Wednesday, July 24, 2013

Jetplane Landing - Walls Of Derry

Just when you thought it was safe to go to Derry and openly question general levels of rock commitment, JPL are back and sounding huge with fourth album Don't Try on September 2nd. We've heard the full thing and can report that rather than expand on the funk-laden left turn of the last time we saw them six years ago on Backlash Cop (STN's number nine album of the year, mind) it sounds like 2002 returning, more specifically the Million Dead/Reuben/Hundred Reasons landscape the Els Quatre Gats EP's full frontal post-hardcore assault was launched into - rarely a proper let-up, slamming boxcutter knife-edge melodies into big fuzzy riffs and Andrew Ferris' overwordy howling against the massed ranks. The pits will be unstoppable.



September dates:
2nd Sheffield Corporation
3rd Glasgow Stereo
4th Manchester Soup Kitchen
5th Nottingham Bodega
6th London Lexington
7th Cardiff Clwb Ifor Bach
11th Dublin Workman’s Club
13th Derry Glassworks
14th Belfast Limelight 2

Friday, July 19, 2013

The Magic Theatre - I Got The Answer

Quirky indie found a good few discerning homes around the tail end of the 90s, few more live contenders than Ooberman's take on whimsically personalised melodicism. That band's joint voices Dan Popplewell and Sophia Churney now trade in baroque folk with a curiosity-fuelled twist, and from a debut album due in the autumn is this sweetly lovely positivist countrified lilt that suits this weather pretty well, if occasionally interrupted by the South American percussive jam next door.



Tuesday, July 16, 2013

The many faces of Alanna McArdle: Joanna Gruesome/Ides

Joanna Gruesome are a band we've written about on here before, Cardiff-based youthful noiseniks who turn from languishing shoegaze to raging post-hardcore on the spin of a dime. That excitable explosiveness has been synthesised into a hopefully cohesive whole by Hookworms' MJ as producer, given the title Weird Sister and set for September 16th UK release via the Fortuna Pop!/Slumberland axis of ace noise-pop. Going on the stumbling, spinning like a top wild-eyed post-riot grrrl/Sonic Youth determination of Secret Surprise they're on their way.




And when she's not doing that singer Alanna McArdle has her own outlet Ides, a home for her minimalist guitar and haunted/bruised vocal telling of despair and feeling lost inside herself. Prisms is coming out as part of Art Is Hard's Postcard Club, which as the name suggests is a limited edition run of specially designed postcodes with unique download code.




Ides plays Brighton Hope on 9th August, Bournemouth 60 Million Postcards on 10th and a house show in Bristol on the 12th, all with King Of Cats. Both entities play together in London twice in the month, on the 6th at Buffalo Bar with that man King Of Cats and the mighty Gindrinker, and on 31st at the Victoria, Dalston for Art Is Hard's third birthday, also shared with Best Friends, The Black Tambourines, Gorgeous Bully, Playlounge, Nai Harvest, Birdskulls and RadStewart (yes, Joanna Gruesome and Radstewart are playing the same bill, leave it now). After that, they will progress to overcome their foes and conquer the world. Possibly.