New noise One Three One

Posted on April 6, 2016 by kevinsmusicblog

REWIND MARCH: Urthona soundtracking, Mike Patton Freakzone and MegaDave’s thirteen faves

Very late round-up of some March bitz so let’s just GET – ON – WITH – IT. Without shouting, sorry.

After waiting like a dum-dum for the Urthona out-of-stock message to vanish on the Arch Drude’s Head Heritage Merchandiser page, I shook off my Total Bell head and went a-virtual hunting for Urthona Plays Atlantis?, another soundtrack to Julian Cope’s One Three One novel: yep, I went to the Source – Urthona’s own campband site. And guess what? Said CD is very-much-there, very-much-in-stock…pretty obvious when you think about, but I didn’t. Anyway, released back in January, this 37-minute two-tracker is livewire drone sculpting writ large, as you’d expect from Urthona’s self-styled heavy rural-ism. Bruxo is windswept soothing with semi-ambient sunburst, while Reppu is barbed and howling, a bringer of the sinister ’til it blows itself out on Pagey violinbow moans to kiss the mellow once again. Top-o’-the-moors stuff. If you know Urthona then no great changes (good, we like it that way), and if One Three One’s epic Vesuvio floated your whatsit last year, be sure to check Atlantis? right here. And – stock arrival alert (finally) – here.

Mike Patton John Kaada

Kaada Patton are back! Not with More Romances from Johnny and Mikey, but the scarier sounding Bacteria Cult. They were interviewed – no, they spoke to each other and it was broadcast as an interview – on Stuart Maconie’s Freakzone at the weekend, and while the set-up sounds as natural as plastic, you gotta tune in, right? MIKE PATTON, on the wireless! ‘Interview’ is here, around 44 minutes in, and if you stick around in the F-zone there’s a new Enslaved track aired. Stick around even longer and there’s a Saturday night delve into Patton’s Many Many Bands on the Freakier Zone, April 10th. A fine excuse to visit that sprawling Patton back catalogue again.

Daveus Mustaineus Quietus

Of course, he’s not quiet – he knows not how – but this feature in Quietus was a pretty cool read: Mustaine and 13 of his fave formative albums. Words spoken like a fan, and man-of-the-year Bowie and classic Zep in the mix as well.

’til next time!

EPs pt II: Kylver + Morass of Molasses

Posted on December 29, 2015 by kevinsmusicblog

Following on from EPs pt I where we saluted and celebrated the four-to-five track format, we now have the entirely expected follow-up: EPs pt II, a heavy prog and metallic grunge double-header from the north east and the south of England. The arteests? Kylver and Morass of Molasses respectively, so let’s crack on, shall we?

Kylver: The Mountain Ghost

With just four tracks spread over 38 minutes, and a concept about mountain spirits – not to mention a Prog Rock CD appearance earlier this year – The Mountain Ghost by Newcastle’s Kylver is stacked with all the vital prog statistics, but unlike most of the stuff that makes it onto that magazine’s CDs, this lot actually have some beef behind ’em, summat to satisfy those of us with metal roots. This is Muscular Prog, all tough riffage and thick keyboards, yet the usual weakness with such bands – The Concept – never gets in the way because the concept itself is completely unexplained, barring the song titles (The Mountain Ghost, The Feast of the Mountain Ghost, The Dance of the Mountain Ghost, The Death of the Mountain Ghost).

No vocals, see. No lyrics. And so, no concept. Which means you can just rock out to what’s really a 38-minute instrumental divvied up into sections linked by recurrent riffs and motifs. Prog mag’s Limelight feature in the October issue said they sound like Kyuss jamming with Yes, but I reckon there’s more of a Steven Wilson solo thing (non-ethereal Wilson, that is) mixed with Voivod’s detached sci-fi cool … check the double-kick drum at the end of Dance of…, then play Voivod’s version of Astronomy Domine. Similar beatiness, no? Find out about Kylver right here.

Morass of Molasses: So Flows Our Fate

Reading’s Morass of Molasses were part of an Oxford stormer this year when they supported Mother Corona at the Wheatsheaf and their debut EP, So Flows Our Fate, doesn’t let their live show down … but you knew that already. We wouldn’t wanna spread the word if it were shite, would we?

Unlike Kylver, there are no conceptual pretensions here. MoM’s MO is to carve big ol’ riffs with metallic, psyche and stoner swagger in a mass of body-swinging grooves, and opening track Rotten Teeth does exactly that – for about 50 seconds. Then it melts into a mellow mini breakdown. Wrong footed or what? But the riff roars back, showing that that early shift is the move of a confident bunch of mofos who aren’t afraid to go where the mood takes. Elsewhere on this four-tracker we get wah solos (Ashtabula), doomed desert blues (Fear to Tread) and, best of all, Bear River‘s wasted heaviness, all of which points to a future album that could go in many directions. Fans of Wiseblood-era Corrosion, Down and the like should love this, but start your MoM discovery here and let’s hope for stacks more Molasses in the nearest of futures.

NEWS JUST IN: Lemmy passed away in the small hours and surely there is no-one in hard rock’s realm who cannot have been influenced in some way by Mr Kilmister and his road dogs. Sad sad news. May both he and Motorhead get the airtime and the tributes they deserve. BRING THE NOISE, BRING THE ROCK AND ROLL.

EPs pt I: Earthmass + Old Man Lizard

Posted on December 6, 2015 by kevinsmusicblog

Es are good, sang the Shamen.

EPs are good, says we.

But they are though, aren’t they? Rare is the EP that goes on too long and rare is the EP that sucks the megabucks out of your wallet, all of which makes the EP a pretty good intro to a band you don’t know, ‘specially at a gig when said band has done enough on stage to commit you to the merch table. Take an EP-sized punt and you’ll feel either i) slight letdown coz it’s not as awesome as the gig, but no damage done because at least you weren’t fleeced for the privilege, or ii) well bloody chuffed coz the new tuneage is as good as what you just saw/heard AND you’ve supported a band who probably need it. Let’s face it, touring and gigging assorted holes round smalltown UK deserves some sort of reward. Or possibly compensation.

What we’re celebrating in EPs pt I is point ii), combining a couple of EPs picked up at gigs this year because, well, 2015 is fast running out and these things need to be shared. Today we just happen to have a south-east double bill – Earthmass and Old Man Lizard. First up it’s

Earthmass: Collision

Earthmass supported Undersmile at the Wheatsheaf back in May and they were fckn large. Nothing wildly new, granted, but if you’re a sucker for a slab of post-metal clang ‘n stretch – and who isn’t? – then their Collapse EP from 2014, barrelling out of that early unrefined Isis lineage, warrants a bit of ear time. First track Awake/Crisis is a lumbering barrage of mono-chord reps and storm-whipped vocals, a solid warmer for the rest of the EP. Next tracks Divergence and Weakling begin to add the expansions – space, tracked vocals, twin guitar mini breaks – that bring the colour, and that triumphant Hulk-ing surge at Weakling’s end is boner-fida Isis.

But it’s the 18-minute closer LOOM that’s the centrepiece here, and once you’ve heard it, you can see what the first three were building up to. Billed as a two-parter (i. Drowse, ii. Barren), it’s post-metal Pelican-ism from those Untitled pre-Australasia days and shows what Earthmass are REALLY all about – un-busy stretchouts, nearly-solos borne of a deeper Rock Love, Tool-esque quiet, and bang-on-cue finales. Precise, layered and deliberate but in no way polished or dirgesome, Earthmass move on and in their own time, and the slow-build sequencing of Collision is proof of that. Add some ‘mass to your collection right here

Old Man Lizard: Old Man Lizard

The second EP comes out of one of those gigs where you’re among 8 people watching a new band who, sadly, just aren’t cutting it. And you’re a bit too near the stage to make a discreet exit. And you don’t know the follow-up band. And at this point, it feels like a very long night ahead. And when the next band take the stage, they’re a three-piece with a Victorian handlebar ‘tache on drums and a flame-coloured mane up front. Frontmane wears a baseball cap with a big S-word on it:

SUFFOLK

Yep, all the way from the deep south-ish flatlands of ingerland we have Old Man Lizard, bellowing and hollering and primal heavy raging … saviours of the night. Thank stuck for the ficks, eh?

Blunt and shouty as they first seem, there’s more than by-numbers metal going on here … not jazz but the odd jazzy chord, not trad but the odd Celt-lick, not blues but of the blues. Hmmm. Young bucks with old-time sources, they’re definitely off-kilter enough to sit outside easy categorisation, and with lyrics that dwell in pits of myth, murder, witchery and duggery of the skull, there’s something out-of-time about them, something a bit mead ‘n moonshine. Miles away from the post-metal space vibe of Earthmass, OML are scratchy dry and rusting metallic, their spidery guitar runs bringing the jitters to that earthly-yet-fantastical storytelling. El Doctor is the bluesiest track and its stripped-back slowdown gives you a shot of the hefty bass that lurks behind, while Old Hag hints at rural prog from the back porch.

Right then, a little Old Man Lizard update. The Lone Wolf vs Brown Bear album is a bigger beast, recorded ‘in the heart of rural Suffolk’ and mastered by James Plotkin … there can only be one James Plotkin so it must be THAT one, right? Tracks like Rum Guts, Don’t Piss in the River and Wolves Wood show off more adventurous arrangements – definitely hear a bit of Ephel Duath in some of those chords, not to mention loose harmonica and hidden banjo – but be warned: the vocals are even more bellowin’.

But the plot ‘kin thickens when you go to the OML bandcamp site because the EP, which I downloaded after buying the Lone Wolf CD and seeing the gig, ain’t there anymore. But there IS a new album, and it looks like a reworking/fleshing out of the above EP but with a bit extra, so maybe the original 5-tracker was a demo …who knows? Either way, there’s plenny of stuff to check, and don’t forget their Essex neighbours Earthmass while you’re at it.

EPs pt II to follow soon.

DEARLY BELOVED – Enduro

Posted on July 20, 2015 by kevinsmusicblog

Did you see Dearly Beloved tearing round Blighty with Swervedriver the other month? No? Then you missed a pretty brisk support act so it’s only right that we spread the love and support the support with a few words about their 2014 rekkid, Enduro. Since snapping it up at the Oxford show (sold by singer Niva Chow, no less) it’s become a real Fast-Gro listen this past month: ten-tracks jammed with snagging hooks, propulsive bass and boy-girl vocal swaps that steer the Canadian four piece well clear of all-guy r.o.c.k. stereotypes.

Back at the Oxford O2 – the gig with zero audience participation, remember? – it was the bass that nicked your first impressions, mostly because singer/four-stringer Rob Higgins wasn’t shy of actually playing the fucker and giving it some action, not just in a rhythm sense but in that bass-as-guitar kinda way as well, stoking up a thickened fuzzbed for the rest of the Dearlys to play off … feel the warmth. And when you find that the Enduro album was put together en Mojave in Rancha de la Luna – studio home to Kyuss, Desert Sessions, Masters of Reality and the just-returned Goatsnake ffs, to name just four – with Dave Earthlings? Catching at the helm then you start to join some dots. Perhaps there really is a bit of Joshua Tree dust trapped in DB’s attack? Seeing the boho-intense set-up at Rancha in the Los Angeles episode of Dave Grohl’s fckn brilliant Sonic Highways series, it looks impossible NOT to be infiltrated by the environment, and our very own Sheffield Monkeys are proof of that. Got the arctic stripped right off ’em.

But despite all this desert talk, Dearly Beloved aren’t stoner behe-moths hanging round a night light on a never-ending jam to infinity. They’re sharp, lean and schooled in the 3-minute arts, and first track Enduro fairly flies off the bat with White Denim hyper-ness and a rubber riff rebound. Buried somewhere in this kickstarter is one of THE names in the whole of desert rock-dom – yes, reality’s master hisself, Chris Goss – but to be honest, you can’t really hear him. Maybe a tiny bit.

(you can’t)

Still, his very presence is a pointer to the Enduraesthetic because although Dearly Beloved are punk energy – think Pulled Apart By Horses without the screamo – they weave in some Goss-like space and sensibility too, as on Astor Dupont Payne and the gently reflective Ether Binge. At the other end of the Enduro scale is a full burn Guile of Pricks (great title) and the twisting Not My Pig, a dirt-low filth riff punctured by space, bass and Niva’s detached vocal cool. Album highlight right there.

At 28 minutes end to end it’s a short set, but it ain’t short of adventure – stick it on and get a feelgood hit for the summer. Check ’em out right here.

A Tad heavy, brothers

Posted on May 2, 2015 by kevinsmusicblog

REWIND APRIL: THE RETURN OF TAD DOYLE

Record Store Day was the big news for April and the record shops are now getting back to normal, assuming they had a ticket to the RSD party in the first place. I put a few thoughts down meself in the last post but if you wanna chew on some no-messing wordage from someone with all the right credentials – music obsessive, full-time traveller, workaholic – check the fanatic, Henry Rollins, and his post last week for LA Weekly. Lean fat-free writing, as ever.

Best bit of new listening this month has been Brothers of the Sonic Cloth, a beast of a debut from a two-band Seattle veteran who’d not played music for five whole years until, one SoCal day driving on Interstate 805, the radio planets aligned and forced an epiphany somewhere around San Diego. The track? War Pigs. The epiphan-ee? Tad Doyle.

Now there’s a name to ponder, alongside a few others: Tad, Mudhoney, Soundgarden, Seattle. My confession is that aside from a split-cassette promo – Tad with Clutch, how good is that??? – from 1995, mes collection is shamefully Tad-less. Why? No good reason (well, student budget was probably the reason) so Inhaler, 8-Way Santa and the like are on that years-long list of stuff to look out for at CD fairs. Right now though, thanks to Terrorizer’s Feb interview, we’re here at the very start of Tad Doyle’s new era – and the future looks VERY solid.

Brothers of the Sonic Cloth turn out a primal, earthy blend of doom-rooted post metal, as you’ll know for sure when first track Lava comes hulking out the speakers like Megabeefus Neurosisus on a downhill run. Other tracks stretch out and hint at something bigger, more spiritual – check the quiet ritual summoned by The Immutable Path, or the Salvation-era Cult of Luna dynamics at play in Empires of Dust … no wonder Neurot Recordings were the Chosen Ones to cut the Brothers loose, for it is a mighty roar. Small band too – Tad guitar, wife Peggy bass, Dave French drums, that’s it. Keep track of all things BOTSC right here.

The last word in this Rewind is a word of honour for another three-piece:

WE PLAY ROCK AND ROLL

And we are …??? Motorhead. Now added to the Glastonbury bill they will surely be greeted like the fckn heroes they are, so let’s hope that Lemmy’s strong enough to pull it off and bask in a sweaty all-conquering afterglow of motorheadoration. Illness meant the great man was a shadow with sideburns at Hyde Park’s BST last July, which was a bit difficult to watch, and he’s still looking gaunt if the pics in this month’s Metal Hammer are any indication. As he finishes the follow-up to 2013’s bristling Aftershock, he’s more aware than ever of his physical limitations so there’d be nothing more heroic and life-affirming than a Glastonbury shake-up by one of THE institutions in amplified rock and roll. COME ON LEM.

’til next time!

Oxford: the doom inspires

Posted on April 2, 2015 by kevinsmusicblog

REWIND MARCH

April’s in. March is out. What happened? The return of one of the slowest, heaviest bands in the land, that’s what: UNDERSMILE. And if you’ve ever been within a mile or eleven of their nightmare doomcrawl, you’ll know that’s no exaggeration – last year I stood within a few feet when they supported Beehoover and felt utterly punished by the set’s end. Not exactly pleasurable, yet weirdly compelling … if torpid glacier is a pace you’re partial to. Either way, it was pretty damned cool to see them nab Nightshift’s front cover in March, and it’s an all-round good read so check it out – the band are funny and friendly (everything the music is not), there’s a new word for our vocabulary and you’ll find some highly impressive, though not remotely big-headed, namedrops of Billy Anderson, Dylan Carlson and Mr 2.13.61 himself, Henry Rollins. Why the Big Interview status? Oh yeah: Undersmile have got a new album looming. It’s called Anhedonia.

But you’ll find no review here coz it’s not out til a bit later in April so, as a warm up, let’s turn to 2013’s Wood and Wire. I’ll admit that I haven’t squared up to the Narwhal debut, mostly because I’ve been too scared, but this split album is shaping up to be a proper entry point to the world of Undersmile. For starters, it’s not just them – it’s a split album with Coma Wall, who are … Undersmile? Yes. In disguise. As ACOUSTIC BALLADEERS, faaaaa’ckinnelll!!!

Except there’s no b*ll*dry on show here, I made that bit up. Coma Wall are acoustic though, and the three tracks here – each of them 6 minutes plus – have the same addictive downer harmonies that recall Alice in Chains’ Sap EP, yet the low cello drone and slow-pick banjo on the standout track You Are My Death (it WILL stick in your head) turns the vibe dial to Rustic Americana. Love it. No wonder Dylan Carlson’s been sniffing around.

The flip to Coma Wall’s melancholic drift is Undersmile’s amplified hit: bog-slow and Dopesmoker-huge, the inyerface clarity is well removed from the stoner end of doom, not just because of the recording itself (co-produced by no less than Justin Greaves) but also because Undersmile don’t do that blues-based Sabbath-rooted derivative riffing thing. They don’t chug, not here at least, and they definitely don’t swing or groove. Undersmile pound and lurch, dragging things down with those moaning dead-souls-in-harmony vocals. Sure it’s monotonous on first listen but with extra reps, you find the spaces and the range. The Slint-like unease (Killer Bob), the Neurosis tension (Hives). And it grows, absolutely. Undersmile are no easy ride but one thing’s for sure – they stand apart in this heaviest of rock divisions, and Wood and Wire’s split format could be your way in. Did the job for me.

Digital download of Wood and Wire available at Shaman Recordings, it’s well cheap

Undersmile interview with Oxford’s Nightshift is in the March issue, page 4 of the PDF. Album review on page 5.

Last bit …

6Music went underground on March 21 when John Doran, editor of online sprawl The Quietus, guested on Maconie’s Freakier Zone for a 30-minute special on SUBTERRANEAN WORLDS. Not all of it’s essential but if you’re poking abut the iPlayer it’s worth checking for these two reasons: Lustmord’s ambient industrial menace, and the Butthole Surfers dementedness. Because you don’t really get this stuff on air very often, do you?

And that’s that. ‘til next time!

MONSTER MAGNET – Last Patrol

Posted on October 19, 2014 by kevinsmusicblog

I’ll admit that, before Last Patrol appeared last year, Monolithic Baby! was my last encounter with Wyndorf and co back in 2003. Good album, no question – Slut Machine, On the Verge and Radiation Day are proof enough of MM’s hard-rocking creds and quality – but by riding the Powertrip/God Says No slipstream again, its heavily anthemic bent feels like a further shift away from the psychedelic superhighs of Spine of God, Superjudge, Dopes to Infinity and, of course, the well-strung munt that is Tab 25*.

We’re missing a bit of out-there.

So, we (I) skip a couple of albums. Before you know it, 2013 rolls around with a new album on the Napalm Records label and somehow, the time feels right to revisit Planet Magnet. What’s different?

First, there’s the cover art: the bullgod is BACK.

Not the reductive bullgods of the past few albums but the shapeshifting cosmic fucking overlord bullgod, the big dude tipping an interstellar third-eye nod to those early 90s meisterworks. It’s an artwork, not a logo. Things are looking good.

And when I Live Behind the Clouds – Wyndorfian title or what? – opens the show, they sound even better. Lean and unhurried, it’s devoid of Monolithic’s leather-kecked arena-sized swagger, drawing instead from low-key wells like Zodiac Lung and Nod Scene’s quieter bits. Promising stuff, and track two – the title track – confirms it: we have an official Return to Form. Last Patrol (the track) is space-bound psyche done the Magnet way, its off-planet swirl and astral solos stretching out over 9 minutes of impending meltdown. Classic, vintage – and again, lean. Monolithic’s beefed production has been ditched in favour of those Stooges/Hawkwind roots, shot through with a real late 60s analogue vibe.

Last Patrol strikes me as the sound of a band at one with themselves. Not striving to be anything, not pandering to some caricature of what they should be, they just ARE. And they’re confident with it. Whether that’s down to long-term axe fella Ed Mundell’s exit, or some new level of personal insight opened up by Dave Wyndorf’s Mastermind-era health probs, who knows, but there’s a refinement and a sense of pacing here that makes Last Patrol work as a proper album, a real start-to-finish listening job. Stay Tuned, a sparse electro-acoustic brooder, closes the album like a cinematic fadeout – a space for actors to exit – and Three Kingfishers does cross-cultural fusion as though George Harrison just got back from India for the first time. Guitar-west meets sitar-east, shades of Electric Prunes hymnal psyche circa Mass in F Minor – yep, it’s THAT 60s. Then again, Kingfishers is a Donovan cover so whaddya expect? Either way, it’s Patrol perfect.

And all the while, you’re reminded of just how good a hard rock voice Dave Wyndorf actually has, his biker-outlaw charisma and friendly motherfuckercool lifted with a sky’s eye insight:

‘Brother, can you help me now

I feel my mind is drifting

Lost between the sacred grains of sand forever shifting’

– Mindless Ones, Last Patrol

Yep, I think we can say that the spirit of Monster Magnet has been revived – and about time. Last Patrol is a class act, so much so that it’s even got me round to plugging those 4-Way Diablo and Mastermind-sized holes in the collection. Welcome back guys, you’ve been missed.

STOP PRESS!!! I’ve just found out that Milking the Stars: a Re-imagining of Last Patrol is coming out in November. Good timing or what?

*a review I posted on Head Heritage a few years back

AUDIOSCOPE – Music for a Good Home 3

Posted on July 26, 2014 by kevinsmusicblog

When you go to the Audioscope all-dayer and your eyes wander across the posters advertising Audioscope’s past, they soon snap into sharp focus at the names who’ve taken the closing slot over the years – names like:

Califone, Damo Suzuki (twice), Karma to Burn, Wire, Don Cabarello, Clinic, Deerhoof, Four Tet, Six By Seven.

Impressive, no? And that’s before you scan down to the other bands on those bills such as Arbouretum, Explosions in the Sky, Grumbling Fur, Nought and so on and on and on.

So while you marvel at that rock procession, you kick yourself for what you might have missed over the years. My big miss was NOT seeing Damo Suzuki in 2012, opting instead for an Oxford gig of ‘avant metal and free jazz, Black Sabbath meets Sun Ra’.

It wasn’t though. It was fucking earache. Attended by about 9 people. Worst of all, we couldn’t even leave because the venue was too small for a discreet exit: we were trapped. Trapped by metallic free jazz. By the set’s end, even the drummer sensed our escapist longing and rejected the band’s suggestion of an encore. SENSE PREVAILED. But he was overruled … and the band played on.

But let’s get back to the beauty of Audioscope. Once you get rid of the flashbacks and look around the event – now tucked upstairs at the Jericho Tavern – you again try and square it with the names on those posters.

How can an event that’s this unassuming, this low key, manage to bag bands of that stature year after year?

And yet, somehow, it does. That’s the magic. Punching well above its weight, Audioscope is surely the Bruce Lee of one-day festivals.

Now we have the latest Audioscope album, Music for a Good Home 3, and it’s an even bigger version of those live line-ups. A website link is on its way but first, check this for an opening one-two from the album:

Amon Tobin. John Parish.

Shit me, is that alone worth the price of entry or what??? Tobin’s cooling, gothic downbeats Twin-Peaking into Parish’s sliding Americana is as sublime a start as you could want, and it all ends 29 tracks later – yep, 31 tracks for a bargain 7 quid – with a ragged, 18-minute grope towards lo-fi salvation by Magik Markers, the spirit of Crazy Horse and Brain Donor infusing their tech-free reps.

Elsewhere on the record there’s a stack of goodness to digest. Grumbling Fur, Arbouretum’s David Heumann, Wolf People and Six by Seven count among the higher-profile bands, yet the pleasure of this expansive comp is unearthing the stuff you don’t know or haven’t heard. Karhide’s explosive chase/attack, Dirty Beaches’ beat-less drones and Barn Owl’s intense immersive swell are just a few new discoveries, for me at least, but that’s just the beginning. What about Danny Paul Grody’s timeless acoustic fingerpickings? Or Chrome Hoof’s eccentric precision metal?

Time to send you on your way, methinks – get the full listing for Audioscope: Music for a Good Home 3 right here and download the album. You’ll enrich your life and do your bit to help others too, because Audioscope’s proceeds go towards Shelter.

Then spread the word and tell your friends to buy it, ‘coz compilations this good really shouldn’t go unheard.

See Audioscope reviews for 2013, 2014 and 2015

MUTATION: Error 500

Posted on April 27, 2014 by kevinsmusicblog

EXTREME ATTENTION–DEFICIT METAL

Someone puts a CD on – summat loud, brutish, fast. He or she is trying to find a track which they’ll recognise the second they hear it, but YOU know different because of their chronic SMS (shit memory syndrome). Play is pressed and you get a few seconds of metallic battery. Not it. FF flick to the next track. Another blast. Not it. Skip again. More noise. Nope, skip. Half a riff, NO. Skip. Maybe it was the first one after all? Skip back. No. ffs. FF again.

Jarred by this rapido assault of unconnected riffs, your senses are mashed. You don’t know what’s next or what went before coz you’ve been denied the time to process any of it. There’s no pattern to snag, not even a rhythm to follow, and your brain can’t keep up.

This is what Error 500 feels like – 9 tracks of mutant-bastard billion-guitar chaos, pinballing not so much between styles but between riffs, tempos and strobe-light madness to create a monstrous pile-up WITHIN every track. Disorienting stuff for sure, but who’s responsible for this barrage of ADD metal? What is MUTation?

MUTation is a Ginger (Wildhearts)-led project and this record is part two of a rumoured three-album lifespan. Napalm Death’s Shane Embury is in it, Cardiacs’ Jon Poole is in it, as are many others. Merzbow pops up. More bizarrely, Mark E Smith – yes, that one (is there any other?) – shambles in for two stagger-on cameos, shouting about shoelaces like a daylight drunk.

Does any of this give a sense of where Error 500 is going?

If not, the disjointed assembly of opening track Bracken surely does, a well-heavy/insane mash of what sounds like 5 different tracks in the first minute. Utopia Syndrome carries on the cut-and-paste attack. By the time White Leg flings a carousel spin in there, your ears begin to whisper for a lie down … not because of volume or extremity in itself, we love all that, but because of over-stimulus and the pace of change. Error 500 is a twisted hybrid of Napalm Death, Devin Townsend and Battles body parts, stitched together with Zappa thread and sparked to life by a Meshuggah defibrillator.

Little wonder, then, that it finds a home on Ipecac.

Unlike collaborations such as Shrinebuilder, where the very-brilliant sum is clearly derived from its Om/Neurosis/St Vitus component parts, or even labelmates Palms who evolve the Isis blueprint into celestial realms, MUTation is more in the Patton/Fantomas/Bungle mould – a total annihilation of the familiar and the expected. It’s a combustion. Highlights are impossible to list because the whole thing – as a statement – is a deranged highlight, though the Napalm-heavy channel-flicking Protein is a fave of mine. Over to you to pick your own bits.

Anything goes in MUTation world, and though it’s nothing like the Wildhearts, it’s everything like their spirit: technicolour, exuberant, volatile, smiling and rammed with fuck-it attitude … a gloriously demented racket. BRING THE NOISE.

Mutation: Error 500 (Ipecac, 2013)

CARAVAN OF WHORES – Road to Kurti

Posted on March 23, 2014 by kevinsmusicblog

The Caravan rolls into Oxford this week to kick off a night of heaviness at the Wheatsheaf, supporting Undersmile and Beehoover, so it’s about time we snuck in a warm up for the Oxfordshire three-piece. Time to get on the Road … to Kurti.

And where does it lead?

To a four track, 30-minute nugget of doom-ish riffs and space trippin’ expansions, that’s where. I’ve been listening to this 2012 release loads since seeing them support Naam last year and at first, I thought the dooooomy-ness held sway. Sticky blackened riffs on Mr Bendyman and Your God is Dead are airless and sunshine free … Wino comes to mind (sort of), as does the cold-air essence of 80s Celtic Frost (sort of).

Oh, and so do four geezers (sorry Geezer) from the black country who unwittingly spawned this whole thing anyway. You know how Masters of Reality was the first Sabbath record to sound consistently just too slow, like your turntable was spinning a couple of revs under the magic 33? That’s where Road to Kurti’s riffs are pitched: leaden enough to lurch with a wee bit of drag, no doubt intoxicated by Into the Void’s daddy-of-them-all stoner spirit.

But what really elevates this EP is the stuff that isn’t riff-based. The stuff that breaks down and stretches out. Anyone who’s a sucker for those spacious head-nodding jams that cast off their earth shackles and make for some higher orbit – the cosmic side of Kyuss, Dead Meadow, Monster Magnet and the like – will find pure drifting satisfaction here.

Check the thick warm bass way up front in the mix on opener Drug Queen, then spend the next half hour wallowing in ego-less guitar (from the magnificently named John Slaymaker), dirgey riffs and some mightily hyperactive drum action which, after repeat plays, grabs your ears to the point that you’ll soon start having your favourite FILLS, never mind riffs (hello Mr Bendyman). And you don’t normally say that about drummers in so-called doom bands, which just shows how much more is going on here.

So then: Caravan of Whores. You wouldn’t name a taxi company after them, but as far as the psyche/prog end of doom or the dark side of the desert goes, they’re a name to call on. They deliver. Looking forward to the next batch of tunes, fellas.

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