The soundtrack metal of your summer

Code Orange has solidified its reputation as a group to be taken seriously, despite the youth of its members (all in their twenties), with her new album <em>Underneath</em>.

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June 26, 2020

Updated on June 27, 2020 at 6h16

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The soundtrack metal of your summer

Guillaume Mazoyer

The Sun

A round-up of five albums the best metal of the summer of 2020.

Lamb of god, self-titled Album, already on the market

In general, the groups are launching albums namesake at the beginning of the career, but the veteran of the metal scene, american Lamb Of God have waited over 25 years before producing their own. Released on 19 June, the album is a condensed version of the best of Lamb Of God. The riffs are complicated and catchy, the solos are technical and melodic as forget about all of the breakdowns always too heavy, the group serves his winning recipe, while keeping a side innovator. After that Chris Adler, the legendary drummer of the band in inimitable style, had to leave the ship in 2019, the band’s fans were awaiting with great anticipation the delivery of its successor, Art Cruz. The ex-drummer of Wings of Plague completes the brilliance of the other musicians and participates to deliver one of their best albums from the era Sacrament and Ashes of the Wake. The singer Randy Blythe made in regards to him forgetting his 49 years and offers one of its benefits voice the most brutal, accurate and heavy. It is a good wine that ages well. The album also contains two tracks with guest artists, Chuck Billy of Testament and Jamey Jasta of hatebreed influence. That’s candy for the ears of metalheads in this summer season.

Bury Tomorrow, Cannibal, 3 July

Arriving straight from Southampton in England, the group Bury Tomorrow wants to prove that the genre metalcore is not dead, and that he knows how to renew. Their sixth studio album, Cannibal , is a fine argument in favour of this thesis. It combines with perfection the riffs aggressive typical of the genre and the choruses melodic which rapidly turn into worm ear. The gravelly voice and angelic Jason Cameron, one of the best today to make a catchy song, replaces the time of a chorus in the song-saturated and bold, of Daniel Winter-Bates during the verses, and gives a distinctive sound to the group. The track Choke is the best illustration. It is played in a loop in the house, perfect for get motivated to start the day or to be sung wildly in the shower. Already well-known from the metal scene, Bury Tomorrow, the risk of seeing his career catapultée to the next level with Cannibal, an album of confirmation for this quintet.

Code Orange, Underneath, already on the market

Code Orange has solidified its reputation as a group to be taken seriously, despite the youth of its members (all in their twenties), with her new album Underneath. The formation of hardcore punk, which makes one hesitate even the metalheads the most hardened and jump into the moshpit, recurrence with a scrapbook punch of 14 songs with a beautiful maturity. The sound raw of the group is enhanced by the sound effects of synthetic weird. As in the visual and in sound, the album Underneath is like a ride in a psychiatric hospital, abandoned, in a world that is dystopian in the future. Jami Morgan, the drummer-singer, has left his farm to devote himself exclusively to his singing in guttural, a heaviness tenfold on this album. The guitarist Reba Meyers comes for it to occupy a larger place in the album with some appearances in the song clear, particularly on the title track of the album. A song that also proves that the group is experimenting with pieces more atmospheric.

Underneath is perfect to shake his hair happily during a round-trip Quebec-Montreal on the 20. The riff that closes the explosive song Swallowing The Rabbit Hole is so powerful that François Legault should have to deal with that to frame it legally.

Igorrr, Spirituality and Distortion, already on the market

If area 51 had a soundtrack, this would be the most recent album of Igorrr. This group of metal experimental French is a ufo elusive. If it did this time not composed a song with a chicken — see the video clip Chicken Sonata —, Igorrr book, an album just as intriguing, strange and ingenious. True to his signature, it includes elements of baroque, electronic music, traditional instruments and of course of metal (usually black metal), on which he shall affix an opera voice completely off the wall. The album is a journey of infinity in a galaxy of music still unexplored, and only Igorrr knows the secret. The album is marked by a collaboration of unusual, with George “Corpsegrinder” Fisher, singer of the famous band Cannibal Corpse, on the song Block. If you’ve always wanted to hear an accordion on a metal drum, the song Musette Maximum will satisfy all your desires.

Igorrr is the brainchild of multi-instrumentalist and producer of French electro Gauthier Emissions. Initially a solo project, it has since been joined by two singers, Laure Le Prunenec — the opera voice of women — and Laurent Lunoir, as well as by drummer Sylvain Bouvier. As far as the songs, the video clips are worth visiting, such as the Very Noise.

Unleash The Archers, Abyss, 21 August

The formation of Vancouver’s Unleash The Archers, has announced the release of his new album Abyss for the 21 August. Founded in 2007, the group combines an effective blend of thrash, death and power metal, on a bottom always melodic. Especially, the voice of the singer, Brittney Hayes comes to give an epic dimension to the songs, own the power metal, but without falling into the aspect sometimes cheesy genre. His voice is so powerful that one would almost fear that the echo of one of her cries resonates to the infinite in the Rocky mountains.

The simple Abyss gives himself the airs of a song from Iron Maiden and promises an album that is aligned on the previous one, composed as a hymn of the warrior of the Sixteenth century. After all, the group is called Unleash The Archers. The only thing missing is a song of sailors, similar to their famous song “Northwest Passage”.

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BLACK LIVES MATTER AND THE METAL

With the death of George Floyd, the United States and the world have been beaten by the movement Black Lives Matter. The metal scene has not remained impassive to the events and wished to provide its support, including the following examples.

The group california Machine Head, old road of heavy metal, has composed two songs in support of the movement, gathered together on a mini-album dubbed Civil Unrest. The profits are returned in major part to the Grassroots Law Project, dedicated to George Floyd and other victims of police brutality in the United States. Very active on the social networks, the singer of Machine Head, Robb Flynn said to have composed the lyrics of her song Stop the bleeding on the day of the scandal surrounding the death of George Floyd. Rapidly produced, this song also see the singer of the band Killswitch Engage, Jesse Leach. During the chorus you can hear Robb Flynn sing : “Beating after beating/Throat choked under knee/Help me please/Because I can’t breathe/Just stop the bleeding”, that can be translated as : “beating after beating/throat smothered under a knee/Help me please/Because I can’t breathe/Stop the bleeding”.

The second song is called Bulletproof and has been recorded in December 2018, but has never been unveiled. The lyrics have been altered to address recent events.

Many voices in the metal are raised to denounce the events in public messages, as the lead singer of System Of A Down, Serj Tankian, or Matt Shadows of Sheila Sevenfold. The legendary group Black Sabbath, has also taken a position. The uk training decided to produce a t-shirt for Black Lives Matter, on which there is written the name of the movement with the typography well-known of the album Master Of Reality of the group, in letters purple. The t-shirts are sold for 25$, the unit and all profits will go to the foundation Black Lives Matter Global Network.

Groups less known to also take part in initiatives in favour of the motion. This is the case of the british band Disturbed who has decided to start a compilation of 10 songs, all of different groups, in order to raise funds. The album is entitled We Stand : BLM Collective Vol. 1 and contains songs of bands like Exist Immortal, Is Hollow Ground, A Titan, A Deity , or even training from India, Bloodywood. You can hear it here.

The metal music is also a genre that has groups that are denouncing for many years the police brutality. If the rap was Ice Cube and his group N. W. A, the metal has the singer Ice T – often best known for his roles in television, as in the series New York, special unit – and his group Body Count. For the past 30 years, the group Body Count has made to the police brutality in the United States its central theme. As a premonition of the events of the end of the month of may, Body Count released an album on the 6th of march last, entitled Carnivore, with, among others, the song Bum-Rush, which speaks of revolution against the system.

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