ELKAPATH – The Twisted Jester EP

This six track EP from the mighty Elkapath cements them into the mainstream of goth metal after a long, hard slog to get here. Years of crafting their deviant arts have climaxed in an all out assault on our senses as they pillage and rape the metal landscape and assemble all of the collected constituent parts to wonderful effect. There’s Rammstein, Faith No More, Black Sabbath in here (and that’s just in opening track ‘Fight or Flight’. ‘Sacrifice’ could have been written by Gary Human when he entered his ‘black’ era and went all metal on our arses. Glorious!

‘No bride’ is ready to be plucked by Tim Burton for his next freaks on a leash escapade into the darker side of cinema. ‘Love forgiveness’ goes all Evanescence on us with its anthemic chorus and carefully crafted shades of light and dark. And then comes recent single releases, ‘Fakery’ and the excellent ‘Show me’. There’s witchcraft at play here. Mice have been skinned alive and tossed into cauldrons with snake skin and frogs eyes and the brains of small children, and, we don’t care! Carla and the boys have transformed this band of wannabees into real contenders for the euphoric rock crown that goes beyond their goth leanings and pushes them out into the big wide world, eyes and mouths open in awe of their new and vibrant surroundings. Kids on corners whisper ‘fuck me, there goes Elkapath’ and they follow their pied piper like obedient metal-headed rats. Yes, Elkapath, you’ve finally arrived! The streets were paved with gold afterall!

5/5

HERTENFELS X CIRCLE RED – Love & Unity

This is the second ‘jungle’ offering from the combined talents of Austrian producer, Hertenfels and Manchester born, Circle Red. There’s definitely a 90’s undercurrent to this little monster of a tune, but with some modern twists and turns that keep the sound fresh, alive and urgent. There’s melodic vocals, there’s terrifying reeses and there’s a piercing jungle breakbeat punctuated by layers of synths that keep this journey interesting to the very end. This is the sound of the underground and what a beautiful noise they make, these creatures of the night!

4/5

HIGH CONTRAST – Anti/Thesis Vol 1

Our favourite Welsh wizard returns with another pure heater from his long running 90’s jungle inspired catalogue of fire. This is stripped-back, intelligent drum and bass with the requisite pumping grooves and snapping snares that you’d expect from a man at the top of his game. For the die-hards there’s a limited edition black and white vinyl available (but only 200 copies so you better get a wiggle on). In desperate times, it’s always refreshing to know that you can rely on Lincoln to put a smile on your face and your feet on the dance floor. Buy it. You know it makes sense! This IS 2oth Century Jungle!

4/5

SPECKY CULT – Swish

The gloriously named Speckies are back with a euphoric 80’s tinged indie rock and roller that fuses Weezer and Talking Heads into a glorious three minutes of radio-friendly unit shifting brilliance. This is a beefed up Specky Cult, meandering away from their acoustic ditties with electric guitars, added keyboards and a much bouncier sound. Yeah, they’re still crazy man, but that’s what we liked about them in the first place, right! Out now!

5/5

ARTIFICIAL RED – Low Cut Jeans

This ain’t just 90’s jungle baby, this is Inner City Life for Gen Z’s everywhere jungle. For those of you who missed the first jungle explosion, (or weren’t even born) this does a nice 2024 reset. It has all the requisite bass and, er, drums from like back in the day fam and does it with aplomb. It’s nearly seven minutes long too, so, respect for that – these mother fuckers ain’t bowing down to some radio friendly three minute shit. We like that. Time to hit the bong and mellow on the dance floor rubbing shoulders with your homies in a euprohoric, splendrous stupor. Big up guys!

4/5

ABSOLUTE MAGNITUDE – Quantum Shift

Dropping on Full Send DNB this is shows the evolution of an artist off beautifully. This guy hasn’t been around for that long and seemed to have seized on a High Contrast-esque production formula, that while organic, could not be called that original.  But over the last couple of years, that’s all changed. Our guy has developed from the crusty little pupae into a fully formed and beautiful butterfly spreading it’s wings and wide and proud to the world. His ‘futuristic’ style has been crafted well and is full of quirky offbeat synths overlaying traditional jungle drums. His use of  ‘robot’ vocals is applaudable for they interlace each production seamlessly and add to the conquerable weight of his dystopian fulled soundscapes. If you’re looking for some original drum and bass, you won’t go far wrong rinsing these grooves through your speakers!

4/5

HATE MOSS – Fog (Petrolio Remix)

Hate Moss have erupted onto the indie scene with a string of mighty fine releases in 2024 and this is absolutely no exception. It’s like the Yeah, Yeah, Yeah’s off their heads frantically trying to find a chord progression that doesn’t quite come together, so they decide to simply jam it out with low fi, indiscernible vocals popping in and out, before the drums drop in at slightly after 2 minutes with that late 80’s Mary Chain feel once hammered out by Bobby Gillespie back in the day and everything changes. It swirls around for nearly seven delicious minutes of ketamine induced bliss like proper music does.

4/5

Electron-C x Dark Adaptation x Noisesmith – Stuck In My Head (Original Mix)

Electron-C is the production moniker for Andrew Hague, a Producer/DJ from Charlotte, NC by way of Orlando, FL. He cut his teeth in the 808 and breakbeat culture of the Orlando and Miami Rave scenes and his production style is heavily influenced by his roots in jungle music. ‘Stuck in my head’ sees his euphoric signature mixing skills layering melodic vocals over some dirty, dirty bass lines and heavy jungle drums. This is euphoric, deep and dark all at the same time as Electron-C continues to push his production boundaries with high intensity jungle drenched dancefloor fillers.

4/5

EGEBAMYASI, FOXTROT vs MA BLA & BRZ vs STIJE – Foxbam Inc 002

Goldtooth by the Scottish wondered, Egebamyasi kicks off this three track Ep from some of the best acid house producers on the planet. Wub bass swirls around over a razor sharp snare. Sultry vocals dip in and out and are punctuated by some nice beeping synth play. This is a proper dance floor filler, all six and half minutes of it, pulsating away like a love egg on heat unit you have no choice but to cum on down to the rave baby. Infectious. Better bring the lube!

It’s the intrepid Foxtrot up next ably assisted by Ma Bla for a distinctly late 80’s dance vibe brought wonderfully kicking and screaming into the 21st century. Think the Orb meets the Chemical Brothers on a dirty weekend in Brighton, both high on acid and have fun switching each other’s USB’s on the Pioneer decks and pretending like nothings going on. Pumping hard and fast action.

This great addition to the new Foxbam Label is completed by Brz and Stije hammering out the wonderful ISCO, a mighty beast of a dance floor warrior with swirling synths overriding a classic festival kick and interspersed with some high octane snares. It’s thirteen glorious minutes punch a hole right through your chest and drag you kicking and screaming by your very own tendrils to run amok in the fields til the early hours, eyes closed in a trance like euphoria seldom experienced on these shores for the last twenty years. Epic and breathless!

5/5

WEATHERSHIP – Just A Ghost

Stockton based Weathership are gathering momentum nicely before the release of their debut album Splendid Beast in November. Just A Ghost has a distinctly retro vibe and kicks off with an almost Chris Issac slide guitar before settling into a hybrid of New Order and Gimme Shelter era Rolling Stones. No mean feat! And yes, it’s that powerful! This is modern ‘pop’ music at its very best, melodic, stirring and emotional. It carries you along for its 3:22 like a lover gathering their hurt and tearful  partner into their chest and gently caressing them as they whisper the words ‘everything will be alright’ in the most reassuring voice they’ve ever heard. And, you have no choice but to believe them. Tears subside, the sun breaks through from the gloom and life again is wonderful! This is jam hot! Seek it out NOW!

5/5

AEON:MODE/Blanke/Bertie Scott – Lonely

If you like your drum and bass upbeat and tinged with Lasers Not Included era Wilkinson synths and beats, then this is for you. The drop at 1 minute will be familiar to everyone, but there’s nothing lost in the lack of surprises here. A yearning vocal stretches across its four and half minutes of pure pop delight that bounces along with the requisite breakdowns and risers that we’ve come to expect from all the best DNB heaters and this is no exception.

AEON:MODE has been making great drum and bass for four years or so now, isn’t it time you took a listen?

4/5

FRED AGAIN – Ten Days

No matter how hard I try when I see the name Fred Again I can’t get the sight of Rik Mayall being absolutely ridiculous in the (should have never been made) Drop Dead Fred movie. For this reason I come into this review with the worst of expectations. We caught Fred at Reading Festival and almost fell asleep even though the sun barely set. It was one of the most uneventful Reading headline shows that your sorry assed reviewer has ever witnessed. And so, to the album, and sadly nothing has changed. Fred knows what to do in a studio as Actually Life 1, 2 and 3 will testify to, but here, there’s something missing. There’s no spark. There’s no energy. It’s simply dull and flat.

Opening track Adore U barely shuffles along and simply can’t be arsed to get out of bed and feed its screaming kids demanding attention. There’s some monologues in there called .two, .four etc.  You get the idea. These just add to the induced boredom. Fearless featuring Sampha at least tries to get going, but it’s like one of those lazy, hazy Saturday mornings when you’re recovering from the worlds’s worst hangover and you’ve just woken up next to a total stranger. Awkward, embarrassing and all served with a humbling helping of halitosis breath. Best thing to do is roll over, pretend to be asleep and wait for them to leave.

Ten Days is, sadly  the musical equivalent of rohypnol. Maybe ‘Just stand there‘ is the soundtrack/instruction for the unsavoury event awaiting your lifeless , soon to be violated body. Who knows? Who cares? Not even the drafting in of Skrillex on the hugely dull Glow can save the day. This should have been a match made in heaven, instead it’s a soggy day in your own worst private hell. The unfortunately titled ‘Peace U need’ drops just before the end, but we’re already in such a languid state that it just floats by without detection of a discernible rhythm or groove. And then it as all over, like some bad childhood memory of when Father Flaherty asked you to kiss his ring when he held his hand out, only for him to drop his trousers as you approached. This, like your local priest, will leave a bad taste in your mouth! Be warned.

The Japanese House can find better people to collaborate with!

1/5

CASSYETTE – This World Fucking Sucks

There’s an eery rawness to Cassyette that, unlike others in the genre, doesn’t seem quite so contrived. There’s an honesty at play here which touches the emotions and makes you think. There’s a long lost, little girl screaming at the injustices of the world, the passing of her father and a myriad of other angst-riddled emotions that endear this poor wretch to our hearts.

Some of the material here has been drip fed to us to keep us hungry, guessing and wanting (in the midnight hour) more, more more! Those of us who were intrigued by killer tracks like September Rain and Sad Girl Summer were expecting a great deal from our Cassy Brooking. Her rise had been pretty meteoric, with support slots with My Chemical Romance and a main stage appearance at Download Festival already under her belt. So what does This world fucking sucks actually bring us? Well from the titular title track, you might not think very much. This almost seems misguided. ‘Don’t forget this is your debut album, not the difficult second one’ scream a thousand voices in unison. None of us were expecting a miserable Massive Attack! Say My Name is up next with yet another notable impersonation for the feminine goddess that is Pink. ‘Say my name, I’m hanging off the ceiling. Won’t you break my state of mind? I need relieving she wails during the chorus and a million pimple faced yoofs grin at the prospect.

Ipecac (already floating around for what seems an eternity) drops next and our heroine is in familiar Cassyette form and the world is all good again. (Phew). Porcelain isn’t a cover of the Moby track – pity! Close your eyes and Pink is back for Friends in Low Places, though this time it ain’t a bad thing and should provide her with further leverage amongst the Gen-Z /Emo brigade. Cos we’re all just scumbags yeah?

Sorry, but Go, can do one! If Sex Metal sounds like your particular kind of fetish, be prepared, this ain’t METAL fam, but it sweeps harmlessly by in just over a minute before retuning to the familiar Cassette sound. So far, so disjointed right? By the time we get to Why Am I Like This? we’re feeling a little let down, but don’t fret it turns into an Evanescence tinged belter! Yay! Degenerate Nations is a pure hard trance belter and ready to fill a field with swaying drug-addled horny little fuckers before the summer finally drags it’s sorry arse into a drab and cold winter filled with Ed Sheehan and George Ezra dreariness.

Sugar Rush and Over It are disposable but Four Leaf Clover has our girls heart bleeding over the passing of her father. ‘Losing you, so I keep drinking to forget. Finding you in places I never expect.’ Beautiful, emotional and raw. I almost cried. Dear Sister was never likely to live up to the preceding track, but these fifteen songs do show off the eclecticism of Cassy and end with an upbeat and shouty Untouched. The best, is surely yet to come!

4/5

BAND OF BASTARDS – Lack of Love

The Bastards (in case you didn’t know) are an Austin based hardcore band made up of four veterans of the American punk scene. Comprising members from …And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead, Markov and an ex-Sparta drummer they unleashed their first album on an unsuspecting public back in 2021. Delete/Repeat was an absolute scream from beginning to end, taking all the best of old school east and west coast punk from Bad Brains and Black Flag through to British trash merchants Discharge and everything in between. It left us hungry for more, and, here it comes in all its screaming, energised glory. At 1:53 it races along, smashing anything in its path flat to the ground (from small defenceless children and doddering grandmothers to unsuspecting Cheltenham chavs) in bloodied, bewildered, twisted heaps of clothes and flesh and blood. Brilliant!

4/5

LINKIN PARK – The Emptiness Machine

Well. it’s been seven years since the sad passing of Chester Bennington and the once unimaginable has now happened…Linkin Park are back! Back with new members including a new vocalist, Emily Armstrong (formerly of Dead Sara) joining Shinoda and the boys. There is an album and a tour promised, but in the meantime we have The Emptiness Machine. This is Numb era Linkins, and though it offers nothing new, they’e certainly trying to create a new identify without going too far off beam.

Any replacement singer was bound to come under a certain amount of scrutiny. These are big boots to fill. It’s been done before – we all remember the bravery of William DuVall trying to slot into the vacated hole left by Layne Staley’s demise. It’s a dirty job, but someone’s got to do it. Right? So, the jury is out at the moment, we’ll wait for the album, and wait for the tour, but in the meantime Emily has given it her all. She can do the requisite quiet bits, she can do the loud bits and do them very well. Emptiness… is the heaviest track that the band have done for years and it ain’t half bad with the Shinoda/Armstrong vocals working with some energy and spirit that uncle Chester would have been proud of. Just don’t anyone shout Beetlejuice three times!

4/5

S.H.I.T. – Rotten Columns

The best thing about playing tracks by S.H.I.T. on Spotify, is that when you’ve just listened to some S.H.I.T, it immediately asks you if you’d like more S.H.I.T.? The answer, obviously, is always yes. You just can’t get enough shit in your life these days. The band itself are from Ontario down that Canada way and are heavily influenced by 80’s east coast hardcore punk. This ain’t a bad thing. They offer short, sharp shocks of songs that mostly come in at under two minutes and all delivered with a savagery that pounds the eardrums and leaves you in a state of sweaty frenzy on the floor. The anti-capitalist thing has been done over and over again, but this is urgent, compelling listening that might just make you get off your arse and do something useful today. When you’ve listened to this you should listen to a compilation of their early works, entitled (you guessed it) Complete Shit right here

4/5

SUBSTANCE ABUSE feat. Kurious – Don’t Add Me

We’re late to the party for this three track EP…it’s been bubbling around for a while now, but seems to have just seen the light of day in the UK. So, Substance Abuse (Subz and Eso Tre) are a hip hop duo out of LA who team up with legendary emcee and MF Doom affiliate, Kurious to drop ‘Don’t Add Me’. It’s a scathing, yet humorous take down on our obsession with social media and the sad trend where artists (and people in general) prioritise “likes” over quality. This has a jazzy, smooth backdrop produced by West Coast beat maestro Taso. With a Nile Rogers-esque disco guitar plucking away in the background over distinctly abstract and psychedelic rhythms duelling for control over a retro break beat reminiscent of Public Enemy from back in the day or a more chilled out 2Pac. It’s all about

In today’s market this sounds fresh and energised and deserves a far bigger audience than it’s currently got. Give it a listen why don’t you. It’ll fill your should with sunshine!

4/5