Tuesday, February 19, 2019

Albums of the Week: 15/02/19 (SWMRS, ENDON, Millencolin)


SWMRS – Berkeley’s On Fire
6.5/10
Best Tracks: Berkeley’s On Fire, April In Houston, Hellboy
FFO: Weezer, Talking Heads, The Regrettes

SWMRS’ debut, Drive North, was an album I loved when it came out, mixing a slacker-punk vibe with indie sensibilities and massive choruses. It was scrappy, and at times sickly-sweet, but undeniably held a youthful charm.

Berkeley’s On Fire is the sound of the band attempting to experiment with their sound in a variety of ways, with arguably mixed results. It goes to so many different places that I struggled to keep the “FFO” section in check; from new wave, to 90s emo, to modern British indie, the album is eclectic to say the least. That’s not to say it’s not consistent – in fact, it’s far from a disjointed listen. The vocal delivery (from brothers Cole and Max Becker) in particular ties the whole thing together, entrenching Berkeley’s On Fire in a similar summery feeling to that of Drive North. The quality, however, varies from song to song more wildly than the style does.

The jaunty guitars and stomping drums of the title track make it the standout by quite a distance. In a way, it’s angular; an odd little song with interesting chords and an outright weird bridge, but on the whole it manages to be utterly enjoyable. Another favourite of mine is April In Houston, a sun-drenched ballad which keeps the energy up with some absolutely insane drum and synth samples in the background – it gets weirder the more closely you listen. There are, however, some experiments which don’t work out too well on this record; IKEA Date comes across like a misguided Turnover rip-off, with vocals dipping into overly saccharine territory, and Lose Lose Lose is an ultimately unsatisfying punk tune accompanied by a chicken-squawk refrain. The closer, Steve Got Robbed, lays claim to a clunky chorus and some weird Sleaford Mods-esque verses which makes the track feel like it belongs on a different album entirely.

Berkeley’s On Fire isn’t a record for everyone. I’ve no idea if it’s even a record for me, but it’s fascinating nonetheless, and showcases some flashes of brilliance.


ENDON – Boy Meets Girl
9/10
Best Tracks: Born Again, Doubts As a Source, Not For You
FFO: Merzbow, Full of Hell, Daughters, The Armed

Let’s get the obvious out the way here - this album is a rough listen. I’m hard pressed to remember if I've ever heard a body of work which has elicited such a visceral reaction from me, in that every rational thought I had when I first hit play was telling me to simply pause the thing and never listen to it again. And that’s incredible.

ENDON are a Japanese group who take elements of grindcore, noise, avant garde, and black metal, and appear to play the whole amalgam from the perspective of a computer virus. On Boy Meets Girl, the band take the listener (as cliché as it sounds) on an unbelievable journey. The first three tracks drop you straight in at the deep end with the most uncomfortable listening experience you could possibly imagine; insane, manic screaming vocals which accompany staggeringly heavy instrumentation, seemingly squeezed through 60 different bitcrushers. From there, you’re plunged even further down the rabbit hole with the 11-minute cornerstone of the record, Doubts As a Source, which is simply the soundtrack to a man’s mental breakdown.

Then, after Doubts As a Source mercifully ends, the record enters an entirely new dimension in which the hellish world built by the first act starts to make sense, and the listener is forced to become an inhabitant. Love Amnesia and Final Acting Out will have you inexplicably nodding your head to the madness, as more traditional punk elements are subtly and seamlessly integrated. The album finishes with Red Shoes and Not For You, a combination which feels like a dream sequence in a Takashi Miike film. The final track is an unbelievable stroke of genius; a raging noise-rock song which wouldn’t look out of place if dropped by The Armed, or even Converge at their wildest. It might be my song of the year thus far, and Boy Meets Girl is undoubtedly my album of the week. Holy shit.


Millencolin – SOS
6/10
Best Tracks: SOS, Nothing, Reach You
FFO: Bad Religion, Pennywise, Rise Against

Over the course of their 26-year-long career, Millencolin have become a name unavoidably synonymous with skate-punk. For the majority of that time, the Swedes have stuck to their original sound – similar to other legends of 90s punk rock like Pennywise and NOFX, but with a little more pop-punk influence from bands like Green Day. On their 2015 album, True Brew (the one that made me a fan), Millencolin seemed to refine themselves a little, leaning further into pop-punk and radio-rock whilst still maintaining their identity as a skate-punk band. The choruses were bigger, the hooks catchier, and the songwriting still brilliantly simple.

On SOS, the group continue down this same path in terms of sonics. The instrumentation and production is a lot tighter than their earlier work, and the choruses of tracks like Nothing and Reach You are instant earworms. The pop-punk side of Millencolin is more clearly abundant, too - all of these songs are purpose-built to be played outside at a summer festival, with beach balls and crowdsurfers abound. For an album which clocks in at 33 minutes, though, it’s easy to feel that you will have heard everything it has to offer by track nine or ten.

The biggest issue I have with SOS is that thematically it tries to be a very political album and at the same time manages to say absolutely nothing at all. The commentary doesn’t appear to go past observation - the message I got from Let It Be, for example, is that you should just ignore any news which bums you out. If that is indeed the intended meaning, then what’s the point of trying to make a politically charged record? At times it comes across as very “How do you do, fellow kids?”, with Yanny & Laurel as the most egregious offender.

However, if you’re into your skate-punk, you can’t go wrong (as always) with this Millencolin album for a good half-hour of fun.


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