Category: noise rock

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Paris’ FTR Shares a Mosh Pit Friendly Ripper

Paris-based outfit FTR (formerly known as Future) is a noise trio — Yann C. (bass, vocals), Pauline CP (keyboards and programming) and Brice D (guitar) — have managed to continually evolve through their first three releases, 2013’s fuzzy and atmospheric Abyss EP, 2015’s cold and brooding Horizons, and 2019’s darker, straightforward and forceful Manners.

The Parisian trio’s forthcoming album third album Vicky Vivid Experience reportedly sees the band further experimenting with their sound and approach — and revealing a whole new side. The album’s first single “White Light” is a noisy, ripper featuring distortion and fuzz fueled power chords, relentlessly driving four-on-the-floor, rumbling bass paired with mosh pit friendly choruses. Sonically, “White Light” brings — to my ears, at least — Exploding Head-era A Place to Bury Strangers to mind.

The accompanying video features old stock footage of film reel start timed to the music.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Dion Lunadon Shares Raw and Anthemic “It’s The Truth”

Dion Lunadon is a New Zealand-born, Brooklyn-based singer/songwriter and bassist, who has had a rather lengthy career: He started his career as a member of several Kiwi-based acts including The D4 and for a lengthy stint as a member of noise rock titans and JOVM mainstays A Place to Bury Strangers.

During a short break in APTBS’ touring schedule in 2017, Lunadon had a sudden rush of inspiration that resulted in what he described as a neurotic impulse to write and record a bunch of songs right here and then, which resulted in his solo debut EP Com/Broke, a batch of material inspired by the bands he loved as a youngster — including Toy Love, The Gun Club, Gestalt and Supercar.

A few months later, Lunadon  released his self-titled full-length debut, which featured the feral album singles “Fire,” and “Howl.”

Lunadon’s sophomore album Beyond Everything is slated for a June 10, 2022 release through In The Red Records. The album marks two significant milestones in Lunadon’s career: His first album released through In The Red, which he believes is an ideal match for him and his music. And the first album since leaving A Place to Bury Strangers.

Written, performed and recorded by Lunadon, the album’s material reportedly taps into a raw, palpable energy that blurs the lines between the music and its creator. The album features drums from Bambara‘s Blaze Bateh and The Black Hollies‘ Nick Ferrante.

“The record was written and recorded sporadically between 2017 and 2019,” Lunadon says in press notes. “I probably wrote about 100 songs during this period. The first album was pretty relentless which I liked, but I wanted to make something more dynamic for the 2nd record. Something that could be more conducive to repeated listens. I’d get in my studio, come up with a song title, and start working on any ideas that I had. For example, with Elastic Diagnostic, the idea was to create a hum that evokes the sound of life coursing through your body. Everything else kind of formed around that idea.”

Beyond Everything‘s second and latest single “It’s The Truth” is a gritty and raw glam-like anthem centered around chugging power chords, Lunadon’s howled and desperate delivery, forceful and propulsive drumming paired with a explosive feedback-driven coda. “It’s The Truth” further cements the Kiwi-born, Brooklyn-based artist’s reputation for crafting anthems meant to be played as loud as humanly possible. “This is one of my favorite songs on the record,” Lunadon says. “It started with the opening drum beat and the rest came together quickly. It’s about me writing songs in my little hovel of a studio and looking forward to my wife’s return home from work. A ‘distance makes the heart grow fonder’ kind of thing.” 

Directed by Alexander Barton, the accompanying for “It’s The Truth” was shot on old black and white film, and features Lunadon brandishing a chain — and playing his bass with the chain wrapped around him. It’s dangerous and downright erotic. “In Dion’s live performance he has a wall of sound and noise, it’s very textural and real. About 3/4 of the way through his set, he drags a chain out of a bag like a snake wrangler presenting a cobra to the audience,” Alexander Barton explains. “It’s an exciting moment of the set where he breaks the routine of the rock formula and shares his experimental interests and the audience really laps it up. The cameras pop out and feed his exhibitionism. I make films that feel and use not only the beauty of film, but welcome the noise and error that come with the raw and naive nature of my tools. The chain as an object and material is a fully loaded symbol and historical icon which is a powerful character itself. I wanted to honor the chain for all its brilliance, referencing metal, design, rock n’ roll, violence, sculpture, industrialism, eroticism, and Jacob Marley. ‘It’s The Truth’ is about material and the spectacle.” 

Video by William Ruben Helms

Live Footage: Neckbolt Performs “The Lighted Chamber” at The Museum of Human Achievement

Austin-based noise rock outfit Neckbolt was founded last year by multi-instrumentalist Benjamin Krause and vocalist James Roi after Krause relocated to Austin. The band’s name may evoke images of the bolts that held Frankenstein’s monster’s appendages together — or a bolt that connects the guitar neck to its body. For the band, both images are fitting ways to describe their sound and approach: a freakish hodgepodge of musical body parts and ideas rendered in a nightmarish form while still hewing to the rock ‘n’ roll canon.

The Austin-based noise rock outfit’s full-length debut was written and recorded between 2020 and 2021 with Krause playing all of the album’s instrumentation while Roo provided vocals, lyrics and artwork. Slated for a November 5, 2021 release through Bandcamp and Digital Hotdogs, Midwestern Drawl reportedly requires close listening to parse out the informed musicianship that binds the skewed, screeching and skronking elements together.

After they completed the album’s 11 songs, the duo opted to expand the band’s lineup in order to play the material live. Krause and Roo recruited Exhalants‘ Bill Indelicato and Power Pyramid‘s Kilyn Massey and Brent Hodge to complete the band’s lineup.

With their current lineup of Krause, Roo, Indelicato, Massey and Hodge, the band then shot Neckbolt Live! at the Museum of Human Achievement, the forthcoming live performance companion video, which will be released on VHS and online the same day as the album’s release. The members of the band tracked, edited, filmed and mixed the VHS release in six hours in a room without air conditioning on a sweltering Texan summer day.

Despite clocking in at a little under three minutes, Midwestern Drawl‘s latest single “The Lighted Chamber” is centered around an expansive arrangement featuring howled vocals buried in a muscular and forceful mix of buzzing power chords, screeching feedback, angular skronk and propulsive rhythm. Sonically, “The Lighted Chamber” finds the act balancing wild and noisy abandon with tight musicianship.

The live footage features the members of the band in Tyvek jumpsuits in front of psychedelic projections.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Meatbodies’ New Scorching Ripper “Cancer”

Over the course of the past decade, Los Angeles-born and-based singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Chad Ubovich has developed and honed a reputation as a key mainstay of one of the country’s most fertile and important music scenes: Ubovich had a lengthy stint playing guitar in Mikal Cronin’s backing band and he’s currently contributing bass with Ty Segall and with Charlie Moothart and as a member of Fuzz. Additionally, the founding member and frontman of his own band, the experimental noise rock/freak rock outfit Meatbodies.

Meatbodies’ latest effort 333 was officially released today through In The Red Records. The album, which features corrosive bangers, raw acoustic rave-ups and primitive electronics, charts Ubovich’s personal journey from drug-induced darkness to clear-eyed sobriety — while simultaneously reflecting on how the world he re-entered was still pretty messed up — if not more so. “I’d been touring for eight years straight with all these bands, and just couldn’t do it anymore,” Ubovich recalls. “There was also a feeling in the air that everything was changing, politically. Things just didn’t feel right, and I went down a dark path.” Ubovich adds, “These lyrics are dark, but I think these are things that a lot of people are feeling and going through. Here in America, we’re watching the fall of U.S. capitalism, and 333 is a cartoonish representation of that decline.” 

Fortunately Ubovich was able to pull himself back from the brink and upon getting sober, began writing and recording material at a furious and impassioned pace. By late 2019, the band — Ubovich and Dylan Fujoka (drums) — had a new album in the can, ready to be mixed. Much like countless other artists, the pandemic forced the band to put their record on hold.

With some newfound downtime, Ubovich discovered a cache of demos that he and Fujoka recorded in a bedroom during the summer of 2018. As it turns out, Ubovcih really liked what he heard. Unlike their established full-band attack, the demos were deliriously disordered. Ironically, because 333’s material found the band working within a much tighter lo-fi aesthetic, the restriction allowed them to open space for more free-ranging experimentation. While speaking of the disillusionment of a lost generation, the album’s material is sparked by the innovation that limited resources and moxie can inspire.

333’s latest single “Cancer” is an expansive mosh pit ripper centered around scorching power chords driven riffage, thunderous drumming and mantra-like lyrics. While on one hand, the song superficially seems nihilistic, the song is fueled by a celebration — albeit of very small things.

The Josh Erkman-directed video for “Cancer” is a fittingly trippy visual split between the members of the band in the studio, shot in a hallucinogenic haze and two costumed men riffing out in front of a camp fire in the middle of nowhere.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Buffalo’s Alpha Hopper Releases a Mesmerizing Visual for New Ripper “Enskin”

Led by frontwoman Irene Rehviashvilli, the Buffalo-based quartet Alpha Hopper formed back in 2014. And since their formation, the Buffalo-based act have developed and honed a frenetic guitar-driven rock sound featuring elements of punk rock, hardcore, noise rock and no-wave.

Interestingly, the act’s recently released third album Alpha Hex Index finds the band diving deeper into their unique rabbit hole with sassy and snotty vocals punctuating a towering wall of angular, power chord riffs and forceful mathematically precise drumming. As the band jokingly describes their sound
“dummy math, noise rock for art-punk drop outs.”

As a result of pandemic-related shutdowns and restrictions, the members of the Buffalo-based quartet decided to record the album themselves in their homes. Of course, because of shelter-in-place recommendations, there were some hiccups in the recording process: instead of being able to track material in a single block, they ere conducted in intervals when the members were able to safely get together to hash out their respective parts. Once they were satisfied with the mix, they sent the files to John Angelo to master the material.

Alpha Hex Index’s latest single “Enskin” is a breakneck and feral ripper, centered around angular power chords, Rehviashvilli’s snotty and bratty delivery, rapid-fire drumming and enormous mosh pit friendly hooks. And while sonically recalling a wild synthesis of Fever to Tell Yeah Yeah Yeahs and math rock titans Cinemechanica, the song lyrically is a call for the listener to armor themselves with the protective hides of creatures and the head and heart of their own spirit.

The recently released video for “Enskin” is a collaborative video created by Tbilisi, Georgia-based wearable sculpture collaborators UTA and virtual reality filmmaker Flatsitter. Directly inspired by the song’s lyrics, the video features characters running around a distinctly European town in wild and colorful costumes — and throughout the video, each character seems imbued with supernatural powers.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Belgium’s Let It Kill You Releases a Furious METZ-like Ripper

Deriving their name from a famous Charles Bukowski saying “Find what you love and let it kill you,” the emerging Belgian punk/noise rock duo Let It Kill You — Peruvian-born, Belgian-based founding member Diego (bass, guitar, vocals) and Dorian (drums, vocals) — began as a solo recording project of its founding member. After release an EP as a solo project, Dorian joined the band, helping to further flesh out the band’s sound, a sound influenced by Sonic Youth, System of a Down, and Drive Like Jehu.

The Belgian duo’s latest single “On Your Left” is a furious and roaring METZ-like ripper, featuring howled vocals, explosive power chord-driven riffs, thunderous drumming and enormous mosh pit friendly hooks and an urgent, forceful delivery. The song, as he band explains was inspired by real life, personal events: the band’s drummer had luckily survived a serious car accident unscathed. This event had forced Diego to think about how things can change in an instant — and how fragile life actually is. At the time, Diego jokingly told his bandmate that he would write a song about his accident.

Of course, the pandemic has changed just about everything for all of us, including the Let It Kill You’s Diego, who lost his job and was uncertain if he could even remain in Belgium. “‘On Your Left’ was my quarantine song,” Diego explains. “Between anxiety and a lot of disorder in my head, I dedicated all my time to this song. I made more than 15 versions of it. The song has two parts. The first verse is Dorian’s perspective before the accident.” Diego goes on to say that the first verse is meant to express the fear that he imagined Dorian felt as the accident was about to happen — and the desperate attempts to escape what may actually be inevitable. The last section of the first verse, Diego says is dedicated to Dorian’s mother: Dorian told him that as his car and the other were just about to collide, he thought of and saw his mother. And it goes son to Diego imagining having to tell his bandmate’s mother terrible news.

Featuring footage from Yoshiaski Kawajiri’s 1987 animated film Neo Tokyo, the recently released video for “On Your Left” is set in a dystopian future and following a jet car pilot, who’s one of the best in the entire world. Everyone around him views and treats him as an immortal hero but eventually he’s revealed to be fragile and mortal. The main character eventually dies racing — but while eliminating all of his competition. The band’s Diego explains that he saw a little bi too Dorian in the movie’s main character.