It’s a huge and crucial conclusion, and musically quite impeccable – rightfully drawing thousands of streams already in its short time online. This personification of the damage and weight of rage is powerful, original, and perfectly framed for impact. Raging Depths is a focused artistic project, and album two is everything listeners will hope for and more.
Music
Self-described as ‘another unstable depressed artist’, the songwriting and voice of Afro Dope in topic and tone rings loudly as authentic and impassioned. The performance style is playful but also grounded by its own emotional integrity, and this stand tall throughout his colourful, unpredictable, and fast-growing indie catalogue.
His latest single Written In The Stars is an impassioned, catchy and heartfelt soul-rock single, with Bob’s iconic raspy vocals and guitar tone riding shotgun, alongside a timeless rock groove that’s impassioned and equally soulful.
While the music is easy and evocative to lose yourself within, there’s also plenty to unpack lyrically throughout 2007. Consider Darkest Patches, a catchy jam that seems to understand and connect with you as you navigate the darkness of modern life, but the closer you look, the more insight, the sharper the wordplay, and the more revealing the sentiments. Noah $tout does this with every track, an easy listen on the surface, but so much more depth and detail as you revisit, and that’s the gift and realness of the sound.
Next we get a raspy and snappy vocal lead, short lines of poetic images, further encapsulating the story and location of our Dry River experience. Then the melody rises, the energy shifts, things are catchier, more satisfying in their resolve, and the lyrics pierce through with inescapable suffering and pain; most notably, ‘a trail of genocide’ rings out and lingers in the space.
There’s an exotic vocal flavour, alongside these sci-fi soundwaves and notes, and this creates a sense of rising enchantment that only grows stronger throughout the near-fourteen-minute journey. The song features a mutated version of the riff from Ghost Rider, by Suicide, and is a welcomed alternative to the more traditionally structured electronic tracks that seem so simple and rather predictable these days.
From a fierce wall of nostalgic grunge distortion, to spacious and characterful, snappy and melodic vocal verses, After Halloween is quick to assert a sense of songwriting prowess and creative charm, with the uniquely lyrical and impactful alternative anthem of Please Don’t Shake My Hand.
Conceptual focus and organic instrumental precision, a carefully built series of soundscapes and songs, with honest vocals and stories that feel poetic and poignant amidst impassioned melodies and builds. Stewart Kenny masters the craft with purpose and depth, for the powerful new album Blood on the Wall.
The quality and skill is undeniable, and the songwriting is superb – something often missing from much of independent rap. It’s a voice of value, respect, and self-belief, and this inspires as you listen through an eclectic and memorable catalogue of music.
Explosive new music from the creative force of Syblianta brings further clear development of structure, sound, and substance. The debut was impressive in itself, and this project seems to all the more boldly balance intensity and melody, story and sentiment, across a series of tracks inspired by Bible stories and events.
Dystopian depth of a crisp and colourful euphoria – an intoxicating electronic cyberbass album, from a producer whose style and process seamlessly intertwine humanity and artificial intelligence. PANOPTICON is the immense new project from KOBRA, and it storms into view with the intense bass, beat, and distorted melodies of the mighty 404//REAL.
Fallout is ideal as a starting point, a trap rhythm and dreamy keys and synths laying down a haunting, thoughtful aura, as the beat follows a mellow stop-and-start arrangement that naturally gets the mind wandering. The style is cinematic, finely built, with central melodies that feel fresh, and a kind of impending intensity that always lingers amidst these panned, sweeping sounds and effects.