We recently featured The Scuba Kids on the pages of this webzine. Well, Skadavers is a solo project by Blake Runyon of The Scuba Kids. This one featured six songs of ska punk rock with good dose of melodic punk roots and emotional punk. There are also some reggae parts and brass instruments that only add to the overall feeling that should be happy, but it somehow isn’t. There is sadness and melancholy featured and inner struggle to cope and survive in daily life, also fight with you inner demons, at least that is how I heard this e.p. But, there are also some state of the world political lyrical themes if you read between the lines in some songs. ‘Make A Killing’ has that psycho eerie melody on verse and raw punk part making it great. Also, my personal favorites on this one are ‘This Is Hell’ and ‘Where Did All The Voices Go?’. Good ska punk rock.
Invicti are band coming from Seville, Spain and they are new to the scene being formed in 2022. This is their debut full length opus. This one contains eight songs plus one bonus song, meaning nine in all. The music of Invicti can be described as a melodic heavy metal leaning also on some hard rock influences in songwriting and structures, also some groove metal and progressive played parts. Musically, that is pure heavy metal, with good vocals at times reminding me of mixture between Bruce Dickinson and Eric Adams. ‘Riders of Death’ reminded me a lot of Dickinson’s solo material in many parts, having that melody and groove. Lyrically, songs with titles like ‘Rock, Drink and Fuck’ or ‘Balls of Steel’, also ‘Heavy Metal is Painful’ will give you the picture what this band is about in lyrics side of things. Musically they are tight, superb guitar solos, especially in above mentioned ‘Rock…’, and the whole atmosphere and vibe of the album reminded me a lot of early Manowar albums and that era of first three albums, but maybe a bit less epic, but also having some longer songs and more fantasy leaned like ‘The Arena’ or ‘Song of Conquest’. This is great debut for a heavy metal band.
Besides New York hardcore family, there is also thriving punk scene beneath the ground. Vermillion are hailing from Long Island, NY and this is their brand new EP. This one contains five songs. Music of Vermillion is raw sounding punk rock with lots of street punk influences, also riot grrrl especially in singer’s voice which is phenomenal. Her voice can shout, scream, sing melodic clean lines and change in a second. ‘Needle Up My’ is raw punk with almost grungy feel and superb clean anthemic chorus made for singing along. ‘Vocal Retake’ is more straight forward pure punk song with great main vocal line melody and also dual backing vocal harmony making it with its energy and melody one of my favorites on this one. It also has double bass drumming if I hear it right and reminded me a bit of Bad Cop/Bad Cop in some parts. ‘Send You To Hell’ is short but sweet outburst of hardcore punk anger and speed, topped with screaming vocals. ‘Vermillion’ is more slower, ballad with great chorus ‘I want you dead’ just made for singing along and having that melody to make goosebumps on your skin. ‘Halloween’ has that raw hardcore punk speed back again reminding us that this band is capable for hardcore energy along with gentle melodies. Good one.
KRAYKULLA-WEBZINE 