It’s been another amazing year, and while I’ve not updated the blog in ages (big life happenings) these are my top 10 albums of 2021. Enjoy.
UpCDownC – Black Dracula video
This terror train of film-noir-horror-post-metal debauchery, known as UpCDownC released a video last year for their track, Black Dracula, as featured on the gloom-laden terror of last year’s I, Awake and their self-titled EP from 2015.
UpCDownC – I, Awake
Split into 6 parts, I, Awake, the new album from instrumental-post-whatever-noise dirtbags UpCDownC, is essentially not being able to sleep at night; it’s sticking your feet out the end of the bed and wondering if a clawed hand is about to grab hold. Sweet dreams.
Ampwrecked 14: New Music For Your Ears
Death From Above keep up with the wrestling theme. Propagandhi invite us for a drink. The Bronx go rock ‘n roll. Unsane cover everything in blood. METZ destroy our ears through a mess of wires. And So I Watch You From Afar show off their new wings and Converge go completely brutal.
Blanck Mass – World Eater
Blanck Mass is the rebooted spectrum of Hal and Mother recording an album together (and succeeding) in hell, melting through the goddamn walls faster than you can say Game Over Man, Game Over. World Eater hits hard, full ramming speed, never letting up or letting go. It’s Crank – if Power slows down, it’s all over.
Tölva – Wide Shot
France’s Tölva can provide that much needed detachment with their debut EP, Wide Shot. For the most part, Tölva’s post rock seems fairly ordinary, non-threatening and fragile, much like the jellyfish that graces the cover of this EP.
UpCDownC – UpCDownC
This is a very dark path indeed. I suppose that the week of summer we had back in July is all we’re going to get as we descend into the realms of autumn. What better way then to soundtrack that by listening to something that will not only make you constantly look over your shoulder in fear and head-bang like a bastard. UpCDownC are that band.
Alright The Captain – Contact Fix
There are sudden pattern shifts, time changes and deviations from the norm that make Contact Fix by Derby’s Alright The Captain an exciting and fascinating listening experience. Opening track, Toaster Mouse, is built around a steady, squelching synth-bass line that rises and falls with giddy abandon, whilst the tappy-math rock guitar weaves trickery and pitch-shifting bite throughout..
Acid Deathtrip/Hangman’s Chair – Split 12″
Man, now that is a killer band name; that just makes you want to listen to them. Netherlands lot, Acid Deathtrip are giving me that weird, foaming-at-the-mouth grin and repeating a subliminal chant of “we know you’re going to like this even before the first sludge-damaged riff swamps your brain.”
Yearbook – Old bones
Two chords into this EP I went ‘oh yeh pop-punk/emo like that other song of theirs I could be anyone’ then the third chord came and shat on that hypothesis. It was discordant but not that heavy, what it really reminded me of was Inme, remember them?