Antlered Man: Giftes 1&2

Bermondsey bludgeoners lead the new noise charge.

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Edgy, divergent UK alt-rock has been a little buried of late in this lark we call independent music. It’s all femme-pop this and vacuous electro-clatter that. But proving to be no mousy Afrofunk-infused try-hards, marvellously named Sarf Londoners Antlered Man are rowing against the wet fish wimp-pop tide with white-knuckled determination.

This debut 10-track whips up a perfect storm with references to Mike Patton, Dead Kennedys, Melvins, Cardiacs and McLusky – to name but a few – as the five-piece shape an enjoyably orchestrated canoe-wreck.

Time and time again AM’s punk rock‘n’pub circuit-honed hooks rise from the deep in a venomous display of Van der Graaf (Platoono Of Uno), Scaramanga Six (Better The Calamity You Know) and No Means No (Misruly Roo). Synapse-socking twists, crafty lyricism (care of deceptively mannered polemical frontman Danny Fury) – why there’s even a flute in here somewhere (Buddhist Soup).

The future of new noise is in safe hands.

Jo Kendall
Jo Kendall

Jo is a journalist, podcaster, event host and music industry lecturer with 23 years in music magazines since joining Kerrang! as office manager in 1999. But before that Jo had 10 years as a London-based gig promoter and DJ, also working in various vintage record shops and for the UK arm of the Sub Pop label as a warehouse and press assistant. Jo's had tea with Robert Fripp, touched Ian Anderson's favourite flute (!), asked Suzi Quatro what one wears under a leather catsuit, and invented several ridiculous editorial ideas such as the regular celebrity cooking column for Prog, Supper's Ready. After being Deputy Editor for Prog for five years and Managing Editor of Classic Rock for three, Jo is now Associate Editor of Prog, where she's been since its inception in 2009, and a regular contributor to Classic Rock. She continues to spread the experimental and psychedelic music-based word amid unsuspecting students at BIMM Institute London, hoping to inspire the next gen of rock, metal, prog and indie creators and appreciators.