Posts Tagged ‘Rock’

The Kut – Sevens

Posted: 20 June 2025 in Reviews, Singles and EPs
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Criminal Records – 20th June 2025

Christopher Nosnibor

If I didn’t know this was the new single by The Kut, I would never have guessed in a million years. ‘Sevens’ certainly sound different – very different… Beloved by Kerrang, Download veteran, with a debut album that reached number seven in the UK Rock Charts, The Kut is rock music. ‘Sevens’ however, is distinctly pop. Yes, really. But when you pick it apart, just how different really?

From their very inception, Princess Maha’s songs demonstrated a pop nouse, a knack for a hook, a nagging guitar line, a keen melody. It’s easy to overlook these components when it comes to many of the acts which have provided inspiration and comparison, the likes of Hole, Nirvana, Placebo. But all the raw energy in the world won’t translate to commercial success if there’s nothing that sticks in the mind. And so it is that all of these things are very much present on ‘Sevens’. Where it depart from previous offerings is not only that it’s sunny ad sultry, but the beats are backed off and everything is clean, smooth, the guitars are there but off in the background while a remarkably groovy bass flexes and bounces about in a way that’s not quite funky but certainly noddable. Landing in the middle of a heatwave and ahead of some festival appearances, it feels incredibly fitting. But, more to the point, if switched around to be recorded differently, with the guitars up in the mix and the vocals less compressed-sounding it would still be a solid rock tune. Done this way, it’s a solid pop tune with a post-punk flavour.

At heart it’s still The Kut, but with a new spin.

Watch: ‘Since You Broke My Ouija Board’ by Replaced by Robots

Posted: 4 June 2025 in Recommended Streams and Videos, Singles and EPs
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New Hampshire indie rock outfit Replaced by Robots presents ‘Since You Broke My Ouija Board’, a haunted love story where heartbreak crosses over to the other side. The final audio-visual gem showcasing their powerful debut mini-album The Experiment, here we have a surreal blend of eerie visuals, vintage séance aesthetics, and emotional rawness.

The video brings the supernatural fallout of a shattered connection to life. Who knew losing someone could silence the spirits, too? As a bonus, the video begins with ‘The Air of Uncertainty’, an instrumental interlude – a pause to welcome the spirits.

Replaced By Robots formed as a sound and vision laboratory, where they search through the wreckage and noise of modern life to find unusual combinations and create moments of beauty. Goolkasian (The Elevator Drops, The Texas Governor, Lovesick) and Heather Joy Morgan initially met guitar maestro Adam Wade (Funeral Party, The Uprisers) at a Chameleons UK show they hosted in their living room, a fateful meeting that led to the musical chemistry we know as Replaced by Robots.

“’Since you Broke My Ouija Board’ was a spontaneous expression of grief and longing to connect, for Goolkasian broke my antique oujia board, hurling my spirit telephone into oblivion. And I can’t talk to ghosts no more,” says Heather Joy Morgan, adding, “Adam Wade really stretches out on guitar and shines on this track.”

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For this album, they worked with legendary producer Paul Q.Kolderie (Pixies, Dinosaur Jr, Throwing Muses, Radiohead) and Josh Hager (Devo, The Elevator Drops), as well as mastering engineer Terry Palmer.

“We got to work with Paul Q. Kolderie, who instinctively did a lot of weird things. He pushed the bass and guitars to the max, giving this record an undeniably glam-era feel and a rhythmic pulse, driving songs like ‘All The Lonely Nights’”, says Goolkasian.

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Froglord / Kraken Waker / Chefs Kiss – The Fulford Arms, York, 21st May 2025

Posted: 22 May 2025 in Live, Reviews
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Christopher Nosnibor

It’s encouraging to arrive twenty minutes before the first band are due on, and, despite it being a pleasant, sunny spring evening in the middle of the week, it’s already busy inside the venue, and not just at the bar. There’s a tangible buzz.

The arrival of the first act, Chefs Kiss, who describe themselves as a ‘comedic food themed slam metal band’, brings a fair few forward, and it’s clear that they’ve brought their mates with them. There was a time when I may have viewed this in a rather sneery way, but what matters, I realise these days, is that if they’ve got people in through the door, then it’s all to the good.

With a wardrobe which included kilts and masks and aprons and chef hats, Chefs Kiss weren’t all that comedic – or at least that funny – a comedy act, nor especially musically accomplished either. Does the world need a joke thrash act? Actually, it probably does, and fair play to them, in that they didn’t take themselves seriously, and largely adhered to their rather daft concept, and were good fun, bringing out a life-size cardboard cut-out of Ainsley Harriot which was passed around the venue above the heads of the audience like some sort of crowd surfing cardboard deity. What’s more, they looked we enjoying themselves, and every young band has to start somewhere. This is once again why we need venues like this.

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Chefs Kiss

Just as Chefs Kiss were a shade shambolic, so Kraken Waker were finely honed performers, clearly with not only hours of rehearsals behind them, but also a lot of gig experience. They seriously were incredibly tight. Their sound is very much classic US rock at the heavier end of the spectrum, with a strong, dirty, stoner leaning. I had afforded myself a chuckle while they checked their mic levels: the three beardy longhairs all came on with affectations as if they were from Texas. But piling into their set, they were instantly impressive, and it soon became apparent that they were unapologetic Geordies, with strong songs about being drunk, smoking weed, and wanting all the billionaires to fuck off to Mars. Quite possibly the band of the night.

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Kraken Waker

If you’re going to pursue a concept – particularly one that’s ridiculous – you really have to go all-in to pull it off. Oh, and Froglord do. The Bristol band’s five – yes, five – albums to date, including the most recent, Metamorphosis, released just a couple of weeks ago, are all preoccupied with expanding the lore of The Frog Lord, centred around the Book of the Amphibian, with swamp rituals and The Wizard Gonk and the like. Behind all this stupidity, there are some fierce riffs, and a fantastically solid doom metal band. I would have been perfectly happy if they turned up in jeans and T-shirts and blasted out the raging riffs. I might even have found it easier to connect with. But this is about performance, theatre. It’s also about doing something different. There is certainly no shortage of serious doom bands. There are considerably fewer doom bands who have devoted their entire careers to a concept as absurd as this.

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Froglord

The more preposterous the concept, the more committed you have to be, and Froglord prove that they’re one hundred per cent committed (or that they perhaps ought to be), with a stage set which has all the props, from a stage backdrop to a lectern on which stands a copy of some esoteric bible, via masks, cloaks, and a giant plastic frog. The set is structured around a swamp ceremony, and there’s no breaking character – apart from when plugging merch, which is done in character while acknowledging it’s a break in character, which offers some postmodern reflexivity, and in the way front man Benjamin ‘Froglord’ Oak will adopt the stance of a high priest before getting down and grooving to the monster riffs, cloak flapping, mask slipping. It’s funny because they clearly know it’s daft but play it with straight faces. That kind of dedication is impressive – as is their shit-your-pants bass sound.

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Froglord

And perhaps this is why it works. There’s a knowingness in the delivery of the performance, but they’re feigning that they don’t know we know it. Or something. And musically, they’re really strong. By the end, there are people traversing the venue, just grazing beneath the room’s low ceiling, in the same fashion as the cardboard Ainsley at the start of the night, and we filter out into the night to a chirping chorus of frogs. No two ways about it, Froglord put on a show.

Cwfen – Sorrows

Posted: 20 May 2025 in Albums, Reviews
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New Heavy Sounds – 30th May 2025

Christopher Nosnibor

One of the strongest cases in favour of attending shows at local grassroots venues is that a punt may reward by striking pure gold with the discovery of a band that absolutely blows you away. It may be rare, but when it happens… POW! And so it was that a few months ago, I witnessed Glasgow’s Cwfen’s first live performance south of the border in the middle of the lineup for a £6 midweek gig at my local 150-capacity venue. Even before I learned that they were signed to New Heavy Sounds – a label which consistently delivers on the promise of its name, in finding bands which are heavy, but offer something new, something different, and have homed so many outstanding acts through the years – and had some much bigger shows lined up, it was clear that this was a band of rare talent, and who wouldn’t be playing 150-capacity venues for long. On stage, they had that quality that you only know when you see it. And they had songs.

And here they are, recorded in the studio, on their debut album, Sorrows. The huge, riff-driven epics are interspersed with brief incidental instrumental pieces, appropriately entitled ‘Fragment’ and numbered sequentially. The first provides a soft intro before ‘Bodies’ blasts in with seven minutes of supreme chuggage. It’s a gritty hard rock behemoth, but it’s more than just another monolithic riff monster: there’s a shade of goth sensibility about it, not least of all in Agnes’ brooding vocal, but there’s also the brittle-edged lead guitar work, and the song brings a powerful sense of drama and theatricality, building to a rabid, demonic climax… and straight away, it’s apparent that this is something special.

Cwfen have a supreme grasp of dynamics, of mood, of atmosphere, and Sorrows has all of these in spades. Single cut ‘Wolfsbane’ grinds in, meshing together gothy lead guitar, rich with chorus, and reverb-laden vocals which are simultaneously haunting and commanding, while a thunderous bass nails things down tight at the bottom end. Next up is ‘Reliks’, released as their debut single, and it’s different again, an atmospheric mid-tempo song which soars, managing to incorporate elements of classic 80s rock and shoegaze, while at the same time bringing the atmosphere of Fields of the Nephilim. Nothing’s overdone, and nothing’s underdone, either: everything fuses together in perfect balance, while ‘Whispers’ melds 70s rock vibes with a hard rock, delivered with a hint of anthemic power ballad. And in the background, raw banshee screams fill the swell of sound towards the end with pure emotional release. ‘Penance’ brings the weight with thunderous drums, squalling feedback, and a crushing riff behind a demonic howl of a vocal, which switches to achingly magnificent melody for the chorus. ‘Embers’, meanwhile, makes for a megalithic monster of a tune, delivering seven minutes of crushing riffery and standing as the heaviest and maybe one of the most overtly ‘metal’ song in the album – although full-force closer ‘Rite’ plunges deeper into darkness, a blackened anthem by way of a finale to a superlative set.

On Sorrows, Cwfen deliver on their name: magical, mystical, menacing, haunting, dark… but they bring so much more, and certainly do not belong in any given pigeonhole. While this is indisputably a ‘heavy’ album, it’s accessible – without going pop or being overly polished. It’s an album which makes a high-impact first impression, but reveals more depths and layers with subsequent listens. Sorrows is a masterful work, which ventures far and wide in its musical inspirations and touchstones, meaning it’s never samey, never predictable, but at the same time, Cwfen demonstrate an intense focus, forging a sound which is distinctive, rather than derivative. A rare gem, and a standout of 2025 so far.

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Listen: ‘Runnin’ with the Devil’ by M.U.T.T.

Posted: 10 May 2025 in Recommended Streams and Videos, Singles and EPs
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San Francisco punk rock band M.U.T.T. has unleashed their blistering new single ‘Runnin’ with the Devil’ a snarling anthem about embracing sin, seizing chaos, and stepping into the Devil’s shoes to rule the underworld. And the band isn’t stopping there. M.U.T.T. has also announced their brand-new LP, Toughest Street In Town, dropping June 20 via Quiet Panic Records.

The new album is a love letter to the band’s gritty San Francisco neighborhood—a place many outsiders fear, but where M.U.T.T. finds their strength.

Frontman John Jr.  says, “I don’t fear my neighborhood, I am inspired by it. I find myself thriving in the mayhem. I walk around the blocks at night ’cause I know I can take care of myself. You gotta have a tough presence and a tough mind in order to survive in this part of the city. Some of you couldn’t last a week on my street. Maybe that’s why I love it so much.”

‘Runnin’ with the Devil’ captures that raw energy and streetwise perspective in full force. As No Echo puts it, the song sounds “like Appetite-era Guns N’ Roses trying to channel the Circle Jerks”—a perfect storm of sleazy glam rock swagger and unfiltered punk attitude. It’s rock ‘n’ roll that doesn’t compromise your punk cred.

Formed from the remains of the critically acclaimed band Culture Abuse, M.U.T.T. includes John Jr., Matt Walker, Isa Anderson, and Shane Plitt—four ex-touring punks with empty pockets and no plans to slow down. Their debut LP Bad To The Bone made noise across underground circles and was praised for its unrelenting, four-chord punk anthems and gritty authenticity.

With Toughest Street In Town, M.U.T.T. continues their journey—hardened, loud, and fiercely loyal to the place that raised them.

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Kill Your Boyfriend – Disco Kills EP

Posted: 10 May 2025 in Albums, Reviews
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Sister 9 Recordings – 9th May 2025

Christopher Nosnibor

Since showcasing single cut ‘Discretion’ last month, I’ve been totally gripped by this new EP by Italian post-punk electro duo Kill Your Boyfriend.

There’s something about the consistent use of one-word titles that adds punch. The complete catalogue of Foetus albums is a strong case in point: Hole, Nail, Gash Blow… Four letters, forming a single syllable, prove to be powerfully evocative, even when there is no context – or perhaps more so because there is no context.

The titles of the six songs on here are rather less abstract, more descriptive, but still strong and evocative in isolation: ‘Ego’, ‘Obsession’, ‘Apathy’… words with emotional connotations, words which plug straight into the beating heart of the human condition. And, just as ‘Discretion’ threatened, Disco Kills is a full-on sonic kicking that registers blows from every direction.

It’s all about that throbbing, hard-hitting rhythm section, and once again, I feel compelled to sing in praise of the drum machine. Much-maligned and still contentious when used in a ‘rock’ context, the relentless thud and crash of programmed percussion can be so compelling – hypnotic, yes, but also in the way it registers in a purely physical way, the toppy snare explosion sending shockwaves through the nervous system while setting eardrums quivering. From Suicide to Uniform via Metal Urbain, The Sisters of Mercy and Big Black, there’s a rich lineage of bands for whom a drum machine used well – and at an appropriate level in the mix – absolutely defines the sound. It doesn’t work for a lot of rock acts because they’re more about having a certain flexibility, but for absolutely smashing the senses with precision timekeeping, drum machines really come into their own, especially when solid, four-square basslines which follow the beats with equal precision are involved.

And so it is that for all the mesh of treble and distortion, Kill Your Boyfriend structure these songs around a punishing rhythm section. No fancy fills or extravagant bass runs – just hammering, solid grooves, which underscore all the rest. I say ‘all the rest’ as if it’s somehow lesser. It isn’t, not by a long shot. ‘Obsession’ would be dancefloor-friendly – to the point you could imagine people turning and clapping in time with the crispy snap of the vintage Akai snare sound, were it not for its dark, distorted vocal. ‘Apathy’ a bubbling dance banger that’s twisted by some dissonant chord changes and an echo-soaked shouty vocal, the end result sounding like The Prodigy remixing Alien Sex Fiend. Apathetic it is not: a Hi-NRG banger with a dark, serrated edge, it is.

They do trancey / shoegaze / synthwavey lightness on ‘Illusion’, which offers an unexpected – and unexpectedly welcome – pause for breath. But although it pulls back on the breakneck pace and abrasion of the tracks which both precede and succeed it, ‘Illusion’ is still dense, richly textured, and overtly beat-driven, with a thick, churning bass lurking beneath. It just doesn’t drive as hard or as aggressively, with an altogether gentler vocal delivery, and it builds tension with twisty guitars with strong echoes of the sound of 1984. Yes, it’s a bit gothy, and it sits well, and all of this means that the thick, buzzy, echoey electrogoth stomp of ‘Discretion’ hits even harder after the lull, highlighting just what an absolute beast it is. And make no mistake: it’s a pumping, pulverising dark disco monster. It’s brashy, it’s trashy, not so much a car crash as a flaming, petrol-tank-exploding pileup with Sheep on Drugs, Selfish Cunt, KMFDM, and Sigue Sigue Sputnik. It’s an instant adrenaline spike, a rush of pure exhilaration.

‘Youth’ begins darkly but offer something more buoyant as a bookend to the EP, like an electro Sex Pistols, it echoes and bounced its way in a rush to the end. It does feel like a rather flimsy add-on, but works in terms of bringing things down again to wrap it up.

Disco Kills is solid and fierce from beginning to end – and while it’s predominantly electronic in its instrumentation, it’s also very much rock, and it’s pure punk all the way.

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The Bastard Sons / This House We Built / Sleuth Gang / Straw Doll – The Crescent, York, 28 February 2025

Posted: 1 March 2025 in Live, Reviews
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Christopher Nosnibor

Just under 5 years ago, I arrived at this venue feeling a sense of nervousness, as if the world was on a precipice, as we greeted one another with elbow bumps and the car staff were polyethene gloves and aprons. Practically hours later, we went into lockdown. There are no elbow bumps or PPE tonight, but having seen shit go south in the Oval Office of The Whitehouse on a day which will likely go down as a pivotal moment in world history while eating my dinner before heading out, I arrive with the same kind of creeping panic. As is often the case, I’m here for a spot of escapism, one of the most essential benefits of live music, and whether or not anyone else whose down tonight is experiencing the same kind of existential; fear, I suspect many are here for the same thing.

The Bastard Sons – that’s the York band, not to be confused with Phil Campbell’s post-Motörhead band, formed in 2015 – have been away for a long time. After much build-up, they released their debut album, Smoke in 2015, to no small acclaim from the likes of Kerrang. And then… a few local gigs and… Having finally got around to presenting a new single, they’ve been persuaded to tread the boards once more, heading a four-act lineup with an early start.

On promptly at 7:45, just fifteen minutes after doors, Straw Doll may be Metallica, but they’re equally Alice in Chains and Soundgarden, serving up a grunge metal hybrid, with debut single ‘Confess’ being exemplary, while ‘Denial’ leans somewhat on ‘Nothing Else Matters’. Although perhaps a shade predictable at times, with some chunky riffs they delivered a tight and solid set, which was all the more impressive for being their first live outing.

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Straw Doll

It seems hard to credit that I’ve witnessed acts who can be seen or claim to be channelling The Beastie Boys twice in a fortnight at rock gigs, but here we are, bracing ourselves for Sleuth Gang, York battle of the bands winners who promise ‘the harder edge of hip hop mashed with Beastie Boys, early punk, grime, and the experimental post-hardcore/electronicore of Enter Shikari.’ There’s a couple of bellends – one with a mullet – leaning all over the monitors and slopping their pints on the floor before they even start. Sure enough, they only seem to have about five fans, and said ‘fans’ are intent on barging one another so hard to see if they’ll stay up or career into the crowd outside the ‘pit’. The band keep calling the audience forward, but they end up stepping back to make room for their antics instead. The guitarist leaps off the stage, sinks half of mullet guy’s mate’s pint and then throws the rest of it over him. He wipes down his tracksuit top, smiling like he’s just been enunciated.

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Sleuth Gang

Their second song is a cover of The Prodigy’s ‘Omen’, and it’s the best song in the set by a mile. With their three MCs, it’s like watching Limp Bizkit fronted by a nu-metal version of the Village People… It takes a particular type of tosser to wear boot cut pleather jeans and a leather waistcoat, not to mention while chewing a toothpick. They spend half the set yelling for us to ‘Make some fucking noise’ ‘put your hands up’ and ‘let’s see your fucking energy’. Yeesh. My energy is at the bar.

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Sleuth Gang

This House We Built are older guys… The front man, who’s not especially tall, draws attention to the fact by having a little portable platform, a little like a low and unstylish occasional table, to the fore of his mic stand, and he rests a foot on it and sometimes stands on it to deliver widdy solos. He wants to see our fingers – horns, that is, not middle ones. It’s fairly standard hair rock, a bit Aerosmith, a bit Bon Jovi… the bassist reckons he’s in 80s ZZ Top. With his illuminated frets, metallic finish five-string bass and wraparound shades, he’s actually the coolest thing about the band.

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This House We Built

It’s been a long time since The Bastard Sons played – eight years, no less – and it’s apparent that they have been missed. Despite the time away, they’re finely honed as a live unit.

For the uninitiated, JJ’s vocals are perhaps the greatest obstacle in their rapid-cut screamo metalcore assault. Within the space of a single line, he’s gone from melodic to guttural via screaming. And he’s far too old to be showing so much boxer above beltline, surely. For the fans – and the venue, which is pretty packed, is massively into it – time has stood still, and that’s great, but the world itself has moved on.

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The Bastard Sons

“What the fuck is uuuuuup??” comes the shout from the stage. Well, you may well ask, Mr Bastard. The moshpit that broke out three songs in mostly appeared to consist of Sleuth Gang – hailed as ‘one of the best bands you’ll ever see’ by JJ – and their mates. The waistcoat guy’s now put on a tasselled leather jacket. There are fat middle aged blokes with shirts off, twirling them like helicopter blades over their heads, there’s play-wrestling, nosebleeds, and mums in PVC dresses losing their shit, and I almost forget the band and their woah-woah choruses. It’s rare to see quite such a conglomeration of cockends. But when all is said and done, for a band to come back after an eight-year absence and to grip a crowd so tightly and to attract such unbridled adulation, they have to have something, and there’s no questioning the fact that they bring the riffs and the energy – although there is a sense that while joshing about the (now slightly older) crowd being happy for the earlier, 10:45 finish, so are they, having run out of songs and energy after an hour. And that’s ok, especially as this looks like the start of an actual comeback.

Weed Demon – The Doom Scroll

Posted: 22 January 2025 in Albums, Reviews
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Electric Valley Records – 31st January 2025

Christopher Nosnibor

The four-piece ‘sludge ‘n’ roll stoner metal band’ from Columbus, OH, come with the description of being ‘the audio equivalent of bong water spilled on a Ouija board’

The Doom Scroll – such an obvious but well-placed piece of punning – is their third album, and lands a full decade after their debut EP – or as they put it, they ‘exhaled a cloud of riffs over the doom metal scene with their debut EP, Stoned to Death… [and] since then, they’ve consistently delivered a steady dose of sludgy, groove-laden stoner doom potent enough to make Beelzebub himself bang his horns.’

For this outing, they promise ‘a reinvention of their signature sludge ‘n’ roll style of doom. Equal parts unrelenting and crushing, yet infused with heavy blues-inspired riffage, this new chapter sees Weed Demon expanding their sonic horizons like never before… Expect doom, gloom, sludge, thrash, death, blues, and even a dash of dungeon synth for good measure.’

That this is an album which contains just five tracks (six if you get the vinyl, which features a cover of Frank Zappa’s ‘Willy the Pimp’) is a fair indication of its form and the duration of said tracks: apart from a couple of interlude-pieces, they’re all six-plus minute sprawlers, with the colossal ‘Coma Dose’ spreading out over more than nine and a half minutes.

And so it is that after the slightly pretentious and proggy-sounding synth-led instrumental intro that is the woozy, wibbly, ‘Acid Dungeon’, they’re thundering in with the rifftastic ‘Tower of Smoke’. It’s a quintessential stoner-doom effort, a mid-paced slab of thick, distorted riffage with a strong Sabbath via Melvins vibe to it. It’s big on excess – of course it is. It simply wouldn’t work without the widdly flourishes that spin their way up from the dense, grainy overdrive that just keeps on ploughing away. And it keeps going on – and on. As it should, of course. It simply wouldn’t be befitting to batter a leaden riff for three or four minutes – you can’t mong out to that.

‘Coma Dose’ starts out gently with some desert rock twangs and a shuffling beat that’s almost a dance on the beach kind of groove, and there are – finally – some drawling vocals low in the mix. A couple of minutes in, of course, the riff lands, and the vocals switch from spacey prog to growly metal, and just like that, things get dark and they get heavy. But for all the weight, there’s still a floaty trippiness about it, a softer, mellowed-out edge: it’s heavy, but it’s not harsh, or by any means aggressive. There are some flamboyant drum fills and a super-gritty bass break over the song’s protracted duration, and at times, it sounds as if the batteries are starting to run low as it slows to a thick, treacly crawl and Jordan Holland’s vocals sound as if he’s being garrotted – and again, this is all on point.

There are elements of hardcore to the shouted vocals and pummelling power of ‘Roasting the Sacred Bones’, while ‘Dead Planet Blues’ brings a quite delicate blues-rock twist and even a hint of Alice in Chains circa Jar of Flies.

Rather than push hard at the parameters of the genre, Weed Demon nudge at the edges in all directions, and this works in their favour. There’s plenty here to keep diehard fans of all things sludgy, stonery, and doomy content without straying into territories that don’t sit well, but then there’s enough to make it different and interesting.

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Toru – Velours Dévorant

Posted: 13 January 2025 in Albums, Reviews
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Cruel Nature Records – 14th January 2025

Christopher Nosnibor

Released on various formats by various labels in different countries, the latest offering from genre-blasting French instrumental trio Toru is being released on cassette (and download) by Northumberland’s Cruel Nature in an edition of 65. Following on from 2020’s eponymous debut and a split release with Teufelskeller, which saw Toru join forces with CR3C3LL3, this time around, they’re different again, and having been featured as album of the day at Bandcamp Central just the other day, the signs are that Velours Dévorant could see them significantly expand their fanbase – and deservedly so.

Velours Dévorant featires five V-themed tracks defined by some riotous riffmongering and big, dirty, overdriven guitar noise with tempo shifts galore. Blasting in with ‘VHS’, it’s a manic ride through waves of tempestuous, bludgeoning racket from the very start. Trilling feedback fulfils the duty of a lead guitar line, while a shuddering, ribcage-rattling bass tears its way out from the chaos atop some heavy, but highly skilled jazz-inspired drumming.

Some will likely describe their sonic blitzkrieg as ‘experimental’, but that’s something of a misrepresentation, in that it suggests a lack of coherence, a haphazard and unplanned approach. The sudden stops and starts, the moments where a chord hangs, suspended in the air for just the briefest moment before the fractionally-delayed snare smash or cymbal crash, where the three of them simultaneously draw breath in just a split second… those microcosmic moments require remarkable precision – unquestionably, intuition is key, but rehearsal too. The skill is to make it sound haphazard, unpredictable, to keep the listener on the edge of their seat, buttocks clenched, while having it all worked out. Every composition contains moments which feel like the sonic equivalent of watching trapeze artists, where you tense and momentarily stop breathing as they fly through the air, seemingly in slow-motion, tense in case they fail to grab on: will they keep it together, or will everything collapse into a mess of sludge like a sewer rupturing and spewing a fountain of slurry?

These are long tracks – the shortest is over five and a half minutes – with infinite twists and turns. The skewed, surging jazz-grunge of ‘Voiles’ – a whopping eleven and a half minutes in duration – is representative, and encapsulates the essence of the album. The guitars squall and screed in a showcase of noise-rock par excellence, while the bass lurches and snarls, grooves and grinds, and the percussion is simply wild. It’s like listening an instrumental version of every track by the Jesus Lizard all at once. There’s a low-impact, atmospheric mid-section that rolls and rumbles, yawns and splashes… lazily would e the wrong word, but it takes its time, with bent guitar chords twanging like elastic bands, while the sparse percussion meanders seemingly without aim. But then it all reshapes and takes form once more, building, building, and then exploding so hard as to detonate so hard as to blow your eyeballs out of their sockets. Fuck, when these guys hit the pedals, they really do go all out.

I’ve heard a plethora of zany noise-rock acts, and have loved many – most of whom are so obscure that to reference them or draw comparisons would be the most pointless exercise imaginable: ‘hey, wow, this band I’ve not heard of sound like a bunch of other bands I’ve never heard of, that’s informative!’.

On Velours Dévorant, Toru take the tropes of post-rock, with its protracted delicate segments and slow-building atmosphere, and incorporate them within a noise-rock setting, with the result being epic tunes with some incredibly graceful, and ultimately poignant expanses, pressed tight against some of the most explosive overloading, overdriven abrasion going. And then, of course, there are the jazz elements: ‘Volutes’ is the apex of jazz/grunge hybridization, and it works so well. Not sold on Nirvana meets The Necks? Trust me.

The fourteen-minute title track is… special. It is, in many respects, the evolution of post-rock circa 2004. Chiming guitars, infinite space, haunting atmosphere. The intro is magnificent, beautiful. Her Name is Calla’s sprawling ‘Condor and River’ comes to mind. That use of space, that simmering tension, that sense of something growing which is more than… well, it’ s simply more. There are things hidden. When the riffing lets rip, holy shit, does the riffing let rip, fully shredding blasts of distortion tear through with obliterating force. The track feels like an album in its own right.

It seems like a while since I’ve felt compelled to describe an album as ‘epic’ – but this… this is next-level epic.

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Karobela – Afterthought

Posted: 6 January 2025 in Reviews, Singles and EPs
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20th December 2024

Christopher Nosnibor

Here we are on the cusp of the second week of January and still mopping up releases from December. And that’s ok. I don’t get why everyone is so hung up on the end of year / new year thing anyway, and I certainly don’t get why so many end of year lists are published in November. It made sense when we were tied to print media, and monthly magazines went to print a good month in advance, meaning the December editions were being written in October to hit the shelves at the end of November, but in the age of the Internet? Nah. And the sheer volume of music being releases means that things often have a slower diffusion, in contrast to the 80s and 90s when people raced to buy 7” and CD singles on the week of release after a big advance push which was essential for that chart placing, which meant Radio 1 Top 40 airplay on a Sunday afternoon and the possibility of being on Top of the Pops.

So, my somewhat belated coverage of this new single by Kent-based alternative act Karobela is anything but an afterthought. Boom.

The song is, they say, ‘a kick back, in your face retaliation to everyone who thought they could just kick you to the curb’. Many of us have been there: left out forgotten, excluded – not necessarily by design, but because ‘oops’. Well, you can tag along if you like, why don’t you? Out of sight, out of mind as the phrase goes.

The band have clearly put plenty of thought into this tune that’s structured around a low-slung bass groove and builds to climactic, impassioned choruses. It does teeter perilously close to classic rock / indie funk in places, but the energy and raw sincerity carry it through, and they sound like a band who will really grab certain demographics in a live setting, while the relatable content of ‘Afterthought’ is also likely to be a winner.

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Karobela Promo1Karobela Artwork

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