Posts Tagged ‘Indie’

elkyn – talon

Posted: 22 January 2022 in Singles and EPs
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26th January 2022

Christopheer Nosnibor

Elkyn first came to my attention – and, quite frankly, blew me away instantaneously – in his previous iteration as elk, in the spring of 2019, an appreciation that was cemented with the release of the ‘beech’ EP that summer. Since then, Leeds based multi-instrumentalist Joey Donnelly has become elkyn and gone on to craft not only more remarkable songs, but also something of a rarefied space artistically.

In many respects, there’s very little of Joey out in the public domain: press shots tend to be similar in style, and unassuming, and interviews, while interesting in themselves, and while he comes across well, reveal little about the man behind the music. In contrast, his songs are so intensely personal that there’s likely little need to elucidate further: the songs really do speak for him.

Those songs have already earned him airplay on BBC 6Music, BBC Introducing and Radio X, and deservedly so, and now, with a debut album, holy spirit social club, due for release in the spring, elkyn is sharing ‘talon’ as a taster.

Fuller in sound and more up-tempo than previous singles ‘something’ and ‘everything looks darker now’, it’s more akin to ‘found the back of the tv remote’, which found him flexing new muscles and venturing into Twilight Sad kitchen-sink melancholia.

It’s a(nother) magnificently-crafted tune, and it’s clear by now that Joey has a real knack for bittersweetness. The guitar is melodic and imbued with a wistfulness that’s hard to define. There’s a Curesque lilt to it, in the way that when the Cure do pop, it’s somehow sadder and more emotionally touching than then they do gloomy – or is that just me who experiences that sensation where a certain shade of happy just makes me want to cry inexplicably? But more than anything, when Donnelly’s voice enters the mix, I’m reminded of Dinosaur Jr. Joey’s a better singer than J Mascis, but his voice has that same plaintive quality that tugs away and evokes that emotional hinterland between gloom, resignation, and hope.

Donnelly deals in self-doubt, self-criticism and articulations of inadequacy, and this is why his songs are so affecting and relatable. But it’s the hope that shines through on ‘talon’ – thin rays of sun through the closed curtains of despair perhaps, but with a tune this breezy it’s hard to feel anything other than uplifted by the end.

Live dates:

18/03/22 Hyde Park Book Club Leeds

19/03/22 Fulford Arms York

20/03/22 The Castle Manchester

24/03/22 Scale Liverpool

25/03/22 JT Soar Nottingham

26/03/22 The Flapper Birmingham

27/03/22 Duffy’s Leicester

29/03/22 Strongrooms London

30/03/22 Folklore Rooms Brighton

01/04/22 Clifton Community Bookshop

02/04/22 Tiny Rebel Cardiff

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Pic: Stewart Baxter

The Assist – Television Kid

Posted: 13 January 2022 in Singles and EPs
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28th January 2022

Christopher Nosnibor

On seeing / hearing this, I’m reminded of the character of Mike TV in Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, a book I loved as a child, and have enjoyed all over again as a parent – although I always detested the film adaptations, especially the original, not least of all because I doubly detest Gene Wilder: the guy just grates. However, Dahl had a way of making points through his characters, often about ‘good’ and ‘bad’ traits and characteristics and behaviours, and Mike TV was no exception, and it may not have been especially subtle, but then it was a children’s book written in the 60s, at a time when sociologists and psychologists too were becoming interested on the effect of the media, in particular television – the twentieth century opium of the people.

The Assist’s new offering unpacks this line of thinking through a contemporary filter and a more immediate perspective, portraying a character – who’s something of an emblem, a stereotype – whose expectations of life are unrealistic, distorted by media representations. Since the turn of the millennium and the advent of ‘reality’; TV, we’ve been fed an endless conveyor belt of shows that have espoused the idea that anyone can achieve anything, and that anyone can become a celebrity – and, worse still, that being a celebrity for its own sake is something not only achievable, but desirable. It wasn’t so long ago kids would grow up wanting to be film stars, pop stars, models, designers, sportspeople; now primary-age kids are coming through wanting to be reality TV celebs, Instagram influencers and YouTubers.

‘TV Kid’ paints the stark disparity between the dream and the reality, where head-in-the-clouds aspirations – ‘a top flight striker, Well known as a good time provider…A boxing expert, an amateur fighter, walks around to the eye of the tiger’ – are a world away from the stress of bills and so on, the kitchen sink drudgery or life on minimum wage – or, as they put it, ‘Big soup for breakfast, big soup for tea, petrol for Christmas’.

It’s a nifty tune, compressed into a sharp, snappy two-and-a-half minutes. It’s buoyant and upbeat in delivery, with some jangly but crunchy guitars driving it along nicely while brimming with melody and energy. The Midlands act are unashamed in their working class stylings, without being as in yer face as Sleaford Mods (which is no doubt one reason The Assist haven’t weighed in with Fat White Family on the ‘faux working classness of Idles), or as brash and tediously crap as Oasis, and consequently, in rank order it’s the music first and the attitude second. It’s a decent balance, and singer Mikey has just the right amount of swagger in his delivery – cocky, but not cockish, and nicely whetting the whistle for the debut album, Council Pop, out in April.

Artwork - The Assist

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Band shot - The Assist

Third Lung – Dialogues Of The Fatal Few

Posted: 28 November 2021 in Singles and EPs
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26th November 2021

James Wells

Following on from the single releases of ‘Climb’, ‘I A Fire’, ‘Hold the Line’, and ‘What is a Life?’, Reading four-piece Third Lung have delivered their much-anticipated new EP, Dialogues Of The Fatal Few.

Three of those aforementioned tracks are featured here, and while it would have been obvious and easy to have released a five-track EP featuring all four with the new song on offer here, that they’ve gone for a more succinct release means that Dialogues Of The Fatal Few is a much more focused and cohesive release, and not a complete rehash and compilation.

Opening with ‘I A Fire’ sets the stall out nicely, and while it’s mid-tempo, it’s bold and anthemic, and recalls the spirit of circa 2004 when Keane broke through with ‘Somewhere Only We Know’ and the single releases from Coldplay’s A Rush of Blood to the Head were all over the radio. Bear with me. In context, these weren’t bad tunes which hinted at considerably more than the tedium that would follow from both bands. ‘Hold the Line’ is perhaps the strongest song in the set, balancing brooding and dark with a blossoming sunburst chorus

Piano ballad ‘The Art of Stealing’ reveals a different facet of the band, and while it’s clearly not a single track, illustrates the benefits of EPs and longer form releases. It also provides a well-placed change in form in context of the EP, bringing things down a notch or two between the monster tunes.

There’s more to Third Lung than straight-up anthems: lyrically, they’ve got some depth and are worth listening to, although I suspect that’ll likely be secondary to their career trajectory, and with such a knack for big tunes, it’s surely only time before they’re big, too.

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Artwork

Watch: ‘Listless’ by Chew Magna

Posted: 24 November 2021 in Recommended Streams and Videos
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Teasing their forthcoming self-titled debut album, Manchester’s most uplifting cacophonous craftsmen Chew Magna, are serving up their own alt-rock antidote to lifelessness in the modern age with the ironically titled new single ‘Listless’ – complete with an unsettling self-made David Lynch inspired video.

“Listless is mostly about wasting an abundance of potential,” guitarist and vocalist Laurie says, alluding to the track’s thundering chorus as it sharpshoots, “I’d kill for what you’ve got” to a motoring Krautrock groove. Recorded at Salford’s The White Hotel with SWAYS producer Martin Hurley, it is a restless and incendiary re-introduction to a band who have been busy cranking up the dial on their unyielding attack of guitar squall. “For this track we melded two songs together; you can hear the jam the main part came from,” Laurie reveals.

‘Listless’, the first track to be unleashed (and the last to be written) from the four-piece’s upcoming debut album, is unrelenting in its anthemic riff, symphonic vocal, guitar and bass flirtations, crashing drums and overall wall of enduring sound.

The accompanying ‘Listless’ video was created and filmed by the band in a single day, in a cleared-out spare bedroom on zero budget. Each Magna members’ eyes covered as their senses are heightened, slide projections and shadows dance across their turtlenecks and barefoot stance which culminates in the strangest but most addictive of calisthenics style dance routines since ‘Watch Me (Whip/Nae Nae)’.

“The end result is delightfully odd,” says guitarist Simon who, alongside partner Annie, took the directorial lead. “The angles are quite Lynchian, driven by us using lighting in unusual ways to enhance the confines of the small space. It was a case of setting each scene with the things we had in the house and the dance adds a surreal, claustrophobic feel to the song’s already uncanny theme.”

A further foray into Chew Magna’s poetic and philosophical world, ‘Listless’ is the first earful of the band’s eagerly-anticipated debut album arriving Spring 2022 – a record they say, sees them “emerging from Covid’s sleep.” An onslaught of decibel-destroying fuzz and rising tension, Chew Magna explores the angst felt of wasting one’s potential, freedom’s plight, apocalyptic cautionary tales, inverse worlds, the passing of youth, conspiracy theories and life’s countless frustrations.

Watch the video here:

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Chew

Dawn After Dark – New Dawn Rising

Posted: 23 November 2021 in Albums
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Chapter 22 Records – 4th of December 2021

Christopher Nosnibor

Dawn After Dark first emerged in the second wave of goth in the late 80s, at the point where goth intersected with indie and straight-ahead rock to create something altogether more digestible for the masses than the dark, shadowy stylings of the like of The Sisters of Mercy and The March Violets (and this isn’t the time for the goth / not goth debate here, and no-one needs to hear my position on it: I’m going for the short cuts to provide context, nothing more).

The Birmingham-based act were pretty active during this time, playing in the region of 150 UK shows as headliners and support to acts including Balaam And The Angel, Wolfsbane, Fields Of The Nephilim, and Living Colour, and releasing 3 12” singles on Chapter 22 (the label that also launched The Mission in ’86 and released their first two singles, ‘Serpent’s Kiss’ and ‘Garden of Delight’) before calling it a day in 1991. 30 years on, they’ve finally delivered their debut album, and as the title suggests, its emergence is something like a phoenix from the ashes, since they’ve lain dormant all this time save for a one-off show in their hometown in September 2019.

Those three singles – ‘Maximum Overdrive’, ‘Crystal High’, and ‘The Groove’ are all featured here, albeit rerecorded using post-millennium technology and mastering, slotting in nicely alongside seven previously unreleased songs. It’s ‘Maximum Overdrive; that kick-starts the 11-track collection and is pure Cult, which is no shock given the original as performed by a band who sported long hair, leather jackets and bandanas back in the day. This version is much more polished and much more dense than the original, and you get a sense that this was how they always wanted it to sound. It’s less manic, smoother, but it still basks in rock ‘n’ roll excess and wild solos flame all over.

I’ve always filed DAD alongside the likes of Rose of Avalanche, although it’s fair to say they’ve always had a rather harder edge, and this is pressed to the fore on their long-delayed debut album, to the point that on reflection they’re more ones to file alongside The Cult and Zodiac Mindwarp now (only without the preposterous excess of the Bradford hard rockers).

‘The Day the World and I Parted Company’ brings more gritty riffery, and sounds like Sonic Temple era Cult with a hint of The Mission thanks to the twisting guitar lines and all the hammer-on descending runs. It’s enhanced by some overloading chug in the rhythm department, although there’s an expansive psychedelic workout in the mid-section.

Apart from slower, more anthemic stabs like ‘When Will You Come Home to Me’, they focus on the bold rock riffing, and you can’t exactly criticise a late 80s rock band for sounding like a late 80s rock band – and yes, that is the sound of New Dawn Rising, a title that perfectly captures their history and belatedness of their debut. It’s like they’ve never been away, apart from the fact that they’re back sounding crisp, and dense and more 2021, in terms of production if not songs.

It’s a solid, ballsy, gut kicking debut that packs in back-to-back slabs of the kind of rock they supposedly don’t make any more… only, of course, they very much do.

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Dawn After Dark artwork 1

Watch: ‘No Dreams of Fayres’ by Tallies

Posted: 8 November 2021 in Singles and EPs
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Bella Union Records are thrilled to announce the signing of Tallies. The Toronto-based band are today sharing their captivating new single, “No Dreams of Fayres”, which is released via Bella Union (UK/EU), Kanine Records (US) and Hand Drawn Dracula (Canada). The new single marks the first new music from the band since their acclaimed self-titled debut that found fans at Clash, NYLON, DIY, CRACK, MOJO, Exclaim, Under the Radar and more. Listen to “No Dreams of Fayres” here:

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Speaking about the new single, Cogan says: “’No Dreams of Fayres’ is a reflection of thoughts that I remember going through my mind when I stayed still in bed. Feeling as though staying still in bed was the only thing that would help the sadness – basically, disconnecting myself from family, friends, and having a life. Finding the way out of depression was hard but possible. ‘No Dreams of Fayres’ is also about the realization of letting yourself feel real feelings but not mistaking them for emotions. I had to learn to get a grip of what I wanted out of life and go for it with no self-sabotage – which was music, as clichéd as it sounds. It pulled me out of bed, physically and mentally.”

Tallies, who have previously opened for the likes of Mudhoney, Hatchie, Tim Burgess and Weaves, is made up of founding members guitarist Dylan Frankland and singer/guitarist Sarah Cogan, who are joined by drummer, Cian O’Neill. Tallies were recently announced to play at next year’s SXSW Festival in Austin and New Colossus Festival in New York.

Watch the video ere:

KIN – The Runaways

Posted: 4 November 2021 in Singles and EPs
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5th November 2021

Remember, remember the fifth of November… because it’s not only BandCamp Friday, but the day KIN release their first new material in a year, following up on ‘Wander & Lost’, which found favour with us here at Aural Aggro with their fourth single that happens to also broadly coincide with their return to the live platform.

‘The Runaways’ continues the trajectory of its predecessor, dominated by careful, melodic, chorus-soaked guitars and pursues a dreamy, melodic flow. It’s very much a pop-tune, albeit a mellow, mid-paced one, with a truly immense production that calls to mind 80s Fleetwood Mac and also 80s Kate Bush, not to mention hints of Cindy Lauper’s ‘Time After Time’, while softy blending in shades of more recent acts like The XX. No, it’s not the female vocals, but the overall sound, the vibe, the feel.

It’s this sound, vibe, and feel that have a transportative quality that corresponds with the theme of the song which charts life transitions, new people, new places, and the wonder and trepidation that accompanies such changes. Even running to something feels like running away from something else as you leave your old life behind, an experience that’s at once scary and exhilarating. The song itself is simply exhilarating, the musical equivalent of throwing open the window on a glorious Spring morning, inhaling the fresh air and soaking in a perfect view while flushed with the potentials of a new day in a new life.

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Kin artwork

Doppelgangers – Three Steps South

Posted: 2 November 2021 in Singles and EPs
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29th October 2021

Christopher Nosnibor

It seems that everyone has a doppelganger. As someone who’s prone to wearing a hat and dark glasses, to be told I’ve been seen in places I’ve not been in a city the size of York is pretty unnerving. But there it is: life unravels by strange and unexpected means.

‘Three Steps South’ is both strange and unexpected, and presents an interesting hybrid. It’s got that nagging repetitive cyclical, sequenced electro element and a noodly synth line that bubbles away and mines a deep seam while drums and guitars crunch away…there’s something about it that reminds of Placebo’s ‘Taste in Men’ to the main riff, but then it’s a slice of swanky, swaggersome indie rock at heart. To add to the eclecticism, the mid-section goes all spacious with a reverby western desert twang.

Most surprising of all is the fact that it not only all first together and works, but that it’s a catchy bugger of a tune.

Dopplegangers_3 Steps South Artwork

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Bdrmm / crush – The Fulford Arms, York, 29th October 2021

Posted: 1 November 2021 in Live
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Christopher Nosnibor

The clue’s in the name: Bdrmm started out as a bedroom-based solo project for Ryan Smith in 2017, but soon transitioned to being a proper gigging band. Like so many bands, their progress was severely hampered by more than eighteen months of no live activity, something that seems to have hit bands in the early stages of their careers the hardest, since they rely on performing in grassroots venues and supporting larger bands to build their fanbase.

This was one of many shows that got booked, rescheduled, and rescheduled over the course of the last eighteen months, during which time they’ve maintained a steady flow of releases, including their debut album and an attendant set of remixes and a number of singles, which have clearly done no harm to their profile, garnering glowing reviews from across the spectrum from NME to MOJO via Line of Best Fit. The Fulford Arms, then – sold out, although still operating at reduced capacity for ticket sales – is pretty busy even early doors.

It’s an interesting demographic, too, probably around a 60/40 split of twenty-somethings and forty-somethings – which isn’t entire surprising given Bdrmm’s referencing of the music that the older fans were listening to when they were around the age of the younger ones.

Having just two bands on the bill works well – not only allowing time to ventilate the room between acts – but to give the punters and their ears a rest, time to recharge glasses without a crush at the bar, and an early finish. After so much time out, it might take some time to rebuild the stamina for late nights for a few of us, and for those slightly further afield, public transport isn’t what it was a couple of years ago (or more).

Manchester’s crush – another band who, having formed in 2018 have a lot of early-days ground to recover – are on first. I was pretty sure there have been other bands called Crush, and it was only later I recalled Donna Air and Jayni Hoy’s short-lived pop career and the early 90s project featuring John Valentine Carruthers (formerly of Siouxsie and the Banshees) and Killing Joke drummer Paul Ferguson . The young four-piece are nothing like either. The set makes a shuddering launch into mid-tempo post-rock shoegaze with two guitars. Their sound is reminiscent of melodic 90s indie with a dreamy style, but still some drive too. There’s lots of texture and occasional bursts of noise. They may be lacking that slickness that playing often develops, but they can really play, and the closer comes on like Dinosaur Jr being covered by Slowdive, and it’s ace.

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crush

Crackling distortion yields to a driving motorik riff to announce the arrival of Bdrmm, and it’s immediately apparent that they’re a cut above, and that any hyp is entirely justified. The sound is immense. The drums are half-submerged beneath a heft wash of guitar. It’s a dense, throbbing, shimmering wall of sound. The percussion is a mix of traditional and electronic drum pads, and everything comes together magnificently. New single ‘Port’ drops early as the third song and it’s a brooding synth-driven beast, part My Bloody Valentine, but probably more A Place to Bury Strangers. There’s all the reverb, and all the volume: in fact the sound is great, and sound man Chris Tuke gets a deserved shoutout from the stage during the set. Because while it’s nice on record, and all the comparisons to Slowdive and early Ride are entirely appropriate, live, it really needs to be heard – and felt – at organ-trembling volume.

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Bdrmm

‘Happy, is a synthy swirl meshed with a gritty bass, and as the set progresses, we see the band peeling off blistering sheets of noise. Bent over, guitars practically scraping the floor, they don’t only do shoegaze but they also properly rock out. Near the end of the set they treat us to an immense, slow-building crescendo climax worthy of I Like Trains.

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Bdrmm

They leave us overheated, breathless, and stunned by the sheer power of the blistering noise of the guitars that howl and melt. No way should we have been able to experience this in a venue with a capacity of around 130, and I rather doubt we will again. Bdrmm are a Brudenell band at the very least: they have not only the songs, but that indefinable ‘fuck yeah!’ quality that comes from the wild exhilaration of seeing a band who simply blow you away.

Moses – Mirror Magic

Posted: 24 October 2021 in Singles and EPs
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Space & I Records – 17th November 2021

Moses are clearly aiming for the stars. The band name alone, with its biblical allusions, connotes epic, a band with enough ambition to part a sea (although they’re actually named after their singer, Victor M. Moses. The four-piece act are gunning for arenas, and fair play, but what makes this release a win is that their primary focus is on the song, and on the guts, and on the meaty delivery and solid production.

It’s a chunky, psych-hued hypnotic, cyclical guitar riff that lumbers in and swaggers its way through the song’s three-and-a-half minutes. It’s got all the vintage crunch, the reverby haze, and all the fretwork. It nags away incessantly, and it’s got balls. It’s followed by a shaking, snaking bass, and the vocals are swathed in reverb to seal the retro vibe. There’s a lot of energy here, and some good vibes,

‘Mirror Magic’ has a lot going on – mostly some chunky guitars and solid drumming. It feels like a strong statement of intent, and a taste of things to come – so let’s see what happens next.

Moses Artwork

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