Witch Hats released an incredibly good record last year by the name of Pleasure Syndrome. I’m rather fond of their dirgy sound and their dark lyrics.
Their old stuff is noticable more violent and in your face, but still very very listenable. This song, Hellhole, is a particular favourite.
Well, it should be salesperson.
This band pretty much can do no wrong. Chronically underappreciated in my view. I’ve seen them half a dozen times and they never fail.
I don’t know but 2012 has seemed like a pretty ordinary year for releases thus far, at least in terms of full length records. Perhaps I can only put down Woollen Kits debut record as the only LP I’ve come across that I’ve truly enjoyed. I haven’t had the opportunity to review much good stuff either. Perhaps I could be just sick of music.
Or at least, so I thought.
I recently got a hold of a review copy of The Victim’s Sleeping Dog Lie, a late 70s perth garage/punk group whose sound can be seen very clearly today in the work of Eddy Current Suppression Ring and half a dozen other contemporary Australian groups. Sleeping Dogs Lie has me awestruck – the snarling guitar, the slacker vocals, the seemingly underending smashing of the drums. This is glorious music.
Disco Junkie is probably my favourite off the record, I love the chaotic breakdown that sees out the final parts of the song. Best thing I’ve heard all year, I think.
My knowledge of The Melvins is sadly deficient. While I’m pretty sure I saw them supporting Metallica or Tool or something way back in my late teens, they never grabbed me then, and I’ve avoided them until today. Why the sudden love in? Well, I suppose it’s because of the massive amount of bands I like that cite them as influences.
I’ve been listening to their seventeenth album (woah!) The Bride Screamed Murder, and this song immediately stands out, even if the other tracks surrounding it are nothing too special. I particularly love that muddy, sinister bass line that starts it out, followed by the super fast riffing of guitarist King Buzzo.
My girlfriend recently got me a record player for my birthday, meaning that I could finally play some of these records I’ve been collecting on and off for the past year. I’m a bit of a compulsive hoarder, much like my father I guess, but it is a relief to finally be able to actually listen to some of these records that have been cluttering up my lounge room.
She also got me a vinyl copy of The Magnetic Field’s third record, Holiday, which I’ve been sitting here on my day off listening to while I write reviews of other records. Strange Powers is probably my favourite off this record, and probably one of my favourite Stephin Merritt songs – I’ve probably mentioned that before on my blog way back in the past. I particularly love the opening stanza.
On the ferris wheel,
looking out on Coney island.
Under more stars than,
there are prostitutes in Thailand.
Brilliant.
I happen to be reviewing No Anchor’s latest EP, Pussyfootin’. They’re a local band, notable for playing something akin to sludge or doom or hardcore metal (pick any one), using only two highly overdriven bass guitars, complemented with largely screamed vocals. Their latest EP includes a cover of Big Black’s ‘Jordan, Minnesota’, a song I’d not heard previously.
If you didn’t know, Big Black was a band formed around Steve Albini (you know, that dude who engineered Nirvana’s ‘In Utero’). They were known for penning lyrics dealing with a variety of social taboos – child abuse, rape, violence all that sort of stuff. They supported these words with as much noise as possible, forgoing a live drummer for Roland, the unfeeling, harsh, drum automaton.
‘Jordan, Minnesota’ presumably deals with the abuse that swept through the American town of the same name circa 1983. You could say it’s a pretty intense experience.