Hot New Band: Let's Talk Daggers

“Well, you’re right, we aren’t what you’d call a ‘metal’ band,” laughs Will Gunson, vocalist/ guitarist with Eastbourne’s Let’s Talk Daggers after it’s put to him that his band aren’t the usual Hammer fare. “But there are enough nods to that type of music. It’s just they’re surrounded by lots of other things, too.”

If you’re one of those hardy folk who like nothing but the sound of traditional heavy metal then you might have to move along here… although you’d be missing out. Let’s Talk Daggers have made one of the most bizarre, eclectic and head-fucking albums of 2015. A Beautiful Life is 12 tracks of genre-gobbling madness, veering from Slint-style post-rock time signatures to bellowing hook-filled choruses to grindcore-paced heavy guitar riffage and throat-shredding vocals. Quite who it’s for is an entirely different question.

“The scene in this country is really strong,” Will says, “and we do feel part of it because so many of our friends – Palm Reader, God Damn and Heck [formerly Baby Godzilla] – are doing so well. But we do feel that we’ve been ignored a bit, maybe because we don’t fit into something people can pigeonhole.”

And if you think this will make Let’s Talk Daggers change their approach, you’re mistaken. “I like that we’re left out on our own a little,” shrugs Will. “It’s good for our music that we can treat this as a hobby and not worry about whether what we do brings us mainstream acceptance.”

So how would Will try and sell his band to a metal purist? Unsurprisingly, he wouldn’t.

“There is influence from that sort of stuff,” he tells us, “and you can’t deny that we’re heavy in parts… but, that’s a pretty hard question for us to answer.”

Just try it – we promise you won’t be disappointed.

*A Beautiful Life* is out now via Tangled Talk

Stephen joined the Louder team as a co-host of the Metal Hammer Podcast in late 2011, eventually becoming a regular contributor to the magazine. He has since written hundreds of articles for Metal Hammer, Classic Rock and Louder, specialising in punk, hardcore and 90s metal. He also presents the Trve. Cvlt. Pop! podcast with Gaz Jones and makes regular appearances on the Bangers And Most podcast.