I love loud violent music. Screamo, metalcore, the works. Believe it or not it really helps me focus and calm down. Something about the violent tragic shouting just helps my brain shut the hell up. It’s also nice if you have a lot of repressed rage…I would imagine…
It can be hard to find good solid loud, screamy, emotional, exciting music that scratches that angry itch, which is why I’m pleased to present to you: drive your plow over the bones of the dead.
Drive your plow is a DIY screamo band based in Vancouver. I found them roaming around Bandcamp as I often am, where their latest release ‘tragedy as catharsis’ was waiting for me.
The album art is what drew me in, it’s killer. Listening to this kind of music brings me right back to being a teenager stuck in a small rural town hating my life. This farm-type eerie scene really sets the stage for what’s to come.
First thing I noticed during my first listen through was there’s no down time on this record, which is awesome. You get a little break on ‘malediction’ (wicked track by the way) but it’s not down time in the sense that it’s filler you’re waiting to end, it’s a breather. Time to think after getting hit over and over agin with these powerful tracks that transition into each other seamlessly.
I listened to this album back to back three times. I just couldn’t get enough! It’s relatively short too, which is nice. You’re left wanting more, trying to absorb as much of it as you can while it’s in your life. It was very difficult to pick only a couple tracks to tell you about but I did my best.
A favourite track of mine is lucky number 13: ‘baleful solitude.’
SO powerful. The guitars being punctuated by the wailing gets me GOING! From there it just descends into wonderful chaos until the end where every sound involved is a constant and it peaks as the instruments start screaming too.
The main single off the album is ‘spirit incantation.’
This is also the opening track on the record, and for good reason. It starts out super fun and exciting, then it chills out a little in the middle and turns into a pained battle cry for what’s to come. Pretentious description, I know, but when you’re listening to such evocative music it can be hard not to bring it to such a place.
Before we wrap up here I’d love to mention track 6: spiteful enemy
It’s short and so very sweet. It makes me want to run around the forest. You’ll know what I mean when you listen.
This is an amazingly impressive first full length album. If you are at all drawn to screamo, metalcore, skramz, emo violence, or any other genre under the umbrella that keeps you out of the sun, you HAVE to check out drive your plow over the bones of the dead.
plow over the bones of the dead is playing a show at Grey Lab on December 6th, check their Instagram for details!
Where can you find drive your plow over the bones of the dead?
P.S. I used Spotify links to individual tracks but please consider supporting local artists on Bandcamp/buying physical copies straight from the source.