Features
Now Hear This: Alex Baker on the best new metal, alt.rock and emo
Kerrang! Radio host Alex Baker brings you the new artists you need to check out now, including Alissic, Fixation and stayMellow…
Navigation menu for Kerrang!
Now Hear This
From Burner to Fixation: Daniel P Carter on the new music you need to hear now
Radio 1 Rock Show host Daniel P Carter brings you the new artists you need to check out now, including Burner, Sum Of R and Peach…
- Words:
- Daniel P Carter
Back in the ’80s, the ever-present spectre of nuclear war was a source of existential dread, with classrooms showing instructional videos on what to do in the event of an attack and subsequent fallout. But the threat was also a source of inspiration for the burgeoning thrash scene, for punk rock and hardcore. It seems like we find ourselves in a similar position, and so aside from the abject terror and awful daily news, lets see if some can turn this into a source of protest and inspiration…
Burner
First on today's lists of bands you should be using as a support blanket in these turbulent times are South London’s Burner, an amalgamation of Obituary-style OG death metal and Terror-esque metallic hardcore. The first track to make its way out via Church Road Records, and a follow up to the self released Ingsoc, is the crushing Rat King Crown. The EP A Vision Of The End is due soon, and they’re another UK band to keep an eye on to add to the list of awesome homegrown artists.
Sum Of R
Lahbryce, the new album from Sum Of R, is out this month on Consoling Sounds and it's a nightmarish collision of operatic vocals, post-rock landscapes and crushing noise. Made up of members of Hexvessel, Ural Umbo and Convocation the band, based in Bern, Switzerland, have something about them that's stirring and powerful in the same way as the Cult Of Luna album Mariner, that they made with Julie Christmas back in 2016. Over the course of the band's career their art has shifted across various adjacent subgenres like drone and doom, but the point the new album finds them at is great.
Fixation
A while back I had the world exclusive play of Stay Awake from Norway's Fixation on my show. I've been stoked on them since I first heard them, when I played follow up single Claustrophobic recently I got a text from Jordan Fish asking about the track and the band which I took as a good sign. It's super-hooky well-crafted modern rock that pulls in metalcore, post-hardcore and stadium rock, and will tick all the right boxes that fans of Bring Me The Horizon, Thrice and Thirty Seconds To Mars will connect with immediately, I think. The band's debut album will be dropping this year on Indie Recordings, and I cant wait to hear the rest of it.
An Evening Redness
Fans of Sargent House records artist roster will find something to love in the self-titled album from Chicago-based An Evening Redness. It's beautifully dark and brooding goth-infused post-rock that at times calls to mind Earth at its most expansive, and Chelsea Wolfe at its most fragile. Project mainman Brandon Elkins has pulled together a small but exemplary cast that includes the fantastic vocals of Bridget Bellavia from Blacktxxth across three of the albums six tracks. If an album were a landscape, this is the cracked, dry plains of a desert inhabited by scant vegetation and circling buzzards.
Peach
I was lucky enough to just be sent a bunch of songs by Bristol based band Peach, which were recorded live at Middle Farm Studios over the course of a few days and will make up their debut album. They come across like a fuzzing, propulsive ball of pissed off energy, with a soul at the centre of it all. If you were a fan of the Dope, Guns N' Fucking In The Streets compilation albums, and love the idea of those scrapping with Amyl & The Sniffers with shades of Dry-era PJ Harvey, then you’ll love Peach. They don't have anything online to listen to yet, but you're def gonna be seeing a fair amount more of them, I think.
Listen to Daniel P Carter host the Radio 1 Rock Show, Sunday nights from 9pm.