The Skull Defekts – s/t. Swedish avant noise types get gloomier than ever, though a few decent riffs. Their last album apparently. Track and self-penned obituary here: http://www.thrilljockey.com/products/the-skull-defekts
Gwenno – Le Kov. Her last album was based on a Welsh language dystopian sci-fi novel from the 70s, this one is sung entirely in Cornish and references various local legends. She can be a bit Broadcast-lite, and while the opening track is pretty nice, I wasn’t that gripped by the first half of this album – but then it gets a bit weirder and more interesting. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0K-ESDsCTc
Hawkwind – At The Roundhouse. Taken from the gig earlier this year in May. Arguable whether the world needs another HW live album, but for a band approaching its half century anniversary, it’s not bad: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WaDtC_iMaEM&feature=youtu.be
Chromium Hawk Machine – Annunaki. Hawkwind bête noire Nik Turner and Helios Creed from Chrome get together and make a seriously sprawling concept album about ancient aliens creating the human race as slave workers to mine for gold… Yes, you can probably guess what this sounds like. Actually pretty good in places, but elsewhere it’s the very definition of interminable…
Stray – Fire And Glass. Comp of their last three albums on Pye’s Dawn label, the runt of the progressive imprints. Starting to get a bit soft rock in places, but lots of great songs still, such as: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jAP09nC0zY
Listen With Father:
Still on the home-made comp… The Open Mind – ‘Magic Potion’. What a flipping monster of a song this is, possibly the most perfect late-psych-becomes-proto-metal single ever, the youngest particularly loves it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fihIy_5Jksw
Girlschool – Race With The Devil. Because girls can most definitely rock as hard as the boys, a core tenet of my parental guidance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ri3yTuC8LR8
Rainbow – Since You’ve Been Gone. Loved this as soon as I heard it as a pre-teen, girls the same. A classic pop/rock riff, awesome chorus, and some fine acting from Graham Bonnet in the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1P17ct4e5OE
V is for…
Virus – The Black Flux. Recommended by someone on this very forum I think, this has got a genuinely uneasy atmosphere to it. One of those albums with a select appeal I reckon, but if you’re into very proggy black metal, with the death grunts replaced by some portentous oratory, this is very much for you. A bit like King Crimson and Rush fighting it out in the seventh circle of Hell, refereed by Garth Marengi: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvvorsU7LKk
Live:
Jozef van Wissem / English Heretic – The Old Church, Stoke Newington. Talking of occult-infused gloom, two prime purveyors of it here in a lovely small church in north London. EH are now a trio, and specialise in long-form poems about Aleister Crowley and the Vietnam war over drones – verges on being Spinal Tap for Wire readers, but I like ‘em anyway. I hadn’t really encountered JvW before, and his thing is playing an instrument which looks like a xenomorphic mash-up between a lute and an electric guitar. He is Serious and Dutch, but rather mesmerising, gothic folk for the end of the world: https://soundcloud.com/consouling-sounds/02-golden-bells-ring-in-the-ears-of-earths-inhabitants
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