For a while now,The Bride’s unwavering dedication and scary talent as been thwarted by the leagues upon leagues of similar acts totally saturating the scene and the market. Its rare that one of these bands produces a break through album though when they do, you can see the ears start to prick up almost in disbelief that there’s a band out there that actually stands out. My friends, rejoice for The Bride has done this with 2011’s President Rd.
Dropping their first release Synchronized Steps to the Sound of Their Guns back in 2006, The Bride has experience and survived line up changes as well as steering their sound down new paths. President Rd demonstrates the bands comfortably within itself and its sound.
Athazagoraphobia the first track introduces the album masterfully. Showing that The Bride understands the lost art of the gradual built up. See you can’t just instantly beat up your fans through their speakers, you have to lull them into a false sense of security the BAM, hit them hard and even take their wallets, this is followed by a perfect transition into ‘Condolences’ where The Bride takes off its mask reveals its brutal, relentless true identify.
Pardon the cliché but President Rd takes listeners on a roller coaster of a journey. You Hung Yourself kicks in suddenly with a classic hardcore beat bringing to mind old 50 Lions, only with a more modern feel. Though title track President Rd. has a more of a pop punk vibe, mixing things up with a wildly catchy hook and an anthem of gang chants.
Best track however in my opinion goes to Like Weezy with an almost Blink 182 riff in there, you’re struggle to not love this tune. Also featured on the album in probably one of the best collaborations you will ever hear is the unmistakable vocals of Tonight Alive singer Jenna Mcdougall, with an amazing good vs evil effect even bands like Bring Me The Horizon (with their track featuring Lights) failed to deliver.
The Bride diversifies their sound quiet often, making subtle shifts to the left and right of hardcore. Although they’ve played it relativity safe, the boys weren’t trying to reinvent the wheel, nor did they. Instead they created a reliable album which touches on technical, dishes out plenty of dirty brutal hardcore and also melodic, lighter intervals. President Rd. finishes as it begun, with great style. Sea is a awesome track to go out on and rather than fading out, builds up. suggesting a sequel perhaps? Fuck i hope so.
Having said all that, in my opinion, if President Rd was a movie, it would be Gladiator.
Check out The Bride’s opinion on things…
MF: Whats your name and what do you do in the band?
Anthony Caruso: My name is Anthony and I play drums.
MF: Tell us the tale of how it all began
AC: We have all been friends for years, pretty much grew up together. We all played in different bands when we were younger and always seemed to be hanging out at the same parties and shows – we couldn’t avoid each other if we tried! Having seen each other perform countless times and having the same views towards music, one day we decided to try something new. Our guitarist Matt and vocalist Kev asked Nelson and I to join The Bride and since then, there has been no looking back. We had some troubles with our original vocalist and it wasn’t really working out, we moved Kev from bass to vocals and struggled to find a replacement for a while until we were out one night having some drinks and got into talks with our current bassist Dre, who seemed to fit the spot perfectly and was keen to join! The Bride as it stands right now, is the strongest line up the band has had and we are so lucky and thankful that things worked out the way they have.
MF: So you’re first release was Synchronized Steps to the Sound of Their Guns, how have things changed between then and President Rd?
AC: Well the most obvious change is the line up but to be honest, we are a completely different band now to what we were then. Our music has changed as we have grown as musicians, which you can tell by listening to all of our releases. We have grown as people and now have a more mature outlook on music, the music scene and pretty much life in general. We are a lot more passionate now than we once were and that passion grows stronger and stronger everyday. Touring, playing shows and meeting new people has taught us a hell of a lot too, we wouldn’t be as strong minded as we are now if it wasn’t for a few years of slogging it out. There is definitely a lot more meaning behind our songs and the way we perform them now too.
MF: Can you give us a bit of a run down of President Rd?
AC: President Rd is an album that pushes the boundaries of a whole bunch of different genre’s of music that have huge influence on us. It is hard, fast and at times chaotic but really melodic at the same time. Lyrically, it is emotional and passionate. It was recently described in a review by Blunt Magazine as “A frenzied update on the tired metal-core blueprint, punked up dissonance (with) head-butting down-tuned mosh parts right in the kisser.” – I think that sums it up perfectly.
MF: What’s you’re favorite track?
AC: My favourite track is Sea – it was one of the more recent tracks we wrote before heading in to record and definitely shows that more ‘mature’ and ‘passionate’ side of our band that i mentioned earlier.
MF:You guys have a seriously loyal following at the moment, how did the new album go down with them?
AC: We do! We could not be more stoked with the way the album has been received by old fans and new fans. Our fan base seems to be constantly growing which makes it a lot easier to keep doing what we love doing. Since it has been out there for everyone to hear, we have been getting countless amounts of comments on all of our sites saying how great people think it is, which is incredibly humbling to know. We are really excited to keep playing shows now that the album is out, we can finally play some of the songs we have been so eager to play for months and hopefully people have learnt the words and sing along!
MF: Worst experience in the band so far?
AC: This is where I am meant to tell you that touring and being broke on the road is the worst thing ever, but to be honest that is probably one of the best parts! Obviously being broke isn’t great but it is something we have learnt to live with for now haha. The hardest part of being in a band is having to deal with the disappointments that unfortunately, sometimes come with it. When you are hoping and praying to be able to play a certain show or tour, or waiting on an email that could potentially change your whole life, it is a pretty shitty thing to experience when things don’t go as planned or as hoped. Especially when you have put everything you have into something you believe so strongly in. With out going into too much detail, there have been a few occasions where we would get approached by a big record label or management company who would talk the talk and get us unbelievably excited about our future only to turn around and say it’s not our time or even worse – never hear from them again. Luckily, recent times haven’t been filled with too much disappointment. We found a great label in UNFD and it has kind of proved to us that things happen for a reason.
MF: Whats next? Where can see see you and where can we find your stuff?
AC: Tours, tours, tours! We have huge plans for the rest of this year and 2012! We are currently in the middle of a tour with label mates, House Vs Hurricane which has been awesome and shortly after this finishes we hit the road again in December on the Soldiers of Immortality tour with Thy Art Is Murder, War From a Harlots Mouth (Germany) and Make Them Suffer. We have a few one off shows coming up before the year is out too, we play Loud Fest: Part 2 in Sydney on December 17th with Hopeless, 50 lions and heaps more as well as Hot Damn! in Sydney on New Years Eve with Dream On Dreamer, Sienna Skies and Northlane to end the year with a bang. You can check out our website or Facebook page for all dates and cool announcements coming up real soon! You can grab President Rd from any good record store throughout Australia, iTunes and the UNFD webstore which also has all of our merch up on there too!
