Neon Pill is the highly anticipated new album from Cage The Elephant, and group’s first new music since their album, Social Cues, which won Best Rock album at the 2019 GRAMMY Awards. Cage The Elephant consists of brothers Matt Shultz (vocals) and Brad Shultz (rhythm guitar) along with Daniel Tichenor (bass), Jared Champion (drums), Nick Bockrath (lead guitar) and Matthan Minster (guitar, keyboards, backing vocals).

Death Pill, are an all-female hardcore punk power trio of considerable muscle, combining metalcore, punk rock and (like labelmates ‘Shooting Daggers’) oodles of ‘Riot Grrl’ vibe. It’s significant how many female punk bands are using the stance and attitude of the ‘Riot Grrl’ movement as a touchstone for what they are about, but it doesn’t end there. From the classic punk of Black Flag, The Distillers and Circle Jerks, to modern outfits like Axe Rash and the thrash metal of Nervosa and Exodus, there’s a nod to all of this in Death Pill’s visceral sound. Full on and fully formed on their self-titled debut album. That aside, what makes this release even more pertinent for us, and the fact that it is happening at all, is that Mariana, Anastasiya and Nataliya are from the Ukraine, who’s troubles are well known to all of course, but naturally enough have hit the band very hard. Singer/guitarist Mariana tells the story so far. Just imagine: You are a 20-year-old girl. Society constantly puts pressure on you: you should find a nice husband, have children and at the same time build a successful career. But no one asks what do you really want? What are exactly your interests and ambitions? Because maybe you want to be a punk rock star? Yes, I do and even against it all. I can create a female non-commercial band, play heavy high-quality music, and ignite the crowd. After all, rock is not only about brutal men with curly long hair, right? Nafa (Anastasiya), the drummer, also got sick of this idea. Together we created an all-female punk rock band Death Pill (2017), just like we wanted to! There is a strong and super friendly community of people in Ukraine. It's a big family of true music lovers, people who live by creating the Ukrainian underground scene. This is also how we met Nataliia our bass player. After our first practice with her, we realized that this is a real perfect match. In February fucking Russia started a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. It really changed our plans, dreams, and attitude. Some do it with weapons in their hands, some volunteer and help in any way they can to bring our victory closer. Hard times, but right now we have a real chance to change lives for the better. Victory will be ours; we are sure of it We couldn’t have put it any better. So there is hope for sure, and as this album amply demonstrates, plenty of fighting spirit. It’s a killer debut. However, producing a ‘killer record’ under such extraordinary circumstances was a challenge too. Tracking started during Covid and was completed in late 2021, only three tracks were mixed before the war hit. However the band and their production team were able to somehow continue and finished everything including the artwork in 5 months whilst the Russian invasion rolled on. A testament to their drive and single mindedness. The musicianship and commitment on display is undeniable, plus the tracks on the album have been totally remastered for this release, sounding as fat and full as a raging whirlwind. Although things are uncertain, the band are still strong and still together.

TRACK LISTING

Side 1
1. Dirty Rotten Youth
2. Miss Revolt
3. Die For Vietnam
4. Друг
5. It's A Joke
Side 2
1. Go Your Way
2. Kill The Traitors
3. Расцарапаю Ебало
4. Would You Marry Me

Soft Hell, Pill’s second full-length album, is a raucous, splintering dispatch from New York City, animated by the madcap ingenuity of a foursome finding a palpable sense of joy and play in expressions of caustic, black humour. Like the contradiction of the album title, which references our acceptance of everyday miseries, it’s a slew of dichotomies, a frenzied cutup. It’s bleeding saxophone and lustrous feedback sounding somehow pastoral, and winking hooks subtly infused with venom. Pill’s lyrics are severe and funny, cryptic and straightforward, but never didactic. They reliably interrogate power. Vocalist and bassist Veronica Torres, a poet and visual artist, has cited as influences J .P. 'The Big Bopper' Richardson and Ian Svenonius, apt references for her wildly expressive range. Atop the clattering rush of opener “A.I.Y.M.” she uses an ambiguous narrator to complicate gendered stereotypes, while “Fruit,” a coolly pulsing vamp, explores the paralysis of political anxiety. “What am I allowed to create or destroy?” she asks in “Power Abuser,” highlighting the inanity of needing to ask for permission. Pill resent complacency, whether in political or creative senses. “For me this band’s about being provocative with sound,” said saxophonist Benjamin Jaffe. Drummer Andrew Spaulding said the album title, Soft Hell, critiques the “work-to-play” cliché of New York life, with its breakneck, competitive pursuit of comfort. Torres added that it evokes sexual bondage, describing Soft Hell as a reference to the cyclical monotony of humans harming one another.

TRACK LISTING

1.Softer Side
2.A.I.Y.M?
3. Double Think
4. Dark Glass
5.Midtown
6.Fruit
7.Plastic
8.HaHa
9. Sin Compromiso
10. Power Abuser
11.Soft Hell
12. OK

RIYL: The Slits, Suburban Lawns, DNA, Theoretical Girls, Lydia Lunch.

Out now for the first time on vinyl! The world first heard Pill on their self-titled cassette release on Dull Tools. And the world took note. Evan Minsker, writing for Pitchfork, says “they are loose with form, they pack in a lot of ideas, and they successfully deliver an emotionally complex narrative where joy is accompanied by an impossible-to-ignore undercurrent of danger. The band's debut outing is enigmatic—a Dull Tools record through and through—but it's also well crafted, full of stellar performances and unflinching lyrics.”

The band then signed to Mexican Summer, releasing their debut LP. Shortly after, prolific in a way that has become a hall- mark of Dull Tools artists, they release another cassette, 2017’s “Agressive Advertising”. If one thought the self-titled cassette couldn’t get more acerbic and confrontational, Agresstive Advertis- ing proved them wrong.

Now both releases are available on one LP. This LP is an important document of New York City’s DIY scene and one of the best bands to emerge from it. Pill are an ever present force in NYC’s scene. Playing small clubs like Baby’s All Right, DIY spaces like Silent Barn and even the Museum of Modern Art. When the art and culture of New York is examined in, much in the way we examine culture from the past, you can bet that Pill will be a shining example of this moment in time.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
1. TV Wedding
2. Hotline
3. Misty-Eyed Porno Reader
4. Personality Flaw
5. Psychic Nipple

Side B
1. AA1, AA2
2. Emphathizer (Rat In The Box)
3. Afraid Of The Mirror
4. Side Eye
5. Piña Queen

Dan Haywood is a Black Country wordsmith and itinerant ornithologist whose most recent albums 'Dapple' (2013) and 'Dan Haywood's New Hawks' (2010) and 'New Hawks: Field Notes' (2012) ventured way out into the unexplored outdoors.

Sunstone is proud to present his garage rock project PILL FANGS which meets us in the white-hot interior of a jangling nerve, deep inside your central nervous system.

Derivative of 60s and 70s NY groups, Pill Fangs' LP is full of the species of wild VU / Voivoidal electric guitar breaks that only a high dose of amphetamine agitation can bring out.

The foursome-- Dan, Richard Turner (of Three Dimensional Tanx), Rob Daniels & Simon Fletcher form a gleefully hi-gain and confrontational live act-- and their album, single-mindedly recorded in mono, builds on this playful no-compromise premise.

TRACK LISTING

1 Bison Grass 1:35
2 Friends In High Places 2:09
3 St. Français 1:44
4 Cruel To Be Kind 2:19
5 Surface 8:07
6 Mary Rose 2:55
7 I Turned A Corner 4:07
8 Material Girl 2:24
9 AX & Luggage 4:13
10 Tower Of Song Written By – L. Cohen 3:33
11 Year Of The Hole: Exodus (Part 1) 4:21
12 Year Of The Hole: Exodus (Part 2) 2:42

Convenience skids like a garbage truck with no brakes, barreling through passages of guitar chording bent at the wrong angles and ring-modded riffs aligning with Benjamin Jaffe’s expressive sax before splitting apart into chaos. Veronica Torres assumes double-duty between vocals and bass, while Jon Campolo plays three instruments in the live setting and Andrew Spaulding four, including circuit-bent noise rigs of their own invention. Veronica’s words are delivered with the speed and frenzy of someone with their life on the line, but she’s also able to slow things down in a gesture of dominance, confidence, and trust. This band is wise enough to know that safety is fleeting, so they take their digs when and where they can.

Given Pill's backgrounds, their music advances a notion of what the punk spirit of NYC might be: the capture and distillation of the energy and friction that comes from living amongst so many people in such a confined space. The idea seeds in free jazz and improvisation; reached adolescence in galleries and loft spaces in the ‘70s; found politics in squats and independent spaces; and it grows stronger the more these several sensibilities are practiced ands stewed. Call them No wave, post-punk, noise; they are immune, content to head off in a direction of their own design.

TRACK LISTING

1. 60 Sec.
2. Which Is True?
3. My Rights
4. Fetish Queen
5. Dead Boys
6. J-E-N-O-V-A
7. 100% Cute
8. Sex With Santa
9. Speaking Up
10. Vagabond
11. Love & Other Liquids
12. Medicine