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Fleshwater- We're Not Here to be Loved

Sligga

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New alt-metal/hardcore/shoegaze band Fleshwater is a recent band, with their first demo coming out in early 2020. However, their 2022 album We're Not Here to Be Loved is for sure my favorite record in recent memory. This shit is fucking gnarly. I'd get into the details but i'm in a time crunch rn so i'll be brief. Album opens up fittingly with Baldpate Driver, some heavy ass industrial stuff.  Next couple of tracks, Closet and The Razor's Apple are some really sick mid/late 90s callbacks. Really unique still though, closest thing I can relate to it is maybe Hole? They have a really dark but warm sound at the same time. Love it. After that is I think my favorite, Woohoo. This song is fucking addictive. That riff is so goddamn dirty but its all so melodic at the same time. I really cant emphasize enough the instrumentation of these folks. There is both a male and a female singer, both are fucking great. The female singer sounds wonderful and really adds to the character of the band and I believe a couple of other members are from another bigger hardcore band called vein.fm, who I also think are pretty sick. Linda Claire is also a a dirty ass single. All of these songs are so damn good, i'm listening to the album through as I write this. Kiss the Ladder seems to be the single, with the most streams on all platforms. Fair enough, its a short little grunge song and god the fucking instruments sound so damn good here, god tier production. This song is also fucking addictive. Next is a Bjork cover, Enjoy. They took this really quirky almost Aphex Twin sounding Bjork song from 1995 and projected it through their own heavy industrial metal sound. Backstairs Breathing is the second shortest after the 1:17 long Kiss the Ladder. Backstairs Breathing keeps the album consistent and is also a good ass shoegazey track. Lastly is Foreign, I think the only song that competes with Woohoo for favorite. Foreign is just also so fucking dirty and just shows why the album is so good and has it end on a perfect note. God do I hope these fuckers release another record.

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GoatmasterGeneral Grand Master

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Are these dudes friends of yours by any chance, or could they possibly have paid you to write this review? This shit is fucking atrocious!

It's so bad I don't even know where to begin. I wouldn't even know who to compare this to as I don't ever listen to this kind of lame 90's inspired super commercial alt-rock. The closest reference point I can come up with here might be Deftones with a wee bit of Korn thrown into the mix. But that's probably off-base because I haven't actually listened to a whole lotta Deftones or Korn. Guess I'll just call this rubber duckycore.

In any event this is not metal, it's far too pretty for its own good, and there is nothing, I repeat absolutely nothing gnarly or dirty or filthy about this, nor industrial for that matter. I'll gladly apologize later if it turns out that English isn't your first language, but I have to ask: do you even know what any of those words mean?

If you honestly like this then cool, have at it. No one cares what you listen to. But it really almost seems as if your review must have been written for an entirely different album other than correctly stating there are both male and female vocalists and it was released in 2022.

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Nasty_Cabbage Experienced

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Okay, now I'm curious...

... Oof. Some Deftones in there for sure. I'm hearing a lot of Faith No More to. I can almost hear Beevis and Butthead chortling in the background. These guys missed their opportunity by about three decades. Sorry man, but this is bad. If you really needed a soundtrack to your erotic dreams about Dave Navarro, cool, but maybe just do what anybody else would in that situation and never mention it to anyone until the memory has been sufficiently repressed.

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Sligga Newbie

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2 hours ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

Are these dudes friends of yours by any chance, or could they possibly have paid you to write this review? This shit is fucking atrocious!

It's so bad I don't even know where to begin. I wouldn't even know who to compare this to as I don't ever listen to this kind of lame 90's inspired super commercial alt-rock. The closest reference point I can come up with here might be Deftones with a wee bit of Korn thrown into the mix. But that's probably off-base because I haven't actually listened to a whole lotta Deftones or Korn. Guess I'll just call this rubber duckycore.

In any event this is not metal, it's far too pretty for its own good, and there is nothing, I repeat absolutely nothing gnarly or dirty or filthy about this, nor industrial for that matter. I'll gladly apologize later if it turns out that English isn't your first language, but I have to ask: do you even know what any of those words mean?

If you honestly like this then cool, have at it. No one cares what you listen to. But it really almost seems as if your review must have been written for an entirely different album other than correctly stating there are both male and female vocalists and it was released in 2022.

Nah, just enjoy it. Elitist mfs hear melody in a song and refuse to call the song metal. Alright bro, to each their own. Cheers.

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GoatmasterGeneral Grand Master

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3 hours ago, AlSymerz said:

What I have learned today: GG is an elitist mother fucker who is turned on by nipple rings.

That will be stored under "things I need to remember in the future".

You're just finding this out now?

 

2 hours ago, Sligga said:

Nah, just enjoy it. Elitist mfs hear melody in a song and refuse to call the song metal. Alright bro, to each their own. Cheers.

Elitist mfs meaning people with good taste? Or people who understand what the definition of metal is? Probably both I guess. So thank you for the compliment.

You know it's really not our fault that album's not metal. It sounds just like heaps of 90's alt/rock bands none of whom were metal either. Everything with downtuned guitars isn't neccessarily metal. And if that album is representative of the kind of thing you're into then why would you care if the nit-picking, knuckle-dragging metalheads thought it was metal or not anyway? If it was metal they would have called themselves Fleshripper, not Fleshwater. If you didn't know the difference between alt/rock and metal before, well now you do. You're welcome. Even us elitists listen to shit that's not metal sometimes you know, we can just tell the difference.

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z3r0 Explorer

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sounds like 90s jawbreaker-type of post-hardcore to me. a little bit heavier at times than average post-hardcore band but probably just because of the guitar effects as the riffs itself are typical to the post-hardcore genre. not a bad record, you just posted it in a wrong place

6 hours ago, Nasty_Cabbage said:

Some Deftones in there for sure. 

i wouldn't say there is some deftones in there. deftones were pretty much influenced by post-hardcore. that's why they might sound similar. they even toured with some post-hc bands like quicksand and snapcase. and were even considered to be a heavier form of post-hardcore back in the day. pure post-hardcore record in my opinion

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RelentlessOblivion Grand Master

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1 hour ago, AlSymerz said:

I never knew about the nipple ring fetish. I'll have to delve a bit deeper into it and find out if there is a particular guy's nipple you prefer, or if it's all the nipps.

 

This is indeed news, I had him as well not a foot guy given his proclivities, hoof fetish perhaps?

 

Now for the OP: this is, in fact, not metal. Nothing wrong with that we don’t have any rules mandating all music posted contain more metal then an M1 Abrams or something. Review whatever you like, however this is a public forum, as such you should expect differing opinions. Furthermore criticisms levelled at the bands you like, or indeed entire genres you might happen to enjoy, are in fact, not personal attacks against you.

 

This has been a public service announcement by your local Lovecraftian nightmare…

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Sligga Newbie

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3 hours ago, RelentlessOblivion said:

This is indeed news, I had him as well not a foot guy given his proclivities, hoof fetish perhaps?

 

Now for the OP: this is, in fact, not metal. Nothing wrong with that we don’t have any rules mandating all music posted contain more metal then an M1 Abrams or something. Review whatever you like, however this is a public forum, as such you should expect differing opinions. Furthermore criticisms levelled at the bands you like, or indeed entire genres you might happen to enjoy, are in fact, not personal attacks against you.

 

This has been a public service announcement by your local Lovecraftian nightmare…

Yea, I do expect differing opinions but I didn't really expect people to just refuse to call this metal, damn guys. Just because a band doesn't have the most overwhelming drums or vocal cord fucking you've ever heard doesn't mean it's "in fact not metal". Y'all don't like doom or sludge? C'mon it's a fun ass record to listen to on a summer night if you went into it with an open mind. With regards to if it's alt rock? Yea, for sure, some songs. That also doesn't make it "in fact not metal".

 

6 hours ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

You're just finding this out now?

 

Elitist mfs meaning people with good taste? Or people who understand what the definition of metal is? Probably both I guess. So thank you for the compliment.

You know it's really not our fault that album's not metal. It sounds just like heaps of 90's alt/rock bands none of whom were metal either. Everything with downtuned guitars isn't neccessarily metal. And if that album is representative of the kind of thing you're into then why would you care if the nit-picking, knuckle-dragging metalheads thought it was metal or not anyway? If it was metal they would have called themselves Fleshripper, not Fleshwater. If you didn't know the difference between alt/rock and metal before, well now you do. You're welcome. Even us elitists listen to shit that's not metal sometimes you know, we can just tell the difference.

Bro I don't care I just wanted to review an album I like y'all are the ones liquid diarrheaing all over it. And like I said before, that's fair. To each their own

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