Danish band Lifesick mightn’t have reached a household name status by the beginning of 2024, but they’d definitely marked out a place as one of the cult acts within the European underground. Four releases into their career, they’d already become somewhat of a fixture on the Scandinavian festival circuit, had associations with the legendary Southern Lord label (sometime home of Boris, Goatsnake, Mondo Generator and others), and already shown a great gift for brutalist hardcore riffs.
Category Archives: Album & EP Reviews
NEWMOON – Temporary Light
Newmoon strike a perfect balance between atmospheric riffs and blankets of noise on their third album ‘Temporary Light’. The Belgian band have long been a part of the underground shoegaze scene, but it can be argued that it’s taken them a while to hone their art, and create something truly worthy of the genre’s mid 90s peak. This record is exactly that. This is a love letter to the stylistic past of a world driven by distortion pedals and hazy, fuzzed out soundscapes, yet at the same time, a set of tracks that sounds wholly relevant in the era in which it was created. If not quite a “genre classic” in the truest sense, it’s certainly the kind of record that those deeply into one of rock’s more malleable genres can take to their hearts.
HERO IN ERROR – Hero In Error
Irish rockers Hero In Error haven’t returned half heartedly with this self titled EP. Following a burst of drone, its opening track ‘Enemy Within’ absolutely floors the listener with an opening riff that’s as oppressive as Conan and almost as heavy as Heriot. Despite often being billed under the metalcore tag, there’s also plenty about this slow and crushing sound that comes much closer to pure doom. Not that fans should be afraid of any potential changes here; this absolutely massive approach suits the band perfectly, and as the slow riffs trudge their way across several bars, the heaviest music has the potential to win over new fans in an instant.
IZZY AND THE BLACK TREES – Go On, Test The System EP
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.
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.