Posts Tagged ‘Hardcore’

CUFFS – Cash Cow

Posted: 29 July 2022 in Singles and EPs
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1st July 2022

Christopher Nosnibor

Bristolian punk foursome CUFFS have been kicking out the jams – and the meaty, gut-busting riffs – since 20019, and they sure as hell haven’t let anything like a global pandemic slow their progress. It may have stalled their gigging activity for a while, where, on the live circuit in the south they’ve been building a reputation for their ‘chaotic’ live shows, but they’ve maintained a stream of hard-hitting singles which, as they put it, are ‘fuelled by angst and social frustration’. Oh yes, we feel it. At least, anyone who’s not on £80K a year does – especially if you believe plants on Question Time who spout off about people being on £80K not even being in the top 50% of earners, let alone the top five. Of course, such embarrassing outbursts only highlight just how divided the nation is between the haves and the have-nots, and how utterly fucking deluded and completely out of touch the wealthy are when they cry poverty because they have to drop one of their quarterly skiing holidays.

Listening to this on the day it was announced that British Gas owners Centrica saw their half-yearly profits increase five-fold to a staggering £1.34BN, against a backdrop of mass strikes from rail workers, barristers, and, imminently teachers, exam boards, health workers and more, because they’re so sick of being shafted and having to resort to food banks, everything comes together with a sickening thud. Profit before people, guns before butter, every time: the air is as hot with anger as it is climate change, and something has to give.

‘Cash Cow’ may contain a few obvious rhymes among its couplets, and even a couple that are awkwardly shoehorned, but they’re delivered with such passion and sincerity you forgive them in an instant. The guitars are a treble-mesh buzz, and ‘Cash Cow’ is a raw, blistering sonic assault, a blast of trad-punk but with a hard and hardcore edge and played with a furious ferocity that grabs you by the throat and screams at you to fucking listen. Wise up! The mega-rich are screwing us all. It’s time for change.

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Scum – For Health and Well-Being

Posted: 28 July 2022 in Singles and EPs
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Fast & Bulbous Records – 22nd July 2022.

They’ve been described as sounding like the nagging repetitions of The Fall mixed with the fury of Black Flag, played at 100mph. band names don’t get much more punk than this. And they’re from Leeds, which has in recent years proved to be a hotbed of guitar-driven musical fury. This is what happens when a large city with lots of little venues finds itself in a different place from the rest of the country. Richly multicultural, innovative and entrepreneurial, with a large student population, it’s both a centre for tertiary industry and mass-scale redevelopment and gentrification as well as a place of terrible deprivation. So much for levelling up; so much for the northern powerhouse. But Leeds has always been apart, as its 80s musical heritage is testament to, and since the millennium, it’s been a hotbed of emerging styles, through post-rock and jerky, quirky indie, through math rock and all-out noisy shit, with countless bands emerging – and quickly fading again – in the process.

Scum have survived the pandemic, having formed in 2018, to drop a second EP, and the trio haven’t spent the time away figuring out how to make their millions writing pop songs.

On For Health and Well-Being, the trio are everything they’ve been described as, with a dash of Trail of the Dead tossed into the mix, and it’s a punky, energetic blend of styles that all point to energetic fury. The title tracks is a 25-second spoken word piece where a swell of noise and feedback rises in the background before halting abruptly and the full-throttle guitar attack of ‘Abuserism’ (the longest song at 3:30) piles in.

Blink and you’ll miss the 32-second ‘Vanity Support’: it’s the furious ‘Hard’ that really grabs the attention with its thick riffage and hardcore attitude, and the closer, ‘Intravenous Inconvenience’ powers it to a close.

Take same time out and give it a blast, and do it on work time. Because employers are all about supporting Health and Well-Being, right?

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Watch: ‘Water Wings’ by Birds in Row

Posted: 10 June 2022 in Recommended Streams and Videos
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French experimental punk / hardcore trio, Birds In Row have been at the forefront of their genre for a decade. Their lauded 2012 debut You, Me & the Violence released on Deathwish Inc. rocketed them from Laval-based unknowns to the world’s stage. Their exceptional 2018 follow up We Already Lost the World was an unyielding inferno of brazen ideas. It screamed for mutual respect in a world of increasingly extreme political divides, and used the vehicles of punk, post-hardcore and post-metal to carry its cries.

Sonically, they’re fearless. Lyrically, they’re as poetic as they are recusant. And live, they’re a ruthless force, matching the power of their music with boundless, must-see energy.

Today they return with an immediate and genre-bending epic, ‘Water Wings’. Its scraping guitar strums a ticking clock, counting down to the inevitable barrage of hardcore to follow. Of the single, Birds In Row tell, “The dreams that are imposed on us – of social success, accomplishment or, even, the vision of what happiness is – does not consider who we are or where we’re from. Those dreams aren’t ours, but are inherently ours. Being ourselves means struggling against these dreams that have been forced onto us.”

Check the visualiser vid here:

“Water Wings” comes alongside the news that the band have signed with Red Creek Recordings (founded by Johannes Persson of Cult of Luna and Alexis Sevenier from ORA Management) to release their third studio album later this Fall. Birds In Row have also announced a full October/November European tour. See below for a full list of dates. For more info go here… stay tuned for more.

Birds In Row Live Dates:

* w/ Cult of Luna

Sep 30 – Vitry-sur-Seine (FR) – Festi’Val de Marne

Oct 01 – Rouen (FR) – Le 106

Oct 02 – Esch-sur-Alzette (LU) – Rockhal *

Oct 03 – Cologne (DE) – Live Music Hall *

Oct 04 – Geneve (CH – Alhambra *

Oct 05 – Toulouse (FR) – Le Metronum *

Oct 06 – Biarritz (FR) – Atabal *

Oct 07 – Barcelona (ES) – AMFest *

Oct 08 – Madrid (ES) – But *

Oct 09 – Porto (PT) – Ampli Fest *

Oct 11 – Nantes (FR) – Stereolux *

Oct 12 – Lille (FR) – Aeronef *

Oct 13 – Strasbourg (FR) – La Laiterie *

Oct 14 – Zwolle (NL) – Hedon *

Oct 15 – Leipzig (DE) – Felsenkeller *

Oct 16 – Wroclaw (PL) – A2 *

Oct 17 – Budapest (HU) – Durer Kert *

Oct 18 – Prague (CZ) – Underdogs *

Oct 20 – Berlin (DE) – Urban Spree

Oct 21 – Dortmund (DE) – Trompete

Oct 22 – Darmstadt (DE) – Oettinger Villa

Oct 23 – Neunkirchen (DE) – Stummschen Reithalle

Oct 27 – Bordeaux (FR) – Le Krakatoa

Oct 28 – Alençon (FR) – La Luciole

Nov 03 – Amiens (FR) – La Lune des Pirates

Nov 04 – Belfort (FR) – La Poudrière

Nov 05 – Annecy (FR) – Le Brise Glace

Nov 09 – Bruxelles (BE) – Le Botanique

Nov 10 – Haarlemn (NL) – Patronaat

Nov 11 – Leeuwarden (NL) – Neushoorn

Nov 12 – Nijmegen (NL) – Merleyn

Nov 17 – Poitiers (FR) – Le Confort Moderne

Nov 18 – Vannes (FR) – L’Echonova

Nov 19 – Quimper (FR) – Novomax

Nov 23 – Fribourg (CH) – Fri-Son

Nov 24 – Metz (FR) – Les Trinitaires

Nov 25 – Tours (FR) – Le Bateau Ivre

Nov 26 – Paris (FR) – Le Trabendo

Dec 09 – Angoulême (FR) – La Nef

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Petrol Hoers announces UK tour

Posted: 22 March 2022 in Previews and Editorial
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Digital Horsecore pioneer Petrol Hoers is kicking off this year’s gig schedule with a UK tour in April, alongside techno punks Petrol Bastard and antisocial rock three-piece The Ducks.

Starting in Blackpool on April 7th, the tour will run for 11 days, finishing with an early evening show in Brighton on April 17th.

Part man, part horse, part hallucinatory nightmare; Petrol Hoers is galloping out of the strangest corner of the Yorkshire music scene with a unique blend of hardcore punk, hard drum+bass and surreal comedy.

The equine entertainer has built a cult following through his online antics and energetic live shows which has led to national radio airplay, festival appearances and being described by music industry legend and BBC Radio 6 presenter Tom Robinson as “…one of the oddest and most original artists it’s ever been my pleasure to come across in the last 15 years of BBC Introducing.”

The most recent Petrol Hoers album Oh I Don’t Know, Just Horse Stuff, I Guess is available to listen and download via Bandcamp. 

You can catch Petrol Hoers at the following dates:

Thursday, April 7, 2022 – Scream & Shake, Blackpool

Friday, April 8, 2022 – Outpost, Liverpool

Saturday, April 9, 2022 – Aatma, Manchester

Sunday, April 10, 2022 – Santiago’s, Leeds

Monday, April 11, 2022 – Network, Sheffield

Tuesday, April 12, 2022 – The Chameleon, Nottingham

Wednesday, April 13, 2022 – Heartbreakers, Southampton

Thursday, April 14, 2022 – The Tin, Coventry

Friday, April 15, 2022 – The Lab, Northampton

Saturday, April 16, 2022 – Poco Loco, Chatham

Sunday, April 17, 2022 – Hope and Ruin, Brighton

Ticket and social links can be found at https://linktr.ee/Petrolhoers

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Watch: ‘Ransom Note’ by Confess

Posted: 22 December 2021 in Reviews
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Iranian groove metal/hardcore band Confess describe themselves as a “five-piece street protest”. It’s not a figure of speech: Nikan Khosravi (vocals/guitar) and Arash Ilkhani (DJ/Sampler) have experienced political persecution first-hand. Theband’s upcoming album “Revenge at All Costs” is a cry of outrage in the form of chunky down-tuned riffs marinated in the Norwegian winter.

The journey started in junior high school in Tehran when Nikan got a CD from a classmate. It contained music videos by metal bands from the 90s and 2000s. "I was fascinated by the sound of the genre," he states. "Ever since this music has been the centre of my life." Nikan and Arash started the band as
teenagers in 2010, releasing their first album "Beginning of Dominion" in 2012. Their early sound gravitated towards old-school death metal and 90s hardcore, always with some grooviness to it.

Nikan started his own label "Opposite Records" in 2014. Up until now, this could sound like the story of any European band. But change the context and being a metal musician in Iran could mean anything from government surveillance to execution. Arrest and prison followed the release of the band’s second album
In Pursuit of Dreams in 2015. This led to the pair being arrested and facing execution on charges of blasphemy in one of Iran’s harshest prisons.

Fast forward to 2018, when both Nikan and Arash obtained refugee status in Norway. Confess started experimenting with seven strings and adding modern death metal sounds. But the groovy headbanging spirit of their musical DNA is very much alive. Confess has played in public without fear of repercussions ever since. After several concerts in Norway, their latest milestone has been opening for Mayhem at Festspillene i Nord.

As a taster for the 2022 album ‘evenge at all Costs, they’ve given us ‘Ransom Note.’ Watch ‘Ransom Note’ here:

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Orrin DeForest – Harshcore 98-00

Posted: 22 September 2021 in Albums
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Cruel Nature Records – 24th September 2021

Christopher Nosnibor

The lights that burn brightest tend to be the ones that burn briefest, and it’s something of a conflicting pull on the gut that surrounds reflections on this. The idea that acts who quit and artists who died leaving a small but impactful legacy are somehow unfulfilled and that we’ve been deprived of whatever they may have done is counterbalanced by the contention that perhaps curtailing a career at its peak or even still in its ascendency is the best way, and fans will be forever divided on this topic.

What if Ian Curtis had lived, and Joy Division had mutated into New Order? They would have been just another band whose longevity overshadowed that early career, another Manic Street Preachers. Simple Minds should have called it a day in about ’84, and Kasabian’s early promise was spent after just one album.

ODF never lasted long enough to really break out of the locality of Gateshead. As the liner notes to this retrospective observe, they ‘blasted onto the North East’s harshcore scene in 1998 and were gone in a flash three years later; their 2001 split album with Newcastle’s Jazzfinger the only remaining recorded output’. Everything leans toward the attainment of immortal cult status here, and the changes are infinitely more people have heard of the band, or otherwise heard them posthumously than ever did during that brief but explosive career.

This limited cassette, Harshcore 98-00, documents two live shows, both recorded in Gatehead, with the first seven tracks recorded June 2000 at the Floating Cup, Gateshead, and tracks 8-14 recorded June 1998 at the Soundroom, Route 26 Centre, Gateshead.

It’s pretty fucking brutal. Most of the songs in both sets are around the two-minute mark, and it’s as abrasive as hell. The vocals! Rob Woodcock (Marzuraan; Tide Of Iron; Fret!; Platemaker et al) sounds like a zombie from The Walking Dead on amphetamines, snarling and rasping with the most ravaged-sounding voicebox. There’s a lot going on here: ‘Calisthenics’ brings all kinds of jazz and math elements alongside the full-on, balls-out wild thrasher, and the fifty-five second ‘Aggressive Lowbrow’ brings everything all at once in a racket that suits the title.

Despite the close proximity of the sets, there’s a clear evolution here, so it’s a little frustrating that they’re presented in reverse chronology on the release. The ’98 set is less evolved, less detailed, less jazz, less multi-faceted, and more of its time – brimming with samples and songs that are little short of whirling explosions of whiplash-inducing racket, with ‘O.D.F. Will Kick Your Lame Ass Motherfucker!’ being exemplary, but also marking the band’s first forays into different terrains, with hints of swagger emerging amongst the frenzied racket. It’s gnarly, it’s intense, and it’s fucking punishing. And it really makes you wish you had been there.

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Watch: ‘Neon Christ’ by Neon Christ

Posted: 20 May 2021 in Recommended Streams and Videos
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On 12th June, Southern Lord and DVL Recordings co-release a deluxe edition of Neon Christ’s 1984 sessions for Record Store Day. Digital format will also be available via Bandcamp only, and non-Record Store formats will follow at a later date via Southern Lord Europe.

Neon Christ, the cult hardcore luminaries featuring William DuVall (BL’AST!, Comes With The Fall, Alice In Chains), Jimmy Demer (Gardens of.., Accidents), Danny Lankford (Gardens of.., GoDevils, Accidents) and Randy DuTeau (Gardens of) share the entertaining new video for "Neon Christ" which features the band’s children, and gleefully conveys the appreciation of this music across generations. The band comments, "We all had a lot of fun making this video with the kids. They did a fantastic job. It was a wonderful full-circle moment. And much hilarity ensued on set."

Watch the video here:

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Watch: ‘An Iteration’ by The Armed

Posted: 1 April 2021 in Recommended Streams and Videos
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Was the whole thing really just a dream? The Armed, one of the most exciting and innovative experimental hardcore bands of the past decade say maybe it was via their new video for “AN ITERATION”. Featuring a voice-over and cameo from one of the most recognized voices in video game history, David Hayter — the legendary voice behind Solid Snake in the Metal Gear Solid series — the video watches the band’s Dan Greene as he comes to terms with the fact that The Armed may only exist in his head. A fever dream of sorts after one too many times falling asleep playing Metal Gear. A scattered timeline of past music videos that centered around Dan Greene, “An Iteration” is full of easter eggs from the band’s history as well Metal Gear Solid. Stay tuned to the very end.

Dan Greene states “The story of Metal Gear Solid 2–which seemed like convoluted, impenetrable nonsense when we were kids–has turned out to be disturbingly prescient of society in 2021. I would argue that this video game raised more interesting artistic and philosophical questions than a lot of “higher art,” and much earlier too. We are beyond honored to see David Hayter take on the role of Dan Greene within The Armed Cinematic Universe.”

ULTRAPOP, available April 16th via Sargent House features work from Mark Lanegan and Queens of the Stone Age guitarist Troy Van Leeuwen, and is the first album co-produced by the band’s own Dan Greene in collaboration with Ben Chisholm (Chelsea Wolfe). Kurt Ballou remains at the helm as executive producer. Ultrapop is the genre of music that said album features. It reaches the same extremities of sonic expression as the furthest depths of metal, noise, and otherwise "heavy" counterculture music subgenres but finds its foundation firmly in pop music and pop culture. As is always The Armed’s mission, it seeks only to create the most intense experience possible, a magnification of all culture, beauty, and things.

Watch the video here:

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Credit Trevor Naud

Listen: ‘Suicide / The World is Fucked’ by Razor Sharp Death Blizzard

Posted: 23 June 2020 in Singles and EPs
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Following on from their 2016 record “You Will Burn”, Scottish hardcore quartet Razor Sharp Death Blizzard have returned with their new album “The World Is Fucked” which is set for release on July 17th. Ahead of this the band have released a video for their new single “Suicide”.

Frontman Jamie Clark had this to say on the track:

“When we write our songs, we almost always write in the practice room. “Suicide” took me by surprise by the intensity of the music. I like to stand in the room with Daz, Liam and Ross going for it so I can feel the song. The music brought out a lot of emotion in me be it anger, be it tearful. The emotion that came was the feelings for suicide I’d had off and on for a number of years and this song really helped me bring things out. I tried to put into word some of the feelings and thoughts I had.

From the crushing self-defeat to the feeling of wanting to through myself from the Newcastle to Amsterdam ferry on my way to and from holiday with my wife and kids. From not knowing what I was feeling, the utter confusion, wondering if someone would help me now that ‘I’ needed help. All things came to a head when we were a couple of weeks away from a European tour and I ended up doing one show and the rest of the guys played as a three piece for the remaining shows. It coming to a head was the best thing to happen. I was able to talk to those closest to me and turn a lot round.

The end of the song says it all and is a mantra I kind of abide by and its was Daz that said it ‘ no matter how dark the night may seem, tomorrow may be brighter’. What advice I try to give is please talk to someone, that first step will take so much weight from your shoulders. It won’t cure you but will give you courage to talk. It really is okay to not be okay. The hardest step is talking to someone but trust me it’s the best step you can take.”

Both tracks can be streamed here:

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Barren Womb – Lizard Lounge

Posted: 3 June 2020 in Albums
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Loyal Blood Records – 22nd May 2020

Christopher Nosnibor

Nothing says metal like calling your band Barren Womb. And nothing says DIY like making that metal / noise-rock hybrid racket like being a duo. Norwegian noisemongers Timo and Tony have been hard at it for nine years, and Lizard Lounge is their latest effort: it’s pitched as being for fans of Quicksand, Melvins, Clutch, Refused, and Big Business, and the work of a band who capture ‘their raw and unpolished live energy in studio recordings’.

‘Raw and unpolished’ perhaps does them a disservice, with implications of amateurism and a certain shambolicism. Lizard Lounge is cranked up, the production direct, unfiltered, but they’re tight and everything is perfectly balanced. They know what they’re doing, and they fucking nail it here.

Bringing the intense blast of 80s hardcore but with a twist of humour (as titles like ‘Crop Circle Jerk’ and ‘Karma as a Tour Manager’ indicate), and elements of mania that so indeed call to mind Melvins and also contemporaries Cinema Cinema, they burst out of the traps at a hundred miles an hour with ‘Cemetery Slopestye’, a sub-two-minute punk roar that sounds like a full band.

‘Hairy Palms’ brings a loose swaggering groove and grunge pop flavour that combines Pulled Apart by Horses with DZ Deathrays, and this pretty much encapsulates the playful edge that brings light to the hefty riffery that defines their sound.

The aforementioned ‘Crop Circle Jerk’ is jaunty, almost indie, in its funk-tinged style, but its delivery is more like Melvins or JG Thirlwell covering Tom Waits, while ‘Molten Pig’ brings the sweaty, grungy heft of Tad: it’s dirty, dingy, the cyclical overdriven riff simple but effective and played hard and fast, while the vocals grunt and snarl, and it certainly captures the essence of that late 80s / early 90 Sub Pop sound. ‘Nerve Salad’ continues along the same vein. It’s not pretty, but it’s got a vital energy.

Likewise, ‘Be Kind, Have Fun, And Try Not to Die’, which is the poppiest song on here by a mile. Fuck me, I might even call it ‘anthemic’, but it’s anthemic in the way bands like, say, hawk Eyes’ do anthemic, and melds Kerrang! Radio with full metal edge that borders on a mid-90s Ministry kind of grind, and closer ‘Hydroponic Youth’ carries that Filth Pig vibe to the close.

It’s no criticism to say that for all the lyrical intents and purposes, this is an album you just allow to pummel you. The sentiments are articulated through the medium of sound more than the words themselves, the delivery of which conveys more power in context. Lizard Lounge is wild and loud and absolutely hits the spot.

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