Warm Brains – Old Volcanoes
http://www.roughtrade.com/site/shop_detail.lasso?search_type=sku&sku=341727

Warm Brains is the new solo project from Rory Atwell. If the name doesn’t ring a bell then you probably don’t read your record sleeves all that closely. He’s been a part of Test Icicles, RAT:ATT:AGG and Kasms, to name but a few. He has also been making waves over the last few years as East London’s go to guy for recording work if you’re an up and coming band. If you order the album from Rough Trade it comes with a 19 track cd showcasing this side of his work. The album itself is the first lp to be released by Marshall Teller, the guys from Colours label, and comes on bright orange vinyl. Other than a couple of female guest vocalists, all excellent, the album was entirely written, played and recorded by Rory himself. It marks a shift from the stuff he’s done before, softer, possibly, less discordant, certainly. It’s an album of brilliantly crafted, guitar led, lo-finess, echoing bands of the past, while never sounding too much like anything but itself.
Painting 2ft Tall Lines by Warm Brains

Tropic of Cancer – The Dull Age
http://www.roughtrade.com/site/shop_detail.lasso?search_type=sku&sku=342291

Tropic of Cancer are Camella Lobo and Juan Mendez from LA. This is a re-pressing of a record that originally came out a few years ago. Little known at the time, it has quite rightly picked up a following since, as more and more people have been exposed to the music. It was their debut ep and so was obviously a reasonably short pressing, meaning people have been unable to get their hands on it for a while. These will get snapped up pretty fast. The music itself is dark, droney and menacing, mechanic drums and distorted voices hovering in the background. It’s music from a future where things have not quite gone to plan, but humanity has learnt to accept what it has made.
The Dull Age by Tropic Of Cancer

Thou – The Archer & The Owle
http://www.roughtrade.com/site/shop_detail.lasso?search_type=sku&sku=342383

Thou are a doom band from Baton Rouge, Louisiana. I do understand that a certain proportion of people will have stopped reading at the fourth word. It’s one of those genres that does tend to turn people off just by association. As is the nature of this type of music, this is a heavy record, the vocals lack melody, it’s unsettling and aggressive, repetitive and nasty. That is not to say there aren’t moments where elements peek their heads through the bleakness. A piano line here, a trumpet part there; softer moments. Things ebb and flow, tidal washes of noise that can break with a subtle beauty that those familiar with doom will know and those whose perceptions are based mainly on a lack of knowledge will be surprised by. This ep was originally meant to be a split with Pygmy Lush but that has been postponed so this has been put out. It features a couple of Pygmy Lush covers, I guess in some sort of homage to what could have been, there’s also a cover of Nirvana’s Something in the Way, which unsurprisingly adds no joy to a song that was hardly nursery rhyme material in the first place.
THOU – Voices In The Wilderness by RoboticEmpire

Viva Brother – Famous First Words
No, you can’t have a fucking link to buy it.

This also came out on vinyl, but please please don’t buy it, just laugh a little then start to cry as you think about the meeting when someone suggested that this shit would gain some slither of credibility, which, were it to work, would bring it to a grand total of exactly “some slither of credibility” if it were also released as like, a real record, you know like an old school record. FUCK OFF!

This entry was tagged as 33-45, thou, tom hinton, tropic of cancer, vinyl, viva brother, WARM BRAINS.