The best new albums this week

Albums galore, as selected by our writers

Deathcrash – Return (Untitled Recs)

Now only just bubbling up to real prominence, Deathcrash have always felt to be a welcome break from the frenetic styles of most London band scene bands. 

For starters, the dark brand of indie rock they religiously work in – slowcore – rarely gets explored by UK acts. Something about the wrought twinge of its guitar, and tendency for slow, mithering vocals, feels very American. Perhaps that’s because its sonic tropes call to mind the great gas-stationed plains of the Deep South, or the high-schooly emo drear of the US Midwest, rather than the drab excitement of a place like London. Huge names like Sun Kil Moon, Slint, Duster and Low are stalwarts of the genre; by many accounts, the best nod any of those bands have given to the UK is a lesser known and rather voyeuristic Red House Painters song called ‘Brockwell Park’. 

By contrast, when it comes to the band circuit, London tends to produce a kind of restless avant-prog and ‘talky rock’, mirroring the urgency of being a young person in the city many describe as the capital of the world. But not Deathcrash. ‘Return’, their debut LP for Untitled Recs, is proof that such a sound can resonate across the pond. Yanks don’t have a patent on sadness. Aside from that, it’s also the band’s defining statement so far, building on the hype cemented by their prior EPs and singles (‘People thought my windows were stars’ and ‘Sundown’ being their best-known), as well as some of the band members’ solo projects such as Lore. 

They’re not just into post-rock, with two of the band citing Wolfgang Voigt’s GAS project and Fuck Buttons offshoot Blanck Mass as influences. And of course, in January, they recently burst back onto the scene with a raucous sold out live show at the Windmill, London’s most loved pub slash gig venue. We trust in Deathcrash, not just for their fearlessness in making slow and ‘depressing’ music in a city scene that often demands bitesized immediacy, but also for their lack of pretension, as well as their impressive palette of inspirations.

Unlike ‘People thought…’, great, intense and crashing breakdowns are scarce on ‘Return’. Rather, the band focus on making the most out of very little. One seemingly recurrent trope is to have the instrumental invite shoutier vocals, but in reality, Deathcrash rarely indulge. Lead vocalist Tiernan Banks always reduces his croon to a whisper. Even from the beginning, a sense of ending and finality settles in: the opener – called ‘Sundown’, for god’s sake – is a real slow burn, with every element (hi-hats, snares, panned guitars) seemingly stretched out to softer and more obtuse proportions. Combined with this backing, its lyrics, “we get drunk and exaggerate / we talk so much about everything”, arouse images of a pair of friends or lovers looking out over dusk, reminiscing over past, dead times.

Lyrically, the album that unfurls clearly deals with the lower points in the band members’ lives, feeling as much like an exercise in processing trauma as it does a musical project. There’s talk of suicide (‘American Metal’), waiting for nothing (‘The Low Anthem’) and performance anxiety (‘What To Do’). Background noise, and the sound of fluttery TV static, peppers many intros, such as the two minute instrumental ‘Matt’s Song’. A tonal shift, meanwhile, occurs after ‘Wrestle With Jimmy’, a good example of the band’s use of drowned-out spoken word. Barely, we make out the mantra “god is love”, as crushing twangs and snares encroach our ears. It’s as if Banks and co. are trying to maintain some semblance of faith in a storm. 

It would be a sin not to mention the two slowest and most drawn-out songs, ‘Was Living’ and ‘Doomcrash’. The first, an instrumental, comes in at a seemingly penultimate point, rounding off the album in an emotive pre-coda. Towards the four minute mark, all we hear is guitar, conjuring thoughts of some long-haired teen glimpsed in an attic window across the street, mesmerised by his own amp. 

The self-referential ‘Doomcrash’, by contrast, blends pads, echoed out city chatter, and be-all-and-end-all guitar progressions to achieve finality. It ends on pure metal machine noise, lasting for a good two minutes. The song truly is a ‘return’, but not the kind of return we imagine; it’s more of a circling back to chaos, and is an unusual note to end on for an album so otherwise heartfelt and chord-progressy. 

On that note: while lyrics are a strength for Deathcrash, their true strongsuit is the instrumental, and the simple, near-death emotion they can glean from their instruments. Of course, this is a process that is nigh exaggerated by the length of their songs. As such, we’re sure they’ll have a lengthy career.

JIJ

Carmen Villain – Only Love From Now On (Smalltown Supersound)

It’s always exciting witnessing an artist going on a pronounced creative arc into unknown territory. Followers of Carmen Villain’s early records Sleeper and Infinite Avenue would be quite surprised if they skipped forwards in time to this, her fourth LP. When she started out, the artist otherwise known as Carmen Hillestad dealt in a song-oriented strain of indie rock. It was reliably excellent, steeped in grungy textures and artful noise – a sincere expression for the Norwegian-Mexican artist which she could have continued exploring in all kinds of logical trajectories. However, in a move which demonstrated her creative conviction over any careerist aims, 2019’s Both Lines Will Be Blue pivoted in sound towards an instrumental, atmospheric kind of ambient-not-ambient marked out with Fourth World warmth. It was a considered departure which she took further on subsequent releases Sketch For Winter IX: Perlita and Affection In A Time Of Crisis.

Now, as we step into the space she’s created on Only Love From Now On, we feel worlds away from the early Carmen Villain sound. Most people adopt aliases for such diversions, but Hillestad comes across committed and honest in her approach here as she designs each vivid space. There’s a hushed subtlety to ‘Gestures’, but it’s also populated with Arve Henriksen’s trumpet which at times explicitly nods to Jon Hassel, surely a touchstone of influence for the gloaming mysticism coursing through the record. It’s the earthiness Hillestad conjures up which makes the experience so satisfying, from wood-hewn percussive patter to sustained tones which flicker like candlelight.

It’s not all rootsy organic textures though. ‘Liminal Space’ aims for quite the opposite, using finest slithers of processed sounds with acres of air around them in a style not dissimilar to Beatrice Dillon, while ‘Subtle Bodies’ hums with a tidal murmur tied in essence to dub techno. There’s patience at every turn and a pervading sense of calm as Hillestad shows us round her multifarious approach to sound. Without reverting to new age platitudes, she’s created a soothing record with subtleties tucked away behind the surface level serenity.

OW

Holodrum – Holodrum (Gringo)

Following the stratospheric rise of Yard Act, Leeds is one hot potato right now. So who’s next? Look no further than seven-piece groove machine Holodrum. The various members have been part of the city’s scene for a while – in and out of various bands, playing on each other’s records, promoting live shows and making music videos, but this is the first time they’ve all worked together.

The core, and you might need a pen and paper for this bit, is Sam Shjipstone, who the sharper knives will know not only from the brilliant Hookworms, but as a full-time member of Yard Act. He’s joined by former Hookworms – drummer Jonathon Nash, producer/bass/synther Matthew Benn and guitarist Jonathan Wilkinson. Wilkinson brings with him his Xam Duo bandmate, saxophoning synthesist Christopher Duffin, who is also in Virgina Wing. Cowtown’s Emily Garner (also an animator, she’s on video duties for the band) provides vocals, while this stella line-up is completed by percussionist Steve Nutall, who plays with Nash in motorik trio Nope.

Got all that? Good, good. Notebooks away, here comes the music. The idea was form a live band, but Covid scuppered those plans. They are, thankfully remobilising as I type, and listening to ‘Holodrum’ you can see that this is going to be a gooooooood night out. Theirs is a brand of beefy disco-y synthpop that could rip up floorboards at 20 paces. Think no wave, think Tom Tom Club, think The Go! Team. And this six-track debut isn’t messing about. It opens with the classy ‘Lemon Chic’, all gentle synth swirls, funky bass, 80s sax pop licks and explosive earworm chorus, while closer, the rollicking eight-minute New Order-y ‘Clean’ hits you like a juggernaught. It’ll will have your head off if you’re not careful. The hooky swells and sweet vocals of ‘Free Advice’ and the twang and rattle of ‘Low Light’ are a total joy and when the drums kick in on ‘Stage Echo’, well, make sure you’re not holding a cup of tea.

‘Holodrum’ is one of those records that could easily be a best-kept secret. Let’s not see that happen eh? You know what to do.

NM   

The Threshold HouseBoys Choir – Form Grows Rampant (Musique Pour La Danse)

After they did a fine job presenting The Gay Man’s Guide To Safer Sex back in 2019, Musique Pour La Danse take their tour boat back into the unnerving pools of Coil once more. The Threshold HouseBoys Choir comes in at the tail end of the Coil saga, a solo work by Peter ‘Sleazy’ Christopherson recorded during his time in Bangkok and originally released in 2007, three years after Coil co-conspirator John Balance had died and just three years before Christopherson passed away. Form Grows Rampant was created as a soundtrack to a film Christopherson shot at the GinJae Vegetarian Festival in Southern Thailand, which included graphic depictions of extreme acts of self-mutilation carried out by religious devotees. The music is haunted by the sound of synthesised voices – the supposed choir the project refers to. So far, so very Coil.

Indeed, there’s an oddly comfortable familiarity to the unsettling sonics which largely define this record, not least in the writhing vocal tones which contort through the arrangements of pulsing electronics. As always, Christopherson’s style evades easy depiction – these rhythmic and textural forms don’t adhere to external logic, and the only indication of process is a digital veneer which implies a stoutly in-the-box approach, of which the specific possibilities are boundless. Somehow, Form Grows Rampant sounds both clinical, almost sterile, and yet lithe and bristling all at once, each track rotating in its own sphere, pushing at the edges and exploring the angles, occasionally disturbed by a new arrival but largely residing in its fundamental space.

There’s beauty to match the creepiness, of course. Melodically, Christopherson teases light and shade with a subtle touch. Even the curious results of his vocal sculpture edge towards moments of harmonious beauty, such as on slow-release centrepiece ‘So Young It Knows No Maturing’. There’s almost an ambient pop sweetness to ‘So Free It Knows No End’. In the end, as the album builds to the charming electronica of ‘As Doors Open Into Space’ with a Plaid-like shimmer, you’re left wondering if it was ever the unsettling to begin with. Track back around to the start though, and you’ll be reminded. And so, once more the legacy of Coil leaves you with a spectrum of beguiling feelings like no one else could muster. 

OW

Feral Season – Rotting Body in the Range of Light (Profound Lore) 

Profound Lore are easily one of the most vital labels in the current resurgence of extreme metal. It seems like every other week a ferocious new project is dropping, and with worldwide vinyl delays, plenty of albums that saw release in 2021 are only making their way to immortalised wax now.

One such example is Feral Season, the California based duo who unveiled their arresting debut last October. ‘Rotting Body in the Range of Light’ is as morbid, morose and sickly serene as its title would suggest.

Written with the intention of connecting the sonics initially founded in the Scandinavian, and primarily Norwegian black metal scene, with the landscapes of Northern California, the pieces war between frosty detachment and hueful splendor.

Be it the grandiose, abrasive nature of ‘Methuselah’, or the hallucinogenic passages that the title track takes, these six cuts expand and explore with potency, originality and major reverence for the genre.

The astonishing delicacy and immersion of the penultimate ‘Thickets’ before descending into the abyss of ‘The Sigil of Snags’, paints a twisted, promising picture of the current state of American black metal, and quite frankly, the genre couldn’t appear to be in safer hands.

ZB

Pixies – Live In Brixton (Demon)

“You are the son of a motherfucker“ spits Black Francis on ‘Nimrod’s Son’ from Pixies 1987 debut mini-album ‘Come On Pilgrim’ and this gye-gee-an-tick boxset of their four comeback shows at Brixton Academy in 2004, which followed an 11-year feet-up, is indeed a total motherfucker. We’re talking eight discs on either CD and vinyl. The vinyl is 180g, each show taking up two discs and each is colour-coded (2 June – red, 3 June – orange, 5 June – green, 6 June – blue). You’ll need two people to carry this bastard home, let alone deep pockets to buy it in the first place.

And yet… gawd, I could listen to this all day. What a body of work and hearing it laid out like this, live, across four shows, in deluxe fashion too, feels like a treat. The setlist varied from night to night and I’m currently playing with which is the definitive version of each song, and indeed, which is the definitive set. Is the 2 June version of ‘Vamos’ better than the 6 June take which closed the show? Were they fresher on the first date, or firing on all cylinders by the fourth? Four live versions of ‘Debaser’? Or ‘Here Comes Your Man’? Too many? Not a bit. And if you’re tired of ‘Wave Of Mutilation’ (the full-tilt or the slowed down ‘UK Surf’ version… swoon), you are tired of life. ‘Live In Brixton’ is the gift that keeps on giving. And at £135, getting it as gift would be nice, right?

NM

Cult Of Luna – The Long Road North (Century Media) 

The 9th full-length from Swedish post-metal auteurs, Cult of Luna, has already been heralded as their most powerful work to date, and it really isn’t difficult to see why.

For a seasoned band with such a rich tenure and held in high regard by fans and peers alike, there’s always been that sense of only being in competition with themselves, and ‘The Long Road North’ takes every stride to decimate each and every one of its predecessors.

This late into their discography, one would be forgiven for anticipating even a slight sign of stagnation, but from the opening, alarming drones of ‘Cold Burn’, any and all reservations are stamped out with calculated ferocity.

The group’s penchant for mammoth, sludging riffs, complex textures and sheer scale have never felt so deftly in your face, demanding reaction.

The exhausting commitment of epic cuts such as the gargantuan ‘An Offering to the Wild’ or the equally hypnotic title track, make bold statements about the sheer scope and beauty that post-metal can take. Some of the album’s most blissful moments, however, come in the ethereal interludes ‘Beyond (I)’ and ‘Beyond (II)’, the latter of which is a collaboration with film score composer Colin Stetson, whose recent work includes the music for 2017’s haunting Ari Aster debut, ‘Hereditary.’ It’s a perfect meeting of the minds as the Cult of Luna sound has always bolstered a cinematic quality, yet rarely explored to such an evident degree.

Leave no doubt, ‘The Long Road North’ is a tremendous, epic spectacle of modern metal, and a guaranteed occupier of several end of year lists.

ZB

Pneumatic Tubes – A Letter From TreeTops (Ghost Box)

The winsome nostalgia inherent in the Ghost Box creative stamp manifests in many different ways, but rarely does it sound as endearing and inviting as it does on this album from Pneumatic Tubes. The project is an alias for Jesse Chandler, sometime keyboard and woodwind chap for Midlake and Mercury Rev, and on this particular album he drew on the idyllic memories of youthful summer camps in the Catskills Mountains. As is the way with Ghost Box, a lot of these fuzzy feelings come out through fuzzy synth tones, but Chandler of course brings his flute and clarinet to bear over the electronic tones.

A Letter from TreeTops is a sweet-natured thing, all rounded and soft-focus, but not without movement. Even if the percussion rarely peeks out from behind a thicket of melody, there’s plenty of joyful energy to buffet along the likes of ‘Mumbly-Peg’, while ‘TreeTops’ soars thanks to the sparkling piano-playing. With a consistent mood which gently drifts from one track to the next, it’s as easy to let the album wash over you as it is to marvel at particular moments. It’s an incredibly successful distillation of its explicit bucolic intentions, as though you can see the rippling patterns made by the sunlight darting through the trees while lying on the soft bed of pine needles.

OW

Spirituals – Sounds Of Healing (Kofla Tapes)

Compilations work best when the works they draw on form a cohesive narrative. Spirituals’ new ‘Sounds Of Healing’ is one such example. The Text Records go-to, aka. Tyler Tadlock, here makes the executive decision to combine two of his recent albums – ‘For Those Who Love Who Are Tormented Or In Pain Pt. 2’ and ‘Sounds Of Healing In Isolation’ – into one project. In the process, he has produced the kind of rounded off, post-COVID healing album we all need and want on our tape decks.

Both albums were recorded during times of great loss and worry for Tadlock. The former was made after he watched a love one undergo treatment for an advanced cancer diagnosis. The latter, you guessed it, was made during lockdown. Uninterrupted, tracks from the latter make up the comp’s first part. Particularly, ‘A New Kind Of Quiet’, we recall, has a sort of ambient dancehall sound, nailing that minimal new aginess formerly perfected by the likes of Steven Halpern or Steve Hauschildt. Skipping out ‘Our Lips To Gods Ears’ (some tracks just never make the cut), Tadlock jumps straight into the former album’s ‘Politics As Usual’, before seeing it through to its end on the low flowering drones of ‘Hospital Harpist’ and the dreamt-electric-sheep strings of ‘Burden Of Truth’. 

A new bonus track, ‘It’s Just As Beautiful Behind Us Too’, closes the album; with its faux-real plucks, and lonely, dropletting piano refractions, we get the sense that Tadlock is looking back on a life bittersweetly lost – be it his or anyone else’ – and is trying to think of the positives, despite what was lost.

JIJ

Waking the Cadaver – Authority Through Intimidation (Unique Leader) 

The deathcore wave of the mid-noughties saw numerous acts combine all of the ugliest elements of death metal, hardcore punk, sludge and grindcore into one cacophonous maelstrom of filthy proportions.

The vast majority of active bands in the scene has dissipated over the past decade, with newcomers providing their own progressive spin on the subgenre. That being said, there’s a small number of veteran acts still devoted to their hideous craft.

One such example is New Jersey hate mongers Waking The Cadaver. Their 2008 debut, the beautifully titled ‘Perverse Recollections Of A Necromangler’, still serves as a cornerstone for the intense, gory and openly immature heights the scene and contributing bands would aspire to reach.

All of these years later, with practically none of their peers left to accompany them, ‘Authority Through Intimidation’ lands with a violent thud over the head. Showing zero signs of stagnation since the release of 2013’s ‘Real-Life Death’, this fourth full-length provides healthy argument for why slamming, brutal deathcore is still alive and well in its own decrepit manner.

Be it the inhuman pig squeal vocals of Don Campan providing utter nostalgia for those originally engaged with the scene, or the vicious breakdowns of cuts like opener ‘Civic Assault’ or the feel good hit of the summer, ‘Frenzied Vehicular Rampage’, there’s an undeniable sense of tongue firmly in cheek aggressive ignorance to the 27 minute runtime. If you’ve missed your death metal and/or hardcore with just the right amount of humour and lack of overt seriousness, Waking The Cadaver have returned to deliver a filthy sledgehammer sonic blow to the cranium.

ZB

This week’s reviewers: Jude Iago James, Zach Buggy, Neil Mason.