Ah Valentine’s Day…. it just keeps coming around doesn’t it?! Some of us will wish to sleep that day away but others will be deeply in the thralls of love or desperately want to be. Hateful Chains are giving you a romantic single to woo that other person for this special day and it is a cover version. The only catch is, it’s in Finnish. The cover is of the Finnish love song “Yölento” originally written and sung by Juice Leskinen, from the album of the same name released in 1986, which was also their best selling release.
“Yölento” literally means night flight and there is no doubt that this track conveys a seductive darkness. Lead singer, Flora’s deep and sonorous vocals caress ones ears. She really has a beautiful tone and it is accompanied by the wandering piano and the guitar that almost seems to be forlorn as it cries out.
The overall impression is about longing and waiting to be with another, knowing it might never happen. It is rich and full of unleashed passion. You don’t need to understand Finnish to have this song to pull at your heart strings which is the power of music, language is not a barrier in enjoying or reveling in a great song…. all great songs will evoke emotion. Hateful Chains chose well and the execution is this shadowy melancholy piece that is tinged with a yearning dream. Come on a “Yölento” with me…..
I am going to tell you a little about AMMO and then you will need to listen to her music. She is a director, photographer, a composer/singer/musician and a voice whom has been at the fore of helping women and LBGTQ+ people tell their stories. So AMMO has dropped the video for the single “A Cold War City“, this month, on the label Mourning Sun Records, which was co-produced and recorded with Alex Posell, whom also contributes on percussion.
“A Cold War City is an exploration of human memory and its fickle nature. We rewrite details of past experience over and over until eventually a fiction replaces our recollection. We are the authors of our own memoirs which are under constant revision,” says AMMO.
This track is so utterly beautiful and you can hear there is that nucleus of darkness and doubt, in this devastatingly ethereal track. Her soft and entrancing vocals glide effortlessly into the void of echoing and reverberating sound that seems ever so expansive. The layers of vocals are an added angelic sprinkling.
I think the metaphor of using the cold war is a clever one. The time of the cold war was marked by secret agents, spies, double agents, propaganda and misinformation, where people were second guessing themselves. In essence, this is what this track is about. Are you memories real or just influenced by everything around you, so can you trust those memories? Dreams become self perception. Definitely a song you should check out if you are a fan of shoegaze, dream pop and ethereal wave like Cocteau Twins. AMMO is hauntingly perfect.
Just when you thought is was safe to get back into mother nature, a single is carelessly discarded by the lads in DECOMMISSIONED FORESTS and low it was called “Drop Brick“. It was released in January, on the 14th of 2022, ahead of the soon to be unleashed Industry album. I, your humble reviewer decided to cheekily nick this description from their bio…..
Formed around the creative axis of Howard Gardner (Non-Bio,Pillars Of Golden Misery), Max Rael (History Of Guns, Spucktute, Raelism), and Daniel Vincent (The Resonance Association), DECOMMISSIONED FORESTS create music that is dark in outlook and electronic in nature.
Not going to lie, the keys from the beginning bring forth memories of Tubular Bells, but the vocals of MaxRael save us. For the initiated, Rael very well could be channeling Coil’s John Balance, it is truly uncanny and very lucky that Coil is a band that the group are very much into. On much more serious note “Drop Brick” is empathising with a monster. The thoughts that they might go through, pain, loss, anger, loneliness and the hunger to have to what is kept from them. In the end there is no end and only the exhaustion of reality. The synths peal over and over again, cementing the ground hog perception and you feel the heaviness of wanting to pass away.
The more murky sounding “I Can Stop The Noise” is kind of the b-side, filled with a story told in a matter of fact way about a nurse in a psychiatric hospital, whom hates her husband and plans something diabolical. The electronics are so low, you strain to hear them as they dwindle to a slowing heartbeat.
There are no less than four remixes of “Drop Brick” and one deconstructed mix which I think I can safely say where done by all the band mates. The Pillars Of Golden Misery is is all prickly and angry while the Safety Deposit Box version feels like a much more lighter version with it’s cute electronics, that is until the sped up vocals join in like that mantra. The Raelism remix is like a lads night down the pub with the boys that gets thrown into the Twilight Zone. Talking about the weird and wonderful is The DOMH Deconstructed version, giving you Twin Peaks vibes with the vocals running backwards, the swell of electronics in the background that just seem out of reach yet full of promise to swallow you in the noise. The Non-Bio remix is full of the noise and cacophony of buzzing electronics trying to crawl under your skin, as they are pushed to the limit and we wouldn’t expect anything less.
The guys have also included the original demo version of the song which was originally named “Halt Program“. It is a far more keyboard friendly version, the bare bones so to speak, without the vocals but it is still a very compelling piece of music and it is interesting to see how it developed into “Drop Brick”. DECOMMISSIONED FORESTS manage to find the quirk in things and bring them to the fore. The ability to make you listen to what is almost most there or the subtle yet sudden change in direction that takes on a completely different journey. Call it experimental post-industrial or dark electro-ambient or whatever but in the end it is about that journey you take with them and in that process, the visions they can bestow.
Meajin is the indigenous name for the area where the city of Brisbane is found. It is also the city that you can find the female trio, Sacred Hearts.June Gray, Josie Davison, and Bella Molloy dropped their second single “Vices” on January the 10th, 2022. Their first single was well received by the discerning alternative public. It did so well, “Glamour Girls” made radio station, 4ZZZ’s Hot 100 for last year, as voted for by listeners, which they didn’t expect.
“Vices” is fairly obviously about addiction, the lies people tell to hide it and the effective loss others feel. The song is slow, like a case of seeing through intoxicated eyes as everything dwindles. The bass guitar is the star in this, with the deep sonorous plucking, backed up by the light guitar work around it. The vocals, a beautiful lament calling out, an ethereal dark angel.
Dark and moody with a bit of echo and reverb to set the scene and it would make a depressed Robert Smith proud. It is a gloomy gothic affair, which for some of us, is something we have experienced first hand, the loss of others to their “Vices“. Though it is a sad topic, the music is beautiful and if these ladies are the future of goth…. then we are in good hands.
London based, post-punk trio, BlackDoldrums are back with another single, “IntoBlue” to tease us with before the release of the album DeadAwake. The debut album hits us 11th of March, 2022 on FuzzClubRecords.
There is a sonorous beauty to “IntoBlue“. Gibbard’s vocals gracefully take centre stage while the sweet chime of guitars is pervasive, making the hairs on the back of your neck rise. How do you explain a piece of music that resonates at a primal level to your very core.
A slow burning shoegaze ballad. There are touches of Ride, Joy Division and Jesus and Mary Chain throughout. The video is a black and white extension of the music, that explores the play of dark and light. “IntoBlue” is yet another example of the skill of the band to craft guitar based delights. We count the days to the release of the album.
In Milan, Italy, there is an act called HiddenHouse, an amalgamation of two local talents, FranCesco (vocals, guitar) and Giò (vocals, bass, programming). They have dropped the single “Hide” with a rather spooky video, off the album, InsideTheHiddenHouse, that was released last year.
The tone is set from the beginning with the synthesised harpsichord. This reminds me a lot of the gothic music that was coming out in the early 90s… muted vocals that haunt you over the dark vampiric styling of a dark dance room ball.
The beat with the twang of the bass, propel this forward. Those fond of gothic lace, bats and such things are going to love everything going on in this. It reminds me of another Italian band called FlowerOfSin. Dare you “Hide” in the HiddenHouse?!
Everybody needs a “Greasy Strangler” in their life. Just ask San Diego’s, The Writhers who dropped the single on January 15th, 2022. They are bringing you their brand of psychobilly/horror-punk/deathrock to curl your toes to and make you avoid those lonely and derelict places. The band is comprised of Robert Writhe (vocals/accordion), Rikk R Treat (drums), Chewy Morsel (guitar) and Kenny Wolfsbane (bass).
You might feel the breath of the “Greasy Strangler” on the back of your neck as inch by inch, he is getting to the point of strangling you. Writhe sings his aggressively awkward love song of how he recognises himself reflected in the actions and mindset of the strangler…a meeting of the psychos so to speak. The bass is sleazy and bold, while the guitar is the crazed, aiding and abetting in the build up of the feeling of insanity.
Great thing about psychobilly is that is never takes itself too seriously and it is as much about having fun with the genre as it is about creating good music. The Writhers add an air of The Cramps like campness with the horror-punk theme and the deathrock guitar and attitude, giving us a song you can sink your teeth into..or is that get your hands around???
Feeling in the mood for some electronic beats in an 80s style? Then we have “OutAlive” by LikeWhat. This New York act released the track on January 11th, 2022 and I was reliably informed it was created on an ipad with a guitar. I honestly don’t know much more about this project yet…..
There is something so reminicent of the wonderful TobiasBernstrup. It could be the singing style and annunciation of the vocalist. The rhythm with the synths are stalking you and will find you wherever you try to hide. The guitar chiming in is extra foreboding as you won’t get out alive.
Electronic music will always lend itself to an apocalyptic vision, concealing and on the run from an unnamed, yet terrible foe. This is definitely one of those tracks that you think, at the end that it finished far too quickly. Damn it, we need a longer remix!! So you can guess by that statement I may have liked it quiet a bit. Get your darkwave on with LikeWhat and “OutAlive“.
Vlimmer, German post-punk/electronic project for Alexander Leonard Donat, has released a split single comprised of “Erdgerurch” and “SpaceDementia” in January, on Blackjack Illuminist Records, which is also run by Donat.
“Erdgerurch” is a wonderful post-punk piece that has a retro feel with the sublime synths and deep vocals, matched with the drum machine that is spine tingling. Every so often you hear a fuzz of electronic noise creeping at the edges and this feels so warm and familiar that it is instantly likeable. The beginning to “SpaceDementia” is surreal and continues in that vein with the vocals. It is a bit like being on the deck of the Star Trek Enterprise, if they were a bit dark and flying to their doom. An impression of infinite space to be lost in forever as it wavers between soft orbits and growling flight. Originally written by Matt Bellamy and performed by Muse, Donat sings in his native German and it loses none of it’s impact, sung with such passion.
I really enjoy it when Donat sings and especially without electronics distorting his vocals and this is no exception. From the beginning, you are immersed straight into “Erdgerurch” and there is no escape from this beautifully crafted song as it captures your soul in sway while there is a crystalline quality to the cover, “SpaceDementia“, a reflection in the obsidian black of the expansive universe.
December 17th, 2021 was when the EP Pieces was released by New Jersey band, PanicLift on MetropolisRecords. PanicLift are currently releasing a series of EPs, five in total and Pieces is the second in this series. JamesFrancis is the frontman of PanicLift whom have been around since 2006 and his live band is made up of DanPlatt (keyboards), BenTourkantonis (drums), CristianCarver (drums) and KenziBurke (bass).
There is something definitely grandiose about the first track, “DiseaseOfKings“. An amalgamation of synths, guitar and soaring vocals that feels a little raw, when the world is breaking around them and life has lost its colour and taste.
“FailurePrinciple”is a track that just instantly catches your attention. The synths just fly at you, exploding into shards of glass, that while pretty, are sharp and reinforces the message that stress without hope becomes a cycle of pain.
The last three tracks are mixes. GenCAB are back with a new album of their own, ThoughtsBeyondWords and have remixed “DiseaseOfKings” giving it a far more electronic flavour that swirls through your head. It is a given that any song mixed by Assemblage23 is going to be fairly stellar. TomShearer gives “FailurePrinciple” the treatment and I can see this doing so well on dance floors. Last mix is done by KALCYFR which is a thunderous dubstep and bass beast.
So it is a tight little EP with a great choice in guest mixers. Both songs are little gems and so now we wait to hear the next EP from PanicLift.
