When you’ve topped the singles chart for a record breaking sixteen weeks, career-wise, there’s nowhere to go but down. For Bryan Adams, this was certainly the case. None of the albums he released in the wake of ‘Waking Up The Neighbours’ and its world dominating Robin Hood single in the early 90s were a patch on most of their predecessors. There were glimmers of goodness, of course: his collaborative single with ex-Spice Girl Melanie C remains a career highlight and 1999’s parent album ‘On a Day Like Today’ was pleasant enough, but generally speaking, it’s just a few tracks here and there which impress from then on in. Most of his twenty first century output possibly doesn’t resonate with anyone but the more hardcore fan. 2014’s ‘Tracks of My Years‘ was especially grim; aside from a few examples, the covers album represents either a spent force or contractual obligation and for Adams, it was a genuine nadir.
Monthly Archives: February 2016
KRASSEVILLE – Nous Somme Faux
If members of a black metal band embarked on a project that sounded like a film soundtrack and then also channelled various bits of early 80s goth and Nick Cave, that would be a bit of a jumble, but a fairly cool one nonetheless. Such a rambling bag of ideas is the closest approximation of describing the sounds with which French band Krasseville fill their 2015 release ‘Nous Somme Faux’. It’s avant-garde for sure, yet at the same time, it’s also strangely listenable.
EUJENICS – Humanism
Nearing the end of 2014, The Creep Void released their ‘Elevation of Idiocy‘ EP. The band’s second – and final – release, its featured tracks were head and shoulders above anything on their ‘Apothesis’ album from 2012. With a decent production and some great riffs, it promised even more for their third release…but the band broke up, leaving such promises unfulfilled.
MASSACRES – Brutus EP
Formed at the beginning of 2015, London alt-metal band Massacres came a long way in a very short time. Their sound, an uncompromising blend of metalcore and hardcore punk intensities, quickly found an awaiting audience. For work on their debut EP, they also secured the talents of Jason Wilson, a producer of some renown whose studios had seen the likes of Cities, You Me At Six, Don Broco and Bellowhead working within. With a killer approach to making fairly uncompromising noise and a decent producer to help give things the ultimate send off, there was every chance that debut release could be a monster.