Montreal’s Dead Alright is a one-man-band started by Brand New Lungs singer Louis-Charles Berthiaume. The skate punk project’s first single “Smoke & Mirrors” just recently dropped, but we’ve already been graced with another track titled “Strong Enough to Fail”. Check it out below and stay tuned from more from Dead Alright. Thousand Islands Records will be releasing the band’s debut LP at some point.
Our new EP, “Hello Catastrophe” release on 7/28 is a fast melodic blend of hardcore and skatepunk. The new singer brings a fresh take and a raw, urgent energy that melds seamlessly with our established sound.
Pick yours up on Bandcamp or check it out below!
Fat Mike is back with a new band called Codefendants, and they have released a debut album that might be one of the sickest debut albums this year; it’s called This Is Crime Wave, and funny enough, Crime Wave is the genre that’s made up in the minds of Fat Mike, Sam King from Get […]
Fat Mike is back with a new band called Codefendants, and they have released a debut album that might be one of the sickest debut albums this year; it’s called This Is Crime Wave, and funny enough, Crime Wave is the genre that’s made up in the minds of Fat Mike, Sam King from Get Dead, and rapper Ceschi Ramos. So it’s hip-hop, new wave, punk? There are some acoustic guitars and THE BEATLES! Trumpets? It’s everything and awesome. But let’s move on to the album.
Opening the album “Def Cons,” which isn’t a good song by any means. It’s uneven and doesn’t know what it’s doing. Ramos delivers on the raps, but it’s not a memorable song. This is odd because “Abscessed” featuring Onry Ozzborne and Get Dead, make room for each genre on this track; there’s no mismatch where the punk falls behind and sounds like it was added to justify the punk in the new made-up genre. Instead, the punk is heard loud and clear, with the raps coming faster than a groupie in the 70s. This song has everything I would want in a song when I hear punk, hip-hop, and new-age hip-hop mashed together in a blender. This song is the summer anthem for 2023.
The D.O.C., yes, the actual D.O.C., a legend, is featured on the “Fast Ones,” and this song marks his return after nearly 20 years out of the game. The fact this legend came out of retirement to get involved in this song should be acknowledged because this is important for everyone. To those who were around in the 90s for hip-hop, I would say that this song sounds influenced by it but met with an updated sound that reminds me of the sound Lil´ Dicky spits out in his songs.
“The last person I dated accused me of trauma dumping / and they were absolutely right” opening lyrics to “Disaster Scenes” featuring Stacy Dee from Bad Cop/Bad Cop is a strong song. Stacy Dee puts on a vulnerable display and opens up about the abuse she experienced early in her childhood. On “Suckers,” we finally get some trumpets and a somewhat jazz vibe over it. The pop-punk sound on “Brutiful” – yes, clever title – shows that a whole song doesn’t need one or the other but that there’s a natural progression from a Celtic folk vibe to a chorus with pop-punk chords throughout it.
The album itself has minor flaws, but along the way, those flaws turn out to be what makes the album complete. The lyrics and the different instrumental arrangements we hear on the album work. And for a debut album, it can be worrying if they can keep the level of rawness throughout their following albums if they ever come. The themes that they tackle on the album; child abuse, trauma dumping, gang violence, racism, violence, and many more, definitely seems to show another layer of Fat Mike, but not surprising Sam King or Ceschi Ramos, who has had a first-hand experience with drugs and the prison system. This album highlights much darkness and blurs the line on what is genre-defying. This Is Crime Wave is raw and shouldn’t be taken lightly. I am pleased with the turnout, and all I have left to say is; I better wipe my fucking face (see what I did there?)
It gets 4 stars out of five from me.
I recommend the following songs: Abscessed, Fast Ones, Suicide By Pigs (It’s funny but not funny, you know?), Disaster Scenes, Coda-Fendants
If there’s one thing Canada’s really fucking good at, it’s churning out some of the finest skate punk you’ll ever hear. Quebec’s Colorsfade find themselves in elite company with bands like Belvedere and Mute, and their new album proves they have what it takes to hang with the big boys. This record checks all the […]
If there’s one thing Canada’s really fucking good at, it’s churning out some of the finest skate punk you’ll ever hear. Quebec’s Colorsfade find themselves in elite company with bands like Belvedere and Mute, and their new album proves they have what it takes to hang with the big boys. This record checks all the boxes of what I look for in a skate punk record: Great songs with big choruses ✅ Excellent production ✅ Guitars taking you on a one-way trip to Riff City ✅ Built From The Wreckage earns my preliminary nomination for Shreddiest Album of 2023.
The first few songs Colorsfade premiered off Built From The Wreckage landed them a spot on Dying Scene’s Band Spotlight. After hearing those tracks – “Complaining”, “Roll of the Dice”, and “Open Book” – I knew this was probably gonna be one of my favorite albums released this year. And now that I’ve heard the seven remaining songs, I can say with confidence this album will make my year-end Top 10 list. There isn’t a single bad song in the bunch; everything on this thing is stellar. This record is right up there with the likes of Mute’s Thunderblast and This Is A Standoff‘s Be Disappointed when it comes to technically proficient, melodic punk rock.
Built From The Wreckage is much more than a barrage of guitar riffs; yes, there is a surplus of shredding, but it’s done quite tastefully so as not to overshadow the songwriting (which, by the way, is top fuckin’ notch in its own right). The album opens with a chugging bassline on “Line In The Sand”, and slowly introduces the rest of Colorsfade’s instrumental ensemble before kicking into high gear about a minute into the song. From then on, it’s a full speed ahead. Other standouts include “Reclaiming Your Own”, “We Won’t Fall”, “Society is Crumbling”, and the penultimate “Our Time to Shine”. Really, you could throw all these songs in a hat and wouldn’t risk drawing a stinker. All killer, no filler baby!
So there ya have it folks. Colorsfade fucking rules. Built From The Wreckage is an absolute scorcher of an album. I’m tired of hearing people proclaim punk is dead, because bands like these guys (and awesome labels like People of Punk Rock Records who put these records out) continue to prove time and time again that’s just not the case. Support this band. Buy the record.
I give Built From The Wreckage 5/5 Stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Between technicolor synth and screeching guitar, downtalker paints a picture of trauma and addiction as if running through an anxious dream. The soon to release single, “All My Friends Are Dead”, is a new release from Boston-based band downtalker, following their LP released August of this year, Post Junkie Selfish Millennial Single Father Field Notes. […]
Between technicolor synth and screeching guitar, downtalker paints a picture of trauma and addiction as if running through an anxious dream. The soon to release single, “All My Friends Are Dead”, is a new release from Boston-based band downtalker, following their LP released August of this year, Post Junkie Selfish Millennial Single Father Field Notes.
In the first and titular song off the single, “All My Friends Are Dead”, Darin Thompson barks out stories of childhood friends and visitation with his dad in a deep voice soaked in reverb. The quick strummed, funky guitar, and lazer beam synths juxtapose against the morbid lyrics. After the bridge, preceded by an emotional buildup with arpeggiated synth, all instruments cut out while Darin quickly whispers “All my friends are dead.” Quirky but honest and raw, “All My Friends” does a great job of sitting you with the feeling of drinking and dancing through a house fire.
Next up is “Watch Your Heart Break”, turning to a decidedly grittier sound, with those poppy hyper synths mostly 86ed, replaced by classic post-punk style phasers in the bridge. Keeping with the honest, almost stream of conscious lyrics, Darin espouses the beauty of love and self worth, with the warning “Just don’t fuck it up” following on repeat like an alarm. All of this crooned over overdriven guitar and rolling toms a la Viagra Boys.
A jumbled beautiful mess of funny, tragic, hopeful lyrics, backed up by dancing synths and chugging guitar, “All My Friends Are Dead” is a message to those in recovery, 10 years sober, or maybe even thinking about changing that other people have done it, and it’s not all D.A.R.E. commercial tragedy. In Darin’s words, “Music is part of my recovery and part of my healing now and I’m hoping that by being honest about my life, all my experiences will shine a light on this disease and also make others feel like they are not alone. We aren’t alone. We have each other. The song is called ‘All My Friends Are Dead’ but I’m hoping it will have the opposite effect and bring us together. Alone we can’t but together we can.”
If your soul begs to chant “Oi!” while grizzled men shout about the world’s problems then the new Fool’s Errand record will be right up your alley. Big Up The Impact is an explosive album that comes in loud and within 33-ish minutes is back on its merry way. Fool’s Errand hails from Las Vegas […]
If your soul begs to chant “Oi!” while grizzled men shout about the world’s problems then the new Fool’s Errand record will be right up your alley. Big Up The Impact is an explosive album that comes in loud and within 33-ish minutes is back on its merry way. Fool’s Errand hails from Las Vegas but their sound takes me to somewhere in an East Coast urban sprawl full of those cabbie hats and the smell of whiskey.
“It’s a Problem” is a catchy opening track, a memorable opening riff draws you in before setting the tone, “Sometimes this high can get me so low, try to resist it, that’s a no-go // I found a message in a bottle and it just said help me.” I like when an album opens with a track that just lays out how the singer is doing, really sets the tone for where their head is at for the album itself.
Then we’re off to the races with anthemic tracks like “Shit,” “Wrote you a song, it’s only 4 letters long. Easy for someone like you to recite” and “I Think I Like It!” which was an unexpectedly tender-hearted song lyric-wise: “One kiss is like a kick to the teeth, she only laughs when we’re disturbing the peace. This girl’ll be the death of me, but I think that I like it!“
Before I could process what was happening “Know What I Mean” had come and gone. If the song was a punch all I’d have to know it by was the ring impressions on my face. Lady Liberty stares down her nose at us in “Goin’ Back to Jersey” and we get a peek into what it feels like to feel alienated by the place you call home: “Lace up those boots, cuz we’re all goin’ down the Shore but our old stomping grounds don’t look the same and I’m not sure if I belong here anymore but I just can’t forget from where I came.”
This album has lots of themes of a world constantly changing around us, the rampant use of alcohol to tamp down the feelings caused by that same world, and the need to reach out to our friends and our loved ones during those uncertain times. My favorite track on the album “Lost a Friend” holds the same emotional poignancy, “Here’s to a new beginning, here’s to a bitter end. Here’s to the long walk on my own cuz I just lost a friend.” While we’re still mourning the spectres left in our memory we get angry; angry at the grind of working until your dead like in “The Good Life” or, like in the closing track “Not The Same,“ angry at the wolves in sheep’s clothing that hide amongst your friends and neighbors.
A wise band once said, “All we need is a punch in the face”. That’s exactly what Frenzal Rhomb provides with their latest effort The Cup of Pestilence. Australia’s finest pick up where they left off on Smoko at the Pet Food Factory and Hi Vis High Tea, ripping through 19 songs in 32 minutes. […]
A wise band once said, “All we need is a punch in the face”. That’s exactly what Frenzal Rhomb provides with their latest effort The Cup of Pestilence. Australia’s finest pick up where they left off on Smoko at the Pet Food Factory and Hi Vis High Tea, ripping through 19 songs in 32 minutes. A sonic punch in the face, if you will. The tone is set as the album opens with the lightning fast lead single “Where Drug Dealers Take Their Kids”, which is followed by the somehow even faster “Gone to the Dogs” (honestly, almost every song on this record is fast as fuck, so I’m gonna try to refrain from using that as a descriptor going forward).
“The Wreckage” proves Frenzal Rhomb is the only band that can write a love song with the word “cunt” sprinkled quite liberally throughout its lyrics (upon subsequent listens I’ve determined this is about a bromance, not a love song, but I’m too lazy to rephase this so fuck it). Other tracks like “Dead Man’s Underpants”, “Lil Dead$hit”, “Dog Tranquilizer”, and “I Think My Neighbour is Planning to Kill Me” provide a dose of the absurdist comic relief fans have always been able to expect from Frenzal. “Horse Meat” recounts the tale of a vegan who relapsed and “went from tofu salad straight to horse meat”, while “How to Make Gravox” pays tribute to the band’s favorite canned gravy product. It’s world-shaking stuff, if I’m being honest.
“Fireworks”, “Hospitality and Violence”, and “Finally I Can Get Arrested In This Town” power through the next stanza of The Cup of Pestilence with even more three part vocal harmonies and blues-on-speed guitar leads from The Doctor, backed by rapid fire drumming, courtesy of the fucken Metrognome Gordy Forman. All three songs are about a minute and 30 seconds long; blink and you’ll miss ’em. Most importantly, I believe “Those People” sets a new record for the number of times “cunt” has been used in a Frenzal Rhomb song, but who’s counting? Wait a second, I am! The word “cunt” is uttered approximately 22 times in this song. For comparison’s sake, “World’s Fuckedest Cunt” has a mere 13 cunts; “Cunt Act” closes the gap a bit with 18 cunts.
When it comes to its sonic qualities, The Cup of Pestilence pretty much sounds exactly the same as Frenzal Rhomb’s last two records. The band made the trek overseas to record in the friendly confines of The Blasting Room, where they previously recorded Smoko and Hi Vis, with Bill Stevenson once again handling production. All that’s really changed is they’ve got a new bassist in Michael Dallinger, but he’s been in the band going on four years now (and used to be in an excellent band named after Frenzal’s “Local Resident Failure”). Let me be clear, though: when I say this record sounds the same as the last two, that’s a good thing. Those records kicked ass. Unsurprisingly, this one kicks ass, too.
The one bone I’ll pick with The Cup of Pestilence (and I’m really grasping at the shortest of straws here) is it’s somewhat lacking in variety compared to Hi Vis High Tea. Of course, most of that album was blazing fast skate punk, but songs like “Beer and a Shot”, “The Black Prince”, “Messed Up”, and “Food Court” offered a refreshing change of pace and allowed you to take a breather between headbanging sessions on “Classic Pervert”, “Storage Unit Pill Press”, etc. Outside of “Deathbed Darren” and brief intros on “Old Mate Neck Tattoo” and the album closing “Thought It Was Yoga But It Was Ketamine”, The Cup of Pestilence does not afford you the same luxury. But I’m sure that’s what the people want, and in all likelihood Frenzal Rhomb based their decision to make a purely balls-to-the-wall record on extensive market research. Alas, I was not present at that board meeting.
Well, it’s time to give the album a score. Let’s go with 4 out of 5 Star Emojis ⭐⭐⭐⭐✰ That’s a nice round number, innit?
The Cup of Pestilence arrives April 7th on Fat Wreck Chords. Pre-order the record here (US), here (EU), or here (AUS).
A bouncy bass line opens the album as, instrument by instrument, the band begins to join into the energetic opening track “Weird Time” for Reno pirate punks The Deadly Gallows. It’s been over a decade since their last full-length album was released but the mood is set with staccato plucks of a frenetic banjo over […]
A bouncy bass line opens the album as, instrument by instrument, the band begins to join into the energetic opening track “Weird Time” for Reno pirate punks The Deadly Gallows. It’s been over a decade since their last full-length album was released but the mood is set with staccato plucks of a frenetic banjo over melodious accordion that paints a landscape over steady yet corybantic drums and washboard, only parted momentarily by a wailing guitar. All these players make a mad musical melee that reaches its crescendo almost as quickly as it built.
On Ode II Gard the Reno, NV octet uses basically everything but the kitchen sink to set a jaunty yet haunted rip through an album of mad marauder music recorded at Pus Caverns by Joe Johnston. The naming of the album is an ode to their late drummer Niels Odegard who passed away unexpectedly over the summer. This album is not a somber remembrance though, it’s a pirate party, and though I was not personally close to Niels it seems like a proper send-off.
The 8-member ensemble grooves to the second track “Decisions” which goes from a dark dance feel with growled lyrics about life decisions and regret to a faster section of soloing over a modern punk/dub rhythm that stabs at you with the hook of the music.
“Dead Man’s Tale” is a lament from the grave of a man who has been wronged which has the entire gang of instrumentalists shouting along “dead men do tell tales.” The following track “Madness” keeps the energy of the last track, and, even through the hectic fiddle from violinist Alan Lyons, a gleam of optimism is shown in lines like “And all my friends, this is not the end, it’s just a one-way ride through hell and back again” which reframes the twisted world narrated by lead vocalist John Underwood.
We get more upbeat yet restless tracks like “Rise From the Depths” that serve the theatrical nature of this band, or songs like “Lockjaw”, which was first featured on their eponymous 2009 album, features some trombone work from Boss’ Daughter’s own Chris Fox, that add to the legend of this band. We get deeper subject matter about watching loved ones struggle with addiction in “Throw Your Life Away” which delivers gut punches rhythmically as well as lyrically in verses that bemoan the situation, “I find myself trying too hard to please you. I’ve had my fill of all of your evil treasons and all along, I still get dramatic scenes and we are all still wrong.”
As the album comes to a close we get two more rollicking tunes, “4AM” and “Seasick” the latter of which really shows off the cohesion of this crew. Call-and-answer vocals between Underwood and the gang he’s leading swagger around the song, and an ear-catching shared solo between violin and guitarist Hector Acevedo leads us back into the next verse before we are once again under the seasick supervision of Underwood in the chorus.
This is a fun album. Each individual member of this band brings depth through the chaos of it all. I’m a sucker for musical comedy and novelty songs, but The Deadly Gallows aren’t a one-off novelty, they’re weirdos and I love them. Call it what you want, pirate punk, guttergrass, antifolk, but if you like raucous gang vocal punk then this album has something for you.
The Real McKenzies are celebrating thirty years as a band with a brand new album, Songs of the Highlands, Songs of the Sea (Fat Wreck Chords). The album itself was preceded by the release of the single “Leave Her Johnny”, a traditional 19th-century sea shanty that has been performed by many folk acts over the […]
The Real McKenzies are celebrating thirty years as a band with a brand new album, Songs of the Highlands, Songs of the Sea (Fat Wreck Chords). The album itself was preceded by the release of the single “Leave Her Johnny”, a traditional 19th-century sea shanty that has been performed by many folk acts over the years, and a fitting example of what the album has in store.
Songs of the Highlands, Songs of the Sea is an album of 12 traditional shanties and folk tunes; the title really gives it away in that some are songs of the Scottish Highlands, and others are songs of sea fairing and the sailor’s life.
Time-honoured Scottish drums and bagpipes open the album, with distorted guitars soon joining in, setting out the classic Real McKenzies sound of Gaelic punk rock with a strong traditional folk feel. Foot stomping, fist pumping, hey! shouting, “Scotland the Brave” is one of the unofficial national anthems of Scotland and is as good an opener as you’d expect. I know if I were Paul McKenzie I would open every live show like this!
“A Red, Red Rose”, a poem by the famed Robert Burns, is one of several songs on this album penned by the legendary lyricist and voice of the true Scotsman; “Ye Jacobites By Name” and the stomping “My Heart is in the Highlands” are also penned by his hand. The expected Real McKenzies sound continues on through “The Green Hills of Tyrol” and the lead single “Leave Her Johnny” and “My Heart’s in the Highlands”.
These songs are legendary for a reason and were written to be performed. I can well imagine a live show, unexpectedly finding myself in the pit, singing my heart out for Scotland in much the same way I sing for Ireland with the Dropkick Murphys. It is important that these folk songs remain as folk songs; that is, songs for the people, to be performed by and for the people, interpreted as needed for the time and audience. While nationalism and pride in your home are often negative traits, these songs remind us that we can be proud without it being at the expense of others.
At this point, the album takes a step down for me. We’re halfway through, I’m fired up, I’m ready to rock and next we have “Sloop John B” performed with acoustic guitar. It’s perfectly good, but I don’t see what it offers above or beyond every other version (Beach Boys excepted). There’s nothing wrong with it, and perhaps those with more polished taste will appreciate the darker feel than the Californian Pop version, but I keep waiting for the electric guitars to kick in with a big fast chorus in the style of so many 90s punk covers. Maybe it would sit better, grouped with other slower songs?
“Drunken Sailor”, picks up where it should be going for me: fast, mean, the way a shanty should be delivered, with the pounding drums and distorted guitars, and shouted lyrics and the cold sea wind rattling the windows, fogged with the breath of a crowd of drunk sailors.
“The Bonnie Ship The Diamond” takes a more traditional folky sound, which is to be expected for the band, but isn’t really to my taste. The Real McKenzies have always felt more like a folk band that listen to punk rather than a punk band that listen to folk, and in that is the uniqueness of their sound. I fear I lean more toward the punk than the folk, so perhaps it is lost on me.
“Dead Mans Chest” caught me out, opening with the riff of “American Jesus” by Bad Religion, complete with pick slide into the first verse. It’s an interesting take on both songs, but the familiarity of the Bad Religion classic takes away from the familiar “yo hoho and a bottle of rum” lyrics for me. I honestly wondered if they had chucked in a Bad Religion cover, and although it is a classic in this scene, it’s not what most would consider a traditional anthem!
“Swansea Town” is sung by Brenna Red from the Last Gang, and it takes the song in a similar direction to “The Bonnie Ship The Diamond”, with winsome melodies and a feeling of sadness that carries the words through the song.
Closing track “Blow the Man Down” is another traditional shanty sounds like it was a lot of fun to record, but I’m not sure where its place on this album really is. Much as with “Sloop John B”, it is a faithful performance, but it doesn’t feel like the Real McKenzies have really made it their own in any way, and in part that sums up this album. In places it is a Real McKenzies album that just happens to be traditional songs rather than originals, but in part it is also the Real McKenzies playing some traditional songs in a traditional way. I am almost certain these songs would be incredible live, and since they are on tour in Europe from January 2023, I shall make the effort to get out and see them and confirm my suspicions!
Vægtløs hails from across the Atlantic in Denmark! After playing their first show in June 2022 the band started to take off. Less than 30 days after their first show, they were asked to play support for shoegaze legends Nothing, and word about the band started to creep out. It resulted in a few interviews […]
Vægtløs hails from across the Atlantic in Denmark! After playing their first show in June 2022 the band started to take off. Less than 30 days after their first show, they were asked to play support for shoegaze legends Nothing, and word about the band started to creep out. It resulted in a few interviews and features from different magazines around the world, and when their first single dropped, it got more than 2000 streams in one month on YouTube. This band’s unique sound has them with a fan pool who would also like Lightbearer, Pianos Become the Teeth, Oathbreaker, Deafhaven and Lack. They’ve taken the world by storm and will have 46 record labels around the world simultaneously drop their album on Feb 2nd this year. This album has such a huge and deep impact for the band members and I can only hope the lyrics hit for some of you as they did for me. The world needs more music such as this to be able to relate and trudge through our dark times and be reminded that there is still light.
What do you do when one of your best friends gets diagnosed with cancer? How do you handle losing someone close to you? Vægtløs are trying to wade into questions like these on their upcoming album, which solely includes songs about people close to the band who died or suffered deadly diseases.
They focus on a vulnerability and openness that are lacking in the music scene, but also in society as a whole. Life is fleeting and fragile, and they’re taking it upon themselves to act as a bridge to close the gap between the monumental emotional dread underlying the fact that all beauty will eventually die, and the cathartic strength found in music.
Jumping into this record, it really doesn’t have too many songs; four of them to be exact, but don’t let that fool you. The lyrics and the heaviness of their stories more than make up for the unusual number of tracks. Not to mention each track is between 9-10 minutes long. The music very much reminds me of a chaotic and stressful environment with someone screaming to their unknown entity, “Why things have happened the way they have”, mixed with “I’m not letting this take me out, no matter how bad this hurts”. Each song was paired with a small explanation of the tracks and their stories. Knowing these little tidbits of information may even bring the song to life in a way we haven’t experienced before. Many artists tend to leave songs open to interpretation, and I love that these guys have shared their tragic and deep stories behind these tracks.
“Ingenting kan forhindre, at små struber skælver en forårsnat” (“Nothing Can Prevent the Small Throats from Shaking on a Night of Spring” in English) is the first track on Aftryk. Coming in at about 10 minutes long, its story is the one that touches my heart the most, having myself lost family members to cancer. This track was originally written to be a fight song for the vocalist Troels’ sister-in-law who had been diagnosed with cancer for a second time. When she ended up succumbing to the disease before the release, it took on a new meaning. They’ve written this song for her daughter, to explain that life is beautiful, even if it hurts sometimes. They make sure to stress the importance of letting the memories of our loved ones remain in our hearts forever, which I couldn’t agree with more.
“Først da vi bar din kiste gik det op for mig, hvor meget tungt du skulle igennem, før du blev så let” (“Only When We Carried Your Coffin Did It Dawn On Me How Much Heavy You Had To Go Through Before You Became So Light” in English) is the second song on this album and runs for 9 minutes. This track is a letter to Troels’ father, taken too soon with fond memories left in his wake. The final lyrics are a beautiful homage to his father as he sings a direct translation of Bob Dylan’s “If You See Her, Say Hello” as it was his favorite song and what was played as his coffin was carried from his home. The beauty behind this track’s lyrics had my empathetic side struggling to get through it, yet I couldn’t stop listening.
“Her i vores hjerter bærer vi en ny verden” (“We Carry a New World Here in Our Hearts” in English) comes up as the third track on Aftryk and this encompasses the struggle with addiction, specifically alcoholism, although I feel it can be translated to any vice. It talks of the struggle to reject the vice and understand the struggle of the alcoholic and the young child that doesn’t understand it. The turmoil it can cause and the way humans need to be compassionate to those whose stories we don’t walk. Showing compassion and understanding to those that you may not even understand, and just being kind. Perfect representation of “you have no idea what someone else is going through or carrying around with them, so just be kind.”
“Tag dit knuste hjerte og lav det til kunst” (“Take Your Broken Heart and Make It Into Art” in English) brings up the end of the album in such a beautiful way. This 9-minute track gives us an intro that is calm and serene for about 4 minutes before it picks up into their usual chaotic instrumentals, and the lyrics just tie it together beautifully. This track tells the story of Troels’ good friend who has been diagnosed with terminal cancer, yet is still alive and kicking the godforsaken disease in its face to this day. It’s a song of unconditional love to help show life is too short. So, my advice to you is to take this song, hell, take this whole ALBUM, and blast it as a tribute to life and enjoy every minute we’re given on this hunk of rock we all happen to cohabitate on. Life’s too short to be angry, sad, disappointed, jealous, and any other bad emotion you can think of. Appreciate the day and appreciate each other and those you love most.
This record was written and recorded in their own studio, and mixed and mastered by producer Jacob Bredahl, who understood the direction the band wanted to go.
Aftryk will be released and available on all music streaming platforms on February 2nd, 2024!!