As you know we have been playing Omnivi3e’s new single ‘Panic Button’ over the past few weeks so this week we decided to get Omnivi3e on the phone to chat all about it.
Category: Music Genre
Sydney artist Nick Pes is back with a killer new single titled ‘The Feeling.’ This week on Subculture we got him on the phone to chat about it.
Brisbane’s very own Aversions Crown have been wowing fans right around the world with their own style of sci-fi metal over the past decade and now they are returning with their brand new album Hell Will Come For Us All which the band promises captures a new sound that sometimes borders on the heaviest the band have ever sounded.
“This is our fourth album now,” says guitarist Mick Jeffrey when I ask him what the band had set out to do with this new release. “We’ve been around for awhile now so I guess in a way we wanted to really mature our sound. We’d been touring the last album for a couple of years. We knew what songs were working well and we knew which ones were transitioning to the live setting and of course which ones were not going over as well. So we brought all that board when we started to compose the music for this album.”
Some fans will be surprised to hear that there also wasn’t much of a gap between the album cycles either. “We pretty much started working on this one straight after the last one so we had a whole lot of material ready to go when we started to select which tracks we would use on the record,” explains Jeffrey. “I guess the other thing that we wanted to do on this album was branch out a bit with the lyrics and play with the imagery of what the band is really about. Previously it had pretty much all been science fiction and aliens in theme. That had really worked for the band and it suited our records but we didn’t want to always been re-hashing the old material and feel like we hadn’t really evolved. So, we decided that we really wanted to try some new things and that is what we did with this album.”
Of course as change as big as that can mean a bit of a stressful time for a band and I ask Jeffrey how it felt for Aversions Crown to have to change important things like the themes that the band explored in their lyrics. “It actually felt pretty natural,” he admits. “It wasn’t something that we really forced, we just really started writing and it just happened like that. We had a whole lot of ideas just coming forward and then everybody just seemed to connect with it and it just felt really natural.”
“It wasn’t a forced process at all,” he says continuing. “It’s not like we felt that we had to get away from this we just felt that maybe it was time to try something a little different and you know it is a pretty small niche, pigeon-holed market that we had been put into. We were really being pigeon-holed as an aliencore band which is really a sub-genre within a sub-genre and that is a cool thing and we were stoked that people loved what we were doing but it was just time to just branch out into the world of death metal and I think that we have achieved that on this record.”
When you take a listen to Hell Will Come For Us All it is easy to hear that the lyrics this time around touch on much more personal things and Jeffrey says he is pleased that that side of the band is now on show. “Our new single, “Born In The Gutter,” that just came out that really looks at the theme of class divide,” he explains. “It looks at how where you were born in the world can determine your quality of life to at least start with if not for the rest of your life. There is some pretty heavy imagery in the film clip and the lyrics kind of delve into that. That’s just one example of the stuff that we talk about and I guess with the album for lack of a better term it is probably more worldly. It has a lot more things on it that people can relate to and once again it just felt like something that was really natural for us to write about.”
As I talk more to Jeffrey I learn that “Born In The Gutter” is a track that he is really proud of and a track that he just can’t wait to be able to play live. “Oh yeah,” he says laughing. “It just has that classic Aversions Crown riffy feel to it throughout the verses. Then it has a real beatdown to it and there is a kind of cool aggression to it and to me that was one of those tracks that was always in. When we were demoing it it just felt like one we could always envision ourselves playing live on stage.”
Of course we are not going to be able to see Aversions Crown on stage for a little while yet but we can all go out and grab a copy of Hell Will Comes For Us All when it is released on June 12th through Nuclear Blast Records.
Heralded as “the most polarizing metal band since Limp Bizkit” by Revolver Magazine, EMMURE has always let the music do the talking, and they don’t plan on stopping. Today the band has announced that they are releasing a new studio album, Hindsight, digitally, on June 26, 2020 via Sharptone Records. Physical copies will be released July 24, 2020.
In support of today’s announce, Emmure has released a new single ‘Uncontrollable Descent’ off the forthcoming album.
Regarding the new single, lead vocalist Frankie Palmari shares, “The label asked me to attach a quote about the new album and this new single so that there can be some words to chew on as this press release goes out. I am not sure what to say. I simply hope the fans enjoy the song as much as we do and look forward to the full album releasing this year. Beyond that, I don’t believe in explaining what the music is supposed to be about. In fact, I consider it creatively bankrupt to rob people of a chance to experience, dissect and create their own unique ownership of what a song potentially represents to them. I want people to hear the music and take away whatever feeling they want. If an artist is outright telling you why a song or album was written, not only do I personally find it pretentious, but they might as well spoon feed you your meals and pick out your clothes for you, since you’re clearly incapable of thinking for yourself. What makes explaining it even worse than what I already mentioned, is that the message within is literally and figuratively already spelled out for you, so if you can’t figure it out or at the very least surmise your own explanation, then you’re better off just reading a dictionary if you’re too lazy discover the meaning in something for yourself.”
Hindsight continues the creative partnership between the band’s singer (and sole remaining original member), Frankie Palmari, and whirlwind guitarist Joshua Travis, who injected fresh energy into 2017’s Look at Yourself. It reunites the band with producer WZRD BLD, aka Drew Fulk (Dance Gavin Dance, Motionless In White, Bad Wolves). But where its predecessor viciously fought through suicidal ideation, feelings of hopelessness, and failure, Hindsight is somehow more savage and refined.
Emmure’s confrontational spirit and irresistible hooks won them fans on Rockstar Mayhem, Warped Tour, Knotfest, countless festivals, and on tour with a diverse range of bands that includes Five Finger Death Punch, Killswitch Engage, As I Lay Dying, and co-headliners Whitechapel. Across eight albums – like the genre classics Speaker of the Dead (2011), and Eternal Enemies (2014) – Emmure battled their way into the extreme music scene like uninvited but necessary guests.
The band’s moniker references “immurement,” a particularly brutal form of execution where a person was trapped behind walls and simply left to die. Emmure has defied all death sentences, however, from without and within. And while they’ve never been one to court awards or accolades, the fact that heavy metal tastemaker Loudwire put them alongside iconoclastic troublemakers GG Allin and Marilyn Manson in a list of 10 Bands That Didn’t Care If You Hated Them, just before the release of Hindsight, was exactly the kind of press to earn Frankie’s retweet.
Tenacious, raw, and uncompromising in a sea of fakery, Emmure proudly stands apart.
Hindsight is out June 26, 2020 via SharpTone Records
Melbourne based Rocker Sev Lah has released his new single‘Caught On The Outside’, which was recently premiered on Triple M Aussie.
Sev Lah plays music that harkens back to the glory days of Brit-Pop and Garage Rock, while pushing the genre into modern territory.
Sev’s love for music started early, as he discovered the music that would change his life in the form of his father’s CD collection. He continued to cultivate his Gallagher-esqe talent for songwriting as he grew up, started a family, and made a living, but it wasn’t until getting into the studio with prominent producer Darren Hart of Harts that his career truly began to take shape. Collaborating with Harts he turned his big collection of acoustic demos into a full albums worth of songs bursting with the kind of defiant energy that has gone missing from rock in recent years.
Sev Lah has hade a huge 2020 so far. He has released several singles (‘Free My Soul’,
‘The Revolution’ and ‘Coming Around Again’), which have received positive reviews from Triple J, Happy Mag, Forte Mag and many more.
New single ‘Caught On The Outside’ is available on all major online stores.
I Prevail have just dropped the powerful video for the “DOA,” which features rap dynamo Joyner Lucas.
Things keep rolling along for I Prevail. The band has generated well over 200 million total streams on last year’s sophomore blockbuster ‘Trauma‘. The quintet also received nominations for two GRAMMY Awards in 2020 — in the categories of “Best Rock Album” for ‘Trauma’ and for “Best Metal Performance” for the single “Bow Down.”
The band’s most recent single “Hurricane” landed at No. 1 on the Billboard Rock Chart. It marked the first chart-topping single of the band’s career. The acoustic version, dubbed “Hurricane (Reimagined),” is available here. The band also shared “Feel Something,” a track with EDM artist Illenium. Listen and “feel something” here.
I Prevail have managed to forge a direct and immediate connection with fans through their music. They took a mental health breakdown and turned it into a powerful body of work. Their numbers—north of 200 million streams and 100 million views and a Top 15 debut on the Billboard Top 200 — are why the band has ascended to the uppermost echelon of the rock genre.
Melanie C has today released brand new single ‘Blame It On Me’. This follows the success of latest track ‘Who I Am’, which went top 10 on iTunes across Europe, South America and the UK, was playlisted at Radio 2, and saw Melanie perform sets from her home studio ranging from The Late Late Show with James Corden and BBC 1’s The One Show to a specialist mix for i-D Magazine.
Furthermore, Melanie has been busy under lockdown adding the final touches to a brand new studio album, further previewed today by its euphoric second single, ‘Blame It On Me’. She has also brought fans together around the world in a series of quarantined live-streams, featuring Q&As on physical and mental wellbeing, the next generation of Girl Power (see a conversation with Rina Sawayama for Crack Magazine), plus some familiar faces (Melanie B, Sink The Pink cohort Glynn Fussell and frequent-collaborator Biff Stannard, who co-wrote ‘Who I Am’ with Melanie, have also guested thus far).
‘Blame It On Me’ is another blast of unapologetic modern pop from Melanie C, calling out toxicity in a relationship over a life-long love of disco, electronic music, and the sometimes-life-long journey it takes to stand up for yourself. It’s the perfect follow-on to the anthemic ‘Who I Am’, a track that embraced the power of vulnerability and also (in its affecting video) saw Melanie explore the past, present and future of Sporty Spice.
2020 has seen Melanie C return to the solo pop stage on her own unequivocal terms. A vital voice in the modern discourse on depression, body positivity, and the LGBTQ community, her trailblazing influence has arguably never been more apparent. Whether presenting her friend Billie Eilish with a BRIT Award, being remixed by a hero like Joe Goddard or discussing her journey thus far on a recent episode of Desert Island Discs, Melanie is also hard at work on her most celebrated music in years. New single ‘Blame It On Me’ continues to evolve her sound as much as it sees Melanie look back to her roots: she did, after all, cut her teeth not just in the biggest girl band in the world, but in the club-culture surrounding her childhood of Widnes (where she’d sneak off and attend Prodigy raves). With over 100 million records sold and multiple BRIT, Ivor, Billboard and Olivier Awards under her belt, her forthcoming album nonetheless feels like new, more assured ground for Melanie C – and a glorious new chapter for Girl Power.
Kate Miller-Heidke’s ethereal voice makes this empathetic gesture on her new single, “This is Not Forever.” The sentiment behind the song is simple but weighty – a plea for a loved one to hand over their hurt.
“I could see someone very close to me was falling into a depression. I’d seen it before and I wanted to let them know I was there for them in a very serious way. The song was written about six months ago, before all this happened,” she explains, referring to the global shutdown amidst the spread of Covid-19 – a context that imbues “This is Not Forever” with new resonance. “Listening to it in these changed times, I feel it more deeply than I did before. It just seems like the right time to put it out.”
Cinematic in scope and sound, “This is Not Forever” is a testament to people: trusting them with your ideas and your emotions, and allowing yourself to be close to them emotionally if not physically, just for now.
That belief extends into the music video for “This is Not Forever”. A collaboration with director Christiaan Van Vuuren and choreographer Lucas Jervies, the poignant video sees dancers trade the stage for their living rooms and backyards, encapsulating the hopeful spirit of the song in communal motion. Shot in isolation by each dancer on their phone and pieced together by Van Vuuren, you can watch the video here:
In late 2019, just months after Kate brought her unique blend of indie-pop, folk and opera to the Eurovision Song Contest with her song‘Zero Gravity’ and where she was also the first Australian artist to win the Marcel Bezençon Artistic Award (an award presented to the best artist as voted by the Eurovision commentators) – she threw herself into another new challenge. Paired up with producer Justin Stanley and songwriter Ingrid Andress at the APRA AMCOS SongHubs on the Gold Coast, and challenged to make a song in a day, the trio embarked on a collaboration that had evaded Kate during her career.
“I’d always kind of shied away from the pop song-writing tradition of baring your soul to strangers, and then writing a song. But I think after the whole crazy Eurovision experience, how exposing that was and that super hectic year, I was just feeling confident enough for the first time to do that, to sit in a room with strangers and write a song that way. And I’m so glad I did, because it’s really changed my whole approach.”
Kate had been writing music for over two decades, during which time she followed the path laid by her idols, one that involved channelling her deepest feelings alone in a room. “It was personal. It was like a pure channel, between the muse and the songwriter.” But following her experience at Eurovision, she realised there had been seeds of fear and social anxiety that led to her distrust of doing it any other way.
“After Eurovision I felt like, I can do anything now. Nothing’s going to be as exposing; I’ve been as vulnerable as I can be.”
In surrendering to the collaboration, she tapped into the intimacy of the song, and found that writing with others led to her ideas becoming more distilled, more effective.
Kate Miller-Heidke is one of Australia’s most celebrated artists, a sublime vocalist who effortlessly traverses the worlds of contemporary pop, folk and opera. She has released four studio albums including O Vertigo! which debuted at number 4 on the ARIA Albums Chart, Nightflight, which reached number 2, and Curiouser, which reached double platinum sales and spawned the multi-platinum hits ‘Last Day On Earth’ and ‘Caught In The Crowd’. Her yet to be titled fifth studio album is slated for release later this year.
Australian pop/prog sensation VOYAGER are now announcing the re-issue of their highly praised album ‘Ghost Mile’ (2017), which will be released on July 10th via Season of Mist. The album will be pressed on vinyl for the very first time. Pre-orders are now live HERE.
The band comment on the release: “What a Wonderful Day. Whilst we’re all feeling a bit Disconnected, why don’t we take a walk down To The Riverside and take in the Fragile Serene? This will prepare ourselves for the limited edition vinyl pressing of Ghost Mile, which goes on sale this Wednesday! This Gentle Earth is recovering from a huge ordeal, and we want to extend a Lifeline during this time. Misery is Only Company, and soon the darkness will give way to Ascension playing through your speakers on July 10th. So As the City Takes the Night on May 27th, head to our Bandcamp or to Season of Mist’s online store to claim your copy.”
The digipak version of ‘Ghost Mile’ will contain three bonus tracks which were recorded during the VOYAGER show at ProgPower in 2017.
Excellent news from AMARANTHE: The band just finished the studio recordings for their new masterpiece! The sixth studio album from the Swedish modern metal heroes will be out on August 28th, as the band revealed in a digital press conference last weekend.
The band states: “Our sixth album is now completely DONE! Last Sunday, a few select press members and music industry professionals got the opportunity to hear our new effort, and the response was overwhelming, fanning our flames of excitement even further! We can now officially unveil that the album will be out on August 28th, and the entire AMARANTHE band and team is smouldering with anticipation to unleash this monster upon an unsuspecting world – stay tuned for the most monumental and accomplished AMARANTHE record to date!”
More information on this highly anticipated album will follow soon. Check the AMARANTHE and NUCLEAR BLAST channels to stay up to date!
With their foundations tracing back to 2008, the group has released 5 albums since then (2011’s Amaranthe, 2013’s The Nexus, 2014’s Massive Addictive, 2016’s Maximalism, and 2018’s Helix), consistently delivering hauntingly catchy tunes led by their unique three-part vocals. Within their arsenal of hit singles – with ‘Drop Dead Cynical’ leading right at the front – a myriad tracks have been received very well via press and fans alike; having also gained countless plays on both radio stations around the globe and across streaming services (the group’s songs have been streamed close to a billion times on Spotify). A string of support tours have blazed AMARANTHE‘s trail in front of huge crowds as well as at their own headline concerts (the group impressively once performed in front of 10,000 fans at Liseberg, Gothenburg). They have kept working incredibly hard over the years, the latest product of which culminated in the form of Helix, which achieved them some of their highest chart positions in the band’s history (Switzerland #21, Germany #29 etc.).