Albums Of The Year - 10 to 1

 

 10. Läjä Äijälä & Albert Witchfinder - Centuries of Youth

Downbeat power electronic

9. Squid - Bright Green Field

Krautpop post-punk

8. Sonic Demon - Vendetta

Fuzzed out distorted stoner

7. Black Spell - The Purple Skull

Scuzzy occult doom

6. God Is An Astronaut - Ghost Tapes #10

Post-rock played over a sonic soundscape

5. Mother Iron Horse - Under The Blood Moon

Sludge doom, heavy and fuzzed

4. Converge and Chelsea Wolfe - Bloodmoon: I

Metal and post-hardcore never sounded so brutal or haunting

3. Fucked Up - Year Of The Horse

An ambitious four 20 min tracks of psychedelic hardcore punk

2. Iron Lizards - Hungry For Action

Rock'n'roll garage punk that makes me want to break things

1. Idles - Crawler

Post-punk masterpiece

That's it. This is what plays through my head when I am trying to survive just existing.

Albums Of The Year - 20 to 11

 

20. Muriel Grossman - Union

Spiritual jazz

19. Kowloon Walled City - Piecework

Sparse post-hardcore

18. Tropical Fuck Storm - Deep States

Experimental post-punk

17. Jointhugger - Surrounded By Vultures

Psychosonic doom rock

16. Blasting Rod - III

Heavy psych with Brass!

15. Sleaford Mods - Spare Ribs

Post-punk spoken ranting

14. Rostro Del Sol - S/T

Psych space rock

13. Haaz - Andra

Enthralling noise-rock

12. Part Chimp - Drool

Noise-rock with tunes

11. Melvins - Working With God

You know what is sounds like!

Albums Of The Year - 30 to 21

 

30. Mythic Sunship - Wildfire

Bluesy psychedelic prog 

29. ILL Considered - Liminal Space

Free jazz in a tribal style!

28. Cerce - Cowboy Music

Becca spits out her venom over a post punk hardcore racket.

27. Cha Wa - My People

New Orleans funk

26. Domkraft - Seeds

Groovy freaky sludge

25. 2 Headed Dogs - The Engine Is On

Nebula meets The Hellacopters

24. Leon III - Antlers In Velvet

Psychedelic indie folk

23. Junkbreed - Music For Cool Kids

Punk post-hardcore

22. Mdou Moctar - Afrique Victime

Sub-Sahara fuzz rock

21. Death From Above 1979 - Is 4 Lovers

Post-punk you can dance to.

No bandcamp link???

Albums Of The Year - 40 to 31

 

40. Chihuahua - Violent Architecture

Noise rock, post punk, no wave

39. Heavy Temple - Lupi Amoris

Stoner/doom riff machines

38. Watchman - Doom Of Babylon

A doom soundtrack for the apocalypse

36. The Lords Of Altamont - Tune In, Turn On, Electrify

Garage psych punk

35. A Better Tomorrow - Spiritual Crossing

Jazz, soul and metal groove

34. Stomatopod - Completing With Hindsight

Noisy post punk mathy rock

33. Dinosaur Jr - Sweep It Into Space

Hey, you either like 'em or don't.

32. Kills Birds - Married

Grungey post-punk

31. 10,000 Years - II

Feral doom/sludge fuzz fest

Stomatopod - Competing With Hindsight

Stomatopod play the sort of music that sounds one chorus 

 away from musically exploding into chaos but somehow they 

manage to keep things flowing into nagging songs that lodge 

into your brain.

Straddling the void between noise/art/punk/math, these songs are full of

spastic rhythms, staccato time changes and sprawling passages that wind

up as aggressive bursts of frustration.

The sound has a lot of empty space which gives the Tom Verlaine type

soloing room to explore before getting trashed into basic riffs. This is

very good shit ......... the vocals veers between plantive, demented,

crooning and shouting which in this day and age of roared, aggressive

shouting manages to bring a lot more tension into proceedings.

Sounding like Sonic Youths bratty younger brothers, Stomatopod

also have the same knack for inventing a new musical language that you

don't quite get but want to understand better. Oh yeah and it is mixed

and recorded by Steve Albini.

Haaz - Andra

 

Haaz play noise rock/post-hardcore - their own tag

of "indie noise rock" does not do justice to the explosion of power,

aggression and raw slabs of sonic destruction that emerge when

the play button is pressed.

 

Dark rumbling bass which sounds like it is played through a

distortion pedal or just turned up fucking loud mixes with the

pounding drums to produce the platform from which the fuzzed up,

on the edge-of-constant-feedback guitars can riff off. Ah man,

the riffs in the songs are groove ridden monsters that make me want

to break things while laughing like a maniac. Such evil joy and

wanton glee are in the tunes - they lodge deep in your brain and

make other music seem dull and insipid.

 

Crooning, shouting, yelling - the vocals sound like David Yow

performing under the influence of un-tested drugs, ranting about

self loathing with the world and maybe oneself.

 

The entire sound is deep, sludgey but with the uncomplicated

song passages that contains all I love about noise rock. So

much denseness is contained in these 10 tracks that when this

album stops, the silence seems almost deafening.

Cerce - Cowboy

 

                    

Razor clear vocals from Becca, sludge/hardcore riffs and fuzzed

out guitars that sound like they are on verge of constant

feedback is the touchstone from which Cerce inflict on

you. Think Jesus Lizard jamming with the Melvins

and you will begin to see the warped path

which you are required to walk through when

the music starts.

This is noise-rock distilled through a vortex of insanity
and chaos that only the strong will emerge from.
Quicksilver guitar solos and riffs are sprayed over
the tracks with reckless abandon but always with a
thrilling payoff - to misquote - " It's rock Jim but
not as we know it"!

X'ed Out - We All Do Wrong

 

X’ed Out play fast and hard but with a restraint that 

stops it being utter chaos. Tautly wound and intense, 

the songs deliver with style and atmosphere, the 

guitars judder and snake around the riffs - it’s 

a heavy mix but thankfully, the noise rock sensibilities 

mean that the band know that there is so much more 

than just screaming and playing fast. 

 

Straddling the void between noise/art/punk/hardcore, these 

songs are full of spastic rhythms, staccato time changes and sprawling 

passages that wind up as aggressive bursts of frustration. 

 

The rhythm section have the technical chops to pull off 

the dizzying time tempos and staccato song structures that 

make this sort of thing so thrilling but still have a looseness 

that sounds like a band playing on the edge of chaos. 

 

With a powerful production that really seems to capture a live 

sound, X’ed Out are full of aggression and drive, seemingly 

about to collapse into chaotic noise but the riffs and vocals keep 

the song structures going.

 

These are some longer tracks giving the guitars, bass

and horn sections room to evolve within their own

melodic passages.

 

Don't be fooled into thinking that this is backgound

music ...... play this loud and proud, let the whole

experience wash over you.

Junkbreed - Music For Cool Kids

 Junkbreed have found the intersection between ugliness and beauty.

The music throbs,  judders and face-melts
with noise rock and post hardcore intelligence and aggression.

The vocals are right up in the mix, giving

an impression of suffocation and trapped anguish that convey the

tension that is evident within the song structures. With a shit

hot rhythm section playing like tightly coiled springs, the

dynamics of the guitar are able to explode with fret-mangling

chords and spastic lead attacks.

Like a three way fuckathon between The Jesus Lizard, The Bad

Seeds and The Gun Club, the resulting offspring is grimy, seedy

and shot through with menace, bourbon and cheap drugs.

Restraint controlled with menace is a hard trick to pull off

but Junkbreed have done just that.

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Kowloon Walled City - Piecework

 I have been waiting for this ever since "Grievances" in 2015- and even though I have only had it for a week, it is going straight into my albums of the year list.

Kowloon Walled City have carved out an impressive slab of hardcore/sludge/noise rock that is full of dirty, distorted tunes of disgust, regret and thoughtful anger. Feeling slightly less chaotic than past records, the band are not scared to strip away walls of noise to reveal passages of stark intensity which rely on vocals and picked guitar to set the scene before blasting out a barrage of atmospheric noise and aggression. 

 Great production has melded the instruments into a massive force that sounds unstoppable - if there is any justice in this shitty world, this is a body of work that stands out in an overcrowded genre and which other bands will be measured against. Highly fucking recommended.

Nonagon - They Birds

Punk and noise-rock rarely sound as fucked up and beautiful

at the same time as this. Claustrophobic tension abounds on these

dark tracks of twisted mayhem which are solid with the weight of

delicate intensity that confronts the listener.

Song templates are ripped apart as the riffs thunder across expectations,

giving the impression of an out-of-control muscle car plowing through

a crowd of innocent bystanders. Nonagon are quite clearly doing

their own thing without any genre restrictions holding them back.

This is a chaotic but thoughtful noise being pulled together to give

the tracks their own identity - something sometimes missing from

other bands. There is a sparseness in some of the song arrangements

that give some breathing space which are helped by cleanish guitars

that slash and burn their way through the more melodic passages

lodging in your head.

Out on March 3rd.

The Mighty Ur - Take It On The Chin

Noise Rock as a political weapon and raising awareness while

rocking like a bastard has always been the main thrust of this

band of trouble makers and I am glad to see that with this new album 

all the shit going on with this country has not escaped their aim.

Because I am an old bastard, I was raised on punk bands talking

about social change, personal politics, government policies etc

and can only be amazed at how the climate today, so ripe for

protest, seems to have a very small impact on the song writers

that inhabit this underground world where our music lives.

The Mighty Ur have really found their own sound with this album. Sure,

we still have the loud/quiet passages with plenty of throbbing bass but

now the guys have upped the dynamics to include picked guitar

breakdowns, spoken vocals which croon menaced threats, bursts of drone

and the master stroke of muted electronic swirls and keyboards 

which adds an air of loneliness and loss to the atmospherics.

Bandcamp

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Daughters Of St Crispin - S/T

Madison WI post-punk vets churning out simple,

heavy songs of lament.

Russell Emerson Hall - guitar/voice (ex-Tyranny 

Is Tyranny, ex-United Sons of Toil, ex-Twelves)
Peter Leonard - bass/voice (ex-Droids Attack, 

ex-Rustbelt Sermon, ex-Poorman’s Therapy)

Daughters Of St Crispin bring a dirty amalgamation of
order and chaos - mixing elements of punk, noise and
sludge rock to form compositions that build on their
collective influences, creating a markedly unique sound.
Punk rock goes angular and angry, juddering through 

4 tracks of discordant, rhythmic and punishing slabs 

of excellence. The vocals are yelped but tuneful and 

counter-balance the complex guitar lines but before it 

all begins to sound like random, chaotic bursts of nonsense, 

you realise that they are also rocking like bastards! 

Taking the feel of the Jesus Lizard and the glorious 

feeling of what-the-fuck! song arrangements of These 

Arms Are Snakes, the album also has the added bonus 

of sounding like it was produced by Steve Albini. 

The tracks have real solidity to them - no wasted 

time or filler to the song structures - tension builds 

nicely as the urgent riffs hammer down.

This is the good shit.

Thanks to the band for sending this to me.

Bandcamp

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Carne - Ville Morgue

Hailing from France, Carne blast their way through a set of
tracks using a combination of noise rock, sludge and hardcore.

For a band throwing out such aggressive sounds, there is a
shit load of groove coming from these songs that raise them
above a lot of other sludge/hardcore bands around.

For a duo, the sound is big and almost live sounding - lack of
bass is made up for by low-end guitars which throb in all
the right places.

Tempo changes are expertly used to bring an extra touch of
pacing which help put some atmospherics into the bleak and
dark feel of things. There is a chaotic vibe that threatens to
unravel into a storm of pure, harsh noise but the solid
riffs, thunderous drumming and shouted vocals keep the
songs on an even keel.

This is the good shit.

Buy here from Bandcamp

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Thanks to David at Scratch The Surface for sending this.

Hure - S/T

Band request from Berlin

HURE are not making music for humans. They are

producing music for the damned and doomed.

Using a drum machine, guitar, bass and vocals, the

tracks are a vortex of harsh abrasions, distorted white noise

and shards of amplified anger.

This is how their label describes them.

HURE fucking destroys! How can such nice people do that kind of noisy brainfuck? Maybe it is that catharsis thing. Or its this "barking dogs do not bite" thing. But whatever it is, HURE barks like a rotten dog who is tortured with steel and fire. This sound is so fucking dirty, evil and rotten to the core, that even 99% out of the hard hitting rock´n´roll scene think its bullshit. But your favorite tape label TrimTabTapes is part of the 1% who thinks, this fucking bastard band rules like hell. Repetative and loud as fuck - thats what rock´n´ roll is meant to be. It all started with Little Richard and now we have HURE! This is the kind of music your parents will never understand. But fuck em all, get that tape and start banging your head against the wall.

Cassette release on TrimTabTapes

Ordering info at Facebook

Listen and make your own mind up!

Nonagon - The Last Hydronaut

Living in the murky world of post-hardcore, AmRep
sensibilities and a chaotic math-like riff frenzy,
Nonagon are back with 6 new tracks of controlled noise rock.

I reviewed their 2012 release - People Live Everywhere and
am glad to report that business is as usual.

The music is all about unreleased tension. Circular riffs spiral
in tight chord/note clusters over which John yelps and gibbers
in a frantic, strained voice which holds hints of anger and
frustration.

Once again, the technical side of the band delivers the chops
required to drive the frantic songs along without getting
bogged down in fretboard wankery.

It's fast, aggressive, short, uncomfortable - hey, it's punk rock, baby!

Go get some!

Buy from Controlled Burn Records

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