August was yet another month full of awesome stuff happening! Read on below to check out what happened in the local scene for the month of August 2022.
We also dropped the 45th episode of the Official Podcast, New Metal from Newfoundland II, in which we took a listen to songs from new full length records released from Newfoundland over the course of 2022.
Albums Archived – The Darts – The Darts [LP / Hard Rock] – Dendron – To Save Ourselves [LP / Progressive Metal] – Intern – At Least You Tried [Demo / Screamo] – Lithops – The Rounded Tower [EP / Dungeon Synth] – Loose Nuts – The Cat’s Pajamas [Demo / Skate Punk] – Mike Fisher – Psych-E-Punk [LP / Progressive Punk] – Nemophilist – Never Morning Wore to Evening, But Some Heart Did Break [LP / Dark Ambient] – Sentimentipede – Hang [Single / Grunge Punk] – Sentimentipede – Premeditated Garbage [Single / Grunge Punk] – Sentimentipede – Pretend This Sounds Good [LP / Grunge Punk] – Sentimentipede – Sanitize [Single / Grunge Punk] – Sentimentipede – Synapse [Single / Grunge Punk] – The Skeats – The Fight [Single / Hard Rock] – The Skeats – Syndrome [Single / Hard Rock] – The Skeats – Wake Up (Don’t Hate Me) [Single / Hard Rock] – Triskelyon – Triskelyon [EP / Power Metal]
April was yet another busy month as more new music continues to come out of the woodwork. Take a look at all the happenings within our local scene below!
Unfortunately there was no episode of the podcast this April due to a lack of time. Hopefully we’ll be able to get back on it in May!
Albums Archived – Alex Murphy and Zack Grohman – Cloud Catcher [Single / Progressive Metal] – Blakk Hand – 3 Song Demo [Demo / Groove Metal] – Cloac – Death’s Dawn [EP / Black Metal] – Dirt Stache – Suck on This [EP / Post Hardcore] – Fatal Mistake – Illness [LP / Alternative Metal] – Head Kits – Sleep Hygiene [EP / Punk Rock] – Nemophilist – Black and White [Single / Dark Ambient] – Nemophilist – Never Morning Wore to Evening but Some Heart Did Break [Single / Dark Ambient] – Nemophilist – Pompeii and Herculaneum [Single / Dark Ambient] – Nemophilist – So Begins Another Spring [Single / Dark Ambient] – Sex Hole – Demo [Demo / Hardcore Punk] – S.I.C. – S.I.C. [LP / Groove Metal]
“I see you working all day, I cash it all in today. At once we’re locked in today, and you’re not worth the net pay.”
The Skeats – Dead Before Dawn January 1st, 2022 Hard Rock Independently Released St. John’s, Newfoundland
The Skeats have certainly changed a fair bit over the course of their career. The band initially started out as a 70’s and 80’s punk-influenced group until a lineup change saw them lose their bassist and frontman Nicholas Saunders, leading to a significant change in sound when guitarist James Keats took over the role of singer and the band recruited Joshua Organ on bass. Now the band is on album number three, Dead Before Dawn, and those old punk rock influences are seemingly completely absent. The group is now firmly planted in the genre of hard rock, with some moments that veer into the territory of heavy metal as well as grunge and even prog rock.
Dead Before Dawn opens with an interesting intro track on “Zero Hour”, which has a very grunge-heavy vibe to the soft guitars and sublime bass. Complimenting these instruments we get some neat little runs on the piano, a first for The Skeats. It’s a small touch but makes the whole song pop a bit more than it otherwise might were those little additions absent.
From there we head into the title track, which bombastically explodes with some awesome drumming from percussionist Daniel Keats and solid guitar riffs from James. Surprisingly, the opening vocal lines here come from Organ, who also did backup vocals on the band’s previous record. He has a real gritty and powerful scream that reminds me of the backing vocals from Ian D’Sa of Billy Talent, a band that has no doubt greatly influenced the sound of The Skeats on this record as well as past efforts by them. He belts out some of the lines during the verse before James takes over in the chorus, and it makes for a nice juxtaposition going through each part of the song.
“Dead Before Dawn” does a good job at setting up the listener for what to expect on the rest of the album. While the band isn’t exactly attempting anything new for the hard rock genre, they know what they’re doing and they’re doing what they love. This album is full of mostly simple but very well written rock tunes, such as “Lights”, “Best Days (In Disguise)”, and “Wake Up (Don’t Hate Me)”. These all sound kind of ‘dated’ in a way, but that doesn’t mean they’re necessarily bad. More than anything they sound like the kind of hard rock music that would have played on the radio back in the early to mid-2000’s, but considering where these guys’ influences lie, that’s not all that surprising.
There’s no trouble telling what bands have influenced the band’s sound. The aforementioned Billy Talent may in fact have had the most influence on these guys with this new album. Riffs like the opener on “Best Days (In Disguise)” sound so heavily influenced by Billy Talent that I could easily see it just being a rework of an existing riff by that band. Besides that the band is also very influenced by Avenged Sevenfold, something which I think surfaces on the intro track “Zero Hour” with the addition of pianos to the instrumental as well as the melancholy atmosphere and unconventional chord progression of “Once or Twice”. There’s also the Iron Maiden-esque speed metal cut “Pale Horse” near the end of the record’s tracklist that stands out a lot for me. I also think it’s worth mentioning that “Poor Man’s Toll”, which is probably my favourite cut on this album, sounds a hell of a lot like a certain Primus song, at least in the groove.
Speaking of which, there is a lot of variety on this album. While some songs like “Once or Twice” are quieter and not as bombastic as other cuts, other tracks like “Dead Before Dawn” and “Lights” are very loud, in-your-face barn burners. Meanwhile there are some minor progressive rock tendencies on certain tracks, especially on “Once or Twice” and “The Fight”, but also on “Poor Man’s Toll”. There’s a lot of different sounds going on on this record, but the band still manages to make every song sound cohesive, and like it’s the same band playing them. I never feel like this is one band trying to sound like another band. They take the previously mentioned influences and make them their own.
I do feel like the album sags a bit in the middle, with cuts like “Place and Time” and “Once or Twice” that, while not necessarily bad songs, do tend do drag on a little long for my liking. Some of these tracks near six minutes in length, if not completely eclipsing the six minute mark, which isn’t what I really want when I’m listening to music of this nature. I’m used to hearing long songs thanks to genres like progressive rock and atmospheric black metal, but I feel like some of the songs on this record could have benefited from having the fat trimmed just a little.
Performance-wise though these guys are absolutely on top of their game, at least instrumentally speaking. The guitars are tight and precise, and there’s no doubting James’ skill at the axe, especially when almost every song on here has a ripping guitar solo that adds a lot of emotion to each cut. Daniel isn’t exactly doing anything mindblowing since hard rock drum work does’t typically require a lot of intense stuff like blast beats or long double bass passages, but I often say it can be harder to play simple drum beats because when you muck it up, everyone notices. On this album he is a solid backbone to the band, and he adds his own flavour to things when given the opportunity. I noticed a lot of snare rolls with more emphasis on the threes, which I feel isn’t a trope you hear much these days. He also does a solid job with the double bass triplets on “Poor Man’s Toll”. Meanwhile Organ has a ton of stuff going on in the background here. I’d go so far as to say his bass work may be the soul of this band’s work because almost every song has some seriously gnarly fills going on behind everything else.
While hard rock isn’t typically my genre of choice, I can definitely appreciate what The Skeats are going for here. Out of their entire discography thus far, this is by far their best record yet. I enjoyed this one more than Bulletproof… by Midnight, and a hell of a lot more than In the Meantime. If the band continues down this path with this same lineup and same vision for their sound then I think they’re going to continue to drop great albums that will likely end up getting them even more attention than they’ve already cultivated.
Final Verdict:8/10 Great
Favourite Tracks: “Dead Before Dawn” “Lights” “Poor Man’s Toll” “The Fight” “Pale Horse”
St. John’s hard rock power trio The Skeats have released the third and final single from their third full length album, Dead Before Dawn. While the record was released earlier this year on January 1st, 2022, this single was dropped on March 27th, 2022 through the band’s YouTube channel and streaming services.
You can listen to “The Fight” through our YouTube embed below.
HeavyNFLD 