Robyn Writes

Top 10 Songs of Spring

Forget the Saharan sand and the air pollution, spring is here! It’s like summer’s support act – not quite the big deal, but not bad all the same. Most of the time, anyway. So, my music taste tends to change with the season; my horrorpunk has (for the most part) been set aside for darker times, and I’m ready to approach something fresher. Here’s a bunch of songs that are the perfect lead-in to happy spring days.

10) Against Me – Transgender Dysphoria Blues
I haven’t been able to stop listening to this record since January, but the eponymous track on Against Me!’s storming sixth album is the most fantastic wake-up call. Laura Jane Grace has got some heavy shit to tell us, and she’s going to do it in style.

9) Asian Kung-Fu Generation – Rewrite
This was the opening track to a season of FullMetal Alchemist, which I totally burned through during an Easter holiday back in high school. But it’s easy to see why songs like these get chosen to lead in a story that’s as much about adventuring as it is about kicking demonic ass – because they’re really, really catchy.

8) Blink 182 – Aliens Exist
Enema of the State. What an album. Blink 182 usually makes it onto my summer playlists rather than my spring, but ‘Aliens Exist’ has just a touch of desolate paranoia that I can’t help but adore. Also, the Tom, Mark and Travis Show version is beyond perfect.

7) Eisley – Drink The Water
It’s impossible to listen to an Eisley album without falling into some state of perfect bliss. Every track is beautiful, and ‘Drink The Water’ from Currents is no exception. All of their songs are like fairy tales, and if you’ve never tuned in before, go right ahead and be amazed.

6) Fall Out Boy – Just One Yesterday
Save Rock And Roll is full of great vocal lines, but this song takes the chocolate-smothered cake with cherry on top. The guest vocals from Foxes are just sublime. Roll down the windows and belt it out down country roads for maximum effect.

5) Fidlar – West Coast
Surf-punk is one of my favourite things in existence, and by extension, Fidlar are pretty high up on that list. ‘West Coast’ is a massive song, totally singable and Henry Rollins makes a cheeky appearance in the video for no apparent reason.

4) Kevin Devine – Just Stay
Possibly my favourite Kevin Devine song, ‘Just Stay’ is a beautiful mix of country sensibilities and second-wave emo feelings. Simultaneously uplifting and crushing, just like spring tends to be with sunshine and showers.

3) Northstar – Like AM Radio
Who doesn’t love a bit of 2004 emo from Alabama that sounds like it should have come out of Long Island? I don’t know anyone, that’s for sure. Pollyanna is still a great record, and ‘Like AM Radio’ is its crowning jewel.

2) Allison Weiss – One Way Love
Allison Weiss is 100% adorable, 100% awesome and one hell of a talented songwriter. And I think that’s all I need to say: listen to the track and discover for yourself.

1) Andrew McMahon – Synesthesia
Andrew’s solo tour last year was incredible, and so was The Pop Underground, his first solo EP. Jack’s Mannequin doesn’t really count. If you like soft synths, sweet piano and Andrew’s dulcet tones (who doesn’t?), then this record is a must.

Review: Tussk – Par T. Animal [EP]

Par T. Animal is a bit of an odd beast. The forthcoming two-track EP from Stoke-on-Trent rockers Tussk is one part Every Time I Die, one part Pantera and two parts heavy metal cheese. It’s loud and it’s proud, with plenty of over-the-top guitar solos and cheesy lyrics, backed by some hardcore growls and cheeky breakdowns. The question is, does this weird mix actually work?

For the most part, yeah, pretty much. ‘Jazz Hammer’ starts the EP off with a bang, with that southern rock swagger kicking in straight from the off and some great shouty vocals, but then it all goes a bit Aerosmith and the vocals get seriously hair metal. It’s a really strange combination, and at first, it doesn’t seem to blend. However, as you get into the EP, it makes a pleasant change to constant growls, but there needs to be more of a balance between the two sides. Playing off that darkness and light could work really well for Tussk with some polish. There’s some absolutely storming guitar solos present throughout, but they’re partially ruined by poor production – the mix just isn’t right, leaving the drums too overpowering and the guitars too fuzzy. ‘Double Drag Queen’ doesn’t have quite as much impact as ‘Jazz Hammer’ at first, but it builds to a great chorus and if you listen carefully, you can pick out loads of fantastic licks and fills as it goes on. However, both tracks feel quite disjointed in places, as if they’re trying to cram as many badass elements into a track at once, and while it does make a difference not to hear the same hardcore song structure put in place all over again, Tussk could do with just a little more precision in their writing.

Par T. Animal definitely revels in that rock and roll spirit, and to be fair, all of the elements are there – it just needs a little more focus and some better production. Tussk have certainly got style and determination, and a healthy appreciation for partying hard; that’s what’s going to see them through in the end.

2.5 out of 5 high fives!

Review: Walleater – s/t

Bursting from the musically fertile breeding ground of Leeds, Walleater are a burgeoning bunch of plaid-clad youngsters armed with a plethora of effects pedals and a set of musical influences that is almost exclusively based in 90’s guitar music drawn from both sides of the pond. On their debut tape release, A Masking Aura, Walleater appeared for more infatuated by the vague song-construction and slacker lo-fi aesthetic of Pavement, to the extent that the tape featured a cover of Pavement’s ‘Grounded’.

Their latest self-titled EP is a logical continuation of their first musical outing – it’s more refined, at times more muscular and alternately delicate. Yet, it also exhibits moments of introspection and outbreaks of churning noise that remains synonymous with the shoegaze brigade and its current revival. Third track ‘Glow’ opens like an early Swervedriver jam, bearing clear lineage to the Oxford band’s equally expansive take on American alt-rock. But half-way through, the otherwise delicate and resplendent instrumental is submitted to a decimating yet resplendent rapture, where guitars open up like a hole in the clouds and flooding the song with a coruscating distortion that is quite spectacular. It’s a moment of pure aural bliss that was once perpetrated by the likes of psychedelic noise-niks Spacemen 3, indicating that Walleater, consciously or not, have swapped some of their wholly American, Stephen Malkmus-indebted slackerisms for the quintessentially British counterpart.

But Walleater have far from outright abandoned the apathetic stylings of their debut tape, the remaining three tracks continue to draw kinship with the immense guitar distortion of grunge and alternately, the shy and ultra-sensitive postulations of classic emo. Opener ‘Give In To Me’, the track most comparable to their A Masking Aura tape, posits a rather twee synth line over oceanic guitar distortion- providing perhaps the neatest embodiment of Walleater’s aural aesthetic. The vocals however, maintain their dispirited baritone although subtle harmonies in much of the record’s understated choruses impart some much needed depth and dimensionality to an otherwise incoherent mumbling. ‘Just A Boy’ and seven minute closer ‘What Do You Know?’, opening with delay-ridden clean guitar intros, maintain a similar coalescence of grunge and emo that marked out Balance & Composure’s early output before they decided to gear themselves squarely towards arena rock. Both tracks are sumptuous in their intimate delicacy, the band eschewing their penchant for hiding behind a mountain of impenetrable distortion to reveal themselves in a manner that’s more subtly affecting than the noisy maelstrom of ‘Glow’ and the grungey drive of ‘Give In To Me’.

Walleater maintains a brilliant balancing act between American and British manifestations of alternative guitar noise. There’s enough raw emotional subtly, stratospheric psychedelia and propulsive grunge to appeal to fans of each sphere. However, each track seems to belong exclusively to each of these camps to the extent that they could easily be labelled as “the emo song” or “the shoegaze song”. Walleater are a band still striving for a wholly unique sound and despite their array of guitar-based influences, they’re still yet to figure out how to blend their more abstract attributes with their equally affecting emo-isms. But until then, Walleater is still a fantastic little record of hushed introspection and expansive, blissed-out empyrean clamour.

4 out of 5 high fives!

Review: As It Is – This Mind Of Mine [EP]

The third EP from transatlantic pop-punk lot As It Is, This Mind Of Mine was a crowdfunded effort. The band are no stranger to self-releases, but after putting their ideas onto Kickstarter, received a wave of support that they hadn’t previously anticipated and put it all into crafting these four tracks. Does This Mind Of Mine stand up as worthy of that support?

To the band’s ever-growing fanbase, probably yes. It’s a standard pop-punk record; lots of bounce, plenty of emotion, cheeky lyrics. And it does work – the dual vocal approach of British guitarist/vocalist Benjamin Biss and Minnesotan Patty Walters lends itself to quite a distinctive sound, even if, in truth, nothing else about the record really does. Opener ‘Bitter Broken Me’ proceeds to tick all the boxes – it’s well-produced, with some playful riffs and that distinctive vocal split. ‘Horoscopes’ carries on this trend, but with some good woahs in the chorus and some decent bass. ‘Can’t Save Myself’ has a really explosive chorus, and ‘Relive This Story’ is your typical slow-burner, with more than just a hint of influence from Taking Back Sunday. It’s all good, well-structured and poised to meet your expectations – it sadly just doesn’t smash them.

However, As It Is do stand apart on one aspect – their lyrics. There’s a gleeful honesty that abounds throughout This Mind Of Mine, tackling personal demons and difficult topics. It’s not your typical mush about girls, and at times, it’s very clever indeed. In ‘Can’t Save Myself’, there’s this fantastic bit in the verse that goes “And as I’ve aged the only thing I think has changed / is that the demons have moved from under my bed / into the inner depths of my head,” and that’s merely one such gem. Given time, As It Is may well have the lyrical prowess to challenge verbose pop-punk predecessors like Fall Out Boy.

The issue is that As It Is haven’t really had time to grow – rather than focusing on EPs, their next effort should be a debut full-length, which will give them the opportunity to develop a few of the aspects here and experiment a little more. With every step forward, As It Is reveal themselves as a band with promise – the final product’s just not quite there yet.

3 out of 5 high fives!

Review: Plebeian Grandstand – Lowgazers

Do you like your metal imbued with melody? Your breakdowns coveted by harmony? Your guitar solos harmonized by gorgeous major 5ths and subtle minor 7ths? If the answer to any of these queries is yes than well, Lowgazer simply ain’t your bag.

The latest release on the consistently brilliant Throatruiner Records by French melody-detesting quartet Plebeian Grandstand is nothing short of an aural bludgeon. It’s a record brimming with such unfathomable bile that those who purchase the vinyl version will be forced to adorn themselves with health and safety garb for fear of the record stomping on them and spitting in their face before brutishly strolling off to find the next victim of its puerile rage. Lowgazers arrives defiantly devoid of the slenderest amount of melody, instead sporting more tri-tones than you can shake a stick at and scattering them with such abundance as to mock the historical belief that their inclusion in music amounted to the equivalent of installing a “devil in the music”. The Toulouse four-piece draw upon just about every gnarly and malevolent derivative of extreme metal, throwing it all together in a singular maelstrom, a swirling cyclone of violent noise. Tracks are underpinned by the frantic blastbeats of black metal, whilst the guitars administer a rather unique blend of wrist-aching black metallic speed and dissonant open notes, occasionally slackening the speed into the murky realm of sludge.

Opener ‘Thvrst’ is resplendent in its sheer vitriol, guitars making it their duty to maintain a staunch dissonance, a duty that adamantly continues for the length of the record. Vocals abound with terrifying throaty screams, slicing through the instrumental tumult with piercing shrieks that surely leave vocal chords in tatters. Somewhat inevitably, the tracks coalesce into a singular frenetic blur of blastbeats and caustic furore, with difficulty arising in recognising when some tracks begin and end, even after repeated listens. In fact, the record exists as a singular barrage of satanic sound; largely unrelenting and upholding its manic intensity until a much needed mid-section respite. ‘Relief of Troth’ provides just that: relief. The two minute track marking the midway point for the album, a track of ambient noise that although unsettling, allows for a much needed break from the aural terror. ‘Svn in Your Head’ however, throws the listener right back into the fray with doom-laden feedback and a supremely sludgy, sloth-paced riff. Things soon return to their intense disposition on ‘Aimless Roaming’ whilst the album ends in the same fashion as it opens; in a veritable flurry of apocalyptic, discordant and hate-filled metal.

Lowgazer is a record of extremely limited appeal, but its sheer uncompromising audacity and intent on carving out some of the bleakest, most grating and extreme metal around deserves due recognition. It is a rare record, solely in terms of its breath-taking intensity and focus. Plebeian Grandstand aimed to make the most ruthless record they could fathom, and all credit to them, they have done just that.

3.5 out of 5 high fives!