When Melvins take the stage at 9pm on Saturday 16th August, half the band have already played for an hour. It’s no surprise that Steve McDonald doubles up on bass duties with Red Kross supporting but Dale Crover behind the Kross kit? Bonus. I know zilch about Redd Kross beyond the name – I guess they hung out in a grunge-adjacent strand of the alt-rock rainbow in the early 90s but no tunes come to mind. Not like it matters – their alt-punk energy, power pop hooks, vocal harmonies and rippingly to-the-point solos are catchy and breezy. Tight band, great set.
FUNN FAKT: Sheffield is the first place in the UK that Steve McDonald ever slept. It was in 1992. He told us.
Melvins are a different animal – not just different to Redd Kross but different to every other band out there. This is not news. But seeing them live on such imperious form – which they definitely are tonight – is a reminder of just how potent and ingenious a one-off force they still are and we really, really shouldn’t take them for granted.
With Coady Willis setting up next to Dale Crover, Big Business-era killers like Blood Witch and Evil New War God land with all their original double-drum intensity and, for my tastes, are worth the price of entry alone. With Revolve and Working the Ditch also working their way into the set, it’s game over – Melvins win. Cannot remember now what else got played (did Kicking Machine make it? Hooch?) but that doesn’t matter. What we got was an hour and fifteen minutes of twisted, non-stop riffage that only Melvins can deliver.
And to watch Buzz Osborne is to watch a guy consumed by what he’s doing. Not once does he address the crowd between songs – that’s McDonald’s job, he’s the connector – and not once does he step off the gas. He rocks out, sings hard and plays hard. Ridiculously fckn hard. They all do.
Been on a Melvins binge ever since. Just how it should be.
RAW INDUSTRIALS FROM BETH, BLACK METAL FROM EGYPT AND … A VIDEO OF GLOWING SHOELACES
It’s been a big few weeks for big names and big media coverage. Glastonbury dominated the BBC but if you weren’t screen-bound at the time Neil Young actually played, his set remains elusive bar whatever scraps you can sweep up from YouTube (here’s an Old Man clip that’s quietly hypnotic despite – no, because of – being filmed miles away from the stage from by someone who totally gets it… thank you BrainRotRebellion. Great laces).
As if Glastonbury all over wasn’t big enough, Oasis got us giddy for communal anthems less than a week later and then BLACK FCKN SABBATH reunited for a celebratory all-star last-ever show at Villa Park: Back to the Beginning. Massive. Sabbath are dominating the sounds round here but, to balance all that enormity and nostalgia, here are some new tunes – and it’s a noisier bunch this month.
Converge have not put out anything new but Mary Anne Hobbs played the ferocious Dark Horse on her new Sunday evening 6 Music show last month. Why? Seems that Jehnny Beth is a fan – and Hobbs had just given Obsession its first ever radio play.
Unsurprisingly, Beth aces it. Obsession grabs the wracked emotions and desperate aggression of early Nine Inch Nails and makes fresh industrial chaos for 2025 – here’s the video and her new album You Heartbreaker, You is out in August. Obsession bodes very well.
Meanwhile … Manchester for Maruja, anyone?
MARUJA – Look Down On Us
For Maruja first-timers, like what I is, Look Down On Us starts out like punk-noise bass with sax and rage. So far, so grit. But there’s more to it as this is a track (and video) of many parts, moods and movements, where anger slows to calm, calm swells to hope, and hope gets hit with headbanger intensity and a squalling free-form crescendo. Explosive, cathartic and very possibly ascendant, no doubt this is a beast when played live. Video right here.
STRATFORD RISE – Gunshow
Can you call this stuff prog? It’s two and a half minutes short so probably not. But then again, length isn’t everything … is it? In Gunshow, Belfast’s Stratford Rise mangle blackmidi/Geordie Greep quirk into a dense, churning chunk of artsy metallics that doesn’t quite go where you think – and stops before you find out.
WITCHCRAFT – Burning Cross
Very timely, given the music retirement news of the moment – a pure retro crawl from a descendant of a descendant of Black Sabbath. Absolutely nothing about Burning Cross screams ‘2025’. Nothing screams ‘summer heatwave’ either, but this Witchcraft tune is definitely at the quality end of any Sabbath devotion you might stumble on, especially the non-metal (jazzier?) breaks and ever so slightly stank-face wah. Check it here and file away for some appropriate autumn drizzle.
LYCOPOLIS – Mesektet
Feeling the need for raw dirt? An anti slick fix, a hot shot of sonic filth? This’ll do it. Sounding like it was recorded inside a tomb, Mesektet by Egyptian black metallers Lycopolis does to black metal what Entombed did to death metal – gives it swagger, gives it groove, gives it fucking ROLL. Atmos conjured, arrestingly unique.
TAKKAK TAKKAK – Garang
Cultures clash, but which ones? Who knows. Percussion-heavy chants and beats make for an underground cult where the ancient and the modern mix it up while metallic one-chord chugs pin you down. Subterranean club music, without borders, outside of time, impossible to describe. A spirited antidote to barriers and boundaries. Take a hit of Garang from Takkak Takkak and make your own mind up.
BLEETH – Echoes of Doubt
Bass alert: prepare to be steamrollered. Echoes of Doubt employs an absolute wall of it to bulk up its post-desert stoner anthemics so if you’re partial to the late Caleb Scofield’s four-string MO for Zozobra and Cave In, Bleeth are worthy. With thick, catchy riffs, super melodic vocals and a neat little tempo pick up, what more do you need for the summer?
PIGSx7 LIVE IN MANCHESTER, HEAVY FOLK FROM SHEFFIELD, BLAZING POWER-TRIO ROCK FROM NIGER AND MORE
When you step into Manchester’s New Century Hall for a Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs gig on a Friday night, your first thought is:
Marc Riley must be in here somewhere.
Didn’t see him, but he was there – confirmed it when the band were in session on his 6 Music radio show three days later. Tucked away at the back for ear protection. Nice.
Non-sightings of Mr Riley aside, what can you expect from Pigsx7 live?
Oversized doomy bouncing howling slamming ear-ringing max volume euphorics with pink shorts and a workout vest, that’s what. If you’ve seen them before, you’ll know the score with Matt Baty’s onstage kit – it’s a self deprecating pop at the genre’s aggro-macho hardman vibes, shot through with ritualistic stage moves summoning some sort of communion with the heaviness gods. Launching the set with a shamanically extended The Wyrm (I think) and signing off with shit-kicking tarmac tribute A66, it’s a good-times ruckus start to end.
With short mid-tempo tracks like Detroit and The Glitch getting plenty of exposure ahead of DeathHilarious being released, it’s easy to forget the wrecking-ball breakdowns in Pigs’ music and it’s these slow dooming slams that really leap out live. Caught me off guard a bit – it’s been a while – but in the best way. Other highlights include a non-competitive Headbanger of the Night award, plenty of anti-Download patter (it’s a Venga Boys thing) and the perma-seismic bass of John-Michael Joseph Hedley.
Walking back down Oldham Street around 10.45pm, there were loads of people sitting in a line on the pavement. What in the name of cold arse cheeks is going on?
Queue for Record Store Day 2025. At Piccadilly Records. The night before…
Did you go RSD-ing? Was it worth it? Having moved to a town where there is no record shop, that Piccadilly Records queue was the nearest I got to any RSD action.
Slight fomo at that point. Still haven’t written up last year’s RSD find, which is a shame because it’s fckn ace. Even better, it was a CD. Cop for that, vinyl fetishists.
Just before we hit some killer new sounds, can we once again praise the Melvins and their now pathological consistency? After Tarantula Heart formed a stalwart noise rock trilogy of excellence in 2024 alongside Jesus Lizard and Shellac, they’ve only gone and put another one out already – well, Melvins 1983 have. Done it in the same month, too: April. Having squeezed a couple of listens of Thunderball so far, the first impressions are more than promising – a twisted, heavy Melvins 1983 shorn of the jokes that thinned the quality of Working With God. They play Sheffield in August. Cannot wait.
Right then, off we go with some single track highlights.
JIM GHEDI – Sheaf & Feld
David Eugene Edwards plopped onto the radar recently with a project with Al Cisneros, which is uncanny and timely because there’s a 16 Horsepower air to this dense, metallic, ensemble folk shanty by Sheffield’s Jim Ghedi. With its one-two swing, Sheaf & Feld is built for movement and group action – a communal, earthy hymn to keep spirits high while bodies battle or toil. And it’s a bit like this Archie Bronson Outfit cracker from 2006.
TAKAAT – Amidinin
Immediate Mdou Moctar vibes come flying off this unpolished electrified attack. When you find out that Takaat is in fact everybody in Mdou Moctar’s band who isn’t called Mdou Moctar, it’s so obvious. The energy is up, like Funeral for Justice, the triple-time rat-tat rhythm – check those deft beats by Souleymane Ibrahim – drives hard with no time to catch breath and the guitars are saturated with distortion. Amidinin is very much a live-action jam. Scintillating stuff.
THE OTOLITH – Glimmer
When Myrkur goes full blend between blackened metal and ethereal Scandinavian folk, it’s a killer combination for reasons you can’t always place. It just works. Glimmer by The Otolith gifts us a similar genre-blending deal that feels so organic you wonder why it’s not the norm. With sea-siren vocals and viola symphonics, it’s a seductive, enchanting trip that soon becomes darkened by brief but transformative visitations from Riff Lord and Hell Voice, aka the post-metal deathly sludge bit. Hauntingly beautiful and brutish, Glimmer beguiles and intoxicates.
MCLUSKY – People Person
Confession: despite knowing the name, this is the first mclusky music I have ever heard. But if their early noughties heyday was anything like People Person then shame on me for missing it – and thank Ipecac for spreading the word because this simmer-to-boiling-point fist fight is right up the piss-damp alley of anyone with a bent for slab rock physicality, predatory bass and caustic wordage. Ipecac is a good home. Want to see office workers lose their shit and beat each other with keyboards? Watch mclusky’s People Person video.
FUCKED UP – Disabuse
Dropping all notion of melodic hookery or progressive art-punk structures, Disabuse sees Fucked Up channel their name more literally to throw up a cathartic hardcore speed assault. Save it for when you need … a cathartic hardcore speed assault. To bang your head to. Blowtorch rock, check it here.
Check this Rewind – no chitchat intro. Not through choice, more of a time pressure thing because life has got in the way AND the ‘unable to save draft’ tech hiccup only made things worse so here we are, rewriting and cutting and hurtling to hit publish just to get it done.
And breathe.
Calm.
Oh …
HIGH ON FIRE – The Beating
Never a truer title, and a deserving one, too – haven’t bothered with High on Fire for a few years. No great reason, just … haven’t. They’ve slipped off into a parallel slipstream but a track like The Beating whips them right back, demolishing all complacency in a two-minute rager that burns like a cosmic fireball and leaves a middle-finger shaped trail in the sky. Yeah. The High on Fire template hasn’t been fiddled with so you know the rough drill but the drums here really, really cook – and it’s new drummer Coady Willis, ex Melvins and trusted Melvins live stand-in, who’s driving the band these days. It’s not a brand new track because the album’s been out nearly a year, but having only recently caught it, The Beating makes it in for sheer good time brutality. No mercy.
WALDO’S GIFT – Malcolm’s Law
Instrumental, hard hitting new/post jazz crossover? Whatever this stuff gets called (if anything), Malcolm’s Law by Bristol-based Waldo’s Gift is it. See Run Logan Run for another.
The great thing about a track like this is you can zone in on any element and make a different listening experience for yourself. Want some jazz fusion with metallic edges? Put your receptors on the guitar, my fiend. Chasing a subsonic shakeout? Drop into that bass, man. Spicy beats? YES. Gilles Peterson played this on the radio earlier in the year and if you check Worldwide FM online, you can hear Waldo’s Gift in session last week. Haven’t heard it myself yet and you never know, Malcolm’s Law might be wholly unrepresentative. Then again, so might these words – after all, they’re just an attempt to capture a first impression. Check the track, then check the session.
JESUS LIZARD – Westside
Rack was a 2024 highlight. Did we expect such a resolutely Jesus Lizard-like outing after such an absence? Hard to say but it was a welcome return. Now we have new tracks and Rack’s high bar means expectations have been set …
Westside offers no real hook and doesn’t so much flow as lurch, stop, start and stumble while never quite losing balance … it staggers on. Prime Jesus Lizard, then, if a touch lighter. We’re lucky to have them. Submit.
[if Record Store Day is your thing, look out for Westside and the other two post-Rack tracks on vinyl next month.]
PROJECT GEMINI – After the Dawn (Large Plants remix)
Some classy psyche rock here – not the free-form brain-fry stuff but a more considered, groove-oriented take. There’s a history to Project Gemini but it’s all new to me, as is the news that Wolf People’s Jack Sharp is in Large Plants – which explains the impeccable prog/psyche devotion throughout. The riffs switch to extra fuzz midway through, floating vocals bring Dead Meadow to mind and there’s a classic lead guitar flourish to finish, all anchored by a tumbling, propulsive funk beat. After the Dawn right here.
VELVETINE – Miss Together
Glorious slab of dank quiet-loud here from London’s Velvetine, twisting a gothic edge – the Killing Joke, other-world edge – into an art-punk frame. It slams hard. Shades of late 80s Sub Pop. Squalling guitar abrasion owns the high ground, noise-rock bass bulldozers the low and Mia Scarlet channels Beth Gibbons to both soar and pull us down into the darker recesses. Meet Miss Together.
DECEMBER REWIND: MANIAC THRASH, OCCULT-ISH FUZZ, METALCORE LOUNGE AND MORE
Welcome to the last Rewind of 2024 – not that there have been many to digest this year. What was once a monthly (give or take) post has slipped shamefully close to a flatline with occasional blips indicating ‘life’.
But, like a tortoise on an uphill grind into a tarmac-scraping headwind, we carry on. ’tis the season of goodwill and joy after all so the least we can do is share some new discoveries before the Xmas madness intoxicates. ONWARD. Slowly…
HELLRIPPER – Fork-Tongued Messiah
Nothing slow about this though, the most recent new blood from every metaller’s favourite Highlander. The track came out in August but it’s the bleak end of the year where such two-minute mayhem makes most sense, not just because the days are literally darker but also because Hellripper takes you back to times of youthful innocence when Kill ’em All and Killing is My Business ruled your fledgling earwaves and Bathory stoked fearful fascination. No stylistic breakaways at this point, thank satan – just riotous escapism at maximum speed. ALL HAIL.
EARTH TONGUE – Bodies Dissolve Tonight!
On Bodies Dissolve Tonight!, Earth Tongue – from Wellington, New Zealand – add a chanty, gonzo spook vibe to some wickedly fuzz-rocking riffage. On the one hand, it’s got the primitive no-frills edge you’d expect from a two-piece. On the other, it dances with the sci-fi occult grooves of the late 60s and early 70s underground, thanks to Gussie Larkin’s staccato vocal delivery. You could easily imagine this on one of those box sets of unearthed now-cult gems like I’m a Freak, Baby… where bands like Wicked Lady, Iron Claw and Devil’s Teabag* spread dank cheer. Listen to Earth Tongue, then watch the video for beach-driving high jinx.
*not really
THEODOR KENTROS – Trystero
7 minutes of ambient doomgaze and looped layering, anyone? Grab those headphones. Downbeat in tempo but not in spirit, Theodor Kentros‘s Trystero exists as some kind of shapeshifting heavy vapour, slowly unfolding and expanding over your world. Sparse guitars echo like cinematic Mogwai teasing an impending onslaught but here, they pull back, making way for swollen enormo-drones and elemental clangs to reveal themselves. When those same guitar lines reappear and repeat cleaner, brighter and bigger, it’s like the day burst wide open. Immersion time.
TENUE – Union
It’s not hard to imagine a band playing Pelican-ised post metal with screamo vocals and black-metal blasts, and that’s a rough marker for what Tenue do on this track – nothing wrong with that. But the real loop they throw is the mellow jazzy breakdown which has no connection with the rage either side yet completely belongs, snapping your focus into attention by showcasing deft musicality and prog tendencies. Intriguing? File under Spanish Metalcore Loungecore. Or something. Check Union here.
MIDWIFE – Rock n Roll Never Forgets
Calexico, Giant Sand and assorted Americanas make for supreme winter listening if you find the right tracks, despite the warmth and dust in the origins of their sound. It’s all about the openness and isolation they conjure and this gentle, dronesome hush by Midwife does exactly the same thing. Madeline Johnston inhabits the monochrome zone where distorted whispers weave through pedal-steel caresses and buried strings. Devoid of all bluster or hard edges, it occupies a space that’s permanently in-between – locations, hours, states of consciousness, whatever you choose. Lo-fi ambience for late night drifters, low-light hibernators and want-to-be-aloners… keep it close when Christmas gets too loud. Rock n Roll Never Forgets.
And that’s that. Tyler the Creator‘s Noid (and video) was dynamite and then 2024 year-end listmania was unleashed. So we’d better leap on some of that
SUMMER REWIND: MIND-MELTING MASH-UPS, TRANSCENDENT DRONES AND A NEW TYPE-O ON THE BLOCK
In the previous Rewind, I said that my cassette deck coughed its last breath (clunked its last wind?) and that sad ending probably meant a hiatus for these Rewinds. Such Doomsday thinking came about because the thought of writing new-tunes blather without first taping those tunes onto a trusty blank was unimaginable. Which might sound odd because no-one needs a tape to write.
Thing is, I’ve been taping for too many years to count. It’s built into the way I choose to do these posts because the tapes and the taping came first, long before any word outlet. Writing a Rewind is just a way to do something with a pre-existing activity. Capturing radio highlights in hard copy analogue has been a fixture since the late 1980s and it’s ingrained, like a behavioural tattoo. It might be fading but it’s still permanent.
But although not having a tape feels strange, the idea of letting those ear-pricker tunes drift by without any kind of note feels even stranger.
So, let’s get back to business – ish – with a bunch of hot rocks and warped sonics from the vanishing summer stretch that’ll blow minds OR confuse the shit out of them (talking to you, Fire-Toolz).
Before that, a quick salute to Iggy Pop for a four-song sequence the other week that sounded like a plot to destroy the BBC Radio 6 Music’s RAJAR figures or get him fired.
Did you hear it? WombbathConceal Interior Torment, GorementVale of Tears and Full of HellDoors to Mental Agony around 5.30pm on the radio on a Sunday afternoon with only a bit of Anna Von Hausswolff to separate them. Brutal. And horrible. But great to hear such shitbombs being lobbed on daytime radio every now and then. Mary Anne Hobbs has good form on that front, too.
She played this on her weekday morning show.
FIRE-TOOLZ – To Every Squirrel Who Has…
For squirrels’ sake, what the flattened roadkill is this format-defying track title? Here’s the uncut version:
To Every Squirrel Who Has Ever Been Hit By a Car, I’m Sorry & I Love You
Say you’re not curious.
But if you’re hoping to get the general musical idea from a quick listen, it’s not going to happen because there IS no general idea – not on first play. This is an avalanche of ideas in six and a half minutes: Prince-style euphoric synth intro, black metal screams, death metal chugs, hyper pop, triggered beats, glistening electro, ambient guitar, new age trips, the fckn works – a medley of fragments and attention deficits. Definitely not a genre but when the stylistic leaps are this wild and fleeting, it’s head-breaking stuff. It’s maximalist post-genre everything, like a multi-screen art installation with fidgeting technicolour flickers of Fantomas, Mr Bungle, Amon Tobin, Devin Townsend, Steve Vai and millions of others I don’t even know I don’t know.
I also don’t even know if I like it but it’s impossible to ignore – and the more you replay, the more the fragments stretch and the more you do find yourself being drawn in… give it a go.
RAFAEL ANTON IRISARRI – Control Your Soul’s Desire for Freedom (ft. Julia Kent)
The very opposite of a Fire-Toolz assault, Rafael Anton Irisarri conjures meditative heavy weather with this enormous unfolding of drones, tremors and strings that lift off and up from terra firma. Tranquil and serene yet heavy with it, Control… seems to offer some sort of healing while still acknowledging trouble’s presence. Engrossing and enveloping. Breath taken.
NEON NIGHTMARE – Lost Silver
Looking for a tribute to Type O Negative? Neither was I. But now that one’s popped up in true undead style as we welcome autumn’s gothic sensibilities, maybe the time’s right for a Type O mini me to slide out from a misty dusk. And this debut track from Pennsylvania’s Neon Nightmare is SO close to the Brooklyn Four that resistance is futile. Look no further than the artwork. It’s the exact same layout and typography (make your own pun) as every Type O Negative cover, so much so that you think someone from the original band must be involved somewhere. Surely.
Musically, there’s no new soil broken. Of course, the voice is cleaner but everything else – delicate piano/keyboard breaks, pick slides down the guitar, luscious Sabbathian mid tempo riffs, smooth as blackened silk finales – is replicant. It’s so brazenly and meticulously Type O that it just has to be the deepest tribute and for that reason, you have to love it. Perhaps not to death, but at least until Halloween. Lost Silver, the new green and black.
It seems absurd to place Mark Lanegan as a man of sunshine. And yet, so much of his music was made with desert scene players that he must have been drawn to it.
Home is where the heat is? Maybe.
* * *
Anyone who knows Bubblegum knows MethamphetamineBlues. Alongside Hit the City, it’s one of the rock-action peaks from that 2004 album and here, on the preceding Here Comes That Weird Chill EP, it gets prime position: track #1.
Driven by an electro-clank machine pulse, the Methamphetamine Blues groove is anything but bluesy. Fumes and distortion are the order of the day, more workshop grind than back-porch swing, with a sumptuous cast of backing singers teasing a gothic, seductive touch. Despite the huge cast, the loops and the near-constant lead guitar streams by Josh Homme and Dave Catching, it’s controlled … like a lot of Lanegan’s work. Containment, no histrionics. This one revels in taut compression.
On the Steps of the Cathedral, a hymn-like confessional with surround-sound Lanegan choir and a muted beat, fades in/out with the ghosted air of a Masters of Reality interlude – fitting, given the presence of Chris Goss – before the amps strike back for Clear Spot. It’s a faithful cover, maybe even an unadventurous one given Beefheart’s many outer limits, but it lends itself to the same mechanised distortions as Methamphetamine Blues. For that reason, it works. Let’s rock.
But from here, a looser vibe takes hold and the EP’s subtitle Methamphetamines, Extras & Oddities rings more true. Deen Ween brings the heat haze with his just-off-enough guitar solos through Message to Mine before the mood turns a 180 with this:
“Break my heart and hope to die before Lexington could slow down. They say a chariot’s waiting when you get cut loose. The place starts swinging when it’s me on the noose.”
When those words get spoken in Lanegan’s heaviest baritone over rain-sodden piano, they cut through everything.
They sound too true. You believe. Lexington Slowdown is a double-take moment that reorients your listening and elevates the EP because this is where the already obvious quality shifts to next-level. This EP is what made Bubblegum a must-buy the following year. And this EP is probably why I’m more a Lanegan Band casual than a completist because, honestly, nothing else captures Mark Lanegan in rock mode as much to my own liking as fully as this does.
If Lexington is pivotal then Skeletal History is definitive. The Voice leads, of course, but with alien interference crackling down the left side, desert dry riffs on the right and storm-brew bass and skittish beats locked down the centre, there’s no shortage of elements. No chorus, just flow, an ongoing slow eruption as a storm slowly builds. Explosions darken the track’s fadeout. Played like this, the music sounds less like a band than a telepathic convergence of forces. Vast, wide-open and ominous.
Wish You Well lightens the tone with a droning ebb and flow before Sleep With Me continues the Skeletal History vibe – but this is like the tentative calm after the threat has receded. Adrenalin slowing. Reprise extends Sleep With Me, softening further with immaculate bass lines while guitar distortions break the spaces around Homme’s dubby beat.
In some ways, it’s harder to see this EP as the Mark Lanegan Band than the album that followed. His name is in the spotlight sure, but the smaller cast of core players – the desert hands like Alain Johannes, Dave Catching, Chris Goss, Josh Homme and Nick Oliveri – knit together like low-ego equals drawing on more than just the music. Maybe it’s their shared histories that make the difference. Maybe the tunes with Nick Oliveri just turn out differently (he plays on more here than Bubblegum). Maybe it’s nothing more than presentation: a bunch of looser experiments being given their own space to run. Whatever it is, something extra comes through in the way this EP flows and hangs together.
Is it a Desert Session in all but name?
Possibly, yes. And if so, it’s the most consistent of the bunch – the lack of joke tracks and guest singers make for a darker, more focused mood – and the one that fits Lanegan’s voice best.
If you lapped up Bubblegum but somehow missed this … track it down: a small trove jammed with riches.
* * *
NEWS – Bubblegum reissue out soon, includes Weird Chill Just found out about this by chance today – Bubblegum is being reissued deluxe-style in August with Here Comes That Weird Chill (and other rarities) included on bonus discs, all for the 20th anniversary. Timing or what? Check Piccadilly Records for more.
JUNE REWIND: BLAZING TUAREG PSYCHE, GOTHIC BM AND CHICAGO LEGEND ALBINI LOST
This could be the last Track of the Month Rewind post for a while because the very fine bit of machinery that makes them happen has just died on me…
…the cassette deck. Bye bye Technics RS-HD350. And while this doesn’t stop the showcasing of new music in this digital age, it will stop these Rewinds – or at least pause them for a bit – because the act of taping is where they come from. Can’t rewind without tape.
The Rewind: on pause
So, apart from the death of the deck, what’s happened in the last couple of months?
Record Store Day 2024 came, went and whatevered. English Teacher packed out and wowed the Bullingdon in Oxford. Jesus Lizard announced a new album. But bigger than all those was our new-found reminder, for the absolute worst of reasons, of Steve Albini’s inimitable presence in the music world.
Reading the tributes, and re-reading and hearing his own words in articles and interviews, it’s staggering to see just how much music he touched – music that will continue to inspire listeners for a long time. It’s a vast repository whose tally is now abruptly fixed.
Like many music fans, I guess, my knowledge of him didn’t really stretch beyond the bands he was in, the headline bands he recorded, the headlines he himself made (good and bad) and the principles he brought to his craft and The Work.
But you realise that even the shallowest of skims through the albums he recorded will make for a highly rewarding experience. It’ll be different for everyone but the inevitable shitload of slept-on gems in the Albini backlist means we surely owe ourselves a dabble. And with Shellac being on the cover of Wire magazine just days before he passed, his sudden departure was made even more unreal. RIP Steve Albini.
OK then, onto some new-ish sounds worth a poke.
MDOU MOCTAR – Oh France
The Tuareg firebrand played Glastonbury this very afternoon so Worthy Farm is now surely the proud owner of its very own patch of scorched earth. As you might expect, explosive guitar hits hard from the start of Oh France, bringing spice and attack to Saharan flow, and the rhythm section is killer. Together, they wind up the pace and set the scene for shamanic frenzy that’s built for an end-of-set blowout. Feel the heat.
SUNNATA – Wishbone
More spiralling hypnotic psyche, this time from Poland’s Sunnata. Combining droning Massive Attack Risingson-style vocals with an upbeat looping riff, Wishbone trips along nicely before the chorus switches to a lumbering post/stoner groove and a tasty breakdown sets the geological bass loose. Check it here.
EDO – Radiant Structures
‘Black metal with a healthy dose of goth post punk’ is how Brad Sanders described this on Bandcamp’s The Metal Show and from the very first bars, the goth tag is unerringly precise – it’s not atmospheric, lush, electro or industrial goth but UK Dank Inc. goth: the guitars draw from the Banshees et al with sheets of thick, intoxicating textures enveloping the BM shred over 8 ever-shifting minutes.
KEVIN ABSTRACT – Blanket
Punk slacker vibes abound in Blanket, a loose two-minute sketch that sounds almost too slight to stand up but is so damned infectious it’s impossible to resist – and there’s more going on than you first think. With a descending chord sequence that’s a distant, non-violent relation to I Wanna Be Your Dog – no wonder Iggy played this on his radio show a few weeks back – it’s the semi-whispered breakdown in the middle that brings the hushed cool. It’s a fleeting tease, but of what? Dense lo-fi? Collage rock? Whatever it is, Blanket will find a place in the sun on your alt-pop carousel.
BROOKLYN NEW YORK, AUSTIN TEXAS AND CARDIFF CARDIFF SERVE THE RIFFS AND THE RAGE FOR THIS REWIND
Before dipping into the new discoveries, have we got time to splatter the page with Melvins superlatives?
New album TarantulaHeart is out THIS VERY WEEK which has, of course, prompted a massive Mel-fest in recent weeks. Question is, what would you choose right now for a Melvins reacquaintance?
Aside from a healthy Stoner Witch loop, it’s the Big Business double-drum era that’s done the business (sorry) round here. (A) Senile Animal, Nude with Boots and The Bride Screamed Murder, played in chronological order, makes for a shit-hot listening project: it’s Melvins with more crunch and pace than sludge and crawl, though we know they’ve always mixed it up pretty wildly. And there’s no shortage of rhythmic complexity on these albums either, cementing the notion that Buzz truly is one of the god-level riff lords of our time. Same goes for Dale on drums. They’re juiced and rejuvenated on The Talking Horse, warped and disorienting on The Savage Hippy and beat-shifting headfucks on Evil New War God, and that’s just three highs out of a possible 30. Monstrous stuff.
That block of albums is the third of three ‘triples’, which is pretty handy for chunking some Melvins together in a vaguely cohesive way. The major label threesome of Houdini, Stoner Witch and Stag was first. Then there was TheMaggot, The Bootlicker and The Crybaby trilogy back when Melvins first hooked up with an infant Ipecac. And finally, the Big Business years just mentioned. No doubt there are more trilogies, intended or not, lurking in The Melvins’ vast idiosyncratic sprawl but those three are huge anchor points.
Best wishes to Dale Crover’s continuing recovery from back surgery.
OK, let’s get back to the main gig with three new tunes.
GUHTS – White Noise
8 minutes of post-metal lumber that mainlines Cult of Luna? I’m in. And I’m especially in for the vocals. This is the Cult of Luna sound you’ve been waiting for IF the CoL voice(s) sometimes gets in the way, though you might not know that until you’ve heard this. Amber Gardner brings more dimensions and she’s so right for this slow-paced slam that it’s the post-metal embellishment we perhaps didn’t know we needed.
And the drop at 3 minutes is to die for. Pure Isis. Fresh voice, new blood, more GUHTS. White Noise right here.
TRANSIT METHOD – Frostbite
Another 8-minute epic, this time from Austin, Texas, and it’s the kind of metal that goes full Mastodon. Taut 5/4 rhythm, mathcore drive, hyped drums on a permanent fill and cosmic space-scraping solos all build to a thrash pickup, more blazing leads and thunderballs kick work.
Need a breather? There’s a beach-mellow breakdown and some pretty elastic bass to help you catch some rays … but not for long. This is an opus of sections, too wild and varied to detail, so check it here right the way through to the heroic punch of an ending.
SHLUG – Grated Thumbs
Don’t know what’s in the Cardiff water these days but this post-hardcore shout/speed rager packs more than just relentless aggro into its dank industrial hardcore. A mid-track breakdown, all bass and space and woozy Fugazi, halts the hyperventilating charge for just about long enough to catch breath and let rip again. Buy it from May 8th or hear it on BBC Radio 6 Music’s New Music Fix until early May.
Is it too late for winter sounds and 2023 catch-ups? Probably. Then again, we’re not out of the darkness yet – not quite – and there’s still a stack of stormy gloom and wind chill to celebrate. For that, we need an unsunny soundtrack. And if a couple of moments from 2023 fit the bill, all the better.
January/February is the year’s ultimate listening zone. Post-xmas hibernation means you can sink into those end-of-year lists and check what you missed (almost everything, it seems), spend a shiteload of time re-digging the old familiars that fit the season AND discover new-to-you old sounds that then become the foundation for winters future. It’s a cycle that repeats every year. Awesome.
So, with icy blasts in mind, two albums leapt off the Metal Hammer end-of-year list.
HELLRIPPER – Warlocks Grim & Withered Hags
This is an absolute riot, a thrash ‘n roll explosion of blackened metal that pays homage to the old school – Metallica, Maiden, Motorhead, Bathory – but is fired by precocious Young Man Chops from the Highlands, Scotland. James McBain, aka Mr Hellripper, is pretty much a one-man studio band (sleeve notes: ‘Hellripper is: James McBain’) which means he shreds like a daemon at everything. Can you imagine eating breakfast with the guy? Cornflakes at 200bpm. Carnage.
Anyway, back to the album and these words are more a reaction than a review because Warlocks Grim & Withered Hags puts such a demented headbanger smile on your face that you’ve just got to share the word with anyone who might not yet have found it. Solos blaze with melody through warp-speed thrash and black-metal throat while riffs groove and hook with anthemic potential. When Mester Stoor Worm closes the album down, it’s with an 8 and a half minute masterclass in epic metallic storytelling.
Disclaimer: it was actually Hellripper’s previous album, The Affair of the Poisons, that made the real first impression. After my must-order-Hellripper rush, Poisons was the fastest delivery. But I can say this: if you’re in for Poisons, you’re in for Warlocks. The Affair of the Poisons feels a shade more raw, Motorhead-ish/Kill ‘em All with Whiplash and Metal Militia vibes writ large. Warlocks Grim has classic speed/metal in its all-out attack but really, I haven’t got deep enough to know anything – too caught up in the frenetic energy, killer riffs and outlandish track titles (Goat Vomit Nightmare, Blood Orgy of the She-Devils, The Hissing Marshes, take your bloodied pick). Hellripper: a furious, glorious deathride. White knuckles mandatory.
MYRKUR – Spine
Since dropping the Myrkur ball after Mareridt, the sight of Spine at #11 in the 2023 Metal Hammer list prompted a shameful wake-up. Myrkur is back? She sure is. And Spine brings all sides of Myrkur together into one.
Spectral folk (Balfaerd), soft Scandi-pop choruses (Like Humans), melodic black-metal pace injections (Valkyriernes Sang), sweeping orchestral-vision (My Blood is Gold) and brooding goth-metal drama (Spine) are all present. Uniting every strand is, of course, Amalie Bruun’s ethereal vocals. Spine is her 33-minute musical tour through her new world of motherhood.
As with the two Hellripper albums above, these words are only a reaction so no great finesse or vision, but excitability? Hell yeah. Next time you get slammed by snow drifts or chilled by subzero winds or blindsided by cold fog banks, reach for Myrkur or double up on Hellripper. Winter mood enhancers for sure.
amplifier wordsmith 