What would it sound like if you had your face repeatedly slammed in a metal door by an angry BBC computer as it was loading? I imagine it would sound something like MoHa! 'One Way Ticket to Candyland' is a relentless barrage of electronic noise and drums that falls into the Brutal Prog category along with the likes of Stay Fucked and Animal. In short, compared to brutal prog the Aphex Twin or Atari Teenage Riot sound like Cilla Black.
At a time when Elliott Smith was a bright light in the world of confessional, acoustic and gentle paeans to lost love and damaged souls, Damien Jurado should have been right up there with him, rather than the footnote that he is.
A prolific songwriter (8 albums and 4 EPs in 11 years), Jurado's breakthrough of sorts was 1999's sophomore release 'Rehearsals For Departure', critically acclaimed but commercially nonexistent, the album showed a delicate figure with a voice so fragile you were left with the impression that it could crack at any point.
For their third album in four years the Atlanta quartet have moved started to move away from the aggressive noise rock that characterised their earlier work and live shows to something more conventionally melodic and, dare I say it, almost poppy.
What emerges is a more tightly controlled set of songs, simultaneously less experimental but also less self-indulgent.
Quite a while ago one Mr Daniel Salter and I headed down to The Windmill in Brixton and witnessed a performance by Up C Down C Right C Left C ABC...Start. My opinion at the time was 'pretentious twats, with their trendy haircuts. Where's the bar?'
And so it is with much trepidation and a little uneasiness that I opened the little package that plopped in front of me on my desk this week. I just don't have the time to waste yet another 60 minutes on a bland and boring post rock album.... I lie, I actually have plenty of time to do this, as I have less close friends than a fan of The Feeling! Anyway on to the actual album......
If you like your rock music dirty, bluesy and in your face then Brimstone Howl are going to be right up your Street. Imagine John Spencer Blues Explosion without the Elvis fixation and you’ll be part of the way there.
The production is raw, the rhythm section pounding and the guitars visceral.
From the opener ‘They Call Me The Hopeless Destroyer’ through to closer ‘Awake In The City’ this album barely lets up.
It's with albums like this that I realise that my obsessive collecting of music is worthwhile. A friend once told me that all record collectors were on a never ending quest to attain the perfect album. Maybe this is true, however for me it's quest to ensure that I don't miss out. What if my favourite band is out there, yet I've never heard them!
This reviewing game can be a funny old lark.
Here at E&D, being a two man and a dog operation, we don’t often get the chance to listen to things as often as we’d really like to, running to keep up so to speak.
This is a shame, because sometimes an album’s first impression belies its true quality and Headless Heroes’ ‘The Silence Of Love’ is just such an album. I gave it a quick listen before going on holiday and my initial reaction was ‘Hmm, an album of nice if slightly bland covers, whatever.’.
So, The Aliens have landed once more.
In the wake of 2007’s hugely successful, if slightly patchy, ‘Astronomy For Dogs’ the boys return with ‘Luna’.
The first thought that strikes is that this is a far more cohesive set of tunes, the second thought is that somebody’s been listening to a lot of English 60’s psychedelia.
In ‘The Flax Of Reverie’ Mothlite have created a record that is complex, subtle and fascinating, but the word that really comes to mind is density. This album has gravity; it pulls you in to its orbit and is reluctant to let you go.
Another product of the intricate mind of Daniel O’Sullivan, he of such diverse musical vehicles as post ironic proggers Guapo to drone rockers Sunn O))), and as such reflects some of the influences that permeate much of his work.
Somehow, and bear in mind I’ve got leaning towers of Pisas of CDs to review on my desk, I’d got it in to my head that Take A Worm For A Walk Week were some kind of folky, Indie band of a Broadcast 2000 ilk. So, imagine my surprise when I clicked ‘Play’ on iTunes and was assaulted by the extreme frantic noisiness of ‘Portuguese Breakfast’. It was like that scene in Back To The Future where Marty plugs his guitar in to the wall of amps and gets blown across the room!
Much to relief it only lasts 58 seconds. Much to my consternation, it’d brought its friends!