This is quite an extraordinary compilation. With support from the Scarman Trust, Yorkshire lads Brew Records have set themselves up to spread the word on a whole bear pit of grisly guitar musicians whose obdurate dedication to living wild has kept the general public at a safe distance for some time. They are fierce, independent, rowdy and (this is the good bit) quite scarily talented.
Not all the tracks are as massively rifftastic as HUMANFLY's 8 minute lurching epic "Nenhuns deuses nenhuns mestres" (which I find I have met before on the obscure but wonderful Chinchillatone label's "Get Civilised 2007" album as "No Gods No Masters"). But most of the 16 tracks do present music that would delight all Fans of The Riff. GLISSANDO's gentle piano, voice and band tune and JON GOMM'S virtuoso (bilingual) acoustic song "Waterfall" are at another end of another scale entirely, but the brooding intensity of both is something that friends of post hardcore would recognise and appreciate as the work of fellow-zeitgeisters.
Only one track: MUCKY SAILOR's "Albatross Silly Albatross" has no guitar at all. But I have never heard a keyboard and drum duet that sounded as much like a guitar band. Roaring and thumping, they have blundered into a bit of clear space on the deck as alternative rock's crowded ship plunges through storms of incessant innovation.
We already know the quality of THE BUTTERFLY, I CONCUR, IMMUNE, and VESSELS. BILGE PUMP are a long-established legend in their own diy right. These tracks are secure, tried and tested. If you’re not yet familiar, this would be a good way to say hello. THE PLIGHT are new to me, but their opening riff on "Life's Debt" stands up like a heroic and welcome survivor from Donnington. The tune that follows has power, energy, and no posturing bullshit.
YEAR OF THE MAN judder in a more Scandinavian style, chilling the adolescent blood with the stench of death, some head-down dirty riffs and conventionally rasped zombie vocals. They do have an unexpectedly lyrical middle section that turns the track into a mini epic that ends on a big fat crescendo. SOLUS LOCUS push keyboards to the front as an opening gambit, and gradually get darker and heavier. They achieve a loose, spacey feel that I really like.
PATTERN THEORY are nestling somewhere near your TORTOISE CDs with "Cities", but maybe they're a bit brisker and more straightforward than Bundy K. Brown's crew. The track lights up with a couple of springy guitar riffs that punctuate the chopping chords, light drums and tumbling bass. I like it. COWTOWN are a stride or three madder than the rest, like a nimble Friesian with a bonnet, twigs, clanging guitar, a sense of humour and a very cheap keyboard. Set next to MUCKY SAILOR's track, they provide an oasis of madness in a compilation of out-of-body experiences.
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THESE MONSTERS' "Dust and Ivy" is another eight minute stretch, drawing synth and sampled material into the cauldron, with a dub feel on the way to a more wailing psychosis of driving guitar bass and drums. Live favourites CHICKENHAWK close the album's hour and a quarter with a three-part work that gets back to heavy riffing and no nonsense post prog frenzy.
Taken as whole, the album represents a fair swathe of the very high quality non-establishment music that has underwritten the frothier indie-pop material coming out of Leeds over the last five or six years. For someone who hasn't lived in Leeds or seen these bands in diy gigs around the country it will be a revelation. They are not "contenders" or "new talent" in any ordinary sense. In their own ways they have already been around a while and "made it". So the album is a good chance to hoover up a good (but by no means fully comprehensive) glimpse of a very well-stocked underground.
Track listing:
THE BUTTERFLY: Eros and Thanatos
i concur: Oblige
THE PLIGHT: Life's Debt
YEAR OF THE MAN: Rage of Man, Strength of Son
SOLUS LOCUS: We Can Go Home
BILGE PUMP: Observe My Crazy Arms
THE PATTERN THEORY: Cities
COWTOWN: science
MUCKY SAILOR: Albatross Silly Albatross
IMMUNE: Consume radio edit
HUMANFLY: Nenhuns Deuses Nenhuns Mestres
VESSELS: Forever The Optimist
GLISSANDO: Floods
JON GOMM: Waterfall
THESE MONSTERS: Dust And Ivy
CHICKENHAWK: Perception Parts i-iii
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