We did already say this a couple of days back and a couple of days before that, we do desperately need to catch up, the albums are piling in along with the demands for attention, there’s more arriving every day, it is a non-stop operation, hey, I sent you our new release two days ago, why haven’t you replied, where’s the review, surely nothing is more important than our half-arsed album, here it is again. We never will catch up, here once more are some of those albums that have been demanding our attention, you know the policy around here, we do try and stick to it, god save the cat, vote out the damn self-serving Tories and see you on the other side. We are repeating ourselves here, and most of what comes in does end up in the reject bin, mostly not our things and we don’t have time for all the red neck country pop rock or the inspid indie bands or the self-proclaimed post punk bands who would run a mile from a Gang of Four line or the way past their sell-by date American punk bands who weren’t that good in their best days, that new Down By Law record really isn’t that good is it? The average human life lasts three billion heartbeats, we are picky about the time we spend on these albums, someone threated us with Foo Fighters guest list last weekend, gawd no, life is way too short, why would anyone spend time watching Coldpla at bloody “Glasto”? We said all that last time, we don’t have the time…

O. WeirdOs (Speedy Wunderground) – Is it the “long awaited debut”? There’s certainly been a fair amount of hype around the London based jazzy, sludgy, parpy, dirty duo known as O. The two of them have released some excellent singles, they’ve been kicking a storm live, that Brixton Windmill scene and Black Midi tours and such. It is kind of fearless, no messing, forthright, kind of thrilling, baritone saxophonist Joe Henwood and drummer Tash Keary, raucous and free but is the long awaited debut any good?

Does the album work over ten tracks, over ten mostly crunchy instrumentals that kind of have the same almost trademark sound and texture? Ten tracks that have that already established O fingerprint, that distinctive sound they’ve already crafted? Ten tracks recorded live to tape, they have a lot in there, everything from those dirty almost cathartic passages, the bits that are almost dancefloor drops, hints of something near junglist breakbeats, intricate avant jazz attacks, and that sludgy menace, that flirty dirty pharp, that rather filthy bite and skronk that at times does kind of hint of Van Der Graaf Generator’s David Jackson or maybe Hawkwind’s Nik Turner (two massive compliments paid there, they’re not made lightly, no one is as dirty as Jackson of course). but does WeirdOs work as one whole body of work? Yes, it does, it takes a play or two before the character of each piece starts to emerge and the suspicions that O might just be a one trick pony are firmly chased out of the door along with the idea that they might just lack a touch of depth.    

Speaking about the album, the band say, “WeirdOs is a dark, heavy album based around our love of riffy basslines, blast beats, dub, noise, and all the weird sounds in between. It was recorded live across two weeks in the studio with Dan Carey and aims to replicate the feeling of being at one of our gigs.”

The experimentation and the free spirit, the thrill of these pieces mostly comes from Joe Henwood’s painterly manipulation of his sax, the way things are filtered through an array of effects pedals rather than in terms of the actually composition of the tunes, O are about feelings, attitudes, sounds, colours, about that live crunch, that dynamic that has been well and truly captured here. There’s a heavy heft to WeirdOs, to the glorious distortion of it all and with all the talk of the dirty filthy sax none of that is to say drummer Tash Keary is in any kind of way playing second fiddle here, there’s some fine driving going on, delicious break beats, some of that drumming is brutally tasty, almost something for the metalheads, lots of colour here. Sugarfish is highlight (not a standout though, it all stands out) 

Hey look, we did wonder if they’d do it over a whole album, whether it would all hang together, they do and it does. WeirdOs kinds of feels like a good art show, the pieces all hanging there on the white wall of the gallery, all very obviously the work of one artist, the paintings all talking to each other, all very strongly relating, a powerful finger print yet each piece strong enough to not be overshadowed by the next one, it feels right, it all feels right, WeirdOs feels just right. 

Hear WeirdOs and indeed buy it should you wish via Speedy Wonderground.

And on we go, we surely don’t need to say anything about the recently released Shellac album do we?

Shellac – To All Trains (Touch And Go) – Something something something some, of course the way we’re going to listen to this now is different and I did start writing something back when To All Trains first came our back in late May days after Shellac frontman Steve Albini’s sad sad passing. Tried to write a review back then but it never did come together, partly because Shellac don’t really need our words or our support and partly because it gets a little tedious to be constantly listening to new albums in terms of reviews and what can we say about this one and do I always have to be dancing around the architecture? For gawd sake, can’t I just enjoy the architecture now and again, can’t I just stand there and look up at the skylines and the shape of the roof and not have to think about saying something about it all the damn time? Shellac don’t need our time and space, they never have done really, not even with their debut back in when was it? 1994? It never really felt like they needed much support from us. This, once again, is a rather rewarding album though and we do really (really0 have to say something before it is too late, disrespectful to just let it pass and To All Trains is in so so many ways the almost prefect legacy, the perfect parting set of shots – never entirely perfect of course, how on earth could any Shellac album (or for that matter any album involving the late Steve Albini ever be perfect), he was never about perfection, that’s what made the things he did so often feel so ‘perfect’. 

Released just over a week after Steve Albini’s death, the band’s sixth album draws the curtain on the trio’s output and yes, it serve as an excellent epitaph, that ‘perfect’ epitaph. Shellac have always challenged things, they’ve always challenged themselves, they have always been a constant challenge, and I really don’t want to say “were” here, I guess this really is the final album (unless there are other things lying around?). Kind of need to approach it as if no one had died though, kind of need to just ask the questions we would have done anyway, react how we would have done had nothing happened. Would it sound dated? Would it still work thirty years on from that At Action Park debut? They have always been a slightly hard-boiled slightly challenging listen for some, and we, they or indeed Scabby The Rat would not accept anything less that a hard-boiled sometimes abrasive math rock flavoured challenge. Would they sound like a now slightly past-their-their-sell-by-date thirty year old band? An ageing 90’s American noise rock band? Would the hundreds (thousands?) of bands they’ve (directly or indirectly) influenced leave one of the originals behind? No chance, this is as vitally lean as ever, this is proper art, and like all the best artists with age comes wisdom, with age comes a knowing maturity, with age comes more to build the artistic challenge on, this is a good as anything Shellac have done, I don’t know if To All Trains is their best but then I’m not sure if it is possible to pick a best one?

Of course, the crucial thing with this very fine Shellac record is that frontman Steve Albini passed away from a heart attack (in his studio) at age 61, just ten days before the release and everyone’s social media feeds were full of thoughts and tales of being in the studio with him with examples of his work both as a musician and a producer (or engineer as he insisted he was with all those crucial albums he produced). It’s impossible to wave away the tragic circumstances clouding the release of To All Trains, especially when it closes with a biting piece called I Don’t Fear Hell where Albini delivers, in that defiant way of his, lines like “Something something something when this is over/Leap in my grave like the arms of a lover/And if there’s a heaven, I hope they’re havin’ fun, ’cause if there’s a hell I’m gonna know everyone.” 

Albini spent years, something like forty of them, dedicated to his singular idea or vision (or was it more a set of demands?) of what alternative rock music should be, a dedication to that no messing nail it down and don’t piss about thing, none of your overdubs and three months constructing the ‘perfect’ guitar sound nonsense, an energy and attitude built with analogue tools and that constantly edgy guitar sound as well as the colour of a functional rhythm section, that thing that started so so much. Yes, Shellac were always dependable, there was a basic no messing challenge to their way, Shellac were always a little more than that though, I mean the man was obsessed with the bricks of his studio wall for gawd sake, don’t let anyone ever tell you he just banged this stuff out. his was never a throwaway thing. And you could never say Shellac were modest, you could never ever say they were just another American alternative noise band and yes, there are pages and pages that could be written about this fine epitaph of an album, about how forward looking it actually still is, how in many ways it is more vital now than even but Shellac don’t need out opinion and really neither do you. I just want to enjoy it rather than debate it, we did need to say something though, six weeks too late but better late than never and hey, he wasn’t by any means perfect, far from is with some of the things he said, but then which of us is? His music at times almost was perfect and this Shellac album is a fine forward looking challenging piece of art. Not just another Shellac album and not just another band. Just needed to say so even if you or they didn’t need us to, colours nailed and all that.  (sw) 

Bandcamp / Touch and Go

The Naked Grace Missionaries – The Ceremony of the Keys (Self Release) – Chasing what? Darkness, Love, talking in whispers, speaking in what, tongues, fire singling, damning and weeping or was it turning? Holding on tightly, they had us won over the moment they started doing their seductive thing in the dark red of Helgi’s back at the start of Spring and here we are just past Mid Summer and the debut album has just landed (with that splash of napalm) and when you put your gun into your hand you’ll think of me (they sing). Yes they are kind of maybe a touch Charlie Manson Jonestown massacre and don’t drink the kool-aid or maybe it was all for god or love or what was it the two of them were singing just then? They say they couldn’t tell us, something to do with the golden thread of reality broken and don’t ask them why. Three of them, one acoustic guitar, two slightly witchy voices (slightly?). They might be part of some kind of London based cult thing that might want to lead you somewhere? I can’t wait to get to the fourth track as that straight as the river flow thing, the first three excellent pieces have been out as a three track single for some time now, they’ve been played lots around here and and we need more! No jumping forward though, play the whole album from the start, this is the first listen, let it go straight as the river flows through the blackened sky, wait until the early hours for a first listen, it deserves a ritual, put in all on, watch for that viper that’s bound to be at at your feet and yes, track four is more of what we got with the first three, this is what we want, more is more, less will not do. 

There’s all kind of the contradictions and this does, without ever sounding dated or in the wrong time or place, this does sound like some kind of slightly disturbing, slightly seductive hippie commune just outside San Francisco in 1969 just before the dream fell off the rails and Altamont and what did they just sing? Some of it is beautiful, most of it is, some of it is a touch sinister, is it disturbing? catching lightning with the undercurrents? Are they not who we think they are? Almost always the two of them singing, beautiful harmonies, he isn’t heard that much, his guitar is, the combination of the three of them works so so well and yes they do seize the fire and yes the change is coming and really this should be awful and normally I’d run a mile from it, yet for some reason I am but a moth to their flame and their psychedelic darkness and their witchy wordplay and actually this is brilliant. The Naked Grace Missionaries are just about my favourite thing right now and the minds of people and stairways to heaven and people with sad eyes drowning in their lives, where can we hide when beasts are inside? Ashes hot and things lost in the dirt below and yes, I’d go to their church and fire, spirit, earth, air, water and all that they are and sympathy for the who? Yes, curiosity is still a good thing.   

Who? Well here’s a little in terms of the who – “combining the talents of the Occult Hardware production team of Robert Burnham and Fayann Smith with strident Norwegian songstress Isabella Steinsdotter” – I did say a little, this is all they tell us. Their Naked Grace Missionaries thing is nothing like their other projects. well no, this is very like their other projects, the results are rather different but then again they really aren’t and let the light fill up your eyes and travel to different skies and transmission has come to awaken everyone… The debut album just came out, I shot the phone footage at that first encounter back in February, you need to go explore it all for yourselves, you don’t need to be told too much, the mystery is important… (sw)

Bandcamp

Sykofant – Sykofant (Sycophantastic Records) – Well it is a shame they couldn’t spell colour properly, it is after all the Queen’s English (no not the King’s, enough of that lot), prog rock is a quintessentially English thing, there’s a U in colour, off to the Tower with you! Sykofant have been insisting they get some Organ coverage, they keep telling us that our readers would like them and I guess some of you progheads just might? I guess they want to us to tell you this is front line prog rock and yes, they do have some proper proggy moments, hints of Pink Floyd and such, it isn’t really that progressive though, neither in the real sense of the word or indeed the notions of what Prog Rock is. What we have here is progish hard rock, a mostly melodic musical tapestry, a lyrical stew that maybe doesn’t stand up to too close an examination and now and again a galloping guitar or a long passage that people who like bands such as Flower Kings or Porcupine Tree might like. It all sounds a little lumpy to these ears, all kind of lacking in different colour, all on the same level. Not to say Sykofant’s self titled album is a bad one, it does have a moment or two, most of it is reasonably good, right now they’re sounding a little early Marillionish in a Jadis kind of way and yes, it does reveal a little bit more with every play, and now they sound a little like Rush-flavoured heavy rock (as regret stains their minds) or maybe Demon when they fell into those Blackheath plague pits. Not sure about the attempts at funk? Not sure about the strength of the vocals. Actually a lot of this sounds like the melodic mid 1980s take on prog when we were kind of clutching at straws a little and then another moment will grab and yes, maybe, but no, it isn’t really truly grabbing ears here, they’re kind of alright, you old school stuck in your ways progheads are going to like it. They’re from Oslo, Norway, they’ve just released the album as a double vinyl package, more via Bandcamp should you wish…