No artist out there today comes close to replicating the magic of early KMFDM classics or Front Line Assembly’s more guitar-driven forays into the Industrial genre. That is, until Rise In Fire by Order Of The Static Temple drops. As an original banger, it owns. As an homage or history lesson for the uninitiated, it’s kind of perfect.
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Boasting two original Kyuss alums in their ranks, the inevitable comparison to that legendary Desert Rawk outfit is bound to happen but when it comes to STÖNER and artists that are on par, it might be more apt to look at Nick Oliveri and Brant Bjork’s respective projects since (Read: Post ’90’s) for a better idea of what this new trio (With Ryan Gut on drums to round out the band) is all about. Think Vista Chino. Think Brant Bjork and the Low Desert Punk Band. Think Mondo Generator. Getting the general idea? Great! Because what you’re about to hear in the following seven tracks mashes all those expectations up and elevates it to a new sonic plane.
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While doing some late spring cleaning recently which included a LONG overdue purge of those archaic physical media artifacts known as “compact discs” I came across an abundance of Mark Lanegan albums (Which are not getting purged, btw) and among the records currently in my collection, I cannot think of an artist more dynamically diverse than Lanegan with each and every release. Which is definitely the case again with his latest offering falling under the moniker of Dark Mark Vs Skeleton Joe.
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The alter ego of Antoni Maiovvi, think of Jason Priest as synthwave’s answer to Ziggy Stardust and on this, the debut full-length, Priest gets a fitting soundtrack for his introduction into the world. Combining the hopefulness and nostalgia of New Order with the raw, Electro-fied emotion of The Soft Moon, Jason Priest Is Missing captures this undeniably electric feeling on a record that encapsulates everything that the term “wave” (Read: synth, dark, etc) should be attached to from here on out.
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How can you go wrong with two minutes of driving, unfiltered RAWK?!?! The answer is: You can’t! Especially when it’s as infectious as the most recent release from Southend’s BLAB. When last we left Frances Murray (BLAB), the singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist was laying out this raucous “contemporary cautionary tale of woe” on “Casual Sex” (Which you can read in our review here) but this time around, BLAB has set their sights on the Tories and the British government for “Eton Mess”.
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High Holy Hell this is one helluva massive mammer jammer of musical excellence across thirty three tracks of diverse, driven Rawk. When you look up “Boston sound” in Webster’s dictionary (Which is obviously a thing in ANY dictionary), hopefully Money Fight gets a shout out next to the Bosstones, Dropkick Murphys, and Modern Lovers because, while a mixed batch of genres, the whole of Smells Like Money Fight: The Complete Basement Recordings is inherently Bean Town bravado through and through.
But I digress.
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You’d think at this point that we’d get tired of heaping praise on Temptress. But we don’t. And the reason is simply that they continually put out some of the most solid slabs of heaviness! So when it comes down to it, who are we to complain when an artist really hits their sonic stride this well?
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A cellist, a “synth virtuoso”, and a “beat maestro” walk into a recording studio…*
No, that’s not the beginnings of some music-related joke but the make up of Bristol trio Elder Island and the punchline is a stunning record that melds genres, creates something new, and maybe introduces music fans to their next favorite artist.
But I digress.
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I am waaaaaay late to the Flotsam And Jetsam party. And I’m not talking about my initial introduction when I was younger watching them on Headbanger’s Ball as “that band that the new bassist from Metallica used to be in” while they were promoting Cuatro and the very ’90’s video treatment for “Wading Through The Darkness” (Which you can get nostalgic for yourself by heading here). I’m talking about their more recent output which, starting with 2019’s The End of Chaos, has taken the Arizona thrashers to the next level of Heavy.
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There are records I miss occasionally that I feel legitimately bad about. And in these cases, it’s not because of the whole “getting a jump on the review before anyone else” aspect but more that it pertains to an artist that’s, frankly, cool as hell and one that I’d like to promote the hell out of. Like Night Club. Who put out a new record LAST OCTOBER that I missed. And that’s what I get for not liking every artist over the socials that makes some sort of sonic impact in my world, I guess?
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