LLRR

 

A short one today about this band from Kyoto, Japan, called LLRR (pronounced "lew-lew-low-low").

Featuring the vocalist of O Summer Vacation (whose first album should be out very soon), the guitarist of Sizenkai no Okite, Word, One and No Key and the drummer of Otori, Worst Taste and O Summer Vacation (as often with Japanese bands it gets very difficult to track their online homes), the trio has a wealth of experience in the field of bouncy, high-pitched punk that Japan is so good at delivering.

 

 

  Released on the Tokyo-based label Call And Response, LLRR's debut tape is a little gem of what I find a very typical kind of Japanese punk rock. There is something about very high pitched female vocals in the Japanese scene, I've written before about a few of these bands (mostly on the hardcore punk side) and I tend to enjoy listening to them even if the vocals usually get on my nerves at some point.

 

LLRR is all about frantic rhythms, bouncy melodies and controlled chaos. They're far from reaching the total madness of fastcore female fronted bands (check my post about NO NO NO) that have been destroying eardrums for decades in basement shows all over the archipelagos but they do manage to turn chaos (or at least what one might call a nervous overexcitement edging with nervous breakdown) into music.

 

 

Thanks to the mix made by the band to present their various influences to their listeners, I am able to name a few bands that are probably much more relevant (and much less well known) than Melt Banana that any website in need of inspiration will quote over and over again when it comes to Japan and screaming ladies.

And that's how that, on top on discovering that these guys like Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Drive Like Jehu and a lot of super weird electronic and cheesy pop stuff, I discovered Gaji (no wave/punk from the 90s) that makes me wanna dig deeply into the 90s Japanese art-rock/noise scene, the fascinating Californians of Death Sentence: Panda! (and indescribable mix of Korean folk music and No-wave), the psychedelic madness of the instrumental kuruucrew and the groovy art-rock of Otori (in which LLRR's drummer also plays). And indeed I can really hear how all these bands fit together somewhere in the band tracks... Yes LLRR is arty but punk, groovy but frantic, "experimental" and weird but mastered and under control... this band is indeed many things and you will get you dose of No Wave / Post-punk if that's what you're into.

 

So if, like me, you consider Japan to be a breeding ground for fascinating but somewhat incomprehensible and, above all, faraway bands, any opportunity is a good one to dive into this parallel world... so just do it!

 

  

You can listen to LLRR on Rien à Faire #22. 

  

 

Rien à Faire is on FB 

and INSTAGRAM

 

 

Presagio

 

Presagio is a young band hailing from Valencia, Spain, which started in the middle of 2019 as a trio with Maxi on drums, Bruno on guitar and Javi on bass and lead vocals. The three Spaniards were soon joined by Francesco who took over the bass so Javi could fully focus on vocals. After Maxi left the country, Mikel (who also plays in Mausoleo and Margartia Quebrada) replaced him behind the drums... the you-know-damn-what crisis happened and the band was not able to rehearse or perform for months (they've actually never played live at all!) before finally working on their songs again during summer and stepping in recording studio in December... to give birth to their first EP whose artwork by Ruben Badenes is staring at you right now. 

 

 

  

Out on Polze de la Mort (a DIY tape label from Benissa, Spain), Antes Era Divertido is Presagio's debut release. Within four tracks the band delivers some classic Spanish punk rock edging with post-punk which recalls some mid tempo melodic 80s classics like the early Paralysis Permanente tracks, the early days of PVP, the Familia Real 7" and of course Eskorbuto (late 80s, early 90s era) as the band is, after all, named after one of the Basque band song (actually covered and included as a bonus track). More recently the comparison with the least goth tracks of Cadaver Em Transe (in Portuguese though) or with Peluqueria Canina would not be totally ridiculous.

Dressed with rather discreet drums, catchy bass lines melodies and a sometimes distorted, sometimes clear and melodic, guitar sound, the songs leave a lot of room to Javi's vocals that oscillate between a protest speech tone and a always energetic, but never unnecessarily aggressive, kind of singing.

  

My Spanish is unfortunately quite limited but thanks to beautiful tools provided by the developed modern world I can say a few things about the lyrics: getting drunk gets boring at some point (Antes Era Divertido, It Used To Be Fun), war and death are scary as fuck (Somos, We Are), the prospect of dying and being locked up for eternity in a coffin is indeed a universal fear (Muerto, Dead) and drug induced deliriums are actually not that cool (Todo Es Ficticio, All Is Fictitious). I'm not able to judge the quality of the writing, but in any case the construction of the tracks is smooth and pleasant and the topics are pretty good, so that's cool!

 

 

  Antes Era Divertido is a cool and refreshing short tape which manages to mix a lot of old school influences with a modern melodic sound, if you're into not-too-fast not-too-harsh Spanish punk you're at the right place buddy!

 

 

 

  

You can listen to Presagio on Rien à Faire #22. 

  

 

Rien à Faire is on FB 

and INSTAGRAM

 

 

Candy Apple

 

picture by Cain Cox

Candy Apple is a trio from Denver, Colorado which has probably been around since 2017.

The band features Preston behind the drums, an hyperactive musician who's been involved in a few metal bands like Of Feather And Bone but also in some industrial / ambient / noise electronic projects like Volunteer Coroner, Fentanyl Fantasy, Fresh Bait and Human Tide whose digital and tape records have mostly been released on Preston's own label, Trust Collective. There is also Tristan (guitar) who plays in the very hardcore band The Consequence (which just dropped a new release on Youth Attack) and used to play in Lonely Bones.

As for the third gentleman, unfortunately I don't have much information about him but I think he plays (played?) in Raw Breed.

 

 

You know that usually, when I review a band, I like to go through its full discography in order to give what I believe is a larger and better view of the band's "art".

Well today I'm going to focus on Candy Apple's latest release only for a very simple reason, I was not convinced at all by their two previous records (the 2018 demo tape and the 2019 Joyride tape), so you can of course give them a try but there is no point for me to expand on the fact that I don't like them (tastes and colours you know)...

 

But very recently the band released this:

 

 Sweet Dreams of Violence is Candy Apple's first full length and was released at the very end of April on the Denver-based hardcore punk label Convulse Records (which I know mostly for the killer records of Goon and Yambag but most of their other stuff is also worth a listen).

Voir cette publication sur Instagram

Une publication partagée par Convulse Records (@convulserecords)

The album starts with a short intro that could have been misleading if the cover artwork (photo by Cain Cox, layout by Tristan and Preston) hadn't already clearly announced the tone. It's a hardcore punk record intro guys, these guys are gonna play fast and dirty, beat the shit out of the drumhead, hammer the strings of their instruments like maniacs and, above all, push the limits of vocals reeking of rage and despair.

The band has taken the decision to sound (a little) dirty, to sound "noisy", an approach that can be found a lot at the moment in American bands who know how to take advantage of an almost infinite history of hardcore punk bands while going for a noisy-on-purpose but powerful outcome. But Candy Apple is far from being a copy cat of a specific 80s USHC band, listen to the "heavy" and heartbreaking riffs of Deathwish, to the super angry Brain Dead that floats on a pond of noise where punk almost mixes with grunge... It makes me think of some of the songs of Black Button or Rascal to only mention recent bands.

And there is of course the very surprising The Cowboy, a grunge ballad very out of step with the rest of the record, which nevertheless manages to fit in a certain continuity thanks to this "noisy and dirty" coherence of the whole. 

Medicine, the final song of a way too short 9-track album, concludes the lot with a perfect balance of fast "trash" punk and grunge riffs, which is probably exactly what the band wanna sound like.

 

 

Candy Apple manage to maintain a high level of energy despite the interesting diversity of their songs' profiles. It's hardcore for most of it, it's grungy, dark or heavy also at times but most of all, it's punk! In a nutshell, it's a good record!

 

 

You can listen to Candy Apple on Rien à Faire #22. 

  

 

Rien à Faire is on FB 

and INSTAGRAM

 

Maladia

 

picture by Noah Ringrose

Maladia (Disease) is a punk quartet from London, UK, which consists of John behind the mic, Oliver from Vinegar Strokes on bass, Simon from Fex Urbis (which got a lot in common with Maladia) and Koma on guitar, and Marta from Los Cripis, Value Void and Score behind the drums on the demo. Marta is from Argentina so I suppose that she had to go back at some point and she was replaced by Alec, who has a more metal oriented background and plays in Zek, Keno and Casing.

 

 

Maladia's demo tape got out in 2019 on Cold Comfort (a "young" British tape label which has released a lot of top quality demos over the past 3 years).

 Based only on the gloomy ripper drawn by the Colombian artist Juan Sebastian Rosillo (which recalls the Slimy Member LP's artwork of course but also the T.S.O.L's Dance With Me artwork) you could easily guess that there is a strong "dark side" in this punk band, and you would be right.

 The intro (made in collaboration with Luke Tristram from Score) immediately locks you into the deepest, darkest dungeon of a Spanish Inquisition jail. As the strictest religious orders of the time slowly march down a maze of corridors singing eternal praises to a god without mercy, an improvised Nathalie Portman repeats the most disturbing scenes of Goya's Ghosts in the next dungeon, entertaining the most sadistic torturers of the 15th century... in short, it's going to be fun.

 

 

  You got the picture: don't expect sea, sex and sun, these five tracks are all bout darkness, gloominess, slimness, moisture... and everything else you don't wanna think of during your honeymoon... (well...)

  But it's your lucky day, Maladia comes with a bonus field trip: "You're all by yourself buddy, you no longer feel your dirty, torn clothes rubbing against your emaciated body as you walk hallucinately on a moonlit night through the marshes haunted by the ghosts of the great ancients and the morbid echo of Cthulhu's call... enjoy! see you tomorrow!"

Some would say that it sounds better than a full week in a three-star all-inclusive hotel hosting hundreds of Australian douchebags in Bali (but tastes and colours you know).  

 

Apart for some parts (on All You Dead for example) the tracks are mostly and steadily maintaining a mid-tempo journey through the drifts and deviations of a guitar that does not hesitate to stray into the wildest territories brutally conquered by Black Flag in its time.

But most of the time the guitar sound will immediately recall the most Death Rock influenced bands of the old anarcho punk scene (Rudimentary Peni of course) as well as all their american offspring (Slimy Member, Flower City).

The song is hallucinatory, desperate, haunted... and sounds like the unintelligible cry of a man who has long since crossed the blurred line between sanity and raving madness... And worst of it all, you can relate with that...

 

I advise to listen to Vinegar Strokes and Fex Urbis (past bands from two band members), these two carry a lot of the dark components that were used to "build" Maladia.

 

   

   Well, I admit that for once I was carried away by an exaggerated lyricism that I usually like to criticise for its often very hollow grandiloquence. But Maladia is one of those bands with a very strong evocative power and it would be silly not to try to transcribe the smells and colours that swim in my brain as Maladia's pest spreads through my headphones. 

 

I think you've realised by now that this demo is a real gem and deserves to be engraved on vinyl one of these days. 

Not to be missed. 

 

 

  Two years later Maladia is back with a 12" EP called Sacred Fires on La Vida Es Un Mus. Say good bye to the old school tattoo artwork, here comes a lot more "in your face" kind of art which at first glance would fit better with some of the most furious/metallic d-beat/crust bands hosted on Paco's label. At first I thought it was a new Irreal 12"!

But ok the all-caps Old English Text MT font rip-off is here for a reason, sure Maladia sounds meaner and angrier than ever but mostly sounds fucking faster! Maybe the arrival of Alec behind the drums (see my intro) is for something with the crazy speed up.

 

 

  Faster yes but also "heavier", this record got the kind of sound that you would expect from you next-door D-beat maniacs (who said Irreal again?). And I have to admit that this slight loss of sound and musical identity in favour of a more classic sound disappoints me a little. Maladia delivers top notch dark hardcore punk for sure, this record is a killer but doesn't strike me by its evocative power and mix of influences as much as the demo did. These five tracks will delight you anyway, whether you are familiar with their early materials or not, but if you are, you may be like me (very) slightly disappointed.

But don't get me wrong, Maladia has not lost their dark soul, you can hear it really clearly on tracks like A Pox On The Fuckers, Evil Eye (with additional vocals from Marta, the band's ex-drummer) and most of all on The Killing Floor It's just that it's a bit more diluted in this new atmosphere that smells of leather and white paint logos.

 Sacred Fires evokes many things, from old UK82 bands that history and nostalgia have enshrined to more recent bands that don't hesitate to insist on a dark approach, bands like Ohydra, Destino Final or even Glib (in a more hardcore way) for example, and yes... it's just pure delight.

My biggest regret is probably the length of the record, a 12" with five tracks only... it's short, very short... I don't know if it's true or not, but I have the feeling that labels are releasing more and more 5 or 6 track records on a format that could support twice as many tracks and it's honestly a bit frustrating. 

  Anyway, just treat yourself and listen to Maladia!

 

 

picture by Bobby Cole

 

 

 

 

You can listen to Maladia on Rien à Faire #22. 

  

 

Rien à Faire is on FB 

and INSTAGRAM

 

 

Spleen

 

 Spleen is a young band from Leipzig, Germany, which has been around since 2019 or something like that. Featuring members of the post punk act Ex-Diel and of the dark noise-rock band Abrichten as well as the guy behind the U-Bac label, the band clearly walks the path of the local noisy punk scene, which I'm definitely not an expert of, but point-blank I would put them and Gelatyne in the same tote bag.

 

 This Live in Leipzig from 2019 sounds actually pretty good, good enough to make me doubt that it's actually a live show record (until I saw the video below, good job guys with the recording and mix!).

Don't be mistaken by the first seconds of Brought Into Line which smell like good old post-punk, we're talking noisy punk edging with hardcore here.

 

 

  But Spleen tracks are far from unfolding gently like an Afghan carpet or an old boring Discharge-like song, if it starts one way you can be sure it will end upside down, it speeds up, it slows down, it gets lost in "noisy psyche" parts, it gets high in weird outerspace interludes where the guitarist can finally use the nice pedal full of effects he received for Christmas, in short it's all the punk mess I'm fond of. 

Spleen does not sound like your next-door hardcore punk band, the mix is purposely unbalanced, yes it sounds straight forward but well-thought also, these guys know what they wanna sound like, making it an important part of their musical identity. I mentioned Gelatyne before and even if it's quite different (especially the vocals), there is the same clear will of including "noise" in their game. And I do like it.

The hardcore parts recall the first Exit Order EP and the vocals make me think sometimes of the way the singer shouts on the first track of the Krimewatch demo (I know I tend to mention these two bands quite often but that's the sound I like so beat it!).

 

The track Identity Sold was featured a few months later on the Flennen No.8 compilation tape with a lot of other cool German bands' songs.

 

 

 

  Really cool cover artwork for Spleen's debut tape released mid April 2021 on the Leipzig-based label Interceptor Editions (on which you can find, among other cool stuff, the killer Sirkka tape). 

Seven tracks, including the really cool Flower Basket which was already on the Live In Leipzig, recorded by J.B Meyrieux who's been seen behind the mixing table during a lot of European punk bands recent recording sessions and sings in the Leipzig band Bronco Libre.   

 

   Once gain Spleen's tracks sound really good, a really well balanced mix between modern hardcore punk and a more "chaotic" noisy sound. 

The quartet likes to start it slow in a kinda of heavy psyche hardcore way (Hide) before speeding up the tempo and marking it with regular vocal bursts, which sound like they come from very "deep" (a lot of "air projection" in that singing technique), giving an energy at the same time very powerful and rather heavy. 

 The guitarist keeps playing with his pedal, building unusual type of breaks or intros for hardcore punk, joining the vocals into what gives the band's sound identity. A late 80s grunge influence?

 

It's hard to explain but when you listen to Spleen there is no doubt these guys fit into the noisy punk category and yet it clearly has nothing to do with Bathouse, that I wrote about recently, or the Milan bands with a "particular" production that I also wrote about recently... in a way the construction of the songs is relatively conventional, even if the strong presence of "breaks" breaks the hardcore dynamic that my ears are used to, and it's really the use of the pedal effect and the way the vocals were mixed which give the "noisy" side to the record. Which is good, I mean I'm all for new experiments.

 On top of Exit Order that I already mentioned, I can think of Flower from NYC whose first tape got the same kind of vibe.

 

In a nutshell it's a really cool tape which places Spleen in a current female-fronted hardcore punk movement while clarifying a new definition of what "noisy" and punk can do together.

Keep it up! 

 

 

 

You can listen to Spleen on Rien à Faire #22. 

  

 

Rien à Faire is on FB 

and INSTAGRAM

 

 

 

Guimauve - DEMO

 

Ok this one is a bit special...

Me and a friend worked on a hardcore punk project at the end of last year and our 4-track demo is finally streaming on bandcamp. It's purely a studio project but it was a lot of fun.

One song in English and three songs in French... 

 

Yes this is shameless self-promotion and you can check it out HERE

 

 

 

 

  N,J'Oi!

 

 

 

Rien à Faire is on FB 

and INSTAGRAM

 

 

SLOI

 

picture by Massimo

  SLOI is a new band from Trento, Italy, that's probably been around since 2019.

Featuring the singer of Impulso (who also plays in the great Lucta and Tuono and also in Astio that I'm less fond of) on guitar (and most probably other members of these bands), Sloi has already more than enough in that short description to make the old punk addict that I am quiver with excitement.  

The band's name comes from "a lead factory that poisoned the area over 40 years ago, called Società Lavorazioni Organiche Inorganiche. Many of its workers died of lead poisoning, while others took their own life in the Pergine Asylum, where they were being treated as mentally ill". This is a good example of a band that draws on recent local history for a change, good!

This little review is a good opportunity to write a few words about the Oltre Lo Sguardo compilation and Sentiero Futuro Autoproduzioni, the young DIY label that put it out.

 

Sentiero Futuro Autoproduzioni is a young DIY structure which can be compared to the very good Occult Punk Gang collective which unfortunately stopped all activities last year. It roughly means that they're supporting the DIY Italian punk scene in general and the Milanese one in particular (the collective/label, whatever you wanna call it, is based in Milan). It is managed by a bunch of people involved in bands like Skalp, Spirito Di Lupo, Kobra, Anno Omega, Golpe etc... (basically most of the current punk bands and collectives based in Milan). It also includes Giacomo (already involved in OPG) who writes for Noisey Italy but most importantly plays in Kobra and writes a lot of cool records reviews on Generic Record Reviews And Weekly Ramblings (aka GRRAWR).

 

So the label only came to life really recently as it's in October 2020, with the release of the above mentioned compilation, that its first record blasted through the ears of punks from all over the Italian peninsula. The tape features 20 tracks from 20 bands including some of my favourite recent Italian hardcore punk bands like Tuono, Lucta, Impulso, Kobra, Golpe, Idiota Civilizzato (based in Germany but singing in Italian) and, of course, Sloi. A must-have compilation which gives a powerful and relevant snapshot of the country's DIY punk scene. It even includes a track by the holy fathers of Milano hardcore, the world famous Wretched.

And on top of that all proceedings go to Ambulatorio Medico Popolare, a volunteer-run organization which "self-manages a medical facility providing free healthcare to illegal migrants and other marginalized identities" in Milan, which is cool. The tape's B side is actually the story of this place told by the ones running it (the activists and volunteers).

I'm not gonna write much more about this tape (just treat yourself, pump up the volume and press play) as today's subject is Sloi and their next release is a lot more relevant in terms of music (in fact the compilation track is also on their self-titled tape).

Sloi's debut release was released by Sentiero Futuro Autoproduzioni mid-April 2021 and the first thing that came to my mind, while the first seconds of La Fine were shredding my eardrums, is the sound similarity with Kobra's album (Confusione) (which was not recorded at the mobile Frizzer Studio for "bands-on-budget" like Sloi's tape though). And you don't just sound like that by mistake, it's clearly the result of a strong "artistic" choice. I don't know if the raw sound (edging with total shit sometimes to be really honest) of the early Italian hardcore classics was the main motivation behind the recording policy but it really sounds like someone just turned all the sliders to maximum in the morning of the session and that's it... which is not totally true actually as the guitars and the bass do sound "classically" good (you know what I mean) while the rest is super dirty to the point of listening displeasure. I guess it's the result of a digital post-recording effect and it therefore does not sound close to the "cheap" and "weak" tape sound of the 80s (where the whole sound is a lot more equally "crammed"/"compressed"). The result is powerful yes but also almost deafening, the cymbals are actually painful to listen to (and Sloi's drummer loves cymbals), the kick is super loud and even the vocals sometimes are way beyond the overload threshold...

 

I understand the idea of being a super raw and noisy D-beat band (the "wall of noise" thing you know) but honestly, even though the cassette has only seven tracks, I'm almost relieved to get to the end because it becomes very unpleasant at some point... And most bands do sound raw and powerful without making you feel tied up in their ten square meter rehearsal room where all amps are stuck on maximum.... 

I'm surprised to have never read anything about it in the few reviews I've found (mostly about Kobra) but it's clearly a really important point concerning this band's sound and the way you/I perceive it as a listener.

 

 

  This being said these guys play some killer raw punk / d-beat shit!

It's fast, it's raw, it's super punk but it does not sound like another D-band, I'm not even sure that the D-Polit Buro would officially let them join the party (it's always worth a try though, the general assembly is fun). No Sloi clearly sounds like a mix of Scandinavian and Italian hardcore, the guitar riffs' heaviness recalls the grey Swedish sky while there is obviously a strong Italian identity (the language and the noisy furiousness maybe). Furious is probably the key word here, seven furious and enraged songs full of a derisory reluctance in front of the hidden face of an Italian system that inequalities and a widespread of assumed fascism have made so repulsive for decades now... And hardcore punk is the perfect medium to spit it all out!

 Of course like everybody writing three lines about any Italian hardcore band I have to drop the same old names of Wretched, Indigesti, Impact, Cheetah Chrome Motherfuckers, Raw Power, Negazione etc... Ok here they are you can do whatever you want with them now (if you're curious about Italian hardcore you can check Romain's very thorough post on his blog, the two parts are here and there).

I can also think of the other Kobra, the one from the 80s Milano scene, which got the same kind of heavy hardcore punk sound (with an unfortunate taste for lame guitar solos though).

 

 

  Yes I definitely love what Sloi is doing and I'm sure they're killing it on stage but I am still a little bothered by the production which makes, in spite of all the mastery and the power of the tracks, the listening rather unpleasant...

 

There has been recently a certain revival of interest from "big" American punk labels for raw Italian productions, there is of course Kobra on Iron Lung Records but also very recently Golpe on Sorry State (super good album by the way if you like classic throaty vocals d-beat) and it seems that Sloi is also entitled to a US vinyl release soon on Iron Lung. 

So keep your eyes open for a vinyl version very soon.

 

N,J'Oi! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You can listen to Sloi on Rien à Faire #22. 

  

 

Rien à Faire is on FB 

and INSTAGRAM