Archive for the ‘Albums’ Category

Loaf of Beard – Privilege and Other Poisons

Posted: 18 March 2026 in Albums, Reviews
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skoghall rekordings – 18th March 2026

Christopher Nosnibor

Patience is supposedly a virtue… but then apparently, there’s no time like the present. And you’re supposed to strike while the iron’s hot. Clearly, Trump and his negotiators and so-called ‘Minister of War’ figured there was no time like the present even while negotiations with Iran were progressing nicely, with Iran offering substantial concessions around their nuclear programme.

Loaf of Beard’s follow-up to 2023’s Dog had been scheduled for a couple of months’ time, but from nowhere, it’s been brought forward and landed yesterday. It’s not even a Friday, let alone a Bandcamp Friday! Still, after LoB material got an airing on a jaunt of the UK late last year, this might be considered an example of striking while the iron’s still a bit warm, and moreover, given the way things are going, there really is no time like the present inasmuch as we can’t guarantee there will even be a future. There is an urgency to making art right now, and putting it out there FAST isn’t so much about keeping it relevant – although that is a factor, since events are happening at such pace it’s nigh on impossible to keep up – but about processing all of this shit and conveying the intense and myriad mixed emotions these insane times engender.

As they write in the accompanying notes, ‘In these constantly changing and worrying times it is somewhat of a relief that certain artists go out of their way to document humanity’s descent into fucking stupidity and greed’.

Loaf of Beard – a duo consisting of Chisel and Rabies Beefburger tackle these serious matters with an element of humour, Chisel ranting and chanting in a distinctly north of England sprechgesang over uptempo lo-fi drum machines and scratchy electronica. There’s something uplifting about both the musical and lyrical simplicity. On ‘All Of This Lot Can Get Fucked’, Chisel reels off a list of politicians and other public figures, with a chanting refrain of ‘get fucked’. It’s simple but effective, and in a just world, they’d be playing to hundreds of people all singing the words back at them in a display of unity. But that’s not the world we live in, as they point out on ‘Shit Mic, No Fans’:

Some might say I’m the laziest rapper

I have to admit, that there’s none crapper

All the fucker MCs come along and diss me

I spit out rhymes, they just dismiss me

The irony is that this isn’t a million miles away from Sleaford Mods in many respects., and I suspect they’re aware of this fact. When you boil it down, it’s sweary sociopolitical rants with repetitive hooks delivered over minimal electronic backing. But while there is humour here, at times, Privilege and Other Poisons is unafraid to venture into dark territory, and this is nowhere more apparent than on ‘B.A.E’, where they call out the manufacturer of arms and ‘informational security’, whose share price has absolutely skyrocketed in recent years, since Russia invaded Ukraine and war has essentially spread around the globe, with the lugubrious refrain of ‘B.A.E and their profits of death’. And this is how the world works under capitalism. A small – very small – minority coin it in while everyone else’s lives crumble and tens of thousands of people – innocent civilians – are slaughtered because some cunts in suits who wield power beyond imagination are petulant pieces of shit who want global domination like in a stupid movie and think it’s a game.

Elsewhere, ‘Claptrap Fåntratt’ sounds like The Fall circa Light User Syndrome (which is severely underrated in the scheme of their oeuvre). ‘Freeze Peach’ goes full-throttle raging electro/punk thrashabout, with Chisel foaming at the mouth with the chorus of ‘take your fucking flags down dickhead’ before going all-out Beavis and Butthead. ‘I Feel Like a Twat’ serves up a slice of cheesy jazz-infused disco funk, and knowing its awfulness is conscious and intentional only raises the level of awkwardness. This is Loaf of Beard all over. They exist to make you feel uncomfortable – and they succeed. And I for one respect that.

Semi-ambient pastoral contemplations about wildlife and sightings of elk make for some welcome respite: it’s not healthy to be raging all the time, and however fucked the planet may be, nature is resilient. It’s us who need to become extinct.

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The Shits – Diet of Worms

Posted: 18 March 2026 in Albums, Reviews
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Rocket Recordings – 3rd April 2026

Christopher Nosnibor

Opening an album with an ear-splitting shriek of feedback is a statement of intent, and a challenge to the (potential) listener. Opening an album with an ear-splitting shriek of feedback by way of launching into a seven-minute discordant racket is special, particularly when you’re not Sunn O))). It takes some confidence, and is an immediate ‘fuck you’ to anyone who might be looking for some melody. But then, it’s fair enough. You’re not going to be looking to attract pop kids when you’re a noise rock band called The Shits. But over the course of its seven minutes, raw and ragged opener ‘In A Hell’ brings a nagging lead guitar line which stretches back and forth over a repetitive riff where the rhythm guitar follows the bass on an ascending riff through an ever-amassing wall of noise. Woah. In a way, I’m reminded of The Fall, specifically Hex Enduction Hour, crashing in with ‘The Classical’, which is absolutely all over the shop, discordant, swerving here, there, and everywhere, likely deterring many from venturing further, while encapsulating everything about the band and the album in that opening salvo. So if ‘In A Hell’ doesn’t do it for you, leave now, and promptly, because you’re only going to get more of the same, only more so. ‘In A Hell’ is a beast, and will likely send many running ion the opposite direction. Fine. It’s their loss.

You know an album’s going to be good when the opening track sounds like the finale. And yes, with Diet of Worms, The Shits deliver something extraordinary. It’s a filthy mess of overdriven guitar and vocals thick with phlegm and fury, and it’s nothing short of magnificent.

‘Tarrare’ brings the searing proto-punk three chord thrash and wah-wah frenzy of The Stooges with the rabid nastiness of The Anti-Nowhere League and a hint of the derangement of the Jesus Lizard, and ‘Then You’re Dead’ piles straight in with more gritty riff-driven nihilism delivered with fervour and everything cranked up to eleven.

There’s nothing pretty about this. There’s nothing especially new about it, either, but The Shits play with a rare, raw energy, and it’s this which makes Diet of Worms stands out. ‘Change My Ways’ is a sneering roar, with hints of Uniform but very much indebted to Public Image. It’s a punky, noise-rock juggernaut. Single cut ‘Thank You For Being a Friend’ doesn’t exactly seem to radiate effusive gratitude in its delivery and lands more like being punched in the gut. Repeatedly. For nearly six minutes.

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The whole album is a sprawling, dingy, full-on, the songs built around simple, repetitive riffs bludgeoned away at for however long – nothing fancy, just fire and fury. Diet of Worms is unapologetic in its bluntness, attacking from the first scream of feedback to the final afterburn.

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Bell Barrow – True Human Trough

Posted: 16 March 2026 in Albums, Reviews
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Saccharine Underground – 27th March 2026

Christopher Nosnibor

Bell Barrow are on fire right now. And so is half the world. I wouldn’t necessarily suggest that they thrive on war and global turmoil, so much as feel the compulsion to create in the face of global crisis. I may be projecting a little here, but seriously – come the fuck on: how can anyone not feel all-consuming, abject terror right now? We’re hearing a lot of Israel claiming an ‘existential threat’ from the supposed nuclear activities of Iran right now – although this seems a little lacking in credibility, since it can’t also be true that the USA ‘annihilated’ Iran’s nuclear capabilities last summer. I mention this in my preface to the review of True Human Trough because although the current events aren’t mentioned specifically, it’s clear that this is an act who are tuned in to current tensions as well as ecological concerns, and who channel the energy of anxiety into their music.

As they themselves write, “These compositions function as experiments in torture empathy: forcing the listener to inhabit the suffering inflicted on our ecosystem by human dominance while simultaneously confronting a far older truth—that humanity’s power is temporary, localized, and ultimately irrelevant. Plant life, scavengers, and insect civilizations speak here through perceived chaos, not to ask for mercy, but to assert inevitability. True Human Trough reflects agony, yes—but more importantly, it documents supremacy. We may poison this world for now, but be clear…in the universal order, they rule in the end.”

I admire their optimism, and for what it’s worth, I share this hope. Because right now, it feels as if our species is suffocating the planet harder by the second. And suffocating is how the first track on this frenzied sonic blitzkrieg of an album feels. ‘Solunar Theory’ is a melting morass of experimental jazz immersed in a wall of phased reverb. Time signatures collapse into chaotic discord on ‘The Unbirthing of Jackals’. Everything lurches, drunkenly, it’s a dizzy stagger that’s powerful enough to unsettle the guts and leave you seeing stars. This is a woozy cacophony rendered all the more brain-frying by the wild application of reverb. Everything is off-kilter, the EQ is all over and there’s flange and phase and good old-fashioned manic musicianship, melting Beefheart and Zappa and Trumans Water in a cauldron with The Necks and Throbbing Gristle. Reading that back, it actually reads like some fucked-up Victorian era recipe that’s only missing some tripe and trotters to top a truly foul soup. Bell Barrow simmer up a pretty foul sonic soup even without these ingredients: ‘Neckless of Tongues’ delivers it

‘Infauna’ refers to the animals living in the sediments of the ocean floor or river or lake beds, while ‘bloat stage’ is occurs during the decomposition of a corpse. Yes, I looked this up while experiencing the obliterative force of ‘Bloat Stage Infauna’, and in context, it all makes sense. ‘Rites of Silent Spring’ is almost black metal in its frenetic frenzy, but of course, it’s also a jazz-infused instrumental which is a long way removed from black metal – which pretty much sums up True Human Trough, an album that’s everything all at once.

The production and mix is deranged, demented, furious. There’s no intention of softening the blows here: Bell Barrow are set on bringing pure mayhem and disruption – of the best possible kind.

We are living through historical moments in real time. As we hurtle towards self-extinction – it’s more a question of by which means than if now, what with the pace of climate change, AI’s rapid and unfettered advancement and now – let’s call it what it is – the onset of World War 3 – with True Human Trough, Bell Barrow have created a work which soundtrack the next stage of the end of times.

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Jeremy Moore by Fleurette Estes- February 2026 - Landscape 001

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Jeremy Moore by Fleurette Estes

Machine Mafia – Red

Posted: 15 March 2026 in Albums, Reviews
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Cruel Nature Records – 27th March 2026

The work ethos of Pound Land always makes me think of The Fall – and the same is true of the relentless repetition of their compositions. And it comes as no surprise that Red, the second studio by Pound Land side-project Machine Mafia, consisting of Jase Kester and Adam Stone, was recorded in a single day. Keeping things in-house, it was mastered by Agent Kester, too.

Whether or not the album’s title is in any way connected to its being recorded at Big Red Studios in Macclesfield, we don’t know, and it doesn’t really matter anyway. What matters – and what we are told – is that ‘Lyrically, Red explores themes such as the sanctity of personal freedom, the dreary mediocrity of business academia, the medicalisation of human behaviour, the strange comfort found in boredom, and supernatural motorcycle-riding anti-heroes with flaming skulls.’ Some of these topics I find personally relatable (my brief time as a university tutor was not enjoyable, essentially working a zero-hours contract teaching modules miles beyond my own field of research, to receive poor feedback from students who’d shelled out thousands for a degree and felt let-down by having a tutor who wasn’t a specialist, and only worked limited hours, so wasn’t sitting in their office for drop-in visits or able to respond to emails immediately. My favourite was a student emailing me five minutes before an essay submission deadline asking where the submission sheets were on the website while I was on a train with no access to my emails), others less so (I simply don’t get boredom: there’s always too much to do). But what I absolutely get is channelling all the frustration into something creative.

Given that Pound Land are kings of gnarly, repetitive, grinding noise and that Kester’s work outside Pound Land (Plan Pony, Omnibael / Ombibadger) has explored numerous shades of abrasive racket, that Machine Mafia create an unholy din is to be expected, and that’s what they provided with their debut album, Zoned, released almost a year ago to the day of this, their second full-length. But whereas Zoned tended to deliver short, sharp sonic assaults, with the majority of the thirteen tracks clocking in at less than five minutes, Red really pushes the boundaries, the five track release dominated by a brace of megalithic monsters in the shape of the thirteen-and-a-half-minute ‘Business Studies’ and their epic rendition of Suicide’s ‘Ghost Rider’ – which is even more manic and more brutal than the one performed by Foetus with Marc Almond. As for its colossal elongation, although the original is a mere two and a half minutes long, its hypnotic, repetitive groove could readily withstand looping into eternity. The Sisters of Mercy used to run it for six minutes or so as an encore in 1984 and ’85, Eldritch cutting loose with the Alan Vega screams. Machine Mafia tweak the tempo up a notch, and it’s a messy, dirty blast of electropunk, Stone spitting and whooping the words through the mangled metallic whir of overloading electronics.

It’s the perfect finale, and sits perfectly with the originals, which are a mess of pounding beats, squalling feedback, and angry vocals. The first of these, ‘NO’, is a relentless howl, five minutes of nonstop thunder and ear-splitting treble, Stone rabid and raving.

‘DSM’ is more straightforward noise rock, a bass-driven blast with layers of feedback. The format is repetition, repetition, repetition, like a noise reimagining of The Fall, drawing in elements of Metal Urbain. ‘Business Studies’ is simply brutal, a bludgeoning bastard of a noise with the refrain ‘fuck business studies’. ‘It’s all shit and piss’, Stone summarises with the kind of anguish that feels like he’s bursting out of his very skin. The vocals are thick with distortion, the glitching bass blasts from the speakers with dangerous density and it’s all wrapped in a mesh of feedback that makes The Jesus and Mary Chain sound like easy listening. ‘Boredom’ takes its cues from Throbbing Gristle’s ‘Discipline’ and adds wild feedback to the mix. It’s punishing.

There’s an additional, unnamed, ‘secret’ track a little way after ‘Ghostrider’, and it’s a messy, lo-fi mess of crashing drum machines and grinding synths over which Stone rants so hard you can almost hear the spittle. It sounds like early Uniform – stark, harsh, rabid.

Uncompromising doesn’t come close. Red is absolutely fucking punishing. If you’re into dense, dark, nasty noise, you need this.

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Eamon the Destroyer – We’ll Be Piranhas Remixes

Posted: 14 March 2026 in Albums, Reviews
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Bearsuit Records – 20th March 2026

Christopher Nosnibor

Anyone who’s been following this site for any time will have likely encountered the work of Eamon the Destroyer, and Edinburgh-based label Bearsuit Records, and in doing so, will have learned that the label specialises in weird shit, and that Eamon is an artist who conjures a uniquely strange musical hybrid, which is entirely free of the mores of genre-specificity. Idiosyncratic is the word.

And what better way to shed new light on all of this than through a remix album? I’ve written extensively in the past with a critical view on remixes – about how they eke out material on and on, or pad out singles into EPs and albums, and also about how they can be really fucking boring, with back to back versions of the same song over and over but with different drums, more disco drums, more aggressive drums, more industrial drums, while the vocals are dubbed out and mostly what you get is some ravey shit.

This is very much not the case with the remixes of We’ll Be Piranhas, the original version of which was released in 2023 and has already been subject to a follow -up / satellite release in the form of Alternative Piranhas EP (2024), which, as the title suggests, features alternative takes of some of the songs on the album. Since then, Eamon the Destroyer has released another album of new material, but this evidences that there’s more mileage in Piranhas yet. These reworkings are subtle and sensitive and, in the main, preserve the essence of the original tracks. That is to say, it’s a chaotic assemblage of twangy Western stuff which clashed and melts into Eastern vibes, all melted together with a filmic overlay, and none of it makes sense, but at the same time it makes perfect sense – if that makes sense. And if it does, well, good, because little else about all this does.

The sequencing of the tracks is different from the original album, and it works, taking into account the transformative reinterpretations of the songs, starting with a laid back but grooved-up take on ‘A Pewter Wolf’ by Senji Niban.

The Elkeyes remix of ‘Rope’ is particularly brain-bending, with its warped jazz elements which are vaguely reminiscent of later Foetus. At the same time, it brings a weight, a long shadow of gloom, with organ-like drones. It’s a lot to process all at once. And while remixes often add length to tracks, the reworked title track is cut to half the length of the original, although with the weirdness and distortion turned up a long, long, way. Similarly, the No Mates Ensemble cut ‘My Stars’ from nine-and-three-quarter minutes to three and a half, and reframe it as a slowly evolving avant-jazz meandering. Elsewhere, ‘Société Cantine transform the low-key space-synth strum of ‘Underscoring the Blues’ into a seven-minute hybrid of quasi-operatic drama and drum ‘n’ bass.

It’s different alright, and that’s the point of a remix album, of course. But the success of the We’ll Be Piranhas remixes is that it doesn’t fall into the trap of regular remix mode. Here, the songs aren’t obliterated, but simply respun. It’s a winning formula, and this is anything but a predictable rehash exercise.

(Click image to listen.)

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Fini Tribe – The Sheer Action of the Fini Tribe 1982-1987

Posted: 11 March 2026 in Albums, Reviews
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10th October 2025

Christopher Nosnibor

This one’s been out for a while now, but some releases simply have a slow diffusion. And Fini Tribe’s career was one of slow diffusion and… and what, really? Certain corners of the press dug them. Me, I was a bit too young at the time to appreciate them, and never felt compelled to delve into them retrospectively… until now. Chris Connelley, of course, went on to find fame and (mis)fortune with The Revolting Cocks, and also stepping up to the ranks of Ministry. His autobiography, Concrete, Bulletproof, Invisible & Fried: My Life as a Revolting Cock (2008) might not be the best-written book ever and might have benefitted from some finer editing, but it’s a wild ride, and it’s a fair analogue for his recorded output, too. A bit variable, but when it’s good, it’s off the scale. That they would change their approach in the mid-late 80s means that this compilation spans their initial phase

Whatever happened to Revolting Cocks in the later years, where they became a touring tribute act is a topic for another time, but the fact Connelley’s legacy includes Murder Inc. and contributions to KMFDM and one-off single projects like PTP and Acid Horse (a collaboration between Ministry and Cabaret Voltaire) is worthy of reverence.

But before he jetted off to the USA for that pivotal meeting with Big Al, there was Fini Tribe, and they produced a veritable shedload of material in five-year spell.

As the accompanying notes detail, ‘Fini Tribe was born into the cash-poor but culturally-wealthy environs of post-punk Edinburgh in the very early 80s – 1980 to be precise. A tiny three-piece with no drummer would soon swell into a muscular six-piece with inherited or cheaply-purchased instruments. Band members Chris Connelly, Simon McGlynn, Andy McGregor, Davie Miller, Philip Pinsky, and John Vick haunted the cold, damp warrens of the Niddry Street and Blair Street rehearsal rooms, just off the high street in Old Town Edinburgh. Drawing on the influences of everything from Throbbing Gristle, Wire, Can, Captain Beefheart, and numerous angular funk bands that were spewing out of the John Peel Show at the time, they also drew from the seemingly bottomless well of modern film, writing, and art that was abundant in the festival city.’

The result? Everything including the kitchen sink. And here we have a forty-seven track document of that career, with singles, Peel Sessions, live cuts, remasters, remixes, you name it. It’s all there, from the earliest works, like the tracks from the scratchy post-punk debut 12” Curling And Stretching (1984) are present in remastered form, and they sound stark and magnificently angular and challenging.

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There must have been something in the water – or maybe it was the Irn Bru or Buckfast – in Scotland around this time, since it yielded The Jesus and Mary Chain, Primal Scream, Altered Images, and laid the foundations of the JAMMS / KLF – although at this time Bill Drummond was doing mental shit plotting rabbit-shaped tours for Echo and the Bunnymen.

The first EP is spikey and angular and vaguely jazzy, and brings in elements of post-punk and what would become aligned with mathy post-rock in years to come. It’s aged well, for sure, and the same is true of the second EP, Let The Tribe Grow, released in October 1986. Combining warped synths and jittery guitars to conjure an air of tense paranoia, this is tense listening. ‘All Fours’ deploys thunderous percussion that’s pure Test Dept, and ‘Detestimony’, too, is dominated by relentless crashing beats. The EP’s last track, ‘Monomil.’ is murky, doom-laden ambient and fairly disturbing

Their cover of Can’s ‘I Want More’ saw the band move to Wax Trax! and perhaps not entirely coincidentally cement a more pumping dance style – that is to say, an industrial dance party style that was very much the sound of WT circa ’87 and shares considerable common ground with early RevCo – but at the same time, they still sound unmistakably Scottish, and not solely on account of Connelley’s vocals. ‘Idiot Strength’ (the B-side of ‘I Want More’) could be an outtake from Big Sexy Land. The same is true of the drum—dominated ‘Make it Internal’, which now sounds like a rehearsal for ‘Beers, Steers, and Queers’. In some ways, it probably was.

After the early EPs and Peel Sessions, there’s a host of material hauled from the dark depths of the back catalogue, much of which is of a rare quality.

On ‘An Evening with Clavichords’ and ‘Goode Duplicates’ they sound more like a frantic 80s pop band wrestling with jazz elements and slap bass, and there’s a whole lot happening on ‘Bye Bye to the October Sky’, which straddles goth, electro, industrial, and all kinds of post-punk experimentalism. ‘Throttlehearts’ lands like a Scottish Scott Walker, and is pretty mad but also compelling.

The live material – four tracks from ’87 and five from ’83 – both from sets performed in Edinburgh, are illustrative of a band unyielding in their desire to challenge. The later recording is reminiscent not only of RevCo, particularly in the grinding bass grooves and messy confrontational stylings, but the live albums of Foetus on their Thaw tours of ’88 and ’89. The set from ’83 is rougher rawer, in terms of performance and sound quality, but the contrast is telling in that the later recording is more attacking and abrasive. This was not a band that mellowed as they evolved: instead, they grew in ferocity during this time.

The collection winds up with some experimental offcuts, which aren’t the most listenable of pieces, but do provide an insight into their evolutionary workings. The Sheer Action of the Fini Tribe 1982-1987 is a fascinating document, not necessarily a band ahead of its time, but a part of a revolutionary zeitgeist. And while bands like Depeche Mode and Yazoo and The Human League were bringing synths into the mainstream with pop tunes created using emerging technologies, the underground was throwing out bands like this, bands like DAF, bands like Foetus, Meat Beat Manifesto, Test Department. A lot has changed since then – culturally, and musically – change worthy of not simply acknowledgement but an entire thesis. It’s a thesis not for me to write, but The Sheer Action of the Fini Tribe 1982-1987 is a document which needs to be referenced in it.

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Frontal Boundary – Failure

Posted: 10 March 2026 in Albums, Reviews
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3rd February 2026

Christopher Nosnibor

Founded in 2002 by Brendan Ross, Frontal Boundary have been mining a seam of aggrotech, synth-pop, and raw emotional expression for almost a quarter of a century (mid 00’s hiatus notwithstanding, which meant that it wasn’t until 2012 that debut album Electronic Warfare emerged).

As the title of their latest offering indicates, this is an album brimming with nihilism, frustration, darkness. The expansive-sounding ‘Remember’ is one of those intro tracks which in a way create a false expectation of something a bit mellow, a robotix voice announcing ‘We are Frontal Boundary’ over a cinematic, semi-ambient drift and an easy, mid-tempo beat. And of course, this all changes with ‘Burn’, which slams in hard with a heavy stomp and snarling, distorted vocals, with words like ‘destruction’ and ‘corruption’ emerging and essentially telling you what you need to know.

While decidedly dancey in its synths which soar and stab across thumping basslines and relentless thudding beats, there’s something unflinchingly dark and nasty about Failure, not least of all the heavily-processed, dehumanised vocals, but equally, the sample selections are unsettling – even seemingly innocuous snippets take on sinister overtones in context, in the way that children’s voices sound menacing in horror movies.

Failure is very much cut from the same cloth as Controlled Bleeding and Mussolini Headkick and a bunch of late 80s / early 90s Wax Trax! stuff, and in places – as on ‘Hollow’ and ‘Hate’ Frontal Boundary really go all out on the aggressive rave stylings. The latter feels perhaps a shade light for the subject – musically that is: the vocals are strangled, scorched, demonic. Is black metal rave a thing? If not, Frontal Boundary may be pioneers of a new genre.

It’s high octane, Hi-NRG, and while the lead synths are poppy and dancey as anything, the overall vibe, with the contrasting vocals in particular, is gnarly, and harsh. It’s a juxtaposition which works well: although the musical style and vocal delivery are both genre tropes, the way in which Frontal Boundary draw them together feels fresh, innovative, powerful, and proof positive that there is no success like failure.

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The Fair Attempts – Null Guide

Posted: 8 March 2026 in Albums, Reviews
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27th February 2026

Christopher Nosnibor

After standalone single ‘Apart’, which featured Jaani Peuhi, at the end of February last year, Finnish dystopian industrialists The Fair Attempts, set to building anticipation for their next album with the release of ‘Anniversary of Our Destruction’ in December. And followed up with ‘Ghost Within’ in January.

‘Nothing’s Gonna be Alright’ sets the album’s level of optimism with a title that speaks for itself. It also sets the tempo and energy level, too, hitting hard in the form of a pounding, abrasive aggrotech stomp with snarling distorted vocals. But it’s far from devoid of melody, and boasts a chorus that’s an instant grab. ‘Freedom is Just a Word’ brings the roar and rage – not to mention the dynamics of Downward Spiral era Nine Inch Nails, with ‘Heresy’ making a particularly obvious touchstone.

‘Ghost Within’, then, marks a change of tone, dialling down the aggression for a poppier sound taking a step back from raging outward to turn the focus inward for a moment of reflection. And what we find is dark and paranoid, the affects of the grim world we live in on the psyche:

The ghost within

Under your skin

Feeding of your fear

Inside your mind

Like a parasite

It’s waiting

Of course, this is precisely how the mechanisms of control operate. Keep the people scared, keep the people compliant. We’re seeing this the world over now. People are scared of their own governments – and if they’re not, they’re either ignorant or deluded.

‘It’s All Fraud’ covers so many bases, but the phrase essentially summarises the foundations of capitalism and global power right now. Never before has the corruption ruled so completely. The song itself is a pure blast of industrial dance which hits hard.

Slowing things for another goth-tinged anthem with ‘Shadowplay’ (not a cover of the Joy Division song), the pace and power suddenly step up in the closing minute for a driving finish. These guys really know how to whip up a frenzy and get the blood and the adrenaline pumping with persistent, pulsating beats and throbbing bass grooves.

The title track again marks a shift in tone towards a more melancholic atmosphere, drawing together allusions to later Depeche Mode, only denser and more industrial, and it leads a closing triptych of dense, dark atmospheric songs. This softer conclusion in the wake of all the flames and all the rage is welcome, and by no means feels like an easing of tension – or an anticlimax – but instead feels like an opening up to reveal a fragility hitherto covered by the armour of anger. In closing, a calmness descends, and it’s tinged with sadness, a sense of submission, even – maybe.

Null Guide is a powerful album, and the source of that strength shifts over its course, demonstrating considerable sonic and emotional versatility, with a tangible sense of there being an arc of progression between beginning and end.

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Mr Vast – Upping the Ante

Posted: 7 March 2026 in Albums, Reviews
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26th March 2026

Christopher Nosnibor

Having slipped out ‘This and That’ as a forewarning of the imminent arrival of his ‘difficult third album’, the time is almost upon us for its unveiling. Just as it was six years between his debut, Grievous Bodily Charm and second album Touch & Go, so another eight years have elapsed since then, although he’s maintained his profile through touring – something which for him comes with the added challenge beyond the usual logistical matters with a wild stage act and even wilder and largely impractical-looking outfits. But then, Mr Vast is more than music. The creation of Henry Sargent of Wevie Stonder – perhaps the sole exponents of the cack-pop genre – Mr Vast is more than a musical project. It’s an entire world, where the Vast persona is all encompassing, bringing together music and performance art, and there are no half-measures here, Vast fully embracing the strange, the wonky, the incongruous and the improbable.

He’s at pains to stress that this isn’t art, though, and explicitly states ‘Mr Vast is not art. He’s something that happens to you. So let him.’ I rather feel that there’s no choice in this matter, really. The idiom goes that one should ‘expect the unexpected’, and this could well be a mantra for approaching Mr Vast – although it’s perhaps more appropriate to suggest that it’s all expected when it comes to his work. ‘Accept the expectable, yeah?’ he says on ‘Ants’, before blabbering on about ‘swan crisps’ and reflecting on deep water: the wrongness and the delivery remind me of Nathan Barley – perhaps one of the most underrated and uncomfortable sitcoms of the early 00s. ‘Failure is its own reward’, he croons moments later, spinning another classic postmodern dichotomy within a cocoon of New Age hipster jargonisms.

And so it was – and still is – that ‘This and That’ confounded expectation by being remarkably not-weird, a surprisingly danceable cut that could be legitimately referred to as a ‘bangin’ choon’. How serious or how ironic or parodic it is, remains unclear. Before we get to it on the album however, there’s ‘What’s Difficult About Being Stupid?’, which at twenty-nine seconds in length is more of a sliver of facetious frippery with a toy keyboard, and ‘Scatterbrain’, a sub-two-minute flourish of medieval folk absurdity that comes on like a collision between Horrible Histories and Steeleye Span. Or something. In this context, the pumping hyperactive acid beats of ‘This and That’ seems like a moment of sanity, despite its OTT KLF-style ‘stadium house’ / ambient / soul breakdown in the middle before going full-on happy hardcore. ‘Oh, listen to the sound effects… that’s fantastic’, he comments amidst a stream of conscious lyrics, before drum ‘n’ bass breaks drop.

Upping the Ante is appropriately titled: it’s peak Vast. ‘The Bench’ is almost – almost – a spoken-word vignette within a soft, mellifluous ambient composition, and it’s almost – almost – not weird or off-kilter. But then, as we learn a few tracks later in what seems like a confession of sorts, Vast tells us, ‘I Can’t Help It’. This track is another Hi-NRG work which incorporates drum ‘n’ bass and samples but breaks out into derangement worthy of a Brett Easton Ellis character – but there’s some observational content in the mix, too.

‘Neural Preening’ takes the form of jerky, quirky early eighties electronica, a bit Devo, a bit Thomas Dolby, a lot hyperactive. Keeping up with the sheer range of what’s going on is mind-bending, and while the gentle acoustic ‘Guess Who’ does offer some breathing space, it does so while offering something a bit trippy, a bit Syd Barrett era Pink Floyd. Then he goes and spins things into a different orbit with the murky groove of ‘Crumpet Man’, which could be a ‘Born Slippy’ meets Tubular Bells for 2026 if he wasn’t talking about animals, muffins, and pancakes.

It would be easy enough to simply bracket this as ‘experimental’ – and also ‘barking’ and ‘batshit’, which I’ve probably done myself before – but this fails to give due credit. Sure, there’s a certain sense that Mr Vast’s main purpose is to explore the furthest fringes with no regard for musical or social norms, instead seeing what new novelty oddness he can create, but equally, one gets the impression that this isn’t forced gimmickry, but simply how his head works – this is the work of someone who is wired differently. He doesn’t so much think outside the box, but exists outside the box, while performing origami on said box, which is, of course full not only of frogs, but newts and Natterjack Toads, all of which may or may not exist when the box is closed or folded in a certain way.

Some might think that with his evident ability, Sargent could make music that’s far more commercially viable, but as a writer who thought it would be a doddle to knock out a genre novel and actually get paid for this, only to find that the literary Tourette’s kicks in after a few paragraphs or pages. In other words, he really can’t help it. And this is a good thing. There’s too much bland shit out there. There’s too much manufactured shit out there. There’s too much shit out there, full stop. But there’s a real fear amongst musicians that they need to confirm to have any chance of success – whatever that is – and reach an audience and survive. Mr Vast exists not only outside of this, but in his own world, one almost devoid of reference points, comparisons, and peers. And this is what we need more of in the creative community. Arguably, such freedom to disregard pretty much all influence and all trends is a luxury, but to submit to conformity is to surrender the foundations of what it is to create.

Upping the Ante is warped, weird, and dances to its own tune and no other. It deserves applause – and your listening ears.

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Horse Funeral – Release the Trumpstein Files

Posted: 6 March 2026 in Albums, Reviews
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Dret Skivor – 6th March 2026

Christopher Nosnibor

It’s Bandcamp Friday, and so Dret Skivor have dropped their now-obligatory sonic assault on the world. This, of course, is infinitely preferable to AI-generated footage of Donald Trump dropping silage on his own people from a plane as a ‘fuck you’ to anyone who would dare to protest against the vile cunt.

On the one hand, this release is, as usual, timely. On the other, things have bene moving at such a pace of late that the arrest of both former prince Andrew Windsor and Peter Mandelson for divulging sensitive information to global financial manipulator and notorious paedophile and people-trafficker Jeffrey Epstein feels like a lifetime ago – although ultimately, it all boils down to one thing: the fact we are, more or less, in the early stages of World War Three is because of the despicable, unspeakable and frankly inhumane activities of the super-rich who think they are – and live – above all law an all others, and the fact that the deranged megalomaniac who currently holds the position of the President of the United States of America will go to any lengths to prevent his involvement covered up. And by now, it should be clear that by ‘any’ lengths, we’re looking at crashing the entire global economy and all-out war. At any other time, this would be hyperbole, or a far-fetched conspiracy theory. But it’s actually happening right in front of our eyes.

The cover art speaks for itself, an image which will define this point in history, and the notes which accompany this release tell it like it is:

As certain world leaders, millionaires, “royals” and politicians feel the world closing in on them and the predictable bullshit and killing ensues, backed by shit-stirring billionaires, the Military Industrial Cuntplex and their simps on earth, Horse Funeral takes time to ponder and produce – here are the results and let’s hope we’re all still alive to enjoy this music next week.

There is a reason this release is named as it is and the planet will be better when all of these twats blast off for Mars. Fuck off there and never come back, you homicidal fuckers.

But sometimes, there are no words to fully articulate all of the levels of abysmal, anger and anguish-inducing shock and loathing these depraved wealth-harvesting ghouls provoke, at which point, primal screams and blistering walls of noise are the purest expression of the inarticulable. To this end, Release the Trumpstein Files comprises two pieces, each around twenty-two-and-a-half minutes in duration, and each of which is a furious, gut-churning harsh noise wall. ‘The Pronce Is A Nince’ has a moderate tonal span, but the balance of rumbling bass and a relentless howl of treble-shredding serve to counter one another, resulting in a sound that feels like it’s mid-range. And what a sound it is: tearing, roaring, relentless. Swashes of overdriven oscillators are blown back and forth on a nuclear wind.

‘I’m Mandy, Buy Me’ – an inspired pun based on 10cc’s hit ‘I’m Mandy, Fly Me’, begins with a crackling static which twists onto a blizzard of distortion, not dissimilar to the sound of an old dialup connection, only fucked up with distortion. And on it goes… and on, torturously, the buzzing drone occasionally swelling or surging, harsher buzzes breaking out above fuzz and crackle, the sound of a poor contact or a jack plug half connected amidst a perpetual fizz of extraneous noise. It’s hard on the ears and the brain, which of course it’s designed to be. Punishing, patience-testing noise at its best.

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