They say...
ANTHROPROPHH – OMEGAVILLE
Anthroprophh have provided satisfyingly loud and enthralling heavy psych entertainment on a number of previous recordings for labels of distinction such as Rocket Recordings and Cardinal Fuzz to name but two. The trio of Paul Allen, Gareth Turner and Jesse Webb have well and truly raised the bar as well as the roof with this ambitious, diverse, fat free double album which like one of my old favourites Hüsker Dü’s ‘Zen Arcade’ takes the listener on a white knuckle ride packed with crunching power and fertile imagination without a real pause for breath.
The album launches with a roar on the bone crunching ‘2029’, a short, supercharged riot of guitars and vocals and the energy doesn’t let up with the next track ‘Dead Inside’ where the incendiary guitar and ‘punky’ crooning vocals once again ignite the song. ‘Housing Act 1980’ follows and opens with a tumble of words and tricksy prog-metal riffing in an urgent King Crimson crossed with Motorhead style before settling into a heavy psychedelic guitar storm nodding in the direction of High Rise and other great purveyors of the art. Thankfully the Housing Act itself isn’t included as a lyric book...
Read the rest here: Terrascope
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GNOD – CHAPEL PERILOUS
Of all the bands crudely lumped under the New Psych banner this past decade, Gnod are perhaps the most divisive. Their brand of post-industrial brutalism hasn’t been to everyone’s tastes while their single-minded approach and what has always seemed like a tough to the point of impenetrable outer shell often leaves the impression (mistaken as it turns out) that they are paid-up members of the awkward squad. That perception is as often as not reinforced in the minds of anyone turning up to what they hope is going to be a live onslaught only for the band to be hunched over a tangle of wires and metal armed with soldering irons (ok maybe not quite but you get the picture) and churning out amorphous squelches of noise. It seems you either go wherever the ride takes you or you jump off a moving train.
Ah but the Terrascope has a particular soft-spot for the erstwhile Islington Mill collective to the point of having put them on in Cardiff last year – our Election Night Special on an unforgiving evening of stair-rod rain last June – while last year’s Just Say No To The Psycho Right-Wing Capitalist Fascist Industrial Death Machine didn’t just foresee growing social discontent and pre-empt that hung parliament election but delivered their most focussed and accessible collection since Chaudelande, since when they’ve been steadily skewering hearts and minds and steadily building their fan base...
Read the rest here: Terrascope
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