Hot on the heels of ‘Bagboy’, their first new song in nine years, legendary alt-rockers Pixies have announced the first set of dates on their world tour.
Confirmed are a bunch of European dates – including a leg in the UK (stopping off at the horrible Hammersmith Apollo) – all of which can be seen below.
In 2011, UK alternative metal band Mishkin released their debut EP ‘Row Away From The Rocks’. Featuring some hefty guitar riffs and an impassioned vocal, the EP pointed the way towards great things in the future…and then the band broke up. Mishkin’s vocalist Ben Davy subsequently joined art rock band II.II.II (aka 222), a band formed alongside his old bandmate Will MacGregor on bass. 222 pits their musical aptitude against ex-Tangaroa members Matt ‘Baldi’ Baldwinson and Si Blakelock on guitar and drums respectively. The combination of talents from the two bands makes for a very tight – if a little scary – alternative/mathcore outfit.
In 2012, New Jersey anti-folk/punk outfit Crazy & The Brains released a handful of songs as part of a split EP with The Disconnects. While C&tB’s xylophone heavy take on the Ramones’ ‘Oh Oh I Love Her So’ was their best track on that particular release, the band’s self-penned material had its own ragged charm, similar to ‘Don’t Need Snacks’, their own EP containing odes to Lindsay Lohan and Saturday Night Live. 2013’s ‘Let Me Go’ recycles a few numbers from those previous releases – including a couple of the band’s best – but the unheard tunes within the sixteen tracks certainly aren’t without their enjoyable moments.
The early releases by Gibraltarian alt-rockers Breed77 (a name they choose to pronounce with a ‘seven-seven’) are very much workman-like affairs, often derivative of many US post-grunge/alternative rock bands. Even with hints of flamenco music colouring their sound, the song writing on those records often lacks the spark needed to make them stand out from the crowd.
In 2007, Postcode released their debut full-length album ‘Zebracore’. Both this record and it’s follow up (‘Zebraland’) were loaded with overdriven guitar lines, fuzzed out vocals and a truckload of distortion – as if The Breeders had merged with Bikini Kill and asked Steve Albini to record a bunch of songs on the fly.