Archive for the ‘Reviews’ Category

PIG – Wrecked (2024 Remaster)

Posted: 25 February 2025 in Albums, Reviews
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Metropolis Records – 7th March 2025

Christopher Nosnibor

As Metropolis continue with their run of PIG reissues, the arrival of the remastered Wrecked reminds us of the run they had in the 90s. Having hardened up the sound showcased on debut album A Poke in the Eye… and follow-up Praise the Lard, and having toured with Nine Inch Nails in the Downward Spiral tour, PIG found themselves signed to Trent Reznor’s Nothing label for the release of Sinsation (1995), which melded the more experimental aspects of The Swining and Red Raw & Sore from a couple of years previous and cranked up the guitars – and the sleaze and depravity – to eleven. And after Sinsation came Wrecked, and having returned to Wax Trax!, in the US at least, the album was released first in Japan in ’96 and the US a year later with a substantially different tracklisting – and was an absolute bastard to get here in the UK in either form.

This version brings together the tracks which featured on both the original Japanese edition – which was criminally missing ‘No One Gets Out of Her Alive’ and ‘Contempt’ – and the American edition, which brought ‘The Book of Tequila’ and ‘Fuck Me I’m Sick’ in their place.

Wrecked very much represented PIG at their wildest, most wide-ranging, and arguably their heaviest. The title track drifts in on some mellow steel guitar country vibes and ambient chilling… and then gets gnarly with gritty industrial rigging and snarly vocals that are quintessential PIG. Raymond Watts may not have been in the best place during this period, but creatively… the music he was making was something else, and Wrecked stands up just as well now as it did on release. I’ve mentioned previously that PIG stand apart from their contemporaries, and while Watts was a touring member of Foetus in the late 80s and worked with JG Thirlwell when PIG was born, as well as being a member of KMFDM for a time, as much as those elements of aggrotech and industrial metal are core to the sound, Watts took it somewhere else entirely. Where? It’s hard to say: PIG’s work simply doesn’t conform to any genre forms or models – PIG just are PIG. While a couple of tracks had been previously released in different forms – the original versions of ‘Find It, Fuck It, Forget It’ and ‘Blades’ appeared on The Swining, released only in Japan in 1993 (prior to a 1999 US reissue) – it would be wrong to suggest that their inclusion on Wrecked suggested a lack of material, given just how radically different these versions are. The same is true of the reworked version of ‘My Sanctuary’, which appeared on Praise the Lard: expanded, more grandiose, more everything, the ‘Spent Sperm Mix’ taking the track to preposterous heights while audaciously combining industrial, techno, and gospel with orchestral strikes galore.

Since the US and Japanese editions included various alternative mixes, it would have been nice to see this version feature all sixteen tracks featured on the 2017 tour edition, which is arguably the definitive edition. But what we learn here is that you can’t have everything, and this edition at least has the majority of the prime cuts. Sequentially, it follows the Japanese edition, with the tracks which featured on the US release at the end.

The drumming on this album is brutal, choppy, the guitars cutty, stuttering, heavily distorted, but with a bright, clear, digital crispness that really slice hard. Watts growls, snarls and sneers, dark and salacious, and everything about Wrecked is harsh and ugly. ‘Find It, Fuck It, Forget It’ is a full-throttle beast of a track, with a sample-laden breakdown in the mid-section, with snippets of reports on American obesity and the like (in place of the sped-up snippet of ‘The Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy’ on the original), and it’s pretty dark and unforgiving.

‘Blades’ is one of the greatest tracks ever recorded by PIG or anyone – it’s one of those songs that just does something to you. The ‘Slash Mix’ on here may not be the best version – for my money, I prefer the more orchestral original, but this rendition is dense and girthy, and fits with the sound of Wrecked. Then there’s ‘Save Me’, the album’s slowie, and so, so powerful. It takes ‘anthemic’ in a whole new direction.

Watts has always made music with a boldly theatrical approach to the industrial template – and Wrecked really turns up the dial on everything – density, volume, aggression, intensity, and this expanded reissue is an essential document in the broader industrial oeuvre. It’s also an outstanding album in its own right.

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Paskfest – The Fulford Arms, York, 22 February 2025

Posted: 23 February 2025 in Live, Reviews
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Christopher Nosnibor

One might feel that naming an event after yourself is a bit of an egofest, but when the event in question is, essentially, the organiser’s birthday party, well, fair enough. And Mr Pasky has been putting on decent gigs for a while now, boasting eclectic lineups, and if live music is your thing, is there a better way of celebrating a birthday than putting on a bunch of bands you like and opening the venue doors to see them free of charge?

With doors being at 3pm, I missed the first couple of acts, and arrived in time for Pat Butcher, who I’ve not seen in an age, and all I can remember about them is carrots. They deliver a confident set of aggressive punk rock, with angry-sounding songs about- kidney stones, IBS, and raceday wankers – relatable to anyone who resides in York. And late on, they land the comical, gimmicky ‘Carrot in a Minute’, whereby they distribute raw carrots among the audience and challenge them to eat them within the song’s minute-long duration… just for shits an’ giggles. There’s something quite uplifting and entertaining witnessing a bunch of guys getting worked up about mundane stuff like neighbours who vacuum clean at all hours.

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Pat Butcher

Fat Spatula are up next, and I find I like them more each time I see them. Did I write that about them last time, too? Quite possibly, but then it’s true. They really seems to be hitting new peaks and seem more confident, too. ‘Benefits Tourist’ goes uptempo and shoutier amidst energetic but affable US indie style. There are hints of Pixies and Pavement, and some country leanings, too. A lot of the verses are delivered rapidfire like REM It’s the End of the World as We Know It’, but later on, experimental spoken word gives way to kinetic space rock with blasting motorik drums on the penultimate song. I’’s only three or four minutes long, but with that locked-in groove, they could do a half-hour long version and it still wouldn’t be long enough.

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Fat Spatula

As I mentioned, eclectic lineups are Pasky’s thing, and OG3 are a power trio who start out like Beastie Boys circa ‘83, but the rest of the set is a melding of punk and emo and some weird hybrid efforts that are like Eminem fronting a grunge act. And then they cover ‘Fight for Your Right’… and do a top job of it. There’s a bit of nu-metal going on, too, and the overall vibe is kinda Judgement Night soundtrack. It shouldn’t work, but it actually does.

Illegal Fireworks take to the stage sporting quite spectacular gold brocade jackets… Yes, plural: the bassist, guitarist, and drummer are all decked out in these quite remarkable garments, while the singer is all the sequins. It’s a bold look, and no mistake. The trouble is, it’s not an ironic gesture, and in the first minute I find myself absolutely detesting their smug, smooth, funky jazz. Not that I’m judgemental or anything… I just detest smug, smooth, funky jazz. But then they get a bit prog, a bit post rock, and show some potential. But thereafter they stick to smug, soul-infused smooth, funky jazz. Technically, they’re faultless, objectively they’re outstanding, and they go down a storm. But subjectively, I absolutely fucking hate it all, but especially the gurning bassist. It’s the kind of thing that would have been massive in the 80s, they’d have been all over Top of the Pops with glitterballs and dry ice and balloons bobbing about, and I’d have fucking hated it then, too. I know, I know, it’s a question of taste, but seriously, they should be illegal.

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Illegal Fireworks

I have reservations about Flat Moon at first, coming on like Glasto-loving middle-class hippies with their brand of parping sax-heavy jazz space rock. But there’s something compelling about their style and the delivery. I’m reminded in some way of Gong, and that trippy, whimsical strain of psychedelia, and they’ve got some riffs, and shit. are they tight. It’s no small feat considering there are six of them. They work seriously hard and bring entertainment to the max – and ultimately this is what tonight is all about.

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Flat Moon

There will be very few who loved every band on the bill, but that’s kind of the point of a lineup like this: you’ll get to see bands you might not have otherwise gone to see, you might like some and not others, and that’s fine. For a long, long time, the best thing about York was its proximity to Leeds, but now, even while there’s a dearth of venues, the city is throwing up a remarkable number of quality acts – for all tastes. And that is something to celebrate.

The Bordellos (with Dee Claw) / Neon Kittens – Half Man Half Kitten

Posted: 21 February 2025 in Albums, Reviews
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Cruel Nature Records – 21st February 2025

Christopher Nosnibor

This split release has a lengthy backstory, which is given in full on the label’s Bandcamp page – but the short version is that when York’s Neon Kittens (how had I not heard (of) them, given that they appear to be from round my way and absolutely my bag? I feel ashamed, and fear I cannot even remotely claim to have the finger on the pulse of my local scene right now – but still, better late than never, right?) approached The Bordellos about a collaboration, the latter, having taken an eternity to only half-finish their current album-in-progress, some ten years after the release of will.i.am, you’re really nothing, offered everything they had for a split release. And lo, this is it.

I suppose the eight songs Neon Kittens have contributed here provide a solid starting point to their rapidly-expanding catalogue, and being paired with The Bordellos works a treat. Both espouse the same lo-fi DIY ethic, with a certain leaning toward indie with a trashy punk aesthetic.

That the cassette edition sold out on advance orders hints at the anticipation for the release: for, as The Bordellos describe themselves as being ‘ignored by millions, loathed by some, loved by a select few’, when you’ve got a small but devoted following, they get pretty excited for new material.

‘Set Your Heart to the Sun’ is perfectly representative of their scratchy, harmony-filled indie – kinda jangly, a tad ramshackle, but direct, immediate. Dee Claw’s airy vocal contributions really lift the sound and raise the melodic aspects of the songs. Not all of the songs have full drum-kit percussion, often favouring tambourine or bongos or seemingly whatever comes to hand, and more than any other acts, I’m reminded of Silver Jews or really, really early Pavement – those EPs that sounded like they were recorded on a condenser mic from the next room with more tape hiss than music, but still undeniably great tunes. And yes, they really do have great tunes – overall, they’re pretty laid-back in their approach to, well, everything: remember when ‘slacker; was a thing? Yeah. In place of polish, they have reverb, and these songs tickle the ears with joy.

Neon Kittens bring a rather denser sound and a greater sense of urgency with the buzzy, scuzzy ‘Better Stronger Faster’. A hyperactive drum machine stutters and flickers away beneath a sonic haze of fuzzy guitar: there are hints of Metal Urbain crossed with The Fall and Flying Lizards in the mix, while ‘All Done by Numbers’ brings Shellac and Trumans Water together in a head-on collision – and one suspects any similarity to Shellac’s ‘New Number Order’ is entirely intentional from a band who recently featured on a Jesus Lizard tribute. ‘Cold Leather’ presents a spoken word narrative over a lurching, lumbering morass of discord, held together by the whip crack of the snare of a vintage-sounding drum machine.

The majority of their songs are around the two-minute mark, and crash in, slap you round the chops, and are done before you really know what’s hit you. ‘Deaf Metal’ is a work of beautiful chaos, constructed around a thick, rumbling bass and rolling drums., while the rather longer ‘White Flag’ is almost a stab at a grunge-pop song, while the discordant clang of ‘Sailing in a Paper Boat’ is absolutely The Fall circa Hex Enduction Hour: lo-fi post-punk racket doesn’t get much better than this.

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Mercury’s Antennae – The Reflecting Skin

Posted: 20 February 2025 in Reviews, Singles and EPs
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Sett Records – 22th February 2025

Christopher Nosnibor

Just over a decade on from their debut album, and just shy of seven years after their last release, purveyors of ethereal goth, Mercury’s Antennae mark their return with a new single in the form of ‘The Reflecting Skin’. The trio comprises Dru Allen and Cindy Coulter of This Ascension, and Erick R. Scheid of The Palace of Tears, and the fact they’re currently based between Switzerland and the US is a possible factor in their time away (not to mention the fact a lot of musical artists, especially those who are geographically disparate lost a lot of time and progress to a global pandemic).

As their Bandcamp page states, ‘Their sound incorporates influences from shoegaze pop, ethereal darkwave, and unadorned acoustic beauty, while also drawing inspiration from ambient and modern electronica’.

‘The Reflecting Skin’ brings pretty much all of this in a near-perfect three-and-a-half minutes. Starting out with a dense, chorus-soaked bass, loping drums and chilly synths conjure a dark yet dreamy atmosphere that’s quintessentially gothy but without being cliché. Dru Allen’s layered vocals spin evocative and mystical words gracefully through it all, to mesmerising, almost spiritual effect.

B-side, ‘AGALIA MMXXV’, is, as one might expect, a rerecording of the song from their debut album, A Waking Ghost Inside. It’s different enough to justify the effort: it has a more muscular, denser feel, altogether less brittle and cloud-like, with the bass and drums being sturdier and more pronounced, while still retaining the expansive shoegaze magnificence of the original. This, I suppose is telling in terms of reflecting the evolution of their sound.

That this single release is remixed by William Faith, ex-Faith and the Muse, suggests there’s an original version, which is – one would hope – going to feature on the forthcoming album, due for release in the spring.

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The Grey – Kodok

Posted: 19 February 2025 in Albums, Reviews
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Majestic Mountain Records – 28th February 2025

Christopher Nisnibor

Kodok, the third album from The Grey, is pitrched as ‘a masterful fusion of raw energy, deep emotion, and undeniable artistic growth… carv[ing] a new narrative, guiding listeners through an intricate yet comforting journey of power, pain, and catharsis.’ They’ve also put a lot of work into broadening their range, or, as they put it, ‘Kodok expands the band’s sonic palette, offering a richly varied tonal composition. The album is further elevated by collaborations with an incredible roster of guest artists, including Will Haven, Ace Skunk Anansie, Ricky Warwick, fattybassman, and dARKMODE, bringing unexpected depth and fresh musicality to the project.’

The album contains only six tracks, but there are some bona fide epics here, in particular the first piece, ‘Painted Lady’, which extends to almost twelve minutes. It begins with dark, thunderous rumblings, and then the guitars crash in, and the riff GOES. It’s a slow, pummelling brute of a tune, with rolling drums and weighty bass, but the guitar has an unexpected brightness to it… and over it’s expansive duration, we’re lead through an array of soundscapes – sometimes rolling hills, others gathering storms over exposed rock summits, and around the eight-minute mark it goes full riff juggernaut.

It’s metal, it’s post-metal, it’s stonerish, it’s wide-ranging musically articulate. And it feels like an album. They explain how it’s ‘Designed as a sequential body of work—with a clear beginning, middle, and end’ and that ‘Kodok invites listeners to fully immerse themselves in its journey’, and it certainly does feel like a journey,

The seven-minute ‘La Bruja (Cygnus)’ really goes all out on the weight, the heft of the guitar churning out a supremely girthy riff is powerful, but the second half switches to amore ethereal sound, with subtly chiming guitars and atmospheric synths, and – for the first time – vocals, before a crushing flange-soaked riff assault by way of a finale. ‘Sharpen the Knife’ goes darker and heavier, with a grainer, sludgier feel and invites reference to Neurosis in its thick, dense, earthy churn… and then things get heavier still on the nine-minute ‘CHVRCH’, which is simply immense in every respect, its dynamics evoking not only Neurosis but Amenra. There is delicacy, grace, elegance here, and you feel yourself ache inside, and then the pedals are on and immediately it’s a tempest.

By rights, I should be yawning at another nine-minute riff-driven workout with dynamic, prog-influenced breakdowns, but there’s something in that wait, the suspense, then the release when it finally drops that’s exhilarating, and ultimately a source of joy. I suppose that just as some people get a huge buzz and the big laugh from the sitcom or comedian with a catchphrase or quintessential punchline that really is IT, the anticipation of the riff landing followed by that BOOM! moment is similar, only more cathartic. It’s not easy to articulate to anyone who hasn’t experienced that specific rush just how powerful it can be, and how it’s a multisensory explosion, something that’s physical, emotive, almost euphoric, as well as simply something you hear with your ears.

During the course of Kodok, The Grey deliver these moments with frequency and precision, with maximum impact. When there are vocals – as on the simple, acoustic ‘Don’t Say Goodbye’ – they’re compellingly melancholy, and it provides welcome transition ahead of the soaring epic that is ‘AFG’, a cut whereby its five-minute running time is simply nowhere near enough.

The download features a couple of extra cuts, but in terms of maintaining the album’s integrity, no extras are required.

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Tim Hecker – Shards

Posted: 19 February 2025 in Albums, Reviews
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Kranky – 21st February 2025

Christopher Nosnibor

One thing you have to say about Tim Hecker is that his output has been varied, and his career interesting. This isn’t a case of damning with faint praise: it’s very much about highlighting what makes him such a remarkable artist – the fact he doesn’t simply mine the same seem in perpetuity. The difference between the organ-based compositions of Ravedeath, 1972 (2011) and the dark ambience of No Highs (2023) is vast, and is emblematic of an artist who simply cannot be confined within narrow constraints. Electronic music is an immensely broad church, and Hecker’s output ventures the field far and wide.

This is perhaps exemplified no more clearly than on Shards, ‘a collection of pieces originally written for various film and TV soundtracks Tim Hecker has scored over the last half decade. These compositions were originally written for scoring projects including Infinity Pool, The North Water, Luzifer, and La Tour.’

The album’s seven compositions highlight Hecker’s capacity to mould mood.

‘Heaven Will Come’ evolves and expands over the course of its four minutes and forty-eight seconds, growing from delicate but expansive elongated organ-like notes to a swirl of anxiety, with dank, rumbling bass lumbering around, as if without direction, amidst warped, bending undulations, an uneasy discord. ‘Morning (piano version)’ is very pianoey… but also brings booming bass resonance, and slight, flickering, glimmers of sound, almost insectoid, and mournful strings which bend and twist and ultimately fade… to be replaced by a deathly bussing drone and distortion which fills your head in the most uncomfortable way.

The hectically scratchy plink and plonk and looping delirium of ‘Monotone 3’ hints at the trilling of woodwind-led jazz, but there are menacing drones and weird shapes being sculpted here.

Hecker specialises in the disorientating, the unheimlich: the majority of the pieces here are superficially calm, tranquil – even the more brooding ones. But something about each isn’t quite right – there are dark undercurrents, or there is a twist, from out of nowhere. And herein lies Hecker’s unique skill as a composer.: he can twist ambience into discomfort, and at the most unexpected times and in the most unexpected ways. Consequently, Shards brings many twists and turns: at times soothing, at others tense, and at others still claustrophobic and even almost overwhelming, and it completely take you over as you feel this range of different sensations.

Shards – appropriately titled in that it draws together splinters of Hecker’s diverse  and divergent output is an exercise in depth, range, and magnificence. Sit back, bask, and take in the textures.

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The Illness / Nature Kids – The Crescent Community Centre, York, 16 February 2025

Posted: 17 February 2025 in Live, Reviews
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Christopher Nosnibor

On this night twenty-four years ago, I was at Leeds University Refectory, watching The Sisters of Mercy play their tenth anniversary gig. Having previously only seen them once, in November 1990, at Wembley Arena, to be in the front row in a venue so much more intimate was absolutely mind-blowing. This reminiscence has little to no correspondence to tonight’s event, beyond the date, although I recall that it was a bitingly cold night, the kind of seasonal grimness that means it’s a real effort to venture out.

Thankfully, despite it not only being absolutely biting, but being a Sunday, a decent crowd has ventured out for this, the second part of the album launch event for The Illness’ debut album (the first part having been in Liverpool the night before, with the band being split between Liverpool and York). 6:30 doors and the prospect of not only two quality bands and an early finish are likely all contributing factors in terms of incentive.

So what do we know about The Illness? Not a lot. It’s taken them a decade knocking about to get to this point. The notes which accompany the Bandcamp of their eponymous EP, released in 2020 and featuring Steve West and Bob Nastanovich of Pavement, gives a clue as to where the time goes: ‘Following 5+ years of scrapped sessions, line-up changes and other distractions, both tracks were initially recorded in the basement of a former maternity home, Heworth Moor House in York (on Scout Niblett’s old 8-track machine). Steve recorded his vocals at Marble Valley Studio, Richmond, Virginia and Bob in Des Moines, Iowa.’

It’s a tale reminiscent of the likes of The Stone Roses and My Bloody Valentine stalling on their second album… only this is a band that stalled for more than five years without releasing a note. So the fact Macrodosed has arrived at all seems nothing short of miraculous.

Before they launch the album, Nature Kids – a band who’ve been gigging around York for a while but I have no experience of – warm things up, and they’re nice. That’s not ‘nice’ in the bland, insipid way, but the enthusiastic way. They serve up a set of mellow indie, which is both happy and sad at the same time. There’s some nice twangy country tones and subtle keyboard work, and some saw action, too. ‘Always’ goes a bit post-punk and has a tidy groove to it, and is a standout in a set of consistent quality. The lead guitar is what really stands out – although it’s subtle and understated, to the point that it takes a few songs to realise what it is about their sound that’s so magic. No two ways about it, this is a gem of a band.

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Nature Kids

The Illness is not so much a band as a collective, and just as the album has a roll-call of guest contributors, so they present an ever-changing lineup on stage. There are never fewer than six of them, but sometimes as many as eight, and there is instrument and position-swapping galore, with vocal and bass duties switching all over.

Much of the time, they have three guitars, bass, drums… but there are some synths happening, and their sound is an immaculate blend of indie, prog, epic psychedelic space rock, all executed, if not with precision, then behind a curtain of shimmering sonic fireworks, from blooming roman candles to the spirals of Catherine wheels.

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The Illness

‘Speedway Star’ is the second song of the set, and it’s laid back but had a certain grip. The album version featured David Pajo, and the question keeps arising: how? Ultimately, it doesn’t matter: what matters is that their set – a mere forty-five minutes – is something special.

The final song of the night is a full-on motorik wig-out, and it’s absolutely magnificent, with two trilling synths and two guitars, it’s equal parts Stereolab and Early Years (do better comparison). Danny (Wolf Solent, etc, a man who’s essentially a one-man scene in York and who I gather is a late addition to the band’s lineup) , who’s been keeping restrained throughout goes all out with a blistering guitar workout

The Illness may be well under the radar and well underachieving – given their connections alone they ought to be massive, never mind the fact they’re uniquely brilliant – but perhaps that will change given the brilliance of the album and superb shows like this. The Illness are totally sick… right?

The Awakening – The Awakening

Posted: 15 February 2025 in Albums, Reviews
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Intervention Arts

Christopher Nosnibor

While eponymous debuts are commonplace, apart from artists who name all of their albums eponymously, it also seems to be a thing for long-established bands to release a self-titled album well into their career, and, to my mind, it seems somewhat strange. Nevertheless, Killing Joke have in fact done both, and Interpol have also managed two eponymous albums (if you count album number five, the anagrammatic El Pintor). Have you run out of ideas or something?

The Awakening has been a thing for a good quarter century now, during which time Ashton Nyte has also released a number of solo albums, a brace of books, and been a constant feature in the lineup of industrial / goth collective Beauty in Chaos. He’s a busy man.

The twelve tracks on The Awakening represent something of a revisiting of the classic goth template, and in this context, the title makes perfect sense. It’s a return to the beginning, treading the ground where it all began, and feeling that spark once again: an awakening, indeed.

‘Shimmer’ creates the atmosphere with dolorous bell chimes and slow, deliberate, ceremonial percussion, before single cut ‘Mirror Midnight’ thumps in with a sturdy bass groove melded tight to a relentless, solid drum machine beat. Laced with delicate traces of brittle, chorus-laden guitar, it provides the backdrop to a crooning baritone vocal delivery. Lyrically, it’s rich in esoteric imagery and it’s classic goth – mid-80s in style, md-90s in production. And this is essentially The Awakening: it’s dark, brooding, espousing the doomed romanticism that was central to The Sister of Mercy’s genre-defining debut album, First and Last and Always.

‘Through the Veil’ goes epic, and if its arena aspirations seem somewhat removed from the claustrophobic confines of the first phase of goth, it likely owes something of a debt to Floodland, while the acoustic-led ‘Your Vampire’ evokes The Mission circa Children (I’m thinking ‘Heaven on Earth’, but perhaps a little less bombastic), although ‘Island in a Stream’ is an equally valid reference point.

‘Haunting’ – also a single – and an obvious choice, it has to be said, is a burly burst of muscle-flexing guitar propelled – again – by a throbbing bass and pumping drum beat, draped with cool Cure-esque synths, culminating in a climactic rush of a finale. ‘See You Fall’ stands out as another quintessential goth banger: the instrumentation again is reminiscent of early Mission songs, and the drumming, with its dominant snare is absolutely cut from the same cloth as The First Chapter, although Nyte’s vocal reminds me – quite happily – of Andrew Eldritch demoing vocals on ‘Garden of Delight’.

Things take a turn for the heavy – and the political – on ‘Fallout’. It’s a reminder that the music of the 80s emerged from a time of terror, a political lurch to the right, and living under the shadow of the bomb. And here we are again. We can never escape history: it simply repeats. And so, it stands to reason that music is also cyclical.

‘Not Here’ hints at Bauhaus, while the thunderous ‘Cabaret’ – which seems to take certain cues from ‘Dead Pop Stars’ by Altered Images and The Psychedelic Furs’ ‘Soap Commercial’ in terms of its spindly lead guitar line – is a modern goth classic.

The Awakening mines a seam of trad goth which straddles the first wave and the 90s revival, or second wave – which is precisely the starting point of The Awakening. This album feels rather like time travel, in the best possible sense, and, in context, it’s less a case of homage as revisitation and renewal.

AA

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The Awakening 1 - photo by Ashton Nyte

Eville – Plaything

Posted: 14 February 2025 in Reviews, Singles and EPs
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14th February 2025

Christopher Nosnibor

Eville, who have been gaining momentum – and radio play – for a while, soared to a new peak with ‘Ballistic’ late last year. While sonically encapsulating the title, it also distilled the very essence of the band into THE most explosive two-and-a-bit minutes of no-messing nu-metal.

If ‘Plaything’ suggests something more cuddly, think again. Once again, they tap that classic nu-metal structure of a quiet but tetchy intro, jittery electronics by way of an intro – Something that can be traced back to Pitch Shifter’s first couple of albums back in the early 90s. ‘Gritter’ from Submit is exemplary, and of course not only would Pitch Shifter transition to an overtly nu-metal sound at the turn of the millennium, incorporating elements of drum ‘n’ bass in their sound in the late 90s, but guitarist Jim Davis played with both Pitchshifter (as they became) and The Prodigy. This detour is simply to illustrate the crossover between genres, and to contextualise the sound Eville have absolutely mailed – because after this tense, tetchy intro, the monumental riff hits, and hits hard, and immediately hits an irresistible groove.

A mere ten seconds in, and it’s clear that this is going to be a killer – and it is.

‘I might look cute but Imma get gnarly / I can get nasty, nothing gets past me,’ Eva Sheldreake warns, picking up the lyrical thread of ‘Ballistic’ and presenting a strong feminist stance. The message is direct and clear, and the band’s photos back it up: whether the outfit is a pink bikini or decorating garb, never judge a woman by her outfit, and never assume she’s lacking capability, whether it’s to do DIY or play guitar and rock out, hard.

‘Plaything’ certainly rocks out, and hard. The sheer density of the sound kicks the air out of your lungs, while the chorus hook is as strong as they come. The mid-section goes full Slipknot, the barbed-wire-wrapped baseball bat referenced in the lyrics translating to the brutal delivery.

Where Eville stand out – apart from on every level – is in the way they bring ultra-pro, radio-quality production and accessible melody to massively hefty, bludgeoning metal. If there was ever any doubt that they should be playing festivals rather than pubs, ‘Plaything’ obliterates it. No two ways about it: these guys are ready to conquer the world.

Then Comes Silence – Boxed

Posted: 13 February 2025 in Reviews, Singles and EPs
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Metropolis Records – 21st February 2025

Christopher Nosnibor

If one nation really loves its rock and it’s goth stuff, it’s Germany, and there are a fair few UK bands who, while they fair ok at home, are absolutely massive in Germany: the fact The Sisters of Mercy have continued to headline major festivals there well into the 00s, while at home, apart from Reading in ’91, they’ve never really featured in festival lineups gives a fair indication of the difference. So it should be of no surprise that it’s in Germany that Swedish post-punk/goth act Then Comes Silence grew their fanbase first in Germany, before expanding across mainland Europe after sharing stages with artists such as A Place To Bury Strangers, Chameleons and Fields Of The Nephilim.

Boxed should probably have been retitled Unboxed for this edition, being a digital reissue of tracks included in a limited and long-sold-out box set edition of their 2022 album Hunger, Consisting of two songs in Spanish, two instrumentals, two remixes and one outtake from that album, its reissue lands coincidental with the completion of a US tour in support of their seventh album, Trickery, released last year.

As one may expect from the summary, it’s more of a mixed bag of novel odds and ends than a serious or coherent EP release, and the presence of the songs sung in Spanish remind me of when The Wedding Present released ‘Pourquoi Es Tu Devenue Si Raisonnable?’, a French-language recording of ‘Why Are You Being So Reasonable Now?’ Sung in Gedge’s flat, Leeds accent, it sounds like… The Wedding Present, of course, and I’m sceptical about the translation given just how nearly the lyrics fit the melody.

Anyway. Boxed. The Spanish language versions of ‘Dias y Años’ and ‘Cebo’ are solid, but obviously don’t really bring much to the table, especially for the non-Spanish speakers – beyond a novel spin, that is. But make no mistake the ultra-percussive, stony goth groove of ‘Cebo’ (or ‘Worm’, as it is titled in English) is a killer cut in any language.

The first instrumental, ‘Spökenas Intåg (Walk-In)’, which in fact lifts the curtain on the release, is a somewhat spooky, atmospheric composition, imbued with filmic qualities, and it would sit comfortably on the soundtrack of a movie or maybe even a docudrama about a serial killer or something.

‘We Only Have So Long’ is a thrusting, energetic, guitar-driven song, packing groove and force into two and a half minutes, and while its offcut status is because of how it doesn’t really sit in the framework of the album, it might have made a standalone single, because, why not? It’s certainly not weak.

Although remixes rarely mark an improvement on the original – although there are notable exceptions – the H Zombie Remix of ‘Blood Runs Cold’ does at least bring something different.

The final track – amd second of the instrumentals – ‘Skuggornas Intåg’ bookends the EP and strives to give it some kind of cohesion, some kind of shape, being a clear counterpart to ‘Spökenas Intåg’. It’s atmospheric but inconsequential, and does feel rather like a space-filler or odd-end outro.

Ultimately, this release is simply what it is: a reissue of some bonus cuts for the benefit of the fans who missed out on the limited version of the album. It’ll no doubt make for a tidy addition for the new fans they accumulated on the tour, too, and it’s decent – but by no means their most essential offering.

AA

629423

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