Limozine is a band you just cannot help having a fondness for, especially when they keep coming up with singles as mischievously enticing and infectious as their new one, Tokyo 1970. A thumping brew of garage punk with a more than healthy infusion of psychobilly, the single is a wonderfully bruising fire of energy and attitude with a riotous swagger to its charge.
The London based quartet of vocalist/guitarist Limo Dean, guitarist Johnny Zero, bassist Karl da Kops, and Skip Intro on drums, has ignited a strong and ardent fan base since forming with their live shows and trio of albums, Car Crash Casino (2007), Evil Love April (2010), and Full Service ( 2012) as well as a clutch of singles with particular success and radio play coming with Deep Fried Love, Twenty Greatest Hits, and Siamese Twins. Released through Beat Atlas Records, Tokyo 1970 continues the great and compulsive creativity and sound of the band whilst arguably being set to be their biggest success yet.
Opening with an easily accessible groove and the raw scowls of Limo, the song immediately holds a full and eager engagement with the primal rock n roll instinct inside. Into its stride the track teases with sonic provocation and scorched melodic kisses to the continuing raw breath of vocals and song, the caped crusader spawn groove becoming more infectious with every turn of its wicked and wanton incitement. Creating a twisting and excited brew of The Sonics and The Stooges with plenty of psyche charm from the likes of The Cramps and The Legendary Shack Shakers, Tokyo 1970 leaves a thrilling taste within the heart and an appetite for plenty more from the band.
If riled and insatiable rock n roll with a twist of psychotic garage and rockabilly tendencies sounds like the perfect way to ignite your day than Limozine is your answer.
You do not have to be a Feeder fan to know it is them when one of their songs settles with ease within the ear. Though their sound is not one which sets the band in a field completely of their own, its infectious essences nothing strikingly unique, the band has created a breath and presence which is impossible to mistake for any other. New single Borders is the impressive new proof. It is typical Feeder, a song which satisfies expectations without offering any real surprises yet is a fresh and vibrant slice of rock pop.
Taken from their acclaimed eight album Generation Freakshow, Borders sees the band arguably back to their best. With fiery melodies, surging harmonies and a thumping bass line which triggers only energised reactions to its rich energy, the track is a wonderful mix of teasing elegance and feisty anthemic power. It replays some of the greatest earlier Feeder moments whilst coaxing them into new mesmeric encounters for the senses and thoughts. With a neatly shifting passage of pace and intensity underpinning the flames of sound, Grant Nicholas and Take Hirose have unleashed a track which hits all the right spots with the expertise expected from the band, whilst offering the feeling Feeder has sparked again a new stirring level of invention and melodic rock creativity, something their recent album also more than suggested.
Released on their own imprint, Big Teeth Music, the single marks the beginning of a short November UK tour and leads into a special Christmas deluxe edition double vinyl package of Generation Freakshow and Renegades. It also and more importantly declares Feeder as returning to form, something we all can rejoice over.
There has been a little bit of a stir brewing around UK rock band Broken Links and after hearing their debut album Disasters: Ways To Leave A Scene a few times it is easy to see why. To be fair it only took a couple of engagements with the vibrant and compelling release to be convinced but such its magnetic and powerful pull the resistance to returning time and time again was weaker than a paper boat in a tempest.
Since forming around four years ago, the trio from Southampton has seen a slow but very solid rise with their potent mix of post punk, rock, and industrial rock with strong whispers of new wave, winning over hearts consistently along the way. Certainly locally they are one of the most talked about bands and with the release of a trio of well received EPs have built a fan base which is loyal and feisty whilst moving farther afield. Influences come from the likes of Joy Division, Depeche Mode, Nine Inch Nails, Manic Street Preachers and Bush, flavours which Broken Links evolved into their own unique sound. The result is songs which trigger all the keen responses and taste buds their inspirations ignited, whilst opening up new depths of pleasure for themselves. Their eclectic sound also makes the band an easy and effective fit with many genres which their sharing of stages alongside bands such as British Sea Power, The Boxer Rebellion, InMe, My Vitriol, 22, Official Secrets Act, Fighting with Wire, and The Xcerts shows.
Disasters: Ways To Leave A Scene brings many of the tracks which featured on those early self released EPs with a couple of new ones to create a stirring and towering expanse of emotive and melodic invention. Even though the release strikes a match to open a full magnetism towards its sounds from the start, the more impressive it becomes with time spent in its striking aural arms. Evocative and impactful, the album leaves one breathless and invigorated whilst fully charged to dive into its shadows and immense soundscapes again and again.
The release opens on the sonic simmering of Electrik, though the track soon explodes into a sonically burning sunrise of mesmeric charms. It is impossible not to be rocked back on ones heels by the mighty vocals of guitarist Mark Lawrence and the electronic blistering which ignites the atmosphere of the song like a cascade of hot golden rain. The rhythms of drummer Phil Boulter form a magnetic frame whilst bassist Lewis Betteridge is a prowling and imaginative shadow to the synths and expressive guitar of Lawrence. The track itself is a ravenous mix of Depeche Mode, My Preserver, and Muse, though the one band which did come to mind during the song was Ultravox, the early version before John Foxx and guitars became redundant.
Within Isolation and What Are You Waiting For? Raise the temperature even higher with their thumping urgency and inventive craft. The first is a sinewy romp of energetic vocals and riffs wrapped in riotous intent and acidic sonic manipulation, a barnstormer of an affair whilst the second explores darker corners of the sound with a smouldering heavy post punk resonance and metallic sonic licking of the senses. A Joy Divison starkness combines with barbed Comsat Angels like hooks to leave one drooling and when the atmospheric grandeur of Modern English wraps its emotive muscular arms around the song nothing but passion is apace. It is a track which reaps the riches of the eighties yet still is of the now, the band nurturing and evolving those seeds once again into something quite irresistible and distinct to themselves.
Great tracks come thick and fast, each song without fail leaving deep pleasure and ardour behind their accomplished ingenious lures. Tracks such as the brilliant electro rock/pop triumph We’re All Paranoid, the two part grandeur that is Choice/Decay, with Part I a chilled ambient and slightly disturbing build into the stunning crescendo of Part II, and the swaggering Shelter Your Loss, just captivate and evoke more and more heated enthusiasm.
Hitting even greater pinnacles with the snarling Therapy Sessions In The Dark and potently contagious Cherno, not forgetting the gloriously inciting What Are You Addicted to?, the album expertly and skilfully explores across styles and emotions. Melancholic and reflective, warm and oozing positivity, Disasters: Ways To Leave A Scene is a true giant of a release and surely the first massive and impressive step to wide recognition for Broken Links.
With a history almost as intriguing as the tempest of innovative and startling sounds they create, UK indie noise manipulators Velcro Hooks have released one of the best and thrilling albums this year in their debut Gymnophoria. It is a seven track sensation, a release embroiled in sonic teasing yet seductive with its unpredictable and mesmeric ingenuity, and one which offers something distinctly different with each mischievous slice of imaginative enterprise.
The Bristol based band finds its first seeds with the chance meeting between Vancouver musician Jenner Blank and Bristol offspring Thomas Mason in the city of Quetzaltenango, Guatemala. A fortnight of ‘escapades’ ended with each gent returning to their respective countries and a year doing their own thing, which according to the promo sheet for the release consisted of beans and plants. Then Blank turned up in Bristol and the pair began experimenting with aural creativity soon aided by the addition of local talents in Dominic Mitchison and George Garratt. Since then it seems to have been a constant rise for the band, a year of playing free shows where ever they could led them to the attention of Howling Owl Records. That took the band to supporting local bands such as Towns, Weird Dreams, and La Sera, and the release of their first single The Surfing Song and an accompanying video, both finding a strong and eager reception. Now with the release of the magnificent Gymnophoria, it is hard with its outstanding content not to expect the band to wake up the UK as a whole to their immense inventive presence.
Musically the band offers a riotous mix of post punk, noise pop, garage punk, and fuzz rock not to mention plenty more hungry spices. There is admittedly a strong Pixies feel to their sounds but wrapped in flavours which provoke thoughts of many more bands whilst still standing strong as something unique to Velcro Hooks. The release opens with A Love Song For T.S. Eliot and instantly the scythes of guitars has the senses simmering with content. As the vocals enter and the song spreads around the expressive tones that Pixies comparison is rife, especially when discord soaked melodic scarring ensues. There is much more to the song though, the guitars at times bringing a breath which recalls the sharp melodic play of Television and the energetic surges spills essences of Buzzcocks in to the mix.
It is a striking start easily matched and elevated by the following Wasabi Colonel, a song which crawls over the ear with a wicked glint in its eye and the hunger to light up the passions in its heart. From the slight Frank Black like vocals and fiery hooks the song weaves a blend of feisty punk rock and smouldering melodic caressing to bring thoughts of Max Raptor and The Fratellis into the equation though again it must be emphasized the results is something wholly unique to the band.
The album has a variation which can only be admired, a diversity which links every track to another all the same whilst standing clearly and inventively apart. The excellent Wildman with its pulsating bass line and clashing guitars bursts through the ear with the outstanding potent simplicity of The Fall and swagger of the Arctic Monkeys whilst The Prerogative Of Daniel Potter is simply a dark vaudeville delight, both showing the impressive expanse of ideas and sound to the band. The first of the pair is a wonderfully blistering rub of punk with the psyche vocals as unbridled as the maniacally carved sounds, its charge irresistible and imagination a twisted and compulsive contagion, whilst the second collects all the shadows possible to entertain them with unbalanced keys and slight sonic squalls behind the spoken narrative and bedlam dragged screams. Imagine The Shanklin Freak Show meets the Cardiacs and you have a clue to its majesty.
The best track on the album comes in Girlfren, a song which spills its psychotic breath on to relationships for a storm of noise rock which just lights the strongest adoration its way. It is brief, too short to be honest as you feel so disappointed at its conclusion, but in its exhilarating crusade it lays a maelstrom of The Gaa Gaas, Devo, and Innercity Pirates to spark an orgasmic ardour.
Gymnophoria is completed by the just as impressive Yesterday’s Man, a song which is arguably the most straight forward on the release with its postpunk/Joy Divison pop croon, and the mighty Grandpa, No. The closer returns to the more open Pixies soaked sounds which were at large in at the beginning of the album and leaves one wanting so much more as its final sonic wave disappears into the smouldering sunset of the album. It is a staggering release which just leaves thoughts and senses drooling. Velcro Hooks are destined for great things and the album their first great triumph.
