Who: Experimental 7-piece from London producing a hypnotic mix
of prog and math rock, jazz, post-psych-punk, and other musical roads.
The band made an instant impression with their 2021 debut full-length
For The First Time and repeated the feat with follow-up LP Ants From
Up There.
Dark clouds threatened the collective’s future as frontman and otherwordly
vox Isaac Wood left citing mental health problems, shortly after the 2nd album
was recorded.
But the band doubted not one second to go on without Wood. This live registration
of a gig at London’s Bush Hall venue proves they were totally right to do so, they’re just
to good to vanish. Bassist Taylor Hyde, saxophonist Lewis Evans, and keyboardist May Kershaw take care of the vocals now.
Guess what? I didn’t miss Wood here (mind you, I will go back to their studio longplayers to hear him, annex the full orchestra). Black Country, New Road make it loud and clear: they’re here to stay.
Photo by Holly Whitaker
NME:“‘Live At Bush Hall’, then, offers a remarkable snapshot of a band in transition, one willing to push on and not let circumstances stand in the way of what they love doing most. They’re a collective that remains humble and ready to tackle whatever is yet to come, steadfast that, as a unit, they are unstoppable.” Score 4/5.
SPIN (American webzine): “Maybe 2022 was just front-loaded and the final six months will be less eventful. (Judging by the release calendar, that’s probably a bad prediction.) Either way, we had trouble even narrowing this down to 30. Let’s meet back here at year’s end and see how things shake out.”
1. A Light for Attracting Attention by THE SMILE (with Thom Yorke)
“Mangled riffs and odd time signatures abound, and Yorke’s lifelong dread has never sounded more in tune with the outside world. A Light for Attracting Attention is so good, it almost makes you want to send Radiohead’s other three members a sympathy card.”
“A lockdown album billed as a mixtape, Caprisongs showed a less guarded and precise side of FKA Twigs. Perhaps that conceit served a deeper purpose, helping spur on some of her most playful and satisfying material.”
“It’s hard to imagine Black Country, New Road without singer-guitarist Isaac Wood, who quit the band for mental health reasons. It’s especially hard to imagine after Ants From Up There. While their 2020 debut positioned the seven-piece as their era’s elite revivalists of talky post-punk, the second album took a gentle turn toward melody. BCNR created a romantic, pastoral landscape out of their jazz-flavored noise rock, even hinting at folk and chamber music while drawing on just a bit of Revolution Summer fire.”
Tyler Hyde (bass player): “We were just so hyped the whole time. It was such a pleasure to make. I’ve kind of accepted that this might be the best thing that I’m ever part of for the rest
of my life. And that’s fine.”
UNCUT (British music monthly magazine): “Ants From Up There is often beautiful, but its not an album you can listen to casually. Its relentless emotional pummelling is quite an experience, a rollercoaster ride for the soul that is likely to leave you feeling distinctly and permanently rearranged.” Score: 9/10.
Turn Up The Volume: The good news: this second time is as fascinating as what they did for the first time. Adventures in Hi-Fi. Puzzling, compelling and perplexing at times. The bad news: vocalist/guitarist Isaac Wood left the band just last week, more info here. His unique vox was essential for their whole sound. I wonder if the original sonic soul of this remarkable collective can be maintained with another singer.
Singles: Concorde / Chaos Space Marine / Bread Song
New single: SNOW GLOBES
The 4th piece we get to hear
Charlie Wayne (drummer) says: “Snow Globes was one of the songs which had
existed before we wrote the majority of the songs on AFUT. Though it’s a pretty good representation of the musical world we wanted to explore on the album at large. Rather
than writing a song with a number of distinct sections we wanted to see what we could do
with one continuous riff. It was a real exploration in trying to create something maximalist whilst limiting ourselves with minimal musical choices.
Play this a couple of times and you’re hooked. One repetitive guitar riff,
some drums, some violins, excorsistic vocals, one hellacious eruption.
Press info: Following on almost exactly a year to the day from the release of their acclaimed debut For the first time, the band have harnessed the momentum from that record and run full pelt into their second, with Ants From Up There managing to strike a skilful balance between feeling like a bold stylistic overhaul of what came before, as well as a natural progression.
Tyler Hyde (bass player): “We were just so hyped the whole time. It was such a pleasure to make. I’ve kind of accepted that this might be the best thing that I’m ever part of for the rest
of my life. And that’s fine.”
Singles: Concorde / Chaos Space Marine / Bread Song
Ounsworth (mastermind): “The songs are politically motivated,
which is unusual for me. It’s about what I think we’re all experiencing
at the moment, certainly here in the United States, anyway, trying
to move forward amidst an almost cruel uncertainty.”
Turn Up The Volume: Riveting tunes, sharp-cutting reflections,
magical sparks, Ounsworth‘s feverish voice, and his glittery guitar
play make this LP the best one since the self-titled 2005 debut.
Bewitching all the way. My 2021 number one
Turn Up The Volume: Finally, Iceage do what they were expected to do for a long
time. Creating a standout album that makes the hair in the back of your neck stand
up. Melodramatic with ardency, impassioned with vigour, emotional with grimness. Charismatic frontman Elias Bender Rønnenfelt leads the troops as never before.
Turn Up The Volume: From outlandish sonority – think Scott Walker – to
Zappa-esque adventurousness, from a ‘normal’ song (Marlene Dietrich) to
free jazz weirdness. The sonic search of this impressively inventive band is
both inscrutable and intriguing.
Cavalcade confirms the experimental brilliance of their debut LP. Miles Davis going post-punk in the 21st Century.
Turn Up The Volume: The drop-dead gorgeous sisters in rock arms Lindsey Troy
and Julie Edwards celebrate their 10th year of producing high-powered turbulence.
Their bond is tighter than ever and their boogie-woogie more varied than ever.
Mind you, don’t expect a jazz record. Deap Vally are still about rocking ‘n rolling
while tackling their demons with vocal bravado and forthright ruminations.
Old skool punk ‘n’ roll? Absolutely. Any good? You betcha!
Amyl and her buddies made another blistering riff-manic-monster of
a hell fucking hell yeah record. Pogo madness is back. Sturm und drang
from start to finish. Holy Moly!
Turn Up The Volume: This black and white pearl is the work of
the romantic Cave crooner meeting the haunting Cave crooner. Idyllic
orchestrations, classical arrangements, and bad seed Warren Ellis
showing, once more, his refined grandeur.
Turn Up The Volume: Manimal and Samara are a poetallica sensation.
A new laser light at the end of a mythical and tenebrous tunnel.
Imagine Sylvia Plath fronting a mind-challenging, noise-exploring band.
Their debut album is a multi-faceted opus in sound and vision. Puzzling poetry
exploring life, death, birth, past, present, and future embedded in titanic thunder
and lighting symphonies going from perplexing metal to chill-out ambient.
Turn Up The Volume: The amplified haziness of Slowdive, the mystifying
soulfulness of Spacemen 3, the multi-layer-constructing skills of My Bloody
Valentine.
Hallucinating soundscapes, synth shadowplays, and guitars dueling with
each other while tireless drums dauntlessly beat, and wailing voices wander
in an enigmatic fog of reverberation.
This is what the (sur)real world of Ghost Patterns sounds like.
Turn Up The Volume: This time the bombastic rockers take another direction
to express their emotiveness. Moody, nostalgic, melancholically romantic with
frontman Brandon Flowers looking back at his teenage years in his hometown
Utah. Think Bruce Springsteen‘s sentimentality on his masterpiece Nebraska.
Overall an emotive and melodramatic
record without going over the top.
For some critics, it’s too mellow.
For me, its gripping mellowness
that works just fine.
Liz Lamere (Vega’s widow) remembers: “Our primary purpose for going into the studio
was to experiment with sound, not to ‘make records. I was playing the machines with Alan manipulating sounds. I played riffs while Alan morphed the sounds being channeled through the machines.’
Turn Up The Volume: Most of the lost albums that eventually came/come to the
surface one day should have stayed lost forever. If they were good enough to be
released the moment they were recorded they would have never ended up in a
smelly cellar or, worst case, in a trash can.
So what about Alan Vega’s lost one? One: it feels special to have the legend back.
Two: the album seems to come from a very dark mind, from the obscure places
of Vega‘s soul, creating a nightmarish and Kafkaesque chill-out atmosphere for
a 30-minute David Lynch film-noir.
Turn Up The Volume: The rap and roll venom of Rage Against The Machine, the
fuck-you-hypocrites grimness of Black Flag, the punky saxophone of X-Ray-Spex,
the sharp poetic spit and sneer anarchy of Mark. E. Smith, the challenging spirit
of open-minded-and-ass-kicking-anti-establishment doom and gloom crusaders.
Sounds like 2021, like the end of the world as we know it.
Turn Up The Volume says: Like Pavement going prog rock with the sound- exploring
state of mind of Mogwai. Jazzy and classical music textures make sure your curious mind
is focused all the time. And singer Isaac Wood‘s voice resonates freakishly identical to the chilling voice of American songwriter Conor Oberst from indie band Bright Eyes.
It’s not a happy record, but who needs a tsunami of cheesy pop tunes in these science-fiction-like times, anyway. I know it’s their first time, but these hungry noise crusaders
will stun us again in the future.
Turn Up The Volume wrote: Gusto, high-spiritedness, and anxiety are the
keywords here. This warm-blooded record is a heart-rending reflection of the
group’s state of 2021 mind. A galvanizing collection of cohesive poignant emo
songs influenced by the disturbing way our troubled world is handling human
issues, once-in-a-lifetime dramas, and the personal turmoil of frontwoman Eline Chavez.
Her soul-stirring and powerful (Aretha Franklin / young Tina Turner) vox, the weeping
guitars, and the electrical intensity are at times overwhelming and heartbreaking. Impressive!
Turn Up The Volume: The essential message of this new powerhouse album is loud and clear: noise-challenging turbo Pink Room is here to stay! Their tsunami energy is beyond any decibel regulation. Again, loudmouth Bart Cocquyt leads the rip-roaring trio.
As I said before his vocal range is out-of-this-world. He easily could front a death metal band (Stay Black/Stay White) or a Nirvana reunion (Losing/Skin) or kick Ozzy Osbourne‘s ass (Hail Satan). Expect ear-shattering jackhammers, over-the-top frenzy, and clamorous lockdown paranoia.
Putain, putain, c’est vachement bien, nous sommes quand même tous des bohemiens.
Isaac Wood (vocalist): “We wanted to do the first chorus with no time signature.
I went to see Steve Reich do ‘Music For 18 Musicians’ and there’s a piece where a
bar length is determined by the breath of the clarinet player, they just play until
they run out of breath. I wanted to try that with the whole band, where we don’t
look at each other, we don’t make too many cues, we just try and play without
time, but together.”
Another notable performance from the most fascinating new band of 2021. Wood‘s feverish and woeful vox leads a sort of slow-moving death march
growing in tenseness along the way before just fading out. Magnetic stuff!
After 10 years the sisters in arms want to inject their bond with new musical challenges
to keep their marriage alive and kicking (they’ll be always alive and kicking anyway).
Their new LP called, yes, Marriage and lands on 12 November.
The first taster is a slo-mo synth-vaccinated groove with Lindsey Troy‘s fully charged
guitars all over it and Julie Edwards, as usual taking care of the solid backbone drum
beat. Troy‘s vocals and Edwards echoing voice in the back give the song an extra thrill.
Expect a slash and trash jackhammer, an angry
spit and sneer storm, a Sturm und Drang uppercut.
143 seconds of furious frustration is what you get. Retro organs
clatter like if a nightmare is just around the corner, but Domestic
thunders like he’s a determined survivor who will not go down
just like that.
I listened to the title track of this London-based singer/songwriter’s new album
about 50 times, so far. It’s a guitar-driven riff-hook-and-lick standout that cuts like
a new Swiss knife with feverish and heartfelt vocals amplifying the dumbfounded
chorus. Holy smoke.
The rock ‘n roll swagger of Eddie Cochran, the surf guitar electricity
of Link Wray, and the fervent fire of Bo Diddley. Get the punchy
picture? This rollin’ razzle-dazzle riffage will boost your mood.
London’s funk-punk gang is gearing up
for their big breakthrough album.
This first taster is a trippy bass-driven disco groove you can sway
your hips to in the morning while waking up, in the evening while
getting drunk, and during the day when you’re getting bored.
When surreality becomes reality cry outs like these pop up to translate
alienated feelings that dominate your daily life. This club of two decided
to embed their frustration into a swirling dance stunner for our doomed
generation.
Pithy, peppery, and a blacked-out chorus that sticks as primo glue.
Add glamorous vocals and a glittering full-on wall-of-sound and the
final result is a supersonic stunner.
‘It’s Critical’ by SAVING JACKIE (San Antonio, Texas)
The heated rap-rock gang from San Antonio launched
a video for the title track of their debut album.
The clip is a clear-cut message regarding life-threatening diseases.
Flamboyant frontwoman Jenny 4C Ramirez emphasizes the fight
for your life bravery while making your blood stream faster through
your veins.
These young gunslingers rushed to indie stardom with their ace jazz and prog-rock influenced debut LP For The First Time.
Isaac Wood (frontman) about this brand new song: “it’s the best song we’ve ever
written. We threw in every idea anyone had with that song. So the making of it was
a really fast, whimsical approach – like throwing all the shit at the wall and just
letting everything stick.”
A blazing rock slam about the desperate need for stable emotional stimulation.
Blustering guitars, flurried synths, hot-blooded vocals, a discharging chorus, and somewhere in the middle a thunder and lighting guitar solo to electrocute all your
mind-destroying demons. Every time you take this medicine, you’ll get a kick out of it.
If you like British turbo Royal Blood
you’ll go berserk to this cracker too.
Instantly effective pop tunes like these make me smile
from left to right and back. Shiny guitars with shoegazy
sparks, a dizzy-making rhythm, happy-go-lucky sentiments,
and seducing vocals. A song that would turn Taylor Swift
into an indie star.
A crystal-clear structured protest against greedy political sharks and
megalomaniac charlatans oppressing people for their own devastating
agendas. Again Manimal and Samara show how to fuse poignant poetry
and versatile metal genres.
The fab goth-metal gang made an album with goth heroine Chelsea Wolfe
and Cave In‘s Stephen Brodsky. The LP, titled Bloodmoon: I will soundtrack
our nightmares from November 19 on.
Here comes the first piece Blood Moon. A classic mix of deafening bombast,
theatrical doom and gloom, barking voices (except for Chelsea of course), and
hardcore torment. A perfect Halloween monster.
White continues her sound-exploring search. Here she fuses
symphonic instrumentation with deep-bass-resonating synth
turbulence. Trippy, dissonant, and even claustrophobic when
short fragments of White‘s restless breathing emerge somewhere
in there.
The ongoing pizzicato violin play adds both an airy and eerie timbre.
I have no idea what the totally silent outro with some echoes of (what
seems to be) firecrackers in the very end, is about. What I do know is
that the first thought that crossed my mind when hearing this, was: Aphex Twin is back, in disguise.
Pretty quick into the song the early days of electronic
British legends Human League and Baxter Dury‘s synth
pop sensuality (especially the female voices) popped up
on my stereo in my head.
It sounds as if this Boston tandem warns us of Big Brother’s ambition to brainwash humankind with mind-altering chemicals with this darksome, yet instantly striking
electro jam. Haunting, feverish, and gloomy are the keywords here. Best played at
night while being dazed and confused by the surreal times we experience the past
18 months.
It’s been a while since I heard an epic belter that evokes
an image on the screen in my head of a massive stadium
filled with a sea of people holding their phones up with
shining lights and scream at the top of their lungs.
This powerful love ballad will
trigger your romantic side…
Britpop is back, but not poppy, nor chart-orientated, nor with a macho rock ‘n roll
attitude. No, new British bands like Black Midi, The Murder Capital (well, actually,
they’re Irish), and Black Country, New Road explore other directions.
These young gunslingers dive into not-commerce-orientated sonic territories resulting in experimental exploits of their own containing prog and math rock, jazz, post-psych-punk, and other musical challenges. I agree they do not invent a new wheel, but the way these bands turn different genres upside down and create an adventurous sound without resonating arty-farty or complex is pretty terrific.
One of them, London’s collective BLACK COUNTRY, NEW ROAD stunned with their brilliant jazz-infused debut album For The First Time early this year. And they’re ready
for a second time with the follow-up ANTS FROM UP THERE. Out next year, on 22 February. Order info here.
Press statement: “Almost exactly a year to the day from the release of their acclaimed debut “For the first time”, the band have harnessed the momentum from that record and run full pelt into their second, with “Ants From Up There” managing to strike a skillful balance between feeling like a bold stylistic overhaul of what came before, as well as a natural progression.”
Along with this announcement we get the lead single.
CHAOS SPACE MARINE is “the best song we’ve ever written. We threw in every idea anyone had with that song. So the making of it was a really fast, whimsical approach – like throwing
all the shit at the wall and just letting everything stick.” says frontman Isaac Wood.
Turn Up The Volume: From outlandish sonority – think Scott Walker – to Zappa-esque adventurousness, from a ‘normal’ song (Marlene Dietrich) to free jazz weirdness. The sonic mind of this impressively inventive band is both inscrutable and intriguing. Cavalcade confirms the experimental brilliance of their debut LP. Miles Davis experimenting with guitars in the 21st Century.
Turn Up The Volume: Manimal and Samara are a poetallica sensation. Imagine Sylvia
Plath fronting a theatrical and mind-challenging psychedelic noise band. Their debut album is a multi-faceted opus in sound and vision. Compelling poetry embedded in a titanic thunder and lighting symphony going from perplexing metal to chill-out ambient. The final result is at times jaw-dropping, at times confusing, at times dumbfounding but always fascinating. When surreality becomes reality you know something is about to happen.
Turn Up The Volume: Finally, Iceage do what they were expected to do for a long
time. Creating a standout album that makes the hair in the back of your neck stand
up. Melodramatic with ardency, impassioned with vigour, romantic with grimness. Charismatic frontman Elias Bender Rønnenfelt leads the troops as never before.
Their fifth, their best.
Turn Up The Volume wrote: Gusto, high-spiritedness, and anxiety are the
keywords here. This warm-blooded record is a heart-rending reflection of the
group’s state of 2021 mind. A galvanizing collection of cohesive poignant emo
songs influenced by the disturbing way our troubled world is handling human
issues, once-in-a-lifetime dramas, and the personal turmoil of frontwoman Chavez.
Her soul-stirring and powerful (Aretha Franklin / young Tina Turner) voice, weeping
guitars, and the electrical intensity are at times overwhelming and heartbreaking. Impressive!
turn up the volume: i’m damn sure this incredible punch-powered-punk-passion
turbo was here before, about 40 years ago, inspiring bored kids like black flag, shellac, melvins, jello biafra, and other anarchist snotnoses, to leave home, steal guitars and drums in order to have some wild fun while scaring bad people with their deafening racket. so here they are back again, inspiring young social media junkies to steal guitars and drums instead of watching their phones all day long. home is where it all starts when you have no money to rent a smelly rehearsal room to rock your heads off. so you move into your own basement and scream your poor lungs to pieces. listen up all you lost teenagers out there, play i became birds over and over again ’cause these hungry florida misfits can and will save your lives. home is where this fuck-and-punk-tastic record is made.
key track:sewn together from the membrane of the great sea cucumber
Turn Up The Volume says: Like Pavement going prog rock with the sound- exploring
state of mind of Godspeed You! Black Emperor. Jazzy and classical music textures make sure your curious mind is focused all the time. And singer Isaac Wood‘s voice resonates freakishly identical to the chilling voice of American songwriter Conor Oberst from indie band Bright Eyes. It’s not a happy record, but who needs cheesy pop tunes all the time in these science-fiction-like times, anyway. I know it’s their first time, but these hungry noise crusaders will stun us again and again in the future. Believe the hype.
Turn Up The Volume: This black and white pearl is a mix of the romantic crooner and
the haunting crooner. Growing with every spin. Compelling orchestrations, classical arrangements, with Ellis showing his musical skills once more. Can’t remember when Cave made an average album. Did he, actually? Okay, Carnage once again on my headphones.
Turn Up The Volume: The rap and roll venom of Rage Against The Machine, the fuck-you-hypocrites grimness of Black Flag, the punky saxophone of X-Ray-Spex, the sharp poetic spit and sneer anarchy of Mark. E. Smith, the challenging spirit of open-minded-plainspoken-ass-kicking-anti-establishement doom and gloom crusaders. Sounds exactly like 2020/2021, like the end of the world as we know it, but also like an album that’s going to be on my earphones for a long time.”
Turn Up The Volume: A fitting soundtrack for a funeral. The funeral of humankind. The funeral of the planet we, ourselves, destroyed. Somber and apocalyptic. Repetitive doom-and-gloom psychedelia. Repetitive wall-of-guitar-scapes. Goosebumps all the way. But in the end, Godspeed thinks we will start all over again, a new beginning, a new future. Let’s hope so.
Turn Up The Volume: Except for flaming rockers Smile and Play The Greatest Hits
the band takes a different direction with a stream of epic ballads with gospel-like
choirs (The Last Man On earth), emotional symphonies (How Can I Make It OK?) with
multi-layered goosebumps harmonies and orchestrated pop brilliance overall.
TURN UP THE VOLUME 