Posts Tagged ‘Indie’

Dolium – The Products Of Our Own Demands And Commands

Posted: 19 November 2024 in Albums, Reviews
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Sister 9 Recordings – 22nd November 2024

Christopher Nosnibor

Anniversary editions and reissues have become a massive part of the music industry in recent years, in keeping with the ever-growing tendency to milk all things nostalgic. Many are shameless cash-ins, designed to compel dewy-eyed fans to purchase an album from their your again at eye-watering expense in order to hear it in a new ‘improved’ remastered form, accompanied by several discs of demos, outtakes, acoustic and alternative versions, and contemporaneous live recordings that no-one ever plays more than once if at all, while cherishing a deluxe booklet of photos and whatnot and reflecting on just how fucking old they are and wondering where the decades have gone.

That doesn’t mean there’s no merit to marking anniversaries, and this release is rather different, being a part of the commemorations of twenty years of Sister 9 Recordings with a comprehensive retrospective of cult Sheffield act Dolium, who first broke onto the city scene around the turn of the millennium, before coming to the attention of John Peel in 2004. The band went on indefinite hiatus in 2010, but during their years of activity, amassed a substantial body of work, including two full-length albums, Kisses Fractures (2005), and Hellhounds On The Prowl (2008). A third album, Brother Transistor, was recorded but never saw the light of day… until now. Add all of their singles and other bits and bobs, including their shelved debut single – which made it to test pressing but no further due to lack of funds – and this four-CD set provides instant access to their complete discography, and more. As such, it’s a boon for fans and an ideal introduction for anyone unfamiliar with an act described by KERRANG! as ‘a less depressing Joy Division mixed with the black horror of Bauhaus and the melodic dynamics of the Pixies’.

I’m not entirely convinced there’s much ‘black horror’ to be found in Bauhaus’ catalogue, but it does capture the punky / goth stylings of a band who espoused the indie / DIY ethic and injected every moment with pure adrenaline. They started out with a drum machine, but progressed to live drums when Simon Himsworth joined. Being a small world, it would appear that this is the same Simon Himsworth who would later play guitar in brief but legendary York band We Could Be Astronauts alongside former Seahorse Stu Fletcher.

There’s an obvious chronology about the first two discs, which contain Kisses Fractures and Hellhounds On The Prowl respectively, with contemporaneous EPs and singles by way of bonuses. As titles like ‘She’s The Pill That Makes Me Want To Stay’, ‘Drug City’, and ‘Whore Whore’, all from Kisses Fractures indicate, this is a band who are fully committed to the trash aesthetic of sex ‘n’ drugs ‘n’ rock ‘n’ roll – with a heap of death and suicide on top – and Kisses Fractures is a low-fi blast of post-punk drama. With hints of The Jesus and Mary Chain and The March Violets in the mix, likening the sound to any specific bands is difficult and rather too specific: what they bring is an assimilation of an era and an aesthetic, and the sound is more that off the mid-80s than the mid-00s. It’s exciting: there’s no let-up, no mid-album lighter-waving anthem, just back-to-back overdriven explosions of raw energy that are every bit as punk as anything released in ’77 or ’78. ‘Driving With The Deathettes’ B-side ‘Daddy’s Swinging in the Attic’ cranks up the sleaze true-crime dirt, against some repetitive lo-fi riffage.

The same themes are present on Hellhounds On The Prowl, which delivers another batch of tightly-packed squalor-filled shock, horror, and filth with titles like ‘“Suicide” Was My First Word’, ‘Coughin’ In The Coffin’, and ‘Junkie Howlin’’, the latter being a swampy, hipshaking fucked-up rockabilly boogie which pretty much sets the level for the album, which does feel more evolved, if not necessarily more mature. ‘We Want Your Blood’ is a lurch into straight-up B-movie horrorcore, and the thunderous ‘She Can’t Steak My Heart’ continues to place the vampire fixation, while ‘Gü the Destroyer’ melds the high-octane explosivity of Dead Kennedys with an Industrial edge. It works, and they get away with it because there’s clearly a dash of pastiche and self-awareness infused with the relentlessly rambunctious rock ‘n’ roll.

As much as they’re about drawing on, and revelling in, cliché, and the work of their precursors, there’s clear common ground with contemporaries like Eighties Matchbox B-Line Disaster. I say ‘like’, but it’s a very short list, to say the least. Then again, the scuzzy garage blitzkrieg of tracks like ‘Godspeed Your Love To Me’ sits comfortably alongside garage revival acts like The Strokes and The Hives. Only this evidences that Dolium were better. As is so often the case, it’s not always the good bands who make it, and perhaps Dolium were just too intense, too wild, too primitive. Among an endless list of contemporaneous vampire-themed ragers, including ‘Holy Water’, ‘Oh Lord, I See No Reflection’, ‘These Fans Have Fucking Fangs!’, ‘You’ve Got Holes!’ comes on like Queens of the Stone Age, and if nothing else, showcases the band’s eclecticism.

I’m sure forums and fans have debated the ins and out of why they decided to call it a day before putting out album number three, but there’s little out in the world on the topic, and hearing the material on its belated arrival gives no clue: it presents the band in ferocious form, evolved to another level, bursting with gritty guitars and showcasing a newfound level of songwriting ability – there are hooks galore, and the production is meaty. It may be more accessible than its predecessors, but it’s by no means mainstream. ‘Get Off on My Machine’ brings the riotous grunge blitzkrieg of Pulled Apart By Horses; ‘(There Goes My) Jellies Girl’ offers unexpected melody and could almost qualify as ‘anthemic’. The gritty uptempo chuggernaut of ‘The Future In Hands’ seems to take not-so-subtle cues from ‘My Sherona’. It’s so tempting to contemplate what might have been… but to do so is futile. The past is past, and Dolium’s peak is certainly past, but Brother Transistor is a belter and that’s an ineffable fact.

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The fourth and final disc, which brings together everything else not included on the other discs, namely the first four-track demos and a bunch of offcuts and rarities from the span of their career, is, as one would anticipate, something of a mixed bag, and often raw, rough, and barely ready. The demos provide an insight into the early evolution of the band and their early material, again sounding more like they were recorded in 1983.

With seventy-six tracks, this is not only a monster, but a truly definitive collection which presents the good, band, and the ugly – but mostly it’s either good or ugly. One thing is clear: Dolium were a band out of time: sounding like 1984, they’d likely have gone down a storm now or as part of either the goth revival of the late 90s or a few years ago. They just weren’t the sound of the post-rock dominated mid-noughties. But if there’s any justice, history will recognise Dolium as underground greats.

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Howie Reeve and Friends – Leaf in Fog

Posted: 1 November 2024 in Albums, Reviews
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Innis Orr / UR Audio Visual / Redwig / Bar Marfil – 1st November 2024

Christopher Nosnibor

Glasgow’s Howie Reeve could never be accused of being predictable, or dull. His musical output is eclectic, experimental, and more than that, it’s often spontaneous, energetic, and in-the-moment. His last release, in 2022, was a set of songs created with his (then) ten-year-old son. Before that, there was a live recording of Chassons (that’s Cathy Heyden on alto sax, practice chanter, tin whistle, and Howie Reeve on electric bass) performing at Le Maquis de Varielles, a document which captures ‘Both of us grabbing whatever else is to hand and occasionally ululating.’ This time around, there’s a whole host of accomplices doing more or less the same to lead the listener on a wild ride. Indeed, Leaf in Fog finds Reeve working with a substantial number of friends in order to realise this ambitious and wide-ranging work.

The title – and cover art – carries connotations of the natural world, perhaps a sense of drifting autumnal melancholy, but the actuality is something altogether more jagged, dissonant, tense and disorientation. There is an earthiness to the songs and their performance, but it’s rent with the kind of twists and spasms that tear the fabric like a psychotic episode.

‘Microscopic Liberties’ starts out – and concludes – as a work of ramshackle lo-fi acoustic folk that’s not quite folk but not quite anything else one could pin down as belonging to a specific genre either. In between, there are blasts of howling noise and slanting guitar slaloming askew across a wandering bass groove. There are moments where it goes a bit Pavement, others more They Might be Giants… and it’s only two and a half minutes long. ‘Water Catalyst’ follows immediately, and tosses in elements of prog, neofolk, medieval minstrel folk and jazz.

‘Apotrope’ may be but an interlude with a running time of a minute and twenty seconds, but it’s a sharp honk of straining horn, a fragment of dissonant jazz swirling in an ambience of voices and then some sing-song poetical narrative… it’s hard to keep up. The compositions, the song structures, border on the schizophrenic, or the aural equivalent of Tourette’s, but instead of being unable to hold back the ticks and sputter ‘tits, fuck, cunt, wank’, Reeve can’t leave a song to just drift along comfortably, and it’s always just a matter of time before spasmodic bursts of all hell break loose.

From among chaos, occasionally, moments of quite affecting musicality emerge: the pick and strum opening of ‘Shop Window’ is whimsical and at the same time somehow sad, and continues to be so even when chaos and discord and bleeps and whistles collide like a speeding juggernaut travelling in the wrong carriageway, obliterating the acoustic serenity. ‘Evidence’ begins subtle, slow, a dolorous bass trudging through lugubrious strings and a sparse, simple clip-clop rhythm. The vocals veer between light and lilting and wide-eyed and tense as the instrumentation switches and slides through a succession of unpredictable transitions, before ‘Trouser Tugger’ goes full Trumans Water, but with a more muted, bedsit indie feel, leaving you dazed and bewildered at the end of its clanging, jolting three minutes.

The songs on Leaf in Fog are predominantly folk songs at heart, and the core elements expose moments which are often quite touching and pluck at emotions which are just beyond reach, beyond articulation, obscured, perhaps, by fog, but equally obscured by fret buzz and crackles and crazed strings and horns and an endless array of additions and interruptions.

It would be impossible to pretend that Leaf in Fog is in any way immediate or especially accessible, and the truth is it’s likely simply too much for many. Like Beefheart’s Trout Mask Replica, there’s so much going on its dizzying and difficult, and requires a lot of focus, and energy, to listen to. But Reeve – with more than a little help from his friends – has conjured a bold work, brimming with charm and mysticism, imagination and madness. Venture into the fog and explore, but do tread carefully.

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The Lovely Eggs / Violet Malice / British Birds – The Crescent, York, 20th October 2024

Posted: 21 October 2024 in Live, Recommended Streams and Videos
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Christopher Nosnibor

The Lovely Eggs really are the best advert for the DIY ethos going. Here we are, in the 300-capacity Crescent in York, just over two years since their last visit, and whereas then – again, on a Sunday night – there were twenty-eight tickets left on the door, they’ve sold out well in advance this time. This is likely due in no small part to the release of the absolutely cracking Eggsistentialism earlier in the year, but equally their ever-growing reputation as a truly outstanding live act.

Track back to 2015, the first time I saw them: it was a part of the sadly gone and fondly-remembered Long Division festival in Wakefield. They weren’t a new band even then, and while they drew a respectable crowd, were just one of many punky indie bands on the circuit. Seven albums in, and having stood up to gouging from arena venues on merch from support acts and done quite literally everything themselves these intervening years, they’ve risen to prominence not only as a super band, but the definitive outsider band. And, as with last time around, we have a curated lineup with a fellow Lancashire band opening, a poetry / spoken word performer by way of an interlude, before their own set. Previously, we got Arch Femmesis and Thick Richard: this time, it’s British Birds opening, and Violet Malice providing the off-kilter spoken word.

Both are excellent. I was hugely enthused by the return of British Birds to York, having first seen them in this very venue supporting Pale Blue Eyes, and they did not disappoint. Their set is packed solid with hooks, harmonies, jangle… and tunes. A solid rhythm section and some twiddly vintage synth tones provide the base for two- and three-way vocal interplay. In the five months since their last visit, their sound seems to have grown meatier, more solid, and they’re tighter, more focused, and Emma Townson, centre stage on vocals, keyboard, tambourine, and cowbell is more nonchalant and less six bags of Skittles exuberant in her performance, but there’s a really great vibe about them on stage, and they feel like a cohesive unit, and one with great prospects if they maintain this trajectory.

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British Birds

Violet Malice is not from Lancashire, but Kent. It’s appropriate. It could almost be a typo or a mispronunciation. She belongs to the glorious lineage of snappy poets who are likely to go down better at a rock gig than your average spoken-word night which clearly has an arc from John Coopeer Clark forwards. She tells it like it is: and how it is is hilarious, but uncomfortable. I’m reminded of Manchester writer and spoken word performer Sue Fox, and the way an audience will lap up her visceral monologues about cocks and cunts, howling with mirth but breathless as they ask themselves ‘did she really just say that?’

‘Stop eating your own food and jizzing on about how good it is’, Violet intones in a blank monotone. Her best line comes in ‘Posh Cunt’ where she drop ‘enough cum to make 24 meringue nests’. It’s fair to say that if a guy had delivered the line, it would not have had the same impact, and this is but one measure of the ground which still needs to be made up. But Violet Malice is leading the charge – as, indeed, are The Lovely Eggs. What they’ve achieved with this lineup is strong female representation without being male-exclusionary: they’ve not gone on a Dream Nails kind of anti-male campaign (which is simply inverse sexism) and there’s no adopted policy of hauling single men off for interrogation by security, a la The Last Dinner Party in Lincoln. It’s as strongly feminist as it gets: no-one is alienated, and the demographic across both genders and ages is well-balanced.

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Violet Malice

My notes pretty much run out during The Lovely Eggs’ set, and I make no apology for this. When this happens, it means I’ve either overimbibed or am just so in the moment I forget, and tonight, it’s very much a case of the latter.

They’re straight in with ‘Death Grip Kids’, with the killer opening line ‘Shove your funding up your arse!’, of which I wrote elsewhere, ‘the song is a proper middle finger to the industry and the establishment, a manifesto which encapsulates the way they’ve rejected the mechanisms and payola of labels’. More than a song, it’s a manifesto, which sets the tone for their bursting-with-energy hour-long set.

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The Lovely Eggs

‘Magic Onion’ is a standout; ‘I am Gaia’ brings the obligatory mid-set slower tempo tune, ahead of leading a big old singalong with ‘Fuck It’, and the second half of the set is just incendiary. The packed room is united and uplifted and collectively uplifted. There’s no encore, no artifice, just pure, life-affirming entertainment: everything you could want from a gig. The Lovely Eggs really are the best.

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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Berries – Berries

Posted: 12 October 2024 in Albums, Reviews
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XTra Mile Recordings – 18th October 2024

Christopher Nosnibor

Berries have been on our radar since 2017, and now, just over two years on from How We Function, they return with they eponymous second long-player. They’ve done a good job of building the anticipation with a run of well-spaced singles, starting back in the summer with ‘Watching Wax’, before revealing an altogether previously unseen side with the acoustic-led ‘Balance’. So which Berries will we see come to the fore here?

It’s more than a pleasure to report that it’s the very best Berries which manifest across all of the album’s ten cuts, all of them sharp. Ten tracks is in itself significant: it’s the classic album format of old, and all killer, no filler, and no faffing with interludes or lengthy meanderings. The whole album’s run-time is around half an hour: it’s tight, it’s succinct, the songwriting is punchy and disciplined, and has the feel of an album as was in the late 70s and through the 80s, planned and sequenced for optimal effect. But they also manage to expand their template within within these confines: there’s some mathy tension in the lead guitar work, and there are flourishes which are noodly without being wanky, and they serve more as detail rather than dominating the sound.

‘Barricade’ kicks in on all cylinders, uptempo, energetic, post-punk with punk energy amped to the max. By turns reminiscent of early Interpol and Skeletal Family, with some nagging guitar work scribbling its way across a thumping rhythm section, it’s a corking way to open an album by any standard. ‘Blurry Shapes’ is a crafted amalgamation of mathy loops in the verses and crunchy chords in the choruses, all delivered with an indie-pop vibe which is particularly keen in the melodic – but not twee or flimsy vocals. and Berries just packs in back-to-back bangers.

‘Watching Wax’ lands as the third track, a magnificent coming together of solid riffing, chunky bass, and sassy vocals. ‘Balance’ provides a change of pace and style immediately after, and it’s well-placed, wrapping up side one.

‘Jagged Routine’ starts off the second half with a choppy cut that brings in elements of poppy post-punk, math-rock and circa 1987 goth alternative rock. I’m reminded rather of The Kut, but then equally The Mission in the final bars, while ‘This Space’ steps things up with a dash of Gang of Four and a mid-00s technical post-rock flavour compressed into a driving rock tune that clocks in at just shy of three and a half minutes.

On Berries, Berries sound perhaps a little less frantic and frenzied, and maybe less confrontational and driven by antagonism than on their debut, but as a trade-off, they sound more focused and more evolved. The introspective introversion of the form creates an intensity that suits them well.

The guitar riff in the verse of ‘Narrow Tracks’ is so, so close to a lift of ‘When You Don’t See Me’ by The Sisters of Mercy that it makes me feel nostalgic for 1990, but finally gives me cause to rejoice in 2024, as they’ve incorporated it into a layered tune that has many elements and just works. Having waded through endless hours of bands doing contemporary ‘goth’ by making some synth-led approximation of a complete mishearing of anything released between 1979 and 1984 by the bands that would be branded goth by the press, it’s a source of joy to hear an album that captures the essence of that period without a single mention of the G-word.

Berries is a fantastic album. It gets to the point. It has power it has energy in spades – and attitude. They also bring in so many elements, but not in a way that lacks focus. In fact, they sound more focused than I would have ever imagined. This album deserves to see Berries go huge, and it’s got to be one of my albums of the year simply by virtue of being absolutely flawless and 100% brilliant.

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Berries

Soma Crew / Needlework / Fat Spatula – The Crescent, York, 5th September 2024

Posted: 7 September 2024 in Live, Reviews
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Christopher Nosnibor

Sometimes, I get a little fixated on an idea. And the last few days, with social media and pretty much every news outlet pounding the story around the Oasis ‘dynamic pricing’ debacle, I’ve found myself viewing the gigs I attend in a slightly different light. More to the point, I’ve come to consider them in a ‘vs Oasis’ context, and so tonight, at a show presenting three local bands, where I knew a fair few people, with a few beers in me, found myself frothing enthusiastically “three bands for a fiver! And £4 pints!”. I do sometimes – often – worry about how I come across to people in social settings, but sod it. I think I’d rather be irritatingly excited than perpetually surly, and I always shut up and watch when bands are actually playing.

But enough of my social anxiety. Let’s focus on this: three bands for a fiver. £4 pints. You simply cannot go wrong. Tonight, the bands are set up on the floor in front of the stage, meaning that the 75 to 100 attendees are packed in tighter, and what could be a large space with a lot of room and not much vibe is transformed: there’s a heightened level of buzz and a real connection and intimacy in standing mere feet from the bands. If all the bands are absolute shit, you’ve paid a fiver: less than the price of a pint in many places. If one band is even halfway decent, you’re up on the deal.

Now consider forking our £150, or even £350, or even more, to see Oasis. And imagine of it isn’t the best gig of your life. You’re going to be gutted. I mean, you probably deserved it for being an Oasis fan in the first place, but I’ll keep that criticism in check for now. But imagine paying a fiver and standing close enough to the bands that you can pretty much smell them, and they’re all absolutely outstanding. So good that you think ‘I’d pay £20 for these’, and all three bands are of that standard. Imagine. We don’t all have to imagine. Sometimes, it’s possible to take a punt and be at one of those magical events. Like, imagine seeing Oasis at King Tut’s for a fiver. You’d feel like you’d won the lottery. The point is that there are little gigs like this all around the country every night of the week. And in convincing myself I should go out tonight, despite not having a stitch to wear, I found a band who really, really hit me. This is how it goes with making revelatory discoveries: you know nothing about an act, have no expectations, and are utterly blown away when they prove to be absolutely fucking awesome. But that isn’t even the best bit: the best bit is – and here’s the spoiler – that all three bands were absolutely top-drawer.

Up first were Fat Spatula, who I’ve maybe seen a couple of times and thought were decent – but tonight shows that something has happened since I last saw them. They could reasonably be described as making lively, uptempo US-influenced indie with some strong dashes of country. Their songs are infectious and fun, and. quirky, occasional nods to the sound of Pavement… But then, also a bit jazzy, a bit mathy, a bit Pixies, with sudden bursts of noise. They boast a aturdy rhythm section with 5-string bass and tight, meaty and incredibly hard-hitting drumming. The last song of the set, with its solid baseline and monster guitar-driven chorus, reminded me of DZ Deathrays. And they’re ace. And so, it proves, are Fat Spatula.

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Fat Spatula

As often happens to me, and has since I started gig-going well over thirty years ago, midway through the set, some massive bugger stands.in front of me and proceeds to rock both back and forth and side to side, occasionally adjusting his man-bun. It’s usually the tallest person in the room, but the singer from Needlework is one of the tallest bastards I’ve seen in a good while and he spends the set hunched over the mic stand, from time to time plucking percussion instruments from the floor and tinkering with them, and sometimes plonking the keyboards in a Mark E Smith kind of fashion.

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Needlework

The guitarist, meanwhile, is wearing a Big Black T-short, and is a major contributor to the band’s angular sound as they collectively crank out some truly wild and wholly unpredictable mathy discord. With clanging, trebly guitar, incongruous clarinet, and monotone semi-spoken vocals… and the guts to shush audience talking in quiet segment, they’re something else. It’s jarring, Fall-like, a bit Gallon Drunk with cymbals, shaker, cowbell all in the mix more than anything, their lurching, jolting racket reminds me of Trumans Water. No two ways about it, Needlework is the most exciting new band I’ve seen in a while. Speaking to a few people after their set, I’m by no means alone in this opinion. With the right support and exposure, some gigs further afield and all the rest, their potential is immense, and 6Music would be all over them. The world needs Needlework, and you probably heard it here first, but credit has to go to Soma Crew for putting them on.

Soma Crew – go for the slow hypnotic minimal intro, admitting afterwards they they’re a shade nervous following the previous acts. They’re honest and humble, and not in a false way: it’s clear that they’ve selected support acts who will make for a good night rather than make themselves look good – but because all three acts bring something quite different, there’s none of the awkwardness of any band blowing the others away. Besides, they very quicky get over those initial nerves, and crank it up with the big psych groove of ‘Sheltering Sky’, and in no time they’re fully in their stride. New song ‘Wastelands’ is haunting, and again – as is their way – built around a nagging repetitive guitar line and pulsating motorik groove, where drums and bass come together perfectly. The four of them conjure a massive sound. At times the bass booms and absolutely dominates, while at other points, everything meshes. Bassist Chris stands centre stage sporting a poncho that Wayne Hussey would have been proud of during his stint in The Sisters of Marcy, and once again, I find myself absolutely immersed in their performance.

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Soma Crew

So, to return to the start: three bands for a fiver. All three provided premium-quality entertainment. Sure, people go to see heritage bands in massive venues for huge sums to hear familiar songs, but it’s a dead-end street. Where does the next wave of heritage bands with familiar songs come from if no-one goes to see the acts who are playing the small venues? Do the £350 Oasis tickets provide – to do the maths – an experience that’s seventy times better, more enjoyable than a night like this? I’m not about to prove either way, because my argument is obviously rhetorical. THIS is where it’s at if you truly love live music. And I will say it again: three bands for a fiver: cheaper than a pint in most places these days. And three great bands, at that.

Beige Palace – LIVE For The Very Last Time (2016-2024)

Posted: 28 August 2024 in Albums, Reviews
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27th August 2024

Christopher Nisnibor

Just read that bio, and reflect for a moment:

Beige Palace was a band from 2016 to 2024. During that time we released two albums, an EP, a split 7" and some other miscellaneous bits. We toured the UK a bunch, we managed to play shows in France and Belgium, and we opened for some of our favourite bands like Shellac, Mclusky and Dawn of Midi. It has been lovely!

These are no small achievements. But for all of them, Leeds’ leading exponents of low-key lo-fi have been humble and kept it DIY throughout their eight-year career. Fans inevitably feel a sense of loss at the demise of any band, but as someone who was present at their first ever show and having followed their progress through the years, this feels like a particularly sad moment. It shouldn’t: the members have moved on to become Solderer, with the addition of Theo Gowans, a Leeds luminary, gig promoter, purveyor of mad noise as Territorial Gobbing, and one-time member of Thank, another of Freddy Vinehill-Cliffe’s vehicles, and of course, they’ve all received coverage here along the way.

So we shouldn’t feel sad. Instead, we should celebrate the achievements of a band who seemingly set out with no ambitions other than to make music for themselves. But still… I was in attendance at their first show, and as I documented at the time, and as I’ve mentioned in subsequent reviews, they were ace. Unassuming, a shade awkward, perhaps, but warm, human, and appealing in the way they presented their set of sparse, minimal tunes, Young Marble Giants were my first-choice reference point.

How YMG, a band whose album was released on Rough Trade and who have been the subject of a number of articles, not to mention being referenced and covered by the likes of Hole, remain obscure, I will never comprehend. But no matter: Beige Palace picked up their baton and, er, hid it under the settee.

In contrast to the wildly flamboyant dayglo-sporting Thank, Beige Palace were always the introspective, introverted musical counterpart who hung back, heads down as they looked at their shoes. Beige Palace’s successes happened almost in spite of the band themselves. That’s no criticism. They were a great live band, and they released some great music, too. I’m reminded of one of the other great DIY Leeds – via Bradford – bands, That Fucking Tank, who bookended their career with recordings of their first and last shows. Without the documents, the events would be but myths and legends.

This looks like being the first of two retrospective releases, and as a recording of their last live show – which neatly bookends my experience of the band, having attended their first – makes my case about the quality of their performances.

LIVE For The Very Last Time (2016-2024) presents a career-spanning set, with opener ‘Mum, Tell Him’, ‘Dr Thingy’, and ‘Illegal Backflip’ representing their 2019 debut album, Leg, and a fair few cuts from Making Sounds for Andy packing out a varied set, which culminates in single ‘Waterloo Sublet’.

But there are a handful of unreleased songs here, too: like Thank, Beige Palace were always focused on the next project, the next release, and as the very naming of ‘Waterloo Sublet’ illustrates, irreverence was their thing. ‘Local Sandwich’ is a perfect illustration of their quirky irreverence, as Vinehill-Cliffe rants about, yes, a local sandwich shop.

LIVE For The Very Last Time (2016-2024) captures everything that was great about this trio. Awkward, honest, slightly disconnected between-song chat is integral to the experience, and there’s plenty of that – including comments on someone’s wind – on this warts-and-all, as-it-happened recording, captured in Leeds in the intimate but awesome grassroots venue, Wharf Chambers, where the sound is always good – and loud – the audiences are friendly, and the beer is cheap.

There are no overdubs, there’s no polish or pretence, and LIVE For The Very Last Time (2016-2024) is all the better for the fact. The mix isn’t always balanced – the vocals are half-buried and times and the guitars are way loud at times, but what you get is a feel for being in the room.

The music is gloriously wonky, skewed, angular math-rock with some valiant forays into noise. The vocals and guitar both veer wide of melody; it’s the lumbering, loping, rhythm section that keeps everything together: without them, it would be a complete disaster. But this is how some bands work, and Beight Palace always sounded like a band on the brink of falling apart, in the same way Trumans Water always sounded like they may or may not make it to the end of the song as they jerk and jolt their way through waves of chaos.

‘Update Hello Blue Bag Black Bag’ which lands mid-set making its debut and final appearance is unexpectedly evocative, and the eleven-and-a-half-minute ‘Dinner Practice’, also unreleased, hints at the trajectory they might have taken on their next album.

Beige Palace were never going to be huge: they were cut out for cult fandom, and comfortable with that, being one of those bands who made music for fun first and foremost. It’s the sense of fun that come across here. Even in the most downtempo songs, what comes across is that they’re enjoying playing. They will be missed, but we look forward to their next incarnation.

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Los Saints – Certified

Posted: 27 August 2024 in Albums, Reviews
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ENCI Records

Christopher Nosnibor

It’s taken me a while to get around to this one. It happens, and happens often: I’m simply overwhelmed by the sheer quantity of new – and exciting – releases that land with me on a daily basis. Of all the things to be overwhelmed by (and I will confess that I often find myself overwhelmed by many other things, too, from parenting challenges to DIY, budgeting and the prospect of driving to the supermarket), I do realise that I’m extremely fortunate. But there’s a specific reason I’ve selected this album to post a review of today. Why today? For those who live in a vacuum – and at this moment, I truly envy you – today is the day Oasis announced their reunion and a fourteen-date UK tour. ‘The news the world has been waiting for’, people frothed on FaceBook. Fuck me: judging by the reaction and the blanket press coverage, you’d think world peace and a handout of million quid for every person on the planet had just been announced simultaneously. But no. Just a couple of gobshites have decided that for a few hundred million quid they can bare to be in one another’s presence for a bit. It’s not even looking like it’s the full or original band reuniting.

For many, Oasis were, and remain, the best band on the planet in the whole of history. For anyone with ears, they were purveyors of lumpen, lifeless, plodding, derivative pub rock. A great many of the people who are going absolutely fucking apeshit at the news are broadly in my demographic, who were in their twenties in the nineties, and who, on hitting thirty, found their cultural clock stalled, and they’ve spent the last twenty years or so bemoaning the fact that there’s no been any decent new music since the 90s and how they miss Chris Evans and TFI Friday.

Just as age tends to have a correspondence with increasing political conservatism, so the same is true of musical tastes. It’s why parents of every generation gripe about the music their kids listen to and dismiss it as being shite, without appreciating that they’re not supposed to like or even understand it, because they’re not the target audience. Do I get K-Pop? No, no more than Skibidi Toilet makes any sense or provides any amusement to me. It would be weird if I was down with the kids at the age of 48, and my daughter would likely find me even more embarrassing if I was than being the dinosaur she perceives me as. BUT – and it’s a massive but, a but so massive Sir Mix-A-Lot would die for, that doesn’t mean that there’s no new music of interest any more.

Certified, the debut album by San Diego-based Los Saints, is a perfect illustration of this fact. They describe themselves as an alternative rock band. Various other sources, in their coverage, have referred to them as showcasing a ‘bold indie rock sound’, ‘indie’, and even ‘Chula Vista’s version of Cage the Elephant’, alongside numerous comparisons to The Strokes. I’m not a fan of either The Strokes or Cage the Elephant, but that’s beside the point: both of these acts have produced music far more exciting than anything Oasis mustered during their career spent serving up half-baked bollocks and right now, in the present, amidst the endless wanking over the announcement that after fifteen years a couple of overrated has-beens are going to reheat their tedious, tepid stodge in the name of nostalgia and the interest of payola, we have Los Saints giving us Certified.

There are rib-rattling basslines aplenty, which give the songs – which tend to be on the shorter side, with only a couple of the album’s ten tracks running over three and a half minutes – a really beefy sound and a certain dynamism, an urgency (the likes of which you’ll hardly ever find in an Oasis song). Lead single ‘Faded’, which kick-starts the album with a lively two-minute stomp not only gets things off to a cracking start, but sets the tone, too – dreamy, slightly fuzzy, psychedelic vocals and mellow guitars contrast with the stonking rhythm section, and if anything, ‘Where We Goin’, which follows it is even better, and then again, the punky, poppy, melodic guitar driven indie of ‘Hard’, which lands perfectly between Asylums and Pixies. Even if the rest of the album was shit, after this opening run, you wouldn’t grumble. But no, they keep on delivering joyous tunes with the grungy pop nouse of DZ Deathrays crossed with the driving tones of Darklands era Jesus and Mary Chain and a dash of A Place to Bury Strangers. The title track pairs a nagging guitar with another chunky-as-anything bass before blasting into a breezy but sturdy chorus, and there simply isn’t a dud here.

The production isn’t overly polished, giving the album a live-sounding energy, and this only enhances its appeal, because you feel the band are really in the music, feeling the playing of the songs. Yes, some of the touchstones may be from some mythical golden era – as identified by people of a certain age – but Los Saints show that they can write songs – rather than rip them off – and deliver them with a contagious vibrance.

Bollocks to nostalgia: Certified is proof that not only is there some great new music around, but that a lot of stuff that’s held up as being ‘classic’ is objectively underwhelming and its status is tied to a period in time – and popularity is no measure of anything other than popularity itself – or, more probably, good marketing.

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Watch: ‘Hard’ by Los Saints

Posted: 8 August 2024 in Recommended Streams and Videos, Singles and EPs
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San Diego-based alternative rockers Los Saints have released a new visualizer for the single ‘Hard’ off their recently released debut album Certified, out now ENCI Records.

Watch the video here:

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Art opens a window into the soul. It doubles as a haven for all of our most intimate thoughts, desires, and emotions. Like splashing paint on a canvas, Los Saints pour all of their experiences and feelings into a vibrant mosaic of indie, alternative, and rock. They piece together memories and mantras in the form of gauzy melodies, fuzzy guitars, and dusty rhythmic grooves. Co-founded by cousins Angel Mariscal [vocals, guitar] and Emiliano Garcia [drums], as well as mutual friend Gianluca Exposito [guitar], who has since parted ways with the band, the group have quietly buzzed out of the sleepy border town of Chula Vista, CA with sold out shows and acclaim from the likes of San Diego Union Tribune, Remezcla, Alternative Press, and more.

Now, Los Saints sharpen their distinct and dynamic signature style on their full-length debut LP, Certified.

“Los Saints isn’t just a band for me,” proclaims Angel. “It’s everything. It’s all I can do. That goes for the other guys too. The more we know ourselves, the more we know what our band is and are able to define our sound. Certified is who we are not just as musicians, but as people.”

Growing up in a Mexican-American family, he immersed himself in music. His mom hailed from Tijuana, and his dad grew up in the United States. Classic rap boomed through the house as he eventually gravitated towards Mac Miller and his “lifelong biggest influence” Cage The Elephant. In 2019, he formed Los Saints with Emiliano, envisioning “music almost everyone from any background can vibe with.”

In honor of their heritage, the group chose the moniker Los Saints.

“We were thinking of the Day of the Dead in Mexico, and its primary representation is a skull,” he goes on. “We needed to make it our own, so we turned it into ‘Spanglish’ by choosing ‘Los Saints’. Like the music, it’s a mixture.”

Los Saints initially gained traction with the Welcome To Confusion EP in 2022. The Honey Pop christened them “your next indie obsession,” while San Diego Union Tribune pondered, “Could Los Saints be Chula Vista’s version of Cage the Elephant?” Building on this momentum, the three-piece hit the studio with producer Keith Cooper (Dear Boy) and brought ‘Certified’ to life during sessions at Wildflower Recordings in L.A. The first single and opener “Faded” hinges on a bold bass line and a punchy drum groove. Guitars glow beneath a hazy and hypnotic vocal plea, “I don’t want you to look at me when you’re faded?”

On “Never Said,” a loose chime-y riff pierces a disco-style beat as falsetto rings out on the refrain.

“I’m not a dating app kind of dude,” he admits. “I’m a cave dweller, but I think so many kids my age can identify with these experiences of modern dating. On the first half of the song, you’re going into online dating with genuine intentions and looking for something true. The second half is the aftermath where reality hits, and your view changes. You realize all that glitters isn’t gold.”

Evocative of yet another dynamic, glitchy keys wrap around breezy acoustic guitar on the somberly nostalgic “If Everything Goes.” He sighs, “Don’t call me back, even though I’d like you to.”

“I was beating myself up for the way I am and how it affects romantic relationships,” he continues. “This person left your life, but you can’t help but blame yourself. Even though it was going to happen either way, you just think you’re the problem.”

Elsewhere, “Doctor” conjures “dark imagery of being interrogated like in a movie” via breathy lyrics and an off-kilter soundscape. Then, there’s “Hard.” Raw emotion seeps through the cracks in the vocals as thick distortion buoys the hook, “Help me see again who you are.”

“It’s about how being in a toxic situation—either romantically or with friends—has affected me and brought me down,” he states.

The title track culminates on a chantable chorus awash in shoegaze distortion. Stretching to a soaring climax, it evokes the feeling of “being isolated because you’re in a relationship that your friends and family don’t approve of.”

In the end, Los Saints bring the kind of emotion that bonds us together to the surface.

“When you listen to us, I hope you find our art to be a place of comfort,” Mariscal leaves off. “Sometimes, I cry when I write. I’m always trying to come up with songs you can connect to so you don’t feel alone. The world is a tough place. We can be friends one way or another.”

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Listen: ‘Psychedelic Ranger’ by Kerosene Kream

Posted: 7 August 2024 in Recommended Streams and Videos, Singles and EPs
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PNKSLM Recordings proudly presents Stockholm garage punk quintet Kerosene Kream and their PNKSLM debut EP Buying Time, which is due out on August 30th on limited edition vinyl and digitally. Today the band is sharing live favourite "Psychedelic Ranger", a long time stable of the band’s raucous live sets, which follows lead single ‘Mindkiller’ which was released in June as the band was opening for the legendary The Gories.

Having shared the stage with the likes of Dungen, Illuminati Hotties, Holograms and Powerplant, Kerosene Kream is the latest group to step out from the Stockholm underground that gave birth to the likes of Viagra Boys and Holograms and the band have grown a reputation as a ferious live acts with shows around northern Europe.

Following the new EP the band is set to head out on dates including an appearance at the Left of the Dial Festival in Rotterdam, Netherlands as well as making their UK live debut in September at PNKSLM’s The Slime Ball at The Shacklewell Arms in London alongside Scandinavian shows.

Listen to ‘Psychedelic Ranger’ here:

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Live

August 28 – Stockholm, Sweden – AG29 w/ Erik Nervous + Citric Dummies

September 7 – London, UK – PNKSLM’s The Slime Ball @ The Shacklewell Arms

October 17-19 – Rotterdam, Netherlands – Left of the Dial Festival

***more dates TBA***

Kerosene Kreem

Photo by Dan Kendall

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