Bring Me The Horizon ''Post Human: Survival Horror'' (2020)

Having been a fan of BMTH for a few years and mainly of That's The spirit and Sempiternal hearing this EP for the first time scared me away a little. The massive blast beats, high energy sound wall and mix of Electronic, Metal and Pop influences were a little much in comparison to the other albums. Revisiting this 30 minute EP a month later changed my mind. I was on the edge of my seat listening to it, the Pop influenced hooks and Electronica around every corner combined with Mick Gordon helping on production and mixing this is I was very reminiscent of my dabble in the video game Doom Eternal.

This album length EP is BMTH's first try with their new formatting to releasing music, they were tired of the restrictions of albums and the suggestion of making EPs struck gold for the band. Post Human: Survival Horror is the first of apparently 4 EPs in the Post Human quartet. The first song Survival Horror perfectly embodies many peoples experiences with the global pandemic going around, they managed to capture pure frustration and translate it into music.

With dense synthesizers droning, heavy guitar riffs, blast beats, drums and samples galore this record keeps high energy while not forgetting about hooks and catchy melodies that stay in your head for weeks on end. They also remember to keep tuneful swaying bits in their songs, the perfect amount of time to really take in what you're listening to before the sound starts building up again and you find yourself completely immersed in it and Oli Sykes' screams. 

One certain track really stands out, the feature of BABYMETAL on Kingslayer, a song that could very well fit on the Japanese groups discography. Utilising their quirks and musical aesthetics combined with the rest of this EPs general sound makes this song the favourite of many. Furthermore Teardrops has made a name for itself in my head, it's catchy hooks and melodies won't leave my mind and they got me to listen this record more times than I can count.

All in all this album length EP is incredibly cunning, utilising many features for some unique sounds and voices while keeping it concise and cohesive, seeing this change in the band's direction is an exciting one, I'm curious as to what the other records under the Post Human banner will bring, I am hoping that they get their own identities and quirks instead of them being copies of each other with slightly different meanings, I have high hopes for the future.

9/10

STARSET ''Transmissions'' (2014)

Me from 3 years ago was busy discovering new music when he landed on Transmissions, STARSET's debut album. I was instantly hit with the hard rock and electronic synths in the form of a beautifully crafted sound wall. This 1 hour long album was one of my early encounters with hard rock and really cemented my love for the genre. STARSET's front man and vocalist Dustin Bates blew me away with his incredible vocal range and screams, something I had never heard before at the time. Transmissions was the first album of a book and story written by Dustin, the cohesiveness of this record might just be it's most amazing part.

The aesthetics of this album and story is set in an alternate universe with sci-fi, space and astronomy galore! Instrumentation wise this band plays around with simple drums, ongoing synths and electronics on every track which drive home the theme of the record, additionally the electric guitar almost get drowned out which is a shame, but the cello and violin you can hear in the background of some tracks truly make up for it.

My favourite part of some of these tracks have to be Dustin's screams continuing throughout build ups and drops, his voice will drown out and synths, electronics and harmonics will take it's place, only for you to notice that the scream is still going on 30 seconds later, upon re listening you'll realise that he never stopped. The build ups and drops on these tracks are never disappointing, the wall of sound I described earlier doesn't actually exist, it's so well mixed and layered that you can perfectly pick out individual bits and pieces that form the intricate and complicated sound, it makes you wonder how this was their debut album with no previous releases of individual songs.

 

 Apart from sound STARSET has also mastered the lack of sound, with the layering falling away leaving only some white noise and giving the attention to an individual instrument or Dustin's voice which speaks deep lyrics only for it all to build up again and crash into something beautiful. STARSET is a band you can come back to anytime and listen through an album you've heard tens of times before yet there will still be new things and layers for you to pick out and put your focus on.

8/10