Label: Season of Mist
Origin: United Kingdom x Sweden
Born of the dark rockers from Crippled Black Phoenix, a new demon rises from fiery ashes. Johnny the Boy razes the extreme scene with a bulldozer driven by contempt and hatred. Each track on their debut You stomps the ground flat leaving the listener gasping for air through the cracks.
The namesake for this group is made absolutely clear in the opening seconds of “Die Already.” “Johnny the Boy has done it again” – iconic lines muttered in the 1979 cult-classic Mad Max – punctuate the amplified feedback and build anticipation at the start of the record. Slow, melodic riffs float to the earth, before lead vocalist Belinda Kordic‘s shrieking black metal vocals dig through the dirt and rip the soul out of the listener. The pace of the onslaught is surprisingly controlled, and offers a refreshing take on an extreme style – a melodic-blackened-grind. This is the genre you didn’t think you needed.
Songs are lengthy, another revelation in a land dominated by brief, breakneck tracks. “Grime” bleeds effortlessly into its opening verse. Gojira-like stop-start notes blend into melodic riffages, and Belinda’s lubricated vocals thrust the song forward with ease. Lead guitarist Justin Greaves explores the edges of the album’s scorched landscape with a variety of continuous riffs – a true headbanger’s delight. A keen fan of extreme metal will note that his resume, including stops with Norwegian black metallers Borknagar and before that, English sludge-crust group Iron Monkey, has allowed him certain creative freedoms and flexibility with song building that absolutely mushroom-clouds here. Bassist Matt Crawford brews a down-tuned toxin in the beginning of “He Moves” that would make Black Sabbath die young, a doom-triggering potion that preludes the atomic force of the majority of the track.
“Crossings” opens like a Satanic church service with a muffled bell tolling out death and destruction, before an almost western-metal (think Wayfarer) riff opens the sonic passageways to the altar of doom. Cascading drums tumble down the musical score in preparation for the oncoming storm, and Belinda’s shrieks wallow in sludge-infested guitar and bass. “Druh” and “Wired,” both clocking in below three minutes, are the shortest and most aggressive tracks on the entirety of You.
Without You (34:03 - 41:16) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnNHKoPfH7M
Standout track “Without You” is shocking – in the best way possible. This otherwise grimey ballad features the album’s only apparent clean vocals, sounding like a lonely, old witch in her rocking chair telling stories of the departed. Melody creeps in midway through the track, as the vocals become distorted and heavy, and the signature Johnny the Boy sound is back. After another brief pause, a screaming solo rides the wind on the last couple minutes of the record, the entire song a sonic treat – very much Johnny the Boy‘s answer to Watain‘s “They Rode On” or Lamb of God‘s “Overlord.”
Johnny the Boy is a refreshing, thoughtful new band that challenges the current extreme metal environment. Debut album You is a wild ride, provoking terror and introspection in each track, and concluding with one of the most versatile and spellbinding metal tracks of the year.
For a more personal journey with Johnny the Boy, read our interview with them here!
FFO: Full of Hell, Wayfarer, Ante-Inferno, Mad Max and Conan the Barbarian