Tag: post punk

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Franz Ferdinand Continues Their Run of Shimmering and Quirky Dance Floor Friendly Singles

Currently comprised of founding quartet Alex Kapranos (lead vocals, guitar), Nick McCarthy (rhythm guitar, keys and backing vocals), Bob Hardy (bass) and Paul Thomson (drums, percussion and backing vocals), along with newest Julian Corrie (keys, synths, guitar and backing band), who joined last year, replacing founding member Nick McCarthy, the Glasgow, Scotland, UK-based indie rock/post punk act Franz Ferdinand formed back in 2002.  And with the release of their first two singles “Darts of Pleasure” and “Take Me Out” the members of the Scottish indie rock act quickly saw commercial and critical success — with “Take Me Out,” the band’s signature song peaking within the Top of the UK Singles Chart, and later earning a Grammy nomination for Best Rock Performance by Duo or Group with Vocal. Additionally, not only did their eponymous, 2004 full-length debut received a Grammy nomination for Best Alternative Album and won the Mercury Prize, the band established themselves at the forefront of the post punk revival movement. Along with that, the band has won two Brit Awards — one for Best British Group, as well as one NME Award. 

Their 2005 Rich Costey-produced sophomore effort, You Could Have It So Much Better was released to critical and commercial success with the album peaking within the Top Ten Charts in multiple countries, with the album receiving a nomination for Best Alternative Album and “Do You Want To” receiving a nomination for Best Performance by Duo or Group with Vocal. However, 2009’s Tonight: Franz Ferdinand found the band moving from the post-punk sound that first won them international attention to a much more dance friendly sound while continuing an impressive streak of commercial and critical success. They promptly followed that up with a remix album of Tonight, titled Blood, which was released that summer. 

2013 saw the release of Right Thoughts, Right Words, Right Action and they followed that up with teaming up with Sparks to form a supergroup FFS, which released their self-tiltled album in 2015. The renowned Scottish band’s fifth full-length album Always Ascending is slated for a February 9, 2018 release and the album’s latest single “Feel The Love Go,” finds the band continuing with a dance floor friendly, disco-era inspired sound while retaining elements of the Gang of Four-like post punk that first won them international attention as they pair angular guitar chords, sinuous bass lines, four-on-the-floor drumming and thumping beats with arpeggiated synths, warm blasts of soulful, Hall and Oates-like saxophone and razor sharp hooks. And yet interestingly enough, the song also finds the band maintaining their unique ability to craft quirky, white boy funk. 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Comprised of Stefano Bellerba (vocals, guitar), Leonardo Mori (synth), Matteo Luciani (bass), Saverio Paiella (guitar) and Daniele Cruccolini, the members of the Terni, Italy-based post-punk quintet Japan Suicide met and bonded over their mutual love of Joy Division, The Cure, Nine Inch Nails and Depeche Mode — but they also cite the likes of Bauhaus, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Japan, The Damned, Interpol, Suicide, CSI, CCCP and Massimo Volume as being major influences on their sound and songwriting approach. With the release of 2015’s We Die In Such a Place, 2016’s 1978 EP, and the appearance of “This Be The Verse” on Darkitalia’s Sparkles in the Dark, Vol. 4 compilation, the Italian post punk quintet have received both national and international attention as one of their homeland’s best, contemporary indie rock/post punk bands.

Building on their growing profile, Japan Suicide’s third full-length effort Santa Sangre is slated for a February 14, 2018 release through Unknown Pleasures Records, and while the album’s first single “Circle” will further cement the band’s reputation for crafting material heavily indebted to early 80s post punk, it reveals a band that has been gently expanding upon their sound with nods to shoegaze and industrial rock as the band pairs fuzzy and angular guitar chords, thundering drumming, merrily twinkling synths and a soaring hook to evoke a creeping yet uncertain dread.

 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Introducing the Industrial Post-Punk Sounds of Springfield, MO’s Kudzu

Publicly citing Tears for Fears, The Cure, Spectrum, Guided by Voices, Sympathy Nervous and This Heat as major influences, the Springfield, MO-based synth wave/synth punk duo Kudzu, comprised of Seth Goodwin (vocals, synths, drum programming) and Mark Gillenwaters (vocals, guitar) will be releasing their forthcoming full-length album Defeated on March 2, 2018 through Push & Pull Records. And reportedly, the album’s 9 songs come from several layers of disenchantment and frustration — first with their local punk and DIY scenes, which has resulted in a general dissociation from them and second, the stark reality of life in the Ozarks. As the band’s Mark Gillenwaters explains in press notes “I feel like there is a type of alienation you can harbor in a place like this that lends itself to bleak music. I like to treat lyrics as more emotional than literal, so some lyrics might not make sense but still convey the emotion I’m trying to present.” 

“Some Cops,” the latest single off the band’s forthcoming album finds the duo drawing from the likes of Ministry, PIL and early Nine Inch Nails as it features layers of buzzing, analog synths, slashing and buzzing power chords, propulsive yet forceful drum programming and an anthemic hook — and while clearly being mosh pit friendly, the song bristles and snarls with a pent up frustration at its core. 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms
Currently comprised of founding trio Brandon Pierce, a founding member of prog rock act Ancestors, who has had stints with Buried at Sea, Deth Crux, Night Horse and Portland,OR’s Soft Kill; Brandon’s wife Rachael Pierce, an accomplished vocalist, who spent years demoing pop songs for major labels; and Cameron Carlin, who also is a member of Black Mare, the Los Angeles, CA-based post punk trio GLAARE initially formed back in 2012 and since their formation, the band has received attention for featuring some of Southern California’s most accomplished musicians, as well as for a sound that possesses elements of darkwave, dream pop and goth-rock while revealing a meticulous songwriting approach through the release of 2014’s The Universe Is Machine, which featured former member Jason Watkins (keys), a 2015 split 7 inch with electronic duo Intimachine and a self-titled cassette EP last year.
To Deaf and Day, the up-and-coming Los Angeles-based post-punk trio’s full-length debut was released earlier this year through Dune Altar/Funeral Party Records, and from the album’s latest single “Desiree,” the members of GLAARE will further cement their growing local and regional reputation for a sound that’s deeply indebted to 4AD Records heyday, The Cure, Sixousie and the Banshees and others but with a subtly modern sheen.
Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Throughout the bulk of this site’s history, I’ve written quite a bit about the Brooklyn-based JOVM post-punk mainstays NØMADS. And as you’d recall, the act which is primarily comprised of Nathan Lithow  (vocals, synths, bass) and Garth Macaleavey (drums) spent the better part of last year writing and recording the material that would eventually comprise PHØBIAC, a concept album in which each song focuses on a different phobia, approached in an abstract, almost clinical fashion. Naturally, the material captures and evokes the innermost thoughts and anxieties of someone in the grips of a deeply crippling fear; but at its core, is a cautionary message for our heightened and uncertain times — that whenever we succumb to the irrationality of our fears, chaos and self-destruction will be the result.

Throughout the course of 2017, the Brooklyn-based JOVM mainstays have released a new single from the album every month, adding the band to a growing list of artists, who have experimented with how an album is packaged, arranged, marketed, publicized and sold in the blogosphere age. Interestingly enough, during the summer, the duo announced that they’d be splitting the full-length album into two separate EPs — the organic, punk rock-like PHØBIAC Part 1, which features Lithow collaborating with his bandmate Macaleavy and the synth-driven, prog rock-like PHØBIAC Part 2, which features Lithow collaborating with acclaimed drummer Brian Wolf, who has worked with David Byrne, St. Vincent and the legendary Dap Kings.

“Xenophøbia,” the jagged and tense, Entertainment!-era Gang of Four/Pink Flag-era Wire-like new single from NØMADS focuses on an all-too familiar fear that has dominated the news and the attention of the world — xenophobia, the fear and hatred of strangers or foreigners, as well as anything that is considered strange or foreign. Featuring the band’s original duo of Lithow and Macaleavy, the single’s lyrical perspective is that of an aging, tyrannical dictator, pounding his fists behind a podium and riling the fears and hatreds of a fervent, frothing mob while being a meditation on what it means to be an outsider — whether racially, religiously or culturally — in the internet age. But along with that, the song points at the chilling and increasingly fascistic turn our culture and government have taken since Trump has taken office, suggesting that we should be fearful of what could happen next and resist with every fiber of our beings.

 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Over the past 13-15 months or so, JOVM has managed to catch the up-and-coming Brooklyn-based post punk/psych pop act Monograms on a couple of bills around town. And as you may recall, the band initially began as the solo recording project of its founding member Ian Joseph; however, since expanding into a full-fledged band, Monograms has received a growing profile, as they’ve opened for Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, GøGGS (a side project featuring Ty Segall and members of JOVM mainstay Ex-Cult) Ezra Furman, Sunflower Bean, APTBS‘ Dion Lunadon, Quilt, Dreamers, Spires and others.

The band’s latest single “Sleep Cycle” finds the band experimenting and expanding upon their sound, with the single briefly nodding at 90s grunge rock and Gang of Four-like post punk as they pair fuzzy power chords with a propulsive and angular bass chords, forceful drumming and an anthemic hook, creating an ambitious and arena rock friendly song that manages to retain a sweaty, mosh pit worthiness.

Monograms has an upcoming show on Monday night at Brooklyn’s newest venue Elsewhere with Journalism and Obliques.

Check out the Facebook event page for more info: https://www.facebook.com/events/1450449005069867/

 

 

 

New Audio by William Ruben Helms

Last month, I wrote about the up-and-coming Tel Aviv, Israel-based indie rock quartet Document, and as you may recall, the band, which is comprised of Nir Ben Jacob (vocals, guitar), Yanniv Brenner (Guitar), Amit David (Bass) and Amir Reich (Drums) can trace their origins to 2008. Once Jacob and finished college, he moved back to Tel Aviv and began hanging out with his cousin and a couple of his friends. And as bored 20-somethings, who were the only ones among their peers 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.

“Hustle” off the band’s soon-to-be released album The Void Repeats focuses on the sort of digital addiction that removes you from connecting with others or from being in that particular moment; where a screen is an extension of one’s self and one’s life. Some time ago, I was sitting in a Center City, Philadelphia bar, chatting with a couple of very lovely locals but at some point the conversation stopped as they began to focus on Snapchatting into the internet void. As the band’s Nir Ben Jacob said of the song at the time, “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 behavior.”  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.
The up-and-coming Israeli band’s latest and last single “Red Tape” as the band’s Jacob explains “refers to dealing with bureaucracy — specifically government agencies that are meant to serve the people, when in fact, they have made things so extremely complicated that you are lost and get screwed over if you’re not careful.” Sonically, while the song finds the band drawing from the hook-laden anthemic, garage rock and guitar rock of Pavement and others; but underneath the surface the song bristles with the bitter frustration of recognizing that you’re getting fucked over, and that no one who’s supposed to help you will help.

 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Introducing Kiev, Ukraine-based Post Punk Act On The Wane

With the release of their 2014 full-length debut Dry, the Kiev, Ukraine-based post-punk quartet On The Wane, currently comprised of Dari Maksimova (bass, vocals), Anna Lyashok (drums, vocals), Eugene Voitov (guitar, synth), and newest member, Eli Demyanenko (drums, drum machine), received attention across their native Ukraine and elsewhere for a sound that draws from shoegaze, goth, New Wave and noise rock — with the members of the band citing Sonic Youth, The Cure, Joy Division, Pixies, Bauhaus, My Bloody Valentine, Slowdive, Cocteau Twins and Ringo Deathstarr as influences on their work. 

Following a successful Ukrainian tour, the band, the quartet went into the studio and recorded a 6 track EP, Sick, which found the band’s sound drawing from the likes of Mudhoney, Fugazi and others with the effort being praised for a sound that drew from Sonic Youth, Gang of Four and The Damned among others; however, after the release of Sick, the band went through a lineup change with their newest member Demyanenko and with his addition, the Ukrainian-based post punk act added synthesizers and a drum machine to their sound. And as a result, the quartet’s sophomore effort Schism finds the band changing things up yet again — this time with the band taking on an increasingly goth-based, electronic rock sound that nods at 4AD Records, Garbage and Siouxsie and the Banshees, as you’ll hear on the album’s latest single “Sultry Song.” 

Directed by Mikhail Efimenko, the recently released video, was based on the band’s idea to create a non-complicated video showing the atmosphere of their rehearsal space/studio/workplace and to introduce the band to the world. 

Video by William Ruben Helms

Now, if you’ve been frequenting this site over the past three years or even over the past couple of weeks, you’ve likely seen a handful of posts featuring the Utrecht, The Netherlands-based indie trio Stillwave. Currently comprised of founding members Michael van Putten and Marcel Jongejan, along with their friend and long-time roadie Joris Keizer, the Dutch indie rock trio have developed a reputation for uncompromisingly refusing to do what their fellow countrymen have done, instead making the trip to the UK to play some of their first shows in dingy, beer soaked clubs and music venues that their influences  — namely, Radiohead, David Bowie and Slowdive — have played in before they made it. As a result of their dedication, hustle and moxie, the Dutch trio began to receive attention and praise from media outlets across the UK and the States, including Q Magazine, Speak Into My Good Eye and others.

The band had started to achieve some level of success and attention when member van Putten and Jongejan were rocked by the departure of original, founding member Adriaan Hogervost. As the band explained to me through email earlier this month, “When Adriaan quit, it felt as if we had lost a brother. We were risking our last savings for another tour in a cramped ’94 Civic, but we knew we had to continue. Stillwave had become more than just music, it became the bond that held us together. We asked our long-time roadie and childhood friend Joris [Keizer] to join us.” They go on to explain that the band’s newest member, had a deep understanding of their dedication and passion for music, knowing that the band was each individual member’s labor of love, “an almost physical place, which we can create, enter and share with those who listen to it.”

The band’s long-awaited full-length debut Sell Another Soul is slated for a November 3, 2017 release, and as the band says about the recording sessions, “When we decided to start recording our album, we had ceased to care about compromise, polish and overanalysed bullshit, which supposedly celebrates the idea of being young and carefree. We do care. For 3 sleep deprived weeks we toiled in a dilapidated structure that would soon after be swallowed by the attempt of gentrification around it. We did away with vocal comping and held onto the tracks where we fucked up. Every second was a battle, every minute a victory.”  As you may recall, I wrote about “94 Civic” earlier this month, a single that derives it name from the 94 Civic that the band drove around in for tours across Europe, and the song was a slow-burning and dreamy ballad that featured a gorgeous but minimalist arrangement of strummed guitar and gently swirling electronics paired with yearning and contemplative vocals that reminded me quite a bit of  Damon Albarn’s solo work and his work with Gorillaz.

Sell Another Soul‘s latest single “Adelaide” find the band returning a bit to the sound that first caught the attention of this site and the rest of the blogosphere — angular, David Bowie Berlin triology-influenced post-punk with similar, moody atmospherics and a rousing, larger-than-life hook and industrial clang and clatter.

The recently released video continues the band’s ongoing collaboration with former member Adriaan Hogervost. And interestingly enough, the video stars Jop Gorris, as a man, who runs around a race track with a metal ladder strapped around him. And although, the ladder is clearly a hinderance to his movement, and he grows increasingly frustrated with the ladder — until he uses it to climb up an abandoned house.

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.