I mused for a while over whether to leave the elephant in the corner of the room here, or whether to get it out of the way first. So obviously it is going to be the latter. The Strand are, or have been at least, lumped in as a “Steampunk” band in the past. I’ve […]
I have to confess that I was somewhat nervous about this gig. Were my earplugs up to the job, would I make it through the whole thing, etc. And this isn’t something I say lightly. Over seventeen years of gig-going, and hundreds and hundreds of bands I’ve seen, there are few that I’ve seen, I […]
Another month – so it’s time for a quick rundown of the ten tracks I think you should all hear. It’s a rather wider range of music than I’ve been posting of late, too, I think.
The gig the night before this was a late addition to the roster, so this, in some respects, was the gig that was the planned beginning of a long summer of shows. Ten gigs between 03-June and 22-July, before I get a break in the run-up to Infest. Like last year, I’m going to have […]
The first night of two consecutive (again!) nights of gigs over this extra-long bank-holiday weekend, and this first one took me back to Electrowerkz for a live show a second time in six months. Ostensibly the gig was headlined by The Danse Society, but we had no great desire to see them so left after […]
A couple of years ago, I posted the best of the 90s, and the best of the 00s, from my point of view.
Over the past few years, Sami’s electro project Faderhead have been difficult to ignore. Be it through ubiquitous dancefloor hits like Dirtygrrrls/Dirtybois or TZDV, or be it through the odd bit of internet controversy (mouthing off about other artists or coming across as a bit of an over-inflated rockstar), where it is frankly rather hard […]
Getting to see some of my favourite bands over the years really has been a trial. Either I’ve missed shows, been in the wrong place at the wrong time, or said bands simply don’t play the UK very often. The latter is the case with Primordial, who according to their gig history have only played […]
It isn’t often that it takes a band nearly ten years to reappear after a first album, without completely disappearing from view and/or being forgotten. But somehow, that is what has happened with Sulpher. Well, I say disappear, but what actually happened was that Rob and Monti in particular ended up working with other bands. […]
Just once in a while, a reissue is genuinely of something that somehow missed a time in the spotlight the first time around, and the reissue is no naked attempt at getting the first buyers to put hands in pockets again, but instead the work of someone else trying to get the audience it should […]
A new month, therefore ten new songs you should hear about.
A very British habit – and one of the cliched views of the British from around the world – is, apparently, to talk about the weather incessantly. I’ve never been sure why, but I guess with a changeable climate, the seemingly never-ending threat of rain (well, at least until the last few years, where dry […]
Of all of the industrial “legends”, if you will – aside from now deceased bands like Throbbing Gristle, that I’ll never see now of course anyway – Laibach have for a while been the one band that I’ve never seen live. It hasn’t been for the want of trying – there has been at least […]
I’m beginning to like this idea of sponsored gigs. After all, if nothing else, the sponsorship helps to bring down the insane costs of gigging nowadays – noted last night on the gig listings was a Happy Mondays show at Brixton for £37.50, for example – and also benefits from perhaps better promotion and backing […]
From various conversations over the years, it certainly isn’t just me that associates particular bands, songs or albums with particular times of life. Funnily enough, for me mainly it is periods where things were not so good – and during the late 90s, in other words my unhappy time at university in London, Marion were […]
There are constant reminders of an apocalyptic future for indie labels in particular as the stampede towards digital music gains ever more pace, so it is also good to see some labels still thriving. This year is the 10th anniversary of Monotreme Records, and to celebrate they put on a show in London with three […]
From the first time I heard Chelsea Wolfe‘s music, it was pretty clear that she wasn’t like most other singer-songwriters. It isn’t often you hear a Burzum cover, never mind from an artist outside of the usual extreme metal sphere. Digging a little further, Wolfe’s second album, released last year, was a striking howl from […]
Last year, the first Resistanz festival in Sheffield was one of the talking points of the “scene” in the Spring, and due to family commitments that we couldn’t miss, we couldn’t make it. So, an early decision was made this time around to ensure that we would make it north this time, and return to […]
Sean Payne’s Cyanotic have always been more than their reputation suggests. The first thing most people think of – that know of them at least – is their intense fusions of drum’n’bass, industrial and metal that have been the core of all of their signature songs. But all the way since they first started, the […]
Back in the 80s, Al Jourgensen was one of the driving forces behind industrial and metal coming together. The three albums released around the end of the 80s and early 90s were all incredible albums for different reasons, but all were most notable for pushing the envelope, and hard. There were scorching, stupidly heavy tracks, […]
