Max Raptor's debut mini-album Portraits is exactly that: micro-sketches of society, framing scraps of the world around them, painting with ambition, arrogance, anger, disillusion, greed, joy, futility, violence and pride. From alcohol abuse to domestic violence, from maddening jealousy to plain ineffectuality, ‘Portraits' illustrates humanity's divergent weaknesses. As explained by front man Will Ray; "Hysteria is a state of panic but it is also a word we use often to describe a state of joy. ‘Portraits' says that from the rich to the poor to the famous, we all have a capacity to hate and to do wrong, and if we cannot celebrate that unanimity in music...well...I hate you all."
Max Raptor, in their mid-20s, admit the nu-metal era was a gateway to the essential alternative listening they treasure today; including the classic punk of The Clash and The Buzzcocks, new-wave of The Jam, pop-edge of Manic Street Preachers, post-stadium riffage of The Foo Fighters, not to mention the raw extremities and energy of contemporaries such as Zico Chain, Cancer Bats and The Ghost Of A Thousand.
Portraits is rammed full of short, sharp and snappy portrayals of modern existence. The King Is Dead, Beasts, Carolina and The Alarm chronicle a plethora of dysfunctions with a colour of inevitability, whilst Obey The Whips underscores the decline of our ‘empire' with a wry nationalist cry. The unruly mob vocals of Patron Saint (Of Nothing) depict our embarrassing obsession with celebrity culture, the narcissism that it breeds in our youth and the decay it creates when we forget to live our real lives. The convulsive Ghosts is a sobering realisation that (surely) everyone has at least once in their life; ‘I am worthless', whilst the infectious anthemia of The Great And The Good reduces totalitarian rhetoric to a clichéd moshpit mantra.
credits
released November 4, 2011
JBee Willcox - guitar
Matt Stevenson - drums
Tom Garrett - bass
Wil Ray - vocals
Written, composed and arranged by Max Raptor
Produced by Dan Weller
Recorded and mixed by Dan Weller @ Fortress Studios, London
Assisted by Tim Morris
* Except The Great And The Good & Ghost, recorded by Sam Bell @ Brighton Electric Studios, Brighton.
Mastered by Dick Beetham @ 360 Mastering, London
Album Artwork by Paul Jackson, Tank Axe Love
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