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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Tacoma Narrows Bridge Disaster - The World Inside

 

Tacoma Narrows Bridge Disaster play post-rock arrangements but with 

the fire and aggression of sludge and post-metal.

                                They mix ambient soundscapes with loops and noise but never

forget to play as loud as they can when they want you to take notice. 

Echoed, picked guitar rings out in desolation, like a corpse

floating down a river before finally falling over a massive 

waterfall that drowns out all other sounds. 

The songs

avoid long drawn out passages, instead the constant ebb and

flow between loud and quiet quickly take the listener along

with mid paced tempos that brings anticipation to the next

part of the composition. 

 

There is a definite cinematic feel to proceedings which will

be rewarded by playing as a whole, rather than individual tracks.

 

Slow echoed drums morph into aggressive,

driving beats from which the guitars can surge over the top, giving

plenty of opportunities for feet stomping. 

 

In an over-saturated genre, it can be hard to make your mark

but these guys pull it off.

Mother Iron Horse - Under the Blood Red Moon

What do you do when you form a filthy Sludge band but the riffs

keep morphing into Doom dirges. And then the guitarists insist on

spraying distorted psych stoner solos over everything? 

 

Well, you call yourself Mother Iron Horse and produce 8 tracks of

brilliant sounding sonic denseness.

 

For me, this is the perfect mix of doom and sludge with some

outstanding guitar leads to make things have a really drugged out,

trippy but menacing vibe.

 

Instruments are down-tuned and brimming with enough distortion

to make your teeth start to shatter. Walls of sound are made deeper

by the tribal drumming that drives the songs along. Vocals are not

the tired "cookie monster" grunting but have an almost hardcore

intensity and passion.  

 

I cannot stop playing this - it has the epic majesty of doom but with

the anger and power of sludge - out on Ripple Music November 5th.

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 Good Shit - 15th Feb 2021

 This is the music that has been making me jump 

up and down and bang my head.

Psychedelic fuzz rock coming from the heart of the desert. 
Jessica A.M. sings with with a hint of sleaze and danger.

Released on March 12th.

    Post-punk, shuddering and angular - intelligent lyrics that 

the music punctuates with sharp jabs to the ears.

Cult of Luna do what they do and do it well. You either dig this 

or ya don't. Me? I dig this big time.

Old school street punk. 3 chords and a heart of hate drive these
guys to go for the throat and take no prisoners.

men of munga - Ballads Of Munga And Men

men of munga have produced a mind bending amalgamation 
of prog rock, metal, jazzy syncopations and swirling melodies 
with a punk attitude.

With the unhinged song composition of the sadly missed These 
Arms Are Snakes and maybe the prog-hardcore leaning of ATDI, 
men of munga explode with an album that crackle with energy, 
excitement and bucket loads of aggression.

Vocals range from the gentle to throaty yet melodic roars that are
gloriously underpinned with sprays of solos that erupt from the manic
riffing. With a drummer and bass player tighter than a sharks' death
grip, the guitars are free to spazz out, rock hard, shimmer and shine
with delicate breaks before launching into another breathless display of
driving, explosive playing.

The tracks have a controlled frenzy about them that display passion as
well as a desire to hurt ear-drums! 

Bandcamp

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Heavy Relic - The Apparition of The Great Cabala

Hey you! 
Yeah, that's right ..... you in the corner with 
the blank stare and drool coming out the 
corner of your mouth. 
You look the sort of person who would be into 
"Earthless" ...... yep , me too. 
I guess you like to light up a "doobie" and jerk 
off to Sonic Prayer ...... yep, me too. 

Heavy Relic are a much heavier version of the 
afore mentioned band - this means jams of 
freakout acid guitar brilliance. 
Heavy Relic play instrumental stoner with heavy 
vibes and as with all instrumental projects the question 
has to be asked - is there enough going on to keep your 
attention wandering due to the lack of vocals? 
In this case, the answer is a resounding yes. 
The guitar riffs are loud and nicely fuzzed, evoking 
the sun-baked desert sound but with a heaviness drawn 
from sludge. Excellent audio clips are used to great 
effect but without being overdone. Drones and atmospherics 
throb underneath the songs, bringing in some 
space-rock undercurrents. 

Bandcamp

Sonic Demon - Vendetta

Groove-laden stoner rock from the depths of 

Italy. A cocktail of grass and boozed fuelled madness, 

influenced by all the usual suspects from the 

world of Doom, Blues, Stoner Rock and 

Psychedelia along with hints of punk and 

good ol' rock n roll! Heavy, heavy stoner that 

has an unstoppable groove to it. 

Bouncy killer riffs that just keep on 

making your feet stomp. Desperate vocals 

that growl over the tunes with menace 

and passion. Fuzzed out, distorted speaker-blown

 solos that rip apart the cosmos and destroy all in its path. 

This is the good shit.

Music that helped me survive 2020

 No order, no ranking, just the sounds that blew my mind this year.