Archive for October, 2026

September Song – The Perfect View

Posted: 8 October 2026 in Albums, Reviews
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Sons of Art – 18th October 2026

Christopher Nosnibor

It’s been four years since September Song released Two Miles Out. That album, they say, rather like its predecessor, The Arrogance of Time ‘started off reflecting more on global events, but ended up introspective once again’. A lot has happened in the last four years. Having crawled out of the pandemic, the world is now a place of constant turmoil, with wars raging all around the globe, climate change threatening our food supplies and our very ways of life, and then there’s AI… It’s in this context, John Douglass writes, that ‘The Perfect View continues along the same pattern with the deeply personal intertwined with the wider world. It’s full of frustration and anger at humanity’s inability to look after our ‘beautiful world’ whilst always trying to remain optimistic.’

To realise these eleven songs, the core duo of John Douglass (harmony and spoken vocals, acoustic and electric guitar) and Steve Hogg (lead and harmony vocals) are joined with a veritable roll-call of musicians – no fewer than fifteen contributors are credited, bringing an array of talents from drums and percussion, and bass, to saxophone, pedal steel, Portuguese guitar, flugelhorn, flute, and mandolin. For all that, the arrangements balance lusciousness and layering, with an apparent ease and simplicity. They describe themselves as ‘alternative pop’, but this feels inadequate for conveying the span of the styles on offer here, with elements of folk and indie spun through tunes which are, in places, fairly straightforward radio-friendly rock. And while most of the songs have an uptempo, upbeat, easygoing vibe, the lyrics are often altogether darker.

‘I Cry For You’ sounds pretty chipper, until you hear Hogg deliver the lines ‘You shit on my dreams, destroy everything / I cry for you.’ It’s quite the juxtaposition of content and form. Likewise ‘Hey John’, which brings a lightly jazzy flavour proceedings, and features in the second chorus, ‘Hey John, so you’re doing well / But what the fucking hell is it all about John’, after painting a pretty dark scene in the opening verse:

I saw 24 people on the floor, they were lying on the ground

The mothers, the freaks, the children, I like them around

Don’t step on the microphone, it’s lying on the floor

I was quite unwell for a while but I think I’m better now

It shook me up, it let me down, made me feel, like running aground

There’s a dip during the second half, where by the seven-minute ‘One Good Summer’ slides rather too comfortably into smooth jazz territory. There’s no small irony in the fact that the most overtly commercial song on the album is also the weakest, followed by the honky-tonky ‘All Alone’.

John Douglass’ lyrics are a clear strength, and take different forms: while given to the use of rhyming couplets with a meter which is as clear on the page as when sung, he’s equally prone to more prose-like forms, and even presenting short narratives and quite visual vignettes. The details contained in the narrative of ‘Pray for Me’ are keenly observed, depicting, among other things, morning anxiety and ageing. The album’s closer, ‘Beautiful World’ refers back to the lyrics of ‘Pray for Me’, providing a neat thematic bookending.

As such, there’s considerably more going on when you start to dig into the songs, and things aren’t nearly as jaunty as they initially sound.

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Watch: ‘Cop Out’ by Bokassa

Posted: 8 October 2026 in Recommended Streams and Videos, Singles and EPs
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Norwegian stoner-punk rockers Bokassa return with a bang on ferocious new single ‘Cop Out,’ a no-nonsense barnburner set to please fans of the band’s heavier side.

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The track sees the power trio firing on all cylinders, leaning into their metallic hardcore roots with a dash of thrash metal. ‘Cop Out’ is an unapologetic blast inspired by everything from protest songs with lyrics so broad they could apply to anyone, to bands that probably should have called it quits years ago but are still squeezing money out of their fans.

“It’s about quitting while you’re ahead, before you become something you despise. Before you start doing expensive VIP meet & greets, before you write lyrics that are just empty buzzwords, before you start doing TikTok dance videos to sell more tickets. I don’t wanna spend my time coming up with new ways to get views on social media when I know there are still different pizzas out there I haven’t tried yet,” says vocalist Jørn Kaarstad.

Perhaps that’s one of the reasons why, in 2026, Bokassa are releasing music through their own label, Kings of Stonerpunk Records, under which they’ve released several titles over the years, including their universally acclaimed 2017 debut, Divide & Conquer.

Alongside the new single, Bokassa also announce their fifth album, Anomalies, a fitting title for a band that has never quite fit in anywhere.

The band’s relentless collision of punk, metal and rock subgenres into their own self-styled stonerpunk has seen them tour with acts as diverse as Clutch, Lagwagon, Therapy?, Zebrahead and Mastodon. That same refusal to stick to a single genre has always made Bokassa difficult to pigeonhole. In a world where bands are often rewarded for sounding like other bands people already love, Bokassa mostly sound like themselves.

“I don’t wanna be a ‘we got McDonald’s at home’ version of an older, better band. I see bands becoming universally acclaimed for that, and it’s probably smart to do so for commercial success, but then again, we’ve never been a band known for smart decisions. So we’ll stick to what we think is exciting,” says Kaarstad.

Anomalies will arrive in March 2027, accompanied by an extensive tour across Europe, the UK and the band’s native Norway.

Catch Bokassa live across Norway, the UK and Europe on the following dates:

March 12 – Kulturhuset i Bergen – Bergen, NO
March 13 – Blårock – Tromsø, NO
March 20 – Rockefeller – Oslo, NO
April 2 – Kafé Krank – Kristiansand, NO
April 3 – Folken – Stavanger, NO
April 9 – Byscenen – Trondheim, NO
April 16 – The Cobblestones – Bridgwater, UK
April 17 – The Black Heart – London, UK
April 18 – The Old Salutation – Nottingham, UK
April 19 – The Lodge – Manchester, UK
April 20 – The Joiners – Southampton, UK
May 6 – Monument 013 – Gothenburg, SE
May 7 – Stengade – Copenhagen, DK
May 8 – Betty – Hamburg, DE
May 9 – FRANNZ CLUB – Berlin, DE
May 11 – Nachtleben – Frankfurt, DE
May 12 – Luxor Live – Arnhem, NL
May 13 – DB’s – Utrecht, NL
May 15 – Antwerp Metal Fest – Antwerp, BE

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Photo by Thomas Moe Ellefsrud

Lustmord Lombardo – The Pulse Of Atoms

Posted: 7 October 2026 in Albums, Reviews
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Ipecac Recordings – 2nd October 2026

Christopher Nosnibor

Who had a collaboration between drumming legend Dave Lombardo with dark ambient / industrial demigod Lustmord on their bingo cards for 2026? No? Me neither, but then I didn’t have the US attacking Iran or an outbreak of the plague in Russia, either, so maybe my finger isn’t as much on the pulse as I thought.

This coming together has been simmering for a fair while, after all: they met backstage at a Fantômas show, introduced by mutual friend Buzz Osborne, around the time that Lustmord and Melvins released their collaborative album. That was released in 2004. It’s certainly been some time in the offing, then.

While Lombardo has enjoyed a 40-year career playing with Slayer, Misfits, Mr. Bungle, Suicidal Tendencies, and Testament among others, Lustmord’s modus operandi has largely been as a collaborator, with nearly as many albums produced with other artists as as a solo artist since he first appeared on the industrial scene with his eponymous debut in 1981.

It’s perhaps partly because of the sprawling – and lengthy – careers of the artists involved that The Pulse Of Atoms is a work that proves hard to place. It’s certainly a hell of a departure for Lombardo, given that this is, first and foremost, a dank, ominous ambient work, on which only one of the seven compositions runs short of the six-minute mark. The drums are very much a part of the texture and the atmosphere, rather than a driving or dominant force. It’s interesting to observe how a drummer whose field is metal and rock – however broadly applied – sits in a work which is explicitly neither rock nor metal, and moreover, is largely unstructured, formless, even.

“One thing about an album like this is that you can’t really point it out as being part of any specific genre or hopefully any specific period,” Lustmord explains. “Is it from last year? Is it from 10 years ago, is it from 20 years ago, is it from 5 years in the future? It’s trying to create something that has its own sound, not tapping into whatever musical language or history you’re familiar with. It goes way, way further back. This is the sound of planets dying or of stars being born. It’s about a bigger picture. It’s the sound of the birth of the universe and the death of the universe; it’s not rock and roll.” It most certainly is not, and this is very much the heart of the album’s power.

The first piece, ‘An Eternal Presence Part I: Unknown’ begins as a murky and unsettling rumble, and it’s fully two minutes before the percussion arrives. And when it does, it’s a rolling, tribal thrum. It is rhythmic, but the thunderous beats emerge from a deep, dark sonic swamp, amidst hints of Nordic forest paganism, and stop and start and feel as tentative as they do aggressive. Counterpart ‘An Eternal Presence Part II: Relentless’ lives up to its title with truly thunderous percussion, which rolls and rumbles with a rare intensity, before sliding into the grey gloop of ‘Paleomagnetic Resonance’, a dark ambient piece which drifts, formless, creepy, a slow-moving unsettling expanse of sound which drifts like fog and conjures a vision of a barren wasteland. It hums and drones and rumbles and suddenly, three minutes in, aggressive drumming crashes in and heavy drones glide down sonorously… the weight is palpable.

We crawl from the glacial desert that is ‘Beyond the Vast Cold Waste’ trepidatious, tremulous, into an apocalyptic world. Explosions ricochet in the distance. It feels like the world is ending. The experience is unsettling, but unshocking: we all knew the end was nigh. Didn’t we? This sounds and feels like the end of days. It’s suffocatingly dense. The weigh presses down on the shoulders and the back of the neck.

Like ‘An Eternal Presence’, ‘The Desolate Shore’ also spans two parts with a combined time of almost fifteen minutes. It’s here that we finally find a sense of true rhythm and groove, and Lombardo delivers driving dynamism against a swirling vortex of dark noise. The experience is like being sucked into a vacuum. It’s genuinely scary – like a warzone, like the collapse of civilisation, like the end of time. The final track, ‘The Abyssal Deep’ is ten minutes of the most desolate, disturbing ambience you’ll hear all year. It will suck the life out of you through its density alone.

This album feels less like a collaboration and more like a collision of musical colossi from very different spheres. And it’s immense, and intense.

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Listen: ‘Mutton’ by Black Groove

Posted: 7 October 2026 in Recommended Streams and Videos, Singles and EPs
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Human Worth are proud to present the punishing new album Work Yourself to the Bone from south-coast sludgers Black Groove, available to pre-order now with a portion of all profits donated to charity.

Savage, gnarly, brutal and chaotic… These words feel lightweight when it comes to describing the bludgeoning that one experiences when listening to Black Groove, or attending one of their visceral live shows. Crawling out of the darkest crevice of East Sussex coastal town Eastbourne, this gruesome sludge metal quartet have made a real name for themselves across the South of England. Known as one of the heaviest bands in the UK today, Black Groove have been packing small venues, drawing in more and more fans of disgustingly loud, heavy music through word of mouth.

Now Black Groove are ready to channel that vicious intensity and colossal heaviness into their forthcoming second album Work Yourself To The Bone, to be released on the hellish Friday the 13th of November on Vinyl, CD and Streaming via independent Brighton based label Human Worth (home to IAN, Remote Viewing, Pleb and more). A portion of Human Worth’s profits from the sales of Work Yourself To The Bone will be donated to registered UK charity Survivors’ Network, supporting survivors of sexual violence and abuse across Sussex.

Work Yourself To The Bone follows Black Groove’s impressive and raw 2024 debut album Low End Scum. The band recorded Work Yourself To The Bone live with producer and engineer Matt Pugh at Brighton Electric, who has previously recorded like-minded peers Believe In Nothing and Pascagoula. Pugh had already been a regular attendee of Black Groove in concert, and so was able to find that balance between capturing the wild energy of their live shows, whilst pushing their sound forwards and tightening the screws. “The results of working with Matt have been massive for us,” confirms bassist and vocalist Gareth Hellings; “To have a record that really represents the live sound and vibe of the band is what we wanted to achieve." Black Groove have made a conscious shift in their songwriting and lyrical topics too. "We were a lot more doomy, writing songs about shroom demons and swamp giants and whatnot," admits Hellings cheekily, "Then we made a conscious decision to write songs that were more real and relatable to us, and society as a whole.”

Black Groove will embark on a UK tour from November 13th to coincide with the release of the album. The sludge metal quartet have performed with the likes of EyeHateGod, Bongzilla, Goatwhore, Conan, Mastiff, Kulk, Sea Bastard, Believe In Nothing, Wode, Moloch and plenty more. Black Groove have also performed at key festivals and all-dayers, including Desertfest, Cosmic Vibration and Masters Of The Riff. The band hope the release of Work Yourself To The Bone will allow them to play more extensive tours, get over to Europe and make their mark at even more metal festivals.

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Ghost Painted Sky – Kissing Lions

Posted: 6 October 2026 in Reviews, Singles and EPs
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6th October 2026

Leeds grungers Pulled Apart by Horses celebrated punching a lion in the throat on their breakthrough single: Massachusetts darkwavers Ghost Painted Sky eschew such violence, and on their latest ‘maxi-single’ release, are all about kissing them.

The inverted commas around the format are by no means intended as mockery or derision: I remember well when the maxi-single was a specific format, initially on 12” and, later, CD,and differentiated from the EP, which usually featured four or five tracks. The maxi usually consisted of an extended version of the A side / single, the single version, plus the B-side. It was the standard from around the mid-80s until the late 90s, particularly in mainland Europe. And that old-school maxi is precisely what we get here from Ghost Kissing Sky – only digitally, of course.

Ghost Painted Sky (to refer to them by the acronym of GPS feels wrong and misleading – somewhat ironically) formed to create dark, introspective music, built on the foundational influences of trad goth, post-punk, and darkwave in 2014, and according to their bio, ‘their approach has always been to treat the music as a vehicle for processing life’s struggles and ultimately for catharsis, release, reflection, and rebirth’. So how does this fit with being smoochy with big cats? It hardly sounds bleak or gothy, even allowing for the fact The Cure did ‘The Lovecats’ (which was neither bleak nor gothy, but a fun, frivolous pop tune).

Founder and multi-instrumentalist David Strong explains that “‘Kissing Lions’ describes those mostly vain attempts to seize on anything that creates a fleeting feeling of being alive for a moment amid relentless waves of the humdrum, doldrums, and failure, which so often end up being misguided and ultimately just creating a thicker mire even more strangling than the original situation one sought to escape… bad decisions that bite back and create further downward spirals.” Ah, yes, that’s more like it!

And when it comes to the sound, ‘Kissing Lions’ is a swirling, brooding work, defined by a swelling, chorus-heavy bass, picked, reverby guitar, and sweeping synths, in a fashion highly reminiscent of The Cure circa Disintegration. The addition of violin adds depth and a further layer of mournfulness. And lyrically, it has all the hallmarks of quintessential goth – existential anguish, frustration, self-punishment:

Turn it off, this channel’s boring, see?

This is not how my life was supposed to be

So I take this poison inside of me

If it’s not three minutes and thirty three seconds of synthy gothy darkwave perfection, it’s got to be pretty close.

The ‘Effervescent Remix’ is not an extended version – in fact it’s a second shorter than the original – but is, as the title suggests, presents the song with a rather more buoyant slant with a synthy bassline replacing the original, bringing something of a Mixed Up vibe to it.

If a similar synth bass sound is repeated on the third track, ‘My Words Are Not My Own’, it’s to quite different effect, pulsing steadily and insistently alongside a metronomic beat and beneath a fractal guitar tones, and it’s all to good effect, and this is a tidy, neatly packaged taste of Ghost Painted Sky – and a perfect example of what the maxi-single was – is – all about.

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SmutClub Ldn – Limp Bizkoff

Posted: 6 October 2026 in Reviews, Singles and EPs
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18th September 2026

Laaandaaan! Init? Heart of rock ‘n’ roll shizz… well, perhaps when Britpop was all the rage, but the new generation is seemingly more likely to turn up and sweep your doorstep with a dustpan and brush than to puke on it while staggering home from a club at 2:30am. There are good reasons for this: they may well be pissed off with the state of everything, because everything’s shit, just as it was in the 90s and 00s when grunge and nu-metal were all the rage – and rage is indeed the word – but they’ve been told repeatedly to quit the lattes and smashed avocado toasts if they want to get on the property ladder. It’s pretty rich advice from people who could spend Friday night down the pub and go on holiday (without feeling guilty over contributing to climate change) and still buy a house for just four times their salary. Put another way, the grunge and nu-metal revivals have been driven by the same shit conditions which inspired nihilistic anger thirty and forty years ago, only now the conditions are actually shitter.

In the face of that, what do you do? How do you even keep going on a day-to-day basis? Wages aren’t keeping up with inflation, and everything just gets shitter by the day. But do SmutClub Ldn want to break stuff? Maybe, but for this single release, SmutClub Ldn go light: as we learn, ‘Limp Bizkoff is all about appreciating time with your friends, while playfully “begrudging” duties like having to clean up the mess. The climax of the song encapsulates the joy of a good tea and snacks gathering with your loved ones around you’. I mean, Biscoff is in itself pretty middle class, but then so is owning musical instruments these days, and, I dunno, having the heating on or affording new clothes.

‘Limp Bizkoff’ is pretty heavy, sonically., with three minutes chunky, chugging, nu-metal grind. The chords hit like slabs of concrete, the churn in harsh and heavy, there are discordant notes and sinewy chimes from the spindly guitar. Lyrically, it’s altogether lighter, providing an unusual juxtaposition. Good clean fun, yes, but… first world issues for sure. And not only is dunking biscuits grim, it leaves a crumb sludge in the mug, which is even grimmer.

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Watch: ‘Get Up’ by Mass Minor

Posted: 5 October 2026 in Recommended Streams and Videos, Singles and EPs
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Mass Minor is an Austin, Texas-based darkwave and electronic rock project led by Andrew J. Martin, Jr.. Blending atmospheric synths and driving guitars into cinematic songwriting, Martin also draws from post-punk, synth-pop and alternative rock influences to create a sound that feels both nostalgic and thoroughly modern.#

Mass Minor recently signed to Metropolis Records and have released a new single entitled ‘Get Up’. “This song is a conversation with God at 169 BPM  about sin, money, mortality and the things we sacrifice our lives to,” explains Martin. "It comes from this idea of asking God to save us from problems we created ourselves. Maybe it’s not God’s job to save us. Maybe we need to fix our own shit. You’re the one holding the light. Get up.”

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‘Get Up’ is the follow-up to the pulsating ‘Nowhere Now’, which was issued as a single in late July, with both songs included on a long-awaited new Mass Minor album, Beyond The Edge Of Reason, out in late February 2027.

Martin self-released the 2020 debut Mass Minor album, Become Each Other, as well as several singles subsequently collected together on EPs, and has maintained a consistent presence in the dark alternative scene via radio support, multiple SXSW appearances and performances alongside groups such as Twin Tribes, Ultra Sunn, TRAITRS, Vision Video, Urban Heat and Sacred Skin.

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Watch: ‘Silver Butterfly’ by Death Pill

Posted: 4 October 2026 in Recommended Streams and Videos, Singles and EPs
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A year on from Sologamy, the second album that landed like a blistering ball of melodic fury onto turntables via New Heavy Sounds, Ukrainian riot grrrl trio Death Pill return with a new single, ‘Silver Butterfly’.

The last time we heard from Mariana, Nataliia and Anastasiia, they were delivering some of the most urgent punk rock on the planet.

Then the world intervened. Again.

Following a brief 2025 tour, the band were scattered across continents by the ongoing war in Ukraine. Nataliia now lives in Australia. Anastasiia is based in Spain. Mariana remains in Ukraine. Five years into a conflict that continues to reshape everyday life, Death Pill found themselves facing a question that would finish off lesser bands: how do you keep creating when you can’t even share the same room?

The answer is ‘Silver Butterfly’.

The song is the first Death Pill recording built entirely remotely, assembled across three countries, multiple time zones and circumstances that would test anyone’s resolve. As the band explain:

“’Silver Butterfly’ is the first Death Pill track that was created and recorded without the three of us ever rehearsing the song together in the same room.

We had never worked like this before. With our previous releases, the songs had always been developed, rehearsed or recorded in Ukraine, with at least two members of the band physically working on them together at some stage.”

But geography was only half the story.

“Because of Russia’s continued attacks on Ukraine and the resulting power outages, Mariana and our long-time sound engineer Dmytro repeatedly had to postpone recording and mixing sessions, sometimes without knowing when they would be able to continue at all. Making music remotely across three countries is one challenge. Making it while people in Ukraine are forced to organise their lives and work around air raids, attacks and electricity cuts is an entirely different one.”

And yet amazingly, none of that struggle weighs down the song. If anything, it gives it lift.

‘Silver Butterfly’ arrives on a surge of hooks, handclaps, chunky buzzsaw riffs and vocals that switch from sardonic to shred.  It tears through punk, hardcore, pop and thrash without stopping to declare allegiance to any of them. Three minutes of resistance. In other words … Vintage Death Pill. The band explain:

“The past few years can feel like one long, blurred day, as if we have all become hostages to constant urgency, instant reactions and the expectation of immediate results. Life starts to resemble fast food: we consume whatever comes our way, rush through it and move on before we have had a chance to process the experience, let alone really absorb it.

This exhausting race against ourselves gradually strips away the very basic joy of simply living. "Silver Butterfly" is our attempt to freeze time for three minutes and actually feel the moment again.”

Against all odds, Death Pill continue to do exactly what great punk bands have always done: turn chaos and uncertainty into something you can scream along to.

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Death Pill 2026 - credit - Tetiana Chepurna

Photo: Tetiana Chepurna

Megafragma / New Concordia / Kid Kid Squid – The Black Horse, York, 1st October 2026

Posted: 3 October 2026 in Live, Reviews
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Christopher Nosnibor

Michael Jackson’s ‘Thriller’ is playing just before Kid Kid Squid start, and I find myself on a rare reflective trip on how times have changed. I was in primary school – aged eight – when it was released, my school reopened on the evening that the full-length video was aired on the BBC so we could all watch it on a TV on a trolley in reception. Even at that young age, it felt like a moment in musical history. No musical release is such a global event now. Not even half-time at the Superbowl has a sense of occasion which comes close. Culturally – in no small part on account of the advent of streaming, but also the absence of music on television now, which means that the promotional video has far less reach and impact – music has come to be treated like sonic wallpaper. Do people really listen to Ed Sheeran and Taylor Swift, or is their bland fare simply amiable background? Come 2015, a headteacher is forced to apologise after showing the ‘Thriller’ video to some primary-age pupils (age seven and eight) because, according to their complaining parents, they suffered ‘night terrors’ afterwards.

I expect the members of Kid Kid Squid, David and Katy – who emerged from the rocked-up dance covers act The DDK – will remember the release of ‘Thriller’ well. How well they remember the 90s is probably another matter. It’s evident from their penchant for banging beats that they spent some time having it large during the rave years. Having tried out their brand of driving techno with live guitar at an Electronic Music Open Mic (EMOM) night a few months ago, this is the duo’s first gig proper, and they’ve got things pretty tight. The first track is a bit Utah Saints, but with more of drum ‘n’ bass leaning – and the drums and bass are both thunderous. Are they rock with rave beats, or rave with rock guitars? However you slant it, the sound is outstanding. Crisp and clear, the beats are pounding and the heavily processed guitar is like a tweaking Roland TR303. Midway through, they drop their eponymous track and it simply explodes both in energy and volume – and while the chorus of ‘We ain’t no kid and we ain’t no squid!’ might not be the pinnacle of poeticism, it’s good fun – and factually accurate. These things matter. The set culminates in a frenzy of flange. That’s good fun, too, and that’s a fair summary of what KKS are about: not so serious, hi-NRG, fun times.

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Kid Kid Squid

I’m not sure what happened to the Old Concordia – apart from the Polish-built sailing training vessel which capsized and sank off the coast of Brazil in 2010. Sturdy drumming and soaring guitar definite their alt-rock sound. They’re solid and then some, and it’s a remarkably confident debut (they’ve both played before, and together, but this is their first outing as a two-piece). Atmospheric passages fill the space between songs, thus avoiding awkward silence or – worse – awkward chat and banter. They must have poured some hours into rehearsing to come out this fully formed. I’ve no idea where the bass was coming from. The drummer isn’t wearing headphones, so there’s nothing to indicate a click track or sequencing, but there must be something happening behind the scenes. Maybe it’s simply the power of the mind and some kind of magic. But what’s behind the scenes is immaterial, really. Out front, we get blistering guitars, chunky riffs and some of the most incredible drumming. Verdict in short: amazing. Horsemusic have done it again in introducing us to another act worthy of national attention.

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New Concordia

Megafragma are a relatively new act, but comprising some old faces, including, on guitars, Alexander King, of Glass / The Sound of Glass – quite possibly one of the most preposterously pretentious bands I’ve ever witnessed. But hey, he’s only the guitarist and backing vocalist, right? Right.

They rock up in red jumpsuits: that’s ok. The Wharf Street Galaxy Band, one of the finest acts to evert emerge from York / Leeds wore red boiler suits. And these guys are tight. Polished. Slick… They’re an amalgamation of post-rock, post metal, post post… which is actually pretty cool. But they do go a bit punk-pop and demonstrate some emo leanings, which is less so. Still, I could let that go… There’s a niggle here, and I need to chew on it while I dissect.

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Megafragma

More than just a click track, they have electronic drums augmenting the live kit. The bass is a bit buried in the mix, but still, they sound super-slick, anthemic, arena-standard and the drums – which are technically faultless – are well up in the mix and propel the songs along with a dynamic force. This is not your average pub-gig band, and the set is loaded with the wow factor. But the songs… pause and exhale… are quite forgettable. As the set progresses, it becomes increasingly apparent that this is very much a case of kit over content. More like Middlingfragma. They sound immense, but hollow. Technically superlative, but missing some essential ingredients, namely soul, and passion.

I can’t grumble too hard: three high-quality bands for £0, and pints in proper glasses for £5.20. This is where it’s at.

Listen: DROWNING IN THE STATIC FLOW by OMNIBDGR

Posted: 3 October 2026 in Albums, Recommended Streams and Videos
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There’s just so much noise – everywhere. And it’s only getting louder and more distracting. It’s not just in the street, or social media, or the constant pinging and buzzing of your phone, it’s not just the backdrop of social media and the babble in the street… The pace of life is changing, and it seems like there’s no downtime, no respite, no peace. And the noise… the noise is a distraction. Its function is to fill your head, keep you anxious and on edge and looking, not the other way, but in all directions at once, apart from the one where you might see something. The noise exists to keep everyone in place, to entice you to buy more stuff you don’t need with money you don’t have. We are all drowning the static flow, which runs 24/7, 365. How to deal with all this noise? And how to counteract it? With more noise, of course. Disruptive noise. Fight fire with fire – or noise with noise of a different kind.

This album is that disruptive noise, which holds a mirror to it all and subverts and refracts it in infinite splintering directions. It’s an all-out assault on the endless stream of static and distraction, the chatter and hum.

This time around, Omnibdgr are doing things differently. Expanded to a trio and with a live drummer for the first time, there’s a newfound freedom from the constraints of programming. They all played live in the same room, embracing the bleed of other sounds in the mics, and this is the glorious, rebellious result. And ‘bleed’ is the word: Drowning in the Static Flow bludgeons away like never before, blunt and brutal, and loud enough to blow all the other noise away.

The live drums create a different dynamic and stand at the fore of a sound that’s percussion driven and bass heavy. Then, there’s everything else. And it’s all going off.
They may be underground, but Omnibdgr are the uprising, the sound of that vital rupture, the noise of resistance.

Stream the album in fill here:

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