Since I was first introduced to Salvation Jayne, back in 2017, I’ve admired their energy, their punchy, punky rock tunes (unashamedly not ‘alt’ and straight-up kicking arse). But what happens when a band loses a pivotal member, particularly under rather messy circumstances? It’s nothing new, of course: Fleetwood Mac’s career after Peter Green was both longer and more commercially successful, and the same is true Pink Floyd after Syd Barrett’s departure and post-Gabriel Genesis. Roxy Music lost Brian Eno early on, and Marillion enjoyed a lengthy career post-Fish… and so on, from Iron Maiden to, er, Queen. Arguably, some of these lineup shifts have marked changes for the better. Others… maybe not so.
As far as many were concerned, myself included, Salvation Jayne was Chess Smith. Clearly, Salvation Jayne, releasing their first new music since her departure, would disagree, and they’ve forged on and are now clearly facing forwards and evolving. The arrival of Estelle Mey on vocals is swept over briefly in the band bio which announced a change in sound with the new lineup, describing it as ‘intense, dark and dynamic post-punk’.
It crunches in with warping electronics trilling over a murky bass noise that sounds like a bulldozer before slamming in with some serious force, the nagging guitar reminiscent of post-millennium Pitch Shifter and some vaguely nu-metal vibes, but still retaining the powerful pop elements which defined their sound, and it’s certainly a meatier and more aggressive sound they’re showcasing here. Contrasting shouty verses with a more melodic chorus, it’s a tried and tested structural formula, and they really work that dynamic, and it works well.
The layered vocals add unexpected depths and dimensions, and if there are moments where ‘Thirst’ feels crowded, the level of detail means there’s more to explore and it’s an adventure to unravel with subsequent plays and following the initial impact. Yes, Salvation Jayne are back, and they’ve got a big tune here.
It may just be something I muse over, but there’s a question of what level is a band’s ceiling – at what point the potential they seem to offer meets with the reality of the fanbase they actually manage to build. Weekend Recover are one of those bands who have long seemed to have hovered on the cusp of breaking through without ever quite going over the line. These things are 10% songs and quality, and 90% luck. So many great bands never reach the audience they deserve. Graft will get you do far, but it’s more about being in the right place at the right time than anything else. Weekend Recovery graft life fuck, and seem determined to make their luck.
The thing with Weekend Recovery is that, while they do have a relatively small but seriously hardcore faithful fanbase, they’ve been prone to change their sound and lineup as often as Lori changes her hair. The stylistic changes are likely consequence of the band’s inner turbulence as much as anything else, but artistically, this is a positive thing: they never stay still, never settle into a comfortable rut, and are always challenging themselves. But the downside to this is that a lot of music listeners are averse to change and like bands to give them something familiar, more of the same. Yes, they like to pigeonhole. Since female-fronted is not a genre, what are they, exactly, apart from a guitar band?
It seemed like they’d already been around forever by the time of the release of their debut album in 2018, having evolved from Katy Perry meets Paramour poppy alt-rock into an altogether grittier, rawer, trashy punk act in the process. Their signing to Criminal Records marked the next step in their reaching a wider audience, garnering more airplay and a busy live schedule found them not only playing to fuller venues, but also scoring support slots with the likes of Starcrawler. The fact they’ve already sold nine of the ten test press vinyl copies at a hundred quid a pop a week before release speaks for itself, at least in terms of their fans’ dedication. But what about building a broader base?
Stepping up venue size to headline The Corporation in their (current) hometown of Sheffield just before Christmas, followed by a sold out show at The Leadmill probably answers the question, at least in part, and having landed themselves on global playlists on Apple, Deezer and YouTube has no doubt been a factor.
Esoteric answers the question in full. It is not more of the same, not least of all with Lori’s greater use of spoken / sprechgesang passages, but does feel like less of a leap from its predecessor, at least in musical terms. That’s probably attributable largely to the fact that this has been their longest-standing lineup in memory, and the fact Dan and Callum make for an outstandingly solid rhythm section. Having a secure home on Criminal Records no doubt also helps. That doesn’t mean that Esoteric is a ‘safe’ record, a blanket and slippers affair, but it’s the sound of a band who have finally found some stability and have been able to concentrate on the job of writing and recording songs instead of juggling a load of distracting peripheral shit like ‘crap, we need to find a bassist’.
There are things I’m unsure of here: the album’s title being a leading one. Meaning ‘obscure’, and commonly referring to specialist, even secret, knowledge only understood by a few, what are they saying here? It’s a title I’d likely associate with some mystical drone or doom band rather than an uptempo rock trio. Is there something subliminal hidden in the lyrics or in the album’s very grooves? I don’t get any great sense of any of this from songs like ‘In the Crowd’, with lines like ‘We’re going in the crowd / it’s getting very loud’. It’s one of those songs that while it may – does – work live with some crowd buzz and energy to drive it along, recorded and out of context, it just sounds rather lame, not to mention pretty daft. It’s an affliction that troubles any bands when they reach a certain status, namely the point at which band life detaches them from real life, and so band life becomes the subject of the songs, with the effect being that in an instant, they stop speaking to and for us, and instead for themselves only. And when a band who articulated what you felt stop doing that, you’re left bereft. And then there all of the woo-hoo choruses and line-fillers. It’s something I see and hear increasingly, so perhaps that’s an aspect of contemporary songwriting I’m not down with, and an indication that Weekend Recovery are bang on the zeitgeist. Perhaps that’s why they’re getting more radio play.
Esoteric balances the grungy, guitar-driven style with the slick, radio-friendly alt-rock of their early years, and kicks off with lead single cut ‘Chemtrails’. Again, there are questions. Growing up, I knew them as vapour trails, before learning the term ‘contrails’. And then they became a source of anxiety as a popular theme on ‘the Internets’ before Lana Del Rey solidified things with her seventh album, Chemtrails over the Country Club. But this is a song about confusion and overload: ‘the waves are slowly sending me insane’ Lori hollers over a choppy instrumental backing that straddles punk and new wave. What to believe in? Who to believe? The world in which we find ourselves is enough to drive anyone insane, and insanity is the only sane response to an insane world.
The production is definitely their smoothest yet, and it’s very clear: the guitar is dense, but it’s backed off and is very much mid-rangey and there’s a lot less bitey distortion, and this is evidenced in the rerecorded version of ‘No Guts All the Glory’. This is, without doubt, the song that will likely be their anthem: it’s catchy, it’s ballsy, it’s tight, you can sing along and mosh to it, and it’s got broad relatability. But then there’s no shortage of meaty tunes along the way: ‘Dangerous’ brings urgent post-punk of an early 80s vintage with hints of Siouxsie and the Banshees to the party, while ‘I Don’t Like You Anyway’ pairs a low-slung bass and pummelling drum with some sinewy guitars and a stomping chorus, and there’s an offhand sneer to the verse that’s next-level nonchalance. Then there’s ‘The Knife’ which is one of those anthems of hurt that people can relate to and invest in, and if ‘Her’ is, on the face of it, a folksy ballad, it’s a fair bit more than that if you tune into the lyrics.
And perhaps this, this is the secret wisdom: the secret to unlocking the potential that’s been there all along. The songs on Esoteric feel more evolved, more fully formed, and the switches between melodic hooks and bursts of anger and energy give them an exciting dynamic. For all of the poppiness, there’s some real darkness, and some weight, too. The songwriting across the set is more consistent, too, and when bolstered by the production, it all seems to have really come together here.
Prague-based gothic rock band, Cathedral In Flames presents their new single, ‘Release The Pain’ – a hypnotic ballad about coping with pain and death. Gatsby’s throbbing bass and Ambra’s angelic vocals complement Phil’s vocals about the contemporary unlearning of the perception of death and pain through social media.
Vocalist, Phil Lee Fall says, “When the song was written, I was having a pretty bad time. I was taking long night walks through old Prague and I realized that all the people I meet are going to die sooner or later.”
And Gatsby adds: “’Release The Pain’ is a catharsis for our whole band. For me, there is so much emotion in this song that if it doesn’t knock you on your back, nothing will.”
A narrative music video was also created for the track, showing the band in the abandoned magical corners of Rudolphine’s Prague combined with the mystical hills above the contemporary city. Both sceneries are connected in the image and lyrics of the number 9 in various forms. 9 is the number of fulfilment, closure and completion. It also symbolizes the coming of age and the connection between dimensions and worlds on all levels.
You know you’re onto something when you get banned from a platform, and so it is that the promo for ‘Heavy Heart’ got canned from VIMEO, usually one of the more forgiving platforms, and you have you ask ‘why?’ It features clips of various failed British Prime Ministers – notably Theresa May’s infamous grooves and various right-wing twats like Farage and Fox and Yaxley-Lennon (Tommy Robinson my arse), pontificating and being pelted with milkshake: nothing untoward, just news footage. So what’s the issue? Perhaps the platform took issue with the featuring of the visage of that out-and-out fash Suella Braverman. But more likely it was starving families juxtaposed with Churchill, toting a machine gun while smoking a cigar, because fuck me, that exposé of the dark side of British politics is hard to swallow for some. No-one wants to contemplate the possibility that Churchill was a twat – an aristocratic political defector and an imperialist – which makes Johnson’s idolisation make deeper sense.
Nishant Joshi’s words which accompany this release are a grim indictment on ‘Great’ Britain in 2023 – the nation which chose to leave the EU (albeit by a slim margin, and that’s something that can’t be stressed enough) on the basis of an ‘advisory’ referendum in 2016. Because ‘the will of the people’? Half the country didn’t even bother to vote because it was a non-issue for them, and only a slender majority of those who did made it happen. But it’s that slender majority who were the most vocal.
He says ‘I was faced with racial slurs when I was younger, but nobody has uttered a racial epithet to my face for many years. But, I know the racists who existed in the 90s are still alive and well. They didn’t die out all of a sudden, and neither did their ideas. So, the point of this song is that everyone acknowledges that racists exist. But nobody will ever admit to being racist – so where did they all go? My answer is that they all wear disguises: as politicians, right-wing journalists, and talking heads for shady think-tanks. The brazen racism has retreated into the shadows, and subtle racism has taken over.’
Will Self said it best when he said ‘Not all Brexiters are racists, but almost all racists will be voting for Brexit’. And that sad fact is, we live in not only a divided society, but, post-Brexit, a more overtly racist society. The referendum outcome has emboldened people to espouse their racist views, with racially-motivated attacks not just affecting blacks and Asians, but also Eastern Europeanss, notably Poles, etc.
Fuck’s sake. We’re a mess. Who do we think has been picking out strawberries and delivering our coffee in Starbucks and Costa thee last decade? The people shunting stacked-up trolleys for click and collect and home deliveries from the supermarket? Large fries?
In Britain, capitalism itself is institutionally racist in a century-long hangover from the empire.
‘Heavy Heart’ kicks straight in with a buzzing, fuzzing, gritty bass and kicking drums that yell urgency. And yes, this is urgent, and it and locks into a throbbing groove that really grabs you hard, a magnificently poised dance / punk hybrid. Just as punk gave voice to a generation frustrated and marginalised, so, sadly, what goes around comes around, and once again, it’s music which is a powerful medium for channelling that frustration. We need change, and it’s voices like Joshi’s which give us hope. And in the meantime, Kill, The Icon! give us a unifying energy, and exhilarating tunes.
Birmingham quintet TNL VZN describe themselves as ‘the product when the aggression of 90’s alternative rock and grunge collides with melancholy and angst of 2000’s Emo.’ Certainly, what goes around comes around, and there does, almost invariably tend to be a twenty-to-thirty year cycle in music. It’s interesting to witness, not least of all because it seems less the case that the new generation rebels against the music of the one before, but instead recycles and recreates it. Formed in 2021, TNL VZN are dipping into the music from around the time they were being born, the music of their parents – but with heartfelt lyrics that speak to their own generation.
‘Night Terror’ builds from a simple verse that combines aching minor chords with a half-sung, half-mumbled vocal that feels remarkably intimate and soulful, before breaking onto a beefy riff-driven chorus and instant hook.
Their touchstones are Gilt, Paramore, Halestorm and The Pretty Reckless. I have to admit that while I’m not mad keen on the first three, I do have something of an appreciation for The Pretty Reckless, and would say that this is very much on a par, with some solid songwriting, a strong delivery and a tangible emotional quality that gives it that vital edge. When they say they’ll soon be ready to conquer the world, it’s hard to disagree.
Philadelphia rockers Soraia have dropped a music video for "Jokers, Thieves and Liars" off their recent LP ‘Bloom.’
Check out the video here:
Filmed December 10, 2022, at Kung Fu Necktie in Philadelphia, PA.
"’Jokers, Thieves, and Liars’ is the kickoff track to our newest album, "Bloom" (October 2022). It’s about all the personalities I encountered when I was falling in love with one guy, in particular. And about getting caught up in playing the game back," says front woman ZouZou Mansour.
The band will kick off their ‘Bloom’ Spring Tour on March 9th in Wayne, PA. The trek runs through May 6th, and features support from special guests The Idiot Kids.
What we all need is a jolt, a shock. Right NOW. You may not even realise it, but consider this: while life and the world seems to be swirling in a vortex of addling bewilderment, a lot of music seems to have become incredibly safe, a retreat. I’m not even talking about that slick, mass-produced mainstream fodder: even so-called ‘alternative’ rock has become increasingly safe in recent years, in the post-emo, post Foos world. And while a few acts on the peripheries are smashing all genre conventions with sledgehammers, they’re pretty niche, and what the world needs is something that can really get into the mix and shake things up. Has anything turned the world even halfway on its head singe grunge?
I’m aware that even reminiscing about grunge places my voice in a time capsule and in the ‘old bugger’ demographic for many, but has anything really been even remotely as evolutionary since? Has there ever been a seismic event since? We talk – or talked – about the zeitgeist, but what is the zeitgeist at the flaccid tail-end of 2022? Disaffection, discontent, strikes? Maybe, but what’s the soundtrack? Ed Sheeran and the new Adele album sure as hell aren’t the voice of disaffected youth.
Brighton’s ‘rising alt-rock rebels’ Fighting Colours might not be the face of the revolution, but they are the band to deliver that much-needed shakeup.
The vibe around the opening of the first of the EP’s four tracks, ‘Your Choice Now’ is a bit post-rock, with a nice, clean, chiming guitar sound – but it yields to some beefy riffage that’s pure grunge, it’s clear from the outset that they’re keen to mix things up and create their own blend, and it’s one that works well. And then Jasmine Ardley’s vocals enter the mix, and with this kind of chunky alt-rock being so male-orientated, to hear a female voice is unusual – and while Ardley has a clean vocal sound, it’s not unduly poppy.
‘The Boat Starts to Shake’ shuffled closer towards the jazzier, noodling end of the post-rock sound that was ubiquitous circa 2004, but the mathy verses contrast with massive slugging grunged-out choruses and a climax that’s nearly nu-metal and beings some hefty noise.
‘The Cure’ is different again, venturing into almost urban territory, while still anchored in jazzy math rock elements, before rupturing into a bold chorus that’s in between Evanescence and Halestorm, both gutsy and melodic and with an ‘epic’ feel, and it’s delivered with style.
The final cut of the EP plays the slower, emotion-filled arena anthem card, but still has more than enough guts and a keen melody, not least of all thanks to Jasmine’s voice, to separate it from the countless Paramore-wannabe alt rock acts out there.
It all stacks up for a strong set with a lot of bold and exhilarating rock action. It’s the kick up the arse alt-rock needs.
Ever spend time scratching your head wondering what a song or band remind you of, and drawing eternal blanks? Yeah, I get it a lot: I put it down to exposure. Too much music to process.
This is by no means my first introduction to Arcade Fortress: we’ve featured three of their previous singles here on these pages, and I personally described ‘Sabotage’ as ‘a fully-realised anthemic beast of a tune’. And I stand by that, too.
Younique the album finds them powering into the title track by way of an opener, there are samples seeping from the corners as they thrust away at a punk / rock / pop hybrid sound with incendiary energy.
Younique may not be unique by any stretch, but then nor is it derivative, and my ponderance for comparisons is a frustrating distraction but simply a habit of mine. I can’t help but try to place references, lifts, nods. It’s perhaps because there’s so much going on and Younique is such a melting pot of all things from 90s grunge to post-millennial punk-pop that placing any of it specifically is nigh on impossible, and as a result, what you’re faced with is the vibe, and it’s deep retro.
They encourage us, the listener, to sit back, relax and enjoy a rollercoaster of a ride over 12 anthemic rock tracks, but it’s not as easy as all that. The slow-burning Sabotage’ sits four tracks in and there’s no questioning its anthemic enormity, and I can’t help but think of a grungier take on the sound of Depeche Mode circa Ultra, perhaps, when they were grittier and more guitar-driven.
But there’s a lot happening here. It’s not all absolutely killer: ‘Alan Bell’ gets a bit emo and lightweight, and elsewhere, and ‘Killing Time’ sits between Weezer and 80s hair rock, while ‘Tangible’ throws an area-friendly curveball. In contrast, the driving ‘Uppercut’ is more reminiscent of Therapy? circa Troublegum and its tense, taut, and totally kicks arse, as does the riff-driven ‘Strontium Dog’. ‘Dark Seeds’ is more of a punky / hard rock crossover.
It’s not always easy to make a casting vote, and it’s not always fair to get off the fence when it comes to weighing up maters of opinion and taste. Ultimately, Younique finds Arcade Fortress packing some solid tunes, and that’s hard to argue, regardless of taste.
To coincide with the release of their debut album Fiesta, Leatherette have shared their latest single ‘Thin Ice’, a turmoiled love song about taking risks. They explain: “Musically, it’s a nervous mid-tempo post-punk-ska orchestral tune, sort of Talking Heads-esque. Lyrically, it is quite representative of our approach, both as people and as a band. An approach that can be summed up by the famous Winston Churchill’s quote: ‘If you’re going through hell, keep going’. We learnt, as musicians and young adults, that things tend not to work properly way more often than they do. But it’s not a big deal, It’s actually what makes life, love and art so special”.
We loved previous single ‘Sunbathing’ so much we even made the press release for this one. Look at those quotes! They’re all on the money, too.
It’s simply impossible to keep up with everything all the time. It feels like a recurrent theme, and even something of a mantra: so many bands, so little time.
Over the course of eighteen years, The Black Angels have cemented their position as, as their bio puts it, ‘standard-bearers for modern psych-rock’. And that’s not hyperbole: it’s a fair assessment.
2010’s Phosphene Dream was a major let-down, particularly in the wake of two such stunning predecessors, with Passover and Directions to See a Ghost. Consequently, feeling disillusioned, both Indigo Meadow and Death Song bypassed me, but Wilderness of Mirrors landed in my inbox with the promise of a return to early form after a five-year gap – or, as they put it, ‘marks a triumphant return with their foot on the pedal. Political tumult, the pandemic and the ongoing devastation of the environment have provided ample fodder for their signature sound and fierce lyrical commentary’.
For Wilderness of Mirrors, the band worked with Brett Orrison (co-producer) and Dinosaur Jr engineer John Agnello ‘to achieve something fresh and new while retaining their heavily influential classic sound’.
Wilderness of Mirrors is epic and feels like it needs to be a double album simply because it has such weight and important in a way that’s hard to really define. It’s not sprawling and awkwardly indulgent: yes, it does contain fifteen songs, but less than half extend beyond four minutes. But it’s an album of density.
Opener ‘Without a Trace’ starts out tentative-sounding distant before the bass crashes in like a landslide and in an instant, the listener is sucked into a dense sonic whirl. It’s the gritty bass that also dominates the pulverising ‘History of the Future’ that lands somewhere between Ther Jesus and Mary Chain and Ride, with some blistering guitar that’s a wall of fuzzing, fizzing treble against a busy beat and a bass that buzzes so hard it practically cuts the top off your head. And just like that, you’re back to remembering why this band mattered in the first place. Everything is a murky swamp of reverb, a deep 60s vibe radiating through the 80s and 90s filter.
I’ve long noted how the Jesus and Mary Chain essentially played surf pop with feedback and distortion, and ‘Empires Falling’ follows this approach magnificently, and with its relentless rhythm section and squalling guitars, it bears strong and obvious parallels with A Place to Bury Strangers.
It’s best played at high volume, of course: this is guitar music to melt the brain, and if songs like ‘El Jardn’ and the acoustic ‘Here & Now’ are more accessible, melodic and overtly indie, they offer some much-needed respite, while still boasting some howling guitars. There’s a vaguely gothic hue to the sneaking guitars and dubby grooves of ‘Make it Known’ and the slower ‘The River’, and it works well in contributing to the album’s rich and varied atmosphere and contrast with the jittery tension of the title track.
Ultimately, the best thing about Wilderness of Mirrors is that is sounds like The Black Angels – quintessentially, unmistakeably, with its motorik grooves, simple, repetitive riffs and song strictures that define the chorus not by a significant shift in key or chords, but by the explosion of sound, the simple structures executed with rare panache. They’re definitely on form here.
Aural Aggravation 