MEMORIAMare one of the too few bands that kept me sane the last few years when everyone else and their mother was either turning right wing edgelord, bickering amongst themselves over dumb shit and undermining productive coalition building or wallowing in their privilege instead of accepting genuine critique. This band stayed strong and released killer record after killer record! They spread an “old school death metal and political awareness can be good bedfellows” message that never sacrificed tunes over schooling the masses yet still manage to not skimp in the important knowledge department either (even when banging skulls together)!
The band consists of Bolt Thrower’s iconic Karl Willetts alongside ex-members of Benediction and Sacrilege and will never let you down.
To The End, the group’s triumphant latest, will be out via Reaper Entertainment in late March. Order it HERE.
Karl Willetts states:
“This is one of the first songs that came together for the new album. A song, we got a serious political theme to it, written in the whole time span of the “black lives matter” demonstrations.
So this song is inspired by these events and it is inspired by a friend of mine, who was involved in one of these demonstrations in the USA. She was there to video the event.
And in the process of this, she managed to get arrested and received 80 hours of community service for her work on the demonstration. But she managed it to get very good video footage of the police, warning the crowd and threatening to use chemical weapons to get them off the streets. It was frightening to see these scenes and it inspired me to write the lyrics of the song.
So the lyrics fit very well with the music, which is very hard and hitting. This song is a tribute to all people who was part of the black lives matters demonstrations and of course to my friend.”
Along with Boston hardcore band Move‘s explosive and must hearFreedom Dreams, MEMORIAM’s “Failure To Comply” rounds out a really solid week for informed and meaningful new material in the heavy music scene!
Escuela Grind is one of the most intense AND fun bands out right now in the extreme metal scene. Anyone who has seen the outfit live knows they put on a careening and death-defying show, blending elements of many of the heaviest sub genres into a world changing charge. It has been awesome discovering truly fired up and creative acts such as them, Habak or Hostilities this year, giving me hope for the next generation of ass kickers. When I heard Indoctrination I was hooked and feel blessed Escuela Grind were one of the first bands I caught live when shows revved up again. Long may they reign.
