David Kilgour & The Heavy 8s from the album– “End Times Undone” The Clean co-founder’s latest with his longtime band, The Heavy 8’s, is all chiming electric 12-strings, tuneful feedback and jangling grooves. Possessor of a pretty much perfect tone, Kilgour is a guitar hero who actually doesn’t go in for heroics all that much. He’s more interested in riding the wave of the music, effortlessly tossing out shimmering lines with a casual grace, always finding pleasantly unexpected places to take his solos.
Nothing compares to the fear and the force of Girl Band. All-nighters filled with American Horror Story episodes and the faint soundtrack of a creeping back door? That won’t do it. Taking a trip to the woods in pitch black, with nothing but a terrifying HEALTH record for company? It’ll come close. But the beauty of this Irish group is just how unprepared they look to jump out of their own skin. They’ll arrive on the average stage dressed in smart attire, clean jumpers completely free of beer stains. But deep within lies a dark edge, and out it bursts in full ghastly colours every time they play. On record, too, they have the phenomenal effect of stretching out grizzly, industrial notes across several harsh minutes. Either that, or they’ll release a single that’s 25 seconds long. Girl Band like to fuck with preconceptions, and 2014’s seen them achieving this with plenty more round the corner.
Girl Band are a four piece noise rock band from Dublin, Ireland. They are made up of Dara Kiely, Alan Duggan, Daniel Fox and Adam Faulkner.
They formed in late 2011 with influences ranging from bands and acts such as Bad Brains, Swell Maps, James Chance and the Contortions, Neu, The Birthday Party, Ben Frost and a lot of minimal techno. Girl Band structure their songs with sparse, shouty vocals, over intense noise textures and sounds capes which develop around repetitive groves. The band have released an EP and 3 singles with Any Other City Records to much critical acclaim. They have just signed to Rough Trade Records and will be releasing their debut album in late 2015. Their live show is known for being loud, intense and energetic.
The Fat White Family, have announced details of the release of the first single on their new label, Without Consent – ‘I Am Mark E Smith’ is released on Monday 15th December 2014.
The single, available on 10” and download, will also feature the track ‘I Am Joseph Stalin’.
After a summer of appearances at most of the UK festivals, including Glastonbury and a sold out show at London’s Electric Ballrooom plus a trip to the America’s the band went away to start work on their second album, due next year. They are also playing the NME Awards Tour with a superb line up of bands in February 2015,
When The Walkmen announced their “extreme hiatus” at the back end of last year, we began to worry we might loose the talented New Yorkers forever. Luckily in 2014 they showed that whilst the band might not be going strong, the musicians within are still relentlessly creative and stunningly talented.Of course the man with the most pressure on his shoulders was frontman Hamilton Leithauser. As the spokesman for the band he carried with him into his solo career a sense of expectation, and on “Black Hours” he did not disappoint. He pulled off the tough balancing act of remaining loyal to his established fan base and taking his music into new directions with aplomb! Fans of The Walkmen need look no further than I Don’t Know or closing track The Smallest Splinter.
Those of us who wanted to see what makes him stand out as a solo artist though, were arguably treated even better. Gorgeous crooned-piano ballads, like 5AM & St Mary’s Country were equal parts Frank Sinatra and Tom Waits. Dylanish-country stompers like I Retired and the frankly bonkers run-away mine train feel of lead single Alexander. It was an album that had so much to give already, and yet hinted that even better might be to come. The Walkmen are dead long live The Walkmen!
Hookworms new album,‘The Hum’ is out now, When “Pearl Mystic” (Hookworms debut album) came out, those of us who reviewed it were very keen to pigeonhole the band. With a sound akin to the Fall, The Doors and T-Rex. This time round I feel no such compulsion. This sounds like a Hookworms record from the outset. From the electronic pulse of the opener ‘Impasse’ breaking in to a full on Hookworms style assault on the ears, you are left in no doubt that who this album is by. It’s exciting, visceral and takes no prisoners as it segues into ‘On Leaving’ which already begins to give a clue that this album is going to be more nuanced than ‘Pearl Mystic’ and, with MJ’s vocals much higher in the mix, a more confident assertion of what the band stand for. “The Hum” is an altogether more powerful statement of Hookworms potency. (SD)
The Bronze Medal from Bath in the South West of England, here is a small clip of them recording the new album set for release this month titled “Darlings”
Here’s Bath, UK band The Bronze Medalwith “Tunnel”; produced by Vageir Sigurosson (Brian Eno, Sigur Ros, Feist, Damon Albarn) off the band’s debut LP ‘Darlings’ set for release in September.
Want to follow a band on tour but don’t feel like sleeping in a van?
With our debut of July Talk’s six-part video series, From the Road, you can party onstage, backstage, and en route without actually leaving home.
Live vicariously through the gritty-yet-polished July Talk, a Toronto-based garage rock/alt-blues group whose current tour is being intimately documented by filmmaker Jared Raab via high-contrast, monochrome footage.
The first chapter trails the five-piece outfit as their high-energy act makes waves through North America. “This is a song about losing your goddamn mind!” shouts Leah Fay, one half of the group’s lead vocals, as they start in with their rock n’ roll theatrics once again.
Over the past year, our lives have been repeatedly turned upside down, as we’ve crisscrossed the globe in a tour van. July Talk – From the Road was born out of a necessity to share some of these experiences. We convinced our talented friend, filmmaker Jared Raab, to come with us and direct, shoot and edit a video series in the backseat of the van as we drive.
Chapter One follows us through the first leg of our North American tour. Detroit gets messy. Chicago is Leah’s kind of town and 1st Avenue, Minneapolis lives up to its name.
A follow-up to the series debut, the second of July Talk’s cathartically entertaining six-chapter video From the Road follows the band back to their homeland of Canada where they perform five shows, each to a sold-out crowd.
The band’s guitarist and vocalist Peter Dreimanis tells us more about playing various stages across the Canadian Prairies:
My birthday is the first in Winnipeg, which got nice and messy with one of our favorite tour parties to date. We head to my hometown of Edmonton for two shows at The Starlite and the best/worst pizza in the country. We head through Calgary and over the mountains to finish at the incredible Commodore Ballroom in Vancouver!
Filmmaker Jared Raab had this to say about the second installment:
Remember in Grosse Pointe Blank when John Cusack returns to his hometown for a high-school reunion and ends up having to save the father of his long lost love? Well, this chapter is exactly like that, only it’s a huge party in Winnipeg for Pete’s birthday. Everyone goes a little nuts and it leads to some deep introspection as the band crosses the prairies.
Twisted Wheel, Manchester band led by the charismatic Jonny Brown, Twisted Wheel formed in February 2007 in Saddleworth, Greater Manchester by guitarist and singer Jonny Brown and bassist Rick Lees, later joined by drummer Adam Clarke. Frontman Jonny Brown heard the name in a Paul Weller track “Into Tomorrow”, where the lyrics say “Round and round like a twisted wheel, Spinning in attempt to find the feel” and thought it suited the music. Twisted Wheel were booked as one of the support acts for Oasis’s 2009 Heaton Park concerts. Embraced for their strong melodies, psychedelic themes and Brown’s irreverent poignant lyrics, the band gained a following amongst old mods/punks and younger heads looking for music which represented their generation. They were labelled as punk rock although influences span folk and 50s/60s bands too. Twisted Wheel cite Davy Graham, Bob Dylan, The Stooges The Small Faces, The Who, The Jam, The Rolling Stones and Oasis among their main influences.
Stars’ music has been described as “beautiful, eloquent indie pop”characterized by lush instrumentation, nimble production and mixing, narrative lyrics, and soft but nuanced vocals. The band’s style has evolved from an electronic-pop sound as heard on Nightsongs to more rock-based instrumentation on their following three full-length albums, reflecting the permanent additions of singer-guitarist Amy Millanand bassist Evan Cranley on Heart and eventually drummer Pat McGee on Set Yourself on Fire.
The Fat Angel Sings 