Who: Zach Pliska and Emily Sturm. The project started in 2017.
They describe their sound as deathgaze, combining the raw energy
of deathrock with the depth of shoegaze. So far the duo released
four albums and a handful of singles and EPs.
“Angel is a fast-paced punk / deathrock / shoegaze hybrid composed by Zach Pliska (vocals/guitar/drums) and Emily Sturm (vocals/bass) and recorded in their own Light
Echo Studios. Angel is the second release from VAZUM in 2022, following the Thief
double single from March. VAZUM is working on an album for release later this year.”
Turn Up The Volume: I need to say this first. Goths are no freaks nor poseurs or
anything that Goth-haters stigmatize them with. It’s about who they are, about what
their hearts and souls want to be, it’s a way of life just like Goth-haters have their
own way of life, being utter idiots, that is.
Am I a Goth expert? Not at all. But I have several Goth friends and, as I love Goth music,
I’m a regular visitor of the yearly massive W-FEST in Belgium where Goth-related artists perform. Yes, they’re humans just like you and me, with emotions, desires, aspirations
and with feelings of love/pain/joy/sadness/hope/dreams etc., just like you and me.
Having said that, let’s go the music, to Angel. A pitch-black NIN echoing sledgehammer steaming from the get-go with shocking pace and propelled by layers of schizophrenic guitar feedback. Pliska‘s wicked voice spooks all over it and gets company by Sturm‘s wailing on the infectious chorus, augmenting the G-factor.
Another eldritch sucker punch. Another graveyard party anthem.
Quick to point your finger
At anyone you don’t like
When opportunity strikes
In the end you’ll be ashamed
When all your lies and mistakes
Attach to your name
Angel, what’s your problem
You always know what’s right
Angel, it’s what you like
Kamikaze guitars, boiling bluster, insane vocals. The London’s post-punks
are back with a holy smoke hammer as a warm-up for their second LP,
titled Beware Believers, out 1st of April.
I know it’s only January, but this is//will
be one of the best singles of 2022.
After 28 years, Skunk Anansie still is a massively popular band with Skin
screaming her lungs on this new killer single as if she’s still 28 years herself. ‘Piggy’ is an enraged eruption calling out all incompetent governments,
specifically UK’s short-sighted Brexit statesmen.
This red-hot-blistering shock wave explodes like
a metallic bomb with a volcanic Skin chorus.
These politically charged indie gunslingers from Leeds are the talk-of-the-town
lately. Every music website/zine is raving about, them. Their dazzling debut longplayer entered the British charts on #2 last weekend. One of the highlights is this bass-driven jackhammer. Infectious from the kick-off.
A sirens intro, David Bowie‘s saxophone, and steel drums straight from Trinidad. Sounds like an exotic swing and shake ditty is coming up. No folks, it’s a lazy rap-sody you can play the morning after a drinking marathon. A slow start to get out of bed and sober up. Soul voice Clare Gillet takes care of the chirpy chorus and finally Domestic gets up for a couple of Mañana shouts.
After a ghostly intro, the drone machine starts up hitting like
a massive sledgehammer with an industrial exuberance. Merciless
and puissant. No rest for the wicked. Think The Horrors and NIN.
Following in the soundsteps of legendary mega-funk-groover Sly Stone with
a 21st Century post-punk coolness and a pumped-up synth-tastic puissance
this London combo activates all of your muscles, your bloodstream, and your
appetite for behaving like a midnight rambler.
This mid-tempo disco jam helps you to keep in shape at your hot spot
at home until the nightclubs reopen. It’s a Warmduscher affair, folks.
Socially engaged indie pop-rockers who started their journey back in 2003.
In the very beginning, they operated as British Air Power, but changed it quickly
to British Sea Power. But last summer the band announced another name change,
dropping ‘British‘.
Their new, 7th full-length, titled Everything Was Forever lands on 11 February.
With new single Green Goddess they do what they do best, writing anthemic pop
tunes that stick after one play.
After a 5-4-3-2-1 countdown this rocket blasts into space with supersonic speed.
No looking back, full steam ahead, pushed by a banging drum/bass beat and crazed guitars. Somewhere in the middle, it’s time to reload the batteries and start all over
again fueled by swirling synths etles dernier mots de M. Lonely.
Psychedelia at its mind-boggling best.
Un coup de poing formidable!
Eels made another Eels album sounding like an Eels album.
But as Mark Oliver Everett moves and grooves, rocks and rolls
like in the good days Extreme Witchcraft feels like he’s having fun,
although you never know for sure with his capricious state of mind.
This twilight hallucination resonates as the shadowy side of Depeche Mode
and the enigmatic darkwave murk of The Soft Moon. The iterating synth-riff
at work here gets under your skin without asking. The atmosphere is impending,
the tone is obscure, the color is black. All you need for a sonic nightmare.
New cut from the Boston duo’s forthcoming
sophomore album Moon Reflections.
This is a rotating remix of the title track of Anika‘s excellent album
released last year. British electronic musician Planningtorock
turned the song into a trippy and vibrant electro beat-breaker.
Anika‘s distorted voice changes the mood
of the original recording. More mystifying,
more mysterious.
The smooth pop elegance of Kevin Parker (Tame Impala), the mellow
vocality of Adam Granduciel (The War Drugs) and his twinkling guitar
play to end this sweet little pearl. Sonic dreaming at its finest with
a tantalizing pearl that gets under your skin, slowly but surely. Top!
This is the moniker of Vancouver-based Dubliner Stephen Nicholas White describes
himself as a post-punk/nugaze/electro artist. This new single circles around a repetitive
guitar riff and shiny synths with Eels echoes. Magnetic, hypnotic, and mesmeric.
In the past few years, another Britwave of young rousing wolves
has emerged and looks to turn into a sonic tsunami. Black Midi,
Black Country New Road, Black Honey, Fontaines D.C. (I know they’re
Irish), Yard Act, and several more prove that guitar rock is
alive and kicking again.
Now you can add Leeds’ hungry squad Eades. With
6-track EPAbstract Education EP, released last Spring,
they made it loud and clear they’re not a one-trick pony.
This is a mindboggling knockout. You The People starts as a meditative harbinger
for a mindboggling sonic orgasm midway, inflamed by whamming percussion, an
ear-shattering guitar explosion, and haunting male/female, English/Italian vocals
before an abrupt comedown ends this rad rush of blood to the head. Wow!
Gallows progresses like a death march, on its way to the graveyard,
with a somber and macabre reverberation. Its repetitive and raucous
slo-mo dynamics evoke images of confusion, agitation, and transitoriness.
19. ‘Happy Birthday Forever’ by TESS PARKS (Toronto, CA)
Toronto-born, London-based femme fatale Tess Parks has a new album,
called And Those Who Were Seen Dancing, out 2 April. Her first longplayer
in 13 years.
Lead single Happy Birthday Forever is a pretty catchy surprise.
It spins around in your head before you’re even aware of it.
This is the solo project of Jérôme R. Desrosiers, who played
drums in different Black Metal and Death Metal in the late 90s.
He’s making synth music for about 20 years now, but it’s only
since 2018 that he decided to share his work.
He just issued his new album Mon Odyssée. An imaginative
journey with cinematic synth symphonies, like this one…
Who: Zach Pliska and Emily Sturm. The project started in 2017.
They describe their sound as deathgaze, combining the raw energy
of deathrock with the depth of shoegaze. So far the duo released
four albums and a handful of singles and EPs.
Gallows progresses like a death march, on its way to the graveyard,
with a somber and macabre reverberation. Its repetitive and raucous
slo-mo dynamics evoke images of confusion, agitation and transitoriness.
Cure-esque guitars, the bass’s threatening vigor and Sturm‘s wailing
voice augment the overall impression of dark times ahead in 2022.
The pandemic future doesn’t look rosy, as we know it, but “there
is a place darker and sweeter / than anything you’ve ever known”.
Vazum will guide us to that place, the forest.
If you want to move your body in mysterious ways
check Gallows’ Lost Forest mix right here…
‘Queen Of Swords’ by TYPHOID ROSIE (Brooklyn, New York)
Rousing Riot grrrl Rosie Rebel and her riff-racing rascals go full steam ahead on
the tense title track of their smoking new album. If you want to know more about this lively gang check the recent interview Rosie Rebel did with Turn Up The Volume right here.
With this new standout, ILA reveals a total turnover in resonance. She rocks, raves, and rolls backed by steamy wall-of-towering turbulence. Mind you, the heartfelt fervency, personal turmoil and vocal vehemence are still intact. Can’t wait to find out if this is actually another page in her magical music book.
A highlight of Participation Mystique, the fourth longplayer by this most thrilling duo with Laura Mariposa Williams‘ bewitching voice as the heroine. Her psychedelic, gothic,
far-out, and at times wailing timbre magnetizes and hypnotizes while wandering in an orchestral space. Learn more about these intriguing artists in their recent interview
with Turn Up The Volume.
This Belgian quartet brings Scottish daydreamers Teenage Fanclub to mind. Combine this with the band’s slacker rock sensibility and jingle-jangle jives and what you get is a tingling tune. It’s called pop-ular music.
The alter ego of Texan prize-winning poet and guitarist Harold Whit Williams.
This is a sickly sticky dope tune, one that makes me smile from left to right
and back. One shot of this, and you’ll jump around the room like a kangaroo
on speed.
This has everything a perky pop pearl needs. Play it in the morning, in the evening and every hour in between and at the end of the day you feel so much better and most of all it’s a truly helpful way to process a breakup. So much cheaper than therapy.
Regrets floats on layers of shoegaze guitars and fervid vocals while growing to an engrossing level of electrifying epicness when the glowing chorus kicks in. Trust me,
a couple of spins and you’re addicted. Fact!
The fever of The Verve‘s urban hymns, the sassy swagger of Oasis in slo-mo
with 60s organs and the fervent flair of 90s Britpop. The final result is obvious.
A bittersweet blistering symphony. Touchdown!
The darkwave tandem is on depeche modus with this shadow-dancing single from their brand new, second EP Body Electric. Expect booming beats, doomed drones, eerie vocals, and a repetitive bass synth riff that sticks as first-rate glue. A club cracker!
Put your black leather jacket on and shake your booty…
This riveting ripper starts with a mid-tempo drum-driven intro, gliding quickly into
a swing and sway your hips chorus, followed by a moment of reflection. The whole
process repeats itself and gets slowly but surely under your skin. You’ll love every
second of this electro roller coaster.
‘I Miss It’ by JODIE LANGFORD(Hull / East Yorkshire, UK)
This young, outspoken, and observative artist – a female Mike Skinner – reflects the dreadful freedom-restricting sentiments of the past lockdown times in her new word rap waterfall jam. An intoxicating and groovetastic house stomper making you euphoric now that you can freak out again in nightclubs.
“It’s Fine” examines themes of jealousy and insecurity in open relationships.”
Not an easy issue to write a song about, but embedded in an ebullient earworm like
this, it’s fine. Impossible to resist this tremendously infectious corker spinning around like forever inviting you to pirouette yourself dizzy while duet vocals push the pace. No pause, no breathing space, no interval, always straight on.
Sonically this surreal saga wouldn’t be out of place on a Gary Numan album. Lyrically it’s like an ode to the unknown eternity. In my imagination Wytch Lych resonates like a funeral hymn, celebrating the imperishability of the soul. Stunning vocals, striking synth shadows, and an overall spellbinding impressiveness. Top stuff!
When I listened to this new little pearl on Spotify for the first time, it was followed
by the title track of the upcoming LP of The War On Drugs. I swear I thought that
it was another Lossline song. It was that melancholic guitar glow that confused
my ears. It wasn’t until Adam Granduciel‘s voice came up that I knew it wasn’t
the Manchester duo.
‘Lights In The Expanse Of The Sky’ by DREW FIVE (London)
Close your eyes, relax and imagine you’re floating into space where Spiritualized‘s mastermind Jason Pierce lives while playing this hallucinatory ambient trip on your headphones.
French songstress Héloïse Adélaïde Letissier returns with two new songs,
with this one as my favorite. A slow-burning and emotive humdinger with
a gospel-like choir.
Band: VAZUM Who: Deathgaze duo – Zach Pliska and Emily Sturm – from
Detroit, starting its journey together in 2019. They combine
the raw energy of deathrock with the depth of shoegaze.
New single: WYTCH LYCH
From upcoming album Unrated V.
Info: “The song is rich with drum machines and synthesizers in lieu
of distorted guitars. The premise of Wytch Lych is based on a master
of immortality who yearns to pass their secrets on to a worthy disciple.
The lyrics are sung in a mixture of Latin and English by vocalist/bassist
Emily Sturm.”
semetipsos
pescentes me
mea sunt animabus
vestris
quae est donum
quod est divinum
Turn Up The Volume: Sonically this surreal saga wouldn’t
be out of place on a Gary Numan album. Lyrically it’s like an
ode to the unknown eternity. In my imagination Wytch Lych
resonates like a funeral hymn, celebrating the imperishability
of the soul. Stunning vocals, striking synth shadows, and
an overall spellbinding impressiveness. Hail hail Vazum!
Detroit’s deathgaze duo VAZUM released their 3-track Holiday EP titled Vazumnacht a couple of weeks ago. Three pitch-black reworks of Xmas songs that seem to celebrate the birth of Satan rather than Jesus‘ nativity. Not really surprising when you look back to this science-fiction like 2020.
For the Sisters of Mercy like lead-track CAROL OF THE WITCH, an interpretation of the Christmas classicCarol of the Bells redone with original lyrics in a sinister tone, the pair just launched an eye-catching video clip.
Vocalist/bassist Emily Sturm: ‘We were driving through the countryside when we came upon rolling hills with the early-rising full moon and migrating birds in the distance, and a beautiful decaying old barn and knew we had a location to shoot.’ Perfect indeed for a doom and gloom clip.
Five new firecrackers to bang-up your favorite 48 hours…
‘Shortcummings’ by SLEAFORD MODS (UK)
Another sickly sticky rant from their upcoming album Spare Ribs. This time the rapping punks go after Dominic Cummings, the former right-hand of British prime-minister Boris Johnson and manic Brexit fan. Hit hit hit…
‘Carol Of The Witch’ by VAZUM (Detroit, US)
This pitch-dark, synth-driven banger could easily have been a track on Marilyn
Manson‘s newest album We Are Chaos. Ominous guitar-layers, ongoing drum
thumps and an overall sinister resonance. From the duo’s new EP Vazumnacht.
.
‘Snow Day‘ by SHAME (UK)
A haunting, rowdy, and ongoing roller coaster jam “about love that is lost and the comfort and displeasure that comes after you close your eyes, fall into sleep, and are forced to confront yourself.” Notable new piece from forthcoming, 2nd LP Drunk Tank Pink, out 15th January.
‘The Fever’ by THRILLSVILLE (LA, CA, US)
An electro Goth pop tune beating like a heart in trouble and spreading feverishly in
your mind from the kick-off. It’s the nerve-racking opener from the brand new, chilling
5-track EP Say Goodbye To The Light.
I got the fever / I got a poisoned mind / Another day in paradise / Yea right
‘Alpha-Omega’ by MIND CELL (San Diego, US)
This metallic smack is exactly what you need to crush your lockdown demons. Burning guitars, merciless beats, bloodcurdling vehemence, and sky-scraping outcries cause a hair-raising experience that triggers the head-banging devil in you the way you like it! Score!
