Antihero

Fire-Toolz

July 20, 2020

Blackgaze / Electronic / Black Metal / Emo / Experimental Electronic / New Age

This is a lazy black metal cover of an Appleseed Cast song, from their 1998/first album, The End Of The Ring Wars. TEOTRW made a huge impact on me as a 15 year old. I remember discovering Deep Elm Records from a magazine ad I saw at Tower Records. I ordered the CD, along with Cross My Heart's self-titled EP, over the phone with my grandmother's credit card. It was always nice chatting with whoever was taking my orders because I didn't really know many people back then who were familiar with bands like these, back when 'emo' was an underground punk movement, and not a word thrown around to describe any song with a guitar. I'm sure the guy knew I was really young, but he treated me like I knew what I was talking about. And he never asked me if my grandmother was okay with me using her credit card. (She was.) TEOTRW is a dirty, nasty, noisy, dissonant, saccharine, out of tune, off-key, absolutely perfect and beautiful soup of gut-wrenching, heart-wrenching, ear-wrenching emo/post-hardcore. It's a fantastic record that will never be topped. 'Marigold & Patchwork' and 'On Sidewalks' alone are songs that could've been a 7" that defined the genre. But for some reason, AC's early stuff isn't as popular as some of the legendary Mineral and American Football releases that came out around the same time. I really don't understand why. Maybe it's because AC never broke up. Antihero isn't even my favorite song on the album (it's probably 'Stars' because it's really noisy and has a saxophone), nor is black metal my favorite kind of music. But I was working on a Fire-Toolz song called 'Odd Cat Sanctuary,' which has a section that is about the same tempo/key/feel of this cover, and I kept thinking of Antihero while I was working on it. So then one evening, as I was brushing my teeth, the idea for the song, and the artwork, immediately came together in my head. So I woke up the next morning and busted it out by 5pm. I could've done a little better, and been more creative with the transitions and extraneous BS like I usually do, but I didn't really have the time. LOL. Enjoy, & please support Appleseed Cast. They are an incredible band, very humble and creative people, and have been creating beautiful emo-tinged post-rock for over 20 years. For some reason these dorks don't have an official site anymore, and their Bandcamp only has like half of their discography posted, so if you do the Spotify thing, dive in here: open.spotify.com/artist/0MkAzpDHUZpuDnWGUII4RN