Dead By Wednesday emerged from the ashes of former east-coast underground aristocrats, Gargantua Soul. A quintet boasting two former members of G-Soul, the band has a sound completely contrary to that of their predecessors. In the absence of the politically active, hip-hop driven group Rage Against The Machine, Dead By Wednesday is poised to fill a void with its aggressive lyrical and musical stylings.The New Haven, Conn. based band is headed by two brothers, Ceschi and David Ramos, and their cousin Christian Lawrence (better known as OPUS) is the group's drummer. Pat Garcia and Mike Modeste complete the band on guitar and bass respectively.

"The music is innovative and the message is bold," OPUS explains. "We hope that it makes enough of a buzz to have the word spread through the underground and shake some people a bit."

Dead By Wednesday's music is a chaotic conundrum that combines Spanish and English, hardcore and hip-hop, politics and popular music. "They've got all of you bozos fooled/You've been spoon fed through the boob toob/Now you've lost your ability to think/You walk in a herd of conditioned sheep," they rant in "My Voice."

Dead By Wednesday's creative sound results from the band's wide variety of musical influences that range from the group Bad Brains to the L.A. hip-hop-based Shapeshifters and even jazz.

"Our broad range of influences has made us very different from other bands out now," OPUS said. "It really separates us from the hordes of radio-friendly melodic metal-rock garbage that has oversaturated the air waves. We are going against the grain and not following the trends at all. We try to incorporate art and poetry into our innovative style."

The group's songs show a range of tempos complemented by diverse melodies, rhymes and even screams. The majority of the vocals consist of Ceschi and David spitting quick-hitting rhymes in the style of Busta Rhymes. This technique of rapping, heavily influenced by L.A. hip-hop groups, is a staple of Dead By Wednesday's music.

Jarring shouts and screams are interspersed within the rhymes, adding the weight of heavy emotion to the mix. Sporadic melodies help keep their edgy sound of hard metal and punk riffs in check. These well-placed melodic entries help to set Dead By Wednesday apart from other supposed "rap-metal" outfits.

The band has been spewing their self-proclaimed "psycho poetry" at shows across the northeast to promote their first full-length album, Democracy Is Dead, set tentatively to be released in April. Hoping that their live shows will help garner attention for the upcoming album, the band aims to promote their political messages while making it clear to their fans that the music still comes first.

"In all honesty, we come from a socialist political platform and are heavily inspired by Marx and Trotsky," the Ramos brothers explain. "We've studied a lot about the movements in Latin America and that drives a lot of the inspiration for our lyrics. Overall, we just want people to start thinking. We're not trying to shove anything down their throat.