Category: Buzz Chart

Now, anyone who knows me will know that I can rarely sink my teeth into an album unless it is jam packed with swearing, screaming, chuggy guitars and the occasional grunt. A friend had told me about MeWithoutYou and I constantly said I would check them out, when I had no intention of wasting my time on yet another factory produced indie creation.

Eventually, after being threatened with being tied to a chair, I gave the album ‘Brother Sister‘ a listen. Well, more fool me for not doing it sooner. I am officially a MeWithoutYou addict.

This 5 piece from Philadelphia may be quite ‘softly softly’ but it works. They take bog standard indie and shake it up with a fusion of percussion, keys, foot tapping drum beats and unpredictable vocals.

What makes this band for me is the delivery of the lyrics. Front man Weiss sucks you in with his dulcet mellow ramblings until he has lured you close enough to blow the skin of your face with his erratic delivery of the chorus.

I am now the proud owner of all of their albums and I suggest you all get your ear ‘oles around this lot.

Kelly Renda

Formed in Leeds in 2004, The Plight mix kick-arse rock n’roll with the ferocity of classic hardcore, creating a potent brew that is quickly picking up fans across the country. ‘Imagine Black Flag getting trashed with Thin Lizzy at a Motorhead gig,’ it says here on the press release thingy and I’m not one to argue ‘cos they’re bang on. The Plight have the intensity of any prime hardcore act but play it with such a rock n’roll strut you can swing your hips while you circle-pit.

Their debut release ‘Black Summer‘ features six sonic sucker-punches that will knock you for six. Yeah, they’ve been compared to Gallows and the CD includes from brilliant artwork from Dan Munford who also did all of the Gallows artwork and although The Plight come from a similar mind-set as Watford’s finest, they sound very much their own and play with enough energy to inspire a teenage rampage. Definitely ones to watch in 2008.

James Sherry

Sometimes a song comes along by someone you’ve never heard of before, and it just clicks. Sam Sparro‘s Black & Gold is just such a tune. Having been turned onto the track a couple of months ago, it was a song that I couldn’t stop myself from playing on repeat, with it’s throbbing bassline carrying the smooth vocals from the very opening bars.

Sam Sparro’s vocals might not be my usual cup of tea, but after hearing the chorus, I defy anyone not to bop their head and be singing “black and gold, black and gold” by the time the song has reached its climax.

Having just been championed by Annie Mac, this is a guy who is bound to go places in 2008 so what better way to introduce you to him before he gets huge than by sticking him in the Buzz Chart? Enjoy!

Abjekt.

Having been a huge fan of Manchester Orchestra since I first laid my ears on them, I was intrigued when I found out they were touring with a band called Annuals and they had each covered one another’s songs for a split 7″.

Annuals, I thought, not The Annuals. Too many ‘The’ bands around right now not doing anything remotely interesting. Simply, Annuals. So I gave them a shot and was very impressed indeed.

Covering Manchester Orchestra’s haunting ‘Where Have You Been’ is not an easy task, but Annuals have taken it and put a very nice electronica twist on it, with beats and loops reminiscent of The Album Leaf and airy vocals on the side of Death In Vegas. Basically, it’s awesome because it’s an amazing band covering another amazing band, because they’re friends. On a side note, MO covered an Annuals song as well. You scratch my back…

Moose.

Let’s open the scene:

Abjekt says: I’m doing a Doomtree buzzer, shall I just suck cock for the entire thing?
Moose says: Yes, completely.

So, with Moose’s backing, welcome to the wonderful world of Abjekt Loves Doomtree. The Minneapolis crew have been tearing the underground of hip hop various levels of new arseholes for a while and with a crew record expected in 2008, they very kindly put out a crew False Hopes, comprising tunes that weren’t quite up to scratch for the album.

After hearing the record, it’s clear to me that Doomtree have just wiped the floor with 99% of music with their scraps. If this is anything to go by, their crew album is going to blow brains faster than a Bangkok ladyboy with Guinness World Records on his mind. The track you can hear by clicking above is Knives On Fire. A banging beat and some militant rhyming from Sims, POS and Mictlan says it all, so get to clickety-clicking and nod your motherfucking head sucker.

“You’re mad coz you don’t make moves, you’re sad coz you can’t break through, you’re bad and now you hate Doomtree, knives on fire motherfucker, make room” they tell us, and who are we to argue? Take cover, Doomtree are here.

Abjekt.

What’s this… The New-Wave of Old Age??!! Not quite, but Geriatric Unit are a joining of forces between ex-members of Heresy, Iron Monkey and Hard to Swallow respectively, back to teach the kids a few lessons in bone crunching Hardcore.

They don’t hang around… 10 tracks in 12:22minutes of raw rabid short urgent blasts. In your face!

Pete Craven

If you’ve had the good sense or luck to witness Turbonegro in the live setting, you’ll most likely agree that there’s no spectacle quite like that of Hank Von Helvete and his motley crew in action. They’ve made some pretty spectacular records, too, so hats off to those folks at Cooking Vinyl for re-releasing the band’s entire 90s back catalogue.

1996’s’Ass Cobra‘ (the band’s third album) may have arrived after seemingly no end of line-up changes and various other troubles, but it showed that the band were truly beginning to hit their stride. Essentially a punk rock record at heart, the likes of ‘Sailor Man‘, ‘Denim Demon‘ and – of course- ‘I Got Erection‘ remain live favourites to this day, all resplendent with fuzzed-up guitars and brilliantly dark humour. The sleeve’s parody of the Beach Boys’ ‘Pet Sounds‘ is just the icing on a very hard-rocking cake.

Two years later, the band released their magnum opus, ‘Apocalypse Dudes‘. Described by Jello Biafra as “possibly the most important European record ever”, it marked an evolution of the band’s sound into a slicker but no less hard-hitting cocktail of glam, metal and 70s punk rock, which they termed ‘deathpunk’. More confident and diverse than ever before, songs like ‘Selffestructo Bust‘ and ‘Prince Of The Rodeo‘ see the band truly stamping their own warped identity onto proceedings, and the result remains their finest album to date.

If you’re not yet familiar with Norway’s finest musical export, then these two records are the ideal starting point. But first, check out them links above.

Alex Gosman

I’ve got a thing against bands that have really long song titles. It’s pretentious, it’s annoying and they never follow up with a decent song, you only have to look at Panic! At The Disco for proof of that. I also have a thing against admitting there are exceptions to my rules, but I’m going to bite the sour-tasting bullet of truth and admit it with The Ghost Frequency.

I had heard the band’s name thrown around and read various things about them online but had never delved into their music until a couple of weeks ago when I watched the video to their single, the track you can hear above, Never Before Have I Seen A Man Alive That Looks So Exactly Like A Skeleton.

The soft hand claps of the intro lead into a short wall of noise before the verse kicks in and the song takes shape. It’s a foot stamping track which has one of the most catchy choruses I’ve heard in a good while, a chorus which I’ve annoyed Crossfire HQ members and other friends with non-stop for over a week. The off-kilter breakdown two-thirds of the way through gives a nice change to proceedings before kicking back into the hip shaking vocals.

Put simply, it’s well good blud.

Abjekt.

When Daft Punk released Human After All back in 2005, the rocking robotic duo from Paris seemed to be utilising the title of said album almost as an excuse as to why, you know, it wasn’t very good.

OK, don’t get me wrong, I liked it, but it was undoubtedly not in the same league as the juggernaut white knuckle ride that was their debut, Homework, or the spaced out funk odyssey of Discovery. There was something missing; the French touch had disappeared, and we were left with washed up beats stuck in the relegation zone, with a couple of tracks kind of seeming a bit out of place (Technologic anyone? Bit too good for that album perhaps?).

Either way, it thrust the state of Daft Punk’s career into a bit of a ooo-err, if you know what I mean. If you know what I mean then you’re probably also aware of the overwhelming surge of french electronic artists who are dropping beats like a ludicrously well timed Nike basketball advert, if you know what I mean. If you know what I mean then you probably won’t be surprised that those pyramid lurking robots are back to show everyone who the fucking daddies are.

Alive 2007 is a melee of everything fantastic about these illustrious producers. A non-stop barrage of head banging funk, which sees Bangalter and the other fellow with the absurdly long name, tweak those tunes we are so familiar with into a totally new experience. Songs that may have sounded unfinished on Human After All, are amplified to the extent we knew they were capable of, and old classics like the relentless head nodder, feet tapper deluxe, Da Funk, sound timeless amongst an array of perfectly mixed samples and beats.

This is where the duo belong, pounding their fists like a disgruntled judge on top of their neon thrones. The crowd love it. I love it. And you should to. In the player is a mind blowing mash up of Around The World and Harder Better Faster Stronger. What was that you said Kanye? Bow down in the presence of greatness? Gobble up your own words boy and proceed to do so. Suckerrrrrrrr.

Joe Moynihan

Internal Riot is the brand new album from the legendary UK outfit, Subhumans… yes legendary… who are still playing as hard today.

The lyrical themes are very much of the times, with a consistent anti-War message, but also some wry comment on media overkill, the ever increasing power of major supermarkets and the pressure people are under to attain that “average” weight… “pressure to change to fit the size that sells the shit they advertise”.

The band as whole is really tight, and in the 20-odd years since they last stuck out a studio record the lads have honed their musicianship … nothing too flashy, but as clever and effective as they’ve ever been.

Pete Craven