Sun Hollow Sun’s first release – 2013’s ‘No History’ EP – presented four enjoyable pieces of semi-acoustic roots music. With clean guitar work and easy harmonies, a touch of jazziness to the lead vocal and a set of well written songs, they not only set upon a timeless style but also showed they had the chops to take on more established acts. Three years on, the ‘Before We Ever Met’ doesn’t really meddle with that formula but, if anything, does an even smarter job.
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SPACEBEAST – Spacebeast
Imagine what Melvins might sound like if they played in a huge aircraft hanger, its empty space echoing each note and increasing the overall intensity. Or perhaps you took Cathedral and Down LPs and played them back at about 15rpm. That’s kind of the effect that you’ll get from hearing this five tracker from Portland sludge merchants Spacebeast for the first time.
CANKER BLOSSOM – That’s So Killer
When a band advertises themselves as Ramonescore, you know almost exactly what you’ll get. Four chords, short songs and a fairly carefree attitude, resulting in something that – at best – resembles the second Ramones LP (the peerless ‘Leave Home’), or – at worst – ends up a lo-fi, tossed off approximation of Joey and Johnny that never quite works out. Baltimore’s Canker Blossom are not the best band you’ll ever hear. On the fraudulently titled ‘That’s So Killer’, they’re rarely inspiring.
NO JOY – Drool Sucker EP
Combining elements of shoegaze, dreampop, drone and a touch of post-hardcore noise, Montreal’s No Joy have carved out a career as part of the alternative underground, making music that can be both darkly captivating and brutal, yet retain some kind of mystic beauty within that general dystopia. Previous full length releases have featured a broad range of retro sounds and huge echoes of an alt-rock past. From the 90s throwback loveliness of tracks like ‘Wrack Attack’ and the pure dream pop of ‘Moon In My Mouth’, to the Jesus and Mary Chain ugliness of ‘Still’, there’s very little to link the tracks with being the same band, yet at the same time, their unsettling qualities suggest they’re all the product of No Joy. Each record is home to buried treasure – it can be laborious to find that gold, but rest assured it’s there.
THE 1957 TAIL-FIN FIASCO – The 3 Song Drive EP
On their first two releases (2011’s ‘Private Jet Flashback‘ and 2013’s ‘Cruise Control EP‘) The 1957 Tail-Fin Fiasco proved themselves to be masters of retro cool. Armed with a quirky sense of humour and an unhealthy obsession with Steely Dan, the two men at the core of the Fiasco made audiences wonder how such authentically American sounding music could ever have been spawned from the UK. Not only that, but from the wilds of Essex, too – hardly a breeding ground for AM radio pop.