As an avid American football fan (Go Pats!), I’ve always been fond of Football, Etc.’s neat line in sport-specific song titles. Much more than that though, they’re the friendliest dudes around and their sweet, earnest emo has improved with every new release. On ‘Corner’, the Texan trio have apparently changed games (Come on Fulham!), but their music maintains that special […]
Read moreNothing about this is ordinary. It’s rare for an ambient album to make this kind of impact, it’s not normal for something so abstract to connect so quickly, and I think it’s singularly unique for an artist to shut a project down for almost two decades, as Wolfgang Voigt had done with GAS, only to come back better than ever. […]
Read moreShizune go to work. Since forming in 2012, the Italian screamo mob have recorded, played, and DIY-made at a restless, remarkable pace, including releasing new music on average every six months. All in three different languages too. It’s not quantity over quality either, every release has been better than the last, and ‘CHEAT DEATH…’ (this thing definitely earns the all-caps) […]
Read moreHe Is Legend have always been the odd band out. Even in their earliest days they were too weird for metal, too soft for hardcore, and too heavy for the emo scene that gained mainstream traction and exploded around them. I’m sure it used to grate on the band, that they never quite fit in, never quite blew up, but […]
Read moreStephen Bruner is just like you and me. He gets too drunk at times, too stoned, watches too much TV, and he talks to his cat. Except, unlike you and me, he is a bass guitar phenomenon, multi-genre musical marvel, and one hell of an overachiever. As Thundercat he has worked with some of the biggest and most interesting names […]
Read moreThat cover art says a lot. Yes, Benjamin Power- one part of neon noiseniks Fuck Buttons and the man behind Blanck Mass– has a history of making music with bite, but ‘World Eater’ truly bares its teeth. Opener ‘Jon Doe’s Carnival of Error’ sparkles into life but there’s something off-kilter in its music box melodies, a swirling oddness, and it […]
Read moreFrank Carter’s first foray into Rattlesnake country produced some captivating fury. Despite its name, ‘Blossom’ was a bloodthirsty rager, a signal flare, an uncompromising sign that Carter might just have rediscovered the passion for punk rock that his rollercoaster experience with Gallows apparently drained away. It was bloody good to hear him roar once more. ‘Modern Ruin’ is not the […]
Read moreThis is kind of like a sonic scrapbook. In fact, there are so many sounds cut-and-pasted into the second Nine of Swords record- unabashed hardcore heaviness, downtuned metallic fuzz, upbeat melodies, big dirges, small doses of electronic calm that I hesitate to call interludes because of just how essential they are, and more- that it should be exploding at the seams. […]
Read moreIt’s unfair to weigh this band, the Pixies of today, against the Pixies of legend. Unfair, but almost irresistible. A short, sharp shock ensemble that made jolie laide punk rock designed to get under your skin, for a few volatile years around the turn of the 80s, Pixies were essential listening. Three decades later they’re older, greyer, missing one creative […]
Read moreThere are times when this, the second EP from Swedish quintet Look, Orion!, points truly skywards, post-rock without a hint of sluggishness or schmaltz, a soundtrack to the stars. And then there are times when it simply struggles to lift off, any jet fuel force undone by staid riffs and too many pretty notes without real power. So if ‘Contours’, […]
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