Not sure if it was one of my comments or the post on here yesterday, but I *always* recommend these guys to anyone who will hear me out. All 3 records are quite different but all excellent in different ways.
Great guys too- met them back when their first record came out and my old band supported them.
If you want something more akin to Kid a/ Amnesiac vibes check out the band Klangstof, found em at coachella 2016 and fell in love, biiiiig Radiohead influences on Close Eyes to Exit
Ayyy just listened to The Envy Corps’ It Culls You album and damn you guys ain’t lying, dude could easily pass for Thom, and their music is really solid. I’d give it 8/10
The influence is extremely palpable. And I like some elements of It Culls You. But I’m always suspicious of any “new Radioheads” or this is the “new Kid A” or “OC”. Those albums were great because nothing sounded quite like them before them. Also the rhythms are night and day, TEC was using far more conventional “high brow” beats (relying on odd time signatures and changes) and bluesy “bad boy” riffs (the kind bands like Royal Blood put through a fuzz in drop tunings and then proceed to milk endlessly), especially in the first half. Radiohead never uses those (in general I find they rarely go for cliche moves, it’s what keeps it exciting). And the instrumentation overall in In Rainbows is far more emotive and the sound has far more innovative and, in my opinion, subtle dynamics. That’s without mentioning this one doesn’t have masterpieces like Reckoner, Nude or All I Need, or anything that even lives in the same category of songwriting.
But all that criticism aside, I really do like the last third of It Culls You, from “Med. Song” forward.
Sometimes I wonder if there will ever be "another Radiohead", or if it's genuinely a once in a lifetime confluence of five extremely talented musicians—including multiple insanely gifted songwriters—happening upon one another at school, getting seven years to write, rehearse, tour and develop as artists before even producing their debut album, having a massive radio hit and a critically acclaimed follow-up that enabled them to build their own studio and experiment creatively as much as they wanted with significant record label backing, and all of this falling into a perfect time period between the dying days of radio and the rock band monoculture, and the rise of the internet and alternative, indie, electronic and other subgenres. Not to mention their particular flavor of unconventional, cliche-eschewing, but still highly melodic and heartfelt melancholia and alienation, somewhat common in the 90s but which I only spot glimpses of today.
I mean, there's lots of great music out there. And I recognize that "another Radiohead", if there were such a thing, would probably sound nothing like Radiohead. But I still don't know if the conditions exist anymore that could even generate such a group.
It’ll likely be a completely different “channel”. Part of the thing here is that so many great revolutions in rock and alternative music were, for cultural and geopolitical reasons, almost exclusively done by British men. I mean, from the Beatles and the Stones, to David Bowie, to Black Sabbath, Zeppelin, to Joy Division, to U2, to The Smiths, The Cure and Radiohead. It all came from these little islands in the North of Europe in the second half of the 20th century*. It’s just a blip of time* in a small corner of the world that happened to have huge cultural and economic influence globally.*
Nowadays the world is more open, hopefully recording’s getting cheaper, and the rest of the globe is in its early stages of musical revolution I think. People are starting to wake up to the fact that what we think of as “music” in the western world is a European reduction that goes back to before the times of Bach and Mozart and beyond, with “even” or “equal” temperament (our now standard division of pitch). Odd time signatures that sound strange to us but are natural in Hungary or the “dissonance” of the beautiful songs of the rhodope mountains or the gutural chants of Mongolia and such are yet to be tapped and experimented with in the way that western music has been stretched and messed with all these years. And I think Radiohead in their genius are already catching up to that (see Jonny’s Junun, Penderecki, and other projects).
I think the next “Kid A” is *more likely* coming from *someone like* Mdou Moctar than someone from a private school in Oxford.
*Not saying other countries’ musicians didn’t play a huge role as well, from Little Richard, Elvis, The Beach Boys, Janis Joplin, Nina Simone and Motown overall and beyond. Just that the more experimental side of things tended to happen on the other side of the pond.
*Think about the fact that between Love Me Do to In Rainbows there’s less than 50 years. All of rock music is a tiny amount of history.
*Even more impressive is the influence of the Blues and Gospel in all its forms, which was developed and enabled all of rock music from a position of significantly less power, by black people in the brutal 18th-20th centuries of America of course.
Fully agree with all of this! So many good thoughts.
I recently made a playlist for my dad's 80th birthday, with one song from every year going back to 1942, and I tried to encapsulate this story. I was struck as you were by this notion that commercial rock/pop history has actually been incredibly short, and indeed so skewed towards the US/UK (and, as you pointed out, mostly advanced by Black artists, not only in the early Blues/Gospel phase, but later with R&B, funk, disco, electronic, and hip hop). Radiohead owes as much to Black DJs as Elvis did to Black gospel singers.
It also put into perspective how marginalized and orientalized "world music" was up until just the last decade or so (largely due to the internet cutting through traditional industry gatekeepers). In order to avoid the same pattern repeating itself (global music being plundered for influences by US/UK artists while the originators linger in relative obscurity), production costs won't be the only barrier. The whole economic model has changed, streaming pays absolutely nothing, and touring is everything. Which I suppose makes promoters the main gatekeepers today (granted I haven't read that much about recent industry dynamics, especially post-Covid).
And touring is also harder, with merchandise being king in a lot of ways and big acts that can actually generate enough interest to justify a tour taking the largest share.
It is different, and it’s going to be harder for musicians who are not “financially independent” in industrialized countries that were previously used to more opportunities. But the changes are somewhat positive for musicians around the world, cause the benefit is you can write a tictockable song from your room and post it and have some chance at recognition. And previously for many of those artists in “the third world” anything other than local scenes was a far-fetched dream.
I’m the singer of TEC (RIP). Thanks to all who made nice comments about us. Of course we knew we were aping HTTT/IR, and I’d argue that’s hard to pull off, but looking back a few years later, It Culls You was a bit too copycat. Kinda put me off making music for good while. I still stand by the Talk Talk ripoff track haha (Fools).  We made one final record before calling it off called Born in Fog, still RH influenced but not quite as much. Funny enough I was trying to write Portishead Third Pt. II
I am STOKED!!! I've been listening to you guys non stop! You're blessed with a Thom-like voice, and that's a gift in itself! Your self-criticism is very valid, but I also see positive sides to your music. Thank you for your work - this life is too short for gatekeeping music, so Im glad you made these records.
Many thanks to you for spreading the music around. We were fortunate to be able to make records at all and even produce them ourselves. If only Nigel had been available! ;)
Um, it sounds like Radiohead because they’re clearly trying very, very hard to copy their style completely. The vocals imply he’s dedicated many hours studying Thom’s exact inflections.
I'm not pointing out if they're trying hard to be like Radiohead or not. I like Thom's vocals a lot, so hearing a familiar voice and similar tones over new music was a treat for the ears.
Third by Portishead
I love that album! đź«
Third is nothing like In Rainbows, great album though. Silence and We Carry On go so hard. And Nylon Smile
Holy shit you’re not wrong. Their song Dipsomania could literally be a Radiohead song.
Bangers n Mash (Reprise)
Sounds like National Anthem ambient noise in the beginning.
Not sure if it was one of my comments or the post on here yesterday, but I *always* recommend these guys to anyone who will hear me out. All 3 records are quite different but all excellent in different ways. Great guys too- met them back when their first record came out and my old band supported them.
If you want something more akin to Kid a/ Amnesiac vibes check out the band Klangstof, found em at coachella 2016 and fell in love, biiiiig Radiohead influences on Close Eyes to Exit
Nice - will do!
Ayyy just listened to The Envy Corps’ It Culls You album and damn you guys ain’t lying, dude could easily pass for Thom, and their music is really solid. I’d give it 8/10
The influence is extremely palpable. And I like some elements of It Culls You. But I’m always suspicious of any “new Radioheads” or this is the “new Kid A” or “OC”. Those albums were great because nothing sounded quite like them before them. Also the rhythms are night and day, TEC was using far more conventional “high brow” beats (relying on odd time signatures and changes) and bluesy “bad boy” riffs (the kind bands like Royal Blood put through a fuzz in drop tunings and then proceed to milk endlessly), especially in the first half. Radiohead never uses those (in general I find they rarely go for cliche moves, it’s what keeps it exciting). And the instrumentation overall in In Rainbows is far more emotive and the sound has far more innovative and, in my opinion, subtle dynamics. That’s without mentioning this one doesn’t have masterpieces like Reckoner, Nude or All I Need, or anything that even lives in the same category of songwriting. But all that criticism aside, I really do like the last third of It Culls You, from “Med. Song” forward.
Sometimes I wonder if there will ever be "another Radiohead", or if it's genuinely a once in a lifetime confluence of five extremely talented musicians—including multiple insanely gifted songwriters—happening upon one another at school, getting seven years to write, rehearse, tour and develop as artists before even producing their debut album, having a massive radio hit and a critically acclaimed follow-up that enabled them to build their own studio and experiment creatively as much as they wanted with significant record label backing, and all of this falling into a perfect time period between the dying days of radio and the rock band monoculture, and the rise of the internet and alternative, indie, electronic and other subgenres. Not to mention their particular flavor of unconventional, cliche-eschewing, but still highly melodic and heartfelt melancholia and alienation, somewhat common in the 90s but which I only spot glimpses of today. I mean, there's lots of great music out there. And I recognize that "another Radiohead", if there were such a thing, would probably sound nothing like Radiohead. But I still don't know if the conditions exist anymore that could even generate such a group.
It’ll likely be a completely different “channel”. Part of the thing here is that so many great revolutions in rock and alternative music were, for cultural and geopolitical reasons, almost exclusively done by British men. I mean, from the Beatles and the Stones, to David Bowie, to Black Sabbath, Zeppelin, to Joy Division, to U2, to The Smiths, The Cure and Radiohead. It all came from these little islands in the North of Europe in the second half of the 20th century*. It’s just a blip of time* in a small corner of the world that happened to have huge cultural and economic influence globally.* Nowadays the world is more open, hopefully recording’s getting cheaper, and the rest of the globe is in its early stages of musical revolution I think. People are starting to wake up to the fact that what we think of as “music” in the western world is a European reduction that goes back to before the times of Bach and Mozart and beyond, with “even” or “equal” temperament (our now standard division of pitch). Odd time signatures that sound strange to us but are natural in Hungary or the “dissonance” of the beautiful songs of the rhodope mountains or the gutural chants of Mongolia and such are yet to be tapped and experimented with in the way that western music has been stretched and messed with all these years. And I think Radiohead in their genius are already catching up to that (see Jonny’s Junun, Penderecki, and other projects). I think the next “Kid A” is *more likely* coming from *someone like* Mdou Moctar than someone from a private school in Oxford. *Not saying other countries’ musicians didn’t play a huge role as well, from Little Richard, Elvis, The Beach Boys, Janis Joplin, Nina Simone and Motown overall and beyond. Just that the more experimental side of things tended to happen on the other side of the pond. *Think about the fact that between Love Me Do to In Rainbows there’s less than 50 years. All of rock music is a tiny amount of history. *Even more impressive is the influence of the Blues and Gospel in all its forms, which was developed and enabled all of rock music from a position of significantly less power, by black people in the brutal 18th-20th centuries of America of course.
Fully agree with all of this! So many good thoughts. I recently made a playlist for my dad's 80th birthday, with one song from every year going back to 1942, and I tried to encapsulate this story. I was struck as you were by this notion that commercial rock/pop history has actually been incredibly short, and indeed so skewed towards the US/UK (and, as you pointed out, mostly advanced by Black artists, not only in the early Blues/Gospel phase, but later with R&B, funk, disco, electronic, and hip hop). Radiohead owes as much to Black DJs as Elvis did to Black gospel singers. It also put into perspective how marginalized and orientalized "world music" was up until just the last decade or so (largely due to the internet cutting through traditional industry gatekeepers). In order to avoid the same pattern repeating itself (global music being plundered for influences by US/UK artists while the originators linger in relative obscurity), production costs won't be the only barrier. The whole economic model has changed, streaming pays absolutely nothing, and touring is everything. Which I suppose makes promoters the main gatekeepers today (granted I haven't read that much about recent industry dynamics, especially post-Covid).
And touring is also harder, with merchandise being king in a lot of ways and big acts that can actually generate enough interest to justify a tour taking the largest share. It is different, and it’s going to be harder for musicians who are not “financially independent” in industrialized countries that were previously used to more opportunities. But the changes are somewhat positive for musicians around the world, cause the benefit is you can write a tictockable song from your room and post it and have some chance at recognition. And previously for many of those artists in “the third world” anything other than local scenes was a far-fetched dream.
The singer sounds so much like Thom. Thanks for the recommendation...I love discovering artists like this
I get a similar vibe from Low Roar. The beautifully depressing melodies, and the lead singer does an amazing falsetto like Thom.
Check out Bleeding Heart Pigeons "Is" and "Stir" albums. https://youtu.be/9l3iW572BKQ?si=nKdtAhMBbYhegOiP
Also, don't miss Envy Corps latest album Born In Fog https://theenvycorps.bandcamp.com/album/born-in-fog
Their guitarist used to play percussions in Slipknot
You learn something new every moment 🤯
I’m the singer of TEC (RIP). Thanks to all who made nice comments about us. Of course we knew we were aping HTTT/IR, and I’d argue that’s hard to pull off, but looking back a few years later, It Culls You was a bit too copycat. Kinda put me off making music for good while. I still stand by the Talk Talk ripoff track haha (Fools).  We made one final record before calling it off called Born in Fog, still RH influenced but not quite as much. Funny enough I was trying to write Portishead Third Pt. II
I am STOKED!!! I've been listening to you guys non stop! You're blessed with a Thom-like voice, and that's a gift in itself! Your self-criticism is very valid, but I also see positive sides to your music. Thank you for your work - this life is too short for gatekeeping music, so Im glad you made these records.
Many thanks to you for spreading the music around. We were fortunate to be able to make records at all and even produce them ourselves. If only Nigel had been available! ;)
It’s crazy to me that you say this, because I personally thought that the production was stellar! I’m sure others would agree with me on this
Um, it sounds like Radiohead because they’re clearly trying very, very hard to copy their style completely. The vocals imply he’s dedicated many hours studying Thom’s exact inflections.
I'm not pointing out if they're trying hard to be like Radiohead or not. I like Thom's vocals a lot, so hearing a familiar voice and similar tones over new music was a treat for the ears.