CIRCUIT DES YEUX

-io (Matador)

Before hearing this curiously titled album, I’d internally compartmentalised Circuit Des Yeux – Chicago’s Hayley Fohr – as the product of a profound, perhaps even gifted artist whose releases nonetheless left me unmoved. Sometimes it just happens that way, no drama and so forth. (If anything, Fohr’s country/synthpop alias Jackie Lynn grabbed me more.) -io, though, is pretty spectacular in a way that feels built to last: emotionally strafing, with its umbrella themes of PTSD and grief, and grand in its instrumental scope.

The sort of album that feels near-impossible on latterday indie budgets, complicated further in this case by hired musicians not being permitted to all be in the same room, -io renders it feasible as slashing orchestral parts back up Fohr’s remarkable, bassy voice. Sometimes the snake-haired abandon of Diamanda Galas feels germane to the conversation, while Neutron Star evokes Scott Walker’s slanted grandiosity. Don’t sweat the small stuff either, mind, like the creepy whispered vocal and close-miced strum of The Chase.

words NOEL GARDNER

DARK MARK VS SKELETON JOE

Dark Mark Vs Skeleton Joe (Rare Bird/Kitten Robot)

Mark Lanegan is no stranger to collaborations, and, as with The Gutter Twins (his pair-up with Afghan Whigs’ Greg Dulli), he appears to have found the perfect partner in crime in the form of ex-tourmate Joe Cardamone, former frontman of LA punk hellraisers The Icarus Line. The dishevelled duo’s self-titled debut as Dark Mark Vs Skeleton Joe sees them continue the exploratory electronica of their recent solo records.

Living Dead and single No Justice are throbbing early 80s darkwave bangers designed for dancing on graves – but then the dry ice clears and the stunning Hiraeth pulls in a very different direction, towards the bleak, intimate, minimalist synth-drone balladry of Nick Cave’s Skeleton Tree. Thereafter, Sanctified and Turning In Reverse fall firmly into the former camp, while Crime, Sunday Night 2.30 AM and Basement Door belong to the latter, Lanegan’s gravelly croon the only constant.

Overlength, suffering from a split personality and blighted by some fumbling around in the dark, this album nevertheless holds significant promise for the future.

words BEN WOOLHEAD

FRANK CARTER & THE RATTLESNAKES

Sticky (International Death Cult)

The grit and power for which Frank Carter & The Rattlesnakes have become renowned is slightly lacking in Sticky. Lyrically, the prior albums are amazing – Anxiety from previous album End Of Suffering, for example – but this time they falls short. The album also features collaborations, a Rattlesnakes first and something which has to be commended, as they’re raising up new artists such as Cassyette and Lynks.

Sticky, taken as a whole, is a lot poppier, something which may disappoint fans of the band’s older tracks. That, of course, is for the listener to decide – just don’t expecting it to be as hard-hitting as Fangs or I Hate You. Yet the band are still fantastic at performing live such as their recent turn supporting Biffy Clyro in Cardiff. Unfortunately, this time I didn’t connect to the music in the same way; I think it just needed a bit more of a punch. All rattle, less venom.

words SARAH BOWDIDGE

JOHN CARPENTER, CODY CARPENTER & DANIEL DAVIES

Halloween Kills OST (Sacred Bones)

Halloween, the disputed ‘first slasher film’ right after Hitchcock’s formative genre-starter Psycho, is as musically famous as it is cinematically. Even the most horror-averse audiences know musician/director John Carpenter’s spinetingling piano riff. Said riff, as you’d hope and expect, is prominently featured in near original form on the soundtrack for the franchise’s latest instalment, Halloween Kills.

Part of the umpteenth attempt to reboot the slow-walking series, Kills’ music keeps it in the family: Carpenter is joined by son Cody and godson Daniel Davies. The result is a nostalgic blend of twinkling synth, brooding soundscapes and punchy drumbeats that’ll sneak up on you between tracks. Not something to kick back and relax with – unless you’re Michael Myers – but full of the thrills and chills you’d want to wile away a cold, dark night from an artist who remains at the peak of his craft, 40 years on.

words HANNAH COLLINS

MELVINS

Five Legged Dog (Ipecac)

“Always different, always the same” was John Peel’s succinct epithet for cult icons The Fall, and the same phrase could happily apply to metal lifers the Melvins. Never ones to do things by half, King Buzzo and co opt here to revisit older material across four albums’ worth of acoustic metal, and I apologise if that pseudo-genre revives memories of Tenacious D.

Instead, what you get here are 36 exhaustive tracks summarising the breadth of styles the Melvins have mastered over a near-40-year career. Kicking off with the decent and relatively recent Edgar The Elephant, the set takes in iconic head-down anthems like Hooch, Queen and Boris without ever losing their ferocious impact to the acoustic treatment.

Throwing in latter-day classics and a few curve-ball covers to make things pleasantly off-kilter – Everybody’s Talkin’ and the country-fried Sway, originally by The Rolling Stones, to name two – this is the perfect retrospective for a band so endearingly restless.

words ADAM JONES