Posts Tagged ‘EP Review’

A Shoreline Dream – Waitout

Posted: 25 August 2018 in Singles and EPs
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Latenight Weeknight Records – 6th July 2018

Stuart Bateman

“I have been developing this story for 3 years now. A science fiction romance gone wrong, where two astronauts finding a spark for each other get thrown into an unexpected event that puts the two into a fight for survival. With a hallucinatory and confusing vibe, the visuals follow along with the theme of the lyrics, where when you wait for something to happen, that time sometimes backfires and creates a situation that is far from ideal”, says Ryan Policky., front man with Colorado-based shoegaze proponents A Shoreline Dream.

While the accompanying video conveys the concept directly, how this translates in musical form is another matter, although it’s fair to say the chiming, reverby, effects-drenched guitars convey the concept, at least in an abstract form.

The title track builds through shimmering latticeworks of echo and reverb into a scorching crescendo of overdriven, melting guitar noise that calls to mind ‘Nowhere’ era Ride and MBV. There are some echoes of The Cure, too, lurking in a song that twists and turns and bucks and burns, slow but effervescent. ‘In the Ready Sound’ surprises with a sudden explosion of throbbing bass near the end, and while the remainder lacks the soaring power and drive, what the songs do offer is quintessential 90s shoegaze delivered with real aplomb: ‘New York’ offers layered harmonies and big guitars over a baggy beat. It’s very much about the atmosphere; the guitars are diffused in a sonic gauze. It doesn’t grab your attention, but drifts by like high-stratosphere clouds in a summer sky.

‘Projections’ finishes the EP in sturdy style, a walloping big drum beat driving a gothy, post-punk take on the shoegaze template and building a dark tension that contrasts with the breezy hues that dominate the EP overall. The contrasts and mood changes make the EP, indicating the work of a band with range and depth.

AA

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Argonaut – The New Argonaut EP

Posted: 15 August 2018 in Singles and EPs
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7th September 2018

Christopher Nosnibor

Argonaut are back with a new line-up and a new EP. You’d never guess from the title about there being a new EP. Having booked the studio for eight hours, the whole session was wrapped in six, with ‘minimal overdubs or embellishments’ as they put it. This honest, unlaboured approach gives the songs a directness and urgency which is integral to the appeal here.

All clocking in at between two and a half and three minutes, the four tracks on Argonaut’s latest offering are punchy, spiky, and with uncluttered arrangements and lo-fi production values, are perfect examples of punk/new wave crossover, delivered with the zeal of riot grrrl and grunge. And it’s great fun.

The band indulge their pop tendencies with a gloriously joyful rendition of Strawberry Switchblade’s ‘Since Yesterday’ (they do quite a line in covers, as it happens). It’s faithful to the original, but where the original was a shade twee, their take is free, vaguely ramshackle, and has a superbly messy guitar sound fizzing away.

With guitarist Nathan sharing the vocal duties on ‘March!’ – which is built around a simple, cyclical chord sequence played jangly and off-kilter – they come on like Brix-era Fall, and it’s the exuberance that crackles from ‘Girl Talk’ that pretty much serves to define the spirit of the EP.

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Weekend Recovery – In the Mourning

Posted: 11 August 2018 in Singles and EPs
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27th September 2018

Christopher Nosnibor

They’re still touring their debut album, Get What You Came For and already Weekend Recovery are moving on with a new EP that marks another step in their ever-advancing evolution.

If the album saw them ditch the Kerrang-radio-friendly Paramore-influenced alternative rock of their early efforts in favour of a more direct, punk style (nevertheless marked by a pop sass that passed a nod to Blondie), this latest effort finds Weekend Recovery get grittier and grungier. And once again, it’s a move for the better, and while it may not exactly be garage but more grunge, it is full-tilt and raw, while also benefitting from a fuller sound that showcases the material to best effect.

The band haven’t been around that long in real terms – I first caught them a couple of years ago in a basement bar in Leeds, and they were good, but clearly still searching for their identity, although Lauren came on like a star in the making, rocking up in a faux-fur coat and ready to kick ass. And not only live but on record, she’s really evolved as a performer, and behind the scenes, as an artist. The same goes for the rest of the band, too: this is solid and assured, and everything about In the Mourning marks a progression.

They’ve dug deep for this, and the press release points out that ‘Lori has doubled down on the transparent window into her own turbulent world that ‘Anyway’ [from the album] provided with a formidable and resonating track in ‘I’m Not That Girl’. The song in question finds the band mining an almost country seem albeit amped up to eleven with driving guitars dominating the chorus of this gut-spilling reflective confessional.

But it’s the choppy ‘Bite Your Tongue’ that grabs the attention as the EP’s opener, a thumping four-square bassline underpinning a quintessential grunge dynamic of chiming chorus-soaked verse guitar and overdriven chorus. And they totally nail it, with a hefty, heads-down riffcentric mid-section. Beneath the breezy woah-oh-oh-oh chorus, there’s a tension that’s both sonic and emotional, and the title track steps it up a couple of notches, propelled by a twisted disco groove that drives an explosive chorus. The guitars are up-front and meaty, and Lauren’s delivery balances melody with a raw passion that comes from churning internal anguish that has to find an outlet.

In the Mourning sees Weekend Recovery take another leap into forging their own identity, growing bolder and braver and more confident. Where they’ll be in another 18 months… I’m on the edge of my seat to see.

AA

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Haq – Antics In A Maze EP

Posted: 8 August 2018 in Singles and EPs
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Bearsuit Records – 14th July 2018

Christopher Nosnibor

The Bearsuit philosophy is, to the best of my understanding, essentially built round a l’aissez-faire approach to experimentalism and collaboration. Stuff happens, when it happens, as it happens. Sometimes it happens without input or collaboration. And it’s all fine as long as it’s not mainstream. Truth is, nothing any of the Bearsuit acts could produce in a million lifetimes would ever even hint at mainstream aspirations. The reason I’ve been a personal advocate of the label and its output for a while now is simply because they do what they so, and don’t give a crap about trends, commercialism, or anything else. As I wrote the other day, albeit in a slightly different context: it’s for the love, not the money.

The label’s latest release sees Haq (the alter-ego of another Bearsuit would-be legend, Harold Nono) return. Five years on from the ‘Nocturnals’ album, this EP offers three remixes frm the album, plus two new cuts.

Lead track ‘Antics in a Maze’ moves far beyond the avant-trip-hop leanings of its predecessor and froths with fanciful flights of incongruity, and brims with an air of otherness. Breathy vocals waft over drifting, trilling swathes of gauze-like synth, crossed with bursts of odd electronica, deep dub and driving drum ‘n’ bass. Warped snippets of thee tunes for fictional TV shows and films from the 70s and 80s emerge fleetingly for the ever-shifting compositional aneurysm.

‘Norvell’ is the second new cut: with sonorous, brooding synths and rich, layered strings that sweep and tug at the tear ducts, as well as percussion that simultaneously clatters and thunders, it’s a dissonant and haunting work that straddles industrial, goth and shoegaze, with hints of Cranes and a messed-up air of dark beauty about its detached, haunting evocativeness.

The remixes are varied, in terms of style, interest and significance – but at least they are varied. Senji Niban’s remix of ‘Are You the Elephant’ thumps along insistently, a far cry from the slightly eerie, chilled original, while The Autumna remix of ‘Bees in My Feet’ is but a humming drone that’s elevated above ambience by virtue of maintaining a pitch that’s impossible to ignore, however hard you may try.

There’s nothing ordinary about the music on this EP, and while it’s bewildering at times – as you’d reasonably expect from Bearsuit – it also contains moments of extreme elegance and grace which are spellbinding.

AA

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Cannibal Animal – A Decline in Morality

Posted: 29 April 2018 in Singles and EPs
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Warren Records – 16th March 2018

Christopher Nosnibor

We think we may have mentioned Cannibal Animal once or twice before here on Aural Aggro – and there’s a very good reason for this: the Hull band make a dark, dense, swampy post-punk racket that owes as much to The Cramps and The Volcanoes as anyone else, on account of the serpentine lead guitars and reverb-soaked surf sound. With a thunderous rhythm section, it’s more like surfing a tsunami than coasting on the crest of a wave, mind. Throw in a dollop of early 90s underground noise – think in particular early Therapy? And you’ve got the measure. Their latest offering, ‘A Decline in Morality’ is a belter. As if lead single ‘Ellipsisism’ didn’t already demonstrate it already.

The band explain that ‘Lyrically these songs are about the moral compass of specific fictional characters’, with ‘Lack of Skin’ turning focus to ‘the candle burning nymphomaniac’. If ever a track distilled a potent blend of tripwire tension and a loose, near-tribal groove, it’s this one, with bone-rattling beats and a fat, fuzzy bass driving a fury of guitar bathed in cavernous echo. The effect is one of terrifying entrapment, but edged with a twist of sleaze.

The desperation and anxiety that drives the band’s work has hit critical mass here: it’s less about sonic density and thick, overdriven guitars, and more about scorching, wild-eyed mania. And I can’t recall the last time I heard a conventional fade-out…

https://open.spotify.com/embed/track/2gS3ogYcsSaW67jmKTcLAz

AA

Cannibal Animal -Decline

Thomas Ragsdale – Under Dwellers

Posted: 13 March 2018 in Singles and EPs
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This is it Forever – 12th March 2018

Christopher Nosnibor

Ok, I’m biased. Thomas Ragsdale’s work as one half of worriedaboutsatan and Ghosting Season has enthused me for over a decade now, and his solo work, too, has consistently mesmerised and enthralled me. This isn’t just journo gush: his work is rich and immersive and simply never disappoints. His latest offering, the three-track ‘Under Dwellers’ EP is no exception.

The BandCamp blurb describes it as ‘Three pieces of music paying tribute to the world beneath our own’, and goes on to describe how ‘Acid lines are fed through tape echo and back into a reel to reel machine… Randomised synth arps clatter around unpredictably inside a distortion unit… Crumbling piano melodies faintly cry out over the hiss and hum of modern circuits… Sounds made by a human, but with no control. Music for beneath the grit and surface of our modern world’.

Ragsdale translates all of these things into something more than pitch, more than process jargon, and presents a set of atmospheric, semi-ambient compositions, rich in tone and texture, and which utterly envelop the listener.

There is little point in detailing either the structure or sound of the individual pieces, or much else for that matter. Dark clouds drift and scrape, twist and turn and swell to fill the air. Yet There is depth, and above all a certain intangible grip and pull here. One listens. One reacts. One feels it, somehow, subliminally, a head-tingling, gut-pulling soundwork.

AA

Thomas Ragsdale - Under Dwellers

Hundred Year Old Man – Rei (EP)

Posted: 1 January 2018 in Singles and EPs
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Gizeh Records / Wolves & Vibrancy Records – 26th January 2018

Christopher Nosnibor

With the follow-up to ‘Black Fire’, Leeds doom behemoths threaten to go ‘even further into the abyss’ with this three-tracker, built around two towering monoliths. And while they continue to mine the seam of bone-crushingly heavy sludge showcased on their debut release, this new offering vastly expands the territory and reveals new depths, new range, and a real appreciation of texture and tonality.

‘Sun & Moon’ begins gently, an atmospheric drone evolves to a swirling sonic mist. The beat is sedate. And then the first power chords tear through it all and shred it to obliteration. The mangled, grainy metal overload, booming bass, and the gut-wrenching vocal combine to devastating effect, and the contrasts accentuate the power of the seemingly opposing elements as they pull not apart, but together, surging in sonic tidal waves. The track calls to mind Prurient in the way soft, graceful notes – the synths border on shoegaze as they wash and ripple lines of melody – are juxtaposed with truly savage noise and violent abrasion, making for six and a half minutes of compelling and hyper-intense listening.

Intensity isn’t all about duration, through, and while Hundred Year Old Man are very much an act for whom the expansive is their favoured territory, they prove here that they’re equally capable of condensing the force and atmosphere into more succinct compositions. ‘A Year in the North Sea’ may be but an interlude piece, but with dense, rumbling towers sound building around swelling organs and soaring choral voices, it forges drama on a scale of Karl Orff’s ‘Oh! Fortuna’, before twittering birdsong is carried into the distance on a solar wind.

All of this is just prelude, however, to the title track, the nine-minute ‘Rei’, a work of crushing weight and monumental enormity in every dimension. While the Neurosis comparisons are as just as they are inevitable, the mid-section locks into a bass-driven loop that grinds like Swans circa 1984, battering at the senses and bludgeoning the listener with brutal repetition and an overwhelming density of sound. Paul Broughton’s voice is a raw-throated howl of infernal anguish, the lyrics inaudible and impenetrable, but the delivery conveying more than mere words ever could, articulating a primal pain.

AAA

Hundred Year Old Man – Rei (EP)

Chalk Hands – Burrows & Other Hideouts

Posted: 17 August 2017 in Singles and EPs
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Future Void Records – 25th August 2017

James Wells

The pedant in me – and he’s a dominant, sarcastic brawling bastard – asks if two tracks with a combined running time of just over eight minutes really constitutes an EP. The same pedant also wonders if post-rock and post-hardcore can really sit together as a hybrid genre.

The debut release by Brighton’s Chalk Hands makes him shut the fuck up. These two cuts – ‘Burrows’ and ‘Arms’ – are both brutal and beautiful in equal measure. The guitars shift between delicate chiming notes and driving power chords, the vocals a nihilistic snarl of rage amidst the tempest.

According to the band’s bio, they’ve been compared to Pianos Become The Teeth, Caspian, and Envy. Because I’m old and because it’s impossible to know every inch of every microgenre or even every genre, I don’t know any of these bands, but instead draw from a sphere of reference that includes Profane and Andsoiwatchyoufromafar, and comparisons to both are favourable in the case of Chalk Hands. However, they also reference MONO and Russian Circles, and yes, they hold up nicely against them too.

On ‘Burrows’ in particular, Chalk Hands build some awesome crescendos from delicate, rippling washes of clean, chorused guitars, presenting an impressive dynamic and emotional range.

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Salvation Jayne – Moves That Make the Record Skip

Posted: 10 June 2017 in Singles and EPs
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2nd June 2017

Christopher Nosnibor

The digital generation may be unfamiliar with the experience of leaping around their bedrooms to favourite tunes, only for their exuberance to result in the needle skipping a groove or two. While it’s unlikely to cause any damage to either the vinyl or the stylus, it has a way of disrupting the flow and making you feel like a bit of a buffoon. There’s Kent four-piece Salvation Jayne’s EP suggests, it contains rock nuggets potent enough to inspire bedroom moshing, although it’s not being released on vinyl.

After a brief introductory segment, the EP gets going properly with ‘Burn it Down’ which we covered when it first aired back in April. And it’s a cracking tune, chunky blues-based guitars chopping against a sinewy lead line and strolling bass. It also meets the ‘monster chorus’ requirement for a strong rock tune. And yes, tunes matter: on Moves That Make the Record Skip, Salvation Jayne offer tunes, with strong vocal melodies shaping the songs.

If ‘The Jailer’ contains all of the elements of infinite 80s rock bands and reminds me of many, many pub gigs I caught at the tail end of the 80s and into the early 90s in my home town (for all I know, there are still the same sort of bands cranking out the same stuff in the same venues now: Lincoln never was the most progressive of places), it’s well-executed and has the guts in the delivery to make it work. There’s also some nice slidey guitar action that brings a dirty country / blues vibe. ‘Thrillride’ starts with a low-slung bass and sassy, semi-menacing vocal from Chess Smith before she gives it some throat and everything kicks in.

EP closer ‘Whorehouse Down on the SE’ makes for a strong finish: it’s a percussion-driven hefty rock workout which has all the makings of an anthemic crowd-pleaser live. It mines a proper old-school rock seam, and calls to mind The Pretty Reckless at their best, with Smith giving it the raw, rough ‘n’ tough treatment.

 

 

Salvation Jayne - Moves

The Veldt – The Shocking Fuzz of Your Electric Fur: The Drake Equation

Posted: 5 June 2017 in Singles and EPs
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Schoolkids Records – 2nd June 2017

Christopher Nosnibor

The blurb tells me that ‘On the trail of their successful Record Store Day 7” single ‘Symmetry / Slow Grind’, Raleigh-based Schoolkids Records have announced the coming release of ‘The Shocking Fuzz of Your Electric Fur: The Drake Equation Mixtape EP’ by alternative soul and shoegaze pioneers The Veldt.’

The Veldt have been around for a very long time, now – always on the peripheries, but wholly ingrained in the same milieu as The Cocteau Twins, The Jesus and Mary Chain, et al, as well as sharing stags with an impressive roll-call of acts spanning The Pixies to Echo and the Bunnymen via The Manic Street Preachers.

The EP’s title is (in part) lifted from a poem by e.e.cummings, while ‘The Drake Equation’ is a sort of punning gag that’s both intellectual and spectacularly . Cumbersome as it is, it’s quite a tidy literary allusion, and one which illustrates both the band’s overtly arty leanings the and the immense breadth of their spheres of reference: this is, after all, a band whose name derives from a story by Ray Bradbury. If the idea of high modernism coming together with slick 21st century r‘n’b seems like an improbable and unlikely recipe for success, then it’s all down to the execution.

The five tracks on this EP may or may not ‘rage’ with ‘a sound influenced equally by emotional soul of Marvin Gaye, free jazz warriors Sun Ra and Pharaoh Sanders, various Drake hip-hop tracks, long-term musical kin Cocteau Twins, and their own fertile electric imagination.’ But what they do achieve is a compelling hybrid of styles.

Stuttering beats, somewhere between hip-hop, jazz and drum ‘n’ bass jitter and twitch beneath draping, rifting layers of sonic mist define the multifaceted ‘Sanctified’, which glides he EP into a smooth yet detailed launch. It’s the progressive soul element of their expansive shoegaze-orientated sound which renders The Veldt most distinctive:

‘In A Quiet Room’ simmers and chimes, a laid-back rhythm contrasting against the swirl and eddy of layered, FX-drenched blankets of guitars. The tom-orientated drumming on the dreamy ‘One Day Out of Life’ has echoes of early New Order about it, before a rising swell of a drifting sonic cloud.

The EP ends on a super-mellow soul trip in the shape of ‘And It’s You’: with a melody that evokes Bread’s ‘Make it With You’. Perverse as it may sound, it not only works well, but seems entirely fitting, the smooth soul vibes entwine with a slick hip-hop beat to forge a loved-up groove that’s sort of slanted, but at the same time, kinda natural. Nice.

 

Veldt EP

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