Scroll Downers – Hot Winter

Sometimes you have to order a cassette to buy an album you like digitally.

I like how their tags include both 90’s and Not 90’s. Do they really not have a website?

These have a pleasing energy which matches their intensity very well. Stylistically, I’d say we’re looking at a kind of garagey-gothy-post-punky-sludgey-shoegazey-new wave kind of thing, an admittedly undercrowded field. A couple of the songs have a couple of chords too many for my taste, but hey, I’m not going to tell them how to twang their muse, that’s their own thing.

Most of it’s pretty up-tempo, but they do mix it up nicely. The layered sounds on Runnin’ and Bossin’ especially create a brilliant atmosphere, almost sun-kissed amongst the pounding surrounding numbers.

The most obvious reference point is probably Siouxsie and the Banshees, who I never actually liked. Oddly, Effi Briest from a few years back also reminded chiefly of them, and they also made an album I really liked. Maybe I should try Siouxsie again (know what? I like that song I just linked). I’m also feeling a similiar vibe to what Rakta do. But then they go and surprise you and go all Melvins on the title track.

Destruction Unit – Negative Feedback Resistor

If you like your music obnoxious and gnarly, but not necessarily short, then Destruction Unit are for you. Roaming similar sonic alleys to those frequented by Puffy Areolas and Narcosatanicos (but without the brass), Destruction Unit are very much at home in your face.

I really like their manifesto, you know. Let me quote a line I really like: “This is crazed-psychedelic-freek-noise guerrilla warfare and these are our streets.” Elsewhere, they exhort the breaking of chains and the seeking of your personal freedom, themes this blog wholeheartedly endorses.

But they also provide you with the sonic energy to help fire up your will to achieve said results. They give as they play, they’re on a mission. What sounds like chaos is just them rendering all the bullshit into its constituent parts and giving it back to the listener in a much more highly useful form. We owe these warriors, let us give them their due salutations.