Archive for the ‘Singles and EPs’ Category

Weekend Recovery – No Guts, All the Glory

Posted: 7 March 2023 in Singles and EPs
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Criminal Records – 24th February 2023

Christopher Nosnibor

Strange sense of deja-vu? Whatchoo talkin’ about? Whatchoo talkin’ about? Lori wants to know on the lateest kick-ass single from Weekend Recovery.

Yes, ‘No Guts, All the Glory’ was released as ‘No Guts’, the lead track to the EP of the same name, almost a year ago to the week, but a year on it’s getting a reboot thanks to an arts council grant, and the nomadic power trio currently based in Sheffield are releasing a rerecorded radio edit version of this solid tune as the second single from their upcoming third album, Esoteric, ahead of more touring activity.

Perhaps the hardest thing about being a band nowadays is maintaining profile. Social media and Spotify has changed the model, and we’re back to the 1960s when artists are conveyor-belt release-machines. You don’t release anything for six months and it’s like starting over: people have forgotten you exist and you may as well be a new band climbing the mountain of audience-building. Well, perhaps not quite, but still. While the nostalgia market for the over forties for whom time stood still from their thirtieth birthday, for the rest, memories are short.

Weekend Recovery have done a pretty decent job of keeping a flow of activity and output and social media engagement, and recently signing to The Kut’s Criminal Records imprint certainly hasn’t done then any harm. This timely release won’t, either.

Rerecorded it may be, but it’s certainly not hyper-polished and sanitised ready for Radio 1. Smoothed out with some eddying synths and Lori’s vocals switched up in the mix and sounding a bit cleaner, and clearer, it is more radio friendly than the original version, but it’s not totally cleaned-up and sugary: the guitar, bass, and drums are still absolutely driving and the song feels urgent, as if they’re playing like they depend on killing it. And they do. It’s a storming tune, and I for one am revved for the album.

Ritual Cloak – Left Behind

Posted: 6 March 2023 in Singles and EPs
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Christopher Nosnibor

Bubblewrap Collective – 3rd March 2023

Ritual Clock may sound like some gloomy metal act, but is in fact a post-rock duo consisting of Daniel Barnett, formerly of Samoans and drummer/producer Andrew Sanders.

2021 saw them release two full-length albums, Divine Invasions and A Human Being Is The Best Disguise, a reworking of the debut album, with new lyrics and vocals by writer and comedian Autumn Juvenile, followed by a cover of R.E.M.’s Orange Crush, plus the meditative collaboration Witaj w Domu with Polish photographer, Michal Iwanowski.

They explain that “‘Left Behind’ wouldn’t exist without the influence of George Harrison and The Brian Jonestown Massacre. The song revolves around a sitar-like guitar line that we knew we wanted to have constantly looping to create a meditative drone. The lyrics are a collage of different lines and ideas that when brought together create a story of a long-forgotten ‘saviour’ that’s coming back but nobody needs them anymore.”

It is indeed an epically spacious drone-based compensation, and possesses a distinctly 90s feel – thankfully more the kind of stuff you’d hear on Joh Peel than Kula Shaker, despite its trippy eastern vibes. It drifts and meanders in a sedated fashion for its five-and-a-bit minute duration and it’s kinda mellow but kinda spaced and dreamy and vaguely disorientating. Not bad at all.

The Reflecting Skin – II

Posted: 2 March 2023 in Singles and EPs
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Christopher Nosnibor

A year on from The Reflecting Skin’s eponymous debut – with a gnarly, feedback-strewn live recording from July 2022 released in September if last year, they’re back with II.

Lead track ‘Irreversible Damage’ is a warning of what this will do to your hearing. It’s the dirties, nastiest overloading, overdriven black racket you’ll hear. The drums clatter away and everything is cranked up to distortion, the snarling vocals just a barking, screaming, growling mess of pain, anguish and nihilism. It’s the easiest-going out of the three on what is a spectacularly nasty work, that goes deep, dark, and heavy all the way.

It was listening to John Peel in the early 90s that was my passage to music of such extremity, via acts like Extreme Nose Terror. At fourteen or fifteen, it opened doors to a whole new world. Then again, The Reflecting Skin sound more like they’re opening doors to the pits of hell. And anything less, well, it would practically be pop music.

II is not pop. It’s pain.

‘Loose Hiss’ arrives in a howl of ear-splitting feedback before getting heads—down on a driving riff bashed out at a frenetic pace and it’s a sonic blitzkrieg that’s all over I a skull-pounding minute and fifty-one seconds.

They stretch the dingy ‘Grimace’ out over five tempo-shifting minutes where a dirty downtuned bass dominates while everything else drills into your soul. If you want heavy, look no further. II is immense.

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Argonaut – Move Fast

Posted: 28 February 2023 in Singles and EPs
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1st March 2023

Christopher Nosnibor

The title of their new single is a fitting one for a band that really doesn’t piss about when it comes to getting things done. Nathan and Lorna, who make up half of this London-based energetic indie-punk foursome cranked out lo-fi bedroom-recorded cuts at a remarkable rate during lockdown, and now, despite working dayjobs and all the rest, the band have not only reconvened but released a new EP Songs from the Black Hat on February 1st, for which they’ve been unveiling in instalments (a number of which have found exposure here, not least of all ‘Futoko’ a year ago) by way of promo.

‘Move Fast’ is pitched as ‘Channelling Gen X Silicon Valley sloganeering,1980s pop synths and nineties noise!’ – which is in many ways quintessential Argonaut – big on energy, some bright, breezy melodies, but a dark undercurrent and a degree of social unrest.

With its clean, chorus-tinged guitar sound, there’s a Cure-esque post-punk element to the track, with a cute, almost bouncy vocal, there are classic indie-pop / shoegaze aspects dominant here, and then of course, the chorus breaks out the big fizzy guitars and busy, dizzy synths. It all comes together to give us an energetic tune which comes on like a lo-fi Blondie, and it’s a winning formula.

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Kill, The Icon! – Protect the Brand

Posted: 24 February 2023 in Singles and EPs
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Blaggers Records – 24th February 2023

Christopher Nosnibor

Having recently signed to Blaggers Records, Kill, The Icon! Unveil the first taste of their debut EP in the form of single cut ‘Protect the Brand’ – a song they describe as being ‘loosely based on David Fincher’s Fight Club’.

As Chuck Palahniuk wrote in the novel on which the film is based, ‘You are not your job, you’re not how much money you have in the bank. You are not the car you drive. You’re not the contents of your wallet. You are not your fucking khakis.’ This is capitalism laid bare: the workers defining themselves by brand allegiance, working all hours to eke out a living and make themselves feel better by buying shit they don’t need with money they don’t have. It’s a fucking con, and it’s never been more transparent as energy companies rake in record profits while people struggle to afford to stay warm and feed themselves, blaming the so-called cost of living crisis on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and mass strikes taking place across the UK while rail companies siphon off millions to pay execs and shareholders while claiming there’s no money for staff wages, and the NHS coffers are bare for paying their staff because they’ve haemorrhaged billions on redundant PPE provided by companies owned by government chums like Michelle Mone.

The trouble is, it’s taken too, too long for the general populace to twig that they’re being shafted, and the government has been quietly bolstering its powers to dismantle protest and limit rights – not just workers’ rights but human rights since Brexit – that pushing back against it all is incredibly difficult. And many still don’t even see corporate brainwashing for what it is as they obediently trudge back to their offices at their own expense for two or three days a week for the ‘hybrid office experience’ corporations are insistent is essential for both productivity and wellbeing.

This realisation is the narrative of ‘Protect the Brand’, a song which the band explain is ‘viewed through the lens of an overworked and underpaid office worker who is tasked with mind-numbing, repetitive jobs until he finally engineers his own sacking. The Worker stumbles through a crisis of realization, as he starts to question the purpose of work within a capitalist framework.’

It’s driven by a mega-dense bass, and the vocal is a perfect counterpoint, a monotone that chops between corporate inanities and anti-corporate vitriol. It absolutely works, and creates a tension that doesn’t entirely resolve. Once again, Kill, The Icon! are on the money and nail the zeitgeist. Listen up, and listen good.

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Rewired by Neon Insect

Posted: 23 February 2023 in Singles and EPs
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Christopher Nosnibor

Former Radio 1 DJ Chris Moyles dominated social media here in the UK following the tubby tosser’s proclamation that he doesn’t play unsigned bands because they’re crap. He has, naturally, provoked a virtual riot. All bands were unsigned at some point, and without anyone backing them, they’d have remained unsigned forever, even hiss beloved oasis – who should have probably remained unsigned and instead played their pedestrian pub rock to pub-gig audiences before fucking off to the mediocre day jobs they deserved.

The same applies to so many bands. Most bands who get the break do so because of luck, not talent. They’re not better than the unsigned acts, they just have a contract because someone decided they might have commercial potential. But what do labels know, really? They select taste based on their opinion and observation.

A large percentage of the bands I review are unsigned or otherwise independent, and Neon Insect are yet another. The musical vehicle of German composer and multi-instrumentalist Nils Sinatsch, Neon Insect is a project which provides the soundtrack to thee dystopian present.

The press release reports how ‘Nils found it difficult to continue on the cyberpunk, dystopian-themed path that began on the preceding release; the full-length LP, New Moscow Underground. It’s not hard to understand why. But ahead of the forthcoming album, they’ve given us ‘Rewired’.

It’s industrial, alright, in the 80s sense, a grinding mess of crunching drums, swampy synths and churning bass, bringing elements of Ministry, NIN, and Foetus. It really gets dark and dingy in the final minute, and it’s heavy and intense.

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Gleaming – We Dissolve EP

Posted: 21 February 2023 in Singles and EPs
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20th February 2023

Christopher Nosnibor

Hailing from Austin, Texas, electronic act Gleaming are deeply rooted in 80s synth pop, and while there are hints of gothic grooves and whatnot, the more obvious touchstone is mid- to late-80s Depeche Mode. But if opener ‘Rat Me Out’ is a clear access point with a strong hook, the first single, ‘Run Faster’ is starker, harder, more industrial, a thudding kick drum welded to a relentless bassline that nags away at your brain while calling to mind DAF. It’s a tense affair, and with lines like “the phone, the ego, the friends, the future, the body I’m in – all telling me to run”, we get an insight into the EP’s themes. The band describe the EP as ‘an ode to one’s former self and depression, habits, partners, family, friends, etc.,’ adding ‘It’s an attempt to bring closure to a darker past and to celebrate life in a more positive and meaningful sense.’

Closure, catharsis, celebration: it feels like all three to an extent. ‘Ashes’ is propelled by a busy beat and throbbing bass, and ‘The Voyager’ follows its path but ventures more toward Depeche Mode c84 crossed with Pretty Hate Machine era Nine Inch Nails – it’s dark, it’s synthy, but also accessible and feels light and perhaps less menacing than intended, in the way that early Ministry wanted to be harder than it was. The glitchy autotuned vocals don’t help: the never help anything, unless perhaps you’re Cher. It’s not a bad tune – there isn’t a bad tune on the EP – but the execution, if done differently, may have had more impact.

The seven-and-a quarter-minute title track is a low-tempo, slow-burning synth-led brooder, heavy with reflection and emotion and a sense of closure.

Showcasing a certain range within the stylistic confined of their genre of choice, Gleaming are an interesting proposition, with a sound that’s familiar and illusory, but not specifically derivative – and that’s an achievement.

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JW Paris – Wicked Game

Posted: 16 February 2023 in Singles and EPs
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14th February 2023

Christopher Nosnibor

The prospect of another cover of ‘Wicked Game’ did, I’ll admit, give cause for an eye roll. It’s a great song – a seriously song – that arguably can’t be improved upon, and yet countless have tried, or at least felt compelled to pay homage, to the point that it’s been done to death.

Even the PR point out that ‘Wicked Game’ has been released over 800 times in different versions – 800! Imagine! Although HIM’s version is perhaps one of the best known, it’s always irritated me because it simply felt so obvious. The same can’t really be said of JW Paris’ rendition – after all, as they also point out, ‘nobody ever attempted to turn it into a sleazy Brit pop/indie anthem!’ adding ‘There is more Iggy Pop than Roy Orbison in it!’.

And I can only agree. JW Paris, who last graced our pages about a year ago, have packed some punk attitude into this effort. It’s certainly a lot less dark, a lot less broody than the original, and driven by a chunky bass, and the verse builds nicely into a rip-roaring rendition of the chorus that’s strong on energy, but succeeds in preserving the essence of the original – albeit with the kind of twisted anguish you’d associate with Kurt Cobain. ‘Fiery’ isn’t an adjective one would commonly associate with the song, but that’s exactly what this version is, and it comes as a pleasant surprise. Kudos.

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Pic: c24photography

Johnathan|Christian – Strip Me EP

Posted: 11 February 2023 in Singles and EPs
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31st January 2023

Christopher Nosnibor

It might sound daft now, but seeing Depeche Mode perform ‘Stripped’ on Top of the Pops in 1986 felt like something risqué. It was a family show, after all, and I was ten years old. It wasn’t your average pop subject matter, and even at that age, I was aware that this was a bit dark and sleazy. It’s not just that I’m now forty-seven years of age, but times have most definitely changed. It isn’t that sex is necessarily more mainstream now – as a kid I’d see my grandad’s copy of The Sun whenever I visited, and Page 3 calendars were commonplace décor in offices and places – but the slant is different. Whereas Duran Duran’s ‘Girls on Film’ video was simply something you wouldn’t see, but Cardi B’s ‘WAP’ wasn’t the only song to have gone stratospheric in recent years which was hyper-explicit on every level.

‘Strip Me’, the lead song from the latest EP from Johnathan|Christian harks back to the mid 80s, both sonically and in terms of how it feels simply ‘a bit naughty’ and ‘a shade raunchy’ rather than full on porny – and besides, it’s more of a metaphor here than anything literal or kinky. It’s a cracking tune, a mid-tempo string-soaked slow-burner that’s as much Kylie’s ‘Confide in Me’ as it is anything by Depeche Mode, and it’s a quality dark pop song.

‘Sway Back’ brings some swing, and ‘This Too’ crunches Disintegration era Cure with Depeche Mode circa 86 to create a slick and expansive song that conveys an emotional depth beyond mere words.

Strip Me is an EP of two halves, with a remix of each of the three tracks following on. And if you’re going to do the remix thing, it probably pays to get some notable names on the mixes – and Johnathan|Christian achieve that with Ministry’s John Bechdel, EBM legend Leæther Strip, and Steven Archer (Stone Burner/Ego Likeness) all pitching in.

Of the three, ‘Strip Me’ still stands as the standout, but the other two are nicely done, with Leæther Strip delivering a dark disco stomper. Solid stuff all round.

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Honeybadger – Cold Wind

Posted: 30 January 2023 in Singles and EPs
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28th January 2023

James Wells

Honeybadger’s bio describes the Brighton trio as ‘spiky’ purveyors of ‘gutter psychedelia/grunge’, and ‘Cold Wind’ certainly delivers on that. Fast and gritty, lo-fi and fuzzed out, the guitars are all the grunge – but then the break brings a full-on tremelo-happy wig-out that’s out of this world!

But if the song is carried by an energy that invites comparisons with early Arctic Monkeys, the bassline runs away in a completely different direction, with one of those wild grooves that runs here, there, and everywhere: Luca – age just twenty-one – is possessed of magic fingers. Or perhaps he’s just possessed. Either way, these guys pack in so much dynamic and raw talent into three-and-a-half minutes that it’s dizzying, and it’s a proper rush.

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Honeybadger Artwork

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