The Australians seem to have a knack for full-throttle, high-energy punk-tinged guitar acts, where there’s a strong focus on fun. They certainly have a long punk heritage down under, with The Saints kicking things off way back in 1973, and their debut single, ‘I’m Stranded’ arriving within weeks of The Damned’s ‘New Rose’. Perhaps it’s the sun and surf, or just the broader culture in Australia which produces bands like this, cutting their teeth in tiny venues and even house parties.
Fun doesn’t have to be dumb, bone-headed or moronic: DZ Deathrays and Mannequin Death Squad are both notable exemplars who’ve proven to be popular exports here in the UK, and to that list we can add Annakye, demonstrating some songwriting savvy and an appreciation of the fact that a strong hook is everything.
‘Headstart’ is two-and-a-half minutes of big, buzzing guitars that shift from driving riffery to lurching stop/start with clattering drums that hammer in hard and paired with a bustling, busy bassline with some punch and bounce, it’s got moshery emanating from every second.
On paper, ‘Two seconds apart / head start’ isn’t much of a hook, but it’s all in the delivery – and repetition goes a long way when it comes to lodging it in your brain. Earworm? Nailed it.
Davide Compagnoni, aka ‘KHOMPA’, has been pushing musical boundaries since the release of his ground-breaking debut album, The Shape of Drums to Come in 2016, featuring an adventurous mix of drumming, electronics and cutting-edge drum triggering technology. The album, featured on Ableton Live and Modern Drummer, introduced this unique audiovisual live project, whose main elements are: a drummer, a conventional drum kit, 3 state-of-the-art drum sensors, a laptop and a stepsequencer. Each drum controls a virtual musical instrument (synthesizers, samplers, arpeggiators, etc.) within Ableton Live music software that, in combination with a custom stepsequencer developed with MaxforLive app, allows Davide to perform real melodies/electronic orchestration without the use of any backing track. 100% live. In addition to that, he also uses a microphone set up in the middle of the drumkit to capture the dynamics of the acoustic drums and translate them through ‘envelope followers’ into electronic parts in several ways.
KHOMPA’s second album, Perceive Reality, which followed in 2022, saw the further integration of audio and visual components, with AI-generated 3D visuals created by Riccardo Franco-Loiri (alias Akasha) all triggered and modulated live from the drumkit.
Tre Trigger Contro Tre Trigger is a companion piece to Perceive Reality, drawing on the same technology but venturing into a more trance-inducing territory, with oscillating synths snaking around a pulsating, primal drumbeat, rising in pitch to a cathartic peak.
The video for ‘Tre Trigger Contro Tre Trigger’ is a 100% live performance where all the sounds and visuals were triggered in real time with KHOMPA’s drum kit as a reflection of the punk/chaotic/hypnotic energy of the song. The piece is also the closing track of the live performance "Perceive Reality A/V" that the artist is currently playing in festivals, cinemas and clubs in Italy. In the video, words that seem to be extracted from a manifesto of perceptual dissociation bounce off the screen activated and distorted by the drum kit itself.
Watch the video for ‘Tre Trigger Contro Tre Trigger’ here:
I have mentioned – more than once – that I’m not fan of punk pop. But I am a strong believer in that there are two kinds of music – good and bad – and that there are exponents of both in any genre. A quote that sticks in my mind is Morrissey’s declaration that ‘all reggae is vile’. Now, I’m no fan of reggae, but that doesn’t mean that reggae is shit, it simply means that most reggae is not to my taste – but then there are reggae-flavoured songs and bands I absolutely fucking love, from The Special to The Ruts, not to mention some of Bauhaus’ dub/reggae dabblings. But vile? I suppose this was one of those early hints that Morrissey was a racist twat, along with his comments about needing to be black to get on Top of the Pops or whatever it was. Only back in the mid-80s, it was simply viewed as being niggardly, misanthropic, and contentious because it made good press.
I know absolutely nothing about the band, or the release: this is one of those CDs that just arrived through my letterbox. Some people would worry about how people find their email address or whatever, but I’ve come to be comfortable with people sending me stuff, because, well, as long as it’s downloads and CDs and books, rather than death threats, it’s a good thing.
Bed of Snakes definitely sit at the punkier end of the spectrum, rather than the poppier end. and it’s an instant grab with ‘Bridge to Nowhere’. It has the drums right up front and centre, the guitars crackle with crunch and big speaker volume, and the vocals are lower in the mix than the mixed-for-radio stabs at success that’s depressingly commonplace. There is, to my ear, nothing more irritating than clean vocals at the top of the mix on a tune that purports to be punk… and even in general. Mix really does matter, and with guitar-based music, the vocals should sit in it, rather than dominate, way above it. Too much vocal just sounds… wrong. But this, this is perfect, And those vocals are gritty, full-throated, raw, they grab you, and they’re riven with energy and sincerity.
‘Over You’ slumps into middling mediocrity and it would take far longer than the song’s two minutes and thirty-seven seconds to list the bands it sounds like. For me, it’s two and a half minutes of wondering why. Why do something so derivative? Why, when you can clearly do so much better, be so much more exciting? I suspect that radio play is the goal. Let’s write the tune that could get radio play, guys! I get the rationale, but no-one wins here.
But they’re back hard and heavy on the closer, ‘Stolen Moments’. As on ‘’Bridge too Nowhere’, the guitars are big and gritty, and the sound is dense and there’s a punchy, passionate edge that feels real. And two outta three ain’t bad: Bed of Snakes have proved that they’ve got guts and grit, and some knack for riff-driven tunes. Let’s have some more!
Amphetamine Reptile Records – 16th July 2023 (CD, DL) / 23rd July 2023 (LP)
Christopher Nosnibor
The late 80s and early 90s were my time in terms of musical discovery. Door seemed to open door seemed to open door… and these were exciting times, too. There was a lot happening, and a lot of it was noisy. While endless column inches were given to Sub Pop – and not wrongly – two other labels stood out to me at this time: Touch and Go, and Amphetamine Reptile, the former home to the likes of Shellac, and Girls Against Boys, the latter, Cows, Helmet, Tar, Dwarves, and the mighty Melvins. It’s hard to overstate the importance of these labels at the time. But latterly, Sub Pop turned pop, releasing fay indie by Fleet Foxes, while cranking out reissues of the albums that put them on the map as the home of the ‘Seattle Sound’, and Touch and Go reduced its roster significantly few years after The Butthole Surfers hauled them to court over (lack of) contractual issues, releasing only a handful of more commercially-orientated artists in recent years.
And then there’s AmRep. They’ve kept on doing what they do. The label never put out masses of releases per year, and perhaps that’s been a factor in its sustainability, focusing on curation. That, and the fact that The Melvins’ output alone is enough to keep the label both busy and afloat. A label dedicated to alternative and noise rock, Mr.Phylzzz are right at home here.
Fat Chance, the third album from Mr.Phylzzz, and which swiftly follows its 2022 predecessor, Cancel Culture Club, promises a ‘a distinct tonal shift while staying true to the band’s signature style’ and ‘an unrelenting, dynamically charged experience, described by the band as their most straightforward and focused record yet.’
It was recorded at Electrical Audio studios, a fact which speaks for itself, and the tracks were laid in just four days. Having road-tested the material in advance, the recordings capture a big, dense live sound and a real sense of immediacy. And there is very much a sense not only of focus, but of purpose, which radiates from the songs, and the sound quality and production is much improved but with no loss of power. Squalling noise and cacophony has yielded to tight structures and slugging grooves.
‘Pontiac Grand-Am’ brings blistering slabs of guitar and pumping drums, driven by a wild energy, and it’s one hell of a way to start an album. With Clinton Jacob’s yelping vocal style, I’m reminded of Electric Six and Pulled Apart by Horses, although it’s the latter they clearly bear the closer overall sonic resemblance. But the difference is that this mad, manic chaos of noise is created by just two guys instead of a full band. And this is a mad, manic noise that takes no breathers. The majority of the songs are two-and-a-half to three-and-a-half minutes long and are defined by absolutely piledriving riffs.
‘Maybe’ takes what starts out sounding like a fairly standard Nirvana-inspired riff and then chops it into a jarring, stuttering churn. The first six songs are crammed into sixteen eye-popping minutes without a second’s let-up, and it leaves you panting, your heart palpating.
And then there’s the obligatory long song to bring the curtain down, and the seven-minute ‘Pick Scrape’ delivers what it says on the tin, an experimental instrumental with a pick scape that builds through a series of crashing crescendos, something that’s somewhere between no-wave and avant-garde jazz, and one hundred percent racket.
If stylistically, Fat Chance has its roots in grunge and the noise rock sound of the 90s, it’s also an extremely contemporary album, and not just on account of duos being very much en vogue (although as likely a fashion borne out of practicality and necessity in terms of logistics and finances in this direst period of capitalism yet, which finds the artist at the bottom of the pile when it comes to making their work pay). Sonically, and in terms of its delivery, and its all-out, in-yer-face attack, Fat Chance is an album of the now – and it’s a blinder.
It’s been a while since I attended one of these short Sunday matinee shows, but last time I did – last spring, when Snakerattlers launched their album – I was absolutely sold on the concept of a band or two and a couple of pints after Sunday lunch. Dan Gott – of Snakerattlers, JUKU, and gig promoters Behind the White Door – is one of those people who likes to do something different, and it’s great to see him coming back to this idea.
Since the last time I came to one of these, a lot has happened, and now being a single parent to a primary-school age daughter and with no relatives on the county makes getting out on a night nigh on impossible, so this offered me a rare opportunity to get out for beer and live music. I’m clearly not the only one who digs the short matinee format, with around fifty punters occupying the dark space rather than basking in the beer garden.
Before the show, the partner of one of the guys from Wasted Denim is explaining to their kids, sensibly sporting ear defenders, the process of the soundcheck, and there’s something warming about this kind of environment, and speaks volumes about the bands, the venue, and the organisers.
It’s good for bands, too, opening up the possibility of playing two shows in a day, getting paid twice, and selling merch to two sets of punters. Or simply to get home ein decent time ahead of dayjobs the following morning.
Wasted Denim’s singer has a Black Flag tattoo and the drummer is wearing a Bad Religion T-shirt. The Leeds trip piledrive through the songs – fast, short, Ramones meets The Clash meets The Ruts, all with a gritty hardcore edge – with zeal, blurring together only separated by a call of ‘onetwothreefour!’ Songs like ‘You’re Gross’ and ‘I don’t Wanna be a Dickhead’, introduced as a song about personal wealth, aren’t works of lyrical genius by any stretch, but that’s not what punk’s about. It’s immediate, it’s raw. And they’re as tight as hell. Sure, they only have one tempo – fast – and four chords, but more is just showing off anyway. The set gets faster as it progresses. They’re fun, and seem like decent guys, too.
Wasted Denim
I’d been forewarned that JUKU would be seriously loud, threatening ‘Thunderclap drumming, distorted to holy fuck guitars, massive riffs and a clean feminine vocal cutting through the massive wall of noise.’ With Snakerattlers Dan and Naomi Gott on guitar and bass/vocals respectively, this relatively new quartet are a world away from the duo’s reverb-heavy swamy psychedelic surf-rock. There’s no twang or space to longer here: every second is pure density, the sonic equivalent of driving headlong into a brick wall.
JUKU
And yes, they’re loud as fuck. Opener ‘Hot Mess’ opener is a throbbing stomper of a tune, with monster big balls and massive swagger. ‘Pressure’ ups the pace and the adrenaline. ‘Trigger’ shows a more sensitive side, and more of a pop aesthetic, but it’s still propelled by a monster riff and pulsating rhythm section. Naomi’s vocals are a strong asset – gutsy, but nuanced. ‘I’m no fun’, she sings on ‘No Fun’, which is absolutely storming, and it so happens, a lot of fun. Sharing vocal duties back and forth on ‘We Don’t Belong’, Dan screams his lines adding another layer of dynamics, while ‘Devil Inside’ exploits quiet / loud grunge dynamics to strong effect, before ending the set with the 100mph ‘No No.’
JUKU
At times, New York punk and No Wave leanings come to the fore in a set that’s driving, hard-edged, aggressive. Boasting solid hooks and blistering energy, it’s mint, and Dan taking advantage of being wireless and taking his guitar around the venue as he chugs out beefy chords adds to the energy. They kick out nine songs in twenty-five high-impact minutes. In terms of the set’s structure, it’s faultless: if they record these nine songs and release them in this order, they’ve got a killer album on their hands already. The world needs to hear it.
The Venomous Pinks fight against abortion bans in their newest release, “We Must Prevail”. In collaboration with Eternal Film Productions, and directors Nikki Carmela and Alexander Thomas, the Arizona-based band delivers an unforgettable visual response to the overturning of Roe v. Wade.
Staked full of social commentary, a distraught Lady Liberty gripping a bloody wire coat hanger, acts as a narrator of the video. Through music, The Pinks lead an angry mob of pro-choice protesters who demand immediate change. Symbolizing the injustice many Americans are currently facing, destruction overtakes the infamously engraved words “equal justice under law” that’s displayed above the United States Supreme Court entrance. With anti-abortion laws on the rise, this politically charged anthem encourages the masses to rally for reproductive rights.
Directors Alexander Thomas and Nikki Carmela (known collectively as “Eternals”) have issued the following statement:
“The right to choose is a human rights issue at its core. We stand vehemently against oppression in all forms and appreciate the opportunity to voice our dissent using art. When we first conceptualized this video we based it on a series of photographs we had created when Roe was initially repealed depicting Lady Liberty, bloodied from a coat hanger abortion to represent the current tidal shift of our society. The images, although disturbing, represent the reality that with abortion bans healthcare has been pushed back decades. Combined with images of the Supreme Court house cracking (a blatant metaphor for the disintegration of the “highest law in the land” who’s building is emboldened with the phrase “Equal Justice Under Law”) and the electric music of The Venomous Pinks this video is a protest to abortion bans and the assault of women’s rights.”
Guitarist/vocalist Drea Doll adds, "The government does not have the right to tell a woman what she should be doing with her own body. To quote Angela RoseRed (Photographer/Writer) ‘Angered by the misogynist men who forcefully shove religion into our uterus.’"
The band will be touring Europe this summer with Bad Cop/Bad Cop followed by a U.S. run with Less Than Jake and The Toasters.
Watch the video here:
AA
Photo: Jack Grisham
The Venomous Pinks On Tour
Europe with Bad Cop/Bad Cop followed by a US run with Less Than Jake & The Toasters
July 27 • DE, Hamburg • Hafenklang (SOLD OUT) *
July 28 • DE, Berlin • Cassiopeia *
July 29 • DE, Goldenstedt • Afdreiht un Buten *
July 30 • DE, Essen • Don’t Panic *
August 1 • DE, Stuttgart • JuHa West*
August 2 • DE, Wiesbaden • Schlachthof*
August 3 • DE, Hanover • Faust*
August 4 • DE, Cologne • Helios37 (SOLD OUT)*
August 5 • BE, Duffel • Brakrock Ecofest*
August 6 • NL, Utrecht • De Helling (SOLD OUT)*
August 8 • CH, Zurich • Dynamo*
August 10 • SI, Tolmin • Punk Rock Holiday (SOLD OUT)*
August 12 • DE, Munich • Strom*
August 13 • IT, Rimini • Bay Fest
August 21 • Seattle, WA • Showbox + ^
August 22 • Portland, OR • Revolution Hall + ^
August 23 • Medford, OR • Johnny B’s ^
August 24 • San Francisco, CA • Great American Music Hall + ^
There’s something of a tightness around the noise scene , especially around a nexus of London acts who swap members for side projects and collaborations on a remarkably frequent basis. This is a good thing, for while all of these projects share much common ground, each offers something distinctive and unique, too, a different twist or angle from the others.
Human Worth has given a home to a number of releases from acts which have emerged from this mini-melting pot, notably recent output from Remote Viewing and Fucking Lovely. And now they’re really spoiling us with the latest endeavours from The Eurosuite, who, their bio informs us ‘consist of 4 lovely people who make disquieting no wave songs that will equally pierce your ear drums and move your hips’ and whose ‘previous musical endeavours include USA Nails, Nitkowski, Screen Wives and Mister Lizard.
What Sorry has in common with both the Remote Viewing and Fucking Lovely releases is, that like most Human Worth releases, it’s noisy. It’s also absolute class.
But it’s also very different, with electronic elements not only incorporated, but highly prominent. The first track, ‘Cup of Water’ is sparse and atmospheric, with glitchy mechanised drums bouncing about, and it’s intriguing and really quite gentle – and then they bring the noise with ‘BODY’ where it really does all kick off – and kick off it does, with frenetic drums and guitars blasting away like crazy.
The electro/noise rock crossover is unusual – while they’re by no means the first act to do it, their approach means they don’t really sound like anyone else, not least of all because the range across the album’s span is quite remarkable. Noisy as it is, the noise is quite contained for the most part, or otherwise countered by the synths to conjure an equilibrium of sorts – or, at times, a jarring, jolting contrast.
‘Seven’ showcases just how hard it can hit when everything’s cranked up and going full-tilt, but then again, ‘LIB’ throbs and pounds and nags like a melding of DAF’s ‘Der Mussolini’ with I Like Trains’ latest output, but as performed by Big Black. They leap and lurch between jarring, jolting blasts to rather more accessible structures, and I’m variously reminded of Killing Joke, Selfish Cunt, and Daughters – the latter not least of all because of the manic energy and intensity, as well as the skewed angular noise that cuts across the rhythm section.
‘Total’ throws it all into the mix as it goes big on a mathy post-punk vibe while packing on some dense guitars and thudding bass into its two-minute duration, with hints of …Trail of Dead, and again, it positively crackles with a frenetic energy. The last song, ‘The Dream’ is truly climactic, an explosion of squalling guitars, thudding drums and sparking electricity.
Sorry is an album of contrasts, of variety, and an album that doesn’t give a fuck for genre or convention. For these reasons, Sorry is an exciting album. It’s an album that doesn’t sit still for a second, and it’s impossible to predict where it’s going to go from one bar to the next, never mind one minute to the next. It’s dizzying, but also – to use a phrase popular in the tabloid press – jaw-dropping. Sorry is a sonic frenzy and endlessly inventive, and if it leaves you feeling punch-drunk and giddy by the end – Sorry, not sorry.
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.
On witnessing Hull band Ketamine Kow playing live low on the bill supporting Mannequin Death Squad a little while ago, I found myself feeling exhilarated and fully charged by the raw energy of the performance and 100% sold on their punk energy, and I wrote as much after the fact. So it’s nice to see my enthusiastic comments repeated in the press release for their new single, ‘Shoe Shopping’, and it certainly doesn’t disappoint.
A nervous, but soft jangling guitar yields to a welter of everything going off all at once and at a hundred miles an hour and they charge headlong into a raucous blast of driving alternative rock that channels post-punk and grunge as much as it does classic vintage punk, while Adam Stainforth rants about uncomfortable shoes.
If that sounds like facetious fluff, it’s far from it, and Stainforth’s explanation of the song’s subject matter shows a depth and reflection that may not be immediately apparent based on first impressions:
“The song battles with the idea of gender identity being a lot like a pair of shoes,” he says. If you have a good comfortable well-fitting pair, then you don’t think about it and as you walk about you aren’t constantly thinking about your shoes and their comfort. But if your shoes are too small, or there’s a pebble in them, it’s all you can think about. Every step is annoying and you don’t want to do anything else until you fix the problem and your shoes stop hurting. So, I think in that sense most people probably can’t conceptualise the feeling of their gender well, because it just fits right and always has – and therefore it’s hard to imagine how all the small, normal things just constantly feel wrong, even if you are alone in your home.”
Put simply, there’s more than just all-out attack happening here, although the full-throttle, furious delivery is, unquestionably, a major draw. With the momentum they’ve built – and the speed at which they’ve gained it – this year, 2023 is looking like being a stormer for Ketamine Kow.
Following on from big-hitting introductions in the form of single releases ‘A Working Class Lad’, Manchester’s The Battery Farm hit us with their debut album, Flies.
They describe it a ‘an album about end times fear and societal breakdown. It is an album that tries to come to terms with the violent world we find ourselves in, and tries to reconcile with an uncertain future in world that we have decimated. It’s about the endless, screaming noise of 21st Century living and the squalid claustrophobia that entails. Driven by fury, black humour, compassion and a desire for hope.’
These are all things I’m on board with: it’s essentially a list of the top things that gnaw away at my psyche and my soul on a daily basis. Because to live in the world right now is to live and breathe all shades of anxiety.
Some people – mostly right-wing wankers and idiots on social medial, especially Twitter – like to jeer and poke fun at those who intimate any kind of panic over the state of things, laughing their arses off at those who perpetuated ‘project fear’ and the so-called ‘remoaners’ and scoffing at the idea that this year’s heatwave is anything to do with climate change citing the summer of ’76. But these are the same tossers who whine about health and safety and speed limits as being symptomatic of a ‘nanny state’, and also the same tossers whose kids will die after swallowing batteries or burn the house down lighting fireworks indoors.
What I’m saying is that anyone who isn’t scared is either beyond oblivious or in denial. The world is literally on fire and drowning at the same time. Fittingly, Flies is an album of contrasts, both in terms of mood and style. There are fiery, guitar-driven flamers and more introspective compositions which are altogether more subdued and post-punk in their execution.
The title track is but a brief introduction, a rushed, desperate spoken work piece set against – at first – a tense bass and a growing tide of swelling drums and guitars that in just over a minute ruptures into a full-on flood of rage. Distilling years of anguish into a minute and a half, it’s got hints of Benefits about it, and then we’re into the snaking groove of ‘A Working Class Lad’, that sees The 80s Matchbox B-Line Disaster collide with The Anti-Nowhere League in a gritty, gutsy punk blast with a surfy undercurrent.
It’s the combination of gritty synth bass and live bass guitar that drives the sound of the album. The former snarls, while that latter thuds, and in combination they pack some serious low-end punch in the way that Girls Against Boys and Cop Shoot Cop did. The synth gyrations also lend the sound a tense, robotic edge that gives it both a certain danceable bounce while at the same time heightening the anxiety of the contemporary, that sense of the dystopian futures so popular in science fiction are in fact our current lived reality.
‘In the Belly of the Beast’ is a stuttering blast of warped funk. In contrast, ‘Everything Will Be Ok’ is altogether more minimal, with hushed spoken word verses reminiscent of early Pulp, and tentative, haunting choruses which exude a subtle gothic vibe. And it all builds slowly, threatening a climax which never arrives. But then ‘Poet Boy’ drives at a hundred miles an hour and burns hard and fast to its finale in three and a half minutes.
‘DisdainGain’ comes on like Motorhead at their grittiest and most rampant, and again shows just how broad The Battery Farm’s palette is. By their own admission, they draw on elements of ‘Punk, Hardcore, Post Punk, Krautrock, Glam and Funk’, and one of the key strengths of Flies is its diversity – although its range does not make for a lack of coherence or suggest a band who haven’t found their identity, by any means. What’s more, the diversity is matched by its energy, its passion, and its sheer quality. Full of twists and turns and inspired moments of insight, Flies is a bona fide, ball-busting killer album. Fact.
Aural Aggravation 