Since their formation in 2009, French punks The Shapers seemed to constantly be on the road. Their high energy melodic sound saw them travel the globe – including a visit to Thailand – and also score high profile support slots with classic bands Pennywise, NOFX, Face To Face and others, all without the aid of an extensive back-catalogue.
Tag Archives: alternative
CLIMBING ALICE – Melt Yourself Up EP
Wakefield’s Climbing Alice mix various alt-rock styles into a sound they self-bill as Alt-Popp. For the average listener, what this actually means is that they’ve taken a slab of post-grunge guitar noise, a generous helping of goth and a pinch of shoegazey jangle and come out winning. There mightn’t be anything overtly new about this band’s music, but – as evidenced upon this debut EP – it’s all played with a fiery passion…and most importantly, it’s got the riffs.
RHYN – Absence EP
Working through a variety of styles and inflences on their debut EP, Buckinghamshire’s Rhyn are an interesting band. At first, their music displays a heaviness, but as ‘Absence’ plays through, each passing number shows a slightly different aspect to their songcraft. Here is a band who are capable of complexity, but understands that complexity for the sake of it just isn’t that interesting (Dream Theater, please take note). And although they prove straight away they can be crunchy and a little arty (as per Hawk Eyes and the earliest Biffy Clyro), at least one of their members understands the overriding importance of a chorus.
KRASSEVILLE – Nous Somme Faux
If members of a black metal band embarked on a project that sounded like a film soundtrack and then also channelled various bits of early 80s goth and Nick Cave, that would be a bit of a jumble, but a fairly cool one nonetheless. Such a rambling bag of ideas is the closest approximation of describing the sounds with which French band Krasseville fill their 2015 release ‘Nous Somme Faux’. It’s avant-garde for sure, yet at the same time, it’s also strangely listenable.
EUJENICS – Humanism
Nearing the end of 2014, The Creep Void released their ‘Elevation of Idiocy‘ EP. The band’s second – and final – release, its featured tracks were head and shoulders above anything on their ‘Apothesis’ album from 2012. With a decent production and some great riffs, it promised even more for their third release…but the band broke up, leaving such promises unfulfilled.