Menace Beach
Super Transporterreum
Memphis Industries (2015)
After dropping their debut album Ratworld earlier this year, Leeds-based Menace Beach have wasted no time in producing an energetic but decidedly more focused follow-up. The five songs on the Super Transporterreum EP exist most obviously in the grunge spectrum, imagining what a less depressive and moody Nirvana would have sounded like. What immediately struck me about the EP was the sense of oomph to the music, with uptempo drumming, warm guitar, and the bright vocals of Ryan Needham used to counterbalance the powerful almost slimy basslines at the center of each and every track. The contrast between these alternately sugary and sludgy sound elements is on display immediately in the opening title track. “Super Transporterreum” finds female vocalist Liza Violet providing quiet harmony parts during the verse and features and almost overbearing rhythm section, but it's a triumphant, soaring chorus that makes the song instantly memorable. Hazily psychedelic and easily the album's loudest and most aggressive, “Hey Toupe” thrashes relentlessly through its two and quarter minutes before “Ghoul Power” settles back into a slower '90s grunge groove. Violet and Needham double up the voice parts here, providing moments of both brilliance and slight abrasiveness, with an intricate guitar background … Read more
Good Riddance
Peace In Our Time
Fat Wreck Chords (2015)
Peace in Our Time is an album that seemed like it was never going to be released. Good Riddance's breakup … Read more
Patrick Higgins
Bachanalia
Telegraph Harp (2015)
Known in his lifetime (1685-1750) primarily as an organist, German-born Johann Sebastian Bach has, in the course of the last … Read more
Mount Eerie
Sauna
P.W. Elverum & Sun, Ltd. (2015)
Over the past two decades, Phil Elverum has established himself as one of the most consistently outstanding artists working in … Read more
