Posts Tagged ‘Post-Punk’

Red Lorry Yellow Lorry – Strange Kind of Paradise

Posted: 5 July 2025 in Albums, Reviews
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10th July 2025

Christopher Nosnibor

The band’s Bandcamp page describe it as ‘the final chapter of a legendary journey’. David Wolfenden, who joined on guitar in 1982 after the release of their first single expands on this, writing that ‘40 years on and the guitars still try to strangle each other, the words still struggle to make sense of chaos and the rhythms drive us to a glorious destination.’

To describe Strange Kind of Paradise as ‘long-awaited’ would be an understatement: it’s an album practically no-one expected. Emerging that the murky milieu of the Leeds scene which was the spawning ground for all things dark and post-punk (and long before ‘goth was even a thing), Red Lorry Yellow Lorry’s early releases soundtracked the grim North in Thatcher’s Britain. They weren’t overtly political but they were clearly pissed off, and along with The Sisters of Mercy, Skeletal Family, and The March Violets (among others), they followed Gang of Four in capturing the zeitgeist.

During the 80s, they put out a solid string of albums and remained firm favourites on the alternative scene, and while they may have mellowed a shade over that time, with Blow (1989) being notable for making a departure towards more melodic territories, there was always a fire that burned through everything they did, and seeing them in 2015 at The Brudenell in Leeds reminded me on a personal level that the dark, brooding currents ran as strong as when I’d seen The Lorries play the Off The Streets benefit alongside the likes of The Mission and La Costa Rasa (and Utah Saints, where Andrew Eldritch joined them for a couple of songs) in August 1993, and they sounded exactly as they had in all the video footage I’d seen before and since.

It had looked for all the world that Blasting Off (1992) would be their final statement, and while the 2015 shows had seen the sale of limited CDs which mentioned the ‘forthcoming album’ Strange Kind of Paradise, almost twenty years on with no further movement, it seemed to be more of a mythical projection than a reality, as likely as a new Sisters album.

But last autumn, all that changed with the arrival of the Driving Black EP and the announcement that the album would follow shortly. And at long last, here it is. And yes, it was worth the wait.

The title track opens the album with the driving guitar and solid bass/drum pairing that is quintessential Lorries, the sound and mix reminiscent of Blasting Off – in particular ‘This is Energy’, but with the pace and determination stepped up several notches. Reed’s vocal is strong – in fact, it sounds the same as it did 30 years ago, although perhaps now, there are additional levels of nuance to his delivery, and it suits the songs well.

‘Chicken Feed’ (a mix of which appeared on the EP) is more melodic, even a shade groovy in a sort of 90s indie sense, the guitars chiming over layers of vocal harmony, and providing a hint of the diversity and expansion of songwriting which sets Strange Kind of Paradise apart from anything in their catalogue.

The acoustic-led ‘As Long as We’re Breathing’ is perhaps one of the most ‘different’ songs not only on the album, but in the entirety of their career, revealing an altogether softer, mellower side, while at the same time hinting at country and desert rock, Reed’s gravelly baritone reminiscent of Mark Lanegan. It’s a beautiful moment, and a truly moving song. ‘Nothing seems quite right / I’ve got a feeling we’re over the hill, but I don’t know because my chest is pretty tight / As long as we’re still breathing’, Reed sings with a palpable air of melancholy.

Then again, ‘Walking on Air’ brings a glammy swagger, but played almost in the rockabilly style of The Fall, marking another unexpected departure from the steely grey confines usually constructed by The Lorries. The same is true of the post-grunge ‘Killing Time,’ which again, is strong on melody, and big on emotional ache, riven with pining, yearning, sadness.

Side two opens with ‘Driving Black’, which, as I outlined in my review of the EP, is vintage Lorries all the way. Driving black, and driving hard. Easing off the gas a bit, ‘Shooting Stars Only’ returns to the vibe of Blasting Off, before ‘Many Trapped Tears’ goes for mid-tempo anthemic, with a solid riff. To clarify, we’re talking more Iggy Pop than Oasis in execution here. ‘The Only Language’ takes the tempo right up again, and is one of the most forceful sonic expressions they’ve made in a long time (even by their standards). Everything is firing on all cylinders as Reed snarls with total conviction ‘The only language I speak is the truth’. It’s one of those songs that gets you really pumped up, and the message has never felt more relevant.

And so it is that as this band – true stalwarts of the 80s alternative scene – finally sign off, we can reflect on how much we have to be grateful for. And as a final document, Strange Kind of Paradise sees them go off with a bang. It’s not a tired rehash, a limp collection of offcuts or unfinished works in progress, but an album that stands out as being quality all the way.

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The March Violets / Vision Video – The Crescent, York, 3rd July 2025

Posted: 4 July 2025 in Live, Reviews
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Christopher Nosnibor

Seeing the same band twice on the same tour – especially twice in the same week – may seem excessive to some. However, it’s not – and certainly wasn’t historically – unusual for fans to follow bands around the country, and even the continent. It’s something I’ve only done a couple or so times myself previously, at least that I can recall, and discounting the misfortune of having seen Sona Fariq around six times in three months supporting various bands in the early noughties. My first experience was seeing The Sisters of Mercy in Glasgow and Nottingham in the same week in 2000. The setlists may not have been radically different, if not identical, but the experiences could not have been more different. The Glasgow crowd was lively, and the band, visible through minimal smoke, were relaxed, and Andrew was chatty. A couple of nights later, in front of a static audience, the band were barely visible behind the wall of smoke and Eldritch didn’t speak a word all night. And so it was that I came to appreciate different locations, different crowds, etc., all have a bearing on the experience, and how two nights are never the same. I also decided to stand to the other side of the stage tonight, and being at the front that not only means a different view, but a different mix due to the proximity of the backline. We’ll come back to this shortly.

It’s perhaps less common to follow bands around now because the cost of tickets, accommodation and travel has skyrocketed way above the rate of inflation, and no-one hitch-hikes or sleeps on train stations anymore.

Anyway: some disclosure. Tonight is personal, I suppose. Having been offered press for the Leeds show before this one was announced, I jumped in, but on seeing a show a fifteen minutes’ walk from my house added to the itinerary, felt compelled to buy a ticket for the simple reason that I love the band, and – as they later remind us – their last visit to York was in 2011.

In the bar before doors, there’s a DJ spinning goth and post-punk tunes, and I get to hear ‘The Killing Moon’ over a PA for the second time in three days. And for the second time in three days, and the third time in as many months, I’m (pleasantly) surprised by the demographic: the first wave goth acts are no longer primarily the domain of those in their late forties or older. It could be that bands like support act Vision Video are proving to be something of a gateway – having discovered bands like The Violets and the whole early 80s scene pretty much the same way I did as a teen, they’re making music that’s influenced by those bands, with clear and accessible nods to The Cure and New Order, and finding an audience who are the age they were… etc. Anyway, it’s all to the good, and tonight’s audience is an enthusiastic one, and with youth on their side, they can dance and wave their arms without worrying about giving themselves a hernia.

The Crescent is a smaller venue than The Warehouse, and when Vision Video arrive on stage, aspects such as lighting and PA variations are thrown into sharp relief: it’s darker, smokier, the minimal lighting is predominantly purple, and the thumping bass I enthused over in Leeds was significantly less present or impressive. In between songs, they offer similar chat, but it’s clearly not scripted, but notably a lot less chat in general. Vocalist / guitarist Dusty Gannon talks faster, seems less more hyped up, rushing to remind us that the current tour is the ‘Death to Fascism’ tour. Given the state of things over here in the last week or so, they should probably be careful about things like that. But more seriously, anyone with a platform needs to be calling this out right now. Because it’s through silence – and allowing ourselves to be silenced – that fascism spreads.

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Vision Video

Notably, the whoops in support of the band’s anti-fascist messaging are louder tonight. It’s a smaller crowd, but they dance harder, encouraging Dusty to find the confidence to leave the stage and be among the crowd during last song of the set, ‘In My Side’.

I arrived home buzzing and without having written a single note during the whole of The March Violets’ set. The setlist was the same as Leeds, the intros were similar… but it was anything but a carbon copy show. On the one hand, the sound wasn’t as crisp, but this wasn’t by any means a detraction, in that it replicated that sonic haze of yesteryear, and even the early recordings. Not having Tom Ashton’s amp at face-height perhaps gave me a better sense of balance, and Mat Thorpe’s vocal were both louder and clearer, which was a strong plus.

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The March Violets

Notably, while the front of the Leeds show was frequently disturbed by a number of ambulant photographers – the usual types, tall blokes in T-shirts and knee-length cargo shorts hauling cameras with massive lenses – there was no evidence of any press or lens-luggers tonight (I exclude myself from this category because while I do now use a ‘decent’ camera, I stick to a small lens and keep to my spot, to one side, for numerous reasons, but not least of all to remain as inconspicuous as possible and not to interfere with anyone else’s view). As a consequence, the audience were free to move about down the front, and the band seemed more relaxed, presenting a different energy. They were still clearly enjoying themselves – if anything, more so. Rosie spent the entire set bouncing around like a pea on a drum, and her energy is infectious and joyous.

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The March Violets

Ordinarily, one would anticipate a more rapturous response at a hometown show: this has certainly been my experience with other Leeds acts through the years. But perhaps Leeds has been spoiled: it was only last year they played at The Old Woollen, while across the border, it’s been a lot longer – like more than a decade (Whitby appearances notwithstanding).

Tellingly, in Leeds, the claps and chants after the main set had been the somewhat irritating (and rather lacklustre) call for ‘one more song’ which has become a thing in recent years. Tonight, there is a relentless baying noise from a crowd who want as many songs as they can get (there were calls for ‘Bon Bon Babies’ and ‘Undertow’ during the set, and there was a fair bit of banterous to-and-fro with the audience). ‘Fodder’ was well-received, but the place positively erupted for ‘Snake Dance’. The band seem to respond to this, and really attack it, making for a blistering finale to an outstanding performance. If the rest of the tour is half as good, people are in for a treat.

The March Violets / Vision Video – The Warehouse, Leeds, 1st July 2025

Posted: 2 July 2025 in Live, Reviews
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Christopher Nosnibor

In terms of goth history, The Warehouse is pretty much ground zero. Synonymous in particular with The Sisters of Mercy in their early days, it was this milieu which also spawned The March Violets, making their return to the venue for the first time since 1983. I missed that one myself, having been seven at the time, but a fair few of the songs played that night are in tonight’s set list, too, and one suspects they probably sounded better this time around.

Early doors, there’s an almost 50/50 split of old goths and twenty-somethings, who really do seem to have embraced the original 80s dark punk look (as opposed to the ersatz emo stylings that passed as goth in the 90s). The Psychedelic Furs and Christian Death and Strawberry Switchblade are blasting over the PA as we wait for Vision Video, and I make myself comfortable with a pint of Weston’s Vintage at a reasonable £5.80 for a pint.

Vision Video have a long-established relationship with the Violets, with Tom Ashton having produced their first two albums. Stylistically, they’re at the rocky, post-punk end of the goth spectrum, who clearly take their cues more from ‘our’ brand of goth rather than the US ‘death rock’ scene (a mid-set cover of The Comsat Angels’ ‘You Move Me’ is illustrative).

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Vision Video

A three-piece with guitar, synths and live drums, the sequenced bass is really solid and sounds… real, with proper low-end frequencies delivered at appropriate volume that make your nostrils vibrate. They’re over here from Athens, Georgia, with a message: they’re anti-fascist, anti-war, anti-capitalist, anti-Trump and anti-dickhead. And as guitarist / vocalist Dusty Gannon is a veteran and ex-firefighter, this is a message that’s delivered with sincerity from a place of experience, and a message which informs the songwriting as much as a vintage record collection. He speaks at length in between songs: none of is it preachy, but it is passionate, and the crowd warms to them (and judging by the clamour front centre, a fair few had warmed to them and learned the words in advance).

The March Violets take the stage as The Sisters’ ‘Marian’ comes on, and it’s a swift fade as they’re straight in with ‘Long Pig’, with a barrage of squalling guitars and stuttering beats. It’s immediately apparent that they’ve still got it, and pleasingly, they haven’t faffed about with the arrangements of the old songs, right down to the hyperactive drum machine programming which defined their early sound. ‘Crow Baby’, dispatched near the top of the set is still wild and sounds like nothing else.

Reminding us that they didn’t release their first album proper until after their post-millennium return, they give us ‘Made Glorious’, from their epic 2014 debut, followed by ‘Hammer the Last Nail’, lead single from recently-released follow-up Crocodile Promises.

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The March Violets

Playing ‘Grooving in Green’ and then ‘Steam’ replicates the running order of their 1982 single, and the interplay between the different elements comes through clearly: first, there’s that unique Leeds sound, with a thick, chunky bass welded to a thunderous drum machine, juxtaposed with a guitar style that draws at least a certain degree of influence from Gang of Four – scratchy, trebly, choppy, with some unconventional use of harmonics – and then there are the songs themselves, which are the product of distinct personalities. Bassist Mat Thorpe, who joined for the new album provides the more shouty male vocal counterpoint to Rosie Garland’s clean, theatrical enunciations, and as such, the essence (no, they don’t play that) of the old classics is retained. Meanwhile, ‘Kraken Awakes’ and ‘Crocodile Teeth’, lifted from the new album from new album sits comfortably alongside the older material.

The sound seems to get louder and brighter (and probably purpler) about halfway through the set, and they take things up a notch, Rosie confessing that they’re having a blast up there – although, truth be told, it’s pretty obvious: she’s in fine voice, and busting moves all over, and Tom spends half the set with a massive smile on his face. They know they’re sounding good, and they know we’re loving it, too.

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The March Violets

Towards the end of the set, ‘Strangehead’ is particularly wild and wonderful. They encore with a blistering ‘Fodder’, and there is simply no way they could leave without giving us ‘Snake Dance’, which is one of the definitive anthems of goth – the Violets’ ‘Temple of Love’, if you will.

Tonight, we’ve seen a band on peak form, and proving that they’re a lot more than simply a heritage act, too. Long may they continue.

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Zabus – Shadow Genesis

Posted: 1 July 2025 in Reviews, Singles and EPs
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Saccharine Underground – 1st July 2025

Christopher Nosnibor

This one hell of a hybrid. Just when you think post-punk has been explored to the point at which it has been hollowed out, exhausted, and has only well-worn and instantly recognisable tropes to offer, along come Washington DC’s Zabus, purveyors of avant-garde post-punk with an EP which is something of a ‘best of’ with tracks from their two recent albums, Automatic Writhing (September 2024) and Floodplain Canticles (January 2025), plus a new track which paves the way for their next offering Whores of Holyrood (due in August).

With its immense, reverb-laden sound and expansive, drifting desert-like soundscape ‘Grafhysi Fyrir Alla’ makes four and a quarter minutes feel like a hypnotic span of double that duration. The shuffling bass and big, booming bass are pure dub. The guitar chimes and floats into the ether as everything swashes around in a huge echoic pool.

Of ‘Grafhysi Fyrir Alla’, lifted from last year’s Automatic Writhing, project founder and focal member Jeremy Moore says it’s about “the societal imposition of unobtainable standards of beauty, and our obsession with physical perfection at the expense of true happiness”. This is certainly not a case of style over substance, but a coming together of musical inventiveness with a level of intellect which is rare. “Psychopathologies like body dysmorphic disorder, at the extreme, can lead to a path of ruin, if most of your life is spent chasing a ghost—what you believe the world wants you to be. Death doesn’t discriminate. The end is always the same.”

This is some pretty heavy – and dark – philosophy on offer here, and it’s welcome: as much as there is much to be said for the benefits of the escapism music can offer, there’s equal solace to be found in art which articulates one’s own world view. And so it that that Zabus portray contemporary dystopia from a range of camera angles.

‘Orphalese’ is more uptempo and is decidedly cinematic with its broad-sweeping layers of synths driven by propulsive, rolling drums. There’s no verse / chorus structure, but instead a hypnotic expanse of sound, the aural equivalent of standing on a summit and looking out at a three-sixty horizon through a heat haze. It’s immersive, utterly absorbing, and transportative.

The first of the tracks lifted from Floodplain Canticles is the six-minute ‘Tearful Symmetries’, which is low and slow, Jeremy Moore’s reverb-drenched baritone croon approximating the late, great, Mark Lanegan against a dubby backdrop punctuated the clangs and scrapes of guitar drones and sculpted feedback. ‘This is the end….’ He reflects, but not with sadness or panic, but a sense of inevitability.

‘Golden-rot’ goes all out for the theatrically gothic experience: it’s as big on drama as it is on sound, as an insistent mechanised drum beat pounds away, cutting through a smog of murky guitar and thick, booming bass, and if I wasn’t already perspiring hard from the humidity and thirty-degree heat, this would make me sweat, with its tension and crackling energy.

And so we come to the title track, the first taste of Whores of Holyrood. It’s different again, although the cavernous reverb is a constant. This cut is a brooding piece that borders on country, once more evoking the spirit of Lanegan. It’s spacious, but its intensity brings an almost suffocating weight.

Shadow Genesis provides a perfect introduction to Zabus, and at the same time whets the appetite for what’s to come. And let me tell you, it’s something to get excited about.

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Listen: ‘Saddle Rash’ by Needlework

Posted: 27 June 2025 in Recommended Streams and Videos, Singles and EPs
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Needlework caught our attention a few months ago when they supported Aural Aggravation faves Soma Crew.

They’ve just dropped the track ‘Saddle Rash’, and we dig. Check it here:

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Listen: ‘Dharma’ by Tian Qiyi, featuring Jah Wobble

Posted: 26 June 2025 in Recommended Streams and Videos, Singles and EPs
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Genre-defying UK-based music outfit Tian Qiyi presents their impressive new single ‘Dharma’ featuring the legendary Jah Wobble on bass. This is the final single to be released ahead of their sophomore album Songs For Workers, out June 27 via Pagoda Records.

Tian Qiyi is more than just a band, bringing together brothers John Tian Qi Wardle and Charlie Tian Yi Wardle with their father, Jah Wobble (John Wardle). Their unique sound reflects their rich family heritage, blending their father’s pioneering work in post-punk and dub with the Chinese cultural influences of their mother, Zilan Liao.
’Dharma’ flows with a captivating blend of Eastern psychedelic melodies and Charlie’s ethereal vocals, all underpinned by a hypnotic fusion rhythm and beautifully primordial percussion. As groovy as it is addictive, the trio serve up a truly grounding experience here.

This new offering follows their stunning lead track ‘Watch The Sunrise’ and Bandcamp exclusive  ‘Mongolian Dub’, a fascinating ethno-psychedelic initiation into this 10-track musical journey. Like much of the goodness found on this album, Tian Qiyi’s music bridges generations and cultures, blending deep dub grooves with Eastern traditions.

“‘Dharma’ is a track that brings together our Irish, Chinese, and Mongolian roots. It features flowing, psychedelic melodies, with Charlie’s otherworldly vocals adding to the vibe. The rhythm section, anchored by a laid-back, hypnotic pulse from me on percussion and my dad on bass, creates a psychedelic dub fusion”, says John Tian Qi Wardle.
”And Songs For Workers is an album where we have moved away from influences and inspiration, instead embracing instinct and familiarity. Our background played a crucial role, from the traditional Chinese music we learned with our grandad and mum, to the improvisational, instinctive playing we developed from performing and recording with our dad.”

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Dragged Up – Blake’s Tape / Clachan Dubh

Posted: 16 June 2025 in Reviews, Singles and EPs
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Christopher Nosnibor

When it comes to formats and the strategies for marketing new releases, it’s clear – particularly in hindsight – that the 90s was the peak period for milking fans with myriad formats, each featuring different mixes or edits, B-sides, and artwork. Now, I am by no means a nostalgia nut, but as a collector, part of me does miss this – particularly when most releases aren’t even available physically anymore, and some aren’t even downloadable. Adding a track your playlist is… nothing.

The latest offering from Glasgow’s wonky lo-fi maestros, Dragged Up, sees a different approach, at least, with an edited version of the A-side being released to streaming platforms but a full-length version available to download via Bandcamp, with the B-side being released a week later, followed by a physical release via the ever-innovative label Rare Vitamin.

You really need the full five-minute version of ‘Blake’s Tape’ to take it all in, to bask in the glory of the epic intro of churning feedback and rumbling discord which eventually gives way to a stomping, rambunctious indie tune which brings in elements of post-punk and folk, a collision of UK 80s and US 90s, and with the verses and choruses sounding like they belong to different songs, the dynamic is strong, switching as it does from nonchalance to pumping energy. And both are magnificently executed.

‘Clachan Dubh’ is a fast-paced, high-energy blast of fizzy guitars and blissfully loose interswitching vocals, and again it’s a collision of Pavement and The Fall plus all the scuzzy indue acts you’d read about in NME and Melody Maker in the early 90s. It’s less a case of them sounding like this band or that band, and more about the way they distil these various zetigeists and amalgamate them into a magnificent alt-rock hybrid which sounds like so much that’s gone before, and at the same time completely unique.

Oh, and they’ve got songs. Great songs. Get stuck in. And maybe go and see them on tour in a small venue in August, because after touring as the support for Steve Malkmus’ new band in the summer, there’s a fair chance they’ll be playing bigger places by this time next year.

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Watch: ‘Saviours Are A Dangerous Thing’ by Chameleons

Posted: 29 May 2025 in Recommended Streams and Videos, Singles and EPs
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“I see too many echoes of the 1930s in what’s going on in the world, which I see as being extremely dangerous both for the country I’ve chosen to live in and the Western world in general,” says vocalist/bassist Vox (Mark Burgess) of Chameleons when talking about his band’s brand new single, ‘Saviours Are A Dangerous Thing’. 
Out today (29th May) via Metropolis Records, the song is taken from their recently announced and long-awaited album Arctic Moon.

“It was the last song to be completed for the album,” he continues. “I’m particularly pleased with the way it turned out, because it was our guitarist Stephen Rice who initially brought the rough idea to the table and we all then collaborated on it to produce the final song.”

Capturing Chameleons’ innate flair for crafting exquisite guitar textures and merging them with Vox’s tight grasp of melody and wordplay, ‘Saviours Are A Dangerous Thing’ harbours a dark message about the current political climate amid its thoroughly engaging sound. Further enforcing this theme, an accompanying video splices live performance footage with kaleidoscopic images of war and its effects, as well as the propaganda surrounding it, making for a compelling statement overall.

“The lyrics came to me quite quickly,” Vox explains. “They reflect what has been happening globally and how senior officials line up to kiss the rings of clowns who regard themselves as self-proclaimed kings rather than elected statesmen.”

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Ashley Reaks – Ancient Ruins (Demos 1997-2002)

Posted: 28 May 2025 in Albums, Reviews
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21st May 2025

Christopher Nosnibor

Ashley Reaks first came to the public’s attention under the guise of Joe Northern, fronting promising turn-of-the-millennium dark synthpop act Younger Younger 28s, a head-on collision between The Human League and Clock DVA, who released their sole LP, Soap in 1999. Since then, the Harrogate-based Reaks has expanded his field and is now as known for his disturbing collages as he is for his eclectic musical output, which spans dub, postpunk, and whatever other genre concepts come his way. Reak’s creative diversity, while very much an artistic strength, has likely been an obstacle to his achieving more commercial success, because the sad fact is that polyartists who venture into the domains of oddness are extremely difficult to market, because, well, how to you pigeonhole or genre categorise someone who works not only in a host of media, but does stuff which is, at times, quite disturbing and impossible to place in a given bracket? Of course, another likely, and more obvious, obstacle to commercial success is that the fact that a lot of his work is what a lot of people would likely consider plain fucking weird.

But even before Younger Younger 28s, Reaks – whose appreciation of The Sisters of Mercy and the like is widely-stated on his social media – was dabbling with the gothier aspects of post-punk, and would continue to do so for some time. His decision to release Ancient Ruins may only be for the sake of posterity, as a document, but here it is, and it’s not bad either.

Because this is Ashley Reaks, it’s not a set of songs which adhere to straight-up genre conformity, as is immediately apparent from the first track, ‘A God in the Devil’s World’, which has a certain swagger and a swing to it, the female vocals not only providing a counterpoint to the growling baritone Reaks adopts, but also a pop shimmer that’s still more Human League than The March Violets.

‘No Man’s Land’ offers picked guitar and jittery synths melded to an insistent drum machine, and comes on with the trappings of mid-80s rock, and a bit Prefab Sprout. ‘Disconnected’, however, plunges into darker territories, an echo-heavy bass-driven blast of angst that’s more the sound of the underground circa 1983. And it’s good, but then you realise how anachronistic it is for the time it was recorded.

Between 1997 and 2002, Britpop died a slow and painful death and Nu-Metal exploded. The post-punk revival was still some time off, and simply no-one was making, or listening to, anything that evoked the spirit of The Batcave. But then, they weren’t really digging 80s synth pop, other than the original stuff in a kitsch or nostalgic way, and the much-touted 80s revival hadn’t really gained any traction. To top it, in keeping with Reeks’ other output, thew songs on here are littered with lyrical observations and kitchen sink vignettes, pithy pairings, and couplets which are wilfully wordy and awkward.

‘Christiane’ is a campy goth pop effort that’s wistful and theatrical, with hints of late 80s Damned woven into its fabric, while ‘I Always Wanted to be You’ brings some indie jangle and… brass. Then again, there’s the chugging industrial blast of ‘Swimming Against the Tide’ which sounds a bit like Therapy? circa Nurse but with an overtly ‘baggy’ beat and a Prodigy-influenced midsection. Oh yes, it’s all going on here.

If nothing else, Ancient Ruins provides some insight into the evolution of Reaks’ compositions, from oddball pop to off-the-wall melting-pot madness, with loads of ska brass and a whole lot more besides. The dubby closer ‘Ghost Town In My Heart (Version 2)’ is particularly illuminating.  If only all history lessons were this interesting.

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OWLS – Death Games

Posted: 27 May 2025 in Albums, Reviews
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Negative Gain Productions – 6th June 2025

Christopher Nosnibor

Just as the birds of prey from which they take their name are creatures of the night, so this Irish act – essentially one guy – who draw inspiration from the darker realms of postpunk, goth, and synth-based music are very much dwellers of the dark hours, as debut album Death Games attests, with titles such as ‘Perfect Nightmare’, ‘Tombs’, and ‘Send Me to My Grave’. The album’s themes are timeless and classic, offering ‘a haunting exploration of love, mortality, and the fragile nature of existence,’ while casting nods to touchstones such as Lebanon Hanover, Boy Harsher, and Black Marble.

Lead single ‘Give Me Your Stare’ opens the album in style with a disco beat and throbbing bass giving this bleak, echo-soaked song a dancefloor-friendly groove. The vocals are backed off but ring clear through a haze of reverb, offering a hint of The Cure’s Seventeen Seconds in terms of production values.

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The compositions on Death Games are pretty direct: there’s not a lot of detail or layers, and it’s the electronic beats and pulsating basslines which not only define the sound but drive the songs. The sonorous synths which twist and grind over the top of these predominantly serve to create atmosphere more than melody, although haunting, repetitive motifs are commonplace, and the vocals, too, being low in the mix and with a fairly processed feel, are more a part of the overall sound than the focal point.

‘Skin on Skin’ brings a wibbly, ghosty synth that sounds a bit like a theremin quivering over a minimalist backing of primitive drum machine and bass synth, and the likelihood is that they’re going for early Depeche Mode, but the end result is more like a gothed-up Sleaford Mods, although, by the same token, it’s not a million miles away from She Wants Revenge around the time of their electro-poppy debut, and that’s perhaps a kinder and more reasonable comparison. ‘Fevr 2’ brings an increased sense of urgency with skittering bleeps skating around the reverberating drums: it has both an 80s movie soundtrack vibe and a vintage goth disco feel, and despite its hectic percussion and busy bass, ‘Tombs’ conjures a haunting, requiem-like atmosphere.

The ‘death’ thematic may not always be literal, and as much concerned with the death of love and the ends of relationships, but the duality the theme offers serves OWLS well. There’s no denying that it’s both a stereotype and a cliché that an obsession with death is such a goth thing, and OWLS fulfil these unashamedly – but then, why should there be shame? Why is it only goth and some strains of metal which embrace life’s sole inevitability, and explore mortality and the finite nature of existence? Even now, after millennia, we aren’t only afraid of death, but, particularly in Western cultures, we’re afraid to think or talk about it. People passing in their eighties and nineties still elicits a response that it’s a tragedy or that they should have had more time, and I’ve seen it said of people departing in their sixties or even seventies that it’s ‘no age’. We seem to have a huge blind spot, a blanketing case of denial when it comes to death, as if it shouldn’t happen, that it’s an injustice, and that no-one deserves it. But nothing is forever, be it love or life, and while loss – any loss – is painful, it comes attached to inevitability, being a matter of when, not if.

The stark and sombre ‘Send Me to My Grave’ commences a trilogy of dark, downbeat, funereal songs, which grow progressively darker, more subdued, the vocals more swallowed by evermore cavernous reverb. Even when the beats kick in and the bass booms, things warp, degenerate, and seem to palpably decay and degrade. There’s a weight to it, a claustrophobic heaviness, and the kick drum thwocks away murkily as if muffled by earth and six feet under sods. ‘This Must be the End’ is brittle, delicate, the calm that comes with the acceptance of… of what? What comes after the end? It feels like the song, and the album, leave this question hanging with an ellipsis, a suspense mark. It seems fitting, since we simply don’t know. But it does very much leave the door ajar for OWLS’ follow up, and that is something to look forward to.

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