Music Hates You

Music Hates You @ SSS day show in Austin @ Room 710 - March 21

As mentioned before, The Devil & The Sea and Music Hates You, two KILLER young bands from the south, will be in NYC on March 31st (TONIGHT) to play The Charleston along with locals Descender. The show are part of a short east coast tour that ends a few days after The Charleston, with Music Hates You continuing on into the Carolinas for another few days.

Music Hates You played the Slow Southern Steel day show at Room 710 on March 21st (more pics are below), the first of a long line of great bands that also included Hex Machine (who we profiled here), The Roller, and headliner Rwake (pics previously posted). The band currently has only one recording to their name, the aptly titled Send More Paramedics, but recently signed on to Zoroaster's label Terminal Doom Records and will release a split EP with the band which incorporates both tracks above.

The Devil & The Sea (mems Icepick Revival & Collapsar) played Snake Eyes Vinyl during SXSW on March 20th (pics below). The Louisiana trio recently dropped their Sanford Parker produced debut, Heart Vs Spine, on Acerbic Noise Development. Check out "Monolith" from that record above, and pick it up at the show, their myspace, or via their label.

Pics and dates below...
MUSIC HATES YOU - 2009 TOUR DATES
March 31 2009 - The Charleston, Brooklyn, New York*
April 1 2009 - Millcreek Tavern, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania*
April 2 2009 - Nowarehouse, Baltimore, Maryland^
April 3 2009 - Macrock Festival, Harrisonburg, Virginia -
April 4 2009 - TBA, TBA, Virginia
April 5 2009 - The Reservoir, Carrboro, North Carolina^^
April 6 2009 - The Rock Shop, Fayetteville, North Carolina^^^
April 7 2009 - Volume 11 Tavern, Raleigh, North Carolina^^^^
April 11 2009 - Doom Room, Vicksburg, Mississippi%
April 20 2009 - GroundZero, Spartanburg, South Carolina%%
April 29 2009 - TastyWorld, Athens, Georgia%%%
May 22 2009 - Drips Coffee and Brew, Hickory, North Carolina
May 23 2009 - The Milestone, Charlotte, North Carolina%%%%

* w/ The Devil & The Sea
^ w/ The Devil & The Sea, Darsombra, Mars
^^ w/ Caltrop
^^^ w/ Black Skies, Noble Rust
^^^^ w/ Beast In The Field, Noble Rust
% w/ Buzzardstein
%% w/ ANAL CUNT
%%% w/ AGAINST ME!, Off With Their Heads
%%%% w/ ANTISEEN & Twenty Five Minutes To Go - BrooklynVegan.com

Music Hates You
with Los Hijos Del Diablo and DeadPlanet
Tuesday
the Conservatory
8911 N. Western
www.conservatoryokc.com
879-9778
$5

Bands come and go like cars passing on the highway. Few have the passion and fire of Music Hates You, which is a big reason why most don’t survive. Inspired by Iggy Pop and Jesus Lizard, this punk trio strives to shake audiences from its apathetic torpor.

Front man Noah Ray promises to keep his end of the performer-audience bargain by putting on a loud and lively show. He’ll even jump into the crowd to enforce that pact, ensuring that all attending surrender their full attention.

“Music Hates You has always gravitated to the idea that if you paid your five bucks and you stand in front of me, whether you like it or not, I’m going to absolutely make sure you remember me,” Ray said.

The group delivers a dark, grimy roar that runs from deep-rutted grooves worthy of The Melvins to a cacophonous Black Flag rumble being beaten bloody by Neurosis.

“When I was going to see shows when I was 20 to 25 years old, I felt a part of something. It wasn’t hard to love it and keep going back to it and feeling you were a part of the whole thing,” he siad. “The past 15 years of music has seen a lot of apathetic people. They’re not invested in what they’re doing.”

Raised onstage and in theater, he’s had nary a moment of stage fright in his career, and while admittedly he isn’t a great guitarist or singer, he’s certainly a showman. That will come as no surprise to those who recognize him as the skate rat doing ollies off the walls of the dilapidated house in the R.E.M. video “It’s the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine).”

Although he loves R.E.M. as much as he does The Ramones, it wasn’t the best thing at the time.
“It was a really hard time in my life,” Ray said. “I wasn’t a popular kid. I was just kind of a poor white trash kid and then, all of a sudden, as far as Athens was concerned, I’m a star, all over MTV. It had this weird effect on me as a teenager and my place in the world at the time.”

There’s little middle ground. The propulsive momentum of Music Hates You has the locomotive energy of Motörhead, and while the spastic, writhing guitars batter with brutality, sometimes pain is good. At least you know you’re alive — an experience Ray had recently at an all-night diner.

“We had played earlier in the night to about five to 10 people, and we were eating at a Waffle House afterwards when the waitress made the mistake of saying, ‘You know you all could plug in right here, yuk-yuk-yuk.’

I was like, ‘Look, I’m telling you right now, I will back the van up and we will be playing in 15 minutes if you just say the world.’ And she said, ‘Well uh,’ and I backed the van up and we loaded in,” he said.

“Honestly, I’ve been playing music for 23 years, and that was one of the most rewarding experiences ever. We have a genuine love for what we do. Be it five people or 5,000, it doesn’t matter to us. You just get out there and play your heart out.” —Chris Parker - OKGazette.com

Four minutes.

That's all it took to send Noah Ray from white trash kid to despised white trash kid at Cedar Shoals High School - the running time for the video of R.E.M's "It's the End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)."

"It was catastrophic, honestly," Ray said in a recent interview on the making of the video for the song, which appeared on R.E.M.'s 1987 album "Document."

The video, directed by Jim Herbert, featured Ray rifling through the random contents of a broken-down rural home.

"I got picked on. It was a lot of negative attention," Ray remembered.

Ray's starring role in the video - which, of course, landed him on MTV - somehow turned the rigid hierarchy of high school inside out, or upside down, or sideways, or something.

"I was a poor white trash kid in high school, and all of a sudden, I had more popularity than the popular kids," Ray said. "Popular kids don't like to lose their popularity, especially to white trashy kids. It just made it rough."

"It's a small town," Ray continued, "and back then, R.E.M. was it."

Starring in the video "definitely attached me to that in a huge way," he said.

Ray had been in Athens just a couple of years before winding up on the "End" video. He'd moved into town from Spartanburg, S.C., and gotten involved with a local skateboarding team that also included longtime Athens music scene presence Michael Lachowski. Lachowski knew Herbert and suggested Ray for the video.

Setting up for the shoot began at 5 a.m. Eight hours later, Ray's work - with only informal direction from Herbert - was finished.

"The only thing in the beginning that I was really made aware of was that Jim had seen some kind of TV special on dream therapy, and there was a child who had lost a brother in Vietnam who kept having a dream where he was holding his brother's picture in an old house," Ray said. "He'd give me guidelines, like telling me to rifle through stuff - not like a director in a movie sense. He just wanted to get me in front of the camera, and then focus on images. Most of it was people making suggestions, like 'Oh, yeah, this would be cool.'"

Because he'd come to Athens from Spartanburg, Ray hadn't really heard about R.E.M. And as far as his own musical tastes two decades ago, Ray said, "If it wasn't KISS or The Ramones, I wasn't aware of it."

He would eventually quit high school, although he says his experience after starring in the video wasn't really a factor in that decision. It was just that he'd "kinda had enough" of school, he said.
"I've been doing anything and everything since," he said. "I've been doing some remodeling jobs, some roofing."

But that's just his day job.

While his role in the R.E.M. video didn't really have anything to do with his own music career, Ray is fronting Music Hates You, a band good enough to earn Best Punk/Hardcore Band and Best Live Band honors in the local 2006 Flagpole Magazine Music Awards.

"My musical career began the first time I saw KISS, when I was 4 years old," he said. "I've always played music or been involved in (it) one way or another, ever since I was 12 or 13 years old. Music Hates You was the one that was really worth trying to stick together."

Despite the name, as it turns out.

"A lot of people in this town really despised us for that name. People really, really detested it for a while," Ray said. "But there's an ethos behind it, like how many rock stars are dead now, giving their lives to this burning creativity that just eats them up. Or, it's like getting a song stuck in your head every day that you just hate. Music's an idea, it's not a person or anything."

Whether Music Hates You is an idea whose time has come is something Ray and the band are willing to wait to find out.

"We play a lot out of town," he said. "We save our money, and record our own stuff. When somebody likes it, and wants us to do more, we will. We're doing all the things we know how to do.

"We would love to make a career out of it. Hopefully, it becomes that, but there's about 15,000 people in town who want a career in music. But if it's either that or painting houses, I think I'll go with the music."

Whatever happens for Ray and Music Hates You, his role in the R.E.M. video is likely always to be a footnote to his musical career.

"Years ago, VH-1 called me for one of those 'Pop-Up Video' things," Ray said. And just last August, a blurb in the alternative newspaper Creative Loafing on an Atlanta appearance by Music Hates You included these lines: "Remember that sexy boy in R.E.M.'s 'It's the End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)" video? Well that's Noah Ray, and he's all grown up and fronting a volatile punk band. A thoroughly engaging, Athens-based metallic onslaught of aggressive musical behavior. In other words, don't expect any easygoing twee-heads."

Still, even if the R.E.M. connection remains a trivia question on Music Hates You's trajectory to wherever the band g - OnlineAthens.com

Music: Feature
Music Hates You, with a passion
By CHRIS PARKER

Published 02.04.2009
http://atlanta.creativeloafing.com/gyrobase/music_hates_you_with_a_passion/Content?oid=698738

For many, music is as disposable as a pop can -- a short sugary burst to soundtrack activities, provide momentary distraction, and possibly remind us we're not alone in life's tumult and ache.

For a few, it's a galvanizing experience when performer and audience participate in transcendence. Music Hates You is just such an act.

The incendiary catalyst for the Athens hardcore/metal quartet isn't the pile-driving rhythms or writhing guitar wail, but feral frontman Noah Ray who herds the sonic stampede with the enthusiasm of a deranged rustler.

"We're going to play what's in our hearts, let everyone else worry about playing music," says Ray. "We start and stop each song together most of the time, other than that all bets are off. But I will promise you, it will be loud."

One of Athens' best live bands, their sometimes confrontational, in-your-face style was born of their beginnings, just a few weeks before 9/11. The event changed Ray's thinking, which he channeled into the band. At the time, he was primarily listening to Bob Dylan, but the raucous roar Music Hates You produces is anything but folk rock. For all the sparks they throw off you'd think they were welding battleships. According to Ray, it's about engaging the audience the same way 9/11 awakened him.

"You wake up one day and the world is a whole different place," he says. "This music needs to be that definite. Doors close, gimme your five dollars, and put your feet on because shit is about to change."

To that end, Ray refuses to recognize the distance between the stage and the crowd. He'll call out audience members on their indifference, and get right in their face. There's always an element of spectacle. At a tequila-fueled New Year's show several years ago, Ray and guitarist Zaxx Hembree started to wail on each other. It ended in a bloody mess and a broken guitar.

Ray's ideal live show atmosphere consists of an audience willing to suspend disbelief. Tracks like the steely punk-metal behemoth "You Have Failed as an Audience" personify that aesthetic. "Music hates us," sings Ray. "You still love it. You can't ever possess it, you only get a taste." He promises to bring the circus, if listeners are willing to step in the ring with him. "Just like you're looking at me, I'm looking at you," he says. "This has to be an interaction. It's confrontation or communication. Either way you want it."

That desire to break the fourth wall traces its origins to Ray's youth, when his mother was into drama. By age five, Ray found himself on the stage. His stepfather worked as a roadie for Charlie Daniels and the Marshall Tucker band, so guitars were always around. When he discovered skateboarding as a tween, it all began to crystallize. He started sneaking into shows featuring touring punk rockers, and such local bands as Pylon.

After playing in bands for years, Ray found the chemistry and effortlessness in Music Hates You that he'd always sought. "It wasn't the music I aimed to make for a long time, but it definitely feels good and worth it every time," he says. "It will probably never go down in the history books anywhere, but, fuck man, it's been fun."

The band released its full-length debut Send More Paramedics in 2006. It was highlighted by the jagged churn of "Fingerprints for Every Man, Woman and Child" – with its admonition to "never give up, never give in" – and the metal-flaked, garage-punk ode to the unholy triumvirate, "Rock and Roll, Ape Sex, and Hell." Though it earned some local accolades, the album didn't turn out like he imagined in his head, says Ray, and he can't stand listening to it now. "The live show is easy to do on no budget, but an album is hard."

For now the focus remains on touring, which they hope to do more often. It's part of the reason drummer Patrick Ferguson left the group last year. After a decade on the road with Five-Eight, he seemed less enthusiastic about the prospect of van life. The split was amicable, and they've been fooling around a bit in Ferguson's nascent studio while Ray books dates, prints t-shirts and hopes for a label deal to cover future recording costs.

"The music of the world – all the noise, scuttle and scamper – all that shit hates you," Ray offers. "It's trying to eat you alive, minute by minute. It's your enemy. That's what Music Hates You is about. You have to own every moment, it's yours and you won't get it again." - Creative Loafing

When Flagpole asked me to interview the notorious cannon-mouths of Music Hates You regarding the general topic of "heavy" music both in Athens and at large, I figured that it would be an interesting experience, largely because I knew nothing about the men in the band: vocalist-guitarist Noah Ray, guitarist Zaxx Hembree, bassist Forest Hetland and drummer Patrick Ferguson.

The band has been around town since late 2001, though, and last year released the album Send More Paramedics, won the 2006 Flagpole Athens Music Award in the Punk/Hardcore category and, according to the loose calculations of the Flagpole music department, played at least 23 shows in local clubs and many more at house parties since this time last year, well more than any other local band.

What I learned throughout our talk, however, is that I actually knew much more about the members of the group than I thought I did, based solely on what I might've gleaned from having seen them perform. If you ask Music Hates You - and for one night I did nothing but - a great band is one that performs music simply because it has to, which sounds the way it does by some inner workings of psyches and not necessarily because it wants to get famous. It'll be made up of musicians who make you feel something, regardless of what they actually sound like.

Even if you hate 'em.

Flagpole
What is it like for you guys to be in a heavy band in Athens, a town not commonly known for things outside of pop-rock and indie-rock?

Noah Ray
It's actually kind of fun. We get to be the big buzzkill to everybody.

Flagpole
What do you mean by that?

Noah Ray
I mean that heavy music in general, if you don't like it, you don't like it. It has been a real uphill battle for us, with a name like Music Hates You in a predominately music town. It's kind of like Nashville; everybody's in a band and everybody loves their music and all that, so people have been offended by our name and by our actions and all the screaming, but I question why this town has never been known for heavy music. It's always had heavy music. When I was 14 years old, I was going to see Waylaid, and Magneto after that...

Patrick Ferguson
Bar-B-Q Killers.

Noah Ray
...and Bar-B-Q Killers, Feltch...

Patrick Ferguson
Porn Orchard.

Noah Ray
...just tons and tons of bands that were not nice people. I mean, nobody is ever gonna be more snide and offensive than Laura Carter [of Bar-B-Q Killers fame, not to be confused with the Elf Power/ Orange Twin Laura Carter] was. I really don't understand why it's such an obscure, abstract idea to have a heavy band in this town, because traditionally, outside of the "top three" of R.E.M., B-52's and Pylon, there have always been very snarling, spiteful bands here.

Patrick Ferguson
When I moved here, it was one of those lulls when there were not a lot of bands in Athens. I moved here right after Green by R.E.M. came out [around 1988], and there were like six bands in town that were playing regularly. One of them was Dreams So Real, and that was really what the college crowd went to see, but the other bands were Porn Orchard, the end of the Bar-B-Q Killers, the beginning of Feltch, Jarvik 8, Damage Report...

Noah Ray
Jarvik 8 was brutal.

Patrick Ferguson
Yeah, those were all real heavy bands. Loot & Booty was a band at the time that was, like, pirate metal! I think the real issue is that it's a college town, and metal is not "college" music. Metal is working-class music. I was fortunate enough to come here as a college student, but I dropped out pretty quick and joined Five Eight, toured with them for eight years.
The other thing about being in a heavy metal band in Athens, GA, is that now it feels like a community because there are the Rat Babies, Bird Flu, American Cheeseburger, The Dumps, so we're everywhere now, and we're the people who have jobs. That's the thing about Music Hates You and The Dumps, and all those other bands, is we have jobs, and a lot of the kids who are in these other bands, it's not a matter of life and death to them - it's a fuckin' hobby. To me, our music is sincere and it's real, and it's about the thousand petty humiliations you have to endure because you have to go to work every day. If you're an art student, maybe you don't connect with that. You know, to me that's what I feel in common with a band like Bird Flu or The Dumps. They're mad, just because... well it's not necessarily about anger, sometimes it's just about roaring at the world because you've got a huge dick or something.

Flagpole
Well, what is it about for you guys? I guess there's not really so much to be earned in the sense that you physically earn money from doing music; there's not really that here. What do you guys get out of doing it? Why bother?

Patrick Ferguson
Man, I tried to stop playing music after I left Five Eight. I thought my head was gonna explode, you know? But this is what I do. Somebody asked me the other day, "What d - Flagpole Magazine

Last week, Part I of this conversation with members of local heavyweight act Music Hates You - vocalist-guitarist Noah Ray, guitarist Zaxx Hembree, bassist Forest Hetland and drummer Patrick Ferguson - covered questions of the Athens scene, where heavy bands fit into our town's musical pantheon and the relationship between performers and their audience. Missed out? No worries: it's available here.

Flagpole
What makes a great heavy band?

Zaxx Hembree
What I look for in a band, is if I go to a show and after the first 10 minutes I feel like I'm gonna throw up, that makes me feel great. If I can look into someone's eyes when they're playing and know that that's a vicious motherfucker, I am totally in tune with them and that's the right fucking band. Does that make sense?

Flagpole
It doesn't have a lot to do with what they sound like, but what you're saying is at that point they're probably going to be sounding good.

Zaxx Hembree
That doesn't really matter to me.

Noah Ray
I don't think it's relevant, what a heavy band sounds like; not as much as the way they present it. It's more important to me to see people who mean it.

Zaxx Hembree
There's no type of metal that I hate.

Forest Hetland
I believe in a 95-4-1 perspective. Ninety-five percent of any genre, any couch, any window is crap. Four percent is something you'll listen to again.

Zaxx Hembree
Couch?

Forest Hetland
Any brand of couch, or a brand of food, or a restaurant, or anything. Ninety-five percent of restaurants suck. Four percent you'll go back and eat at again. One percent you'll try your best to eat at every day. Music is like that, and those are the bands you really care about. Maybe they did nothing original, but they did it with all their heart, and everyone believed them, and everyone was on the same page.

Flagpole
What's to be said of songcraft, though? There's a degree to which songcraft has been diluted in the past, maybe, 15 years or so, as amps have gotten louder and tones have gotten heavier. I've noticed, especially in this decade, that a lot of times I see a band and all the members seem concerned with is how loud and heavy they sound, and they're not actually interested in whether their songs are anything memorable.

Forest Hetland
But there are still exceptions.

Flagpole
Well, right. Converge is a great example of the one-percent band. It still has awesome riffs while being heavy as hell. I can remember things that these guys do. I saw them a few months ago at the 40 Watt with Mastodon, and I loved Mastodon that night, but Converge knocked Mastodon off the stage because every note seemed memorable. It seems to me in hindsight, 15 or 20 years ago, that there was a reverence for riffs and songs where every note counted that doesn't seem to be as strong these days.

Patrick Ferguson
I consider the first wave of metal to be like the MC5, Cream, later the beginnings of AC/DC and all that, and those guys were coming out of the '50s and '60s songwriting paradigm that was basically verse/ chorus/ verse/ chorus/ bridge/ verse/ chorus. Then, there was this sort of second wave of metal where there was a real possibility that just about no matter how off the charts you were, with the exception of Venom, that you were gonna actually break through and be a commercial success. So they hung on to that sort of pop idea of the verse and the chorus and hooks and all that.
Then there was a ton of super-successful metal in the late '80s like Poison and Ratt, but you always had this bubbling underground of bands like Motörhead, King Diamond, Slayer, S.O.D. Those guys still wrote songs. You can still remember the chorus of "Angel of Death."
There's a lot of doom and black metal right now that is intentionally atonal or anti-pop structure. I'm not really qualified to comment on that because Music Hates You - and I know I'll probably get strangled for this as soon as you turn off that tape deck - we write pop songs in the sense of having verses and choruses and bridges. But there's a kind of no-wave, anti-music thing that happens with bands like Sunn O))) and Boris, and they're deconstructing loud music to the point where it's just tones and the songs, more like weird symphonies.

Forest Hetland
And that can be valuable at times. It's art. It's still art, it's just not pop or rock and roll. I don't think that's bad or good, it just is.

Flagpole
Bands that are on "Headbanger's Ball" on MTV2 these days, bands like Lamb of God or Chimaera, it's almost like they're just producing tones, too, or might as well be. I can't remember a single riff I've ever heard from a Lamb of God song, even though I've listened to a whole album, because all I hear is guitar heaviness.

Patrick Ferguson
Part of that is mastering. Everything's mastered super loud right now. You go into this room and some guy says, "How do you want to master this?" And most bands are saying the same thing: "Everything louder than everything e - Flagpole Magazine

Flagpole
Magazine - 28 June 2006
Review of Live Show at Caledonia Lounge
Music Hates You

Early Friday night at AthFest was frustrating in a few ways. The rain put a damper on the outside shows, several clubs were already off schedule even before the first bands performances, and Id forgotten how annoying large crowds can be. All that changed when Music Hates You hit the stage at the Caledonia Lounge. The crowd mulled around talking and facing in many different directions until

Noah Ray
(vocals, guitar) said, Can you kill these stage lights? At that point, the place went dark and the band turned on two giant work lights, effectively illuminating the audience. Shortly thereafter, the roar of the first notes hit. It was clear that Music Hates You had not come to AthFest to mess around. Song after song of brutal metal followed, but the amazing thing was that the audience, which packed the club full and which was (surprisingly) a roughly equal mix of men and women, didnt head for the doors. They kept their eyes on the stage, taking it all in and cheering loudly between songs. There are few bands whose shows actually feel dangerous, like something might happen at any moment. Music Hates You is one of those bands. [Will Brooks] - Flagpole Magazine

Music may hate you, but do you hate the music?
Posted on Wednesday, June 7th, 2006 @ 12:11pm » permalink

If I'm going to be totally honest with you, I didn't think I was going to like this band when they first got in touch with me. Being so finicky about certain things I'm sort of weird sometimes, so I can be very pre-judgmental of bands based on various non-musical attributes – for example a band name that I'm not wild about or, say, a website that looks like it was designed in 1997. Unfair, I know, but let's face it: People behave this way all the time, it's not like I'm the only one. If nothing else, thankfully I don't let those types of initial assumptions solidify my opinions, because once you actually hear these guys' music you're just kind of like, "Huh, okay, yeah… I can dig this."

The funny thing is, I really didn't think that bands like this existed anymore. Music Hates You hails from Athens, GA and "Send More Paramedics" is their self-released debut album – which reminds me of a style that kind of rose in the mid-90's in the wake of grunge and Helmet. Like Stompbox, for example, who I've covered in the past. They seem to take that kind of a general vibe and get a little more unhinged with the vocals while tossing a dirtier kind of rock 'n' roll energy into the mix to give the tunes more kick. They're probably not going for anything in particular, this is likely just the sound that comes out when these cats plug in and get down to business, but whatever the case I like what I'm hearing.

There's a great fucking recording on this thing, there's simply no denying that. The impeccable distorted bass tone perfectly fills out the mix between well-rounded and natural percussion and a warm, gritty guitar distortion that's plenty thick in its own right. While a minuscule element of the vocal performance can get a little irritating and screechy, for the most part the dude's got an awesome style that's a perfect blend of singing and yelling with just the kind of gruff texture that the overall attitude of this material demands – fitting into place regardless of whether the band's doling out a pulsing midpaced rhythm, a faster and more frenzied back and forth attack of staccato textures, or perhaps even a slightly more spacious and melodic passage. Not bad at all.

Music Hates You "How Do I Get Him the Fuck Out of My Living Room?"
Music Hates You "Fingerprints for Every Man, Woman, and Child"

There's actually a song on this thing called "Rock and Roll Ape Sex and Hell", and that might say a lot more than it seems, so throw these guys $10 for a CD if you dig the tunes so they can buy a couple of beers and keep on truckin': - Aversionline.com

Record Reviews

Music Hates You

It’s been a long time coming, but the debut album from Athens’ Music Hates You is worth the wait. Blurring the lines between metal, punk and hardcore, Music Hates You has crafted a more than decent album with only a few missteps. Although this type of music (i.e. incredibly loud, guttural and viciously angry) has yet to be embraced by the Athens hipster set, Music Hates You has no pretensions about desiring or expecting such acceptance.

The live favorite “How Do I Get Him The Fuck Out Of My Living Room?” starts the album off, and it grinds back and forth with the band dropping in and out of both melody and harmony. This track, as well as a couple of others on the album, utilizes the loud/quiet formula done best by Nirvana (although Music Hates You has clearly absorbed more Slayer than Kurt Cobain’s beloved Pixies).

From this point, there's no let up in the band's playing. Music Hates You becomes heavily melodic and catchy even when buried underneath layers of unbelievably heavy guitars. The title track is easily the best, most distinctive track on the album. With Noah Ray’s from-the-gut vocals, sounding more like a threat than an anguished revery, and the band's full-on driving rhythm, the song sounds more like it’s going to run you over rather than invite you along for the ride.

There are a couple of things about this album that bother me, but they don’t concern the music. First, the artwork makes it difficult to determine which songs are which in the middle part of the album (is the song called “Here Goat” or is it two different songs?). The lack of a lyric sheet is pretty frustrating, also, because any listener would want to know what the hell is going on when the passion is raised so high in the vocals, but it sadly all gets lost.

Music Hates You simply rocks, and doesn’t rock simply. A mountain of thought was put into this album and the band plays with an intensity not easily faked. This is the music you hear coming from teenagers' cars in the parking lots of fast-food restaurants and rural high schools. Say what you want, but rock and roll has always, thank God, been for the kids.
Gordon Lamb - Flagpole Magazine

Send More Paramedics

The Injurious Habits of Music Hates You

Music Hates You has been around Athens for several years, but the band has made a mark bigger than most in its genre. Not since Jucifer has a local band this loud, aggressive and heavy attracted a decent-sized following. And though several recordings have made their way around town, the group's newest effort, Send More Paramedics [see a review on p. 23], marks a serious "real" debut of sorts for the self-proclaimed dirt-metal band.

Music Hates You is performing this week at Tasty World to celebrate the release of the new album, but also to raise awareness and money for the West Memphis Three (three currently imprisoned Arkansas men who in 1993 were convicted as teenagers and imprisoned for the mutilation and murder of three Memphis eight-year-old boys). The situation, involving claims of serious mishandling of the case by the state, has been investigated by the documentaries Paradise Lost and Paradise Lost 2, and proceeds from this week's multi-band benefit show go towards the West Memphis Three defense fund.

Recently, Noah Ray (vocals/ guitars), Forest Hetland (bass), Zaxx Hembre (guitar) and Patrick Ferguson (drums) shared a few thoughts with Flagpole on the band and what life’s been like:

Flagpole
You play a lot of house shows. What do you get out of them, as opposed to a club show?
Noah Ray
Clubs have club rules; house parties are our rules.
Forest Hetland
The amount of distance just a six-inch high stage can spread between artist and audience is amazing and obscene.
Patrick Ferguson
I don't know if you saw our show at the Human Rights Festival, but there were 200 or so kids there who are too young to get into clubs. We love to play for that crowd and places that are 18 and up, or 21 and up might as well be on the other side of the Berlin Wall for them.
Zaxx Hembre
Kids don't have any fear of people looking at them, what their girlfriend thinks or what someone thinks of their hair.
Flagpole
Why the need for a lack of a line between band and audience?
Patrick Ferguson
The relationship we want with our audience is more like lion tamer and lion, matador and bull, thermal updraft and buzzard. We don't play music because we think we're special and different from a thousand other losers out there. We play music because we think playing music is special and it's an honor for us to be the reason that people gather in some broke-dick old slumhouse on a Friday night to drink beer, hang out, get in fights and blow off some steam.
Jim Stacy once told us, as we were standing in the Star Bar one Saturday night, he made this big, sweeping gesture that took in all the tattooed girls and redneck metal cowboys, and short, tall, fat, skinny, crazy, sad, giddy, stoned and otherwise bent people and said, "We're all normal here. All of us. Normal. Here." We gather in the name of that.
Noah Ray
Amen.
Flagpole
When you were first getting started, I remember there being some tension between your band and what some might call "the establishment" of Athens: Flagpole, certain clubs, etc. How or why did that come about and how or why has it eased?
Noah Ray
We spray-painted some shit. People freaked out. Works every time.
Forest Hetland
How/ why has the 'tension' eased? When did that happen, did I miss a memo? When you're in an atmosphere where a lot of people seem to just pat themselves on the back, we'd rather say, "That was cool. What's next?"
Flagpole
You wrote [on your website] that Send More Paramedics is "revenge for 2005." What happened that made this past year suck so badly?
Patrick Ferguson
Just trying to get the record finished was a battle against Georgia Power, the price of gasoline, various landlords, a bunch of crap jobs… We paid for every penny of this record out of our pockets, so it was food snatched out of the mouths of our families and bills that went unpaid and friendships that got bruised or broken because we "borrowed" so much equipment.
Not that I am complaining, because we got this amazing record out of it. I wouldn't change a thing about the record. I think it's fantastic.
Flagpole
The sound of the record is cleaner than I would have expected. It's as if you spent a lot of time making sure it was "right," and scraped off a bit of the sloppiness that sometimes comes across in live performances (for better or worse) - was that an intentional effort?
Noah Ray
We're not sloppy, it's just that sometimes we have to anticipate the timing that you're aware of hearing while being flogged and flung around the room. If you weren't doing that, then you fucked up, not me.
Patrick Ferguson
[Producer] Andy Baker did a fantastic job at helping us shape where we were headed with the sounds that we had to work with. He's got a fantastic set of ears and his advice is always good. I think that the record gets the songs across with a razor sharp eff - Flagpole Magazine

by Mike Misiak
January 2006

For years, Kindercore and the like kept Athens pump full of bitterly ironic twee pop-influenced indie rock. Two years after Kindercore's collapse, Athens venues are still mostly booking the tried and true local flavors while those bringing more dissonant sounds to the table have to make up their own gigs as they go along. Twee-pop, folk-rock and singer/songwriter-oriented music are all still having their day in the sun and many don't seem to want to see this situation change. Nevertheless, the scene is in fact changing with bands like Cinemechanica, Coulier and We Versus the Shark making the sort of noise that has previously largely been confined to such techno-industrial nightmare cities as Boston and D.C.

One integral part of this sort of music's slow and steady revolution is an increased emphasis on house parties. Venue bookers may get cold feet when it comes to supporting abrasive and experimental music or angry metal-core, but these genres make for the perfect liquor-fueled blow-outs. Harder than hard Athens band Music Hates You has found that this format is the best possible avenue for their music. "You're less likely to get punched in the face when you're in the studio," notes drummer Patrick Hates You (who, along with his band mates, dropped his surname in favor of the Ramones-style "Hates You," unintentionally awkward as it may seem). "I think it's important to make the distinction between that being a bad thing and being something that we expect. A live show is a free-for-all. It's not like we draw a line between audience and performer where it's like ïyou stand there and watch us.' A lot of times that [approach] takes the form of a giant, swirling mosh pit or people jumping off the speakers. It's important that it's a participatory experience."

However, as the band puts the finishing touches on Send More Paramedics, they are confident that those familiar with their live show will enjoy the record for what it is. Furthermore, Music Hates You feels that the album will be an excellent representation of their sound. "I feel like this record is going to blow up," says Patrick. "I think it's a fantastic record. The songs just get better and better the more we poke at them. We go out and play shows in places like Spartanburg, South Carolina, and there are these amazing kids who fucking live for metal and live for our music. And that's what we want to connect with and I think they're waiting for the album as much as we are."

While Music Hates You is getting booked in more clubs these days, they remember to keep the spontaneity of their most out-of-control shows going at proper venues. Patrick describes the notion of touring with the band as "a dream come true," and the other members are equally enthusiastic about supporting Send More Paramedics out on the road. If their scattered extra-regional shows thus far have been of any indication, Music Hates You will likely pick up scores of new fans at each stop.
- Southeastern Performer Magazine

(excerpted) Hugo Burnham: Right now, there's a band in Athens called Music Hates You that I think is fucking great, but they're a vicious metal band that doesn't subscribe to the art-student vibe. - Creative Loafing

When hard music is good, your ears are ringing when you wake up several hours later. When it’s great, you feel sore all over, like you’ve been in a car wreck or you’ve had the flu. When it’s superior, it damages your spinal fluid and threatens to cause total nervous system shutdown. What range of your hearing you’re ultimately damaging doesn’t really seem to matter at the time. Actually, when you’re staring down a band like Athens’ Music Hates You, it’s like coming face-to-face with a grizzly. You know you’re going to get batted around, but if you can escape at all, you’ll call yourself fortunate.

Hard without actually being hardcore, Music Hates You ruffles feathers in a very similar manner as groups like The Bronx and Pantera. Because Music Hates You’s members are naturally rough-hewn, it just translates through the tunes. If they were a polka quartet, they’d be the hardest one out there. - Metrospirit

There's a lot of love for Music Hates You.

The willfully aggressive Athens, Ga., act has garnered a growing fan base by refusing to compromise its hard, heavy and absolutely in-your-face aesthetic.

Patrick Ferguson
, who performs under the Ramones-esque moniker Patrick Hates You, said the band's gripping, grating guitar-based tunes are not about finding the perfect pairing of words and music but about offering up a visceral aural experience.

"There was a decision, made some point early in the band's development, where the idea of playing correctly was abandoned," he said. "Other bands play music; we play the experience. I mean, we're definitely not trying to play jazz here."

Mr. Ferguson said the band's shows are akin to lab experiments in sonic stylings of aggression.

"It's an attempt to bring a group of people as close to rage, as close to their breaking point, as we can," he said. "There's an intent, in our playing, to channel all our aggression into noise. Live performance needs an element of risk and that's what we're all about."

Music Hates You sees its shows as being successful when they become participatory. The audience is egged on and, when required, insulted. Mr. Ferguson said the current high-water mark is the band's last Augusta appearance.

"I don't know how we could improve on that," he said. "I mean, there were people there with sniper eyes. Everything that had happed to people that day was pulverized in a hail of volume and draft beer. I mean, Music Hates You is never going to buy me a SUV and a nice house, but I don't care. It's not what this music is about." - Augusta Chronicle

MUSIC HATES YOU...YOU'VE BEEN WARNED - Stoney 9/21/05
Augusta has experienced it's share of hard-hitting in your face bands. Whether within or visiting, Augusta's metal traditions are long and widely varied. With such a long standing tradition one has to wonder what it takes to impress a crowd that has seemingly seen it all. Then along comes a band that makes you realize, "maybe there's more to it then I thought". Such a band is Athen's bonecrushers MUSIC HATES YOU. Even the name sounds more brutal than the average bitch slapping band name. Despite the "aura of darkness" I spoke to the guys, and even had a little fun!

LL - First off, does music REALLY hate me?
MHY: Yep. Don't take it personally. We're all victims.

LL - In prepping for this interview, I checked out your websites "bio". It didn't really help. Is this is a fair summation or just an effort to preserve a sense of band mystery and mystique?
MHY: I don't think anyone needs to know much more about us besides we're the ones who put the ringing in their ears and the broken glass under their nails. You don't really want us emoting our past all over you, do you? really? Who's gonna clean that up?

LL - Can you really be best described as "what Rocky Balboa's head feels like"?
MHY: Yes and no. You could say a lot more words and still fail, or you could just say that. Talking about what music sounds like is like painting a picture of how meatloaf tastes. I could say "Oh, it's a cross between Slayer and Culture Club" and you wouldn't be any closer to knowing what the band really sounds like. Plus, Rocky Balboa's head has served with honor. It's taken a beating and it's been drenched in a slurry of blood, spit and sweat while still protecting the soft gray stuff in the middle. How can you improve on that?

LL - Seriously guys, what can the casual listener expect when confronted by MUSIC HATES YOU live?
MHY: There's a term some engineers use: Sound Pressure. You should feel Music Hates You pressing against your chest. You should feel it trying to bore its way into your head. We are not entertainment. We are an emotional emetic... we are here so that you can bring your rage, your sins, your sadness, your fear, your disappointment at the life you ended up with, and lay it out on the floor to be ground into dust by the sheer volume and violence of what we do.

LL - On first listen, you guys don't sound like what listeners are used to from Athens bands. Is there a "heavy" music scene just waiting to be discovered in Athens?
MHY: Oh, hell yeah. There are dozens of heavy bands in Athens, these days. Brown Frown and Polemic are two bands we play with all the time. Teenage Meth Lab practice down the hall from us, as do Knife Trade and the zombie version of Another Broken Vehicle. We've had a couple of dry years in Athens where most Athens bands had songs containing poorly played brass instruments and musicians in zany pants. It's time someone flushed that bowl, since it wasn't terribly interesting to start with!

LL - Speaking of heavy, heard some preview tracks from the new cd, when can the public expect to be blistered by this soon to be released platter?
MHY: We hope to get it out this fall/winter. We have some work in front of us before it hits the streets. We also have some people listening to it to decide if they want to put it out for us. I'm sorry I can't be more specific than that.

LL - And the road... going o.k. for you guys?
MHY: Every time we leave town we rediscover that people love this band, so yeah, touring has been fantastic. I mean, gas costs a fortune, our van is a fascinating gamble every time we load it up, we don't get to leave town half as often as we'd like and we still have day jobs, but we love hitting the road, believe me.

LL - You gotta be excited about coming back to Augusta! Looking forward to hanging out at the Soul Bar again?
MHY: We love the Soul Bar. I have known Coco and Didier for something like twelve years. The Soul Bar is an island of cool. I love coming back there, and I have for the many, many years I have been touring and playing music.

LL - So what is the most important thing Augustans should know when getting ready for your show at the Soul Bar?
MHY: Bring earplugs if you're delicate. Bring a helmet if you're not.

> LL - O.k., few quickies and we're outta here...

LL - What's hot in the bands cd player right NOW!?!?
MHY: I am listening to Black Rebel Motorcycle Club's "Take Them on on Your Own" at least twice a day and the latest Meatjack CD a lot. Noah is giving heavy spins to Jesus Lizard's "Goat" and Eye Hate God's "Confederacy of Ruined Lives."

LL - Band you've most enjoyed sharing the stage with?
MHY: Brown Frown brings all the hot hoochies. How could you argue with that?

LL - The single most important thing to have on the road is...?
MHY: I toured non-stop for something like ten years. Always bring your own pillow and a plastic bag to put wet clothes in.

LL - Worst f - Lokal Loudness

Flagpole Magazine- Threats and Promises
Music Hates You
-Gordon Lamb

The Walls Will Melt: ... For the uninitiated, let me just say this: Music Hates You is brutal. These guys are seriously one of the heaviest bands to ever call our town home. They perform a devastating blend of metal and hardcore that reveals not only a pretty thorough knowledge of each, but a passion for both. If you wanna try me on this one, catch the band's next show at Tasty World on Friday, June 3 at the Community Chaos reunion show. - Flagpole Magazine

"There is nothing moderate about this band." - Drummer

Patrick Ferguson
from the band's weblog.

Music Hates You is the band you have been looking for all your life... if you like it raw and real. These local underground purveyors of dirt and distortion have no plans to rest until they rip a gaping hole in the local/regional wall that seems to hold so many other great Athens bands from extending their audience outside the local lines.

The unyielding entity of Music Hates You is built of

Noah Ray
(guitar/vocals),

Zaxx Hembree
(guitar),

Forest Hetland
III (bass) and newest brother and ex-Five-Eight member,

Patrick Ferguson
(drums). The assumed pre-requisite in this band is that defiance of the musical stereotype comes oh-so natural.

"Music hates us, music hates the tone-deaf, music hates the hook, music hates the arrangement / We all have to live with it, because we all love Music / It's true, Music hates some more than others, but that's just opinion also / Music hates the living, Music hates the dead, the deaf, the regular Joe, the mutes, the opera singer, the gun-shy, the trigger-happy, the egomaniac and the shower singer / You still love it / You can't ever possess it, you only get a taste." - from "You Have Failed as an Audience/A Beginners Guide"

Call it desperation or divine determination, either way their live show is relentless. (This comes from a peek at the new lineup during a show in Montgomery, AL). The music demonstrates qualities unforgiving to a lackluster audience and displays honesty, humor, and conviction for who they are and of their place in front of a crowd.

Music Hates You is four to the floor. Unmercifully sharing between one another what they do best with the rhythm, the beat, and the beatings they provide. A la metal, dirty, and rough. It's not uncommon to see Ray's head bash into the microphone following solitary punches to the face, strings break without flush, a floor coated with wood chips, screaming, bleeding, pounding, and calling out to all who will listen and accompany.

"Life is what happens while your making plans," Ray notes. "The one thing we strive for more than all else is honesty."

No bullshit runs aboard this tight ship. Ray demonstrates a leadership to his kinsmen and equals like some have never seen. The 'yes, captain!' look in his bandmates' eyes glints during times of preparation. Then, when the music starts, they all become one, internally locked into their own bond. Even their physical selves move in unison at times without pretense or plan. They are the song when sung.

Hembree can be often be heard screaming the lyrics without a microphone to the crowd and band alongside Ray. Music Hates You's conviction runs rampant throughout the duration of the set.

"We're a huge burning fire for 45 minutes," explains Ray. "We're people. This is not just a band. It's us. It's who we are. We are the art."

The songwriting of Music Hates You is of dire importance. It ruptures intestinal meters to such a degree that it makes for fevered chills and cathartic swaying simultaneously. They traffic their share of metal hybrid with a layout of wild compositions crafted with a nearly unbearable amount of lyrical madness and frantic allusions. Guitar feedback growls angrily at the lack of reassurance one might find towards this kind of music that offers no hype or hypocrisy.

So they begin again as they've been. Soon they will play their brand of Musical Truth as the ambassadors of dirt metal. Music Hates You puts on live shows bereft of all the fixin's of rock-n-roll scenester bullshit. They make time count. They make it their own. They won't let listeners leave and barely let them breathe. Their songs fold into each other and then bombastically halt... on a dime. Tools and tonsils. Drool... and a mouthful's worth.

Music Hates You intentionally cuts their way through the ugliest and raucous canals of their own experience. Now it is bequeathed to the listener. If not sweat, then sway. If not hate, then pray away from the norm of rock with a band that crosses the existing banal terrain into a new era of Music.

After all, Music hates you. Doesn't it? (middle finger inserted)

-Athensmusic.net, Jan 21, 2005 - Athensmusic.net

Vocalist and guitarist Noah Ray of local metal band Music Hates You has no explanation for the rage that drives him. "Some people are on fire," he says. "There is no 'real' reason, just convenient targets. I spare none." He is so devoted to current project Music Hates You, Ray denies involvement in any other band. "This is the alpha and omega of everything I have worked toward." Describing the heated grindcore he and fellow members Zaxx Hembre (guitar), Forest Hetland III (bass) and Patrick Ferguson (drums) spew out, he says: "It's dirt metal, straight from the red mud of Georgia's junkyards. We are dismantling 45 years of what rock has built."

The band - for all intents and purposes reborn six months ago with the exit of drummer Greg Carlson and the entrance of Ferguson - retains the name bequeathed by Carlson. "It's about the agony of trying to make a mark," says Ray, "of capturing the essence of what propels you into song." Driven by their frustrations, the bandmembers channel energy into Music Hates You, leaving casualties along the way. Ferguson has kept a tally: "Destroyed: One 22" Sabian Heavy Ride Cymbal. One 15" Peavey 'black widow' PA speaker. One Marshall input jack. Two 15' guitar cables. Six oak ProMark 2B drum sticks. That's in two and a half practices. Wounded, but healable (maybe): One Marshall JCM900 (in hospital), one guitar (same).

Frustrated with your lot in life? Seeking an outlet for your outrage? Saddened by the recent loss of Dimebag Darrell? Music Hates You will launch you into a frenzied release with fellow ragers Polemic and Victor Charlie. Check out the band's new website, courtesy of Patrick Ferguson, at www.musichatesyou.com, and make sure you check out the MP3s. Don't like the sound? Well, Music Hates You hates you too!

-Flagpole Magazine, Jan 19, 2005 - Flagpole Magazine

Local hard rock band pummels music scene
By DANIEL MCDONALD
Published , September 17, 2004, 12:00:01 PM EDT

Music Hates You doesn't want to declare war on the Athens music scene. They don't have the time, nor do they care.

"I've got several jobs. I got family, I got these guys (Music Hates You) and I just don't have time to go out and suck ass just to get a blurb in a magazine that means more to them than to anybody else," said Noah Ray, lead singer of the band Music Hates You.

The point of Music Hates You is not to make people angry or to put a frown on the face of the scenesters around town. Music Hates You plays music to serve their own purposes.

"People can think of us what they want. Are we negative? I don't think so. Are we aggressive? Yes. Can you take us negatively? If it serves a use," said Ray. "To me, Music Hates You is all about refusing to be a victim. People that are so pissed off about a name like Music Hates You are just way too used to being a victim. I have no use for people who sit around and be victimized by anything. If you don't like it, come and tell us. I'm not going to hit you."

Music Hates You has been playing together for the last year. They formed when Drummer Greg Carlson received a phone call announcing that the "heavy guys are here." With bassist Forest Hetland and guitarist Zaxx Hembre, Music Hates You has patterned a tight outfit matching the aggressiveness of a wild boar with the sonic pumult of a small nuclear weapon.

"We play until it's at its noisiest point and that's when we go 'That's where it's at. That's what we want to do,'" said Ray. "Truth be told, we've been playing for the last five months to find that one really noisy spot. We finally found it."

Guitarist Zaxx Hembre best describes the band's sound as "the way Rocky Balboa's head feels."

The members of Music Hates You make no bones about the market that this form of music can garner.

"If you're going to make hard music, then you're cutting out most of the people right up front," Ray said. "Most people don't want to be screamed at for 45 minutes. I can understand that."

"If you have a show with 100 people there, and only 10 people come up afterwards and let you know how much they really appreciate it. Then if you have 10 people show up to a gig, then well, you're just weeding out the fluff," bassist Forest Hetland said.

No matter how big the audiences are, or become, the members of Music Hates You will continue to create their music their own way. No matter what anyone has to say about it.

"This is my favorite band," Ray said. "I have been waiting for this band to come along for a long time. And I just happen to be in it.

-The Red and Black, Sept 17, 2004 - The Red And Black

Wednesday, April 25, 2007
Jesus loves you, Music Hates You
As I write this, I am tonguing a swollen split just inside my bottom lip. I can taste the metallic, bitter tang of the cut, but somehow I’m smirking with grim satisfaction. Somewhere, I’m sure, a young man's fist is also smiling, recalling that gleeful collision it enjoyed to my young, supple face. On February 8th of 2007, I was on the receiving end of a literal and musical beat-down, the kind I’m not sure I deserved. Not because the punishment was unfair, but because I may not have been worthy.
The angriest metal bands in Georgia, Music Hates You and Baroness, graced downtown Athens’ Max Canada last Thursday evening, and all but burnt the place to the ground. I managed to survive, friends, but I assure you only just.
The evening opened with a synchronized groan. The Max Canada, formerly the Engine Room, scheduled local drone-rock favorites The Dumps to be the neonatal venue’s first-ever performance. But alas, their drummer was ill, and the knee-high stage sat naked and silent at the 11 o’clock show time. Dozens of greedy metalheads gushed through the front doors, but were met with exactly nothing. We needed music to soothe our wanting souls, but what we got was anything but soothing. What we got was wrath incarnate.
“We’re Music Hates You. Fuck off,” grunted the rail-thin vocalist as his band mounted the stage. He peered out from his cyclonic hair and beard, judging the crowd, then ultimately giving it the finger. Flood lights beamed from the stage, not towards the band, but flipped around to blind the audience. Music Hates You doesn’t have attitude, they personify it. They make it clear from minute zero that they don’t need you. Hell, they don’t even like you. They don’t like your haircut, your outfit, or that stupid face you make when they pound it into the ground with their rock. Still, the aural abuse is never offensive to the listener. It’s endearing.
The band erupted into their greasy thrashterpeice and debut album’s title track, “Send More Paramedics.” All the crowd could do was gawk. No one moved, or even nodded; they just observed the rabid animals in their natural habitat. After the third song, the perpetually peeved front man roared, “I’m out of tune, but I don’t give a damn. If you wanna hear somebody in tune, go down to the 40watt! Now quit standing around like a bunch’a corpses and dance!” The music returned like a foaming three-legged coonhound, wrenching out of a mudpit, thirsty for revenge. The crowd obeyed their master, and came to terrible life. Bodies heaved and piled; hair slithered into everyone’s eyes and mouth. The stench of male bonding rose in the sweltering air. Then came the fists. Before long, I caught a right hook in my bottom lip and tasted blood. I stumbled backward, tripping over the stage and slamming my head into the guitarist’s fret board. I’m not sure he noticed, but I was afraid that he was going to eat me.
When the group’s final dirge grinded to a halt, no one could deny the local metal majesty of Music Hates You.
The elite headlining act, Savannah’s Baroness, was different beast entirely. The only thing I’d ever heard of them was the reverent rants of their devoted fans. But even having soaked in their stream of awed adjectives, I was not aware of what would take the stage upon the witching hour. Baroness is what happens when art-rock bands like Radiohead or Dredg decide to lift weights and play sludge metal. The result is so haunting, so creeping, so terrifyingly heavy that your only expressible reaction is to claw at the sky and weep.
The band conquered the crowd with the entirety of their newly-recorded sophomore album, aptly titled “Second.” The band themselves didn’t move much, but the crowd swayed and pounded respectfully. It was legendary. I didn’t even mind that vocalist/guitarist John Dyer Baizley was, with every desperate scream, drenching my face with cold spit. It was sort of refreshing amid the roasting audience. In all, listening to Baroness is like filling a coffee mug with age-old glory, popping it in the microwave and pouring its boiling, totally epic contents directly onto your face.
Yeah, it’s that pleasurable.
All kidding aside, though: holy crap.
Music Hates You and Baro-frickin’-ness. Together. Temporally adjacent. In a town as arguably metal-infertile as Athens, events like this cannot be missed. Cheers to Georgia’s finest on a job well done, and to music as metallic and bitter as the souvenir still throbbing in my mouth. - The Blog Cabin

Athens, Ga., trio Music Hates You aren’t about to let you off easy. Like Jesus Lizard sunning on molten, accelerated Black Sabbath grooves, the Athens trio are hot to the touch and likely to drop right through the floor of your third story apartment. Frontman Noah Ray’s performances are possessed. He’s always been comfortable as the center of attention. That goes back to the last time you saw him, when he was the skater boy digging around in that dilapidated house of R.E.M.’s video, “End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine).” It’s still that way today. After a recent show, a Waffle House waitress joked they could plug in there, and so he loaded in. She’ll think twice before she opens her mouth next time.

Ray resembles David Yow vocally—a howling growl, hard-charging rhino coming at you like a blur. Bleeding, broken instruments, and face-to-face in-the-pit confrontations go hand-in-hand with songs like the OCD, blus-psych rave-up, “So Much Dirt In My Spotless Lab,” the grimy, sweat-soaked “Rock’n’ Roll, Ape Sex and Hell” and “You Are My Mess,” in which Ray asks his unwanted child, “When will you grow up and be a man?” On the namesake statement of purpose, “You Have Failed As an Audience/A Beginner’s Guide,” he sings, “Music hates us…We all have to live with it because we all love music…You can’t ever possess it, you only get a taste.”

On the final leg of their first big national tour, they’re probably pretty tight, if a little stir-crazy from the van. That’s nothing a few good pokes in the ribs won’t solve. Just don’t rile them too much, they’re unpredictable.

“We’re going to play what’s in our hearts, let everyone else worry about playing music,” Ray spits. “We start and stop each song together most of the time, other than that all bets are off. But I will promise you, it will be loud.”
- Indy Week.com