Sincerity is difficult to fake – ask any politician in the build-up to an election – yet post-rock Manchester collective Pijn (pronounced “pine”) keep it real on their powerful, atmospheric, heartfelt new album, From Low Beams Of Hope (Floodlit Recordings).Continue reading
The expert, intricate and intriguing Today Was Yesterday (Music Theories Recordings/Mascot Label Group) finds the eponymous duo spreading their wings, unboxing various goodies and displaying many talents, in cahoots with guitar greats Alex (Rush) Lifeson, guesting on six of the 10 tracks, and Robby (The Doors) Krieger, on another.Continue reading
When the David Lynch-directed movie The Straight Story was released in 1999 it was a surprising departure for anyone familiar with the creator of Twin Peaks and Blue Velvet. The surprise wasn’t floating aliens, ladies in radiators or ears in paper bags. Quite the opposite. Lynch had already exposed audiences to the dark and bizarre in many forms; it was the absence of surrealistic shock that made the poignancy of one man’s single-minded road trip to reconnect with his ill brother so strange. This was not what was expected. This was not the formula that audiences were starting to think they’d figured out.
Eclectic and amazing genre smashers This Way To the Egress have already announced their new album, their sixth, Retrospectiva! on Halloween 2020. The band has teamed up with Ghost Cult today to share their new single “Gravedigger”, lovely bop and mediation on the apocalyptic end-times vibe of 2020, or really the last few years in the world. The band will certainly draw comparisons musical chameleons and misfits from Art rock, Cabaret Punks, and World Music. However, its’s on repeat listens the band’s idiosyncratic special sauce is revealed, a synapse shattering portend of their expanding sound and potential for greatness. The rising band from Pennsylvania has already appeared at festivals alongside major names like M.I.A., Cypress Hill & The Specials and shared stages with Squirrel Nut Zippers, World/Inferno Friendship Society, Aurelio Voltaire, Red Elvises, and The Dresden Dolls, including being Amanda Palmer’s backing band at her New Year’s Eve Bash. The new album was recorded and produced by Dan Shatzky at his NYC Vibromonk studio, a mecha for the NYC gypsy/klezmer-punk scene with credits including Gogol Bordello, Balkan Beat Box, and Firewater. Hang on to someone you love for dear life, and jam out to “Gravedigger” right now!
Black Metal has become such a multi-faceted entity with insane levels of creativity, particularly in recent years with bands pushing extremities and dynamics to all new limits. Amongst a fast-growing Dutch scene, the trio of Laster have been a shining beacon of mesmeric and near absurdist songcraft. An unshackled approach that has hit an even greater peak of greatness on latest effort Het Wassen Oog (Prophecy Productions).Continue reading
Ghost Cult is pumped to debut the brand new video from The Earthly Frames, ‘She Waits For Yesterday’. The track comes from the new album Light Reading, releasing tomorrow January 11th, 2019. This delicious piece of off the wall alt-pop/post-punk weirdness comes from the brain of solo auteur Gabriel Walsh, for which The Earthly Frames is just one of many guises worn by Walsh in twenty-five years of art making. In addition to the hook-laden track of droning synths, glitchy samples, and buzzing bass; B movie aficionados may recognize the Invasion of the Bee Girls clip, now in the public domain as the visual component. Check it out! Continue reading
Recent years have seen UK progressive art rockers The Pineapple Thief hit a sweet spot of a niche between explorative and catchy songwriting. With the likes of All The Wars and Magnolia leaning either side respectively, 2016’s Your Wilderness straddled both thresholds and resulted in their most successful album and, arguably at that point, their creative peak. Poised for their biggest European tour, both in terms of dates and venue capacities, their latest album, Dissolution (all Kscope), once again continues this trend.Continue reading
Nearly twenty years into this twenty first century of ours, and retro is once again the chicest tone in town. Fuzzed, bluesy guitars, seventies licks and threads, and an aching earnestness for a sound of yesteryear is where the coolest of cats are chilling. And down such alleyways we find Belgian quartet Black Mirrors and their impressive full length debut Look Into The Black Mirror (Napalm).Continue reading
In the era of DIY, the music industry has seen a lot of success from self-made acts. When you can run your own record label and put out a very highly praised debut, the bar is set pretty high for anything that follows. The UK’s own Asylums have done just that. They released their debut in 2016 with rave reviews and two years later they are following up with Alien Human Emotions (Cool Thing). This sophomore drop from the Southend natives uplifts the alt./art rock genre in a direction that intrigues a younger audience from the second it’s turned on.Continue reading
It is often found that from tremendous despair comes profound and reflective art. It is such a tragedy that seems to hang over the current works of one Mariusz Duda; that being the unexpected death of Riverside guitarist and close friend Piotr Grudziński in 2016. Outside of Riverside, Duda took his own personal grief to creating last years phenomenal Lunatic Soul release, Fractured (Kscope), a release that saw the ambient outfit to new experimental heights across an emotional spectrum from pure desolation to showing signs of hopefulness.Continue reading