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Delete And Start Again. Litzberg
Litzberg is back and how! From one man band to band fronted by Matthijs Peeters in the years of Covid. Delete And Start Again is a short sonic storm. Within two minutes all has been said and done. "This is what you want and what you need... Better take it", Peeters sings and that sums up his offer to the world. The new single is a fantastic mix of alternative rock with punk elements. The energy comes across with ease and is exemplified by the lead guitar that aims to lift off into space, defying all the laws of gravity. Some songs do not take longer to tell it all and Delete And Start Again is such a song. If this is the promise Litzberg provides the world, let the new album come soon. Litzberg takes on all the youngsters in alternative rock and then some. What a statement Delete And Start Again is.
With Stolen Moments The Visual returns to WoNoBlog. The new single from upcoming album 'The Shore' (out on 11 November) is an extremely serious affair. A ballad full of longing, despair and melancholic feelings for things past. Anna van Rij sings in a way fully matching these feelings. The song reminds me of one of my very first musical experiences, a single my mother played called 'Tammy' sung by Debbie Reynolds. I can hear her singing this song in my mind, against the backdrop of a full orchestra and not the soft rock Van Rij's backing band provides. The music on Stolen Moments reminds me of someone else entirely: Jeff Buckley and more specific Gary Lucas' guitar antics. Django Trienes has certainly studied Lucas' unique playing on 'Grace'. The warbling sounds in the background are a dead giveaway. So are the way the synths/keyboards come in. Stolen Moments is the kind of song that slowly but surely creeps up on you. The more I've played it, the more I hear and the more impressed I am. This is a song not to take on at face value. It deserves serious studying.
Desire is the third single already released by Warhaus announcing its third album 'Ha Ha Heartbreak', also out on 11 November. Maarten Devoldere became a household name for many music lovers because of the band he plays in Balthazar. By now he is gaining fast with his solo vehicle on the total output of Balthazar's. I'm not a connoisseur of Balthazar's work but do know some songs and Desire is my first taste of Warhaus. It makes me ask: Is this music so much different that it deserves a solo career? No, it is not that much different. Only if it's impossible to release more music under the name Balthazar it becomes understandable. So, let's stick to this explanation. Desire is a song on the brink of soft disco and soul, in the style of circa 1980 when bands like Shalamar ruled for a short while. With his dark voice Devoldere puts the right vocal sound to enhance the richness of his warm music. Is this my kind of music? Not really but it sounds so good. I think I can take a little more of it.
The singing plasterers from The Hague are huge in The Netherlands. I know they exist but somehow did not run into the band's music. And then it came by on the radio station my girlfriend likes to listen to. My mind paddled back about 40 years and stripped away the hip synthesized rhythm and what came up is Het Goede Doel. 'België' and 'Nooduitgang'. Listening to the song it is easy to understand why a lot of young people can go wild on this song. Easy to sing along, partytime, no difficulties in any way, very danceable. What I miss, is, originality aside, the freshness that Het Goede Doel brought to bands singing in the Dutch language. This is totally lacking and for me that lack makes it hard to listen to the song. Het Goede Doel for the 2020s Goldband may be but not my Het Goede Doel.
When was the last time I heard a song by Smashing Pumpkins that made me think, yeah!? Most likely not in this century/millennium. 'Adore' most likely qualifies. Enter Beguiled. The song is driven by a strong metal riff, classic Smashing Pumpkins. Now the band has always been a bit of a mystery to me. There's not a single album I can listen to in its entirety. Yet, I have them all until circa 2005 and a whole stack of singles with all the extra's. And then it stopped and I haven't listened to anything for two decades. My hopes were low for Beguiled and the 'Atum' project, 33 songs, three albums in a few months or something like it. First, as streaming albums and then in April 2023 as a box set. Well, with thanks to this single at least my appetite is wetted and that is much more than I ever expected.
Candy Coffins manages something fairly unique. The band manages to combine the post punk from the early 1980s in a successful way with a fresh 2020s sound. The postpunk is there in dark mood and the fresh sound shines through with the piano riff moving into and out of the single. The freshness is all over the sound of Seaside Girls. This is not The Cure or The Cult. Because of it the single stands out for me in an era filled with nostalgia for rock music from long ago.
Candy Coffins is a band from South Carolina led by songwriter Jame Lathren. Stuck in the pandemic he decided not to write a downbeat song and succeeded in spades with Seaside Girls. The single announces the album 'Once Do It With Feeling' which is out on 21 October. The band is around since 2018 only and is filled with musicians with some mileage behind them. This shows in the maturity of the sound. This is a band that knows exactly what its going for and found it. Seaside Girls stands out, "It's all the rage", as Lathren sings himself.
French punk/hardcore rockers Birds in Row released two singles at once, Noah and 'Cathedral'. we focus on the former single. This is a dark song driven by an inventive, relentless drum rhythm. Accents are all in the right places, for large parts on the skins only. The bass, seriously distorted, is the lead instrument for a large part of Noah. Playing a riff over and over. The song starts relatively calm. It is the one before the storm, as the singer totally goes off his rocker later on. Screaming his fear, anger and loathing into the microphone. Most likely he had to scrape little bits and pieces of his throat that came loose in the process from the mike's grill. The song is fleshed out in a superb way. A little more by the seconds and every time and again it's possible to add some more. Hardcore is usually not for me but Noah works like a miracle.
This week Third Party Incidents releases its third single. And all three can be found on this blog. All three are also quite different. One for each member's favourite musical taste? Who knows. Easy combines a tough metal like riff with a punky song. The riff reminds me of Smashing Pumpkins, see above, while the singing is more like everything that happened in punk over the past 45 years. The result is a song that is just as easy to headbang to as to pogo. Easy does not pretend to be more than what Third Party Incidents is. There are no tricks to make things bigger and bolder. This single is the real thing where this band is concerned. It should not be hard to capture an audience with Easy and make them go up and down and forget the rest of the world for a while.
See the posts above and you will not run into the word nostalgia but for most of the music the word is applicable in one way or another. So why is it that when I listen to Tears Only Run One Way that I also write the word? The answer is simple because this music is drenched in nostalgia. The Williams Brothers do not try to hide their love for music that went out of style a long, long time ago in any way. Clocking within the two minutes, what I hear is The Everly Brothers and whatever came before the duo. Andrew and David Williams weave their voices in such a way that only some brothers (or sisters) can who have been singing together from a very early age. Assisted by musical veterans like Greg Leisz, Marvin Etzioni and Don Heffington they created the kind of country-pop music that is so easy to listen to and somehow, despite tears that only run down, manage to make the song shine. It's impossible not to like Tears Only Run One Way.
With a second single The Murder Capital is just about ready to release its new album and go back on the road. With its first album the band got on my good side quite fast but did not maintain that position. The album did not stick like its contemporaries Shame and Fontaines DC's albums did. And with A Thousand Lives I am also wondering where we will go together. For starters, it has a slow start. Great drumming and almost mysterious keyboard sounds. The singer declaims his lyrics in characteristic post-post punk style. The way the song develops makes me give it the benefit of the doubt. The mystery gets a boost by a tough sounding guitar playing single notes with some enhancing effect behind it. A Thousand Lives gets an intriguing sheen this way and that is what makes it attractive to listen to it. Enter a load of dynamics and it may become a winner in the end. The Murder Capital really went out of its way here to create something special and noticeable. A Thousand Lives is just that. Mission accomplished.
Wout de Natris
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