Although considered by many as the Godfathers of Grunge, Mudhoney was never as angst-ridden as Nirvana, never as serious as Pearl Jam and not as metal-influenced as Alice In Chains or Soundgarden.  Oh sure, they wore the flannel but their sound was closer to LA’s Jane’s Addiction than anything going on in Seattle.  While the band was Sub Pop’s first real success story, they never took home the big paycheck like their contemporaries.  In fact they were dropped from Reprise Continue Reading

As a founding member of industrial messiahs KMFDM in the early 80s, Raymond “Pig” Watts is a seasoned producer, performer and musical engineer with the ability to morph styles with ease.  Pigs’ latest solo effort, Genuine American Monster, fluctuates between aggressive industrial to ambient trance.   After teaming up with Sascha Konietzko and Tim Skold for KMFDM’s recent come-back recording, Attak, Pig strikes with his sixth solo endeavor and his debut for Metropolis Records.  While the KMFDM influence is still with Continue Reading

Partially synthetic and partially organic, Orbiter successfully combines trip hop beats, stellar guitar work, and perfect harmonies with a pop rock sensibility. The group returns with their second release (the bands 1st full length cd) Sparks on a String which will undoubtedly bring major labels knocking on Loveless Records door. Formed a little over 3 years ago by ex Hammerbox guitarist Harris Thurmond and vocalist/keyboardist/guitarist Fiia McGann from the Seattle-based Alternative Rock band Goodness, the group’s  unique style caught the Continue Reading

If you were looking for a record, a document that chronicled the past 12 months of musical counter-culture with its amp shoehorned up to 13, you have two distinct options. Earlier in the year there was Sonic Mook Experiment’s ‘Future Rock N Roll’ compilation packed with over an hour of frankly exhilarating lo-fi scuzz, spat out with cathartic nonchalance and tied together by its philosophy more than anything. Not to mention that Jubilee week poster campaign designed to rile the Continue Reading

Welcome is the second album from Michigan-based nu-metal foursome Taproot, and despite it’s firm anchoring in all that crass, generic rock, it’s actually rather ambitious: quirky, experimental, funky and as hard as nails. Whilst not exactly crafting great subtelty from their stab at complex dance rhythms, nor as clever and slinky as those obvious aces of funk-rock, the Chilli Peppers, it’s an album that does promise to yank nu-metal out of its prolonged and desolate winter. The usual primal growls Continue Reading

No amount of priming could really prepare you for this album, just as nothing could have similarly prepared you for the collective meat and two dozen veg that was the KY: release. If you haven’t heard of Lemon Jelly then you’re not the only one, rejecting as they do the usual steady roll of press activity prior to any release. Mavericks? Activists? Well actually neither – they’re simply putting music together that they rather than you are necessarily meant to Continue Reading

Liked ‘King of the Closet’? Harder vocals, harder sounds? Well it’s still as resolutely frantic and punky even if it’s a tad more ‘produced’ and a little less hardcore this time around. A little while on from fan-favourite ‘A Thought Crushed My Mind’ and Sweden’s Blindside augment their blistering guitar-driven rock with a little mystery, and a little of the mystical. Beefed-up to the pectorals like Frodo Baggins on steroids, Christian and his band of bristling, gruff cohorts continue to Continue Reading

On Ultraviolet, DJ Touché, the one time ‘Wiseguy’ and master of breakbeat this time whips up a dish of genre crossing house music. Perhaps best known for the hip hop and big beat inflected ‘Start the Commotion’, ‘Cowboy 78’ and the Budweiser advert for which sound over track, ‘Ooh La La’ made number 2 in the UK, Touché splices together enough funky house and bouncing beats to pack a packet of tens. So where did it all start? Underground hip Continue Reading

“BRIGHTON IS A CITY. WITHOUT SONG,” spits a misshapen millennial (and Brightonian) Elvis, unceremoniously frothing at the mouth and riding serpents of distortion off the South Coast, scorching marks across the nipple-troublingly-cold British waters. And, y’know, on this occasion the boy may have a point. Other local company (British Sea Power, Electric Soft Parade, etc) excepted of course. There is little evidence on here for anything as ‘institutionalised’ or ‘constrained’ as a ‘song’. Yeah, so there’s something bearing the hallmarks Continue Reading