Volt Ritual’s self titled album was released in the summer of 2022. Being a wholly DIY release, it didn’t get the full bells and whistles in terms of promotion, but for those who stumbled across it on Bandcamp, it was a record that struck a chord almost immediately. Its seven songs drew heavily from the past, with huge musical debts owed to Black Sabbath, Fu Manchu and Kyuss, but Volt Ritual clearly understood the value in “recycling with love”, and against a lot of competition – let’s face it, the stream of new stoner and doom albums is never ending – it became one of the scene’s best records.
Author Archives: Real Gone
Watch: KMFDM share new video for ‘Airhead’ ahead of new album
On the heels of previous single ‘Let Go’, KMFDM ramp up the promotion for their forthcoming album with another new track, ‘Airhead’.
WASP MOTHER – Digital Pollution EP
On this follow up to their ferocious ‘Self-Loathing’ EP of 2022, Massachusetts brutalists Wasp Mother challenge the idea of disposable media on their 2024 release ‘Digital Pollution’. In the band’s own words, “artists [have become] content creators with each successive work being left behind as new content fills the void of malaise.” They mourn the fact that “our appetites and attention span for media has become insatiable in a way where the meaning of the art we’re viewing is being lost in a sea of likes, comments, the all-knowing algorithm.” In short, there’s no longer time to stop and digest the wonders we’ve been given. We watch the YouTube clips; we then seek out new quick thrills. More importantly, we listen to an album; we then move on to another at the push of a button. We’ve somehow lost the ability to lose ourselves in a new set of songs, play them on a loop for weeks and actually feel the value of that art.
EXIT EDEN – Femmes Fatales
In 2017, Phantom Elite’s Marina La Torraca, League of Distortion’s Anna Brunner, Trillium’s Amanda Somerville and Clémentine Delauney pooled their collective vocal talents to create Exit Eden, a symphonic metal supergroup which aimed to bring a very theatrical slant to several rock and pop classics. Their ‘Rhapsodies In Black’ album – released that same year – showed how brilliantly 80s tunes like Visage’s ‘Fade To Grey’ and ‘Heaven’ by Bryan Adams would work when reworked in a Nightwish-esque mould. The project’s real magic came through, however, when the performers and their assembled session band put a heavier slant on (then) more contemporary pop material like Katy Perry’s brilliant ‘Firework’ and Lady Gaga’s ‘Paparazzi’.
THE REAL GONE SINGLES BAR #36
Welcome back to the Real Gone Singles Bar, the place where we explore some of the individual mp3s that have appeared in our inbox over the past few weeks. With January 2024 now firmly underway, the submissions have really taken off, and we could have filled this column three times over. That, of course, just promises more great stuff for the coming weeks! This time around, we bring you a couple of great singer songwriters, some big rock with a commercial hook, some very light pop, and even a little country courtesy of an already familiar face. As always, we hope you find something to enjoy…
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