Cultured Vultures is nothing if not a democracy, but if Dictator Donnellan catches you stating such a thing, it will surely see your being promotion from reader or writer to carrion; no higher position of importance than fuel to feed the vultures, and we need all the fuel we can get to keep our words and us at the utmost of cultured. Anyhow, I digress; democracy.
You may already be familiar with our New Band of the Month feature, but if not, where have you been!? Well, anyway, up until now we’ve been giving you your band of the month as and when, but from here on out that is to drastically change; from here on out your New Band of the Month will unequivocally be your New Band of the month.
Each month we will be offering up five bands of our Cultured Vulture choosing, and then it’s entirely up to you who becomes both your and our official New Band of the Month. So let’s get things started with the battle of the bands for August; here are the choices, check them out, then cast your vote and have the final say in who becomes YOUR New Band of the Month.
Swedish Death Candy
Look, I know your parental figures told you not to take candy from strangers, and would certainly have implored you never eat anything with death in its name, but your parental figures were filthy liars; strangers have the best candy – especially death candy, and especially, especially the Swedish kind. So eat up.
Right, now that you’ve got your Swedish Death Candy consumption underway, I should probably tell you that these sweets may very well be a little to a whole lot laced with LSD (or an experimental new hallucinogen, possibly found in a Phillip K Dick novel, called SDC). You see, though ‘Swedish Death’ is so often followed by ‘Metal’, this internationally originating but London formed four piece deal in psychedelia.
However, unlike so many modern psychedelic bands these four aren’t stuck in the past that-if-you-remember-you-weren’t-there. No, Swedish Death Candy take those psychedelic 60s old school origins and bring them right up to date, dragging them through everything kaleidoscopic that’s happened since, leading to taut grooves and expansive freak outs that can veer from and through Jimi Hendrix, Pink Floyd, Monster Magnet, and Queens of the Stone Age.
NOMINATED BY: Morgan Roberts
An Elegy
Far from being a fleeting fad or flight of fancy, as some might have believed or even hoped, metalcore as a genre continues to grow; its roots burying themselves further and further into the foundations of the alternative/underground music scene, planting itself firmly, so as not to be moved, and allowing its shoots to not only grow, but blossom.
Britain particularly has supplied some especially fertile ground for metalcore to flourish on, with its forming not only a solid scene, but its spawning bands who have been able to not just bother the mainstream but find international success of considerable size. So too has it allowed metalcore to grow through crosspollination with other genres, and An Elegy are one fine example of such.
The five piece, formed of friends from different bands around Coventry and Birmingham, came together after those bands, well, disbanded and set about trying again, this time with a greater determination to bring about their own interpretation of metalcore, and they’ve certainly done that; with a style that has its base in classic metalcore but branches out into other sounds like deathcore’s grind, classic British metal’s melodicism, progressive metal’s atmospherics, tech-metal pyrotechnics and post-hardcore choruses.
NOMINATED BY: Morgan Roberts
Puppy
Intoxicatingly 90’s, Puppy sound like your older brother’s CD collection with just enough of a modern twist to keep your hipster credentials intact. Smashing Pumpkins meets Alice in Chains is quite the compliment when listening to their ‘The Great Beyond’: a teasing listen at what this young band could be capable of.
Catch Puppy doing the rounds at festivals during this season to get drunk in a field with friends and enjoy the early days of one of the next big things in rock.
NOMINATED BY: Jimmy Donnellan
Lyger
It’s kind of funny that Lyger’s most well-known song in their short careers so far is called ‘Stroke’, as there isn’t a person reading this who wouldn’t kill for the chance to stroke a liger. If you say otherwise, you are a gosh dang LIAR.
Anyway, the London-based rabblemakers would be fully deserving of New Band of the Month status as they’re rock at its purest and most…rockest. Riff upon riff of delicious noise is the order of the day, so get on Spotify and sample what these guys are capable of.
NOMINATED BY: Jimmy Donnellan
Sam Green & The Midnight Heist
Sam Green and the Midnight Heist are a perfect example of how potent folk music can be when you put the right talent behind it. Fronted by the eponymous multi-instrumentalist, their music is inventive, emotional and so ridiculously catchy that I’ve had one of their songs stuck in my head since I saw them… Last August.
They’ll be hanging around making music and merryment in equal measure at a slew of UK festivals this year, keep an eye out for them.
NOMINATED BY: Callum Davies
VOTING NOW CLOSED
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