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
The EP’s best track is quickly followed by a just as compelling offering in Solis. From its first breath, ear gripping grooves work their bait, vocals a caustic alignment as rhythms pounce with aggressive tenacity. Harmonies and melodic flames add to its brewing temptation, punk scowling similarly infusing the adventurous tempest. As the first, it gives suggestion of a real appetite to push their boundaries, the band not content on just repeating the well-received but less individual exploits of their first release.
The great start continues through Honestly, it too gathering its attributes in its initial breath before gripping ears with its subsequent enterprise. Ebbing and flowing in its aggression, perpetually captivating in its resourceful dynamics and imagination, the song creates a tapestry of melodic intrigue, emotive suggestion, and tempestuous energy which just beguiles the imagination. References to the likes of letlive, Papa Roach, Deftones, and While She Sleeps have been offered before the Counterpoint sound and easy to understand why with the EP’s opening pair of encounters.
The following Realizationship is similarly woven if even more irritable and too a web of seduction and sonic violence which never stops twisting and turning within its storm. The song lacks the final striking essences of its predecessor yet with teasing grooves and fury loaded flames of melody it masterfully hits the spot and an imagination already submissive to the inventively evolving landscapes the band shares within songs.
The second song harries ears with an initial scrub of riffs, drums throbbing upon impact to match the resonating tone of Gert-Jan Vandervoort’s bass. If the first song it was a lingering threat, in its successor a predatory declaration is made yet with a catchy grooving as enticing as anything conjured by voice and guitar elsewhere. Harmonic backing to the throat scraping attack of Monsieurs is a great contrast to the antagonistic charge driving the song as too the citric melodic enterprise aligning with the sonic trespass abrasing the senses.
The biggest spotlight is now sure to be tempted with the release of ///, from its claw slashed title to its ursine assault of sound, the album is an inescapable beast of character, aggression, and invention mauling the listener from its first breath with opener Blackpool. Its first gasp brings a senses eroding surge of guitar and Maarten Albrechts’ furious vocals, a colossal onslaught weighted further by the lethal swings of drummer Serch Carriere and the grievous tone of Dries Verhaert’s bass. As the corrosive tide continues scything riffs and squalling grooves escape the already impressing exploits of guitarist Leander Tsjakalov, his creative weave in turn sparking greater variety in the vocal roar of Albrechts and band. Like a blend of Meshuggah, Slipknot, and Society 1, the song bullies and seduces, opening up more unpredictable twists and compelling exploits with every passing wave of imagination.
moment of inescapable persuasion like a warm oasis at the eye of an increasingly psychotic storm. With every element combined, it is a fearsome bewitchment with the animalistic growl of bass irresistible, delicious bait continuing as 7 strolls into view carrying a maze of meandering anxious grooves and sonic psychosis. Becoming more brutal and intense with each passing moment, it equally breeds a captivation of harmonic and melodic seduction, the union of extremes as catchy as it is wanton. The song is a helter-skelter of invention and craft, fiercely glorious leaving exhausted ears in bliss and easy prey for the slow menacing prowl of instrumental Klank before Raw has them consumed in another eddy of feverish craft and unbridled discord abound with swirling contrasts and volatile textures all woven into one mouth-watering dispute.
Its mix of flavours is another potent aspect to the song and matched within the following Feeding Wolves. Its first touch is a melodic gentleness though soon joined by the low key but open grumble of Loet Brinkmans’ bass and the meaty jab and roll of Tom Van Ekerschot’s beats. As Pisarahu growls, the track erupts into another hellacious yet inviting tempest speared by a predacious swing and spicy grooves. As in the first song, guitarists JD Liefting and Pim Wesselink reveal themselves as comfortable seducing ears with warm melodies as they are ravaging them with bracing and abrasive hostility, their imagination and craft adding to the inventive unpredictability of the song and indeed album.