With amps fully cranked, the four songs that make up Izzy and The Black Trees’ ‘Go On, Test The System’ EP have a brilliant, live in the studio sound. The results mightn’t be as explosive as, say, the early works of A Place To Bury Strangers, but this Polish act have a similar love of distortion, and of reworking 90s influences to create an intensive experience. On this release, their no frills, full fuzz approach results in arrangements that explode with a really natural buzz; songs that owe a debt to Sonic Youth, The Jesus & Mary Chain, early PJ Harvey, and overlooked acts like Hammerbox and Yur Mum, yet still convey just enough of their own style to remain interesting.
Category Archives: Album & EP Reviews
VARIOUS ARTISTS – Moving Away From The Pulsebeat: Post Punk Britain 1977-1981
When punk shook Britain’s music scene in ‘76, it came as a revelation. The DIY spirit of the Buzzcocks’ ‘Spiral Scratch’ EP suggested that anyone could be in a band; you didn’t need to have to have years worth of musical training. Music could also be about capturing an energy and a spirit. Punk’s first wave was relatively short-lived. By 1978, guitar driven bands were mixing the less flashy elements of punk with bigger melodies, resulting in the mod influenced sounds of The Jam and the broader power pop of Elvis Costello & The Attractions. Some were even taking punk’s pure drive and creating what would now be considered goth, and bands like Ultravox! and Wire – arguably the greatest bands to be tagged with the term “post punk” – added strange and angular artiness, shaping the sounds of a generation.
FORTUNE TELLER – Premonitions EP
In the build up to this debut EP release from Fortune Teller, it already seemed as if Wales had become a relatively fertile place for new and underground rock bands. In the last weeks of 2023, stoner rockers Goat Major released an excellent three track EP and The Black Vultures burst onto the rock scene with a muscular take on a classic rock sound, and in the first weeks of 2024, Sister Envy introduced themselves with a slow burning indie-psych single. In addition, Worldcub were gearing up to release their second album, and Jessica Ball – sometime of Mammoth Weed Wizard Bastard (MWWB) – announced the launch of her new band, Eye. Each of these acts were stylistically different, yet helped to build a feeling that somewhere to the north west of Bristol, there was definitely something in the water that was fuelling a burst of new creativity.
DISORIENTATION – Survival Mode EP
In some ways, this second EP from Disorientation sounds like nothing you’ve ever heard before. Scratch the surface, of course, and you’ll find bits and pieces of familiar noise, but nothing presented by this avant-garde metal duo ever takes a predictable route. This is doom and black metal, but never as you’ve experienced it before. It’s almost industrial, but never entirely so. There are also elements of avant-garde jazz prog and chamber vocals appearing, somewhat unexpectedly, alongside the heavier moments.
MARC VALENTINE – Basement Sparks
If you believe a lot of the press Marc Valentine has gained over the couple of years prior to this album’s release, he’s been labelled as the great saviour for British power pop. It’s sort of understandable, considering that he’s not only dabbling in what’s essentially a very American sound, but also, he doesn’t really have too many UK based peers. There’s Portable Radio, of course, and a few others lurking within the true underground, but most British power poppers seem to be relics of a post punk boom; skinny tie wearing combos associated with 1979 episodes of Top of The Pops, and celebrated on Gary Crowley’s excellent Punk and New Wave box set of 2017.