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The Weekly Riff: August 21st-27th, 2021

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Welcome to The Weekly Riff, where every Friday arvo, BLUNT looks back at a handful of the sickest and spiciest happenings from the week that was! 


THE ‘SPIDER-MAN: NO WAY HOME’ TRAILER HAS LANDED

The MCU has officially become the MCM, with the multiverse tapped into gently in WandaVision cracked open in Loki, and now swung wide, wide open in Spider-Man: Far From Home. The third instalment of Jon Watts’ superior Spidey series thwips into theatres on December 16th, and if the rumours prove true (and they’re likely to, given how many were outwardly confirmed in this trailer), it’ll see a legion of previous foes return, and more pissed off than ever, ready to wreak havoc on an already stressed-out Peter Parker. 

BLUNT’s Mike Hohnen dove a little deeper into what fans can expect from this year’s fourth Marvel flick in a dedicated piece, so go check that out as well.

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DAINE AND OLI SYKES LINK UP FOR A SALTY NEW SCORCHER

Bring Me The Horizon’s enigmatic frontman has been on somewhat of a collaborative hot streak lately (see: his recent tracks with Olivia O’Brien, Lotus Eater and Yungblud), and the latest pairing-up between himself and someone we’d never expect – Melbourne alt-pop artist daine – is another undoubtable smash-hit. ‘Salt’ is prickly, brooding and emotive, and should work wonders in catapulting daine from Melbourne into the stratosphere. The track only dropped earlier today, but we can’t see it leaving our daily rotation any time soon.

KEEP READING: Bring Me The Horizon: Firing on all cylinders
KEEP READING: Bring Me The Horizon: Envisioning a hectic future

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LIMP BIZKIT ARE GOING TO START “LEAKING” NEW MUSIC

Though some might argue that Limp Bizkit have far overstayed their welcome in the music world, the nu-metal titans plan to keep rollin’, rollin’, rollin’ on into the future. The long-awaited follow-up to 2011’s Gold Cobra is right around the corner, the band confirmed in an Instagram Story earlier this week, lining out their plans to “leak” a few new tracks before dropping the whole shebang on us. They wrote: “New songs will begin to leak, one after the other in rapid succession, very soon. Soon thereafter our new album will be released.”

The news comes after Limp Bizkit premiered a new track called ‘Dad Vibes’ (named, presumably, after frontman Fred Durst’s dapper new look) at Lollapalooza last month.

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THE NEVERMIND BABY IS SUING NIRVANA 

This shit is truly wild. In case you’ve spent the past few days under a rock, Spencer Elden – the baby on the cover of Nirvana’s seminal 1991 album, Nevermind – is suing the band for “commercial child sexual exploitation… from while he was a minor to the present day”. In an alternate reality, we might believe Elden was genuinely traumatised by his non-consensual nude appearance on a multi-Platinum classic. But alas, we’re not in that reality – we’re in the one in which Elden has spent his entire adult life milking his stature as ‘the Nevermind baby’ – the only thing anyone outside his inner circle knows him for. 

He’s recreated the album cover multiple times in his adulthood (in the process even making sleazy jokes about how he wanted to do so nude), has a giant tattoo reading “NEVERMIND” sprawled across his torso, has granted several interviews in which he had nothing but positive things to say about being the Nevermind baby, and once held an art show to which he invited the band’s surviving members (then had a sook when they didn’t show).

The exploitation of children is no joke, but Elden certainly is. 

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LOCAL BAND OF THE WEEK

Brisbane indie-rockers Cheap Date dropped their second track, ‘Woman To You’, a little over a week ago – and we simply cannot get enough of it. Thematically deep and musically dynamic, it truly is a jaw-dropping sliver of incalculable talent. The band cite Hatchie, Ruby Fields and Thelma Plum as influences, which sounds about right: ‘Woman To You’ feels like all the best parts of all three artists’ musicalities, siphoned and spun through a prism of Cheap Date’s own idiosyncratic flair. It’s heady and heavy-hitting, very poignant, and something we can’t wait to see live when the touring circuit revs back up.

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NEW SONG OF THE WEEK

An anti-capitalist anthem for the ages, Totally Unicorn have stuck gold – ironic, we know – with their belting new track ‘Trust Fund Glee’. If you’ve ever been slighted by a daddy’s-boy prick in a freshly pressed suit, shit-eating smirk plastered on his face as he gleefully fucked you over, then this jam is for you. And just at face value, too, ‘Trust Fund Glee’ is easily one of the top five best tracks Totally Unicorn have released to date. Get mad, get sad, get pissed off at your dad – however you get, just get amongst it.

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ALBUM/EP OF THE WEEK

Today has been nothing short of insane for great new releases – we got the best material Halsey’s committed to tape thus far (If I Can’t Have Love, I Want Power), the long-awaited new party-stater by The Bronx (take a wild guess what that one’s called), a powerful new set of synthpop anthems from Chvrches (Screen Violence), the breathtaking debut by alt-pop upstart Gretta Ray (Begin To Look Around), and surprise EPs from the one and only Gorillaz (Meanwhile) and DMA’s (I Love You Unconditionally, Sure Am Going To Miss You). 

We’re supposed to be getting the new Kanye record tonight as well, but we were also supposed to get it last week, and the week before that, and the week before that… As far as we’re concerned, it’s never actually going to be released.

It’s okay though, because there is so much else for us to dig our hungry little teeth into on this fine Friday afternoon. Which brings us to our top pick – the record that, in this writer’s own opinion, is almost certain to wind up as our album of the year: the equally kaleidoscopic and cataclysmic new album from the Baltimore-based hardcore legends in Turnstile. Glow On is a transcendental journey that one must experience – with the volume cranked high and all potential distractions tuned out – to believe. It’s definitive proof that come ten years from now, we’ll be looking at Turnstile as the band that changed punk music forever.