It's been an active month for the heavy metal community. There's been more shows announced lately than I can afford to attend. Legends Judas priest and Saxon are finally getting out of Osbourne limbo and headlining arenas next year and deathcore hero's Thy art is Murder headlining clubs with my personnel favourites Whitechapel in tow.
You may notice this issue is shorter than normal and shorter than I'd like. This is, in part, due to the planning of something very special which hopefully I can leet you all in on soon!
Look after yourselves
D. GilmoreOut of step uk
Drip fed empire are probably Bristol’s best kept secret. The band are a hybrid of electronic, Prodigy inspired beats and heavy metal guitars with the DIY ethic of a hardcore band. Soon to be touring the UK and currently working on their debut record the band will not be underground for long. DFE played a great set at last years Bloodstock festival and will no doubt be doing great things sooner rather than later. Get involved, join the empire.
As a group what influences your music (Other bands, things outside of music)?
So as a group our influences are pretty wide, we all enjoy different niches of Organic and Electronic styles of music. Everything from Synwave, to Deathcore and all the inbetween. There’s a good love for the armed forces aesthetic that influences our image.
If I remember correctly The band started as a two piece in Bristol playing local shows, is that right? Could you tell me more about how the band got started?
So the band started at Uni with Jay our vocalist & Burcher our drummer. Jay was playing guitar in another local band at the time called ‘The Summa In Verse’ (an Attack Attack / Asking Alexandria thing) which was coming to it’s natural end at the time. At the same time Burcher was creating his own synth inspired metal tracks in Logic drawing influence from Trance an Industrial in a very different way.
Jay and Burcher had been in bands before and knew each other as they both moved to Bristol together from Cornwall where they studied music tech at collage together. But decided to ‘spread their wings’ so to speak and make their own creative projects in Bristol but remained close friends and creative critics for one another. One day Burcher was showing Jay some tracks he’d been working on and Jay instantly loved the sound and decided that they’d Start working together again and the rest is history so to speak!
As far as recording goes the band has been pretty quiet since 2021. Are there any plans for your debut record anytime soon?
As it happens we’re in the studio from 12th18th April recording our debut album. We’ve been working on this for just over a year now hence why we haven’t released anything for a good while. We really wanna make sure that we take the time to make sure this album is everything we want it to be and more!
How hard is it to get your music out there and heard by people? How hard is it to get noticed amongst all of the white noise on the Internet right now?
It’s just a different world now that it was when we were growing up listening to music. It’s a lot harder for bands to reach A wide audience as there’s access to everything all of the time now.
To be honest I don’t think that’s the way to do it anyway anymore. I think you’ve really just got to put the time into creating a more personal experience for a dedicated fan base on a smaller scale rather than trying to reach a broad audience. Trying to reach a broad audience usually goes hand in hand with diluting the art anyway so that’s not something we’re about. Bands like While She Sleeps and what they have done with the Sleeps Society is the way we’re looking forward. We have our own Patreon platform where our dedicated followers get access to everything going on behind the scenes and unique merch drops. That being said we’re always reaching new people and gaining fans every time we do a show or releasing music you just gotta know how to market yourself correctly in the social media world.
The Bloodstock guys recently posted your set at the festival from last year. How was your experience of performing at the festival?
Bloodstock was an insane experience, we’ve gotten loads out of it! The performance it’s was a lot to handle in the heat and the fact we’d been there since the start camping and enjoying the festival as well, It’s safe to say we were all a bit fried by rhe last day when we played. The show went down a treat though and we got to meet loads of cool people along the way.
You have a pretty extensive tour coming up in May are you looking forward to it?
What can people expect?
Yeah we’re stoked for the tour coming up, people can expect to hear some sneak peaks at a few tracks that will be on the upcoming album as well as all the tunes they will want to hear from our back catalogue. On the shows we’re headlining we’ll have some extra visuals for people to enjoy as well but we won’t give that away!
Drip Fed Empires debut record is on track to be released later this year.
Rap metal used to be a dirty word in the metal community. To a certain extent it still is. But then you have a band like DISCREPANCIES all that goes out the window. The St Louis five piece have been gathering momentum steadily for a few years now and their new record (out later this year) is sure to push the band even further towards metal stardom. Let’s check in with my new favourite rap rock band...
I first became aware of the band through YouTuber/TikToker Ohrion. Do you find more people become fans of the band from less traditional sources like social media?
Yeah, when we started out we still used all of the old-school methods of going to local shows slinging flyers and demo CDs. After a few years of grinding, we gained some solid traction locally and began to expand, but we always get messages and emails from people who have still heard through word of mouth. Social Media seems to be the way of the industry now, but there’s something to be said for the old-school ways.
For me the most obvious influences in your music are bands like Linkin Park, Public Enemy and Rage against the Machine. Would that be true? What other bands influence your music?
I would agree with all of those, but our vocalist is a true hip-hop guy. He never really listened to rock prior to this band so it creates a unique dynamic as most of his influence is from the hiphop culture such as Tech N9e, Lupe Fiasco, Nas, etc. We’ve always said it’s a big piece of what sets us apart from the rest of the bands in our genre.
Do you have any upcoming tours planned soon? What are the chances of seeing the band in the UK?
We’ve desperately been trying to get to the UK for a couple of years. It’s something we bring up to our team every month and it’s something they’re trying to make happen. Hopefully in due time, we can get something lined up. In the USA we’ve got a couple of tours coming up!
Do you find people have a preconceived notions about the band when they hear that you are in the rap-metal camp? If so how do you overcome that?
Not too much. I think the whole concept of “Nu-Metal sucks” has kind of come and gone, and now the genre seems to be getting popular again. As more bands gravitate towards the sound, it becomes a bit more inclusive and allows fans to be a little more open-minded. We get the occasional comment from people who thought they weren’t going to like the rapping aspect, but then quickly change their minds when they see us play live.
Much has been made about the cost of bands merchandise at shows lately. Is that something you have had to deal with to combat rising touring costs etc?
Yeah, that’s an area that often goes unspoken of. Thankfully, we are not struggling too much with venues asking for merch cuts just yet, but the rising cost of printing merch has definitely made an impact. We’ve been trying to find as many areas as possible to cut costs while still providing a high quality print.
Your latest single “Recovery” is a great track. Lyrically, is it autobiographical?
Thank you so much! It is not an autobiography, but it is written about someone close to our vocalist, Antonio.
Are there any plans for the follow-up to the last record “The Rise” anytime soon? If so how far along are you? Could you tell be abit about how it’s going?
We’ll be announcing that by the end of the month! It’s fully complete!
Thank you for your time guys, lastly is there anything you’d like to say to your fans in the UK?
Thank you so much for sending these questions over. We love our UK fans, and have made some close friends from across the pond thanks to this band. Big shout out to our boys in ONLAP for always showing us love from the UK, as well as our friend Chris Eakers who petitions every year for us to play Download Festival. We will get over to the UK in due time, and we can’t wait to show you what we’ve got!
DISCREPANCIES latest single “Recovery” is out now!
Penny Coffin might just be my new favourite Death Metal band. The Scottish/Greek group bring riff after riff laden with some of the most bowel emptying vocals of this year. Their latest EP just scratches the surface of what the band is capable of. Joe and Daniel recently spent some time with me to chat about the group, their influences and their future.
Where does the band's name, "Penny Coffin" come from?
The name comes from Victorian era homeless shelters in London. People could pay 4 pence to sleep in a coffin for the night. The pictures of it are pretty striking. It's maybe not the most “death metal” of names but the genesis of it helped give the band some direction in the beginning, mixing the morbid with real world horrors.
You play your own brand of blackened/death metal. But aren't strangers to a decent riff! Where do you guys draw influence from?
JOE: All over the place generally. The more obvious death metal ones like Morbid Angel and Nile, the classic thrash stuff- primarily Metallica, testament and slayer. A lot of the slower stuff is doom inspired, the band primitive man is very influential for us with the use of dissonance and noise- lyrically too. We take influence from loads of places, a lot of the production ideas are borrowed from shoegaze type stuff, especially the layered vocals and the use of heavy reverb and delay. What's cool about the band is we can reference anything from Siouxsie and the Banshees, Cocteau twins to the Wu tang clan and no one bats an eyelid. The primary sound is obviously old school death metal inspired but we try to throw in other elements of other stuff we find interesting.
DANIEL: like Joe says, it is a wide range of bands and genres we take from. But it's essential to be ourselves in the end. There are too many overtly derivative bands these days in the underground. It's boring to me anyway. I’m not going to listen to something that sounds exactly like Slayer when Reign in blood still exists and I can just listen to that.
I understand the band consists of members of both Scottish and Greek heritage. Does that influence the band's style at all, Lyrically or musically?
JOE: Most obviously Panos came up with the title to the first EP “TEOPA” and we continued that trend by using Greek for the second one too. You can't help by being inspired by the world around you so of course being Scottish is infused in it. That might be a certain world view that comes with living here. The Song “PREDATOR” is about British colonialism, in Scotland people want to ignore our part in that but the streets of Glasgow in particular are full of slave trade references in street names and a lot of the architecture and monuments were funded by that means. Musically Scotland has a great extreme music scene so it's impossible that it doesn't motivate and inspire you.
DANIEL: Yeah Scotland has some great bands right now and has done for many years, Grat strigoi and Chestcrush being my favourites. Lyrically and Musically I hear them & feel inspired, we had Grat strigoi on our track “A Skeletal Darkness” and used the same artist as Chestcrush for “Conscripted Morality”, so that shows how much we like them. Living in the Highlands is like being under a dark cloud most of the year, you have to drive 150 miles to get anywhere and the weather is shit most of the time. That helps with the mind-set when writing the songs at times. You can't get away from it really.
On some of your songs, like "Slowdive" there is a hint of some noise elements at the beginning of the track similar to bands like "Full of Hell" . Is that an avenue you would consider expanding upon in the future?
JOE: Absolutely! We want to keep working on adding aspects of noise and atmosphere to our music. It's totally alien to writing riffs on the guitar and I enjoy it as a creative process. It's all an experiment and as we go on, we’ll develop more ideas and approaches. With “Slowdive” the intro comes from noise experiments I did in my kitchen, distorted washing machine, a pitched down toddler, a toy guitar and a sleigh bell. I chopped up the audio into little samples and constructed it like a hip hop beat. Its death metal Wutang!
DANIEL: Definitely, I think noise and dissonance is a part of the two best bands that have come out in the last while. Full of hell and Primitive Man. The Collaboration they just did! unreal. On our record Joe put the noise into it as the idea was to have no silence. It’s heavy and we’re not pretending to be some stadium rock band asking everyone if they’re enjoying themselves. It’s added misery.
You've just released your first vinyl as a band. It must be an amazing feeling of achievement! As far as the business side goes, how important is it for the band in 2023 that people buy their merch?
JOE: Yeah it's extremely cool that our stuff is on vinyl. It's our friend Kenneth Woods from fellow Scottish death metal band Brainbath who has put it out on his label Macho records. He was after doing penny coffin vinyl for about a year so it's class to see that all come together.
Everything we make just goes back into the band, the idea is just to keep reinvesting and making music. Nobody has the right to make money from what is essentially a hobby, so it's highly appreciated when people support it. People's incomes are squeezed with the cost of living and that’s gonna impact all arts, that’s totally understandable. It's going to be a difficult time for loads of labels and bands but it's going to be a difficult time for loads of people too.
DANIEL: It's an achievement for sure. We had no expectations for the music to be put out on any format other than digital, so for it to be on vinyl is great. We’re grateful for the belief that Macho Records has in the music. Same goes for At war with False Noise for the CD and Dry Cough for the tape. We tried to make each format unique too which was a cool thing to do. It's Important for people to buy the merch if they want to be the coolest cat on the block. Your Neighbours need to know Penny Coffin.
What does the band have planned for the rest of 2023?
JOE:Just get out there and play gigs really. We want to try and play new places and audiences. I'll be making a million demos and trying to get even stronger material for the next release. Plus I want to get better at swimming and try to tone down my raw sexual magnetism.
We have some Gigs planned so that's the priority for us at the minute. Making sure people are getting their heads taken off. Time waits for no slave!
Penny Coffin - Conscripted Mortality
Heavier than a cancer diagnosis and more Suffocating and claustrophobic than being on a date with an over enthusiastic woman in their thirties who's biological clock is ticking louder by the day. "Penny Coffin" are just what the Dr ordered, crushing intensity, riffs for days and an atmospheric touch like the feeling of walking through a graveyard alone at night. Even with only four songs on offer here the band have proved themselves better than many of their peers and I eagerly await their next full length release like an angry drunk awaiting his sandwich. More of this please lads.
Grave Pleasures - Plagueboys
Maybe it's the dire economic situation and/or the specter of impending nuclear annihilation recreating the conditions of the 1980s but whatever is causing this resurgence of postpunk/goth I'm all for it. The latest testament to this is the new album from Finland's Grave pleasures. Following on from 2017s Deathrock ripper Motherblood, This excursion too the Batcave takes a more new wave or even pop based tinge. While it arguably lacks the punch slightly of it's predecessor, there's more than enough drive to compliment the wider palette of sounds on offer. If this really is the sound of the end, at least the music's great. '
Metallica - 72 Seasons
These days the prospect of A new Metallica record feels like coitus with an elderly prostitute with a dodgy hip, treading the same old ground many have done countless times before but this time wearing a new and more elaborate hat with each wheezing thrust.
Metallica have been a band for decades and with that experience the guys could probably bash out a record every year or two that would at least turn a few heads. With 72 Seasons the band have waited a massive seven years since their last album 2016 "Hardwired......" was it worth it? Well yeah, sort off.
72 Seasons sounds like the bands previous records "load/reload" and "Death magnetic" had uncomfortable sex in back of a mini van whilst "kill em all" stood watching through a steamy window wanking like a chimp. That is to say the band seem to have cherry picked moments from their past and fused that with the more modern sound of their last few albums.
For my money the real hero of this record is Kirk Hammett. A man who's solos sound better and more emotive than they have in years. Perhaps the spirit of Peter Green still lingers in Kirks new guitar. Whatever the reason it all sounds great.
However with the yin must come the yang. When in the name of Cliff Burton will Metallica use bassist Rob Trujillo's talents to their full potential! For a man of such skill it amazes me that the group don't capitalize on his talents more.
All in all 72 Seasons is another great Metallica record that will likely keep fans going until the eight legged metal behemoth rolls around again.
