{"id":117412,"date":"2023-04-21T09:40:02","date_gmt":"2023-04-21T14:40:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/toiletovhell.com\/?p=117412"},"modified":"2023-04-21T09:38:11","modified_gmt":"2023-04-21T14:38:11","slug":"album-premiere-these-beasts-cares-wills-wants","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/toiletovhell.com\/album-premiere-these-beasts-cares-wills-wants\/","title":{"rendered":"Album Premiere: <b>These Beasts<\/b> &#8211; <em>Cares, Wills, Wants<\/em>"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"fb-root\"><\/div>\n<p>A dedication to the illustrious dead as well as the illustrious living.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Is there anything sadder than a puppy wearing a Plague Doctor mask? And not even a menacing version at that? On the cover of <em>Cares, Wills, Wants<\/em>, the debut LP from Chicago trio These Beasts, the plague mask has its own hangdog look as the dog wearing it hangs its head. The patch of greyish blue under the black eyehole damn near looks like tears. <em>Cares, Wills, Wants<\/em> is an album conceived of and created in Pandemic conditions with a ghostly, locked-down Chicago providing the bedrock upon which its brand of groovy, rhythmic, and powerful sludge <em>cum <\/em>noise-rock is built. And yet, it\u2019s not just the Pandemic or empty cities or our various looming dooms that provides the most apt throughline on <em>Cares, Wills, Wants<\/em>; it\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/poorlydrawnlines.com\/comic\/treasure\/\">friendship<\/a>. At heart, These Beasts want you to know that, perhaps the best we can do, is survive all this with best friends in tow&#8230; even if our best friends have to adorn sad, special facewear.<\/p>\n<p>These Beasts first arrived on the scene with 2016\u2019s <em>Salvor <\/em>EP, a drunken and swaggering affair chock full of gruff vocals, chunky grunge riffs, and a propulsive rhythm section. Aside from the quick and dirty \u201cBlack Friday,\u201d the rest of songs on <em>Salvor<\/em> take their time, as These Beasts prefer beating you over the head with a certain riff or a certain affect rather than letting you breathe for a second. Fans of Chicago\u2019s <strong>Jesus Lizard <\/strong>or Atlanta\u2019s <strong>Whores. <\/strong>will find plenty of grist for their bizarro mills on <em>Salvor<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><iframe style=\"border: 0; width: 420px; height: 120px;\" src=\"https:\/\/bandcamp.com\/EmbeddedPlayer\/album=735900793\/size=large\/bgcol=ffffff\/linkcol=0687f5\/tracklist=false\/artwork=small\/transparent=true\/\" seamless=\"\"><span data-mce-type=\"bookmark\" style=\"display: inline-block; width: 0px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 0;\" class=\"mce_SELRES_start\">\ufeff<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/thesebeasts.bandcamp.com\/album\/salvor\">Salvor by These Beasts<\/a><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Much the same can be said for the band\u2019s 2019 self-titled EP. The formula hasn\u2019t much changed, though the riffs are markedly heavier and the song-lengths have been trimmed a bit. Want another reference? Imagine <strong>Kowloon Walled City<\/strong>\u2019s <em>Container Ships <\/em>(2012) with slightly more off-kilter vocals. The dual wails of Chris Roo (guitar) and Todd Fabian (bass) find plenty of melody \u00e0 la a traditional stoner rock band but perhaps as plaintive as Scott Evans\u2019 almost emocore croon. Just let \u201cEnd of the Whip\u201d and \u201cLuke Warm at Best\u201d iron out any wrinkles in that wet brain of yours. I\u2019m sure there won\u2019t be any lasting damage.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><iframe style=\"border: 0; width: 420px; height: 120px;\" src=\"https:\/\/bandcamp.com\/EmbeddedPlayer\/album=904845262\/size=large\/bgcol=ffffff\/linkcol=0687f5\/tracklist=false\/artwork=small\/transparent=true\/\" seamless=\"\"><span data-mce-type=\"bookmark\" style=\"display: inline-block; width: 0px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 0;\" class=\"mce_SELRES_start\">\ufeff<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/thesebeasts.bandcamp.com\/album\/these-beasts-3\">These Beasts by These Beasts<\/a><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Both the band&#8217;s EPs set the table as <em>amuse bouche <\/em>for <em>Cares, Wills, Wants<\/em>, a record more expansive in scope yet grounded as ever in the band\u2019s ability to bridge different noise-rock eras. You\u2019ll get plenty of <strong>Unsane<\/strong>\u2019s relentless thundering but we\u2019re also wading deep into the waters of <strong>Big Business<\/strong> and, by way of the associative property, <strong>The Melvins<\/strong>. <em>Cares, Wills, Wants<\/em> is a more mature record, a wonderful sign that These Beasts is taking their time to craft songs that aren\u2019t just meant to hammer you into the ground before they knock your block off and send it flying 300 yards down the fairway. I mean, they will still do that, but there\u2019s a level of care here that makes this full-length quite striking.<\/p>\n<p>Look no further than album opener \u201cCode Name\u201d for such qualities. Everything weaves together so effortlessly in \u201cCode Names,\u201d as Roo and Fabian are melding their different vocal stylings in a way that is more complementary than on previous efforts. Keith Anderson\u2019s ever-steady skin-slapping is in full effect throughout <em>Cares, Wills, Wants<\/em>, and it\u2019s his steady hands that really allow for Roo and Fabian to explore their own instruments more deftly and let fly looser and groovier riffing. I\u2019d even call the whole affair downright catchy if you were into that kinda thing.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><iframe style=\"border: 0; width: 420px; height: 120px;\" src=\"https:\/\/bandcamp.com\/EmbeddedPlayer\/album=4238406419\/size=large\/bgcol=ffffff\/linkcol=0687f5\/tracklist=false\/artwork=small\/track=448529683\/transparent=true\/\" seamless=\"\"><span data-mce-type=\"bookmark\" style=\"display: inline-block; width: 0px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 0;\" class=\"mce_SELRES_start\">\ufeff<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/thesebeasts.bandcamp.com\/album\/cares-wills-wants\">Cares, Wills, Wants by These Beasts<\/a><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>There\u2019s also the surprisingly tasteful \u201cBlind Eyes\u201d that shines out of the album\u2019s middle. Invoking noted influence <strong>Rosetta<\/strong>\u2019s classic <em>Wake\/Lift <\/em>(2006), \u201cBlind Eyes\u201d creates space amidst the more claustrophobic noise-sludge of the rest of the album. To be sure, the track doesn\u2019t lack for heaviness, but there\u2019s an emotional maturity that reflects the band\u2019s songwriting maturity in exquisite fashion. There\u2019s a subtle yet ineffable difference between darkness and bleakness, and I think \u201cBlind Eyes\u201d finds that difference and sits with it, however difficult that might be.<\/p>\n<p>Other standouts include \u201cCocaine Footprints,\u201d \u201cNervous Fingers,\u201d and \u201cSouthpaw.\u201d You can tell how astutely These Beasts have been studying the Big Business playbook. \u201cCocaine Footprints\u201d feels like it would\u2019ve shined on a later BB effort such as <em>Command Your Weather<\/em>, while on \u201cSouthpaw\u201d rolling and roiling drums with scaling riffs that aren\u2019t afraid to pick up the pace suddenly and repeatedly slam into huge walls of sludgy murk.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><iframe style=\"border: 0; width: 420px; height: 120px;\" src=\"https:\/\/bandcamp.com\/EmbeddedPlayer\/album=4238406419\/size=large\/bgcol=ffffff\/linkcol=0687f5\/tracklist=false\/artwork=small\/track=4175876217\/transparent=true\/\" seamless=\"\"><span data-mce-type=\"bookmark\" style=\"display: inline-block; width: 0px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 0;\" class=\"mce_SELRES_start\">\ufeff<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/thesebeasts.bandcamp.com\/album\/cares-wills-wants\">Cares, Wills, Wants by These Beasts<\/a><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><em>Cares, Wills, Wants<\/em> ends on the lengthy \u201cTrap Door,\u201d a 7+ minute epic that encapsulates everything These Beasts aim to accomplish on the album. News reports are interjected into a track that barely lets up for its entire run time, providing real-time context for an album borne out of a world historical event that has left us all changed and still changing in unpredictable ways. If you can find time to think at any point during \u201cTrap Door,\u201d which I believe the band wants you to do, you\u2019ll surely start thinking about what you care about, what you have been willed to do, what you want or do not want in your life. You\u2019ll think about how the Plague impacts all that we care for, all that we are willing to consider and re-consider, all that we want to do with our limited time.<\/p>\n<p><em>Cares, Wills, Wants<\/em> seems to say, in its earnest presentation of what friendship and camaraderie can mean in such uncertain and horrid times, that we cannot quite know how it will all end even though so much is ending all around us. \u201cHear you not the rushing sound of the coming tempest,\u201d asks Verney in Mary Shelley\u2019s 1826 plague novel <em>The Last Man<\/em>, \u201cDo you not behold the clouds open, and destruction lurid and dire pour down on the blasted earth? See you not the thunderbolt fall, and are deafened by the shout of heaven that follows its descent? Feel you not the earth quake and open with agonizing groans, while the air is pregnant with shrieks and wailings,\u2014all announcing the last days of man?\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/lareviewofbooks.org\/article\/the-enormity-of-it-all-on-stephen-markleys-the-deluge\/\">200 years later<\/a>, we can certainly feel the effects of an ever-increasing amount of powerful and unpredictable storms, the quaking and burning earth of a melting planet, the shrieks and wails of the dispossessed, the hunted, the trodden, the targeted. Yet, in the future of <em>The Last Man<\/em>, this is not the case: \u201cNo!\u201d responds Verney to his own rhetorical question, \u201cnone of these things accompanied our fall!\u201d But that\u2019s just it\u2014there is no predicting what will accompany our fall, particularly if it comes by way of plague and we simply dwindle and dwindle as a species until there is, cruelly and ironically, only one scribe left to write the story for nobody to read.<\/p>\n<p>Before being left all alone, Verney clings to those loved ones still left to him. Verney\u2019s best friend Adrian and niece Clara have drowned. Life, at the end, was sweet with them, though. \u201cWere we not happy in this paradisical retreat?\u201d Verney wonders, just before the last of his worldly loves will vanish. It is the type of question, one imagines, that was on the minds of the three friends comprising These Beasts as they wrote, played, and recorded together during COVID. A foolish spirit of hope and love, as relentless as the band\u2019s pummeling sound, girds one up to face come what may on <em>Cares, Wills, Wants<\/em>, even if whatever comes doesn\u2019t care about what you want and will do whatever it pleases with us. When we go extinct, let\u2019s go together.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-117450 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/toiletovhell.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/beasts.jpg?resize=709%2C489&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" width=\"709\" height=\"489\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/toiletovhell.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/beasts.jpg?resize=1024%2C706&amp;ssl=1 1024w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/toiletovhell.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/beasts.jpg?resize=300%2C207&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/toiletovhell.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/beasts.jpg?resize=768%2C529&amp;ssl=1 768w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/toiletovhell.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/beasts.jpg?resize=360%2C248&amp;ssl=1 360w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/toiletovhell.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/beasts.jpg?resize=400%2C276&amp;ssl=1 400w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/toiletovhell.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/beasts.jpg?w=1200&amp;ssl=1 1200w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 709px) 100vw, 709px\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<h3 style=\"text-align: center;\"><em>Cares, Wills, Wants\u00a0<\/em>is out today,<br \/>\nApril 21, on <a href=\"https:\/\/thesebeasts.bandcamp.com\/album\/cares-wills-wants\"><strong>Magnetic Eye Records<\/strong><\/a>!<br \/>\nYou can snag it on <span style=\"color: #339966;\">green vinyl<\/span>, <span style=\"color: #ff99cc;\">pink marble vinyl<\/span>,<br \/>\non CD, or digitally.<br \/>\nSupport cool bands and support each other.<br \/>\nListen to cool music and listen to your loved ones.<br \/>\nCare about them and want them to live willful lives.<\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A dedication to the illustrious dead as well as the illustrious living.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":110,"featured_media":117414,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"IGoM presents the full album premiere of the latest from These Beasts!","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[12,39,5625,70],"tags":[2817,3730,9700,1581,683,17517],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/toiletovhell.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/These_Beasts_banner_FB-e1681858106406.png?fit=750%2C329&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/toiletovhell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117412"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/toiletovhell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/toiletovhell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toiletovhell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/110"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toiletovhell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=117412"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/toiletovhell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117412\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":117451,"href":"https:\/\/toiletovhell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117412\/revisions\/117451"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toiletovhell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/117414"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/toiletovhell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=117412"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toiletovhell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=117412"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toiletovhell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=117412"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}