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Sep 21 2022

Blood Command – 2022 Praise Armageddonism Album Review – Norway DeathPop Metal

Blood-Command-Praise-Armageddonism-Norway-2022
Blood Command Praise Amageddonism 2022

Release Date

July 1, 2022

Loyal Blood Records

Hassle Records

Tracklisting

1.”Praise Armageddonism” (Awake Theme) -> Recommended

2. “Saturday City” -> Recommended

3. “The End is Her” -> Recommended

4. “Everything You Love Will Burn” > Sick Transition Track

5. “Questionable Taste in Friends” > Background Music

6. “A Villains Monologue” -> Favorite

7. “Nuns, Guns & Cowboys” – > Recommended

8. “I Just Want That Movie Ending” -> Recommended

9. “Burn the Blasphemer” -> Recommended

10. “Last Call for Heaven’s Gate” -> Recommended (includes killer instrumental)

Total Recommended Tracks – 8 / 10

Who is Blood Command, Praise Armageddonism for?

Blood Command’s, Praise Armageddonism, is for fans of Paramore, Marmozets and the like, but the aggressive metal, punk, hardcore version if you can picture that. The song “Saturday City” and “The End is Her” are pretty picture perfect representations of the pop side of the band.

This is one those albums that has the ability to bond music lovers. If you like your music with screams, heaviness laced with punk energy and your significant other is into Paramore like pop hook madness then crank this album together.

Not every song will be a winner with both sides, but there will definitely be some shared cuts.

Members

Vocals – Nikki Brumen

Guitars – Yngve Andersen

Bass – Simon Oliver Økland

Drums – Sigurd Haakaas

Blood-Command-Praise-Armageddonism-2022
Blood Command – Bergen, Norway

Why is Blood Command Unique?

Here is some interesting background info circling Blood Command.

I am almost positive vocalist, Nikki Brumen, is the third Blood Command singer. Praise Armageddonism, Blood Command’s fourth album, and is Nikki Brumen’s first Blood Command album. Becoming the new singer required Nikki to relocate from Melbourne, Australia to Bergen, Norway.

Nikki Brumen is the former singer of the Australia band, Pagan. Pagan disbanded and Nikki was hit up by Blood Command through social media asking her if she wanted the gig. This album was completely recorded with former singer, Karina Ljone, and then shelved when she hung up her dancing shoes for motherhood.

Blood Command then re-recorded this record with Nikki Brumen along with navigating massive distance between Nikki and the band due to Covid traveling restrictions.

I discovered Blood Command through Spotify with the 2017 album Cult Drugs and was instantly hooked on the creative heavy, dance, thrash aggression. I highly recommend checking out Cult Drugs. Both albums very similar but different and both you can set to repeat without fail.

Pro tip to all the young bands: band chemistry effortlessly creates a unique sound everyone digs, there is no chasing this sound, being genuine kills it live every time

Blood-Command-Nikki-Brumen-Live
Blood Command Vocalist, Nikki Brumen

What happened to Nikki’s previous band, Pagan?

From what I found, Pagan decided to just go their separate ways in January of 2020.

Courtesy of ManiacsOnline interview with Nikki Brumen:

“Pagan announced are break up in early 2020 and I knew I still wanted to play music, so I started jamming with friends and then all of a sudden I got a message on Facebook from Yngve and he introduced himself and said that he knew my band Pagan had split up, and he loved Pagan and that he had a proposition for me, would I want to front Blood Command, because their singer was leaving and I’d always had his dream voice.

I was a fan of Blood Command already, I’d actually put Blood Command as one of my top 5 bands of 2019 in an interview with Kerrang. So the stars really aligned. I couldn’t actually believe it when I read the message, like every friend that I told that I’d been asked to join a band not only from Norway but from Bergen which is my favourite place I’ve ever been, they were just laughing, saying that this cannot be real, surely you’re getting catfished. But it was real and it is real and it’s just amazing. ” –Nikki Brumen

Pro tip: Go hard or go home. It’s so easy to call it quits, but so hard to believe in yourself & keep going. Hard work & patience gives you a better chance at succeeding in this ridiculous industry

Nikki-Brumen-Pagan-Blood-Command
Pagan Featuring Nikki Brumen pre Blood Command (Why doesn’t Nikki have a beard too?)

Praise Armageddonism – Review

I can’t say enough good things about the new 2022 Blood Command album, Praise Armageddonism. The album has been out for two and a half months and I can honestly say I listen to the album in its entirety all the time.

Praise Armageddonism has this umami thing to it, to put it in foodie terms. It’s a bowl of food where every bite looks the same & initially tastes the same, but in every bite you notice something different and as a result you can’t stop eating because you might taste something new and exciting.

Blood Command has a crazy knack for squeezing the most out of every album by using an instrument that comes out of left field. An example of this is the closing track “Last Call for Heaven’s Gate”. Blood Command likes to throw keyboards and horns into the mix and it always takes the song and album to another level.

I have always loved this super creative style of writing taking thrashy aggression and smashing it with ultra pop. Cheap Trick brought this type of song writing to my attention and The Wildhearts as well as all of the Ginger Wildheart projects such as Hey Hello or Mutation further amplified my creativity as a songwriter.

There is always something special when a single bass line, “Villains Monologue”, is enough to stir your shit up. It won’t stop playing in my head. The band chemistry & performance on Praise Armageddonism alone is enough to demand high praise. The bonus that the songs are as hooky as fuck is some tasty icing.

It feels like Nikki Brumen will be the vocalist for quite some time. Nikki compliments the band extraordinarily well and completes the band. Blood Command comes off as a band on a mission to devour and conquer not the Nikki & the dudes show. Really excited about what follows.

If you dig what you hear and are interested in some band merch then head over to Blood Command’s bandcamp for exclusive vinyl record, apparel & music deals. If you don’t see anything you like make sure you visit the website store.

Skål,  Cheers Mates!

Blood Command Videos

Tour

Blood Command tour dates

Let’s Talk Amigos!

Please hit us personally here at Vanzig Studios for any reason whatsoever using the Contact Form. If you’re curious where Carly and I come from then read over our bio.

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Written by Mickey Squeeze · Categorized: Reviews · Tagged: 2022, Female Fronted, Metal Genre, New Album Release, Punk Genre, Rock Genre

Aug 30 2022

Classless Act – Welcome to the Show Album Music Review 2022 (Hard Rock / Rock N Roll / Los Angeles, CA)

Classless-Act-Band-Los Angeles-CA

Release Date

June 24, 2022

Better Noise Music

Tracklisting

1.”Classless Act” (Featuring Vince Neil)

2. “This is for You” (Featuring Justin Hawkins) -> Skip

3. “Time to Bleed” -> Skip

4. “On My Phone” -> Recommended

5. “All that We Are” > Recommended

6. “Made in Hell” > Recommended

7. “Storm before the Calm” -> Background Music

8. “Haunting Love” -> Guilty Pleasure

9. “Walking Contradiction” – > Favorite

10. “Give it to Me” -> Skip

11. “Circles” -> Recommended

12. “Thoughts from a Dying Man” -> Skip

Who is Classless Act, Welcome to the Show for?

This album has a weird confusing focus demographic. In a nutshell, if you are into hard rock on the 80’s / 70’s side and any Slash solo album then the debut Classless Act album, Welcome to the Show is your cup of tea for the most part.

On the flip side, if you are a My Chemical Romance fan then this album is also for you. Most people getting into this album will most likely only like half and either ignore or tolerate the other half pending where you fall and your age.

For some reason it seems the label is really trying to get this band laid by 40 plus horny cougars as well as service the Eddie Trunks of the world. I was always under the impression the big label move is to focus on the younger market so your audience grows with you and buys into all of the marketing shenanigans.

Members

Vocals – Derek Day

Guitars – Dane Pieper / Griffin Tucker

Bass – Franco Gravante

Drums – Chuck McKissock

Classless-Act-Band-Promo

Why is Classless Act Unique?

Here’s the fun part. On first listen, checking out music videos, photo content & live appearances, you’re going to wonder where the hell did these young dudes come from.

The former drummer is London Husdon, Slash’s offspring. I had the pleasure of speaking to London & former guitarist Nico Tsangaris on the Appetite for Distortion podcast hosted by Brando in 2018 at IHeart Radio.

It was an awesome conversation with these driven rock n rollers. From what I dug up, both stopped playing with Classless Act sometime mid 2021, but not before doing massive shows with Slash and the like. I am assuming this is where Classless Act’s music industry mysteriousness comes from.

I read through a few interviews and the band glosses over how they jumped to a Motley Cue / Poison Stadium Tour off the debut album. The focus of the bio seems to be that Classless Act got together using social media and then poof, stadium tour with all the pro sauce.

Classless-Act-Live

The Motley Crue Stadium Tour came out of nowhere with minimal touring experience, seemingly no more industry connections and most likely lacking serious funds to buy on, which is a thing or favor deals between entertainment lawyers.

This is hardly a shade being thrown. When there’s blood in the water go for broke and exploit all opportunities. Every band / musician needs to seize every and any opportunity because it may be the only one you ever get.

Pro tip to all the young bands: talk to literally everyone everywhere because you never know when someone with juice will take a liking to you.

Where Did Drummer, London Hudson, Go?

Since this blog is about Classless Act, I will make this quick, but I think it is worth mentioning since it is Slash’s kid and this record sounds like a fresher Slash album.

London & Nico, package deal I assume, parted with Classless Act sometime in 2021 and then began SUSPECT208 with Scott Weiland’s kid, Noah Weiland, and Rob Trujillo’s kid, Tye Trujillo.

The band released two singles, “Long-Awaited” and “You Got It”, before breaking up due to multiple singer personal issues. They drew resemblances to Velvet Revolver.

London & Nico then began S8NT ELECTRIC (I guess pronounced Saint Electric). You can listen to S8NT ELECTRIC on Spotify.

Pro tip: Don’t name your band something impossible to remember. It makes googling unnecessary and annoying.

I checked out S8NT ELECTRIC and it has cool trashy genuine rock n roll vibe but the songs need a lot of work. The songs are way raw without any hooks and the performance on the recordings is questionable The song “Subliminal” I’m digging though.

S8NT-ELECTRIC-band-los-angeles
S8NT ELECTRIC

Welcome to the Show – Review

All in all it’s a solid hard rock album that I think I would recommend to those into 80’s hard rock, but that’s a question mark. To be honest I didn’t want to like this album because the lead single, “Give It To Me”, was a pile of dated management polished cheese.

I read a lot of other reviews about this record out of curiosity and I was surprised on how praised it was. I will definitely give credit where due. The band’s performance is killer. There is a ton of energy, charisma & personality delivered on each track.

I give a general recommendation to hard rock fans to check this album out because there is something for everyone, but the kitchen sink approach to this album is out of control. I have no idea who Classless Act is.

What is this band’s actual sound? Is Classless Act another label management product where a team of 50 plus writes the music, another team dresses them and then they perform to a sea of 50 plus rock fans? Did Vince Neil secretly put this band together to make himself seem relevant again, if so maybe genius?

The weird marketing of Welcome to the Show is exaggerated by not taking advantage of the summer release. The song “Made in Hell” is a well written super pop song using One Direction and Five Seconds of Summer as a model. It is a happy beachy hooky song made unique with Derek’s manic voice.

You would think this would be the first obvious single to capture the younger market partying on boats at the beach etc… Just do what Diamond Dave would do. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel. Twenty somethings in bikinis (not mom or grandma in a bikini) partying with some young studs rocking out and taking over the world.

How was “Circles” not used as the second summer single? You take the same twenty somethings chicks from the beach put them in pick up trucks, daisy dukes & cowboy hats, get a young pop country pop star to sing one word and all of a sudden you’re riding the Country Music pop charts. Hopefully they push this song at some point because it deserves attention.

The album uses both Vince Neil and Justin Hawkins as a means to push this band, but why? Harry Styles, Taylor Momsen or even Lizzy Hale could have fit somewhere giving more relevant features. It’s funny because Classless Act even acknowledge this by not having Vince Neil in the music video where his vocals are featured.

Instead there’s a half ass ridiculous cut to 80’s Vince Neil drawn on an easel where the viewer stares at his mysterious vocals coming through the drawing as if a scene from Ghostbusters. In regards to Justin Hawkins he is barely audible on the track and it seems like a payday. Good for you, you deserve it. The last Darkness album, Motorheart, in 2021 was absolutely amazing, possibly better than the debut.

Listening to this album repeatedly I keep thinking it should have been split into multiple EP’s focusing on each spectrum of rock this album hits. The song “Give it to Me” could have been an old school English stand alone single not appearing on the album just in single format maybe with a b-side.

I really hope Classless Act move to a younger tour with bands like Palaye Royale, Black Honey, The Pretty Reckless or vets like My Chemical Romance. The talent in this band is so high and deserves to be treated with a more relevant touch.

I am routing hard for Classless Act and hope the band is given more opportunity to showcase what they want to showcase rather than be forced to read from the script. This band has so much talent and I look forward to the sophomore effort.

Cheers lads!

Classless Act Videos

Tour

Classless Act tour dates

Let’s Talk Amigos!

Please hit us personally here at Vanzig Studios for any reason whatsoever using the Contact Form. If you’re curious where Carly and I come from then read over our bio.

Written by Mickey Squeeze · Categorized: Reviews · Tagged: 2022, Album Review, New Album Release, Pop Genre, Rock Genre

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