So this year isn’t slowing down is it? Just month after month of great music. I honestly can’t remember the like of it. To be honest, it’s gotten a bit much, and as such I won’t be reviewing the albums from the 28/10 this month as there isn’t enough time to give them a fair listen.
For the first time ever we have some Screamo in here, I’m a bit late to the party on that genre, but better late than never eh?
So we have some very shouty music but nicely balanced with some gorgeous goth, chilled dance and a few other bits and pieces. Three of the albums here have jumped to my end of year list, as I said. It’s been a hell of a month.
A.A. Williams
As the Moon Rests
The biggest problem with arriving fully formed on your debut EP, is that it’s almost impossible to top it with your first album. A.A’s debut was good but didn’t seem to add much more to her sound. As the Moon Rests however, is a massive step up in both production and songwriting.
Everything about this album is more confident. The songs have a much fuller sound and the delicate post rock has been beefed up with a metal chug. It’s nothing too aggressive but the album sounds huge because if it..
There are so many great songs on here, from the orchestrated sweep of The Echo to the incredible For Nothing, which is a pretty much gothic Bond theme. Alone in the Deep is just magnificent, moody but with huge guitars lifting the A.A’s voice higher as it goes, reaching almost impossible levels, and then the orchestra kicks in, and we’re shooting for the twilight stars.
An artist’s second album is supposed to be difficult, this is a masterclass in how to do it well.
Gillian Carter
Salvation Through Misery
All I know about them is that there’s no one in the band called Gillian Carter and that they describe their style as “Progressive Yelling Music”. After that there’s nothing else that the music can’t tell me.
This is blistering hardcore / screamo and is unrelenting in its aggressiveness. Even when it slows down the vocalist’s distorted shriek (the Screamo bit should give this away) is so abrasive that it can make it difficult to just relax into the music, but that’s a feature, not a bug.
That’s not to say this is one note music, Crucified Upside Down has Iron Maiden style guitar riffs. During the almost bluesy, Living in Isolation, a harmonica turns up. GC are a band that likes to keep you on your toes.
This is a dissonant, aggressive and challenging album. It’s twelve songs in twenty four minutes. It’s a white knuckle ride into a dark place, but just hold on tight, it’ll make you feel alive.
Knifeplay
Animal Drowning
There’s a wild difference between this band’s name and what they actually sound like. Knifeplay are a shoegaze band with their roots firmly in 90 indie rock rather than something more shouty.
This is a lush album, the production makes the songs shine and stops the noisier sections overpowering the quiet. Tj Strohmer’s delicate vocals are always high enough in the mix to carry the song, but down far enough in the mix to add texture more than meaning. It’s a very tricky thing to do right and here it sounds great.
And that’s the key to this album, it sounds great. The songs are distinctive and don’t all mush together. They make unusual musical decisions that help build their distinctive sound and it never comes off as tryhard.
The song Promise, has some beautiful steel guitar giving it an almost country feel before the shoegaze guitar arrives, then to completely catch you off guard, a saxophone shows up during a wall of noise in the outro. The ghost of Pavement appears with some of the 90’s slacker off kilter guitar lines, and the instrumental track Animal has more than a little Crooked Rain feel to it. Untitled has a touch of R.E.M jangle in places, but it never feels like imitation. It feels like the album just unfurls as it needs, taking the band wherever they want to go without putting limits on themselves.
If you’re looking for some new indie rock in your life, this is for you.
Birds in Row
Gris Klein
This is one of the most infectious heavy albums I’ve heard in some time. Birds in Row are a French Screamo / Hardcore band, but unlike Gillian Carter, BiR while heavy as hell, are nowhere near as abrasive. There’s melody and some of these songs are outright catchy. The opening song, Water Wings, has a refrain with the singer repeating “I don’t wanta be young” that’s going to destroy when played live.
The band are stretching their wings here, there’s two songs that are 6 minutes, which is almost unheard of for them, but may be the two best songs on Gris Klein.
Noah is built from the bones of 90’s alt rock. There’s something here that reminds me of Fugazi, I don’t know if it’s the slow build and filthy bass, but it’s there. It’s a relentless tension that barges forward but never brings the release that it teases.
Trompe L’oeil is almost jangly indie, it’s almost pretty and reminds me of The Notwist with the vocal delivery, however, unlike Noah, this song explodes, two minutes in and it’s like a bar fight breaks out in the song and it’s chaos. Just evil bass and dissonant guitars wrestling with each other, slowly taking shape again as the song progresses, building and then collapsing until there’s nothing but an exhausted sounding guitar riff and vocal leading us out of the song.
It might sound exhausting but the rest of the album is moving so quickly it’s nice to spend a bit longer with a song.
This is an incredible album and yet another that has jumped staring into my album of the year list.
Hagop Tchaparian
Bolts
Bolts is an unusual album for me, built from found sounds, middle eastern traditional instruments and the usual slew of electronica kit, this is something I would normally ignore. I’m not sure why I gave it a chance but I’m so glad I did.
This album is released on Four Tet’s label and that’s a good touch point on how Bolts sounds. You can hear Kieran Hebden’s influence pretty clearly, especially on the track Round, there’s an atmosphere they share without this sounding like KH clone.
Hagop has his only sound as well, the second track, GL is unlike anything I listen to. Its clattering drums, with a carnival feel, blaring zurna horns and thudding beat create something fresh, with an almost breathless pace that I haven’t heard before.
The whole album is a masterclass in dynamics, the push / pull of the tempo rising and falling, the wall of sound contrasting with the more ambient, the bangers mixed with the chilled tracks, all perfectly complement each other, rather than ruining the flow.
This is an unusual album (for me) but it’s well worth spending some time with.
And some singles…
Origami Angel
Depart
Three songs. Four Minutes and forty six seconds.
There is zero fucking around here. This is hardcore action and not a second wasted, not an inch of flab anywhere. From the raging blast beats to sludgy slow downs, Depart is textbook example of how you play fun dynamic hardcore. The second track, Fawn, has a slowdown where the singer screams “Get my name out of your mouth” which honestly sounds like someone is going to get a beating, and in a genre that has a lot of macho nonsense this is still fun without feeling ridiculous.
If you like shouty music, this is the short sharp shock you’ve been waiting for..
Bicep
Water
I’ve been a big fan of Bicep since their early singles but I’ve always been frustrated with their album output. Their albums have always been the at home versions of their songs and it has led to two very good, but very restrained albums. The problem being that Bicep live, get pretty hardcore, so the recorded versions start to feel a bit dull. With Water, this finally seems to have broken, this song was written for the live show and you can tell. It’s punchy and hits harder than anything else they’ve released. It bounces along at a great pace and somehow, they even made the chiptune part work.
Waterfall is apparently built from the same stems and is a much more chilled and pretty track but it’s still top tier Bicep. This is a cracking two track single, hopefully the next album will be more like it.
The ways of exile 