Graham Reid | | 1 min read
We don't call it "Noisyland" because we are quiet. Some of our bands have been exceptionally loud, wild and out of control.
From Chants R'n'B and the newly discovered recordings of the impressive Grim Ltd in the Sixties, to hard rockers in the early Seventies and then punk and post-punk search-and-destroy bands (the Plague, No Tag and so on) right up through Shihad and Dead C to Alien Weaponry, Devilskin and Beastwars you sometimes thought there was someone standing in the wings yelling, "Turn it up, I can still hear the words!"
Singer-guitarist John Halvorsen has considerable prior form with the Gordons in the early Eighties, generally considered the country's loudest and “sonically challenging” band as the AudioCulture entry notes politely.
He was also in the punishing Skeptics in the middle of that decade than the intense Bailterspace in the Nineties.
Given that, we might come to this album with expectations of the needle in the red zone and everything turned up to 11, “one louder”.
Certainly this trio of Halverson, bassist Hayden Ellis and drummer Steve Cochrane deliver some sonic density and aggression, but these 12 songs are crafted into interesting shapes like the unnervingly moody Seeds of the Future, the eerie and cynical pop of the constrained Whole New World and compelling songs like Event Horizon: “I'm on the outside looking in and I don't see you anymore”.
What binds these songs is a dyspeptic passion (“what happened to your mind?” on Memes for Brains), their economy and Halvorsen's sense of desperation (“I've been livin' in a dreamstate, livin' from day to day”) as the clock ticks towards midnight while “we're having the time of our lives”.
Although this is taut and emotionally feverish, the intensity of Halverson's former bands – the Gordon's “watch out, watch out” from Spik and Span comes to mind -- is here channeled differently into this eco-political wake-up call.
A World on Fire indeed.
Apocalypse soon?
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You can hear and buy this album at bandcamp here
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