Album Review: Servers – Leave With Us

In an age when an embattled music industry has sucked up hit after hit, record labels and their artists have found solace in the art of advertising. A brash band t-shirt, a solid tour slot, an enticing line of blurb, one fanatical album review in the right place and a strong social media presence. Any of these things can be the making or breaking of a band these days. With that in mind, you’d honestly believe that the UK trio Servers were rank amateurs. An instantly-forgettable and distinctly internet-unfriendly moniker, a face-concealing “promotional” snap and music video and a few lines of biographical waffle about cults – that’s pretty much it. It’s certainly a back-door approach to self-promotion.


Take a closer look though, because lurking back there in the shadows is an absolute behemoth spouting musical ear-worms that boast grit, melody and muscle. Some groups may mesh a couple of genres together to create something fresh and dynamic – Servers are an octopic rock band with a groping arm in every pie. They are the very definition of the band you simply cannot pigeonhole. Song by song, their chameleonic music takes in grunge, dark rock, screamo, sludge, cult metal, new wave, industrial and punk n’ roll – there are even a few 70s prog touches here and there.

The keystone here is vocalist/guitarist and former GU Medicine frontman Lee Storrar. His “all is lost” melancholics and soaring Jaz Coleman-esque (Killing Joke) throat-ripping wails lock themselves seamlessly onto his portly chugs and wild riffs, but there is solid support from Ant Nettleship’s pounding drums and Lee Wilde’s fizzing bass. This here is a debut album loaded with viperous intent, an intoxicating dark quality and shedloads of melodramatic attack.

Opening with bleak menace, ‘Save Me From Myself‘ is two-parts Cancer Bats and one-part Five Finger Death Punch. It burns with an intense heat and Storrar’s hoarse yelping rises to a scream with the crecendoing chorus whilst the pistoning rhythm rumbles beneath like a detached and hopelessly lost soul. ‘Universes & Supernovas‘ and ‘Run With The Foxes‘ are their two epic firecrackers with vast riffs that will suck you in. Both Foo Fighters-esque in construction and tone, they feature big, sparkly choruses that will aggressively weld themselves to your brain. Wedged between them the intensely gothic, Icicle Works-friendly comedown of ‘Claustrophobia‘ is utterly thrilling and it’s tonal brother, the dark, sultry creature that is ‘King Things‘, is a pulsating beauty with a powerful “breathe in, breathe out” suckerpunch.

‘Mega High‘ ups the ante as Lee Wilde’s fat bass strings combine with Storrar’s buzzing, sludge-flinging guitar to take them powering into Orange Goblin and Fu Manchu territory. This gives licence for the vocal to dial up the snarl and caterwauling as the shit-kicking rock licks come out to play. The joy of the stomp is used to great effect for the raging bluster of the QOTSA-esque ‘Do Gooders‘. Here, their bleak cult ethos that they seem to thrive on adds another more sinister tone to their appeal.

Layered deep enough to give it a potent attack, the strong production also slaps on a slick finish and yet it’s been handled lightly enough to give it real character. Listen closely enough and beneath the power and precision, there is still the odd pop and crackle that bursts forth. No matter which track you shuffle to, there is a resplendent joy prevalent in the construction and an undeniable swagger in the delivery. Here is an album that you sense is alive and breathing. It’s dark purpose may be there in the background but, thankfully, it has not been consumed by it. Rather it stands silently within the crowd, yet with arms open, ready to wrap you in its warm, loving embrace.

When the songwriting is of this kind of quality, there really is no need to go through the standard ritual of self-promotion. If the South Yorkshire trio continue along this path, focusing solely on the creation of the music alone, the rest will simply take care of itself. As their final track clearly points out with its (rather tacked on) spooky soundbite from the “Heaven’s Gate Cult Recruitment Tape” – “The only chance you have to survive is to leave with us”. One listen to this album and you will surely want to follow Servers to the ends of the Earth.

Also online @ Heavy Blog Is Heavy = http://www.heavyblogisheavy.com/2014/01/24/servers-leave-with-us/

Album Review: Cherry Bloom – Open & Die

The Fennec Fox – what an amazing creature. Did you know… with their huge 6-inch ears, which are half as long as their body to help regulate their body temperature, they may look a bit feline, but they are actually one of the smallest members of the dog family and the smallest of all the foxes. They can be found in deserts (when you can spot them – they are camouflaged by their colour) where their main threat comes, surprisingly (considering the arid zones they live in) and yet unsurprisingly, from indigenous humans who hunt them for what little fur they have or for sale to tourists. Being social animals, they mate for life and their cubs can weigh as little as 50g. You won’t, however, see one at a rock concert (with those ears?) so quite why they are on the front cover of the new Cherry Bloom album is beyond me, but it gave me a chance to let you know just how cool they are (literally).

So now you want to know about the aforementioned band? Well, despite having one of the worst band-names in rock, they’re from Paris, France and they formed in 2005. However, the funnest fact about them is they’re a duo. To make up for their lack of bassist friends they, unlike the instrument switcheroo that Winnebago Deal perform, simply do without. They merely lay the vocals on thick, the crazily-named Octave Zangs performs all kinds of dynamic trickery with his guitar, and Julien Jourdan thrashes the living crap out of his kit. Open & Die, currently streaming in full here, is their second long-player and, like the best rock albums, it’s divided into gritty ragers and crafty structures that lurch between attack and release.

“Blood Rights” is a pacy, pounding track run through with screaming, distorted guitars and an adversely laid-back vocal delivery, whilst the title-track merely swaggers, ripped with a soulfully infectious bite. “Breaking Down”, with its prominently feisty wah-wah effect and affected, harmonised vocal is, unquestionably, like listening to Alice In Chains on happy pills. Similarly, there’s no doubting the burnt-out dynamics of Rival Schools (and possibly Reuben too) in the lo-fi, garage rock of “Weeping Lights”.

The sweet heart of the album takes us from the lurching yaw and pinged strings of the excellent “Fall Of A Dead Whale” to the undersold acoustics and light, vibrato lead of “Flying Over”, swamping us with grungy elements. The half-spoken wordplay and dirty meandering around moods are caught betwixt and between sounding a bit like Queens Of The Stone Age and a little like Foo Fighters’ debut. When they bite into the distortion, they do so with a swift crack of the whip. Then, for the crushing smack of “Lovely Deer”, they even manage to eke out a sweet Fu Manchu-esque stoner vibe.

Being a two-instrument band, they definitely benefit from striking superbly clean lines; that freedom from instrument confliction that comes naturally with such a set-up. However, unlike The White Stripes’ Jack White who manages to hold back from overcompensating with power, they occasionally hit the same brick wall that occurs when a twitchy sole and a distortion pedal come into contact. You can’t expect to simply plug gaps by colouring them in with a deafening scrawl. That’s half my problem with the collapsing wall of sound that Black Cobra’s Jason Landrian creates with his crass pedal abuse and linked triple-amp set-up. For the opening wedge of the album, I simply had to yank up the level on my big sub-woofer to get anything like an acceptable level of balance – you simply cannot listen to this with standard issue iPod earbuds and get away with it.

However, even when you take this ever-present failing on board, there is more to love than to hate here, and you simply cannot argue when tracks like “Sick Rabbit” are being bandied about. Those snappy string-strikes and pitching, barbaric riff grip you like a vice. To be honest, even without it, “Fall Of A Dead Whale” swallows me hook, line and sinker every time.

Like the Fennec Fox, Cherry Bloom are an odd-looking animal who, because of their innate differences, face more problems than most but, by evolving in just the right way, they have so far managed to overcome them. Time will tell whether they continue to survive in this barren and hostile environment.

Also online @ The NewReview = http://thenewreview.net/reviews/cherry-bloom-open-die

Album Review: Torche – Harmonicraft

Take a look at that gaudy, pink artwork. Flying cartoon newts (some friendly, that burp rainbows, and some not-so friendly, who belch dark clouds and lightning bolts) that fly around a sky dodging falling candies, chocolate bars and bubbles. I’m not even going to speculate on what that one down the bottom of the picture could be happily licking.

Compare it to their previous releases’ similarly cartoon-esque but most definitely bleaker pictures and you’re seeing images that clearly represent the band’s shift in musical styles. It’s true. Listen carefully to the sludge-infected monstrosity of their eponymous debut album and its much acclaimed follow-up, Meanderthal, which earned the band their “stoner/doom pop” label, and you can hear exactly how they came to arrive at this point and with that artwork.

I’m not going to beat around the bush any further. Harmonicraft is their cleanest, most melodic album to date and it’s release will continue to divide stoner, prog and post-metal fans in the way that Torche have always sought to do. They begin as they mean to continue, with 2 and 3-minute walled sections of rumbling bass that jimmy along cyclical riffs fired through distorted guitars. The band’s sparkle and main selling point here is that from somewhere amidst it’s hammering crush is the echoing, clean vocal of Steve Brooks. In an even purer form than heard previously, Brooks is your upbeat guide through the heaviosity, firing out his minimalistic lyrics, serenading his audience through the thick and the thin. Be it via the medium of punk rock for “Walk It Off” and “Kiss Me Dudely”, the grunge-soaked swagger of “Reverse Inverted” and “Letting Go”, or the chugging rock n’ roll pound of “In Pieces” and “Skin Moth”.

The songs are still trench-deep and busy enough to make your ears pop when they throw in a sudden shift in depth. It’s the yank-up into the guitar arpeggios and neck-snapping drive of “Snakes Are Charmed” you need to watch out for. It’s one of those moments where you know a band has nailed down something truly special. The hairs are standing up on the back of my neck now just thinking about it. They almost repeat the trick with the slow, neck-snapping groove of “Roaming” and the catchy-as-fuck rotating riff of the title-track – I reckon this is what being trapped inside Torche’s own washing machine is like, going round and round with those soiled tour threads.

With its track-by-track homage to looped riffery, Harmonicraft is, undoubtedly, a mood album. You flick it on, it invigorates you for 38 minutes, and then you move along. It’s not something you can easily dip in and out of. Each track feeds beautifully on to the next as subtle shifts in rhythm mean you simply roll with every single one of its punches. The down side of course is that they will face rows of pointing fingers who don’t buy into such a concept. For instance, there are several moments where the song demands more from the band than they’re willing to give. It’s not the first time we’ve heard them proffering only one and a half minute tracks and it’s hard not to feel aggrieved when a track you dig crashes to a halt with a sense of incompletion; the wish left unfulfilled. Would it work if you stitched all the tracks together by a series of chord hangs? I doubt it. Done this way, it can leave you with the vague impression that you’re being pitched too. The nay-sayers will be suggesting that if they really are an ideas factory, then why do so many of their imaginings sound similar? Ah, the trappings of being so clever, so innovative and so skilled are that your public will always question your motifs and demand more of you.

So, sure, at first glance it may seem that Torche are driving towards melding churning pop and gutsy groove together à la Queens Of The Stone Age, yet deeper inspection shows they have also begun to loop back in on themselves. There are songs here that brush-up against the kind of moods that Mastodon’s current work is offering and given the frowning, doomier finale that lurks in “Solitary Traveler” and “Looking On” (think Pilgrim meets High On Fire), we can see they are still keeping all their options open. End of the day, whatever their critics may say, Harmonicraft is a genre-bending original and I’d recommend it any day of the week. Without bands like Torche showing innovation like this, there’d be an awful lot of uninspired and uninspiring music out there.

Also online @ The NewReview