Envy have shared details of a new live album (maybe the last ever live album!?) titled ‘Last Wish’. The band released their latest studio album, ‘The Fallen Crimson’, back in February. They had touring plans in place, of course, but played only one show before COVID-19 effectively halted all live music worldwide. In their own words, “Envy performed a crazy, sweaty, […]
Read moreThis would count as a killer one-two punch, if Tokyo’s Sans Visage and the quirkily-named Look At Moment actually wanted to kill. Instead, both groups have learned lessons from screamo stalwarts like Suis La Lune and Loma Prieta, and have tempered their hardcore sounds with slow-burning intensity, elements of post-rock, and grungy melody. Sans Visage start ‘Deception’ with a menacing […]
Read moreIt’s easy to see this, the ninth Deftones album, as a reflection of the eighth Deftones album. I liked ‘Gore’ plenty but the Californian outfit’s 2016 effort was met with a decidedly lukewarm reception. The consensus seemed to be that while it was atmospheric, it wasn’t exactly dynamic, and while it wasn’t bad, it fell short of the band’s lofty […]
Read moreTopiary Creatures, or Tope Creach as they are affectionately known, are used to doing things by themselves. The San Francisco-based band have booked their own shows, including (this might be the oldest that anything I’ve written has ever made me feel) a festival inside Minecraft, designed their own (excellent) artwork, and, last month, released their own (fantastic) debut album on […]
Read moreThere was no alarm. There was no announcement. Ben Sharp didn’t really tell anyone that he was putting his solo project on pause. But in 2015 he released the placid ‘Woum’, perhaps the least compelling entry in Cloudkicker’s unique back catalogue, and then, silence. Years of silence. The Ohio native had been so prolific before then, writing and recording a […]
Read moreNarrow Head’s debut album, ‘Satisfaction’, was a brilliant, bright, exciting effort that twisted 90s grunge and shoegaze references into something contemporary and cool. ‘12th House Rock’ is… not that. From the opening squall of ‘Yer Song’ it feels like a cloud has come over the Texas outfit. They employ much of the same sonic ingredients as before, but their songs have […]
Read moreThere’s nothing like a piece of panoramic conceptual art imagining a possible future on the surface of Mars, to show what human beings are capable of. And there’s nothing like a global pandemic to ruin it all. ‘For the Benefit of All’ is a collaboration between erstwhile Her Name Is Calla main man Tom Morris and experimental cellist Jo Quail. It […]
Read moreThreestepstotheocean might have a typical post-rock kind of name, but they certainly don’t have a typical kind of sound. Since 2006, the Italian instrumental outfit have been gradually distorting the genre template to include elements of americana, sludge, almost black metal, and more. On this, their fifth full-length, they’ve diversified further still. A ton of fuzz and a few hulking […]
Read moreWorst. Year. Ever. I cannot wait to go back to years feeling relatively anonymous. I long to have to Google when things happened. I’ll never forget 2020 but damn, I would love to. It’s not all bad. Luckily, a metric ton of great music was released, or finally made its way across my speakers, this month. There’s new Tricot, maybe […]
Read moreApart have waited a long time for this. The French outfit have existed in some form for almost five years but are only now releasing their first record, out today. They like to describe its sound as “indie rock in autumn” but for clarity, ‘Septembre’ features four acoustic-led, melancholy rock tracks that should satisfy fans of Modern Baseball, The Hotelier, […]
Read more