Come hither, children. Put on your plimsolls, sit on the mat and cross your legs. It’s time for a story.
Author Archives: Real Gone
NECROVESCENT RUINER – Untouchable Faith Decay
Occupying a space somewhere between an extended single release, an EP and an album, black metal outfit Necrovescent Ruiner absolutely goes for broke on their 2023 recording ‘Untouchable Faith Decay’. A concept piece, it features just one singular twenty seven minute number. In some ways, and on its surface, this presents the ultimate extreme metal assault; in others, it’s a very progressive way of tying together various musical moods – and for those able to tune in and spend time deconstructing the arrangement, it actually plays like four or five separate pieces, despite not including separate tracks.
CROSS COUNTRY DRIVER – The New Truth
Over the years, Rob Lamothe has explored different musical avenues. Although best known to rock fans as the frontman with Riverdogs back in the 90s, his sometimes overlooked solo career has taken in elements of thoughtful singer-songwriter moods (‘Gravity’), acoustic sounds (‘Wishing Well Motel’), hints of Americana (‘Long Lazy Curve’) and even blues (‘Shine’, recorded with Craig Erickson). Since Lamothe is clearly able to turn his hand to anything and his solo career continually looked forward, his decision to record a brand new Riverdogs album in 2017 came as a surprise. However, ‘California’ was well received, even if the material sometimes felt like a massive step backwards.
VARIOUS ARTISTS – Too Much Sun Will Burn: The British Psychedelic Sounds Of 1967 Volume 2
In 2017, Grapefruit Records released ‘Let’s Go Down & Blow Our Minds’, a three disc anthology bringing together psychedelic favourites, rarities and unreleased gems from 1967. The set proved so popular that similarly curated box sets covering 1968 and 1969 swiftly followed. A comprehensive voyage through an interesting landscape, capturing an era where new studio trickery pushed rock and pop music forward apace, between them, this trio of releases comprised an unmissable treat. For those who couldn’t get enough psych and freakbeat, the label even issued a further five discs’ worth of material from the era in the lavish ‘I Think I’m Going Weird’, a release that brought some of the biggest underground gems to public attention since Bam Caruso Records unleashed their ‘Rubble’ series of releases in the early 90s.
Despite the comprehensive amount of material from 1967 filling ‘Let’s Go Down’ and the ‘…Weird’ box set, Grapefruit have uncovered yet more gems from the year with ‘Too Much Sun Will Burn’. You might think at this point that another psych box would feel like overkill – but you’d be wrong. More so than ever before, this set brings a wealth of rare material via a set of tracks that were recorded in 1967, but not actually issued at the time, and a great selection of harder to find 7” sides. Obviously, some of these have crawled out on other comps over the years, but it’s great to have them easily accessible and in one place. There are also a few genuinely unreleased cuts to tempt the hardened collector, making it a release that should please a broad spectrum of psych lovers.
Cherry Red Records/HNE Recordings to release a 6CD King’s X box set in April
Cherry Red’s hard rock subsidiary label, HNE Recordings, is no stranger to plundering the Atlantic Records archives for material. Over the years, they’ve reissued much-loved albums by Ratt, White Lion, Back Street Crawler and more to bring affordable box set reissues to the masses. ‘In The New Age’ follows suit by pulling together most of the recordings that King’s X made for the legendary label and re-presents them in a basic clam shell box.