Posts Tagged ‘Rock’

Salvation Jayne – Burn it Down

Posted: 17 April 2017 in Singles and EPs
Tags: , , , , ,
2

21st April 2017

James Wells

Being a cynical motherfucker, and living in an era when everything’s not only been done, but done to death, diluted, fucked about with, hybridized and rendered beyond obsolete, I was a bit dubious when I read Salvation Jayne’s Facebook page, on which they describe themselves as being ‘four musicians who play their own unique style of dirty rock n’ roll’. Unique? Show me something unique and I’ll eat my own head.

But then I also note that the line-up features pop chanteuse Chess Smith, who’s previously featured on Aural Aggro in a solo capacity. And while image only goes so far, Salvation Jayne not only look like a proper band, but they look bloody cool, too.

‘Burn Down’ is a kickass blues-based rock tune with a dark edge countered by a carefully-crafted accessibility. If it harks back to the 80s, and therefore isn’t exactly unique, it’s forgivable: they don’t make tunes like this any more, and the lamewads at Kerrang should get their lugs round this and remember what a proper rock band sounds like instead of plugging all that pop-punk cack and dance music not even disguised as rock b acts like PVRIS. Smith’s vocals are gutsy, the guitars throb and the production is meaty. This means that while I’m not feeling any obligation to eat my own head, I do have to take my hat off to Salvation Jayne for delivering a quality single with a strong sense of identity.

Salvation Jayne

Salvation Jayne are on Facebook.

Cinema Cinema – Man Bites Dog

Posted: 10 April 2017 in Albums
Tags: , , , , , , , , ,
0

28th April 2017

My first encounter with Cinema Cinema was in 2012, when I received their sprawlingly epic double album Manic Children and the Slow Aggression for review, and landed an interview for Paraphilia Magazine with Ev Gold. Not only was it a remarkable album, but Ev proved to be a great interview subject: enthusiastic, affable, conversational, and I recall him singing ‘cinema, cinema,’ as he explained the origins of the band’s name to me. I didn’t recall the scene, but I knew the film in question: the dark, Belgian-made, parodic documentary, Man Bites Dog. As the press info accompanying the release of their latest album, ‘after years of explaining… the duo felt compelled to further affix it to their story by naming the new album after the film.

With the band’s gear – including all of their guitars – being stolen just two days into the recording sessions, Man Bites Dog is testament to the sheer determination and bloody-mindedness of one of the hardest-working bands around. Brooklyn duo Ev and cousin Paul Claro have gigged pretty much relentlessly since their formation, and it’s on the road that the material has been evolved and honed. This adherence to the punk ethos, based on the simple premise of two guys in a van, showing up, plugging in and playing hard. So, using borrowed gear, the album’s recording went ahead regardless. Never mind making lemonade from lemons, the very existence of this album proves that Cinema Cinema thrive in the face of adversity, and are completely unstoppable.

Man Bites Dog continues the trajectory of its predecessors, from the aforementioned Manic Children and through 2014’s Night at the Fights. That is to say, it’s a noisy, guitar-driven beast of an album, that veers wildly between crunching riffs and expansive experimental space-rock sections. On this outing, they expand their sound with the addition of saxophone, courtesy of NY jazz musician Matt Darriau.

The first track, ‘Bomb Plot is a lurching, low-slung racket, a crazed hybrid of US hardcore punk and math-rock, with a snaking groove and a fuck-ton of other stuff going on too.

‘Run Until Your Out’ packs a pot-punk vibe in the verses, then explodes into a roaring grunge chorus. It’s a complete riot, and while all sorts of incidentals whizz and whirr in the background and Gold comes on like Jello Biafra one moment and Kurt Cobain the next, it’s remarkable just how direct and accessible it is. It’s no small achievement that they can pen and perform a song that possesses such an overt pop sensibility without sidelining either their full-throttle rock sound or reining in the experimentalism. And it’s this fine-honing that makes Man Bites Dog their most powerful and potent work to date.

‘Exotic Blood’ represents the album’s first foray into more overtly experimental territory: a six-minute stoner rock work out, there’s a hefty riff, but it’s warped and bends all over the place in a way which invites comparisons to Melvins – until the sax comes in and takes it somewhere else completely while a whole heap of stuff goes off in every direction. Indeed, the album’s mid-section marks quite a change in tone from the opening salvoes, with the discordant riffs, tinged with free jazz flavours and riven with unpredictable tempo changes swathed in drifting noise and wandering sax. ‘You talkin’ to me?’ Gold yells dangerously on ‘Taxi Driver’, another song which reflects the duo’s equal appreciation of film and music. It’s also a song which chops and changes and stops and starts and judders and drives. The end result is little short of deranged: tense and strange and forceful, it packs a lot into a short time.

The thunderous, trudging ‘Mask of the Red Death’ is the soundtrack to a truly purgatorial experience that breaks into a monster stoner riff that’s hard to resist, picking up the pace and beefing up the density until hitting a frenetic peak around four minutes in. The obligatory ‘Shiner’ improvised jam track – the album’s closer being the fifth in the series – typically explores the band’s most experimental tendencies, and it’s nine minutes of angular guitars, wild effects and even wilder sax.

It all adds up to a focused, concise and yet still strangely divergent album, and in this way, Man Bites Dog is perhaps the most perfect encapsulation of Cinema Cinema’s sound, scope, and ethos to date.

 

coverart_only_3500px

Watch: ‘Got it Bad’ by Soma Crew

Posted: 14 March 2017 in Recommended Streams and Videos
Tags: , , , , ,
0

We love  a bit of Soma Crew here at Aural Aggravation. ‘Got it Bad’, which prefaces the release of their new album, is perhaps the most definitie statement of their sonic capabilities yet. Check it hre:

 

Weekend Recovery / Lost in Winter / Conrad Ashton – Bad Apples, Leeds, 23rd February 2017

Posted: 25 February 2017 in Live
Tags: , , , , , , , , ,
3

Christopher Nosnibor

I struggle to find Bad Apples, even with my phone’ sat-nav. Talk about underground! There’s nothing like being in the know for more niche events. Hunkering down with a Newcastle Brown and Jean-Paul Sartre’s The Age of Reason, there’s a relentless thunder of thrash and grinding metal hammering out of the speakers in the upstairs bar while I wait for the first act.

It’s pretty quiet in terms of people, but then it’s the Thursday before payday and storm Doris is raging hard outside: it’s cold, it’s wet, it’s windy, and generally unappealing. Storm Doris is also the reason the headliners – who are bringing the drum kit – have still to arrive at the venue five minutes after the first act is due on, and our planned interview hasn’t happened. Music writing isn’t all cut-and-thrust, hob-nobbing and ligging: it involves a lot of hanging around, a lot of waiting, a lot of time sitting, drinking beer alone in a corner and reading books. It also involves a lot of standing, a lot of cross-city legwork, and a fair amount of train travel.

In a change to the advertised bill, which listed Sinkers (who are nowhere to be seen), and Lincoln ‘soul punk’ four-piece Striped Sight as the first act on the bill, Conrad Ashton steps up to play some acoustic numbers. This comes as quite a relief, because the write-up for the aforementioned ‘soul punk’ act sounded truly heinous. Durham Yakka Conrad Ashton – who handed me one of his plectrums sporting a Newcastle Brown logo on the flipside having clocked me supping a bottle of Broon – knows how to bash out a heartfelt punk tune solo on an acoustic guitar. Balancing keen melodies with a real sense of attack, he’s an engaging performer. He pings a string during the third song, ‘Straight to the Man’. “I’ve not got a spare guitar, like,” he apologises. Thankfully, one of the guys from Lost in Winter is on hand, and armed with a seven-string electric guitar, Conrad picks up precisely where he left off to play the last six bars. He wrapped up his acoustic -now-electric set on yet another guitar after another string met its end, and its credit to him for carrying it off with self-effacing humour. A true pro, and with some decent songs to boot.

DSCF7433

Conrad Ashton

Lost In Winter scream ‘technical’ and ‘rich middle-class posters’, with their haircuts, clan suede boots, neat beards, a five-string bass and two guitarists both geared up with seven strings. One of the guitarists spends an age clamping a camera to the PA speaker stand while the drummer fiddles with his cymbals and the singer, in a shiny new-looking biker jacket performs head-rolls. Christ, the kit they’ve got probably cost more than I earn in a year – and of course, they sound absolutely fucking incredible. They need to, of course: their brand of atmospheric, melody-driven neo-prog is crafted with near-infinite attention to detail. It wouldn’t work without those microscopic nuances, the fifty shades of delay and delicate tube crunch. But what does it all amount to? Not a lot. Lost in Winter prove slick but dull in their overly serious emoting of lines about how we ‘crumble to dust’ and how ‘we must fight our way out and into the light.’

There’s no such pomposity where Maidstone five-piece Weekend Recovery are concerned. They set up swiftly, and Lorin rocks up in a long animal-print coat which she whips off to reveal a crop top that says she’s read to rock. And rock they do. This is a band with power, passion and an infectious energy, and watching them pour everything into every song, you’d never guess they’d just spent eight hours stuck in a van and piled on stage with barely three minutes to soundcheck.

DSCF7510

Weekend Recovery

And while Lorin is the band’s clear focal point – she’s got real presence and never stays still for a second, as she struts her stuff and tosses banter like she was born to do it – it’s clear that this is a band who operate as a unit: they’re tight, cohesive and look like they’re having a blast up there. The songs themselves are punchy: banging out solid rock tunes with a keen pop sensibility, Weekend Recovery know their way around a hook, and no mistake. The set concludes with single cut and reason for the tour, ‘Don’t Try and Stop Me’, and it’s ace.

It’s a strong start to an ambitious tour, which should – if there’s any justice – see them expand their fan base considerably.

Battle Lines – Primal

Posted: 20 January 2017 in Albums
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
0

No Sleep Records – 16th September 2016

Christopher Nosnibor

I have to admit, I’d been wondering what was happening with Battle lines. Following the single releases ‘Colonies’ and ‘Hunting’ (split with Post War Glamour Girls), and a storming set at the Brudenell to launch it, there was talk of an album when I chatted with the band afterwards, and then… Well, they seemed to drop off the radar. Carly had mentioned work and all of the things that get in the way of doing things, although it was some time ago, and I’d had a few pints during the evening and what with work and an endless stream of new releases demanding my attention… well, I sort of forgot about things. I’m sorry for the fact that this makes me the same as pretty much everyone else: I blame the ‘net age, the insane pace of our post-postmodern culture, where memories are overlaid and replaced in an instant, buried in the endless blizzard of shiny new things, images, sounds, more bad news and another media frenzy over the latest celebrity scandal. And so, a guilty late review of an album by a band I’m a big fan of.

While I’m looking around at intangibles to blame, I’m also aware that I’m feeding my own anxieties and understanding more the pressure on any artist, in any medium, to devote as much time to promotion as to the production of actual art. It’s all about the momentum! Paradoxically, to weather the storm that is the blizzard of social media, one is required to contribute to it further, and constantly. If you’re out of the public eye, you’re forgotten in a flash. It’s an absurd situation, of course: artists need to retreat in order to produce. In an over-loud world, silence is good, and importantly, silence from a band means they’re likely holed up working on material.

Battle Lines, individually and collectively, have been getting on with their lives, and thankfully, have been doing the things that are important, instead of fretting over their public profile. The press release apologises for their apparent absence, but is matter-of-fact about things:

It’s not a secret that we’ve been very quiet over the last year… There’s no big story, we love each other, we’re as good friends as we’ve ever been. Life has moved on for all of us, and we now reside in New York, London, Brighton and Leeds, geography prevents us from touring, but it can’t prevent us from releasing new music.

And so, while I was busy being distracted, Battle Lines slipped out their debut album, a record I’d waited more years than I care to count for: having first discovered them in their previous guise as Alvin Purple, I’d been captivated by the quality and richness of their dark, post-punk influenced material and the incredibly assured live performances they gave so consistently.

The switch to Battle Lines marked a refocusing: the energy which effused from their earlier songs was directed more inward, and the material displayed an almost ascetic discipline in its execution on those first single releases and in the live shows, more clinical, more icily intense than their previous incarnation.

This is all captured perfectly on Primal. The sparse title track and album opener hints equally at The XX and Closer era Joy Division. But then, glacial electropop undercurrents and thunderous tribal drumming also define the sound. And the sound… the fact they’ve taken their time over this means that the sound is honed to perfection. There isn’t a note out of place. That isn’t to say it’s overproduced within an inch of its sterile life or stripped of its soul: they’ve pulled everything to tight as to render it almost claustrophobically dense, a work which offers an insight into a near-obsessive control over the output. In context, it makes sense:

There’s an honesty about the notes which accompany the release which is at once uncomfortable and refreshing:

Lyrically this was an incredibly dark place to go to, I had come out of a relationship that became mentally abusive; looking back I wondered who I had become in excusing that kind of behaviour. This is what drove me in the album, those darkest moments became a journey of self discovery and a realisation of who I really am and what I deserved.

When life is out of control, what can you do but obsess about the things you can control – your art? But from darkness comes light, and creativity can be so cathartic. As dark as Primal is, it contains some truly beautiful and magnificently uplifting musical moments. Carly’s vocals at times soar so high as to disappear from the register of the average human ear, but ‘Sea of Fear’ is a swelling anthem of a track, and the sunburst shoegaze of ‘Smother’ ripples with the joy of drinking in clear air and rediscovering the potentialities of life.

‘Outsider’ is built around an insistent motoric beat and exploits the quiet / loud dynamic, bursting into explosive shoegaze wall-of-FX guitars which call to mind Ride in their early years, but as is always the case with Battle Lines, Carly’s ultra-high-frequency vocals means they don’t really sound like any of their forebears, or their contemporaries.

Of their single releases, only ‘Hunting’ has made it to the album. This is a bold and admirable choice, and one which makes a statement: a statement which says that \Primal is an album proper, a document, and not a ‘Hunting’ is, of course, a belting wall of noise driven by a twitchy disco beat and shuddering synth with metallic screeds of guitar peeling off a Donna Summer groove, over which Carly comes on like Siouxsie Sioux, breathy and intense.

The album concludes with ‘Riot’, a richly-layered and uplifting song which blossoms in a screed of guitar noise over an insistent rhythm section, the drums and bass tight and locked into a sedate groove.

Primal displays remarkable poise, and as much as its architecture is concerned with the turbulence which inspired its lyrics and overall tone, its coherence and control are remarkable. But rather than feeling soulless in its clinical execution, there’s a clear sense that Primal is about holding it together and showing just what can be achieved through sheer will and determination and the exertion of mind over matter. Despite the obstacles, personal and geographical, Battle Lines have (meticulously) produced a powerful album that was more than worth the wait.

 

Battle Lines - Primal

Esben and the Witch – Older Terrors

Posted: 7 January 2017 in Albums
Tags: , , , , , ,
0

Season of Mist – 4th November 2016

Christopher Nosnibor

The music industry may have changed dramatically since the advent of the Internet – a shift which became perhaps more noticeable marked around the turn of the millennium and has become exponential, transforming the way the whole system operates beyond all recognition in the last decade or thereabouts – but one thing remain largely unchanged, and that’s the way promotion works. I’m not referring to thy myriad alternative channels available through new media, ranging from the viral video to the release slipped out with no promo whereby word of (virtual) mouth alone can catapult a release into the stratosphere. I’m not talking about live streams or download-only bonus packages, either. I am, of course, perhaps predictable, talking about reviews. While some bands dismiss this aspect of promotion and sneer at critics, reviews can – and do – give exposure to acts who likely wouldn’t have otherwise been brought to the public’s attention, or as widely. But the focus is on the buzz around the release. There’s often a clamour to be the first to review a forthcoming release, and in the weeks either side of a release, it’s all about getting the reviews in.

But sometimes, this can backfire. Some albums really do take a fair while to bed in. they require – and deserve – time to be digested, for quality cogitation before finally imparting a balanced critical assessment. What do you want, a knee-jerk snapshot summary, or a more considered appraisal? I know what I want as a music fan. As such, I make no apology for the fact I’ve been slow with this. Having been particularly impressed by A New Nature, it was clear that Older Terrors would not be an immediate album, and with just four tracks filling its half-hour run-time, it’s not a collection of instant-gratification radio-friendly pop tunes that’s on offer.

This album landed with me around the same time as Neurosis’ Fires Within Fires. The Neurosis album failed to move me and proved, ultimately to be an immense disappointment, while Older Terrors struck me as utterly gripping. How could to albums which, in the face of things, share so much common ground and effectively be born from a very similar template, elicit such diametrically different reactions? I’ve spent a long time wrestling with this question, and will return to it shortly.

It perhaps goes without saying that this is epic. It’s an Esben and the Witch album, after all. But there’s something about the four tracks which comprise Older Terrors which really do redefine the band’s direction, and expands upon the long-form approach hinted at on their 2014 split release with Thought Forms.

‘Sylvan’ starts with a delicately picked guitar and backed-off drum, which flutters in the mist of the ancient forest. There’s no denying the captivating, mesmeric power of Rachel Davies’ voice. She conjures truly beautiful notes, but at the same time, there’s a weight, a deep-seated sense of longing, mourning, an ache which resonates with every breath. Hers is not a rock or metal voice, but a folk voice, which coveys far more than the words themselves – although the lyrics, too evoke deep, dark, medieval woodlands and mystical wildernesses. For the most part, the song shows great restraint, holding back the tidal wave of noise in favour of forging atmosphere and majestic sonic vistas. But when the levee breaks, it’s a magnificent burst of shoegaze /post-rock / metal which stands shoulder to shoulder with Jesu at their best. ‘Come with me… to the place where the wolves are weak,’ Davies implores. Something in the way she sings it makes you want to go with her.

It’s not about the difference between Rachel Davies’ vocal delivery and that of Scott Kelly which places so much distance between Esben and the Witch and Neurosis, though, although the depth of emotion conveyed is certainly a factor. The other key elements are the song structures and the fundamental nature of how the songs are played. The song structures on Older Terrors is unpredictable, in contrast to the formulaic approach which defines Fires Within Fires. Esben and the Witch hold back those raging guitar tempests; there are feints, sleights and even outright denials, which make the thunderous crescendos even more gratifying.

‘Marking the Heart of a Serpent’ explodes into raging blasts of noise, in between enticing, alluring verses, and culminates in a truly immense crescendo which transcends the earthly mores of rock music. ‘The Wolf’s Sun’ lumbers through Arthurian woodlands, with ruptures of fire and brimstone conjuring scenes of bruised fearfulness. Closer ‘The Reverist’ is hushed, thoughtful, ponderous and haunting, but still yields a climax of crushing weight. I truth, that’s a vast understatement. I mean, it’s beyond immense.

There’s something ultimately natural about Older Terrors too. While the grainy timbres of the guitars are a key element to the sound, the ragged edges which show in the raw, powerhouse drumming and mammoth riffs when they eventually tear through feel like they’re necessary rather than strategic, as if they can hold back no more and simply have to break out. And when they do break out, the mammoth guitar and thunderous drums are counterbalanced by truly beautiful vocals.

So while the dynamic focus calls to mind Neurosis, the deep, dark, mystical folk leanings of Older Terrors shares more with latter-day Earth and the hypnotic currents of Pain Teens at their most spaced out.

Older Terrors is a remarkable and extremely powerful album, which operates on a subconscious, spiritual level, rather than an explicitly musical, immediate level. It’s anything but immediate, and in truth, it’s an album which requires a lot of patience. But it’s immensely rewarding, and resonates on levels far beyond words.

 

esben-and-the-witch-older-terrors-1

Weekend Recovery – Don’t Try and Stop Me

Posted: 13 December 2016 in Singles and EPs
Tags: , , , , , ,
1

27th January 2014

James Wells

Weekend Recovery are a band whose career is very much on an upward trajectory, and it’s hard to believe they’ve only existed (in this incarnation, at least) since April this year. They’ve spent 2016 touring hard, and recent months have seen them read the boards at 93 Feet East, Dublin Castle, and The Alley Cat, with shows at Hoxton Von Underbelly, Hope and Anchor, and another NME’s Mark Beaumont presents at The Monarch all cued up for the New Year.

‘Don’t Try and Stop Me’ is an attitude-filled, guitar-driven sonic slap. With enough attention to the hook and enough melody to carry it commercially, it still has more than enough edge to keep it safely within the ‘alternative’ bracket.

Laurin Forster’s vocal performance is strong, gutsy yet simultaneously melodic, and it all amounts to a cracking tune with power and the fire of authenticity behind it. If they keep on with singles like this, it will be less a case of ‘don’t try and stop me’ and more a case of Weekend Recovery being unstoppable.

 

Weekend Recovery

 

Weekend Recovery Online

Matt Christensen – Prowl

Posted: 23 October 2016 in Albums
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,
1

Tavern Eightieth (TVEI) – 31st October 2016

Christopher Nosnibor

Don’t read too much into the Hallowe’en release date for this solo offering from Matt Christensen, who is more usually found lending his voice to Chicago genre-straddling guitar-based act Zelienople. There are no guitars to be found here, or vocals, and despite the album title’s connotations of the predatory, the sinister and the dangerous, this is no haunting horrorshow or ultra-dark ambient work coughed up from the bowels of the earth, although the five tracks on Prowl are certainly strong on atmospherics.

The title track sets the mood, a murky groove softly bounces along, the insistent beats largely submerged by a thick, opaque subaquatic sonic murk which strangely deadens the sound and creates a sensation that’s almost physical rather than simply auditory. When the rhythms are completely absent, as on ‘Mountains of Fire (Remix)’, Christensen glides effortlessly into what one may reasonably call ‘pure’ ambience: the forms are vague, intangible, with no discernible sense of structure as the soft and slowly-drifting washes of sound shift and turn gradually.

‘Spending It’ is perhaps the most haunting track on the album, crackles and pops – somewhere between the click and clatter of worn vinyl and the cracks and snaps of burning wood – form the distant rhythmic undercurrents which echo through the warping tones before being carried away into silence on a long, low wind-like drone. In contrast, ‘Junk Test’ is altogether more buoyant, bubbling beats flit beneath rippling Tangerine Dream synth motifs.

Everything is kept low-key, the sounds dissolving into one another and in a slow but continual evolution. It’s a radical departure from Christensen’s work with Zelienople, but, as one may expect, it’s an album that demonstrates a keen awareness of the dynamics of texture and tone. In the context of Prowl, these elements are explored in their most delicate and subtle forms, and in its field, it’s an accomplished and enjoyable work.

 

Matt Christensen – Prowl

Irk / Super Luxury / Fawn Spots / Christopher Nosnibor + Legion of Swine / Neuschlaufen – The Fulford Arms, York, 16th July 2016

Posted: 20 July 2016 in Live
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
1

Christopher Nosnibor

Is it wrong to review an event you’ve participated in as a performing artist? Very probably, but in the scheme of things, and in the current global socio-political climate, a minor display of poor etiquette really doesn’t amount to anything. Besides, this is more about what I – as a writer, reviewer, artist and site editor – believe to be the primary function of running a site dedicated to the coverage of non-mainstream music, namely to give artists and acts I believe in exposure. At times, focusing on a niche – albeit a pretty eclectic niche – feels like the audience are likeminded obscurists but I like to think there are things for those likeminded obscurists to discover here. So. I landed a spot initially to provide a spoken-word interlude to some bands – bands I like. The night before the gig, this evolved into a collaboration with one of the bands, one-man experimental noise act Legion of Swine. It was something I’ve wanted to do for ages.

So I rocked up while the soundchecks were getting going to discuss what we were going to do. The little pub venue was bursting with more kit than many all-dayers and everything was pointing to this being one loud night before anyone even got plugged in.

And the lineup! Five acts, three (and a half) over from Leeds for a measly three quid? You have to hand it to both the venue and first-time booker Jim Osman for the wild ambition here. There’s so much that could go wrong.

Neuschlaufen are only just soundchecking fifteen minutes after they’re due to play, and their bassist, Ash, has to be out and on his way to another gig by 7:45. Yet somehow they manage to pull it together and are churning out their heavy, hypnotic grooves in next to no time. Ash Sagar’s hefty, Jah Wobble-esque basslines boom out, underpinned by Jason Wilson’s uncluttered drumming. In cominationm they provide  a solid base for John Tuffen’s textured guitars, and while the set may be short, it builds nicely, going beyond Krautrock and into territories as yet unexplored.

DSCF5071

Neuschlaufen

Immediately after, everyone vacates to cool down in the car park, with its impressive beach art installation. It also serves as a sandy area where people can go and sit and smoke and buy cocktails and stuff and pretend they’re not in a car park in a city pub.

Consequently, I began spouting my first rage monologue (a recent piece entitled ‘Ambition’, if anyone’s interested) to an audience numbering half a dozen (plus sound man and bar staff), but – probably for the first time in the years I’ve been performing – people began to filter into the room by the time I left Legion of Swine to run the set to its natural conclusion of feedback and bewilderment (what other response is there to a man in a pig’s head and lab coat, ambulating the space with a condenser mic taped to his face and a battery-powered 3W Orange amp to his ear?) there was a substantial crowd. Most of them were confused, and more interested in the spectacle than necessarily enjoying watching a 40-year-old man spew vitriol and expletives into a mic, but I had an absolute blast. Literature is the original rock ‘n’ roll and the new rock ‘n’ roll, and the footage of the performance, for which I can take no credit whatsoever, is outstanding.

DSCF5078

Legion of Swine

https://player.vimeo.com/video/175067654

 

One of the benefits of being lower down the bill is that it’s possible to kick back, drink beer and watch the other acts, and while the temperature was steadily rising, it was a joy to sup a cool pint and listen to Fawn Spots road test a set based on their upcoming second album. I‘ve lost count of the number of times I’ve seen these guys since they started out as a snotty York-based two-piece and it’s been a source of pride to witness their evolution to a Leeds-based four-piece with a debut album on Fire Records. Their hard-gigging work ethic is admirable, and they’ve got both songs and attitude. If the new material showcased tonight is a little less frenetic than the older stuff, it’s no less intense, and there’s every indication that album number two will be a stormer.

DSCF5085

Fawn Spots

It’s a little over a year since I saw Super Luxury play. Supporting Oozing Wound at the Key Club in Leeds, I’d been impressed by the power of their performance. However, as their gig photos and the anecdote I’d heard from a friend about front man Adam Nodwell delivering vocals for a large portion of a set from inside a box on stage, it seems they’ve been evolving the performance aspect of their show. They pulled out all the stops for this one, Nodwell arriving on stage cowelled in a hooded cloak, stripping it off to reveal some crazy man/badger legs thing that simply looked wrong. With confetti guns bursting all over and crowd-surfing and a general air of crazed mayhem, you might think the music was taking a back seat. But you’d think wrong: with enough back-line to shake a venue three times to size to its foundations, they blasted through a ferocious set with terrifying vigour and psychopathic precision. They may be zany in their presentation, but when it comes to the songs and slamming them in hard, they’re entirely serious.

DSCF5127

Super Luxury

Irk are pretty fucking serious, too. It’s barely been a fortnight since I caught their set in Manchester supporting Berlin’s heads, and while they were pretty ripping them, tonight they really do take things to another level. Of course, when I previously stated that they sound like fellow Leeds band Blacklisters, I meant it as a compliment: Blacklisters are one of my favourite bands of recent years. They’ve delivered two gut-wrenchingly hefty albums and are one of the most consistent live acts you’ll find. But it’s on this outing that I first truly appreciate Irk in their own right as the drum / bass / vocal trio lumber, lurch and piledrive their way through a full-throttle set. Jack Gordon – an affable, articulate chap off stage – comes on like a man possessed, hurling himself about the low stage amid crushing bass riffs and powerhouse percussion. While the power trio format is often lionised as the optimal band configuration, there’s even less room to hide when there are only two instruments and a vocalist. And so it is that Irk are tight as hell and double the intensity of the playing to compensate the absence of instruments and bodies on stage. In contrast to Super Luxury, here’s little by way of over showmanship on display here, and instead it’s all about whipping up a blistering intensity through directness and unadulterated force.

DSCF5231

Irk

With not a weak act on the jam-packed, super-value bill, and every act giving every last drop of juice to their performance, this is going to stand as one of the gigs of the year. The venue may not have been packed to capacity, but there’s no question that those who were there will be talking about it. That’s precisely how legends are made, and I’d wager that that at some point in the future, tonight will go down as one of those landmark events. And if I’m wrong… fuck it, it was a great night.

Watch: ‘Audience’ by Elevant’

Posted: 4 March 2016 in Recommended Streams and Videos
Tags: , , ,
0

Liverpool three-piece, Elevant are set to release a new single on their own Elevant Music Limited imprint on the 4th of March 2016.

Audience’, the follow up to the recent ‘Again’ single, was recorded at 3rd Planet Recording Studios in Liverpool and was self produced, engineered by Kyle Western and mastered by Pete Maher (Jack White, Patti Smith, Scissor Sisters). Available to download, the new single takes inspiration from The Melvins, Nirvana and Bauhaus and is a taste of what to expect from the Elevant’s eagerly awaited forthcoming third album ‘There Is A Tide’ which is due for release on the 4th of March.

The Elevant line up of Michael Edward (guitar / vocals), Tom Shand (drums / piano) and Hannah Lodge (bass / organ) have over the last two years combined their love of My Bloody Valentine, God Speed You! Black Emperor, St Vincent, Tame Impala and Portishead to create something very special. Effortlessly twisting a pop hook to their post punk, psych and krautrock sound to great effect, there is an energy and vision that sets them apart from their contemporaries.

A truly innovative and exciting live band, Elevant are set to play the following UK shows to coincide with the new single and album release. The dates will include a hometown album launch show at Liverpool’s Buyers Club on the 9th of March and a London date at the Sebright Arms on the 16th of March with label mates Too Many Poets.

LIVE DATES:

FEB 24TH MANCHESTER, GULLIVERS (w/ False Advertising, Mothers & Duke Mercury)

MAR 09TH LIVERPOOL, BUYERS CLUB (w/ SPQR) ALBUM LAUNCH

MAR 12TH BIRMINGHAM, THE ACTRESS AND BISHOP (w/ MUTT & Wax Futures)

MAR 16TH LONDON, SEBRIGHT ARMS (w/ Too Many Poets)

MAR 22ND EDINBURGH, SNEAKY PETE’S (w/ Frantic Chant)

MAR 23RD GLASGOW, BAR BLOC

MAR 27TH NEWCASTLE, THE HEAD OF STEAM

APR 22ND SHEFFIELD, THE WASHINGTON

MAY 07TH LIVERPOOL – BUYERS CLUB (w/ False Advertising & Bathymetry)

 

Watch ‘Audience’ here:

 

Older Entries
Newer Entries