Various - The Reverb Conspiracy Volume 6
Fuzz Club
Released: 1st July 2019
Fuzz Club have gone more cosmopolitan with the release of the sixth compilation in the Reverb Conspiracy series, branching out beyond the realms of Europe to scoop up interesting tracks from around the world. There are still plenty of European contributors here, but they are joined by bands from the USA, Australia, South Africa and Brazil to complete what is a fairly eclectic compilation. The first obvious talking point is that few of the bands included offer up the classic psych sounds we expect from Fuzz Club; this is more of a sprinkling of songs from all sides of the alternative music spectrum. The opener from Julia Roberts is a vigorous and chugging punky number with Danielle Dax guitars splitting up the Rezillos' style madness of the choruses. Nice Biscuit's 'Out Of Sight' is surf-garage with some Crampsian guitars, Float's 'Watch' is essence of goth, while Super Paradise's contribution '6.30' sounds like Lush on ladles of speed. The best moments come from Medicine Boy's dark 'Water Girl' which is weighty with indeterminate edges, and Crimen's 'Flahzz' which drags itself off the floor to reach for the stars. A tip of the hat also to Psychic Lemon's 'Interstellar Fuzz Star' which is a nicely messy way to draw the album to a close, and to Steeple Remove's 'Ferris Noir' which is darkly persistent. Though Fuzz Club and the sixties are not things that are generally at odds, the ten-and-a-half minute 'I Am Underneath You' by Frankie And The Witch Fingers is more reminiscent of that decade's blues rock than anything else and maybe could have been quietly put to sleep. That said, Volume 6 is an immensely enjoyable listen and, like most compilations, carries a few standout tracks that will warrant futher investigation.
Trash Kit - Horizon
Upset The Rhythm
Released: 5th July 2019
This is the third album from London three-piece Trash Kit and they appear to be working on the basis of one album every five years. It seems so long ago that we were presented with the sparkling Confidence (2015) and yet one listen to Horizon drops us straight back into the Trash Kit groove as if they had never been away. The new album doesn't see a marked movement away from the style of the band's first two offerings; if anything there is a growth in confidence and a belief that their songs can be more than passing moments. The self titled debut album (2010) offered up some seventeen songs, only six of which broke the two minute mark. Seven of the eleven songs on Confidence failed to make it to three minutes, yet Horizon offers up five songs breaking four minutes and one that cruises past seven. This is almost prog for Trash Kit and as if to underline this the album features harp, viola, cello and piano, let alone the frequent sax contributions of Dan Leavers of The Comet Is Coming. It sounds like everything we should hate, but the blend of instruments, styles and attitude is so uplifting and inclusive it is difficult to be anything but impressed. We wanted to get through this review without mentioning The Slits but the comparison is hard to shake off, if not merely because of the intonation of the vocals provided by Rachel Aggs and Rachel Horwood. Yes, the music here is much more refined and melodic with Aggs's guitar dancing over the top of Rachel Horwood's African and Caribbean drum beats, while new member Gill Partington's bass lines bounce groovily. The two Rachels offer up their vocals in overlapping narrative style (with some nice interjections), and the focus of the lyrics appears to be on stretching personal boundaries while contemplating physical ones – reaching out to the horizon and assessing what (if anything) may lie beyond. This assessment appears to involve the music as well; there's an almost jam-like quality to some of the songs which sees the music itself searching for answers. 'See Through' is almost rudely inquisitive while the extended jam of 'Horizon' is a blissful debate without apparent conclusion. There's so much to love here; don't let this record pass you by.
Uzeda - Quocumque Jeceris Stabit
Temporary Residence
Released: 12th July 2019
It's a testament to the enduring spirit of the original post-punk bands that their current material still shows bags of enterprise, inquisitiveness and no little quality. It doesn't seem to matter how long it is since they last entered the studio, their output has been encouragingly solid and we are pleased that this holds true for near-legendary Italian quartet, Uzeda, who have returned after thirteen years with a rare studio outing. Recorded by the band's friend, Steve Albini, Quocumque Jeceris Stabit ("Wherever you throw it, it will stand", strangely the motto of the Isle of Man) lives up to its title with the band demonstrating a startling relevance in a world very different to the one they were born into over thirty years ago. In fact, the planet is barely recognisable from 2006 when the band's last album, Stella, was released, yet Uzeda can make the same old paths look like intriguing trails of adventure. It's fair to say this is not a hugely innovative record, but it steps in all the right places and tucks away every loose end so neatly that it is difficult not to be impressed. There are basslines here you could build a house on, guitars that both chatter and chafe, and vocals that tear and tease with equal effect. Giovanna Cacciola's approach often brings to mind Kristin Hersh, while the chopping melodies and jagged seesawing of her band also throw out hints of Throwing Muses. There are a myriad of highs: the ebbing 'Deep Blue Sea', the grating 'Mistakes', the creeping 'Nothing But The Stars', the disintegrating 'Blind' ... best of all 'Speaker's Corner' searches, reveals and frantically rejects. "I think I'm free and losing all illusions ... I won't be betting on destiny" sings Cacciola accompanied by a splendid twelve-second guitar solo. This is all good. Grab a copy of the limited (500) platinum vinyl album from Bandcamp while you can still get one.
Ride - This Is Not A Safe Place
Wichita
Released: 16th August 2019
Symbolism are we? The cover of Ride's second outing since their reformation shows a hand reaching out over the ocean towards patches of blue light on the horizon accompanied by the text, "This Is Not A Safe Place". Of course this immediately introduces thoughts of the band's debut album, Nowhere, commonly regarded as the most important release of the shoegaze oeuvre and no doubt a huge millstone round the neck of any band whose members are twenty-nine years older with different outlooks on life and new paths to tread. "At seventeen it's purely teenage art, you see / Hiding clarity in obscurity ... It's funny, people hate you to change / They want you just to repeat and stay the same" declares Andy Bell on 'Repetition' as if to confirm the point that Ride have no intention of re-living the past and are focussed on making music in a different way. And certainly TINASP is a world removed from that unforgettable and ageless debut. This fifty-one minute, twelve-song album is a gentle beast, even more so than 2017's triumphant Weather Diaries, and shows a band at ease with life and, most importantly, with each other. Smooth closer 'In This Room' reinforces this; the song is gently harmonic, gently woozy and hopelessly pretty while Bell's lyrics appear to tell the tale of Ride past, how his joy in achieving what he had always dreamed of was quickly destroyed by the toxic environment of an uncaring and money-fixated industry. Putting himself back into the band is a gamble: "This is not a safe place to be / You didn't think it was / When you lined up to sign your name / And no one cares." It's a theme also taken up by Mark Gardener in 'Shadows Behind The Sun'. "My brothers in the dark / Friends or foes / I can't tell them apart ... My old me is killing me." The song opens acoustically before blossoming attractively without ever straying into angst. This, then, appears to be Ride coming to terms with all that has been and embracing all that will be. It's mild outlook certainly won't be everybody's cup of tea, but it is undeniably attractive and comfortable, like a pair of old slippers. There are moments that enduce elation such as 'Eternal Recurrence' which almost breaks into a trot, and the delicately tumbling 'Future Love' which is gaspingly elegant. There may be moments that make you frown but this is such an interesting record with a lot to applaud and that is pretty much job done.
Oh Sees - Face Stabber
Castle Face
Released: 16th August 2019
We love prolific bands and there are few more prolific than Oh Sees, this being their twenty-second album in sixteen years, and their third under this shortened bandname. Following on from 2017's Orc and 2018's Smote Reverser, this is really the third in a trilogy of psych-prog records, all of which have been beautifully packaged, if a little hobbity so, which is worrying if you are from the school of thought that prog is the work of Satan and his annoying minions. That said, it is interesting to note how many bands from every corner of the alternative world are starting to embrace the prog ethos, from Ride to The Membranes to Oh Sees. Will anybody release a thirty-five minute single album again or will everything get lost in a sea of over-indulgence, double discs and creative inertia? We need to remain vigilant, but enjoy what we can before the need to destroy rises again. There are eighty-one minutes of music here, including the twenty-one minute 'Henchlock' which could have been lifted straight out of the 1960s and, of course, is way too long but still strangely addictive, especially in its more barbed moments. Despite its inordinate length, the closer really is a suitable climax to the whole collection which is very much rooted in classic psych rock. There's plenty of bubbling and burping, choral vocals, and meandering guitar work, though very little acid wooziness. This is certainly not a messy album. Yes, there is some proggy indulgence with bollocks song titles and occasionally annoying wibbling, though not enough to spoil the whole show. The album is best at its rawest. The title track (under three minutes) is a pleasingly heavy affair despite the twiddling and ends with some nice birdsong, 'Gholü' is a two-minute punk charge, while 'Heart Worm' is a near hardcore blast. It's not just these. There's power here, there's some pleasing experimentation and some great guitars, and on the whole the good outweighs the dodgy. Oh Sees are a band you just have to take as they are. Because next week they will be something entirely different. Enjoy.
The Murder Capital - When I Have Fears
Human Season
Released: 16th August 2019
"This is fantastic ... OK, it may not be ... No, it's fucking amazing .... But maybe it's really just OK ... No, it's a belter." Our first listen to The Murder Capital's debut album was a bit of a rollercoaster ride. It's not often music has an instant impact on you and blows you away; usually it takes a few plays to really appreciate what is being offered up. In fact, Throwing Muses is the only album ever that had us utterly transfixed on its first play and never lost any of its appeal. When I Have Fears made it halfway there which is impressive enough in itself, with so much included that astounds compared to the odd moments that raise some doubts. And the journey begins immediately; it's the thought put into the opening track 'For Everything' that gives the first hint of something beyond the norm. At times pulsating, at times surrendering as light guitars usher in a considered vocal, this song is both built and ruined and assured and doubting all at once which is much to be lauded. It's such a fine creation which makes it abundantly clear that every moment on this record is carefully framed. The Murder Capital disinter the finest fragments from every end of the post-punk spectrum and shape them into such interesting hybrids they could be new-borns. Early single 'Green And Blue' is utterly perfect, borrowing from Joy Division, Bauhaus and the riper pickings of the goth graveyard to forge such an addictive sound you would struggle to pull yourself away from its embrace. And why would you want to? 'Slowdance I" maintains a firm hold on your innermost parts as it rumbles and draws blood while 'Slowdance II" simply drains you dry with a glorious guitar solo dressed in everything dark and delectable. And a fucking cello. Such magnificence is a fitting frame for James McGovern's poetic lyrics that tangle as much as the twisted guitars and changing tides of rhythm. "Oh my dearest friend, how it came to this / With your searing end into the abyss / You could've watched it all," proclaims 'On Twisted Ground', a song so painfully intimate and despairing it really does affect your breathing. It's not just the slower numbers that tear at you. 'Feeling Fades' and 'Don't Cling to Life' are happy to knock you around a bit, while closer 'Love, Love, Love' is an epic in the manner of Simon Bonney's Crime & The City Solution: coruscating dark light and reflecting beauty hacked roughly out of the deepest recesses of the night. It's absolutely magnificent. Closer inspection sees most of the first-listen doubts fade and though it's perhaps clear When I Have Fears is not entirely perfect, it's as pretty damn close to it as anyone has a right to expect.
Ist Ist - Sessions
Same
Released: 30th August 2019
We have a lot of admiration for Ist Ist who have painstakingly built up their career over the past few years with a series of exquisitely worked releases which have served to provide a physical affirmation of their captivating live performances. With a debut album in the offing, the band have decided to fill the gap with a nine-song collection featuring re-recordings of tracks from their last two EPs, captured in a live setting. It's such a clever idea as it references how far the band have come over the past few months and how much the band's sound has benefited from the addition of fourth member, keyboardist Mat Peters, who did not feature on 2018's Spinning Rooms EP. Four tracks from that release are included here. 'Preacher's Warning' is altogether fuller and more brooding, 'Emily' is more detailed and expressive, while 'Diversion' is improved immensely with greater texture and clarity. It's a great experiment, and though 'I'm Not Here' is possibly the least changed, Andy Keating's lovely bass remains entrancing. The differences on the five tracks from the Everything Is Different Now EP are possibly more intriguing as this was the band's last studio offering and Peters contributed fully to that session. Overall the songs benefit from a rawness that gives them more punch without detracting from their musicality. There is a sharper top end; the guitars cut deep, yet there is more resonance on the bass and Joel Kay's precise drumming is so sharp it cuts. Probably most impressive over all nine tracks is the quality of Adam Houghton's vocals. Captured in the live environment they are powerful and resonant and show a confidence that he might have lacked in years past. He clearly shows he is a great singer in the most impressive emerging band the country has seen for a long time. Ist Ist have just completed another successful tour; they continue to fill venues wherever they play, and their record releases sell out amazingly quickly. There are a few copies of this EP left here. Get hold of one while you can. Or you'll regret it in a couple of years' time.
The Myrrors - Black Sand
Fuzz Club
Released: 30th August 2019
Fuzz Club have been holding on to this one for some time, the tracks featured having been recorded at the Brewhouse in London way back in November 2015. Now released in a limited edition of five hundred, this is a fine package with two white vinyl albums housed in a neat, matt-finish gatefold sleeve featuring designs from The Myrrors' singer and guitarist Nik Rayne. The songs cover three sides of vinyl, with the fourth being etched in a design also by Rayne. The recordings are of good quality and it is fascinating to hear the five-piece drone outfit playing at a venue so far removed from their home in the Sonoran Desert in Arizona. Most of the music here is taken from the band's first two albums, the excellent 'Warpainting' from debut release Burning Circles In The Sky (2008) and 'Arena Negra' and 'The Forward Path' from 2015's Arena Negra. The latter is a three-part epic that runs to some twenty-one minutes and takes up the whole of side three, opening to a droning guitar before ever so slowly taking shape like the land coming into focus as the sun lifts over the horizon. The vocal, distant and enigmatic, opens the second part as the bass journeys slowly across the terrain, while the third section, 'Permanent Revolution', is a jumble of voice and music seemingly lost in the enormity of its surroundings. It builds in power and urgency before a mad, rushing climax ends the piece and the band's set in appropriate style. For a band of their genre, The Myrrors' music is mellifluous, often built up gently from a single phrase or note, and there is nothing grating here. The electric viola of Miguel Urbina adds melody, with Raynes's elegiac vocals allowed to stand isolated from the general proceedings. If you need to let your brain chill for a while, this will provide a suitable backdrop to do so. Music for a lazy day or a late, late night.
Rev Rev Rev - Kykeon
Fuzz Club
Released: 17th September 2019
There are some great psych bands in Italy at the moment and Modena's Rev Rev Rev are one of the most interesting. Kykeon is their third album, appearing some three years after the impressive Des Fleurs Magiques Bourdonnaient first caught our attention. With the band's sound often described as 'heavy shoegaze', this seems wide of the mark as Kykeon is a solid psych outing: dense, throbbing and intense. There are no soundscapes here, just a dredging through the murkier recesses of existence and the band's reference to their music "exploring the obscure” seems to hit the mark. Rev Rev Rev internalise everything and struggle to make the escape to clarity. Just look at the cover of the record to see where these songs are coming from: Rev Rev Rev are caught in an eternal trap that stretches out in every direction, seemingly without limits. 'Clutching The Blade' suggests the only hint of escape is pain and damaging failure. The sense of claustrophobia the song induces is intense, yet it is quite beautifully pieced together. And that beauty underscores this whole collection. Even at its most desolate there are light touches that flicker like passing angels. The gentle feedback on 'One Illusion Is Very Much Like Another' rings like bells, 'Sealand' erupts over a gentle sea shanty, and even the album's greyest moment, 'Gate Of The Dark Female', feels uplifting in its sheer uncompromising intensity. There are tracks here that warp and spill over in a manner reminiscent of MBV, others that adopt more classic psych elements with fuzzing guitars and morbid repetition, and still others that want to dance on swaying beds of feedback. It all adds a touch of variety to what is really a very closed-in affair and that is a great skill for any band to acquire. You won't get bored here as you pick out all the different strands, but the whole will still send your head reeling. An album that packs many punches. And a few tickles.
Girl Band - The Talkies
Rough Trade
Released: 27th September 2019
It's no secret how much we love Girl Band and it is so good to see the Dublin four-piece up and running again following a long hiatus. Strangely the same day we decided we would have to contact the band to see if they were still going was the same day they announced their second album was due to be released some four years after the appearance of their fabulous debut Holding Hands with Jamie. Pleasingly, this is no prog double album running over three and half months on nine discs, but a straightforward forty-odd-minute single album with twelve tracks, three of which run in at under two minutes. Nobody does short songs better than the band who released a thirty second single in a handmade wooden box, but here on The Talkies these three tracks are no hardcore blasts but considered, fleeting thoughts. 'Akineton' (a medication for movement disorders) features siren guitar wails over rumbling, clanking and crackling; 'Amygdela' (simply, part of the brain processing emotions) is Birthday Party-esque with Dara Kiely howling and choking; while 'Ereignis' (an event of personal importance) is a fading mumble. These are not throwaway moments, but like all of Girl Band's songs, are carefully strategised reflections. This band doesn't make noise for the sake of making noise; everything on their records is there on purpose and for a reason. That's why they can replicate them so well in a live environment and that is why they use artists such as printmaker Damien Tran to design their covers; Tran's designs really reflect the shape of the music, with much thought behind the apparent randomness. The Talkies is controlled to a fine degree but how the band move so smoothly from one phase of a song to the next without showing the joins remains astonishing. Usually bands rely on their rhythm sections to tie things together, but here it is Kiely's vocals that play a holding pattern while Daniel Fox's bass and Alan Duggan's guitar drag the music from one magical realm to another. Far from setting the rules, Adam Faulkner's drumming also leaps continents in single songs, yet remains metronomic; the man is a phenomenal musician. Duggan's guitar can be so attractive as he picks out melodies amid the storms, Kiely's vocals range from purity to anguish with remakable distinction, and Fox appears to revel in disconnecting these tunes from commonality. There's nothing here to pick out as outstanding because this whole record is outstanding; it captures everything a great band should be doing: pushing boundaries, discovering new sounds and prodding the listeners' brains as well as knocking them silly. This is pretty close to perfection. Welcome back.
