The Greatest Love follows the British trio’s critically acclaimed #1 selling album Californian Soil, which was released in 2021 and earned the band their second BRIT nomination for Best British Group. Arriving over a decade since the trio first entered our consciousness, the new album is a celebration; the sound of a band laying to rest the past and realising a newfound sense of freedom.

First single House embodies London Grammar’s new trajectory as frontwoman Hannah Reid delivers the uncompromising lyric: This is my place, my house, my rules. Speaking about the single Hannah said, “House is about drawing boundaries around yourself. When I hit my thirties, my mindset shifted, and I no longer felt like a victim of anything – it all felt within my power. I thought, making music should be fun, and we're gonna make that happen.”

Having first formed as teenagers at University, their seminal double-platinum selling debut If You Wait paved the way for what was to become a hugely successful career for the band, the rare longevity of which has firmly rooted London Grammar in British pop culture. Now over 10 years later, the band have sold more than 3 million albums world-wide, with two #1 selling records, 1 billion streams, an Ivor Novello and numerous BRIT Award nominations under their belts.

THIS IS A RECORD STORE DAY 2024 EXCLUSIVE AND WILL BE AVAILABLE INSTORE ON SATURDAY APRIL 20TH ON A FIRST COME FIRST SERVED BASIS, LIMITED TO ONE PER PERSON.

IF THERE ARE ANY REMAINING COPIES THEY WILL BE MADE AVAILABLE ONLINE AT 8PM ON MONDAY APRIL 22ND.

We are thrilled to say we're releasing a limited edition vinyl of our EP 'Heady Metal' with Record Store Day. We had a blast playing Rough Trade Nottingham on Record Store Day in 2023, and this year we have brand new artwork and a colourful vinyl to celebrate independently owned record stores! The existence of record stores is hugely important to artists and buying vinyl is one of the best things you can do to help the independent music industry stay strong, we have so much love for the Record Store Day tradition and we hope you love our alternate EP artwork as much as we do!

As part of our Suede30 campaign, alongside the newly-remastered editions of the #1 debut album, Demon Records release Suede’s first four singles as highly collectable 7” picture discs, reproducing the original arresting cover images on the discs.

The second release is another absolute classic, “Metal Mickey”, originally released on Nude Records on 14th September 1992, and to this day one of many highlights of a Suede concert. It reached number 17 in the UK charts, earning the band their first appearance on Top Of The Pops, and paving the way for the release of the band’s debut album.

B-side “Where The Pigs Don’t Fly” did not appear on the “Suede” album.

If you were smart enough to get your grubby paws on the first Scrap Metal compilation, you probably have a pretty good idea of what you’re in for with our second installment. Featuring long-lost gems from ultra-rare 45s and private press singles—plus one previously unreleased banger—Scrap Metal 2 maintains a steady NWOBHM course. Packed with infectious outliers and supremely talented one-and-done metal warriors from the crucial British movement of the late ’70s and early ’80s (and some killer American obscurities inspired by them), this collection delivers all the fist-pumping, riff-mongering and flashy solos of heavy metal’s golden age. As always, every track has been officially licensed and every artist gets paid.

TRACK LISTING

01. JJ’s Powerhouse – Running For The Line
02. Storm Queen – Raising The Roof
03. Jameson Raid – It’s A Crime
04. A.R.C. – Homemade Wine
05. Metropolis – The Raven
06. Prowler – Temporary Insanity
07. Christian Steel – Need Your Love
08. Black Rose – Sidewinder
09. Dark Age – Star Trippin’
10. Sorcery - Whales

By now you’re probably familiar with our wildly popular Brown Acid series of rare, lost and unreleased proto-metal and stoner rock singles from the 60s-70s. In the endless pursuit of those glorious gems, we often uncover equally brilliant rarities from the late-70s to late-80s Golden Age of Heavy Metal that also just must be heard, but they don’t fit the series’ aesthetic. Scrap Metal, Volume 1 collects some of the greatest unknown and lost Heavy Metal tracks, long buried beneath the avalanche of the era’s classic output.

We all know the old adage that history is told by the winners. But sometimes the losers tell the best stories. And while none of these bands found fame and fortune, this artifact and the volumes to come are testament to the enduring power of heavy music. You can hear the blood, sweat and beers that went into each of these singles. The recordings may be low budget, but the inspiration and talent is immutable. Not only are the amps turned up to 11, the boyish sexual innuendo is cranked to 69. You can hear the convergence of influences — NWOBHM, thrash, glam metal, doom, etc — colliding at once as the era birthed a wellspring of subgenres.

Many of these singles are self-released and were thus limited to a small run of copies. Those that remain are hoarded by collectors and sold for exorbitant amounts. We’ve collected the best of the best for you here. As with Brown Acid, all of these tracks are licensed legitimately and the artists all get paid. Because it’s the right thing to do.

TRACK LISTING

01. Rapid Tears “Headbang” 
02. Air Raid “69 In A 55” 
03. Hades “Girls Will Be Girls” 
04. Resless “The Power” 
05. Don Cappa “Steel City Metal” 
06. The Beast “Enemy Ace” 
07. Dead Silence “Can’t Stop” 
08. Hazardous Waste “Danger Zone” 
09. Czar “Iron Curtain” 
10. Real Steel “Viking Queen”

King Garbage, with their contemporary take on American Soul, return with a new album, ‘Heavy Metal Greasy Love’, released via Ipecac Recordings.

Long-time friends and GRAMMY Award-nominated producers Zach Cooper and Vic Dimotsis have quietly impacted pop, R&B and hiphop with production credits for everyone from The Weeknd and SZA to Ellie Goulding, Gallant and Billy Porter.

In 2021, Vic and Zach co-wrote ‘Sing’ for Jon Batiste’s ‘We Are’. It gathered eight GRAMMY Award nominations, including Album Of The Year. They also penned ‘Sweeter’ (featuring Terrace Martin) on Leon Bridges’ ‘Gold-Diggers Sound’, which notched a GRAMMY nod in the category of Best R&B Album.

It’s a taste of retro without being a reproduction. The music is crispy, searing, spacious, sandy and welded with perfect dimes at the seams.

Breaking from the ‘rough and ruddy’ vibe of their first record, ‘Make It Sweat’, King Garbage incorporated a rock ‘n’ roll spirit within this soul sphere. They teased the album with ‘Piper’ and ‘Peanut Butter Kisses’ before revealing the single ‘Busy On A Saturday Night’. On the track, vocals hum barely above a whisper as clean guitar wraps around horns before the high register hook takes hold. It ends on a crescendo straight out of a Sixties cop show.

Bass-y piano revs up ‘Monster Truck’, which Zach calls “somewhere between musical theater and classic rock.”

Meanwhile, ‘Checkmate’ moves ice cold vocals and boisterous horns across the board. Saxophone, flute, and clarinet soundtrack a ‘Fargolike tale’ on ‘Snow’, unfolding “like what a big band should play in a strip club.” In the end, ‘Heavy Metal Greasy Love’ is as smooth as King Garbage are.

For fans of The Black Pumas, Alabama Shakes, Daptone Records.

TRACK LISTING

Checkmate
Let Em Talk
I Miss Mistakes
Snow
Busy On A Saturday Night
Monster Truck
Never Die
Piper
Peanut Butter Kisses

Eve Adams offers solace within life's shadows. Un-numbing senses with anthems of surrender and tender-hearted tales that tingle with Californian folk-noir, her album Metal Bird takes flight with the turbulence and romance of Hollywood’s golden age, and meditates on the mysteries of love, death, insecurity and loneliness.

Like a match struck in a cobwebbed attic, Adams voice is a fiery detective, unafraid to explore the unseen; the liminal spaces between mourning and rapture, between the coldness of a corpse and the heat of cremation. Imagery of flight and the denial of gravity floats slyly through the ten songs on Metal Bird by the California-born musician and hints at the experience of being caught in purgatory, like a passenger on a plane ride from Hell to Heaven.

Combining airy folk with haunting soundscapes the album takes listeners on an auditory voyage from sonorous lullabies, to dreamy ambience, skeletal jazz, 1930s torch songs and 1940s film noir. Metal Bird has a distinct, genuine tone, with orchestral arrangements, ambient hallucinations and high fidelity vocals that are unafraid to be heard loud and clear.

For those who are hopelessly enamoured with a by-gone time, there is solace in these songs and sounds. Flickering back and forth between dread and hope, the unrelenting march towards a spiritual transformation and the realization that each of us are driven by our own dreams and as much as we want to hold it in our hands, often it is intangible. The sublime remains elusive, existing somewhere in the heart, and it sounds like Eve Adams knows this best.

Metal Bird gets a release on Basin Rock, the Todmorden based record label who gave lift off to Julie Byrne, Aoife Nessa Frances, Nadia Reid and Johanna Samuels. 

"Metal Bird feels blissfully unmoored from any sense of time and space, its astral Americana hymns hovering somewhere between the dirt and the stars, between a bygone golden age and our tense present, between raw intimacy and dreamlike splendour." Pitchfork.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: What an absolutely enthralling selection this is, landing somewhere between gothic country music, 40's lounge and wistful folk, deftly flowing between influences without batting an eyelid. Wonderfully written, mournful pop songs that defy all expectation.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
1. Blues Look The Same
2. You're Not Wrong
3. Butterflies
4. A Walk In The Park
5. Metal Bird
Side B
6. The Dying Light
7. Woman On Your Mind
8. La Ronde
9. Prisoner
10. My Only Dream

I was tardy with my introduction to the genius that is Dean Blunt, ignoring the Hype Williams and Babyfather brilliance and only encountering the minimal magic of the first 'Black Metal' during my second year at Piccadilly. Shown the way by Ryan Horsebeach, Mike Riley Jones and Matt Ward, I bought the cryptic release and well and truly lost my shit...over and over again...for years. To say I'm excited by the appearance of a second instalment from the reclusive musician would be a wild understatement. 

The LP opens with strings and solemnity via 'Vigil', a sparse and beautiful reminder of Blunt's trademark sound - intimacy bordering on claustrophobia, nocturnal and emotive. The chiming guitars join the poised drum patterns for 'Mugu' and 'Dash Snow', a pair of bedsit vignettes which Javi just described as a London cabbie's reaction to Drill while Vini Reilly tunes up - this is a good thing by the way. Blunt's is a music of longing, vulnerability and beauty, presented as concise and considered songs which combine to form their own sonic landscape. Referential (the cover blacks out all everything from Dre's 2001 but the 2) but never reverential, Blunt, aided and abetted by Joanne Robertson somehow beats his personal best, and we should all be grateful we get to hear it.

TRACK LISTING

1. Vigil
2. Mugu
3. Dash Snow
4. Sketamine
5. Semtex
6. La Raza
7. Nil By Mouth
8. Zaza
9. Woosah
10. The Rot

New York’s WHITE HILLS are the opposite of a comet. They suck up an explosion of energy on the surface of the earth; from spirituality, from adrenaline, from the history of synthesized electronic music, from substance use, from philosophy, from friends and enemies alike, from MOTHER FUCKING ELECTRICITY and they focus it into a blinding beam of energy which they reflect back out into the void and this beam is a message. It is a statement which reads: “FUCK YOU. WE ARE HERE. WE ROCK, THEREFORE WE ARE.” -John Doran, The Quietus. October 2020 brings the release of Splintered Metal Sky, the long-awaited new installment in the ever vast musical cannon of WHITE HILLS. The album takes the listener on a post-punk, psychedelic ride fueled by industrial-strength fuzz and propelled by powerful beats where songs weave in and out of each other to imitate the rhythm of the city the band calls home. Splintered Metal Sky is about oscillation and evolution. It’s metamodern music looking at human existence in relation to technology and the hyper-driven architectural reshaping of a city. The music was largely inspired by the drone and roar of machinery pulsing through New York City, which is in a never-ending state of demolition and reconstruction. Dave and Ego took to the streets, gathering field recordings of sounds from the subway, drills, jackhammers, people in parks, traffic, mayhem and the occasional silence.

These recordings were then manipulated and constructed into rhythmic lines that were used as the basis for songs. The music, mixing noise with disciplined beat, embodies the paradoxical nature of the city: the grimy littered dead end alley just steps away from the sleek luxury skyscraper; the half eaten chicken bone being devoured by a rat on the subway tracks just beneath the glittering facade of the Chrysler building; the endless milling about of the 8 million people who call this slab of land home on their way to and from everywhere and nowhere. Informed by industrial innovators Einstürzende Neubauten and SPK, the avant garde post-punk of Tuxedomoon and the dub-electro of Cabaret Voltaire, the album vibrates with the energy of a sensually feral, raw beast.

TRACK LISTING

1/Midday Memory
2/Now Manhattan
3/a:CoNSTRUCT, B:CoNSTRUCT C:CoNSTRUCT (features Synth And Samples By Jim Coleman And Ambient Guitar By Jim Jarmusch)
4/Digital Trash
5/No Fear
6/Honesty
7/Rats
8/Morning Memory 9/Illusion 

Metal Mirror - ”English Booze”45 rpm single from 1980 reissued for the first time ever!! Metal Mirror came from the Midlands and their lone single originally released in '80 is a loud and heavy ode to english booze that will leave you headbanging and craving for more... Pour another pint or two of luke warm ale or stout and flip the single over for the insanely rough and previously never before reissued ”Rock’n’Roll Ain’t Never Gonna Leave You” and you’ll be in DIY-metal-punk-pub-heaven.

The original artwork from 1980 is reproduced and the sound is carefully remastered.

File under: ”beyond essential listening for any rock’n’roll fan”.

Continuing one of the main currents of the Sunn O))) concept, depth of exploration within collaboration, brought forth Hildur Guðnadóttir to the Sunn O))) constellation. Hildur is a sometime live collaborator of Sunn O))) and a renowned film music composer, former member of the bands Múm, Pan Sonic and Angel. She was a long time collaborator with the composer Jóhann Jóhannsson (RIP). Hildur lent her incredible attitude, as well as her voice, breath and electric cello, and the enigmatic haldorophone to the proceedings, culminating in the epic composition/concerto "Novæ". The cosmos clearly expands.

At the very beginning of 2018 Sunn O))) co-founders Stephen O'Malley & Greg Anderson set out on a path toward a new album production. They were both determined to create new music and a new method of working in the studio, without forgetting the long and proud history of production and studio accomplishments forged during their first two decades of existence (and the members' own musical experiences out of the band's). One long term goal was completely clear: to record Sunn O))) with Steve Albini in his Electrical Audio studio. Steve took the call, said "Sure, this will be fun. I have no idea what is going to happen."

Greg and Stephen gathered twice that spring for writing, conceptualising and riff woodshedding in the very building where the band was formed: Downtown Rehearsal in Los Angeles. Sonic cosmoses, flashes of abstract colour (synthetic and objective) and themes emerged from the mastered depths of saturation and circuits between the two players and their mountains of gear. Themes developed in terms of brightness and energy, while visionary cues pointed toward subconscious areas of practice and the pair realised they were exploring other zones of consciousness via sound/time and sound/energy manipulation. In early summer a pre-production session with full backline, as a trio with T.O.S. on Moog, was recorded at Dave Grohl’s 606 studios, Northridge, California.

In July 2018 Sunn O))) spent just over two weeks in Chicago at Electrical Audio (Studio A) with Steve Albini at the helm. The results are astounding: there is breadth and luminosity of colour, it sounds vast. The sessions were impeccably recorded, authentically represented and completely accurate. The spectrum cracked the firmament open in clarity. An all analogue technique was used, they recorded and mixed on tape, providing a creative gateway for Sunn O))) to evolve their production methods into stronger, confident, performance based and a more logical executive process. The album was mastered and lacquers cut from tape in October by Sunn O))) ally Matt Colton at Alchemy in London. The LP version is a AAA album, recorded and mixed on tape via a completely analogue production, from the input of the band's amplifiers and the air coming off the speakers in front of the microphones to the needle touching the pressed vinyl on your turntable.

Tim Midyett, a close friend of Greg and Stephen since the Seattle days of the early 90s (and member of Silkworm, Bottomless Pit and Mint Mile), joined in a foundational role tying earth to sound with wicked performances on aluminium neck bass and baritone guitars: instruments he helped pioneer playing back in the 90s (alongside Steve and Shellac of course). Dark matter is reality.

Prolific new music composer Anthony Pateras arranged and recorded an incredible contribution of pipe organ for a piece titled "Troubled Air" (titled after an essay by author Aliza Shvarts, who also penned the liner notes for Sunn O)))’s Kannon) at Schlosskappelle, Schloss Solitude, Stuttgart. String theory of space.

The resulting album is titled Life Metal. It is fully realised and completely real. The record was produced by the core of Stephen & Greg & arranged by the greater constellation Sunn O))). Paintings by visual artist Samantha Keely Smith graciously adorn the sleeve and provide a perfect suitable mask to the proceedings. They collide ideas of 19th century romanticism & late 20th abstract expressionism (mysticism) with Sunn O)))’s approach to metal (via reference points of Arbo, Turner, Delville, Richter, Turrel, Wou-Ki). Photographer Ronald Dick shot them in baths of light colour representing depth of sound pressure in the work.

There is a second more meditative LP titled Pyroclasts, also recorded by Steve Albini in parallel, and which will be revealed in the autumn 2019 (more later) with all music performed by Stephen, Greg, T.O.S., Tim Midyett, and Hildur Guðnadóttir. 

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: It's another amazing LP from Sunn here, enlisting the help of Múm's Hildur Gudnadottir on vocal duties to superb effect. Her music has always been beautiful in it's own regard (Múm being one of my absolute favourites) and it's lighter touch and orchestral delicacy adds beautifully to the famously all-encompassing drone of O'Malley and Anderson. Absolutely stunning.

TRACK LISTING

LP1
A) Between Sleipnirs Breaths (12.36)
B) Torubled Air (11.45)

LP2
A) Aurora (19.06)
B) Novæ (26.24)

* Officially sanctioned by original members Charles Bullen and Charles Hayward
* Remastered from the original analog tapes
* First time ever on vinyl

Formed in 1976 in Brixton, a multicultural, and – at the time – down-at-heel part of south London, This Heat were born into a music scene in rapid flux, first thanks to the punk explosion and then via new wave and its myriad offshoots into pop, rock and art-rock. But while many sought to apply punk attitude to chart-friendly sounds, This Heat were concocting some of the most experimental ideas ever committed to tape, taking influence from musique concrète, krautrock, the burgeoning industrial scene and even the dub reggae blasting out in their home borough.

Recorded from 1979 – 1980 Repeat / Metal is essentially This Heat’s third proper album, although it was released posthumously in 1993. Arguably their most radical work, Repeat / Metal features side-length tape experiments ranging from the dubby drum loops of “Repeat”, a 20 minute edit / reworking of their landmark piece “24 Track Loop”, to the gamelan-inspired sounds of “Metal”, an electro-acoustic work recorded outside of their studio, Cold Storage, and helmed by member Gareth Williams.

Following Modern Classics Recordings’ 2016 reissue campaign to mark the band’s 40th anniversary, these new releases Made Available, Repeat / Metal and Live 80 – 81 round out the story. Each release is sanctioned by surviving members Charles Bullen and Charles Hayward and features newly remastered audio sourced from original tapes.

TRACK LISTING

Repeat
Metal

Stella Donnelly quickly became one of Australia’s buzziest young singer-songwriters earlier this year with the release of her debut EP, Thrush Metal. Now release in the UK, it opens with the defiant, "Mechanical Bull" which is reminiscent of "Dry" era PJ Harvey. Next up is the stunning "Boys Will Be Boys". Atop delicate, singsongy acoustic fingerpicking, Donnelly confronts a man who raped her friend and takes to task the accompanying victim-blaming. “Why was she all alone? Wearing her shirt that low And they said boys will be boys Deaf to the word no,” she coos in the chorus, a slight vibrato flaring up at the corners of her lovely voice.
The stripped back melancholy of the following three tracks: "Mean To Me", "Grey" and "A Poem" show off her vocals in a slightly different light, and closing track "Talking", which is a new addition to the EP for this vinyl release, returns to the weightier content of the EPs start. 

TRACK LISTING

1. Mechanical Bull
2. Boys Will Be Boys
3. Mean To Me
4. Grey
5. A Poem
6. Talking

Rising from the wreckage of a war torn planet, Czarface joins forces with MF Doom in the epic "Czarface Meets Metal Face"! Blending Doom's trademark abstractions and Czarface's in-your-face lyrical attack, this album is ripe with cartoon violence, societal observations and pop culture musings. Over banging beats provided by The Czar-Keys, the armored team give you the witty unpredictable treats any hip-hop fan can sink their fangs into. Expect beats, rhymes, and metal as Czarface controlled by Wu-Tang Clan powerhouse Inspectah Deck and 7L & Esoteric team up with everyone's favorite villain, MF Doom.

With track titles like "Nautical Depth","Meddle With Metal", "Astral Traveling" to "Madness of Badness" this album packs a punch with 16 brand new tracks. Add that with features from Open Mike Eagle and Jedi Mind Tricks' Vinnie Paz, we promise you mind-bending metaphors and brain-melting beats as this powerful pairing sounds off in March 2018! Long time rumored full length collaboration album from Czarface and MF Doom, fan favorite "Ka-Bang" from Czarface's 2015 sophomore LP "Every Hero Needs A Villain" had fans begging for more. Cover Art by clothing brand Mishka's head designer Lamour Supreme. Album features Vinnie Paz of the legendary Jedi Mind Tricks, and Open Mike Eagle, who's most recent album "Brick Body Kids Still Daydream" was on Rolling Stone & Pitchforks top 50 albums of 2017 list. The albums lead video "Meddle With Metal" done by Animation Firm TFU Studios who have worked with MF Doom prior on the "All Caps" video as well as with Mayer Hawthorne, Biz Markie, Cut Chemist and more! 

TRACK LISTING

A1. Take Your Medicine
A2. Meddle With Metal
A3. Badness Of Madness
A4. Close Talker
A5. Forever People
A6. Captain Crunch
A7. Don't Spoil It
A8. Phantoms (Feat. Open Mike Eagle & Kendra Morris)
B1. Bomb Thrown
B2. You Masked For It
B3. Astral Traveling (Feat. Vinnie Paz)
B4. Nautical Depth
B5. Stun Gun
B6. Mf Czar
B7. Captain Brunch
B8. Sleeping Dogs

Trevor Jackson (Playgroup / Underdog / Output Recordings) returns with the eagerly awaited second instalment of his 'Metal Dance' compilation series, following widespread critical acclaim in the wake of 'Volume 1'. Drawing from Jackson’s deep collection of original industrial, post-punk, EBM and new wave, the album is an inspired mix of sounds and styles, mining classics, dub versions, oddities and secret weapons inspired by his formative clubbing years at many of London's seminal nightlife haunts.

Alongside more familiar names like Visage, Chris & Cosey, Front 242 and Ministry, the compilation includes unexpected outings by 80s artists Godley & Crème (with the obscure B-side "Babies") and an early incarnation of Sheffield’s ABC, Visa Versa, with "Riot Squad". As before, Jackson also places the spotlight onsome of the less heralded bands of the time and casts the net far and wide: Germany’s Plus Instruments, Spain’s Diseno Corbusier offshoot Esplendor Geometrico, Italy’s Neon and Yellow Magic Orchestra’s Haruomi Hosono out of Japan all feature. The selection even travels as far as Lebanon for the outrageous "Tanki Tanki" by Rene Bandaly Family, a truly one-off slice of intense political Arabic proto-techno (here re-edited by fellow Lebanese artist Rabih Beaini aka Morphosis). Rarities include tracks from pre-Liaisons Dangereuses / DAF group CHBB, Craig Leon & Arthur Brown, and Trevor's own re-edit of Rusty Egan’s "Twilight Zone," all receiving their first official release on CD.

'Metal Dance 2' is another essential selection of anarchic machine music which remains hugely influential on today’s generation, informing the sound of groups and labels such as The Knife, Factory Floor, Gesaffelstein, COMEME, DFA and L.I.E.S.

STAFF COMMENTS

Patrick says: Mega selection of synthwave bangers, Industrial rumblers and skewed EDM cuts plucked from the archives by Trevor Jackson. If you're tuned into the likes of Bahnsteig 23, LIES and Macadam Mambo, you need to cop this disc.

TRACK LISTING

A1. Logic System - Unit
A2. Psyche - The Saint Became A Lush
A3. Skinny Puppy - Dead Lines (400 Blows Remix)
B1. Visage - Der Amboss (Extended Version)
B2. Rusty Egan - The Twilight Zone (Trevor Jackson Edit)
B3. Rene Bandaly Family - Tanki Tanki (Rabih Beaini Edit)
C1. Ministry - Over The Shoulder (12" Version)
C2. Mile High Club - Walking Backwards
C3. CHBB - Ima Iki-Mashoo
C4. Esplendor Geométrico - Necrosis En La Poya
D1. Vice Versa - Riot Squad
D2. Crash Course In Science - Jump Over Barrels
D3. Haruomi Hosono - Platonic
D4. Godley & Creme - Babies
D5. Front 242 - Body 2 Body (2 Trax)

'Swoop Swoop (aka Streaky Jake) sounds like he fell down a deep old well, and couldn't get out. At the bottom, he had a lot of time to think about life and people and how irrational they can be. He cried out for help, over and over, but no one heard him. So he just started singing. While others have compared him to The Soledad Brothers, Devendra Banhart and Mazzy Star, his weightless sound reminded me of fellow welldwelling contemporaries, Zach Rogue and Damien Jurado. Incorporating a gritty lo-fi 60s sound, his songs would have also slotted in nicely somewhere on The Forest Gump Soundtrack, maybe for that classic shot of Jenny out the bus window.'

Born in a basement, based in London, the first outing of Pre had the entire audience locked outside, watching through barred windows from above. To the assemblage up top, it was clear that these five noise sprinkled nu-wavers had already figured it out - sound moves quicker in high pressure. And now, weighing 14 songs, "Epic Fits" is born. Recorded in a chilly pizza storage unit with Westminster Brown at the controls, Pre's full length is cold sweat caught on two inch tape. Guitar, bass, bass, drum and moon shriek: Pre make the noise jump. Pre are a band people are talking about - fronted by Comanechi's vocalist, they were asked to appear on Rough Trade's "Counter Culture" compilation CD and made waves on a sold out tour with the Gossip.

Live favourite, New Young Pony Club anthem and Intel advert soundtrack "Ice Cream", gets re-released! The track is a sparsely minimal punk funk jerkout that sounds like a distaff version excursion on disco-era Rolling Stones fronted by the Slits' Ari Up and produced by David Byrne and Brian Eno. This CD single also includes and extended version plus video, AND remixes by Herve and Metal On Metal, both more for peak-time club play.

In the United States As I Lay Dying are already one of the biggest exponents of the metalcore / new wave of American heavy metal genre next to Killswitch Engage. In order to bridge the gap to their next studio album and as a gift to their loyal fans, the band have re-released their early recordings on an album titled "A Long March - The First Recordings". Included are all the tracks from their debut "Beneath The Encasing Of Ashes", as well as the songs from their split CD with American Tragedy, both originally released in 2001.

Vicious, complex hardcore / grind / mathcore apocalypse of sound. A densely structured maelstrom tightly bound by precise hammer blows and coloured by searing guitars and dark exorcistvocals. Like opening the door on a blast furnace.

"The Oncoming Storm", Unearth's third album and Metal Blade debut is probably their best to date, some achievement following on as it does from the critically acclaimed "Stings Of Conscience" and "Endless" LPs. This release should definitely cement their position as nu-metal/hardcore innovators, a reputation that has earned them tour slots with In Flames, Hatebreed, Lamb Of God, Killswitch Engage, Soilwork and Chimera. Vocalist Trevor Phipps gives his most powerful performance, alternating hardcore razored throat rage with a cleaner vocal style; all beautifully set against a burning double seven string guitar assault and bruising double bass, fuelling crushing breakdowns. Gorgeous, apocalyptic and articulate.

Hapshash & The Coloured Coat released this debut in 1968 and it's something of an electric mayhem and freeform psychedelic freakout. Art designers Michael English and Nigel Weymouth, whose striking graphics were seen on many bright and trippy posters for psychedelic clubs like the UFO and Middle Earth in London, were the creative talent behind this band along with DJ and manager Guy Stevens. They incorporated flower power, love, peace and acid into a psychedelic rock lifestyle. Could only have been recorded and released in the late 60s.