Band: TRIGGERFINGER Who: Belgian rock vets Ruben Block and Mario Goossens who started as a trio back
in 1998.
Album: TARMAC
6th full-length, the tandem’s
first in 9 years.
Ruben Block (vocalist/guitarist) talked to Belgian
magazine Humo about their new record in 9 years.
“People get older; we view life differently now than we did back then. The world has changed too. So the situation is naturally different than it was then. But apart from that, we did indeed try to make a record that sounds a bit different from what we had already made.
It’s fucking hard to write a good song, isn’t it? It takes time, energy, concentration, and frustration. You hope that people will enjoy hearing it and that we’ll be able to tour with
it for a while: that’s it.”
TUTV: For nearly 30 years now, Belgian stone rockers use a simple formula. Let the riffs
do the main talking. Triggerfringer play in the first division of electric-magnetic rawk ‘n’ roll, knocking out bombproof bangers with bona fide dedication and lots of blare, triggering dextrous body activity. No arty farty tricks. Straight on. Bingo.
Lauded New Orleans born folk songstress MARY GAUTHIER (64 now) has a rich past, writing/recording/releasing her deeply felt songs since 1990. Many artists such as Tim McGraw, Blake Shelton, Kathy Mattea, Vince Gill, Bettye Lavette, Candi Staton, and Amy
Helm have covered songs of her.
She just released her new full-length, named RECKONING, her first in 8 years.
TUTV: Gauthier‘s riveting Americana voice gets all your aural attention throughout this
new, stirring acoustic folk album. Gauthier sings about people’s loneliness caused by addiction to alcohol and drugs. About the struggle for love and justice in a world where religious people often pervert Jesus’ message of love for others. About the Kennedys,
MLK, Obama, and today’s dark political turmoil.
About individuals eager to follow orders, whether it’s crucifying Jesus or shooting Rene Good in cold blood on a Minneapolis street. About anything/anybody that puzzles Gauthier and impacts her views on humanity. No, these aren’t happy songs whatsoever,
but they stick, like real life sticks. In the end, Gauthier hopes for salvation, something,
I guess we all do.
Fitting candlelight music for soulful and moony Sunday evenings
Press info: “With Nobody’s Coming To Save You, Gurriers have sent their ambitions sky-high and come out swinging. If the band’s MO was to find a way to make the record “slap you in the face”, then consider yourself smacked.”
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TUTV: Without a shadow of a doubt, one of the hottest records of the year. They rock,
they punk, and they punch with blood-and-guts fervour. They’re on a quest to find the
light at the end of the tunnel to replace today’s dark times. Watch your back, Fontaines, your fellow committed countrymen are coming fast.
Press info: “Gilla Band never know where they’re going next. For over ten years now,
the Dublin quartet have been redefining what you could loosely call “rock music” in the 21st century, influencing a wide swath of similarly forward-thinking guitar acts along the way.”
TUTV: I follow/love these Irishmen since I saw them live in Belgium in 2014
as nervous snotnoses hadn’t a record out yet, as support act for Fat White
Family. Their chainsaw hullabaloo went through bone and marrow.
And it still does. Mind you, their songs had and still have bloodcurdling body and returning, capriocious structure that’s bone-chilling and mind-blowing at times, while frontman Dara Kiely fights upfront to vomit his eccentric lyrics. If your eardrums survive
this electric-chair experience, you’re ready for some more sonic Gilla Band blitzkrieg.
Press info: “The album fuses Adult DVD’s love of hook laden indie, with
pulsing groove, 90’s acid house influence and an undeniable humour in
their songwriting.”
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TUTV: Think/feel this. Electro-punk mixed with industrial thumps mixed with drum/bass bashing sledgehammers mixed with sonic booms. Sounds like thunder and lightning fireworks for (il)legal raves produced by techno experts Underworld. Bonkers, right?
You wham bam betcha.
Press info: “Stray Dogs reconnects the Southend five-piece with their DIY roots.
The album was written in unison over a dedicated 5-month period, resulting in
the band creating their most liberating and cohesive work to date.”
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TUTV: On 6 tracks NBT mess with your rotating head with untrammelled force,
storm-wracked noiz drills, hysterical guitars, drum/bass horsepower, and full-hearted vocals. On the other 6 tracks they go for more traditional rock sucker punches. It results
in a roller coaster record with a straightaway impact. Nothing but thrills.
The recordings were finished before co-founder Dave Ball passed away last year in October.
Press info:“The final album is both a love letter to early 80s New York and
a tribute to the late, great Dave Ball. The album is a big, classy and playful
farewell after.”
TUTV: It’s a Soft Cell worthy goodbye, showing their heart and soul for dancefloor
entertainment once again, but, unfortunately, for the last time. Their magnificent 1981
gem “Say Hello, Wave Goodbye” is playing in my head while writing this. Thank you for
the music, electronic dance pop champs.
Irish giant stars U2 have just announced details of their upcoming album.
It’s their first in 9 years, following Songs Of Surrender, which was actually
one with reworked versions of old songs.
The new LP is titled Carnaval De Luz and is set for
release on November 13th. Pre-order info HERE.
The 12-song record is produced by Jacklee Knife and tackles themes of spirituality, friendship, freedom, and endurance. The news comes a couple of months after the
band’s two surprising 6-track EPs, Days Of Ash (February) and Easter Lily (April),
and the new CD/LP’s teaser single Street Of Dreams (July).
Bono:“Roll up, roll up, roll up! Bring your purple socks, your broken hearts, your
rose-tinted naivety… oh be amazed in the hall of mirrors. There will be loud guitars,
deep bass, some ecstatic rhythms and, yes, some silver tears will make an appearance.
Because in the near distance just outside our carnival of light there are all kinds of creatures. The same imagination that brings us our creativity can also bring us monsters. So we make
the drums louder. We build a bigger fire. We make our stories wilder and funnier. We make the melodies sweeter and the songs, they better shine, because if the world is in darkness we better not be.”
The Edge: “It’s a messy, provocative, sacred collection of songs, and features
the first-ever use of flat-wound strings on a U2 recording. Just saying.”
Along with the news, we get the 2nd appetizer, named SILENCIO. It’s a solid gold footstomper with a red-hot chorus. I guess I didn’t hear them ignited like this since Vertigo (2004, gosh, that’s 22 years ago).
No expiration date for Liverpool‘s indestructible post-punk-pop rockers ECHO & THE BUNNYMEN (one of my all-time fav bands, on record and
on stage), fronted by big mouth/songwriter Ian McCulloch.
They just launched their 13th longplayer, their first in 12 years,
titled APPLES FOR ISAAC. No idea who that Isaac guy is.
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Press info: After years spent performing their immense catalog of classics to
audiences around the world, the Bunnymen have recorded an album that is as
bold as it is vulnerable, that perfectly captures the essence of what makes
the band so great.
All but one of the tracks features the late Blondie drummer Clem Burke, who sadly passed away during its creation.
UNCUT (British music monthly magazine) says: “The album draws deep on Mac’s rich and strange memories of the 1970s, outside of the holy trinity of Bowie, Cohen and Reed. On an album keen not to outstay its welcome, you feel, quite reasonably, that this one should have run maybe three times as long.
‘If Apples For Isaac’ is the beginning of the descent, if it inaugurates the official start of the Bunnymen’s Late Style, this promises to be one of the great final seasons in British rock.
TUTV: Almost 50 years into their career, The Bunnymen come up with their first masterwork of the 21st Century after 4 average albums, but in the meantime, still delivering electrifying goods on their never-ending touring. It matches their 1999 LP What Are You Gonna Do With Your Life?
Like that grand opus, this new one is a near-solo Ian McCulloch effort, musically
and lyrically. Longtime brother in arms, Will Sergeant‘s role is relatively minimal.
As the line “Is this the blues I’m singing?” goes in their 1980’s classic cracker Rescue
that sentiment is all over the place right here. At 67 McCulloch also gets gripped by melancholia, by memories of a lifetime. He translates them into his often cryptic, poetic,
and shadowy language and embeds them in a stunning series of astounding tunes enflamed by his eternally awesome voice.
The outcome is strikingly vital. Not one weak moment, and with Can’t Be Sold, Brussels Is Haunted, I’ll Be Your Sunshine, The Light That Surrounds You, Lab Rats Ran, and We Prayed In The Dark as the 24-karat gold nuggets.
British blues rock tandem ROYAL BLOOD will launch their 5th full-length,
titled DEAD COMPANY on November 13th. Tracklist and order info here.
Press info: “Self-produced, Mike Kerr and Ben Thatcher headed into the studio in 2025
with no deadline and no distractions. The result is raw, direct and stripped back to the essentials, with all the force and immediacy of Royal Blood at full tilt. Written with the
stage in mind, Dead Company is built to hit hard live.”
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Thus far we can go nuts to two fired-up riff whoppers.
Press info: “In 2024, Steve and his wife Elisabeth took a road trip across America where
he witnessed the poverty and divisiveness in the context of the upcoming election that year. They were in a New Orleans club where a house band leader welcomed two Belgian musicians on stage by saying “welcome to the last season of America.”
This became the theme for the rest of their road trip and led to him writing the title track to the new album. A deeply personal, heartfelt reflection on the state of his home nation, The Last Season of America is a protest record in the truest sense.”
TUTV: The downfall of Trump’s Divided States Of Hate (“We got a criminal running this
place. He got lies written all over his face”) makes Seasick Steve angry, confused, mournful and combative. Except for MAGA, almost the whole wide world despises today’s America
for its current failure on many levels and its global, disastrous impact.
That’s the record’s main theme. Dark clouds hang all over Steve‘s doomful grooves
(Bad Things / Above Ground Boogie / Boottraps) and his brooding ballads (The Last
Season Of America / El Camino / Matilda From From Ottawa). He also goes after all “useless motherfuckers and parasites in the music industry“.
Steve doesn’t rock out much. He spits and sneers on many occasions. He boils inside.
No, this is not a happy album. It reflects the ill-omened signs of this historic, damaging,
and dangerously tumultuous American era.
Yet, in the end, Steve still believes in a healing metamorphosis if we all get together and make it happen, as he sings on the funky footstomper Bad Things: “There’s bad things, but we still can change. If you believe in hope, we can rearrange. I still believe in the power of love.” It’s not over yet is Steve‘s underlying belief in a redeeming turnaround.
Again, and it still puzzles me, that ominous times are often a fruitful
inspiration for musicians to write/make engrossing records. One of
the best I heard all year long, musically, thematically and lyrically.
Singles.
– THE LAST SEASON OF AMERICA –
It’s the last season of America
And we’ll never watch again
The show that we loved
Young: “It’s quite a special album to me. Music is a gift and when it comes
like this I really feel it. Everything here feels so good. I hope you will agree.”
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TUTV: It’s the melancholic Young we hear here, strumming his acoustic guitar,
playing his harmonica here and there, and adding the fitting vocality, intimate
and kind-hearted. All very familiar. He looks back with old romantic memories,
soothing cogitations and nostalgic reveries.
Second Song sounds like a solo album from his
inexhaustible Archives, like candlelight moments
from bygone times.
A song about the intoxicating feeling of longing that comes
when you feel chemistry with someone, but aren’t sure if
it’s all in your head.
TUTV: The song’s footstomping, iterative, groovy drum/bass beat gets you in
a trance from the first listen. On top of the stream comes Nova‘s gentle and
crystalline voice. Transfixing pop ardour.
Okereke wrote the record in the wake
of a more than decade-long relationship.
“Every lyric you’re hearing on this record was something that
actuallyhappened to me. I had to tell the story, from start to
finish.”
📸 Charlie Pryor
Clash Magazine‘s verdict: “‘Anatomy Of A Brief Romance’ is a chronological account of a relationship from first glance to final goodbye. It may not be among their finest work, but ‘Anatomy Of A Brief Romance’ is surely a cathartic release for its composer and for listeners who see their own experiences reflected in it.”
TUTV: This new Bloc Party sounds like some old Bloc Party records, but not the great
ones (like the first 2) but the okay ones. Sonically, there are just not enough top-shelf tunes (except for the bright-eyed and bushy-tailed singles and a couple of other chipper ones), too many lukewarm pieces.
Lyrically, as aforementioned, all 14 songs (too many) serve to tell the story – from start
to finish – of a past Okereke relationship (so why didn’t you make it a solo one, Kele?). I always have mixed emotions about relationship albums. Does the partner like it that his/her love life goes public? What is her/his side of the story? And I’m not really interested in so many details of someone else’s romances. File this anatomy next to BC’s other just okay full-lengths.
