It’s October, so that means milder weather, scary movies, and tons of new rock and metal releases! The Steve and Keefy Power Hour is back! Senior Editor Steve Tovey joins Chief Editor Keefy, to discuss the month in Rock and Metal releases. They recap the releases for September 2023, and preview October’s new heavy music must spins and purchases! We also announced the September Album of the Month from Ghost Cult, as voted on by our staff.
When Capra burst onto the Hardcore scene back in 2021 with their debut album, In Transmission, they displayed whole-heartedly, what the best things are about the subgenre today. Riffs that make you want to start chaos wherever you go, and the emotive vocals from Crow Lotus, made Capra one of the stand-out newcomers in 2021.
A lot of bands sound like they are writing their albums with a view to the live setting these days, with business perhaps more focused on big riffs or breakdowns and how they’ll go over in a club than fitting in to the overall theme of an album, or a band’s catalog. Washington’s current finest punk band Filth Is Eternal sound like a killer live band who also took the extra time at every element of their craft. From message to delivery, this is the full package.
Tommy Victor is an unsung hero of Rock. The Prong frontman (and the band’s only constant) has been putting out great records under the Prong banner since 1989’s Force Fed. Between then and the band’s latest — thirteenth studio album State of Emergency (Steamhammer / SPV) — there’s been a brief flirtation with commercial success in the early-mid nineties, an extended hiatus before and after the band’s unfairly-maligned Scorpio Rising album from 2003, and a steady stream of quality material over recent years.
I was a bit concerned when I got the press materials from Grove Street’s The Path to Righteousness (UNFD) as it stated that these English lads were looking to deliver something that blended elements from Hardcore, Metal, Hip Hop and other nineties buzzwords. Hell, I believe the copy read something like “the Beastie Boys with breakdowns, Pantera with prose,” and suddenly a giant exclamation point jolted out of my head like it was a Hideo Kojima production.
Le Poisson Rouge (LPR) is one of the great music venues in Greenwich Village, Manhattan. Located on Bleeker Street, just a block and a half south of Washington Square Park, it plays host to a wide variety of musical acts ranging in style from Disco to Punk to Hip Hop and some Heavy Metal. Wikipedia notes that the room capacity is 700 but that likely includes a hallway bar and other spaces. In anticipation of a crowd heating the place, the air conditioning is always set on arctic and the room stays fairly comfortable. No food is served there but Bleeker is almost entirely made up of restaurants, so there will be something available for any taste. Something very interesting happened at LPR recently, and three bands rattled the windows of the entire neighborhood for a night.
In an astoundingly potent year for hardcore that is seeing beautiful and passionate efforts from so many bands from Gel to Fiddlehead to the upcoming Filth Is Eternal release, the return of Connecticut hardcore band With Honor is still a cause to celebrate.
Scientists generally agree that the Big Bang, which occurred roughly 13.7 billion years ago, kick-started the creation of the universe as we know it today. Well, now we also know what the Big Bang sounded like.
Something I always do is avoid using “I” in a review. I always avoid talking in the first person and just give a description of the show and let the reader form an opinion. I recently got the opportunity to see Mr. Bungle in Philadelphia and they are no ordinary band so this will not be an ordinary review.
