A band who’ve been favourably compared to Don Broco and Deaf Havana, Dead Reynolds’ work typically combines an alternative crunch with pop hooks on tunes that have some really deep textures. Although this release comes only two years into their career, on the four tracks that make up their ‘Frontier’ EP show all the confidence of a band much longer in the tooth while clinging on to a fairly youthful sound.
Tag Archives: alternative
RADIOHEAD – Live @ Lollapalooza 2016
Few bands have made such a dramatic musical turn as Radiohead between the release of their second album ‘The Bends’ and third album ‘OK Computer’. With ‘OK Computer’ Radiohead continued on a path of musical adventurousness and in looking to move forwards, they looked backwards in terms of influences. Instead of drawing from other indie and alternative sources, the album drew heavily from prog rock experimentation and made the band heroes to many fans of 70s experimental sounds.
UGLY RUNNER – Romanticizer EP
Hailing from Asheville, North Carolina, three piece rock band Ugly Runner make a gloriously retro noise on their debut EP ‘Romanticizer’. Across its lean and mean nineteen minutes, you’ll hear echoes of the Stooges, Pixies, The Strokes and more as the band presents six tracks of fierce garage rock mixed with the noisier end of late 80s indie.
FALLING STACKS – Sin Bin EP
At the beginning of 2019, Falling Stacks broke a long silence with the ‘Sarcastic Clap‘ EP. A collection of angular post-punk sounds that looked to the past for inspiration, it still played in a way that seemed challenging in the present. It would be fair to say that EP wasn’t for everyone. Released just eight months later, ‘Sin Bin’ offers another selection of noises set to thrill lovers of ugly, spiky, guitar driven artiness and frighten the bejeezus out of everyone else.
As before, you won’t find any actual songs here…but if you came to Falling Stacks hoping for hooks, melodies or in any way an easy ride, you were misinformed.
MEDICINE – Scarred For Life
Covers albums can be a lazy stop gap, a contractual obligation filler or – worst of all – a pointless exercise in rehashing tunes with no imagination. When done well, they can be fantastic and make you hear things in a way you never imagined. In the hands of Los Angeles noise rock/shoegaze band Medicine – famous to UK audiences for their contribution to the soundtrack for ‘The Crow’ – 2019’s ‘Scarred For Life’ provides an opportunity to dive into the past and re-imagine various cult tracks, bringing a few of their choices to a whole new audience. Although you might expect a band like Medicine to take the easier route and fuzz up a few old gothic favourites, on this eleven track release, they give their fans lots of surprises. Taking various songs from the 60s and 70s (in addition to a couple of other detours) this is a record that, in their own words, “relieves the glory of the K-Tel architechts”. That doesn’t mean the band are about to cover the likes of ‘Yellow River’, ‘Jeans On’ and a well known Suzi Quatro hit, though. This is Medicine, after all…and their voyage through decades past often favours deeper cuts.