The Orange Noise

The Hell You Say is rowdy as fuck.  There it is.  I'm not sure how else to put it.  Rowdy. As. Fuck. Both their stage performance and recorded material are pure canned chaos.  At a The Hell You Say show, the current state of affairs doesn't mean a thing.  It's the spectacle that matters.  It's the sounds and the sights. It's the anger and the insistence and the movement.  Make no mistake, you ARE in danger.  But "danger" is relative, and subjective, and you're in danger just putting your fat foot on a wet bathroom floor in the morning, but you do it all the time. The Hell You Say have things to scream about, and reasons to take rock'n'roll to ballistic levels of volume and intensity. They obviously have some existential shit they need to work out, and I think we should all feel lucky that music is their creative outlet. A The Hell You Say experience is one to give yourself up to completely.  Resistance is basically futile. Whether fr

Cover art by Audrey Nelson As we reluctantly surrender precious minutes of daylight to the winter lords, as we pinch back blooms and swap bulbs in our sensory chambers, as we force-feed our skin-suit with balms and salves all in the name of forgetting that the inevitable hemispherical darkness will eventually consume us all, some can be found reveling in this eventuality.  Their place is the darkness.  The darkness is their source of power, as they were conceived and gestated in the darkness.  They are Prayer Line and this is their season! In celebration of the dark-duration, high-static days of a bloody crack-and-chafe Kentucky fall, Prayer Line have unleashed a track to further distract you from the impending pain. A quick stab of a song, coming in at 2m40s on the death clock, Flesh Eaters serves as a fine sampling of what this ghoulish group has to offer. With a tense intro featuring sounds of lapping water and panicked film dialogue over a low pulsing synth, the composit

Prayer Line has a thing.  Let's not call it a schtik. I guess we could, but please don't.  Let's call it a theme.... or maybe more of a disposition.  A disposition towards all things dark, and shadowy, and creep-like.  Prayer Line walks, if not defines, the disturbingly foggy line between dark culture and camp.  Are they cannibalistic satanists back from the underworld to low-key indoctrinate Louisville's counter culture? Or are they friendly zombie rockers giving tongue-in-cheek homage to horror and gore icons of the past?  I think Prayer Line is likely all of that. Like a blood-red smoothie made of equal portions Misfits, Ramones, Duran Duran, Bela Lagosi, and John Carpenter, Prayer Line rock faces with dark hooks and macabre verse that leave you sucking meaty chunks through the straw.  They caught my attention with their dark disposition on my first spin of their 2019 release, Drink the Blood .  Sure, it was heavy hitting, with not-so-subtle lyrical nods to spl

Listen to what you've been missing!  The Metal Monday series has become a staple listening room for the hard music community in Louisville. FREE to attend, and a paid gig for both local and national acts,  Riotheart  keeps the bands rolling in, and keeps it loud on the regular over at Highlands Tap Room! Click Below.

The new track, Starlightdancer from dark-synth-drip-droppers Scary Black is a banger for sure.  They're pretty new on my radar and here to stay.  Most commonly used to gain composure, thrash recovery, and couch melt.  You could probably also do a dance of some sort to it.  You... not me. Scary Black // Starlightdancer Starlightdancer by SCARY BLACK

Take a rip and head to Mag Bar TONIGHT to watch Shi - 死 fire up the stage with their heady brand of stoner doom for the people.

Shi - 死 Shi - 死 are metal-monks who have served at the Temple of Weed and Riffs and returned home to teach by example the ways of Doom.  Their live shows are metal meditations with dark fuzz, rolling bass lines and growling vocal emissions. Reportedly, their drummer utilizes drums and cymbals. Bob from Shi - 死  was recently agreeable to filling out a 13 Questions interview for me. Knowing they're a personal favorite of many local metalheads, I was looking forward to his feedback and getting some more insight into what this group of headbangers is all about. You can catch Bob and the boys in Shi - 死 at Highlands Tap Room for Terrifying Tap-O-Ween on Thursday Oct 31st, sharing a stacked bill with Bazookatooth (Nashville), Louisiana Lot Lizards  (IN) and The Hell You Say (Louisville). You can also often catch these guys out enthusiastically supporting other local acts around town.  If you spot'em, giv'em a "Hell, yeah!", a fist pump, and some horns for m

BAND:  Isolation Tank Ensemble GENRE:  Trash Prog SOUNDS LIKE:  Marching band eats acid, enters video game... in hell. FEELS LIKE:  Swedish-plastic exoskeleton.  LOOKS LIKE:  Chamber orchestra for a nerd cult key party. SMELLS LIKE:  wet denim, Barbasol, fries TASTES LIKE:  PBR, Worcestershire, strawberries LAST RELEASE:   Collapsers + more (2017) NEXT GIG:   w/ Shi - 死 + Swamp Hawk + Stormtoker @ The Green Lantern Bar (LEX) 10.4.19

Louisville's The Instruction just unleashed a video upon the digital masses for their hard-strut, gritty-banger of a tune,  Monster Maker.   The striking video, with filmed footage and animated imagery over a backdrop of recognizable local corridors and alleyways, is fun to watch as you follow the punk-rock-protagonist on her mission thru the 'Ville. Check it out. Find your 'hood. The Instruction features bass work by Jeremy Stein of local doomsters union, Blind Scryer .

Louisville Horror-rock heroes  Prayer Line , dropped a new track on their Bandcamp page today.  Rocking PJ Harvey's Meet Ze Monsta , and guest-fronted by dark songstress  Sheri Streeter , the super-undead pounded this one out at Deadbird Studios . The track was expertly recorded, mixed and mastered by Deadbird's own Dave Chale.  Come for the song, stay for the banter.  Fantastic cackles from a live studio audience will put you in a spooky mood. Meet Ze Monsta feat. Sheri Streeter by Prayer Line