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picture by
Cain Cox |
Candy Apple is a trio from Denver, Colorado which has probably
been around since 2017.
The band features Preston behind the drums, an hyperactive
musician who's been involved in a few metal bands like
Of Feather And Bone
but also in some industrial / ambient / noise electronic projects like
Volunteer Coroner,
Fentanyl Fantasy,
Fresh Bait
and
Human Tide
whose digital and tape records have mostly been released on
Preston's own label,
Trust Collective. There is also Tristan (guitar) who plays in the very hardcore band
The Consequence
(which just dropped a new release on
Youth Attack) and used to play in
Lonely Bones.
As for the third gentleman, unfortunately I don't have much information
about him but I think he plays (played?) in
Raw Breed.
You know that usually, when I review a band, I like to go through its
full discography in order to give what I believe is a larger and better
view of the band's "art".
Well today I'm going to focus on Candy Apple's latest release only
for a very simple reason, I was not convinced at all by their two previous
records (the
2018 demo tape
and the 2019
Joyride tape), so you can of course give them a try but there is no point for me to
expand on the fact that I don't like them (tastes and colours you
know)...
But very recently the band released this:
Sweet Dreams of Violence
is Candy Apple's first full length and was released at the very end
of April on the Denver-based hardcore punk label
Convulse Records
(which I know mostly for the killer records of
Goon
and
Yambag
but most of their other stuff is also worth a listen).
The album starts with a short intro that could have been misleading if
the cover artwork (photo by
Cain Cox, layout by Tristan and Preston) hadn't already clearly
announced the tone. It's a hardcore punk record intro guys, these guys are
gonna play fast and dirty, beat the shit out of the drumhead, hammer the
strings of their instruments like maniacs and, above all, push the limits
of vocals reeking of rage and despair.
The band has taken the decision to sound (a little) dirty, to sound
"noisy", an approach that can be found a lot at the moment in American
bands who know how to take advantage of an almost infinite history of
hardcore punk bands while going for a noisy-on-purpose but powerful
outcome. But Candy Apple is far from being a copy cat of a specific
80s USHC band, listen to the "heavy" and heartbreaking riffs of
Deathwish, to the super angry Brain Dead that floats on a
pond of noise where punk almost mixes with grunge... It makes me think of some
of the songs of
Black Button
or
Rascal to only mention recent bands.
And there is of course the very surprising The Cowboy, a grunge
ballad very out of step with the rest of the record, which nevertheless
manages to fit in a certain continuity thanks to this "noisy and dirty"
coherence of the whole.
Medicine, the final song of a way too short 9-track album,
concludes the lot with a perfect balance of fast "trash" punk and grunge
riffs, which is probably exactly what the band wanna sound
like.
Candy Apple manage to maintain a high level of energy despite the
interesting diversity of their songs' profiles. It's hardcore for most of
it, it's grungy, dark or heavy also at times but most of all, it's punk! In a nutshell, it's a good record!
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