Tallah’s Ambitious ‘Vanilla Paste’ Is a Nu-Metal Journey With Multiple Guests
New era nu-metal act Tallah take their bravest creative leap to date with "Vanilla Paste," a veritable metalcore opus that features an army of guest contributors in Fire From the Gods' AJ Channer, Chelsea Grin's Tom Barber and Guerrilla Warfare's Garrett Hood.
The riff-driven, six-plus-minute song fuses Tallah's hallmark aggressive alt-metal with a theatrical air reminiscent of classic metal epics in a way that makes its runtime an afterthought. The heavy single officially comes out on Wednesday (Aug. 18), but it, along with its dizzying music video, arrives a day early on Loudwire.
Tallah frontman Justin Bonitz explains that the song is "basically about having bullshit forced down your throat, whether it is lies from the media, unimportant drama, abuse from a significant other, etc."
"'Vanilla Paste' represents something you are digesting," he continues, "which has no nutritional value or substance. It is just flavored paste. It tastes sweet and stimulates your senses, but it is not actually doing anything for you. You cannot survive off of nothing, and that is what that crap is nothing. In this song, we have people who have been fed this 'nothing' their whole lives. They are tired of it [and] ready to make a change."
Fire From the Gods vocalist Channer adds of the collab, "Alex Snowden [rhythm guitarist] of Tallah and FFTG go way back to our first 'signed' tour when she was in Doll Skin. I truly respect her evolution as a guitar player. When they asked me to be on this track I had to hop on."
Chelsea Grin vocalist Barber says he's "happy to be part of a song from a band who's really pushing the boundaries of this genre. It's truly a breath of fresh air."
Tallah, who, along with Bonitz and Snowden, also includes drummer Max Portnoy, lead guitarist Derrick Schneider, bassist Andrew Cooper and DJ Mewzen, will support Avatar on tour this fall.
Watch the video for "Vanilla Paste" below.
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