Browsing Tag

post-punk

Burrow exposed the fear masquerading as perfectionism in his shoegazey indie debut, Spiral

Posted on 9 October 2022

Boorloo/Perth-based musician Drew Kendell has broken away from the hardcore scene to reign melodiously supreme under the moniker Burrow in the indie rock arena. His debut single, Spiral, is an achingly intimate serenade which consumes you with the same sense of soul as The National while playing with shoegaze-y distortion and cutting post-punk tones.

Spiral acts as a grippingly honest and revelationary exposition on the fear that masquerades as perfectionist behaviour. Between the lines and the shimmering reverb, it is a reminder to connect with our inner child and an acknowledgement that being human is a process.

As someone who constantly turns to Slowdive and My Bloody Valentine for catharsis, my shoegaze bar is set pretty high; Spiral still took me to a new plateau of appreciation for the stirringly sweet innovation effortlessly exuded by Burrow.

The official music video for Spiral will officially release on October 7th. Check it out on YouTube.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Krautrock goes pop in RV Escape’s sophomore single, View-Master

Posted on 30 September 2022

With a similar tonal gravitas to Editors’ earlier records, RV Escape is here with their chillingly morose sophomore single, View-Master, taken from their forthcoming LP, Songs for Failure & Decay. Based on that title, the debut album is set to be the timeliest one of this era of dystopia.

The ethereally atmospheric synths, delay-distorted guitars, ragged basslines and harmonically drawling vocals envelop you in the hazy nostalgia of Krautrock that is cut with poppier inclinations to ensure View-Master is a release that you feel endlessly compelled to return to.

For any disillusioned existentialists looking for the ultimate escapism music that vindicates ennui while absolving the omnipresent bitterness, this artfully murky cry into the void hits the spot with beguiling precision.

View-Master will officially release on September 30th. Hear it on Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Dan Zalles laments the monotony of modernity in his 80s-Esque alt-rock single, Email Hell

Posted on 8 September 2022

As digital domains dominate our existence, tracks such as Dan Zalles’ 80s rock-inspired single, Email Hell, feel almost inevitable. Between the atmospheric sonic nostalgia of the soaring guitar lines fed through effects that you’d expect to find on Will Sergeant’s (Echo and the Bunny Men) pedal board and the mundanity of modernity in lyrics, Email Hell is a feat of multi-era convergence that provides ample solace for anyone that doesn’t appreciate the technological advances which left human evolution in the dust.

Email Hell is is just one of the immersively sonorous singles found on the San Francisco Bay Area singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and film composer’s album, Emotionally. We highly recommend experiencing it in its entirety.

Email Hell is now available to stream on Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

The Battery Farm – A Working Class Lad: Hell Hath No Fury Like a Modernity-Scorned Manchester Punk Powerhouse

Posted on 5 August 2022

‘A Working Class Lad’ is the first single to timely ooze from The Battery Farm’s forthcoming debut album FLIES. I say timely; it was the first song I listened to after hearing that Rishi Sunak had been sneaking money out of the budgets of deprived areas in the UK. We should all be PISSED. How pissed? Try matching the Manchester punk raconteurs of volition; there’s no one else on my radar that would make a better soundtrack for the overdue UK revolution.

Of all lyrical concepts, one that allows you to voyeur the conflict between identity, shame, confusion and class has to be one of the hardest to get right. There’s almost nothing more uncomfortable to me than the dissonance in celebrating the exploitation of our labour. Thankfully, The Battery Farm is about 100 IQ points above scribbling about working-class pride and becoming just another piece in the propagandist machine.

While the broiled and gnarled punk instrumentals and Ben Corry’s signature non-lexical rally cries bring the vexed energy, the simplicity of the lyrics triggers your oppressed contempt. I’m assuming everyone with a sense of sentience and a working-class status will have some; if not, I want the details of your lobotomist.

A Working Class Lad is out on all streaming platforms and a limited edition cassette on Rare Vitamin Records. The debut album FLIES is out on all platforms on Rare Vitamin Records on 18th November.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Dream in the existential poetry of Vukovar’s meeting of death pop and post-punk, ‘Place to Rest’

Posted on 25 July 2022

Taken from their critically acclaimed album, The Body Abdicator, Vukovar’s standout single, Place to Rest, is a neo-gothic dream. Laden with poetry, “death becomes the absence of the self/ it’s all in the mind”, shoegazey reverb, and strident Jack Ladder-Esque electronic percussion to feed energy into the expressive ennui of the darkened synth-pop track.

In their own words, their 2022 LP is a ‘metaphysical and esoteric wasteland disguised as a pop album’. If the IQ of an artist got them to the top of the charts, Vukovar would be unstoppable in their ascent. Anyone with an affinity for existential philosophy, Echo and the Bunnymen, House of Love and The Chameleons won’t want to let this luminously talented act slip them by. One hit and the swoon-worthy single will affably haunt you for a lifetime.

Check out the official video for Place to Rest via YouTube.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Strays of the World gave dark-electro soul in his latest single, Hello

Posted on 19 July 2022
Strays of the World

Fusing the iconic guitars of Robert Smith with the signatory filthy production style of Trent Reznor, Strays of the World’s latest single, Hello is a stunningly dark convergence of alt-electronica, post-punk, and a little bit of soul-pop flavour through the Prince-esque vocals.

Once again, we definitively see that romanticism tinged with a touch of gothic inclination is a hypnotic sonic elixir, especially under the duress of Strays of the World with his affable vagabond soul. The LA-based artist easily conjured one of the most distinctive contortions of alt-electronica we’ve heard in recent years. It threw us right back to the collaboration between Bowie & Reznor while showing us the future of dark electro.

Check out Strays of the World via his official website, YouTube and Facebook. 

Review by Amelia Vandergast

congo64 is comfortably numb in his post-punk-chilled alt-rock single, I Can’t Feel Your Feelings

Posted on 12 July 2022

Taken from his debut album, Daddy’s Weird, congo64’s lead single, I Can’t Feel Your Feelings, is a highly addictive aural oddity, consisting of layers of 80s post-punk, grungy overdriven rock and 60’s harmony-laced pop.

It takes a lot for a single to send me down a psychological rabbit hole. But with the crooned post-punk chorus, “I Can’t Feel Your Feelings”, you can’t help but consider the reality of the alienating experience of connection when nothing brings resonance. If you can’t relate, consider yourself as lucky as a lottery winner.

Intriguing substance and titular poetry aside, congo64 notably succeeded in crafting a familiar yet grippingly distinctive sonic palette that won’t fail to enthral any seeker of experimental revivalist alt-rock.

I Can’t Feel Your Feelings is now available to stream on Soundcloud.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

London’s Lemonade Sin defied gravity with their elevated dream pop single, Melanie Nods

Posted on 7 June 2022
Melanie Nods by Lemonade Sin

Following the saturated-in-tape-delay indie dream pop intro, Lemonade Sin’s latest single, Melanie Nods, unfolds as a transcendentally playful aural crumble of the definitive UK sounds from the 80s to the 00s. The hazy shoegaze textures, chilling nods to post-punk and the Manic Street Preaches-Esque riffs in the middle eight pull together to form a sonic trajectory that you will want to follow time and time again.

With vocal reminiscences to Joy Division’s Atmosphere and the Human League’s Mirror Man happening simultaneously, Lemonade Sin is for every 80s fan out there looking for artists innovative enough to pull new aesthetics out of the synths, unmistakable percussion, and vocal layering.

Melanie Nods is now available to stream and purchase on Bandcamp.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Post-punk goes guitar pop in Furrowed Brow’s latest feat of sonic theatre, I Threw The Bathwater Out

Posted on 25 May 2022

We ‘witnessed’ a Furrowed Brow gig in Manchester the other week, and we say ‘witnessed’ because we felt like an accessory to some kind of strange event, like sneaking into an ‘Eyes Wide Shut’ type cult affair without the correct passwords.

These Manchester typ(k)es saw us slightly affronted by the spectacle of a ‘Drummer in a Kaftan’ (sung to the tune of ‘Vicar in a Tutu’?) who smashed the tom and snare (no kick drum) like he was Bobby Gillespie circa 1985 in JAMC. All fronted by a snarky/sarcy singer that reminded us of Richey Manic snogging the Divine David and three awesome artists (guitar, bass, keys) that frankly held that shit together like their lives depended on it.

Think Earl Brutus meets Felt in a Britpop toilet cubicle whilst Jarvis Cocker takes bad coke with Morrissey in the next cubby.  I think you get the drift.

The new single ‘I Threw The Bathwater Out’ is classic c86 style guitar pop echoes, sort of David Gedge fronting ‘Fire’ era Pulp. But it’s really just the tip of the iceberg that sunk the Titanic because the live show is a must-see riotous affair with early Fall style energy mixing wit and irony with the ultimate broadside of a spot-on cover of Johnathan Richman’s 50-year-old Modern Lovers’ classic ‘I’m Straight’.

Not only was it funnier than the original, but it suddenly makes more sense in these gender-fluid times. Instead of singing about ‘Hippy Johnny’ and his stoned antics, the narrator’s declaration of ‘I’m Straight’ now has much more meaningful cultural resonance with ‘Hipster Johnny’ and his ‘paedophile moustache’ completely trumping the original antagonists’ comparatively lame crimes of basically liking to smoke weed.

I guess what we’re saying is, buy the single and go to the next live show. YOU WILL NOT REGRET IT.

Artist Links: Facebook, Spotify, YouTube, Bandcamp, Instagram.

Review by James Cook

The Prods struck a satrical pose in their punk-meets-Britpop hit, Catalogue Model

Posted on 20 May 2022

White-hot frenetic punk guitars meet Sleaford Mods-Esque satirical animosity in The Prods’ latest single, Catalogue Model. With a bite of Blur in the Britpop nuances, Catalogue Model throws texture from all across the alt-spectrum to originally outscore every playfully scathing hit to precede it.

I just wish I could have been in the room while the concept of a track around the swagger of a 1980s catalogue model was born. The London-hailing outfit is clearly a cut above the rest when creating ridiculously immersive pop-hooked punk hits.

Catalogue Model officially released on May 20th; you can check it out for yourselves by heading over to SoundCloud.

Review by Amelia Vandergast