Stolen Dead Music – Penny Drop

Jun13

UK based ScreamLite Records is one of those labels which you just have to keep a close ear on. Their hunger for fresh and exciting new music is the match to that of a fan meaning attention for their releases is certainly a given here. This month sees the label release the new EP from Newcastle outfit Stolen Dead Music which ScreamLite announced was “the first band to really get our feet tapping in 2019” though what the rest of their bodies were up to we don’t know because the three tracks making up the Penny Drop EP just had us bouncing from head to toe.

Formed in 2017, Stolen Dead Music take the inspiration of bands such as Nirvana, Alice in Chains, Smashing Pumpkins, Weezer, Black Flag, Pixies, QOTSA, and NiN into a sound which stands distinctly aside of what expectations assume going by that list. It is a blend of alternative and noise rock with numerous other flavours involved sitting uniquely amongst the equally striking enterprise of bands like Japanese Fighting Fish, Houdini, Damn Vandals, and Max Raptor and providing so much to get excited over.

The EP opens up with its title track, Penny Drop initially stroking ears with fuzz loaded riffs before the same guitar begins deviously scything across the senses as the tones of vocalist/guitarist Jimi Trimmer break. Simultaneously the tenaciously strolling beats of drummer Aidan McGill erupt alongside the just as sturdy bassline of Lewis Patterson, guitarist Issak Patternson continuing to tease and tempt alongside the lures of Trimmer. Just as you think you have a handle on the song, it twists into a whole new channel of virulence to manipulate and seduce, never once taking its foot off its imagination and feverish enterprise.

It is an outstanding track and start to the release more than matched by next up Shunt. Rhythms straight away toy with ears and appetite, the guitars getting in on the act with their web of teasing melodic wires. Loaded with hooks and grooves, the band’s rock ‘n’ roll is a devious persuasion and in full lustfulness within the second song. There is a great Pere Ubu-esque whiff to the track at times too which only escalates its call on instincts and sure allegiance to its feral like energy and imagination.

Gallows Humour completes the release, the instrumental simply an irresistible shuffle of salacious melodic hooks and boisterous rhythms casting intimation and addiction with ease.

The Penny Drop EP is in many ways just a teaser to the Stolen Dead Music songbook, the three tracks picked out from their repertoire to mark their link up with ScreamLite Records but a wake up to all of us previously unaware of their potential and thrilling adventure. Anticipation for more is already drooling here.

The Penny Drop EP is out now on ScreamLite Records across numerous stores and @ https://screamliterecords.bandcamp.com/album/stolen-dead-music-penny-drop

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Pete RingMaster 13/06/2019

SuperBlood WolfMoon – Eternal Disco Damnation

Jun13

How to describe the debut EP from UK outfit SuperBlood WolfMoon? An infernal kaleidoscope of temptation or a toxic trespass of intimation or indeed an eight-legged groove machine intent on undiluted corruption? All apply to a release which consumed and devoured as well as seduced our senses and attention. Eternal Disco Damnation is like a sonic equivalent of the fantastic and nightmarish narratives within a triptych altarpieces of Hieronymus Bosch; a ravening examination which simply became more compelling by the confrontation.

Hailing from Birmingham and containing former members of another of the city’s previous mighty trespasses in Bishop, SuperBlood WolfMoon create a sound as schizophrenic as it is physically feral and imaginatively beguiling. Certainly their groove metal woven incitement will be an engagement and tempest too ruinous for some but for those with an appetite for a fusion of Meshuggah at their most rabid, Faith No More in their most primal state, and a savagely irritable Unsane though that still skates the surface of the SuperBlood WolfMoon cyclone, the band’s first EP will be nothing less than fascination.

Eternal Disco Damnation opens up with Hexed Houses and instantly descends on the senses like a collapsing towering wall; barbarous rhythms and sonic pestilence a merciless onslaught yet sharing an immediately enticing catchiness which soon springs infectiously wiry grooves around the breaking malignancy of Jon Baker ‘s throat shredding tones. The track continues to twist and turn, its pernicious shifts and unpredictable moves fuelled by adventure and enterprise whether they are brought with brutality or calm temptation. Throughout the track the riffs and grooves of Steve Styles examine and entice whilst the bass growls cast by Slam and the unconstrained swings of Pete Shortman’s beats are as mercurial as they are violently tenacious. It all makes for a song which surprises as it assaults, never going where expectations assume and never leaving the imagination barren.

You & He Were Buddies follows and similarly just collapses on ears with its first breath, swallowing up the senses whilst inhaling greater schizophrenic fumes by the note, rhythm, and release of vocal chagrin. It too comes with a rich character in captivation and contagion if both as fearsome as they are tempting, a fusion as prevalent within Where the Dead Went straight after. Its initial foray upon the listener is a staggered venomous lure but as vicious as anything before it and only more compelling and lethal by every subsequent enthrallingly psychotic second going to make up the EP’s most irresistible moment.

The EP concludes with Cape, a song looming in like a portentous sea mist before spreading its noxious sonic climate with melodic and toxic craft. Compared to its predecessors, the track is a calmer invasion and incitement but equally the most menacing and unnerving interrupted by moments of grooved mania the body just had to respond to.

As beguiling as it is hellacious, the track provided an absorbing end to an engrossing and increasingly striking release. Eternal Disco Damnation is as much drenched in potential as it is invention and imagination. It will frighten some and seduce many but mainly only intrigue all as a new Super Blood Wolf Moon rises.

Eternal Disco Damnation is out now available through iTunes and Spotify.

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Pete RingMaster 13/06/2019

Spunk Volcano and the Eruptions – Double Bastard

Jun11

This month sees the release of the fourth album from UK rockers Spunk Volcano and the Eruptions and like with all its predecessors just the news of that had us drooling in anticipation of its sure to be boisterous antics. Like so many others, the rousing exploits of the band to date ensured such eagerness and we can confirm right here and now no one will be disappointed. We will not announce Double Bastard the band’s finest offering to date such the thrills and spills within the likes of Injection, Shit Generation, and Not Wired Up Right before it and that is ignoring their equally rousing EPs, but it is right up there and insistently increasing its right to be announced top dog by the listen.

Ever the prolific songwriter vocalist/guitarist Spunk Volcano, also like drummer Maff Fazzo of Dirt Box Disco revelry, has filled the belly of Double Bastard with twenty five slabs of the band’s inimitable multi-flavoured punk ‘n’ roll. Expectantly his songs swing hooks like a predatory angler whilst lustfully ensnaring ears and participation with lung rousing choruses and virulently anthemic hollers and as ever their hearts are inspired by the intimate, social or simply everyday items and other sources of fun. But predictability and echoes of past shenanigans never rear their heads across the double album only mischief, craft, and pleasure.

With so many tracks within its bulging walls let’s get the fillers out of the way first…..OK that’s done! Truly every moment with Double Bastard is an essential incitement of rock ‘n’ roll with Teenage Teenagers the first to exploit an admittedly already in waiting appetite. From its first breath the song is an infectiously eager clamour, vocals leading the manipulation as Fazzo’s beats and Joey Strange’s throaty bassline direct its catchy stroll. The guitars of Tom ‘G Force’ Batterbee and Stew Page weave their own melodic temptation into the familiar SV and the Eruptions mix but one wholly individual proposition.

Swiftly the deliciously rapacious lures of Marvellous Manifesto and the rhythmically animated and sonically devilish Fixtures and Fittings infested eager ears with their voracity in heart and tenacious catchiness. The instinctive rock ‘n roll of each track is just as bold and persuasive before Plasticine playfully prowls ears and imagination with the barely diminishing nostalgia and lure of its inspiration, a song as memorable as it is devilish in presence.

It feels mean to pick out certain songs over others as all simply pushed the album to further greatness but among the contagion loaded and diversely flavoured likes of Shit Excuse, Edging on the Side of Caution, TCP, and Spare Room, persistent peaks were set by the sinisterly sauntering, deviously compelling Super Dooper and the voracious trespass of Independent Fire. The metallic edging of the hardcore bred first is accentuated in the punk/thrash toned foray of the second yet both reveal so much more in their sound and flavouring than that suggests,.

Similarly Red Rings with its engulfing melancholy and the irritable uproar of Road Rage brought new heights to the release just as potently matched by the pandemic melodic rock temptation Old Wives Tales with Fazzo‘s skills alone inescapable bait, the track bringing CD 1 to a magnificent close.

In many ways CD 2 shares a more feral side to the band’s sound, their punk instincts gloriously festering in the raucous hearts of tracks just as infectious and variously flavoured as their album companions before them. Death or Glory and Sucking Up quickly instil that feeling, the first track just muscular in every riff and heavily landing beat, biting hooks and rowdy vocals adding to its punk ‘n’ roll rampancy before its successor bares its old school punk snarl and seventies pub rock disorder like a brawling mix of Eddie and The Hot Rods, The Damned, and Motorhead.

The nagging prowess of Here Come the Zombies proved pure manna to personal tastes, the track building on the just as irresistible punk brawl of Dirty Pictures before it, the latter the definitive epitome of the band’s sound from day one and its perpetual evolution ever since; like a whiff of every release is embraced in its own particular bedlam.

Inevitably some tracks burrowed under the skin further than others, the insatiable almost savage onslaught of Personality Black Hole as mercilessly addictive as Inbred with seventies punk irreverence flooding its hooks is carnally seductive and Scared of Needles is effortlessly manipulative on spirit, body, and vocal chords.

Even so the likes of the 99% with its varied weave of melodic rock, the antagonistically anthemic Sick of Saying the Same Things, and the pop punk tunnelling rock ‘n’ roll of Daft as Brushes ignited the passions with no trouble or resistance.

The album is brought to a close by firstly the hard rock/pop punk infested melodic bellow of Blinded and then You Think Your Rock n’ Roll But You’re Not, one final punk ‘n’ roll blitz on ears and inhibitions which both fell in seconds for its cacophonous contagiousness.

Double Bastard is prime yet wholly fresh Spunk Volcano and the Eruptions and just another stomp with the nefariously enterprising quintet we can only loudly recommend.

Double Bastard is released via Avenue Recordz on 21st June.

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Pete RingMaster 03/06/2019

Battalion Zośka – Self Titled

Jun11

Like all instinctive punk fans seventies punk and eighties hardcore will always fuel the passions no matter what major moments which have and will continue to follow that defining moment in time. There is no doubting that it is the same for Philadelphia hailing Battalion Zośka; all the evidence raising and roaring aggressive irritation within the band’s self-titled debut album. But there is no mistaking that its 13 slices of sonic and defiant belligerence are far more than echoes of inspirations and other’s glories. The album is a fresh breath and striking protagonist embracing the seeds which fired up us all decades past.

Formed in 2018, Battalion Zośka features members of hardcore punk outfits Violent Society and Combat Crisis and their sound provides a politically charged trespass as aggressively catchy as it is emotionally dissonant. Rhythms unapologetically bite as riffs harass and curse alongside similarly tetchy vocals, the hooks and enterprise conjured just as fractious and irresistible within one magnificent, rousing debut.

The quintet of Pat, Jim, Johnny, Jonas, and Milo set down the tone and character of the album from its first breath, opener A Country Divided rhythmically teasing attention before being entwined in alluring wires of guitar. The song soon hits its stride, threat and disobedience lining every note and subsequent syllable as inbred catchiness equally shapes its rousing incitement. With a great whiff of Angelic Upstarts meets The Lurkers to it and featuring the first of two guest appearance from Black Flag/ Misfits guitarist Dez Cadena, the track lone tells you all you need to know about the band’s sound and album, both swiftly compelling assaults.

Arm Everyone follows bringing an even thicker dissent and trespass to the senses; its hardcore breeding hungry and ill-tempered in its uprising while the album’s title track thrusts forward with rampant muscle and uncompromising resistance as an Exploited meets UK Subs hued subversion arouses. It is fair to say that together the three tracks had ears and appetite enslaved but the third truly sealed the deal.

Next up, Heather was no light weight in that union either, its strands of melodic wiring a delicious itch in the rich infectious nagging of the track. The song brings another guest to the release in the ever potent craft of Neil Newton, the Angelic Upstarts guitarist also giving fiercer flaming to Moral Coward two encounters later, that song a dirtily cantankerous seventies ripe invasion. In between the equally outstanding Island of the Lost Souls stamped its commanding authority on ears, every rhythmic swing an enticing bitch slap and chord a caustic tempting as it builds towards a chorus which just had body and throat bounding forward.

The subsequent assails of Oi! By Numbers and Sold & Bought did nothing to lessen the album’s grip; the first, an undisguised attack within a familiar yet unique sonic pillory with its successor a virulent Crisis-esque transgression. Each simply pummelled the spot before being rapaciously matched by the esurient assault and arousing of 80’s Kid, the song sharing the second ear grabbing appearance of Cadena.

A pop punk essence helps blossom even greater temptation within Once Again, its untamed Vibrators meets Adicts breeding an anthemic tonic for the spirit while the equally galvanic rallying of No More and Scum of the Streets with its feral indeed predacious stalking and sonic hounding only accentuated the impressive and inspiring body and disagreement of the album.

Completed by the carousing punk ‘n’ roll of The Beer Song, the Battalion Zośka album is simply punk rock at its most honest, uncomplicated yet imaginatively bred best. Expect to hear a lot more of the band as once its full-length stirs up a punk uprising of attention and lusty support they will have little choice but to submit to demand.

The Battalion Zośka album is released this June via Violated Records; available at http://www.violatedrecords.com/ and https://battalionzoska.bandcamp.com/album/battalion-zo-ka

https://www.facebook.com/Battalionzoska/

Pete RingMaster 03/06/2019

Microcosms – Forget Us

Jun7

Undoubtedly the Chicago music scene is and has perpetually been the source of some of music’s most striking and individual artists. Microcosms is the latest proposition from within its creative bunker to grip our attention, our introduction coming through their new single, Forget Us. It is one of those tracks which lay predacious eggs under the skin and in the brain from its first breath, growing and festering as an addictive we for one have no wish to dispense with.

Microcosms is the creation of guitarist/vocalist Andrew Tschiltsch, an initial solo project which after a few years saw the addiction of bassist Bryan Emer and drummer Jered Pipenbrink. Musically its alternative rock nurtured sound welcomes the inspirations of artists such as Arctic Monkeys, Bully, Cage the Elephant, Courtney Barnett, Portugal. The Man, and Wolf Alice and emerges as “music to question your beliefs to”. Debut release, the Know My Body EP, enticed well-receiving attention in 2017, its impact soon eclipsed by that of the Fairytale EP a year later. They are successes we expect to be once more surpassed by, given the chance, that surrounding Forget Us.

The song just romps from the speakers, funnelling through ears with one delicious and inescapable hook. The flirtatious antics of the guitar continues to wind salaciously around ears and imagination with the subsequent vociferous rhythmic shuffle within ear gripping noise smog only adding to the tracks infestation of the senses.

Continuing to tease and taunt through each cycle, the song is a mix of threat and seduction seeing the band unleash its more punk bred instincts in comparison to previous encounters. Even so post punk, new wave, and noise pop imagination is just as vocal and rousing within the track with its eventual departure the only moment disappointment escapes.

We cannot say we have heard everything from the Microcosms imagination and enterprise but of what we have and undoubtedly enjoyed, the irresistible proving Forget Us simply eclipses the lot.

Forget Us is available now @ https://microcosms.bandcamp.com/

https://www.wearemicrocosms.com/ https://www.facebook.com/WeAreMicrocosms/ https://twitter.com/WeAreMicrocosms

Pete RingMaster 04/06/2019

All This Huxley – Comrade II

Jun7

With a new EP due for release in a few short weeks, Philadelphia based All This Huxley recently gave anticipation a potent lure to its body and heart with lead single Comrade II. A slice of calm but emotively fuelled melodic indie rock, the song nestled with ears like a familiar yet previously unknown friend, the instinct to embrace its serenade inescapable.

All This Huxley consists of multi-instrumentalists Trevor Serine, John Corcoran, Josh Mayer, and Alex Marlys. Formed by the first pair as a jazz-fusion project, the band soon gained a dedicated following with the latter two subsequently joining up in 2014 when as their bio says, All This Huxley was born and has continued to grow and flourish as their sound similarly blossomed in its eclectic and adventurous character.

As mentioned, July sees the release of the Home Stockholm EP, a release sure to beckon keen attention especially if Comrade II has its way.

The single simply caresses the senses from its first touch, guitar strokes on the imagination an alluring creative hand more than matched by the slightly darker rhythmic stroll which swiftly emerges. With vocals and melodies sharing the emotive intimation of words and heart, the track provides a warm at times almost fiery embrace with hope and melancholy hugging seductively.

A blend of indie pop, folk, and melodic rock, Comrade II is a light for ears and thoughts and a potent beacon to the potential of the Home Stockholm EP.

Comrade II is out now @ https://allthishuxley.bandcamp.com/ with Home Stockholm released July 5th.

https://www.facebook.com/AllThisHuxley/ https://allthishuxley.com

Pete RingMaster 04/06/2019

Kneel – Interstice

Jun5

Open mouthed, bewitched and gasping for breath is not a regular occurrence despite having the honour to hear so many impressive and thrilling encounters at The RR but that is exactly how Interstice from Kneel left us. It is an album which devoured attention as it engulfed the senses, a cauldron of sound and craft which preys on ears and imagination like few others.

Kneel is the solo project of Pedro Mau (ex-Kneeldown, Wells Valley) and Interstice a collection of creative traps written between 2011 and 2013 and now re-released in 2019 through Pulmonary Records. Offering nine maelstroms of hardcore, mathcore, and thrash metal, though that truly only suggests at the full body and diversity of the album, Interstice is as fresh, adventurous, and unique as anything heard in recent times or is likely to be embraced this year. Upon the release, Mau is joined by vocalist Filipe Correia (Wells Valley, Concealment) but everything else about the album is all its Portuguese creator; an artist leaving no stone of unpredictability unturned and layer of creative risk unexplored.

As the album’s opening track swiftly reveals, Mau’s songs are as virulently infectious as they are almost barbarously bold and unconcerned with expected structures and boundaries. Murmurs immediately exploded on the senses, rhythms plundering their welcome with almost toxic prowess as guitars uncaged their own caustic squall. Already though there is an instinctive swing to it all, an inviting lure which only blossoms further as nagging grooves and prowling beats greet the calmer twist of the track just as Correia’s feral tones erupt. Magnetism lines every moment, attention and appetite soon gripped by the drama and enterprise making up the track’s numerous and connected snares. Equally quickly it proves hard to offer up a reference to give a clear clue to the sounds conjured by Mau, but in some ways the likes of Meshuggah, Converge, Daughters, The Dillinger Escape Plan, and Coilguns make good hints to the fascination of Kneel.

The outstanding start is easily backed by Amend, its initial surge hardcore shaped but again soon the kaleidoscopic prowess of the project’s sound unravels as too the senses before its inspiring trespass. Wires of guitar swarm around rhythmic predation and already subservient ears; the track only increasing its slavery as its body writhes with fresh and unique spirals of textures and sound, a sonic vortex just as vibrant and viral within the barbarous assault of Occlusion. Straightaway it violently ravages, never diluting its marauding as it breaks through new nagging enterprise and imagination harassing ideation; Correia equally as uncompromising and compelling within the vicious tempest.

Lessening stalks and ransacks the senses next, Mau’s infernal grooves proving irresistible and melodic dissonance corrosive around rabidly biting rhythms while the two minutes of Absence simply haunts the imagination from its increasingly darkening void. The track allows a long needed breath to be taken, at least for its first half as it subsequently erupts with its own sonic cancer before Cloak dances on expectations with its quick footed dynamics and rapier like incursions. As within every track though, nothing can be taken for granted, its body an edacious helix of imagination and craft.

Both Debris with its flesh snagging jaw and jagged textures and the creative tyranny of Thrall simply gripped and squeezed greater eager attention upon Interstice, each an inescapable maze of skill and nonconformity which if we admit they did not quite match up to their predecessors tells how stunning those earlier tracks.

The album closes up with Sovereignty, a slab of cacophonous rock ‘n’ roll cast upon another hungrily engrossing emprise of convulsing textures, lustful craft, and rapturous imagination. Interstice is a rhapsody of sound, certainly one as vicious and fearsome as it is enthralling but a challenge which takes the listener to new brave and exciting places.

Interstice is out now via Pulmonary Records @ https://pulmonaryrecords.bandcamp.com/album/interstice