Bats – ‘The Sleep Of Reason’ [Review]
A common accusation levelled at those whose core beliefs revolve around science and humans is that they are little more than logic-driven robot people, cold and emotionless, utterly devoid of the ability to feel ‘real feelings’. Their favourite music is assumed to consist of late-Seventies robot pop (Kraftwerk / The Normal / Giorgio Moroder / etc.) and the various electronic music styles birthed since that era, while their favourite activities are presumed to be a) watching Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens videos on YouTube, and b) arguing with Creationists and Christians in the comments.
Bats are very different. Read more…
Deep in my iTunes library sits a humble two-track EP by a long-dead band called Strobe 45. That band, when it was around, was completely insane. It was common for their detractors to dismiss them as either being unable to play or sounding so bad that it made no difference – but the truth was, Strobe just didn’t give a fuck. That singular quality made them a quality band. Once you were accustomed to their raw-as-a-Dirty-Sanchez-episode noise, tiny sparks of genius made themselves permanently known, enabling you to listen to something most would deem unlistenable not just out of some misguided musical masochism but rather out of genuine, ecstatic appreciation. 
Sometimes a little research goes a long way. I first discovered Key Of The Moment while researching 
Well, fuck me. These kids are pretty angry! Hardcore prog-punk’s been a fairly trendy genre since the rock world wised up to the genius of The Dillinger Escape Plan, and few bands following in Dillinger’s wake have made a serious, crystal-clear-obvious effort to escape their heroes’ back-flipping, ceiling-walking, onstage-shit-flinging shadow. But on Tell-Tale Hearts Now, Voyager do precisely that. 
This has to be the dirtiest album I’ve heard in a long time. The most recent instrumental offerings collected in TMMP’s archives have been markedly slicker than Spooky Action (
I’ve never made a big secret of the fact that I love Guildford’s music scene. The sheer amount of musical talent hidden below the level of fashion-clone high street shops and uppity snobs with Come Dine With Me dreams is mind-boggling. Scratch away the net-worth-obsessed surface and you’ll find pop singers, gypsy jazz quintets, folk dreamers, alt-rock groups and, in Doomed From Day One, prog-metal titans in waiting. When they get big, many will assume DFDO’s success to have been some overnight phenomenon – but that’s simply not true. Doomed From Day One have already spent countless nights slogging around the local gig circuit, and their hard work is finally paying off. Nine Fingers is evidence of this. Full track-by-track analysis below: 
Belgium certainly seems to have its fair share of atmospherically-minded musicians, and Marteleur is no exception. There’s a very clear Tool influence on My Anvil Is My Tuning Fork, which initially marked Marteleur out in my mind as potentially being ahead of the competition. This album is very interesting, but to be perfectly honest it sounds more like a soundtrack than something intended to be consumed in a solely audio-only format. As a chillout album it works very well, but the instrumental pieces on display here often feel directionless, with a lot of repeating vamps that remind me of an old songwriting tutor berating me for overusing my DAW’s copy-and-paste function.