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

https://www.facebook.com/StolenDeadMusic/ https://twitter.com/StolenDeadMusic https://stolendeadmusic.bandcamp.com

Pete RingMaster 13/06/2019

Never too late for Vain Galen and Salt The Snail

Nov16

Though we may be a little tardy in relation to their release dates, we have a couple of singles worth attention anytime of the day and year which we suggest need checking out.

First up is March Of The Walkers from UK trio Vain Galen. Formed in 2012, the West London band has increasingly impressed and lured acclaim through their releases, songs like Galen’s Cage and Biography of a Stickman especially drawing plaudits. Recently the threesome of vocalist/guitarist Wayne Houchin, bassist Carl Tiedt, and drummer John Mcshee uncaged their new encounter, song which pretty much eclipses all the goodness already escaping the band’s imagination.

It is enjoyable not too easy to pin down the band’s music, March Of The Walkers alone a web of alternative metal, punk, grunge and hard rock. It makes for a temptation as unpredictable as it is rousing, the new single stocked with proof of both. Instantly the rhythmic prowess of Mcshee asks for and gets attention, ears rewarded with the rousing exploits of guitar and bass. Already that multi-flavoured hue to the band’s sound is at play, only blossoming as Houchin’s potent tones join the creative affray.

The song continues to entice with skilful hooks and crafty aggression, its fury creating an anthemic climate which the track simply relishes the further it evolves in melodic and imaginative twists, at times teasing with an almost PiL like devilry as it declares itself the best moment in the Vain Galen arsenal yet.

The other track demanding attention is from Salt the Snail, another British band which has already stirred the passions especially through their deviously mischievous previous single Spanish Announce Table. It carried a devilment which had lips grinning and bad habits rising, success boisterously continued by its successor Lazer Quest.

The band writes songs inspired by their own passions; their debut single Coffee was sparked by a love of the obvious, its already mentioned follow-up by wrestling and horses. Lazer Quest unsurprisingly springs from their appetite for lasers and dancing, pleasures shared through the band’s unique fusion of noise, punk, and indie dissonance. Mike Rogers’ guitar grazes the senses initially but only inviting attention to the waiting stomp driven by the swinging sticks of drummer Tom Ashley and The Baron’s throaty bass groove. Once vocalist Krystian Hudson strides in with his equally magnetic attack, the track is in full revelry, twisting and turning only to escalate its delicious antics and enterprise. Something akin to a hardcore infested Swound! meets Asylums meets Houdini bled bedlam, the track is feral manna to any noise loving ears.

Check out both bands further at…

http://www.vaingalen.com/ https://www.facebook.com/vaingalen/

https://saltthesnailband.bandcamp.com/ https://www.facebook.com/SalttheSnailORIGINAL/ https://twitter.com/SalttheSnailUK

Pete RingMaster 16/11/2018

Punching Swans – Faces

Oct23

If you have allowed the boisterous noise and feral enterprise of Punching Swans to trespass ears before you will not be surprised to read that as maturity and a new bold touch embraces their latest release, their cacophony of sonic devilment is just as insatiable. Faces is a collection of tracks which stalk the imagination, manipulate the senses, and send the body into blissful spasms whilst courting a whole new level of adventure with the British trio.

Bred in the ever fertile round of the Medway region of Kent, Punching Swans is the creative union of vocalist/guitarist Greg Webster (Houdini), bassist/vocalist Joseph Wise(Frau Pouch), and drummer/vocalist Pablo Paganotto (The Explorer’s Collective). Formed in 2012, apparently “as a dare”, alongside their other projects, the band has simply grown in a sound, taking on inspirations from the likes of from The Fall, Sonic Youth, Bogshed and Mclusky as well as the dark realms of John Carpenter, The League of Gentlemen and The Evil Dead films, their imagination ensnaring releases perpetually earning bigger and keener acclaim. A self-titled debut that first year was a kind of warm up for the greater exploits inside Mollusc two years later. The album reinforced the band’s inimitable sound and creative mischief but flourished as the threesome in many ways ’took things more seriously’ with the project. Its qualities and success was only eclipsed by its successor Nesting in 2016 just as its seriously impressive character and adventure has been put in the shade by Faces.

The new album’s theme is a dark and compelling proposition; the release made up of eleven faces (tracks), each referring to the faces of serial killers. As Webster explains, “They each have a stupid feature for a face which is related to their story… so people who look kinda stupid and are unlikely killers. But then again, who is a likely killer? Can you really tell by appearance? As we wrote each new song they seemed to fit into a particular image of a face and from there we wrote what their particular background story was. We were picturing a kind of Dick Tracy rogues gallery of villains. “

The album opens up with Blood Face, gradually looming up on the senses in a sonic shimmer before a raw wash of voice and sound explodes on ears. The scything beats of Paganotto pounce and swing as a sonic swash of guitar colludes with the rapaciously dark mumblings of bass, a fiercely magnetic union completed by eager vocals. Slipping melodic teasing amongst its ravenous discord, the track is a magnificent and quickly addictive start to an album which only escalated every lure heard with imagination thereon in.

The following Areola Face instantly had hips swaying and appetite’s tongue licking lustful lips as Wise’s throaty bass strolls with dark but infectious intent, a catchiness only accentuated by the more ‘violent’ animation of guitar and beats. Ebbing and flowing in its volatility, vocals following suit, the track provides a caustic flirtation before Strobe Face licks at the senses with a rapid flicker of beats and a sonic sunspot which in turn sparks a slightly corrosive but fully captivating trespass; a captivation only boosted by the singular dance of vocals and beats which escapes before things become more psychotic yet tenderly seductive.

Through the calm but predacious post punk militance of Batter Face and the reserved siren-esque psychosis of Coral Face, animated temptation richly soaked ears; Paganotto’s kinetic swings as conniving and irresistible as the intimation shredding exploits of Webster and Wise’s skilful rhythmic dark saunters, traits fuelling the whole album from start to finish. The latter of the pair has a definite Houdini meets The Fall feel before making way for the simply glorious murderous drama and inharmonious beauty of Cliff Face. Featuring Dan Toms of Bear vs Manero and the biggest treat out of nothing but, the track is simply manna for ears and spirit, unscrupulous rascality at its best.

The following pair of Grater Face and Lady Cheese Face refers to each other, the songs “Romeo and Juliet-style lovers who simply could not be.” The first is a wild slice of post punk ‘n’ roll with a personality something akin to Mclusky meets The St Pierre Snake Invasion while its companion of sorts shows a devious side to its more tamed incursion on the senses. Discordant yet with a sonic elegance which is as threatening as it is alluring, the track is a true predator of a song, getting under the skin with subtlety and flirtation before gnawing away with bloodthirsty relish.

Raw and wolfish, Carpenter Face infiltrates ears next with an almost industrial like hue to its expanding tapestry of lawless noise. A low key serenade with a portentous breeze of sonic duplicity inserts itself in the breaths between it and Face Face straight after, the piece brief and never quite breaking the surface of its limbo before the penultimate track careers in on a rhythmic canter with a sonic mane spraying in its trenchant winds.

God Face completes the release, the song a lure of shadow bound celestial scheming simultaneously tenebrific and radiant round another simply rousing rhythmic incitement from Paganotto and Wise alongside the melodic dissonance of Webster.

It is an enthralling end to a quite superb and increasingly addictive release. Punching Swans has never been as so damn manipulative or devilishly rousing as they are within Faces. It is not only a band at its momentously best but noise rock/post punk too.

Faces is released October 26^th via Skingasm Records; available now for pre-order @ https://punchingswans.bandcamp.com/album/faces

Upcoming live shows:

OCT 26^th LEEDS, Chunk

OCT 27^th LIVERPOOL, Invisible Wind Factory

NOV 9^th LONDON, Aces & Eights

https://www.facebook.com/PunchingSwans https://twitter.com/punchingswans

Pete RingMaster 23/10/2018

Exoskeletons – We Are Here To Make Things Better

Oct26

Two years ago, British outfit Exoskeletons caught the imagination with their first release, the Get Lost EP. It was a striking almost rabid slice of punk infused noise rock which excited as it whetted the appetite for the band’s emerging sound. Since then the band has been in a process of “writing, gigging, destroying and rewriting material in an effort to find something new and more challenging.” The upcoming release of debut album We Are Here To Make Things Better is undeniable evidence in their discovering and exploring that new and individual incitement which most importantly is rather irresistible.

From Kent, Exoskeletons consists of members of Punching Swans, Bear vs Manero, and Houdini; all three bands which has certainly lit our fires in their own rights. Embracing inspirations from the writings of Greg Egan and Philip K Dick, especially on themes of Artificial intelligence, We Are Here To Make Things Better was recorded over 9 months between the September of last year and this past June. Released through Skingasm Records, the album is an adventurous mix of alternative rock with the band’s punk/noise origins which develops a distinct but connecting character over its ten tracks but brings an unpredictable quality and imagination to each.

Face In The Rock starts things off, the track merging from subdued sonic disturbance with beckoning beats and soon after the throbbing lure of bass. As the guitar entangles both with its acidic melodic vines, Greg Webster’s vocals step in, his distinctive tones inevitably bringing a Houdini feel though his guitar and the rhythmic imagination of bassist Peter Bevan and drummer Tom Bonner swiftly sculpt Exoskeletons unique textures and invention. The song continues to pounce and romp on the listener’s imagination, its kinetic gait and lively energy firmly gripping attention.

Even so, it is soon outshone by the following track and new single House Of Disappearing Bricks. It is pure virulent infectiousness, its firmly rapping beats and gnarly bassline instinctive manna to these ears even before the punk soaked attack of chords and vocals add to the trespass. The track’s post punk antics swiftly hit the spot, its noise punk devilry inflaming the passions as swinging rhythms and spiky hooks wake up a lustful submission to their angular bait. It is sublime stuff, pop discordance at its best and surely alone an unstoppable lure into the world of Exoskeletons for a new flood of fans.

Kuiper swaggers in next, again beats and bass casting an enslaving web as vocals across the band infest the psyche within another guitar woven tapestry of enterprise as belligerent as it is psychotic. Kind of like a mix of Shellac and The Mai Shi, the song traps ears in a compelling maze of sound before the more even keeled stroll of In Real Life takes over. In saying that, it pleasingly too has a rhythmic skeleton which jerks around with dervish like agility around which melodies with a caustic hue blossom. Passages of even calmer energy has a great feel of UK band An Entire Legion to them but again what emerges is a track distinct to its creators.

Through the catchy clamour of Crash Symbols and the crunchy prowess of Holes pleasure only escalates; the first, maybe without the striking quirkiness of those before, a magnetic cauldron of sonic imagination and rhythmic dexterity which seals the deal even before the brilliance of the irritable bass and great dissension of the vocals enslave. Its successor is a wonderfully dirty and cantankerous proposal with an addictively contagious swing which continues to infest an evolving landscape of adventure. There is a definite Melvins like ingenuity to the track but similarly echoes of the great music scene in the Medway area of Britain which the band’s line-up has been a major part of in recent times.

Again ultimately, the track is individual to Exoskeletons, a trait all songs process as shown yet unsurprisingly by next up Cicadas which is a more subdued proposition in nature to its companions but one rich in enticing hooks and dramatic ideation. Attention is putty in its hands and a greed for more overwhelming and fully fed by successor Show. It’s almost tempestuous start quickly turns to a bold saunter with another highly flirtatious bassline and spirited beats aligned to Webster’s suggestive guitar weaving and vocal dynamics. It too is low on the aggression of previous tracks but high on imposing enterprise and a flavoursome mix of imaginative post and noise punk tenacity.

The penultimate track is Dust; an expected atmospheric indeed haunting piece of sci-fi bred AI suggestiveness. Minimalistic but very potent, it has the imagination at play before the album reveals its best track to bring things to an enthralling close. Wild Swimmers is simply immense and for personal tastes leaves everything before it, and a heady collection of songs they are too, in its wake. From a distance it flows in with bass and sonic intrigue to the fore; both essences soon uniting with the most delicious hook nurtured melody. Alongside, a nagging tide of riffs work away, always there enticing even as the track twists through its unpredictable landscape. Bevan’s bass is once more manna to ears, its grumbling exploits as eventful and persuasive as the lithe rhythmic craft of Bonner and Webster’s resourceful sonic painting. Add the ever captivating vocal strengths of the band and you have a feast for the ear and a song which suggests we, as the band, have so much more to discover ahead with the Exoskeletons imagination.

Because of the Get Lost EP and the previous exploits of its band members which we previously got hooked on, we expected to find plenty to enjoy within We Are Here To Make Things Better but not to the lustful extent we did. Quite simply the album and band back up the declaration of its title in one of the year’s major highlights.

We Are Here To Make Things Better is released November 10^th on Skingasm Records.

UpcomingTour Dates

19/10 – Maidstone – Drakes

03/11 – Ramsgate Music Hall

17/11 – Manchester – Fallows Cafe

18/11 – Leeds – Tbc

23/11 – Camden, London – Our Black Heart (album launch show)

22/12 – Chatham – Poco Loco

http://weareexoskeletons.com/ https://www.facebook.com/weareexoskeletons/ https://twitter.com/weexoskeletons https://weareexoskeletons.bandcamp.com/

Pete RingMaster 25/10/2017

Three Way Plane – Your Kingdom, My Life

Jun2

Way back in 2013, Greek outfit Three Way Plane got in touch and introduced us to themselves and their new EP Fire. It was a potential loaded indie/post punk infused proposition which was bitingly eclectic and imaginatively rampant suggesting that the 2004 formed band was ready to tap into attention far beyond their local success. They have not quite found that breakthrough since in a period which was assumedly busy for them but appearing quiet on the outside. Things might just be about to change though as the Athens outfit release their second album Your Kingdom, My Life and another collusion of sonic diversity and creative adventure.

Two years after forming the band released their first EP, Bright Days the first clue to the growing invention in their punk nurtured sound though it was their well-received debut album, give us something new to shout, which really stoked attention and eager support four years later; its success subsequently eclipsed by Fire. 2015 saw the band release a collection of remixes from songs out of their previous two offerings and the striking 7″inch single A Waltz For Unity & Love / New Destination. In hindsight, the latter was a definite tease of the new growth in sound and songwriting of vocalist/guitarist Stratos, bassist Giannis, and drummer Geo, who has left the band since the album’s recording; hints now impressively realised in Your Kingdom, My Life.

In some ways, the Three Way Plane sound has actually slimmed down its rich array of textures and flavours into something less overwhelming but more concentrated on its qualities, a sign of maturity easy to embrace. As opener Inner Warfare shows though it is still a web of styles and imagination which leaves predictability looking elsewhere for a home. The track initially waves a sonic lure in front of the listener, the guitar almost taunting before a couple more breaths sees rhythms strolling through ears with a knowing swagger as riffs sculpt their dance. That first slither of post punk bait returns to tempt as the song slows a touch to welcome the expression shaped vocals of Stratos. Simultaneously Giannis’ bass grumbles with a throaty growl, riffs again casting an eager scrubbing of the senses as Geo’s beats tenaciously swing at a body and imagination swiftly hooked by the song’s mix of indie rock and punk at times reminding of UK band Houdini.

It is a superb start soon matched by the more crazed and caustic exploits of No, I’m Not Sober. Again the bass is an irresistible lure, showing more mischief than attitude this time, a matching hue directing riffs and vocals as the track swings between revelry and hostility. There is a definite feel of The Cure and their Three Imaginary Boys entrance upon the world, an additional off-kilter and magnetic discordance in tone and touch which lights ears and personal instincts. With the guest manipulation of Kostis Maloutas on the Theremin extra pleasure, the track eventually makes way for the matching excellence of A Waltz For Unity & Love. Straight away guitars entice ears, courting attention with their weave of wiry hooks and flirtatious melodies. Darker hues come into play soon after as the track hits its vigorous stride as vocals share lyrical suggestion though it is the snare of flirtatious hooks and energy which rubber stamps an already done deal between song and pleasure.

Guitars and bass again make the first flirtation with ears as Get Off Your Hands steps forward, its more shadowy nature and physical trespasses infested with fiery melodies and infectious rhythms which respectively wind through and steer the enjoyable ship. There is that post punk essence again at play but more vocal within the following Xepiasakos Theme, an instrumental cruising in on a great Gang Of Four like dexterity in its rhythmic prowess which immediately has body and spirit dancing. The piece is a touch more reserved than its predecessors but a livelier persistence impossible to refuse or let physical reactions leave alone. Musically the song also reminds of eighties bands like Leitmotiv and French outfit Modèle Martial, an array of essences cast into a sonic Three Way Plane kaleidoscope which certainly has a great spicing of nostalgia.

With a similar eighties spicing to its seduction of catchiness and challenges, Checkmate is simply infection from start to finish; guitar hooks and brooding bass lures a devious incitement infesting limb and imagination with viral expertise while the following Silent embraces the senses in a more atmospheric wash of sound though it too does not skimp on addictive snares and seriously catchy twists. That raw ethereal climate solely takes over midway though, a sonic drifting across the imagination with an underlying tempestuousness which grows as shadows blossom. Once more The Cure come to minds at certain moments, the song more reflective of their second and third album period while again creating a proposal individual to the Greek outfit.

The more caustic and volatile essences of other songs has its head for Your Life ’08, the track an abrasive slice of hardcore shaped punk but with a rhythmic agitation and tenacity which ensures an infectious bullying of ears and lively thoughts is welcomed.

The album closes with Psychic Changes, a rich trespass of vocal dissent and sonic intrigue spun with a tide of gripping hooks and predacious rhythms into a melodic labyrinth growing darker and more ravenous with every layer spun. As the previous track, it is more of a challenge than earlier propositions, more of a slow burner but ultimately emerges as one of the most striking quests from the imagination and craft of Three Way Plane.

There are times when the body really feels like a puppet to Your Kingdom, My Life, unable to escape its infection carrying incitements, and never a moment when pleasure is not the fuel of the day. Whether the album will see Three Way Plane break into international attention time will tell, it has all the attributes, but it will certainly establish the band as one of most exciting adventures waiting their moment.

Your Kingdom, My Life is out now and available @ https://threewayplane.bandcamp.com/album/your-kingdom-my-life

https://www.facebook.com/threewayplane/ https://twitter.com/threewayplane

Pete RingMaster 31/05/2017

Frau Pouch – Fairymares

Jan24

I am sure we were not alone in eagerly anticipating a first album from British no wave post-punks Frau Pouch. They are a band which captured and ignited our imagination on our introduction to them in a split release with fellow Kent outfit Houdini back in 2012. Their sound is a sonically and creatively gurning fusion of post and garage punk with other feverish forms of wonderfully irritable and imaginatively twisted rock ‘n’ roll. Each release, since that first meeting, has seen the Medway trio stretch, twist, and inject their imagination with new creative psychoses, nurturing their most irresistible outcome yet in debut album Fairymares.

Released via Skingasm Records and recorded with Greg Webster of Houdini/ Punching Swans, Fairymares is warped manna for the ears especially if they have been nurtured on a diet of post punk seeded bands such as The Fall, Pere Ubu, and The Victorian English Gentlemens Club. The album swiftly enforces the fact that Frau Pouch has its own sound though, even with essences reminding of others, it stands boldly unique and creatively salacious to the threesome of vocalist/guitarist Joe Wise(also of Punching Swans), bassist Ollie Crook, and drummer Suzanne Freeman.

As previous tracks and the All Hail Space Chicken EP before it, Fairymares swiftly entangles ears in a web of sound and invention, opening up with the band’s lust breeding single of last year Biscuit Beard. From the glorious carnivorously natured, bestial toned growl of Crook’s bassline setting things off, the track infests body and soul. Wise’s riffs are just as carnal in touch and sound, his flowing grooves equally rapacious as Freeman’s controlled swings punch further subservience to the song’s call on an instantly lustful appetite. The track is pure addiction, its Gang Of Four soiled rhythmic tempting alone irresistible and the wiry web of sonic endeavour and vocal nagging Mekons like.

It is just the start of the album’s insane grooving and rhythmic baiting with the following Dracula Pukes revealing its own nest of creative vipers as cutting scythes of guitar and punch happy rhythms challenge and enthral for a mere fifty seven seconds; a gripping minute of cantankerous confrontation leading to the virulently infectious stroll of Ham Planet. Like Pere Ubu on steroids as Turbogeist writhes under the punk influence of The Fall, the track dances with pop infused boisterousness though every swinging movement of its creative hips comes with seductive venomous intent as Wise declares his vocal desires.

The exceptional Burn Baby keeps the lust hungrily burning next, its lo-fi canvas a tangle of steely petulant grooves, intimately flirtatious beats, and crabby bass groans as vocals install their own brand of psyche trespassing persuasion. It is aural corruption leaving a lingering touch though Witch Fingers straight after soon steals all attention. With we assume Freeman taking vocal lead, the track is like a demented fusion of Daisy Chainsaw and The Fire Engines, off kilter toxic melody and dancing vocals uniting in an adult nursery rhyme like trespass of sanity.

Ghost Fire offers its own cranky invention, stabbing riffs and sonic vining shadowing Wise’s compelling stabbing vocals as another gloriously testy and intrusive bassline sparks feverish submission across its single minute before the repetitive prowess of Erotic Clocks has ears tempted hook, line, and sinker. With a slight whiff of Spizzenergi to it, the track is another sure fire infestation of body and psyche with its rhythmic nag and caustic expulsions.

With seductive danger to its cartoonish and creative loco, Gotham Piper lures the listener in next, continuing to lay a certifiable creative hand on the senses before intermittently uncaging its inner meshuga in ferocious style. The Cardiacs comes to mind within the thrilling encounter, Mark E. Smith and co even more so in successor Cat Curfew though once more as Wise lords over his own weave of sonic wiring and the rhythmic union of Crook and Freeman, Frau Pouch imprint only their own uniqueness.

Sleepstalker completes the line-up of treats, its sombre yet vibrantly magnetic fingering of the senses the stuff of nightmares; Crooks’ grievous bassline the stalker, Freeman’s beats the trap, and Wise in voice and sonic intrusion the swamp impossible to escape from. They are all delicious ingredients in a thrilling end to not only the best thing to come from Frau Pouch but potentially 2017 as a whole.

Fairymares is released 27th January via Skingasm Records.

https://www.facebook.com/FrauPouch/ https://fraupouch.bandcamp.com/

Pete RingMaster 24/01/2017

Punching Swans – Nesting

Jan20

artwork_RingMaster Review

How to describe UK trio Punching Swans?

You could say they are a carnivorous groove machine, a sonically schizophrenic rumble, or a rabidly twisted siren; all applying to the creative psyche and adventure that breeds the band’s irresistible sound and now their new fiercely virulent album Nesting. Maybe the best way to describe Punching Swans is a twisted union between The Fall, McLusky, The Fire Engines, and Maths and the Moon. It is a band which despite a clutch of similarly distinct releases has remained in the shadows of the UK music scene like the black sheep of a family which gets locked away in the attic away from prying ears. Now though, the door is unlocked and the band is about to infest British rock ‘n’ roll with their tempestuously deranged math punk, courtesy of the inimitably thrilling Nesting.

Punching Swans is the ravenous creation of producer (Sunlight Studios) Greg Webster, formerly of Medway greats Houdini, the equally impressive Frau Pouch’s Joe Wise, and Pablo Paganotto from The Explorers Collective. Formed in 2011 or 2012, depending where you read, by Greg and Joe from a one-off band called Laura Palmer and the One-Eyed Jacks they got together for a Twin Peaks night, Punching Swans quickly sparked ears with a self-titled debut album in 2012, and even more so with its successor Mollusc two years later via Skingasm Records. Each has inspired potent attention and praise across fans, media, and radio shows but it is easy to feel it has all only been the taster to reactions about to be triggered by Nesting.

Telling the “story of one man’s journey from self-imposed isolation to the skies”, Nesting takes little time in gripping attention and appetite as its opener, Cuckoo Cuckold K-killed, dangles sonic bait in front of ears before the robustly contagious beats of Paganotto get to rebellious work. His swings tempt and seduce with a tenacious grin, coaxing bodily involvement as vocals walk the rhythmic web into the imagination as tangy guitar and devilish bass lures begin to stir and add to the increasingly enthralling and incendiary stroll. Unsurprisingly there is a touch of Houdini and Frau Pouch to the delicious incitement but equally thoughts of Swell Maps and inescapably The Fall also flavour the first treat.

Seriously dynamic and gripping, the album’s superb start continues with Man Nest, an even more psychotic and caustically enterprising proposition that needs mere seconds to seduce and inflame the senses too. Wise’s bass shows it has probably the grouchiest textures in British rock ‘n’ roll at its disposal whilst Webster’s guitar trespasses show no qualms about infesting the senses and psyche, acidic grooves and fiery tempting a perpetual forte.

Pigeon Street toys with more restrained energies and urgencies for its enthralling exploits next, though it is all relative to what came before as the song, with the scything beats of Paganotto an inescapable trigger to get physically involved, blossoming into an insatiable almost predatory shuffle of searing grooves, thumping rhythms, and zealous revelry. Even its calm climax has an element of off-kilter ingenuity before the infectious rock ‘n’ roll of Ovulations rumbles along with the fervent vocals of Wise and Webster holding the reins. Again hooks and grooves steal the passions as rhythms jab deeply, the song entwining post and garage punk texturing into its fearsomely alluring landscape.

That great bass tone is at its crabbiest again in the following Beak Throat and its peevish stalking of the senses within a net of guitar spun wiry hooks and sonic delights around vocal dexterity. It is hard to imagine anybody able to resist the choleric grooves of the song or possible to see the track alone avoid sending rapturous waves across post punk/noise rock pastures with its gloriously savaging and exhilarating tempest.

The brief but again irresistible invasive seduction of Ostrituals comes next to forcibly arouse the passions. If Public Image Ltd had been The Wonderstuff or Wire been McLusky, you wonder if they would have sounded like this mouth-watering predacious stomp whilst its clamorous successor Headless Chickens suggests The Dancing Did or Stomp doing salacious things with Pere Ubu or Marc Riley & The Creepers. The outcome of both and all songs though, despite suggested spices, is always something unique to Punching Swans as proven by Pecked to Death which cantankerously sits between them. Snarky in tone and unhinged in character, the track meanders and twists into unpredictable and manic detours but returning all the time to its rapacious and concussively catchy directness.

The bulging rhythms of Egg Rock is an immediate and successful infestation of the passions, its sonic tendrils and testy Mark E. Smith laced vocal strains only adding to another senses searing, lust inducing incitement before Flight brings the invasive alchemy of the album to an end. The clamant finale to Nesting is a raw soar into noise pop infectiousness and magnetic sonic caterwauling which just lights the touch paper to rapture before retiring to leave ringing in the ears and euphoria in the heart.

Nesting is the first essential album of the year and Punching Swans one of the bands set to step out of the shadows in 2016 and become seriously shouted about.

Nesting is released via Skingasm Records on 22nd January digitally and on CD with a hand numbered limited edition of 30 with a 16-page book featuring drawings and notes from the story behind the album @ http://punchingswans.bandcamp.com/

— Punching Swans Tour 2016 —

JAN 28 CANTERBURY w/Mass lines, Death Pedals, Negative Space

JAN 29 CHATHAM Poco Loco – MEDWAY ALBUM LAUNCH w/Girlpower & Bear vs Manero

FEB 11 CAMDEN Unicorn w/Mayors of Miyazaki + Screen wives

FEB 16 BRIGHTON TBC

FEB 21 OXFORD The Library Pub

FEB 24 BRISTOL Stag & Hounds

FEB 27 LIVERPOOL Maguire’s w/ Robocobra Quartet, Jazzhands and Cal Banda

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Pete RingMaster 20/01/2016

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