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.

Spend Your Money on OBNIIIs

I love the unabashed hi-octane rock and/or roll that Austin’s OBN III’s push with ferocious alacrity. It has always been about pumping out vein-popping, synapse-fizzing songs that are as hook-laden as they are loud and lairy. Worth A Lot Of Money (out now through 12XU) is no different. Here the hooks are even more brazen, blazing and bloodstained – take standout track ‘You Can Let Me Down Now’, a mixture of JSBX braggadocio, Wipers stop-start magnetism and bottom end aggression, and The Clash’s laconic wails. The thing about pointing out influences and inferences on an OBNIIIs album is null and void though – Orville Bateman Neeley III and his band of not-so-merry men are only interested on building the largest, loudest monument to rock on such foundations. The fidelity here is fully glossed but never shies away from the shameless abandon and garage swagger that the band have made their bread and butter – ‘New Money’, ‘Dismissive’ (a subdued filter of Division of Laura Lee covering The Stooges) and ‘The Stalker’ spit and growl. Grab this here.

Perfect Sweet Talk

If you aren’t in love with Austin punks Sweet Talk after their Ramones-meets-Bolan brain buzz opener ‘Someone Else’ screams out of the speakers from their new LP Double Perfect, then we probably will never be friends. Taking punchy punk and freebasing pop nous wholesale, the four-piece tracks here are fast, loose and addictive as all hell. It can be incredibly buoyant and pop-centric, almost teeth-rottingly so, but therein lies their inherent charm. Take ‘Your Touch’, the penultimate track that feels like a day-glo guitar pop pastiche, Buddy Holly on Ritalin, then floats out in an extended instrumental coda with sci-fi synth, a great bassline left to hang out on its own at the death… The band is tight, playing songs that bounce and stick (straying towards shtick without crossing that line), and held in check by a rigidity that only comes from kicking out the jams every once in a while. Double Perfect was recorded in part by Matthew Melton of Bare Wires and Warm Soda – bands also dealing in polishing the past with the fervent energy and unabashed dynamism of the present – and OBN III’s Orville Neeley, so although these songs are shiny, they retain an inherent grit. Double Perfect ain’t perfect, but is so subliminally entrenched in the rock and roll psyche of yore that your tinnitus will fall in sync with their tunes. Grab it here.

OBNIII's Vs The Walking Dead

The 21st century has really turned up the heat in TV land. I don;t watch TV per se - my television has been sitting in the back of my car for the past five weeks - but I DO watch TV series. Breaking Bad, Boardwalk Empire, Parks And Recreation, Community - these (and quite a few more) are my go to's, to the point where I lose large chunks of time and a film or book rarely suffices (the book mainly because I'm lazy, and the last book I attempted to read A Pretty Good Read, an unofficial "biography" of Modest Mouse - was the biggest piece of shit Ive ever attempted. Seriously, Alan Golsher should have disappeared up Isaac Brock's arsehole in the first five pages. There's a good story in there, if you could past all the blatant cock-sucking...). Currently, my poison of choice is The Walking Dead. I'm just finishing season 2 and beginning season 3. A lot of people had complaints about the elongated farm sequence of season 2, but to me there was something 'real' about that - the stalling and scrabbling for normalcy in a apocalyptic wasteland, the core human emotions still struggling for a place in such a dire landscape... But yeah, the prison can't come quick enough.

ANYway, so this week Ive been watching that, and listening predominantly to last year's self-titled record from Austin TX reprobates OBNIIIs. I actually chose to pull this one out again solely because of its tenuous connection - what with the black spectres in front of a blood-red background on the cover. But the straight up, balls to the wall rock and roll that tumbles out of the speakers is primal, vintage stuff - if the world turned to pot, with everything degenerating to the basest of terms where survival is key, this would be the perfect soundtrack. There are elements of Death right through to Fu Manchu in these rollicking tracks, with some blues and psych mingling at the edges. But the attitude that pervades this record - confidence to burn - is infectious and ridiculously true to form. Many bands attempt this - very few nail it in such a pure fashion. If the shit went down tomorrow, this would be in my sweaty palm as I fled for high ground. Get OBNIIIs through Tic Tac Totally here. Trust me, it's worth it - even if it is saved for a zombie infestation.

OBNIIIs - You Wanna Bitch 
OBNIIIs - Stick and Move
OBNIIIs - People Are Afraid

Backwards Looking Forwards 2011 - Hired Muscle, Charalambides, OBNIIIs

I'm almost done with the albums that I should have posted about last year but didn't. These three releases are deserved of more attention, so I'm gonna give it to them.


Hired Muscle are yet another band outta Leeds whose discordant nihilism elicits migraines and orgasms simultaneously. These crazy cats splurge on some balls-out mania on the tracks on their The Last Minute LP. Paul extolled these guys' virtues to me a couple months ago, and the proof is in the pudding. Pavement meets Action Beat. Delish bom bish.

Hired Muscle - Evil Genius


Exile is the new record from Charalambides. It is the only thing I've heard from the prolific spiritual conquistadors, and that is saying something, as they have releases a plethora of aural excursions since forming in Houston back in 1991. Their sound wavers in and out of sonic parameters, but their chakras are always aligned, ensuring that you never stray far from the ethereal pathway that the band has crafted for you. Its still ambitious, being a double LP and all, but when Kranky Records agrees to put it out, you know that the wealth within is worth mining.

Charalambides - Before You Go


This final album is related to one from two days ago, Bad Sports' Kings Of The Weekend, as Orville Neeley also plays in OBN IIIs (named after himself), whose The One And Only LP is razor sharp and energetic with gritty swagger and lecherous intent slathered all over it. Its verve and tenacity electrifies every song, never repelling the listener with overt aggression or obnoxiousness. These tracks are made for delighted repeat listens. One can only imagine how stellar these guys could be in the live arena... Grab their record here.

OBNIIIs - No Enemies