Search: Abandon
Your search returned 74 results. Viewing results 46-60
The Rooph sound like the Norwegian equivalent of Placebo, minus the drugs and the danger. Not that Placebo sounds all that doped-up or dangerous anymore, but hey - neither does The Rooph. What remains: an androgynous vocalist fronting a melancholic rock band with a slight propensity towards noisy, distorted guitars. Once upon a time, Placebo could conjure up almost Big Black-levels of screaming guitar intensity and I think The Rooph aspires towards that, but falls short. It's a common complaint with Scandinavian music - there's nothing obviously wrong about The Rooph, they are simply a less-exciting copy of a more successful act. It's too clean, too perfect. They lack the willful abandon that so often is an integral part of quality rock'n'roll. Maybe they come across better in a live situation. On record they register a "meh". It's especially frustrating because I have a feeling that if they really were on drugs, they'd probably be awesome.
The Rooph - Silver street
I'm convinced that alien DNA has somehow gotten into a bunch of Swedish musicians recently, and they may not know it. The very odd sounds and arrangements being generated by bands like The State of Floral Beings, The Knife and The Bear Quartet just can't be explained merely by saying "they're hard-working musicians and they're looking for new sounds." I defy anyone who listens to "Eternity now", the brand-new Bear Quartet CD, not to tell me that something not quite of this realm is driving the band. Holy smoke, is this thing wild and uncategorizable. I chuckled at a description of these guys online as "Sweden's most legendary pop band." What you hear on this CD bears only a tangential relationship to traditional "pop." Let's start with the mindblowing 21-minute centerpiece "Bear Quartet International Airport". This is one crazily brilliant, jaw-dropping track that kept me up half the night in awe. It starts with a jagged, killer guitar riff that burrows into your brain, ferocious drumming and an overall sense of sonic Abandon before zigging and zagging through uncharted musical terrain. There are tempo shifts, just a snatch of weird vocals and a beautiful section where all the music sounds bowed (even though it's probably done on a synth). Honestly, this piece sounds like it's attempting to reinvent prog rock for the new millennium, and I'm not gonna argue against that. Thrilling stuff. Elsewhere, the short "Broken heart" and ultra-strange "The repairing of the Red Sea" utilize innovative pitch-shifting on the vocals, a technique used by Ween and Iceland's Eberg, but still in its infancy as far as the creative possibilities. It's a delight to find Bear Quartet exploring this sort of terrain. "Sailors" has a fairly simple rhythm track and synth, but then proceeds to alienate the general listening public (although not ME) with a high, moaning vocal that is clearly NOT the work of a band with record sales as their top priority. And there are several percussion-heavy tracks like "Where I cried," as well as a spooky ambient instrumental called "Peders forlat," which goes even further in making this platter hard to summarize. You can almost hear them laughing at the listener's expectations. Bear Quartet have made a dozen CDs and umpteen EPs over the years; "Eternity now" is clearly one of their weirdest and most delerious. Yes, that's a thumbs up.
- Kevin Renick
Even though we haven't heard anything new from The Hives in awhile, it's not as if Scandinavian garage-rock suddenly went away. The scene has been going strong for a long time and was one of the first things I discovered once I started to venture beyond the realms of metal in the mid-90s (via The Hellacopters, of course). The Stores are a Danish threesome continuing the fine tradition. I love the mix of that cavernous surf-rock guitar tone over a driving rhythm section. The main hook riff is introduced and almost immediately Abandoned while the bass and drums work hard to make sure to hold everything together. The band is so tight and on-fire, it gives the guitarist room to do pretty much whatever he wants. It doesn't matter if he's just wailing on chords or working out new ways to tear apart the main theme, it all sounds great. Funny to think that these guys are labelmates with Attrap, but it's true. As you should know, good music is good music, regardless of genre.
The Stores - The TV reminds me of what to be
Karin has Abandoned the folky singer/songwriter thing and attempted to recreate herself as an electropop artist. She actually pulls it off surprisingly quite well. It's too easy for electronic artists to become overly preoccupied with the sounds and forget about the songs, but obviously that's not the case here considering Karin's background. The production could probably be a bit more powerful, but this is a strong debut for an artist trying to totally reinvent herself.
- Avi Roig
We continue our exploration of traditional Scandinavian folk this week with a track from the aptly-named Hurdy Gurdy. Artist monikers don't get much more self-explanatory than that! The concept is staightforward enough: two men (Stefan Brisland-Ferner of Garmarna and Hållbus Totte Mattson of Hedningarna) and their instruments. Except that it's not really that simple - the men don't just play their instruments - they also process and chop the recordings on their computers so that every single nuance of sound you hear on the album originated from a hurdy gurdy. The so-called "medieval synthesizer" is an unexplored landscape of noise, especially when it comes to modern recording technique. It's not at all like electric guitar where there's an established and accepted standard for mic placement, tone range and so forth. Most engineers, when faced with a contraption like a hurdy gurdy, would have absolutely no idea what to do. Stefan and Hållbus use that to their advantage and are free to play around and create something completely new from the old device. It's a fascinating instrument and I highly recommend that, if the opportunity presents itself, you see it performed live. I caught Garmarna on tour a few years back and Stefan stole the show. Never would I have imagined that a hurdy gurdy player could rock out with such reckless abandon.
We continue our exploration of traditional Scandinavian folk this week with a track from the aptly-named Hurdy-Gurdy. Artist monikers don't get much more self-explanatory than that! The concept is straightforward enough: two men (Stefan Brisland-Ferner of Garmarna and Hållbus Totte Mattson of Hedningarna) and their instruments. Except that it's not really that simple - the men don't just play their instruments - they also process and chop the recordings on their computers so that every single nuance of sound you hear on the album originated from a hurdy gurdy. The so-called "medieval synthesizer" is an unexplored landscape of noise, especially when it comes to modern recording technique. It's not at all like electric guitar where there's an established and accepted standard for mic placement, tone range and so forth. Most engineers, when faced with a contraption like a hurdy gurdy, would have absolutely no idea what to do. Stefan and Hållbus use that to their advantage and are free to play around and create something completely new from the old device. It's a fascinating instrument and I highly recommend that, if the opportunity presents itself, you see it performed live. I caught Garmarna on tour a few years back and Stefan stole the show. Never would I have imagined that a hurdy gurdy player could rock out with such reckless abandon.
Hurdy-Gurdy - Venjan
Who's in the band Glasson? Where are they from? I have no idea, but I'm OK with that. In this era of everyone having a Myspace page for his or her 47 side projects, it's refreshing to be listening to a band about whom I know absolutely nothing. It adds some intrigue. Anyway, about half of this demo EP consists of mid-tempo rock which is mostly forgettable. The singer has a rather distinctive voice which sounds a bit awkward on the mid-tempo songs. The other half, happily, dips into Nuggets-style 60s garage with gleeful Abandon. Take opener "Alpha male," for instance. Over a fast riff the singer exclaims, "I am the alpha male! Hip-hip-hip-hip-hooray!" while the other band members shout some falsetto "whoo hoos" and the drummer tries to keep up. Maybe Glasson will stick to the garage-rock angle and stay in the shadows. We need more Strangeloves and ? and the Mysterians these days.
- Matthew W. Smith
I admire bands like Loney, Dear. They didn't mess around with labels or music business bureaucracy, they just kept doing what they were doing and released their music themselves on CDR until other folks started to catch on. That's the true spirit of DIY. Of course it only really works out in the end if you're both persistent and good. Luckily, Loney, Dear is both. The new album "Sologne" which comes out next week is the band's first "official" CD release. And I use the term band loosely too, as Loney, Dear is essentially the solo project of one Emil Svanängen. I chose to post "The city, the airport" today because I love the way the song builds into the call-and-response chorus. It's so triumphant. I can also relate the words of the first verse about Abandoning the city for quiter locales. I made the move recently and don't regret it a bit. Preorder the disc and save a dollar.
I admire bands like Loney, Dear. They didn't mess around with labels or music business bureaucracy, they just kept doing what they were doing and released their music themselves on CDR until other folks started to catch on. That's the true spirit of DIY. Of course it only really works out in the end if you're both persistent and good. Luckily, Loney, Dear is both. The new album "Sologne" which comes out next week is the band's first "official" CD release. And I use the term band loosely too, as Loney, Dear is essentially the solo project of one Emil Svanängen. I chose to post "The city, the airport" today because I love the way the song builds into the call-and-response chorus. It's so triumphant. I can also relate the words of the first verse about Abandoning the city for quieter locales. I made the move recently and don't regret it a bit. Preorder the disc and save a dollar.
Loney Dear - The city, the airport
The details for the new Bear Quartet album have been revealed! The new album will be called "Saturday night" and in usual BQ fashion, will be preceded by an EP for the song "I have an itch". The tracklist for both:
I Have An Itch EP
01. I Have An Itch
02. An Epidemic Touch
03. I Am The Driver
Saturday Night
01. I Know My Owner
02. Birds are Singing in the Greenery
03. Loneliness Abandons the Lonely
04. I Have An Itch
05. I Speak Much English
06. Little Ghost
07. Weakling Keep Blinking
08. The Supremes
09. Today I Will Dress Up
10. Your Name Here
11. Class Trip
12. Death To The Bear Quartet
As mentioned before, the music is said to be much more on the electronic side of things and "impossible to play live." They themselves list Suicide, Black Grape and Enya as influences. Should be interesting, to say the least.
New mp3 today from Denmark's Lack, one of the best modern hardcore bands I've heard recently. If you haven't already read my review of their latest record "Be there pulse", let me reiterate how great it is to hear a band like this with true passion and energy. I also appreciate the fact that they often let chords hang and breathe, leaving plenty of space for the vocals and rhythm section to do their thing. And they don't overdo the distorted guitar tone either, like so many other bands. I can't tell you how sick I am of that Mesa Dual Rectifier sound. Anyhow, a lot of people are probably bummed that the band Abandoned the screamo style they mastered on the debut album "Blues Moderne: Danois Explosifs", but listen up: it's been four years since that record came out. Get over it. The new stuff rules, albeit in a totally different way. Check out the song and go see them when they tour Europe:
05/19 - 1000fryd, Aalborg (DK) w/The Unit
05/20 - May Conspiracy Fest, Nexus, Braunschweig (GER)
05/21 - Bla, Bonn (GER)
05/22 - Le café de la Plage, Paris (FRA)
05/23 - Free Butt, Brighton (UK)
05/24 - The Swan, London (UK)
05/25 - Jabez Glegg, Manchester (UK) w/Eden Maine
05/26 - Trillions, Newcastle (UK) w/Eden Maine
05/27 - Planet, Wolverhampton (UK) w/Eden Maine
05/28 - TJ's, Newport (UK) w/Eden Maine
05/29 - Phoenix, Plymouth (UK) w/Eden Maine
05/30 - Hobbits, Weston Supermare (UK) w/Eden Maine
05/31 - Le Vauban, Brest (FRA) w/Oxes
06/01 - Le Clos Fleuri, Lyon (FRA)
06/02 - La Malterei, Lille (FRA) w/Jairus
06/03 - Astra Stube, Hamborg (GER) w/The Unit
06/04 - Loppen, Copenhagen (DK)w/The Unit
06/10 - Spot-Festival, Aarhus (DK)
06/11 - MOTU-Festival (ICE)
06/25 - tba (GER)
06/26 - tba (GER)
06/28 - Roskilde Festival (DK)
07/17 - Fluff-Fest, Pilsen (CZE)
08/27 - Heartcore Tage, AJZ Bahndamm, Wermelskirchen (GER)
Norway's Catena Collapse will no longer be doing a split 7" with Angora Static now that the latter band has decided to break up. In happier news, the band will be touring the UK in March and here's the itinerary:
03/01 - tba, Newcastle (UK)
03/02 - tba, Birmingham (UK)
03/03 - The Marquee, Norwich (UK) w/La Quiete
03/04 - xhousex, Leeds (UK) w/La Quiete
03/05 - Subway, Edinburgh (UK) w/La Quiete
03/06 - The Old Angel, Nottingham (UK) w/La Quiete
03/07 - The Phoenix, Manchester (UK) w/La Quiete, Day For Airstrikes
03/08 - The Swan, London (UK) w/La Quiete, Hey Colossus, Abandon Ship
03/09 - Hobgoblin, Brighton (UK) w/La Quiete, Seven Arrows Through Your Bastard Heart
03/10 - tba, tbd (UK)
03/11 - tba, Glasgow (UK) w/Twenty Centuries of Sleep
Updated Starmarket tourdates:
02/03 - Atzavara Club, Sant Feliu de Guixols
02/04 - Centro Cívico Basozelai, Basauri
02/05 - Tunk!, Irún
02/06 - Centro Andaluz, Torrelavega
02/07 - Tba, Don Benito
02/08 - Aldana, Cáceres
02/09 - Moby Dick, Madrid
02/10 - Malevaje Club, Almeria
02/11 - Mogambo, Valencia
02/12 - Sidecar, Barcelona
02/22 - Astra Stube, Hamburg
02/23 - Aquarium, Dresden
02/24 - AJZ, Bielefeld
02/25 - Wild at Heart, Berlin
02/26 - Jugendhaus, Esslingen
02/27 - Arena, Wien
02/28 - Sunny Red, Munchen
03/01 - Kalkbreite, Zurich
03/02 - MuK, Giessen
03/03 - Ex-Haus, Trier
03/04 - AZ, Aachen
03/05 - Tower, Bremen
In other news, the band's latest album "Abandon Time" has been picked up for release in Japan on May 21 via Bad News Records.
The Bear Quartet