Posts Tagged ‘Post-Punk’

Live Skull – Party Zero

Posted: 4 May 2023 in Albums
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Bronson Recordings – 26th May 2023

Christopher Nosnibor

90s alt-rock band Come, fronted by Thalia Zedek, provided my route to discovering Live Skull, which she joined in 1987 and took over lead vocal duties. But my curiosity and interest in evolution and lineage led me to pick up cheap vinyl copies of Bringing Home the Bait and Don’t Get Any on You, which, brimming with shouty vocals, scratchy guitars and low-slung bass, could reasonably be described as No-Wave classics.

Somewhat ironically for a band which emerged out of the foment of 80s New York which also spawned Sonic Youth and Swans, the Live Skull reportedly disbanded in 1990 due to sustained lack of commercial success.

Perspectives change over time, although it was perhaps more of a returning to their original motivations which spurred them to reconvene in 2016, since when they’ve released two albums, with Party Zero being the third, and the seventh studio album of their career.

Delivering an album that’s described as ‘a fiercely political album, in keeping with this politically fierce age’ and ‘timely music, essential, impassioned, angry and beautiful’ founder Mark C. It is a politically fierce age, and now more than any time since the late 70s and early 80s – a period which spawned so many bands who existed as an outlet for frustration and anger and all kinds of difficult and even ugly emotions through nihilistic noise and various forms of confrontation and antagonism.

Sonically, Party Zero isn’t especially nihilistic or noisy, confrontational or antagonistic, but does very much refine these elements and hone the delivery of an almost obsessive focus on corruption, abuse of power, inequality and injustice.

If the sound is rather more polished and widescreen than their 80s releases, the key ingredients are still there, not least of all jagged guitars that blur and crackle with treble and careen into dissonance and discord against big, bold basslines. There’s a palpable sense of urgency to the songs on Party Zero. It may not be their strongest album or their most innovative or distinctive – but it’s an album that’s necessary.

“We’ve been pushed to the edge – how do we claw our way back? That’s been a common theme in Live Skull since the beginning, and so it is now. We’re trying to provoke thought.” There seems to be a rising tide of bands out to achieve these same ends, now, and from a vastly diverse range of stylistic contexts, from the minimal beats and loops of Sleaford Mods to the raging ranting noise-blasts of Benefits via the angular post-punk of I Like Trains. People are pissed off – and they’re frustrated, and scared – and those people in bands are using their platforms to call the bullshit, the fearmongering, the manipulation, the rise of the right and the immorality of governments and multinational companies.

It’s not just the pithy lyrics: ‘Neutralize the Outliers’ sounds like a rabble-rousing protest song, more New Model Army than anything that belies the band’s origins, and it works because it feels necessary, vital.

‘Chords of Inquiry’ plugs away at a simple, spare riff driven by crashing drums, and the drumming is a strong contributor to the album’s dynamic feel, and nowhere more on ‘Mad Kingship’, as they thunder along in a sustained roll. ‘Inside the Exclusion Zone’ is accessible, but driven, choppy, urgent, with a contemporary post-punk feel – think Radio 4’s take on the Gang of Four sound – and the same is true of ‘Turn Up the Static’, with its dubby strolling bass that ambulates through the reverby verses (before the chorus slugs out a mid-tempo fist-pumping holler-along call to arms).

And this is why the surge in protest music is what we need right now. It likely won’t change the world; the chances it won’t change opinions or provoke all that much thought, since most people who are likely to listen to Live Skull are the kind of people who are already in the same camp of political frustration or despair – and that’s ok. What these people – we – need is to know we’re not alone, and to feel a sense of unity and community, and for these feelings of frustration and anger to be articulated by relatable voices. Party Zero does that – and with some solid tunes.

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Fashion Tips – Fucking Hell

Posted: 25 April 2023 in Singles and EPs
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Panurus Productions – 28th May 2023

Christopher Nosnibor

There are many things to love about Panurus Productions releases, the main one being the music, which probably goes without saying. But for me, the notes which accompany their releases are always quality – dense slabs of prose that convey the releases in the most physical of terms. And it’s fitting, seeing as said releases, which showcase the vibrant noise scene in the North-East, do tend to be the kind which evoke a certain physical reaction.

The one thing that is apparent is that the scene does involve a lot of bands sharing personnel, and four-piece Fashion Tips are no exception, featuring Esmé Louise Newman of black metal muthas Petrine Cross on vocals and microkorg. She’s joined by Butch Lexington (drums, drum machine), Liam Slack (bass, bass VI) and Jorden Sayer (guitar), and the four tracks were recorded t Liam’s house in County Durham, and was mastered by Freddy Vinehill-Cliffe of Thank and Beige Palace (because there’s a fair amount of cross-sharing in the Leeds scene too, and the northern DIY scene in general. In fact, it’s less of a scene and more of a community, and it’s nice, and I mean that sincerely: in an industry that’s pretty harsh, cutthroat, backstabby and all that shit, it’s a source of joy that there’s a sense of collectivism where artists are mates and help one another out: it should be a model for society in general).

And so it is that Fashion Tips’ debut EP is described as ‘A dance but one of mania, possessed by a need to expunge, switching between mournful and self effacing to raining down scorn. A quivering musculature of strings erupts in spasms of screeches and squawls, held to arched backbone of drums by straining bass tendons. Run through with varicose electronic veins bursting near the surface of skin, a fraught body emits its secrets through a variegated range of croons, shrieks and bellows.’

It sounds a terrifying prospect. The result is, in fact, altogether less scary, although those accustomed to Esmé’s chthonic guttural growls may be surprised by the helium-filled hollers ad yelps here.

Fucking Hell is pitched as ‘Sitting at the uncomfortable mid point between the upbeat and deeply visceral; Fashion Tips drag you in with virulently infectious riffage while simultaneously drenching you with noise and battering you with wild eyed and frantic vocal delivery’.

‘Lunched Out’ is scuzzed out, bass-driven and noisy, but also lively and hooky, and comes on more like X-Ray Spex than anything from the noise-rock scene. The guitars are fizzy fuzz, and the definition comes from the throbbing bass that’s melded to a crisp drum and then there’s the warping space-rock synth lines that really lift it.

Things get heavier with ‘Waltzing’, with hints of Cranes and Daisy Chainsaw bouncing around between the Stranglers-esqe synth, before it melts into a swirling sonic stew on ‘Cinema Vérité’.

‘Standing O’ brings crisp, cutty guitars and a certain (post-)punk minimalism against a swirling mess of feedback and noise, and synths tones that gyrate and grate against one another as everything surges to a rabid climax of barking vocals and a swirling soup of nasty noise.

Fucking Hell stands apart from other Panuras releases on a number of levels, its brevity being one of them. With the longest song clocking in at under four and a half minutes the whole EP’s duration is less than fourteen minutes. But that’s all it needs: Fucking Hell is about instant high impact. And it delivers. It also – unexpectedly, in context – delivers some decent, catchy tunes.

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Beige Palace / Cassels – Waterloo Sublet / About Not Writing

Posted: 13 April 2023 in Singles and EPs
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Human Worth / God Unknown – 28th June 2023

Christopher Nosnibor

The release date may be a long way off, but I wanted to get in early with a review and put word out before it’s sold out – not least of all because I’ve been following Beige Palace from the very start, catching their live debut at now defunct DIY rehearsal-space-cum-venue CHUNK in Leeds in 2016. And Christ, I miss that place. It wasn’t the most accessible of spaces, but still within walking distance of the train station, and they hosted some bloody great bands. And it was the place where …(something) ruined made its debut, meaning that on a personal level, it will always be remembered as a special place. Beige Palace impressed then (so much so they used a quote from my review on their website and in press releases), but there was no way of foreseeing that they’d go on to support both Mclusky and Shellac on their visits to Leeds in recent years, bringing their brand of minimal lo-fi indie to the main room at the legendary Brudenell. I’d like to claim I have an ear / eye for bands with unique qualities, and that my many long nights spent seeing unknown bands in tiny venues is not only indicative of a commitment to grass roots music and seeking out the next hot act, but something of a talent, but the truth is I simply enjoy these smaller shows.

The fact that Mclusky and Shellac chose to play the 450-capacity Brudenell suggests they are of the same mindset.

And so it is that the ever-brilliant and ever-dependable Human Worth have teamed up with Good Unknown for a split 7” featuring Beige Palace and Cassels – thus demonstrating the beauty of the split single, which more often tan not you tend to buy because you like one of the bands, and then discover another band in the process.

This split single is a corker.

The punningly-titled ‘Waterloo Sublet’ is a dingy, dungeon-crawling post-punk drone where a long intro of feedback and gut-quivering bass paves the way for a deranged up-and-down angular noise-rock workout that leaves you feeling punch-drink and dizzy. The dual vocals are more the voices of psychosis than a complimentary bounce back-and-forth, and the result is psychologically challenging. It’s not easy or accessible, but it is unhinged and big on impact. And once again, Beige Palace show that you don’t need extreme volume or big riffs or loads of distortion to make music that disturbs the comfortable flow in the best possible way.

Cassels also bring some spiky, jerky, jarring post-punk, and their crisp, cutty guitar work paired with half-sung narrative lyrics are reminiscent of Wire. And then, halfway through, the tempo quickens and it erupts into a guitar-driven frenzy and from out of nowhere, it goes flame-blastingly noisy. It pretty much articulates my own relationship with writing – and not writing, and channels a whole range of complex issues spanning the relationship between mental health and the creation of art. It’s a cracking tune, and one that says that for the unfamiliar, Cassels are a band worth exploring.

Split single – purpose fulfilled.

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Spear of Destiny – The Crescent, York, 5th April 2023

Posted: 6 April 2023 in Live
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Christopher Nosnibor

Kirk Brandon has to be one of the hardest-working men in British music: if he’s not touring with Spear of Destiny, it’s Theatre of Hate or Dead Men Walking or otherwise recording new albums or rerecording old ones with either SoD or TOH. You’d think he’d be knackered, but he’s got no shortage of energy and is in good voice – he sounds absolutely no different – as he leads the band through a career-spanning set.

They don’t ease in gently, either, storming through an opening clutch of songs beginning with ‘Rainmaker’, followed by ‘Radio Radio’, ‘Young Men’ and the rabble-rousing ‘Liberator’. On a personal level, I’m particularly happy with this, as One Eyed Jacks is a particularly favourite album of mine.

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‘Pilgrim’, from last year’s Ghost Population breaks the run, but sits well in the set, built around a beefy guitar chug. It also shows how, as much as they’re a ‘heritage’ band – Kirk jokingly comments on how many of their more recent songs are twenty-five years old now – who are more than happy to crank out the oldies for the fans who grew up with these songs, they’re also very much a going concern and an active, writing and recording band with something still to say and a knack for big, anthemic tunes. They’re great to watch, too: the guitarist plays his solos with his face – it’s particularly fun to watch him mouth the long bendy notes, and the drummer’s a face-player, too. Flippancy aside, though, there’s a lot to be said for the pleasure of watching a band who are into what they’re doing performing, especially when it’s a band who’ve got a wealth of live experience under their belts and they’re just really good, it’s a source of joy. The joy among the crowd is self-evident: it may be toward the older demographic, but they’re here to have a good time and to get moving down the front.

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It’s the first night of the tour, and the intro to ‘So in Love with You’ sounds a shade rough but once they’re through it, it’s belting, and keeping the energy up, they follow up immediately after with ‘Never Take Me Alive’ immediately after – and it’s only mid-set. There are people at the bar singing along while ordering pints, and it’s a heartwarming experience all round.

If the main set is perhaps shorter than expected, it leaves time for a lot of encore, where ‘Judas’, from 2000’s Volunteers proves to be a standout as they wrap up a cracking set.

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With no support, they’re on early and off early, and it’s not simply age that makes a 10:30 finish a welcome thing: with public transport in the state it’s in, with busses stopping early and trains being utterly fucked and often replaced by busses or nothing at all, it makes travelling even locally to gigs difficult at a time when the night-time economy is struggling. It’s good, then, to see venues adapt to cater for the punters – and judging by how packed the bar was an hour before the show (and the fact one of the hand-pulled beers ran out by 9pm), there’s a fair chance they sold a decent amount of beer on top of the tickets.

For all the crap in the world, good bands and good venues are still thriving. And it seems York is finally on the gig circuit proper. Yusss!

Listen: ‘Neutralize the Outliers’ by Live Skull

Posted: 5 April 2023 in Recommended Streams and Videos
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NYC no-wave veterans Live Skull will return with new album Party Zero on May 26th, 2023 on Bronson Recordings. Following on album opener ‘Magic Consciousness’, a modern post-punk protest tune of uncanny subtlety and power, today they share new track ‘Neutralize The Outliers’. Both urgent and catchy, it’s an addictive anthem of otherness perfectly balanced with incredible guitar work and riffs. Recorded at legendary Deepsea in Hoboken NJ by Mark C, this is timely music, essential, impassioned, angry and beautiful. It’s the sound of Live Skull in the 21st Century, a desperate time that needs heroes like these. They are back from the past and still holding the post-punk sceptre.

Live Skull’s Dave Hollinghurst explains: "We watched the chaos unfold live on the computer screen, freaking out, confusion and doubt on our faces. I realized that not only are we the hunted, but we are the hunters – and what are we going to do about it? Strike back with our own brand of chaos and noise – at least we go down in a sonic blaze of glory".

Listen to ‘Neutralize the Outliers’ here:

Insurrections. Global pandemics. The return of fascism. Climate crises. These are some serious times. But if you’ve got angst in your pants and you need to dance, or scream, or play guitar too loud, too close to your amplifier, turn your ear to what Live Skull are doing. The New York noisers, who went on indefinite hiatus just before their kind of smart, gnarly, inventive din became lucrative, rose again in 2016. Their new album ‘Party Zero’, a thrilling work redefining what Live Skull means and what they stand for: no longer a group with a past, but one with a future. 

‘Party Zero’ marks the arrival of guitarist Dave Hollinghurst, an electrifying presence pushing the band in a fresh, new direction. It’s a fiercely political album, in keeping with this politically fierce age. “Desperation inspires us to make art and music,” he says. “There’s a lot of birth and rebirth, looking for pathways of resistance and promoting the good and trying to fight against evil. I once said we had to start Live Skull because Reagan became president. And we had to restart Live Skull because Trump became president.”

‘Party Zero’ is big in sound, brash in dynamics. But the sophistication that was always the group’s calling card remains an essential element, dealing in the kind of pulverising pell-mell that characterised the 80s New York sound, but also radiant with melody, the fusion of noise and unexpected tunefulness delivering a heady, psychedelic effect.

“We’ve been pushed to the edge – how do we claw our way back?” asks Mark. “That’s been a common theme in Live Skull since the beginning, and so it is now. We’re trying to provoke thought.”

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Photo Credit: Jen Jaffe

Real Teeth – Drive By Argument

Posted: 3 April 2023 in Singles and EPs
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6th February 2023

Christopher Nosnibor

I miss 2005. It might sound crass or lame, but I really do. Sure, I miss being in my twenties, and I miss not having the responsibilities I have now and I miss still studying and I miss being as alert and edgy, but more than anything I miss the sense of life and future that 2005 offered. Musically, it was a good – exciting – time with a new wave of post-punk influenced bands coming through. Interpol dropped Antics in 2004 and Editors began to break in 2005, and there was a real groundswell of excitement around the new-wave renaissance as spearheaded by bands who really channelled a certain Joy Division-inspired darkness.

With ‘Drive By Argument’, Real Teeth capture that spring of excitement, but without sounding nostalgic. It may seem a contradiction, but then, that was how it was in 2005, too. The emerging bands drew on the past, but didn’t sound like they were trying to recreate it. And the same is true of Real Teeth.

The single is accompanied by ‘a collage video from short clips of dash-cam footage of London from 1999’, and that’s probably more nostalgia-laden than the song itself.

But, propelled by a rhythm that’s packed with stuttering fills, a groove-driven bass and choppy guitars, it’s got a lot going on, with nods to Radio 4 and Gang of Four thrust to the fore in what is a busy and multi-layered cut. With a vital energy and dynamism, not to mention some well-placed changes in tempo and tone, ‘Drive By Argument’ is straightforward on the surface but has more going on underneath, and is worth taking some time to chew on.

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Listen: ‘Die Tonight’ by Cliff and Ivy

Posted: 27 March 2023 in Recommended Streams and Videos
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Alaska’s premier goth rock band, Cliff And Ivy recently unveiled their new single, ‘Die Tonight’ on their label, House of Extreme Darkness.

‘Die Tonight’ is a dark punk song for those who love like vampires – legendary, eternal and full of fire.  Almost an eternity in the making, it was inspired by the undying flame of love that exists between immortal lovers and in the natural world.

Death and life are always linked together, as it takes the clearest dark night to be able to see the aurora in the northern sky. ‘Die Tonight’ was recorded in Alaska while the northern lights exploded above. 

‘Die Tonight’ is available on all streaming services including Bandcamp.

Listen here:

The Martyr – My Friends Look Funny

Posted: 23 March 2023 in Singles and EPs
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21st February 2023

There’s some debate as to whether or not they really ‘get’ ‘goth’ Stateside, favouring more vampire / horror cliché stylings to anything that defined the disparate ‘movement’ as it emerged from the bleak urban sprawls of England in the early 80s as a darker strand of post-punk. Admittedly, the fans were always the ones with the greater shared affinity rather than the first wave of bands, none of whom recognised the ‘goth’ tag and the ones still going still don’t to this day, but still, quite how or when it morphed into genre let alone a stereotype is unclear.

The Martyr’s sound is certainly rooted more in the UK post-punk sound than anything else – brittle guitars and a thudding drum machine call to mind Alien Sex Fiend, and all crunched into just two minutes and thirty-eight seconds – but at the same draws on dark electropop and dance elements – a dash of Depeche Mode, a hint of dark disco – to create something that’s both spiky and danceable.

Lyrically, it’s serious but at the same time isn’t too serious, and it’s certainly not corny or cliché, and if ‘My Friends Look Funny’ employs a number of common stylistic trappings of the hi—NRG dance end of contemporary goth, it’s different enough to be worth a listen.

Silktape – Sink or Swim

Posted: 19 March 2023 in Singles and EPs
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25th February 2023

Christopher Nosnibor

There aren’t many singles that grab you with the opening bars, but silktape succeed with a tune that’s deeply rooted in both nineties and turn of the millennium alternative, spidery tripwire guitars spiralling around math-rock motifs against a hammering bass and sturdy drumming. They present all the angles with some shouty vocals atop guitars that some in from this side and that, with hints of Fugazi, …Trail of Dead, and Jacob’s Mouse cutting in alongside more recent reference points to make for a busy but solid and breath-catching sound, and they’re coming to the chorus now, and….

The chorus – well, it sounds like it belongs to a different song altogether. When they pitch it as being ‘’anthemic’, they’re absolutely right, but it’s from that vein of emo that renders it rather anticlimactic following the tense dynamics of the verse. It’s very much a cliché terrace-chanty ‘woah-hoah’ effort that would be more effective if it didn’t sound so template-drawn, down to the ‘ok not to be ok’, message, which is positive but somewhat uninspired and uninspiring.

The midsection, where they drop everything right down is brilliantly realised, and the song’s structure, paired with the contrasting guitar sounds, is outstanding. It’s early days for these guys – ‘Sink or Swim’ is only their second single, and they clearly have the songwriting skills and musical skills which demonstrate huge potential – and no doubt they’ll go far and almost certainly swim rather than sink once they decide for certain which audience they’re going for.

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silktape by Will Fraser Creative

Sleep Kicks – The Afterdrop

Posted: 17 March 2023 in Albums
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17th March 2023

Christopher Nosnibor

In the feast or famine equation, there’s rarely a true drought when it comes to quality new releases, but this month really does seem to be one for an eye-popping proliferation, and the arrival of Sleep Kicks’ debut album after a succession of singles and EPs is a most welcome arrival along them.

Having previously showcased – and raved about – previous releases, it’s a joy to see The Afterdrop finally land. Most of those previous singles – ‘My On Demon’, ‘No Chains’, ‘Hall of Shame’, ‘Neptune’’, and, most recently, ‘Words in Vain’ are featured here, along with a different recording of ‘Exodus’ from the one that appeared on the Summer EP back in July 2020. It’s marked as an edit, which makes me curious to hear the full-length version performed as a full band.

Having frothed and foamed exuberantly about the band’s melding of dark post-punk with soaring pop aspects with each single release, I’m running low on my reserve of superlatives. But there are four new songs here, and then there’s also the question of how it hangs as an album – whether or not if feels like a padded-out singles compilation or an album proper.

I suppose the first thing to point out is that while all of their previous releases have been digital-only, The Afterdrop is receiving a vinyl pressing, meaning the songs finally feel solid and tangible in a way they perhaps didn’t before, and with the atmospheric instrumental opener, ‘Reflections’ lifting the curtain on the ten-track set, it does very much feel like an album rather than simply a collection of songs. It’s dark and spacious, with robotic drumming driving it along.

It’s then straight into the vaguely gothy post-punk of ‘Words in Vain’, with its stonking bass and fractal guitars, a tune that on its own should have earned the band global domination on a par with Editors and Interpol. ‘Neptune’ is synthier, but its poppiness is countered by dark undercurrents, and it’s a rush, as is ‘Exodous’ – a thunderous bass and brittle guitar that’s pure Interpol circa Turn on the Bright Lights defining the side.

In previous reviews, I’ve also likened Sleep Kicks to fellow Norwegians A-Ha: some of this is down to Terje Kleven’s vocal qualities – rich, varied, and with a knack for inflection, but equally, they’re a band I’ve always returned to because there’s there’s a darkness to their pop that I feel has been largely overlooked, and it’s this amalgamation of darkness with a pop sensibility that is what I’m driving at with Sleep Kicks.

‘Silencer’ – another one of the new songs – is slower, sparser, but brims with brooding and emotional resonance, and, once again, it’s magnificently crafted. This is true of every one of this album’s ten tracks. ‘Orbiting’, another song which hasn’t been released before, is bittersweet bliss and again revises the 80s spirit with a brooding yet accessible slice of guitar-driven desolation.

Again, in a just world, ‘No Chains’ would have been their ‘Pompeii’ and would have seen Sleep Kicks on the same pegging as Bastille – again, there are similarities, but the fact is that Sleep Kicks are by far the better band. It’s an unjust world where it comes down to label backing and pluggers. But then, we know it’s an unjust world, and the music industry sucks. But there’s a world outside the industry, and ‘Hall of Shame’ with its choppy guitars and snaking bass runs is as good a song as you’ll hear all year. But then, so is ‘My Own Demon’. In fact, The Afterdrop is an album without fault, and as good an album as you’ll hear all year, or ever.

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