Tindersticks- The Waiting Room

Posted: 20th January 2016 by blaue-rosen in Album reviews
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Release Date: January 22, 2015, City Slang

1.Follow Me/2. Second Chance Man/3. Were We Once Lovers?/4. Help Yourself/5.Hey Lucinda/ 6.Fear Of Emptiness/7.How He Entered/8. The Waiting Room/9. Planting Holes/10.We Are Dreamers/11.Like Only Lovers Can

‘Some painters transform the sun into a yellow spot others transform a yellow spot into the sun…’ Pablo Picasso

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…in any case, when Mr Staples has something to communicate with us it’s best we pour ourselves our favourite drink, sit down and listen…In some cases we are anxious to listen to the next album of a band, the moment the previous one has been released. Other musicians will only work on something when the time is right for them and the final result is usually worth the wait. Tindersticks only release music when the time is right for them and the result has always been unique. In the same way that few painters rework on finished paintings, Stuart Staples occasionally revisits his own songs thus indulging in a creative self criticism of sorts. On occasions Tindersticks have offered different versions of older songs, responding to a need to give another form to what the lyrics are describing.

 “And that means something to me, because everyone thinks ‘Tindersticks’ and they think ‘melancholy’- that’s us. But making music is never about just one feeling. There’ alsways some ambiguity and that area most interesting area to explore…” (Stuart Staples, extract from an interview)

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Sauropod – Roaring at the storm

Posted: 18th January 2016 by blaue-rosen in Album reviews
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1. You And Me Should Leave Together Tonight/2. Winter Song/3. Sunny Day/4. Hausmania/5. Running Song/6. (I’ve Been) Bad On Emma/7. Headphones/8. Fugue/9. Edge of a Cloud/10. Your Line is Divine /11. On The Hill 

Release Date: January 22, 2016 Riot Factory

unnamedWhile we were anxious for 2016 to reveal itself, nobody was ready for the news that would shake the music world so much that life seemed to stand still for a few days. Our first album review for 2016 is being written in the aftermath of Ian Fraser Kilmister a.k.a Lemmy and David Jones a.k.a David Bowie’s passings. Yet somehow the debut album ‘Roaring At The Storm’ by Sauropod provided an outlet for all my anger, distress, sadness, disappointment and bitterness caused by these news.

If you find yourselves at the ‘eye of the storm’ would you like a soundtrack to accompany you?

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Mueran Humanos- Miseress

Posted: 13th December 2015 by blaue-rosen in Album reviews
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1. Miseress/2. Un Lugar Ideal/3. Mi Auto/4. El Circulo/5.Espejo En La Nada/6. El Vino de las Orgias/7. Guerrero de la Gloria Negativa/8. La Torre de la Hora/9.Epilog

Release date: November 27,2015 ATP Recordings

folderIndustrial music is a genre that interests me very much ever since Throbbing Gristle made audiences ‘see’ the musicality of found industrial objects, machinery and other equipment that was beginning to lose its usefulness as soon as the de-industrialization of Europe began.To me, industrial music opened the floodgates of creativity just as punk represented the D.I.Y attitude towards art and life in general.
At the same time Germany, Belgium, France and England at the beginning of 1980s were the areas where de-industrialization was more intense and more evident. This in turn seemed to have favoured the appearance of bands inspired by the industrial qualities of machinery that was abundant in the gradually closing manufacturing sites. Audiences in Europe and especially in the aforementioned countries were theoretically more open to this new sound as it alluded to their everyday working and politically charged environments. For many years, industrial music that incorporated lyrics was either in German, English or French languages while the sound has perhaps intentionally, avoided melody and worshipped the rhythmical attraction of metallic sounds!

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Dråpe- Relax/Relapse

Posted: 8th November 2015 by blaue-rosen in Album reviews
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1. Relax/2. Replica/3. _/4.Round And Around/5. Pie In The Sky/6. There Is A House/7. My Friend The Scientist/8. And You Changed Your Mind/9. Still Raining/10.Relapse

Release Date: October 9, 2015
Riot Factory

unnamedWe first came across the music of Dråpe in 2013 when this band from Oslo released their first album called ‘Canicular Days’. The band whose name means ‘a drop’ in Norwegian, has defined its music as ‘indieshoegazepostrocknoise’ and has listed Sigur Rós, Slowdive, Flaming Lips and Beach House as their influences. In their debut album there was emphasis on both the hypnotic and the noisy aspect of the music. The instrumental parts in the debut album were loud and experimental thus creating a welcomed antithesis with the ethereal female vocals (i.e. ‘Sister’s Eye’, ‘I Wanted You to Stay’, ‘Hike’). Both the instrumental parts and the vocals had equally important roles to play in the overall atmosphere of ‘Canicular Days’ and at times they blended in such a way (i.e. end of ‘I Wanted You To Stay’) that it seemed impossible to tell where the vocals stopped and where the instruments began.

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Diary of Dreams- ‘Grau Im Licht’

Posted: 14th October 2015 by blaue-rosen in Album reviews
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1. Sinferno/2. Endless Nights/3. Ikarus/4. Krank/5. Die My phobia/6. Grau im licht/7. SinnFlut/8. HomeSick/9. Schuldig!/10. the Hunted/11. mitGift/12. Schwarz

Release Date: October 16, 2015
Accession Records

…or else an album that will send chills up your spine with every note for 64 minutes

Grau_im_lichtMy personal opinion is that there can be as many music genres as there are people on this planet. There is a myriad of emotions that are generated to each one of us when listening to good music and especially when watching an engaging performer on stage. I have found that, darkwave music has a ‘hard to beat’ empowering effect. Listening to good darkwave music makes me think that the things that are hard to achieve in life, are possible and it makes me remember that the most important thing to have in life is determination. I made this introduction because in short, this is exactly what I feel each time I listen to an album by Diary of Dreams and especially when I listen to ‘Grau Im Licht’. This is the 12th album of the band which, since 1994 (release of first album ‘Cholymelan’) has been synonymous to darkwave music. The heart and soul of the band, takes the form of a strong and engaging performer, Adrian Hates. Throughout the years  Gaun:A is playing powerful melodies on the electric guitar, while various guest musicians usually join the band on stage and provide backing vocals in some of the songs.In this album Dejan Nikolic is behind the drums and Flex at the bass.

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Band of Holy Joy – The Land Of Holy Joy

Posted: 23rd September 2015 by blaue-rosen in Album reviews
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1. The Land Of Holy Joy/2.Isn’t That Just The Life/3. All The Girls Are Wearing Desert Boots Of Pale And Subtle Shade/4. Men Who Display A Different Kind Of Pain/5. Violent Drunken Strangers/6.Discredited Art Form/7. A Good Close Friend/8. A Place Called Home/ 9. I’m Crass Harry

Release Date: September 21, 2015

A Night Of Word And Blood Sparked Under Fire And Stars A Petrol Smear The Concrete Tear Fuck Yeah Brutalism Still Dreaming In The Land Of Holy Joy ( or ‘The Land Of Holy Joy‘for short)


BOHJ…is the title of the new brainchild of Band Of Holy Joy following ‘the release of ‘Easy Listening‘ in 2014 and the mini album ‘The North Is Another Land‘ before that.I have to admit that one should be extremely cautious when talking about a favourite band as Band Of Holy Joy is to me. I will not start elaborating on how easy it is to be objective in such a case.  I will admit though, that being able to distance oneself from a positive predisposition towards someone or something, is an interesting exercise for the brain. I have seen Band of Holy Joy perform live a few times lately in London, the city which is the base of this band as it is here that they were formed in 1983. That was the year that the band self released the album called Favourite Fairytales For Juvenile Delinquents in cassette format.18 albums and 32  years later Band Of Holy Joy offer  one more memorable album to their loyal audience.If we perceive the music of  Band Of Holy Joy as a giant puzzle with a million pieces, then each album and each performance of this band since 1983 adds one more piece to this puzzle. This is not a puzzle with one central scene but one which only makes sense once it is finished just like the paintings of the Cubists which can only be perceived from a distance and only when they are finished!The band’s split in 1992 and its reformation in 2002 culminated in the release of the album Paramour in 2010 through the band’s own label, Radio Joy. This album marked a radical, conscious and intentional shift in the music of the band and its influences making a homage to the songwriters of New York during the 1960s. However one thing withstood the passage of time. The timely and always socially sensitive nature of the stories that the band is narrating through the songs. In every album since 1983 either by embracing punk either by alluding to the english folk music tradition, Band Of Holy Joy manages to simulate, the feeling of someone who stares at an empty carousel with its lights open and the music still on; a feeling of great hopelessness and endless optimism. Drawing inspiration from and finding similarities between our reality and the stories of William Burroughs, Bertolt Brecht and Guillaume Apollinaire, the Band of Holy Joy manages to stress the lyrical, the violent, the sarcastic, the cynical and the hopeful aspects of our lives and delineate the image of a carefree child who plays with his/her toys oblivious to the complexities and the sadness of life.

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Red Sun Revival- Identities

Posted: 27th August 2015 by blaue-rosen in Album reviews
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1. Premonition/2. Echoes/3.Four Walls/4. The Reckoning/5.Fade In Time/6.In Your Name/7.Mistakes/ 8. The Condemned Part I/9. The Condemned Part II/10. The Awakening

Release Date: 19 June, 2015, Echozone

identitiesGothic rock music for some, might have been considered as a ‘dead and buried’ genre with everything that it had to offer to have been already delivered to the audiences by Fields of The Nephilim and Sisters of Mercy. Red Sun Revival love the genre so much that they decided to give to it the kiss of life and the new energy it needed so much in order to inspire new and older audiences. There is of course an undeniable gothic revival trend during the last few years but in ‘Identities‘ the second studio album by Red Sun Revival, we hear equally strongly both the gothic (through the vocals and the rhythms) and the rock element (through the character of the electric guitar solos). England is the motherland of the genre and Red Sun Revival have absorbed the tradition of gothic rock in the most creative way without replicating but instead adding noticeable positive elements to the music. The melancholic yet dynamic melodies enriched by the dark aesthetic of the videos swirled in my mind the sound of In The Nursery, Fields of The Nephilim, Mephisto Walz and even Pink Floyd (notice the instrumental part of ‘The Condemned Part I’).

‘…Within my room
All sorrow seems so far away
And oh so soon
They’re drifting in my wake
And when they’re gone…‘(lyrics from the song: ‘Four Walls‘)

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Chelsea Wolfe- ‘Abyss’

Posted: 7th August 2015 by blaue-rosen in Album reviews
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1. Carrion Flowers/2. Iron Moon/3.Dragged Out/4.Maw/5.Grey Days/6. After The Fall/7.Crazy Love/8.Simple Death/9. Survive/10.Color Of Blood/11.Abyss

Release date: August 7, 2015
Sargent House

”Perfection is ugly. Somewhere in the things humans make, I want to see scars, failure, disorder, distortion.” (Yohji Yamamoto)

As ‘almost disappointing’ as 2014 was in terms of album releases, so mindblowing 2015 is turning out to be. ‘Abyss‘ is the second album in a few months that has such a powerful effect on me. I had to actually take a break of a few days between consecutive listenings of this album in order to try and neutralize its effect on me and escape from its addicting nature…but each time I came back with an increased emotional hunger to listen to it again.

The music up to ‘Abyss’

Abyss-Digital-CoverChelsea Wolfe, a talented and emotionally rich singer songwriter from Sacramento California, has shaken the ”waters” of dark alternative music in 2010 with her album ‘The Grime And The Glow‘ which followed the rather acoustic album called ‘Mistake In Parting‘  that was self released in 2006. Since 2010 Chelsea Wolfe has released albums in Pendu Sound Recordings and since 2012 her albums have been released by Sargent House. In 2013 Chelsea Wolfe collaborated with King Dude releasing 2 EPs called ‘Sing Songs Together‘ and ‘Sing More Songs Together‘. Her album ‘Pain Is Beauty‘ has attracted the attention of an increasing audience in Europe and was praised as her most crystallized album of her career up to that point .

“I was so struck by that visual: the drop into the abyss of one’s own mind, allowing yourself to feel things you’ve hidden away, bringing them front and center. That became the goal of this album…hazy afterlife…an inverted thunderstorm . . . the dark backward . . . the abyss of time.” (Chelsea Wolfe about ‘Abyss‘)

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Hop Along – Painted Shut

Posted: 4th May 2015 by blaue-rosen in Album reviews
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COVEREXACTYX;1424721884370527;HopAlong1424721884370527.jpg;220;2201. The Knock/2. Buddy In The Parade/3. Horseshoe Crabs/4. Waitress/5. Happy To See Me/6. Texas Funeral/7. Powerful Man/8. I Saw My Twin/9. Well-Dressed/10. Sister Cities

Release Date: May 4 2015, Saddle Creek Records

‘Painted Shut’ the third studio album by Hop Along a.k.a Frances Quinlan (vocals), Mark Quinlan (drums), Tyler Long (bass) and Joe Reinhart ( guitar) is the first album of the band that is released by Saddle Creek Records. In addition the album was recorded and mixed by John Agnello who has worked with Kurt Vile, Dinosaur Jr, Cymbals Eat Guitars and Sonic Youth among others.’The Knock’ begins without any introductions or a gradual build up of an atmosphere. The band requires us to be prepared for their music as prepared is the audience of a gig for the next song of the band that is on stage. Music with harsh guitars, lyrics that express desperation, anger and determination and an atmosphere dominated by numerous vocal changes. This album couldn’t be further away stylistically, from the previous one ‘Get Disowned’. So, as the title suggests, do ‘hop along’ and let yourselves be carried away by the ideas the music of the 10 songs in this album.

 

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Calexico- Edge Of The Sun

Posted: 14th April 2015 by blaue-rosen in Album reviews
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…or the music for a place that seems to be at the edge of the world

1.Falling From The Sky/2. Bullets& Rocks/3. When The Angels Played/4. Tapping On The Line/5. Cumbia de Donde/6. Miles From The Sea/7. Coyocan/8.Beneath The City Of Dreams/9. Woodshed Waltz/ 10.Moon Never Rises/ 11.World Undone/12. Follow The River

Release Date: 13 April 2015, City Slang

COVEREXACTYX;1418996061069323;Calexico1418996061069323.jpg;220;220 “The ‘edge of the sun’ could be coming from the direction of darkness seeking light, or riding the line between both…All in all, this album is about pushing through the blue to brighter days. Calexico has always had that element of hope, going back and forth between a positive outlook and embracing desperate or dark themes that I think we all share.” (Joey Burns)

Calexico a.k.a Joey Burns and John Convertino released their first studio album in the 90s where rock and metal music styles were the dominating music trends. Calexico were ‘looking’ for influences towards Latin America, with a creative mind and an open heart. Ever since their first studio album ‘Spoke’ the band had a very clear idea about which would be the reference points of their sound; namely almost every aspect of the music of the American south with a focus on the derivatives and fusions of the music and dance rhythms of Latin America. Western movies and their music has also been a very powerful influence for the band and in almost every release we have identified elements that take our minds to the music of Ennio Morricone and to music for westerns in general.

 

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