Pink Room

 

Pink Room are a noisy trio hailing from Ghent (or Gent or Gand), Belgium, whose the three prominent members are:

• Bart, the bassist / singer / frontman, who, in addition to cultivating a certain flattering resemblance for the legendary Ron Jeremy, has only one musical antecedent of which I was able to track down, an obscure band very appropriately named Alpha Male; Bart is also deeply involved in the local scene as a DJ but also by making podcasts / radio shows. 
• Glenn Janssens who plays the guitar. 
• Jelle Lefebvre who sits behind the drums and also plays in the stoner act Stereoseat and the instrumental Celestial Wolves, he replaced Jonas Calu (drummer on the first EP and part of the first LP who also plays in Little Trouble Kids).

The release of their latest album got a very decent coverage by various media from Belgium and elsewhere and very good reviews too. So I got curious and when I'm curious I become restless and extremely annoying so the only option was to dive head first in the (not-too-long, thank god) Belgian band's discography.

But before smashing my skull against the bottom of the (empty) swimming pool, let's take a step back.

 

 

picture by Jeroen Jacobs

As you know Belgium is one of these blessed countries which, far from shining by their size or landscapes, are famous for statues of children with questionable sanitation habits and for the quality and size of their musical scenes (on both sides of the language border); especially, and as far as we are concerned today, for their punk / garage / noise / DIY scene which, compared with the size, has always been better than the French one.

This being said, and having shamelessly flattered all my readers from the "flat country", I think Pink Room can be associated with other recent noisy / noise-rock Belgian bands that deserve your attention, bands like Youff, Crowd Of Chairs, It It Anita, OX, Kabul Golf Club and of course Cocaine Piss, to only mention the tip of the iceberg from a scene I'm far from being an expert of.

But let's start, shall we ?

This four-track CD / digital EP called Relationshit (great title) is Pink Room's debut record and was self-released in early 2018 (I therefore suppose that the band has been together since 2017). The cover artwork was made by Valentine Gallardo, a comic book artist (Belgium is, after all, the country of the Bandes Dessinées) who has published several books and worked for several media including Vice.

The trio delivers four songs which wander between old-school Noise-rock (Jesus Lizard), fuzzy grunge (Metz, Mudhoney) and some kind of overall madness (Pissed Jeans ?) which can be linked to a more traditional kind of crazy rock'n roll (the garage punk scene? the insane bands from the almighty Voodoo Rythm Records stables maybe?). The band described themselves as a Noisepunk garagethrash trio anyway so I'm glad we're on the same line here gentlemen.

 The basslines are heavy and spellbinding like they should be (Liar) and the guitar conscientiously supports all this heaviness with its harsh riffs only to better tear it apart, at times, with shrill blasts and other times with round and bluesy layers (that garage rock vibe), while the vocals, which seem to come from the depths of the most degenerate kind of rock'n'roll, give off an unhealthy energy that Ron Jeremy's cheerful face stuck deep into your retina does little to improve.

But Pink Room are not a noise-rock band by the strict definition of the term, these guys have clear and undeniable influences but they don't stick strictly to the book, they're doing their thing and they're doing it very well... even concluding with Proper Solution, whose fuzzing vocals are reminiscent of Jack White and the White Stripes.

Yes it's a very good debut release!

 

   

 One year later (that would be 2019) Pink Room releases their first full length, titled Zum Kotzen (Disgusting), on Belly Button Records from Antwerp (I already talked briefly about this label in the post about Ero Guro) and Zoe Zoe Records, a record shop based in Ghent, whose very first release is this record. As you noticed immediately the cover artwork was drawn by Val Gallardo (again).

 

 

 

  As an opening track, the heavy and nightmarish Wasted takes you straight back to the worst times of you pathetic rocker's life, you know when you went to see a band play in your favourite squat and got so fucking drunk you could not remember a thing except that you did not really "behave"... yes it could have been deeply embarrassing if anyone had been sober (thank god nobody ever is)... in a nutshell: a hell of a show aka another Friday night.

What a mean and nasty, but fun, song!

 

 

 

And then there is ??? (great title), a track that is rather representative of the whole album. It's dark, heavy, grungy, a bit chaotic, quite absurd, seriously noisy... and pretty good!

The (above) video of the song was also a good occasion to show the full extent of the band's "plastic and artistic creativity": indeed the "band gloryhole" idea is, to my knowledge, a first (would be interesting to see if that can be done on stage, it looks like a very handy environment to rock the hell out of your instrument) and deserves all my admiration.

 

The album concludes with Fafafa, another heavy and super fuzzy track featuring Lee Swinnen from Tubelight, Ero Guro, Double Veterans and the solo project in which he calls himself Frankie Traandruppel (great name). A track whose singing recalled parts of Danko Jones' Sticky Situation chorus for some reasons... (yes I know it kinda worries me as well).  

 

  And as well as being cool guys, the three Belgians are also nerdy and generous and let you extend the Pink Room experience with a silly little video game whose soundtrack is their noise-rock track Turf War. It's fun indeed, but it doesn't work with my Firefox!

 

 

  I would say that the best way to describe this album in a few words would be to link it with the grungy-trash part of the 80s / early 90s Sub Pop and Amphetamine Reptile catalogues, obvious references when you face a dark, heavy, fuzzy and noisy album like Zum Kotzen. But I can also think of more recent bands like the Boston-based noisy duo Bedtimemagic, the punk-noise act Clockcleaner from Philadelphia, the heavy punk of some of the TV Violence's tracks, some Gloop's songs and any other band that manages to successfully mix trash rock'n roll madness and noise-rock.

  All this to say that it's a damn good album!

 

 

 

 

 

  Here we get to Pink Room's latest release, their March 2021 album titled Putain Royale (Putain is an old fashioned French word for designing a whore/prostitute and a very common swear word to signify irritation, in some English speaking countries it evolved in the slang word Poontang; so the album's titled would translate as Royal Whore or something like that... or is it just another weird and meaningless Belgian saying?) which got out on the French label Six Tonnes de Chair (with a cool alternative cover and a 28-page zine), on Zoe Zoe Records (still that shop/label from Ghent) and Rockerill Records. The artwork was made again by Valentine Gallardo.

 

This LP sounds meaner and better than anything the band's released until now. The band is produced by Rodrigo Fuentealba Palavicino, a guys who seems to have been around the Belgium scene for a while and has played in numerous bands I've never heard of, and I guess he knows people and did what had to be done to make this album sound the best. And it does sound great!

 

 

 

  Starting with the mean and heavy Losing, Pink Room shows from the very first seconds that two years have not softened them at all, on the contrary! This track smells like rancid frustration and sweaty anger, these guys didn't show up to play around and will spit in your nostrils until you get it... It's simply a brilliant song, midway between noise-rock and heavy punk, I just love that shit. I reminds me of the nastier sides of Pissed Jeans and also of the almighty Wilful Boys (something in the vocals and the overall energy).

 

 

 

Damn that track is pure inflammable Noise-rock!

Set in a kind of false satanic fascination, slightly spoofing the worst bands of the genre and playing with multiple references (The Exorcist? ACDC?), this track is far from being a simple parody, it's actually a fucking hit! And fire is cool guys (and it makes me think of the Goat's cover).

 

But the band is far from leaving it at that and will take advantage of the rest of the record to hurt you until you cum.... there is Stay White whose hammering drumming will not let you breath for a sec, the furious rock'n roll of Live Laugh Love which succeeded in the challenge of sounding like the Braindead lawnmower scene, the super villain All Breaks No Gas where we understand that sometimes it's better to just shut the fuck up, Skin which sounds like the Psycho scream scene played at the Sub Pop office, the very very bad guy Stay Black (probably the most punk track of the album) whose screams and rhythm will remind you of that time you fell to the ground in the middle of the pogo at the Motörhead concert and of course The Most Underrated Piece Of Art Is Power, maybe the most "psychedelic" piece, perfect soundtrack for a moldy mushrooms lonely bad trip in a dark forest in winter around 1am...

Nothing to dump, everything to gobble up...

I already did some heavy name-dropping a few paragraphs above from here but I can also now think, in a more "garage" style, of John Toohill's solo project, Science Man, which perfectly mix noise influences with a lot of rock'n roll and a pinch of punk. Reminder: John Toohill is a superactive guitarist/singer from the Buffalo area (USA) who's been seen in numerous bands including Alpha Hopper (one track on Rien à Faire #16), The Hamiltones, Night Slaves, Johns and many others...

 

But Putain Royale is also an excuse for a big celebration with all the top rockers from all over Belgium (and beyond) and features guests on almost every song. Nathan Roche (Le Villejuif Underground) on the intro, Cis Deman (Stake) and Bart Baele (Tubelight, Speedozer) on Losing,  Tijl Van De Casteele (Whorses) and Jonas Calu (Little Trouble Kids and ex-drummer for Pink Room) on Hail Satan, Sam De Clercq (Brorlab) on Skin, Ruben Lammertyn (Vonnis) on Stay Black and Lee Swinnen (Tubelight, Ero Guro, Double Veterans, Frankie Traandruppel) on All Breaks No Gas... yes it's an impressive guest list!

 

I think you've got it this album is a killer and has just entered with a bang my Best of 2021 list... 

Can't wait to see these guys wreck the world as soon as shows will bloom again...  

 

 

 

 

 

 

You can listen to Pink Room on Rien à Faire #22.

 

 

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