Thee Oh Sees - 'I Need Seed'

If there’s one thing San-Franciscan, garage pioneers Thee Oh Sees are not short of its albums. Since 2007, the band has churned out L.P after L.P, documenting the bands evolution from a psychedelic, noise experiment to a well-rounded garage rock band. ‘I need seed’, the first single off the band’s latest release ‘Castlemania’ is another stylistic step forward as front man John Dwyer adopts a sonically cleaner approach. Nonetheless, at its core, it’s still very much an embodiment of the defining sound of Thee Oh Sees. A fantastic video too.

Pear Shape - 'Righteousness'

It may not be the best time of year for fruit in Australia, but pears are certainly ripe and ready to be sampled. Sydney-Siders, Pear Shape continue to parade their own brand of infectiously joyous pop-rock on the track ‘Righteousness’. Set upon the backdrop of a Sydney Indie music scene saturated in brooding experimentalism and ambience, Pear Shape provides a refreshingly accessible alternative. Calling on their 60s predecessors The Kinks and The Zombies, Pear Shape embodies the happy, carefree spirit of the decade through their catchy melodies, jangly guitars and angelic vocals. Uncomplicated, jovial tunes are what this youthful quartet is all about.

The New Brigade - Iceage

In a society dominated by synthesizers and Macbooks, it has become progressively difficult for contemporary punk bands to flourish and still endorse the spirit of traditional punk rock. Nowadays, it seems as though the only punk bands that can still make a name for themselves are those that infuse it with thick layers of noise, jovial 60s surf rock or 90’s slacker alt rock. Despite the fact that Copenhagen quartet Iceage heavily utilize the thick reverb of modern noise rock, these teens have captured the recklessness, rebellion and apocalyptic chaos of what punk rock was traditionally founded upon. Quoted as “having the makings of greatness” matching up to the likes of punk heroes No Age and Fucked Up, Jacob, Elias, Dan and Johan are only in their late teens and have already exhibited blatant signs of weathered musical chemistry which shines on their debut release ‘New Brigade’. Embracing the guts of mutinous punk rock, the greatness of this teenage act lies in their ability to capture the perfection of imperfection. Manic guitars paraded out of tune, drums clamorously played at a high velocity and a wealth of reverb over inaudible vocals showcase the bands stylistic sophistication promoting a unique, raw post-punkness which Iceage manage to nail. I briefly caught up with the raucous teens to chat about the Danish punk scene, macbooks, their recent LP ‘New Brigade’ and keeping well away from meaninglessness.

GC: When was Ice Age born and how did you guys meet?

IA: Some of us met in grade school, I think you call it that, many years ago. Johan and Dan met each other when they were six years old; I got to know them when I was about ten. We all go pretty way back.

GC: I here you guys are on the bill for the Roskilde festival in July. How’s it going to be playing alongside acts like ‘Weekend’, ‘PJ Harvey’ and ‘Iron Maiden’?

IA: Well we’re probably not gonna be playing the same stage as Iron Maiden and stuff. We played there before; last year actually, it’s really fun… Such a big stage.

GC: How does it compare to playing a smaller, quainter venue like what you guys are used to?

IA: Yeah it’s a lot different – you don’t feel as close to the audience, you feel like you’re on television or something like that

GC: A large proportion of the garage and new wave punk scene in Denmark is pretty Danish sounding. I guess one of the things that stands out in your music is your choice to sing in English. Was this a conscious decision or more of a natural progression?

IA: Yeah more natural, we don’t really enjoy writing in Danish. I don’t know why…it sounds weird. I mean, I think it can be good too in that it can be very direct, it depends how you want it.

GC: I guess this has probably aided your international recognition too…

IA: Yeah I think so, definitely

GC: Having been here for around three months now, it’s hard to find much wrong with this city or country, aesthetically and politically. Is Danish punk focused primarily on things like protest and rebellion? Do you look inwards to Denmark for inspiration or outwards?

IA: Well, there are also quite a few political bands…not so much right now. A couple of years ago it was very radical, left wing and anarchical…but it seems like that has kind of faded a bit. I don’t think we look to other countries for inspiration, you can find a lot of it in Denmark. I dont like our government either, thats just not what we´ve chosen to make songs about. Probably because we dont see a chance at changing a thing.

GC: This brings me to the lyrics in your songs. A lot of them are quite hard to understand in the way that you can’t actually hear the words being sung. Was this done for stylistic purposes? To maybe give it that raw edge…and what are you guys mainly singing about?

IA: Well first of all I don’t try to sing like you can’t understand what I’m singing…that’s just how it sounds. We do have the lyrics with the record. And yeah what are we singing about? Very different things, personal issues mainly. We are not supposed to explain exactly what all of our songs are about. They are in the sleeve of the record so people can make of them what they want. we write about stuff that affect our lives like brotherhood, sex, love, pressure, trying to stay away from meaninglessness and feeling like shit, but also more abstract issues.

GC: Having listened to quite a bit of your music, it’s really got that quintessential, post-punk rawness, a sound that conveys so much about the band to the listener. What does DIY mean to you and how important do you think it is in an age of macbooks?

IA: Well, it’s something I appreciate. I don’t like it when people make a scene and then on the first page they’ll have this propaganda about how they did it themselves. It’s just something you should do. You
shouldn’t promote it. It gets annoying if you keep telling people that you’re doing this yourself. It should be more of a natural thing.

GC: Given the fact that you guys are still quite young, do you feel that it's easy for your success to go to your heads? Is their now a greater ambition for you guys to produce another record? Also, how do you think your song writing has matured or changed as you have grown older?

IA: I don’t think it will get to our heads. It’s just a matter of knowing what you and your music is and is not instead of believing what people tell you you are. That and not being a idiot.

As for the next record - of course we have great ambitions for it - but not ambitions to free some kind of expectations from the outside world. The next record will be what we want the next record to be and now we are working on making it become that.
It’s hard to tell how the songs we have written since new brigade differ from the old ones yet, but I think some of them might have a heavier and sometimes more vulnerable feel.

GC: On a global basis, It’s quite hard these days for punk bands to break into the ‘indie’ music scene. Artists like Jay Reatard, No Age and Weekend prove that punk/post punk acts need to have something special in order to do this. You guys have been compared to these bands quoted as having “the makings of greatness”. How does it feel to be compared to bands of this magnitude?

IA: It’s really weird getting all these emails all the time with people offering you crazy shit…it’s hard not to get carried away with it all. You don’t really know how much of it will happen and how much is real, because at the end of it, it’s just emails.

GC: Yeah, and you guys mentioned before that your potentially going on a tour with ‘Fucked Up’ in Europe

IA: Yeah I mean it’s not 100% sure; we got a list of potential countries. But it was weird that they had heard of us…I mean they’re not really an idol band of ours but it is cool to be recognized by a band like ‘Fucked Up’…to be honest I’ve never really listened to them. But I have no fucken idea how our music gets heard by these people. It’s crazy.

Check out the first single and video off 'New Brigade'

Fucked Up - 'The Other Shoe'

It was never going to be easy for Fucked Up to match their genre defying, 2008 release “The Chemistry of Common Life.” Regarded as one of the best “hardcore punk” albums of the last decade” Fucked Up managed to combine genial flutes, tribal bongos, heavy distortion and a front man with a voice that may have been attained through eating shards of broken glass. This superbly executed, unique concoction earned the band the 2009 ‘Polaris Music Prize’ for “The Chemistry of Common Life”. The first single “The Other Shoe” off their upcoming album “David Comes to Life” is perhaps the band’s most pop-driven song to date. However, the playful bar chords and angelic female vocalist are shrouded by front man Damian Abraham, belting his own brand of powerful, gritty vocals as he always does. ‘The Other Shoe’ proves that Fucked Up certainly have the potential to eclipse the benchmark set on ‘The Chemistry of Common Life’. Mark down the 7th of June in your calendar when the album ‘David Comes to Life’ is released through Matador records.

'Yuck' - 03/03/2011 - Loppen, Copenhagen

It really shits me when a band produces a well-crafted; captivating album that is followed by a sub-par, lackluster concert. If you’ve already musically and emotionally invested in a band, an average or shitty gig can often be a deflating experience, feeling as if the band has inadvertently betrayed you in some weird way. Such is the case with 90’s revivalists Yuck, as they took the stage at the quaint ‘Loppen’ in Copenhagen last Thursday. After having the album on immediate rotation since its release in early February, I won't lie, I was pretty psyched to see these guys live.

The night began with UK solo act Porcelain Raft whose lonesome stage presence was shrouded by an abundance of atmospheric noise that bounced from one graffiti-stained wall to another. Despite the lack of crowd atmosphere, the sound was pretty good and he proved to be a decent warm up act, wetting the appetites of the few Yuck fans in the venue. At around 11pm, the headliners sauntered up on to the tiny stage, picked up their instruments and launched straight into their lead single ‘Holing Out’. Rather than acknowledging his surroundings, a possibly stoned Daniel Blumberg stood there lifeless, hunched over his microphone, murmuring the lyrics to the songs off the Yuck self-titled debut. The thing that annoyed me the most about this concert was not even the band’s reluctance to interact with each other or the audience, but rather the image they might have been trying to invoke by doing this. That ‘too cool’, aloof pose of 1990’s grunge bands - and where seminal acts like Sonic Youth and Nirvana may’ve been able to pull that off, it didn’t work all that well for Yuck. With that, there was little for the crowd to feed off as an unsettling silence and stillness filled the venue between tracks. However, for what the band lacked in stage presence and sociability they made amends for in the quality of sound; the rich, penetrating distortion of Blumberg’s guitar and the undeniably infectious melodies that captured that quintessential 90’s alt rock sound of the recent album. The highlight of the show and incidentally the album too was the closing track ‘Rubber’. Admittedly, I thought the band would have struggled with the live performance of such a finely produced track, but I was proven wrong. It even had Blumberg, bassplayer Mariko Doi and guitarist Max Bloom moving about the stage. The 8 minute song, followed by an extended slur of noise emanating from the guitar’s amplifiers closed the show. The band walked off stage without so much as a glance toward the clapping audience and didn’t bother to return with a song or two more. Perhaps I’m being rather harsh on the four-piece, but it’s always nice to know that the band appreciates the fans support as much as the fans value the music.

School Knights - 'Fuck The Beach'

I don't think School Knights were striving for originality when they wrote this song. By naming this track 'Fuck The Beach', one gets to thinking that this Colorado act are more than aware of the genre they fall into. But despite the song's generic prowess, god damn, it really is a lot of fun to listen to. Much like the fuzzy pop-punk sound of the second Wavves album,'Fuck The Beach' follows a similar, but certainly effective formula - the echoing 'oohs oohs', the abundance of cymbal thrashing, the distorted bar chords. It only seems appropriate that the album be released in the summer (American) of this year..check it out yo,

School Knights - Fuck The Beach by Music For Your Mind

Yuck - 'Yuck'

It’s all well and good to imitate bands from the 90’s. Throw a bit of Malkmus slack in with some Thurston Moore distortion, add a dash of J Mascis wah-pedal and you’ve got the perfect combination for a sweet sounding, yet essentially uninspiring ‘garage’ band. That’s not to say that I don’t like this type of music, or even to say that it doesn’t dominate most of the play time on my iTunes. Some of the time however, it fails to recreate that poignant inimitability characterised by garage heroes like Jay Reatard and Japandroids. How do these bands manage to define their sound in a world where all modern music, in essence sounds pretty damn generic? Ask multinational band Yuck and I’m sure they’d be able to shed some light on the situation. Their self-titled debut, which is now out via Fat Possum records, presents itself as an accessible microcosm of the defining sound of 90’s alternative rock. From the beginning, the opening track ‘Get Away’ reveals front man, Daniel Blumberg’s (Cajun Dance Party) infatuation with bands like Pavement and The Wrens. – the slackened fuzziness of Blumberg’s guitar, the tinny treble of Mariko Doi’s bass line, the wail of Max Bloom’s lead guitar trills are embodiments of the sound Yuck have produced on this album. The greatness of this band however doesn’t lie in their ability to imitate bands from a certain decade, but rather in their emotionally provocative melodies, coupled with their utilization of distortion and fuzz that adds a 21st century complexity to their music. It’s interesting to compare Yuck to Blumberg and Bloom’s original band Cajun Dance Party. Stylistically, they’ve certainly matured from Kooks-like British indie to create an album with a strong musical and lyrical foundation. You get the sense that Blumberg may’ve considered this when on the track ‘Sunday’ he sings “I’ve got a choice now; I’ve got a voice now”. The album reaches its climax on the last track ‘Rubber’, showcasing Blumberg’s song writing ability. Despite its repetitiveness over its 7 minute lifespan, the song captivates it’s listener from the first second as the warm distortion penetrates the eardrum, slipping in to the depths of human thought. The 90’s may be over, but Yuck are just beginning.

Tom Riordan Greg Clennar - I'd F A C (In The Fin') by gregy91

Foals Gig Review - Manning Bar - 28/07/10

Thought I might as well post this one. It's an old review of a Foals gig I uncovered on my laptop.



On their follow up to their debut album ‘Antidotes’, Foals have been praised for their palpable change in their style of song writing. ‘Total Life Forever’, for all intents and purposes, sees Foals reaching new levels of maturity as they trim the puppy fat, breaking free from the formulaic rigidity of ‘Antidotes’. Their abstract lyrics and piercing yelps of front man, Yannis Philipakkis on their 2008 debut left many in a state of confusion and alienation as critics tried to search for meaning in an album of lyrical convolution. To many, it was a refreshing and heart-warming change when on the first track of ‘Total Life Forever’, Yannis finally began to sing along with the song’s melody in a way that emotionally located its listeners. His newfound vocal utility subsequently became an integral element of the new album, allowing the band to reach this new level of ‘maturity.’ Unfortunately, the 5-foot Oxfordian struggled to match the vocal benchmark set on ‘Total Life forever’ during the gig, which proved to be a detrimental facet of the bands performance. However, Yannis’ vocal inabilities were at times shrouded by bursts of breathtaking musical chemistry between the initially reserved front man and the rest of the band.

At around 9.30, the band wondered on stage in front of 900 youths, decked out in their tight black jeans, striped cardigans and top buttoned shirts. Surprisingly, the band opened with the somewhat subdued album title track, ‘Total Life Forever’, which didn’t seem to overly excite the crowd. The following track however, the hypnotic ‘Cassius’ – with its pounding and precise drumbeats and angular guitar riffs sent the crowd into a frenzy as they shouted along to the lyrics “Cassius it’s over, Cassius away!” Unfortunately this proved to be one of the few inspiring parts of the first half of the set. Much of it was founded upon the band’s failure to interact with the audience, the numerous technical mishaps and Yannis’ inability to sing along with the soaring vocal melodies as he demonstrates on ‘Total Life Forever’. This was shown on new tracks like “Miami” and “Blue Blood” where the glamorous production of the album proved to be a stumbling block for the band as they failed in their attempts to effectively replicate that defining Foals sound we all know and love. After ambling through some of the more ambient songs on ‘Total Life Forever’ the band began to warm to the crowd saving their best songs till later in the set and it seemed as if the roadies had finally found a solution to the problems with the equipment. The song “Spanish Sahara” is arguably the bands best written and constructed song in its ability to emotionally connect with its listener making every hair on the back of your neck stand on end. And they did a damn good job of translating this element live as the audience were absorbed in the songs oceanic background noises and harmonious chords. Many fans whipped out their lighters and sung along with Yannis who actually managed to elevate his voice beyond a whimper in this particular case. From then on the band began to really loosen up as the musical chemistry began to fly seen in their performance of ‘Red Sox Pugie’. Jack Bevan’s immaculate, samba-esque drumming coupled with Walter’s pulsating bass lines set the quaint manning bar on fire exemplifying the musical talent of the quintet. The song climaxed with an impromptu jam which even had little Edwin bobbing up and down behind his synthesiser creating a strong sense of unity between the band members.

The last song of the set before the encore was ‘Electric Bloom’ which saw Yannis finally make use of the lone floor tom sat beside him as he merely mimicked the songs beat. However, this proved to be a successful means of building suspense as the miniature front man climbed atop the twenty-foot high stack amps amicably gesturing at the crowd to clap then jumping from the top back onstage and sticking the landing. This bold act was an exciting and refreshing change in the show as the band finally managed to come out of their shells and stop worrying about the sound of their amplifiers. Without having played ‘two steps twice’ it was obvious that when they walked off with a half-assed thank you to the adoring crowd, they would almost certainly be back on. After about ten minutes of synchronised clapping and ‘Foals’ chants, the band took the stage once more and launched into the opening track on ‘Antidotes’, ‘The French Open’. Again, little Yannis Philipakkis struggled to reach the high pitched, French yelp “Un peu d'air sur la terre”, the song’s main lyrical focal point. However, thanks to the precise and innovative drumming of Jack Bevan and the perfectly synchronised bass and guitar lines, Foals managed to replenish the audience’s energy levels as many danced and moshed along with the song. The band closed with ‘Two Steps Twice’ and it would be hard to think of a better track to end a show with. It seemed as if the band cranked the volume knobs of their amplifiers up to 10, the trill guitar notes bouncing off the walls of the minuscule Manning Bar. With his seemingly newfound confidence and affection for the audience, during the songs extended pre-chorus, Yannis jumped off stage and paraded through the crowd shielding himself from the screaming fans with his guitar. A perfect way to end a concert full of musical highs and soaring vocal lows.

Up and Coming – Mazes

Often with modern lo-fi rock music, there’s an assumption that fuzzed out guitars, reverberated vocals and a wealth of cymbal thrashing are used as ways of masking the fact that the songs themselves aren’t all that good. Society’s current obsession with nostalgia and low-grade art has paved the way for a lo-Fi resurgence, as bands like Wavves and No Age continue to establish themselves as core components of the contemporary indie music scene. London based band Mazes certainly fall into the DIY lo-fi scene having recorded most of their demos in a basement or bedroom. MySpace demo track, ‘Cenetaph’ sees a jangly, Pavement-like chord progression compliment a raspy male Falsetto, similar to that of noise pioneers Times New Viking. But amidst the clean, trebly distortion you are left with endearing and affable melodies that situate the listener in an idyllic environment – a summery, drunken oasis (you’ll understand when you listen). Much like some of their predecessors and lo-fi innovators such as Pavement, No Age and Times New Viking, rather than using the lo-fi formula to conceal, Mazes utilize it in crafting engagingly gritty and intriguingly noisy pop music. Credit to them! Their debut album ‘A thousand heys’ is out 11^th April via Fat Cat records. Get to their MySpace page at www.myspace.com/mazesmazesmazes or

Mazes - Vampire Jive (demo) by FatCat Records">

Dizzee Rascal - 'Boy in Da Corner'

This is a review I did a while back. I never really showed it to anyone. It was mostly written whilst procrastinating over Uni work.

Dizzee Rascal – ‘Boy In Da Corner’

“Mc’s better start chattin’ about what’s really happenin’” – Dizzee Rascal

It was in 2002 when on his album, ‘Get rich or die trying’ rapper, 50 Cent self-assuredly sang “I’m bout my money you see, girl you can holla at me if you fucking with me, I’m a P.I.M.P”. I’m not really sure what 50 was trying to communicate when he rapped that line in his widely successful single ‘P.I.M.P’. It made me realise that recently, the foundations of the rap and hip hop scene have been subjugated and pillaged by rappers with inflated egos and an undying obsession with money. As a result, it is becoming exceedingly difficult to relate to these commercially driven/women objectifying artists who show very few signs of humanity. Of course hip hop and rap as a genre serves its purpose of empowering its listener through talk of guns and violence and gratuitous sex often coupled with repetitive, head-bobbing beats and simple melodies, but often fails to transcend these generic limitations. It was a saving grace when in 2002, east London teenager; Dizzee Rascal released his self-produced, highly abrasive but most importantly heart-felt debut; ‘Boy In Da Corner’. Like many of his predecessors such as N.W.A and the Wu Tang Clan, Rascal tackles issues of poverty and violence with much of the album’s thematic focus on street life. However, where these archetypal rappers tend to focus on racial marginalization, Rascal adds a unique humane and poetic element to his material, shown primarily through his highly perceptive lyrics coupled with the albums unpredictable, earth-shattering beats and grimey melodies.

The opening track ‘sittin here’ personifies the sentimentality of the nineteen-year-old as he romanticizes about the innocence of children and the sad state of current affairs. His naturally self-aware disposition shown where Rascal self-defeatedly states “I think I’m getting weak cos my thoughts to are too strong” is empowered by the stripped-back beat and muted, spine chilling guitar that creeps into the depths of your anxieties and fears. He almost forces the listener to acknowledge and ponder their own meaningless existence in the world. These feelings of anxiety and inadequacy are then overshadowed by a grimy, pulsating synthesizer and explosion of a cheeky rudeboy accent (almost a mix of Jamaican/cockney) on speed as heard on the following track ‘Stop Dat’, similar to that of Busta Rhymes. The two opening songs are a clear insight into the temperamental and volatile character of Dizzee Rascal as the disquiet of ‘sittin’ here’ eventually culminates into an outburst of anger and street-fuelled aggression on ‘stop dat’. Rascal manages to maintain his aggressive and perceptive edge on following tracks “I Luv U” and particularly “Brand New Day” where he discusses issues of teen pregnancy, the loss of friends and bleak futures. Rather than simply rapping “fuck the police”, Dizzee offers more of a shrewd explanation as to why he generally dislikes police officers when on track ‘2 For’ he audaciously spits “I dont obey no policeman, cos they forget they’re human.” Preach, Dizzee, Preach.

‘Fix up, look sharp’ is based upon a sample from the Billy Squire song ‘The Big Beat’ and adds a light-hearted element to an album layered in anxiety-inducing cynicism. It’s a nice break in the album where the listener can kick back, turn the volume knob up and listen to some of the tightest rhyming in history and the most monstrous of all monstrous beats. Dizzee’s flaunting of himself in this particular track and ‘Just a rascal’ is both charming and loveable as it is set upon the backdrop of the albums perceptiveness and intellect. “Bring your first aid kit, and some antiseptic, this could get hectic”...we love you Dizzee, we really do.

Where the majority of rap icons identify themselves through egotistical, super-human banter, Dizzee parades himself as merely a mortal being. His ability to deconstruct and break free of hip-hop’s bulletproof vest, which so many rappers tend to cloak themselves in, resonates in his poetic verses, controlled and intuitive anger and paranoid minor chords. As unsettling and unique as Madvillain’s ‘Madvillainy’ and as bold and astute as Mos Def’s ‘Black on Both Sides’, ‘Boy in Da Corner’ goes down as one of those albums that sees its own generic limitations fizzle with its own ingenuity.


*** I think it's important to view this album for what it is and try ignore the fact that he's lost his mind as of late.

here it is baby

Despite my initial reservations about starting a blog, it seems to be the thing people start when living in another country. I guess its because people either have a lot more time on their hands, or feel as if they're experiencing something truly unique. Maybe its that fresh European air that has blown away my fear of being recognised as a 'blogger', but I now truly feel as if I am worthy of my own blogging site. That's not to say I'll be using this as a diary or a means of recording the ins and outs of daily events. That'd just be gay. This site will be used mainly as a music-blogging site mainly focussing on album/concert/artist/scene reviews and new music. Rock and roll McDonalds.