Hi. Again. Maybe two blogs tonight..? Send music shit to [ fosterhildingmusic@gmail.com ] or DM me on Instagram.
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| photos courtesy of Ted Williams. |
I think I made an audible gasp in realizing that Ted William's absolutely crushing debut demo was taken off streaming for whatever reason. Only able to listen to it a few time since its release in its October of 2024, I've scrunched my face and curled my body into fetal disgust upon each time. Thankfully its still up on Bandcamp... And, yes, I'm aware this band is sort of a jokey side project and absorbs many other riffs, but I'm going to be taking it as it is.
Be Like Panda, Tacos and Tequila switches between rifle fire guitar slides and these sluggishly slow chugs. The breakdown. The fucking breakdown that comes in is absolutely insane. Called into action by a popping, bubblegum snare, it quickly devolves into a feedbacking, grunting, tapping, sliding, distorted and delayed mess.
Cheers! You're the Reason God Created the Middle Finger is an assault. The vocals here are yearning so intensely and vulnerably against god-faced guitars that act as representation of every force unwilling to grant these swollen, aching screams access. Everything holds them down. Some double vocals are The Body-esque, just somewhere in between that and fleeting moments of black metal agony. This glam-rock bridge catches us by our tongue with a choir of voices and breakdowns whose slow-draw style and world-crashing intensity we've come to welcome. As fuzzy and possibly rough around the edges this production is, I absolutely would not change a thing. Perfect.
Heart Attack on a Roll (go easy on the special sauce) gives us a moment of reprieve before another onslaught of discordant hatred rings quick like industrial carnage in our headsets. These sliding panic chords and absolutely low bass just barely obscure the vocals in their anxious spoken words, a bipolar breakdown that claims not to care, yet explodes into a magnificently energetic revenge on cacophonous noise. I don't think there's anything pretty about this album. It's only ever fucked and completely insane. I don't think I would want it any other way. Keep it up, guys.
There's an old Joke... descends into bell-fondling mathcore fight-or-flight รก la OG Daughters. The drumming here is so tight beneath these winding riffs, its actually nuts. Every switch between beats and feelings and rhythms is so masterfully handled.
Emperor Survives hints at the possibility of beauty, of joy, of hope, of goodness. But, of course, we aren't permitted that just yet, if we ever are. We are forced to sit in self-loathing without end in this thrashing arrangement of all artists that had come before. I can't exactly place my finger on where this first riff is from, but it is frustratingly familiar... Pigs squeal and beg in our ear against their father's own guttural screams, all surrounded by a cathedral of distorted strings and cymbals. There are literally so many voices in here it's nuts.
I'm honestly and unabashedly obsessed with the aesthetic and ethos of this album. Unashamed to lean into those parts of 2000s nostalgia that most avoid, they are drenched in the gasoline from their post-ironic feud, in which their only enemy is their own seriousness. It's simultaneously guttingly somber and a satirical portrait of a band removed from their own image. This isn't new, though, this is the trend in the emo/skramz/screamo/blah blah blah scene. I just find it so interesting. Absolutely fucking killer. That's all I've got to say. Thanks for reading.
10/10
Stream/buy Demo.
-Foster
See Ted Williams live for the last time with Middle Earth, GXLLIUM, xBONGx, and Silk at Blursday Records on December 14th.
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