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DD
Dynamite "I got my whiskey n’ I got my frown’ – Fuckin’ Talkin’ To You
-Stu Gibson
Bonny
Collyde
- Stu Gibson
Lonely
Avenue: The Unlikely Life And Times Of Doc Pomus
- Stu Gibson
The Gourds ‘Stewing in my own perfume, lonely as a weather balloon’ - How Will You Shine?
- Stu Gibson
The Sadies
- Stu Gibson
The
Caravans
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Revenge Of
The Psychotronic Man
- Stu Gibson
Stiff
Little Fingers
- Stu Gibson
Levi
Dexter And Magic
- Stu Gibson
Mad Marge
And The Stonecutters
- Stu Gibson
The
Peacocks
- Stu Gibson
Built 4
Speed
- Stu Gibson
Fabienne
Delsol
However the French language Le Roi Des Fourmis is a wondrous creation, Merseybeat meets Motown stomp drinking with the Stones on downtime during the AFTERMATH sessions, and the title track surmounts even that seismic peak. Both vouc for the entire album itself, which is no disparagement to any of the rest, as it is assuredly not a reflection of the sixties by being mere filler. As it is it’s all topped off with a sultry coo and curious otherworldly charm to rival the ‘real’ Holly Golightly. - Stu Gibson
The Hicksville
Bombers
Denigrators may carp that such retro attention to detail should be left in the fifties but play the Hicksvilles and any of their near contemporaries like The Crawdads, The Rhythmaires or The Tennessee Trio in comparison to a set like Proper’s recent Classic Rockabilly and quickly disabuse them of such trite ideas. Originating around the Lincoln area and rarely venturing away from the Rockin’ circuit this trio are a primo deluxe proposition straddling the bonnet-bucking bop-beat, country swing and midnight blues in fine voice and Brilliantined slinky strings. While drawing indelibly on the Sun sound such sad-eyed, self-penned titles as Weather Baby, Don’t Let Me Face The Rain and Within These Four Walls show the superficiality and fallacy of simple likenesses. Easily standing collar to collar, if not tower over, classic I’ve Changed My Mind, these are articulate laments in best Buddy Holly or Felice and Boudleaux Bryant manner that smoulder like Rick Nelson (indeed, Get Out Of My House could be a cold kiss-off to Hello Marylou), while some brazen fuel-consumption boogie breaks bail on Hey Judge, drinking I’ve Got A Problem, Moonshine Mama and comic-strip caper of jack the lad cool cat Johnny Valentine. Well worth blazing a trail to a hick town of your own shaking, stirring full-house slamming on table causing drinks to spill invention. - Stu Gibson
Spike
For the odd pub-rock plod like Rise Above there’s wonderful bleary-eyed gritty grouse-abouts like Wins, Ties and Losses and Won’t Ya Stick Around, and, acefully, where the Quireboys raucous bar-room swagger undeniably holds sway to The Faces, the late night, last chance balladry here on Have A Drink With Me, Without You and When I’m Away From You recalls more the heart laid bare elegance of Ronnie Lane than Rod’s laddish posturing, and summed up on So Far So Good, all shot through with the hard-knocked humour belied by the word ‘treat’ in the title. I mean, you can almost replace it with ‘champion’. Likewise in a humourous though heartfelt aside on True Friends he goes into What Happened To You?- the theme from Whatever Happened To The Likely Lads – in a lovely, lilting nod to his North-East roots. Stu Gibson
Total
Chaos
- Stu Gibson
Various This scrawl might hit in the New Year slump but that’s no excuse to not pick this up now for next year or just for yer general amusement. Assembling seventeen tracks from regular havoc-wreakers in Vegas’ fabled DoubleDown Saloon (aka the Happiest Place On Earth, and it really may be being the meeting ground of every style of alt-this that n’ t’other from nerd to ne’er do well) it’s gonna be your favourite festive record bar none. We all know Christmas songs are utter shite, bar Murder City Devils’ 364 Days, a bit of Elvis and a touch, or gaping head-wound, of Phil Spector, that one that The Pogues did, & perhaps some schmaltzy old Dean Martin twaddle. Do the Brian Setzer Orchestra do Santa Blow Me that Suite 666 offer? or The Yobs do anything like Santa Was A Cross Dressing Nazi that Vegas bad-asses The Vermin (well, okay, slightly, maybe) Hey Ho up, and would it all get mixed up with some honky-tonk from Lonesome Spurs (Jingle Bells) or The Clydesdale (Imo Shoot Me A Reindeer) let alone the awesome surf wipe-outs that The Bomboras make of Lil’ Drummer Boy and Thee Swank Bastards snake-charming Carol Of The Bells / God Rest Ye, Merry Gentlemen, while The Real Shames do The Sonics post-Christmas meal drunk n’ woozy, and Sparkler Dims do the same but on a Mary Chain croaking post-coke binge leaving Murphy’s Law to re-wrap some James Brown moves on Sock It To Me Santa, and, really, who can whinge about a Christmas album featuring The Dirty Panties, Richard Cheese and Lounge Against The Machine and Evil Beaver, eh? - Stu Gibson
Matt Woods For those who’ve had their fair fill of winsome singer-songwriters this twenty-two year-old scatological troubadour of bad-taste and new-variant Tourette’s diatribes would have the over-earnest, or just plain earnest, over-easy on this frantic, fifteen-minute campfire of sardonic, skiffly, acrid folk songs splodged out with the spongiform mindset of absurdo-metallers GWAR or Anal Cunt and the delicious ludicrousness of The Toy Dolls. Playing all instruments (Woods drums for Manchester squat-punk legends External Menace, and features in some form or other in various bands, including label-owners Barnyard Masturbator, of which this mini-album is the debut release), including kazoo and banjo, to lather lambasts against TV adverts (Waiting For Corrie), inadvertent superstars (Peter Andre Is A Twat, Jeff Buckley), and students (Smell Of Cool). Easy targets perhaps, but for all its totally un-pc, tongue-in-cheek ridiculousness - being simultaneously stupid and sublime with Billy Connolly’s cutting edge eye for detail and Hammell On Trial’s ire - it’s also unutterably lovely and as daft as the proverbial brush. It’s also very funny with an un-reigned frenetic genius at heart, not least closing George Clinton funk-rap Ninja Ronald. Sure to divide - depending on your sensibilities, you’ll either be splitting your sides, or dying inside. - Stu Gibson
The
Generators
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Ben Wild
And The Wild Band
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Bruce
Dickinson – Flashing Metal With Iron Maiden And Flying Solo
- Stu Gibson
Spear Of
Destiny
- Stu Gibson
W. Axl
Rose
Thankfully never descending into crass amateur psychology nor tabloid make-believing frenzy the reader can discern their own theories about this folly of the quest for truth and sanity that seems to be the main metaphor of the entire Chinese democracy debacle. - Stu Gibson
Skeletal
Family
- Stu Gibson
The Cranes
Both come with a veritable slew n’ slurry of bonus tracks from non-album releases, and are both transcendental, completely captivating and in full debut WINGS…an essential-ness of a rare (dis)order by virtue of having the unutterably stunning singles Tomorrow’s Tears and Adoration along with the absolutely freefalling death drive torment of Sixth Of May. FOREVER, being slightly less sprawling, with an eastern, desert wind feel to it shows a discernible, though not detrimental, influence of their time touring as support to The Cure (see adorable single Jewel), following that debut. No one’s saying you have to swim the same deep waters but this is truly music from somewhere beneath the air, as Yeats and Blake may have had it. - Stu Gibson ________________________________________________ |
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Greek
resident and near-legend Mr Dynamite plies devil-drunk acoustic blues and
piles them against his door, fending off the ever-circling spirits of
losing n’ loathing, regaling them with tales of tattered hearts torn from
sleeves, spat on pavements of regard, scattered to that place where the
dark rags and shards of old scarves end up. Nestling in a candlelit
cocoon with Tyla’s Nocturnal Nomad, The Jacobites Napoleon’s
Velvet Basement and possibly assorted old blues dudes like Blind Willie
Johnson and Charley Patton and the mystical rumours of Keef’s
seventies jail-bound jam-sessions, home recordings they may be but there’s
no digitalised gloss, just a wealth of purely intuitive story-telling and
bad-ass balladry related with an earnest fragility in a wheezy croak of a
voice channelled direct from woozy dawns, right when you realise a whole
lot more than the bottle’s gone for good. This man knows the myths well
enough to place himself in the canon of the gunslinging guitar-totin’
wisecrackin’ heartbroke scoundrel but nothing but honesty can put the ache
into Will You Still Love Me In The Winter, and Early One Morning.
As Tyla put on the back of The Dogs’ GRAVEYARD… album…these are
“Soft Songs For Hard People”, or epic soundtracks of charred romance and
solace in Rock’n’Roll for the scorned and crestfallen, if I may. 
Rising
from the ashes slept in and the dregs drained one drunken night in 2002
stride, stagger and stumble these basement blues from hombres DD
Dynamite and Trashtown Thrillers / Koma Katz head-hoss
Craigey Swagger / Cragnet Bastard, who pulled on several slugs of only the
most nefarious nectar and adopted a suitably trolleyed banner. Split about
half n’ half betwixt the two, these sixteen songs can be swilled in one
fluid, almost interchangeable measure, kinda like The Jacobites,
and the home recording doesn’t make them cheap Lidl fizz, more a
mournful mariachi’s campfire of stately disrepair, where no flame melts
these regrets into chewily digestible marshmallow chunks, but where chords
cast crooked glances askance at anyone who gets too close from beneath
their hat-brim. Well-versed, if not reared from birth, in the troubadours
taverns and highwaymen’s hovels, the grainy, red-rimmed n’ dirty-eyed
sandpaper scrapings lend a real authentic hazy hue to these horizon-less
vistas stared into while impaled on a hangover something like being
crucified ‘pon a cactus, whether you’re hearing them in Portsmouth (where
they were recorded) or drifting on whatever high plains the morrow found
ye on, or above. So there’s tons of minesweeping and rounds’ cadged but
there’s also some great guitar playing and songs that serve as a scrapbook
of tattered hearts and odes to wrong turns that merit many a nicotine
stained thumb-print through. While the soused n’ sluiced nature of the
recording may chafe a few ears amidst some inevitably too sloppy for slurs
moments there’s treasure in this ‘ere chest for those walking on crooked
heels with collars high, wearing some long-gone lady’s colours along
lonesome trails forged by her waltz of disregard. 
I’m no way
exactly sure why, maybe it’s the Elvis connection or the previous lack of
illumination on their lives, but when considering songwriting duos Pomus
and Shuman and maybe Leiber and Stoller it’s hard to conceive of a story
such as this. Though read in conjunction with, or remembering, the
songs brings on home the harrowing trauma wrapped up as sweet sorrow in
almost throw away songs like Elvis’ (Marie’s The Name) His Latest Flame
or Save The Last Dance For Me (indeed, being a writer of such
jukebox classics would tragically plague Pomus’ sense of worth). Writ more
as a fable with Doc born lowly Jerome Felder, before being hit lower by
polio at a young age, and struggling through fallow years as a singer on
his way to seeing the American Dream open before him like the yawning
chasm of the Grand Canyon as a songwriter, with a huge house in the
‘burbs, model wife and almost more money than needed to block out the
Manhattan skyline, it all soon crumbles as he loses his fractious partner
Mort Shuman, his wife and home, so wallows in desperate poverty for a
couple of decades surrounded by mobsters, crooks and junkies, running
gambling rackets and vaguely trying to get back into the songwriting game,
in the face of dwindling royalty cheques. With a happy ending, of sorts
(of course) this colossal book, constructed on Doc’s own journals and
approved by friends and family, is one awesomely essential music book that
belies as well as lives up to its title, presenting a seriously flawed, as
ever, but, much rarer, a sympathetic and identifiable-with character that
emerges with pride and respect, and also provides glimpses into the
stories behind those songs that’ll scar perspectives and pierce hearts,
scarcer even still in music biographies. 
Warning:
Initially listening to this in the barren midst of crashing headlong into
the caustically spiked crash-barriers of heartache can bring on iridescent
bouts of rage and rabid desires to shave their scraggy beards off with
thirteen blunt chainsaws for chirruping like Van Morrison
moondancing in the meadows on How Will You Shine? and the sunny
Springsteen freeze-out funk of Kicks In The Sun. It’s thus
actually quite heart-warming to know that the band feared and despised
this move away from their almost tongue-in-cheek approach to trucker hats
and tractor DUI’s too but braved the ride and came out stronger, as you
the listener shall. For it shall be good, and you will be blown away by
Promenade, think Dion’s Born To Be With You and
Ronnie Lane’s Done This One Before, that’ll wrench your heart
right out and soothe it with wreathes of self-realisation bought dearly at
a final stand and Last Letter that has the emotional landfilling
ache of Skynyrd’s Tuesday’s Gone. When Kevin Russell wails –
in the righteous sense, not the whimpering one – about grief and feeling
like the only one you know where the man’s at, but boy,
could you stand there and sing that? Sure, with The Gyroscopic,
Red Letter Day and Cajun dance-off Cranky Mulatto they haven’t
hitched up the wagon and rode out into new-found lands of haunted ballads,
just merely, merely, added new textures. It’s just that they’re the
size of their home state that is so staggering. Once again I doff my
ducktails Texas-ward and proffer mere shrugs at any simple, instant
disdain. 
Recorded
mainly in 2002 following the near-fatal car crash that all but derailed
them, this supreme set of acoustic-led rockabilly finally sees the full
light of day, fleshed out with a couple of tracks recorded earlier this
year. Replacing amplification with a banzai barrage of adrenalin this is
played, as is their righteous wont, with the frenetic fervour that has
always made them amenable to the psychobilly hordes, despite not pandering
to the horrorpunk themes more prevalent in that culture. However, it be
Head honcho Mark Penington that really sets them aside from the slicker
end of neo-rockabilly and psycho-piffle. His sharp-eyed lyrics of lovelorn
woe and women’s whimsies are rivalled possibly only by The Rhythmaires’
Stu Warburton for shooting the hat off the mordant humour of old
honky-tonkin’ classics and turning them back on their head for a ride
through haunted parks well after dark. Along with galloping from the
gallows pole covers of bluegrass traditional Baby Blue Eyes and
Violent Femmes’ Kiss Off 
If there’s
ever such a thing as an authentic Rockabilly revivalist, this, lurgys and
germs, is the real raw deal. Hurtling fleet of foot with moves that made
him a rockabilly James Brown out of London in the late seventies in
line-ups like The Rockats and The Ripchords, with Shakin’
Stevens and The Stray Cats between each twitching knee, Levi
successfully straddled both the punk and new-wave worlds, as well as the
snootier, exclusive environs of the rockin’ scene in later years. Here the
neo-rockabilly lynchpin is teamed with Japan’s primo Rockabeat (as
that nation termed it) band Magic on a sinew-fraying and
intemperate tendon-tear through classics of Rock’n’Roll’s eternally
energising slipstreams such as Wayne Walker’s All I Can Do Is Cry
and on back to Dexter’s initial influence, Elvis, on Rip It Up
and Baby Let’s Play House. Originally released in 1993 this is a
superbly realised set of slinky-fingers and nimble knees ideal for
neophyte and old neo alike.
Appropriately enough The Peacocks know they’re good. There’s walking the
walk and talkin’ the talk but this Swiss trio stalk the balk line like
bulldogs dosed non-stop on pep pills, pop skills and torn-up bills. Hell,
even when they were tossing off the roughshod but ramrod early recordings
they knew. But this isn’t the idle swagger of your average indie rock
amoeba or haughty art-rock suffering recluse but the intolerant gaze of a
band that have toughed it out and have the talent to wrap some witticisms
and battle-weary but beat-ready scars into their tales. Belief borne out
of the blues, albeit buttressed and bound to the mast with the bubonic
rock ballast. For The Peacocks are a union of classic rockabilly line-up
with punk attitude and personable idiosyncracies (e.g. Kind Word Don’t
Butter No Spuds) with pop nous without being either lightweight nor a
Green Day / The Living End - which makes them a proposition
wholly worthwhile bearing witness to their fans-spreading. 
Considering the current kinda colossal craving for psychobilly and
splatter-punk in some quarters it’s all the more pleasing to behold that
this debut full-length release from this German four piece (Part 1 being a
seven song EP), co-opts traditional rockabilly and even a few cuts of
classic rock rhythms with minimal coercion into a gothic, though not
especially Goth, midnight ride through those furtive fantasies that always
buy another round every time you make the move homeward. Back Again,
So Cool and Six Feet Under demonstrate that applying a
punk-y edge to proceedings doesn’t necessarily mean suffering the usual
squall of power-chords and terrace-gang choruses. Floating on a dreamy,
evocative atmosphere of shimmering, supernatural vibrato, the ethereal air
is mixed with earthy reality, especially on outstanding ballads
Judgement Day and Suicide Girl that owe as much to Billy
Fury as early Nekromantix. With mainman Johnny Don Vincenzo’s
voice like a man who’s been locked out by his other half and stumbled into
a lock-in, 
Don’t let
the fact that this French national hopped over to the UK in 1996 so
be-smitten was she with the musical climate of the time put you off
sniffing out this absolutely lovely record. Sure, you may work hard to
compress this into a country metre never mind mile, yet its acoustic
driven strides have a folksy, country strum at their lovelorn heart.
They’re just filtered through a sixties swirl, such as the keyboard kazoo
sounds on the otherwise wistful waltz of Leave Her For Me, the
suitably spy-theme surf-shanty of Mr Mystery, the heavy hemp-smoke
honky-tonker Pas Gentille and quirky ditties mired with garage dirt
Loot and Bluebirds Over The Mountain. 
Like the
blues, honky-tonk and classic rock, in fact any style that’s carved its
own Grand Canyon
Stage-shuffling Quireboys frontman Spike knocked out a few solo
records in the years between their mid-nineties demise and their
reformation a few years back, but perhaps none as complete as this. As
with the ‘boys output since their ¾ length masterpiece of a debut there’s
some workaday jam-a-thons elevated above by the man’s ever astonishing
rasp. Forget age-old, charity shop bargain basement comparisons to Rod
Stewart and Joe Cocker, it’s a voice more agile and soulful
that can imbue fresh feeling and meaning into occasionally trite and
clichéd lyrics, as the best vocalists can, and those two once did so well.
First new
release in a air few years for these Cali-punks still strictly adhering to
their street level retro-gutteric that’s so for many a right reason.
Formed at the cusp of the nineties in the face of the then ascending
commercialisation of the genre they spout bitter social and political
invective over rudimentary blizzards of sharp-tongued trashcan punk rock
right from an early-eighties pit. Straight to the point barrages levelling
accusations that politicians are Professional Liars may be easily
shrugged off in our apathetic age in a frenzy ior ‘really’ like Slayer
telling us that religions suck and anti-war anthems (Send The Boys Home)
said to be simplistic and sloganeering rants like Fuck The C.H.P.
quaintly ‘rebellious’ but for an authentic punk-pit ruck this admirable
rather than essential record’ll see you just about right, especially on
Dancing On Your Grave, No Loyalty and Don’t Care Anymore.
Glory be!
This sixth shooter from these L.A. street rollin’ punks sure is one classy
chassis set to dazzle as it drifts by, cocksure, caustic and encroaching
welcomingly that personal space close to your heart while crunching out
cartilage-crinkling coruscating cavalcades of adult angst. Though still
proudly displaying influences such as Social Distortion and Bad
Religion they’re now at the apex of their own self-appointed style.
For those aren’t lightly acknowledged inspirations. Doug Dagger and his
equally deftly / daftly monikered platoon voraciously plunder once more
the eternal streams of strife and struggle and these tracks pack huge
maelstroms of undiluted emotional resonance. Tough times related without
lecturing, the truth evident in the passion pounding through this album
that is far more like Mike Ness in defiance and faith than
comparisons with Dagger’s vocals. My Best Regards and I Stand In
Doubt strident with scarred but not screwed dark edges like if the
Psychedelic Furs had kept their avant-punk roots but evolved into a
rock’n’roll beast not kimono and slipper wearing MTV parodies. Not sure we
need another punk-a-long-a version of Paint It Black as literally
every song, particularly the country-tinged A Turn For The Worse,
ska-knees up What I’ve Become and closing rebel-rouser I’m Still
Believing, is a genuine stand-up classic, broad-shouldered and ready
to be counted out for punk record of last year. 
Rockabilly’s venerable tradition (of sorts) of shaking out storm-tossed
renditions from the book of popular song, such as Number Nine’s
un-surmountable Hey Joe, The Hot Rod Gang’s stainless
Tainted Love (also included here) or The Tailshakers spare
no-one wipeout of Ever Fallen In Love?, is taken a shimmying step
further by this German combo. Nestled amidst the seven headed monster of
their fine and far superior, composition are covers of preposterous pop
parade fodder, though prepare to be surprised. Overhauling the sagging
undercarriages of Prince’s Kiss, Kylie’s Can’t Get
You Out Of My Head (indeed one original is ‘Ode To Kylie Minogue’)
and, somewhat lesserly, Britney’s …Baby One More Time
mutates them into seductive mambo’s with serious shake appeal.
Tongue-in-cheek finger-poppin’ fun is a dandy bop, especially with a title
track that could rival the king of cut-throat smut ol’ Chuck his-very-self
but how many times you’ll return to ‘billy-bullying jaunts through
Smells Like Teen Spirit mixed with the James Bond theme or
Wonderwall, despite Wild’s laudable larynx and his cohorts dextrous
spirals of Luther Perkins picking and Bigsby shine, er…God only
knows? 
With a CV
that reads like an advert for a renaissance man of runway and rapiers as
well as rigor mortis-inducing touring schedules, legendary metal maverick
and live wire flight lieutenant Dickinson is definitely not a
fence-sitter. Whilst still being something of an awestruck hagiography,
‘tis a sprightly tale told in a pally fashion like a collection of
anecdotes and asides from the bar, and being unauthorised at least means
Shooman scurries around the obstructive stage scenery of the earlier “Run
To The Hills” band biog prior to soundcheck and rakes up some bad blood
congealed in a thin crust of dirt and ill-feeling behind the famously, and
admirably, staunch walls of castle Maiden. Tedious tales of debauchery are
laudably left as mere filler to concentrate on the music but, while our
valiant author indulges inexplicable bouts wherein he flippantly exercises
the privilege of a scribes’ prerogative - i.e. “Piece Of Mind” is superior
to “The Number Of The Beast”!”£$%^&* - it does read at times like the very
thing Dickinson (or Paul Bruce Dickinson as Shooman persists in referring
to him as in chapter-end round ups) left Maiden for – that of new year /
album / tour with the odd bit of free-time activity thrown in. So
disregard the slight back-of-tour-bus air of a This Is Your Life
back-slapping session, as an overview of the drive as well as the talent
needed to attain even half the dizzying heights of the subject this is a
worthwhile book that even a cynic can walk away from with renewed respect
for the diminutive dynamo above and beyond his almost self-caricature of
impudent public schoolboy brat. Scream for ‘im Reverb. 
Originating in London’s squalid post-punk squat scene from the ashes of
many lost legacies, most notably main-man Kirk Brandon’s Theatre Of
Hate, this particular Spear brooded beneath lacquered fringes rather
than the pierced sides of religious icons. Splicing through the great pop
/ goth divide as The Mission would do a few years hence, these
would-be epic takes of portentous possibilities and malingering longing
certainly contain a panoramic spaghetti-western sweep - saxophones to the
fore on isolated salients of splendour, tremoring tom-toms rebounded from
The Cure’s colossal 
Whence on
Guns N’Roses’ rise to world if not solar-system conquering superstardom on
the way to the frontman’s weary resignation prior to the disillusioned
reclusion, author Wall had the ear of the diminutive and vituperative Rose
by any other name. Having experienced at first hand the evil goblin’s
paranoiac wrath, childish conspiracies and all-encompassing desire for
ultimate control over the arbitrary and asinine, Wall delves deep into the
shadows of this elusive wraith’s psyche, thus illuminating an involving,
suitably sprawling, story sympathetically though decidedly, and laudably,
not all-forgivingly told. Isolated by deep-seated insecurities and issues
stemming from an abusive, repressive childhood, that only stagnated under
the spotlight of success before exploding into some astral seizure like a
Phil Spector or Michael Jackson of rawk, Rose’s really is a story that
demands to be told and indeed almost tells itself if not screams itself
hoarse, and is one Wall’s exhaustive research and use of his own
unpublished interviews can but broaden. 
So being
forlornly forgotten in the general scheme of things may be oh so achingly
Named for
the not-so eloquent cranes littering the mid-eighties skyline of their
native Portsmouth, siblings Jim and Alison Shaw created a bleak but
intensely beautiful tapestry of enchanting song of a like literally not
heard before, since or ever again. Ranging from piano-led watercolours to
ugly fragments of torn and terrifying cerebral canvasses like the accused
Jack The Ripper artist Walter Sickert and deftly defying categorisation,
Alison’s indecipherable whisps of lisped lyrics and shards of anguish
shimmying through the dervish dirges like sirens luring you beneath gilded
lilies caused as much bemused malice as they did fervent admiration upon
their initial release. No doubt these reissues will do likewise but these
are swirling waters worth plunging into, drowning in even, to find the
stillness at the other side. Guitars scrape, maybe mirroring the
mechanical creak of those cranes, but actually seem to be extracting aural
DNA from your marrow and reconstructing the structures of your soul,
pianos may ripple but any real tranquillity is subsumed in their
tendril-like clasp. Oddly medieval at times in atmosphere, far more
sinister than maudlin or morose despite sometimes sounding like aural
unravellings and descents into despair, cathartic trance-dances, seances
and witch-trials spring forth like from the unlawful opening of a sacred
ancient text wrapped in the billowing folds of a peasant girls garb, while
an unholy dread tension holds sway in every pounding beat, resembling the
wretched heartbreak of a bereaved Victorian heroine or the tremulous step
along unhallowed hallways, whether of silent film or sadistic psychosis.