Shrewsbury’s The Devil In Faust mix up a world of rock-based influences on their debut EP, ‘Come Apart’. Three of the four featured songs centre around a genuine punch, and whether attempting something borne of faster alt-metal elements or tackling something a little meatier, there are some great riffs to be heard. These are riffs that, for the most part, sound a hundred times better with the volume cranked, thanks in no small way to producer Tue Madsen – a man best known for his work with Meshuggah, Sick of it All and Dir En Grey. The end results aren’t perfect, since the actual song writing can be a touch wobbly, but there’s certainly some enjoyment to be had from this uneven musical ride.
Tag Archives: grunge
HANDS OFF GRETEL – Burn The Beauty Queen
Fronted by singer-songwriter Lauren Tate, Hands Off Gretel’s 2016 full length ‘Burn The Beauty Queen’ is unashamed in borrowing a lot of influence from the 90s. With elements of Nirvana, Hole and occasionally the more tuneful edge of various other alt-rock and grunge sources, its tracks take a trip through a world of big riffs on songs with a very female perspective. Almost like the missing link between Hole’s classic ‘Live Through This’ and their far more commercial ‘Celebrity Skin’, it’s an album that’s very well put together – the production is excellent, the playing very good, the songwriting often possessing a spirited quality – but it’s also sometimes a bit too calculated, like experiencing the riot grrrl movement through a Tim Burton filter. For all of their talent, Hands Off Gretel appear as a garish, stripy legginged, teen goth fantasy of what the grunge fuelled early-mid 90s were like, had there been no surviving archival references. The album in turn almost presenting the past as if Courtney Love were only remembered via folk tales passed down through a generation.
DOGSTRUM – Murtsgod EP
Dogstrum? Dog? Strum? It’s true – all the great band names are spoken for. You’d have to wonder how many other supposedly worse names this Seattle band discounted before deciding that Dogstrum would be their best. Luckily, though, for this particular power trio, their music shows more than a glimmer of greatness. Labelled ‘grump-punk’ (whatever that might mean) by a local paper, their sound is hard and dirty, energetic and sometimes raw in spirit, though fidelity-wise, these six tracks are well recorded with plenty of punch in all the right places.
THE CREEP VOID – The Elevation Of Idiocy EP
Hailing from England’s North East, The Creep Void are an independent rock band trading in some great post grunge and alternative sounds. While the core of their work owes a debt to the nineties, the quartet’s 2014 EP ‘The Elevation of Idiocy’ isn’t just a throwback to times of khaki colours and plaid shirts. There are certainly a few unavoidably grungy elements within these four tracks, but the song writing and tough sound places them firmly in the twenty first century – ever looking forward as well as drawing from their classic influences.
SKELETONS IN THE PIANO – Please Don’t Die
Skeletons In The Piano are the stuff of your technicolour dreams and your darkest nightmares. Billing themselves as falling somewhere between The Doors and Black Sabbath, this New York septet’s sound constantly pulls between extremes, often favouring moods lodged inside the dustiest corner of the imagination.