
Bleeding Mountains – Branches Grow
Similar artists: Torche, Cave In, Helmet, High On Fire, Mastodon
Genre: Stoner Rock, Grunge
Most hard-rocking bands wear costumes, and, strangest of all, some don’t even realise it. With so much heavy music flying about in every direction, it’s hard to shock people anymore. And, make no mistake about it, most of these bands got by on the horror movie values that they could produce.
Putting on a costume in a bid to convince people that it’s Halloween could be as successful as glueing a big white beard to your chin and trying to tell them it’s Christmas. Even the most commercial-heavy sounds now require a real personal touch in order to be believable and in order to draw in audiences.
Bleeding Mountains’ “Branches Grow” is a grungey ode to the mercilessness of nature. But it is also a song that reveals the madness of the people making it. In other words, their unique fingerprints are all over this. And while the tune utilises the kind of detuned guitar riffs and shouted vocals a la Soundgarden, there’s something that belongs wholly to Bleeding Mountains. And, frankly, this is one of the most convincing sounds of the grunge revival we’ve been hearing in recent times.
Kesurapan – Falling Faster
Similar artists: Deftones, Alice In Chains, Linkin Park, Thirty Seconds To Mars
Genre: Stoner Rock, Alternative Rock
People who don’t share the fondness for heavy music may just hear everything as a form of musical terrorism, being extreme for extreme’s sake. But that’s not true. Just as in pop music, there’s plenty of heavy music that is extremely safe and not very inspiring. And there are few artists, like Germany’s Kesurapan, willing to stick their neck out for the sake of being original.
Plastering the word “alternative” onto your music used to be a badge of honour. It signified that the people making the music were unwilling to merely copy a formula off of one of the more famous bands that came before them. It told audiences that these were artists bravely experimenting with sound in a bid to create something unique.
Kesurapan’s “Falling Faster” might help you recall alt-metal bands of old, but the greatest similarity is in spirit rather than sound. The Germans invest their energies in theatrical vocals and the kind of heavy, well-crafted guitars that seem to always want to sneak up from behind. The music is powerful, and mysterious and avoids following a straight line or adhering to the copycat mentality that so many Deftones-worshippers seem to want to embrace these days.