REVIEWS
JON PORRAS Light Divide
ISSUES Issues
8
7
7
JOHNNY FOREIGNER You Can Do Better
Rise Records (2014)
Thrill Jockey (2014)
Alcopop (2014)
Issues is an eclectic and musically metalcore/post-hardcore band and they finally unveil their self-titled debut album. They focus more on the harmonious soul and the clean vocals rather than using the standard balance cliché between the cleans and growls or screams like that other bands in the genre. In the end this album is very catchy in some tracks. They’re certainly not a band to everyone’s tastes, because of the eclectic approach, but the truth is: they combine two completely different genres and make it work! Maybe a little inspiration from famous, metalcore and nu-metal fusion band. Nonetheless, we can hope for many good things coming from them, it’s easy to see why Issues debut fulllength has been so anticipated.
Jon Porras’ Light Divide, the fifth full length of half of the California based duo, Barn Owl, is yet another slab of drone, an immersive and somehow complex one, I might add. Light Divide works like a paradigm shift of sorts since now you can see Porras delivering music that is built, step by step, until we find ourselves “looking” to a stable and different building, one that has many layers and looks just like a wonderful maze… a maze that we crave to be lost in. Everything is in the details. We just have to find out throughout the immense fog that surrounds the building. Patience, attention and Light Divide can work together and transport you to a fantastic place. Have fun!
After releasing Johnny Foreigner vs Everything back in 2011, Alexei Berrow wasn’t sure if there was going to be another Johnny Foreigner album, but fortunately they’ve changed their minds. As well as in previous records, You Can Do Better is a powerful, frenetic record. The Birmingham quartet knows how to write catchy songs with a great message within and that’s what this record is all about. It feels like this fifth studio effort is their way to show how strong and focus their music became over the years. The melodic post-emo with punk rock riffs keep proving the enthusiasm and selfconfidence that this band holds. In You Can Do Better, there’s passion, persistence and a powerful message.
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CLÁUDIO ANÍBAL
Of the new breed of American Nu-Metal...
TIAGO MOREIRA
Barn Owl, Locrian, Elm
Los Campesinos!, Dananananaykroyd
8 KANDLE In Flames
ANDREIA ALVES
7
7 KILLIMANJARO Hook
KIMONO KULT Hiding in the Light
Dare to Care Records (2014)
Lovers & Lollypops (2014)
Neurotic Yell Records (2014)
Onetime Blue Violets’ member Kandle went solo back in 2012 and released an eponymous debut EP, two years later the Montreal-based songwriter had finally dropped her first ever solo LP. Blending blues and rock like this is a bold move, but the amazing Kandle does that in a way that makes everything that sounds perfectly rooted in the past sound so new. In Flames was co-produced by Kandle’s father, Neil Osborne and by Sam Golberg of Broken Social Scene, and the result is 11 songs of rare beauty, where folk meets rock and country matches with Kandle bluesy form of play. The album is filled with haunting and timeless vocals, insightful lyrics and features cameos by Béatrice Martin (Cœur de pirate) and Sam Roberts. Beautiful and stunning!
It seems that most people have forgotten how dangerous rock ‘n’ roll’ is supposed to be. It’s all about the dangerous balance between hand grenades and soulful gestures that can move mountains and lift an old and lost spirit. Killimanjaro, the Portuguese power trio, embodies that difficult and fascinating balance in Hook, their debut album. From rabid howls under the pale moonlight to pure doses of psychotropic substances, passing through roads that were made by and to a soul, a ritual of sorts if you will. The punk has a saying in a sonority that is based on the psychedelic/stoner sounds. There’s The Obssessed and Iron Maiden mixed with Graveyard and Earthless… It’s pure rock ‘n’ roll with the danger of addiction.
Kimono Kult is a new sextet featuring former Red Hot Chili Peppers guitarist John Frusciante and ex-Mars Volta and At The Drive-In guitarist Omar Rodríguez-López. Many listeners will be looking to this project as a follow up to The Mars Volta or Red Hot Chili Peppers, and they are completely wrong. Kimono Kult’s music is not like any other band you have listened to, starting with the vocal element, where here the untamable and unique Teri Gender Bender (Le Butcherettes, Bosnian Rainbows) sung in Spanish and spreads sexiness all over this ambitious and exquisitely elegantly textured of afro-beat/electro/avant-freakness of “conversations of instrumental ecstasy”. This is ridiculously good and addictive as hell.
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FAUSTO CASAIS
Nancy Sinatra, Lana Del Rey, Blue Violets
104
music&riots
April
TIAGO MOREIRA
The Obsessed, Graveyard, Kyuss
FAUSTO CASAIS
...conversations of instrumental ecstasy