02 July 2013 - 0 Comments

http://youtu.be/41XNaCIIBdc

Auckland-based grungy metallophiles The Symphony of Screams return to cleanse our jaded ears.

As you brace yourself for the aural mugging that is Radio Candy, it’s helpful to think of TSOS as the dentist you see once a year: It might hurt a bit, but he’s your best pal when you walk out of the surgery sans toothache. Now open wide and say AAAAARRRRRGGGGHHHH!!!!

Support gigs with Ozzy Osbourne, Poison, Kiss, Lordi and Whitesnake attest to the power that TSOS bring to the stage, and guitarist/vocalist Te Matera Smith says that a prime focus in the making of Radio Candy was to authentically translate that energy in the studio.

“We didn't set out with any conscious direction, just what ever flowed through us when jamming/writing. And that’s how we create, as a group, bringing individual ideas and working on them together without ego ‘till it feels and sounds like a TSOS record, and for us this one’s the best yet."

That inimitable touchstone of metalness, Kerrang! magazine, had only effusive praise for the band’s 2011 debut release, Heed to the Voices, calling TSOS ‘NZ Napalm [who] hammer it home all the way’. Like any group of musicians for whom market share is a laughably distant second to musical integrity, as a sophomore effort Radio Candy is an evolution that coalesces the band’s desire to be more than a bunch of fashion-reactive yes men.

"We don’t make music to please anyone but ourselves, although I must admit, it feels good when someone else 'gets it' too."

In fact, so driven are these guys in dodging the inexorable plod of mediocrity that although most of the material for Radio Candy was hammered out not long after the release of Heed to the Voices, nothing could be committed to record until the boys had realised their dream of completely usurping the means of production, which meant building their own commercial-grade studio, RedRoom, from the ground up.

"Building the new studio was a blessing and a curse. We became incredibly busy producing other artists, (including Kara Gordon & the Wreckage, The Kaipara Jammers, Thomas Coffey, etc.) which caused delays with our own project. But it's still good to have RedRoom as our creative base. It's an incredible sounding studio, which it makes it hard to go home at night!"

First to hit the airwaves on the 28th of June is the single Amsterdam Place, a driving anthemic fist pumper inspired by... Well, they won’t tell you. "Whatever it means to you... is what it means".

The Symphony of Screams sound like they’re streaming the most authentically heavy bits of the late ‘80’s/early ‘90’s, but have at some point suffered an episode and returned from a stay at the local ‘health resort’ with a few recruits.

In fact listening to Radio Candy end to end is in some ways probably similar to an average day at the Looney bin: There are moments of thorazine-like underwater bliss, and bits where the riot gear gets deployed. Asylum Metal could be a label that works on some level, as evidenced by the maniacal falsetto scream of vocalist TeMatera on Symphony of Screams that makes the track both exhilarating and a touch disturbing.

Refreshingly challenging in other words. To torture yet another analogy: TSOS as a musical Jamie Oliver, on a mission to eradicate the uniformly grey sonic stodge that the bearded lunch ladies of pop keep trying to make us digest.

RELEASE DATES:

Album July 5th 2013

Single (Amsterdam Place Single Edit) Release Date: June 28th 2013

LINKS:

http://www.thesymphonyofscreams.com/

www.facebook.com/thesymphonyofscreams

www.twitter.com/SymphonyScreams

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