Shall we write a new editorial? Oh the endless demand and who needs a damn editorial? No time for editorials, let the actual music do the actual walking and the actual talking. Exact same thing again, another five (or so) slices of music that have passed our way recently and however you like to slice it and of course it was the price of oranges and here comes the editorial. Don’t be flippant she said, how could it ever be flippant? I can’t remember why she said that now, in one ear, out the other, we have a bad attitude here apparently, no respect for those who work in the music industry, well no poop Sherlock, have you only just worked that one out?

Five? There’s something rather compelling about five. Cross-pollination? Five more? Is there another way? A better way? A cure for pulling flying rabbits out of the clouds? Is there a rhyme? Is there a reason? Was there ever a reason? What do reasons make? Five more? Snake oil? Everything must go and no, we never do and the proof of the pudding is in that proof reading. When we started this thing, oh never mind, it doesn’t matter why we started this damn thing and like we asked last time, does anyone bother reading the editorial? Does anyone ever actually look down the rabbit hole or is it all just method acting? We do really try to listen to everything that comes in, we do it so you don’t have to, we are very (very) very very picky about what we actually post on these fractured pages or about what gets played on the radio or indeed what we hang in a gallery. Cut to the chase, never mind the editorial, skip this bit, there’s loads of music further down the page, well five or so pieces of music that have come our way in the last few days and what’s Wordsworth? Just the basic facts and links and those sounds (and visuals), that’s surely all you need from us?

Here we go, five more slices of music that have recently come our way, this time we start with something new from Ghent…

1: Maria Iskariot – “Today Ghent-based newcomers Maria Iskariot share their defiant new single Leugenaar, a slice of vitriolic raw Dutch-language punk” so reads the press release and well, here it is…

Translating to “Liar” in English, the track seethes with raging energy, as front-woman Helena Cazaerck spits the lyrics “He feeds the people sugared lies / Knows too well how to disguise”. A live video of the track has already started drawing attention to the band online, leading to Tropical Fuck Storm inviting them on their UK and Scandinavian tour late last year. Now, as the band put the finishing touches to their debut album, they unleash the studio version of the track and accompanying video.
 
The band comment: “Leugenaar is an absolution, a pelvis under the chin of a drooling monster waiting to be freed from a rotten tooth. Anyone expecting further explanation can go to hell.”

“Maria Iskariot is Helena Cazaerck (vocals and guitar), Loeke Vanhoutteghem (guitar), Sybe Versluys (drums), and Amanda Barbosa (bass). The band have a distinct artistic and social vision, which is reflected in their music and lyrics, blending raw punk with themes of self-discovery, growing up, and the moral ambiguity between good and evil. This last theme is also embedded in their name—a fusion of Maria (the Virgin Mary) and Iskariot (Judas Iscariot, the betrayer of Jesus), symbolizing the tension between holiness and betrayal.
 
They see their music as a medium for storytelling – often unfiltered and confrontational, yet also playful and relatable. Maria Iskariot emphasizes authenticity and expression, refusing to conform to classic pop or rock structures. This aligns with their punk attitude: scream when necessary, whisper when it fits, and always create from a place of raw, honest emotion. Their lyrics are often introspective but also socially critical—never moralizing. They play with contrasts and dualities: tenderness vs. aggression, chaos vs. control, and hope vs. despair. This is not just a punk band but an artistic and social statement – urgent, fresh, and groundbreaking”.

watch this space for more I guess,? Watch this space for more from Maria Iskariot soon. In the meantime, find them on:
Web | Instagram | Bandcamp

2: Fatboi Sharif & Driveby – Battlestar Galactica is the opening track from an album that’s due out next month, it is all we can hear right now, attention has been grabbed though and it is on the almost always rewarding Deathbomb Arc label… Bandcamp

3: Great Grandpa – It is an awful name for a band, they are rather uplfifting in a harmlessly good kind of way though, sunny, breezy, kind of carefree and well why not, not everything needs to be a confrontation or a challenge, they’re from Seattle, what the hell is snack rock? Ladybug by Great Grandpa is out now via Run For Cover Records, a single from thier forthcoming album Patience, Moonbeam, you can find four slices of the album via Bandcamp right now, it all comes out at the end of March, the other three songs are equally at ease with everything, all those distances between semitones and what is there not to like? They just feel good….

Bandcamp / other links

4: Black Market Karma – “Prolific London-born, Dartford-based band Black Market Karma are today announcing their twelfth studio album Mellowmaker, out June 6th on Fuzz Club, they’re also sharing the title-track and lead single. The new music arrives ahead of a run of Spring UK/EU tour-dates” and I guess they or their label or their people think we should tell you about them “bringing you the sound of The Technicolour Liquid Audio Machine” Here’s a Linktree, there’s their latest rather fine piece of psychedelic pop rock, go explore if you wish to…

5: Dead Pioneers are back with more from their new album, back and taking more swipe at this, that and the other, this time mostly John Wayne and silver screen cowboys in general and it really is all the same, only the name are changed. Denver’s Dead Pioneers, a band we’ve been supporting and sharing and playing around these parts since their earliest of days “will release their new album, Po$t American, on 11th April via Hassle Records. Fronted by renowned visual and performance artist Gregg Deal, a North American Indigenous vocalist, the band unapologetically confronts social, political, and cultural issues – a focus central to their identity. Today the band offers another taste of Po$t American with their new single Mythical Cowboys.”

Gregg Deal shares:
“In 1990, when I was a sophomore in high school, ‘Dances with Wolves’ came out. Like many, in the initial viewing of what would later win an Oscar for best film, I was enamoured and confused. 

Seeing something Indigenously familiar when you’re young can sometimes be confusing and overwhelming, to be sure, but something was amiss. Without the language to articulate what it I would later come to a place of understanding the Hollywood trope of white saviorism. 

My mother’s adopted father, a white man, would express his love for John Wayne, a common hero for his generation. As someone who has always been treated as a Native person, good, bad or indifferent, his glare has always left me uncomfortable. 

The narrative of the cowboy and Indian is a myth. A storyline used to sell books, films, photos, and paintings, but a storyline with the nefarious purpose of supplanting the existence of Native people as the enemy of Colonial Settlerism, a structure backed by religious belief of divinity and righteous purpose. Please note: if your righteous purpose includes the death of others, it’s not righteous. The existence of this narrative undermines Indigenous rights, existence and assertion to the authority of our own homelands. 

Costner embodies the white obsession with westward expansion, casting aside the truth for romanticism. If we were honest, westerns would look more like a horror movie than the romantic dribble that arrives on the silver screen. This need to romanticize western exceptionalism through a narrative of romantic nationalism is the obsession of the so-called righteous religious nationalism perpetuated through people like Kevin Costner and John Wayne. These narratives play into the religious right and far right, inform the fantasy of exceptionalism through violence, and the perpetuation of these ideas backed by millions of dollars. This continues the cycle of violence in the real world, being dismissive of human life under the flag of benevolent colonialism and civilization, which requires the demonization of black and brown people. This isn’t civilization, this is brutalization. The most brutal structures imposed on planet earth, and Kevin can’t wait to sell you the movie tickets for it.”

There’s some UK dates, well a couple, their first if we’re not mistaken

13th May –  Voodoo Daddy’s, Norwich, UK, 14th May –  Downstairs @ The Dome, London, UK. There’s also some mainland European dates with Pennywise in May. Here’s a link or two; Website / Instagram

More here – ORGAN THING: Now what you are about to hear is a nightmare, not only your America, but our world, great, Dead Pioneers have announced a new album, here’s a taste…

And Ger Eaton, don’t ask us, missed this, it just came our way, it came out a year ago and isn’t it beautiful. Hey, we never claimed to be on top of absolutely everything that’s happening musically, jsut nearly all of it. More Ger Eaton when things have been explored a little more…

And we’ll just park this here as well, we lost a Brian James today