Archive for the ‘Singles and EPs’ Category

CUFFS – Cash Cow

Posted: 29 July 2022 in Singles and EPs
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1st July 2022

Christopher Nosnibor

Bristolian punk foursome CUFFS have been kicking out the jams – and the meaty, gut-busting riffs – since 20019, and they sure as hell haven’t let anything like a global pandemic slow their progress. It may have stalled their gigging activity for a while, where, on the live circuit in the south they’ve been building a reputation for their ‘chaotic’ live shows, but they’ve maintained a stream of hard-hitting singles which, as they put it, are ‘fuelled by angst and social frustration’. Oh yes, we feel it. At least, anyone who’s not on £80K a year does – especially if you believe plants on Question Time who spout off about people being on £80K not even being in the top 50% of earners, let alone the top five. Of course, such embarrassing outbursts only highlight just how divided the nation is between the haves and the have-nots, and how utterly fucking deluded and completely out of touch the wealthy are when they cry poverty because they have to drop one of their quarterly skiing holidays.

Listening to this on the day it was announced that British Gas owners Centrica saw their half-yearly profits increase five-fold to a staggering £1.34BN, against a backdrop of mass strikes from rail workers, barristers, and, imminently teachers, exam boards, health workers and more, because they’re so sick of being shafted and having to resort to food banks, everything comes together with a sickening thud. Profit before people, guns before butter, every time: the air is as hot with anger as it is climate change, and something has to give.

‘Cash Cow’ may contain a few obvious rhymes among its couplets, and even a couple that are awkwardly shoehorned, but they’re delivered with such passion and sincerity you forgive them in an instant. The guitars are a treble-mesh buzz, and ‘Cash Cow’ is a raw, blistering sonic assault, a blast of trad-punk but with a hard and hardcore edge and played with a furious ferocity that grabs you by the throat and screams at you to fucking listen. Wise up! The mega-rich are screwing us all. It’s time for change.

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Fantømex – Terraformed EP

Posted: 29 July 2022 in Singles and EPs
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3rd June 2022

Christopher Nosnibor

The best music is timeless. This four tracker from ‘lady fronted, post-hardcore influenced’ quartet, Fantømex, hailing from Asheville, North Carolina could have been released any time during the last thirty years or more, and that’s definitely a positive.

It slams in with the raging, angular grunge of ‘Fantomcatz’ that’s got strong echoes of early Hole or Solar Race, but amidst the screaming fury, there are some neat dynamics and a solid structure. ‘White Hole’ is lighter, popper – I mean, it’s all relative, it’s hardly fucking Beyonce – but it’s got something of a 90s Sonic Youth vibe to it, but then it goes full-tilt histrionic punk, before leaping back to being more Sonic Youth / Pavementy, and the guitars even jangle a bit, albeit briefly.

‘Gaslight’ is appropriately disconcerting, disorientating, and perhaps the most disjointed of the four tracks, but in context it works. It’s no sleight to draw a line to The Pretty Reckless with its more overtly ‘rock’ sound, before they round it off with a jarring slew off guitars that’s like a mathy mess squished into a melodic tune delivered with punk attitude, but at the same time, when she’s not spilling her guts, Abigail Taylor proves she’s capable of delivering a melody that can really tug at the heartstrings.

And so it is that in the space of around eighteen minutes, Fantømex whip together a whirlwind of musical styles and emotions, and do so with both style and force.

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Sleep Kicks – No Chains

Posted: 29 July 2022 in Singles and EPs
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29th July 2022

Christopher Nosnibor

There’s something quite unique about the Nordic / Scandinavian strain of contemporary post-punk. It’s not easy to pinpoint, nothing you can really put your finger on. But there’s something in that balancing of light and dark, and it’s something I probably became subconsciously attuned to at an early age, listening to A-Ha in the mid-80s when I was still in primary school. I would only later come to realise just how strong the currents of darkness and melancholy ran through their precise pop songs, and that this was what the enduring appeal was years later.

Sleep Kicks don’t sound like A-Ha, of course, although the same basic musical elements are there, not least of all something of an anthemic 80s feel (although that’s more In the vein of The Alarm or Simple Minds and bands with a more overtly mainstream ‘rock’ style). ‘No Chains’ picks up were they left off last year, and they’ve been honing the contrasting elements. The song is dark, but also light, with layers of guitar and a full production that gives it an expansive feel, but it is, also, without question, a killer pop tune with an immense chorus that’s bold and uplifting, with a sweeping choral backing, which makes for a big, fat, juicy earworm.

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Scum – For Health and Well-Being

Posted: 28 July 2022 in Singles and EPs
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Fast & Bulbous Records – 22nd July 2022.

They’ve been described as sounding like the nagging repetitions of The Fall mixed with the fury of Black Flag, played at 100mph. band names don’t get much more punk than this. And they’re from Leeds, which has in recent years proved to be a hotbed of guitar-driven musical fury. This is what happens when a large city with lots of little venues finds itself in a different place from the rest of the country. Richly multicultural, innovative and entrepreneurial, with a large student population, it’s both a centre for tertiary industry and mass-scale redevelopment and gentrification as well as a place of terrible deprivation. So much for levelling up; so much for the northern powerhouse. But Leeds has always been apart, as its 80s musical heritage is testament to, and since the millennium, it’s been a hotbed of emerging styles, through post-rock and jerky, quirky indie, through math rock and all-out noisy shit, with countless bands emerging – and quickly fading again – in the process.

Scum have survived the pandemic, having formed in 2018, to drop a second EP, and the trio haven’t spent the time away figuring out how to make their millions writing pop songs.

On For Health and Well-Being, the trio are everything they’ve been described as, with a dash of Trail of the Dead tossed into the mix, and it’s a punky, energetic blend of styles that all point to energetic fury. The title tracks is a 25-second spoken word piece where a swell of noise and feedback rises in the background before halting abruptly and the full-throttle guitar attack of ‘Abuserism’ (the longest song at 3:30) piles in.

Blink and you’ll miss the 32-second ‘Vanity Support’: it’s the furious ‘Hard’ that really grabs the attention with its thick riffage and hardcore attitude, and the closer, ‘Intravenous Inconvenience’ powers it to a close.

Take same time out and give it a blast, and do it on work time. Because employers are all about supporting Health and Well-Being, right?

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The Virginmarys – You’re A Killer

Posted: 24 July 2022 in Singles and EPs
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22nd July 2022

James Wells

With their second single since whittling down to a duo, The Virginmarys continue to show that limited personnel and permutations of instruments does not equate to limited ideas or musical power.

‘You’re A Killer’ is unashamedly political, and articulates the anger of the many who aren’t millionaires and billionaires, coupled with the anxiety that pervades all aspect of life right now: ‘Working my bones and still earning a fraction / I’m hooked to my phone like a fatal distraction’ is as succinct a summary as you’ll hear all year, and that’s some nice wordplay in action too.

And it’s all blasted home in three minutes of jittery, choppy, raucous punk ‘n’ roll. The fire in their bellies rages hard and the chorus is 100% hook. There are hints of eighties rock in the mix too: imagine The Cult circa Sonic Temple played in the spirit of ’77.

The difference between the late 70s and early 80s and now is that Thatcher was at least up front and the working classes knew they were being shafted. Now, people are – literally – dying -starving as they queue at foodbanks and wait ten hours for ambulances and entire days in A&E while our leaders brazenly lie, and in recent years, the lies have become more threadbare and the bodies continue to pile high, heaped on the pyre of democracy as we sleepwalk into fascism.

The Virginmarys suck it all in and spit it out in a full-throttle guitar-driven blast of anger: global warming, the rich travelling on their jollies while the nation is sedated by the media, the new opium of the people, toward engineered social division.

The outlook is bleak, but this isn’t a bleak song: it’s a proper, raging protest song. Listen up, and wake up.

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GLDN – First Blood EP

Posted: 22 July 2022 in Singles and EPs
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22nd July 2022

Christopher Nosnibor

New York industrial rock act GLDN, the vehicle for Nicholas Golden’s twisted noise, set their stall out pretty strongly with their debut single, ‘Parasite’. Accompanied by stark, hypersaturated visuals, it was a screaming blast of pain and anguish straight from the school of Broken era Nine Inch Nails and Strapping Young Lad’s first album.

And so it is that they follow up with a debut EP, in the shape of First Blood. It’s a fitting title, and again, exploits striking, in-yer-face gored-up visuals render the pitch in explicit terms before you hear a note.

Lead track ‘Gravedigger’ grinds in with a pulsating synth bass groove and driving, metallic guitars, and they’ve achieved that perfect crisp guitar sound common to NIN, Pig, and Ministry. It’s abrasive and it’s noisy, and in following the popular quiet verse / loud chorus structure, it’s far from radical, but the key here is that it’s actually a decent tune. The title track alludes to The Prodigy’s ‘Firestarter’ with its slow fade in, before settling to a low, slow, murky trudge. Stripped back and bassy, it’s also gnarly as hell, and finds GLDN at their most Marilyn Manson. Nicholas can deliver a truly blood-curdling scream, and when he does, it’s unsettling.

‘Ripe’ is seething, serpentine, and with its squalling guitar and snaking bassline, slips into gothier territory, like Christian Death meets Filter.

Where so many NIN-emulators fail is that they’re too preoccupied with following the blueprint, with lifting and referencing; where GLDN succeed is in assimilating the elements to create something unique, and something unswervingly brutal and harsh. Its viscerality is more than worthy of the title and cover art: it’s the sound of a guy spilling his guts and experiencing a pure catharsis at a thousand decibels.

It’s ‘Parasite’ that closes off this six-tracker, and it’s a strong and violent finale, which makes the prospect of the already-in-the bag Hemophilia EP set for release in August, even more exciting. I suspect we can expect more blood.

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Nathan & Lorna – River

Posted: 21 July 2022 in Singles and EPs
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15th July 2022

Christopher Nosnibor

Marking a thematic link to their lockdown project recording as Videostore, Nathan & Lorna continue to show their love of the retro, of the nostalgia, and specifically of the 80s with the second instalment of their ‘80s Actor’ series (released simultaneously with ‘Johnny’).

Shamefully, it took me a while to piece this one together, as I didn’t clock the concept, and simply because while I very much did my growing up in the 80s (being born in ‘75, I feel I lived through the best of the 80s at a good time, seeing the original Star Wars and Indiana Jones movies and Ghostbusters at the cinema, while Duran Duran and A-Ha were in the charts and on the radio (and yes, Kate Bush, too), I was simply ever drawn by anything featuring River Phoenix, and so wasn’t all that distraught in 93. But I’ve subsequently come to realise his iconic worth.

The song itself is something of a departure, the drum machine backed off and pumping away metronomically beneath a shoegazy drone. It’s heartmelting and melancholy, and as such, captures the feeling among fans, as well as conjuring a perfect pool of nostalgic sentiment that’s non-specific, corresponding with that fleeing ache, that momentary tug, where you find yourself yearning for… well, you don’t quite know what, or why, just that something lost in that time past. And all you can do is go with the flow…

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Miss Kill – Drive

Posted: 21 July 2022 in Singles and EPs
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22nd July 2022

Christopher Nosnibor

If ever there was a song so steeped in idealisation and escapism, Miss Kill’s ‘Drive’ sets new heights. It isn’t that they’ve ditched their grungy alt-rock influences, but this new single sees the duo, consisting of Alannah and Felicity Jackson in a much more reflective mood.

As they pitch it, it’s more Chris Isaak and Tom Petty than their usual touchstones of Hole, Placebo, or Pearl Jam, and in context it makes sense. It’s certainly got the easy, breezy, radio-friendly airiness of that classic Americana, but it also balances grungy bite with pop tones in a way that’s reminiscent of ‘Malibu’.

‘Asked my babe if he’d come for a ride yeh. I really just wanna get in and drive Away / Through the sun with the music blaring / Driving past I got everyone staring / I don’t think we’re ever coming back’, they sing.

It’s that perfect image, that dream, of driving away, of cruising into the sunset, never to return, to something new and something better. It’s just like the movies, just like in the songs on the radio. Freedom! Liberation! Life!

Who doesn’t fantasise about this ever? Who doesn’t want to ditch their boring ordinary life and crap job and simply live life like a fairytale? Or, better still, a road trip? To jump in a car and simply drive is the absolute epitome of the fantasy of leaving everything behind.

Reflecting on the reality is depressing, but this offers hope and prospects, like it could happen. It’s not for me to say that it couldn’t, because well, know knows? Anyway, it’s three and a quarter minutes of uplifting, melodic time out of life where you can believe in the dream.

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cowman – crunch ep

Posted: 20 July 2022 in Singles and EPs
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27th July 2022

Christopher Nosnibor

The multi-talented, multi-discipline and perhaps, sometimes, not-so-disciplined Benjamin Heal returns in his Cowman guise, under which he’s been operating since 2005 with a new EP, his first in a decade, after previous creative detours with Coaxial and various other projects.

Over the course of a sporadic and low-key career, li-fi, slackerist Cowman has – impressively, whether by fluke or by design – appeared on bills with a slew of cred cult acts, including Ack Ack Ack, Gum Takes Tooth, Cove, Pifco, and John Parish. These notable highlights are well-deserved, but it’s a pleasure to witness cowman making a comeback, instead of simply revelling over former achievements.

Crunch is a magnificently loose knockabout and if Pavement comparisons may seem lazy shortcuts, they’re also entirely justified. But then… then… there’s a whole lot more. The first track, ‘Concrete Eyes # Turpentine’ , with its inexplicable punctuation, starts out a fairly straightforward, if angular indie kicker in the vein of Slanted era Pavement, with wonky, off-kilter guitars that sound vaguely out of key, but then spins off into an epic swirling expanse of psychedelic post-rock. The whole thing is almost ten minutes long, drifting into a long, sluggish drone in the final minutes.

There’s an easygoing picked guitar line that contrasts with jittery drums on ‘Concrete pink Dots’ before the distortion kicks in, and it does so hard, creating a dense whorl of noise that almost buries the drums, until they surrender to the barrage of din, and we find ourselves drifting in a cloud of hazy shoegaze guitar. It’s mellow, but it’s loud, and that’s where the hypnotic ‘Bloody Diffuser’ picks up as it embarks on another ten-minute sonic journey, a slow-smouldering soundscape heavy on delay and reverb. Switching through a succession of segments, where the transitions are jolting, flicking changes rather than seamless transitions, it’s by turns doom drone and psychedelic drone, but ultimately, it’s all the drone – and that’s a good thing.

Ordinarily, two versions of one song on the same release feels a bit lazy, but then again, I spent the 90s buying singles on three formats in order to obtain all the versions and B—sides, and I have a hunch that Benjamin is also well-versed in the maxi-single and the like, and it so happens that the cropped version of ‘Tobacco Eyes’ that rounds it off actually feels like a single that had it been released circa 92 would have been lauded in the press as being in the vein of Pavement and Truman’s Water. And in fairness, that’s just as true in 2022.

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KEN Mode – But They Respect My Tactics

Posted: 15 July 2022 in Singles and EPs
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Art of Fact Records – 15th July 2022

Christopher Nosnibor

The second single lifted from the forthcoming album Null, due for release in September, is basalt slabs of rock-solid riffery of the kind KEN Mode are worshipped for by their fanbase – and deservedly so.

It crashes in hard, grinding low-end dominating, before the guitar splinters treble over the grumbling bass that drives the verse. Jesse Matthewson’s hard, shouted vocal style is savage, and the vocals sit fairly low in the mix; the splinters that do cut through are cutting ‘I’ve got / nothing more to say / You’ve got no reason to listen’. As the band put it, it’s ‘an existential crisis, set to music’, and ‘in Matthewson’s words, the song illustrates a turning point where one’s disappointment transforms into resignation.’ It all adds to the overall nihilistic force of this beast of a tune.

If both the production and the accompanying promo video serve to convey a sense of the band’s energy and sheer power live, then the UNSANE T-shirt Jesse’s wearing provides a fair reference point for this slice of sonic savagery. That said, it does signify a shift from predecessor, Loved (which still has one of the most memorable album covers of recent years). It’s a little less frenetic, less manic than, say, ‘He Doesn’t Feel Pain Like He Ought To’, and the sound is geared towards being denser, heavier rather than harsher. And it packs a mean punch alright.

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KEN mode will hit the road in September for a string of Canadian shows, followed by a headlining slot at No Coast Fest in Denton, TX, alongside Metz, Young Widows, and more. Stand by for news of more touring.

Sept 23 – Winnipeg, MB, CA @ The Good Will Social Club – w/ Vile Creature, Mares of Thrace

Sept 24 – Saskatoon, SK, CA @ Amigos Cantina – w/ Vile Creature, Mares of Thrace

Sept 25 – Calgary, AB, CA @ Palomino Smokehouse – w/ Vile Creature, Mares of Thrace

Sept 26 – Edmonton, AB, CA @ Starlite Room Temple – w/ Vile Creature, Mares of Thrace

Oct 30 – Denton, TX @ No Coast Fest – w/ Metz, Young Widows

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