Unusual for me to be lost for words, but that I fully was when opening an email a few weeks back claiming to be from a major record label. It asked if I wanted to be involved in an incredible project involving one of the biggest bands around. It turned out to be true, the band in question wanting to make their last ever release special for a number of reasons, one of which being only asking a handful of independent reviewers to review it pre release. Continue reading
Reviews
Disruptive Influence: Brink of War
Disruptive Influence’s debut album Brink of War is for all intents a ‘best of’ of previous material recorded by the band’s current line-up. If the band’s original incarnation taking place in 2011 begs the question, has it been worth the wait? then the answer is, Continue reading
Excuse Me, Love: The Hot Flab Debut is a Scorcher!
There are some albums that don’t merely convey a vibe or message, but also a time and place. Some utterly outstanding albums are only the first two. When one is all four, though, it becomes something . . . magical; something with the spine-tingling power to take the listener back to that time and place like being stood there breathing and feeling the very same air.
Excuse Me Love is one of those albums. Continue reading
Menstrual Cramps Drop Class War Video
The video for ‘Class War’ has been released to coincide with The Menstrual Cramps’ mini tour of the UK. The track starts with plenty of punch, only hitting harder and heavier from there as in touches numerous elements found under the punk umbrella—from upbeat ska to downright dirty rock ‘n’ roll riffs—before reaching crescendo with a bruising bout of hardcore. Continue reading
Double Trouble: GLU & Split Dogs Drop Awesome Vids; New Albums Incoming!
The last few days have seen two bands from UK’s punk scene drop videos so scorching hot they more than make-up for the utterly dismal summer. Continue reading
Hot Flab Debut Single Nails Bristol
Hot Flab’s first single ‘The City’ is a scorcher: punchy, fast; a rampant ride of punk burning with to-the-point socially aware lyrics. Continue reading
empress piru: i DECiDE
i DECiDE retains the Spanish/Persian flavour, cyberpunk feel of previous empress piru releases, while also taking on a more urgent, in-the-present, grittier edge.
Opener ‘Ni una meanos !’ would sound perfectly at home in a Tarantino movie, particularly if he ever decided to make one centred on crazed prowling cats. Continue reading
Dryadic: No Time Like The Present
No Time Like The Present opens with upbeat foot-tapper ‘The Hat’; a story of gigging here, there and everywhere told in a cheeky Ian Drury-esque vein; smiling through not simply the trials of life but more so the death sentence of using Ryanair and then laughing riotously about it all with new best friends for life who’ll only be so for the night of a show. Not only lyrically, the vibe is caught in the music too; a feel of looking out of a car window at a never before seen fields, tired and thinking of the previous night while heading down a new stretch of motorway equally energized about the potentially likewise one to come.
Lost in Memories, Lost in Grief: Welcome to Zen Metal
If bands were alcoholic beverages My Silent Wake’s latest outing Lost in Memories, Lost in Grief would be a fine vintage of red: subtle, yet full bodied with a woody/smoky aftertaste, the grapes having been specifically picked from a glorious vineyard somewhere in the Tuscany region.
Lost in Memories, Lost in Grief doesn’t need to Continue reading
Zpangled Henz: A Punk As F**k Tour De Force
Zpangled Henz self-titled four-track EP rips an even bigger hole than the massive one left by the cell-phone-recorded-demo of last year.
Exploding with a vibe similar Continue reading
N. P. Ryan 