- Take classic hardcore punk song from 80s
- Have it covered by a squeaky clean pop singer
- (Bonus points if he/she is cuter than most punk rockers)
- Fill entire cover band with guys from 80s hardcore punk bands
- Get quote from original singer approving of the cover version
How to Annoy Old Punks in Four Easy Steps
January 24th, 2012 § 0
Gary McMahon – The Concrete Grove review
January 23rd, 2012 § 2
As I sit down to write this review in mid-August, 2011, the riots that have erupted across Britain over the past week have begun to subside, the energies that drove them dissipating in the face of a coherent police response and that most British of demotivators, the weather. But the anger, social exclusion, vanishing economic possibilities, lack of faith in police relations and sense of political betrayal that initially produced this eruption among Britain’s poorest urban communities remain.
Gary McMahon’s The Concrete Grove plumbs the fertile ground of such forgotten areas, its dark tale derived as much from the existential horror of hopeless or wasted lives as the natural and supernatural forces that prey upon them.
Lana and Hailey, single mother and daughter, have been forced into a life on an estate – the eponymous Concrete Grove – which surrounds the Needle, a derelict and sinister Brutalist block of flats. The Needle pierces the heart of a community racked with poverty, desperation and accompanying social issues like drug abuse, violence and entrenched petty criminals with a penchant for cruelty. One such ambitious thug is Monty Bright, a loan shark obsessed with the history of the Grove. Monty takes an interest in Lana and Hailey, using Lana’s debt to him as leverage while he tries to understand the growing connection between Hailey and the Grove.
A few roads over, just outside the estate, a middle-aged man named Tom supports and cares for his bed-bound and clinically obese wife. Tortured by his own demons and a sense of being trapped in his own life, Tom finds himself drawn to Lana and Hailey and by extension involved in whatever plans Bright and the Grove have in store.
The Concrete Grove’s most interesting conceit is its fusion of old mythologies with present realities. The backstory describes how the Needle and surrounding estate were built over an ancient Pagan site of nature-worship. The power of the old Grove remains but it has been corrupted by the pathologies of the human community that now surrounds it. Forces bleed out into our world, and not all of them are as ambivalent as those the Pagans once worshipped.
Although the actions of McMahon’s characters may not always convince – Hailey in particular makes a few leaps of faith and illogic that I struggled with – and Tom is one of those frustratingly frustrated middle-aged characters whose internal monologue is dominated by a desire to fuck anything with a blouse and a pulse, they are on the whole a sympathetic bunch who draw us into the worlds he has built around the iconic Needle. The thematic juxtaposition on which the novel is based is maintained throughout: England’s past and present, the powers produced by suburban sickness and health, all revolving around by the ambiguous forces of nature. The novel’s conclusion reflects this state of thematic balance well, although it’s also possible to read in a much more traditional horror motif.
The Concrete Grove itself clearly has more stories to tell. By the book’s close it remains a source of substantial mystery, and the desperate poverty and anti-social behaviour that surrounds it remains unaddressed and ignored by the wider world.
384pp paperback, published by Solaris Books.
[This review originally published in Vector #268, the critical journal of the British Science Fiction Association. This version of the review precedes the published version being reformatted for printing but is otherwise identical.]
Linkfest: January 15th – January 22nd
January 22nd, 2012 § 0
I’ve not done one of these in a while and it looks like Postalicious hasn’t picked up all of the links I’ve saved since the last one. Sorry about that. The curious can always just go look at the saved links directly on delicious.com. :)
Del.icio.us links for January 20th through January 22nd:
We interrupt our regularly scheduled programming to slack off and get totally crunk
January 2nd, 2012 § 0
Okay, that’s only, like, a part of it. A few well-deserved beers and whiskies will be involved, but actually now that I’ve run up to the end of the old era of reviewage I’d like to take a brief holiday from NFI. This will probably only last a week, perhaps two at the most. Once I’m back in action you can expect to see my favourite records of 2011, perhaps some of the usual introspective navel-gazing, and a state of the nation address in which I finally explain what I’d like to do with NFI in the coming year. SPOILER ALERT: it’ll probably be less posts overall, but they’ll be better quality or longer.
In the meantime, I hope yr 2012 has gotten off to a good start. It’s a year with a lot to live up to, huh? 2011 was such a nice, inoffensive, pleasant year all round.
* = 2/3 reviews a week, and towards the end I really started running out of ways to say effectively the same thing in a different, exciting way. I had fun trying, though!
The Bombpops – Stole the TV
December 31st, 2011 § 1
And here we are, the very last review of 2011. (I admit that to engineer this feat of scheduling I had to queue this to be posted four hours after this morning’s review of We’ll Go Machete, which I recommend you go read now if you’ve not yet done so.) It’s an emotional moment.
By the time you read this, though, I’ll hopefully be chock full of all the booze and rolling around on the floor alongside the best of times. Happy New Year’s Eve! Happy parties! Whatever! I just hope you’re having a good time and that, if you’re reading this in 2012, that you’re not still feeling the effects of whatever over-indulgence you indulged in.
And so, the Bombpops, a band brought to us courtesy of the label Red Scare Records and the city San Diego. This here is only their second EP, but they’ve managed to hit the nail on the head of the pop-punk formula already. And okay, it’s a formula, and okay, that makes it formulaic, but who cares when the hooks sink so deep and the melodies are so affecting?
We’ll Go Machete – Strong Drunk Hands
December 31st, 2011 § 1
These days it’s so easy to describe music as post-hardcore that the term has almost lost meaning. Still, if to you post-hardcore still recalls Fugazi, Shellac, Drive Like Jehu, Quicksand or even more modern mathy outfits like These Arms Are Snakes and (my personal favourites) Future of the Left, it’s highly probable that you’ll derive a great deal of pleasure from We’ll Go Machete’s Strong Drunk Hands.
Angular as all hell is this: dropping sinister looping proto-industrial post-punk riffs like pipebombs among rhythmically shouted vocals and cyborg* drumming, it’s clear from the outset that We’ll Go Machete have happened upon the secret ingredient that makes post-hardcore function. They’ve added a few ingredients of their own, too, because this is not weakly imitative music. Despite the majority of the bands that influenced this band hailing from the long-forgotten and mysterious decade that was the 1990s, We’ll Go Machete have a character that sets them apart.
Sharks Come Cruisin – A Past We Forget That We Need Know
December 29th, 2011 § 0
When I first read about and heard Rhode Island’s Sharks Come Cruisin I mentally slotted them into place alongside American punk bands who play a spin on Irish folk music, ala. the Dropkick Murphys or the Real Mackenzies. I am prepared to admit that this was stupid and wrong. Actually, Sharks Come Cruisin are more like… hmm. They’re more like a bunch of punks on a replica 18th century seafaring vessel who like the idea of drinking and singing a whole lot more than sailing. Now that’s a sentiment I can get behind!
Equally, if the idea of sea shanties played by guys with electric guitars and a drum kit strikes you as being a little incongruous you may as well move along. There’s always something odd about such bands, and I get that people find it a bit weird – even when it’s presented in a fashion as obviously ridiculous as, say, Alestorm.
Still, for those who like music that stands out purely by dint of being idiosyncratic and fun, Sharks Come Cruisin do have a fair bit to offer. Live I can imagine the band being a lot of fun; on record, perhaps less so, although to glean maximum enjoyment from A Past We Forget That We Need To Know I suggest indulging in some drinking. With a measure of rum and a dose of ascorbic to stave off scurvy, you need nothing more.
Banquets – Top Shelf, Bottom Shelf
December 27th, 2011 § 0
It’s a little hard for me to write about Banquets. This–I will explain for the benefit of newcomers–is because a little over a year ago I reviewed an EP of theirs. Then, a few months ago, I reviewed a split that they released.
You may notice that the tone between those two reviews shifts a little. During the first review they were a new band to me. I liked them but wanted more from them. During the second review I still felt they lacked a little something, but by god did I ramble upon about just why I like Banquets as a band.
Irrelevant, irreverent context: after my first review one of the dudes in the band emailed me to thank me for a thoughtful review. After the second review, they didn’t even link it from their Facebook. Yep: my review sounded like the expurgation of an embarrassing fan.
(That’s unfair on both Banquets and myself. I just thought it might prove amusing. In fact, it’s probably only that my review emerged long after the release of the split.)
Ghost Robot Ninja Bear – self-titled LP
December 24th, 2011 § 0
It’s a source of some pleasure for me that, even as I wind up Nostalgia For Infinity’s lengthy stint as a full-time music reviewing site (if you can call 2/3 reviews a week “full time” – although coming from just one guy, I suppose the description is fair), I’m able to return to artists I’ve previously subjected to my words and thoughts. And here’s Ghost Robot Ninja Bear, the ‘new’ project from Oscar Albis Rodriguez – a man who has, in the past, played with luminaries such as Nakatomi Plaza, Ludlow Lions and, er, The Dexter Lake Club Band, “NYC’s premier wedding band”. Well, maybe weddings in NYC are way cooler than they are here in Sussex.
I last reviewed the excellently and absurdly named GRNB in September ’10 when I took a look at an EP rounding up a collection of singles from the preceding year; I was duly impressed. Rodriguez is a man with some chops, a fact which – even if not immediately obvious from his impressive songwriting – becomes clear when you recognise that the band features numerous other musicians, mostly drawn from bands with which Rodriguez has had some involvement in the past. And yet so few people mention them! So hey, shout outs to Geoff Kraly, Gunnar Olson, Jordan Melkin, Brendan Coon and Al Fair (I particularly dig Bridge & Tunnel, so extra kudos to that dude).
So here we have GRNB’s first full-length release, and it’s an impressive collection of tunes. As with the earlier EP and singles the songs on offer are fundamentally poppy but technically considered and proficient; despite being catchy and immediate they’re possessed of delightful depth. ‘The Curtain Call’, for example, has a strong 90s EpiFat punk rock vibe to it, laying down staccato rhythms in the verse and marrying the vocal delivery to that, with more straightforward choruses to keep things powering forwards. And yet even within a song so obviously, straightforwardly pop-punk, there’s impressive use of dynamics and digital effects to spice up the mix.
Stand Your Ground – Despondenseas
December 22nd, 2011 § 0
Okay, straight up. You know it and I know it. Despondenseas is a terrible name. In the leagues of puns, it sinks below the sort of material your dad might come out with. “A dyslexic man walks into a bra.” Oh god! We’re almost talking teen poetry on LiveJournal sort of territory here. Earlier today I read an, uh, ‘poem’ on DeviantArt titled ‘Last Resort 2‘. You laugh at it, and then you feel pity. Damn, dude, you put that shit on the internet?
Fortunately, and I’m genuinely happy to share this fact, Stand Your Ground rise above that title. It doesn’t feel like there’s any sense of irony about it; they’re not a playful band, there’s no self-deprecation here; they play metal and there’s a strong sense of emotional fatigue or even despair about it. It’s a solid record and among the standard metal riffage there are some great bits of high-end lead, octave chords and delay/sustain guitar effects that, frankly, demonstrate a grasp of dynamics that still seems to be beyond a lot of metal bands.
(Metal fans may at this point respond by pointing out that a lot of the bands I love have yet to move beyond the power chord. And also I openly adore octave chords, which are one note removed from power chords. I know. Music reviewing is subjective. That’s why it’s fun.)
