Vinegar Strokes

Last week I saw this Leeds based band play on a lineup that included Mexico's ultra forceful Inservibles, the relatively new outfit 'No' (featuring the vocalist from The Shitty Limits on drums) and the somewhat semi-local hardcore band Moat. Vinegar Strokes were my favourite band on the bill, which says a lot considering how young they are as a four piece, and how crushing each of the other bands on the bill sounded within in their own right.

The Vinegar Strokes attack plays as a powerful coagulent of raw black punk anchored by solid noisey riff-making. The vocals are howled, the drumming is on point and almost waltzy at times. The whole thing breeches the ear drums as a lethargic Pissed Jeans slowdancing with Bone Awl. Listen to the track 'TV News' - the final track from their demo - and you should be able pick up on the sharp vocals and skin splitting drum parts being blended with pinches of that familiar ironic jauntiness that Pissed Jeans have thoroughly made their trademark

'Benefit Cuts', rolls in with a playful modern pigfuck type riff, something The Men would have been proud to write. Thirty seconds in and a tirade of raspy vocals flood in to take over the proceedings. There is a definite veneer of SQRM similarity, not a total looting of the Rodeo grave by any means, just a shared taste for mid-tempo, intensely dark hardcore - the type that would strike fear into the heart of any Trapped Under Ice fan.

Track one 'Jason' welcomes in a Grinning Death's Head style mix of aggression, and keeps to the proven template of raw, lo-fi, distressed black metal meets punk. Sharing the same city with Sump has probably resulted in a great deal of influence being worn off on these guys. The similarities are definitely noticeable, although Vinegar Strokes seem to approach the situation from a hardcore background, whereas Sump are much more ingratiated within the realms of black metal.

The whole thing sounds great live. The thrashing of the low end makes the swirling mass of blackened punk feel like it has something weighty to rely on, rather than being totally lost in feedback. I think you'd have to pen these guys as a raw punk band, with noisey inflections. They're predominantly more Youth Attack than Posh Isolation, if you had to stylize them. I'm heavily recommending this band

Demo 2011

- 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

Grazes - Myths

Grazes on Myspace
Purchase 'Myths' from Holy Roar Records
Co-released with Ebb & Flow Records
2011

No time to fuck about. Hailing from Sheffield, UK, relative young bloods of the Hardcore scene Grazes have hammer-smashed together a fourteen minute opus of uncurtailed aggression and mixed state mania. 'Myths' is their first release on Holy Roar Records - a label notorious for it's heterogeneous smorgasbord of past releases - and quite frankly this seven track blitzkrieg somewhat channels the label's partiality for varied textures and tones. 'Myths' consolidates a foundation of no nonsense Hardcore Punk savageness with various genre signatures found elsewhere along the incestuous tree line of Punk Rock. Arguably, they've pulled off this grand collision to a successful degree.

Track one for instance, 'Intro/Black Death' takes it's time in cooking a nauseous, almost sludgy bassline, eventually rolling into gyrations of 'Conspiring The Go Go'-esque Ampere, and the dynamic switches faster than you can say 'Yorkshire' as 'Drown In The River Styx' announces itself with a ten second drum pattern straight out of the Los Crudos handbook.

The Screamo elements are mercurial, yet they're so blatantly there. You can hear pinches of say, Comadre underpinning 'My Last Day' as it barrel-rolls through bad attitude vocals and noodling guitar cuts. But, at the same time the solid scaffold of this entire release remains devoutly Hardcore in the traditional sense.

The clever misdirection, or rather, deliberate blending of sounds peaks on both 'Rex Anglorum' and 'Observer's Paradox' whereupon the riff-broker - who has so patiently sliced a path of clear cut punk chops up until now - vents a torrent of wavy, possibly Iommi influenced guitar lines. Achievements that Baroness' John Baizley might like to give these four northern scamps a little slap for.

There is a lot to be heard on 'Myths,' a lot of ambition vying for attention, but the entire view manages to keep it's sense of panorama. The result is balanced, quite considered but still merciless as fuck. I think the kind of record that Grazes have put out this year owes an indirect debt of thanks to acts such as Touché Amoré, who have, within the last two years, managed to embolden the fan base for Hardcore thats tactile and clearly accessible without overly sacrificing the sheer fucking chaos that brought us all here in the first place. In short, Hell has come home to Sheffield in 2011.

- Josh

Sealings

Sealings are a duo of noisey entrapment that have burrowed their way hastily through the trench systems of Britain's disparaging scene of lo-fi, twinkle fingered, feedback peddling, mysterious folk to crown themselves the fantastic kings of fuck all. With a sound that borrows so much from so many sources, initial thoughts might lean towards an antcipation of 'Probably heard similar stuff before' but wipe any and all of those encroaching saturnine thoughts from your twin deck cassette playing mind and sink into this melancholic breeding pool of battered drum machine driven beauty because their isolation on a musical level is profound. They're like castaways.

William and Jim Reid would chain smoke themselves into an early grave just contemplating the warble and reverb of Hazel Eyes / Shut In. Tracks such as King Shot from the tape put out on Italian Beach Babes is a snake of smoke. Oxymoronic, no? Well it meanders a line of bristling misery, wafer thin, almost comforting in a Slowdive - Alison type way, before constricting, screeching and ultimately abandoning itself.
 
We got in touch with these two guys and put an interview together. Beneath the interview you will find download links to a whole manner of stuff they've released, which they've kindly put up for free worship.

Firstly, what can you tell us about the band's inception, was it just a natural congelation of like minded musicians?

Liam – Me and Michael live in the same house so it was natural to start playing. We mainly messed around for about a bit recording terrible songs before we decided to have programmed drums.
We thought that if we made a full band it would probably end up pretty boring because we’d have to please everyone. We recorded a demo to try and get some gigs and Carl from Clan Destine records somehow found them and ended up releasing them, so that probably convinced us to keep doing everything ourselves at home, even though we can only really play guitar and I can’t sing.


Michael - when we realised we both played guitar and were into the same sort of music we just started messing around playing stuff. i don't think we ever made a conscious decision to start a band or anything like that but after a while it just seemed like a good idea

When Sealings first got together, would you say that your sound managed to flesh itself out rather quickly or has there been a lot of twists and turns in achieving the current noise?

Michael - i guess it's changed a bit from when we first started, but it's always been around the same sort of ideas, just lots of feedback, heavy bass, low vocals and a drum machine.


Liam - We had a drummer at first, our mate Jon, but he mainly listens to tech metal so he bailed. Since we started programming the drums, it fleshed out pretty quickly. I still like the first tape we did in 2009 and we still play all those songs.
I think it’s recorded a bit better now as well. We record onto an 8 track and we’ve got better at using it. We’re definitely not being deliberately lo-fi, we’re doing our best.

The comparisons between gigantic acts such as My Bloody Valentine are somewhat inescapable, would you say they've been a direct influence?

Liam - I wasn’t that surprised by it, My Bloody Valentine and the Jesus and Mary Chain are two of our favourite bands. They’re not a direct influence, but we’ve both listened to them a lot since we were young so it probably seeped in. Nirvana as well.
I don’t think we sound that much like any of them, but it’s not something I get wound up about. There aren’t too many bands doing the same sort of thing as us at the moment with the drum machine and stuff, which is nice because I would probably not enjoy us being lumped in with a load of new bands. It’s better to be compared to those big bands if anything.


Michael - it's always flattering to be compared to your favorite bands, i don't think we've ever tried to directly emulate the sound of certain bands like My Bloody Valentine but particularly their use of repitition and samples and the way the vocals are mixed is something we're interested in.

Do you see the band's sound as something you want to adhere closely to for the foreseeable future or are we going to see even wilder experimentation?

Michael - i guess once you've established a sound for the music you make you try and manipulate it in a way that allows you to do different stuff but still maintains the sound you have. we never disregard ideas because it wouldn't fit with our band.


Liam – We don’t set out to be experimental or anything, but it’s kind of more interesting for us to make it sound a bit different. We don’t rule out songs on the grounds that they don’t sound like the other songs, or because we can’t play them live. We’ll probably always do songs like King Shot and Cruel World that are just guitar, bass and drums but also try and branch out a bit. We have a load of stuff recorded that hasn’t come out yet. One of those is called Shut In and I don’t know what Mike wanted it to sound like, but it sounds like chilling out in Hawaii.

Any plans to take the party on the road and tour at all?

Liam – We’re trying to get a few more shows around where we live because we have no money and neither of us can drive. Hopefully we’ll tour eventually but there’s a few places that we’ll try and play when we can, like in Sheffield/Leeds with the guys from Tye Die tapes, and in Manchester and Glasgow.
It will be good to play live a bit more, we try to make it a bit different to the recorded stuff, it’s a bit heavier to make up for it only being two of us.


Michael - i don't know if touring is really a decision for us to make at this point, i mean if we got offered it then sure i guess. playing live is something we enjoy but so much is dependent on the sound guy and i'm not sure if i like placing that much trust in someone who has never heard us. also, i would like it if i never had to look at the audience.

We like hearing about what our friends themselves are listening to, any bands, artists or records that you find yourself spinning over and over at the minute?

Michael - there's a band called Honeycomb Bones from Hull which i've liked for a while now, they've put out a lot of stuff and it's all really awesome. Rema Rema are another band i always come back to, they were one of the first releases on 4AD and my uncle is the singer/bassist. asides from that, i listen to a lot of music from the 50's and 60's like Carl perkins, Bo Diddley and The Ventures


Liam – We both like Bitches a lot. Old Forest from London are amazing, and they’re super young. They’re pretty sludgy and 90s. We played with The Pheromoans a couple of months ago and they’re really good. I’ve been listening to PFFR and the Frogs a lot, and the new Pissed Jeans album because I didn’t hear about it coming out and I only got that this year. Also, there’s a NWOBHM band called Hammerhead who did a song called Time Will Tell and it is maybe the best song ever http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gBeJko_pHp8

Releases & Tracks:

The Tye Dye Tape

The Clan Destine Tape

Calling

Jack Nicholson, In A Sea of Faces

Split EP With Lois Magic

Wrist

Italian Beach Babes Tape (2011)

- 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