Robyn Writes

Review: The Way They Run – Safe Haven [EP]

You don’t normally associate big hooks and harmonies with Swedish punk rock. Fast? Yep. Lots of woahs? Possibly. Generally crushing and anti-capitalist? You got it. The Way They Run certainly combine a few elements of these, along with a much more melodic vibe that’s more akin to American heavyweights Hot Water Music and Samiam than their contemporaries. The question is, does it pay off for new EP Safe Haven?

I’m pleased to say that it totally does. From the opening chords of ‘Eyewitness’, that classic Midwest feel starts to come through, but as soon as Claes starts singing, it takes on a life of its own and becomes something much more. The EP as a whole is totally solid – there’s a great rhythm section, lots of punchy riffs and a production level that’s not overpolished but still lets everyone shine through. Looking past all the sweet harmonies and backing vocals, Safe Haven definitely has a bit of weight behind it too. ‘Between Wages’ takes inspiration from a heavier scene, and there’s a fantastic bit where the guitar gallops and Claes sings “I bite my lips, I clench my fist, and I fade away” before launching into a tune-heavy chorus that evokes images of abandonment and loss. It’s powerful stuff, and it’s threaded a little more subtly throughout the rest of the EP, but The Way They Run are best when they’re frank and open. And before it all gets too deep for you, the EP’s closer, ‘Cross Bearer’, finishes on a sweet little breakdown that’s enough to melt the heart of any hardened punk.

There’s a couple of moments on first listen where songs start to lose their potency and feel over extended – ‘Between Wages’ is the longest track on the EP and definitely seems guilty of this at first. But this record is certainly a grower. Give it a chance and soon enough, you’ll find it playing on repeat for days.

4 out of 5 high fives!

Top 10 Punk Rock Beards – The Band Edition

It’s time. Our punk rock beard list finally returns. Some of you may or may not remember a piece that I wrote in 2008, compiling some of my favourite dudes and their super rad beards. I didn’t expect it to be a big thing, but somehow now, when you search ‘punk beard’, we’re the first thing on Google. It’s been a big year for facial hair, so it’s time to get serious. Get ready for the band edition.

DISCLAIMER: this might just be a list of sweet bands who have a couple of members with beards, either currently or just ‘tour beards’. But who gives a shit, there’s beards involved!

10) Summerslam 88
Summerslam 88 very rarely have facial hair but when they do, they look like skeezy 80s dudes. They also do sweet skatepunk that sounds like the Offspring when they were good.

9) North Lincoln
Beard punk. What a genre. Were North Lincoln ever really ‘beard punk’? Probably not, but they were kind of brilliant. And look at that full beardage going on there.

8) Fights and Fires
Worcester ‘geekcore’ lads like sitting on cannons, apparently. They also like beards a lot because their current logo is a guy with a massive beard. And most of them have one in some way or another!

7) Every Time I Die
Do you remember that time when all of Every Time I Die thought ‘fuck it, we’re all gonna grow beards and look kinda dirty?’ I sure as hell do. It was awesome. And if nothing else, Andy Williams has enough beard for everyone.

6) The Menzingers
Quintessentially rugged and responsible for some of the finest punk records of the 21st Century. You know it.

5) The Lawrence Arms
I don’t care if they’re not real moustaches. Nobody cares if they’re not real moustaches. And now these dudes have signed to Epitaph, which is not the home of the beard, but, along with another band further down on our list, they’re making it a classier place.

4) Darko
Darko’s beards were unexpected and highly surprising. But excellent. Skatepunk probably shouldn’t involve beards but I’m very glad it does.

3) Bike Tuff
We did a feature on these guys a few months ago, and while Into Shore is probably my favourite emo-revival-esque record right now (and possibly forever), these dudes all have pretty sweet beards.

2) letlive.
Jason Aalon Butler’s beard is a thing of beauty. Furious, furious beauty. Nothing else needs to be said.

1) Arliss Nancy
LOOK AT THE MAJESTY OF THOSE BEARDS. Arliss Nancy probably couldn’t function without said beards. Americana blended with punk aesthetic to create something kind of beautiful, Wild American Runners is deep and heartfelt with a touch of jaded gruffness that can only come from beards that excellent.

Honorable mention: Enter Shikari
Can one class Shikari as punk? I suppose that imposing trance on post-hardcore and trying to make people more aware of the broken society we live in through their lyrics is pretty punk. Not usually known for the beard, this new video reveals a different side to them…

Shout out: new Last Night’s Victory EP out now!

Hey music fans, do you like stuff with synths and guitars all blended together in a glorious mess with gang vocals and massive drops?

Of course you do.

So Last Night’s Victory have a new EP out RIGHT NOW. You can check it out on their Bandcamp and download it for free, or order a T-shirt and CD bundle (which you obvz should) for a humble tenner. I’ve been listening to it pretty solidly for the past couple of weeks in between all my AFI fangirling so you know that’s a recommendation.

Happy Friday!

xoxo – Robyn

Review: KEN Mode – Venerable

Apart from boneheaded ice-hockey fans who have just witnessed their team lose the final of the Stanley Cup, there has never been an angrier troupe of Canadians than KEN Mode. Yet whilst the average disgruntled hockey fan will express their disgust through the act of the good old fashioned riot, KEN Mode channel their vitriol into a terrifying aural beast.

Venerable is essentially comprised of the jazz-based atonality of Jesus Lizard, beefed up with a dose of abrasive contemporary metal in the mould of Mastodon before they tried to be Pink Floyd. It’s an initially befuddling miasma of bludgeoning riffs that dart hither and thither in an almost ubiquitous dissonance that marks conventional melodicism as some kind of immoral practice. Sure, melody exists if you dig hard enough, but only in the most twisted and mutated form, repeatedly spat out in a wretched and unrecognisable heap.

So it begins with ‘Book Of Muscle’, cemented to a brutal chug that sounds like the guitar’s strings are actually being punched such is their pulverising sound, the track forming an perfect summation of the fury yet to come. Vocals are doused with distortion, eliminating any chance of clarity in the midst of grating turmoil. Not that any distortion is required, given the vocalist’s tortured delivery, spilling contempt and acerbic anger in every furious snarl.

Tracks such as ‘Batholith’ advance at blistering pace, their goal to lay waste to eardrums whilst claiming no allegiance to any one time signature and frantically hurtling through space in a flurry of atonal and jagged riffs. ‘The Irate Lumberjack’ is the first of two extended tracks, rooted in an uncharacteristic simplicity and advancing at a measured march rather than the paranoid hyperactivity that characterises most of Venerable‘s shorter tracks. It sees KEN Mode at their most expansive and least direct, proving that for all their outward aggression they’re capable of much subtler arrangements.

The eight minute ‘Never Was’ is a particularly furious and uncompromising assault, a storm of guttural chug bookended by blankets of pure white noise whilst a particularly venomous vocal repeatedly declares that “Religion is a cancer”. Like acid on the ears, the coruscating noise seems potent enough to burn flesh. ‘Flight Of The Echo Hawk’ is perhaps the anomaly of the record, a lone bastion of relative clarity free from the throat destroying screams- offering brief shelter in the form of standard melodicism amidst the chaos.

KEN Mode may be a raging mass of bile but they are so only because they are aware of the truth of our failings. They choose to holler and scream and actively address the inconvenient truths and malfunctions within our societal systems as others react by burying their heads in the sand. The almost unfathomable vitriol is tied to some pretty impressive musicianship and a commendably high count of notes per second. Unfortunately, records like Venerablehold a limited appeal, but to those enamoured by aural violence, KEN Mode’s latest work is a required listen. It manages to be technical without alienating the non-instrument playing listener, socially aware without coming across preachy. In short, it’s a blast of pure terror; a visceral storm that is strangely enticing.

4 out of 5 high fives!

J-Pop Sunday: Perfume

Last time I promised you something “The complete opposite of serious stuff for grown-ups.” Sadly, that original plan fell through when I struggled to find sufficient info/samples of “Machikado Keiki Japan” – an idol group whose gimmick is that their skirts get shorter as the Japanese economy improves. With a deadline approaching I decided to chuck that idea in the bin and dived into my emergency artist reserve. So here’s J-Pop Sunday: The Inevitable Perfume Edition – three lovely ladies from Hiroshima who delight with their dance moves and electropop anthems. Whom I love. A lot.

Especially Nocchi.

Perfume: Left to Right: A~Chan, Nocchi, and Kashiyuka.
Quick Guide:
Act Name: Perfume
Line-up:
Ayaka Nishiwaki (西脇 綾香). A.K.A. “A~chan” (あ～ちゃん)
Ayano Ōmoto (大本 彩乃). A.K.A. “Nocchi” (のっち)
Yuka Kashino (樫野 有香). A.K.A. “Kashiyuka” (かしゆか)
Years Active: 2001-Present
Genre: Electro Pop
Kaito’s Choice Tracks: ポリリズム (Polyrhythm) (2007), Dream Fighter (2008), Magic of Love (2013), Spring of Life (2012)

Our story starts in the year 2000, at a talent school in Hiroshima. Three girls – Ayaka Nishiwaka (A~chan), Yuka Kashino (Kashiyuka), and Yuuka Kawashima (Kawayuka) formed a group together and decided to call themselves “Perfume”.  The name was chosen due to each of them having the kanji香 (“Ka”) in their names, which can translate into English as “Perfume”. However, before the group were able to debut, Kawashima dropped out to focus on her studies and Ayano Ōmoto (Nocchi) joined to replace her. In 2002 the girls made their debut locally and released two singles in the Hiroshima area. It was during these early days that they met a choreographer, Mikiko, who has been with them ever since. In 2003 the girls moved to Tokyo where they joined a national talent agency and also met their producer – our old friend Yasutaka Nakata. (You remember him, don’t you?) However, it wouldn’t be until 2007 with the release of the single “Polyrhythm” when Perfume would hit the big time. And hit it big.


Crikey, they look young there… It’s weird, man!

“Polyrhythm” entered the public conciseness when it was used as part of a nationwide recycling campaign by Japan’s national broadcaster NHK; this gave the girls a new level of exposure. Following this, exposure continued thanks to “Polyrhythm” appearing elsewhere, including in a number of music video games (such as “Dance Dance Revolution”, “Pop’n Music”, and “Taiko no Tatsujin”), the soundtrack for Disney Pixar’s film “Cars 2”, and was later covered by former “Megadeath” guitarist Marty Friedman. Following “Polyrhythm”, with pretty much everyone in Japan aware of Perfume, the girls haven’t since failed to debut a single within the top 3 of the charts. And the album featuring “Polyrhythm” – “Game” – was the first by an electronic group to reach number one in the charts since the Yellow Magic Orchestra in 1983.

Although Perfume captured Japan’s hearts with “Polyrhythm” it was “Dream Fighter” that caused them to capture mine. An evening Youtube session caused me stumble across them accidentally and within the hour I had listened to the song 10 times and placed an order to import the album it featured on – “Triangle”.


That awkward moment when you realise you’ve nicked POLYSICS’ colour scheme…

From an objective standpoint I don’t believe that there is much that makes “Dream Fighter” stand out from the rest of Perfume’s back catalogue. However, nostalgia held a gun to my head and made me include it as one of my choice tracks. Having said that, just because it doesn’t “stand out” it doesn’t mean that it’s a bad song. Perfume’s repertoire is filled with fantastic tracks after all, with this one being no exception; placing at number 2 in the charts on release.

Speaking of fantastic tracks, here’s “Spring of Life!” A personal favourite, right from the start “Spring of Life” grabs you with its’ intro, gives you a catchy chorus and an joyful melody before a seamless switch to a cracking, house-like, bridge two thirds of the way through. Finally, it switches back to J-Pop mode to finish off.


The luminous clothing idea was also used by Austria’s 2012 Eurovision Song Contest entrant.

One more for you: “Magic of Love” appears on their latest album “Level 3” – which was released last month. Again, “Magic of Love” has all of the hallmarks of a Perfume single; an upbeat electronic tune, catchy (if slightly overly auto-tuned) vocals, and smooth dance moves. Usually I would only feature three tracks in a J-Pop Sunday piece, but I find the video so incredibly charming that I felt I had to share it with you.


Perhaps I’m just a sucker for bright colours and camera trickery?

Now that they’ve taken Japan, Perfume’s current mission is global conquest: Their last two albums “JPN” and “Level 3” were released digitally worldwide within a month of their Japanese release (exact dates varying depending on your region) and earlier this year the girls visited mainland Asia for a second time and they also visited Europe for the first time – during which I desperately tried to get tickets to their show in London, but it sold out within an hour. Much to my dismay.

With their international push I wish Perfume the best of luck. If there’s one J-Pop act deserves to be a true global success then it’s these girls.

More Perfume:
Official Website: http://www.perfume-web.jp/ (Japanese)
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Perfume.global (English)
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Perfume_Staff (Japanese)
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/Perfume (English)