#bad powers

As much as I love Julie Christmas' solo work from her debut The Bad Wife to her exceptional collaboration with Cult of Luna on Mariner, it was a travesty when she left experimental post-metal band Made Out of Babies. Their visceral instrumentation clashed so beautifully with her fragile and often animalistic vocals belting out her vulnerable and cutting lyrics. The band didn't want to stop shredding so they didn't. Four years later the band resurrected themselves as Bad Powers with Megan Tweed on vocals is what appears to be her frontwoman debut. The album starts off with a bang in the form of New Bruises, though her voice comes off closer to Sleater-Kinney than Sludge in the beginning she delivers on the howl and growl to match the paranoid sound of the guitars. Her style is more subdued which fits the direction Bad Powers takes here, liberal use of after-effects and melodic repose is much more appropriate for the more technical and atmospheric direction. Admittedly though songs like Hit Sniffing Dog and Black Alf carry similar weight to their predecessor's blood-boiling tempos, the stronger points are when they branch out into new territory; it's a shame it doesn't happen enough. Millennium features the indominable Eugene S. Robinson for a chaotic duet, Tweed's wails circling around Robinson's lethargic delivery like so many buzzards. Chineseish stands out at a glance but the sun-bleached acoustic guitar pervading the loud as often as the soft moments while Tweed's wavering delivery follows a death march to the song's conclusion. Bigger Than We Are's penultimate position as yet another chugathon makes the release feel a bit stale at this point but the huge sound akin to Big Brave's early trot and stomp among strings on closer Bread and Butter makes the wait worth it, as Lisa Papineau (of Big Sir fame) makes an appearance for a triumphant duet with Papineau's ethereal, oscillating vox and—cemented with Bad Powers—a solid, underrated performance from Megan Tweed. I wish she'd do more because it bears repeating that this is her only appearance as a vocalist. (7/10)

"Low Estate (Members of Red Sparowes, Orchid, The Year Is One and Sannhet) – Covert Cult of Death (2017)" Click this link to download this release as mp3. , http://yoog.be/UgYWxr

Baby George III

Bad Powers - Hit Sniffing Dog

"Hit Sniffing Dog," is the first single off the NYC-based quartet Bad Powers, and like the band's name it emanates with a bad vibration that just feels uncomfortable and fucked up. It appears on the band's self-titeld debut effort which will see a September 18th release from The End Records.