More more more. There are so many, shall we? More albums, shall we dance around it all again, all those tall buildings with post-modernist baroque bits of clocktower all showing the same stopped time, shall we dance around the architecture? Shall we try and keep up with all the demands and why haven’t you reviewed this yet? Did we say this last time? And the time before? Where were we? Catching up. Hey, too many albums not enough time, and (some of) these things do demand proper time and anyway, and, and then, and you do know we only have time for the good ones don’t you? You do know no one reads the editorial at the top, well why would they? Here’s some more albums, a couple of them already recently released, some about to be….
Andrew Jim Gannon – Hydrate Those Folds! – There’s a lot of goodness to unpack here as Andrew Jim Gannon releases his new album Hydrate Those Folds!. Previously releasing music as On Man (Houndstooth), the Hertfordshire-based producer has now “stepped out from behind the moniker, singing under his own name for the first time and reshaping his electronic background into a more exposed strain of art-pop”. Art pop or is it actually Pop Art? He’s developed a new method, a new sound, and an emboldened voice, a confidence? A belief? A resilience?
“A respected composer for film, television, and the games industry, Gannon previously released material under the moniker On Man. A self-titled studio album arrived in 2022 via tastemaker imprint Houndstooth, followed by remix record High Crystal the following year. Then momentum stalled as his body entered unfamiliar territory. A long period of physical limitation left him, as he puts it, “laid out and somewhat immobile.” “Everything slowed down and my body dictated the terms,” he reflects. Conventional music-making became impossible, so he adapted, writing “little scraps of language that seemed to come from within my own body.” With focus fractured, songs emerged as chants, fragments, and images: music born from friction and sensation. Rather than documenting decline, the material became a way of charting transformation – “losing myself, and then finding myself again.”
Actually, now that we have the whole album rather than just the one off songs and bites and bits that tend to get fed to us all via social media and those damn streaming platforms during the build up to a release, now that we can let the whole thing unfold properly, this is a rather beautiful album. Pop Art yes, but you do rather need the whole show, the whole exhibition.
“As his strength returned, the Hertfordshire-based producer began shaping these ideas into songs. The work felt too personal for the On Man project, and for the first time Andrew used his own voice, singing on record. “It was revelatory,” he says. “It felt like a whole new creative world”
This really does unfold, these are delicious highs and lows, there’s emotion, emotions, euphoria, darkness, tenderness, there’s clarity, dare we call it conceptual pop? We wouldn’t be the first. It is an album that really does require time, an album that slowly lets you get to know it, that slowly pulls you in as it reveals more and more. There are no really obvious reference points, it does rather remind me of that excellent Ted Hearne and the Crossing album from last year, a little less in your face and on your toes but there is something that feels rather like out favourite album of last year, lyrically there are hints of PJ Harvey or maybe Nick Cave, Mr Cave in terms of vocal style as well maybe, Gannon talks of being inspired by “the immersive world-building of Oneohtrix Point Never and grounded by the acoustic restraint of Bill Callahan and Mark Hollis”, the Oneohtrix reference particularly makes sense, I’d probably throw Romy’s rather fine Mid Air in there as well. Visual art is a constant influence too: we;re told that during his recovery he found himself drawn to the strange tenderness of Paula Rego and Francis Bacon – “grotesque, funny, and tender all at the same time.” I must admit I’ve never thought of either painter as tender – powerful, committed, two deliciously intense artists, to who really matter, but that’s the thing here as that euphoric rush of the opening track and that dance motif flows again, this is a a tender album, but like Rago or Bacon, never obviously so. Nothing is obvious with this album and this week I have been listening to it rather a lot and yes, those themes of dependency and connection and those red gloves, I do like those red gloves…
That sensibility he talks of extends into the project’s visual world. “Six self-directed, handmade videos form a parallel universe to the album, unified by a recurring character: a pair of bright red gloves. Slightly absurd and half-hidden, they act as a tactile stand-in for Andrew – a way of exploring bodily themes without literal representation. Like the music, the videos are physical, comic, grotesque, and tender, operating on the same internal logic”.
Hey look, this album really is rather good, an album full of so much, it does need time though, it isn’t going to let you in that easily, it needs to build up a trust, it needs to know it can trust you as a listener before it really does start to reveal itself, you really should let it if you can. It is one of the standouts of a year that is nearly half way through now…
And….
One Eyed Ancestor – Etches (Syrup Moose) – Apparently, two years on from the previous release, this new album Etches is the result of an identity reset. “The solo post-metal/experimental doom project, helmed by Ben Wiggs (Kerchiefs/Column of Trout), finds its existential contemplations pushed through the mesh of grief and reinterpreted against the absurd reality of loss”. Five pieces of music that start with a thirteen minute epic called Thousand Suns, actually none of the pieces clock in under ten minutes, none of it is as self indulgent as these things can sometimes be, thankfully it is lean, every note or sound has a purpose, there is an economy in the epicness of it all – five pieces that find Ben Wiggs hacking and thrashing at things in a rather controlled and colourful way that’s far less obvious that a first listen might suggest – he’s rather painterly actually, in a forcefully abstract way, healthy amount of light and shade, bushes dipped in different colours: “The new album’s five songs each engage the real-time experience of post-inevitability and re-frame Ben’s ontological pursuits against the crippling agoraphobia of picking up the pieces” – although they are instrumental pieces (with what might be the occasional texture of a voice) rather than songs you can sing – “Sonically, mountainous riffs puncture the album’s oceanic long-form structures and tonally dissonant noise excursions, with vocals lending layers of texture rather than vying for focus”, It does sound, rather like the work of a painter, (sometime) ferociously personal, cathartic even, sometimes the power of silence – “These five songs each cover different aspects of the grieving process as I’ve experienced it” Ben says – “from grasping at memories to help untie the endless emotional knots, to plunging oneself into true acceptance of loss, and acceptance of a re-framed world that doesn’t quite speak your language any more”. Bandcamp
VNRL – The Power That, When Wielded, Corrupts (Syrup Moose) – “Nihilistic doomer noise” so it says here, from British Columbia, I’m guessing one man in a bedroom, it sounds rather masculine – “nihilistic doomer noise to listen to while we beg for the heat death of the universe” – yeah, right, beg away. Seems like a whole load of unfocussed self indulgence, that might have been a good thing, not sure it is in this case? Not really a Doom thing, nihilistic doom maybe, nothing anywhere near a Doom Metal thing, this is a collage of electronic sounds, effects, loops, repeats, heavily machined guitars maybe, who knows who is making the noise and indeed how that noise is being made (not that we need to know, it is about the result, we don’t need to know about the process). Actually some of this this would sound great in an big empty room, a cavernous white walled art gallery, until we get to the silly spoken word through effects bit that’s followed by the mechanical pecking birds that told us it was time to check out… There’s probably as good EP hiding somewhere within this rather hit ‘n miss album (well the label did push and push for a review…) Bandcamp
Lex Legion – Lex Legion (MNRK) – A band that consists of Mikey Dee, Pete Blakk, Andy La Rocque and Hal Patino, people from Motörhead, Scorpions, King Diamond and Death fame so says the press release: “these legends have come together to create a classic modern metal album, fans of all the above bands will love this!” – well now, as someone who probably saw Motörhead more times than most people did, as someone who can still moan about bottles of fizzy orange pop at Port Vale (if you know you know) or cow crap and straw on the floor at Bingley Hall or how under appreciated the Larry Wallis period was and indeed how, for a while, back around the end of the 70’s, dubious cover art (and occasional dubious lyric) apart, those Scorpions really were on it for a while, I can confirm that I really really (really) don’t love this! I never really took much notice of Pete Blakk, Hal Patino, Andy La Rocque or indeed Mikey Dee during that period or indeed anything King DIamond shaped and are we really name dropping Scorpions here just because Mr Dee joined them (in 2016) post his time as Motörhead’s drummer when no one much was taking Scorpions that seriously any more, when they were well past their sell by date? And whisper it, as powerfully good in terms of a hard rock drummer Mickey Dee was sitting there behind Lemmy and as powerfully impressive as his drumming is here, was he ever anything more than just a really powerful really solid drummer during his many years as Motörhead’s drummer, did he ever add anything? (you might right ask did he need to be anything more that just be that really powerful drummer behind Lemmy?). but really, what this actually is is a gang of people who were the body of King Diamond’s band back there.
What this really is is a new band comprising of four-fifths of the classic late 1980s King Diamond line up – Mikkey Dee, Pete Blakk, Andy La Rocque and Hal Patino – “infused with the jaw-dropping vocals” of Nils K. Rue (Pagan’s Mind). “This is totally unique. No one is writing this kind of music and there’s a big hole for us to fill,” so says Blakk – “Welcome to our new journey of friendship and hard rock!” – I think what he really means is no one is writing this kind of music any more, this is far from unique! What this is is super slick intense 80s style hard rock/heavy metal driven by Mickey Dee’s undoubtedly powerhouse drumming and those relentless heavy metal histrionics of both the guitars and the vocalist, I wouldn’t call the vocals “Jaw dropping” either, but then there is no denying Nils K. Rue is just right for this maximalist (bombastic) heavy metal outfit that sound like a screaming throwback to something or other that never did that much for me in the first place (actually the bloke is giving me a bleedin’ headache, stop with you’re histrionic screaming already mate, just shut the flip up). Nah, this Motörhead fan did not love this.
This is essentially the classic King Diamond line up with a new singer rather than the Heavy Metal supergroup the press release boasts of. Truth is, we probably wouldn’t have bothered covering it if it wasn’t for the Motörhead connection. Certainly worth a listen if you did or do like that far from unique power metal King Diamond style hard rock/heavy metal thing that hundreds of bands were doing in the not very unique mid to late 80s…
Albums, albums, albums, we do listen to a lot of albums, most that land here don’t get covered, right now I’m listening to some self-declared stoner/fuzz rock outfit from Boston, I assume that’s the American city and not the Boston up the road from us over here, they’re playing way-too-slick fast-paced hard rock that has very little identity or desire to go anywhere that different. And then someone “wanted to send over the debut album by Oxford band….” and well, way too polite and by the book for us and then another email about an album from an “electronic/kraut rock band” from London have just released, I think that’s the fourth of fifth e.mail about that one, and here comes the new album by an Italian alt-rock/darkwave/industrial band we really don’t need to name, I mean whoopy do, another electronic darkwave industrial band who sound remarkably like so many alt-rock/darkwave/industrial bands we’ve heard already, although it has to be said, not many of them as bad as this particular one. Apparently this piece of music I’m listening to right now is a “metaphor for a repressed, universal conflict, where pain remains hidden and miscommunication pervades everything”, yeah right. Next up, a single called My Own Party by some overdressed band who clearly want to be the next The Last Dinner Party when one The Last Dinner Party is one too many; says here “the record showcases a sharper, more confident sound while diving deeper into themes of identity, pressure and self-reflection” and here comes some “blackened doom metal from Nevada City and Sacramento, California” that sounds remarkably like something we might have maybe heard before a few hundred times, surely that singer could go to the chemist and get something for that constipation he’s clearly struggling with? “Inspired by the absorbing sounds of bands like Emperor, Evoken, and Blut Aus Nord, and growing up in the forests of Northern California….”
Someone complained the other day that the problem with Organ is that we like everything, you really want to come here and listen to some of the things we listen to so you don’t have to, right now I’m listening to something that we’re told is “a curious and kaleidoscopic record that draws from the experimental spirit of 1967 — fragile vocals turning fierce, classic organ tones, acoustic fingerpicking giving way to heavy riffs, and a rhythm section that keeps it all in restless motion”; in reality it sounds like someone has raided their grandparent’s Jefferson Airplane collection and failed to connect with any of the good bits, some album by some German psychedelic rock band that once again we really don’t need to name and what the hell happened to Mull Historical Society, when did Colin MacIntyre’s music become so beige?
Previously in terms of recent album coverage…
And…
ORGAN: Our best albums of another very musically busy 2025. Who did we rate? Part One, 1 to 10…
THE ORGAN 