Post-Punk and New Wave festival Cruel World Fest has announced its full stage times for the returning festival in the Los Angeles area next weekend. Taking place on May 11, 2024 at Brookside at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California, the festival featured Duran Duran and will also feature Interpol, Blondie, Simple Minds, Placebo, Soft Cell, Adam Ant, Ministry performing songs from their classic albums With Sympathy and Twitch, The Jesus and Mary Chain (recently seen at Roadburn Festival), Gary Numan performing The Pleasure Principle, Dreamcar, The Faint, The Stranglers, the highly anticipated reunion of Tones on Tail (Bauhaus), Dreamcar, Placebo, Soft Cell, Adam Ant, Heaven 17, Mission UK, The Stranglers, English Beat offshoot General Public, Model/Actriz, TR/ST, The Faint, ADULT., Lol Tolhurst X Budgie, The Alarm, The Faint, The Mission UK, Zanias, Nuovo Testamento, Patriarchy, Leathers, Hearsh Symmetry, Body Of Light, French Police, Balvanera and more! Tickets and information can be found at the links below. Continue reading
Tag Archives: Simple Minds
Sleep of Monsters – Produces Reason
Babylon Whores are the single most underrated band of all time, and Cold Heaven (Misanthropy, though recently re-released on vinyl by Svart) is the greatest undiscovered gem of all albums, so it is with anticipation most foul that Sleep of Monsters’ debut Produces Reason (Svart) saunters into our musical consciousness, being as it is the new vehicle for the distinctive crushed velvet pipes of Ike Vil, former ‘Whores mainman.
It can often be unfair to compare a new venture to a participants old wares, but when the vocal cords are as instantly recognisable and perception shaping as Vil’s it’s hard not to. Accompanied by songwriter and guitarist Sami Hassinen (Blake) and former members of Waltari and HIM, Produces Reason kicks off with a pair of rockers, as if Ike’s former occult troupe had been polished by the HIM hit machine, ‘Nihil Nihil Nihil’ dark, catchy and understated, with a strong vocal chorus hook.
As the album unveils, the rock element is toned down and replaced by a more gothic, sedate feel, led by Vil’s characteristic delivery and melancholic lines, and flashes of Sisters of Mercy, Beastmilk and even Simple Minds decorate their Gothic rock. ‘Christsonday’ liberally dips its toe into Queensryche’s ‘Eyes Of A Stranger’ and emerges with the guitar motif intact, dropping the familiar lick over their death rock, while ‘Magick Without Tears’, the true closer for this album (additional track ‘I Am The Night, Colour Me Black’ is superfluous and dynamically doesn’t work) kneads in the vocal talents of the “Furies”, a trio of female vocalists whose harmonies proliferate the album at various points, over a Pink Floydian organ-led flick.
Managing to retain the core elements of its participants former endeavours, weaving and celebrating their individual talents and ideosyncracies, Sleep of Monsters have produced a credible dark pop debut, reflecting the pasts of its’ creators, and one that leaves the promise of something even more grandiose and fruitful in their future.
7.0/10
STEVE TOVEY