This week’s rock hits hard and means it. Big riffs, real defiance and a streak of mischief run right through, songs that trade empty bombast for grit and character. Loud, alive and built to be felt in a room rather than just heard.
Pray Silence – Kill Room
Pray Silence serve up an excellent slice of anthemic alt-rock, all huge riffs and sardonic bite aimed straight at the heart.
This is rock built to hit on three fronts at once. Huge guitar riffs drive it forward while anthemic choruses open it up, and biting, sardonic lyrics keep it sharp between the swings. It really is a great mix. There’s a kind of propulsive, intricate quality to the writing that feels a little 90s alt-rock lineage. Nothing feels padded: the heaviness has purpose, the hooks are muscular, and the whole thing carries the confident charge of a band who know exactly the impact they want. The vocal is the standout of course, isn’t it lovely to hear rock which doesn’t have that standard rock vocal? Yes, is the answer, and Pray Silence do it in style.
Pray Silence are Edinburgh newcomers, the project of singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Marky Wildtype alongside Sam Siggs, frontman of garage punk band The Head Henchmen, both wanting to get back to something heavier. The band coalesced slowly over several years rather than arriving fully formed, gradually gathering strength in the dark. “Kill Room” is their second single, building on debut Dragon of Chaos, and lands squarely for fans of Biffy Clyro, Arcane Roots, Black Peaks and Jamie Lenman. They’ve definitely got a new fan over here at BOPS, cos this one’s great.
Reetoxa – Bottle
“Bottle” is a superb piece of 90s-rooted alt-rock from Reetoxa, a thirty-year-old song that sounds exactly the way it was always meant to.
This is a song that has waited three decades to detonate. And explode it does. The best riff we’ve heard in a while, a whole bunch of vintage 90s alt-rock grit, and the whole thing really does comes alive. There’s a lovely raw teenage edge here, with a touch of restless defiance and youthful rebellion. And the chorus? That’s a winner. And it wouldn’t sound out of place on the radio, this one.
Reetoxa is a Melbourne band fronted by Jason McKee, who wrote “Bottle” back in 1995 at just fifteen, the fifth song he ever penned, and deliberately set it aside for a hypothetical second album. It stayed in the drawer for thirty years until McKee met producer Simon Moro and finally began releasing his catalogue. Moro became invested enough to master the track himself, while James Ryan reworked McKee’s original guitar ideas into the finished sonic explosion, closing a loop three decades in the making. We’re glad they did, because the result are genuinely great. More of this please, Jason!
The Colinizers – Gravitational Bull
“Gravitational Bull” is a lovely bit of art-rock mischief from The Colinizers, sharp social commentary smuggled inside an unstoppable hook.
This is rock that treats life as a carnival worth enjoying. An unstoppable groove of a beat and razor-sharp guitar riffs drive the track forward. There’s knowing winks and contemporary pop sensibilities, and the playful surface with real bite is the combo we’re enjoying. The flow is good, musically it’s confident, colourful and a little unhinged in the best way. The sound of a group who clearly relish blurring the line between a serious idea and an outright good time.
The Colinizers are a Philadelphia band whose ambitions stretch well past a single: this track sits inside a trilogy of animated videos, alongside a Sympathy for the Devil cover and a festive cut, all built to support their forthcoming novel Crackpot Jackpot. Recorded at Fat-Finger Studios in their hometown and considered their lyrically strongest work yet, it arrives as they finish their sixth album Bigger Whole. Theirs is a sprawling multimedia universe, a band treating music as one thread in a much larger story. Check it out below, you will definitely not regret it. A great single.