Genres: Punk / Post-Rock / Hardcore / Emo / Screamo / Skramz / Ambient / Indie Rock / Lo-Fi
Related artists: Emö Lendvai, Astronaut Club, Ketsuban, Glorified! and Musgrave.
Country: Dunedin NEW ZEALAND
Years Active: 2015-present
Song: "land/minds"
Album: "demo ii"
Year: 2017
For fans of: I Hate Myself, Growing Fins, D'Amore, Tunes For Bears To Dance To, Mustaphammond, Deers!, Matsuri, Birthday Boyz, Hadaka Matsuri, The Story Of Floating Weeds, Eyes Of Verotika, Duster, Congratulations, мища and Elliot aka PROPER SCREAMO.
Related artists: Emö Lendvai, Astronaut Club, Ketsuban, Glorified! and Musgrave.
Country: Dunedin NEW ZEALAND
Years Active: 2015-present
Song: "land/minds"
Album: "demo ii"
Year: 2017
For fans of: I Hate Myself, Growing Fins, D'Amore, Tunes For Bears To Dance To, Mustaphammond, Deers!, Matsuri, Birthday Boyz, Hadaka Matsuri, The Story Of Floating Weeds, Eyes Of Verotika, Duster, Congratulations, мища and Elliot aka PROPER SCREAMO.
Label(s): Self Released
I first met the absolutely lovely Tom McCone when I posted in a facebook forum in Dunedin, New Zealand asking if anyone was interested in starting a screamo band. He replied, we jammed, we hung, we even did a podcast (linked here). Less than a week before I left Dunedin I was able to catch his other band RAINING's 'demo ii' release party on December 8th, 2017 with Anarchy Drive and Maryland. The three piece's lo-fi but intoxicating, beautiful and cathartic midwestern emo with its occasional angry, screamy outburst was a welcome change to the breakdown laden metalcore/emo-violence that I have inadvertently immersed myself in. Upon a quick and rather obvious observation, the band released their first 'demo' almost two years prior, so here's a review of both demos and their live show.
Their first recording, 'demo', is titled "unseen" and is broken into two parts, both recorded in 2015 but not released until January 2016. "unseen, part i" is a bouncy, raw emo song recorded lo-fi (on an iphone, actually) with lots of wandering, backdrop music that fades in and out. The vocals are warbled, spoken, shouted and yelled. "unseen, part ii" is over seven minutes, and creates a very somber atmosphere from the get-go, and could be likened to an impromtu jam on the porch of a house in the country during dusk. Just before 1:30 this is shattered as the volume increases, drums quicken and shouting is added to the mix, which soon subsides and melts into more expansive rock music for its remaining 7:07 length.
There are certainly parts of their debut that I like, but 'demo ii' is much more fleshed out and cohesive with engaging song structures, expansion of their soft and hard extremes as well as more and better screaming. Opener "gullies" is a 1:11 ambient intro and leads nicely into the twinkly and gestating "land/minds". After a beautiful beginning it gets huge right before the first minute hits and rides out swelling instrumentals until 1:36 when mathy noodles take center-stage. The first vocals don't escape Tom's lungs until after three minutes when the song reaches its climax and are sparse, but the desperate screams used in moderation here help accentuate the song's peak. "AAH9" is next, focusing on more aggression with its crashing, violent and screamy first minute and a half, eerie lullaby midsection and blown-out, killer ending. RAINING takes a bit of a break with "salt fog", as it is just a minute of dreamy, textured and distant emo-rock. "panic veldt" gets things back on track with distant, pathetic, hazy singing that explodes in a fury halfway through like a drunken, bedroom tantrum.
Closer "spreading swamp" clocks in at 4:20 and spends the majority of its time noodling around the backyard in both the emo and screamo realms or providing lush texturing, perhaps being the most noticeable example of the band having an identity crisis - but it works.
I mean, hey, if you're not weird then you're boring.
This post's artist is from the February 2018 Mix. This is track #4.
I first met the absolutely lovely Tom McCone when I posted in a facebook forum in Dunedin, New Zealand asking if anyone was interested in starting a screamo band. He replied, we jammed, we hung, we even did a podcast (linked here). Less than a week before I left Dunedin I was able to catch his other band RAINING's 'demo ii' release party on December 8th, 2017 with Anarchy Drive and Maryland. The three piece's lo-fi but intoxicating, beautiful and cathartic midwestern emo with its occasional angry, screamy outburst was a welcome change to the breakdown laden metalcore/emo-violence that I have inadvertently immersed myself in. Upon a quick and rather obvious observation, the band released their first 'demo' almost two years prior, so here's a review of both demos and their live show.
Their first recording, 'demo', is titled "unseen" and is broken into two parts, both recorded in 2015 but not released until January 2016. "unseen, part i" is a bouncy, raw emo song recorded lo-fi (on an iphone, actually) with lots of wandering, backdrop music that fades in and out. The vocals are warbled, spoken, shouted and yelled. "unseen, part ii" is over seven minutes, and creates a very somber atmosphere from the get-go, and could be likened to an impromtu jam on the porch of a house in the country during dusk. Just before 1:30 this is shattered as the volume increases, drums quicken and shouting is added to the mix, which soon subsides and melts into more expansive rock music for its remaining 7:07 length.
There are certainly parts of their debut that I like, but 'demo ii' is much more fleshed out and cohesive with engaging song structures, expansion of their soft and hard extremes as well as more and better screaming. Opener "gullies" is a 1:11 ambient intro and leads nicely into the twinkly and gestating "land/minds". After a beautiful beginning it gets huge right before the first minute hits and rides out swelling instrumentals until 1:36 when mathy noodles take center-stage. The first vocals don't escape Tom's lungs until after three minutes when the song reaches its climax and are sparse, but the desperate screams used in moderation here help accentuate the song's peak. "AAH9" is next, focusing on more aggression with its crashing, violent and screamy first minute and a half, eerie lullaby midsection and blown-out, killer ending. RAINING takes a bit of a break with "salt fog", as it is just a minute of dreamy, textured and distant emo-rock. "panic veldt" gets things back on track with distant, pathetic, hazy singing that explodes in a fury halfway through like a drunken, bedroom tantrum.
Closer "spreading swamp" clocks in at 4:20 and spends the majority of its time noodling around the backyard in both the emo and screamo realms or providing lush texturing, perhaps being the most noticeable example of the band having an identity crisis - but it works.
I mean, hey, if you're not weird then you're boring.
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DISCOGRAPHY
2016 - demo digitalEP (stream/donate/download here)
2017 - demo ii digitalEP (stream/donate/download here)
(2017) RAINING - "land/minds" (from 'demo ii')
(2017) RAINING - "AAH9" (from 'demo ii')
(2017) RAINING - "salt fog" (from 'demo ii')
(2017) RAINING - "land/minds" live release show video
(2016) RAINING - "unseen, part i" (from 'demo')
2017 - demo ii digitalEP (stream/donate/download here)
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(2017) RAINING - "land/minds" (from 'demo ii')
(2017) RAINING - "AAH9" (from 'demo ii')
(2017) RAINING - "salt fog" (from 'demo ii')
(2017) RAINING - "land/minds" live release show video
(2016) RAINING - "unseen, part i" (from 'demo')
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RAINING additional links
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