Body Stuff’s Body Stuff 5 (The Chain World) takes a full three minutes to introduce vocals, while closing its thirty-five-plus minute runtime with three-and-a-half minutes of late-Eighties-style New Wave; this Prog Metal banger takes us on a journey where, to bastardize Hamlet, “the music’s the thing.” Continue reading
Blending industrial sampling, New Wave techno beats, Hard Rock guitars, and spoken-word poetry, Meryl Streek’s Songs For The Deceased (Venn Records) puts you in front of the most ardent liberal soapbox speaker since Eugene V. Debs. The single “Rags To Riches” delves into the emotional turmoil that is life under modern capitalism. I’m glad I got to review this one, because I’m politically aligned and probably most sympathetic to Meryl’s message. Fortunately, it’s also quite danceable.
As a child of the Eighties, when I chose Spike Fuck‘s Evidence (Scared Bones Records), the genre New Wave had me thinking Flock of Seagulls, A-Ha, Howard Jones, Blondie, The Bangles, and a hundred other synth-heavy bands with heavy radio airplay. What I forgot was that New Wave meant the New Wave of Punk Rock. The earliest bands included Lou Reed and The Cars, among others. Spike’s music hearkens back that far. Straight-up near-acoustic vocals, guitars, and drums sorrowfully pour out personal tunes all over this debut album.