Pi$$er – Wretched Life

Aug3

Music will never cease providing unexpected and major treats, moments of if not genius, true ear and appetite inflaming arousals to feed individual desire. Another for us is the debut 7” EP from Pi$$er, a ‘supergroup’ if you wish which devour and chew up the senses whilst inflaming the imagination across four slices of, which for simplicity we will call, hardcore punk.

The Wretched Life EP is a punk bred encounter but woven from a host of essences for rousing diversity. Its creator is the brainchild of vocalist James Domestic (The Domestics / Dis-Tank / Bring The Drones) who has drawn on the matching talent of drummer Charlie Claesson (Anti-Cimex / Wolfhour / The Partisans / Bring The Drones), bassist/organist Rhodes (The Domestics / Hobopope & The Goldfish Cathedral), guitarists Bri Talbot (Doom) and Matt Woods (Dissidents/ex-Revenge Of The Psychotronic Man), and saxophonist Eddie O’Toole (The Shitty Limits / The Filaments / Beat The Red Light / Personnel) to thrust Pi$$er upon a quickly, we suspect, welcoming world.

Wretched Life opens with The Lie is as Good as the Medicine, Rhodes’ keys an immediate dark sinister lure into the waiting arms of contagious punk ferocity. Rhythms show no respect as they infest song and listener alike, guitars equally ravening in their insurgence before the psychotically edged tones of Domestic spring intimidating temptation. As if that ravening mix was not irresistible enough, passions were completely bound with the emerging addition of O’Toole’s idiosyncratic sax enticement, though a thrilling element with a definite X Ray Spex meets Essential Logic psychosis to it. All together it is a devouring incursion which beguiled with its web of enterprise and ravaged with its tidal trespass of animated devilry.

The track Pi$$ER follows with a just as active fervent menace, rhythms thumping on submission immediately as Domestic’s vocals vent with his individual prowess before another scourge of contagious animosity erupts. Hooks and riffs collude in their deviously respective piercing and hostile catchiness, that infernal and glorious raving sax of O’Toole icing on the delicious toxicity escaping a swiftly established favourite release.

I Won’t Repent is next up and needs mere breaths to eagerly intimidate and wholly seduce. Its galloping stroll infests as it manipulates, its swinging groove and predatory instincts proving swiftly irresistible and the perfect incitement for vocals as riffs ravage thoughts and senses. It is two visceral minutes plus of insatiable attitude, virulent harassment, and merciless temptation; i.e. brilliance.

The EP’s title track concludes the pleasure, Wretched Life a harmful and invigorating scourge of punk corrosiveness, dissonance, and crazed contagion. Every element in its rabid character makes for a furious tempting, each moment in that appealing rabid incursion eclectically ravenous and unitedly unquenchable.

The only thing about Wretched Life which worries is that there might be the chance it is a one off affair. We truly hope not because there is already uncontrollable greed in our hunger for Pi$$er and their unique magnificent sound.

Wretched Life is out now through Kibou Records and TNS Records in the UK and Sick World Records in New Zealand; available @ https://www.tnsrecords.co.uk/shop/tns-releases/pre-order/pier-wretched-life-7/ and https://kibourecords.bandcamp.com/album/pi-er-wretched-life-7-e-p with Ltd edition black vinyl version of 300.

Pete RingMaster 02/08/2019

Parasitic Twins/ The Carnival Rejects – The Parasitic Rejects EP

Jun1

The Parasitic Rejects EP sees the coming together of two of the UK’s most striking ear shredding prospects in a compelling trespass of a split release. On one side preying on the senses is York hailing crust/hardcore punks The Carnival Rejects and on the other the doom punk ferocity that is Parasitic Twins. Together they create a feral proposition as fierce and intimidating as it is captivatingly thrilling.

Consisting of guitarist/vocalist Jamie Robertson, bassist/vocalist James Briggs, and drummer Fi Rowntree, The Carnival Rejects offer up three punk intrusions for their part in The Parasitic Rejects EP. Disengage is first, its gentle melodic lead deceitfully concealing the antagonistically contagious punk flurry to follow. Happily grabbing a pop punk catchiness to its irritable breast, the song romps and stomps as it shares a skilfully woven holler of melodic and sonic tempestuousness.

Seize Control is their second incitement and immediately worms under the skin with its contagious belligerence and rousing incitement where biting beats unite with grumbling bass as the guitar wraps its caustic yet magnetic wires around the senses, vocals only accentuating the song’s virulence.

The Carnival Rejects finish their contribution with To The Bone, two minutes of feral punk rock with a potent Angelic Upstarts meets Discharge snarl to its causticity. United, all three tracks prove punk rock is as irritable and rousing as ever, a declaration just as ripe across the trio of intrusions alongside them.

Still reaping attention and acclaim through their debut EP of less than a year ago, All That’s Left To Do Now Is Sleep With Each Other, Hull’s Parasitic Twins reinforce their reputation as one fearsome and captivating proposition with their part in the EP. The duo of vocalist/guitarist Max Watt and drummer Dom Smith unleash senses molesting swarms of doom, punk, and grindcore manipulated into singular uncompromising furies. The first on the EP rises up as Autopsy, the track immediately scalding ears before its inherent rock ‘n’ roll instincts infiltrate its equally blossoming sonic toxicity. Vocals similarly share no respect whilst inciting ears and appetite, metal bred throes adding to its salacious predatory prowl.

Feel Nothing similarly devoured and sparked the senses, rhythms pummelling with determined predation as raw grooves entangle song and listener alike. As its predecessor there is something akin to a corroded blend of Napalm Death and Pig Destroyer to the track though this only seems to inspire its own individual dissonance.

The pair completes their contribution with a cover of the Babylon Zoo classic, Spaceman. Released a handful of weeks back as a single with all proceeds donated to The Campaign Against Living Miserably (CALM), the track finds itself dirt clad and infested with the cacophonous tension and disharmony which marked their well-received EP. Even so it manages to retain its catchiness even as it despoils the senses to bring one very easy to recommend release to a rousing close.

The Parasitic Rejects EP is out in association with Man Demolish Records @ https://mandemolishrecords.bandcamp.com/album/the-parasitic-rejects

https://www.facebook.com/thecarnivalrejects/ https://www.facebook.com/ParasiticTwinsBand/

Pete RingMaster 30/05/2019

Duckeye – PUCE

May12

Three years after uncaging their most roguish, fiendishly dishonourable album yet, and their most irresistible in Songs From The Gunt, Australian reprobates I Am Duckeye have just unleashed an equally diabolical successor in Puce. Looking back across their previous three albums, EPs and singles, it is no secret that the band’s unpredictable fusion of punk, virulent metal, voracious rock, and unapologetically questionable humour has grown thicker and heavier in enterprise and weight. Now though the Melbourne outfit has dived headlong into the charnel house of noise and sludge flooded animosity whilst still embracing that initial breeding of sound and emerged with one challenging, raveningly feral, and compelling beast of a release.

Whether to mark this twist of direction in sound, though it is still very recognisable I Am Duckeye, the band has slimmed the band name down to simply Duckeye though they still use their full name everywhere else it seems. Being lazy we will use the shortened version as on Puce, a release also seeing another reduction, in the bands line-up. Duckeye has slimmed to the irrepressible trio of vocalist/guitarist Sam Haycroft, bassist Jules Medor, and drummer/producer Sean Bailey, a threesome unplugging the floodgates of sonic voracity whilst humour wise too, they have bred a fresh trespass. Certainly Puce does not hold back with a tongue hungrily pushing the cheek but it aligns to a deliberately caustic and social scowl on the world and people fuelling the chaos today; maybe some will say it is mischief which has grown up a tad but yes it still brings a ready childish grin to the face with regularity.

It is probably fair to say that Puce does not have songs which virally leapt from the speakers into our particular devilment as many of the band’s previous infestations yet all make for a fiercely memorable moment and all have attributes which just got under the skin and into our lustful appetites. Across the album riffs mercilessly trespass, grooves wickedly entangle, and hooks ensnare with nefarious ease and throughout the band’s punk metal instincts erupted to inflame ours.

Puce first erupts with Docks, Haycroft’s lone guitar casting steely strokes at ears with his just as untamed tones quickly stepping forward to its side. Then as swiftly the track stretches its muscles and strides forth, rhythms almost gleefully and definitely venomously dancing on the senses that grooves keenly infest. As suggested earlier, the contagious sound is as individual Duckeye as fans would hope but it is a new monster with no qualms about parading seductive enterprise within its voracious incitement.

In contrast to the excited gait of its predecessor, the following Stab Flats crawls over the listener; doom and gloom soaking its prowl as noise and sludge coated aspects collect in its magnetic bowels. Eventually it escapes its chains to angrily cavort through ears, with it a new wave of ravenous flavours and styles carnivorously clawing at the listener. Reverting back to its predacious drag of its irresistible Birthday Party hued sonic body it makes way for the equally examining exploits of Headlights, the senses caught on its sonic glare whilst the body is bouncing to its barbarous manipulation. Again at times there is an echo of eighties post punk to its corrosive toxicity but once more it just spices up that Duckeye uniqueness channelling through song to the pleasure it sparked.

It is often enjoyment loaded with punishment as witnessed in Dead End, the track just short of two and a half minutes of bestial incitement churning up the senses and every esurient lust you have inside through punk and dense extreme metal fired savagery. Addiction to it was inevitable with our appetites here, the song bordering cannibalistic as it devours its own virulence with just as captivating barbarity.

The lengthy trespass of the following Tree Puncher is more familiar Duckeye, initially luring attention with their established creative mischief but it too its soon flexing its grievous dexterity, the song a kind of bridge between Puce and the band’s last outstanding full-length. By its departure though, the track is all predator and simply corroding the senses, indeed disintegrating them with sonic scorching though they are soon brought back to life by the animated dissonance of Defeated. It is a song with post metal winds which absorbed if not aroused initially but then it goes and throws wicked grooved interruptions of lusty ire to raise the temptation and pleasure by multiple degrees

Both Sense and Finger deviously got under the skin, the first with its delicious initial gothic Bauhaus-esque hues and more so with its metal forged punk ‘n’ roll carousing and the second through its classic metal wired, stoner sludge stroll; again virulence flowing through netting of infectious veins.

The final pair of tracks on the album proves themselves just as unscrupulously tempting; Dead Eyes with its cold stare and predacious prowl masterfully wily and persuasive, villainous rock ‘n’ roll at its notorious best, while Blue Hand leaps on another wealth of fresh flavours to ignite its enterprise woven web.

Together they provide a richly gripping conclusion to an album which assaults and invigorates second by second, thrilling with every passing trespass. Puce only gets better and more addictive by the listen too so maybe this is the moment the world catches a dose of the I Am Duckeye virus; it would be a better place for doing so.

Puce is available now @ https://iamduckeye.bandcamp.com/album/puce

https://iamduckeye.com/home https://www.facebook.com/iamduckeyeofficial/ https://twitter.com/home

Pete RingMaster 09/05/2019

Obey – Swallow The Sun

Apr11

Obey have not exactly been hidden in the shadows of the UK metal scene in recent years, finding acclaim and success with increasing intensity but now the Midlands outfit is surely poised to really demand and receive major attention with the release of their new album, Swallow The Sun. Offering nine tracks of the band’s firmly individual fusion of heavy rock, groove metal, and doom bred intensity, though that only hints at the flavours involved and it all wrapped in progressive metal individuality, the band’s fourth full-length takes the listener on a creative and emotional journey shaped by fascinating imagination and potent craft.

Formed in 2008, Obey has established themselves with increasing success within the British metal scene live and across a trio of previous albums starting with their debut, New Day Rising in 2009. If that first release for the Staffordshire trio tickled strong attention, Doom Laden in 2012 and Maelstrom four years later gave it a bigger jab to reinforce a redoubtable reputation earned by their live prowess and successes. As suggested though Swallow The Sun is a proposition which swings a mighty dextrous hook at ears, swiftly revealing itself not only the band’s finest moment yet but a release which easily grabs attention away from the majority of releases to grace the year so far.

With ex- Generations and Molly Leigh drummer Ryan Gillespie completing the band’s current line-up alongside guitarist/vocalist Steve Pickin and guitarist/bassist Dan Ryder last year, Obey joined up with producer Sam Bloor at Lower Lane Studios to record Swallow the Sun and immediately the album takes a robust hand on ears with opener Back Home. Riffs straight away nag at the senses, they soon entangled in the sonic intimation of a solar thread of guitar. The band describe the album as a “sonic journey dealing with the cruelty of Dementia and the devastation it leaves, melding that together with themes of fantasy and folklore” and from its first few seconds there is a haunting dark hue to sound and atmosphere even as the track quickly collects its attributes to create tides of rhythmic and sonic enticement. Like the band’s sound is a blend of open styles skilfully united, the song is a web of textures as voracious and often predatory as they are melodic and frequently seductive; an encounter as unpredictable as it is captivating for a simply superb start to the album.

Drive follows and it too simply seizes ears from its first wiry throes before opening up its kaleidoscopic landscape, one tempestuous and as unsettled as it is creatively magnetic but a maelstrom of enterprise fluidly consuming and exciting ears. Classic hues join modern and progressive essences as the song blossoms by the twist and turn, Pickin’s vocals a strong and emotionally disturbed match for the cauldron of sounds around him. Both the opening pair of tracks has an inherent catchiness to them which is just as instinctive within next up Call Of The Judderman. Initially there is a common wiring between the third song and its predecessor, a core asylum of sonic endeavour but it soon unveils its own unique character and presence across three minutes of compelling confrontation.

Star Crusher takes the imagination on a swift heavy doom laden cruise across celestial space, its fuel imposing intensity before landing ears and appetite at the siren presence of Esmeralda And The Doom Blues. Instantly seductive verging on the salacious, the track soon reveals its medusa-esque heart in sound, endeavour, and threat whilst simply ambushing any possible resistance to its melodic bewitchment before the album’s title track romps across the senses and instincts with its flirtatious rock ‘n’ roll. Defiance to its bounce and swing was futile; submission to its virulent scheme unsurprisingly inevitable as the song rivalled and at times eclipsed the already thrilling escapade of the album so far.

A calmer air embraces ears next as The Mountain looms up, the song soon ensnaring them in its own commandingly creative lattice of guitar as rhythms manipulatively infest. Even so it is a less volatile proposition though it carries certain tempestuousness in its outstanding body of sound and imagination while snarls and wonderfully harasses the senses with its technical mastery and physical agility. Both tracks keep the lofty heights of the album in place with ease leaving Emerald Eyes to bring Swallow The Sun to a similarly fine close if it took a touch longer to elevate to the stature of other tracks.

It does though simply epitomise the band’s craft and imagination and the wonderful unpredictability of every essence making up one addictive album; Swallow The Sun announcing Obey as one seriously striking proposition.

Swallow The Sun is out now @ https://obeyuk.bandcamp.com/album/swallow-the-sun

https://www.facebook.com/Obeyuk/ https://twitter.com/obeyuk

Pete RingMaster 11/04/2019

Degraey – Reveries

Mar1

With their debut album a couple of years back, Spanish post metallers Degraey fascinated as they provoked, aroused as they consumed; drawing potent attention and plaudits with every move within Chrysalis. It was a release which opened its body to reveal a sonic kaleidoscope of beauty and dark intimation which almost devoured the imagination. Ever since there has been a waiting anticipation for its successor, one really brewing up in recent times as Reveries loomed nearer and fair to say that now here, the album takes its predecessor’s creative adventure and striking elements to new plateaus in league with its own individual and compelling invention.

Barcelona hailing, Degraey began in 2012 when drummer/vocalist Cesar Perals (Carontte) met guitarist/vocalist Victor Paradis (Boreals) but really emerged as a stirring proposition three years later as its line-up embraced the talent of bassist Luc Espinach and Ivan Pizarro on guitars and synth. Chrysalis followed in 2017 drawing strong praise and support with its tapestries woven from post-rock, shoegaze and doom nurtured threads across a post-metal canvas. It was a firmly magnetic sound and proposition which has only evolved and expanded since, the quartet exploring deeper and darker depths whilst building on the prowess of the last album with Reveries. It casts a dark journey though as inclined to embrace radiant calms and melodic beauty, the result a ferociously riveting release springing sonic flights across atmospheric climates as imaginative in sound and enterprise as visual intimation.

As quickly revealed in opener Nurture, this is an album and exploration as lyrically and vocally stirring and poignant as it is musically dramatic. It is a fusion of craft and individual prowess which creates landscapes that blossom with a fusion of bold and varied often seemingly conflicting contrasts, the first within the opener effortlessly gripping ears and thoughts. The track gently caresses ears with the intimacy of guitar, gentle melancholic melody slipping from its strings as almost discreetly an atmospheric breath evolves behind. Soon weightier sounds and suggestion rises, subsequently consuming ears and song with their own voracious touch and drama. Then almost as quickly, the storm breaks for that melodic beauty, one as captivating in the similarly mercurial presence of Peral’s vocals, before in time the intensity of emotion and creativity boils and erupts once more.

It is an absorbing and powerful start to the album which is more than matched by the similarly suspenseful and captivating Not so Far. It too enchants with its early lures, voice and melody an enthralling warm tempting. Around them though there is a floating tension which gathers pace and intensity yet never really escapes its restraints, at least not until a ferocious climax of emotion and sonic turbulence though that too eventually succumbs to melodic beauty

Every track within Reveries is a full and often exhaustive adventure in its own right, but equally as potently unites in an overall tempest that just grips and enthrals in a collusion of voracious extremes and passions bred on instinctive imagination and craft. The magnificent Woven Conscience is a perfect example of those sonic and emotive incongruities aligned with glorious imagination, its body a mercurial cauldron leading eager ears and conjuring imaginations into fierce adventure within unsettling, equally capricious and unpredictable storms.

Through the eagerly creeping and increasingly irritable but simply irresistible Sprawling Nest and the similarly flowing but unique apocalyptic soundscape of Back to Dust ears and attention were lost to the real world before The Inert brought the album to a mesmeric conclusion with its own physically and emotionally protean insinuation.

Sonic and emotive dissonance brews at the heart of each song, persistently breaking and inflaming to threaten indeed devour the peace and hope each similarly arise from. For some Reveries may offer a challenge which is too disturbing to embrace but it is an examination which only brings rewards and pleasure and increasingly so if also a corruption to your state of mind and hope the world is not already a lost cause.

Reveries is released March 1^st digitally as a name your price release @

https://www.facebook.com/degraey

Pete RingMaster 01/08/2019

Desert Clouds – Nothing Beyond The Cage

Jan17

It is probably fair to say that we did not make an immediate connection with the new album from UK based rockers Desert Clouds yet there was a certain lure which took us back to its atmospheric embrace with intrigue and enthusiasm. It was an essence which grew richer as band and release, Nothing Beyond The Cage, blossomed by the listen into a fascinating and increasingly persuasive proposition.

Formed in 2008 in Naples, Italy, Desert Clouds relocated to London two years later. It was a time which saw instability in the band’s line-up though things were far more settled by the time 2017 EP, Time Distortions, was released; an encounter which drew strong attention the way of the band, praise carrying interest which was only built upon by subsequent singles in Speed of Light and Under Tons, both unveiled last year. It is easy to imagine that Nothing Beyond The Cage will only increase the reputation and stature of the quartet within the UK rock scene with its multi-flavoured and atmospherically provocative adventure.

Nurtured in a mix of grunge, stoner, doom, psych and alternative rock, the band’s sound is a seductive trespass as forceful and mercurial as it is plaintively intimate and brooding. Often it comes over within Nothing Beyond The Cage like a raw Doors meets a predacious Kyuss aligned to the emotive howls of early Coldplay amidst the soulful winds of Soundgarden but emerging if not boldly unique certainly clearly individual to Desert Clouds.

The album opens up with The Outcast Trail (See you Chris), a sullenly thoughtful ballad built on a web of melodic imagination and vocal emotion which roars like a funeral pyre in fiery crescendos. Unsurprisingly there are thick Soundgarden hues to the outstanding track, a tribute to Chris Cornell, with its sonic and emotive heat evocative and invasive, its enterprise seriously magnetic led by the inescapably compelling vocals.

The following Speed Of Light opens with a just as dark air, the bass of Julius Caesar a portentous throb within the wiry web and earthier riffs of guitarists/vocalists David Land and Val L. Wallace. With every passing note and vocal lure, the song’s intensity and drama increases, brewing up into a controlled yet feral blaze spiked by the predacious beats of Andrea Orabona. Though it lacked the spark of its outstanding predecessor for our appetite, the song enticed and lingered behind its wake before next up Take Off harassed the senses with its moody almost irritable melodic roar. Grooved tendrils vine the track with increasing captivation, their incandescent lures lava-esque within the song’s muggy climate.

The calmer but mercurial balladry of Under Tons tempts next, its tenacious croon as untamed as it is intimately restrained with every moment contrasted within another twist courtesy of craft and imagination before Overmore springs its desert/psych rock exploits on ears. A certain QOTSA lining adds to a swift appeal while its successor The Judgement carries a Coldplay/Muse like spicing which grew more flavoursome by the listen. All three tracks flourished over time whilst equally sharing the, at times understated but certainly not hidden, broad palette of sound the band creates with.

Final track is Whistling In The Rain, an almost bestial encounter in its prowling gait and ursine-esque growl but lava-like in its sonic climate and scorching winds. From vocals to guitar, rhythms to atmospheric conjuring, the song is another mighty highlight to Nothing Beyond The Cage, a release which we might have needed time to take to but have with real eagerness once we clicked.

Nothing Beyond The Cage is released January 18^th.

https://www.desertclouds.net/ https://www.facebook.com/desertclouds/ https://twitter.com/TheDesertClouds

Pete RingMaster 17/01/2019

Dead Register – Captive

Nov2

It is two years since Atlanta outfit Dead Register not only thrilled but truly captivated us with debut album Fiber. It was a collection of tracks bred in the rich essences of doom, gothic, and post rock but equally embraced many more flavours to create something as unique as you could imagine or wish. Twenty four or so months on we still cannot truly define their sound or want to as that would be to sterilise its originality and fertility, both as rampant and captivating in the band’s new offering, Captive.

Every word in praise of Fiber by us and so many others can be echoed with zeal in regard to the Captive EP, but not only repeated but escalated as its five tracks venture to mouth-watering new heights in the imaginative craft and inventive prowess of Dead Register. The new EP sees percussionist/drummer Danny Ryann (ex-Gigan) alongside vocalist/bassist M. Chvasta and his wife, Avril Che on bass synth, keys, and backing vocals; Dan Dixon (Whores, The Life and Times, PLS PLS, Biters) recording, mixing, and mastering their now proposition.

Captive opens up with its title track, a dark mist springing the lumbering gait of the song but a funereal step soon wrapped in romancing melodies as a shadow bred atmosphere descends. Magnetic rhythms are swiftly courted by the ever potent and alluring tones of Chvasta, both in turn hugged by the heavy emotive doom gaze breath of the track. Haunting and mesmeric, the song continues to seduce and impose, drama soaking very brooding note and harmonic utterance trespassing and seducing the senses.

It is a highly tantalising and increasingly captivating beginning to the release and one as powerfully continued by next up Ender. A song exploring love and loss and “a reminder to savor even the most mundane idiosyncrasies that “make” our loved ones who they are”, a premise easy to relate to, it rousingly smoulders in ears and thoughts but a thick simmer with volatility which only enriches its emotional incitement and a sound with Type O Negative/Nine Inch Nails hues. There is also a breath to the track and its successors which reminds of eighties band, The Sound; an instinctively downbeat almost depressive yet rousing dark essence which is especially apparent in the fiercely infectious Heresy. From its predacious nagging bassline to the sonic tendrils and Chvasta’s transfixing vocals, the track is pure temptation as virulently catchy as it is melancholically consuming.

A riveting cover of the Dead and Gone track Blood from a Ghost follows, Dead Register infusing it with a voraciously dark elegance without defusing its raw heart and anguish. Few covers in our experience improve on the original but the threesome certainly flirts with that success before Monochrome completes the aural mastery of Captive with its own tenebrific majesty soaked in emotive dissonance. A breath-taking and arousing yet corrosive romance, the track is a maelstrom of destruction and tenderness and quite irresistible.

It is a spellbinding prowess which devours the whole of Captives and feeds the infatuation we have already found for the band. If in our words Fiber was “dark magic, emotional trespassing, and quite wonderful”, Captive is pure aural alchemy and one of the year’s essential encounters.

Captive is released November 2^nd; available @ https://deadregister.bandcamp.com/

https://www.facebook.com/deadregister

Pete RingMaster 02/11/2018