Posts Tagged ‘Single Review’

Vonamor – Take Your Heart

Posted: 16 December 2021 in Singles and EPs
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Time to Kill Records (TTK) – 15th December 2021

Christopher Nosnibor

A good slogan or manifesto can say so much more than the words in themselves. And so it is that Vonamor introduce themselves with a bold statement that hints at Dada or perhaps the more arch and ironic Neoism in a way.

Vonamor state that:

VONAMOR is music and movement. VONAMOR is real and virtual.

VONAMOR is the end and the beginning. VONAMOR is from love, of love, for love.

Vonamor are more than simply a band, then, and more an aesthetic, a single-act movement. They exist in the space between simultaneous contradictions, the likes of which have informed poetical works since the Renaissance, with Sir Thomas Wyatt’s ‘I Find No Peace’ sonnet effectively setting a blueprint for modern literature.

Postmodernism, and Neosim in particular positively revelled in those contradictions, taking the avant-garde idea of self-awareness and self-destruction as a means of creating anew, and this, on the strength of Vonamor’s statement, is their primary objective: to be everything, and therefore nothing: to exist, they must cease to exist.

How seriously to we take this? They look pretty serious to me, but that may all be part of the performance. The next, and perhaps most important question is, does the music validate the bravado and high art bombast?

‘Take Your Heart’ is a smart slice of stark, minimal electronica, dark pop with a gothy, post-punk leaning, a collision of Siousxie and Florence and the Machine that’s both spiky and groovy, five minutes of mid-tempo doom-disco with an industrial edge – I’m talking more later Depeche Mode than Nine Inch Nails. It’s daring in the adherence to the adage that less is more: it’s tight and claustrophobic, and this gives the song a particular intensity.

No question this is a low-budget effort on all fronts, but that’s a significant part of the appeal. This isn’t some major-label act masquerading as something cult and underground to score kudos and cool cachet; Vonamor are clearly a fringe act with big, bold ideas and a strong sense of identity, and ‘Take Your Heart’ is understated but strong.

AA

Vonamor

The Kecks – Lonely this Christmas

Posted: 5 December 2021 in Singles and EPs
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27th November 2021

James Wells

What what what? Could The Kecks, who we’ve been raving about all year, be about to undo all their good work with not only – gasp – a Christmas single, but a cover, and a cover of a shmaltzy Elvis tune at that? When it landed it my inbox, I covered my eyes and pretended it wasn’t there. Poking myself to play it, I was so, so tempted to cover my ears while contemplating the challenge of the extent to which one can permit a transgression from a band you rate, and what constitutes sufficient mitigating circumstances.

It being Christmas is absolutely not adequate defence. In fact, it’s the opposite.

To be clear: I don’t hate Christmas. I just hate the faux-fun, the forced festivities, the fact that everyone feels the need to go crazy social, to overspend and overindulge, the fact that a Christian festival has essentially hijacked solstice celebrations and subsequently been repurposed as a shameful capitalist cash-in.

The foursome have been sitting on this a while: it was recorded back in 2019 and remastered last year, and I’d like to think they’ve been sitting on it until it felt that the time was right and they’d built enough of a name for themselves before putting this out, which I suppose is commendable and makes career sense, but it’s still a Christmas single at the end of the day.

Credit where it’s due, the band dubbed ‘The Strokes of Hamburg’ by Consequence Of Sound have delivered a version that’s less soft-focus and smooshy than either the original or Mud’s famous and faithful cover, injecting it with some vocal passion that gives it a lift and a bit of bite – enough to bring home the grim reality that is Christmas alone , no doubt something that will hit many this year, be it by breakup, bereavement, quarantine or lockdown. Lonely and cold, and unusually dark.

AA

The Kecks artwork

Reardon Love – Purple Hearts

Posted: 13 November 2021 in Singles and EPs
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11th November 2021

Christopher Nosnibor

This time of year, we see a proliferation of poppies and pride, Help for Heroes silhouette logos and ‘lest we forget’ slogans in every direction, and perhaps I’m cynical but so much of this remembrance rings hollow. Sidestepping the debate that recent years have seen poppy pride become a platform for nasty nationalism and Brexity-division, one can’t help but wonder just how much is true remembrance and how much is social media-fuelled one-upmanship, the bigger the poppy the bigger the heart in a display of excessive virtue-signalling akin to being the loudest pan-basher in the street when clapping for the NHS during lockdown.

‘Purple Hearts’ sees Reardon Love – who’ve scored BBC Introducing track of the week – draw inspiration from a human story, specifically that of POW Horace Greasley, who found a certain fame for his claim to have escaped his camp over 200 times to meet with his lover with a chorus line of ‘The Iron Cross cannot contain me’.

I suppose then, this is a wartime tale that espouses the idea that love conquers all rather than tears us apart – and there are heavy hints of New Order and Echo and the Bunnymen about this quintessentially 80s indie-influenced tune. Atop a sturdy bass and nagging guitar line, there are some tidy melodies accentuated by appealing harmonies, making for a catchy tune with an uplifting message pulled from the wreckage of war.

Single artwork

KIN – The Runaways

Posted: 4 November 2021 in Singles and EPs
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5th November 2021

Remember, remember the fifth of November… because it’s not only BandCamp Friday, but the day KIN release their first new material in a year, following up on ‘Wander & Lost’, which found favour with us here at Aural Aggro with their fourth single that happens to also broadly coincide with their return to the live platform.

‘The Runaways’ continues the trajectory of its predecessor, dominated by careful, melodic, chorus-soaked guitars and pursues a dreamy, melodic flow. It’s very much a pop-tune, albeit a mellow, mid-paced one, with a truly immense production that calls to mind 80s Fleetwood Mac and also 80s Kate Bush, not to mention hints of Cindy Lauper’s ‘Time After Time’, while softy blending in shades of more recent acts like The XX. No, it’s not the female vocals, but the overall sound, the vibe, the feel.

It’s this sound, vibe, and feel that have a transportative quality that corresponds with the theme of the song which charts life transitions, new people, new places, and the wonder and trepidation that accompanies such changes. Even running to something feels like running away from something else as you leave your old life behind, an experience that’s at once scary and exhilarating. The song itself is simply exhilarating, the musical equivalent of throwing open the window on a glorious Spring morning, inhaling the fresh air and soaking in a perfect view while flushed with the potentials of a new day in a new life.

AA

Kin artwork

Doppelgangers – Three Steps South

Posted: 2 November 2021 in Singles and EPs
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29th October 2021

Christopher Nosnibor

It seems that everyone has a doppelganger. As someone who’s prone to wearing a hat and dark glasses, to be told I’ve been seen in places I’ve not been in a city the size of York is pretty unnerving. But there it is: life unravels by strange and unexpected means.

‘Three Steps South’ is both strange and unexpected, and presents an interesting hybrid. It’s got that nagging repetitive cyclical, sequenced electro element and a noodly synth line that bubbles away and mines a deep seam while drums and guitars crunch away…there’s something about it that reminds of Placebo’s ‘Taste in Men’ to the main riff, but then it’s a slice of swanky, swaggersome indie rock at heart. To add to the eclecticism, the mid-section goes all spacious with a reverby western desert twang.

Most surprising of all is the fact that it not only all first together and works, but that it’s a catchy bugger of a tune.

Dopplegangers_3 Steps South Artwork

(click image to play)

Moses – Mirror Magic

Posted: 24 October 2021 in Singles and EPs
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Space & I Records – 17th November 2021

Moses are clearly aiming for the stars. The band name alone, with its biblical allusions, connotes epic, a band with enough ambition to part a sea (although they’re actually named after their singer, Victor M. Moses. The four-piece act are gunning for arenas, and fair play, but what makes this release a win is that their primary focus is on the song, and on the guts, and on the meaty delivery and solid production.

It’s a chunky, psych-hued hypnotic, cyclical guitar riff that lumbers in and swaggers its way through the song’s three-and-a-half minutes. It’s got all the vintage crunch, the reverby haze, and all the fretwork. It nags away incessantly, and it’s got balls. It’s followed by a shaking, snaking bass, and the vocals are swathed in reverb to seal the retro vibe. There’s a lot of energy here, and some good vibes,

‘Mirror Magic’ has a lot going on – mostly some chunky guitars and solid drumming. It feels like a strong statement of intent, and a taste of things to come – so let’s see what happens next.

Moses Artwork

The Vaulted Skies – What If I Were The Boy?

Posted: 21 October 2021 in Singles and EPs
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5th November 2021

Christopher Nosnibor

Yes, I’m a massive fan of that post-punk sound, and am, perhaps predictably, a massive fan of Joy Division and The Cure, and perhaps less predictably, The March Violets and B Movie. And much as I love Interpol and that whole post-millennial post-punk revival with all its brooding atmospherics and often poetical lyricism, a lot of it felt, if not contrived, then measured, the production cleaner, crisper yet somehow something is lost in the process.

I suppose there’s an element of all this that leads into questions of authenticity: what we’ve come to bracket as ‘new wave’ is a strain of post-punk, and you can debate all you like whether or not goth exists, if it’s really a genre or just an aspect of post-punk. But what this really means is that post-punk / new wave was a period in time rather than a unified style. So when we describe a band as ‘post punk’ in 2021, what do we really mean? And can any contemporary post punk act be truly ‘authentic’?

The Vaulted Skies sound, and feel authentic. Perhaps it’s the band’s chemistry, perhaps it’s tracking the song live together in a room, perhaps it’s myriad factors converging and coalescing serendipitously, but the energy of ‘What If I Were The Boy?’ is stunning. Leaning toward the darker, gothier end odd the spectrum, they not only capture the sound, but also the spirit of that late 70s / early 80s period, from the reverby guitar in the opening bars, which kicks into overdrive in the chorus. The rhythm section is so beefy with a solid four-square bass groove that’s the defining feature of so many great bands of the time (The Sisters of Mercy did it first and set the blueprint forever). The rhythm guitar squirms and drives in a grating swirl of flange and the sound is simultaneously spacious and dense and they play with a passion that’s exhilarating. So many bands over the last 30 years have striven to do the same or similar, but The Vaulted Skies have absolutely nailed it, and ‘What If I Were The Boy?’ is an absolute killer.

The Vaulted Skies - Artwork

AA

Alice SK – Hidden Paradise

Posted: 9 October 2021 in Singles and EPs
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12th October 2021

James Wells

The follow-up to her debut, ‘Another Girl’s Man’, ‘Hidden Paradise’ finds Alice SK plundering a host of genres to forge something that’s breezy, undoubtedly poppy, with elements of indie, jazz, and even a hint of ska – in short, the kind of thing I’d normally not go for. But for every rule, there are necessarily exceptions: The Ruts drew heavily on dub reggae without losing sight of their punk roots; Blondie were a new wave and guitar pop in equal measure, and the fact is, pop is not a source of shame, or a cause for criticism or dismissal in itself.

‘Hidden Paradise; is nicely done: it’s got a downbeat undercurrent, but has a nice, catchy swing and some backed-off brass bolstering the breezy chorus. It has an immediacy, but, where it stands up against so much mainstream pop, it also has depth, both in terms of arrangement and lyrically, balancing the deeply personal with an uplifting delivery.

Alice is using her network to positive effect here, too: the track, which appears on her forthcoming EP Electric – scheduled for release early in 2022 – which was produced and co-written by Muca (Los Bitchos, L.A. Salami), and she’s definitely one to include in your ‘ones to watch’ list. She’s on ours.

Alice SK artwork

Borderline Toxic – Mr Obsanity

Posted: 3 October 2021 in Singles and EPs
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17th October 2021

Christopher Nosnibor

Sometimes, a track just slaps you round the face in just a matter of bars and it’s an instant grab. It’s not always possible to pinpoint what it is that’s got you by the throat in those mere seconds, but sometimes, it’s simply everything – and that’s the case for ‘Mr Obsanity’, the debut single, from London / Norway trio Borderline Toxic, who’ve come stumbling out of lockdown with all the rage and a new band on their hands, proving tat when it comes to creativity and collaboration, geography is no obstacle. If / when it comes to operating as a live unit, it may, but for now, let’s focus on the matter at hand – that of this release.

It tears from the speakers with a ball-bustingly weighty riff with grating distortion all over it. If the intro is pure sludge, then things fizz all the harder when the vocals arrive, all punky sass as they swipe hard at powerful figures who swing around casual misogyny racism like it’s ok – and it’s not.

‘Obsanity’ is one of those compound words – of which I am a fan, I have to admit – that had somehow bypassed me, and so I had to look it up to find that the definition, as noted way back in 2004, is ‘foul language uttered by an insane person’. And without naming names – just as the band don’t name names – the song’s targets are at best thinly veiled, but in rendering the lyrics non-explicit, they become applicable on a wider scale. It’s not just high profilers who this applies to: we all know at least one or two of these types in person, at work, on social media, and you find yourself thinking, shut up. I really don’t need to listen to this shit.

Settling into a lumbering groove, ‘Mr Obsanity’ really kicks ass, and we need more of this.

Borderline Toxic Artwork

Youth – Spinning Wheel

Posted: 2 October 2021 in Singles and EPs
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Youth Sounds / Cadiz Entertainment

Christopher Nosnibor

Well, this is a surprise, and I say that without sarcasm. The lead single from Youth’s debut solo album is a breezy slice of indie with a heavy 60s folk influence.

But then, Youth has always been a man of surprises. His transition from Killing Joke bassist to producer and remixer of some incredibly high-profile mainstream acts including U2 and Erasure, via recording as a member of 90s dance act Blue Pearl and back to playing bass with Killing Joke and juggling infinite other projects is an incredible feat, and while I might consider his lack of commitment to any one thing uncritical, it’s clearly apparent that he’s an artist who can turn his hand – and successfully – to anything. I suppose the only real question is ‘what does he truly believe in?’ or ‘who is the real Martin Glover?’

The press blurbage for the album, out in November, and its eclectic range does attempt to shed some light one this:

‘Growing up with the sound of 70’s pop radio and bands such as Smokie, Pilot and Bay City Rollers – some of the tracks here are a flashback to those times and the initial inspiration of a thirteen year old Youth to write his first songs. ‘Sha La Laa I Love You’ and ‘The King Of The Losers’ are intimate, honest and have a naïve and innocent pop sensibility that are underpinned with regret and loss. He’s also took [sic] inspiration from psychedelic pop and English folk rock and his own words, he was thinking – “Everything from Nick Drake to Led Zeppelin, through a lens of Fairport tripping out with the Velvet Underground with a couple of Beach Boys, all the way to Cohen and Rodriguez, via Jim O Rourke, jamming with Fred Neil and Bert Janch and Michael Rother.’

Yes, Youth has been around, and so absorbed and assimilated a lot of stuff, and ‘Spinning Wheel’ brings many of those different pieces together, starting with a keen ear for melody, with the added bonus of some nice, subtle harmonies. Objectively, it’s a neat and accessible pop tune, and you can’t say fairer than that.

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