The porcelain figurine on the cover of this album tells you enough: if you want to smile, you better not do it with this music in your ears. We don’t expect anything else from Keaton Henson. This troubled musician always brings us convulsive emotions into his compositions, but oh, he always does that more than well. He agrees in opener “Ambulance”, where he sighs: ‘I’m empty but don’t it sound so good?’ “Monument” released through Play It Again Sam is Keaton’s first album since 2016’s Kindly Now. Keaton Henson’s new album “Monument” is a rare thing. It is an album about loss, and dealing with losing the ones we love, but told, in incredibly candid detail, through the aspects of our lives that surround the trauma itself, about love, ageing, recovery, life, seen through the prism of grief.
With the posting of an enigmatic and cryptic goodbye in 2016; Epilogue, Henson’s next project ended up becoming Six Lethargies, a complex and ambitious symphony for string orchestra, dealing with the minutiae of mental illness. He put away the guitar and retreated to his home for three years to compose it. Monument now finds Keaton re-emerging with an album of songs about grief, and how it permeates our lives. The record began when, having recovered from both Six Lethargies and the circumstances that inspired it, Henson moved from London to the wilds of the English countryside, spending long days outside chopping wood, tending to the grounds, and watching birds of prey soaring above. It was from this remote outpost that he finally felt ready to look at a subject he had been avoiding for his entire song writing career; the decades long illness, and imminent death of his father, who passed two days before he finished recording the album.
While the singer normally opens up about heartache or fear of people in his lyrics, Monument has a possible even more personal theme: the death of his increasingly ill father. This is most strongly confirmed in “The Grand Old Reason”, where he writes some of his most heart breaking sentences: ‘But like you / I have tried for so long not to cry / That I don’t even know if I can when you die’. Yet we gasp most when, after “Prayer,” an excerpt from an old home video is heard saying Keaton’s father “Keaton, wave to daddy.” This spirited, delicate folk hits a whole new set of strings, with Henson only expanding his emotional empire even more.
Monument” released through Play It Again Sam Records,
“Dull ache turned sharp / Short breath, never caught,” Joe Casey repeats through the closing minute of “Day Without End,” his voice turning from detachment to anger, struggling above the hammering drums, guitars and horns as they remain largely unchanged except in their steadily building, brutally indifferent noise. This begins Protomartyr’s fifth album, Ultimate Success Today, and in many respects encapsulates the mission of the Detroit post-punk veterans’ music. From their first LP No Passion All Technique to their latest release especially, Protomartyr have had a preoccupation with failure, the volcanic eruption of small, petty lives confronting the overwhelming forces, both external and internal, that bind them to their insignificance and vice versa. Ultimate Success Today places that theme on an apocalyptic and disturbingly prescient scale. These tracks paint sketches of authoritarianism creeping dully into everyday life, soulless populism rooting its way into confused masses, animals trapped between choosing death or the pain that comes with surviving, and above all, the illusory promise of success in a world collapsing in on itself. It is, to put it lightly, not a happy world for Protomartyr.
Protomartyr’s fifth album is perhaps the most accurate representation of the protest year we’ve heard. It is an emotional rollercoaster of sheer aggression, chaos, stuffiness and sorrow. The occasional rest points only contrast with the continuous tension that is present on Ultimate Success Today. For the rest, screeching guitars and tight drum lines are ubiquitous, complemented by the talking vocals of Joe Casey and on occasion a groovy bass line. For the first time there are also woodwinds present, which provide an extra dimension. The nihilistic atmosphere and intense instrumentation fit with the dystopian story that the record tells. A story that, eerily enough, has been written for corona for a while. The best moment is the seamless transition between “Tranquilizer” and “Modern Business Hymn,”, which makes up for some fatigue among all that threat of war. At least one of the more interesting albums of the year.
Protomartyr – “Bridge & Crown”, taken from ‘Ultimate Success Today’, out now on Domino Record Co.
On his fourth solo record, the former frontman of Bomb The Music Industry! new intense highlights. The current and anxious texts occupy a prominent place for the solid skater punk and power pop background. Songs like “Scram!” and “Monday At The Beach” have a very high roar and the scream at the end of “N O D R E A M” comes straight from a Converge project. Despite the few instrumental breathers and the seemingly playful vocals, the lyrics remain very introspective and authentic. Rosenstock finds on NO DREAM the furore and passion that made Worry (2015) so great and which was painfully absent at Post-(2018).
Jeff Rosenstock performing live in the KEXP studio. Recorded August 20th, 2018.
Songs: USA Yr Throat All This Useless Energy The Trash The Trash The Trash
A seven-year reflection period with time for other musical projects has not given The Strokes any wind. In early April, the New York-based cult band released their new record. Each new album was invariably compared to their iconic debut album Is This It and then concluded ‘that it wasn’t like it was in their early days’. But let’s leave that out for a second at The New Abnormal. On the record, fresh synths are regularly given way and we hear Julian Casablancas sing like never before. “Brooklyn Bridge To Chorus” and opener “The Adults Are Talking” embody the new path the band is taking. Fortunately, the rattling guitars are not completely discarded and sound a lot more inspired than on their previous musical throws. Renewing without denying their roots, The Strokes did quite well on The New Abnormal.
The Strokes playing a slow-motion, dramatically heated game of baseball against a team of Terminator-like robots — possibly for the fate of the free world, possibly just as a Beer League scrimmage? Sure, why not: Like every other successful move The Strokes have made in their middle age as a band, the “Adults Are Talking” video follows its own logic and just goes for it, making sense sheerly through the group’s singular brand of try-not-that-hard self-confidence. Patterning their uniforms after the Houston Astros instead of their (maybe?) beloved Mets is one decision they’re gonna have to answer for back home, though.
Normally we don’t like ghosts, but The Australian A. Swayze & the Ghosts is a fine exception to this rule. The band around front singer Andrew Swayze blew a fresh new wind through the punk landscape in September with their debut album “Paid Salvation”. Their high-profile combination of cut lyrics and raw instrumentation produced twelve razor-sharp songs that become even more powerful with each listening. Paid Salvation is an almost flawless debut full of highlights (“Connect To Consume”, “Suddenly” and “Beaches”), with which A. Swayze & the Ghosts has earned its place in the Best Of 2020.
Since their earliest entrance back around the cusp of 2016/2017, you had the feeling A. Swayze & The Ghosts were in it for the long run. Their 2017-released, self-titled debut EP presented a vision you wouldn’t expect from a band just starting out; the band’s namesake and frontman Andrew Swayze leading the rest of the Tasmanian-raised outfit – Hendrik Wipprecht, Zac Blain, Benjamin Simms – through the highs and lows of DIY, rough-around-the-edges alt-rock with the rush of their sound at its most manic but also the subtlety of them when stripped-back and intimate.
Since then, the group have shared singles at a near-yearly rate – one at a time, emphasising quality over quantity – and it’s clear it was all paying off; the group soon crossing into international waters they are now a mainstay of the rock/punk festival world, performing at institutions such as The Great Escape and Shaky Knees Festival. Back home in Australia, they’ve played everything from Splendour in the Grass to BIGSOUND, and their recordings show why they’ve become such a favourite on the live stage – it’d be hard to see their live show as anything but explosive, considering the work they put out.
They’re a group that have put in the work to break free of Australia’s isolation shackles and emerge in the greater international rock market; every move they do – from singles and tours to festival appearances and god knows what else – reflective of a band that have this clear vision and will put everything into making it become real-life. On their debut album “Paid Salvation” – which arrives after a lengthy, incredibly hyped wait this all begins to pay off, at least on a level A. Swayze & The Ghosts haven’t seen in the past.
Paid Salvationis a definitively A. Swayze album so jam-packed with their charm and spirit that it would be impossible for anyone else to make the exact same record. Across the space of 12 tracks, they encapsulate their career thus far and the sounds that have gotten them to the point they’re at today – full of energy, flavour and just down-right fun – while showing potential future paths, always keeping things open as they dance in their versatility and range that on this record, stretches from the foundations of 90s-era rock worthy for a stadium right through to punchy punk and the slightest smattering of indie.
It’s an album that’s always concise and focused, rushing with an energy and pace that’s full of these blink-and-you-miss-it bursts of brilliance. “Nothing Left To Do” whips up a storm of thick-layered guitar and frantic percussion that quietens down before just three minutes, while “Marigold” – a song that would unexpectedly slap you for six and leave you rattled – doesn’t lose its rush until its sudden end. Every song is as fierce and elevated as it can possibly be, but at this point, would you expect anything less from a band that have come to champion this over the last few years?
It’s why A. Swayze & The Ghosts’ debut album feels exactly like a representation of the band’s most brilliant moments distilled into 12 tracks. It’s not afraid to tackle the big stuff – the tall poppy syndrome encountered being an international break-out; social media’s grips on the world; herd mentality and echo chambers – but it’ll always do so with a ruckus-inducing fun that charades its often-heavier lyricism, encouraging you to listen it when you want to, but just kick up and have a great time when you don’t want to think about all the worries in the world.
“It really shits me off when bands have this pedestal and they have the ability to influence so much around them and they waste it by singing about stupid shit. If you’re given this audience, I think you have to have something to say. And I definitely intend on abusing that right,” says Andrew on the record. “I want people to go, ‘I love that song it makes me dance but I also appreciate the honesty’. I want the melodies and the instrumentals to be accessible for people from all sorts of backgrounds, but I also want everyone to fucking listen to what I’m saying as well.”
It’s difficult to coat heavier themes like the ones Paid Salvationembraces with another lightness that people will still want to listen, but A. Swayze & The Ghosts do it with ease. Take a dive into the band’s heralding moment of a debut album below, and underneath, learn about the album’s inner themes and creation with a track-by-track walkthrough from the band themselves.
It’s Not Alright
Starting in 2017, women were forced to travel from Tasmania to Melbourne in order to have elected pregnancy termination, and upon arriving they’d potentially be accosted by imbeciles protesting against their right to have the treatment at all. I believe in a person’s right to have autonomy over their body; I consider abortion to be a part of that. On face value, this song seems to be very ‘pop’ and lyrically shallow, but I like the accessibility this style gives the listener while delivering a message they can choose to read into however they like.
Suddenly
Written in one session, listening back to the original phone recording, not much has changed. It’s really important to all of us that we capture the urgency of our live shows on record, and with Suddenly we found a balance between some of our more garage-y punk roots, and the more complex and interesting writing styles that we have been striving for.
Nothing Left to Do
I don’t generally write love songs as they’re so predictable and can bore the shit out of me. This one was tough to finish, it took me months and tens of iterations before I ended up coming full circle and sticking to the lyrics and melody I’d first written.
I’m conflicted between two entirely different personalities which can produce a lot of blurred lines between fact and fiction and then what I choose to present to people. The sole person who has complete access to behind the scenes of Andrew Swayze is my wife Olivia, I cannot hide or look away from her.
Connect to Consume
We have exchanged honesty, beauty, ugliness, boredom–reality–for an abstract museum inside a digitised screen, curated by big business but sustained by us. We have volunteered to pace the halls blindly, loudly. We are promised the pain of life will numb. We are given a rule for everything. We submit, we succeed. We do not feel; we do not need to anymore. We have accepted the prison and adorned the uniforms under the guise of convenience. We have connected and now we will consume.
Marigold
I read an article published by the BBC that made me feel nauseous. In August 2018, two men, Ricardo Flores and his uncle Alberto Flores, were beaten and burned to death by an angry mob in a Mexican town called Acatlán – a place known for its marigold and walnut trees. The two men were falsely accused of kidnapping children in the local area. As it turns out the kidnappings didn’t even happen. It was all just vicious rumours and community hysteria trafficked through WhatsApp and Facebook. The men were thrown onto the steps outside the local police station where they had been housed for their own safety, then executed. There was no trial, just violent retribution – all because of a rumour.
Paid Salvation
I took the theme of a great flood, which takes place in the Bible, and imagined it as a reality in the world we live in today. The selection process of people who would make it onto “god’s” ark is a simple one – the wealthy and the self-appointed religious, who’ve killed god and used its name to justify action/inaction. These false-profits would survive while the poor and disadvantaged become martyrs in the drowning of the planet. The people on the ark paid for their salvation while we all die along with our belief in the morals they preach.
Mess of Me
This song discusses inheritance. Not the conventional heirloom, but the type of negative trait you may learn as a child voyeur of your surroundings. Hendrik brought the song to us with the chorus “you’re always trying to make a mess of me”. Since I don’t have any saboteur but myself, I changed his lyrics and wrote the rest around the new chorus.
Rich
Tall poppies.
Our band comes from a small community, which is generally supportive but some members can also very quickly brand you as a sell-out with any kind of commercial success. It’s petty, but I hate that shit so much and I wish their keyboards would burst into flames and engulf them. When we started touring more and getting played on the radio we’d hear things people would say about our band behind our backs that were so inaccurate it was actually comedic, hence writing this song completely tongue-in-cheek as if to “submit” to their accusations of our motives.
Funnily enough one of the people I wrote this song “for” came up to me after a set we played and told me he loved the track… I couldn’t be happier hearing that.
News
I don’t have a problem with people consuming news or their need to remain updated. I do, however, have an issue with pseudo-journalism and a flow of information directed by corporate or political agenda. It’s not their fault, but people base far too much of their opinion off bias hand-fed to them by media outlets without questioning who benefits from the spread of this misinformation.
Beaches
Hendrik and I wrote the guitar parts for this song one afternoon on his bed. Originally it comprised of two guitars interlocking throughout the track, though when playing it as a band I couldn’t manage to keep up while singing too. Hendrik messed with the tuning on his guitar so he could play both his and my part simultaneously.
Lyrically the track has themes of subservience, politics, ecocide and immigration. All very topical in modern-day Australia and infuriating to witness. The chorus vocal delivery is the most brutal amongst the record – it had to be an anger-fuelled explosion from me to the listener to stress how fucked the people and policies are behind these topics, while the middle section is slow and moody to emulate feelings of hopelessness and defeat.
Cancer
There’s no point in trying to give meaning to this song, it’s meaningless.
I love this track’s elements of early house music in it’s Oberheim DMX drum machine, repetitive bass-line and guitar silence in sections, which were suggested by our producer Dean. The original version of the song was far more ‘rock’, and frankly not nearly as interesting. With the change of style it just needed a fun melody, so I gave it one with a focus on phonetics rather than what’s actually being said.
Evil Eyes
This was brought to us by Hendrik one night at in our studio as a short fun song he’d written years before. The lyrics were his too. I’m fairly sure they alluded to the paranoia you feel when smoking pot, but I read into them as a weird homage to the delusions of mental illness so I re-worked them and added the ‘psycho passion’ section to fit that description.
“Paid Salvation” released on Sunset Pig Records under exclusive licence to Ivy League Records Released on: 2020-09-18 A. Swayze & the Ghosts
Following on from their stunning 2017 debut record ‘Eternity, In Your Arms’, horror punks Creeper have announced that the title of their second album will be ‘Sex, Death & The Infinite Void’ which they describe as a ”new era” for the band.
Dispelling any rumours of a split, the forthcoming record will include their impassioned single ‘Born Cold’. ‘Sex, Death & The Infinite Void’ will be available on CD and purple vinyl, released by Roadrunner Records on May 22nd.
“The real-life time travel that music can achieve is almost supernatural. In a moment you can be transported from a bedroom in the south of England to another dimension entirely. With our latest album, we attempted to perform a similar magic. The concept behind the artwork came to me when I was considering the ways I first discovered music. Both Ian Miles and I have similar stories of discovering our parents’ records. Holding in our hands these battered relics of the past, playing them for the first time and experiencing the magic of them coming to life over the speaker.
This being the case, our album cover attempts to live up to that promise. It would fit in with our parents’ records of the past, you could find it in a dusty attic, blow off the cobwebs, play it at any moment in time and be transported.” – Will Gould.
Southampton born emo revivalists Creeper scared the life out of fans when they hinted that their sold-out show at Koko in 2018 might be their last. In fact, it was just the end of the past as they usher in a new era with the arrival of second album ‘Sex, Death & the Infinite Void’. “The infinite void was literally where we were drifting for some time while making this album. I didn’t know if Creeper was going to come back, I didn’t know if we were over. I was floating through California with the shards of a broken relationship and a band that I’d just broken up on stage that had been my life’s work.” – Will Gould
Is emorock dead? It is a question that we have been able to answer wholeheartedly with ‘no’ since this year. At the beginning of this year there would be the great return of My Chemical Romance, which our good friend corona put a stop to, but fortunately there is a new bond with the abilities of the latter. Creeper is the name and with Sex, Death & The Infinite Void they release the perfect emo-rock record. They do this by telling a story in a quirky way. A story that goes from great “Annabelle” that touch you to the deepest of your heart to solid rockers like “Napalm Girls”. Unlike the debut, the band doesn’t go anywhere too brutally, and that ensures that every song on this second record contains the necessary drama, accessibility and melancholy. The perfect record for the end of the world and let 2020 have been just a bit.
Creeper will be hitting the road during March next year, heading out on a huge tour to promote the new material
Creeper will show off the new material on their spring tour,
Hoodoo Gurus just come up with the best way to keep Australian music fans entertained. Hoodoo Gurus will unveil an untitled “homemade” mini-documentary on the band’s YouTube channel. The 37-minute documentary will be available to view . According to the band, December 31st marks the 40th anniversary of Hoodoo Gurus‘ genesis (originally known as Le Hoodoo Gurus). It was at a Sydney New Year’s Eve party in 1980 where Dave Faulkner, Kimble Rendall and Rod Radalj decided to form a band (drummer James Baker became part of that plan months later when he moved to Sydney).
Faulkner announced the documentary, writing: “It’s really just a couple of Zoom conversations I had with Kimble and Rod, firstly, and then James a week later (James was unable to join us all for the first one). I intercut those two Zoom chats together and tried to piece together the story of the band during those heady days of 1981 and ’82.”
He also warned, “It’s a bit long-winded in places but, hell, it’s free and it’s the unvarnished truth – or as best as we can remember it.” Faulkner was a recent arrival in Sydney in 1980. He’d spent time in the US catching the Cramps, Fleshtones, Johnny Thunders and others following the demise of the now-legendary Perth-based punk band the Victims, the band he and James Baker had formed in 1977, and a short stint in the Manikins. Radalj had also already been in a band with Baker – the also-legendary Scientists whose split in the early months of ’81 precipitated Baker’s move to Sydney. Kimble Rendall had recently played with Sydney pop-culture punks XL Capris, best known for their version of Channel 7’s nightly sign-off song ‘My City of Sydney’.
Faulkner explained that he will make it available for 36 hours so that “wherever you are in the world, you can relive that New Year’s Eve with us from 40 years ago as we all get ready for the arrival of 2021.”
The Gurus’ ended the last year of the third decade of existence with the recent Double A-side 7″ vinyl release of their latest two singles, ‘Get Out of Dodge’/’Hung Out To Dry’, and are gearing up for a massive 2021. Power pop is back! The Hoodoo Gurus new single featuring Vicki Peterson (The Bangles) and John Cowsill (The Cowsills / The Beach Boys) on backing vocals.
Fresh off the release of their critically-acclaimed fifth album “Plum”, Widowspeak welcome the new year with “Honeychurch”, a brand new EP. Like the 17th-century tile on its cover, Honeychurch is a repurposed artifact. Its title, a nod to E.M. Forster’s A Room With A View, was originally a working title for Plum – it felt in line with the album’s thematic considerations of class, relationships, and generational ties, but was ultimately set aside. Still, these considerations swirled beneath the surface, and as Plum’s reflections on work and worth grew more pertinent by the day, singer Molly Hamilton and guitarist Robert Earl Thomas felt there was more to explore.
They began with what was already there, toying around with a new take on Plum single “Money”. The resulting track is a pared-down, introspective version, with a foreboding synth tone that asks us to spend more time with its prompt: “will you get back what you put in?” Hamilton and Thomas have also added to their repertoire of expertly crafted cover songs, recording a playful, Nancy Sinatra-esque take on R.E.M. ‘s “The One I Love” and a rich, expansive version of Dire Straits’ “Romeo and Juliet”. Revisiting a discarded Plum demo about blood ties gave rise to the slow-burning “Sanguine”, while EP closer “Honeychurch” is an ambient epilogue that leaves space for deeper reflection.
Recorded at their apartment in Brooklyn and mixed and mastered by Jamie Harley (The Jesus and Mary Chain, Mogwai), Widowspeak’s new collection delivers homespun intimations with polished precision. The questions posed on Plum still reverberate, and Honeychurch leaves space for us to hear them better.
Molly Hamilton: vocals, guitar on “Sanguine” Robert Earl Thomas: guitars, bass, percussion, etc.
“Money (Hymn)”, “Sanguine” and “Honeychurch” written by Widowspeak “The One I Love” written by Bill Berry, Peter Buck, Mike Mills, Michael Stipe “Romeo and Juliet” written by Mark Knopfler
The follow-up to her 2018 sophomore release First Flower, the breathy, romantic “Only One” serves as the A-side to Molly Burch’s new 7” Ballads, out now on Captured Tracks. “I decided to call the 7” Ballads as an homage to the powerful female vocalists I idolized growing up,” Burch said. “Seems sort of classic. Both songs really embody what I love to do—sing with emotion, and drama, and romance, taking as much time as I need. Following the release of her critically acclaimed sophomore album, ‘First Flower’, last October, Texan chanteuse Molly Burch returns with two heart-stopping tracks. Entitled ‘Ballads’ in homage to the strong and powerful female vocalists that she admires, this 7” EP embodies what Burch loves to do and what she does best: crafting music with emotion, drama and romance, giving her voice all the room it needs to burn bright.
“Only One” is off of Molly Burch’s 7″ Vinyl, ‘Ballads’. released August 2nd, 2019
