Author: wamdines

Red Hot Chili Peppers played a four-song set at last night’s FireAid fundraising concert at the KIA Forum in Los Angeles, making their first appearance onstage together since their performance at the closing ceremony of the Olympic games last August.

Earlier in the set, ahead of Black Summer, bassist Flea stated, “Los Angeles is our home. We fucking love you.”

Watch the band’s set below:

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A music writer since 1993, formerly Editor of Kerrang! and Planet Rock magazine (RIP), Paul Brannigan is a Contributing Editor to Louder. Having previously written books on Lemmy, Dave Grohl (the Sunday Times best-seller This Is A Call) and Metallica (Birth School Metallica Death, co-authored with Ian Winwood), his Eddie Van Halen biography (Eruption in the UK, Unchained in the US) emerged in 2021. He has written for Rolling Stone, Mojo and Q, hung out with Fugazi at Dischord House, flown on Ozzy Osbourne’s private jet, played Angus Young’s Gibson SG, and interviewed everyone from Aerosmith and Beastie Boys to Young Gods and ZZ Top. Born in the North of Ireland, Brannigan lives in North London and supports The Arsenal.

Originally released in 1976, Softs was something of a make-or-break album in Soft Machine’s career. It came after the band had suffered a serious setback in the abrupt departure of guitarist Allan Holdsworth, who quit to join Tony Williams’ Lifetime in the USA.

He took off just as Bundles, their first album for EMI’s Harvest label, came out in 1975, adding insult to injury. Fortunately, he made amends by suggesting his replacement should be the relatively unknown John Etheridge.

What Softs makes abundantly clear is that, whereas Holdsworth’s fiery legato technique tended to skim over Karl Jenkins’ ornately structured contributions, Etheridge digs deeper into the material. The former Darryl Way’s Wolf and Global Village Trucking Company member’s rockier thrust gives Soft Machine a harder, defined edge.

Newly remastered for vinyl, the band basks in Softs’ pristine sound, both comfortable and in control, with Jenkins now on keyboard duties alone, and veteran sessioneer Alan Wakeman, picking up the sax.

A tangible gravitas haunts the expansive Jenkins-composed suite that comprises side one. Utilising more colours and textures than any previous Soft Machine releases, The Tale Of Taliesen’s stately meandering is interspersed by Etheridge’s breakneck soloing, while the marimba-infused rhythmic undergrowth of Ban-Ban Caliban sets up Wakeman’s euphoric choruses.

Song Of Aeolus ushers in a windswept ending replete with slow-churning strings and woebegone guitar. With all three threaded by crossfades laced with burbling synthscapes – the sole contribution of departing founder Mike Ratledge – the dynamic twists and thoughtful depths of the mix suggest these pieces aren’t so much produced as dramatised.

Etheridge not only continues touring around the world with Soft Machine – he still has fire under his fingertips

Though lacking the same compositional clout, the second side is not without impact. Out Of Season’s solemnly-repeating keyboard phrases possess an austere tension; while the sparring match between Etheridge’s abrasive runs and John Marshall’s surging drums during The Camden Tandem erupts into a frantic sprint – not unlike those between John McLaughlin and Billy Cobham, a similarity that is strikingly reinforced by the Mahavishnu-like chimes of Nexus.

Sometimes unfairly overshadowed by the high watermark achievements of Holdsworth and Bundles, Softs deserves its time in the spotlight. Nearly 50 years after saving the day as the new boy, Etheridge not only continues touring around the world with Soft Machine – he still has fire under his fingertips. Let’s hear it for the underdog.

Softs is on sale now via Esoteric Recordings.

Sid’s feature articles and reviews have appeared in numerous publications including Prog, Classic Rock, Record Collector, Q, Mojo and Uncut. A full-time freelance writer with hundreds of sleevenotes and essays for both indie and major record labels to his credit, his book, In The Court Of King Crimson, an acclaimed biography of King Crimson, was substantially revised and expanded in 2019 to coincide with the band’s 50th Anniversary. Alongside appearances on radio and TV, he has lectured on jazz and progressive music in the UK and Europe.  

A resident of Whitley Bay in north-east England, he spends far too much time posting photographs of LPs he’s listening to on Twitter and Facebook.

The surviving members of Nirvana – Dave Grohl, Krist Novoselic and Pat Smear – made a surprise, unannounced appearance at the FireAid benefit concert at the KIA Forum in Los Angeles last night, January 30.

For their four-song set, Dave Grohl’s daughter Violet fronted the band to perform All Apologies from the group’s final album, In Utero, St. Vincent handled lead vocals for a blast through Breed, from Nevermind, ex-Sonic Youth vocalist/bassist Kim Gordon took the mic for School, from the trio’s debut album Bleach, and Joan Jett led the band into a version of Territorial Pissings, also from Nevermind.

St. Vincent, Kim Gordon and Joan Jett previously played alongside Grohl, Novoselic and Smear when Nirvana were inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame in 2014.

Watch Nirvana’s set below:

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A music writer since 1993, formerly Editor of Kerrang! and Planet Rock magazine (RIP), Paul Brannigan is a Contributing Editor to Louder. Having previously written books on Lemmy, Dave Grohl (the Sunday Times best-seller This Is A Call) and Metallica (Birth School Metallica Death, co-authored with Ian Winwood), his Eddie Van Halen biography (Eruption in the UK, Unchained in the US) emerged in 2021. He has written for Rolling Stone, Mojo and Q, hung out with Fugazi at Dischord House, flown on Ozzy Osbourne’s private jet, played Angus Young’s Gibson SG, and interviewed everyone from Aerosmith and Beastie Boys to Young Gods and ZZ Top. Born in the North of Ireland, Brannigan lives in North London and supports The Arsenal.

Rosalie Cunningham’s psych-infused third solo album, To Shoot Another Day, is a reminder of what makes her so special. She tells Prog about the joys of DIY recording, her passion for Bond soundtracks and the anticlimax of releasing records today

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“I can do whatever the fuck I like – it’s my album,” declares Rosalie Cunningham, explaining the outlook that inspired the title track of new album To Shoot Another Day. On the cover she stares through the viewfinder of a vintage camera; it’s her way of “breaking the fourth wall,” she says.

“On that song I’m talking about the process of making an album, but through the lens of making a film, where I can be anything in my own screenplay. That’s the way I wanted to open my album. The verses, which are like script notes, describe the scene, and essentially say, ‘This is my work, and I can do what I want.’”

It’s a statement Cunningham hasn’t always been fully comfortable embracing. It’s five years since the release of her self-titled solo debut, her first full release since she’d disbanded Purson in 2017. It was was testament to the fact that she had been, and remains, the driving component behind her endeavours. “Not everybody knew that I was the creative force behind Purson,” she says. “So with my first album I felt that I had to throw everything at it to prove that I could do it all.”

The follow-up, Two Piece Puzzle, saw her ramp up the theatrics; but since it was released during the pandemic she had “tentative” feelings about its reception. Perhaps third time’s the charm? To Shoot Another Day finds Cunningham unencumbered by her previous constraints; and it’s also the first release she’s recorded and mixed entirely at her home studio in Southend-on-Sea.

“There were incredibly extensive, long days,” she says. “I get into a hyper-focus at night; I kind of forget to drink water or go to the toilet and just go deep. It’s a blessing and a curse having a home studio, because there’s no clock to tell you to stop.”

Though tempted to retire to a more traditional recording environment, she powered through with the support of partner and guitarist Roscoe Wilson. “I actually think it’s the best-sounding album I’ve done. I’ve spent thousands in studios in the past and not got the same results – and this time I’ve been a hell of a lot more relaxed. I’m still enjoying listening to it, which is insane for me. Normally I can’t listen to a thing I’ve done until about five years later. So that, to me is, a really good sign.”

The level of attention she’s paid shows in her unshrinking journeys into different musical territories, expanding from psychedelic prog to unexpected moments of frisky lounge jazz (as heard on Heavy Pencil – with clarinet and saxophone contributions from Gong’s Ian East – and In The Shade Of The Shadows), fuzzy psych metal (Spook Racket) and poppier melodies (Denim Eyes and Stepped Out Of Time). To Shoot Another Day is her most diverse release to date; although she insists it has nothing to do with a change in musical taste.

“It’s just a progression of me as an artist,” she says, noting her continued devotion to Pink Floyd, Genesis and King Crimson. “It’s more to do with exploring genres that I was too scared to indulge in. Maybe I thought they were too predictable or too cheesy – now I’ve let go. Now there’s some really pop elements there, and there’s some bluesy elements, is definitely my partner’s influence.”

Releasing an album, you’re just sitting there in your pyjamas, like, ‘Wow, it’s premiering all over the world!’

Wilson co-wrote some of the songs and also helped the album’s direction to evolve thematically, based on the couple’s shared love for James Bond soundtracks; both were obsessed with the spy movies as children.

“It’s just a genre of music that’s always seduced me,” Cunningham says. “I find the whole vibe fascinating, so I’ve had a very natural inclination for it. I’m dramatic with my own music, so it kind of fits.” She adds: “I’m trying to coin the phrase ‘spy-chedelic rock’ – but everyone thinks it’s just a typo, so it’s not catching on yet!”

In spite of the strong espionage influence, she refutes the idea of it being a concept album. “It is bookended by two songs that share a theme, similar to the tried-and-tested trope of The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album, where it only has a slightly developed theme.”

Just as the title track correlates the arts of music and film, closer The Premiere revisits the idea, humorously exploring her frustrations over the contrast between album launches and red-carpeted movie premieres. “Releasing an album in this day and age, you’re just sitting there in your pyjamas and you’re like, ‘Wow, it’s premiering all over the world!’ It should be a really big deal in terms of the kind of connection that we have with the rest of the planet – but it’s really anti-climatic. There’s a lot of moaning about my social media duties embedded in the lyrics across this album too.”

It was just teenagers getting absolutely plastered… as soon as you’re 18 you can do that, and they just actively encourage it!

As well as drawing from the shadowy and seductive world of Bond, To Shoot Another Day finds colour in observing the ordinary moments of the everyday. Timothy Martin’s Conditioning School – named after the founder and chairman of the Wetherspoons pub chain – is set in the mundane and commonplace scenario of teens getting drunk on the weekend; but it’s developed into something shrewd and impishly psychedelic.

“I was looking around Wetherspoons in Southend on a Friday night, and it was just teenagers drinking sweet alcohol buckets, like WKD, using just one straw, and getting absolutely plastered. It’s just hilarious that that’s allowed! As soon as you’re 18 you can go and do that, and they just actively encourage it. Not that I’m judging, of course – I was that 18-year-old too!”

More playfulness can be found in the instrumental The Smut Peddler, a wink to the nickname she gave Roscoe. “He can be quite smutty!” she laughs. “That was just an instrumental riff that I had hanging around on guitar.” Elsewhere, Spook Racket unravels the fantastical and mystical side of showmanship. “It’s a term I picked up in one of my favourite books, Nightmare Alley [by William Lindsay Gresham].

“It’s about the conning mediums who used to go around in the early 20th century. I translated the term to a live band, exploring the magic of it. I was just thinking about how someone from that time, if they saw a rock show now, they’d think it was magic. They’d wonder how the hell it was being done. Like, where are the wires and pulleys?”

There’s a lot of this new wave of classic rock stuff, which I find highly cringeworthy

No such illusionary devices are required for Cunningham’s live performances; just the talent of her own band. “They’re all great musicians – virtuosos in their own right,” she says. “Live, there are always a lot of extended improvisational bits, which I think this album definitely has room for, with all the new blues and jazz elements. Also, we’re a more bombastic rock show live than I ever have been on record, so it’ll be more energetic than before.”

Despite having been part of the prog scene for more than a decade, Rosalie Cunningham still exists very much in her own space; no one does it quite like her. “How do I say this without being mean about modern music?” she reflects. “There’s a lot of this new wave of classic rock stuff, which I find highly cringeworthy. It follows every cliché imaginable, and I do wonder why that is.

“There are amazing artists out there, but you’ve got to scratch the surface a little bit. The ones that seem to get a lot of attention seem to be because they’re pouring all their efforts into social media and promotion, and not songwriting. And people have such short attention spans these days – they’re just throwing in common denominators.”

While she admits to a minor concern that To Shoot Another Day might be a little “too pop” for the typical prog listener, she says she’s always felt accepted within the genre. “The prog audience is especially broad-minded. It’s a great community because I don’t have to worry about anything being too ‘out there’ for them. I’m very grateful for that.”

Liz works on keeping the Louder sites up to date with the latest news from the world of rock and metal. Prior to joining Louder as a full time staff writer, she completed a Diploma with the National Council for the Training of Journalists and received a First Class Honours Degree in Popular Music Journalism. She enjoys writing about anything from neo-glam rock to stoner, doom and progressive metal, and loves celebrating women in music.

Being a heavy metal journalist is the best job in the world, but there are only so many times you can wring a headline out of whatever Metallica did this week before you go insane. People enter this line of work for various reasons and, for me, it was finding new, exciting, brutal shit and screaming about it from the rooftops. So now I’m going to do just that.

Below, you’ll find 11 mind-bending acts that I’ve long wanted to write about despite never getting a decent-enough excuse. From clamouring thrash obsessed with pizza to power metal made by monks, these free-thinkers need to be heard to be believed. Have a read before my boss turns back around and asks why that piece ranking Slipknot’s masks in reverse-order of sexiness isn’t on his desk yet.

Blindfolded And Led To The Woods

These New Zealanders are extreme metal’s ugly duckling story. They formed as a “funny” deathcore troupe and released a debut EP called Armed To The Teeth With Jelly Beans. So 2010s, so random, LOL, etc. Mercifully, they enjoyed a glow-up over the ensuing years, then emerged from the pandemic with Nightmare Withdrawals: a choking ooze of noise, tech-death and breakdowns. 2023’s Rejecting Obliteration doubled down on the density, affirming these former jesters as one of the underground’s most disorienting forces.

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Briqueville

The moment you accept you’ll never understand Briqueville is the moment you’ll fall in love with Briqueville. At first, the Belgians seem like a riddle to solve, playing instrumental but shamanic post-metal in hoods and robes. It’s tempting to search for the meaning behind those riffs, but that way only madness lies. In a world where Sleep Token and Ghost have conditioned us to expect lore from masked bands, it’s refreshing to get one that just writes avant-garde music for its own brilliant sake.

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Crippling Alcoholism

If Nine Inch Nails were somehow creepier, they’d be Crippling Alcoholism. New album With Love From A Padded Room is a nightmarish concept piece where each lyric tells the story of a prisoner in a made-up jail. It coalesces noise rock, metal, goth and lashings of synthesisers underneath Tony Castrato’s baritone vocals, half-sung and half-spoken like a looming maniac. It’s not just the atmosphere, either – the fact the Bostonians know how to write a memorable hook means their songs cruelly linger long after you’ve stopped listening.

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Ecclesia

Have you seen that priest who went viral last year by nailing the drum part to Meshuggah’s Bleed? Ecclesia are that guy but a whole band. They’re a hooded order of monks who, if their press releases are to be believed, were united by the Vatican to fight heresy with the power of trad-metal. 2024’s Ecclesia Militans is a collection of hymns about burning witches, exorcising demons and redeeming souls, converging into a rare metal album that makes virtue sound badass.

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Grorr

France may be the greatest hotbed of forward-thinking metal in the world right now. As well as such pioneers as Gojira and Alcest, it’s giving us underground innovators like Hypn0se and Slift. Grorr (their name an onomatopoeia for the sound of a death growl) only strengthen that argument. The Pyrenees-based originals mix djent with world music, as epitomised by latest album Ddulden’s Last Flight, which adapts an unfilmed movie script into a saga of hard riffs and twanging Asian folk.

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Lord Buffalo

Not to be confused with psych outfit King Buffalo, these Americans lead a genre that fans call “mud-folk”. You’ll see why the quartet had to receive their own catch-all when you listen to them, because the tag “country-noise-metal” wouldn’t exactly roll off the tongue. They carry the tar-smoked soul of Americana through walls of scratching riffs and equally discordant violins, but all that roughness is smoothed out by the pipes of frontman Daniel Pruitt. How this lot are so under-heard is baffling.

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Love Sex Machine

One of my hardest laughs of 2024 came when I saw Love Sex Machine at Pelagic Fest. This is a collective of four burly, bearded Frenchmen unleashing riffs heavy enough to make Morbid Angel shit themselves. But all of their lyrics are tongue-in-cheek yarns about fucking, aliens and warfare. So, how could my sides not split when, while onstage, the band’s sonic fury gets interrupted by their singer saying, “This next song is called Killed By A Monster Cock”? Just… genius work, lads.

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Obscure Sphinx

Who are the scariest metal band ever? Is it Mayhem with their murderous history, or Amenra with their panic-attack-like intensity? How about Slayer when they hit terminal velocity? Wherever you align, I’d humbly like to add Obscure Sphinx to the conversation. The Polish enigmas release noxiously claustrophobic post-metal, and their grip on your neck only tightens every time frontwoman Zofia Fraś snarls like a hellhound. If those vocals don’t haunt your nightmares, the art of 2013 album Void Mother certainly will.

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Pizza Death

Ever heard of ‘pizza thrash’? It’s a condescending label thrown at bands who deal in high-speed, 80s-style aggro with snapback caps and party-hard lyrics. Pizza Death, however, wear it like a badge of honour. Each of the Australians’ rapid tracks genuflect before the glutinous, with titles like Napalm Cheese and Pizzapocalypse to their name. Is it stupid? Yes. But lay down one of their records and you’ll get a saucy thrashback to the likes of Suicidal Tendencies and even Napalm Death.

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Psychonaut

Stick on some Psychonaut and they’ll gladly pull you through a wormhole ear-first. The Belgians may only be a power trio, but the way their space rock blockbusters escalate and deviate sounds like they have the force of a thousand men. The echoing, distorted vocals only make the whole journey even more alien, and by the time the band reach the crescendo of whatever it is they’re playing, your mind will be as expanded as the protagonist’s at the end of 2001: A Space Odyssey.

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Spaceslug

Since 2017, Spaceslug have been making wobbly doom about a mollusc that travels through space and time. Whatever drug they needed to come up with that, the three-piece have probably smoked the world’s supply of it, having put out five albums and three EPs around the theme already. As easy as it is to laugh at their central concept, though, the smoothness and melody of their music make this seemingly jokey band something worth hearing again and again and again.

Louder’s resident Gojira obsessive was still at uni when he joined the team in 2017. Since then, Matt’s become a regular in Prog and Metal Hammer, at his happiest when interviewing the most forward-thinking artists heavy music can muster. He’s got bylines in The Guardian, The Telegraph, NME, Guitar and many others, too. When he’s not writing, you’ll probably find him skydiving, scuba diving or coasteering.

Its legacy, obviously, is undeniable, but is Rumours actually Fleetwood Mac’s best album? While it’s undoubtedly a work of genius, I’d argue that the group’s 1987 release, Tango In The Night, is far more deserving of that title.

When the album was finally completed following 18 gruelling months in the studio, tensions came to a head with a physical fight between former lovers Nicks and Buckingham after the latter revealed he would not be joining Fleetwood Mac on the road. In hindsight, this decision came as no surprise, as the guitarist considered it “the worst recording experience” of his life. After unshackling himself from the group’s toxic dynamic, he was subsequently replaced by guitarists Billy Burnette and Rick Vito for the album’s follow-up, 1990’s Behind The Mask.

There was a lot of trial and error. Tapes would be sped-up, slowed-down and re-recorded due to Buckingham’s scrutinising need for perfection, and the limitations of the new tech proved more complex than they had originally imagined. To stop the record from glitching, the tapes even spent a night in a refrigerator. It was incredibly hands-on, and yet most of his bandmates spent their time partying in an RV which they had parked on Buckingham’s driveway.

Altogether, Nicks only spent two weeks in the studio. Not wanting to run into Buckingham’s then-girlfriend Cheri Casperi, she was moreover distracted by her addiction struggles, which evolved into a dependency on the anxiety medication Klonopin and brandy. As a result, the vocals she had laid down were lacklustre and quickly deleted, replacement parts often pieced together from other recording sessions. She contributed three songs to the record, the gorgeously haunting When I See You Again, the aforementioned Welcome To The Room…Sara, and the wildly romantic Seven Wonders, her writing credit cheekily bestowed via a misheard lyric, originally by Sandy Stewart. These songs are perfectly Stevie; magical, shimmering and tragically poetic. While her conflicting personal circumstances might not have allowed her to play such an integral part overall, her presence within the album is felt throughout. Like a disembodied spirit, her vocals echo out obscured behind the lush expanse of sparkling synth. Elsewhere, they take centre stage, a sorceress at her most enchanting.

An archetypal 1980s release, Tango In The Night captured the era’s flamboyance without the tack. For me, it harks back to the esoteric beauty of their 1975 eponymous album, avoiding the overly accessible poppiness of Rumours, pinpointing Fleetwood Mac in their most distinctive form. There’s the mystique and sensuality of Stevie, the oddball eccentricism of Lindsey, Mick’s tantric, animalistic drumming, John’s velvet-warm bass lines, and spectacular crooning and songwriting by Christine.

Sensual, carnal and often as bewitchingly wild as its lavishly-foliaged cover by Brett-Livingstone Strong, the album starts with Big Love, a risqué grunt-littered creation by Lindsey (who takes on both the female and male parts by sampling his voice with a variable speed oscillator). Later on, he helms Caroline, a steamy, mystical ode to his former girlfriend Carol Ann Harris, grounded by a hypnotic, daring groove. Then there’s the title-track, intoxicating in its otherworldly mood and accentuated by Lindsey’s euphoric guitar solo that can only really be described as a spiritual experience. Of course, there’s also fan favourites/singles Everywhere and Little Lies, both Christine contributions and wonderfully charming. Christine additionally finds perfection on Isn’t It Midnight, a racing, snare-snapping dance-y number, coloured in twilight hues and by an unfamiliar urgency present in her vocal, full of deep longing.

Liz works on keeping the Louder sites up to date with the latest news from the world of rock and metal. Prior to joining Louder as a full time staff writer, she completed a Diploma with the National Council for the Training of Journalists and received a First Class Honours Degree in Popular Music Journalism. She enjoys writing about anything from neo-glam rock to stoner, doom and progressive metal, and loves celebrating women in music.