SPOTLIGHT: Jesus Hooligan - Feel

One chilly night I sat in a dark basement in North London and watched what looked to me like a heavy metal asguardian sing sea shanties whilst beating the shit out of a stool with a huge chain. Every word of that last sentence is true and yes it was as cool as you're imagining. What I glimpsed was only the tip of the iceberg though. I had only seen a Jesus Hooligan solo effort not the full band. The band is made up of minimal boring old shit like guitars and whatnot and mostly made up of anything you can savagely hammer with a lead pipe whilst bellowing to the wind for those pussy greek gods to test your viking mettle. I was lucky enough to be sent a copy their sparkly new cd Feel. and here's how that went.


"Feel" is a lot more than a string of songs. It's a social occasion. There's a story for those to tell who may be putting it on for someone brand new to the "hooligan" experience. "What the flaming fuck is this?" one may exclaim. The answer to this is long winded and and more fun to explain the more of you  there are who know the deal. This is something to pull out at parties when you decry pop bullshit and someone says "well what do you think real original music sounds like?" or to blare down a crowded highstreet from your battered pickup to say to the world "fuck you world, I wont do what you tell me". I would say more than anything though it's a memory of an outstanding band you saw that time with all your friends and you want to reminisce about just how cool they were. If you're after easy listening or something to quietly contemplate then this isn't it. If you want to become the centre of all attention then step right up because I'm pretty sure no one in your vicinity has heard anything like this.

"Old Fashioned Love Song" kicks things and let's you know right from the get go that you won't be getting all that "deep and serious" malarky from this set of songs. from opening lyrics like "whips and chains" and a chorus that let's you know that lets the world know Mr Hooligan is horny the tone here is unashamedly crude and a little silly on purpose. The whole thing is set to tribal feeling riffs and god only knows what being pummelled in the background.
"Rain" comes around and by this point you think "of course there's a didjeridoo, why wouldn't there be". The tribal drumming kicks back up over minimalist guitars and by now you feel like you're getting the hang of things. I like to think that this is what music was always supposed to sound like. at some point people became obsessed with scales and what was technically possible and they forgot to strip naked with their neighbours and stomp around a fire at night, settling disputes by who could shout the loudest while still keeping the beat and finding the love of a woman over embers and hypnotising rhythms.
"Sweat" starts with (somehow very appropriately) the death of a guitar and the ominous boom of what I like to think of as your preconceptions being smashed to smithereens. Structure as we imagine it is another of the things that Jesus Hooligan are determined to show is something the rest of us are doing all wrong. All that ABACAB shit is over-rated and what we all need as a tonic is hollering and chants and then stop. Subject matter here I guess could be considered humanist, or pagan or even satanic. telling us that human nature is perfectly ok and that all the primping and pandering of modern culture is the truly weird freaky stuff. Underneath all that is also a quite touching love song. Beautiful stuff.
"Jame's Song" kicks straight of with more shouting at the very tops of lungs and then the drums kick off. no more guitar here. No more words. No more anything that makes up the mainstream construct of music, bands and songs that any of us think need to be there. What your brain may not have clocked onto though is that al these ideas you had about "proper" music have slowly been removed throughout the course of the last three songs so none of this seems out of place and you don't feel like you're thrown in at the deep end. You just find yourself in a place the the groove and the fact that everyone from toddlers upwards can join in.
As if the first couple of songs teased a guitar just to help you get to grips with things "I Met A Woman" assumes you're fully up to speed with this particular brand of hooliganism and feels that full on tribals are all you'll need band wise and that you'll be totally fine with lyrics like "I'd like to skin her and wear her as a coat". eventually this track devolves into primal screaming and then it ends abruptly with no apology for bending your fragile mind into gooey paste.

Then it's over and you're left shivering in the stark silence and you understand that music as you understand it is a lie and that bin over the other side of your office never looked so musical before.

SPOTLIGHT: Eat Defeat - It's Always Sunny In Yorkshire

So For the first time (I think ever) I'm going to write about a band I've not personally interacted with, bare with me because this Thug Life we call bad music blogging is about to step up a notch.

So Eat Defeat are a band that I may not have played with yet but hail from Leeds, which as far as I can tell is knocking out some of the best UK bands around right now. They've arisen from the ashes of skacore to become a power pop skate punk quartet that are doing pretty well for themselves, having toured mainland Europe and all over the UK. In fact if you like what you hear after this review why not  check them out in an upcoming February tour.

Anyways onward to the actual EP:

This thing sounds chunky like you'd expect a Punk-Pop record to, the level of professionalism here is about what I'd expect from a band who have a few releases and members from bands like Fighting Fiction. They clearly have some stripes they've earned and this is the fruit of their wisdom. The hooks here on display will let you know instantly if it's your cup of tea and it certainly is mine!! The cover is a very quick indication that if you like your music exclusively dark and brooding then you're looking in the wrong place here

"Thundergun Express" is the kicker on this EP and it's a good one, I purposefully haven't listened to the previous material yet so I don't become biased but I can only hope its as cool and powerful as this. I don't recognise the quote at the beginning of the track but by virtue of the fact that it's there I feel at home. I may have mentioned that I was a giant Midtown fan back in the early 2000s and this gives me great memories of those guys.
"Luck is for Losers" is next along and this has a pretty special treat on it. In what I assume is a nod to their origins as a skacore band they have guest vocals from none other than Barney Boom. The breakdown in the bridge is setup in the previous song as an Eat Defeat trope and helps to make the drop in tempo style not feel too jarring, the guest verse is cool and will make Sonic Boom Six fans need this in their collection. The chorus for this tune is just superb and the strongest of the three tracks. It's a real pop punk anthem without the need for too much polish or bravado, just like great pop punk should be.
"Survival Mode" rounds out the EP and the intro feels like it could go in many a direction, being a little technical and feeling like it could be used to introduce something heavy or maybe just a throwaway beginning into more pop punk. Instead the guys choose the absolute best path (in my humble opinion) and kick the pace up to a thousand miles per hour. If there's one thing I love more than great harmonies and catchy choruses over a pop punk beat its the same over double time skate punk drumming!! Being addicted to the double makes this a definite favourite for me and an extremely strong finisher both in terms of wanting to finish with a bang and for this being something that can hold it's own against other established powerhouses in the skatepunk/melodic hardcore scene.

All in all really great set of songs that I've been listening to a hell of a lot since I was pointed in their direction. It's a crying shame that I haven't played with these guys personally and I'll be looking to remedy that soon. If you think the glory days of pop punk happened before a certain band released a certain shite self titled album then you will thoroughly enjoy this. In fact if you are a fan of music in general and you want to check out a well thought out fun set of songs then this is the place you need to be.

https://eatdefeat.bandcamp.com/

SPOTLIGHT: Cereal Box Heroes - Frier

Back around September I bullied my way onto a gig line-up because I really wanted to play a show with the headliner and also DropThis were playing and Triple Sundae two awful(ly good) bands with friends in the line-up. The other band on this bill were Cereal Box Heroes (a name I got wrong a few times on the night) and as far as I know it was their first show. Well to say they knocked that shit out the park is an understatement. These three dudes who by my old man standards couldn't have been older than 8 just smashed their way through the most incredible 90s power pop punk revivalist set and instantly won the hearts of a nation. If they had just been a great band they would have still won the night but on top of that it turned out they were bloody stellar blokes too the nail in the super awesome leagues coffin right there. Shortly(ish) after they managed to put out their first EP Frier. and that is what we're here to discuss.

Get past a  gaudy cover makes a bit of a mess of the band name and you'll find that Frier feels both perfectly comfortable around all your 90s Lagwagon, Blink and Diesel Boy albums and utterly fresh and new. A little track full of fart sounds and sets the scene and if you're put off by this then fair enough, you have obviously come to the wrong place, you'll find your humourless boring person shit somewhere else. The thing that will hit you from the get go is that this doesn't just sound like a 90 punk album, it sounds like one. The production is incredible for something that is a first ever effort and a lot of care has gone into perfect capturing the era in the master.

"Forget It" is the first "proper" track on the album and it's a revelation, fast and fun with all the right breakdowns and those stops which are synonymous with the style. The second double time verse shows that these guys are fully capable of keeping up with all their idols and anything else that I  would rank highly today.
"Homewreck" is blisteringly fast and awesome fun to listen to. It just makes me smile. There's no other way to put it. This track introduces to the fact that we have two lead singers in Conor and Dom. Who's my favourite you ask? That would be telling but the difference, whilst being obvious is as glaring or uneven as Blink was and you probably wont find yourself with one voice you hugely prefer. THe breakdowns found in this track could almost be thought of as derivative, but they are played so well and with such feeling that they quite right show off a loving homage to late 90s/2K pop punk instead.
"Mudface" is the last track on the EP and again the stage is set for a trip down memory lane. These retro punk vibes never overshadow the groups talent however and this in particular would be way beyond your average vocalist in terms of complexity in the verses. The choruses then reset us back into familiar sing-along territory, something these guys understand is necessary part of writing a fun album and something they work extremely well in delivering.

The comparisons to the past, especially to Dude Ranch are ever present in this EP and in the band as a whole, but rather than clinging to an ideal or a desperate emulation of better things these guys have created something born of the same basic foundation and can now proudly rest it up against all the albums of my own teenage years. If you can't tell from all this these few tracks are really something special and if Cereal Box Heroes aren't already on your radar then make sure they are now or miss out.

https://cerealboxheroes.bandcamp.com/album/frier

SPOLIGHT: Recluse Club - Osaka Mechaslug Concern

Let me tell you a little story. Once upon a time there was a struggling acoustic musician. He was bumbling through unfulfilling shows and watching his far cooler friends rocket up to fame/imfamy and felt like he was wallowing in obscurity playing shit shows to 0 crowds for no real reason.

Just as he was about to jack the whole thing in the aforementioned friends asked some punks who were putting a show on in Worthing if that sad acoustic pop punker could play the show too. He did and then he met some excellent dudes, they liked the things he liked and were awesome and welcomed the acoustic punk as a friend and then played the most ridiculously fast music he'd ever heard and saved his musical career. This man was of course me (you can see some depressing blog posts here from when i nearly gave up) and the band that restored my faith in playing shows was Recluse Club. One of the biggest shames about this band thus far is that they previously only had one shoddily recorded demo to go by. This is now not the case as the guys have the stellar Osaka Mechaslug Concern to please your lugholes with.....

OK lets start with genre definitions. This is a toughy, but melodic hardcore hits the general area, maybe a little Refused esque post-hardcore in there too. I hear a tad of Enter Shikari too, which is awesome since they are one of my best not punk bands.

This EP sounds good. Everything sounds like it's complimenting everything else and is clean enough to  ring the vocals and harmonies nicely whilst still being raw enough to convey the hardcore nature of the band. The opening "Linear" has an almost progressive feel to it, although if like me you think progressive is a dirty word in music don't fret as it's the only instance of it, serving to nicely warm up and  build expectation of the speed fest to come. "Errors" is straight up melodic hardcore and fits in well with anything else especially that you might hear on the continent that would fit in that bracket, a good thing in my book. "Evensong" is the most classically hardcore track with this offering and if I imagine the song as a human they have the biggest balls of all the tracks which is saying something since all these guys play rugby and are firefighters!! "The Crash" is ever so far from least as the last track, it's my favourite of all due to it seeming to hit every bit of 90s skatepunk nostalgia in a technical storm of cool metalish riffage and spot on EpiFat harmonies and blast beat drumming. It's a full storm and I felt a little out of breath just listening to it.

All in all this is the awesome sound I've been waiting roughly a year and a half to hear from these guys, a brilliant effort and one that will be hard to top on the upcoming album (I may have made up the upcoming album news). Remember supporting your local scene automatically makes you 63% better than other humans in your area who don't. so jump over to bandcamp and pick this up as a blinding first catch of 2015.

https://recluseclub.bandcamp.com/album/osaka-mechaslug-concern