Beatsteaks – Limbo Messiah
Warner Bros.
myspace.com/beatsteaks
The Beatsteaks’ Limbo Messiah finally gets its UK release this week and boy is it worth the wait! The German punks have been doing their thing for 15 years now and have built up a hardcore fanbase – they sold out London’s ULU in June. More than just a fine punk album, Limbo Messiah incorporates nuances of many types and styles of music resulting in a varied record that mixes up the pace to satisfying effect. There are hints of the King Blues in there but also a more classic straight-up punk backbone akin to the likes of Rancid and Bad Religion. Lead single ‘Jane Became Insane’ (the music video can be seen below) is only the tip of the iceberg as tracks like ‘Demons Galore’ dig a lot deeper with an uneasy driving offbeat that opens up to the most simple yet wonderfully melodic refrain to the lyrics “This is mine, it will never be yours”. I challenge you not to have that little snippet in your head for days after listening!
The Beatsteaks are good at what they do. Very good. Over their years in existence they’ve honed their craft to perfection and here they’ve produced a collection of catchy punk songs that incorporate their own unique outlook and have a twist of originality about them. Driving punk beats and ever-so-slightly-gruff but wholly melodic vocals coupled with the knack to write a good tune and a catchy chorus mean that Limbo Messiah is a winner.
Winegums
Tomboy/Slow Motion
Outkast have always been boundary pushers both with their music and their attire, though the limelight always seems to shine on Andre 3000, thanks in no small part to the huge success of Hey Ya. But for that one track of Andre’s, Big Boi had Ghettomusick, he had The Way You Move and he had The Rooster. So when his long-awaited album finally dropped, it was always going to be huge. Nothing could quite have prepared me for just how good it is though – a fun rap album with huge beats, great guest appearances and the smiling-swagger of Big Boi firmly in the foreground.
United Nations is somewhat of a supergroup yet they’re one that doesn’t really shout about it. They play shows, write and record music, release the music independently (through
The Roots have seemingly been around forever. Black Thought and ?uestlove‘s group have been the pioneers of live instrumentation hip hop and have garnered fans from all points of the music spectrum. I have to admit, whilst I’ve always listened to their releases and thought they were cool, I was never the biggest fan. So what’s the new album like, coming as it does two years after their last release and in a period where they’ve become the house band for Jimmy Fallon’s US chat show? Well, simply, it’s great.
A brand new 19 song album from Sydney’s perennial noiseniks The Hard Ons, and if you’re having a little trouble trying to unscramble the title, it reads a little better as “Alfalfa Males : Once Summer is Done : Conform or Die” – in other words three album titles in one, and as good a directive as any to the musical mission you are about to embark on.
If you’ve followed the progress of Pulled Apart by Horses over the past two years, their self-titled debut shouldn’t come as much of a surprise.
It takes a brave man to do what Fashawn has done on Ode To Illmatic. The Fresno MC has taken beats from Nas’ seminal 1994 album and states in his introduction aimed to “pay homage to one of the greatest MCs in our generation” rather than bite the album. As great as his debut album Boy Meets World was, he could easily have fallen flat on his face by trying this, but, to his eternal credit, he makes a great job of it.
The last time these two acts collided we were treated to a record that left club-goers’ ear drums reverberating that drumbeat during the weekend, and the week that followed. I am of course talking about when Sound of Silver’s Kraftwerk-inspired opener Get Innocuous was given the Soulwax-on wax-off remix treatment. Though I’m a huge fan of James Murphy’s punk-infused cultural commentary over a glittering multi-instrumental electronic soundscape, I cannot hide my preference towards the Dewaele brothers kick-snare, kick-snare bass overhaul.
‘In Desolation’ is OWTH‘s debut for Epitaph, with Mr Brett himself personally endorsing these Minneapolis Punkers, and with good reason.