“’Made Of Rain’ is a song of hope. It is about getting up and trying again despite the scars life can leave. This “almost acoustic version” is very dear to me. I love the organic elements present: the pedal steel, violin, and, of course, Whitney Tai’s beautiful, ethereal voice elevate this piece, making it something transcendental. Similarly, the video shoot was an almost spiritual experience. A celebration of friends and art. What more can you ask for?” asks Ashton Nyte of The Awakening, who will soon tour Europe in support of the band’s self-titled album.
“‘Made Of Rain’ is a warm amber glow in a velveteen speakeasy where tales of folk and longing send a message from the beyond. There’s a wisdom and a patience in Ashton’s voice. His lyrics swarmed in the magic of Beauty In Chaos’ production for the acoustic version hits different. Doing this duet with Ashton is a dream, as he is someone with the vocal tenacity of the wisest tree in the forest. Together, it felt like we planted wildflowers in a gentle field. What made this collab special for me apart from the music is the friendship that Michael, Ashton and I share. We are family and making art with feeling is at the forefront of our passions,” says Whitney Tai, who appears on many BIC tracks. Her latest single ‘Slumber Party’ is out now, previewing her third full-length album ‘American Wasteland’ (out in September).
Why Patterns’ latest offering marks something of a shift from Regurgitorium, released back in 2022. I say ‘back’ in 2022 because it feels like a lifetime ago. Some of that is, admittedly, due to personal circumstance, but for most, 2022 was a very different time. We still weren’t all that long out of lockdown, for a start. We were still coming up for air, and finding our way – and likely crawling our way back to the office, while a lot of shops still had their Perspex screens in place. I remember in the checkout queue in Aldi just willing these weird cunts who had seemingly either forgotten the preceding year and a bit, or had lost all sense of how to engage, by looming and leaning over and pressing too close would fuck off. I revisit the context of the last album because it somehow managed to capture the mood in some obtuse way, and when I wrote ‘It’s fucked up. It’s deranged. It hurts,’ I could as easily have been referring to life itself at that point in time.
Screamers is different again. Or, if not so much, different, compressed, compacted, distilled, the intensity amplified by the concision of the tracks.
The crunchy, gnarly bass still dominates, and it’s snarling away and tearing strips straight out of the traps on the frenzied ‘After the Bullfight’. Clocking in at a mere minute and forty-seven seconds, it’s noise rock smooshed down to the tight parameters of grindcore, and with insane amounts of reverb, the stuttering, stammering vocal yelps from Doug Norton, the man behind the ‘Mouth Sounds’ owe an equal debt to Suicide and The Cramps, and this may be the spawning of industrial psychobilly as a new genre. Everything is overloading, the speakers are crackling with megawattage overload, and when ‘Clown in a Housefire’ blasts in, you actually begin to wonder if it’s supposed to sound like this of it your gear’s fucked.
One may cling in references to the Jesus Lizard and all the rest, but really, this sounds like a psychotic reimagining of early Blacklisters – specifically early because of THAT bass racket. But whereas Blacklisters were, and remain, quite song-orientated, at least structurally, Screamers sees Why Patterns take their template and smash the living fuck out of it by throwing it against a brick wall and stomping on it until there is nothing but splattered pulp. None of the songs – I mean, they’re not really songs, more demented blasts of discord played at three hundred miles an hour, all of the instruments playing at angles against and across, rather than with one another, the vocals the sound of a breakdown in real time. And listening to this as bombs and missiles are going off everywhere and no-one knows what is going on anywhere, I fin myself listening to this tumultuous mayhem and thinking ‘yep, they’ve done it again. This is the closest I’ve heard anyone articulate this moment.’ I mean, they don’t really ‘articulate’: as the title suggests, Screamers is a raw, primal scream. It’s a frenzied, lurching, gut-punching racket that rattles the bibs and kicks the balls, hard. Pleasant, it is not. Especially that grungy bass that churns the stomach.
There aren’t really any riffs: it’s just a relentless assault of jarring noise. ‘Nervous Laughter’ brings hints of the latest mclusky album, but does so with menace, malice, and a hint of the unhinged, and following on ‘Wind Up Chattering teeth’ is a minute and six seconds of rabid raving. It’s almost enough to make you want to puke.
Then there’s ‘Club Foot By Kasabian by Blacklisters’. It extends the joke of the original – since the Blacklisters song, ‘Club Foot By Kasabian’ wasn’t a cover, and had nothing to do with Kasabian, and so it is that ‘Club Foot By Kasabian by Blacklisters’ is a minute and a half of squalling, brawling, guitar-led abrasion. It’s somewhat reminiscent of Castrovalva in its deranged intensity, and frenzied, squawking disregard for decency. The title track is fifty-two seconds long. It’s rabid. It has to be heard to be comprehended.
The last track, ‘Buffoons and Barel Organs’ is both the longest and most structurally coherent. ‘Why do I cross the road? Why do I cross the road? Because I’m a fucking chicken!’ Norton hollers amidst a raging tempest of bass and drums.
Screamers is certainly appropriately titled. Every song is a brief but blistering assault. It’s full-on, and will melt your face, and as such, I wholeheartedly recommend it, unless you’re a wuss.
When it comes to formats and the strategies for marketing new releases, it’s clear – particularly in hindsight – that the 90s was the peak period for milking fans with myriad formats, each featuring different mixes or edits, B-sides, and artwork. Now, I am by no means a nostalgia nut, but as a collector, part of me does miss this – particularly when most releases aren’t even available physically anymore, and some aren’t even downloadable. Adding a track your playlist is… nothing.
The latest offering from Glasgow’s wonky lo-fi maestros, Dragged Up, sees a different approach, at least, with an edited version of the A-side being released to streaming platforms but a full-length version available to download via Bandcamp, with the B-side being released a week later, followed by a physical release via the ever-innovative label Rare Vitamin.
You really need the full five-minute version of ‘Blake’s Tape’ to take it all in, to bask in the glory of the epic intro of churning feedback and rumbling discord which eventually gives way to a stomping, rambunctious indie tune which brings in elements of post-punk and folk, a collision of UK 80s and US 90s, and with the verses and choruses sounding like they belong to different songs, the dynamic is strong, switching as it does from nonchalance to pumping energy. And both are magnificently executed.
‘Clachan Dubh’ is a fast-paced, high-energy blast of fizzy guitars and blissfully loose interswitching vocals, and again it’s a collision of Pavement and The Fall plus all the scuzzy indue acts you’d read about in NME and Melody Maker in the early 90s. It’s less a case of them sounding like this band or that band, and more about the way they distil these various zetigeists and amalgamate them into a magnificent alt-rock hybrid which sounds like so much that’s gone before, and at the same time completely unique.
Oh, and they’ve got songs. Great songs. Get stuck in. And maybe go and see them on tour in a small venue in August, because after touring as the support for Steve Malkmus’ new band in the summer, there’s a fair chance they’ll be playing bigger places by this time next year.
Where does the time go? No, really? I’m not just stunned by the fact we’re a week into June already, but the fact that it’s been six years since the last Lower Slaughter album, and nine years since I missed their show in Leeds with Working Man Noise Unit supporting because I was watching Man of Moon play to a nearly empty room across town instead. That’s almost a decade I’ve spent being frustrated by my inability to clone myself, and I find it hard to let these things go.
They’ve undergone some changes since their last outing – changes of the nature which would have terminated, many a band. Their bio traces a raid succession of personnel switches:
Following the departure of long-time vocalist Sinead Young, their surprise return in 2024 saw the remaining former members unveil a new line-up, welcoming James Gardiner to the fold on bass, and with previous bass player Barney Wakefield switching over to vocal duties. Upon Gardiner’s addition, a considerably more expansive sound has emerged, bringing the band’s now recognised output of what the Quietus once referred to as ‘lurching noise-rock’ to new exciting heights, all the while set against an equally more confident and expansive dynamic, reinforced by the chemistry of Graham Hebson and Jon Wood, who remain tighter than ever on drums and guitar respectively.
And so seemingly miraculously, they’re still here. Thus, we arrive at Deep Living, a colossal twelve-track document of the new Lower Slaughter, a release of blistering overload dominated by rolling percussion and thick bass. It’s varied, to say the least, and most certainly does not pursue the most obvious or commercial avenues. It was certainly worth the wait, and we’re most grateful that they are still here. And because it’s being released by Human Worth, 10% of all sales proceeds donated to charity The PANDAs Foundation – a trusted support service for families suffering with perinatal mental illness.
After a good couple of minutes of rolling, tom-driven percussion and muted vocals which sit partially submerged beneath a fat, fuzzed out bass ‘Year of the Ox’ suddenly slams the pedals on and erupts and Wakefield roars in anguish, ‘My eyes! My eyes!’. ‘Take a Seat’ is quite different, more overtly mathy, post-punky, and more accessible overall, despite its hell-for-leather pace and wild energy, and there’s a bit on jangle to altogether mellower ‘The Lights Were Not Familiar’ that’s a shade Pavementy – but it’s Pavement as covered by Fugazi. And the guitars sound loud. In fact, everything on Deep Living sounds loud, and what’s more, the recording and mixing work done by Wayne Adams (Petbrick/Big Lad) captures and conveys that it such a way that it feels loud, like you’re in the room with the backline practically in your face. This is nowhere more apparent than on ‘Dear Phantom’, which has something of a Bug-era Dinosaur Jr vibe to it – and the big grungy riff is magnificent. Then halfway through it goes slow, low, and sludgy – and that’s magnificent too.
Balancing melodic hooks and some quite breezy indie / alt-rock with some hefty, heavier and hugely overdriven passages, Deep Living has some range.
The six-and-a-half-minute ‘Memories of the Road’ is a slow-burning epic that builds to a roaring finish, and makes for a standout cut. It’s a trick they repeat on the title track which brings the album to a close.
In between, ‘Hospital Chips’ brings pace and jittery tension via thumping bass and jarring, sinewy guitars, and straight-up punk brawlers ‘The Bridge’ and ‘Motions’. All the range, but it’s the fact there are tunes galore that make Deep Living a cracking album.
New Hampshire indie rock outfit Replaced by Robots presents ‘Since You Broke My Ouija Board’, a haunted love story where heartbreak crosses over to the other side. The final audio-visual gem showcasing their powerful debut mini-album The Experiment, here we have a surreal blend of eerie visuals, vintage séance aesthetics, and emotional rawness.
The video brings the supernatural fallout of a shattered connection to life. Who knew losing someone could silence the spirits, too? As a bonus, the video begins with ‘The Air of Uncertainty’, an instrumental interlude – a pause to welcome the spirits.
Replaced By Robots formed as a sound and vision laboratory, where they search through the wreckage and noise of modern life to find unusual combinations and create moments of beauty. Goolkasian (The Elevator Drops, The Texas Governor, Lovesick) and Heather Joy Morgan initially met guitar maestro Adam Wade (Funeral Party, The Uprisers) at a Chameleons UK show they hosted in their living room, a fateful meeting that led to the musical chemistry we know as Replaced by Robots.
“’Since you Broke My Ouija Board’ was a spontaneous expression of grief and longing to connect, for Goolkasian broke my antique oujia board, hurling my spirit telephone into oblivion. And I can’t talk to ghosts no more,” says Heather Joy Morgan, adding, “Adam Wade really stretches out on guitar and shines on this track.”
AA
For this album, they worked with legendary producer Paul Q.Kolderie (Pixies, Dinosaur Jr, Throwing Muses, Radiohead) and Josh Hager (Devo, The Elevator Drops), as well as mastering engineer Terry Palmer.
“We got to work with Paul Q. Kolderie, who instinctively did a lot of weird things. He pushed the bass and guitars to the max, giving this record an undeniably glam-era feel and a rhythmic pulse, driving songs like ‘All The Lonely Nights’”, says Goolkasian.
From San Diego, California, Sledges is a four piece Alt-metal/Heavy-shoegaze band that blends genres like grunge, metal, shoegaze, emo/post-hardcore, and alternative to craft songs with catchy hooks and big riffs. The band’s goal is to create emotional/ heavy songs that you can sing along to.
Sledges is Philly Gomez (vocals and guitar), Alex Angulo (bass), Julian Romero (guitar), Mason Haidar (drums).
Sledges’ origin starts in mid 2020 taking place in the area of Chula Vista California. From the boredom and free time during the pandemic Sledges started as a three piece and wasted no time writing original material. During 2020 Sledges recorded and released their first single ‘Melting Lives’ which helped them start playing shows in San Diego and grow a local fan base. The group recorded and released more singles throughout 2021-2023 and added a fourth member to play lead guitar. Some notable singles during that time include ‘Headwinds’ (2022) and ‘Disgusting’ (2023).
In mid 2023 Sledges began to record their EP Losing Pace with Mike Kamoo who engineered, mixed and mastered it at Earthling Studios. Losing Pace is a four track EP that is catchy and ambitious yet heavy. The group took inspiration from bands like The Smashing Pumpkins, Nothing, Sunny Day Real Estate, and Hum with its heavy but lush wall of guitars while adding their own flavor. Sledges experimented with acoustic guitars, melodic choruses, drum samples and My Bloody Valentine-esque leads. The group wanted to simply write strong songs that can stand on their own.
Singer/songwriter Philly Gomez says Losing Pace is about a period when he felt broken from the struggles of balancing life and in the process realizing you are falling apart. With heartfelt lyrics and contagious riffs, Losing Pace was released on May 2nd 2024. With great reception the EP led the band to get signed by the label Quiet Panic and open for larger bands like From Autumn to Ashes, and Ringo Deathstarr.
With grassroots venues closing at an alarming – and depressing – rate, there are fewer and fewer places for bands with a smaller draw, and new acts, to play. Meanwhile, particularly since the pandemic, Working Men’s Clubs have also been in decline or otherwise struggling. But as The Brudenell in Leeds and The Crescent in York have demonstrated, WMC make ideal gig venues, with a well-appointed room with a stage which is simply ideal. And so it is that the organisers of previous all-dayers in York at the now-closed Vaults have scoured the city for a new home, unveiling a brand new ‘Utterly Fuzzled’ stage banner to mark simultaneously a fresh start and a rebirth of sorts.
The advertised lineup included a number of acts who are no strangers to the York scene, or to these virtual pages – certainly solid enough to get me and plenty of others to an out-of-town venue before 4:30pm on a broiling hot Saturday afternoon.
Pete Dale, who also happens to be the guitarist in Knitting Circle, got things going with a solo set of Milky Wimpshake songs, with a couple of covers tossed in for good measure, before Fat Spatula stepped things up with the first full-band set of the occasion.
Every time I see Fat Spatula it’s like experiencing a different band, with different facets of their sound seemingly presenting themselves and pushing through to the fore. Going for a set of high-energy roustabout songs, they’re good fun, and some people dance.
Fat Spatula
Soma Crew start slow with ‘Hey Sister’, and it’s a set that focuses on the mellower, gentler stuff. You never know what you’re going to get with Soma Crew, from lineup to set, but one thing is always assured, and that’s drummer Nick’s T-shirt. About halfway through they finally kick things up a notch with their first Motorik groove, when they come on like Hawkwind playing Sister Ray. It’s not until the last track that they pick up the tempo and let the drone diffing spin out. People don’t dance. It simply wasn’t that kind of set.
Soma Crew
In these troubling times, Knitting Circle’s commitment to being an issues-driven band is something I find both stirring and in no small way quite moving. It shouldn’t seem like a bold thing to be staunchly anti-war and sing about it, but this is seemingly where we are now, and the fact they have some cracking tunes with two and three-way vocals and choppy Gang of Four style guitars makes seeing them an uplifting experience – and they’re consistently good, too.
Knitting Circle
The next couple of acts aren’t local, but they are both absolutely outstanding. Glasgow’s Slime City bring energetic punky tunes, matching zipper tops, and a size nine shoe with knobs on that does something to the guitar. They have a few gimmicks, but they’re worked into the set in a way that’s knowing and humorous without being cringey. And they have TUNES. Said tunes are led by some outstanding drumming – tight, crisp, a bit disco in places. ‘Never Stop Giving Up’ goes a bit poppy, a bit Prince, but more oftentimes, they’re rather reminiscent of Future of the Left.
Slime City
Irked take things to a whole other level: fierce, ferocious, tight, they’re blistering from beginning to end. I didn’t really take any notes during their set. But what’s to say about a band with such a fearsome frontwoman who charges about the room howling a fill-throated roar against a full-throttle twin-guitar attack interspersed with some good-natured between-song banter with a strong North-Eastern twist from the guitarist. The vitriol is real, but so is the fact they have a clear sense of humour.
Irked
Now, the last time I saw Crumbs was a rather difficult night, when they supported Dream Nails. They were great, although their performance was rather eclipsed by subsequent events. It’s a pleasure to see them under more friendly circumstances: they’re good fun, and worthy headliners. There’s more inter-band crossover, as Jamie Wilson who does guitar / synths / vocals for Knitting Circle is also Crumbs’ bassist, and paired with Gem’s easy drumming style. with minimal kit – bass, floor tom, snare, hi-hat – they play straight-up indie that’s accessible and quite simply great fun.
Crumbs
And ultimately, fun is what this is all about. The sense of community is heartwarming. A lot of those present are in bands – and not the bands playing – but there are also plenty of faces often seen at local gig, as well as many who aren’t, but hopefully events like this will entice them out more often. And with a decent enough range of bottled beers at £3.70 ago, and good quality sound throughout, Fulfordgate WMC has strong potential to become a more regular venue. Real credit has to go to Jo Dale, bassist with Knitting Circle, for her curation, organisation, and promotion of such an adventurous DIY event. Here’s to much more Fuzzlement in the future.
mclusky was one of those bands which built a cult following without ever really breaking through in the period they were active, in the period which spanned from 1996-2005. None of the greats are ever appreciated in their time, of course. Their albums would fetch premium prices second-hand, in the years after they called it a day, and my local Oxfam had prohibitively-priced copies of a couple of them for a while, which got progressively more tired and shelf-worn. With Future of the Left, Andrew Falkous found a wider audience while still doing much of the same, but as loved as they became, there was always a sense among fans that ‘they’re bloody brilliant… but they’re not mclusky’.
Of course, nostalgia has a large part to play here, and it’s almost inevitable that practically no second or subsequent band, however popular or successful, will experience the same affection as their forebears, unless, perhaps, they’re The Foo Fighters, in which case that affection is misplaced anyway.
mclusky flirted with occasional comebacks, while Falkous would release solo work as Christian Fitness. But, somewhat unexpectedly, the Wikipedia note on Mcluskyism (2006) that ‘This compilation is, without doubt, the final chapter in Mclusky’s nine-year saga, as Falkous informs in the Mcluskyism liner notes, “that’s it, then. No farewell tour… no premature deaths (at time of writing), no live DVDs…”’ First, there was the EP unpopular parts of a pig in 2023, and now, here we have it: their first full-length album in a full two decades. What has happened? I really don’t know, but seemingly from nowhere, a stack of bands from the Jesus Lizard to Red Lorry Yellow Lorry, have re-emerged with their first new albums in twenty years or more, and they’ve not been some second-rate, tepid late- (or even post-) career cash-ins, but up there with the best of their work.
‘Is it any good?’ people will be asking. ‘Is it as good as the old stuff?’ Anyone who has heard lead single, ‘way of the exploding dickhead’ will probably already be thinking that the answer to both of these questions is in the affirmative, and they would be right. the world is still here and so are we is indeed up there. As they put it, ‘it was important not to cos-play the past but also not to flubbity-flub over everything like a gang of big stupid flubs.’ Yeah,. There’s definitely no flubbing, or flab here. This is lean and full-on, and sheer quality.
It’s ‘unpopular parts of a pig’ which launches the album in a scratchy blast of cutty treble, a skewe(re)d tumult of stop / start angular punk which is frantic and irreverent, compressing elements of Nirvana and Shellac and Butthole Surfers, Dead Kennedys, and the Jesus Lizard into a manic two minutes and twenty-one seconds.
It was often the case, especially in the 70s, 80s, and 90s – before streaming, essentially, but while record company exploitation and the industry gravy train was racing at a seemingly unstoppable pace – that the singles, which would lure you in to buy an album, were the only decent songs on it, and you’d feel pretty bummed and short-changed at having forked out £7.50 for an LP or cassette – unless if had been one of your bonus purchases through Britannia Music – when you might as well have just paid 99p for the 7” and not bothered with the album. This may still be the case in some instances, now that the album format is supposedly dead in the world of the mainstream, where people only stream the songs they know already as part of the playlist they’ll loop for weeks, but beyond the mainstream, it feels like the album is stronger than ever, and acts are committed to making albums which are 100% quality from beginning to end. This certainly rings true for the world is still here and so are we.
Of the album’s thirteen songs, only three are over three minutes in duration, and it feels like there’ve compressed and distilled everything to achieve peak intensity. The bass is absolutely immense, a thunderous boom that dominates the sound, leaving room for Falkous’ guitar to wander and explore sinewy tripwire picked lead parts and discordant textures.
‘people person’ also released as a single, lands with a swagger and showcases a gutsy bass-led groove, while also highlighting the sarcastic, ironical humour and misanthropy that’s integral to both mclusky and FOTL: bursting with pithy one-liners and sharp commentary, it’s everything that makes them so loved and so bloody great. Elsewhere, the more overtly mathy ‘not all the steeplejacks’ channels the spirit of Shellac rather nicely.
the world is still here and so are we is gritty, unpretty, full-throttle, and fiery. It’s a racket. And yes, it’s fucking mint.
It’s still early days for London alternative / progressive metal quartet DAVAAR, formed in the summer of 2024 and with just five shows behind them, but they’ve wasted no time in venturing beyond London in their quest to build a fan-base, or in committing a chunk of their repertoire to tape (so to speak) for the release of this, their debut EP.
Although State of Feeling features four tracks, the title track is an instrumental introduction which is barely a minute long. This is a practice within metal circles that’s become so common as to be predictable and formulaic. It seemed to rise to prominence with the explosion of metalcore’s popularity in the 2010s, and often seemed to be an attempt to cover all bases for the purpose of a wider audience, as if to say ‘listen, we can play, we can do atmospheric and moody and gentle as well as WAAAAUUUGHHHHHH!’. But in doing so, it would often undermine the power of the attacking rage parts.
In fairness, it’s a little different in context of this EP, in that as much as DAVAAR trade in big riffs, their sound is cinematic, melodic, expansive, with clean vocals all the way. And so it is that this opening cut is softly atmospheric, bordering on ambient. A distant beat echoes through the drifting sonic mist. ‘Impulse’ arrives, not on a tidal wave of slugging riffery, but a ripple of picked, reverby guitar, and it’s only after some carefully-crafted build-up does the distortion kick in and the first of the big riffs hits. Even then, everything stays balanced, and the melody remains the focal point, and it’s easy to observe the parallels in their sound with those of their influences and acts they suggest sharing common ground with, including Sleep Token, Tesseract, Leprous, and Deftones.
There’s a lot of attention to detail in the song structures and the overall composition, with high levels of technical adeptness on display. There’s also a lot of polish here, with the end result being that State of Feeling feels fully formed, and DAVAAR’s potential to attain a substantial following is clear.
Based in Minsk, Belarus, two previous albums by alternative metal act Mission Jupiter have hinted at their potential to be one of the few bands from that territory to achieve lift-off worldwide. Having recruited powerhouse singer Kate Varsak prior to writing and recording their upcoming third album, Aftermath, the result is a set of dramatic, epic songs with modern production values that should see them soar.
‘Crippled Country’ is out today as the latest single to be teased from the album, with the band explaining that the song is about “hoping for the best in dark times. When the going gets tough, the tough get going. In times of darkness, do you fight or flee?”
‘Crippled Country’ follows three previously issued singles, with Prog magazine praising ‘Sometimes It Hurts’ as “a soaring slice of uplifting and dramatic melodic prog” and stating that ‘Human Nature’ “displays the far-reaching appeal of a band who mix atmospheric prog, the darker undercurrents of Cocteau Twins and up-tempo alternative metal.” Metal Talk described the same song as being “swamped by wonderful moods and melodies, all wrapped around a stunning female voice.” These initial efforts were followed by ‘Self-Destruction’, the heaviest and punchiest song by Mission Jupiter to date.
Aural Aggravation 