Intrigue and dark secrets: talking with Modern Day Dukes

Pic Holt’s Photography

We don’t know about you guys but there is an instinctive appetite here for music which puts the bass to the fore. There is exactly what you get with UK trio Modern Day Dukes, a two bass, one drum kit combination which creates a web of intrigue, adventure, and imagination many fully instrument loaded bands would kill for. New single Okhrana is instant proof of the band’s invention and uniqueness, a combination which hit our sweet spot. With thanks to Carl Arnfield, the man behind the new single’s great video, we settled down with the band to explore the world of Modern Day Dukes….

Hi Guys, thanks for sharing time to talk with us.

Would you please introduce the band to the readers?

We’re a 2 bass / no guitar band from Yorkshire…Pais ‘n’ Rory on bass and Jordan playing the drums. We all sing a bit.

How did you all meet and tell us about the first steps of the band.

I (Pais) met Rory and Jordan through our old guitar boy Ben Marsden. Jordan used to stand in on drums all the time when our old drummer couldn’t make a gig so when the drum stool was vacant he was naturally the guy to fill it.

We are suckers here for all bass no guitar outfits in particular MoRkObOt and Lightning Bolt. What led you down this avenue with the band?

Hadn’t heard those bands before, just checked them out and we really dig them. I’ll add them to my No Guitar / all Bass Spotify playlist.

We were a normal guitar band, but when our guitarist left, rather than replace him we decided to go for something completely different. Rory and Jordan were playing with being a bassy duo and I’d been doing some guitarless demos so we just combined them both and kept the name ‘Modern Day Dukes’ because we had a ton of unsold merch.

There are not that many bands which explore and weave only with bass and drums, a few which do but add synths too, do you think the music scene still annoyingly look down on the instrument as a lesser cousin to the guitar?

Yes. Bass is best. If you get some decent effects, you can make a wide range of sounds.  It’s weird that bass is looked down upon; it’s normally my favourite part of songs.

Did you find a readymade appetite for your set up in your hometowns of Sheffield and Leeds?

Some people get it, some people don’t. The more we do it, the more we work out what works, so it’s easier to convert people to Dukes fans. It took us a little while to find our feet.

Is Modern Day Dukes the first band for you all?

No, Pais was in Silverjet for 8 years and Rory did some shows with a band called Screaming Eagles. This is Jordan’s first rock band.

What sparked the band name?

Pais has always found posh things kinda funny. So that’s where Dukes comes from. It’s also probably subconsciously pinched from an unreleased Weezer track called Modern Dukes. Thinking about it, it’s pretty much a direct steal.

Casting ears over your Happy Now? EP, through to new single, Okhrana, your sound has not only a potent variety to it but has audibly grown release by release. How would you describe its evolution over the past couple of years or so?

We have a couple of earlier releases (These Sick Swans and PPPEP) which really don’t reflect us anymore due to changes in sound and line-up. We’re easily bored so changing things up is a way to stop things getting stale. Every release we’ve tried to come at from a different direction. When we’ve done this bass-thing for a bit we might end up trying something completely new.

Do you go out to try new things each and every time or just let things organically explore?

Photo by Carl @ Chalkman Video Studios

A bit of both, often people leaving or joining the band has significantly changed the sound because we don’t want to just try to emulate what old members did.

Tell us about the new track, for us your most unique and tenaciously mischievous song yet and the premise to its tale.

Essentially I (Jordan) was having a YouTube history binge and stumbled upon the Okhrana. It’s quite a dark theme considering what they did but for some reason it inspired.

You linked up with those great filmmakers Chalkman Video. How did that link up come about?

We know Carl of Chalkman through Rio Goldhammer from the band 1919. Rio also owns Bunnysnot Records that put out our second EP.

Tell us about the shoot and how you all came up with the idea and feel of the film with its great sinister tone and lighting?

That’s 100% Carl. We went to him not really knowing what we wanted so he did all the creative work and we love him for it. Really happy with how it came out.

Is the song typical of what we can expect in the near future from the band and what is next from Modern Day Dukes?

We’re mid-way through recording an album; the other tracks that are completed are totally different shades of Modern Day Dukes.

Tell us how the songwriting process works within the band.

Normally one of us writes 90% of a song then we work together fine-tuning it. The latest single, Okhrana was written by Jordan and in the practice room we added the middle 8 and changed up some sections a little bit.

What has the rest of the year in store for the band gig wise?

We’ve been asked to do a few acoustic with Blacklist Saints so it’s mostly that. I’d love to book a few more full-band acoustic shows; it means we get to play a mix of old and new songs with weird stripped back arrangements.

Our big thanks again, any last thoughts you would like to share?

Cheers for interviewing us Pete. Stay in school, ‘cos Jordan didn’t and now he has to play drums for Modern Day Dukes.

 

   https://www.facebook.com/moderndaydukes/    http://www.moderndaydukes.co.uk/

Pete RingMaster 01/11/2017

Copyright RingMaster: MyFreeCopyright

MoRkObOt – GoRgO

Photo credit: Muur Studio

For us there are few bands which produce grooves and unpredictable twists as carnivorous as they are relentlessly addictive and inventive than MoRkObOt, and the creators of rhythmic and grooved entanglements have done it again with fifth album GoRgO, woven a web of psyche twisting trespasses through their twin bass and psychotic drum instrumental alchemy.

The Italian trio of bassists Lin and Lan, and drummer Lon have excavated their most primal yet dynamically and imaginatively inventive maelstrom of sound yet with GoRgO, almost as if their twelve years and previous quartet of releases have been building up to this momentous moment. Recorded by Giulio Ragno Favero (Zu, Teatro degli Orrori, OvO, One Dimensional Man) at Lignum Studio in Italy, the album manages to stir an intimate as well as broadly ravenous incitement across seven slices of aural psychosis. The press release for GoRgO describes the album as “low-end noise rock origami” and from its first crunching breath a folding and twisting of texture and convention is exactly what involves the listener.

Opener Kogromot instantly grabs body and imagination as the opening lure of beats play like a side show barker, inviting attention as the waiting dexterity and rapacity of the bass slung duo stands poised to join in the ensnaring of ears and dismantling of expectations. Quickly the virulence of the track consumes ears; swinging beats and hungry grooves creating a raw festival of cantankerous sound and revelry that preys on the senses as much as it ignites them.

The mouth-watering start continues through the darker excitable throes of Kologora, Lon’s jungle of twisted rhythms alone ear and appetite gripping. As ever there is a predatory side to the heavy and the creatively dissentient nature of the MoRkObOt sound, the shadow lingering tone of the first track a growling antagonist in the second and subsequently an invasive almost cancerous infestation in the third. Gorokta takes a less direct approach to stirring up the emotions than its predecessors, their more forceful intrusiveness replaced by a ‘mellower’ and expansive adventure weaving more textural and sonic hues in its head spinning proposal. At times Lon is a blur of sticks and beats whilst Lin and Lan sculpt a calmer but emotionally dangerous landscape of enterprise.

There is no other band like MoRkObOt, their technical craft and distinct imagination blending forms of simplicity with seriously involved imagination, every note as revealed again within the outstanding Ogrog, skilfully and instinctively inventive to send the listener spinning into fresh adventures each and every time shared. Another track which prowls, virtually stalks the senses with rhythmic dexterity to lust over, it makes way for the harmonic discord and heterodoxic Kromot. The track glorious invades and seduces body and spirit, nurturing a creative and renegade instinct within itself and its targets. For some reason steampunk like imagery comes to mind during the track, aural technology and aesthetic designs coming together like a puppeteer which in many ways is what MoRkObOt are; puppeteers of rhythms, riffs, and grooves, not forgetting the psyche.

The album completes the rousing and seducing of the passions with firstly the dark, sinister, and slightly vaudevillian exploits of Krogor and lastly the epic Gorog which takes and accentuates all those elements and more into an otherworldly and deeply cavernous soundscape. Forcibly mesmeric and bewitchingly off-kilter within its shadowy beauty, the track is stunning; a sublime and transfixing exploration growing from its noir almost jazzy emergence into one deceptively raptorial encounter.

There is no denying we have a real soft spot for MoRkObOt but fans or not there is no escaping that GoRgO is the finest entanglement with the band yet and one of the year’s most irresistible offerings.

GoRgO is out now via Supernatural Cat on CD, Vinyl, and digitally.

http://www.morkobot.org   http://www.facebook.com/morkobot   http://morkobot.bandcamp.com

Pete RingMaster 28/09/2016

Copyright RingMaster: MyFreeCopyright

The Lumberjack Feedback – Blackened Visions

As debut albums go, Blackened Visions from French instrumental progressive doomsters The Lumberjack Feedback is a colossus, though maybe that is not so much a surprise given the impressive and intensive tempest of their earlier offerings. The new album though sees the band exploring even more darkly provocative depths and uncompromisingly invasive textures in their sound and sonic suggestiveness. Blackened Visions lives up to its name with physically invasive ease; providing an inventive playground for the imagination and emotions to eagerly conjure within whilst at the same time luring ears into dramatic landscapes.

The band’s first acclaimed EP Hand of Glory in 2013 set the template and intent of The Lumberjack Feedback exploration in composing and sound, it offering a highly ravenous and intrusive adventure which has only grown more compelling and creatively dynamic, not forgetting experimentally bold within Blackened Visions. Between these releases, the Lille quintet drew potent reactions with Ausstellung, a split release with We All Die (Laughing) and the live EP Noise in the Church, both in 2014. Fair to say though, that Blackened Visions sees the twin guitar craft and imagination of Simon Herbaut and Arnaud Silvert, the predacious bass trespass of Sebastien Tarridec, and the united and often duelling enterprise of drummers Nicolas Tarridec and Virgil Chaize, sculpting their most stimulating and immersive proposals yet.

The band’s fusion of crushing doom metal with progressive and post rock explorations, all infused with tar like sludge and intensively fiery stoner-esque fascination, swiftly seduces and devours body and senses with the initial heavy throws of its opener No Cure (For The Fools). The track is a predator, laying down a sonic trail as menacing riffs lurk in the background before bringing it all to the intimidating fore led by the bestial instincts of bass and the united grouchy twang of the guitars. The track continues to crawl over and invade ears as it develops an equally gripping anthemic devilment to the combined but individual rapacity of the drums. There is a touch of Morkobot to the piece and equally in its raw character and volatile intensity, the scent of bands like Neurosis and Pelican, but whereas maybe in previous encounters they would be an overriding presence straight away Blackened Visions reveals a distinction solely from The Lumberjack Feedback.

The excellent start continues with the album’s title track. The melodic first touch and stormy air is an engaging but portentous melancholy fuelled invitation which only intensifies as guitars and bass entwine and creep around firm rhythmic pokes. There is a fearsome romance to the lure of the music too, even as things intrusively erupt and grooves become more sinewy as rhythms forcibly make their trespass. Darkness and invasive shadows always come equipped with a certain lure and so it is with the increasingly fiery and vitriolic landscape and indeed heart of Blackened Visions, song and album.

I, Mere Mortal steps forward next, another sonic coaxing the first contact from within which a rousing rhythmic incitement grabs the imagination and appetite. The anthemic potency of the drums is matched by a throaty bait of bass whilst a repetitive nagging from the guitars adds to the raw almost monolithic tempting enveloping the listener before spreading broader pestilential and ravenous sonic antipathy. The track is irresistible; a gloriously bruising call to arms led by, to simplify things, the thumping drama of rhythms and niggling persistence of guitar.

Karma to Burn like spicing lines Salvation next, melodic acidity which burns on the senses but sweetly entices ears and heart to its cancerous rock ‘n roll leading to intensely viscous doom and post rock spawned exploration. It is a flight into the beauty and hopeful calm found within acceptances of dark and merciless emotional and physical climates, and another song which leaves the body invigorated, thoughts stretched, and emotions exhausted.

A tapestry of drama and creative enmity follows with Dra Till Helvete, the track an addictive and mercurial beckoning turned sonic devourer leading body and imagination into the hellish depths of the underworld with rhythmic magnetism. As through all tracks, thoughts paint a picture and emotions flirt with more intimate realisation, every intrusive note and swinging beat a powerfully impacting and rabidly lingering incitement to be entangled in.

Mah Song (Horses Of God) completes the album, it a rumbling and lumbering beast merging expulsions of rock ‘n’ roll with psyche twisting post rock winds infused with danger lit melodic veins. It is a dramatic and compelling end to a demandingly impressive proposition. The Lumberjack Feedback has unlocked their most destructive and invigorating depths yet with Blackened Visions and it feels like it is just the beginning too; happy days!

Blackened Visions is out now via Kaotoxin Records digitally @ http://listen.kaotoxin.com/album/blackened-visions and as limited edition 500 copy DigiSLeeve CD with 100 copy collector edition 12″ LP on clear vinyl and 400 copy limited edition 12″ LP regular versions will be released during 2016’s second quarter at the Kaotoxin Shop.

https://www.facebook.com/thelumberjackfeedbackband    http://www.thelumberjackfeedback.com/    https://twitter.com/LumberjackFeedb

Pete RingMaster 18//01/2016

Copyright RingMaster: MyFreeCopyright

For more exploration of the independent and promotional services check out http://www.zykotika.com/

Tirades – Lifetime of Wars

“It all started in February 2014 when guitarist Munoz was in the Andes. His car broke down along the Los Libertadores and help was far away. Out of nothing came Nauhel, an Indian from the Mapuche tribe in Chile.

Nauhel invited Munoz to his camp and insisted that Munoz stayed overnight. It turned out that Nauhel was a musician in traditional Mapuche music, and Munoz had 20 drafts to what once would become Tirades’ debut album. Munoz and Nauhel exchanged musical ideas throughout that night as the moths danced around the bonfire. Nauhel gave Munoz the name “Pülü”, meaning insect in Mapuche, to commemorate the moths who kept them company through the night. This night caused all other musical projects to be set to side, and Tirades became the main priority from here on out.”

That is the background to a band which unleashed one of last year’s unexpected and seriously exciting roars in the shape of Lifetime of Wars. A slow start release wise to a new year always allows for a catch-up of propositions that initially escaped but deserve attention and without doubt the first album from Norwegian hardcore protagonists Tirades qualify. Whatever its origins and seeds, Lifetime of Wars is a glorious and challenging slab of rock ‘n’ roll which rousingly embraces a web of noise and punk fuelled flavours driven by imagination stirring adventure.

     The September of 2014 saw Bergen hailing Tirades enter into the recording of their album with producer Andrew Neufeld (Comeback Kid). Alongside guitarist/vocalist Esteban Munoz, also the drummer of Social Suicide, stood bassist/vocalist Remi Arefjord also of Jeroan Drive and guitarist in Social Suicide, Of Grace and Hatred drummer Mathias Simonsen, and guitarist/vocalist Markus Den Ouden from Blodig Alvor. Together they have created a confrontation as sonically intrusive and emotionally cantankerous as it is anthemically and energetically inspiring. Released in the latter moments of last year through Fight! Records, the punk ‘n’ roll blaze is an immediate contagion drawing, as mentioned, on varied spices of metal and punk driven rock ‘n’ roll to brawl and stomp with the listener.

Fear The Saviour is the first potent incitement, the opener springing from a suggestive guitar spun invitation into a predatory stalking of the senses with beats and bass leading the way. Tribal spicing colours Den Ouden’s bait whilst the bass of Arefjord has a carnivorous tone to its snarl, both tempered by the ethereal vocals and wiry enterprise of guitar. Electro spicing equally adds more drama and texture to the post punk scented introduction, the song playing like a blend of Morkobot and Tones on Tail as it leads ear and an instantly awoken appetite towards the bracing confrontational tempest of Death Bell. Smothering ears in thumping beats and sonic provocation from its first breath as vocals challenge, the track swiftly has body and emotions aflame with its rousing and contagious canter. Subsequent clean vocal chants and the ever primal tone of the bass only add to the lure of the rousing seduction, the song twisting into the infection loaded hardcore and corrosive rock ‘n’ roll which fellow Norwegians Shevils are as equally adept at unleashing, they the closest comparison coming to mind for the uniqueness of Tirades.

The exhilarating stirring of the passions makes way for the more barbarous riot of Ghost, though it too is soon evolving within ears as the band explore fresh hues and resourcefulness employing varied styles. Far too short for personal greed, the track gives way to Sleepless. Featuring Kvelertak guitarist Maciek Ofstad, the track evokes defiant attitudes with its aggressive bawl of sound and voice, only adding to the chest beating potency with catchy moments of clean vocal led incitement. As its predecessor, a major highlight is uncaged, a song which is as imaginatively unpredictable and addictively alluring as it is fiercely exhaustive and more than matched by the exceptional Precious Demon which flows out of its tail blast. Further invigorated by Social Suicide vocalist Marius Jahnsen and Tarjei Strøm, another maelstrom of invention and noise rabidity descends upon and swallows the senses, it too inciting lusty involvement with its caustic collusion of diverse textures and punk rock aggravation.

There is a touch of NVRVD and Bear to the track whilst in its successor Relignorance a spatter of The Great Sabatini teases as it’s more restrained hardcore hostility allows vocal melodies and noise rock tendrils to captivate from within the fierce romancing and subsequent haunting atmospherics unleashed. Volatility is as much a constant in a Tirades song as attitude and ferocity and the track embraces all within its compelling design before Reach Victory batters forcibly on ears and in turn Skin scorches the sense with its sonic toxicity and ravenous intensity. The first of the pair is an abrasive bellow with its own line in dynamic rhythms and agreeably searing hooks matched to the constantly anthemic vocals whilst its successor is an emprise of punk belligerence and feverish imagination drawing on another diverse range of metal, heavy rock, and blissful noise

False Prophets keeps the fires of satisfaction burning forcibly next, its skilled merger of contrasts and addiction forging ingenuity making the appetite greedy whilst immediately after Never Again grumbles and rumbles like a bear with a sore head; one wanting to tear apart the body and dance with the skeletal remains. It is hard to remember in recent times a crushing destructive protagonist as virulently catchy and irresistible as the superb song, though within the album it is just one of a band of demandingly contagious and rabidly inventive trespasses.

The album is completed by the acoustic croon of 1996, an evocative piece of stringed and acoustic expression shaped by voice and emotion which only impresses but still pales against the sheer magnificence of what came before. A bonus remix by Ralph Myerz also adds to the thick enjoyment of Lifetime of Wars, an album which hopefully is the first of many given the other commitments of its creators.

In a recent review we remarked on the pinnacle 2015 ended on in the number of seriously striking releases unveiled. Tirades are another one in the list, maybe the very best of that moment and in the cream thrilling the whole year.

Lifetime of Wars is out now via Fight! Records through most online stores.

https://www.facebook.com/tiradesofficial

Pete RingMaster 08/01/2016

Copyright RingMaster: MyFreeCopyright

For more exploration of the independent and promotional services check out http://www.zykotika.com/

Unmothered – U M B R A

U M B R A is a predator soaked in doom and sludge but equally draped with essences of black metal, noise, stoner rock, and most likely any other voracious flavour you can imagine. It is also one of the most primal and inventively addictive things heard so far in 2015. The new carnivorous proposition from US band Unmothered, the three track EP proposition brawls through ears, violates the senses, and scars the psyche from start to finish, all the time igniting the passions with its fierce turbulence. There is no escape once it takes hold but no desire to flee its uncompromising trespass either.

Starting their raucous prowl of the senses in 2010, the Austin hailing Unmothered unleashed their self-titled debut EP vinyl in 2012 to acclaiming responses across the underground scene. It brought seven atmospherically ravenous and physically cavernous landscapes to feast on the senses, laying the seeds for the even darker and in many ways more intimate intrusions to be found within the insidious temptation of U M B R A.

    As its predecessor, the EP is wrapped in the artwork of UK artist Andrew Sloan, its dark toning and organic imagery a first glimpse of the creative tapestry and sonic exploration set to seduce ears and beyond. Opener Magnetar rubs ears with a lone riff to begin within but swiftly revolves and broadens into a predatory canter of imposing rhythms from drummer Matt Moulis and dark throaty bait courtesy of Joseph Barnes’ bass, both entwined in the just as gripping sonic tenacity of guitarist Matt Walker. Alone each sculpts pure drama but together they make aural pestilence whilst additionally conjuring a groove which no matter where it leads or what it twists itself into, is an unrelenting seducing within the carnal ambience and textures around it. The pestilential tones of Walker’s vocals crawl into the psyche too as they hitch a ride on the increasingly contagious grooving and tsunami like hostility swinging its way to the same destination.

If the swagger of the first song is incendiary and contagious, it is light weight compared to that of Scarp and before it Huntress. The second song scythes through ears on a sonic lure before thickening its bait within a musty swamp of noise. It is only building towards the point of greater addictive enterprise though, another flaming acidic groove with a waspish nature flirting within ears as guitars and drums spin a magnetic enslaving web. Equipped with gnarly bass tones which simply inflame the senses, the song offers whispers of bands like Ministry and Morkobot, though equally you would suggest Unsane or a Today is the Day, as many do, as a hint to the ravaging being enjoyed. The track is irresistible, a disembowelling of the senses with riveting rewards in return but quickly over shadowed by the final song.

Scarp from its first breath is a torrent of sonic nagging, Walker’s guitar a primal bee in the psyche which is rapidly matched in primeval temptation by the roguish swipes of Moulis and the throaty dissent of bass. A rhythmic and sonic virulence does not let up even as the raw tones of Walker spill their new narrative of aggression and his guitar skirts over the Killing Joke like rhythmic spine with its caustic and corrosive enterprise. A post rock like calm embraces ears midway through to wrong-foot and bewitch, the drums continuing to roll out a mouth-watering and unrelenting niggle of anthemic beats throughout. It is a mesmeric and meditative passage yet in its air, lurking in the shadows there is an intimidation and menace which bides its time before exploding in one hellacious climax of one outstanding incitement.

The track is a brilliant; a gripping end to a glorious slab of noise fuelled contagion posing as U M B R A. Letting greed have its say there is no doubting that the EP is over too soon but with the adage ‘leave them wanting more’ surely in its thoughts, U M B R A and Unmothered have opened up a vat of anticipation for something bigger and you suspect even more threateningly bolder.

U M B R A is available from May 26^th via Crowquill Records. For details see http://crowquillrecords.limitedrun.com/artists/unmothered

http://unmothered.com/   https://www.facebook.com/Unmothered

RingMaster 26/05/2015

Copyright RingMaster: MyFreeCopyright

Listen to the best independent music and artists on The RingMaster Review Radio Show and The Bone Orchard on Reputation Radio @ http://www.reputationradio.net

Charge – Sweet Lies

With a band name like Charge, you need a sound with a suitable intensity of energy and boldness to it, and that is exactly what the French metallers provide with debut album Sweet Lies. It is a storming onslaught of voracious and volatile rock ‘n’ roll, a multi-flavoured adventure which might have a few minor issues but provides a seriously exciting and potential soaked incitement. The band has been around since 2004 and have tucked a couple of EPs under their belts but Sweet Lies is their first thick nudge on appetites beyond the Paris and French rock scene, and makes a rousing invitation many will be compelled to eagerly embrace.

Forming around eight years ago, Charge quickly brought out the demo Ain’t My World, recorded with producer Francis Caste (Zuul FX, The ARRS) who returned to work with the band on their first official EP 8 Miles Away in 2009. It is fair to say both as well as a live presence dishing out adrenaline driven and raucously varied metal, brought potent attention and a swiftly growing fan base locally. The band’s line-up has been through a few changes since day one but now with the release of the album, vocalist/rhythm bassist Ravin, guitarist Sacha, drummer Loïc, and lead bassist Lionnel are now looking at broader spotlights to breach. Consisting of the songs from their EP and new tracks produced by Spirou (Bérurier Black), all mixed and mastered by Caste, Sweet Lies opens with a contagious riot and just does not look back.

From the first surge of the initial groove, the album and its opener Alone has ears and imagination hooked. The potent first breath is swiftly a surging torrent of bass riffs, thumping beats, and squalling sonic enticement, a magnetic start soon providing an inescapable onslaught of anthemic bait. Thrash and groove metal collude with heavy rock and punk essences in the now riotous affair, whilst vocally Ravin, though at times a little wayward, just fires up the gripping turbulence further. The union of basses brings a great growl to it all and provides rich depth to song and subsequently album though Charge does not exploit the opportunities they offer enough in some ways. With both openly skilfully played, the band never quite finds the experimental potential explored by for example Morkobot, but it is a dual attack sculpting thick irresistible bait and resourceful adventure as evidenced straight away by Fantasy.

The second song has a much more restrained start but one soaked in menace and predatory intent. The twin prowl of certainly not identical bass provides a bestial and sinisterly charming proposal pierced by the forceful jabs of Loïc and entwined in the just as rabidly delivered and resourcefully crafted sonic laces of guitar. Eventually the controlled stroll succumbs to a brewing intensity, erupting in a ferocious rampage but one easily slipping through the gears in all directions. There is an element of post punk to the colder acidic hooks and of nu-metal in the psyche enslaving devilry, everything coming together for one thrilling stomp.

Both 84 and That’s It keep album and emotions ablaze, the first merging raw elements of pop punk with melodic rock and more whilst turning each flavour into a cauldron of hostile and infectious endeavour. Its successor is even more contagious, bass and guitar grooves aligning with gripping hooks for a flowing tempting within the lure of the other growling almost carnivorous bass and the senses punishing beats. It also spins a weave of melodic and milder tempered exploits which adds to the irresistible romp before making way for the pungent drama and addictiveness of Just Want More. Also as punk as it is metal, Russian band Biting Elbows coming to mind at certain points, the track is a barbarous and wholly catchy incitement on ears and passions, and as the album just increases in potency and persuasion with every listen.

The sheer force and busy assaults of songs does at times hide the individual skill and invention of the band members, but each only impresses and shows a hungry imagination throughout even if, as suggested earlier, they have the potential to explore greater triumphs not quite realised here. With songs like the following One though, there are no complaints just more anticipation of their future. The track is a juggernaut of heavy duty riffs and towering beats insatiably rolling with the handbrake off over the senses. To that vocals scowl and roar with impressive potency whilst tangy grooves and even spicier hooks leap out from every corner and twist of the exceptional infestation of ears and emotions.

The epidemic lure and rampancy of the album continues with its title track, punk metal unleashed with addiction spawning relish and aggression but aligned to searing flames of sonic enterprise and the ever seducing blend of ravenous bass invention. Such the potency of its onslaught, even sitting down and listening to the album’s best song leaves exhaustion in its wake.

Sweet Lies is brought to a fine close by Ain’t My World, the most hostile and raw encounter on the release, though the band is as unpredictable as ever slipping slithers of melodic calm and warm melodic enticing into the hellacious storm with skilled efficiency and effect. It is a striking end to an outstanding release. There is often something familiar to songs with the encounter but as everything it only helps make tracks an adventure in recognising their source and in baiting a thick physical offering from the listener to its temptations.

Charge, if not through Sweet Lies, at some point will not be just a treat for the French to bask in and be battered by, though the invitation from this album really should be checked out now by all.

Sweet Lies is available now @ https://itunes.apple.com/gb/album/sweet-lies/id912217677

http://www.chargerocks.com/   https://www.facebook.com/ChargeRocksBand

RingMaster 13/05/2015

Copyright RingMaster: MyFreeCopyright

Listen to the best independent music and artists on The RingMaster Review Radio Show and The Bone Orchard on Reputation Radio @ http://www.reputationradio.net

 

Noise-A-Tron – Vast Arcane

There is a video going around and hitting news stations over strange unearthly noises invading ears and psyche from around the globe. Is it terrestrial bred, alien spawned, or the earth groaning? No one knows but I would suggest the cause just might originate from the practise rooms of US duo Noise-A-Tron, because their new instrumental EP Vast Arcane is a doom spawned confrontation casting similarly portentous and haunting roars of sonic disturbance and apocalyptic seduction. It is also seriously compelling, an irresistible experiment of drone fuelled noise rock which magnificently challenges and ignites everything from ears to imagination.

Noise-A-Tron consists of drummer Jason Bledsoe and his wife Lea on synths and bass. The seeds of the band began with Florida band Bullhead in which Indiana bred Jason played. They released two EPs and in 2000 recruited Michigan born Lea Rudko into the line-up. Previously she had played in experimental noise project Terror Organ, a two piece with Angel Corpse singer/bassist Pete Helmkamp. Early 2002 saw the demise of those bands and the beginning of The Human Echo which went on to release a couple of well-received albums and undertake several tours. In 2005 Jason and Lea married and four years later the end of the band was the springboard for the rising of Noise-A-Tron. The pair released a well-received self-titled EP in 2010, its impacting presence and invention continuing through Vast Arcane in the same heavy imposing way but exploring even darker ravenous realms of sound and emotional menace through an invasive sonic bleeding of noise. It is a ravaging trespass of the senses and emotions but at times equally as anthemic and seductively potent in its enterprise and temptation.

The release opens with Intro, the track as its title suggests setting up the oppressive and suffocating atmosphere of the release but featuring as an individual proposal in its own formidable right too. Keys spin a haunting ambience from its first breath, an emerging spatial atmosphere punctuated by heftily swung beats from Jason. The imagination is swiftly alive with ideas and adventures sparked by the piece, thick sonic bellows and slow laboured roars alone enough bait to dark cinematic flights of fancy.

   Following track Six, all songs consecutively numbered, has a lighter air, well in relation to its predecessor, but one again permeating the senses with creeping shadows of sound and intent. The 8-string bass flirtation from Lea is as transfixing as her skills on keys, a fascinating tangle of textures mixed live whilst mesmerising ears and air with startling invention. The track as the album is contagiously meditative, every sonic yawn and piercing intrusion as hypnotic as it is fearsome, and often equipped with infectious virulence. Even in its caustic and harshly aired finale there is a gripping essence which simply enthrals. Like a sub note to the stark narrative of the track, the brief inescapable lure of Six Point Five takes over next, bass and drums a riotous anthem of epidemic agitation and addictive enterprise. It is a festival compared to the dark climate of the previous sounds but still only offering a menacing tone and enticement at its heart.

Seven slips back into a lumbering gait and intensive examination of noise and listener, though its gaping sonic voice and physical consumption wraps around another lively incitement of rhythms. There is vastness to the piece of sound, though courted by the more intimate touches of drums, an exploration of depths which from the EP artwork hint is celestial but can just as easily be a flight into the unknown depths of earth and sea, or the darkest inescapable nightmares of the mind.

The erosive invasive beauty of the track continues into the epic closer Eight, near on fourteen minutes of rhythmic provocation immersed in a bracing sonic swamp thick in noise and intensity but breath-taking in its ever evolving scenery. As in all tracks, the textures crafted and spun out to startling impact are beautifully layered, each element given a clarity which defies the overall sweltering climate of the increasingly dark and imposing but always seriously giving soundscape.

The quite brilliant Vast Arcane and indeed Noise-A-Tron themselves are not going to be for everyone, the intensity and raw essence of their sound a challenge too far for many, but if any mix of bands like Morkobot, Dope Body, Godflesh, or Sunn O))) sounds like a great appetiser then the Seattle pair have an extraordinary treat in store for you.

Vast Arcane is available now via Bleeding Light Records digitally @ http://bleedinglightrecords.bigcartel.com/product/noise-a-tron-vast-arcane-download and on limited to 250 black vinyl.

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Noise-A-Tron/164982910181009     https://twitter.com/noiseatron

RingMaster 29/04/2015

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