SILVERBONES – Wild Waves

silverbones lpThe questionable waters of “pirate metal” will always be ruled by Germans Running Wild, a band who took their concept to extremes and churned out albums for years. One of them even came with a warning of “loud sound effects” on the sleeve…and true enough, there were cannon noises loud enough to cause harm to many an expensive speaker set up. Other bands have attempted to cash in similar themes, but few – with perhaps only Alestorm worthy of a mention – have come close to creating such shiver-me-timbers silliness with such fervour.

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THE SWAGGER – The Swagger EP

swagger epWith Swervedriver’s Graham Bonner handling production duties and the band booked into The Kinks’ Konk Studios, the debut EP from London’s self-proclaimed grit-rockers The Swagger already got off to a more than reasonable start. Here is a band rich in influences – not only taking cues from the mod pop of Ocean Colour Scene, to the more raucous elements of The Who and a few heavier and psyched bands, but also taking cues from few UK punk bands along the way. This all results in a chunky sound that sometimes rocks, but more often than not, swaggers, thus dishing back each of the influences in a very cock-sure manner.

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DROUGHT – Rudra Bhakti

drought lpSharing a label with Harrow, Darkspace and Krasseville, it was always obvious that Drought’s debut album wouldn’t be an easy listen. Quickly gaining positive notices from cult music blogs situated in the deepest corners of the internet, ‘Rudra Bhakti’ set itself a place among lovers of extreme music, while simultaneously presenting something that barely represents music at all. There’s extreme and there’s extreme, and Drought piledrive noise across twenty four brutal minutes, leaving behind something that borders on the unlistenable, almost to the point of representing some kind of bizarre aural self-harm.

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DEVOLTED – Broken Kings EP

devolted epHailing from Dublin, metal four-piece Devolted originally came together due to a love of old-school heavy metal. A few line-up changes led to a shift in their sound and their 2016 EP ‘Broken Kings’ isn’t so much leather jackets, twin leads and dubious mullets as a really thoughtful blend that takes in bits of classic metal and a huge slab of groove as well as touches of thrash and hardcore. It’s four songs, while not too far removed from lots of stuff you’ll have heard before, shows the work of a band that’s keen to mix up their influences and come up with something that is – at least musically – both entertaining and powerful.

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