Halloween Dream: Hairday and Jonathan Young x Judge & Jury Reviewed

Jonathan Young x Judge & Jury – Drinking Blood

Similar artists: Sabaton, Three Days Grace, Ghost, Evanescence, Caleb Hyles

Genre: Progressive Metal / Djent

The days of being able to scare your friends by playing heavy metal songs are long gone. If you must, blame it on times changing, on video game villains, and on metal making inroads into popular culture. But all of this doesn’t mean that big, scary metal sounds do not still require a healthy dose of ability, as Jonathan Young & Judge & Jury prove here. 

As for metal’s reputation, add inefficient marketing as one of the culprits. It’s a genre created on the power of myth and legend. Why, how many non-Scandinavians would’ve listened to black metal had it not been for the stories of stabbings and church burnings orchestrated by those posh Bergen kids? And where would Black Sabbath have been had there been no tales of devil worship? 

Jonathan Young x Judge & Jury’s “Drinking Blood” is a cartoonish version of powerful metal music, but it is a strong performance nonetheless. The immediate, most striking element is, of course, the vocal showing. There is certainly great technique and control involved in this. The production, however, adheres to the same principles as many other modern rock acts and sounds a little too perfect and, thus, a tad sterile. Nevertheless, from a technical standpoint, this is a success. And, by gosh, it’s even in time for Halloween, the heavy metal Christmas as far as seven-string guitar players and growl vocalists are concerned. 

Hairday – Zombie

Similar artists: The Drums, Current Joys, Cigarettes After Sex

Genre: Surf Rock, Lo-fi Rock

People used to get a chill up their spine at the very mention of ghouls, monsters, and zombies. The numerous pieces of media featuring them have made these creatures entertaining. Nowadays, many of us envy them and dream of being afforded the same kinds of luxuries by life or by death. 

Hairday’s “Zombie” is a song that revels in the fantasy of escaping the pressures of everyday life. Arriving just in time for Halloween, most people’s favorite holiday in recent times, Hairday’s vision is of walking the Earth without the demands that all of us simple folk have hoisted upon us. It’s the luxury of living without having to be a live. 

“Zombie” is built from the melodies and chord structure that would accompany retro 50s records. It’s a well to which horror-based acts have often gone. After all, the only thing that’s scarier than the future is the past. With a lo-fi production and a dimly lit video that shows the singer-songwriter as a ghoul wasting time around town, Hairday is ready for Halloween and hopeful to make every day after it just as pleasantly ghoulish.