Posts Tagged ‘EP Review’

Aches – 42 Year Sunset

Posted: 29 November 2023 in Singles and EPs
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Christopher Nosnibor

I’ve harped on about my appreciation of physical releases a fair few times here, and while I am myself striving to declutter my home of late, miscellaneous crap is more clutter than collections. Placing CDs and records snugly on shelves satisfying, and collections are the culmination of what can be a lifetime’s work. I started collecting at the age of around thirteen, having discovered The Sisters of Mercy via Floodland, and the fact that they had a significant back catalogue which wasn’t available on cassette in WHS or Boots, and so started hitting record fairs, which were commonplace at weekends in the late 80s and early 90s.

But while vinyl and cassette have been enjoying a sustained renaissance, CDs remain at a low ebb, and this is a sad state of affairs. Considered by many to be inferior by virtue of their clinical, impersonal nature, they’re the perfect balance of a physical format, and practicality, in that you can skip tracks, for a start.

Receiving a CD copy of Aches’ release through my letter box truly made my day, initially for the simple reason that this is a wonderful physical product – a hand-numbered digipak with a nice sleeve, with a Japanese-style wraparound strip, although it’s not an Obi but a semi-opaque slip which bears the band logo and the track listing. It has quality written all over it, and it’s a joy to hold it. If it sounds like I’m being a physical format enthusiast wanker, so be it: the element of tactility is completely absent from the streaming / download experience, and those who have never experienced it are missing out.

And so turn my attention to the band – well, another experience, but of a different kind. Aches aren’t quite a supergroup, but featuring members of Helpless, Gunderson, The Imperfect Orchestra, and Caracals, they are very much a new hive mind collaborative collective that represents the best of the Plymouth scene – a city which isn’t particularly renowned for its musical exports, but did bring us the unparalleled Cranes at the very least. Aches are a whole lot heavier than Cranes, though.

Heave-ho! ‘Sky Shanty’ comes in hard with a roaring grunt and heft that strains the guts and blasts on a tidal wave of brutal black metal guitar. The roaring impact is enough to stop your breath for a moment. The band’s bio explains how they draw inspiration from writings on capitalism, neuroscience, and drug use, as well as from personal experiences and research on mental illness and suicide, and that this release ‘responds to the feeling of hopelessness we feel, as combating climate change is increasingly minimised by those in power in return for gargantuan profits of archaic industries…’

It may be an incorrect and assumptive joining of the dots to suggest they’ve individually been impacted by these in various ways, but when one in four are likely to suffer mental heath issues in any given year, it’s not unreasonable – but it’s reasonable to recognise the fact that any release which confronts these issues is culturally critical. And those feelings of hopelessness… One suspects they’re widely relatable, and anyone who doesn’t clearly has too much money, and this is about you.

Aches don’t require a trigger warning: life doesn’t come with trigger warnings, after all. But Aches confront all of the topics head-on, and 42 Year Sunrise is hard, heavy, unflinching.

If ‘Sky Shanty’ is fucked-up post-hardcore noise rock, then the brutal ‘Bruxism’ start out hard and heavy before drifting into softness. I’m reminded more of Bjork and Zola Jesus during this soft close. Spinning together dramatic post-punk and elements of post-rock into a multi-faceted roaring torrent of raging anguish which essentially encapsulates the essence of 42 Year Sunset. ‘Bruxism’ is a post-hardcore explosion; switching rapidly between psychotic mania and theatricality, equal parts Dillinger escape Plan and Muse via Oceansize. To pack this much into just over four and a half minutes is a monumental feat which evidences just how articulate and accomplished this release is.

The shortest track is also the heaviest, with ‘Is That It’ bringing a barrage of crushing riffs and packing about three songs’ worth into less than two frenzied minutes, before the monster title track brings forth absolute devastation. It’s a slow, heavy, monotonous crawler that slugs relentlessly. The way the drums roll and patter busily while the guitars grind at a snail’s pace and you feel this pulling at you slowly like a thread tied to your intestines. Five minutes in, the bass cuts in low, slow, dark and heavy, and by the eight-minute mark, it’s burst into a shrieking riot of demonic torture that’s gother than goth: it hurts.

With 42 Year Sunset, Aches articulate the anguish of feeling utterly powerless in the face of everything as it piles up, end on end. It packs so much force, and it hurts. Aches bring the pain, and this is a phenomenal debut.

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Shane Aspegren – Describing The Thing

Posted: 23 October 2023 in Singles and EPs
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Prohibited Records – 27th October 2023

Christopher Nosnibor

The… the… you know? Clicking fingers, gesticulating, waving hands in a rolling motion around your ears. The… thing? The… you know? The thing? The thing!

We’ve all been there. It’s on the tip of your tongue, the fringes of your memory. It hangs like a shadow, a fraction beyond the reach of the active brain. You curse your mind because you know it, and your interlocutor would, too, if only they had a clue what you were on about. The thing. The fucking thing.

The very prospect of reviewing Shane Aspergen’s EP flung me into a spin , because the title tossed me into the frantic headspace in which words run out and everything feels overwhelming, and it’s all down to the title. Because… well, that’s the thing. What is the thing? And how do you even begin to describe it?

This EP, we’re told, ‘comes as a precursor to a forthcoming album (tentatively titled Emblems of Transmuting Heat) that was finished a few months prior to the conceptualization of this four-track EP. While recent in its development, the music originates from the same period of transition, during which Shane Aspegren relocated from Hong Kong to Los Angeles.’

It feels like the sonic articulation of transition, of movement, and it feels transitory, ephemeral, fleeting moments, some of which leave an indelible imprint, others which fade instantly or barely even register in the moment. Precisely how or why this is, it’s hard to pinpoint with any kind of exactitude. But then, that feels like the point: the pieces are impressionistic sound collages. It’s a molecular morass of clamorous, scrabbling treble and scratching insectoid busyness and bubbling synthines which dissolves in a fuzzy hum and clatter; a cross of Gregorian chant, ambient, experimental electronica, and dance.

Aspegren explains how the title track ‘is a complete reworking of a different piece [he] started in 2022. “I completely abandoned the original in its initial form — the raw vocalizations were the only thing that I wanted to keep when I went back to revisit those sessions. The voices were recorded as a form of cathartic release during a period of time that I was heavily exploring voice and frequency as a form of somatic connection and release. In the end, this morphed through several different iterations, and finally turned into this version more than a year later, after moving to LA.” The sense of movement here is one of a forward propulsion, which comes largely from the subtle but insistent beat.

‘Imaginal Pathway’ is but a brief interlude, as was intended, penned as an interlude for the Imaginal Pathways app for which Aspegren was the lead artist. It’s a mere minute and a half – of eddying ambience layered with light, hovering drones which bends and droop amidst birdlike tweets, over which a narrative – seemingly lifted straight from an education video – explains the workings of the ear, a ‘magical’ organ ‘which transports perceptual vibrations from the physical realm into the experiential’.

The final track, ‘iTiS’, is the most recent composition, which came about following his relocation, with Aspegren recounting “It started with a Moog Subharmonicon improvisation and turned into a slow build of layers and structure. Strangely, it feels like the oldest track to me… like I made it in another era of my life.”. It certainly sounds like music from another era, too, the contemporary kit very much harking back to more vintage analogue sound. There’s a soft, squelchiness to the bass tones, a blurring edge to the broad space-filling sweeps. But perhaps sometimes the equipment determines the mood and the sound more than the creator. Either way, it makes for a fitting close to the EP – for having brought the listener through a journey of upheaval, of uncertainty, of feeling unsettled, it ends with what feels like a sense of final settlement, of resolution. And end, but also a new vista, and the possibility of a new beginning.

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Euchridian – Philia

Posted: 9 October 2023 in Singles and EPs
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1st September 2023

Christopher Nosnibor

Details around Scottish black metal act Euchridian and sketchy. They’re a trio, and the drums were recorded at a different studio from the rest of the instruments. And this is to the good. I don’t need to know, and ultimately, probably don’t want to know. What does it matter when they formed, where they live, what gigs they’ve done? The lack of social media presence is admirable: in the absence of corny posed photos and candid snaps and videos of them gurning away at their instruments, I have nothing to judge them on but the music and the enigmatic cover art. And a little enigma goes a long way.

The advent of social media has not been a great thing for many artists. Before social media, it was possible for the music and the record sleeves to represent, and promotion didn’t have to involve endless posts about pointless shit like pictures of the band’s takeaway delivery before a rehearsal. Social media says that bands now need to build a rapport with their fans, to interact, to engage, and frequently to keep them engaged. But acts like Sunn O))) and Khanate prove it’s possible to not do that and build an immense fanbase. Likewise, you won’t see JK Broadrick doing rounds of inane interviews, spouting pointless opinions on pointless subjects to flog a few more Godflesh albums, or GYBE raffling off drum skins and offering personalised hand-written lyric sheets for £75 or whatever.

Musicians by nature tend not to be as extrovert as the act of making and performing music may suggest – and there’s a world of difference from being a pop act with aspirations to performing arenas, to murky metal which channels all the pain and anguish of existence and is much less about reaching an audience than it is about having an outlet for all that shit.

Philia is, according to my light research, one of the four ancient Greek words for love, and compared to agape and eros, it’s perhaps the most obscure. This may in part be a reason for the choice for the EP’s title, but philia is usually translated as ‘friendship’ or affection, and this is what carries into the first track, the nine-and-a-half minute ‘Sweetness’.

Sweetness and black metal may seem unusual pairings, and sure enough, this absolute monster of a track. The guitar sound is quite bright, and it’s a solo riff that opens what starts a crunching slow-burner. The drums crash in slowly next, before Matt Davies’ manic mangled rasp of a strangled snake spitting venom enters the fray. There is a sense of pomp, a sense of ceremony, but above all, this feels maniacal, murderous, deranged and fucked up. The temp shifts here and there, and there’s the obligatory monster guitar solo, but it’s the driving riff that blossoms into something truly epic.

And on the subject of the truly epic, the second track, ‘The Rule Of Three’ is an absolute monster, clocking in at over thirteen-and-a-half minutes and built around a slow, trudging riff. The guitar may be bright, but it’s mangled as fuck and squirms in an agonised tandem with the raw, ruined vocals. Around the mid-point, it switches focus and embarks on a break that s beyond epic – but it’s not corny, either. It is, however, one of those chord sequences played in a way that makes you feel. And the it goes really dark.

Overall, Philia is properly nasty: this is the sound of a band fully committed to plunging the deepest depths of darkness, and ‘Philia’ doesn’t punch you in the guts, but pulls your guts out and squeezes them. Philia is full-on intensity, and hits where it hurts.

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Bug Facer – Triple Death

Posted: 31 July 2023 in Singles and EPs
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Warren Records – 31st July 2023

Christopher Nosnibor

There are few things quite as gratifying as seeing one of your own quotes as the lead on a press release. And so it is that Hull noise punks Bug Facer, who I declared were my new favourite band on the release of their debut single, ‘Horsefly’ in Nov ember, praising them for their ‘claustrophobic, pulverising heaviness that leaves you aching’, rage hard on their debut EP.

What are they angry about? Everything and anything: modern life in general. Triple Death may only contain three tracks and have a running time of less than fourteen minutes, but they pack in the fury with a critical mass. The first cut, ‘Eggshell’ sets the tone, and, they say, ‘explores the idea of cycles with no end and how on an existential level we try to apply meaning to struggle.’ This isn’t just noisy shit: it’s noisy shit with some deep thought involved, and ‘Eggshells’ is low and slow, with a hesitant bassline and swirling guitar that swishes around in a gush of treble, and instrumentally it lands somewhere between The Fall and ‘Budd’ by Rapeman, and it’s completed with howling vocals that sound like every syllable is being torn from James Cooper’s lungs. It’s harsh and harrowing and truly the sound of pain leaving the body.

Theirs is an usual setup, with the drummer and bassist contributing vocals alongside co-founder Cooper who plays guitar. I say play: he and second guitarist Josh Burdette torture their instruments, channelling their angst through mangled chords at high volume. Sonically, their approach is unusual, too: they’re not big on riffs or distortion or driving percussion, the popular cornerstones of angry music of many genres: the sound on Triple Death is steely, grey, murky, creating the kind of oppressive sensation I feel listening to Unsane and Red Lorry Yellow Lorry. It makes you feel tense, twisted up and knotted inside.

Picking up the pace with ‘Prod’, which, with the addition of some gurgling synths, steps into a Krautrock groove, before the guitars lunge in and things get messy, the deranged, raw-throated vocals and serpentine guitar lines interweaving in a thicket of discord flay the nerves without mercy. ‘We are all the cattle… We are all the cattle, is the refrain’. And we feel it.

It’s a reworked version of ‘Horsefly’ that closes the EP off, and it’s a cleaner sound that marks the primary difference from the original release of this six-and-a-half-minute trudger of a tune that has the kind of earthy weight of Neurosis. The guitars chime dolorous doom as the bass and drums hammer hard, heavy, relentlessly thudding, so low and slow as to drag your heart down towards your knees.

The clue, I suppose, is in the name. This isn’t just death: it’s triple death, and Triple Death is grim, gloomy, the soundtrack to battling against the tide of shit on shit, when a trip to the seaside is a game of dodge the turds and a tub of butter costs seven fucking quid. When they tell you that inflation is a global issue but the fuel providers and supermarket chains record bumper profits and immense payouts to execs and shareholders while nurses are querying at food banks… fuck this shit. Triple Death is the soundtrack to telling the world, ‘fuck this shit’. One more time: fuck this shit.

AA

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Suburban Spell – Falling Down EP

Posted: 25 June 2023 in Singles and EPs
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Suburban Spell Records – 23rd June 2023

Christopher Nosnibor

The pitch, which recommends Suburban Spell as being for fans of OMD, Boy Harsher, The KVB, Kraftwerk, Gary Numan, The Cars, Rational Youth, piqued my curiosity, rather more than it did my interest. We’re clearly in retro synth territory here, but then there seems to be something of a glut of artists falling into this bracket right now. It can’t all be nostalgia: most of the current crop of artists emulating the late 70s and early 80s weren’t even born before the 90s or even the turn of the millennium. Some of it I suspect is kids discovering their parents’ music collections, while equally, per perhaps more so, it’s a sign of the times we live in. It’s hard to really explain in depth or detail precisely why nostalgia depresses me, but it does, and ersatz nostalgia several fold.

Suburban Spell, however, require less exploration or explanation: this is the solo project of Peter Endall, who was a member of Schizo Scherzo, who were, according to his bio, active in ‘the heady days of Melbourne’s 80’s music scene, playing alongside the likes of The Eurythmics, Pseudo Echo, Real Life and Fergal Sharky.’ These are names to conjure with, names to reflect on.

So when I read that Suburban Spell ‘combines the austere beauty of Kraftwerk, 80’s melodic sensibilities, driving rhythms and some noisy grind thrown in for good measure. Influenced by the heyday of new wave and 70’s-80’s electronica, this music carries the beautiful imprints of such artists as Ultravox, OMD, Visage, Jean-Michel Jarre, The Cars, Gary Numan and New Order’, it makes sense. This is the music of the era which is coded into his generational DNA. Not that I really get much sense of Ultravox, OMD, or Visage from the five tracks on offer here. But… they’re good.

The songs on the Falling Down EP are both much darker and much more sophisticated than those on Schizo Scherzo’s Back to Back EP – but then, that was 1985, and technology has evolved and people mature and evolve also.

The title track is the opener, and while it’s very much 80s in its stylings, it’s contemporary in its production. It’s driven by a pulsating synth and beat dominated by a whip-cracking Akai snare, while Endall delivers a vocal smoothed by reverb and EQ balancing. But it’s the echoey bass break, that evokes the spirit of New Order and Disintegration-era Cure that really makes this a winning groove.

‘Salvation Army’ explores deeper atmospherics through a starker musical backdrop before ’12 Causes of Pain’ thuds in with some hard dancefloor-friendly trance-pop. The looping pulsations cast a nod to Dionna Summer’s classic ‘I Feel Love’ – a song that feels like it belongs to the 80s, but was actually released in 1977 – and the vocals and rippling synth overlays are pure Kratwerk. It’s easy to forget that the sounds so commonly associated with the 80s actually came from the late 70s, but there’s always a lag between decades: s, too. songs from the early 90s can so easily be mistaken from the late 80s, too.

I’ve spent a huge chunk of my evening trying to figure out which 80s track ‘Natural Science’ reminds me of, and while I can’t quite pinpoint it, Depeche Mode’s ‘Enjoy the Silence’ is as closed as I can get, although it equally brings strong vibes of Howard Jones and the like.

The six-minute closer, ‘Side Car’ goes all out for spacious, atmospheric, and ambient, twisting into post-rock territory with the breaking out of a reverby guitar. Against a swirling synth backdrop with a slow, ponderous bass and shimmering textures, before fading to quiet in a wonderful fuzz of ambience.

Falling Down has much going for it: so much so, that by the end of the set, it’s more pick-me-up than falling down.

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Hammok – Now I Know

Posted: 31 May 2023 in Singles and EPs
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Renoir Records – 9th June 2023

Christopher Nosnibor

And so it goes that ‘In 2022, Norway’s Hammok released their first EP ‘Jumping/Dancing/Fighting’ and received very good reviews in publications such as Distorted Mag and Pitchfork – and we fucking loved it, too.

The press pitch for the Oslo-based trio’s follow-up, Now I Know, promises ‘a new chapter for the band [which] takes listeners on a vast and powerful journey, beginning on a more bright tone with the band exploring their more introspective and emotionally intense side and gradually drifting towards a more heavier and ferocious approach, reaching levels of fury and intensity never explored before.’

Predictably, perhaps, then, we fucking love this, too.

The EP comprises three tracks: ‘This Will Not Last’ parts one and two, and the title tune, and immediately, with ‘This Will Not Last PT 1’, the shift from the previous release is apparent. The vocals are still trained and straining, angry, aggressive, but they’re swamped in reverb as the instrumentation forges an almost shoegazey, dream pop curtain of sound. The thick, blooping, glooping bass and other key elements are still present but they’re all softer, meaning there’s no gut-punching blasts like ‘Contrapoint’ here. That isn’t to say it’s entirely mellow: it does break into a driving riff propelled by pounding drums and a blizzard of guitar around the mid-section, then takes a turn for the darker in the final minute. Perversely, as much as it’s a pristine slice of post-punk / noise rock crossover, it equally makes me think of a hardcore version of The Twilight Sad and I Like Trains.

‘This Will Not Last PT 2’, released as a preview, is the most accessible and melodic song on the EP, and is their most commercial cut to date by a mile, presenting a melodic, post-hardcore face. Melody is relative, mind you. It’s hardly The Coors. It sits strangely ahead of ‘Now I Know’ which is dense and dark and abrasive in its roaring rage and frantic pace. The guitars chop and churn, and by the close, Tobias Osland is practically spraying his flayed larynx in spatters on the floor as he purges his final howls of obliterative fury.

Hammok have expanded both their sound and range, but while there are softer moments, it would be a mistake to say that they’ve softened overall – and the softer moments only serve to give the hard blasts even greater impact, making for a second killer EP.

Kill, The Icon – Your Anger is Rational

Posted: 25 May 2023 in Singles and EPs
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Blaggers Records – 2nd June 2023

Christopher Nosnibor

London ‘synth-punk passion project’ Kill, The Icon, fronted by NHS Dr Nishant Joshi have been building their presence nicely in recent with a series of strong singles, kicking off with ‘Buddhist Monk’ in late 2021, and the trio have been kicking ass with pissed-off, politically-charged sonic blasts ever since, and gaining significant airplay and critical acclaim in the process.

The bio and background, for those unfamiliar with the band, is worth visiting, as the context of the music is important. As much as Kill, The Icon are a part of a growing swell of artists who are using their music to not only channel their frustration and to voice their dissent – in a way which can’t get them arrested, at least not at the moment, no doubt to Suella Braverman’s irritation – Joshi is also very much an activist.

Joshi made national headlines during the pandemic, being the first frontline NHS doctor to go public with concerns that staff were not being protected. In true punk rock style Joshi and his wife then launched a legal challenge against the government. They won the case, making huge change and were recognised by The FA and England’s football team. Fueled with frustration, in the summer of 2020 KILL, THE ICON! was born as an extension of Joshi’s activism.

You certainly couldn’t accuse these guys of being all mouth and no action, but of course, the power of music as a unifying force should never be underestimated, particularly when our government’s modus operandi is to divide enfeeble the populace. It wasn’t just Brexit, which say the country not so much split and cleaved in twain: now there is a war being waged on benefit claimants (or scroungers and fraudsters, as they’re portrayed, dehumanising society’s most vulnerable in the process); a war on woke (anyone who is opposed to racism, misogyny, homophobia is the enemy); a war on migration… everything is cut between ‘us’ and ‘them’, and the smaller the splinters, the less the likelihood of meaningful, coherent opposition, especially when even so much as having a placard in your car boot is likely to lead to a pre-emptive arrest.

While the four tracks on Your Anger is Rational have been released as singles in the run-up to its release, with ‘Danny Is A Hate Preacher’ landing just ahead of the release date, packaging them together as an EP presents a precise statement of what they’re about.

It’s ‘Heavy Heart’ that’s up first, a no-messing ballsy banger that calls out the racism that’s not only rife but seemingly accepted post-Brexit, and the second track, the gothy ‘Deathwish’ (accompanied by the first AI promo video) steps up on this, with its refrain of ‘No blacks! No dogs! No Irish!’. ‘They used to whisper / And now they shout’, Joshi observes, and sadly it’s true. For a time, it felt like we had progressed from the casual racism of our grandparents – I remember feeling uncomfortable hearing my late grandmother talk – without malice – about ‘darkies’ and ‘coloureds’, and feeling a certain lightness of being at the sense we had moved on, stamping out the BNP and becoming more inclusive… but then the right has risen again with Farage and UKIP and Britain First and Stephen Yaxley-Lennon and in the blink of an eye there are flag-waving racist cunts everywhere and Christ it’s fucking ugly.

And as much as Your Anger is Rational is a unified work musically, it’s lyrically and thematically that it really comes together. With a hard, driving bass to the fore, ‘Danny Is A Hate Preacher’ explores how indoctrination from an early age spawns the next generation of wrongheadedness, how violence begets violence, and I’m reminded of Larkin’s ‘This Be the Verse’. Your parents really do fuck you up. And now it’s not just parents taking kids to racist rallies, kids are being moulded by ‘influencers’ like Andrew Tate, and again, adults are buying into and propagating this obnoxious shit too: I’ve had to defriend a number of people on Facebook for sharing his content. My anger is, indeed, rational: we’re surrounded by cunts.

The last track, ‘Protect the Band’ is slower, more measured, but again, it’s a bass-dominated grinder with a monster groove, and it’s all pinned tightly together with some sturdy drumming and it’s a magnificent dismantlement of corporate hierarchies and the way they oppress workers into subservience. Protect the brand! But will the brand protect its staff? Will it fuck.

As much as Kill, the Icon are punk in aesthetic and sentiment, they’re very much new wave in their sound and approach. And while they’re strong on the punchy slogans and lyrical repetitions, KTI are more articulate and more nuanced than your average rabble-rousing punkers.

There isn’t a weak track in here. Musically, sonically, lyrically, they’ve got everything nailed and it’s tight: there’s no waste, everything is measured and weighed for maximum impact, but it’s still delivered with a coolness and a real groove, which makes this absolutely killer work.

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Mules – Illusions of Joy

Posted: 17 May 2023 in Singles and EPs
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HalfMeltedBrain Records – 9th June 2023

Christopher Nosnibor

They may have only formed in 2020 during lockdown, but Brighton’s heavy post-punk noisemakers Mules (not to be confused with 90s US punk blues band, Mule) have already racked up three digital single releases before this six-track cassette EP. And while three of the tracks here are the preceding singles (with a studio recording of the live debut, ‘I Think We Need to Talk’, Illusions of Joy stands as a taut, cohesive document.

Their bio pitches their sound as being ‘equal parts dissonant and melodic, with a tight rhythm section providing insistent motorik grooves and angular rhythms’, adding that ‘In the tradition of Mark E Smith, the vocals are generally spoken, with very little concession to melody. Occasionally they escalate into a desperate and emotional yelp. With roots in the punk scene, Mules take influence from the first wave of post-punk, indie-rock, 90s noise-rock, and various more contemporary bands such as Parquet Courts, Metz, and Gilla Band.’

At the risk of repeating myself, shit times do at least make for decent music, and it’s no coincidence that the social and political landscape in which we find ourselves, which bears remarkable parallels to Thatcher’s Britain, is spawning a wave of disaffected musical voices. It’s not simply that the contemporary crop are aping the sound and feel of the first generation of punk and new wave acts because it feels fitting: the music itself is a means of articulating those knotty emotions that are a conglomeration of anger and frustration and the sense of powerlessness in the face of a need for change. Angularity, discord, dissonance, noise; these are the sonic vehicles which carry the sentiments sonically.

And so it is that while the primary grist to Mules’ mill is ‘everyday life in Tory austerity Britain’, they also pull on ‘broader themes, which draw on Tommy’s MA thesis, such as cultural hegemony, global political economy, and systems of control.’

There’s something particularly pleasing about hearing the words ‘cultural hegemony’ in the first verse of the first song on a record. Because as much as we live in shit times on so many levels, a real bugbear – and a genuine issue – is the dumbing down of culture; we have a government who openly attack intellectualism and deride ‘experts’, who refuse to engage in debate and view critical thinking as unhealthy – and in their tenuous position of power which serves only to protect their own interests – and, specifically, wealth – it is. And so it is that ‘Ergonomic Living’ takes its lead from Marxist social critique, and while the verses are defined by an insistent beat and wandering guitar, it all explodes into a roaring chorus. I’m reminded rather of Bilge Pump, and this is very much a good thing.

‘The Things We Learn in Books’ spews lists of theory against some driving guitars, and the urgency of the delivery is gripping and exhilarating. ‘Lonely Bored and High’ is the most Fall-like of the songs, but there’s a dubby element to it as well as spacious atmosphere, rendering it as much Bauhaus as The Specials, and again, it rips into a raging chorus. Fuck, these guys have such a knack for dynamics and tempo changes, it’s hard to respond in any way other than pumping your fists, because YEAHHHHH!!! FUCK, YEAHHHH!

‘I Think We Need to Talk’ is mathy, messy, disorientating, hypnotic, and ‘Clapping for Carers’ largely speaks for itself. Claps don’t pay bills, motherfuckers, and it shouldn’t be volunteers distributing limp packaged sandwiches and bags if crisps to the people sitting for ten hours or more in A&E units up and down the country (this one’s particularly sore for me, but we’ll save that for another time and just leave it that hearing a song like this really revs me).

Feeling angry and frustrated but disenfranchised and disempowered? Mules speak to, and for, you.

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Fashion Tips – Fucking Hell

Posted: 25 April 2023 in Singles and EPs
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Panurus Productions – 28th May 2023

Christopher Nosnibor

There are many things to love about Panurus Productions releases, the main one being the music, which probably goes without saying. But for me, the notes which accompany their releases are always quality – dense slabs of prose that convey the releases in the most physical of terms. And it’s fitting, seeing as said releases, which showcase the vibrant noise scene in the North-East, do tend to be the kind which evoke a certain physical reaction.

The one thing that is apparent is that the scene does involve a lot of bands sharing personnel, and four-piece Fashion Tips are no exception, featuring Esmé Louise Newman of black metal muthas Petrine Cross on vocals and microkorg. She’s joined by Butch Lexington (drums, drum machine), Liam Slack (bass, bass VI) and Jorden Sayer (guitar), and the four tracks were recorded t Liam’s house in County Durham, and was mastered by Freddy Vinehill-Cliffe of Thank and Beige Palace (because there’s a fair amount of cross-sharing in the Leeds scene too, and the northern DIY scene in general. In fact, it’s less of a scene and more of a community, and it’s nice, and I mean that sincerely: in an industry that’s pretty harsh, cutthroat, backstabby and all that shit, it’s a source of joy that there’s a sense of collectivism where artists are mates and help one another out: it should be a model for society in general).

And so it is that Fashion Tips’ debut EP is described as ‘A dance but one of mania, possessed by a need to expunge, switching between mournful and self effacing to raining down scorn. A quivering musculature of strings erupts in spasms of screeches and squawls, held to arched backbone of drums by straining bass tendons. Run through with varicose electronic veins bursting near the surface of skin, a fraught body emits its secrets through a variegated range of croons, shrieks and bellows.’

It sounds a terrifying prospect. The result is, in fact, altogether less scary, although those accustomed to Esmé’s chthonic guttural growls may be surprised by the helium-filled hollers ad yelps here.

Fucking Hell is pitched as ‘Sitting at the uncomfortable mid point between the upbeat and deeply visceral; Fashion Tips drag you in with virulently infectious riffage while simultaneously drenching you with noise and battering you with wild eyed and frantic vocal delivery’.

‘Lunched Out’ is scuzzed out, bass-driven and noisy, but also lively and hooky, and comes on more like X-Ray Spex than anything from the noise-rock scene. The guitars are fizzy fuzz, and the definition comes from the throbbing bass that’s melded to a crisp drum and then there’s the warping space-rock synth lines that really lift it.

Things get heavier with ‘Waltzing’, with hints of Cranes and Daisy Chainsaw bouncing around between the Stranglers-esqe synth, before it melts into a swirling sonic stew on ‘Cinema Vérité’.

‘Standing O’ brings crisp, cutty guitars and a certain (post-)punk minimalism against a swirling mess of feedback and noise, and synths tones that gyrate and grate against one another as everything surges to a rabid climax of barking vocals and a swirling soup of nasty noise.

Fucking Hell stands apart from other Panuras releases on a number of levels, its brevity being one of them. With the longest song clocking in at under four and a half minutes the whole EP’s duration is less than fourteen minutes. But that’s all it needs: Fucking Hell is about instant high impact. And it delivers. It also – unexpectedly, in context – delivers some decent, catchy tunes.

AA

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The Twilight Sad – Live 2022 EP3

Posted: 10 April 2023 in Singles and EPs
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7th April 2023

Christoper Nosnibor

In their native Scotland, The Twilight Sad are fucking massive, capable of selling out two consecutive nights at 1,900 capacity Glasgow Barrowlands. South of the border, they have a deeply devoted fanbase, but are more of a niche act. It may be the fact that they are so overtly Scottish, with James Graham’s unapologetically strong accent sometimes rendering the lyrics rather hard to decipher, but the raw emotional impact of their songs transcends language.

This is something that’s long been recognised by Robert Smith, who recorded a cover of ‘There’s a Girl in the Corner’ in 2015, and first took them out on tour with The Cure the following year. There can be few higher compliments for a band whose love of The Cure is evident in their catalogue, and there have been several tours since.

Ahead of their most extensive US tour to date with The Cure which runs through May and June and into July, they’ve released a live EP via BandCamp, which was recorded across three nights at Wembley Arena during our tour with The Cure in December 2022, and as with all of their live EP’s this is a Bandcamp exclusive on a Pay What You Can basis.

They’re a band who excel live – their intensity is a rare thing indeed, James Graham is beyond compelling, and steps into a zone onstage while Andy MacFarlane whips up a maelstrom of sonic sculptures that push guitar playing in a direction not heard since Bauhaus’ Daniel Ash. Someone once left a one-word comment – ‘cunt’ – on a live review I posted of the band where I suggested that the experience was akin to how I expect it would have been to have seen Joy Division in their prime, but I stand by the comparison having first heard the debut album and thought it was ok, to being blown always by both the volume and intensity of a live performance.

As such, this EP is a well-timed and savvy promotional tool, as well as a nice stop-gap for fans home and away, since it’s evident they won’t be doing much recording of new material in the coming months.

It’s an interesting – but also representative – selection of songs, opening with ‘There’s a Girl in the Corner’. The guitar is right up front, mangled and messy, a mesh of treble and distortion over the sombre drums and spacious synths. Most live arena recordings sound a bit distant, a bit clinical, but this, this slays. It’s noisy, full-on. The guitar absolutely fucking shreds. And James’ vocals… he’s not holding back. He’s still living every line.

But consider this for a second: it’s a stop-gap live EP recorded live at fucking Wembley arena. How many bands get to do that?

There are two songs from the debut album which remain live staples and are undeniably absolute classics. ‘And She Would Darken the Memory’ is a monster swirl of the most anguish-laden shoegaze ever committed to tape, and the altered lyric which offers the reassurance that ‘the rabbit won’t die’ dies little to diminish the kitchen sink trauma or the impact of the squalling guitar racket that occupies the final three minutes, against a backdrop of relentless drumming. The other track from Fourteen Autumns & Fifteen Winters, ‘That Summer, At Home I Had Become the Invisible Boy’ remains untouchably strong. ‘The cunt sits at his desk, and he’s plotting away… the kids are on fire in the bedroom’ James sings to twelve and a half thousand people as that guitar tears in, twists, warps, melts.

‘Wrong Car’ is something of an outlier: released as a standalone single after the second album, it’s been in and out of the setlist and not always an easy fit on account of its near-seven-minute duration. But this EP captures a strong performance of an underrated song, and if the balance of the EP is geared toward earlier material, it’s perhaps the material they’re most confident with, but also suggests they’re keen to both give something to longstanding fans while connecting new converts with the early songs that made them.

They deserve world domination after this next tour.

AA

Tour dates

MAY 2023

10 NEW ORLEANS, LA SMOOTHIE KING CENTER

12 HOUSTON, TX TOYOTA CENTER

13 DALLAS, TX DOS EQUIS PAVILION

14 AUSTIN, TX MOODY CENTER

16 ALBUQUERQUE, NM ISLETA AMPHITHEATER

18 PHOENIX, AZ DESERT DIAMOND ARENA

20 SAN DIEGO, CA NICU AMPHITHEATRE

21 SAN DIEGO, CA NICU AMPHITHEATRE

23 LOS ANGELES, CA HOLLYWOOD BOWL

24 LOS ANGELES, CA HOLLYWOOD BOWL

25 LOS ANGELES, CA HOLLYWOOD BOWL

27 SAN FRANCISCO, CA SHORELINE AMPHITHEATRE

31 PORTLAND, OR MODA CENTER

JUNE 2023

01 SEATTLE, WA CLIMATE PLEDGE ARENA

02 VANCOUVER, BC ROGERS ARENA

04 SALT LAKE CITY, UT VIVINT SMART HOME ARENA

06 DENVER, CO FIDDLER’S GREEN AMPHITHEATRE

08 MINNEAPOLIS ST. PAUL, MN XCEL ENERGY CENTER

10 CHICAGO, IL UNITED CENTER

11 CLEVELAND, OH BLOSSOM MUSIC CENTER

13 DETROIT, MI PINE KNOB MUSIC THEATRE

14 TORONTO, ON BUDWEISER STAGE

16 MONTREAL, QC QC BELL CENTRE

17 MONTREAL, QC BELL CENTRE

18 BOSTON, MA XFINITY CENTER

20 NEW YORK, NY MADISON SQUARE GARDEN

21 NEW YORK, NY MADISON SQUARE GARDEN

22 NEW YORK, NY MADISON SQUARE GARDEN

24 PHILADELPHIA, PA WELLS FARGO CENTER

25 COLUMBIA, MD MERRIWEATHER POST PAVILION

27 ATLANTA, GA STATE FARM ARENA

28 ATLANTA, GA STATE FARM ARENA

29 TAMPA, FL AMALIE ARENA

JULY 2023

01 MIAMI, FL MIAMI-DADE ARENA

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