It has been a long time since we have heard from 'LM', too long in fact.
'Sun Song' may just be a mere demo, but it shows amazing progress since 2017s debut album 'Nursey Rhymes for the Apocalypse'.
Inspired by, well in LM's words "This is probably not a traditional sun or summer song in any way, shape or form. It came to me one evening at rush hour in Euston Station while waiting for a train home, but I don't think it reflects any of the bustle that surrounded me at the time."
Such a simple basic rhythm builds the tension, added to that a superb double tracking vocal, multi layered backing vocals, this is a slow and brooding example of well crafted Neo-Folk with some very dark lyrics, oh the sun may be bright yet somehow the line "Let it burn" takes on a different meaning.
I look forward to more demos and hopefully a full album in the near future.
Rating 8/10
For Fans Of: Galley Beggar, Comus, Lisa Gerrard, Alison Cotton, The Trees, Helga Pogatschar
Derbyshire based band with English and German members, formed early in 2007 with a pretty unique set up with 2 bass players and a drummer. Playing a mixture of Psychedelic and Classic Rock with Stoner and Blues influence, then add to that mix some quirky lyrics and clever timing changes and dress it up in Steampunk outfits.
They have a fearsome reputation live having played well over 1000 gigs in Hamburg, Berlin, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Denver, London, Birmingham and tours across 2 continents. Epic Stage shows add Pole Dancers, Burlesque, Belly Dancers, Fun and Games and audience participation.
Aside from being musicians they are well respected due to their work on promoting Steampunk and arranging events Like the Steampunk Solstice, the Phoenix Alternative Festival, the Steampunk Illuminations and many more.
Drawing on a wide range of experience from not just the Band but our growing group of Helpers.
They also run www.steampunkrecords.com, helping and promoting other Bands in the Genre, via Non Profit Co-op, as well as Raising money for Charity.
They are not just 'another band' they are a movement with a huge following.
This is album number six, a seventh has just been completed and is due out later this year and features some guest performers.
The booklet contains a short Sci-Fi story by respected Steampunk/Fantasy author LM Cooke and tells of the bands adventures in space.
Onwards to the music...
'A Great Night Out' has an upbeat Rock 'N' Roll feel, the lyrics are just awesome, funny and a tad gross, a night out on the pull clearly didn't go as planned!
Some funky fuzz bass work for 'Pay To Play' tells the tale that every musician will be used to, club owner takes the money you "may" get a beer if lucky.
'John Deer Cap' is a slow, Doom laden brooding piece with fantastic harmony vocals, the song explodes towards the end.
Well now 'Hairy Teeth' brings together some of those amazing qualities that make the band so unique, beautiful vocal delivery, slightly off beat drumming, screaming bass work full of fuzz and laden with swamp blues slide work.
BB go old school punk rock for 'Nazi Gold' if it were possible for Discharge to record with say Cream, then I guess it could sound like this one!
More heavy funk with melodic vocals and a tale of the human cost of drug addiction.
Loving the slow near acoustic sounding 'A Star', songs builds with minimal instrumentation to create quite a stunning overall sound, hints of psychedelia give it another layer to contend with.
'To The Light' has a dub feel, kind of reminds me of The Stranglers 'Peaches'.
Now Dale sings "I want to write a great song, not the same old shit" on 'A Great Song', the joke here might be that despite the comic delivery and the slightly off key, weird jazz meets a touch of Death Metal music it is well "A great song!"
Heavy Jazz rhythms, funked and fuzzy bass work, another great vocal performance and an excellent punch line to end 'Good People Of The World'.
'Kings' is a masterclass in how to take very serious and angry lyrics and merge them perfectly with melodic and heavy music, whilst 'Groupie' with its tongue in cheek lyrics prove that you can get near the mark, or perhaps go a tad further and still produce class.
The four live tracks are great, full of energy and that bass sound live is to die for, heavy fuzzed out, stoner/doom/psych, what a band!
Rating 10/10
For Fans Of: Mudhoney, Primus, Melvins, Electric Wizard, Monster Magnet
08.Feline & Strange with Mishkin Fitzgerald –
Cassandras Twin
09.Darwin Project – Run Red Run
10.Gurdybird – Papa Zulu
11.Capt Roswell & The Lost Alien Tribe – Alien Eye
12.LM Cooke Music – Moon Song
13.Miss Von Trapp - Do Your Gears Hang Low
14.Cabaret Berlin – Beautiful Berlin
15.The Big Fibbers – Steam Tramp Blues
16.Victor Sierra – El Mundo Superior
17.The Dark Design – Haggard Rider
18.Kiss Like Ether – Heaven Can Wait
19.Montague Jacques Fromage with Victor & The Bully –
Walk A Little Lopside
20.My Wooden Leg – Cop City
21.Lies Of The Machine – Psychocircus
22.New Jacobin Club – Angel MMXIV
Trying
to review a 22 track sampler cd that you cannot buy is a bit of a bugger,
however it does act as a good guide to what the record label is offering on a
selection of Various Artists compilations you can buy as well as releases from
many of the individual acts.
I
have said this before and I will say it again, the notion of Steampunk as a
music genre is a nonstarter, there is music performed in numerous styles by
people who identify with the Steampunk culture, this can influence their
writing style and their appearance and the way they market their image.
Some
music here is clearly influenced from a different age and for any pedants
amongst you would no doubt identify some chosen genres as ‘Dieselpunk’ or even
‘Cyberpunk’, personally I prefer to take the music as I hear it regardless of
what it is or isn’t supposed to be.
That
said I will now attempt to put some of these acts into an identifiable music
genre which I hope will make the review easier to digest.
Well
just spent the best part of an hour hunting down these bands on good old Facebook,
so I think I have a bit of an idea what to expect from some of the acts, some
seem quite interesting others slightly disturbing.
Kicking off with ‘Victor
and the Bully’ a great upbeat neo rock n roll sounding song, a bit like Rocket
From The Crypt. The band also return in collaboration with American Steampunk
legend Montague Jacques Fromage, this time a completely different sound, more
poppy, upbeat and happy with Mr Fromage delivering, as ever, a superb tongue in
cheek funky rap.
The ‘Wattingers’, have a
super sleazy swamp blues vibe, defiantly one for Nick Cave fans, need to hear
some more to get an overall idea of what they about.
Not too sure what to make
of ‘The Heaven and Hell Orchestra’, I suppose if Therion had been around in the
1930’s they may have sounded a bit like this.
As ever ‘BB Blackdog’ blow
the hell out of the speakers with their strange eclectic mix of Psychedelic
rock and the bass crazed antics of Primus!
Totally stunning mix of
neo folk and hard rock comes ‘Off Limits’, great vocal style and loving the use
of violin, one for Skyclad fans.
Accordion into Celtic rock
and sung in German, I feel that we have in ‘Aeronautica’ a band who like
Turisas, Alestorm and Rammstein.
Want a totally
breath-taking four minutes? Then ’Feline & Strange with Mishkin Fitzgerald’
song “Cassandras Twin” will do just that. Amazing operatic performance with
simple piano and electronic backing, could be from the soundtrack to “Repo! The
Genetic Opera”.
Taking a complex
instrument the Hurdy Gurdy and bringing it into the 21st century
with a slight techno backing, may seem a hard thing to pull off with class, but
‘Gurdybird’ seem to do this with ease.
If you like post 1980’s
Hawkwind then ‘Capt Roswell & The Lost Alien Tribe’ with its drums n synths
backing to some Hillage inspired riffery then this is the band for you.
Dark and atmospheric Acid
Folk is on offer from ‘LM Cooke Music’ I highly recommend her album ‘Nursery
Rhymes for the Apocalypse’.
Time for some modern
interpretation of classic British music hall from ‘Miss Von Trapp’ in the style
of legends such as Lily Morris and Marie Lloyd.
From the music halls of
Britain to the clubs of Weimar era of the early 1930’s and ‘Cabaret Berlin’
bring us a perfect recreation of singer and pianist as if they had somehow time
travelled to the here and now.
‘The Big Fibbers’ with
their “Steam Tramp Blues” is an oddity almost as if John Otway & Wild Willy
Barrett were doing a version of the Stray Cats!
I have no idea what ‘Victor
Sierra’ are on, but if Rob Zombie did a slow and weird cover of a Brujeria song
it might sound like this?
‘The Dark Design’ have a
cowpunk vibe, if that’s not a term you have heard before, well back in the
early 1980’s there was a brief and strange mix of post punk and country &
western music.
Some industrial tinged
proto cyberpunk from ‘Kiss Like Ether’, very 80’s but the mix is quite thin.
‘My Wooden Leg’ great name
for a band, this is a bit quirky, touch of Primus in there and some Zappa like
guitar work.
With a song called “Psychocircus” I was expecting perhaps a cover of the Kiss song, but strangely ‘Lies Of The Machine’ have some interesting elements of Death and Black Metal, nice clean vocals and then deth growls, then throw in some symphonic vocals, needs more investigating but if you like Dimmu Borgir or Cradle Of Filth then check this band out.
Finally ‘New Jacobin Club’
with a sound that seems to blend 70’s Blondie with 90’s metalcore, again
another band I feel the need to check out.
So as you can see plenty
of different music styles to get your interest going and next time you see the
word ‘Steampunk’, well don’t be put off, there really is some stunning music
out there!
Steven C Davis (Additional Vocals) On ‘(We Stand) Behind
You’ and ‘End of the World’
Say Folk Music to most people and they will instantly think
of bearded men in Arran jumpers singing traditional songs about maidens, death
and ships sailing from port never to return, with one finger in their ear and
the other hand grasping a pint of some awful warm brown liquid that may have
some vague resemblance to a drinkable ale.
But this style of music that originated in the 19th
century has also evolved into sub genres that include progressive rock and even
some styles of extreme metal.
In the late 1960’s a style known as Acid-Folk emerged with
bands such as Comus, Saturnalia and Dulcimer.
Over the last decade this style has found a new generation
to mesmerize with artists as diverse as Galley Beggar, Circulus and Blood
Ceremony.
So now we turn to LM Cooke, one time violinist/ main
songwriter in Broadarrow Jack, then singer/ songwriter with the folk-rock band
Crimson Clocks.
Not only a superb songwriter but a much respected author of dark
fantasy/ science/ mythic fiction novels and short stories.
It now seems we must add multi talented instrumentalist, music
producer, mixer and engineer, as she makes her solo debut.
While there are indeed songs of ships and traditional songs
with new arrangements, there is a wealth of totally original songs with a dark
and twisted edge that mixes the various sub genres of folk to include gothic,
horror, psychedelic and acid in her own style.
We start with ‘Poor Jenny’ a ghost-ship song based on the
story of the English schooner, the Jenny which in 1823 became frozen in an ice
barrier complete with crew. This song was originally written when Miss Cooke
was with Broadarrow Jack.
This updated and rearranged version has some haunting dual
tracked vocals over a simple but highly atmospheric backing, the use of wind
and water samples adds to the overall feel as if you were listening to it by
the seashore.
Next up is ‘Yellow Eyes’ a song about a wolf, or is it I ask
myself, “A wolf in your mind” as the lyric goes brings to mind a hint of Robert
Calvert’s musical interpretation of Hesse’s ‘Steppenwolf’.
Imagine if early Bauhaus had a female vocalist, if you can
then this would be the result, from its near proto industrial drum tracking to
gothic guitar and echo vocals this one blasts through the speakers and then
towards the end turns to pure acid folk. Stunning!
Time for a traditional murder ballad, ‘False Lamkin’, adapted
from the version from Cambridgeshire collected by Cecil Sharp. The song is
sometimes also known as False Lincoln or Long Lamkin, among other names, and
verses vary depending on the version. You may know this if you are a fan of
Steeleye Span, Shirley Collins or Fire+Ice.
Wow beautiful moody vocal over a harp like musical backing,
traditional in its execution yet the clever production makes it modern.
The interlude I shall leave to one side at the moment and
move on to ‘(We Stand) Behind You’. This is a dark and twisted nursery rhyme
warning that not everyone is who they seem. It may start off almost upbeat,
happy with cute sounding instruments but then as this song progresses it gets
darker, twisted, nightmarish, the vocal tracking becomes more unbalanced and
disturbed and the demonic laughs will make you look behind just to make sure
there is nobody standing there.
Maybe it’s just me I don’t think that the ‘Murder Song’ is
about crows, yes they are the lyrical theme but I sense a pagan witchcraft
influence with a group of girls out to lure some poor soul before the crow king
for sacrifice.
One that could be on the soundtrack of ‘Blood On Satan’s
Claw’ or even an outtake from the Comus album ‘First Utterance’, traditional in
delivery it maybe, but this has a catchy almost hypnotic vocal pattern and all
in all creates a creepy horror folk mini epic.
Following on from ‘Yellow Eyes’ is ‘I Know A Place’ it
continues that them of the inner wolf.
Showcasing an impressive vocal range and clever mixing and
production this sounds like a choral quartet, dark harmonies flow through the
speakers whilst the wolf listens intensely.
‘How Do I Know’ seems to be an anthem for the insecure, but
there is also a hidden depth here, after all what if the crazy are really the
sane ones? Is the reference to money really about money, the use of the
“Pounds, Shillings and Pence’ in the lyric could be a nod back to the mid
1960’s where bands like the Pretty Things used the £sd to refer to LSD.
The basic drum pattern follows a similar rhythmic madness of
the 1966 hit ‘They’re Coming To Take Me Away’ by Napoleon XIV. The vocals are
mad, the samples are madder and to cap it all off there is a great “Dr Phibes”
sounding organ.
‘Blackbird Pie’ is perhaps as you might expect a new take on
the 18th century nursery rhyme ‘Sing A Song Of Sixpence’. Miss Cooke
has replaced the naughty boys or the more common blackbirds’ version and then
added a beautiful element of plague and the black death! This is all wrapped up
in a rather pretty little folk tune.
Another interlude, so perhaps I shall take a moment here and
return to the first.
Thing is ‘Summer Is A Coming In’ at just under fifty five
seconds and ‘Winter Is A Coming In’ at just over one minute, for me don’t work
as separate pieces, I can’t help but feel that the opportunity to create one
entire song with the other two seasons added would have worked better with the
overall concept of the album being full songs.
Either that or the fact that both pieces have the same
rhythm, when placed together they flow perfectly.
Pure poetry, perhaps even the moonlit ghost of Jim Morrison?
“the rivers of moon light flow into lagoons
Who dares to impugn her white-faced mis-tune
No song of the spheres is more inopportune”
The ‘Moon Song’ blends classical and folk influences that
act as a perfect backdrop to, as I have already said, “Pure poetry”.
Adapted from the traditional nursery rhyme ‘The North Wind
Doth Blow’, simply titled ‘The North Wind’. Beautiful piano and violin again
give this a more classical feel and right at the end there is some
orchestration that fades away all too quickly, I could have done with another
two minutes of that before the fade out.
In 2010 Miss Cooke wrote a short story called Storm Watch A
Tale Of the Sea, this was published in ‘Tales From The Asylum’ from Last Line
Publishing House.
The song ‘Stormwatch’ is based on that story. As to be
expected this is a lyric heavy piece with a near symphonic accompaniment.
What better way to end than ‘End Of The World’ a perfect
apocalyptic tune, though I feel I should ask ‘Just wearing heels and vintage
pearls?’ but there again why not it is after all the end! With it’s overtones of Edith Piaf this
cabaret-esque finale is almost uplifting in delivery, one may almost think Miss
Cooke is quite looking forward to an impending apocalypse?
So aside from my ‘Interlude’ issue this is a brilliant
album, it draws on folk and classical influences, throws in some gothic
elements and creates an album full of atmosphere. Very well produced, clever
mixing and attention to detail a solo album of some magnitude.
01.Low Blow
02.Women
03.Music Saves Me
04.Love
05.Music Teacher
06.Why
07.State Of Today
08.Nice Boys
09.Can You Just
10.Stranded In The Rain
11.Power
12.Dont Want
Bonus Track :
The Dog Awakes an audio story
Dale Rowles (Bass/Vocals)
Axel Boldt (Drums)
John Ferguson (Bass)
Montague Jacques Fromage (Narration On Story)
Derbyshire based band with English and German members, formed early in 2007 with a pretty unique set up with 2 bass players and a drummer and playing a mixture of Psychedelic and Classic Rock with Stoner and Blues influence, then add to that mix some quirkey lyrics and clever timing changes and dress it up in Steampunk outfits.
They have built up a fearsome live reputation in Europe, America and here in the UK, Playing festivals, conventions and straight forward gigs.
Surprisingly this is only their second album though i believe that another one has since been recorded with legendary heavy metal musician and producer Andy Sneap.
A slow and moody opener with 'Low Blow' sounding like Black Sabbaths Heaven & Hell but with a mellow vocal and just some of the coolest phased bass playing ever laid down.
'Women' has a funky feel with another smooth vocal, drum and bass music with some serious agression, however the lyric that you take away from the song is that women wont let men fart!
A brilliant and im guessing personal lyric from Dale about working in an office and dreaming of being in a band and then going for it, 'Music Saves Me' is something a lot of us can relate to and yet it can bring more stress than a "normal" job.
Now 'Love' has this great 60's jazz/blues feel, both bass players compliment the sound perfectly, one is low and solid then Dale comes in with some odd sounds on his.
Sticking with that 60's vibe comes the blues heavy 'Music Teacher' nice deep vocal in places and some of the best harmonica playing this side of Sonny Boy Williamson, reminds me of early John Mayall, but then when that lead bass kicks in brings it more into Primus territory.
'Why' is one of the slowest darkest doom laden tracks i have heard for a while, pounding drums evil bass lines and a wonderful harmony vocal.
This one has it all - dual vocal one high one low, dual bass, again one high one low.While the song attempts to say something about politics and the 'State Of Today'.
Hitting up some reggae beats and full on speed punk, 'Nice Boys' is an intresting style change for the album.
After 'Can You Just' with its nice little bass fills comes another personal song called 'Stranded In The Rain' telling the story of being stuck in Sheffield whilst trying to get to a Dr John gig, then it happens again in Germany as they are about to tour, Damn the rain but not the song.
Politics is the subject matter once more, this time what happens when you want to be elected - you ask for 'Power' you get it and then you abuse it no matter how much you say you wont.
As for the music, cant help this but i have heard them perform this live and as soon as that bass kicked in, in my head i started singing Hawkwinds 'Time We Left and i have just done it again!
A touch of classic Black Sabbath drumming mixed with some Cream era Jack Bruce, got it? Then you will love 'Dont Want' with its brooding bass lines and solos.
Are you sitting comfortably then we shall begin, 'The Dog Awakes' is a 24 minute Steampunk/Horror story by Dale Rowles and Sean Varney and then expanded by LM Cooke (Author and lead singer in Crimson Clocks), it is read by friend, singer and sometimes collaborator Montague Jacques Fromage.
The story is with some excellent artwork is in the booklet and you can read along with Montague's wonderful speaking voice, a tone and passion worthy of any radio play.
All in all this is one helluva album, one which has the potential to reach a huge and diverse audience, it is quite something!
Rating 10/10
For Fans Of : Hawkwind, Cream, Black Sabbath, Monster Magnet, Primus.
