The opening riffs of ‘Monster’ – the second track to be shared from Loud George’s upcoming EP ‘Sex Teeth’ – give the impression that the band are about to share a dirty punk ‘n’ roll banger. However, this track isn’t all it initially seems to be…
Author Archives: Real Gone
Watch: Take a ‘Stroll…’ with Ecce Shnak
At the beginning of February 2025, art rock band Ecce Shnak released their ‘Shadows Grow Fangs’ EP, their first new work for many years. Between the bendy experimentation of lead single ‘Jeremy, Utalitarian Sandboy’ and a couple of other uncategorisable tunes, it really didn’t disappoint.
MORLOCKS – Amor, Monstra Et Horrore Profundi EP
In terms of musical interest, Morlocks’ 2023 LP ‘Praise The Iconoclast’ didn’t sell its listeners short. On the stand out track, ‘I’m The Payload’, the band managed to fuse orchestral sounding synths to a relentlessly mechanical rhythm, before loading the arrangement up further with alt-pop vocals, 80s keys and a few rock-edged guitars. The result sounded at times like an industrial band channelling early Oingo Boingo, with a couple of vocal phrases in the latter part of the number that hinted at a love of KMFDM. Rather fittingly, that legendary band’s Käpt’n K would also make an appearance on the record, and somewhat predictably, his presence throughout ‘Mean World Syndrome’ leant that number more of a KMFDM flavour. Elsewhere, ‘Instigation’ swamped vocal samples with a heavy groove and nods to classic Ministry, and taking another curveball, ‘Cold War Fusion’ melded soundtrack-like elements and darkwave melodies into an epic closer that more than suggested this most cult of bands still had musical ground to cover somewhere in the not too distant future.
Lavish 8CD box set of Status Quo’s seminal “Status Quo – Live!” album from 1977 due in May
With a career now in their seventh decade, it’s no wonder that Status Quo have become national treasures. Even with some of their 90s output being a far cry from their best, the Rossi/Parfitt commitment to live work helped the band remain a massive draw for gig goers, and any musical missteps are easy to forgive when taking into consideration that Quo’s run of albums released between 1967-77 is almost flawless.
On 16th May, lovers of classic Quo are in for a real treat. The essential 1977 release ‘Status Quo – Live!’ will be reissued as a lavish 8CD box set. Obviously, this isn’t the first time that the album has been given the box set treatment: in 2014, a 4CD version coupled the original album with the previous Japanese-only release ‘Tokyo Quo’ and a decent quality bootleg recording from the Australian leg of the same tour.
Check out ‘Sentinel Hill’, the new video by In Dakhma
When a band is pitched as “death metal”, there are certain tropes that the listener will expect. There are the pnrumatic drums – an integral part of the death metal sound, from the genre’s formative years, due to the brutal assault of bands like Suffocation – and the guttural vocals, often associated with the genre’s bigger names like Death and Entombed. You’d probably also expect to hear speed driven, huge sounding bass grinds, often providing a pivotal aspect to the aural assault.
Croatian band In Dakhma’s debut album ‘He Who Sows The Ground’ features all of that…and more. Check out ‘Sacrum’ and you’ll find a classic death metal sound delivered with a genuine enthusiasm; listen to ‘In Dogma’ and you’ll discover a hardcore infused bass part colliding with thrash riffs that are direct descendants from Sepultura’s massively influential ‘Arise’. Elsewhere, ‘Lies Beyond The Golden Ruins’ colours the band’s riffs with a hard nod towards groove metal, and the epic closer ‘Tower of Silence’ introduces sludgy riffs to bring something even heavier to the fore.