It’s the first weekend in October, and that can mean only one thing… yes, our Sheffield team are back at their home-from-home for two more days of Hard Rock Hell action. And after all the doomers, stoners, proggies and goths have fallen silent, it’s time for the punks, both old and new school, to have their moment in the spotlight.
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Now, right at the outset, |Monk has to hold his hands up and declare that he’s not a massive fan of entirely instrumental albums. They’re not the sort of thing he tends to sit down and listen to out of choice. Like classical music, he tends to view them as background soundtracks to other aspects of life, such as researching his book, because your concentration on such matters is not interrupted by having to do the same in regard to lyrics and meanings. Now, this is in no way intended to decry or denigrate the musicians involved, as there are numerous fantastic rock and metal instrumentalists, too many to name in this already over-long intro, who have chosen not to add vocals to their material, and to varying degrees of success: there are many times when the big bad boss has listened to a purely instrumental track and thought “that could do with a big fuck-off scream right there…”
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One thing about the past 18 months or so of Covidications, and particularly in relation to the music business, is that they seem to have made artists and bands hungrier than at possibly any time in recent history, as they express a determination to overcome the adversities that have been placed in their, and our, way over the course of the pandemic era. And it hasn’t always been a case of raging against the pandemic and the often in(s)ane responses to it, but more often a declaration of intent to come out of the other side louder and more determined than ever…
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Okay, hold up. Can someone just slow down this ridiculous world for a second because there’s absolutely no way that it can be October already, right? Well, if it’s going to insist on being October, then at least it’s time to embrace spooky season and Jonny B can think of no better way than to search out something terse and atmospheric. It’s pretty convenient then that such an album fell into his lap with a release date for the very start of Octember. It’s a dark and mysterious album called ‘Ash’ that claims to be for fans of Grift (who JB once claimed to be what Ghost Bath were trying to be but didn’t quite get it) so it’s the perfect companion for this absolutely dismal evening. There’s nothing to do but dim the lights and see what’s in store…
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Italian four-piece Loose Sutures don’t hang about. They only formed in June 2019, released their debut album in March 2020, had a line-up change in summer 2020, toughened up their sound, and in February and March of this year recorded this, their sophomore LP ’A Gash With Sharp Teeth And Other Tales’ – all that in under two years.
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