Deijuvhs
Cemetery Scum
Y’know, crossover alternative music has been so plentiful and so heavily pushed that the trends among it are only becoming easier to spot. There’s an irony to that in a movement that’s supposed to be about bold, creative independence, isn’t there? So with Deijuvhs, who hangs his hat on the hip-hop side of the discussion, the composite parts stack up rather readily—an emphasis on nu-metal as an influence; an aesthetic taking from goth and emo; an affinity for trap and its own stylings. Frankly, it’s amazing there’s not an anime avatar somewhere on this guy’s branding. It’s all likely enough for some to bucket Deijuvhs in with the same ephemerality as Lil Uzi Vert or Scarlxrd and be done, but perhaps that’s a tad premature. After all, Cemetery Scum, for as blatant in aggregate as it can feel, can assert itself as something pretty cool.
Well, maybe not right away, as Comatose introduces Deijuvhs as a singer with a lot to be desired. Maybe his untrained flatness is designed to accentuate this haggard, emo prostration, but the way the song’s nu-metal groove gets corrupted by static and electronics for a really cool effect suggests there’s meant to be a more visible impact. Deijuvhs as a rapper, meanwhile, shows off the stronger end of his repertoire. It clearly comes the most naturally when Scary Sight is more than happy to be decked in gothic finery, or on the numerous other agile hip-hop cuts. He certainly carries the mantle of a multidisciplinary creative just like his peers, though pleasingly, it’s not as limited as some can be. Certainly unexpected is the Afrobeat-esque percussion on Black Metal, or the glossy darkwave of Pop Out that’s the closest the mixtape comes to an outright pop track. On the flipside, the stop at Zombie’s emo-rap is less out-of-the-blue, though it’s sold well enough that it isn’t a complaint to have it here.
In the bigger picture, those patterns start to arise again, this time of Deijuvhs as a self-perceived boundless mind driven off pure passion and ground-level effort. It wouldn’t be wrong; there’s kind of a punk feel to some of the more obviously homegrown instrumentals here, where the beat can be a little too loud and the guitars a little too quiet. At the same time, Deijuvhs’ own forwardness can cover a lot of open space, as Hellspawn shows in a Limp Bizkit influence that, even without the repeated bark of “Break stuff!”, couldn’t be less obvious. In what can go right up to the line of self-awareness for this sort of thing—an unseen force compels the phrases “emo mummy” and “goth bitch” on Scary Sight to always pounce out, regrettably—Deijuvhs is never without an extroverted presence. It’s also never as exhausting as you might expect when Cemetery Scum is so underratedly well-paced.
With all of that at his disposal, then, Deijuvhs is more than handy enough to join the upper ranks of the crossover crowd. He’d be a natural addition on style and form alone; the fact there’s such an adept touch here is just a bonus, and not an unwelcome one in the slightest. Plenty more on here works than doesn’t, and a recalibration of the usual parts is all it takes to get there. Even if that means Deijuvhs won’t be melting any minds with his work, it leaves the quality of Cemetery Scum standing up on its own, which plenty of likeminded acts still can’t get to after multiple releases. That’s a factor worthy of eminence in itself.
For fans of: Limp Bizkit, Kid Bookie, BVDLVD
‘Cemetery Scum’ by Deijuvhs is released on 28th March.
Orchards
Bicker
Orchards’ new album opens up the rarest of opportunities in music discussion—the chance to make a good-faith Paramore comparison. To be fair, you come across fewer honest-to-goodness ‘woman = Hayley Williams’ takes nowadays, but Bicker practically seems to welcome a bucking of the current status quo where overcorrecting has left anyone wary of pointing out a Paramore likeness at all. Because it’s not hard to spot, right? Orchards’ DIY alt-pop sound takes on a sharper, vibrant pop gloss, to where it’s almost a convergent path for what would follow After Laughter. To some, that alone would be enough. Orchards make sure it runs deeper than that, of course, but as a means of getting the door open, they’re off to a blinder.
It actually marks their return after a couple of fallow years in as engaging a way as possible. Clearly a lot of growing has been done in that time, both musically and personally, and Bicker ensures that’s chronicled efficiently. The go-to line is vocalist Lucy Evers’ assertion of Bicker as “the quintessential breakup album”, which can read as a rather Paramore-ish phrase in itself. With the title track and Sweetie Pie, there aren’t exactly rose-coloured boys in their firing line, but a slighted Evers has a command of snark and vitriol (and even a vocal timbre, occasionally) not unlike Ms. Williams at all. As for the wistful Bethnal Green or the gems of specificity woven into Mug Song, they’re the UK DIY scene all over. It’s with great limberness that Orchards keep a foot in both camps, and especially for a break-up album—self-proclaimed with no qualifiers—keep the degree of nuance and introspection intact that’s a relative rarity in bigger budget pop-rock.
Or, put it this way—You Can Get Used To Anything rounds off Bicker on chugging, synth-y ‘80s power-balladry, and yet no one would call that Orchards’ sellout moment. For a pop-rock band with less of a direction, sure, but that’s not Orchards. Across Bicker, they feel so alive in the way that only their smaller scale could cultivate. I Feel Terrible and Good For You, Good For Me are synthpop tracks with considerable human input, rather than the product of rearranged plugins and presets. Alongside that are even more cool instrumental tweaks that continue to give Orchards’ personality the space to rush in unimpeded, like the woozy, wonky guitar tone lurching within Gerl, or the inspired addition of slap bass to charge up Mug Song’s agility. It’s a wonderful sound that Bicker presents, and an almost universal improvement on 2020’s also-great Lovecore. It’s bigger, brighter, poppier, and no less organic and well-crafted.
And honestly, it’s all pretty fantastic. There’s barely even a low point or filler track to pick out; that’s how watertight an album Bicker is. Even when there’s been enough going on elsewhere that Orchards’ absence hasn’t felt too conspicuous, there’s enough magnitude on a reintroduction like this to be significant and serious. Hopefully this could be the catalyst for the UK’s Paramore to be established, with all the meaning such a tag should rightly have. Mind you, let’s not cloud the efforts of Orchards themselves, as they continue to run rings around the majority of British alt-pop as if it were nothing.
For fans of: Paramore, Jetty Bones, Kississippi
‘Bicker’ by Orchards is released on 28th March on Big Scary Monsters.
Forlorn
Aether
What leaps out most about Forlorn is how confident they are at throwing themselves into a creative and thematic mishmash that, on paper, doesn’t make a bit of sense. Conceptually, their debut Aether is presented through a folk-horror lens as a ritual to the goddess Hecate. So what better medium to illustrate that than progressive metal, of which a great number of proprietors have probably never seen a tree in real life, let alone worshipped an earth elemental? Fortunately, Forlorn’s approach seems more genuine than a bunch of techy nerds pretending to be pagans. They actually have an idea of what to do, which is…a start, anyway.
Truth be told, they aren’t quite at the level they want to be, though it’s more a consequence of hard-moding their creative journey than what they specifically do with it. They aim to set the tone with Mother Of Moon, an opening instrumental hollowed through this haunting, almost Neolithic tone, only to have it and subsequent interludes be the closest to true iconoclasm that Forlorn get. Most often, they cap out at the tech-metal standard that’s a touch less clinical, maybe eking out a little more on Creatress with some Nightwish-esque fairytale vibes sewn in. Ultimately, the attempt at personality is the main draw, although being saddled with some forgettability right off the genre shelf kind of neuters that. Perhaps something like a Zeal & Ardor-type approach would’ve benefited Forlorn more, fully tilting into ancestral spirituality and investigating what relationship it has with metal in the modern day. An intro and two interludes on an eight-track album can’t shoulder the majority of that effort.
You can really tell that Forlorn want to chip away at the reinforced-steel walls of their designated genre, too. If anyone were to admit that the tenets of tech- and prog-metal don’t factor into their vision, they’d likely be among the first. It’s where the chanting on Keeper Of The Well comes from, or the deliberate instabilities on Spirit that can make it so monolithically bleak. They’re undoubtedly cool moments that Forlorn have a lot of fondness for producing. It’s just that they’re locked into a sound that stops them from venturing deeper and uncovering more. They do, however, have one crossover hit in Megan Jenkins, who puts in work to start bridging the divide with a hell of a range of vocal techniques. She’s especially strong on The Wailing, where the feel of panic or possession could honestly work in either extreme—supernatural horror or technological dystopia.
Beyond that, there are more earthen tones in the production of Funeral Pyre and Keeper Of The Well to plug up some gaps, though it’d be much more apparent had they gotten Aether the whole way it needs to go. As a result, it’s easy to sound more down on this album when discussing it than is actually the case. Forlorn do have talent and imagination, and their broad strokes are already tantalisingly close to bringing it to life. But when there’s something in this specific mould, all it takes is a couple of gaps and loose threads for the illusion to refuse to form. At least there’s some solace in knowing that, for a weaker band, any verisimilitude would’ve been in to smithereens. It’s good that Forlorn can say they’re comfortably better than that.
For fans of: Jinjer, Leprous, Zeal & Ardor
‘Aether’ by Forlorn is released on 28th March on Church Road Records.
Words by Luke Nuttall
