ALFFA
***
Rhyddid O’r Cysgodion Gwenwynig (Côsh)
If singing in your native language is still a barrier to discoverability or popularity in the Spotify era (which is doubtful), then Alffa have simply bulldozed their way straight through it. With The White Stripes’ dirtiest blues on their stereo, Royal Blood coursing through their veins and Ozzy Osbourne’s lyric sheets in their mitts, the Caernarfon teenagers have already racked up over three million streams. Their debut LP consistently packages monstrously meaty riffs into bitesize chunks suitable for mass consumption. BW
ALGIERS
*****
There Is No Year (Matador)
There’s usually one band/artist who stake out a serious claim for album of the year in January, and in 2020 it’s Algiers. A spiritual successor to Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On, There Is No Year is a complex, righteous, soulful LP both infuriated and fatally fatigued by the failed state that is the US. “We all dance into the fire,” laments Franklin James Fisher on Hour Of The Furnaces, while the booming depth-charge pulse of Nothing Bloomed ends the album on a devastatingly bleak note. BW
…AND YOU WILL KNOW US BY THE TRAIL OF DEAD
****
X: The Godless Void And Other Stories (InsideOutMusic)
Who’d have believed a band this combustible would last 25 years? …Trail Of Dead’s 10th LP – their first for six years, prompted by Conrad Keely moving back to the US from Cambodia – is another never-knowingly-understated hot mess of portent, pretension and cod-mysticism that boasts several gems but chucks in the odd clunker too. The chaos of their earliest releases still seeps into some of the songs, but overall it’s a proggier take on Source Tags & Codes’ (relatively) calm melodicism. BW
BEN FROST
***
Catastrophic Deliquescence (Music From Fortitude 2015-2018) (Mute) / Dark: Cycle 1 & Cycle 2 (Music From The Netflix Original Series) (Invada)
The biggest export from Australia since Uggs and boomerangs is Iceland-based composer Ben Frost. His work spans video games, film and television, and straddles genres from ambient to noise. The work on these two soundtrack albums is varied in tone, comprising of droning synths, dark ambience, loops and sounds of unknown origin. There is often a dreamlike and ominous nature to his music but the impact can get lessened with a whole album’s worth of material. Listening while watching the shows that Frost soundtracks is recommended. GM
BEN WATT
****
Storm Damage (Unmade Road)
As well as drawing inspiration from harrowing events in his personal life and the divisive political mess we currently endure, for his fourth album, Ben Watt has made use of audio sounds from Freesound and kept things unique by using a single polyphonic analogue synth. Storm Damage as a whole sounds something like John Lennon’s Imagine album, if Lennon had sought production assistance from Brian Eno instead of Phil Spector. Storm Damage is extremely moving, galvanising and Watt’s finest album yet. DN
BLOOD INCANTATION
****
Hidden History Of The Human Race (Century Media)
Death metal being stuffed floor to ceiling with massive nerds, the genre has often embraced sci-fi and prog rock tropes, but Denver deviants Blood Incantation are about as good as it gets nowadays should you wish those things to intersect. Hidden History Of The Human Race, their second album, comprises three mid-length frazzlers with almost dreamily clean passages amidst the brutality, and an 18-minute suite with an amusingly long title that travels through time in an extremely musclebound way. A late-10s DM vanguard. NG
CATTLE & CANE
****
Navigator (Believe)
Earning plaudits from a host of artists and outlets, the Teeside-based duo seem to have hit their stride since a well-received 2015 debut. Navigator finds siblings Helen and Joe Hammill commanding the kind of radio-friendly fare that has proved ubiquitous over the last decade, with sax-spliced Lonely Room and Leave The Light On’s sugar-coated finesse radiating amidst a series of breezy folk-pop numbers. Neatly orientating through quasi-yacht-rock gleam, this third album stands as the outfit’s most robust to date. CHP
THE FLAMING LIPS
****
The Soft Bulletin: Live at Red Rocks (Bella Union)
To commemorate the 20th anniversary of their classic The Soft Bulletin, The Flaming Lips have released this live recording from 2016, where the album was performed in full with the Colorado Symphony Orchestra. The orchestra gives the album a more epic, cinematic scope than it had originally, making for an impressive and worthwhile listen for fans of the original. Although nothing beats seeing them in person, this album does its best to capture the experience. ML
GALCHER LUSTWERK
***
Information (Ghostly International)
Galcher Lustwerk is the latest electronic maverick to find a home on the fine Ghostly International label. And on his third album (and first for Ghostly), the New York via Cleveland producer is in full late-night hip-house mode. In less skilled hands, Information’s stream of conscious half-rap vocals and ever-so-tasteful beats to study/relax to could drift into plodding lo-fi house. Yet there are enough ideas, oddball lyrics, and technique on show here to lift this to somewhere pretty good. SE
HEAD NOISE
***
Über-Fantastique (self-released)
So after 14 tracks of primitive keyboards and shouting we get a gorgeous woozy synth outro that sounds like Emeralds or something? ‘Slightly maddening’ could be the M.O. of Head Noise, the Aberdare band that rattle like a Hypervalue Devo and bark vocals along the Eddie Argos shade of ‘divisive’. They’re also oddly lovable fuckers on this debut full-length, crushing on junk sci-fi culture, maladroit but quotable lyrics (“your face resembles Guernica / covered in blueberry jam”) and a moxie worth a tonne of local guitar plodders. WS
INANNA MEETS THE DAWN
****
The Goddess And The Alphabet (Later)
This Cardiff collective are led by Reb May and Kate Wood, who share vocal and songwriting duties. Using modern and classical instruments, the hypnotic group take you into the elements of air, earth, fire and water, emphasising nature (and our loss of it) the loss of female contributions, experiences and perspectives throughout history, along with themes of rebirth and renewal. The single The Rise opens the debut EP and introduces us to Inanna, the ancient Sumerian goddess of love, fertility and abundance. RLR
KEYS
****
Bring Me The Head Of Jerry Garcia (Libertino)
Keys consistently prove themselves capable of writing enduring music. This latest offering delivers mellow psych and gutsy hard rock grooves in equal measure, recorded live in a disused cinema in Neath with the aim of harnessing the energy of the band and venturing into uncharted territory musically. Highlights include You Wear The Loveliest Gowns which will push and pull you about (in the loveliest way), the effortless cool of Black And White and the stirring harmonies on Broken Bones. CPI
POP.1280
*****
Way Station (Weyrd Son)
Pop.1280’s approach to blending industrial dance and punk is heavy-handed as usual on Way Station, but less prevalent than on earlier albums; most of the contrast on this project comes from lush instrumentation clashing against Chris Bug’s impassioned vocals. While tracks like Empathetics still heavily rely on noise, they’re few and far between, with the band seemingly taking a different approach than on their skeletal last album. Their fifth project trades raw intensity for listenability, but still retains the same unsettling qualities. AP
SILENT FORUM
*****
Everything Solved At Once (Libertino)
Music to get excited by! Silent Forum come charging out of Cardiff (via London) with a glint in their eye and a sound that conjures so many classic and fresh styles. Produced by the much-lauded Charlie Francis, previously released singles Robot, How I Faked The Moon Landing and Safety In Numbers start the album off with a punchy post-punky jolt and it never lets up. You need to see SF live not just for Richard Wiggins’ Ian Curtis-esque dancing, too. JE
THROBBING GRISTLE
*****
Part Two: The Endless Not / TG Now / A Souvenir Of Camber Sands (Mute)
In 2004, 23 years after Throbbing Gristle had first decided to disband, Genesis P Orridge, Cosey Fanni Tutti, Chris Carter and Peter ‘Sleazy’ Christopherson decided to make some more music. The most recent phase of TG’s reissue series covers this reformation period between 2004 and 2007, including the initial four-song EP TG Now, 2007’s Part Two: The Endless Not and a special live recording of their performance at ATP’s 2004 Nightmare Before Christmas. TG’s transgressive approach to writing is brilliantly displayed across Part Two, offering an accomplished reprisal of their discordant, confrontational sound that made them one of Britain’s most powerfully influential and important bands. Genesis’ voice, often muffled beyond recognition in the early days of TG, is spotlighted on a number of tracks with horrific clarity. A Souvenir Of Camber Sands recalls the raw energy of a live TG performance with a set that is both taut and industrious. Aesthetically focused, all three releases are available on clear vinyl. JW
VARIOUS
***
Further Perspectives & Distortion (Cherry Red)
The 58 songs on Cherry Red’s latest multi-disc miracle of licensing are in perfect alphabetical order: yep, everything from Alterations to Zos Kia (respectively, out-jazz blare and an early version of Coil – some sleevenotes detailing this sorta thing would’ve been useful). Uh huh, so what’s the hook? It’s kinda hard to explain with clarity, but weird/noisy stuff that was happening in the UK contemporaneously with punk, 1976-84 being the chosen parameters, sometimes claiming connections to it but not sounding like it, at least as it’s commonly understood. The alphabetising gambit nods, I daresay, to there being no real sonic thread across these three discs, which harbour industrial, postpunk, prog, bedroom electronica, UKDIY, free jazz, free improv, poetry, noise, modern classical and complete silence. The latter taken from a record titled The Compassion And Humanity Of Margaret Thatcher. Arf ARF! NG
VARIOUS
*****
Mogadisco – Dancing Mogadishu (1972-1991) (Analog Africa)
Worth the entry fee for the liner notes alone, and their tales of old colonels protecting dusted-over tape piles from intruders with grenades, Analog Africa continue their sterling work with this motherlode of funk and disco chops from Somalia’s capital. It’s brill, obviously, moving from sinuous, squelchy keyboard-aided torch songs (Dur Dur Band) to tempo-shrugging big band spy flick wigouts (Bakaka Band), detouring into some charming lo-fi wonkiness, and at least two occasions where things get exceedingly frisky. Give these cats a medal. WS
YANN TIERSEN
****
Portrait (Mute)
Tiersen, soundtracker to whimsical romance Amelie, has re-recorded 22 tunes from his near-25-year career and created three newies. The piano repetitions of The Long Road, Porz Goret and La Dispute are beautiful in their simplicity and familiarity, while the shift in momentum that ushers in strings, accordion and vocals on Rue Des Cascades delights. Monochrome, with Gruff Rhys, could have been an outpost of Babel; Blonde Redhead adorn Closer and Diouz An Noz, Pell and Erc H are lavish, with wife Emilie and Olavur Jakupsson singing. CS
ZINC BUKOWSKI
*****
Care For This…? (Red Sun Sounds)
Pontypridd three-piece Zinc Bukowski play noise-rock, synth-rock, space-rock with an element of goth. Drums, particularly on Zero Sum Game, are reminiscent of Bauhaus and vocals have a touch of The Oppressed about them. This LP (available on limited edition red and black vinyl) reminds the listener that indie music doesn’t have to be sanitized and marginal. There’s a purity and a depth to their sound that gives them an edge. Care For This…? Yes I do. LN
DEMOS
TARION
“Original songs with Latin rhythms,” says Tarion’s Facebook description thingy, which I guess might check out if you listen hard (the Latin bit, I mean) but comes off more like a disco/postpunk spin on the poppiest end of new wave. Or a DIY Bananarama, or something. They’re four women from Abergavenny and when they title a song Doo-Doo Ganga it’s because it has backing vocals that go “doo-doo”, which is quite wholesome really, as is this seven-song CD they posted me. NG
SLANTING CURRENTS
infinityformsofyellowremember.bandcamp.com
No, that URL hasn’t been pasted in by mistake for what would be Buzz’s first ever production error – the debut recordings by Slanting Currents, aka Owen Griffleson, are hosted on the Bandcamp page of Cardiff psych band Infinity Forms Of Yellow Remember because he’s their guitar player. These recordings, a six-song EP titled Aberogwr, are lo-fi instrumental zongouts assembled from treated guitar and minimal, blurry electronics, recorded at home. Get a Silver Apples vibe for lengthy drifts, and the last track is all bird calls and dictaphone burble. NG
HAELON
Reviewing this precisely four months late, another CD that fell down the back of the sofa (figurative – literal sofas are also available) but, on dipping into its four songs, not bad. Haelon are from the Rhondda and play ethereal indie-folk, loosely akin to The Sundays or early Cranberries, with nods to psychedelia (swirly organ on Who We Are; spacey FX introducing Pais Dinogad) and vocalist Zoe very upfront in the mix. The backing vocals on Hymn 9 also reminded me of Earth Song by Michael Jackson, though I doubt intentionally. NG