Interview: Michael Torres of Beers with Bands

It might shock some of you all to learn this, but I almost never listen to music-related podcasts, and I'm specifically averse to artist interviews. I know, right? Here I am about to plug a podcast where I interview someone, and right out the gate I'm saying, "yeah, I don't listen to this type of 'ish." There is literally only one exception to this, though, and that is Beers with Bands. The reason for this is that Michael Torres has great music tastes and manages to talk to bands I care about. The other reason is that he comes across as a down to earth guy, with no agenda but the love of talking with people who make great music. Points on the board. Man after my own heart. Whenever I look up a DIY band to figure out what their deal is, Michael's already right there, sharing a Hamm's with the dudes on his couch. A suds-soaked shepherd through the sounds of the underground. So, of course, I had to talk to him and see what he's all about! Turns out, Michael is as cool in person as he appears on tape and is twice as fun to share a brew with. We tossed a few back* with some time in February when we talked about his podcast, what albums he has in rotation in his car, and where the best Mexican food in the Twin Cities can be found (hint: it's in a gas station). Check out my interview with Michael of Beers with Bands below:

For more of Michael, check out his YouTube channel.

*I did end up getting drunk during this interview. Hopefully, it's not too distracting for you, my dear, dry and pious listener. 

Album Review: Castle - Evil Remains

 Wayward, witchy, doom metal from San Francisco that draws in equal part from occult preoccupations of proto-metallers Coven as it does crooked-jawed, roadhouse, ass-kickers The Obsessed. Castle's name is shorthand for their literary occult philosophy which they call "Castle of the Mind," a worldview culled from the writings of William Blake and Charles Baudelaire and which informs the majority of the dark incantations found in their lyrics. Evil Remains is Castle's sixth LP, but it could just as easily be their debut with how raw and hungry the duo of Elizabeth Blackwell and Mat Davis sound here, iterating on the cursed and contorted grooves and miasmic atmosphere that has defined their career, and giving '70s downer dirges the rough-and-tumble, chopped, and bare ravenous intrigue of a beast of legend stalking the moonlight for a pale, defenseless neck to sink its fangs into. Standing out even amongst Castle's fortified attributes is Elizabeth's coolly ensnaring vocals that always seem to be flowing in and around you as a graveyard fog, slipping through your pores and carrying slivers of your soul away into the night with their billowing egress. Reclaim the night with the urgent, dirgey, moonlight descent sheathed in a malevolent co-deviant repartee that beckons the conflagration hither to one's effigy-prepared bosom on "Queen of Death," the sanguine-draining, nocturnal viper melee of "Nosferatu Nights," the seductively caustic and necromantic echo of a promise of vengeance that is "Deja Voodoo," and the undulating, warped passage of flexing guitar melodies that harrows down the gorge of a geist-shredding, black-winged retribution for an eons-old betrayal on "She." When the winds and black magic prevail, there is no place stonier or more serene than Castle's keep.

Beat your heart out (Hammerheart Records).

Interview: Cheem

Photo by Abby Clare

Cheem may be the best band in the world. There really isn't even a contest. Hardworking, original, and friendly af, they're the complete package for any DIY devotees/appreciators/aficionados who recall the intoxicating blend of rock, rap, rap-rock, Swedish-penned mega-pop-hits, and hardcore electronic beats that suffused the flavorful yet perplexingly complex and layered braise of popular music in the late '90s and early '00s- all the stuff that ended up getting exiled to the back of the freezer known as MTV2 and later completely off the table and onto compost heap of MySpace after 2005. Their sound harkens back to a time when there was greater permeability between the underground and what we could deem the mainstream, and in modernizing this sonic mesh of synecdoches and loose ends into a coherent vision that is recognizable and embraced by contemporary fans of underground music, they fill a niche in today's scene that nobody else can. Hopefully, the love they inspire will lift the group to the heights of fame and success that the inspiration and ambition of their sound prophesies as practically inevitable. And if you weren't there when Incubus, Linkin Park, Savage Garden, and the like were churning out singles and iconic, high-concept, top-tier videos, then Cheem can serve as the elder sibling you never had, introducing you to the sounds and styles of decades past and priming you to embrace the next big thing as it comes around the bend- which, in this case, just so happens to be Cheem themselves, and their latest LP, Power Move. Power Move is a follow-up to their breakout LP Guilty Pleasure, a tour de force covered positively on this very blog (and other publications of lesser cultural impact as well), whose momentum is retained and magnified on this latest release. From the vibrant, scratch-textured, and concussive internal tug-of-war of opener "Pivot," to the bust-out and build-up-the-break-down, skate-groove slap of "Gorrilla Glue," to the vaporwave-infused, Caribbean-spiced splash of "Quench," there is nary a dull moment or an inspired idea that goes unrealized on Power Move. Even though the band is currently on tour, vocalist/guitarist/scratch master Skye Holden still found time to parse some interrogatories that I slid his way, and you can read his responses below.

 

Let's set the stage- what does the journey from Guilty Pleasure to Power Move look like? 

We were working on Power Move since before Guilty Pleasure even dropped, the first full band recordings of songs like "Quench" and "Octane" were done in 2021 and a few elements from those sessions did end up making it into the final album.  Aside from that, we tried to stay consistent while working on such a big project behind the scenes so we dropped two EPs, Fast Fashion and Faster Fashion.  We were not expecting them to get so much traction but thanks to that we ended up being in a really good spot to drop a record after a stint of social media success in early 2025.  We kinda expedited the record release for that reason and went in on finishing it.

Why was Power Move selected as the title for your latest release?

The original record was 18 tracks, and that's the version that is being released as Power Move: Victory Lap.  Dropping a statement like that is a power move, in our opinion.  Especially with the range we were trying to showcase across all the songs.

"Pivot" is such an amazing way to start out this album. What is the story behind it? 

"Pivot" was the last song written for the album, it almost didn't make it in time but it was so good I pushed for it to make the tracklist.  It's a song about a relationship becoming one-sided, where one party is trying hard to be communicative and make things work and the other seemingly can't be bothered and is either fine with the dysfunction or just looking for an exit.

Tell me about the features on this Power Move? Why did you choose these artists as creative partners? What is the story?

For the most part they were just artists we crossed paths with playing live who we ended up becoming friends with, it was all very organic.  The only one we haven't met in person is Brazil-based MC Taya, we came across each other via a Twitter account called "crazy ass moments in nu metal history."  We just had a mutual appreciation for each other's work and we knew after hearing her style that we wanted to get her on a heavy song.

Pitchfork gave Guilty Pleasure a rating of 6.9. What rating would you give Pitchfork?

4.20

Objectively, what rating would you give Power Move on a scale of 1-10 and why?

10, it's by far our best work and we're making exactly the kind of music we want to hear.  And if you're not gonna ride for yourself then nobody is.

What is Power Move: Victory Lap and what can people expect from this DLC pack? 

Power Move: Victory Lap is the actual album we wanted to drop.  It's the director's cut.  People can expect even more sides of Cheem that weren't showcased on the initial release and smoother transitions between songs because of the adherence to the original track order.

Not that you were lacking it on earlier albums, but you do sound more confident and comfortable in your skin on this record. Can you tell me how being in a band for as long as you all have contributed to your sense of self as performers and to the kind of music you can make?

The longer you do it the less you care about what other people think and more about how satisfied you feel with the end product that you're working on.  The music becomes less about what you think will do well and more about a sound you wish existed and want to bring into the world.  We also think more about what's gonna be more fun to play live since our live show is such a huge part of what we do.  I think this album has a good mix of experimental studio-oriented tracks and live bangers.  We think it's important to do both because we want to explore every corner of the Cheem sound.

 
I'm loving how deep and rich a lot of the tracks on Power Move are sounding, can you tell me a little about the production choices that went into this release?

There was definitely a conscious decision to make the quieter sections more atmospheric.  There's all kinds of samples and noises buried in the mix here and there that just add a little to the overall feel.  We also included a couple of interlude-esque outros on songs to help bridge the gap between tracks.  I would say the biggest influences in that regard would be trip hop and vaporwave.

Would you still consider yourself Nu-Pop? What are the parameters of this genre? Are there any other bands you would consider Nu-Pop, or Nu-Pop adjacent? 

Absolutely, we are a nu pop band.  It's the genre blending of nu metal but with a more melodic and pop-oriented approach, essentially just incorporating elements of hip-hop, electronic, R&B, Latin, and Caribbean music to the more traditional rock band format with loud guitars and live drums. 

If I had to name some nu pop adjacent bands I would say South Arcade, Cherie Amour, Medekine, Scro, Symposia, and Pink Pool.

At this point in your career, where do you see yourselves as fitting into the larger spectrum of DIY/Emo/Punk music? 

It's tough to say because even though we are pretty DIY (recording, production, mixing, graphic design, etc.) we're at a point where we can't really play house shows anymore.  For us to faithfully put on a show for all the people that want to see us we need a venue that can comfortably and safely accommodate a decent amount of people and a nice loud sound system.  That said, we try to keep the DIY ethos in mind and we do keep up with what's happening in that scene to some extent.  I think people have finally stopped classifying us as emo though.

Say some nice things about John and the rest of the Lonely Ghost crew. 

Lonely Ghost is a great label to be on for a DIY band because they do their best to let you just do your own thing and accommodate that into their release schedule.  They never said no to our ideas, and they really believe in the future of innovative and unique music.  Great people operating a pretty busy label purely for the love of the game.

Is ska due for a comeback?

If you mean in the mainstream then yeah, I'd like to see a modern pop take on ska.  If Olivia Rodrigo or Pinkpantheress dropped a ska-infused song I think that would be sick and probably wouldn't sound like any ska we've heard before.  I think reimagining the production choices while maintaining the core identity of the genre is the only chance it has to get a big break again.

What's the best thing someone has ever written about your band, and why did you like it so much? 

Angel Marcloid (aka Fire-Toolz aka Mindspring Memories) mastered our new record and she sent us an email telling us how much she liked the album and why and all the things she said really rang true with what we set out to do with this album.  We really enjoy and respect her work so it meant a lot to hear.

What is the ideal piece of coverage that a music publication (not saying Nu Metal Agenda, but not not saying them either) could do for your band that would help your career right now? Put another way, what is the value/role of music journalism from your perspective in this day and age?

Truth be told I don't know how many people are reading music publications nowadays.  I think it would have to be a pretty huge publication to move the needle in any meaningful way.  For us music interviews are just about getting a chance to express ourselves and our intentions in detail for the passionate fans that care enough to dig deep.

How is your current tour going? What dates/cities are you most excited about?

Our past couple tours have been incredible, more sold out shows than not which is a good sign.  Our last Brooklyn show and the festival Burn Bright (Editor's note: I was there!)were two particular highlights.

What are the best albums from the late '90s/early '00s ('97-'04), and what about them inspires you? 

You picked a great era so I'll keep it to 5 records.

Transistor by 311, it's 21 tracks of the band at their most experimental and the production was mind-blowing to me the first time I listened to it.

Celebrity by NSYNC, it has really strong pop hooks and incorporates UK garage, breakbeat, and hip-hop production.  There isn't even another song I can think of that sounds like "Do Your Thing" (the closing track) which is a pretty cool achievement for a boy band.

Sol-Fa by Asian Kung-Fu Generation, this is how pop punk should have evolved in the West but never did.  This is an example of what you can do when you're inspired by a genre but not tethered by nostalgia.  (Their 2008 album World World World is an even better example of this.)

Get Rich or Die Tryin' by 50 Cent, this was one of the first hip-hop records I fell in love with as a little kid.  Track for track it's so good.  I always love when a rapper has a great flow but also a sense of melody, like a lot of these songs don't have a featured singer on the chorus but they still have hooks you can sing along to.

Meteora by Linkin Park, I don't even need to get into this one.  A lot of people probably prefer Hybrid Theory but as someone who has probably listened to both records a thousand times this is the one that comes out on top, if only by a little.

What is an influence on your group that has never come up in an interview before, or that no one has been able to pinpoint in a review of your music?

The Hives, I've listened to their first four albums so many times.  I accidentally straight up stole a Hives lyric in "Nano." (Editor's note: Good artists borrow, great artists steal!) And our song "Motorola Razr" was originally a GarageBand file called "hives beat" because of the drums and percussion in the chorus.

When are you starting an official fan club, and what can people expect as far as exclusive merch and events from such an organization? 

We kinda tried to do that with a program called CheemQuest but we've been insanely busy and haven't been able to update it.  We'll probably go back to doing that but also maybe starting a more straightforward street team based out of our discord.

I've heard Cheem is a romantic sort of group and/or for lovers, describe to me your perfect date.

Picking up good food to eat at home and watching a really good show or playing a really good video game.  If you want a less introverted answer I would probably say a beach day but that's not really on the table for the vast majority of the year where we're from.

What recommendations do you have for fans who want to take a date to a Cheem show? 

DM us on Instagram and tell us to pretend to know you so you can impress your date.

What are your signature combos and/or finishing moves?

All of our combos involve complicated polyrhythms between buttons so no one has actually ever executed one before.  For our finishing move we combine into a Voltron/Megazord like entity and annihilate our foes with a beam sword called the Cheem sword.

What are your favorite game OSTs and how do they contribute to the Cheem repertoire? 

I think games like the first three Mario Bros, Wario Land 4, and Pokemon Colosseum subconsciously influenced my melodic and rhythmic sensibilities because I played them so much as a child.  A few highlights from soundtracks I got into later in life would be Katamari Damacy, Danganronpa, Earthbound, and the Ape Escape games.  Anytime I hear a cool production touch in a video game song I always think about how I can incorporate it into Cheem.  I think it also inspires me to utilize unconventional instruments outside of the actual makeup of the band, stuff like strings, woodwinds, extra percussion, etc.

What games are you playing now? 

The only game I'm really playing right now is Doubutsu no Mori e+ (Japanese exclusive Animal Crossing game) to help me work on learning Japanese.  I did just finish the Xenoblade Chronicles trilogy though.

If Cheem were an acronym, what would each letter stand for?

Cool Hard Extreme Exquisite Music

Photo by Abby Clare

Cheem you later space cowboy!

Album Review: Monolord - Your Time To Shine

Monolord is definitely laying it on a little thick with the cover and title here—Your Time to Shine? A lifeless lepus, wreathed with flowers? A bit of that restrained Swedish dourness goes a long way. Me being my tactful, beneficent self though, I'm going to put it to you even more bluntly: you are a vermin, a noxious nuisance, a dyed-in-the-wool cretin. You're running around the metaphorical jungle of modernity, the great urban holt, red-assed and cross-eyed, flapping your cheeks in the wind with the pride of a blooded noble, bellowing like a being of untold importance and boundless delusion, a shadow that runs before the crumbling ruin of your actual personage, a scared animal shitting under a bush, too dumb and blind to be ashamed of its own specious projections of hubris. Only in death will you attain the aura that you sought in life, because it is the only point in history since your birth when you will be remembered with ubiquitous fondness, owed solely to the practicality that you can no longer do anything to further embarrass yourself and others... It's sorta zen when you think about it. In nothingness, you finally find the serenity of peace that escaped you in life. Ah! Nirvana at last! ...right before you're reincarnated as a tampon. This fatalistic, if backhandedly optimistic, outlook- liberation via the unburdening of life in its continuance- is certainly reflected in the billowing, cosmic star-rangler and veristic tendencies of this inky, astral-hued sludge metal band from the great white North, whose gripping, nature-worshipping, navel-gazing sound is as contemplative as it is flesh-flatteningly heavy. Their mournful, hazy riff-hammering makes its home somewhere along the broken highway between Mastodon and Hawkwind, with dark, beautiful cascades of guitar cracking the sky and lighting your way through the phenomenally thick atmosphere the band has managed to conjure as it leads you to your new abode, a 6x6 efficiency, in the clodded turf of nature's bosom where you can tranquilly dissipate into the successive churn of eons... or more precisely, become fertilizer. A good place to start if you're looking to have your bones ground into plant chow early is the devastating massive opener "The Weary," which hews closer to the chunky beardo-with-a-heart-of-gold, party-pit groove rock of Red Fang, or "I'll Be Damned," with its shovel-hefting, dirt-sifting, crack-and-slam grooves, each repetition of which is like another pound of gravedirt piled on your rotting bones. "To Each Their Own" is a hauntingly somber number, with the crushing gravity of an imploding star, that sucks you in, pulverizes you, and then mixes your dust with a palette of paint which the band uses to revarnish the celestial dome above. Then there is the ten-minute title track, which is fierce and whimsical while remaining compellingly heavy and undeterred, making use of meandering grooves and quivering feedback to leave the impression that you're being boiled in a pot of lysergic pekoe to fill the gullet of a frog wizard while he ponders and stargazes, parcing clouds of violet-tinted scholastic cogitation with the warty weft of his intellect. You might never summit the peak of your facile ambitions, but you can take solace in the supposition that you'll at least be helping to keep the grass greener once you're gone.

熱があります (Relapse Records).

Album Review: 紅髮少年殺人事件 - Brutal Girl Dillusion

紅髮少年殺人事件* isn't a paint-by-numbers Girl homage, at least not anymore, but there is a faint echo of laudation that resonates with the veritable plucky Fukuoka prefecture progenitors of understated youth-rock refractory, lingering like a ghost in the band's sound. But what untangles 紅髮少年殺人事件 from any of their reasonably attributable influences is the extent that they are not overly persuaded by the examples of their senseis- that they're not shackled to precedence or encumbered by the weight of the past in the least- a bursting blossom with no stem whose petals spark at the lips, vents of an inborn flame. On their most recent release, Brutal Girl Delusion, the Guangzhou-based group seizes on every opportunity to sling-shot around your ears in intersecting, concentric orbits, treating the rhythmic interplay between the members like games of badminton played with live grenades, with the consequential booms of feedback landing like a rain of electrolytes to fuel the generation of their caustic creation. Alternative rock verve and indie-shock spikes of melodic perturbation get pulled and twisted until they're thin enough to fail before being folded over again into themselves, reinforcing their initial promise of tensile strength and fortifying a renewed pledge of potent fury- a moldable but sturdy platform which the band can kick out of shape and scuff back into new and thrilling forms at will. Spry and edgy, heartfelt and anxiously serene, Brutal Girl Delusion is a cry down the well of youth to see if there is any soul left lurking at the bottom who can answer back with any compelling force of reply.

Little critters, big sound (SmallAnimalsRecords).

*I'm not translating their name b/c every translator I use gives me a different response. From what I can gather it's something like "the murder case of a red-haired child," but what really matters is the music, not what they call themselves. 

Album Review: Beastmaker - Inside The Skull

Wwwaaaahhhhhhhhhh Beastmaker breaks my heart. The burly doom metal out of Fresno, CA, was briefly euthanized in 2019 to fill the spiritual vessel of Haunt to the brim by both bands' all-father Trevor William Church. Now, while technically revived, for tax reasons (probably), etc... Beastmaker as a band has essentially been hibernating while the aforementioned Haunt gallivants over the moors of the metal scene like a big-haired, bullet-belt-adorned Baskerville. I get why that is. I don't begrudge Haunt's success. Beastmaker had a hell of a run, dropping 10 EPs in 2018 alone, before getting iced in the wake of the Eye of the Storm EP's gale... but I just prefer their monster-mash, mushroom-headed, ooze-and-booze style of doom to the more epic and thematically dense material that Haunt embodies and exudes. Maybe it's too many late nights as a kid hypnotized by MST3K reruns on the Sci-Fi channel, or all the time as a teenager I spent digging into the schlock horror inspirations of my favorite Misfits songs, but if a band nails the crunchy macabre oeuvre of these imprudent pastimes of mine, then they've earned a loyal fan for me.... 'til death do us part... or maybe longer. So who/what/were(wolf) is Beastmaker? Well, they're a hazy, horror-inspired doom metal, heavily influenced by downer-rockers Black Sabbath and later psychedelic and blues-fueled doom purveyors like Pentagram. As I alluded earlier, they have a surprisingly dense catalog, of which Inside the Skull is only their second and (at this point) most recent LP, released in 2017 via lauded metal asylum Rise Above Records. The production and mixing on this album are... well, let me put it this way: the master might have been boiled in hog fat before it was sent to the presses, but that only enhances the grimy, grind-house vibe of the record on the whole, and the musicianship is tight and compelling enough to shine through any disputed flaws one may notice with the recordings. Most of the songs have a pulp-horror narrative similar to the macabre vignettes from Tales from the Crypt, recounting stories of nightmarish eternal life, malevolent black widow lovers, and other things that go bump in the night. If you dare, and are up for a scare, then creep into the trippy psych-drenched "Now Howls the Beast" featuring guest vocalist Johanna Sadonis of Lucifer, as well as the swampy, southern riffs and fat undulating grooves of "Nature of the Damned," the muscular, maudlin riffs and oozing crawl of "Inside the Skull," and the sludgy, venomous grooves and spitting hooks of "Night Bird." Inside of you are two wolves; Beastmaker would like nothing more than to rile them up and set them loose in the dark, gothic theater of your mind.

Up from below (Rise Above Records).

Album Review: canekzapata - the consensus isn't dead, it just smells jazzy

One of the most irritating things dimwits attempting to sound intelligent will do is reduce some facet of the human subject down to a rudimentary syllogism- one of the more popular, and stupid, being that the brain is little more than a computer- reasoning that because computers make calculations and process information, and human brains do the same, Q.E.D., our brains are simply low-wattage computers. Absolutely idiotic. A weapons-grade brainlet level of casuistic officiation. News flash, genius: You are not a computer! Like a hammer is not your hand, a shoe is not your foot- humanity is defined by our extensive usage of tools, a pattern of behavior that does not replace our bodies and minds, but rather augments them on orders of magnitude that make the unimaginable become real and tenable over the course of a single generation, as of the advent of modernity. Ergo, humanity can never be displaced by its creations, not entirely, rather we are perpetually on the verge of rebirth in a world shaped by our collective ingenuity. What does this have to do with an experimental music album out of Mexico? Well, due to the advancement of available digital instruments, it is now possible for the purest forms of our imagination to gain some form of grounding, to be filled with marrow and held up by raw, bleeding flesh. If desire has wings, then the graceful appendages holding our passions in ambiance have extended to the farthest lengths of measurable latitudes. Case in point, The consensus isn't dead, it just smells jazzy fragments and shuffles the planes of jazz and soul to repurpose their osseous matter and proteins in a novel metabolism that reorients and re-tangles what it ingests into an elucidating pastiche, refracting the resiliences of its sources and the pageantry of stirring poignancy in a mold that is both distinctively unreproducible and indelibly universal, without the disclusion of direct linguistic translation or conceits to the treacherous topography of discrete cultural forms. The worm of the processes that produced this record bores through any barriers to consciousness and alignment with intentions that refuce to give way on their own, eating through the rot of intransigent concurrence, the cold hand of resting stone in a shwabble-dabble-glibba kind of pattern, like a steady drip of water on a mountainside, or a worm inching through mulching, tunneling through a first edition of Principles of Political Economy and Taxation, instructing in its progressive path of transformation that the weight of presupposition is little more than a temporary impediment, and often rather serves as a buffet to replenish its replacement. Every revolution of the globe is a new day, and every innovation produces a dawn that stretches beyond the line of sight, breaking only on the shores of infinity- inching ever closer to the sun, and yet never burning. 

Interview: Cocojoey

Born on a whim and sailing through tragedy, Chicago's experimental sound cub and maximalist melodist Cocojoey hangs off the ledge of infinity's crest while netting the fractured crystals of the universe in outstretched palms on their Hausu Mountain debut, a digi-orchestral odyssey, concisely and informatively titled, simply Stars. They also make some hella wacky music- in a good way, in a fun way, in a sort of serious and enlightening way too. In another place, in another time, it would not be far-fetched to imagine Russell Mael or Dr. Demento leaping over each other to present Joey with pathfinding mentorship and formulative counsel- alas, in our forlorn era Joey may have only the distant spheres of atomic combustion to illuminate and gird their bearings (ok, so there is Doug and Max too, but let's be real, not all viable advice can be boiled down to Phish metaphors). Even in the swirling void of our present-day cultural miasma, these seemingly insignificant pinpricks of burning lights align in a constellation of ebullient steps for Joey, with the cosmos extending like the playfield of a pinball machine, attending to their quicksilver as they parlay impulses into a responsive material reality, simultaneously generating conductive flashes of joy and blissful energy in a tumbling accumulation of ephemeral fortune accelerated by a boundless sense of presence, that seeps into gaps of despair and terraforms them into dens of accentuated recognition. If any of this sounds intriguing to you, and I hope it does, then check out my interview with Cocojoey below, for a glimpse into their inner world:

Note that this interview was done in the fall of 2025, hence Joey's comments about what they planned to do over the winter (2026). I meant to release this interview in December (2025), but due to work, the holidays, travel, health stuff, and a lot of me just being me, its drop date got pushed back. Maybe Joey can write a distrack about my lack of time management. I would welcome the creative feedback. 

Check out Stars below and visit Hausu Mountain for more cool records. 

Album Review: Booze Control - Forgotten Lands

March is a special month for me,* so I'm popping the tab on it with Germany's NWOBHM-inspired bruisers Booze Control and taking a long pull from their fourth LP (and most recent, as of 2019), Forgotten Lands. Booze Control isn't the subtlest of bands. Their sound is essentially all of the sprinting parts of Judas Priest and Iron Maiden, with some flush nods to the battle cry fury of Manowar steeped in the brew. If you like the big acts to come out of Britain's metal scene in the late '70s but could do without the arty, acid-flavored tangents those bands would sometimes embark on, then you'll certainly appreciate how close to the marrow Booze Control tends to strike. It's hit-the-ground-running, bar-juke-box-booming, muscle-head metal to crush some cans (or skulls) to. Highlights include the Judas-esque chopper ride "Attack of the Axemen," the deliberate and saw-tooth-riffed "Of the Deep," the spin-riffed march "Slaying the Mantis," and the sweeping heat of "Playing with Fire." Put some lightning in your blood tonight!

* Doing a dry March. First dry month ever. You may have some questions, such as: 1) Do I have a problem?, and 2) Is this for Ramadan? The answer to both is "No."