White Fence - Cyclops Reap (Castle Face, 2013)

No matter the manufacturing context of this album, only the result matters. If there are several echoes from the previous double album, on the other hand there is a surprising style evolution, it's crystalline Garage Rock. This is paradoxical but this is really the style of this album. Not only sounds are very pure, but even the dirty sounds are more symbolic dirt and become crackling from which the slightest vibration is clearly audible, acid sounds tend to be very clear, and noise is build with textures allowing to hear any detail of the weaving.

But the most impressive element building that crystalline Garage is coming from the orchestration, mixing and production. Most often there's two lines and sometimes three lines of guitars, there's the singing and few times two vocal lines, there's the percussions and sometime a bass, and all this is orchestrated and mixed with a surprising clarity. Every instrument, every effect and every note can be heard clearly. And in spite of all this sound clarity, the feeling that it's Garage is very present. Garage fans could be disappointed by this special approach of Garage, and the previous double album had tracks with a relatively similar approach, but they was only draft of what achieves this new album which is a kind of paradox.

Personally, even if I consider the previous double album is a masterpiece unmatched by this new release, I adore this new Cyclops Reap album which is unique including when it is compared to the previous album. For sure it would be even better with fewer echoes from this previous album. But it's just echoes, each past albums had also many echoes from the album that preceded it, and it's very far from cloning. Anyway, the point is it's a great unique crystalline Garage Rock album.

To listen: Streaming sites like Deezer, Rdio or Spotify. Or 115k vbr v6 preview.
To support the artists: Buy the vinyl, CD, or the LP limited edition at Castle Face label. Or the digital on the various standard places.

Where all of this is going if nobody buy the music? Be fair, buy the music you like dig.

Die Zorros - Future (Voodoo Rhythm, 2012)

It's a rather special Garage Rock album by a rather special Swiss band. Firstly the style is special because it's supposed to be an album from a Garage band during the 60's that tried imagine Garage Rock in the far future. The result is both old school and weirdly modern.

Moreover, more than half of the songs are covers of classics or less classics from Rock history plus one from Jazz. But they are completely deconstructed and mistreated up to the point of being difficult to recognize, or at least the result is very different from the originals.

And the diversity of the covers is quite wide, from recent Pop to classic Pop and Rock, and even Metal, Jazz, Rockabilly and more: Amy Winehouse "No No No", Black Sabbath "Black Sabbath", The Rolling Stones "Paint It Black",  The Beatles "Walrus Eats Taxmen" , Morris Albert "Feelings", The Jive Boys "Hey Rockabilly", Herbert Jarczik "Der Komissar", Moody Blues "Nights In White Satin" and Rod Stewart "Sailing".

Although based on two funny and weird postulates, and from a band whose main goal is to have fun and to not take music seriously, the result is an excellent Garage Rock album and not common.

You can listen the album on some streaming sites, I noticed Deezer, Rdio and Spotify. Or you can preview it here but at a quality only a bit better than standard streaming, and be fair, if you like dig it, support the artists and don't forget to buy the album.

To support the artists you can buy the LP, CD or cassette at Voodoo Rhythm label. You can also buy the digital album at the various standard places.

Little Seizures - s/t EP (Self Release, 2013)

It's an explosive and very enjoyable EP. The tracks have an impressive power that relies on an emphasis on graver sounds. This is built by games between the bass and the battery. This boosts the tracks by making them at the same time very powerful, bouncy and catchy.

The singer is excellent with a singing rather abrupt and rhythmic, the compositions are very good or excellent, and the whole is very dynamic and fast. At first it sounds a lot like Garage Rock that sounds differently, but there's very few work on sounds dirt and noise. Then Punk comes in mind, but it's partly only and rather by the aggressiveness of the singer and the brutality of the tracks, not by the sound color or instruments play.

This EP reminds me the big slap of last year with Ex-Cult album, while being very different. In fact I find this Little Seizures maybe even more a shock, but on the length of an EP it's difficult to compare with an album which is a bigger challenge.

Since the beginning of the year I enjoyed a lot many albums and EP, yet for me this EP is one of those that stand out of the pack, and it's one of the biggest slaps of the beginning of this year.

You can listen it on bandcamp. Or you can preview it here but at a quality only a bit better than standard streaming, and be fair, if you like dig it, support the artists and don't forget to buy the album.

To support the artists you can buy the digital album at Little Seizures bandcamp page.

Hookworms - Pearl Mystic (Gringo, 2013)

It's the first album of this Psychedelic Rock band from UK. Their first EP which preceded this album is interesting but it is dark and little catchy, this makes it difficult to listen. At the opposite this first album is strangely catchy and it makes wonder why it is so much fascinating.

Its genre, especially on the most energetic tracks, is to transpose Happy Mondays into a psychedelic more classic than what made Happy Mondays, and it's enough distant to Happy Mondays to not be a simple copy. The result is viciously catchy. A superficial listening can make it look slightly too classic, in fact the mixture gives a result not so common in Psychedelic Rock, and this makes it catchy to the point of being fascinating. This album is a superb success.

To listen: I noticed streaming sites like Deezer, Rdio or Spotify. Or 115k vbr v6 preview.

To support the artists: Buy the vinyl LP, CD or lossless digital at Gringo label. Or the digital on the various standard places.

Where all of this is going if nobody buy the music? Be fair, buy the music you like dig.

Beard Closet - Corporeal Economy (Self Release, 2013)

It's the third EP of this Canadian but this new EP has a totally different style than the two previous EP. It's a single track, but it lasts 15 minutes and it evolves a lot by chaining different parts, this gives it the weight of an EP.

The genre is in the center of a pyramid, textures used as drones, Psychedelic, Noise and a sort of modern symphony. The result is a long psychedelic track structured in a series of musical movements and with an uncommon sound color for Psychedelic because of the work around Noise sounds.

The EP is made with only one to three guitar lines, and the result is a surprising mixture of greatness and simplicity. The work on sounds, through drones, textures, sounds partly Noise is quite great and catchy.

The chain of rather different successive parts gives more dynamism than a more standard approach of a long psychedelic track, and it creates the feeling of a modern symphony. Also this frequent change of the music makes it more catchy by drawing the attention.

It's a single track but in the end it's a magnificent Psychedelic EP which is rather uncommon and surprisingly catchy.

It's a "choose your price" download at bandcamp. So don't hesitate to put 0 for a FREE download, or to support the artists you can put the price you want.

derTANZ - Kaktusz (Self Release, 2013)

I listened multiple times and with a lot of pleasure that Hungarian band's first album. It's for me, interesting, fun and easy to listen. But many elements can make the listening quite difficult for many listeners, minimalism, experimental aspects, unconventional singing, compositions often build around repetitions and suspensions, compositions more focused on structures, rhythms and tones than on melodies. So yes I like a lot that album, but it's probably an album that will be difficult for many listeners.

The singing is one of the most important element of the album. It is quite special, varied and audacious if not provocative sometimes. It reminds me The Book Of Knots, in particular their album, Garden Of Fainting Stars released in 2011. And for me this gives an Art Rock mood to this derTANZ's album. Beside the special singing and the experimental aspects, another element gives this album an Art Rock mood, it's the emphasized games on the suspensions in some tracks. It's even more emphasized than did The Book Of Knots that also worked on this aspect in some of their tracks. In fact it's sometimes very strange with tracks with a long blank pause that is surprising and makes you wonder what happen and wait for what follows.

The band links their music to Noise and to some quite noisy bands. It's not fully right. Originally Noise has been used a lot for adding aggressiveness. And its evolution increased this approach. So often Noise uses many walls of sound and a lot of high-pitched and mildly high-pitched tones. That type of sound assaults the ears. It even reached a paroxysm during the first half of the 2000's and I don't mean experimental bands. I have been quite a big fan of Noise up to extremes during that period. But gradually I became a bit tired of it and then, later, I discovered modern Garage. In Garage and even more in modern Garage there's still a lot of work on sounds garbage and dirt, but it's more diverse than just for aggressiveness.

If derTANZ had used a classical Noise approach I wouldn't have enjoyed this album as much. But they rounded a lot their noise, gave up to use too standard walls of noise, moved the noise to more deep tones, and gave up focus the noise on pure attack of the ears to develop instead a noise quite closer to modern Garage approaches.

In the end, it's for me a surprising and very interesting album between Post Punk and Art Rock with some Post Hardcore influences, and I know nothing equivalent. It could please to adventurous ears, and perhaps to fans of Post Punk, Art Rock or Post Hardcore. For the others I'm not sure, but try it seems to be a good idea.

It's a "choose your price" download at bandcamp. So don't hesitate to put 0 for a FREE download, or to support the artists you can put the price you want.

Lasso - Lasso'd (Double Phelix, 2011)

It's a magnificent album of Psychedelic Rock that would be a sort of symphonic Garage mixing very well dirt and greatness. But it's also Psychedelic Rock merged with numerous genres. All these genres aren't mixed together, but they are used according to the tracks and many tracks alternate various mixes. The evoked genres are for example, Country, Western Spaghetti, Soundtracks, Cabaret, Pub music, Classic, Gypsy, Asia, Surf, Mass, and more.

It's very diverse and very well merged and chained, so despite all this diversity, the album keeps a strong unity. The result is an original and very varied Psychedelic Rock Garage with a dirty greatness. A magnificent album, for me it's a classic that I store with the greatest Rock classics.

You can listen it on bandcamp, but I suggest skip one or two minutes of first track beginning because it's a part difficult to appreciate without a good sound quality. Or you can preview it here but at a quality only a bit better than standard streaming, and be fair, if you like dig it, support the artists and don't forget to buy the album.

To support the artists you can buy the cassette, the CD or the digital album at Lasso bandcamp page.