Label: Epitaph Records
Press release: Every Time I Die have detailed their ninth studio album, entitled ‘Radical’, the band’s first in five years. It follows 2016’s ‘Low Teens’. Lead vocalist Keith Buckley reflected on the overall themes of ‘Radical’ as an album, noting it deals in “difficult matters” that are also “universal and more communal experiences”. “The songs are realistic in that they acknowledge that things require a lot of work, but it’s ultimately a very hopeful and uplifting record,” he said.
My thoughts: I think we can officially put ETID in the conversation of consistant heavy bands with Silverstein and August Burns Red. Both those bands however release more music than ETID but the band has other pots on the stove (including professional wrestling??) Radical is a 16 track trip all over the soundscape we've come to expect from the band. Sly is probably my highlight but All This And War and the previously released Planet Shit are not far behind. Overall there wasn't any song I thought that wasn't good or at least interesting but given the near hour run time and those "interesting" tracks potentially not holding up over multiple listens I'm not quite prepared to claim Radical as the new best ETID record but it's certainly got the makings.
Label: Equal Vision Records
Press release: Titled Slowly Getting Better, the upcoming album from the Canadian pop-punk/post-hardcore quintet, Calling All Captains, is their debut full-length album and is scheduled to be released in October this year, via Equal Vision Records. The upcoming album intends to be a compilation of hardships, persistence, love, and acceptance, and is a thrilling follow-up to the 2019 EP, Nothing Grows Here. After their initial recording plans were halted in 2020 due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the band was able to bring in their Nothing Grows Here producer, Quinn Cyrankiewicz, and safely record the album at The Audio Department in their hometown.
My thoughts: While the whole pop punk seems to be going in either an 808/emo rap direction or the blink-182 riffs route. Calling All Captains is still out here championing heavy pop-punk music like the early The Story So Far records and since TSSF has backed away from that styling I'm glad we have CAC coming out of the west coast of Canada to pick them up. The guitars are crunchy, the vocals are rough, loud and emotive and the song structures are nearly as strong as the lyrics around mental illness and hardships of being a First Nations kid in modern society.
Label: Music For Nations
Press release: Hot Milk have announced a new EP, 'I Just Wanna Know What Happens When I’m Dead'. "These songs are honest," says Han Mee. "I have nothing to hide. Everyone’s on anti-depressants these days. It’s the world we live in, it makes people sad. Capitalism. Is it broken? 100 per cent. I’m angry that the fact that we’re sold a world that actually doesn’t make your inner peace happy. Humans need love and community and a lot of the time, there is no love and the community has dissolved. "We’re angry, both politically and existentially in terms of the system we now live in. But also, we’re angry at the fact that we’re sad quite a lot, but we’re trying to not just sit there and take it. We’re trying to fix it, by building a family through this band."
My thoughts: Hot Milk knows how to write a good hook. That fact is undeniable. The most negative thing I can think about is that I wish this was a full length. Between the 2 EP's the band has released they could've had one hell of a debut album but alas we must wait but hopefully it's worthwhile given all the influences we get on this record, from pop, to heavy guitars, classic rock-esque solo's, electronic elements and supreme song writing tackling the overwhelming feeling of being in this world.
