Every few years, with the state of Planet Earth sinking utterly beyond satire and parody in its Nineteen Eighty-Five-on-steroids ruination, a certain collective pause to pass scathing comment upon it. This acidic dissent comes courtesy of messrs Jaz Coleman, Martin 'Youth' Glover, Geordie Walker and Big Paul Ferguson, trading unclassifiable apocalyptic disco-metal as the legendary and influential Killing Joke.
"Living outside of the grid is our goal! Misery lies at the heart of control," blares Coleman, resuming duties as messenger from the atomic wasteland in Autonomous Zone. Killing Joke's ideals are everlastingly precious and increasingly sensible, and are more often than not wielded as a bludgeoning device with which to beat some sense and wordly awareness into the listener.
And bludgeon, they certainly do: Ferguson commands a legion of skin-thwacking undercurrents that piercingly punctuates each nuclear missive, driven by Youth's submarine bass. Guitarist Geordie Walker's unique stringsmanship, an integral part of the Killing Joke sound since its inception, acutely divides his time between blunt-force-trauma riffing and wonderfully bleak soundscapes, matching Coleman's fustrated railings against mankind's descent.
Their knack for an immediately discernible and danceable tune is gratifyingly present and correct, with Euphoria and New Cold War proudly representing the band's fearless forays past the punk label in a time-honoured willingness to explore other avenues and nuke them.
Their primal ferocity is entirely compounded, aided and abetted by the same slickness that so enriched predecessor album MMXII. This production sheen may lend a slight cleanliness to the sound, but it in no way distils the message, like a celebrated film director employing modern touches to realise the artistic vision with greater clarity.
As is to be expected of such a self-aware and consistently thoughtful act like the 'Joke, the persistent question of mortality pervades (see also: Iron Maiden). Big Buzz also expertly treads between joyous anthem and teary emotion-trigger. A sense of celebration is one of their several alluring aspects, and this track harks back to the likes of On All Hallow's Eve, Honour the Fire and even Gratitude, where the doomishness is countered by Killing Joke's great sense of occasion: the self-styled Gathering.
In another parallel to Iron Maiden, they present their first double-disc studio effort. The second 'half' of Pylon, while feeling slightly like a tugboat trailing behind a battleship, still packs in four righteously furious pieces. It oddly ends with a remix of Snakedance, the original being curiously absent from the album. This prevents Pylon from sharing the sense of end-to-end completeness that MMXII had. Yet, Pylon has the key advantage of the expansiveness of double albums, and an abundance of such searingly strong music is not to be complained about.
With this, their fifteenth half-spat-half-sung commentary on a world continuing to circle the drain, Killing Joke have proven, once again, that the last laugh is theirs. Pylon is the mutated flower that grows through irradiated concrete: glimpses of ironic beauty in a diseased, dying landscape.
Tuesday, 27 October 2015
Wednesday, 21 October 2015
New Street station: Pret-a-Manger cannot address the station's issues
Birmingham's long-awaited new Grand Central shopping centre, plonked unceremoniusly on top of New Street station, has been open now for some time. The second city's denizens have had sufficient time to give themselves undue neck-ache looking at the giant boil of a glass ceiling, before an irate and late traveller almost knocks them flat while hurrying for their train.
Social media has, so far, been kind: likening the new money-sucking endeavour as having the potential to rival Manchester Piccadilly and London St. Pancras in the travel/shopping experience stakes.
However, this is swept away by the experience the travellers actually have before reaching New Street and when boarding a train at it. Aside from whitening several platforms and walls, adding staircases and suchlike, what has actually happened to the station itself? You know, the station-y bit of the station. Where the trains actually come in and out, and people vie for comfortable standing-spaces in their vestibules.
Having been likened to a dungeon in the past, you'd think lashings of lolly would have been targeted at making the sub-level experience slightly less hellish. But no: the price Brummies pay for having a truly city-centre station (an admitted benefit) is still ongoing - and the dark, miserable trains-and-tracks bit is still as unedifying as ever.
Trains still jostle for platform space, evidenced by the waiting game played by every fifth train attempting to enter New Street. Rolling stock is still barely covering the requirements.
Tossing a few wanderers into the paths of hurrying commuters and adorning the building with a frankly hideous array of reflective nonsense will not allay the worsening bottleneck. These problems can only worsen, too, given general reluctance to procure new trains, along with the other time-honoured chestnuts - growing population numbers, growing passenger levels, etc.
It is frankly laughable to consider Manchester Piccadilly and London St. Pancras to New Street. For those who have yet to visit these, it is almost advisable not to as New Street will only worsen in comparison. Out of the capital's numerous terminals and large-scale stations, perhaps New Street is on a par with Euston, being a similar sardine-ramming concrete assault (con)course.
Euston aside, London still has the delights of Paddington, King's Cross, the aforementioned St. Pancras as well as Victoria. Each of these, whilst perhaps not intricately comparable to New Street due to various factors, are spacious and welcoming spaces.
So, what's to be done about New Street? Trains can only lengthened so much, platforms less so. If HS2 wasn't on the horizon, a satellite station of sorts could be built in the place of the planned Curzon Street terminus, with certain services' inter-connectivity sacrificed.
No envy emanates from this quarter for those charged with finding such solutions. Thankfully, we also have the gloriously retro and tasteful Moor Street, sadly beaten down by its neighbouring Snow Hill, the bastard concrete spawn of New Street. An online perusal at 1960s-era Snow Hill is a painful experience, as it less resembles a fallout shelter and more an attractive travel hub/venue.
With the exciting Midland Metro expansion and the HS2 terminus planned, we cannot afford to have any weak links in Birmingham's idealised city connectivity. Making New Street's platform levels attractive, however, may be akin to planting plastic flowers in Mordor.
Social media has, so far, been kind: likening the new money-sucking endeavour as having the potential to rival Manchester Piccadilly and London St. Pancras in the travel/shopping experience stakes.
However, this is swept away by the experience the travellers actually have before reaching New Street and when boarding a train at it. Aside from whitening several platforms and walls, adding staircases and suchlike, what has actually happened to the station itself? You know, the station-y bit of the station. Where the trains actually come in and out, and people vie for comfortable standing-spaces in their vestibules.
Having been likened to a dungeon in the past, you'd think lashings of lolly would have been targeted at making the sub-level experience slightly less hellish. But no: the price Brummies pay for having a truly city-centre station (an admitted benefit) is still ongoing - and the dark, miserable trains-and-tracks bit is still as unedifying as ever.
Trains still jostle for platform space, evidenced by the waiting game played by every fifth train attempting to enter New Street. Rolling stock is still barely covering the requirements.
Tossing a few wanderers into the paths of hurrying commuters and adorning the building with a frankly hideous array of reflective nonsense will not allay the worsening bottleneck. These problems can only worsen, too, given general reluctance to procure new trains, along with the other time-honoured chestnuts - growing population numbers, growing passenger levels, etc.
It is frankly laughable to consider Manchester Piccadilly and London St. Pancras to New Street. For those who have yet to visit these, it is almost advisable not to as New Street will only worsen in comparison. Out of the capital's numerous terminals and large-scale stations, perhaps New Street is on a par with Euston, being a similar sardine-ramming concrete assault (con)course.
Euston aside, London still has the delights of Paddington, King's Cross, the aforementioned St. Pancras as well as Victoria. Each of these, whilst perhaps not intricately comparable to New Street due to various factors, are spacious and welcoming spaces.
So, what's to be done about New Street? Trains can only lengthened so much, platforms less so. If HS2 wasn't on the horizon, a satellite station of sorts could be built in the place of the planned Curzon Street terminus, with certain services' inter-connectivity sacrificed.
No envy emanates from this quarter for those charged with finding such solutions. Thankfully, we also have the gloriously retro and tasteful Moor Street, sadly beaten down by its neighbouring Snow Hill, the bastard concrete spawn of New Street. An online perusal at 1960s-era Snow Hill is a painful experience, as it less resembles a fallout shelter and more an attractive travel hub/venue.
With the exciting Midland Metro expansion and the HS2 terminus planned, we cannot afford to have any weak links in Birmingham's idealised city connectivity. Making New Street's platform levels attractive, however, may be akin to planting plastic flowers in Mordor.
Monday, 5 October 2015
Review: Steven Wilson, Royal Albert Hall
As far as victory laps go, Steven Wilson's hot-ticket successive sets at the prestigious Royal Albert Hall stand aloft like two giant middle fingers: for the humble bespectacled audio-wizard has enjoyed a fantastic new chapter in a musical career already jam-packed with the kind of accomplishments many musicians would kill for.
After impressing all concerned with 2013's rightly acclaimed The Raven That Refused to Sing, Wilson did it all over again with his latest, Hand.Cannot.Erase. The newer release carries a freshness and immediacy in stark contrast to Raven's lengthy, haunting proggy ghost stories, but not without hidden depths that only appear after the 99th listen.
The first of the two shows feels like an extended Hand.Cannot.Erase. tour concert: Wilson and band glide through the entire album (sans Transcience, sadly, preventing it from being a complete end-to-end run-though), being an extremely well-oiled and rehearsed machine by now. Despite having taken this set to numerous rapturously-received shows throughout the year, they attack the new material with pleasing, spirited zest.
While Hand... is a multifaceted, genre-skipping milestone unto itself on record, hearing it explored live is nothing short of a treat, Wilson and band employing quadraphonic sound to fill the Albert with it.
The material traverses almost all of Wilson's musical palette: the uplifting prog-rock of 3 Years Older, the nimble pop of the album's title-track, the wistful slow climax of Perfect Life, the monstrous riff-labyrinth of Ancestral before finishing with Happy Returns, expertly treading the cheery/sad balance. Three select choices will survive into the second night, squaring off impressively against older cuts: now, however, Wilson's self-belief in his fantastic accomplishment shines through.
With Hand.Cannot.Erase. put to bed, the second set of the first night provides the assembled disciples with a grinning bag of jewels and gems, starting slowly and ominously with the first ever performance of material from Wilson's collaborotion with Opeth's Mikael Akerfeldt. Drag Ropes, a wonderfully spooky and foreboding piece (to call it a track or 'song' would be a misjustice), is laid out across the Hall over the course of approximately seven days.
Its sheer length may have has a slight pulse-weakening effect on some, but the sheer rarity of the event cannot be underestimated, especially when Akerfeldt joins the band on stage to provide vocals and animator Jess Cope's fantastically disturbing video accompanies it on the giant screen.
Wilson next reminds all involved whose name is on the ticket as he leads the bands through their reworking of Index, complete with synchronised statue-posed finger-clicking introduction, a fantastically surreal sight through one of Wilson's brilliantly darkest pieces, with suitably eerie visuals presumably from long-term collaborator Lasse Hoile.
How is Your Life Today? and the invincible Lazarus follow, respectively a not unwelcome oddity and one of Wilson's absolute strongest compositions, rapturously received.
A short speech from Wilson prefaces a particularly tasty showcasing of unreleased HCE material, titled My Book of Regrets. Part proggy length and catchy verse, it is reminiscent of the dreamy sections of Luminol crossed with the singalong 'Tree track Blackest Eyes. It will arrive on an EP in January: begin the countdown.
Harmony Korine, The Watchmaker and Porcupine Tree's Sleep Together follow, the latter two with the expected white sheet hanging before the band, with appropriately disturbing visuals projected onto it for Watchmaker. It is nothing short of spellbinding, a masterfully executed matrimony of sound and sight.
By way of eventual encore, the 'Tree's The Sound of Muzak's sincere lamentations precedes The Raven That Refused To Sing, a perfectly judged conjuration of storytelling and emotional power.
The first night wrapped, all speculation turns towards the second: making sense of what has taken place, however, will take a long time. Wilson and band admirably stepped up to deliver something far more than a simple recital, matching expectations by putting on a spectacular event.
Night 2:
With the first evening being an extended Hand.Cannot.Erase. tour show, the second is a rarities free-for-all. The band members consecutively take the stage to contribute to a steadily growing No Twilight Within the Courts of the Sun. Wilson is the last to take the stage, to deserved cheers, leading it to its fantastically intense conclusion.
Fully assembled, the team tackle the first of several Porcupine Tree gems in the maudlin Shesmovedon, before returning to newer material in Routine. Guest vocals from Israeli singer Ninet Tayeb have been conspicuously absent from renditions of the song due to Tayeb's own inability to attend tour dates. For both of these nights, however, she is present to fill the Hall with the full force of her impressive larynx. Animator Jess Cope's heartbreaking stop-motion video accomapnies it as expected, and suddenly there is a demand for Wilson-themed handkerchiefs at the merchandise stand.
A prog-rock stand-off ensues between Wilson's solo material versus more 'Tree tracks, to satiating results. "The only way to follow that is with some dumb heavy metal", quips Wilson in the aftermath of the emotional onslaught of Routine's unholy trinity of itself, Ninet's presence and Cope's aforementioned video. The 'metal' he speaks of comes in the form of Porcupine Tree's Open Car, with its itchy verses, gloriously epic chorus and the best guitar riff Matt Bellamy or Tom Morello never wrote.
Don't Hate Me follows, before the two-part prog workout of Wilson's Home Invasion and Regret#9 - the former being a hydra-headed piece of volatile riffery, dreamy chorus and alt-rock swagger, the latter a truly fantastic showcase for the remarkable skills of keyboardist Adam Holzman and guitarist Guthrie Govan, who returns to the lineup tonight as a welcome guest, his recent absences ably covered by the superb Dave Kilminster (including these two nights). Govan and the band then revisit Wilson's wondrously fragile Drive Home, featuring Govan's jaw-dropping emotion-wringing extended solo.
Also re-joining for Drive Home is the humbly talented Theo Travis, providing woodwind instrumentation for a jog through more of Wilson's solo material: the crushing Sectarian, the dreamlike Insurgentes, No Part of Me, and finally a tastefully trimmed airing of sinister prog-demon Raider II.
The first of two encores is a fascinating exploration of the first of three Porcupine Tree songs, the lengthy Dark Matter. Celebrated 'Tree sticksman Gavin Harrison receives some of the biggest cheers of the night, joining the band for a one-two of Lazarus and The Sound of Muzak.
For Steven Wilson, victory was secured long ago. With performances like this, he is reaching for something greater: immortality.
After impressing all concerned with 2013's rightly acclaimed The Raven That Refused to Sing, Wilson did it all over again with his latest, Hand.Cannot.Erase. The newer release carries a freshness and immediacy in stark contrast to Raven's lengthy, haunting proggy ghost stories, but not without hidden depths that only appear after the 99th listen.
The first of the two shows feels like an extended Hand.Cannot.Erase. tour concert: Wilson and band glide through the entire album (sans Transcience, sadly, preventing it from being a complete end-to-end run-though), being an extremely well-oiled and rehearsed machine by now. Despite having taken this set to numerous rapturously-received shows throughout the year, they attack the new material with pleasing, spirited zest.
While Hand... is a multifaceted, genre-skipping milestone unto itself on record, hearing it explored live is nothing short of a treat, Wilson and band employing quadraphonic sound to fill the Albert with it.
The material traverses almost all of Wilson's musical palette: the uplifting prog-rock of 3 Years Older, the nimble pop of the album's title-track, the wistful slow climax of Perfect Life, the monstrous riff-labyrinth of Ancestral before finishing with Happy Returns, expertly treading the cheery/sad balance. Three select choices will survive into the second night, squaring off impressively against older cuts: now, however, Wilson's self-belief in his fantastic accomplishment shines through.
With Hand.Cannot.Erase. put to bed, the second set of the first night provides the assembled disciples with a grinning bag of jewels and gems, starting slowly and ominously with the first ever performance of material from Wilson's collaborotion with Opeth's Mikael Akerfeldt. Drag Ropes, a wonderfully spooky and foreboding piece (to call it a track or 'song' would be a misjustice), is laid out across the Hall over the course of approximately seven days.
Its sheer length may have has a slight pulse-weakening effect on some, but the sheer rarity of the event cannot be underestimated, especially when Akerfeldt joins the band on stage to provide vocals and animator Jess Cope's fantastically disturbing video accompanies it on the giant screen.
Wilson next reminds all involved whose name is on the ticket as he leads the bands through their reworking of Index, complete with synchronised statue-posed finger-clicking introduction, a fantastically surreal sight through one of Wilson's brilliantly darkest pieces, with suitably eerie visuals presumably from long-term collaborator Lasse Hoile.
How is Your Life Today? and the invincible Lazarus follow, respectively a not unwelcome oddity and one of Wilson's absolute strongest compositions, rapturously received.
A short speech from Wilson prefaces a particularly tasty showcasing of unreleased HCE material, titled My Book of Regrets. Part proggy length and catchy verse, it is reminiscent of the dreamy sections of Luminol crossed with the singalong 'Tree track Blackest Eyes. It will arrive on an EP in January: begin the countdown.
Harmony Korine, The Watchmaker and Porcupine Tree's Sleep Together follow, the latter two with the expected white sheet hanging before the band, with appropriately disturbing visuals projected onto it for Watchmaker. It is nothing short of spellbinding, a masterfully executed matrimony of sound and sight.
By way of eventual encore, the 'Tree's The Sound of Muzak's sincere lamentations precedes The Raven That Refused To Sing, a perfectly judged conjuration of storytelling and emotional power.
The first night wrapped, all speculation turns towards the second: making sense of what has taken place, however, will take a long time. Wilson and band admirably stepped up to deliver something far more than a simple recital, matching expectations by putting on a spectacular event.
Night 2:
With the first evening being an extended Hand.Cannot.Erase. tour show, the second is a rarities free-for-all. The band members consecutively take the stage to contribute to a steadily growing No Twilight Within the Courts of the Sun. Wilson is the last to take the stage, to deserved cheers, leading it to its fantastically intense conclusion.
Fully assembled, the team tackle the first of several Porcupine Tree gems in the maudlin Shesmovedon, before returning to newer material in Routine. Guest vocals from Israeli singer Ninet Tayeb have been conspicuously absent from renditions of the song due to Tayeb's own inability to attend tour dates. For both of these nights, however, she is present to fill the Hall with the full force of her impressive larynx. Animator Jess Cope's heartbreaking stop-motion video accomapnies it as expected, and suddenly there is a demand for Wilson-themed handkerchiefs at the merchandise stand.
A prog-rock stand-off ensues between Wilson's solo material versus more 'Tree tracks, to satiating results. "The only way to follow that is with some dumb heavy metal", quips Wilson in the aftermath of the emotional onslaught of Routine's unholy trinity of itself, Ninet's presence and Cope's aforementioned video. The 'metal' he speaks of comes in the form of Porcupine Tree's Open Car, with its itchy verses, gloriously epic chorus and the best guitar riff Matt Bellamy or Tom Morello never wrote.
Don't Hate Me follows, before the two-part prog workout of Wilson's Home Invasion and Regret#9 - the former being a hydra-headed piece of volatile riffery, dreamy chorus and alt-rock swagger, the latter a truly fantastic showcase for the remarkable skills of keyboardist Adam Holzman and guitarist Guthrie Govan, who returns to the lineup tonight as a welcome guest, his recent absences ably covered by the superb Dave Kilminster (including these two nights). Govan and the band then revisit Wilson's wondrously fragile Drive Home, featuring Govan's jaw-dropping emotion-wringing extended solo.
Also re-joining for Drive Home is the humbly talented Theo Travis, providing woodwind instrumentation for a jog through more of Wilson's solo material: the crushing Sectarian, the dreamlike Insurgentes, No Part of Me, and finally a tastefully trimmed airing of sinister prog-demon Raider II.
The first of two encores is a fascinating exploration of the first of three Porcupine Tree songs, the lengthy Dark Matter. Celebrated 'Tree sticksman Gavin Harrison receives some of the biggest cheers of the night, joining the band for a one-two of Lazarus and The Sound of Muzak.
For Steven Wilson, victory was secured long ago. With performances like this, he is reaching for something greater: immortality.
Friday, 19 June 2015
Review: Killing Joke - 'Killing Joke [2003]'
And there, in the title of this slab of pure fury brimming
with intelligence, is the first warning to the uninitiated about the sheer size
of Killing Joke’s colossal sonic testicles: that this is their second self-titled album.
This is entirely appropriate as a title, marking as it does
a point of rebirth in the band’s history – a history that makes the story of your
favourite band read like a council memo on lamppost legislation. The Joke are
about as recharged as a musical act can be without actually spontaneously
combusting: there is enough energy and sonic intent here to level cities.
Doubly interesting, then, that the band sound is completely
stripped back, which pushes each instrument so far into your face that the
collective aural beast manifests as a clenched fist. There is nowhere for the
listener to take refuge, nor any let-up in the pacing. It’s the musical
equivalent of a sound beating after spilling the pint of an intellectual.
And as usual, the forefront intellectual is Jaz Coleman –
either a ranting, bug-eyed madman or one of the few to musically spew truth
pearls into people’s faces in the hope that they’ll sit up and take notice (In
this review, he is the latter).
Such is the skill, that fact is intertwined into memorable
hook. ‘Five corporations earn more than
forty-six nations!’ Coleman bellows on Blood
On Your Hands. Total Invasion,
meanwhile, has the sneering ‘Only fools
won’t know, they haven’t been told/their empire’s run on the old black gold’.
The sense of a shouted history lesson prevails.
The relentless barrage is also the great flaw of the album,
one you don’t notice for a long time. Killing Joke pummel the listener
senseless here, which is fine, as they do it with intelligence.
However, in concentrating on one of the things they do best,
their other abilities are kept shut out, namely the talent in crafting
danceable tunes and music with a sense of exploration and/or adventure, namely Bloodsport and Communion respectively as just two examples.
Nevertheless, for what Killing
Joke is, it knocks out the competition with a swift knee to the balls and a
diatribe on the state of the world. None do it better.
Ten Years On: The Darkness - 'One Way Ticket to Hell...and Back'
It's been a strange decade for The Darkness, having been through more ups and downs than the average rollercoaster, with more rock n' roll tales from ten years' worth of music than lesser mortals will endure in a lifetime.
Bursting into British popular music with shit-kicking debut 'Permission to Land' in 2003, the band enjoyed a hugely successful multi-faceted bullseye, totting up several victories in a short space of time: being the first unsigned band to sell out London's legendary Astoria and injecting much-needed life into rock's decaying corpse as it was being kicked around by indie hipsters.
As is often the case, a speedy rise ensures a similarly speedy descent, and the masses who bought into The Darkness' immediate popularity were suddenly nowhere to be seen for album number two, 'One Way Ticket to Hell....and Back'. A year after its release, frontman Justin Hawkins would underdo rehabilitation treatment for alcohol and coke addiction, leaving the band and leaving the remaining band to become Stone Gods. Hawkins, meanwhile, would return to action with the excellent Hot Leg.
While The Darkness are happily together again - albeit minus original drummer Ed Graham - history has a habit of passing (and pissing) over their unloved second album. Here, ten years on from its release, I wish to make the case for its recognition as one of the best British albums ever made.
Where 'Permission to Land' blew everyone's faces clean off with a giddily inspired mixture of snotty punk exuberance, near-perfect rock balladry, cannonball guitar riffs, Brit-wit and Hawkin's inimitable falsetto wail, the follow-up displayed a sense of world-beating maturity - but without losing the humour.
The impression from having listened to 'One Way Ticket...' more than my mother's voice is a disc where each gilded track stands impressively aloft on its own two flicked-v fingers, and still flows perfectly well in a single sitting. Where there was belligerence ('Get You Hands Off My Woman'), there was now a greater sense of scope and scale, with every single facet of the band sounding monstrously HUGE.
Hawkin's fantastic vocal range sears through each song in an impressive array of styles, a perfect narrator for chucklingly witty lyricisms. Who else can inspire childhood memories of school with the gorgeously anthemic 'Dinner Lady Arms'? The vocals are also produced to glossy perfection, with exactly the right amount of ghost-Justins popping up for sporadic backing vocals and harmonies.
Moving on to the music itself, there is the same subtle hints of serious guitar skills from Justin and brother Dan with considered deployments of widdly-widdly solos and acoustic flourishes, such as the verse to 'Hazel Eyes', which subsequently explodes into a chorus of mountainesque power chords and heaven-sent guitar licks, all the while punctuated with cannonfire drumming and powerful bass.
While almost every track is lyrically entrenched in lurve, the title track is a fantastically-told story of Hawkin's cocaine addiction: 'I always tried to keep my vices under wraps/but a coach-load of mutes would have been talkative chaps'. Setting the course for the rest of the album, there is spades and spades of sheer wit, catchy invention and polished-to-perfection balls-out rock.
There are absolutely no low points, perhaps except for when 'Bald' and 'Blind Man' get a little serious in tone. The sprawling gorgeousness of 'Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time' is this album's answer to earlier single 'Love is Only a Feeling', and is an excellent sequel of sorts. While these songs burst a few of the party balloons momentarily,they are surrounded by bollock-burstingly-brilliant hymns that, above all else, must be applauded for being something that precious few bands seem to manage these days: FUN.
Like an unloved gifted child who turns to heroin during a traumatic parental divorce, 'One Way Ticket...' lay weeping in the corner as The Darkness underwent their meltdown. An incredible record such as this deserved far better in terms of a stable line-up to support it. A fat (middle) finger must also be pointed at everyone who enthused about their debut - hipsters and midlife crisis dads alike - who couldn't be arsed to stick with the band just as they produced their golden egg.
Since their reformation, The Darkness have produced two more albums of knockabout British rock n' roll, thankfully carrying their hallmarks and ensuring their continued existence as a functioning band. But for a catastrophically brief moment in their history, at their most fragmented, a once-in-a-lifetime album was born in the worst possible conditions for its deserved recognition.
If you love witty, loud rock n' roll with just the right amount of polish and heart, I implore you to pick up a copy of this tragically overlooked album. It may just be the best thing you've ever heard.
10/10
Bursting into British popular music with shit-kicking debut 'Permission to Land' in 2003, the band enjoyed a hugely successful multi-faceted bullseye, totting up several victories in a short space of time: being the first unsigned band to sell out London's legendary Astoria and injecting much-needed life into rock's decaying corpse as it was being kicked around by indie hipsters.
As is often the case, a speedy rise ensures a similarly speedy descent, and the masses who bought into The Darkness' immediate popularity were suddenly nowhere to be seen for album number two, 'One Way Ticket to Hell....and Back'. A year after its release, frontman Justin Hawkins would underdo rehabilitation treatment for alcohol and coke addiction, leaving the band and leaving the remaining band to become Stone Gods. Hawkins, meanwhile, would return to action with the excellent Hot Leg.
While The Darkness are happily together again - albeit minus original drummer Ed Graham - history has a habit of passing (and pissing) over their unloved second album. Here, ten years on from its release, I wish to make the case for its recognition as one of the best British albums ever made.
Where 'Permission to Land' blew everyone's faces clean off with a giddily inspired mixture of snotty punk exuberance, near-perfect rock balladry, cannonball guitar riffs, Brit-wit and Hawkin's inimitable falsetto wail, the follow-up displayed a sense of world-beating maturity - but without losing the humour.
The impression from having listened to 'One Way Ticket...' more than my mother's voice is a disc where each gilded track stands impressively aloft on its own two flicked-v fingers, and still flows perfectly well in a single sitting. Where there was belligerence ('Get You Hands Off My Woman'), there was now a greater sense of scope and scale, with every single facet of the band sounding monstrously HUGE.
Hawkin's fantastic vocal range sears through each song in an impressive array of styles, a perfect narrator for chucklingly witty lyricisms. Who else can inspire childhood memories of school with the gorgeously anthemic 'Dinner Lady Arms'? The vocals are also produced to glossy perfection, with exactly the right amount of ghost-Justins popping up for sporadic backing vocals and harmonies.
Moving on to the music itself, there is the same subtle hints of serious guitar skills from Justin and brother Dan with considered deployments of widdly-widdly solos and acoustic flourishes, such as the verse to 'Hazel Eyes', which subsequently explodes into a chorus of mountainesque power chords and heaven-sent guitar licks, all the while punctuated with cannonfire drumming and powerful bass.
While almost every track is lyrically entrenched in lurve, the title track is a fantastically-told story of Hawkin's cocaine addiction: 'I always tried to keep my vices under wraps/but a coach-load of mutes would have been talkative chaps'. Setting the course for the rest of the album, there is spades and spades of sheer wit, catchy invention and polished-to-perfection balls-out rock.
There are absolutely no low points, perhaps except for when 'Bald' and 'Blind Man' get a little serious in tone. The sprawling gorgeousness of 'Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time' is this album's answer to earlier single 'Love is Only a Feeling', and is an excellent sequel of sorts. While these songs burst a few of the party balloons momentarily,they are surrounded by bollock-burstingly-brilliant hymns that, above all else, must be applauded for being something that precious few bands seem to manage these days: FUN.
Like an unloved gifted child who turns to heroin during a traumatic parental divorce, 'One Way Ticket...' lay weeping in the corner as The Darkness underwent their meltdown. An incredible record such as this deserved far better in terms of a stable line-up to support it. A fat (middle) finger must also be pointed at everyone who enthused about their debut - hipsters and midlife crisis dads alike - who couldn't be arsed to stick with the band just as they produced their golden egg.
Since their reformation, The Darkness have produced two more albums of knockabout British rock n' roll, thankfully carrying their hallmarks and ensuring their continued existence as a functioning band. But for a catastrophically brief moment in their history, at their most fragmented, a once-in-a-lifetime album was born in the worst possible conditions for its deserved recognition.
If you love witty, loud rock n' roll with just the right amount of polish and heart, I implore you to pick up a copy of this tragically overlooked album. It may just be the best thing you've ever heard.
10/10
Monday, 8 June 2015
Review: Muse - 'Drones'
The world continues to resemble an appallingly-written sci-fi movie by every passing day, so it feels especially righteous to have a fresh slab of music from popular rock's most endearing riff-wielding commentators, Muse.
Album number seven, with the band noting a marked return to the primal guitar-bass-drums setup of their earlier works, comes with its own narrative: indeed, Matt, Dom and Chris have even expressed enthusiasm for Drones to be adapted into some form of musical.
Possibly to nix the allure of potential album leaks, Muse have pre-empted the release of Drones with not just the expected slew of singles, but approximately half the album. Psycho was the first out the gate, providing a musical home for a guitar riff that Bellamy has been throwing around for almost all of the band's history.
The Drill Sergeant barking that precedes it is one of two interludes on the album, recalling Tool's fondness for such between-song pieces that allow the listener to breath and take a detour through disembodied planes before stumbling directly back into the album's narrative.
Dead Inside followed, despite this Undisclosed Desires-turned-nasty stuttering disco stomper actually opening the album, possibly to allay fears of Bellamy talking a load of bells about the supposed return to Planet Rock. When received by the masses, it prompted confusion - it wasn't pureblood rock, but wasn't meat-and-potatoes either, proving Muse hadn't lost their appetite for exploration.
Next up, in both pre-album releases as well as Drones' actual running order, cometh Mercy and Reapers, which history may pinpoint as the overall album's standout tracks. Mercy proudly shows off its musical lineage, carrying several elements from past songs such as Starlight, Follow Me as well as setlist cornerstone Stockholm Syndrome, juicing the ingredients into a fantastic slice of glittercannon pop-rock.
Reapers takes the madness further with a so-so verse that gives way triumphantly to Rage Against The Machine-turned-glam guitar work, featuring a fabulously jubilant - and dare I say it, sassy - guitar solo with the greatest chorus of the whole album. A surefire gem.
The Handler sits stubbornly at the album's core, guitar riff reaching out in several directions like a drowsy belligerent octopus. It provides the uneasiest experience amongst the tracklisting, but not without showcasing Muse's songwriting prowess.
The second of the interludes, JFK, features the great man himself blathering before Bellamy and co kick the door down with Defector, (yet) another monstrously rocking track that wields its hammerblow riffs and Queen-esque backing vocals, Matt in a pleasingly defiant mood that contrasts with the negativity preceding it over the course of some of the album's first half.
After the usual dizzying carousel of thick-stringed riffery, bombast and epic themes, Revolt is a not entirely unpleasant prospect but its city-stomping predecessors leave such a mark that it nearly drops the baton. It may please those who wish for a simpler song, but history may consign it to the dusty corner of unloved filler tracks (see also: Explorers and Guiding Light).
Then again, it may be the intention to wind down the musical intensity as the narrative reaches its conclusion. Aftermath almost recalls the woozy sway of past tracks such as Blackout and the three-part Exogenesis Symphony, but is slightly too watery and ultimately fails to make a meaningful impression.
Ten-minute-monster The Globalist pointedly defies any notion of bringing things to a gentle halt with a heady mix of unadulterated fearlessness, albeit with slightly wobbly execution. Whilst not the greatest thing Muse have ever committed to tape, it inarguably succeeds in marking out Muse as one of the most interesting acts to tap the Top 10 on the shoulder before lending it a copy of 1984.
Closing this chapter in Muse's history is the album's title track, in which Bellamy clones himself and forces the assembled Matts at Manson-point to all sing at the same time. It's a strange soup of the man exploring the different levels of his still-brilliant voice, but also sounds like several vocal warm-up takes being played at the same time. As album closers go, only time will have the final word on whether it truly works or not.
A cabal of longtime Musers wait, agonised, for Muse to return to the form they built their career and legend on. Drones doesn't completely hark back to those times, because nostalgia is a backwards glance and Muse have never done anything else except march into the future. For that, they cannot be criticised.
7.5/10
Album number seven, with the band noting a marked return to the primal guitar-bass-drums setup of their earlier works, comes with its own narrative: indeed, Matt, Dom and Chris have even expressed enthusiasm for Drones to be adapted into some form of musical.
Possibly to nix the allure of potential album leaks, Muse have pre-empted the release of Drones with not just the expected slew of singles, but approximately half the album. Psycho was the first out the gate, providing a musical home for a guitar riff that Bellamy has been throwing around for almost all of the band's history.
The Drill Sergeant barking that precedes it is one of two interludes on the album, recalling Tool's fondness for such between-song pieces that allow the listener to breath and take a detour through disembodied planes before stumbling directly back into the album's narrative.
Dead Inside followed, despite this Undisclosed Desires-turned-nasty stuttering disco stomper actually opening the album, possibly to allay fears of Bellamy talking a load of bells about the supposed return to Planet Rock. When received by the masses, it prompted confusion - it wasn't pureblood rock, but wasn't meat-and-potatoes either, proving Muse hadn't lost their appetite for exploration.
Next up, in both pre-album releases as well as Drones' actual running order, cometh Mercy and Reapers, which history may pinpoint as the overall album's standout tracks. Mercy proudly shows off its musical lineage, carrying several elements from past songs such as Starlight, Follow Me as well as setlist cornerstone Stockholm Syndrome, juicing the ingredients into a fantastic slice of glittercannon pop-rock.
Reapers takes the madness further with a so-so verse that gives way triumphantly to Rage Against The Machine-turned-glam guitar work, featuring a fabulously jubilant - and dare I say it, sassy - guitar solo with the greatest chorus of the whole album. A surefire gem.
The Handler sits stubbornly at the album's core, guitar riff reaching out in several directions like a drowsy belligerent octopus. It provides the uneasiest experience amongst the tracklisting, but not without showcasing Muse's songwriting prowess.
The second of the interludes, JFK, features the great man himself blathering before Bellamy and co kick the door down with Defector, (yet) another monstrously rocking track that wields its hammerblow riffs and Queen-esque backing vocals, Matt in a pleasingly defiant mood that contrasts with the negativity preceding it over the course of some of the album's first half.
After the usual dizzying carousel of thick-stringed riffery, bombast and epic themes, Revolt is a not entirely unpleasant prospect but its city-stomping predecessors leave such a mark that it nearly drops the baton. It may please those who wish for a simpler song, but history may consign it to the dusty corner of unloved filler tracks (see also: Explorers and Guiding Light).
Then again, it may be the intention to wind down the musical intensity as the narrative reaches its conclusion. Aftermath almost recalls the woozy sway of past tracks such as Blackout and the three-part Exogenesis Symphony, but is slightly too watery and ultimately fails to make a meaningful impression.
Ten-minute-monster The Globalist pointedly defies any notion of bringing things to a gentle halt with a heady mix of unadulterated fearlessness, albeit with slightly wobbly execution. Whilst not the greatest thing Muse have ever committed to tape, it inarguably succeeds in marking out Muse as one of the most interesting acts to tap the Top 10 on the shoulder before lending it a copy of 1984.
Closing this chapter in Muse's history is the album's title track, in which Bellamy clones himself and forces the assembled Matts at Manson-point to all sing at the same time. It's a strange soup of the man exploring the different levels of his still-brilliant voice, but also sounds like several vocal warm-up takes being played at the same time. As album closers go, only time will have the final word on whether it truly works or not.
A cabal of longtime Musers wait, agonised, for Muse to return to the form they built their career and legend on. Drones doesn't completely hark back to those times, because nostalgia is a backwards glance and Muse have never done anything else except march into the future. For that, they cannot be criticised.
7.5/10
Wednesday, 3 June 2015
Review: The Darkness - Last of Our Kind
Remember The Darkness? Spandex, 2003, I Believe in a Thing Called Love, Love is Only a Feeling, and a sophomore album that nobody liked or bought (despite Kerrang! magazine breathing one of their few remaining gasps of sanity and awarding the album their highest score)?
No?
Well, now's an excellent chance to either re-aquaint yourself with them or roll over and take their special brew of brilliantly silly carrying of the sacred rock n' roll torch.
As rock finds itself in arguably its weirdest state yet, album number four crashes down through the ceiling. Sequinned boots kick in all directions as the glammy force of the band's favourite form of gloriously OTT rock n' roll cheerfully bash your skull in (and out, like a hokey-cokey with Marshall Amps sponsorship).
Where thank-god-they're-back previous disc, Hot Cakes, had more of a lairy feelgood, um, feel to it, Last of Our Kind appears to wear brass knuckles underneath the velvet gloves. Witness the one-two punch of the first two tracks, Barbarian and Open Fire, notably uptempo shitkickers that carry a slight snarl with the expected snigger.
Handclapping anthems sway to the tempo alongside supercharged slices of rifferama, and suddenly the prospect of there being a dimension not containing this band is enough to scare you into grabbing a ticket for their winter 2015 UK trek, for at least one more chance to partake in the time-honoured Darkness party.
On other fronts, The Darkness continue to wear their rival-beating talents on their nipple tassels. Justin Hawkin's inimitable force-of-nature wail is present and deliciously unapologetic, delivering their amusingly inventive lyrical games with the expected alacrity. In a musical landscape oversaturated with unpalatable identikit bores, it is all too easy to
However, having worked so hard to develop their own take-no-prisoners identity and zippily identifiable character, along with a songwriting nous that has set the bar giddily high for themselves (not to mention their catastrophically underrated second album), some tracks, perhaps inevitably, can't quite reach up to those heights.
It's an issue that permeated previous long-player Hot Cakes, a thoroughly solid romp that couldn't quite match the pure greatness achieved prior. Taken as a standard rock album, however, it was by no means without identifiable merit.
Whether Last of Our Kind can be deemed a victim of the same problem can only be determined with 999 more listens and the fullness of time. What can be immediately ascertained, however, is that it is another secured victory.
7/10
No?
Well, now's an excellent chance to either re-aquaint yourself with them or roll over and take their special brew of brilliantly silly carrying of the sacred rock n' roll torch.
As rock finds itself in arguably its weirdest state yet, album number four crashes down through the ceiling. Sequinned boots kick in all directions as the glammy force of the band's favourite form of gloriously OTT rock n' roll cheerfully bash your skull in (and out, like a hokey-cokey with Marshall Amps sponsorship).
Where thank-god-they're-back previous disc, Hot Cakes, had more of a lairy feelgood, um, feel to it, Last of Our Kind appears to wear brass knuckles underneath the velvet gloves. Witness the one-two punch of the first two tracks, Barbarian and Open Fire, notably uptempo shitkickers that carry a slight snarl with the expected snigger.
Handclapping anthems sway to the tempo alongside supercharged slices of rifferama, and suddenly the prospect of there being a dimension not containing this band is enough to scare you into grabbing a ticket for their winter 2015 UK trek, for at least one more chance to partake in the time-honoured Darkness party.
On other fronts, The Darkness continue to wear their rival-beating talents on their nipple tassels. Justin Hawkin's inimitable force-of-nature wail is present and deliciously unapologetic, delivering their amusingly inventive lyrical games with the expected alacrity. In a musical landscape oversaturated with unpalatable identikit bores, it is all too easy to
However, having worked so hard to develop their own take-no-prisoners identity and zippily identifiable character, along with a songwriting nous that has set the bar giddily high for themselves (not to mention their catastrophically underrated second album), some tracks, perhaps inevitably, can't quite reach up to those heights.
It's an issue that permeated previous long-player Hot Cakes, a thoroughly solid romp that couldn't quite match the pure greatness achieved prior. Taken as a standard rock album, however, it was by no means without identifiable merit.
Whether Last of Our Kind can be deemed a victim of the same problem can only be determined with 999 more listens and the fullness of time. What can be immediately ascertained, however, is that it is another secured victory.
7/10
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