Returning with their first full-length album in four years, Ladytron are back with their distinctive style of electro-pop music with Time’s Arrow – an album that, like most of their catalogue, hypnotizes you into an altered state and also makes you want to dance at the same time.
“City of Angels” might be about Los Angeles, but it seems more about a city inhabited by beings of light to which Ladytron can readily travel through their use of heavenly synths, electronic beats, and ghost-like vocals. “Faces come from yesterday and arrive tomorrow,” sing Helen Marnie and Mira Aroyo on “Faces” – a song about how people drift in and out of our lives and how we struggle at times to remember them. “Misery Remember Me” is flat-out beautiful with soaring synths and vocals that sounds like they’re bouncing up from a canyon at sunset.
On “Flight from Ankor,” Aroyo sings above shimmering synths about waking from a dream and realizing that the life around her is just as incredible as the dream. “I hear whispers on the wire,” Marnie sings on “We Never Went Away,” a dreamy reassurance to their fans that is a little bittersweet now since one of the band’s founding members, Reuben Wu, left the band earlier this year to focus on his photography and fine art. “The Night” brings the pop to their electro-pop with snappy beats that melt into “The Dreamers,” a darker synthwave track that might have you folding up an origami unicorn.
“Sargasso Sea” sounds exactly like you think it should: Floating synths, seagull calls, bubbling bass, and siren vocals. “California” is possibly a callback to “City of Angels,” and is a song about how the state is a mix of luxury, mystery, and misery. The title track ends the album and has a bold, almost off-Broadway brashness to it with its thudding percussion and swaggering vocals.
Time’s Arrow is a nice return for Ladytron, whose synthwave seduction is always welcome.
Viagra Boys‘ debut EP, Consistency of Energy, is a good blueprint of how you should come out of the gate with your new band: Bring all of the energy, all of the time.
The Swedish post / art-punk band love poking fun at “bro culture,” toxic masculinity, consumerism, fashion, perceptions of what is or isn’t beautiful, rich snobs, drug culture, pop culture, and more. Their name alone is a poke in the eye to dudes who willingly trade raging hard-ons now for chronic heart and blood pressure issues later.
The EP’s opening track, “Research Chemcials,” is a home run in their first at-bat. The heavy bass tone from Henrik Höckert builds and builds until the track breaks open like a freight train without breaks coming down a hill toward a bus of school kids stalled at a railroad crossing. In it, lead singer Sebastian Murphy both rails against and praises the drugs he’s taking (“Research chemicals got me bleeding from my ears. Research chemicals…They make ’em better every year.”). There are times in the track when you can’t tell if Oskar Carls‘ saxophone is broken or in proper working order, which means he’s either a master player or a madman (not unlike Captain Beefheart on saxophone), which means it’s great.
On “I Don’t Remember That,” Murphy tells a tale of him being so drunk and / or high, that he can’t remember, or refuses to admit, all the crazy stuff he’s done the last couple nights – despite multiple witnesses telling him he “peed on the carpet” and “broke your mother’s vase.” Meanwhile, Benjamin Vallé‘s guitar rips through the track like a power washer hose left unattended on full blast.
The perils of too much drug use continue on “Can’t Get It Up,” in which Murphy wants to have some sexy time with his lady friend, but is too burnt-out on snorted research chemicals to give it the ole college try. Tor Sjödén‘s drum beats are the sound of Murphy’s heart pounding from sexual excitement and performance anxiety (“I didn’t mean to ruin your night, girl. I truly do apologize, but since we’re lyin’ here doin’ nothin’, I might as well do another line.”).
The final track, “Liquids,” is about Murphy’s desire to have his lover give him a golden shower (as he admitted on stage when I saw them play it live in February 2023, “That’s a song about gettin’ peed on.”). Murphy is a slave to his desires and Höckert‘s thumping bass is both the throbbing in Murphy’s brain (“She makes me sick, my brain hurt. She’s got my weakness under her skirt.”) and Martin Ehrencron‘s subtle synths are the power of the woman he wants to dominate him (“She’s got me shaking down to my gizzard. She speaks just like some kind of lizard. She’s dressed in robes like some weird wizard. I fantasize until I get blisters. She ain’t no human, I ain’t no ape. I want her liquids all on my face.”).
It’s just four tracks, but they’re four tracks of raw power, and it was a great way for them to launch their assault on an unsuspecting world.
It was a cool night in Kalamazoo, and the music venue at Bell’s Brewery in Kalamazoo, Michigan, Bell’s Eccentric Café, was packed with fans of heavy psychedelic rock. Thankfully, both power trios performing that night were ready to blast out heavy sets of it.
First were Detroit’s Sisters of Your Sunshine Vapor, three lads I’ve known for a while and who never disappoint with their sets. They played a combination of stuff from their last couple albums and some new material from an album they just finished recording and will soon be mastering for release. The new material has industrial influences that mix well with their “Doors meet early Pink Floyd” sound and bring a new powerful energy to their music. Bassist Eric Oppitz (playing in a chair due to having a leg brace thanks to a hockey accident) told me they plan to tour for a couple months once the new album is finished.
Sisters of Your Sunshine Vapor
King Buffalo, all the way from Rochester, New York (and SOYSV) had just played the night before at a small venue in Whitestown, Indiana, and I overheard multiple people saying they’d followed both bands from there to Kalamazoo. King Buffalo were wrapping up their North American tour and didn’t skimp on anything just because it was their last show before heading to Europe. The crowd was enthusiastic for the entire set, with many singing along with every song they played.
The crowd was still buzzing after King Buffalo’s powerful set, feeling like they’d been levitating for the last hour. Venues in Europe are going to love their sets. Also, both bands don’t overprice their merchandise, so load up on their stuff whenever you see them.
I made the chilly trip to Chicago once again, but this time to see a full night of doom metal at one of the best punk and metal clubs in town – Reggie’s. Four bands playing doom and stoner rock? I’m there.
First up were two local bands, the first being Unto the Earth, who played a solid doom and sludge set set with serious shredding (on one of the most metal-looking guitars I’ve seen in a while). They were clearly having a great time.
Unto the Earth
Next, from nearby DeKalb, Illinois, came Blunt, who set up their gear, tuned a bit, and then said, “Hello. We are Blunt.” and then proceeded to unload a thundering set of sludge metal.
Blunt
I admit, I was a little sleepy after Blunt’s set. This was not from their set. It had been a long day and a two-hour drive to Reggie’s from my house, so I was a little drowsy during the downtime after they were taking their gear from the stage. That ended when, all the way from Sweden, Firebreather came out and practically set the place on fire with their blast furnace-like set.
Firebreather
Closing out the night were The Well, from Austin, Texas, who are one of my favorite doom-psych bands out there. I’d last seen them at Levitation Austin last year, and they sounded even better here. Praise must be given to whomever was mixing the sound at Reggie’s that night, because he or she helped pull every note from The Well’s set to help melt our faces and minds. One of the highlights for me was hearing a new song they’re working on (tentatively called “Christmas” or “Christmas Lights”) after hearing it for the first time at Levitation. I could tell they’d been working the song for a while because it was tighter, creepier, and stronger. The whole set roared.
The Well
The Well and Firebreather are still touring together, so get to see this heavy double-bill while you can.
What do you get when Tim Alexander (on percussion) of Primus and Skerik (on saxophones and synths) of Les Claypool’s Fearless Flying Frog Brigade have a jam session one night and later invite bassist and synth-player Timm Mason from Wolves in the Throne Room to the party? You get something that sounds like Neu! mixed with Aphex Twin. You get Sound Cipher.
Their debut album, All That Syncs Must Diverge, is a wild mix of electronica, pulsing beats, saxophone skronks, and glitchy android synths. “Grind Incursion” is the sound of panic in a robot disco. “Ransomwar” reminds you of faraway desert oasis fires and beautiful dancing maidens…and all of it is a slightly unnerving hologram. The way Alexander’s percussion drifts into “Church Turing” and slowly takes over the song like dusk turning to night is a cool effect.
“Permissive Action Link” starts the second half of the album with bad-ass synth bass and growling percussion that will inspire you to throw on a black faux-leather coat and ride a futuristic motorcycle fitted with flame throwers and rockets into a post-nuclear war wasteland in order to rescue someone lovely from a band of mutants. “God Mode” is the song that plays when that quest takes a strange turn after you accidentally fall into a missile silo that’s now used as an underground temple for a strange cult that worships the AI computer that started the war. The song rolls straight into “Entropy Pool,” threatening to pull you down into an even deeper abyss, but showing you a way out of it: a pulsing light in the distance and the sounds of tribal drumming and smoky saxophone reminding you of the lovely companion you came here to rescue. It won’t be an easy climb out of the old missile silo, but it can be done. It must be done.
So, yeah, All That Syncs Must Diverge is pretty much the soundtrack to a cool 1980s European post-apocalyptic / future dystopia film you found one night while scrolling through a weird Roku channel. I hope this project isn’t just a one-off thing. I’d love to hear more from them.
The title of Bodywash‘s new record, I Held the Shape While I Could, is a perfect summary of how it feels to be barely holding your life together and then finally, sometimes blissfully, being able to drop that façade when you’re alone and just cry your eyes out.
The record was made as both Rosie Long Decter and Chris Steward were coming out points in their lives that had resulted in dissatisfaction, alienation, boredom, and heartbreak. Opening track “In As Far” sets up a major theme of the album (breaking through ennui by being willing to face it head-on) with Steward’s synths that burst open like the sun through clouds. “Picture Of” has Decter reminiscing about a past lover and how sometimes the memory is better than the relationship truly was (“You were hard to believe, asking everything close. You were hard to prove. Something to see and not know.” / “I decide to lie and wait, picture of desire in a frame.”)
“Massif Central” is Steward’s buzzing shoegaze tale of losing his Canadian work status in 2020 due to a typographical error, thus leaving him alienated and unemployed just as we were all hearing the early warnings of the pandemic. “Bas Relief” is an instrumental, sounding like ocean waves and wind and some kind of early 1990s mall music tape that’s been left near a space heater.
Steward sings about trying to fit in as half-Japanese, half-British (“To feel half is not to feel whole.”) and Canadian. “Kind of Light” is about Decter trying to fit in after after the end of a relationship while others are enjoying love around her (“Pull back all the ways you count her gone. Spend a year living trying to hold yourself to a certain kind of light.”)
“One Day Clear” is almost a spoken word piece as Decter tells a lonely tale and Steward plays simple, hypnotic, looping synths behind her. “Sterilizer” is a tale full of bright shoegaze guitars while discussing the idea trying to make a relationship work, but knowing, in your heart, that, while it feels good now, it’s probably going to make both of you bitter in the long run (“We talk inside of swallowed pride, still I warm your sleep tonight.”).
“Dessents” floats right into the snappy, electro-thumping “Ascents” – which is a lovely song about Decter and Steward’s friendship forged even harder during their long drives to gigs while working out their relationship woes. The shimmering sound and wispy vocals on “Patina” (another song about moving past an ended relationship) remind one of some Besnard Lakes tracks, which isn’t surprising when you consider that Jace Lasek from The Besnard Lakes recorded and mixed the album.
Decter is at least in the process of healing by the time we get to “No Repair.” Her vocals are a bit melancholy, but her voice doesn’t seem to be carrying as much weight, and the instrumentation behind her helps rejuvenate her and us. Lyrics like “And sometimes when I’m quiet and alone, I need no repair. If this is as far as it goes, write it in handfuls of air. You were there.”
That’s a lovely lyric to end a lovely album.
Keep your mind open.
[It would be a massive cool thing of you to subscribe.]
The cover of Dry Cleaning‘s new EP, Swampy, is intriguing. It’s an image of broken blinds hanging in a window of some boarded up building. We can see an intersection and some sort of building, possibly a store or a house, across the street in the window’s reflection. It could be anywhere, and the blind could be a reflection of something else. Weariness? Depression? The sagging post-Brexit British economy? Or, it could just be an image as intriguing as Swampy‘s music.
The title track begins the record with almost romantic guitar riffs from Tom Dowse until Lewis Maynard‘s bass comes in an changes the mood to something mysterious. Lead singer Florence Shaw tells a story, as she always does, about, I think, politicians who supported the Brexit, but now regret it and are too afraid to admit it for fear of losing a good chunk of their voting base. “Sombre Two” is indeed somber. Dowse’s guitar sounds like it’s slogging through a manic depressive episode. I don’t know how he gets his guitar to make sounds like this.
The next two tracks are remixes of songs from their newest full-length album, Stumpwork. “Hot Penny Day” (remixed by Charlotte Adigéry and Bolis Pupul) becomes a fat synth-bass dance track suitable for all you “disco pickles” with Shaw’s voice being pitch-changed now and then to make her sound like a robot, seductress, and ghost – often all at once. The Nourished By Time remix of “Gary Ashby” has male lead vocals for part of the track, which sound jarring at first after you’ve heard Shaw’s spoken-word vocals for so long. She joins the vocal track soon, however, and then both vocals are pushed a bit back so Dowse’s guitar sounds can becoming a bright, shimmering experience. The EP ends with a demo version of “Peanuts” that has fun percussion from Nick Buxton and lounge-like saxophone and electric piano riffs.
It’s a nice little gem from this band who keeps doing their own thing and waiting for you to catch up to them.
Coming in hot from Sydney, Australia, Half Cut‘s first EP for the HOMAGE label, Here in Full, is a great spin – seven tracks of house and electro dialed in and ready to make you cut a rug.
“Player” kicks it off with, appropriately, an electric kick drum, hi-hat, and snare and a heavy dose of 1980s early house music. That thick synth-bass is killer, and then comes in the sample of “This ain’t no game!” to remind you that creating funky house music can be serious business. “Floor Five,” the first single off the EP, moves us from the late 1980s into mid-1990s house music with its joyful synth-piano chords and gospel sound vocals.
Remember that thick synth-bass in “Player?” Well, it’s even thicker in “Free,” which practically jiggles your hips for you. “Noise” thumps and bumps with a slightly dangerous edge that I’m sure gets asses out of seats. The Crosby remix of “Noise” almost completely changes the tune, making it a sexy banger great for dance floors and bedrooms.
“Energy” is the workout song you didn’t know you needed on your cardio playlist until you hear it, and the way Half Cut samples a cut from “Pass the Dutchie” by Musical Youth will make your jaw drop.
What lies in the Land of Sleeper, the new album by Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs? One, heavy riffs. Two, the battle against existential dread and anger, judging by the lyrics. Lead singer Matt Baty has made no secret of how, on the band’s new album, he decided to give in to his urge to sing / scream about deep, dark subjects such as death, sloth, wrath, and how time can easily feel like it’s slipping away with each breath.
The opening guitar riff on “Ultimate Hammer” alone will knock you to the floor and shake you out of any doldrums. They seem intent on awakening us from slumber, both self-induced and imposed upon us by unseen forces. “Life passes by in the blink of an eye,” Baty sings while his bandmates charge at you with guitars and drums that sound like hundreds of band saws. The title of “Terror’s Pillow” alone gives you an idea of the dread Baty feels as he drifts off into sleep, and drummer Ewan Mackenzie‘s cymbal crashes roll over you like an avalanche.
“Big Rig” is the aftershock of that avalanche with John-Michael Hedley‘s bass leading the charge. In it, Baty sings of the grit and grime (both literal and metaphorical) that covers their hometown of Newcastle Upon Tyne, but how an old tree inspires him to keep on keepin’ on (“At times it withers, but come spring, it soldiers on.”). “The Weatherman” is downright spooky with its chant-like opening vocals and creepy guitar work by Adam Ian Sykes. “There’s a storm coming!” Baty yells. If thisis the sound of an impending storm, then that storm is going to wipe towns off the map once it arrives.
“Mr. Medicine” is a song of love and hope amid the pressures of the modern world, believe it or not (“That song you sang to me made me feel strong and completely fearless.”), and “Pipe Down!” is a great example of how Sykes and producer / fellow guitarist Sam Grant often trade shredding duties back and forth in the same song.
“Atlas Stone” is a song about carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders, and the band amplifies this message with crushing, heavy riffs. The closer, “Ball Lightning,” takes them, and us, into psychedelic doom landscapes as dark wizards plot alliances with unholy things that live in deep trenches and a band of five warriors from Newcastle Upon Tyne decide to take up their axes, swords, crossbows, shields, and mystical scrolls to, again, do battle for the sake of all of us.
I urge you to follow them into, through, and out of the Land of Sleeper. You’ll come out of the journey with a newfound power.
You often hear of a lot of music collections being described as “essential.” The term gets used to the point of near-meaninglessness, but in the case of Don’t Move, the collection of three years’ worth of material from both incarnations of Indiana synth and new wave legends The Last Four Digits, it’s true. In another universe, The Last Four (4, or 5) Digits are as well known as The B-52s or The Ramones, but in thisreality, their limited output only makes their legend better.
The first eight tracks of this compilation are songs from the first version of the band, The Last Four (4) Digits with Steve Grigdesby (rhythm guitar and vocals), John Koss drums and vocals), Mike Sheets (bass and vocals), and Richard Worth (lead guitar and vocals) – with synthesizers and mixing with Dave “A.Xax” Fulton. They’re all jittery, crunchy punk cuts that remind you of those scary kids you’d see hanging out of the mall in the early 1980s (I was one of them, by the way.). Heck, “Leave Me Alone” is practically a theme song for Generation X. The weird angles of Worth’s guitar and vocals on “Fast Friends” reminds you of Joy Division tracks.
Their version of Bo Diddley‘s / Captain Beefheart‘s “Diddy Wah Diddy” swaps out most of the raunchy guitars for weird synths…and it still works. “Another Sex Crime” has plenty of swagger, and “City Streets” is grungy synth-punk that would make early Devo proud. You’ll want “(I Want to Be an) Undertaker” on all of your Halloween playlists after hearing it, and you might as well add “Coughing Up Blood” while to your “birthday songs” playlists while you’re at it. “(I Sold My Soul to) Fotomat” is perhaps the beginning of what would become one of the main themes of the second version of the band.
The Last Four (5) Digits had Sheets switch from bass to guitar, kept Joss on drums, and brought Fulton out from behind the mixing board, and added Brad “Mr. Science” Garton on keyboards and vocals and Julie Huffaker on bass and vocals. As the liner notes of Don’t Move will tell you, they embraced “Abstract Commercialism” and began including TV themes, commercial jingles, and advertising concepts in their songs and live shows. “Don’t Move” takes on a darker tone that some of their other tracks, which I love.
“Liquids” is a great example of their love of commercial culture, sampling early 1980s ads and singing about drinking colored liquids, eating colored foodstuffs, and taking lots of drugs. “Act Like Nothing’s Wrong” is a fun song about trying to figure out what’s wrong with a lover while also trying not to piss off that same lover while doing it. “Babaloo No More” is a tale of Lucy Ricardo killing Ricky after he has an affair and Fred and Ethel threatening to boot her out of their apartment if she can’t make the rent. It’s funny, weird, and gives a hard kick in the junk to re-run TV. Their cover of “Mack the Knife” is equally strange, and “I Have Rental Car” is the sound of entitled people yelling about crap that doesn’t really matter.
The last eleven tracks on Don’t Move are a recording of their performance at CBGB‘s on Valentine’s Day 1982. They open with the simple announcement of “Hi. We’re The Last Four Digits,” and then go straight in to “Liquids.” Huffaker’s bass is so heavy on the live version of “Leave Me Alone” that it almost levels the room. They turn the grisly “Coughing Up Blood” into a pogo-inducing rocker, but change the lyric “Coughing up blood on your birthday!” to “Coughing up blood on your Valentine!” in honor of that night.
They cover of “Return to Sender” and then throw down a thudding version of “Act Like Nothing’s Wrong,” followed by a nearly panicked version of “Babaloo No More.” Up next come covers of “Mack the Knife” and the theme to the wild sci-fi film The Green Slime. The live version of “I Have Rental Car” is even more frenetic and unhinged than the studio version.
It’s a crucial collection if you’re into vintage no wave / new wave stuff, and the addition of the live tracks is a boon for collectors and enthusiasts. Don’t skip it if you can find it. I scored it for 99 cents at Reckless Records in Chicago earlier this year – a massive steal.
