New Music Review – HAU – HAU

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

Listen:

And:

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.

New Music Review – Vapour Night – Vapour Night

Artist: Vapour Night
Album: Vapour Night
Genre: Shoegaze,ambient, post-rock
Social-media: Facebook/Bandcamp/Soundcloud

Listen:

And:

Vapour Night is the musical, shoegaze, post-rock and ambient music project of Ali Murray, a singer-songwriter from Scotland, that also has another (rather dreamy, ambient, folk-like affair) musical project under his own name – you can check that out here. Today though, we’re going to be focusing on his self-titled, Vapour Night release from last year. Louder Than War have described this release by saying: ‘The sound skilfully treads a fine line between distortion and haunting melodies which are particularly evocative of these short days’. I don’t often quote other sources in my reviews, but in this case, I find the reference to be true to a certain extent.

Vapour Night’s self-titled does move between moments of extreme distortion and sound, to some rather gorgeous melodies, like on the second track, The Pulse: this song has some contrasting electronic drums and some very well-produced guitar. The song has this really neat and clean guitar line that get’s more and more tense as the song goes on, until there’s this massive explosion of distortion and noise at the end. I think it’s times like this where I think Vapour Night is at it’s most brave and powerful – the loud and cut-throat is what makes this release stand out. Even the track Knowing It’s The End sounds vibrant with it’s great use of chords, although the bass and vocals are rather forgettable. The tracks Wings Ablaze and Cruel Weather, also sound incredibly loud and bold with their masses of distortion thrown on.

That’s not to say the clean and slower moments are bad, but they can feel a bit more lifeless than these Goliath tracks of distortion. I’d say the main offenders are Below Zero (although I did like the synth on this track a lot, it just needed something else) and until the guest vocals come in, the track, Night Flower. I felt a little bit lost by the instrumental at the end of Night Flower as well, it was like I could have got a lot more from the track if the instrumental at the end was just trimmed down.

Thankfully, Vapour Night manages to hold interests for the rest of the album as the other clean tracks are gripping, like the gorgeous guitar and vocals of Natali. Natali very much feels like the token acoustic track, but enough is going on, especially towards the end to keep my ears interested with it’s bittersweet sound of pretty guitars and quietly sobbing strings. I also really liked the track, Until We Fall Away, which feels like an incredibly chill neo-lounge track – the guitar here is just wonderful.

This is something that deserves touching down on – the use of guitar tone on this album is great. On tracks like Knowing It’s The End, Until We Fall Away, Natali and The Pulse all have amazing sounding guitars. However, with these fantastic sounding guitars comes another gripe about the sound – the vocals can at times sound stale from time to time, the drums too. Thankfully, it doesn’t happen to often and Murray really pulls it out of the bag, vocally, on the later moments of Wings Ablaze, The Pulse and Natali. Otherwise, the drums and the bass are mostly forgotten on this release, which is a shame, since I think it could really buff out some of the songs on here.

Final Notes:

I did like this album and it is worth a listen for the incredible atmosphere that Murray is capable of conceiving in tracks like Until We Fall Away and Cruel Weather (opposite ends of the sonds spectrum too). If you’re into experimental post-rock, shoegaze music that dances a very thin line between sounds, then this album is for you. It’s brave, at times and it sounds consistently strong through the guitar.

New Music Review – Jacob de Berker – Self Titled

Artist: Jacob de Berker
EP: Self Titled
Genre: Singer-songwriter
Social Media: Twitter/Facebook/Soundcloud/Bandcamp

Jacob de Berker is a singer-songwriter that comes from my personal hometown of Bristol (go Bristol talent! Even if he does live in London now) and last month, he released his debut self titled EP. Jacob takes inspirations from the likes of singer-songwriter/sentimental types :Bon Iver, Bowerbirds, Iron & Wine, Sufjan Stevens, Elliott Smith and it shows with the way that this guy carries his material.

From the get-go, you get a sense of care and fragility with the EP, due partly to the fact that the whole project is self-funded (so buy his music and help him out!) and the recordings all feel very intimate; the artist himself said that the songs were either recorded in a friend’s front room, or the cabin of his own boat. It’s this, coupled with the love and care that has gone into crafting his art and voice of art that makes this EP a very serene and blissful listen.

Drinking Song is the name of Jacob de Berker’s first track here and it’s got a simple little guitar progression that’s very playful (suits the the more upbeat tempo) with some gentle hand percussion. It’s a good enough way to start an EP, but Lacob has plenty more to lay upon your ears.

Jacob also dabbles in different instrumentation, by bringing a banjo in on Move, to assist his lovely vocal capabilities. The times he harmonises with himself on this song are sparse, but effective and add an extra layer of warmth to the track to Move and No Captain. I’d love to see him explore this in further releases since it seems to work rather well.

His vocals also gleam through, in a different way, on Butterfly Nets. You hear a little dabble of accent leaning out and that’s great! To me it really makes the song sound that bit more real. It’s also on this song that a very specific lyric stuck out: “So if you see us stumbling round with butterfly nets, we’re just trying to catch the moments, we don’t want to forget.”

Now, don’t get me wrong, this EP is full of lovely sentiments, like the whole “Splitting lips is just another way to give blood.” line on Drinking Song, great, but the Butterfly Nets one got me.

The song No Captain feels like it puts a slight change of pace in the EP with some more hearty lyrics, but I feel like it’s overshadowed by the next song, which, I feel, is the best on this EP.

Daffodils is a wonderful sentiment that Jacob de Berker has sent into the world that perfectly characterises his music. It’s careful, well written and moving, especially if you have the lyrics in front of you. Everything about this song is peace, I adore the ambient sounds near the end of the track, they sound so safe and cosy. What I think makes this song, and a few others, so effective, are the lyrics. They’re personal enough to mean something to Jacob, but also open ended enough for people to draw their own stories.

Very striking and clever.

Jacob de Berker’s self titled is an EP you won’t soon forget, just invite it in and let it sink into your skin.

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 – Raum Kingdom – Raum Kingdom (EP)

Band: Raum Kingdom
EP: Self-Titled
Genre: Metal, sludge, messy
Social Media: Facebook/Bandcamp

Raum Kingdom is a heavy prog-metal band, of sorts, from Ireland and has recently dropped their newest, self-released and self-titled EP. On a side note here, I may stop giving bands genres, I find it really difficult unless it’s painfully obvious and a lot of the time (to me), and it just feels pointless. Raum Kingdom released this album on the 15^th Of April, for free and it just seemed a shame that I was aware of them (thank you Post Engineering) and not reviewing something they had the decency to release for free.

For a free album, you can tell that a lot of work has gone into this album. The production is solid; it’s grand and pleases my heavy bone (try saying that out loud and NOT laughing). I spent a lot of the time listening to this album thinking, ‘There’s gotta be some Old Man Gloom or Isis, inspirations going on here.’ Much to my dismay, I couldn’t find any information about inspirations online, although, in my opinion, it can sound very similar.

Unlike Isis, Raum Kingdom only has one guitarist and mange to create an expansive sound without the need for more guitars. I mean the track, Wounds, has this exceptional guitar hook that sounds big and memorable without requiring multiple guitars to double up the chords. It’s also impressive to see that the band can set up such a brooding atmosphere in such a short space of time. The band plods through the tracks at a snail’s pace, rarely accelerating to fast and heavy, but it works for the crushing experience this EP shoots for.

The vocals that lead singer, Dave Lee, are a moody and exceptional mix of cleans and some filthy screams and shouts; again, at times, strikingly similar to Aaron Turner of Isis. I think the best way to get to grips with the sort of vocals you can expect from these guys, is to listen to the track These Open Arms. It shows Lee’s differing vocal techniques and has a frickin’ heavy as fuck riff at the end.

There are moments during this EP where it would be nice to hear another guitar or something else plodding away in the darkness. Just to vary up the soundscape a bit. I think this is most obvious on the closer, This Sullen Hope, which is just short of 10 minutes long. This is in no way a bad thing and it doesn’t become dull, but some texturing could not go away at the mid ‘build-up’ point of the tune. That being said, Lee drops some ferocious vocals after this moment, so everything feels fine. Then there’s some sweet jamming between the band to see us on our merry way; all sludgy eyed. Fuckin’ nice.

As a whole Raum Kingdom’s debut EP is a killer that houses a plethora of sludge and darkly moments that will have you head banging and shouting for ‘one more’ at the end of every listen.