I feel a certain sort of pride in knowing that the country I came from produced an artist like Nick Cave. It’s a feeling invariably mixed in with a kind of disappointment towards a lot, though far from all, of the music we’ve produced otherwise, and borderline bewilderment at how a country composed (as Australia is) 95% of quiet rural towns where nothing ever happens and there’s nothing to do produced an artist like this. An artist who somehow drew together like-minded art students like himself to bang out some of the craziest post-punk ever put to record with The Birthday Party; an artist who adapted like a chameleon to the bluesier, folksier talents of Blixa Bargeld, Thomas Wydler and the dearly missed Conway Savage in the 90s to create stunning albums that many justifiably consider his greatest work; an artist who can give us the wounded, desperate baroque love songs of No More Shall We Part in the same decade he hammered out some dirty garage rock with Grinderman and Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!. In short, sometimes I wonder if Nick Cave was a total fluke.
If so, I’m happy to number one of the greatest living songwriters as my country’s lucky dice roll; it’s a distinction I’d award not just for the sheer breadth and consistency of his back catalogue, but because of Cave’s peerless ability to conjure an entire world with his words. Cave’s worlds aren’t a dark mirror reflection of our society or any cliche like that.…
Here’s a list of major new releases for the week of October 11, 2019. Please feel free to request reviews for any of the following albums from staff and/or contributors.
– List of Releases: October 11, 2019 –
808 State: Transmission Suite
Genre: House/Techno/Electronic
Label: 808 State
Babymetal: Metal Galaxy
Genre: Pop/Metal
Label: Cooking VInyl
BATS: Alter Nature
Genre: Post-Hardcore/Math Rock
Label: Great Old Ones
Bent Knee: You Know What They Mean
Genre: Progressive Rock
Label: InsideOutMusic
Big Thief: Two Hands
Genre: Indie-Rock/Folk
Label: 4AD
It’s that wonderful time of year when we all try to figure out hilarious, and sometimes flat-out evil, ways to make each other cower in fear while having premature heart attacks. Yes, Halloween – which, let’s face it, spans all of October – is upon us, and with it comes the first Spooknik Soundtrack installment in what will hopefully become an annual series. Thirty users got together and shared their creepiest songs, which has been compiled and organized for your own personal horror.
I listened to this and can vouch that it’s quite terrifying, so if you don’t think you can stomach it, just click the “back” button at the top left corner of your browser. But if you think that you have what it takes, then dive right into the below playlist and let us know what you think!
It’s been said time and time again, but Melt-Banana are as unique as bands come. Now well into the third decade of their career, Yako (vocals) and Agata (guitar) are still writing and touring their brand of light-speed noise rock with rare, enduring levels of excitement and proficiency. Now on the verge of a 15-date UK tour (the band’s eleventh on British shores), the pair found time to fill us in at Sputnik on their past experiences in the UK, their hopes for this tour, and a few hints about their elusive upcoming record…
JohnnyoftheWell/Sputnikmusic: Hello! Thanks so much for taking the time to chat! Is this a busy time for Melt-Banana? Do you have much to do to prepare for your upcoming tour?
Agata: Hello. I think we are quite busy! Besides preparing for the UK tour, we are also working on new songs for our next album.
Yako: Hello. We constantly play shows in Japan when we are not on tour — like once or twice a month.
For anyone unfamiliar with you, would you mind explaining the essence of Melt-Banana?
A: If I need to explain our music to my parents’ friends, I say we play rock music, but a little bit faster, along with using noise sounds.
Y: Yes, we usually say we are a rock band basically. It is quite difficult to explain ‘sounds’. Maybe it is simple to say ‘fast loud rock with female vocals and effected, unique guitar, music like…
For once, it’s truly pertinent for me to state where a band are from rather than it being a formality — Seizures, metalcore band from Dana Point, California, have created an album which encapsulates a complex relationship between band and hometown, as well as their past and present. If you’ve heard The Sanity Universal, then you hardly need any introduction to the band; it definitively establishes Seizures’ dizzyingly detailed and dense songwriting, characteristics which the newly released Reverie of the Revolving Diamond embodies and expands on. I spoke with guitarist Albert Navarro on the creation of Reverie of the Revolving Diamond; here, he describes the (intriguing) compositional process and his influences, and also provides insight into the themes and stories illustrated within the album.
Claire: It’s immediately apparent that Reverie of the Revolving Diamond is a different beast from your last full-length album, The Sanity Universal — the former is more condensed and arguably more focused, with the introduction of a jazzy dynamic that I see has been aptly tagged as surfcore. What were your main motivations for this particular shift in sound, and what sort of experiences have shaped the creation of Reverie… in comparison to those informing The Sanity Universal? Furthermore, would you consider the split with Arms a precursor to this significant change?
Albert: TSU started off as a batch of songs, some newer and some way older than others. It wasn’t until the recording of it that we realized how much spontaneous experimentation was happening. Nathan (my brother, guitarist)…
Here’s a list of major new releases for the week of October 4, 2019. Please feel free to request reviews for any of the following albums from staff and/or contributors.
– List of Releases: October 4, 2019 –
Angel Olsen: All Mirrors
Genre: Folk/Indie-Rock
Label: Jagjaguwar
The Avett Brothers: Closer Than Together
Genre: Americana/Folk/Bluegrass
Label: Republic
Well, it’s been an adventurous third quarter around here. Question marks in reviews have been fixed! You can see entire release dates! All album art and images uploaded between November 2017-the Great Power Surge of 2019 have disappeared into the ether, never to return!
As a Loaf of Meat once power balladed: two out of three ain’t bad.
We’re getting geared up for not just the 2019 year-end list (to be published in late December, as is tradition), but the Top 100 Albums of 2010-2019 feature (to be published in… TBD? Probably the tail-end of Q1 2020!).
In the meantime, we have a nice slab o’ tracks from July-September for your listening pleasure, with thanks to Atari, BlushfulHippocrene, DrGonzo1937, insomniac15, Rowan5215, SowingSeason, Voivod, and Willie.
What albums would top your list for this quarter? For all of 2019? For all of 2000-2019? Let us know what we inevitably forgot!
3TEETH – “Pumped Up Kicks” Metawar Listen if you like: Youth Code, Nine Inch Nails, KMFDM
For me, Metawar is easily the most disappointing album of 2019 so far — I can’t emphasise that enough — but the quality speaks for itself when one of the LP’s strongest numbers is a cover of Foster the People’s “Pumped up Kicks”. This is a bloody excellent reinterpretation of Foster the People’s dark and bouncy indie-rock hit, one that shrewdly integrates 3TEETH’s industrial DNA into the piece whilst remaining faithful to the source material. I can’t…
Here’s a list of major new releases for the week of September 27, 2019. Please feel free to request reviews for any of the following albums from staff and/or contributors.
– List of Releases: September 27, 2019 –
65DAYSOFSTATIC: Replicr
Genre: Post-Rock/Electronic/Math Rock
Label: Superball Music
Acid Reign: The Age Of Entitlement
Genre: Thrash Metal
Label: Dissonance Productions
Out of Brand New’s lauded canon, it’s easy to forget about the red-headed stepson that is Daisy. Everything about the album is just a tad off. It begins and ends with a very out-of-place hymn; the album cover features a demonic looking fox in the middle of a beautiful forest; the band shifts rather abruptly from the broodingly existential emo-rock of The Devil and God are Raging Inside Me to frantically screamed mantras that clash against fiery, grunge-inspired guitars like dueling swords. Even for a band that developed a penchant for reinventing itself with each release, Daisy was…out there. At the time, fans who were spoiled by greatness hailed the album as disappointingly good; a take that has not necessarily aged well. Over the next decade, Daisy‘s legacy would grow considerably as fans began to recognize its unique atmosphere and appreciate the fact that it was going to be – until the unexpected release of Science Fiction in 2017 – Brand New’s final recording.
Ten years later, the whole album still feels crucial. “Vices” is the ideal opener, with the opera-like curve ball of an opening verse serving as a perfect snapshot of Daisy‘s wiry unpredictability, while “Sink” and “Gasoline” prove how grainy and visceral Lacey’s shouts/screams could become in a hopeless emotional vacuum. “You Stole” and “Noro” are still spine-tingling creepers, painting illusions of deception, mystical forests, and hellfire. …
Here’s a list of major new releases for the week of September 20, 2019. Please feel free to request reviews for any of the following albums from staff and/or contributors.
– List of Releases: September 20, 2019 –
The Agonist: Orphans
Genre: Metalcore/Melodic Death Metal
Label: Rodeostar Records
As I Lay Dying: Shaped By Fire
Genre: Metalcore/Thrash
Label: Nuclear Blast
blink-182: Nine
Genre: Pop/Punk
Label: Columbia
Brittany Howard: Jamie
Genre: Alternative Rock
Label: ATO
Chastity Belt: Chastity Belt
Genre: Indie-Pop/Rock
Label: Hardly Art
Cult Of Luna: A Dawn To Fear
Genre: Sludge/Post-Metal
Label: Metal Blade
Daedelus: The Bittereinders
Genre: Hip-Hop/Experimental/Electronic
Label: Brainfeeder
Here’s a list of major new releases for the week of September 13, 2019. Please feel free to request reviews for any of the following albums from staff and/or contributors.
– List of Releases: September 13, 2019 –
Alex Cameron: Miami Memory
Genre: Indie-Pop/Pop Rock
Label: Secretly Canadian
Alice Cooper: Breadcrumbs
Genre: Hard Rock/Metal
Label: earMUSIC
Being as an Ocean: PROXY: An A.N.I.M.O. Story
Genre: Hardcore/Post-Rock
Label: Being As An Ocean
Belle & Sebastian: Days Of The Bagnold Summer
Genre: Indie-Pop/Folk
Label: Matador
Big Scenic Nowhere: Dying On The Mountain
Genre: Psychedelic/Stoner Rock
Label: Blues Funeral
Here’s a list of major new releases for the week of September 6, 2019. Please feel free to request reviews for any of the following albums from staff and/or contributors.
– List of Releases: September 6, 2019 –
Adam Green: Engine of Paradise
Genre: Folk/Indie-Pop
Label: 30th Century
Alessia Cara: This Summer
Genre: Pop/R&B
Label: Def Jam
Barns Courtney: 404
Genre: Indie-Folk/Alternative Rock
Label: Virgin EMI
Bat For Lashes: Lost Girls
Genre: Indie-Pop/Folk
Label: Bat For Lashes
Black Star Riders: Another State of Grace
Genre: Rock
Label: Nuclear Blast
Bonniesongs: Energetic Mind
Genre: Indie-Rock/Alternative
Label: Small Pond
Chrissie Hynde: Valve Bone Woe
Genre: Jazz
Label: BMG
Cognizance: Malignant Dominion
Genre: Death Metal
Label: Prosthetic
Death Cab For Cutie: The Blue {EP}
Genre: Indie-Rock/Emo
Label: Atlantic
Disillusion: The Liberation
Genre: Melodic Death Metal/Progressive
Label: Prophecy
Site update: There was a large power outage in our server cluster. Although only 0.5% of servers were affected, our main web server + associated backup volumes were destroyed.
Thankfully, all text content was saved in another server, so all reviews, ratings, comments, etc. are fully preserved. We did, however, lose images uploaded to the site over the last 1.5 years. Scraping scripts are hard at work trying to recover most of the album art. However, some album art will be non-recoverable and will need to be re-uploaded by users.
Please accept my apologies for the downtime and for the lost images. In the event of a large hardware failure like this, there is unfortunately nothing that could have prevented data loss other than locally archiving copies of uploaded images. That will be done in the future to prevent any future outages.
Thanks for your patience, and please let us know in the forums if any new bugs beyond missing images have popped up.
Kyle Bates is the primary creative force behind the Portland-based experimental lo-fi project Drowse. I say “primary” because Drowse has taken the form of a collaborative space, with Bates as the singularity in the centre. This year, he released Light Mirror, an album highly influenced by his time spent in residency in Iceland. I decided to reach out to Kyle, since he seems pretty cool for a guy named Kyle; and, when it comes to bedroom recording, his intuitions are almost unmatched.
Tristan: You mentioned, at one point, how your newest album Light Mirror “marks the first time [you’ve] been able to translate [your] intention directly into sound” (and not having to struggle with technical hurdles). I have a couple questions: 1. if you had to describe this intention in writing, what would that look like on paper?, and 2. If I assume that the limited resources you had at your disposal during your Iceland residency forced you to be more resourceful, then it’s interesting that you were able to pull this off and not concede to artistic compromises. How do you think it all worked out?
Kyle: When I wrote that I was addressing sonic intention, in terms of lyrical meaning and songwriting Cold Air conveys my intention as well. While recording I am often pushing towards two seemingly polarized extremes: a warm, lo-fi style perfected by bands like Duster, and this clear, detailed way of sculpting sound found in the work of musicians…
All it took was one line to get Marskid (Mitch) all riled up. A cursory, sweeping statement about the lack of innovation in Mitch’s most-loved genre (that’s my assumption anyway) was enough of a reason to shake his fist angrily at me in a Contributor’s group discussion (off-site). Basically, it got us thinking about what actually defines a genre as “dead”, and more importantly how much life (specifically) metalcore has left in it. Rather than dismissing the thought we took our beloved Marskid down the proverbial rabbit-hole and have hesperus (Dean) expand on the points Marskid brings up.
[Nocte] Let’s start with the main question here. Is metalcore dead? To what degree and what are the challenges that bands face when writing new albums?
[Marskid]
I’m quite comfortable in asserting that metalcore is alive and thriving. Obviously, there still lingers an elements of the mainstream sound and djent-centric groups, but their presence has diminished over time due to a lack of innovation on their end, thus leading to their stagnation. In their place are a slew of collectives, both young and old, that are either 1) bringing new ideas to the table, bringing a fresh perspective on the genre over two decades since its formation, or 2) tightening the category’s original sound, perhaps adding a personal touch to it–basically fine-tuning the heart of the musical type but not necessarily pushing it per se. This has elevated the baseline quality of your typical metalcore release as more and more bands shy…
![Get Fixed [Explicit]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/718sujCkSDL._SS500_.jpg)
![A Pill for Loneliness [Explicit]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/81cl9rkRwbL._SS500_.jpg)
![Easter is Cancelled (Deluxe) [Explicit]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/81soZCUg4IL._SS500_.jpg)
![White Noise / White Lines [Explicit]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/71Yu+UwQD1L._SS500_.jpg)
![The Age of Entitlement [Explicit]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/81psRVu4AbL._SS500_.jpg)
![War In My Mind [Explicit]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/81AECPl3UcL._SS500_.jpg)
![The Talkies [Explicit]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/A1fAk+jbVtL._SS500_.jpg)
![Jaime [Explicit]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/7192rr6DiAL._SS500_.jpg)
![Miami Memory [Explicit]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/916SiXxOLEL._SS500_.jpg)
![PROXY: An A.N.I.M.O. Story [Explicit]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/81pO9TSysHL._SS500_.jpg)
![Oh Uncertainty! A Universe Despairs [Explicit]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/71e+OG7vj5L._SS500_.jpg)
![Charli [Explicit]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/915ashLHq1L._SS500_.jpg)
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