The Fierce And The Dead – Golden Thread
Genre: Stoner Rock, Grunge, Alternative Rock
Similar artists: Crippled Black Pheonix, Soundgarden, Melvins, My Bloody Valentine, Deftones
Modern production techniques have done a lot for all kinds of music, except for rock. Sure, the technology has improved to an incredible extent. A record can now be made on your laptop or your phone. Non-musicians are able to use these tools to create convincing works. Why even your cat could come up with a hit single with the right amount of autotune and a strong beat behind the meows?
But, is this of help to the age-old beauty of the guitar riff? Not really. Overly produced records are far worse than badly produced ones. They suck out all of the pleasure that hard-rock music can offer, for example. And, let us not kid ourselves. Without the simple pleasures of head banging along to your favorite riffs, hard-rock is just a bunch of adults locking themselves in a room and screaming at the walls.
The Fierce And The Dead’s Golden Thread, thankfully, manages to capture the excitement of modern, head-banging music without squeezing all of its juice through the overuse of modern production. This is music meant to take you on a journey, a roller coaster ride that takes nearly seven minutes, a hard rocker’s dream of beginning a prog-influenced rock opera. The Fierce And The Dead are not just ambitious in scope. They sound exciting, and because of that can easily demand seven minutes of your life.
Evergreener – Deciduous
Genre: Punk, Pop Punk
Musicians who end up winning prestigious awards spend their minutes on stage thanking their families, managers, record labels, etc. What they should really thank ought to be the boredom that, no doubt, played a big part in helping them become who they are. It takes a lot of work to become great art and a whole lot of dissatisfaction.
You think that being born into money and being able to spend every day at the beach is so great? Yes, it is! It is so great, in fact, that nobody feels the need to write songs about anything important. It’s difficult to get people to want to come to rehearsals. And, certainly, why would anyone waste their days on the road in search of fans when life has already taken care of you in such a marvelous way?
Evergreener’s Deciduous is a testament to what boredom and anger can do for your direction and resolve as an artist. This is a song about facing one’s difficulties with bravery and conviction. It’s a tune about negativity and what one’s reaction to it can mean for one’s evolution. It’s a punk song built out of passion born out of a passionless world. Evergreener ought to thank all of the boredom around them.