Another day another five, a heavier five and more cross-pollination, do we need to go through all the rhyme and reason again? The short fuse and here, have some more music, there’s always more music waiting…
1: Blessings – Blodsträngen (Pelagic Records) – Gothenburg’s Blessings are sounding rather big, they’re edging on being properly experimental here on this rather ambitiously full-bodied third album Blodsträngen. This is large, large is (almost) always good when you’re making an album, this is ambitious, almost overgrown. Says here all four members of Blessings are already veterans of numerous bands and several distinct scenes throughout their native Sweden and that “the group came together with the idea of creating something wholly their own, rather than compromising to fit in elsewhere”. I guess the thing to do would be to check out who they actually are, does it really matter though? It is all about the here and now, and right now it is all about this album called Blodsträngen, a title that apparently can be translated as ‘The Bloodline’ or ‘The Blood String’.
Things start off in in a pretty straight forward kind of heavy alt.rock manner if the truth be told, if you’re one of those people who turn off an new album after a couple of minutes of it not grabbing you you might well do that here, hang on though, at least wait for the cowbell and then about a third of the way through the pounding of the album’s second track, Strings of Red, there some glorious keyboard/guitar interaction that will make you eventually realise that that open track deserved more time and by the time third track Clean has settled in, you’re ears are really demanding the rest of you pays proper attention. Clean really is a moody piece of music, brooding, a little off-kilter, dramatic, a slow moving slab of heaviness. There’s some clever colour underneath the surface here, slightly different textures throughout the album, a palette than isn’t quite the same, that heavyweight guitar and those deliciously crunchy modular synths and keys that come in just when they’re needed, those pounding drums (and yes, more cowbell). Vocals that echo the personality of the music, proper vocals mind you, powerful, none of yer cookie monster cop-outs, Clean in an immense piece of work and they follow it with something that starts out like it almost wants to be a Cure song before it works outs the Cure were never heavy enough, things are getting very serious now.
Allt Vi Kan Ge Är Upp is just epic, a proper slice of colourfully progressive commitment before we get into the (almost) two minute stomp of Copper and Salt that takes us to the almost ten minutes of mountain climbing that is the album closer Through Veils and well, that final track really is something. Most heavy music is boring the hell out of me these days, most of it seems so damn predictable, almost tediously so, all far more by the book than ever. Blessings aren’t by any means starting a revolution here, they clearly aren’t content to just be another rule-following heavy band though, this really is very much worth your time…
Meanwhile….
2: Vomitatrix – What is Weasel Walter doing today? Who knows? We do know that whatever the Flying Luttenbacher is doing, it isn’t going to be easy listening! This is something from another of his bands, Vomitatrix, you go work it out, something to do with acid grind and the problems of success fatigue, this track is a preview to a Vomitatrix live recording that you can find more about via Weasel’s Bandcamp.
Have you checked out the latest album from The Flying Luttenbachers yet, it was our album of the year last year –
And…
3: Standover – …When A Clenched Fist Is No Longer An Option (Gutter Prince Cabal) – “New Zealand’s Standover burst out of the gates with a name that perfectly matches their intimidating, no-holds-barred brand of metallic hardcore. Unapologetically confrontational, their sound is a relentless, in-your-face assault that never lets up”, New Zealand’s Standover have been blasting away here the studio on repeat for most of the day now while paint is thrown, leaves are grown, peanut is spread on bread and architecture is danced around. Now Standover aren’t bad, far from it, thing it you’ve heard it all before, it is pretty much standard issue aggressive confrontational metallic hardcore – assuming you see hardcore as a sound rather than a statement of punk rock intent. They do it as well as anyone, every town should have a Standover kicking up the knuckledust and insert anyone of 500 band names you choose to insert here, you know the score, you know already what they sound like, they could be from Southend or Swansea, they could be from New York or Oakland or some industrial town in Germany or Belgium or pretty much anywhere in the world, it is a universal sound, and Standover do it as well as anyone, they’ve got the ink, they’ve got the look at us aren’t we serious band photo, they’ve got the barking growling hardcore singer and they’ve been happily blasting away in here for hours and hours and if they were to be playing in our part of town tomorrow I’d go and see them and probably enjoy it, the album has been of repeat, they do their metallic thing rather well, I have no complaints other than we’ve all heard it so so many times already over the last thirty off years, I’ve enjoyed Standover’s company for the bulk of the day and now I’m going to hit the shut the flip up button and in all honestly, I’m probably never going to listen to Standover’s “in-your-face assault that never lets up” again (I’ll resist commenting on ther awful album cover). For fans of Nails, All Out War, Merauder, Converge, etc. reads the press release… Find it on Bandcamp
4: Boneflower, a bunch of noise makers from Madrid (who can get a touch melodic when they need to) have a new album on the way, here’s a track, a new video and whatever you want, the details can be found via their Bandcamp
Boneflower are an emotionally charged post-hardcore band from Madrid, Spain, known for their raw, cathartic sound and intense live performances. Since their formation in 2015, Boneflower have embraced a hard-working DIY ethos, touring extensively across Europe and sharing the stage with bands like Touche Amore, Loma Prieta, State Faults, Trauma Ray, and others. Their commitment to their craft and the underground scene has earned them a loyal following.
Ten years later, Boneflower have announced their new LP Reveries, incoming July 25th. Reveries is their most ambitious album to date, featuring thirteen powerful new tracks that capture the band’s evolution.
The album’s second single “Anniversary” arrives today with a music video filmed and edited by Jaime Díaz de Tuesta. The band laments on the song: “The passing of time is merciless, but healing. A year as a measurement of both longing and recovery. A birthday or an anniversary involves an inevitable nostalgia about the ones we miss and who we’ve become. ‘I wish they were here,’ – ‘What have we done to be where we are?’ However, sometimes a sparkle of hope shines through. Let’s heal and let’s do it together.”
5: Belonging – Hollow Cells (Dipterid Records) – Says here “Belonging formed out of the tight-knit DIY scenes of the Upper Midwest, later converging with the heavier and more experimental currents of the Pacific Northwest. The result is a massive, emotionally complex sound, blending the raw urgency of punk and screamo with the heavy, hypnotic energy of sludge, psych, and grunge”.
First thing to say here, besides telling you that’s them up there with the Buzzkill video, is that Belonging sound rather good, they could however, be from anywhere and anytime over the last thirty-five or so years. Belonging sound like a lot of alt-rock noise bands from over here for back there in the backroom of the Camden Falcon or the chaos of the Robey, the sound like they’d be positively sharing bills with Scissormen, Osmium, Homage Freaks, Pipedream and the rest, they sound like they might have been regulars on Organ bills back there, they sound like one of those bands from thew US the then all-powerful music press over here would have loved back there, they are from the Upper Midwest of the USA and they’re making their music now; “Hollow Cells was the culmination of many different influences,” guitarist and vocalist Bryce August says. “We wrote and recorded many of these songs during the Covid quarantine – so there’s a sense of alienation, isolation, creeping dread… and a desire to cut silence with noise”, they do their thing extremely well, I like that they come from a tight-knit DIY scene, tight-knit scenes are always good, what more is there to say? Belonging do their chosen thing very well, they’re a damn good rather timeless, heavy alt.rock guitar noise band from the Upper Midwest, they’ve got a bit of Kyuss, Sleep or Corrosion of Conformity in there with the rest of it and without really adding too much of their own to the cocktail, they do it all rather well. Go have a listen to the album… Bandcamp
THE ORGAN 