Feature: Johnskibeat's Best 20 Albums Of 2015

1: My Sleeping Karma – Moksha (Napalm)

Moksha is total instrumental immersion from the first warm blushes of the mesmerising opener “Prithvi” to the closing twinkle of “Agni”. There’s a cotton-wool effect going on that dampens each and every note, cosseting you in down, absorbing you into its arms. Long, languid, gentle-warping notes intensify the mix of psychedelic trance, stoner and post-rock by bringing to bear a rich variety of Rajastani string, percussion and wind instrumentation. Engaging at every turn, the tracks consistently bear fruit, stretching the experience with a mind-boggling degree of layers. In a word, faultless.


2: Between The Buried And Me – Coma Eliptic (Metal Blade)

Since the birth of his solo career, Thomas Giles Rogers, has strengthened his vocal performance no end and BTBAM are reaping the rewards. With Coma Eliptic they continue to yank the wildest of genres together, everything from polka and bossa nova to death metal. However, what is different this time around is the simplified vision and consequently the interconnectness of each part. The music gently segues together with a single tone in mind. What that does is create continuity within each individual track and across all tracks. The joy of “The Coma Machine” is both explosively progressive and consistently engrossing but its relationship with “Famine Wolf” and to an extent the powerful “Option Oblivion” is undeniable. Even the beguiling dark two-minuter “Dim Ignition” breaks boundaries. In my mind, this is none other than BTBAM at their peak.

3: Periphery – Juggernaut (Century Media)

On release, Juggernaut hit me like, well, a juggernaut. Right smack between the eyes. Rabbit in the headlights. It is a concept double-album which could incite you to violence. It will make you both wince and weep. Even after playing, it will lodge itself permanently in your psyche. The story, told in heart-rendering first-person, will break even the hardest of you. Containing the groove, psychedelia, hardcore and jazz all ripped through with rhythmic conflict and dark lyricism, it truly is an essential piece of psychological musical warfare. You have been warned.


4: Heights – Phantasia On The High Processions Of Sun, Moon & Countless Stars Above (Basick)

Ignore their somewhat erratic output – this is no ordinary side-project. Sharing a drummer with cult post-rockers Tesseract doesn’t count for shit. Yes, getting my hands on this was a case of luck rather than judgement, but that doesn’t alter the impact it has had upon me. It’s an instrumental work of sheer beauty that will see you speeding through the cosmos like a meteorite, pausing merely to marvel over the joy, colour and sparkle that Heights inject into their compositions without ever resorting to repetition; without ever sinking into use of force to get their concept across. Phantasia… is an utter delight from Big Bang to Big Freeze.




5: Enslaved – In Times (Nuclear Blast)

With their usual unrestricted vision, Enslaved have created a wonderful, drive-dominant, hook-laden album filled with chugging gallops, dark roars and menacing anguish. It is a work that will suck you in then cast you adrift. Replete with invention throughout, the highlight arrives at the album close. “Daylight” is the band at the peak of their powers throwing out choral builds that warm the heart. And it comes all washed through with strong echoes of Devin Townsend’s epic structuring, tones and textures – well, I’m sold.


6: Man The Machetes – Av Nag (Indie Recordings)

Whipping along at a dizzying pace, this sophomore effort from punk n’ rollers Man The Machetes draws its power from revelling in visceral heft. Standout moments come with the stepdown in pace to the crawling lead and sweet rock-a-bye riff on “Tung Luft” and with the crafty, constructive forethought that has gone into the humdinger “Orkenmarsj”. Their time is now; come join in the dance.


7: Acid King – Middle Of Nowhere, Center Of Everywhere (Svart)

Lapping up the echoing majesty of such bands as Monster Magnet and Orange Goblin while sourcing the wild electric fuzz of St. Vitus, Acid King offer up an absolute peach of an album. Live, the tracks are mind-blowingly intense, yet here wrapped up in the smooth dynamics of the studio the music actually becomes even greater than the sound system upon which it plays. Then, just when you thought they couldn’t get more monstrous or distortion-hungry, vocalist Lori goes and twists her tonsils around “Laser Highlights” and take this beast to an even higher plane.




8: Caligula’s Horse – Bloom (Inside Out)

Jim Grey’s vocal is utterly beguiling and here, progressive technicians Caligula’s Horse, have created the perfect vehicle to show it off to its full potential. From elegaic, melodic numbers to big grooves with addictive choruses to malevolent pieces filled with hate-fuelled lyricism. Bloom is riddled with passion – it lets in a little light and a little darkness and is well worth your attention.


9: Wildlights – Wildlights (Season Of Mist)

Riddled with the uplifting braggadocio and enslaving hooks of Audrey Horne’s moxy and Torche’s power-driven post-rock, this startlingly adept debut is emphatically boisterous, consistently driving and engagingly addictive. It is effortlessly light, airy and voraciously catchy. It glows with an inner fluoresence, blazing a trail for others – I urge you to follow.


10: Secrets Of The Sky – Pathway (Metal Blade)

Oozing mournful, subtle introspection, yet bursting with gloriously-consuming black-edged terror and shrewd metal crunch comes something akin to the storytelling of Agalloch, Anathema or Alcest whilst drunk on Sabbathian doom and Opethian melancholy. This Californian quintet strictly adhere to their concept and unveil an opus that feels like a worn pathway to something truly sinister.


11: Intervals – The Shape Of Colour (S/R)
12: The Atomic Bitchwax – Gravitron (Tee Pee)
13: Kontinuum – Kyrr (Candlelight)
14: Steak Number Eight – Kosmokoma (Indie)
15: Arcturus – Arcturian (Prophecy)
16: Bauda – Sporelights (Prophecy)
17: Death Alley – Black Magick Boogieland (Tee Pee)
18: Vattnet Viskar – Settler (Century Media)
19: Ecstatic Vision – Sonic Praise (Relapse)
20: Intronaut – The Direction Of Last Things (Century Media)


Also online @ Ave Noctum = http://www.avenoctum.com/2015/12/albums-of-the-year-2015/

Best of 2014: http://johnskibeat.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/feature-johnskibeats-best-20-albums-of.html

Best of 2013: http://johnskibeat.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/feature-johnskibeats-best-20-albums-of_17.html

Best of 2012: http://johnskibeat.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/feature-top-ten-albums-of-2012.html 

Lists: Heavy Blog Is Heavy's Best Of Selections, Part 3

Discovering Temple Of The Dog’s one-off album for the first time, one that actually pre-dated Pearl Jam’s multi-platinum debut Ten and Soundgarden’s similarly career-changing Badmotorfinger, was like digging through mud to uncover the perfect jewel. Unencumbered by the necessity for the twin extremes of discord and volume, this lovingly-crafted tribute to their friend, the late Mother Love Bone singer Andrew Wood, almost got lost amidst the hullabaloo of the early-Nineties grunge explosion. Featuring members of Pearl Jam and Soundgarden, their work is naturally blessed with the dual vocal talents of Chris Cornell and Eddie Vedder, as soloists and in harmony – a combination that works in spite of their own very unique styles.

Very much driven by Cornell’s songwriting, their album is graced with a bitter-sweet melancholy and more hooks than a pirate convention. As such, it is evocative of his emotion-soaked solo work – driven, poppy, colourful. From the elegant, crystalline choruses of “Say Hello 2 Heaven” and “Four Walled World”, through the funky jams “Reach Down”, “Your Saviour” and “Pushin’ Forward Back”, to that Vedder sucker punch, “Hunger Strike”, their songs are imbued with passion, vivacity and precision. As a unique coming together of musical amigos all approaching their creative zenith, Temple Of The Dog may only qualify as a supergroup retrospectively, but it doesn’t make their inclusion in this list any less valid.

Recommended Track: Hunger Strike



Also online @ HBIH = http://www.heavyblogisheavy.com/2015/04/06/heavy-blog-is-heavys-best-of-supergroups/

Lists: Heavy Blog Is Heavy's Best Of Selections, Part 2

Here's a few more of my contributions to those "Best Of" Selections from Heavy Blog Is Heavy...

Heavy Blog Is Heavy's Best Of: Debut Albums

In January of 1970, appropriately on Friday 13th, a hitherto unknown group of musicians released a debut album that shook the world, inspiring millions for years to come. With vocalist Ozzy Osbourne and bassist Geezer Butler drawing inspiration for its dark lyrics from horror writers H.P. Lovecraft and Dennis Wheatley, and guitarist Tony Iommi latching on to Butler’s love for Gustav Holst’s ‘Mars’ to develop the riffs, in hindsight, it almost seems inevitable that it caused such a storm. The press reaction that followed only served to stir the pot – “We strongly advise those of a nervous disposition NOT, repeat NOT, to listen alone” screamed one. Staring at the washed-out cover art of gravestones, a watermill and a white-faced, cloaked woman staring back is fair warning enough.


Of course, within lies the harrowing. Rain. Thunder. A church bell. That dark tritone that constitutes the standout riff – the diminished fifth… the augmented fourth… diabolus in musica… the Devil’s Interval. Something infinitely bleak, menacing, unholy lurks within. Sinking deeper you’ll discover talk of a “figure in black”, “Lucifer”, “eyes of fire” and magical wizards walking our streets. The multi-part, multi-toned majesties of ‘Sleeping Village’ and the stop/start riff-reprising ‘Warning’ instantly teach us to expect the unexpected where the Sabbath is concerned. “Heavy metal”, yells Ozzy amidst the riotous rumble of ‘N.I.B.’ and lo, a genre is born. Has there ever been a finer debut?

Heavy Blog Is Heavy's Best Of: Final Albums

This qualifies on the tenuous fact that it was Jim Morrison’s final album before he died. Later albums were released containing recordings of his vocal, but those contained tracks that he never wanted to put out. With Ray Manzarek and Bobby Krieger completing all missing lead vocal tracks it comes as no surprise to discover that those albums didn’t exactly set the world on fire. A band without it’s heart or soul is no band at all.

Now I’ve been in love L.A. Woman for a long, long time. It’s not just their masterpiece ‘Riders On The Storm’ that swings it, it’s the laconic shading and stone cold groove that the album is wrapped in. There’s the laid-back driving nirvana of ‘Cars Hiss By My Window’ and the gentle sashaying of ‘Hyacinth House’ on through to the staccato hep of ‘Been Down So Long’ and the jinking groove of ‘Love Her Madly’. From the downbeat to the upbeat, the album flows through the full range of blue emotions better than any other. And if you’re looking for a song to fall in love with, then you can do a lot worse than Jim’s love letter to the seedy underbelly and bright lights of Los Angeles – the title-track itself. Here, the lithe rhythm, dramatic structure and gorgeous lyricism all underpin that rickety Hammond organ and rocking vibe. The album is no less then a complete and utter joy.

Heavy Blog Is Heavy's Best Of: Doom

Back in the late Noughties, the doom cognoscenti were thrown into a state of temporary disarray when the proposed formation of a supergroup containing Dale Crover (Melvins’ drummer/vocalist), Al Cisneros (Om’s bassist/vocalist), Scott Kelly (Neurosis’ guitarist/vocalist) and Scott ‘Wino’ Weinrich (The Obsessed vocalist/guitarist), legends all, was rumoured. When Shrinebuilder finally formed and delivered their self-titled debut, their only album to date, there was nothing less than a volcanic eruption, literally (one actually blew it’s lid in Iceland and the fallout caused the cancellation of a European tour).

The Wino/Kelly mix of earth-shattering string dissonance and part-howl, part-croon gifted mighty tracks like the mighty ‘Pyramid Of The Moon’ and ‘The Architect’ with a thrilling taste of life inside a thresher. Crover must have almost annihilated his snare for the raging “Solar Benediction”, yet it was Cisneros grotty basslines that marked this record out as a cut above. It was his constants that allowed the music to drift into sequences of mystical noodling, providing the perfect platform for Wino to plug up any gaps in sound with wah, extravagant slide and morphing melody.
With it increasingly looking like the band will never reunite for a follow-up, this album has become an invaluable source of inspiration and enlightenment. No excuses then — buy, borrow or steal this gem and turn your brain into mush today.



Full selections online @ Heavy Blog Is Heavy.

Feature: Johnskibeat's Best 20 Albums Of 2013

2013 has seen large growths in the, quite frankly, already sweaty regions of punk n’ roll, progressive metal and retro blues rock. Naturally, this has made me a very jolly fellow. You might be able to spot a few of the more impressive additions in my all-singing, all-dancing end of year list. Happy xmas to one and all!

20. Iron Tongue – The Dogs Have Barked, The Birds Have Flown

Iron Tongue roughly feed their country affectations and hefty, blues-tinged rock through the chomping maw of old school doom metal to inspire Steve Von Till to comment that The Dogs Have Barked has… “a power and an edge and soul that rarely exists in music today”. [Review Here]

19. Gorguts – Colored Sands

Those 12 years of waiting between albums were worth it. The vast leaps made in production quality mean Gorguts have given us the gift of a powerful and precise shock to the system. Colored Sands is gritty, powerful and effortlessly precise and with songs like the epic title-track tearing us asunder it really is harem-scarem technical death metal of the finest quality. [Review Here]

18. Karnivool – Asymmetry

The essence of their post-rock forbears has always weighed heavy on Karnivool‘s work and, unsurprisingly, their third long-player Asymmetry shows all the same hallmarks. Song by song they draw upon the karmic power of giants like Tool, Deftones and The Mars Volta to grant us the opportunity to gaze upon yet another stunning, colour-streaked soundscape. [Review Here]

17. Motörhead – Aftershock

This album is proof that Motörhead are adapting beautifully to old age. It’s a little flabbier and it has a few more wrinkles, but this still comes with plenty of snarl amidst the laconic blues and gravelly rock n’ roll. Aftershock may not have come from the same dark hole that spawned Overkill or Bastards but it’s right up there with them. [Review Here]

16. Extol – Extol

Construction meets deconstruction as Extol lay waste to our perceptions of what is sonically possible. By turns, scrawling, visceral and beautiful, this magnificent spot of post-everything allows us a glimpse of the endless possibilities when boundaries are shattered beyond repair. [Review Here]

15. The Dillinger Escape Plan – One Of Us Is The Killer

Antagonistic short spurts of bloody hate, this contextually profound lump of chaos is DEP at their most vindictive. Just beware those misleading pop hits – those are there to tempt in the suckers amongst us. How mean. [Review Here]

14. Cult Of Luna – Vertikal

Patience is the key. The stylized emotional flow throughout is spasmodic, yet thought-provoking and utterly engaging. Beware, because when these beasts get their gnarly on, Vertikal‘s neanderthal sludge can become the monster of your nightmares. [Review Here]

13. Deafheaven – Sunbather

The ultimate sonic lightning bolt out of blue, Sunbather smears the visceral guts of black metal onto the blank canvas that is shoegaze. For an hour, they effortlessly fuse their songs together to do nothing less than break our hearts in two. [Review Here]

12. Funeral For A Friend – Conduit

Trimming a little off the sides and adding plenty of honest and committed metalcore power to the melting pot, FFAF give us yet another welcome stepping stone on their path back to glory. [Review Here]

11. Hatebreed – The Divinity Of Purpose

A stunning assertion of dominance designed to incite total mayhem, this hardcore behemoth provides sheer brute force to beat down the doubters. Predictable? Maybe. Empowering? Oh my god, yes. [Review Here]

10. Spirits Of The Dead – Rumours Of A Presence

It was inevitable that after producing such a brilliant debut, SOTD would become one of the finest of the current crop of retro bands. Rumours Of A Presence rams that thought home by worshipping at the twin altars of doom and prog; reinventing their forbear’s artistic touches to fit a thoroughly modern template. [Review Here]

9. Clamfight – I Versus The Glacier

Not just a pretty name, Clamfight‘s latest is one hefty statement of intent. First they ram it home with absolute power. Next, they open it all out into strong, hook-laden tracks and then they take their collective foot off the accelerator. Impressive stuff. [Review Here]

8. Palms – Palms

This ambient-minded supergroup’s debut is littered with moments that remove your capacity for resisting emotion and motion – your heads will nod, your hair will stand on end and your spine will shiver. [Review Here]

7. The Ocean – Pelagial

It is not by chance that you can sense the increasing depth, pressure and diminishing light as you progress through this album. What we have here is a conceptual masterpiece with genius to be found in both its shifting, beguiling, expansive post-metal wash and in those thick, dark brushstrokes that produce such thunder. Performed live, it has transformed The Ocean from an all-too-wieldy wall of screaming sound into an absolute tour-de-force of atmosphere. [Review Here]

6. Dark Buddha Rising – Dakhmandal

Mile-thick chants that sound like they come from the throats of a coven of hooded giants. Know that Dark Buddha Rising’s latest, no matter how gloriously trance-inducing it may seem, is pure evil and as such it should be restricted to small amounts and is definitely for personal consumption only. [Review Here]

5. Pelican – Forever Becoming

Rather than lament guitarist Laurent Schroeder-Lebec’s decision to move on, Pelican have come out fighting and their fresh, beefed-up approach has resulted in a conveyor belt of riffs and wave after wave of warming euphoria to bathe in. Acceptance and absolute absorption in the rhythmic drive is essential; achieve that and you’ll reveal an absolute tour-de-force. [Review Here]

4. Secrets Of The Sky – To Sail Black Waters

Secrets Of The Sky fearlessly dive into their subject matter of death with real abandon and without restriction. By doing so, they treat us to monstrous production and five forms of vocal attack. The combined force of this results in an atmospheric, doomy, subversively black, richly progressive and bollock-janglingly heavy debut that marks these Californians out as real forgotten heroes. [Review Here]

3. Steak Number Eight – The Hutch

Prepare for luminescent flourishes à la Torche, Isis-rich thundering and cherry-picked moments from the entire Baroness’ discography. Prepare for slack-jawed, clean vocals, thick, rotational riffs and dark melodious washes. Then, as malcontent is piled upon upon disillusionment and ‘core edges are sharpened, prepare to acknowledge The Hutch as nothing less than the organic masterpiece that it is. It is SN8′s “coming of age” album; a deal-maker. [Review Here]

2. The Safety Fire – Mouth Of Swords

Both soothing and vicious, Mouth Of Swords glows with a fluorescent vitality. The constantly burbling, rise-and-fall guitarwork, the crisp tone and accurate switch-up from ripped invective to soft melody is TSF at their finest. They have developed into a unique, inspirational force and the verve of this album has rightly set the benchmark, not just for them, but for much of their competition. [Review Here]

1. Man The Machetes – Idiokrati

Fast, bombastic, anthemic, groove-riddled and utterly addictive, Man the Machetes’ debut long-player Idiokrati is a behemoth of Norwegian punk n’ roll. From the fire and swagger of opener “Sluk Det Rått”, through the “Slagen” gang chants and short rhythmic pauses for breath to the joyful menace of “Hjemkomst”, these Norwegian’s prove themselves more incisive than Kvelertak and more explosive than Oslo Ess. Their album is the very definition of “grip it and rip it”. [Review Here]

Also online @ Heavy Blog Is Heavy = http://www.heavyblogisheavy.com/2013/12/16/farewell-2013-john-skibeats-top-20-of-2013/

Further musings on the soundtracks that rocked 2013 can be found here =  http://www.avenoctum.com/2013/12/albums-of-the-year-2013/

Mini-Album Review: Twin Atlantic - Free

Where Biffy Clyro took a career to hone their sound, Twin Atlantic have nailed it at their second attempt and their album “Free”, with it’s rough edges and unctuous core, hellishly addictive riffs and bitingly honest lyrics, delivered in Sam McTrusty’s thick Glaswegian brogue, are radio-rock’s secret weapon.

A small piece I wrote for TLOBF's Scottish Album Of The Year Award 2012 - also online here.

Album Review: Anathema – Weather Systems

This collection of brothers and friends, the Cavanaghs and the Douglases from Liverpool, have spent the last twenty-odd years receding from bellow to mellow and now instead of touring with war machines like Cannibal Corpse you’re more likely to find them gracing the bill with soft-hearted, introspective proggers like Paradise Lost or Porcupine Tree. Weather Systems, Anathema‘s ninth studio album is yet one more step towards complete purification and the final draining of their metal blood. Using similar methods to those used on their last release, We’re Here Because We’re Here, the band slowly add layer upon layer of emotion to reach that moment of true impact, and by doing so manage to make their point in the most subtle of ways.

The two-part ‘Unforgettable’ is something of an ambitious introduction; the first part weaving an upsurging, acoustic guitar arpeggio (an instrument you’ll hear plenty of) around Vincent Cavanagh’s velveteen vocals, and the second a piano-led, melancholic boy-girl duet which brings in more of Lee Douglas’ high-pitched, crystalline singing. Sitting up front the tracks feel like a bit of a sore thumb; the kind of demanding songs that would be far easier to swallow further down the playlist.

The rising panic of tracks like ‘The Storm Before The Calm’ and ‘The Gathering’ certainly get the heart racing. The former features an abrupt change of tack, lifting the pace under a deluge of white noise and programmed industrial touches, and the latter needs the reassurance of a few sideways glances at the bigger picture. It gets them by rubbing shoulders with ‘Lightning Song’, whose violins and acoustic guitar tug at the heartstrings only to walk us – smack! – into the punch of a muted electric guitar strike.

With each track linking back to the central theme, the album forms one steady circuit of the bases to form an enigmatically absorbing home run. You’ll identify with the central character of the piece when he picks up the baton, running with it across the dark inferences of tracks like ‘Sunlight’, ‘The Beginning And The End’ and between the hackneyed monologue of a near-death experience that weighs heavy upon ‘Internal Landscapes’.

Everything is, of course, open to interpretation, but having recently suffered a family bereavement I couldn’t help but see the album as the slow death of a confused and pained soul; a record that I found in some ways upsetting, as the emotions are still raw. Some of the lyrics may be honest but they seem to cut so deep. Viewed at different moments, though, the music proves complex enough to contain a less brutal side and offers several rays of light, so I may come to take comfort from it in the future.

Weather Systems is most certainly a bold move by the band, an attempt to lay bare, with honesty, the emotions that emanate from the subjects of loss, regret, pain and death. As singer Daniel Cavanagh has rightly pointed out, “This is not background music for parties. The music is written to deeply move the listener, to uplift or take the listener to the coldest depths of the soul”. A mission most definitely accomplished.

Also online @ TLOBF

Album Review: Ufomammut - Oro: Opus Primum

Doom is a genre which, to the untrained ear, can seem so simple and yet remains so complex that it has prompted Wino, one of doom’s most prolific artists, to claim it took him “15 years just to stay in tune”. One of the more expansive exponents of the genre, Ufomammut, have been eking out their laconic anthems of oppressive dread and invigorating power since 2000. This time around the Italian demons of doom and their unidentified flying mammoth (“mammut” being the Italian for “mammoth”) are back with a bold double-album release, the second part of which, Oro: Opus Alter, is due for release later in the year.

All of the band’s albums have a theme and Oro is no different. With a double meaning, encapsulated in its title, Oro combines the Italian palindromic word for “gold” and the Latin translation of “I pray” or “I speak”. The album itself delves into the concept of knowledge, power, fear and the human mind’s ability to distil those emotions into the kind of expensive bling you might find dangling from Mr. T’s bulging neck.

From the very first sounds of their aircraft powering down for ‘Empireum’, and the initiation of a steady speaker-to-speaker series of thrums and warbles, we are sucked from our burnt-out husks of lives and cast adrift into our own warped psyches by the music. The track builds from this point through emerging tom-thuds and snare-rolls, walking us down the spine of a twinkling riff, until we reach a battering crescendo of distortion, white noise and eventual overload.

Blacker, more menacing and far less captivating than the above are the tracks ‘Aureum’ and ‘Infearnatural’. The former drags us backwards through mud before hammering fuzzball chugs and dying vocals at us for 12 minutes or until we scream for mercy. It’s the more dastardly twin of those corpse-painted souls Primordial performing to the badgering rhythms of St. Vitus. With so many false endings it doesn’t seem to want to die, no matter how many times we hit it. The latter treads the same path with an even more sinister, all but obliterated, loop of spoken words.

‘Magickon’ returns to reprise ‘Empireum”s central riff, driving it through a couple of key changes, buzzing us back into oblivion. Hidden deep in the background are a series of vocalisations, a second track which only seems to become apparent when it begins to whine as it slowly sets about eating its own form. With ‘Mindomine’ venturing further into a wasteland of psychedelics, as monastic chanting leads us back towards Ufomammut’s penchant for cosmic drone, it’s something of a relief to spy the glowing exit sign.

Repeated plays allow a deeper connection to the changes of mood, the whole lysergic journey revealing itself as a maniacal descent into hell and back. Certainly, the message regarding the strengths and fundamental weaknesses of the human soul are potently clear. Despite my many reservations against repeating such a trip, it’s a message that I, somewhat worryingly, look forward to revealing further when they bring us the second half of the story.

Also online @ TLOBF = http://www.thelineofbestfit.com/2012/04/ufomammut-oro-opus-primum/

Album Review: Band Of Skulls - Sweet Sour

Southampton’s Band Of Skulls are a band on the cusp of something special. Their debut album, Baby Darling Doll Face Honey, nicely egged on by a couple of impact single releases, took them to some exciting places, and this latest long-player is already receiving some high-profile attention. Radio 1 has been blasting out the promo singles on a regular basis and, tuning in, it’s pretty easy to see why.

A quick glance at bassist/vocalist Emma Richardson’s Rorschashian inkblot artwork, this time around, is your first indication that Sweet Sour is going to rock harder than their debut. It has developed into something far more sinister than the blossoming glory of their debut. I’ve fallen into her trap by assembling its imagery into either a dissected, bloodied chicken corpse or, possibly, an Alien facehugger about to impregnate the viewer. Whichever it is, she’s nailed the album title in one startling image.

Certainly, the top end of Sweet Sour is all about the crunch. Guitarist/vocalist Russell Marsden has said “We wanted to write material that’s primed for where we’d got to. Beefier songs for bigger stages”. They are certainly that, with tracks like ‘Bruises’ and ‘Devil Takes Care Of His Own’ loaded with lurching, grimy riffs that pepper the songs with crafty precision, the rhythm ensconced in a methodical structure of attack and release.

They may be pulling the now-familiar shapes of rock bands past, but they have avoided the trap of merely echoing the mould that bands like The Vines or Jet once slid themselves into. Instead, BOS simply refuse to pile it all into the mix at once. Rather, enigmatic gaps in the music are added, the tonal quality becomes a malleable presence, and the pace is slowed to a crawl. It’s this kind of skillful songwriting that bolsters the effectiveness of the repeated lines which become the addictive hooks to be nailed home. It’s rock with added nous: the kind last seen active in the inventive minds of The Black Keys and Nine Black Alps.

Take the the boom-boom-tiss and falling arpeggio string taps of the title track or the steady two-chord repeater-riff that pads its way through to the key hushed strapline of ‘Devil Takes Care Of His Own’. Think Joan Jett’s ‘I Love Rock n’ Roll’ getting down and dirty with AC/DC’s ‘Back In Black’ and you’ll be half-way to understanding just how powerful these songs are.

Somewhat disappointingly, surrounding these top-end tracks lies a patchwork of hit and miss. ‘Wanderluster’ walks you down a dead-end of tentative echo and formulaic patterning before insulting you with a prosaic, posted-in chorus. ‘Lies’ crumbles beneath its own assuredness, circulating a couple of times before panicking and falling on the sword of brevity. Then, stepping back on the gas, they dredge up hints of The Subways with a soul-shaking groove, as memories of deliciously playful boy-girl harmonies are reignited, for ‘You’re Not Pretty But You Got It Goin’ On’.

The pace drops toward the album’s close, allowing the listener to sink back down within Band Of Skulls’ downier side. Tracks like ‘Navigate’, where Richardson beautifully steals the mic, ‘Hometowns’ and ‘Close To Nowhere’ all shift your perceptions of where this band fit in the wider scheme of things. Marsden recently nailed it with the words “Songs are your weapons. We’re the Swiss Army Knife of bands”. They can catch you napping with a real rocker like ‘Bruises’ or effortlessly disarm you with something like ‘Hometowns” whispered, yet super-sharp line “It’s just kids having more kids for fear of being alone” which comes from behind a veil of pastoral flute and gently tinkling stringwork.

As expected then, there’s some sweet and some sour; a description with a double meaning, applicable to both the album’s emphasis and its quality. Regardless of how fast the album grows and fades from your playlist, Band Of Skulls have cracked enough noggins here to really cause an industry ruckus. The countdown to lift-off has begun; twinkling in the distance, stardom awaits to receive them.

Also online @ TLOBF = http://www.thelineofbestfit.com/2012/02/band-of-skulls-sweet-sour/

Album Review: The Subways - Money And Celebrity

The Subways are a band that has always unapologetically walked the tightrope of being gloriously addictive and mind-numbingly repetitive. They’ve always tended to stick close to the steady, predictable path of verse, chorus, verse and, rather than stray into composing complex structures, focused all their efforts on ramming home just how energetically they can perform each note or shout each lyric. In the past, it’s a tactic that has got them noticed and their hard-work ethic has resulted in them nailing down some serious festival and tour slots. The big push forward, of course, never quite came due to the recorded material never selling in decent numbers. Now, with the release of this, their third album, just when you feel they needed to go for the jugular and try a different approach, maybe put themselves out on a bit of a limb, it’s a a surprise to find them still banging out those same songs, simply tweaked and repackaged.

Tracks like ‘It’s A Party’ and ‘We Don’t Need Money To Have A Good Time’ utilises that same recognisably dynamic, guitar-driven pop-punk that boots in the teeth of the listener, whilst all the time flinging cloyingly predictable lines at you about just how simple things can be if you don’t engage your brain. On a certain level, the usual boy/girl vocal works as well as it ever did with Billy Lunn effectively sticking two fingers up at everything whilst Charlotte Cooper waves her arms manically in the air, egging him on. When the two vocals come together, it’s a riot of carefree singing. The trouble is many of us will have stopped listening by the second chorus. Maybe it’s me that’s grown up or them that haven’t (they really should have by now), but what previously might have passed for youthful enthusiasm, now is all too easily translated as mere immaturity.

‘I Wanna Dance With You’ takes the pace down a notch, with producer Stephen Street softening up the pretty flabby mix even further. Sadly, it all ends up sounding like a cross between The Lightning Seeds and Hard-Fi rather than something new and exciting. With the drab ‘Celebrity’ miserably poking fun at the vacuous – “She doesn’t care about the TV shows / Unless of course it’s about Eastenders / Hollywood is where she wants to go”, ‘Down Our Street’ doo-dooing and skipping along like some clueless Ocean Colour Scene pop fodder and ‘Money’ showing off a duff snare sound that has been muffled into a dull thud, there’s much to find fault with. Thankfully, ‘Popdeath’ wraps itself around you with the vocals intertwined and harmonising nicely, ‘Kiss Kiss Bang Bang’ kicks up a neat riff and some effortlessly addictive angeldust, and ‘Rumour’ plucks away at a dark series of chords and unravels some true vitriol.

I find myself disappointedly reporting that Money And Celebrity has no spectacular surprises or dangerously emotional forays. Nope, this is the same happy-go-lucky bunch of silly sods you fell in love with six years ago. They remain steadfastly within the limitations of their respective abilities, playing to their strengths, bypassing their obvious weaknesses. In a sense, they are magicians – song after song emerge from their hats, each one instantly recognisable and unsettlingly reminiscent of something you just can’t put your finger on. Ironically, The Subways are still doing what it says on the tin, a fact that will probably be their downfall.

Also online @ TLOBF = http://www.thelineofbestfit.com/2011/10/the-subways-money-and-celebrity/

Album Review: Japanese Voyeurs - Yolk

Now, I like my grunge, so I was always going to dig Japanese Voyeurs. Since they popped up on my radar a few years back, I’ve been following with interest but have yet to be blown away. Other bands who cite strong grunge influences (Nine Black Alps, Dead Confederate, Seether, Trapt, etc.) have stood up and delivered strong, gutsy music, but this London quintet have yet to do so. This, of course, is despite holding one massive not-so-secret weapon, vocalist/guitarist Romily Alice. If you’ve never heard her sing before, think “attitude of a teenager, voice of a toddler”. Her squeaky delivery and stick-thin appearance is a proper Marmite factor. It’s one of the reasons why I actually prefer their recorded material over their live shows, and there aren’t many bands who reduce me to saying that. The reason? I find the piercing quality of her vocal is softened somewhat on the albums but, being brutally honest, it’s also that watching her contort herself into shapes just makes me wince – I want to have one hand on a phone, so I can call the emergency services the moment she snaps.

They certainly seem to be moving in the right direction with Yolk. It’s heavier than their EPs and, consequently, the contrast between the music and the singer is instantly noticeable. Alice’s vocal stands out powerfully and this shows it off in it’s best light. Tracks like ‘Get Hole’, ‘Blush’ and ‘Milk Teeth’ buck and churn their way into life with her voice cracking wonderfully within the musical maelstrom. It’s clear that the Voyeurs’ Nirvana worship knows no bounds as, on top of the pervading air of “couldn’t care less” lethargy that they exude and their fixation (see their website and the album cover’s ultrasound snap) with the unborn (remember In Utero?), they have clearly taken the notes and rhythms of ‘Very Ape’ and ‘Aneurysm’ and rearranged them to form ‘Dumb’ – yes, even the track-title is half-inched from the Seattle grunge monsters.

‘You’re So Cool’ has a big, dirty groove that sits pretty out front and has plenty of mid-range chopped guitar action that washes over and under you in layers. The vocal is set back in the mix and bursts forth in short waves of attack. Oddly, their lead single ‘Cry Baby’ has none of these addictive features, relying on a solitary, flaccid pop hook and an ineffectual spot of string-bending. It’s frustrating as they can quite easily do pop and do it well (‘That Love Sound’, full of blossoming emotion, and the bleak soliloquy ‘Heart Is A Fist’ being fine examples) but they need to stop resorting to type.

Take ‘Smother Me’. It’s a perfectly-positioned reduction; pure, plodding evil. There’s a doomish quality to the track that lifts it up a whole other level. It grabs you and ducks your head under the surface so that Alice becomes distant and ethereal. It’s the key to this whole album. If Japanese Voyeurs can grab onto this thought, leaving behind their other affectations, like the discombobulated messes ‘X-Rayted’ and ‘Dumb’, they can really start to make their own mark on this industry.

Also online @ TLOBF = http://www.thelineofbestfit.com/2011/07/japanese-voyeurs-yolk/

Album Review: Explosions In The Sky – Take Care Take Care Take Care

Here we have an album title that smacks of a last goodbye and yet, in a recent TLOBF interview, Explosions In The Sky assured us it won’t be their finale. Guitarist Michael James pointed out that despite this fact “it does have this emotional pull to it of ‘goodbye’. Even if it’s for five minutes or five years, there’s always an emotional component to a goodbye”. He also pointed out that by repeating the title three times “the words begin to blend together and ‘Take Care’ becomes ‘Care Take’, so we’re taking care of each other and saying goodbye and it just had this very sweet and sad feel for us, which really matched the tone of the songs”. Good news then because this particular collection of tracks has all the trappings of a post-rock masterpiece and is certain to leave fans of the genre craving more.

This is the band’s sixth album, and there is more of an encompassing rise-and-fall nature to the songs than we have bared witness to previously. They have threaded elements of dance and pop into the mix to grant us a healthy glimpse of their current collective states of mind. This is particularly noticeable on the tracks ‘Trembling Hands’ and ‘Be Comfortable, Creature’. The former is a short little ride though furious chanting to a driving rhythm that plants crescendos that peak and soaring bass that lifts you up high where you can throw shapes unnoticed, whilst the latter, an initial saunter down a sun-streaked forest path, leads to a neat free-falling riff, a flurry of electronic touches and a series of 65daysofstatic dancing beats.

Like all good albums there are emotional peaks and troughs. You’ll dip down as you feel the pain of the gorgeously mournful, tender touches of ‘Human Qualities’ and ‘Postcard From 1952′ which both have a see-through frailty about them. You’ll hear tapping fingers on pages, jogging feet, slow breathing through the nose, a rise in pressure inside your ears. Like paper-skin, the threaded veins of strings and gently pulsing heartbeats show through to speak of tough times in the many languages of music. You’ll climb up and marvel at ‘Last Known Surroundings’ which feeds tribal pipes, chiming keys, cyclical riffs and a persistent snare into the echoing machinations of a vast industrial mill to create a hedonistic wall of sound.

If there is anything missing here, it’s a lack of shocks. Only those brief moments of industrial psychedelia really make your jaw drop. One of those moments occurs as the countrified pop and bleak desert rock of ‘Let Me Back In’ bids you adieu. It’s a warped groan combined with a jarring reverse vocal and it’s almost enough, on it’s own, to make up that deficit. Whether it hits you hard or not you’ll still find youself sitting in momentary silence. So, as you exhale, a breath you didn’t realise you were holding, and press play once more, to allow yourself another pass though the picturesque scenery of yet another classy Explosions In The Sky album, do consider whether it’s their finest. Hyperbole maybe but, from this reviewer’s perspective, it certainly comes close.

Also online @ TLOBF = http://www.thelineofbestfit.com/2011/04/explosions-in-the-sky-take-care-take-care-take-care

Album Review: Funeral For A Friend - Welcome Home Armageddon

It’s 2005 and Funeral For A Friend are a band on top of their game. They’ve crept up and stunned us with their debut album and followed it up with a wodge of incredible live shows and a, supposedly difficult, second album that, if anything, makes our hearts beat even more rapidly. Fast-forward to the present day and, following the double cardiac arrests that two uninspiring, sterile album releases represent, and with guitarist Darran Smith following bassist Gareth Davies out the door, they now appear to be a band on the critical list. There is but one glimmer of hope, a faint pulse, that I, personally, clung onto before I span this latest effort, and that was that last year’s fan-funded EP definitely felt more urgent, passionate, grittier. To see a couple of tracks from it lurking on Welcome Home Armageddon is not necessarily a bad thing then.

Well I’m happy to report our patient is out and about and doing well. It’s softer and more subtle, but the 44-second guitar intro ‘This Side Of Brightness’ evokes the opening to the magnificent ‘History’ from their 2005 album Hours. Thinking about it, it’s a little stroke of genius and it sets you up for reminiscing fondly on times when FFAF albums used to weld themselves to our souls with triumphant melodics, containing both smooth and rough edges, and addictive lyrics delivered with feeling. The following track here, ‘Old Hymns’ disconcertingly speaks those thoughts back at us – “I used to mean something to you, but I turned and left you in the cold”. Spooky, no?

There’s no doubting there are instant big-hitters here but what marks this album out as a giant step up is the switch of anaemic filler for angry, slow-growers; complex song structures that worm their way slowly into your brain and end up surpassing the instantaneous high of the single releases. In the former camp, you have tracks like ‘Sixteen’, a soaring pop-laced anthem with plenty of top-end guitar noodling, ‘Front Row Seats To The End Of The World’, a glorious marriage of screams and cleans, and the rock punch of ‘Aftertaste’. Opposite them, you’ve got the intricate webs that are weaved by the spasming ballad ‘Owls (Are Watching)’, ‘Spinning Over The Island’s threaded grunt and the superlative 5-minute title-track with its multiple personalities.

Yes, the god-awful, faux-American drawl of Matt Davies-Kreye pops up every now and again and goads the guitars into riding roughshod over the softer tracks, but those moments are few and far between. It was probably inevitable when you consider the amount of aggression that the band have thrown at this album. Thankfully, with added angst comes added variety and this is exemplified by the skidding metal bursts lurking in ‘Spinning Over The Island’ and the speed-demon ‘Broken Foundation’ with its explosive guitar solo. If you also take into consideration the fact that Funeral For A Friend are already the undisputed kings of vocal harmonies and suddenly you’re talking about a band that can, again, not only look their peers in the eyes but can once more inspire them. Yes, it’s just one album but, put into context, it’s going to mean the world to a whole lot of people. Welcome home, FFAF.

Also online @ The Line Of Best Fit = http://www.thelineofbestfit.com/2011/03/funeral-for-a-friend-welcome-home-armageddon/

Album Review: AXXONN – Let’s Get It Straight

What is a rulebook if you can’t tear it up once in awhile? Brisbane’s Tom Hall has the imagination to do such a thing and, now he’s commandeered AXXONN as his solo project, latest album Let’s Get It Straight proves he wields the power to grip it and rip it.

Previously, with No Anchor bassist Ian Rogers on board, the band were known mainly for driving out dirge-riddled electronica, but here Hall goes one stage further by combining all his musical loves in one place; taking genres as far apart from each other as black metal and J-pop (although you’re doing well if you can spot that one), drone and electronica, doom and ambient rock or, as his biography reads so eloquently, “powernoise and icecream”, and sinking them all deep into a soundtrack that speaks to both the mind and the soul.

It could be that Hall was feeling a bit peckish when he concocted this brutal crossover recipe but there’s definitely a food theme here with titles like ‘Cod & Chips’, ‘Choc Milk Addiction’ and ‘Frosties 2L’ knocking about. The music itself often brings the eclectic output of 65daysofstatic, Fieldhead or, even, Mogwai to mind. Hearing skipping, downtempo rhythms being fed into a heap of electro-noise is thrilling and, in the case of ‘Choc Milk Addiction’, a smothered, shoegazing vocal is thrown into the mix aswell – it’s quite possibly how 65DOS would sound if they joined forces with The Big Pink. And yet, to focus on that one thought, ignores the rest of the musical spectrum that Hall explores. ‘Golfini’, for instance, combines crisply strummed and plucked acoustic guitar, then smothers it in electric fuzz, squeak and overdrive, and ’10 Pound Trouble’ presents us with a bravely bare field recording of territorial bird squabbles before crystallizing our minds with a hammering, resonant piano layered up with synth beats.

The imagery as you proceed through the album comes thick and fast and most of it is convincing enough to prove that this is no walk in the park. ‘Slave Driver’s sub-heavy cannon blasts stick you in a barren desert, watching helplessly as shells burrow their way into a sandstorm of white noise and industrial drone. Then, the eking build of ‘The Slow Death’ casts you adrift, oxygen-starved, floating through star-spattered space, whilst ‘Perfect For Acid’ ties you up in its basement and performs dark, aural torture on you as you swing back and forth through a blinding sea of strobes. It all adds up to one messed-up, wildly introspective trip.

Inevitably, there is material here that wouldn’t even bond together if you used superglue, and the title-track is the standout black mark. Throwing a church organ into a jumble of 80s house music it seems is just a step too far. But then there are wham-bam tracks, like the eight-minute industrial mallet that is ‘From Blacks Void’, that wipe the slate clean and make you think again. It’s not an easy record this – it’s that banana boat ride you opt for instead of the relaxing option of simply lazing and tanning on the sand. You’ll feel nauseous, you may get flung off every now and then, but it’s the kind of thrill ride that leaves you stuffed full of adrenaline, gasping for breath and with a mile-wide smile on your kisser.

Also online @ TLOBF = http://www.thelineofbestfit.com/2011/02/axxonn-lets-get-it-straight/

Album Review: Ultraphallus - Sowberry Hagan

Those Belgian noiseniks Ultraphallus are rashly experimental. Their challenging, sensory warfare sits on the crossroads where the paths of Nadja, Bleach-era Nirvana, Sunn O))) and Kong all meet up. Now, if that sounds like quite an odd collection of names to stick into one sentence you’d be right. But then actually getting to grips with the abrupt track-by-track changes of direction of Sowberry Hagan is a task in itself. Whether they’ve been brave or stupid is ultimately your call, but hopefully I can help with that.

The album was recorded on a Liége farm in just four short days. Four days of instrumental speculation with banjo and saxophones popping up amidst layers of white noise, samples and field recordings. Listening to the whole shebang you’d have to hope that it wasn’t a working farm. The cockerel wouldn’t get a look in!

Ripping through a multitude of techniques they assail us with a spot of white noise, not unlike a grotty recording of a macabre horrorshow, for ‘Pathological Freemind Verse’ before obliterating us with bawled punk as into the the snapping maw of ‘Right Models’ we go. Dropping tempo to settle into their more familial groove of badgering doom, vocalist Phil Maggi begins to psych us out with his best unhinged lunatic impression for the soul-sucking ‘River Jude’ and then menacingly half-whispers in our ear through the plonk-a-thon ‘Indians Love Rain’.

For ‘The Red Print’ (a track where the level of cotton wool disorientation will have you trying to un-pop your ears throughout) the band seem determined on drowning the dying guest vocal of Eugene Robinson (Oxbow) beneath the surface of a boiling ocean of sound. He manages to heave himself up to deliver a line, then splashes around a bit, until they drag him back under. This goes on with him re-emerging just breathless moments later until, agonisingly, he finally disappears beneath and we enter an underworld of psychedelic warblings.

The album as a whole is, at first glance, an exercise in various claustrophobic techniques. Adeptly, Ultraphallus smother us with the pillow of neurotic drone (‘Torches Of Freedom’), try to strangle us into submission with hedonistic, industrial doom (‘Suspense Bird/Human’), or break our spirit with fistfuls of discordant sax over scathing noise (‘Cinghiale’). And if they’d left it there, we’d be initially thrilled but ultimately unfilled. By presenting escape routes through the likes of ‘Right Models’, the banjo and birdsong 12-second blast of ‘The Crumbled’ and the grunge-tastic riff that inhabits ‘Golden Fame’, the whole experience becomes something else: an exhilarating thrill-ride into the unknown that makes our hearts beat faster and gives us a feeling of light-headedness as neurones fire us into something approaching happiness. Sowberry Hagan is justifiably, heroically brave.

Also online (and officially recommended) @ TLOBF = http://www.thelineofbestfit.com/2011/02/ultraphallus-sowberry-hagan/

Interview: Wino

Powerful handshake, body littered with timeworn tattoos and with a veritable sweep of gently whitening hair, there is no mistaking the legendary guitarist/vocalist Robert Scott Weinrich a.k.a. Wino. Slumped so deep into a sofa, he seems almost past the point of no return, yet he rouses enough of himself to reflect on his recent achievements, a mere scratch on the surface of his long association with what many would pigeon-hole as doom or stoner rock. The reality, as his latest slice of acoustic nostalgia is testament to, is something that is, on the face of it, impossible to define in such simple terms. So little time, so many questions. I managed to grab a few minutes before his Shrinebuilder show at the London Scala to ask just a few of them.

Are you enjoying your day so far?
Last day of the tour, it's been really fun. I've been on the road a long time before this tour so looking forward to a couple of days off.

Of course… supporting your solo album ‘Adrift’ in October?
Yeah, we did almost a two-month tour. Had about 10 days off back in L.A.

'Adrift' has just been released here. How much of yourself do you feel is in there?
Well it's a pretty personal record so I'd have to say a lot. The songs are my way of letting off steam a little bit. Also there a couple of songs on there that were written way back when I was, like, 16.

I love it but its acoustic bare-boned nature took me a little by surprise?
It's the first time I've done anything like that and it was a lot harder than I thought it was going to be. It turned out to be a real challenge. All kinds of things like the different gauge picks you use for more string attack when you're recording it - you use a heavier pick, you hear more of that "kkk-kkk". All these things. At the same time the engineer we used, who's a friend of mine, is also a little bit of a strange guy. He wanted to do a lot of proselytising when we were recording, which was really annoying. I want him to give me my space but… y'know. We agreed to disagree about a lot of things [laughs]. So it was a little bit of a trial but, at the end, I was happy with things.

Did you enjoy the different recording processes required as opposed to an album recorded with St. Vitus or Shrinebuilder?
It was very different. Now, I think I've learned from it, so it was cool. So, not only am I proud of the record but it was also a good learning experience.

Do you think you'll have another crack at recording in that way?
I'm definitely going to do another one and I think now I won't be quite so apprehensive. I'm definitely going to prepare a bit more lyrically, 'cos the arrangements and the lyrics were a little bit of a hold-up. Most always, there are a few little lines that don't get finished until you're standing in front of a mic. A lot of the songs, we never played them live before we recorded. The optimal thing to do is to write a song, take it out on the road and play it live before you record. Sometimes you just don't have that luxury.

It was great to hear ‘Iron Horse/Born to Lose’ again and the way you’ve managed to reveal the lyrical content makes it that much more powerful. What was the thinking behind covering that song particularly?
I've always done that song because I've always loved that song. That version, anyway. The "On Parole" version of that song is pretty fucking old; Larry Wallis was playing guitar. After that, they did the first Motörhead album where they do that song, but I don't like that version. It's a real bluesy version. So that earlier version always grabbed me when I heard it, and I bought that record having never heard Motörhead ever. I bought it 'cos of the picture on the front. It just looks so badass, I thought it can't be bad. So, it's an easy song to play and I like the theme - motorbikes and the lifestyle - it's the ultimate fucking bike song.

Have you had a chance to hear what Lemmy thinks of it yet?
I haven't spoken to Lemmy about it yet, but I would like to play it for him at some point.

Why did you choose this particular album title?
That's kind of how I feel. I was having some domestic issues; I'm kind of estranged from my children, so it matched how I was feeling.

So, the UK’s been waiting with baited breath for Shrinebuilder. What was it like being upstaged by a volcano?
It was pretty fucked actually. We kept trying and trying to get in [to Europe]. Al Cisneros' [bassist/vocals] original idea was that if we came in over Africa we could have made it in, but then we might have never made it out so, after the first couple of shows we knew we couldn't make it in - the first four shows was like a third of the whole tour budget. We really wanted to play so that was really cold. Something good did come out of it though because, as we can get together so rarely, we used the extra time to go into rehearsal where we fleshed out our next record. We've now got way more than enough material, so we're in good shape. I think we're going to do a couple of other releases first. We're going to release a live album first before we go in and record which might not be until next November.

How did Shrinebuilder actually come together to record an album in the first place?
Well, the idea had been around for a little while, and then me and Al decided to slip the idea to Chris [Hiatkus] on drums. Then when Chris left Om he said it wouldn't quite be right for him, so that left just me and and Al. About that time Al had asked me about bringing in Scott Kelly (guitar/vocals) and I thought that was a great idea. Then we needed a drummer and basically all of us agreed that if we could have our dream drummer it would be Dale [Crover] and when he said "yes", we were pretty blown away. I think we'd been together about 6-7 months. The interesting thing is we never actually played together until the night before we went in the studio. It was either me and Dale, or me and Dale and Al, or Al and Dale, and then, finally, me and Al and Scott. The first time we all got together was midnight on a Thursday night and the next day we went in the studio. Three days later, we'd recorded the record, so it was pretty rad.

Three days is a pretty short time. It seems incredible that the individual styles of writing managed to fit together so rapidly and so perfectly.
A lot of cool stuff happened, a lot of serendipitous stuff. I was struggling with the lyrics for this riff that I'd bought to the table and Scott happened to call me at that exact moment and said "Hey man, I got some lyrics that might help you finish that song" so it was pretty amazing. Then Al had a piece that he'd tapped out that fit just perfectly. So everything on that first record is written by all of us - everyone has written a little piece of each song.

So a lot of it was written over the phone?
A lot of computer files sent to each other. It actually forced me to get little bit more computer-literate. But it's getting easier and easier now.

Immediately the supergroup label was slapped on you. Did that add pressure?
You know everybody needs words to describe stuff. That's how stoner rock came about and that's how heavy metal came about. I don't focus on this kind of stuff because it's not what I need to be focussing on. It's nice to be accepted though.

It's possibly because you've got four big fanbases that are all interested in this one project.
I think it's interesting that you point that out because there was a bit of a firestorm - there was this thing where the stonerrock.com guys didn't like the sound of Scott's voice and then the Neurosis people who didn't like my voice. That's pretty interesting actually. (Laughs) The stoners were hating on Scott and vice versa. It was pretty funny. I’ve never been in a band before with that style of vocals, and I'm not just saying this 'cos he's in my band, but he's one of the few screamers where I actually like it. Maybe it's the timbre of his voice.

How often are you getting to practice as a band?
We really don't get a lot of time. We rehearsed two days before this tour. Probably two sets a day. We probably practiced the songs three or four times each, if that. But we're pretty good at it. The one thing in our favour is that everybody's been around the block, it's easier to do things; nobody's got ego problems. There's no real problems like you'd get with a new band. We respect each other. Not that there's competition between us. When I was little kid I asked myself "How can bands as good as The Beatles possibly have broken up?" It just seemed unfathomable. When you're young what you don't realise is that people come into play here. You could be the best player in the world but if you act like an asshole you're gonna have problems, right?

So you say the second album is now all but written?
The ideas are finished.

Do you have, say, song titles yet?
Let's see - I'm not sure if I should do this - ah, I can give you a couple. One song is called In The Wake Of Zeus, we talk about the volcano, and another is called The Concept Of Now.

Thanks for the tip-offs. You've certainly whet my appetite for the show now! Have a good one.
My pleasure.

Thanks to Rich@Rich-E and Lauren@RarelyUnable

Also online @ TLOBF = http://www.thelineofbestfit.com/2010/12/tlobf-interview-wino/

Gig Review: Shrinebuilder + Wolves In The Throne Room - Scala, London 2/12/10

Ducking into the Scala to escape the capital freeze is a pointless exercise tonight as, be it deliberate or not, the band room is chilled to the point where their cloakroom becomes wholly redundant. It’s the perfect temperature for Wolves In The Throne Room though, who proceed to ramp up the emotion with a combination of gloom, jettisoned fog, etched banners and a protracted candle-lighting ceremony. With the stage fully anointed, their crushing gloop of malevolent black metal, crust and doom rings out, regularly dipping into a burbling, Neanderthal-paced melancholy before bursting out into a session of grating barks and power chords. Like creeping death, they wash over us sparking neither disgust, nor true passion. A few nodding heads and the odd round of gentle applause are all they can muster from those attending, although their fastidious lack of eye contact, rather than their music, is most likely the reason for this.

Nothing less than a volcanic eruption (remember those newsreaders trying to pronounce Eyjafjallajoekull?) could stop Shrinebuilder visiting these shores last Spring, so to finally hear the crowd roar as Dale Crover (Melvins’ drummer/vocalist), Al Cisneros (Om’s bassist/vocalist), Scott Kelly (Neurosis’ guitarist/vocalist) and Scott ‘Wino’ Weinrich (The Obsessed vocalist/guitarist), legends all, mount the stage is enough to cause several grown men’s lips to momentarily quiver. The lank-haired Crover and Cisneros, resplendent as the class clown in his woolly hat, immediately fire up the rhythm section; Dale beats the snare into submission with the minimum of effort whilst Al uses his grotty basslines to overwhelm as much of the room as possible. Kelly and Wino try hard to make headway into the deluge with dissonant guitar and a mixture of vocal howl and croon, but they seem to make little impression. Only a trip up to the Glass Room, where a vast pane dissolves the sound, can cure the problem and single their individual efforts out.

They mix the songs up nicely, firing up the mighty ‘Pyramid Of The Moon’ and ‘The Architect’ as an opening salvo and saving ‘Solar Benediction’ for a raging finish. The middle of the set wanders away from the punchier material to slip into a spot of almost mystical noodling – it marks a period where the now fervently headbanging crowd find space for mild introspection. The band also happily fit in a couple of less well-known tracks; ‘We Let The Hell Come’ shining out like a beacon. Kelly, looking like he’s been dragged through a hedge backwards and sporting a perma-stoned expression, is constantly impressive, digging out arse-clenching riffs and scowling vocal which Wino latches onto, plugging any gaps in sound with wah, extravagant slide and morphing melody. In fact it’s also Wino who adopts the role of ringmaster, legs spread, urging the audience to greater heights with a combination of vein-popping head jerks and fierce eyeballing.

There is really only one real spoiler to this brutal showing and it comes in the form of this evening’s stringent ‘no flash’ policy. One fan dares to forget to switch his off and suffers the indignity of having a roadie repeatedly pelt him with flying cups until he ceases. When you’ve got four of the world’s finest musicians before you, performing at the top of their game, turning your brain into mush, it seems the perfect excuse for a little lack of self-control.

All photographs by Rich Etteridge

Also online @ TLOBF = http://www.thelineofbestfit.com/2010/12/shrinebuilder-scala-london-021210/

Album Review: Lords Of Falconry - Lords Of Falconry

This band’s juicy moniker, Lords Of Falconry, conjures up images of vast birds of prey gliding in from hilltops to alight on oiled leather gloves so, as an avid ornithologist, I was keen to learn more. A quick flick through their PR release reveals nothing but hyperbole: phrases like “quixotically naïve”, “green, inferno-like” or “the waltz-like sound of mastodons”. Their MySpace page, similarly, reveals little but misdirection (a claim that they hail from the United Arab Emirates being the straw that broke the camel’s back), but a bit of digging unearths one Steven Wray Lobdell, an Oregonian guitarist with a few bands (Davis Redford Triad, Faust, Sufi Mind Game) under his belt and a doyen of all things psych, and one Sammy James Adams, a North Dakotan drummer with a penchant for cultism and all things ancient.

Here, their music emerges through a heady fog of white noise to deliver, most notably, a deranged howling at the moon (‘Doomsday Legislation’), a wash of drunken guitar feedback (‘Scottish Chords’), a hypnotically swerving, effects-laden solo (‘Manifest Destiny’), and a starkly simplistic and instantly accessible array of rock chords combined with a reverberating, gothic vocal, reminiscent of the style of delivery that harkened from The Mission’s Wayne Hussey (‘Mariana’). All these little affectations pin an individual imprint on each track, but all seem impelled by a filthy rich mix of warping guitar overdrive, a monumental, track-bleeding bottom-end drone and an almost epic use of hard-hitting snare and resonating cymbal shatter to steadily drive the music to the point of implosion, where crazily the music folds in on itself – almost as if the players seem hell-bent on self-destruction.

This fetid wall of muddy psych implies a heavy use of mind-bending drugs and a blatant disregard for subtlety or technique. Here, then, is music that screams self-indulgence. Probably recorded as near to live as humanly possible, with disappointingly short tracks (considering the style) faded carelessly in and out, the whole album feels lost down its own deep murky hole where the aggressive power swirls and builds to raise its head before abating and sinking below ground once more. Smack the volume up, close your eyes and, for brief moments, you should be able to generate a feel of how immense this might sound live but burnt to a piece of plastic it merely disappoints rather than invigorates. Perhaps if they’d left the powerful shock ending of the outstanding brutish grunge of ‘Rosebud’ for last, they might have afforded the moment even bigger impact and left a natural fullstop. However by ending proceedings on the mental disharmony between dizzy, treble-heavy guitar and the thunderpunching bassline of ‘Creeping, The Ether’, they’ve left it feeling like an odd bonus track. “Quixotically naïve” is probably a fair description after all, especially when you consider the painfully miserly 35 minutes they offer you to lose yourself in their ambiguously psychotic world.

Also online @ TLOBF = http://www.thelineofbestfit.com/2010/12/lords-of-falconry-lords-of-falconry/

Album Review: Winnebago Deal - Career Suicide

Their last full-length came out four long years ago, but it’s only really been a couple since Winnebago Deal stopped touring and took a hiatus. Considering how fast music industry tastes have shifted in that short time, and the vast influx of bands flexing uber-aggressive punk guns to supplement their output, it’s going to be quite a struggle for the Oxford duo to make an impact with this new effort. Perhaps, a resort to type might seriously be professional hara-kiri but, judging from this Career Suicide, a fierce slab of stripped-back second wave punk is certainly what they’ve given us.

Yep, this sure is one supersonic speeding slab of pure fury, smeared with the grime of their discontent, and it slays. The two Bens, Perrier and Thomas, start out with ‘Heart Attack In My Head’, a fluxing powerhouse that employs smeared sustain over pummelled repeater snare and broken screams to really ram home their point, rip through another 12 tracks that barely scratch the two-minute mark, and finish with the demon nut-crusher, ‘Can’t See, Don’t Care, Don’t Know’, which Perrier uses as an instrument to scrape clean his vocal chords. There’s no rest for the wicked, they say and, at this rate, their arms will be bloody stumps if they tour long with this doozy in their pocket.

Amongst an album that seems conditioned to congeal itself into one heaving mass, with it’s verse-chorus-verse blueprint being strictly adhered to, picking out highlights is a tough call but I sorta dig the eerie opening build to mayhem and vampiric cajones that ‘I Want Your Blood’ sports even if it does seriously cut the cheese. On the flipside, the 1:09 of ‘Frostbiter’ is particularly obnoxious, the sound almost folding in on itself as Perrier’s guitar and vocals slew around, the dB piling up to a crushing climax, whilst ‘Nobody’s Fault But Mine’ teeters on the edge of punk-pop mediocrity before properly dropping it’s shorts on the chorus. They won’t sell a gazillion copies, the odd brainless idiot will no doubt declare that punk is dead, but the ‘Deal will simply shrug, stick one mighty middle finger in the air, and gig with this hatstand-mad collection of bruisers in every nook and cranny they can find and we’ll all naturally flock forth and hail them kings of all they survey once more.

Also online @ TLOBF = http://www.thelineofbestfit.com/2010/11/winnebago-deal-%E2%80%93-career-suicide/

Album Review: Quest For Fire - Lights From Paradise

According to singer/guitarist Chad Ross, this latest release is a “heavy meeting of all the music we love … pounding psych straight from the Canadian heart”. Clearly, “all the music they love” is a reference to the players’ wide array of musical backgrounds (Ross and guitarist Andrew Gunn were once part of indie rockers The Deadly Snakes whilst drummer Mike Maxymuik thrashed it up with metalcore’s Cursed); a fact that has shaped the band’s mind-blowingly varied output as they delve into the realms of stoner rock; and a fact that has enabled Toronto’s Quest For Fire to quickly switch from their self-titled debut’s tendency towards the sharply aggressive, raw punk end of stonerdom to where they are now, on Lights From Paradise, ekeing out passively-shifting, immersive psych (an experience tangibly reminiscent of something last felt whilst listening to The Warlocks) that steadily swells and abates. Throw in a guest spot from Sophie Trudeau (Montreal’s Thee Silver Mt. Zion) and her magic fiddle and it’s like being hard-wired into the music; being drip-fed adrenaline in one arm and morphine in the other.

Trudeau simply owns their oozing seven-minute introductory piece, ‘The Greatest Hits By God’, with her bowed notes gently placed above the grungy oomph of the chugged guitar and echoing vocal. ‘Set Out Alone’ and ‘Strange Vacation’ pick up the pace, kicking up the dust of the past with a Cream-esque wall of fuzz sounding off behind the garage blues drive so reminiscent of current bands like Dinosaur Jr and Dead Confederate. QFF’s party trick is their uncanny ability to knit the rough with the smooth, sucking you in for their punched hooks until you simply drop out with them as they ramp up the sustain and ditch the grunt for a smooth, rush of power chords and drifting vocal that doubles the track length. It’s an effortless shift in emotional direction that so few bands have truly mastered. The transmogrification from ‘Strange Vacation’ to ‘Confusion’s Home’ is the finest example of this and will undoubtedly leave you mouth-gaping at their mastery of moodswings.

Then, with a resounding strike on their division bell, they dig you out of your reverie and dump you, blinking like a newborn, in an unceremonious heap. Why they felt the need to suddenly throw obnoxiously clean acoustics, fatuous percussive breaks and glibly overwrought patterns upon their audience is beyond me. Both ‘Psychic Seasons’ and ‘Hinterland Who’s Who’ prove to be both left and right sore thumbs of this sophomore album. That’s not to say they don’t employ fuzz or Ross’ creamy, oscillating vocal; they merely eschew complex structure to simply blast through peaking rises, never clicking or settling until they shoot out the other side and fade to close. It feels like that switch from the relative safety of recorded programmes to the grainy, flickering image and seat-of-the-pants unpredicatiblity of live telly.

The final nine-minute cruise under the hammered rain of cymbal and drum, Pink Floyd-mimicking all the way, proves even ‘Sessions Of Light’ is more than enough to demand a return to the wondrous immersion that the first half of the album soaked itself in. All this is a bit of a shame because it doesn’t follow that a band with a potted history should produce such a potted album, yet ‘Lights From Paradise’ doesn’t deserve such a haphazard phrase being dumped upon it. It contains moments that transcend beauty, an album that delivers more than the sum of its parts. Put bluntly, a vaguely dim ending simply doesn’t dull the lighbulb of genius that precedes it.

Also online @ TLOBF = http://www.thelineofbestfit.com/2010/11/quest-for-fire-%E2%80%93-lights-from-paradise/

Label Profile: Good Fight Music

The track record of Paul Conroy and Carl Stevens is pretty staggering when you consider they were former partners of Ferret (who went on to combine forces with Sony’s RED Distribution and Siege Of Amida Records), Warner Music and ChannelZero. So, in January 2010, when they stepped back into the breach and founded Good Fight Entertainment, an international management company it made a few big ripples in the industry pond. They got RED back on board to help out, divided their company into a music and sports division, and added a new record label, Good Fight Music. It’s the quality material pouring forth from this particular record label that is causing this particular journalist to sit up and take notice.

Of their new endeavour, Carl Severson states, “We’ve built a company that is in a unique position to rise to the challenges of the evolving music industry. We’ve been on the front lines as digital has become the medium of choice for music marketing and commerce, and we’ve grown with it, embraced the opportunities it’s presented. Paul, myself, our staff; we have the resolve to thrive in this climate. Good Fight Entertainment is the culmination of our experiences as artists, band members, managers, musicians and executives. We have the opportunity to work with people who believe in us as much as we believe in them. This is a very exciting time for us.”

So far, the roster is already looking pretty impressive. Rosaline, I Am Abomination, Son Of Aurelius, Disembodied and Madball are a cherry-picked few who have all signed on the dotted line. Their first release was a class act too – Cancer Bats‘ latest album Bears, Mayors, Scraps & Bones. Having had a chance to review the latest material to emerge, (see below) it has certainly given enough food for thought.

Here’s a quick rundown of what you should be keeping an eye open for:

Band: The Chariot
Album: Long Live
Released: November 2010

Press Release Summary: “With a hard earned and accomplished sales history of over 100,000 units and years of vigorous global touring, The Chariot have entrenched themselves as a standout in the hard and aggressive music movement.”

TLOBF Review: Ultra-rapid, spasmodic changes of attack take you swinging through more obnoxious levels of ear-scouring than you can shake a stick at. From opener ‘Evan Perks’ plaintive repeated howl of “disappointed, I know you are”, through ‘David De La Hoz’ and its multi-faceted tomfoolery (and accompanying haphazard one-take video), to the lacerating smack in the chops that is ‘The King’, The Chariot tread the tightrope of bothersome lunacy and damnable genius. This is destructively cantakerous hardcore music like never before and will leave many in pieces whilst the remainder will be left staring down at their cowering forms with freeze-framed faces, caught in throes of rapture.

Listen here | Watch here

Band: The Contortionist
Album: Exoplanet
Released: October 2010

Press Release Summary: “While hardcore punk may be the sound that rules the day in The Contortionist hometown of Indianapolis, it is the band’s signature brand of forward thinking heavy metal that has made them stick out as hometown favorites”.

TLOBF Review: This is probably the most insanely complex album I think I’ve ever heard. The Contortionist manage to blend bruising post-hardcore and highly complex math-metal with utterly benign passages of rock music. The vocal anomalies (dirty grunts hitting sterile melodies and robotic vocoder narration) match the broken nature of the guitar styles and track structures. ‘Expire’ hangs off crushing deathcore whilst ‘Contact’ unfolds into part-epic rock anthem, part-deconstructed technical metal. And if you thought this was all about creating something insanely aggressive, dig down to the eloquently melodic ‘Axiom’ or part one of the title-track and you’ll be simply blown away by the tenderness on display. With attention spans shortening all the time, The Contortionist may just have created the music of the future.

Listen here | Watch here

Band: Conditions
Album: Fluorescent Youth
Released: September 2010

Press Release Summary: “The songs are steeped in hard rock with an infusion of heartfelt pop. Track after track finds towering hook-laden choruses fit to reign on radio’s airwaves”.

TLOBF Review: This comes across like a dose of Flood Of Red’s epic walls of sound yet rocks with the grim determination of You Me At Six. Finding a middle ground between those two can’t have been easy, yet Conditions find it by combining mewing pop-punk with rabble-rousing hard rock. There are plenty of big hooks but, sadly, little variety in delivery and they do appear to be on a collision course with a million other bands. Thankfully, the emotional damage that bursts forth from ‘Comfort Far Away’ combines with tracks like ‘Keeping Pace With Planes’ and ‘When It Won’t Save You’ to thunder in and prove they have plenty left in the tank to show us. This is no one-trick pony.

Listen here | Watch here

This article also online @ TLOBF = http://www.thelineofbestfit.com/2010/11/label-profile-5-good-fight-music/