A STACKED week of New Music Monday this week, with everything from deathcore to country! Let’s check it out!
Amaranthe: The Catalyst
We’ve already checked out this awesome album. Read our review of it here!
MGMT: Loss of Life
The quirky indie/psychadellic rock band are back with their fifth studio album, and first in over six years. Like it feels like a lot of people, I was a big fan of their debut album back in the day. I can’t say I’ve heard much outside of that, so I’m excited to check it out and see what it’s like.
It’s still weird, for sure. However, there are some really interesting sounds and songwriting choices here. Lead single and opener (aside for intro track) ‘Mother Nature’ has an indie baseline, but then has hints of early 2000s pop-indie and even hints of Smashing Pumpkins throughout. It’s a definite album highlight. The band then follow it up with the fantastic synth-pop/rock opera ‘Dancing in Babylon’, another highlight track and duet with the wonderful Christine and the Queens. Honestly, the all the other tracks are Bowie-like odd, epic, soft rock. It’s a big difference to their more up-tempo, synth-heavy debut, and not what I was expecting. It’s.not a bad thing though, by any stretch. As a big Bowie fan, I loved ‘Bubblegum Dog’. However, some variety, just one more up-beat, ‘Electric Feel’ style track would have been appreciated. It definitely dragged by the last few of tracks.
It’s not a bad album by any stretch, and I’m sure more hardcore fans of the band will love it. However, after a strong start with the first three tracks, it dragged to a hard, slow crawl afterwards. And some of it’s not even interesting-quirky, just boring atmospheric stuff. 4.5/10
Mick Mars: The Other Side of Mars
The only good part of Motley Crue until he was unceremoniously fired put out his debut solo album last Friday. It’s pretty kick-ass. Heavier than his former bands stuff, and possessing more attitude than Crue have possessed in decades, it feels like Mick very much has a new lease of life with this release. It has a swaggering, grungy hard/biker rock feel to it all, which I love. It even has some doom elements at times. Mars is joined by Lynam vocalist Jacob Bunton, Winger keyboardist Paul Taylor, and Korn’s own Ray Luzier. All three men play their parts to perfection and help Mick realise his fantastic sound.
Honestly, I kinda wish Mick had ditched the other three and gone solo decades ago, if this is the sort of quality music we were going to get out of it! Tracks like the opener, ‘Broken on the Inside’, ‘Ready to Roll’ and ‘Undone’ are all fantastic hard rock tracks. For a man in his 70s, it’s insane that he’s written some of the best music of his career here. This is a fantastically written and arranged album, and I’d recommend it to anyone. 8.5/10
Corb Lund: El Viejo
Another album that we’ve done a full review of, aren’t you lucky! Check it out here!
Austrian Death Machine: Quad Brutal
Arnold schwarzenegger-themed death metal band and As I Lay Dying frontman Tim Labedis brainchild Austrian Death Machine are back with their (you guessed it) fourth album. There’s a sentence I never thought I’d type. In terms of the music, though, it’s great. It’s treated a fair bit more light-hearted and fun than AILD, especially with all the voice clips of Arnie throughout. However, the music around that is fantastic. The riffs are crushing and Tim’s screams are just as amazing as brutal as ever. There are plenty of highlights, including the opener, ‘Hey Bro Can You Spot Me?’ and ‘Destroy the Machines’. The whole track is packed full of great songs, though. I love Tim injecting some clean vocals throughout too, adding an almost more deathcore feel to some of the tracks. And the fact that Tim does the vast majority of the studio playing himself is insane, showing off just how talented the man is. If you’re into the heavy stuff at all I’d definitely recommend this! 8/10
Sons of Liberty: The Detail is in the Devil
A band that we’ve grown pretty familiar with here at Overtone, but haven’t seen or heard much about for a while! The last time we spoke to them was a year ago now, when the band were gearing up for a tour with Preacher Stone after a line-up change. However, we somehow haven’t seen them live since 2021!
It’s safe to say the band are just as fantastic as ever on track, though. Their first studio album since 2021, it instantly hooks you in with ‘Time to Fly’ and doesn’t let up for a second through its 40+ minute runtime. Their interesting blend of British Steel-era Priest, Whitesnake/Poison style sleaze and just a touch of southern-blues too is always a fun listen, and pulled off to perfection with this release. Tracks like the opener, ‘Tequila Time’ and ‘Love What You’ve Got’ are all personal highlights, but there isn’t a bad track on the album! I was a big fan of Aces & Eights, but this may actually trump it as my favourite album from the band. In an insanely stacked NWOCR scene these days, Sons of Liberty have their own sound and really stand out, especially with this release. 8/10
Job for a Cowboy: Moon Healer
I’ve seen a LOT of love for this album the last couple of days since it came out all over my socials, so I’m pretty excited to be checking it out! I see why it’s getting so much love, holy shit it’s incredible. Right from the amazing opener, ‘Beyond the Chemical Doorway’, I was hooked and wasn’t released until the end. The talent of the band is off the charts, both from a playing and writing standpoint. This is technical death metal done to perfection. I know the genre certainly isn’t for everyone, but if any readers are into the heavier side of metal, I’d urge you to check this out immediately. You won’t be disappointed! It’s hard to even pick highlights, as every track is amazing. Plus, the album is arranged very well, each track flowing together perfectly. It’s an album that certainly begs to be listened to from front to back. 9.5/10, amazing stuff!
Amigo the Devil: Yours Until the War is Over
Another dark, neo-traditional folk/country artist, and another fantastic album in the genre this week. This one is even more stripped back than the Corb Lund album, though, and has a lot more of folky, almost gypsy-rock feel to it. Tracks like ‘It’s All Gone’ and ‘Once Upon a Time at Texaco pt. 1’ have a real Poor Man’s Poison vibe to them which I LOVE and both are huge highlight tracks. I love the emotion and feel in his vocals throughout too. It’s such an incredible skill to get such raw feeling across purely through vocals, and some of Amigo’s delivery gave me chills. And some of his lyrics too, like on ‘I’m Going to Heaven’ or ‘Cannibal Within, are phenomenal. Honestly, this whole album felt like a real experience to listen to, and I truly cannot gush over it enough. I’d never heard any of Amigo’s stuff until now, but damn does he have a huge new fan in me! I ummed and arred over it, but I think it deserves it. 10/10, what a phenomenal, emotional release.
MONKEY3: Welcome to the Machine
Oh boy, prog time. Five tracks across over 45-minutes, I’m not sure if I’m ready! But, in all honesty, this was an interesting album, for sure! Some of the riffing was incredible, for a start. In fact, all of the instrumentation is really top notch. Sadly, that’s all this was. Now, I’m certainly a fan of instrumental music, and I have nothing against bands that do it. And, for the most part, the band do a good job of keeping it interesting and changing it up through some of their longer songs. However, 45+ minutes of instrumental prog metal is a little too much for my almost-non-existent attention span to cope with. It’s fantastic, and if you like instrumental stuff you’ll love this. But I can’t give it any more than a 7/10
Dust Bolt: Sound & Fury
This fantastic slab of thrash metal is Dust Bolt’s first full length studio release in half a decade. They have spent that time refining their sound and writing one hell of an album! They’ve also added a lot of different influences to their sound, pulling from a lot of modern industrial, nu and metalcore bands as well to create something truly awesome and unique. Opening on latest single ‘Leave Nothing Behind’, I was immediately won over to it, and it only continued its fantastic journey from there. Whether it’s straight up modern thrash like ‘I Witness’ or more groove oriented stuff like ‘Burning Pieces’, it’s an awesome, constantly entertaining album. It has a radio edge to it that not many modern thrash bands do, too. It’s very Metallica, and I mean that as a HUGE compliment.
There isn’t a bad track on the album; every song is incredible. It’s once again impossible to pick out highlights. I’d recommend this album to anyone, even if they aren’t that into thrash. There’s enough other stuff going on, and as I said, it has a radio edge that makes every song hugely catchy. I can’t believe I haven’t listened to this band more, they are exactly my sort of thing and I LOVE this release. I’m going to be listening to it a lot in the coming weeks/months, and don’t be surprised at all if it’s high on the list of albums of the year come December. I can’t quite believe it, but for the second time this week… 10/10!
Today was Yesterday: Self-Titled
The debut album of this grungy hard rock band is pretty awesome. It’s like if Soundgarden and Faith No More had a baby, and I am all for it. A lot of the tracks also feature a guest slot from the legendary Alex Lifeson, which explains why I love a lot of the riffing so much. And yet still, it still had plenty of almost Mr Bungle or Phil Collins or David Bowie level quirkiness at times. It’s a lot of fun to listen to and never gets boring, that’s for sure. Highlights include the opener and ‘My Dog is My God’. It’s not exactly all my sort of thing, but if you like any of the bands I’ve already listed you’ll get a lot of enjoyment out of this! And I definitely wouldn’t turn any of it off if it came back on my Spotify, that’s for sure! 7/10
Desolate Tomb: Scorned by Misery
The blackened deathcore band’s sophomoric album was released last Friday. It’s practically exactly what you’d expect from a subgenre labelled that. It’s crushingly brutal for it’s entire nearly 40-minute runtime. And if you like stuff insanely, early Cannibal Corpse-style heavy, this is definitely the album for you. As I’m sure you can tell by now, I’m not particularly that sort of person. Don’t get me wrong, every member of the band are massively talented and play their parts well. I simply don’t quite get into the wall-of-noise style death metal. If it doesn’t change stuff up from time to time and is all just stupidly heavy, it doesn’t do much for me. And the Chris Barnes-style low growls still just sound ridiculous to me. As I said, if you’re into the music, you’ll probably love it, but I can’t give it more than a 3.5/1o. Sorry lads.