Welcome to the first edition of MELOMANIA - a new independently written summary of New Music and reissues being released this week. Many thanks to all of you for staying with us, and thank you most of all to Harry Crumpler and T-BONE’s Records and Cafe for the first chapters of our existence and for giving us the energy and support to function here on our own for each and every one of you.
WIDOWSPEAK - The Jacket [LP/CD](Captured Tracks/Secretly/AMPED)
On album after album, Widowspeak makes just the right alterations (sometimes done “While You Wait”) so that their music still captures that ennui within relationships and everyday life. “The Jacket” goes for twangy Velvet-ish guitar and pulsing songs that emit Rain Parade-meets-Wooden Shjips Psychedelia. Say what you want about Molly Hamilton’s Mazzy Star-ish whisper, given the backgrounds Robert Earl Thomas works up and producer Homer Steinweiss dials in, skeptics need only hear the tour de force on “The Jacket” and the single-worthy “Everything Is Simple” to convert.
WET TUNA - Eau’d to a Fake Bookie Vol. 1 and 2 [LP](Hive Mind)
Matt Valentine (MV) gives his freak-folk the slow, dreamy psychedelic makeover in this band. What makes a Wet Tuna song is not necessarily the song (which is good like the new single “Kinda Feelin’ Good” from their next album coming April 8th) but the hints of production that unfold. While his acoustic guitar always rings true even through waves of gated delay and chorus, is it the strings on 2019’s beautiful Sebadoh-like “Goin’” that really keep it aloft. Volume 1 is a pair of lengthy jams that need all their allotted time to unfurl. “When I Get Home” is a sweet almost Dead-like blues with hushed guitars. As the chords twist into different voicings, Valentine sings around the expected rhymes. The twenty-one minutes of “Water Train” is more a desert epic with guitar squall (they use more of it on “Vol.2”) that they shape into a softer Royal Trux-ian jam.
DRUG CHURCH - Hygiene [LP/CD](Pure Noise/The Orchard)
New York’s Drug Church has always had a great post-Hardcore Pixies sound. “Avoidarama” sealed their Jawbreaker-esque Nineties crunch Punk. “Hygiene” expands their view a little more. “World Impact” follows the anthemic almost Turnstile-ish style of riff Rock, while “Million Miles of Fun” goes even farther into Nineties Rock with its metallic stop/start breaks and clock-tick lead. However, it is the twin thrust of “Detective Lieutenant” and “Premium Offer” where Drug Church shows punchy commercial potential with blazing hooks and punch-in-the-air-wherever-you-are intensity.
EMBRYONIC AUTOPSY - Prophecies Of The Conjoined [LP/CD](Massacre)
Given their lineage (vocalist Tim King from Oppressor and Scott Roberts from OTEP,) this Chicago band proves ready to slice through the Death Metal competition with their Slayer-meets-Napalm Death sound. Add to that a host of great solo appearances by Terrance Hobbs of Suffocation and James Murphy of Death, Obituary, and Testament, and this one is any metalhead’s no-brainer. However, there is something darker afoot. King and company have constructed some kind of narrative about aliens visiting ancient Egyptian and Mayan cultures to teach them technology. Most songs wind out of weird noise and synth sounds into a bleak but bludgeoning riff-laden metallic thunder often led by drummer Arnaud Krakowka. The title cut best exemplifies their mode of unleashing hellacious guitar storms that sound like a million wasps coming after you. Deep in the backdrop, a spacey guitar hangs in on some tantalizing minor chords. Then in those beatless moments where you catch your breath - their chimes materialize. Later, when they slow down for “Upon The Mayan Throne” they even prove they chug along at slow tempos as well. Definitely a great debut.
KEE AVIL - Crease [LP](Constellation/Secretly/AMPED)
Montreal’s Vicky Mettler really experiments with her voice and guitar in the most bracing ways. “And I” deceives you into thinking Kee Avil is going to somehow be soothing with its picked acoustic guitar and whisper. Then, you hear the same elements create a near industrial backdrop for “See, my shadow” leaving you in disbelief that these are one and the same. Mettler swoops and dives over “And I” and then whispers around “See, my shadow” using the counterpoint between her instruments to make them sound as far away from the usual as possible. “Devil’s Sweet Tooth” is even more bewitching with deathly whines and her double-tracked voice almost crawling around all the creaking and shrieking. In the end, “SAF” may put it best: “Is this the same ache we all share?”
ORIGAMI ANGEL - Gami Gang [LP](Counter Intuitive/The Orchard)
If twenty one pilots were more laid out like a band they might be as hyper melodic as this DC duo. As much as their Pop/Punk sound is indicative of a large swath of groups already out there, Origami Angel has barrels of hooks. All the hallmarks are here lyrically - the video game references, sly after-school asides, and more arrows perfectly aimed for their target audience. However, it is their quiver full of riffs and ideas that cannot be avoided. “#GAMIGANG” kicks it off like a Hip-Hop record before segueing into the slashing guitar and build-up on “Self-Destruct.” “Mobius Chicken Strip” lines up harmonies and a punchy stop/start chorus that neatly ascends. “Noah Fence” and “Isopropyl Alchemy” are more anthemic, while “Neutrogena Spektor” savages someone in the sweetest voice with a Disney-ready chorus. Even if Pop/Punk is not your can of energy drink, Origami Angel writes songs that are still undeniably good.
MYSTERINES - Reeling [CD](Harvest)
Liverpool’s Mysterines are a big ROCK band whose Dead Weather-like bashing (“Dangerous”) and Royal Blood-ish blast (“In My Head”) are radio-ready and powered by the huge voice of Lia Metcalfe. “Hung Up” is a punchy Nirvana-esque slice of riffage. However, it is Metcalfe’s bravura persona leaping from seething anger on the verse to outright rage (“‘Cause I’d like to watch you die here”) that makes it sear your flesh. That burning is what likely will keep this band going as a New Rock/Alt Rock staple once radio sniffs them out.
LETTERS FROM MOUSE - Tarbolton Bachelors Club [CD](Subexotic UK)
Steven Anderson (a/k/a Letters From Mouse) is a talented new synthesist from Edinburgh. His knack for layers shows in both the quietest moments (“Candles,”) and more upbeat (“Cordiality.”) Emulating 90s Warp era sounds “Tarbolton” is a little like Aphex Twin as played by Suzanne Ciani. His elongated loops and “smearing” his synth sounds (“NS92476494”) create an audio Polaroid that often takes an artful portrait and makes even the manipulation of the portrait itself a part of the art.
Blasts From The Past
FLOWER TRAVELLIN’ BAND - Anywhere [LP](Phoenix)
Every nascent band starts by learning to play together with covers of songs that they know. Yuya Uchida went to visit his friend John Lennon in England in 1966 where he was turned on to the new loud, psychedelic blues-rock of Jimi Hendrix and Cream. Back home in Japan, Uchida needed a way to introduce this inspiring new sound to his friends. So naturally, Uchida formed a group and started covering the aforementioned artists and Jefferson Airplane in 1968. In 1969, they issued a few original singles. However, Uchida soon scrapped the original players and constructed his new band around three former Blues players. Uchida, as a producer now, took his newly christened Flower Travellin’ Band into the studio to record their debut. While they cover Muddy Waters, The Animals, Black Sabbath, and King Crimson, the “songs” are only the starting point for takeoff. Take “Black Sabbath” for example. While they nail the ominous feel of it, you cannot help but think they were holding back when Hideki Ishima arrives at his blistering solo. The same can be said for the introduction to the tricky middle portion of “21st Century Schizoid Man.” Ishima’s long explosive solo only makes the familiarity of the band hitting that part (and its subsequent mammoth main riff) more hair-raising with Ishima, bassist Jin Kosuki and drummer Joji “George” Wada locking in time before their arrival at the monolithic crunch. “Anywhere” is heavy metal colliding with biker rock in the most bluesy way possible. You should definitely tap into this before their wailing 1971 album of originals “Satori” (where vocalist Akira “Joe” Yamanaka really shows his reach.)
GOLDEN EARRING - Moontan DLX [LP](Music On Vinyl NED)
With the Dutch chart stalwarts ending their 50-year run last year following the diagnosis of founder George Kooymans with ALS, this reissue of “Moontan” makes a great place to see their leadership in the Dutch music scene and brief spurts of success here. Golden Earring came out of the same early 60s instrumental Rock-to-Psychedelic track (they covered The Byrds’ “Eight Miles High” for 19 minutes in 1969) that many bands followed. Success in their homeland proved to be hard, so they cut their first single (1966’s “That Day”) at Pye Studios in England. Just three years later, the Netherlands saw a blur of original bands with hits ready to crossover to foreign shores (Shocking Blue, George Baker Selection.) However, it took Golden Earring a few years to solidify their main lineup. By 1973, they had toured the States enough to fully digest the AOR-ready radio feel needed to breakthrough. “Moontan” is stocked with boogie (“Suzy Lunacy (Mental Rock)”) and a bluesy, brassy wailer (the Aerosmith-esque “Candy’s Going Bad”) plus a Prog epic with a Who-like break that twice quotes Marilyn Monroe (“Vanilla Queen.”) However, its main draw will always be the smash hit “Radar Love” that best encapsulates their power (“Twilight Zone” will later prove that lightning can strike twice.) Now almost 50 years later, “Moontan” still sounds well-produced and well-intended as the band was finally coming into their own. After they follow their Art Rock tendencies for a couple of years, they return to Rock on 1976’s underrated “Contraband.” Then like the Olympics, they put out another good Rock album that best reflects the taste and sound of the day (1980’s “Prisoner of the Night”) around every four years, all while continuing to rack up chart hits in their homeland.
MAGMA - Mekanik Destruktiw Kommandoh [LP](Music on Vinyl NED)
In 1969, classically trained drummer Christian Vander was struck by the signs of potential environmental disaster. So Vander took his music in a wildly vocal-driven direction creating not just labyrinthine Prog Rock but a separate language to communicate his message. Starting with 1970’s self-titled debut, Vander and his band sought to use the next 10 albums to tell this story in Kobaian. On “MDK” all the strains of composition that were present on the almost Zappa-esque Rock of “Magma” (the circular “Malaria”) and the more expansive “1001 Degrees Centigrade” (21 minutes of “Riah Sahiltaahk” double-tracks vocal parts and brings on serious time-signature changes) are drawn together for a choral/Prog spectacular. If Vander was not out to overwhelm, “MDK” is definitely a mountain cry wanting to be heard. With pianos, numerous female voices, and enough bells going off (you might check your phone,) these are shorter pieces designed to fit together. Ten minutes of “Horst Fur Dehn Stekehn West” neatly turns from sounding like a barbaric ritual to the clock ticking toward the end of time with great organ swells and electric guitar melodies. “Ima Suri Dondai” continues the ritualistic feel and features great bass from Jannick Top. With Vander and Top as Magma’s formidable rhythm section, “Da Zeuhl Wortz Mekanik” has them playing with and against a theme much like the epic opener. While “Da Zeuhl” definitely has the most roof-raising vocals (the thrill of soprano vibrato,) Magma also perfectly executes a lengthy crescendo to a neoclassical piano figure where they dangle on “Nebehr Gudahht” before moving into the literal shrieks and more bracing “Mekanik Kommando.” Finally, “MDW” draws to a close with the benedictory “Kreuhn Kohrmann Iss de Hundin” that ends with a flourish of frightening thunderous drums and cacophony that dissolve into a test tone. Seven movements into one colossal whole. We may not speak or understand Kobaian, Magma’s creation of zeuhl proves that it is truly a universal language.