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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