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.

Rancid Mutton

I somehow missed commenting on this brutal bile-fuelled band at the beginning of the year, then again when they supported Sonic Masala Records' own Gazar Strips on their Sparkling EP tour in May. Well I'm sure these guys don't need much of an introduction if you are into gutter noise punk rock outta Melbourne. To the rest of you - introducing Mutton.

I first heard 'In Between The Dirt', the last track off their self-titled EP, and thought of fellow trash Batpiss (one of my favourite breakout bands of last year). But this is even more indebted to Yow and his acolytes than most of the pricks running around Brunswick, and that alone makes them an exciting proposition. you can't state that this is particularly "new" - but what's original when you are flailing on the floor trying to gouge your eyes out with a broken pool cue? Plus they have a band T-shirt of Sam Kekovich being torn apart by rabid sheep - an in-joke for the Aussie AFL/lamb-eating crowd, sure, but that imagery alone buys them miles of shit-stained cred.

Mutton are already aligning themselves with some of the gold-flecked detritus of the Australian underground, playing shows with the likes of Sewers, Cuntz, White Walls, Scul Hazzards, Worm Crown, Bone and the excellent DEAD - but these guys are flaying themselves to the front of the pack. Join in on the flagellation.

Brendan's Favourite Songs of 2013

Whilst my other two top 10s will be a bit more definitive, here are TWENTY songs that stuck in my head a lot this year - whether they are the BEST twenty is of contention, even with me. Ah well, let's have at it then...

20. Mogwai - Remurdered

As if a list of songs from me wouldn't feature Mogwai. This song has taken a lot of people by surprise - but this is Mogwai now. And I can deal with it. Very much. This track is just as dark as their transcendent white pulse nightmares of Young Team, just from a different sonic universe.

19. FIDLAR - Cocaine

This isn't the best song from these guys, but they were excellent fun at the dire Splendour In The Grass this year, and Ron Swanson pisses on people. Fin.

18. Crying - Bodega Run

Chiptune guitar pop whimsy? That mosquito buzz at the beginning is painful...but give it a few seconds, and for the live instrumentation to crash on in, and everything makes sense. I'm stuck in a 90s 8bit skateboarding RPG!

17. Violent Soho - Covered In Chrome

I am so proud of these boys and their new album Hungry Ghost. I would have this at the top of every list if I was ten years younger - effervescent, virile grunge rock played at maximum velocity. The fact I still think it's a great album even when I rarely visit these realms anymore is a testament to its success. I've seen them play live four times this year alone and I felt the years melt away every time. And they are the best dudes on the planet. Keep killing it guys!

16. Porches. - Headsgiving

Porches.'s album Slow Dance In The Cosmos makes me wish that the Wolf Parades of the world hadn't gone so quietly into the dark dark night. This isn't slacker territory; just classic cracked intellect guitar rock. I love it.

15. Pale Earth - Coral Skulls


This foray for Benjamin Thompson to step way from the introspections of The Rational Academy continues to sprout myriad legs, and this track of the decidedly left-field Coral Corral release is the culmination of his propensity to push himself to the outer limits of his abilities, and then some. A track that may not be brilliant, but to me is a true testament to a work in progress; a stepping stone into the stratosphere.

14. Batpiss - Loose Screws

Not my favourite track from the trio's debut album Nuclear Winter, but it's a live staple, and this insane clip that accompanies it elevates it to cult status. If you don't feel a rush of blood to the head when listening to Batpiss, you are probably dead. Or at least about to be.

13. Dead - Scratching My Arts

A split with No Anchor is never an easy ask to stand out on, such is their brutal brilliance, but the underdogs of the Australian noise rock scene easily usurp their brethren here. Why isn't everyone championing these guys? With the amount of dark and twisted rock coming out of the bowels of our country, surely it's about time that people sat up and took notice?

12. Girls Names - The New Life

The longest track on the Irish band's new album, and for me the best by far. I really enjoyed the album, but it didn't stick with me as much as this song did.

11. Plant Parenthood - Transit Town

A small band from Knoxville who delivered what was the most listened to song on my playlists this year. Bizarre but true. See if you can ignored the sleepy, deceptive hooks. I can't. Shit, I'm listening to it on repeat again...

10. TEEN - Ambient



A cut from the Brooklyn band's In Limbo recordings. That was a great album of 2012, yet it baffles me how this didn't make the cut, even as a longwinded outro. All cyclical psych, all killer.

9. Per Purpose - Eureka


Probably not the best song Per Purpose put out this year - 'Warburton' was amazing, as is most off their new (and missed out of my year review yesterday) LP Circle The Stains - but every incarnation of the band is present and accounted for in this nine-minute dirge. Caustic brilliance.

8. Double Dagger - Heretic Hymn



The excellent Baltimore punks called it a day last year, then surprised us with a posthumous album, 333, in time for Record Store Day. This is a fitting farewell if I've ever heard one - Nolen's vocals say it all.

7. Pissed Jeans - You're Different In Person

The irascible howlers slayed it once more with new album Honeys, and this is the track that buried its sordid hooks furthest into my soul this year. It's typically dirty, raucous, serrated and blackly funny. You just can't fuck with this.

6. Ides - Prisms

Alanna McArdle might be more recognisable as part of Joanna Gruesome, who brought out a great LP this year. But it's her solo endeavour Ides that moved me most this year, and 'Prisms' really slays me. Every time. I cannot listen to this without getting whispers of the maudlin shakes and the longing that love and the loss of it can bury within you. Hauntingly beautiful.

5. Totem - See Saw Girl

I'm sure most of you won't agree with this one, but this track was played ad nauseum for weeks on Planet Masala. It's like a voodoo mantra, maniacal in its bubblegum hooks disguised as dark motorik. I'm not sure if Totem will ever match the heady heights of this one song, and I'm not sure if I care. This is enough.

4. Lake Mary & Nathan Wheeler - Agrimony (Porch Music)


A lot of great experimental and drone music crossed my desk this year, and there are so many tracks that I return to in my dark den of iniquity that its unfair to focus on one. Yet 'Agrimony (Porch Music)' is one that took me completely by surprise, and I find new pieces of beauty in it with each listen. A great improvisational track, and one I never want to end.

3. Gooch Palms - We Get By

I could have this here for the video alone. I interviewed Leroy from the band earlier in the year for a national magazine and it was a lot of fun. The fact that their LP NOVOs isn't a complete shambles but a combustible ball of playful energy and soulful intent is a further surprise. This track, though - quintessential party music. Well, a party in a grimed-out Queenslander with holes in the shirts and bottomless cans of beer. So, my kind of party then.

2. Pontiak - Innocence



This is a fresh one, but the Carney brothers are in my opinion one of the greatest psych rock bands going round. Why? Because the emphasis is on rock. Every album they have put together is strong, and 'Innocence' intimates that the next one will be a killer as well. All together now...'WAAAAAAAAASTED!'

1. Courtney Barnett - Avant Gardener

This is the only song that is solidly in place as numero uno. I have loved this song ever since I first heard it. A woozy guitar track that feels country and slacker at the same time; Barnett's hilarious lyrics about a panic attack are prescient, acerbic and, whilst delivered in a flippant way, are defiant in the way they shape who Barnett is. No pretentions here, just a meteoric talent on the rise.

Tomorrow - my top 7"/10"/EPs...

Doomed By The Windhand

Clearly I'm loving my big riff noisy heaven this week. Windhand hail from Richmond. They aren't new - they have been driving the doomwagon for at least three years now - but their sophomore double-album Soma (out on Relapse Records - you can pick it up here in blood red vinyl no less) is the first thing I've ever heard from them. And damn it's good. In the first thirty seconds of the first song, 'Orchard', there is some heaving drum kicks, a dire dirge of a riff, and then we have the echoing seething wails crash over the top. It's all dark and melodramatic, but in the best way that doom-laden metal can be. True metal heads might disagree with me - this is veering into Black Sabbath territory, especially due to Dorthia Cottrell's vocals - but this album is pretty much go-to-woah killer.

No Anchoring The Dead

Not so local noisemongers No Anchor (Ian is being all literary-y and full of disdain in Melbourne these days) haven't been overly active in the live sense in 2013 (hence the electricity of their shows that have rolled around - the Sonic Masala show in May, the show they did only last week), but they do have some new wares courtesy of a split 7" they've put out with fellow maniacs DEAD. Perfect marriage this one - two bands blatantly fucking off the guitar and brutalising the bass. So far, so angry. Would you expect anything less? The NA trio feel 'Bogan Ash' is the poppiest thing they've ever done. They aren't reaching for the mascara and microphone headsets (yet), but as far as No Anchor goes, it is a much more straight down the line number. Sorry lads, but whilst this song really rips, it makes DEAD's whorling bloody maelstrom 'Scratching My Arts' look even better. Backhanded compliment? I can keep em comin all day. Its the kind of lurking leering head explosion that I absolutely love; Jem absolutely kills it on drums; my skin is flayed without notice. Well done, lads, well done.


No Anchor have one more show up their sleeve at the end of November at Crowbar. They will have the crazy up-and-comers Clowns in support - they eat Juggalos for breakfast. If you still need your NA fix in any form (and let's face it, who doesn't) Donnie's band Roku Music is supporting the sublime Sydneysiders Yes I'm Leaving this Friday at the Waiting Room - it's another Sonic Masala Presents show, so you should all be there. Finally, Roku Music and Greig (Alex's new band) are the other supports for what could very well be the best show of the year - The Nation Blue and Batpiss, also at Crowbar, on Saturday October 5. I have a wedding that day, so Ill be the dude in the suit. Pete from The Spinning Rooms has promised to spew on me too, so I should be pretty recognisable. No Anchor, in whatever form, rule hard.

Purest Evil Instilled In The TTTDC

Here are a couple of take-no-prisoners releases from balltearing Melbourne labels We Empty Rooms (DEAD/Fire Witch) and Bro Fidelity (Hotel Wrecking City Traders/Fire Witch) that have been slaying eardrums by the thousands...

Melbourne's TTTDC (what does it all mean? I have no idea. Best guesses in the comments section!) is a voodoo doll spiked incessantly with downtuned guitars, stream-of-consciousness drumming and surprisingly melodic vocals that don't sound like fucking Birds of Tokyo or some other such toe scum. They are so big they already have a Greatest Hits record. Well that's what this LP is called anyway. Greatest Hits is both indulgent (wailing metal guitar solos!) and degraded (deafening feedback!), all recorded at the Tote one rainy Monday. No better way to start the week, recording your soon-to-be Best Of. A manifesto of festering ideas, these doom trippers are as happy scorching your soul as they are crooning your hole. Brutally sexy. (Seriously, tell me what TTTDC is, mindfuckers!)

Then there is the speed-fuelled bile vat from the aptly titled acidic giants Pure Evil Trio. Cognitive Dissonance is also an apt title for this EP, a screeching maelstrom of intellectual gnashing of teeth, all done with the kind of gum-bleeding ferocity that thrashes all competitors into an early grave.  All so abrasively unlovable, right? And yet there are moments of enjoyment here too - mutated punk anthems lurk under the blood-drenched howls of mindless discontent. Hold it up to the light and watch this opaque disease glow. Wollongong's answer to The Locust?  Listen and forever wonder where your mind went.

Those Idiots Are Dead

 

It often surprises me when I love something heavy. Not because I'm a poppy kinda guy, but usually because I'll have spent half the day listening to some guitar pop band, and then I'll hear something that is the polar opposite of what I've been enjoying and a perverse shiver of excitement runs down my spine. Today, that was Idiots, Melbourne metal miscreants Dead’s new album. Friends of mine, No Anchor, told me about this last year, yet I never really got around to listening to it. Even now, with it blaring out of the speakers, it attacks my brains with rusted skewers, my eyes feel raw, my teeth ache. Yet this kind of visceral dirge is electrifying. Plus, Dead are fucking funny. In most ways that’s the best thing – bands like Part Chimp, Melvins, The Austerity Program, Big Business – they don’t take themselves seriously at all, which is why their music rules. They play because they fucking love making a racket, without wanting to get tied down in the histrionics of being “metal”. The fact they are a duo and craft such a brutal sledgehammer of primitive noise makes it so much better also. How do they do it? Without a guitar? No Anchor should know – but they now have three members, so a double bass assault – yet Dead rivals them in intensity and annihilation.

A favourite? Hard to say. The slight, wraith-like opening before the explosion of entrails in ‘The Carcass Is Dry’ is sneaky, and all the more brutal because of it; ‘Couldn’t Keep His Mouth Shut’ is frenetic brute strength, a kick to the ribs and pliers to the teeth; ‘Up’ crawls along like an undead, unrelenting in its base desires, before bursting forth in a sudden rush of rage and wanton fury. ‘Murder Hollow’ is a freakshow, an ominous cauldron of pent-up fears and anxieties that coalesce into much darker emotions. ‘Bed Bugs’ is fast paced awesomeness, a rippling masterclass of musicianship that elevates itself above the sludge, propelling headfirst into the violence of ‘Inherit The Wind’, just before submerging again in the menacing yet restrained closer ‘Lego Men’.

This noise rock is what the world needs – a cleansing of the skin, one eradicated reality TV show and Madden brother at a time.

 

You can get Idiots from Melbourne label WeEmptyRooms here, either in black or white vinyl. There is a limited edition version too - it's a 180 Gram LP, a 7 colour screen printed insert on archival paper hand made by the band and all sold for way less than it is "worth" labour wise.

Dead - Couldn't Keep His Mouth Shut
Dead - Bed Bugs

Tenzenmen Tsunami

Shaun Tenzenmen is awesome. I seriously love this guy. He has brought to my ears the amazing self-titled debut by Auckland noise rockers God Bows To Math, and the subsequent Sonic Masala-run show at The Waiting Room killed (plus they are super nice guys). He is also a very busy man, bringing us music from all over the world, all of it excellent. But he has been uber busy lately, releasing a whole bunch of seven-inches and albums, so I have some serious work to do to ensure the word is out! So, here are some of the Tenzenmen releases floating in the ether (and at your local record store - I picked up a couple 7"s at Rockinghorse last weekend...)


First up we have Yes I'm Leaving, a Sydney noise act that is far too underrated for any sane man to comprehend. This three piece are crafting some beautifully dissonant rock that does everything you want from the genre and more, and on new release Nothing they truly nail it.

Yes I'm Leaving - Untitled
Yes I'm Leaving - Nothing

Now, who's up for some Asian hardcore? Yeah, me too! Why not throw some Spanish screamos in the mix too! This split 7" features a few tracks from Malaysian brutalisers Inquiry Last Scenery, as well as the last recordings of Spain's abrasive brethren El Eje Del Mal (translates as Axis Of Evil). It's fast, furious and fun - pretty essential then. (Plus the crudely drawn Star Wars riffing cover is pretty ace!)

El Eje Del Mal - El VHS Contenta
Inquiry Last Scenery - I.L.S


Remember Bikini Eyebolt? Not really? Shame. They existed (if you could call it that) in Melbourne around 2007-2008, and featured DEAD's Jace on guitars and vocals. This release showcased what most of the world missed - a band willing to follow in the footsteps of the post-punk giants such as Gang Of Four and Wire, without succumbing to malaise, pretension or disco. This is authentic, serrated, and above all none of it is throwaway. It sure is a shame that these guys aren't still killing it - but then again, Dead might not exist as it does now, so swings and roundabouts I suppose...

Bikini Eyebolt - Rats Love Me
Bikini Eyebolt - Walking Asleep


Heading back to Asia - Shanghai in China, to be exact - we'll finish off with Duck Fight Goose, an experimental math rock hybrid who are causing ripples all over the world since forming back in 2009. History is a 7" preceding their upcoming 2nd LP Sports, and is a worth precursor. There are only 50 copies in Australia (well, 49, because I am now a proud owner!) in white vinyl, and is well worth the purchase.

Duck Fight Goose - History

There are more to come this week, so keep the goodness flowing! You can get these releases and shedloads more here

No Anchor Present A Rise From The Dead

Seems like it isn't enough for No Anchor to rule their own terrain, they want to help take over all parts of the heavy music spectrum. I'm all for it to be honest. Ian, the bass player from the band (as opposed to the other bass player) had this to say:

"Look, I very occasionally book shows here in Brisbane for interstate bands because I dislike almost all bands, no matter where they're from. Bands are - if you think about it - usually a terrible idea. Bands from Melbourne, give me a break.

But...DEAD from Melbourne are No Anchor's best musical friends, forever AND they're great. Imagine Big Business meets Lightning Bolt (see attached track, if you don't believe me). Now imagine that it costs $10 to see them + there are four other rad bands playing on the bill + the venue is BYO.

Your imaginings can be real."

Yes they can. Friday night at the Waiting Room this will all come to pass, alongside support from Cyberne (from Japan), Idylls, Acid Snake and the next chapter of No Anchor-affiliated global annihilation, Black Hole Gazers (first show).

More about the show here. This looks to be a show that will rattle the glorified house to its very foundations - be a part of it when the shit goes down...

Dead - You Just Lost My Appetite