Zulus II

II is my introduction to Zulus, who also have an album out that isn’t called II, as research on their website has just informed me.

Zulus describe themselves as an attempt at being a pop band by four guys who have since proven clearly unable to write pop songs, which has to be one of the best descriptions I’ve ever seen a band give themselves. They have quite the list of associated acts between them who I have listed in the tags (in case anyone got here because of that and is wondering what this has got to do with anything, a sensation that many of my posts bring out in people).

This is gnarly stuff. I’m reminded of Fugazi and I’m reminded of Puffy Areolas and I’m reminded of Burnt Skull. This is proper in your face, but by god, it doesn’t half get its groove on as well. I’ve been proper eating this up. It’s happy hardcore, in that this is hardcore that makes me happy.

It’s out on Aagoo records, who also brought the wonderful Inutili to us.

 

Föllakzoid

I dunno if it’s just me, but I’m beginning to get a bit concerned about bands not having a standalone website. I mean, the top hit for the wonderful Föllakzoid was their bandcamp page. The first two pages in the search engine are mostly reviews. Although there is this, but the ‘this’ I mentioned takes me to a page that flashes and does nothing else…

Probably this is a rant for another time, though.

So, I like Föllakzoid’s new album, III, very much indeed, and it seems I’m not alone from the reviews I found.

It’s a very atmospheric groove they’ve got going on. I actually think the kosmiche/krautrock labels I’ve seen applied to them sell them a lot short. I mean, sure, they probably would rock a jam with Gunter Schickert or Ash Ra Tempel, but they’ve definitely got their own thing going on here too. I have, however, yet to hear their first two albums, so I may be missing some context. I will no doubt get round to listening to said albums soon; I’ve had a veritable cornucopia of wonderful music of late, so fitting it in can be my favourite kind of problem.

And that was before GNOD released their new epic…