Music Review: The Bronx – The Bronx (III)

Written by Mirza Gazic
Published November 06, 2008

The Bronx have on this their third full length continued with the more melodic approach to their energetic and soulful punk rock. It does sound a tad different than what I remember from their debut album. That one – also self titled (these guys don’t waste more time than necessary on album titles) – came out in 2003 and showcased a thrilling punk band that brought to mind the classic 80s bands from their home town of Los Angeles. The follow up delivered music that wasn’t necessarily mellower but definitely more rock in its approach. Now that has been taken further and today The Bronx show that they excel in bringing forth some truly swaggering rock ‘n’ roll.

It’s still punk in tone and in the energy that shines through, but the influences from classic rock and a smidgen of blues gives more edge to the song writing. The opening trio of songs are as good as anything I’ve heard recently and some of the riffage sound like a speeded up version of AC/DC. They’re gutsy and visceral and immediately raise the pulse which is what a good rock record always should do.

Opener “Knifeman” starts of slow in pace but rich in groove and its staccato riffing and thumping rhythm combine into a whole that will undeniably be a live favourite in the future. With the following songs, and especially “Inveigh” and “Past lives” you are struck with how anthemic these songs are. This is not meant in a cheesy singalong way but merely to illustrate how they instantly stick in your mind. This is not an easy thing to do when trying to maintain a level of aggression at the same time but The Bronx manage it, seemingly without much effort.

Some kudos also has to be given to the singer Matt D. He has a great voice for this kind of raw style of music. Raspy but still soulful, it makes you think that the songs would not have worked as well with somebody else at the helm.

This is one of those records that appeals to our most impulsive emotions; Every time I listen to it I am overcome with the urge to jump around with a beer in hand and scream the lyrics. The Bronx (III) is a record that is more; more rock, more melody, more blues and energy, more of everything. Just the way I like it.

This is for those of us who sorely miss New Bomb Turks.

A bit late but better that than never. This was published last week but I’ve been on holiday at home in Sweden and didn’t feel like messing around with a blog. I preferred to hang out with friends and family.
Anyway, go to the review on Blogcritics, read it there and check out some other good stuff on the site.

Weekend record buying session

While everybody is bitching about the weather and staying indoors, I decided to catch a train to Brighton and spend time walking around the record stores. It was a good day out once I got there but the problem was that I decided to do this on a Sunday, the day when the rail companies cancel trains in order to do “engineering work” which will never be noticed and bring in replacement buses. Horrendous, old double deckers with no leg room and coincidentally enough, no seating space left since I had decided to use one. Can somebody that practises witchcraft please put a curse on Southern Railways?

Anyway, I got some bargains in one of the record stores.(Stupidly enough I can’t remember the name of it but will update)

– Motorhead – “Iron Fist”

– Motorhead – “Bomber”

– Poison Idea – “We must burn”

All these for less than £10. Brilliant. Back home early enough to blast through all of them and put on the iPod. I’ve had worse Sundays, despite the shitty travel arrangements.

I also watched a great gig on Friday. Doomriders at the Bar Academy in Islington, supported by Tortuga and SSS. Of course I bought a T-shirt, and their album. Great gig all round even though I am gutted that they only tour with Disfear in mainland Europe, leading to me missing the mighty punk pigs.

Waco Fuck – Record review

Waco Fuck

Paranoia is Total Awareness

Anger is a gift, at least when making music. Some really manic but great recordings have been borne out of huge amounts of frustration and anger. Waco Fuck are one seriously angry sounding band. Spend enough time listening to this and you will realize just how much. The album is called Paranoia is Total Awareness and the record label is some small obscurity called Life’s a Rape. It doesn’t get more disillusioned and furious at the state of the world than this piece of plastic.

Paranoia is Total Awareness consists of twenty-three songs, one full-length album put together with their Slow Decay and No Child Left Behind EP’s from 2006 and 2004 respectively.

The music here is an amalgamation of classic grindcore perfected by stalwarts like Napalm Death and Siege along with destructive old school 80’s hardcore in the vein of Negative Approach and Infest to really let the extremity and fury shine through. To top everything of, Waco Fuck are not averse to throwing in some thrash metal bits that are just tangible enough but also subtle enough not to take over from the main focus of their music. Listen to the breakdown and the guitar shredding in “Narcotic Fuckup” for proof.

Strange as it may sound when this kind of music is described, it is a varied album. It is at least varied enough to keep your attention, which is a vital attribute when you have just unleashed a hardcore album consisting of more than twenty songs, especially since many hardcore combos tend to fall on the listener losing interest halfway. I can sincerely say that in the case of this collection, it did not have a detrimental effect. There is enough to keep my interest going all the way.

Many songs do deal completely in grind or power violence, being full of hyper speed drumming and shrieking vocals but some have slow breakdowns or are more based on a beat that really puts the East Coast influence on display. All of them absolutely destroy.

This is a record that completely fills you with energy. These guys may live this but for us working stiffs it’s enough to hear the violent assault of “Mob Mentality” or “Eulogy” and fantasize about being subversive and protesting and it certainly does a sufficient job in getting the heart jumping.

Buy it and get paranoid.

This is a review that I sent over late last week, to Scenepointblank.

I believe that it was posted on the site yesterday but I was too busy to write a blog post and link to it. I’d never heard of these guys before and to be honest still don’t know much more. They have a Myspace page but it’s not exactly stacked with information, they don’t have a we site and their record label is so small that there is no web site to it either. The music, however is quite fantastic. I love hardcore and punk and these guys play that but mix it up with some grindcore which we all know is descendant from punk anyway. East coast hardcore influences like Battalion of saints, Infest and a bit of classic Siege in the mix makes this a great release. I really wish I could catch Waco Fuck live but, living in the UK and these guys being virtually unknow means that I’ll probably have to wait a considerable amount of time. Maybe next time I visit the Us.

In the meantime, go to Scenepointblank to read the review.

Woven Hand – Ten Stones

Here is a theory that may be disregarded but that seems more plausible the more time is spent thinking about it; Truly good artists, musicians and bands can be recognised by how many people and other artists, from completely opposite spheres of music are their firmest admirer. Truly good artists span genres and can gain followings from the most unexpected of places. This theory came from the following facts: David Eugene Edwards plays dark but mellow rock with distinct folk and classic American overtones and gothic tendencies, is a deeply devout Christian which comes through in his lyrics, among many other places. Yet I have heard of so many rockers and metal lovers, read a few record collector pieces in extreme metal magazines, where his bands have been mentioned, with the fondest of love, by black and death metal musicians with a south-of-heaven type of approach to religion.

This can make you believe that Wovenhand are something special before you have even heard the music. Luckily, upon hearing any of the albums you will find the music very captivating. Edward’s voice also adds emotion. It is, at the same time husky but trembling which makes the music sound even more dark and poignant.

“The beautiful axe” starts of very slow burning before going into more heavy rock territory with pounding drums and an a chorus that even verges on the anthemic. It is a more straight forward rock song and it isn’t until the second track, “Horsetail” that Wovenhand’s folk and traditional influences make themselves known. The stark and bleak lyrical imagery is, on the other hand, present throughout.

Ten Stones is an affecting listen. Listen with the utmost concentration you will almost see a film playing from inside your eyelids. It’s a film where a man sits alone in a dark room, an empty gaze vivid on his face, as he tries to figure out how his life went so horribly wrong. This image is at its strongest point during the heart-rending “Cohawkin Road” and “Iron feather”.

It isn’t an intention to make this sound like a thoroughly depressing experience because it isn’t and Ten Stones certainly does not lack variation. The heavy stomp and rhythm of “White Knuckle Grip” will get pulses raised and suggests that, along with the lounge-like bossanova of “Quiet Night of Quiet Stars” there is a lightness and sense of fun in this band.

No matter what style is purveyed on Ten Stones one thing is always certain; the power of the songs. This is a truly great album. There are only a few months left of the year, before that annual list of the best albums is compiled but here is one recording that will at least make it to the top five.

This was published yesterday on Blogcritics. The album is absolutely amazing, as is probably quite obvious from the review. Check it out on the site and by all means read the comment below. The guy mentions that just because you play extreme metal then it doesn’t mean that you can’t be influenced by artists from vastly different genres, which of course was my point as well. Maybe it isn’t clear enough in the actual review but I suppose that it’s such a normal point of view that it doesn’t need to be mentioned. Hell, I’m in all ways mostly a fan of extreme metal and hardcore yet I find the utmost satisfaction in calm and mellow music and some of my favourite artists play music that is as far away from black/ death metal as you can get.

My point was that many openly satanic musicians are very candidly expressing their admiration for David Eugene Edwards and his bands and he is deeply religious. This may not be so strange to everyone (I find the cultural spanning highly encouraging) but most of the black metal musicians are not exactly known to have an open mind about these things. In hindsight maybe I expressed my self clumsily in the review and it doesn’t come across very clear but it’ll have to be this way for now.

Still and mesmerizing record, mind you.

New review, new site to write for

I have just started writing for a new site; Jersey Beat Magazine. It’s an American site, based in New Jersey, as you already might have guessed, brilliant citizens that you all are.

Anyway, it’s a pretty cool website and it definitely deserves to be checked out. There is some good reading to be done and great bands to discover there. My first review published there is of the new Toxic Holocaust album “An overdose of death” which was rip-roaringly brilliant. I love thrash metal and it was a real pleasure to review this, after the slightly painful experience of having to listen to power metal last week (see previous post).

A few more pieces of writing are to come quite soon, possibly before the end of the week.

Here is the Toxic Holocaust review in all its lifechanging glory. Check it out on Jersey Beat as well and have a browse around the site.

Toxic Holocaust – An Overdose of Death (Relapse)

by Mirza Gazic

There are a few modern thrash metal bands that need to be mentioned when the recent revival of that classic scene is discussed. These bands have undeniably spearheaded the new wave and are at the forefront of it these days. Municipal Waste is on of them. Brazil’s Violator is another group of young musicians taking it to the next level.

Boston’s one man show Toxic Holocaust also belongs in the upper echelon. Young Joel Grind has already earned plenty of underground credibility through his previous two recordings, which were raw and visceral creations. He now has the backing of Relapse records, Jack Endino has produced, and Donny Paycheck from legendary loonies Zeke is playing the drums on An Overdose of Death.

It’s an exhilarating listen from start to finish. “Wild dogs” instantly gets the blood rushing with its fast tempo and solid drive. The barbed wire vocals also add more menace to an album that is already steeped in evil vibes. This is not complicated music but relies on pure energy and riffs that are, for lack of a better word, catchy. This is not meant in a soft, poppy way but simply means that they are instantly memorable and made to be experienced live.

The reason that Toxic Holocaust is so good can be traced to one simple premise; that all good metal has a solid punk backbone. This is unmistakeably thrash metal but the energy and the pace here belongs in old hardcore punk and rock’n roll. “Future shock” and “The lord of the wasteland” are two tunes that even sound more like Motorhead than they themselves have done for the past decade.

An Overdose of Death is a brilliant metal album and shows that thrash is in safe hands for some time to come.

Album review – Lizzy Borden: An appointment with death

Lizzy Borden are only one of very many grizzly old metal bands that have either picked up the sticks again and decided to have one last shot at glory or that have ultimately experienced a revival of sorts and made their sound more in sync with the modern times.

This new attention to their music and the other musicians’ new found energy can have many underlying factors, but one of the biggest ones is definitely the fame of new young pups – Trivium are a good example – paying tribute to their childhood heroes by name dropping, re-using their riffs, and wearing t-shirts that would get you kicked in the head in the eighties.

Thrash metal is revived because of this and many old “heroes” are even touring as support bands to kids that used to stare at posters of these guys plastered all over their bedroom walls. What this says about kids and trend-following these days is a different debate altogether but it is clear that Lizzy Borden have gained from this interest. And this is in no way meant to belittle their career and their old output, but merely an observation on music today.

They sound better for it. Plenty of younger musicians, such as Corey Beaulieu from the afore mentioned Trivium and former Morbid Angel guitarist Erik Rutan, are guests on An Appointment With Death and that adds to the cutting edge. Rutan has also undertaken production duties here and his work sounds crisp and clear, and provides Lizzy Borden’s music with a more modern sound.

It is just a shame that these guys play power metal, or at least traditional heavy metal with strong power metal tendencies – kudos for throwing in some chugging thrash riffs though – in the vein of Helloween and other such metal bands veering slightly on the cheesy side.

The singing is what ruins it, for there is nothing inherently wrong with the actual music. Metal should not sound chirpy and have all too obvious sing-along qualities. Piercing screams like the one halfway through opener “Abnormal” are really enervating. It sound happy and if you were singing this to karaoke then you would be throwing ironic shapes and pulling silly faces. Try doing that to a Slayer tune.

But enough with the negative aspects. I’ll openly admit that this style of metal really is not my jug of mead, but I am not that single-minded that I can’t recognize its qualities.
The riffs are chopping and Lizzy Borden definitely know the art of shredding. The short breakdowns, like the brooding “Bloody Tears” demonstrates, add rhythm and show some versatility. There is also pace to these compositions and a good solid drive, thus keeping your pulse up for the record’s duration. As before mentioned, there are distinct thrash elements as well, particularly in “Abnormal” and to these ears at least, these are the most enjoyable parts of the album.

Borden have managed to inject new interest in a traditional style of metal by keeping fresh and by decent song writing. If only the singing was more Mille Petrozza then Bruce Dickinson then this would have been great, but if you wear denim vests with Blind Guardian patches on then you will like An Appointment With Death . I, however, am off to listen to some power violence.

This is the full review that was published yesterday on Scenepointblank. Click here to read it on the site and to browse some more music news and other excellent record reviews and features.

I really like that site, it has some very good writers contributing consistently.

I tried to write the review of Lizzy Borden’s latest record as objectively as I possibly could. Under normal circumstances I absolutely loathe power metal but I thought a somewhat balanced review would be best. I did after all claim the promo personally and there are definitely parts of that record that I find to be quite decent. In other words, it’s not for me but I can see why certain people might like it.

I was also in a good mood when I wrote it so next time I might not be so generous. But I promise to try.

Over and out, battallion of saints…

More reviews – On Clickmusic

It’s been a bit quiet here during the last week but I haven’t really had much to report. This blog is for the most part in an existing state because I want to link to all the writing that I’ve done. Apart from that I’m not much of a blogger, partly due to the fact that I have never had one.

This may change in the future. We shall see.

In the meantime I have some more reviews published. Three to be exact, but they are only single reviews and thus short, snappy and hopefully decent reading.

To read them go to the Clickmusic site.

Mystery Jets – Half in love with Elizabeth

Bec & Beth – Bec & Beth ep. I really enjoyed this one. Mellow and dreamy, definitely worth a look.

The Invisible – Monster’s waltz.

New review published – The Pack A.D. – Funeral Mixtape

I love discovering new bands. It truly is a great feeling when you put a record on by a band you’ve never heard of before and it turns out to be a dazzling piece of music.

This ocurred last week when I received The Pack A.D’s second album in the post. They’re two girls, playing nothing more than guitar and drums and they play some of the best blues I’ve heard from a contemporary band. It was a very pleasing feeling and I’ve been listening to it every day since.

I reviewed the album for Clickmusic and today they posted it on their web site.

Click here to read the full review and keep your eyes out for more writing coming up.

Adios

New review- The Sump Pumps

I’ve just had another review published today. It’s an album review and it’s on www.scenepointblank.com

The album is from a synth-punk group called The Sump Pumps, and the album title is ‘The revenge of The Sump Pumps. It’s not a bad record, a very boisterous rock recording with synth samplse aplenty.

Check out the review here.

Over and out

New review published today

Hi there,

Last weekend I went to a festival in Brighton called Beachdown, possibly the first one in East Sussex and it’s meant to become an annual event. It was great fun and there were some really good and obscure bands there.

I wrote a review on it for the website Myvillage, and it has now been published. If anyone actually manages to find this place then take a gander at it here.

Enjoy and I’ll be back soon.