Principe Valiente - S/T

As my friends well know, I have a soft spot for late ‘70’s and ‘80’s rock, particularly the bands who first delved into the darker, more atmospheric soundscapes.  Joy Division led the way and could have owned the dark side of rock had it not been for a number of innovative bands such as Echo & The Bunnymen, The Chameleons (UK), Bauhaus, The Cure, The Sisters of Mercy and others who have expanded the genre with their own unique visions, songs and arrangements.

The ‘90’s zeitgeist moved away from these gloom artists to more overtly angry forms of Grunge and Hip Hop.  Brooding gave way to screaming and luridly vivid lyrical explorations of urban decay set to a more urgent set of beats.

Now in our post-9/11 world, music has taken a more introspective turn.  Bands such as Interpol  and more recently The Xx began returning to the shadowy underground sound with ruminations steeped in the legacy of the early masters of gloom rock.  Enter Sweden’s Principe Valiente, whose  eponymous debut mines this rich vein of rock with a new vitality.

Principe Valiente opens with “Intro”, a solo piano prelude awash in reverberation and building to a crescendo leading into “Before You Knew Me”, a spare and pounding track driven by the drums of Joakim Janthe and Fernando Honorato’s muscular and riffy bassline.  Honorato also provides the vocals in his darkly rich baritone.  Floating over the top is a spare yet melodic guitar line by Alexander Lehto.   The song’s relentless beat comes to a sudden close with several pitched and distorted snare hits

Principe Valiente’s ten tracks following the intro sound like one long track with few distinguishing features from track to track.  This may read as a negative but actually serves to deliver a cohesive album that holds together well during a full listening.  At times, Honorato’s voice, with the tone and delivery of Bauhaus-era Peter Murphy, soars above the din like a gothic angel filling a candlelit cathedral with passion.  The arrangements are strong, hooky and dynamic.

Standout tracks are “In My Arms”, (video linked here)which opens with a gorgeous pair of rhythm guitars panned wide left and right with a chiming lead guitar part dead center which pulls you right into the song as the verse kicks in, and “The Night”, (video linked here) sounding like a vintage Martin Hannett Factory Records production, complete with deep warehouse ambience and dominant lead bassline Peter Hook would approve of.

Despite wearing their collective influences on their sleeves, Principe Valiente delivers a solid album that manages to sound modern and yet echoes with the reverb generated back in Manchester all those years ago.  I look forward to hearing more from this band.

--Jones

http://principevaliente.com/


Principe Valiente - In My Arms from Principe Valiente on Vimeo.

The Single Life – 7” of Fun featuring Lou Siffer and the Howling Demons, Space Probe Taurus, White Wires, and the Pack of Gurus

Lou Siffer and the Howling Demons – The Mosher  b/w Bitch De Luxe

I mean really.  What do you need in this world besides fast cars and heavy rock and roll?  Ok, there’s beer, sure.  Some Knob Creek Whiskey, ok.  Toss in some cold pizza and 99% of the world’s male population just reached mental orgasm.  Lou Siffer and his howling band of demons ain’t gonna supply the beer, whiskey, or pizza, and you’d be damn foolish to be caught standing anywhere near one of their cars.  But the crew will supply the rock and roll, heavy, loud, fast, coated in diesel, amped up on bennies, Red Bull, and nitrous.  This is high octane, V8 powered, four-on-the-floor rampage rock perfectly suited for late night drag races and gang fights. 

Forget that this music comes from Sweden, this is a Detroit-fueled, mega-tons of muscle car, head-on collision to the face of brutal punk-infested garage stomp.  Exhaust blows out of the bands nostrils like some devil-spawned hot rod revving at the green line.  Hide your daughters, your girlfriends, your neighbors . . . crap, hide your whole town.  When Lou Siffer and the Howling Demons come to town nothing but carnage and skid marks will remain.  And beautiful carnage at that.

Space Probe Taurus – Insect City b/w Mescaline/Dirt Cult ‘72

Keeping the Swedish hell-stomp fired up and spewing, oil-stained venom, we got this delicious platter from long-time Ripple favorites Space Probe Taurus.  Released in 2000, I dropped a dime to snag this baby off ebay and couldn’t wait to let the needle drop onto three distorted blasts of fuzzed out, grease-stained, acid biker rock frenzies.   Musically, SPT are Siamese twins separated at birth by some demented doctor with our friends Lou Siffer and the Howling Demons. But whereas Lou Siffer gravitated towards Detroit muscle, Space Probe Taurus jumped onto a fuzzed out, hellbound Harley and joined the ranks of some smoke-billowing biker gang from the river Styx.

Each song squeals and winces in the pain caused by it’s own massively fuzzed out assault.  Ola’s vocals and guitars never sounded better while the band chips in with brass knuckle bass and lead chain drums.  Acidfied guitar punk madness at its best.  See if you can’t find this one, it’s just wickedly bad!

Mean Jeans/White Wires – RU Mental b/w Please Write

Speaking of punk rock (we were, weren’t we?), next up is this frenetic 2-song split dalliance of hyper guitar, and staccato drum driven agit-rock from Mean Jeans and White Wires.  This is raw and ragged rawk, just waiting for you to come by and sink your teeth into.   And I mean that in the best possible way.  Energetic, refreshing, vibrant, and deliciously raw.

We got two songs here that show off different aspects of the bands, with Mean Jeans' “RU Mental” sniffing glue over a Ramones-frenzy, and “Please Write” revealing a softer, more sensitive side to White Wires' Midwest-flavored garage wailing.  Toss a funnel-full of quirk rock a la the Replacements, some angular arrangement surprises, and a pocketful of infectious hooks and this kinetic burst might just grab ya. 

Pack of Gurus – Bolero b/w Mystery Date

Every music lover has at least one.  Your holy grail.  That one record that you just can’t find, but damn, you need to have it.  Toss over the nation’s bedsheets, dig through the cyber-garage sales, lose yourself in spiderwebbed nooks and crannies, you’ll look every where to find a copy.  In some cases, it may take years of looking just to find another human being who even knows what band you’re talking about.

That’s the way I was with this 7” 45 by Upland, California’s Pack of Gurus.  Way back in the day as a disc jockey at KSPC FM in LA, I played the crap outta this definitively tasty mash-up of garage, new wave, and surf organ spy rock.  I couldn’t get enough of it’s seemingly random, oddball collection of influences somehow mashed together into two highly addictive agit-songs.  But after leaving the station, damned if I’d ever be able to find it again.  Years of searching passed, then decades.  The internet was no help.  The only online store I ever found Pack of Gurus listed must’ve gone out of business years ago because they failed to respond to any of my 2247 emails.  At $35, I considered it a bargain.  But alas, no luck.

Then ebay came to the rescue and for a mere $9.99 I nearly salivated myself to death as I opened up the package and beheld my very-own, moderately worse-for-wear copy of Pack of Gurus.  25 years in the searching!

So after all that build up, how did it sound?  Was it nearly as good as my fading memory had built it up to be?   Was it really the lost classic, holy grail of post-punk, LA rock that'd I'd imagined?

No. It wasn’t.  It was better.

"Bolereo", with its unforgettable spy-film, organ riff, was like a droplet of wine from heaven.  Totally synth/organ driven with a percolating bass line and those oh-so-angstful vocals and perfect harmonies, Bolero is a gold-plated nugget of D.I.Y. LA-spawned new wave pop.  Totally engrossing to my ears.  And the flip side “Mystery Date,” rang even truer than I remembered with it’s menacing bass, near Bauhaus-like feedback guitar intro morphining into a driving, distorto-guitar riff and singable melody.  Excellent period stuff.

Of course, after decades of searching, I’ve now found three other copies popping up here and there on ebay.  I think I’ll buy them all. Give me a back up copy for after the flood. And a back up for that back up.

Worth checking out if you’re so inclined. 

--Racer

A Tsumani of Ripple Bursts – Featuring The Living Wrecks, Balance and Composure/Tigers Jaw, Moth Circus, Batusis, and The Candy Snatchers

Different format for this post.  Tons of great music, so little time.  Quick tidal shots of some of the highlights.

The Living Wrecks – Cheap Heat

Forget Green Day.  This is punk.  This is what it’s supposed to sound like, directly descended from the loins of the Sex Pistols, fertilized by the dirty seed of Richard Hell and the Voidoids, spat out from the womb of The Germs.  This is true “blank generation” punk, a whirling dervish of buzzing guitars, snotty vocals, self-destructing sneers, and generous gobs of hooks and gangland chants.  With song titles like “Midnight Disaster,” (a fucking killer tune), “Living Hell,” “Getting Sick” “Outta Control,” Self-Destruct” and “Worst Enemy,” it’s clear these guys live it as hard as they play it.  No Gilman Street posturing here, the Living Wrecks are the real fucking deal.  Or as they say in their ballsy blitz of punk mania, “Living Hell,” this place is a living hell/no better place to be/this place is a living hell/it’s the only place for me.”  I agree.  Buy it.  It’s perfect in all of it’s intentional imperfections.

buy here: Cheap Heat
or www.zodiackillerrecords.com/releases



Balance and Composure/Tigers Jaw – Split Album


Two bands familiar to waveriders and two bands on the rise.  Emo, post-rock, indy.  I don’t know what to call it.  Loud, pounding, intricate, sincere.  It’s earnest rock, free of pretense, full of passion.   Balance and Composure launch the set with their emotionally bare, angst-rock outpouring.  Guitars layer like slightly misfitting bricks, all edges and jagged outcroppings.  Jon Simmons voice braces on the verge of destruction as he vents his emotional soul through their five cuts.  Tigers Jaw take over side two, bringing a bit more finesse and post-punk charm to their tracks of tension and release.  Guitars build and interlock, bass percolates like a bubbling lava pit, drums lay down the foundation.  A bit more mature in approach than Balance and Composure, Tigers Jaw aren’t afraid to experiment with textures, melodies and that all important silence.  Dual vocals top it all off, like a hint of light eking through the darkness.  Both sides deliver.  The potential evident for the future.


buy here: Split

Moth Circus -  Sideshow Sweetheart

Building on the momentum of their Ripple-loved EP last year, Norway’s Moth Circus come rampaging back on the metallic shoulders of a whole heap of 80’s and 90’s metal influences.  Living as if they’d been marinating in early Crue, nascent Metallica, some 90’s nu-metal crunch, and whatever came to them in their worst nightmares, Moth Circus take those influences, toss them into a blender and hit frappe.  “Dreamland,” simply rocks, no other way to describe it.  Massive guitars and a killer, sing-along-til-you’re-hoarse chorus anchors this baby.  “M.I.A” lassos some definitely cool guitar textures on top of the metallic guitar crunch.  Title cut “Sideshow Sweetheart,” brings in a stunning acoustic, neo-Arabic guitar part that could’ve come from System of a Down.  Metal for the thinking man who still wants to pummel his grey matter within an inch of its existence.  Seems these cats just keep getting better.

www.myspace.com/mothcircus




Batusis – S/T EP


Ok, what happens when you take a couple of punk rock legends, plug their amps back in and give em free reign to re-explore the insanity of their youth?  Batusis results.  Named after the clumsy dance Adam West did on the old Batman television show, Batusis unites legendary surviviors, Cheetah Chrome of the Dead Boys with Sylain Sylvain of the New York Dolls and all sorts of punky, classic rock mayhem results.  This 4 song EP is their debut, but judging by the weighty balls these guys can still drop into their music, a full-length album can’t be too far behind.  Forget aging,  these guys found the fountain of punk-youth and blast out four bluesy, punky, rockabilly nasties.  “Blues Theme,” is just that, the blues as filtered through the Cramps or Tiger Army.  “What you Lack in Brains” is a bonafide barnstorming ode to every airheaded vixen the guys ever met, featuring the classic lines “What you lack in brains/you got in looks/a grown up doll, she never picked up a book.” “Bury You Alive,” picks up the ferocity, tearing off with barely contained abandon of classic, crunchy guitars and nastiness, while “Big Cat Stomp,” is about a cool an instrumental piece of punk rave up as one can get with some simply inspired, gritty guitar.  Age is meaningless.  Rock knows no time limits.  Everyone, dance the Batusis.

buy here: Batusis

 The Candy Snatchers – Down at Deliah’s

Ugly, dirty, and mighty unclean.  The Candy Snatchers were infected with some horribly contagious, disease of poor hygiene and they wanted nothing more than for you to wallow in their sickness.  This album almost didn't make it.  When their guitarist died of an overdose in 2008, the band shelved this album and sadly disbanded.  But thanks to the folks at Drug Front Records, the album was resurrected and we're all a little better because of it.  Dripping with phlegm, sputum, and other bodily fluids, the Candy Snatchers belch out another bucketful of dirty, filthy, speed punk, and somehow everything’s right with the world.  Forget the nation’s failing medical system, these germ-infested outbursts of noise pollution are enough to drive the stake of illness into the hearts of the weak.  You really can’t go wrong with songs like “The World is Wrong,” and “Huffer.”  And how can you ever question the brilliance of titles like “Run Jive Turkey, Run!” “You’re So Beige,” and “She’s a Real Asshole.”  RIP Matthew Odietus, your swan song was a master stroke.  Anger, snot, and things coughed up from tobacco-stained, mucous crusted orifices, to this day there still is no cure for the Candy Snatchers..  Dive in.  Catch the disease.

www.myspace.com/thecandysnatchersofficial