We Expect You To Die! Die! Die!

NZ maelstrom Die! Die! Die! have always maintained a frenetic disposition, even as their earlier fractured, frenzied post-punk attack found itself smoothing out into something more streamlined and sustained. This was most obvious in their live setting, which has lost none of the fevered kinetics over the years. Yet we get more of the former on ‘I Love Space Travel’, the opening gambit of new EP What Did You Expect, a knowingly named release out through Bad Health Records (formerly known as Black Night Crash Records). Andrew Wilson’s pitched wail is back, spit flecked feverish; his guitarwork as spiked and sepulchral as ever. This is all heightened by Michael Prain’s pummelling work on the drums, here as brutal as I have ever heard him, almost as if he is trying to beat his way through the core of the earth. They haven’t shirked dark melody though, with the title track a contemplative counterweight. Recorded and mixed by Rory Atwell (Warm Brains – he is on bass duties here also), it’s a timely reminder that as tempered as the fury can be, it still never dies. Grab What Did You Expect here.

Wowed By Blasting Big Warm Brains

Good luck seeing the fireworks tonight in this horrendous deluge London! Doesn't mean there won't be lost limbs - it's a given, right? If you want to stay indoors yet feel the heat, you could do worse than jump on board the Big Wow train, the new album from local lad Warm Brains. One of the hardest working dudes over here, Rory Atwell has carved out a slick yet discordant ode to eking out an existence in Boris Johnson's playground, the 21st century a breeding ground for self-entitled twats, hipster gnats and the strangling of creative freedom and control. What a downer? Not really - Warm Brains has always been about carving out a leering jack'o'lantern of insidious rhythms and hooks in even the most morbid of material, and he remains on song here. From the self-serving and congratulating reprobates and zombies that litter hip hotspots on 'Languid Tarmac' to the suppression of genius by mediocrity ('Pink Blackpool Rock') and City boy fucks ('Now That I'm Boring'), every hated corner of Atwell's world is covered. A melodic earworm that still kicks out at the pricks, Big Wow is pretty great. Pick it up here. Warm Brains plays the Shacklewell Arm this Saturday, while the launch is at The Old Blue Last November 11.

Pawing The Milk Maid

Here are two linked acts that are prepping amazing releases through Fat Cat Records this year.


First up is another slacker rock album that owes as much to the 90s psych movement of the Dandy Warhols/Brian Jonestown Massacre era as it does to fellow revivalists like Yuck. Milk Maid are from Manchester (chief songwriter Martin Cohen used to be in the pretty rad Nine Black Alps) and Mostly No (their second after releasing Yucca only last year) is an album chock full of jangly guitar ramble and chunky guitar drive. I love me a guitar album. Yet I still think that due to trying to find that balance between the jangle and the crunch, the trio straddles both without embracing either, so things aren't as strong as they could be. It's not that I struggle with isn't that the trio aren't good - Mostly No is a pretty delectable album - it's that their name is too close to Milk Music, the Washington band that are one of the best things going around right now. So when I forget, or get confused, and hit up Milk Maid instead of Milk Music, I'm invariably disappointed. This isn't the band's fault of course, and Mostly No is an album that makes an impression, then falters, before winning you over in the end ('Do Right' and 'Bad Luck' are pretty killer). Let's hope the next one works harder to rock all the way through.




Much more upbeat are PAWS, a Glasgow based trio that dish out scuzzy garage fuzz with little regard for their own safety. They brought out their debut EP Misled Youth (in cassette form) back in May, and are quickly backing that up with their Jellyfish/Bloodline 7" (which rings of early Japanadroids, especially the A-side) in preparation for their upcoming LP Cokefloat! (which has been recorded and produced by Warm Brains' uber-producer Rory Attwell). I have to say that I'm a big fan - these two quickly constructed releases (everything except for 'Bainz' - my favourite - was written and recorded in under a week) allude to a world of promise.

PAWS - Misled Youth



You can grab all of these releases on the FatCat website here.