Posts Tagged ‘Punk’

Watch: ‘Call Of The Deep’ by Trevor’s Head

Posted: 17 March 2023 in Recommended Streams and Videos
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Quite possibly the most exciting thing to come out of Redhill in the last three centuries, Trevor’s Head markedly circle in three distinct orbits around stoner, punk and prog, creating a heavy, sonic vibe quite unlike anybody else out there.

Their new album “A View From Below, released on 5th May via APF Records (Mastiff, Desert Storm, The Brother’s Keg, Video Nasties) is a lean and cohesive expression of the power trio’s precision, which marks the next stage in the genre-bending and ever-evolving sound that is Trevor’s Head. For first single ‘Call of the Deep’, Roger Atkins (guitar/vocals) states,

"These last few years have been tough for us – for everyone – and I have constantly been struck by the strength I’ve seen in others. Whether battling personal loss, mental health difficulties, financial stresses, relationship troubles, whatever. This song is a nod to anyone who keeps fighting through the calm and through the storm. I have unending respect and pride in anyone who can do that, and this song is for them. Even if it didn’t go to plan for the protagonist this time.”

Listen to ‘Call of the Deep’ now:

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Weekend Recovery – No Guts, All the Glory

Posted: 7 March 2023 in Singles and EPs
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Criminal Records – 24th February 2023

Christopher Nosnibor

Strange sense of deja-vu? Whatchoo talkin’ about? Whatchoo talkin’ about? Lori wants to know on the lateest kick-ass single from Weekend Recovery.

Yes, ‘No Guts, All the Glory’ was released as ‘No Guts’, the lead track to the EP of the same name, almost a year ago to the week, but a year on it’s getting a reboot thanks to an arts council grant, and the nomadic power trio currently based in Sheffield are releasing a rerecorded radio edit version of this solid tune as the second single from their upcoming third album, Esoteric, ahead of more touring activity.

Perhaps the hardest thing about being a band nowadays is maintaining profile. Social media and Spotify has changed the model, and we’re back to the 1960s when artists are conveyor-belt release-machines. You don’t release anything for six months and it’s like starting over: people have forgotten you exist and you may as well be a new band climbing the mountain of audience-building. Well, perhaps not quite, but still. While the nostalgia market for the over forties for whom time stood still from their thirtieth birthday, for the rest, memories are short.

Weekend Recovery have done a pretty decent job of keeping a flow of activity and output and social media engagement, and recently signing to The Kut’s Criminal Records imprint certainly hasn’t done then any harm. This timely release won’t, either.

Rerecorded it may be, but it’s certainly not hyper-polished and sanitised ready for Radio 1. Smoothed out with some eddying synths and Lori’s vocals switched up in the mix and sounding a bit cleaner, and clearer, it is more radio friendly than the original version, but it’s not totally cleaned-up and sugary: the guitar, bass, and drums are still absolutely driving and the song feels urgent, as if they’re playing like they depend on killing it. And they do. It’s a storming tune, and I for one am revved for the album.

BL’AST! – Manic Ride

Posted: 5 March 2023 in Albums
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Southern Lord –10th March 2023

Christopher Nosnibor

Ask people to name a hardcore band and any money they’ll say Black Flag, but anyone who knows their stuff will likely also mention BL’AST. BL’AST stand as one of the definitive hardcore bands, formed in 1983 and releasing their first album, The Power of Expression in 1986, having recorded it three times.

The story goes – according to the band’s bio – that in June of 1988 BL’AST! went into the studio with Black Flags’ live sound GOAT: Dave Rat (RATSOUND), and the breakneck Take The Manic Ride was recorded. This version was later destroyed after the band was dissatisfied with the original production, with a rerecorded version being presented to the public in 1989.

It perhaps seems ironic that a band as raw and immediate as BL’AST should spend so much time faffing about in search of achieving the ‘perfect’ recording, when the finished article sounds so… unpolished. But of course, that’s the point and the key issue: many bands who are live acts first and foremost find their sound stunted, diminished, compressed and ultimately rendered weak and lacking in bite when attempting to capture the experience in a studio setting. The studio is a sterile environment, clinical, and few producers really get the concept of not actually producing a band. Hardcore is about tearing your guts out with vitriolic rage. The studio is never going to be the best environment for channelling it.

This is the stuff of music legend: the master tapes for that first version were destroyed and were never to be recovered, but as Southern Lord detail, ‘Through some incredibly magical surgery a new heavy as fuck version of the album has been produced.’

Perhaps predictably, Manic Ride is a mess of furious noise and aggression, abrasive and angry. While the Southern Lord reissue isn’t leagues different from the Blast First original, it’s very clearly a different mix. Hardcore (sorry) fans will likely be divided over the mix, whether it’s better or worse or whatever and there’s no right or wrong really. This version is crisper and clearer but also fuller.

What really matters is that this key album is back out there, and if it divides fans, fine. It’s back in the public domain, and will, with any luck, introduce new listeners to the band and their legacy.

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JW Paris – Wicked Game

Posted: 16 February 2023 in Singles and EPs
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14th February 2023

Christopher Nosnibor

The prospect of another cover of ‘Wicked Game’ did, I’ll admit, give cause for an eye roll. It’s a great song – a seriously song – that arguably can’t be improved upon, and yet countless have tried, or at least felt compelled to pay homage, to the point that it’s been done to death.

Even the PR point out that ‘Wicked Game’ has been released over 800 times in different versions – 800! Imagine! Although HIM’s version is perhaps one of the best known, it’s always irritated me because it simply felt so obvious. The same can’t really be said of JW Paris’ rendition – after all, as they also point out, ‘nobody ever attempted to turn it into a sleazy Brit pop/indie anthem!’ adding ‘There is more Iggy Pop than Roy Orbison in it!’.

And I can only agree. JW Paris, who last graced our pages about a year ago, have packed some punk attitude into this effort. It’s certainly a lot less dark, a lot less broody than the original, and driven by a chunky bass, and the verse builds nicely into a rip-roaring rendition of the chorus that’s strong on energy, but succeeds in preserving the essence of the original – albeit with the kind of twisted anguish you’d associate with Kurt Cobain. ‘Fiery’ isn’t an adjective one would commonly associate with the song, but that’s exactly what this version is, and it comes as a pleasant surprise. Kudos.

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Pic: c24photography

Honeybadger – Cold Wind

Posted: 30 January 2023 in Singles and EPs
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28th January 2023

James Wells

Honeybadger’s bio describes the Brighton trio as ‘spiky’ purveyors of ‘gutter psychedelia/grunge’, and ‘Cold Wind’ certainly delivers on that. Fast and gritty, lo-fi and fuzzed out, the guitars are all the grunge – but then the break brings a full-on tremelo-happy wig-out that’s out of this world!

But if the song is carried by an energy that invites comparisons with early Arctic Monkeys, the bassline runs away in a completely different direction, with one of those wild grooves that runs here, there, and everywhere: Luca – age just twenty-one – is possessed of magic fingers. Or perhaps he’s just possessed. Either way, these guys pack in so much dynamic and raw talent into three-and-a-half minutes that it’s dizzying, and it’s a proper rush.

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Nervous Twitch / Soma Crew / The Rosettas – The Fulford Arms, York, 15th December 2022

Posted: 16 December 2022 in Live
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Christopher Nosnibor

This was supposed to be the perfect bookend to the year: after Percy supported Soma Crew at The Crescent in May, the roles were to be swapped tonight following the release of Percy’s new album, Monorail, in June. But sadly, it wasn’t to be, on account of Percy’s drummer Jason royally fucking his back.

Gigs at this time of year are always a risk, and not only on account of the potentials for injury (as the icy pavements on the way only highlight): the fact that it’s hard sub-zero means a lot of people can’t face wrapping up again after work to turn out on an evening, and then there all of the obligatory work / mates drinks and all that cal. Throw in Steve Mason playing across town and this one was always going to be a gamble, but despite the headliners’ late withdrawal, it’s a respectable crowd who witness The Rosettas emerging sounding stronger than the last time I saw them at the end of September. The sound is solid, buzzy, grungy.

The singer’s confidence leans into arrogance throughout, and not just in ignoring advice sagely dispensed in my coverage of said show in September, while actually mentioning the recommendation not to drop a cover as their second song, they slam in with a faithful rendition of Blur’s ‘Song 2’ as the second song of the set. But it makes sense, and it is well played, as is the majority of the rest of the set. I suspect the singer’s suffering from a cold or something that gives his voice quite a ragged edge, but actually, it sounds decent.

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The Rosettas

Unfortunately, technical issues and a lack of organisation means the set ends abruptly and somewhat chaotically, but they played with enthusiasm and were a lot less reliant on covers, and ultimately made the best of a less than ideal situation.

They seem to clear out and take half the audience with them, but, undeterred, Soma Crew take the stage and drench it with sonorous droning feedback. Then they build into a single chord dragging for all eternity as the muffled drums plod away in the back and they hit peak hypnotic. And then the tremolo enters the mix and the volume steps up with the arrival of the snare drum and…. and… and… the set drifts, and my mind drifts, and it’s a most pleasant experience. Time hangs in suspension. ‘Mighty Forces’ is indeed mighty, and the mid-pace one chord chugs are supremely soporific. Everything is measured, mellow, hazy. Everything comes together to conjure a thick sonic mist, and it’s absolutely magnificent. It’s also seriously loud, as I come to realise about two-thirds of the way into the set. When did that happen? Did it get louder? Perhaps. Probably. I can’t help but feel that Soma Crew are seriously underrated, and tonight they really hit all the sweet spots at once.

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Soma Crew

Leeds trio Nervous Twitch are worthy headliners, and launch into their set without a word, no fuss, not a single note of level checking. Pow! It’s proper, unfussy, old-school punk, three and four chord thrashes played with big energy, and they’re as tight as any band you’ll hear. Sure, with a female singer (who also plays bass), they invite obvious comparisons to X-Ray Spex and Penetration, and as much as they’re punk, they’re catchy and poppy at the same time, and ultimately, they’re good fun.

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Nervous Twitch

There are, of course, many bands playing in the next fortnight, in every city across the nation. Some will draw crowds, others less so. While I enter temporary hibernation, it feels like an appropriate time to reflect, and to celebrate the venues we’re fortunate to still have, and the fact that while times remain tough, 2022 has at last seen live music return to the social calendar. And for all the other shit we’re surrounded by – I can’t even begin the list – this is something we can be immensely grateful for.

31 Things You Don’t Know About The Dwarves…

Posted: 10 December 2022 in Previews and Editorial
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1. THE DWARVES play music that crosses all rock genres including hardcore, garage, punk, surf, noise, death metal, experimental, industrial, hip/hop, grunge and good old-fashioned pop. Even their modesty is legendary.

2. THE DWARVES first tour in 1988 covered over 6,000 miles and highlights were featured in the Village Voice. The tour consisted of 3 cities, 4 shows and $165 dollars cash. The band slept in a cargo van and booked gigs on stolen telephone cards.

3. THE DWARVES began in the 1980’s as an Illinois punk garage band, covering everything from the Seeds and Moving Sidewalks to Gang of Four and Devo. They still have skinny ties and tight pants to prove it.

4. THE DWARVES have recorded for visionary independent labels including Sympathy For The Record Industry, Epitaph, Fat Wreck Chords, Sub Pop, Bomp!, Amphetamine Reptile, Man’s Ruin, Recess, Theologian, Glitterhouse, Burning Heart, White Jazz, High Voltage, No Balls, Zodiac Killer, MVD, Midnight, Reptilian, Riotstyle, Burger and Greedy Worldwide. Some of them even paid royalties.

5. THE DWARVES have been stabbed, bludgeoned, swarmed, arrested, shut down, sabotaged and even fellated onstage and much of it is available on video, like the compilations FEFU, Fuck You Up & Get Live and Salt Lake City.

6. THE DWARVES were one of the first hardcore bands to regularly use samples, drum loops and found sounds, even on their earliest recordings where they used cassette tapes to generate them.

7. THE DWARVES teamed up with Top Ten producer Eric Valentine (Third Eye Blind, All American Rejects, Slash) to make their last 5 studio albums. He even showed up to some of the sessions! Valentine and Blag Dahlia helped write songs for Smashmouth and Skye Sweetnam.

8. THE DWARVES were kicked off tour with a UK metal band for sleeping with the girls the headliners had hired to hang out backstage. They were banned from venerable punk dive CBGBs for breaking a table and bleeding on the floor making the venue cleaner and improving its décor.

9. THE DWARVES played with the Minutemen weeks before D. Boon died, visited GG Allin in prison and did coke with the Lemonheads in a seedy hotel room. And that was all in one day! Their list of collaborators on records is vast, including the ones they can contractually mention like Dexter Holland, Josh Freese, San Quinn, Nash Kato, Gary Owens, Stacey Dee, DJ Marz and Spike Slawson.

10. THE DWARVES music has been featured on television shows like Viva La Bam, Nash Bridges, Rob and Big, Laguna Beach, 16 and Pregnant, Homewrecker, Jackass and dozens more. They appeared naked on Monster Garage and Playboy After Dark, where HeWhoCanNotBeNamed mated with a pumpkin.

11. THE DWARVES are the very best looking band in show business. They’ve shared bills with the Cramps, the Offspring, Vandals, TSOL, JFA & countless more!

12. THE DWARVES did a live one-hour performance on Japan’s prestigious NHK network. At the dinner afterward, they literally ate a horse. This turned out to be better than all of the food in Indianapolis.

13. THE DWARVES inspired a current popular catch phrase with their bestselling 2013 self-help book Make the Dwarves Good Again.

14. THE DWARVES played Berkeley’s punk collective 924 Gilman Street the first month it opened and appeared there with the likes of Green Day, NOFX and the Didjits. They were later banned for beating a spectator, but don’t worry, he was a fan of some other group.

15. THE DWARVES are a true independent band with no outside management or record deal, DIY forever. They leave no remains when they die, only footprints in the snow.

16. THE DWARVES bassist Rex Everything has been tased while committing battery and resisting arrest. He loves kittens, puppies and long walks on the beach. Guitarists HeWhoCanNotBeNamed and The Fresh Prince of Darkness teach and counsel troubled teens when not ingesting cocaine and masturbating to hardcore pornography.

17. THE DWARVES have been members of groups like KMFDM, Gnarls Barkley, Mondo Generator, Kyuss, Motochrist, Penetration Moon, The Queers, Scream, Bloodclot, Decent Criminal and The Uncontrollable. Don’t hold it against them.

18. THE DWARVES are OG’s (Original Grunge) appearing with Nirvana, Mudhoney, L7, Supersuckers, Rev. Horton Heat and the Fluid. They appeared in the film Kurt and Courtney where they were described as “one of the more violent bands.”

19. THE DWARVES were attacked by a disturbed person enraged over the band’s lyrics. The first rock ‘n’ roll battle record, ‘Massacre’ proved the old adage that the truth hurts, but so does being assaulted.

20. THE DWARVES could be saluted by groups as disparate as the National Organization for Women, the Vatican and the Daughters of the American Revolution for promoting greater gender understanding.

21. THE DWARVES are snotty bastards who live in California. Their notorious ‘Blood Guts & Pussy’ album cover, depicting a dwarf clad only in dead rabbit and blood spattered Amazons, led to widespread banning and protests at gigs for years to come.

22. THE DWARVES guitarist HeWhoCanNotBeNamed died in 1993 as reported in SPIN (100 sleaziest moments in Rock #79), Alternative Press, SF Weekly and Harper’s, among others. Being denied entrance to Hell, he returned to mortal form, commenting later, “that which kills me makes me stronger.”

23. THE DWARVES music has been featured in films like Ghostworld, Hostel, Observe and Report and Me, Myself and Irene, where Jim Carrey crooned ‘Motherfucker’ while having a nervous breakdown in a car. In the hardcore porno ‘Rocksuckers,’ genitals collide to a ballsy Dwarves soundtrack. Lloyd Nickell’s video for ‘Stop Me’ contains content deemed harmful by the FBI, FCC and Mothers Against Intercourse.

24. THE DWARVES are mostly a cat band, but enjoy a good doggy now and again.

25. THE DWARVES singer Blag the Ripper sang the novelty hit ‘Do the Sponge’ on the cartoon series Spongebob Squarepants. Dwarf Sgt. Saltpeter has written and performed over 20 musical pieces featured since the show began. That’s Balls, Folks!

26. THE DWARVES have been active for over 40 years and Blag has published three novels of transgressive fiction, Armed to the Teeth With Lipstick, Nina, and Highland Falls.

27. THE DWARVES performed onstage with Turbonegro at the Leeds Festival, UK and have toured Europe 12 times, performing at Reading, Pukkelpop, Goteborg Gallopp, Download Donnington, Groezrock and Rebellion Fest to name just a few. Please don’t ruin a perfectly good gram of hash with tobacco.

28. THE DWARVES website was hacked by Islamic jihadists (http://tcat.tc/1bWYQPX). Peace be upon you!

29. THE DWARVES have an average penis size of nine inches, but most of that is Nick Oliveri.

30. THE DWARVES’ singer Blag co-hosted an advice show with Bay Area radio DJ NoName called We Got Issues. His former podcast Radio Like You Want spread the gospel of bad music and intrusive interviews with accomplice Mike Routhier. Now he croons lounge country style as Ralph Champagne…

31. THE DWARVES have just had a slew of their classic back catalogue albums, including Blood, Guts and Pussy, and Come Clean, reissued on vinyl with new (still awful) artwork with infinite gratuitous nudity and bonus tracks, . You can get them all via MVDB online, here.

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Photo: James Farrell

Ketamine Kow – Shoe Shopping

Posted: 5 December 2022 in Singles and EPs
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Warren Records

Christopher Nosnibor

On witnessing Hull band Ketamine Kow playing live low on the bill supporting Mannequin Death Squad a little while ago, I found myself feeling exhilarated and fully charged by the raw energy of the performance and 100% sold on their punk energy, and I wrote as much after the fact. So it’s nice to see my enthusiastic comments repeated in the press release for their new single, ‘Shoe Shopping’, and it certainly doesn’t disappoint.

A nervous, but soft jangling guitar yields to a welter of everything going off all at once and at a hundred miles an hour and they charge headlong into a raucous blast of driving alternative rock that channels post-punk and grunge as much as it does classic vintage punk, while Adam Stainforth rants about uncomfortable shoes.

If that sounds like facetious fluff, it’s far from it, and Stainforth’s explanation of the song’s subject matter shows a depth and reflection that may not be immediately apparent based on first impressions:

“The song battles with the idea of gender identity being a lot like a pair of shoes,” he says. If you have a good comfortable well-fitting pair, then you don’t think about it and as you walk about you aren’t constantly thinking about your shoes and their comfort. But if your shoes are too small, or there’s a pebble in them, it’s all you can think about. Every step is annoying and you don’t want to do anything else until you fix the problem and your shoes stop hurting. So, I think in that sense most people probably can’t conceptualise the feeling of their gender well, because it just fits right and always has – and therefore it’s hard to imagine how all the small, normal things just constantly feel wrong, even if you are alone in your home.”

Put simply, there’s more than just all-out attack happening here, although the full-throttle, furious delivery is, unquestionably, a major draw. With the momentum they’ve built – and the speed at which they’ve gained it – this year, 2023 is looking like being a stormer for Ketamine Kow.

The Battery Farm – Flies

Posted: 9 November 2022 in Albums
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18th November 2022

Christopher Nosnibor

Following on from big-hitting introductions in the form of single releases ‘A Working Class Lad’, Manchester’s The Battery Farm hit us with their debut album, Flies.

They describe it a ‘an album about end times fear and societal breakdown. It is an album that tries to come to terms with the violent world we find ourselves in, and tries to reconcile with an uncertain future in world that we have decimated. It’s about the endless, screaming noise of 21st Century living and the squalid claustrophobia that entails. Driven by fury, black humour, compassion and a desire for hope.’

These are all things I’m on board with: it’s essentially a list of the top things that gnaw away at my psyche and my soul on a daily basis. Because to live in the world right now is to live and breathe all shades of anxiety.

Some people – mostly right-wing wankers and idiots on social medial, especially Twitter – like to jeer and poke fun at those who intimate any kind of panic over the state of things, laughing their arses off at those who perpetuated ‘project fear’ and the so-called ‘remoaners’ and scoffing at the idea that this year’s heatwave is anything to do with climate change citing the summer of ’76. But these are the same tossers who whine about health and safety and speed limits as being symptomatic of a ‘nanny state’, and also the same tossers whose kids will die after swallowing batteries or burn the house down lighting fireworks indoors.

What I’m saying is that anyone who isn’t scared is either beyond oblivious or in denial. The world is literally on fire and drowning at the same time. Fittingly, Flies is an album of contrasts, both in terms of mood and style. There are fiery, guitar-driven flamers and more introspective compositions which are altogether more subdued and post-punk in their execution.

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The title track is but a brief introduction, a rushed, desperate spoken work piece set against – at first – a tense bass and a growing tide of swelling drums and guitars that in just over a minute ruptures into a full-on flood of rage. Distilling years of anguish into a minute and a half, it’s got hints of Benefits about it, and then we’re into the snaking groove of ‘A Working Class Lad’, that sees The 80s Matchbox B-Line Disaster collide with The Anti-Nowhere League in a gritty, gutsy punk blast with a surfy undercurrent.

It’s the combination of gritty synth bass and live bass guitar that drives the sound of the album. The former snarls, while that latter thuds, and in combination they pack some serious low-end punch in the way that Girls Against Boys and Cop Shoot Cop did. The synth gyrations also lend the sound a tense, robotic edge that gives it both a certain danceable bounce while at the same time heightening the anxiety of the contemporary, that sense of the dystopian futures so popular in science fiction are in fact our current lived reality.

‘In the Belly of the Beast’ is a stuttering blast of warped funk. In contrast, ‘Everything Will Be Ok’ is altogether more minimal, with hushed spoken word verses reminiscent of early Pulp, and tentative, haunting choruses which exude a subtle gothic vibe. And it all builds slowly, threatening a climax which never arrives. But then ‘Poet Boy’ drives at a hundred miles an hour and burns hard and fast to its finale in three and a half minutes.

‘DisdainGain’ comes on like Motorhead at their grittiest and most rampant, and again shows just how broad The Battery Farm’s palette is. By their own admission, they draw on elements of ‘Punk, Hardcore, Post Punk, Krautrock, Glam and Funk’, and one of the key strengths of Flies is its diversity – although its range does not make for a lack of coherence or suggest a band who haven’t found their identity, by any means. What’s more, the diversity is matched by its energy, its passion, and its sheer quality. Full of twists and turns and inspired moments of insight, Flies is a bona fide, ball-busting killer album. Fact.

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