Thought Leaders (ex-Totimoshi, The Mass) drop heavy 80s post-punk single via Echoes & Dust

Bay Area heavy post-punk band Thought Leaders share a new single today from their forthcoming full length debut via Echoes & Dust. The new band is made up of underground punk/metal vets, including ex-members of The Mass (Crucial Blast Records), Totimoshi and Dora Flood. Hear and share "Burning Glass" HERE. (Direct Bandcamp.)

Metal Injection recently launched the video for "Saturday Night Leave" HERE. (Direct YouTube.) New Noise Magazine previously shared the lead single "Jane Doe's Estate" HERE. Outburn Magazine shared "Come Evening" HERE. 

Things change. We’ve all become painfully aware of that in recent times. And Thought Leaders is a band thoroughly borne of change. 

The Bay Area based modern, aggressive post-punk quartet dishes out addictive, saturated songs in the vein of Killing Joke, Bauhaus and Gang of Four. However, the band’s sound is an interesting pivot for its members — coming from backgrounds in heavy prog acts The Mass (Crucial Blast Records) and Totimoshi, psychedelic Brit-pop Dora Flood and wiry post-rockers Lower Forty Eight — some of whom have also switched instruments in this new configuration. 

The band had just formed in early 2019, issuing its debut 4-song EP Wires Crossed in April that year and begun work on a full length album In Wastelands in early 2020 when the world suddenly ground to a halt. 

In Wastelands wasn’t supposed to be made this way. Pre-COVID, the plan was to record the album with Andrew Oswald (of Marbled Eye) at Santo Studio in West Oakland in June 2020. They had five songs done and four more in demo form when everything shut down. So the band mobilized. They all went mobile and committed to a fully remote recording process. In May, Kirk recorded drums for the five completed songs. Ville, Tyler and Andrew each recorded their parts in their home studios while still negotiating and refining the remaining songs to record. It was a gamble, but they wanted to do something.

With five songs completed, the band finished writing the remaining four and everyone once again recorded their parts separately at their homes. Files were sent to Tyler to mix. The process revealed that the band were onto something. Songs they had never played together began to take on a life of their own. And just as suddenly, they realized they had a powerful LP. Mixes were finished in January 2021 and sent to Justin Weis at Trakworx for mastering. The outcome is an incredibly satisfying album that incorporates elements of post-punk, metal and goth without drifting into cliches of any of these styles. 

Thought Leaders was formed when Tyler Cox (drums, The Mass) and Andrew Lund (bass, The Mass; guitar, Lower Forty-Eight) decided to start writing music in the vein of dark, gritty post-punk bands from the 80s, pulling from a wide array of influences like early Echo and the Bunnymen, Siouxsie and the Banshees, and Wire. Singer Ville V, no stranger to the sound that was being constructed, joined and immediately began contributing lyrics, melodies, and music of his own. Kirk Snedeker was invited to play drums and was a perfect fit, having grown up absorbing many of the same influences. The band works collaboratively, with all members contributing musical ideas and production to create a sonic whole much greater than the sum of its parts.

In Wastelands will be available for download on July 9th, 2021 via King Of Sticks label. Pre-orders are available HERE. 

Thought Leaders are:

Tyler Cox - Bass

Drums - THE MASS (Bay Area proto-jazzpunk, Crucial Blast Records)

WRACK - all instruments, production, engineering

Engineered Thought Leaders’ debut demo/EP “Wires Crossed”

Mixed single “Radiator” and debut LP “In Wastelands”

Andrew Lund - Guitar

Guitar/Vocals- LOWER FORTY-EIGHT (Monotreme Records, UK)

Bass- THE MASS (Bay Area proto-jazzpunk, Crucial Blast Records)

Kirk Snedeker - Drums

Drums - Winchester Revival

Drums - The Locals (Chicago)

Ville V - Vocals

Guitar - Dora Flood (Bay Area psych rock, Elephant Stone Records)

Vocals/Guitar - The Bias / Antenna (CA/Finland 70s sleaze groovers, Ruska Records, Helsinki)

Artist: Thought Leaders

Album: In Wastelands

Record label: King of Sticks Records

Release date: July 9th, 2021

01. Enigma 41

02. Come Evening

03. Burning Glass

04. Jane Doe's Estate

05. In Wastelands

06. Shallows

07. Desire Reserve

08. Enemy Flies Above

09. Saturday Night Leave

Links:

https://thoughtleaders.bandcamp.com/

https://www.facebook.com/thoughtleadersband

https://www.instagram.com/thghtldrs/

https://twitter.com/thghtldrs

 

Clone (NYC, ex-Dead Leaf Echo) & Swallow The Rat (NZ, ex-My Education) each share videos from split album

"Swallow the Rat’s ‘Preservation Plan’ is a taut, melancholy post-punk track with abrasive guitars and hazy, shoegaze density, reminiscent of Sonic Youth with more soaring guitar leads and haunting organ. Meanwhile, Clone’s ‘Woman of the Year’ puts up a dense wall of guitars and a dizzying atmosphere, ecstatic and hallucinatory all at once. They’re two complementary sides of the same, mesmerizing, guitar-heavy coin.” -- Treble

“Dissonant delayed guitars and martial drums abound, and the overall sound recalls late-‘80s/early-‘90s dark indie rock acts.” — Big Takeover

"Both bands share a love for dissonant guitars, off-kilter yet satisfying vocal melodies, and an overall air melancholy in their sonic approach." -- No Echo

Kindred spirits from far across the globe, Brooklyn, NY quintet Clone and Aukland, NZ trio Swallow The Rat each share new videos from their recently released split LP today via The Spill Magazine. Watch/share them HERE. (Direct to Clone's "New Romance" on YouTube and Swallow The Rat's "Don't" on YouTube.) 

No Echo recently hosted the full album stream HERE. (Or listen/share via Bandcamp.)

New Zealand's Swallow the Rat (featuring ex-My Education guitarist Brian Purington) and New York's Clone (ex-Dead Leaf Echo, Squad Car) shared a stage in Queens, NYC on perhaps the last day before the city shut down in 2020. A mutual appreciation society was formed over drinks later that night. Swallow the Rat were in town to play the New Colossus Festival, while Clone were playing what was to be the first date of their debut tour of the East Coast. There were plans to share the stage again in New Orleans and in Austin at SXSW.

A global pandemic put an end to this, but the bands kept talking. Both had recently recorded EPs, and so a plan was hatched: a split 12" with songs from both bands. Four tunes apiece, about the irony of memory recall, the loss of friends by their own hand, frustrations of gender role psyche and the fear of looking back. Dissonant delayed guitars and martial drums abound, despite the oceans and continents separating the groups.

Swallow The Rat / Clone split LP is available on LP and download as of May 21st via Headbump Records. Orders are available via Rough Trade in the US HERE and Golden Antenna in the EU HERE. 

CLONE LIVE 2021:

07/23 Brooklyn NY @ Bohemian Groove

07/31 Brooklyn NY @ TV Eye 

09/31 NYC @ Berlin Under A

09/04 Chicago IL @ Windy City Crash Pop Fest 

09/19 Brooklyn NY @ St Vitus 

Artist: Swallow The Rat / Clone

Album: Split LP

Label: Headbump Records

Release Date: May 21, 2021

01. STR - Fall Away

02. STR - Preservation Plan

03. STR - Don’t

04. STR - Station

05. Clone - Deja Vu

06. Clone - Speak, Memory

07. Clone - Woman Of The Year

08. Clone - Easy On The Eyes

On The Web:

facebook.com/swallowtherat

instagram.com/swallow_the_rat

twitter.com/swallowtherat

facebook.com/clonebknyc

instagram.com/clonebknyc

twitter.com/clonenyc

Deathchant (RidingEasy Records) stream full album ahead of release, tour w/ Warish in October

"Like if Thin Lizzy and Melvins got together. Deathchant is about to become your new favorite band" -- Metal Injection

"A raw, punk spin on classic heavy metal." -- Brooklyn Vegan

L.A. quartet Deathchant are streaming their forthcoming sophomore album Waste today ahead of release via Metal Injection. Waste is the band's debut on RidingEasy Records. Hear & share Waste HERE. (Direct YouTube and Bandcamp.)

Deathchant also announce tour dates with labelmates Warish in October & November. Please see all dates below. 

Revolver Magazine recently shared the hilarious and insane video for "Holy Roller" HERE. (Direct YouTube) Brooklyn Vegan previously launched the single "Gallows" HERE. CvltNation hosted "Rails" HERE.

Heavy music’s evolution has always been a murky swamp of sub-genres. So, combining Thin Lizzy’s glistening twin guitar harmonies with Melvins-grade sludge and a hearty dose of proto-metal psych probably shouldn’t sound so revolutionary as it does in the hands of L.A. quartet Deathchant. But theirs is a special, transcendent sound.

Waste, the band’s sophomore album and first for RidingEasy Records, is anything but. The 33-minute, 7-song blast flows seamlessly from song to song, aided by droning segues, while simultaneously slithering between genres and moods. Rumbling noise, chiming guitar melodies, bluesy boogie, NWOBHM thrash, COC grunge and punk fury all rear their head at times, sometimes all at once. 

Though you wouldn’t be able to tell by the concise structures and well-crafted songs, a lot of Deathchant’s music is improvised, both in the studio and live. That’s not to suggest their songs are jammy — they’re very tightly organized compositions. But the four musicians have that special musical telepathy that allows them to keep the song structures open-ended.

“Improv is a huge things for us and always has been,” singer/guitarist T.J. Lemieux says. “The musical freedom to look at the other dudes in the band and be able to take things wherever we want to go is magical. I like the feel of flying off the hinges.”

Likewise, the band itself is similarly amorphous in its membership. “We run the band with an open door. No lineup is definitive,” Lemieux explains. On Waste, the lineup is: Lemieux, George Camacho on bass, Colin Fahrner on drums, and John Belino on second guitar. 

Waste was recorded live in a rented cabin in the mountains of Big Bear, CA. “We packed a big-ass van and set up in the living room and kitchen,” Lemieux says. “Tracked it live, with overdubs after.” The whole album was recorded over two separate weekends, engineered by Steve Schroeder, who also recorded the band’s 2019 self-titled debut album. 

“I’d say it has sort of a DIY LA punk aesthetic,” he adds. “Very ironically going hand in hand with a classic metal vibe: Thin Lizzy, Judas Priest, classic Deep Purple, Uriah Heep and other melodic heavy rock bands.” 

Waste will be available on LP, CD and download on June 25th, 2021 via RidingEasy Records. 

DEATHCHANT LIVE 2021:

10/21 Phoenix, AZ @ Valley Bar *

10/22 Albuquerque, NM @ Sister Bar *

10/23 El Paso, TX @ Lowbrow Palace *

10/24 Austin, TX @ Mohawk *

10/26 Houston, TX @ The Secret Group *

10/27 Kansas City, MO @ Riot Room *

11/19 Seattle, WA @ Clock Out Lounge *

11/20 Portland, OR @ Hawthorne Theater *

11/21 Sacramento, CA @ Holy Diver *

11/23 Berkeley, CA @ Cornerstone *

11/24 Santa Cruz, CA @ The Atrium at The Catalyst *

11/27 San Diego, CA @ Casbah *

11/28 Los Angeles, CA @ The Echo *

* w/ Warish

Artist: Deathchant

Album: Waste

Label: RidingEasy Records

Release Date: June 25, 2021

01. Rails

02. Black Dirt

03. Holy Roller

04. Gallows

05. Waste

06. Plague

07. Maker

On The Web:

deathchantnoise.bandcamp.com

instagram.com/deathchantnoise

ridingeasyrecords.com

Årabrot's "Rig Rundown" video with Premier Guitar is a must-see!

"They’re at their weirdest and best." -- The Wire

"Take(s) Årabrot forward into a new era... As dynamic and unpredictable as ever." -- The Quietus

"Noise rock gone strange." -- Metal Injection

"Dark and heavy yet almost startlingly accessible. There's really nobody who does this kind of thing the way Årabrot does." -- Brooklyn Vegan

Norwegian Grammy Award winning band Årabrot have granted gearheads a rare opportunity to view the bandleaders' Kjetil Nernes and Karin Park's unique guitar and keyboard setups, as well as the magnificent, secluded old Church in which they live and create music. Premier Guitar Magazine today shares a very special walkthrough with Nernes of his equipment and their wild stories HERE. 

Brooklyn Vegan also recently hosted a Rig Rundown video with Park showcasing her church organ and bass synths, along with a behind-the-scenes interview/tour with both of them HERE. 

The band's epic 2xLP album Norwegian Gothic, is out now on Pelagic Records and finds the historically caustic band expanding melodically with evermore catchy hooks. Hear and share Norwegian Gothic HERE. 

Clash Music previously premiered part one of two videos, "Kinks Of The Heart" HERE. (Direct YouTube.) Metal Injection followed with part two, "Hailstones For Rain / The Moon Is Dead" video HERE and YouTube HERE.

Årabrot's 9th full-length album Norwegian Gothic (its title a play on the Grant Wood painting American Gothic) sees the band collaborate with Lars Horntveth (Jaga Jazzist), cellist Jo Quail, Tomas Järmyr (Motorpsycho), Anders Møller (Turbonegro, Ulver) and Massimo Pupillo (Zu). A stellar production by Jaime Gomez Arellano (Black Eyed Peas, Paradise Lost, Hexvessel, Oranssi Pazusu) makes this the quintessential Årabrot record, as guitarist and vocalist Kjetil Nernes confirms: 

"Norwegian Gothic is the culmination of everything Årabrot has done musically the past 10 years. It is not only the climax of the band so far, but also a good indication of what to come. It is basically anamalgamation of all of our influences here in the church where we live. Musically it is inspired by all the albums of our record collection and thematically by the books we have in our shelves. More specifically it is our special brand of rock'n'roll music mixed with fin-de-siecle decadence, surrealism and even a pinch of old German philosophy to boot.”

While the 20-year history of the band is a story of change and correlation, it would be too simple to break this creative duality down to the stereotypical dichotomy of the yin and the yang... and if one attempted to do so, it would turn out to be quite difficult to determine which of these forces would be represented by which individual. 

A chubby child from a christian family, growing up in a small Swedish village and years spent in a Missionary school in Japan made Karin Park desperate to break away from narrow thinking. And she used her only advantages to do so; her unique voice and personality. By the age 15 she had moved away from home to find her place in music after studying at Stockholm Music Conservatory, a Norwegian poet took her to Norway where she started her pop career, this was followed by a move to London to write songs, and working as a model. 

After five albums, a few Grammys, writing a Eurovision entry for Norway and hits for other artists and performances with Lana Del Rey and David Bowie, Karin returned to the village of her youth and bought the church where she first sang in front of an audience as a child. She turned the church into iswhere they rehearse and record, surrounded by pianos, organs and hundreds of old bibles that the church left behind when the congregation stopped. The clerical environment has proven to be an excellent creative tapestry for a band whose lyrical focus orbits around sex, death and defiance.

Kjetil Nernes was diagnosed with malignant throat cancer in 2014, in the middle of a tour. Instead of heading in for surgery right away, the band finished a full European tour first, "Every night of that tour was like the last show ever“, Nernes comments, "It was really strange. When a doctor calls and says,'you're terribly sick', it's surreal. You go into this phase where life is more vivid and more real, in a weird way. We've done so many shows through the years and sometimes it’s a little like going to the factory to do a job. But with an axe hanging over your head you perceive the world differently.“

But the axe did not fall, and after successfully recovering from cancer, Årabrot are now stronger than ever. The band has collaborated with procuders like Billy Anderson and Steve Albini, and musicians like Ted Parsons (Killing Joke/Swans), Sunn O))))'s Stephen O’Malley, and Kvelertak's Erlend Hjelvik. They have composed music for silent movies like “Die Niebelungen” and “Doctor Caligari”, and have teamed up with The Quietus founder John Doran on his spoken word tour. Their album The Gospel was named “Album of the Year” by The Quietus.

Norwegian Gothic is available on 2xLP, CD and digital, released on April 9th, 2021 via Pelagic Records. Orders are available HERE. 

Artist: Årabrot

Album: Norwegian Gothic

Record label: Pelagic Records

Release date: April 9, 2021

01. Carnival of Love

02. The Rule of Silence

03. Feel It On

04. The Lie

05. The Crows

06. Kinks Of The Heart

07. Hailstones For Rain

08. The Voice

09. (This Is) The Night

10. Hard Love

11. Impact Heavily Onto The Concrete 

12. Hounds Of Heaven

13. Deadlock

14. The Moon Is Dead

15. You’re Not That Special

On The Web:

http://www.arabrot.com

https://www.facebook.com/ARABROT

pelagic-records.com

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCpN0MnP1OT8HSoa-WmHL3Wg

https://twitter.com/ARABROT

 

Thought Leaders (ex-Totimoshi, The Mass) share "Come Evening" track via Outburn, heavy rocking post-punk from upcoming debut LP

Bay Area heavy post-punk band Thought Leaders share a new single today from their forthcoming full length debut via Outburn Magazine. The new band is made up of underground punk vets, including ex-members of The Mass (Crucial Blast Records), Totimoshi and Dora Flood. Hear and share "Come Evening" HERE. (Direct Bandcamp.)

Metal Injection recently launched the video for "Saturday Night Leave" HERE. (Direct YouTube.) New Noise Magazine previously shared the lead single "Jane Doe's Estate" HERE.

Things change. We’ve all become painfully aware of that in recent times. And Thought Leaders is a band thoroughly borne of change. 

The Bay Area based modern, aggressive post-punk quartet dishes out addictive, saturated songs in the vein of Killing Joke, Bauhaus and Gang of Four. However, the band’s sound is an interesting pivot for its members — coming from backgrounds in heavy prog acts The Mass (Crucial Blast Records) and Totimoshi, psychedelic Brit-pop Dora Flood and wiry post-rockers Lower Forty Eight — some of whom have also switched instruments in this new configuration. 

The band had just formed in early 2019, issuing its debut 4-song EP Wires Crossed in April that year and begun work on a full length album In Wastelands in early 2020 when the world suddenly ground to a halt. 

In Wastelands wasn’t supposed to be made this way. Pre-COVID, the plan was to record the album with Andrew Oswald (of Marbled Eye) at Santo Studio in West Oakland in June 2020. They had five songs done and four more in demo form when everything shut down. So the band mobilized. They all went mobile and committed to a fully remote recording process. In May, Kirk recorded drums for the five completed songs. Ville, Tyler and Andrew each recorded their parts in their home studios while still negotiating and refining the remaining songs to record. It was a gamble, but they wanted to do something.

With five songs completed, the band finished writing the remaining four and everyone once again recorded their parts separately at their homes. Files were sent to Tyler to mix. The process revealed that the band were onto something. Songs they had never played together began to take on a life of their own. And just as suddenly, they realized they had a powerful LP. Mixes were finished in January 2021 and sent to Justin Weis at Trakworx for mastering. The outcome is an incredibly satisfying album that incorporates elements of post-punk, metal and goth without drifting into cliches of any of these styles. 

Thought Leaders was formed when Tyler Cox (drums, The Mass) and Andrew Lund (bass, The Mass; guitar, Lower Forty-Eight) decided to start writing music in the vein of dark, gritty post-punk bands from the 80s, pulling from a wide array of influences like early Echo and the Bunnymen, Siouxsie and the Banshees, and Wire. Singer Ville V, no stranger to the sound that was being constructed, joined and immediately began contributing lyrics, melodies, and music of his own. Kirk Snedeker was invited to play drums and was a perfect fit, having grown up absorbing many of the same influences. The band works collaboratively, with all members contributing musical ideas and production to create a sonic whole much greater than the sum of its parts.

In Wastelands will be available for download on July 9th, 2021 via King Of Sticks label. Pre-orders are available HERE. 

Thought Leaders are:

Tyler Cox - Bass

Drums - THE MASS (Bay Area proto-jazzpunk, Crucial Blast Records)

WRACK - all instruments, production, engineering

Engineered Thought Leaders’ debut demo/EP “Wires Crossed”

Mixed single “Radiator” and debut LP “In Wastelands”

Andrew Lund - Guitar

Guitar/Vocals- LOWER FORTY-EIGHT (Monotreme Records, UK)

Bass- THE MASS (Bay Area proto-jazzpunk, Crucial Blast Records)

Kirk Snedeker - Drums

Drums - Winchester Revival

Drums - The Locals (Chicago)

Ville V - Vocals

Guitar - Dora Flood (Bay Area psych rock, Elephant Stone Records)

Vocals/Guitar - The Bias / Antenna (CA/Finland 70s sleaze groovers, Ruska Records, Helsinki)

Artist: Thought Leaders

Album: In Wastelands

Record label: King of Sticks Records

Release date: July 9th, 2021

01. Enigma 41

02. Come Evening

03. Burning Glass

04. Jane Doe's Estate

05. In Wastelands

06. Shallows

07. Desire Reserve

08. Enemy Flies Above

09. Saturday Night Leave

Links:

https://thoughtleaders.bandcamp.com/

https://www.facebook.com/thoughtleadersband

https://www.instagram.com/thghtldrs/

https://twitter.com/thghtldrs