“Not a day without a murder / Not a week without a bomb” proclaims Jim Bob, somewhere near the peak of his new single. A burst of punk rock anger shows the one-time Carter USM frontman in a particularly angry mood. …And rightly so, since the world seemed to be falling apart as we all hurtled into the new year, unaware that things were in fact about to get worse.
The Great 80s Project: 1981
For a lot of people, 1981 is a year where the 1980s really found its feet. It’s a year where fewer things carry a feel of the 70s; it’s a year where the New Romantics and the new wave of synth pop stars dominated the charts. As well as being a solid year for pop, 1981 also found the New Wave of British Heavy Metal reaching its crescendo.
Watch: It’s time to ‘Do It’ with Ken Fox!
In February 2020, Ken Fox & Knock Yourself Out released their debut EP and the sometime Fleshtones man treated fans to a brilliant but short collection of tunes that celebrated many of his power pop and garage rock influences.
Among the self-penned material was a great cover of The Pink Fairies’ cult classic ‘Do It’ (a track also recorded by The Rollins Band and others). As far as covers go, it fit among the unfamiliar material seamlessly, while also showing the band’s slightly angrier chops.
Watch: Isildurs Bane with Steve Hogarth – Live @ Kulturhuset, Sweden 2016
Swedish prog band Isildurs Bane formed in 1976. They’ve recorded a string of albums, but their 2016 collaboration with Steve Hogarth really helped to bring them to a new audience. Their work, ‘Colours Not Found In Nature’ was given a live premier in November that year. A studio recording of the same name appeared in 2017.
ZERO FIRE – The Attic Sessions EP
Canadian metal band Zero Fire’s second EP ‘Second Sun’ was packed with great riffs. By creating a brand of melodic metalcore that also included nods to groove metal and contrasted its heaviness with use of clean vocals, it managed to be very broad in appeal. A year on, ‘The Attic Sessions’ offers fans and newcomers a couple of live recordings that demonstrate both extremes of the band’s sound. While a new studio recording would have been preferable – and a full length album better still – this EP has the benefit of giving a premier to a pair of previously unrecorded tracks.