Category: Buzz Chart

While Metallica, Slayer, Anthrax and Megadeth may have cemented their place in thrash metal’s legendary ‘Big Four’, Testament were (and indeed still are) considered by many to be the category’s honourary member.

Bursting onto the Bay Area scene in the early 80’s under the name of Legacy (a name the band would later lend to their debut album), Testament quickly gained recognition as one of the most intense and immensely talented bands on the then thriving circuit. With the release of ‘The Legacy‘ in 1987, however, the band began to make serious waves across not only the rest of America but the metal world as a whole.

At a pace rarely seen in the modern day word, they followed-up with 2 more albums in as many years: 1988’s ‘The New Order‘ and the 1989 classic ‘Practice What You Preach‘. However, the 90’s would not be kind to the quintet as they struggled to live up to the standards of their early material, suffered multiple line-up changes and found themselves on the verge of splitting.

Following years of near obscurity, it was the reformation of the band’s ‘classic’ line-up in early 2005 that saw the legend of Testament reborn. A twin CD/DVD release entitled ‘Live In London‘ followed some months later, with their subsequent UK tour receiving a stellar 5K rating from Kerrang! Magazine. With a new album in the pipeline and a headline slot at this year’s Bloodstock Open Air festival in Derbyshire confirmed, the giant once again seems alive and thrashing.

Ryan Bird

It’s one thing to sign to a label with such a rich and well respected history as Roadrunner Records, but when Judas Priest frontman and all round metal god Rob Halford is singing your praises, you know you’re truly on the right path.

Hailing from Vancouver, Canada, 3 Inches Of Blood are indeed on their way to becoming modern day metal legends. Having created a stir in metal’s underground with 2002’s ‘Battlecry Under A Winter Sun‘, their subsequent follow-up ‘Advance & Vanquish‘ – the band’s first for Roadrunner – put them firmly on the map as one of the genre’s brightest prospects. Throwing an unapologetic nod to the likes of Iron Maiden and Judas Priest the sextet have successfully carved out their own distinctive niche, combining collossal high-end vocals with death metal roars and screams in a way that has never before been heard.

Produced by Slipknot drummer Joey Jordison, ‘Fire Up The Blades‘ represents the band’s best and most diverse work to date. Jammed full of blistering solos, furious drumming and some superb vocal moments, the band’s third album to date is a sure fire contender for ‘Metal Album of the Year’. With a summer of touring ahead of them as part of this year’s Ozzfest, as well as the aforementioned Halford lending his support to the cause, expect to see – and most mportantly hear – plenty more from these chaps in the not too distant future.

Ryan Bird

I was pretty excited when this landed in the office this week. I’ve had the piss ripped out of me for ages because every band I’ve mentioned I like recently has had an animal in their name. At least Caribou aren’t named after a type of horse or cat, which seems to have been my favoured taste for a while.

I remember when I first heard Caribou. It was on a really crackly radio in my uni halls bedroom at like 1am, and I knew I’d forget who this amazing jingle-jangle psychedelic noise coming out through the static was if I didn’t write it down. I scrawled ‘Caribou- Yeti’ on my hand in what turned out to be permanent pen, and fell asleep. The next day I went and bought The Milk of Human Kindness and couldn’t get enough.

Melody Day is the first single from Caribou’s latest offering Andorra due out on August 20th, and genuinely shocked me at how good it was. When you get really hyped on a band, you pray to god that the next thing you hear by them fulfils your expectations. This certainly has, very much so. I absolutely love this. Continuing Dan Snaith’s beautiful electronic dreams of creating music to space-out and imagine your flying with unicorns in a purple sky full of heady incense smells, ‘Melody Day’ is, I feel, way better than anything on Milk of Human Kindness. Reminiscent and harking back to bands like the Beatles and the Beach Boys, with a very strong connection to Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti, with that 60’s dreamy haze feel. I can’t express how much I love this single, and how much I can’t wait for the album to come out.

By adding a remix from Four Tet featuring Adem, two more artists that I have been listening to nothing but for weeks, there is not a chance I’m not going to like this.

10/10

Tim Mogridge

Despite Parts & Labor‘s wilfully berserk quest for sonic experimentation through a barrage of malfunctioning electronic beeps and squeals, they still understand that underneath it all, the song is still king. Tracks like ‘The Gold We’re Digging‘ and ‘Vision Of Repair‘ display a commendable quest to search out new sounds and unpredictable structures and grooves.

Yet at the heart of each song is a melodic sensibility that betrays teenage years reared on a diet of classic Husker Du, Sonic Youth and the Minutemen (covering here D Boon’s brilliant anti-war spiel ‘King Of The Hill‘) that stops ‘Mapmaker‘ short of becoming art for arts sake.

Hailing from Brooklyn, this New York art-heads successfully walk the line between musical experimentation and killer melodic hooks with ease making them a challenging and joyful listen. A UK tour is in the works. Don’t miss it.

James Sherry

Going back to a time when everything was better is often a good move, which is what the Beastie Boys have done with their all-instrumental release The Mix-Up.

Similar sounding to the lounge-jazz tracks from previous releases Check Your Head and Ill Communication, this album won’t blow your mind, and the general consensus is that everyone would rather put one of those albums on instead.

It does however fill the silence with sexy bass and organs, topped off with Mike D’s simple drumming. It’s an album you’d put on to chill out to and drink margaritas in a smoky (well, not anymore), dimly lit jazz-bar and wondering who these cool as hell dudes are on stage wearing Raybans and pork-pie hats. Just don’t expect any banging tracks in the same vein as Intergalatic, etc, etc.

Because of the extreme laid-backness and easy listening vibe of The Mix-Up, it’s hard to pick a standout track or tracks for this, as it all blends together into one smooth groove and isn’t meant to be taken too seriously, but ‘Rat Cage’, ‘Off The Cage’ and ‘The Melee’ do it for me a bit more than the others.

Saying that, this shows that the Beasties still enjoy going back to real instruments and are much more talented musicians than pretty much every new, complete bollocks indie band coming out every other week. This album could have been made at any point in the Beastie’s hiphop career, and fingers crossed, is the lead-up to something much bigger.

The Chemical Brothers have been wowing audiences all over the globe with their potent mix of dance beats and hook-laden hits and now they are back with a new album, We Are The Night.

The new record brings forward all their experience and panache and matches it up with their unfaltering guile and innovation, proved brilliantly by the new single Do It Again.

Featuring the vocal talents of Ali Love, the track begins with a thumping bassline, propelling the beat into the catchy hook and the bleeps that get that body swerving and head banging.

Love’s high pitched vocals fit perfectly into the mix and confirm just why the producers are so highly thought of when creating their tunes which are both mainstream and yet firmly esconsed in the dance world they came from.

With guest spots from the likes of Klaxons on All Rights Reserved which is another club banger, harking back to the early and mid 90s, and Fatlip bringing some rap to the plate in a strange but very powerful collaboration on The Salmon Dance, this album is one that demands to be listened to.

Abjekt.

Oh yeah, I bloody love Spoon I do. And their new album ‘Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga’, (which for purposes of me not going crazy writing it out every time will now be referred to as just ‘Ga’) is another slice, or should that be spoonful (sacked for bad puns- Z) of musical perfection.I’m absolutely loving the first track ‘Don’t Make Me a Target’ so much that I played it three times in a row the first time I listened to the record. Screw it, I’m putting it on again. It’s very ‘Way We Get By’-esque, which is why I’m hooked on it already. Lots of descending piano and guitar riffs that are incredibly satisfying to listen to.Britt Daniel’s voice is as husky and distinctive as ever, but on songs like ‘You Got Yr. Cherry Bomb’ reaches some precariously high notes perfectly. You always know you’re listening to Spoon as soon as you hear that voice.

Ok, I’ve just got to the track ‘Rhthm & Soul’ now and it has had the same effect as the first track did. I’m on play count number two for this one. It reminds me of the Eagles a little bit, couldn’t tell you why. Maybe the very bass-heavy guitars and bright acoustic over the top. “Track trousers, square couches, short legs and squared shoulders, pot holders, egg and soldiers” is a great lyric, even if I couldn’t tell you what it meant. I think that’s why I like it because it’s so random. A bit like Ugly Cassanova’s ‘Things I Don’t Remember’.

‘The Underdog’ reminds me a lot of The Shins, with quick chord changes and hand-clapping, which brings me onto my overall thoughts on ‘Ga’. Although it is a fantastic album, and probably one of the best I’ve listened to for a long time, I can’t help being reminded of other bands by this. I can’t put my finger on exactly why it does, but it does. It’s not a bad thing, because all the bands it reminds me of are amazing. And one of the bands it reminds me off are Spoon, which may sound crazy, but it shows that they are carrying on what they do best- being Spoon.

And I bloody love Spoon I do.

8/10
Tim Mogridge

Even if you don’t like Paramore, by now you will have read at least part of an article about them. Probably written in the past month. Probably about Hayley Williams, the band’s enigmatic (read: mouthy) frontwoman. Aged 18, she’s got fiery red hair, can sometimes play the guitar and piano and cites her favourite band as Refused.

This is Paramore’s second full-length to be released via Fueled By Ramen, ‘Misery Business’, the first single, is – as Hayley says – about making someone’s life a misery because of the jealousy she felt, and then winning the boy in the end. This album is full of teenage angst and will probably be a smash hit by the end of the year as the band are picking up fans everywhere.

‘Riot!’ is a decent record. It’s an improvement on the last, Hayley’s vocal range has expanded in a way that often makes the hair stand up on the back of your neck, and almost all the songs have a memorable hook to them. Look out for them live…

I think I discovered Band Of Horses about a year ago when a friend gave me one of their singles, but it’s taken me until now to fully appreciate how epically good they are. In the last couple of months I have listened to their debut album Everything All The Time countless times and seriously can’t get enough of it.

Delicate guitars that descend into epic endlessness so amazing it makes you genuinely beg for more, and lyrics that you want to sing as beautifully as Ben Bridwell does. Comparisons have been drawn with My Morning Jacket, Flaming Lips and early Neil Young, which probably explains why they are so good.

I was stupid enough not to get a ticket to their recent show at Scala and I know for a fact it would have been a ludicrously good show. It’s not often that I get an album that I listen to every track on it, love each one, then put it straight on again when it ends, but Everything All The Time did that for me.

You get a bit hacked off when a band you feel passionately about have their music used on some stupid American teen-soap, then fans of the show keep saying to you “Have you heard this song by so and so? Its fantastic!” and unfortunately Band Of Horses best song has been abused by TV and film already. Yes, I have heard of them. Yes, I know ‘The Funeral‘ is so ridiculously good it makes me want to glue my headphones into my ears permanently.

Tim Mogridge

I first came across London’s indie-electronica 5 piece, New Young Pony Club during the inception of NME’s overwhelming swarm of new rave bullshit, which for some reason, has yet to fade and diminish. Which is odd, considering the band paramount to all this nonsense, Klaxons, have shunned away the concept of new rave themselves.

Anyway, so when reluctantly opening NYPC’s debut, I was foolishly expecting a barrage of more anthems for doomed youth, exemplified by the likes of the aptly titled Shitdisco. Songs that encouraged adolescents to march forward, proudly bearing their glowsticks and only halting to re-adjust their genital mutilating jeans. Thankfully, I was wrong, and the album was a glorious reminder of why I should never trust anything written in NME!

From opener, ‘Get Lucky‘ all the way through to this album’s denouement, Tahita Bulmer and her posse invite us in to their truly fantastic playroom accompanied by wickedly whippy basslines and teasingly seductive, borderline provocative lyrics. Persistently head nodding and hip shaking the NYPC make a fine effort at blending the spice of indie rock with the undoubtedly cool aspects of dance funk, without ever once sounding like a teen trend that will vanish after one album. ‘Fantastic Playroom’ is unmistakably groovy, and that’s a word I don’t think I’ve ever said before in my life. My, my.

Up in the player is a prime example of what’s great about this album. Entitled ‘Jerk Me‘, it will do just that to every limb of your body. Enjoy!

Joe Moynihan