Tag Archives: Melodic

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High Rise

Some imagery just sticks around you for literally as long as you can remember. I’ve grown up in what’s claimed to be one of the worst places to live in this country nowadays, a place I myself have dubbed as ‘an angry, concrete tramp,’ purely based on the deteriorating collage of grey everywhere and the hotbed of hatred that could threaten to boil over at any moment. While the town is in a chrysalis of modernisation as of late, I stick by what I say and I will take my words and vision to the grave with me. I’ve been fortunate enough to live in moderate comfort my entire life, whereas they’ve been so many more who have been confined to poverty in tower blocks, an image far too common on Luton’s landscape. But where tower blocks have been around me my entire life, a similar sentiment can be said of melodic hardcore five-piece High Rise. Not only can a high rise also be called a tower block, but having been around for five years, I also feel like they’ve been around a lot longer in my life. Although their gestation to this point in time has experienced some turbulence, their life experiences have translated into adrenalin-pumping and mechanically fine-tuned anthems for the voices of disenfranchised youth. Too heavy a tone for hardcore, but with a fighting spirit large enough to hang with the metal crowd, these boys are the perfect balance for whatever you need from modern guitar music. Their Tides Will Take You EP is only four songs deep, with one short acoustic focused interlude that showcases some of the best of the clean vocals, and two of them do stray past the five minute mark but stay constantly enthralling throughout. It is their current calling card Memories however that sits atop the crown of this well constructed wrecking machine. Rocketing out of the gates, the giant bite from dual guitars with some impressively infectious melodies, a damn powerful low end beneath it, completely unstoppable drums and an inspiring vocal performance, unite to tear the house to shreds in a blistering assault on your senses. It’s just the total package. Moods elevate sky high through the tempo shifts, the faster gear shift to begin the riot to the slower melodies to give a platform to the shining vocal delivery, all down to the solo guitar into complete havok and a breakdown that will leave nothing but a smile and a bruise on your face. Memories is aptly titled really, as much like what I’ve grown up with in my lifetime, their characteristics and immediate impact on arrival are impossible to dismay you from the feeling that High Rise, are a band that are here to stay, and their prominence is going to keep growing and growing. Long may it continue.

These gentlemen are very kindly offering a free downloadable copy of their Tides Will Take You EP for free on their Bandcamp page, or if you would like a physical copy and t-shirt of theirs, head to their website, where and or either will cost a small fee. These are some of the most hard-working and committed gentlemen I’ve ever met, so they completely deserve your hard earned money. They also have a large string of live dates until the end of this year, and are teasing something to be announced very shortly. New song? New EP? Debut album? Rub your hands with anticipation regardless.

https://www.facebook.com/highrisebandOfficial?fref=ts

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Canopy

A canopy, according to the Oxford English dictionary, describes a layer or material above our heads, normally suggested as a form of shelter or cover. This actually stems from the Latin word conopeum which means ‘mosquito net over a bed.’ Who says this blog isn’t educational? Any which way you look at it, staring at the word canopy, the image of a Swedish melodic death metal band doesn’t immediately come to mind. But upon listening to the bludgeoning force split between three guitarists, who breathed new life into a dying breed of metal, that vision attaches substantial weight to that single word and a monster of skull-crushing compositions is at your disposal. In tune with the original Gothenburg melo-death trinity of In Flames, At The Gates and Dark Tranquillity, the sextet of Canopy bring the multiple guitar harmonies and unmistakable death growls, but with the aid of heavyweight, denser guitars tones that technology couldn’t produce twenty years ago and the creative influences of some of the more experimental names in the metal game a la Opeth and Strapping Young Lad. Their acclaim for easing emotion and atmosphere out of a darker, heavier style of music speaks for itself. Where 2010’s Menhir succeeds is taking that creativity and ramming it into a combustible yet massively textured furnace, burning with the intensity of a forest fire. Speaking of fire, third track in Earth Splits Into Fire prophecies the self-destruction of our planet and our species through a booming death sentence, led in by acoustic plucking with the inevitable pulverisation of three guitars worth of distortion and downtuning and hammerblows of double kick pedals drawing ever closer, before they collide in a detonation of riffs, shredding and blast beats. Canopy blend the old breed with new techniques in such a way it comes across a fresh approach to metal entirely. Between the six combined muscle powers of these gentlemen, there lays a myriad of incredible musical and technical masterworks that have sunk so far under the radar, it seems ironic that they should bear the name Canopy.

Menhir, their most known album can be purchased either via Bandcamp, or via Dissension.se, where as their previous two albums, Will And Perception and Serene Catharsis can only be bought through Dissension.se.

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Canopy/7778617518?fref=ts

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You Win Again Gravity

I’m an aficionado for a good quote or reference to popular culture, especially when said reference or quote reaches a level of obscurity that only somebody like me, stubbornly restricting myself to limited yet expansive sources, will understand. Conversations will start, and within five minutes, I likely have to explain what I have just said and where it comes from, because I can confuse anyone that quickly. But, to my absolute delight upon witnessing this Windsor post-hardcore mob’s name, I could revel in that I understood where it came from and that others also knew. Lifted from Futurama’s failed philanderer Zapp Brannigan, You Win Again Gravity are a hybrid, fused from a multitude of heavy and progressive forces into a unified juggernaut of monumental stopping power. These five gentlemen are such a well-oiled machine that the complexity of their music at times seems like second nature, and that alone is impressive enough to give them your attention. Skyline, from their late 2014 EP Let Go Lightly, ushers in a quiet series of triplets, before building into a Dillinger Escape Plan style barrage of off-kilter instrumentation into the main body of a strongly textured melodic hardcore anthem. The interchange between screams and singing compliments the progression that the music undertakes wonderfully, and is the crowning jewel in a treasure trove of unbelievably talented musicians. In line with the show their name comes from, this is thinking man’s hardcore, built to punch holes in mountains, but layered with an immense emotional depth and an impressive technical ability that even the most savage of mosh pits will take heed of. May gravity never slow them down.

The three EPs, Let Go Lightly, early 2014’s Brightly Coloured Landscapes and 2012’s Reflect The Change are all available from the band’s Bandcamp page for a respectable fee.

https://www.facebook.com/YouWinAgainGravity?fref=ts