When members of Rentokiller and Burst joined forces for a side project purely aiming to make some noise, it was pretty much a guarantee that the results would be uncompromising, but this debut from Industrial Puke is more impressive than first impressions would suggest. Their choice of name and logo appear rooted in the extreme – suggesting a blend of death metal, grindcore and gore-themed noise – but the reality is far preferable. Their music adopts more of a hardcore persuasion and the EP’s four hefty workouts bring early 90s hardcore and crust punk influences into the twenty first century with an almighty wallop.
HOUSE OF LORDS – Saints And Sinners
For many, House of Lords will always be best known for their self titled debut from 1988. A massive piece of melodic rock, the recording introduced the world to the strong vocals of James Christian which, paired with a larger than life keyboard sound from ex-Angel man Greg Giuffria, resulted in the kind of huge sounding AOR that proved that a combination of poodle perms and big chorus hooks needn’t be wimpy. A cover of Blind Faith’s ‘Can’t Find My Way Home’ found the band courting the MTV crowd in 1990 and the future looked bright. Unfortunately, changing musical fashions led to the band splitting after a third album a couple years later, but their work was far from done.
A reformed band – minus Giuffria – released ‘The Power and The Myth’ in 2004, to the delight of fans, but to the indifference of the rock world at large. However, despite a lack of obvious commercial success, it was enough for House of Lords to plough onward, releasing new works every two or three years thereafter.
¡Vamanos! – Streetwalker EP
This third release from ¡Vamanos! presents somewhat of a musical sidestep for the New York based noise making duo. On their first two releases, they delighted in taking blues and garage rock sounds into the most distorted corners of their musical imaginations. On this third release – a full three years on from the thrilling 45rpm 10” – Alex Knoche (gtr/vox) and Tyler Bower (drums) manage to be a bit more melodic without actually being that melodic…if that makes sense. Having worked their distorted blues to almost breaking point, 2019’s ‘Streetwalker’ EP applies a huge amount of grit to a set of tunes that draw from a few different influences than before, often delivering some of the fastest, loudest garage/punk ‘n’ roll sounds ever.
REAL GONE GOES OUT: Martin & Eliza Carthy – Ramsgate Music Hall, Ramsgate, Kent 8/9/2022
The beginning of September 2022 has been horrible. The British government has all but fallen apart, bumbling from day to day; energy prices have reached a new level of unaffordable, and the corner of Kent where the Music Hall sits, proudly but unassumingly in a seaside back street, has been battered by apocalyptic weather for what now feels like an eternity. The summer has started to feel like a distant memory. On top of that, The Queen has died. For most people – monarchists or otherwise – this has more than added to an escalating feeling of unease. Most people have no knowledge of a world without Queen Elizabath II on the throne, and somewhat predictably, the internet has quickly descended into factions, either mourning or gloating. It’s fair to say that a distraction is in order.
Tonight’s show from Martin & Eliza Carthy at Ramsgate Music Hall is the distraction we all need, but this show from the father and daughter folk duo has felt a long time coming. Originally scheduled for November 2021, it got postponed until March ’22 and then cancelled. Just as most people started to think it would never happen, it was then re-announced, and almost a year down the line – not before time – the Carthys are set to put in a most welcome appearance on a drab Thursday night.
VOLT RITUAL – Volt Ritual
When it comes to mining classic influences, Polish stoner rockers Volt Ritual dig deeply on their debut release. Their self titled disc from 2022 takes the mighty Black Sabbath as its root inspiration and takes a very 70s approach to a heavy riff, but the material could just as easily have been recorded in the 90s at a time when Kyuss, Fu Manchu and Roadsaw were at their height. Its seven numbers are crammed with heavy riffs and fuzzy grooves; the production values call back to Rodger Bain’s early no-frills approach, and the band’s overall sound is one that a vast proportion of stoner and doom fans will take to in a heartbeat.