Archive for the ‘Singles and EPs’ Category

Argonaut – Futoko

Posted: 6 February 2022 in Singles and EPs
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4th February 2022

Christopher Nosnibor

Short review for a short single, where the reading time and running time are probably about the same, and that’s the way we like it. Yes, London fuzzy indie punk noisemakers Argonaut return after an enforced hiatus corresponding almost precisely with the covid pandemic and its successive lockdowns and restrictions, which curtailed any in-person collaboration or rehearsals for so many bands.

Nathan and Lorna kept themselves occupied and active with their lo-fi bedroom indie side-project, Videostore, which they put to bed with a one-off live show, paving the way for the return of Argonaut. And what a return it is!

Inevitably, there’s much stylistic overlap between Videostore and Argonaut, and both acts espouse the same DIY aesthetic, while kicking out punchy pop tunes, but the input of the rest of the band and their influence on the sound is apparent when listening to this, not least of all in the way the vocal harmonies come together – and bounce off one another – and the impact of live drums as a sturdy spine holding together the retro synth sounds that wibble around with a Stereolab vibe, which is countered by the fizzy, treble-maxed guitar fuzz that crackles away at a restrained distance in the mix.

With ‘Futoko’, Argonaut pack enough energy into two-and-a-quarter minutes to run a house for a week, and deliver it with such infectious vibrancy it’s hard to resist: it’s exactly what the world needs right now.

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Dissonance – Slowburn (EP)

Posted: 29 January 2022 in Singles and EPs
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21st January 2022

Christopher Nosnibor

‘Slowburn’ is, true to the title’s promise, a slow-burner, and as a single, it’s solid – not immediate, but appreciation evolves with repeat plays. The track itself is, in many respects, very much in the darkwave tradition, with cold synths and equally cold, almost monotone vocals that also carry an ethereal quality.

There’s a mesmerising, hypnotic quality to the original song, which, we learn is ‘a song about passion; passion- a deep love/emotion that consumes body and soul. It is about depth of feeling for a person, place, process or thing.’ Against brooding piano and backed-off beat, it calls to mind Jarboe-era Swans and some of her solo work, in no small part due to Cat Hall’s powerful but understated vocal.

Cat explains the origins of the song as follows: “I wrote this as I was considering the many all-consuming passions of my life. Passion to write. Passion for art. Passion for nature, for the planet. Passion for science. Passion for humanity. Passion for the individuals I love. Also, the painful realization that despite my intense feeling, actions and orchestrations, these things, places, people, and processes come to an end. I come to an end. My passions die with me.”

Our passions drive us and keep us alive, and without passions, what have we and what is life? And what passion is there in a set of remixes?

My standard complaints around remix EPs are that they’re essentially lazy and eke out the smallest amount of material for the most physical space, and that they’re something of a short-change for fans; then there’s the fact they’re often really, really tedious, with the same track or tracks piled back to back and mostly sounding not very different apart from either being more dancy or dubby. This set is a rare success, in that the remixes are so eclectic and diverse half of them don’t sound like the same song, but without doing that whole thing of deconstructing it so hard with ambient / techno / dub versions that there’s nothing left of the original in the versions – another bugbear.

The Von Herman Lava Lamp Mix piles on the soul and sounds like Depeche Mode circa Ultra, while the Kirchner Charred Mix is a straight-ahead, thumping electrogoth dancefloor-ready banger. The Haze Void Mix cranks up the grind, with oscillating electronics more akin to Suicide than any contemporary act. This is the biggest, densest, and most transformative reworking of the lot, venturing into space rock territory as it thuds an d rattles, twisting the vocals against an urgent, throbbing sonic backdrop and throwing in some hints of Eastern mysticism for good measure. It’s an intense experience. The Hiereth Lonely to a Cinder mix brings some brooding piano and even harder hammering beats, landing it somewhere between the Floodland-era sound of The Sisters of Mercy and that quintessential Wax Trax! technoindustrial sound.

It’s a corking single, and as remix sets go, this is a good one.

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MESH – The Traps We Made

Posted: 24 January 2022 in Singles and EPs
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Dependent Records – 28th January 2022

Christopher Nosnibor

My first encounter with Bristol-based duo MESH was as a support act for The Sisters of Mercy, although ultimately they’re an act I’ve been more aware of the existence of than familiar with. Then again, they’ve never really broken though here at home, and enjoy considerably more success in mainland Europe, particularly Germany – as is the case with so many acts of a darker / more electro / gothier persuasion. The fact that The Sisters and Placebo are still festival headliners in Germany speaks volumes. Mainland Europe is another world, culturally. That the majority of the tracks were shot / recorded at German shows is understandable.

In this context, the idea that MESH are an act who warrant a three-and-a-half hour documentary DVD release is quite something to assimilate, and the fact the email promoting it, with a link to press edit of the film says ‘We hope that this “easier to digest” version will find your interest as we are aware that the full 3.5 hours are a bit much to watch’ is touchingly humble, and seems to accept that this is a release that’s very much ‘one for the fans’ and that while they may be numerous, not all of us journos will be quite as rabid.

This single release is even easier to digest, and cuts to the heart of what fans often want, namely live takes of favourite songs done well.

‘The Traps We Made’ first appeared on Looking Skyward in 2016, and has been something of a signature and fan favourite ever since. It’s a quintessential dark electro tune, and it’s a sow-builder with a lot of soul, and it’s got ‘anthem’ all over it, but equally, the Depeche Mode trappings are extremely evident. And it’s good.

The documentary, from the segments I’ve seen, is also good – an incredibly ambitious project – well-realised with remarkable digital visuals and the footage is well shot, and matched by quality sound and some insightful backstage footage and interview segments. Not one for casuals by any stretch, but the live footage isn’t a bad entry-level intro to their catalogue.

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Engine Kid – Special Olympics EP

Posted: 23 January 2022 in Singles and EPs
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Southern Lord – 3rd December 2021

Christopher Nosnibor

I’ve been a little slow getting around to this one, but since the band’s taken more than twenty-five years to do so, I don’t feel quite so bad.

Way, way back, before Sunn O))), before Goatsnake, before Teeth of Lions Rule the Divine (another band referencing Dylan Carlson’s mighty drone-progenitors Earth), before the advent of the Southern Lord label, Greg Anderson made noise with early 90s Seattle-based post-hardcore act Engine Kid, who signed off in 1995 with the Troubleman Unlimited EP, after undergoing countless lineup changes and recording their album Bear Catching Fish album with Steve Albini. Their short but prolific career was recently re-released as a six-album box set.

But I guess sometimes there are itches you just have to scratch, and this is clearly one such instance, with the band reconvening to revisit and rework old songs they never recorded or releases.

A lot has changed in a quarter of a century, and the title is a fair indicator. This isn’t a criticism, and as the accompanying text explains, the ‘cover art is a symbolic metaphor about living one’s best life, and with extravagant swagger. The songs themselves continue the band’s “take on the world” attitude with restless, wild energy’. This is a short blast of a release that’s about empowerment, not dissing the disabled, and it’s a reminder of simpler times, perhaps, when ‘special’ was ok. But ultimately, we’re all special, right?

The songs contained herein – several of which have already been shared here on Aural Aggravation – are blistering blasts of guitar-driven noise: fifty-nine second opener ‘Burban on Blades’ a piledriving blast of warped riffage that’s more akin to Melvins than anything else, and paves the way for the thunderous title track. The drums pound as devastating detonations, while the bass blasts at your lungs and the guitars grind with a gut-churning afterburn. It’s brutal and then some, and ‘The Abattoir’, a mere minute and fifteen in duration, is savage. One thing is clear, and that’s during their absence, they’ve not mellowed, and that they’ve not polished or prettied these songs up with a more technical performance or cleaner production is very much a good thing.

‘Patty : Tania’ (not on the flexidisc edition) marks a massive shift to round off the EP: it sounds like another band entirely, with chiming guitars weaving a dark, late-night, backstreet atmosphere that has somewhat gothic overtones, and these provide the backdrop to a lengthy sampled spoken word intro before, finally, at just shy of three and a half minutes in, the levee breaks and the guitars crash in. That kind of dynamic never gets tired, and here it shows that Engine Kid are more complex, more nuanced, and more versatile, than may initially appear.

This is a storming EP in its own right, and will likely not only elate existing fans, but introduce the band to a whole new set of listeners.

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elkyn – talon

Posted: 22 January 2022 in Singles and EPs
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26th January 2022

Christopheer Nosnibor

Elkyn first came to my attention – and, quite frankly, blew me away instantaneously – in his previous iteration as elk, in the spring of 2019, an appreciation that was cemented with the release of the ‘beech’ EP that summer. Since then, Leeds based multi-instrumentalist Joey Donnelly has become elkyn and gone on to craft not only more remarkable songs, but also something of a rarefied space artistically.

In many respects, there’s very little of Joey out in the public domain: press shots tend to be similar in style, and unassuming, and interviews, while interesting in themselves, and while he comes across well, reveal little about the man behind the music. In contrast, his songs are so intensely personal that there’s likely little need to elucidate further: the songs really do speak for him.

Those songs have already earned him airplay on BBC 6Music, BBC Introducing and Radio X, and deservedly so, and now, with a debut album, holy spirit social club, due for release in the spring, elkyn is sharing ‘talon’ as a taster.

Fuller in sound and more up-tempo than previous singles ‘something’ and ‘everything looks darker now’, it’s more akin to ‘found the back of the tv remote’, which found him flexing new muscles and venturing into Twilight Sad kitchen-sink melancholia.

It’s a(nother) magnificently-crafted tune, and it’s clear by now that Joey has a real knack for bittersweetness. The guitar is melodic and imbued with a wistfulness that’s hard to define. There’s a Curesque lilt to it, in the way that when the Cure do pop, it’s somehow sadder and more emotionally touching than then they do gloomy – or is that just me who experiences that sensation where a certain shade of happy just makes me want to cry inexplicably? But more than anything, when Donnelly’s voice enters the mix, I’m reminded of Dinosaur Jr. Joey’s a better singer than J Mascis, but his voice has that same plaintive quality that tugs away and evokes that emotional hinterland between gloom, resignation, and hope.

Donnelly deals in self-doubt, self-criticism and articulations of inadequacy, and this is why his songs are so affecting and relatable. But it’s the hope that shines through on ‘talon’ – thin rays of sun through the closed curtains of despair perhaps, but with a tune this breezy it’s hard to feel anything other than uplifted by the end.

Live dates:

18/03/22 Hyde Park Book Club Leeds

19/03/22 Fulford Arms York

20/03/22 The Castle Manchester

24/03/22 Scale Liverpool

25/03/22 JT Soar Nottingham

26/03/22 The Flapper Birmingham

27/03/22 Duffy’s Leicester

29/03/22 Strongrooms London

30/03/22 Folklore Rooms Brighton

01/04/22 Clifton Community Bookshop

02/04/22 Tiny Rebel Cardiff

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Pic: Stewart Baxter

Luna 13 – Hear My Call

Posted: 20 January 2022 in Singles and EPs
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Cleopatra Records

Christopher Nosnibor

Well, this is pretty fucking intense. Released to promote the duo’s new album, ‘Hear My Call’ is a beast. The verses are queasy, ominous with a hushed, almost strangulated tension. In contrast, the choruses are utterly pulverizing in their weight and density: there’s nothing hushed about them, and the tension is released in a chthonic snarl. The vocal transition is remarkable, as Lilith gears down an octave at least and flicks from anguished to a raging demon spewing toxic flames from the very bowels of hell. The crossover between electronica and black metal is almost schizophrenic, but Luna 13 render it in such a way that it’s perfect, that switch that happens at an imperceptible trigger lands with eye-popping precision, and the video, directed by Vicente Cordero (Stabbing Westward, Filter, 3TEETH) is a magnificent visual reflection of the music.

For a start, there’s splattered gore galore, as Lilith Bathory sloshes around in a bathtub that’s initially brimming with rose petals but before long it’s a streaming splatterfest where said tub is brimming with blood. She twitchily dials the telephone… and it transpires she’s not calling The Samaritans, but instead she connects on a hotline to Satan, and it cuts, and she’s a roaring, horned demon, and to the side, Dr Luna yanks a huge phallic lever that seemingly drives this whole whorl of chaos that’s blackened beyond black, the sound of scorching incineration.

A lot of so-called ‘occult’ and ‘Satanic’ shit is – well, shit – corny, half-baked, a bit laughable, at least to anyone not already invested, and you wonder how people take so many of these bands seriously. Not so Luna 13: this shit is truly terrifying. There’s no denying that some off the elements are perhaps cliché; masks, blood, and so on and so forth, but it’s all in the execution. Sonically, and visually, they’re full-on, and fearsome.

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Bait – Drama Drama Drama Drama

Posted: 15 January 2022 in Singles and EPs
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Cool Thing Records – 14th January 2022

Christopher Nosnibor

Asylums offshoot band Bait mark their return in blistering style with the ball-busting, ballistic blast of tension that is ‘Drama Drama Drama Drama’. Having dropped – or perhaps more accurately detonated – their explosive eponymous debut in 2018, showcasing a post-punk industrial crossover that crash-landed somewhere between PiL and Killing Joke, they reminded us of their existence in the spring of 2019 with the gritty grind of the single ‘DLP’ before falling silent.

In fairness, a global pandemic and a succession of lockdowns and limitations was never going to be conducive to the creation of new output, especially when core members Michael Webster and Luke Branch have been busy beavering away on a new Asylums album.

But, inter alia, they’ve also been working on the new Bait album, Sea Change, which is set for release in April, and ‘Drama Drama Drama Drama’ is one hell of a way of announcing it, distilling all of the pent-up frustration, fury, and anxiety of two years kept on edge into just under two minutes of eye-popping, adrenaline-fuelled sonic catharsis.

If the sneering edge of the vocal delivery sounds like it’s a put-down to those who’ve been panic stricken by the pandemic, it’s likely more a swipe at those who’ve chronically mismanaged the public’s expectations, left them separated, isolated, financially insecure, and unable to seek solace with friends or family while keeping them apart while quaffing drinks and generally having a jolly old time as well as getting minted off slipping multi-million pound contracts for unusable PPE and all the rest at the taxpayers’ expense. The reason the parties have particularly tipped people is because they missed the final moments of loved ones and suffered the immeasurable torture of enforced isolation.

The ‘drama drama drama drama’ in question here isn’t some lame Eastenders shit, this is life. The swirling turmoil and endless uncertainty of everything… On a personal level, when lockdown hit, I was inundated with messages at first, from friends, from family and especially work as WhatsApp groups were set up while we got sent home to work, and the channels of communication were beyond buzzing as everyone flipped out and I witnessed – and participated – in their panics in real-time. It was hectic, a blizzard, a blur… but it was when it went quiet I lost it. You get thrown into something so hard you have to swim. But when the armbands deflate…You text with no reply – that anguish is real and it’s intense. The minutes feel like hours. The tension rises, the panic rises, the palpitations flutter and the perspiration flows and in no time you’re a dishevelled, disoriented mess. You know it’s irrational, but panic is irrational. You struggle to steady your breathing. You can’t face the supermarket because it’s full of people. You can’t face meeting anyone. You can’t breathe. This is the drama, and it piles up and piles up and increases in intensity until it’s unbearable.

‘Drama Drama Drama Drama’ steps up the gritty edge of previous outings, and this time arrives somewhere between Killing Joke and Black Flag, which means it’s absolutely furious and relentlessly raging. It’s a killer tune with all the intensity, and the soundtrack to the now.

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The Assist – Television Kid

Posted: 13 January 2022 in Singles and EPs
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28th January 2022

Christopher Nosnibor

On seeing / hearing this, I’m reminded of the character of Mike TV in Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, a book I loved as a child, and have enjoyed all over again as a parent – although I always detested the film adaptations, especially the original, not least of all because I doubly detest Gene Wilder: the guy just grates. However, Dahl had a way of making points through his characters, often about ‘good’ and ‘bad’ traits and characteristics and behaviours, and Mike TV was no exception, and it may not have been especially subtle, but then it was a children’s book written in the 60s, at a time when sociologists and psychologists too were becoming interested on the effect of the media, in particular television – the twentieth century opium of the people.

The Assist’s new offering unpacks this line of thinking through a contemporary filter and a more immediate perspective, portraying a character – who’s something of an emblem, a stereotype – whose expectations of life are unrealistic, distorted by media representations. Since the turn of the millennium and the advent of ‘reality’; TV, we’ve been fed an endless conveyor belt of shows that have espoused the idea that anyone can achieve anything, and that anyone can become a celebrity – and, worse still, that being a celebrity for its own sake is something not only achievable, but desirable. It wasn’t so long ago kids would grow up wanting to be film stars, pop stars, models, designers, sportspeople; now primary-age kids are coming through wanting to be reality TV celebs, Instagram influencers and YouTubers.

‘TV Kid’ paints the stark disparity between the dream and the reality, where head-in-the-clouds aspirations – ‘a top flight striker, Well known as a good time provider…A boxing expert, an amateur fighter, walks around to the eye of the tiger’ – are a world away from the stress of bills and so on, the kitchen sink drudgery or life on minimum wage – or, as they put it, ‘Big soup for breakfast, big soup for tea, petrol for Christmas’.

It’s a nifty tune, compressed into a sharp, snappy two-and-a-half minutes. It’s buoyant and upbeat in delivery, with some jangly but crunchy guitars driving it along nicely while brimming with melody and energy. The Midlands act are unashamed in their working class stylings, without being as in yer face as Sleaford Mods (which is no doubt one reason The Assist haven’t weighed in with Fat White Family on the ‘faux working classness of Idles), or as brash and tediously crap as Oasis, and consequently, in rank order it’s the music first and the attitude second. It’s a decent balance, and singer Mikey has just the right amount of swagger in his delivery – cocky, but not cockish, and nicely whetting the whistle for the debut album, Council Pop, out in April.

Artwork - The Assist

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Band shot - The Assist

break_fold – Welwala

Posted: 11 January 2022 in Singles and EPs
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11th January 2022

Christopher Nosnibor

Curse my brain. It’s so unhelpful at times. When Tim Hann – aka break_fold – emailed me his new single release, I managed to misread ‘Welwala’ as ‘Welawala’, and immediately my mental jukebox struck up ‘Summer Nights’ from Grease. ‘Tell me more’, you say?

Uh-huh, ok. Having recently connected with analog horizons, with whom this is his second release ahead of the fourth break_fold album, scheduled for release towards the end of 2022, Tim’s been gaining traction with support for previous singles ‘Meanwhile.. Up in Trump Tower’ and ‘Variant’ from BBC 6 Music DJs Gideon Coe and Steve Lamacq.

As is common for Hann, it’s a TV series that in part inspired the composition: on this occasion, it’s the sci-fi show The Expanse as well as Blanck Mass’ Calm with Horses film soundtrack (as far back as the debut album by I Concur, Hann was drawing on The Wire among his wide-ranging sources).

Gary Numan-esque synths and that crisp crack of a vintage drum machine snare sound. Beneath the bold strikes builds first a later of bass, then a bubbling synth loop, and then the drums kick up a notch and beat harder. As the elements layer up, the track takes on new depths and grows in intensity. The dropdown is perfectly timed, and from there it builds again. Compositionally it’s magnificent, and there’s a lot of action and dynamic work packed into three-and-a-half minutes. It’s tight, and the production is poised, just-so, and it all comes together with a precision that at the same time feels intuitive, and it’s that intuition that really gives it some force as it pushes the listener along in its swelling current.

As the press release explains, ‘Welwala is about seeing something from two different points of view. It is structured around two contrasting synth lines with focus shifting between them, evoking both optimism and threat. These are layered with an insistent drum track in a sequence that hints at narrative evolution.’ So, a bit like ‘Summer Nights’ then. I mean, ok, not musically, but my misread was right about the telling the story from two different perspectives, right? Right?

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Still Insane – Black Sheep

Posted: 11 January 2022 in Singles and EPs
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4th February 2022

James Wellsz

Quebec City’s Still Insane are punk to the core, and the ‘Black Sheep’ EP represents their first output since 2017’s ‘Friends & Family’ EP. According to their bio, ‘Their goal is simple: to play fast, to play loud, and to play everywhere.’. and since they can’t really play anywhere much right now, they might as well focus on the other two goals.

Still Insane have announced their new ‘Black Sheep’ EP out February 4th and have released the title track. It’s the band’s first new music since 2017’s ‘Friends & Family’ EP.

The first cut, ‘Sleeping on the Floor’ is the longest of the five, and after a slow, atmosphere building intro, it slams into a hell-for-leather fast-and—furious melodic funk anthem bursting with energy and harmonies. Around halfway through, there’s a vocal switch from male to female, then back again.

The title track is heavier by far, but the song itself isn’t anywhere near as heavy as the intro implies will follow; for all the industrial chug of the instrumental passages, which allude to 90s Ministry, it’s still got pop at its heart: the same is true of the minute-long ‘No More Targets’ which lands with a plummeting nosedive into Dead Kennedys terrain, as does the frenetic thrashabout of ‘Stay Home’. The last track, ‘Thank You, and…’ is very much your standard middle of the road melodic punk that could be anything post-millennium, although the band prefer to cite the bands they’ve supported, like NOFX and Bad Religion.

The guitar solos may be wince-inducing by virtue of their existence alone, but they’re kept brief and to the point, and while the ‘melodic punk’ tag doesn’t seem to carry much weight, I’d rather be dealing with the proper raw and rage than some tame intimation. On Black Sheep, Still Insane don’t inspire me much. But then, little does. Life is hard like that.

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Black Sheep EP Cover

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