Resurrectionists/Arse Moreira - "Split"

[6"]
Moment of Collapse

Never has the term emo-violence been more appropriate, even if it’s not the most widely used or maybe favoured.

This gorgeous little six-inch (don’t take that out of context) starts with Resurrectionists, honestly one of the craziest bands I’ve heard in a while. After their intro, which is like a war march in itself, they contribute one more track called “Bathory,” which starts off heavy-as-fuck, and almost sounding like blackened death metal, until some wilfully dissonant and awesome melody is smuggled in, like Behemoth and Orchid decided to give things a go one day. Little bit sad that it’s one full track (an intro can’t really be called a full track, really), but it is a six-inch. And it’s a fucking good track.

Side B is Arse Moreira’s side, a band I’m particularly fond of, despite their name being a bit silly in English. But no time is wasted with AM; chaos from the off on their first track “Human Drama,” occasionally broken up with brief melodic sections, later to be broken down to awesomely minimal and chilled-out breaks. The next track “Isabelle” is essentially that mix of spasmodic emo-violence and gentle melodic breaks, which may make them sound like a one-trick pony, but AM control their own chaos excellently, making variation within something that perhaps seems kind of invariable, exploiting their own style to their own will. An intense band, and an awesome band.

It’s brief, but it’s beautiful. You can’t really go wrong with Moment of Collapse anyway.

Resurrectionists: 8/10
Arse Moreira: 8.5/10

Overall: 8/10

Inspiration

To break up content on this blog, I'm chucking in this video of the making of 25 Dollar Massacre's discography tape (who aren't relevant to this blog and split up a while ago, but the video is great).
So this is the guys from Yehonala Tapes, a German tape-label that's been going a good while now, constructing 25 Dollar Massacre's discography tape, as I already said (they might just be called 25, I can never find out), in a little office room, equipped with a computer, printer and fancy paper-cutter.
This is how to do things. This is DIY. Fifty tape sleeves rattled off, cut up and inserted by hand, and fifty tape labels printed off and stuck on by hand. This all seems very humble and primitive, but for anyone who's run a DIY label and made a run of tapes, it's something you can relate to. And for anyone interested in releasing tapes, this is a little source of inspiration. Enjoy:

Eat A Zine #1 - "Carefully Planned..."

[Zine]
Eat A Book

As far as art-zines go, it seems to be a little bit of a saturated scene, and an identity can hard to form for the writer/publisher. Luckily Eat A Zine #1 looks unique in every way it could.

A very small-sized, haggard-looking zine by Chaz from Eat A Book Records, this short-but-sweet rag, entitled “Carefully Planned…” is a modest collection of black-and-white photographs from various places in England and America, mainly focused on places near Birmingham (UK) and Chicago, but also pictures from New York, Indiana and London.

Each photo has a level of destruction about it within its quality, which makes even the blandest photos (the “Back Garden” in Selly Oak for example) interesting to look at. The majority of them are quite minimal and very tastefully-shot photos of a variety of things from either side of the Atlantic. A far stretch from the attempted-pretentiousness of amateur photographers, and instead a stylistically-complementing collection that looks far more profound, and even professional.

The zine itself has a very idiosyncratic image in itself; very loosely-fit, haggardly-stapled pages, where the individual pieces of paper used have been simply folded over and stapled down to make separate pages rather than being printed on either side of the paper. As DIY as they come.

They’re limited to a generous 100 copies too, so pick up one of these beauties sharpish, even if you‘re not a huge follower of art-zines like myself.

Rating: 7/10

Captain, Your Ship Is Sinking/Mio - "Split"

[12"]
Moment of Collapse, Adagio 830, Lala, Time as a Colour, Built on Friendship

I might as well say it now. So long as Captain, Your Ship Is Sinking don’t drastically change what they’re doing and start doing pop punk or something, I’m probably going to kiss their arses in each review I do of them. They won’t overshadow Mio in this review, but you know what to expect.

As Side A is indeed CYSIS, I started at the start. And the first track is the first song I heard by them; “Godspeed to You, Pola Negri.” After a short drum fill, the song plays one of the most dreamy, uplifting intros that anyone has recorded. As per, the rest of the song follows with brilliantly woven, almost folk-like melody and endless atmosphere. For me this track is the band’s essence. No particular section defines the song; the song itself defines the song. It’s a much more vertical listening experience than horizontal, and the song never needs to arrive at a certain destination; the song is the destination, basically how life itself should be viewed in itself.

Their second track, the epically titled “Son, You Sure You Know What You Are Going to Dig Up When You Open That Grave?” is far more drawn-out and laid back. While the first track passed six minutes itself, this second track feels more introverted and paced-down. A cool track nonetheless.

Flip over to Side B and Mio present us with their two tracks. Each track is smothered with uniquely-crafted melody; rhythmically quite unique, and I like that. The one noticeable thing about Mio is their relaxed inclusion of vocals, which are quite sporadically placed throughout each song. And while they craft melodies and riffs very well, sections are very sharply juxtaposed. Which would be great in a more Orchid-style band, but given they are the more drawn-out, atmosphere-over-chaos type of band, that style of song writing could do with being worked on. As could how the vocals are fitted into the track. But Mio are nevertheless enjoyable, and by no means amateurish, with second track “Ungenuegend” being my personal favourite of the two.

CYSIS stole the show. But neither band affects the other negatively. A good record and a sound investment. Gooood stuff.

CYSIS: 8.5/10
Mio: 6.5/10


Overall: 7.5/10

Well Wisher - "Well Wisher EP"

[7", Free Download]
Self-Released

Myspace keeps fucking people's music accounts up, and telling people they're from America when they're not. Besides, that accent won’t fool anyone!

Mellow-yellows Well Wisher are seriously beautiful. Leaning to the indie side a lot more, and being a very melodic and consonant band, the term “indiemo” which may or may not have ever been used is completely relevant right now. I saw the term on Last FM somewhere and doubted its practicality anyway.

This EP contains four tracks of seriously melodic, mellowed-out but very driving beauty, that lingers upon itself in a really nice way. While maybe there aren’t any stand-out tracks, each track is consistent in style and approach, and none ruin the flow or the “listening experience” if you will. And there’s a side of them that seems like they don’t take themselves too seriously, which is always humbling.

I don’t want to call this “nice.” It sounds wimpy to describe a record that way. But it is; it’s very nice. It’s down-to-earth but its quite profound too. Nice!

Rating: 7.5/10

Human Hands - "Demo"

[Free Download]
Self-Released

Something might actually blossom over here in rainy England soon. A nice little underground for emo and screamo is developing more and more. So here’s a relative newcomer.

Human Hands, I believe, hail from near Birmingham, or in the broadest sense from the West Midlands. As a fellow West-Midlander, I feel some sort of geographical connection with this band. After all, the Midlands is for the most part pretty working class and often ignored.

This four-track demo is for the most part a frantic affair of 80s style emo, for people looking for the next step after Rites Of Spring. The first three tracks are spasmodic and very nearly insane; melodies fly around the fret-board with liberal room for noise and occasional dissonance. And the demo reaches a grand climax with the final track “Without Warning” being a well-over-seven-minute-long epic, which given the appropriate level of studio attention could be tear-jerkingly powerful.

The vocals are noticeably dubious; despite the passion behind them, just now there isn’t as much prowess behind them. They work well in the more monotonic shout-like moments, but melodies often fall short and sound strained and struggled, which is more noticeable in the final track. But given time, these could develop, and besides, rawness and imperfections are welcome here.

Human Hands are more than capable musically, and I’m certain that more professional recordings in the future will take the band up a notch. And even though the vocals need work, this demo is still something England can be pleased with. My country will get better very soon.

Rating: 6.5/10

Dylan Bredeau/Ripshit - "Split"

[7", Free Download]
Spicy Soup Productions

Seven-inches are better than free downloads. I’d have much preferred the 7” for this. But duty calls. Or poorness calls. Whatever.

I started with Dylan Bredeau, who play pretty noisy post-hardcore/90s-style emo, liberally laying on the feedback and guitar noise during pretty intense tunes. That mixture of chest-tightening melody and pretty relentless volume blend perfectly, especially with the two singers’ straight-from-the-heart singing. An awesome band, and two songs that fare well against each other, with “I’m Still Looking for Jupiter” being a personal favourite.

Moving on to Ripshit after Dylan Bredeau is, if anything, ever so slightly disconcerting. Ripshit essentially play pretty straightforward hardcore, which is of course full of welcome aggression that hardcore can never lack, but possesses rather irritating, very high-end vocals, and an unfortunate blandness that could place them as one of the lesser interesting bands on a Tony Hawks game soundtrack. Well-executed but unfortunately doing nothing new, or anything for me unfortunately.

As a split, both bands don’t play too well off each other. Dylan Bredeau are indeed very good. But Ripshit’s bland hardcore makes this a tad forgettable.

Dylan Bredeau: 7/10
Ripshit: 5/10

Overall: 6/10

Chalk Talk - "The Food Chain"

[7", Tape]
L'oeil Du Tigre, Desordre Ordonne

Very rarely do a band come along these days who I think are genuinely amazing. Chalk Talk are one such band, and actually are the kind of band that reinstall my faith in life when I get negi.

“The Food Chain” EP is a multi-format release, with the tape and CD versions coming with some extra tracks to the 7” version. Either way, we start with the EP’s self-titled track, which is boisterous, beautiful, affirming and simply fucking amazing.

A clean, reverb-laden guitar sound, crash-heavy dynamic drumming, intricate bass lines and loud, forced and relentlessly passionate shout-singing all mould together into something else completely. It’s a sound people can have fun to, that people can party to, that people can cry to, that people can get over someone to, whatever. It’s just honestly fucking beautiful. “Marco Polo” is a personal favourite track.

With all that ass-kissing over, this EP is very near perfect. Save for the running time and perhaps a very slight slowing-down of momentum towards the end, I can’t say much else against it. Buy it. Immediately.

Rating: 9.5/10

Guillotines/Lost In Bazaar - "Split"

[Floppy Disk]
Diskette Etikette Rekords

As is the case with floppy disk releases, the washy tones of low bitrate music have to be tolerable to the ear. But I can’t imagine much bitrate snobbery in this underground anyway.

Kicking this disk off is Guillotines from Stoke-on-Trent, the vocalist being Jake Kent of Power Negi Records and the guitarist being Rich of The Madness of the Crowd zine. Their two sub-minute tracks are good songs, but a bit randomly thrown on to the split. “Everyone Loves a Piano” leaks frantic, chaotic melody, treading that line between subtly dissonant and fairly beautiful; a sound track. “Untitled One” is a much quieter, far more spastic track comprised of consistent atonality, that unfortunately sounds less imaginative than the first track and leaves you slightly bewildered about the last twenty-nine seconds of your life.

Lost In Bazaar from Turkey offer a single track, “Disposing Meanings,” clocking in at just over a minute and half. As is with anything I’ve heard from Lost In Bazaar, “Disposing Meanings” is absolutely beautiful; their dream-like guitar sequences are unique unto them, like they’re a dream pop band who took a bunch of speed. I honestly can’t get enough of these guys.

A nice, brief, awesomely-packaged floppy disk. But Lost In Bazaar win me over. I need to take a walk and be philosophical and cool now.

Guillotines: 6.5/10
Lost In Bazaar: 8.5/10

Overall: 7.5/10

"Trend, Hate, New Trend, New Hate"

Abhorrence in a green bin;
You clean that one empty
Tin out and throw it away.


The binmen take a while
By you, but you've got
That recycling plant
Near you. Once they've
Got that tin it'll be
Back to you in no time.


Look's like that time's
Around again; your tin's
Back and you can stick
All your shit in there
Again, that shit no
One cares about in that
Tin no one cares about
Again.


(C) Sam Hunt, 2010.