CANDY RIOT - INTERVIEW + MOONSTAR ALBUM REVIEW

 

Candy Riot’s debut album ‘MOONSTAR’ is slated to release at the end of this month. They’re a four piece synth-rock group hailing from Austin, Texas, and their new album channels the greats of 80s synth royalty. Everything from Gary Numan to Depeche Mode is matched to Candy Riot’s own colourful and dreamy soundscape on their new release, a review of which can be found at the bottom of this page. The band were kind enough to share their thoughts on a few questions surrounding the album’s recording and release.



How did the writing and recording of Moonstar go? Were there any challenges or new lessons learned?

We wake up with the hope of remembering a dream for long enough to write down what went down. Then we’ll video call to write lyrics and take them to the piano. In the studio, we’ll plug in, twist knobs, and create musical sketches until we land on what feels right. The uncertainty of Covid times certainly challenged the recording and rehearsal sessions, but we found creative ways of using technology and communication to still create & release our musical art.


Moonstar very clearly wears its retro influences on its sleeve, how do you guys view modern pop culture’s current obsession with the past?

Is modern pop culture currently obsessed with the past? It feels like the obsession is with social media platforms and the duality of in-person and online realities. Candy Riot digs 80’s music because it controls our heart rate more than other genres, plus it’s easy to sing along and dance to.


Were there any external factors that influenced the lyrics and concepts of Moonstar?

Music is a powerful artform that shapes our culture. Most of our best memories involve music and our songwriting has been based on life experiences. On ‘Moonstar’ we share songs about catching feelings, considering monogamy, hot sex in a trailer park, getting fucked over, losing a loved one, resisting society’s expectations of what one is “supposed” to do with their life, getting fucked over (again), not fitting in, losing friends to conspiracies and cults, and a near-death experience. Devastating and joyful emotions are a common thread with the human experience. Plus, it’s fun AF to make synth music.


Austin, Texas is often seen as a hotbed for American roots and psychedelic artists, how does your home city’s musical fame influence your own music in comparison?

This city is also a “choose your own adventure” with a dozen genres beating each night. Playing synth rock can pose unique challenges in booking and finding band members because it’s off the beaten path for Austin, which is heavy on blues rock, roots, and psych rock. But there is a synth-based sub culture here that’s strong and growing!


What does Candy Riot plan to do after the release of their debut album?

We try not to die, so… let’s start there. We want to write and release an album a year until we die, in whatever form or permutation of the band that looks like. The last two years were rough, but we’re grateful for where we are and that we have each other. We make pretty songs about ugly situations, and we aspire to play big, memorable live show experiences with packed dance floors and positive human energy. Ultimately, we’d love to play SXSW, Lollapalooza, ACL and Coachella in 2023.


MOONSTAR Album Review


Candy Riot’s debut album, MOONSTAR, is a fun and danceable throwback to the classics of 80s synth pop. The band shows incredible versatility in their dedication to the craft, which glimmers through the album’s immaculate production. Vibrant synths and stabbing guitars make for a dancefloor-friendly sound, whilst the lyrical content provides a sense of tangible hurt and relatability. MOONSTAR is the emotional soundtrack to a lonely night out in a neon-lit cityscape.

The band shows they can still utilise fun and poppy inflections on less colourfully toned tracks such as “Prosper Park”, which kicks off the album with its reverb-drenched take on social woes and paranoia. Many of the lyrics on MOONSTAR centre around everyday experiences and troubles with others. Whether these experiences are positive or negative, Candy Riot’s danceable delivery still manages to shine through.

Leading single “Only You” gives the band’s sound some breathing room with some unobtrusively cutting guitar inflections that go well against the band’s vibrant synths. Vocals also take a page from Bowie’s book, with emotionally charged melodies that soar over the production. The track is a perfect example of Candy Riot’s dedication to colourful synthpop music that doesn’t shy away from it’s emotions and vehemently respects it’s ancestors.

Paying homage to the past doesn’t stop there for Candy Riot. The band provides winks and nods to all their synthpop influences. The slower, driving rhythm of Parallel Lines gives a wonderful nod to the paranoia-induced electronicism of Gary Numan, whilst also providing some pace to the album’s focus of dance rhythms. “Rosie” also provides some much needed love to synth pioneers Kraftwerk with its ascending and descending synth melody.

Candy Riot doesn’t want us to kiss the 80s away just yet. Their debut is a vibrant throwback to the most influential of the decade’s synthpop, one which props its lyrical hardships and pleasures through a focus on tight rhythms and glimmering production. Especially recommended for fans of Gary Numan, Depeche Mode and New Order.

Holding Out - TEETH Single Review

Holding Out’s newest single in two years demonstrates a mature and destructive display of anxiety and pent-up aggression.

In a past life, Holding Out could be heard going full steam ahead in a full-on guttural assault as guitar solos and esophagus-destroying vocals blazed through their compositions. Stepping up from this, “TEETH” is a confident demonstration of the band proving that they know when to hold their aggression back in order to set out a mood before blasting out their unspent anger in a whirlwind of sound.

The track is driven through a cold, anxious guitar lead that breaks up their explosions into furious punk energy. Hearing the same guitar lead return to break the song down after it’s second chorus really gives the song some breathing room and helps you to appreciate the anxiety-driven mood that the band sets out, before releasing you back into the fury of Holding Out’s audio-battery that we’ve all been missing for these past two years. Complimenting this are the nuanced performances from the three band members, all of which get their time to shine in showing their maturity and development as musicians.

TEETH is not only the welcome return of Holding Out, but one that proves that time has only improved their dexterity and chemistry as a band. The future is bright for whatever these guys choose to do next.

TEETH is available for streaming on Spotify, and you can also catch Holding Out live at Little Buildings on Friday 8th April.

No Teeth - The New Nuisance EP review

 A detective soundtrack plucked from the depths of hell.

No Teeth’s disjointed post-punk madness returns with their most confident and uncompromising release to date. The New Nuisance demonstrates and commemorates everything you need to know about Newcastle’s noisiest six-piece.

No Teeth have come a long way since songs like ‘Mother’, with this release surpassing any of their previous work by far. The band’s six-man lineup comes together to add layer upon layer to their continuously developing fury of sound. The EP’s mix allows the band’s nuances to filter through in a way that represents their musicianship much clearer than any past recording as the band indulges in juxtaposing it’s jolly melodies with an off-kilter mood. Tonally, the New Nuisance always feels like it’s on the brink of collapse.

The EP’s opener, Failing at DE, takes you on an unknowing car journey road trip that threatens you with the possibility of a fiery crash at every turn. Whilst the EP’s closer, Everything’s Better Than Meat Night, welcomes you onto it’s carousel of bouncing melodies and obscure lyrics that refuses you to gain a sense of normality. Each recording taps into the band member’s child-like sense of play with their writing and instrumentation, something seldom seen in local scenes.

The New Nuisance is now available to stream on Spotify

FOLLOW NO TEETH: https://linktr.ee/NoTeeth

The Jesus And Mary Chain - 35 Years of PSYCHOCANDY (album review/retrospective)

 

For a decade in which the discovery of clean future-speculative sounds of synthesisers began to define pop music, it seems strange that such a noisy album would rise to prominence. It’s influences are just as unorthodox as it’s arrangement and as such has allowed it to remain as one of the biggest unintentional influences to the shoegaze genre, as well as alternative rock as a whole.

Taking influence from pop and rock groups such as The Beach Boys and The Velvet Underground, as well as girl groups such as The Ronettes and The Shangri-Las, Psychocandy is the essence and melody of 60s pop pushed through the overdrive of punk rock. And by pushed through the overdrive of punk, I mean pushed to it’s very extent. The Jesus And Mary Chain’s detached pretty-boy attitude was seldom seen in British music at the time and ignored the sheen of new wave in a raw demeanour, making it the perfect visual counterpart to the band’s sound. If the “less is more” attitude was gospel in punk rock, then in The Jesus And Mary Chain it remained a sacred text.

The sound of Psychocandy is mainly typified by heavy layers of feedback, achieved through use of distorted fuzz and reverb pedals. With this, the album unfolds into a divide between slow, melodic songs juxtaposed with fast, energetic punk tracks. The album’s two opening cuts remain the best example of this. The opening track, Just Like Honey, drenches you in walls of fuzz as feedback-laden chords ring out through the song. It’s beat, unmistakably lifted from The Ronettes’s Be My Baby, ensures a gentle pop melody upon the track, mirroring the harshness of the track’s fuzz-generated white noise. It all comes to a head when the guitars phase out and only the drums and “It’s just like honey” chorus can be heard. It almost feels like you’re being rewarded with a time to rest after being walked through the album’s most intense emotional buildup. Waking you up from Just Like Honey’s distorted gentleness is the crashing chords of The Living End. Three chords, ear-splitting white noise and an attitude to melt Lou Reed’s heart is all the song needs to juxtapose it’s melodic predecessor. Psychocandy’s sound hits you like a blanket of cold water. It crashes in a way that soothes you in one breath and gets your blood rushing in another.

When reflecting on the past 35 years since the release of Psychocandy, it isn’t hard to see the niche influences it’s had on alternative rock as a whole. The album’s flurry of feedback and fuzz would go on to define the “wall of sound” guitar philosophy in the shoegaze movement. Some of the genres biggest bands, such as My Bloody Valentine, Ride and Slowdive would take the Psychocandy guitar sound, played alongside dreamscape melodies, becoming the defining sound of shoegaze. The band’s style in general would also become visually iconic to many bands from the early 2000s alternative rock scene. Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, The Kills and The Raveonettes would all mirror The Mary Chain’s dark detached appeal and introduce it to a new generation. The album would even inspire Richard D. James started making electronic music as Aphex Twin, but of course only as refuge from how “bloody awful” he thought it sounded.

Psychocandy is a rare occurrence. It takes a popular concept and imbues it with enough niche and interesting ideas to shoot it off into an entirely different space. With bands such as My Bloody Valentine and Sonic Youth taking influence from it’s guitar sound, it’s fair to say that Psychocandy essentially set up the foundations for the bands that gave guitar music one of its last breaths of fresh air. Psychocandy’s abrasive white noise might not be for everyone, but those who can appreciate it will also appreciate how The Jesus And Mary Chain pushed 60s bubblegum pop into punk overdrive and inadvertently influenced an entire niche genre as a result, with that influence remaining untapped to this day.

MOVIES NEED TO STOP BEING SERIOUS AND GRITTY AND JUST THROW A 100 GECS SONG IN FOR CRYING OUT LOUD

A love letter to the horrible movie tie-in soundtracks of old, 

by Selene Brown

The Dark Knight. Shutter Island. 120 Days of Sodom. Titanic. What do these movies all have in common? They’re crap, and their creators are cowards. The reason why? Not one of them features at least 1 song by acclaimed experimental music duo 100 gecs.

Dylan Brady and Laura Les have refreshed and revitalised music for the upcoming decade of the 2020s. The Beatles have been left in the dust behind the screeching repetitive beats of the gecs and their distinctive brand of scenecore, happy hardcore and whatever else they can find while digging through that great big rubbish heap we refer to as music genres. Think: nyan cat if it discovered System of a Down and DMT. Sounds class right? And yet, none of today’s filmmakers will give them the attention they deserve, and cement an emotionally resonant scene in the pantheon of film legend by placing the soothing sounds of ‘Money Machine’ over it. The pitiful film industry of today is more concerned with “authentic, emotional, auteur” cinema that the Academy will gawk over and does nothing for the common people. 

The people have spoken, and the people simply desire to see Jason Voorhees slice up innumerable and unmemorable nubile teenagers while ‘Hand Crushed By a Mallet’ plays softly over the carnage. That is all we ask.

DAY 7: BLACK SABBATH - BLACK SABBATH (1970) - 7 Days of Halloween in Music

 Happy Halloween!

As with all the spooky albums I’ve covered this week, Black Sabbath’s debut is a brutally haunting affair as it takes no liberties in using it’s sound to give you a terrifyingly unique experience. However, Black Sabbath’s sound does not completely rely on cheap attempts to frighten the listener. From front to back, each and every song on this album holds a gloomy and uncompromising quality which perfectly displays a genre of music at its boiling point, immediately before it would go on to influence rock music for the next 50 years.

The eponymous opening track instantaneously hits you with a statement of Black Sabbath’s atmosphere. After opening with the sound of rain and a bell chime, you’re given three notes, of which come together to create one of the most unsettling riffs you’ll ever pay witness to. It moans and wails of impending doom, making careful use of subduing the riff during the verses in order to emphasise its intensity when it kicks back in. Vocalist Ozzy Osbourne, with his barebones singing ability at the time, comes in to gloom his voice over the track, with his dreary and hopeless style only further adding to the song’s dark mystique. To add further to the uncanniness, there is no chorus to be heard in the track, making it not only an incredibly unique display of 70s rock, but one in which it’s norms are shifted in order to give you an unsettling experience.

Accompanying the title track’s tritone riff are a plethora of memorable songs and classics amongst Sabbath’s discography; the harmonica-inflected stoner rock of “The Wizard”, the instantaneously catchy power chord riff of “N.I.B.” and the unsettling atmosphere of “Sleeping Village”. All of these tracks would become staples of Black Sabbath’s sound and helped define them as one of the key bands in classic rock.

However I’m sure you’ve heard plenty of metal nerds worship this album to no ends, and so I’ll go where no man has gone before and actually give it some criticism. With the album being a product of 70s rock music, most of the songs are built off blues chords and scales. Whilst this is one of the key components in the album’s gloomy sound, it can make it a somewhat tiresome experience in an age when blues music has been returned to and forgotten about multiple times over the past 50 years. For example the track “Warning”, whilst an incredible track in its own right, contains a lengthy guitar jam section which makes the number just over 10 minutes long. Whilst these are not glaring issues with the album, it’s easy to see how modern audiences could be turned off due to many aspects that were derivative of the time the album was released.

In retrospect however, Black Sabbath’s debut is the Godfather of all gloomy British music. It signified the death of the flower power generation, and the introduction of a generation that was marred by the horrors of the Vietnam war and the fear of Satanic panic. Along with Sabbath’s second album, Paranoid, released the same year, it would not only go on to create the genre we know as heavy metal, but also influence numerous musicians for decades, even those from outside the rock genre. Black Sabbath is a behemoth in classic rock music, and for that reason you should give these tracks a spin this Halloween:


BLACK SABBATH

THE WIZARD

N.I.B.

WICKED WORLD

DAY 6: JACULA - IN CAUDA SEMPER STAT VENENUM (1969) - 7 Days of Halloween in Music

 

Jacula’s apocalyptic debut is something seldom seen amongst the deeper cuts of late 60s progressive rock. Hailing from Italy and devised by multi-instrumentalist Antonia Barocetti, their debut album initially consisted of organs, piano and other foreboding sound effects. However, the re-release of In Cauda Semper Stat Venenum in 2001 saw the band superimposing heavy metal guitars over many of the organ sections, causing the album to lose much of its original obscurity. Despite this, the album still holds an enjoyable mystique in its grandiose displays of hellish prog rock, recorded intermittently between practices of mediumship, in which the band members spoke to demonic spirits.

Separated into 6 tracks (the subtlety shouldn’t be lost on you there), In Cauda Semper Stat Venenum’s sound foreshadows the coming apocalypse. The first of two 10 minute tracks “Magister Dixit”, which translates to “The Teacher Has Said It”, seems to transcribe a warning of this coming apocalypse that the album focuses on. The piece pushes it’s monumental organ chords on you as it progresses further into intensity, with the last segment of the song constantly changing key in a way that feels completely unsettling, as a familiar organ sound is played in a completely unfamiliar way. It’s a strong example of how the album taps into the occult themes that were prevalent around some experimental rock bands at the time. Where bands like Coven portrayed their Satanic themes through an approach similar to a campy 60s horror soundtrack, Jacula does so without compromising any of the haunting qualities of their themes. As such, it’s a shame that many of the album’s organ sections were tainted with distorted guitar overdubs.

One of the most intriguing aspects of discovering Jacula is the way in which they played their Satanic themes completely straight, with organs and pianos giving the listener a truly haunting demonic experience. However, the guitar overdubs playing what sounds like rejected Celtic Frost riffs only end up making the album a far campier affair. Part of the mystique of Jacula is that they had all these intense and apocalyptic musical ideas before early black metal bands such as the aforementioned Celtic Frost we're bringing them into the kitschy side of 80s metal. It seems that in adding these guitar superimpositions, In Cauda Semper Stat Venenum loses much of its initial intrigue.

Despite the liberties that the album re-release takes, Jacula’s debut is still absolutely worth checking out. There was no other musical project like it at the time, as it seems to take the pretentiousness of progressive rock and fill it with a completely taboo theme, of which the album uses its genre’s prestige to provide the listener with a truly haunting affair that foretells the coming of Satan himself. Added to this is the fact that the album was recorded in between sessions of the band members speaking to spirits through use of a medium, as well as the fact that the album was never kept up to date in a back catalogue, makes In Cauda Semper Stat Venenum an intriguing and wholly unique record, especially for it’s time. It holds all the mystique that 90s black metal bands would eventually attempt to emulate, before Jacula was even rediscovered through the internet. For that reason I think you should give these tracks a listen:


MAGISTER DIXIT

TRIUMPHATUS SAD

IN CAUDA SEMPER