Archive for the ‘Singles and EPs’ Category

Orcus Nullify – Beautiful Hell EP

Posted: 28 December 2021 in Singles and EPs
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James Wells

In advance, we learn that ‘The songs on Beautiful Hell will take you on a tour of the wreckage that is the contemporary state of affairs brought about during the reign of the Orange Beast. There was the destruction and reversal of environmental policies like withdrawal from the Parris Climate Accord, termination of the Clean Water Act & turning back the clock on human rights’, and that ‘the title track ‘Beautiful Hell’ draws a juxtaposition between the beauty of this planet and decaying state of political affairs. The tune ‘Under his Eye’ is focused on what is seemingly a path toward a Neo-Nazi Christian state. ‘Night Bird Cries’ is a lament for the decline of our environment and morality, that increasingly vie for our attention but go unheeded.’

The sound of Orcus Nullify – headed by bassist / vocalist Bruce Nullify – on this release is very much vintage goth, with fractal guitars, heavy in chorus and flange and setting spindly frameworks around thundering bass and tribal drums, the murky production evolving the sound and style of early Christian Death.

The intro to the title track sounds very like that of The Mission’s ‘Severina’ before it goes all splintering, spirally Nightbreed-sounding second-wave goth. For the record, that’s no criticism, just a contextual referencing placemarker. ‘Night Dance’ showcases a raw, dingy sound where the guitars are trebly and the bass is muddy and everything combines to create something dark and intense. ‘Fall from Faith’ is The Mission amped up to eleven, it’s The March Violets, it’s Groovin’ with Lucy, it’s Rosetta Stone.

As such, it’s not inventive, and Orcus Nullify clearly aren’t out to reinvent the genre, but to add to the body of the catalogue that could reasonably be labelled ‘classic goth’. Nothing wrong with that, and credit to the band, they’ve got the sound nailed, and some decent choons, too, with Beautiful Hell being a solid and dynamic EP.

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Seeds of 77 – We’ve Still Got Christmas 2021

Posted: 21 December 2021 in Singles and EPs
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20th December 2021

Christmaser Nosnibor

Hah, bumbug, I chunter churlishly, amusing myself with a spoonerism to lighten my grim mood. And fuck Christmas, I usually add under my breath daily from around Hallowe’en as I realise it’s already impossible to find birthday cards for friends and family with birthdays in November.

It’s not that I hate Christmas per se, just all the capitalist cash-in shit that accompanies it. And the false frivolity, and office parties, and the shit adverts and the fact I’m supposed to eat my own body weight in mice pies and party foods every day for six weeks. At least thanks to remote working and Covid, I don’t have to make excuses to avoid office Christmas nights out (although staying for just two drinks before telling colleagues I had to get a train to Leeds to review Oozing Wound a few years back wasn’t so awful, although people were already getting pissed up and lairy by six in the evening, so my escape wasn’t a minute too soon). Oh, and Christmas singles. I fucking hate Christmas singles. This statement should require not qualification, but in case anyone’s wondering, it’s because they’re all gash.

Ok, so for every rule there is an exception. Does charity maketh the exception? Nah, not really. I mean, Band Aid… To be fair, it’s not the effort I take issue with on the original Band Aid single, so much as some of the lyrics. ‘Tonight thanks God it’s them instead of you!’ Bono roars bombastically. No. Absolutely fucking no. Was it (Sir) Bob or Midge that wrote that? It’s a horrible sentiment, rendered all the worse by fucking Bono’s delivery. And do predominantly non-Christian countries know it’s Christmas? Probably, but do they give a shit? Probably not, especially when they’re starving. In Africa, though, where Christianity is the leading religion, I expect they would, but snow has no place in all of that.

Ska-tinged trad-punk act Seeds of 77, who came to my attention with the release of their ‘Lockdown Breakout’ single back in May, recorded a Christmas single as a challenge from a radio station last year, raising over £1,100 for UK homeless charities in the process. If re-releasing it a year later seems a bit Slade, it’s worth noting they’ve rerecorded it and updated the lyrics, nominating Brighton-based The Clock Tower Sanctuary which supports 16 to 25-year-olds sleeping rough or in emergency housing as this year’s recipient of the proceeds.

Opening with an organ swell of ‘In the Deep Midwinter’ with chiming sleighbells, they swiftly move on to a mid-tempo rockalong that conjures arms round shoulders swaying and lofting pints to the sociopolitical lyrics. It’s the softer, more pub-rock side of punk, and the solo’s a bit Bryan May, but you know what? It’s alright. And even if it wasn’t, fuck it, buy it anyway: it’s a decent band doing a good thing for a good cause. And they’re not fucking Bono.

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Cave Suns – No Guards

Posted: 18 December 2021 in Singles and EPs
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1st December 2021

Christopher Nosnibor

Just shy of a year since Cave Suns threw their improvised ‘Surk Skum’ EP into the plague-ridden void, they return with a proper lo-fi DIY release, consisting of four pieces, ‘improvised live one take each song apologies included’ they write. The set was captured on an iPhone and is released on a limited edition cassette (and digitally, of course).

Beyond the world of the major label (and the domain of the indie label with some cash behind it), this increasingly appears to be the future of the little band. With the chances of getting signed and getting bankrolled these days practically nil even for solids acts with some commercial potential and significantly less than zero for artists doing anything without that commercial potential (which isn’t to say there’s no audience or demand), they’re taking thee means of production into their own hands and just getting on with getting their music out there. If one positive thing has emerged from the last couple of years under the pandemic – and let’s face it, it’s been hard to find anything positive, particularly for bands and small venues (I’m hesitant to say ‘the music industry’ because Ed Sheeran and Eric Clapton won’t have suffered too heavily from the lack of touring options in terms of bank balance or their ability to reach audiences or shift units / merch and I’m sure the likes of Warners aren’t questioning their viability right now) – it’s the fact that perhaps finally any stigma around self-releasing has been eradicated. That said, for Newcastle’s Cave Suns, it’s business as usual: they’ve been self-governed and self-releasing since 2014 and haven’t been troubling studios in order to lay down their intrusive improvised sessions, preferring instead to capture live shows and rehearsal room jams

‘Dunder Salt’ is a kind of mellow psychedelic swagger with a buoyant bassline and bopping beat that seems to all cast a nod to the verse of The Beatles’ ‘Come Together’. With minimal progression, there’s a Krautrock element to the vaguely jazzy, vaguely funky groove. It’s a solid jam, but it’s not until the eleven-and-a-half-minute ‘To Who It May Concern’ that they really show us what they’re capable of. Mystical, eastern-inspired scales twist in a slow-building swell of sound, a hum and a drone of bass and tentative drumming before emerging on a vast sonic plateau. It’s one of those compositions that stops and starts so often that it’s hard to decide if it ever really gets going, or if it’s several pieces string together; perhaps more reasonably it’s best described as several movements with a succession of ebbs and flows and sustained crescendos, often with the drums pounding hard with insistent thrashing of cymbals and hitting some solid grooves even with the stretches of meandering guitar.

‘Essesse’ kicks off wide two with something altogether lighter, more technical, with a mathy aspect, and also more overtly proggy, you might even go so far as to describe it as jaunty – but then, you may not. It’s kind of a collision between That Fucking Tank, Muse, and Royal Blood. Maybe it’s more as well, It’s certainly their most ‘muso’ cut to date, and is also highly accessible.

The 11-minute ‘13th Celebration’ that rounds off the EP and the remainder of side two is built around a repetitive bas throb that evokes the monotonous groove of Suicide, but overlaid with a sprawling guitar jam that’s part prog, part space rock, all improv. They lock into a neat groove for a time and really rock out, but then slow it down and trip out, crawling to the close.

Hypnotic, groovy, completely free of the shackles of genre and commerce, No Guards knows no limits and captures Cave Suns on fine form.

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Vonamor – Take Your Heart

Posted: 16 December 2021 in Singles and EPs
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Time to Kill Records (TTK) – 15th December 2021

Christopher Nosnibor

A good slogan or manifesto can say so much more than the words in themselves. And so it is that Vonamor introduce themselves with a bold statement that hints at Dada or perhaps the more arch and ironic Neoism in a way.

Vonamor state that:

VONAMOR is music and movement. VONAMOR is real and virtual.

VONAMOR is the end and the beginning. VONAMOR is from love, of love, for love.

Vonamor are more than simply a band, then, and more an aesthetic, a single-act movement. They exist in the space between simultaneous contradictions, the likes of which have informed poetical works since the Renaissance, with Sir Thomas Wyatt’s ‘I Find No Peace’ sonnet effectively setting a blueprint for modern literature.

Postmodernism, and Neosim in particular positively revelled in those contradictions, taking the avant-garde idea of self-awareness and self-destruction as a means of creating anew, and this, on the strength of Vonamor’s statement, is their primary objective: to be everything, and therefore nothing: to exist, they must cease to exist.

How seriously to we take this? They look pretty serious to me, but that may all be part of the performance. The next, and perhaps most important question is, does the music validate the bravado and high art bombast?

‘Take Your Heart’ is a smart slice of stark, minimal electronica, dark pop with a gothy, post-punk leaning, a collision of Siousxie and Florence and the Machine that’s both spiky and groovy, five minutes of mid-tempo doom-disco with an industrial edge – I’m talking more later Depeche Mode than Nine Inch Nails. It’s daring in the adherence to the adage that less is more: it’s tight and claustrophobic, and this gives the song a particular intensity.

No question this is a low-budget effort on all fronts, but that’s a significant part of the appeal. This isn’t some major-label act masquerading as something cult and underground to score kudos and cool cachet; Vonamor are clearly a fringe act with big, bold ideas and a strong sense of identity, and ‘Take Your Heart’ is understated but strong.

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Vonamor

Crimson Brûlée – Tragica

Posted: 11 December 2021 in Singles and EPs
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7th December 2021

Crimson Brûlée emerged in 2019 as an offshoot of guitar-driven goths The Witch-Kings, after a difference of opinion over the incorporation of synths. No diss to The Witch-Kings, but Tragica presents a magnificent sound.

It’s a pretty awkward band name and so-so title for a great album, but there is context, at least for the latter, in that the EP is delivered in homage to the band’s original bassist, Johan, who passed away in early 2021.

He would likely have been proud. With Tragica Crimson Brûlée really nail their position as a top-notch goth act. It’s billed as an EP, but comes with a stack of remixes which bulks it uo to nine tracks, which is effectively an album or two EPs.

‘I Came Back to You’ is a strong opener, combining trad goth with the sound and feel of early Psychedelic Furs, packing minor chords and an insistent beat in the verses, that burst into something wonderful in the choruses. Light explodes and it feels redemptive. It could easily be a Talk Talk Talk outtake. The intro to ‘Nothing Dies Forever’ invites comparisons to She Wants Revenge: it’s dramatic, bold, bombastic, synth-led but driven by some meaty guitars, and absolutely fucking epic, and never lets up for its five-minute duration.

It’s the strolling bass that dominates ‘Restrained’, which is anything but in terms of its epicness. All bar one of the songs are over the five-minute mark, but ‘Where the Tarantulaa Roam’, extending beyond the six-minute mark, is an absolute beast, and one that calls to mind Susperia, only with swirling backing vocals reminiscent of All About Eve’s Julianne Reagan. With the synths backed off but sweeping all around, the mix is immense.

‘Why I Wear Black’ is more guitars, more SWR-like. Yet for all the references, this feels fresh and innovative: this is not an album that deals in tropes and the lyrics are personal and genuine rather than contrived.

It’s a really, really strong suite of songs, The remixes are pretty good, to be fair, but non-essential.

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The Kecks – Lonely this Christmas

Posted: 5 December 2021 in Singles and EPs
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27th November 2021

James Wells

What what what? Could The Kecks, who we’ve been raving about all year, be about to undo all their good work with not only – gasp – a Christmas single, but a cover, and a cover of a shmaltzy Elvis tune at that? When it landed it my inbox, I covered my eyes and pretended it wasn’t there. Poking myself to play it, I was so, so tempted to cover my ears while contemplating the challenge of the extent to which one can permit a transgression from a band you rate, and what constitutes sufficient mitigating circumstances.

It being Christmas is absolutely not adequate defence. In fact, it’s the opposite.

To be clear: I don’t hate Christmas. I just hate the faux-fun, the forced festivities, the fact that everyone feels the need to go crazy social, to overspend and overindulge, the fact that a Christian festival has essentially hijacked solstice celebrations and subsequently been repurposed as a shameful capitalist cash-in.

The foursome have been sitting on this a while: it was recorded back in 2019 and remastered last year, and I’d like to think they’ve been sitting on it until it felt that the time was right and they’d built enough of a name for themselves before putting this out, which I suppose is commendable and makes career sense, but it’s still a Christmas single at the end of the day.

Credit where it’s due, the band dubbed ‘The Strokes of Hamburg’ by Consequence Of Sound have delivered a version that’s less soft-focus and smooshy than either the original or Mud’s famous and faithful cover, injecting it with some vocal passion that gives it a lift and a bit of bite – enough to bring home the grim reality that is Christmas alone , no doubt something that will hit many this year, be it by breakup, bereavement, quarantine or lockdown. Lonely and cold, and unusually dark.

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The Kecks artwork

Third Lung – Dialogues Of The Fatal Few

Posted: 28 November 2021 in Singles and EPs
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26th November 2021

James Wells

Following on from the single releases of ‘Climb’, ‘I A Fire’, ‘Hold the Line’, and ‘What is a Life?’, Reading four-piece Third Lung have delivered their much-anticipated new EP, Dialogues Of The Fatal Few.

Three of those aforementioned tracks are featured here, and while it would have been obvious and easy to have released a five-track EP featuring all four with the new song on offer here, that they’ve gone for a more succinct release means that Dialogues Of The Fatal Few is a much more focused and cohesive release, and not a complete rehash and compilation.

Opening with ‘I A Fire’ sets the stall out nicely, and while it’s mid-tempo, it’s bold and anthemic, and recalls the spirit of circa 2004 when Keane broke through with ‘Somewhere Only We Know’ and the single releases from Coldplay’s A Rush of Blood to the Head were all over the radio. Bear with me. In context, these weren’t bad tunes which hinted at considerably more than the tedium that would follow from both bands. ‘Hold the Line’ is perhaps the strongest song in the set, balancing brooding and dark with a blossoming sunburst chorus

Piano ballad ‘The Art of Stealing’ reveals a different facet of the band, and while it’s clearly not a single track, illustrates the benefits of EPs and longer form releases. It also provides a well-placed change in form in context of the EP, bringing things down a notch or two between the monster tunes.

There’s more to Third Lung than straight-up anthems: lyrically, they’ve got some depth and are worth listening to, although I suspect that’ll likely be secondary to their career trajectory, and with such a knack for big tunes, it’s surely only time before they’re big, too.

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The Hazy Janes – I Find it Hard

Posted: 14 November 2021 in Singles and EPs
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Fast & Bulbous – 14th November 2021

Christopher Nosnibor

Perhaps the best known Hazy Jane right now is Brewdog’s unfiltered IPA, which has by far eclipsed the profile of the Idlewild-associated Dundee indie pop act The Hazey Janes. But that could be about to change with the ascending star of this two-piece blues-rock act, hailing from Halifax with their third single showcasing their talent for authentic, gritty blues tunes.

‘I Find it Hard’ is a mid-tempo song that takes a very traditional template chord sequence, and a lot more stripped back than ‘Yellow Belly Blues’, released in February. That’s a good thing: less a lift of early Royal Blood, it sees the band go back to the basics of the genre. Sure, there are still the rockist leanings of Led Zep on display, but then the glory of blues is that those same chords are universal, and cranking those chords through an overdrive pedal is similarly something that’s for anyone and everyone. In short, when it comes to playing the blues, there’s no ripping off one act or another: it simply comes down to how it’s done: it ain’t what you do, it’s the way that you do it.

One benefit of being a duo is that is doesn’t require the co-ordination of a whole bunch of people all juggling jobs and different personal schedules, and if lockdown has had one benefit (and it’s one of maybe two, the other being working from home), it’s rendering distance less of an object and pushing people to overcome geographical barriers to collaboration. ‘I Find it Hard’ bears testament to this. From lyrics and vocal lines, to drum parts and song structure, the entire track was composed through a back-and-forth of 60 second voice notes from throughout lockdown.

You’d never know: this sounds and feels live, like they’re playing in a small venue right in front of your face. The guitar is chunky, the drums are beefy, and it’s a solid tune. Nailed it.

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The Hazy Janes Artwork

Reardon Love – Purple Hearts

Posted: 13 November 2021 in Singles and EPs
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11th November 2021

Christopher Nosnibor

This time of year, we see a proliferation of poppies and pride, Help for Heroes silhouette logos and ‘lest we forget’ slogans in every direction, and perhaps I’m cynical but so much of this remembrance rings hollow. Sidestepping the debate that recent years have seen poppy pride become a platform for nasty nationalism and Brexity-division, one can’t help but wonder just how much is true remembrance and how much is social media-fuelled one-upmanship, the bigger the poppy the bigger the heart in a display of excessive virtue-signalling akin to being the loudest pan-basher in the street when clapping for the NHS during lockdown.

‘Purple Hearts’ sees Reardon Love – who’ve scored BBC Introducing track of the week – draw inspiration from a human story, specifically that of POW Horace Greasley, who found a certain fame for his claim to have escaped his camp over 200 times to meet with his lover with a chorus line of ‘The Iron Cross cannot contain me’.

I suppose then, this is a wartime tale that espouses the idea that love conquers all rather than tears us apart – and there are heavy hints of New Order and Echo and the Bunnymen about this quintessentially 80s indie-influenced tune. Atop a sturdy bass and nagging guitar line, there are some tidy melodies accentuated by appealing harmonies, making for a catchy tune with an uplifting message pulled from the wreckage of war.

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Watch: ‘No Dreams of Fayres’ by Tallies

Posted: 8 November 2021 in Singles and EPs
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Bella Union Records are thrilled to announce the signing of Tallies. The Toronto-based band are today sharing their captivating new single, “No Dreams of Fayres”, which is released via Bella Union (UK/EU), Kanine Records (US) and Hand Drawn Dracula (Canada). The new single marks the first new music from the band since their acclaimed self-titled debut that found fans at Clash, NYLON, DIY, CRACK, MOJO, Exclaim, Under the Radar and more. Listen to “No Dreams of Fayres” here:

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Speaking about the new single, Cogan says: “’No Dreams of Fayres’ is a reflection of thoughts that I remember going through my mind when I stayed still in bed. Feeling as though staying still in bed was the only thing that would help the sadness – basically, disconnecting myself from family, friends, and having a life. Finding the way out of depression was hard but possible. ‘No Dreams of Fayres’ is also about the realization of letting yourself feel real feelings but not mistaking them for emotions. I had to learn to get a grip of what I wanted out of life and go for it with no self-sabotage – which was music, as clichéd as it sounds. It pulled me out of bed, physically and mentally.”

Tallies, who have previously opened for the likes of Mudhoney, Hatchie, Tim Burgess and Weaves, is made up of founding members guitarist Dylan Frankland and singer/guitarist Sarah Cogan, who are joined by drummer, Cian O’Neill. Tallies were recently announced to play at next year’s SXSW Festival in Austin and New Colossus Festival in New York.

Watch the video ere:

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