Browsing Tag

No Wave

Rouse the Boroughs have released their blissfully provocative no-wave single, Tighter is the Rope

Posted on 21 August 2021
Cosmic Creatures - Part 2 by Rouse the Boroughs

With their melodic themes that vary from no-wave to folk, Rouse the Boroughs is an exceptionally rare kind of outfit that can parallel the evocative output from nostalgia-inducing artists such as Mazzy Star, Elliott Smith and Neutral Milk Hotel. Those aren’t comparisons that I make lightly. The lead single, Tighter is the Rope, from their latest release, Cosmic Creatures – Part 2, is the perfect introduction to the Montreal-based art and music cooperative.

Instead of the cleverness of the soundscape capturing you through its vibrant dreamy -sporadically over-driven and sludgy, tones – it’s the emotion that the cooperative can express with their sound that leaves you affably hooked.  The vocals allow you to imagine what Sonic Youth would have sounded like if Thurston Moore was as vocally sweet as Matthew Caws. You’d be seriously hard-pressed to find a more blissfully provocative single released in 2021.

Check out Tighter is the Rope on Bandcamp.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Chicken Man and the Bad Eggs attack the gentrified in their scuzzy new wave punk hit, Indian Pale Fale.

Posted on 14 August 2021

Merseyside’s new wave punk outfit Chicken Man and the Bad Eggs is set to release their most frenetic single to date, Indian Pale Fale, which delivers a ferocious attack on gentrification and the gentrified.

With the same high-octane sonic force as Oh Sees and Cabbage, serious virtuosic stripes in the scuzzy over-driven guitars, and the infectiously antagonistic vocals, the 5-piece powerhouse’s signature sound pierces through the drudgery on the airwaves. They’ve already been accoladed by Huw Stephens, Dave Monks and John Kennedy from the BBC and ripped up plenty of stages in the Northwest with their blistering hot sound. Something tells us the accolades won’t stop there; they are the ultimate aural force to be reckoned with.

Their playful approach to lyricism is exactly what the music scene needs. It is beyond refreshing to hear a band giving punk fans the escapism they turn to music for.

Indian Pale Fale is due for release on August 13th; pre-save the single on Spotify.

Check out the band on Facebook and Instagram.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

 

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

Nightbird Casino has released their hotly-anticipated sweetly psychotropic earworm, ‘The Town’.

Posted on 23 April 2021

If you’ve found yourself wondering if you will ever hear an alternative track that holds any authenticity ever again, find yourselves pleasantly surprised with the sweetly psychotropic earworm, ‘The Town’, by art-rock Oakland-residing duo, Nightbird Casino.

With elements of artfully composed jazz, grunge, space rock, psych-pop and classical all melting in the alchemically intoxicating pot, you will practically feel the rabbit hole opening beneath you as you listen to the descending cadence of the jazzy improv instrumentals.

The existentialist air to The Town paired with the playfully avant-garde approach to production allows the track to become the ‘everything is burning down around me, and I’m totally fine’ meme, personified. And something tells me that if Bukowski was still around, he would have Nightbird Casino on his playlists; they share the same downtrodden but subversively charismatic appeal.

On this track, you’ll hear dual harmonic vocals from the founding members, James Moore and Don Shepherd. Instrumentally, you’ll hear session musician Nicolas Ocampo (clarinets, flute, saxophone, oboe, bassoon), James on bass and ondes martenot and Don on guitars, piano, organ, and drums.

With their sophomore album, ‘Rusian Carpet‘, due for release this summer, any fans of Radiohead, Sonic Youth or Mr Bungle will want Nightbird Casino on their radar.

The Town officially released on April 23rd; you can check it out for yourselves by heading over to Soundcloud.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Giant Buddha give us all the hurry-up with ‘Better Do It Now’

Posted on 4 April 2021
7 More by Giant Buddha

There’s a rich vein of ‘the right bands’ running through the Giant Buddha’s bio – Oasis, The Cure, Bauhaus, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, The Jesus and Mary Chain, and the Stones. Now, that by itself doesn’t guarantee a killer track – owning a great record collection doesn’t, of course, automatically translate to creating great original music – but what we have in ‘Better Do It Now’ is a trippy, hippie, stoner grind full of layered guitar crunch and hazy vocals, snippets of harmonica and a droning, driving wall-of-sound groove that’ll be familiar to anyone brought up on B.R.M.C. and Black Market Karma.

There’s a little bit of Velvet Underground garage rock in all of us.

Check out Giant Buddha on BandCamp and Facebook.

Review by Alex Holmes

DR SATSO – Sour Milk: Sonically Frenetic Psych Post Punk

Posted on 26 December 2020

‘Sour Milk’ is just one of the riotously dark and psychedelic tracks to feature on DR SATSO’s debut album ‘A Sour Milk Experience’.

For the non-discerning fans of Psych who stay in the safe confines of the overhyped works of the Beatles and Pink Floyd, the soundscape may be as pleasant as ingesting sour milk, but those with an affinity for truly mind-warping, rhythmically disturbing alternative music will definitely want to delve into this monolithic feat of Psych, Post Punk, Garage Rock and Punk.

As the bouncing frenetic guitars emit enticing similarities to the Oh Sees, the rest of the instrumentals coalesce to bring a cold cutting energy to the galvanizingly pioneering soundscape while the vocals will be a hit with any fans of Poison Ivy, Magazine and SERVO.

While Sour Milk hasn’t done my need to witness fuzzy and frenetically insurgent music live any favours, it did affirm that DR SATSO is undoubtedly one of the most viciously revolutionary artists to hit the airwaves in 2020.

You can check out Sour Milk along with the rest of DR SATSO’s sonically visceral album via Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

FEMUR – Misery Express: The lockdown-born No Wave track which perfectly emulates the proclivity of misery

Posted on 21 November 2020

Sheffield’s charismatically abrasive instigators of volatile Psychedelic No Wave, FEMUR, amped up the intensity and visceral fortitude of their sound with their latest release ‘Misery Express’, allowing me to finally experience something more disquieted than my own mind during lockdown 2.0.

With psychedelic melodicism acting as the glue which keeps the savagely caustic tapestry together, Misery Express pairs a tundra of rampantly thrashed over-driven guitars with creeping tones which allow you to sit in anticipation for the next monumental breakdown. It’s heavy enough to give the Berzerker a run for their money, all the while exuding an Avant-Garde noisy edge which has become synonymous with FEMUR’s sound.

The lockdown-born track perfectly emulates the proclivity of misery; the full-frontal scathing volition and those moments between where you’re able to catch a breath, but your mind is still dizzied by rage.

You can catch the official video on YouTube. Or you can listen via Spotify.

Keep up to date with the latest antics from FEMUR via Facebook.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

8udDha bl0od immerses us in ‘Khaos’ with their latest release

Posted on 16 November 2020

8uddDha bl0od is an artist whose work always transcends genre or type, working instead to portray a sense of time, space, and location, through his music. This is music as out-and-out art, striving to directly convey emotion to the listener.

‘Khaos’ is 2’28” of repeating vaguely middle-eastern tinged motifs, pipes and chimes over a curiously at once both disturbing and yet soothing atonal background of droning strings. It is chaotic, certainly, yet at the same time, there’s an order and structure within the echoing pattern of reiterative notes, juxtaposed against the counterpoint of the disturbing, unsettled background soundscape. It’s, without doubt, a transportive piece, carrying the listener to an experience of a different place; in that, 8udDah bl0od has certainly succeeded.

Listen to ‘Khaos’ on Soundcloud.

Review by Alex Holmes

jain – kneading: Eccentrically Volatile Alt Garage Rock

Posted on 20 August 2020
https://jaintn.bandcamp.com/track/kneading

Nashville, Tennessee artist jain released their noisy Garage Rock EP ‘the end of June’ at… the end of June. The track which caught our attention was the discord-spilling riotously angsty single ‘kneading’.

The short and distortedly sweet track incorporates elements of Punk, No Wave, Post Hardcore and Indie and throws in some sonically psychedelic lead guitar work to ensure that you’ve never heard anything quite like this eccentrically volatile release before.

In short, kneading is utter chaos and it can even make artists such as Pavement and Daughters seem middle-of-the-road.

You can check out kneading for yourselves by heading over to Bandcamp where you’ll be able to download and stream the rest of the EP.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

8udDha bl0od – Ophiuchus: Serafin: Transfixingly Avant-Garde Progressive Alt Rock

Posted on 28 July 2020
https://soundcloud.com/william-orpen/ophiuchus-serafin/s-oatUmsMFUld

Ophiuchus: Serafin is the latest single to be released from the immeasurably ingenious aural alchemist 8udDha bl0od. If any artist could be described as the modern-day equivalent to The Residents, it’s 8udDha bl0od

The Brighton-based artist may constantly switch up their sound with their new releases, but you can usually rely on a transfixing level of avant-garde accessible chaos. The accordantly rhythmic disarray in Ophiuchus: Serafin certainly didn’t disappoint.

Within Ophiuchus: Serafin, you’ll find nuances of Psych Rock, Surf Rock, No Wave and plenty more. The ten-minute extended track may make some dramatic tonal shifts and throw some discord your way, but each progression is as indulgent as the last.

If there’s an artist we’re grateful to have discovered this year, it’s 8udDha bl0od with their infinitely wild imagination when it comes to orchestrating soundscapes.

You can check out Ophiuchus: Serafin which was released on July 20th for yourselves by heading over to SoundCloud now.

Review by Amelia Vandergast