Unprocessed
Angel
A plethora of textural layering, thrilling arrangements and emotive progressions are to be found in the dynamic sonic world of Unprocessed. Their high levels of technical proficiency are paramount; Manuel Gardner Fernandes’ impeccable guitar playing is a distinctive part of the music’s characteristics. The intriguing fusion of technical and progressive elements with outbursts of soaring, catchy hooks, brings multiple dimensions to the listening experience. On Angel, the German outfit venture further into creative realms, pushing into greater extremes.
The haunting introduction of 111 explodes into the depths of intensity with aggressive screams, pounding percussion and prominent bass tones. The chorus hook continues the grounding heaviness beneath the dreamy lead vocal. Juxtapositions are a central quality to Angel, not only emphasising all manifestations of the extreme but producing a thrilling listen laden with unexpected twists and turns. Sleeping With Ghosts continues in similar vein. There’s a sense of foreboding in its anguish fuelled power. A melancholy touch graces the shadowy track. The thunderous impact of the heaviness on this album is epic in its brutality. While the darkness is most prominent in these first two tracks, Beyond Heaven’s Gate sees the light overpower the shade. Cleaner instrumental tones and uplifting chord progressions are not without moments of aggression and dissonance, but they do not surrender to it.
Sacrifice Me sees the music carry any enveloping quality. Fernandes’s vocals feel intimate and personal against a backdrop of contrapuntal melodies. Sacrifice Me’s descent into the depths is sudden and violent, ending on a haunting and uneasy note. Emotive cleans and monstrous harsh bring multiple perspectives to the heartfelt mood of Snow Lover. Terrestrial launches a remorseless assault in the form of pounding heavy rhythms and vicious distortion. The coldness from the static electronic beats of Your Dress is disrupted with flurries of clean tone guitar motifs. The pop sensibilities of its chorus arrangement interrupted with the ruthless breakdown, see the track shift violently between extremes of mood, before returning full circle to the pulsing electronics. Where I Left My Soul’s minimalist opening comprised clean vocals and a synth accompaniment carries with it a sombre quality. A sense of the otherworldly manifests through shimmering clean guitars, before the track’s atmosphere shifts into a wall of sound with the up-reaching chorus progression. Featuring Zelli of Paleface Swiss, Solara is filled with ruinous heavy instrumentation enhanced texturally with Zelli’s vocals, use of trap drums and electronics. The chorus illuminates the gloom with an introspective, soaring progression. First Tongue provides a moment of serenity and narrative in the form of an interlude track primarily driven by gentle twinkling piano and analogue synth.
Perfume is private and personal. Its beginning reflects this with its clean-toned, gentle and emotive sound. Bursting into a full arrangement, the soundscape is deeply immersive. Head In The Clouds sees Jason Butler of letlive. and Fever 333 infuse further character to Unprocessed’s sound. An abrasive opening emerges in the form of a heavily fuzzed guitar tone echoing out into the void. Butler’s rap section adds rhythm into the mix before the hard-hitting percussion and bass arrives. Head In The Clouds is a swirling vapour of chaos, prog and yet another memorable lyric hook. Angel reaches its end with Dark Silent And Complete. A minimalist opening of harsh vocals is fierce and raw. The moments that follow lead to an unyielding, high-speed onslaught. Creating a state of turmoil and disorder, the song then traverses into serene realms with orchestral strings and clean vocals. Rhythms build once again, concluding with combined elements of light and shade. • HR
For fans of: LANDMVRKS, Animals As Leaders, ten56.
‘Angel’ by Unprocessed is out now.
Finger Eleven
Last Night On Earth
Apologies for not crawling up the walls over a new Finger Eleven album, but is anyone? In true radio-rocker form, Paralyzer was their solitary big gasp at widespread relevance, all the way back in 2007 with little to show since. Other than the pure, unchecked hubris of a greatest hits album in 2023, this is actually the first thing they’ve dropped since 2015, and a perfect microcosm of why it’s so hard to care about the ‘legacies’ of post-grunge second-stringers. There’s little that’s necessarily bad; there’s less that’s necessarily good; and if you want something interesting, there’s not the remotest possibility that you’ll find it on Last Night On Earth.
Still, it can be workable enough at times. As the midpoint between Papa Roach’s Jacoby Shaddix and Skillet’s Jon Cooper, Scott Anderson has arguably the ideal voice for this style. There’s also an objective ‘this-works-for-what-it-wants-to-be’ quality to songs like Blue Sky Mystery with Filter’s Richard Patrick, or The Mountain. It’s as commercial as hard rock comes, though the presence of a recognisable bassline sometimes elevates it a notch or two beyond the true dishwater. At the same time, though, when songs like Cold Concrete and Perfect Effigy are so stiff, shallow and allergic to the concepts of real power, any ‘upgrade’ might as well not exist. It’s not like Finger Eleven are so different from the literal millions of radio-friendly jobbers already taking up too much space; they’re just one more.
At least, they are at their most standard. For whatever reason, Last Night On Earth loads itself with treacly ballads and stripped-down numbers, none of which contribute to a very impactful listen. At best, the building strings on the title are quite nice (just ignore how compressed they sound, okay?), though that’s about it. Otherwise, the standard-bearers are Wall Dogs and its intolerable sentimentality, and the formless, reverb-swaddled Body And Mind whose position in the tracklist suggests it’s a climactic moment that couldn’t be further from the truth. If that seems like a weak ending, though, fret not, because the true closer is…just Blue Sky Mystery again. Richard Patrick isn’t on this version, but otherwise, it’s gone unchanged. Not sure what the reasoning behind this is, but considering how limp Last Night On Earth’s purchase on sequencing and overall effectiveness is, you just end up accepting it.
Plus, it’s doubtful that enough people will even hear this for it to matter. A new Finger Eleven album is not getting the blood pumping on its own, even for the world’s top Paralyzer superfan. Their moment came and went a long time ago, and now they’re just enjoying the vestiges of inertia that a single 2000s rock hit deigned to give its benefactors (whether deserved or not). Last Night On Earth is just as disposable as everything plucked from this reserve, fenced in between the bounds of ‘unobjectionable’ and ‘unimpressive’. It’s the usual turnout, as is how it’ll be forgotten in record time by anyone who hears it. • LN
For fans of: Shinedown, Skillet, Saliva
‘Last Night On Earth’ by Finger Eleven is released on 7th November on Better Noise Records.
The Maple State
Don’t Take Forever
The factoid of Mark Hoppus apparently being a fan of this humble Manchester indie / emo band from the late 2000s will probably light up enough neurons to make you curious. If not, how about Matty Healy—he’s in The 1975, don’t ya know!—citing them as a formative influence? Maybe it’s worth you giving them a go, especially now with their original lineup reunited for the first time in 17 years for new material. It’s also just a good album; it’s worth checking them out for that, too.
Arguably, Don’t Take Forever might have the most appealing sound of The Maple State’s entire career, even. There’s certainly been growth undertaken, into a sound that’s fuller than their early work with recognisable emo acumen. On top of that, there’s a late-2000s indie-rock sensibility you’d find from a band like Tellison, another act that never got the appreciation they were due in their time. Clearly, then, that’s the go-to great sound of that era to fall back on, with the mild, autumnal sound of Don’t Take Forever being perfectly realised even after all this time. A song like Zero Days Since Last Incident illustrates it best—all crystalline emo-pop guitars, a brilliant sheen in its synth layering, and Greg Counsell’s voice wearing its untrained edges proudly within its melodic focus.
It’s the kind of album that’s become commonplace for an ‘older’ band like this to make, in lyrical themes shaped by the passage of time, and a particular grasp on nostalgia that you really only get with a certain amount of distance. A song like There’s Always Money In The Banana Stand (outside of a very nice Arrested Development reference) is distinctly worn in tone and feel, conveyed by its winsome woodwinds and slightly-too-close-to-the-mic vocal earnestness. In more direct form, a love of bands like Braid and The Get Up Kids plays a considerable role on No Time To Waste, while Settle Down and Better Than Before are coated in that Hundred Reasons-adjacent Britrock vintage. There’s even a folk-punk knees-up in Dead Beneath The Stars that owes the lion’s share of its cues to Frank Turner’s very early solo work.
All the while, there’s the low-stakes, laidback feel of a band doing all of this for the love of the game. At no point have The Maple State angled themselves for a big break, or to capitalise on the star-studded eyes upon them. They’re just making good music as its own reward, something which Don’t Take Forever basks in from the very beginning. And it’s paying off; this is incredibly solid work with very few qualms to be had. And even if ‘big things coming’ is never an idea gestured at, this is an album that could easily facilitate them if it wanted. This writer, for one, wouldn’t mind a blink-182 or The 1975 support slot to come further down the line. • LN
For fans of: The Get Up Kids, American Football, Braid
‘Don’t Take Forever’ by The Maple State is released on 7th November.
Words by Holly Royle (HR) and Luke Nuttall (LN)
