The best new albums this week
Our writers choose their top notch albums
ALBUM OF THE WEEK
Laurent Garnier – 33 Tours Et Puis S’en Vont (COD 3 QR)
Laurent Garnier’s first solo album in eight years also marks an end to his regular touring, a decision born from a story that mirrors the journey many in the dance industry went through during the pandemic. Instant culture shock, weekends living in the upside down abruptly ended, meaning no more jobs starting at 10PM or shifts finishing who knows when, dark rooms as sources of light or scenes of serene chaos. Left anywhere but in the mood for techno, questioning himself, his role, and ability to add anything fresh to the conversation, although that particular strain of dystopia has ended, another has replaced it. Everything is back but nothing will be the same.
Those who have ever seen Garnier in action will surely attest to just how special the experience is. Considered a techno DJ, his is a less pure strain of the machine sound. Refined, sophisticated, at times epic, and wholly commanding, touching on sounds close to progressive and deep house, electro and tech, through it all he manages to create a sense of the utterly unique. The kind of DJ you can watch for five hours and emerge feeling refreshed, perplexed at just how immersed you were, and how quick that time went by.
By comparison, while he has delivered plenty of club bangers over the years — to use a less than favourable turn of phrase — when presenting work in an album things have often taken on a broader sonic scope, taking in wider influences beyond the late night blue hues of global dancefloors. It’s fitting, then, that this landmark career decision is accompanied by a record which, for all intents and purposes, is a dark room masterclass that recalls why he has been at the top of lineups for longer than half the crowd at any event he plays have been going to raves.
Warm, immersive and commanding, 33 Tours Et Puis S’en Vont is perhaps the most dancefloor focused LP he has ever graced us with. In a world and club scene that’s always been fickle and fast moving, Garnier has been a go-to name throughout innumerable trends, periods, eras and moments, and stayed resolutely true to himself throughout. Of course, that genius is best understood in the thick of sweat and mayhem, and in many ways it’s impossible to truly capture on record. Nevertheless, that’s not stopped him from trying with these tunes coming close to achieving the unthinkable.
From emotionally charged peak time bomb ‘Liebe grüße aus Cucuron’, to the growling ‘Saturn Drive Triplex’, neo-drum & bass of ‘Sado Miso’, and mood builder ‘…et puis s’en va!, even though he may not always be around going forward, this lot offer a chance to keep the spirit alive in the best possible way. Skirting much detail about the tracks themselves may seem lazy, but ultimately that’s the point of dance music in its truest forms, and one of the reasons the album format has always struggled. Here are beats to be disoriented and hypnotised by, and, ultimately, find yourself in, after spending a little time lost in the collective joy of it all.
MH
Forming a compilation around a DJ’s collection is an intriguing notion. It implies a transition from DJs being in service to the vibe to becoming the centre of attention – to be considered equal to the artists making the music through the strength of their taste alone. When a compilation has a particular purpose, to highlight a label or a scene, it feels more natural, and if the compilation is mixed the DJ’s craft comes into play. When it’s purely about the great tunes they have stashed on their shelves, especially from bygone eras, there have to be some serious credentials backing the compilation up.
Fortunately the first release from Dance Music From Planet Earth has chosen wisely in this regard, reaching out to a true lifer who threw himself into the thick of epochal scenes in the 80s and 90s and followed his passion henceforth. If you surrender yourself to a vinyl habit and forge connections with artists and labels like Richard Sen has during his meandering career, 40 years later you’re bound to have a fair wedge of gold to draw on. Sen also more than proved his worth as a compiler putting together the collection of early UK acid for Strut, This Ain’t Chicago.
Dream The Dream once again focuses on UK gear, edging a little further into the 90s and favouring a deeper, trippier palette where techno was being felt more explicitly as an influence. Actually, the track the compilation draws its name from by Dream Frequency manages to be a bit of everything, draped in Detroit pads and surfing on bubbling waves of acid while strutting to a house beat.
What’s worth noting about tracks like ‘Live The Dream’ is they’re not prohibitively expensive ‘holy grails’, because what’s interesting about stupidly expensive shark bait these days? The real excitement lies in those forgotten £1 discount bin jams that sound like a million dollars. This compilation is packed to bursting with them, once again proving Sen to be a real head focused on the vibe rather than any sort of elitist digger grandstanding. No doubt he would have the records for that sort of angle, too.
OW
Buggin – Concrete Cowboys (Flatspot)
Chicago’s Buggin (formerly known as Buggin Out) have quickly risen to become one of the most buzzed about bands in the modern hardcore sphere. Since forming in 2018, they’ve turned out a demo, EP and the stellar Brainfreeze single with an utterly savage b-side rendition of Beastie Boys’ Check Your Head cut ‘Gratitude’, offering a transparent display of their marrying of beatdown brutality (a subset of hardcore rife across the state of Illinois) with a much bouncier Youth Crew indebted playfulness.
Currently signed to Flatspot, one of the most intrinsic labels in the scene today along with Revelation and Triple B, their debut LP Concrete Cowboys serves as a vital testament to the modern staying power and resonance of the hardcore genre, utilising tried and tested old school motifs to craft a bombastic 19-minute collection that’s as vicious as it is entertaining.
From the atypical instrumental breakdown intro ‘Bug Slam’ onwards, the project refuses to let up with its frenetic use of rapid-fire drumming and fuzzed out riffage, while lyrically and presence-wise, vocalist Bryanna Bennett is as pissed off as they come. Whether it’s taking ungrateful armchair critics to task on the venomous ‘The Customer Is Always Wrong’, lashing out at xenophobes and sexists within the scene on the seething ‘Not Yours’, or simply penning odes to the catharsis of moshing (‘Get It Out’) or having the munchies (‘Snack Run’), the album marks a more notable turn towards personal and passionate subject matter while retaining much of their reliable goofy humour.
Composition-wise, the band also pack a myriad of nods to differing avenues of punk across the succinct runtime. The self-empowerment anthem ‘Hard 2 Kill’ churns out a 90’s grunge twang, while the pop-punk flare of ‘Redacted’ is a refreshing twist away from the predominantly hefty grooves that encompass the majority of the record.
Equal parts snarling and tongue-in-cheek, Buggin pack an entire masterclass of hardcore vitriol, camaraderie, inclusivity and flippancy into Concrete Cowboys; leading to easily one of the most instantaneous and striking debuts of what has already been yet another momentous year for the genre as a whole.
ZB
Hatıralar, a long-gestating project first composed around 2012, released in 2017, and now reissued again in 2023, is a charming example of instrumental, cold synthpop. There’s a chilling aspect to its release. The title itself, ‘Hatiralar’, means “memories”, and refers to a self-fulfilling prophecy. As such it seemed to be written – fated and prophesied, in fact – that Hatiralar would see a re-release within another timeframe of five years. We wonder what’ll happen to it in 2028?
The musician behind it, Berlin and Istanbul based artist Gözen Atila aka. Anadol, is an obscure figure, responsible for just two other albums since the release of her debut here. Our limited insight into Atila’s vision is enough to lend credence to Hatıralar. ‘Anadol’ is named after an old Turkish car brand, and her music is almost entirely made on mini-organs made during the 1970s and 80s, relying on the sonic crudeness of their various built-in arpeggiations and beats.
Taking those building blocks, she’s then imbued them with the texture, progression and feel of old Turkish and European soundtrack music, getting at the popular “tavern music” of Turkey’s 80s nightlife scene. Star tracks like ‘Kiralık Aşk’ and ‘Yapılacak Kadın’ (many of the tracks are named after classic Turkish TV dramas) are skilful, eerie plods through a neon-lit world of consumer electronics and paid-for delights. The LP shows off how even in instrumental music, the right contours and timbres are all it takes to enchant the listener.
JIJ
Liars Academy – Ghosts (Steadfast)
Hailing from Baltimore, Maryland (home to many of the great hardcore, punk and emo outfits of days past and present), Liars Academy were a pristine example of early noughties Equal Vision label emotive alt rock, with both their 2001 debut full-length No News Is Good News and its dour 2004 sophomore effort Demons, resonating with those still pining for more 90’s emo but also harbouring an appreciation for late 70’s post-punk.
Following their gear being stolen on tour, as well as commitments to other projects, the group would eventually disband in 2005. While there was the semi-side project expansion of Midnight Revival, as well as the occasional reunion show, there had yet to be a true return until now with the arrival of the unexpected 19 years in the making follow up Ghosts.
Reforming the post-Demons line-up, while tragically being the last album to feature drummer Eric Fauver who passed away in 2015, Ghosts serves as both a resuming of their emo-tinged punk anthemics and a newly informed expansive sonic palette, toe-dipping into the realms of retro psych-rock. From the jangling groove of opener ‘I’m Not Really Here’ to the almost blues-punk of standout cut ‘Alcohol’, the seasoned and refined ability of each member shines through a curious concoction of modernised and classic compositional sensibilities and production techniques, while the penultimate country-emo reimagining of the Black Sabbath ballad ‘Changes’ is a curious and inspiring curveball.
With little build up or posturing, Liars Academy have slowly crawled out of the woodwork to remind any with their ear to the ground, just how vital and criminally underrated they were during their initial tenure, while Ghosts feels like both a celebration of their past and an artistic rebirth drawing on each contributor’s ever-shifting tastes in the near two full decades since their original hiatus. In short, this is the best dad-emo album of 2023 by a country-twang mile.
ZB
Phoxjaw – notverynicecream (Hassle)
Bristol alternative rock/metal absurdist four-piece Phoxjaw have made a name for themselves due to their unique amalgam of catchy hooks, obtuse lyrics, and vicious tonal bedlam. Over the course of their two EPs released in 2018 and 2019, the band managed to master the accessible qualities of the likes of Biffy Clyro whilst plumbing the depths of cavernous heaviness akin to acts such as Mastodon or Deftones.
2020’s debut full-length Royal Swan served as a peak refinement of this formula, while using eccentric wordplay and imagery to take England to task for its horrific history, most often swept under the carpet and omitted from school books.
After endless delays and controversies beyond the band’s control, their much anticipated sophomore effort notverynicecream arrives with an unabashed dropkick to the British alternative scene strong enough to take the door right off its hinges.
While lead single and first taster ‘sungazer’ was a reliably whimsical yet simultaneously chaotic affair of dissonant prog-punk, ‘thesaddestsongever’ made evident that their playful warping of sonics could swing from nightmarish comedy to restrained melancholy. A piece of emo shoegazing, the cut feels like a direct sequel to their debut’s standout single ‘Teething’, detailing the loss of a close friend using opaque metaphors to drive home the bewildering sense of grief, while the Toy Story reference – “We’ll climb the high school and parachute down like little green soldiers” unravels it’s myriad meanings with repeat listens.
Elsewhere, cuts such as ‘apples’ craft an overwhelming concoction of math-grunge while vocalist/bassist Daniel Garland delivers a demented performance, suffocated by the purposefully intense levels of compression, which also smother ‘tortoise’ in a near impenetrable haze of post-metal dismay. Speaking of such studio trickery, guitarist Josh Gallop continues to produce his band’s work inhouse, with his increasing abilities manning the boards even outshining his riff-heavy contributions. There’s no greater example of these production techniques than the sludging heft of ‘knives’ which is a far cry from the group’s often bouncier compositions.
Delving further into dissonant tones and feral aggression than ever before, yet still managing to exude mass amounts of melody, Phoxjaw have made notverynicecream their definitive statement of genre-less, cavernously heavy yet serene post-hardcore inflected, post-metal sprinkled alt rock, and it’s genuinely difficult to think of any other act in today’s scene scrambling over preconceived genre barriers with such audible abandon and assured confidence.
ZB
Aya Metwalli & Calamita – Al Saher (Zehra)
It’s been seven years since Egyptian singer Aya Metwalli released her BEITAK [EP] release. It was a striking mini-album which presented her voice in a framework of abstract, post-punk tinted production. It had enough structure to latch onto while heading into exciting, uncharted territory in a songwriting sense. There hasn’t been a great deal from Metwalli since, until this surprise release for Zehra which pairs Metwalli with Lebanese noise rock outfit Calamita.
Calamita are an instant match for Metwalli’s approach, echoing something of the malleable form of BEITAK [EP] but rendering it through the classic triumvirate of bass, drums and guitar. The sound wrenched from the instruments isn’t exactly trad, with Sharif Sehnaoui’s guitar taking on a clanking, metallic quality on ‘Hazihi Laylati’, but it still stalks with the human fluctuations of a real band.
Dealing in repetitive phrases and sustained tension building to explosive interruptions before giving way to sludgy bass-powered groove, this 13-minute opener makes a formidable statement about the experimental intentions of the collaboration. But for all the distorted overtones and chaotic structures, it’s utterly engrossing from the start. Metwalli’s arresting singing is a significant part of that, but even once Calamita take full flight without her help, they hold their own as much more than a backing band.
The rest of the EP follows suit, stretching out over extended run times and teetering between free improvisation and thunderous, groove-oriented art rock. It’s a vehicle deserving of Metwalli’s vocal talents, and it leaves you wondering where she might materialise next.
OW
Frozen Soul – Glacial Domination (Century Media)
Dallas, Texas based “c-old school” death metal outfit Frozen Soul made a majorly frosted impact upon the modern extreme metal scene with the release of their mammoth debut Crypt Of Ice in 2021. Where most outfits wading in the hellish realms of death-centric metallic extremity prioritise their machinations with images of murder, hell, demons and the abyss; the band’s first full-length offered a refreshingly bleak lens of snow-capped mountains, icy landscapes and chilling horror, to view their pummelling compositions.
Enlisting Trivium’s Matthew K. Heafy to help co-produce their atmospheric and desolate sophomore effort has led to an intriguing counter-balance between the group’s notable malevolence and Heafy’s more traditionally mainstream output. Make no mistake, this is still very much a brutal and unwelcoming display of heaving heft, but with Heafy’s help the crunching riffs on standouts such as ‘Abominable’ or the cavernous ‘Morbid Effigy’ (featuring guest vocals from John Gallagher of Dying Fetus) bear a slightly more accessible or digestible appeal in their sonic clarity.
With vivid imagery of monstrous yetis traversing the snowy terrain to a narrative retelling of John Carpenter’s The Thing in the form of the epic two-parter ‘Frozen Soul’/’Assimilator’, Glacial Domination builds upon the strengths of its predecessor with oppressive, caustic presence, and further cements (freezes?) Frozen Soul as one of the most vital contributors and torch bearers of the old school death metal resurgence.
ZB
The Bay Area of California has become one of the most potent melting pots of modern hardcore punk with quintessential acts such as Drain, Scowl, Gulch, and Sunami all blowing up in the last few years, while the unhinged scummers SPY are yet another act to achieve worldwide acclaim and a devout cult following since the release of their debut Service Weapon EP in 2020, followed shortly after with 2021’s Habitual Offender. Both projects served as abrasive, scuzzy, minimal and instantaneous barrages of political, anti-authoritarian, cop-hating, riot-instigating fury, while their much-anticipated debut LP Satisfaction is no different.
At a remarkably brief 13-minute runtime, this “full-length” almost reverts from the chaotic vision of their EPs to a much more rigid, direct and grisly attitude, complete with purposefully repetitive riffs that charge and pulse ad nauseam while frontman/primary songwriter/overall mastermind Peter Pawlak comes off as some form of dying animal, with his grunting, unintelligible delivery constantly smothered under caustic levels of distortion and compression.
While several members are active in a plethora of other acts such as World Peace, Fentanyl, Superworld, Brahm and Scully; SPY have quickly eclipsed them all to become their primary focus. From the opening trudge of ‘No Redeeming Value’ to the no wave groove of ‘Carceral Attitude’ to the blink and you’ll miss it three prong assault of ‘Do What I Can’, ‘Pay No Mind’ and ‘Not For Me’, it becomes evident just how intentionally unwelcoming and seemingly impenetrable this work strives to be; offering a vision of hardcore that’s as brutal, despicable and harsh as the world it’s sonically reflecting.
Devoid of joy, playfulness or flashy instrumentation, this album is a violent and deeply ugly pondering of where one can search for any genuine Satisfaction nowadays, while specifically designed to provoke and invoke mayhem in a live setting.
ZB
This week’s reviewers: Zach Buggy, Jude Iago James, Oli Warwick, Martin Hewitt.