Heathcliff from Munich Germany have put a true modern skatepunk gem with #chilloutradio. Take heavy metal double bass drumming and combine it with melodic tech punk and you get the sound of Heathcliff.
The record starts with their single Kim Nuke’em vs. Twitter, which is about Donald Fuckface Trump and Kim Fuckface Jong-un and their fight about who is the bigger idiot.
Two stubborn little boys in a sandbox raging on and on
About who’s got the best toys
Playing war with plastic soldiers in their hands
Destroying others’ castles made of sand
Song number 2 is named Who told you to grow up and the title says it all about what to expect in the next 4 minutes. Maybe a song that has all the styles Heathcliff are playing combined in one song and to be honest I can’t stop listening to the chorus since I first heard the record.
You should have listened to Peter Pan long ago
And now you turned into Captain Hook
When you wake up at night and feel this emptiness inside
This void that eats you alive
Speaking of the lyrics I am a big lyric junkie and I really love it when these new tech skatepunk bands, that come up a lot these days, also have great lyrics. Heathcliff are definitely one of those bands and I instantly wanted to read their lyrics. For example if you take song number 4 George W. Redneck, a love letter to George W. Fuckface Bush, Heathcliff sing:
A random cowboy in the land of the free
That’s what you were supposed to be
Drinkin‘ whiskey ridin‘ bulls hangin‘ out with other fools.
But something terribly went wrong your father was too mighty and too strong
And with help, corruption and cheats you’ve become what we don’t need.
Your politics consist of oil deploying troops on foreign soil,
Destroying nature Mr. Clean just to keep the American dream!
1933 is a song about the present situation in Germany, but also in Europe where lots of far right wing movements are coming up and getting bigger and bigger. So in Germany it’s not too far away from 1933 the year Hitler took over as chancellor in Germany, as Heathcliff sing in that song.
The epic 5 minutes song Conjuring with it’s really fast and hard middle parts that sometimes remind me on early Killswitch engage stuff (to be honest I have not that much knowledge of metal these days haha) ending in a reaggish slow part.
At the end they’ve put the song Guacamole which features vocals from Bart from Straightline another Munich based skatepunk band.
All in all I have to say it’s maybe one of my two or three favourite tech skatepunk releases of 2019 so far. If you are into fast, melodic, metalish skatepunk with great political lyrics you have to listen to that record on constant repeat.
– written by Martin
Next gigs in Austria:
21.10. Vienna at Kramladen
11.1. Innsbruck at Jellyfish
Stream the record here:
