Royal Blood, In Conversation

Photo by Ben Thatcher (@BenjiTalent)

Around this time last year, I heard Royal blood for the first time. “Out Of The Black” sounded at once violent, forceful and almost brutal yet it was very melodic and at times catchy. “Figure It Out” had the same force behind it but was more complex and had an undeniable swing to it. They had that incredible sound too. Big, thunderous drums and a guitar sound that seemed so meaty and sonically diverse that it was hard to distinguish between bass and guitar parts. But the overpowering thing about it was the tightness of the playing. These were guys who had played together for a long time and knew their material back to front, obviously. Imagine my surprise then as I found out that there was only two of them, there was no guitar and they had only been together for a matter of months before recording the songs. I was impressed before, now I was amazed. 

Speaks Louder Than Words - Tim From Transgressive

Speaks Louder Than Words is the podcast I produce and edit. Strangely, I've never really felt the need to mention it on Some Call It Noise before as, in my head at least, the two have always been very separate. The podcast is part of my work life. It's produced for Warner/Chappell Music and deals solely with Warner/Chappell artists and writers. The blog on the other hand is a personal thing, about music that is important to me regardless of where it comes from. The reason that I'm sharing the podcast on Some Call It Noise now is because this latest episode (which includes one of my rare appearances in front of the microphone) is one of the closest the subject matter has come to crossing over.

On Wye Oak's New Direction

Last week saw a flurry of activity and announcements from Wye Oak. The band, originally from Baltimore but now spread across the USA, have announced the release of their fourth studio album, Shriek, on April 29^th and the first track to be released from it, “The Tower”, has been played on various radio stations and podcasts and a video has been doing the rounds online.

Last year, when discussing the new album, Jenn Wasner and Andy Stack revealed that it would feature no guitars. This news came despite an August 2012 concert broadcast by NPR where the band debuted 2 new songs, both very heavy on guitar and both astonishingly good. However in the year and a half since then, the band has progressed and those songs seem to have fallen by the wayside.

Mark Kozelek Live at Union Chapel London 27/10/2013

Mark Kozelek's music has always been somewhat emotionally raw. Melancholy is an intrinsic part of his style and has been ever since the early days of his band, Red House Painters. Tracks such as “Katy Song” and “24” are perfect examples of Kozelek's skill at making despair seem beautiful. In the same way that there is beauty in a crumbling Victorian mansion, Kozelek's songs have often contained a feeling of irreparable sadness balanced with an element of beauty to keep your attention, to make it all easier to bear. On Sunday night however, the sadness seemed to prevail.

The night started off in an upsetting yet undeniably impressive way. A visibly shaken Mark came out to the crowd to announce the news that Lou Reed had passed away. He told a few funny stories about the handful of times he had met the Velvet Underground founder then launched into a wonderful cover of “Caroline Says II”, a fitting tribute. He followed with what is possibly the best version of “You Missed My Heart” that I've ever heard. It was powerful, expressive and wonderfully played, raising expectations for the rest of the night.

Hypnotist (Song For Daniel H.) - Lullaby For The Working Class

 Alt. Country is one of those genres that has so loose a definition that it's hard to really pin-point what, if anything, makes a country band “alternative”. It's used to describe loud, punky bands with a country twang to them and quieter more introspective folk-rock bands simultaneously. I've often thought that the term, born about the same time as alternative rock, was just lazy band wagon jumping on behalf of record labels to re-market country rock and in some cases the less serious sounding genre of Cow-Punk. But despite my internal debate over genre definitions, over the years alternative country has produced some of my favourite music.

Lincoln Nebraska's Lullaby For The Working Class were one of the more interesting bands of this genre to appear in the mid 1990's. Whilst they released three strong, clever albums of rootsy, acoustic rock, it was their single “Hypnotist (Song For Daniel H.)” that has earned itself a place on my list of favourite tracks. “Hypnotist” is the rare song that is clever, emotionally honest, meaningful and devastatingly catchy all at the same time.