BATILLUS are one of those bands that have been plugging away for a number of years establishing a core of fans. Like some others though, they always gain critical praise without maybe the wider appreciation they deserve. That may change with Concrete Sustain however as they've made their best record yet.

Hailing from Brooklyn NY, BATILLUS initially played down-tuned instrumental doom. The recruitment of Fade Kainer (Vocals, Synth/Noise) added a new dimension, not just his multi-faceted vocals but also the music evolved and mutated. Elements of industrial and electronic influence began to creep into the still heavy doom sound. Furnace was an excellent debut full-length. So, I was keen to hear how they would follow it when news broke of Concrete Sustain.

A brief glimpse arrived in the form of 'Concrete' being made available to stream. If you've heard it you'll no doubt been floored by its industrial stomp, funk drum-beat and desolate doom. The rest of Concrete Sustain doesn't disappoint either. However, the aforementioned 'Concrete' opens the album, pounding rhythms, effect laden vocals and gigantic riffs. Showcasing more than before, the layers of effects, and influence of Ministry or Nine Inch Nails. Corrosive electronics, combining with the crushing riffs and the refrain of "Sustain and Dominate", creating a stunning, infectious beast of a track.

The familiar BATILLUS sound is apparent throughout the album, monolithic riffs that sprawl forth and Fade's eclectic range of vocals. The rhythm section of Geoff Summers and Willi Stabenau is dominant while guitarist Greg Peterson impresses with slab heavy riffs and more delicate moments. Despite the influence of technology in their music BATILLUS maintain a natural and bleak soulful sound. With production again handled by Sanford Parker, the mix and balance is perfect.

'Cast' originally available on their split with Mutilation Rites, features a driving bass-line throughout. Its creeping rhythm and repetitive beat making it a hypnotic listen. Being one of the shorter tracks it’s quick to work its way under the skin.

'Beset' is thick with down-tuned riffs and an epic spacious feel. Fade excels with some demonic bellows and scathing vocals. Nearly 8 minutes in length it is dense and atmospheric. Greg Peterson again, providing some wrenching guitar and subtle brilliance.

'Mirrors' and 'Rust' continue in the album's no filler vein, the latter in particular. With a groove reminiscent of Helmet or Unsane injected with hissing electronica. It’s another complete stomper of a track. The riff that rolls out around two minutes in is simple yet brilliant. Concrete Sustain is one of those albums has so much going on at times, more is revealed with each listen

'Thorns' closes the album and is the longest track on Concrete Sustain; its melancholy drenched tones providing a stunning climax. Fade giving one of his best vocal performances here as the track unravels and reveals itself as magnificent doom filled brilliance.

BATILLUS have excelled on Concrete Sustain creating their best work and to my ears a faultless album. 

Seas of Mirth are a pirate-folk band hailing from the land-locked rural setting of Derbyshire. This irony, coupled with nautical puns and piratical imagery, might suggest that they don’t take themselves too seriously but there is more to Seas of Mirth than a penchant for comic verse and fancy dress…

To be honest, I’ve always struggled with comedy music. The likes of Tenacious D, Richard Cheese or Weird Al Yankovic leave me a little puzzled. I like music to challenge me. I like listening for technique and composition or lyrics that express something personal, political or poignant. Comedy and music don’t often sit right in my mind but, as I said, there are more facets to Seas of Mirth. 

Their music boasts the gypsy-punk stylings of Gorgol Bordello mixed with the Celtic-punk of Flogging Molly (most notably in the mighty drum sound that is prevalent throughout this record!) From the atmospheric cello on the album’s prologue, leading in to the riotous drop-kick of ‘A Moonlight Requisition’, right through to the hip-hop-stop-off of ‘Giant Crab’ and the wistful melancholy of the album’s epilogue, this record boasts raucous fun, musical prowess and thoughtful instrumentation throughout. 

The band draw on a variety of cultural touchstones; cleverly blending Gaelic jigs, Jewish saunters and even the slow bob of Greek Rebetiko in order to explore all the possible personas of what pirate-folk might sound like. Intriguing geographical references such as “Lemme tell ye bout the good ship Cophenhagen” or “When the Sinister Sisters of Sicily sang” and “Just like the whores of Tuscany” adorn this album with a worldly wisdom. Septopus is well-travelled, both lyrically and stylistically.

Other highlights include the ‘Lola’ inspired ‘Ly Ly Ladyboy’ which tells the story of a man who falls in love with…well…a ladyboy. The lyric “is this a tranny or a man with fanny…” leaves me tittering away as the whimsical melody forms an ear worm in my head. The afore mentioned track ‘Giant Crab’ shuffles from side to side in an Hispanic hip-hop fashion as a hilarious tale unfolds about a giant crab-beast who comes in the night to swallow sea-faring men and women.

Seeing Seas of Mirth perform live admittedly, brings some extra context to Septopus but there is something both funny and clever here that most people can get on board with (pun intended!).

These are well-played, well-constructed and well-executed songs with a splash or irony and a large scoop-full of humour, broiling in a smelting pot of maritime madness. What’s more is it comes in both shiny CD format packaged in a rustic looking digipack cover courtesy of Media Hut and released through the DIY label Crow’s Nest as well as the less tangible download from their bandcamp or online shop.  

Seas of Mirth are touring up and down the country and have appeared everywhere from Boomtown Fair to Edinburgh Fringe so keep your eyes peeled for forth coming dates. They are a great live act to behold and have a great album to boot!

My favourite filth makers Comanechi are back! After their first release Crime Of Love they now release their much anticipated follow up album You Owe Me Nothing But Love. And the sound and content we got introduced to on the first album are nicely continued on this new release.

For who doesn’t know Comanechi, they are from Dalston in London and they used to be a two-piece with Akiko 'Keex' Matsuura playing the drums, occasional guitar and mainly singing/shouting, and Simon Petrovitch on guitar, but they now added a third member in the person of Charlie Heaton on drums.

And Comanechi is filthy. In a very positive way. Filthy alternative punk noise, with lyrics not for the politically correct or easily shocked. Crime Of Love had some amazing tracks, like ‘Mesmerising Fingers’, ‘My Pussy’ and ‘R.O.M.P. (Revenge Of My Pussy)’. New album You Owe Me Nothing But Love may perhaps not have similar suggestive track titles, but the lyrics in some tracks don’t steer away from Comanechi’s main philosophy.

Take for example the track ‘Patsy’, an 8 minutes long epos about a whore who “shows her pussy to everyone” and gets fucked by her brother Eduard. She’s on heat and she needs to get done. Her body feels like 6 months old. It’s totally non-PC, but I love it. But hey, I’m Dutch. 

Musically Comanechi plays dirty punk, with touches upon distorted metal-like guitar riffs and old Sonic Youth inspired guitar noise, like for example the heavy distorted opening guitar (and bass?) riff in ‘Love Is the Cure’. Singer Keex screams, sings, shouts, and having seen these guys live once before, I know for a fact the sheer amount of emotions Keex throws into her music.

You Owe Me Nothing But Love is a great album full of beautiful punk/pop songs, hitting sexual boundaries allover the place. Sadly, there is not a similar type track as mesmeric and hypnotic as ‘Mesmerising Fingers’ on this album, with the slight exception of ‘Patsy’ perhaps, but it doesn’t matter much as the whole album owes you instantly and before you know it you start dancing uncontrollably regardless. Just make sure your kids are not within hearing distance. 

With a Japanese front woman it is no wonder Comanechi is very big in Japan. This album might give them bigger recognition in the UK and the rest of Europe, but I really hope it won’t change their attitude and sound as that is what makes Comanechi such a brilliant band.

22 years after the release of their last, staggering, epochal album, My Bloody Valentine stumble a record out in the early hours of a cold Sunday morning, break their own website, send Twitter and the musicommentariat into meltdown and delight their entire, unwavering fanbase utterly. Of course they do.

m b v is an album in three parts, comprising three songs each. Some of it was recorded in 1993, some of it in 1996 and some of it the other week. It’s beautiful. I love it.

The first section delivers what many fans will have been hoping for and expecting. The three songs tread the straightest path from 1991 to now, reminiscent of the sonically dense parts of Loveless: more ‘Sometimes’ molten sludge than the shimmer of ‘To Here Knows When’. It is a thrilling welcome back for devotees of Shields’ warped, tremolo-heavy guitar trademark. When the lazy arpeggio punctures the thick layer of fuzz during ‘only tomorrow’, it’s as spine-tingling a drone as they’ve ever produced.

The middle section of the album sees the band lay off the fuzz and open the off-kilter pop stashbox. ‘is this and yes’ is four-minutes of pretty synth that could have been lifted directly from Shields’ efforts on the (BAFTA nom’d) Lost in Translation soundtrack, while ‘if i am’ bats around a cutesy call-and-response, Bilinda Butcher’s stoner-siren voice as mashed as ever. ‘new you’, played live recently in Brixton, is straightforward (for MBV) verse/chorus saccharine-pop, harking back to the 1988 vintage. I wasn’t at the Brixton gig, and I’d like to hear this at 130db, please.

The songs in the final third are the most exciting. Three urgent, percussion-driven stompers serve to remind us the band’s sense of adventure did not end as ‘Soon’ faded out. They owe most to Shield’s work with Primal Scream (or maybe that’s the other way around, given they may have been recorded in 1993). ‘in another way’ is strongly reminiscent of ‘MBV Arkestra’ (from XTRMNTR), and the album finishes with ‘wonder 2‘, a peculiar, panicky mix of lysergic vocals, drum & bass, and phasing aeroplane sounds.

The highlight in this section, however, is ‘nothing is’. The thumping repetition of its one-bar riff altered only by volume shifts, some subtle, some less-so, generates an effect so hypnotic that the song’s abrupt finish at 3:48 is genuinely startling. They should play it for forty minutes live. Or never stop.

After a few listens, the giddy excitement of OMFG IT’S A NEW MY BLOODY VALENTINE ALBUM!!! disappears, eclipsed by something more substantial and nourishing. It’s replaced by the complete enjoyment of listening to a band not finished exploring their otherworld, and not done returning to show us what they’ve found.

Occasionally people ask me what my favourite albums of all time are. This is an almost impossible question to answer as there are so many great albums out there, and my opinion about what makes a certain album an all-time favourite changes with each month depending on the mood I’m in and what I’ve listened to a lot around that time. However, one album that will always be in my favourites list regardless of anything is the self-titled album by post-hardcore/alternative supergroup Handsome.  This album is full of catchy hooks, great riffs and fantastic song structures and everytime I listen to it, it brings a huge smile on my face.

Now, this review is not about a new Handsome release as the band unfortunately disbanded in 1998 shortly after releasing this eponymous self-titled debut album. This review is about a different band all together, namely Godstopper, who are from Toronto, Canada. They released What Matters in September last year, but they’re about to re-release this album on vinyl through Milgram Records.

Coming back to Handsome and why they got such an extensive mention in the opening part of this review is that Godstopper’s music reminds me a lot of them. What Matters is full of similar catchy hooks, riffs and melody and the vocals remind me Jeremy Chatelain at parts. It’s just that Godstopper puts all of this through a huge blender of sludge, reminiscent of bands like Melvins, Torche and Today Is the Day, somehow creating their own little pigeonhole. Maybe I should just call this “poppy sludge”, with a huge influence of post-hardcore and noise.

Take the opening track ‘Don’t Walk Home’ for example, which has very alternative and poppy sounding bass lines and drums, alternating with heavy sludge riffs and varying vocal parts, ranging from shouting to beautifully melodic singing. Second track ‘Bent’ starts extremely poppy again, with beautiful clean vocals, before it turns to filthy sludge again with screamier vocals, whilst keeping a very poppy feel to it.

This trend basically continues throughout the rest of this 9-track album, with some songs heavier than others, but all of them of the songs have a huge amount of melody, catchy hooks and enough sludge heaviness to please fans of the heavier stuff as well. This is greatly exemplified in the track ‘Right up to Heaven’, which starts very filthy with gnarling, but still clearly understandable, vocals before we hit on of the catchiest choruses of the whole album. Bass player Miranda Armstrong provides the occasional soft singing “Oohooh” to it as well, providing the song with another melodic layer.

One of my favourite tracks is ‘Blame Them’, which kicks off with some heavy riffing and up-tempo drumming, steering away a little bit from the catchy poppiness as it’s pure deep and heavy riffing, especially in the middle bit that really hits a slow, lingering sludge groove, before the up-tempo grinding riff is back straight hitting your eardrums in full force again. Similarly, the nearly 8 minutes long track ‘Clean House’ hits some very heavy sludge riffing, whilst having yet another melodic chorus that reminds me more of a classic hardrock band than of a sludge band, something I usually don’t appreciate much, but in this case works extremely well.

I’ve listened to this album on near repeat for over a week now and I absolutely love it. There really isn’t a bad track on What Matters. The combination of melody, addictive catchy hooks and vocal parts with heavy down-tuned guitars really is made for me. I’m very happy that after the release of Handsome’s album back in 1997, I now have a more recent album to fill the gap left behind 15 years ago when Handsome sadly split up.

FFO: Torche, Melvins, Harvey Milk and the stranger, poppier side of sludge.

False Light are relatively new to the scene, maybe a little unknown at the moment, but it probably won't stay that way for long. Here they come at you with fists raised on their second release, I warn you now- your head will take a battering with this one. Short, sharp, fast and angry, False Light is a blast of powerviolence you're not likely to forget for some time.

A neat six songs of unrelenting energy suitable for any metallic hardcore aficionado. 'Rotten Teeth' is an absolute belter and a perfect kick off track with tons of force and variation abound for such a relatively short song.

Seamless transitions between tracks make for a more fluid listening experience and turn this into one heck of a savage stomp-fest. It's really encouraging to hear such promise, especially amid the swarms of bands trying to make their way in the current hardcore scene, it's become murky waters of mediocrity, but these guys really stand out like a sore thumb.

Already out as a digital release via their bandcamp page, it's now getting vinyl treatment from Headfirst! Records and Dead Chemists Records (pre-orders went up last week) with 100 available from the band and each label, so don't sleep on this or you might just miss out!

FFO: early Ceremony, Trap Them, Seizures

“Elara is a post-rock band from Italy, which has heavy ambient and modern classical influences.” This is the opening sentence from the press release for their 3 track e.p Soundtrack for a Quiet Place. I’m not sure if what follows in this press release is lost in translation, but I’d maybe just let the music do the talking in future if I was them. Apparently they “tried to give shape to this need of the soul, notes and melodies, crescendos and atmospheres, which allowed us to fix forever the memory of those places and those emotions, which allowed us to create our own Soundtrack for a Quiet Place”. Hmm, ambitious; let’s see how they fared with that.

There’s a naivety about Elara’s music, that could be the product of youth, or inexperience, where they are trying so hard to create expansive soundscapes that will take the listener to another place. The blurb in the press release endeavours to help you on your way to oblivion, but seriously guys, why so serious?

Released on Fluttery Records (maybe you’re not so serious after all), the EP has three offerings of earnest post-rock, a term I tend to shy away from, but they said it, not me. ‘Me and You under the Aurora Borealis’ (weighty) on first listen, is the kind of nice melodic tune that ticks all the boxes in the how-to-do-post-rock manual (2008 edition). Relatively pleasant on the ear and enjoyable enough on a winter morning’s drive to work. On second listen, you start to pay less attention to what’s going on, that nice tune becomes A.N Other tune. Your focus shifts to the production and an awful rolling snare sound that would indicate to me that the drum isn’t tightened enough or else the drummer is slightly pissed.

‘We Are Infinite’ turns to page 2 of the aforementioned manual and decides that it requires the presence of the wondrous vibrating gizmo that is the ebo…and piano…as played by…Richard Clayderman. Again, the track will wash over you for a while, the crescendo will build, the cymbals will crash and then the lift doors will open and you’ll step out. Nope, this isn’t oblivion, it’s just the hardware department.

Final track ‘Seljalandsfoss’ (me neither, can only put it down to a higher level Sigur Ros fixation) continues the piano theme and adds that shimmering guitar sound that according to page 3 of the manual, all post-rock tunes must have.

I don’t mean to be cruel with this review, there’s nothing particularly bad about this EP, but the whole thing is so lacking in personality with the production sheen and cleanliness of the playing. The band themselves probably think it is tremendous work and filled with soul and passion. I don’t dispute their good intentions or the effort they put into making this music. I’d even be interested to hear future releases to see how they progress. For now, I’d recommend Elara look out for the 2013 edition of the post-rock manual as things have progressed beyond the sounds created here.

The seven tracks on this debut album by Primitve Man are seven repeated blows to the skull from some big angry biker. Maybe you messed up the paint job on his ride. Maybe you are sitting in his seat. Or maybe you did a big no-no and made a pass on his old lady. Either way: You are getting an ass whoppin'.

This sludge/doom/whatever-you-want-to-call-it debut album from a few Denver boys comes out swinging from the moment you hit play. Feedback galore and a drummer counting down open the album (this is also the title track) and from there on these boys mean business. If you're the person who enjoys introspective lyrics on pain and suffering, you've come to the right place...kind of. There's honestly no need to understand just what the singer is saying. Just know that maybe the guy needs a hug if you ever come across him in public.

Musically Scorn isn't reinventing the wheel. There are hints of Evoken and some Entombed in there. But it doesn't come off as a ripoff. This album just takes what has been laid down in history and rams it down your throat, choking you while you smile with pleasure.

The fact that this is a debut album from an UNSIGNED band is amazing and criminal. Record labels heed my words: You're missing out by not pursuing this band. You should be taking them to dinner and then out for drinks. Just make sure you avoid the one with motorcycles outside.

Remix albums, tribute albums, cover versions. I find the whole thing fascinating, in particular that whole riddle of how you can't un-hear the original version if you are familiar with it and therefore never how your reaction would differ if you had never heard it. I'm sure it's a question that has kept you awake many a night. Fellow (((o))) writer Kevin Scott and I decided to have a crack at this riddle with two perspectives of the new sleepmakeswaves album: ...and then they remixed everything, a collection of remixes of tracks from the Sydney instrumental rock band’s debut album …and so we destroyed everything.

Kevin Scott:

Not being familiar with the original album, coming straight to a remix album can be an unnerving process – has that bass line always been there? Who’s behind the distortion on this or that bit? The key is to not really give a shit who did what and just listen to the combined effects of both the original track and the alternate version.

The start to ...and then they remixed everything is so industrial it makes you want to get your overalls on and start a shift down the mines, your pick axe being thrust into the rock with steady precise beats. As ‘our time is short but your watch is slow’ builds, the stereo fills the room as loops intensify and before you know it, you’re surrounded with a wall of deep bass and keyboards. It’s a sensational experience.

The Rosetta remix of ‘in limbs and joints’ doesn’t have the same energy. Remixes can have a tendency to be strung out and this emerges here, where the ambience in the track comes to dominate. It works as a piece on its own, but relative to the tracks either side of it, it feels lost.

Klue’s remix of 'to you they are birds but to me they are voices in the forest’ goes the other way – it’s multi-dimensional space-rock, with a funky (yes, funky) synth part riffing off a borderline drum & bass background. It’s loaded with effects too and there is enough going on that new sounds emerge on repeated listens, making it easy to return to the album time and again.

On occasions (Keep My Father remix), it becomes too dirty, to the point of minor irritation and monotony, but this is but an occasional dip. The album’s strength is its strength in depth – and nowhere is this more evident in the Atlantis remix of ‘to you they are birds, to me they are voices in the forest’. It’s less trippy than the Klue version – and wraps its many layers of electronic wizardry around a subtle R&B vocal.

When the near 19 minute ‘after they destroyed everything’ comes round the ‘ethereal’ adjective that has been dancing around in the background finally comes good. The track calms, sooths and relaxes, using the same industrial elements that holds everything else together. In short, it’s a triumph.

Gilbert Potts:

In 1992 I heard the Vic Chesnutt cover/remix of R.E.M.'s 'It's the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)'. I was a massive fan of the band and it was a far more radical interpretation of their songs than most of the other covers on the tribute album it appeared on. It was also the first time I'd heard someone take just a couple of elements from a song and create something that was essentially new. Well 21 years later technology has moved on, remixes now swamp cover versions and I’m listening to a collection of remixes of another band I am a massive fan of – sleepmakeswaves.

The thing that strikes me the most is the almost total abandonment of the crescendocore element of the originals. It makes sense really – these are relative snapshots manipulated and strung out with other characteristics shaping the track's new identity. It's an identity that each participating artist doesn't have a whole album to establish so what you get is a snapshot within a snapshot. It probably goes without saying, then, that this is an album made up of some tunes than rather than the original which is some tunes that create an album. For fans of the original I don't think you will enjoy the remixes unless you embrace the underlying difference before you even think about the tunes themselves.

The mood of the album covers a vast range, from the playful and brash to serious and intense. The cheeky 8-bit vibrato of 'hello chip mountain' by Ten ThousandFree Men and Their Families sticks its tongue out at you as it robs you of the original's opportunity for some serious air-drumming while Klue’s remix of 'to you they are birds but to me they are voices in the forest’ takes the climax and essentially does to it the equivalent of wearing a Groucho-Marx-glasses-and-mo set at a funeral. Which I promise is a good thing.

The Atlantis remix of the same song is entirely different, with voice playing a significant part and those familiar melodic phrases slowed right down and is recognisably Atlantis. Tangled Thoughts of Leaving remixes a remix of the epic 'a gaze blank and pitiless as the sun' which pulls you under a merciless ocean and drowns you, with that trumpet solo heralding the last desperate beats of your heart. The Rosetta remix (presumably by Mike Armine) of 'in limbs and joints', takes the essence of the build-up to the climax without actually reaching it, building up so slowly over around six minutes it then falls away, leaving you feeling lost and alone. It's intensely emotional but as good as it is, in this case I'd rather hear it alongside Armine's own work or perhaps next to the final track.

Glasfrosch sits somewhere in between these ends of the spectrum, taking 'now we rise and we are everywhere' and presenting two tunes at once with great interplay between fast and erratic, and slow and flowing – a brilliant interpretation that also sits well alongside their own work, especially with all those croaking frogs.

The risk with a remix album like this is that it would earn the unofficial title ...and so they completely destroyed everything but instead through that process of deconstruction and reconstruction we get to share what others hear in the music of sleepmakeswaves that we love.

We live in an interesting time for music. Genres are colliding and mutating at a rate that is almost impossible to keep up with. It’s no longer unusual to see metal heads at artsy/indie rock shows and on the flip side the world of heavy music has become even more expansive, diverse and accepting. Some of the best music is formed when multiple genres plow into each other in a seamless manner. Australian 7 (!!!) piece We Lost The Sea are among this growing wave of bands that blend post-rock, hardcore, indie rock and even new wave into their crushing epics. While their sophomore album The Quietest Place On Earth has a few minor missteps there are more than enough moments of grandiose excellence to make it a record worth some time in your headphones.

I’ll admit to being partial to the use of piano and keyboard sounds in heavy music. The opening song ‘A Quiet Place’ starts of with a simple chord progression and some nicely effected guitars and subdued almost shoegazy vocals. It then builds in fairly standard post-metal fashion relying more on repetition and texture to build tension rather than simply “kick-in” to a loud part. After the wall of sound fades the second song ‘Barkhan Charge’ brings the riffs. The churning riffs, screamed vocals and gradually declining tempo act as a foil to the first songs expansive crescendos.

The delicate intro of the 16 minute ‘With Grace’ is yet another counterpoint and is delivered with honesty and confidence before erupting into gigantic riffs and pained bellowing. At this point many savvy music fans will probably think they know exactly what the rest of the record has in store. They are partly correct but the second half of the record is where this album really comes together.

‘Forgotten People’ is one of the standout songs on this record. The hymn-like piano chords and reverb drenched female vocals are a welcome reprieve from the density of the first three songs. When the straightforward drums and guitars all enter the song, their subdued performance really demonstrate the diversity We Lost The Sea are capable of. Guest vocalist Belinda Licciardo delivers a splendid, emotional performance that is both uplifting and melancholy at the same time.

A brief, gorgeous interlude ‘Nuclear City’ leads the way into the final 2-part song ‘A Day and Night of Misfortune’ parts I and II, respectively. After building to another bludgeoning wall of sound the album fades with a dark melodic piano line and a bleak spoken word rendition of the opening to the classic Moby Dick. It is a fitting and conclusive ending to an ambitious record.

Clocking in at just about an hour there is a goddamn LOT of music to wrap your head around on this record. The length may work against the latter half of the record because it is a lot to take in in one listen. The arrangement of all of the songs is quite good though. The whole record feels like one massive piece of music and certainly benefits from multiple listens. The production is very simple and dry, which generally works towards its advantage. Occasionally there are screamed vocals over a quiet part that seem incongruous or a guitar that is mixed oddly loud compared to everything else and while momentarily distracting the impact of the record is not diminished. The relatively simple production does give the impression that We Lost The Sea are tremendous live and I bet they are. I hope these guys continue to push themselves creatively and have a long career as a band. I know I am excited to hear what they do next.

When I reviewed Arbouretum’s last album, ‘The Gathering’, I think I jumped in to it too early and ended up writing not a bad review by any means but one that showed I hadn’t truly appreciated what has in time turned out to be one of my favourite records of the last few years. Not wanting to make the same mistake with Coming Out Of The Fog I’ve let this one stew for a good month or two; and I’m mighty glad I did because it too has revealed itself to me in that time as another truly fine piece of work from the Baltimore troupe.

By their own admission, the band set out this time around to produce a more focused, more concise set of songs, and that is noticeable. Don’t get me wrong, they haven’t suddenly turned out a set of three minute pop classics but there is a distinct brevity to some of the tracks that might previously been allowed to sprawl. This is the current incarnation of the band’s second album together and there’s also a maturity to the sound that only comes from playing and recording together over a long period; not so much a tightness, as this kind of music is inherently loose, but more a solidness and a togetherness.

As with much of their work, a wistful melancholy sits across this album like a comforting blanket. This is apparent from the opening bars of 'The Long Night', where Dave Heumann's guitar and plaintive vocal set the tone for much is what to come; the fusion of English folk, Americana and dark space rock. Despite the aforementioned brevity there are still places, on this track and elsewhere,  where Heuman’s guitar still takes off on flights of fancy, and they certainly get their freak on during ‘Easter Island’, but they are tighter, reined in more than perhaps previously. This is both good in that it makes this record more accessible to a wider audience, but also bad because I love a good jam myself.

‘Renouncer’ is one of my standout tracks on the record, a solemn ballad rendered as an almost sludglike lament with a slow motion psych freakout in the middle; spellbinding. Of the other tracks that really catch the listener’s attention, ‘Oceans Don’t Sing’ is a fragile beauty and the dirty fuzz driven grind of ‘World Split Open’ is a thrilling, march-like call to arms.

Then finally, as the clouds of noise clear at the end of ‘Easter Island’, is ‘Coming Out Of The Fog’ itself, a stripped bare serenade in a minor key, all piano led with clean guitars. A low key yet somehow perfect close to yet another wonderful set of songs from this incredible set of musicians.

Every now and then when I have been listening to dozens of doom, sludge and stoner releases, I just need to blow away some of the cobwebs in my head and some extreme technical metal usually helps. Just when I was in need of this, the new EP by Sectioned dropped in my email inbox.

Sectioned is a metal band from Edinburgh and while I have lived in Edinburgh since 2005, this band somehow has managed to avoid my radar completely. How foolish of me as this band plays the kind of metal I absolutely love. And besides, these guys have been building on quite a following, having played lots of gigs and supporting bands like Textures, one of my favourite Dutch metal bands.

Sectioned play some extreme technical, complex, very progressive, very mathcore metal. Think of The Dillinger Escape Plan and you have its younger Scottish cousin right here.

This new EP called Outlier is their third release and will be out soon. It is a very impressive 5-track EP, which starts with the 5-minutes long intro track ‘Parasite’, which builds up slowly with some industrial sounding distorted guitar and bass and the occasional drum hit, gradually adding more elements and layers. This long build-up is daring as it can make people steer away, but I’m instantly made very curious and I’m starting to build up huge expectations.

When we hit the second track ‘Trismus’, my jaw hits the floor and I’m absolutely gobsmacked. This is the sort of stuff I need as this totally blows me (and those cobwebs) away. As said above, there is a huge comparison to The Dillinger Escape Plan, but that doesn’t matter as it’s done extremely well. Throughout this track mind-blowing time-jumping guitar riffs and drum fills are thrown at you. It is produced absolutely brilliantly and with every play I seem to pick up more layers of things happening. After some consideration ‘Trismus’ is my favourite track on this EP.

The trend set with ‘Trismus’ continues with the short track ‘Neverbeen’, followed by ‘Hell Away From Home’, which demonstrates some very impressive guitar shredding and double bass drumming, hitting speed metal levels at times.

The final track ‘The Body as a Deadweight’ is with near 8 minutes a total mindfuck as there are so many things happening here at once, I can’t even find the words to describe it all. You just need to listen to it yourself. It almost sounds like a perfect mix of The Dillinger Escape Plan with Coilguns, whilst someone added some prog ingredients to it all.

A very positive note is that the singer’s vocals are nearly throughout this EP very clearly understandable, with lyrics such as “Feed me the world so I can spit it out”. I usually see the vocalist as another instrument and I don’t always give much attention to lyrics, but in this case it provides another layer of complexity to the music due to the fact you can actually understand the vocalist very well.

The guys in Sectioned are all in their early twenties and they already have released three very impressive EPs since 2011. I seriously urge you to check these guys out, as it really is jaw dropping stuff.

Outlier will be out on February 28th, but you can download the track ‘Trismus’ for free here.

White Widows are the newest addition to the Sacrament Music roster, founded at the beginning of the year by the Saint Vitus bar in Manhattan. Metallic hardcore to suit any professed aggressive music fan, this is very much up my street, but nothing rupturing any braincells/new ground quite yet.

I will admit that tacking a slower pace to a typically furious hardcore sub genre is a little different, setting them apart from the likes of metallic hardcore stalwarts such as Nails and Trap Them. It gives you time to digest everything they have to offer rather than being instantaneously bombarded with noise.

Six tracks that start on a very promising blow, with even a brief tinge of early Machine Head, in 'Ace Rothstein' progress on a steady level throughout with very little time to stop and catch your breath. 'Slow Burn' does rather live up to it's title. Being the most melodic of the tracklisiting, it deliberately peels back a few layers to let you see the real beating heart of the beast.

These guys seem to be off to a damn good start here, and with news of forthcoming new tracks on their Facebook page I'm pretty interested to see what else they've got lined up to take them on from this point.

FFO: Most Precious Blood, Black Breath, Hatebreed

Although I've never really been a Porcupine Tree fan I very much admire Steven Wilson and respect what he does, he's a very talented craftsman. The Raven That Refused To Sing is the third album of his solo career and features a stellar line up of musicians including Theo Travis (The Tangent), Nick Beggs (Kajagoogoo), Guthrie Govan (Dizzee Rascal), Marco Minnemann and more. It was engineered by Alan Parsons (Dark Side Of The Moon) in LA.

First track ‘Luminol’ features a Fender Rhodes with a ring modulator, always a good start. Theo Travis' Flute brings to mind Gong/Ozrics and the whole thing has a 70's jazz rock feel with a more modern production. It's always good to hear a mellotron. It's very classic 70's prog with some interesting unconventional song structures.

The record feels really live compared to the more pieced together with a click track sound of Porcupine Tree. Very 70's Miles Davis/Mahavishnu Orchestra, but without the more complex chords. Some of the linear passage parts bring to mind mid period Yes. There are some excellent dynamic shifts in the arrangements with some early King Crimson style Mellotron sections.

‘Drive Home’ is more song based, a bit more Porcupine Tree with some well arranged strings.  Some great rock lead guitar playing from Govan on this, who makes the most of what he is given to play over. It's very easy to criticise this sort of thing for being too long etc but that's what "classic prog" does, long outros over simple repeated chord progressions are what the genre has been about since the 70's. That's like saying you don't like an orange because it's an orange, it is what it is.

Another epic next, ‘The Holy Drinker’. Nice to hear some more ambitious chords on this one, once again on the Fender Rhodes. First class drumming on this and finally some more adventurous lead playing from all the soloists. This reminds me of modern Rush with a huge bass sound and a massive end riff.

‘Pin Drop’ is a 6/8 track based over a couple of chords with a very contemporary prog type sound, very similar to a lot of acts on Kscope. More quality rock soloing from Govan at the end.

‘The Watchmaker’ has an interesting middle section and some lovely ascending lead guitar parts. Lots of dynamic shifts in volume and some great harmony vocals. There is a nice riff at the end that references Moving Pictures era Rush. Excellent drumming again.

Last is the title track, which builds from a piano part into another epic. With more well arranged strings and a heartfelt vocal, this a fine way to end the album and would make a great lighters aloft live set closer.

The musicianship is excellent across the entire record but all the players sound very much in the comfort zone and it would be great to hear them really pushing things a bit more, taking a few more risks. One of the wonderful things about 70's Jazz Rock like the Mahavishnu Orchestra or Jack Johnson era Miles Davis was the sense the players were at the edge of their ability and it could all fall to bits at any moment.

Although Wilson plays it safe with the chord progressions (you could say the same of many of the "prog greats") this is a record that really feels like a band playing together. It has considerable imagination in the arrangements and is very well produced. It's easy to say Wilson knows his audience and aims his music squarely at a certain type of prog fan but he does it really, really well. It’s a good album (and my one year old son loved it!).

There was a point in the late 1970s/early 1980s when the 'new wave' exited the modes of punk and entered a hybrid era of genre-bending rock/pop which embraced the possibilities of using synthesizers alongside 'traditional' rock instruments. So it was that everyone from New Order and The Pop Group to Squeeze and XTC used synths as an integrated instrument in their earlier work. They weren't strictly electronic acts, but their sound at the time wouldn't have been the same without the sonic possibilities of synths. Anyway, why mention this in relation to the new release by New York-based "power-psyche rock trio" Huntronik?

Because this is what I started thinking about when I heard the opening bars of 'Rabies'. This is a track which grooves jerkily, electric pulses bouncing along with vocals reminiscent of Chris Difford. Lyrical references to 'machines' and 'decimal places' overcoming 'instinctive' decision-making hint at the opposition between the objective and subjective, the mechanical and the organic…a theme which is reinforced by the music. Real drums played with precision, keyboards echoing the motorik beat, the musical passages switching like someone just pressed the next preset button on the musicians' heads. It's a worthy opener to the album Huntronik.

As the album progresses, the net of influences and styles spreads. Yes, there are elements of psychedelia, but the overriding vibe is of a sort of eclectic alt-pop. Melodic, mildly dirty-sounding and knowingly retro. I mentioned XTC, The Pop Group and Squeeze earlier on for a reason, as Huntronik's music bears comparisons to all three in different measures. The songs are occasionally playful and funky, the lyrics questioning the wisdom of technology, but there is never the feeling that this music has been made with irony at heart; a rarity, I think. It's serious stuff for these guys. 

'We Can Build You', drones all deep, staccato vocals. 'Hair' comes over all spiky punk-funk and fuzz. Stand-out track 'No Deceiver' is epic; some very funky saw-wave bass, trebly organ and fuzzy rhythm guitar which gets a bit bluesy in the last few bars. Vocals are again to the fore, but there's a lot of cool instrumental going on here too. 

How an album appears as a cohesive whole is often a measure of its critical success. What strikes me about this album is that it does hold together well despite, or maybe because of, some of its stylistic variety. It's quirkiness is not due to knock-about musical slapstick or ironic humour; it comes from its fairly serious presentation of social critique without being too po-faced and marrying it with a sound which is occasionally frivolous and exhilarating.