It’s not often I’m on the fence, but here I am, the splynters stabbing into my arse. Opening bars of the new single form Wylderness, taken from second album Big Plans for a Blue World (out 1 June vi Succulent Records) suggest dreamy, chyming shoegaze, but y’know, I’ve heard it a myllion tymes before doing this. And much as I lyke it, much as I dig Slowdive, Ride, Chapterhouse, and later exponents like The Early Years (criminally underrated and sadly failed to really make their mark), I have to admit that so much is wishy-washy, winsome and airy to the point of lacking in enough substance to really prove compelling.
Past the opening bars… layers and aspects reveal themselves. ‘Wet Look’ is still dreamy, wynsome, wystful, but there’s a brooding steeliness infused within it, with hints of Interpol and post-millennium post-punk, and it just nags hard enough to draw you in for a second listen. Something about that reverb, that interplay between the guitars, that spaciousness, that melancholy… sigh.
Was I the only one to misread the band’s name on first seeing it? Probably, and I suspect it says more about me than anything. Ah well. Meanwhile, as much as the quality of the band’s new single speaks for itself, the list of collaborators who’ve contributed remixes to this EP says a fair bit about the Chicago ‘post-punk demolition duo’, notably Stabbing Westward and Dean Garcia of Curve / SPC ECO.
It’s the Stabbing Westward remix that’s up first, and it’s a stonking industrial rock chugger. It has a crisp, bright feel and is driven by an explosive snare, the likes of which you rarely hear now, but was popular in the 80s. Of the different versions, it’s arguably the most radical, yet at the same time is also the one with the broadest commercial appeal, in that it is more overtly industrial and metal-edged.
Structurally, the song’s interesting for the fact it consists of several sections rather than a simple verse / chorus, and as each section rolls around, it develops something of a cyclical feel (I usually tend to feel most songs are a linear listening experience. ‘Confusion’ and ‘confusion’ make for a nice rhyming pair, but it’s the bass that’s as strong a hook as any of the lyrics, and it’s the bass that dominates the band’s own single version, which adds ten seconds to the original, which appeared on the Dead Lights five tracker released last year. Said bass is a shuddering low-frequency grind, and the drum machine tips a nod to ‘Blue Monday’ then goes into overdrive, giving the song a real urgency.
The DG Impulse remix grinds harder and longer, stripping it back to the bare bones of that sonorous bass and a pounding beat, to oppressive effect, while the IScintilla Remix is a full-on rabid aggrotech workout, and pretty nightmarish with it.
In contrast, the Loveless Love take on the track plays to the songs 80s electropop roots, coming on like The Human League remixed by JG Thirlwell or Raymond Watts.
It makes for a varied listening experience, and one that marks a neat evolution from the band’s previous releases to date.
Human Impact may have cancelled the UK leg of their tour citing, among other things, Brexit – which is disappointing, but unsurprising – but the arrival of new music offers some solace, I suppose.
Put simply, the UK’s separation form the EU has completely fucked the arts, especially touring musicians not only within the UK, but those wanting to play here, and not only those coming from the EU. The idea that we’re some kind of powerful supernation with immense international clout for trade and everything else is beyond deluded: we’re a small island with little to boast economically right now. So here I am, sitting by candlelight in an attempt to reduce my energy consumption, while sipping a pint of homebrew because the price of beer is soaring almost as fast as diesel and train fares – which is one reason I’ve not been to a gig all month, and it’s starting to feel like lockdown as actually better than this, meaning the timing of arrival of ‘Imperative’ couldn’t be better.
The band announced a new lineup with the release of their first new material since last year’s EP01 as follows: ‘Human Impact is super excited to announce that our line up for the upcoming European tour will include Jon Syverson (Daughters) on drums and Cooper (Made Out of Babies) on bass. We will miss Phil Puleo and Chris Pravdica, but our evolution as a band continues and Jon and Coop will join us in making these live shows truly unforgettable. Human Impact’s self-titled debut album arrived on the eve of the pandemic back in March 2020, which received much critical acclaim and landed them the front cover of New Noise Magazine France. Human Impact followed up with an eight-song EP, dubbed EP01 a year later in March 2021 which featured a mix of singles and unreleased B-sides that were recorded simultaneously to the debut album. ‘Imperative’ is the first new music from the band since then’.
It’s one hell of a way to herald the new phase of the band. ‘Imperative’ is an absolute beast of a tune, an angry grey mass of anguish and angst that slams and grinds and kicks and churns with the nihilistic fury of the best of Unsane and Daughters. It’s brutal, not in its abrasion, but in its straight-up solid bludgeoning. The guitars are steely, but corroded, the sound of twisted metal against a frenzied bass and rolling drums. Feel the pain.
AA
2022 TOUR DATES
15/06/22 : Sonic Morgue @ Kuppelhalle/Silent Green – Berlin (DE)
Prefacing the deluxe edition of their most recent album, Functional Music, expanded to include tracks from the Hyper-Suburb EP, Russian new wave experimentalists Dvanov have offered up aa video single for ‘Уварово (Uvarovo)’.
The St Petersberg-base band started out as Voda-i-Ryba back in 2013, before changing their name.
And what a time to be a Ukrainian—supporting, anti-war band in Russia, and what a time for Dvanov: ‘Уварово (Uvarovo)’ is the last release with vocalist Vlad Kilin and marks what they call ‘the beginning of a new stage in the Dvanov’s life,’ adding ‘In these songs, the cultural memory of revolutions and childhood memories of anxious summer nights collide with the ghosts of modern capitalism. There are the evening and the ringing of endless fields behind the walls of supermarket, cicadas crackle and there’s nowhere to go. We are releasing this at a tragic time when our country has waged an imperialist war. No war! ‘
‘Уварово (Uvarovo)’ is a crazed, beat-driven frenzy of oddness, a bit noisy, a bit industrial, a bit electro, a lot wtf.
Oh, and all proceeds from the sale of Functional Music are going to a Ukraine crisis support charity – which makes it extra-functional.
Purveyors of aggrotech and dark electro, Against I, take something of a swerve for this new release, a four-track EP led by single ‘You and I’, which features guest vocals (and lyrics) by rising star on the scene, J:dead, who comments that “‘You And I’ is a story about a relationship breaking down, because either person cannot love themselves first. Each person is trying to hold the other up from their own struggles but in turn, is forgetting about themselves and their own needs.”
The cover art is more horror than dark techno, and it’s not entirely representative of the EP’s sonic contents, but you should never judge an EP by its cover of course.
First things first: ‘You and I’ is a richly atmospheric tune, with a so much texture and detail. There are strong leanings towards later Depeche Mode, and I’m most reminded of ‘Little 15’, but there’s a lot going on here, not least of all a thick, chuggy guitar and an insistent bass that’s pure goth vintage. The baritone vocal – rich and crooning – very much invites positive comparisons to Dave Gahan and it broods and cruises the mid-pitch, mid-tempo sonic structures that climb and loom over damaged emotional states. As a single, it’s a sock in the chops.
As an EP, this does feel like a bit of a cobbled-together effort that may have worked better with either the lead track and either the instrumental ‘My Madness’ – a high-octane technoindustrial stomper (a strong contrast) – or the ‘Club’ remix of ‘You And I’ as a B-side. Said remix is pretty decent. I don’t actually know if goth club nights are still a thing, but then this isn’t excessively dancey, and hasn’t been remixed as a dancefloor-packing stormer, but instead accentuates the track’s solid mid-tempo groove.
But then there’s the ‘Mayhem’ remix of ‘OMG’ from the debut EP, courtesy of Guilt Trip, which is so much more overtly metal, and snarls and rages like a rabid beast – save for the mellow Kraftwerkian rip in the mid-section. And if ‘You and I’ was intended to showcase a different aside of ‘Against I’, the inclusion of an older track feels like a slightly awkward fit.
Minor niggles aside, it’s a solid effort led by a cracking single tune.
I was an inch away from typing ‘we can all relate to this situation…’ when I realised that, no, that is absolutely not the case, and in fact, that’s fucking bollocks.
We have Conservative MPs saying that if we can’t make ends meet we need to work more hours of get better jobs, while other still suggesting that it’s possible to make meals for 30p per portion and the main reason people use foodbanks is because they can’t cook and can’t budget. It’s sickening and also maddening to see in such stark relief the chasm between the haves and the have-nots, and just how incapable those with money are of seeing things from the perspective of those without. When you’ve got a prime minister anguishing over the wage cost of a nanny and £840 a roll wallpaper (that’s a month’s wage for many people) when pensioners are spending the day on the bus because they can’t afford to heat their flat, it’s apparent just how fucked-up and how far the division has split in contemporary capitalist society.
So it’s a situation probably about half of us can relate to, when the band detail how their latest single is based on their own experience of “the doldrums of being skint, working your arse off to be able to afford a postage stamp-sized flat, only to have to shave in the kitchen sink because the landlord won’t fix the one in the bathroom. Take that and then put it in lockdown, it felt like the walls were closing in – very claustrophobic. You can’t escape to anywhere apart from your own daydreams. The song is an anthem of escapism in the modern era.”
Your head is really the only safe haven left, the only space where you can spread out, and where you can go without fear of being captured on CCTV surveillance – at least for now. It’s also the only place most of us can actually afford a holiday (I often wonder just how the fuck so many of my ten-year-old daughter’s classmates get to go off on skiing holidays and spend Easter in the Maldives when we have to scrape for three nights self-catering off-grid in Wales… like how do people have so much fucking money?).
What’s not fucking bollocks is this tune, which is absolutely top. Because ‘Holiday in my Head’ is about escapism, it’s not completely bleak – but it’s two and a half minutes of driving indie / post-punk, a collision of Asylums, early Editors, and Radio 4, with a strong serving of Gang of Four on the side. Hooks? Hell yeah, it’s got hooks to tear you apart, the choppy guitar duelling with the big, bold chorus that grabs you by the throat and blows your socks off – simultaneously.
Short, sharp and punchy, it’s an absolute blinder of a single, and quite an evolution from their previous outings. It may be more of an afternoon off and a quick pint in your local than a week on a beach in Greece, but then again, if the week in Greece involves being around other holidaymakers and temperature above 20C, I’d take what The Velvet Hands are offering every time.
The pandemic may be over – or not, depending on your viewpoint or your government – but there’s no question that the pandemic affected us all in some way, shape, or form, and that as much as people are getting on with their so-called ‘normal’ lives, we’re not all fully over it. Some of us may never be.
‘The Day the Drum Stopped’ was penned during the height – or depths, depending on your perspective – of the UK pandemic lockdown, and captures the instantaneous psychological spasm of the moment everything halts abruptly. ‘The Day the Drum Stopped’ is perhaps another way of phrasing ‘the great pause’, and it was a strange time to say the least.
For many – not least of all musicians, those in hospitality and retail – everything stopped. For others, who continued to work from home, while also trying to manage home-schooling, the pause was less pronounced, marked more by the absence of people and traffic in the street when venturing out for the prescribed daily exercise or trip to the local supermarket in the hope of scoring both loo roll and pasta. But no question, it was strange, a plunge into the unknown, the unpredictable, and this was a cause of major anxiety for so, so many.
Kristina Stazaker has articulated this succinctly and in a most accessible fashion on her new single, propelled by some sturdy percussion and ‘builds up to a powerful ending where the drums restart and the electricity of life flicks into action again’. It starts with a solid march, before loping away like a galloping horse, and there’s optimism there, as Stazaker remains positive that ‘the drums will come back again’, and it’s a rush and then… it stops, and you’re left, vaguely nonplussed, wishing there was more. Which seems like life, really. Cracking single, though.
The second ‘The Beyond’ begins to rumble from the speakers (I always prefer speakers; earphones and headphones are fine for in transit, but if you’re going to sit back and listen to music, turning it up and letting it breathe and fill your space by listening through speakers, can’t be beat) you’re slapped with solid straight-up 70s vintage. If the comparisons and parallels with the inevitable nods to Sabbath and Led Zep seem predictable, don’t for a second think that that’s all there is here.
The guitar is dense and the bass is chunky, and there’s a deep psychedelic twist to this monster slab of ball-busting stoner blues steeped in reverb… and then you backtrack and realise they’re a duo, with one guitar, drums, and vocals. What? Really? Yep.
White Stripes may have started the rock duo trend, but it’s taken a while to really become truly accepted and widespread, and you could probably contend that while the likes of Blood Red Shoes, DZ Deathrays, Yur Mum, and Lovely Eggs (who are finally gaining the recognition they richly deserve) have been doing it and doing it well for absolutely ages on the grassroots circuit, it was Royal Blood who broke the doors down contemporaneously. But since Royal Blood went off the boil after just one album, there’s an abundant space for quality duos to show that it’s possible to achieve a full band sound without a full band.
As ‘The Beyond’ showcases, This Summit Fever show how by cranking it up and playing hard, two can achieve the sound of four, and what’s more, they’ve got tunes to back it up. And this is a tune, alright.
‘Bitch 16’ is the debut single from French darkwave project Distance H. It was recorded in collaboration with Ophelia from Saigon Blue Rain, one of a number of female vocalists to feature on Distance H’s forthcoming EP, Intimacy.
It’s a deft slice of dark pop with both atmosphere and edge, not to mention hints of Garbage. And while not without hooks – it has plenty – it’s the atmosphere that stays with you, at least after the first listen, and it’s the vibe you want to revisit and which makes you hit repeat – and that urge to hit repeat is strong.
Propelled by an old-school drum machine sound, there are some retro drum fills that sound just a shade clunky against the austere, smooth-surfaced synths, but there’s a compelling urgency, and a certain sass about ‘Bitch 16’ as Ophelia’s vocals glide and soar – and yes, perhaps it’s something about the translation, as the band summarise that ‘Bitch 16’ is ‘in some ways opposed to Sweet 16 and its form of happy, carefree transition. When sweetness gives way to brutality; when detachment gives way to obsession, when desire gives way to disgust’.
These are strong emotions, and Distance H have distilled them into a taut four and a half minutes, making for a strong debut.
As a slice of buoyant yet dreamy electropop, it’s hard to fault ‘Dream Curve’, the new single by self-professed ‘witchy goth rock band’ Metamorph. Well, ok, lyrically it may not be quite Leonard Cohen or Richard Butler (both completely piss on the popularly esteemed Bob Dylan and Jim Morrison), but then ultimately, the purpose of pop music isn’t primarily to distil every word into a moment of poetical genius. No, the purpose of pop is to entertain, and, where possible, to stick in your head, and here, Metamorph achieve.
‘Dream Curve’ blurs fragments of image and reflection amidst a swirl of synths pitched against an insistent bear and pulsing sequenced synth bass. It’s pure Europop: it’s fundamentally simple, but it’s effective.
