Archive for July, 2024

Watch: ‘Alexis Feels Sick’ by the Jesus Lizard

Posted: 10 July 2024 in Recommended Streams and Videos, Singles and EPs
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the Jesus Lizard, who release Rack, their first new album in 26 years, on Friday the 13th of September via Ipecac Recordings, offer a second preview of what has become one of 2024’s most eagerly-awaited albums with today’s arrival of ‘Alexis Feels Sick’.

Inspired by Girls Against Boys/Soulside drummer Alexis Fleisig’s guarded opinion of modern life, the four-and-a-half-minute track is met with an esoteric, David Yow created video.

Yow shares insight into the concept behind the clip: “The ‘Alexis Feels Sick’ video is a disgusting and comically impressionistic portrait of American Late Stage Capitalism… with some doggies.” Duane Denison adds that it’s a “study in greed, gluttony, and… dogs.”

Check it here:

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News of the band’s return came last month via The New York Times, who said the new LP is “a raucous record that recaptures the lunging momentum, stealth nuance and unhinged Yow-isms  of [their] best work.” ‘Hide & Seek’, the first taste from the 11-song album, was described by Yow as “a perky ditty about a witch who can’t behave, and it’s got nearly as many hooks as a Mike Tyson fight.” The video captures the band – Mac McNeilly, David Wm. Sims, Denison and Yow – recording Rack with Producer Paul Allen at Nashville’s Audio Eagle Studio.

the Jesus Lizard reconvened in 2009 for a limited number of shows and have maintained their bond both as friends in close contact with one another, and touring bandmates. “We literally only made the record because we thought it would be fun to make the record,” says Sims. With McNeilly highlighting the strong relationship amongst the musicians: “We are bonded by the music we make, and also by the respect we have for each other.”

Album pre-orders, which include several limited-edition vinyl variants, as well as CD, digital, and cassette offerings, are available here.

The band also recently announced a number of tour dates, stretching into 2025, with recent additions including a performance at Chicago’s Warm Love Cool Dreams festival on Sept. 28, a newly added date in Cincinnati and second shows added in Dublin and Seattle.

September 7  Raleigh, NC  Hopscotch Music Festival
September 26  Cincinnati, OH  Bogart’s
September 28  Chicago, IL  Warm Love Cool Dreams
October 13  Las Vegas, NV  Best Friends Forever Music Festival
October 31  Dallas, TX  Longhorn Ballroom
November 1  Austin, TX  Levitation / The Far Out Lounge
December 9  Pittsburgh, PA  Stage AE
December 11  Brooklyn, NY  Brooklyn Steel
December 12  Boston, MA  Roadrunner
December 13  Philadelphia, PA  Union Transfer
December 14  Washington, DC  Black Cat
December 15  Washington, DC  Black Cat
December 18  Atlanta, GA  Variety Playhouse
January 7  Glasgow, UK  QMU
January 8  Manchester, UK  Academy 2
January 9  Leeds, UK  Brudenell Social Club
January 10  Bristol, UK  The Fleece
January 11  London, UK  Electric Ballroom
January 12  Brighton, UK  Concorde 2
January 14  Belfast, UK  The Limelight
January 15  Dublin, IE  Button Factory
January 16  Dublin, IE  Button Factory
May 2  Solana Beach, CA  Belly Up Tavern
May 3  Los Angeles, CA  The Fonda Theatre
May 5  San Francisco, CA  The Fillmore
May 8  Portland, OR  Revolution Hall
May 10  Seattle, WA  Neptune Theatre
May 11  Seattle, WA  Neptune Theatre

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Photo credit: Joshua Black Wilkins

The Virginmarys – Northwest Coast

Posted: 9 July 2024 in Reviews, Singles and EPs
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5th July 2024

Christopher Nosnibor

The trajectory of the career of The Virginmarys has been an unexpected one. Starting out as a classic punk-rock power trio, they seemed to really seemed to find their niche and hit their stride when paired back to a two-piece. If the duo configuration has grown in popularity in recent years, there have equally been duos expanding their lineups.

For many acts, the cost of touring has rendered the minimal setup a necessity, but for many, it’s proved beneficial in other ways, too, compelling artists to really focus on their compositions. There is absolutely no space for a weak link or any slacking in a two-piece: there is simply nowhere to hide, and no space for skulking low in the mix adding the odd but of layering or texture.

To compensate for the lack of additional members, the strongest two-piece acts play louder, harder, determined to fill the space, and both players need to bring one hundred percent and combine to deliver something more than the sum of the parts.

The Virginmarys may not look or sound like an obvious choice of support act for The Sisters of Mercy, but The Sisters have a long history of selecting interesting and contracting tour buddies, from Public Enemy for an aborted US tour, to I Like Trains and Cubanate via Oceansize and drum-machine-driven grunge act La Costa Rasa. But contrasts tend to work well: who needs a goth band ripping off The Sisters supporting The Sisters? Conceivably one of the most cringe supports I ever had the excruciating agony of witnessing was Broken Bone, spectacularly wanky and 100% cliché industrial noise duo supporting Whitehouse. So. The Viringmarys aren’t goth and aren’t about to swerve that way, either, but no doubt they’ll have made some new fans along the way on their recent travels, and deservedly so. And those fans – and the older ones – won’t be disappointed by this new single offering.

‘Northwest Coast’ is the first single from their first album since becoming a two-piece, and it captures force of The Macclesfield power duo’s live performances, bringing a crunching riff and spadefuls of northern grit – without being dour and po-faced about chips and beans and tea, with cans of Boddingtons featuring in the video. Yep, for all of their travels, they’ve not lost sight of where they’ve come from, and this is certainly not a case of a band spending a week in the US and coming back singing in American accents. If anything, there’s an overt pride in their geographical roots, and they’re keeping it real. And it all works: it’s authentically and unapologetically rock ‘n’ roll, it’s got some swagger but arrives without any sense of superiority or arrogance. And it’s a proper, solid, stomping rock tune that kicks arse.

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Mirror of Venus – Never Say Forever

Posted: 8 July 2024 in Reviews, Singles and EPs
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à La Carte Records – 23rd June 2023

Christopher Nosnibor

Perfection is a thing so rare it’s practically mythological. And yet LA post-punk act appear to have achieved it with ‘Never Say Forever’. While reprints of their bio abound, evidence of a back catalogue or previous work is impossible to locate, so it does appear that this is their debut single, which makes it all the more remarkable.

‘Never Say Forever’ is pure vintage in every respect – stylistically, it captures the essence of 1981-85, and I have no shame in saying that I’m an absolute sucker for that era which saw post-punk give birth to goth and dark pop. Sonically, too, they’ve got it down. There’s a certain sound, something that comes not only from the production but from the equipment of the time. Technology was advancing apace – it was around this time that drum machines and synths became widely available – and while the last forty years have seen substantial further developments, I can’t help but feel that something has been lost. That crystal-clear digital fidelity we’ve become accustomed to lacks something, a certain soul, perhaps, but also the sonic haze that defined the sound of the early 80s was absolutely integral to the music itself, and while many contemporary acts have tried to emulate it, they’ve simply fallen short. Not so Mirror of Venus: ‘Never Say Forever’ sounds completely authentic, to the point that it sounds like an archive recording. How have they done it? I don’t know. Time travel, perhaps.

Promo and visuals have increasingly become key to success. People of a certain age, in particular – that would often be people my age (and above) – bemoan the advent of style over substance and how it’s all snazzy videos and shit now, while conveniently forgetting that this came to pass in the 80s. But of course, the difference between major-label 80s and independent acts 80s was immense, and this was perhaps the time when capitalism and money really changed the shape of things: the majors would chuck megabucks at the big acts, which led to the slickness and ubiquity of the like of Duran Duran (who I do happen to like) and the low-budget values of all of the bands who weren’t signed to the likes of EMI. The video which accompanies ‘Never Say Forever’ captures the vibe of the era, and how we view them now, also: once affecting slick but now looking faded, it’s a perfect recreation of the VHS era, the pre-digital age. And yes, when I say a ‘perfect’ recreation, I really do mean it.

Everything about ‘Never Say Forever’ feels like it’s been cracked out of a time capsule. But none of this counts for anything if the material isn’t up to scratch, and that’s where ‘Never Say Forever’ really shines. It’s crisp, it’s catchy, it’s moody, broody, hooky, and nothing short of sheer shimmering magnificence. In other words, perfect.

Will they ever match this moment again? One would hope so – of course. It makes you crave more, so much more. But whatever the future holds, with ‘Never Say Forever’, Mirror of Venus have achieved more than almost any band ever does. Perfection.

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Ekin Fil – Sleepwalkers

Posted: 7 July 2024 in Albums, Reviews
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The Helen Scarsdale Agency – 14th June 2024

Christopher Nosnibor

For some time now, The Helen Scarsdale Agency has homed some quite challenging experimental noise and industrial-orientated releases. It seems somewhat incongruous, the name suggesting they’re a stuffy literary agency or something.

The notes which accompany this latest offering from Ekin Fil are instructive and informative, in terms of expectation and context, and as such, worth reproducing here:

‘The drone-pop consternations of Ekin Fil emerge through vaporous tone and forlorn, distant song, as if plucked from a dream. These exist on their own accord, moving with their own internal logic of an emotion heaviness that belies any the passing observation of this as mere shoegazing ambience. Her songs, her compositions find themselves adjacent the fragmented etherealization of Elisabeth Fraser’s voice from a forgotten scene of a particular David Lynch film, as a ASMR trigger for Proustian recollection. Something profound. Something hidden. Something desolately sad.’

Do I want to feel something sad? This is a question I asked myself in all seriousness. Everyone has felt deep, desolate, profound sadness at some point, to varying depths and degrees, and while wading through the mires of a recent bereavement I find I can be set off easily and unexpectedly. But sadness is necessary, and is sometimes something to be embraced. To embrace sadness is not the same as to wallow, and to face sadness squarely is to accept its presence, and perhaps begin to make peace with it. And only in making peace with it is it possible to begin to move on.

The album’s first piece, ‘Sonuna Kadar’ is a billowing cloud of thick ambience, suffocating, disorientating. Occasional chimes do little to light the way, and the vocals drift, lost, lonely through this tentative space. Things grow darker still with ‘Stone Cold’: long noes echo out like sirens, and soft, fizzy-edged notes ripple before being absorbed by cruising waves of thick, heavy sound. The organ is almost without question the heaviest of sounds, a droning, wheezing sound that has the capacity to be uplifting, but, more often than not, is slow a d mouthful. It’s a synthesized organ drone with slowly throbs away on ‘Reflection’, too lugubrious, soporific effect.

Vocals echo as if reverberating in caverns, cathedrals, while the instrumentation is abstract, its direction unfathomable. ‘Sleepwalkers (Version 2)’ is heavy with atmosphere, and the experience is haunting.

The absence of percussion or structure renders these pieces formless, rootless, shapeless, and consequently they hang like heavy cloaks which drag the head down to the ground, and, staring at your feet you contemplate the weight of the world.

Sleepwalkers is one of those albums which seems to build in effect cumulatively over its duration, and wile it’s not overtly heavy with, say, distortion or volume, it brings a weight that drags you down, and the final composition, the ten-minute ‘Gone Gone’ pulls the shoulders down.

Listening to Sleepwalkers doesn’t fill me with sadness, as much as a sense of unease. It does unquestionably bring a sense of weight, but on listening I feel a sense of uneasiness and uncertainty more than anything. But music presents much of what you pitch in and bring to it. With Sleepwalkers, Ekin Fill presents music with open doors. What will you bring?

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Watch: ‘There is Beauty in Noise’ by Neon Insect

Posted: 7 July 2024 in Recommended Streams and Videos, Singles and EPs
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German electro-industrial band, NEON INSECT has just unveiled their ambitious, & highly-anticipated album, LIBERTY FLOWERS.

LIBERTY FLOWERS sheds some light into different aspects of life in New Moscow, in times where unrest slowly settles in, even though everything is done to oppress its citizens. The ever-recurring concept of NEON INSECT’s music features the only habitable place in North America. It’s a dystopian version of New York in an alternative timeline, serving as a experimental playground for implants, cyborgs and indoctrination.

With this album, NEON INSECT also takes you on a trip sonically, with noises sounding like they’ve been taken straight from a dystopian nightclub, combined with analogue madness. The goal with this record was to rephrase the grit of old-school, early 90s electronic-industrial music, while not shying away to cross some boundaries. LIBERTY FLOWERS is a love letter to this era of music.

LIBERTY FLOWERS is currently available on CD and cassette formats as well as Bandcamp, digitally. It will be available on most major streaming services on August 30th.

Watch the video for ‘There is Beauty in Noise’ here:

NEON INSECT (Nils Sinatsch) is a dystopian storyteller, telling tales from New Moscow – New York in an alternative reality, where the cold war went hot and the soviets won.
As a normal citizen somewhere in Germany by day and a rebel by night, NEON INSECT fetches the stories through the cyber web from his contacts in New Moscow. – he only habitable city in a nuked America, where cyborgs rule the streets, where lower Manhattan is a prison and the last bastion of the local rebellion.

The stories are told in an old-school industrial fashion, the sound of the cold war, enhanced with stutters and glitches, the sound of the cyber web – a soundtrack George Orwell would approve of.

Bring Your Own Gasmask.

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LiVES – Cancelled

Posted: 6 July 2024 in Reviews, Singles and EPs
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Roulette Records – 19th July 2024

Christopher Nosnibor

“I fucking hate how lame we’ve all become” yells Peter Chisholm by way of a hook which is almost guaranteed not to get this single mainstream radio airplay – as if it was ever likely in the first place. But the best music rarely on mainstream radio anyway. Nirvana, Therapy?, RATM breaking the singles charts at a certain point in the early 90s was a revolutionary moment in cultural terms, but ultimately, it was but a brief incursion which represented a mere moment in time, and whatever you may read about grunge taking over the world and breaking down walls, you’d never catch Tad or Mudhoney or Nymphs on the airwaves. This is not how the world works, and you’re never going to hear LiVES on R1 – especially not now.

Much as I loathed that sycophantic blowhard Zane Lowe, his show was pretty much the last bastion of alternative on mainstream radio, and while we do still – fortunately, and for now – have 6Music, it’s not the same, and 6Music really isn’t what it was, either. It’s not simply me being a miserable, nostalgic old sod: we’ve lost something, culturally, and that’s a fact.

But I digress – but not without justification. Because LiVES deserve to be heard, far and wide. ‘Cancelled’ is no right-wing supporting rant or moan about being cancelled. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. So you won’t find LiVES bleating about how right-on acts stole their slots or how being edgy has deprived them of a platform, in the way the likes of Ricky Gervais and John Cleese do, completely, and bewilderingly, without irony.

Chisholm states: “‘Cancelled’ is about my feeling of disenfranchisement of online and political society, my total despondence and hatred of the right AND the left… far right and postmodernism attitudes. They claim to be decent whilst being indecent, tolerant whilst being intolerant… always outraged, self righteous, aggressive, violent…they are swimming in hypocrisy and can’t see it. Meanwhile the real elite destroy the world around us, seemingly unnoticed whilst we fight amongst ourselves. I hate them all!!”

The frankly dismal turnout at this week’s election in the UK is a signifier of massive disinterest in politics as a whole, and Chisholm’s loathing of both sides is commonplace. ‘They’re all as bad as each other’, people moan. It doesn’t help that it’s become increasingly difficult to differentiate between the two, especially where the main parties are concerned. But cause for concern is not that Reform bagged five seats in parliament, but the fact they scored 14% of the vote, evidencing a massive surge in right-wing sentiment in the country.

‘Our final hour is a shitshow shower’ he spits as he calls out the calls out hypocrisy over a monster churning riff as cartoon images of Trump, Johnson, and Farage drift in and out of shape in the accompanying video. And if ‘Cancelled’ is the 2024 howl of disaffected nihilism that marks parallels with 1994, then it should also be seen as an awakening, a call a neglected generation to come together with a single voice and call for something better. And ‘Cancelled’ is nihilistic, and it’s angry. The guitars buzz and grind, and the rhythm section is monster-weighty and it’s the perfect backdrop to a snarling dissection of the world as is and just how hard it is to navigate. I’m drowning…. I’m drowing…’

It’s hard to argue that the right have surged forward, or that they’re a bunch of cunts, and it’s hard to ignore that the left have made a significant shift to the right. It’s also hard to deny, for anyone with ears, that this is a big gutsy riff-driven tune. Dig it.

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Okular – Regenerate

Posted: 5 July 2024 in Albums, Reviews
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Regenerative Productions – 7th June 2024

Christopher Nosnibor

The last couple of years – and 2024 in particular – has seen a huge upturn in acta reconvening after lengthy breaks. Anticipation for the Autumn drop of the first album from the Jesus Lizard in over two decades is immense, but then only this week I wrote – extremely favourably – on the new album by The March Violets, released eleven years on from its predecessor, and From Fire I Save The Flame by Three Second Kiss – twelve years down the line from their last album. They all have their reasons for pausing, and for the timing being now, but as much as its perhaps coincidental, it makes for exciting times for fans who had little to no expectation of ever hearing new material. And what’s more, and perhaps most remarkable, is that these albums have been proving to be GOOD – not some damp squib, reheated soufflé reunions which sully their catalogues and make you wish they hadn’t bothered (in the way Bauhaus’ Go Away White was such a monumental let-down).

And so here we have Norwegian death-metal outfit Okular with their first full-length release in eleven years since their 2013 second album Sexforce.

I will confess to being unfamiliar with their previous work, which means I’m unqualified to comment on how the aptly-titled Regenerate stands in comparison. But I do feel able to consider Regenerate on its own merits.

Blasting in with ‘Back to Myself and Beyond’ the sound is dirty, murky, dingy as fuck, snarling, gnarled vocals spewing venom and gargled gasoline over churning guitars, from which emerge the occasional squealy note before flicking into a quickly-woven blanket or fretwork wizardry. Underneath it all, the bass and drums thump and thud away at a hundred miles an hour, muffled, muddy, and manic.

The two-and-a-half-minute title track follows this five-minute titan, and it’s a fast-and-furious fretfest, on which the vocals switch between menacing growl, strangled rasp, and raw deep-throated demonic howl.

All of the requisite tropes are in place: a hefty percussive barrage and super-fast fingerwork provide the backdrop to ugly, bowels-of-hell vocals, with some rapid drops and sudden breakdowns, and when it comes to genres, missing these elements is case for disappointment. That said, there is still scope for invention, and ‘A New Path’ brings what its title proffers, opening with a soft acoustic almost country-tinged grunge intro, before doom-laden power chords crash in, an unstoppable chuggernaut – and the two elements play off one another to forge a really interesting dynamic.

The album’s shortest track, ‘Debauchery’ surprises again, with another almost folky acoustic flavour to start, before simmering up to a boil to deliver what it promises in the shape of some spectacular soloing, preceding the album’s longest track, the six-and-a-half-minute epic what is ‘Another Dimension of Mind’. It’s a delicate, lilting, layered acoustic segment – which is really quite technical and borders on a blend of folk and neoclassical – which plays out on the album’s closer, ‘Elevate’, and it’s really quite nice. Of course, everything blasts in at double the standard intensity for the final minute, and it’s positively incendiary, a ground-scorching flame-thrower assault that hits like a tsunami before an abrupt and unexpected end.

Regenerate is a smart album. By its nature, technical prowess and musicianship is portrayed almost extravagantly, but, as is the law, it’s contrasted with the dirtiest, hardest, fastest riffs. But Regenerate offers so much more – more texture, more stylistic diversity, more range, a really ambitious approach to songwriting that goes beyond the confines of genre.

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Listen: ‘In the Headlights’ by Haujobb

Posted: 4 July 2024 in Recommended Streams and Videos, Singles and EPs
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German electro-industrial mainstays Haujobb have just dropped the sinister sounding retro-futuristic slo-mo banger ‘In The Headlights’ as the first single from their forthcoming new album, The Machine In The Ghost. Scheduled for release on 20th September, it is the 10th full length record by the Prague-based group, which formed in 1992 and has existed as the duo of Daniel Myer (vocals/programming) and Dejan Samardzic (programming) since the mid-‘90s.

“’In The Headlights’ was actually one of the first tracks written for the album,” explains Myer. "Dejan recorded and sampled his exhaust hood, which kind of sounds like a jet engine, and we built the song around that sample. There is also a sound that might be identified as a tambourine, which is really just a key chain dropping onto the floor. This and other physical constructions that are sampled throughout the album act as relics of interfaces between man and machine.”

Maintaining an impressive penchant for refusing to do the same thing twice on each studio album, The Machine In The Ghost deploys field recordings to create some of its most prominent sounds. In order to achieve the desired effect, the duo used a mix of software and hardware in the shape of everyday items. This deliberate nod to a previous era with more analogue shifting of the dials complements the retro theme of The Machine In The Ghost (albeit without indulging in nostalgia for its own sake), the album revolving around the highly charged relationship between mind and matter, analogue and digital.

Despite their constant artistic evolution, a unique musical handwriting is present throughout the Haujobb catalogue. Originally founded as a trio in the West German city of Bielefeld, they were initially influenced by the ‘Vancouver school’ of industrial electronics (the likes of Skinny Puppy and Front Line Assembly), but it did not take long for them to be recognised as figureheads of a more modern take on this sound that incorporated elements of IDM (intelligent dance music) that helped catapult them onto the wider international scene.

Co-founding member Björn Jünemann left the band after their second album, with Myer and Samardzic subsequently releasing the acclaimed ‘Solutions For A Small Planet’ (1996) and thereafter maintaining a strong strike-rate that has included New World March (2011), their 7th record and regarded as another milestone effort.
 The Machine in the Ghost has seen Haujobb begin another exciting chapter in their career. As we enter the next industrial and creative revolution that has been ignited by the rise of AI, it shows that they still have their musical fingers on the pulse.

Listen to ‘In the Headlights’ here:

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Listen: ‘Black Cloud’ by Redwing Blackbird

Posted: 2 July 2024 in Recommended Streams and Videos, Singles and EPs
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Darkwave/Post-Punk duo, REDWING BLACKBIRD have just unveiled their latest single, ‘Black Cloud’. This single is a departure from the more guitar-based approach of earlier tracks and sees the band leaning more into the energy of modern darkwave, synth bass & drive.

Lyrical Inspiration for the track comes from the fragile balance between faith & fanaticism – the ongoing blurring of the separation of church & state, the horrific loss of women’s rights & the slow, steady rise of nationalistic fascism, too often disguised as religious morality. All of this is put to an almost satirical "dance while your heads on fire " irreverence.

‘Black Cloud’ marks a clear change in direction leaning into more of the  duo’s darkwave vocabulary that has only briefly surfaced on previous tracks, as it is the first recording of collaboration between Paul Baker & Lisa Jensen on entirely new material. ‘Black Cloud’ is also the fourth single collaboration with producer/engineer Tiffany Flanagan of Audio Pervert recordings.

Listen here:

REDWING BLACKBIRD is the focal project of Paul Baker & Lisa Jensen, currently based in Denver, Colorado, USA. Baker is perhaps best known for his time with nineties goth rockers Second Skin, and more recently, the deathrock trio Plague Garden’s first two full length releases on lead guitar & bass.

REDWING BLACKBIRD, on the other hand, distils influences from Baker’s extensive background working across multiple genres: from the political ideology and ethos of punk; the guitar tonality and melodic lead bass of post-punk, proto-goth, shoegaze, drone-rock, and dark wave; to the sonic nuances with the vocal growl of classic goth rock.

Comparisons have been drawn to everyone from Red Lorry Yellow Lorry, Big Black, and Joy Division to Swans and Nick Cave; Dead Kennedys and The Clash; and even points of reference as disparate as Slint or Ween. And yet, despite having clearly defied and confounded convenient genre pigeonholes, there is certainly a coherent, distinctive, and immediately identifiable REDWING BLACKBIRD sound.

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The March Violets – Crocodile Promises

Posted: 1 July 2024 in Albums, Reviews
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Metropolis Records – 19th July 2024

Christopher Nosnibor

Metropolis Records – 19th July 2024

Cut back to not so long ago – in real terms – and the prospect of a new album from The March Violets was simply not something you’d imagine. 1987/88: The Sisters of Mercy had broken through in a major (label) way with ‘This Corrosion’ and Floodland; The Mission’s ‘Tower of Strength’ almost reached the UK Top 10 before Children scaled the heights of number two in the album charts, and this was the commercial heyday of goth… and one-time peers, The March Violets were a footnote in the genre’s history, having gone pop and signed to a major, only to go nowhere far and call it a day. They were fondly remembered by those who did, and compilation The Botanic Verses documented their body of work in the early 90s, but… Rosie was busy doing poetry and the like and Si was hiding behind smog as Nurse to Dr Avalanche as part of The Sisters of Mercy’s touring crew.

Then, in 2007, twenty years after they vanished, the band reconvened for a show in Leeds at what was then still the Met. It was a glorious celebration, not only of The Violets and their career, but also the heritage of the Leeds scene, with The Chris Reed Unit representing one of the city’s most singular and longstanding acts, and Merciful Release stalwart James Ray presenting thee magnificently eccentric ambient dance grooves of 25 Men.

Health issues stalled things for a while, but miraculously, 2013 saw the eventual release of Made Glorious – which was in fact their debut album, since the three previous long-players had all been compilations (I’m including the US-only Electric Shades among these). And now, after further setbacks – notably Denbeigh’s departure from the band following a stroke, but also some not insignificant touring under their belts – they deliver album number two, Crocodile Promises a mere eleven years later.

No-one could, or should, expect a band who’ve been going for so long and undergone so many changes – both personnel and personal – to sound exactly the same as they did when they started out. And nor should anyone want a band to exist in a state of suspension or arrested development. Here’s where The March Violets are a rare thing: a band which has evolved, expanded, grown, but equally has never lost sight of their roots. As their Bandcamp bio summarises it neatly, ‘Original Post Punk Drum Machine Band From Leeds. Started at the Beginning, Imploded, Reborn for the 21st Century. Play Loud Play Purple.’ Yes, they’ve even retained their original slogan. And it still works, too.

Whereas Made Glorious was a sprawling beast of a release, comprising sixteen tracks – a double album, effectively, Crocodile Promises is a taut, succinct nine-song document.

Single release ‘Hammer the Last Nail’ kicks the album off in classic style with a snaking drum-machine groove and twangy gothy guitar interweaving behind Rosie’s sultry, vampy vocals.

Where Made Glorious felt a tad slick, Crocodile Promises returns to the pumping, gritty sound that made the band one of the greatest first-generation post-punk acts. ‘Bite the Hand’ is a tangle of metallic, trebly, chorus-hazed guitar against a thrumming bassline and pumping mechanised drum machine, and it’s got the hunger and edge they displayed back in ’83. It’s likely a coincidence that the title is a phrase which featured in a quote from Andrew Eldritch when commenting on the Violets’ departure from Merciful Release… right?

‘Virgin Sheep’ maintains the angular energy, and once again recaptures blistering force of their first iteration, calling to mind the frenzy of ‘Radiant Boys’. ‘Mortality’, the title track from the album-in-progress which was shelved on account of Denbeigh’s stroke is another classic Violets cut, and what becomes apparent while listening to Crocodile Promises is that feels natural, comfortable, not a struggling, forced effort to recreate the past. Of course, the timing is beneficial: the next generation of new music-makers are discovering grunge, post-punk, shoegaze, and goth, and suddenly, the bands who were the progenitors of these styles are finding new audiences, and instead of sounding dates, the styles feel fresh once more.

Of course, great songs are timeless, and great songs are a feature of Crocodile Promises. ‘Crocodile Teeth’ is perhaps more fractal dream pop than goth or post-punk, but it’s got that late-80s Siouxsie vibe that gives the dreaminess a serrated edge. Its inclusion brings balance and space to the album, too.

It would be wrong to say that The March Violets are quite the same band they were without Denbeigh’s snarling interjections, but it would equally be a mistake to criticise the current iteration on account of this. The March Violets are survivors – and a great band. Ever-present co-founder Tom Ashton continues to prove pivotal in defining their sound, and, equally, their attitude. As much as they were a part of that early 80s Leeds milieu, The Violets stood apart, and that slightly wonky, sharp-edged, skewed guitar was, and remains, integral. And moreover, Crocodile Promises is a great album. Its strength lies not only in its consistency, but also its energy and its atmosphere, both of which it brings in abundance. But best of all, this is a true return to form. There isn’t a dud cut here, and every song is up there with the singles up to ’86. It’s incredible that a band at this stage in their career could drop a definitive album – but that’s exactly what The March Violets have done.

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