BRING ME THE HORIZON STREAM NEW ALBUM

Due to "overwhelming and phenomenal demand" and probably in response to the leak the other day, you can legally listen to Bring Me The Horizon's upcoming new album Sempiternal in full below for the next week only! As well as this, they have also brought the album's release date forward a month to April 1st. Review will be on its way shortly! It's incredible btdubs.

ALBUMS THAT MADE theNOISE #1; ABSOLUTION by Muse

So, last week I warned you all that, for lack of anything better to do, I was going to write a series of pieces on the albums that I credit with having made me who I am today, which is to say, a bloke with a dishevelled scruffy beard who sits alone listening to rock/metal and writes about it. And finally, I've got round to #1. It's not a full-blown review, mind, but an excerpt from my life story that you're free to laugh at mixed with review elements. Enjoy...

EPISODE #1; MUSE, ABSOLUTION

If you know me personally, then I classify it statistically impossible for me to have not mentioned my undying love for Muse around you at some point. Maybe not directly to you, maybe you heard a conversation I was having and I mentioned it. But I love Muse. People who know me well/those who have seen parts of me naked on the internet will know that Absolution in particular is a special album to me. 

Yep. I took this photo right after it was done, hence why it's a bit manky round the edges, but there will always be a reminder of how much Muse changed my life, and how Absolution turned me towards a different style of music altogether, inked on my right shoulder. So this importance this album has in my life made it a good place to start.

Let’s rewind a few years. Around the late spring/early summer of maybe 2005/6, I bought Absolution on eBay for about a fiver. For the last few years up to this point, I had been very much in a musical purgatory, if you will. This was back in the day when social constructs such as ‘greebo’ were rife in high school life (do they still exist?), and instead of declaring myself part of one tribe or another, I tried to fit in to all the social groups around me. I convinced myself that I liked both rap and rock, although metal was a no-no. Hell, I didn’t want people to think I was a goth or an emo. “I will NEVER like Slipknot” I said once. How times change.

But really, I had never had a music taste – I just liked some stuff, mostly chart stuff. And now, internet, I would like to share with you my eternal shame. Some people have really awesome albums as their first records. One of my favourite musicians, Brann Dailor (drummer of Mastodon), counts really cool shit like Iron Maiden and AC/DC among his first albums. Me? Vapid pop pretty-boys A1. Oh yeah. Bless you the 90s.

Those guys. Remember them? Technically speaking, they weren’t even my first album. My first was Now (That’s What I Call Music) 48, but as a compilation I don’t count it. To this day I could not tell you another A1 song without Wikipedia. But really, I did not have a cool musical start. The Black Eyed Peas’ Elephunk album was next (actually not a bad album, before they went shit, but still not great), then others I forget/am ashamed to admit. Among those was a fucking Tim Westwood compilation. I thought I was cool. HAH.

So this time went by with me having no strong musical taste, trying to convince myself that I liked lots of different styles I’d barely even heard of – case and point, I heard Slam by Pendulum on Zane Lowe’s Radio 1 show as ‘Hottest Record In The World Today’ and suddenly I loved drum ‘n’ bass. Ahem. But among the band names I’d heard on that show, before I realised I didn’t like Zane, was Muse. Or Mews, as I thought it was spelt. I know, I’m a tool. And I remembered they had a recent album, called…um…Absolution? A quick Google search confirmed, then a quick trip to eBay and a fiver bagged me a copy. And largely, from the point it arrived onward, my life changed. Sounds overdramatic, and it wasn’t instantaneous by any means, but it was a milestone.

Obviously I knew what the word absolution meant, with the connotations of the absolving of sins at the end of the world, so I was thinking “shiiiiit, this is gonna be so dark and heavy and cool”, and so imagine my surprise when I was right. A summary of my first listen goes something like this, as I remember it;

Intro/Apocalypse Please: Is this playing? Oh wait, I hear something. Thump, Thump, Thump Thump Thump. Ooh, intriguing AAAAAHHHHH JEEEESUS that’s loud piano. What IS this?

Time Is Running Out: Cool bass.

Sing For Absolution: This is nice. In a sad way.

Stockholm Syndrome: *headbangs*

Falling Away With You: *gets goosebumps on arms*

Interlude/Hysteria: OH SHIT this is building to something epic. *bass comes in* :O

Rest of the album: :O with varying degrees of spinal chills, particularly during Blackout/Butterlies & Hurricanes/Ruled By Secrecy

Basically, from the first time I heard Interlude/Hysteria, I was hooked. There is so much I love about the album. The heaviness of some songs, the tender, epic beauty of others, and the way they transition perfectly into one another. My favourite example of a transition in the album is between Falling Away With You into Interlude, because the underlying sound of Interlude is there from the second verse. It just runs perfectly underneath the song, providing this dark spine to the song, so that when the rest of the song fades away at the end we’re just left with the fuzzy tremolo before the bassline that everybody knows them by kicks in. It’s perfect.

And so that was the point at which my life began to change really, between Interlude and the ending track Ruled By Secrecy. Whereas before I’d been in the no-mans-land I talked about earlier, I started to develop the taste in music I have now which has had such a huge impact on my life. I fell in love with Absolution, so I immediately set about obtaining their back catalogue, so very soon I had it – at this point, Absolution was the most recent album, so just Showbiz, Origin of Summetry and Hullabaloo – and I was hooked. It was the start of a beautiful relationship.

Absolution is an incredible album; the depth of the apocalyptic concept, the mastery with which every song is constructed, from the soaring classical elements to the straight up rock; it is Muse’s best album, and my joint favourite of all time with Origin of Symmetry (yes, my 2 favourite albums are both Muse). So it is the first album that really began to make me into what I am now.  I could not recommend it more.

BRING ME THE HORIZON 'SEMPITERNAL' ALBUM LEAK

A full 2 months ahead of it's slated release, Bring Me The Horizon's new album Sempiternal has been leaked. So, I urge you to let it sit on the internet, undownloaded and alone, and wait for the actual release at the end of April. Support music and the artists that produce it! 

That said, I've heard the album's opening track Can You Feel My Heart, as it was floating around Tumblr before I realised it had leaked. I'm honestly astonished by it. It's so, so far from what I ever imagined BMTH were capable of, and I cannot stop listening to it. I've genuinely had it on repeat for the last half an hour. 

Astonishing is the best word I can think of. Sempiternal is going to be a game-changer. I just know it. Is it too early to call it potential album of the year when it's not out for 2 months?

NEW VIDEO; CHAOS DREAMS by Voragan

Who'd-a thought it. Death metal, from Suffolk. And Essex. It does happen.

Voragan put out their excellent debut EP last year, titled Chaos Dreams (obligatory self-promotion of review), and below you can find their debut video, for the EP's title track. It's a very well put-together video, courtesy of Liam Davey, and within you can find moody black and white shots of headbanging, riffage and death growls. Top bombing. 

P.S. Once you've watched the video, head over to http://voragan.bigcartel.com/ and buy a copy of the aforementioned EP for the bargain price of £3.50. Deal. 

STEPH CARTER LEAVES GALLOWS

In a very short statement today, Gallows confirmed that one of the band's guitarists, Steph Carter, has left the band. The statement reads;

"Steph has left Gallows and we wish him the best of luck with his future projects. We will be moving on as a four piece like the early days. First stop Australia."

This follows the departure of frontman (and Steph's brother) Frank Carter, who left to pursue his new project Pure Love. Gallows will be therefore heading to Australia's Soundwave Festival sans Steph = no word on whether they'll have a touring member to fill in for the time being, although the statement suggests not. 

Adios Steph (second left) and
good luck.

FIRST IMPRESSIONS: ANTIVIST by Bring Me The Horizon

The second track from upcoming April release Sempiternal has landed, and my my it's bleak. It's got a punk-like quality to it, being angry and loud and tackling the topic of societal decline. Except with lots of use of the word 'fuck'. Oh, and the C-bomb gets dropped in there at one point. Just a heads up.

It's great. 

It showcases the anthemic side we've seen plenty of glimpses of, but it has a lot of power behind it. I really think the album is going to be a remarkable metal record.

Initial Reaction: 8/10

Excite-O-Meter for Sempiternal (made simpler because effort): 8/10, bouncing up and down in my seat just a little. 

Listen here on Soundcloud.

DON'T JUDGE ME WHILE I BARE MY SOUL TO YOU ALL

Although I may have not made it entirely obvious, I am prone to melodrama once in a while. I know, right? Who'd a-thunk it?

On point now - the other night, I was chatting with top bloke and fellow bloggatarian Rob, who runs the Dethblog (in no way affiliated with Metalocalypse). We were discussing reviewing, how much we both hate Bullet For My Valentine's new album Temper Temper (his review/my review), and mainly how we'd both hit a lull in stuff we wanted to write about. And thus came the idea (my wisdom, incidentally) of reviewing older albums, specifically the most important albums in our lives - the albums that we credit for making us who we are now, which fundamentally is fans of rock and metal.

So, while Rob's already knocked out an excellent review of Metallica's classic Ride The Lightning, I'll be delving into my own musical history in the very near future. Because I'm lazy, y'know? Within the collection of records I'll be looking at are releases by Muse, Queens Of The Stone Age and Mastodon, as well as some slightly more obscure ones that I'm still considering.

Stay tuned Noiselets! Tom out x

P.S. Whilst we shamelessly plug each other, allow me to recommend you the band Voragan, for which Rob is the guitarist. Long-time fans of theNOISE (hahahahahahaha) may even remember my review of their debut EP Chaos Dreams. There's so much plugging going on here and I don't even care. But check them out all the same.

FALL OUT BOY'S NEW ALBUM TO BE RELEASED EARLY

Good news everyone!

Fall Out Boy announced a bundle of stuff recently as part of their return following the 3+ year hiatus, including a new album, Save Rock & Roll, due for release worldwide in the middle of May. Or not...

"So when we got this all rolling we didn’t expect it to be so crazy. But we weren’t kidding when we said we had the album done- so why wait? It means the world to us the way you have welcomed us back. “Save Rock and Roll” now out early, April 15/16 worldwide."

Everybody dance (dance). Because this is excellent news! In the meantime, enjoy their comeback single My Songs Know What You Did In The Dark (Light Em Up) one more time, and consider buying tickets to see them when they play Reading & Leeds Festival this year. Whoooooooooop.

HAPPY #200!

It's a big day today for theNOISE. This post is #200!

In slightly less than a year, you lovely people have contributed nearly 6000 page views in the 199 posts that came before this one, so not for the first time, I extend my sincere thanks for reading! I love you all, and not just because it's Valentine's Day. 

THANK YOU! 

ALBUM REVIEW; TEMPER TEMPER by Bullet For My Valentine

Bullet For My Valentine
Temper Temper
2/10

Disappointingly generic, uninspired and frankly dull in places, Bullet's 4th LP falls completely flat. 

Way back when, when BFMV were relative newbies, in the era traversing first two albums The Poison and Scream, Aim, Fire, they were hailed as the future of British metal. And this expectation was not unreasonable, with tracks like Tears Don't Fall, that to this day endures as a brilliant embodiment of emotive metal, Scream, Aim, Fire and Waking The Demon. Yet 3rd album Fever made no impression on me after a few listens, and therefore many hopes were held for album #4. Oh, how those hopes have been dashed. Sorry chaps, it's awful. Once the future of British metal, they're now almost a parody of the genre.

The word 'uninspired' works as a theme for this album, for veins of un-inspiration run throughout it. Before the opening bars of track 1 start, a quizzical and skeptical eyebrow must be raised at the track names. I have to wonder if there's an 'Angsty Pre-Teen Metalhead Song Name Handbook' - if such a thing existed, it would explain such heard-it-all-before titles such as Truth Hurts, Dead To The World, Dirty Little Secret and Livin' Life (On The Edge Of A Knife) (and yes, that's Livin', not Living). 

It doesn't get much better on the lyrical front lines either. I physically facepalmed during the first line of Leech, at the sentence "Hey, leech! No longer will you suck my blood", then again during Dead To The World at "hope is now lost; lost without hope". Just 2 examples of the frustratingly obvious 'lyricism' present in Temper Temper. And another irritating recurrence is Matt Tuck's constant re-use of the same lines within songs. I'm not saying repeating is a bad thing, otherwise I'd like 0% of music, but here it feels like filler because they couldn't be arsed to think of a different rhyme. Oh, and stop repeating the song title followed by "whooah-ohhhh-whoaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh". Once again, over-done. Done to death. The album's lowlight Riot combines these factors, and is in fact a microcosm of why the album is so bad. The chorus is "RIOT! Whoah-ohhh-oohhhhh". That's it. Then there are lines like "here come the sirens, here comes the law; run from the sirens, run from the law", of course punctuated by some whoah-ing. 

The other side of Riot, completing the microcosm, is the musical side of it. Underlined by a boring repetitive open-C chug with some infrequent twiddling, all of which is loyally followed by sheep-like drum/bass lines that do nothing more than replicate the basic rhythms. Which is a pattern across the whole album. There are one or two attempts to do something new, most notably from the ever-so-slightly djent-influenced Truth Hurts, yet even that fails by being too off-beat for it's own good and becoming simply clumsy. The only other bit that remains for me to pick up on is the physical vocals. Unfortunately, they are also awful. There's a pretty even 3-way mix of vocal stylings; screams, singing, and weird semi-talky stuff. The screams, to their credit, are ok, but they've been far superior; the singing is dire through being off-key and weak; and the weird semi-talky stuff tries to be moody but...it's just weird semi-talky stuff at the end of the day. And I actually laughed during Truth Hurts at Matt Tuck's attempt at a falsetto. Was someone squeezing his vegetables in the studio?

The only redeeming qualities in Temper Temper are the solos. Guitarist Padge is the only source of interesting material in the album, yet it almost seems that his 4-5 solos are a desperate attempt to keep a bit of real metal in what is otherwise a mass-produced instant-ready-meal of a metal record. And recycling Tears Don't Fall is the final nail in this album's coffin. There is a staggering lack of imagination present here, and I have to ask; Have you forgotten what metal is, Bullet? Because this ain't it. You seriously need to spend some time revisiting your roots.

LISTEN TO YOUR DEMISE'S COLD CHILLIN' EP

The title acts both as a statement as to something you can do, and an instruction. Nay, a demand.  PRESS PLAY and thank me later.

REASONS WHY QOTSA'S NEW ALBUM IS GOING TO BE INCREDIBLE

The above is the second cryptic message posted by Queens Of The Stone Age in rock press - this one in Uncut, the first in Mojo. But it got me thinking about the new album, and how several factors are going to make it magnificent. 

• Guests; there's a whole host of frankly awesome talent appearing on the album:
• Dave Grohl is handling drum duty.
• Former bassist Nick Oliveri is lending vocals.
• Long-time guest vocalist Mark Lanegan is also contributing.
• Nine-Inch-Nails mastermind Trent Reznor will be on the record.
• And finally, Jake Shears of Scissor Sisters is singing too.
• Don't forget that the first three were all part of Songs For The Deaf, which I still hold to be one of the greatest rock albums of at least the 21st Century (or perhaps ever). 
• This quote; "Doing the rehearsals for the first record is really defining the new one. It's been turning the new record into something else. What we were doing was kind of bluesy, and now it's turned into this trancey, broken thing. The robots are back!"
• Basically saying that they're in a mindset similar to the debut, which was superb. That + natural band development = fuck yeah. I mean, they haven't made a bad album, really. Era Vulgaris was probably the least amazing, but that's oxymoronic.
• They still fucking rock, even outside QOTSA. Take Them Crooked Vultures, uniting Josh Homme and Grohl. Trent Reznor's been on-song with How To Destroy Angels and his work on the Girl With the Dragon Tattoo soundtrack, and Mark Lanegan is always good. It's also impossible not to like Scissor Sisters on some level.
• I'll admit I was surprised to see Nick Oliveri in the equation, what with his problems with the law. Musically it's good to see him there, though morally I'm not sure. 

Basically, this album is going to kick arse. If it's not this year's best album then I shall consume fashionable headwear until the cows come home. At the very least, I'm most excited about this album over any other coming out this year. 

WELL PLAYED, READING & LEEDS FESTIVAL

Is it just me, or is there some serious one-up-manship going on in the festival scene this year? I mean, more than usual. 

Reading/Leeds Festival yesterday made a very impressive announcement, containing the following bands;

• Biffy Clyro
• Fall Out Boy
• System Of A Down
• Bring Me The Horizon

Alongside Deftones and headliner Eminem (always quality), this is making for a very, very good bill. Getting FOB is pretty huge, BMTH should be awesome with their new album out soon, SOAD is well, SOAD and Biffy...well, this is going to be their year. 

Your move, Download. Which one of you will take my money?

ALBUM REVIEW; OPPOSITES by Biffy Clyro

Biffy Clyro
Opposites
9/10

Mon the Biff! A magnificent collection of distinctive stadium rock anthems. 

The first thing that's worth mentioning is that this album took the number 1 spot in the UK Album Chart for it's first week (week ending February 3rd), and is also the fastest-selling album this year so far. And boy does it more than deserve that. Opposites, the 6th studio effort by the Scots trio, is lyrically intricate, rocky, tender, beautiful, downright odd and overall, glorious. n.b. Biffy released 2 versions of the album, a 14-track single album, and a 20-track double album (the full version) - this review covers the double.

Over time, Biffy have been developing the kind of sound that suits festival headline spots and stadiums down to a T, and Opposites is very much the pinnacle of this progression. There are some truly huge anthems to be had across both discs, such as single Black Chandelier, Biblical and Stingin' Belle, that are custom-made to get huge crowds deafeningly chanting the choruses or jumping within the first 3 notes of a riff. The latter of those 3 is particularly rousing, breaking into a ludicrously uplifting score of what else but bagpipes at its close. As if you ever wondered where they were from. But the use of bagpipes only breaks the surface of how far Biffy push their own boundaries in terms of sound.

Never ones to be pigeonholed, there is such a huge variety of alternative styles within Opposites, one of the things that sets Biffy apart. The Fog, for example, employs a spooky, almost baroque organ sound with electronic undertones, with a stunning dark crescendo at the end that will send shivers down you; Sounds Like Balloons, underlined by a quirky, stuttering riff, sees harps creep in; and one of the highlights of both albums, Spanish Radio, actually uses a mariachi band in conjunction with the guitars and drums. Mad and brilliant. 

The Sand At The Core Of Our Bones (disc 1) and The Land At The End Of Our Toes (disc 2) are very different in style; The Sand... takes on a much darker, more menacing tone than the uplifting sense behind The Land... - indeed, it's where the name Opposites comes from, with each disc acting as the antithesis of the other. But, together, it's brilliant. Rather than feeling too long, it's perfectly balanced, and at its' core, it's pure Biffy - off-beat riffs, oft-nonsensical yet beautifully flowing and clever lyricism, and personally deep to each band member but with a grand sound that brings them to the high point they were destined for. An amazing record. 

RANDY BLYTHE - A MESSAGE OF SUPPORT

From all of us here at theNOISE (Ah, such laughs. It's just me), I would like to wish Lamb Of God frontman Randy Blythe the best - he stands in Czech court facing a charge of manslaughter, and I can only hope that he is found innocent. We, being the rock and metal community, are behind you all the way. 

For better live updates, try following Metal Hammer's coverage of the case here.

FALL OUT BOY ARE REALLY BACK THIS TIME

This. Is. Happening. 

They're fucking back. In a statement on www.falloutboyrock.com, they said "when we were kids the only thing that got us through most days was music. its why we started fall out boy in the first place. this isn't a reunion because we never broke up. we needed to plug back in and make some music that matters to us. the future of fall out boy starts now. save rock and roll..."

This comes with the ludicrously exciting news of a new album! It's called Save Rock And Roll and it will be available worldwide on May 6/7. They're doing a US tour in support of this, the dates of which are also on www.falloutboyrock.com, which means a UK/Europe tour should follow, although there are 3 Euro dates at the end of this month, in London, Paris and Berlin. 

I am so excited right about now.

And, to put the icing on the cake of this great news, here's a new single too. It's called My Songs Know What You Did In The Dark (Light Em Up). Ah, how I've missed the long titles.

We survived, guys. We survived the hiatus.