Columnfortably Numb: Psych Rock for April Reviewed by JR Moores

Post rock was always a big blanket term which needed to be broken down further. In one of its corners, for instance, was the fun end of the scene. There frolicked the likes of Trans Am and Oneida. Over in the more SERIOUS ART section were Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Explosions In The Sky and Sigur Rós. Bouncing between were Mogwai, who sometimes gave silly song titles to sad-sounding music. Seattle’s Kinsi were, and remain, in the light-hearted faction. Their tenth album opens with ‘Do You Like Long Hair?’, an instrumental that rocks in a warm and gentle fashion at first, a little like something from the Sonic Youth rarities collection The Destroyed Room. It then gets more crunchy and sparkly at the same time, suggesting J Mascis is guesting with Hawkwind. ‘Staircase Wit’ progresses along a similarly enjoyable art-rock-to-space-rock trajectory. ‘Slovenian Fighting Jacket’ brings things down a notch with its slower and moodier minimalism. Only briefly, however, as its second half rockets up again. The acoustic-based ‘Her Absence Feels Like a Presence’ stays calm and dreamy throughout. Of the few songs with vocals, the title track is slacker rock rendered in a phatter fashion, while ‘Experimental Hugs’ is a fast-paced and bouncy number with shades of Superchunk. File under “FUN MUSIC”.   

In their youth, The Men sounded all snarly and obnoxious. Then there was that period in the mid-2010s when they threatened to metamorphosise, not unreasonably, into something more palatably Springsteenian. By then we already had Kurt Vile and The War On Drugs so perhaps the transformation wasn’t necessary. While it’s a not a full-circle situation exactly, The Men’s more recent output has been scuzzier again and the trend continues on Buyer Beware. Indeed, it bolts out the stable for its first few numbers as if to ask “Why on earth have all you weedy rock bands out there given up on everything we learnt from MC5 and The Stooges?” There’s even a nice blast of Fun House sax on the title track. That’s not all The Men have in store, however. Jessica Poplawksi duets on ‘Charm’ and it ends up sounding somewhat akin to fellow New York scrappy tunesmiths Weak Signal. ‘Control’ is feedback-ridden hardcore punk. In the final furlong there are even a couple of tracks where The Men decide to sludge themselves down into Melvins territory. Why the hell not? 

Kuunatic are Fumi Kikuchi, Shoko Yoshida and Yuko Araki. They combine traditional Japanese instruments with more modern equipment such as keyboards and weightily distorted bass. Oh, and they’re really into moons. “Kuu means moon in Finnish, and we combined that with lunatic because the root word is luna (moon),” as Kikuchi has explained. Their second album builds on the stories, set in the fictional world of Kuurandia, from 2021’s Gate Of Klüna. That isn’t to say it’s completely otherworldly, given that some of the material is influenced by a trip to the Swiss alps and they’re also drawing on ancient storytelling traditions. Droney, chanted, ambient and meditative numbers such as ‘Mavya At the Lacus Yom’ sit alongside the bubblier and lurching likes of ‘Disembodied Ternion’. Moments of apparent chaos give way to tripartite acapella. On ‘Yellow Serpent’, Kuunatic are soothingly Goat-ish, whereas ‘Syzygy And A Counter Truth’ wobbles as though they’ve been remixed by Black Dice. Just as one doesn’t have to be fluent in Kobaïan to enjoy the music of Magma, Wheels Of Ömon is a hoot even without intimate understanding of Kuurandia, its moon (Klüna), its sun (Ömon), the planet’s people and its prophets.

2024’s Ruins Era was two years in the making, 70 minutes long and had more layers than Joey from Friends when he wore all of Chandler’s clothes. For A-Sun Amissa’s follow-up, Richard Knox decided the group should work more quickly and spontaneously, with an emphasis on first takes and the resistance to overthink what they were making. That doesn’t mean they’ve gone all hardcore punk on us, of course. Knox is (kind of) Glossop’s answer to Nadja’s Aidan Baker, with whom he has collaborated and has recently been on tour, so we’re still deep in the depths of drone. ‘Electric Tremble’ is an icy tundra of feedback, distortion and haunted piano. ‘All The Sky Was Empty’ is prettier. It isn’t vulgar enough to soundtrack, as other post-rockers do, a documentary where animals who are assigned names by the narrator strive to avoid their predators’ teeth. It’s edging towards that emotive territory but is more abstract and measured. ‘Sings Death Or Petals’ could be the preceding song’s apocalyptic or dystopian sequel. The synth textures on the final number provide a slight sense of warmth, with the wordless vocals adding to the sense of human(e) defiance in the face of all the world’s never-ending bullcrap.

This Miami-based trio have been pegged as post metal. They could just as easily, and perhaps more fittingly, be filed under noise rock, given that they bulldozer in a similarly relentless fashion to Unsane and Whores. Lauren Palma and Ryan Rivas alternate on lead vocals which helps to avoid monotony. Maybe it’s the nature of their voices but Rivas seems to handle this second album’s harshest moments. Take ‘Medusa’, for instance, which starts as if it can’t get any heavier and then proves that, actually, it can. So, by the end, the experience is comparable to being caught in a hailstorm of ball bearings. ‘Devils Advocate’ could be early Swans if they’d ever bothered to add a bit of a guitar solo and quieter coda. Other moments recall the times Godflesh recorded with a drumkit rather than mechanical rhythm-keeper. Palma fronts the punkier ‘Snake Eyes’ as well as some of the more (relatively) measured material including ‘Pro Choice’ and ‘Echoes Of Doubt’. As some of those song titles might’ve indicted, they’re angry about the planet’s injustices and will let you know as loudly as possible.  

What’s that? My Bloody Valentine have announced their first London show since 2018? Fantastic. Where are the playing? Wembley Arena? Not sure that’s the right setting for them, is it? I saw Bryan Adams there once and the “holocaust section” of ‘Shine A Light’ wasn’t as deafening as I’d hoped. TICKETS ARE HOW MUCH? Maybe buy a cheap flight to Spain and see an upcoming shoegaze band instead, in a venue that doesn’t smell of hotdogs and laminated VIP passes. Who to check out? How about Madrid’s Nuevos Mundos? Like The Jesus & Mary Chain, they know how to write a catchy and melancholic vocal melody which can then be plastered in various effects with the deft use of a pedal board. The densest the backing gets is on ‘Atasco M-30’ and it still serves the tune, rather than overwhelming it. As ‘Biblioteca Nacional’ demonstrates, Nuevos Mundos can also pare back and go more pastoral at times. The poppier pieces, such as ‘Entre Tú Y Yo’, suggest Spain’s answer to Ride. The chorus to ‘Siempre Es Igual’ is so singalong-able, it’ll have you crawling back to Duolingo. All is forgiven, you annoying bloody owl! 

Die Underground doesn’t so much blow out the cobwebs as destroy all arachnid species in one fell swoop, à la Starship Troopers meets Dr. Strangelove. Take the following acts: The Stooges. Luminous Bodies. Les Rallizes Dénudés. The Jimi Hendrix Experience. Motörhead. Mainliner. Fushitsusha. Squeeze them into Jeff Goldblum’s telepod contraption from The Fly. Chuck in a jar of insects, as well. Why not add a few more creepy crawlies, if you feel like it? When the mutated mess skulks out the other side, keep it the fuck away from Geena Davis, lock it in a basement with nothing but a bucket of fish heads for sustenance and let it record four songs of absolute carnage while allowing the tracks bleed more heavily than the characters in the denouement of a Tarantino movie. There are two shorter songs and two longer songs. On the short ones, OGOD could be tumbling down a small flight of stairs. On the others, they’re the John Wick of deranged acid rock. Fighting their way up the stone steps at Sacré-Cœur. Falling all the way down. Fighting their way up again. Down again. Up again. Only with guitar solos and growling instead of pistols and punches.

Where Black Sabbath had their ‘Iron Man’, Swiss band Fomies have ‘The Onion Man’. He’s the subject of Liminality’s first song. It has riffs of which Iommi and Butler would be proud, with dashes of space rock to take the edge off. The following piece, ‘Reflections’, is rather more Osees with its garage licks and yelping. Next, King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard come to mind. A fast drumbeat, with faster fills, meets blasts of laser noise and lyrics about a mission gone awry that Stu Mackenzie could’ve written himself. Fomies exhibit their conceptual abilities, too, with a three-part suite called ‘Colossus’. ‘Blurred Sight’ is pretty jaunty. The riffs alternate between clean and fuzzy, then there’s a hippie organ part, the tempo picks up and suddenly a krautrock outfit is playing at punk-rock pace with Procal Harem’s stolen Hammond. Matters slow back down for the final tune, ‘Upheaval’, but for the most part it’s a very busy record with a lot going on. Pass the brown paper bag, I need to catch my breath. Empty out the onions first, please.