Despite claiming to draw influences from early Queen, ELO and Genesis, on their 2015 LP ‘Beth Out of Hell‘, The Murder of My Sweet came across as a really overbearing, second rate Nightwish. The album introduced listeners to a concept about a love affair between good and evil; a theatrical narrative made the material harder to digest than it already would have been…and in terms of both good taste and sanity, a children’s choir was the final straw. In short, ‘Beth Out of Hell’ was an egotistical, bloated effort that once heard (and once was enough) had the potential to cause long term mental trauma.
Monthly Archives: January 2017
Listen to a new track from Tokyo Tea Room
In 2016, Kent based psych/dreampop band Tokyo Tea Room made underground waves with their live shows and debut cassette. Drawing influence from lots of early 90s artists, their sound showed great promise, with vocalist Beth Plumb’s angelic vocal style in sharp contrast to the drone of the guitar lines. In a handful of tracks, the band set themselves up as one to watch – a rival to Ireland’s Elastic Sleep for dreampop/shoegaze goodness.
At the beginning of 2017, a new track began to circulate. This, too, very much cements TTR’s place as bright lights on an underground scene. You can hear ‘World’s Away’ in full via the Soundcloud link provided below. [Watch the video clip for ‘Sleep’ here.]
Four Chords & Twenty Seven Weasels: Real Gone meets The Radio Buzzkills
You’ve probably not heard of The Radio Buzzkills. Chances are, even if you’re a big punk fan, the band have still slipped under your radar. In 2017, the St Louis based band celebrated their fifteenth anniversary and they also achieved a career high point when they shared a stage with one of their all time heroes. In January, they stopped by at Real Gone to tell us all about that soon-to-be legendary gig…and more besides.
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THE WHITE SWAN – Anubis EP
As part of the second wave of nu-metal, Kittie will always be best known for a couple of cult singles from their debut album, ‘Spit’. While one of those tracks, ‘Charlotte’ remains arguably one of their finest recordings, the all-female growlers carved out a career that by the end of 2016 had released six albums and had experimented with various metal-based subgenres. Band founder and drummer Mercedes Lander launched a new band near the end of that year…and on the basis of their first studio recording, The White Swan puts the entire Kittie catalogue in the shade.
AS THE SUN SLEEPS – As Good As Gold EP
Since the turn of the millennium, a vast amount of music peddled as pop-punk hasn’t resembled the classic pop-punk sound of the nineties at all, but shifted rather more towards whining emo-dom or lightweight post-hardcore. The UK’s As The Sun Sleeps not only play pop-punk in the traditional sense, but are also bloody good at it.