Category: Buzz Chart

Hardcore punk yobs Fucked Up made it over to the UK for the first time last week and successfully showed all the pretenders how real hardcore should be done, pulling of a show of brutal violence that saw blood flowing from foreheads and a nasty smell of violence in the air.

These guys draw from the root source of hardcore, harking back to classic bands like Negative Approach and Poison Idea, but they have the ability to pen catchy tunes at the same time. Having blitzed the hardcore scene with a barrage of now highly collectable releases, it’s no surprise to find out that Jade Tree have signed the band. Get ready to get even more fucked up this year!

Annihilation Time are pure filth. There’s no better way to describe them. Mixing howling super-charged Black Flag inspired hardcore with a decidedly dirty rock n’roll edge, imagine Thin Lizzy and Deep Purple played with the intensity of hardcore and you’ll be some way to understanding what this killer band are all about.

‘Annihilation Time strongly endorses weed, mushrooms, LSD, hash, beer, booze, Vans and Deep Purple’ is says on last years ‘II‘ album on Manic Ride Records. As you can see, Annihilation Time are very bad boys and know how to rock harder than most. And the good news is, they’re here and ready to rip you a new one.

Catch them live on the following dates:

April

26th Liverpool – Korova

27th Newcastle – Cumberland

28th Leeds – Joe’s Basement

29th London – The Macbeth

Be warned! The story of the world’s most infamous rock band isn’t a pretty one. With the possible exception of Ozzy Osbourne, no band consumed as many drugs and downed as much booze without dying as the L.A. quartet Mötley Crüe.

Album sales of over 40million, endless sold out stadium tours – the Motleys were the Don’s of rock and remain legends. They were the band you never thought you’d see live again until they returned to the stage last year – if you missed it, it’s captured here in the first ever double live album with the reunited legendary line up.

The story of their career, graphically detailed in the best-selling 2001 autobiography, The Dirt (soon to be a major motion picture) is one of dirty needles, damaged minds, music industry battles and sex – lots of sex. And the miraculous thing about the Crüe is not that they lived to tell the tale (although that is, in a way, a kind of unholy miracle), it’s that all of their wildly uncontrollable habits are clearly audible in their music – the sheer sleazy grind of California rock over the last two decades.

How important is Mötley Crüe? Let’s just say that they made rock ‘n roll what it is today. Without the Crüe, stadium rock in the 1990s might have been all about Journey, Foreigner, Kansas and REO Speedwagon. Think about that for a second, will you?

Ryan Bird

Las Vegas scenesters Panic! At The Disco keep the momentum going with a second quirky offering from their debut album. The Vaudeville style staccato piano almost casts a jazz sheen on the proceedings until Brendon Urie’s deliciously breathy vocals jump in, encased with pop punk guitars.

Panic! At The Disco have managed to create a unique tumbling rhythm to the track, twisting and turning, leaving you hanging before swooping up to whisk you to the next line.Although it lacks the killer chorus and the oh-so-memorable hooks from their debut single, it’s a track that showcases the raw talent that four piece have in bucket loads.

Rounding off the track with a little flamenco castanets, it descends back to the staccato keyboard. The single’s impulsive and unpredictable – and it’s easy to forget Panic! At The Disco are all just 18-19 years old, and they’re still developing a sound. With the confidence in themselves that this track shows and their rising popularity, they’re well on their way to being a force to reckon with. This track drops on May 1st (yes, this week) and is lifted from their hugely successful album ‘A Fever You Can’t Sweat Out‘. Enjoy!

KING BISCUIT TIME’s politically-charged anthem CIAM15 released last autumn heralded the start of a new chapter for ex-Beta Band front man Steve Mason. Embracing a myriad of musical styles and influences – dance hall, hip hop, psychedelia, electronica – it gave a taste of where Mason was headed in the new millennium.

Now, in post-Beta-world, things have got weird again and Mason is back with a new single Kwangchow, released on April 24th. Here, amidst the spacey prettiness and sublime grooves of Kwangchow, Mason tells a plaintive tale of “melting metal hearts” in a never-ending quest for love.

Kwangchow is available on cd and 7″ from April 24th on No Style, Mason’s independent label in collaboration with Alan McGee. Both formats feature an additional track, Tears Dry – unavailable elsewhere – with the cd also featuring two mixes of Kwangchow, the Primal Scream-esque Doctors Of Love mix, all piano, bongos, riffs and shakers and the stripped down, hypnotic beats of the Suicide Dogz mix.

Check out the video link for more KBT:

http://www.kingbiscuittime.co.uk/video/Kwangchowfinal.wmv

Long knows as Jehst’s hypeman, Asaviour has finally dropped his own solo album and he steps from the shadows to prove that he is one of the heavyhitters in the UK hip hop game. This album involves a whole host of UK beatmakers, including Evil Ed, Jehst, Ghost, Braintax, Mr Thing and Asaviour himself.

From single So Northern with its bouncy beat and untouchable flow through the more laid back Field Of Dreams to the hard pianos of Bangers N Mash, Asaviour rhymes with ease and brings his distinctive voice to the landscape set out in front of him. He brings in guest rappers like Yungun, Kyza and Braintax and doesn’t just hold his own, he outdoes them all, and once again his rapping alongside Jehst is as brilliant as ever.

Asaviour is no longer the fun loving sidekick of UK hip hop, he’s now right up there punching with the heavyweights and if this album is any indication of what the future holds, then everyone around him will need to borrow a ladder of their own to reach his level.

There are not many artists out there that can say they have 18 albums out there that have changed a part of musical history but Stereolab can and this latest offering from the cooky, indie specialists is simply beautifully crafted from every angle.

All tracks recorded in their Instant Zero studio in Bordeaux have a quirky sound that i find very difficult to categorise as i write this as the entire album fitted like a glove, has left me in a trance like state that can only be described as lush.

This is a record that fits the same dreamlike stature of when people talk about the future, like the soundtrack to the film Gattica: dust free space walks, education checks and segregation yet, the style factor of such a unique sound bursts through like sunrays in an Arctic chapel, glittering and spare.

The beautifully haunting vocals of Laetitia Sadier are either going to make or break you, but with the mysterious underlay of moogs, samples, guitar licks and precision drum beats, this album may not sound live but it’s fresh out of the box and should have you hooked in two listens. Every track on this album has been available as a ltd edition single so far via 7″ but now you can have all 12 tracks on one CD for your listening pleasure and believe us when we say you will have a spring in your step after owning one of these, perfectly timed, finely tuned and simply stunning.

Look out for them live on May 11th at London’s Koko, as it is their only UK show booked this year.

Although this is their first album in three years, usually prolific Norwegian art-rockers Motorpsycho have not been lazy in their absence. ‘Black Hole/Blank Canvas’ is a double album of sprawling moods, sounds and styles.

Mixing indie, post-punk, stoner rock and Krautrock to stunning effect, this is constantly challenging and absolutely never boring! Songs like ‘No Evil’ ride that difficult divide between experimentation and melody, making sure the songs still have enough hooks in them to keep reeling you in like a wet flappy fish whilst never resorting to the obvious or retracing their steps. Great stuff. Highly recommended.

Styles and trends may come and go but good song writing will never go out of fashion. And good song writing is something that Chris Brokaw knows all about. Having recorded a string of acoustic records, ‘Incredible Love’ is his first full band electric release and sees him teaming up with the elite of the American indie underground (including members of Rodan, Karate, Silkworm) for an album of utterly addictive songs full of sublime melodies and quirky structures and sounds.

It’s no surprise to find out that Brokaw has also worked with Lemonheads man Evan Dando as he shares that same ability to craft songs that may not instantly make sense but once you play them a couple of times, they slowly start to latch themselves onto your brain.

Songs like ‘Blues For The Moon’ and ‘Move‘ are the results of Chris’ many experiences and life in alternative music (he also served in Sub Pop slow-core band Codeine and Thalia Zedek’s band Come) and deserve to be heard by a far wider audience than they probably will be. Spread the word.

Oxford based rock trio King Furnace will release their debut single ‘Crash!’ on April 17th 2006 through Akuaba Records.

Since forming in early 2004 the band has garnered a solid and ever-growing reputation; courtesy of their energetic and entertaining live performances which have been witnessed around the country. An early recording of the song ‘Look At Me’ was featured in commercials and advertisements for surf giants Rip-Curl in the summer of that year, with various major label interest surfacing in the following months. The band has since gigged relentlessly on the local and national circuits alike, with a tour of England and Northern Ireland scheduled to run throughout April and May.

Boasting an enticing combination of balls-out rock, slinky funk, jagged punk and more than a sprinkling of tongue-in-cheek shenanigans; 2006 is set to be King Furnace’s biggest and best year yet.