An irresistible album because of its fitting simplicity and charming because
of its fervent familiarity. Swerving the expected topics of sex and romance,
the entire album revolves around the ionic bond between the four girls.
New record, new tour.
Last Wednesday, they stopped in Antwerp, Belgium for a blistering punk party.
These Welsh punkettes entertained the mad for it crowd with an hour of robust razzmatazz. And it’s clear that the four Amazons on stage had as much fun as
we did.
Full steam ahead. No brakes, no breaks. Uppercut after uppercut. And with their
comic moves, now and then, they put a big smile on our faces. They came to shake
‘n’ roll. They succeeded with perky panache and explosive dash.
Single ‘Girl Band Started Pack’.
One of the best tracks of 2025,
according to our aching ears.
VLURE are an electro-rock hit team from Scotland who
released their smashing debut LP Escalate last
September.
Imagine this. The techno punk pyrotechnics of The Prodigy and the bombastic disco sledgehammers of woofers Fat Dog. Sounds like an Apocalypse Now rave, right? You
bloody betcha. It earned them a blitzkrieg reputation in their home country of Scotland and by extension the UK.
NME said about their firstborn in a 5-star review : “Because VLURE have spent years honing their sound, the sonic underbelly of ‘Escalate’ feels effortless – and almost subconscious. The togetherness with which dense guitars, electronic mayhem and shifts in pace intertwine enables the messages of ‘Escalate’ to take centre stage. The result is an inspiring, brutally honest album that matches the lofty standards to which VLURE hold themselves. They want it euphoric, and nothing can stand in their way.”
Last night, the mad for it 5-piece landed in Brussels as part of a
short Euro tour playing clubs to introduce that staggering album.
They played in front of about 50/60 curious music junkies (like me) whose appetite
for new exciting stuff is insatiable. I’m quite sure that every one of them (like me)
checked the album beforehand and then decided to go nuts to it in that small historic basement of Le Botanique building in Belgium‘s capital.
Vlure put us all in an ecstatic trance. They didn’t mind how many people were present. They left all they got (a lot!!) on the floor while turning the night into a sauna-like rave explosion of big booming electro bangs, extra fuelled with fierce drumming and fat
bass lines.
In the middle, front-giant-man Hamish Hutcheson rapped his butt off non-stop, vocally
assisted in the end by one of his bandmates, until the last Faithless beat, thanking us
all with a thunderous encore. Ace!!
By the end of the year, approximately 500 Belgians will claim to have been there.
Here’s an idea of their titanic live sound.
Their most recent singles and that boiling debut full-length below.
Pennsylvania‘s musical big qhot TODD RUNGREN, aged 77 now,
had a remarkable career, with the mid-60s/70s and the 80s as his
most productive, creative and successful decades.
He excelled in blending prog-rock, jazz, electronica
and psychedelic pop into a rich multi-layered sound.
He was a member of experimental band Nazz between 1967
and 1969, and his own band Utopia from 1973 until 1976.
He had his greatest output as a solo artist, with a total of
27 LPs (so far) with Space Force as the most recent one,
released in 2022.
Last week he landed in Europe for a handful of gigs. I caught him in Brussels.
It felt both weird and special to see this musical icon (for my first time) in a
small 450-capacity club called Le Botanique.
Nostalgia ruled. em>Rundgren’s set was a greatest hits one, mostly solo ones,
but also a couple of Nazz and Utopia rockers. It was quickly clear that the legend
only came to perform and entertain us all with his music, not with interactions
with the public in between or during songs. He didn’t want to lose his firm grip
on his 2 hour+ extravaganza show.
Also he needed his supreme voice all the way through to sing. Yes, his all-around
impressive voice was the indisputable star of the galvanizing night. Prodigious, really
prodigious vocal cords. He rarely took up his guitar, and when he did he didn’t lost
himself in endless solos (which I expected a bit). His 5-man strong seasoned backing
band took care of the songs’ insatiable pop and rock puissance. Wholly solid.
Then again, the most gripping highlight was the a capella rendition of the sailor
shanty-like pearl Home Of Work (from his 1985 LP A Capella, yes, all voice, stupendous record). Along with the bassist and guitarist, Rundgren silenced the audience completely venue, you could hear a needle drop. Astounding tour de force. Astounding concert overall.
SETLIST
I Think You Know
Secret Society Weakness
Stood Up
Lost Horizon
Buffalo Grass
Beloved Infidel
Hit Me Like a Train
Wouldn’t You Like to Know
Sweet
Kindness
Woman’s World
Afterlife
Down With the Ship
Flesh and Blood
Honest Work
Rock Love
God Said
Fascist Christ
Hawking
Worldwide Epiphany
Encore:
I Saw the Light / Can We Still Be Friends / Hello It’s Me The Last Ride
Fade Away / A Dream Goes on Forever
All photos by Turn Up The Volume.
Band: WIJF.(Wife in English)
Who: Fast-risingBelgian
indie outfit.
With their raw energy, heavy riffs, and powerful vocals, Wijf guarantees expert stage destruction. Singer Marie De Graeve‘s voice is sometimes ethereal, sometimes groovy,
but always with a twist.
Press info: “Both the title and the bold leopard print in the design symbolize cunning, slyness, and the courage to adopt an alternative personality. Therefore, it should never
be entirely clear who is guilty or who is accusing.
The content constantly plays with these viewpoints. The five tracks contain the standard ingredients of a Wijf song: hard, strong, sharp, a little naughty, and always with an edge.”
Artwork EP
Last week Belgian 4-motor engine WIJF. premiered
their 5-track debut EP at a sold out club gig in their
hometown of Ghent (Belgium).
What a night it was.
They didn’t waste time. From the get-go they hit hard with big bangs, and never looked back. Their indestructible appetite for metallic knockout killers is massive. Think Black Sabbath fronted by Linkin Park‘s new, vociferous vox Emily Armstrong. Loud? You betcha. Very loud.
Stunning singer Marie De Graeve is the vocal and visual magnet in the middle. Her vocal potency is as monumental as Ghent‘s towering cathedral, and combined with her dazzling and tireless stage presence, she ignited the hungry crowd from start to finish.
I also want to mention here that Marie is a down-to-earth person. She expressed her gratitude between songs. Thanking her parents and grandparents, who were present in front, beside the podium, was truly touching. I never saw Courtney Love do that.
Backed by a scorching band, I feared at times that the roof would collapse.
Key moments were undoubtedly the imposing rendition of the EP’s two
blood-and-guts sledgehammers, Hysterical and Liar.
Mind you, the three other tracks, Love Machine, Freak and Circles, are three juggernauts that complete the EP’s shatterproof vitality. Btw, no fillers whatsoever in the full set. Mission accomplished with bursting brio. WIJF. are heading towards the top of the Belgian indie scene, unstoppably.
The glorious heyday, between 1987-1992, of Madchester‘s legends and 24-hour party people HAPPY MONDAYS is long gone. But they keep on touring for years now (bills
need to be paid, I guess) mostly in the UK.
But last night they landed in my hometown of Ghent (Belgium)
for the first concert of their European tour.
And? The sound mixer messed up big time. He created a dung pool of noise, where
all instruments and voices seemed to try too hard to be the loudest, which turned the
whole resonance into a dissonant chaos. A real pity for big fans, like me.
That aside, we noted that Shaun Ryder‘s voice is still intact, well in the
moments it didn’t drown in the turbulence, and he’s still not moving.
The voiceless mover and groover, is the incomparable Bez of course, swinging from left to right and back, rattling his marakas non-stop, shaking hands with the front row now and then, inciting the crowd, of whom most weren’t really bothered by the disturbing racket and swayed their hips to the beat.
Without Bez (then and now) the energy and party vibes would drop to point zero. He is
the hardest worker in the band. Also notable is that longtime female singer Rowetta left the band at the start of this year and is now replaced by a similar great soul voice, named Firouzeh Razavi. She’s Bez wife.
1990
It was nice to see the former e-cstatic dopeheads back again after all these years. Nostalgia, you know. But as said the sound mixer turned the whole shebang into
an annoying havoc. Fire him.
Wait, I’ll stream their greatest hits (again) to make myself happy.
It’s been 10 years now since SYSTEM OF A DOWN released their double set
of albums,Mesmerize and Hypnotize, but their still a massive force with a
massive fanbase.
It’s also 5 years already since they had double A-side single Protect The Land
and Genocidal Humanoidz out to raise awareness and funds for Armenia and
the unrecognised Republic of Artsakh amid the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War.
Next year, 13 & 15 July, herculean voice Serj Tankian (now 58) and his accomplices
will play at London’s Tottenham Hotspur Football Stadium. Tickets are for sale HERE.
They also have a handful shows listed up in Europe. Tickets for
those are available from 19 September on. More info HERE.
JUNE
29 – Sweden, Stockholm – Strawberry Arena
JULY
2 – France, Paris – Stade De France 6 – Italy, Milan – Ippodromo Snai La Maura 8 – Germany, Berlin – Olympiastadion 10 – Germany, Düsseldorf – Open Air Park Düsseldorf 13 – UK, London – Tottenham Hotspur Stadium 15 – UK, London – Tottenham Hotspur Stadium 18 – Poland, Warsaw – PGE Narodowy
Band: SOAPBOX Who: Bewildering punks
from Scotland.
Thank you Upchuck for pulling out at the last minute
from Pukkelpop Festival in Belgium last Saturday.
Mind you, they’re a great band, but so are Scottish Oi-Oi punks Soapbox
who filled in the empty spot. What the fuck, what a bang-on discovery.
Although the fact that these maddening motherrockers had to play
at 2.30 pm, they attracted a couple of hundred awake enthusiasts. Why?
Because these Scottish pitbulls steamrolled mercilessly through their set, from start to finish, led by their fired-up loudmouth-frontman who doubled our adrenaline production with his hyperkinetic performance, running and jumping around like a hopped-up, human pogo-stick, igniting the first clashing moshpit of the day.
Behind him, a sizzling three-piece, all locked in, produced a truculent havoc,
blustery enough to start a riot. Soapbox came, saw, and exploded. Hells bells.
Come back soon, hellraisers.
Here’s a blasting live clip from last year that
shows exactly what I just tried to put in words.
And their new 4-track EP Lock In will make you a fanatic fan.
