More Punk, less Pop is what’s up on the fourth LP from Ontario’s Dead Tired featuring Alexisonfire’s George Pettit. Not that Dead Tired could ever be mistaken for Pop with their Punk-infused Hardcore bravado. Unless you count the “Pop” as just DT bringing that certain something with each and every track they release. Or maybe the “Pop” is the last legible thing you hear when you listen to latest release Hornets of Fall on full blast? Or something.
Anyway!
The one-two opening blast of “Edge Of Entropy” into “Grey Business” is something to experience with the former an absolutely kickstartin’ rager on an album full of ’em while the latter? Whew! Just when you think you know where it’s going, it kind of transcends expectations, goes to another realm of excellence, then comes crashing back down hard to return to a more grounded heaping of heaviness. “False Populist” starts in Desert Rawk land then, follwing Theo McKibbon and Nick Ball’s drum and bass rumblin’, it’s off to Punk Rawk anthem territory instead.
The title track shimmies and sways between start/stop verses and a slick shredder-filled chorus with Guitarists Mark “Sparky” Bressette and Frank Stefanik rippin’ it up as Pettit delivers some of his signature melodic growls while “Restrict Life” is a robust round of Heavy brilliance that leans into the quirky and eerie at times. “Bad Thoughts” is a barely two minute Punky plow through of carefully curated noise that’s got melody, malaise and movement followed by “Dust Storm” which is nuanced, dense and a little bit similar to Pettit’s work in Alexisonfire (Think Crisis era especially).
“Temper Boy” is anthemic aural madness and a song that’d be a go-to for fans trying to describe what Dead Tired sound like to the uninitiated, “I See” is rhythm section/low end-driven before those Stefanik/Bressette riffs jackhammer home the Heavy that then goes into these Math Metal/Prog runs and “Promontory” is built on grooves and a glorious wall of sound with Pettit sounding absolutely ferocious when left to draw out his performance. “Standing Against The Pitch” has some twang to it until it doesn’t because when the crushing riffs come to town alongside McKibbon and Ball’s Rhythm Section, the song becomes something completely different and then “The Pull” is epic in comparison to the rest of the songs on Hornets…, outlasting the longest on here by only a few seconds but coming in strong with a beefy/hefty ditty that takes that aforementioned Prog and fuses it with DT’s raw Hardcore power.
Hornets of Fall arrives through New Damage Records on August 14th and you can find your copy by heading here or to the stream below. For more from Dead Tired, hit up the interwebs and the DT socials located by clicking here or here.