Colm - "45"

Colm originated from Fontenay aux Roses, France.
They played a blend of twee pop, post-punk, noise pop, and alternative rock.
Existing in the early part of the 1990s, the band released this EP - "45" - in 1992, and their only LP - "(Serum)" - in 1994, shortly before disbanding.
The music showcased on this EP is clearly that of avid music fans; crafted, honed, honest.
Singer Daniel Dauxerre spent his working hours behind the Paris counter of Rough Trade, which only helps to reinforce the afforementioned claim.
Above all else, this is a record by those who love records.

The opening track, "Starchild", greets the listener with the kind of noise associated with My Bloody Valentine (whose drummer coincidentally shares the same name as this band, though I doubt remotely related), before giving way to a riff closer to foot-tapping than shoe-gazing. The soft and comely vocals here seem reminiscent of lighter Dinosaur Jr. tracks - specifically when Lou takes the reins - and delivers the same power in it's catchy and playful hooks.
Swirling, encompassing, and ever so slightly jangly guitar licks dominate the outro of this song - offering a perfect composition of noise and pop.

"When I Was a Bird" follows quietly in the footsteps of the previous song. Dominated by a light whisper of vocals atop lurking, lurching, and muted guitars - this track revels in the glory of the loud//quiet dynamic.
The song relies heavily on the cooing repetition of it's own title, before ushering into the jarring line "When I was a bird/ I saw, and felt, everything so right/ I tasted the sugar of your life"; as the final word of that verse is spoken, the namesake lyrics are again repeated, this time above a roaring rise in thunderous drums, which breaks prematurely into the most rewarding of guitar hooks.

Track three, "Never Smile", opens with the ever-present swirling guitars, similar to Sonic Youth's signature sound. Buried vocals are what sells this song, with ripping drums and post-punk influenced guitar work taking the lead.
A short break down showcases just how much influence the band has amalgamated into their style, as we are presented with something much closer to Southern Death Cult than Sub Pop. The guitars then give way into a verse reminiscent of a jangling Joy Division, before lapsing back into their patented hiss of noise hooks.

"Orange to Green", the records closing song, clocks in at 7 minutes 21 seconds - and rewards us with a drawn out and realised explosion of shoegazing and noise rock.
Easily the heaviest and most dense track on the EP, the band shows one last triumphant flare of piss and vigor, amongst the soft lullabies of pop and post-punk.
A suited finisher to a sonically soothing experience.

It's not often you stumble across a little known band with such a remarkable sound; that you know, given the right chances, could've been huge. Colm are exactly that.
They have just the right amount of fermenting feedback to satisfy the most fervent of underground fans, and couple it so passionately with calming pop sensibilities - harkening as far back as "Pet Sounds".
Yet, they have become victim to the passing of time, and are ghost-like with their presence.
For those who love their music to subdue and suffocate, this is unmissable.

Download

- Thom.

Memorial Voice - Ne Veux Plus Vivre

Memorial Voice were a band who seamlessly straddled the line between cutting and caustic coldwave, and the harsher tonal qualities of post-punk.
Often being referred to as 'street punk', this was a band who took cues from fellow European crust and UK82 acts, and infused them with their post-punk sensibilities.
Releasing this sole recorded under the name Memorial Voice, before briefly switching to the moniker Ctakahoø SS, and then Stakanov SS for their final two EPs - this band has unfortunatley left behind little to no legacy.
A crying shame, considering "Ne Veux Plus Vivre" is arguably one of the most refreshing and enjoyable post-punk records to ever see the light of day.
This nine track tribute to all things bleak and resentful opens and closes on a familiar tone, while mourning its own misery with piss and vigor in between.
I wish I could say more, because this band, and this record, deserve such songs of praise - but I'd only offer a disservice, and such great music speaks for itself.
This is a post-punk record for those who prefer the suffix.

Memorial Voice - "Ne Veux Plus Vivre"

- Thom.

Ceremony - Zoo

How does a band begin to tackle the stigma of signing to a larger label after years of honing their craft and treading water at a celebrated house of hardcore? The options are limited - and the risk of alienation runs high. Assuming you play a special strain of guitar music with a semblance of originality at it's core, and you're protective of that, you only really have a choice of two paths.

You can follow the guiding light of the pioneering Hüsker Dü who, after their ascension to Warner Bros, refused to use the platform to write hook-heavy pop songs for 50's throwback America, and instead ploughed headlong into recording an album that smacked of early Dü flavours and a lack of compromise. Alternatively, you could stick two fingers up to the boardroom with one hand, use the other to seat a producer of Albini type rawness, and lay to wax a record more jarring, bolshy and inward than what came before it - à la 'In Utero.'

Whilst the transition from Bridge 9 records to Matador is by no means an SST to Capitol sized pole vault, for North California's greatest punk export of the last half a decade - Ceremony, it should be viewed in much the same manner. Matador records is of sorts the prom king at the independent ball, married to big billing acts such as Pavement, Sonic Youth, Guided by Voices, Interpol and others. For a label that concerns itself with the screeds of alternative sounding rock and squirming post-hardcore, Matador's coupling with Ceremony births notions of either a bigger label trying to euthanize a pure punk band's violent nature, or perhaps a label with deep rooted hardcore affiliations wanting to reinvest in the root reason why we're all here in the first place; punk rock. Sub Pop wielded a similar tactic by adding the noisy Pissed Jeans of Pennsylvania to their No Age / Fleet Foxes tasting roster.

Ross Farrar - Ceremony's unhinged Jack Kelly type frontman - once stated his intent to write a record "that's like the Pixies or something," which seemed like more of a reality this time round now that the dust has settled on the quantum jump from Still Nothing Moves You to 2010's Rohnert Park, where Black Flag bred with Infest noise gave way spectacularly to quasi-garage meanderings and burst of 'Punk Rock 101.'

Zoo uncoils with the first single 'Hysteria', a two and a half minute early Saccharine Trust style romp that unfurls to the sounds of Farrar's customary poetic wondering (How will we survive / we continue to ask / no one ever does / no one ever does). It's anti-anthemic by way of it's driven guitar and driven Social Distortion vocal hook, clever enough to know that it's not revolutionary, confident enough to swing it's dick anyway.

In the wake of Ryan 'Toast' Mattos' departure, the approach to guitar has undergone an overhaul. New Draftee Andy Nelson plays strong / weak element to the tested talents of Anthony Anzaldo, together they create a strong British via Wire and Gang of Four vibe apparent on say 'Repeating The Circle' or 'Ordinary People.' The band's partiality for Wire stretches further than their Covers EP recording of Pink Flag, as Zoo plays around with sped up 'Feeling Called Love' reminiscent guitar lines throughout. Zoo's wild ambition and sure of itself nature rarely holds up proceedings, yet the four minute diatribe of 'Brace Yourself' suffers under it's 240 seconds of tethered energy, with the final freak out not sounding built up enough to truly raise an apex around the album's spine.

The shortest track Zoo has to offer would have been one of the longest had it been featured on Violence Violence - clocking in at a hasty 1:37 - 'World Blue' crunches into life with a Bob Mould-like stop start guitar line as Farrar leaves behind his instantly identifiable caterwaul of albums past to channel the influence of Panic demo era Keith Morris. World Blue's urgency is the closest thing to a Rohnert Park relic you're likely to find on Zoo, signalling the band's intent for a clean break into ambivalent post punk and beyond.

Ceremony are still playing off a quarter-century of music history, yet Zoo finds them gradating away from the cheap guitars and broken noses of This Is Boston, Not L.A. into territories better associated with The Fall or Magazine. To assume the band have laid to rest thoughts of writing more tracks of Living Hell, Nail ilk would be half right, but the overriding thought should not be of heaviness lost, but of re-inventiveness gained. The weighty coffin nail of 'Nosebleed,' with it's sparse, harsher-than-Pixies rumble and thoughtful bassline, acts as a giant sleeper cloistered between the peppy to-and-fro of Ordinary People / Community Service - working in much the same way as The Doldrums or Into The Wayside pt II did for Rohnert Park.

As a band, Ceremony refuse to carry any creative dead weight, shedding skin after every touring cycle to colour themselves anew. After five years of chewing on those Greg Ginn licks and throwing vocal hysterics of Danny Spira proportions, the constant evolution has led them to where they are now - refined, concentrated, matured. Zoo is not a heavier album, that's agiven, neither is it an insistence on playing how they've always played. Ceremony went neither Candy Apple Grey nor In Utero, opting rather to remove themselves from the fork in the road and to swan-dive into murkier, untested waters. The results are substantially interesting.

Matador Records

- Josh

Bluenose B - Forever Passing Trains

All inflated hyperbole aside, the lonesome 'Forever Passing Trains 12" ' by Bluenose B is one of my favourite releases of all time. Thom, my best friend and third PP writer forced this upon me about six months ago and it's practically changed the way I listen to music. The band were active in the mid 80's, and hailed from an area just north of Liverpool, UK. Post Bluenose B i'm much more attentive to everything that's going on; whether it be melody, structure, dynamic.. whatever. It's peculiar how a record that never made much of a dent in the superstructure can have that dramatic an affect on you. More power to punk and everything it spawned.

As far as my half fruitful background check went I can't find much else other than a series of tracks laid down late in the Bluenose B tenure by varying line ups. These gloriously British melodious post-punk composers released something quintessentially perfect in my eyes, and then took the opportunity for an extended bow out. There were rumblings of later career EP's and rejuvenation after line-up changes, but I'm not clued up on that.

Bluenose B work with a Smith's template of sorts, opener 'Burning Up' is a slowly evolving lament of jangling guitars cresting and falling as everything that was once pure about Indie-pop breaks itself against the rocks. 'Forever Passing Trains' plays an encouraging new wave backdrop as Dave Billows vocal sawtooths sensationally around the upper echelons of total harmony. 'Forever Passing Trains' is the masterpiece for me. To cap it off, 'Maybe,' is a sweet four minute cherry that spills emotion poignantly onto tape. I recommend this, heavily.

Bluenose B - Forever Passing Trains

- Josh

Two Days With ICEAGE

Last monday I went to the Fucked Up / IceAge / Eagulls / Black Lungs show in Leeds, UK. Along with my friends Harry and Sam I ended up spending two days with IceAge, showing them around Leeds, buying Madonna records with them, getting high and taking photos. I took them to pick up a copy of VICE magazine because they had no idea that their New Brigade record had been given 9/10 this month.

IceAge are a ridiculously exciting prospect for many reasons. Firstly, their average age comes in at 19, and they're already writing tracks that smack of musical maturity way beyond their years. Frontman Elias told me how he wanted to write songs that sound like his band covering Bruce Springsteen songs, and that the song Broken Bone is a perfect example of such disparate sources meeting in the middle.

They've grown up in Copenhagen, a vibrant metropolis at first glance, but on assessment this background has provided them with an open space to flourish however they've wanted to. Rather than being cluttered by a bulwark of bands and scenes apparent in say, New York, London, Los Angeles, etc, they've been given a geographical pocket to make their own.

Here are a few photos from two days spent getting to know the most exciting band in Denmark;

- Josh