24. Dinosaur Jr – I Bet On Sky (Jagjaguwar)

NOTHING LEFT TO PROVE territory for Dinosaur at this point, as the band’s initially questionable 21st century reincarnation has succeeded not only in kicking the world’s ass pretty thoroughly in what cliché demands I call “the live arena”, but also in recording the best album of their entire careers in the shape of ‘Farm’. With any remaining naysayers long since turned to dust, it only stands to reason that they should take their foot off the gas and chill out a while, and that’s where ‘..Sky’ comes in. More spread out than the full tilt rock of ‘Farm’ and ‘Beyond’, this one’s got a breezy sorta quality to it, rather reminiscent of those ‘90s major label Dino albums that Mascis pretty much made on his own, his vox and guitar leads riding atop lighter, intermittently acoustic backing, with even a goddamn keyboard and plinky-plonk piano sticking their oar in on the opening cut.

Moreso than usual, the Barlow tunes sound pretty much like Sebadoh with slightly better guitar (thus earning a ‘meh’ from me), and as for Mascis, well, he’s got his particular ‘thing’ down to a fine art by this stage, so no surprises from that direction either. Normally I’d continue with some generic comment about how an apparently successful, happily married middle-aged man can still manage to conjure up these tumultuous vistas of inarticulate adolescent angst at the drop of a hat, but actually he seems to have mellowed out a little lyrically/emotionally too, sounding at least a BIT less distraught and untogether than he did when he was twenty one, his raging sorrows increasingly filtering through into a kind of rose-tinted wistfulness for chances missed, good times gone, and so forth.

Of course, we don’t really turn up at a Dinosaur record for any of that shit, so let’s get to the point. Though one may blanch when scanning through the mp3s and noting that many of these songs break the five minute barrier, rest assured that many of those superfluous minutes are dedicated to Mascis cutting loose on some characteristically supreme guitar business, and if you’re as much of a fan of unashamed six string grandeur as I am, what more do you need to know? Dude still tears it up like the bastard son of Neil Young and Wayne Kramer wired up to a rig the size of Krakatoa. Hearing him do what he does is a joy at an time of day, and, speaking of Neil, closing track ‘See It On Your Side’ in particular is frrkin’ awesome, catching the band at their Young-est, indulging in a few ‘Cortez the Killer’ riffs for a suitably sublime, greatest hits-worthy fade out.

23. Umberto – Night Has A Thousand Screams (Rock Action)

Could Matt Hill’s third album under the Umberto name see him abandoning the well-worn tropes of fake-horror-movie-soundtrack-core and exploring a more pastoral, contemplative approach to composition..? COULD IT FUCK. Designed to accompany selected scenes from the infamous Spanish slasher movie ‘Pieces’, ‘Night Has 1,000 Screams’ (an English translation of the film’s original release title) shamelessly revels in its own wholly predictable strain of anachronistic synth badassery, tooling up in the shadow of Carpenter, Frizzi and Simonetti for yet another trek into the analogue-haunted VHS wilderness… again prompting me to wonder just how many times all this stuff can be reiterated before it ceases to sound totally fucking cool. When I find the answer, I’ll be sure to let you know. Given the soundtrack conceit, ‘..1,000 Screams’ is understandably more bitty than 2010’s magnum opus ‘Prophesy of the Black Widow’, victim to the sudden tonal shifts and arbitrary track lengths that define most OSTs. But what it lacks in cohesion it more than makes up for with strict, period appropriate awesomeness.

Unruly, bass-bin worrying oscillations feature prominently, providing appropriately hair-raising counter-point to the chiming, Halloween-like melody lines and pulsing, metronomic beats that stomp into ear-shot like the steady stomp of a knife-wielding maniac’s size tens on the opening ‘Boston, 1942’, whilst elsewhere crafty bass-synth lines, Frizzi-endorsed sunny synth choirs and wet drum rolls rise and fall on cue. Eerie, random scuffling droning tones and peals of noise pervade the lengthy ‘Paralysed’, which begins to sound more like something off Mount Vernon Arts Lab’s hauntological terror classic ‘Séance at Hobbs Lane’ in places and, well I’m sure you get the picture. MAGNIFICO, as the bloody maniac who directed ‘Pieces’ might have exclaimed had his original composer scampered back with something this good.

22. Guided By Voices – The Bears For Lunch (Fire / GBV Inc)

I wrote about this just a few weeks back, but in case you’ve got a real bad memory here’s some things I said about it:

“Returning to Pollard though, since when did his songwriting get so, well…. linear? As much as I might swear by the mighty poetry of his conventional crossword-fucking lyrical style, even his most hardcore followers would have to admit he’s been driving it to the far edges of pointlessness in recent years, so it’s kinda refreshing to find him striking out with some more deliberately constructed material. In fact almost all of the album’s Pollard “hits” - ‘Hangover Child’, ‘She Lives In An Airport’, ‘White Flag’, ‘The Challenge is Much More’ – take the route of establishing a single lyrical theme and sticking to it, much in the way that a “normal” songwriter might do.
[…]
More to the point though, all of the above-mentioned songs – plus rousing opener ‘King Arthur The Red’ - stand as solid GBV fare, tunes that could have fared well had they appeared in slightly scrappier form on ‘Under the Bushes..’, and if admittedly none of them are exactly *spectacular*, with the addition of Sprout’s songs that still gives ‘Bears For Lunch’ by far the best Pollard/GBV hit rate in recent memory. And speaking of memory, I was worried initially worried that these songs would fade fast from it, but no - having just experienced a weekend wherein earphone time was in short supply, I can confirm that fragments of ‘Challenge..’ and ‘..Airport’ kept scraping away at the back of my brain, demanding attention, achieving precisely the kind of compulsive, scratch-that-itch listenability that indie rock has always traded on and thus clearing the final hurdle toward official, canonical GBV golden glory.
[…]
Whether anything on this album will make any kind of impression on listeners who aren’t already fully paid up GBV freaks is debatable, but, given the slim chances of said listeners even getting to hear it, that’s very much a moot point. Beginners are free to walk proudly into the record shops and ask for directions to the sanctified classics of the sainted ‘90s, but for those of us who have listened to them and listened to them and listened to them again already, ‘Bears For Lunch’ provides another nice disc to add to the heap, finding our heroes in sprightlier form than anyone might have expected, with the slow, sad creep toward obsolescence and death that accompanies disappointing comeback records happily vanquished… for a few months, at least.”

21. G. Green – Crap Culture (Mt St Mtn)

Oof. If the 2007-2010 lo-fi fun-punk revival was in need of a requiem, disaffected Sacramento quartet G. Green set out to provide, whether consciously or otherwise. Imagine some Mean Jeans style party punk band convening in their friend’s basement to record their next LP and collectively discovering that they were feeling burned out, worthless and generally couldn’t be fucked – that is the general vibe (if not the musical content) delivered on the pointedly titled ‘Crap Culture’.

‘Your House’ might get things started with a spring in its step – all ramshackle stand-up drumming and muffled shout-outs – but it’s like the last gasp of a party’s energy before the fog descends. ‘Pool of Blood’ and ‘Swimsuit Drugs’ spit themselves into the ether as outbursts of talentless, temper tantrum wimpy kid hardcore, frontman Andrew Henderson shrieking incoherently about the sheer fucking unbelievable frustration of being him, the voice of a man who old enough to know better, who just – you guessed it – couldn’t give a fuck. In fact it’s difficult to really make out a single word he says over the course of this record, but the emotional intent comes across loud and clear. The title track drops the drums, revealing a rather more indie-ish underpinning to proceedings, over-pedalled lead guitar making a mess all over a lonely, hopeless ode that recalls something off Dignan Porch’s first album, or contemplative-mode Robert Pollard in a seriously black mood. ‘Gay ‘90s’ and the delightfully titled ‘Mouth on the Floor’ continue to push the jaded, hacked off malaise in scrambling, sub-KBD fashion, before ‘Sinner Now’ closes proceedings on an incongruously epic note, pushing stone-age ur-shoegaze buttons that recall the brick wall splendour of Australia’s Kitchen Floor.

I’ve used a lot of negative words in this review, cos I feel this is a pretty negative record, but that’s not to say it’s not also a good one. It’s chaotic, homemade aesthetic is extremely pleasing, and its desperate emotional upswing hits hard, particularly on those mornings when you crawl beneath the pavement and die. If ‘Crap Culture’ were a person, it would be wearing a dirty t-shirt and broken glasses, and would be charging at you out the doorway of some rancid student party house, cider can in hand. The sound of realising that the ‘scene’ you’ve been wasting your life serving isn’t worth a damn, of witless First World Problems made flesh, I… uh, I like it quite a lot.

Labels: best of 2012, Dinosaur Jr, G Green, Guided By Voices, Heavy Cream, Umberto

35. Circle Pit – Bruise Constellation (Siltbreeze)

Male/female guitar/drums duo from New South Wales, making optimum use of two people and base-line recording tech to heft a sleazoid, faux-biker rock sound toward the heavens. Royal Trux must of course be heavily implicated in the absurd aesthetic sins being wrought here, but Neil & Jennifer’s Rolling Stones fetish and bloody-minded slop is exchanged here for a sleeker, tidier outer shell of dense overdubs, and a record collection birthed from the detritus of lost grunger millionaires rather than ‘70s cokehead millionaires.

In all seriousness, the “I’m a bad-ass dude from the 90s / where’s the heroin?” vocals on opening track “Wave Machine” nearly put me off this thing for good, but once one gets a hold of Circle Pit’s particular groove and learns accepts their affectations for what they are, it is hard not to emerge from side # 2 feeling like you’ve had a pretty good time. Specifically, the kind of good time factored around the inherent lizard brain pleasure of hearing queasy Chrome/Meat Puppets guitar spew lapping endlessly across the bones of minimal first-time-on-drums thud as both participants make snarling faces and laugh at themselves in the mirror. More relaxed stretches where they reign in the FX and cut down on the shtick have a nice, hazy feel to them too, reminiscent of Sam Jayne’s perpetually underrated Love As Laughter.

Indie-kids be warned: I think this music is probably really bad for you. I know it’s on a cool label and they have great cover designs, but prolonged exposure will likely make you eat worse, dress worse, and it will lower the defences which keep you safe from the lost legions who are still out there somewhere plying this kind of junkie-dress up pantomime rock with less guile and humour than Circle Pit. But what can you say, it feels good: like eating crisps.

Between these guys and Purling Hiss, am I sensing a sort of grass-roots revival of unapologetic stoner mong gaining momentum within the underground-ish music spectrum at the moment? Could “Make Your Own Monster Magnet” be the sound to be seen with in ’11? Wishful thinking maybe, but OH MAN, I sure do hope so! A good time to buy shares in whoever it is makes those cheap wah-wah pedals that are always turning up on ebay, perhaps?

Mp3> Wave Machine



34. The Sceptres – discography tape (Suplex tapes)

Impeccably cool of presentation and musical vocabulary, The Spectres are the instant hit of the random stuff I’ve found to spend my pocket money on in London’s record shops this year. Urgent, nerve-rattled, spiked year zero punk that’s smart and exciting without getting irritating or post-y or letting the pace drop for a second – cor, yes please! Some of these guys are/were in pop-hardcore crew The Shitty Limits, whose dedication to speed and concision can be heard throughout. Front-woman Bryony meanwhile brings some slighty more complex melodies and weirdly constructed material to the table, and her fantastic shriekin’, rantin’ vocals make my heart beat a bit faster, claiming kinship of a long and noble pantheon of characterful British girl yellers that runs from Ari Up and Poly Styrene through Huggy Bear to the likes of Shrag, Help She Can’t Swim and Betty & The Werewolves.

You could maybe throw some vague period reference points in The Sceptres’ direction (X Ray Spex, “Pink Flag”, Peel Session-era Slits, pre-album ATV), but none of them really do this sound justice. Everything on this tape may scream ’77-‘79, but there weren’t actually *any* UK punk bands that sounded quite like this. Which is a shame cos they really bloody well should’ve been. At least we’ve got The Sceptres now, to make up for the past’s deficiencies.

Sound quality on this tape (compiled as an omnibus of assorted 7” releases, I think) is predictably shitty - muffled and mangled and warped by the long neglected tape player on my crappy mini-hifi - which is frustrating, making me hope for my own sake that this new vogue for tapes dies fast, regardless of how pretty and homemade and wilfully anachronistic they look. At the same time though, it occurs to me that this one performs the function of a classic demo tape perfectly – hearing these fuckin’ awesome songs all scuffed up and distant makes me itchy and desperate to hear more of them, at closer range. If I was some record label mogul or venue-booker (or John Peel) back in the era when demo tapes existed, I’d have these guys on the phone pronto, asking how fast they could get down here to play this music for me properly.

Mp3> Holes (from ‘Primal Slobs Go Wild’ EP)



33. Black Time – More Songs about Motorcycles and Death 12” EP (Wrench Records)

This 12” represents my first initiation into the world of cultish London-based group Black Time, and what I hear is strange and loud and disturbing and wrong in all the right ways. It makes me go all shivery and glance around anxiously. I like it.

There is a strong aesthetic consistency running through this record that I really appreciate, from name and cover art to song titles, and to the sound of the music itself. If I tell you that the opening cut is entitled “Fast Motorbike In The Kitchen”, we could end the review there really – that one phrase provides an exact summation of what Black Time sound like, where they are heading, the unnerving effect they intend to convey.

After a few years during which many, many new bands have faced accusations of using low fidelity recording to disguise a lack of ideas/talent, Black Time put the shit-fi veil to more aggressive and old fashioned use, pulling a thick fug of room noise and tape hiss across the details of their work like a black curtain, using it to build distance and mystery, as deliberately as some kvlt black metal outfit might. Not that this is all grim and alienated and po-faced, mind you. On the contrary, it’s honest and immediate and loads of fun – like a fast motorbike in the kitchen. And, somehow, after generations of sub-sub-Mary Chain/Raveonettes humbug has bored us senseless with motorbikes and chains and leather and car crashes, there is a maniacal, engine room determination here that makes it all work anew.

If “Cycles” suffers somewhat from sounding more like The Fall than is strictly healthy for a band that is not The Fall, other cuts do much to win me back, with “The Living Dead” paying oblique tribute to my all time fave weirdo-biker film “Psychomania” (sounds like they’re recording with a TV playing one of the movie’s bike chase scenes on in the background), whilst “Mallory Park” stalks into being like a vampire hunter bumbling ‘round Highgate cemetery before exploding into a beserk volley of maxed out noise (here comes the vampire!). “Harley Davidson” even has a touch of that propulsive, wistful, hopeless quality to it, some hint of an early Comet Gain track lost in its clang and clatter, like sitting in a bare room in 1972, staring at a black & white picture tacked to the wall, of guys in shade, riding motorbikes - no longer in the kitchen. (Allegedly it's a cover of the Serge Gainsbourg/Brigitte Bardot tune, but I've yet to clock the similarity.)

Yeah, I like this. For music that goes out of it’s way to present itself as a buncha barely there, off-the-cuff bullshit, Black Time has real staying power.

Mp3> Fast Motorbike in the Kitchen



32. Umberto – Prophecy of the Black Widow (Not Not Fun)

The caravan of contemporary outfits paying tribute to the cool sounds found emanating from ‘70s/’80s horror movies rumbles on across the icy wilderness, with one the strongest and most shameless entries in this peculiar sub-genre to date, courtesy of one Matt Hill, recording on this occasion as “Umberto”.

Making the hermetic Carpenter worship of Zombi and, er, Zombie Zombie seem positively subtle in comparison, Hill really goes for the cup here, throwing in every fuckin’ thing he can think of that signifies this particular style, assembling an appropriately garish, bombastic, over-powering tribute to the work of Fabio Frizzi, Francesco De Masi, Goblin and anyone else who dared wave a synthesizer in the general direction of Lucio Fulci or Dario Argento between ’75 and ’85.

Opener "Temple Room” is particularly breathtaking – an eight minute pulveriser that lets ominous ring-mod squelch and synth-string spine-tinglers build up for a few minutes, before using electric guitar thunder-chords in even-more-ominous triplets as a bridge to a headlong rush into pulsing, Black Devil Disco Club-esque space disco euphroia. It’s like Mike Armstrong’s theme to “House of the Devil” amped up to apocalyptic scale, and if it doesn’t tick all yr horror-synth-core boxes, I dunno what will. Even the ol’ “sampled monk choir” gets a look in toward the end.

Subsequent tracks follow suit, each one taking one of those sky-scraping, inexplicably heroic Frizzi melodies by the scruff of the neck and feeding it through enough synth patches, eerie phasing effects and slopping wet compression to send any remaining competitors in the VHS-big-box-overdriven-mono-sound-retrogasm stakes crying home to mummy. Utter nonsense clearly, but within this specialised terrain, it totally does the business.

I’m sure you already know perfectly well whether or not you need music like this in your life. If you do, you’ll fuckin’ eat this up. If you don’t, you will probably never be in a position in which you contemplate listening to or owning it for more than a split second. I belong to the former category, and in terms of pure enjoyment I’d probably have rated this one higher, only the purely ridiculous, crowd-pleasing kitsch aspect of the whole venture makes it difficult to process from any purely sonic/objective point of view.

Mp3> Temple Room



31. Haunted Houses – The Invisible War of the Mind tape (Bathetic tapes)

I listened to a download of this tape *a lot* towards the start of this year, and liked it a great deal. Recalling my impressions of it and trying to write an outline for this write-up, I found myself thinking “that damned thing can’t possibly be as good as I remember it being, this description I’ve just written sounds terrible”. So I dug it out of iTunes and put it on again. It’s still great. Although self-indulgent and pointless on paper, there is some huge, indefinable weight behind this music that leaves me spellbound. It really gets under my skin, and I don’t know why. Thus this is very difficult review to write.

So let’s get this straight: Haunted Houses is one guy. He plays what sounds like an acoustic guitar going through a distortion pedal and other effects, massively overdriven and recorded straight to a boombox or laptop mic. There are miscellaneous heavy fucked bits of organ and whatnot, and the occasional thump of a distant drum machine or stomped boot on the floor. He howls and snarls and laments inconsolably, hammering away at vaguely-formed, dirge-like songs, often in 3 / 4 time or thereabouts. Every now and then, there is a moment where he sounds VERY much like the late Jim Shepard, and indeed, this album as a whole has a feel to it that reminds me of my favourite Shepard work, Vertical Slit’s “Twisted Steel and the Tits of Angels”.

Like that record, “Invisible War of the Mind” seems to mark out a space in which recording fidelity as we conventionally understand it is pushed to such extremes that the form of the music within collapses in on itself, destroying recognition of such fripperies as instruments, chords, song construction, yet letting the strange, dark emotional intent of the songs shine through unmistakably, daring you to recognise it, to hold it’s hand amidst the freezing, blackened murk of the near-disintegrated sound world.

For all that though, Haunted Houses is not Vertical Slit. It is something different. For one thing, this guy is a lot more plaintive than Shepard’s poker-faced desolation. He sounds real needy, almost… innocent?... at times; like some dorm-room shoegazer who’s just been dumped for the first real time and is letting his ‘true voice’ right out on tape. He’s wringing his hands tonight, but he’s still got some hope things might be better tomorrow. Fat fucking chance I know, but don’t tell him that, he might stop making music like this. It’s really something. (I hope he doesn’t read this.)

Mp3> Beach

(You can download “The Invisible War of the Mind” for free from the Haunted Houses myspace.)

Labels: best of 2010, Black Time, Circle Pit, Haunted Houses, The Sceptres, Umberto