Page 98 - Metal Hammer Issue 334 - UK (May 2020)
P. 98
ALBUM REVIEWS
Parkway Drive: having undernourished hipsters
a devil of a time
at Wacken moving at a loft party, but
for an angularly crisp and
violently noisy punk band,
this quartet’s secret is
groove and soul. It may
be tough to discern from
beneath the dissonant
TODAY IS THE DAY twanging and clanging
No Good To Anyone guitar parries, the collision
BMG of free jazz bleating and
More psyche-ravaged battles from spasmodic noisecore and
the Orland, Maine trenches the brief exploration of
Today Is The Day have subdued no-wave and
suffered their share of krautrock, but caustic
psychic pain over the past sonics have rarely
28 years, to the point where possessed the power to
their career arc seems to sear skin and inflame neck
mirror the different stages muscles while having the
of grief. No Good To Anyone listener clap on the
sees this emotional turmoil two-and-four.
accompanied by real, QQQQQQQQQQ
physical agony, with FOR FANS OF: Breach,
lynchpin Steve Austin Refused, Code Orange
beset by serious, system- CONNIE GORDON
wracking health problems.
The queasily majestic title
PARKWAY DRIVE trademark hood-of-bees
track opens with the band’s
vocals and clangorous
Viva The Underdogs production values, but
overall the poison here is
far more subtle, at times
EPITAPH approaching slowcore levels
Byron Bay firestarters bottle their (Ger)manic energy at Wacken of introspection. If it’s less VIDEO NASTIES
abrasive than the band’s Dominion
wider output, it’s no less APF
THE METEORIC RISE of Aussie scream “Holy shit!” in sheer disbelief at gruelling – an endurance Liverpudlian gore hounds promise
metalcore heroes Parkway Drive has been the sheer number of people that have test of triumph over a bloody good time
well celebrated and well documented, come to see his band at the end of opener suffering, no matter the Video Nasties offer a
but never in such painstaking detail as Prey just immediately gets you in the physical cost. remarkably well-realised
the band do on their excellent Viva The mood. A crushing riff sandwich like Idols QQQQQQQQQQ platter of splatter on their
Underdogs documentary. To followed by a giggle and FOR FANS OF: Converge, debut album, fusing
celebrate its release comes a “Danke” from Winston Dead In The Manger, bombastic melodeath with
Parkway’s first live album, is as close to experiencing Starkweather rambunctious rock swagger
of the same name. It hopes a festival headline set from ALEX DELLER and lashings of vintage
to capture possibly the key the band as you’re likely horror movie samples – like
element that has turned to get without actually At The Gates and Wolverine
Parkway Drive into one of being there. Blues-era Entombed playing
this decade’s most We also get three drinking games whilst
significant acts: their reworkings of Parkway watching The Thing.
always awe-inspiring tunes in German, which, Indeed, the band cite John
shows. In typical Parkway when you consider the Carpenter as an influence,
style, the attitude is ‘go big power metal influence but this doesn’t mean
or don’t bother’, as the band have decided in songs like Vice Grip and Shadowboxing everything is slathered in
to release their headlining set from last (or ‘Wurgegriff’ and ‘Schattenboxen’, TVIVLER spooky retro synth; rather,
year’s Wacken Open Air festival in front as they are renamed here, to pleasingly Ego the band’s unorthodox note
of 75,000 fans. aesthetic effect), actually gives those NEGATIV PSYKOLOGI choices draw more from
Live albums can be famously hit and songs an even stronger flavour than Scandic, avant-hardcore incursions the eerie but campy realm
miss affairs, and there’s no doubt that their original, non-Teutonic recordings. for the stout of heart of horror scores instead of
sitting at home with Viva The Underdogs Viva The Underdogs might not singe your The instant a band calls simply reading from the
playing through your tiny bluetooth eyebrows and leave the smell of burnt themselves “dance punk,” death metal rulebook.
speaker is no substitute for seeing the gasoline in your nostrils like Parkway prejudicial walls are likely Combined with the hooky
flames, the explosions, the circle-pits Drive usually do, but it’s definitely worth to go up, along with an rock leanings here, it makes
and the general madness of Parkway getting involved in. immediate dismissal of for quite a potent combo.
Drive in the flesh. That being said, there QQQQQQQQQQ whatever shit’s being slung. QQQQQQQQQQ
is, has and always will be something FOR FANS OF: While She Sleeps, Heaven Copenhagen’s Tvivler might FOR FANS OF: At The Gates,
about this band’s energy that is so Shall Burn, Killswitch Engage not pointedly identify with Entombed, Carcass
infectious, and hearing Winston McCall STEPHEN HILL anything designed to get KEZ WHELAN
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