Last Saturday at the 4-day Pukkelpop Festival (Belgium) was
the one that made me forget the tiredness and the smelliness
on a hot summer day.
Here’s TUTV’s top 5
Band: THE MURDER CAPITAL Who: Irish brats from Dublin, looking/moving like brats, but my oh my,
these brats were brilliant. Oh I forget, those porno mustaches have to go. Album: WHEN I HAVE FEARS
More! More! More!
THE MURDER CAPITAL: Facebook – Instagram
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Band: WET LEG Who: Two utterly cool songstresses.
This year’s sensation. Album: WET LEG (2022)
Band: KILLS BIRDS Who: Hefty post-punk-grunge trio from
California with an amazing bird in the middle.
Foo fighter Dave Grohl is a big fan. Albums: KILLS BIRDS (2019) and MARRIED
Last Saturday British volcanic post-punks SHAME turned the big tent at Pukkelpop Fest (Belgium) into a heatwave sauna. Sweat all over the place. Their steamy-red-blooded set confirmed once more that they’re one of the hottest live bands (as I experienced before) on this fucked-up planet.
A sign left from the stage stated: No Crowd Surfing
Really?
Hello Belgium
My favorite Shame jackhammer Concrete when down a storm. Check it out…
Frontman Charlie Steen. A job well done (again)>
Tracklist
1. Alibis 2. Alphabet 3. Fingers Of Steel 4. Concrete 5. The Lick 6. Six Pack 7. Tasteless 8. Adderall 9. Born in Luton 10. Water in the Well 11.One Rizla 12. Snow Day
Last Thursday London’s punk upstarts SHAME (two albums so far) invaded
the city of Antwerp in Belgium. Turn Up The Volume was there and left with
mixed emotions. Let’s explain it in a couple highs and lows.
HIGHS
– Their three record/live classics Dust On Trial, Concrete and Alphabet
are three sure-fire mosh-pit ignitors. The perfect crowd surfing moments
for raging ringleader Charlie Steen too.
– Mean-riff-machine guitarist Sean Coyle-Smith and the left to right and back
running bassist Josh Finerty look/act like schoolboys having the time of their
life. C’mon, Jagger/Richards, move over and retire. The rebirth of the British
post-punk with young gunslingers like Ditz, Crows, Black Midi, Black Country
New Road, Life, Squid, The Mysterines, and Shame, of course, are the real deal
today.
The schoolboys in action
– Shame are politically and socially outspoken leftist wolves, caring
and sharing, and have a staring frontman that would kick that staring
right-wing oldtimer Johnny Forgotten up the ass any day.
LOWS
– I want more than three Shame classics.
– The 1 and half-hour set is just too long to keep the crowd’s
state of euphoria going all the time. I just love blitzkrieg gigs
of max. 1 hour.
– The up and down consecution of the set, including 4/5 new
songs took the steam out of the venue too frequently.
Band: SHAME Who: Razor-sharp-verbal punks, led by hot-blooded
blusterer Charlie Steen, from South-London, who nailed
it big time with their fury filled debut Songs Of Praise.
At the beginning of this year SHAME released their sophomore album Drunk Tank Pink (good one, but not as good as their blistering debut.
But I admit that that firstborn was hard to match).
Last month they came back for a jangly stand-alone single
titled This Side Of The Sun. And here’s another fresh one.
BALDER’S GATE (named after the video game series) is a Yuletide
song according to outspoken front-mouth Charlie Steen “It’s another
Christmas classic. It’s about a period of time in which I’d regularly be trekking
up to the streets of Edinburgh to see an ex-partner. These are some of the
thoughts I’d have when I’d be leaving Waverley station, en route back to
London in the winter nights.”
Not really a Xmassy tune, although this shady meditation, almost acoustic, is
quite moody, yearning, and melancholic. Must be the Xmassy feel the Shame way.
At the start of this year, the South London gunslingers
released their second top album called Drink Tank Pink.
On this brand new single it’s guitars all over the place again.
Not their best effort, but a hefty hammer nonetheless.
“The whole song came together on the day we recorded it at the studio.
It’s also the first live recording we’ve ever done, we didn’t want it to sound
overworked. It’s a pure banger, listen with a piña colada in your left hand.”
The two-man drill machine out of Kalamazoo, MI nails it again.
This rumbling rollercoaster bulldozes its way in slow motion,
forth and back, while producing an ominous vocal brouhaha
that causes a creepy nightmare experience. Whatever the song’s
protagonist’s ilk is, it doesn’t sound like you want to be friends
This striking stroke is part of the soundtrack for Mark, Mary & Some Other People, a new indie rom-com
about a young married couple trying out an open relationship.
Billie Joe Armstrong and his buddies do what they did throughout
their whole career, rockin’ and rollin’ without thinking too much.
TUTV said: Manimal and Samara are a poetallica sensation. A new laser light at the end of
a mythical tunnel where anything can happen. 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 exploring life, death, birth, past, present, and future 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 weirdly confusing, at times dumbfounding
but always flabbergasting and fascinating. When surreality becomes reality you know something is about to happen.
TUTV 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!
Released: 12 March 2021 – second LP TUTV wrote: “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 troops. 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 an overall sonic lockdown paranoia.”
TUTV wrote: “The masters of drone rock are back, and they’re getting better over the years. Gigantic fuzz and buzz jackhammers but also some softer – yes, since they became fathers they let their heart & soul speak/play more – stuff. This stunning work will end up on many end-of-the-year lists.”
tutv wrote: “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 that’ll teach those old-fashioned adults watching fox.news all day long. 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 smelly 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.”
Key track: sewn together from the membrane of the great sea cucumber
TUTV wrote: “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.”
TUTV wrote: “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 an open-minded-plainspoken-asskicking-anti-establishement-and-other-scumbags force of doom and gloom. 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.”
Band: SHAME Who: Razor-sharp-verbal punks, led by hot-blooded
blusterer Charlie Steen, from South-London, who nailed
it big time with their fury filled debut Songs Of Praise.
Album: DRUNK TANK PINK – second LP Released: 15 January 2021
NME‘s verdict: “Angst and isolation from one of the country’s best bands…
An intense record that searches for answers in chaos and uncertainty. Whether
or not they found what they were looking for, ‘Drunk Tank Pink’ confirms Shame’s
status as one of the most exciting bands at the forefront of British music. Long
may they reign there.” Full review here. Score 5/5.
Turn Up The Volume says: Debut LP Songs Of Praise was one of best albums
of 2018. Drunk Tank Pink is/will be one of the best albums of 2021. The band’s
fervid fury does your head in the way you like it. You’ll be out of breath after
just one spin. Young wolves with a heavily beating heart and a loud-mouthed
soul, kicking ass with inexhaustible vim and vigor. Damn right.
Singles/clips: Snow Day / Water in the Well / Alphabet / Nigel Hitter
Razor-sharp-cutting London punks SHAME, led by hot-blooded blusterer Charlie Steen,
will make our ears tremble next week with their second full-length Drunk Tank Pink.
But before the fun starts they give us another taster, actually the fourth.
NIGEL HITTER is a riff-hitting flare-up with funky Gang Of Four echoes.
“After we finished touring I was left with a lot of silence as I stumbled around trying to figure
out the daily routine. On top of that, I was confronting my subconscious at night through a series of intense dreams which left me in a daze during the day. ‘Nigel Hitter’ feels like a cathartic expression of that period.” explains Steen.
TURN UP THE VOLUME 