MUSIC | Records
ANTHEMIC FOLK-ROCK FRIGHTENED RABBIT Pedestrian Verse (Atlantic) ●●●●●
Long before they became an international major label concern; before provoking a rampant love-in from Radio 1’s Zane Lowe with new single ‘The Woodpile’; before writing an alternative national anthem in 2008’s ‘Keep Yourself Warm’ – alt.rock five-piece Frightened Rabbit were a fraternal Selkirk duo. They were Scott (vocals/
guitar) and Grant Hutchison (drums), and the brothers’ cardinal dynamic still fires up Frabbit’s beating heart. It rebounds across this terrific fourth album from a band who sound bigger, and heavier, than ever. If Pedestrian Verse is missing the circuitous narratives and flipside thrills that made 2008’s second LP, Midnight Organ Fight a landmark, then it compensates with front-loaded melodic indie-rock in spades: the audacious swagger of ‘The Woodpile’ and the thundering, whistling euphoria of hit-in-waiting ‘Late March, Death March’ – a match for anything they’ve released that embodies their modus operandi: drum- propelled, anthemic indie, offset with bruised, desolate lyrics (dissing the holy man, baiting mortality, lobbing apologies, ad infinitum).
But if it’s a reassuringly Frabbit-esque sentiment on glorious swansong
‘The Oil Slick’ – with the line ‘these are disastrous times’ – then observe the concluding radiant riffs, the major chord and the birdsong that says: there are bright skies ahead. (Nicola Meighan)
OFF KILTER ROCK BIFFY CLYRO Opposites (14th Floor) ●●●●● ROCK FAT GOTH Stud (Hefty Dafty) ●●●●●
Pick any classic double album in history and you’ll find one excellent, seminal record padded out with just as much filler. Here, the Biffy have decided to go full 1970s and not allow much editing, and the result is good – sometimes very much so – but it’s hard not to view it as somewhat diluted. The intention seems to be to gratify both sides of their artistic inclination, and the first record seems designed to appeal to the mass market audience which eventually broke them. There’s no ‘Many of Horror’ here, however, with precious few stand-outs like the meaty FM rock of ‘Biblical’. By contrast disc two is positively experimental, bearing flamenco- inspired trumpet on ‘Spanish Radio’, almost jazz patterns on ‘Trumpet or Tap’ and proper chest-beating anthemics on ‘Accident Without Emergency’. It’s more or less the sum of its parts – but perhaps less than we might have hoped. (David Pollock)
They love a sardonic song title, and their name sounds like a punchline, but Dundee rockers Fat Goth are a serious underground rock concern. Formed in 2007 and with a debut LP (2010’s Mindless Crap) under their studded belts, the trio serve up (headbanging) nods to Mclusky, Mike Patton, Fugazi and the Jesus Lizard.
Frontman Fraser Stewart is a thrilling axe-mangler and vocalist, equally adept at vitriol (killer signature anthem ‘Creepy Lounge’) and crooning lullabies (‘I Am Leg End’). Kick-ass drummer Mark Keiller played in Olive Grove noise-poppers Pensioner while new bassist Kevin Black is ere of native post-rockers Laeto. Black’s lightspeed bass- licks are stunning – witness ‘Surf’s Up’ and ‘Debbie’s Dirty Harry’ – on this excellent LP of thunderstruck- hardcore, hollering-pop and countrified-rock. (Nicola Meighan) ■ Album launch, Electric Circus, Edinburgh, Fri 1 Feb.
PUNK/HARDCORE ICEAGE You’re Nothing (Matador) ●●●●●
The follow up to their debut New Brigade from these furious Danes is as snotty as you’d expect. Dabbling in equal parts post punk melodies with a noisier and a more honed production, the guitar licks on ‘In Haze’ and ‘Awake’ wouldn’t be far removed from a Wire album, with vocalist Elias Bender Rønnenfelt’s added snarls akin to Darby Crash of The Germs.
It might lack the immediacy of New Brigade but makes up for it with content, varying in tempo with ballad- like ‘Morals’ to the buzz-saw thrash on ‘Ecstasy’. It’s this variation which makes Iceage all the more intriguing and marks You’re Nothing as a mature but equally ferocious release, having successfully coalesced countless punk blueprints without coming across as hackneyed or unimaginative – an impressive feat for a group that’s barely out of secondary school. (Nick Herd)
76 THE LIST 24 Jan–21 Feb 2013
AMBIENT NOIR NICK CAVE AND THE BAD SEEDS Push the Sky Away (Bad Seed) ●●●●● PUNK/NOISE ROCK PISSED JEANS Honeys (Sub Pop) ●●●●●
It would be a tired cliché indeed to speculate whether Nick Cave is mellowing with age just because this new album barely makes it out of second gear. The feral sex-wolf is largely absent here, but in these tarnished lullabies there remains a sense of sadness and bitter menace. ‘We No Who U R’, far from being the Prince-style funk workout the title suggests, drips like rain upon an iron roof, Cave’s hesitant mantra coalescing into the weary threat: ‘We know where you live/and we know there’s no need to forgive’. The dark growl of ‘Water’s Edge’
comes close to forceful virility, but this commendable change of pace from Cave remains true to its sense of powerfully established restraint on the noirish diptych ‘Jubilee Street’ and ‘Finishing Jubilee Street’ or amidst the title track’s crystalline, trance-like splendour. (David Pollock)
Four LPs in and Philadelphia’s Pissed Jeans are still hocking up severely scuzzed-out bile with Honeys, their most consistent set of songs since debut album Hope For Men in 2007.
Straight off the bat, single and opener ‘Bathroom Laughter’ drags you along the tarmac with a ferocious bass line and snappy chorus – probably one of their finest musical moments. They’re still clearly indebted to a particular 90s rock dirge, touching upon the staccato guitar chops of Jesus Lizard, Melvins fuzz and the straight-up weirdness of the Butthole Surfers, but their racket has developed notably on this recording. ‘Male Gaze’ has a nasty aftertaste, soaking up said influences and combining it with a furious Black Flag-style breakdown. It’s a positively weird journey, but it’s also strangely comforting to see the Jeans sound as alienating as they did the first time around. (Nick Herd)
ART-POP RANDAN DISCOTHEQUE Sonderweg (Bonjour Branch) ●●●●●
Fuck miracles. The art/pop diaspora of the last few years traverses regions, as this first non-CD-r release from Forest Pitch imagineur Craig Coulthard’s revolving musical troupe proves in spades. Sonderweg opens with some very wise spoken words before Coulthard and co take their own special path through a terrain of bad-ass guitar garage, deep- fried saloon-bar twang, space-jazz chorales and ceilidhism to flesh out Coulthard’s erudite epic narratives. With synthesised burbles and
operatic warbles lending jauntiness throughout, ‘Where Did You Come From?’ is weirdly infectious enough to sound like a Caledonian take on Bob Dorough’s ‘Three is A Magic Number’, while ‘Heather the Weather’ is a novelty smash hit in waiting. Think of a po-mo Proclaimers corrupted by swathes of Zappaesque dryness, and you’re still only halfway to paradise. (Neil Cooper)