(written by Islander)
Year of the Coyote is a new name here at our site. They’re a DIY sludge-hardcore trio from Portland, Oregon. They descrbe their music in terms that piqued our interest: “Paying homage to an array of grimier hardcore and metal acts — think the suffocating feel of Coalesce, Cult Leader, or Torch Runner mixed with the open, sledgehammer ambiance of late-90s Isis — Year Of The Coyote churns out a mix of off-kilter grinding intensity and avalanche-like dissonance.”
The band released a three-song debut demo in late 2014, and then a first full-length named Siege in 2018. That was quite a while ago, and of course the world has become a very different place, but at last Year of the Coyote will be releasing a second full-length on April 23rd. Its name is Hell Wall, and today we’re premiering its first single, “Man Alive“.
This new song is a simultaneously gut-slugging and brain-scrambling experience. The brain-scrambling begins right away as the band start pealing away the upper layers of a listener’s sanity with a freakish amalgam of electronic pulsations (and maybe the roaring of a beast). When the gut-slugging starts, the nimble throbs of the bass and the swarming abrasion of the guitar continue frying the mind, aided by bloody raw howls of unhinged fury behind the mic.
The song’s grooves are viscerally potent — muscle-moving for sure — but the seething, skittering, and quick-cutting riffage, and those blast-furnace vocals, remain unsettling (and exhilarating). Nevertheless, and especially in moments when the guitar-assaults briefly settle down into a flowing boil, the interplay between bass and drums is terrific — kind of funky, kind of proggy, and wholly absorbing.
This is a dark-eyed and deadly musical beast, but one that’s a shapeshifter, and more intricate and instrumentally dazzling than you might expect. It also turns out to be unexpectedly catchy.
YEAR OF THE COYOTE is:
Matt Hagan – Guitar, Vocals
Jesse Schneider – Bass
Travis Wiser – Drums
Hell Wall was recorded by Mike Vera at Veratone in Portland, OR, and it was mastered by Brad Boatright at Audiosiege. The album’s cover art is the creation of Stephen Omark. For more info, check out the locations linked below.
We also want to mention that next month Year of the Coyote will do a short run of Pacific Northwest dates with Yellfire (Seattle) and Onsetter (Boise) in support of their album release. Here are the dates and locations:
4/24 @ Wyrdhut Portland, OR w/ Yellfire, Onsetter, Flails
4/25 @ Add A Ball Seattle, WA w/ Impulse Noise, Yellfire, and Onsetter
4/26 @ The Crypt Olympia, WA w/ Yellfire and Onsetter
PRE-ORDER:
https://yearofthecoyote.bandcamp.com/album/hell-wall
FOLLOW:
https://www.instagram.com/yearofthecoyote
https://www.facebook.com/yearofthecoyote/