REVIEW ROUND-UP: Zebrahead, Dead Tired, AXTY

Zebrahead

O

Yep, we’re still on this! The III EP designed as an introduction to Adrian Estrella came out in 2021, and five years later, he’s still getting introduced. To be fair to Zebrahead, this is more of a bonus one, paving the way for what’s to come after the trilogy proper. Granted, the remotest familiarity with the band’s three-decade-long lineage can make that notion a bit redundant. The ska-punk / skate-punk / rapcore intersection has held staunchly even across these EPs, often to rather workmanlike results where Zebrahead aren’t as raucous and entertaining as they want to portray.

On O, then…it’s not that bad, actually! Yeah, it’s Zebrahead to the most elaborately calligraphed of Ts, but finally, the punch seems to be coming back into the fold. Burn Burn Burn and I Don’t Know How To Put This (But I’m Kinda A Big Deal) connect more vigorously, emblematic of their sharper, heavier production pulling through. Punk cuts share in the reinvigoration, though in the case of A Perfect Life Is Such A Bore, borrowing so liberally from The Offspring’s The Kids Aren’t Alright might have something to do with it. Nevertheless, it’s nice to hear Zebrahead striking with heat and having it actually work.

Let’s not oversell this, though, okay? At the end of the day, O is still Zebrahead’s status quo without anything too tremendous at play. The closest they come is I Know What U Did Last Summer and even then, a darker hip-hop track most evocative of late-period Hollywood Undead is nothing to lose your marbles over. At least the brighter punch-ins of horns on Smoke Signals From My Couch are good, and there’s charm to Ali Tabatabaee rapping in the voice of someone who still unironically uses words like ‘rad’ and ‘gnarly’. O also sees Estrella give his best performance yet, or at least the one where he’s allowed more space to feel like a significant part of the fold.

Overall, this is a perfectly serviceable, enjoyable release from Zebrahead, especially after the half-decade of wheel-spinning that preceded it. If O had been the entirety of this new chapter’s lead-in, not only would it have been much quicker to get off the ground, but it probably would’ve seemed at least a smidge more promising. Oh well; it’s here now, and it’s good enough. For Zebrahead in 2026, that’s a win.

For fans of: Sum 41, Goldfinger, Millencolin

‘O’ by Zebrahead is released on 12th August on MFZB Records.

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Dead Tired

Hornets Of Fall

Dead Tired’s Satan Will Follow You Home was an excellent album…at the time. You have to remember that Alexisonfire’s comeback Otherness came out mere weeks prior, so George Pettit doing More Of That was always going to hit harder in the honeymoon phase. Going back to it now…it’s still good, but there’s definitely a ‘side-project’ energy that’s emerged since. Hornets Of Fall has a lot of the same vibe, too. It’s looser and less directionally-minded than what you’d get from Pettit’s day job, likely by design. The informality of Dead Tired is spelled out in its accompanying promo material, and the precise breed of hardcore rips that Hornets Of Fall deals out is just about right for that. With the big, searing solo on the title track especially, it’s built as a ratcheted-up jam session above all else.

And you can still get good work from that. It’s good how Dead Tired aren’t the barest of bones despite their status, and still have enough impetus to go a little off-piste. Some of the slower, sludgier material like Restrict Life and Promontory actively seeks to be something different, and that’s appreciated. But even in a more ‘standard’ hardcore template, Grey Business and Bad Thoughts are exhilaratingly loud and discordant, and Temper Boy even has what sounds like a theremin slicing its way through for added instability. Even with a reluctance to call any of this ‘special’, it’s not hard to acknowledge how willing to throw themselves in that Dead Tired are. Topped off with Pettit sounding great as usual, there’s still plenty of Hornets Of Fall to be gripped by, if not necessarily bowled over. A healthy stopgap until whatever Alexisonfire are doing next, in other words.

For fans of: Alexisonfire, Cancer Bats, Every Time I Die

‘Hornets Of Fall’ by Dead Tired is released on 14th August on New Damage Records.

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AXTY

The Pain Made Me Who I Am

So, apparently, that’s meant to be ‘anxiety’, because just removing vowels is so passé; let’s do the same with consonants, too, and make it fully incomprehensible. They’re also one of those bands who like to throw in ‘funny’ meme samples, not frequently enough to be a gimmick but still regrettably here in the first place. Michael Scott yelling “No! God, please, no!” is no sort of tonal parallel to “Now every stab that you buried in me / I bled it dry and let it burn away”.

A terrific start from AXTY, then, who, like every other metalcore band under the sun, are being primed for ‘some big things’. Also like every other metalcore band under the sun, such pie-in-the-sky thinking can’t stand up to the scrutiny of simply listening to their music. The Pain Made Me Who I Am seems to believe that the triplicate flavourlessnesses of metalcore, deathcore and nu-metal will cancel each other out, and something amazing with emerge in their place. In reality, it just sounds like Emmure, more often than not. Maybe that is exciting for some people, but, like…come on. There’s no personality to speak of, no less because AXTY have ransacked the My First Metalcore playbook for their angsty, angry verbiage and called it a day.

If there’s one thing that’s unequivocally praiseworthy, though, it’s how much genuine weight AXTY have to throw around. Particularly for an in-house mixing job, The Pain Made Me Who I Am is a heavy ol’ thing, with the snarling, gnashing and general vocal terraforming of Felipe Hervoso having the intensity and fortitude to match. For nothing more than a flattening parade of beatdown after beatdown, maybe AXTY are on to something. That is, until you get clean choruses on selfish, closer and fragile that sit too flat and lumpen for the bloodletting they want to convey, or break and how it winds itself up for an all-timer breakdown, only to fall limp and deflated.

Amid all of that are some spare turntable scratches to try and claw something more from one of its angles, but The Pain Made Me Who I Am isn’t equipped for. What AXTY think they can do and the results they put up are wildly disparate, and it doesn’t make for all that gratifying of a listen. It’s just…another one of these, at the end of the day. Functional as it is, it leaves no lasting impact outside of the profound needlessness of its spliced-in soundbites. Doesn’t that just say it all?

For fans of: Emmure, Left To Suffer, Varials

‘The Pain Made Me Who I Am’ by AXTY is released on 21st August on Napalm Records.

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Words by Luke Nuttall