Archive for the ‘Reviews’ Category

Light Vortex – Aurora In Georgian Bay

Posted: 5 June 2026 in Albums, Reviews
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,
0

Mortality Tables – 8th May 2026

Christopher Nosnibor

So much music, and only one pair of ears with which to listen to it… and similarly, one pair of hands to write about it. For years, I yearned – albeit half-jokingly – to clone myself, but now realise that doing so would likely only compound my problem, creating a situation where more availability would create more demand, and this would be very much a concession to the commodification of art – in all forms – whereby everything is considered merely ‘content’ and that a conveyor-belt churn of new content is the route to ‘engagement’. And this is absolutely fucking horrible. It’s dehumanising.

Shortly before I quit my dayjob as a complaints auditor for a multinational financial corporation earlier this year, we had been directed to use CoPilot to write our segments of the monthly report we produced to circulate amongst management. The directive was to get AI to write it, and then ‘sense check’ it against out audit results for the month. My colleagues were raring to go, and raced to embrace this: they didn’t enjoy writing up the monthly report on PowerPoint. I can’t say I loved it either, but I have degrees in English and had eight years’ experience in complaint auditing. The report was the one thing in the role where I had scope to not only flex my linguistic skills to pitch the tone of the report, but also to use my brain to analyse and comment on the otherwise fairly tick-box exercise of auditing. This is a circuitous route to my denouncing AI, and the reason why, when doubtless many ‘content creators’ would deploy AI to help crank out reviews at a far faster rate, I steadfastly refuse, and will always write my own reviews – albeit sometimes a bit rushed, a bit rambling, and with more typos than I’m anywhere near comfortable.

Reading the loner notes while listening to Aurora In Georgian Bay by Light Vortex reminds me precisely why this is.

The album’s title ‘was sourced from a 1931 painting by English-Canadian artist J.E.H. MacDonald (1873-1932)’, and we learn that ‘With thick and evocative brushstrokes, MacDonald’s painting depicted a view across Georgian Bay from Pointe au Baril in Ontario. Framed by wavering trees, the focal point of MacDonald’s painting was the phenomenon of fleeting, undulating shapes in the sky above the bay, illuminating the scene with an alien green-blue-grey hue.’

The notes go on to explain, ‘We hear a parallel to this in the eleven pieces of electronic music collated by Chris Moore on this album. Each track feels like it is vividly capturing the same refracted light that caught MacDonald’s attention, where sounds, sequences and subtle rhythms are encouraged to collide inquisitively with each other… Moore’s nuanced and detailed approach to electronic composition mirrors MacDonald’s abstraction of the natural world.’

These are connections of the type which can only be made by the human mind – instinctively, intuitively, by subconscious associations, by joining dots which exist through experience and knowledge. In short, life, in all of its organic richness, strangeness, and diversity.

To my eye, MacDonald’s painting evokes a soundscape that’s loose in structure and borders on ambience. Not so for Chris Moore on the strength of these compositions, which straddle the realms of early synth works in the vein of Kraftwerk and Tangerine Dream, and later – but still comparatively old-school in the timeline of music – electronic work from the 1970s, like Mike Oldfield’s Tubular Bells and Oxygene by Jean Michelle Jarre. In short, it’s emblematic of the juncture where wibbling analogue ambience evolves beyond experimentation centred around what the instruments could do. But of course, my response to this is based entirely on my personal experience and musical exposure. My knowledge is incomplete, and spontaneous. But it is my own.

This is also very much true of Moore’s compositions here. The man and the machine. The man manipulating the machine – and not vice versa, or the man replaced by the machine.

I very much get why there was – and remains – a fear of technological evolution, and why, in the 80s and 90s, Thee Musician’s Union were so opposed to drum machines: they felt the machines would render drummers obsolete. They didn’t, just as home taping didn’t kill music. Streaming, on the other hand, just may. And similarly, previous technological advances have been about the artist using the technology to create something new – whereas AI sidelines the artist to plagiarise from the entire history of creative work. To create is human: it’s the very essence of the human condition – to convey something through the process of creation, for fellow humans to respond to on an emotional level, a human level.

Aurora In Georgian Bay is far from emotionally direct: instead, what it conveys, obliquely, is a partially abstract sonic response to a partially abstract painterly work: both are deeply immersed in tone and texture, albeit in widely disparate media. It’s through such creative interaction and intermedia dialogues that we come to make sense of the world around us, and to make sense of ourselves, our thought processes. You simply cannot substitute or recreate that.

For the most part, Aurora In Georgian Bay is gentle, supple, rippling, and ultimately soothing. But it’s rich in nuance and detail and range. And it tells you nothing specific: it’s all there for you to decipher, to interpret, to project, to experience on a unique creative level. The door is open…

AA

AA

a0884084188_10

Sewage Farm / Too Late For Gods / Bitchcraft – The Black Horse, York, 4th June 2026

Posted: 5 June 2026 in Reviews, Live
Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,
0

Christopher Nosnibor

Alongside the Utterly Fuzzled events, the monthly Horsemusic nights at The Black Horse – a traditional boozer just outside the walls at the north of the city centre – have rapidly become established as not only a showcase for local and regional talent, also a barometer to the health of the music scene in the City of York. While proper dedicated independent / grassroots venues have been whittled to just two, these nights tend to be well attended and the acts received enthusiastically.

Tonight’s lineup is an absolute cracker. Bitchcraft had been scheduled to headline, but switched to go on early doors in order to hotfoot it across town to play a cancer charity gig – that they’re in such demand speaks for itself, as does the fact that they’re keen to honour both bookings. Equally telling is that the organisers have elected to pass any donations from tonight’s Horsemusic event (which is free, donations welcome) on to the charity too. This is what makes a healthy scene, when bands and promoters support one another and work together. And so it is that Jo and Pete Dale are here, clapping the bands as hard as anyone, and flyering for their upcoming weekender in between.

The last time I saw Bitchcraft, they announced their change of name during the set, because some film makers weren’t happy about The Blair Bitch Project. The new name suits, though: the all-female four-piece serve up fierce grungy alt-rock of a very 90s persuasion, and despite some guitar issues later in the set, there’s no sense that they’re holding back and saving themselves for the second set. Oh no. They give a hundred per cent.

DSC01033

Bitchcraft

The risk of the intended headliners going on first is that things could potentially fall a bit flat after, but the quality across the board is such that all three of tonight’s acts felt like headliners.

Too Late For Gods – who for some reason I’d assumed had travelled from further afield, but are also a York band, and who have brought some very keen mates along, wearing hoodies of their album, Misery Blooms – have a lot going on. A power trio with five-string bass and big amps, their Facebook page describes them as a ‘post-hardcore/emu three piece’, and I worry that Rod Hull’s estate might be wanting a word, but they go far beyond these genre parameters, with some thick, gnarly metal, grunge, nu-metal, at times a bit Fudge Tunnel, a bit metalcore, a bit post hardcore, a bit emo… It’s a matter of taste as to whether all of these different elements have equal appeal, but it’s a matter of fact that they kick up a lot of noise and some hefty, sludgy riffs, beefy bass and roaring vocals. It’s also a matter of fact that they play incredibly well, have their sound absolutely down, and mic stand issues not withstanding, deliver an outstanding set.

DSC01083DSC01068

Too Late for Gods

Sewage Farm have no issues. Well, not of a technical nature, although their rampant, riff-blasting rager of a new album, Fuck It, which I reviewed for Whisperin’ and Hollerin’ is positively foaming with piss and vinegar. They play pretty much the entirety of the fifteen track album during their set, which can’t be much over half an hour long. And it’s glorious. No chat. No tuning. No pausing to regain breath, take drinks, towel down. Instead, they power through the songs – short, fast, loud – packed back to back from beginning to end.

DSC01101DSC01120DSC01121

They’re a blur of moppy hair giving the riotous energy of Mudhoney and the US alt scene before it transitioned into grunge proper, and because they’ve all been in countless bands since forever, they play with a proficiency which matches the power, and they’re simply a lot of fun. And fun is important, especially right now.

Trauma Party – Because You’ve Been Good

Posted: 3 June 2026 in Reviews, Singles and EPs
Tags: , , , , , , ,
0

Christopher Nosnibor

17th April 2026

The population of Waiheke Island, just off the coast of the north island of New Zealand can’t have a huge population (just shy of 10,000, apparently), and renowned for its scenic beaches and subtropical climate, it’s not an obvious spawning ground for bands making sharp-edged post-punk. Surely this ‘slice of Heaven’ is a perfect oasis of contentment? What could anyone have to gripe about?

Of course, that’s not how it works. The human brain doesn’t work like that. Everything is fucked, people are people, and paradise is a myth. So here we are with the debut EP from Trauma Party, who describe themselves as purveyors of ‘post-punk desert lullabies and sonic anthems for the downtrodden.’

The last few years has seen post-punk become a real catch-all for anything that’s a bit guitary with a bit of edge but isn’t punk or indie (I’m not even going to start on the way the use of ‘indie’ has changed since the 80s or even 90s), but for me, there’s a quite specific period which sits tightly around ’79-’81 or thereabouts which saw bands exploring and experimenting in ways we hadn’t heard before. So much punk was simply pub rock played fast with the amps cranked up to nine and a half, and while it was a vital stage in the evolution of modern music, what emerged in its immediate wake was far more interesting – darker, weirder, and considerably more sophisticated, by and large. Not just musically, either, but conceptually, lyrically, things got more nuanced. Consider the leap from the sneering nihilism of pub-rock posers The Sex Pistols to the technical prowess and astute sociopolitical observations of Gang of Four, and the distinction becomes clear.

The title of this EP sounds as much like a veiled threat as a promise of a treat, although a treat it certainly is if you like your sounds discordant and difficult. As they pitch it, these are songs ‘Soaked in vats of noise and shaped on dive bar stages over the last 15 months. Culled, remodelled, and forged in the grit and sweat of the Dirt Track rehearsal space, this E.P. is a juicy little nugget for your collection.’ Three of the four songs have been released previously but they’ve been tweaked and remixed for this release, which has a commendable consistency.

‘Are We in Heaven’ arrives on a wave of choppy guitars with multi-layered vocals. it’s stuttering, jarring, awkward, claustrophobic, with heavy hints of early 80s The Fall with a bit of Wire and a dash of noise rock thrown into the mix. It makes you feel kinda tense, a bit paranoid, even. In terms of that post-punk experimentalism, that kind of boundary-pushing, that more nuanced level of articulation, it hits the spot.

Offering a different shade of heaven, the guitar melody of ‘Speak to Me’ carries echoes of The Cure’s ‘Just Like Heaven’ and pairs it with some choppiness that alludes to Gang of Four, and, again Wire, and at a mere two minutes and seventeen seconds, it’s concise and catchy and speaks of political unrest.

AA

‘Roll Up (It’s the New Truth)’ slams things home hard in driving waltz-time and kicks up a visceral energy to conclude the EP. It packs four songs into twelve minutes, and a lot happens in this brief time. Boom. Job done.

AA

AA

cover

Choke Chain – Decomposition EP

Posted: 3 June 2026 in Reviews, Singles and EPs
Tags: , , , , ,
0

Negative Gain Productions – 10th July 2026

Christopher Nosnibor

Nothing says angst-filled industrial rage with a dash of harsh Sadism than calling your band Choke Chain. But while the pitch is that their latest release is ‘the aural equivalent of existential dread’, there’s nothing about this which says ‘edgelord’. It feels like we’re in a new era here, where extreme acts are ditching the extreme shit, the shock shit, the right-wing shit, and are instead engaging with environmental issues, emotional issues.

As they pitch it, ‘The human race continuously proves itself to be largely incapable of any kindness or empathy, instead being completely obsessed with killing and destroying. That’s the central focus of Decomposition.’ It really does feel this way: the US and Israeli governments in particular seem hell-bent on annihilation right now. A part of me misses the Cold War: while we huddled under the perpetual fear of nuclear annihilation, there was equally a certain comfort in the protracted stalemate. The last few months, I’ve woken each morning, soaked in sweat and a state of anxiety and the first thing I’ve done is check my phone to make sure I’m still alive, and then check the news to see that the world is still there. This may sound extreme, but this is the nature of things, and I know I’m not alone in this feeling of perpetual panic.

Says Choke Chain founder, Mark Trueman: “The EP was mostly written during a time where I was very close to giving up. Everything felt completely hopeless, and still does to some degree. I really tried to put all of that feeling into these songs. I also tried to confront some of my personal trauma on this record, which is something I’ve pretty explicitly tried not to do through my music in the past”.

The EP is a positive proof of why we should be glad he didn’t give up, but it’s not hard to understand why things reached that point. Everything’s fucked. And we’re doomed. Whether it’s AI takeover or global climate change or WW3 (if we’re not there yet, we’re on the brink or in denial).

‘Misunderstood’ is a quintessential snarly industrial / metal plus samples intro, but Trueman’s rabid vocal gives hints of Dominic Fernow. The title track is relentlessly brutal: electronic industrial at its darkest, harshest, most metal. It’s very much in the vein of late 80s Wax Trax! with surging grooved and pounding electronic percussion, and the vocals mangled to fuck.

‘Morgue’ is classic sample-soaked dark electronica. It feels brittle, it broods, and there’s something unsettling about the layers of vocals which build layers of discomfort. ‘Life Ends’ is nothing short of rabid, an anguished roar of pain against a relentless electronic pulsation.

There’s no escaping it: with Decomposition, Choke Chain have delivered an EP that’s harsh, and heavy. It’s nasty, it’s uncomfortable. It’s like a punch to the gut, and leaves you feeling short on breath.

AA

279374

Oren Ambarchi & Will Guthrie – Cold Shoulder

Posted: 2 June 2026 in Albums, Reviews
Tags: , , , , , , , , ,
0

Futura Resistenza – 9th June 2026

Christopher Nosnibor

23 minutes is, of course, about the most music that it’s possible to fit on one side of vinyl without risking loss of fidelity, but the number 23 is also the locus of the so-called ’23 enigma’ popularised by William S. Burroughs, which suggests that the number 23 appears with unusual frequency in various contexts and may have a larger, hidden significance. Of course it’s likely a coincidence, but the fact that Cold Shoulder contains two pieces, each just over 23 minutes in duration, and thus occupying a side of the LP is undeniably an instance of the recurrence of the number 23. Did they compose the works specifically to the end of fitting as much music onto each side, or were they edited to fit for the vinyl pressing? Perhaps you need to have been at the show to know – for Cold Shoulder is a document of a live performance, recorded live in Berlin in late 2024.

Ambarchi and Guthrie have been collaborating for more than twenty years now (maybe even 23, who knows?), and Cold Shoulder showcases an evolved level of intuition: as their bio summarises, ‘Their musical dialogue, which previously moved through abstraction and volatile electro-acoustic experimentation, now unfolds with relaxed confidence, melding drifting Leslie tones, shimmering percussion, and fluid pulses that emerge and dissolve’, adding ‘It’s a document of experience; music that feels freer, more direct, perhaps quietly fearless’.

Constructed using layers of drones which hover and hum, trilling tones which stretch out over expansive minutes with barely minimal shift, subtly melodic elements gradually reveal themselves. Ambarchi’s guitar doesn’t sound like a guitar for the most part, as he coaxes and teases the subtlest of ambient strains of feedback and quivering sustain from his instrument, and Guthrie’s percussion is restrained beyond restraint, consisting primarily or the most delicate cymbal work, and the most occasional muted punctuatory thuds. Around ten minutes into the first part – ‘This Cold Shoulder’, some misty forms emerge, a vague rhythm, and organ-like drones, an evolving atmosphere that swirls skywards, a melting together of space-rock and ambient jazz. Notes warp and time twists, as the percussion becomes more complex and more prominent, yet still subtle, restrained. Further on, there is a slow, stuttering wind-down, during which the sounds become increasingly fractured and hazy.

The second part, ‘That Cold Shoulder’ finds Ambarchi’s feedback drones splitting into shuddering whines which call to mind Metal Machine Music, but gradually folds into a more gentle interlacing of quavering notes, while the drumming, still muted, gathers pace if not volume. Time simply hangs in suspension at this point… and gradually flakes into pieces, along with any semblance of structure.

It’s a wonderful experience to simply lose oneself in this ever-transitioning, eternally-shifting work, which ultimately comes to drape the listener’s ears with mellow tones, concluding with a segment which evokes something between space and the sounds of a tropical forest at dusk. But none of it explains the bizarre George Michael portrait on the cover…

AA

AA

RESLP043 front

Papillon du Nuit – Musetta

Posted: 30 May 2026 in Albums, Reviews
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
0

26th June 2026

Christopher Nosnibor

Although they may have seemingly risen out of nowhere a couple of years or so ago, Papillon du Nuit, the ever evolving, ever-expanding musical project revolving around Stephen Kennedy, alongside Mika, Steve, and Karen (who between them cover vocals, cello, grand piano, guitars, keyboards, and percussion) is a coming together of individuals who have been on and around the ‘goth’ and adjacent scene in the north for some considerable time, to form a loose collective. Having debuted in October 2024 with ‘Scarlet’, they’ve built a body of work through a succession of singles – eight in all. Most acts would have simply compiled said singles to assemble an album – but not Papillon du Nuit, and certainly not Stephen Kennedy – because he likes to do things the hard way. The proper way. And because his roots lie in that 80s goth era where bands like The Sisters of Mercy grew their fanbase through a series of ever-evolving single releases but saw the album as a different medium, a means of creating a specific, thematically unified document. As it happens, Musetta sits somewhere between the compilation and standalone document, plucking a selection of those previous singles and placing them amidst the new songs, meaning that of the album’s nine tracks, five have been previously released, although sitting in the context of an album they feel different somehow. And as much as Papillon du Nuit embrace some elements of goth – or perhaps, more accurately, the gothic (think brooding atmosphere, haunting imagery, a sense of drama) – this is a project which goes far beyond genre, with strong leanings towards neoclassical, chamber pop, the theatrical, even the operatic.

As they explain, ‘The album is named after Musetta, one of the major characters in the opera La Boheme, who is enshrined with all the qualities, and all the follies, that make us who we are. Many of the songs here explore a mythical, almost mystical journey, with life displayed more as an inevitably straight path, rather than something circular. The songs are not about death, but many of them lead there’. Some may mock with a ‘pretentious, moi?’, but Musetta is a work which is fully committed to art, and therefore sweeps pretence aside in being the real deal. That Steve Whitfield (The Cure / The Mission) produced, and co-wrote some of the tracks is nothing if not proof of pedigree, as well as their commitment to delivering an album which goes to great lengths to realise strong intent.

Heavy breathing, a panting even. Tension. Suspense. Then comes the panicked whisper: ‘is it dark, or am I blind?’ It has a decidedly Beckettean feel to it. A piano begins to reverberate. This is ‘Jude.’ As a single, it arrived as a stark and curious hybrid of poetry, theatre, and folk with a prog-rock leaning and a sense of the epic. In a revised context as an album opener, it feels very much like an introduction, a passage into a vast musical world. ‘Pilgrim’s Arc’, the most recent single, released in October, is driving, dynamic, tempest of a composition, and makes for a stark contrast arriving immediately after. Immediately, it’s apparent that there’s no small consideration been given to the album’s flow and shifts in mood and pace, and even this early, themes of time and mortality emerge.

AA

The first of the unreleased, album-specific songs, ‘Natalie’, follows, and it’s cinematic, widescreen-even, with its string-soaked chorus, again building to a spectacular finale. It’s no criticism to say it sounds like an album track: it’s magnificently executed, and offers some respite from the experimental intensity of the songs which precede it, and the cello-forward ‘A Sea Within An Ocean’ is the work of a band spreading out and settling, stretching their limbs and simply composing to make music, free from the (self-made) pressure to record a single in a day, or whatever their previous process was. It feels looser, more relaxed, and the result is a rolling, hypnotic wave of a song.

‘Cello Poem’ – at a mere two and three-quarter minutes – feels like more of a narrative bridge than a song in its own right, and the spoken word segue links single cuts ‘Amber’ and ‘Ariadne’ – and does so quite effectively, in truth. It does, however, keep death as its focus. And I suppose this is the core of the matter. As they say, ‘The songs are not about death, but many of them lead there’. How many of the great plays, novels, or poems aren’t about death, at least in some way? Death is, after all, the only certainty in life.

AA

Where Musetta differs from other albums where death is a preoccupation or a focus is that this is an album which carries a weight. It’s in no way frivolous or posturing, it doesn’t take death simply as a motif: it’s a soul-felt meditation on the end of life. No glorification, no stylisation, but a philosophical contemplation. It’s this which makes Musetta so impactful. Not only is youth wasted on the young, but life is wasted on the living, by and large. That is to say, it’s hard to appreciate what you have until it’s gone, or slipping away, and while so much goth – and metal, and so much music of many styles, for that matter – is preoccupied with death in a conceptual way, there comes a point where it comes all to near, all too real, and here it gets scary – rather than a game of lofting skulls and a flamboyant delivery. Shit does get real, and we all have to face the reality of mortality. And at this point, it’s not cool, it’s not dramatic, it simply becomes a heavy reality. We start by losing grandparents, and parents, and often, in between, friends and peers. And when it’s your peers, you start to worry. And if you don’t, you probably should.

Musetta is packed with heavy moments – not so much sonically, but emotionally, philosophically – and it’s woven with a fabric rich in literary allusions and diverse stylistic influences. ‘Visionary’ is a word I’m cautious in applying to anything, particularly anything contemporary – but ambitious and accomplished, wide-ranging, powerful, and moving… Musetta is all of these things, and more.

AA

Album Cover

Argonaut – Interrupted

Posted: 29 May 2026 in Albums, Reviews
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,
0

Criminal Records – 12th June 2026

Christopher Nosnibor

It’s a pretty bold move to open an album with a slow-paced and pretty bleak-sounding song which is more about dolorous atmosphere than chorus or hook. But then, Argonaut’s latest offering is pretty bold – albeit in an understated sort of a way. That likely sounds oxymoronic, so let me unpack it a bit.

After something of a purple patch, with the prolific spate of post-lockdown output which, over the course of a year and a bit and a new song each month saw the development of open-ended album Songs from the Black Hat (which ended up with a total of twenty tracks, with the inclusion of a couple of remixes), Argonaut were forced to make a change of pace. Life has a way of doing that – and events also resulted in a change of focus. The result is Interrupted – an album two years in the making, and by far the darkest and most introspective set of songs they’ve released. It’s not that the London DIY trio have always skirted darkness or introspection, but historically, it’s been balanced by lighter, poppier indie tunes. Now, though, they’ve embraced what one may call the therapeutic benefits of creativity, channelling – and coming to terms with – real-life issues and even trauma through those outlets.

As the accompanying notes lay things out quite plainly, Interrupted offers ‘Ten songs from the past year’s abyss, documenting breakdown, burnout, dementia, depression, memory, hope and healing’. This in itself is bold. Again and again, the conversation is ‘we need to talk about these things’, but the moment we do, there’s a sort of collective wince in society, on social media, among our friends even. We’re still not societally conditioned to deal with the difficult stuff. I can speak from experience here: following the loss of my wife at the age of 44, and finding myself as a single parent, I’ve had enough ‘well, I could be worse’ type responses to articulations of struggle to fill a book. And now, while witnessing the mental and physical decline of one of my parents, I’m finding a similar reluctance among friends to engage on a meaningful level on the subject.

Thankfully, there are always artists who are – not necessarily willing, but perhaps more compelled – to pour all of this into their work, perhaps because those in immediate proximity are found wonting when it comes to conversation, meaning that creative channels are the only channels available. The Twilight Sad’s latest album, The Long Goodbye is perhaps the most harrowing thing I’ve heard in years, but James Graham’s dealing with the loss of his mother to dementia through the songs is powerful beyond belief.

Interrupted, too, confronts real-life anguish. And so, after some digression, we return to that opening track. ‘We’re Not Hungry Anymore’ is a remarkable hybrid of jangly indie and post-grunge – the heavily chorused guitar carrying hints of Soundgarden’s ‘Black Hole Sun’, but mournful strings bring a different shade of melancholy, and Lorna’s vocal somehow manages to be cutesie and scared, giving vibes of Alison Shaw of Cranes. It culminates in a monumental crescendo.

Lead single ‘Leaves’ – which lands towards the end of the album – is similarly bleak, particularly Cure-esque and direct in its addressing emotional distress, here specifically on the topic of dementia. As Lorna writes on the single’s video, “I was thinking about the moon cycle and the new moon and wanted to incorporate that feeling into the music. The lyrics are about somebody who is getting older and their mind is starting to deteriorate. They can remember the past more than the present. I had the image of being lost in the woods and trapped inside their memories. It’s quite a personal song.”

AA

And in the personal lies the universal, the relatable. The last few times I’ve seen my mother, she’s talked mostly about her school days and her job. She’s 79, and has nothing much to talk about, and actually seems to recall very little, from any time since. She gets lost going to the village shop, despite having lived in the same village for a good twenty-five years. So yes, this resonates, and increasingly, friends – or friends of friends – tell of relatives – no longer just grandparents, but parents suffering a painful mental unravelling.

‘Hats Off’ lands in the region of Daisy Chainsaw remixed by The Cure, with a bassline that’s got the vibe of ‘Let’s Go to Bed’ while casting a nod to the niggly guitar bit in Prince’s ‘Kiss’ which fits with the post-punk pop funk vibe which goes some way to break the tension, and ‘I’m Not Getting Up After This’ is the perfect summary of a depressive episode, the encapsulation of both physical and mental exhaustion. ‘Sugarfree’ is one of the songs closest to what we’re familiar with from Argonaut, with Nathan’s gravelly, weary-sounding monotone providing a magnificent contrast to Lorna’s sweet, flighty tones, but something about it feels leaden, weighted – not in a lethargic way, but as if pulled by an emotional drag. ‘This Means Something, This is Important’, released a year ago while the album was still evolving, is another of the more upbeat, fizzy indie moments we’re used to, and ‘Unpredictable’ showcases their irrepressible pop penchant. The final track, ‘Rewind’ is heavy, Siouxsue and The Banshees gone sluge – it makes for a hard-hitting, climactic  finale.

AA

Interrupted is often dark, bleak, intense, and incredibly sad, but still packs its fair share of poppy punk tunes to provide some balance. It’s a difficult album, and rightly so. It’s not meant to be easy listening. It’s taut, its pop moments propelled by a thunking bass and motorik grooves. It’s also an album with many depths. It’s perhaps not an album we’d have expected from Argonaut, and it’s likely not an album they themselves expected, or would have wanted to make. But it’s emotionally honest, and that is bold. It’s also probably their strongest release yet.

AA

Argonaut, Interrupted Album_ Front

The Dwarves – JENKEM

Posted: 27 May 2026 in Albums, Reviews
Tags: , , , , , , ,
0

Greedy Media – 5th June 2026

Christopher Nosnibor

Fuck me, a new album by The Dwarves? They’ve now been going fully forty years. How? How is Blag Dahlia even still alive? They may have reined things in around the turn of the millennium, but no act this controversial, this wild, this excessive has a right to still be here after all this time. But we should be grateful that they are. The 80s were very different times, and while being perverse, gruesome, antagonistic, and all the rest for its own sake is a good thing – and G.G. Allin style shock for the sake of causing offence, disgust, or revulsion was never big or clever, and that we’ve moved on is a good thing… but. The danger is that we’ve come to a point where challenging artistic expression can be too readily conflated with misogyny or other discriminatory practices. No question, it’s a fine line, but confrontational art, at its best, challenges us to confront not only what’s socially acceptable but also our own boundaries and prejudices. Moreover, right now, is fringe art which is ugly and repulsive any more ugly and repulsive than mainstream discourse in politics or social media?

Unless it’s expounding ideologies of hate, is it perhaps not a function of art to test the boundaries still, as was always the case? The very purpose of punk was to raise a middle finger to the establishment, to be offensive to cultured sensibilities. Punk was rebellion. Somewhere along the way, something’s been lost. In truth, much was lost early on, when many punk acts signed to major labels in ’77 and ’78, but the spirit of punk remained, but underground. Now, much of what passes as punk is pathetically tame. Sure, Green Day gave us American Idiot, and used a major label platform to bring us their social and political critiques, but they were essentially no more than Clash copyists and fairly mild in their expostulations in real terms. The extent to which one can call the work of The Dwarves art is debatable, but it’s unquestionably punk in ethos.

The band which gave us gore, nudity, and an actual dwarf on the cover of their 1990 album Blood, Guts & Pussy (which packed twelve songs into just shy of thirteen minutes), and whose guitarist HeWhoCannotBeNamed performs live wearing a jockstrap at most, do what they’ve always done here: short, fast, abrasive punk songs about drugs and death and drugs and more drugs. The longest of the album’s fourteen songs is two minutes and two seconds long (‘Damned if I Do’, one of the album’s most accessible, catchy, and commercial songs, which packs in verses, choruses and a guitar solo); and the rest sit around the minute and a half mark.

And while PC is still not a concern for Dwarves, opener ‘Confused’ takes a balanced approach to gender confusion, touching on hypermasculinity within its squalling minute and eight seconds. ‘We Are The Scene’ melts together The Dead Kennedys and hardcore with some unexpected melody while flexing muscles.

AA

‘I’m Dead’ (which brings a heavy hint of The Ramones) and ‘I Wish You Were Dead’ seem to offer common thematic ground, albeit from different sides of the fence, and ‘Bad Drugs’ (a poppy tune about prescription drugs like Adderall), ‘Drug Lust’, ‘Too Messed Up’ and ‘Psychosis Tripping’ are all self-explanatory in their focus and frenzy, and much of this hopped-up set sits between The Dead Kennedys and Black Flack. It’s the quintessence of old-school punk, fast and furious, but with melodies packed and stacked, fun takes priority over shock or offence.

AA

12IN_JACKET

Older Entries