maytinee
vía @enfocartegdl
No se habla tanto como se deberia del trío de Toronto 🇨🇦, a pesar de ser esos raros casos en que cada álbum es mejor al anterior y de ser influencia para contemporáneos del punk, rock y noise. Su cuarto LP no es la excepción. Queda claro que nadie hace ruido como ellos.
Después de la evolución en producción de su tercer disco, en esta ocasión logran dar catedra de como el noise también puede ser melodía.
“Change is inevitable if you’re lucky,” says guitarist/vocalist Alex Edkins while talking about Atlas Vending, the fourth full-length album by Toronto’s METZ. “Our goal is to remain in flux, to grow in a natural and gradual way. We’ve always been wary to not overthink or intellectualize the music we love but also not satisfied until we’ve accomplished something that pushes us forward.” The music made by Edkins and his compatriots Hayden Menzies (drums) and Chris Slorach (bass) has always been a little difficult to pin down. Their earliest recordings contained nods to the teeming energy of early ‘90s DIY hardcore, the aggravated angularities of This Heat, and the noisy riffing of AmRep’s quintessential guitar manglers, but there was never a moment where METZ sounded like they were paying tribute to the heroes of their youth. If anything, the sonic trajectory of their albums captured the journey of a band shedding influences and digging deeper into their fundamental core—steady propulsive drums, chest-thumping bass lines, bloody-fingered guitar riffs, the howling angst of our fading innocence. With Atlas Vending, METZ not only continues to push their music into new territories of dynamics, crooked melodies, and sweat-drenched rhythms, they explore the theme of growing up and maturing within a format typically suspended in youth.
Covering seemingly disparate themes such as paternity, crushing social anxiety, addiction, isolation, media-induced paranoia, and the restless urge to leave everything behind, each of Atlas Vending’s ten songs offer a snapshot of today's modern condition and together form a musical and narrative whole. Album opener “Pulse” is a completely unnerving exercise in reductionist tension, with verses providing little more than a lone discordant chord, a hammering kick drum, and the occasional punctuation of a diving bass note. From there METZ launches into “Blind Youth Industrial Park,” an absolute scorcher of paranoid dissonance and malicious force centered on a chromatic descending riff and a merciless four-to-the-floor drum battery.
The album hits its stride with “No Ceiling”—a minute-and-a-half rager that comes about as close to containing a pop hook as anything METZ has ever written. Though it’s still saturated with in-the-red distortion, this truncated anthem about discovering love and purpose provides the rare counterpoint to the band’s grievous compositions. But there’s no yielding to complacency on Atlas Vending, and the mercurial nature of love and romance is expertly captured in the alternately brutal verses and beguiling choruses of “Hail Taxi.” If METZ’s current mission is to mirror the inevitable struggles of adulthood, they’ve successfully managed to tap into the conflicted relationship between rebellion and revelry with the song’s tactics of offsetting their signature bombast with anthemic melodic resolutions.
The song sequencing follows a cradle-to-grave trajectory, spanning from primitive origins through increasingly nuanced and turbulent peaks and valleys all the way to the climactic closer, “A Boat to Drown In.” The lyrics speak to this arc as well, with the songs addressing life’s struggles all the way through to death, as Edkins snarls “crashed through the pearly gates and opened up my eyes, I can see it now” before the band launches into the album’s cascading outro.
While past METZ albums thrived on an abrasive relentlessness, the trio embarked on Atlas Vending with the goal to make a more patient and honest record—something that invited repeated listens rather than a few exhilarating bludgeonings. It’s as if the band realized they were in it for the long haul, and their music could serve as a constant as they navigated life’s trials and tribulations. The result is a record that sounds massive, articulate, and earnest. Bolstered by the co-production of Ben Greenberg (Uniform) and the engineering and mixing skills of Seth Manchester (Daughters, Lingua Ignota, The Body) at Machines with Magnets in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, METZ deliver the most dynamic, dimensional, and compelling work of their career.
The sonic trajectory of METZ; Alex Edkins (guitar & vocals), Hayden Menzies (drums), & Chris Slorach (bass), captures the
journey of a band shedding influences & digging deeper into their core—steady propulsive drums, chest-thumping bass lines, bloody-fingered riffs, & the howling angst of fading innocence. A Deluxe Edition of their ST album feat. 3 tracks from a BBC session is out now....more
supported by 222 fans who also own “Atlas Vending”
A fantastic album. I can see why they didn't continue under the name The Evens, as it's a different sound with the bass added. Coriky is the Evens + Joe Lally from Fugazi on bass. If you can imagine The Evens with a slightly more funky, aggressive sound like Fugazi... that's what you get! And there's no way that can ever go wrong. What a great debut album!! smiledozer
supported by 210 fans who also own “Atlas Vending”
If there's a better way to stay sane living in a place as messed up as the American Midwest than listening to Chat Pile, I'd love to hear it. While I'm waiting, I'll be listening to grimace_smoking_weed.jpeg on loop. Jeremy
TV Priest's second record springs forth with a tension, dynamism, and crunch not often found in this brand of broody, shouty post-punk. Bandcamp New & Notable Jun 16, 2022
supported by 184 fans who also own “Atlas Vending”
Somehow very spacious and claustrophobic at the same time. I don't think it's as good as everyone says it is, but nonetheless it still delivers solid wall of sound Gremlin Monroe
