Browsing Tag

Art Punk

Larsen West Carried Stevie Nicks Aura and Riot Grrrl Voltage Through the Brashy Rock Contours of Fool’s Gold

Posted on 24 May 2026

Larsen West’s indie rock stripes show as more than just accolades in an EPK in Fool’s Gold, an expansively lush, viscerally unfeigned single where big, brashy vintage rock swagger collides with noir-Americana shadow and art-punk voltage. Fronted by Lauren Warner, former vocalist of Austin Chronicle’s 2022 Best Rock Band winners The Dead Coats, the project arrives with history, force, and a voice built for myth.

West’s vocals encompass the vindication of 90s Riot Grrrl and grunge while keeping the performance far from hollow pastiche posturing, turning Fool’s Gold into the kind of kinetic, stadium-ready anthem that leaves the power of the lyrics soaring through your own ribcage as something inside catches fire to the cascades of rock n roll euphoria; they come in waves. The classic rock guitar solo in the middle eight sends the track into a spiral of molten release, lifting the analog warmth into full-bodied catharsis.

Recorded at Point West Studios with Charles Godfrey, whose credits include Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Brand New, Fool’s Gold carries the bite of underground rock with the scale of Stevie Nick’s legacy, the raw magnetism of Courtney Love, and the haunting grace of Siouxsie Sioux.

Fool’s Gold is now available to stream on all major platforms, including Spotify.

 Review by Amelia Vandergast

Bristol’s art punk powerhouse, Phlegmonade, salved glitched-out minds with the surealist distortion in ‘Ode to a Machine’

Posted on 11 October 2025

Phlegmonade isn’t a band name you’d want to pronounce after a few pints, but you’ll want them on your radar after their latest single, Ode to a Machine. The Bristol-based art-punk provocateurs didn’t hold back when they turned their debut into a snarling, unrelenting barrage of garagey skate punk, injected with enough chaos to rip the soul clean from its technocratic casing. It’s a full-throttle blitz of fuzz-drenched fury that cuts through algorithmic apathy with serrated hooks and seething rhythmic momentum.

As the hypersonically twisted guitars oscillate around frenetic percussive blasts, the only reprieve from the onslaught is the occasional wave of woozy psych rock, bleeding colour into the white hot brutality. It’s an adrenaline shot of no-wave-esque distortion, and it carries enough mental static to grind your internal cogs into a blissfully dysfunctional haze.

Through the track’s raw instrumental assault, the metaphor of the mind and body as a faltering vehicle is delivered with abrasive, unflinching sincerity. You feel every rattling piston and spiralling feedback loop of the sonically visualised psychological collapse. And from that wreckage, Phlegmonade resurrects something oddly tender. Something that says: love the malfunction, embrace the glitch.

Drawing from years in the studio and band members scattered from Ireland to Italy to Bristol, Phlegmonade have alchemised a sound that sits somewhere between philosophical subversion and gleefully absurd destruction. Ode to a Machine is the first hit of what’s sure to be a mind fuck of a legacy.

Ode to a Machine is now available on all major streaming platforms, including YouTube. 


Review by Amelia Vandergast

Butterfly drops stimulating new track to listen intently inside ‘The Song of I’

Posted on 2 June 2022

Taken from the 10-track debut album called ‘Calamity‘, Butterfly shows us that entrenched pain that can make a previously fulfilled soul rather cold and angry with each step of life on, ‘The Song of I‘.

Butterfly is an indie art punk/destructive pop band who has shown us their colorful imagination with a new glitch-rock experience to marvel at.

”The rock-glitch single uses an emotive crashing chorus, wailing guitars, and ghostly vocals to convey an overwhelming sense of defeat and destruction.” ~ Butterfly

Demonstrating a rare approach that has you turning the volume up to full as to capture the whole moment, Butterfly flies into a world that is overloaded with harsh realisms that seems to mirror the current system we find ourselves stuck inside.

”Butterfly is the story of an amnesiac trapped in the internet, finding friends and a desire to destroy the world.” ~ Butterfly

‘The Song of I‘ from indie art punk/destructive pop band Butterfly is a track that will stun many and engage others, as its vocal texture is supremely unique. Regaling us with a performance that you are unlikely to witness again in 2022, this is the type of song to make you admire those who take risks, rather than sounding like ordinary copycats.

Sung with that expressive sentiment that could take your breath away, this release presents us with that ability to shock the core of your spine back into place.

Listen up to this ear-shaking song on Spotify and see more on the IG page.

Reviewed by Llewelyn Screen

Fauxchisels do HG Wells proud with their 2021 noise rock album, ‘Education or Catastrophe’

Posted on 20 May 2021
Education or Catastrophe by Fauxchisels

In 1921, HG Wells observed that “human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe”. In 2021, Birmingham-based noise-rock artist Fauxchisels brought forth their artfully caustic album, Education or Catastrophe, demonstrating that little has changed in the presiding century aside from the widening of inequity.

Education or Catastrophe kicks off with the Fugazi-Esque fervent single, Get Over Yrself, before the despondent Northern roots start to really pull through in Badges and Ideals instrumentally and lyrically through lines such as “You bring the Daily Mail, I’ll bring the matches”; proving that Fauxchisels are just as adept at witty protestive soundbites as any of the contemporary punk-chart toppers.

Track five, Family Friendly, is a meditatively harrowing single that will feel familiar to any fans of Arab Strap as the imploring sermonic vocals act as a candid invitation into the dourness of the thankless domesticity we’ve all wrestled with during lockown.

Constant Ghost is one of those engorging aural oddities that reels you in hook, bassline and sinker, the tumultuous chaos of the breakdowns against the steady canter of the poetic lyrics is art-punk at its finest.

The album is far cheaper and probably far more effective in giving you a cathartic outlet for your rage than therapy. Fauxchisels went above the usual austere indignance in the 12-track release that never gives you the chance to feel comfortable or complacent with the versatility in styling, emotion and volatility.

Head over to Bandcamp to hear the album yourselves or purchase in physical format. Check out Fauxchisels’ on Facebook.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

That free feeling: Buddy Wynkoop keep it real on the excellent ‘Real-time Traveling Man’

Posted on 4 January 2021

Buddy Wynkoop are excellent on their latest melodic single ‘Real-time Traveling Man‘, which is taken off their upcoming five-track EP tilted set for 15th January 2021: ‘At the Speed of Conversation‘.

Portland, Oregon four-piece indie-rock/art-punk act Buddy Wynkoop are one of those bands you just can’t help but like. With a fun start that strums in to boost your heartbeat, they take us on a journey about feeling free and doing something most of us love; travelling around and seeing new places, making amazing memories and coming home feeling fulfilled.

Their humble and free-spirited attitude is combined with a sound that keeps you intrigued the whole way through. His vocals are real and honest, the story about how freedom keeps you on a leash is so true in this Big Brother world that is always watching. The band are all clearly in tune with each other and there are no passengers here, only future global travelers.

The unique structure to this song and their music in general, shows that they don’t like being in a boring box, doing whatever everyone else does or what is ‘cool’. They are free-thinkers and this is matched with this quality song that gives you extra energy to conquer whatever this wild time presents to you.

‘Real-time Traveling Man‘ is an example of what can be achieved by Portland four-piece art/punk rockers Buddy Wynkoop. Freedom will be back eventually and with music like this, expect to see them touring all over the USA, with new fans being picked up all the way. This is after all, that true foot stompin’ music that makes everything better.

Hear the travelling anthem on Soundcloud, see a live version on the epic Bridge City Sessions YouTube and find out more via FB and IG.

Reviewed by Llewelyn Screen