Curated by DJ Astrocreep
It’s our first Singles Club of May and it’s DJ Astrocreep back on the decks of doom in the bar at the end of the Über Rock’n’Roll universe. Our (virtual) doors are open, our bar staff are ready to take your click and collect/delivery order and we have both seating and dancing/mosh pit areas ready for you to do your socially distanced thing… so, let’s get down to it!
[Please note that some of the videos in this feature contain flashing images]
Our openers for this round are Metalwings, a Bulgarian classic symphonic metal band who harken back to the early golden era of Nightwish and similar in their latest single ‘Still Believe In Us’. Soft vocals on a delicate track make for an excellent start to things!
Looking to emulate greats such as Clutch and Down, we have London stoner rockers Orbital Junction with ‘Creep’, a single filled with more groove than a record shop of vinyl!
With something a bit different now, we have NYC garage punkers The Electric Mess and a video EP release for ‘Beneath The Yellow Moon’, containing four videos in one, with plenty of vocal melodies, and some rather well crafted, hooky tracks!
When you think of bands that like to push musical boundaries, The Melvins and Mr Bungle may be pretty high on your list, so when Bungle bassist Trevor Dunn teams up with King Buzzo, you’re likely to get some mayhem. A pretty out there, unsettling but highly likeable track at the same time, it’s an amalgamation of mid 2000s Melvins with something almost Captain Beefheart like – yes ‘I’m Glad I Could Help Out’ is that weird!
Speaking of unsettling and different, Dark Morph – a collaboration between sound and visual artists Carl Michael von Hausswolff and Jón Þór “Jónsi” Birgisson – have released ‘Dark Wave’, a dark electronic, experimental prog track that will certainly leave you slightly on edge!
Haken are rightfully a favourite of a few ÜR contributors, with good reason, and latest single ‘Canary Yellow’ shows a level of delicacy that they’ve hinted at before, yet not hit in quite this manner. Less aggressive than the majority of their back catalogue but a sterling example of how a shift from the normal isn’t neccessarily to your detriment!
Rising Aussie aggressive prog metallers Reliqa are at it again with ‘Mr. Magic’, a track that seems to owe as much to hardcore as to symphonic metal and prog – something utterly different that deserves to be heard far and wide!
Let’s keep the heaviness going with Scottish modern metallers Bleed From Within – with a guest spot from Matt Heafy, no less – and ‘Night Crossing’, their latets offering from forthcoming album ‘Fracture’. Plenty of groove, plenty of in your face aggression and heaviness, with a mid song solo from Mr Heafy – not bad going for the ever rising Glaswegians!
Speaking of heavy, we have some outright heavyweight champions in Lamb of God and their latest track ‘New Colossal Hate’, another chip off the their rather impressive riffy block. Randy, Mark and co sound as good as they ever have in their latest adrenaline inducing song.
While we are on real heavyweights, why not add some Trivium into the mix too, with ‘Bleed Into Me’ featuring more of their melodic side than they’ve maybe shown in the past, though it’s undoubtedly still a feel of their old material in the writing, if not quite so aggressive!
Brighton alt-rockers The Rocket Dolls have just released latest album ‘The Art Of Disconnect’, with a song that owes as much of it’s life to grunge as 2000s punk in the form of ‘The Clear Light Of Self Hatred’, an up-tempo track as at home with Stone Temple Pilots as Funeral for a Friend!
Next up, a band I discovered on my birthday gig two years ago in support of Hunter and the Bear in Calva Louise, a London-based grunge pop trio who are back with ‘Camino’, a dark electronic driven track that seems to bring in so many bits from different places as to form quite a hypnotic amalgamation of goodness.
Combining rap and metallic hardcore in a manner Body Count would be proud of, Dregg have released a two-song single in the form of ‘Freaking Out’ and ‘Feeling Fine’ – the former of which is linked just below. A tongue in cheek look at the modern world, combining brutality, spat out lyrics and a level of attitude that smacks of a band that know exactly what they’re worth and what they bring to the table and rightfully so!
Another London act next as cheerbleederz bring ‘sometimes i cry at work’ forth from their forthcoming sophomore EP, combining a modern melodic punk fused with dreamy vocal harmonies a-plenty in a well crafted track.
Heavy alt-rockers September Mourning‘s latest track owes as much to modern melodic metal as alt-rock, with ‘Madness’ bringing some haunting and earworming vocals backed up by some strong riffage and rhythm section in a song you’ll be glad you took the time to listen to!
Desert rock legend Brant Bjork is as prolific as ever and ‘Cleaning Out The Ashtray’ seems to owe as much to the heavy blues of his roots as the desert scene he is so heavily associated with and pioneered in this latest engrossing track.
Berlin punks Pabst are making their second successive visit to the club, and this time they’re reflecting on the darker things inside their heads in new single ‘Hell’, an alt-punk rock track with a level of fuzz and distortion in this anthem song that Mudhoney would be proud of!
Hardcore punk act Barfbag feel they are ‘Right To Fight’ in their latest aggression fuelled track that borrows from the Suicidal Tendencies school of crossover in a heckles raising anthem extolling the fight back against a kleptocratic government.
Thrashy “cave metal” act Chaka combine thought provoking lyrics, heavy, up-tempo music and science topics (?!) in latest primal track ‘Flak’, which borrows as equally from the likes of Motorhead as it does their more obvious thrash influences.
Our penultimate track somes in the form of Nottingham’s deathcore newcomers Azazel with a heavily downtuned, evil sounding number by the name of ‘Cocoon’. Full of darkness, gutteral vocals and crushing riffs, it’s not a song for the faint of heart!
Ok, it’s last orders and the bar is getting ready to have it’s obligatory 20 minutes of chillout music to finish, so we have time for one last track before we do and I have just the perfect track for you. Trippy Wicked & the Cosmic Children of the Knight are still as fuzzed out as ever in ‘Three Leaves’/’Green Memories’, their latest double A/side single in a stoner doom manner that is a testament to how write something that so adeptly mixes blues, stoner and desrt rock into a single track.
That’s your lot then for this edition! Monk will be back in a couple of weeks to give you the lowdown of the latest tracks to grace our ears. Until then, keep ‘er lit, keep ‘er between the hedges – and #StayTheFuckHome…
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