UK prog band The Tangent will release their eleventh album ‘Auto Reconnaisance’ in August. For those who can’t wait to hear the whole thing from start to finish, the band have shared the audio for ‘Life On Hold’, a relatively short and really punchy track that showcases the band’s more chorus driven material.
“[It] touches on the importance of words, their meaning and their power. The lyrics reflect on how words can be used to comfort, empower and encourage. But it also reflects on how they can be used to agitate, hurt and destroy,” says The Phoenix Within’s frontman Omar Feliciano of the band’s new single ‘Tenfold’.
Tackling the themes of using words to build relationships and bridges instead of using them to hurt, ‘Tenfold’ is already a powerful statement, regardless of the music. The track’s arrangement, luckily, has almost an equal power with a set of riffs that very much hark back to the 90s emo movement – specifically bands like Sense Field and Shift – which, combined with a thoughtful vocal performance, results in a fantastic three minute alt-rock tune that should appeal to fans of 90s sounds as well as lovers of bands like Fall Out Boy.
In terms of extreme metal, Dystopia A.D. are a little more interesting than most. The riff-heavy, New Jersey duo are keen to take death and thrash metal sounds into new territory on their current single ‘Plaguebringers’.
“Not a day without a murder / Not a week without a bomb” proclaims Jim Bob, somewhere near the peak of his new single. A burst of punk rock anger shows the one-time Carter USM frontman in a particularly angry mood. …And rightly so, since the world seemed to be falling apart as we all hurtled into the new year, unaware that things were in fact about to get worse.
In January, London based art rockers The Bloody Mallard kicked off the new year by sharing the heavy and complex ‘Subject To Entropy’. A month on, the band have returned with another taster for their upcoming album ‘Realm’.
In the band’s own words, the new single ‘Ceremonious Synapses (ii)’ “signals the most climatic point of the album”. From a listening perspective, it shows the band in a more melodic light than before, but without losing any of their riff-based strengths.