Toilet Ov Hell is currently streaming Propaganda, the new full-length from Belgian progressive metal/hardcore collective BEAR. The stream comes on the eve of the album’s official release via Pelagic Records. Check it out above.
Writes Toilet Ov Hell of the offering,
“Propaganda is a bottom-heavy album…with tracks like ‘Stigmata’ and ‘The Ram’ having interesting instrumentals, ‘The Engine’ with its black metal-esque drive, and “Flares” with its odd rhythms and quick changes to clean singing that give an almost J-metal feel…”
Propaganda is an album against propaganda; against the manipulative character of communication and product-placement that we face each time we turn on the TV, walk through a supermarket, or tune in to Spotify without a paid subscription.
And while blatant ideological propaganda is being camouflaged behind product propaganda within an endless floating spectrum of ever-growing, artificially created needs and demands, ideology is as a matter of fact constantly being reinstated and affirmed. BEAR alludes to all of this with metaphors and artwork referencing historic propaganda and the political practices used by the terrible dictators of the 20th century presented in a pop-art style that is equal parts ironic and iconic.
BEAR criticizes propaganda by making Propaganda of their own with their very own aural bombs, symbols, and manifestos.
BEAR will unleash Propaganda May 8th on CD, LP, and digital formats.
Celebrating their tenth anniversary as a band, BEAR invokes the spirit of great hardcore bands of the ’90s like Catharsis or Gehenna – bands whose raw energy, uncompromising delivery, and relentlessly violent performance was as energizing and invigorating as it was puzzling for the oftentimes baffled audience.
With three albums released since on Let It Burn and Basick Records, performances at festivals such as Graspop, Roadburn, Rock Herk, Euroblast, UK Tech Fest, Complextiy Fest, and headlining tours throughout Europe and India, the band has made themselves a name within the heavy music underground scene as one of the most punishing live acts going.
“The song bounces back and forth between prog metal and mile-a-minute hardcore, which are not two things that cross paths too often, but BEAR pull it off.” — BrooklynVegan on “Gutter Love”
“At various points, Propaganda dips its toes into the mathcore experimentalism of early Dillinger Escape Plan and Car Bomb, the fiery noise rock of Unsane and Today Is The Day, and – as on Propaganda’s first single, ‘Apollo’s Heist’ – the sublimely elastic groove of Meshuggah and Intronaut. All of these elements are wrapped up in adroitly-written songs that combine sheer aggression with infectious hooks in the best possible way.” — MetalSucks
“…dark, complex, heavy, and angry…” — Wonderbox Metal
