Remember ‘slowcore’? You know, Codeine, Red House Painters, Bedhead, Low, all o’ that stuff? Langurous, stretched-out melancholia with an undercurrent of anger and noise? The Narrows are still ploughing that nicely miserable furrow, and this release (a compilation of two previously-released albums) proves that they’re on the button with the dangerous combination of fuzz-drenched guitar and long, slow songs.

It is, naturally, maudlin as fuck, but you have to love that. I’ve always thought that the saddest of sad songs have a weirdly uplifting effect, and when that’s combined with outbursts of guitar noise and minor-key melodies stretched taut over many minutes (as on this release) the result is a winner. Let’s sum it up with an incredible cliche: “perfect music for evenings spent alone”. Yeah, this is hardly party-party music. But parties are overrated anyway.

By the way, the vinyl version is packaged in a gatefold sleeve featuring a pop-up crocodile. In case you get too depressed.

poolorpond.net/thenarrows.html
www.wantageusa.com
www.tapesrecords.com

Sometimes I feel very lucky and getting a free copy of this album was one of those times. Ever since I finally dared to listen to their demo, having been convinced they were utter mentalists from the letter they sent with it, I’ve been hugging their songs to my heart (not literally). Hookers Green sound like they practice in a barn in the middle of a field, full of chickens and fog. It’s no surprise that they come from Aberdeen; music like this can only be made by people with an understanding of boredom and cold winds and the comedy of Doric. So, yes, there’s a lot of oddness and whimsy in this album. The song titles would give it away if nothing else although these do complement the charming oddities and whimsies of the songs themselves. With sad, mumbled vocals and tumbling melodies the songs are filled with dreams and thoughts and memories. There’s also piano, multi percussion and, best of all, a brass section lending an air of ambition and confidence to these sometimes ramshackle creations, building epics out of passing thoughts. There’s so much going on in every song – time changes, pauses for thought and hidden bubbling rhythms. At the moment I’m in love with The Strobe Adventurer, almost five minutes of skip happy joy where my ears can barely keep up with each new twist of direction, and the title track’s love song sounding both fearful and quietly, secretly happy. Someone please give them millions of pounds so they can develop into total loons and make quadruple vinyl concept albums while buying remote islands to live on.

www.hookersgreen.com
www.snowstormrecords.com

I love Wäntage USA, they seem to have a constant stream of hard rockin’ albums to share with us and never let up on the quality or determination which flies out of the speakers. Le Force are described as a ‘chrome plated predatory falcon’ on the label’s website, and that’s a pretty good description – they’re sleek, dangerous, erratic, and have small brains. No offence.

To my metal-illiterate ears this album reminds me immediately of the Fucking Champs; a (generally) vocals-free selection of super-tight riffs and mock-prog NWOBHM ‘explorations’. So in here we’ve got the devil-horn-sign metal rock (‘We may belong to you… but our souls belong to Satan’) through like, uh, deep music, dude (‘Sometimes everybody needs a tissue (trilogy)’) and right back to foot-on-monitor, hair-in-face, angular (both in shape and sound) guitars firing out missiles of rock’n’roll (‘The last nail in my coffin’). And nobody can argue with simple rock’n’roll in the crazed (Bush-led) world of today.

www.le-force.com
www.wantageusa.com

Last Thursday night I broke my tooth on a single Pickled Onion Space Raider that I stole from a bands dressing room. It served me right. I then got involved in a conversation of positively cosmic proportions about the religious act of smoking weed. When I got back to my hosts house he put the first track of this album on. It is called “I Love You Too”.

On Saturday my friend made a hearty leek and potato soup. It was THICK. But it was tasty and nourishing. It was more than soup.

“I Love You Too” is like being totally monged, lying on your back and having gallons of this thick brew gently poured into your mouth and it slopping over your nostrils and eyes. In slow motion. But it has a riff that is so colossal that for me to climb to this level of WEIGHT I would have to strap a microwave to my ball bag for a week just to get my nuts to hang this low.

And then they kill you with “Babbling Flower” which steps it all up a gear in pace like the first track was your invite and now you are totally along for the ride.

Best bit about the Meadow is they are exactly as geeky as me. They dress in a manner that makes me look like Ian Astbury from the fucking Cult. But their riffs are just so grossly, sloppily sick. “Me and the Devil Blues” is so heavy its perverted and the guitar echoes like its being played standing on top of a mountain which I like to think it was.

They do that Zep thing too where they build the intensity up and then hit you with a quiet folky jam to just cool you down. Don’t be tempted to program these tunes out on the CD player as you will actually die if you listen to all the rockers on this record in one go.

And all their albums are this good.

This is the worst song ever recorded. Even worse than “Another Day In Paradise” by Phil Collins. In my temp job I listen to Classic Gold all day and they play this fucking shitrag every single day. Sometimes twice.

When the gravel-throated Canadian sings “I got my first real six string” I have taken to running at high speed into the toilets to conceal my utter embarassment on his behalf. Yesterday I returned a little early and heard the bit about the boys from the band trying “real hard” and I involuntarily began trying to remove my head with a plastic sandwich knife.

I hate this song more than war and if I ever met Bryan Adams I would kick his fucking arse for writing it.

Economy Of Motion is a two-man outfit, made up of Chris Summerlin (he of diskant.net/Wolves! (Of Greece)/Reynolds/Damo Suzuki’s backing band/etc/etc) and Gareth Hardwick, and their electric guitars. Nothing more than that; no drums, no bass, no keyboards – it’s just electric guitars and the sounds made by them, looped, reverbed and effected-up.

It’s wonderful stuff – very relaxed, and relaxing, sound, with layers stretching and building over the course of five tracks and 35 minutes. The guitars are barely recognisable as guitars, except for a few picked notes here and there. The sounds created are so heavily treated that they’ve become pure tones, allowing the tracks to exist like floating masses, with moments of tension and feeling drifting gradually and slowly in and out. At times the sounds reminded me of Sonic Youth when they’re deep in a ‘noise break’ circa Evol, but really this CD reminds me much more of so-called ‘ambient’ or ‘minimal’ musicians such as Phill Niblock, Eno or Phillip Jeck.

www.honeyisfunny.com/eom

Most bands would kill for a riff like this. Maybe Eska did, or maybe they’ve sold their souls but if so, damn, it was worth it. I first heard this song a couple of years ago and was staggered by it and, with only one more hearing a few days later, it was firmly stuck in my memory. When I got this record I placed it on my turntable and hoped beyond hope that it would be this song. When it was it seemed too good to be true. Any other band with this riff would just revel in it for about 20 minutes but not Eska, oh no. Start with one guitar and some clattering drums and then bring on the duelling. Then they’re up to their tricks, dropping the riff for twisting turns of ponderous vocals and dreamy picking which you know they’re partly doing so they can drag..it…out….and…..then…..BLAM! Then why not ditch the riff completely for a bit of utterly joyful guitarwork coupled by echoing drums with Colin hollering just that perfect distance from the mic before the guitars cut back in and out quicker than you can keep up. It’s dizzying and utterly marvellous. Still the most underrated band in Scotland but this is my favourite record of the year and I haven’t even managed to turn it over yet*.

Part of the Gringo Singles Club
www.gringorecords.com

*Apologies to New Radiant Storm King who have the unenviable task of sharing this piece of vinyl.

I’ve been wanting to hear Circle for a long, long time, and hearing Empire now leaves me wanting to track down everything else they’ve ever released as soon as possible – it’s nothing short of amazing. Two long (22/23 minute) tracks, recorded live in Finland early this year, introduce Circle as one of those rare bands who seem to combine effortlessly many aspects of the music I love.

A (presumably) semi-improvisational style, played on traditional ‘rock’ instruments, mixes the laid-back rhythms and strange vocal stylings of early-70s Can with a heavy abstract psychedelic feel. Relentlessly repetitive melodies swell and build from delicate beginnings into intense, cloying chunks of sound. Circle seem to slot into a group of bands I’m slowly becoming more familiar with, as I discover whole new worlds of sound experimentation – Double Leopards, Sunburned Hand of the Man, Dead C, etc. It’s exhilarating and exciting to find vast, previously uncharted areas of wonderful music! Then again, it’s hard on the wallet too…

www.circlefinland.com
www.riotseason.com

Hurrah! I bought some 7″s last week, and have just got around to giving ’em a listen. And three cheers for vinyl with good things etched thereon, they’re both grand. That I’m a fan of London-based Italians Querelle should come as no surprise to anyone who’s read this, but I’d only previously heard them live. ‘Invisible’, their contribution to this split with The Dudley Corporation is a crystalline and affecting, if brief, tug on the ol’ heartstrings. The guitar and bass lines snake around each other like prime Unwound, while there’s more than a shade of Blonde Redhead about the song’s emotional resonance. Warm and comforting like your favourite person on a cold day. On the flip, the Corpo throw out ‘Safety Shot’, which starts off a bit more lightweight. Coming over like an extremely well stitched-together patchwork of flighty pop and rousing emo, it doesn’t really get going until the guitars decide to show us what they can do in the final third, and then it’s all over too quickly, just as we were gettin’ into it.

There’s nothing like the familiar feel you get from holding a lush, properly produced heavyweight single in your hands, and the latest offering from Vacuous Pop is that esteemed label’s best offering since the first Cat On Form 7″. Help She Can’t Swim are a delirious collision of The Fall and Huggy Bear, all spiky urgency and yelping invective, but without forgetting that – hey! – we wanna dance too. Raucous, exhausting and brilliant, ‘Knit 1, Pearl 1’ smacks you in the gut and runs off with your sweets, and then gives way to a more considered second track in ‘My Favourite Lay’, which bizarrely sounds a bit like Bratmobile playing an early Placebo song. ‘Are You Feeling Fashionable?’ sports a terrace chant about erstwhile indie rag Melody Maker, and actually sounds a bit like Leeds riot grrl types Coping Saw – a good thing in my book. Sure, you can hear where Help She Can’t Swim have come from, but where they’re headed is far more exhilarating.

The further info bit:

Bands:
The Dudley Corporation
Querelle
Help She Can’t Swim

Labels:
Vacuous Pop
Big Scary Monsters

“Swing your partner by the head

Don’t let him go ’til he’s good ‘n’ dead”

Muleskinner Jones (aka James Closs) must be back, then… Death Row Hoedown is the first we’ve heard from him since his ‘Terrible Stories’ EP in 2002, and it’s his best yet. Taking a Nick Cavesque relish in horrible stories of death and murder, the Muleskinner’s music, Apple Powerbook and the occasional reference to Nintendo and Kwiksave notwithstanding, still sounds firmly rooted in 1890s smalltown America: ‘So Long, Mary Jones’ would have made a fitting soundtrack to James Marsh’s beautifully shot deathumentary Wisconsin Death Trip.

His folk-death-polka is tremendously macabre fun – all death’s head grins, pretty yet ill-fated girls, and the best bit of ostentatious harm wished upon landlords since the Jesus Lizard packed their thumbscrews away. The title track is the most straightforward, a galloping hoedown of undertakers swinging each other round an electric chair, while ‘Concrete Swamp’s booming vaudeville is what might happen if ever Tom Waits and The Cramps cross paths. In the Jack Daniel’s distillery, naturally. A healthily tongue-in-cheek obsession with murder the way it ought to be committed (y’know, hands-on, under a moonlight sky. With a gin bottle.) and some fascinating musical concoctions – strike me down if this ain’t the best little whorehouse in Texas.

More: Muleskinner Jones