Interview: The Battlebeats

Photo by Fahmi Ramdhani

There is a rumble on the horizon. The scent of blood in the air. A piercing shriek of distortions splits the clouds, and the hammer of the gods comes crashing down- splitting the Earth. Out of this molten wound rises a man with a vision, a plan, a prerogative, and the pig-headed will to see it through. Hero to some and the bain of poseurs everywhere, Andresa Nugraha is chief warlord of the Indonesian garage rock group The Battlebeats- a brashly, unhinged rabble of sonic vandals that mostly consists of... well, Andresa and anyone who he can haul out of the local landfill or the police drunk tank with the wherewithal to hold down a tune (notably, this edgy entourage DOES NOT include a bass player... don't ask). Earlier this year, The Battlebeats redoubled their assault on the world of propriety and good taste with their second LP, Meet Your Maker, a twelve-track takedown of losers, lunkheads, and lubbers too shiftless to hail the dauntless reign of rock and/or roll! It's a tribute to a flagging legacy of international garage rock, as well as an updated reimagining and recasting of familiar idioms armored in black leather, baptized in the jungle heat, and focused through the amber shade of a modish pair of sunglasses, cracked from the relentless combination of reverberations cast off a wall of speakers and the relentless headbanging that such ruckus wavelengths inspire. Live by the axe, die by the axe- die by the axe, live forever. Get ready to meet your (music) maker!

The following interview was conducted over email. I have literally only changed one word of Andresa's responses, and it was merely to make it more grammatical. The purity of his purpose really shines through in his answers and I wouldn't want to do anything to mute the clarity with which he speaks. Enjoy! 

Who does the current Battlebeats lineup consist of?

The current lineup that backs me up for live performance are me, Andresa (guitar, vox), Obi (drums) and Dwey (guitar). I met Obi in some show where we played with our old band years before I formed this project. I really like the way he played the drums, so I asked him to be my drummer in 2021 and he’s been stuck with me ever since. He also has his own solo project, Defectum. Dwey joined the band as a guitar player in mid-2023. He’s in so many bands but currently active in a thrash metal band, Brigade of Crow and post-punk band, Succubus. I think this is the most solid lineup since Battlebeats existed. The band’s been through so many changes. The band has two drummers, and four guitar players so far.

I noticed that your sunglasses on the cover of Meet Your Maker are curved, sort of like the ones Dolflamingo wears. Was this intentional, or is it just a coincidence?

I can’t remember where I got the references for that one. But every time I draw the sunglasses are never the same from one and another. There’s a pointy one that was inspired by Kamina (Gurren Lagann) and the other one just straight from the glasses that I usually wear.

What kind of label support do you have for Meet Your Maker, and how did you work out the details for distribution?

Meet Your Maker was released on a 12” by garage punk label Sweet Time Records from Nashville, Tennessee. Ryan Sweeney, the label honcho, I knew him for the first time from the video of Jay Reatard’s last show on Youtube. Soon I learned he was Cheap Time’s drummer, too. Long story short, we got to know each other from the internet then he offered me to put something out on his label, I didn't even think twice, I accepted his offer because I really like all the music he puts out. At first, I was thinking of putting out like a 7” or something instead of a full-length. All the detail for distribution I let him do the job, he knows best what he does since I also know ST have many distributors across the continent.

You work a lot with independent international labels. What are some of the upsides and downsides or working with labels like these?

One of the upsides are you get your music out there physically and get new listeners across the country who know their stuff. These guys have been super easy to work together with. They don’t even know me in person and they’re on it 100% for the music. The only downsides are there is no money in it, they only gave me a fair share of physical stuff, but I don’t complain since most of these labels I work with are one-man operation businesses.

What is the significance of the title track off of Meet Your Maker, and why is your most recent album named after it?

I came up with a bunch of titles for the LP but ended up using Meet Your Maker. The reason is simple because I really like the song the most. It’s about telling someone I hate to fuck off and die. It sounds so medieval, and stupid. I’m just joking around. I’ve never heard any native English speaker say these words in these modern times. Can you imagine telling people to fuck off by saying “Go meet your maker, assholes!” with two middle fingers in their face. It’ll be freakin’ hilarious.

When did you start work on Meet Your Maker? Or, rather, how long has the album been in the works?

It took like a year or so. Probably it’s in the works after I recorded the series of 7” singles in 2022. I don’t remember it well because I never try to stop writing songs even after I put out something.

Your previous recordings have famously been done on the fly. Did you have a different approach to Meet Your Maker, or were you writing and recording when you had the money and/or time as you have with previous releases?

I still don’t have the money until today tho. Hahaha. The only different approach is I’ve used many different cheap gears to record things because I don’t want it to sound the same as my previous releases.

I noticed that you're going in a much more straightforward garage rock direction with Meet Your Maker and have dropped some of the blues and balladry of your past releases. Why did you decide to streamline things a bit more for this release?

Everything was probably depending on what I listened to during the making of something. I listened to a lot of Tokyo Electron and Jet Boys when I did songs on Meet Your Maker. Even each song in this record has its own references. You know, I used to listen to a lot of 60s garage music and Chuck Berry during the making of my first LP, Search And Destroy. Maybe that’s why there’s a lot of blues and balladry references on that one. I just stole their old riffs and played them faster the way 70s punk used to do.

What is the pace of your songwriting at the moment? About how many songs do you write a day/week/month/etc..?

Whenever I got the vibes, I could write more than five songs in a day, sometimes I don’t write at all for months. You what? I haven’t written any new songs for Battlebeats this year. But I’ve written like 12 new songs right after I recorded Meet Your Maker tho. I’ve been having a hard time writing songs lately. The demos are all on my computer, some have finished, and some don’t have lyrics on it. I haven’t touched it again, no energy to finish ‘em.

How many songs do you end up throwing out or not using, and what makes the difference between a keeper and one that ends up in the trash?

I guess I have a bunch of songs that ended up in the trash. Sometimes I abandon that one song that is almost 50% complete, wishing I can get inspired to finish it tomorrow and then after a 10 minutes break, I write another song and finish ‘em in 5 minutes. Everything depends on my mood at the time I wrote it. I even came up with a cool riff or a singing part which I thought it would make a great song, But I think I’ve heard the riff somewhere and then I opened the voice note recording on my phone and it was the riff I’ve written and thrown away back years ago, because I thought it sounds like shit Back then. Haha.

Photo by Ardita Putri

What is the garage rock scene like by you? Are a lot of people into Oblivians and The Gories, or what are they listening to and being inspired by?

In Indonesia specifically, there is no such thing like “garage rock” scene as far as I know, it never gets popular during its peak. Even when Battlebeats came out, everyone seemed confused because we sound different. I always feel like the music is too rock ‘n’ roll for the punk scene, but too punk for the rock ‘n’ roll scene. That’s why my main focus is to put out records overseas. I’m too tired to explain why I don’t have a bass player or why all of us wear sunglasses.

I believe most people here always rely on mainstream media when it comes to exposure to new things, especially when 2000s garage rock revival was on the surface. Some bands I know were inspired by Jack White/White Stripes, The Strokes or The Libertines. I’m not sure if those people are even listening to Oblivians, The Gories or any 90s garage rock bands. Not many people like to dig stuff deeper on the internet. It takes a special talent to even google something obscure 10 years ago.

Is there still a pretty strong Ramones cult in your part of the world? They always had a strong international following and I've always been curious how they were received in your neck of the woods.

We used to have a lot of Ramones-y punk bands but the one that’s still active and also my favorite band is The Sneakers from Bali. They are a mix between other US Ramones-influenced punk bands like The Queers and Screeching Weasel. Eko, the guitar player/singer, plays all the songs in downstrokes like Johnny Ramone. I never met any person as determined as him. Everyone should check out their Sneakers Freak EP. It’s on my top 5 best Indonesian punk EP list.

Have you been doing much touring lately, and if so, how has it been going?

I just did my first Japan tour in May this year. 5 days, 4 cities (Kyoto, Osaka, Chiba, Tokyo). I can’t bring my usual backing band due to financial issues, so I asked Greg (Supersnazz, Teengenerate) to play drums. I saw him from Teengenerate’s Get Action documentary in 2013 or 2014 on Youtube. I was in my early 20s who just got into garage rock at that time, thinking of having him in my band. I don’t know how, but we manage to get to know each other years later, fortunately he happens to like Battlebeats as well. He agreed to help me out and he told me that his old bandmate, Miyagi (Supersnazz, Texaco Leather Man) is gonna be a great addition to the band. So, we asked Miyagi to join as my guitar player. We only rehearsed two times before the tour started and we did great like we’ve been in a band for a long time.

What was the best date you had on your last tour? Who did you play with/ where was it/ what made it awesome?

The last show in Club Heavy Sick, Tokyo was the best one. I got to play with all my favorite bands like Firestarter, Jet Boys and Angel Face. The show was on Sunday, and the venue was packed with people. It’s perfect. I heard Firestarter and Jet Boys rarely play together but they were there that day. Finally witnessing Onoching (Jet Boys) get naked and shredding radish. I was crying when Firestarter played “Trashy Dreams” because it was so good live! At the end of Battlebeats set, we did an encore playing Teengenerate’s “Dressed in Black” with Fink singing. What a perfect way to end the tour.

Where are your favorite places in the world to tour?

For now, Japan. I love the food and people. I’d love to go back there. I haven’t got a chance to go on tour elsewhere, but I wish to play in the United States one day.

What are your favorite places to play at by you?

Anywhere else in a small city where sometimes only a handful of people come. Interesting and weird stories always come from this kinda place.

Do you ever have issues with people being jealous of you? How do you deal with their envy?

I don’t know for sure, but I think there are one or two or three people who seem jealous of what I achieve in life. I don’t have time to deal with these pathetic losers; I’m just gonna sit around watching ‘em fall in life. Let's see who laughs last.

What is the best compliment you've ever received about your music?

“Battlebeats are the future!” – Eric Friedl of Goner Records/Oblivians.

What is the dumbest thing anyone has said about your band?

I don’t remember if anyone ever said the dumbest thing about the band, but there’s someone who commented on my song “Killed by Boredom” in YT. He/she said it sounds like Ramones’ “Blitzkrieg Bop”. Out of 8.1 billion humans on earth, that person is the most stupid of ‘em all.

What's next for Battlebeats?

I don’t know, maybe put out another record, go on touring, or do nothing at all. Let’s see what the future holds for Battlebeats.

When are you going to open for Guitar Wolf?

Wait. I’ll send Seiji a message to invite Battlebeats to play in Shimane Jet Fest 2025.*

*Editors Comment: It's really going to be Seiji's loss if this doesn't pan out. 

These savage beats are available on vinyl thanks to Sweet Time Records. 

Album Review: Peter Manheim - In Time

It's amusing to me that Peter Manheim's debut EP features a solitary individual sitting behind a drum kit atop a mountain against the swirling, exposed background of the whirling cosmos. For one, Peter is clearly not an island, this little record is nothing if not a celebration of cooperation and teamwork, and further, I'm pretty sure the figure behind the kit in the referenced image is wearing glasses, or goggles, or some kind of reflective eye-covering, none of which are accessory that I have ever seen Peter photographed while wearing in public. So it begs the question, who is this lonely, mysterious individual, and why does Peter see him as the personification of his creative output? It's a riddle. Maybe this figure is like the Cigarette Smoking Man from the X-Files, an ominous minder directing clandestine operations from the shadows, or maybe he's more like Prismo from Adventure Time and a benign, wish-granting guardian of the universe- whatever his role, he's overseeing some real magic. As I mentioned before, the accomplished drummer's first EP, In Time (Ah... see what he did there), is carried as much by Peter's tight, seamless rhythms and as the other players who aid in implementing his vision. Every track possesses its own prism of the collective soul, beginning with the breezy Bossanova writhed zephyr of the pacifying "Peace Groove," which is brought to life by the balanced bawl of Tim Bennett's alto sax and the elegant, fluid articulations of Alex Cummings's willowy flute player. We are then met with a transition to the downtown bound, sub-tropical, crystal-incline fusion of "A Lonely Road," where Will Miller's trumpet work intersects with a stone-cold bassline courtesy of Dan Stein as the track moves through a future-haired mist of synths in a rendition of Miles Davis that would be appropriate sonic dressing for a hardboiled montage filmed for the original run of Miami Vice. Then there are the more concentrated collaborations, which ironically produce some of the most expansive tracks, like Peter's donuts ringing the ethereal strides of De'Sean Jones's sax lines on "The Gate," or the modal-Brazilian rain dance of the title track, featuring Mamadou Fantastic on a very conversation talking drum bantering with Eric Burns's silver tinted guitar chords. Surprisingly, it all culminates in the spacey, ozone-burning haze of "Faded," which gives a spotlight to Conrad Reeves's swaggering, blade-work-like guitar playing, which resembles what an '89 Firebird might compose if one had the wherewithal to pick up the axe- a surreal swirl of fiery evocation that seems to push against its confines until it punches a hole through reality and drags the listener through a wormhole and into the unknown. It's impressive that Peter could write such a diverse range of atmospheric jazz and rock numbers and even more remarkable that he could find the right team to pull it off. I guess you could say that this EP is not only In Time, but in-credible as well. 

I spy, Northern Spy.

Interview: Ensemble Tikoro

As someone who has always been intrigued by the breadth and dynamic range of variation represented by metal vocal styles, it's very rare that I ever encounter them in isolation. It's kind of like salt, or some other essential ingredient in that way, when preparing a meal- they're always there in the mix, contributing essential flavors and textures, but only rarely being recognized as the indispensable element that they are. That someone would specifically reach into the core of heavy metal and extract a singular pumping heartstring to examine in the cold light of the moon is what fascinates me most about Indonesia's Ensemble Tikoro- their mere existence gives these orations the unsung admirable attention they deserve. 

Forming in Java in 2012, Ensemble Tikoro is an evolving assemblage of regional heavy metal singers and unconventional vocalists of various backgrounds arranged in a kind of choir of the demand—a demonic glee club. They thrive in the display of their guttural vocal aesthetics without further musical accompaniment or enhancements, digital or otherwise. It's just raw, visceral humanity- uncut and unapologetic. 

While the group is primarily focused on live performances, a collection of their selected recordings is now available through Italian international folk label Artetetra Records, germanely titled Hell Chamber. 

With all the weird shit I've listened to over my lifetime, nothing has ever come close to the strangeness or jarring fascination which I encountered between the gums and tucked away around the molars of these compositions. 

I reached out to the band through their label, and they obliged me with an interview. Their responses have helped me understand the band quite a bit more, but they haven't done much to alleviate the shock of my initial confrontation with their sound. It's the kind of work that takes some getting used to—assuming that adjusting one's pallet to their specific infernal aesthetic is desirable... or even possible. 

Check out their Hell Chamber and group leader Robi Rusdiana's responses to my inquiries below:

The following responses have been edited slightly from their original text for the sake of clarity. 

1. Please introduce the project and explain what your goals for it are.

Hell Chamber is an album of archival short-form compositions alongside snippets from commissions. All works have been elaborated between 2013 and 2020. The works only include voice-only compositions, including techniques from extended vocals, extreme metal, throat singing and traditional Indonesian vocal styles. Everything was made to be a little easier for the general public to hear and enjoy.

2. Who are the players/singers on this most recent album, Hell Chamber, and how did they become involved?

Albeit open and in continuous evolution, the ensemble is currently composed of Robi Rusdiana, Mahatma Adi Hartoko, Arum Dwi Hanantoro, Ardyansah, Handriansyah Nugraha, Tandani Mutaqim, Agung Suryana, Mita Kulsum. All members come from a very united community of metal music lovers from Bandung, West Java, Indonesia. We met and joined metal gigs for a long time and in the same way, together, we learned and explored extreme metal vocal techniques until evolving into works that cover a wider range of extended vocals and do not obsess over metal per se.

3. How do you handle the musical notation of the different parts of the composition for each of the singers?
It depends on the number of vocalists needed. In some works, at least a couple of the vocalists ought to be able to execute different techniques, whereas generally, some of the members are especially focused on one technique. The compositions are written using classical notation methodologies with various indexes and captions for players so that non-tonal material like textures and elements contributing to dynamics and moods can be legible.

4. How much creative control do the singers have in their performances?

I don't know if this is an answer, but generally speaking the feeling is that discipline and a strong sense of exploration control the performer while presenting the pieces.

5. What is it about metal music that creates such fertile ground for different vocal styles?

It's definitely the fact that experimentation and new interpretations of what music can be, including metal music works that we like, are just materials we use to find ideas. These ideas are reflected by distinguishing vocal techniques. Every new idea can be interpreted by different vocal styles and the choice is really heterogeneous, so everything becomes really flexible.

6. How does metal's extremity complement and also clash with more traditional styles of performance and composition? How do you accommodate or push back against these aesthetic issues within this project?

Music is always evolving although it keeps a certain substance in regard to different needs and functions. The difference is about focusing on things that complement each other, regardless of whether the music style is traditional or not. The music we do is based on honesty and intuition during the work's development, and trying to avoid trapping ourselves into existing musical systems.

7. How does Indonesian culture and folk music guide the conception and performances of this group?

The culture of daily life lived today by normal people is the basic concept for us when starting to create and present the works we make. We are not making a reiteration for any old tradition or culture. Is not about nostalgia. Is about what people do in the streets every day: from the different accents of people from different areas you may find at a bus terminal in Cicaheum

8. What role does Indonesian puppetry have in inspiring and influencing the performances of this group?

For us it is very inspiring in terms of vocal techniques and timbres, as well as interpretation of characterization. For those who don't know, the puppet master (dalang) executes all puppet voices and thus has to learn different vocal techniques to embody the characters and express them to the public.

9. Do you hope that the music you make through this project can be enjoyed as one might enjoy other music, or do you suggest that the listener approach these performances in another way?

For us this music and concept is very liberating in terms of what we think about its fruition. It's about that feeling. Listeners can like it or not, but the important thing is that the music we present is able to make people think and enjoy sound in a different way from music in general, hopefully.

10. Is there anything else you'd like people to know about this project that hasn't been brought up yet?

Actually recording music is not our main goal. The music we collected for this album, like all of our compositions, will continue to develop and will never be finished. As for other works we didn't record, for us it's about the live thing: come to our shows and enjoy all the dimensions that no recording media or music album will ever provide.

Hatur nuhun mang!

Translation by Luigi Monteanni

All photos by Kevin Saputra (@kevinesaputra). Courtesy of Artetetra Records.

Original responses in Indonesian are below. 

1. Hell Chamber adalah sebuah album dari nomor-nomor berdurasi pendek Ensemble Tikoro. Ini dibuat agar sedikit lebih mudah didengar dan dinikmati oleh masyarakat umum.
2. Robi Rusdiana, Mahatma Adi Hartoko, Arum Dwi Hanantoro, Ardyansah, Handriansyah Nugraha, Tandani Mutaqim, Agung Suryana, Mita Kulsum. Mereka adalah komunitas pecinta musik metal di Bandung. Kami bertemu dan bergabung dalam gigs-gigs metal. Bersama-sama belajar dan mengeksplorasi teknik extreme metal vocal hingga mengolah extended vocals yang lebih luas.
3. Tergantung dari nomor karyanya. Ada yang harus bisa melakukan banyak sekali teknik, namun ada yang difokuskan ke dalam satu teknik. Komposisi ditulis dengan menggunakan classical notation dengan beragam index dan keterangan untuk pemain.
4. Disiplin dan daya eksplorasi yang kuat menjadi kontrol untuk pemain dalam menyajikan karya.
5. Eksperimentasi dan interpretasi baru dari musik atau karya metal yang kami sukai menjadi bahan untuk mencari ide yang membedakan teknik yang diolah.
6. Musik senantiasa berkembang namun dalam substansi yang hampir sama, dengan dasar kebutuhan dan fungsi yang berbeda-beda. Perbedaan justru menjadi hal yang akan saling melengkapi, terlepas gaya musik tradisional atau bukan. Peristiwa yang kami suguhkan berlandaskan dari kejujuran dan intuisi dalam berkarya, bukan menjebakan diri pada sistem-sistem musik yang ada.
7. Budaya keseharian yang dijalani hari ini menjadi konsep dasar dalam berkarya dan menyajikan karya yang kami buat, tidak harus membuat re-literasi atau bernostalgia pada tradisi atau kebudayaan lama.
8. Sangat menginspirasi dalam segi teknik dan timbre vokal, juga interpretasi pemeranan sebuah karakter.
9. Sangat dibebaskan, pendengar boleh menyukai atau tidak, yang penting musik yang kami sajikan mampu membuat orang berpikir dan menikmati musik dengan cara yang berbeda dari musik pada umumnya, semoga.
10. Sesungguhnya rekaman atau merekam musik bukan tujuan utama kami, karena karya musik yang dibuat dalam album ini akan terus berkembang dan tidak akan pernah selesai. Begitupun dengan karya-karya lainnya yang tidak kami rekam ke dalam bentuk audio, datanglah langsung ke pertunjukan kami, menikmati semua dimensi yang tidak bisa disajikan oleh media rekam atau sebuah album musik.

Interview: Tenmonthsummer

Having a summer? Yeah, same, same. But I bet your summer not as cool as mine! Sure, you're probably getting your brunch on, probably having tallboys and grilling down by the lake every weekend, maybe you've even planned a roadtrip with your SO... BUT have you gotten to hang with Chicago DIY band Tenmonthsummer? Well, there you go. Like I said, probably not as cool as mine. I have two ideas of how you can kick things up a gear: 1) listen to my conversation with Nish, Charlie, and Scumdrop of TMS, and 2) check TMS out on their summer tour! 

If you're not familiar with TMS, they're a relatively new DIY/punk band in the Chicago area with a great, unique, and ever-evolving sound. They only have a couple of singles, live takes, and other assorted recordings out right now, but they're preparing an EP that should be out soon. Details on that and everything else they have going on (it's a lot!) can be found in the latest episode of my podcast (attn. see below).  

You can keep up with TMS by following them on Twitter (or X, or whatever), and by periodically checking their Bandcamp page. 

Also, they'll be headed out on tour later this month! Be sure to stop out and say "Hi"! If you're cool, I'm sure they'd love to meet you. 

Album Review: Bermuda Squares - Outsider

Outsider is a very apropos name for a power-pop/garage punk record of the caliber that Bermuda Squares have fired off here. This kind of rough and ragged, sensible acerbic style of vicious guitar pop, in my experience, attracts a lot of people who feel like they are just sliding around in orbit around the rest of humanity, like some satellite of sanity circling the sucking black hole that is the whole homosapien situation. Maybe they're justified in their misanthropy, or maybe they are as diluted as the masses they scorn, but what's consistently true is that they've got a feeling like something's just not right about the historic hiccup that is contemporary so-called civilization. I can say all this because I was that dude once upon a time, that dude who would plug in anything Mark Ryan or Jeff Beck would toss off just to drown out the absurdity of my surroundings, and as that guy, I can say that Bermuda Squares really gets the vibe right on this debut. Mean, slicing riffs that carve and fizzle the air around you like a Pollock painted with a man's own sweat, tears, and angst. Busy, bone-dry riffs that skim the dunes of distorted waves, like desert surf barrons, kicking up enough dirt to block out the sun so that they can rule the dustbowl like vampire kings. It bursts like a radioactive AV transmission from a crashing UFO shot in bichromatic 3D that vaporizes the homecoming queen when it accidentally misses a jump between radio towers and ends up pipping through the brackets of her braces. A connived, aural mugging that sandwiches you between rough layers of harmonies on each track to make sure you're held good and tight for the knockout of each and every hook. We live in a very stupid world, but the farther you go from the blast radius that Bermuda Squares emits, the dumber it's bound to seem. Why be a stranger when you could be an Outsider instead. 

Sensation needs no elucidation, Feel It Records.   

Album Review: WiFiGawd - Chain of Command

Probably the best way I could describe WiFiGawd, in general, but particularly on his album Chain of Command, is an escape artist. He's hard to get a grip on and pin down. He's made a career of evading the chains of convention and other constraints, and CoC is no different. Scooping up drops from old heads and soulful progenitors, he slips through the vents of digitized liquid funk to pop off triplets in a setting ordered for a poet's quill but which he's commandeered for cyber-surfing, pyrotechnic piracy. What's more fantastic than his folding over, to the 7th degree, of Golden era partitions and Soundcloud era dialects is the way that he and his collaborating producers pragmatically thread and territorialize the kind of soul samples, new age aesthetics, and torqued and bent digital sampling common to vaporwave and new spiritual music within his aggressively materialistic and factually certain flows and compositions. WifiGawd is not out wandering the ether; his head is screwed onto his spine, his feet are in a good pair of kicks and firmly planted on the ground- he is locked in as they say. But the strange tug of the production on Chain of Command does manage to color his treaties, particularly when he slinks into a bobbing, laid back harmonious flow, with the soot of chaos and confusion that burns around him. WiFiGawd allows the disorder and dissociation that characterizes life in this half-feral, cyber-subordinated epoch of human history to settle on his compositions like the fog of war that it is, making what he does and says on Chain of Command that much more believable in its flirtation proximity to absolute madness. 

Get free with POWRecordings. 

Album Review: The Como Mamas - Move Upstairs

Today, on the 4th, Uncle Sam's Birthday, I'd like to present to you some genuine American music. The music of the Como Mamas arrives to your ears by way of retracing the footsteps of folklore, which just so happened to unveil a genuine emergence of folk expression as it still exists in the depths of Southern Americana. It's well established that Alan Lomax's exploration of the outlying scrub of the heartlands resulted in most of our best examples of preserved folk music from the turn of the last century. Over a hundred years later, there are still genuine fonts of spontaneous expression percolating under the hollars and lesser byways of this country's rural ramparts. The charismatic acapella style of Angela Taylor, her sister Della Daniels, and long-time friend Ester Mae Smith, of Como, Mississippi, represents only one of these forms of irrepressible, devotional, sonic countenances, as originally documented by filmmaker Michael Reill back in the late '00s. His encounter with Angela, Della, and Ester, later coined the Como Mamas, led to the trio eventually releasing two LPs with Daptone Records, of which Move Upstairs is the latest. Move Upstairs is performed in a slightly more familiar style than their first LP, Get An Understanding, replacing a raw, synchronized kitchen-table choir harmonizing style with a R'nBiefed gospel revue entwined with a wholesome catholicon of electric blues as a homage to Muddy Waters and other pioneering folk singers who inspired the Mamas in their youth. While Move Upstairs might represent a "professional" style recording effort, especially compared to their previous releases, the performances are still wholly and undeniably American, representing an expression of faith and optimism in the present makeup of the people and the communities which they depend on, as well as anticipation for a kingdom yet to come, a high place awaiting our ascension, where all thirsts are slacked and all burdens lifted. Their music represents a specific stripe of spiritual and sonic sanguinity that extends a mercifully charitable interpretation of the world as a precursor to providence, and it's certainly inspiring to witness in these trying and troubled times. I can't think of anything I'd rather be listening to today, given everything happening in the world, and this country in particular. Happy Birthday, America. I'll be keeping you in my thoughts. 

Keep it real with Daptone Records. 

Album Review: Bloodbather - Pressure

Pressure is the last will and testament of Broward County, Florida hardcore band Bloodbather. While they never really seemed to break out in the same kind of way that some of their contemporaries did, I end up thinking about this band and their EP often for two very good reasons: 1) it fucking rips, and 2) Bloodbather's Pressure (to my ears at least) embodies the era of hardcore in which it was made like few others. Prior to 2020, hardcore, internationally I would say, was undergoing a serious metalcore revival, but not just any kind of metalcore revival, the side of metalcore that transitions seamlessly into the nu-metal epoch of alternative metal- drop-tuned guitars, massive sounding drums, electronic dance music influrences, record scratches, big-ass chunky grooves- you know exactly what I'm talking about, need I go on? While I think this style of groove-core really saw its zenith with Code Orange's Underneath, Bloodbather's 2018 EP represents more of the fateful wind up to that final blow, a scrappy yet malicious and terminally ugly mental meltdown that slides comfortably between the tension-amping, Martyr AD-esque punishment of Sanction and the psycho-overclocking, human-test subject water-boarding-beat of Vein. Listening to Pressure, even now, feels like you're tempting desisater to enter your life adn mess up your whole situation. It sounds like what ever device your listening to it on has acquired some form of vicious malware and is now plotting with some decentralized, hive-ai as to the best, and most painful, way of murdering you in your sleep. The central members of BloodBather have moved on to a deathcore project they're calling Crucifiction, but the legacy of their prior efforts have left a bruised imprint on my soul that I hope never fully heals.