Some heavyweights return this week, with Record Store Day releases from Slayer and Venom. Elsewhere, there’s our usual Swedes, a Japanese gentleman, some Geordies, a gathering of Aussies, several Scots, and a trio of spiky young ladies from London. Rock’n’roll truly is the language of the international elite.
The Cruel Intentions – Borderline Crazy Former Vains of Jenna singer Lizzy DeVine has hooked up with fellow Swede Mats Wernerson and Norwegian rock monsters Eiliv Sagrusten and Kristian Nygaard Solhaug to form The Cruel Intentions. As you’d expect, they have more swagger than a dozen penguins bloated on krill. If you cut Lizzy in half, we think, he’d have ‘rock’n’roll’ written through his guts like Blackpool candy. But made out of meat.
Venom - Smoke Geordie metal legends celebrate Record Store Day - that’s tomorrow, in case you’d been living under a boulder for the last month - with a reet sweet 300-edition two-disc blood red vinyl pressing of latest album From The Very Depths. This gravelly groover is taken from said elpee, so let’s grab a throat lozenge, assume the grapefruit-crushing stance and altogether now: ‘Smooooooookkkke!’
Slayer - When The Stillness Comes It’s fair to say that this new recording, another Record Store Day release, has divided worldwide opinion on our Facebook page. “Crap. Utter crap. Retire.”, writes Josh Kennedy, while David Hens exclaims “fuck yeah!”, and Nikola Mandic takes a third route, saying “I really don’t know what to think about this.” Quite frankly, neither do we.
Hotei - How The Cookie Crumbles Tomoyasu Hotei was responsible for Battle Without Honor Or Humanity, the theme from Quentin Tarantino’s film Kill Bill. Now he’s back with our old pal Iggy Pop, and a fearsome stomper it is too. Hotei has sold 40 million records so far, and we guarantee that this tune will add to that number. Guarantee!
Bad Dreems - Cuffed And Collared No, we’re not having a slow day, that is how their name is spelt. But don’t let that deter you; Bad Dreems are most definitely a serious proposition. Bound for the UK in May, these Aussie rockers deal in good-time alt rock’n’roll – jangly enough to evoke their sunny, laid-back homeland, with the hooks and chops to back it up.
The Kut - Bad Man Taken from their forthcoming Rock Paper Scissors EP, Bad Man marks the precise point in the Venn diagram where L7 meets I Wanna Be Your Dog means Courtney Love, which is equal parts terrifying and a cause for long and rowdy celebration. Punk’s not dead, pass it on.
Rewired - Feel Rewired fare from Glasgow, and seem to possess that rather earnest gene that Caledonian standard bearers often seem to have, from Big Country to Simple Minds to Texas and Gun. Feel is big, and sweeping, and rather grandiose, and all those sorts of things. It sounds like the kind of song that might have a video in which no-one’s allowed to smile and someone plays a guitar solo while leaning into the teeth of a howling gale. In the actual video, there’s no such gale, although there are some nice shots of the coast.
Steve Von Till - In Your Wings Neurosis man Steve Von Till has a voice that makes Mark Lanegan sound like one of The Smurfs, and In Your Wings is a spooky, atmospheric piece that suits it perfectly. From the forthcoming album A Life Unto Itself, it conjures up images of smokey, mysterious backwaters thinly populated by freakish, dangerous folk who do very bad things to each other.
