HYLI Vol. XLI - Killswitch Engage and Wild Pink
Patrick sends Andy some modern indie-folk-rock from New York and Andy sends Patrick a metalcore classic
Andy asked me to write this intro this week. Does he not realize that I’m always writing the intro every week that I’m not on vacation? Anyways, Basketball is Back Baby. Your Milwaukee Bucks are gonna get that ring this year. I can feel it in my bones. Giannis is the greatest. What kind of music do we think Giannis likes? Can we get Giannis to guest feature on Hope You Like It? Goals for 2023 imo. Hope You Like Basketball and The Bucks and Music and Have a Good Week.
Killswitch Engage - The End of Heartache
Andy: I love Killswitch Engage, man. The new records don’t do much for me but from 2000 - 2006 they put out four basically perfect albums. This album was instrumental in forming my musical taste. I had listened to ‘heavy’ bands (or what I considered heavy at the time) but this was just something else when I first discovered it. Heavy and melodic. A mix of strong singing and great screams. The riffs are so good. At 14 I felt like this was a perfect album. I still think “The End of Heartache” is a perfect metalcore song.
Adam Dutkiewicz (Patrick: record a voice memo of you saying this man’s last name and send it to me) is responsible for so much of the music I loved in the 2000s as both a guitarist and producer (seriously, go look, Define the Great Line, Lost in the Sound of Separation, Horizons, Bless the Martyr and Kiss the Child, The Fall of Ideals, and so many… metalcore GOAT) (Patrick: we literally have a newsletter where you can send me these, I’m not doing extra credit). I thought Howard Jones was the best vocalist for such a long time. Justin Foley is underappreciated on this album and I fully blame him for my addiction and obsession with the double-kick drum.
This album is also special to me because I was able to introduce it to my younger brother and take him to his first real concert (we aren’t counting NSYNC when we were 10) and start his lifelong love of live music. It was a fantastic live show and we both had a great time. He doesn’t spend a lot of time in this genre anymore (he paid his dues during the Myspace-era like we all did) but I’d like to think I had a small part to play in his passion of seeing bands live. I hope he’d tell you the same thing about seeing KsE being important in kicking off that obsession. I think we both still get nostalgic while listening to this album. We don’t have a lot in common musically anymore but there was a short window when we were into the same stuff and I still think back fondly on that time (Patrick: shoutout, as always, to Tommy, RIP the Crimson Tide football team).
Anyway, Killswitch rules. Absolutely perfect metalcore. It is fun as heck and I love it still to this day. My wife walked down the aisle at our wedding to “Inhale” on this album. I love it that much. Hope You Like It.
Patrick: Man this sucked. What a boring album with stupid vocals and dumb, fake sounding drums. There are so few riffs on this album that are memorable at all. I hated it. Ugh. I’m done with the newsletter.
Lol yeah right, idiot (Andy: I did this joke already). This fucking rocks. Pretty much every song on here had me in a chokehold. To give a peek behind the curtain, I usually get a listen or two out of the way for our newsletter albums in the days following publishing the previous week, and then will run them back on the weekend before formulating my thoughts. This week, I exclusively listened to this album at The Gym or The Road (running). Y’all familiar with fitness? For large chunks of my life, I had no need to pay attention to any of that shit. I am now 33 and going to have a daughter soon and would like to be healthy in the future. I am now the representation of Peak Physical Form. Thank you.
Anyways, this album seems absolutely made for Lifting. Lots of great and hard-hitting drums, some absolutely sicko riffs, and a dude just absolutely wailing his lungs out. Howard Jones fucking rocks. One of the best screaming vocals I’ve heard and a singing voice that is shockingly good and a bit unique. The title track here is the standout. I listened to it while on the squat rack and saw God bow to me in real-time. I’ve never felt more powerful. What a tune.
It isn’t a perfect record. The first song wasn’t really for me and made me question if I was gonna like this and then the instrumental track near the end kind of took me out a bit but, man, the middle run of this album is so, so strong. I Loved It.
Wild Pink - Yolk In The Fur
Patrick: Have y’all heard of synergy? This is a synergy pick for me. We, around these HYLI HQ parts, are trying to grow this newsletter (Andy: Yes, I must expose more normies to Depressive Black Metal, please line up). What better way than selecting my favorite album by a band that just dropped a new one that is getting a lot of buzz? This might seem fake or whatever, but I also genuinely happen to love this album, and it makes for a fun pairing with KsE, so just go with it or whatever.
I know Andy doesn’t like folk. It’s fine. I don’t like tech-melo-black-death or whatever Septicflesh is (ugh). I think, though, that Wild Pink is fun in the sense that they’re clearly influenced by the Jackson Brownes and Tom Pettys of the world, but bring that kind of sound to a slightly more modern and kind of emo realm. I find it to be a fun mixture. A cosmic gumbo, if you will (Andy: of poop).
“Burger Hill” is one of my favorite songs of the last chunk of years (Andy: bummer for you). What a tune. The guitars just sound immaculate (Andy: yes too much so). I’m usually not super big into pristine/clean guitar tones but this band makes it work so well. On that song, specifically, we have some of my favorite tones in recent memory. The little riff around four-minutes in? Gobsmacking stuff. Love it. Hope You Like It.
Andy: I tried my best y’all (Patrick: I do not believe you). I’m here and doing my dangdest but it just isn’t for me. I am so bored. I’m not tired cause I have a 6-month-old who decided that ‘sleep is for the weak’ but because this album puts me to sleep every day I’ve listened to it. Even with these ones I still give it a listen every day but yeesh (Patrick: this take from you bored me more than this album bored you).
The album has its moments but they hide among too much blandness. Who does he think he is making these songs so long? Everything is so dang clean here. If you’re into that style then you will probably enjoy it but as someone who is a certified dirty boy (Patrick: what?) this is not it. I’m not typically into lyrics but when they’re this front and center it’s hard to avoid, and these are some pretty snooze emoji lyrics. I just found nothing to latch on to.
I don’t know. It's just not in my DNA. I’d like the record to show I’ve tried many times with this newsletter (Patrick: the record (my brain) is showing otherwise). I’ve enjoyed some of the others (Mount Eerie I was actually spinning the other day) but this one really had me on the struggle bus. I Did Not Like It.