Indeed there is a new kid in town, his name is Juan Brooks and he is the newest addition to the With Just A Hint Of Mayhem family. Juan joins me (Bill), Paul Bamlett, and Tom Ray. Over the last year, we have been a little slow with reviews and we plan to change that this year. Paul is currently working on a couple, as am I. Meanwhile, Juan has just written his first ever review and he said “It was a biggie…a whole album. Nothing like getting stuck in is there?” Anyway, look out for that review coming your way very soon! Greetings from the new Fab Four, we are looking forward to interacting with you dear readers! Click here to find out more about us!
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Personally I find lists of top ten albums, singles etc. for a given year quite subjective so I have decided not to do that for 2020. But I thought that you might be interested in what has been happening on the With Just A Hint Of Mayhem blog page in 2020. The site had more than 30,000 views for the year for the first time since 2016. December hits were 6,449 which is the highest monthly total since May 2015. There were views from 148 different countries. More than 300 people follow us directly from WordPress, the Facebook Page now has 818 followers and we are close to 1,400 followers on Twitter. A total of 2,523. Thank you to each and every one of you. Stick with us in 2021 and beyond, share all our links (you will find them below) and tell all your friends to come and say hi!
We made a total of 164 posts, and wrote 66,693 words that is more than 400 words per post. The most popular post published in 2020 was written by one of our newer contributors Tom Ray and related to Jeffrey Lewis, click here to read it. The most popular post from previous years was viewed a lot this year and it was “We Make Out In Your Mustang To Radiohead” from 2011, click here to read that one.
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In an expression of purest irony, the collaborative efforts of two of the most experimental musicians of the 20th century has led to some of the most accessible & radio friendly music of either artist’s career. Personally, I was expecting something along the lines of droning noise music of ‘The Weight Of History/Only Once Away My Son’, Eno’s recent collaboration with My Bloody Valentine mastermind Kevin Shields. All ambient soundscapes and abrasive, distorted violas. Instead, ‘Wrong Way Up’ is a collection of upbeat, optimistically melodic Synth Pop music.
Eno and Cale had collaborated previously (Eno had produced Cale’s 1974 album ‘Fear’ and Cale played Viola on a couple of tunes on Eno’s 1975 album ‘Another Green World’) but ‘Wrong Way Up’ was the first album they recorded as a collaboration. Recorded in the dying days of the Soviet Union, the dawning of what Francis Fukuyama called ‘the end of history,’ there are certainly elements of nostalgia and retrophilia in the futuristic sonic landscapes. “I scramble in the dust of a failing nation,” Eno sings on opening track “Lay My Love”. Eno said they expected the album to turn out “quite stark and sort of, industrial.” In light of the upbeat, almost optimistic nature of this album, this contributes to the sense of irony I mention above.
In the most part, the songs are built around looping synthesised chord sequences and arpeggios, but there’s something organic and jam-like about many of the compositions. This is likely due to the array of interesting instruments used (Shinto Bell, Little Nigerian Organ) and an impressive array of guest musicians involved. Are there ghostly slivers of Eastern European folk melody embedded in the lush soundscapes of arpeggiated synths and drum machine loops? The ensemble of “non-standard” (for Rock and Pop music) percussion instruments like dumbeks, tablas and Indian Drums probably contributes to this atmosphere. These heavily processed acoustic instruments mix with the looped soundscapes and drum machine loops fantastically.
The bonus tracks added to the new rerelease, “Grandfather’s House” and “Palanquin”, are much more organic and traditional sounding than the parent album. “Grandfather’s House” is a mournful ballad sung over a folkish drone. Bursts of noisy viola, warm synth pads and reverb soaked piano notes create a cinematic soundscape for John Cale’s solemn, hymn like vocal. “Palanquin” is similarly downbeat but way more minimal. A simple Piano composition, instrumental, played with a huge amount of reverb, creating ghostly swirls of warm, immersive sound.
‘Spinner’
Like ‘Wrong Way Up’, ‘Spinner’ was a collaboration with a key member of a pioneering and genre-defining band. Jah Wobble famously the original bass player in John Lydon’s post-Pistols, Post Punk group Public Image Ltd. However, this is probably not a useful starting point when approaching ‘Spinner’. Originally conceived as the soundtrack to Derek Jarman’s film ‘Glitterbug’. As such, ‘Spinner’ is a much more experimental and instrumental album than ‘Wrong Way Up’, consisting of immersive dronescapes, hypnotic rhythms and discrete background noise.
Another major way in which ‘Spinner’ differs from ‘Wrong Way Up’ is in its production methods. Whereas the former album was a controlled, in-studio endeavour with both John Cale and Brian Eno working together to write and record everything, the latter was produced as a result of Eno passing partial tracks to Jah Wobble and allowing him to embellish upon them as he saw fit. This would have been quite unusual in the mid-‘90’s but is fairly commonplace today. The democratisation of music production, the ease of digital communication and the standardisation of digital audio file formats allow this kind of “file swapping” collaboration to prosper. This is just another way in which Brian Eno set the templates for the way the music industry works today.
Much of ‘Spinner’ is built around the kinds of Ambient minimalism we’ve come to expect from Eno over the years, the twinkling arpeggiation and glitched out machine noises of “Space Diary 1” or the droning synths of “Where We Lived” are one side of this unique album, but not the whole picture. The expressive bass playing in tracks like “Like Organza” lift the soundscaping up into a completely different place and, when coupled with the excellent drumming of Jaki Liebezeit (of Krautrock pioneers Can) we get to hear some of the most immersive and hypnotic music on the album. “Steam” is all sampled strings, swirling synths, dub-influenced bass riffs and the kind of motorik drums that define Krautrock. There’s a sense of building atmosphere which is truly engaging. “Marine Radio” is the place where Post-Punk and Dub collide, creating a kind of maritime Trip Hop sound. The menacing syncopation and digital vibrations of the title track create a sinister, action-packed centrepiece of the album, preparing us for the 8-minute epic, “Transmitter And Trumpet”. Marimbas and excellent drumming form a backdrop to some of the most Dub-like bass lines on the album, submerged in the Eno Wall of Sound. The effect is trancelike, hypnotic in the extreme and later on it descends into swirling swathes of noise, swooping around the stereo-field like a dive bomber.
Of the two bonus tracks added to the release, one is an original Brian Eno piece (from the ‘Glitterbug’ soundtrack) while the other is an original Jah Wobble piece. Eno’s “Stravinsky” is a classical inspired exercise in looping, improvisational orchestral sounds. High register violins duelling over lower tones reminiscent of oboes and cellos. Knowing Eno, they could be either live recorded and heavily processed or synthesised/sampled. They’d sound equally as good, either way. Wobble’s “Lockdown” is a semi-funky bass workout over sampled brass and motorik drum machine rhythms. It’s moody and atmospheric like the best material on ‘Spinner’. Pitchshifted vocals echo spectrally around the soundscape.
‘Wrong Way Up’ and ‘Spinner’ are released on 21st August on All Saints Records. It will be the first time physical media of the two albums have been available in fifteen years.
Written by Tom Ray.
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“Today and tomorrow and yesterday, too The flowers are dying like all things do”
Thus begins Bob Dylan’s 39th studio album. His first of new material since 2012.
Bob is in a biblical mood on ‘Rough And Rowdy Ways’. He comes across like some kind of preacher. Each song an atmospheric sermon delivered over a melancholically minimalist sonic architecture. That minimalism is the main theme here, sonically. Many tunes eschew percussion completely, leaving a kind of softly strummed, string-drenched soundscape. Structurally, ‘Rough And Rowdy Ways’, seems to straddle two genres in the main: Blues and a kind of spiritual gospel, which fits perfectly the preacher/sermon comparisons.
Lyrically, this is a radically different album for Dylan. Where his past works wove an entirely original literary landscape (or universe) of fictional characters with roots in American folklore, ‘Rough And Rowdy Ways’ features real people and their literary creations. Gone are the Jokers, thieves and Sad Eyed Ladies Of The Lowlands. In their place you’ll find Anne Frank, Indiana Jones, JFK and all manner of other significant personalities from the last 60 years of Western culture. “I Contain Multitudes” is named for a line in Walt Whitman poem, for example.
Dylan of old was awash with metaphors and similes. Abstract imagery and far out concepts which Dylan absorbed from the worlds of art, music and literature. When he talked about “Ezra Pound & T.S. Eliot fighting in the captain’s tower” in “Desolation Row”, this was obviously used as a metaphor for the differences between their styles and for a young Bob Dylan to signal his literary love and knowledge. When he sings, on “Mother Of Muses”: “Sing of Sherman, Montgomery, and Scott/And of Zhukov, and Patton, and the battles they fought/who cleared the path for Presley to sing/who carved the path for Martin Luther King,” he really means, literally, to thank these generals and that Elvis and MLK couldn’t have done what they did without them. There’s no artifice or alternative interpretation. On ‘Rough And Rowdy Ways’, Bob says exactly what he means and means exactly what he says.
I don’t know if anyone would agree with this interpretation, but I get a feeling of encroaching mortality and tying up of loose ends from ‘Rough And Rowdy Ways’. It’s fair to say that Dylan is no spring chicken, and he’s not getting any younger, so I think it would be more surprising if he didn’t think about his own mortality. I already wrote, in my review of “Murder Most Foul”, that I thought Dylan was singing about things which had been occupying his thoughts for some time. I imagine when JFK was assassinated, Dylan thought to himself: ”I should write about that.” “Murder Most Foul” was, in my interpretation of the Dylan mythology, the old man finally achieving the ambitions of the young man.
This review has taken me longer than it should have because I have a had a hard time getting my thoughts in order about it, but in a display of serendipity, ‘Rough And Rowdy Ways’ made the news today, Friday 26th June, one week on from release. Today the BBC reported that Dylan has broken/set the record for oldest artist to have a number one album in the UK. This only a couple of short months on from Murder Most Foul becoming his first Billboard chart number one. We might all be having a rough year, but Bob Dylan seems to be having a great year. Career-wise. And where serendipity comes into this: if I had being able to write this review quicker, I would have missed this incredibly exciting news. <and if I had published it quicker you, dear reader, would have been reading this excellent piece from Tom in June! – Bill -Editor>
Written by Tom Ray.
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Brutal Bristol Doomgazers, Sugar Horse’s new EP, DRUGS, is a punishing aural assault but it also features ephemeral moments of beauty. Doomy opening track, “Drugs”, utilizes neo-Sabbath riffs over apocalyptic, downtempo drumming, and (what feel like) random pauses filled with studio chatter. Vocalist, Ashley Tubb’s voice takes on similar qualities to Deftones’ Chino Morino when it soars into higher registers in the choruses. This chimes in well with DRUGS’ press material’s, which likens Sugar Horse to a Doomy Pink Floyd. It wasn’t unusual to read Deftones being described as the Nu-Metal Pink Floyd. Around the four-minute mark, some chanting, almost gospel-like, vocals come in over some chugging guitars before the track drops back down into the heaviest, most punishing, section yet.
“Pity Party” definitely earns the Doomgaze title, with its more melodic vocals & walls of reverbed fuzzy guitar noise and swirls of feedback replacing the hammering riffs of the previous track. The rhythm section maintains the punishing, metallic abrasiveness. There is an almost heroic, lighters-in-the-air atmosphere. Single, “Richard Branson In The Sky With Diamonds”, begins with fuzzier, shoegazey riffing, reminiscent of Pink-era Boris or some of the more melodic Sunn O))) tunes. The vocals are trademarked metal screams when they drop in and they fit in between the stop-start rhythms. There are twists and turns aplenty and the perceived loudness and heaviness dips and dives constantly. Vocalist Ashley Tubb says it’s “a centrepiece for the record. A mangling of every direction we go in, distilled down and blasted out at both destructive and fragile volume”.
“When September Rain” is a sparse, haunting ballad (as strange as that sounds), built around vicious snare drum crack and gentle synth melodies. It’s definitely an outlier here. The heavy reverbs on the vocals and the blending of the choral backing vocals with the main seems to lend it a quasi-religious feel. Towards the end, it builds up into a wall of pure noise that would make Brian Eno or Kevin Shields jealous. “Dogegg” is a slow, sludgy slice of abrasive Doom. Perfectly pitched to end this EP. It’s heavy riffing also gives strong Boris vibes. Perhaps more Amplifier Worship than Pink though. Despite its bludgeoning feel, there are moments of tranquillity where all you hear are gentle drum patterns, subby bass, and clean guitar chords. These atmospheric segments mainly serve to heighten the impact of the next loud section though, and they fulfil this role magnificently.
DRUGS is an unusual EP and there is almost guaranteed to be something, whether song or moment, which pleases everyone. It may, however, struggle to please some due to its variety. I cannot imagine purist Doomers enjoying “When September Rain”, for example. Personally, I find this level of variety and experimentalism extremely inviting. It is definitely impressive to find such variety on a five-track EP with a runtime below 30 minutes.
Written by Tom Ray.
DRUGS EP is available now on all good digital music platforms.
The pictures were found via Google and the videos were found on YouTube. If any of them are yours and you would either like a credit or for them to be removed please let me know.
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Space rock-aligned prog-rock isn’t normally a genre that I would seek out. Which is strange. Because I love it. As you may have noticed if you’ve read my recent series of blogposts about Pink Floyd’s near-mythical gig at a tiny Quaker village hall in 1967, I am very much on board.
As well as the awesome band name, which sounds more like a post-rock band than a prog band (Godspeed You! Black Emperor & And So I Watch You From Afar, anyone?), the backstory and artwork are spectacular. The cover art for ‘Nostalgia for Infinity’ is beautiful and bleak. People with boxes on their heads, standing in the mist beside a grey and imposing wall is certainly the kind of image you’d expect to see for an album like this. Seven (of twelve) of the tracks on ‘Nostalgia for Infinity’ are based upon the novels by Science Fiction novelist Alastair Reynolds. I am already a huge fan of Reynold’s novels and included one of them, ‘Blue Remembered Earth’, in my blogpost about the 10 books which influenced me the most. This makes me particularly excited, going in.
The first track, “Century Rain” starts with a wash of keyboard and guitar ambience which just screams the word “SPACE” at you. Embedded in this ambient soundscape (which sounds how the mist on the cover art looks) is an arpeggiated synth line which sounds like it’s straight out of a Vangelis composition. You almost expect Harrison Ford’s dulcet tones and the harsh electronic bleeping of the Voight-Kampf test to emerge, dreamlike, from the aural mist. The arpeggiated synths are used throughout the album, as are the calming, ambient soundscapes. Both this song and the second track, “Twin Earth”, are based upon the novel called ‘Century Rain’ by Alastair Reynolds. It’s a gritty detective story set Paris during an alternative 1950s where, despite the failure of the Nazis, fascism still rose unchecked across Europe. As well as that, it’s also a time-travelling story of post nanocaust (pretty much how it sounds) survivors battling against the nanite swarms on Earth’s surface and attempting to save alternative Earths. I’ve probably oversimplified it as it’s a long time since I read it, the music does justice to it though.
“Ark”, a song about the World War 2 British aircraft carrier, Ark Royal, starts off with some gentle keyboards and guitars before changing up into several distinct sections built around piano and guitar. The various sections representing different periods in the Ark’s life, from its construction and launch, through to the sinking of the Bismarck and the eventual sinking of the Ark Royal herself. It’s a stirring piece of music and it has the potential to be particularly exciting in a live setting. The following track, “Chasing Neon”, is a retrofuturistic instrumental with more Vangelis-esque analogue synth workout with crunchy arpeggiated bass, floating vaporwave pads and mechanical, robotic rhythms. It’s actually quite unlike anything else on the record and has a wonderful video with visuals to match the vaporwave Bladerunner aesthetic (Check it out below).
After this, we dive back into the worlds of sci-fi with songs about nanotech tumours “Nanobotoma” & a four-track sequence: “Glitterband”, “Conjoiners”, “Scorpio” and “Inhibitors” based on the Alastair Reynolds epic Space Opera, the Revelation Space series. I have it on my shelf but am yet to read it. These are dramatic compositions full of menacing piano, changeable rhythms, and virtuous guitar playing. The penultimate track, “Voyager”, takes us back up into space, inspired as it is by the exciting journey of Voyager 1. It is a gentle, synth-led instrumental with lilting melodies and complex rhythms. The closing track, “The Sixth Extinction”, addresses the impending environmental breakdown by way of upbeat rhythms, alternating choppy and crunchy guitar riffs, and early ‘90’s funk metal-style fast speak-singing. The anthemic nature of the chorus further lends to this feeling while the lead guitar leads things firmly back into the land of prog.
‘Nostalgia for Infinity’ is available on CD & all the usual digital distributors.
Written by Tom Ray
The photos were sourced via Google and the videos via YouTube. If any of them are yours and you would like a credit or for them to be taken down please let me know.
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One of our ace writers Tom also has his own blog, Scruffy Theory, and recently he has posted some great investigative stuff about a gig that Pink Floyd allegedly played at the Folk Hall in New Earswick in York back in 1967. It has been difficult to find much evidence about the gig online, but Tom has found his inner bloodhound and donned his deerstalker hat to discover more. Is it true or not? Read Tom’s rather interesting posts (in sequence) to find out! If you know anything about this gig feel free to get in touch.
Despite late-night speculation over on my Blog a couple of nights ago, Dylan today released a new single, not an album. He did, however, confirm via a Tweet that his new album, Rough and Rowdy Ways, will be released on 19th June.
“False Prophet” follows Dylan’s current trend for sparse, minimal arrangements but the sound palette is very different. Consisting of a snarling, overdriven guitar and more rock-style drumming, “False Prophet” has a sleazy, blues-rock vibe, calling to mind smoke-filled pool halls and bourbon on the rocks.
Lyrically, Dylan seems to be denying that he is the titular false prophet while framing himself as a kind of underdog hero. He declares himself “the enemy of treason” and boldly declares “you girls mean business and I do too”. He’s “first among equals/second to none/last of the best/you can bury the rest”. A sliver of the carefully choreographed arrogance of the early days of his career shines through here.
The back-half of the song seems to be an apology for dragging his loved ones into the kind of life he lives. The kind of life the lyrics to his music appear to suggest he lives, anyway. It’s unlikely that Bob is really out on the streets at nights fighting the man and righting wrongs, but that seems to be the image of himself he’s trying to project in these lyrics. This isn’t necessarily a criticism from me. Dylan, after all, is an actor who has played many parts and created many characters across his career. His latest one is particularly well written and vivid.
Written by Tom Ray
False Prophet is out now on all digital distribution platforms. Rough and Rowdy Ways is available on 19th June.
“False Prophet” – Bob Dylan – Lyrics
Another day that don’t end
Another ship goin’ out
Another day of anger, bitterness, and doubt
I know how it happened
I saw it begin
I opened my heart to the world and the world came in
Hello Mary Lou
Hello Miss Pearl
My fleet-footed guides from the underworld
No stars in the sky shine brighter than you
You girls mean business and I do too
Well I’m the enemy of treason
Enemy of strife
Enemy of the unlived meaningless life
I ain’t no false prophet
I just know what I know
I go where only the lonely can go
I’m first among equals
Second to none
Last of the best
You can bury the rest
Bury ’em naked with their silver and gold
Put them six feet under and pray for their souls
What are you lookin’ at
There’s nothing to see
Just a cool breeze that’s encircling me
Let’s go for a walk in the garden
So far and so wide
We can sit in the shade by the fountain-side
I search the world over
For the Holy Grail
I sing songs of love
I sing songs of betrayal
Don’t care what I drink
Don’t care what I eat
I climbed the mountains of swords on my bare feet
You don’t know me darlin’
You never would guess
I’m nothing like my ghostly appearance would suggest
I ain’t no false prophet
I just said what I said
I’m just here to bring vengeance on somebody’s head
Put out your hand
There’s nothing to hold
Open your mouth
I’ll stuff it with gold
Oh you poor devil look up if you will
The city of God is there on the hill
Hello stranger
A long goodbye
You ruled the land
But so do I
You lost your mule
You got a poison brain
I’ll marry you to a ball and chain
You know darlin’
The kind of life that I live
When your smile meets my smile something’s got to give
I ain’t no false prophet
No I’m nobody’s bride
Can’t remember when I was born
And I forgot when I died
The pictures were found via Google if one of them is yours and you would like it removed or would like a credit please let me know. The lyrics were sourced from Far Out Magazine.
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Hot on the heels of his epic 17-minute dissection of the J.F.K. assassination and the last 60 years of popular culture (and also his first Billboard number one), “Murder Most Foul”, Bob Dylan returns with yet another incredible new single.
“I Contain Multitudes” seems to be a more personal work than “Murder Most Foul”. Musically it is just as sparse and minimalistic as its predecessor. The arrangement seems to consist of just gently strummed guitar chords, deep and mournful cello, steel slide guitar and voice. There is no percussion. This creates a very intimate atmosphere that is both similar and radically different to “Murder Most Foul”. Where “Murder Most Foul” felt like Dylan giving a quasi-religious sermon, “I Contain Multitudes” feels warm and conversational.
Structurally however it’s a little more familiar to long term Dylan fans. It follows similar “mathematic” song structures to his earlier works. Each verse contains four lines with a simple AABB rhyming scheme followed by two lines which end in the title of the song. This type of songwriting is Dylan’s bread and butter. A quick look back at some of his most loved songs, such a “Desolation Row”, “Visions of Johanna”, “Mr. Tambourine Man”, “Like a Rolling Stone” etc. reveals this same pattern repeated in a multitude (heh) of different ways.
Lyrically, obviously, is where “I Contain Multitudes” gets really interesting. Like “Murder Most Foul”, it draws from the world of literature but where the former song looked to Shakespear, “I Contain Multitudes” takes its title from a line in ‘Song of Myself, 51’, a poem by Walt Whitman, a writer Dylan has regularly signalled his admiration for in the past. Like the Poem, the song seems to be taking a long, hard look at the artist with a nostalgic and rose-tinted view of his past. Also, like “Murder Most Foul”, it is packed with references to various cultural touchstones which are as disparate as they are iconic. Edgar Allen Poe, Anne Frank, Indiana Jones, “them British bad boys, The Rolling Stones”, William Blake, Beethoven and Chopin all find themselves in the lyrical maze. These lyrics simultaneously paint the writer as both a slightly boring everyman and an exciting and roguish outlaw. He lives on the “boulevard of crime” and carries “four pistols and two knives” but he also paints landscapes and nudes. There is also an undercurrent of awareness of mortality which is only natural, I suppose, for a man in his late seventies. As such a lot of the lyrics read as a more literate “My Way”. Lyrics like “I sleep with life and death in the same bed” certainly cut deep in this regard.
This is another strong Dylan single and we look forward to more. At this rate, we might have to set up a Bob Dylan Desk here at With Just a Hint of Mayhem!
Written by Tom Ray
“I Contain Multitudes” is available now to stream or buy from all good digital retailers and streaming services.
“I Contain Multitudes” – Lyrics
Today, and tomorrow, and yesterday, too
The flowers are dyin’ like all things do
Follow me close, I’m going to Bally-na-Lee
I’ll lose my mind if you don’t come with me
I fuss with my hair, and I fight blood feuds
I contain multitudes
Got a tell-tale heart like Mr. Poe
Got skeletons in the walls of people you know
I’ll drink to the truth and the things we said
I’ll drink to the man that shares your bed
I paint landscapes, and I paint nudes
I contain multitudes
A red Cadillac and a black mustache
Rings on my fingers that sparkle and flash
Tell me, what’s next? What shall we do?
Half my soul, baby, belongs to you
I rollick and I frolic with all the young dudes
I contain multitudes
I’m just like Anne Frank, like Indiana Jones
And them British bad boys, The Rolling Stones
I go right to the edge, I go right to the end
I go right where all things lost are made good again
I sing the songs of experience like William Blake
I have no apologies to make
Everything’s flowing all at the same time
I live on a boulevard of crime
I drive fast cars, and I eat fast foods
I contain multitudes
Pink pedal-pushers, red blue jeans
All the pretty maids, and all the old queens
All the old queens from all my past lives
I carry four pistols and two large knives
I’m a man of contradictions, I’m a man of many moods
I contain multitudes
You greedy old wolf, I’ll show you my heart
But not all of it, only the hateful part
I’ll sell you down the river, I’ll put a price on your head
What more can I tell you? I sleep with life and death in the same bed
Get lost, madame, get up off my knee
Keep your mouth away from me
I’ll keep the path open, the path in my mind
I’ll see to it that there’s no love left behind
I’ll play Beethoven’s sonatas, and Chopin’s preludes
I contain multitudes
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While not exactly a new concept, songwriting as a form of catharsis or therapy has created some incredible rock and pop music over the years. From the angry rhetoric of Bob Dylan’s ‘Masters of War’ to David Berman’s final project Purple Mountains, a deep dive into the crippling and “treatment-resistant” depression which eventually drove him to suicide last August, the most emotionally raw music is always the most compelling.
The quality that music written by a soul in the middle of an emotional drama has in droves, which is incredibly hard to pin down, is probably authenticity. I’ve heard discussions where people wonder why Kurt Cobain and Nirvana are still popular with young people so long after Cobain’s death. The answer is nearly always authenticity.
The By Gods singer and principal songwriter, George Pauley, was unlucky enough to have been at the Las Vegas Route 91 Harvest Festival in 2017 which was the scene of a tragic terror attack, the deadliest mass shooting in American history. 59 people died, including shooter Stephen Paddock, on that horrific day and 869 were injured. Pauley, working as a videographer at the festival, took shelter beneath a table and was lucky enough to survive physically unhurt.
Emotionally, however, Pauley was scarred by guilt, shock, and depression. The band cancelled their upcoming European tour and Pauley wrote around 35 songs in a short space of time as a way of dealing with what he felt in the aftermath of such an event. With the help of producer Alex Newport, who has worked with artists like At The Drive-In and Bloc Party, the band pared down this pile of songs into the 11 which now make up GOLDY.
GOLDY is a strong collection of heartfelt, warm songs with a sinister, Post-punk edge and classic ‘90’s-esque production values. The songs are very concise. None of them break the 4-minute mark and many of them are below 3 minutes. The guitars straddle the line between clean and dirty beautifully, the bass is thick and strong. The drums are clear, powerful and precise. Pauley’s voice is somewhere between some of the cleaner sounding Grunge vocalists with some strong similarities with Andrew Savage of Parquet Courts, for a more contemporary comparison. Some of the songs include piano and cello which makes a nice contrast with the grungy guitars.
GOLDY kicks off with strong album opener “Black Wave”, a screech of feedback, some drum clicks and some heavy riffing in the style of My Bloody Valentine’s classic album opener, “Only Shallow”. Complete with the heavy whammy bar effect Kevin Shields made famous in the early ’90s. Following this is the chugging power-chords, radio-friendly melodies and thumping rhythm section of “Try So Hard”, an upbeat, punky rocker with an air of recent Parquet Courts about it. Blurry is a slow, grungy power-chord chugger in the vein of Dinosaur Jr’s “Sludgefeast” but with guitar tones more reminiscent of British bands like Therapy? or The Wildhearts.
Some of the more balladlike songs like “PTO”, “Song 01”, “Long Way To Go” and elegiac closer “Penhead” seem to edge into territory usually inhabited by bands like Snow Patrol or Athlete, but they still seem to maintain a Post-Punk edge and authenticity in stark contrast to that particular Indie subgenre. This is almost certainly due to Newport’s production. He’s no stranger to hard-edged Post-Punk.
All the way through, The By Gods positively drip with the aforementioned authenticity in a way that their earlier material doesn’t seem to. It’s hard to attribute that to anything other than the horrific events which lead up to the album’s creation.
Written by Tom Ray
GOLDY is out now. Available to buy from the bands Bandcamp page as well as all of the usual digital distributors like Spotify, Apple Music etc.
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