punk/post-punk
Premiere: The Great Goddamn release new video for A terrible knowledge
Seattle based slugde punks The Great Goddamn have been demanding attention with their messy, noisey, riff-heavy stoner rock. That’s likely to be increased further with the release of their new album, Bangers and Hash, which sees the duo (yes, there’s just two of them making all that glorious racket) Brian and Blake, add eight more …
Live: The Stranglers, O2 Academy, Leeds, 17.3.15
It’s been a particularly full on build up to this year’s Stranglers tour, and I don’t think I’ve missed one since the 1980s. I achieved a lifetime ambition to interview bassist JJ Burnel, and also read a newly published book on the band, by long-time fan Phil Knight. The book, Strangled: Identity, Status, Structure and the …
Track: Wire – Split Your Ends, plus tour dates
Hot on the heels of announcing their new album, the self-titled ‘Wire’, out via their own pinkflag label on April 13th, the legendary post punk group, now approaching their fortieth year, have shared a new track ‘Split your Ends’. It’s indicative of the lyrical content on the new record that it passes through love, crypic …
Live Review: Wire – Unity Works, Wakefield 20.02.2015, plus gallery
I see plenty of live gigs, but I was especially excited about the prospect of seeing Wire in Wakefield last Friday. For starters, it’s been a while since I’d visited Unity Hall, (or Unity Works , as its now known) in Wakefield. Infact it’s been almost 30 years since I last made my way upstairs …
Track: Wire – ‘Joust and Jostle’ + Album & Tour news
‘Pink Flag’ by Wire has to be one of the most influential albums of all time. Released in 1977 it came in on the forefront of the new wave of music that followed the punk explosion of ‘76. Along with the likes of Gang of Four, and The Pop Group they took punk to a …
News: Dead Kennedys announce EU Tour
Although still Jello Biafra-less, legendary punks Dead Kennedys have announced a string of dates across the UK and Europe this coming June. Legendary for their social commentary and fiercy anti-fascist lyrics, all wrapped up in a strange combination of almost Zappa like experimentation and humour, as the band passed through a variety of styles as …
Track: Sleaford Mods reveal two brilliant tracks, with Little Ditty / I’m shit at it
There’s not a band around at the moment like Sleaford Mods. The Nottingham two piece deliver minimalist beats punk beats courtesy of Andrew Fearn, and the people’s poetry of Jason Williamson, at once commenting on the social issues that affect us all, at another full of enthusiasm and humour, has this startlingly abrupt brilliance about …
Meet: JJ Burnel talks about The Stranglers upcoming tour & past/ present relationships within the band.
After more than forty years of touring and releasing records it seems that The Stranglers are a band that can still electrify audiences, they have been playing to increasingly packed venues over the last ten years with an exciting live show that showcases the band’s hugely underrated back catalogue. I spoke to bassist JJ …
Interview: We interview Gallows, plus album news
Identifying through their bleak world of austere black and white music videos, and albums entitled Grey Britain, Gallows are very much not a poster band for positivity. However, what they are is a band capable of producing music so beautifully sombre and haunting it transports to their foreboding world where stomping punk songs exist, that …
Album Review: Viet Cong – Viet Cong
“Newspaper Spoons” opens like a distant canon firing into the abyss. An overblown kick drum beats like a death knell before Matt Flegel sings “Writhing violence essentially without distortion, Wired silent, vanishing into the boredom”. It’s a hell of a way to open a debut album, but that’s just the kind of album Viet Cong is. With every …