“The Time is Now” sounds like a furious Kiss track on steroids, and the New York based The Raygun Girls with their 5th studio are definitively willing to conquer the universe, or at least grinding their audience into the ground. Their music it’s a vivid mixture of hard rock, heavy metal, industrial, goth and punk rock, mainly reminding me of Danzig, while they compare their sound to bands such as Lacuna Coil, Rob Zombie, Killing Joke and Evanescence.
The brand new self-titled album it’s both an ode to the Apocalypse, and a call to Revolution, while the aliens are coming to take over our world.
With contribution from Peter Watkinson of death metal band Abomnium doing lead guitar on two songs, and some original photography work from Oliver Wasow, as well as lyrics from Paul F. Ferguson and Jacinda Espinosa, “The Raygun Girls” it’s the result of 10 years of songwriting, lyric writing, and road experience, and the 11 songs delivering the very essence of this band: powerful, raw, without compromises, loud rock & roll!! Read more The Raygun Girls – The Raygun Girls (2013)
Life and Living
post punk
Blue Willa – Blue Willa (2013)
Blue Willa is the debut album by the Italian art rock quartet bearing that same name. The band had been touring and recording for years under the name Baby Blue, but then they decide it that the time has come for change and came up with a brand new identity: Blue Willa.
They explains: “Continuing a story which lasted seven years and three records so far, we decided to carry on our pursuit for a sound that would fit neatly onto our ideas asking a person we unquestionably loved to help us fulfill it.
We called on Carla Bozulich, whom we had met in Florence some four years ago, and she immediately got involved and interested in our plans.
We spent ten days in the Italian countryside, working side by side with her and our sound engineer, Davide Cristiani. Carla took care of our songs and sounds, proposing shapes and a whole new imagery for them. She made our sounds feel aquatic, ringing and overturned: a sort of underwater punk rock music from the Thirties.
This music then went on to be mixed and fixed on the Himalayan mountainside and in Paris: it is a pleasant thought for us to imagine that something from these places – as well from our provinces – got entangled and caught inside these songs.”
And well, this is really a journey to folk flavored punk, psychedelic rock and vivid experimentalism, but also to yet undiscovered places, unrevealed sounds. Read more Blue Willa – Blue Willa (2013)
EmptyMansions – snakes/vultures/sulfate (2013)
EmptyMansions it’s the solo effort of Interpol’s drummer Sam Fogarino. Sam Fogarino wrote most of the songs for snakes while on tour promoting Interpol’s fourth and self-titled album, from mid 2009 to late 2011. This is raw sounding, garage flavored, but genuine indie rock, somewhere in the space between dEUS, Eels (in their good old days) and Sonic Youth. As he describe it: lyrically, the songs are the result of he’s reading much postmodern fiction by writers such as Hubert Selby Jr (‘Sulfate’); discovering an appreciation for aerial dance and a fascination with outer-space (‘Lyra’); the TV-drama Justified (‘Up In The Holler’), and Black Francis of Pixies fame (‘That Man’). Musically, Sam drew upon classic heavyweights; Neil Young (The closing track on snakes is a cover of ‘Down By The River’), The Stones, Zeppelin—filtered through his affinity with the likes of Sonic Youth and Pixies. Read more EmptyMansions – snakes/vultures/sulfate (2013)
Inflatable Best Friend – DMT Bike Ride (2013)
Noisy and raw garage punk(rock) rides twisted into some weird psychedelic trips and flavored with lo-fi, drone contortions – this is the menu on the debut album by this Michigan based and DIY devoted band. Not for those who are in the search of the perfect crystal sound and are only comfortable with the polished and mainly over-produced, but tasteless, and inconsistent fancy products of the almighty digital era. No, these guys will take you back to their garage, will tear the walls down at the house party in some suburb or in the basement of some filthy and obscure club. This taste like life, sounds messy and full of trouble as reality, wear perfectly with cheap beer, sleepless nights and lost memories.
With roots back to The Velvet Underground and Lou Reed (“Circus Dog”), but with the fury and energy of Sonic Youth (“I Wanna Ride a Sabertooth”), Inflatable Best Friend will shake you up and grind you down, and rock you into weird, vivid dreams only to crash you down again. This is legal, but dangerous stuff. Read more Inflatable Best Friend – DMT Bike Ride (2013)
History of the Hawk – Future Ruins (2012)
Punk ain’t dead. Even more, the present it’s intense and murderous and definitively there are more then simple hopes for a future. And this is genuine Punk, I mean, not that soap-box/bubble-gum, Californian sun-burnt and Pop flavored “Punk” which the media and the multinationals selling for decades now. “Descending Light” explode like a grenade and the whole “Future Ruins” it’s a killer spiral of energy and aggression. With roots back to Black Flag, Minor Threat and Dead Kennedys, but related to contemporary challengers such as Gallows and Converge merging brutality and intensity, Hardcore energy and Post-Metal rawness, History of the Hawk delivered a truly unique and own flavored, pounding and crushing Punk album. It’s fresh, it’s furious, it’s colorful and re-inventing the heritage of the past to send it right into the future. Read more History of the Hawk – Future Ruins (2012)
Byzant At Sunset – No Reason To Remix This, EP (2012)
Although, officially this is considered only an EP, featuring two originals and 13 plus one bonus remixes of “No Reson”, a total of 16 tracks is still a considerable quantity of music to go through. But this is a FREE RELEASE, so, this is one more reason to get “No Reason”! – the official debut of Byzant At Sunset.
“No Reason” have a strong The Clash kind of vibe, but the sound it’s smoothly adjusted to the nowadays expectations, wobbling basses, ska fueled guitars and the tasty saxophone gives a genuine Byzant At Sunset taste to the song. This is a manifest, a statement against modern days consumerism: “No reason is a reason good enough” express both anger and disappointment.
“Wildfire” is more like an improvisation, an eruption, a race through the fire of inspiration and creation. Although Byzant At Sunset it’s exclusively an on-line, world wide collaboration creative collective, some of their members not sharing not the same room, but not even the same continent in their lives, “Wildfire” have the nerve, vibe and wilderness of a genuine rehearsal recording. It’s like someone light up a cigarette but that unleash an unstoppable… wildfire.
And then we have 14 remixes from 13 outstanding producers from the Indaba community: ALBM, @ssic@, Bluetrax, Brushvox, Carda, DaveDaG, JohnnySix, Manu, mSelv, Richard Walker, Richinmusic, The ?uestion Mark, and, last but not least, Ultraglow featuring with two tracks. Read more Byzant At Sunset – No Reason To Remix This, EP (2012)
Dead Can Dance – Anastasis (2012)
Formed in Melbourne, Australia, in August 1981, relocated to London in May 1982, reached No. 1 on the Billboard Top World Music Albums Chart with their seventh, 1996 album “Spiritchaser” which also charted on Billboard 200, disbanded in 1998, reunited 7 years later in 2005, Lisa Gerrard and Brendan Perry are path openers with their unique mixture of genres and styles, merging African polyrhythms with Gothic Rock, Gaelic folk with Post-Punk, Gregorian chants with New Age and Dark Wave, or Middle Eastern mantras with ethereal and Dream Pop.
“Anastasis”, the long awaited, upcoming eight studio album by the band is not different then the previous ones. It’s an exciting and colorful mixture of dark and Oriental vibes, minimalism and subtle, polyphonic build-ups, hypnotic mantras and addictive rhythms, Dead can Dance are once again a secret doorway to a lost and find universe of subconscious and superconscious. It’s a journey and an intimate, unique, mystical experience for each and every listener. Read more Dead Can Dance – Anastasis (2012)
Mission Of Burma – Unsound (2012)
In the good tradition and vein of such truly seminal artists as the Velvet Underground, The Stooges and Dead Kennedys, Mission Of Burma delivered their own flavored Post-Punk/Indie Rock and “Unsound” is their sixth and upcoming album filled with experimental explorations and paths back to the 70’s without being retro at all.
Formed in Boston, Massachusetts in 1979. The band was formed by Roger Miller (guitar), Clint Conley (bass), Peter Prescott (drums) and Martin Swope (tape manipulator/sound engineer), over the course of their brief first four-year career (1979-1983), Mission Of Burma has laid the foundation for a movement in Post-Punk Rock which remains vital today and inspired several generations. Their bracing mixture of Punk, Pop, Art Rock, and Avant-garde experimentation as they play it strident and powerful, gave them an unique flavor which remains fresh and an unmistakable trademark of the band. Read more Mission Of Burma – Unsound (2012)
Public Image Ltd. – This is PiL (2012)
Horrible cover! Intentionally, I think, I know can not judge a book by its cover, didn’t lost my sense of humor, but still… On the other (bloody) hand, this is PiL!
John Lydon (aka Johnny Rotten, and just for the kids, ex-Sex Pistols) never or rarely is mentioned as a genius, eventually a madman. Odd how people attach the genius label quite easily to guys (or gays?) like Rufus Wainwright, or considering morons like Dildo, sorry, Diplo as “influential music tastemakers”, while really valuable creations are constantly and totally marginalized by the almighty media. This is the Hell we’re in? Not really, not yet anyway, this is only a Lollipop Opera we’re living…. 😆
Their early work is often regarded as some of the most challenging and innovative music of the post-punk era. Their 1979 album “Metal Box” was ranked number 469 on Rolling Stone magazine’s 2003 list of the 500 greatest albums of all time. The NME described PiL as “arguably the first post-rock group”.
Formed in 1978 by vocalist Lydon, guitarist Keith Levene and bassist Jah Wobble, with frequent subsequent personnel changes, the list of PiL contributors include among many others names such as Martin Atkins, Bill Laswell – producer and bass guitarist (Album), Steve Vai – guitar (Album), Ginger Baker – drums (Album), L. Shankar – electric violin (Album), etc. “Album”, the fifth studio album was released in 1986 and Lydon said that Miles Davis came into the studio while the album was being recorded and commented that Lydon sang like Davis played the trumpet. Lydon later said it was “still the best thing anyone’s ever said to me.” Read more Public Image Ltd. – This is PiL (2012)
Magazine – No Thyself (2011)
Listening “No Thyself” it’s like a time capsule, a trip back to the late 70s, early 80s. And surprisingly, Magazine sounds fresh, this post-punk mixture with psychedelia still sounds authentically, have the right vibe and that particular glowing, deep groove. Once again, when everybody sweat to be more futuristic, more avant-garde and post-everything and post-whatever, the returning pioneers proves that some good ideas are more meaningful that the sophisticated sound, all the digital shit and eventually some fancy producer. I’m some freak nostalgic? Maybe, but I don’t really think so. I’m just sick of everybody sounds just the same. Sick of all those post, alternative and so-called core – actually fake plastics the industry lately delivered. Magazine are kind of dinosaur? Possibly, but while it seems we lost the direction, we might need them now more than ever. Read more Magazine – No Thyself (2011)
