Rock Music News: Sicksense – FOOLS TOMORROW (2024)

The last days of nu-metal were a sight to behold. Every established metal band and middle-aged white dude was pulling on a vest, dying their hair blonde and trying their very best to get down with the kids. The market was over-saturated with bands who didn’t realise that the thing that made Korn’s music compelling was that they were weird. Sicksense get it.

Last year, they dropped the ‘Kings Today’ EP. Built around sluggish bass grooves, it used rap and huge riffs but combined them with striking clean vocal parts to create a big, bold take on the nu-metal template, one designed to catch your attention. New EP ‘Fools Tomorrow’ updates that sound, playing confidently in the same sandbox. It makes a great companion piece because it allows them to embrace the weird and you can’t help but be impressed.

‘Feed Them To The Wolves’ sets the tone. It’s a solid, powerful song underpinned by a huge dragging rhythm section, leaving you in no doubt where their influences lie, but it takes the overall sound in a slightly different direction. With a gentle electronic feel and some slick guitar work, it’s clearly no slave to the past and plays like a gleeful restatement of their approach. The same is true for ‘Fools Tomorrow’, another muscular slab of groovy guitar riffing enhanced by a tone that’s pure filth.

The band’s not-so-secret weapon is vocalist Vicky Psarakis (whose main band, The Agonist, folded less than a month ago) and she brings not only power, but a style that’s relatively unsual in this genre. Co-vocalist Rob The Ripper uses a barked rapping style that makes a fantastic counterpoint, and between them you’re never far from a hook. However it’s when they trade raps, screams and singing parts that they’re most impressive. You’ll hear this on ‘Invitation’ and ‘Run And Hide’ which fold around the vocalists in a tug-of-war where the only winner is the listener. Both songs are unusually structured and spiral around in ways that showcase the band at their best.

Acoustic closer ‘Erase, Rewind’ is a stripped-back and powerful ballad, giving Psarakis chance to show off her voice. Yet even here, the ideas run counter to your expectations and they use a shreddy guitar to create an unusual tension, resulting in a well-deserved payoff. It’s delightful.

Sicksense might have one foot in the past, but the other is striding forward; they understand what makes nu-metal powerful but aren’t content regurgitate the hits. With ‘Fools Tomorrow’, they’ve produced something exciting, inventive and thoroughly enjoyable.

IAN KENWORTHY