Posts Tagged ‘punchy’

Argonaut – As Cool as Fightmilk

Posted: 31 March 2024 in Reviews, Singles and EPs
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24th March 2024

Christopher Nosnibor

Ironically, it’ll take more time to upload this review of the latest single by lo-fi indie / alt act Argonaut than it will take to play it, let alone write about it.

For a band who really pushed themselves in 2023, releasing a track a month to evolve their ‘open ended’ album, Songs from the Black Hat, which wound up featuring thirteen tracks, and who may have been expected to ease the pace a bit while they took stock and began to assimilate the practicalities of a new lineup, they’ve really surpassed themselves so far this year.

The video is pretty slick in relative terms, but the song itself is a classic and quintessentially Argonaut lo-fi cut with big, thick, buzzing bass and guitar, and the dual vocals which really do define the band’s sound – Laura’s hyper-bubbly pop tones contrast with Nathan’s monotone drawl, and here they really do exploit the quiet/loud dynamic form over the course of an explosive and thrilling minute and a half. Yes, a minute and a half: sneeze and you’ll miss it. But in that time, they still pack in a strong, hooky chorus, and I’m assuming the song is a reference to It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia rather than the band, Fightmilk – and while they may never be as cool as the former, they’ve got a clear edge over the latter. So that makes them pretty cool, really.

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Angry Old Man – Quatram

Posted: 31 December 2023 in Reviews, Singles and EPs
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10th December 2023

Christopher Nosnibor

It’s widely discussed how recent years have witnessed attention-spans ever shortening, as the effects of life in postmodern society impact our day-to-day lives. Bombarded constantly by a million media sources, adverts popping up all over everything all the time, using multiple devices and apps simultaneously, we’re all expected to be everywhere and doing everything all at once. It’s no wonder that streaming services record a skip rate of over 50%, and in the region of 25% of songs are skipped within the first five seconds. In my line of work, I have to decide pretty swiftly if a release is worth my time and the expenditure of energy on devoting words to it, but five seconds? That said, any track that starts with a howl of feedback is always going to grab my attention, so Angry Old Man are onto a winner here with ‘Quatram’. The question is, can they capitalise on it?

The answer is yes. The feedback gives way to a classic hard rock riff, soon followed by crashing drums. With real swing and swagger, it’s a riff you can really bang your head along to. The vocals, though, are grunge all the way, a gritty drawl. The guitars step up a notch and drive home, thick with distortion to a solid riff-centric ending. And clocking in at under two-and-a-half minutes, it’s just right for the attention-deficient. There’s no pissing about here, slamming in hard and leaving the job done before you know what’s hit you.

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