Posts Tagged ‘Single Review’

SmutClub Ldn – Limp Bizkoff

Posted: 6 October 2026 in Reviews, Singles and EPs
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18th September 2026

Laaandaaan! Init? Heart of rock ‘n’ roll shizz… well, perhaps when Britpop was all the rage, but the new generation is seemingly more likely to turn up and sweep your doorstep with a dustpan and brush than to puke on it while staggering home from a club at 2:30am. There are good reasons for this: they may well be pissed off with the state of everything, because everything’s shit, just as it was in the 90s and 00s when grunge and nu-metal were all the rage – and rage is indeed the word – but they’ve been told repeatedly to quit the lattes and smashed avocado toasts if they want to get on the property ladder. It’s pretty rich advice from people who could spend Friday night down the pub and go on holiday (without feeling guilty over contributing to climate change) and still buy a house for just four times their salary. Put another way, the grunge and nu-metal revivals have been driven by the same shit conditions which inspired nihilistic anger thirty and forty years ago, only now the conditions are actually shitter.

In the face of that, what do you do? How do you even keep going on a day-to-day basis? Wages aren’t keeping up with inflation, and everything just gets shitter by the day. But do SmutClub Ldn want to break stuff? Maybe, but for this single release, SmutClub Ldn go light: as we learn, ‘Limp Bizkoff is all about appreciating time with your friends, while playfully “begrudging” duties like having to clean up the mess. The climax of the song encapsulates the joy of a good tea and snacks gathering with your loved ones around you’. I mean, Biscoff is in itself pretty middle class, but then so is owning musical instruments these days, and, I dunno, having the heating on or affording new clothes.

‘Limp Bizkoff’ is pretty heavy, sonically., with three minutes chunky, chugging, nu-metal grind. The chords hit like slabs of concrete, the churn in harsh and heavy, there are discordant notes and sinewy chimes from the spindly guitar. Lyrically, it’s altogether lighter, providing an unusual juxtaposition. Good clean fun, yes, but… first world issues for sure. And not only is dunking biscuits grim, it leaves a crumb sludge in the mug, which is even grimmer.

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Smutclub Ldn Promo image

The Pixel Rain – Glitching Sky

Posted: 2 October 2026 in Reviews, Singles and EPs
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2nd October 2026

Christopher Nosnibor

Is Bandcamp Friday the new Record Store Day? Hardly. For a start, it’s the artists who get paid on Bandcamp Fridays, with 100% of royalties from sales going to said artists, rather quite literally everyone other than the major labels which hijacked Record Store Day some years ago getting fleeced. And there’s no queuing round the block from 7am to have a hope of bagging an overpriced reissue, only to find some bugger’s got in there first and whacked it on eBay at double the price before you even make it home again. But Bandcamp Fridays have become a bit of an overwhelming event: with so much new music being released on Bandcamp Fridays now – and you really can’t blame artists for choosing to release their latest material to coincide with these days – but the risk is that releases can get lost in the blizzard of emails and hype on social media.

The release of The Pixel Rain’s ‘Glitching Sky’ is one that shouldn’t pass without mention or be one of those which gets buried by the noise. It’s the final single to be released from their forthcoming debut album, A Sense of Danger, due at the end of the month, and provides the title track for a four-track EP which features the previous three singles.

The musical vehicle of London-based Áron Siegler, The Pixel Rain, who’s ‘Last’ grabbed me in June, fuse industrial rock, post punk, synth-pop, and electro. And since TPR’s inception in 2023, he’s been keeping pretty busy, with a steady stream of single and EP releases.

As we learn from the accompanying notes, ‘At the centre of the song is a character retreating from an unfulfilling reality into a virtual world where they can construct a more powerful version of themselves. For Siegler, however, the idea extends beyond any particular technology or online space, reflecting more broadly on the increasingly commonplace ways people seek distraction and escape from anxiety, disappointment and everyday life.’

Seigler says, ‘The idea came from thinking about someone whose real life isn’t giving them very much, so they retreat into a virtual world where they can be whoever they want to be. There’s something quite sad about that, but also something a little ridiculous, so I wanted the story to have both sides to it.’

On the one hand, I agree: the fact we see new stories every day about people with AI girlfriends or boyfriends, or who say their AI companion is their best friend, or who use an AI therapist isn’t just ridiculous, but also plain weird, and speaks volumes about the world we live in right now. People crave human contact, but, unable to handle it, and / or unable make connections, retreat into virtual worlds. On the other hand, I was hanging out in chatrooms around the turn of the millennium when it truly felt like a new world. I – without any intent – met my future wife in a chatroom, before dating sites had even been conceived, and, later, MySpace would prove to be one of the most liberating and escapist alternative worlds, where you truly could be another you, and the connections I made there, through shared interests, led to some of the most incredible creative collaborations. But then the Internet got hijacked by capitalism and corporations and advertising and essentially turned to shit around 2010. Bastards.

Whereas ‘Last’ put the guitars up in the mix, ‘Glitching Sky’ sits in the bracket of upbeat electronica, and while the lyrics are ambivalent, framing as they do both sides of the story, the vibe is more euphoric dance. It’s somewhat unexpected, but is well done, and sits nicely in the context of the EP as a whole, with the downtempo ‘A Sense of Danger’ bringing a starker, more coldwave aspect, with some soaring guitar detail creating a gripping dynamic with the crisp electronic drum sound.

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‘Sacrifice’ sits between Depeche Mode and turn-of-the-millennium electrogoth, while the EP’s last track is, fittingly, ‘Last’. And it’s an anthem. Fact. One thing that’s clear from this EP is that The Pixel Rain appreciate the importance of the ordering of the songs on a release. Having the songs is priority number one, but the order in which they appear. I worry this is a dying art in the age of streaming and skipping after fifteen seconds, but it does matter for those of us who od still listen to EPs and albums properly. And Glitching Sky is an EP which deserves to be listened to properly.

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The Pixel Rain (Áron Siegler) by Evelina Klimova (Landscape 01) web

Photo by Evelina Klimova

LiVES – Burn

Posted: 29 September 2026 in Reviews, Singles and EPs
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Sister 9 Records – 25th September 2026

The Ed Shearan / Micklemore furore brought the debate about politics in music not only to a wider audience, but became headline news in all of the mainstream news media. The way it exploded was remarkable, and unusual in that it’s rare for anything concerning the arts to make more than a filler, unless it’s some glitzy red-carpet awards ceremony, where the coverage tends to be less about the arts than celebrities. This, however, was all over The BBC and Sky. Sheeran’s career strategy of making musical wallpaper, equally reliant on his personality being the equivalent of wallpaper paste, suddenly became problematic: the issue being that his ‘neutrality’ was, by default, significant of taking a side. The wrong one.

The debate has been simmering for a good few months, particularly in the US, with musicians tacitly showing support for Trump by performing at his events, or berating the likes of Bruce Springsteen for speaking at their concerts against the Trump regime, saying artists should keep politics out of music. They clearly haven’t been paying attention to The Boss’ lyrics, and have failed to grasp just how much of the music of the 60s was protest music. And what did people think Rage Against the Machine were about? Music has long provided a vital platform for political protest, and it’s a unifying force. In troubled and troubling times, it’s easy to feel isolated, distanced from society, particularly in the face of systemic oppression. To discover music which articulates your feelings is life-affirming and empowering.

LiVES are unashamedly political. I’ve been following them since they crashed their way onto the scene a couple of years ago with ‘Cancelled’ and ‘Let Them Eat Cake’, their debut album a defiant statement of angry intent. ‘Burn’ is the lead single from their upcoming second album, Ghosts, which is set for a January release. Appropriately enough, ‘Burn’ is pretty fiery They describe it as ‘heavy, dark and lyrically uncompromising,’ adding that ‘The anger hasn’t gone anywhere. It’s just been sharpened.’ It’s hard to argue.

First, that bass. Woah. It hits like a punch to the stomach, and feels like you’re standing in the room, directly in front of the amp. It’s low, dense, and menacing. The drums count in a slow build and then… BAM! Choppy guitar and vocals arrive simultaneously. ‘Come and see the villages BURN!” Peter Chisholm hollers by way of an attention-grabbing first line.

And then the tirade kicks off, and it’s clear who it’s directed at:

That man is a lunatic

It’s a game of invest and return

Guaranteed to make him rich

That man isn’t “a man” baby

That man is a demon

Pulling no punches. Telling it straight. But they’re only just warming up here as they rip into the capitalist greed which is destroying the planet, destroying our society, and, ultimately destroying our lives. Yes, all of our lives. Line by line, LiVES call it and spell it out here:

There ain’t no question of shame

(in the) Collateral damages game

The governments have subsidised

Mass murder is monetised

Every word of it is true. The truth is uncomfortable. Western governments – some in particular, and some individuals in particular – are raking in millions and more from war and manufactured market chaos. They don’t give a shit about the death toll. They don’t give a shit about anything other than their own enrichment. They’re coining it in, hand over fist, as the bodies pile up. It’s not just Trump… the elites have only one interest, and that’s self-interest.

As for the delivery… LiVES aren’t easy to pigeonhole. They have the high-octane force of The Screaming Blue Messiahs and the steely solidity and relentlessness of Unsane, only less brutal. And for all of this, they manage to pack in a hooky chorus. With ‘Burn’, they bring the perfect encapsulation of what LiVES stand for. And I, for one, stand with them.

AA

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Dragged Up – Rapunzel

Posted: 13 August 2026 in Reviews, Singles and EPs
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Label Obscura (Canada) / Warped Tracks (Scotland) – 5th August 2026

Christopher Nosnibor

A couple of months ago (I’m putting it down to the successive heatwaves that the time seems to have simply evaporated this year), Dragged Up stopped off in York (on their way to Newcastle from Middlesbrough) to squeeze in a special set opening day two of a mini-festival. During their performance, we got a preview of what was then touted as being a future single in the form of ‘Rapunzel’.

And now, the world gets to hear the studio version, in all its five-minute glory, complete with some bold sax. While the accompanying video (a two-minute cut), courtesy of the band’s own Eva Gnatiuk (guitar and vocals) features a succession of folks dropping classic and influential albums and books like they’re nothing (I was particularly pained to see a copy of the Red Star issue of Suicide’s first album getting tossed, even though the cover looked a bit battered, rather less fussed about a Faces album getting the treatment, and wait! That’s Stuart Lee emerging from behind an Earl Scruggs LP!)

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Where was I? Oh yes. The music. ‘Rapunzel’ is a garage, punky romp of a tune, and the sax lends it a very (early) Psychedelic Furs / X-Ray Spex vibe (Germ-Free Adolescents also appears in the video). It may reference hair washing, but it’s bursting with lyrical tangents, and couldn’t be much further from the songs from Disney’s Tangled (a movie I’ve seen far too many time, on account of having celebration a daughter who was exactly the right age for Frozen and stuff when it was all the rage). But this ‘Rapunzel’ keeps on springing surprises: the ‘Dark Entries’ section that featured live remains intact around the three minute mark, and if the video seems to say ‘meh’ to influence, the music itself says otherwise, feeling like a n effervescent celebration of those predecessors, rather than a trashing. Regardless, the result is an uptempo, exuberant, scuzzy blast that’s bursting with energy and attitude. And it’s great.

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Smutclub Ldn–Elephant

Posted: 3 August 2026 in Reviews, Singles and EPs
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31st July 2026

Christopher Nosnibor

We really do seem to be experiencing a Nu-Metal renaissance right now. And of all the genres I would have put money on sinking without trace, it’s Nu-Metal, which felt like a flash-in-the-pan fad in the late 90s. The idea of crossing rap and metal wasn’t entirely new even then. Aerosmith’s collaboration with Rum DMC may have sown the seeds, but it was most definitely a meeting of rock and rap. The collaborations which featured on the Judgement Night soundtrack in 1993, however, very much brought rap and metal together, and set the precedent for what Limp Bizkit and Linkin Park would go on to do. Helmet and House of Pain? Faith No More and Boo-Yaa T.R.I.B.E.? Slayer and Ice T? These were some fierce collisions of rap and metal. This was radical. But that was 1993 – and what a time to be alive! And now it’s 2026. Thirty-three years have elapsed. Holy shit. It’s not exactly ‘nu’ anymore. Is it? Perhaps it’s time for a rebrand. And since we’ve had Post-punk and even The New Wave of New Wave, how about Nu-Nu Metal, or ‘The Nu-Metal Revival’ or ‘The Nu-Metal Renaissance’?

But while the Nu-Metal scene of the late 90s was dominated by blokes venting versions of adolescent rage (although Fred Durst was nearing 30 when Limp Bizkit released their debut album, and there always felt like a sense of arrested development hung around the genre – older guys making records for disaffected teens), the current scene is altogether more diverse, and most significantly, we’re seeing female-fronted acts like Eville breaking through and kicking arse.

Smutclub Ldn share some common ground with Eville, as is happens, with whacked-out pop autotune colliding with skull-crunching riffs. And as such, ‘Elephant’ is a brain-melting identity crisis of a single: clocking it at precisely three minutes, it’s a mental mash-up of nu-metal, emo, and pop, all brought together and heated under compression, with explosive results.

The verse riff is a gnarly, churning beast which chugs and undulates menacingly, the chorus sounds like it belongs to a completely different song, and the breaks and bridges are something else again. How do you switch between hands-in the-air anthem and brutal slam-dancing and back again, and again, in just three minutes? ‘Elephant’ is positively schizophrenic, and love it or hate it, it’s the most inventive thing you’re likely to hear in 2026.

AA

Smutclub Ldn Promo image 1

Lumirex – Hurts

Posted: 14 June 2026 in Reviews, Singles and EPs
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28th May 2026

Christopher Nosnibor

It may only be three minutes and twenty seconds long, but this latest offering from Lumirex – an Italian musician based in Munich – has a lot happening. It’s dark and stark, with low, stealthy industrial bass tones strolling and bubbling. So far, so much standard dark electronica, the kind of stuff that’s been circulating since the late 80s when Wax Trax! created the template for all things of an electronic industrial persuasion. But with ‘Hurts’, Lumirex take that template and expand on it in the most unexpected of ways.

It begins with stealth, before building… and then something happens. That something is a magnificent vocal which soars and glides – not quite operatic, but every inch classical and the perfect contrast. Compressed and breathy, it suddenly soars skywards in a departure from this domain, while the beats flurry faster, evermore glitchy, evermore tense.

There’s a break where things clamour down to a hushed moment of breathing – a tense gasping, where the word ‘kill’ is repeated, and it feels dangerous, before, out of nowhere, a banshee scream erupts and the beats flitter in again and you find yourself in a total spin.

Sure, it incorporates myriad things you’ve heard before, so much so that it’s not only familiar, but borders on the cliché – but these are just the elements. The way Lumirex draws them together is something else, and ‘Hurts’ is nothing short of mind-blowing. It has to be heard to be believed.

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Chess Smith – I’m Dead to You (And That’s OK)

Posted: 18 May 2026 in Reviews, Singles and EPs
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22nd May 2026

Christopher Nosnibor

After last summer’s Saving Lilibet EP, Chess Smith continues her march back toward life-reclamation and self-possession with another slice of sparse yet crisp pop with intensely personal, autobiographical lyrics, in the form of ‘I’m Dead to You (And That’s OK)’.

It’s worth quoting the statement which accompanies the release, as it not only articulates the song’s meaning beyond the lyrics, but it’s an incredibly bold insight into an experience which few would be willing to articulate – and, essentially, she recognises that her experiences possesses a relatability. As I often say, within the personal lies the universal:

The single explores the very relatable fallout that occurs when relationships break down – and how women in particular often suffer the loss of friendships, support networks, and even their careers, as sides are taken, battle lines are drawn, and the people who you thought you could trust show their true colours… The people who you gave so much of yourself to, only for them to treat you like you never existed – or worse, tear you down, and drag your name through the mud.

More importantly though, I’m Dead to You is about turning these often painful realisations into positive self-affirmations – those people were never your friends… so don’t waste your energy missing something that you never truly had, and instead be happy that they’re no longer part of your life. Take away their power, take back your name, and eventually they’ll be consumed by their own toxicity… just as surely as they once tried to consume you. 

While I can in no way claim to have experienced a precisely parallel journey, the loss of my wife at the age of 44, leaving me as a single parent with a ten-year-old daughter taught me lessons I had never expected. For example, when everyone says in the first couple of weeks ‘if there’s anything you need’ or makes some comment about keeping in touch, either they’re just saying it to fill the conversational space and sense of obligation, or they mean it until after the funeral, when everything returns to normal -at least for them. Supposedly close friends evaporate, and fast.

‘Took a break to give myself time,’ she begins her story, and we know straight away that this is a straight narrative. Some of the words are lost in the rush of energy and autotune, but the sentiment is clear: she’s not going to dwell on the people who don’t bother. Life’s too short, and friendship is a two-way street. It certainly shouldn’t be the one who’s experienced a major life event who should have to reach out and beg.

It may be that those ‘friends’ go about their lives in the assumption that if the persons doesn’t ‘reach out’ that they’re ok, but that demonstrates a lack of understanding. It’s much harder to ‘reach out’ in a time of crisis than it is to check in on someone who’s in the midst of one. So what do you do? Sink or swim. It’s not easy to cast off the people you’ve ached to hear from but who seem deaf to any previous intimations of struggle. But that is the only way to stay afloat. Grow a thicker skin. Fuck ‘em.

The fact that ‘I’m Dead to You’ is delivered as a bubbly, energetic, uptempo, and really quite busy pop tune is a double-edged: on the one side, there’s possibly an element of masking the anguish of abandonment beneath a polished pop surface, but on the other, and this is the top side, it’s a sassy celebration of empowerment, of cutting loose, separating from the wheat from the chaff, and recognising who your real friends are.

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Octavian Winters – By the Stars

Posted: 13 May 2026 in Reviews, Singles and EPs
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Stratis Capta Records – 13th May 2026

Christopher Nosnibor

While gearing up for a second EP, San Francisco’s Octavian Winters give us the single ‘By the Stars’ – and while it’s quite the contrast from its predecessor, the adrenalized slice of post-punk that is ‘Elements of Air’, the distinctive key elements are still very much in evidence, not least of all the robust drumming, and the catchy shoegaze pop shades, which are keenly reminiscent of Curve.

The intro sets the tone for the song, introducing elements of light and shade, whereby a soft chiming guitar – wistful and ponderous – contrasts with a darker-sounding Cure-like chorus-soaked bass and rolling tom-led drums which arrive shortly after. Ria Aursjoen’s sweetly melodic vocals add a whole other dimension. From hereon in, the song swirls around amidst hazy atmospheres.

The song possesses a dreamy quality, and the structure is more a sequence of segments than a more conventional verse / chorus, which only accentuates the sense of the song being a journey, with a sense of flow and transition instead of feeling constrained. The effect is to lift the listener, not necessarily out of body, but momentarily out of time, and to another space, a space apart from the grounded world. And right now, when the (supposedly) grounded world is hard to deal with, these five minutes of uplifting separation are absolute bliss.

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Octavian Winters 2026 (photo by David Kruschke) 02

Photo by David Kruschke

Exit Void – Void of Escape

Posted: 7 April 2026 in Reviews, Singles and EPs
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3rd April 2026

Christopher Nosnibor

Exit Void represents the coming together of no fewer than six notable names from the Austrian scene. Some may even designate them the title of ‘supergroup’. Their bio spins it that ‘EXIT VOID functions as a spontaneous search for sound, where the distinct artistic signatures of Manfred Engelmayr (Bulbul), Katrin Euller (Rent), Alex Kranabetter (Drank), Wolfgang Lehmann (Voyage Futur), Anja Plaschg (Soap&Skin), and David Reumüller (Reflector) collide in productive friction, giving rise to music that remains open to the unpredictability of the moment.

For context, they first played together in September 2025 at Dom im Berg in Graz, and first came together to work on a soundtrack for a video installation, and we learn that ‘the ensemble combines electronic and acoustic instruments with structured compositions and open improvisational passages’.

There’s little room for experimental passages on this single release, though, with ‘Void of Escape’ clocking in at just over four minutes, and virtual flipside ‘Residual Breed’ at a minute and a half.

The former is an off-kilter and intriguing composition that builds – from a lone, mournful trumpet, subsequently joined by slow drumming which is simply immense, positively industrial… but is nothing compared with the powerful vocal performance. The lyrics themselves are sparse, but Anja Plaschg’s delivery is nothing short of devastating in its power.

Lately, I myself have struggled to articulate the thoughts circulating – or moreover frothing in a wild frenzy – about my mind. I can’t keep pace with the news. I lived through and watched – compulsively – the Falklands War, and the first Gulf War. I was a kid, and it felt exciting, especially living near an RAF base and during the Falklands I would the planes take off over the back garden, and later see them on the news. But right now is the worst and most scary shit we’ve ever seen unravel in real time on TV, streaming live 24/7, and then there’s social media… It’s hard to find the words.

On ‘Void of Escape’, Exit Void keep it simple and focused ‘War in the East… War in the West…’ Plaschg sings, with all of her lungs. And that’s it – succinct, simple, direct: there is war everywhere: the world is at war.

‘Void of Escape’ hits hard, a powerful musical experience and a statement of… of what, exactly? It feels like music for the apocalypse. It’s music of the moment.

AA

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Barren Womb / Hylko – Split Single

Posted: 20 March 2026 in Reviews, Singles and EPs
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Fucking North Pole Records / Captured Records – 20th March 2026

Christopher Nosnibor

This single is pitched as ‘a split release that pairs Norwegian noise-rock abrasion with Japanese stoner-psych experimentation, bringing together two bands that thrive on doing things their own way’.

Its arrival is times just before Barren Womb launch a live assault on the UK, which threatens some big noise. Their half of this single, ‘The Perils of Self-Improvement’, which they describe as ‘a mid-tempo stomper delivering grim news for the supposed wisdom of self-help culture’ is an offcut from the Chemical Tardigrade sessions which they withheld specifically for this release, and it sure is a beast, which works particularly well as a standalone release. It’s got grit and grind as well as melody. The verses are hefty, trudging slabs of noise where the bass rumbles and the guitar jabs and the pair – consisting of Timo Silvola (drums/vocals) and Tony Gonzalez (guitar/vocals) manage to blend elements of Melvins and the Jesus Lizard with a dash of psychedelia.

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On the flipside, Hylko really go all out on the psych, presenting a deep, dark, spinning riff which lumbers and lurches amidst a swathe of flange and reverb. And then it suddenly goes all dark and dubby, with the added bonus of sounds of water and running rivers.

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It’s a perfect split release: complimentary but most definitely contrasting, completely wild and all quality.

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