Posts Tagged ‘melodic’

LiVES – Cancelled

Posted: 6 July 2024 in Reviews, Singles and EPs
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Roulette Records – 19th July 2024

Christopher Nosnibor

“I fucking hate how lame we’ve all become” yells Peter Chisholm by way of a hook which is almost guaranteed not to get this single mainstream radio airplay – as if it was ever likely in the first place. But the best music rarely on mainstream radio anyway. Nirvana, Therapy?, RATM breaking the singles charts at a certain point in the early 90s was a revolutionary moment in cultural terms, but ultimately, it was but a brief incursion which represented a mere moment in time, and whatever you may read about grunge taking over the world and breaking down walls, you’d never catch Tad or Mudhoney or Nymphs on the airwaves. This is not how the world works, and you’re never going to hear LiVES on R1 – especially not now.

Much as I loathed that sycophantic blowhard Zane Lowe, his show was pretty much the last bastion of alternative on mainstream radio, and while we do still – fortunately, and for now – have 6Music, it’s not the same, and 6Music really isn’t what it was, either. It’s not simply me being a miserable, nostalgic old sod: we’ve lost something, culturally, and that’s a fact.

But I digress – but not without justification. Because LiVES deserve to be heard, far and wide. ‘Cancelled’ is no right-wing supporting rant or moan about being cancelled. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. So you won’t find LiVES bleating about how right-on acts stole their slots or how being edgy has deprived them of a platform, in the way the likes of Ricky Gervais and John Cleese do, completely, and bewilderingly, without irony.

Chisholm states: “‘Cancelled’ is about my feeling of disenfranchisement of online and political society, my total despondence and hatred of the right AND the left… far right and postmodernism attitudes. They claim to be decent whilst being indecent, tolerant whilst being intolerant… always outraged, self righteous, aggressive, violent…they are swimming in hypocrisy and can’t see it. Meanwhile the real elite destroy the world around us, seemingly unnoticed whilst we fight amongst ourselves. I hate them all!!”

The frankly dismal turnout at this week’s election in the UK is a signifier of massive disinterest in politics as a whole, and Chisholm’s loathing of both sides is commonplace. ‘They’re all as bad as each other’, people moan. It doesn’t help that it’s become increasingly difficult to differentiate between the two, especially where the main parties are concerned. But cause for concern is not that Reform bagged five seats in parliament, but the fact they scored 14% of the vote, evidencing a massive surge in right-wing sentiment in the country.

‘Our final hour is a shitshow shower’ he spits as he calls out the calls out hypocrisy over a monster churning riff as cartoon images of Trump, Johnson, and Farage drift in and out of shape in the accompanying video. And if ‘Cancelled’ is the 2024 howl of disaffected nihilism that marks parallels with 1994, then it should also be seen as an awakening, a call a neglected generation to come together with a single voice and call for something better. And ‘Cancelled’ is nihilistic, and it’s angry. The guitars buzz and grind, and the rhythm section is monster-weighty and it’s the perfect backdrop to a snarling dissection of the world as is and just how hard it is to navigate. I’m drowning…. I’m drowing…’

It’s hard to argue that the right have surged forward, or that they’re a bunch of cunts, and it’s hard to ignore that the left have made a significant shift to the right. It’s also hard to deny, for anyone with ears, that this is a big gutsy riff-driven tune. Dig it.

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Listen: ‘In Your Night’ by Eye

Posted: 29 February 2024 in Recommended Streams and Videos, Singles and EPs
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EYE – the new band from Mammoth Weed Wizard Bastard (MWWB) singer-songwriter/musician Jessica Ball – has announced the arrival of their eagerly awaited debut album, ‘Dark Light’ set for release on 26th April via New Heavy Sounds (Shooting Daggers, MWWB, Blacklab)

"These songs have been many years in the making… Some of these ideas were crafted before MWWB, this is something I’ve always wanted to do. Over the last couple of years, I’ve spent some time on finishing and crafting these ideas and pieces of music into songs. Some were snippets of lyrics from my early twenties which reflect on what seems like a different person. I think it’s quite poetic how it’s all come together now.

I was also encouraged after finding musicians who understood the vision and style I was trying to achieve, and of course my experience of being in MWWB. I’m a guitarist above all, and I loved reconnecting with guitar again. It feels like all my influences and favourite styles have come together in this album. Shoegaze, doom, folk, dream pop… It’s a real mix bag but as a whole, it represents many different stages of my life and tells a story. 

The album ultimately is quite introspective yet lyrically loose enough to be open to interpretation – I’ve always been a fan of songs that seem to perfectly slot into the situation I’m experiencing and not too specific to one person’s experience… I think that comes across in this album.”

Jessica relocated from Wrexham to join her new partner, veteran Welsh musician Gid Goundrey (Gulp, Ghostlawns, Martin Carr), in Cardiff just as the pandemic era dawned. Confined to their small Grangetown flat, they quite naturally began making music together.

Having earned acclaim and a fervent fan following for her role in MWWB, Ball took the opportunity to compose songs that were all her own – nuanced, lyrical, and hypnotically distinctive.

Triggered in part by the existential dread looming outside as well as the sudden ill health of her dear friend, MWWB guitarist Paul “Dave” Davies, then fighting for life after a Covid-related stroke.

With Goundrey on drums (for the first time in his musical career) and joined by keyboardist Johnny TK, Eye experimented with sounds to match Ball’s melodic songs, traversing a diverse spectrum of dark folk, dreampop, IDM and psychedelic doom, to create sometimes heavy and foreboding drones, alongside spare but still richly textured sonics.

The result is their debut album ‘Dark Light’. An intensely atmospheric fusion of emotionally charged songcraft and inspired sonic energy. The clue is in the album’s paradoxical title. Chilling and even bleak melodies with arrangements daringly and deliberately stripped down and minimal. Revealing a kinship with sonic bed-fellows Mazzy Star, Chelsea Wolfe or even Portishead, which can be heard on first single ‘In Your Night’. Jessica comments,

"Our first release ‘In Your Night’ represents Eye musically, conceptually and lyrically and I’m proud for this to be the first song that everyone hears from us… Light and dark, night and day, quiet and loud is the running theme throughout this song and album as a whole. Whether you’re up close to a song, or listening to the album as a whole, these themes will be ever present throughout. We’re playing around with these two extremes sonically and what these represent emotionally and mentally. I feel that nothing takes you on a journey more effectively than a good build up, or something happening unexpectedly, much like real life. We are just the eye that witnesses it all."

Listen to ‘In Your Night’ here:

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Shannen Bamford – Addicted

Posted: 16 February 2024 in Reviews, Singles and EPs
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16th February 2024

James Wells

US singer-songwriter Shannen Bamford trades in melodic rocky indie, and despite being a solo artist in name, delivers a full band sound. If the title brings connotations of anguish, agony, conflict, and distress, the song itself steps meekly in and looks at its shoes as it ponders what to confess.

With an acoustic guitar and Shannen’s easy, floating vocals to the fore, and with a picked guitar running through it, ‘Addicted’ is tuneful and accessible, as well as layered in its sound. While there’s no real musical resemblance, in terms of sound and production, I’m vaguely reminded of Natalie Imbruglia, but Bamford’s delivery is altogether more subdued and introspective, and perhaps less enunciated, more breathy. ‘I’m addicted to the pain’, she sings in this song of sadness and loss, on which the mood is more melancholy than anguish or agony.

Structurally, there’s no real separation between the verses and choruses, with the song instead favouring a cyclical repetition which rises and falls along with the vocal melody. It works, not least of all because of its sing-song nature, and her vocal delivery balances confidence with an intimate feel.

So far, so much ok but nothing particularly special, but half a minute from the end, it bursts into a big, big climax, where everything gets louder and the guitars overheat and suddenly, from nowhere, it’s a rush, and the preceding four and a half minutes of ‘nice’ proves to have been suspense while she was holding back.

I’m a sucker for a slow-burner, a climax, a crescendo, and find the fact that a large majority of listeners won’t give a song more than thirty seconds before skipping – because they’re missing out. The final thirty seconds of ‘Addicted’ are explosive and transform the entire song.

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Watch: ‘Crazing’ by Newmoon

Posted: 31 January 2024 in Recommended Streams and Videos
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Belgian shoegaze outfit Newmoon are back with ‘Crazing’, the 3rd single taken from their brand-new album Temporary Light, set for release on March 22nd, 2024 through [PIAS] Recordings (EU) and Manifesto Records (US).

“Crazing is one of the noisier songs on this album”, singer-guitarist Bert Cannaerts explains. “We’re always looking for that one melody that hides within a song. With Crazing we wanted to try our hand at a song that incorporates loads of guitar textures but still feels melodic and airy. On one hand it has these dark and droning fuzzed out guitars but on the other hand it sounds fresh and uplifting. The song exists on the edge of dark and gloomy with a hint of brightness and optimism. The exact spot where we like our music to sit”, he adds.

Watch the video here:

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Eville – Leech

Posted: 20 October 2023 in Singles and EPs
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20th October 2023

Christopher Nosnibor

It’s all been happening in the Eville camp since the release of their second single, ‘Messy’, back in June – and now they’ve been gathering advance airplay in spades for the follow-up, ‘Leech’. Again, produced by Jamie Sellers (best known for his work with the likes of Ed

Sheeran and Elton John), this offering sees them really step things up a few notches.

Whereas ‘Messy’ was grungy and melodic, ‘Leech’ is all fiery fury: the rapidfire clattering drumming and roaring guitars – and vocal howl – which kickstarts the song harks back to the point around the turn of the millennium, when Pitchshifter joined forces with Prodigy live guitarist Jim Davies to create a dance/industrial metal fusion and saw them find favour with the nu-metal crowd – and although their preferred reference points are more in the vein of Slipknot, for all the emotional rawness of the lyrics, there’s still a strong melodic edge to the vocals.

Eva Sheldrake has range, and a knack for delivering a hook, not to mention a monster riff, and in the company of Milo Hemsley (drums) and Billy Finneran (bass), the Brighton ‘brat-metal’ trio are a powerful unit. And as much as I’ve been digging the vogue for duos lately – a setup often born as much out of necessity as choice – and hearing how far it’s possible to push the most minimal format it’s possible to have and still be a band – there is something so classic about a trio. It’s because while maintaining all of the component parts, there has to be absolute focus, there’s no room for a weak element like an iffy rhythm guitarist, and no-one has anywhere to hide, but everyone has to deliver optimally. And when they do, the sum is greater than the parts.

“I hope listeners take as much from it as I did by relating through experience with inner

conflict and toxic situations that are hard to escape,” says Eva.

She certainly channels it, and hard, here. Eville are clearly no suckers, and ‘Leech’ is a killer tune that says this is a band with much promise.

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Firestations – Thick Terrain

Posted: 18 October 2023 in Albums
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Lost Map Records – 14th July 2023

Christopher Nosnibor

The release of ‘Stillness’ as a single last week by Firestations was a simple but neat bit of promotion. Backed with a remix version, its lustrous dreamy waves alerted me to the existence of Thick Terrain, the album from which it’s lifted. The album was released back in July, but, because there is simply so much music out there, it’s simply impossible to keep up, however dedicated you are in your exploration of new music.

I know a lot of people listen to Spotify while they’re working or on the bus or whatever, and stuff pops up and they like it, and many friends say they like how it recommends them stuff they wouldn’t have sought out but have found they’re pleasantly surprised by and it’s as if it knows… well, yeah, it does, to an extent, but not in a good way. Algorithms, selections by ‘influencers’, or sponsorship – none of these are as organic as people seem to believe. It’s not about choice anymore, but the illusion of choice. Before the advent of the Internet, I would spend my evenings listening to John Peel, and later, as a weak substitute, Zane Lowe, before I could tolerate his effusive sycophancy no more, and later still, but less often, 6Music. These were my Spotify, I suppose, but oftentimes, music in the background while I’m doing other stuff simply doesn’t engage me so much, and if music is to be background, it works better for me if it’s familiar.

I still listen to albums while I work, and have found since the pandemic that I can no longer wear earphones and listen to music in public places. Given what I do when I’m not doing my dayjob – namely review music – I prefer to sift through my myriad submissions, pour a drink and light some candles and fully immerse myself in something that takes my interest and suits my mood based on the press release or, sometimes, just arbitrarily.

Anyway. Back when I used to listen to the Top 40 – mid- to late-80s and early 90s – I would hear singles which piqued my interest, and would discover that often, they were the second, third, or even fourth single from an album that had been out some months, even the year before, and, alerted to the album’s existence, I would go to town the next weekend and buy it on tape in WH Smith or OurPrice or Andy’s Records.

The model has changed significantly since then: EPs are released a track at a time until the entire EP has been released as singles by the release date, and you’ll likely get four ahead of an album’s release and then within a fortnight of the album’s release, that’s the promo done. And so Firestations’ rather more old-school release schedule proves to be more than welcome, because it so happens that their first album in five years is rather special.

Released on Lost Map Records, which is run by Pictish Trail, from his caravan on the Isle of Eigg, it’s a set of psychedelic dreamgaze tunes reminiscent of early Ride, and takes me back to the early 90s listening to JP. Straight out of the traps, ‘God & The Ghosts’ places the melodic vocals to the fore with the chiming guitars melting together to create a glistening backdrop, shimmering, kaleidoscopic. The lyrics are pure triptastic abstractions for the most part, and in this context, the curious cover art makes sense – or at least, as much sense as it’s likely to.

While boasting a chunky intro and finalé, ‘Hitting a New Low’ is janglesome, a shoegaze/country which evokes dappled shade and wan contemplation than plunging depression, before ‘Travel Trouble’ comes on with the urgency of early Interpol, at least musically: the vocals are a dreamy drift and couldn’t be more contrasting.

Thick Terrain has energy, range, dynamics, and stands out from so many other releases that aim to revisit that 90s shoegaze style because the songs are clearly defined, and while displaying a stylistic unity, they’re clearly different from one another: Firestations don’t simply retread the same template, or stick to the same tempo. There is joy to be found in the variety, and Thick Terrain is the work of a band working within their parameters while pushing at them all the time. From the mellow wash of the instrumental interlude of ‘Tunnel’ to lead single ‘Undercover’ – an obvious choice with its breezy melody and easy strum and blossoming choruses – via the psych/county vibes of ‘Also Rans’, Thick Terrain is imaginative.

And ultimately, we arrive at ‘Stillness’, which, clocking in at six-and-three-quarter minutes is anything but an obvious single choice, at least in terms of radio play. It’s the perfect album closer: low, key, slow-burning, it evolves to break into some ripping riff-driven segments before ultimately fading out to space.

Thick Terrain treads lightly through a range of ranging textures and soundscapes, and does so deftly.

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Milliseconds – Fallingwater

Posted: 10 September 2023 in Singles and EPs
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Spartan Records – 7th September 2023

Christopher Nosnibor

Milliseconds featuring Joe Easley (drums) and Eric Axelson (vocals / bass / synth) of The Dismemberment Plan, and Leigh Thompson (guitar / noises / pedal board) of The Vehicle Birth will release their J Robbins-produced debut LP So This Is How It Happens on October 13 via Spartan Records.

After recently premiering the first single ‘Time and Distance’ on Stereogum, the band is now unveiling the second single ‘Fallingwater.’

I have to confess that with so many submissions, I, like many in the ‘industry’ and also the majority of the public in this era of low-attention and time-constrained living, make instant judgements about not only music, but pretty much anything and everything. I’ll read a headline and not bother with the article, or if I do, may only make it through the first paragraph before my opinion is set and I move on. It’s a habit I annoy even myself with, and it’s a relatively recent habit I’ve developed, which I can pretty much pin to the start of the pandemic, in the days before lockdown when I would be checking the same news sites every couple of minutes to see if there were any new developments, for updates on numbers of cases and deaths.

So about ten seconds into ‘Fallingwater’, I’ve already reached the conclusion it’s limp toss, a slightly emo take on pop-punk, with its cleanish guitar sound and sing-song, slightly nasal vocals. But in the time it takes me to process why I don’t like it, I realise that actually, it has qualities I do like. It’s one of those songs that finds its stride as it progresses, and ultimately reveals itself to have more in common with proper 70s punk than the sanitised fully-adult-guys-bouncing-around-and-making-like-they’re-still fifteen-and-represent-the-youth’ punk-pop shit that’s still being released faster than babies are being born around the globe.

Sure, it’s melodic, but it’s got an edge to it, as well as some nifty unexpected changes which indicate some pretty smart songwriting skills, especially as said changes aren’t awkward or jarring. Having revised my position, I decide that maybe this is a song that warrants some coverage, which I might feel like devoting some time to some discourse, even if some of that discourse is around the process of creating that discourse (or deciding against doing so).

Only then, then, do I consider the accompanying notes – because as much as I can find myself drawn by the pitch, I think that what matters ultimately is the music. Great PR won’t make a shit song amazing – although it does seem that some may be blinded by great PR to the extent that some real crap can go massive, even if briefly by generating some kind of mass delusion, but that’s perhaps for another time.

In explaining the song’s inspiration and style, Axelson says, “Musically we felt like we were tapping into Hüsker Dü and The Kinks when writing this. Those chorus chords especially with the high strings ringing out as a drone definitely owes something to Bob Mould, and the riff in seven that separates sections of the song, feels like some early / mid Kinks, or maybe ‘Alex Chilton’ by the Replacements, but in seven. The weird twist comes in the bridge: initially it was just one voice, but in the studio we layered harmonies and it came out a bit Beach Boys, just maybe not as pretty.”

It isn’t, but then, The Beach Boys were just too clean and pretty, too lightweight and sanitised, whereas with ‘Fallingwater’, Milliseconds still bring some bite – more the spirit of ’77 than anything combining the punchy panache of Buzzcocks with the savvy of Wire to make for three and a half minutes of old-school enjoyment.

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Photo Credit: Evan Bowles

Sodomisery – Mazzaroth

Posted: 23 August 2023 in Albums
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Testimony Records – 8th September 2023

Christopher Nosnibor

‘We are living in troubled times and it is hardly surprising that this is reflected in any form of art including music. On Mazzaroth, Sodomisery have spun a dark lyrical yarn about mental illness in society, religion, and the struggle of the individual, which is running like a red thread through their sophomore full-length. The Swedish melodic death four-piece are underlining their loosely conceptual approach with a remarkable musical evolution’, says the bio which accompanies this album.

There’s no misery like Sodomisery. At least, that’s what I’ve heard. For reasons I haven’t explored, while society has progressed – and I do mean this broadly and generally, being most aware of the fact that homosexuality and many things more widely accepted remain not only illegal but subject to severe punishments in a large number of countries – the word ‘sodomy’ carries brutal connotations which continue to hold currency in the circles of the

blackest of metal and industrial and power electronics. It’s true that Whitehouse’s Erector (with its blatantly unsubtle ‘cock’ cover) was released in 1981 and things have moved on a bit since then, but how much? Many of these bands are, as far as I can discern, less concerned with contemporary perceptions of anal penetration, whereby in permissive western society, it’s generally accepted regardless of sex or sexuality, and in pornography, it’s more or less considered essential, and more preoccupied with the harsh, perverse connotations of the writings of The Marquis de Sade – one of the few writers whose work still has the capacity to truly shock. And in this context, sodomy connotes the worst of sexual tortures, the infliction of pain, a statement of the ultimate power dynamics. It all seems appropriate given the band’s objectives.

This album had an interesting evolution, too: ‘When all the new tracks were written and pre-produced, SODOMISERY decided to create two versions of the album. One mix included keyboards and orchestration, while the other version had no such additions. After an extensive period of deliberation and many listening sessions, the Swedes decided that the new dimension and cinematic feeling added by the keyboards was exactly what their songs needed.’

Without hearing the two versions side by side, I’m in no position to comment, but the fact of the matter is that the keyboards certainly have not transformed this into some twiddly prog-rock effort: instead said keyboards are low in the mix but serve to fill out the sound with elongated droning tones against the relentless, thunderous fury of frantic fretwork and double-pedal drumwork that’s faster than the eye or ear can process.

There are some moments of such tunefulness that one has to take pause and breathe for a moment. We’re not just talking clean vocals or tuneful; there are moments, albeit brief, of outright pop sandwiched between the furious rage and overloading distortion. But rather than diminish the album’s power, I find myself respecting the band all the more. To have a softer breakdown in a song is one thing: to be so unashamedly clean and crisp and tuneful is bold.

‘Delusion’ balances all of the various elements nicely, coming together to forge a blasting yet grand and graceful dirty monster of a track which even packs in a heroic guitar solo near the end. Juvenile snickering ensues here with ‘A Storm Without Wind’, and I know it’s not funny and the delivery is entirely serious. Not least of all the lung-ripping bass that prefaces the throat-ripping vocals which snarl over guitars which alternate between old samples and snippets stolen from the present.

It feels scary, like being left alone on a platform and staring into the abyss. Any minute and it could retreat, and leave you falling into the void, and on the evidence here, you’d incinerate in seconds. Ultimately, we’re all scared. Mazzaroth is a worthy soundtrack to that fear.

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Listen: ‘Invocations’ by High Priest FULL ALBUM STREAM

Posted: 25 June 2023 in Albums
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Chicago riff-doom four-piece HIGH PRIEST officially present their debut full-length Invocation to the world, now streaming everywhere and available in record shops across the galaxy from 23rd June 2023.

The band comment: “Our debut album Invocation is the culmination of years of hard work and collaboration”, guitarist John Regan writes. “We wanted to represent our breadth of influences and create something new while harkening back to the bands that inspired us to play music in the first place. I am the most proud of this record of anything I’ve ever worked on, and I’m so excited to share with the world.”

Hear it here:

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Hammok – Now I Know

Posted: 31 May 2023 in Singles and EPs
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Renoir Records – 9th June 2023

Christopher Nosnibor

And so it goes that ‘In 2022, Norway’s Hammok released their first EP ‘Jumping/Dancing/Fighting’ and received very good reviews in publications such as Distorted Mag and Pitchfork – and we fucking loved it, too.

The press pitch for the Oslo-based trio’s follow-up, Now I Know, promises ‘a new chapter for the band [which] takes listeners on a vast and powerful journey, beginning on a more bright tone with the band exploring their more introspective and emotionally intense side and gradually drifting towards a more heavier and ferocious approach, reaching levels of fury and intensity never explored before.’

Predictably, perhaps, then, we fucking love this, too.

The EP comprises three tracks: ‘This Will Not Last’ parts one and two, and the title tune, and immediately, with ‘This Will Not Last PT 1’, the shift from the previous release is apparent. The vocals are still trained and straining, angry, aggressive, but they’re swamped in reverb as the instrumentation forges an almost shoegazey, dream pop curtain of sound. The thick, blooping, glooping bass and other key elements are still present but they’re all softer, meaning there’s no gut-punching blasts like ‘Contrapoint’ here. That isn’t to say it’s entirely mellow: it does break into a driving riff propelled by pounding drums and a blizzard of guitar around the mid-section, then takes a turn for the darker in the final minute. Perversely, as much as it’s a pristine slice of post-punk / noise rock crossover, it equally makes me think of a hardcore version of The Twilight Sad and I Like Trains.

‘This Will Not Last PT 2’, released as a preview, is the most accessible and melodic song on the EP, and is their most commercial cut to date by a mile, presenting a melodic, post-hardcore face. Melody is relative, mind you. It’s hardly The Coors. It sits strangely ahead of ‘Now I Know’ which is dense and dark and abrasive in its roaring rage and frantic pace. The guitars chop and churn, and by the close, Tobias Osland is practically spraying his flayed larynx in spatters on the floor as he purges his final howls of obliterative fury.

Hammok have expanded both their sound and range, but while there are softer moments, it would be a mistake to say that they’ve softened overall – and the softer moments only serve to give the hard blasts even greater impact, making for a second killer EP.

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