Sounds Like: Visceral and menacing hardcore that packs a serious punch
For Fans Of: Cancer Bats, Stray From The Path, Every Time I Die
Listen To: Freedom
The experience of a hardcore show is living life on the very edge. Heavy music’s most exhilarating and adrenaline-pumping subgenre demands movement, which often comes at a cost to your own well-being. Oxford’s MSRY know this all too well and, despite sticking true to what hardcore demands, the title of their forthcoming EP, Safety First, is a tongue-in-cheek nod to the disregard of our safety when at heavy music shows.
“We are a health and safety hazard at the best of times for any venue or promoter, we are awful!” laughs vocalist Kial Churcher. “There is an ironic, tongue-in-cheek nature to it, because we are not the most serious people in the world. We try not take anything that seriously. So we thought if this EP had that humour right from the get-go, people will get that we are not just this serious hardcore band where we just cross our arms in promo photos and we’re angry all the time about everything; we’ve got such a lighter side to us outside of the music. I feel it gives it a bit of personality to the record.”
This well-placed irony and laughable side to MSRY makes the rising trio instantly likeable, but at their core lies an aggressive beast. The afore-mentioned Safety First is a gut-wrenching affair, pulling inspiration from the depths of misery and covering subjects like Brexit, Donald Trump and your own inner demons to channel the noise into an explosive release. Kial explains that while he wouldn’t necessarily see MSRY as a political band, these were subject matters that needed addressing.
“It actually wasn’t too hard [writing on political subjects], we’ve got a lot of things to say even though we’re not outright political people. There’s a lot of pent-up frustration that we weren’t able to get out on the first EP. That first EP was very much us coming together and writing music and having an emotional edge to what we were feeling at the time. From day one we had a lot of things we wanted to say and a lot of stuff that we couldn’t bring ourselves to say in lyrical format in any of our other bands.”
But to survive in the hardcore scene you need so much more than just great songs with deep meaning, and thankfully for MSRY, they have that in buckets. With little thought or precaution for their safety, the band are forging an incendiary live reputation, and for Kial, this is where it matters.
“From the start me and Keir [French, drums] were watching bands like The Chariot or Every Time I Die or The Dillinger Escape Plan or Letlive. They were the pinnacle of a live show to us. We said we wanted shows like that, shows that were chaos and were absolutely insane, shows that people would away from and go, ‘What the hell have I just seen?’ Don’t get me wrong, we love having killer riffs and memorable parts of our songs, but the stage is where we really thrive.”
MSRY's new EP Safety First is out now.
