Chicago based psychedelic blues band Razorhouse take a stand with their new double A-side single Shimmer & Burn b/w Jesus Died in Gaza, pointing their fingers at domestic violence and the genocide in Gaza. They paint with broad strokes, using aural violence as both a means of release and channeling anger. It's an in-your-face one-two punch that leaves the listener reeling, just like Black Sabbath's War Pigs set out to do.
Can you make anxiety joyous, well sort of? Welsh singer Rhys Underdown can. His new single (Living In) Constant Fear is a hole-in-one piece of baroque pop, with a piano and a saxophone holding hands as they barrel through a little over four minutes of musical bliss. He is a crooner in the guise of a rocker, or vice versa. Either way, this a song that mixes Roxy Music with Rufus Wainwright, which should not work, but it does. Apocalyptic visions are easier to deal with if this is the kind of music it can produce.
German progressive jazz rock sextet Kabasse have unveiled an animated video for Encore, a track from their forthcoming album About Sitting On Fences: "With all musicians in the same room playing together, the listener gets the role of a fly-on-the-wall, having to focus on the delicate interplay that only happens when the players are in sync and in control of their instrument all the time. Only then does spontaneity add to the end result, because they can use the spaces that they leave open for each other to do their thing. No safety net needed, because they each other's back, creating a rich tapestry of sounds that seems to change with each listen."
Singer-songwriter Lisa Cerbone kept it personal and close to home on her sixth album Nowhere I Have Ever Been. Ageing and memories are the core subjects on this soft-spoken folk record - it is mostly just her and her acoustic guitar. Her careful phrasing may have something to do with her job as a teacher of English to international students at Mount St. Mary's University in Maryland. Every word counts as she reminisces about sneaking into vacation resorts as a kid (That Night at the Fairs) and being caught off guard in a pleasant way when she fell in love again (What Country Are We In?) as an adult in her later years.
Cerbone is a storyteller, who can put all the players at the table in the mind's eye of the listener during Cheating at Cards (Roland, Norwich State Hospital, 1936) and turn personal grief into a universal message about trying to cope with Tied to Sorrow. The surprise cover of Electric Light Orchestra's Can’t Get It Out of My Head, a really stripped down version, shines a light on the lyrics that may have been overpowered by the rich orchestration that was used when that band recorded it for their Eldorado album in 1974.
Mancunian indie quartet Westside Cowboy fight off pigeonholing by bookending their new So Much Country 'Till We Get There EP with two folk songs, plus one of them - opener Strange Taxidermy - is about a thing is slightly troubling. Was a loved one stuffed and preserved maybe? In The Morning is about being on the run for something, so that could be the second chapter of a gruesome tale.
In between it is business as usual with three guitar driven, off-kilter upbeat songs with the odd bit of feedback in Don't Throw Rocks thrown in. They are definitely a band to watch as they like to casts their nets wide, fishing for things that they haven't tried before.
