Tag: Wire Pink Flag

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Acclaimed Punk Act Ceremony Releases a Shimmering Post-Punk Inspired Single

Currently featuring Ross Farrar (vocals), Anthony Anzaldo (guitar), Justin Davis (bass), Andy Nelson (guitar) and Jake Casarotti (drums), the Rohnert Park, CA-based punk act Ceremony can trace their origins to 2005, when they formed as a sextet with Farrar, Anzaldo, Davis, Nelson, Casarotti and Ryan Mattos (guitar) under the name Violent World before eventually changing their name. 

With the release of their earliest work — in particular, 2005’s Ruined EP and Violence Violence, 2008’s Still Nothing Move You, the band quickly developed a reputation for a relentlessly brutal and bruising hardcore punk sound compared to the likes of Infest and others. Building upon a growing profile, the Rohnert Park, CA-based punk act toured across the world with bands like Blacklisted, Converge, and AFI before releasing 2010’s Rohnert Park. 

Shortly before they signed to Matador Records in 2011, the band went through a lineup change with the departure of Ryan Mattos. The following year saw the release of the band’s fourth album Zoo, an album that was a radical sonic departure from the band, as it saw them moving from the bruising hardcore sound of their earliest efforts towards a pre-hardcore, post-punk inspired sound much like Pink Flag-era Wire. 2015’s The L-Shaped Man found the band sonically moving further towards post-punk with a sound that was compared to the likes of Joy Division and others. 

The band’s soon-to-be released sixth album In The Spirit World Now is slated for an August 23, 2019 release through Relapse Records and the album reportedly finds the band’s sound further pulling from the post punk influences that’s driven their last couple of albums — but there’s also a bit of a rock influence. And unsurprisingly, the band has managed to evolve their sound while remaining true to themselves as songwriters and artists.  Interestingly, the album’s latest single, the hook-driven “Presaging the End” is centered around shimmering and slashing guitars and a motorik-like groove, the song finds the acclaimed punk act sounding much more like The Fixx — in particular “The Sign of Fire” and “Red Skies” but while retaining a punk rock intensity and earnestness. 

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Introducing the Wiry Post-Punk of Up-and-Coming Leeds-based Trio Drahla

Led by Luciel Brown (vocals, guitars), the Leeds, UK-based trio Drahla have received national and international attention for meshing anxious and wiry post-punk with krautrock-inspired experimentation, featuring angular guitar chords and propulsive and hammering bass, the track is centered by Brown’s half-spoken/half-sung vocals as you’ll hear on “Twelve Divisions,” the band’s Pink Flag-era Wire-like Captured Tracks Records debut.

The recently released video is fully of erratic jump cuts, flickering lights and flickering imagery, the video is full of absurd and at times repetitive imagery and action.   As Brown says of the video, “The video is an abstracted representation of process and routine. This is depicted through the recreation of the cover artwork and repetitive nature of the content used.”

New Audio by William Ruben Helms

Initially formed in 1978 as a trio featuring founding members Steve Marsh, Doug Murray and his brother Greg Murray with synth player Jack Crow later joining the band, the members of Austin, TX-based punk act Terminal Mind, were influenced by the likes of Pere Ubu, Roxy Music, John Cale, and Wire — and despite a relatively short period of time together, managed to be at the forefront of Austin’s early punk rock scene, managing to quickly build a local profile, sharing bills with The Huns, Standing Waves, The Big Boys and Iggy Pop. As a result, they managed to subtly influence their hometown’s second wave of punk and noise rockers before splitting up to pursue a number of different projects: Marsh relocated to New York with his experimental noise act Miracle Room before returning to Austin to form space/psych rock act Evil Triplet and an experimental solo recording project he dubbed Radarcave; Doug Murray joined The Skunks; Greg Murray joined an iteration of The Big Boys. Unfortunately, Jack Crow died in 1994.

Now, as I’ve mentioned the proliferation of labels across the world of differing sizes has allowed for long lost bands to find their due, and interestingly, Terminal Mind’s retrospective album Recordings, which is slated for a January 19, 2018 release through Sonic Surgery Records  features the band’s very rate 4 song 7 inch album (which currently fetches more than $100 on eBay), a number of Live at Raul’s compilation tracks as well as a number of unreleased studio and live recordings. And the album’s first single “Refugee” find the short-lived band walking a tightrope between angular and nerdy post punk and furious punk with the band’s sound seeming like an amalgamation between Talking Heads: 77-era Talking Heads, Pink Flag-era Wire, Entertainment! and Solid Gold-era Gang of Four, and Bad Religion.

Admittedly, while I listened to “Refugee,” there was this this sense that I had heard a band that through the weird machinations of fate and luck could have been much bigger than what they eventually wound up — after all, they were pairing tight hooks and angular power chords with an uncanny sense of melody a few years before Bad Religion even formed! But at the very least, hopefully the Sonic Surgery release will help fill in a necessary gap in the canon.     

 
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 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

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.

 

 

 

 

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Comprised of Travis Coster (vocals, guitar), Neil Gregerson (guitar), and Nic Luempert (drums), the Olympia, WA-based punk rock/grunge rock trio Naomi Pink, whose sound clearly draws quite a bit from the region’s grunge rock past — i.e. Wipers, Dead Moon and Nirvana — while channeling energy from a number of the region’s contemporary acts including Milk Music, Broken Water, Vexx and Gag. “Television Man,” the album title track off their 2015 release Television Man manages to sound as though it draws a bit from grunge rock, thanks to ragged and blistering guitar work but it also sounds as though it could have easily drawn from the likes of Pink Flag-era Wire, Entertainment-era Gang of Four as the song possesses a tense, angular feel.

And although they’re currently working on Television Man’s follow up, the Pacific Northwest-based band announced a busy February tour with PC Worship that starts off at Portland, OR‘s The Liquor Store and ends at The Park Church Co-op in Brooklyn. Check out tour dates below.

Tour Dates
02/03 – Portland, OR  – The Liquor Store
02/09 – Washington, D.C. – Comet Ping Pong
02/10 – Norfolk, VA – Charlie’s American Cafe
02/11 – Raleigh, NC – Pinhook
02/12 – Secret Georgia
02/13 – Gainesville, FL – The Atlantic
02/14 – Atlanta, GA – The Earl
02/15 – Nashville, TN – The Cobra
02/16 – Chicago, IL – The Empty Bottle
02/17 – Detroit, MI – UFO Factory
02/18 – Columbus, OH – Ace of Cups
02/19 – Harrisonburg, VA – Golden Pony
02/20 – Philadephia, PA – Baird Mansion Atrium
02/21 – Brooklyn, NY – The Park Church Co-Op

 

 

 

 

indie rock by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Introducing the Wire-Inspired Post-Punk Sound of Bloomington, Indiana’s Permit

Permit is a Bloomington, IN-based indie rock/punk rock duo and with the release of their debut 7 inch, the duo’s sound was indebted to power pop, classic rock and early punk; however, with the release of their debut EP Vol. 1 the duo’s sound has increasingly taken on a frenetic post-punk vibe that makes their material sound as though it were indebted to Pink Flag-era Wire but as though it were a 33 rpm album played 45 rpm speed, as you’ll hear on Vol. 1’s latest single “Track #6.”