Today’s reviews on Fighting Boredom take in Conan Neutron & the Secret Friends with their ‘Spangle, and sass, small scale arena rock for smart alecks and malcontents.’ The ‘loud and abrasive’ Noisepicker. ‘Greek post-black/doom metal band’ Euphrosyne. Music from Ornette Coleman, Jimmy Guthrie, Sun Ra, John Coltrane, Eric Dolphy, Joe Harriot’s Quintet, Cecil Taylor and Albert Adler on the brilliant compilation Return to Tomorrow- In the Ascendancy – The Jazz Avant-garde. XIXO The soft Rock stylings of My Morning Jacket. ‘Australian Doom/ Sludge Quartet’ Ghostsmoker. ‘New Delhi’s finest metallers’ Bloodywood, Glazyhaze who ’embrace shoegaze, post-punk and alt-rock sounds’ and Desire with ‘an eclectic labyrinth of love, power, & deception’. Have a read and listen below, I don’t like all of them this time but then, who likes everything?
Conan Neutron & the Secret Friends – The Way Of the Neutron
Seismic Wave Entertainment
Conan Neutron and his Secret Friends give us a decent Blues Rock album with an ace whiney punky vocal, it’s slow and deliberate, quite grungy in its heaviness and the vocal gives it an edge missing from a lot of bands that develop and mould this sound. It merges into classic rock ground on occasion and there’s one ill advised stray into vocoder territory but all in all this is a pretty decent album.
Noisepicker – The Earth Shall Swallow the Sun
Exile On Mainstream
This album can be summed up by one lyric quote, in the first verse of ‘Tomorrow Lied the Devil’ he growls angrily ‘I don’t mean to piss on your chips my friend but this race has already been won’ and that’s it, at that point this album cemented itself into my consciousness and I loved it. It’s low down nasty rock’n’roll with a spiteful, gravelly, growly vocal and it’s ace. On the penultimate track they stray into jazz with a huge deep crooning vocal and quite possibly make the best song on this page.
Euphrosyne – Morus
Black Lion Recordings
A Greek Black Metal album inspired by the death of the guitarist’s mother. This is just as bleak as you think it’s going to be. It goes from gentle music and emotional sounding and feeling passages of Greek spoken words to immense walls of Black Metal sound that engulf and surround you so completely that the emotions echo around your body as you listen. A very powerful and almost unbearable emotionally lost record.
Various Artists – Return to Tomorrow- In the Ascendancy – The Jazz Avant-Garde
Cherry Red
Three CDs, six albums and a couple of extra songs. This is Jazz at its most creative, chaotic and is utterly brilliant. I mean Ornette Coleman’s The Shape of Jazz to Come is pretty much essential to any Jazz collection and then there’s the Jimmy Guthrie 3, a Sun Ra track, a John Clotrane live recording that completely split the critics when it came out. On top of this there are three more albums, Eric Dolphy, the Joe Harriott Quintet and Cecil Taylor. All mind blowing explorations into Jazz and all wonderful to listen to. This boxset is just brilliant.
XIXA – XOLO
Julian Records
This is psychedelic pop music for weirdos, it’s twangy, odd and soft. It’s got wonderful harmonies and a gentle laid back feel. It’s very Latin American and feels like being wonderfully stoned out in the desert watching the sun scorch in the sky.
My Morning Jacket – is
This is perfect corporate soft Rock, wonderfully produced and played, sung with a voice that is just a smidgen away from alternative rock. This is for the grown ups and salesmen to play in their company cars and love. This is not for me, it’s not remotely anywhere near what I need and as such I’m stopping now.
Ghostsmoker – Inertia Cult
Art As Carthasis
This is more like it. They are called Ghostsmoker and the album’s called Inertia Cult. What do you think it sounds like?? Just in case you haven’t worked it out yet, it’s SLOW DOOM GROWLING AWESOMENESS. In capitals. Loud. It’s great, even if the vocal isn’t needed on at least half of it, it’s still great. Light up and drift away.
Bloodywood – Nu Delhi
Fearless Records
If it helps anyone reading this. My son is a big fan of Bloodywood. I however, am not. It’s all very well mashing together cultural music with METAL. But when the metal is, in my mind, bloody dull nu metal, then I apologise but this is not for me, not even a little bit. Sorry son, but you are very wrong on this one.
Glazyhaze – Sonic
This starts off with ferocious wobbling shoegaze guitar layers and a dreamy female vocal, a proper shoegaze groove. It then goes from that to lighter gazing territory, harder edged indie pop and even slows things down lots for the fuzz to catch up. It’s a great indie pop album that moves around more than enough to keep me interested.
Desire – Games People Play
Italians Do It Better
This is excellently constructed synth pop with one high heeled foot in the throbbing lights and sweat of the disco and the other in the darkness in the concrete streets outside. It’s born into the night and smells of stars reflected in oil stained puddles as the acid rain falls down gently. It’s another great release from Johnny Jewel and Italians Do It Better.
Amammoth – Distant Skies and the Ocean Flies
Electric Valley Records
Another band with immense sludgy stoner cycling grooves. Slow deliberate and leaving plenty of space to breath, sorry, inhale. It’s a fantastic lesson in glacial speed and heaviness. One for the shelf with the corner torn off for a roach.
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Conan Neutron & the Secret Friends are on Facebook and Instagram.
Noisepicker’s website is noisepicker.org. They are also on Facebook and Instagram.
Euphrosyne are on Facebook.
XIXA’s website is xixamusic.com. They are also on Facebook and Instagram.
My Morning Jacket’s website is mymorningjacket.com. They are also on Instagram and Facebook.
Ghostsmoker are on Instagram and Facebook.
Bloodywood’s website is bloodywood.net. They are also on Facebook and Instagram.
Glazyhaze are on Instagram and Facebook.
Desire are on Instagram and Facebook.
Amammoth are on Facebook and Instagram.
All words by Adrian Bloxham.
