Album Club Pack October 2025: Damnation Special

For this week's show Album Club returns with an eye once again on this year's Damnation Festival with Warning's monument of misery Watching from a Distance, Wormrot's early 10s grind detonation Dirge, Devil Sold His Soul's innovative post-metalcore A Fragile Hope, and Code's bizarro black metal genius on Resplendent Grotesque.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:26):
Hello everybody, we are back. Welcome to you that's not
metal and welcome here. It's been a minute because we've
been scattered, but welcome back to Album Club where we
are for the next couple of hours going to be
bringing together some classic historic albums from rock and metal past,
and we are going to be going into what made
them so great. My name is Paren Haish, Sam Dignan's here.
Elliott Paisley is back as well.

Speaker 2 (00:47):
Elliott.

Speaker 1 (00:47):
Has been a minute since we've been on how you
did very well?

Speaker 3 (00:50):
Yeah, I've been I went to Annisey for a week
and then I had a couple of days off and
then I was in Turkey and now I'm back, genuinely
happy to be where. It's cold, which something little spoiled
man in the world, but it's it's very pleasant.

Speaker 1 (01:05):
Yeah, international man of leisure. I mean hopefully the chilliness
does also carry through, I think into some of the
albums that we've got talking today. If you know you
had been a busy guy though on your travels, we
knew that we would be tempting you back here for
Damnation Festival, which is the theming of today's Album Club pack.
For the past couple of years we developed like a
bit of a good thing going on in conjunction with

(01:27):
Damnation Festival here in the UK, turning our last album
club episode before Damnation into a bit of a preview
where we are going to be talking about some bands
you will be seeing at this year's fest. If you
are attending, if you are a Damnation goer finding your
way over to us for the first time, just in
the process of finding things to help hype you up, welcome.
You know you're likely a giant music nerd, so we

(01:48):
have some things in common. We've got loads here for you.
I feel it's important to say always that if you
are not attending Damnation Festival and you're just one of
our usual listeners, this will still be a kind of,
you know, an album club episode for you to enjoy
it as well. Selected some albums that are totally worthy
of the fawning historical discussion treatment we are going to
give them. We just happen to have tipped over more
wholly into a focus on the underground this time because

(02:11):
it's Damnation Testament to that Sam you are not going
to be able to join us for actual Damnations Festival
this time, but it is still good to have you
here on the album Club episode, because these are some
albums that would definitely have been put forward on a
regular discussion at some point. Either they are stuff where
I've gone you know that's an interesting album from the
underground that Sam should hear, or their albums that I

(02:31):
would absolutely turn to you for discussion about as a
fan as well.

Speaker 4 (02:35):
Yeah, no, absolutely, I mean like this was one again
as a fifty to fifty splitoff two albums I'm well
aware of and not going to spoilers I'm a big
fan of, and two albums never heard of before, so
were completely or not I've heard of but never listened to.
One of them I've never heard of, so we're we're
completely new experiences. So it's always convincing with these ones,

(02:58):
like again sad, I'm not at Damnation, but well, because
you know, Damnation is so good at curating.

Speaker 2 (03:04):
If it does, there's always gonna be.

Speaker 4 (03:06):
Like discussions to be had if they're like when we're
bringing forward bands to sort of talk about in this or.

Speaker 1 (03:11):
Saying yeah, And when we started doing these Damnation or
preview episodes, they were all albums that were specifically going
to be performed in full at the festival. Because there
has been a history of those album type bookings, we've
gotten kind of more flexible with that rule. A couple
of these albums are specifically being kind of showcased as
you know, album type sets this year. There were other

(03:31):
options we had for that that maybe proved a little
testing for the album club format, like the fact that
weg due to performing three albums in full apparently in
one go. That does push the limit for this maybe
as much as could have been interesting maybe to do
album club on the trilogy of wig Dood albums, I
have got well say, if not all of these albums
specifically being played this year, these are all I think

(03:54):
rarer or notable bookings in some way that feel like
something of an event in themselves. So as much as
I adore Anaunothrac and Napalm Death and arman Rah, we
have strived here for kind of some of the oh
my god, I had no idea that like X were playing,
or I can't believe that they're back, you know type
bookings rather than the old reliables. On top of this,
the next thing that is going to be coming to

(04:14):
the that's time of Patreons soon after this I don't
think we've publicly announced this yet, but we are going
to be doing a subgenre scene type special on the
New Orleans sludge movement of the nineties. So if you
are super wanting us to talk about corrosion of conformity
as well before they headline Damnation, we will be talking
about plenty of them over there in weeks to come
as well. So what have we got last year courtesy

(04:36):
of Damnation? We had hear nothing, see nothing, say nothing,
We had hatred for mankind. So those are the kind
of landmarks that Damnation has given us the excuse to
talk about before this time Warnings All Time doom Metal
classic Watching from a Distance being performed at this year's Damnation,
Wormrot's grindcore shrapnel Bomb, with this era's lineup returning to

(04:58):
the stage this year. Dirge the Devil Sold is Soul's
post metal core I suppose if you like a Fragile Hope,
also being showcased at Dannation, and with this band returning
to the stage for the first time in a long
while as well. So this is when you're gonna want
to catch if you Can Code and their masterpiece of
Naughty's progressively minded UK black metal, resplendent, grotesque, Elliott, I'm

(05:19):
gonna ask you, just straight off the bat, of these
four we've got here, are there ones that you're particularly
excited for at Dannation this year?

Speaker 3 (05:26):
Excited for Watching from a distance is a peculiar combination
of Wards. It's I'm sure that's going to be an
incredible experience, but maybe a miserable one, if in the
best possible way. I've got to be honest. It's the
band that I've already seen twice, and admittedly not in
this form I've seen them before. Seeing the original Wormrot

(05:49):
lineup is such a bucket list item for me. And
we'll get to the alm itself later, but that particular
era of that band, even though I think they've gone
on to better it, that's kind of that feels like
my band, and the opportunity of that coming back is
so exciting.

Speaker 1 (06:05):
Yeah, And we're gonna park your exciting for that for
one moment because we are going to be starting with
Warnings Watching from a Distance, which is now that I
have seen Warning play at Damnation before. They seem to
emerge roughly every ten years or so to go play
this album. Although there is words this time of new
music being performed and a new album next year, so
that gives us, I think, good reason anyway to like
talk about and you know, cover this album first before

(06:28):
we maybe go on to get something new next year.
And we haven't done this on Album Club yet. So
when we were putting together this year's episode for this
Damnation batch, this was the very first slot I had,
you know, checked in because it was just guaranteed that
we would have to talk about watching from a distance
here because I think of these four records we've got
this time, we have gone a little more niche maybe
than even our previous Damnation packs, but this is the

(06:50):
most iconic one of these four. This album is absolutely
legendary in its sphere of particularly sorrowful doom metal.

Speaker 3 (07:00):
You know, I came to it quite late because they
were one of those bands, one of those names where
they got banded around a lot, and I knew that
they were legends in particularly in the road burn end
of doom. They just got mentioned all the time, but
for whatever reason, I never really investigated it was only
maybe I think it was actually during COVID, which seems
fitting right, But I went and listened to this and

(07:21):
I kind of thought, oh, I've heard pretty much all
the big doom metal records. That's I'm sure I've got
a fairly good understanding. I don't know how it's going
to blow my socks off, And without jumping on too much,
it's one of those albums which might be in contention
for the best ever, Like it's there. You've already count
on one hand the number of other doom metal records

(07:41):
which seems to inspire this level of or in the
people that are obsessed with it.

Speaker 1 (07:47):
Yeah, and this album, I bet is one of those
ones where lots of people who haven't heard it might
not even recognize the name Warning if you said it,
But I bet they'll have seen the album cover just
kind of being into metal on the internet, I suppose.
And it's not a color album cover, you know, it's
just bleak. But it is one of those albums that
is shorthand in a way that you know, if you
talk about what is the absolute kind of two its

(08:09):
zenith monolith of stoner doom metal, everybody listening right now
will have had either Dope Throne or Dope Smoker, which
everyone comes first pop into their head their albums. Just
that just have this kind of this weight to them
in their very aura. They feel heavy just in like
name alone and legend this album, I think is that

(08:29):
for sad doom metal, where watching from a distance is
that kind of emblematic shorthand for like, what is the
saddest metal record you can think of? If you were
to poll people, what metal album will you cry all
the way through? This is the album that sits kind
of unchallenged atop of that throne in the public perception.
The reputation of this album that precedes it is that

(08:51):
it is essentially the final boss of heartbreak in underground metal.
Sam I was wondering how much of that reputation, first
of all, maybe had reached you kind of over on
your side of the T and M.

Speaker 4 (09:03):
Universe it's a name, and how they might seen pop
up before that. This is one of those I'm going
to have to separate my feelings on like this will
the end of doom and what this album is, because
this has been the most complicated one of these albums
that I've had to kind of like grapple with. But
that reputation of like this is one of the most bleak, heartbreaking,

(09:25):
depressing albums ever had kind of crossed over. You know,
when you see list of like the saddest album sad
melams of all time, it is like and one that
always pops up and I'm you know, I'm all for
a sad album.

Speaker 2 (09:37):
I'm I'm all good with that.

Speaker 4 (09:39):
Obviously, Watching the Distance is a very different kind of
sad album to what I might this will go. I mean,
like when the bands were going to all is my
kind of like sad music because that they kind of
have like sad a song with them. But this is, yeah,
this is I understand why this album holds the reput

(10:00):
it does, even if it is now my I have
struggled with a little bit on this, on this sort
of journey with it will.

Speaker 1 (10:07):
Say, Okay, I'll pick up on that later. But this
is one of those albums that I think has enjoyed
a bit of a renaissance over you know, if you
look at your your rate, your music's or your r
slash music whatever, like the way you'll look up on
like on Reddit, what metal albums do people like? Over there,
and you will get the typical kind of cool, trendy
heavy albums of you know, I mentioned Dope Throne and
Dope Smoker, Jane Doe, Sunbather where the kite string pops,

(10:32):
this is in there, and again that gives it kind
of a recognizability and a cachet. I'm never quite sure
how much of that status was laid upon it at
the time, because this came out in two thousand and six.
I think I would have heard forty What Sun first,
as they were around when I was getting more into
kind of underground metal in the twenty tens. If you
don't know, Warning is the doom metal band led by
Patrick Walker, who after Warning would launch the sort of

(10:55):
slightly Doomed, even though he doesn't like calling it that,
wavering over more into like lovely cozy woolen jumper singer
songwriter Project forty what Son. You may have heard some
of their more recent records that we've reviewed on the
regular Show, but two thousand and six, when they made
this album and then seemed to kind of quietly split up.
I don't really know from a first hand perspective how
immediately canonized this might have been at the time, but

(11:17):
certainly as the nearly two decades now have gone on,
this album has enjoyed a very long lifespan. The other
thing is that it is warning second album. And I
don't know how many people ever who have gotten into
this album retrospectively have actually gone and.

Speaker 2 (11:30):
Listened to the first album.

Speaker 1 (11:31):
For all you would know from the general conversation about Warning,
they might as well be a one album wonder, but
this is their second album. The first was seven years earlier,
in nineteen ninety nine, The Strength to Dream, And that's
kind of interesting because it's kind of when you factor
that in, it makes them seem even more sort of
unique and out of time, because in the late nineties
the UK do metal scene, that's the era that kind

(11:52):
of the rise above thing in the UK is really
kind of starting to take hold. The peaceful era has
maybe subsided a little bit, and now it's like Electriizard
coming up and like Orange Goblin, Iron Monkey, bands coming
from overseas like Goat Snake or you know, like Monster
Magnet are huge in the stoner thing that's Warning's like
initial era, but Warning aren't that. I think that first
album does have maybe very slightly more of that kind

(12:15):
of like orange amp style guitar tone, and the early
demos do have more traditionally kind of doo me horror themes.
Which is very weird. If you know Patrick Walker for anything,
he's done like past the millennium. But I think that Warning,
what Warning are would maybe only really become kind of
followed through on and picked up later on with the

(12:35):
generation who kind of took up influence from them. They
do feel like if you look at UK Doom of
the late nineties and Hundred of the two thousands, they
feel like a real idiosyncratic, unique kind of proposition.

Speaker 3 (12:47):
Well, I've not that long ago. I finished reading the
Electric Wizard book. Yeah, me too. Yeah, there's a whole
bit is it between Come MYI Fanatics and Dope Throne,
and they talk about I think it's Osborne. He says
that first Warning record seems so heavy and so weighty,
and so that felt like a benchmark setter, which I'd

(13:07):
heard that record soon after I listened to Watch You
from a Distance for the first time. I went back
to it reading that, and I thought, this sounds so
quaint compared to the follow up, Like it's great, it's
a fucking brilliant record, but compared to this, it almost
does feel like a different band, Like say, the themes
are different, It's got more of that orange jamp thing.
It's more akin to something like doesn't sound like it.

(13:28):
Pus say that you can see where the connection is
to things like, you know, Orange Goblin. This album it's
almost like an emotional test in a way that that
album isn't I think you were saying early about oh,
this is the saddest metal record. I think that's the
thing that is enduring about it is if you're the
maxed out of anything, like if you're the most something,

(13:49):
you kind of maintain that spot and it grows over
time because the longer the longer it goes without someone
taking that crown, the more legendary it becomes.

Speaker 2 (13:57):
Yeah, like that.

Speaker 1 (13:58):
There was a time when Warning playing with Electric Wizard
would have made sense, But from the moment they release
this album, they feel like they are a different proposition
of doo Mad entirely. Their albums were put out on
a long defunked Huddersfield based doom metal label called the
Miskatonic Foundation, which is a nice Lovecraft reference, But that's
not a name like Rise Above or something. You know,
it's not Relapse who own and put out the Warning catalog.

(14:20):
Now this is just like some kind of underground thing
from the depths of England, Sam, I have to ask
because this.

Speaker 2 (14:26):
Is so extreme.

Speaker 1 (14:29):
To the degree that it is extreme, this is a masterpiece.
I can also imagine it being what bands like Lar
Dispute and so on are for me if you don't
jive with it, where this is a record that could
be so much in its like overbearing despondency. Are you
kind of suggesting that that's the sort of experience that

(14:49):
you have with it?

Speaker 4 (14:50):
So I want to pick on like from the elitt
mentioned of like this being the most of extreme saying
I usedaid there because it reminds me in a way
of when we talked about Dragged into Sun last year
and how.

Speaker 2 (15:02):
Like like that album, that.

Speaker 4 (15:06):
Album is the most kind of like extremely being the
most devastatingly heavy, oppressive, bleak, nasty album is and it's
not for everyone because it has to be that extreme.
This album is the same in that it is the
most kind of like bleak and kind of like sorrowful
and like drowning in the swamp of misery album and

(15:30):
it is pushing things to the absolute limit. Where again,
I this album can't be for everyone, It's not entirely
for me, but I can kind of like.

Speaker 2 (15:39):
I don't want to to of all looking ability, but
I can.

Speaker 4 (15:42):
I've come away from this album of kind of like
a real appreciation for like, this album is incredible.

Speaker 2 (15:48):
What it sets out to do that isn't for me.

Speaker 4 (15:50):
But that doesn't mean I can't kind of like looking
kind of like, well, yeah, if you like, if you're
willing to go with this level of kind of slow agonizing,
soaked in anguish and pain and sorrow music, there's nothing
like this.

Speaker 1 (16:07):
I mean it a feat of songwriting, yeah, I think,
And I don't even necessarily just mean in terms of like,
you know, compositional arrangements or something. I mean in that
putting your entire being into the song you are creating,
you know, And that is something that again, the sound
of this record absolutely won't be for everyone, but that

(16:29):
is something that I think you have to admire about it,
and I like, you know, one thing that I have
thought about is that I've often complained about the Spanish
Love Songs guy being a bleater, Right, he's got that
kind of vibrato sheep voice when he's really going for it.
Patrick Walker, I've thought about it occasionally. Arguably a bit
of a bleater, Absolutely.

Speaker 2 (16:45):
A bleeding parent.

Speaker 4 (16:46):
He is one of the sheeps, He's a wabbler, is
doing all of that you hate.

Speaker 2 (16:50):
I'm just gonna throw it out there right now.

Speaker 1 (16:52):
I'm putting other I'm not. I'm not unaware of that,
you know. But it's the context and the style that
makes it work for me. So it is all just about,
you know, personal preference and kind of what works for you.
But if you were to categorize Doom into either crushed
or crushing, Warning is definitely a crushed. Like this album
feels like every bit of the wind has been taken

(17:13):
out of its sales and it is just crumpling in
on itself told over the top of these like trudging
dead on Arrival Doom riffs and all of that sounds
like criticism, but the effect of this album is just
so fucking sad. It is the most like Patrick, my guy,
I hope You're all right album listening experience, Like you
just want to put your arm around him and tell

(17:35):
him he's gonna be all right because it is heartbreaking.
And it's kind of a funny one to do an
album club on, actually, because there's not really any context
for it. Like, as far as I've seen he's never
done any kind of like tell all interview about what
exactly was going on with him for such a legendary
album now right, Like he's not an oversharer. It's almost like,
you know, that first album, they're just kind of ironing out,
figuring out the sound, and then in between albums he

(17:57):
had like whatever experience it was to just make him
go fucking crazy mode and have it pour out of
him the way it does on Watching from a Distance.
You know you were mentioning those sort of lists and stuff.
Sam Kerrang a few years ago did a list of
thirteen bleakest rock and metal albums ever, and they had
a certain number one, and when you look at the
other albums around it, it's like, we all know why

(18:18):
dirt is bleak. We all know the stories of Trent
Resnor going mental during the making of the Downward Spiral.
One of the only things that we've done an album
club on that I would put in a similar tier
maybe to Watching from a Distance is Woods five by
Woods of ep Prey, which is a very moving album
on its own, but there is also the context there
of David Gold having died right after making it. This
there's no story to watch it from a distance outside

(18:41):
of it's just Patrick Walker seems like a very nice,
agreeable man and he sounds absolutely crestfallen.

Speaker 3 (18:49):
Yeah, it's not sad. Even we talked about Dirt and
what bleak album that is. Comparing this to that record,
it doesn't even feel close because that still feels like
a band.

Speaker 2 (18:58):
That's it's got bangers.

Speaker 3 (19:00):
In some way, it's got bangers. They've like on some
way managed to process that enough to turn it into
songs which you could play on the radio. This album,
it's it's a level of sadness where you know, people,
I'm sure and honest, you've probably had it once or
twice in your life where you start to go like,
am I going to get sick if I continue being like?
Can you die of being sad? It's that sort of thing.

(19:21):
It's that level where it just feels like nothing can
be done about it, and you're like the fact, you
don't know what it is and it's not even really
told in the lyrics what it's about. It's just such
an extreme outpouring that this I think is one of
the best metal albums of the twenty first century, but
I almost never listened to it, like maybe like once

(19:44):
or twice a year, I'll go for this and you
kind of have to like limber yourself up for it.
It's not you know some albums are like that, like
something like Dragon's or something like you kind of go, okay,
heavy record, this is going to be fucking nasty, kind
of roll the shoulders and put it on. This is
like you just know you're going to be miserable by
the end of it. It's I could. I don't think

(20:04):
I can think of another metal record that does anything
like this to this degree.

Speaker 4 (20:07):
It's not an album for a sunny day is It
is not an album for like cheerful bright listening.

Speaker 2 (20:13):
You're going to go for a walk with this album
things like that.

Speaker 4 (20:15):
Like I was trying to do that, and I'm like,
I was out for well, I need to listen to
this warning that I was like halfway through the first
I was like, let's.

Speaker 1 (20:24):
Go home unless I think you could dependent on the
climate of the war.

Speaker 2 (20:28):
Possibly, But when the day I was everything, I was
just out for business.

Speaker 4 (20:31):
I was like, yeah, no, this is not the time
and place for this because what like I'm amazed by
this album is the immersive nature of it in terms
of the sound on like the music, the vocals, the lyricism,
because again like lots of metaphors in the lyric lots
you know, talk of war and battlefields.

Speaker 2 (20:48):
And stuff like that.

Speaker 4 (20:49):
But you can kind of like try and piece together
what it's done. But between the sort the sound of
the guitar basically like sounded like the heaviest but no
power to it. It's just such a like swarming kind
of like muck and mile over you. And then his
vocals again that that warbling thing, which again I actually
quite I did't mind the vocals. I think the vocals

(21:10):
were a big part of what I could go along with.
You know, it takes him, you know, thirty seconds to
sing a line sometimes because he is dragging out every
part of it to just eke out as much misery.
But it's all again just somehow like booming and powerful
yet fragile and broken. It shouldn't work, but all these
elements of this album sort of come together to to

(21:31):
like say, immerse you in the feel of this record,
and that kind of does alleviate some of the more
patients testing elements for me. Where again, like there were
times like well I was like normally i'd be like, Okay,
you can speed up this with you know, you'd need
to play this really slowy for the fifth time. But
I'm like, one of I'm just coms like just settled
into just the bleakness and star of the record.

Speaker 2 (21:54):
I'm like, yeah, just keep punishing me with this like
weight of misery.

Speaker 1 (21:58):
Yeah. I mean, it's it's loud, but it's not as
it's loud, but it's just kind of a weight on you.
You know, like the guitars sound tired, Like there's kind
of peaceful esque guitar harmonies, but they're stripped a lot
of their kind of floweriness, and they're just very minimal
in the way they do it. Sonically. It's so stark,

(22:20):
like there's so little embellishment. There's no brightening up of anything,
because to brighten it up with any particular thing would
be to almost like betray the experience of the album.
And I think to going back to again that the
contextless nature of watching from a distance is kind of
the magic of.

Speaker 3 (22:39):
It, because it's so.

Speaker 1 (22:41):
Extreme in its approach but universal in its kind of
register that without any real knowledge of what you know,
he was kind of might as specifically been going through
it whatever you don't really know how to, but you
don't have to know who this guy is or there's
no parasocial element or anything. You can just feel it
overwhelming through the music and through the performance. And that's

(23:03):
arguably basically the core essence of what music is supposed
to be, isn't It's just making someone feel how you feel,
and that is watching from a distance. You can't listen
to this album and be unmoved. Even if you don't
like it. You can be moved to go fucking l
misery guts, turn this off and put something more cheerful.
But it just it casts this just immense, unavoidable air

(23:23):
of sadness over the space it's played in. The drums
are so spacious and just like again, pulling each beat back. Musically,
it is a gray, wet, miserable day in England album,
and again that might not be for everyone. You can
totally imagine it coming on and just bombing everyone out
like this is categorically not a I'll stick this one

(23:46):
on while hanging out with my pals type album, unless
you and your pals are up for some collective yearning.
You know, me and the boys hanging out listening to
Warning but if you resonate with a kind of gray, wet,
miserable day in England kind of experience, that is the
sensibility overpowering Lisa Well.

Speaker 3 (24:03):
I think Patrick Walker, as much as he does to
make it sadder, he also makes them so much more,
not so much more, but he does make it more digestible.
It isn't so much of a dirge for his presence
because he has such clarity to his voice and such like,
and there was such emotional resonance, and it sounds so sharp.
It's like I was gonna say, it's like light coming

(24:24):
through the clouds, but that makes it sound like it's
relief somehow. It's not necessarily that. It's just it's a
purely a sonic dynamic thing. Where this album musically, as
we've sort of said, it's such a dirge. It's so slow.
You're just I find myself, especially on the first out,
you're just willing it to move forward. You're just like okay,
and next note, next notes again, it's like come on.

(24:48):
And I get that that's the point. But if you know,
if they got the guy from like Esoteric or a
habs come in and just kind of like, oh fuck me,
like this would be it would border on the torturous,
like it would be a differ kind of experience. But
he comes in with this voice that sounds like a
mix of Michael Stipe and Ian Curtis and Peter Gabriel,

(25:09):
but a hundred times more crestfallen than any of them,
and it just creates this I'm not sure i'll just
describe it.

Speaker 1 (25:18):
It just it makes the object of magnetism on its Yeah,
it's like and when we say it's extreme, it's not
like this isn't like a really like pitiless nihilistic like
sludge album or something, or you know, stretch to degrees
that like a funeral doom album is I think a
key thing with Patrick Walker. And you can obviously that
as he's gone into forty what son is he does?

(25:38):
He is a songwriter, right like he That's his entire
entire deal. He just kind of started at a place
where he was using doom metal as that kind of
medium of expression. And I realized this week doing this
that I think I am the same age that Patrick
Walker was when he was making this album. And that
seems insane to me. As much as we all know
that Elliott and I particularly have the most old man tendency.

(25:59):
Patrick Walker doesn't seem like he should ever have had
her twenties because he sounds so like sap to Fys
zeal for life that he feels like he has to
have been at least thirty five forever. You know, this
is the weariest twenty eight year old I've ever heard,
and I'm pretty weary. And I think that, you know, Sam,
you tapped into it. I think Patrick Walker is the

(26:21):
master of creating ambling, long winded melody lines that just
fit perfectly for the tempo of music that he's making,
which is very measured and very steady. He is the
musical equivalent of the Ents and lord of the rings
when they go nothing is worth saying, unless it's worth
taking a long time to say.

Speaker 2 (26:39):
That is the.

Speaker 1 (26:40):
Patrick Walker songwriting approach, particularly when it comes to him
as get as the kind of delivery of the lyrics
and everything, because I think part of the appeal of
doom like this, or then you go into obviously more
you're really extreme variants of your funeral doing and so on.
Is it kind of slows your musical metabolism a bit,
And that won't be for everyone, but it's it kind
of is it's like a cool down, you know. It's
like it takes you down to this like lowers your

(27:01):
heart rate to a sort of reset button sort of place.
The first vocal line on the record, the opening of
the title track, the first sort of phrases on the
album is sometimes when I, and that alone is very
undramatic for an opening line of an album. It's just
like a sight of an opening line, you know, but
then it hits the next part and it's what you
and it's like fucking hell. The ramp up halfway through

(27:24):
the line is like wow. And then the line itself
where that you seem like they're saying like it's so
long and it has so much room for different melody
and different kind of force of delivery just in a
single line, because it's kind of carried out so wide.
And that is a real like a Patrick Walker trick
that is very very particular to kind of his style songwriting,

(27:48):
and you can really tell when other bands are kind of,
you know, picking up on that.

Speaker 4 (27:51):
But it's the thing that probably I did latch onto
most where, because again, if this had been like what
we was talking about, something like like a however, than
the vocals have just been a doing top of it,
and it's just been it's been too much for me
having a vocalist. Where again, like he is again like
almost Hileaiso drawing up these lines, it means that he's.

Speaker 1 (28:11):
The reason I thought there might be some chance if
you liking the album, because it's all about it.

Speaker 4 (28:14):
And then the basically what he's able to do is
there are some lines when he will just deliver it
and it will just hook you and you are like
on the mode it's in Footprints Tractor, it's the I'm
afraid of the way that I'm feeling bit. That was like, fuck,
that's when it That's when it was. I was like,
I get it. This is hitting in the way because
like I believe that this guy is that that's slow

(28:37):
delivery with the lead guitar coming out of it as well,
like it's well, the mood and the vibe of this record,
it does strike you and you're in on that moment.

Speaker 2 (28:47):
Again, it can't.

Speaker 4 (28:48):
Say happened because the entire record for me, I will
say the fact this album is like five songs, it
isn't actually like ridiculously long by doom standards. Again, that
is another sort of point in its favor, making me
kind of like be able to ultimately digest this a
lot more than I perhaps might have been. But it
was those lines that crop up in certain songs that
just like cut right through to you. And sometimes they

(29:09):
are a bit more kind of like metaphorical, and you
can like, well, what does it actually mean by that?
But he means something has like I just say, absolutely
devastated him and we have the concert it is, and
that makes it that much more kind of like alluring it,
and then you start to hang off his words even more.

Speaker 1 (29:26):
I mean, I think even though the instrumentation is so
like extremely excessively doom, I think it's the reason that
I imagine there's a lot of people out there who
like this album who don't actually listen to a lot
of doo metal, because you can kind of treat it
like a singer songwrit any thing, right, Like it's all
just about his his lyrics and the way that he

(29:47):
is singing them, and the rest is kind of the
you know, the canvas, but in a way that you know,
even though to me, as a fan of this music,
it's emotionally quite similar, I can totally see why someone
could love this album and never care to hear a
Belwich album or something in their life because this has
that center to it in that way, and it's the

(30:07):
totally the life blood of the album is the vocal performance.
The metal is unflashy, you know, like it's trudging and
hypnotically sad and just very minimalistically doom, but you have
a vocal performance for the ages on it where entire
kind of sub movements of doom and bands have pretty
much happened because they heard Patrick walker On watching from

(30:29):
a distance and thought, that's that's it, that's what I
want to do. And the vocal line in Bridges sounds
like he's getting more and more depressed as he's singing it,
like it starts kind of high and then just deflates
like a balloon and goes down, and that the hook
of the song, if you want to call it that.
But the line that he returns to is just repeating,
I wish that you were here with me tonight, and
he is the most deflated a guy has ever been deflated.

(30:53):
And then the last couple of minutes that song, it's
like words fail him and he just carries the song
out on this kind of wordless like la la kind
of type me that's a magic moment, but it is
really bringing you into kind of his center of gravity
in the way that I think any you know, great
vocal performance that you can name on any type of
certainly rock record is kind of what it's about.

Speaker 3 (31:15):
Well, I'll see some parallels between what you were saying
about doom slowing down your musical metabolism and making you
more sensitive things and allowing you to take it in.
That's true of a lot of singer songwriters music where
sometimes it takes your moment to something like John Prime
or Leonard Cohen, where you know, if you've been listening
to in miror just because you were talking about before this,
if you've listening to that and you put on Leonard Cohen,

(31:37):
you are gonna go, this is fucking boring, Like what
where's the beat down? Where's the streaky? But this is
so fucking slow. That's Sam's problem. But if you then,
like you know, if you give us some time. The
best singer songwriter artists are all capabalists, whether it's like
Sofia and Stevens or the Fleet Foxes and whoever you
want to pick, they just have moments in the songs

(31:59):
where a great song suddenly becomes a classic, and it
could be one twist in the vocal line, one stray
lyric here or there, we just go well, now that's
a masterpiece. That style of songwriting carries over to this
and it's it's like it's those things like I Wish
you were here with me tonight, where that song is
so much better for that recurring refrain, or the one
in Watching for a Distance from Me is there's not

(32:21):
five minutes in when he does I know you love me?
I know you do, and you're just like fucking It's
like so powerful and so bleak, and that stays in
your head in the midst of this twelve minute doom song,
and I don't know if we're saving it for later,
but the final stretch of Footprints.

Speaker 1 (32:40):
Yes we're saving I knew what you were saying, is
that because we are saving it, but lyrically It's why
it's funny when you look at the demos and it's
about witches and Lovecraft and all this classic like Witchfinder
general doom stuff, because this is just you know, heartbreak, introspection,
very eloquent, well spoken descriptions of long you know where

(33:01):
like the title track is just like ten minutes of
a guy lamenting that he doesn't feel like he knows
this person he once knew kind of enough, and when
he's finished, you'll just have the lead guitar harmonies take
over for like three minutes or whatever, and they'll plod
their way to the end until they feel that they're finished.
I've said this when we reviewed forty What Sun that
the songs just kind of finish whenever they feel like it,

(33:23):
Like they don't follow a strict structure. They are, you know,
they're lyrically led, they're kind of laid out in verse
like that, and then the music itself will just sort
of allow itself to go until it stops it is
fifty minutes or whatever. Of kind of just the concentrated
sensation of longing for something or someone just kind of
weighed down in this like yearning. Loss Faces is another

(33:46):
one that's like that's kind of oh, fuck, do I
even know if I know myself? You know, And it's
kind of a point in the record where he gets
a bit more agitated and a bit more frustrated than
the rest of it may be because when he's hitting that.

Speaker 2 (33:56):
Take a hold of my life, like make it.

Speaker 1 (33:59):
Into one that I want to be, And his voice
kind of ruptures in this like pained, insistent raw, and
it's taking doom, which was kind of always the most
introspective metal genre, like from why No talking about alcoholism
to you know, My Dying Bride kind of more romantic
form of kind of grief poetry, that thing, but stripping
all of it to this pure soul bearing essence staring

(34:23):
out into the rainy gray wondering if anything's ever going
to be all right ever again. I think a big
part of it, as well as how kind of an
accusatory a lot of it is as well, like a
big part of at least the thing that I get
from pator Walker music is it's very pleasant, Like even
when it is sad, it's like he just seems like
he's agreeable, you know, Like it's not an angry album,
it's not lashing out. It's just very intensely vulnerable about itself.

(34:49):
And I think that that makes it. You know, maybe
if you're feeling beaten up, but you don't want to
hate someone, you know, it's just like, oh I wish
things were different.

Speaker 2 (34:58):
It's an introspective sadness.

Speaker 1 (35:00):
Yeah, that's that's the Patrick walkerviaby. I think the magic
moment on the album for me that I know everyone
in the world who loves this album agrees any performance
of it will revolve around it is the song, specifically
the last couple of minutes of Footprints, which in terms
of taking that unhurried kind of structure but fully paying

(35:24):
it off and elevating it is something else. Sam, if
you were coming to this album again, maybe not knowing
which specific bits are more famous or popular than others
or whatever, did you have a moment when the last
couple bits minutes of Footprints arrived where that you know,
did that register you as like a particular wow bit?

Speaker 4 (35:40):
I just put my the build into the devastating here
I am wide open surrendering to your side bit is astonishing,
like that whole kind of thing like Footprints is probably
my favorite song on the record. I mentioned the I'm
Afraid of the Way I'm feeling a bit earlier. Yeah,
that hard, but the way it comes to that ending
and again that okay, here I am wide open and

(36:00):
all that thing about that, the forts coming, all those lyrics,
but that just kind of final a couple of minutes
or I however long it goes on for is the
best part of the record for me, where I kind
of be like, yeah, this is the magic touch where
I can kind of even if I find the rest
of the album TVs, which I don't choice, I don't,
I have a better time with this than a lot
of dream records of this erase or slow ones. This

(36:21):
album I'm gonna go, well, like I got this from it.
I got this moment of like absolute majesty and beauty
and pain that.

Speaker 1 (36:29):
Is one of the best moments of music ever. And
you know what it is, Sam, that's our like doomster
equivalent of the Wonder Years going Jesus Christ, I'm twenty six,
Like that's the bit I'm gonna say.

Speaker 4 (36:39):
It feels like the the can I still get to
vithing like kill myself, Like yeah, doom version of that
that conclusions of everyone absolutely like I can most of
the damnation. Everyoneho's gonna be in there is going to
be screaming those sort of lyrics out the top of
their lung and probably crying whilst they do it, and
like letting it all come out whatever, like.

Speaker 1 (36:56):
Big building bridge whatever you crescendo you want to think
like this is up there with the best ever in
music history. The main bulk of the song is powerful,
you know, it's sad, it's expressive. I love the really sad,
delicate phrasing of the chord at the beginning, and the
way the riff almost kind of seems to hang in
the air like slightly unfinished, you know. But then after

(37:17):
about like four or five minutes of that, you get
to the here I Am wide open part, and fuck me,
I mean, Elliott, you were chomping at the bit to
talk about this bit said.

Speaker 3 (37:26):
The way the song builds into it is just as
important as the way it pays off. Because the chord
that ends the riff in this song, I don't know
what it is, but it is the sound of sorrow itself.
The only thing I could think of which is sort
of similar is, you know, there's a mysterious chord at
the beginning of Hard Day's Night where no one knows
what it is, but the sound of it alone, it's

(37:47):
just it's used without context in film stuf because it's
like the Adventures beginning, It's gonna get crazy. This is
like that, but it's like this is gonna suck. This
is gonna be fucking sad. So you've laid the ground,
it's already bleak. But when it gets to that moment
in the last ninety seconds, and particularly the very last
night that here I stand a broken soldier, shivering and

(38:08):
naked in your winter light. And the way he almost
like spits those words like that, he's.

Speaker 1 (38:13):
So change in the melody when you just the hevery naked,
he like you would be hard pressed to find a
more emotionally impassioned vocal performance anywhere than this bit. I mean,
the core change in the rift as it kind of
shifts into it with a is just like monumental and
Patrick it feels like he is rippling on it, like

(38:36):
in such a miserable record where he often sounds so
again so like squashed down, you know, and beaten down.
Here he just has this surge of kind of force
where he is fully exposed, offering his heart out in
front of you. I have laid down my armor, I
have no sword at my side. I'll leave you a man.

Speaker 3 (38:53):
I need you to mend.

Speaker 1 (38:54):
And the melodies again where he just carries it through
to that last bit. Do you're absolutely right, Sam, that's
the bit where if you look at around you at Damnation,
you will see people just tearing those words out of themselves,
probably bawling.

Speaker 2 (39:06):
You know, I can believe it.

Speaker 4 (39:07):
It is genuinely a special moment in this album. Now,
Like again, even I couldn't tell it, but ah, you know,
it's like boring.

Speaker 2 (39:16):
This is magic.

Speaker 1 (39:17):
Everybody should hear this album at least once, just to
hear that bridge.

Speaker 3 (39:20):
Yeah, but even then, like with the sequencing of the record,
that going into Bridges, it almost retroactically makes that moment
more powerful because today, like twenty odd minutes in, that's
the height of you know, you could argue that the
height of the record overall, but so far that's the
sort of emotional soup and over moment of it. And

(39:42):
then Bridges comes in, which is kind of slower and
sadder again. Yeah, but it's like all his energy has
been depleted. I think you were saying elily ways that
he seems to get more depressed by the end of
each line. It's because there's nowhere to go from that
end of Footprints. It's like he's made his final you know,
offering the ultimatum and if it's unaccepted, what do you have.

Speaker 1 (40:03):
Left, Yeah, and then the last song, Echoes is the
most sparse, drifting, out drained kind of song. I remember
the last time I saw Warning doing this, that damnation.
I had to go straight from that into Nails, which
is one of the one of the craziest billings of
whiplash I could ever imagine at a festival, And I've

(40:25):
told this story elsewhere when we've been talking about Nails,
I had to go get a spot because that was
so crammed. So I remember I was leaving just before
the end of Echoes and just sort of floating out
of the room on that like repeating you know lead
bit that's so fragile and raw. I'm sure that that
lead bit went on for several minutes after I had
left the room and I was getting my fucking face
pubbled into You would ever be one of us?

Speaker 2 (40:46):
You know? Yeah?

Speaker 4 (40:48):
That closing song is very much like the album, just
withering away. There's no like triumphant sort of feeling or
like no grand clothes. You're like, it doesn't build a
big crescendo again, like like the that is just it's
really unceremonious ending, but it is I think like the
right ending for the album to make it. I don't
know if it would be right for this album to

(41:08):
end on kind of like a big, booming, emotional like
declaration where it's kind of like all that's left is
kind of like a sad husk.

Speaker 1 (41:17):
Yeah, and just in any kind of like emotionally confessional doom,
which you know, sometimes doom is just again about fucking
heavy riffs and being mean and writing about weed or
whatever it might be. But the strand of it that
is kind of approximate to again like very vulnerable singer,
songwriter whatever type stuff. This is like the the high watermark.

(41:40):
And I think the most obvious offspring of Warning I
think about is Paul Bearer, who you know, a few
years later twenty eleven, twenty twelve, whatever. But that's you know,
they've got that. It's got trad doom like Trouble and
Candle Mass or whatever, but it's making it more you know,
emotive and vulnerable with this very expressive, unguarded melodic vocal,
and that, you know, is one of the bigger developments

(42:01):
in kind of recent doom, and pall Bearing might have
kind of jazzed up a bit, added some progue elements
wherever it might be. But the pure stark heart of
that kind of thing is warning, even like twitching tongues.
I know I'm massive warning guys, because if you're trying
to capture heartbreak in dark heavy music, this is the
like the pinnacle.

Speaker 3 (42:20):
Yeah, I think I was thinking about this in the
run up to this. This might be the second best
doom album. It's the best doom album not called Dope
Throne as far as I'm concerned. And it really got
me thinking again how I used to use stoner and
doom so interchangeably. I just thought, like, well, stoner in
is more or less the same thing. It's alms like
this that really illustrate how not true that is, because

(42:42):
the idea that you've got to want to put some
warning on and someone's gonna like roll up to it,
It's like, no, it's comical, apropriate. This is I think
we're saying only at the top of this, but how
and out, when an album is the most of something,
it might be the it might be the most doom
and it's among the best toom I Like I said,

(43:04):
I can only think of one record, and there's plenty
of gra lms in the genre. I can only think
of one that I think even really rivals it.

Speaker 1 (43:12):
Yeah, i'd have my favorite, my Dying Bride records in
the similar kind of stratosphere. But yeah, it as just
an individual. The fact that Warning are as legendary as
they are primarily based on the reputation of this one
album really just says a lot about the album itself,
you know. And it's just what an amazing thing that
a piece of music can do this too, you know,
like I've never met the guy, I knew nothing about
his life, but this record just carries so much with it.

(43:34):
It's fascinating that they've got new music because even though yeah,
they've played shows, Patrick has always kind of seemed like
he was sort of over Warning in a creative capacity,
like you know, he'd play shows with it, but maybe
similar to someone like you song with Emperor, It's like,
you know, he's grown to more of the forty what
sun side of the spectrum, which is less metal, it's softer.
It's stripping back even more to just like this is
the quiet essence of the songs themselves that Warning of

(43:57):
signed you a fucking contract with Relapse, and I've got
a new record coming out. I wonder what's made in go.
You know what, I've got some warning songs in me again.

Speaker 3 (44:03):
Oh suder thing. Yeah. I hope he's all right.

Speaker 1 (44:07):
I hope he's very okay. Warning one of the greats
ever forty Whatsana do also love to this day as well.
Patrick Is is one of our most kind of special
songwriters that the world of heavy music has produced. This
album joins the greats of the greats of the most
seminal doom metal records ever recorded. Is one of metal's
most emotionally exposed, expressive moments, and I do love that

(44:30):
album cover with the guy carrying the bundle of sticks,
which just seems so, you know, like apropos of He's
carrying that weight up that hill for fucking eternity, you know. Yeah,
if you've had enough of slow and emotionally exhausting though
we jump from one extreme of tempo to the other.
Worm Rot and Dirge is our next album, released almost

(44:51):
fifteen years ago in twenty eleven. This is selected as
we've spoken quite a lot about worm Rot in the
last couple of years because their last album, Hiss is
maybe the most acclaimed grindcore album of the current decade.
And then live off the back of it, as they've
come around a couple of times we've seen them. But
then there was the news that the lineup that made
that album had kind of fallen apart. The vocalist Arrif

(45:12):
had left the band for that touring cycle, but then
came back, and then the drummer vjsh, who had been
often the most kind of highlighted thing about recent worm
rot he left. That news was somewhat salvaged by the
announcement that essentially the og worm rock lineup that had
made their first two records would be coming back on
the scene. And so here we are with an earlier
worm rock pick. I knew that this would again be

(45:34):
a good idea for this Damnation pack. Elliott, you came
to me having had the same idea, and as we
have spoken about more modern worm rock recently, I believe
this was your out of the year in twenty twenty two.
I suppose we have to ask here what is specifically
exciting about earlier years worm rock in comparison?

Speaker 3 (45:54):
I think probably the last grime band to emerge and
become an all time classic band, And you're right, Hiss
is likely the most acclaimed grindcore record of the last decade.
It's for me, it's the best. I think you really
have to go back to the glory days of nause
And or Discordant Axis, Genghistron Pig Destroyer to find a

(46:16):
grind crame that's as like revolutionary and distinct and exciting
as that one. But that's kind of like the second
wave of worm Rots excitement, I think because around like
twenty ten two, maybe a couple of years after this one,
they were the hottest name in the field and they

(46:37):
were already a classic band years before Hiss came along,
and they had a record between this and that, but
it was I think really off the strength of these
first two where by the time this album comes out,
worm Ro are like a band for the ages. So
when their old lineup comes back, it doesn't just feel
it doesn't just feel like this, oh you know, this

(46:57):
is fun. This is like the old like worm Rock
twenty elevens. It's like, now, this band was a classic band,
and it's only because they went on to be more
classic that kind of gets forgotten. But I'm hoping that
that will kind of get reframed with you know, with
this lineup now being present again.

Speaker 1 (47:16):
Yeah, it's interesting that Wormrot are. You know, they're pretty
known to people, I think because even before Hiss you
still see repeated every now and then that BBC special
report where they went to the ear ach stage at
Glastonbury and Wormrot are playing in that like converted train
carriage thing somehow for whatever reason, I guess I would
just say the reason is that they're.

Speaker 3 (47:33):
Good, you know.

Speaker 1 (47:34):
But Wormrot have been for a long time, been one
of the more visible grindcore bands in the modern world,
because grindcore is a very insular genre even within metal.
Like if you are a dedicated grindhead, you are a
dedicated grindhead, and you are listening to shit that most
people would find intolerable and would not know where to
start with unpacking, Wormrot have been one of its kind

(47:54):
of flagship bands to the world outside it and even
as in again in more recent years Hiss, that's maybe
been even more true. It is true as we go
back to our album in question, Dirge, and I guess
it's probably true for all of us to some degree,
as people coming of age musically in the late two
thousands into the twenty tens, worm Rock will have been
one of the earlier grindcore bands that all three of

(48:15):
us would have heard.

Speaker 4 (48:16):
I think, yeah, for me, it was like no, Palm
Deaf would a bit like obviously before that.

Speaker 2 (48:20):
But it must have been.

Speaker 4 (48:22):
It was around the time where like a band or
Life had come out, so I was kind of like
like I was not gonna go but has that kind
of element to it, and I was kind of looking
for things of that ilk or like nastier hoping, and
I kind of got this album part and I was like,
oh fucking hell, this is like, this is legit, this
is maybe I should you know, open myself to grind

(48:43):
come more.

Speaker 2 (48:44):
And but I just could of like got hit with
this album.

Speaker 4 (48:46):
Was kind of immediately like one over because what a
fucking album. Like straight up, it is so hard not
to get caught up in what this album does.

Speaker 3 (48:57):
Yeah, this came out when I was at the peak
of my initial growth obsession, where I was spending lots
of time on the forums looking for bands, grindcore karaoke.
I was there all the time, downloading every free album.
In fact, that's where I first heard ex Military by
Death Grips. I don't know why it was uploaded on there,
but for whatever reason, it was but it was quite
a normal thing to get these free downloads of grindcore records,

(49:18):
and there was a link for this that went out
maybe a couple of weeks before them went out and
came up proper and I thought, Okay, yeah, cool, another
free grind crecord. I'll listen to that, and it just
made all the other albums that I'd downloaded seems so obsolete.
I think at the time there was a big fuss
made about oh, they're from Singapore, and it was around
this time there was the goat photo of that show,

(49:40):
which again makes it kind of a funny story. But
I think, like if you were interesting grind Call at
the time, like the idea of a band being from
a far flung field wasn't that exciting. It was just
their music was so much catchier and so much more
of a fucking wrecking machine than anyone else that was
competing with them. I think that's why they went so far. Like,

(50:02):
as much as you say that grind Call was difficult,
around this time, they were the ones who had the
most crossover appeal.

Speaker 1 (50:08):
Yeah, And that's exactly it. With the strong kind of
nostalgic relationship that I have with this album. Specifically, I
think the only grind core that I for sure, like
for sure liked before Wormrot was Napalm Death. Like I
think I may have gotten into Pig Destroyer around the
same time as worm Rot saying the truth for nasom
I hadn't yet gotten, I think to brutal truth or

(50:29):
agraphabic nosebleed. I don't think terrorized yet. The only for
sure band I was into at the time that this
came out was Napalm, who most people start with and like,
I love Hiss and I'm super excited and impressed by
how ambitious and multifaceted they've been able to be with
their music, which did not necessarily predict at the time.
Dirge is still the worm album that I have the

(50:50):
closest just attachment to because just seeing the album cover,
which I regularly wear the shirt of makes me happy.
What I maybe didn't realize is a bit later, is
how shared and experience that is actually for grindcore founds
of our generation, because this album musically, it's pretty no
nonsense grindcorep that's just unbelievably well executed. Like there's not
a lot more to this album musically than that compared

(51:12):
to what they're going to go on to do with
his and so on. It's not got all of the
bells and whistles there. This thing just rocks, played and
simple right like that. It didn't reinvent the wheel, but
it did in a notable way rejuvenate the genre because
I think grindcore is a world where, like I said,
it can be very very insular. Every now and then
you'll get a band come through that just kind of

(51:33):
like excites and re energizes everybody and makes waves outside
of that bubble. Because grindcore is a hard style of
music to be really revolutionary with, like there's not a
load of room and bands who are really hyper experimental
with it often that might be so harsh and out
there or whatever that that you know, it might just
remain an exceedingly niche thing. Every now and again, a

(51:55):
band will just come through and everyone goes, ah, fuck yeah.
That one where at the start of the millennium, on
opposite side of the Atlantic you had PICKT Destroyer and
you had Nasom coming through a few years later into
the late two thousands, you had Insect Warfare featuring Ocean
of Slumbers, Dobb Beverly on the Drums, which is just
a one album kind of wonder, but that album is
still something that grindcore fans have not let go off,
you know. I think that's maybe also the biggest stylistic

(52:16):
kind of reference point for early worm Rot is that
Insect Warfare album. I think again, in the last few years,
what is interesting is you could argue it's worm Rot
again with Hiss, you know, but at the start of
the twenty tens, it was worm Rot the first time around.
And I think for people like us, who you know,
were teenagers at the time or whatever, this album just
being really fucking good and really youthful and exuberant and

(52:39):
exciting and energetic. This was a grindcore milestone for a
lot of us. And I think, you know, in the
way that Nasom or whoever it might have been, might
have done that for people ten years beforehand. This kind
of helps just bring that, you know, new blood into
the genre and shake it up. It's like, all right,
I love Napalm Death. Here's this cool band from Singapore.
They're on Napalm's iconic label Eache Record, which where worm

(53:01):
Rot had been doing the heavy lifting of being the
coolest modern band on that label. For years now, and
they're playing this kind of like fast, crazy shit that
I'm just kind of beginning to get into now here.

Speaker 4 (53:10):
It is I think as well for me, because there's
no abother time that like could just appeal to me
as a hardcore fan, like because it has that kind
of saying that you're that youthful kind of like exuberant
energy that kind of just bursts out this album. There
is there's just there is like a shitload of punk
and hardcore across this record, but it's all just in
that more extreme nature of grindcore and give for me,

(53:31):
I like who was probably even at the time when
we all got this, I was probably the biggest of
grindcore nubie at that point. I was just so caught
up in what in how Wermot kind of came out
these songs in the way that was like energetic and.

Speaker 2 (53:44):
Fun but extreme and but not like off putting.

Speaker 4 (53:47):
It just it hit all the right notes and was
kind of like, oh cool, this is the next level
of kind of like doing this sort of shit, playing
fast and hard this Yeah.

Speaker 1 (53:56):
I mean like Earache signed them off of an online mixtape.
There's obviously, as you say, the story of like, oh wow,
these guys from at the other side of the world,
where to a Western teenager, Singapore seems impossibly far away.
They put their first album Buse in two thousand and nine,
which is very good. Dirge comes on a couple of
years later as a band with a bit more eyes
on them and twenty five songs in eighteen and a

(54:16):
half minutes. Is this the shortest ab we've ever done
on album Club? I think even the EPs we've done
are longer. I think this is a bomb going off.

Speaker 3 (54:26):
I think that's it. That last thing you said there
captures why worm rot. I think crossed over and got
people excited. I think the only other thing we've seen
like this is maybe not the only thing, but another
key example would be when Power Trip came along, especially
on Nightmare Logic, and loads of people who just you know,
kind of thought, oh thrash, it's not that exciting anymore.
All the best bands you to do different things and

(54:48):
it's a bit basic nowadays. They just came along the went.
You don't need fresh ideas, just have like the confidence,
the riffs, the catchy songwriting and some identity and it
sounds alive again. Listen swaggers, the swagger. Going back to
this record, which admit I haven't done quite as much
as I used to, I think because of his even

(55:09):
though they both do very different things. Going back to
this again, I'm just struck by how fucking cool they sound.
They sound so hard, and they write such great riffs,
and they'll only play them once. You get one, go
this amazing riff and it's gone forever. And that's often
been the grindcore way. But for an album that you say,
seventeen eighteen minutes, it's amazing how catchy it is, because

(55:32):
I think that's one of the things where for a
lot of people grind care is a non starter. Like
outside of certain songs by certain bands, you're not really
looking for hits. Is more the sensation of the thing.
There are loads of songs on this that I feel
like I could sing to you now, and it's not
just through pure like exposure therapy of having listened to
it loads of times. I think that was true the

(55:53):
first time I heard it. There were so many exciting
moments and memorable moments listed throughout this thing, and no
one else wasn't that.

Speaker 1 (56:01):
Yeah, Like I said, I think that the forerunner for
this record is in set warfare as World Extermination, which
I don't think I had yet heard at the time.
Both of these records have a real serrated kind of
crispness about them. For Grind Call, where it's obviously it's
now of the twenty first century, it's not as chaotic
and noisy and recording sound as like the early Napalm records,
but they still sound really hard and intent on the

(56:23):
ears and for you know, no nonsense, no extra bits needed.
Grind I think this is the perfect sounding album. The
guitar tone is unreal, particularly the intro of the album,
the just exquisitely titled opening track No One Gives a Shit.
What an incredible song. Where to start with the riff?

(56:45):
It just lets hang in the air, just the d
and you can feel the fucking tetanus off of that
guitar tone, that rusty bone saw effect, and it lets
that hang for about forty seconds of its forty three
second runs.

Speaker 2 (57:01):
Until the very end, it.

Speaker 1 (57:03):
Delivers the entire lyrics of the song No One Gives
a Shit, and at that moment the rest of the
album is just no holds barred. That's that's perfect. That's
the one of the best beginnings to a grindcore record ever.
That's amazing, soak in the horrible atmosphere of tone that
we've got and then at the last possible second bust

(57:24):
the door down.

Speaker 4 (57:26):
It's so funny to beginning because I forget that, like yeah,
I was like it does actually know, it has a
bit of a build for a forty second opener and
it's like, oh no, no, that's a song until you
get to that like blast and then when it goes
into compulsive disposition and that first riff hits the symbols
is like, well, like the drumming on this album, I
still can of go like holy shit about like every

(57:49):
member one I'm rot is incredible going at one.

Speaker 2 (57:51):
Hundred on this record.

Speaker 4 (57:53):
But the like the drumming is just obscene, just can
like because like a lot of the stuff is in
the riffs. You know, there are like catchy sick riffle
this album, and then the most kind of like horribletring
noise isn't just the drums are gonna be like never
stopping for a second is like an old time of performance.
But like from like a band who again I say,

(58:14):
all locked in and delivering their best Yeah.

Speaker 1 (58:17):
I think this is one of the things that I'd
love about this record is I think it's one of
the best just pure capturing the energy of three dudes
playing instruments grindcore albums ever like you're there, you know,
like even though it is well recorded, there's nothing, there's
no dr Yeah, there's no none of the punk is

(58:37):
lost in terms of like the pure rabid intensity of positions.
It is just a direct live wire into the heart.
The drumming again, even though it's not Vijesh who everyone
was so impressed with on the recent records, the drums
have always been out of control and the sound of
each one like possibly my favorite grindcore snare drum and
the Toms when he gets those like crazy beats, just

(58:59):
Kareeene going all go no Emo.

Speaker 2 (59:02):
That's so good, insane.

Speaker 1 (59:05):
Yeah, there are so many good worm rock titles, like
They're Masters of the Ridiculous grindcore title that just sticks
with you, Like on the next record they've got Eternal
Sunshine of the Spotless Grind But there are so many
on this one that just stick with me. And the
economy of phrasing that a grindcore lyricist needs fucking fear
so what but Kreeg is showing a whole song about

(59:25):
how you're not so evil in your corpse paint because
your ass is hanging out.

Speaker 3 (59:29):
They're great, man, this I think you saw such not there,
but worm Rock just sounded the most fun band to
being like the sheer sonic quality their music. It just
it's It's one of those things where in a three
piece you want every member of the band to feel
that they've got the ability to show what they do,

(59:50):
and you know, there isn't really much room for sucking
up becau there's only three ingredients. Every member of the
band is putting a shift in on dirge their music.
It sounds so propulsive and so it's weird how their
music managed to sound air tight and like there's no
wasted space, but also like it's free form and fun
like that there's space to fuck around and there's space

(01:00:12):
to have crazy turns of pace. And even though you
know they're quite compositionally demanding in the sense that they
might be sure but loads of stuff happens, you still
feel like you'd have a good time doing it. It
still sounds like they're kicking out the jams.

Speaker 2 (01:00:26):
Yeah, there's so much character You suffer? But why is
it my problem?

Speaker 4 (01:00:29):
Like we we're talking about like the song titles, like
you get that in that, but then in the playing
and just the kind of the way I think that
there is such a sort of spontaneous and like I say,
in the room with them guys having a great time
just cranking out the rifts and going hard. And I
think that's one of the things that does color the
sam and make it such an enjoyable listen. Is it
is extreme, it is intense, it's ferocious, but it's got

(01:00:51):
a sense of character and a feeling of like just
cutting loose about it that that kind of just.

Speaker 2 (01:00:57):
Carries you through the entire eighteen minutes.

Speaker 4 (01:01:00):
And again it's exhausting in how constantly can like bombodying
it is, but you kind of want to just like
run around in circle and jump of things with them
the entire time because they're like they are infectious.

Speaker 1 (01:01:13):
Yeah, I mean I love that again the self referential
adding an addendum to the poetry of Napalm Death on
you Suffer? But why is it my problem? Which is
I mean, maybe it's kind of defeating the entire question
that Napalm Death were asking you know they've they were
kind of talking about society and the world and so on,
and wermrock can press it down to just like nah,

(01:01:35):
fuck you.

Speaker 2 (01:01:36):
But it's just cool. You know, it's just cool.

Speaker 1 (01:01:39):
And I mentioned Buck Krieg is showing the guitarist reside
is like he's what he's the guy in like the
last fifteen years or whatever for grindcore riffs, and that
song has just the beginnings of the kind of slightly weirder,
more melodic chord choices that they start doing on the
following couple of albums. There's just like the hint of
it there. Often on this he's just he's going crazy.

(01:02:02):
The hardest fuck few seconds of just guitar at the
start of principle of puppet Warfare is one of the
hypest two seconds at the start of it's just and
then the snare kicks in and you just know you're
going to be grooving.

Speaker 3 (01:02:17):
You know.

Speaker 1 (01:02:17):
That song is like one of the longer ones, at
a full minute long, and so it's got room for like, hey,
here's a two step bit and like these like crossover
thrash slam dancing vibes and stuff. The vocals are shredded
at the higher end, which is exactly what I love,
just like foxing a chicken coop ferrial, and then kind
of counterpointed and underpinned by the lower Gutura runs. He's

(01:02:38):
got some great phrasing of kind of where to switch
between the two to make them punchy. There is still that,
you know, total disgust socially of grind at its most incensed,
deceased occupation, which has the kind of like the plight
of a nine to five office worker, you're already deceased,
you just don't know it type of vibe, and then
almost as if they sense to and I hate God

(01:03:00):
commonality in spirit. There the back half of it suddenly
has the sickest swinging, almost Nola sludge riff, which is
one of my favorite rifts of a grindcore song ever.

Speaker 3 (01:03:12):
When it hits their.

Speaker 1 (01:03:15):
It is just cool, exactly what you said, They sound
so cool.

Speaker 3 (01:03:19):
And when that riff comes in, because by then you're
kind of in condition to know you're only gonna get
every riff once and it's it's been painful before, but
every time that comes in, you just got'll please carry
out this one, And suddenly you know for forty seconds
of that it feels like a warning song. It feels like, Wow,
I'm actually getting to Luxury eight and like take this
in and enjoy it properly. That bit is so fucking cool.

(01:03:43):
And I sometimes forget that they had those cool moments
on these first two records because they are such a
barage compared to where they went later. And you know,
you listen to voices and hiss and you can hear
what a dynamic and strange band they are, and sometimes
it's easy to relegate this to be like, oh, this
is when they were just crazy, but it's like they
were crazy, but it's let's not forget that they were

(01:04:06):
writing fantastic songs and they were dynamic and they were
like bringing all these other stuff in.

Speaker 1 (01:04:12):
Grindcore is one of the hardest genres to talk about
in terms of what makes quality songwriting, because like, yeah,
what makes one thirty second song better than this other
thirty second song. You know, when the approach in terms
of dynamics can be quite similar and there's no room
for court, you're not getting that big footprints bridge.

Speaker 2 (01:04:28):
Building at the end of the Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:04:32):
But this album I think, specifically, I think they just
perfected thirty second micro songs just in like the rhythm
of them and how one mad bit leads into another
bit sticks with me on this one like they just
knocked it out of the park on this There are
loads of bits where songs will start or end with
just a one second splurge of ooh, and then they'll

(01:04:52):
continue with whatever else they're doing, like the opening one
second of Spot Pathetic or the one second of Ferocious
Bombardment where they managed to fit in a go when
it feels like they're running out of time to do
it and he's just jumping ahead at the last moment.
But their ability always to kind of stop on a
dime and then you know, clack the sticks together and
then throw everything at us moment later is second to none.

Speaker 3 (01:05:14):
The best one for me is the song The Song
That's Always Stuck with Me is manipulation for that exact
thing of knowing how to structure someone, how to make
it catchy. There's like three main ideas to that song,
which about thirty forty seconds long. None of them are
pleasant at all, Like the first one is that grunting
kind of early kind of cos.

Speaker 1 (01:05:34):
It's got that sort of mincecore feel, or the just
kind of like that's total I am jigging across the
stage at a scene of stream Fest is what's.

Speaker 3 (01:05:42):
Happened exactly that? And then it goes into a bit
that sounds like Iron Monkey but without riffs, just pure nihilism.
And then the bit after that sounds like last Days
of Humanity. And you know, none of those things are
especially catchy, like they're not even as powers or something
like I hate God and yet I could sing that
to you now like it's happy Birthday, and it's not

(01:06:05):
clear the the what skill and how it works allows
that to be possible. I think the best example of that,
at least for this band is they are one of
the few bands who make the real micro songs, like
the sub ten second songs that you have to have
on a grindcore record. Most of them are memorable purely
because they blow ten seconds and they're kind of funny.

(01:06:27):
There's a few in history that have sort of stuck around,
like you Suffer, Dead Prey by Brutal Truth, where they
kind of come to mind on this record, Destruct the
bastards and you suffer. But why is it my problem?
I don't know how they've managed to make five second
songs that memorable because you're working with so little, you
have so little chance to make an impact, and every

(01:06:48):
time they do, I.

Speaker 4 (01:06:49):
Think it's just every little bit of this album is
just like pluck to shift at the exact right time.
And like I say, every time they go into a
two step riff on these songs or sort more groovy passage,
it's just the exact right moment and they drop. You said,
those five scn micro songs and by the time, like
it terms like the change me. The one that just
sticks to me is the final Insult where you get
to that like four for Metallica like Stomper riff, which

(01:07:12):
is kind of like that is the sort of perfect
you know, mid tempo Metallica like stadium fresh metal riff,
and it's just this three piece scrim call back from
Singapore going yeah, we can fucking do that, like you
get it, Like it's how they close out the record.
It's the coolest, most kind of like yeah, so fucking
what like you think you're you think you're cool, like
way to end the record and it's just like man,

(01:07:33):
what what are like what a statement in like such
a fun way again and now that is packed full
of sick ass rifts, maybe saving your coolest rift for
your closing song and kind of just ending the record
on that.

Speaker 2 (01:07:45):
Is that a mic drop moment.

Speaker 1 (01:07:47):
I hope they play that at the end of their
set because that is the again, like primal release at
the end of just four four Crash symbol Go. The
sequencing of the album is, you know, you get to
a song like evolved into nothing about eight tracks in
so it's about three minutes, and then it sets you
of like, here's a slower riff, right, And every time
they do something like that, it feels so good. The
drummer does this thing where he kind of switches between

(01:08:09):
like really rigid, tightened blasts maybe on the high hat,
and then throwing his arms wide open to like crashes
and toms or whatever, and it creates this impression of
a blast beat that's the same kind of tempo, almost
like contracting and expanding, which I think is really key
to how they kind of riff switch into another My
favorite worm Rot song, which is just the one for
you're saying about the manipulation Elliott, the one for Me

(01:08:29):
where just every turn is in me is and it's
it's really funny today because there's no reason why this
song should be special. But it's meteor to the face
on this album, which I shit you not is thirty
eight seconds long. I know that without looking off the
top of my head because I've heard it so many times.
It is just a thirty eight second grind song. But
I know every tempostwitch and every beat of that song

(01:08:53):
like the back of my hand. I don't know what
they did, but somehow the slotting together of each riff
and each escalating tempo is just surgically designed to be
catchy to me. It's to the point that you know
on streaming when you share an account with someone and
sometimes it gets left open and you can kind of
wreak some havoc if I ever felt like playing a
little trick on my girlfriend for some reason, this was
like my go to song I would queue up for her,

(01:09:16):
which nearly a decade on now, I say, she's stuck
with me, so I don't know that last.

Speaker 2 (01:09:22):
That last is too good.

Speaker 1 (01:09:23):
She like, yeah, but that song the bombardment of like
rolling between like the ride and the crash and stuff.
Like I was saying, there's a sequence of events in
that song where it kind of it does the part
where it kind of creeps down to the look do
do do doo doo, and then booms up and goes
crazy the durn no no, like it's just it is

(01:09:43):
an almost sort of tiptoey part drum rhythm at one point,
the bits where he's yelling die now bastard going up
and down on that riff like I was saying, And
then it has time for a false finish at the
end with the kind of is a thirty eight second
grind coore song with the stick like the whole thing
sounds like it's written to be a minute long at least,

(01:10:04):
and they've played it twice as fast because they're laated
for something and they have to. You can feel them
rushing to finish it. And I can recite it like
it's fucking Mozart, like it's inane. But I don't know
how they did that to my brain. Just follow that
drum track in that song, right, It's thirty eight seconds long, everybody,
So I'm not taking it. It takes too long, Everybody,
Go put that song on. Just listen to the drums.

(01:10:25):
How many different rhythms and different feels he fits into
thirty eight seconds. There's like more than ten individual parts
in that song I swear and I know them all
and again eighteen minutes. It's one of the most like replayable,
repeatable albums in this style or killer no filler if
you were intergrind or maybe just getting started with it

(01:10:47):
in twenty eleven. Immediately this is just the coolest band
on the planet, you know, like there's this air again.
The first title is no one gives a Shit. There
is just this like unblinking cool about them and this
attitude in them that just fucking rocks and worm rock.
I've always had aura. You know, you got to give
them that. I mean, as you said earlier, the very
famous grind Gooat was on this album cycle where the

(01:11:08):
photos of Wormrock playing to a very ramshackle audience in
a converted barn or something with a goat in the
front row, who if you are not aware, kind of
became like an animal mascot for the concept of grindcore
as a whole. Like the people just collectively decided, like
if Seth Putnam was a goat, he would be that goat.
I think that go even died early as a possible
result of substance abuse. Like it's insane and I I

(01:11:33):
always thought this photos were in Singapore. It was in France, Like,
who the hell book that shit? I won't bind out
the logistics of booking a grindcore show for farm Animals
and what went on there. But again we looked from
afar over hearing what the fuck is that over there?
And that just no fuck given all go no emo
intensity and approach. It got people's attention and then they
grew into the band that made Hiss and so on,

(01:11:54):
But even before that, you had, like, you know, the
needle drop and so on with you in this album.
Shit that doesn't normally happen your average grindcore bands. The
fact that they were on Earache it made them feel
like they were sort of the inheritors of this whole crown.
Like you were saying, Elliott, It's like they were just
putting this new lick of paint onto this kind of
old sound and making it exciting again.

Speaker 3 (01:12:13):
Yeah, I think, And it doesn't sound like because it
sounds like we all had the same experience. But kind
of one of that has been forgotten, you know, because
Hiss is so fucking good and is such a marvelous
record that it's easy to forget that. Wormrod does have
a classic here before that, and his should be taken
as a miraculous record in the sense that it'd be

(01:12:33):
like if Narsen came back and made Now better than
Human two point zero or discording Saxis performed and did
the enabled Now better than the enailable Dreamless. But Dirge
is a classic grindcore record for a reason, Like I
think if you were doing best grind crowns at the last,
maybe even up to twenty years so including some of
those classic bands later material in that it goes up

(01:12:54):
against any of them. And as we said, it wasn't
because they were the most airing per se or the
most experimental. They just managed to capture the thrill of
this style of music and deliver it in a way
that even people who ordinarily they're not in the grind trenches,
even even they could grasp it.

Speaker 1 (01:13:14):
Yeah, this is one of my favorite grindkro albums of
all time. Like I don't think if anyone had done
pure grindcore like this as well in years.

Speaker 3 (01:13:23):
At that point.

Speaker 1 (01:13:24):
I mean, even what one are now is more experimental.
What Bounds like Napalm Death, themseelve and are now is
more experimental in terms of pure grindcore like you you
know again your Naso and old Napalm, Terrorized or whatever.
I'm not. I can't off top of my head and
name a record since that I think is better than
this one. It might be the last, like absolute masterpiece

(01:13:45):
of that, like pure nuts and bolts grind core, and
if presumably they're set of Damnation will lean a lot
on these early years. I'm excited because I never saw
one on this album. I sold them for the first
time on voices, so I will be in my twenty
eleven grindcore kid bag absolutely also featuring We're jumping back
a handful of years from that, back to the mid

(01:14:05):
to late two thousands, two thousand and seven to the
precise for Devil's sold Is Soul and their debut album,
A Fragile Hope, Sam. When we are saying that even
though you're not doing Damnation this year, there's still some
albums that you can't pass up the opportunity to to
talk about as a fan, this was really the album
we had in mind, right.

Speaker 4 (01:14:21):
Yeah, absolutely, I think it would have felt like odd
having this album from these chats and not.

Speaker 2 (01:14:25):
Having me into leaving you out there Devil sort of
Soul on those backs.

Speaker 4 (01:14:31):
They were on those sort of bands that again it
was not on this Amagonton was on the follow up,
but just in terms of very formative bands and kind
of like being a medical kid and discovering there's more
to the genre and there are bands who are pushing
it into different territories, and that gradually opened the gate
for me to get into a lot of them, more
kind of post metal and more challenging expansive stuff. Devil

(01:14:53):
sort of Soul were like on the Circle and then
kind of immediately discovering this off the back of that
and just kind of immerse myself in them. Were so
vital in doing that. So I think this album, this
some particular, is kind of like quite unique sort of
album in their category as their debut. It is a
bit different to what comes, but they are on those
kind of cult UK underground bands that like people who

(01:15:14):
are in adore this band, and I think it's good
to kind of give this album.

Speaker 2 (01:15:18):
It's kind of be like, yeah, this was fucking special.

Speaker 3 (01:15:21):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:15:21):
It would it be fair to say that Devil's sort
of Soul in general are one of the more perennially
underrated of the kind of hardcore and metal core adjacent
bands that the UK produced in the late two thousands
going into the early twenty tens.

Speaker 4 (01:15:33):
I mean, I hate forraying around underrated as a ton,
but yeah, I would agree. I think they are a
band who their stature isn't kind of representative of their quality.
I think they are so. I think it's because they've
always kind of sang an awkward place of like are
their medical band? Are they post metal band?

Speaker 2 (01:15:50):
Are they progue? And they've kind of never quite kind
of just been a bit of an island.

Speaker 4 (01:15:54):
But for me, when I was kind of again just
coming in from medical background, this was kind of like
a oh my god, there's so much more to this
genre that I love whey it can make me feel
what different things and it and again it was like
this album Man Blessed and Curst to pall Up that
just kind of opened that door for me.

Speaker 1 (01:16:08):
Yeah, I think they really stand out in that scene.
The fact that they're playing Damnation for one thing, when
most bands in their lane, you know, wouldn't that tells
you something. But the band that Devil's sort of soul
have blossomed into being are one of the most unique
at this date.

Speaker 3 (01:16:22):
In the UK.

Speaker 1 (01:16:22):
I would say they are probably something of an institution
in terms of like they're in inspiration for many of
the more kind of left fieldly minded bands to have
come from the UK in the last ten or so years.
Yesval bar erificas whatever, that kind of school. We've reviewed
their newest material, We've had Ed Gibbs, their singer, on
the show doing one of these amroulettes. But I do
think they're not as often given the Flowers that, as

(01:16:45):
such a long running bastion in the UK underground, and
as we'll get onto as well, a such a kind
of unique band, they should deserve a fragile hope. Is
their debut full length is not? You know when Devils
sort of Soul were put on my radar, Sam, you're
saying there was it maybe be Blessed the Cursed Era,
that kind of when you came to contact.

Speaker 4 (01:17:01):
With them, Yes, it was Blessed Cursing Aunt in like
twenty ten. I kind of heard that and were kind
of like blown away by it, and I was like, right,
I need to go check out as well, and it
immediately just made them one of my favorite bands in
that moment. I was always of going to towards UK bands,
and like I liked emotional metalcore, but this like kind
of felt like a new kind of lane of like

(01:17:23):
being so much more vaster.

Speaker 2 (01:17:26):
Like okay, like you know, I'd had listened to metal fans.

Speaker 4 (01:17:29):
I've had like longer songs and kind of like bit
more expensive stuff, but that was that those songs start
like kind of swimming pools compared to the ocean that
like I kind of got into when I discovered, like
again eighteen when we heard Devil sort of salted person
was kind of like, oh, there, there is just so
much more out there.

Speaker 3 (01:17:44):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:17:45):
For me, it was the twenty tens output of Blessed
and Cursed going into Empire of Light is the first
Devil sort of song material that I knew, and I
wasn't that closely following them at the time. I could
look at them and recognize there's something a bit different
about you, Like if what I knew UK metal core
at the time to be was bringing the horizon and
architects and you know, Berry Tomorrow, et cetera. Looking at

(01:18:08):
Devils sort of song and you're like, oh my shit,
you're you're a post rock band next to them, you know,
like you're you're utilizing screaming and breakdown elements and stuff
like that, but it's bright and it's majestic in the
way that that kind of music is. Our good friends
sometimes co host Mark Sanderson, he is the biggest Devils
of Soul fan on the planet. He got me to
listen to this album once because after I'd kind of
become fully familiar with their more contemporary stuff, he was like,

(01:18:31):
but the first album's really heavy, it's really gnarly. That's
the one that you're gonna want as the extreme metal guy.
I think Devil's Sold of Soul are a very fine band,
and again a very singular and kind of individual band
as a whole in a scene where there's not arguably
not that many of them. I think Blessed and Kurt
is a good album. I think Empire of Light is
a very good album. That's really where they take the
kind of post rock element to its most maximalist, Like

(01:18:54):
that last song on it is brilliant. I enjoyed the
latest album that we reviewed. I really admire the band
overall that they became from here. This is the Devil
sold of Soil album that I love. This is the
one of theirs that like I own on vinyl and
I spin semi regularly. This record is fucking awesome.

Speaker 2 (01:19:09):
That's what I'm saying.

Speaker 4 (01:19:09):
What this album is is this is a quite a
different kind of beast because when you get to Blessed
and Curse, there is a brightness that starts to get
introduced to them. It is you know, it is a
bit more song though there are kind of soaring bright
moments on this, but this is a much darker, more
oppressive amate so the one where you kind of like,
for like, what's kind of got bits of like scream

(01:19:30):
oh and stuff like that in there as well. Like
I think vocally Ed is quite different on this album
to where he would kind of go on to and
I think that just makes this album like like because
it is stands on It's like this is the devil
sort of soil. A'm I kind of grab if I want
a specific vibe if I'm not up for like kind
of like my heart fluttering like some of the moments
on Blest and Curse, Nimper I've like can do, but

(01:19:50):
I just want to, you know, feel the weight of it.
I'll go with this.

Speaker 1 (01:19:53):
Yeah, And it's another album that I have in fact,
already seen them playing in twenty seventeen for its tenth anniversary. Believe,
I think I'm right in saying that that was the
first thing they did once Ed came back to the band,
and then they started the dual vocal dynamic with the
guy they got in the interim Pool. But they premiered
that version of the band with a tenth anniversary tour
for this album, and I went to it. I think
it's the only time I've actually seen Devils sort of Soul.

(01:20:15):
So one day I might see them not playing this album.

Speaker 3 (01:20:17):
That would be cool.

Speaker 1 (01:20:17):
But anyway, I think you can really feel the era
of UK hard core scene when you're listening to Devil
sort of Soul in a good way, not in a
kind of dated or whatever kind of way, but like
when I listened to Blessed and Cursed an Empire of Light,
I am in the headspace of the early twenty tens
metal core scene. It's like, oh, there is a hell
era bring me Architects, when they'd like they were just

(01:20:39):
starting to kind of be everyone's favorite band. So on.
I jumped back to this one like three years earlier,
and it's like, oh, Johnny Truant, Yeah, Debut era Architects
when they were a mathcore band. You know, that's the
whole other series of bands that pop into my head
and at that exact point in time, this might be
the best of them. Like as much as I love
count Your Blessings in whatever that kind of you small

(01:21:02):
UK scene was at the time circa two thousand and seven, whatever,
If you think there is a better UK metic or
album from that exact point, I would like to know,
because there's you know, the shared inspirations in those bands
at that point in time.

Speaker 3 (01:21:14):
You know, is obviously.

Speaker 1 (01:21:15):
Poison, the Well, Normal Gene, the Bled whatever. Who's that
band that Devil sort of sorre supporting a band aren't
they soon?

Speaker 2 (01:21:20):
Who are doing still remains yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:21:24):
You know Gnarly maybe again when you go to your
Poison Wels whatever. Like the more kind of experimentally minded
metallity hardcore bands of the era is what these bands
like Johnny Truant and early Devil sort of so I
mean even bringing them on their EP even, you know,
are kind of channeling. But straight away I think the
the ambition and the individual stamp that Devil sort of

(01:21:44):
soul put on, you know, their kind of version of
that is above and beyond what most of their peers
were doing, and you know, or they would take much
longer to actually get to their kind of individual version
of that thing. Elliott, I wonder if you've ever heard
this record and how much of that component and would
jump out or maybe surprise you.

Speaker 3 (01:22:03):
You know, I'd never heard this record until doing this
because I'd heard Devil Solo Soul before and it was
in that the same sort of time between Blessed and
Cursed and Empire of Light. But I was coming at
them from the other direction. Is because I was getting
into like post rock and post metal, and this was
one of the popular bands that were sort of in
that circle. But I was also where they were like

(01:22:25):
aligned with the metal core thing, and weirdly you'd think
the timing would work out in their favor, but I
think it was because I was hearing Neurosis and Isis
and Armen Rah and Yeas and bands like that. Hearing
the kind of metal core fied version of it at
the time didn't appeal that much. And because I wasn't
so keen at the time, and I don't even know
if I listened to the comeback record. I just never

(01:22:48):
bothered with the debut. I'm sure I've seen Mark mention
it in the group chat sometime, but I never until
doing this. I never especially saw reason too, because post
metal as a genre anyway is something that I've kind
of soured on slightly, and I'm certainly not more fond
of metalcore than I was then, So it didn't feel
like it was too set a stage for me to

(01:23:09):
discover something great. And I'd heard people rave about this
record a lot, but it was almost exclusively people who
were there at the time, which not to do that
doesn't mean an album's bad by this one. That is
this sort of a nostalgia thing talking you know, yeah,
this is great, this is really fun. Yeah. I honestly
I went into this expecting to go, oh, yeah, you know,

(01:23:32):
this is nice. I can see what they're doing it. It's
quite a fresh take. This is really excellent. Like for
the thing that is, which I didn't expect to have
much affinity for, it's a very fine example.

Speaker 2 (01:23:43):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:23:43):
I do think there will be other people out there
who I mean, again, like my you brute into them
was as said, the sort of the later stuff. There's
probably not people who haven't actually, you know, if they
weren't there at the time, who haven't gone back to
a fragile hope and wouldn't know, Like I think there
are lots of people who, even if they don't like
later Devil sort of Soul, they might vibe more with
this one, because this is actually saying sound quite singular

(01:24:06):
in their catalog for just how like, how much darker
and how much meaner in everything it is They've done
an EP before this Darkness prevails, which has the most
two thousand and five I did this on my computer
font you've ever seen, but that going into this, I
think there is a clear vision of what the band is,
much more so than again a lot of the other

(01:24:27):
bands at the time. And you know that the early
twenty tens fixation on kind of atmospheric metal core that
you know, bands that Bring Me were kind of popularizing
on there as a Hell and Architects once they started
getting to their glory run and so on.

Speaker 2 (01:24:38):
Double sort of Soul.

Speaker 3 (01:24:39):
We're kind of already doing that, but.

Speaker 1 (01:24:40):
In a much meaner and starker again closer to the
worlds of post rock and post metal legitimately kind of way.
What I mean, I really love about this album is
how it moves away from If you think about the
UK scene and again the kind of mid two thousands,
I imagine there must have been a lot of bands
doing that kind of Dillinger core, you know, mathy, hypertechnical,
metical thing.

Speaker 3 (01:25:00):
This isn't that.

Speaker 1 (01:25:01):
It is all sludge an atmosphere and it's low and
it's burly, and I think this one is arguably I mean,
we sometimes think of them as a metalcore band. You
could make the case maybe that this isn't a metal
core record as much as their following ones are like
this one. You could maybe just call it a post
metal record. I mean, the fact that again it's the
one that makes sense of Damnation makes it, you know,

(01:25:22):
perfect sense for them. But in comparison to any other
metal core album being released at the time, this album
is like tar like it is just a great black
pit of a record, which, you know. I like that
their later records do go a bit more sort of
sky searching and so on, but this one, this dials
into my sensibilities.

Speaker 4 (01:25:40):
I mean, it's when you hit plane, you get in
the absence of light as the sort of intro, and
it is so atmosphere you've got that kind of like
robbing kind of clang sound.

Speaker 2 (01:25:49):
Going on there. You get these sort of guitars.

Speaker 4 (01:25:52):
Creeping in and you can feel it building up, but
it's not again, it's not a bright kind of soaring
big intro.

Speaker 3 (01:25:59):
It is me and.

Speaker 4 (01:26:00):
Menacing, and then when you get as some unfolds bursting
and off the back of this edge, screams are pained
and like whatever like latter data sort of soul. It's
all about these big, bright crescendos and kind of like
soaring moments. This album is the opposite where like there
are crescendos on this album and there's amazing moments, but
this album is all about the crashing down feeling of

(01:26:21):
kind of like the builds happened, and then it's the
collapse afterwards where the riff just smothers you and it
like it's so kind of like such an exciting like
I can imagine like being a UK fan in sort
two thousand and seven hearing this kind of been like, well,
this is exciting and different.

Speaker 2 (01:26:37):
This is like.

Speaker 4 (01:26:38):
We're moving away from what is the commercialization of where
metalcals going into this dark pit. And that's why again,
I for a lot of people who hold this as
their Devil sort of soul album. I can completely see why.

Speaker 2 (01:26:50):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:26:50):
I think another thing is that it's awareness of, you know,
what is kind of what is exciting and what is
going on in the underground outside of just their immediate scene.
You know, like it's not just as I say, being
like X band from fucking Norwich who sound like the
inter Estate Plant or whatever. It's kind of like, oh yeah,
we also are aware of Isis and cot of Lunar

(01:27:13):
and these type things that are going on, and you know,
bads Isis and so on. They had their roots in hardcore.
Devils sort of soul are almost like the looping the
influence back around, you know, where it's coming back down
the other way. And the way that these songs swell
and contract and have this kind of organic temperament to
them is not how metalcore songs behave. It's much from
out of the post metal playbook, and the sound of
it is genuinely as heavy as some of the earlier

(01:27:36):
records from those type post metal bands.

Speaker 3 (01:27:40):
Yeah, it felt like my expectations of the record were
resetting as I was listening to that exactly for the
reasons you're laying out because when I saw that the
first Trip was called in the Absence of Light, I thought, okay,
they yeah, they like Isis because the previous year, I
think it was had in the Absence of Truth, which
are yeah, pretty similar. And then as the Storm on
Folds comes in and it's the same sensation as Classic

(01:28:02):
isis like oceanic punopticon, that thing where it's just like
this wall of noise, like a wave just hits you
all at once, And that was something that I don't
even though I know that they were influenced by those bands,
I never got that sensation on the Devil's Solder so
Monsieur that I'd heard before. But one of the things
that I really like about this record is a lot

(01:28:23):
of the other postmol offshoot bands they end up sounding
quite similar. It's it's not the case here because there's
when that chorus comes in on that at least that
clean vocal on as the Storm unfolds. It's a very
unusual flavor, but I don't dislike it, and as I
got used to it, I liked liked it more and more.
And you know, if I never would have picked that myself,

(01:28:46):
like if if I was coming up with a band,
I wouldn't think, Okay, well a sort of make it
sound like Isis and Pelican, but then we're going to
put a Census Fail chorus in there, that would be
that would be a great combo. It sounds kind of bad,
but in practice it really works and it sounds I
see you're saying it is very two thousand and seven,
but not in a way that's sound of appealing. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:29:08):
Yeah, when Ed does the clean melodies, that is you're
absolute saying that's where the post hardcore influence comes in,
where it's hot on sleeve, high in pitch, emotionally on edge,
like you say, sense of Fail. I was thinking about,
like sayo Sin and even under Oath or whatever stuff
stuff like that, and that's you know, the bits that
your post metal bands or React records they don't have.

(01:29:28):
But there is something particularly about this record because it
is so like, it's such a beautifully bleak and somber
in mood atmosphere that it kind of sounds like he's
crying out from inside like a massive pit on this record.
You know, they're not radio choruses. They are it's desperate
and it's like he's inside the belly of a whale
or something, and that is just writhing with those waves

(01:29:49):
you're talking about, and it very much chimes with the
darkness of it still and kind of he is this
sort of lost, disembodied voice within the mass of the
record that it actually again like when if you say that,
it sounds like it really could interrupt the flow of
the record, but they've found a way to make it work.

Speaker 4 (01:30:05):
I mean, that thing is that the cleans on this
record are the most different kind of where they where
they go where it's still that kind of like they
said that post hardcore melodic vocal, but the later records
it is a little bit more of the kind of
like the big bright course they're like much more better
deployed than what that sounds like it should be.

Speaker 2 (01:30:21):
But here you're right, it is that they.

Speaker 4 (01:30:22):
Are like just kind of lost in the sort of
like vastness of the sound, and it kind of just
feels like these cries out that kind of add to
the emotional weight of the album, and they do feel
like really like well infamated, like I think as vocals
that he hasn't kind of got the like the brightness
and the sort of like scope. They will go on
too but they they they they color the songs nice.

(01:30:43):
The song unfolds, it's a song that like it has
those kind of like peaks and valleys or kind of
like big crushing moments, and it all go quiet for
a bit after ninety sef that first and eighty seconds
and then that's where you know, the first clean vocals
coming off the back of that before then then drowned out.
And they're just a nice extra to add to these
songs where like all the elements of the songs feel

(01:31:03):
kind of well realized, and nothing kind of feels like
jarring when it might if you kind of go like, well,
this a post mil song with a naughty's post hardcore
like clean vocal slapped in there.

Speaker 1 (01:31:14):
Yeah, I mean there's one bit in the middle of
us the Storm Unfolds, where he's singing but over the
top of like a really discordant, screechy bit in the guitars,
and it's too kind of a quite nasty like combination
of things and ed screamed vocal is at its gnarliest
on this record, where there's like a genuine touch of
necro on it, like it's actually pretty evil, Like there

(01:31:34):
are bits of the vocal that are so wretched on
this that it's not far off like portrayal of Gilt
or something like he is shredded.

Speaker 3 (01:31:41):
On this thing.

Speaker 1 (01:31:42):
And I don't know this was a particular band they've cited,
but I have to imagine hearing this, you were talking
about the role and kind of isis sensation in the rift,
which is absolutely true. But I also think that one
of the bands that they I imagine they must have
been into at the time was will Haven, because this
really has that like so yeah, that pitiless blo that
kind of rolling menace to the rifts, the way that
they have and the way you know rifts like as

(01:32:04):
the storm unfolds, they almost like they have like a
root guitar notes that it just kind of fuzzes up
and just let like lurches on it. You know, it's
really raw in the speaker, and when you do that
kind of thing right, it can be some of the
heaviest shit going, as it is with will Haven and
so on. Maybe my favorite song on this, even though
it's probably the stupidest song on it, is Awaiting the Flood,
which when they did the tenth anniversary they re recorded

(01:32:25):
that song. The riff is just all power, Like you
get that sick fucking tom snare pattern at the start,
which is like a kind of hardcore wash bit, and
then that gut churning monstrosity when the riff comes in.
It's so heavy, but at the same time you can
kind of jump up and down to that song and
gets a Deftones track or something like that is a

(01:32:47):
fucking banger.

Speaker 4 (01:32:48):
I was gonna say, awaiting the fund is the closer
you get to the sort of the bang on this record,
like they saw fit in between the two kind of
like most expansive songs, is kind of the change it
pays there.

Speaker 2 (01:32:58):
But that song, it's the one.

Speaker 4 (01:32:58):
Song that has a proper breakdown in it at the end,
like the.

Speaker 1 (01:33:02):
Most swing your fucking moshfist bit with the false finish
like that is so daffed.

Speaker 4 (01:33:07):
But it doesn't feel out of place on the record
because I think there's still that dark that like dark
as sound to it. It's just meaner and more aggressive.
It is not like dumbed down, which I think is
the sort of thing. It just it just fucking goes
the other thing with this song. It's got that early
sort of metalcoorse snare sound. It's got that Poison Snare
kind of popping off in it that this way, I'd
even be like, yeah, you like that. That that that

(01:33:28):
kind of like metallic hardcore of the nineties. You can
feel that on this song. And it's got like nice
sort of shifting rifts that that change up and and
it all hits. It's a really great song. And you know,
it's still four minutes long. It's not like the two
minute ignorand Master. It's the four minute Ignorant Masha. Yeah,
it's still going to add to that kind of like
grander scale that that that that they are playing with

(01:33:50):
on this album.

Speaker 1 (01:33:51):
I think it's it's definitely key that as you're saying,
like the the the violent feel of like turn of
the millennium metallic hardcore is there. But I think it's
really important that whether it be again like a post
metal Lifluence or Welhave or whatever it might be, it
has that lurching swing from hit to hit that has
much more groove than you would expect, and so the

(01:34:11):
notes are like much more opened up and the space
between them is more opened up. Then again you're more mathy,
kind of tight whatever metalcal and so it gives it
this again the sort of like oceanic kind of quality
where at the end of the tunnel has those like
really abyss like everything kind of falling away just into

(01:34:32):
sort of sparse sound effects and stuff, but then this
unstoppable fucking march riff through the kind of middle of
the song that you challenge anybody to like not nod
their head along to that it's so hard, but also
out and out post metal. Songs like Between Two Worlds,
which is nearly eight minutes long, has very again like
of high emotional post hardcore type melodies, but it is

(01:34:55):
this like really rolling wave of a kind of post
metal song, so you're hearing the common a nation of
those two worlds in a really authentic way. Songs like
the Starting that really have that you know, kind of
pensive nocturnal feel that is a straight up post metal
track of a particularly solemn and gloomy variety, and it's
really well arranged, you know, the way it uses like

(01:35:15):
samples and looping effects and stuff, And again it is
a way that is more sort of co Cotton Luna inspired.
It's much more that than the let stock a kind
of you know, slap stock atmospheric filter over everything in
the way the kind of this music ends up going
on at the time. It's really beautiful when they do
that stuff like Dawn on the first Day, which is
so despondent, it's kind of it feels to me almost

(01:35:38):
more like a catatonia or an agalock song than anything
to do with metalcore, you know, because it's just that's
channel pure melancholy for seven minutes.

Speaker 3 (01:35:47):
Yeah, And I I'll admit, even though I'd warned this
band a lot, by the time these Souls came up,
when I saw those run times, I will I was
still slightly suspicious because I thought, are they going to
be able to do this as well as it? And
the other stuff like, you know, especially when you've had
the big moshes and all of that along The way
Between Two Worlds is one of the best songs on
the record. And that thing you said earlier about putting
stock atmosphere and things. It post metals a weird genre

(01:36:09):
because the pretense of it, the conceit of it is
that it's meant to be able to pushing the boundaries
of what metal can be. It's like the outer reaches
of what it is, and so many bands that do
it are just you know that as formulaic, because any
metal band you want a name between two worlds has
such a great ebb and flow to it where it's
not just quite quite quiet loud loud loud, it's it's

(01:36:33):
exciting because it's quite quite loud, quiet loud, loud, loud,
quiet quite loud, very very quiet, very very loud. It
goes all over the place. It almost doesn't feel like
a metal a post metal song. So it manages to
maintain that energy that the more violent and outright exciting
songs on the record have and apply that to a

(01:36:54):
post metal framework, which I can't think of many bands
that have done that.

Speaker 1 (01:36:58):
Yeah, and then the moment of released that feel kind
of more revelatory for having those darker foundations. Siren's Chant
is one of the one of those songs that kind
of mostly bangs on sort of a couple of notes
in the riffin, but then the last couple of minutes
introduced the sort of synth sound and then the sort
of the mono e guitars and stuff, and you're, ah,
there's you know that you're sort of what will go
on to be your Empire of Light style, Devils Hod
of Soul right there the real push into that kind

(01:37:21):
of teractor on this record being Hope, which is only
four and a half minutes long. So you compare that
to some of the real post rock style songs they've done,
it's kind of small fry and it's it's a trick
that is so commonplace, right, Like so many bands have
done their post rocky inspired metal or hardcore records or
whatever where the last track is the kind of big
explosions in the sky style whatever closing track. This I

(01:37:43):
think is one of the best executions still of that
particular trope, maybe because it feels more sort of primordial
and more explorative of that sound rather than it being
you know, the trope, you know, because it has this
rolling drum pattern, the clean guitar sound, the piano, the
ell and conley that's really there in the big kind
of climactic corporression.

Speaker 3 (01:38:02):
It's it's just so low.

Speaker 4 (01:38:03):
Can you imagine like twenty ten's Metalcore me hearing Hope
and just kind of be like like again, it's one
of these moments were like, oh, this is that there
is more out there. Like there's so many moments on
this record that did just kind of like I lot
things in my friend were Again it took me so
while to sort of get around to it, but just
those sort of brightness and that that sort of sowing
like melody where there were few albums I would like

(01:38:25):
at the time which could end on a four minute
instrumental and I'd be like, that is, you know, a
highlight of the record. But hope closing out this record
is this kind of like yearning emotional kind of like
to sort of burst of light the end, because again
it is the kind of like it's the it's the
most I've been telling song on the record that you know,
everything that's perceived that it has been very dark, very oppressive,
and then you get this as the kind of light

(01:38:47):
at the end of the tunnel, and it's such a
like satisfying ways because it is the complete opposite end
of how the how the Warning albums is kind of
like weaving out to nothing. This is this is that
grand eruption of kind of beauty at the end of
the album that that makes this so kind of like
warm and fuzzy like inside me as when who was
like trying to discover as much sort of underground UK

(01:39:09):
metalcal at the time. This and Blessed curse that like
these sort of albums coming on too, like why are
not why aren't more bands medtical bands kind of doing this?
You know, why are they so like tacky with their
use of electronics and atmosphere and samples. It is clearly
can't be that difficult if you know this little UK
band are doing it. And it's one of those things
argues I kept kind of coming back to every time

(01:39:30):
someone kind of praise band ex Food, figuring, oh, it's
so kind of.

Speaker 2 (01:39:34):
Vast out there, expensive than the metal coss and be
like have you had Devilsty Soul?

Speaker 4 (01:39:38):
Like it's so small for I compared to them, and
they were just a band because of these early albums
that just kind of like I kept coming back to it,
be like, people clearly.

Speaker 2 (01:39:46):
Love what this band are doing.

Speaker 4 (01:39:47):
Why aren't they kind of like it's just because are
they not glamorous enough to catch wind in the way?

Speaker 2 (01:39:53):
And it is where that that's under everything you mentioned earlier.

Speaker 4 (01:39:56):
It does come back round to that where people love
what Devil sort of sold do they just don't know
Devil City Soul are doing it?

Speaker 1 (01:40:02):
Yeah, And I think again on the other side of
the spectrum, there's maybe the fact that they are sometimes
associated with being a metalcore band. I mean, like you know,
like Elliott for example, having not heard this record, like
you know, it might not have gotten them into the
ears of everyone who should really love what this record is.
I think they are a quintessential I mean, if you're
the kind of person who goes to see every upcoming

(01:40:23):
UK post metal band at Arc Tangent or a Damnation whatever, like,
you need to have heard this album, you know, which
in the UK scene at least is kind of as
built off the backs of them as it is the
post metal records that it was drawing inspiration from at
the time. Yeah, Deuvile's sort of soul are fragile Hope Finally,
last album. If we're covering a few of the big
Damnation genres here, we've had doom, grind, post metal. We're

(01:40:46):
now venturing into the black metal corner of the bill
with Code and their album Resplendent Grotesque. The band simply
called Code, normally stylized with little brackety things on either
side of it. This is my most indulgent pick of
this bunch. Again, when we were looking at the Damnation
bill and what albums might or might not fit for this.
I just kept coming back to this one. There's no

(01:41:07):
special billing or anything for this Code set. The event
is that they're playing at all, as this band have
become an incredibly rare appearance. There's also the matter of yes,
it's another Matt McNerney album right after we've reviewed two
of his Other Worlds in the last couple of months.
But look, he's had a lot of projects. This is
one I definitely would have put forward for album club
at some point or another, so we might as well
do it while it is directly relevant. Code are one

(01:41:29):
of my favorite black metal bands of all time, and
if you ask me what set am I definitely their
front and center for it this year's Damnation. I don't
care who's clashing with them. It is Code. They're also tiny.
I think they ought to be more popular and well
known around the release of this album than today when
they are more inactive. But I ordered these album clubs
by their billing on the Damnation poster. Code are right

(01:41:50):
down the bottom. Right now, they have barely over one
thousand monthly listeners on Spotify, so this is a cult,
cult band. But this is the thing I'm most excited
for at Damnation this year because it's my first chance
to see one of my favorite bands of all time
in my favorite genre. Elliott, what is your familiarity with Code?
You suggested that you'd heard this record, but maybe not
in a long time.

Speaker 3 (01:42:10):
Yeah. I heard them when I was for the first time,
at least when I was seventeen, on the recommendation of
my driving instructor, who had never shown any interest in
metal one way or the other the whole time i'd
known him, and we were just well, I was driving
on it was one of those oh, are you doing
anything the weekend. I was like, I'm going to I
don't know what the festival was. I was going to a
music festival and what sort of things that went, Oh,

(01:42:31):
just sort of metal. Not expecting him to have any contribution,
just being polite, he goes, ah, do you like Code?
Excuse me? This guy rocks? He did not rock, I
assure you, oh no. But it set me up for
the other people that I've met who were into Code,
who will just volunteer them to you out of nowhere.

(01:42:54):
It seems to be a trait of their fans where
they almost evangelize We're annoyed.

Speaker 1 (01:42:58):
Yeah, Yeah, yeah, and Sam, your familiarity will be that boy.
We sure have heard this vocalist on a lot of
albums lately, haven't.

Speaker 4 (01:43:07):
I mean, I've not heard him quite like this, but yeah,
like this was a blind entry to me. But I
also go like, well, this is like something I so
associate with Damnation. This time to me is so of
that kind of like just slightly weird UK extreme metal
band that like We've talked about a few of them,

(01:43:27):
you know, like when I think about when we that
Voices album or Aca Coccus like that, this is so
of that ilk of bands. Like I guessing there must
be some kind of link to it, because that quirky is.

Speaker 2 (01:43:37):
Where the mangled.

Speaker 4 (01:43:39):
Horrible extreme but kind of like just a little bit
bizarre in a way that only British bands can seem
to be. It's so one of them, and I think
this is fucking amazing. I have had the best time
discovering code off the back of this record.

Speaker 2 (01:43:52):
This is so sick.

Speaker 4 (01:43:54):
I can't believe that, Like, this album is kind of
one of the ones that like and again maybe I'm
just you know, so far of Matt McNerney at this point,
but this album, it's thirty five minutes long. It's fucking
insane how much it fits into thirty five minutes long
mental album, But yeah, fucking goes. It's really cool and
it feels so like again of the DNA of something

(01:44:14):
like Damnation and something like the weird British extreme kind
of like culture that kind of exists there.

Speaker 1 (01:44:20):
Yeah, there's a few things in what you've just kind
of said that I want to pick up on. One
is that like absolutely those you know, those those UK bands,
and that feel is very much there. There is also,
as I'll kind of go on to explain, there are
major connections to Norwegian bands as well, But I mean
there are I have theories about how why this is
a record that I know that you know, there are

(01:44:42):
other strange whatever except you love daka Cocka when we
did that kind of thing. But like, I think this
is a record of that vibe that is actually particularly
ripe for just people going with it and not being
that kind of affronting. I suppose I should point out
that Matt McNerney is not in Code anymore, and he
has not been for a long time. This is their
most like classic album, so it had to be be

(01:45:03):
this one. But the current lineup of Code. Their latest
album from twenty twenty one, Fly Blown Prints, really flew
under the Raid. It's fucking great and it's the most
they have returned to this sort of classic Code sound
maybe since this and the current singer they have is
crazy on it. So I'm really excited to see this
current incarnation of Code as well. But going back to
this one and why it's important, Code or a UK

(01:45:25):
black metal band, came up during the mid two thousands,
born on the weirder side of the tracks of the genre.
The main composer who has been the through line through
all the years of Code is this guy who goes
by the name Aoult. You also have on the first
two albums Matt McNerney under his black metal pseudonym Kvosto,
a word I've never learned how to pronounced properly. I
think this is maybe the first band where he started

(01:45:47):
to kind of get his name out as like the
ultra productive maverick of like underground music that we know
him to be today. So Grave Pleasures, Hex Vessel, Scorpion
Milks just come out, etc. But it's not the first
black metal band he was in. He was also the
singer for the ultra experimental industrial black metal band Void
on their first album, Sam, do you remember Void?

Speaker 2 (01:46:09):
How could I forget? That? Is like a starring experience
that album review.

Speaker 1 (01:46:14):
This is great though, because that's a few years good hour.
We've gone on a journey together, you know, and now
here we are. In between the two Code albums that
he's on. He also fronted the legendary pioneering Norwegian avant
garde black metal band DoD heins Guard for an album
that I will probably also force onto the show at
some point. Vikotnik, the genius behind dodshems Guard, plays bass

(01:46:37):
on these first two Code albums. So this is sort
of the you know, the circle of bands that we
are operating in. It is part of a wave of
highly experimental, avant garde in mindset, strange and futuristic black
metal from the late nineties into the two thousands, which
in my opinion is some of the most exciting times
in black metal history. You know, I love that stuff.

(01:46:59):
Code are my out of the whole bunch, and this
is my favorite album. This is one of my favorite
records ever. Happily, as far as Sam is concerned, this
album I think is so much more listenable than Void
or Dot Himes Guard at their most insane.

Speaker 2 (01:47:15):
So for what I'm.

Speaker 1 (01:47:16):
Describing as like an experimental black metal band with all
these links, this crazy shit, this is one of the catchiest,
most immediate anthemic even at times listens that most people
just haven't heard because of what it is.

Speaker 4 (01:47:30):
I mean, when I heard Let's Get Skeletal necro Spiritual,
I was in. I was in.

Speaker 2 (01:47:35):
I was like, it's so courseing that, like that was it.

Speaker 4 (01:47:41):
It's kind of like smovel the Crones is an opener
is immediately off putting, it's horrible, weird, but it is
kind of like there's clarity to it and and like
there's a hook it is.

Speaker 2 (01:47:53):
That's the thing. I don't know what it is. It's
just this weird balance of this being one of those.

Speaker 4 (01:47:56):
Avant garde extreme metal albums that I've in the past
had and again maybe this is you know, where we've come,
where I can now come.

Speaker 2 (01:48:03):
To like, oh, I can actually like find this palatable.

Speaker 4 (01:48:06):
But this film is that kind of taking that and
kind of writing a bizarrely playful, fun kind of a
media like extreme metal record that's still mental as all hell.

Speaker 3 (01:48:18):
This album is so paradoxical, like in almost every aspect,
because I see the impression of a small black male
band from business it's gonna be way nasty than it is.
Even just looking at the album cover, you think it's
gonna be nasty than it is, because it looks like
it's gonna be a sort of spiritual success with like
the Codex Necro, it's a similar horrible little puppet go

(01:48:38):
on the front. Don't know what that is. Don't particularly gives.

Speaker 1 (01:48:41):
Me like Silent Hill or that game Amdesia if anyone
remember that, Like that's a weird vibe.

Speaker 3 (01:48:45):
Yeah, and even if you were to assemble the various
sounds that make up the code sound. So I had
a little relist going and I was thinking, okay, it
kind of the Black Male is sort of satiric Oni
the kind of Candlelight era Opeth in the way that
they'll just things on a dime. There's a sort of
Gabriel era genesis to some of.

Speaker 2 (01:49:05):
The clean parts.

Speaker 3 (01:49:06):
Yeah, there's a bit of Dead Can dance and like
nineties Swans sort of neo folky industrial element to it.
But even then it they sound like those bands by
doing the inverse of them, because you think Opeth okay,
long ambidextra songs. Not one song here is over like
six minutes long, but most of them don't go beyond four.

(01:49:27):
You think of like classic British pog and you think
it's going to have But weirdly, the moments where it
sounds like that are some of the most unsettling, which
again sounds paradoxical, and when it goes sort of that
no wave element, they end up being the nicer bits
on the record. So trying to break down how this
record functions despite being you know, eight songs thirty five

(01:49:48):
minutes long, is a weirdly trying task.

Speaker 1 (01:49:52):
Yeah, And I would say this isn't one of those
like throw absolutely everything at the wall type albums, like
a sixth antics International or something, But every choice that
they make is so considered as to make like a
really vivid, cohesive kind of feel that I just fall
into completely. This has been talked about on TNN before,
years and years ago, when Tom Dare came on and

(01:50:12):
did an episode about recommending black metal albums to hook beginners.
If anyone's been around with us longer enough to remember that,
and I completely agree, even though everything that we're describing
sounds like it shouldn't be true, you know, And it
comes down to this is a really progressively minded black
metal band doing all those things that you're just listening there,
but here they have focused it all into a thirty

(01:50:32):
five minute album of eight tracks and a large amount
of time it's carried by a clean singer. For those
of you who listen to us a lot, it's the
voice from those Great Pleasures records. So you have here
something that has all of the texture and the atmosphere
of a really like esoteric, sinister black metal record, but
it's also really memorable and immediate in a way that
I don't think it's ever quite been equaled, honestly, and

(01:50:53):
this is why. So this is their second album. The
first one, Novo Gloaming, is also one of my favorite
Black Matt records of this kind. It's so eerie and
skin crawling, and the shit that Matt is doing vocally
on that album is like some of the weirdest stuff
he's ever done. It sounds like he's calling to you
from one of those kind of Victorian wax cylinders for
most of the time, and he ends the album just
reciting this phrase in the afternoon, we all took off

(01:51:14):
our skin and set sail for Neptune, using our flesh
for a sale. It's very of that likely thing, weird
bizarre English focus sing a songwriter, prog whenever. It might
be mindset, but that record wanders a lot more as well.
I think you should go back to that one if
you like this one. But Responding Grotesque is like one
of the secret catchiest black metal albums that's also really

(01:51:35):
involved and gives off the impression that it should be
far more difficult than it is. Really random fact about
this album is it was nominated for a Norwegian Grammy Award.
They aren't even Norwegian. I can only assume it's because
Vikopnik was there and he's there, but that atmosphere their.

Speaker 3 (01:51:50):
Albums are so all consuming to me.

Speaker 1 (01:51:51):
And when you mentioned bands like Aca Coccer and Voices
Sam the connection areas, I think they're all London bands, right.
And this is the other thing that was kind of
going when in UK at the time was you had like,
you know, your winter fillers and your woden thrones and
stuff coming through where it's really wind swept and kind
of evoking of like landscapes and history.

Speaker 3 (01:52:08):
And so on.

Speaker 1 (01:52:09):
Code more in the way those other bands are is
kind of claustrophobic urban, and there's this density and this
sort of loneliness and a crowd of like being again
this dark space with this sort of lone voice within it.
The way the singing kind of sounds like a Victorian
ghost but like wandering through a modern city. You know,
there is this alienation to it, and this this claustrophobia.

(01:52:31):
As I say that, it is a feeling I really
love in black metal. The guitar tone and everything is
really high tech for black metal. It's mixed by Frederick Nordstrom,
so you know it's going to sound pretty high end.
But the riffs are really cruel and sharp, and the
songs are so tightly wound. I think the only band
to do black metal that is this dense and dizzying
but also like as unforgettably melodic as well as this

(01:52:53):
is Emperor.

Speaker 3 (01:52:55):
Yeah, yeah, I think. And even with Emperor, know, with
some of the later material, you know, Nine Equilibrium, Prometheus,
when they really start throwing lots of ideas at the wall,
the songs kind of get longer and more complex, and yeah,
pet what more Labyrinth Fine The impressive trick with this
is it still feels kind of straightforward, like it feels

(01:53:17):
coherent despite being so incoherent, And there's so many moments
in each song which are memorable in isolation.

Speaker 1 (01:53:25):
Yeah, I mean it's it's that Emperor. I'm glad you
mentioned Opeth as well. That's the sort of the what
the arrangements and the instrumentation and stuff like. That's the
league that we're talking about. The bass playing particularly as well,
that's so your man from DoD Heims Guard. They're really
melodically involved. That is a big link into the kind
of prog world. It's not just doing the basic kind
of underpinning of the rifts. It's going crazy a lot.

Speaker 3 (01:53:45):
Of the time.

Speaker 1 (01:53:46):
Drums on this record performed by Adrian Urlinson of At
the Gates at the time recently in Cradle Felt, So
this thing has pedigree through the fucking roof. And the
songs are so intensely put together. And again they've got
those weird you know, ved Bouin's En Da DoD Heeims
Guard would of a kind of strange chords and ship
in them, but they're really.

Speaker 2 (01:54:03):
Charged up with them.

Speaker 1 (01:54:04):
The first song, Smother of the Crones is an actual
banger where it has those big chant refrains of let's
get skeletal, necrospiritual, the opening bark of like what were
they take to smother these crones, which for me is
like the black metal equivalent of oh I'm not an
Earth crisis show and the fut to the front of
me and I will you know, it's game vocal ship

(01:54:24):
for the ass record like.

Speaker 4 (01:54:28):
Possession is, the Medicine has that kind of like chant
along thrust the mic out kind of quality to it.

Speaker 2 (01:54:33):
I can't see where you're coming from.

Speaker 1 (01:54:36):
I mean, that's got the fucking you know, circle pit
sub three minute punky black metal, your rage on the record, Yeah,
you know, your mayhem and dark Throne and stuff, which
has that shows how much teeth the album still has,
even when parts of it sound like a haunted music
box or whatever, like you're never really safe with it,
and the riffs witch halfway through that song when it

(01:54:56):
just starts stomping and he does the full Tom g
ran In and raving about a spoonful of hate helping
their medicine go down. It's so fucking good. But back
to smother the crones. I'm such a fucking nerd. When
I was in Uni, I had to make like a
music magazine and I called it skull harp scriptures after
the lyric in this song. I don't entirely know what
that means. It might have all been so really dark
and inappropriate, but I just thought the language was so

(01:55:18):
cool that I pinched it. Apparently Fenri's co wrote the
lyrics on that song, so like, I mean, all these
names appearing in but actual chorus as well, like delivered
in a really eerie, strange way. But it's such an earworm,
and that I think is the really key about this
is there The choruses are never conventional. They're always like
what the hell is that? Which is the kind of
phenomenon that Elliot's trying to get at there? But they're

(01:55:38):
all real earworms. The outro bit when you've got the
black metal vocal and the yell going nah cross spiritual
at the higher end, it's amazing. And the melodies that
he comes out with are so ghostly, and the lyrics
are so surreal and kind of darkly psychedelic, like in
the privacy of your own bones. It's really furious to

(01:56:00):
begin with. But when he kind of the chorus arrives
and he just sort of floats off with that take
my fa soon place of yours, and the fact that
his vocal is this sort of like high tenor to
kind of register as well, Like I said, it sounds
like a voice coming out of a haunted doll or
something like. It's just so off beat and off the
cuff at all the time.

Speaker 2 (01:56:16):
Yeah, that's the song.

Speaker 4 (01:56:17):
I'm like again the times again that the most Matt
mcner anything in the privacy of your own bones.

Speaker 2 (01:56:21):
But that's when again it's really manic.

Speaker 4 (01:56:24):
But the nick drop it into this like creaky darkness,
kind of like whispered grown vocals.

Speaker 2 (01:56:30):
Like there's always kind.

Speaker 4 (01:56:31):
Of a different vocal approach thrown out every sort of
few passes of the song, so it never sort of
sits in there too long. It is dark and bleak
and is quite impressive at times, but it's never like
draining as a listen because it's I said that hoarding
music box.

Speaker 2 (01:56:44):
It's got that kind of funhouse thing that I can sometimes.

Speaker 4 (01:56:46):
Find exhausting and annoying, but here because it's always so punchy.
None of the songs outstay, they're welcome. They are always
just kind of thrown new ideas at you. I never
find myself getting fed up of the weird terms because
I'm I'm I've brought into their like giddy mannic creativity.

Speaker 3 (01:57:03):
Of it, and as nasty as the wretches are, and
they are nasty, there's something about when he settles down
which makes the music sound more manic by comparison, It's
like that bitting Willy Wonka when they're in the tunnel,
and the fact that Wonka's calm makes it even more unsettling,
as the sort of master of ceremonies, just sounding kind

(01:57:24):
of in the pocket with it, like it can be dramatic,
it can be upractical. There's moments where it sounds sort
of like Shakespearean, but that being juxtaposed with how wild
the music has going, Like in the Price of Your Bones,
obviously it sounds like strapping young lad, which is not
a point of reference you often find for black metal bands.

(01:57:44):
And Yeah, it feels totally in keeping with the nutty
sound they've put together.

Speaker 1 (01:57:49):
Yeah, and I think there are parts where you can
hear the You can hear in it that he is
capable of going to do that kind of strange, psyched
like folk music that you get with early X Vessel,
you know, like because it very much has that exactly
what it's saying with a kind of strange English prog
kind of area to the rattler Black Teeth really just hard,

(01:58:10):
relatable riff at the beginning, but it is like a
nightmare inversion of what your progressive bands, like your Opez
or Catatonia or whatever it might be doing when it
moves into that sort of really weird, creaking choral sort
of arrangement that is quite out there and might be
this arming for people. I Hold Your Light has this
really high, you know, choir boyish almost singing that is

(01:58:31):
very easy to follow, but it's so spectral and otherworldly.
There's a bit in that song where he's just almost
like swirling woes around his mouth like he's kind of
exploring the sensation of it. It's been like whoa against
this really crazy melodic bass playing as well, that's going
ape shit underneath it.

Speaker 2 (01:58:48):
I hold you That.

Speaker 4 (01:58:49):
I know that's Matt McNerney, but it's like an uncanny
version of him. It is recognizable, but there's something off
about it, and like the normal like that is Jesus Peple,
which I think he's almost like the most like saying
song on the album, because that is entirely sung, but
it's also musically the most kind of like ferocious black
metal thing going on.

Speaker 2 (01:59:07):
It's getting fast and faster.

Speaker 4 (01:59:09):
And his vocals like he's singing, but it's getting more
kind of like and he's wailing. It almost feels lesson
selling when he actually starts screaming, and then it goes
with a really heart breakdown, but that when he is
just kind of like this panicked rush and just coming
at you deranged like ideas, and it's got to looking
like disim moment with the record, but it's exciting the

(01:59:29):
entire time.

Speaker 2 (01:59:29):
It's sort of rushing at you.

Speaker 1 (01:59:31):
Yeah, it's got that intensity of becoming incensed and sort
of go and start raising mad in the cleaner areas
where it's it's unnatural to be hearing like a black
metal riff like that with a singer full belt at
the upper end of his register doing this like fucking
foaming herald. You know, he spends that whole song in
sort of a state of rapture. It's so arresting that

(01:59:52):
it's again it's another thing that you can't just sort
of tune out of well.

Speaker 3 (01:59:54):
Before I listen to this, I was doing some background
on it and I read somewhere that Icy Vortex was
in brief talks with joining the band, and apparently for
the first few songs I was singing, I don't really
hear that unless you're plan doing something really different. It's
not quite the same. But Jesus fever, when Matt starts
wailing like that, I thought, and now that I can see,

(02:00:16):
I can see the comparison there, it still wouldn't be
as you know, stirring and dramatic in the way that
ICs Vortex is dramatic. That's the guy from dimming Ball Gear.
In case anyone's like that's a pretty it's a hell
of a leap. But it's so cool hearing him go
into that register.

Speaker 1 (02:00:34):
Yeah, but again, if Ivortex had been there, who you know,
he's the singer in Arcturists as well. So that's our band. Yes,
you know, strange, progressive kind of realm. But I don't
think it would have been as it wouldn't have had
that creeping psychedelic again, like fucking Catholic boys school, you know,
diary page kind of element that that Manerney really brings

(02:00:56):
it it would I think it would have been It
would have been more dramatic, and it would be more
overtly flamboyant in the way that you know Arcturists or
Demi or whatever it is. It wouldn't it wouldn't be magic.
I think the way that this this is and one
of my favorite songs on it, maybe my song is
Suture of Wounds, which has this phenomenal way of just

(02:01:16):
like keeping you in its grip, tugging you back and
forth between these like really delicate like tiptoeing down a
fucking candled hallway cut of passage and then yanking you
down through the floor into the depth. The call and
response of the scream your ellergy bit when there our
Chris and you at scars, between the harsh and the
clean vocal gives me legitimate goosebumps, even to the intro

(02:01:39):
with that like really hushed whispered there's something in here,
and the way he keeps mulling on that line and
the pain is sensational, like he's enjoying it, and then
it again it just fucking ruptures into that screaming. It's
just so good, Like if you like the sensation of
kind of insidious, foreboding, forbidden type shit like this is
It is delicious.

Speaker 4 (02:02:00):
That song is really unsettling, and it kind of like
has as violent burst thrown in there, but it it
kind of just keeps, like the atmosphere immersive, and again
there is kind of like a melancholy to it and
like that sort of gothic types that mcnoney is so
good at, and.

Speaker 2 (02:02:14):
It just again it's one of the longer songs, it's
one of the ones that kind of.

Speaker 4 (02:02:17):
Can be a bit more kind of expansive movie different passages,
and it builds like a really nasty closing stretch as well,
which again just feels quite disarming from where you've come
from on the song.

Speaker 3 (02:02:28):
One of the bands we haven't mentioned who I think
it was, Obviously it's much more intense than this, but
their musical DNA I think is woven into this record
is Porcupine Tree, who, yeah, around this same time, if
it wasn't even long after where they went more metal
things like Fear of a Blank Planet in the Incident,
but even before then they had that sort of unsettling

(02:02:52):
English schoolboy quality that you were describing, and the riff
on this song, the one in the first half really
reminds me at them, and hearing something like that appropriated
in something so much more overtly evil and unsettling is
such a neat trick.

Speaker 1 (02:03:09):
Yeah, I mean, it's the shared thing of what you
were saying. And again that's sort of the seventies Genesis
and so on type bands. Is that kind of route
that both of those bands share. And I can absolutely
see Code being a kind of almost the black metal
version of what something like Porcupine Tree are, and that
maybe goes somewhere to explaining why I fucking love this

(02:03:30):
so much like that, but more evil and more creepy. Yes,
that the build into the fucking the real burst of
that song with the in the darker sucky buss it
is gipperating and hungry, and the big belted note on
the end of fleshes a language and through it you
speak just a perfect, perfect song. And then when you
think we might be kind of, you know, winding down

(02:03:50):
the last track, the Ascendant Grotesque literally starts with this
just abject roar of ah, and it's like large surge forward.
Every song on this album is perfect, Like it's so
adventurous because it's only thirty five minutes long. There's so
much melody, it's so repeatable as well, like genuinely one
of my favorite black metal records ever. I think in
terms of the Matt mcnerne canon, I would have this

(02:04:12):
on my podium with Climax and Beet Milk and Mother
Blood from Gray Pledgers, and that's including my favorite Dodheims
Guard album, all the Hex Vessel albums and so on.
Please reissue it on vinyl someday. We were here last
year with Dragon to Sunlight and we got that of
a sort. This doesn't even need to have a one
hundred pounds box or whatever.

Speaker 2 (02:04:29):
I think.

Speaker 1 (02:04:29):
I think this was probably pretty acclaimed at the time,
and again driving instructors around the world became aware of
it and if they were reading metal magazines in kind
of two thousand and nine, twenty ten, But it's legend
has fallen into history more over time, and I am
here to say bring it back.

Speaker 2 (02:04:45):
This is a ten.

Speaker 1 (02:04:46):
It's now it's just a real kind of if you know,
you know type album. But to me, it's like the
it's almost an epitome of like an entire type of
black metal that I love.

Speaker 3 (02:04:54):
Yeah, I I that whole wing of eccentric, disturbing English
black mail. I'm so into it and I am so
keen on discovering new records. I had heard this before,
but not in a long time, possibly like seven years
ago was the last time I gave this a listen.
It is so much better than that Gap warrants. This
is for that field of thing. It's an excellent example

(02:05:17):
of it, And to be honest, it's probably not a
bad place to start if that's a field of a
sort of sub genre of a sub genre that you're
tempted bybe you might find a bit dawn to. This
is a pretty digestible, pretty instant way of doing it,
and yeah, exceptional.

Speaker 1 (02:05:32):
Yeah you should go back to the first album, which
is not as immediate as this, but it is stranger.
Then there's the latest album, Flybye Princes, which like it
has a different front man on it, but it's also
like the atmosphere is very very there. Matt mn only
left after this album. This is when he then moved
to Finland and started Beast Milk and hext Vessel, but
et cetera. Code have kind of detoured over the years. Again,

(02:05:55):
they've made albums that aren't even really metal, like they've
done kind of strain of post rock or post punk
or whatever albs and then they've come back to it,
always kind of interesting and off the beaten path. I
learned looking at this that their current drummer used to
be in the Defiled, which, speaking of a London metal
in celerity, I suppose now there's an early twenty ten
the UK Metal Corps band. I fucked up by not
putting their latest down on the reviews. I think it's

(02:06:16):
another amazing album cover that even looks more like something
from Amnesia. They are quite slow in movement now, but
it makes it notable when they do. And yeah, a
rare live appearance at Damnation this year. Crones, stay away
from me because I'll be smothering them. Thanks for listening,
Cheers for tuning in, whether you are a T and
M regular or a newcomer from Damnation. We will be

(02:06:37):
booging on down to some of these tunes in a
month's time at this year's festival, so we will see
some of you lot there, and then you can check
back in for the review show afterwards, when we talk
about how hopefully great all of these things were. I
think there should be you know, a a amount of
weekend tickets that are still left for you if you
want to go and purchase one and join us. I
hope that these chats got you particularly excited and ready

(02:06:59):
to receive. We will be back next week, back on
the news show, picking up you know, whatever's been going on,
what new releases you need to hear. We spot like
everything that's coming out and going on every week. If
you're into more of this in depth stuff, Sam and
I recently knocked out a load of reviews in the
last couple of weeks, from Biffy Clairo to Lorna Show
to Scorpion Milk for more of the map ment early stuff,

(02:07:19):
and over on the bat'st Metal Patreon, where these album
club episodes normally go up first when we haven't partnered
with someone like this. We are going to be after this,
like I mentioned earlier, embarking on our voyage into the
swamps of Louisiana for our New Orleans Sludge special, So
let's get slippery with that. We'll see you there. Everybody
cheers and bye bye.