Mallavora
Echoes
As gauche as it feels to say that someone is ‘defined’ by their disabilities, that’s kind of the role that Mallavora seem to have taken for themselves. They’ve been staunch proponents for accessibility in venues, and find a lot of their music exploring and channelling the chronic conditions of both vocalist Jessica Douek and guitarist Larry Sobieraj. There’s really no other band that comes to mind who fit in that specific pocket of advocacy like Mallavora do, while also showing off some considerable upward momentum off their own backs. With this new EP, there’s the triple whammy of it being recorded at the state-of-the-art Marshall Studio, produced by Skindred’s Mikey Demus, and mixed by UK hardcore and metal’s fave face Lewis Johns.
Compared to what Mallavora had going on previously—solid alt-metal that was clearly cordoned off from more by a shoestring budget—that’s like a leap into the stratosphere from a standing start. And let’s be clear—the appeal of Echoes isn’t through any uniqueness that Mallavora display. Here’s a band flexing their Spiritboxian desires, as has become the most commonplace practice imaginable in this corner of alt-metal. Rather, it’s the ease with which their path can be traced, and how simply flooring the final product is when given the means to live it up. The newfound heaviness and insidious low end is immediately striking, imbued with added mystique of cultural music from Douek’s Middle Eastern background, especially on Skin. But you’ll never not notice how big a sound this is that Mallavora have erected for themselves, and how much more fully-formed that enormity feels.
This is only a four-track EP, and effectively their proper breakthrough, but there’s not a single second of Mallavora wasting every resource that’s been offered to them. The band themselves shouldn’t be left out of that conversation either, of course. Even on their less lavish efforts, Mallavora have never been wanting for the creative spark to go bigger; they wouldn’t have ended their debut EP with an eight-minute song otherwise. So here, with the means to fully embrace the elegance and soaring metallic updraft of Courtney LaPlante’s bunch, the change is immense. Just take the title track, in which Mallavora dive into a proud, endless expanse without a second thought. There’s a powerful, emotional, determined slant to Echoes, thrust further forward than it ever has been previously.
It’s the kind of across-the-board renovation that makes you truly believe that things will be kicking into gear for Mallavora much sooner than later. With a sound that’s already popular and a strong way of presenting it, they’ve now got everything they need to throw their hat into the ring as legitimate contenders. It’s a fairly crowded ring now, but one they’ve got a solid shot in, nonetheless. And that’s just a nice thing to see, a band whose reputation for good has built steadily, now getting a shot at making an even wider-scale impact. Echoes already wouldn’t be the last you’d hear of Mallavora, but it’s hard to see this as some one-off swing into a legitimate field. They’re in it for the long haul now, almost certainly.
For fans of: Spiritbox, Evanescence, Knife Bride
‘Echoes’ by Mallavora is released on 20th November on Marshall Records.
Fightmilk
No Souvenirs
The first song on No Souvenirs is Summer Bodies, kicking off with a riff that, had it been given a bit more muscle and fire under the hood, sounds like it could genuinely power an AC/DC song. There’s also a couple of big, as-guttural-as-a-wholesome-indie-punker-can-muster screams that crop up partway through. For Fightmilk, a band who’ve tended to stick around Britpop and power-pop (and who are occupants of a scene with little to no interest in rock ‘n’ roll machismo), it might seem a little out of the ordinary. Granted, this is still indie-punk where true unorthodoxy is a dying breed, but a willingness to stretch out a bit more goes a long way, apparently.
And this is a long way. Previously Fightmilk were already one of the better names to come from this coterie of achieving functionally the same thing, but No Souvenirs really does seal that. It’s largely through the same means as 2021’s Contender did, too—in terms of core ideas, there isn’t that great a deviation, but the execution matters way more. Peel back the style-appropriate grunge veneer and you’ll find a straight-up, down-the-middle rock album, as brusquely impactful as they come. The roaring, revving guitars and hooks of That Thing You Do and Banger #7 (which is actually track six, so that’s a mark down, I’m afraid) couldn’t be more apparent; meanwhile, Back From Tour is essentially just a Foo Fighters song in every way.
If all that sounds a little too un-DIY for some tastes, fret not—turning their back on indie-punk clearly isn’t in Fightmilk’s interests. If it were, the barer, sawdust-y production style wouldn’t remain, and Lily Rae would likely have less homespun charm as a frontperson. (One of those is definitely preferable to the other, and it’s not the one gating some restless power-pop vim from really coming forward.) As with practically all of these, it’s down to Rae to inject the personality in, which she does insanely well. Again, it’s mostly a case of zhuzhing up what’s already there, where Rae’s description of “extremely specific sitcom episodes in [her] life” is about a succinct a summation of the hearty mundanity of indie-punk writing as you can get. Of course there’s some deeper subtext that can be parsed, but for all intents and purposes, Canines is still a song about getting bitten by a dog.
Where Fightmilk succeed, though, is through a greater sense of purpose. There’s vision extending being quirkiness for its own sake, or falling into the eternal back-patting sesh the DIY scene can often be. Instead, No Souvenirs wants to be a great album and wears that ambition on its face; there’s no shame about going bigger. If anything, it’s what makes Fightmilk excel at a rate far beyond their peers. The best of both worlds isn’t some unscalable summit, and No Souvenirs is set-in-stone proof how much it can achieve.
For fans of: Jimmy Eat World, Charly Bliss, Cherym
‘No Souvenirs’ by Fightmilk is released on 15th November on Fika Recordings / INH Records.
Dose Of Adolescence
Zircon Ave.
“I can hear ‘em calling me a sellout already / I’ll own it, I’m ready,” crows Dose Of Adolescence front Jimmy Brown on just the second song of this new album, unaware that verisimilitude is not always its own defence. Sure, a 25-year-old band who’ve not released an album since 2009 should ideally shake a leg, but is this the way to do it? For context, Dose Of Adolescence were last plugged into pop-punk and post-hardcore, still a little behind the times for where they were but not too egregiously. So how they’ve ended up some pop-rap-rock mutant in the interim is anyone’s guess, and one that’s ultimately not worth the attention to ponder.
To be fair, Zircon Ave. at least sounds like what it is—the misbegotten attempts at sounding ‘fresh’ and ‘innovative’ from a band a quarter of a century old with little to show for it. The style of rapping and hip-hop production has the distinct whiff of middle-aged white man to it, where there’s almost something precious how oblivious to its own corniness it is. Almost. There’s still some real lameness to work through, whichever way you slice it, and at their most concentrated, it’s difficult. And All My People Say is positioned between the twin pillars of cringe of Macklemore and Fashionably Late-era Falling In Reverse. Later, Memories breaks out the elucidating gem “‘Die’ is a word that the Goonies never say”, an aside worthy of LFO’s Summer Girls in how little it forwards a central point of living for a good time.
It’s simultaneously a bizarre pivot, but also one that makes perfect sense for a band in this spot. Brown might want to ruffle some feathers with his aforementioned statement on selling out, but Dose Of Adolescence were barely in to begin with. Thus, the entirely of Zircon Ave. is like a big, throbbing sign for as much attention as it can pull in. It’s why so much effort has gone into making this new hip-hop bent the prime focus, as clear as it is that Dose Of Adolescence have no business being in this musical space. Most often, it feeds through the turgid clanks and whirrs that latter-day Papa Roach have been afflicted by, a brand of rap that’s showing its age more than pushing a narrative forward. Believe it or not, but on songs like Get Back Up and God Complex that are just mild updates on your standard Tony Hawk fare—i.e. the stuff that Dose Of Adolescence were already doing—it’s markedly better.
But let’s just say it—this isn’t going to do a solitary thing. Dose Of Adolescence already hadn’t released an album since 2009, which no one talks about despite coming out in an era where everything in the scene was some formative body of work by default. They’re just chronically past-it at this point, evidenced by this musical equivalent of a midlife crisis. Some specks of quasi-ironic fun are not enough to justify what feels like your dad wanting to be the next Eminem, and the ensuing experience of struggling through someone leagues out of their depth.
For fans of: Papa Roach, OPM, Falling In Reverse
‘Zircon Ave.’ by Dose Of Adolescence is released on 15th November on XOVR Records.
Words by Luke Nuttall
