Looming above Hastings on the South Coast of the UK, carved into East Hill, three black shapes are visible from a distance. Mysterious and ominous, they assume the aspect of the entrance to a church or a portal to dimensions unknown. Closer inspection however reveals them to be no more than mere follies carved and painted into the rock, as hoaxster John Coussens sought to convince visitors that an elaborate subterranean kingdom lurked within. Centuries later, this coastal town remains a place that serves as a magnet to the wyrd and the mischievous. And it’s here that the meeting of minds took place that led to 'Folly' - the second release for Rocket’s Black Hole series - an imprint focused on the unorthodox, otherworldly and esoteric. The journey that led to ‘Folly’ began in the dingy cellar of a wine bar in the town. Black Arches formed around a regular local experimental night in such environs aptly named Weird Shit, initially as a freeform musical outlet for author and musician Gareth E. Rees’ later incorporating Matt Frost from his garage rock troupe The Dirty Contacts, and frequent collaborator James Weaver, to form a vehicle for wild experimentation and psychic abandon. Given he was also a regular attendee, it was no surprise when Sexton Ming, arch maverick outsider artist and uncompromising iconoclast of over four decades standing, entered the picture. Soon after a perplexing but serendipitous chain of events took place, with demons conjured up via improvised sessions, poetic licence taken, dystopias chronicled, audio files gone awry, vocals overdubbed and laptops lost, Somehow amidst the sturm-und-drang ‘Folly’ was summoned in all its murky glory. As we embark on the second quarter of an uncertain century, just maybe this psychic travelogue is a dark prism to make sense of the chaos we confront. Whichever, it remains a spectacle as compelling as that by which Black Arches were named.

TRACK LISTING

1. Salty Sultan
2. Tepritures High
3. This Is What Admin Does To You
4. Pylon Love
5. Jerrybagging
6. Bin Day
7. The Sailor’s Daughter

Playing their first gig supporting Goat at what was only the latter’s second ever show, the band have gigged relentlessly with kindred spirits including The Cosmic Dead and Luminous Bodies, not to mention gracing festivals like Supernormal and Portugal’s Reverence with their feral attack. Yet the time has come for this band to transcend the realm of word-of-mouth phenomenon and be judged on their feverish and demented collision of psych-drone dementia and riff-driven salvation alone.

The inarguable proof is Feed The Rats, the overwhelming first album the band have created for - equal parts righteous repetition, bludgeoning brute force and Sabbathian squalor, its alchemical charge has the power to transform bleary-eyed abandon into small-hours revelation. This three-track, forty-minute monument of chaotic catharsis captures the everythingon-eleven spirit of the band’s live manifestation whilst adding a level of finesse and texture often less easily accessible in a dangerous haze of flying hair, discarded clothes and spilt premium lager. Channeling the grimy trip hazards of Monster Magnet’s ‘Spine Of God’ through a prism of kraut-derived repetition and Part Chimp style bloody mindedness, the resulting hallucinatory vortex appears constantly on the realm of breaking point. Yet for Baty, the porcine realm is less about a nihilistic quest for fiery oblivion than one might imagine.

“You know, I think we’ve experienced it, many times. It’s those gigs where we can almost sense that everyone in the room is engaged. The energy created is so thick you can almost bite down on it and it feels like there’s no longer any barrier between band and audience. Those are the special shows, where there’s a solidarity and a very visceral bond. That, and being able to smell our amps melting”. Amps and brains alike, as these psychic omnivores bring seven times the joy, seven times the pain, seven times the dementia and deliverance. 

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Sludgy, psychedelic walls of throbbing guitar riffs and shouted vocals, a build up of drone before breaking into a Sabbathesque single note riff, as heavy as it is isolated before being ceremonoiusly descended upon by all manner of mayhem. Heavy, sludgy indie psych madness. Brilliant.

TRACK LISTING

1. Psychopomp
2. Sweet Relief
3. Icon

If one overarching feeling has dominated the last two years on this orbiting rock, it’s uncertainty. A sense of an old order in ruins, and nothing lined up to replace it. With societal strife, psychic warfare and sheer boredom assaulting us from all fronts in this still-fresh decade, co-ordinates have been hard to place forging a path forward. Therefore, who better to turn to as a soundtrack for this tumultuous new era than Gnod - longtime chroniclers of discord.

“The Death Of Meaning” is the translated rendering of the new Gnod album’s title, and this also reflects its creation. As Paddy Shine of Gnod notes: “I think the title sums it up well because this album was coming together at a time when confusion was king for us all - still is. I think we can all relate to that. This record is a really strange beast because of the big change that happened between mixing and recording. I think the title really does sum up the vibe of ‘What the Fuck’? Maybe we should have called it that!”

Wielding the taut, stripped-down and bludgeoning sound that had evolved on 2017’s ‘Just Say No The Psycho Right-Wing Capitalist Fascist Industrial Death Machine’ and 2018’s Chapel Perilous, Gnod initially recorded the tracks for ‘La Mort Du Sens’ with key soundman and collaborator Raikes Parade in ‘an old mill in Manchester’ around the Christmas period of 2019. “It’s the first album in a while where we kept it in-house and DIY, and we wanted it to be as ferocious as our live sets have become” says Paddy, “We banged it all down live - two drummers and a load of cabs in a room pushing each other forward”

Nonetheless, the arrival of the pandemic in early 2020 took the record on another course, adding to a turbulent and cathartic vitality that electrifies the likes of the caustic Melvins-in-hell assault of ‘Pink Champagne Blues’, the uncompromising percussive battering ram of the twelve-minute ‘Giro Day’ and the post-punk angularity of ‘The Whip And The Tongue’ with a fearsome elemental charge. “The world changed two months later so we were mixing this old world record in the new world and a lot of the vox got laid down during lockdown” reflects Paddy. “‘Pink Champagne Blues’ is a burst of total nihilist abandon and the lyrics wrote themselves in the midst of a dark wintry night of the soul”

Masters of an approach which manages to be both unmistakable and unpredictable. Gnod are now well established as prophets of the dispossessed. ‘La Mort Du Sens’ is no less than another relentlessly invigorating stop-off on their wild ride to who knows where. “It’s all about the energy” reckons Paddy. “We never really know what’s coming next. It just organically shifts around, and I think we are getting better at not analysing where it’s going and just going with the flow”

“Got No Obvious Destination, innit”.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: One of the most unstoppable forces in music is back with the incendiary genius of 'La Mort..' Unsurprisingly, utterly essential.

TRACK LISTING

01. Regimental
02. Pink Champagne Blues
03. The Whip And The Tongue
04. Town
05. Giro Day

Since their foundation in 2014, this malevolent rogues gallery of luminaries of the UK underground have consistently proven to be capable of projecting vibrations that transcend and usurp any idea of the sum of their component parts. It is true that they’ve clocked up notable experience sparking tinnitus with everyone from Mugstar and Bonnacons Of Doom (bassist Jason Stoll) to Dethscalator (vocalist Dan Chandler and drummer Stuart Bell) and from Earth (guitarist Jodie Cox, who also introduced keyboard player Ollie Knowles to the melee) to a dizzying variety of endeavours from the paint-stripping skronk of Dead Neanderthals to the righteous ire of Idles (all via saxophonist Colin Webster). Yet Sex Swing represents less a group of disparate musicians pooling their resources, and more a peculiar spark of collective chemistry, with all forces gravitating towards the pursuit of the same dissolute and mysterious goal.

‘Type II ’ is that goal reached in effortless style and amplified to intimidating aural vistas. This mighty monument of swagger and malice also sees fit to add a certain amount of glitter to the trademark grit this time around. Just as the artwork from long-term collaborator Alex Bunn boasts a luminous sheen absent from the unsettling abjection of the sleeve of their 2016 debut, so the rolling grooves and mantric hypnosis here boast a new-found structure and a feline sleekness fresh and unusual for this pugilistic outfit. Nonetheless, this remains a band fundamentally obsessed with the expression of decadence and wrongdoing through the mediums of repetition and overloaded frequencies.‘

Type II ’ is more than the mere machinations of a rock band - it’s a howl of malfunction rendered terrifyingly visceral. It’s the lightning flash and unearthly roar of the primeval battle between Godzilla and Mechagodzilla that provokes awe and disquiet in the realm of fantasy, It’s the haunted clangour of the faullty air conditioning unit that lurks in the anonymous office building yet lends it eerie ambience. It’s man vs machine where discord becomes harmony, and it’s a fearsomely invigorating spectacle to behold.

TRACK LISTING

01. The Passover
02. Skimmington Ride
03. Valentine’s Day At The Gym
04. Betting Shop
05. Need Battery
06. La Riconada
07. Garden Of Eden / 2000 AD