Phantom Elite’s second album ‘Titanium’ – released via Frontiers Records in January 2021 – showed a huge leap in quality from their earlier ‘Wastleland’ release. In songs like ‘The Race’ they demonstrated a gift for a much bigger chorus hook and in terms of musicianship, some of the more complex elements seemed so much tighter than before. More importantly, an increased budget afforded the album a superior production job. Joeri Wamerdam’s drums finally came with a decent punch, and combined with a few heavy riffs, Phantom Elite finally sounded like a band with a lot of muscle.
Monthly Archives: January 2021
Watch the new video from The Inferno Doll
At the tail end of 2020, The Inferno Doll made a long overdue return with the ‘Sacrifice’ EP. The music’s blend of gothic riffs, industrial twists and occasional black metal flourishes really showed a gift for pushing boundaries.
RADIO DAYS – I Got A Love EP
Right from their earliest days, Italian power pop band Radio Days seemed to be a band that gained constantly good press. When their 2013 album ‘Get Some Action’ first appeared, there were various online review sites that literally fell over themselves to promote the Italian act as the best band you’ve never heard. In the main, such praise has often been entirely justified: by taking the choruses of The Rubinoos and the all-round pop cool of Paul Collins, Radio Days often seemed to be the perfect band to carry the flame of the genre’s early 80s prime.
20 WATT TOMBSTONE – Year Of The Jackalope EP
When you’ve made most of your reputation as a live act, it’s a massive blow when a global pandemic dictates that you can’t go out and deliver riffs to the masses. This less than ideal situation drove 20 Watt Tombstone back into the studio at the end of 2020, breaking a five year silence of recorded work. While the results aren’t exactly plentiful, they’re more than welcome, since this pair of recordings reacquaint listeners with their no-nonsense, self-described “death blues” sound and of their chief influences. ‘Year of The Jackalope’ brings together a pair of cover tunes delivered in dirty and typical 20 Watt style, acting as both a welcome return for fans and a brilliant introduction for others.
CURVED AIR – The Albums 1970-1973
For most people, British progressive rock band Curved Air are known for two things: being the first band to ever issue a picture disc and for the having the legendary Stewart Copeland having occupy their drum stool in the mid 70s. Considering that vocalist Sonja Kristina had previously been an important part of the London theatre scene in the late sixties – appearing in Hair – and Curved Air actually scored a UK top five hit single in 1971, you’d expect them to be more widely celebrated. Perhaps the reason they aren’t is due to lots of their classically- and jazz-derived music being very hard going. Their earlier work often values complexity over obvious hooks – something that makes the funky ‘Back Street Luv’ single seem like something of an anomaly – and the way they switch between different moods from track to track can, at first, be disorienting. They are very much a band that requires a lot of time and patience before most of the listening rewards become obvious.