Archive for the ‘Albums’ Category

hubris. – White Shores

Posted: 7 September 2026 in Albums, Reviews
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10th September 2026

Having never felt compelled to explore Tolkien’s writing – and perhaps consequently even less compelled to watch Peter Jackson’s epic Lord of the Rings trilogy – I feel in some ways unqualified to review White Shores¸ the fifth album by Swiss post-rock band hubris. which follows four albums inspired by Greek mythology.

This is one of those albums which does require some grounding in context, not only in terms of its literary inspiration, but also the personal circumstances which prompted the shift in focus, and so I shall quote from the accompanying notes in order to avoid any misinterpretation.

In Tolkien’s legendarium, elves in spite of their immortality (a trait often coveted by humans) refer to death as the “Gift of Men.” This paradox offers a striking alternative to the Western perception of death as purely tragic. A “gift” implies something desirable, even fortunate. While Tolkien presents multiple perspectives on death throughout his works, the one that resonated most deeply with Jonathan comes from the main protagonist Frodo’s departure at the end of The Lord of the Rings: "the grey rain-curtain turned all to silver glass and was rolled back, and he beheld white shores and beyond them a far green country under a swift sunrise.”

In the wake of his grandfather’s passing, this perspective became Jonathan’s emotional and conceptual foundation of White Shores. The album unfolds across five movements, each representing a word in a single sentence: Death. Is. Just. Another. Path.

The sentence is drawn from Gandalf’s words to Pippin in Peter Jackson’s film adaptation. It was spoken in the face of what appears to be their last moments. This phrase serves as both a moment of respite and a thematic conception.

Inevitably, fans of the books and the films – and there are many – will appreciate White Shores in ways I simply cannot, in that they will be able to identify references and revel in the details. This is clearly an album where detail is important. Comprising five movements, the album is designed to reflect Dr. Kübler-Ross’ theory on the five stages of grief: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression and Acceptance – although split into six tracks, with none making any obvious reference to this, it’s not readily apparent.

The first piece, ‘death’ is a delicate, rolling work, which is expansive and feels comparatively calm, particularly for the first three minutes. Additional layers of guitar with overdriven, choppy chords arrive at this point, but the same interweaving lead part continues to drift on through, before it all dissipates into a slow-motion ambience to fade near the end. This in turn segues into ‘is’, which is textured, and builds, but does so gently and in a way which remains easy on the ear. It’s pleasant, but there’s very little grab or bite to it, and as such, it’s music that’s easy to let slip into the background.

The nine-and-a-half-minute ‘just’ is the centrepiece in every way, and with its rolling drums, and a crashing snare which cuts through the rippling guitars which lap away for the first four minutes, it’s the first composition that feels like it’s going somewhere, and offers a glimpse of emotional intensity. The same overdriven guitar sound which brought the power chords on ‘death’ crunches in to underpin an arpeggiated lead line. There’s a definite tension which pulls through the weave of this cinematic composition, but while it conjures sweeping vistas and rolling hills, there’s no rugged, mountainous crescendo, nothing which conveys any palpable sense of anguish. As the final minutes taper down through a soft piano segment, there comes a greater sense of tranquillity, and a sense of ill-ease and frustration at the passage of time, but equally a sense of musical restraint placing limitations on what could have been an impactful epic, and what could have been.

The album’s shortest piece, ‘another’ goes a bit Radiohead, before the final movement, ‘path’ arrives. Split into two parts and with an overall run time of nearly twelve minutes, it unquestionably meets the ‘epic’ criteria. Around the four minute mark, they do finally cut loose, at least a bit, but it still feels lacking somehow.

White Shores is a most listenable album, but it’s not an album that makes you want to listen to it. Instead of grappling with the fundamentals which inspired in a way which demands attention, hubris. seem more interested in keeping things safe. The instrumental work is faultless in its execution, and the compositions are considered. The quieter passages are achingly magnificent and evocative… but they sound like they’re holding back, and the peaks don’t peak much: everything sits around the middle, rather than exploring a greater dynamic range which would have so much more impact, sonically and emotionally.

White Shores is pleasant, and near-flawless on a technical level. But perhaps that’s it’s greatest failing: it places technicality and production over dynamism and impact, and while I like it well enough, I simply find myself wanting more.

AA

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PIG – Dirt Box

Posted: 6 September 2026 in Albums, Reviews, Singles and EPs
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Metropolis Records – 4th September 2026

Christopher Nosnibor

Lately, PIG’s rate of output has been nothing short of phenomenal. Having released the album Hurt People Hurt in May, they’ve just embarked on a substantial, two-month long tour of North America and Canada, and to coincide with that, they’ve not only got a remix EP, but also Dirt Box, which features four new songs paired with a remix of each, making for another album-length release.

There is, to an extent, a sense that if you’ve been following recent PIG releases, you’ll have a reasonable idea of what to expect. Since resurrecting his porcine project in 2016, Raymond Watts has discovered that the swine yields pearls when plundering a seam which places a uniquely gritty spin on glam ground up with industrial and greased with S&M sleaze and a dash of religion for that extra spice. This isn’t to say that PIG albums have fallen to the formulaic, so much as the fact that they’ve found their groove, and the new material over the last ten years hasn’t so much flowed, as been in full spate. It’s working out petty nicely, too. Despite touring as the support for Nine Inch Nails on the seminal Downward Spiral tour and having albums released on Reznor’s label in the mid-90s, PIG remained eternal outsiders, perhaps being just that bit too weird and eclectic for the prevailing tastes at the time. So while NIN were hailed by the press as being groundbreaking, Watts’ work, which tossed in classical samples, strings and all sorts into the grinding industrial mix, taking cues from mentor and collaborator JG Thirlwell, AKA Foetus, the outsider’s outsider – was simply three steps too far. But now… it seems that having tempered the hybridity and experimentalism a shade, the world has finally come around to PIG, with the likes of Classic Rock and Vive Le Rock raving about Hurt People Hurt. I think it was Genesis P-Orridge who made a comment along the lines that if you stick around long enough, you’ll come to be accepted, and whoever it was, this certainly seems true of PIG, who’ve been going nearly forty years now, with the release of debut single ‘Never for Fun’ and album A Poke in the Eye… With a Sharp Stick being released in 1988.

Lead single and EP opener, ‘An American Ideal of Beauty’ starts out sounding like Watts may have jumped the shark – or the wall of Marshall stacks – and gone straight-up spandex hair metal on us, or perhaps even all-out Kiss, but then the quintessential guitar chug of Jim Davies cuts in and grinds hard and we get to breathe a sigh of relief. And here we go: religious-sounding ululations ring out against a bubbling synth bass. ‘Put up, shut up! Do your duty!’ Watts snarls against a backdrop of chugging rhythm guitars and layer upon layer of detail – and the truth is, this is as boldly extravagant in its sonic span as the most revered work among fans, namely the material which featured on Red, Raw and Sore, Sinsation, and Wrecked, which saw Watts colliding insane ambition with some inspired songwriting. Yep, he’s still got it, and any recognition, however belated, is well-deserved. But does this mean that PIG are mainstream now, and beyond the remit of Aural Aggravation? I don’t think so. They’re not about to be played on the Radio 1 breakfast show, I’ve been a fan since the early 90s, and Raymond Watts will forever be one of my favourite interview subjects when we met in York a few years ago.

AA

After the rabid industrial glam grind of ‘Your Reptilian Overlord Presents’, ‘Infidel’ slows the pace and finds Watts go Bowie circa Outside with a heavy dose of darkwave in the mix. With a strong hook and a poppy undercurrent, it showcases the range and quality of the songwriting that sets PIG apart from many of their peers – not that they really have any at this point. They’ve diverged a long way from the acts that emerged around the same time on Wax Trax! evolving along a very different trajectory from, say, KMFDM (of whom Watts was a member) or Ministry. ‘Butterfly’ is a churning, mutant beast of a tune, and has the makings of a future classic given time to embed.

The remixes… well, they’re remixes. In their favour, they’re very different from the original versions. The Cyanotic remix of ‘Your Reptilian Overlord Presents’ is up first, and it’s a noisy, fucked-up industrial blast reminiscent of JG Thirlwell’s remixes of NIN. Admittedly, it’s nowhere near a extreme as his contributions on Fixed, but they set new precedents when it came to remixes, and the world has never been the same since. The beat calls to mind early 00s Pitch Shifter, and it makes for an intense four and a half minutes. The surprisingly mellow Combichrist remix of ‘Butterfly’ is the other standout: in stripping the song back and going for a more darkwave backing to Watt’s gnarly vocal, it makes for a radical transformation.

What’s remarkable is that in producing an album a year – give or take – plus EPs of offcuts and remixes in between – the standard of PIG releases hasn’t only been consistent, but continues to reach new heights. Instead of running out of ideas, PIG are surging with creativity and riding the crest of a wave.

AA

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Felix Kubin & Asmus Teitchens – Senderkennungen

Posted: 5 September 2026 in Albums, Reviews
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Auf Abwegen – 3rd September 2026

Christopher Nosnibor

Is Internet radio really radio? There may still be live broadcasts, but they tend to be then saved and made available for streaming for a period of time, or indefinitely. This has certainly changed the way many of us listen to radio – for those who still do – in the same way streaming has completely changed out TV viewing habits. One obvious benefit of this for viewers / listeners is that there’s no cursing that you’re having to miss something because of another engagement or a clash or other external factor, but one thing that’s most definitely been lost is the way in which TV and radio schedules used to provide social and cultural cohesion. Of course, the near-infinite choice now available is also a factor in this, but even when a series captures mass attention, you simply don’t have a quarter of the nation stopping everything to tune into the same show at the same time. Rarely are schools and workplaces abuzz with the ‘did you see so-and-so last night?’ conversation anymore. There are a few things that still appear to have that pull on terrestrial television – the likes of Love Island and Strictly – but they’re increasingly rare. Even when series are released episodically, many viewers prefer to wait until the whole season is available, and ‘binge’ it. Personally, I don’t get how people have the time to watch six hours or so of a single show in just one weekend, but then, I hardly watch any television – live or streaming – because I’m usually reading or writing and / or listening to music.

It’s not simply nostalgia to reflect on the experience of tuning into John Peel on a night with a blank tape in the machine ready to record whoever was in session or anything else that was potentially interesting, not least of all because I don’t miss the days of tapes getting chewed, intros missed or spoken over, failing to catch the name of the artist, etc.. But it did make for a very different relationship with music, and one which made it more valued. Listening out for and also being introduced to new music in this way – or by being passed a compilation tape done by a friend – meant we were perhaps more invested than being fed endless recommendations selected by algorithms.

It’s in this context that we arrive at Senderkennungen, the first collaboration between Felix Kubin & Asmus Teitchens, of which the latter explains a follows:

‘In order to make radio stations acoustically recognizable they need a so called station ID. This audible signal is synonimous to a visible logo. Both logo and station ID create identities. The German word for station ID is „Senderkennung“. For the album Felix Kubin composed a series of unique Senderkennungen – each ca. 5 seconds long – which have been commissioned by various radio stations, who where in need of a station ID or were looking to relaunch their existing acoustic branding. Most of these miniature compositions are tonal but some verge towards an atonal or noisy character. Time and again Kubin and I discussed the possibility of creating pieces out of these ultra compressed and short Senderkennungen. This was realized for the album in applying the rule of keeping Kubin’s original musical material recognizable while at the same time using any form of manipulation, modification, stretching, shortening or expanding in the development of the new pieces. One limitation: Those new pieces should not be longer than three minutes each.’

The resultant double album contains an immense thirty-nine tracks, although the first nineteen, recorded by Kubin alone, are each around half a minute long. On the vinyl, these are all packed onto side A, meaning the remaining three sides are given to the collaborative pieces, which tend to be around the two and a half minute mark.

The nineteen initial station ID pieces are simple synth pieces, with a single motif – either a chord or two or some chiming notes – repeated a couple of times with some space between. Some sound as if they’ve been lifted from an album of sci-fi sound samples from the 60s and 70s, and occasionally – as in the case of ‘Radio Dipol’ and ‘Radio Schneekoppe’ – segues from old TV shows. Often weird, always unpredictable, Kubin seems to have a real thing for heraldic or faux-medieval-sounding motifs, and these microtunes are varied, as well as alien in that they have no place in the world of Internet radio and Spotify.

The newer, longer pieces, do mark something of a stylistic shift. It perhaps goes without saying that the expanded time markers give more room for sonic exploration which extends beyond simple motifs, but more than that, they feel like more fully realised compositions rather than functional sonic stamps. This is no doubt because that’s the fundamental difference: Kubin’s original commissions were created for a specific – and most utilitarian – purpose, rather than for musical entertainment, while the recent collaborative pieces are designed with being listened to, and perhaps even a sense of audience in mind. ‘Freies Danzig’ may be sparse initially, but builds from a multi-voiced synth piece into a layered work of tonal and textural contrast, while ‘Krimikanal’ leans towards dark ambient territory. ‘Paranorm Radio’ is eerie and squelchy, as good a sonic representation as you’re likely to hear, and there’s an abundance of reverberating, woozy weirdness on offer as the work progresses.

Senderkennungen feels less like an album of two halves, or even of one quarter and three quarters, but two quite separate albums, and the two sets of compositions make for very different listening experiences.

AA

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Superføkk – Superføkk!

Posted: 2 September 2026 in Albums, Reviews
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Fysisk – 4th September 2026

Christopher Nosnibor

The line ‘here we are now, entertain us’ from Nirvana’s ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ is on which has come to resonate with me more powerfully in recent years than it ever did at the time. It’s a sad fact that – and I like to think of it as being through no fault of my own – my attention span isn’t what it was, and I’m no longer quite as patient as I was. I can still listen to a twenty minute instrumental without any issue, but have to be in the frame of mind to do so. But then, as far back as 2018, Forbes reported that 24.14% of songs were skipped within the first five seconds by users of Spotify, some 29% skip in the first ten, and that increases to a 35.05% chance of a skip within the first 30 seconds. I very much doubt that we’ve grown more patient in the last eight years. An article published earlier this year at Mixreflect detailed the reasons listeners skip, and gave practical solutions like ‘How long should a song intro be on Spotify?’ with advice including ‘The practical target is 8 to 12 seconds for pop, hip-hop, and R&B; up to 20 seconds for rock and indie if something is actively developing throughout.’

It’s twenty-six seconds before the vocals start on the single edit of ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’. The intro to one of my favourite singles of all time, ‘Alice’ by The Sisters of Mercy occupies the first minute of its three and a half minute duration. And how long is the fade-in on ‘India’, the opening track on the eponymous debut album by The Psychedelic Furs? All very different songs, but each a classic in its own right. Are we really in a place where most people would simply skip before things got going? Instant gratification is one thing, but there is so much to be said for a good build-up.

Thankfully, there are musical fields where a slow-build and an unravelling over time is appreciated, and Superføkk – pitched as ‘a bursting new raptus project that shoots off in inexplicable directions’ which is ‘neither background listening nor pop music’ they’re described as having ‘a foot in many camps’ and ‘aim[ing] to break down established genre conventions and create a sound that is distinctly their own…. drawing inspiration from jazz/noiserock, electronica, and no-wave’. And their debit album contains just three tracks, the shortest of which is six minutes long (there is a four-minute radio edit, but I doubt that it’ll get much airplay on the likes of Radio 1 or Kiss FM, or that it’s going to convince the Spotify casuals to stick around, not that the algorithm is likely to insert it amidst a lengthy cycle of Taylor Swift and Charlie XCX or whatever.

And so it is that ‘Grønn’ provides our introduction to Superføkk, and it may be brief (in comparative terms’, but it packs plenty in. It’s jazz in that cacophonic sense, horns blaring and doing so simultaneously in all directions – not smooth or noodly, but an instant riot – before an extended atmospheric post-rock passage in the middle before everything goes off at once, giving us an expansive post-rock surge topped with the most extravagant sax break. The twelve-minute ‘River Igjennom’ is remarkably light and easy going for the most part, but around three minutes in, the levels of tension explode with frenetic drumming and strains of the most demented fretwork colliding with crazed sax chaos, and it culminates on some kind of huge prog-like grand finale which on the one hand seems entirely incongruous, but on the other, perfectly fitting. I can’t say I’m entirely into it. And then there’s ‘Piggeple’, another twelve minute multi-segmented opus.

Around the mid-point, it drops down to a spare bass, squalling synth, and processed-sounding vocals, and it’s only after this that things really seem to kick off, with a locked-in drum beat, throbbing, insistent bass, and some crunky guitar dischord. Finally, the noise-rock element is freed! And they do go all-out in the final minutes.

When they write that ‘Superføkk is neither background listening nor pop music’, but that it’s ‘immediate and danceable, but also unhinged, hard-boiled, improvised, and idiosyncratic’, they’re mostly accurate. There are some deep bass-driven grooves buried in the mix here, but the chances of me actually dancing it any of it are non-existent.

Recent weeks and months have delivered some truly outstanding – not to mention angry, bleak, nihilistic, and highly political – noise rock releases, perhaps most notably from Chat Pile, Kings Sans, and Remote Viewing, and each has hit hard and resonated in a deep and powerful way. Superføkk (which continually reminds me of Superbock, which is great stuff) lands differently. Not only is it largely instrumental, its noise-rock elements are blended – and at times buried low – amidst an array of experimentalism, and an emphasis on the warped jazz leanings of the composition. But, being as hectic as it is, it’s no less tense that the aforementioned noise-rock works. In fact, there are moments which are little short of dizzying, and you wonder if your brain might burst.

AA

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Chat Pile – Who Loves The Sun

Posted: 31 August 2026 in Albums, Reviews
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The Flenser – 4th September 2025

Christopher Nosnibor

Chat Pile have only been around for seven years, but in that time they’ve cemented themselves as among the leading exponents of contemporary noise rock. Timing, when even accidental, counts for so much, though. Their debut EP landed in the spring of 2019, with the follow-up coming towards the end of the year. They were hardly a hit on their local scene, and then there was the pandemic, which did nothing for any band looking to build a fanbase through live shows. They managed to get signed, but it seems that the key element in their favour was the fact that since the pandemic, everything has been utterly fucked. Fucked beyond words, fucked beyond comprehension. And this is why the world has been crying out for horrible, sludgy noise to give a voice or a home to those myriad confused emotions, for a band that speaks both to and for them.

Who Loves The Sun is their third album, and it’s worth stepping back from my review to quote from the bio which accompanies the album, since it provides valuable context and traces the band’s evolution: ‘Whereas their debut album God’s Country depicted a particularly American flavor of dread, and the follow up Cool World showed a cruel planet defined by global systemic violence, Who Loves The Sun now peels back the skin on how a collective indifference for a decaying world defines this new century. Touring off the back of their previous albums in part lent itself a confidence in the universality of their music. Stin comments, “I’ve always felt that Chat Pile is such an American concept thematically, but it seems like that’s not particularly true – people all over the world are resonating with what we have to say.” Spanning imagery of coastlines devouring cities as a result of inaction on climate change, the dread of working dead-end jobs, and the species’ collective submission to data-driven inauthenticity, Who Loves The Sun depicts the common experience of existing in a doom loop which feeds the malaise that permeates all aspects of our lives.’

And yes: these are global issues they tackle here. America might be a bit more fucked than some other places, but ultimately, we’re all fucked (in part because of America, although that’s no fault of these guys).

It’s a murky, rolling drum, bouncing around in a sea of reverb which launches the album, ‘Creature’ lurching in mid-pace with a filthy bass and some sinewy guitar. The atmosphere is tense, the vibe mid-90s gnarly. I’m straight back to Touch ‘n’ Go and underground scuzz, the grainy gritty heft of Tad, Oil Seed Rape, Zoopsia, It’s heavy, alright, but it’s more than that: it’s sweaty, greasy, and it’s intense. The walls move closer, the air becomes denser, and it’s harder to breathe.

Who Loves The Sun isn’t a hooks and choruses album. It’s a thick, treacle-like trudge through a succession of gut-churning riffs. As such, it’s very much the soundtrack to the trawling through doom loops. On the face of things, they don’t sound like a band with massive international appeal, but the same was true of Nirvana and Slipknot. It’s more Bleach than Nervermind, though. The world at large massively underestimates the need to vent complex emotions through difficult, heavy music, and if anything, the last few years have elicited the need for music that’s darker and heavier than ever. It feels like we’re living in the end of times, and we need music that reflects it.

‘Break my face and call me your friend,’ Raygun Busch sings in a cracked, tired voice during a quiet moment on ‘Deep Blue’. Most of the vocals are either screams or otherwise buried amidst the wall of jagged riffery. ‘Same Rules’ starts quiet and dungy, and explodes into a nihilistic roar. Neither are friendly, but both articulate the existence within dark spaces, both internal and external.

AA

Landing mid-album, ‘Shrine’ is a classic quiet / loud composition , and it captures the grunge feel but with additional metal fury, and a harsh hybridization that blends metal with grunge filth. The same could be said of most of Who Loves The Sun. It’s dark, it’s jarring, and is heavy. It’s bleak and does nothing to entice you out to a brighter space. ‘Influence’ simply becomes more claustrophobic over its four-and-a-half-minute duration as it stomps its concentric circles of anger and anguish. ‘Family Funeral’ strays towards Shellac territory as it builds a bludgeoning wall of noise ahead of closer ‘October all the Time’. This is not an accessible or easy album. But it’s the album we need to express all of the angst that’s pouring in all directions right now. It’s also the answer to how we will get through it all. More big riffs. And more again.

AA

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Nonturn – Repeating Town

Posted: 30 August 2026 in Albums, Reviews
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Audiobulb – 22nd August 2026

Christopher Nosnibor

Every town, every city has its own unique vibe. Some we acclimatise to, others, we find uncomfortable. Others still, scary. Myself, I am not a fan of big cities, but have always felt comfortable in Leeds, but always feel on edge in Manchester. I can’t explain this. apart from the fact it’s rained almost every time I’ve been in Manchester, I’ve never had a bad experience there. In fact, I’ve had many positive experiences there, but still just feel something… it doesn’t sit with me, and I can’t settle. My experience of ‘international’ cities is limited: the only time I visited New York was when I was three, and beyond that, I’ve only been to London and Paris. I’m not sure Nicosia counts, being international in a different sense, and I expect that that’s perhaps another discussion altogether – although, for what it’s worth, while my fellow conference delegates proffered their passports to venture through the military checkpoints to cross the border into the Turkish territory to enjoy a meal, I remained in the pub in the Greek side of the Old Town with a book while I awaited their return. I have no regrets about this seven years on. But I digress. Every city has a feel, and not just a vibe, but a vibration. And big cities are in essence the same as smaller cities when you’re there, since they’re divided into various communities, segments, quarters, districts, whatever.

Nonturn’s Repeating Town is a work which is an assemblage of sound which captures, one way or another, the essence of Koenji, Tokyo. This is quite specific, and only highlights my observation that large cities are generally comprised of zones and areas within, and this is true of Koenji, which – and I make no apologies for turning to Wikipedia for into here –‘was largely unaffected by the 1980s building boom and therefore many of the houses and shops in the area are small and reflect the character of ‘pre-boom’ Japan. Due to its aging retail district and location on a major commuter route, the station area has become a center for small restaurants and ‘Live Houses’ which offer live music.’ It sounds pretty cool on paper.

Precisely how representative Nonturn’s Repeating Town is, I can’t really say. However, as Nozom Yoneda, aka Nonturn explains, ‘Every sound on the album was captured in and around Koenji, Tokyo: traffic signals, footsteps, air conditioners, construction, passing cars and fragments of conversation. These recordings are traces of real places, but they are not presented as documentary evidence or atmosphere. They are cut, repeated, layered and placed on a 96 BPM grid as sampling material.’

He goes on to add, ‘The title points to the method. The everyday city is already full of repetitions: signals return, footsteps pass, machines hum, routes repeat, voices appear and disappear. Nonturn listens to those repetitions not as background, but as a musical condition. Once removed from their original setting, the sounds stop describing where they came from and begin to act as rhythm, texture, accent, resonance and silence.’

Repeating Town contains seven pieces, each around five or six minutes long and each of which pulls together a host of drones and clanking percussion, interwoven with weird electronica. At times is ripples and weaves, at others, it jogs, picking up pace and evolving technoindustrial beats as it does so. Field recordings aren’t particularly apparent at in this hybrid of mixes, and as tone and texture from other sources build, there’s a creeping discomfort which builds. It’s an album which is built on glitches and trilling synth loops, whirring buzzes and the occasional explosive blast which disrupts an otherwise smooth surface. But there are whirring dentist drills and all sorts, all seemingly looped together and otherwise spun into a strange, soporific blend.

AA

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Ashley Reaks – Post-Hope World

Posted: 29 August 2026 in Albums, Reviews
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17th August 2026

Christopher Nosnibor

We’ve spent the last few decades with the present time being described as ‘post-something. Postmodernism made sense in terms of the lineage of artistic phases, coming, as it did, after modernism. But things did get murky , in that postmodernism wasn’t only about art, but culture, society, and the way technology has infiltrated all aspects of these. The arrival of the post-truth age must surely mark one of the most unedifying and shameful in centuries. I qualify this with the observation that we have spent our entire evolution seeking knowledge, enlightenment, progress. And here we are, in the twentieth century, and instead of advancing these things, we have an ultra-rich elite whose sole interest is self-interest, and with a love of money over all else, including knowledge and intellect – in fact, they despise knowledge and intellect, to the extent that they will chop the legs off every advancement we’ve made in the last two hundred years and rewrite history for nothing more than their own fiscal gain. This includes the denial of genocides and climate change. And what’s worse, people fall for this entirely false narrative and endlessly regurgitate the lies, on social media, and in conversation with families and friends.

So where does this all actually bring us – when it’s impossible to believe in anything, or even anyone? Well, Ashley Reaks pretty much captures that all-pervading sense of gloom and despondency with the title of his latest – his twentieth – solo album, Post-Hope World. Because yes, the fact of the mater is that we’re fucked. The question now is, what’s going to finish us first? World war? Climate change? AI going rogue and pushing the button or something? The world is on fire and missiles are poised in all directions, and it’s starting to feel like a race of the worst kind.

But for the everyday person, 2026 carries echoes of 1976 and the early 80s. Economic depravity, social unrest were the conditions which inspired the punk revolution and the rapid emergence of post-punk shortly after. And so it is that with Post-Hope World, Reaks gives us ‘nine songs about outsiders, damaged childhoods, authoritarian fathers, King Babies, conspiracy nuts, religious zealots, sneaky cunts, the end of one world and the start of another’, which are ‘musically rooted in late-70s /early-80s punk — Ruts, Ramones, Sex Pistols, Killing Joke, Dead Kennedys and Nirvana (not that Nirvana were 70s or 80s punk, but were borne of that same frustration at the sameness of cardboard culture in the late 80s and early 90s).

And so it is that Reaks channels that spirit of rebellion and disaffection through the album’s twelve tracks – rather than a spirit of resignation. Lead single ‘In With the Out Crowd’ kicks things off in energetic style, fizzing with energy, its intricately woven blanket of fretwork coupled with layered vocal melodies, before things lunge deeper and darker with the bass-driven title track – although the chorus again provides a powerful injection of melody that’s not a million miles away from The Stranglers, but equally could be seen as owing some small debt to The Adverts.

AA

It’s inevitable that any Reaks release will venture into dub and / or reggae at some point, and ‘I Wanna Be a Stain on Society’ leans unashamedly into the aforementioned Ruts influence. And that’s to the good: if you’re going to take inspiration from forebears, make it the good ones. The Ruts belonged to the first wave of punk, the class of ’77, but it was clear from the outset that they stood apart from their peers. They remain criminally underrated, but it’s clear why they’re henry Rollins’ favourite band, and anyone familiar with Reaks’ work will have made the connection between their punk / dub crossover and his unique genre hybrid style.

But nothing Reaks does is ever just a gathering together of ideas lifted from his various influences. These are always a conduit to him delivering his own ideas – both lyrical and musical – and in this context, he has long offered a unique voice. Yes, ‘King Baby’ may be an unexpectedly straightforward poppy punk tune, but its three-chord thrashalong and sing-song vocals provide the perfect platform, for his powerhouse takedown of the orange clown currently occupying the Whitehouse.

AA

In the spirit of punk, Post-Hope World pulls no punches, but does bring some heavy-slugging riffs, with some hefty drumming behind them, ad never more so than on ‘Daddy Was’. It’s The Damned in the 80s that come to mind listening to ‘War On the Home Front’, another high-octane kicker, and the same is also true of the infectiously poppy final song, ‘Sneaky Cunt’. If it was called anything else, and had a different refrain, it would be all over the radio, or would have been or should have been, if radio networks still existed. But true art refuses to censor or self-censor, and that’s as it should be.

Post-Hope World feels like one of Reaks’ more accessible albums, but in terms of messaging, it’s one of his most vital.

AA

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Grey Shores – Dark Waters of Night

Posted: 26 August 2026 in Albums, Reviews
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4th September 2026

Christopher Nosnibor

When selling themselves – or however else you may describe what bands or their PR do with their biographies and the blurbs which accompany releases – acts tend to go either one way or another. The first is to focus on context and heritage, and locate the music within a lineage amidst a list of touchstones. The second is to cast all of that aside, and accentuate the innovation, the difference, and the departure from all of that. Both approaches come with risks, albeit quite different ones. The former suggests that the band is derivative, and builds a certain expectation before the listener has heard a note. Not that it was Interpol’s fault that every critic under the sun sold them as Joy Division clones, which meant that I was sorely disappointed the first time I heard Antics. It sounded like so much indie, and I felt hugely let down. I came around pretty swiftly, but only once I’d come to terms with the fact they were, in reality, fuck all like Joy Division. Meanwhile, the latter sets the expectation that you’re about to hear something that’s nothing like anything you’ve heard before, and as a jaded critic of many years, I find myself sitting at my desk, adopting a mindset which is visually represented by arms folded, torso tilted back away, face wearing a light sneer that says ‘come on then, let’s have it,’ or perhaps even ‘here we are now, entertain us’. More often than not, these artists, too, fall short, as I find myself wondering if they live in a cultural vacuum, and how they could have possibly not heard X, Y. or Z, whom they sound so very like.

It’s in this latter category that Stockholm’s Gey Shores fall, when they forewarn that ‘a new voice is about to emerge from the depths of the Swedish underground. Grey Shores, the atmospheric black metal duo formed by Martin Andersson and Vilhelm Andersson, are preparing to release their debut album, Dark Waters of Night, a work that merges the emotional depth of post-rock with the cold intensity of black metal… Musically, Grey Shores inhabit a space where black metal, post-rock, and melancholic metal converge. Vilhelm Andersson’s background in atmospheric and post-rock music brings layers of texture, melody, and emotional nuance, while Martin Andersson contributes the harsher elements that form the album’s backbone.’

Don’t get me wrong: I’m genuinely thrilled by the prospect, but am equally prepared to be disappointed within the first three songs. Because not only am I jaded, I’m being sucked into the world of the ever-diminishing attention span. But hey, I can usually manage three songs rather than three seconds before making my mind up and hitting skip (boycotting Spotify likely helps with that, as does being old enough to remember buying an album and playing it several times even if you hated it at first and finding that over time, you quite liked it after all).

Dark Waters of Night contains just seven songs, and while the majority are around the five minute mark, there are a couple which are substantially under three.

Funnily enough, the opening bars of ‘Nothingness by My Side’ evoke the rippling chimes of ‘Untitled’, the first track on Interpol’s Antics, before drifting into a spacious, atmospheric soundscape – before, a mere fifty seconds in – rasping black metal vocals ride in on a wave of overdriven power chords. The song certainly exploits the dynamics of post-rock, with melodic, dreamy vocals washing across delicately picked clean guitar, propelled by jittery, almost jazzy drumming in the verses, and there are hints of Oceansize and Explosions in the Sky here, but instead of surging crescendos, we get screaming black metal fury. I’m sure if I spent long enough searching, I could find something akin to this, but right here, right now, to my ears, this does offer something different and sees the band deliver on their promise, and it’s exciting.

Amidst the raging metal tempest of ‘The Withering Tree’ arrives a moment of calm which is almost folk in flavour alongside the chiming post-rock atmospherics, while ‘In The Pale Light’ offers a sound that’s quintessentially post-metal, and brings some magnificent lead hooks. The demonic howls provide quite the contrast, and then the mid-section makes an unexpected switch toward the expansive, and brings with it clean, melodic vocals. It borders on the schizophrenic, but it works, as they stitch the transitions practically seamlessly, sometimes overlapping.

‘Herald the Dark’ hints towards the territory of lighter-waving anthem, at least to begin with. But what starts out as pretty tame, swiftly gets gnarly, while preserving the anthemic qualities. Nevertheless, while it’s perhaps the album’s most ambitious track – at least commercially – it’s also the weakest musically.

On ‘Sights of Woe’ they step up the cinematic aspects with the introduction of choral backing – and some classically overblown fretwork. At this point, it’s clear that Grey Shores really are committed to pushing black metal to new places, and the gentle instrumental fade of ‘January Wolves’ is simply a perfect post-rock wind-down. Dark Waters of Night is not only a great album – detailed, textured, varied, dynamic, incendiary – but one which delivers on its promise.

The quality cover art warrants a bonus thumbs-up, too.

AA

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Nephila – HULDRA

Posted: 24 August 2026 in Albums, Reviews
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Majestic Mountain Records – 28th August 2026

Christopher Nosnibor

They’ve been going for almost a decade now, although they’ve not been the most prolific of acts during that time. as their bio reminds, ‘Following the release of their first single in 2018, Nephila quickly established themselves as one of Sweden’s most intriguing new rock acts. Their acclaimed debut album embraced the warmth and swagger of classic 70s rock while hinting at something darker beneath the surface, earning a nomination for Rock/Metal Album of the Year at Sweden’s prestigious P3 Guld Awards in 2022’.

The promise of a band re-emerging, transformed is intriguing. And that may be so, but for all its bold energy, powerful hooks, chunky riffs and eye-popping solos, HULDRA still feels like an album so deeply rooted in the past as to be, while not a tribute, an homage to the past.

‘The Hidden Folk’ is a prime example of overblown 70s rock production. I suppose it’s in some ways representative of the way things split in the late 60s and into the 70s: you had the rock titans, dominated by Led Zeppelin, who added a harder edge to blues-based rock and took it in more extravagant directions, and, formed in the same year (1968), Black Sabbath essentially invented heavy metal, and at the same time created the template for stoner, sludge, and doom rock. Both bands have proven to be equally influential, and the hard rock / hair rock explosion of the 80s simply couldn’t have happened without Led Zeppelin. But in recent years, the rock-god blues swagger of Zep has sounded pretty hackneyed and cliché, while the spirit of Sabbath has felt more culturally relevant. With its fast-paced folk-inspired multi-layered guitar solo, multi-layered vocal, and organ work, all augmented by a huge production, ‘The Hidden Folk’ just feels like too much. And it’s largely representative of the album as a whole. ‘Ash Their Bones’ brings some jazzy grooves to the Doors-meets-Zep prog-hued party, and I daresay there are plenty who would really dig the energy, especially live, and especially at a festival after a few bevvies. But there’s no quantity of beer or cider that could convince me when it comes to this, which at times comes on like a rock reimagining of ABBA.

AA

I’m not knocking the musicianship. In fact, it’s often the case that the most technically competent musicians who make the worst music when it comes to prioritising musicianship over composition, and this very much feels like the reason HULDRA fails. The flamboyant, expansive musicianship and overflowing, lavish layering of the production takes maximalism to the max – and without the songs, it’s just too much with too little.

AA

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King Sans – Sell the Cow

Posted: 23 August 2026 in Albums, Reviews
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Dipterid Records – 21st August 2026

Christopher Nosnibor

Chicago noise rock duo King Sans, consisting of Jake Steven James (guitars, synths, vocals) and Izabella Rose (drums, vocals) describe themselves as ‘cryptids of noisepunk’. Make of that what you will, but they’ve gone all out on the ‘cow’ theme of the title on the cover of their debut album and accompanying promotional shots.

This very much feels like the culmination of their work to date: since 2024, they’ve released half a dozen singles, four of which have made it onto the album. As such, Sell the Cow stands as a document of their evolution, from the raw and raucous blues-rock-via-Melvins blast of debut single ‘Liar!’ – all one minute and twenty-seven of it (remixed / remastered for the album)– to new and previously unreleased songs like ‘Sold.’, which opens with a piano part lifted from Mozart before crawling into sludgy morass of dark ambient experimentalism. It so happens that ‘Sold.’ bookends the album neatly, as the opener, ‘Two Figures’ is a brooding, atmospheric piece with droning fear-chord synths, jumpy incidentals, and a suspenseful spoken-word vocal that gives way to thumping tribal drums and dingy bass. These three songs alone are demonstrative of their huge ambition and stylistic range and illustrative of their operating far beyond the parameters of both noise and punk.

They pack in some high-octane bangers along the way, too: previous single ‘Jumpstart’ isn’t just appropriately titled, but appropriately placed in the track sequencing, kicking things into overdrive immediately after the more experimental intro. It’s a taut and explosive two-and-a-quarter guitar-driven minutes of stomping glam punk with a dash of the kind of mania that defined the first Pulled Apart by Horses album.

‘Let me Lie’ is the most excitable-sounding example of stoner sludge I think I’ve ever heard. It’s like Melvins on speed, and seems to manage a nod to Lene Lovich’s ‘Lucky Number’ somewhere in the melee. Herein lies much of the thrill of Sell the Cow. There’s a lot going on, so many different references and ideas drawn from across a vast musical swathe, that each listen reveals something different, something new.

‘Dienen’ is another which melts together thick, scuzzed out low-end overdrive with a kind of glam-influenced stomp and doomy power chords. That they manage to render this preposterous combination without sounding like the Spinal Tap of sludge is an achievement, but the fact it’s followed by ‘Lasting Hold’, which takes things a step further is almost beyond comprehension. The verses are soft, with a delicate, gentle vocal and almost folky, with an atmospheric, spiritual-sounding feel, while the choruses erupt into screaming filthy metal – and they take this idea further on the operatic art-rock infused thrash of ‘S.Y.D.’ Yes, it’s almost impossible to keep up with everything that they’ve got going on, and I keep finding myself thinking ‘this shouldn’t work’. But it does. And it works well.

There’s birdsong and a pastoral feel to the lulling ‘the floodplain’, while puntastic single ‘No Diddley’ is a squalling blast of guitars that’s equal parts blues and rock ‘n’ roll and noise rock, with a dash of Suicide.

Sell the Cow is the album you didn’t know you needed, but believe me, you sure do.

AA

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