The contenders for the Getintothis end of year round up keep on comin…
Sweet Billy Pilgrim: Twice Born Men – Album of the Week
Samadhisound/EMI
As eluded to recently, you can only laugh at the mockery of this year’s Mercury decision.
And that was before these ears had got involved on Twice Born Men – how did this not win? How?
Suddenly those ‘token’ folkie outsiders were Grade A champs sporting Mogwai-sized panoramics imbued with Guy Garvey‘s lyrical sensitivity penned to the tune of a thousand heartbreaks. HOW DID THIS NOT WIN?
Oh, I know – the head of Global Radio, Mark Findlay and Top Gear Magazine ed Conor McNicholas were on the judging panel. No really. Shitting hell.
8/10
For fans of: Dominoes down the local, beach houses, horrifically scary scarecrows.
http://www.myspace.com/sweetbillypilgrim
Eagle Twin: The Unkindness of Crows
Southern Lord
Gentry Densley‘s name may mean little, but he’s the chief doomhead behind Iceburn – a bleak Salt Lake outfit which inspired the likes of Sunn O))) and Earth to propel a whole ocean of drone into the mainstream.
Eagle Twin‘s his new baby – the kind of baby which vomits black hardcore dissonance, shouts ‘There will be blood,’ like he’s got crimson dripping from his nostrils and no matter which stereo you’re using feels like the cymbal crashes are splintering every tooth inside your mouth. This is intensely heavy music and boy, is it good.
8/10
For fans of: The Melvins, repetition, petting farms.
http://www.myspace.com/eagletwin
Annie: Don’t Stop
Smalltown Supersound
Wonder if Cheryl’s heard track two on Annie’s latest effortless burst of loin devouring precision sexpop.
If she has she’ll be racing back behind that tin-foil constructed safety bunker next to ol’ high slacks.
***INTERVAL*** Today’s teaser: Do Simon Cowell and Mark Lawrenson share the same hairdresser? Email [email protected] if you can shed any light on this most pressing of concerns, subject header: Bad barnets. ***INTERVAL OVER***
Anyways, this long in the making follow up to the quite brilliant Anniemal can be summed up by My Love Is Better‘s catchline: ‘My moves are better than your moves, my shoes smell better than your shoes, my kiss is wetter than your kiss, you know you’ll never have my hips, I’m so much better – so eat this.’ Hardcore sass.
Over to Robyn to up the ante in the Queen of Pop stakes cos the other girlies simply can’t do it like these two.
7.5/10
For fans of: Ice-pops, fly-swatters, hand-gliding.
http://www.myspace.com/anniemusic
Pissed Jeans: King of Jeans
Sub Pop
This record is the Bible for every single one of us drones chasing towards the finish line marked ‘fun’.
Along the way it’s hell but every so once in a while you cross through that tape, break out into a frenzy and the roars rain down. Lap it up while you can.
8/10
For fans of: Clocking off, Vans, neck tattoos.
www.myspace.com/pissedjeansband
Om: God Is Good
Drag City
About two years ago we took our then digital editor Dave to watch Boris, Om and Sunn O))).
To many this divine triple-whammy would be an awakening of the senses, but, for Dave dressed in his finest Bryan Adams stone-wash it soon became damage limitation.
Having endured Boris and squirmed through Om we felt it only fair we give the suffering soul a break when, as Sunn O))) took to the stage, he proclaimed: ‘Do we really have listen to a man dressed as a hedge?’
8/10
For fans of: Sitar clerics on acid.
http://www.myspace.com/variationsontheme
The Amorphous Androgynous: A Monstrous Psychedelic Bubble Exploding In Your Mind-Volume 2 – Pagan Love Vibrations
Platipus Records
Back in about ’91 me and Bobby Cocker formed a hybrid garage-metal outfit with lyrics about crushing our biology teacher with her own projector.
We never got passed the formative stages but by my reckoning if we’d persisted right about now we’d be sitting on a decent wedge and be able to throw out our own Japrock compilations with selective cuts from Far Out and Flower Travellin’ Band extending our kudos among the minions of devoted followers.
The kooky nuts behind Future Sound Of London, aka The Amorphous Androgynous, have beaten us to it and here they show off their ears for unearthing everything from deep ghetto funk (George Washington Jnr), hulking prog (Edgar Winter Group) and whacked out electro futurism (Shogun Kunitoki).
7.5/10
For fans of: David Holmes, capes, the intro to Old Grey Whistle Test.
http://www.myspace.com/amorphousandrogynous
