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This month, enigmatic progressive steel legends Tool grace the cover of Metal Hammer as we delve into their mysterious world like by no means earlier than. Over thirty years into their profession, Maynard et al’s distinctive affect looms bigger than ever, so we spoke to 5 of essentially the most thrilling younger bands on the scene at the moment who’re carrying their spirit forwards in new and unpredictable methods.
Hawxx
Teenage rise up regarded very completely different for Hawxx vocalist and guitarist Anna Papadimitriou. “Some individuals be part of punk bands, shave their heads or take medication,” she says. “My factor was changing into a Christian. I might inform my mum that I used to be going out clubbing, however truly I might be going to all evening prayer conferences.” Raised in Athens, Greece as an atheist, in her late teenagers she joined a Nigerian spiritual cult. “I sadly obtained concerned with the fallacious individuals,” Anna continues. “There was numerous abuse and corruption, so I used to be a part of the few folks that determined to show that and shut it down. I ended up being the individual that they mentioned, ‘You had been despatched by Devil to destroy us all.’”
Whereas Anna is reluctant to get into specifics, she alludes to them on hell-for-leather thrasher Chew (Holiness In Fuck) from Hawxx’s 2023 album, Earth, Spit, Blood And Bones. It sees Anna screaming the lyrics: “You defend this fantasy/You are not residing in sin, you are the sin’s bitch.” It’s one among many experiences fuelling Hawxx’s unapologetic wrath. Their blistering progressive steel, which blends rhythmic grooves and visceral onerous rock with hooks sharp sufficient to attract blood, is a turbulent backdrop to a ferocious assertion of intent that calls out the patriarchy injustice and inequality. The album’s lead single, Loss of life Makes Sisters Of Us All, rails in opposition to male violence. Written following the murders of Sarah Everard and Sabina Nessa in 2021, Anna says the band had been aiming to show ache into energy.
“I went to Sarah Everard’s vigil, and I additionally went to Sabina’s vigil. It is a testomony to the ladies which were named and unnamed, and about rage, our collective rage. But it surely’s greater than that, it is also concerning the sisterhood between girls and within the queer group. The grief and rage we share, generates this power that’s unstoppable.”
In 2022, the band performed their largest reveals so far supporting Alter Bridge guitarist Mark Tremonti on his solo UK tour. After a present at London’s Shepherds Bush Empire, Anna acquired a textual content from Patsy Stevenson, the activist who had been detained by police at Sarah Everard’s Clapham Widespread vigil. “She mentioned, ‘I simply need to say thanks for speaking about us and our rights.’”
In the course of the band’s adrenaline-fuelled gigs, that sense of righteous anger bubbles over into one thing primal. “Girls and queer individuals would normally be bodily sidelined and sidelined by way of who the artist speaks to,” says Anna. “For those who come to a Hawxx present, I need these members of the viewers to really feel prioritized and centred.”
Impressed by bands and friends comparable to doom punks Witch Fever and post-hardcore quartet Petrol Ladies, who’re blazing their very own abrasive, outspoken path, Hawxx need to be a voice for change. “The very best pit I’ve ever been in was at a Petrol Ladies present,” says Anna. “Me and all these different girls had been simply going for it, and it was extra than simply cathartic, it was therapeutic. And that simply made me assume, ‘God, that is what I need to be doing at our reveals, to direct this depth someplace particular.”
Of Software’s affect on her band, Anna notes: “They’re the sensible Godfathers. They’ve executed regardless of the fuck they need perpetually, and it’s paid off. They have not subscribed to any of the issues the music trade tells you that it’s essential do. They’re an instance to chop out the bullshit, and keep in mind what’s vital about making music.”
Ou
China has famously given the world many issues throughout its millennia-long historical past: paper, gunpowder, banknotes, an incredible large wall amongst them. However prog metal? Not a lot. Ou are out to vary that. The Beijing four-piece put a singular spin on this most tried-and-tested of genres. Their upcoming second album, II: Frailty, combines knotty heaviness and glitchy electronics with an air of ethereal otherworldliness, the latter courtesy of singer Lynn Wu. It’s like Software jamming with Aphex Twin whereas Björk sings in Mandarin Chinese language excessive.
“There’s numerous actually fascinating conventional Chinese language devices and Chinese language music,” says drummer Anthony Vanacore, Ou’s lone American, of the band’s magnetic sound. “I haven’t borrowed any of that stuff as such, but it surely’s had some affect on me subconsciously. And Lynn’s voice clearly brings a unique ingredient to it.”
Anthony grew up in New Jersey, falling in love with the tradition of his soon-to-be-adopted homeland when he was residing in an space with a big Chinese language group. The chance to tour China with an orchestra on the very finish of 2009 ultimately led to him shifting to the town of Guangzhou and, later, Beijing. It was within the Chinese language capital that he met Ou guitarist Jing Zhang and bassist Chris Cui (the band’s identify is pronounced ‘O’, just like the letter). Lynn joined later, after they requested her so as to add vocals to the instrumental music they’d written. “Lynn comes from extra of a pop background, she hadn’t actually heard a lot steel,” says Anthony of the vocalist, who sings in her native Mandarin Chinese language. “However the best way she approached it simply match like a glove.”
Ou’s debut album, one, was launched in 2022. It attracted the eye of Devin Townsend, who co-produced the follow-up (“Seeing how he labored was inspirational”). The lyrics on II: Frailty could also be impenetrable to non-Chinese language audio system, however the drummer guarantees English-language translations can be posted on the band’s Instagram and YouTube channel. “It’s concerning the frailty of the human situation and all the things that comes with that,” he says. “It’s fairly common.”
In addition to planning their very first dwell reveals, Ou even have a 10-episode animated on-line sequence within the works, based mostly on a cyborg character that shares the band’s identify. The sequence will tie in with the themes of the album, albeit loosely. “I’m a giant David Lynch fan,” says Anthony, referencing the cult filmmaker. “His strategy is: ‘Why will we should be spoon-fed a plot?’ I like leaving issues open to interpretation. Folks ask me, ‘What is that this band about?’ And my response is, ‘I’m undecided.’ I like that it’s a thriller to me.”
“I keep in mind when Aenima got here out, it simply blew my thoughts,” provides Anthony of his love of all issues Software. “It was this uncommon occasion of a band breaking into the industrial world with out compromising who they had been. There aren’t too many bands who’ve executed that.”
Wheel
Life can generally take an odd flip. Wheel frontman/guitarist James Lascelles’s musical tastes had been perpetually warped when he heard Software’s Aenima whereas working in a studio. But regardless of this early love of heavy music, he would find yourself in a Finnish acoustic pop-rock band named Flute Of Disgrace, alongside a former winner of TV contest Finnish Idol. “I did not get pleasure from how managed all the things felt by way of the manufacturing of the artwork itself,” the British-born James says now. “I wished to create issues. In Wheel, in contrast, we have an virtually terrifying quantity of artistic management.”
It’s working for them. The Anglo-Finnish trio have established themselves as one of the engrossing new prog steel bands round. Their third album Charismatic Leaders brings a heavier metallic basis to Wheel’s off-kilter time signatures, elaborate buildings and psychedelic edges.
Lyrically, Charismatic Leaders is a not-quite-concept album that offers with real-world points in an typically indirect method. James says that whereas he has been experimenting with extra summary topics, the music Empire, about Rupert Murdoch’s media empire, is among the many most political he’s written up to now. “The entire level of artwork is to carry up a mirror. Typically I am going to have an opinion to go along with it, however generally it is holding a mirror with no fucking thought or solutions, simply because it must be executed.”
Of Software’s affect, James provides: “What they do higher than anybody is construction and association. The constructing blocks are quite simple however they’re put collectively in extraordinarily fascinating methods. They’re one of the best on the planet at it.”
Mountain Caller
The very best instrumental acts are adept at utilizing their music to tease out feelings and conjure completely different atmospheres. London three-piece Mountain Caller go a number of steps additional, with an entire accompanying narrative finest described as an epic feminist sci-fi allegory. The just lately launched Chronicle II: Hypergenesis picks up the place debut album Chronicle I: The Truthseeker left off, with an unnamed protagonist in search of the which means behind her extraordinary powers. Cue sky libraries, mysterious tomes, a council of owls and a big dose of self-actualisation.
“It faucets into the expertise of anybody who’s marginalised or misunderstood or completely different. I feel the character of the story is about discovering your personal distinctive energy: discovering magnificence in one thing the world has condemned you for,” explains drummer Max Maxwell. The story performs out by means of music titles, musical actions and, with the brand new album, a specific amount of contextualisation, however the band are comfortable for individuals to achieve their very own conclusions. “We’re very eager to not limit the listener in how they interpret and react to the story. If somebody is picturing one thing of their head, then that is what it’s,” says Max.
Musically, the band obtain an expansive imaginative and prescient regardless of their beginning palette containing solely three devices and minimal vocals. There are driving metallic riffs aplenty however these are accompanied by lush post-metal swirls and atmospheric soundscapes that mix to color vivid scenes within the thoughts’s eye.
“As a result of we have now solely three musical voices to make use of, we do should assume just a little bit in another way in how you can add a little bit of variation. El [Reeve, bass] notably goes out of her option to not do exactly what a bassist historically does,” Max says, including that he and guitarist Claire Simson have beforehand informed their bandmate – the one non-Software fan of the three – that her enjoying reminds them in some methods of Justin Chancellor’s.
“Certainly one of my favorite issues about Software is that each one 4 musical voices, have a very distinct high quality to them,” the drummer continues. “It looks like an actual band, like a gathering of equal quarters that come collectively to type this factor that’s greater than the sum of its components. I’d prefer to assume that with us it’s an identical factor. We every take priority at completely different phases. It is a assembly of various particular person voices that makes one thing new after they bounce off one another.
“I like the crescendos they construct, it takes you into one other world,” he provides. On the finish of The Affected person, in Vicarious and 10,000 Days…there are such a lot of factors the place they construct as much as this big launch. Folks consider them as very cerebral however they’re visceral and primal as nicely.”
Each Hell
The top of Brighton post-metallers Black Peaks was understandably painful for Will Gardner. “It harm for a very long time afterwards,” says the singer and guitarist of the demise of his former band in 2021. “And lockdown down fully drove me insane.”
With each of these occasions receding the rear view mirror, Will is pouring his power into Each Hell. Black Peaks are a part of the brand new band’s DNA – inevitable, given the presence of each Will and unique Peaks bassist Andrew Gosden (the line-up is accomplished by keyboard participant/guitarist Evelyn Might and drummer Mark Roberts). “Having Andrew is a giant a part of what we’re doing,” he says. “That heavy bass is on the core of all the things.”
However Each Hell take Will’s outdated outfit as a leaping off level to discover completely different musical avenues – “a continuation and an evolution,” as he places it. The 2 tracks they’ve launched up to now, Freaking Out and The Watcher, strip again the proggy complexity in favour of a rawer and extra direct strategy. “We’re impressed by numerous Converge, Software, Mastodon, but in addition [garage rockers] Loss of life From Above 1979 and even Twenty One Pilots,” he says. “It’s utilizing melody and pop chord sequences, however enjoying them in a heavy vogue.”
The plan for the speedy future is to drop two extra tracks and package deal all of them collectively as an EP forward of Each Hell’s look at Arctangent in August “They’re extra proggy,” says Will of the brand new songs. “A lot nearer to that Peaks sound. But it surely’s early days. We’ve solely been out on the planet for 5 – 6 months now, we’re nonetheless exploring.”
So Will’s one other lifelong Software diehard, proper? Er, not fairly. “I hated Software for fucking years, till 10,000 Days got here out,” he admits. “The primary two tracks, Vicarious and Jambi, they only modified my life. I turned obsessive about Maynard’s voice and simply the perfection they had been aiming for.”
Learn Metallic Hammer’s unique interview with Software of their newest problem, out now. Hawxx’s Earth, Spit, Blood and Bones is out now. Ou’s II: Frailty is out April 26 by way of Inside Out. Wheel’s Charismatic Leaders is out Might 3 by way of Inside Ou t. Mountain Caller’s Chronicle II: Hypergenesis is out now by way of Church Highway. Each Hell play 2,000 Bushes and Arctangent this summer time
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