Lots of heavy as shit singles and bands to watch for you today on review stalker. Keep things coming and know that we do listen and share things first on our soundcloud.
To start check out the A-side off this new 7″ from this noisy band from Queens called Dead Waves. Recorded in one take with Mr. Albini – just how he likes it. This tune has got enough stomach churning distortion to make your seizures and morning shakes feel like a good thing. PRF crew alert here this is right up your melvins encrusted alley.
Next up is Weird Womb from NY and the A-side “Pale Piss” from their 7″ ep Ruined by the 90’s recorded at Vanancy nyc. Tighter than mudhoney with Henry Rollins style singing. Maybe a little more on the Guy Picciotto style in the vocal department when i think about all the tracks. This is more punk than 90’s grunge in southern California Wasted Youth kind of way. You can order the 7″ WEIRDWOMB.COM.
Check out the grinding grunge off of the Bay Area’s post-punks Street Eaters. Here’s a track from their upcoming release Blood::Muscles::Bones on Nervous Intent Records. The 1st track reverse tracks from this coming record starts off like Hüsker Dü’s Dreams Reoccurring off of Zen Arcade then it goes strongly forward. Female fronted vocals which reminds us of Amanda Black Wine(Don Giovani).
On tour now doing all of North America so be brave and indulge yourself and check them out live they will be on the East Coast in July! Full date listing on streeteaters.com
These next guys called Hive Bent – reminds me of a version of Battles meets No Age. Really all there is to say. Check them out pretty big sounds for what sounds like drums and super sonically heavily distored bass. Sure to break a bass string near you or at least your punk hymen. Whatever comes first.
Follow us on Twitters and be sure to share the love you facehookers on the button link below. Thanks!
The Color of Noise – Third Man Record is going to premier the film by writer/director Eric Robel May 30th 2014 in Tennessee. The film has been in the works for over the past few years. In this documentary Robel interviews all of the bands that were on Tom Hazelmeyer’s record label Amphetamine Reptile Records(AMREP). These were mostly the bands that made the 1990’s notorious in a few small cirlces of fanzine, artists and record geek’s worlds like myself. Most of these bands never went on to do anything else except be on tour but one thing was certain they were all part of a gang that appreciated the same aesthetic sonically. There were many and I can say that The Research and Development picture disc series was an example of somebody with vision. Every 7″ was something you might find in a very twisted S&M gallery. Many underground artists before basement shows were a huge thing that you may have ever heard. Tom (HAZE XLL) had it under control and gladly put things out there in the hopes of grabbing your attention even if he never really was able to “cash-in”. DOPE-GUNS’N FUCKING IN THE STREETS 7″ compilation EP series was another of my favorite comps from this era of noise rock. You got a great bang for your buck. usually four bands and zero complaints. One’s you might have heard of like Mudhoney and rest were there laying to waste your turn-table for the afternoon. In this series there was always a simple illustration right smack in the middle of the custom typography were items like a used condom, needle or vibrator. All these Bands were part of this world that bands like Helmet and the Cows played. These were my go to bands to see play live at CBGB’s and other parts of NJ and NYC. If I didn’t know about them Tom made sure that 50 of us did so music by Tar, Janitor Joe, Unsane or Hammerhead had a small but loyal audiencee. A club within a club of punk because this music was not necessarily as popular as Nirvana got to be or would it ever become. It was dangerous and the poster Artwork for the show alone made it intriguing with guys like Derek Hess, Coop and Kozik. Album art produced by Hazelmeyer made the point clear this was something unique and a one time thing. You should proceed with caution while you blow your ear-drums out and annoy your neighbors but this is something that won’t ever be replicated – a close facsimile maybe. This type of music was an under appreciated sub-genre of grunge because what happened to grunge was a obmination compared to what it really was. Here’s the evidence.
I got to hand it to Dave Grohl and Krist Novoselic on these excellent renditions of Nirvana songs and having some of the most talented female singers perform with them is the biggest fuck-you in the face to Courtney Love could ever get. Here’s a the perfomances as caught by fans on ther smartphones who attended last night’s Rock-n-Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony. These are the best videos we found of Annie Clark from St. Vincent doing “Lithium, Joan Fucking Jett doing justice to “Smells Like Teen Spirit”. This is so fantastic. Lorde along with St. Vincent and Nirvana playing “All Apologies”. Such a sad but great version and apropo.
MUSIC REVIEW: Every once in awhile we ask our twitter followers if they want to review something because we can’t keep up because before you know it something good gets buried deep in the glut of email pretty quickly. Seriously it’s a big problem that you hear other blogs complain about I am sure. We’re a show of one(mostly). Anyway, we’ve had long in depth discourses about Buttnado, Fartnado and more recently barfnado in the twitterverse. Real mature shit whilst drinking beer. So when the Jersey City fuzzz trio (in NJ in case you need a map) VOMITFACE sent us their latest we aimed our buckshot into the wild interwebs. Scott raised his hand. Not knowing anything or even if it was in his wheel house. Either way this is an experiment. If you too want to try your hand please give us a shout [reviewstalker at gmail]. Either way. El Editor-in-Chief dig this. We do. Totally RIYL Mudhoney/Melvins/sloppy rock vibe and not afraid of the distortion pedal. (detail of their pedalage below) Judge for yourself. The influences feel right. Give them a tickle on the BOOKFACE.
From Scott: Not my sweet spot for music but I did listen to each song at least twice to try and be fair….
“Bill Me Later” The first 25 seconds is very Soundgarden-like and captures the listener right away. The verse then starts to sound like an amalgamation of everything 90s with a sound that made me think of an early Nirvana garage outtake. The singing was in my opinion the weakest link but I could see younger people enjoying this played live.
“Sloppy Joes” This sounded to me like a super heavy Marcy Playground type song.. good intro again and the chorus also made me think rejected Nirvana demo tapes… It has good energy and I think there’s an audience for it, that’s just what it sounded like to me.
“P.S. I Hate You” The least listenable of the three songs ventures into some sort of punk death metal territory. Not my thing but certainly a small club song for the right audience.
Pedals: ZVEX Box of Rock–> Daredevil Real Cool Fuzz –> Seymour Duncan Tweakfuzz –> TC Electronic Hall of Fame
Their Bass is run through a Fender Sub-lime and Russian Big Muff.
Sounds like: The Wipers – Window Shop For Love MP3 from is this real? Melvins –Oven | Vile MP3 from Ozma /Gluey Porch Treatments Nirvana –Floyd The Barber MP3 Live Amsterdam 1991
RIP Phillip Seymour Hoffman (1967-2014) – Heroin sucks kids. He was the actors, actor. He was a father and a dumb-ass.
The big game was a disappointment but we’re glad grunge triumphed once again. Congrats to Seattle on handing the Broncos their ass. Maybe less pot for Colorado next time?
Videogum.com calls it quits. Oh well. We never went there. Did you?
More from Fugazi live series was released with shows between 87-02 from Dischord Records; as well as Henry Rollin’s band S.O.A “First Demo 12/29/80”. This is for all you DC hardcore freaks. The band released 13 songs — three on the Flex Your Head compilation record and ten on the No Policy EP, which was Dischord’s second-ever release — and performed a total of nine shows before calling it quits in July of 1981.
DOWNLOAD: Henry Rollins –Henry Rollins- Fun With Ian MP3 Spoken word from live at luna park album. Funny stories about working with Ian MacKaye.
“How could posterity be heard in a box?” – Ian Mackaye
We can’t make this up and this knocks the crap out of any dark music placements we could ever think of — as reported, Skinny Puppy Invoices US Government For Using Their Music For Torture. via Synthotopia.
Criminal Hygiene release three new songs via Cultist on something they call Withdrawn and we review it. The are playing a crap load of West coast shows.
— We rarely do interviews around here or are inspired to crank out some questions to bands unless we think we might fish something interesting back. In this case the singer/screamer “Si” from Mary Kelly gave some thoughtful answers and insights of his band that at first reminded us of hardcore matinees at CBGB’s where there would be inevitable thrash band on a bill that would turn out to be really great mixing in thrash and hardcore hybrid; and not just a doc martin foot-print in the face. The pits of the pit.
They call their version grunge-core trash and founded themselves in 2007. They like to drink and make love and break it down for us here. We think gore-core is more appropriate. Although I don’t know if there is any loving or real gore with brain spatter for that matter in their live show and probably won’t know unless they make a trek out here from the UK but allas. One hint though is that most promotors don’t want them back. The other thing about that word “grunge” is it’s one of those terms that was worn out in the 90’s, the same as indie rock, or emo for that matter. Terms start to loose their meaning after a while but can get redefined to those that choose to champion their music their way. A way into the images one conjures about a sound. Anyway, their new album Modus Operandi has varying degrees of fast punk with the occasional solo thrown in. Not as metal as GWAR because those guys are aliens and from outer space; but definitely more hardcore than most with a penchant to dress-up in drag or whatever scary flick is giving the youth of today boners. Before we begin their guitar player Matt Spencer want’s everybody to know “he does not like the Wombats.” So they won’t be making any friends there.
BAND INTERVIEW: RS: Want to tell me in your words why you named the band Mary Kelly and not Hellen Keller or something like that? SI: We decided to name the band Mary Kelly because if you know anything about this country’s dark past, you’d know that she was the last victim of Jack the Ripper. He absolutely destroyed her. Cut her to shreds and left no prisoners. That’s what we have always tried to do with people’s psyche and also their ears. Plus Helen Keller wouldn’t cooperate.
RS: Have you ever heard of the the band Perfect Pussy? SI: Never heard of them although I’m intrigued? RS: What’s your song Bagpussy about? SI: Bagpussy is about a friend of my mothers. She never married or had kids but she did have like 9 cats. This one time my father went round there to do something for her and after she didn’t answer the door he peered through the window…the song is about what he saw!
RS: You guys remind of my friend Dave Witte’s band Municipal Waste. What are your influences? Because you guys sound like Die Kruezen mixed with a bunch of 80’s NYC thrash bands like Prong. SI: Our influences as individual members are quite different. Personally my lyrics are usually about things that scare or worry me and I’d say that comes from growing up with depressed parents and listening to bands like Nirvana, The Cure and AFI. It’s only in later life I’ve started to appreciate the stuff that my mother especially, used to listen to. Bands like Creedence, Prince and of course Chris deBurgh although they haven’t consciously had any direct influence on my writing…I don’t think. I know Matt’s influences are The Wombats and that’s about it so we really had to try hard with him. Oh and breeze doesn’t like radiohead so that was difficult. We were doomed from the start really.
RS: Are you ever afraid of Riot GRRLs getting mad at you? Si: We’ve always had a lot of female attention. It’s something that just came naturally. I’m pretty sure we counted once and between the 5 of us we had slept with 6 girls so that’s something like a success rate of 250%? The girl that Sean slept with may have been a Mini Cooper though. RS: Would you play a gig with Pussy Riot? SI: We’d love to play with Pussy Riot…I believe in them.
RS: Which usually helps are there any tunes we can let out into the wild? ( I think he missed my meaning on this one) SI: Take your pick really although if you want an insightful, truthful look into the band, may I recommend ‘there’s no such man as Michael Fish’. A track that is already being skipped over dispite the album only having been out a few weeks. It’s a 6-something minute epic, spoken word Song about how to treat and discourage astraphobia in children. It’s a very important piece. Enjoy. Either that or Penny Dreadful which is a fucking cool song about monsters. Plus there’s a wicked video for it!
MUSIC REVIEW: Digital EP’s are in vogue as reported by your roving EMO reporters all over the blogosphere. The challenge is to be able to put out a set of songs that rock together. I think for most young bands the album format is pretty much dead unless they can afford to do the vinyl thing. Anyway, you are in luck because CAPTIVES have no issues here with their latest effort called Afterimage which will be available as a 10″. Luck for all you nerds. Sounding pretty alternative rock with their big guitars and throaty delivery these dudes are from Eagle Mountain, Utah and they show us that all good manly things can go beyond the distortion only mantra of your father’s hardcore. While I don’t think these guys have or run Meth labs this music is totally amped. There is some subtle use of delay on the guitars and plenty of throaty ‘scringing’. What is unique to these guys is their dual-vocals are coming at you from both channels via Jeffery Mudgett and Trevor Bookout. I could never tell Guy from Ian until after seeing fugazi live. The feeling was the delivery was as one. Same sort of effect here which works to help give these tunes a little depth. The most accessible song on this release is the emo infused semi-ballad “To Forget” with a line about poking your eyes out. The sounds are big and we recommend giving it a spin. Crap it’s the fucking internet people you can listen before you buy or decide to go see them live. Brought to you by Reveille Records.
We are only bound by the things we let bound us, we are all captives.
MUSIC REVIEW: Self titled 6 song EP by Black Wing Halo. We’re big fans of anything that can punk you into submission to get all you grungers and metalers in the mood to crush some heads. Distorted guitars made out of sharp shovels used to pummel you into the ground and burry you. Yeah that was a sentence. We’re partial to the deeper cuts on this EP like “Wish” and “Rats” which reminds us of Ministry off of Land of Rape and Honey with all the snare-drum action and guitars. If you are a TAR or COWS fan the punk influence for amp rep fans will also dig this. A good entry point is the 90’s grunge metal fest of “Bite My Lip”. The 2nd track is actually the most metally tune which we’re giving to you right here. Shaved Dice wins for funniest title. I imagined the one’s hanging from my rearview mirror but then realized that is actually a thing for gaming folks in the streets trying to make a buck off of tourists. To that end these guys got something dark going on. Here’s freebie from us to you from them below. Fuck it up ya’ll.
SINGLE REVIEW: The first song I listened to this morning was the new single “When I’m Dead” by the Aussie band, The Dead Heads. It was a good way to wake up.
I’ve heard writers using words like “grunge” and other lazy descriptors that might pigeon-hole these guys and turn people away initially. Don’t buy into it. There is so much more than that going on here with this single. It is a sonically brilliant, minimal pop-gem capturing a vibe that lays somewhere between bands like WAAVES and NO AGE – a refined mix of dissonance and melody: a good pop song, and the perfect amount of noise.
Give this jam a spin, It is good sunny day music. -TH
So this week one of New York’s premier guitar bands Chavez did yet another performance except this time on Jimmy Fallon. This is about a week after playing All Tomorrow’s Parties. Now that their songs are at least 16 years old can we help pass the good vibes to hear some new material sometime soon from these gentlemen? I know it’s in their back pocket somewhere. I know I’m not the only one who cares from everybody who showed up to see them play a 6:30 set! They sounded great and Matt Sweeney looks like he rolled right out of CB’s circa 1989 from his Skunk days except with no dread locks but probably the same jeans. Clay was in post-hardcore sound band called Bullet LaVolta before forming the band with Sweeney who were releasing records at the same time and part of the same scene which included Smashing Pumpkins in their circuit. And if you listen carefully you’ll notice Billy Corrigan pretty much ripped off both band’s sounds and mashed them together. In my opinion anyway; if you take that Allmam brother 70’s guitar noodling of Skunk and add some Tarver power chords with the volume formula breakdowns. You can easily look at both of these bands as being influential with one of the three making all the spoils.
The Fist of Tarver & the Men of Chavez - All Tomorrow's Parties 2011
Nailed To The Blank Spot MP3 by Chavez from Gone Glimmering (1995) (There’ll Be Other Girls) Hoss MP3 by Skunk from Last American Virgin(1989) Knobb Off MP3 by Skunk from the album Laid (1991) Twin/Tone X-Fire MP3 by Bullet LaVolta from The Gift (1989) My Protector MP3 by Bullet LaVolta from Swandive (1991) Siva MP3 by Smashing Pumpkins from Gish (1991)
Recent Comments