Providing a striking full introduction to themselves with debut album New Lease of Life, Switzerland hailing No Kings No Slaves have swiftly proved themselves a compelling proposition. The release is a cauldron of melodic hardcore but an encounter which dares to seek out bold and fresh pastures if maybe not always quite fulfilling the potential that imagination brings. Even so it is an album that scorched ears and ignited the senses as well as raised a hungry appetite for the band’s emotion loaded, tenaciously sculpted roar.
Lucerne hailing, the quintet of Pädi Reichmuth, Julian Thalmann, Philip Heini, Mario Rosso, and Dave Aletz embrace the inspiration of bands such as Architects, While She Sleeps, Bring me the Horizon, Gallows, The Ghost Inside, and Pure Love to their melodic hardcore bred sound though one as suggested relishing the additional flavouring of a varied mix of metal and rock. It has already shaped a well-received EP though New Lease of Life will be the first contact for a great many with No Kings No Slaves and one which will surely draw rich attention their way.
Dealing with issues ranging from transience and social ills to toxic relationships, New Lease of Life is fuelled by a furnace of passion and emotion, worldly and intimate; a fire matched in the intensity and enterprise of its sounds. Album opener, Judgment, swiftly shares that multi-faceted blaze, the song rising from portentous rhythmic intimation with a wave of heavy metal riffs quickly followed by Thalmann’s raw throated, senses abrasing tones. Just as urgently imaginative melodic threads wrap ears, the brief track an intro of sorts but providing a full incitement before the album’s title track erupts. Nagging almost bullying rhythms are surrounded by blazing guitars as again vocals coarsely assault the air but an attack from all quarters which equally captivates, especially the more post hardcore textures and harmonic vocal backing that brings greater potency to the track.
Though a form of familiarity is bred from its hardcore instincts a persistent unpredictability also shapes the alluring character of the album and the likes of the following Ticket To Far Away and Modern Life Slaves. Both tracks sear the senses as much as they melodically stir the imagination, each a tapestry of passion and intensity relishing the recipe of flavours making up their adventurous natures. The second of the two especially hit the spot with its groove metal tinted dexterity, being rivalled by the just as dynamic and multi-flavoured inferno of Humanity’s Curse.
Across the likes of Hell with its intense heart and sonic firestorm, the heavy metal hued A Quiet Place, and Medication with its more classic metal instincts, No Kings No Slaves reveal more of their creative adventure and boundary breaking imagination, the latter pair of the three the best moments within New Lease Of Life for us while after the haunting radiance of a short Interlude, the explosive Our Name Is Greed provides another fiercely memorable moment and pleasure. It is a rousing proposal that singes the senses as it cauterizes ill-will and emotion, rhythms and melodic flames relishing the individual and united prowess of the band.
The final pair of songs, Electric Sky and Losses, similarly flourish through the quintet’s eager embrace of flavours, the first emerging our favourite track as it casts a web of styles and agile dynamics upon the band’s melodic hardcore pyre with its successor similarly explosive and bold in its nature and creative character.
New Lease Of Life is a release which just gets better song by song, its second half majorly arousing the passions and personal plaudits but from start to finish the album only impressed and declared No Kings No Slaves a band attention was made for.
New Lease Of Life is out now.
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Pete RingMaster 14/03/2020
Copyright RingMasterReview: MyFreeCopyright
Deference provides the first pair of songs, starting things off with Sins. The band has seen their melodic metal constantly lure a host of new fans particularly from sharing stages with the likes of Bless The Fall, Miss May I, Fit For A King, Currents, Rolo Tomassi and Napoleon in recent times. Their first track initially coaxes ears with a suggestive melody, a calm but potent lure soon joined by the carnivorous textures of Dennison and Jonathan Prince’s guitars. Rhythms are less eager but resonate with every growl of Shaun Kirtland’s bass and the swinging attack of drummer Mike Hill, until it all boils over in a rousing roar. Even then there is a certain control to the eruption, a creative prowess which perfectly aligns to the growing vocal spread of enterprise. Drama soaks every note unveiled as too rich imagination, the track giving hints as to why the band has been compared to the likes of Architects and Northlane.
The EP opens up with new single Oracles. Instantly ears are under a barrage of predacious rhythms but equally are wrapped in a wiry mesh of grooves hunted by ravenous riffs. Vocals come with matching force and attitude but soon reveal great diversity as clean strains alternate and unite with throaty squalls. Already that richness of sound within its metalcore breeding is working away, enticing and intriguing as simultaneously other aspects trespass the senses. Evolving through more placid but no less gripping moments before the track’s rock ‘n’ roll explodes it is an outstanding start and appetiser to the fresh impetus in the rise of Black Water Chemistry
It is a thickly impressive start with a touch of bands such as Mastodon, Exodus, and The Sword to it though hues in something far more individual to URNE; a trait just as potent within the following creative drama of The Lady And The Devil. Essences of doom and occult metal join the more classic swing of the track as it gets its instinctive groove going alongside the enticing clean tones of Nally, the dark brooding in his bassline a great tempering to the fiery air of again a track which masterfully and imaginatively evolves.
The following Space To Breathe is just as swiftly imposing but inviting, taking a less invasive stance initially as its elements settle before uniting in its own ferocious trespass. Ash’s vocals again impress with their not vast but strong diversity within the emerging rich tapestry of sound. There are essences of bands like Spineshank and Static X to the track at times but equally it lusts after death and extreme metal textures with the same fervour and invention before the superb Split In Two uncages its own similarly but individually woven tempest. Harsh and melodic strains in both vocals and music make an easy union as the imagination in songwriting incites their drama, the track continuing the explosive success of the first pair ensuring that Hollow is already a riveting proposal.
Bastardized follows with its own ferocious incursion, snarling and blistering the senses from its first breath before sharing a more nu-metal natured breath with a touch of bands like Spineshank to it. Snapping and jabbing at ears, the track springs toxic contagion and intense discontent within an atmospheric melody stranded weave; seducing whilst preying on the listener before Wiretap uncages its own ferocious animus with instinctive catchiness and melodic suggestion at its core. There is a whiff of Deftones meets Architects to its growing body but to be honest as all hints offered to tracks, the Hostile Array sound absorbs and turns all in its own individuality.
As opener Cry Wolf explodes on the senses, instantly there is no escaping the rapacious presence of band and song, and indeed the magnetic tones of Le Rox. Her attack is as urgent as the sounds around her with a hint of ‘desperation’ to its lilt though really it is just an earnest bred eagerness to stir things up, again just as the individual garage punk sound Pretty Pistol unleash. Riffs and rhythms collude in devious persuasion, getting under the skin as forcibly as the flying hooks and that glorious verbal trespass. There is a touch of Asylums to the track too which only adds to its virulently striking presence and to be honest if the goodness stopped right there we would still be urging attention the EPs way.