To write a review on a new Today Is the Day album, will require preparation. You cannot dive in without knowing what could come your way! That is a danger your mind can do without. When you can spend the depths of the earth’s darkest holes explaining this band, localising it to a space is a task, but here I go.
Today Is The Day (TITD) have been an entity for near 30 years. It’s the juggernaut for uncompromising music by one Steve Austin. It has always had a rotating line up for every album recording, because it’s how the album feels to Steve Austin and the direction he wants to go. TITD comes under the murky moniker of ‘noise rock’ or ‘avant-garde’, which in respect can be just annoying hipster terms. TITD is not conventional. Which is why every album is a brace yourself! What are we going to have thrown at us?
With the likes of previous, more infamous releases in ‘Temple of the Morning Star’, ‘In the Eyes of God and ‘Sadness Will Prevail’ (17 year old Rich had lost evenings to that double album of nightmares) being walls of genius noise, where does ‘No Good to Anyone’ land? Well, it still has the heaviness. It still has the noise. But it comes with a sense of calm and possible middle age that even with anger, fury and emotion, sits experience and a firmer understanding of oneself. ‘Burn In Hell’, ‘You’re All Gonna Die’ and ‘Cocobolo’ hit familiar tropes that the band is known mostly for. But there is just a stream that connects everything together with this album. Favourite of the album in ‘Mercy’ and the haunting yet beautiful pair of ‘Born in Blood’ and ‘Callie’, this album is great, and it grates. It’ll make you enjoy feeling uncomfortable, marvel at the sheer weight of sound. TITD make albums you can feel, some more than others, and you’ll feel this one to the bone for some time.
Sometimes you need something different from your usual cycle of favourites and bands that sound-like. Today Is the Day could be that metal/noise/collapse you need to offer a new side to your regular listening, that could even by your side for some time to come.
Today Is The Day: No Good To Anyone – Out Now (BMG)
