It seems to be an unwritten rule of life that even if you’re writing an essay that makes life feel like an evening out under the whims of the Marquis de Sade, there is something about the scuzzy, sparky groove of a song like ‘Blue Lips’ that makes you want to put your shades on and take your laptop and fermenting angst out into the garden for a chill-out session. Starting with a swaggering percussive lollop (complete with what may [...]
Okay. I’ll confess. The moment I saw a press release proclaiming “gritty everyday life” and “real poetic flavour” I did cringe and set it on the procrastinate pile. I get bored of Hollyoaks-the-musical bands trying to be profound, I guess. But upon listening to LAC’s ‘Borstal Boy EP’ I’m left feeling that there is something more to be found than a cynical marketing appeal to the whole “broken Britain” mentality, but at the same time, a few sixth form poetry moments, [...]
The Manuscript is the latest addition to the seemingly endless catalogue of My Dying Bride. It consists of four tracks left over from the sessions of the last album “A map of all our failures”. With four songs clocking in at just over half hour it’s the length of an average album nowadays. The opening and title track “The Manuscript” is the catchiest. With the modern Gothic and doomy sound. All four songs change in tempo and structure, each going on a journey. [...]
It’s refreshing whenever your ears find themselves subject to a sound that is new, energizing, and most crucially generically innovative with regards to its artistic origins. This sensation is less refreshing when you realise you’re a little late to the party; this was my experience with Mice Parade and their latest album Candela, which, as it turns out, is the seventh album released under that name. Mice Parade is the brainchild of Adam Pierce (notice any connection there?), [...]
New Orleans act Generationals have a retro pop sound to them, they’re even releasing their latest album Heza on cassette as well as LP to accentuate this. They must miss cassettes as much as me, I suppose. The album jumps in with the upbeat Spinoza. The track has a summery feel to it with the straight forward yet hooky guitar melodies giving the song a relaxed and carefree sound. The vocal work is also appealing, it has an interesting character to [...]
The vocals kind of remind me of Diana Vickers from the X Factor but I think I can overlook that aspect. The music is inspired by New Order and David Bowie as well as more current pop acts. It’s a catchy track produced on a limited budget, the song writing, production and direction having been done entirely by the Cocovan. It’s always inspiring to see a musician who is able to produce something of quality on their own. [...]
I would totally understand if the term Math-Pop makes you flee in abject terror, dear reader. God knows I have every time I’ve come across it prior to the latest single from Norwich based quartet Olympians. Surely they’re functionally incompatible concepts? What have the fluid, intangible joys of pop music got to do with the rigid functionality of numbers? I was unconvinced to say the very least. And then I played the song. And my knee-jerk biases continue [...]
Rumbling from the speakers like a juggernaut of caustic immensity, Serpent Omega’s self-titled LP shakes up the tropes of blackened doom metal, by taking the ferocity of black metal and the heaviness of doom, rather than the slowness. The result? An album that is just as brooding, just as bleak, just as powerful, and with a pounding sense of perverse vitality that adds that extra layer of malevolence and fascination to an album that hits the listener with [...]
Sometimes when you least expect it, a band comes completely out of the blue, and redefines your expectations of what today’s music is all about. I approached Vodun’s debut EP with, yes, some complacency. Their voodoo atmosphere may have piqued my interest, but as a new band on the New Heavy clubnight circuit, what could Vodun offer that I hadn’t heard before? The answer? Seven tracks of fiercely innovative and near-faultless music that blew me out [...]
With a band name like Mayors of Miyazaki and a press release promising short and sweet, you’d be forgiven for thinking ‘Human Resources’ is a sunshine-y little ditty, possibly by some otaku indie-pop outfit. The smiles are there, yes, but brace yourselves for the one-and-a-half minutes of hyperdriven strangeness.
Mayors of Miyazaki do have sweetness, with high-pitched male/female vocal harmonies cooing a pop melody that brings to mind The Subways or Blood Red Shoes. However, the instrumentation here jacks up the power [...]
