Creating a record that expounds upon your innermost thought processes and expecting people to listen to it relies on the assumption that you’re in some way interesting to begin with. There are numerous solo artists out there making albums that are ‘all about me’ but as listeners we’re perfectly entitled to ask for more justification to press play, something that sets each individual musician out from the pack and makes what they have to say that bit more intriguing than the next guy. I’ll confess that I might have skimmed over ‘What’s Between’ had I not been familiar with its creator James Kelly from his role as mastermind of Irish Black Metal project Altar of Plagues whose staggering ‘Teethed Glory And Injury’ landed last year to offer a terrifyingly raw passage through the despondent end of the emotional spectrum that couldn’t fail to strike a chord with even those typically put off by the genre’s harsh dynamics. Kelly called time on the project soon afterwards and resurfaced under the Wife moniker this year with a new direction that bore little resemblance to his previous endeavours on first listen but I was determined to join the dots between the two and kept going round until I’d tracked it back to the same origins as his earlier work. Beneath the layers of both lies a shivering vulnerability that fuelled the resurgent anger of his BM material but here comes vividly to life as a more accepting, articulate beast capable of examining its own feelings without resorting to nightmarish anguish or bitter rage blasts. It’s a dichotomy that underlies much of the better BM out there but rarely has it been exposed so candidly (and dare I say it bravely) in a genre often bogged down by its own commitment to horror and misanthropy. Fellow mould-breaker Justin Broadrick achieved something comparable with his Jesu project that emerged as a postscript to Godflesh in the early 00s and drew back from industrial dissonance to a more lucid, vulnerable form to stunning effect – their self-titled debut from late 2004 remains one of my favourite records of all time. But Kelly is onto something different here, drifting closer to mainstream sounds with a strand of subdued electronica that could easily find its way into the NME’s favourites alongside Alt-J and Wild Beasts – perhaps it’s no bad thing that it didn’t as to bracket it in with the risk-free dabblings of such bands would mask the more critical and cunning heart that pumps the blood through ‘What’s Between’. The nine tracks here resonate like wounds throbbing in the wake of the stormblast they survived in his previous work, weaknesses once exposed and mercilessly ravaged now nurtured until they’re fully understood like a surgeon patching up a patient. There are two sides to every coin and Kelly’s ability to illustrate both in such quick succession hints that he possesses that rare self awareness needed to really hit home with every release – happiness no doubt lies between such polarised extremities and rarely have they been captured so vividly on record. Ideally get both this and ‘Teethed Glory And Injury’ for the full picture but even as a standalone ‘What’s Between’ has the potency to move the listener where others can only politely brush past.
Check out : 'Heart Is A Far Light', beamed in from somewhere deep inside.
4. Eagulls - s/t
A recurring gripe of mine these days is that the UK isn’t producing the standard of decent guitar music it has been known for in the past – this is part disappointment for a lack of new indie bands to get excited but also a genuine concern for the demise of a fundamental outlet for local youth looking to blow off a bit of steam and air their grievances over something constructive. Call it romanticising the past if you like but the way I see it we’ve let the commercial evolution of the music industry run ragged over the lower rungs on the ladder to the extent that forming a band now seems like a decadent distraction reserved for the fabulously wealthy, and whilst it’s not that trust fund babies never make decent records there does seem to be a gaping hole further down the trough that used to be filled by kids from more ordinary backgrounds expounding on their own situation in the hope that others would find something familiar in there. It’s an established truth that guitar music doesn’t sell records like it used to and as such a snotty disdain for indie rock has crept in over recent years as if those still producing it have yet to shake off the previous decade’s hangover, the quick burning rage of punk too often patronised in favour of career-stable electro that tickles the senses but rarely lands a knockout blow. There’s the odd exception of course – a good dealing of press attention has been fawned over Fat White Family and although their ramshackle punk sounds like it’d be great fun live it nevertheless remains little more than the soundtrack to another hipster piss up rather than a genuinely engaging examination of the modern British mindset. That is of course where Eagulls come in. Wanton hedonism has been a trademark of British youth for some time now but what sets apart these volatile times for today’s kids is a fidgety lack of direction that can easily spill over into destructive rage, a listlessness in the face of an enemy too shapeless to take aim at that frequently leaves the shooter unsure about where to point the weapon but unable to resist the urge to pull the trigger. All this needs to be documented by those living it on a day to day basis – writing about it from a distance cocooned by layers of metaphor isn’t enough. Eagulls’ blistering debut struck a nerve this year precisely because it brought those feelings to the surface – this isn’t The Clash taking potshots at well chosen authority figures, this is a bunch of lads from scattershot locations in the North of England fusing into one collective charge of refreshingly honest inertia-driven catharsis. We met the band after they played last year and they were all beamingly positive, enthusing over their record’s cover photo of a once-proud council block abandoned to decay and you sense that there’s a lot more to their game that blithely stating how crap things are – they may linger on gory detail in some instances but that’s only to flesh out a bigger picture, one of a world they feel can ultimately improve if we can only concentrate on what’s important. But the journey to any change begins with taking stock of what’s wrong and ‘Eagulls’ perfectly encapsulates the mood of our times, howling into a void left by the deterioration of institutions we once took for granted desperately searching for a place to stick its boot. British guitar music had no better representatives this year than these adventurous tykes.
Check out : 'Possessed' live on Letterman - showing Future Islands how it's done.
3. The Dead Mantra - Lemure
Though it is primarily known overseas for the effortless Versaillais chic of its electro (and occasional indie) outfits, French music has always had a love for dissonance that runs through much of its more engaging material. The country boasts a vibrant garage rock scene that churns out countless road-toughened bands pumping out echoic psychobilly and gnarled psychedelia to thrill audiences in whatever toilet venue they can find to play in, often drawing on influences much of the mainstream media has long since abandoned to the annals of history. The scene is refreshing in that few if any of the bands receive anything like the level of exposure they deserve, although this does mean that watching them play remains an attractively cheap option and it also shields them from the miserable scene politics that mire the crowded confines of the North American and British indie circuits. We’re doing our best at Indie500 to unearth the best of the bunch and no band blew us away more this year than Le Mans’ The Dead Mantra whose ‘Gregorian Shoegaze’ had us flapping with delirious ecstasy like two sea lions who’d just been tossed a large and extremely tasty fish. Whether or not they’ll pursue that description through to completion remains to be seen but for the time being it’s a pretty decent description of where they fit in on the register of echo rock, their sound booming out like spectral waves spilling into a gargantuan religious edifice and crashing back from each surface in a torrent of brutal volume and shattered stained glass. Opener ‘Holy Dawn’ projects like hypno-rock stalwarts OM waking from a long hibernation and when they kick into gear there’s no hiding from their ruthless assault on the senses – imagine they spleen-venting rasp of Nirvana’s ‘Bleach’ and MaryChain’s ‘Never Understand’ channelled through the multi-layered echo rush of A Place To Bury Strangers and you’re somewhere close. Whilst shoegaze has been adopted elsewhere as an excuse for airy complacency and directionless romantic musing The Mantra employ it as a powerhose set to full blast to knock away the supports and send the listener spinning into a void of vibrant sound and feeling, guitar riffs discharged at point blank range into the nearest surface to reverberate back through you like a heart tremor to leave you shuddering yet wildly intrigued. The yowled bliss-out of ‘Mxeico’ might just be the most stylish account opener since Ride’s ‘Chelsea Girl’ back when the genre had only just emerged from the ocean and there’s every indication these lads might chart a trajectory that’s equally thrilling to follow. Any doubts we might have had about whether they’d be able to cut it live were instantly dispelled when they brought the show to Paris and drenched La Mecanique Ondulatoire with a blistering set that bent heads out of shape like nothing we’ve seen in recent months – you know when the drummer shows up in a Burzum T-shirt that something pretty devastating is about to be unleashed. ‘Lemure’ is packed full of promise for future greatness and is a startlingly potent first step on a journey that will surely lead them to yet greater heights and we will certainly be there to eagerly take in their next offensive.
Check out : 'Mxeico', maybe the year's most thrilling two and a half minutes.
2. Nothing - Guilty Of Everything
If there’s been a theme to my favourite guitar releases of the last couple of years it’s been rehabilitation, music used both as a coping process in itself but also as a recreation of the emotional voyage from bad to good. Deafheaven’s beautifully discordant ‘Sunbather’ LP from last year topped my picks of 2013 with a disarming marriage of chaotic destruction and blissful rebirth and this year’s Wife LP (see earlier) evoked similar feelings of structured recovery from turbulent hysteria, each time leaving the toxic genesis of the ills intact to provide context for their eventual cure. Whilst there’s clear traces of a fraught emotional history in either package you still feel that the creators are probably nice boys at heart so what sets Nothing apart from the pack is that their frontman Dominic Palermo will admit from the start that he has not always conducted himself like a true gentleman and it’s this feeling of shame and dishonour that gives their debut LP ‘Guilty Of Everything’ that extra push to really knock you on your arse. Palermo’s roots in hardcore punk saw him lose himself in the real time violence that so often accompanies the music resulting in a two year jail spell for aggravated assault and attempted murder and it was in this context that ‘Guilty’ was forged – it’s certainly an eye-catching narrative but similar tales have been told by ego-hungry musicians eager to illustrate how far they’ve had to travel to gain the adulation they now enjoy (see Falling In Reverse’s Ronnie Radke for today’s most unpalatable example) without ever translating into anything more than emotional exhibitionism and scattershot accusations at those deemed responsible for their plight. But there’s no soul-bearing here, indeed if anything Palermo’s doing exactly the opposite – his musical shift from splenetic hardcore to warm guitar fuzz pop signalling the realisation that catharsis comes with its own limitations, allowing for the airing of grievances but failing to cater to the identification of their source. Here he’s bathing in each step of the recovery process, acknowledging his own shortcomings as part of a gradual evolution and providing a laudably candid view of his mindset to those interested in how it feels to claw yourself back from one giant fuck up. Handled with less grace this could easily be perceived as a plea for sympathy but the music doesn’t reach out to the listener for anything other than basic understanding, slowing the pace of his delivery to calmly present his mindset rather than engaging in the frantic clamour for recognition that dominates more aggressive releases. ‘Guilty Of Everything’ could’ve easily landed 20 years ago, its lysergic swirl and deftly handled momentum evoking US alt noise stalwarts Hum and even Soungarden at their darkest and bleakest –we tend to overlook Grunge’s own roots in DIY North American hardcore in favour of the magazine cover alienation of the MTV years but trace back any of the era’s better bands and you’ll probably find grass roots punk rock and rabid spleen-venting. Consider ‘Guilty Of Everything’ a rediscovery of that particular path two decades later, children reliving the same trial and error challenges faced by their parents as the cycle of abuse rolls defiantly onward. This might not be the year’s cheeriest release but it will leave you with a sense of composure upon completion, a sense that some kind of breakthrough has been made. I won’t hold it against Palermo if his next release is a cheerier affair – for his own sake I sincerely hope it is – but for the moment he’s turned his own plight into something truly remarkable.
Check out : 'Endlessly', a surprisingly accessible view into a complex universe.
1. Kate Tempest - Everybody Down
It's actually fairly rare these days that a new record comes along as an out and out favourite in my own best album lists - it's much easier to lay down such an accolade in hindsight after the record in question has had a few years on the boil to take on characteristics and significance that link it indelibly to the circumstances of its release. This year however it was clear from the outset - nothing really came close to the shot in the arm I got from Kate Tempest's thunderous arrival on the UK music scene that saw her narrowly miss out on the Mercury Music Prize and garner enough critical acclaim to keep her name in the press without threatening her with the trappings of a genuine superstar. I'm actually glad the major plaudits were directed elsewhere as it leaves 'Everybody Down' as my own private pleasure, something I can turn my friends onto in smug confidence that they won't already own a copy. Tempest's charm stems from her ability to turn phrase like a poet, construct narrative like a novelist and still pitch her product with the everyman sincerity of a mate in the pub, a straight to the heart approach that remains beautifully evocative and disarmingly articulate. She's been widely compared to The Streets' Mike Skinner and this should be taken as a constructive compliment rather a slapdown accusation of plagiarism - in truth Tempest engages with the same ease as her Kronenberg-chugging counterpart but wields a richer lyrical arsenal and a greater understanding of Hip Hop dynamics, her lines flowing and wrapping themselves around each other like the genre's most adept storytellers. The tale built into 'Everybody Down' runs along the same lines as 'A Grand Don't Come For Free' but fleshes out its characters with a humane understanding you'd expect from a box set HBO series, avoiding simple stereotypes and constructs and instead giving people real feelings and identities, shying away from outright judgement in favour of a more understanding examination of what make us all tick and where right and wrong decisions come from. Whilst many of her Hip Hop peers revel in kitchen sink shock value Tempest seems well-suited to her chosen genre precisely because of its scope for complex description and narrative balance, weaving lines around the contours of her protagonists until they almost come out of the speakers and stroll off into everyday life. She's got the lyrical skills to rival any of today's posturing MCs but none of the compulsion to simply show off and her employment of considerable talent serves only to turn what could by a fly by night vignette into a thoroughly engrossing listen. 'Everybody Down' doesn't let up for a second across its twelve chapter dash through drugs deals gone wrong, flawed romance and vaulting ambition and Tempest tops her best on every track, each time coming back with a new manoeuvre to leave your jaw hanging open and your head nodding in time with her flow. It's been a while since something knocked me for six like this and repeated spins over the course of the year have served only to entrench my view that nothing comes close to topping Tempest at full tilt. If 2014 needed a star then it surely found it elsewhere, however if the year was lacking a mercurial talent to stun and amaze then there could be no doubt that 'Everybody Down' was just what the doctor ordered.
Check out : 'Marshall Law', the opening salvo to what turns out to be an unforgettable ride.
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