I don't seem to have anything to moan about today. Bloody typical.
DR. SLAGGLEBERRY – THE SLAGG FACTORY (Crash Records)
The inner sleeve to this release tells us two interesting things (the front cover tells us nothing, being a likable cyber-Vorticist sketch of a sort of mechatibbles robot cat thing, for some odd reason). Firstly, it’s that the musicians involved value their anonymity, having their eyes or faces obscured on all photos, and crediting the music starkly to Bateman, Turnbull and Pethers, making them sound like extras from a Frank Richards novella, or provincial solicitors from the ‘50s; secondly, it’s interesting that the collage of flyers and posters for previous gigs features just one from Oxfordshire, despite the fact that the band hails from Chinnor and release music on the local Crash Records label. Could it be that Dr. Slaggleberry’s brand of math metal intricacy hasn’t caught on in the local scene? Or does their atrocious name simply put prospective listeners off, as it sounds like they should be a gang of 4th formers playing slovenly Chili Peppers covers?
Whatever the explanation, Oxfordshire is missing out on a quality band, and this EP is a selection of tasty little noise nuggets, layered, handmade and rich, like some weird avant-metal baklava. Although we’re slightly sad to note that the maximalist Primus-influenced japes of old have mostly been shelved, Dr Slaggleberry have noticeably matured, and this EP is a wonderfully adept balance of schoolroom tricksiness and straight up fleabag rock out riffing. We’ll start at the bottom, with “8 4 5”, which opens with a swampy delayed guitar figure, all Steve Hillage wooziness and Ozric Tentacles dope fug. All very well, but after two whole minutes, we do start to wonder whether the band have hitched a lift on Gong’s flying teapot and left all their taste and subtlety behind due to intergalactic luggage restrictions. At this very moment the whole band kicks in, and whilst it might wake us up, it feels like a pretty facile musical trick, and the track wanders to a stop a minute or so later.
If we ignore this slightly unsuccessful ambient drift, the rest of the record works a treat. “13 Grades Of Filth” starts with a repeated lead guitar twiddle sounding Philip Glass continually turning his Donkey Kong handheld game on and off. The playing is tight, but unlike so many prog influenced acts, there is a praiseworthy lack of showboating flabbiness on display, and instead the production gives the sound a nice compactness. EP opener “Feed Me A Stray Cat” starts with sort of rock fanfare, and the first 90 seconds are a measured processional, like a Purcell march for metalheads. “13 Grades” continues this stately gait, and the music develops in a very orderly, almost baroque, fashion. Much of this record could be post-apocalyptic court music for some greasy Mad Max principality.
“Basterd Brew” (sic – who’s your proofreader, boys, Quentin Tarantino?) is likewise built on a good roiling churn of a rhythm, and the lead guitar has a nagging, accusatory tone, like an embarrassing memory trying to force its way through a hangover. The drums get something interesting to do on this one, and exhibit a neat stop-start dynamic, which makes this the best track on the release. The closer, “Gone Devil”, is essentially bits from the other tracks cut up and stuck together, but that’s no great crime. It’s an intriguingly formal sounding release, and a long way from aled up hair swinging classic metal antics. If Handel had written “Zadoc The Priest” for the coronation of Best Leather Chick in some cyber biker bar, he may have come up with something like this.
Showing posts with label Dr Slaggleberry. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Dr Slaggleberry. Show all posts
Saturday, 27 February 2010
Tuesday, 14 July 2009
Punts Drunk
This is a review of this year's Punt festival, an annual Wednesday night pub crawl with random local acts doing sonic things to detract from proper beer drinking. It's like the Camden Crawl but cheaper, in every sense of the word. This is an interesting review, as elements of it appeared in Nightshift and on Oxfordbands, where it was part of an OHM reunion. If only BBC Oxford could have got in on the act, the whole history of my reviews could have been covered.
THE PUNT, various venues, 13/5/09
Matt Kilford gets a lovely big space in Borders to play his set, which is larger than some of the proper venues involved in The Punt. A side benefit of having a shop that hardly stocks any bloody CDs, we guess. We may not be financial gurus, but we honestly can’t fathom how the current difficulties in record retail will be solved by paying premium Oxford rent for a vast floorspace that only stocks about 5 different CDs! Getting involved with The Punt is exactly the kind of thing Border should be doing to drum up local custom, so kudos for that, although they could have kept off the tannoy during songs.
Such interruptions, however, are a source of comedy for Matt, whose wry humour is as much a highlight of his set as his sweet mellifluous voice. He might look rather unprepossessingly like Badly Drawn Mike Gatting, but his voice is not only gorgeous, but has the tiniest jazz and blues traces around the edge, and his guitar technique displays some incredibly subtle embellishments way beyond your average strummer. In fact, we preferred his woozy, hazy slower laments to his upbeat tunes, and it isn’t often we think that about an acoustic balladeer, that’s for damn sure.
By contrast, Bethany Weimers’ set is a riot, her excited guitar attack bursting with flamenco fireworks, and her dynamic singing full of theatre. Bethany has a wide range of vocal techniques in her arsenal, but we aren’t sure that they fully gel, and we feel that she is sometimes left grasping too desperately for the emotional payoff, like a cross between Edie Brickell and Bonnie Langford. She’s at her best when keeping things folky, especially in a sea shanty flavoured ditty about her great-grandparents, with a winning melody oddly reminiscent of “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen”.
They look quite like Guns ‘N’ Roses, so it’s fitting that Pistol Kixx take to the stage late. OK, ten minutes is hardly in the Chinese Democracy bracket, but every second counts with The Punt’s crazed itinerary. They sound a bit like G’n’R too, although perhaps somewhat more low budget: we’re thinking Dogs D’Amour, The Quireboys or Skid Row, with hair treatments by Mosh ‘N’ Go. It’s been a while since we witnessed such flagrant use of wailing solos or bandanas, and we’re forced to conclude that Pistol Kixx are embarrassingly awful, but also, in some masochistic way, hugely entertaining. Thank you, Sir, may we have another.
Phantom Theory, on the other hand, squeeze the maximum dosage of rock hedonism from the simplest of means. A guitar and drums duo, they have a pleasing line in dirty scuzz rock, something like 50 Foot Panda having their blood replaced with hilbilly hooch by the devil’s dialysis. The effect is enormous, but minimal, like a juggernaut pulling a wheelie, and they have enough ideas to keep the fantastic set fresh as it powers long.
Part of the fun of the Punt is seeing people at gigs beyond the usual inner circle, and this does provide us with the wonderful sight of two girls huddled at the top of the Purple Turtle’s steps, saying “One of the bands is called, like, Beaver Juice”. However, we choose The Cellar instead of Beaver Fuel, where the opening of We Aeronauts’ set is gloriously delicate, a hushed blur of clicking drumsticks, guitar and accordion sounding like soft waves washing a pebbly beach. Although their sound is built on folky intimacy, they occasionally bubble up into a big-boned rock chorus, some bold, simple vocal melodies grasping at the heartstrings like Elbow at their best. A completely unamplified track is a brave move, but they clearly make an impact – on a trip to the toilet mid-set, a chap in the cubicle is unabashedly singing a wordless version of one of their earlier melodies!
Realising we haven’t set foot in the place since last year’s Punt, we wonder why there aren’t more gigs in Thirst Lodge – it’s a neat little room, with a good crisp PA and a wall made entirely from speaker cones. It just needs a good reliable promoter to kick things off. Whilst there we catch up with masked math metal magnates, Dr Slaggleberry, whose intricate arrangements and hard rock savvy are instigating some of the best unfettered dancing this side of The Spasm Band. It’s righteously impressive jazz metal, although, fussy buggers that we are, we’d like it if the guitars were more jazz, and the drums more metal.
A rush to The Wheatsheaf for The Response Collective is a must for a Punt that otherwise threatens to contain no bleeps. Sadly, neither does the set, it being a series of drab vocals atop some stale trip hop loops and loosely post-rock guitars. Spice is added by some proficient scratching, and some moody projected films, but the net effect is a sound that is not only uninspired, but also a few years out of date, which is the closest thing there is to a dance music cardinal sin.
Lack of excitement from The Reponse Collective does give us time to nip back to The Cellar for From Light To Sound. They might have an Oxford track record to rival Roger Bannister’s, but we’d always found their music intriguing rather than exciting. Until tonight that is. The Cellar’s engineer has found them a huge sound, and the music simply soars across the packed venue, all Explosions In The Sky grandeur, Billy Mahonie twistiness and Stereolab intelligence. And they have some proper bleepy noises, at last – when the keyboards aren’t coming on like ELP filtered through Battles, that is. Yes, there are mistakes and technical hitches, but these flash by in an instant, the euphoric effect of the music stays with us all night.
“We play solid metal, for fans of solid metal”, claims Desert Storm’s singer. Well, duh. Luckily the music far outstrips the announcements, and their classic, Pantera-sized rocking is perfect for flagging energy levels. Metal is as metal does, to a certain extent, and Desert Storm don’t rewrite the rulebook, but they do know when to drop in and out, and when to let the music chug on regardless. The playing is all extremely tidy, especially the drums, which are busy but incisive, just how we like them. Special mention for the singer’s long overcoat, which makes him look like a Joy Division fan, even as he growls like a man with a throat made from barbed wire and magma.
THE PUNT, various venues, 13/5/09
Matt Kilford gets a lovely big space in Borders to play his set, which is larger than some of the proper venues involved in The Punt. A side benefit of having a shop that hardly stocks any bloody CDs, we guess. We may not be financial gurus, but we honestly can’t fathom how the current difficulties in record retail will be solved by paying premium Oxford rent for a vast floorspace that only stocks about 5 different CDs! Getting involved with The Punt is exactly the kind of thing Border should be doing to drum up local custom, so kudos for that, although they could have kept off the tannoy during songs.
Such interruptions, however, are a source of comedy for Matt, whose wry humour is as much a highlight of his set as his sweet mellifluous voice. He might look rather unprepossessingly like Badly Drawn Mike Gatting, but his voice is not only gorgeous, but has the tiniest jazz and blues traces around the edge, and his guitar technique displays some incredibly subtle embellishments way beyond your average strummer. In fact, we preferred his woozy, hazy slower laments to his upbeat tunes, and it isn’t often we think that about an acoustic balladeer, that’s for damn sure.
By contrast, Bethany Weimers’ set is a riot, her excited guitar attack bursting with flamenco fireworks, and her dynamic singing full of theatre. Bethany has a wide range of vocal techniques in her arsenal, but we aren’t sure that they fully gel, and we feel that she is sometimes left grasping too desperately for the emotional payoff, like a cross between Edie Brickell and Bonnie Langford. She’s at her best when keeping things folky, especially in a sea shanty flavoured ditty about her great-grandparents, with a winning melody oddly reminiscent of “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen”.
They look quite like Guns ‘N’ Roses, so it’s fitting that Pistol Kixx take to the stage late. OK, ten minutes is hardly in the Chinese Democracy bracket, but every second counts with The Punt’s crazed itinerary. They sound a bit like G’n’R too, although perhaps somewhat more low budget: we’re thinking Dogs D’Amour, The Quireboys or Skid Row, with hair treatments by Mosh ‘N’ Go. It’s been a while since we witnessed such flagrant use of wailing solos or bandanas, and we’re forced to conclude that Pistol Kixx are embarrassingly awful, but also, in some masochistic way, hugely entertaining. Thank you, Sir, may we have another.
Phantom Theory, on the other hand, squeeze the maximum dosage of rock hedonism from the simplest of means. A guitar and drums duo, they have a pleasing line in dirty scuzz rock, something like 50 Foot Panda having their blood replaced with hilbilly hooch by the devil’s dialysis. The effect is enormous, but minimal, like a juggernaut pulling a wheelie, and they have enough ideas to keep the fantastic set fresh as it powers long.
Part of the fun of the Punt is seeing people at gigs beyond the usual inner circle, and this does provide us with the wonderful sight of two girls huddled at the top of the Purple Turtle’s steps, saying “One of the bands is called, like, Beaver Juice”. However, we choose The Cellar instead of Beaver Fuel, where the opening of We Aeronauts’ set is gloriously delicate, a hushed blur of clicking drumsticks, guitar and accordion sounding like soft waves washing a pebbly beach. Although their sound is built on folky intimacy, they occasionally bubble up into a big-boned rock chorus, some bold, simple vocal melodies grasping at the heartstrings like Elbow at their best. A completely unamplified track is a brave move, but they clearly make an impact – on a trip to the toilet mid-set, a chap in the cubicle is unabashedly singing a wordless version of one of their earlier melodies!
Realising we haven’t set foot in the place since last year’s Punt, we wonder why there aren’t more gigs in Thirst Lodge – it’s a neat little room, with a good crisp PA and a wall made entirely from speaker cones. It just needs a good reliable promoter to kick things off. Whilst there we catch up with masked math metal magnates, Dr Slaggleberry, whose intricate arrangements and hard rock savvy are instigating some of the best unfettered dancing this side of The Spasm Band. It’s righteously impressive jazz metal, although, fussy buggers that we are, we’d like it if the guitars were more jazz, and the drums more metal.
A rush to The Wheatsheaf for The Response Collective is a must for a Punt that otherwise threatens to contain no bleeps. Sadly, neither does the set, it being a series of drab vocals atop some stale trip hop loops and loosely post-rock guitars. Spice is added by some proficient scratching, and some moody projected films, but the net effect is a sound that is not only uninspired, but also a few years out of date, which is the closest thing there is to a dance music cardinal sin.
Lack of excitement from The Reponse Collective does give us time to nip back to The Cellar for From Light To Sound. They might have an Oxford track record to rival Roger Bannister’s, but we’d always found their music intriguing rather than exciting. Until tonight that is. The Cellar’s engineer has found them a huge sound, and the music simply soars across the packed venue, all Explosions In The Sky grandeur, Billy Mahonie twistiness and Stereolab intelligence. And they have some proper bleepy noises, at last – when the keyboards aren’t coming on like ELP filtered through Battles, that is. Yes, there are mistakes and technical hitches, but these flash by in an instant, the euphoric effect of the music stays with us all night.
“We play solid metal, for fans of solid metal”, claims Desert Storm’s singer. Well, duh. Luckily the music far outstrips the announcements, and their classic, Pantera-sized rocking is perfect for flagging energy levels. Metal is as metal does, to a certain extent, and Desert Storm don’t rewrite the rulebook, but they do know when to drop in and out, and when to let the music chug on regardless. The playing is all extremely tidy, especially the drums, which are busy but incisive, just how we like them. Special mention for the singer’s long overcoat, which makes him look like a Joy Division fan, even as he growls like a man with a throat made from barbed wire and magma.
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