OUT FRIDAY - Cell Games Release Blistering New EP 'You Have (Not) Heard These Songs Before' (Irish Nu-Metal)
Cell Games have been the proud torch carriers for Irish Nu-Metal since their inception in 2021. The band rip up the rule book, avoiding the pitfalls of any troupes and preconceived notions of the genre, spitting back their own inimitable sound. Pop cultures references woven throughout razor sharp song writing with should-be-locked-up-in-a-lab-infectious melodies and production that would make Ross Robinson blush. Following three incredibly successful singles in 2024, ‘Ego Sum Papa’, ‘The Optical World’ and ‘Witches X Bitches’ and this year’s whiplash inducing ‘Lament Configuration’ which made Ailsha on RTE2XM, Hot Press, IMRO, First Music Contact, Ragged Cast and Rock N Load all stand up and pay attention. Now fresh of a UK tour the band return with their blistering debut EP ‘You Have (Not) Heard These Songs Before’. Following a change in drummer, the band decided to revisit old songs from their catalogue and give them the 2025 Cell Games treatment, reinvigorating these songs and turning them into stadium sized, fist-in-the-air, neck-in-a-brace, nu-metal anthems. No one in Ireland does it like Cell Games.
Pop culture references are a red thread that run throughout the Cell Games catalogue so it’s unsurprising that their name came from the humble beginnings of Dragon Ball Z marathon. The band say the name represents finding strength in your convictions and they want to use their music to spread empathy, acceptance, kindness in the face of negativity. This is what sets Cell Games apart from their contemporaries, beyond the sequins and tales of demons or face-huggers there is a true emotional core to the music.
2025 saw a line-up change with the addition of new drummer Niall O’Carroll, who helped reinvigorate and breath a new life into the band, completed by Maximillion Foy (vocals), Tristan Caroll (guitar/programming) and Deb O’Brien(bass/vocals). This spawned a wealth of new material, including lead single ‘Let’s Go To Therapy?’, but also caused the band to revisit previous releases. During this process they decided to give the old songs the Cell Games 2025 treatment. The result is something more visceral, vicious and focused. All packaged and presented as new EP ‘You Have (Not) Heard These Songs Before’.
The EP opens with lead single ‘Let’s Go To Therapy’, the only ‘new’ song you have (not) heard before. Following the addition of new drummer Niall O’Carroll the band found themselves pushing themselves and their sound into new sonic territory. Opening with a sample from the sixties horror ‘Carnival of Souls’, it not only leans into Cell Games predilection towards cult horrors but in three short lines speaks to sense of disconnection and otherness that many feel. After that it’s a heads down double time assault, as the band hit us with walls of crunchy guitars before launching into a soaring chorus. Maximillion intones, ‘Sex, drugs and violence, couldn’t persuade me, let’s go to therapy!’ delivering one of the years most memorable lyrics in the anthesis of the expected ‘rock n roll’ behaviour. “no thanks Satan! I’m going home to work on myself!” The track is all at once incredibly heavy and abrasive while simultaneously laced with a stadium filling pop hook, sounding like Fear Factory fighting Miley Cyrus in an alley.
‘Lament Configuration’, for the uninitiated is a reference to cult horror classic ‘Hellraiser’. The puzzle box that bridges realities and unlocks a plethora of pleasures or torments, depending on your perspective. In the hands of Cell Games, it becomes a gargantuan Nu-Metal anthem. As the distant- transistor-radio intro gives way we are hit with walls of impossibly thick guitars and kick drums that feel like Godzilla thumping through Tokyo. Things drop down in the verse, a simple bass line from Deb makes it feel even more present and impactful. Maximillion veers into rap-territory for the verses but delivered with the split larynx rage of metal its more than convincing before the launching into the chorus of “Destroy or be destroyed, There’s no better way. Let us be the destroyers.”. Max says, “The song is my thoughts on the rise of the far-right movement and people’s sense of empathy gradually eroding away. Written pre-Covid it was supposed to be a cautionary tale that became, unfortunately, quite prophetic. It’s about the feeling that things are about to change for the worst, It’s like we’ve solved the Lament Configuration and the chains have dragged us to hell.”
The last two tracks on the EP pre-date the formation of Cell Games. ‘Filthyweight’ came together as Maximillion and Tristan had the desire to start a band but had yet to take the next steps. Initially recorded as part of a live session back in 2021 it became the proof of concept for the band. The track we hear today has a decidedly Tool type lurching rhythm, from the bass intro to syncopated drum pattern. It’s weighty and snakes along until we hit the crushing chorus and it opens up into more grandiose territory while maintaining its heaviosity. Maximillion’s vocals move between a Patton-esque croon and a throating splitting scream, Deb’s bass keeps the track locked into that hypnotic pattern, with Niall’s drums adding the bullet mark exclamation points, Tristain leans into the effects in the bridge, from a wailing whammy pedal to the swirling phasers that help create a dense-dreamy atmosphere. Maximillion says lyrically the track uses the facehugger from Alien as a foreign body lodged inside you as a metaphor for the weight of depression. It’s a track that shows the breadth of territory Cell Games can cover.
The last track on the EP, Relics, comes from a period pre-Cell Games. Initially starting life as a more guitar centric track, it slowly became one of the band’s first foray into incorporating electronic elements into their music. It feels like a quintessential Cell Games track, the perfect mix of crushingly heavy guitars, machine gun double kicks, nu-metal-rave synths and rumbling bass all given voice to by Maximillion’s singular vocals, straddling worlds of rap, soaring clean vocals and exorcism induced screams. All compacted into a neck snapping three and a half minutes.
For the recording process the band continued their on-going relationship with Josh at JSR Audio. The band have worked with Josh on every release to date, having already built up the creative vocabulary and shorthand with him allows the band to work quickly, have the time to experiment and already have a clear picture of the end result in mind.
‘You Have (Not) Heard These Songs Before’ further cements Cell Games as one of the most unique voices coming out of Ireland. On one hand unashamedly flying the flag for ‘Nu-Metal’, an often-maligned genre, (now making a massive come back), but in reality, the band far exceed the narrow confines of that genre. Instead, Cell Games are focused on writing blisteringly heavy songs with stadium sized hooks, innovating the genre beyond its backwards redcap reputation by incorporating electronic elements into their music in new and fresh ways, introducing contemporary sounds and finding emotional depths beyond the teenage angst so prevalent in the genre. Razor sharp production showcases the band exactly how they should be heard, clear and punchy and crushingly heavy. Cell Games are essential listening. Essential.
12th December (not announced til November) McDowell's, Inchicore EP launch gig with PRETTY LTD and SHALLO
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/CellGamesBand
Twitter https://twitter.com/cellgames_mp3
Bandcamp https://cellgamesband.bandcamp.com
YouTube channel https://youtube.com/@CellGamesBand
