Aural Australia #4 - Endless Loop

More Australian releases that are killer - some of these have been around for a while, but the never ending cycle continues...

I have been a fan of Perth based artist Lower Spectrum for quite some time, and his latest offering, the EP Inverse, is another slab of pure arctic synthesis. Three remixes (from LUCIANBLOMKAMP, Rioux and Satori) are bookended by two originals. The opener is the longest and most impressive of the two, 'Atlas (Movements I & II)', an ice melody that ebbs and flows with incremental serenity, an ambient soundscape that disappears into the terminal tundra to return, beats race, a night-time hypnotic state. Its groove is invasive, a nebulous being that locks in and doesn't let go. 'Oracle' on the other hand, is an literal riot, a gangs in the street trance lit by homemade flares and disillusioned anguish and rage.

From this we move into a different territory (in fact Lower Spectrum is very much the odd sound out in this post, although it has been what I have been listening to most in the twilight hours). I Heart Hiroshima are back! The mid-00s Brisbane mainstay went into hiatus as the trio did their own things (Martyr Privates, Rick Fights, Sullivan). But 'Fifty Three' is a great return to the fold - a more brooding, solemn take, treated like a resurgence, a renaissance, a rising from the flames of iniquity and anonymity. Not that the single players have stayed in the shadows, but their mastery of the liminal spaces of the musical landscape has left them with weightier crosses to bear. The earnest approach doesn't dull the IHH formula, but hones it. Can't wait for more.

Melbourne dark psychers ORB have followed in King Gizzard's footsteps with latest release Birth having been picked up by Thee Oh See's US label Castle Face. They have the heavier end of psych wrapped up - like Black Sabbath has been run through the kaleidoscopic deep fryer. But there are elements that are in keeping with John Dwyer's cracked gimlet gurning - the whine, whirl and cowbell of 'Reflection', the spaced spazzoid flares and '50s sci-fi trashed outliers in 'Birth Of A New Moon', the crunching groove aligned with paisley psych vocals in 'First & Last Men'. The 16-minute incinerator 'Electric Blanket' is the blasted cherry on this dazed cake.

Witch Hats have been a pretty underrated band in the Australian musical wilderness. They have morphed over time from a gnarled horror anarchy to arbiters of angular anxiety. Third album 'Deliverance' sees a shift again, the desolate cover art mirroring the untethered anguish and dusted dystopia that the quartet pour forth. It fits into a niche collection of Australian Gothic working-class malaise and outlier grotesquery that have become one of the strongest bastions of Antipodean sound for the past decade (others include the likes of The Drones, Harmony, The Spinning Rooms and Nikko) and deserves a far wider appraisal. START NOW.

Solid Effort have released this single 'Too Far Gone' in preparation for a full length release next year. It's a languid, almost blase sojourn into a hazed jangle epitomised by light heads and heavy lids, beers half full and the sun on the shoulder of the horizon. There is so much potential with this band.

The Ocean Party/Osborne St collective just keep spewing forth bands, don't they? Pregnancy is the silly, sultry half-sister of the brood. 'First Kiss' has that 80s in the 21st century gossamer sheen, the female vocals floating in through a Vaseline-smeared soft focus shot of bay windows with billowing white curtains, band members wearing a costume composite of David Byrne, Kenny Loggins and ABC. It's smooth, funky and chockful of hooks that you can imagine the band all looking at each other with grins plastered across their faces, in awe of how really really ridiculously good these sounds are. The fourtrack tape is out now, and the rest of the songs are great too - while I like the seductive yet simplistic New Wave primitivism of 'Society', you can never beat Slim Dusty - I recognised the man's melody before I even twigged that 'Biggest Disappointment' was indeed a cover of one of his classic tracks.

Finishing off with Church of Christ, a decidedly different taste from Lachlan Malone (Danyl Jesu, O). The loose garage punk distortion and broad as fuck Australian drawl echoes from the likes of Coloured Balls and Feedtimes of yore to the Drunk Mums and Straight Arrows of now, although more guttural and weird, and is added serious weight by Donovan Miller in the recording studio (Audio Nowhere, No Anchor). But it's the blood spatter guitar strum and flayed chord howl within the laconic beer chewing braggadocio that puts these songs right up there - and with titles like 'Song of the Year' and 'Greatest Song Alive', they sure know it.

A Static Shock Of Anxiety

One of the best festivals to hit London this year comes on the first weekend of November - that is, Static Shock Weekender, three days/nights of punk and hardcore nihilism that promises to annihilate my senses and render me useless for the rest of 2016. I am looking forward to so many acts - Iron Lung, Diat, Warthog, TV Crime, No Form, Sievehead, Arms Race, Sauna Youth, Bad Breeding, Sarcasm...and then there is Anxiety, the Glasgow miscreants who put out one of the best hardcore dirges of 2016. The four-piece are able to craft slabs of discordant mess that bludgeons from a surreal left field. They have been compared to Butthole Surfers (with an obviously more anarchic aural bent) but with their shades of unhinged Catalan hardcore and straight-edge sewer spray, all condensed into an oppressive vacuum, there isn't a band really like them. Watching them brings a smile to the lips, that tremors and falters as the caterwaul continues its relentless effrontery - Anxiety emanates from their every pore. You can pick up Anxiety here - get tickets for Static Shock Weekend IV here while you still can!

Ulrika Spacek: All The Time

I had a close friend over from Australia the other week so I missed London five-piece Ulrika Spacek make their return to their hometown. Which was a shame, because I really dig their sludgy, psych-and-no-wave-tinged monochrome growl. They aren't in the same abrasive bracket as Spectres, but there are shades of similarities in the blown-out motorik blasts and discombobulated vocals soaring above the black void. The latest offering from them is this 7" through Tough Love Records (get it here). The A Side is 'Everything: All The Time', a Kraut soarer that winds you in and spools out, the rhythms etched into your mind ad infinitum. And although I haven't linked it here, you can listen to their excellent take on VU classic 'Lady Godiva's Operation' that takes up the B Side here.

Aural Australia #3 - Feral Ferocity

Life is rough and stuff. Time to get feral.

Ausmuteants won't give a shit what I write here anyway. The Melbourne punk wastoids have made that abundantly clear with their track 'Music Writers' off new record Band Of The Future (out now through Aarght!) - an acerbic vomit that pierces the bubble on critics, both of the page and from within the scene. But you can never take these guys seriously - the album title alone throws shade on their Devo shadings, carving themselves of the Marty McFly's of proto-punk's past, flitting back and forward, changing history by deliberately crushing bugs, ripping off butterflies' wings, and beating mouthbreathers at their own game. Plus BOTF builds on last record Order of Operation's clarity, injecting the slicker sonics with familiar spit, pace and leers. The rants and tantrums are as visceral and zanily ridiculous as we have come to expect, yet even more infectious, like a sandblasted canker, with that rank synth whirr throwing us into the surreal and absurd. Nailgun blasts of punk that leaves slackjawed wonder in its wake, with bumps of T-Rex glam and Boggles wrongness to ingest. In short, brilliant. (But what does any of this even mean? What the fuck would I know? Just listen to it already.)

The Peep Tempel released one of Sonic Masala's favourite albums of 2015, Tales, and one of the most underrated rock acts in the country are back with a killer song and video for 'Rayguns'. A bullshit crazy newslogue purge with rolling-news lyrics, .gif ready stock clips fused to the band revelling in their zero-fucks chicanery. It comes from 3rd LP Joy, which promises to get deep into the human psyche and wade maniacally in the roiling chaos. There are still a great degree of Australian grotesquery and humour in their offerings though - opener 'Kalgoorlie' alone lends whiffs of Wake In Fright horror. And while we are at it, below this excellent video is another taste of the album (out later this month through Wing Sing Records), 'Totality'.

Screamfeeder closing out our second Sonic Masala Fest is still (and will always remain) a defining moment in my life. The band have continued to play together and release the periodic new song since re-releasing their albums on vinyl through Poison City Records, and 'Karen Trust Me' is the latest ebullient slice. They have their miasmic noise pop down pat - every chord change, swelling squall, cymbal crash and Steward/Lloyd harmony is present and accounted for, embedded with myriad hooks of all persuasions that it is impossible to remain impervious to its charms. It's enough to keep the withdrawal at bay until their promised 8th album in 2017.

Back to the insanity then. Melbourne punk messes Mesa Cosa have crafted a pagan travesty for their film clip for new track 'Stone Bone'. Still riding the serrated ridge between raucous psychedelic and fucked-up garage rock, the madmen don marsupial, Ex-President and Simpsons masks while running rank in the wilderness, destroying their instruments, TVs and other paraphernalia to climax in a jerrycan-fuelled bonfire for the ages. The boys spend a good portion of the time with their heads impaled on sticks too. They have sold their soul, sacrificed their body bags, and lost their minds - all for our eternal benefit.

Members of Freak Wave, Iowa and Camp Cope join forces to travel back in time to flannel fuzz Valhalla in TV Haze, an act inimitably indebted to Dinosaur Jr in both rambling guitar rock and dry, warbled vocal delivery. The 90s throwbacks continue, but with this self-titled effort it feels warranted, a welcome addition that climbs to the upper echelons of their contemporaries, yet steeped in Australian music nostalgia. They are playing some massive shows in Melbourne next month too supporting the aforementioned Screamfeeder as well as playing alongside SM faves Pale Heads, Ouch My Face and Summer Flake.

We will finish with post-punks Gold Class who are making their way back to Europe after a successful stint over here earlier in the year. New track 'Kids On Fire' feels (to me at least) a mix between obvious signifiers (Joy Division, The Smiths) and more rugged outliers (slowed motorik Hey Colossus, and The Spinning Rooms - really! - with the little guitar lick that strikes me like Joe's saxophone - maybe I just miss those guys so much). The film clip IS Gold Class - black and white, smoked lens, white on black, Venetian shadow, strobe glare. Urgent earnestness. The guys play in London at The Victoria October 26 with The Bodies - it looks to be a tense affair.

September Girls Get 360 Degree Guilt

I just had to show this to brighten/gloom up your Sunday night - technology! The excellent September Girls released 'Catholic Guilt' - and the  360 degree film clip is amazing. The song itself reminds me at times of Electrelane in a Gothic maelstrom; the film clip like being caught in a tripped out pagan ritual. It is all incredible, I can't get enough of these girls. They are playing in London October 22 at Nells Jazz and Blues (no, I don't know either - but makes me even more keen to search this out).

The Manhunt Ends When You're Clubbed To Digital Death

James Arthur's Manhunt - already the name is telling us a lot. This Aussie guitar maven has touched down in Texas and roped in dudes from The Golden Boys and OBNIIIs to craft a singular mindbending vision - grafting space rock mania to bloodcurdling vintage rock and roll and sweat-spraying garage punk - a homunculus of gargantuan aural viscera. The new album is a stone cold guitar blast wormhole to lose your fucking mind in, and the fact it has been so overlooked is a fucking travesty. Make amends now - grab Digital Clubbing here stat.

Real New Real Numbers

I'm writing by the numbers today (sorry...) Minneapolis band Real Numbers are about to release Wordless Wonder through Slumberland Records, and 'New Boy' is yet another example of the type of ramshackle yet hook-embedded scuzzball hits they deal out with strong regularity. There aren't many bands that can hold this tightrope walk like this (Terry Malts, Woollen Kits, and lately Salad Boys are ones that come to mind that hold down the fort in this matter) - it's hard to work out exactly how they manage to do this without it appearing lightweight, cliche or blase. But they do, which is a wordless wonder indeed (sorry again...).

Pre-order Wordless Wonder here.

Nothing Dumb About These Golden Numbers

Good dude Geordie Stafford has been a mainstay in the Brisbane hardcore scene - his efforts in Dick Nasty and Teargas in particular leaving indelible claw marks across the underground. But he found it easiest when he worked on his own - his lone wolf approach to doom metal, Golden Bats, has been incredibly prolific, having put out six self-titled EPs, a few 7"s and some split releases with the likes of Pale Earth and The Steady As She Goes.

He was also involved in the Tym Record Club, where the seminal label put two likeminded artists on flipsides of a 7". Golden Bats' effort sat alongside Adam Harding, a similar Australian rock journeyman who started performing under the moniker Dumb Numbers. Harding has the Midas touch, and on his second album has roped in a who's who of rock and metal royalty to help out (including members of The Melvins, The Jesus Lizard, Einstürzende Neubauten and Dinosaur Jr) - including Monsieur Stafford, who lends his axemanship to 'Unbury The Hatchet'. This song alone also features David Yow on vocals, and Alexander Hacke with keys and throat singing (!). The album itself predictably slays, of course, but I can't be any more stoked for Geordie (and Adam, of course) on this one. Grab Dumb Numbers II here (in purple vinyl no less), listen to the track below, and the entire album below that.

Aural Australia #2 - Apocalyptic Gifting

Christmas garbage filling the outer aisles of the supermarket, all while Trump rattles the doorway to Hell and we are dragged behind him in a hand basket. I am hoping that Tim Allen does another Santa Clause film, but it's set in the future with Furiousa helping him deliver presents to chroming baldies and models dressed in hessian and prosthetic pregnancies. At least there is hope in that future...Oh, and then there is music. There is always music...

New Brisbane label Coolin' By Sound (run by two of the raddest people ever, Belly and Shell) have two releases coming out this month, with some even bigger announcements on the way. First cab off the rank though is SM favourites Thigh Master, who release their debut LP Early Times today. It's been a long time coming - Thigh Master have been scarring the land with their scuffed, scuzzed and skewed guitar pop for almost five years now. It's an old offering in some ways - originally recorded in 2013, then redone when grand Dag Dusty Anastassiou layered more guitar over the top. The songs include contributions from multiple members across their revolving ensemble (the four piece have seen six incarnations, with Matt Ford and Pat Byron the mainstays throughout) and perfectly encapsulates the loose frivolity and looser hooks lathering their live sets. The band have made lackadaisical lambasted and loose-limbed jams seem both effortless yet frantic - 'Company', 'Treehouse A.P.' and closer 'Flat City' being golden examples. But there are times when they lose the slacker cap and try more melancholic, laconic speeds - the Brisbane downer drawl of 'Brunno Brawl', the Superchunk via Dunedin cheesed melt of 'Canned Opening', the languid malaise of 'Baroona'. The solo 'Hassa Been' is a cracked bay croon, caught on the back deck in the inner suburbs, 44 seconds of lightweight browbeating. Pretty indicative of all facets of what makes Thigh Master an indelible part of the Brisbane musical landscape. Get Early Times here.

Craig Dermody's Scott and Charlene's Wedding releases Mid Thirties Single Scene on Bedroom Suck and Fire Records, and it's a shaping up to be his best effort yet. His band has solidified to include members of Terrible Truths and Beaches and uber producer Jack Farley, and there is a muscularity to the musicianship this time around that, rather than showing a rock lash out or change in direction, it shows a confidence in the laconic, lugubrious, whimsical nature of ambling through the world tasting simple pleasures and grinding down the hours that comes with maturity. I am talking about music of course - Craig will always be a knockabout journeyman in life, taking knocks and giving back a languid grin - and what more can you ask for? 'Maureen' and 'Don't Bother Me' are already classics in the making, which bodes well for their upcoming album and Euro tour - Ill be catching the guys at Brunedell Social Club in Leeds on October 22, but there will be ample opportunities to catch them across the continent.





Now to another supergroup of sorts. Melbourne's God Squad features members of Cobwebbs, Black Vacation, The Kremlings and Sewer Side, and take on a woozy lounge groove take on post-punk doom and gloom. It was very much a time-and-place collaboration, but on the strength of these off-cuts the dudes should make this a bit more of a concern. There is gold in them thar hills, gentlemen...

I intend to do a much more in-depth look at this artist later on in the year, but I am so glad to hear that Greg Charles is releasing new music again. Having flitted around the edges of Brisbane music scene for over a decade in the likes of Blonde Cobra, Charles Curse, 6Magick9 and the Ex-Catholics, Charles has been an enigmatic yet fleeting presence, each appearance full of cracked genius, pastoral awe carved out of personal anguish, tragedy, punishment and redemption. Those who have heard his as-yet-unreleased 2007 album The Wrecking Moon have rued the fact that Charles' spiked and ambling, wasted yet eloquent rock hasn't been embraced by more. He has taken himself out of the limelight and has been fairly prolific; and in December he will be releasing his first release under his own name, Rough Music, recorded with Ben Thompson (The Rational Academy, Pale Earth) and Cam Smith (Ghost Notes, Tape/Off) on band duties. Highly literate about bruising ennui and catharsis, filled both with gutting hubris and garish gallows humour, Charles' songs will make you laugh, cry, and be happy to be alive. I will write more as the album comes to the fore, but in the meantime, here is a taste of what's to come...

One of my all time favourite artists in Australia right now is one of its weirdest outliers - Orlando Furious. The Melbourne provocateur has now moved into the hinterland of Queensland's Sunshine Coast, but his warped sense of humour riding a gnarled seductive lysergic techno ooze is firmly, synthetically intact. 'Sedyouse' is the perfect example of the cracked genius that OF is capable of. Every line is barbed with sardonic wit fused with silliness, but the beats are real - these songs are designed to bewitch. Performance art which revels in acerbic hilarity and ridiculousness - it's Liars for the Bi-Lo generation. I fucking love it.

It's fitting then to segue into Yaws' newie, 'Yuek', seeing as Orlando Furious both stars and directed the video. The techno noisenik is now back in London, but his sojourn back in Australia has only helped to fuse his warped dystopias with a wider zeal... Doubt is an amazing 12" (the first release from Purely Physical, you can get it here), and this video does everything to amplify the dazzling weirdness. The Squatter board game? Cyclone screen doors? Yaws google searches, thus promotion within promotion? Orlando trance dances? A ball pein hammer? A candle in a bar fridge? The ritual to be Yaws is complete.

Let's finish on brand new band Life Strike, who features members of Deaf Wish, Dollar Bar and The Rational Academy. The first sounds to come out of this collaboration merges The Kinks, The Chills and The Cannanes, with a smidgen of Robert Forster there as well - warm hooks that feel evergreen, yet with a 90s Gaslight Radio-meets-Sekiden geeky-pop-with-an-edge opaqueness that throws shadows over the pastel tones. This is likely to become murkier - the boys promise apocalyptic visions mixed with noise rock and punk as well. But for now, ride these two bliss bomb waves like Snake Plissken and Peter Fonda.

Sultan's Rockin' BBQ

Mark Sultan is back! Well, the cat never left the BBQ, but it's good to have anything new from the one man garage machine. He is combining the persona with the man when his new record BBQ lands in November (through In The Red, naturally). 'Rock Me' is apparently different from the rest of the album, but it is vintage Sultan - rollicking, heartfelt doo-wop garage rock du jour. A great way to close out the hump day.

Woozy Paintings At Dusk

Last week London duo Ultimate Painting released their third album Dusk through Trouble In Mind Records (grab it here). I still haven't had the pleasure of hearing it in full yet - but i have been enjoying the two tracks off it, opener 'Bills' and 'Song For Brian Jones'. These tracks are more about gauzy autumnal pastoral psych pop - the former is more about the overbearing weight that bears down the have-nots, while the latter breezes along, named after the Rolling Stones co-founder who died in 1969, the year the Free Love movement died at Altamont, woozy and maudlin in the dappled shadows. These guys keep getting better and better - I suggest you head to the Islington Assembly Hall tonight - get tickets here.

Aural Australia #1 - Catching Up On Lost Time

So much has gone by in the past four months that it is impossible to catch up, really. So I am going to give a series of longer posts over the next fortnight, mainly showcasing the music from Australia that I feel needs to be heard. This first one is Brisbane oriented, unashamedly so. Friends, foes, new and old, it's going to be a wild old ride.

I have been a massive fan of no-wave acolytes No Sister since they burst on to the Brisbane scene back in 2013. Their sudden rise and seeming implosion was the stuff of minor legend, the stuff we didn't think we would see again. But they were not dead - Mino and Tiarney merely moved to Melbourne, roped in some more heathens, and now have released in my mind the best Australian album of the year. Their self-titled debut is nothing short of mind-bendingly brilliant. The thing about the band that has been difficult to describe to others is that there is no half-hearted aping or hacksmithery here - they are earnest about their influences, astute in their constructions and desultory in their deconstructions. Hell, they have a song called 'This Heat' - what isn't there to love? But it is more than that - the incessant motorik rhythms that stutter and shudder in and out of focus, the frayed jangle and throttled feedback, the blood-splattered and screwdriver-molested fretboard, the atonal belligerence, the confident leer, the lack of fear. Disconcerting, manic, nightmarish, and very very present. Closer 'Passing The Divide' is the apex of this - a inexorable downward spiral, evolving as it frays and dissipates, eating its own tail. It's hard to say without sounding ridiculous - but No Sister have crafted an album for those who miss Sonic Youth, Arab On Radar, indeed This Heat, and rather than getting a carbon copy, wonder what they might do if they hit the reset button.

(Sleepwalks circa 2010 - they aren't very photogenic...)

Brisbane's Sleepwalks haven't been the most prolific of acts - their debut, The Milk Has Gone Sour, came out in 2011, recorded with stalwart Steve Albini no less. They play sporadically, usually to friends, barely ever tipping over a twenty minute set time, and otherwise life has gotten in the way. In the meantime the Aussie grunge "renaissance" has fully hit its stride courtesy of hometown stalwarts and Footy Show dividers Violent Soho. Even their latest album, Kingdom, has been around for a while, sitting on the shelf - I did a piece on one of the songs off it, 'Dry Gulch', what seems like aeons ago. The boys are sparser, more angular, wonky, darker-hued, and intelligent than many of their contemporaries though, which makes Kingdom a weirder, much more enriching listen. Their Sonic Masala Fest set was rough-hewn and with a Mclusky cover to boot. Someone oughta put some money behind these guys - they could carve their own peculiar niche in the woodwork.

Another act that started out in Brisbane but have winged their way to Melbourne is Dag, headed by lovely stringbean and font of laconic goodwill Dusty Anastassiou. They are about to launch their new album, Benefits Of Solitude, the recordings of which feature members of Bent, Thigh Master and Sewers. This sounds nothing like those bands. It makes sense that Joe and the Bedroom Suck crew would be drawn to this (seeing Kitchen's Floor, Scott & Charlene's Wedding and Bitch Prefect amongst many others have made it through their hallowed halls), but Dusty has an inimitably iconic voice all his own that, if you believe it, reaches higher than these incredible acts manage to climb. A massive call? True - but listen to 'Staying Up At Night', a magical three minute ramshackle amble that manages to shares echoes of some of music's Antipodean heroes (Paul Kelly? David Kilgour?) and look into the grey of dawn with a melancholy eye, while imbuing all with an aura of hope that outshines such downcast musings. Benefits of Solitude won't be out until next year, but rest assured that we will all benefit from the perennial fight for that lopsided smile in the morning light that tells you that everything will be all right.

Grace Stevenson from 100% (which we will hear from in a minute) has burst out into her own warped spotlight under the guise of Rebel Yell, a ice-laden techno trance dirge that remains somehow euphoric, in a synthetic dungeon fever dream kinda way. The "pop" inverse to brother-in-arms Yaws and DNA spliced with Kirin J Callinan, Rebel Yell both invites and repels; violence and eroticism offered simultaneously. Rice Is Nice seems an atypical choice for label, but her debut EP Mother of Millions is stunning in its stark beauty. Eyelids fluttering coquetteishly in the black UV before the gas filters through the bunker dancefloor - Rebel Yell grabs your cerebral vortex and never lets go.

100% continues the cold synth pop bubbling under the surface of the backwoods heat of Brisbane's musical frontier, and their You Are 100% 12" (out through Moontown Records) manages to both sound intimate, distant, cheesy and otherworldly. Mastered by Roland Hlavka (Cobwebbs, Drug Sweat, Barbiturates), the tracks evoke Angelo Badalamenti, Jenny Hval, Yello, Asylum Party, And Also The Trees, Circuit des Yeux -  but all imbued with a light touch, the drabness eschewed for frosted pastel shadings. Such ebullient touches, rather than make the tracks lightweight, provide a sense of intimate acceptance oft missing from music like this. They are already getting amazing support slots over the course of the year - expect something bigger as this lands.

Finally, and still in the same realm, we have Pleasure Symbols, whose latest release has been picked up for distribution throughout Europe by Avant! Records, so should tell you what to expect. A lethargic coldwave classic, cavernous and clearly at home in Scandi states of mind (ie dark, cold, glittering light shimmering off translucent ice and stylised leather), 'Underneath Your Skin' couldn't be more aptly titled. The monotonous vocals carry an androgynous sensuality to them, the beats a relentless march through the urban gloaming, the guitar pinning down a Gothic tension that is pregnant with foreboding.



This is just the beginning!

No Matter the Title - We're All Dead

Shirking the shackles with Guitar Wolf not enough for those five people out there that have been wondering what we on Planet Masala have been doing since May (outside of a little festival back in August)? How about some slow, loose, punishing Dead? That's right, the Victorian duo (although a trio in this recording) have another destructive LP out in UNTITLE (out through their We Empty Rooms label now). It's spare yet unsparingly brutal, with a desiccated tongue planted firmly in their rabid cheeks - the Melvins connection stand present and accounted for. Listen to the wild psych-loded meltdown at the end of 'Don't Pray For Us' and the chime that peals out amidst the chaos echoes like an impatient bell in the foyer of the gates of Hell, the boys eager to bludgeon their way in. There is the lurking 'The Kid Was All Wrong' (apparently in three volumes) that struggles to start, then stop, an anti-song to show us that patience isn't always a virtue (even at 4 and a 1/2 minutes); the doom howls of 'Turning Screws' turning into something more lean and muscular, horror tropes peering out like a dead eyed Alice Cooper a la Prince of Darkness (the trick is in the name); for me there is even a little prog amongst the free-noise stutter and drone of closer 'Line 'Em All Up' (with haunted choral ushering us out into the depths). I still circle back to opener 'Grizzly' as more "quintessential" Dead fare - mainly for the phantasmal explosions of noise that we are assaulted with that we are tortured for our sins for. That's all very well - but Dead aren't finished. This (after Collective Fictions from earlier in the year) is to be the second part of a trilogy of four ("a trilogy, but better") - there is more to come. We are all Dead.

VIDEO FEATURE: Guitar Wolf T-Rex Raises Us From The Dead!

Well, we have been away for a while - and it takes black-blooded Rock n Roll to bring us back from the brink! Japanese titans Guitar Wolf are in the UK this week, playing the Dome on Friday night (supports are excellent too, from the likes of Atomic Supplex and the mighty Black Mekon! grab tickets here) to force us all to bow down to new album T-Rex From A Tiny Space Yojouhan. The title track shares a video as bracingly raw, the trio crowded into a purple room that shrinks and expands but never stifles - Guitar Wolf know no bounds! They outlived the dinosaur, they will out live Trump, they will live forever! It's very rare to find a band that is extreme in visceral noise, garage swagger and frantic fun - do yourself a favour and see them on Friday!