Taking its name from a computer virus developed by the NSA and leaked by hackers in 2017, the debut album from Canadian alt-metal trio Spiritbox has nothing to do with cyberattacks. Instead, vocalist Courtney LaPlante uses the term to describe the mood that permeates the record. “The story of the computer virus is fascinating—especially how it came into existence and how much it messed with people’s stuff,” she tells Apple Music. “But I latched onto it because of how cool the phrase is. Now, the words mean something completely different to me than when I first heard them.” Below, she describes each track on *Eternal Blue*. **“Sun Killer”** “We wrote this in January of 2020, and we instantly knew that it would be the intro of the album. This has the drama that I look for when I’m listening to an opening of an album—it’s like when the band is walking out onstage for a show. When I hear this, I’m surprised by the flexibility of my voice because I’ve had a vocal cord injury for a long time. It’s finally healed itself up in the last couple of years, so this performance is like a mini-celebration that I feel like myself again.” **“Hurt You”** “All of our songs have a narrative, but they’re more about the feeling of the song. To me, this feels like the ups and downs of a toxic relationship. We always write the music first in this band, but I think it’s fun when you can have the lyrical content mimic the vibe of the music. The working title of this was ‘Heavy Clown,’ like Clown from Slipknot, because a lot of our favorite nu-metal references made it into this song.” **“Yellowjacket” (feat. Sam Carter)** “This is one of my favorites on the record. I think it’s a double drop-D guitar tuning, so it’s inhumanly heavy. I don’t do a lot of screaming on this song, but it definitely has some of the lowest, scariest screams I’ve ever gotten out of me. The rest of the song is me talking, and my inspiration for that was a lot of the alternative music of the ’90s—bands like Butthole Surfers, that had all this weird spoken-word stuff in their songs. And then, we had Sam Carter from Architects do some vocals on it, which sound amazing.” **“The Summit”** “I have this fantasy in my mind where there’s this new genre of music that doesn’t make sense, but it’s almost like the parameters are pulled off some genres that I like. And that’s where ‘The Summit’ lives. It’s hard to classify it as a metal song, but the guitar is so low and clear. Vocally, I took a lot of inspiration from The Weeknd and Charli XCX, especially the way she lets the last line of a chorus descend in a really playful way.” **“Secret Garden”** “This is one of the first ones we wrote back in the summer of 2019, but it wasn’t quite ready back then. The working title was ‘Chino’ because it reminded us a little bit of Deftones, who we are very inspired by. I think the song has such a nice vibe to it—it feels romantically sorrowful. Lyrically, it’s me being introspective and advocating for myself. I think a lot of musicians fear losing who they are as their star rises, but I think anyone who’s in any transition period in their life can understand that feeling.” **“Silk in the Strings”** “A lot of the songs on this album are heavy and open and slow, but all the more intense songs—like this one—were written later. When \[guitarist\] Michael \[Stringer\] first showed me this one, I wasn’t sure what to do because I always feel like the vocals need to match the energy of the song. So, whenever there’s something bouncy, I try not to think about what a metal vocalist would do. I look more to what I think good rappers would do. For this song, I was like, ‘How would the Wu-Tang Clan do this song?’ I would absolutely never be able to rap, but I really admire how important the flow is.” **“Holy Roller”** “We don’t really have a lot of other music that sounds like this song, but we just wanted something selfishly heavy. The narrator in this song is clearly not a good person. A lot of times in metal music, a song about a bad person is very on the nose—very graphic and explicitly violent. I wanted to explore something more insidious, like the religious cultism of someone like Jim Jones. I find those kinds of people so much scarier than a song about cutting someone’s head off or something like that.” **“Eternal Blue”** “This is one of the first tracks we wrote, and I think it’s my favorite. Our producer, Dan \[Braunstein\], really helped us dig a little deeper with the synth part of it, taking a lot of reference from New Wave acts from the ’80s, like Tears for Fears and Depeche Mode. I just love how heavy and beautiful the song is, and it has a very rare Michael Stringer guitar solo in it, which I love. Lyrically, it’s about someone who is at rock bottom but is trying not to romanticize that. Many people seem to glamorize depression, but I think it’s important not to get caught up in that.” **“We Live in a Strange World”** “Every time I listen to this song, I feel different about it. We first wrote it before the pandemic, before the band started gaining success. When I recorded it in February 2021, I had a lot more to say about how weird the world is. It feels like I’m just watching this stuff happen to me like a viewer—rather than it actually happening to me—because I’m just sitting in my house watching all of these people online starting to know who the band is. It’s a bizarre feeling, and you worry about messing it up.” **“Halcyon”** “This one’s Michael’s favorite song. Like ‘Sun Killer,’ I just love how dramatic it is. It’s a big heavyweight of a song, and it gives me a lot of room with my singing range. Most of these songs are me thinking about not wanting to mess up and not wanting to get my little spirit crushed. This one is me looking at all those successful people and the version of me that’s going to compromise everything so that they can be one of those people.” **“Circle With Me”** “This is the newest song on the record, and it was written in the studio. Michael wrote it in an afternoon. Some of the darker and dramatic parts remind me of Evanescence, but on the chorus I took reference from Tears for Fears. So, it’s this weird little song, but it really kind of unlocked a lot of creativity in us to make all of our songs better. We ended up putting it out first because it really represents how we’re feeling about our band right now.” **“Constance”** “Just as ‘Sun Killer’ was always to be the opener and ‘Holy Roller’ was always meant as the middle point, followed by ‘Eternal Blue,’ ‘Constance’ was always meant to be the last song. But the lyrics didn’t really start to form until last year when my grandma passed away. Writing this song just helped me think about the feelings of losing someone, and it’s dedicated to her because she always wanted me to put out a song that doesn’t have screaming in it.”
“We decided to call it *Radical* because it cuts a couple of different ways,” Every Time I Die vocalist Keith Buckley says about the title of the Buffalo metalcore band’s ninth album. “It’s radical as far as the personal beliefs I’m expressing as the lyricist of this band, but it’s also radical because it acknowledges that radical changes may need to be made in order for things to ever get better.” Of course, Buckley is aware that “radical” also means different things to different people in 2021. “I was trying to find things that most people in the world can agree on, and what I came up with was ‘fuck cancer’ and ‘I just want to feel good,’” he says. “I don’t think this record will help in the fight against cancer—although I wish it would—but we tried to write something that acknowledges the idea that human beings all long for goodness. But it’s going to require some big leaps of faith in order to make things good.” Below, he discusses some of the album’s key tracks. **“Dark Distance”** “I wrote this in 2019 or maybe even 2018, when I was realizing where I wanted the record to go. I knew that I had an obligation to use my platform for positive things because the world is not a pretty place right now. So, I just had this idea that the whole thing needs to be reset. Pull out the Nintendo game, blow on it, put it back in. And what resets civilization? Historically speaking, a plague does that. So, I started by summoning a plague and then COVID happened. I apologize for that.” **“Planet Shit”** “This is about a kind of old-style French Revolution of the upper-class elite and ruling class. About two months after we recorded the song, the Capitol building was stormed on January 6. I wrote the song to seem like a newscast, so I will say that, yes, I did have some sort of clairvoyant image of the Capitol building being rioted. My guide for the song was Mitch McConnell. He’s the only person I ever see when I’m talking about evil old white people. That’s two clairvoyant things in a row now, so I’m looking into what that means.” **“Post-Boredom”** “I wrote this about what would happen if I died and was reborn. If I had another chance at life, what would I do differently? What would I do the same? It was written during the pandemic, when everyone was bored, so I started thinking about what was going to happen next. And then I actually did get a separation from my wife during the pandemic, so that was a very real second shot for me. But all the songs were written before I was separated, so it ended up having a bigger meaning.” **“Colossal Wreck”** “This one is so fast and so short that I just thought it would be really good to have really memorable, punchy lyrics. Obviously, we’re being ignored by whatever higher power has been looking out for us since the dawn of time. It’s time to realize that we need to make some serious peace here with whatever is running the show because we really fucked it up. It kind of falls in line with ‘Dark Distance’ in that way.” **“Desperate Pleasures”** “Like ‘Colossal Wreck,’ I was just kind of having fun with the imagery here. We’re all lost, so fuck it. Let’s give it back, let nature take over, let’s just stop even trying. Let’s just live with the shit we’ve created and let nature fix it. The mental image I had was of a building on fire. While I’m just standing there, all these people are running past me to the exit. We can fend this off if we want to, but everyone is just running away. Who’s stupider here? Me for standing there, or everyone else for running away? I don’t know.” **“AWOL”** “I thought this song was about something, but then I realized it was about something else. When I was writing it, I thought of it as my vision for what my life would be like when this record is released. But that version of Keith Buckley is not currently in this situation. Maybe he’s happy; maybe he’s not. I don’t know how to reach him because he doesn’t exist yet. But it’s actually not about that. It ended up being about a very specific person and a very specific time. I don’t think anyone reading Apple Music cares about this, so I’ll just say it’s a message to my future self.” **“Sexsexsex”** “That song is about me realizing that I am a very submissive person. That’s a personality trait I have. When most people think of the whole dom-sub thing, they think of whips and leather and stuff like that. The only reference point they have is sexuality. But I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about the power exchange of a dominant and submissive. So, I made this song seem like it’s about sexuality, but it’s not. It’s about an energy exchange.” **“We Go Together”** “Everyone is born into a very specific set of circumstances—a certain time, a certain place, a certain astrology that has never been replicated. Your experience on this earth has never happened before. In a way, you are the only one alive. Everything that you see is your set of conclusions. In a sense, that makes you the source of it all. So, the song is about feeling like you might be at the center of everything. How does that change you?”
“What do you think about a samurai Eddie?” That was the question Iron Maiden bassist, co-lyricist, and all-around mastermind Steve Harris posed to his bandmates when he came up with the Japanese theme for the imagery and title track of the band’s 17th studio album, *Senjutsu*. Roughly translated, the term means “tactics and strategy,” but the idea of Maiden’s shape-shifting mascot, Eddie, in full samurai regalia was immediately appealing. “Let\'s face it, we\'ve plundered a few cultures over the years with Eddie,” Maiden vocalist Bruce Dickinson tells Apple Music. “We had a Mayan Eddie and we\'ve had a sci-fi one. We\'ve had a space monster Eddie, an Egyptian Eddie, a mummy Eddie. We actually did have Eddie with a samurai sword on the *Maiden Japan* EP, but that was years and years ago. The band has always been quite popular in Japan, which is a pretty exotic place with a very rich samurai history. But most of the songs are unrelated.” Below, Dickinson comments on some of the album\'s highlights. **“Senjutsu”** “This starts out with some ominous drumbeats from what is intended to sound like those big Japanese taiko drums. Then Nicko \[McBrain\] comes in with this beat which is not the Keystone Cops, because I think we\'ve got to the point where we feel confident enough that we can be dramatic without being in a hurry about it. And ‘Senjutsu’ has got drama all over it. To me, it builds and builds and builds. There’s a vocal fugue in the middle with echoes going over the top and then another vocal line. It resolves beautifully into this really magisterial vocal line as you get towards the latter half of the tune. Does it have a chorus? No. There\'s millions of different ones, all strung together. For the most part, the vocal is done in a two-part harmony. It\'s one of my favorite tracks, and it\'s going to be a great way to open a set live.” **“Stratego”** “Stratego is a board game. I’ve never played it, but it’s kind of similar to chess. I was doing a little bit of searching and discovered that Stratego was based on a French board game from the 19th century. That game was based on something called military chess. Japanese military chess, in turn, is a game called shogi. The characters are basically flat stones with Japanese calligraphy on them, each denoting a warrior of some description. You’ve got a black side and a white side, but it’s entirely possible for characters to change sides. Not only that, but they can also transform into a different character. It’s a game of strategy and tactics, but also betrayal and intrigue.” **“The Writing on the Wall”** “The song is basically in two parts, and the intro sets the scene. When I first heard it, I was thinking, ‘This is a bit Tarantino here. It’s a little bit desert.’ I could see a Mad Max scenario opening up. I think \[guitarist\] Adrian \[Smith\] already had the title and a great riff, so we worked the body of the song around that. I thought it was a great title for what’s going on in the world now. There\'s lots of things coming up like objects in the rearview mirror—they may be closer than they appear. There’s a lot of choices people need to make about what kind of world they want to live in. I wrote the song without trying to preach, but to say, ‘You can’t bury your head in the sand. This stuff will bite you if you don’t do something about it.’” **“Lost in a Lost World”** “At the beginning, you would believe that you accidentally wandered into The Moody Blues or Pink Floyd doing something in about 1973, with the layered vocals and things like that. We’ve never done anything as explicitly detailed as that before. But it doesn\'t last for that long before some fiend comes out and hits you over the head with a mallet and the track kicks in. And then it takes you on a journey to a fantastical world that has ceased to exist.” **“Days of Future Past** “This track is as close as you\'re going to get to *Piece of Mind* or *Powerslave*-era Maiden. Four minutes, super high-energy riff, big anthemic chorus, big vocals—all that. Incredible riff from Adrian, and basically no guitar solo. The lyric is a reimagining of the graphic novel *Constantine*, particularly the movie version with Keanu Reeves. It’s kind of an interesting setup, because there’s always the assumption that God is the good guy. In this scenario, God seems to be a manipulative narcissist. He’s almost like a psychopath: ‘I\'m going to do all this horrible stuff to you, and then you just have to love me.’ How does that work? That’s what the song asks.” **“Darkest Hour”** “‘Darkest Hour’ refers not to just the movie about Winston Churchill—it’s about him as a person as well. A lot of people criticize Churchill because he made a lot of mistakes and did things people didn’t approve of. He was almost certainly a full-blown alcoholic, but a functioning one. He said horrible things about women. He did all these things that he would aptly be condemned for. But the bit that people forgive all that for—certainly, I do—is that he stood up to the Nazis and said, ‘No, these are barbarians. Even though the odds are stacked against us, we as a nation are going to resist.’ Half of his cabinet and government would’ve sided with the Nazis and done a deal. But he inspired the nation to do the right thing.” **“The Parchment”** “You really have to be careful about this one if you’re one of these people who likes flotation tanks and you’re going to put this one on in the headphones. It’s a processional, really. The end sounds like the emperor coming back, the prodigal son returning home after a long journey. But the whole middle section is absolutely hypnotic. It’s a monster track, but it\'s layer upon layer upon layer of different iterations and repetitions. If you get under the skin of it, it\'s really complex. I think Steve locked himself away for days to come up with this one. We had to learn it in pieces because it was the only way possible.” **“Hell on Earth”** “Steve is quite an unconventional personality. He\'s not an extroverted person—except onstage when he goes raving mad with a bass. But I think he feels a lot of things really deeply about the world he\'s in. The English band Blur had an album called *Modern Life Is Rubbish*, and I think Steve would concur with that sentiment and say, ‘What kind of world are we creating? Maybe I should just go to sleep. And then if I pass into the next life, maybe I\'ll come back and it\'s going to be better—because this place is hell on earth.’ But I don’t think he’s recommending accelerating your passage into the next world, because we’ve got a tour to do. But he’s genuinely concerned about stuff.”
“This record is very much an homage to the loved ones that I\'ve lost,” The Pretty Reckless vocalist/guitarist Taylor Momsen tells Apple Music about their fourth studio LP. “But it\'s also very much a reflection of my life written from a very personal and intimate perspective of where I was at and what I was going through.” In May 2017, the New York City four-piece was left stunned by the untimely death of Soundgarden frontman Chris Cornell while supporting the grunge pioneers on tour in Detroit, Michigan. Shaken by this tragic incident, Momsen, who considered Cornell a mentor and a friend, came to the conclusion that she was not in a good place and needed to take a step back and grieve privately. As she was coming to terms with what had happened, Momsen suffered another blow when she learned that the band’s longtime producer Kato Khandwala had died tragically in a motorcycle accident. At her wit’s end, Momsen fell into a spiral of depression and substance abuse. Momsen’s love of music is what started to pull her out of that dark place—starting with The Beatles, the first band she ever heard, and coming back around to Soundgarden when it brought her joy to listen to them again. She picked up her guitar and started to play. “I think that was the start of where I started to see a spark come back into my eye, a little bit of light,” Momsen says. “Clichéd as it may sound, music very literally saved my life. I had been repressing so much of myself, and everything that I was going through, that by the time I even attempted to creep that door open, the floodgates just poured out in this uncontrollable way.” Read on as Momsen takes us inside some of the album’s key tracks. **Death by Rock and Roll** “I think that it was very important for me that ‘Death by Rock and Roll’ is the opening song on the record. The first thing you hear when you push play is actually a recording of Kato\'s footsteps walking down the hallway of the House of Loud, the studio where we recorded our first album *Light Me Up*. I don\'t want to compliment myself, but it does sound like a rock ’n’ roll anthem and this battle about your life.” **Only Love Can Save Me Now (feat. Matt Cameron & Kim Thayil)** “When I finished it and we had done a rough sketch of it in the studio, as it was coming together, it had this Soundgarden-esque overtone to it. I just thought that Matt and Kim, being the incredible and unique musicians that they are, would add such a dimension to it that we weren\'t able to create ourselves. We flew to Seattle and recorded it at London Bridge Studios, which is where Soundgarden recorded *Louder Than Love* and Pearl Jam recorded *Ten* back in the day. I don\'t want to speak for them, but for me, it was this very, very beautiful full-circle moment of creating something new after all the hell.” **25** “I wrote it before turning 25, and we recorded it shortly after my birthday. I think that I was at a very low point in my life. But I was also at a very reflective point, as probably a lot of people are around a birthday. It’s a very autobiographical one in a lot of ways. When I finished writing it, I took a step back from it for a second. There was no one else in the room. I just went, ‘I think I might\'ve gotten better. I think this might be really good.’ Certainly it was a turning point for myself as a songwriter and also for myself as a person. It was me saying to myself, \'Taylor, you need to get your shit together.\' It\'s the first indication on the record that there is light at the end of this very dark tunnel.”
In a genre that can be unkind towards too much change, Architects\' ninth album aims to challenge that mindset. \"We can do whatever we want,\" drummer and primary songwriter Dan Searle tells Apple Music. \"The ultimate question is, do we like it? And the answer is yes.\" *For Those That Wish to Exist* showcases the British quintet taking new risks, such as incorporating an orchestral approach into their abrasive sound (\"Dead Butterflies\" and \"An Ordinary Extinction\"), expanding vocalist Sam Carter\'s range beyond just screaming (\"Flight Without Feathers\" and \"Demi God\"), and focusing more on accountability and less on nihilism. \"I just realize that there might be a universe that prevents us from having control, taking the reins to see what\'s going on in the world,\" explains Searle. \"I wanted it to be something a little bit more responsible. I began to question why I was so passive in my role in making the world a better place.\" Below, Searle walks us through *For Those That Wish to Exist*\'s 15 tracks. **Do You Dream of Armageddon?** “It\'s lyrically alluding to a sense that we\'re all in the same boat, and we\'re heading in that direction. And it doesn\'t feature anyone in the band except Sam.” **Black Lungs** “I really felt like it was the only way to open the record. I love the chorus. It really is like a showcase of every style. It\'s easing you into the record, because we stray from the usual path a number of times.” **Giving Blood** “When the song originally came together, it was just drums and synth. The guitars came later. Obviously, a lot of it is still a heavy rock song. But this is sort of your first taste of the band moving into new water, so to speak.” **Discourse Is Dead** “This is a good song to make enemies with because it\'s kind of a critique of just not speaking to each other and trying to move forward. But I know that compromise is not popular at the moment. People are more polarized than ever. And it\'s leading us further away from creating a better world.” **Dead Butterflies** “It starts just with the strings and the bass. We planned around those ideas and developed it into something that worked for the band. It sat around for ages on the shelf, and eventually we sat down with it and worked it out. I think it\'s one of the best songs on the record.” **An Ordinary Extinction** “Probably the heaviest part of the record despite the trippy nature of this song. It\'s still very Architects, but then you get tossed into the verse straight away and it\'s something completely different again. It\'s super heavy and it\'s in a key that fits Sam\'s voice.” **Impermanence** “It just felt like a stompy end-of-the-world song. And kind of thematically leading on from where we left off in \[2018\'s\] *Holy Hell*, a little bit more concentration about mortality and the nature of our existence.” **Flight Without Feathers** “This is like the pit stop on the record almost. I wanted to write a song that was just basslines, so I wrote all the vocals and built the rest of the song around it. It’s one of three songs on the record without any drums—without me actually performing on it at all. So it\'s really got to shine just on the quality of the basic parts in it.” **Little Wonder** “We all see what is wrong with the world, but at the same time we avoid wanting to see it because we all want an easy life. I think the lyrics are a little bit of a cheeky nod to the fact that this song is so stylistically different for us.” **Animals** “This song went from text message to done in about 48 hours, and it was just one of those magical moments. And if we tried to make an 11-track record, we would have never gotten to this song. I\'m so glad that we did, because I think it is probably the best Architects song.” **Libertine** “We thought the record needed something like this—something big and aggressive, something with a little bit of space in it. And in the end, it\'s an absolutely cool album track.” **Goliath** “I thought this sounded just like a metal Biffy Clyro song and we\'ve got to try to get Simon \[Neil\] on it. We just thought it\'d be cool to have the singer of one of UK\'s biggest rock bands singing over one of the heaviest parts of the record. It\'s kind of all over the place.” **Demi God** “It\'s really dark and it\'s a bit of a late jam on the record that I\'m really proud of. I felt like I didn\'t want to create a long record that just fizzles out, I wanted it to stay stronger and still be providing interesting surprises throughout.” **Meteor** “There\'s no point in pretending that this song isn\'t an arena rock song, because it is an arena rock song. We typically play in a genre where arena rock is forbidden and taboo. So this song is probably the boldest track on the record. And yes, this song is very much about us knowing that we\'re heading for disaster.” **Dying Is Absolutely Safe** “I decided that it should be an acoustic track because it felt like something that the record hadn\'t stepped into. But I think fans will get it. I think there\'s something in there that\'s pretty special.”
On their seventh album, French prog-metal stars GOJIRA take a very different lyrical tack than the one they explored on their previous album, *Magma*. “There was a lot of pain and grief attached to that album, from the whole experience of losing my mom back in 2015,” vocalist and guitarist Joe Duplantier tells Apple Music. “With *Fortitude*, we had the desire to fill the album with more joy, even if it doesn’t come across as joyful music.” With its themes of civil disobedience and environmental awareness, *Fortitude* takes Magma’s inward gaze and turns it outwards. “*Magma* was very personal and intimate,” Duplantier offers. “*Fortitude* is more oriented toward the world and politics.”Below, he comments on each song. **“Born for One Thing”** “This is about facing the fear of death. At a certain age, there’s a consciousness in all of us, a clock ticking—a countdown to the great unknown. It’s a reflection based on some books I read when I was younger about Buddhism and these philosophies that teach how to be at peace with oneself and meditate on the essence of being. That’s something we’re losing a little bit in society. Instead, we worry about the things that we want to hold on to in case the world goes to shit.” **“Amazonia”** “The intro and outro riff sound very much like Sepultura’s ‘Roots Bloody Roots.’ We don’t hide from the fact that we are huge Sepultura fans—our first show was mainly Sepultura covers, believe it or not. They’re a Brazilian band originally, and they also were working at raising awareness about the Indigenous cause. So the proceeds from this song are going to launch Operation Amazonia, as we call it, where we’re going to ask our musician friends to donate instruments for an auction. The money will go to an NGO based in Brazil called APIB—it’s the largest Indigenous-owned NGO—to support the Indigenous peoples and protect the rainforest from big corporations.” **“Another World”** “We wrote this song in one day, whereas some of the others on the album took three years. The lyrics come from a feeling that the world is completely screwed, so I feel sometimes that I want another world. The video we made for it is supposed to be ironic and funny—four dudes that play in a metal band build a rocket together and travel through a wormhole to the future. It’s sort of a funny remake of *Planet of the Apes*. But the animation was so well-done and classy that it somehow lost a little bit of the humor that was intended.” **“Hold On”** “It’s one of the last songs I wrote for this album, and I was struggling to come up with lyrics. I had already written about things that really matter to me, like civil disobedience and the Amazon. But I really loved the music for this, so I absolutely wanted it on the album. At some point, I was really depressed and about to give up and I decided to just fucking let it out. I was feeling overwhelmed by life, and I had this vision that life is like an ocean and we need to hold on to something because waves are crashing on us. Then it started to flow and I found my voice for this song.” **“New Found”** “For this, I had the title before doing the lyrics. But the main thing I wanted to talk about in the song is finding the thing that gives a new meaning to your entire life. Having kids is a big one. When you understand something about yourself deeply and think, ‘Okay, this is who I am,’ you get to know yourself a little better.” **“Fortitude”** “Fortitude is the underlying idea throughout the whole album. It’s a mantra. It’s something that is addressing the universe and the stars and the planets when I sing, and maybe an alien consciousness or whatever there is up or down there—spirits, guides. It’s like a prayer. It\'s the thing that sums up the entire album, but very personal. The more you’re honest with yourself, with your heart, the more people are going to feel it.” **“The Chant”** “This is a leap from the metal songs to a weird, Indigenous type of rock song. There’s a change of tonality also. The beginning of the album is a G, and then towards the end it’s a C. As the intro to this song, ‘Fortitude’ is something that orients your ear towards another field of notes, so it’s preparing the brain to make room. When ‘The Chant’ hits, it feels two times harder and stronger than it would be if it was directly after another song. It’s a mantra with an intention of unification through peace and strength, something that the human race needs a lot.” **“Sphinx”** “There’s a lot of our roots as a death metal band coming through here, and a little bit of a Metallica vibe at the beginning with the buildup on the toms. So it sounds old-school but also modern, because we have these intricate things with the whammy and all that stuff. Lyrically, I’m very fascinated by the Sphinx. Some Egyptologists say that the Sphinx is actually pre-Egyptian, that it’s much older than we think and was maybe built by a different civilization. So I wrote a song about how the Sphinx is witnessing the rise and maybe the fall of our civilization, and it’s surviving us all.” **“Into the Storm”** “This is about civil disobedience, a subject that is very dear to my heart. If you\'re a good citizen and you believe in communities and in people, you have to disobey sometimes. We have to bend the rules because some of the rules are ridiculous and unfair. We are creating the rules and laws of this world, not the other way around. Of course, I\'m not calling people for a riot or whatever. What I\'m saying is that it\'s important to question things and to realize that it\'s not because society is telling you to do something that you should necessarily do that.” **“The Trails”** “It’s like a blurry dream—a poem with soothing music. We always have this toward the end of our albums, because we can’t help but experiment. I could easily do a side project or a solo career to express some of the stuff that is not metal, but I choose to focus on the band and turn GOJIRA into a weird beast that has several faces. I think ‘The Trails’ is a more subtle side of us, but it’s actually very technical. It’s maybe the hardest song to play on guitar on the entire album, but it’s also the calmest.” **“Grind”** “Of course, we love to grind. I don’t know if there’s anything better in this world than playing a riff with a drummer, just grinding it. Lyric-wise, I’m talking about transcending ourselves and overcoming our problems. We have the power. We can change things. We can bend laws. We can break walls. But we also have our routines—wake up, wash the dishes, go to work, make money. You have to surrender to that clockwork grind in order to find freedom. So do your dishes, motherfucker. You’ll suffer less tomorrow.”
After releasing their ninth album in April 2020, Floridian metal veterans Trivium were faced with the same touring prospects as everyone else at the dawn of the COVID era: none to speak of. So, they hunkered down and began work on *In the Court of the Dragon*. “Knowing that it was going to be album 10, we all realized it was very significant,” bassist Paolo Gregoletto tells Apple Music. “We knew it was a milestone, so it had to live up to that.” As such, Gregoletto and his bandmates—guitarist/vocalist Matt Heafy, guitarist Corey Beaulieu, and drummer Alex Bent—settled on a sufficiently epic lyrical theme: creating their own myths. “We took inspiration from existing mythology and made our own thing,” he says. “We wanted the whole album to feel as though the themes and characters are all part of one story.” Below, he details each track. **“X”** “We opened the last record with ‘IX’ because it was our ninth album, and I feel like this record and our last one are connected in some way—almost like a double album—because that one was released at the beginning of the pandemic and this one was made during it. We had worked with Ihsahn before on the intro for *Silence in the Snow*, and he created the incredible intro for this record too. He also helped us with orchestration and synths to give the other songs some textures as well.” **“In the Court of the Dragon”** “We had this melody from a live soundcheck we did in Tokyo in 2008 or 2009, and Corey really wanted to use it on a new song. That melody led to the main riff, the one that kicks in right away. Then we wrote the rest of the song and realized that we didn’t need that melody anymore, because it didn’t fit. So, it inspired the song and then went away. Once the song came together in the jam room, it became very apparent that it would probably be the opening track and the title track.” **“Like a Sword Over Damocles”** “This was how we got into the whole mythmaking theme. Corey had a demo called ‘Sword Over Damocles,’ and I remembered reading the story of Damocles when I was in school. Once we realized we were going to be creating our own myths for the lyrics, we wrote about a character dealing with the weight and anxiety of power—having those things hanging over you and always having your life in the balance of the actions you take. So, it’s not a retelling of the story of Damocles, but we used those themes.” **“Feast of Fire”** “The song that you hear as ‘Feast of Fire’ on the album came out of the middle section of the demo, which was much faster. We started changing it in the studio, which is way late in the process for us and not something we would normally do. But I’m glad we did because it became something a little different for us—we took this trashy riff and slowed it down, so it feels like something new. Then that melody singing part just kind of came out of nowhere and it started feeling like a definite single.” **“A Crisis of Revelation”** “This is a song that Matt brought in. The first time we jammed it, it was a little more \[2003’s\] Ember to Inferno style. If you know our band, you probably know what I’m talking about. We recorded a demo that way, but when we came back a month later, I felt like the song was calling out to be really fast—more of a thrashy Ascendancy style mixed with the newer style that Alex really brings to our band. So, we scrapped the demo and started playing it more intense, which really made it come together. There’s also a cool key change at the end, which makes the part feel bigger.” **“The Shadow of the Abattoir”** “I had the middle-section riffs for this when I was still living in Chicago in April of last year. We were stuck at home like everyone else, not touring, so I was writing a lot. Then I moved back to Florida, and I was on my Twitch stream, and I started playing these bass chords that I really liked. This song was calling out to be a big epic, so we got Ihsahn to add some layers in the first half.” **“No Way Back Just Through”** “This came from a demo I did for the last record that we never jammed, because we pretty much had all the songs we needed at that point. It’s got a real driving double-bass part that reminds me of ‘Painkiller’ by Judas Priest. Lyrically, nothing on this record deals with any of the things that have been happening in the real world because I think we wanted to steer clear of that stuff. But I did see an article about the pandemic that said there’s no way to turn back through this. We just have to get through it and continue forward. It just felt right for this song.” **“Fall Into Your Hands”** “This is the first song we worked on together, so it really set the pace for this record. I think the reason we have so many epic proggy parts on this record is because we realized how much fun that stuff is to write when we put together this song. At the time, we didn’t have any touring set up, nothing on the horizon except making this record, so maybe this song reflects that. And the drum part on the intro is just crazy. I watched Alex record it, and I still don’t know how he plays it because it sounds like there’s more hands hitting things than he has.” **“From Dawn to Decadence”** “Matt brought in some of the riffs for this one, and I got the title from a history book. It was a later song in the process, and those are always the toughest songs to figure out, because you’ve got so much material already and you’re trying not to step on any of the other songs. You’re trying to be creative and dynamic, so we did a lot of experimenting with this one as far as the tempo and the vocals. Even up to the last minute, we were experimenting with production tricks for the vocal sound on the verses. It was a very tough song to finalize.” **“The Phalanx”** “Anyone who thinks this song reminds them of something from the \[2008\] *Shogun* album, well, you are correct. It comes from a demo from that album, and it was almost on the record. The original middle section, however, was taken out and put onto the song ‘Torn Between’ on that album. So, we were left with a really cool Part A and Part C. When we decided to write a new middle section, it became a total riff-fest—Corey, Matt, and I all came up with riffs that flowed together. Now that I’ve had time to think about it, it’s a good metaphor for where our sound has settled in for the last few records—a good link between the old and the new.”
As of 2021, Cannibal Corpse is 15 albums deep into a career that has made them the biggest death-metal band in the world. With *Violence Unimagined*, the Floridian masters somehow muster new levels of brutality and technicality—due in part to new guitarist (and longtime producer) Erik Rutan, also of veteran death-metal trio Hate Eternal. Given that Cannibal Corpse’s lyrics are almost exclusively about violence, it’s stunning that they haven’t actually used the word formally before. “I thought *Violence Unimagined* just had a great ring to it,” drummer and co-lyricist Paul Mazurkiewicz tells Apple Music. “I think it also sums up what the band is about.” With four of the band’s five members contributing lyrics, Mazurkiewicz, Rutan, bassist Alex Webster, and guitarist Rob Barrett give a rundown on the tracks they wrote. **“Murderous Rampage”** Mazurkiewicz: “This is a song Rob wrote, and he also came up with the title. I just wrote the lyrics about someone who does just that—goes on a murderous rampage while collecting body parts from the killing spree and putting them on display in his house.” **“Necrogenic Resurrection”** Webster: “This song is about a cult that worships a notorious deceased murderer and seeks to resurrect him through human sacrifice. Even though I don’t believe in the supernatural, I’ve always enjoyed supernatural horror movies and novels, so the inspiration for lyrics like these probably comes from being a fan of that sort of stuff. I can’t think of a specific source, though—it’s just an idea for a story that I had.” **“Inhumane Harvest”** Barrett: “‘Inhumane Harvest’ takes a look inside one of organized crime\'s more sinister activities: the human organ trade. Desperate buyers will pay a high price for a much-needed organ transplant to either save themselves or a loved one from certain death, which makes for a lucrative business in underground crime rings.” **“Condemnation Contagion”** Rutan: “As the pandemic began in early 2020, I was watching a lot of movies like *28 Days Later*, *Dawn of the Dead*, *It Comes at Night*, *I Am Legend*, and *Contagion*. I also had the news on in the background for hours on end. I became obsessed with the chaos of it all. That combination inspired the fictional writing of the lyrics and the depth and heaviness of the music.” **“Surround, Kill, Devour”** Webster: “This song is about a situation where society has completely collapsed and people are starving to death. The desperation drives some people to form cannibalistic hunting groups, preying on other survivors who are weak or alone. I had recently read an article about wolves and it talked about the teamwork they use while hunting. I thought that it would be interesting to have the human antagonists in this song hunt in a similar way.” **“Ritual Annihilation”** Rutan: “With ‘Ritual Annihilation,’ I really wanted to create a complex song that was aggressive, attacking and pummeling. Then, as I was writing, it took a different turn onto a heavy and dark path. There is a lot of two-guitar-part harmony and counterpoint going on that definitely represents some of the insanity of when I was writing it in the first quarter of 2020.” **“Follow the Blood”** Barrett: “This was the last song that I wrote the music for on this record, and I intentionally wanted to make it a slower, more mid-paced song compared to the other three that I had already written. The lyrics are about a wartime scenario.” **“Bound and Burned”** Barrett: “This is the first song that I wrote the music for on this record. I basically built all of the riffs around the middle section where the vocals and solos keep going back and forth. When it comes to the lyrics, I prefer not to explain them, as I\'d rather have the individual determine what they\'re about or what they mean to them.” **“Slowly Sawn”** Webster: “This song is told from the point of view of the victim, a man who has been captured and is being tortured to death by methodical dismemberment. We usually write the music for our songs first and the lyrics second, and sometimes the former can help inspire the latter. That was the case for this song. It’s hard to explain, but the song’s slow, grinding riffs made me think of something bad happening to someone in a protracted way. In particular the bridge section of the song, which shifts into an even lower gear, evokes a torturous vibe.” **“Overtorture”** Rutan: “The origins of this song started one morning in February 2020. Leading up to recording the album, I was on a strict regimen where I would wake up, drink water and coffee, have breakfast, check emails, ride the bike, and then play guitar and work on songs all day, every day. That morning, I just had this maniacal melody floating around in my head and it would not leave. This ended up being the first riff of the song, and it all took off from there.” **“Cerements of the Flayed”** Mazurkiewicz: “This is a song that Alex wrote and also came up with the title for. I wrote about someone who gets buried alive wearing the skin of another human that is also still alive. The person survives the ordeal only to succumb to this horrific act in the end.”
Most Mastodon fans probably knew it was only a matter of time before the band dropped a double album. The Atlanta metal squad’s intricate songs and dazzling prog tendencies have been begging for the Pink Floyd treatment for years—and the pandemic’s enforced downtime provided them with the window to do it. “With the extra time to work on material, we just kept writing,” Mastodon drummer, co-vocalist, and lyricist Brann Dailor tells Apple Music. “When we got to the point where we had 20 ideas that were pretty fleshed out, we said, ‘We need to stop now.’ From there, it was hard even narrowing it down to 15 songs, so I’m not sure what we would’ve done if we’d needed to make a single album.” Thematically, *Hushed and Grim* largely deals with the death of Mastodon’s longtime friend and manager Nick John, who was taken by cancer in 2018. “It’s definitely a representation of the time period we went through,” Dailor says. “The pandemic, Nick John’s passing, and other things that transpired for us during that time.” Below, he details some key tracks from the record. **“Pain With an Anchor”** “I think that\'s probably one of the first songs that came about for the album. I strung a couple of riffs together, and then \[guitarist\] Bill \[Kelliher\] and I sat down in his basement and combined a few more. He came up with that big, heavy riff at the end and all that cool stuff in the bridge. I added these weird vocal swells—and some thunderclaps—underneath to make it more evil and sinister. The drum intro didn’t come until much later, when we were about to cut it for real. I just had this idea to do this quads intro thing, which sort of cemented it as being the first song on the record.” **“More Than I Could Chew”** “That’s a big Bill riff. I really drove it straight on the drums and I didn’t deviate too much from that, which is a little bit different for me. I’m more of a frantic player, usually. The kick pattern also opened up a lane for me to sing over the top of it. I don’t think Bill was really expecting there to be this higher, soaring vocal over that. \[Bassist\] Troy \[Sanders\] came up with that last riff, the one that \[guitarist\] Brent \[Hinds\] solos over. I just love that part. Troy hasn’t really been a big writer in the band, but this time around he wrote four or five tracks.” **“The Beast”** “This is one of Brent’s, and I wrote some lyrics for him. It’s got that opening country guitar lick and then it goes into what seems like a blues shuffle to me. Brent’s voice is just awesome there—I think it’s really soulful and bluesy. And then it moves into sort of a proggy King Crimson-type part that leads into Marcus King’s solo, which I love. Brent and Marcus are good friends, so it was cool to bring Marcus in to do that. To me, it’s a real proggy-sounding solo and it really flexes Marcus’ talents as a masterful guitar player. And it’s cool for Brent to hand the reins over like that, being an amazing soloist himself.” **“Teardrinker”** “This is a simple two-part guitar thing I came up with on an acoustic. I’m not the most talented guitar player, so most of what I write is pretty simple—and then I turn it over to Bill to get the magic happening. I wrote this at a time when it wasn’t going well for me. I was in a dark place. I was actually living in this apartment that had no sofa, no TV—just an acoustic guitar and a bed. I was hijacking a bit of service off my phone so I could try to watch some shows on my iPad. It was a rough time, but I’m okay now. So it’s a big emotional song, but it turned out pretty catchy.” **“Pushing the Tides”** “There’s not a lot of rippers on this album, but this is a ripper that just feels good to play. It’s another one that came from sitting in Bill’s basement. The first riff reminds me of early AmRep stuff like Chokebore, Guzzard, or early-’90s Barkmarket maybe. There’s some prog influence there, some Killing Joke—all that stuff we’re into, being kids of the ’90s. We sort of came from that whole scene of underground, mathy stuff that was below the upper echelons of grunge. So it’s cool when that stuff pops up. It’s a fun song with a big chorus.” **“Dagger”** “Once you’ve decided that you’re making a double album, you can sprawl out a bit. I don’t know that this song would’ve been as cool as it ended up being if we didn’t go down the rabbit hole with it. We got a sarangi player, and my friend Dave Witte from Municipal Waste came in to do some percussion on these tribal drums and hunks of metal. Then we had our buddy come in and play some crazy Moog at the end. I’m stoked on it, but if it wasn’t for Troy’s voice, you’d have a hard time convincing even a Mastodon fan that this was a Mastodon song.” **“Had It All”** “This is an important song, and very Nick John-centric. He probably shows up in the lyrics of every song, but this one is specifically aimed at his situation. To have Kim Thayil do the solo was amazing, because Soundgarden was one of Nick’s favorite bands. And what a cool turn of events that Troy’s mom got to virtually jam on French horn with Kim on this one. Kim did a really beautiful, heart-wrenching solo, and then Troy’s mom added another beautiful texture with a nice little horn arrangement. This is the closest I think we’ve come to a ballad, I think, but it’s an emotional song for us. The only bummer is that Nick isn’t here to hear it.” **“Gigantium”** “This is another one I wrote when I was in that apartment. I call it the Sadness Hole. I don’t want to get into why I was there, but just to be clear, I wasn’t strung out on drugs or anything like that. It was a personal time. But the last riff really sounded like the end of something. It’s sad-sounding, but there’s also some hope there. So we put some string arrangements on it and Brent did this really beautiful guitar solo. The last line is for Nick John: ‘The mountains we made in the distance will be with us forever.’ I think it’s a beautiful farewell.”
In a way, Rivers of Nihil’s fourth full-length is about the work that went into the album itself. As a concept, *The Work* grew out of the progressive death metal band’s transition into full-time touring with the success of their previous LP, 2018’s *Where Owls Know My Name*. “When that happened, we got a taste of what it was like to do this as our job,” bassist, lyricist, and co-vocalist Adam Biggs tells Apple Music. “It changes your relationship with your art and what you love when you attach a monetary dependence to it. In that way, success is a bit of a violation of art. *The Work* is sort of a metacommentary on what we do when art in general and just the nature of the world becomes a lot of…work.” Below, he discusses each track. **“The Tower (Theme From ‘The Work’)”** “I had the idea of this record being a cinematic experience. When we were first putting together this track, it sounded like it had a dreary, opening-credits type of feel. It has a lot of musical themes that I felt were easy to latch onto, and I felt they were delivering the bigger musical picture of the record. The idea of ‘The Tower’ itself is based on a tarot card. It’s a signifier of tumultuous times, but also an opportunity for regrowth. That’s what the lyrics touch on.” **“Dreaming Black Clockwork”** “This song is actually one that I contributed a lot to musically, which is kind of an outlier for the band. Typically, I’m not really a riff writer. I stick to writing the lyrics and the basslines—everything else has pretty much been \[guitarist\] Brody \[Uttley\] for the last few years. This has a kind of dark, grinding feel with a lot of crazy sounds and an industrial kind of clanking. It represents the beginning of the grind of your day, after you’ve just woken up and come to grips with what your life is going to be like today. The lyrics are pure existential dread and a desire to escape, but there’s also a will to live.” **“Wait”** “This is an interesting track for us and for people who are familiar with the band. I think it’ll probably throw some people for a loop, but it’s a fun track off the back of the last one. The way the tracks butt up against each other felt like an homage to a classic band, but I don’t want to say exactly who. It’s just about getting high and forgetting your worries for a while, so it’s a little break. The way that Brody put the solo together at the end felt like Guns N’ Roses to me, which I thought was an interesting direction for us.” **“Focus”** “A lot of these songs are drug tracks, if you break them down. If ‘Wait’ was more of a marijuana song, this would be an Adderall song. I grew up in the age when kids were being prescribed amphetamines like candy. I was one of those kids, for better or worse, and when you’re that age you don’t really understand that you’re being set up for a particular relationship with mind-altering substances. You feel dependent on them to function in society, but also sort of resentful towards them.” **“Clean”** “If you’re just looking at the lyrics of this track, it seems it could just be about drugs, and you wouldn’t be wrong in assuming that, but it’s also more about poverty. It’s about struggling and having to scrape by in life. When you do that, nothing around you is clean. Everything is dirty and dingy and spoiled. People don’t understand that if you can’t take a person out of a bad situation, they’re never really going to get themselves out of that hole.” **“The Void From Which No Sound Escapes”** “I came up with the elaborate title before I even knew what the song was going to be about, but it talks about the artist’s struggle. You have an audience that expects something of you, so you kind of have this monster you need to feed. You don’t want to betray what they want, but you also want to be yourself. A lot of times when I’m writing lyrics, I’m putting my worst feelings down—and then I’ll hear people sing them back to me at a show like it’s nothing. So, you’ve got people repeating these painful things you feel, and you wonder what that does to everyone involved.” **“More?”** “This is sort of like the delivery on the promise of the last track. It’s probably the only straight-up death-metal song on the whole record, which is odd for us. Lyrically, it’s kind of sarcastic, like, ‘Yeah, this is exactly what you want. We know how to give it to you, but we don’t always want to. We have other ideas that we can’t ignore.’ So, it’s a little angry at the expectation, but we’re having a good time with it.” **“Tower 2”** “The first ‘Tower’ is that intuition link with the record. It’s pulling you into the topic of the album. ‘Tower 2’ exists as a little bit of a comeback to that situation. It’s a fun little song, kind of a country tune. I get to croon for you a little bit. I like it a lot, but there’s not a whole lot more to say than that.” **“Episode”** “I think this was the first song Brody wrote the music for, but it was a hard one to put together lyrically. It’s about the stress of putting all this stuff down—and reconciling with it. We have to weigh all of this stuff that we’re making against the rest of our lives. There’s relationships in my life that have come and gone throughout this whole thing. So much of my life has to be a certain way to make this thing endure. But I think it’s common for touring musicians to make certain sacrifices. So, it’s about little moments in your life ending, and you just have to keep working through it.” **“Maybe One Day”** “We listen to a lot of theremin-based music on tour. Brody started messing with some of that stuff, so we decided to incorporate some of that kind of tone into this song. Lyrically, it’s a continuation of ‘Episode’ in a way—it’s asking if it’s maybe a better option to just move on. But it’s also a little ambiguous as to what you\'re moving on from. As someone who works a lot, do you make better choices for your life at home or on the road? It’s also saying that it’s OK to contemplate these things but maybe not worry about them so much.” **“Terrestria IV: Work”** “In the same way that ‘The Tower’ is sort of the opening credits, this is the ending credits. The curtain is closing—not only on this record, but also on the entire four seasonal concepts thing that we’ve run with throughout our whole career at this point. Because this record explores so much other territory sound-wise, we thought it was time for something a little more immediately crowd-pleasing. We’ve finished the work and the whole concept, and this song is asking what’s changed and if we’re happy with what we’ve done. It’s an invitation for the listener to look back with us.”
Brothers Pete and Sam Loeffler were putting the finishing touches on the ninth Chevelle album when COVID-19 descended in early 2020. “The last four years have been very tumultuous for us and our friends and family,” Pete tells Apple Music. “And then on top of it, this pandemic and the election. We were trying to come up with an album title right when COVID was hitting, and the situation just didn’t seem real.” The title they settled on is an acronym for “Nothing Is Real and This Is a Simulation”—a fitting description for Chevelle’s sci-fi take on driving hard rock—and a cover painting by the great Peruvian fantasy artist Boris Vallejo seals the deal. “This album talks about simulation theory, space travel, and all this wild technology,” Pete says. “But the title is also a reference to basically losing your job overnight because the music industry stopped.” Below, he comments on the album’s songs. **Verruckt** “This opening song harkens us back to our first album in that it’s an instrumental. It\'s a bit heavy and a bit crazy, as the title says \[in German\]. I love how it weaves heaviness around before ending on the double kick pattern constantly telling the listener to turn it up louder. It also allows me to get lost in the music without being tied to a microphone for a chance to roam around.” **So Long, Mother Earth** “The first of a few songs speaking about interstellar travel. I’m trying some new techniques for writing on the guitar these days. A few less power chords and more moving/walking single-string riffs. It seemed to help us end up at new places within our music. Lyrically, it deals with the loss of leaving Earth and its relationships, searching for courage for the future, and wondering if technology can help us advance to the point of being an interplanetary species.” **Mars Simula** “This song is a banger of excitement for me. Heavy and always pushing forward toward a release, it’s a track designed for chaos in the live setting. It’s inspired by Elon Musk and SpaceX and all the risks involved with the harrowing trip to get to Mars.” **Sleep the Deep** “This was written and recorded in my closet when I was alone. I started dabbling in alternative sounds on keyboards, using random effects and a kalimba. It was exciting to write outside of the guitar world for a minute to see what I can do with other sounds. There is more of this to come in my future.” **Self Destructor** “I didn’t see this one coming as a first radio single but was pleasantly surprised at the response. It’s not a short song and it never really lets up. To me, it’s upbeat and moves around a lot, with lots of finger work on the fretboard, which is a challenge. Lyrically, I needed to confront a few hard conversations I’ve had, one of them being science denial, which to me is risking forward progress.” **Piistol Star (Gravity Heals)** “A trippy rock track inspired by the movie *Sunshine*. The characters are hurtling through space and possibly sacrificing themselves to reignite the sun. It’s got a lot going on and we threw a ton at it. I love how the higher guitar lines carry it later in the song and make it feel like it\'s constantly growing.” **Peach** “I believe we are surrounded by cults in our societies, vying for our money, our attention, and our worship. A simple explanation for this song is ‘Keep your hands to yourself.’ Also, be especially wary of people who say that they have all the answers.” **Test Test...Enough** “Dealing with the end of something held so closely for so long, we all \[struggle\] with this in different capacities. But in this song, it’s me giving in—gladly—and fully letting go.” **Endlessly** “It’s the sad song on the album, although ultimately positive in the hope that when we leave this earth, in some way we are all reconnected—whether that’s through energy or possibly somewhere inside the simulation.” **Remember When** “The musical equivalent of the image of an astronaut disconnected and floating off into space. The thoughts that would flood the mind are truly terrifying. I use a sort of single-string chugging approach to the guitar line here—it’s different for us and super exciting. It’s very important for us to try new things at this point. We always need a new challenge.” **Ghost and Razor** “A rather dark brooder of a song. Lyrically, I can’t seem to shake the feeling of being used throughout my career. It\'s a realization that one can change and refuse to play the victim. Most times, to truly move on, one has to search it out for themselves and choose to apply it.” **Lost in Digital Woods** “I recorded this alone late at night, wanting to add piano to my spoken-word poem. I love the simplicity. Taking a break from writing, I heard a pack of coyotes running down the street. I quickly ran out of the house and recorded them on my phone. I thought it was a perfect way to end the album.”
First impressions last a lifetime. Wolfgang Van Halen has prepared a lifetime to make his first impression with his solo band Mammoth WVH. The songwriter, vocalist, and multi-instrumentalist worked tirelessly on material that would become his debut album. Playing every instrument and singing each and every note, his music presents a personal and powerful perspective, balancing memorable hooks and tight technicality. As many times as audiences have experienced his talent alongside the likes of Tremonti, Clint Lowery, and of course, Van Halen, Wolfgang prepares to step into the spotlight with his own brand - Mammoth WVH - for the very first time now. “The name Mammoth is really special to me.” says Wolf. “Not only was it the name of Van Halen before it became Van Halen, but my father was also the lead singer. Ever since my dad told me this, I always thought that when I grew up, I’d call my own band Mammoth, because I loved the name so much. I’m so thankful that my father was able to listen to, and enjoy the music I made. Nothing made me happier than seeing how proud he was that I was continuing the family legacy.”
When it came time to title his second solo album, Myles Kennedy looked to Shakespeare’s *Julius Caesar* for inspiration—specifically the part in which the soothsayer warns the Roman ruler of the date of his death. “The line ‘Beware the ides of March’ is a cautionary phrase,” the Alter Bridge and Slash and Conspirators vocalist tells Apple Music. “I started writing most of these songs after the pandemic started, when there was a lot of uncertainty, so it felt appropriate.” Unable to tour during lockdown, Kennedy had no shortage of downtime to work on the album. “For years, I’ve been juggling three projects,” he points out. “I’d write when I could—on the road, in a hotel room, or if I was at home for two weeks before going on tour again. With this record, I could totally hunker down and stay focused, which was really beneficial.” Below, Kennedy discusses each track on *The Ides of March*. **“Get Along”** “Oftentimes when you initially sing a melody, a phrase will pop out and you don\'t know where it comes from. That’s how the line ‘Why can\'t we all just get along?’ happened. That was written probably in March 2020, before things got pretty tumultuous here in the States. I think a lot of people hear that lyric and think it was written about the protests, but I actually looked back to the ’92 riots in Los Angeles. Those really affected me when I was younger, so I think that was the genesis of the lyric in a way.” **“A Thousand Words”** “The lyric was inspired by a friend of ours who had recently lost her father. She\'d gone to the funeral and someone had snapped a picture of her mother standing over her husband\'s grave. They\'d been married for decades—I want to say 50 years. When I saw the picture, it just pulled on my heartstrings and really spoke a thousand words. It was such a vivid image that manifested life and our impermanence.” **“In Stride”** “I didn\'t even know if this was going to make the record, let alone be the first single. I just thought the album needed an uptempo track. When it came time to put the lyric together, everything shut down and everyone was freaking out and stocking up toilet paper, which became the new gold. So this was just stepping back and realizing it might be wise to chill out and gain some perspective. We don’t need that much toilet paper.” **“The Ides of March”** “This was a hard song to write. I found myself really falling deep into the lyrical narrative, to the point where even my wife was noticing that it was starting to affect me. I was definitely living the record. Musically, I chased this song down for about six months. My favorite line lyrically on the whole record is here, and it’s become my mantra in the times we\'re living in: ‘Cool heads prevail in times of change.’ It\'s been very, very important for me.” **“Wake Me When It\'s Over”** “This track was written really quickly one night. Like a lot of us during lockdown, we were starting to get a little bored. I found myself watching a lot of *Impractical Jokers* because it made me happy. I needed that comic relief. I had a guitar in hand, and I’d had a couple of gin and tonics—just trying to self-medicate to avoid going stir-crazy. The song pushes the idea that if everything is going to hell, at least try to have fun. If this is truly an impending apocalypse, I’m just going to party and have a good time.” **“Love Rain Down”** “This song was actually written in 2009—it’s just been sitting on the back burner. I made a demo of it for a record I never put out, but I’d always really liked the song. I felt like the lyric was fitting for the times we’re living in, because it\'s a plea born out of longing. A lot of us were longing for answers and unity and solace from what was going on in the current times. It felt appropriate. And musically, it’s real fun. I love playing this one because it was inspired by Big Bill Broonzy.” **“Tell It Like It Is”** “This was really inspired by the swagger of The Rolling Stones. I wanted the track to have that reckless abandon to it. It’s a pocket that I haven\'t explored a lot in anything that I\'ve done with other bands. It’s become one of my favorite tracks because it’s different from a lot of the music I\'ve been a part of. There\'s a certain tongue-in-cheek element to it, and the chorus says it best: ‘Don’t sugarcoat.’ It’s the idea of just speaking your mind and telling it like it is.” **“Moonshot”** “When it came time to put the lyric together for this, the first thing that came out was ‘I remember when we were suiting up again before the end of time.’ It made me think about standing backstage at my wardrobe case with my bandmates, shooting the shit and getting ready to go onstage—just the idea that I took a lot of that for granted. I didn\'t know when I was going to be able to do that again. And then the chorus manifests this optimism that things will return to normal—even though it seems like a moonshot, something completely out of reach.” **“Wanderlust Begins”** “This was written years ago, around the time I wrote ‘Love Rain Down.’ I was going through a major acoustic phase, working on a lot of fingerstyle stuff and a lot of weird alternate tunings. I stumbled onto this tuning that was just completely crazy and started coming up with some chord progressions and melodies. That\'s how that song was born. And obviously it’s about wanting to get out and go somewhere. I felt like it was very appropriate for how a lot of us were feeling.” **“Sifting Through the Fire”** “This track is definitely inspired by Southern rock like Skynyrd and the Allman Brothers, with the harmonized guitar thing at the beginning. Lyrically, it was inspired by realizing that so many of us—myself included—can fall prey to living in echo chambers. There’s a movie I saw after the song was written which summed up exactly what it’s about. It’s called *The Social Dilemma*, and it’s great. It really sheds light on how algorithms are basically driving where we’re getting our information from.” **“Worried Mind”** “This is an important track to me, and a nice way to end the record. I think it can have a dual meaning. Some people will hear it and think it’s about a relationship and the idea that you need to compromise. There’s a line that says, ‘A little give and take could light the way and bring this back to life,’ which could apply to a relationship, but also to society and how people deal with each other in general. I would love it, personally, if people stepped away from their corner and talked to one another and found common ground.”
Iconic frontman and instrumentalist MYLES KENNEDY (Alter Bridge, Slash ft. Myles Kennedy & The Conspirators) proves that tumultuous downtime can spark creative genius with The Ides Of March – the long-anticipated full-length follow up to his 2018 solo debut, Year Of The Tiger. The Ides Of March once again showcases the organic side of Kennedy’s musical spectrum and one-of-a-kind voice, but while bright inclusions of lap steel and mandolin have replaced some of the pummeling kick drum and downtuned electric riffage his other renowned projects are known for, each of its offerings maintain the same steadfast energy that never relents. Fluxing between heritage rock outcries featuring Jimmy Page-worthy solos, and stripped-down, bluesy beckonings, the album manifests as an uplifting refresher arriving when society needs it most. Lyrically, the album’s 11 unique offerings embrace all listeners, championing themes of unity and solidarity over separation and spite, allowing the sonic warmth of each track to stand out. Opening stunner “Get Along” proves itself as an anthem for the times, giving listeners a hard-rocking first dose of MYLES KENNEDY’s iconic vocal attack and guitar prowess, ushered along by an addictive hook: “Why can’t we all just get along?” The album rocks and twangs with timeless spine-tinglers like “A Thousand Words” and slide guitar-laden lead single/future classic “In Stride”. Kennedy slows it down with triumphant, smooth vocal knockout “The Ides Of March”, topped with a jazzy guitar solo and poetic lyricism crooning for camaraderie in our darkest times. Raucous blues-rocker “Wake Me When It’s Over” and passionate, ethereal “Love Rain Down” astound, while earworm lead-ignited “Tell It Like It Is” and swaying sing-a-long standout “Moonshot” successfully mark Kennedy’s “dual-citizenship” in the realms of rock and country inspiration. Acoustics, mandolin and slide guitar pepper the soft benevolence of “Wanderlust Begins” and classic rock-inspired wakeup call “Sifting Through The Fire”, before bluesy success “Worried Mind” provides the listener with one last slab of verification that MYLES KENNEDY is an undeniable talent for the ages. The Ides Of March doubles down on the charging roots rock vibes of its predecessor while exuding an aura of tenderness and inner peace – radiating the sorely needed, uplifting spirit of Americana rock.
“I guarantee that most musicians have that groove or that vibe somewhere within them,” Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl tells Apple Music of the funk and disco rhythms that course through his band’s 10th LP. “They just may have never found the right time or place to let it out.” Recorded before the global pandemic took hold in early 2020, *Medicine At Midnight* is very much the sound of Grohl letting it out—a round of fleet-footed party rock inspired, in part, by ABBA, Prince, and David Bowie’s *Let’s Dance*, the 1983 Nile Rodgers-produced classic whose drummer, Omar Hakim, contributes percussion on several tracks here. Without breaking entirely from their highly reliable brand of stadium-ready slow burns (“Waiting on a War”) and riffy joyrides (“Love Dies Young”), the Foos make space for cowbell (“Cloudspotter”) and calls from the dance floor (the soulful title cut), handclaps and *na-na-na*s (“Making a Fire”). It’s a change that should probably come as no surprise. “I’m a drummer,” Grohl says. “I explained one time to Pharrell: ‘If you listen to *Nevermind*, those are disco beats, dude.’ If you’ve been in a band for a long time, you get comfortable in that place that people are familiar with. In some sort of attempt at longevity, you just have to be able to reach out and try things you’ve never done before.”
As a band with dozens and dozens of strange, catchy, and experimental releases under their collective belt—and an ever-shifting lineup beyond the core duo of guitarist/vocalist Buzz Osborne and drummer Dale Crover—the Melvins can always be relied upon to keep it interesting. *Working With God* is the second album from their “Melvins 1983” lineup—Osborne, Crover (on bass), and original drummer Mike Dillard—which recalls the band’s 1983 origins in rural Washington. In that sense, it’s very much a follow-up to 2013’s *Tres Cabrones*, which featured the same power trio. “I knew I wanted a title that had something ‘with God’ in it,” Osborne tells Apple Music. “Cursing With God, Killing With God, Joking With God—*Working With God* seemed to fit best.” Below, Osborne details the songs on this decidedly non-religious album. **I F\*\*k Around** “This came out of soundcheck. They’d go, ‘Can you do your vocal check?’ and I’d start in with ‘Round, round, fuck around, I fuck around,’ to the tune of the Beach Boys song. It always got a laugh out of people. And then we eventually thought we gotta record it. So I sat down and wrote lyrics for it. Melvins 1983 is where that kind of stuff really comes to light, because we all have the same kind of sense of humor, which my wife says is perpetually stuck in eighth grade. Which is true.” **Negative No No** “I wrote these lyrics while driving around in the car, listening to the demo. What I\'ll do is I have my notebook with me and when I come upon something, I\'ll pull over and just write it out, right there on the side of the road. I do that all the time. You couldn’t work that way on public transpo. Sitting on the bus singing out loud is not really going to work. You’d be beaten up or considered insane, which is probably not far from the truth.” **Bouncing Rick** “This was the nickname we had for our high school biology teacher. Me and Dillard had all kinds of names for people at the high school. This guy bounced around when he talked—I think it was out of nervousness—so we called him Bouncing Rick. But we’re the only ones who called him that. So as soon as I said, ‘Bouncing Rick,’ Dillard knew who I was talking about. I don’t know that the song is really about him, though. I think it would be more about the challenges of a second date.” **Caddy Daddy** “People think this is a golf reference, but it’s actually not. It’s Cadillacs. I wouldn\'t write a song about a golf caddy—I\'ve never had one. But I\'ve never had a Cadillac, either. When I lived in San Francisco, I saw a guy walking through the Fillmore District with a baseball hat on that said ‘Caddy Daddy’ on it, and I wrote it down. That was probably 30 years ago, and I\'ve had it ever since. But the song isn’t about that. It’s more about thinking you’re smarter than you really are.” **Brian, The Horse-Faced Goon** “The first part is a song that we came up with a long time ago. We used to sing it exactly like that—‘Brian, The Horse-Faced Goon,’ trying to imitate Ethel Merman. So we’ve had that version for years and years. And then the second one is about a Florida kid shooting dope in a hurricane. Dale wrote the music for that one, which is the new song. The hardest part was figuring out how I was going to fit the phrase ‘Brian, The Horse-Faced Goon’ into the lyrics, which I did.” **Boy Mike** “This might be one of my favorites. The way it started out and the way it ended up was tremendously different. And I really like the ending on that song—I think it\'s really fucking cool. I think it sounds really weird and creepy. I couldn\'t say exactly what that one\'s about, but Boy Mike is not a real person. At first I was thinking it could be about a microphone, but I don’t think it is. It’s one of those songs that ends up far surpassing your expectations. I love when that happens.” **F\*\*k You** “This is our Harry Nilsson cover, which was a no-brainer. His song was called ‘You’re Breakin’ My Heart.’ According to the documentary about him, he wrote it about his ex-wife. Nilsson was a strange cat—he never played live. This was a song that I\'ve wanted to cover for a long time, and I changed the lyrics to be as offensive as possible. We really liked the beginning with us screaming, ‘Fuck you!’ so we decided to isolate that for the second song. If you take the two ‘Brian’ tracks, ‘Boy Mike,’ and the two ‘F\*\*k Yous,’ it’s like a nice little EP in the middle of the album.” **The Great Good Place** “I think this is Dale\'s favorite song on the record. I might be wrong, but I think the title is a reference to the freaks at Andy Warhol’s Factory who thought that they’d found a place where they could do whatever they wanted, but then Warhol ends up getting blasted. I might have had that in mind, but it’s not directly about that. And then there’s that saying along the lines of ‘If you let everyone in, you let in madness, too.’ So you’ve got to be more specific about your guest list.” **Hot Fish** “The music for this one was written by Trevor Dunn, and I wrote the lyrics. We actually wrote this song for Flipper. We did a limited-edition EP with those guys playing on it, but we decided to redo the song and put it on this record. I can’t think of a band that has had a bigger impact on us than Flipper. The title comes from seeing them at a club in San Francisco in the ’80s called the Covered Wagon. In the back, there was a kitchen with a deep fryer. Those guys had this fish made out of metal that was about the size of a bowling ball. They’d drop it in the fryer until it was red hot and then throw water on it and carry it onstage screaming, ‘Hot fish! Hot fish!’ I never forgot that. The funny thing is, when I brought it up to those guys, they didn’t remember it.” **Hund** “This is a song that I wrote for \[Buzz and Dale’s side project\] Crystal Fairy, but we never got to record it. So we revamped it and did it with Melvins 1983. It has some pretty hard guitar-playing on it, as far as the soloing goes—that\'s about as hard a guitar solo as I\'ll ever do. But the song is kind of a multifaceted nightmare—it\'s got a lot of parts to it. Mike and Dale did a really good job working this out.” **Goodnight Sweet Heart** “We’ve been wanting to do this on an album forever. We used to do this song with the Big Business guys—we’d do it as the last song of the night. Then I met one of the guys from Sha Na Na when I was golfing at one of the little par-three courses I play. He was there all the time, so I got to be friends with him. He told me the reason they loved doing that song last is because it was the shortest song they did in their whole set. So we open the record with a Beach Boys song and close it with a ’50s doo-wop song. It just seems right.”
It’s been a long journey for Fear Factory’s 10th album. Though it was initially completed in 2017, guitarist and founder Dino Cazares endured lawsuits from former band members and set up a crowdsourcing fund to put his industrial-metal hellscape through a complete remix and have the original drum machine tracks rerecorded by live drummer Mike Heller. But the biggest blow was the departure of longtime singer Burton C. Bell, who recorded vocals for *Aggression Continuum* before leaving the band in 2020. “The record was almost called *Continuum*, but I felt it needed another word to really express what it was,” Cazares tells Apple Music. “So, the *Aggression* part is really just a description of the kind of music we play, how we felt on this record, and the struggle we went through to get it out.” Below, Cazares discusses each track on this semi-concept album. **“Recode”** “We worked on this song with a guy called Igor Khoroshev. He was in the band Yes, and he also produced Burt’s vocals. He’s an amazing keyboardist and composer, and he wrote this amazing orchestral piece that really elevated the song and made it more epic. The intro is based on *Terminator Salvation*, where Christian Bale is talking to the resistance. In our version, it’s about all the struggles we had putting this out. But the song is basically about AI capturing humans and extracting their memories and dreams and transferring them to automatons so they’ll think they’re human.” **“Disruptor”** “This is the album’s first single. In the video, you have these four individuals that are trying to hack into a mainframe to disrupt a signal from the spaceship you see in the sky, which is sending drones to capture humans and extract their memories. If they disrupt the signal, the drones will be confused and will either fall out of the sky or will be flying aimlessly. It was partly inspired, again, by *Terminator Salvation* but also an episode of *Black Mirror* called ‘Metalhead’ that has dog drones chasing people.” **“Aggression Continuum”** “This has dialogue of a human talking to an automaton, and he’s trying to tell the automaton that he’s not human, that he’s here to inflict death. But the automaton keeps insisting he’s human. That’s pretty much what the song deals with throughout: the battle between humans and AI.” **“Purity”** “The chorus says, ‘I am one of you/Take me as I am.’ That’s the automaton still insisting that it’s human, but this one is from the perspective of the automaton.” **“Fuel Injected Suicide Machine”** “This song is the second single, and it’s one where we kind of go off the path of the main story. It’s based on the character of the Nightrider in the first *Mad Max* movie that came out in 1979. That was before the first *Terminator*, so that was the first time I saw a dystopian movie like that. The Nightrider is this guy who lives and dies by the hotrod engine, and he’s just plowing through everything in his path. In one scene, he says, ‘I am the Nightrider, a fuel-injected suicide machine.’” **“Collapse”** “This one ties into ‘Disruptor,’ where they’re trying to hack into the mainframe. It’s basically saying that the system is collapsing because it’s being disrupted. The intro is from *First Blood*, the first Rambo movie, where the sheriff is telling everyone to stay in their houses because he thinks Rambo is gonna start killing people.” **“Manufactured Hope”** “This is more about what was going on politically when it was written back in 2016 and 2017—which was a lot of lies, basically. The song says, ‘No more will I be a victim/I will take a stand.’ Of course, those years were different than right now, but this song represents that moment. You could also say that this type of political climate—manufactured hope—kind of set the stage for the story of the album.” **“Cognitive Dissonance”** “‘Cognitive Dissonance’ is about the disparity between people’s beliefs and their behavior. It’s about people behaving in ways that are not aligned with their personal values. It may result in intense feelings of discomfort. This is another one that was more about the time period it was written in.” **“Monolith”** “To tell you the truth, I never really understood this song. I wanna say that it’s about worshipping something massive, but I didn’t contribute any lyrics to this one.” **“End of Line”** “It’s exactly what it sounds like. It’s the end of the battle that’s going on in the story, but I believe Burt was also trying to say that he was out. At the end of the song, there’s the ‘fear is the mind-killer’ speech from *Dune*, which I decided to put in there to let people know that once the fear is gone, only I remain—meaning I’m the last one standing, and I’ll continue Fear Factory.”
“I was originally going to call it *Truth Decay*,” Ministry mastermind Al Jourgensen tells Apple Music about the title of his band’s 15th album. “But then Obama used the phrase in his book to describe what we’re experiencing in this country today—which is the same reason I chose it—and it started getting a lot of traction. Even though I had the title before the book came out, I know to wave the white flag when I’m dealing with an ex-president.” Never at a loss for inspiration, Jourgensen pivoted to the equally dental-themed *Moral Hygiene*. With a propulsive industrial sound reminiscent of Ministry’s 1992 classic, *Psalm 69*, the album sees Jourgensen railing against climate-change deniers, anti-vaxxers, and general disinformation—complete with guest appearances from Jello Biafra and Billy Idol guitarist Billy Morrison. Below, he discusses each track. **“Alert Level”** “We’re all living on alert right now. From climate change to vaccine conspiracies, it’s getting ridiculous. Especially here in California with the fires. Last summer, it came within a mile and a half of my house—this year we might get hit. I know there’s no quick fix, but we have to at least acknowledge that climate change is a fact. But at least 25 percent of this country won’t do that. So, we have a problem here, as they say in Houston.” **“Good Trouble”** “Congressman John Lewis’ legacy and career is just unbelievable. The fact that he was prescient enough to write his famous letter and make sure that it didn’t get released until after he died—if he wasn’t a hero to me already, then he certainly was at that point. I’m just fingers-crossed that his Voting Rights Act gets through. But it might not, because we’re living under tyranny by the minority—which, maybe, should’ve been the title of this record.” **“Sabotage Is Sex”** “I’m really persnickety about the lyrical content and the message I want to send, but also vocal technique, effects on the vocals, and such. I wasn’t really happy with the vocal I did on this, so I thought, ‘Let’s give Uncle Jello a call.’ I’ve known Jello Biafra for decades, and I know his perspective is very similar to mine on almost everything. Within two days, he sent back ‘Sabotage Is Sex.’ He sounds amazing—in rare, true form, actually—but if you want to know what it’s about, you’ll have to ask him.” **“Disinformation”** “This is all about conspiracy theories. Here’s the deal: It starts with education. In many of the Nordic countries right now, they’re already teaching kids how to spot bullshit on the internet—starting in first grade. We don’t have anything near that here. It’s like playing whack-a-mole right now, because social media is not regulated in any way. I think this entire problem could go away if people had to use their real names on the internet. And if you make a statement, you’re on the hook for it. But I doubt that would fly.” **“Search and Destroy”** “When we did this Stooges cover, Iggy was the first person I sent it to. I would not have put it on the record if he didn’t give it a thumbs up. But the whole backstory is that I did the song at a benefit concert for teen suicide run by Dave Navarro and Billy Morrison. I got really stoned before we played and ended up singing the song in half-time. The entire band had to accommodate me, and I was really embarrassed about it. I called Billy the next day to apologize, and he said it was the most awesome version he’d ever heard and that we should record it. So, we did.” **“Believe Me”** “This is just about mistrust—not only in our political figures, but in personal relationships as well. It almost ties in with ‘Disinformation,’ where you really need to listen and process everything that’s being told to you by an individual, even within relationships. Obviously, there’s a Trump element to it because he’s a grifter and his followers believe everything he says—even though he doesn’t give a shit about his followers. He just cares about money and his bottom line. So, it’s basically about being wary of people that you suspect of being grifters.” **“Broken System”** “This is number seven on the track list, and it pretty much sums up all the preceding songs on the album. It talks about everything from climate change to corruption to the kleptocracy we live in now. How do we get out of it? I don\'t have the answers entirely, but I do think there’s still some people who aren’t aware that this is a broken system, and those people need to maybe pay attention. So, it kind of ties everything up with a bow.” **“We Shall Resist”** “This was actually written for a documentary coming up called *Haunted Painting*. It’s about a painting that was found in a garbage can in Los Angeles, but it’s also basically about how eBay got started. The person who found the painting said it was haunted and sold it. Then it exchanged hands a few times over the years, and the price kept going up. It wound up in some big shot’s collection for $30 million or something. It’s a ridiculous story, but it’s really about the predatorial nature of internet auctions on uneducated people.” **“Death Toll”** “It’s the human toll of the pandemic. We still have all these deniers out there who keep getting proven wrong. It goes back to the tyranny of the minority—these people are stopping mask mandates and vaccine mandates even though we had no problem with vaccines for polio, smallpox, measles, or whooping cough. All the kids had to be vaccinated against this stuff before they went to school, and hardly anyone complained. But now, this is a problem suddenly, so we have all these needless deaths piling up for no good reason.” **“TV Song #6” (Right Around the Corner Mix)** “This song is basically saying that what’s happening in ‘Death Toll’ is not over, even though the media is telling us the pandemic is over. So, I’ve actually set it up for a sequel with our next record, clever little boy that I am.”
Political punk squad Rise Against has always maintained a strong connection with their fans, and their ninth album is a result of that connection. *Nowhere Generation* comes partly from the band’s conversations with their Gen Y and Z supporters who feel society’s deck has been stacked against them. From crippling college debt and poverty-level wages to labor automation and political malfeasance, the album seeks to voice the frustrations of the increasingly disenfranchised. “Much of this was written before the pandemic, but if the pandemic hadn’t happened, I don’t think the lyrics would hit as hard,” vocalist Tim McIlrath tells Apple Music. “A lot of the cracks in civil society—the stuff we were writing about anyway—were made bigger during the pandemic. The ugliness rose to the surface and a lot of our weakened support systems became apparent to everybody.” Below, he comments on each track. **“The Numbers”** “‘The Numbers’ is the classic punk-rock message of reminding people how much power they actually do have. Anybody that\'s in a position of power—any of the global elite that run the world—they still rely on people falling in line. They rely on people to approve of what they do, and they still exist at the whim of the people—even though they would like to create an illusion that they don\'t. I think every generation needs that reminder that this power does come from people, and people do have power.” **“Sudden Urge”** “This song is tackling an age-old question: Is the system something that can be reformed, or is the system something that should be torn down to its foundations and then rebuilt? That\'s something that I think a lot of us wrestle with when we look case by case at different institutions that run society. I think there are days when we just want to burn the whole thing down, and there are days where we\'re like, ‘Let\'s try to fix this.’ But ‘Sudden Urge’ is about the days when you feel like you need to burn the whole thing down.” **“Nowhere Generation”** “This song definitely came from conversations and interactions with our own community of fans and friends—people that are existing in a society where it feels like it\'s harder and harder to get ahead. I grew up at a time when a single-income family could live a middle-class lifestyle. Now we\'re normalizing the idea that someone can work a full-time job and still live below the poverty level. I think young people are trying to figure out what tomorrow looks like for them, because the finish line has become blurrier and even further away, but they’re being asked to run the same race.” **“Talking to Ourselves”** “This is about that feeling you get when you\'re trying to shake somebody awake and they\'re not listening—you feel like you\'re just talking to yourself. It\'s also a comment on how we feel as a band—we never thought of ourselves as radical or controversial. We’re just saying things that make sense to us. The more it seems that people are listening, the louder we get. That’s Rise Against: We’re getting loud and disturbing the peace to get your attention.” **“Broken Dreams, Inc.”** “It’s certainly touching on the changing landscape of labor, how it\'s affecting people and how people are getting alienated from what it is to work. They\'re trying to figure out what that looks like, and they’re getting left behind. In some ways, technology is making lives better for people and erasing some really dangerous jobs—but it’s also eliminating other jobs, too. So this is kind of like a big, complicated worker’s anthem.” **“Forfeit”** “This is our acoustic song on the record, and it’s about not surrendering, not giving up on somebody no matter what—even when they want you to give up on them. It’s just about that commitment—knowing somebody needs your help and committing to being there, either in that moment or letting them know, ‘When you\'re ready, I\'ll be here,’ or ‘You can say whatever you want to say to me, but you\'re not going to push me away.’” **“Monarch”** “There’s a little bit of a double meaning in this title. It\'s talking about someone who has complete control over you, that you\'ve listened to for far too long, but then something snaps and you figure out you don’t need them anymore. I like the idea of ‘Monarch’ being that person with total control, but also a monarch butterfly, where the person in the song grows wings and becomes someone different, someone that can’t even be recognized because they’ve changed so much.” **“Sounds Like”** “As cliché as it might sound, this song is about living in the moment. It’s about embracing the time you are living in right now and not waiting for something to happen. Everything is happening right around you at this moment and you don\'t need to waste time waiting for something that might come or may never come.” **“Sooner or Later”** “This song talks about reaping what you sow, how the things that you do have consequences. If you live life with a very short-term attitude and you don\'t plant seeds for the future, bad things happen. There’s some obvious environmental imagery, so it’s alluding to that, but it really is talking about making sure that you\'re not just ripping the crops out of the ground, but you\'re also planting seeds for tomorrow.” **“Middle of a Dream”** “This is about the chase that we all feel sometimes. Sometimes we know what we\'re chasing and sometimes you have no idea what you\'re chasing—you just wake up with that instinct to go after something. ‘Middle of a Dream’ is talking about that through the lens of a dream, where you’re chasing something that you don’t have a clear idea of, but you just feel this compulsion to move forward.” **“Rules of Play”** “I like that this song is the closer, because I’ve been kind of boldly coming at you with all these lyrics, like, ‘Here’s what’s going on,’ and I think there are times where it may sound like I must have the answers. But ‘Rules of Play’ is reminding you that I don’t have it figured out. Almost all of these songs are questions. They aren’t road maps to success. They’re questions about what the world looks like, what we want it to look like, and how we can get there.”
In January 2019, Royal Blood traveled to LA to record with Josh Homme at the Queens of the Stone Age frontman’s Pink Duck studio. The sessions produced “Boilermaker,” a track from the Sussex rock duo’s third album *Typhoons*, but it was also a trip that generated two important changes for singer/bassist Mike Kerr and drummer Ben Thatcher. Firstly, Kerr stopped drinking. On a weekend break from recording, he headed to Vegas. “I was at a real crescendo,” he tells Apple Music’s Matt Wilkinson. “I was a nutter. I was like Ron Burgundy at the bar, washed up. And I could hear the same old monologue going on. I could see I was bored of my complaints about myself. I had a very clear moment of ‘Something’s got to change. I can’t expect things to get any better if I don’t really take responsibility for this.’” Secondly, Homme encouraged Kerr and Thatcher to worry less about perfection and explore the untapped possibilities for their music. “There’s a lot of wigs, a lot of fancy dress,” says Kerr about Pink Duck. “It’s a place to have fun. He is very good at creating an environment where you feel comfortable putting forward an idea no matter how crazy it might be. I think he says, ‘What if?’ more than anyone I’ve ever met. That mantra got drilled into us and we’ve carried that into the rest of this record.” Both developments resonate through *Typhoons*. Across two previous albums—double-platinum debut *Royal Blood* in 2014 and follow-up *How Did We Get So Dark?* in 2017— the duo minted ferocious, divergent rock from just drums, bass, and effects pedals. Even more free-spirited, *Typhoons* retools their sound for the dance floor, marshaling riffs to four-to-the-floor beats. It’s a limber, swaggering sound they’ve nicknamed “AC Disco”—but factor in the big pop melodies on “Million and One” and “Trouble’s Coming” and you could also call it Black ABBAth. And like all the best disco, *Typhoons* bears plenty of emotional weight, with the songs unflinchingly tracing Kerr’s turbulent path towards sobriety. “It was the only thing I had to write about,” he says. “I got to the point where I *really* understood who I was, and having that kind of genuine confidence is crucial for being creative. It allowed me to trust myself with it rather than second-guessing anything. I felt a little less exposed: It almost felt like the lyrics were a bit disguised because the music was so upbeat and euphoric. I felt amazing and so positive that I was in a much better place, yet the only thing I had to write about was incredibly dark. So it’s a strange duality on the album.” Only at the very end do the music’s rigor and strut drop, when Kerr swaps his bass for a piano on the airy, psychedelic ballad “All We Have Is Now.” “Perhaps it points towards the unknown of where we’re going next,” he says. “It ended up on the record because \[we thought\], ‘That’s really great.’ It doesn’t matter whether it aligns with what we’ve done before or what people say we’re allowed to do. As long as we’re not trying to fight for someone we used to be, or trying to jump too aggressively forwards to be a band we’re not yet, as long as we stay true to who we are in the moment, then we’ll be OK.”
Soon after completing their biggest-ever tour in early 2020, Frank Carter & The Rattlesnakes (Carter and bandmate Dean Richardson) sought to capitalize on the jubilation and went off to Thorpe Forest in Norfolk to begin writing a new record. “Within two weeks of that session, the whole world had started shutting down and it was just chaos,” Carter tells Apple Music. From there, the duo decamped to locked-down London and got to work on their fourth album. Titled *Sticky*, it’s a record that pairs the feeling of triumph from the UK Top 5 success of their third album, 2019’s *End of Suffering*, with a punky defiance, offering up snapshots of pre-pandemic, post-pandemic, and mid-pandemic Britain in the form of anthemic, rattling rock. “I was constantly writing about energy and everything that was lost,” says Carter. “I always wanted it to be more of a celebratory album rather than a lockdown album. That was the most fun part: figuring out what I wanted to talk about that I was really fucking excited about getting back in my life—essentially all the ways that you can get sticky.” Making a record while the world was at a standstill had an effect in other ways. It’s Carter and Richardson’s most collaborative effort, featuring guest appearances from Primal Scream’s Bobby Gillespie, IDLES’ Joe Talbot, experimental pop artist Lynks, and Essex rocker Cassyette. “We saw the opportunity to be like, ‘If we call people now, they won’t be on tour, they’re at home,’” says Richardson. “I produced the record, so we had the ability to stay late and get someone down. We had no restrictions.” Let the duo take you through the world of *Sticky*, track by track. **“Sticky”** Frank Carter: “This is about me doing this slow transition from the countryside to Hoxton, London, in the middle of a pandemic. Moving further away from my family but closer to my work—and moving into the belly of the beast at a time when there was no one else around. The song takes a pretty brutal look at who I was when everything was taken away from me, just kicking around with too much time on my hands, up to no good at three in the morning with all the other fucking foxes. If you’re going to put that anywhere on the record, you might as well put it at the front.” **“Cupid’s Arrow”** FC: “This is about falling in love with someone a little bit quicker than they fall in love with you—and by that, I mean they never do. We\'ve all had those weird dating app dates where you find yourself at one in the morning having a panic attack in someone’s bed, like, ‘Have you got any CBD or anything?’ It’s about how emotions are thoughts and feelings but they can feel so physical.” Dean Richardson: “This is one of the ones that came from the early cabin sessions. When we made it, we were like, ‘This is what this record should sound like.’ It got us really excited.” **“Bang Bang” (feat. Lynks)** FC: “It’s about how class A drugs just have such a tremendous effect on your life in good and bad ways. I was writing it from the perspective of this office worker who’s just biding his time, gets to Thursday and he’s already tipping a bit, and by Friday at 8 pm, he’s already off the rails, and then 8 am Monday morning, he’s still off the rails, but he’s back in the office. Lynks just got it. His lyrics are some of my favorite on the album, and that is incredibly frustrating.” **“Take It to the Brink”** DR: “This one technically predates the album. We’d written this wild psychedelic version of the verse, and took a second dive at it when we were in the midst of everything and got it to feel like it fits in the world of *Sticky*.” FC: “The song is about doing too much all the time and how if there’s one thing you’re consistently good at, it’s pushing it over the edge—and that’s us all the time.” **“My Town” (feat. Joe Talbot)** FC: “I was trying to find a decent analogy for the collective mental health of not just London, but all the smaller towns that I was nipping to and from during the pandemic to see family or pick up my daughter. Without life, you could really start seeing those places fall apart, and that was a good reflection of how everybody in those towns was feeling. I reached out to Joe Talbot because I really needed someone to help me push it.” **“Go Get a Tattoo” (feat. Lynks)** DR: “We always have one every record and it’s always the main single. For whatever reason, we are gluttons for punishment and we fight against it, but it finds its way on.” FC: “The resistance is because we just know: We can hear that it’s probably the closest we’ll get to a hit, that’s got all the right things in the right place. Francis Bacon used to dismantle and destroy his most perfect paintings. Set it on fire and throw it in a bin.” **“Off With His Head” (feat. Cassyette)** FC: “It’s about the patriarchal chokehold on the world and how brutal it is to watch in yourself. It’s so ingrained in me and I’m having to do quite a lot of work to undo it all the time and there are times where I completely fail and it is really frustrating. So naturally I was like, ‘We’ve got to do it with a really strong female vocal, or at least someone that is actively trying to chop up the patriarchy every day.’ Cassyette is walking, talking rock ’n’ roll. She’s got the greatest voice, the greatest look. She just embodies it. She rocked up at 9 am, smoked a fag, and just went in and started howling. She nailed it and I hadn’t even had my breakfast.” **“Cobra Queen”** FC: “This kind of goes hand in hand with ‘Cupid’s Arrow.’ It’s about when you’re chasing down this unrequited love and falling in love with the wrong people. You never know when that’s happening until it’s happened. It’s about the intoxication, it’s like a cobra being in the room. It’s beautiful. It’s fucking deadly, but you just don’t take your eyes off it.” **“Rat Race”** FC: “‘Rat Race’ is about the first year of lockdown and how savage and *Groundhog Day* it was for everybody. The pandemic was an equalizer for most humans. When we get to the end of the pandemic, it’s as if every rat has completed the race and now they’ve got a choice: Do you want to go back in the maze or do you want to go into something else? The sad thing is a lot of people will go back in the maze.” **“Original Sin” (feat. Bobby Gillespie)** FC: “Bobby Gillespie is a fucking living legend. He’s a hero, the ultimate rock star. He’s just pure inspiration. Primal Scream have written some of the best rock ’n’ roll songs ever.” DR: “Whether we mean to or not, we leave our records on this kind of tease of what might come next. If you go through all our records, the last track is always where I think we’ve started moving into our future.”
