Introducing The Duffaloes

Allow us to introduce you to The Duffaloes, a band we suspect you will be hearing a lot more of once their debut EP is released this coming August. Only formed a handful of weeks ago, the British outfit is the creation and union of vocalist/guitarist Lee Duffy and guitarist/bassist Lee Williams, two musicians no strangers to the Liverpool music scene through playing in other bands and in other guises over the years. Recently the pair sent over to us a couple of songs from that forthcoming EP and we have to say you are going to like what they have to offer.

The band’s sound going by these tracks is a feisty mix of alternative and melodic rock with numerous other flavours involved and bred in the inspiration to the pair of bands like Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Black Sabbath, U2, Metallica, Nirvana, and Pearl Jam. Inviting musicians friends to “jump in” and help out live and in the studio, The Duffaloes have a persistent freshness to their music which colludes with their obvious experience and creative maturity and quickly makes a strong impression across the songs Scars and Outside.

Scars is a fiery encounter with a raw grunge tone to its melodic and emotive heart. Straight away it coaxes and teases attention with an opening riff and inviting bassline speared by lively beats. Duffy’s vocals are just as swiftly alluring ears and attention, his great tones a dusky mix of earnest growl and plaintive expression against the web of melodic enterprise cast by the guitars. Like a mix of Jacksons Warehouse and Stone Temple Pilots, the track tenaciously dances in ears, enticing and challenging with its roar and emotive intensity. At times ridiculously catchy and constantly commanding attention, Scars has lead single written all over it, especially once its emerging Pete Wylie like hooks captivate.

There is similar instinctive angst and imagination of sound within Outside but also an individuality which adds even more intrigue and depth to the band’s sound and songwriting. With more of a pop rock air than the rawer texture of its companion, the track still has an edge of attitude and texture which quickly gets its claws into the imagination, the body as swiftly hooked on its lively gait and infectious Echo and The Bunnymen scented chorus.

There is a familiarity to both tracks but nothing especially definable or diluting the strength and pleasure gained with each. Of course two songs is early days to truly assess a band but it is hard not to breed real anticipation for their future and expectations that a great many of you like us will develop a real appetite for their imagination woven rock ‘n’ roll.

Check out The Duffaloes further @ https://www.facebook.com/TheDuffaloes/  and watch out for their debut EP released August 1^st.

Pete RingMaster 14/06/2017

Copyright RingMaster: MyFreeCopyright

Escapade – Red Sky

With the attention and praise grabbing success of their debut EP, Stepping Stones, still fresh as that of its title track as lead single, British rock band Escapade have given their strong emergence a new potent boost with their new track. Second single Red Sky is a rousing slice of melodic rock bred on the mix of Brit pop and psychedelic rock which lit up its predecessors. More than that though, it is the Leicester outfit hitting a new plateau in sound and creative energy while dishing up their most potent and rousing song yet.

Emerging from the creative linking up of singer/songwriter Sam Wyatt and guitarist/songwriter Adam Bailey, Escapade stepped forward in the autumn of 2015 with the band growing from an acoustic pairing of the two with the addition of bassist Jordan Alleston and drummer Martin Wenham the following year. Their first EP and its single stirred up a wave of praise and support the way the band, including that of Kasabian’s Tom Meighan, and is sure to be matched and easy to suspect eclipsed by the reaction to Red Sky.

The single makes a low key start, sweeping in from distance with a great flirtatious bassline and angular swipes of guitars as percussion and beats dance. Wyatt’s vocals are just as enticing, his delivery lively as the sounds around him and like them carrying an instinctive catchiness which flows from song to imagination with energy and adventure. Though inspirations to the band spring from the sixties to bands such as Oasis, The Stone Roses, Nirvana, Green Day, and Black Sabbath, Red Sky soon has thoughts casting back to eighties bands like The Mighty Lemon Drops and The House Of Love during its adventurous canter; every passing second of the song seeming to draw a new twist and flavour of sound; psych and indie rock conspiring with mod and Brit pop in a web of stirring and melodically inflamed enterprise.

Listening to Red Sky, there is a realisation that as enjoyable and striking as they were, previous tracks were missing a certain spark, one Escapade has found and ignited within their new and seriously impressive single.

Red Sky is out June 2^nd

Upcoming Escapade live shows:

June 10th – The Shed, Leicester

July 28th – The Music Cafe, Leicester

http://escapadeband.co.uk    https://www.facebook.com/escapadeuk/

Pete RingMaster 02/06/2017

Copyright RingMaster: MyFreeCopyright

Loom – Self Titled

Photo by Kurt Fairbairn

With quite simply raw rock ‘n’ roll nurturing its heart, the debut album from UK band Loom takes ears through every shade of punk rock you can imagine within its ten track confines. It is an adventure which has the imagination fired up, ears burning with ardour, and aggressive tendencies bubbling to the surface in a striking and rousing incitement of a self-titled proposal. Each song as suggested reveals a new aspect in its furious landscape yet brews a united character distinct to a band and release which just commands attention.

Leamington Spa hailing, the trio of Tarik Badwan, Matt Marsh, and Joshua Fitzgerald took little time in attracting ears and praise with their early releases including a pair of well-received EPs within their first year. The second of 2013 featured six covers of songs from the strongest inspirations for the band in its early days, The Jesus Lizard, Bad Brains, Pixies, GG Allin, Misfits, and Warsaw. Alongside the other encounters, it sparked support from the likes of Zane Lowe and Daniel P Carter at BBC Radio 1as well as laying the first steps in a springboard for Loom live to support The Rolling Stones at Hyde Park and tour the UK and Germany with artists such as Frank Carter & The Rattlesnakes, Queen Kwong, and Turbowolf.

The band’s first album is not slow in suggesting those influences in its multi-flavoured roar, as mentioned each song distinct from the next but there is a vein of unique Loom-ness running through all which we would suggest goes beyond the cohesion of aggression suggested by its press release. It opens up with Lice, a sonic itch you just cannot scratch enough to escape from. Its initial glaze to an instantly robust sound has a gothic/indie rock spicing, coming over like a blend of Leitmotiv and The Victorian English Gentlemens Club before its grouchy rock ‘n’ roll instincts burst free. It is a glorious nagging of the senses and imagination taking magnetic twists along its contagious enmity of sound and attitude.

The great start continues as firstly Hate imposingly shimmers with electronic radiance upon grunge bred antipathy to be followed by the rousing exploits of Get A Taste. There is a whiff of Pere Ubu for these ears to the first song but a thicker Nirvana like causticity to its nature and again niggling potency. Embracing garage punk confrontation too, the track stirs ears and appetite with ease, a triumph matched by its successor with its old school punk meets seventies garage rock growl as demandingly catchy as it is openly crotchety.

Grunge colludes with post punk for the feistily prowling Leopard, guitars winding spicy tendrils lined with delicious discord around ears as rhythms reveal a rapacious nature to their drive before Salt entangles the imagination in a fusion of Joy Division post punk and the irritable punk rock of The Stooges with just a tang of psych rock bewitchment. It is an enthralling mix opening new aspects with each passing flick of a chord and sonic detour yet throughout a fluid tart snarl never deviating from its quarrel.

Seasick bawls as its stalks ears with predacious intent straight after; indie rock merging with raw hardcore ill-temper in a track which steals the passions within seconds. Vocals are as unpredictable and instinctively volatile as the sonic flames cast by the guitar and indeed the rhythmic jabbing around them. With the bass a brooding threat within the tempestuous joy crowding and seducing ears, the track makes a big play for best track glory but is quickly challenged by the muggy grunge venting of Bleed On Me and eclipsed by the glorious dark deeds of the band’s latest single, Nailbender. The latter is a compelling caliginous seduction of gothic and punk metal; like Type O Negative fused with Descendents and 1919 yet still emerging as something unique and gripping to Loom.

The punk grouse of Barbed Wire grabs something from all decades of punk since the sixties whilst in finishing up the album Slowly Freezing Heart crawls across the senses in a kaleidoscope of sonic toxicity and shadow loaded rhythms united with vocal psychosis. Both tracks are treats greed gets the better of composure over while bringing one superb album to a memorable and rousing end. Listening to Loom you get the feeling that the band creates on instinct, not searching for a sound but letting it find them and infusing their music with its own unique character. The album reminds of numerous artists across its riveting body but never comes over as anything other than the offspring of Loom, the first of many more belligerently sculpted and physically visceral gems we hope and suspect.

The Loom album is released May 19^th via Silent Cult across most stores.

https://www.facebook.com/Loomband/    https://twitter.com/loomband

Pete RingMaster 17/05/2017

Copyright RingMaster: MyFreeCopyright

Fashion Week – So Last Season

Like the fall out and indeed initial impact of the detonation of a nuclear device, the sound of US noise mongers Fashion Week is a ravenous inescapable scourge feasting on flesh and senses. Debut album Prêt-à-Porter was savagely enjoyable proof of the fact, its release on Solar Flare Records a testing and thrilling examination of body and emotions. Now two years after its scorching eruption, the band has released So Last Season. A coming together of rare and unreleased material, including Fashion Week’s first demo, two EPs, live tracks and a couple of covers, the album oversees the birth of the band and its growth in sound right up to that first inimitable album.

Founded in 2009 by vocalist/guitarist Joshua Lozano (Inswarm, Jarboe, Cobalt, Family, Shai Hulud, Vampillia), NYC hailing Fashion Week quickly drew eager attention with their diverse, melody tinged swarms of noise. Taking inspiration from the diverse likes of Unsane, Coalesce, and Botch through to Nirvana, Dinosaur Jr, Melvins, and Quicksand with plenty more embraced under their creative wing, Fashion Week soon sculpted their own distinctive dirty sound as evidenced by first EP, Applicator in 2011 and its successor Coextinction #11 two years after. Prêt-à-Porter was the wake-up call to broad attention which the striking re-emergence of earlier and rare material courtesy of So Last Season can now only reinforce.

The album opens with the three tracks which made up Coextinction #11, songs the band were invited to record for the internet label of Unsane’s Dave Curran, Coextinction Recordings. The raw, at times almost carnal assault of Heroin Chic is first. As nagging citric guitars and a gloriously grumbling bass instantly descend, an underlying melodic lure simmers and brews, subsequently taking its central spot in the grungy smog of sound. Warm vocals spring from within the addictive assault, welcoming yet as edgy as the intimidatingly voracious sounds around them.

Andrew Cunanan follows, its rural harmonica shared comeliness soon a tempest of hungry rhythms and greedy riffs with that snarling bass again addictive bait alongside the furnace of voice and guitar. As its predecessor though, melody and restraint get involved, hand in hand prowling the senses as the former laces seductively wiry grooves. The track is pure magnetism, a trait matched in strength by God Save McQueen. Its hardcore rapacity smothers ears before twisting them with a web of flavours all bleeding aural and emotional tartness.

The brief rabid attacks of both Fab and Smyze follow; two live cuts which infest body and psyche with their caustic holler and predatory sonic trespass with the second a beast of a proposal stalking the listener with its sludge bred intent. Their debilitating prowess is followed by a cover of the Helmet track, I Know. A calmer affair with harmonies instantly slipping their invitation into the more fractious draw of guitars and bass, the song flirtatiously twists and swings like a primal seductress, never moving out of second gear but only increasing its siren-esque appeal with each enterprising second.

The next three tracks come from un-released EP Little Black Dress which seemed to have been pushed aside as the band worked on Prèt-â-Porter. Lydian Hearst dances with discontent and melancholic charm first, melodies a sombre enticement and rhythms a truculent incitement though they too develop a vibrant if filth lined swing led by the ever gnarly bass. With Lozano’s vocals a plaintively bracing squall, a squall in time joined by a tamer presence, the track boils in touch and temptation before So Last Season unveils its abrasive grunge clad pop ‘n’ roll on the table. The song is a spiral of contrasts, like a maelstrom of Converge, Sofy Major, and Melvins, and as imposingly catchy as it is greedily corrosive.

The following Little Black Dress, featuring guest vocals from Dave Castillo, Kurt Applegate, and Tom Tierney, equally has infectiousness coursing irritable rock ‘n’ roll seeing bodies bouncing as the senses shrivel under vocal causticity and increasing sonic hostility, only to be re-animated by the spicy grooves entangling song and listener.

It would have been a crime if the EP had never seen the light of day, one of many major reasons to grab the album, a felony repeated if Rich Hallister, a song originally recorded for Prêt-à-Porter which the band eventually did not feel fitted, was not heard. It too is ferocity of noise and attitude with a virulent catchiness which enslaves ears and hips, rogue beats alone a busy temptation as vocals increasingly lose their grip on composure being matched by the growing bedlam of guitar.

With Vinny Signorelli of Unsane guesting on drums, Fashion Week takes on his band’s track Only Pain next. A potent mix of sample and keys draw the listener into the waiting doomscape of sound and emotion, Lozano searing it with his raw throated delivery backed by the equally apocalyptic and melancholic roar and melodic suggestion of guitars. It is a compelling take on a great track arguably giving an even grittier and rawer aspect to its emotionally decayed antipathy.

The digital version of So Last Season is completed by the re-mastered version of the band’s original demo, Applicator, which also comes as an additional 7” with a vinyl edition of the album. Beginning with the rusty hues of Fierce, the four tracks making up the release are the heart and seeds of Fashion Weeks’ current sound, the source of uncompromising intent and endeavour making up the impressive stature of Prêt-à-Porter. The track is undiluted sonic threat and emotional turmoil, a vat of creative rancor matched by that festering within the equally corrosive and catchy Heidi Klum and the hook wired Bryant Park, the second a web of guitar woven tempting and intrigue wonderfully sullied by Lozano’s flesh grazing vocal deliver and increasingly ruinous vitriol.

Completed by the hardcore scourge of Fabulous, the track pure venom in noise and presence, So Last Season is a must for newcomers to the band, for those who missed out on their earlier assaults and noise rock victims as a whole.

So Last Season is available now @ https://www.fashionweek.bandcamp.com/album/so-last-season

https://www.facebook.com/FashionWeekBand       https://fashionweeknoise.com/

Pete RingMaster 29/03/2017

Copyright RingMaster: MyFreeCopyright

Enamel Animal – Unfaith

Few rock bands have raised the same level of anticipation for their next move than Queens Of The Stone Age with their full-length debut but that kind of reaction is exactly what UK rockers Enamel Animal have poached with their first album Unfaith. It is an enticingly dirty, fuzzy proposition with instinctive adventure in its veins and contagious often grouchy sounds in its arsenal but with a melodic fire which just as easily grabs a natural appetite for imaginative rock ‘n’ roll. Imagine a rawer Soundgarden meeting a mellower hearted Mastodon with the rousing punk like aggression of Reuben riling things up and you have Enamel Animal.

There is so much more to the imaginative proposals on offer than that though, the album’s songs as adept at creating, with varying but always compelling results, more progressive psych rock explorations.  It makes the Liverpool based quartet of Philip Collier, Barry McKeown, Glen Ashworth, and Ryan Mallows an unpredictable proposition which only adds to the fun of Unfaith. Already carrying a potent reputation through shows alongside the likes of FOES, Bad Sign, Rival Bones, and Ritual King, Enamel Animal give it another big nudge with an album getting down to persuasive work straight away with opener Surrender Reverence. Initially coaxing ears with a lone shadowy riff, the track soon flares up with a dazzling sonic wash of guitar, darker rhythms strolling through the midst of the sunspot as grungy and psychedelic hues merge. Soon a fuzzy groove wraps ears and appetite, warm harmonic vocals rising with them, they like the sounds around them taking on grungier tones by the second. It is a tantalising wash of sound, simultaneously earthy and spatial and quite riveting.

War Machine follows with a bigger muscular presence but also its own sultry smog of melodic psych rock intoxication which opens up into calmer passages of harmonic seduction. That Soundgarden like essence is a rich flame across the track but with its dirtier lining and rapacious groove, nineties English band Skyscraper is also reminded of.

Similar textures unite for the melodic pyre that is Horrified; the track growing more inflamed and tempestuous as wiry melodies entwine tenacious rhythms but also ebbing and igniting again like a sonic fire. There is a certain Foo Fighters air to the track while its successor I Love Creationists taps into Nirvana inspirations for its outstanding and bracing punk ‘n’ roll. It is an agitated treat with the boldest mischief and imagination at play yet within Unfaith, ensuring it’s less than two minutes of devilry is unforgettable.

The already budding diversity of the release and Enamel Animal sound continues into the predacious stalking of ears by Death To The Destroyer. Its hungry rumble wears Josh Homme and co essences like a cloak as the song growls in its belly and menacingly flirts with its own unique metal/heavy rock bred tenacity. Together the pair of tracks provides the pinnacle of the album but closely backed up by the likes of Greetings Earthlings with its creative snarl. There is a great irritability about the song in sound and voice, the track facing up to the listener with an enjoyably grubby air and Stone Temple Pilots scented nature enhanced by more of the band’s psych fuelled flames.

Things calm down as The Thousand Years slowly and gracefully entices the senses and imagination with increasingly widening tendrils of fuzzy melody. In time eager sinew loaded rhythms bring their anthemic almost tribalistic lures to the radiant entrance of the song, textures around them becoming more granular as melodies explore exotic realms. It is absorbing stuff growing more captivating with every listen, a trait shared by the album itself and next up Red Is For Danger. To be fair, its heavy blues lined rock ‘n’ roll pretty much hits the spot straight away but just increases its potency over time as grooves wind around ears and song with incendiary temptation.

As the melody woven beauty of Eintracht simmers, bubbles, and ignites with emotive intensity and the following, A Praying Mantis Does Not Pray makes its own persistently evolving journey of boisterously inventive sound, the album just cements its impressive persuasion. Neither quite reaches the heights of those before them but both only grow in strength as new layers or imagination are found  listen by listen to add to the rich enjoyment of the release.

Unfaith ends with its title track, an emotionally charged flight of progressively honed post rock infusing grunge and stoner textures but suggestively elegant with a raw edge intensifying its heart.

Produced by Jon Lawton who also plays across the album, Unfaith is strapped with potential and ripe with craft and real temptation.  It is a full introduction to Enamel Animal suggesting a band with a great future ahead of them if they continue their growth whilst providing a pleasure to be savoured right now.

Unfaith is available now as a name your own price download @ http://enamelanimal.com/album/unfaith

https://www.facebook.com/EnamelAnimal/    https://twitter.com/anenamelanimal

Pete RingMaster 08/03/2017

Copyright RingMaster: MyFreeCopyright

Valensole – Where We Should Be

The debut EP from British punksters Valensole has been recommended as for fans of the likes of Sum 41, Green Day, Nirvana; all bands which have been an influence in an eclectic bunch on the Southampton trio. All are flavours easy to understand being used but for us just as potent, maybe even more so, are references to others such as Psychedelic Furs, Reuben, and Pennywise. What it shows is that there are many rich essences in a sound which still is finding its feet and ultimate identity on the evidence of the band’s debut EP, Where We Should Be but a mix and imagination of sound which also ensures that their introduction is an impressive and thickly enjoyable one.

Embracing the punk DIY ethic, Valensole have unleashed their first self-released outing alone, vocalist/guitarist and primary songwriter Elliott Jones taking on mixing duties. The result is a raw and pleasingly dirty affair which it is easy to imagine captures the band’s live presence much more than most encounters do their creators. It leaps from the blocks in potent style with opener Staple Waster. Spicy riffs collude with concussive beats initially, their slim but irresistible bait the intro into a muggy affair of fuzzy riffs and biting rhythms. Jones soon gets involved vocally, that Psychedelic Furs spicing arising as his tones remind of Richard Butler from said outfit with a whiff of Billy Idol too. The track continues to impose and tease with attitude and flirtatious hooks; boisterous punk rock invading and pleasing ears and a quickly forming appetite for the Valensole sound.

Don’t Follow Me leaps in next, its body and character just as aggressively relishing the trespassing of the senses. Managing to prowl around at the same time as devouring them with rapacious energy, the song snarls and growls with the hooks of lead guitarist Nick Jones inescapable and the bass taunts of Dave Parker gripping, his backing vocals to Jones just as persuasive.

An immediately tempting hook spears next up Believe, its salacious tease erupting amidst another scuzzy wash of sound and vocals with a tinge of The Heartbreakers to it. Rolling, rumbling beats are just as virulent in the fiercely infectious slice of rough ‘n’ ready pop punk quickly followed by the band’s new single and EP title track. Where We Should Be taps into an early Generation X scented countenance, riffs and rhythms a magnetically caustic and intrusive yet seductive trespass in a boisterous song quickly involving the listener.

Completed by the enjoyably abrasive and just as often melodically tempered Inside Out, a concluding slab of easy to devour rock ‘n’ roll, Where We Should Be only leaves a want and hunger for more. It is soaked in strength of potential matching its already very agreeable attributes, a mix providing a great first contact with Valensole and intrigue loaded anticipation for their subsequent growth and releases.

The Where We Should Be EP is released through all stores on March 3^rd.

https://www.facebook.com/valensoleband/   https://twitter.com/valensole_band  https://www.instagram.com/valensole_band/

Pete RingMaster 02/03/2017

Copyright RingMaster: MyFreeCopyright

The Black Clouds – After All

Formed in 2004, US rockers The Black Clouds has pretty much persistently and increasingly drawn attention and acclaim with their hearty rock ‘n’ roll, a trend set to be accelerated by the release of new album After All. A fiery yet earthy slab of alternative rock lying somewhere between Foo Fighters and Stone Temple Pilots, the album has all the attributes to become a long term passion for a great many.

Hailing from Monmouth County, New Jersey, The Black Clouds consists of vocalist/guitarist Dan Matthews, guitarist Neil Hayes, bassist Gary Moses, and drummer Cory King. The punkish roar of 2008 debut album Wishing Well set the band up potently in regard to praise and broadening awareness, its adventure and success surpassed by Better Days four years later. A feisty fusion of grunge and hard rock, its impressive elements have been joined by those of its predecessor in the striking attack of After All, a rousing fusion of the familiar with new bold enterprise in an exploit which could and should push The Black Clouds towards a position on the global rock ‘n’ roll map.

Produced by Jack Endino (Nirvana, Mudhoney, Soundgarden), After All immediately hits the spot with opener Photograph. As riffs and rhythms collude alongside a spicy groove the song quickly captures ears and imagination, Matthews’ vocals are just as swift a lure as the song heads into a chorus gripping listener participation with instant ease. There is no escaping a Nirvana-esque hue to the track’s persuasion but neither the all tenacious Black Clouds freshness as it stirs up imagination and appetite with anthemic prowess.

The following Self Control has a slightly more laid back charge to its presence but too freely uncages piercing hooks and an instinctive snarl to keep the album’s strong start going. Backing vocals potently compliment Matthew’s plaintive tones as the song strolls with controlled vigour, the song reminding a little of UK band Feud, before Sayonara steps forward.  From its initial bass growl, the song is a volcanic, punk infested trespass. Raw and intrusive with a fine line in melodic contrasts, lava like grooves, and virulent infectiousness, its briefness is the only anti-climax in an impressive assault.

 Leave Her Alone brings a calmer presence to After All next; its body just as catchy with broiling eruptions of intensity adding richer texture to its character while Falling straight after seduces with melodic and harmonic charm. Even in its emotive caress there is an underlying rigour which bolsters the song’s already strong temptation; both tracks revealing the enjoyable variation in the band’s album and sound.

Featuring Mark Arm and Jack Endino, Vice bares its sonic teeth and raw energy next, the song a dirty rock ‘n’ roll grumble carrying the punk attitude of Johnny Thunders aligned to the sonic flames of Dinosaur Jr., before Going Going Gone, with again Endino guesting, dons another Nirvana like colour in its contagious holler. Creating another twist in the album’s landscape, the pair of tracks cements the already memorable presence of After All with the excellent Still Alive reinforcing that success with its grunge/punk ferocity. Rhythmically the track gets under skin scorched by scalding grooves and melodic flames cast by Hayes, traits matched across much of the release as a whole.

The gentler duo of Merchants Of Death and Days Are So Long, the latter seeing Endino, Allison Maryatt, Eric Nutting, and Nate Malubay helping out, bring After All to an enjoyable close if without either quite finding the same sparks to ignite personal tastes as earlier tracks. Nevertheless, the grunge infection of the former and melodic elegance of the equally catchy final track, leave satisfaction high and a want for more bold.

The Black Clouds are at the point in their rise where they are teetering on the broadest recognition, After All looking and sounding like the nudge to see them topple into the biggest spotlights.

After All is out now through Capacitor Records on CD and translucent blue vinyl @ https://capacitorrecords.com/products/black-clouds-after-all

http://www.theblackclouds.com/   https://www.facebook.com/blackcloudsofficial/

Pete RingMaster 10/01/2016

Copyright RingMaster: MyFreeCopyright