Posts Tagged ‘Grunge’

Feather Trade / Suspicious Liquid / Different State / Averno – The Fulford Arms, York, 6th March 2025

Posted: 7 March 2025 in Live
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Christopher Nosnibor

This is another of the outstanding ‘four bands for the price of a pint at the O2’ nights that’s become a consistent feature at The Fulford Arms in recent months, and the fact that previous outings have demonstrated that Feather Trade are worth easily double that on their own makes this an absolute must.

Tonight’s outing for post-punk 80s jangle indie five-piece Averno is rough round the edges, with a slightly scronky bass sound, and they sound – and sure, I’m showing my age here – like bands sounded in the 80s and 90s before everything got ultra-polished. Something happened along the way, where nearly every pub band came to display the slickness of arena bands. Historically, even big bands might hit bum notes, sound a bit flat or ropey, and we embraced it because it was liv and it wasn’t expected to sound like the studio version. Averno do sound a shade ramshackle, but the sound improved and their confidence visibly grew as the set progressed, and the appeal here is that they sound… real. They don’t hit any bum notes, and they look and sound stronger this time around.

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Averno

Grunge power trio Different State bring keen melodies and dark undercurrents – there are hints of 8 Storey Window and Bivouac alongside the obvious Nirvana nods, and the riffs are proper chunky. I reckon the drummer thought he got away with dropped stick twizzle in the second song… but he certainly recovered it well. In terms of performance, sound quality, in fact, absolutely everything, although they may not give us anything we haven’t heard before (I had to check to see if I’d seen them before, and I haven’t, and was simply experiencing that deva-vu that reverberates with certain types of bands), they did turn in an outstanding performance that made it feel like we were in a substantially larger venue.

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Different State

And then came Suspicious Liquid, who proved to be the revelation of the night. THIS is a band. And what a band. Unprepared, I wasn’t the only one to stand, jaw ajar, marvelling at the all-round magnificence of this act. Ostensibly, they’re a hard rock act, but they’re so much more, and they do it all so well. The soaring vocals are simply breathtaking – at times verging on the operatic, but also gutsy, and they sit well with the instrumentation, which is dark, with gothic hints, hitting full-on witchy metal and at times bringing big, beefy, Sabbath-esque riffs. At times, I’m reined of The Pretty Reckless, but Suspicious Liquid are way better, and way more dynamic. The vocalist is a strong focal point visually, but it’s her phenomenal vocals which really captivate. Unusually, in context, the front row is predominantly female, and this speaks significantly about not only the band but the fact the venue feels like a safe space – and it’s a space to watch high drama delivered with real weight and a rare assurance. It’s an immensely powerful set, and it’s not a huge stretch to imagine Suspicious Liquid touring nationally or being signed to a label like New Heavy Sounds.

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Suspicious Liquid

Just as some say that everything is better with bacon, it’s a musical fact that everything sounds better with reverb – and when it’s loud. Feather Trade have great songs and great style, but fully appreciate the additional benefits of reverb. They’ve sounded great every time I’ve seen them: they’re simply a quality band, who have survived every single spanner thrown into their works to emerge triumphant. Perhaps were it not for the spanners, they’d be headlining the O2 instead of The Fulford Arms – by rights they should be, because they’re that good, and tonight, the sound and the feel is more like a Brudenell gig than The Fulford Arms. Put simply, Feather Trade sound immense. Dense, layered guitar defines the sound, propelled by sturdy drumming and a tight, throbbing bass. There are no weak elements.

‘Dead Boy’ is a raging celebration of cancer survival which absolutely melts in tsunami of noise, a full on squall akin to The Jesus and Mary Chain, and with motorik drum-pad beats, and a huge squalling mesh of treble-loaded, reverb-drenched, and everything at a hundred decibels is reminiscent of A Place to Bury Strangers.

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Feather Trade

‘Trump hate song’ (as they pitch it) ‘Lord Have Mercy’ is absolutely blistering, while in contrast, penultimate song ‘Hold’ is altogether poppier and ventures into anthemic territory. It’s no criticism when I say it reminds me of Simple Minds but way heavier. It is a brain-meltingly strong performance, yielding a colossal wall of sound, ear-shredding, treble-laden reverb on reverb. Volume is not substitute for skill, of course, but it can optimise the intensity of a strong performance – and this was a strong performance, the kind of experience that leaves you in a headspin, utterly blown away. These guys deserve to be as huge as they sound.

The Bastard Sons / This House We Built / Sleuth Gang / Straw Doll – The Crescent, York, 28 February 2025

Posted: 1 March 2025 in Live, Reviews
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Christopher Nosnibor

Just under 5 years ago, I arrived at this venue feeling a sense of nervousness, as if the world was on a precipice, as we greeted one another with elbow bumps and the car staff were polyethene gloves and aprons. Practically hours later, we went into lockdown. There are no elbow bumps or PPE tonight, but having seen shit go south in the Oval Office of The Whitehouse on a day which will likely go down as a pivotal moment in world history while eating my dinner before heading out, I arrive with the same kind of creeping panic. As is often the case, I’m here for a spot of escapism, one of the most essential benefits of live music, and whether or not anyone else whose down tonight is experiencing the same kind of existential; fear, I suspect many are here for the same thing.

The Bastard Sons – that’s the York band, not to be confused with Phil Campbell’s post-Motörhead band, formed in 2015 – have been away for a long time. After much build-up, they released their debut album, Smoke in 2015, to no small acclaim from the likes of Kerrang. And then… a few local gigs and… Having finally got around to presenting a new single, they’ve been persuaded to tread the boards once more, heading a four-act lineup with an early start.

On promptly at 7:45, just fifteen minutes after doors, Straw Doll may be Metallica, but they’re equally Alice in Chains and Soundgarden, serving up a grunge metal hybrid, with debut single ‘Confess’ being exemplary, while ‘Denial’ leans somewhat on ‘Nothing Else Matters’. Although perhaps a shade predictable at times, with some chunky riffs they delivered a tight and solid set, which was all the more impressive for being their first live outing.

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Straw Doll

It seems hard to credit that I’ve witnessed acts who can be seen or claim to be channelling The Beastie Boys twice in a fortnight at rock gigs, but here we are, bracing ourselves for Sleuth Gang, York battle of the bands winners who promise ‘the harder edge of hip hop mashed with Beastie Boys, early punk, grime, and the experimental post-hardcore/electronicore of Enter Shikari.’ There’s a couple of bellends – one with a mullet – leaning all over the monitors and slopping their pints on the floor before they even start. Sure enough, they only seem to have about five fans, and said ‘fans’ are intent on barging one another so hard to see if they’ll stay up or career into the crowd outside the ‘pit’. The band keep calling the audience forward, but they end up stepping back to make room for their antics instead. The guitarist leaps off the stage, sinks half of mullet guy’s mate’s pint and then throws the rest of it over him. He wipes down his tracksuit top, smiling like he’s just been enunciated.

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Sleuth Gang

Their second song is a cover of The Prodigy’s ‘Omen’, and it’s the best song in the set by a mile. With their three MCs, it’s like watching Limp Bizkit fronted by a nu-metal version of the Village People… It takes a particular type of tosser to wear boot cut pleather jeans and a leather waistcoat, not to mention while chewing a toothpick. They spend half the set yelling for us to ‘Make some fucking noise’ ‘put your hands up’ and ‘let’s see your fucking energy’. Yeesh. My energy is at the bar.

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Sleuth Gang

This House We Built are older guys… The front man, who’s not especially tall, draws attention to the fact by having a little portable platform, a little like a low and unstylish occasional table, to the fore of his mic stand, and he rests a foot on it and sometimes stands on it to deliver widdy solos. He wants to see our fingers – horns, that is, not middle ones. It’s fairly standard hair rock, a bit Aerosmith, a bit Bon Jovi… the bassist reckons he’s in 80s ZZ Top. With his illuminated frets, metallic finish five-string bass and wraparound shades, he’s actually the coolest thing about the band.

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This House We Built

It’s been a long time since The Bastard Sons played – eight years, no less – and it’s apparent that they have been missed. Despite the time away, they’re finely honed as a live unit.

For the uninitiated, JJ’s vocals are perhaps the greatest obstacle in their rapid-cut screamo metalcore assault. Within the space of a single line, he’s gone from melodic to guttural via screaming. And he’s far too old to be showing so much boxer above beltline, surely. For the fans – and the venue, which is pretty packed, is massively into it – time has stood still, and that’s great, but the world itself has moved on.

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The Bastard Sons

“What the fuck is uuuuuup??” comes the shout from the stage. Well, you may well ask, Mr Bastard. The moshpit that broke out three songs in mostly appeared to consist of Sleuth Gang – hailed as ‘one of the best bands you’ll ever see’ by JJ – and their mates. The waistcoat guy’s now put on a tasselled leather jacket. There are fat middle aged blokes with shirts off, twirling them like helicopter blades over their heads, there’s play-wrestling, nosebleeds, and mums in PVC dresses losing their shit, and I almost forget the band and their woah-woah choruses. It’s rare to see quite such a conglomeration of cockends. But when all is said and done, for a band to come back after an eight-year absence and to grip a crowd so tightly and to attract such unbridled adulation, they have to have something, and there’s no questioning the fact that they bring the riffs and the energy – although there is a sense that while joshing about the (now slightly older) crowd being happy for the earlier, 10:45 finish, so are they, having run out of songs and energy after an hour. And that’s ok, especially as this looks like the start of an actual comeback.

The Bordellos (with Dee Claw) / Neon Kittens – Half Man Half Kitten

Posted: 21 February 2025 in Albums, Reviews
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Cruel Nature Records – 21st February 2025

Christopher Nosnibor

This split release has a lengthy backstory, which is given in full on the label’s Bandcamp page – but the short version is that when York’s Neon Kittens (how had I not heard (of) them, given that they appear to be from round my way and absolutely my bag? I feel ashamed, and fear I cannot even remotely claim to have the finger on the pulse of my local scene right now – but still, better late than never, right?) approached The Bordellos about a collaboration, the latter, having taken an eternity to only half-finish their current album-in-progress, some ten years after the release of will.i.am, you’re really nothing, offered everything they had for a split release. And lo, this is it.

I suppose the eight songs Neon Kittens have contributed here provide a solid starting point to their rapidly-expanding catalogue, and being paired with The Bordellos works a treat. Both espouse the same lo-fi DIY ethic, with a certain leaning toward indie with a trashy punk aesthetic.

That the cassette edition sold out on advance orders hints at the anticipation for the release: for, as The Bordellos describe themselves as being ‘ignored by millions, loathed by some, loved by a select few’, when you’ve got a small but devoted following, they get pretty excited for new material.

‘Set Your Heart to the Sun’ is perfectly representative of their scratchy, harmony-filled indie – kinda jangly, a tad ramshackle, but direct, immediate. Dee Claw’s airy vocal contributions really lift the sound and raise the melodic aspects of the songs. Not all of the songs have full drum-kit percussion, often favouring tambourine or bongos or seemingly whatever comes to hand, and more than any other acts, I’m reminded of Silver Jews or really, really early Pavement – those EPs that sounded like they were recorded on a condenser mic from the next room with more tape hiss than music, but still undeniably great tunes. And yes, they really do have great tunes – overall, they’re pretty laid-back in their approach to, well, everything: remember when ‘slacker; was a thing? Yeah. In place of polish, they have reverb, and these songs tickle the ears with joy.

Neon Kittens bring a rather denser sound and a greater sense of urgency with the buzzy, scuzzy ‘Better Stronger Faster’. A hyperactive drum machine stutters and flickers away beneath a sonic haze of fuzzy guitar: there are hints of Metal Urbain crossed with The Fall and Flying Lizards in the mix, while ‘All Done by Numbers’ brings Shellac and Trumans Water together in a head-on collision – and one suspects any similarity to Shellac’s ‘New Number Order’ is entirely intentional from a band who recently featured on a Jesus Lizard tribute. ‘Cold Leather’ presents a spoken word narrative over a lurching, lumbering morass of discord, held together by the whip crack of the snare of a vintage-sounding drum machine.

The majority of their songs are around the two-minute mark, and crash in, slap you round the chops, and are done before you really know what’s hit you. ‘Deaf Metal’ is a work of beautiful chaos, constructed around a thick, rumbling bass and rolling drums., while the rather longer ‘White Flag’ is almost a stab at a grunge-pop song, while the discordant clang of ‘Sailing in a Paper Boat’ is absolutely The Fall circa Hex Enduction Hour: lo-fi post-punk racket doesn’t get much better than this.

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Watch: ‘Eddy Derecho’ by Evidence of a Struggle

Posted: 12 February 2025 in Recommended Streams and Videos, Singles and EPs
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‘Eddy Derecho’ is the first single from Chicago-based sonic collective Evidence of a Struggle’s second album, Eddy Derecho, which will be released in the spring of 2025.

W P C Simmons V (Rev. Billy), Matt Walker, Alan Berliant, Solomon Walker, and John Airo have worked for most of 2024 weaving a dense tapestry of sonic, musical, lyrical, and visual observations of what’s happening in our world now, what’s happened in the past and what may happen in the future.

Rev. Billy says, ”The music and videos we’ve created for this record have really helped us make sense personally, and as a collective of what’s going on in our world, how it’s effecting and affecting everyone regardless of their race, religion, color, ability, or socioeconomic standing. Maybe our music can help us recognize a better way to approach the idiocy happening in this world. The wars, inequity, inequality, pain, suffering, anger… maybe it can help everyone else really look at themselves a little closer and not become part of the problem.”

Ennn-joy.

Video by John Airo

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Photo by Jeremy Glickstein

Sister Envy – Swallowed By The Ground

Posted: 10 February 2025 in Reviews, Singles and EPs
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28th February 2025

Christopher Nosnibor

Sister Envy may hail from Wales, but they sound like they’re from way out of the reach of Earth’s gravitational pull.

Their third single, ‘Swallowed By The Ground’ begins gently, but builds in successive waves: the delicate, wistful jangle of the opening bars has something of a classic 90s / 00s alternative / indie vibe to it, with an emotional pull that’s equal parts Placebo and The Twilight Sad – and then the chorus powers in on a tsunami of guitar.

They set the expectation that the song ‘combin[es] elements of the epic gaze sound of early Verve or My Vitriol with echoes of the sound of bands like Smashing Pumpkins and Nirvana’, and yes, this much is true, but so many acts draw on the same touchstones without raising so much as a shrug in the direction of their underwhelming derivative sounding efforts. Yet Sister Envy take those same elements and spin pure alchemy.

The best songs are nigh on impossible to break down to the details of why they work, and it’s here where the famed line about dancing about architecture really makes the most sense. Dissect why ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ was an instant timeless classic and you will not only end up empty-handed, but you’ll have stripped out the joy, too. Sure, as is also the case with Radiohead’s ‘Creep’ you have disaffection, alienation, dynamics, and a huge, ripping guitar blasting the chorus, but these elements alone do not in themselves a classic make. It’s in the delivery, for sure, but it’s also in that… je ne sais quoi. ‘Swallowed By The Ground’ has it: passion, power, hook, dynamics, and fuck yeah. This is special.

Chonky Dogg / Covent / Patience – The Fulford Arms, York 16th January 2025

Posted: 17 January 2025 in Live, Reviews
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Christopher Nosnibor

I expended a lot of typing extolling the virtues of grass-roots venues last year, and mentioned in my end -of-year summary how a change in personal circumstances had changed my gig-going habits somewhat. And so it was that I picked this one more or less on a whim: after DarkHer’s show on Monday was cancelled due to band illness, I found myself itching to see some live music.

Having been blown away by the Jesus Lizard last week, I figured seeing a band I had no knowledge or expectations of might be a good idea, as there would be less likelihood of disappointment.

A Thursday night in the middle of January is pretty much the ultimate lull in the gig year – ordinarily. So it’s pleasing to see a decent turnout early doors, with surprising mix of studenty types and older men. Grey hair, beards, bald heads… Yes, broadly my demographic now, but more like retirement age than approaching 50. At the opposite end, nerd glasses, mullets, turnups. And all as lanky as hell. Why is everyone under the age of thirty so bloody tall?

Patience are first up, bring a set of middling alt-rock with a bit of an emo edge and some flash mathy licks. The singer looks a little uncomfortable on stage: she makes rather hesitant moves when not singing, mostly with some small-stepping jogging on the spot. The band have some serious pedal setups for a bottom of the bill band with just a handful of tunes on Spotify. Perhaps partly on account of this, they sound really good. Things fall apart a bit during the last song, with tuning time-outs and false starts, and the bassist, who’s about seven feet tall and using a wireless setup, not content with bouncing and flailing in his own space, repeatedly encroaches on the singer’s space as he crosses the stage and lurches about around the drum kit. It’s a solid enough performance from a band who have no shortage of technical skill or kit, but whose songs are lacking in that all-essential grab which would make them memorable. They have clear potential, though, and I’d be interested to see them in another six months or so.

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Patience

Covent’s single, ‘Peace’, released just last week, was the only bit of pre-gig research I managed. Showcasing a proficient grunge-influenced sound, it’s more Bush than Nirvana, but I’d take that over Nickleback any day – and as a consequence, I was rather looking forward to their set.

They have even more pedals than Patience, especially the bassist. And fuck me if he’s not wearing a bloody Nickleback T-shirt. They’re certainly at the more radio-friendly end of grunge, sounding like Language. Sex. Violence. Other? era Stereophonics crossed with Celebrity Skin era Hole – not to mention Smashing Pumpkins. They sound great, mind, and the singer’s voice has a good level of grit and gravel, and when they do really kick it hard, as on ‘Under the Surface’, they move above drive time grunge into heavy-hitting territory. ‘Out of the Blue’ does remind me rather of Weezer, although I can’t put my finger on anything precisely, and they close with ‘Peace’. It’s a sound choice and a strong finish to a thoroughly decent set. I could easily see them playing considerably larger rooms.

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Covent

Chonky Dogg demonstrate why it’s worth taking punts on bands, and why grassroots venues are vital. Where else would a local band with no label backing – that is to say, a real band rather than a manufactured one – get to cut their teeth and build a fanbase? There’s been much made of the cutting of the pipeline, how the not-so-slow death of the small venue circuit is starting to choke the development of acts who will be playing arenas and headlining festivals in years to come. Chonky Dogg are never going to be headlining Glastonbury or selling out O2 venues around the country – but given the right exposure, clearly have the potential to play to substantially larger audiences than this.

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Chonky Dogg

Theirs is a daft name, but it so happens they’re a great band, strongly reminiscent of And So I Watch You from Afar, another band I discovered by way of a fluke because I went to see maybeshewill – on the basis of hearing a single – while staying in Stirling for a conference. They play noodly, mathy post rock driven by big, big riffs. Their music is complex, yet accessible, richly layered, with some magnificent detail, wonderful guitar interplay, and some dense, crunchy bass. The songs pack some weight and substance. And, they’re as tight as they come: is it really only their third gig? ‘Barbenheimer’ is a blistering riff-fest with soaring lead work, and everything about their performance is perfectly balanced and brilliantly executed. A beautiful proggy neoclassical interlude prefaces the final song, scheduled for single release soon (I think), and it’s a blinder.

I’m going to call it here first while I can: they really are the (Chonky) Dogg’s bollocks.

Toru – Velours Dévorant

Posted: 13 January 2025 in Albums, Reviews
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Cruel Nature Records – 14th January 2025

Christopher Nosnibor

Released on various formats by various labels in different countries, the latest offering from genre-blasting French instrumental trio Toru is being released on cassette (and download) by Northumberland’s Cruel Nature in an edition of 65. Following on from 2020’s eponymous debut and a split release with Teufelskeller, which saw Toru join forces with CR3C3LL3, this time around, they’re different again, and having been featured as album of the day at Bandcamp Central just the other day, the signs are that Velours Dévorant could see them significantly expand their fanbase – and deservedly so.

Velours Dévorant featires five V-themed tracks defined by some riotous riffmongering and big, dirty, overdriven guitar noise with tempo shifts galore. Blasting in with ‘VHS’, it’s a manic ride through waves of tempestuous, bludgeoning racket from the very start. Trilling feedback fulfils the duty of a lead guitar line, while a shuddering, ribcage-rattling bass tears its way out from the chaos atop some heavy, but highly skilled jazz-inspired drumming.

Some will likely describe their sonic blitzkrieg as ‘experimental’, but that’s something of a misrepresentation, in that it suggests a lack of coherence, a haphazard and unplanned approach. The sudden stops and starts, the moments where a chord hangs, suspended in the air for just the briefest moment before the fractionally-delayed snare smash or cymbal crash, where the three of them simultaneously draw breath in just a split second… those microcosmic moments require remarkable precision – unquestionably, intuition is key, but rehearsal too. The skill is to make it sound haphazard, unpredictable, to keep the listener on the edge of their seat, buttocks clenched, while having it all worked out. Every composition contains moments which feel like the sonic equivalent of watching trapeze artists, where you tense and momentarily stop breathing as they fly through the air, seemingly in slow-motion, tense in case they fail to grab on: will they keep it together, or will everything collapse into a mess of sludge like a sewer rupturing and spewing a fountain of slurry?

These are long tracks – the shortest is over five and a half minutes – with infinite twists and turns. The skewed, surging jazz-grunge of ‘Voiles’ – a whopping eleven and a half minutes in duration – is representative, and encapsulates the essence of the album. The guitars squall and screed in a showcase of noise-rock par excellence, while the bass lurches and snarls, grooves and grinds, and the percussion is simply wild. It’s like listening an instrumental version of every track by the Jesus Lizard all at once. There’s a low-impact, atmospheric mid-section that rolls and rumbles, yawns and splashes… lazily would e the wrong word, but it takes its time, with bent guitar chords twanging like elastic bands, while the sparse percussion meanders seemingly without aim. But then it all reshapes and takes form once more, building, building, and then exploding so hard as to detonate so hard as to blow your eyeballs out of their sockets. Fuck, when these guys hit the pedals, they really do go all out.

I’ve heard a plethora of zany noise-rock acts, and have loved many – most of whom are so obscure that to reference them or draw comparisons would be the most pointless exercise imaginable: ‘hey, wow, this band I’ve not heard of sound like a bunch of other bands I’ve never heard of, that’s informative!’.

On Velours Dévorant, Toru take the tropes of post-rock, with its protracted delicate segments and slow-building atmosphere, and incorporate them within a noise-rock setting, with the result being epic tunes with some incredibly graceful, and ultimately poignant expanses, pressed tight against some of the most explosive overloading, overdriven abrasion going. And then, of course, there are the jazz elements: ‘Volutes’ is the apex of jazz/grunge hybridization, and it works so well. Not sold on Nirvana meets The Necks? Trust me.

The fourteen-minute title track is… special. It is, in many respects, the evolution of post-rock circa 2004. Chiming guitars, infinite space, haunting atmosphere. The intro is magnificent, beautiful. Her Name is Calla’s sprawling ‘Condor and River’ comes to mind. That use of space, that simmering tension, that sense of something growing which is more than… well, it’ s simply more. There are things hidden. When the riffing lets rip, holy shit, does the riffing let rip, fully shredding blasts of distortion tear through with obliterating force. The track feels like an album in its own right.

It seems like a while since I’ve felt compelled to describe an album as ‘epic’ – but this… this is next-level epic.

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LiVES – Let Them Eat Cake

Posted: 13 October 2024 in Albums, Reviews
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Roulette Records – 25th October 2024

Christopher Nosnibor

As the album’s title suggests, this is a political record. Then again, the single ‘Cancelled’, released a few months back as a lead-up, certainly gave enough of a hint that this was going to be a rage against contemporary society, and the themes of the social media ‘shitshow shower’ and the culture wars and flame-throwing, division and disinformation that has taken over so much of the Internet – a space where we seems spend more time living virtual lives than we do on real life – dominate the lyrics.

The opening lines of ‘What a Way’ neatly encapsulate the band’s angle:

He’s a little nazi with a pop-gun,

Spilling all of his hate onto the forum,

Overcompensating for the fact that,

It’s lonely life

And so it is that these seven sharp cuts (plus a radio edit of ‘Cancelled’) really pick apart just what it is about modern life that s so rubbish. That’s perhaps rather flippant, not to mention reductive of what Let Them Eat Cake is about. It explores numerous aspects of how the world on-line has eroded so much in culture, and how it’s riven with contradictions. On the one hand, the interconnected world of the ‘global village’ Marshall McLuhan first wrote of in Understanding the Media in 1964 has truly come to pass. The world is switched on and connected 24/7, and it’s possible to conduct conversations and business with the other side of the world in real time. News is instantaneous and everywhere. All music – well, hypothetically, and moreover perhaps depending on your tastes – and media are there, instantly, and for free. But on the other hand, as much as there’s a sense of sameness and conformity – same music, same news, same memes, same opinions – and an ever-blander homogeneity, the inhabitants of the global village hate one another’s guts and seem to even derive pleasure from rage, throwing bricks through their neighbours’ windows, keying their cars and burning their houses.

Everyone is shouting louder than the next, ‘look at me, look at me!’ while posting the same generic shit, the same Instagrammable coffee and cake (let them eat it, sure, diabetes is a small price to pay for millions of followers and true ‘influencer’ status, right?), and what’s more there’s simply too much of it. Anxiety, depression, and therapy have become normalised topics as people spill their guts into the world (and the subject of ‘Come Together’), and while yes, it’s good that they’re no longer taboo or shameful, what’s not good is that we’re in this position where these are everyday realities for so many.

Let Them Eat Cake is a snapshot and a critique of all of this.

‘Cancelled’ certainly gets the album off to a fiery, riff-driven start, but it soon becomes clear that LiVES have some considerable capacity for stylistic range. Of course they do: to rail about cultural sameness while doing the same thing on every song would be hypocritical.

The title track has more of a 90s indie vibe, and even goes a bit Manics, a bit Mansun, and a little bit glammy, and ‘Come Together’ has more of an indie vibe, too, but also a theatricality which calls to mind The Sensational Alex Harvey Band, but then ‘What a Way’ cranks up the guitars and hits like a punch in the guts. ‘Already Dead’ and ‘Is This What You Want?’ bring a big stoner-meets Led Zep rock swagger, which contrasts again with the country twang of ‘Hope and Freedom’.

The span of styles makes for an album that never falls to formula or gets predictable, but the lyrical focus ensure it retains that vital cohesion. What really comes across through every song is that this is an album from the heart, born of frustration, disappointment, despondency, irritation, antagonism, that whole gamut of emotions stirred by that feeling of inflammation that everything is so very, very wrong. For all that frustration, disappointment, despondency, irritation, antagonism, Let Them Eat Cake is an album packed with passion, not to mention some corking tunes.

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Baby Schillaci – The Soundtrack

Posted: 1 October 2024 in Albums, Reviews
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2nd October 2024

Christopher Nosnibor

Christ only knows what this is intended to be a soundtrack to, but the debut long-player from chaotic Welsh post-punky alternative rock act Baby Schillaci could be loosely considered a concept album. The soundtrack to a schizophrenic episode, perhaps?

Opening with ‘## TITLE SEQUENCE ##’ and with ‘## INTERVAL ##’ breaking the sequence midway through, there’s a semblance of a structure here, and while some of the titles do hint at a narrative art in keeping with ‘real’ soundtracks – ‘DISINTEGRATING SMALL TALK’ and ‘JACKIE’S GIRL’, for example, elsewhere there just seems to be more of an interest in brutality and mortality – consider ‘BLUNT FORCE TRAUMA’ and the crazed, explosive single cut ‘THE FLATLINERS’.

The aforementioned ‘title sequence’ brings tension – a stark piano and brooding bass builds and ultimately yields to a surge of expansive abstract dissonance, but with a widescreen, cinematic feel, before ‘ULTRA HD HAPPY FACE’ blasts in with some thick, scuzzy guitars and there’s a strong early 90s alternative vibe to it. But as much as it’s Jacob’s Mouse and the Jesus Lizard, it’s got that roaring grunge revival thing going on, and calls to mind Pulled Apart by Horses’ debut album. ‘tHe AnTi suNCreaM LEaGUe’ comes on like Therapy? in collaboration with Sleaford Mods with a bit of Rage Against the Machine going on, which on paper shouldn’t work, but it’s an absolute riot: furious overdriven guitars nagging at a cyclical riff paired with a relentless, vitriolic spoken word rant hits the mark, and again reminds us – at least those of us who were there – just how eclectic the 90s alternative scene was. This was the decade when shit got weird, in a good way. It was a time which will be forever synonymous with grunge and Britpop, but it also gave us the previously unthinkable musical hybrid of the Judgement Night soundtrack, and a whole host of less-than-obvious crossovers. Pop Will Eat Itself were a one-band hybrid of infinite proportions, while Faith No More were more contained but no less genre-busting, and there was just so much weird shit happening the only question was as to what’s going to happen next. Sadly, the answer was Oasis, and while interesting stuff was still happening on the fringes, Oasis simultaneously killed indie and alternative and musical innovation with their turgid pub-rock monopoly.

Built around a thick, low-slung, grinding bass, ‘DISINTEGRATING SMALL TALK’ has something of the industrial roar of Filter about it, but then again, some of the stoner swagger of Queens of the Stone Age. These guys don’t limit themselves when it comes to their songwriting. Genre? Pfft. Look, if it sounds good and they get to kick out some dirty noise, it’s good. And this IS good.

‘THE FLATLINERS’ starts out like early Interpol before flooring the pedal and accelerating in a deluge of guitar and frenetic drumming, and it’s like at least three songs in one, and it’s this crazed shift from one thing to another which defines The Soundtrack. Closer ‘BLUNT FORCE TRAUMA’ is a sort of motoric workout where The Fall and The Black Angels collide, but the sound is solid and it builds to a mighty climax.

The thing The Soundtrack needs now is the accompanying movie… I’ve no idea what it would look like, but it would be wild!

AA

Baby Schillaci - The Soundtrack Artwork BIG

Pythies – Disillusion

Posted: 15 September 2024 in Reviews, Singles and EPs
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20th September 2024

Christopher Nosnibor

2024 is the year of Pythies, the musical project of Parisienne grunge fan Lise.L. While the Internet age has enabled countless acts to leap from bedroom conception to releases in a matter of weeks, she’s been rather more measured in her approach, and having decided at the end of 2022 ‘to form a new musical project lead only by women, which included influences of the grunge culture of the 90s (L7, 7 Year Bitch, Babes in Toyland, Hole) and her taste for witchcraft’, debuting with an EP in May 2023, 2024 has seen the emergence of a couple of singles ahead of this EP release.

I will admit that I’m still coming to terms with this new model. In the 80s, 90s, and even 00s, you would either release a single or an EP. But digital has changed everything. Historically, whether it was a single or an EP, there would be physical formats, and a single or EP would both receive a release on 7” or 12” and a CD. Now, making a track available on Bandcamp ahead of the full EP’s release counts as a ‘single’, as does putting out a video for a song on YouTube.

Disillusion lands firmly on a personal level, then, because it’s hard not to feel disillusioned with the state of the industry, and, often, the state of music, period, and this EP’s five tracks articulate the sentiment with precision. But… acts like Pythies do bring hope, not to mention a real alternative to the mediocre, mass-produced, autotuned slop which dominates not only the charts but mainstream culture as a while.

There’s something wonderfully raw and exciting about this EP, blasting off with ‘Blondinette’, fast-fingered bassline that boasts some nifty runs racing hither and thither beneath a driving, gritty guitar, which does nothing fancy, but crunches hard, propelled by some energetic drumming and a fuckload of attitude.

The punning ‘I Pithie You’ is gentler and more melodic in the verses, but exploits the classic grunge quiet / loud dynamic with a ripping chorus. And did I mention attitude? Yeah, I know, but it needs emphasising: Pythies distils a blend of anger and nonchalance, while sonically they encapsulate the spirit of ’78 as much as ’92, and the title track positively roars.

Closing off with goth-punk tinged single cut ‘Toy’, Disillusion leaves you feeling exhilarated, excited: there’s nothing better than hearing a band channelling all the frustration, all the rage, all the angst into tight bursts of guitar-driven energy, and Pythies do it so, so well.

AA

Pythies cover EP crédits Orane Auvray

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