Tag: album review

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Buzz Chart

OFF! – The Album

off!_albumsleeveVICE RECORDS

Unless you’ve had your head firmly stuck in the sand, or gone feral in a cave in Bora Bora, OFF! cannot have failed to register on your radar. I believe the story goes that a recording session by the Circle Jerks went to the wall and singer Keith Morris subsequently hooked up with producer Dimitri Coats or something like that, but whatever, the partnership drafted in Steven McDonald from Red Kross, powerhouse skin beater Mario Rubalcaba (lotsa bands) and OFF! was born.

We should be truly grateful, because they’ve gotten Keith back hollering like the Hermosa banshee of oh-so-many years ago, recalling the guy who rallied against the fenced-in, white picket dystopia of Southern California in, first Black Flag, and then the aforementioned CJ’s. Lesser men mighta taken the easy way out and just been happy to continually rewind past glories, but what’s got so many folk stoked on OFF! It’s all new music, new songs. Sure, it’s a sound that trawls back to the source, but delivers it in 2012 sounding fresh, urgent and totally alive.

A buncha roasting 7”s acted as a precursor to OFF!’s capabilities and now this 16 song album has landed (and you better believe it) it’s a totally blasting 17 minutes of raging Hardcore powered by absolutely shredding music. Keith’s all pissed and sarcastic, getting shit off his chest, spitting out 60 second anecdotes about times spent hanging on a wire in distant days (“inside the Masque, with the Alley Cats”) He’s also throwing in candid observations about his fellow citizens in the land of the free… “Teach them to shoot before they can read, sprinkling glass on their Happy Meals”…. cutting!

Seriously, this is an essential album, easily destined to make up a chunk of many folks summer soundtracks and only the most po-faced and blinkered members of the hiperatti will fail to recognise its awesomeness. Oh, and did you know that they shred live too? Thanksfully they will be back in the UK in June. You really need to see them. Get in there and get vaporized!

Pete Craven

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Cancer Bats

‘Dead Set On Living’
(Hassle)

cancerbats_deadsetonlivingWhilst it’s debatable as to whether Cancer Bats have improved with age (mainly because they’ve yet to release a less-than-great record), ‘Dead Set On Living’ shows that they certainly haven’t mellowed out. It’s amazing that they found time to record the damn thing, given their notoriously long and punishing tour schedules, but it seems that for these guys, there are no difficulties or problems – just challenges to be relished.

It seems appropriate that the Canadian quartet now moonlight as a Black Sabbath tribute band (‘Bat Sabbath’), as this record is stuffed with the kind of thunderous riff action that would surely win Tony Iommi’s approval. Opener ‘R.A.T.S.’ is a prime example; vocalist Liam Cormier unleashing the fury over a groove of seismic proportions, and it sets the tone for much of the album. In contrast, the hardcore influence is less prominent, although ‘Road Sick’ and ‘Old Blood’ would make great soundtracks to a raging circle-pit.

Would a comparison to Pantera be considered blasphemy? In terms of creating a record that’s both catchy as hell and heavy as hell, this is probably the closest that Cancer Bats have come to their own ‘Vulgar Display Of Power’. A step-up to rock’s big league surely beckons, and on this form, they’ll take it in their stride.

Alex Gosman

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Music News

Enter Shikari: crumpets were inspiration for number 1

entershikari_aflashfloodofcolourEnter Shikari’s Rou Reynolds who played the Crossfire Halloween Massacre back in November has made a statement on the band’s website explaining feelings behind the current midweek chart position on new album A Flash Flood Of Colour:

“Two days ago things began as normal.
I pressed snooze a few times, finally woke up, rubbed my eyes, stretched my arms… and checked Facebook/Twitter.
But from then on it got weird. Really weird.
Our bands album ‘A Flash Flood Of Colour’ was at number 1 in the official UK charts.
I waddled confused and still half asleep down the stairs and had a crumpet to ‘celebrate’.
I lie, i ended up having 3.

I’m writing this two days after that rivetingly descriptive morning escapade, on Wednesday 18th, and we’re still topping the charts by a few thousand copies. Madness.

Now i’m not gonna sit here and bark on about how this is…
a) a victory for independent music
b) a victory for meaningful and societally conscious music
c) a victory for guitar/alternative music
…of which it is undeniably all three, but it has to be at least mentioned.
It goes without saying, you certainly wouldn’t label the majority of artists normally in the charts any of those descriptions, let alone those that reach number one.

The fact that so many people have bought this record and supported the values behind it is incredible. And we would like to thank every single person that has, from the bottom of our hearts.
I don’t know whether we’ll be holding strong by Sunday when the end of week chart run down happens.
In fact i’m sure Adele or Bruno Mars will have crept back up on us by then and achieve their 50th week at number one or whatever they’re on.
But we’ll have had our nice brisk trot in the limelight, and big up all those that contributed to it.”

Rou.

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Retox

Ugly Animals
Ipecac

Retox-Ugly-Animals_album_sleeveClimbing out of those skin tight nylon body suits and into yet another punk vehicle, The Locust’s Justin Pearson and Gabe Serbain have been making waves in the hardcore scene with their new band; Retox. Joined by Michael Crain and Thor Dickey on guitar and bass respectively, Retox are a more straight-forward band than we’re perhaps used to from Pearson, but if anything it only goes to make this his most focussed and exciting venture in years.

With a self titled EP already under their belts, Ugly Animals is the band’s debut full length, although calling it that is arguably manipulating the facts. What we have here are a blistering eleven songs in thirteen minutes, tearing through your system with all the energy and swagger of their live show. It’s always a difficult task to capture this kind of riotous enthusiasm on record, but this brisk collection will have you reaching for the play button as soon its run through its modest duration.

The LP has something of Head Wound City feel to it, with Serbian behind the kit again delivering a controlled if still exhilarating performance. While the hooks may be somewhat difficult to pick out at first, with repeated listens this at first record really starts to take its pointed shape. Clocking in at under 15 minutes you’d be a fool not to check out Ugly Animals, which, for our money, is one of the essential hardcore releases of 2011.

Sleekly Lion.

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Album Reviews Buzz Chart

Scream

Complete Control Session
Side One Dummy Records

Scream’s place in the annals of US Hardcore History is assured notably for their 4 albums albums on Dischord Records. Formalised officially in 1981, the band comprised brothers Franz and Pete Stahl, on guitar and vocals, with bassist Skeeter Thompson and drummer Kent Stax holding it down in the engine room.

The debut Still Screaming was a rip-roaring collection of thrashers. By their second album This Side Up they were well on their way from straight-ahead Hardcore, throwing in reggae fused jams (on the side produced by Dr Know of Bad Brains (a band whose influence on Scream cannot be understated) and then some heavy rocking numbers on the flipside where they added a 2nd guitarist.

Whilst many of Scream’s peers had discarded their ‘70’s rock albums in the Punk Rock Year Zero, these guys clearly still had their Zeppelin, Purple and Sabbath records at the forefront of their collections and in my opinion, were a better band for it. This Side Up was the first album I picked up, in ’84, at Max’s Records in Eastbourne. I sure hit the jackpot there but I was also gutted a couple of years later, whilst overseas, my brother told me that he’d seen them play a show in Brighton. Oww!!

After the ’86 Euro-tour, Kent Stax left, and was replaced by a young DC skin basher by the name of Dave Grohl, who augmented a line-up that would release 3 more studio albums, touring relentlessly, including more trips to Europe (where I finally got to see them again in ’88). The end of the century was also the end for Scream as they fell apart on West Coast during a US Tour. The Stahl brothers headed to Los Angeles and started WOOL, with Pete later forming cult Stoner outfit Goatsnake. Dave went to Seattle, joined Nirvana and paid his dues to his former band by wearing a Scream t-shirt in the Teen Spirit video. Franz would also play in Foo Fighters early on.

The band has reunited occasionally over the years with Dave Grohl drumming, but with global world domination now firmly on his radar Kent Stax returned and these 7 songs were recorded live in February 2011 at Dave’s home studio and capture a band in really fine, fine form. The end result is totally raw and smoking, kicking off with the soulful rock grooves of opening duo Stopwatch and Get Free before the doors are blown open by the blasting Jammin’ at 606. Imagine Lemmy and the Bad Brains going off in the studio! Elevate is fired by a (way) snazzy NY Dolls inspired lead  and tongues are firmly in cheek for The Year Bald Singers Were In which vibes like a lost-track from This Side Up. Move (All Alone) is sublime, scorching riffage and cracking vocals. Demolition Dancing closes with “something’s gonna happen, that’s for sure”… and it really is! I would love to see them play again, let’s hope that they tour soon.

Pete Craven

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Wolves Like Us

Late Love
Prosphetic Records

wolveslikeus_lateloveEven though they are barely over a year old, Norway’s Wolves Like Us show maturity far beyond their years in their debut release Late Love; a feat perhaps owing to the members’ previous experience in notable Norwegian acts such as Amulet and JR Ewing. There is undoubtedly high quality of song writing throughout and the album is very concise, playing out at just the right tempo throughout and never outstaying its welcome.

Purpose driven drums and utterly relentless riffs give the perfect backdrop to vocalist Lars Kristensen’s empowered baritone, from album opener (and one of the biggest highlights) ‘Burns Like A Paper Rose’ all the way through to haunting closing track ‘To Whore With Foreign Gods’. This is certainly an album that justifies the opportunities that this relatively new band have been handed, for example, touring with bands such as Klavertak and Gallows.

It isn’t just typical hardcore conventions on show here though either; this is a band that know their instruments well and the aforementioned brutality is often accompanied by delicately intricate lead lines and atmospheric arpeggios, most notably on ‘Secret Handshakes’ and ‘Deathless’.

There isn’t a dull moment to be had, especially with some great variation displayed from full on pit inducing bridges to some excellent melodic sections (‘Sin after Sin’ being one of the best examples of this) and an extremely solid rhythm section throughout. It’s an overused cliché, perhaps, but this album truly is all killer, no filler.

Late Love has been released on Prosthetic Records who have also put out the similarly remarkable Darker Handcraft by Trap Them this year. You can be sure that this won’t be the last you hear of Wolves Like Us with two European tours upcoming in 2011 (one of these with US legends Swing Kids, no less) and a main stage appearance at Norway’s OYA festival. Wolves Like Us are without doubt a band to keep an eye (and ear) out for in future.

Ryan De Freitas

Check out first single Deathless below:

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Iceage

‘New Brigade’
Escho

iceage_newbrigadeWhile Denmark might not be known as a goldmine for producing great punk bands, if you’ve been reading the music press in recent months the chances are you may have come across Iceage. Rumblings of this Copenhagen band’s debut record reached the UK at the beginning of the year, as its initial release was picked up by a number of tastemaking blogs and championed in Noel Gardener’s superb punk column over at The Quietus. In his column, Gardener describes the record as ‘basically, perfect’ and ‘one of the best punk rock records released in recent years’, and I would be hard pushed to disagree.

Given that the history of punk has been mined so many times, it’s difficult to make a record that sounds like nothing else around it. Look around at contemporary punk music and you’ll find variations of Black Flag, variations of Fugazi and variations of Wire, but every once in a while something will be released that sounds completely pure. Not that the album doesn’t draw heavily from post punk influences, but everything is so right about this recording, from the songs to the production, that it manages to distinguish itself among any number of copyist acts. It’ll be interesting to see whether this album is a one-off fluke, but New Brigade captures the essence of what makes punk so damn exciting in the first place.

It’s scrappy, energetic production makes it easy to imagine in a live setting, barely held together on record you can only imagine things intensifying at shows. The guitars clatter against each other, almost lost in the muddle of noise, before being dragged out by some hook that comes out of nowhere. While this doesn’t sound like a record made for anyone other than the band themselves, there are standout tracks (‘White Rune’, ‘New Brigade’, ‘Broken Bone’) with choruses that will bounce around your head for days. Albeit sung in singer Elias Rønnenfelt’s signature sluggish drawl. While the band certainly aren’t scared to thrash out a minute long punk jam, their perhaps at their best when these bursts of near-melody jump out completely unexpectedly.

The early excitement Iceage picked up has quickly multiplied in recent months. With a US release for New Brigade on Dais, at the time of writing the band is currently embarking on a full tour of the states. Whether or not they can maintain the often fleeting attention of the modern indie press remains to be seen, but for now we’re just glad to see this record being noticed. A proper punk record from an exciting new talent.

Sleekly Lion.

Video – New Brigade

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Adolescents

“Fastest Kid Alive”
Concrete Jungle

adolescents_Fastest Kid AliveWhen it comes to the essential North American Hardcore Punk recordings, The Adolescents debut album is easily a requisite. Originally released in 1981 (on Frontier Records) these kids from Orange County, California totally nailed the pent up teenage angst of living in a conservative and sterile environment where they felt total alienation. The snotty frustrated message they unleashed in those songs has persisted in connecting with subsequent generations of outsiders, and remains as fresh and relevant sounding 3 decades later.

The bands subsequent history has been a turbulent ride of bust ups, break ups, make ups, line-up changes… and occasional new recordings… the last full length being 2007’s very credible “O.C. Confidential”…. and now the long threatened new album has finally landed. And was it worth the wait? Oh yes!

Original singer and bassist Tony ‘Reflex’ and Steve Soto are still firmly at the helm. Clearly, they are no longer adolescents, and the subject matter of their latter day material is reflective of that; with families of their own, the politics at the forefront of their consciousness are more global than personal. Their Governments war fuelled agenda does not rest well with the modern day Adolescents and forms an overriding theme to a big chunk of the songs (“Wars Aren’t Won, Wars Are Fought”, Peace Don’t Cost a Thing”, Babylon by Bomb”, “One Nation Under Siege”) but there’s a constant theme of hope and belief that this world could be a better place. And California might brand itself as the ‘Golden State’, but the barrelling “Serf City” paints a different picture, of a place that’s politically and socially stagnant…. “stare down the mighty coast, as you dive in to the pills, take another ride… it’s a roller coaster thrill”.

Tony’s pipes sound mighty good for a guy that’s been hollering his lungs out for over 3 decades! And the songs are awash with the bands signature surf laden hooks and loaded with a rush of fancy rocking rifs that will be sure to satisfy dedicated OG’s and groms alike… my wife just called out “this sounds like The Adolescents”… sure does…!!

Pete Craven

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Zounds

‘The Redemption of…’
Overground Records

Well this was a surprise… I had no idea that Zounds had a new album in the works.

With a legacy that dates all the way back to the early Eighties, and a handful of cracking releases on Rough Trade and Crass, Zounds were strictly on the Anarcho-side of the divide. Never that prolific, theirs, and founder/songwriter Steve Lake’s solo outings, has been a strictly intermittent operation – a less is more situation (if you will). I last saw one of these rare gigs at the tail end of last year, in the close confines of Brighton’s autonomous café The Cowley Club, and they nailed a righteous set that had an enthused crowd of local punkers and agitators jumping and singing in raucous appreciation of the infectious music, and stirring messages.

So, I was keen to hear this album, as I’m sure a few new numbers were aired that night at The Cowley. Jeez, as a result, I’ve been playing this disc end-to-end repeatedly. A total grower. All the key Zounds components are present; sparky guitar lines and sharp melodies to Steve’s passionate and sardonic vocals. The opening number “Cry Genie Cry” and its accompanying Bowie lifted riff, has Steve lamenting that he “still don’t know what he’s supposed to be”… oh I know that feeling, I really (really) will work out one of these days what I want I’m going to do with my life… a quandary I’ve been in for the last… err… 30 years, ack! Elsewhere, Steve interjects on a world consumed by consumerism, civil liberties being squeezed, humanitarian crisis, and war… fuckin’ war, and why we’d be better off making love, man. And that’s Zounds in essence, dreaming of a more peaceful world, I can’t argue with that…fanciful thinking perhaps, but we all need something to hang on to.

A fine piece of work!

Pete Craven

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Pentagram

‘Last Rites’
Metal Blade

Be forewarned, for from the ashes, Pentagram has risen. Doom titans Bobby Liebling and Victor Griffin have finally reunited and again unleashed Pentagram’s classic 70’s doom thunder with Last Rites. Alongside bassist Greg Turley, who played with Pentagram in the 90’s, and drummer Tim Tomaselli of Griffin’s band Place of Skulls, Liebling and Griffin have managed to again set the wheels in motion towards reclaiming their rightful place on the altar of doom after almost two decades in shadows and turbulence.

The first track, Treat Me Right, stands strong as one hell of a launch pad for the album. Albeit with more production and thicker distortion than the likes of the reigning self-titled album—later reissued as Relentless—Griffin stays true and lures you from the get go with a familiar crushing wall of guts and gravel. He cuts out while you’re led by a quick drum build up only to lean straight back in, neck and neck with the classic, demanding, soulful voice of a now sober, crack-less Liebling. It’s definitely a loaded (re) introduction track; a proclamation of their resurrection and return from obscurity.

Call The Man, the second track, emerges with an eerie intro of bends and death clock bass drums, culminating in a march of very heavy, very 70’s doom riffage. The following track, Into The Ground, picks up right where the last left off, plowing on with surging bluesy doom shred.

For those of you who feared, as I did, that the new album would not retain Pentagram’s true form, or that it may not deliver, you can all rest easy. The album is solid, rich, and very well put together; an even balance between re-recorded songs and demos from the 70’s—Call The Man and Walk in Blue Light for example— and new material.
Tracks like 8, Everything’s Turning to Night, and American Dream drive home Griffin’s inherent musical depth and emotion as well as exhibiting a throatier, still flawless Liebling. Together they play with all the force and strength of the band’s golden years.

Each track—even, to some extent, the ballad Windmills and Chimes—continues to stand musically true to form, reeling off more of the Pentagram of old with a slightly more modern, or perhaps “cleaner” edge—if I can get away with that.

The albums Relentless and Be Forewarned will always reign in strength and style. But I take no issue with the newer, thick distortion and sound of Last Rites. It is a triumph.

Shane Herrick