Posts Tagged ‘Killing Joke’

Light of Eternity / Soma Crew – The Fulford Arms, York, 23rd July 2025

Posted: 24 July 2025 in Live, Reviews
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Christopher Nosnibor

The Fulford Arms has quite a record for booking bands which are of a significantly larger magnitude than its 125 capacity – Wayne Hussey, and The March Violets are a couple which immediately spring to mind from personal experience, while Utah Saints, Bob Vylan, and Ginger Wildheart are further examples, and there are countless others who played here before going massive. And now Light of Eternity join that list. Formed with legendary drummer Paul Ferguson, whose credits in addition to Killing Joke are a feature in their own right, they’ve released a brace of belting EPs and are now undertaking their first tour, taking in a number of larger venues as a headline act, an even larger venues as support for Ministry. And here we are: the first night of the tour is also their live debut, here in this grassroots venue with its small, low stage, and black walls marked in chalk with the names of the acts who have played previously.

Soma Crew have a knack for landing a fair few of the city’s high profile support slots, and deservedly. Supporting The Fall will likely be a career highlight, but something about tonight is special. The Crew’s ever-shifting lineup sees them packing out the stage as a sextet, and they open with the crawling ‘Dead Insect’. Is it the right choice for this occasion? Do they care? On the second song, ‘Counterfeit’, they hit the motorik groove that’s their strong suite, and from hereon in, they’re away. Broken string? Meh, it’s no issue when you’ve got three guitars (plus a bass), one with an E-bow plugging away at a single chord. With the addition of a throbbing bass, it all makes a magnificent hypnotic drone. This is Soma Crew at their best.

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Soma Crew

The DJ spun Ministry (‘Just One Fix’) and Murder Inc. between bands. Is it the done thing to play tracks by bands related to those about to take the stage? Why not, eh? I’d actually played not only the band’s two EPs but Locate, Subvert, Terminate, just the other day in advance of tonight, and it proved appropriate. There’s an interesting – and perhaps somewhat telling – selection of bands T-shirts on display here: no shortage of Killing Joke, but also The Sisters of Mercy, Paradise Lost, and The KLF… and the near-capacity crowd is suitably rewarded with a belter of a set, with twelve songs in all, which represents both EPs and another EP’s worth of as-yet unreleased material.

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Light of Eternity

Ferguson’s drum kit isn’t only the focal point: it occupies the majority of the little stage, with Fred Schreck (bass and vocals) and Pauly Williams (guitar) positioned either side. It’s perhaps as well they’re not given to ambulating a great deal. In Williams, they’ve found a guitarist with a sound that’s incredibly close to that of the late, great, Geordie Walker, and capable of churning out methodical riffs – and his dense, compression-heavy sheet metal thunder really rings out in a live setting, more so than recorded. He keeps his head down and just keep cracking ‘em out, and it works well alongside sturdy bass grooves, while it’s the busy, full-kit drumming that provides much of the action, the movement, within the songs.

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Light of Eternity

Their presence could be reasonably summarised as unassuming but focussed. They’re not a band for chat: Schreck does begin to speak on the subject of America, and hope, before ‘Dark Hope’, but it’s curtailed by the onset of the next percussive barrage which marks the start of the song. Ferguson not only leads proceedings, but does so in his own world, and that world is the centre of all of this. After the first few songs, he’s one hundred percent in the drum zone, and it’s apparent he doesn’t do breaks, preferring instead to keep that relentless momentum. Some may read it as standoffish, but it’s fairly apparent that it’s about the intensity, the songs slamming in back-to-back, the explosive beats, the churning riffs. Singer may not have Jaz Coleman’s charisma, but his reverb-drenched vocals are crisp and clear and delivered in such a way that the experience is that of an unyielding force.

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Light of Eternity

Checking the setlist encapsulates the mood and subject matter of Light of Eternity: ‘Conformity’, ‘Distraction’, ‘Tipping Point’, ‘Explode’. They may be older (Ferguson is 67 now), but they’re not settling into a comfortable relationship with the status quo, offering a cocktail of anger and disaffection at the state of the world. ‘Dark Hope’ is grungy, built around descending chords played with steely guitars. The unreleased ‘Fascist X’, landing near the end of the set is a full-throttle heavy grinder, while ‘Aftershock’ is an absolute juggernaut. They simply don’t let up: every song is driving, solid, muscular, a wall of leaden density.

There isn’t a weak song in the set, and their live debut more than delivers on the promise of the first studio releases. Most of those present reasonably expected quality, but for a live debut, this was phenomenal. The smaller venue was a test, in a way – and they passed it, and then some. The rest of the tour promises to be fantastic – but those who were here tonight witnessed something special that they won’t forget in a hurry.

The Awakening – The Awakening

Posted: 15 February 2025 in Albums, Reviews
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Intervention Arts

Christopher Nosnibor

While eponymous debuts are commonplace, apart from artists who name all of their albums eponymously, it also seems to be a thing for long-established bands to release a self-titled album well into their career, and, to my mind, it seems somewhat strange. Nevertheless, Killing Joke have in fact done both, and Interpol have also managed two eponymous albums (if you count album number five, the anagrammatic El Pintor). Have you run out of ideas or something?

The Awakening has been a thing for a good quarter century now, during which time Ashton Nyte has also released a number of solo albums, a brace of books, and been a constant feature in the lineup of industrial / goth collective Beauty in Chaos. He’s a busy man.

The twelve tracks on The Awakening represent something of a revisiting of the classic goth template, and in this context, the title makes perfect sense. It’s a return to the beginning, treading the ground where it all began, and feeling that spark once again: an awakening, indeed.

‘Shimmer’ creates the atmosphere with dolorous bell chimes and slow, deliberate, ceremonial percussion, before single cut ‘Mirror Midnight’ thumps in with a sturdy bass groove melded tight to a relentless, solid drum machine beat. Laced with delicate traces of brittle, chorus-laden guitar, it provides the backdrop to a crooning baritone vocal delivery. Lyrically, it’s rich in esoteric imagery and it’s classic goth – mid-80s in style, md-90s in production. And this is essentially The Awakening: it’s dark, brooding, espousing the doomed romanticism that was central to The Sister of Mercy’s genre-defining debut album, First and Last and Always.

‘Through the Veil’ goes epic, and if its arena aspirations seem somewhat removed from the claustrophobic confines of the first phase of goth, it likely owes something of a debt to Floodland, while the acoustic-led ‘Your Vampire’ evokes The Mission circa Children (I’m thinking ‘Heaven on Earth’, but perhaps a little less bombastic), although ‘Island in a Stream’ is an equally valid reference point.

‘Haunting’ – also a single – and an obvious choice, it has to be said, is a burly burst of muscle-flexing guitar propelled – again – by a throbbing bass and pumping drum beat, draped with cool Cure-esque synths, culminating in a climactic rush of a finale. ‘See You Fall’ stands out as another quintessential goth banger: the instrumentation again is reminiscent of early Mission songs, and the drumming, with its dominant snare is absolutely cut from the same cloth as The First Chapter, although Nyte’s vocal reminds me – quite happily – of Andrew Eldritch demoing vocals on ‘Garden of Delight’.

Things take a turn for the heavy – and the political – on ‘Fallout’. It’s a reminder that the music of the 80s emerged from a time of terror, a political lurch to the right, and living under the shadow of the bomb. And here we are again. We can never escape history: it simply repeats. And so, it stands to reason that music is also cyclical.

‘Not Here’ hints at Bauhaus, while the thunderous ‘Cabaret’ – which seems to take certain cues from ‘Dead Pop Stars’ by Altered Images and The Psychedelic Furs’ ‘Soap Commercial’ in terms of its spindly lead guitar line – is a modern goth classic.

The Awakening mines a seam of trad goth which straddles the first wave and the 90s revival, or second wave – which is precisely the starting point of The Awakening. This album feels rather like time travel, in the best possible sense, and, in context, it’s less a case of homage as revisitation and renewal.

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The Awakening 1 - photo by Ashton Nyte

False Fed – Let Them Eat Fake

Posted: 11 October 2023 in Albums
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Neurot Recordings – 13 October 2023

Christopher Nosnibor

Let Them Eat Fake may be False Fed’s debut, but the members have between them a substantial catalogue of releases. The band comprises Discharge frontman Jeff Janiak, Amebix guitarist Stig C. Miller, Nausea, Ministry and Amebix drummer Roy Mayorga, and JP Parsons, and collectively, we’re told that this album sees them ‘all stepping outside their musical comfort zones to present an album of discomfort and rage in the face of reality’.

The solid, throbbing bass, glacial synth and squirming guitar that mark the album’s opening with ‘Superficial’ may come as something of a surprise given this preface: we’re deep in dark post-punk territory here, and it’s a huge shift from the hard, attacking pace of either Discharge or Ministry, as well as an immense stylistic departure. Janiak’s vocals, too, aren’t hardcore hollering, but a resonant baritone, at least unto he breaks our roaring and raging toward the end. The vibe is more UK goth circa ’86 than anything else, but this is fitting, given the many parallels between now and then. Yes, so much for progress: we’re right back to the 80s in a climate of fear and a new cold war… and not just a cold war. Instead of coming together to make some kind of effort to address the self-made catastrophe of climate crisis, we seem hell-bent on destroying one another.

‘The Tyrant Dies’ is more what you’d expect from this bunch: industrial-strength hardcore punk with a metal edge: the blasting punk fury of Discharge with the gritty heft of Ministry… but then the bridge slows things and we’re back in goth territory – well, goth as filtered through a strain of Rammstein – and the portentous refrain of ‘we will rise’ feels like a call to arms while at the same time calling on the ‘undead, undead, undead’ refrain of ‘Bela Lugosi’s Dead’: it’s time for a resurrection.

This album hits harder as it progresses: the guitars drive harder, the drums roll heavier, and goth, punk, and metal tropes melt together to forge something devastatingly intense. I haven’t heard anything that amalgamates these elements – and so successfully – since Alaric’s End of Mirrors, released in 2016 – also on Neurot.

‘The Big Sleep’ is all driving fury, hell-for-leather drums, chunky, chugging metal guitars, and high-pomp vocals echoing from the chest. Meanwhile, ‘Dreadful Necessities’ comes on like Killing Joke with its taut compressed guitar sound and driving beat. It’s dense, and probably more accurately described as steely grey than dark, since it brings a strong, melodic chorus.

The title – Let Them Eat Fake – may be light-hearted on the surface – but obviously has darker undertones in terms of its reference to class division, and that’s one of the major factors behind the album’s anger. And this is an angry album. Let Them Eat Fake is also an album that has a clear trajectory, and it builds as it progresses, becoming louder, faster, harsher, more angry with each song. By the end, it’s positively incendiary, a full-on roar of fury driven with guitars that burn. And ultimately, it makes sense as an articulation of ‘discomfort and rage in the face of reality’. We’re all feeling it. Reality is pain. Let Them Eat Fake tells is like it is.

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Watch: ‘We Feel Alright’ by Girls Under Glass

Posted: 29 March 2023 in Recommended Streams and Videos
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Girls Under Glass unveil the black and white video ‘We Feel Alright’, which is also the first single taken from the forthcoming album Backdraft. After a long hiatus the Hamburgian gothic rockers return with fiery new tracks that take the best elements from the band’s past and shapes them into an album that leads the way to the future. The release date of Backdraft has been slated to June 2, 2023.

‘We Feel Alright’ is also available as a digital single with two Girls Under Glass remixes entitled ‘Who the F*** Is Killing Joke?’ and ‘Into the Shining Light’ through the regular platforms.

The electric noire clip ‘We Feel Alright’ is now available to watch here:

Girls Under Glass comment: “The original version of ‘We Feel Alright’ was already introduced for years ago live on stage, but ever since we have continued to work on the song until it was just perfect for us”, synth player Axel Ermes explains. “This track comes with the vibe of our classics, yet it is also moving forward. It was fun to work on the two alternative mixes, which will be available as bonus tracks.”

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Girls Under Glass by Bianca Chang

BAIT – TV Personality

Posted: 16 March 2022 in Singles and EPs
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Cool Thing Records – 18th March 22

Christopher Nosnibor

Ahead of the release of their second album, Sea Change, BAIT social critics and all-round ragers blast us with another taster in the shape of ‘TV Personality’.

Sonically, it’s something of a departure from previous outings, in that they’ve dialled back the abrasion a few notches. That doesn’t mean it’s by any means tame, since they’ve been pedal-to-the-metal pretty much all the way so far.

The synths are more prominent on this compared to previous releases, and with a bouncy, processed-sounding bass, it’s very much in the in the vein of mid-80s industrial, like pre-Rape and Honey Ministry (think ‘Every Day Is Halloween’), with a dash of Pretty Hate Machine Nine Inch Nails and a big greasy slap of Big Sexy Land Revolting Cocks. It’s all in that pumping bass groove that nags away like an old-school console game. It’s also their most overtly melodic song to date, meaning that the obligatory Killing Joke reference places it alongside ‘Love Like Blood’ rather than ‘Money is Not Our God’.

Lyrically, it’s not so much of a departure, and we find the guys running rampant in their domain of railing against mass-media, manufactured culture and their numbing effects. Television is still the opium of the people – only now, with the advent of 24-hour rolling news media beaming plague, disaster, and war into our homes via infinite devices, we’ve got a direct injection of fear being pumped into our eyeballs the second we open our eyes. And so, while twitching with terror, people seek the comfort of mental chewing gum like game shows, and so-called ‘celebrity’ shit, whether it’s dancing, skating, baking, or eating camels’ anuses and gnats’ chuffs in the name of entertainment.

Reality TV isn’t real, TV ‘personality’ is something of a misnomer, since practically every word is scripted, every move staged, hair, makeup, camera angles all as controlled and contrived as the filtered selfie snaps on Instagram. And here, amidst the relentless wash of fake shit, BAIT are keeping it real.

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BAIT - _TV personality_ _ Artwork

Bait – My Tribe

Posted: 12 February 2022 in Singles and EPs
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Cool Thing – 18th February 2022

Christopher Nosnibor

Hot on the heels of their explosive return with ‘Drama Drama Drama Drama’, BAIT continue the assault with the delivery of ‘My Tribe’, off their eagerly-anticipated long-player, Sea Change.

Pitched as ‘the voice of pandemic anxiety’, Michael Webster explains that “’My Tribe’ was written at the very beginning of the pandemic when none of us knew what the fuck was going on. It got me thinking about survival and protecting my family from the unknown. There’s reference to primal activities in contrast to the mundane activities taken up to pass time during isolation.”

This encapsulates the contradictions of the early days of the pandemic: the confusion, the fear, the panic, the sheer bewilderment and sense of ‘what the fuck?’ as the guidance changed daily and we were told to work from home and batten down the hatches: the number of times we heard and read the word ‘unprecedented’ was unprecedented’ – far more so than the pandemic itself. No-one knew how to react, because no-one really knew what they were even reacting to, really.

Clocking in at almost four minutes, it’s one of BAIT’s longer efforts, and it’s driven – as has rapidly become established as their style – but a thick, snarling, repetitive riff in the vein of Killing Joke, and the comparisons don’t end there, given their sociopolitical leanings. In short, it continues the trajectory of their eponymous mini-album debut, and cements everything harder, denser than before, and then veers off into hard technoindustrial that’s more the domain of KMFDM and the like for the final minute.

Tackling isolation and the internal conflicts so many of us suffered, it’s angry, but in no specific direction – because who do you direct that anger at? Some of it goes inwardly, of course, wrestling with feelings of insecurity and inadequacy, while some of it goes outwards and into the air because fuck shit, life just isn’t fair. Why here? Why now? Just why? That sense of helplessness and frustration pervades every moment of anger and anguish, and it’s almost as if BAIT were a band ready-made for the pandemic.

But while it may feel like ‘Merry Easter, Covid’s Over’ may be a tune for the coming months, it’s readily apparent that the psychological repercussions of the last two years will be long-lasting for many. The social divisions that became raw gaping wounds through Brexit have only become more pronounced, as people have become more entrenched and seemingly harbour more violent feelings towards others, and on-line aggressions have begun to manifest in an upsurge in the ugliest behaviours since people have been allowed to get back out there. Something is awry, and the world is dark and more fucked-up than ever. This, seemingly, was the plan all along: divide and conquer. This is not some conspiracy theory, it’s not about some ‘plandemic’; it’s an opportunistic power-grab by governments following a neat-global shift to the right. They want people to be scared, and, as it happens, people have reason to be scared – jut not necessarily the reason it seems on the face of it.

‘Keep them occupied / lock them up inside’ is a neat summary of how things have been managed. They slide in the line ‘Under his eye’, and while they may have been bingeing on Netflix, the totalitarian regime of The Handmaid’s Tale seems a lot closer to home now: we are living in the midst of almost every dystopia ever penned made real.

BAIT have got the soundtrack down, they’re both the reassurance that you’re not alone in feeling what you feel, as well as the articulation of the painful truth. And they’re kicking ass all the way.

 

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Bait – Drama Drama Drama Drama

Posted: 15 January 2022 in Singles and EPs
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Cool Thing Records – 14th January 2022

Christopher Nosnibor

Asylums offshoot band Bait mark their return in blistering style with the ball-busting, ballistic blast of tension that is ‘Drama Drama Drama Drama’. Having dropped – or perhaps more accurately detonated – their explosive eponymous debut in 2018, showcasing a post-punk industrial crossover that crash-landed somewhere between PiL and Killing Joke, they reminded us of their existence in the spring of 2019 with the gritty grind of the single ‘DLP’ before falling silent.

In fairness, a global pandemic and a succession of lockdowns and limitations was never going to be conducive to the creation of new output, especially when core members Michael Webster and Luke Branch have been busy beavering away on a new Asylums album.

But, inter alia, they’ve also been working on the new Bait album, Sea Change, which is set for release in April, and ‘Drama Drama Drama Drama’ is one hell of a way of announcing it, distilling all of the pent-up frustration, fury, and anxiety of two years kept on edge into just under two minutes of eye-popping, adrenaline-fuelled sonic catharsis.

If the sneering edge of the vocal delivery sounds like it’s a put-down to those who’ve been panic stricken by the pandemic, it’s likely more a swipe at those who’ve chronically mismanaged the public’s expectations, left them separated, isolated, financially insecure, and unable to seek solace with friends or family while keeping them apart while quaffing drinks and generally having a jolly old time as well as getting minted off slipping multi-million pound contracts for unusable PPE and all the rest at the taxpayers’ expense. The reason the parties have particularly tipped people is because they missed the final moments of loved ones and suffered the immeasurable torture of enforced isolation.

The ‘drama drama drama drama’ in question here isn’t some lame Eastenders shit, this is life. The swirling turmoil and endless uncertainty of everything… On a personal level, when lockdown hit, I was inundated with messages at first, from friends, from family and especially work as WhatsApp groups were set up while we got sent home to work, and the channels of communication were beyond buzzing as everyone flipped out and I witnessed – and participated – in their panics in real-time. It was hectic, a blizzard, a blur… but it was when it went quiet I lost it. You get thrown into something so hard you have to swim. But when the armbands deflate…You text with no reply – that anguish is real and it’s intense. The minutes feel like hours. The tension rises, the panic rises, the palpitations flutter and the perspiration flows and in no time you’re a dishevelled, disoriented mess. You know it’s irrational, but panic is irrational. You struggle to steady your breathing. You can’t face the supermarket because it’s full of people. You can’t face meeting anyone. You can’t breathe. This is the drama, and it piles up and piles up and increases in intensity until it’s unbearable.

‘Drama Drama Drama Drama’ steps up the gritty edge of previous outings, and this time arrives somewhere between Killing Joke and Black Flag, which means it’s absolutely furious and relentlessly raging. It’s a killer tune with all the intensity, and the soundtrack to the now.

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Youth – Spinning Wheel

Posted: 2 October 2021 in Singles and EPs
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Youth Sounds / Cadiz Entertainment

Christopher Nosnibor

Well, this is a surprise, and I say that without sarcasm. The lead single from Youth’s debut solo album is a breezy slice of indie with a heavy 60s folk influence.

But then, Youth has always been a man of surprises. His transition from Killing Joke bassist to producer and remixer of some incredibly high-profile mainstream acts including U2 and Erasure, via recording as a member of 90s dance act Blue Pearl and back to playing bass with Killing Joke and juggling infinite other projects is an incredible feat, and while I might consider his lack of commitment to any one thing uncritical, it’s clearly apparent that he’s an artist who can turn his hand – and successfully – to anything. I suppose the only real question is ‘what does he truly believe in?’ or ‘who is the real Martin Glover?’

The press blurbage for the album, out in November, and its eclectic range does attempt to shed some light one this:

‘Growing up with the sound of 70’s pop radio and bands such as Smokie, Pilot and Bay City Rollers – some of the tracks here are a flashback to those times and the initial inspiration of a thirteen year old Youth to write his first songs. ‘Sha La Laa I Love You’ and ‘The King Of The Losers’ are intimate, honest and have a naïve and innocent pop sensibility that are underpinned with regret and loss. He’s also took [sic] inspiration from psychedelic pop and English folk rock and his own words, he was thinking – “Everything from Nick Drake to Led Zeppelin, through a lens of Fairport tripping out with the Velvet Underground with a couple of Beach Boys, all the way to Cohen and Rodriguez, via Jim O Rourke, jamming with Fred Neil and Bert Janch and Michael Rother.’

Yes, Youth has been around, and so absorbed and assimilated a lot of stuff, and ‘Spinning Wheel’ brings many of those different pieces together, starting with a keen ear for melody, with the added bonus of some nice, subtle harmonies. Objectively, it’s a neat and accessible pop tune, and you can’t say fairer than that.

Boar God – Near Extinction

Posted: 17 August 2020 in Singles and EPs
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4th August 2020

Christopher Nosnibor

In the ever-expanding world of microgenres based on hybrids and crossovers, Montreal-based trio Boar God may be onto something as close to unique as you could imagine, describing their style as drone-punk. That said, drone takes many forms, ranging from the elongated notes that tend to feature in electronic works, to the dirgy, doom sustain of Sunn O)), with the kind of Psychedelic drone of The Black Angels in between.

Boar God’s sound belongs to none of these areas, and as such, does stand apart as different. The EP’s four tracks all sit around the six-minute mark, and blend driving alt-rock with a dash of shoegaze, and amp it all up with a spiky edge that’s as much post-punk as punk, but then I’d always say it’s the attitude that counts more than the sound in defining what’s punk.

Echoed tremolo tones shimmer like a heat-haze around guitars that scratch like sandpaper on the intro to ‘Life Eternal’. It’s a long, gradual build. The tempo quickens as the bass begins to run, faster and faster, the guitars chiming and swirling before everything breaks into a punchy clamour of everything, with Eric Bent’s vocals adding to the urgency. If it’s reminiscent of anything that immediately springs to mind, it’s Trail of Dead.

‘Azrael in Crisis’ goes all-out for the epic, with atmospheric synths swirling and wafting in the background, but still remains tightly-structured and punchy and dominated by a gritty guitar and booming bass. The energy is tempered by a chill, a bleakness, reminiscent of early Joy Division (think the outtakes that appeared on Still). The production is murky, and this is actually a good thing, as its low-budget, unpolished feel gives it an immediacy as well as replicating the late 70s’ / early 80s 8-track recording sound.

The pace and the angst are amped up on ‘The World Set Free’, a pounding amalgamation of Killing Joke and Red Lorry tallow Lorry, and again, it’s the thick, floor-shaking bass that defines and dominates the sound. Things take a twist for the gothic around two-thirds in, and as the fractal guitars glisten, the song acquires a dream-like quality.

Everything comes together at once on the closer, ‘The Tar Pits’, which locks into a motoric groove and drives it home with a searing guitar break and shrieking strains of feedback.

I know I’m a complete sucker for this kind of new-wave stuff, but as dark, angry, claustrophobic and steely-grey musings on loss go, Boar God bring a rare intensity on Near Extinction.

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Naut – Semele

Posted: 24 December 2019 in Singles and EPs
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Christopher Nosnibor

8th November 2019

The bio bit tells me that ‘NAUT is a 5 piece dark rock band from Bristol, whose shared love of classic rock and metal, alongside reverence for the post-punk pioneers of the late 70s and 80s makes itself known from the start. Their songs switch from raw tribal tom beats to uplifting anthemic synth in a moment, but always stay danceable and perhaps most dangerously, catchy’.

Fan comments on their bandcamp shed a little more light on their sound, observing the band’s ‘unique ability to recreate the original sound and feeling of 80’s uk goth rock. Sisters, Red Lorry Yellow Lorry, the Rose of Avalanche, early Nephilim…’ and their offering ‘the perfect mix of Post Punk with old school Goth Rock… Killing Joke meet The Wake & Love Like Blood.’

It’s no secret that I’m a rabid Sisters / Lorries / Nephs / KJ fan, but it’s equally documented that I consider most of the bands who’ve taken them as influences are generic and derivative, and that includes the mid-late 80s acts like Rose of Avalanche who traded in diluted forms of blueprint-based accessible alternative rock. This means I’ve no idea who The Wake or Love Like Blood are, but judging by the referential monikers, I probably don’t need to.

The EP’s title track kicks things off with a classically ‘gothy’ rhythm that’s dominated by a quickfire snare attack and defined by spindly guitars, trebly and awash with chorus. And talking of Chorus, it does boast a strong, hooky chorus, and there’s real energy behind it, which pushes it over the line from template-based to credible and sufficiently possessed of a band identity while still very much drawing well-studied inspiration from their precursors.

‘Spirit Horses’ steps down both the tempo and the individuality, and there’s a chord progression that’s lifted straight off The Sisters’ ‘Marian’, but the third and final track, which slows the pace further to a sluggish mid-tempo resembles ‘Blasting Off’ era Lorries, and works remarkably well with a looser feel but a grainy greyness that brings a certain weight.

On the strength of this outing, Naut are at their best when they go deeper and darker, and if they continue to evolve their songwriting in the directions demonstrated here, there’s a good chance they’ll break out beyond the trad-goth scene and into wider alternative circles.

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