Olympic Bingo’s ‘Aloof’ album is an underground gem. For lovers of retro sounds with a jazz and electronica vibe, it could turn out to be one of those rare finds. There’s plenty within its stand out track ‘Things To Do Today’, for example, that has the ability to cast the listener back a couple of decades…and sometimes farther still.
CULT BURIAL – Oblivion EP
On their self titled album from 2020, London’s Cult Burial served up an interesting mix of extreme metal sounds. Tracks like ‘Abyss’ and ‘Chaos’ assaulted the audience with a take on doom metal that injected the slowness with elements of blackened death and thrash, whilst the (relatively speaking) more melodic ‘Forever’ presented an ambitious hybrid of post-hardcore, thrash and black metal which pretty much sounded like no-one else. It seemed to be the kind of album where – assuming you could brace yourself for its onslaught and manage to absorb more than two songs at a time – it was possible to actually pick out different musical flourishes with each listen. Impressive, considering that on first hearing the whole thing seemed like a relentless outpouring of anger. One thing was for certain: their arrival had challenged Allfather and Kurokuma for the crown of “Britain’s Heaviest Band”.
Barely nine months on, the band began to hint at a follow up. It was to be a timely return; the UK had started to make their way out of a pandemic hell and the live music scene had started to gain some tentative traction. Massive riffs were certainly needed, and although their new EP would arrive too late to soundtrack the summer for a Bloodstock Festival crowd, Cult Burial were in time to hammer a new season into the advertised ‘Oblivion’.
Salad return with new single and video ‘Things In Heaven’
Salad were one of the most underrated indie bands of the nineties. With one foot in the noisy indie camp – leading to more than one support slot with Carter USM – and the other within the Britpop family, their quirky lyrical concerns and melodic vocal phrases gave them the potential to be huge. Although the band never really rose above cult status, those who liked them absolutely adored them.
TURN COLD – Break Your Faith EP
Turn Cold’s blend of thrash and hardcore draws a heavy influence from the both styles’ late eighties and early nineties glory years, creating a sound that has a timeless appeal. Their debut EP ‘Break Your Faith’ is by no means an easy nostalgia trip, though: its core sound also carries more of a contemporary edge through even heavier breakdowns and a socially conscious set of lyrics. During three intense numbers, the Atlanta based band share themes of inner strength and dealing with mental health issues, spurred on by the ongoing pandemic lockdown in which the demo material was recorded. The end result is an uncompromising musical statement.
Watch: Metallica – Live @ Slane Castle, Meath, Ireland 6/8/2019
In the summer of 2019, massive gigs were commonplace, to the point of almost being taken for granted. Aside from the scientists who’d warned that a global pandemic might be a possibility in the near future – a warning that fell on governments’ deaf ears – people weren’t concerned about any health related disasters.
Metallica had reached the British Isles on the European leg of their ‘Hardwired’ tour and were delivering their typically lengthy set. Various shows were filmed for posterity, but their stopover in Ireland is potentially the most interesting, with the band surrounded by the historic grounds of Slane Castle.