Hard to stick a label to them, the French band Eyes Front North delivered on their debut EP a gloomy and extremely diversified mixture of metal blended through their own filter and blue colored. From classic, Venom taste like black metal to the brutal riffing of thrash/nu grinding Sepultura and from hardcore like raging to contorted match metal and post-rock, these guys took the literal sense of crossover (and back, and through again), they take inspiration from different roots and (sub) genres and it seems that they targeted the elimination of any musical and stylistically boundaries, but staying metal. Future metal? Well, the future sounds dark, cutting and distorted, but definitively worth a trip into it under the guidance of Eyes Front North. Read more Eyes Front North – EP (2011)
avant-garde
Pop Will Eat Itself – New Noise Designed by a Sadist (2011)
I wrote about PWEI just a few weeks back, reminding of their album “Dos Dedos Mis Amigos” and announcing the good news: on 3rd October 2011, after a 17 years gap, PWEI will release their sixth studio album entitled “New Noise Designed By A Sadist”. And time’s up, here we go again. 11 tracks, the guys sounds fresh and still kicking like two decades ago and they bring us a little bit of chaos & mayhem, some old-school (cool 🙂 ) noises and anti-plastic anthems. It feels like yesterday, but it’s so now and eventually looking into the future.
In few words: they are back to business! Dig out your dancing shoes, grab your air guitar and bang your head: you’re so wasted! Read more Pop Will Eat Itself – New Noise Designed by a Sadist (2011)
Steven Wilson – Grace For Drowning (2011)
Steven John Wilson is a self-taught, yet twice Grammy nominated producer, audio engineer, guitar and keyboard player, playing other instruments as and where required, including bass guitar, concert harp, hammer dulcimer and flute. He is involved in many bands and projects such as Altamont, Karma, No-Man, Incredible Expanding Mindfuck, Bass Communion, Blackfield and not at least he is best known as the founder, lead guitarist, singer and songwriter of progressive rock band Porcupine Tree. Wilson appears on several other albums by artist such as Mick Karn, Indigo Falls, Fish, Marillion, Richard Barbieri, Anja Garbarek, Opeth, Yoko Ono, Dream Theater, Jordan Rudess, Orphaned Land, Anathema among many others as musician, sound engineer or producer.
“Grace For Drowning” is Wilson’s second solo album released on September 26th, by Kscope Records. The special edition of the album is going to release on Blu-Ray video disc with the music playing in 5.1 surround sound and accompanying visuals and videos for each track, making it the first-ever rock album released primarily as a Blu-Ray video disc.
The album features contributions by artist such as Nic France on drums, Steve Hackett, Robert Fripp, Tony Levin, Nick Beggs and Trey Gunn on guitar, Theo Travis and Jordan Rudess, and some jazz musicians. Touring members will include Marco Minnemann on drums, Nick Beggs on bass, Aziz Ibrahim on guitar, Gary Husband on keyboards, and Theo Travis on flute and saxophone. Read more Steven Wilson – Grace For Drowning (2011)
As We Draw, Euglena, Hexis – 3​-Way Split (2011)
Encouraging free download, releasing classic vinyls and spreading real underground metal and alternatives for the mainstream crap, Throatruiner Records from France seems to be a nowadays Don Quijote of the music industry. One of these days I was thinking about my old record collection, I really miss now the scratches and the warm sound of the vinyls, I miss the big covers and the touch of the paper, I miss the good times they represent at least symbolically. The good times of the music when music was more about music and less about business and industry. I fucking hate the plastic cases, the cellophane coating as I hate the folders on my hard drive and the mp3s. Everything is so plastic and so tasteless.
What I’m saying is that the effort of Throatruiner Records and other-likes worth some respect and recognition. Their new 3-Way split is once again available to listen, free download or buy at their Bandcamp page, but I think both – bands and label – deserves some remuneration. Read more As We Draw, Euglena, Hexis – 3​-Way Split (2011)
XMRV – Disimmunized (2011)
Absolutely sick! Lasting only one minute, “Noodles” clarify at least this aspect. Xenotropic murine leukemia virus (XMRV) – is a gammaretrovirus that was first described in 2006. Initial reports linked the virus to prostate cancer, and later to chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), but these were followed by a large number of studies in which no association was found. It has not been established that XMRV can infect humans, nor has it been demonstrated that XMRV is associated with or causes human disease. Numerous researchers have suggested that XMRV detection may result from contamination of clinical specimens and laboratory reagents with mouse retroviruses or related nucleic acids. I told you it’s sick!
A clash of nationalities, cultures, quite different tastes and musical influences and backgrounds, XMRV blending through their own creative filter hardcore, thrash metal, grunge, noise, punk, jazz, Latin music and delivering a killer sonic cocktail which will definitively knock you down. Are you ready for a punch directly in your immune system? Read more XMRV – Disimmunized (2011)
Bjork – Biophilia (2011)
Björk’s eighth full-length studio album will be released after a four years gap and the expected released date of September 27 has been pushed back to October 10, 2011. As it’s announced, “Biophilia” will be the world’s “first app album” in collaboration with Apple while the album is “partly recorded” on an iPad and will be released in the form of a series of apps.
I’m only wondering – and worried: what was first, the music or the apps? So, the central part of “Biophilia” is a series of interactive iPad apps made by leading programmers and designers, one app for each of the 10 songs on the new album. Bjork discussed how the apps would represent the scientific and natural ideas within the songs and enable people to play and understand the songs and ideas in different ways, such as “Virus”, a love song between a virus and a cell, in which the “Virus” app will stop playing the song if you are successful in stopping the destructive relationship. Two of the apps, “Crystalline” and “Cosmogony”, were released on July 19, along with a music video for “Crystalline”, directed by Michel Gondry. However, the album will be released in usual form as a series of 10 music tracks as well, including a CD release. Read more Bjork – Biophilia (2011)
Gary Numan – Dead Son Rising (2011)
The wizard is back and only after a few moments of listening to “Dead Son Rising” it was pretty obvious this will be one of the finest albums of the year and definitively one favorite. Surprisingly – or not quite – Numan sounds a little bit “Reznorish”, the blueprint of Nine Inch Nails are present all over the album and the (good) student have now some influence on his master, but all those elements are melt into the typical Numan’s constructions and sounds.
Five years after the brilliant “Jagged”, on “Dead Son Rising” Numan collaborate with the same Ade Fenton – producer and co-written. The title track is a reworked version of “What Have I Become” and “We Are The Lost” is a reworked version of “Mercy” and both are from the 2006 “Jagged” sessions, “For The Rest Of My Life” is a reworked version of “Always” and “The Fall” is a reworked version of “Look”, both from the 2000 “Pure” sessions. “Big Noise Transmission” was previously played live under the working title “Captured Underground Noise Transmission” and “Zulu” while “When The Sky Bleeds, He Will Come” had the live working title of “Dragging Loop”. Read more Gary Numan – Dead Son Rising (2011)
Pop Will Eat Itself – Dos Dedos Mis Amigos (1994)
Released on 19th September 1994, the fifth album by The Poppies, also known as PWEI, “Dos Dedos Mis Amigos” bring to the surface a more industrial face of the band. Also, PWEI’s political stance became more explicit with the release of the single “Ich Bin Ein Auslander”, a collaboration with Asian group Fun-Da-Mental, song which was based on the uprise of racial tension throughout Britain during 1994 and reached the UK Top 30.
The album peaked at #11 in the UK Albums Chart and the single “Everything’s Cool” became the band’s ninth Top 30 UK hit.
PWEI found some new popularity after signing with Trent Reznor’s Nothing Records in the US, and touring with Nine Inch Nails, as well as having their songs used on the PlayStation game Loaded. In the same year they featured on The Prodigy’s album “Music for the Jilted Generation”, on the song “Their Law”. Read more Pop Will Eat Itself – Dos Dedos Mis Amigos (1994)
Tori Amos – Night Of Hunters (2011)
Twisted and dark, Tori Amos is back. Hard or impossible to describe her gloomy universe, “Night Of Hunters” pays tribute to such renowned composers as Bach, Chopin, Debussy, Granados, Satie and Schubert and taking inspiration from their original compositions to create a new, independent work. She revealed that the work on the album began after Deutsche Grammophon approached her to write a 21st Century song cycle under the condition that it be centered around classical music themes. Regarding the album’s concept, she has described it as the exploration of “the hunter and the hunted and how both exist within us” through the story of “a woman who finds herself in the dying embers of a relationship.”
Beautiful and troubled, Tori Amos returned to her darker roots and delivered a dense and thrilling opera. Read more Tori Amos – Night Of Hunters (2011)
Bad Brains – Quickness (1989)
Although “Quickness” is the fourth studio album by Bad Brains, it was the first I had listen at the beginning of the 90’s and several songs from it still echoing in my mind. “The Messengers”, “Sheba”, “No Conditions”, “Silent Tears”, “The Prophet’s Eye” are only a few of the 11 (plus outro) killer tracks of the album.
“Quickness” is 34 minutes of pure essence of Bad Brains delivering the best of their unique hybrid of raggae-punk and hardcore-funk. Released on 14th September, 1989, 22 years ago, these songs sounds still fresh and… quickening. Who said white man can’t jump and black guys can’t rock? Read more Bad Brains – Quickness (1989)
