New Music Review – Kooba Tercu – S/T

Band: Kooba Tercu
Album: Self-titled
Genre: Noise-rock, sludge
Social-media: Facebook/Bandcamp

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Today we’re looking at the latest self-titled album from Athens noise-rockers, Kooba Tercu, and it must be said, this is rather late, but I got sent this around about the time I went on my hiatus. So yeah, this has been a few months coming now and I’m hoping to get through my backlog of emails as fast as I can.

Kooba Tercu, are loud five piece noise-rock, sometimes sludgy metal band that’s fronted by lead maniac Johnny Tercu. These guys have played with some big names, such as the ritual rockers GOAT and it must be said that Kooba Tercu’s brand of heavy, eclectic and abrasive music fits this scene. This is their debut album and, well, how is it?

It’s somewhat of a grower, but also very instantaneous in its delivery to you. What I mean is the way these lot set up their songs is full of variety and life, but the sound can be abrasive, maybe too abrasive for some listeners, but even then, there’s probably something here for you to enjoy. There are some sludge tracks here, some more straight forward rock songs and even some proggy stuff. It’s this life that gives their self-titled an edge in the noise-rock scene. Let’s take the song, Squirting Squid, it’s a slow builder that predictably builds into a sudden barrage of heavy, but there’s this playful little interlude at the one and a half minute mark that knocks you off your feet for a few and if you’re not paying attention to how far into the song you are, you’d assume it’s over. Wrong.

Variety is the flavour of music and despite having one clear cut dish here, that tastes oscillates, depending on how far into the meal you are. Pebble is one of the few moments you’re allowed to catch your breath with some more reserved drumming and clean guitars, but even then, you’re still left on the edge of your seats awaiting the dip into distortion. It builds in an exciting manner and eventually crashes into these epic chords and mini guitar line, but then lapses back into the reserved flavour again. Elephant also flirts with flavoursome structure with its ever changing wall of noise and subtle but sinister outro.

The more punkish songs on this album are catchy and while they feel much less measured, I don’t doubt that they’re still incredibly measured and well thought out. Chika is one such punk – it starts with a phat bass and some peculiar guitar line with full on fuzz. The drums near the outro here are also nice and unconventional which brings some interesting sounds to the stage.

I love the instrumentation on this album has its visceral – the guitar chords and harmonics all sound vicious and the bass is cheeky. What really stands out here to me right now, is the drums and how much variety is thrown out, the intro to some of these tracks (Ukunta and Sonique) make use of chill drumming in the intros. The drumming is in no way typical of this genre and that goes down a treat when coupled with the instrumentation and the vocals from Kooba Tercu.

Final thoughts:

I’m not sure when Kooba Tercu are at their best, which is good, because they dabble in the punk, the sludge, the metal and some maths, but no matter what these guys are doing on the album, I seem to be enjoying it. Hell, loving it. This is an excellent album and you should hear it in all of its splendour -aggressive and precise the punk will keep you encapsulated, but you’ll slave away under the heavy sludge. The highlights are the proggy moments that you get from the likes of Squirting Squid, so give that one a whirl and I hope you love this album as much as I did.

New Music Review – HAU – HAU

Band: HAU
EP: HAU
Genre: Noise-rock, electronic, abrasive-core
Social-media: Bandcamp/Soundcloud/Blogspot

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HAU are a noise-rock, abrasive-core, band from Greece. The sound behind these guys is one of angered percussion, destructive guitar, ugly vocals and brief dabbles in electronic elements, such as synth work and sampling (?). Put all of this together and you get a very cut-throat act that refuses to pander to any strict structure or reason. Back in May of this year, HAU put out their first EP, which was also a self-titled EP and these are my thoughts on said EP:

The animalistic nature behind HAU is very comparable to that of bands like Lightning Bolt, with their incomprehensible, heavily effected, lyrics, jagged stringed instruments and pounding percussion – everything is just GO, from the start with both these bands. When HAU are playing to their strengths, they are incredibly effective and satisfying to listen to, especially when you enjoy the moaning guitar as much as I do. However, there is still a rather diverse selection of sounds on this EP – both Pattern 5 and Pattern 7, are messy noise-rock charges on your ears, but the other two tracks are much more experimental.

Cunts & Needles (with A†D) is a slow boiling track that slithers around with some sporadic drumming and some almost alien-like vocals. Oh, and the way, these alien-like vocals don’t just occur on this track, they’re a persistent presence throughout, which is fine, they suit the style of music perfectly. But yeah, the track itself fiddles with various electronic improvisations that feel very unsettled at times, as they just flicker around with the occasional percussion – It’s a difficult track to pin down. By the end though, it’s just as loud and proud as the Pattern tracks.

These Pattern tunes are my favourite tracks on this release, without a shadow of a doubt. The guitars a bass sounds on Pattern 5 and Pattern 7 are incredible and the way that they take no prisoners with their approach to their music, is just phenomenal. If you enjoy vicious sounding… everything, you need to listen to these songs, they are ruthless and unforgiving – the way this sort of music should be.

Norma, is also a hard track to strip down to something more than, ‘experimental’ and ‘woah’. It’s probably the most eccentric track on the album, mainly because it starts out so deceptively quiet, with brief flickers of drums and synth screeches, with some very sudden and haunting stabs of synth latter in the track. But then, halfway through the track unrolls completely into a real horror of intimidating vocals, primal beats and more stabs. Norma is probably the most fidgety track on this release, it just can’t sit still for more than three minutes!

What HAU have done with this release is set a very chilling bar for themselves that will lead to, hopefully, more music that’s as angry and powerful as this.

Final Notes:

HAU’s self-titled EP is everything that you’re afraid of listening to and proud of it. It’s malicious sounding songs are immediate and have a forceful staying power and if you like any kind of hard music, then you should check these guys out.

French Noisers, Pord, Present New Album Trailer

Pord are a noise-rock band that aisle from Lozère, some lovely place in France, and these guys are renowned for their hard-hitting noisy-rock assault. However, these lot have, from what I’ve seen not put out an album for three years, so it’ll be interesting to see if that lends a hand in a change of sound.

Judging from the trailer though, I doubt it.

You can buy that album,Valparaiso, through a link on their Bandcamp, you can also stream it if you’re feeling cheap.

Pord’s upcoming album is called Wild and will be released on the 8th of September 2014 through Solar Flare records.

Hold on to your seats and headphones ya’all.

New Music Review – Champion Lover – Self Titled

Band: Champion Lover
Album: Self Titled
Genre: Noise-rock, punk
Social Media: Facebook/Bandcamp/Twitter/Official site

Champion Lover is the scuff and hardiness of a good pair of boots. These guys are an Ontario based quartet that plays loud, scrappy and noisy punk and today, we’re looking at their debut self-titled LP that was released back on June 20^th. They’re also preparing to release the vinyl itself on the 18^th of July (tomorrow), so that’s something to be excited about if these guys arouse your ears.

To get a very basic idea of the noises that these guys make, think of Fugazi, in a way. Although I think that these guys do stand by themselves as musicians, I see a lot of similarities to Fugazi. They’re both very typically aggressive, I mean, the way that lead vocalist, Edward Masuda, belts out his vocals on tracks like Vacant and Bad Day are really desperate and mean. The way that Champion Lover play is also extremely agitated, the vast majority of these songs feel incredibly intense with the way that the rhythms are put together.

The tracks build and shift always keep you on your toes. Shooter, is this really driving song, the bass and drums gel so well together and it’s not hard to imagine bolting down a highway listening to this. However, you also have, Read My Mind, which is energetic, has fantastic drumming and really puts across this sense of urgency that can make decent punk sound like good punk.

Which reminds me, the drumming in this album is really stylish. I love the jazziness during Could You Be Mine (I know it’s not jazzy, but I like the word and sound), similarly, the drums are incredibly punchy and effective during She Likes Wu-Tang. The bass in the intro to this tune is also colossal and I’d love to hear it in a live setting at some point. The drums and the bass work together to create this overwhelming sense of urgency in a lot of the songs.

From this sense of urgency, and often in the vocals, I picked up a strange taste of Nirvana as well. It was mostly in the guitar and vocals of Bad Day and Just Hollow, it’s hard to explain, but I can definitely hear it.

I would have liked to have seen the vocals be turned up, just a smidge in the mixing. Mainly because a genre like punk owes itself to playing loud and shouting louder, but it’s also nice to be able to understand what the vocals are rapping on about. That’s not to say these vocals are indistinguishable, but just a bit difficult to make out sometimes.

Champion Lover’s debut self-titled is a thickly intense album that sounds great; it offers very little in terms of a break whilst listening and comes at you, track after track. It flows well, it’s well produced and at times, it feels catchy with How Will I Know and I see You.

Don’t have a Bad day, Read My Mind and support Champion Lover, or you’ll be Lost and have a Vacant Heart.

 

 

New Music Review – Dragster – Lou L’enfer Chasseur de Dragons (Video)

Band: Dragster
Song: Lou L’enfer Chasseur de Dragons
Genre: Noise-rock, garage-rock
Social Media: YouTube( Can’t find anymore!)

Long post title, good grief! Dragster, are a French rock band that make loud noises with their mouths, their strings and their drum set. It’s got an aggressive sound to it that you may expect to find in a noise-rock outfit, but there’s also a lo-fi vibe about them; something akin to what you may hear from a garage rock band.

Dragster’s newest video, Lou L’enfer Chasseur de Dragons, which was released on May 28th. The video shows the band having a ball slaying a dragon for burgers and props and as you an see, the band’s budget is incalculable.

Not much to say about this track really, it’s a quick, to the pointless, door-kicking song that thunders on for just about 2mins and makes use of some chunky guitar tones. The insane vocals became so over-the-top at some points, it’s silly, but also catchy. ‘Ooh Ohh ahh ahh!”

Loving the sound so far, but I need more ways of keeping up-to-date with these guys! Please make a Facebook page and conform for us all.

‘Bah’, bleated the sheep.