Mask of Bees are an experimental band from Manchester, proudly crossing musical boundaries and caring not for any kind of genre tagging. Their overall sound blends art rock with a metallic crunch and then gives that a massive send off with huge swathes of jazz fusion. Hearing them is an intense experience, almost as if bits of The Jesus Lizard got spliced with bits of TesseracT, Soft Machine and an old John Coltrane record.
Author Archives: Real Gone
Van Morrison: Live In Düsseldorf 1998
Van Morrison is a legend. Not only that, but he’s a prolific legend.
Between launching his solo career in 1967 and May 2018, he’s recorded a staggering 39 studio albums. The last five of those have been released within a three year stretch.
While so many people are keen to view Van’s 70s work as the golden age, some of his later works are every bit as good as those famous early releases. 2012’s ‘Born To Sing: No Plan B’ and 2017’s ‘Roll With The Punches’ in particular find Morrison in particularly good voice, backed by a lot of blues based material. Both are albums that far outshine anything any of Van’s potential peers – Dylan, Neil Young, Clapton – could muster during their twilight years.
Earthless announce Euro tour dates
Almost legendary instrumental fuzz metal/space rock outfit Earthless are heading to Europe on a twelve date continent-wide tour.
What’s more, they’re bringing TeePee Records signings Ruby The Hatchet along for the shows in the UK, Netherlands and Switzerland!
PASTORATET – THLM EP
As labels like Burning Heart and Birdnest have proved, Sweden has been a hotbed of punk for years. Rather importantly, it has its own sound. Bands like No Fun At All and Millencolin share a common musical root with lots of the pop- and skatepunk bands from the US, but there’s something unique in the way the Swedes approach their art…and it goes deeper than a mere accent on a vocal.
PRAYING MANTIS – Gravity
In 2015, Praying Mantis broke a six year silence with their tenth album ‘Legacy’. A welcome surprise, the album was not only their first with new vocalist John ‘JayCee’ Cuijpers, a man with a big presence and someone who appeared to be a perfect fit for the band, but also the strongest Mantis offering for a very long time. For the most part, the album featured memorable rockers that allowed the band’s trademark twin lead guitars to shine and also presented some very melodic hooks showing the band could still truly hit the mark. 2018’s ‘Gravity’ – obviously – follows a very similar path lyrically, musically and stylistically. After all, it’s not so much that you can’t teach old dogs new tricks, but with an album as good as ‘Legacy’, Praying Mantis would have been foolish to mess too much with a winning formula. However, although this second album with JayCee offers a few tracks that are a little less inspiring, on the whole, it’s a great return.