I Saw Daylight // Deceits Split

[€5 for 7" // Edition of 500 (150 pink, 350 white) // €3 to Download // https://isawdaylight.bandcamp.com/album/split-deceits]

These are four songs- two from each band- of German hardcore.   I Saw Daylight reminds me of Grade at times while Deceits brings out some Silent Drive, but this is just the singing, the screaming, the melodies, the breakdowns-- it's just everything you want from a hardcore/metal band in 2015 because so many bands are claiming to be hard and sound like pop punk these days.   I Saw Daylight and Deceits are both the real deal.     If you're a fan of Bane, Thrice, As Cities Burn ("Son I Loved You At Your Darkest" era) and most of the other hardcore that has managed to stay with me since I first heard it.    Yeah, you're going to want to get this one.

Missiles of October "Don't Panic (2014)"

[Name Your Price Download // http://missilesofoctober.bandcamp.com/album/dont-panic-2014]

This is available as a CD or LP as well as a digital download but whatever medium you choose to listen to it on you must play these songs LOUD.    This is a cross between Motorhead, Rise Against and We Were Promised Jet Packs.    It's that mix of older AFI with Mudhoney as it is heavily distorted and very much on the verge of metal.

I'm not sure if I'd consider it a pure sense of metal, though it does tend to lean that way, but there are those elements as well of hardcore.   As much as this is A Perfect Murder it can be Sick Of It All or Suicidal Tendencies.  

Perhaps one of my biggest problems with this genre of music that combines metal and hardcore is that too many bands in it end up sounding the same and they all just sort of blend together.     The good bands- the best ones in this genre- always find a way to stand out.   Missiles of October has found that way to stand out and if I had to pinpoint what it is exactly that makes them stand out to me it's just that this music is so raw.

Enter Shikari "The Mindsweep" (Hopeless / Ambush Reality)

When I first heard Enter Shikari it was 2007 and their debut album, "Take to the Skies", was about to come out.    I often wonder whether or not I still have that advanced CD with no artwork in my collection or if it was lost in one of my many moves since that time.    It doesn't really matter I suppose because I haven't really listened to that album in the eight years or so now that it's been out since back then but to see Enter Shikari still around and putting out one of the first new albums of 2015 got me interested enough to give it a listen.

All I remember about Enter Shikari is that they were a hardcore band- the singing and screaming kind- that encorporated bits of electronic music into their sound and while that might seem more common place now it was actually not as much when I first heard them.    This music still stays true to those roots as there are elements of screaming that bring out the inner Reach the Sky or Shut Down and at other times it's just overall dreamy.

I did expect some elements of Linkin Park to come out, as that seemed somewhat inevitable, but this electronic hardcore music also sounds like The Prodigy at times and I'm not sure how that happened but it's cool.   There are also moments of "Paranoid Android" era Radiohead which is just enough depth to make it so that you don't have to be ashamed to listen to this one.

Due to time restraints I am by no means saying that I'm going to go back and listen to every album by Enter Shikari but I am more likely to do that now than I was before I heard "The Mindsweep".     I'm actually also pretty likely to search for some live videos of Enter Shikari on YouTube now because I want to witness the sea of people moving in unison to the music.

Hyper Vigilance "Eat more medication demo tape"

[[$7 // Edition of 100 // https://hypervigilance.bandcamp.com/album/eat-more-medication-demo-tape  ]]

Whenever I see releases such as this I always want to try and figure out what the title means.   We're all medicated somehow, aren't we?  If you take Tylenol you're medicated on some level.    But this music implies something a little bit different and it's the type of medication you would hope it reaches- the psychotics.

On one side of this music are the beats.   It's not really electronic in that sense, as the beats are more of a thumping variety.   It's the pounding, the breaking... though there is a certain undeniable rhythm to it all.    Trapped behind this are vocals sceaming to get out.   Through static booms of doom these songs seem to be conflicted amongst themselves.

Equal parts Dana Fowler And The, dreamcrusher and I Like You, Go Home the music of Hyper Vigilance is electronic hardcore on paper but when you see that tag and think Atari Teenage Riot and the like that is really just not how this sounds at all.   it's that almost metal backing with a variation on electronica in front of it.

This music paints an image of a man in a straightjacket, locked inside a padded cell.  I like to think of The Joker or any number of other criminals in Gotham safely secure in Arkham Asylum.   The constant banging of the head against the door echoing through the empty halls reminds us all that we are at home.