and ultimately, shows their competency in producing music with the “less is more” mentality.

If you were disappointed with Royal Blood‘s recent third album, fear not. Here is a far better alternative than anything we could’ve ever imagined.

If you manage to catch them on their BUMMER tour, good on you.

– — – – https://cleopatrick.com/ — – – —

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Sleep Token – ‘Sundowning’ Album Review

Eternally divinine, Sleep Token are one of the most unique new underground acts in the heavy rock and progressive metal heading to leave its quarters of worship and share its beauty with us.

Definitive, powerful and expertly put together, Sundowning is one of my favourites that I just keep coming back to, simply to relive. I implore everyone else to do the same.

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But, don’t be put off by the glorious display of devil-like incarnations, this album is not to be trifled or spited with. Like inhabited spirits, they simply create abounding music – and simply worship those creatives before them.

Like carefully aligned pieces of music, for me, the album invokes a masterpiece – and I love it. Beautiful melodic performances, a sorrowful vocalist, the precisely-timed chaos of the arching drums, and the illusion and mystery that invokes such a piece is enough to upkeep conversations going about just how strong the progressive-metal scene is in the UK.

The sheer anonymity of the British collective just adds further to the mystery, too. Songs such as, The Offering, Dark Signs and The Night Does Not Belong to God are somewhat showing their worship to an ancient deity that can only be identified by ‘Sleep’, who appeared to the band’s lead singer, ‘Vessel’, in a dream.

I know about it just as much as you do, but you’ve got to admit it’s pretty darn cool. But where frantic progressive-metal reins in their expressiveness, moments of fleeting beauty appear so softly in the ambient tranquil of such songs like, Levitate and Give.

The album does not begin to falter though, with elements of rage – maybe due to the lack of worshipping to their inhabitants – driving us straight into Gods and Say That You Will. The full 12-listing of the album ends with a beauty that I can’t stop repeating – Blood Sugar. A chorus of melodic piano, a hymn of vocals and progressive rhythmic art, it’s a worthy contender to end it right.

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If they’re planning on delighting the Gods with this as The Offering, the Vessel, and his collaborative collective, should be mightily satisfied with their efforts.