Fronted by singer-songwriter Lauren Tate, Hands Off Gretel’s 2016 full length ‘Burn The Beauty Queen’ is unashamed in borrowing a lot of influence from the 90s. With elements of Nirvana, Hole and occasionally the more tuneful edge of various other alt-rock and grunge sources, its tracks take a trip through a world of big riffs on songs with a very female perspective. Almost like the missing link between Hole’s classic ‘Live Through This’ and their far more commercial ‘Celebrity Skin’, it’s an album that’s very well put together – the production is excellent, the playing very good, the songwriting often possessing a spirited quality – but it’s also sometimes a bit too calculated, like experiencing the riot grrrl movement through a Tim Burton filter. For all of their talent, Hands Off Gretel appear as a garish, stripy legginged, teen goth fantasy of what the grunge fuelled early-mid 90s were like, had there been no surviving archival references. The album in turn almost presenting the past as if Courtney Love were only remembered via folk tales passed down through a generation.
Tag Archives: retro
WESLEY FULLER – Melvista EP
This debut EP from Wesley Fuller is gloriously retro. Almost everything about it – from the 70s musical influences to the garish 80s artwork and Fuller’s own fashion sense – has at least one foot in the dirt of the past. The Aussie singer songwriter so loves retro synths and glam rock stomps, bubblegum choruses and power pop guitars and while his work rarely displays the kind of perfection you’d find from, say, Mike Viola or the vastly underrated David Myhr, ‘Melvista’ presents five tracks of guitar oriented pop that should appeal to those whom reach for Pezband and Off Broadway (USA) records on a semi-regular basis.
ACID TONGUE – Beautiful Disaster EP
It takes more than guitar reverb and a perceived cooler-than-you retro attitude to make great music. Sadly, Seattle’s Acid Tongue haven’t really understood that. The bulk of their 2016 EP ‘Beautiful Disaster’ is an echo drenched, hipster baiting mess that relies far more on style than substance. Only one of the four featured tracks is worth hearing more than once: if not for the presence of the half-decent ‘Twisted’, ‘Beautiful Disaster’ would be a complete disaster.
PALACE – Master Of The Universe
Michael Palace made his entrance into the melodic rock world early in 2016 when he contributed some fine guitar work to the second First Signal album. Several months on and with a new band in tow, his eponymous band’s debut teams him up with musicians who’ve played on other AOR projects from Find Me, Houston and even Erika Norberg.
Check out the new video from Rooni
Back in 2012, Scandinavian retro-pop outfit Rooni released their ‘Pilot‘ EP, an enjoyable collection of songs that really brought out the best in vocalist Gustav Nilsson‘s talents. Aside from Rooni’s stand-alone single ‘Ambulance’ (released sometime the year before), the new material from Rooni was arguably the best that Nilsson had ever committed to tape.