Category: news

Nietzsche famously said that God had long since checked out, leaving no forwarding address. Now we’re all loitering in the glowing vestibule of our own making, lit by OLED screens instead of stained glass. In America circa now, everybody’s a little messiah with a front-facing camera, canonizing their own reflection in real time, chasing likes like absolution. No pulpit required—just a ring light and the nerve to believe your own press. Why swallow some preacher’s sweat-soaked sermon when you can sanctify yourself, body and bandwidth, a feedback loop of self-worship—half revelation, half peep show, and maybe nobody’s even there.

Battery Licker’s Don’t Look Away comes crawling out of Dallas, where you are still more likely to run into a ten-gallon hat than a goth band, which makes the project a fine little anomaly in cowboy country. They bottle the restless rebel-youth charge of the 80s and 90s, then lace it with industrial bite, post-punk pressure, goth-rock gloom, noise damage, and grunge rot. Imagine The Damned and Type O Negative raising a delinquent child on the languid spoken-word weirdness of Southern Culture on the Skids and the Butthole Surfers, and you are near the right gutter. Don’t Look Away itself sounds like a busted sermon broadcast from a cracked phone in a motel bathroom: the former “new generation” reporting back from the ruins, older now, angrier maybe, but also relieved to discover the confusion was communal all along.

The song comes from the upcoming album New American Jesus, and the title is no polite metaphor. Nietzsche’s corpse is somewhere in the corner, smoking and watching America replace the dead deity with the selfie stick. God is gone, so the feed becomes the altar; the influencer becomes the idol; the algorithm becomes scripture with worse prose.

The central figure is Warhol’s fifteen-minute prophecy boiled down to fifteen seconds, a self-declared saint with Travis Bickle’s wounded glare and a smartphone where the weapon used to be. Fame here feels cheap, desperate, disposable, less a crown than a paper hat from some fast-food monarchy of the damned.

Visually, director and editor Chris Northrup keeps the video in a grainy black-and-white industrial register, nodding to Judas Priest’s Painkiller while letting the slow opening drift toward early Gregg Araki: bored kids, bad rooms, beautiful doom, America with the lights half-dead. The deliberately lousy voiceover is a smart wound in the polish, a crooked human fingerprint pressed against a culture allergic to blemish.

Shot by Northrup, Denny Saldivar, and Brian Ryden, with costume design by Ryden, the clip stars the band and Saldivar as witnesses to their own cheap apocalypse. Don’t Look Away works because it knows the joke is already on us, and still has the nerve to laugh with its mouth full of blood.

Watch below:

Follow Battery Licker:

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The post If You Gaze Into the Feed… — Dallas Industrial Punk Outfit Battery Licker Shares Video for “Don’t Look Away” appeared first on Post-Punk.com.

Disturbing allegations were made against the festival’s founder on social media this week.

The post ‘Slam Dunk’ Festival Founder Steps Down Following ‘Refuted’ Allegations appeared first on Theprp.com.

The speech came during the first stop on Marilyn Manson's current U.S. tour. Continue reading…

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Voidchaser – Interstellar I (April 9, 2026)

Formed in 2023 and based in Montreal and Stockholm, prog metal trio Voidchaser join the line of new and impressive bands making waves in the genre. Now with their sophomore album, Interstellar I, they showcase their dense and layered wall of sound paired with massive and memorable choruses. The deep space concept album features guest appearances by Charlie Griffiths on the massive track “Hyperconverter” and Michael Eriksen on the closing track “Renew.” It is at times relentlessly heavy and at other times unexpectedly melodic, blending sounds of Between the Buried and Me, Dream Theater, Mastodon, Devin Townsend, and others into a really fun listen. The band also leans into dynamic shifts and cinematic textures, giving the album a sense of scale that matches its cosmic theme while still keeping the songs tight and engaging. This is certain to be one of the more entertaining progressive metal albums you’ll likely hear this year, with enough depth to reward repeat listens. This is a must listen.

Order here: https://voidchaser.bandcamp.com/album/interstellar-i-lp

Tracklisting
1.The Grand Design 02:27
2.Welcome to Terra Corp 05:10
3.Initiation Day 07:59
4.Hyperconverter (feat. Charlie Griffiths) 07:26
5.Anything for Love 04:42
6.Rain / Solar Winds 06:33
7.Ivory Tower 07:13
8.Renew (feat. Michael Eriksen) 06:54

Chad Bernatchez — Vocals, Guitar
Jici Lord-Gauthier — Guitar, Bass
Colin MacAndrew — Drums

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Brass Camel – S/T (April 15, 2026)

Recorded at Chalet Studios and co-produced by Kevin Comeau (Crown Lands), Brass Camel’s new self-titled album also features a mix from Terry Brown (Rush), bringing a warm, classic edge to the band’s sound. The record marks a true arrival for the current lineup, serving as both a refinement and evolution of their style while completing a loose trilogy of releases that defines their identity. With a stronger emphasis on lyrical storytelling and a broader dynamic range, the album explores a variety of concepts through dense, detailed arrangements that balance ambition with accessibility. There is a clear classic prog influence throughout, drawing from Yes and Frank Zappa, at times even leaning into bluesy territory, while maintaining a loose, raw, and funky feel that is not often found in modern prog. “Why Bother” even sounds like it could be on Queen II. The result is a confident and fully realized statement, packed with subtle moments and standout ideas that continue to reveal themselves with each listen.

Order here: https://brasscamelband.bandcamp.com/album/brass-camel

Tracklisting:
1.You’ve Got Time 04:48
2.What Are You Going to Do 03:42
3.Why Bother 04:03
4.Can’t Say We Didn’t Try 03:16
5.Ice Cold 03:48
6.Careful What You Wish For 04:48
7.Everybody Loves a Scandal 04:40
8.Catch Us If You Can 05:41
9.Last Call 04:33
10.This is Goodbye 05:16

Daniel Sveinson – electric guitar/vocals
Curtis Arsenault – bass/vocals
Aubrey Ellefson – keyboards/vocals
Wyatt Gilson – drums and percussion

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HeKz – Qisma (April 3, 2026)

UK prog metal group HeKz return with a new concept album titled Qisma, featuring a strong lineup of guests including John Mitchell and Adam Holzman. Following the cinematic opening of “The Gates of Kybagrad,” things kick into high gear with the title track, a full-on metal piece that would feel right at home on a modern Iron Maiden release. The production is stellar and the musicianship equally strong, with vocalist Matt Young delivering powerful performances with a dramatic flair, particularly on “The Future is Here.” This is an ambitious, expansive album, featuring no fewer than two tracks exceeding the 20-minute mark, inviting listeners to fully immerse themselves in its scope. It closes in fitting fashion with the anthemic “A Leap of Faith.” With each track serving as a chapter in the story, the band pushes into bold territory, approaching the concept album format with confidence and delivering impressive results.

Order here: https://hekz.bandcamp.com/album/qisma

Tracklisting:
1.The Gates of Kybagrad 02:01
2.Qisma 03:54
3.The Future Is Here 06:22
4.Defiance 04:31
5.Captured 04:09
6.Venom 06:42
7.The Great Out There 23:53
8.The Road Home 05:54
9.Break The Spell 06:01
10.Overlord 21:04
11.Virtual Utopia 06:23
12.A Leap of Faith 06:19

Matt Young – Vocals, Bass Guitar, Keyboards, Additional Guitars, Percussion
Tolis Zavaliaris – Guitars
Lucia La Rezza – Violin, Cello, Double Bass
Jerry Sadowski – Drums

John Mitchell as THE OVERLORD
Mark Bogert – Guitars on THE GREAT OUT THERE
Adam Holzman – Keyboards & Moog Solo on VIRTUAL UTOPIA
Moyano el Buffalo – Percussion on THE ROAD HOME
Stella D Angelo, Duncan Greenway, Lucia La Rezza, Tolis Zavaliaris – Choir on A LEAP OF FAITH

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Holosoil – Look Up EP (April 17, 2026)

Newcomers Holosoil have just released their debut EP Look Up on InsideOutMusic, marking an impressive first statement from the Berlin/Helsinki-based quartet. Formed in 2024 by Victor Nissim (bass), Jan Kurfürst (guitar), and Altaïr Chagué (drums), with Emelie Sederholm stepping in on vocals, the band quickly establishes a distinct identity across the five tracks on the EP. Tracks like “Spirals” offer a strong entry point, driven by a memorable chorus and dynamic shifts, while “Animal” leans into a more uptempo, groove-heavy approach that highlights the band’s versatility. Sederholm’s vocal delivery stands out with a unique tone and phrasing that gives the material added character, while Chagué’s drumming is particularly notable, injecting energy and precision into every track. There is a raw, exploratory feel to the EP that works in its favor, suggesting a band still pushing boundaries while already demonstrating a clear sense of direction. Look Up is a promising debut that positions Holosoil as a band worth following closely.

Order here: https://holosoil.lnk.to/LookUp

Tracklisting:
1.Look Up 03:03
2.Cracks 03:28
3.Spirals 04:04
4.Freakshow 04:52
5.Animal 04:20

Altair Chague – Drums
Jan Kurfuerst – Guitar
Victor Nissim – Bass Guitar
Emelie Sederholm – Lead Vocalist

The post New Release Spotlight: Voidchaser / Brass Camel / HeKz / Holosoil appeared first on The Prog Report.

Last week, attendees of this year’s Monsters of Rock Cruise boarded the Norwegian Joy and embarked on a trip from Miami to Grand Turk full of good times and great music. It was supposed to be a celebration of all things rock and metal on the high seas, but one dude apparently didn’t get the memo. For one dude, it was a chance to allegedly get belligerently drunk and throw a bitch fit at someone during an exclusive VIP party.

That one dude was ex-Skid Row and current Twisted Sister frontman Sebastian Bach. At least, that’s according to the first-person account shared earlier today by TuFF vocalist and Metal Sludge founder Stevie Rachelle.

In a post over on Metal Sludge, Rachelle claims the incident started on the final night of the cruise. A couple days prior, he’d been told by one of the cruise’s photographers that both Sebastian Bach and Stryper’s Michael Sweet had been talking about him and wanted to meet up in person. Now, Rachelle and Sweet are on good terms these days, he said he quickly learned where he stood with Bach — who he’d once been labelmates with back in the ’80s — during the Artists Only VIP Party.

Upon approaching the newly anointed Twisted Sister vocalist, Rachelle said he was immediately berated and accosted with all kinds of slurs. Oh and weirdly enough, an allegedly high amount of references to Bach’s dick.

“I kept my composure as he repeatedly called me a ‘fat homo’, and continued to ask me, ‘do you want to see more pictures of my cock’, he made sure to add, ‘your website sucks’ and also told me, ‘I’m going to have you kicked off this ship.’

“This went on and on, more insults followed but the ‘Fat Homo’ and asking me about his ‘Cock’ was repeated over and over… perhaps 6-8x… not sure what that all meant.

“I stayed calm, didn’t use any profanity and never even raised my voice… but, I made sure to stand right in front of him and stared at him similarly to the in-ring stare-down from Mike Tyson towards Peter McNeeley.

“I just watched him as he ranted and flailed all over… the same thing we’ve seen on YouTube videos when he throws a temper-tantrum. At some point security arrived and got in-between us, and separated us… of course once they were there, Bach‘s anger, and threatening words “let me at him” got louder and more aggressive.

“I stood there calm and offered the following: ‘I’m right here… come get me.’ Bach blurted out; ‘Fuck You, you Homo!’ again.”

Apparently, this was all in response to years of Metal Sludge covering Bach and his well-documented bad behavior. Rachelle contends that all of his coverage was “either A. 100% truth, or B. the opinion of those who have contributed” to the site.

While it’s understandable for a public figure to take issue with how they’re being portrayed in the media, it’s another thing to do so hurling homophobic slurs at people. Remember, this is the same guy that Rachelle points out was photographed in a 1990 issue of Metal Edge magazine wearing a shirt that read “AIDS: KILLS FAGS DEAD”. He said at a later date that he understood it was “not cool to make fun of death,” he followed that up by saying that he “[does] not know, condone, comprehend or understand homosexuality in any way, shape, form or size.”

So yeah, dude talks a lot about his dick to other men but it’s Rachelle who’s a “homo”. Strange.

According to Rachelle, security eventually had him removed at Bach’s request. That led him to be escorted out of the party, but his girlfriend was not thrown out with him. Still, when she went to go tell the other people she was chatting with that she had to leave, Bach allegedly began berating her. Here’s Rachelle’s recollection of what happened:

“Once I was outside the club, my girlfriend came to ask what happened as she was seated with her friends on the other side of the venue… I explained what went down and she went back to tell her friends she was leaving.

“Upon her re-entering the venue, Bach accosted her, got right in her face and berated her with insults: ‘F#@k you! You F#@king C#%t. You F#@king B!tch’ and more.

“My girlfriend was not with me for 1 second in that club, I was with other guys, and she was with her friends… not sure how he even knew she was my girlfriend, but regardless, he found her and went after her like only a coward would.”

If that’s true, that’s a massive L as the kids say, Baz. Huge bitch ass move. Real small pee-pee energy, bud.

Bach comes from a time when bad behavior by rock stars was anticipated and oftentimes celebrated. Those were the days when excessively teased out hair ruled the Strip, excessive alcohol and drug use was the norm, and women were nothing but sex objects that fueled countless songs of girls only being seventeen and whatnot. Hell, the “bad boy” persona basically made bands like Mötley Crüe, Poison, Guns N’ Roses, and the like.

Sadly some folks from that era seem to have never gotten the memo to reign it back in their advanced age. For them, the party never ended and unfortunately, it’s led to some super cringe-inducing moments on and off stage. Bach is allegedly one of those people, having found himself in the headlines for all the wrong reasons numerous times since his Skid Row days. At 58 years old, he just can’t help but keep acting out.

Rachelle ultimately closed out his statement/recollection/post by offering up a sort of olive branch to Bach. He suggests that the Canadian-born singer get treatment for his alcohol abuse while hoping that one day they could talk like grown-ups in the future. Rachelle is a bigger man than most, given the circumstances.

After reading what Rachelle allegedly experienced, I keep thinking one thing: Dee Snider is famously straight-edge. Up until recently, he’d never taken drugs, smoked cigarettes, or drank alcohol. The guys in Twisted Sister are used to that kind of leadership. What’s going to happen during their tour when Bach begins to have solo ragers and acts like a fucking moron on stage, screaming at women and being an all around dick? We’ve seen it before, so it’s not outside the realm of possibility.

The post Report: Sebastian Bach Threw an Embarrassing Drunken Bitch Fit at Tuff’s Stevie Rachelle on Monsters of Rock Cruise appeared first on MetalSucks.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
RELEASE DATE: June 6th via CDN RECORDS


MENTAL ANGUISH Unleashes Brutal Grindcore Assault From the Buffalo and Niagara Underground

Emerging from the gritty borderlands of Niagara Falls and Buffalo, New York, Mental Anguish arrives with a no-frills, full-force grindcore attack forged from decades of underground experience and a deep refusal to dial anything down.
While the name is new to the modern extreme metal landscape, the people behind it are anything but. The members have carved their reputations in the trenches of Western New York’s underground, cutting teeth in bands like Immortal Terror, Grotesque Infection, Eternal Torment, Arsenic Disposal, and Anthropic. All that history gets funneled straight into something faster, heavier, and more merciless.
Mental Anguish operates with a simple lineup and a simple mission: destroy everything in their path.
Chris Hull delivers guttural, barked vocals that hit like a warning siren in a collapsing factory. Carl Pace carves out razor-edged guitar riffs with surgical precision. Russ Martin holds down the low end with thick, crushing bass lines. Jim Santillo turns the kit into a war zone, hammering out relentless blast beats and chaotic rhythms with zero restraint.
This is grindcore in its purest form. Fast. Ugly. Efficient. No wasted motion.
In 2024, the band introduced themselves with their debut release Demo ’24 , recorded at Watchmen Studios. Across five tracks including “Construct of Fear,” “Perilous Grasp,” and “Whore of Babylon,” Mental Anguish laid down a statement of intent: songs that rarely stretch past two minutes but hit like they could level a block. It is raw, unfiltered extremity captured exactly as it should be, loud, abrasive, and unapologetic.
What sets Mental Anguish apart is not just speed or heaviness, but the weight of where they come from. The Niagara and Buffalo underground has long been a breeding ground for DIY extremity, and this band carries that tradition forward without compromise. No trends. No polish. No dilution.
Just impact.
With Demo ’24 already making noise in underground circles, Mental Anguish is now poised for the next step, pushing deeper into the modern grindcore landscape while staying firmly rooted in the chaos that built them. Whether in cramped basement venues or spreading through underground networks worldwide, this is a band built to overwhelm.
Western New York grind is alive, loud, and not asking permission.
And Mental Anguish is leading the charge.
RELEASE JUNE 6th ON CDN RECORDS
Check out the video and subscribe; 


 Follow the band at these links:
https://mentalanguish1.bandcamp.com/album/demo-24
https://cdnrecords.com/label-artists/mental-anguish/
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61560670433904
https://www.instagram.com/mental_anguish_grindcore/
Contact: jimmyt1110@gmail.com

I’m the prophecy

Holy grail of the lost epiphany

From the ashes of lies

The truth will rise

C Z A R I N A’s stunning new single, Holy Water, manifests like a page torn from an illuminated medieval manuscript and held to a flame. The song moves with cathedral force. Gregorian chant rises through modern synthpop architecture; orchestral swells gather around darkwave machinery; the voice stands at the center like a figure stepping through smoke after centuries of exile. Holy Water treats rebirth as ritual, and ritual as revolt, turning faith’s language toward self-possession. The repeated invocation of purification and flame becomes less a plea than a coronation, a fierce rite of recovery after falsehood, banishment, and spiritual theft.

C Z A R I N A is not playing at medieval mysticism as decoration; she enters it as a living grammar for power, exile, and return. The Divine Feminine here is neither slogan nor soft-focus symbol. It is a commandment written in salt, iron, flame, and breath. Kitsuné performs as both relic and ruler, veiled yet blazing, anointed yet dangerous. Her presence turns the video into a procession of images: sacred rage consecrated under open sky, the body as altar, the voice as blade, the horizon as witness. Fire and water, those oldest enemies and accomplices, meet again and again until cleansing becomes combustion.

The video, self-produced by Vero Faye Kitsuné and Carlos Kitsuné, summons a medieval world of sea cliffs, ceremonial garments, sacred fire, and sovereign return, all framed with the grave beauty of a religious vision unfolding at the edge of land and legend. Visually, the clip draws from the Arthurian and medieval cinema of Excalibur and Ladyhawke. The garments carry weight. The landscapes feel chosen by weather and myth. Galicia’s Costa Da Morte gives the video a severe, salt-bitten grandeur, the kind of coastline where a saint, a queen, or a doomed knight might plausibly appear at dawn with blood on the hem and revelation in the eyes. The sea does much of the speaking: enormous, indifferent, ancient, a moving wall against which C Z A R I N A stages her reclamation.

By the final repetitions, the video has achieved the feeling of a ceremony completed. Something has been named, burned, washed, and claimed. Holy Water becomes a gothic sacrament for anyone who has had to walk out of ruin carrying their own crown.

Watch the video for Holy Water below:

As C Z A R I N A, Vero Faye Kitsuné moves between ancient rite and future gleam, standing at the charged intersection of form, myth, and feeling. A New York native now rooted on Galicia’s wind-carved coast, she draws from progressive darkwave, polished synthpop, Futurepop’s sharpened pulse, and the grand architecture of prog rock, joining them into a realm where myth, machinery, and emotion answer to her singular vision.

Listen to Holy Water below and order the single here.

Follow C Z A R I N A:

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• Spotify

The post “Consecrate This Sacred Rage” — Darkwave Warrior C Z A R I N A Completes Her Grail Quest in Video for “Holy Water” appeared first on Post-Punk.com.

Finally, some normalcy this year.

The post King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard Have Finished Their 28th Studio Album appeared first on Theprp.com.

Melvins – Strummer’s – Fresno, CA – April 22, 2026

Highly influential Washington legends the Melvins played a tune up/gas money show at Strummer’s in Fresno on Wednesday night on their way to the Sick New World Festival in Las Vegas on Saturday.  Strummer’s is named after Clash frontman Joe Strummer, and is an all-ages single room 400 capacity venue in the Tower Arts District of Fresno.  Inside, the vibe depends largely on the band, but for the shows I’ve seen, it leans heavily towards chaotic mayhem.  Outside, the mayhem is different because the venue is in a part of town with homelessness issues, where drugged out denizens yell at invisible people and patrol the streets like a scene ripped from the script of Night of the Living Dead.  Despite its seedy location, Strummer’s hosts a constant stream of great eclectic bands, and is worthy of the journey if someone you love is playing there – like the Melvins. 

Melvins

The Melvins are an institution, forming in 1983 and inspiring countless bands including Tool, Soundgarden, and Alice in Chains.  Kurt Cobain was a massive fan, and vocalist Buzz Osborne helped facilitate Dave Grohl joining Nirvana in 1990.  Pioneers of sludge metal and the sound that later became the hallmark of grunge, Melvins were always a band musicians loved, and it’s perplexing that they didn’t become as massive on a global scale as their Seattle peers.  Perhaps it was that they prioritized artistic freedom over commercial success – there simply isn’t a formula to their 20+ records – they played whatever they wanted without catering to whatever trend was fashionable at the time.  The Melvins are the real deal, not because of the countless bands they influenced, but because of the mountain of music they’ve made to date and their standout live performances – it takes just one show to be hooked, and there’s a reason they’re still incredibly relevant 43 years after forming. 

I mentioned that this was a tune up show for Sick New World, but that implies a half-assed and not ready for prime-time effort – that is not at all what the Melvins delivered in Fresno on Wednesday night.  What fans at the sold-out Strummers witnessed was something beyond belief.  There are a lot of great live bands, but this was next level.  I’ve seen them several times, and each time they’ve been incredible, with powerhouse songs and a live show so good you want to hop in your car after the show and see them play the following night a few hundred miles down the road.

From the floor, the first thing I noticed was the two dualling upstage drum sets, placed side by side.  I’d only seen the Melvins perform with one drummer, although I knew they frequently used two.  When Coady Willis and Dale Crover came out and started into a quasi-synchronized intro, I knew it was going to be great.  Steve Shane McDonald has been a constant fixture on bass and backing vocals with the Melvins since 2015, after founding Redd Cross as a middle-schooler, and added a must-watch factor to the stage show.  Jumps, posing, writhing on the floor, and sticking his tongue out at fans while standing precariously on the edge of the stage lording over the crowd are all part of the fun.  And we haven’t even talked about Buzz Osborne (King Buzzo)…  A white shock of hair coupled with a flowing mumu/sorcerer’s cloak, and clear EGC guitar in hand, Buzz appeared suddenly on stage-right, while the audience was under the spell of the twin drum intro.  It’s hard to describe his performing style, except that he’s all-in, and isn’t saving anything for the next show.  As soon as he’s delivered a vocal, he patrols the stage, frequently accenting notes with a violent shake of his head, sending his hair on an impossible mission to play catchup.  A complete tour-de-force and freak of nature, Buzz reigns over it all while seeming to be guided by an unseen force, pulling him this way and that. 

At most concerts, photographers shoot from the photo pit up against the stage.  At venues like Strummers, there is no photo pit, and in order to get up close to shoot, you need to arrive before the fans.  In my case, I arrived at 5:00pm for 7:00pm doors, and it was good that I did.  A line quickly formed, and stretched around the block by the time we were let in.  To properly photograph concerts, your head needs to be on a swivel, looking, anticipating – trying to document what it was like to be there and capture the overall feel.  In those moments when the camera wasn’t pressed to my eye, I found myself staring awestruck at what I was witnessing a few feet and at times mere inches away with a huge smile on my face.  All four members were fantastic, both sonically, and performance-wise, and there was always something to look at – just when it seemed that it couldn’t get better, somehow, inexplicably, it did. 

The mosh pit opened up right behind me the instant the first notes came through the PA, and I got throttled…all night.  The stage was waist-high, with a wedge speaker directly in front of me.  Fan participation is to be expected with the Melvins – the energy being put forth from the stage is returned from those in attendance, and that was certainly the case on this night. Every time I got hit from behind, the speaker would move as I got shoved into it – I’d haul it back to its proper spot, where it stayed until I got struck again ten seconds later. 

Near the end of the show, I started worrying about my cameras getting destroyed, and figured I’d work my way to the outskirts of the chaos between songs and take some long-lens photos.  That strategy had always worked before at Strummers, but not on this night.  There were too many people, pressed too tightly together.  An opening big enough to stand in didn’t appear in the crowd until I was near the entrance, which was at the back of the large open room.  I’d worked hard to get there with my cameras raised in the air to both alert people that I was coming through and also so they wouldn’t get damaged.  While fighting against the flow of humanity like a salmon swimming upstream is never my idea of fun, it made me think how cool it was that in a small agricultural town in the middle of nowhere, this many people had crammed into a hot dark room to witness an event.  They had all come to see the Melvins – a powerful band four+ decades in the making, doing their thing the way only they can.

Setlist:

1) Working the Ditch

2) The Bloated Pope

3) Never Say You’re Sorry

4) Sway

5) Evil New War God

6) It’s Shoved

7) Queen

8) A History of Bad Men

9) The Bit

10) Blood Witch

11) Hag Me

12) Honey Bucket

13) Revolve

14) Night Goat

 

Melvins are:

• Buzz Osborne – Guitar/Vocals
• Dale Crover – Drums
• Coady Willis – Drums
• Steven Shane McDonald – Bass

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Crobot vocalist Brandon Yeagley has never been the type to overthink things, and that, perhaps more than anything else, is what has kept the band vital through nearly a decade of lineup changes, label turbulence, and the kind of life experiences that tend to derail lesser outfits. With their new album Supermoon dropping May 1st, Yeagley sat down with Robert Cavuoto to talk about what makes this record different from everything that came before it. The short answer: intention.

“I really wanted to put that microscope on everything,” Yeagley explained. “I wanted to approach a record for the first time and make sure that every single word was where I wanted it to be. Every single theme, everything that every song was about was extremely intentional.”

That’s a shift from how Crobot has historically operated. Their previous record, Obsidian, came together under less-than-ideal circumstances. “We didn’t have a label, and we didn’t expect that,” Yeagley said. “So we had a bunch of stuff lying around, and we put something together.” Supermoon, by contrast, was built from the ground up — and a major reason for that was the arrival of a new rhythm section.

Drummer Nico and bassist Willie are new to the Crobot lineup, but they’re anything but strangers to the band. Yeagley traced the connection back 13 years, to a night when the pair were still teenagers playing their first gig. “We saw these kids playing, and we were like, these kids got it,” he recalled. The relationship deepened over the years — Crobot would crash at the brothers’ parents’ house while on tour, and the family would return the favor with home cooking and freshly folded laundry.

When the previous rhythm section moved on, there was never really a question of who was coming in next. “Who else could we have gotten that is as passionate about the project as we are?” Yeagley said. “Nobody, aside from these kids that grew up playing Crobot songs and really just grew up loving the band.”

The new lineup sort of reshaped the album entirely. Songs that had been sitting on the shelf for years, some written during the Mother Brain era, suddenly found their place. The process became collaborative in a way it hadn’t been before, with the new members voting on which tracks made the cut alongside Yeagley and guitarist Chris Bishop. “You’re asking big fans to pick what they like,” Yeagley laughed.

The DNA of Crobot‘s sound, Yeagley is quick to point out, hasn’t changed. “It’s Clutch mixed with Dio, mixed with Soundgarden, mixed with Rage Against the Machine and everything in between.” The band’s commitment to fun and authenticity remains the filter through which everything passes. “Can you bob your head? Can you shake your hips? Does it make you just feel good?” Those are the questions that still determine whether a track survives.

One of the standout songs on Supermoon is “Me and Your Mother,” a George Clinton-flavored deep cut that Yeagley describes as “me being my most George Clinton in our discography.” It’s also deeply personal. “The song came before,” he explained. “We worked on it when my wife was pregnant with our first, with Presley.” The track is, in the most Crobot way possible, a funk-laced creation myth dedicated to his daughter — and, as Yeagley put it, his preferred method for eventually having that conversation. “I’m just gonna put this on. I’ve already told it to you.”

Throughout the interview, the bond between Yeagley and Bishop comes up repeatedly, and it’s impossible to ignore. They’ve been building Crobot together for the better part of a decade, and the relationship has clearly outlasted the band’s various lineup configurations. “We truly love each other,” Yeagley said plainly. “Every time we get off the phone, we say I love you.” He also happens to have Bishop‘s face tattooed on his arm — which, he acknowledged with characteristic humor, may finally necessitate getting his wife’s name on the other one.

As for what comes next after Supermoon, Yeagley is characteristically unbothered. Crobot will tour, write, and trust the process. “It’s the easy scale,” he said of how they evaluate new material. “How easy was this one? Was it really easy? Then it’s probably better.” Given how Supermoon came together, that philosophy seems to be working just fine.

To preorder Supermoon and its various bundles, head over here.

The post BRANDON YEAGLEY Talks CROBOT’s Creative Process For New Album “Supermoon”, New Line-Up & Band’s Sound DNA: “It’s CLUTCH Mixed With DIO, SOUNDGARDEN & RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE” appeared first on Sonic Perspectives.