- Are you as tired of the new elevator music movement as I am? To alleviate the numbness from your brain how about you listen to some mathematical algorythms turned into psychic alien destruction rock ala The Locust. The track comes packaged in a party straight from Thank God‘s radical title track “Ice/Age”. The album comes out via Exotic Fever Records on 7/20/10.
The band (which features ex-members of Antischism and Guyana Punch Line) serves up frantic art-damaged hardcore ala Circle Takes the Square, the Locust, Orchid, Das Oath, Daughters, or stuff on Gravity/Ebullition Records. Thank God has strings of shows leading up to the release and will be touring with An Albatross in July.
After being one of the most talked-about bands all over Europe, due in no small part to their energetic and engaging live show, Reykjavik’s FM Belfast are set to release their debut album in the US, how to make friends. Due out in Spring 2010 on Kimi Records (Benni Hemm Hemm, Retro Stefson, Reykjavik!), how to make friends is a careening electro-pop album full of unexpected jolts and turns, including trumpets, cowbells, and plenty of seething synths. After a local release, how to make friends sold over 5,000 copies in Iceland, and with it the band is poised to bring the party to the states.
What started as an informal duo in 2005 has developed into a sizable army of anywhere from 3 to 45 performers (including members of múm and Benni Hemm Hemm). Despite not having an album out in the US last year, FM Belfast became a must-see band at SXSW ’09, giving out sticks of gum and drawings with their CDs and playing to packed venues. The Austin Chronicle listed them as one of their “Bands to Watch,” while the Denver Post named them one of the “Top 10 New Finds”, calling them “one of the most refreshing” bands at SXSW. SPIN soon joined the bandwagon, making them “Artist of the Day” and proclaiming, “It’s gloriously kitschy, Commodore-64-style digipop… kind of like a low-fi version of Royksopp.” The BBC enthused, “Last night I got as excited by a new band as I’ve ever been in my life… FM Belfast are utterly fantastic.”
In the meantime, FM Belfast kept busy remixing tracks for other artists including múm, Retro Stefson, Skatar, Nix Noltes, Gus Gus, and Kasper Bjorke. After years of playing their songs to live audiences, FM Belfast is set to expand their reach with how to make friends.
For a taste of their blistering energy and sometimes-sweet, sometimes-dark, always-catchy songs, download their first single, “Par Avion.” Also, check out the video for “Par Avion” on Youtube.
CD:
1. Cayman Tongue
2. Retina Sees Rewind
3. The Redtrail
4. Air Escapes
DVD:
1. Luminance
2. Retina Sees Rewind
3. Moral Eclipse
4. Juggernaut
5. Dark Driving
6. The Red Trail
7. Cayman Tongue
8. Trepanning
9. Air Escapes
10. Summit Fever
11. Vicious Circles
12. Big Riff
13. Inflatable Dream
Cave In Live!
w/ Trap Them and Narrows
November 19th The Knitting Factory Brooklyn, NY
November 20 First Unitarian Church Philadelphia, PA
November 21 Club Hell Providence, RI
November 22 The Middle East Downstairs Cambridge, MA
I feel I need to give advice to anyone who’s about to listen to “Axe to Fall”: It’s not an album, it’s a journey. My advice is to expect the unexpected and expect the expected. This album is like stepping into the ring with Mike Tyson – as you listen, there are moments where you’re scared to death (“Effigy”) Read the full story
Announce CD + DVD Release of “Planets of Old,” Available January 26th From Hydra Head Records!
“Everyone in this room is very privileged,” announced Allston, Massachusetts-based sludge-metal act Phantom Glue’s bassist Nick Wolf a mere hour and a half before mighty hardcore mavens-turned-prog metallers Cave In played their first show in four years. Wolf was hardly the only one feeling that way. When Cave In first announced that they’d be reuniting for a small club show at Allston, Massachusett’s Great Scott, a tiny-ass, PBR-fueled venue a mere block from this writer’s apartment, I knew it wasn’t just a “privilege,” it was fucking fate. – Revolver
I know we told you that Planets of Old was a vinyl only release… but then something happened… well several things happened: Cave In wound up with some real buttery footage of the band’s reemergence in Allston, Mass, HHR was alerted to the fact that alternative versions to some of the tracks on the 12″ existed, and then of course the rationalization that maybe people will still buy a CD if said CD is packaged with a DVD… Downloading videos through rapidshare still takes just a little too long, you know what I mean, and, yeah, we’re gonna try and capitalize on that a bit.
If this is the first time you’ve heard anything about this project… Planets of Old is Cave In’s already acclaimed comeback EP… the first new material in nearly four years! The thing is genuinely jam-packed with bona fide jammers and the like… Discernible proof that these gentlemen haven’t missed a step during their absence and that music, in the general metaphorical sense, still hasn’t caught up with them… Bold, but true… I’m out.
CD:
1. Cayman Tongue
2. Retina Sees Rewind
3. The Redtrail
4. Air Escapes
DVD:
1. Luminance
2. Retina Sees Rewind
3. Moral Eclipse
4. Juggernaut
5. Dark Driving
6. The Red Trail
7. Cayman Tongue
8. Trepanning
9. Air Escapes
10. Summit Fever
11. Vicious Circles
12. Big Riff
13. Inflatable Dream
Cave In Live!
w/ Trap Them and Narrows
November 19th The Knitting Factory Brooklyn, NY
November 20 First Unitarian Church Philadelphia, PA
November 21 Club Hell Providence, RI
November 22 The Middle East Downstairs Cambridge, MA
Strung Out has been a band since 1989. That’s still something I find hard to believe, because they create a sound that so many bands today cop hard, but still they manage to maintain a fairly low profile in the current punk community. I always seem to enjoy Strung Out’s music, as their punk/thrash metal hybrid is always good for a few finger-taps, lightning speed drum fills and always huge, and I mean huge, choruses.
“Black Crosses” starts off the album with an undeniable punch, but “Carcrashradio”, which sounds like a failed attempt to write a single, really let me down. It reminds me of the A Wilhelm Scream songs I don’t like, mixed with that terrible time in Thrice’s career when they tried to be a hardcore punk band with (shudder) “pop sensibilities”. It just sounds like a band confused, which is offputting when you consider they have been a band only 3 years less than I have been a human being.
The problem with Strung Out is not that what they are doing, its that there are bands that do it better. A Wilhelm Scream comes to mind, but when I hear stuff like “The Fever and the Sound” and “Ghetto Heater”, I still feel like I’m listening to them mixed with Strike Anywhere. That’s the problem, that Strung Out is an awesome band but they just cant separate themselves from the group anymore. Punks who have been there since Fat Wreck Chords was established in 1990 will love Strung Out (and also Frenzal Rhomb- a story for a different day), but today they just arent relevant. It’s a shame, because all things considered, “Agents of the Underground” is a fine album. It might even be their best since “Suburban Teenage Wasteland Blues”, and that’s saying something.
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Are you as tired of the new elevator music movement as I am? To alleviate the numbness from your brain how about you listen to some mathematical algorythms turned into psychic alien destruction rock ala The Locust. The track comes packaged in a party straight from Thank God‘s radical title track “Ice/Age”. The album comes out via Exotic Fever Records on 7/20/10.
