Posts Tagged ‘Surf’

Mayflower Madame – Prepared For A Nightmare

Posted: 25 April 2020 in Albums
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Only Lovers Records – 27th March 2020

Christopher Nosnibor

This is an album I’ve been on the edge of my seat for for quite some time: their debit, Observed in a Dream was fully four years ago, which feels like an eternity. The two preceding singles set the bar for expectations for Prepared For A Nightmare – preparing us not so much for a nightmare, but a haunting set of songs that built on the foundations of its predecessor, flexing new muscles, pushing new boundaries.

The title track raises the curtain in grand style, brooding drama filtered through a misty haze of reverb. The guitars wander in and out of key along doric scales that spin a gothy twist to the echoey psychedelic surf vibe.

After a mid-tempo opening salvo, ‘Ludwig Meidner’ steps it up with full-tilt rolling drums reminiscent of The Danse Society circa Seduction, blended with The Cure on Pornography. There are cold, needling synths in the mix undulating across the thunderous barrage of percussion and the sound’s filled out by a low-slung bass groove while Trond sings about ‘dancing on your grave’: the lyrical themes and musical style remains unchanged, but what is different is that there’s more space, which conjures a different darkness.

‘The Night Before’ is a doomy, gloomy trudge, sparsely set and more about layers than rive – which is perhaps true of the album as a whole this is more focused on detail, on nuance, on atmosphere. Closer ‘Endless Shimmer’ hints at all the shoegaze, even op, and it’s in the mix, but it’s taut, dense, and dark and there’s a tension that simmers beneath that’s hard to pull apart. The fadeout on ‘Goldmine’ seems a little odd, but perhaps that’s as much about fashion as anything. The 80s… This is so reminiscent as to be a repro in some way. But it’s ok: there’s no sense that any of this s forced or artificial. Prepared For A Nightmare oozes song quality and a richness of performance and appropriate production. It’s seriously hard to fault any of it.

Prepared For A Nightmare is definitely darker and deeper and less immediate than its predecessor, but it’s all the better for it.

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Mayflower Madame – Swallow

Posted: 27 February 2020 in Singles and EPs
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Only Lovers Records – 4th February 2020

James Wells

Mayflower Madame step up the promo for Prepared for a Nightmare, the follow-up to 2016’s Observed in a Dream with a second single in the shape of ‘Swallow’. It reveals a mellower side in relation to its predecessor, the bruising ‘Vultures’, and while it’s still very much an example of their trademark sultry psychedelic surf, ‘Swallow’ reveals a previously unheard melodic leaning.

Described as ‘a love song… about the dependence and fragility one might feel in a relationship – involving both a fear of and a desire for submission’, according to front man Trond Fagernes, it’s still not quite pop, and not exactly a ballad, either, and it’s draped in gothy shadows and doomed romanticism.

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Mayflower - Swallow

Watch: ‘Do The Rattlerock’ by Snakerattlers

Posted: 7 December 2019 in Recommended Streams and Videos
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For those of you who think of Shed 7 as being the only York band to have ever existed beyond the local scene, think again. Since their formation in 2016, the husband and wife rockabilly duo have released two albums and have been killing it live nationally.

2019 has been a massive year for Snakerattlers. They have established themselves firmly in the UK underground music scene, racking up an impressive 100 shows throughout the year.

The forthcoming video for their track ‘Do The Rattlerock’ (taken from second album All Heads Will Roll) is a testament to their constant touring and insatiable work ethic.

The track itself is about feeling like an outsider and struggling to fit in, before ultimately realising that going your own way is paramount. This is basically the ethos and entire foundation of Snakerattlers.

Filmed across six different London shows, throughout 2019, the dangerous duo from North Yorkshire have been captured at their intimidating and ferocious best, by John Clay and Elliott Louie Afonso.

The video is out now. Check it here:

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The Shakin’ Nightmares – Revenge & Regret

Posted: 31 October 2019 in Singles and EPs
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1st November 2019

Christopher Nosnibor

So The Shakin’ Nightmares gatecrashed my radar thanks to a message via Facebook from Dan Gott, guitarist and the man wit all the whoops and howls for manic rockabilly duo Snakerattlers. Since he books gigs at my favourite venue as a day-job he sees and hears a lot of bands, so if he reckons I need to hear an act, the chances are I really do.

They do the matching outfits thing – which is a bit Snakerattlers, but also reminds me of The Computers – and the four songs on this, their debut EP are kicking, but with a sense of order and a determined sense of identity.

‘(I’ve Got) The Shakin’ Nightmares’ kicks it off with a slow swagger and a reverb-heavy twang that struts its way into a swampy gothed-up surf riff that reminds me of The Volcanoes – which means I’m instantly sold. It’s very much about a well-worn template that has its origins in the blues and has been kicking around in various mutant forms since ‘The Hippy Hippy Shake’ in 1959, but it gets increasingly wild, twisting 60s psyche with grunged-up alt-rock.

They step up the pace on ‘Revenge’ which brings a frenzied punk aspect to the boogie-woogie wig-out and ‘I Wish’ chops a groove that sashays into the more straight-ahead rock closer ‘A Little Death’. It’s still dominated by a choppy guitar and some deep reverb, and these guys are cruising hard on an obsessive death trip. I can get on board with that. If it’s not sex or drugs, then rock ‘n’ roll needs death. We can’t all get sex or drugs, and don’t even necessarily want them, but we’re all going to die. And given the state of things, sooner rather than later seems increasingly appealing. On that basis, plus the basis of some solid tunes, The Shakin’ Nightmares have all the appeal right now.

Mayflower Madame – Premonition EP

Posted: 28 May 2018 in Singles and EPs
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1st June 2018

Christopher Nosnibor

It all starts with an air-raid siren. A historical sound with connotations of WW2 for many, but still heard in places like South Korea and Japan, it’s a sound which provokes an almost biologically-wired shudder of unease. They may only be tests, but the sound of sirens in the last 12 months reminds us that stability is but precarious. And then the snaking, surfy bass strolls in, awash with reverb… and then the guitars… It’s all pinned to a locked-down groove, and Trond Fagernes’ voice rises up from amidst it all as if from the back of a cathedral. You saw it all coming, right? They obviously did and approach by stealth, before building to a whiling cacophony by way of a climax. But for all of its noise and tension, this feels more introspective than anything they’ve done before.

Norway’s Mayflower Madame draw heavily on post-punk influences – music born out of the dark days of the early 80s, corresponding with the period when cold war tensions escalated to warrant the labelling of ‘the second cold war’, and the economic boom years widened the chasm between the haves and have-nots was rendered more conspicuous by the rise of the yuppie. And so on.

What Mayflower Madame bring to the gothy party is a potent dose of Nordic noir psych and a dash of shoegaze, all doused in massive reverb, and the four tracks on Premonition continue the trajectory of their 2016 debut album, Observed in a Dream.

The claustrophobic focus continues on the swirling, shoegazy ‘Before I Fall’; the guitars twang through a gauze of drifting synths and echoey fx that create a certain distance between the listener and the actual song, an unusual sense of both space and an absence of space. ‘Alma’s Sermon’ is centred around a backed-off yet insistent motoric beat and has greater immediacy and – it’s all relative – upbeat vibe. But then closer ‘Siders Seek’ plunges deeper into darkness: a paranoid shiver runs down the spine of the track’s tremulous guitars, and everything about the song’s construction seems to be about concentrating the tension. And yes, this is tense.

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Mayflower Madame – Premonition EP

Cannibal Animal – A Decline in Morality

Posted: 29 April 2018 in Singles and EPs
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Warren Records – 16th March 2018

Christopher Nosnibor

We think we may have mentioned Cannibal Animal once or twice before here on Aural Aggro – and there’s a very good reason for this: the Hull band make a dark, dense, swampy post-punk racket that owes as much to The Cramps and The Volcanoes as anyone else, on account of the serpentine lead guitars and reverb-soaked surf sound. With a thunderous rhythm section, it’s more like surfing a tsunami than coasting on the crest of a wave, mind. Throw in a dollop of early 90s underground noise – think in particular early Therapy? And you’ve got the measure. Their latest offering, ‘A Decline in Morality’ is a belter. As if lead single ‘Ellipsisism’ didn’t already demonstrate it already.

The band explain that ‘Lyrically these songs are about the moral compass of specific fictional characters’, with ‘Lack of Skin’ turning focus to ‘the candle burning nymphomaniac’. If ever a track distilled a potent blend of tripwire tension and a loose, near-tribal groove, it’s this one, with bone-rattling beats and a fat, fuzzy bass driving a fury of guitar bathed in cavernous echo. The effect is one of terrifying entrapment, but edged with a twist of sleaze.

The desperation and anxiety that drives the band’s work has hit critical mass here: it’s less about sonic density and thick, overdriven guitars, and more about scorching, wild-eyed mania. And I can’t recall the last time I heard a conventional fade-out…

https://open.spotify.com/embed/track/2gS3ogYcsSaW67jmKTcLAz

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Cannibal Animal -Decline

Snakerattlers / Pete Bentham and the Dinnerladies / Sly Persuaders / Black Lagoons – The Fulford Arms, York, 24th June 2017

Posted: 26 June 2017 in Live
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Christopher Nosnibor

It says a lot about a gig’s lineup when the band at the bottom of the bill are of a clear headline standard. It’s clear, then, that Dan and Naomi Gott, the pair behind the Behind the White Door promoter’s outfit, who also happen to be Snakerattlers, are determined to give their album a decent launch tonight.

Local lads Black Lagoons, sporting a selectin of shirts worse than my own, start out with some fuzzy bass and heavily tremolod guitars, leading into a raging slab of punk-tinged desert psych. The bulk of the set’s dominated by gnarled-up blues boogies thrashed out at a hundred mile an hour. It’s a hell of a ride, and I’m reminded a little of early Gallon Drunk: it’s not just the sharp haircuts, but the furious, frenzied take on rock ‘n’ roll which yields an intense, immersive wall of sound.

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Black Lagoons

London’s Sly Persuaders, on the face of it, offer a more straight-ahead brand of punk rock, but as the set progresses it’s clear there’s a lot more going on. They’ve got some swagger behind a stack of sinewy guitar lines and rugged, serrated bass tones, carrying hints of The Screaming Blue Messiahs in places, as well as the spiky grit of various Touch & Go bands from the early 90s in others. It’s invigorating, and it’s also getting bloody hot in the low-ceilinged pub venue.

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Sly Persuaders

The problem with ‘fun’ bands is that everyone has a different idea of fun. Naturally, some modes of fun are more populist than others, and it perhaps goes without saying that punk in itself isn’t exactly the mainstream. Pete Bentham and the Dinnerladies churn out pub rock punk with lyrics which leap from wry sociopolitical critiquing to observations on ‘modern’ art (although I’d probably bracket avant-garde provocateur Marcel Duchamp as a proto-postmodernist myself).

Pete himself doesn’t look a day under 50, and resembles a young Mark E Smith. He’s backed by a band considerably younger, and augmented with the performance element of ‘the dinnerettes’ a couple of buxom women with red gingham overdresses with fried egg patches sewn onto their boons, who make choreographed gesticulations to illustrate the lyrics. Or, sometimes, they just jog on the spot as during the ska knees-up about Uri Geller. They end up in a writhing heap in front of the stage at the end of the end of the set and everyone applauds because it’s a right laugh. The sax does give them a bit of a Psychedelic Furs vibe, though, which is a plus.

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Pete Bentham and the Dinnerladies

Snakerattlers haven’t been around long, but since losing their drummer and disbanding The Franceens, Dan and Naomi have wasted no time in pulling together a set, a busy gig diary and now an album. To launch it, they play a set comprising everything they’ve got. And they play it hard.

As a two-piece, theirs is a minimal set-up – Naomi has a simple, three-piece drum kit consisting of tom, snare and cymbal, and Dan fill out his guitar sound with a fuckload of reverb, plays through two amps (guitar and bass) and cranks it up LOUD. Their sound is s wild rockabilly blues country rock ‘n’ roll surf hybrid, with many of the lyrics consisting of hollers and whoops. Dan works up a sweat, while Naomi has a more nonchalant, easy style, swinging her arms and hips in a way that looks effortless, but she hits hard and keeps it tight.

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Snakerattlers

In many respects, the simplicity is the key to what makes Snakerattlers a great band: there’s no clutter, either about the sound or the performance. There’s not a whole heap of banter and the songs are cut down to the bare essentials, meaning they get their heads down to the business of kicking out high-octane garage rock. They do low-down boogie; they do guitar lines with strut and swagger; they do hooks. They do it all with force, and it’s appreciatively received, ensuring Rattlerock is well and truly launched.