Category: post-punk

Single Review by William Ruben Helms
Comprised of Ben Nir Jacob (vocals, guitar), Yanniv Brenner (Guitar), Amit David (Bass) and Amir Reich (Drums), the up-and-coming Tel Aviv, Israel-based indie rock quartet Document can trace their origins back to 2008. As the story goes, once Jacob had finished college, he moved back to Tel Aviv and began hanging out with his cousin and couple of his friends, and as bored 20-somethings, who were the only ones in their age group listening to Wire, The Fall, Fugazi, Dinosaur, Jr. and others, they decided to start a band and to write and play music together. In their native Israel the indie rock quartet have developed a reputation for writing material that focuses on our obsessions with technology and our increasing disconnection with others, dealing with soulless bureaucracy and corruption, the seemingly endless banality of modern life, and the constant oscillating anxiety, outrage, hope and joy that many of us feel on a regular basis.
The Israeli band’s latest single “Hustle” off their forthcoming album The Void Repeats 
will further cement the band’s reputation for crafting material that focuses on modern, daily life — in this case, the sort of digital addiction that removes you from connecting with others or from being in the very moment; where a screen is an extension of one’s life. Interestingly enough, I couldn’t help but think of how I was sitting in a Center City, Philadelphia bar, chatting with two locals, who eventually stopped talking to me to Snapchat endlessly. As the band’s Nir Ben Jacob says of the song, “Phones are the roots that allow us to be connected to everything else. We‘ve rooted ourselves in our modernity. Our identities can change online. We project what we want others to see. The screen has become a mirror. The phone takes away the ability to be intimate, and you are left alone with a distortion of reality. There’s the addiction of immediate gratification, the online approvals are ‘pseudo-pleasure’. This has all led to pointless compulsive behaviour.”
Sonically speaking, the song is a scuzzy and angular post-punk single that’s clearly influenced by the likes of Wire and Gang of Four but it bristles with an ironic and incredibly post modern awareness while possessing incredibly tight, infectious hooks and a cool, self-assuredness beyond their relative youth.

 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Travel the World with Up-and-Coming Ukrainian Indie Rock Act and New JOVM Mainstays Indytronics

Over the past couple of months, I’ve written a bit about the Kiev, Ukraine-based indie rock/post punk band Indytronics. And as you may recall, the band, which is comprised of founding members Danil Bogadenko (guitar, vocals) and Vitaliy Koutsiuk (bass) with Ruslan Dobrov (drums) and Denys Rybchenko (guitar, backing vocals) can trace their origins to when its founding members were traveling across Europe, and while in Stockholm, Sweden, the duo came across a number of street musicians, who were playing music with an interesting and very melodic indie the rock. According to the members of the band, its founding duo were so impressed by Stockholm’s street musicians that decided that they needed to start their own band when they returned home. 

Since the band’s formation in 2012, the band has released their 2013 debut EP Vision and their 2015 full-length debut Scintilla Wave and and as a result, they’ve developed a growing profile both nationally and internationally as they’ve made a number of live appearances on several Ukrainian TV shows and have received regular radio rotation on Ukrainian Radio Roks, Europa Plus, HotMix Radio, WCSF Radio German CTdasradio and others. Along with that, they’ve been written up in the British music magazine Huck and their music has been used for fashion shows aired on the international TV channel IDFashion throughout the US, Ukraine, Italy, Austria and France. 

While “Savannah Only Temple” was slickly produced indie rock that may remind listeners of  Narrow Stairs-era Death Cab for Cutie, The Postal Service’s Give Up and Snow Patrol, thanks in part to a rousingly arena friendly hook, its follow-up “Shark” found the band pushing their sound more towards electronic rock but with some of their most ambitious songwriting they’ve released to date. Their latest single “Alien Sun” finds the band at their most atmospheric while retaining their arena friendly hooks — and although the song will further cement their growing reputation for crafting crowd pleasing Death Cab for Cutie/The Postal Service/Snow Patrol-like indie rock, bolstered by an uncanny self-assuredness and earnestness of purpose. 

As the band wrote to me, they have a dream of playing concerts across

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: The Surreal and Noir-ish Visuals for JOVM Mainstay Fufanu’s Latest Single “White Pebbles”

Over the course of this site’s 7 year history, I’ve been proud to champion an increasingly diverse batch of artists across the globe, writing and perform across a widely eclectic array of genres, sub-genres and styles. And as you may recall, earlier this year, I’ve written a quite a bit about Reykjavik, Iceland-based indie rock/post-punk trio Fufanu. Currently comprised of founding members Kaktus Einarsson (vocals, guitar), whose father Einar was a member of The Sugarcaubes and Guðlaugur “Gulli” Einarsson (guitar, programming) (no relation, by the way) along with newest member, Erling Bang (drums) the up-and-coming Icelandic band can trace their origins to when the band’s founding members met while at school. According to the band’s founding duo, Katkus had glanced at Gulli’s iTunes and noticed that they had listened to a lot of the same techno and electronic music. After quickly bonding over mutual interests, the duo went into a studio and began writing and recording electronic music under the name Captain Fufanu. And within a month of their formation, Kaktus Einarsson and Gulli Einarsson had started playing shows in and around Reykjavik.

Building upon a growing local and national profile, the duo went into the studio to record what would be their full-length debut as Captain Fufanu; but in a strange twist of fate, the studio where Kaktus Einarsson and Gulli Einarsson had recorded the album was burgled. And as a result, the album was presumed stolen and lost — forever. While many bands would be devastated by losing their work in such a fashion, the band’s founding duo decided that it was the perfect time to reinvent their sound and themselves, as they were beginning to develop a growing technical and musical prowess. Coincidentally, around the time that this was happening, Kaktus Einarsson was in London working on Damon Albarn’s Everyday Robots and touring with the late and legendary Bobby Womack when he began writing lyrics. Simultaneously Gulli had started to create a craft a completely revised sound, which according to Kaktus managed to convey exactly what he had been thinking and feeling. They then paired Kaktus’ brooding and ironically detached vocals with live instrumentation — guitars and drums — and electronics, and with their new sound, renamed themselves Fufanu.

Fufanu’s first live set with their new sound and material was at 2014’s Iceland Airwaves and they quickly became one of the most talked about bands of the entire festival. Almost immediately after the festival, the duo went into the studio to record their full-length debut A Few More Days To Go. And with the release of their debut effort, the then-duo saw a rapidly growing national and international profile as they toured with The Vaccines and others, and they played some of Northern Europe and Scandinavia’s largest festivals, including the aforementioned Iceland Airwaves, JaJaJa Festival and others.

Released earlier this year, the band’s sophomore album Sports finds the band going through some significant changes — Kaktus and Gulli recruited Erling “Elli” Bang (drums) to further flesh their sound out, with the newly constituted trio refining their material’s sound and thematic concerns, represented through album title track  “Sports,” which retains the synth-driven sound of their debut while nodding at the likes of Can, Neu!  Joy Division and early ’80s Peter Gabriel, and the slow-burning and moody  “Liability.” Sports’ third and latest single “White Pebbles” continues in a similar vein of its immediate predecessor as it’s a slow-burning, moody and enigmatic track featuring angular bass and guitar chords and ominously swirling electronics, all of which evoke a late night, meditative sense of regret over the embittering, confusing and downright heartbreaking events of one’s life; after all, as the band explained to Billboard, the song is about “looking back in time, and understanding all the little things you didn’t get back then, but are so obvious today.” 

Directed by the Snorri Brothers, the recently released video for “White Pebbles” features the members of Fufanu as a trio of existentially bored policemen, who drive around in a badass car with no particular purpose — until they go on a rather chilled-out, nonchalant police chase, with the members of the band seeming much more fascinated by the entire thing; but the women they chase always manages to be just ahead of them and out of reach.

Reportedly, the video required an unusual amount of preparation, including extensive research for a muscle car in a Reykjavik suburb and a back-alley meeting with a local, police detective to acquire the uniforms but it adds a strange sense of realism to a surrealistic video shot in a noir-ish fashion. “On the actual day of shooting, driving around in this bad ass Mustang in a complete police outfit, getting people really confused and then having a stare-off against one of Iceland’s leading public figures of the commercial culture made everything make so much sense and felt so right,” the band explains. 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: The Surreal and Chaotic Visuals for FACIAL’S “Black Noise”

FACIAL is a Los Angeles, CA-based post-punk band, who have described their sound on their Facebook Fan Page as “the noise that cuts like a chainsaw through the thick buildup of residue in your mind, left behind by years of dealing with the dull banality of life. They take the dead parts of your brain killed by mundane reputation and blast it away with a pressure hose, while the low end rattles all the barnacles off your body and pounds you the way you are always afraid to ask for. Sweet melodies interchange with primal screaming as you fluctuate between comfort and discomfort, horror and jubilation, familiarity and utter confusion.” 

With their sophomore album Facade slated for release on Friday through Chain Letter Collective, the Los Angeles-based post-punk trio reportedly finds the band blowing away the facades and exposing the ugly truths underneath whether it’s their hometown, their country or within themselves. As a result, the material burrows down into the uncomfortable realities that we’ve long tried to push aside such as primal urges, anger, hate, selfishness, envy, jealousy rather than the superficial and alternate reality we show to the world that we are happy, cooperative, peaceful, benevolent members of a kind, cooperative society. And interestingly enough, album single “Black Noise” is a darkly moody, tense and angular track that nods at Echo and the Bunnymen’s Heaven Up Here and others but with a menacing and muscular tone, as though capturing the murky depths of the id.

Directed by Jack Mikesell and co-produced by Jared Robbins and Matt Macnelly, the recently released visuals for “Black Noise” employ a chaotic, dream-like logic with the video beginning with the members of the trio walking through a model town like gods, before quickly cutting to an interpretive dance sequence reminiscent of Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” — that is until a group of young women come by to kick the band’s ass and smash everything in their sights, which in some way seems to evoke our own destructive urges going absolutely wild. Towards the end of the video, the young women join in on the interpretive dance. 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Introducing the Dark and Menacing Post Punk Sounds and Visuals of Paris’ SURE

SURE is a rather mysterious Paris-based post punk/dark wave act, who in an email described their sound as “dark songs to dance in caves.” Their murky and moody, debut single “Tasting Revenge” consists of a forcefully persistent kick drum, angular and propulsive bass lines,  slashing guitar chords fed through layers of distortion paired with vocals that are submerged within the mix and industrial clang and clatter.  And in some way, the French band’s sound manages to channel Joy Division and The Sisters of Mercy, as well as contemporaries like Chain of Flowers and Bambara, 

The recently released accompanying visuals for the song as the band notes may cause discomfort and seizures for those who suffer from photosensitive epilepsy, as it features the members of the band in murky black and white with strobe lights flashing around them as they play in an empty room. 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Mute Records to Re-issue Series of Albums by Influential Cult Favorited Genre Bending British Post-Punk Band

Featuring a core lineup of Jeremy Kerr, Martin Moscrop and Donald Johnson with a rotating cast of members to full out the band, the Manchester-based post-punk band A Certain Ratio formed in 1978 — and naturally, while embracing the ethics and culture of the post-punk era, they had developed a reputation for being uncompromisingly difficult to pigeonhole, as their sound incorporated elements of funk, jazz, punk and rock while employing electronics, tape loops and early technology.

With the release of the critically applauded and commercially successful single “Shack Up,” on both sides of the Atlantic, the Manchester-based band became hailed as pioneers of a sound dubbed “punk funk,” and as a result that single and the rest of the work they’ve released together has managed to influence an incredible and impressive array of acts including Talking Heads, LCD Soundsystem, Happy Mondays, Franz Ferdinand, ESG, Factory Floor and Andrew Weatherall among others — all of which has led to an increased interest in the British post-punk act and their catalog; in fact, the members of A Certain Ratio and renowned indie label Mute Records announced the launch of a long-awaited series of re-issues, featuring a selection of the influential Manchester band’s albums and will continue into 2018 with a compilation, a rarities box set and further re-issues.

Starting on November 24, 2017 the Mute Records-A Certain Ratio re-issue series will begin with the re-issue of the Manchester band’s debut, The Graveyard and The Ballroom, which was originally released through Factory Records in December 1979. The album will be available on limited edition vinyl with colored PVC sleeve, CD (and echoing its original release 38 years ago), cassette. Mute will also be re-issuing 1981’s To Each and 1986’s Force on colored vinyl and CD. While being superficially reminiscent of Entertainment! and Solid Gold-era Gang of Four, thanks in part to the angular guitar attack, The Graveyard and The Ballroom’s re-issue single “Do the Du,” possesses a disco-like bass line paired with vocalist, who sounds anxious and distracted in an all too post-modern fashion — and with a deeper, more attentive ear, you’l hear echoes of Talking Heads 77 and Fear of Music-era Talking Heads (think of “Psycho Killer,” and “I Zimbra”) with a hint of mod-era rock. 

New Audio by William Ruben Helms

If you’ve been frequenting this site over the past couple of years, you’ve come across a couple of posts featuring  Leeds, UK-based indie rock/post-punk quintet AUTOBAHN. And you may recall that with the release of 2015’s debut effort Dissemble, the British quintet comprised of Craig Johnson (vocals) Michel Pedel (guitar) and Gavin Cobb (guitar), Daniel Sleight (bass) and Liam Hilton (drums) received attention both nationally and across internationally for a sound that was influenced by Joy Division and their legendary producer  Martin Hamett; in fact, the band has openly admitted that they wrote and recorded the album imagining what Hannett would have done with them in the studio. However, as the story goes, sometime before they were about to write and record the material, which would comprise their forthcoming sophomore full-length effort The Moral Crossing, the members of the band decided to give up their long-held practice room, which had doubled as a hardcore punk venue, and build their own space.

They found a former double-glazing firm under a disused bridge in Holbeck, Leeds’ red light district and despite having no real experience building a studio from scratch, they undertook the job. And after finishing the studio, the band’s Craig Johnson then taught himself how to produce and record an album — with the boring desire to create their own sound and be in control of their own artistic vision.  “I was down there nearly every night,” Johnson recalls. “It was pretty horrible at times, but worth the pain to have control over everything. We’ve had the chance to create the sound we want, at times it’s more melancholic, and romantic.” Of course, as they went about changing their overall sound, the band went through a change in songwriting approach, in which they went through a deliberate and painstaking process, where they constructed songs piece-by-piece as they went along rather than working to revise already created songs, as they previously did. . Lyrics came about at the end, and thematically the material finds the band focusing on birth — but in a way that emphasizes that the person “had no choice in the decision. And then it’s about the different outcomes that could happen, Which could be glorious or torturous,” Johnson explains in press notes.

Last month, I wrote about album title track “The Moral Crossing,” a single, which revealed that the band went though a bold and forceful new direction — and while retaining the angular attack of their previously released singles and of Martin Hammett-era Joy Division, the single finds the band crafting some of their most ambitious material to date, as it possesses the swooning and antehmic hooks reminiscent of Snow Patrol paired with prog rock and arena rock-like sensibility. “Future,” The Moral Crossing‘s latest single features familiar, post-punk angular guitars, four-on-the percussion, soaring synths and a rousing hook before dissolving into noisy chaos but where there are similarities between this single and its predecessor, the biggest difference to my ears is that this track reminds me quite a bit of Freedom of Choice-era DEVO or in other words, as though it comes from some brutal and ridiculous post apocalyptic future that kind of resembles our own.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

 

With the release of 2015’s debut effort Dissemble, the Leeds, UK-based indie rock/post-punk quintet AUTOBAHN, comprised of Craig Johnson (vocals) Michel Pedel (guitar) and Gavin Cobb (guitar), Daniel Sleight (bass) and Liam Hilton (drums) received attention both nationally and across the blogosphere for a sound that was influenced by Joy Division and their legendary post-punk producer Martin Hamett. In fact, the band reportedly wrote and recorded the album imagining what Hannett would have done, if he were to produce them. However, as the story goes, before they set up to write and record the material that would comprise The Moral Crossing, the band’s forthcoming sophomore effort, the members of the band had decided to give up their practice room. which also doubled as a hardcore punk venue, an build their own space. They found a former double-glazing firm under a disused bridge in Holbeck, Leeds’ red light district and despite having no real experience building a studio from scratch, they undertook the job and when they finished their studio, the band’s Craig Johnson taught himself how to produce and record an album with the burning desire to create their own sound with their own artistic vision.  “I was down there nearly every night,” Johnson recalls. “It was pretty horrible at times, but worth the pain to have control over everything. We’ve had the chance to create the sound we want, at times it’s more melancholic, and romantic.”

In order to go about changing their sound, a change in songwriting approach was necessary — and for their sophomore effort, the band went about a deliberate and painstaking process in which they built songs piece-by-piece as they went along rather than working on completed songs, as they previously did. Lyrics came about at the end, and thematically the material finds the band focusing on birth — but in a way that emphasizes that the person “had no choice in the decision. And then it’s about the different outcomes that could happen, Which could be glorious or torturous,” Johnson explains in press notes.

From album title track “The Moral Crossing,” the Leeds-based quintet’s sophomore effort will be a bold and forceful new direction for the band — while retaining the angular attack of their previously released singles and of Martin Hammett-era Joy Division, the single finds the band crafting some of their most ambitious material to date, as it possesses the swooning and antehmic hooks reminiscent of Snow Patrol paired with prog rock and arena rock-like sensibility.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: The Dark and Striking Visuals for At The Drive In’s “Call Broken Arrow”

Currently comprised of founding members Cedric Bixler (vocals), Omar Rodriguez (guitar, vocals), Paul Hinojos (bass) and Tony Hajjar (drums) and Sparta’s Keely Davis, the El Paso, TX-based punk rock act At The Drive In can trace its origins back to its formation in 1994. After several line up changes, the band’s lineup eventually solidified into a quintet featuring Bixler, Rodriguez, Hinojos, Hajjar and Jim Ward, and with its best known lineup, the band released three critically applauded and commercially successful studio albums — 1996’s Acrobatic Tenement, 1998’s In/Casino/Out and 2000’s seminal effort, Relationship of Command — before abruptly splitting up at the height of their popularity, just before they were about to embark on a Stateside leg of a lengthy world tour. 

Following the break up of At The Drive In, Bixler and Rodriguez formed the critically applauded act The Mars Volta while Ward, Hinojoso, Hajjar formed Sparta with Davis, and both acts were a decided departure from their work from At The Drive In — with The Mars Volta specializing in intricate and expansive prog rock and Sparta specializing in much more straightforward rock. The band reunited in January 2012 and played that year’s Coachella Festival and Lollapalooza Festival and re-issued their original material through their own label before splitting up. Interestingly, the following year The Mars Volta went through a bitter break up in which Bixler and Rodriguez refused to speak to each other for a couple of years.  However, the original lineup had reunited to play a series of Festival gigs and announced they were releasing new material, but as the band was rehearsing and preparing to go on tour, Ward left and he was replaced by Sparta’s Keely Davis. 

The band’s fourth full-length effort  in • ter a • li • a was released earlier this year and from the album’s latest single “Call Broken Arrow,” the band manages to retain the explosive and breakneck fury of their previously released material but while revealing musicians who have grown older and bring something different to the table than from their first incarnation; in fact, the song manages to strongly nod at prog rock and math thanks to rapid fire key changes and a punishingly forceful bridge that will absolutely melt faces. 

Directed by Rob Shaw, the recently released visuals for “Call Broken Arrow” act as a prequel to the video for “Hostage Stamps,” as the viewer follows the continuing story of a prisoner and his faceless captors, as well as the appearance of enormous, mechanized spiders. And much like the preceding video, the visuals for “Call Broken Arrow” employs a mix of digital and stop-motion animation while providing nuanced into the already established narrative. As Shaw explains in press notes. “In ‘Hostage Stamps,’ we have a prisoner being tortured and monitored by some sort of authoritarian organization. The guys wanted to show why he was imprisoned, as well as cast doubt over his innocence. It’s funny how in stories, especially film stories, you tend to sympathize with whoever you spend time with. When you watch someone being mistreated, the assumption is that person is the victim. ‘Call Broken Arrow’ is in part about illustrating the prisoner’s culpability, but even that is in doubt as we see the Watcher character who follows him around slipping something in his drink at the end.”

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Belgian Post-Punk Act Fornet Specialize in the Horrors of the Mundane in Video for “Erase (I’m Alive)”

Fornet is a Limburg, Belgium-based quintet who has received attention in their homeland for an aesthetic that draws equally from post-punk, noise punk, art punk and krautrock — and as a result their sound consists of slashing, angular guitars, propulsive drumming and punchily delivered lyrics within an unusual song structure, as you’ll hear on the tense and uneasy  “Erase (I’m Alive),” the latest single off the Belgium quintet’s forthcoming self-titled EP, slated for a September 8, 2017 release through Belgium indie rock label, Sentimental Records. Although “Erase (I’m Alive)” seems to be indebted to Entertainment and Solid Gold-era Gang of Four, the song possesses a post-modern existential dread that should feel frighteningly familiar.

Directed by Wout Biesmans. the recently released video for Fornet’s “Erase (I’m Alive)” employs a simple but disturbing concept — one extremely long, static take of an extremely hairy man, in tighty whities carefully waxing himself in his bathroom. 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: JOVM Mainstays METZ Return with a Jagged and Anthemic Post-Post Punk Ode to Being Yourself at All Costs

With 2014’s self-titled debut and 2015’s sophomore effort II,  the Toronto, ON-based trio METZ received attention across their native Canada and elsewhere for a sludgy, face-melting, power-chord based sound reminiscent of Bleach and In Utereo-era Nirvana, A Place to Bury Strangers, Japandroids and others, and unsurprisingly, the Toronto-based punk trio quickly became mainstays on this site. Now, as you may know their third, full-length album Strange Peace is slated for a September 22, 2017 release through Sub Pop Records, and the album, which the trio recorded with Steve Albini at Chicago’s Electrical Audio Studio live to tape, with home recordings and instrumentation added by their longtime collaborator, engineer and mixer Graham Walsh back in Toronto. And the new album reportedly finds the band pushing their sound and songwriting into a new direction while retaining the furious and intense energy of their live shows; in fact, the material thematically speaking may be among the most political yet personal material they’ve written to date, capturing the thoughts and emotions of young people in the age of Trump. “The songs on Strange Peace are about uncertainty. They’re about recognizing that we’re not always in control of our own fate, and about admitting our mistakes and fears,” the band’s Alex Eakins explained in press notes. “They’re about finding some semblance of peace within the chaos.” 

“Cellophane,” Strange Peace’s first single found the Canadian punk trio retaining the sledgehammer forcefulness, sludgy power chords and rousing hooks that first caught the attention of the blogosphere and this site, but there’s an underlying, hard-fought maturity — the sort that come as a result of living in an increasingly fearful, uncertain, fucked up world, that feels as though it’s spinning faster and faster towards disaster. And interestingly enough, “Cellophane” seems to say to the listener, “hey man we’re scared out of our fucking minds, too; but we have each other and somehow we’ve gotta stick together and figure it out.” 

“Drained Lake,” Strange Peace’s second and latest single, is a jagged and propulsive post-post-punk track with layers of blistering and scuzzy guitars, punchily delivered lyrics and thunderous drumming with the use of a lurching synth line for what I think may be the first time in the band’s history; but while being a revealing look into a band that’s begun to restlessly experiment and expand upon their sound, it also finds the band at their most strident and searching, while being a sneering anthemic “fuck off” to those who don’t — and perhaps can never — see you for who you are. As the band’s Eadkins explained in press notes, the song reflects, “the constant struggle to know yourself and make sense of your life and surroundings. What is my purpose? Holding on to who you are while finding off pressure to bend to what other people want and expect from you,” 

The members of the Toronto-based punk rock act will be embarking on a North American tour to build up buzz and then support their new effort and it includes two NYC area dates — October 4, 2017 at Music Hall of WIlliamsburg and October 5, 2017 at the Bowery Ballroom. 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Over the past couple of months, I’ve written about the Los Angeles, CA-based quartet Sextile. And interestingly enough, the band which is comprised of Melissa Scaduto, Eddie Wuebben, Sammy Warren and Brady Keen derives their name from the classic, astrological definition of sextile, an astrological aspect that’s made when two planets or other astrological bodies are 60º apart in the night sky.

Now, as you may recall, “One Of These,” off the band’s forthcoming sophomore effort, Albeit Living, managed to sound as though it were influenced by The Jesus and Mary Chain, A Place to Bury Strangers, Wire, Public Image, Ltd., early Ministry and early Nine Inch Nails as it featured the band pairing a propulsive stomp with scorching feedback, chilly synths, a dance floor-worthy hook with a feral intensity.  The album’s subsequent signal “Who Killed Six” featured angular guitar chords, punchily delivered lyrics and industrial clang and clatter to create a song that sounded as though it were influenced by   Pink Flag-era Wire and Joy Division; but with a scuzzier and grittier feel.

Albeit Living‘s latest single “Situation” finds the band pairing a propulsive and throbbing synths with whirring and grinding electronics, persistent beats and laconically delivered vocals in a song that sounds like a dryly ironic cover of Elastica‘s “Connection.” And although the song manages to draw from some of the same influences and time period, the new single reveals a band playfully and restlessly experimenting with their sound to the point of being musical chameleons while retaining elements of the sound and aesthetic that captured the blogosphere’s attention — namely an ability to craft a rousing hook.

 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Currently comprised of founding members and creative partners Nina Teranchi and Nuha Ruby Ra, along with Alex Brown, Craig Doporto, and a rotating cast of collaborators and friends, the London-based experimental rock/post punk/post rock act Arrows of Love have developed a reputation across the UK  for inventive and difficult to pigeonhole songwriting and for an energetic live show.

The British collective’s sophomore effort PRODUCT found the band working with Bob Weston (best known for his work with David Bowie, LCD Soundsystem and Shellac) and Mikko Gordon (best known for working with Thom Yorke and Gaz Combes) and will feature a redux edition single of the album’s first single “Signal” crafted by Margo Broom, best known as the producer behind Fat White’s Touch The Leather redux. “Come With Me,” PRODUCT‘s second and latest single begins with a slow-burning discordant, No Wave-leaning introduction before the song quickly turns into an angular post punk art piece with Ra’s ruminating on a collection of scenarios and themes that are personal to her — ghosts from her past, challenges with mental health, destructive and self-destructive patterns and loss of control, written in a way so that the song plays out “like a scene from a film noir,” Ra explains. “The story stems from manic depressive episodes characterized by two people, who are really the same person; one in highest control, while one is weakest.” And as a result, the song bristles with a nasty and messy urgency; the sort of nastiness of a messy, lived in life full of confusing, embittering episodes.

 

 

 

 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Indytronics’ “Savannah Only Temple” Video Captures the Lives of Kiev’s Kids

Comprised of Danil Bogadenko (guitar, vocals), Vitaliy Koutsiuk (bass), Ruslan Dobrov (drums) and Denys Rybchenko (guitar, backing vocals), the Kiev, Ukraine-based indie rock/post band Indytronics can trace their origins to when Bogandenko and Rybchenko were touring across Europe, and while in Stockholm, Sweden the duo came across street musicians, who were playing an interesting melodic indie rock-leaning vibe. And as the story goes, Bogandenko and Rybchenko were so impressed by this particular band and by several other bands that they decided to start their own band when they returned to Kiev. 

Since their formation in 2012, the members of Indytronics have released their 2013 debut EP Vision and their 2015 full-length debut Scintilla Wave and they’ve developed a growing profile both nationally and internationally; in fact, they’ve made live appearances on several Ukrainian TV shows and have received regular rotation on Ukrainian Radio Roks, Europa Plus, HotMix Radio, WCSF Radio German CTdasradio and others. Along with that, they’ve been written up in the British music magazine Huck and their music has been used for fashion shows aired on the international TV channel IDFashion throughout the US, Ukraine, Italy, Austria and France. 

Now, as you can imagine I receive quite a bit of emails from a publicists, publicity firms, band managers, record labels, bands and artists from increasingly far-flung places these days, and as the band explained in their email to me, their latest single and video “Savannah Only Temple,” everyone has their own temple, and it can anything.  And while clearly drawing from indie rock and post-punk the band’s sound is an incredibly slick and contemporary take that to my ears reminds me a bit of Narrow Stairs-era Death Cab for Cutie, The Postal Service’s Give Up and Snow Patrol, complete with a rousingly anthemic arena rock-friendly hook and a subtly wistful vibe. 

The recently released video for the song features the Ukrainian quartet performing the song in an empty pool that local kids have repurposed for their skateboarding, and the band broodingly walking around a school’s athletic field. And while being a glimpse of Kiev’s kids, it suggests something far larger — cultural differences withstanding, kids everywhere are almost exactly alike. By watching these kids, you should see yourself at their age, goofing off and planning adventures with friends, having enormous dreams of making someone of yourself, of having crushes on the kid next door or the kid in your Chemistry class. 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Last month, I wrote about the Los Angeles, CA-based quartet Sextile. Comprised of Melissa Scaduto, Eddie Wuebben, Sammy Warren and Brady Keen, the band, whose sound draws from 70s punk, 80s New Wave, synthwave and early, industrial electronica, derives their name from the classic, astrological meaning of sextile, an astrological aspect that is made when two planets or other celestial bodies are 60 degrees apart in the sky.

Now, as you may recall, “One Of These,” off the band’s forthcoming sophomore effort, Albeit Living, managed to sound as though it were influenced by The Jesus and Mary Chain, A Place to Bury Strangers, Wire, Public Image, Ltd., early Ministry and early Nine Inch Nails as it featured the band pairing a propulsive stomp with scorching feedback, chilly synths, a dance floor-worthy hook with a feral intensity. However, the album’s latest single “Who Killed Six” features angular guitar chords, punchily delivered lyrics and industrial clang and clatter in what arguably may be the most punk rock and New Wave-inspired song they’ve released to date; in fact, the song reminds me of Pink Flag-era Wire and Joy Division, complete with a scuzzy and gritty feel.