In 2021 I’m going to try and keep my blog running through out the year. It was the plan for last year to but 2020 went and 2020’d that on me. I’m hoping to get a bit of creative writing in on here as well but I’ll start off with the round up of January’s best music.
And the big surprise is that there was some amazing stuff out in January. It may have been the most boring January on record but luckily, no one told the music industry.
Vandampire
The last good thing has happened
I’ll start with an ep that came out in December but I only got round to this month.
To be honest, I’m pretty sure it was that name that put me off checking them out, it really is terrible, but luckily, the music is as good as the band name is bad.
The ep starts out with the track “I am always hungry”, an almost folky acoustic number. Rather than being twee, it’s folky in the way that suggests that someone is going to end up in a wicker man, setting the ep up nicely for the heavier music to come. Track 2 kicks off with a sustained note, a lead in drum beat teases something threatening so when the huge riffing arrives, we’re ready to go. This is post metal with an alt rock swagger and crushing in the best way. It can be difficult not to throw the horns and start headbands walking down the street when listening on headphones. Vandampire (seriously lads…) do a great mix of clean and heavy and the fact that they are so confident in their own sound on what’s only their second ep is amazing. They are definitely a band that I’ll be keeping an eye on.
https://vandampire.bandcamp.com/track/the-end-of-summer
Bicep
Isles
I was pretty excited when Bicep started to make noises that they had a new album cycle starting. I had tickets to see them on the weekend that the Covid lockdown finally came to London which broke my heart. And the new album being postponed as well? That was just insult to injury (I just want a dance to a huge sound system, ok?).
But we finally got the album and somehow it was up to the hype that built over the extra months of waiting.
The album is a clear step up from their first, the confidence show here shows the years of chipping away in the dance underground. It’s crazy that an act on their second album has been around for 11 years. (Their first ep was 2010!)
But from the first notes of Atlas you know what you’re getting, incredibly slick, very pretty dance music. Apparently this is the home listening version of the songs, they’ll be toughened for the dance floor but songs like Apricots feel fully formed here. Speaking of the album being slick, it manages never to become cloying, you just get an album full of bangers but an airy, bright feel that feels desperately needed in these awful times.
I can’t wait for that rescheduled Bicep in September. (It’s not going to happen is it?)
Logic1000
You’ve got the whole night to go.
This ep is exactly the kind of dance music that I’ve been craving for the last few months and it has had me dancing around the house. Mostly house based, the ep starts with the headnodder “Like my way” before hitting the highlight “I won’t forget”. It’s a more popy tune with an old school house diva vocal hook that absolutely pops and will be fantastic on a dance floor.
The ep closes with “Her” a tougher techno number that finishes the record on a high.
This has been putting a goofy smile on my face in a crappy January.
Gatecreeper
An Unexpected Reality
Gatecreeper surprise dropped this ep during the month, delivering some quality old school death and death / doom on an unsuspecting world. This is an 8 track EP that clocks in at 18 minutes. One of the songs is 11 minutes, with none of the others breaking 1 minute 12 . That alone should be all the warning you need for what you’re in for. The first 7 songs are full speed ragers that remind me of Obituary and Brutal Truth in places. It’s just a heads down frenzy but Gatecreeper keep enough groove going to stop it becoming a faceless wall of noise.
The ep highlight is Emptiness. The 11 minute track is a perfect Death / Doom song. The first 4 minutes crawl with a huge sludgy heaviness, then at 5 and a half minutes, a church bell toll, the double kick drums roll and the pace picks up (for doom metal) and the song shines (for doom metal). It’s a perfectly crafted song where the length never becomes a problem, it shifts when needed to keep the listener’s interest and is the jewel in the band’s crown for me. So far.
Kessler
Ambivalence
I’ve never been into Drum and Bass, it just never caught my ear so there must be something special for me to fall for Kessler the way I have here. So, please excuse me as I try to talk about a a kind of music that I know fuck all about.
It’s definitely on the more chilled side of the genre, but where a lot of the DnB I’ve heard is full on, this feels more relaxed. It carries you with it rather than smashing forward, daring you to keep up. There are some pitched up vocals that remind me of Burial but this is more like a hug than Burial’s paranoia inducing coldness. However, this isn’t just a chill out record, you turn this album up and it bangs.
There is also a great use of film samples. Normally I find samples get boring but here, these hold the ep together. I will confess to a bit of a nostalgia blast when Winona Ryder turned up in full 90’s slacker glory talking about ambivalence, but the best sample is on “Only a fool”. Someone with the gravatas of an outraged Orson Wells is having an impressive rant that leads into the ep’s techno track setting the mood perfectly for the toughest song on the ep.
As I say this isn’t my normal music of choice but this is already in the running for ep of the year.
The ways of exile 