In music, the term ‘side project’ is all too often synonymous with ‘pretentious and execrable waste of time’. Not so here – although given that we’re talking about a member of Between The Buried And Me (who even managed to put out a non-shitty covers album), it shouldn’t be that much of a surprise. Read more…
Hacktivist defy categorisation. Their music is a mix of djent’s brutality and hip-hop’s flamboyance – but it’s impossible to merge those two genre labels without generating results that are…well…pretty shit. ‘Hip-djent’ reads like something you’d spot in an out of touch news rag whose contributors only feel truly comfortable with shameless fearmongering and casual racism, while ‘djent-hop’ sounds like a dance move guaranteed to alienate all but the most loyal friends. Read more…
As the originators of the metal style known as djent, Meshuggah are one of the most influential heavy bands in existence today. If you’ve ever sat and scratched your head at an ultra-complex riff until you listened to the cymbal pattern and suddenly it all made sense, you were most likely listening to a band paying lip service to Meshuggah – if not a track by the Swedish maestros themselves. Djent bands the world over owe their rhythmic and tonal signatures to Meshuggah, although the origin of the genre-encompassing word itself is the subject of much controversy. Read more…
Swim Good consistently rock good – and this fresh threesome continues the winning streak so far upheld by previous release Yeah Yeah Great Yeah and a pair of storming live sets. Little Victories contrasts undeniable catchiness and jaunty guitars with vicious, go-for-the-throat lyrics; Love Don’t Tempt Me shines through live demo-level production that lends a surprisingly invigorating rawness to proceedings; and the closing cover of Ella Eyre’s Comeback is slinky, shiny, and entertaining. Read more…
Cute. Cheerful. Bright and sunny. Nice. Win Some X Lose Some is none of these things. Read more…
This isn’t so much an album as an unforgiving barrage of beyond-heavy ultra-distorted guitars, cage-fighting drums, utterly guttural bass, and brutalising vocals. If you’re only interested in nice and friendly finger-clicking tunes, Badlands is not for you – but if you’re pissed off beyond reason and your tastes tend toward the corner of musicland labelled ‘Extreme Metal’, it most certainly is. Read more…
When I first discovered Half Crown at a secret Sofar Sounds show in a beautiful Brighton basement, I was struck by how comfortable they were in such an exposed and intimate environment. On Everything Goes, Half Crown manage to achieve that same sense of fearless liveness and meaningful connection without any face-to-face contact whatsoever. This is a rare and valuable feat in today’s increasingly digital and digitised world.
Fusing gritty blues-ridden rock’n’roll with elements of hip-hop and reggae, Half Crown have developed an energising and exciting sound that retains enough familiarity to ensure accessibility while pushing a collection of idiosyncratic personalities to the forefront. While many rock-oriented acts talk the talk and look the part but put out a self-consciously studious, even bookish vibe on record and onstage, Half Crown have not only done their homework but also twisted their tastes into something more suited to getting their plaintive and heartfelt message across. That message changes from song to song, spanning the spectrum from the personal to the political, but you cannot doubt the passion behind the playing or words for so much as a microsecond. Read more…
Hardcore isn’t normally the kind of music I can get into outside of live shows – but with this track, Palm Reader just became an exception to that rule. Maybe it’s the ultra-complex DEP-meets-the-theme-from-28–Days–Later vibe; maybe it’s my fresh, indignant anger at YouTube’s incessant insistence that I spend my time on their site consuming some Creationism-endorsing crapfest; or maybe it’s the bleakly abstract video below efficiently complementing this track’s relentless and ear-rending catharsis. Well, whatever – I Watch The Fire Chase My Tongue is fucking excellent, and if this is just a taste of what to expect from Palm Reader’s next album (Beside The Ones We Love, due out in 2015), then it’s also a reason to get very goddamn excited indeed. Read more…
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On the walk from Waterloo station to Camden, I passed at least three busking beatboxers. The faces were different, but the acts were the same – a combination of robot impressions, oppressively generic beats, and faithful and flawless impressions of a variety of non-percussive instruments. By the time KOKO’s dramatic facade came into view, the novelty of solo beatboxing had more than worn off; London was beginning to feel saturated by Beardyman wannabes. Read more…
Some shows are born special. Although I’m relatively new to The Hell, I’ve already become hopelessly addicted to their latest album (reviewed here) – so nothing short of a bad case of death was going to stop this show (the first of The Hell’s A Shitemare Before Christmas tour) from getting featured on TMMP. Read more…