For personal thoughts on the single, it's decent! Nothing special, but it's a perfectly enjoyable slab of Octanecore. I suspect it won't go over as well with everyone here, but I had a great time listening to it, and, while it's a low bar, it blows Even in Arcadia out of the water in just about every aspect

Oh, one criticism is that there's a pretty heavy vocal effect filter over the verses that can be a bit iffy here and there, but it's nothing too egregious

there's a lot to eye roll about this whole situation but I wanna know what the focus groups thought about the masks....

Worst part about the band easily. Far too uncanny valley for me, and I feel like, between Ghost's temporary anonymity and Sleep Token's cult image stuff, that aesthetic in general has run its course. Doesn't help that President are very much trying to invoke the "mysterious cult language" stuff in their promotional material

please get out of my recommendations box i don't care

It's enjoyable to listen to but this entire thing feels so disingenuous and fake that it sucks all the fun out of it. It's like I'm watching a coca cola ad or something.

Not bad, not something I see myself ever wanting to listen to a full album of though

Probably just put the heavy filter on his voice because his voice is pretty recognizable, even though his identity is pretty easily found out.

Sounds like Charlie Simpson.

I'm not a fan of the effects on his voice here at all.

Eh, it's pretty disappointingly average, imo.

Feels like someone borrowed aspects of Bad Omens and Crosses, and then decided Cardinal Copia would be a good frontman.

And yeah, I'm 99% certain that's Charlie.

Moving to the country, gonna eat a lot of peaches

I like this even tho i agree on the vocal effects here.
Only complaint is that he should instead focus on Fightstar and not some side project or supergroup.
The feel and overall sound other than the ones on the vocals isnt too different from Behind The Devils Back

over produced and quite cheesy but quite catchy, its aight. this is gonna get spammed at download festival

IN 10 years from now. I can say i was here. I started at the beginning. Join me with a thumbs up. Well done gents this is amazing.

lmao glad I’m not the only one who was laughing at those comments Carl

PEACHES COME FROM A CAN, THEY WERE PUT THERE BY A MAN

Those comments really weren't doing much to disprove Dead Internet Theory LMAO

Hey look, another band for Sputnik elititsts to hate on! maybe Sleep Token will catch a break now lol.

focusgroupcore

Calling people who don’t like bands you like elitist is my favorite internet thing

Wake up babe, new industry plants just dropped

POTUSA metalcore cover band sounds like a much better idea than this

"Hey look, another band for Sputnik elititsts to hate on! maybe Sleep Token will catch a break now lol."

Say what you will about Sleep Token, they've made far more interesting music than this.

vocals on here are somehow more undesirable than vessel

Calling people who don’t like bands you like elitist is my favorite internet thing [2]

truer words haven't been spoken

Pretty good song.

catchy song

Daoboys already outclassed. Impressive.

Bad take, Tundra

Music for people who watch Nik Nocturnal

@animalforce1 this entire site is a walking bad take, do you really thing I should be taking advice from that?

too many masked bands these days, altho president masks have this bank robbery vibe which is kinda cool

song is decent.

wrong, tundra and bad take mean the same thing here
also i swear these tongue in cheek news titles are getting out of hand

This is the most mid ass shit there is. Masked bands other than IT or Gaerea are shit

@brickhed sorry, couldn't resist having a bit of fun with this one LMAO

@Tundra there's a million things I could say in response to that, but I have a feeling like that's not an argument worth having LOL

They're already not anonymous. Didn't take long. Frontman is some dude named Charlie from the band Busted and Fightstar.

Immediately lost interest when the mystique was gone

Tik tokers will love this

just bring back Fightstar already

Can't wait for them to put out an album so I can 1 it.

Man this shit is so corny

This is bad. Really bad.

Me and Intothepit will forever disagree

Tik tokers will love this [2]

just bring back Fightstar already [2]

Lmao I just knew that this band somehow were related to Sleep Token. Couldn't understand the amount of views for a first song at first but now I know after reading the description. ST fans are gonna love this band too and make them the second biggest metal band probably. Seems like a gimmick/lore is more important than good music to make it big nowadays.

i'm going to kill myself

industry plant confirmed???
big shocker.

is this more metal for The Masked Singer fans

At least this is better than any Shit Token song, that's always something

It's baffling to me that music that sounds like this is still generating hype. Shit has been stale since I was a kid.

It's a fresh reminder of how bad taste majority of people have.

holy moly the emphasis on "make them worship" is so on the nose it's practically shoved all the way through your skull. cant wait for the Sleep Token / President "dual headliner" tour where they further entrance impressionable teenagers with cultlike imagery and bafflingly surface level drivvle.
this is fucking terrible.

Maybe sputnik should just come together to form the best modern metal band so these cringe bands don't get the spotlight

It's so obviously Charlie Simpson but there's a fun theory going around that it's actually the entire lineup of Busted, with Eddie Thrower on drums, James Bourne on guitar and Matt Willis on bass. One piece of evidence is that they've been in the studio for over a year with Jordan Fish as producer and Matt talked about doing stuff they've never done before and also pushing Charlie to be the focus vocally - could be that they still made a "proper" Busted album but the stuff where they pushed themselves more turned into President.

It will no doubt sell out stadiums for the kids.

Good for them and we getting some decent music out for it! I’ve listened to the Callous Daoboys and Bury Tomorrow this week and this is the most hyped I’ve been. Callous Daoboys was excellent too, BT great but would be superb with Jason back

@Kusangii Sputnik would not be able to do that.

No way this has busted in it, I’m thinking Fightstar and Gunship

Eddie Thrower can absolutely do this on drums and it was already rumoured he was involved as the drum set up is similar. The fact he aand Charlie have been doing this the exact same time they've been working on Busted music would also mean it's feasible. Plus it would be funny to see Matt and James doing this considering the entire reason Charlie left Busted in 2004 was because he wanted to play heavier music and they weren't as keen (that and management wouldn't let him).

At least this guy can sing. Still garbage tho

Man, this sounds incredibly generic and watered down. Am I just aging out of this or are these bands like Sleep Token and President actually kind of mediocre?

Someone mentioned Bury Tomorrow in this thread and that was exactly my first thought when I heard President. They sound like a much more watered-down version of Bury Tomorrow.

This is very “yeah I wouldn’t turn it off if it came on the radio” for me but still better than Sleep Token

These vocal effects are STRANGE, yeah idk about this

Bury Tomorrow are genericore garbage and sounds nothing like this.

tundra how does it feel knowing i might be listening to hornet disaster because of your negative reaction

Disaster is right.

This one’s growing off on me with time. I had just got done ranting with my gf about how frustrating and dumb some parts of Sleep Token are so my bar was a bit lower LOL

I still think it’s decent, but it’s about as by the numbers as you can get

Maybe it’s just because Sleep Token are so goddamn bad but this didn’t strike me as that terrible. Stupid? A little bit, but WAY more enjoyable than literally any ST song I’ve heard.

Fightstar walked so Sleep Token could run (just listen to Dive by Fightstar).
This would be incredibly ironic if members of Fightstar were trying to become the new Sleep Token lol.

Bury Tomorrow are genericore garbage and sounds nothing like this.

@animalforce1 this entire site is a walking bad take, do you really thing I should be taking advice from that?

Another day another tundra not realizing he’s dunking on himself constantly

I had a coworker tell me about this band and honestly im insulted that he thought I’d like this shit

definitely coworker music

listened to it twice and can't remember a single thing about it other than the painful vocal effects

im all for charlie doing heavier stuff again but this is such a stepdown both in terms of songwriting and general sound from old fightstar stuff and feels pandering towards the lowest common dominator. i don't know if there's supposed to be a tongue-in-cheek angle to it but A) i hope they're not taking this shit seriously and B) if so, it's not coming through at all.

I think there was a riff in the last 30 seconds?
Idk, not really anything that’s like, audibly offensive, but it’s bland as fuck

And no I don’t think this is tongue in cheek at all, I think they’re taking themselves very seriously

Charlie can do far, far better than this. Gimmicky genericore for the stadiums.

just bring back Fightstar already [3]

I’m guessing:
Singer: Charlie Simpson
Guitarist: Lee Malia (BMTH)
Electronics: Rou Reynolds (Enter Shikari)
Bassist: ?
Drummer: Eddie Thrower

Produced by: Jordan Fish

gotta be a world record for number of trends followed by one band

"elder millennials" on tiktok will go crazy for this

lol

just bring back Fightstar already [4]

Really though I don't mind this, especially the more chilled out vibey sections. Normally I'm really annoyed by vocal effects on this level but it works fairly well here, and Charlie has always been able to do the softer crooning thing better than most imo.

Purge metal

bring back fightstar (10000)

Pretty good, but yeah I'd rather just have more Fightstar

not a fan of the weird autotune, thats not needed for Charlie but the screams as tasty and the breakdowns are nice. not bad.

"just bring back Fightstar already [4]"

As much as I would love that, I seriously doubt it's going to happen. PRESIDENT already has nearly 100k more listeners on Spotify than Fightstar. This is an industry tailored "anonymous cult band" designed to cash in on those Ghost/Sleep Token merch + ticket sales.

By shoehorning PRESIDENT into the Download 2025 lineup (forcing people to pay attention to them, as no one actually knows who they are) and using the music platform algorithms to boost streams as much as possible, they've all but guaranteed it's going to work, too.

I expected this to be terrible and, yeah it was terrible.

not my president

So how does Sleep Token have their identities not known for however long but this guy had his figured out within the day?

Marketing Machine Metal

"So how does Sleep Token have their identities not known for however long but this guy had his figured out within the day?"

It probably didn't help that Charlie Simpson's voice has been a part of the mainstream pop/rock music scene since 2002.

Are this guys other bands actually worth checking out? Vocals aren’t really anything special here tbh

Song's solid but it's been done a dime-a-dozen times before. Sick to hear Charlie doing heavier music again but the fabricated mystery & hype is just so contrived.

"So how does Sleep Token have their identities not known for however long but this guy had his figured out within the day?"

the peanut butter mouth and blackface.

Sleep Token are amateurs when it comes to anonymity. Come back when they've managed to stay anonymous as long as Residents.

"So how does Sleep Token have their identities not known for however long but this guy had his figured out within the day?"

Charlie's voice is very distinct, anyone who has listened to his other bands is gonna pick up on who's singing in seconds. Trying to hide his identity was never gonna work.

"Are this guys other bands actually worth checking out? Vocals aren’t really anything special here tbh"

Fightstar is great. I really enjoy his voice but everyone does good work in that band.

"Fightstar is great. I really enjoy his voice but everyone does good work in that band."

Seconded. I don't care at all for Busted but Fightstar is really solid. Definitely recommend 'Behind the Devil's Back' as a good starting point.

Just realized that my worst nightmare is being like 37 and listening to music like this all the time.

little did he know he'd spend the rest of his life crippled and alone but at least he had mount eerie on in the background

At least

“Seconded. I don't care at all for Busted but Fightstar is really solid. Definitely recommend 'Behind the Devil's Back' as a good starting point.”
First 30 seconds of that record has more going on than literally this entire song. Def gonna have to check them out

Yeah this really is just nothingness incarnate or what.

Also fuck me the YouTube comment section makes me wanna tear my eyes out lol

Listening to bits and pieces of Fightstar honestly makes me realize how generic this song is by comparison. REALLY hope they can push the envelope more on whatever comes next, and that this is just a generic single to pull people in

Can we please not give this industry plant any platform?

"Just realized that my worst nightmare is being like 37 and listening to music like this all the time."

lmfao

New song not as good. Who guy at end? Charlie on holiday in turkey at the moment before download fest ;)

Songs are fine but that he tries to mask his identity with those dreadful vocal effects ruins it a fair bit D:

F E A R L E S S =^-^=

Yeah new song isn't great.

The new song popped up on my front page on YT. I even disliked the video of their first single. I want to die. This is the worst timeline.

I want to hear good Charlie Simpson music again.

Another banger. Good job PRESIDENT.

i knew exactly what tundra was going to type, you gotta amp up your game

Love the distraction. Eddie Thrower posting an insta story up in London this morning for Busted and McFly tonight, when clearly at Download first. They must have walked off staged and got straight in car for 2 hour drive to London