TENACIOUS D- The Pick Of Destiny

Yeah it’s funny. Of course it is. If you’ve ever giggled at Jack Black’s rock-pomp and ridiculous slapstick before then there’s plenty here to laugh at here. But this is essentially a film soundtrack and, in ‘Break In-City’ and ‘Beelzeboss’ especially, it’s filled with tunes that work best alongside the boys pissing about on the big screen. For best results- See the film. Laugh. Listen to the album. Laugh more- Easy.

:(- First Blood

Somewhere between the melodic flair of the Fuelled By Ramen roster, the chirpy appeal of The Postal Service and the background music to your favourite Nintendo game lie online Aberdeen quartet, :(. The band, pronounced Colonopenbracket for the messenger-impaired, began as a one-man thing but, by the power of MySpace, quickly blossomed into the four-piece behind debut disc ‘First Blood’.

If you have heard a :( song before it might have been the upbeat growls of ‘Syntax’ or the gentle buzzing promise of ‘Gone’, both early efforts from frontman Mart, both indicative of a fresh sound full of promise but, neither included here. The addition of a real live drummer and a thicker, louder production means the quaint appeal of those first tracks is long gone but in its place is a big-time-party vibe and a powerful confidence.

Opener ‘Fake Blood’ has all the same 8-bit bleeps as before but now the mix kicks and screams to take your hand instead of politely asking to dance. It’s like Panic! At The Disco with square eyes and joypads instead of all the silly style and circus pomp. The melodic pulse of ‘Codes’ is destined to be sung back to these boys and gals by thousands, ‘Pre-Emoticons’ is electric indie brilliance and yes, this is all about having fun but if the forlorn rise and rise of ‘Heartache…’ doesn’t do something to the hairs on the back of your neck then you might just be dead inside.

Computer noise and retro chic may be all the rage at the minute but you’d be wasting your time looking for this sort of thing done better elsewhere. Bleeptastic.

Also appears at New-Noise.

...AND YOU WILL KNOW US BY THE TRAIL OF DEAD- So Divided

People used to be able to know this band was around by actually following the bloody trail of dead. They used to be hard-touring, hard-drinking, punk-rock renaissance men. They used to write records that felt as powerful as a kick to the brain and they could never play the songs live because they were too busy swapping instruments or breaking them over the edge of the stage. They used to sound like the next Sonic Youth. Now though, now they sound like Coldplay.

It’s not quite that bad. First song proper, ‘Stand In Silence’, marries the discord of old to the new-wave sass introduced on last year’s ‘Worlds Apart’ with some success and parts of the title track rock like an absolute bastard. For the most part though all the ear-splitting power has been replaced by folksy indie strum, all the raw vocal passion traded for mild-mannered melodies and in the place of that brain-pounding intensity is the stubbornly sedate pace of a band growing old. Ever so disappointingly gracefully.

Occasionally the softer touches work just as well as all the raggedy volume. ‘Naked Sun’ takes an age to get there but eventually turns into a swarming, orchestral highlight and a cover of Guided By Voices’ ‘Gold Heart Mountain Top Queen Directory’ is a gentle gem of a song. It’s flowery and nice but you can’t exactly smash a guitar to pieces with it. …Trail Of Dead probably behave like proper gentlemen when they play live now too. How dull.

Also appears at New-Noise.

VAUX- Beyond Vice, Beyond Virtue

Major label wrangling nearly killed Vaux. Which would have been a real shame because the band’s second full-length, ‘Beyond Vice, Beyond Virtue’, is amazing. This is an album set to vault the band behind it out of any emo discussion and towards the sort of greatness that Thrice and Thursday now toy with. There are songs that echo artists as varied and interesting as Muse, Radiohead, Refused and Rival Schools but Vaux stamp their own feel on everything. There are acoustic lows, spacey electronic highs and the ghost of some shadowy Wild West bar-band that would make this as dark and disquieting a thing as heard all year if there wasn’t Quentin Smith’s vocal angst and three (!) guitars grinding away here too. The fact that this record has been gathering dust in the Atlantic Records vaults for over a year is a filthy crime but when it makes Vaux megastars, and it bloody well should do, the success will feel all the sweeter. Buy ‘Beyond Vice…’ today and show the fatcats who the boss really is.

FROM A SECOND STORY WINDOW- Delenda

And you thought The Dillinger Escape Plan were noisy? Pennsylvania natives From A Second Story Window put those rowdy innovators to shame when it comes to volume of ideas, if not quite in the brilliant execution of them. Will Jackson’s vocals run the gamut from dinosaur roar to smooth croon to an inhaling noise akin to the devil clearing his throat. This is all spewing out over ten-ton-heavy riffs that stop and start at blinding speeds, spidery and frantic leads and warped post-hardcore melodies. Oh and there’s piano, marching drums and some unearthly bell chimes too. There’s no hope of taking over the world with these compositions, they’re too fucking venomous. There’s also not enough genuine quality here to have the Story boys taking on Dillinger for the spazzcore crown jewels just yet. What remains is a dizzying headache and a completely fresh metal experience.

SEEMLESS- What Have We Become

When a band contains former members of Shadows Fall, Killswitch Engage and Overcast you’re going to be onto a metalcore winner right? Wrong. Seemless might have a shred heavy history but the Massachusetts regulars incorporate elements of classic rock, grunge, stoner rock and the sort of swampy sludge you’d get if Queens Of The Stone Age invited Pantera on a 24-hour smoke-out into their sound. Members of whiny bores like Creed, Nickelback and Seether should be strapped down and forced to listen to killer tracks like ‘Numb’ and ‘Parody’ so it can be pointed out exactly what their bands might have sounded like with some heart, soul and a decent-sized pair of balls. Taken as a whole this is even a better album than any disc Audioslave have ever put their name to. Vocalist and former KSE man Jesse Leach sounds overwrought at times and some of the material he is hollering over is a little dry but ‘What Have We Become’ remains a solid album destined to settle in the bottom half of many critics end-of-year top tens. If you own more than one Soundgarden album you owe it to yourself to listen to this band now.

CATARACT- Kingdom

Well produced, snare tight and bulging with belligerence and hate, Cataract are crunching and razor sharp metal through and through. Although lacking some of the raw energy and fresh ideas that the likes of All Shall Perish and The Acacia Strain have recently injected into a somewhat creatively starved scene, these guys stick to what they know best and pile riff onto mosh-worthy riff. It’s a devastatingly perfect background for vocalist Fedi to kick and scream, vent his spleen and indulge in a little fantasy-metal warrior stuff over the top.
Bar that extra twist that would make these guys serious contenders there’s pretty much everything you could want from a heavy ass record here.

DEFTONES. Electric Ballroom, London. 12.10.06

Ok so tonight didn’t start in the best of ways. While waiting to get into this very special ‘secret’ show at the Electric Ballroom, 600 Deftones fans were witness to the best of London’s nightlife. A fight between drunken thugs armed with combat knives and broken bottles spilled into the queue and minutes later a dog attack added to the fun. The atmosphere was… a little tense.

Inside the venue things are much better. There is no support act tonight so nothing to pass the time until Chino and Co. arrive except sweaty-browed trepidation and vein-filling excitement. If you’ve read any music magazine or website at all this year you’ll be familiar with the Deftones’ patchy live record. Sometimes they’re sloppy, looking stoned and bored they have a tendency to mull around with songs until they sound like awful impersonations of the band everyone knows they can be. But sometimes they’re glorious, carving their tunes out of rock and flaying through them like cannon fire. Tonight they lean towards the latter. Tonight, Deftones are flawless.

‘Knife Party’ is a horribly relevant opener but it sounds extraordinary. To see this band this close is marvellous but to hear the way they play is even better. Stef is attacking his guitar, Abe and Chi are rifling through the ‘Tones inventive rhythms and Chino is singing, like an angel, with proper words and everything. This, in industry terms, is known as playing an absolute blinder.

They play a rare ‘Boy’s Republic’, a version of ‘Around The Fur’ that puts goosebumps on goosebumps and, at what was rumoured to be a show booked to work out any kinks in the new material, they play only two newies. One in the rousing, raring shape of ‘Hole In The Earth’ and another with a magnetic run through ‘Beware’. They play ‘Elite’, ‘Lifter’ and then a stunning version of ‘Seven Words’ with the whole Ballroom singing along. And then you look at your watch and an hour has gone by but it only feels like fifteen minutes. And if a part of you isn’t moved by tonight’s titanic version of ‘Change’ then you’re dead inside. Yes even you shirtless macho boys in the pit.

The band finish with ‘RX Queen’, an oddly quiet choice for such an intense occasion but then it’s difficult to decide what they should have played. This group have got such a perfect back catalogue, now one album bigger, that they could have played three more sets and each would have been just as sweet as this one. Book your seats for next year's proper tour now.

The Deftones then, officially better than street crime, dog fights and nearly every other modern rock band on the face of the earth.

LES GEORGES LENINGRAD- Sangue Puro

Les Georges Leningrad are Poney P, Mingo L’Indien and Bobo Boutin from Montreal. They all play synthesisers. But almost certainly not how you’re thinking they do. This is no all-night disco party. These guys (and one gal) tour with The Locust. This is what Hot Chip would sound like if they covered Slayer. This is a chaotic jumble called ‘petrochemical rock’

From tribal beats, monstrous chanting and alien whale noises to crashing computer sounds, wailing feedback and digital jigsawed beats, the Les Georges trio have been on a mission to mess with your ears for six years now. ‘Sangue Puro’ is their third album and it’ll take anyone who thinks they know about new-rave because they downloaded some Klaxons songs and turn them into a muddy puddle of piss and drool.

The slow-build darkness of the title track, the deformed accordion noise and potty-mouthed rap of ‘Sleek Answer’ and the stomping grind of ‘Lonely Lonely’ simultaneously excel as wild fun and wracked experiments in noise. Which is what makes it so disappointing when the trio stray anywhere close to normality. ‘Skulls In The Closet’ feigns accessibility before dissolving into distorted bass and wicked vocal yelps but ‘Mammal Beats’, even with its cacophony of lions, tigers and bears (oh my!), sounds positively Yeah Yeah Yeahs-ish.

Despite their newfound directness (don’t panic die-hards, it still sounds like a piano apocalypse) only the most warped minds and biggest masochists will get through ‘Sangue Puro’ in one sitting. But I bet it sounds like some sort of violent second coming when they repeat it live.

Also appear at New-Noise

POWERMAN 5000- Destroy What You Enjoy

There must be some credit given to Powerman 5000, if only for soldiering on. At the dreggy end of nu-metal the band’s action punk was a welcome energizer but time has moved on and even more virulent strains of rock have arrived. Instead of trying to play catch up, Powerman (now containing only two original…er, powermen) have resorted to going vintage. It’s not what the band are playing that’s the problem, Wolfmother and The Hives have proven that good ol’ rock’n’roll is still big business; it’s the way they play it. Songs like ‘Murder’ and the title track show promise but elsewhere proceedings are dry, dull and lifeless. With ‘Destroy What You Enjoy’, frontman Spider and co., move further away from the glam rock space-fever that made their name and ever closer to the front of the dole queue. Disappointing.

SHAI HULUD+ Parkway Drive+ Remembering Never. Underworld, London. 02.09.06

It's raining men. No, not like that. There's just a constant stream of bodies flying over the stage as Shai Hulud; hardcore vets returning after a lengthy absence, let rip with another twisted hate anthem. And it's fucking great to have them back doing what they do best.

Before the reformed greats shake off the rust though, another set of Floridians take the stage. Remembering Never have been around a while themselves but this is their first time to the UK and, with a set that relies heavily on new material, they were probably expecting the worst. Any doubts are immediately crushed. The band combine punk, hardcore and social commentary into a boiling mixture that spits out balls of rage like 'For Love Of Fiction' and 'Selma'. Inventive breakdowns and flashes of melody emerge from their wall-of-noise attack and the crowd respond to every note. They are the next heavy band you must hear.

Parkway Drive know a thing or two about heavy themselves. This is the Australians' third visit to the UK in a year and their solid metalcore has never been less than thrilling. So it's a surprise to hear the band misfire tonight. It might be down to a gruelling tour schedule, it might be the quality they're sandwiched between but from a breathless Winston McCall, huffing and puffing where his growl usually dominates, to an underwhelming finish, Parkway get a decent pit going but just aren't at top gear.

Shai Hulud know only one gear. And it's a fast one. While this constant velocity might be the reason the band has never captured a truly sizeable audience, they have clearly been missed. This sold out show, the last in a string of sold out British shows, is testament to their enduring importance. A crowd reaction that embarrasses that of most other hardcore gigs is testament to their unlimited kinetic energy and the electric heat coming off an opening run through 'A Profound Hatred Of Man' testament to the fact that this band can still slice a knife through the cool factor and deliver the goods.

Unlike Parkway Drive's insistent battering or Remembering Never's vitriolic punk, Shai Hulud's razor sharp time changes don't make for great mosh material. Where the headliners truly succeed isn't in providing music to fight to but endless fire, ire and passion. Something the people crowd-surfing and singing themselves hoarse in every corner of the venue knew all along. The shape of hardcore past, present and thankfully now, the future.

Also appears at RockMidgets.

ENSEMBLE- Ensemble

This particular Ensemble, rather ironically, is just one man. French-born Canada-resident, Olivier Alary, started working under the title way back in 1998 with a view to mashing together melodic noise and disjointed pop. He wanted to run delicate musical movements into walls of sound. Eight years later, he might have just perfected his art.

To call this pop music could be stretching it. There's no sugary-sweetness or genre clichés. Sometimes there aren't even hooks, melodies or choruses. Still, this is infinitely listenable stuff. There are waves of rising, mutating radio hiss, there's chirping electronica, almost-folk arrangements and sharp string movements. It all adds to the rising clank of an odd orchestra that should sound cluttered and messy but knits together like some forgotten minimal Múm or Sigur Ros B-side.

There are plenty of guest vocalists here to make up the numbers too. Mileece makes Avary's skipping beats sound awfully close to the summery slop of Zero 7 but the ghostly intonations of Chan Marshall (of Cat Power fame) are fantastic and when Lou Barlow whispers and croons over 'One Kind, Two Minds' it's as good as any of the more alternative material Sufjan Stevens has put his name to.Elsewhere, track-long expanses of wind whistling and wave crashing add satisfyingly safe elements to this ethereal noise that might otherwise threaten to never let you back to Earth again.

Also appears at Rock Midgets.

Watch where you point your finger...

...I Am Hollywood.

LISTEN TO HE IS LEGEND

Mad as a bag of spoons Americans on the verge of releasing 'Suck Out The Poison', their second long-player. They could be the band that put all this whatever-core to bed.
When they play live they steal shows with the cunning use of having fun- remember when shows used to be like that?
When they play in the studio they come out with all-at-once cute and crazy schizophrenic jams like 'The Seduction' or 'Dixie Wolf'. Hope and pray they tour the UK soon.

STATE RADIO- Us Against The Crown

Politics. With a capital P. The stuff is all the rage these days. What with Green Day and Fat Mike riding the ‘fuck Bush’ bandwagon all the way to the bank it’s clear that dipping a toe or two into the way the world works is now worth more than a clear conscience. There’s money to made in them there polls.

‘Us Against The Crown’ is most definitely a political record. There are songs about the ongoing war in Iraq, the importance of voting and the rights of the poor, elderly and disabled. For State Radio though, this isn’t about shifting units, it’s about trying to create awareness and make some changes. This isn’t marketable pop or headline-stealing spleen-venting punk either. The main sound of ‘Us Against The Crown’ is laid-back rock and reggae. Like Matisyahu recently, this band condenses their woes into soft-groove radio-fodder. It’s the sort of smooth-on-the-outside, hard-on-the-inside mix that will have people flicking through the lyrics booklet to double check they just heard such vehement comment amongst such laid-back music.

The sunny sound means this can’t possibly be all doom and gloom. And in fact, if you search a little deeper, there are a few looks towards the promise and potential of the future (presumably a future where everybody listens to State Radio) and even a song about love. It’s in these moments though that the band display their worst qualities, sounding as dull as Audioslave, like Rancid at their least effective or worse, like happy-happy-joy-joy chart-monkey Jack Johnson. These are defiantly vintage licks though. Which, while very warm and pleasant sounding and valiantly in line with the music’s age-old inspiration, don’t exactly inspire feelings of revolution. More like feelings of falling asleep in a hammock somewhere in the nice part of Jamaica.

There is room for State Radio to really blow up. Hell, if Rage Against The Machine were around today they’d be the biggest band in the world. But it’s Rage’s vitriolic, impacting and immediate messages and not this band’s quiet mumbles that are really needed. There’s nothing terribly wrong with State Radio’s sound but rebellion has never sounded so redundantly nice.

Also appears at Rock Midgets

ROSES ARE RED- What Became Of Me

Time was not on the side of Roses Are Red. Emerging in 2004 the New York five-piece had the much-lauded Trustkill Records stamp but garnered little acknowledgment. This was just another screamo band, never to be heard from again. At least that’s what most people thought. RAR frontman, Vince Minervino, had other ideas though. Back with a new line up the singer has helmed his band towards a new sound. Think Jimmy Eat World instead of Atreyu, Foo Fighters rather than From Autumn To Ashes. They still struggle to cement an identity of their own but with Minervino’s much improved voice and a penchant for emotional depth where hardcore hissyfits used to be, success is much closer for Roses Are Red. There’s no glaring errors here, no duff tracks, just a collection of solid rock songs. And, unbelievably, it’s easier to listen to than the latest Crash Romeo, Matchbook Romance or Eighteen Visions albums.

RAZORLIGHT- Razorlight

Jesus Christ, Johnny Borrell is a gobshite. But wait, take a breath, don't base your opinion of Razorlight's music on the delusional, self-obsessed ramblings of their lanky, smug frontman. Oh, alright go on then.

There are ten tracks here sure to appeal to the obedient indie masses but for everybody else the appeal of Razorlight will remain a mystery. 'In The Morning' has a chorus hook that's as welcome as 'flu but unfortunately just as catchy, next single 'America' does a mediocre musical impression of U2 at their most musically mediocre and there might even be a flash of a decent melody in 'Los Angeles Waltz' but that's really stretching. Everywhere else it's half-arsed guitar strum, spineless drive-time drang and sixth-form-poetry style rhyming couplets ahoy. This is dreary middle-of-the-road pub-rock that panders to every evil vice the radio demands. Horrible.

SUCIOPERRO- Random Acts Of Intimacy

Chemistry. One of those classes at school where the teachers always smelled funny but something essential to the making of a great band. Scottish quartet Sucioperro have chemistry. By the bucket load. After listening to 'Random Acts Of Intimacy' it wouldn't be a surprise to learn that they had regular group hugs or something like that. From first note to last here Sucioperro sound terribly together.

But don't get too comfortable. Impatience and audacity and talent butt serious heads throughout Random Acts.... It's not down to immaturity, but the knowledge that a little twist and a few turns make for a thrilling ride. All of which means while 'Wolf Carnival' and 'Dialog On The 2' twitch and fidget like Biffy Clyro or Minus The Bear, 'I Don't Hate...' and 'Tem V Com' are rock and roll belters. Then 'Grace And Out Of Me' does both, meandering down a gentle mathy road before exploding like prime Rage Against The Machine. It's the sort of songwriting skill that regularly leaves you wondering what the hell just happened, how the hell the band got away with and why the hell you so badly want to hear it again.

It might be too heavy for Franz fans, too fey for the hardcore fraternity, even too polite to turn top industry heads but that's their loss. Experimentation, drama, power, dexterity and that chemistry stuff abounds. On this evidence Sucioperro need just a touch more fire and maybe one more album to go over the edge into Muse-like realms of quality. That or medical help.

Also appears at RockMidgets.

KOUFAX- Hard Times Are In Fashion

Hard times may be in fashion but quirky spiky indie isn’t doing too bad for itself either. On this, their fourth release, Koufax harness the sort of new-wave pop prowess that has driven Hot Hot Heat and The Killers to the big time. They have the American accents, the skinny-legged style and even some talent; they can do smirking balladry and dancefloor rock with equal aplomb. There’s a piano in there too, but this is no Keane type thing, the tinkling actually adds a different accent to the usual lip-pouting hip-shaking mixture.

The ivories aren’t the only thing marking Koufax out from the pack either. The way ‘Five Years Of Madness’ puts the pedal to the metal will turn heads, the haunting, queasy drama of ‘Stephen James’ will turn them back again and is that a country twang hidden under lead single ‘Isabelle’. That there’s some meaty social and political comment bubbling away (and occasionally boiling over on ‘Blind Faith’) under such charming dark pop only makes it better. However while there’s familiar comfort in the Bloc Party bop of ‘Her Laughter’ or the Strokes style slacker banter of ‘Get Us Sober’ the songs here rarely take on a life of their own. And so it goes that after all that good stuff, there’s nothing to seal the deal.

Koufax probably throw some killer parties and god knows ‘Hard Times…’ would make decent background music to the next shindig at yours, but, with a noticeable lack of hit single material, the band need still more time to crack superstardom. It will come though, it will.


Also appears at Rock Midgets.

REGINA SPEKTOR- Begin To Hope

Regina Spektor used to actively repel any comparisons to chart-humping drama queens just by being Regina Spektor- her beautiful and clever yet naïve-sounding voice always running in different directions to the minimalistic music she made but fitting perfect all the same. Those days are gone. ‘Begin To Hope’ finds the Russian born New-Yorker caving in to whatever sort of pressure got to Alanis Morrisette years ago. ‘Better’ sounds like a Bon Jovi cast-off, there are Euro beats crashing into each other everywhere else and by ‘Edit’ it’s all starting to sound horribly similar. ‘Samson’ is the exception, sounding like a mainstream radio hit, a smoky backroom sing-a-long and a lonely confession all at the same time. And only ‘Fidelity’ retains the valuable majesty of before. You can mourn the quirks and out-of-this-world oddness that Spektor previously did so well but the biggest shame is the loss of her fantastic rainbow-coloured personality. Another one bites the dust.

BUILT TO SPILL- You In Reverse

Built To Spill singer/guitarist/all-round main man Doug Martsch has kept the world waiting five years for another BTS record. There were fears that his band’s Neil Young and Sonic Youth inspired sound might have become too slow and too snug to still matter but apparently 15 years in the game means you know a little something about the rules.

Martsch doesn’t hold back on any count. This isn’t a rowdy record but it does move in fantastically mysterious ways. There are great expanses of looping, overlapping instrumentation that go for minutes without vocals. When the words do arrive they are tender and memorable. There is a myriad of guitar sounds and quick, challenging sets of mood swings. It all adds up to some great tunes. It might clock in at eight minutes but ‘Goin’ Against Your Mind’ sounds like the neatest of jam rock. Up against the more muscular and distorted indie riffery sits the melancholy wonder of ‘Gone’, ‘Just A Habit’ and ‘The Wait’. At times the record feels half-hearted, drifting too far into dreary dream-pop territory but the gorgeous moments of ‘Conventional Wisdom’ and ‘Liar’ reel the whole thing back in.

If you fancy finding out where Death Cab, The Shins and Arcade Fire stole all their secrets from, you could do worse than start investigating here.