HAG - Fear of Man

Sometimes you get a knockout punch first blow from a band with their first track and the dirty noise wasn't delivered in the title track which opens this album by Londoners HAG. The song has a heavy Pink Floyd influence running through it although there is a grungier feel. Think Soundgarden's "Down On The Upside" album. The second song is an unbathed version of Rage Against the Machine with a heavy Cows noise-rock dirtying proceedings even further. There's a dirty grunge metal heart beating through "Rainbow Dust", Once again think Soundgarden but go back to their earlier work. "Trauma Yauma" is damned heavy and kicks close to High on Fire's unashamed metal. The slightly rapped parts betray the metal leanings of the tune. There's a definite heavy stoner-metal heart to "White Lion" which rips and aims and shoots straight for the throat. This is easily the stand-out track of the album.

The riffing throughout "Fear of Man" assault the senses with the dirty sludge that will make many a metal fan as happy as a pig caked in mud.

3/5



Check out Hag's "Fear of Man" on bandcamp

HAG on facebook

C.O.A.G. "Sociopath"

  It'd be easy to put Bulgarian one-man project Coalition of Abnormal Grinders into the too hard basket as it's not absolutely clear where the project fits. What exactly is it?   Grindcore?  Punk? Hardcore?   An actual coalition?  So many questions for such a short release.

The first comparison these well-worn ears made was to Japan's Mad Capsule Markets due to the celebration of noise in sheer chaoticness and the vocal style although C.O.AG. have much less in the way of melody and hark back to the rawer hardcore that was coming out in the eighties.   The riff to track II is has a surf feel as a Dead Kennedys style guitar is given the grinding treatment.  Track V is the aforementioned DK's crossed meeting a black metal band on a motorway and grinding it out as fast as humanly possible. 

  All ten original tracks have been given Roman numerals and all are strictly business falling under the two minute mark.  The cover of Hatebreed's "Defeatist" is the only track given a name and also the longest.  This release is well worth checking out.

3.5/5

Listen to this release.


C.O.A.G on Facebook

Hymns of Despair

Tony Maim of the great black insect laughter blog made a compilation of his musical highlights from last year.  The tracks are a mixture of hardcore, sludge noise and stoner rock.   Permission was obtained from the bands and labels involved.   The great final result is available in digital for with a downloadable bookelt with band info and reviews from this bandcamp page.

Mojo Waves -

I don't usually bother checking my spam folder but last night I had the strange urge to see how many squillion pounds I could collect if I stepped on the long haul flight to London to meet a Nigerian prince who possesses a free email account coupled with poor spelling and grammar. To my surprise there actually was a submission to the blog from Finland.

Here's what the band say about themselves: "
Mojo Waves is a power-trio rock group based in Helsinki, Finland. The band was formed in late 2011 but the musicians have been playing together for some years.

Mojo Waves' sound is something that you wouldn't expect to come from Finland. These days most of the Finnish rock bands play over-produced, safe and highly predictable music that lacks the attitude and the spirit of what rock music used to be in the past. Mojo Waves is the opposite of the common rock band. It's unpredictable, personal and energetic. Although influenced by vast amount of bands, its sound is unique, and its music doesn't fit in any one category.

Although the band feels some sort of spiritual connection with the rock music of the past, it doesn't try to copy its influences. The main goal of the band is to make their own personal songs that they can be proud of and play as many gigs as possible. Live music is what music has always been about, and that's what the band loves most, too. It isn't easy to describe the music of Mojo Waves, so you should listen to our demos "Introducing Mojo Waves" and "Enjoy, Don't Destroy". The demo was recorded by ourselves in the spirit of garage rock, and it gives some perspective to our music.

The members of Mojo Waves have their ambitions and goals set high, so we are always looking for something new."

The band definitely have a garage rock approach and some of the weirdest yet accessible vocals I've heard in a while. The vocal style has a smilar Donald Duck breathing out helium characteristic to Ween's "Push th' Little Daisies. This material has the energy of a toddler that has digested a box of energy drinks and is just as noisy and into the cupboards due to expirimenting. Though this is a youthful band, Mojo Waves have a mature sound. The vocals may be a weakness when it comes to releasing an albums worth of material but they work well enough on the 3-song format.

3/5

You can check the band's two demo recordings out here.




Small Takeover on facebook

Boris - Wellington, New Zealand

Boris played at Bar Bodega in Wellington on March 27, 2012. There was a support band but they cancelled which pretty much makes it an ideal show as far as I'm concerned because I usually only want to see one band. The band played their mix of pop and drone for around 90 minutes and finished before midnight.

Here's a few pics.

Lightning Bolt - Earthly Delights

Lightning Bolt “Earthly Delights”, 2009

Bass and drum duo Lightning Bolt operate in a world of controlled chaos that shouldn’t make any sense. “Earthly Delights” will provide a smile to the dial of anyone seeking an alternative to easy listening music.  It’s not often that there’s anything that could be defined as soft or wimpy here.  “Sound Guardians”, for example, is the sound of metal against a sanding machine in a workshop as nails are being hit at a changing pace.  It’s difficult to listen to “Nation of Boar” without conjuring up images of cars exhaust fumes, tires squealing as race cars rev up their engines to do lap after lap.  There are vocals here but really they’re utilized as just another instrument as there’s no way of distinguishing them from the rest of the wonderfully abrasive racket.    The “Collusus” is the antithesis of the first two songs as it completely slows things down although the incoherent barely audible warbling is still a mainstay.   Loops go all over place over samples of gregorian or buddhist monks chanting in “Flooded Chamber” and when the instruments come in, the Eastern vibes and chants stay.

If you were looking for a dosey-do country barndance knees-up, there’s one of sorts in “Funny Farm” but only if you were also planning on slamdancing into the nearest wall.  “S.O.S” revisit the racetrack although this time it’s in space with assorted noises quickily coming in and fading out as the band pass the other spacecraft at warp speed with logic defying breakneck rythms. The crash sound at the end of this song is less nonsensical than the warbling utterances over the tribal hammering of the drumkit in the overlong twelve minutes of “Transmissionary”.  

Whilst the quieter tracks on “Earthly Delights” get lost in the ruckkus of chaotic noise.   Lightning Bolt’s capture a listener’s attention on the album best with their full-on aural assaults which don’t just demand attention but shoot piercing arrows right through the ear orifices providing a free lobotomy.  It’s easy to tell that these two guys really feed off other and highly likely melt faces off their audience however I’m left kicking my own ass for missing this noise-rock pair when they recently passed through town.


3.5/5

Official band site

The Ax - The Queen of Dirt

The Ax  - “Our Queen of Dirt”, 2009
(Whoa! Boat)

Seattle two-man band The Ax have a debut album that can divided into three sections.  For the first four songs play garage rock that invades guarded personal sound space like an over-agressive washing machine filled to the brim spinning on a heavy-duty cycle.  Possible band comparisons would be Sonic Youth or The Gordons as the vocals on “The Albino” are used as a separate instrument.  In the second part, from “Sharp Teeth”, there’s a Gordon Gano nasal whine over the top of a disorienting near metallic loud droning noise.   In the third and final act, The Ax re-metamorphisize into a fuzzy industrial sandpaper-raw abrasive noise blur with a slight touch of the Jesus and Mary Chain in the singing and using feedback as an accompanying instrument.  . Their quick-change act also changes them into the audio equivalent of blurry vacation snapshots that your friends pester you to look at. Politely you say, “That’s nice” while you’re just secretly hoping they’ll stop and just go home shortly.   In The Ax’s case, I just hoped the songs would get shorter even though none of them reach over the three-minute and a half mark.   Future music theorists will write dissertatons on how a band can drone on and bore in such a short time if anyone actually cares enough about this band to place  “The Queen of Dirt” in a time capsule.

 There is a fascination with close-ups of human eyes and low budget B-grade sci-fi on the album artwork, which indicates a weirdness for weird’s sake if it hadn’t been most likely stolen directly from The Residents.   Admittedly it was late at night but I fell asleep listening to this album a number of times.   That it’s possible to sector this album into parts proves that this material would have been better released as EP’s because these fourteen songs are difficult to digest in one entire sitting.  

2/5

The Ax on bandcamp

The Ax on myspace

Brokaw - Interiors

 


Brokaw is the newest rock-based project for legendary bassist G. Stuart Dahlquist (Burning Witch, Sunn O))), Goatsnake, Asva) and 3 of his long time Seattle based collaborators; Rick Troy, Rich Medic, and Mike Henderson.

Brokaw mostly take their sound from 90's record labels such as  Amphetamine Reptile and Alternative Tentacles.  There's a little bit of noise rock, nomeansno style dominating bass, Morphine style phrasing coupled with vocals, somewhere between the deep voice Mark Sandman and  the funky stylings of newer Clutch.  Close your eyes, block your ears and imagine The Cows meeting Helmet with a funky bass running through the middle and you've more or less nailed "Berlin Heart".  If there's such a thing as stoner funk then "No Morphine Doctor"  nails that particular sub-genre.   "Politicians By The Pool" is a cool and catchy song but a little too close to recent Clutch.  There's an interlude in "Terms of War" that simultaneously causes thought of nomeansno and jazz musicians like Miles Davis but the song comes to a heavy sludgy conclusion.  There's Fugazi style starting and stopping "Time Ain't Now" with far clearer vocals.  The funky hard catchy noise rock ends with the upbeat telling off of "You Didn't Invent Sex".

It'll be interesting to see where other reviewers pigeon hole Brokaw since they defy being put in a certain sector of rock unless it's the broader alternative label.  There's just way too much going in the band's music to just fit them under the stoner rock tag due to one member's past.  In a time where many people say that record labels deserve to die,  Good To Die Records  prove that there are still those out there finding great music and releasing it.  This album isn't due out until January 24th 2012 but you can hear a few songs on the band's bandcamp page.

4.5/5





 

Monogamy Party - Pus City

"Pus City" is far from the possibility of a scenic place as they eye can see.  This metropolis is the creation of three piece Seattle band Monogamy Party.  There is nothing kind or beautiful in their music.   The bass and drum driven trio stab the listener in the ear with a fork and then twist it around a number of times with pliers with screaming being the objective.  Exactly whose screaming it is, really doesn't matter.  If the sound were personified it would be a rancid green-toothed puke covered  hobo living out a teenage mutant ninja turtle fantasy in a sewer puking out philosophy whilst unknowingly regressing to a toddler's mindset.

Check out "Covenant of Brother's" repitition of the phrase "This life is worse than death" because comparing this band to Old School came to mind but they're noisier than those nine and ten years old ever were and aren't as given to traditional song structures.

   This is the type of band who would be proud as punch to be told by their parent that their music sounds similar to a toilet flushing and would attempt and succeed at getting even noisier comparisons however sometimes there's often an early Beastie Boys type rap fighting imprisonment of the chaotic trio's mind-bending weirdness.

3.5/5

You can order the band's 10 inch vinyl and hear their music here.

Lydia Lunch's Big Sexy Noise, Purcell Room, 18 June 2011

Well, I'm back home in time for the New Zealand rain and wind after leaving a 30 degrees celcius day in the UK. Other than doing a little travelling, catching up with family, attending a wedding, watching stand-up comedy, visiting art galleries and museums, I managed to see a few bands in London and with this being a music blog, I'll write about those here. Lydia Lunch's Big Sexy Noise was playing in the Purcell Room while Wire and The Sonics were playing next door for twice the price. All bands were there as part of Ray Davies' Meltdown Festival.

Support band Cindytalk started exactly on time and walk along the ambient road with film images playing above them. They reminded me of Portishead, as I found the performance of the 5 piece compelling and hard to look away but the music isn't something I'd choose to listen to at home. I'm sure Bjork, who I feel similarly about, was included in the images a number of times.




I'd never seen Lydia Lunch before but had heard some of music from the 80's and a little of her spoken word material. Big Sexy Noise arrive to applause and sound great although after a couple of songs there is a request for the guitar to be turned up. Lydia is as confrontational as expected and a great stage performer. Guitarist James Johnston(Gallon Drunk) is equally captivating and feeds off the music and is able to both blank Lydia out and lead her on. Lunch tells someone with a digital camera to "put that thing back in their pants" and continues on through the song "Your Love Don't Pay The Rent". The saxophone of Terry Edwards adds a mellow bluesy swagger dynamic to the and is reminiscent of the band, Morphine with more than a hint of The Birthday Party.

"Doughboy" is dedicated to Courtney Love, Amy Winehouse and Pete Doherty, (although Lydia pronounce Pete's surname as Docherty) for being rockers who can't hold their drug use. The dirgy Harry Crews novel based "The Gospel Singer" is a highlight. Lydia asks for more volume on the band's final song "Something Witchy in The Air" which is a straight-up rocker Ian White drum driven rocker.




After a short break the band return to peform Lou Reed's "Kill Your Sons" The song suits both the band and Lydia's psychotic confrontational tendencies like a straitjacketed glove.

The Purcell room struck me as a weird venue as all audience members are seated and most just happily sat and watched. I joined in with the weirdness by buying a tub of ice cream after Cindytalk's set. The average age of the audience would have been around the 40 mark which may account for so many happily seated. Also the whole show was over by 10.30 which was nice after going to so many back home that don't even start until near the midnight mark.

Poino - Moan Loose

With the latest current affairs concentrating on attacks and wars, it seems timely that UK trio Poino should email me with their all out bombardment of bass and drums that would be more humane than shooting a person dead cold.

These guys would never be considered easy listening as from the onset of "Previous He', these guys concentrate headtripping the listener with unusual rythms. No doubt comparisons to The Fall and The Jesus Lizard largely due to the sandpaper on metal vocal antics of Gaverick de Vis. "Strength of A Cowboy" starts out like a gentle yet mindbending slighly pychedelic intro on Queens on The Stone Age "Rated R" but flies its parasol into much more bizarre and abrasive waters. The clarinet at the end of "Bad Bag" serves the Queens of The Stone Age meeting The Fall as it's "Quick and To Pointless" on a lethal cocktail of caffiene, downers, histamine and way too many rainy days. "Snakes say Wow" is the screwed up acidic jazz that the song title promises.

Puking after a roller coaster ride may well be satisfying and a closure to the previous jerking motions however Poino don't intend for your ride to stop.

This is the opinion of just one man, so definitely, don't take his word for it as he is not always to be trusted.

Listen to the album here.

This One!!

If you're astute and followed this blog for a while you may have noticed that a couple of all woman bands from Asia featured in the form of Taiwan's BB Bomb and Japan's Thug Murder. The Gaia were an all female Japanese band that were knocking around in the mid 90's. They made their way over to the States and played Gilman Street(which is a legendary venue due to weighty fanzine status but probably a shithole that's actually no different to many other venues) and recorded a few live songs on this half studio album. Anyway the Gaia play speedy ripping punk rock which really should be heard by everyone interested in such things. It's a shame there's not to much info around about these girls.

It's this one!

Lung - Full Moon Again

Here is The video to Palmerston North band's Lung's song "Full Moon Again". I used to see these guys play a lot during the nineties and it's nearing twenty years since I last saw the video. Thanks to the wonders of youtube, Noisyland and hats off to Kowalski for the tip.

Cows - Sorry in Pig Minor

Cows are a recent discovery for me, I first heard of them and took notice when the Screams From The Gutter blog compared the now defunct Palmerston North band Lung to them, Chokebore and Flour. I picked up their last album "Sorry in Pig Minor" from Real Groovy's $1 bin without even seeing the band name.

The album title alone convinced me it was worth parting with one small measly dollar to own the c.d. and seeing it was an amphetamine reptile release sealed the deal. This CD opens with a spoken word piece that is reminisect of William Burroughs. Heck, cockroaches are mentioned and listening to this album it wouldn't be surprising if these guys had also tried getting high using bug powder. Noise pop would be the best description of the sound here as Cows have a number of tuneful pieces on this album but like Lung they effortlessly move from pop to noise sometimes within a song and at times are reminiscent of Flying Nun band The Skeptics and/or The Birthday Party's HeeHaw album.

Sorry in Pig Minor

Whorn [PA]