Yes, it's not an October without Rocktober. I don't care if it's the name of a magazine, or probably some shitty local radio station promotion I'm taking it. I will always take it. And with that being said, I'd like to lay down some stuff that hath been reviewed in this month, the month of scary stuff, Fall colors, and hot apple cider. Get into it or drop out of life.
BLACK GOD, “Three” 7”
If the title didn’t give it away, this is the third seven
inch from this Louisville side group.
And like their previous records there are again six songs, each no
longer than two minutes in length.
It’s a good rule to keep, and since this band seems to be more out of
fun than anything it’s great to see that their quick songwriting doesn’t get
too self-involved.
Since it’s
basically what was Black Cross rejuvenated that ought to give an idea.
And when you get fellows from Coliseum
and Young Widows teaming up for this thing imagine their styles colliding and
birthing songs with an upbeat tempo and a love of Wipers jams.
Top it all off with vocalist Rob
Penningtons very distinctive yelp, as well as his always thoughtful lyrics and
you get another winner from Black God.
(No Idea)
GREAT FALLS, “Accidents Grotesque”
I know I’m in the old minority here because at this point
audio violence such as this is a bit dated, but I don’t know how anyone can
listen to this and not want to smash all things nearby in fits of miserable
rage.
Great Falls have been
churning out warped noisecore heaviness for a few years now, and before that
two of their three members were fracturing skulls in Playing Enemy.
This is their second full length and
it’s just as mean, noisy, twisted, and ugly as anything they have done in years
past, over various bands.
I mean,
ugly is clearly the proper word here.
If one were to describe the sound of this band in one word it would
clearly be ‘ugly’.
Titles such as
“God Arms the Patriot” and “Replace Me With Fire” give way to knotted, coiled
riffs that bend and sink so low into your skull and then whip you back out of
the water with harsh, pained vocals and frantic rhythms.
Noisecore at it’s nastiest.
I will never not be moved by heaviness
such as this.
(Hell Comes HomeRecords)
“HENRY AND GLEN FOREVER AND EVER”, Tom Neeley & more
(Igloo Tornado)
The original book/comic that launched this was
hilarious.
Glen Danzig and Henry
Rollins as ‘life partners’ and engaging in blissful domestic life
together.
This one is a little
short on content, but offers three short comics from Tom Neeley, Mark Rudolph,
and Josh Bayer.
Neeley takes a
stab at offering up his regular cartoon-ish style crossed with some Jack Kirby
homage (in fact, there’s a few Kirby digs throughout).
Rudolph makes light of some recent
Danzig foibles in “How the Chores Thrill”.
Finally, Bayer takes a surrealist approach to the pair’s
lifelong path-crossing and their complaints through it all.
Pretty funny stuff, but I think I liked
the hodgepodge of random nuttiness in the first edition.
Tack on another 10 pages and this thing
would have been stellar.
(IWDYComics)
MALLWALKERS, “Shake the Rust Off”
This Buffalo ensemble collects various people from a number
of local bands and splays them all out in an 11-piece no-wave funk band.
Imagine some wild alliance of James
Chance and the Contortions, Parliament, and Bauhaus all blended together for
some repetitive party jams heavy on the horns and somehow sad at the same time.
I don’t know how it works, it just
does. However, I cannot see myself spinning this regularly.
It’s pretty weird, but funky and
somehow these 11 people are organized enough to make it happen.
(Peterwalkee Records)
PSYCHIC TEENS, “Come”
For one reason or another I just assumed this band was a
pop-punk band of some kind.
I
couldn’t be more wrong.
Oh sure,
at times they play kind of fast and I suppose what they do could be considered
punk.
But this has way more to do
with goth-y post punk with really wild and grating guitar effects.
Immediately I think of Peter Murphy
fronting Year Future or The VSS (minus keyboards), but that might be too
obscure a comparison.
Take the
vocals of Joy Division, the repetitive rhythms of Gang Of Four and some really
terrorizing guitar effects.
And
somehow it’s all quite catchy.
It
just works really well.
And while
some songs have that more upbeat feel they also keep it slow, lengthy, and
hypnotic with songs like “Lust” (one of the best here) and “Veil”.
The CD version also includes their
first full length tacked on as well, which is just about as good, if not a
little weaker on the production side.
(SRA Records)
RED FANG, “Whales and Leeches”
First things first, the band really outdid themselves with
how insane this record looks (well, maybe kudos are in order to the designers
right?).
It’s like some B-movie
poster about some monster collage, except, ya know, way better.
Anyways, on to the music.
I remember this band’s first record and
it was quite a ripper.
But I
really can’t remember much of it to be honest.
And that was the last I heard of them.
So my gut feeling is they have evolved
quite a bit since that time.
I do
recall them having hints of Mastodon in their sound, and that remains
here.
But combine that with some
rather Queens Of the Stone Age style desert rock riffing, tones, and harmonized
vocals (evident in the psych-fuckery at the end of “1516” and the stone-y
“Every Little Twist”).
Now take
those two band references, mash ‘em up, and bake on ‘beer party rock’ and you
get a Red Fang soufflé’.
Yes,
quite enjoyable indeed.
(Relapse)
SELF DEFENSE FAMILY, “The Corrections Officer In Me” 12”
I highlight this particular release out of the many, many
records SDF is consistently excreting into the ether because of a few
factors.
First, apparently they
wrote and recorded this in a couple days and still came up with three songs
that are better than most bands that spend months on compositions.
Second, the design of this record is
ridiculous.
The cover is very
plain but they managed to screen print all the lyrics onto the B-side of the
record.
Really neat idea.
Finally, these songs are great.
“Pop Song Written On the Automall”
rolls with a repetitive little riff and Pat’s hoarse vocals riding atop of them
until a weird chorus melody comes in with a different singer(s?).
The damn thing has been stuck in my
head for days now.
That is usually
the sign of a good song.
The two
other songs are fairly long, so don’t worry about spending a little extra
dough, it’s worth your time.
(Family Drugs)
SPRINGTIME, “South Hill” 7”
The band is described as mixing up Dag Nasty and Swiz.
Between the melodic hardcore and gruff
vocals I get where they are coming from on both counts.
The lyrics, though, fall a little bit
into the bland Saves the Day field and musically it tends to veer into modern
pop-punk/hardcore.
It’s OK though;
their hearts are in the right place.
It’s the curse of youth looking up to awesome bands that were tearing it
up while the members of this band were still wearing diapers.
What can you do?
It’s all time and place and to expect a
young band to fully grasp the energy of older bands they look up to is a tough
thing to grasp.
Kudos for trying
and half-succeeding.
(TinyEngines)
