Sell This! - "Empires Everywhere" EP Review!!

It's now time for our 176th monthly CD review at The Sault Metal Scene! Unfortunately, as local rapper Bold Noize's August 2023 debut punk album "God Save Me" has not been re-released in full on streaming services, I have had to change plans for this month, and if "God Save Me" does pop up down the road, a review of it will be as an archive release, not a new one where a review would be given priority. Still, hopefully Tristan re-posts it, as I was curious to review it! Instead, this month's review will be of new-ish local/Winnipeg classical metal project Sell This!' EP "Empires Everywhere", which was independently released on January 13th at its CD release party at The Distraction. The third studio effort and fourth release total from Sell This! (but first since singer/cellist Pete Mozarowski moved back to the Soo), "Empires Everywhere" only credits Pete for musical contributions on the final product.

You can buy this album on CD via Sell This' Bandcamp page for $10, but Pete opted to make digital mp3 copies of the album 100% free there (not even on a "name your price" model). Still, consider buying it on CD to support his work! With five songs running for 29 minutes in length, let's begin our first review of an album release from the year 2024!

This EP begins with its shortest song "Paint A Picture", which sets the tone with a droning drum beat and some distortion-heavy cello playing from Pete, who sings with an ominous intent, though the lyrics on offer are brief and relatively open for interpretation, especially given this project's political/activism leanings on prior albums. Compared to his better known hardcore punk-leaning output with RedD Monkey, this has more of a doom/noise style that will appeal to genre fans, but for me, the cello overpowers everything else too much. Second up is "We Fight Ourselves", which runs for 8:50, and it's not even the longest song on offer! The lyrics are more plentiful and specific here, with Pete singing about how we're basically fighting with ourselves rather than at the system, and how frustrated he is at the perceived "self-annihilation" while trying to rise against oppressors (he sings it better than I sum it up).

This song is much more substantial and varied than "Paint A Picture", and features some of Pete's best vocal work yet in this project (listen to his prior Sell This! albums to compare), with more confident shouting and clean vocals that do call Trent Reznor to mind more than it did in Winnipeg. Given Pete's obvious background as a classical musician, he puts that to good use in terms of breaking this song into distinct chunks, with the first half being a pounding industrial metal song before bridging with some spare cello work before gradually bringing the metal back with purpose. Definitely a highlight of the EP that shows off Pete's compositional abilities and increasing confidence as a vocalist without getting too repetitive, and I'd point new listeners to this song to hear Sell This! before other tracks!

The mid-point of "Empires Everywhere" comes on "TastyHandMeat", a comparatively short instrumental. This has more of a techno basis for its melody and composition, and while it's catchy enough, your ear is moreso drawn to Pete's high pitched cello playing overtop of the beat. Honestly, at first, this didn't do much for me, but the longer it went, the more I liked it, as that melody gave this song a mildly eerie sci-fi overtone. If he was trying to emulate a theremin here, I think he succeeded! Not an improvement on "We Fight Ourselves", but it sure grabs you as it goes! The penultimate song on this EP is "Fetish-Symptom", which runs for over 9 minutes, but like the preceding track, this is also an instrumental. This song is a slow builder from the off, with a steady low cello riff slowly getting added to with ominous percussion and more cello lines, but after about 4 minutes, the low riff drops out completely.

This continue building and building as cello parts take precedence or fall back, with the last 3 minutes featuring more rapid and intense playing, but the song ends very abruptly and I've never liked when songs do that out of nowhere. "Fetish-Symptom" sets a dark mood that I appreciate, but it goes way too long for my liking, especially with how the percussion is basically one slow, deliberate pattern every 6 seconds or so. I'd have amped up the drumming and chopped the song down greatly, but it's atmospheric qualities are noted! Sell This!'s first local EP ends with "It's Not Alright", which is basically a response to someone whose actions don't line up with their words (this is open for interpretation but I took it as based on one's stances on sociopolitical issues). Another song that makes use of drawn out, ominous overtones and structure, Pete's vocals return here and he tries to unleash some passioned screaming here.

If any song on the EP feels like one that could have been adapted to RedD Monkey, it'd be this one, but I'd have sped it up a lot and leaned into the anger of the lyrics more than we actually got on the final product. This is an improvement to end things with, but it feels a little too experimental and dark compared to what worked before. So, what are my final thoughts on Sell This' new EP? While inconsistent for what I like, it's definitely an improvement on what I heard from this project before Pete moved back home! His cello skill is never in doubt, but he is a more confident and forceful singer than we saw on prior albums, and he's putting things to relatively unique use here on industrial metal with socially charged lyrics, so he immediately stands out from the pack. If that's Pete drumming, he largely adds to the songs there, and the songs on offer are all unique & stand out from each other, for better or worse.

"We Fight Ourselves" is as ideal of a song as you can get for Sell This! (remarkably so given its length), and I increasingly liked "TastyHandMeat", so those are my recommendations, but there are things that I'd address. The cello can be overbearing on the opener, "Fetish-Symptom" was way too long and way too limited for percussion, and the production quality is definitely not where it could be for the displayed genres, though he has came a long way, especially compared to his past local band work.

RedD Monkey fans may be left hanging a bit by the genre jump here, but if Sell This! keep at it, they'll easily carve a deserved local niche by giving fans something that we truly don't have in the scene, and I do recommend checking out "Empires Everywhere" to see what Pete has in store at the above links! I hope you guys liked this month's CD review, but what album are we looking at next? For the first time since 2022, I honestly do not know at this point. While our new album release backlog is not quite empty (Convergence's "Dead & Dreaming" came out on January 1st), that review is coming in April due to our six month anti-bias buffer period between reviews of albums from the same band. As such, unless something brand new drops in March, we'll dip into the archives for the first time in well over a year. What album, I can't say yet, but in the past, I would give preference to albums from artists playing live next month.

Barring that, I tended to look towards a high profile unreviewed metal, hard rock, or punk album, so use those hints however you see fit! That's all for now, but stay tuned for more news and notes on the site soon, plus this weekend's concert previews tomorrow! Thanks everyone!