12 for 2012

Top albums of the year lists... is it just me or does it get progressively more difficult as the years blur together?

Handily, Killing Joke have anticipated the problem for me with 2012.   So that’s on the list then.

Let’s see

1.    Killing Joke – 2012
It sounded like it might be a bit close to concept album territory from the publicity and all the usual corruption and ecological collapse themes are well to the fore here, on one of KJ’s most coherent sets.  Like a fine wine KJ just get better with age.

2.    Jim Jones Revue – Savage Heart
Brilliantly delivered manical rock ‘n’ roll.  Perhaps not quite the equal of ‘Burning Your House Down’, but let’s face it, that was some act to follow.

3.    Guile – Alone On The West
Marvellous dark psychedelic debut trip from the criminally under-rated Staffordshire band.

4.    Stranglers - Giants 
At its best, as good as anything from the band this side of the millennium.

5.    Mark Lanegan Band – Blues Funeral
Most rounded effort yet from the man most likely to appear on someone else’s album.

6.    Barry Adamson – I Will Set You Free
Uneven, but when it’s good, it’s far more satisfying that Magazine’s own 'Know Thyself' return.

7.    Brian James Grand Cru – Chateau Brian
The other side of the 35th anniversary of ‘Damned, Damned, Damned’ – the man who wrote those riffs in reflective mood, with little more that an acoustic guitar and piano. Somewhat erratic, but worth it for 'Crawlin' My Way Back Home'.

8.    Peaking Lights – Lucifer Dub
After two pleasingly blissed out bass driven pop albums this venture into dub territory, was the logical next step and with it Peaking Lights appear to have made the album that's been lurking within them all along.

9.    Iggy Pop – Apres
Iggy Pop sounding far more comfortable rumbling through a set of easy listening standards, that being a Stooge and following up some of the finer moments from 'Avenue B'.

10.    Jah Wobble & Keith Levine – Ying & Yang
It’s difficult not to like anything with that internal organ shaking bass, and here Wobble & Levine have come up with a far more interesting album than PiL’s ‘This Is PiL’.

11.    Meteors – Doing The Lords Work
You know what you’re getting with The Meteors.  That doesn’t make it any less welcome.  When you can play a guitar like Paul Fenech, this is what you should be doing.  Not sure about their cover of ‘Paranoid’ but time spent listening to Fenech play guitar is never wasted.

12.    The Orb and Lee Perry
Worth a mention, just for the wonderfully bizarre partnership.  Working with The Orb makes Lee Perry look like a regular guy.  Well, almost...

13.    Joy Division – Warsaw
Not new.  Not from 2012 and not even an official release. But inspired by catching Peter Hook’s The Light, I went back to this album, one I probably hadn’t heard in years, and found it stands up rather well.

Bubbling under;
Stan Ridgeway – Mr. Trouble; clearly being indulged in the hope he turns into Tom Waits,
Brian Jonestown Massacre – Aufheben; more drone rock par excellence.

Push comes to shove, Killing Joke, Mark Lanegan Band and Guile make the top three, in no particular order.  

But overall I'm going with 'Blues Funeral' as the stand out album of 2012.

Icelandic death art rock

Happened to catch Dead Skeletons at The End (the old Bar Academy), with the mighty Guile, the other night.

Here's a couple of pics...

Guile on Louder Than War

Good to see Guile on Louder Than War here

Meanwhile the band continues to put up excellent footage from their gig at The Public

Guile - a proper video

Unlike the rather shoddy audience filmed videos available of Guile at http://www.youtube.com/user/macworld77 here's a far superior clip of the band taken from their gig at The Public, in West Bromwich.

Guile – The Tackeroo, Cannock, 10th February 2012

Hometown gig, expectant crowd.  The last thing any band want is a string to go on the bass about 6 seconds into the gig.  With no spare bass guitar.  Which is exactly how Guile’s return to their Cannock roots kicked off.

A lot of bands would have been thrown, or perhaps just walked off until running repairs could be made.  No such easy way out for Guile.  While bassist Adam ‘Fish’ Shaw, showed commendable grace under pressure restringing and tuning up with the minimum of fuss, the remaining members of Guile simply slipped into dirty, vaguely threatening, blues jam.  Shut your eyes and you’d believe Link Wray was about to walk onstage.

Guile unplugged

I've written about Guile before and considered them one of the best unsigned bands around.  Well there is some justice in the world as they're now signed to a small Birmingham label and have a single due in September.


If you're quick you can hear Guile in session on BBC WM's 'Introducing...' here doing stripped down acoustic versions of some of their live favourites including forthcoming single 'Deep By The Dockery' - highly recommended!

For a more typical indication of the full on Guile live experience though, you might want to try this as a starting point...

Or here for a free download of one of the tracks on the forthcoming album.  

Guile play London, at the Islington Academy, with Suzerian and Civil War on 23rd July, before a full UK in September.

Gig Review: Our Mountain, Guile, The Yams - The Rainbow, Birmingham.

If it's worth doing it, it's worth overdoing it seems to be The Yams attitude. Three guitars and keyboards crammed onto the stage at The Rainbow does seem ambitious, but with all the guitars and some growling bass present in the mix, they quickly show their audio arsenal is not just for show as they quickly reveal a capacity for some heavy slabs of sound.

Opening with a song that sounds like it's about to break into a cover of ‘California Uber Alles’ gets the attention, although it never does launch into a full blown version of the Dead Kennedys classic,  it quickly settles into a pleasing riff of its own.

But the beauty of The Yams is their disciplined sound, simple in terms of finding a heavy, stoner rock groove and sticking with it, but take a closer look and beyond the initial pull of the heavy riffing and there's a lot more going on.

Each guitar contributes a different layer to The Yams sound, making is surprisingly clean, for all the weight it carries.  Keyboards however, were sacrificed before the wall of guitars. Or perhaps the keyboard player has more of 'Bez' role, playing in the hole just behind the strikers, as it were...

Impressively build riffing is the hallmark of The Yams, if they can get past the inevitable Queens of the Stone Age references and perhaps convince people they're from southern California rather than South Staffordshire, they might get the audience they deserve.

 

Next up are Guile stretching their legs and taking some new material out for a run, giving us a tantalising peek into their work in progress, while delivering a haunting set of beautifully crafted psychedelic blues punk, drenched in slide guitar and held together by thundering bass and drums.  Over it all the cracked, wounded voice of Neal Sawyer, sounding like a man with the weight of world on his shoulders and the pain of rejection in his heart.

Kicking off with the repeated jab in the face that is relative new song 'Kill Your Dreams' Guile then tore up the set list to preview new material for a small but attentive audience.

Showing a willingness to experiment with rhythm and texture that suggests a capacity to add a whole network of B road detours to the Guile motorway, this set at The Rainbow certainly offered some intriguing glimpses into the future.

One thing we do now know, is that the insanely infectious 'Deep By The Dockery' will be released as a single in September. Yes a single. You know, complete with b-side tracks. Proper old school!

Tonight 'Dockery' was played with glorious abandon, competing with a stretched out epic improvised take on 'I Wish I Was Heartless' for highlight of the night. Although both may have been eclipsed by a tight, nasty, urgent take on the set closing howl of alienation that is 'Alone On The West'.

Which is a good place to leave things, 'Alone On The West' is also going to be the title of Guile's forthcoming album. For my money their potent mix of blues, country, punk and psychedelia, continues to mark them out as one of the great unsigned hopes.  Only problem is, I'll have to find something new to say once the album does come out!

What to make of Our Mountain?  They try, they really do.  And in places they almost pull it off. Mainly with some dirty, '60's garage rock & roll with a set closer that felt like they finally dropped their art-house guard.

But let's not get ahead of ourselves.  The nucleus of Our Mountain hail from Australia and the rhythm section could easily pass for Nick Cave alumni.  Which I'm sure they are sick of hearing, but it's the sound of the Bad Seeds that's playing as they take the stage.  If the cap fits...

Well there are certainly echoes.  Our Mountain seem to have one foot in performance art and the other in a greasy garage doing up old motorbikes. Frontman Matthew Hutchinson comes on like the man who was thrown out of The Monkees for being too rock & roll - the man in the silk shirt and pudding bowl haircut is a ball of energy, pulling a variety of unlikely guitar hero shapes before exiting the stage mid-song to continue playing as part of the audience.

But then he has to, with statuesque, blond Abbey Lee, doing her ice queen, keyboards and er, dustbin lids routine, stage right, there's a fight for attention going on.  Which is no bad thing!

Our Mountain have some good ideas and better riffs, but ultimately didn't quite convince on this showing, perhaps trying a little too hard, while Guile and The Yams gave us honest from the heart rock & roll.

Public Image

I quite often take video clips when I'm at gigs.  Among the bands I've 'bootleged' - their description, not mine! - are Guile.  I've never made great claims for my clips, it's just a way of sharing the gig with friends as far as I'm concerned, but this professionally filmed clip of Guile really does put my amateur efforts to shame!

Hopefully more this footage will see the light of day.  It really ought to, for my money, Guile are as good an unsigned band as you'll find right now.

Here's what Clash magazine said about them:

"...fine gritty, dirt-smeared blues that occasionally delves into the dark reaches of Doors-esque psychedelia. With menace and melody cramped into one tight space, it’s like the aural equivalent of the black lung....."

Meantime you can check out more of Guile on You Tube here.

Single launch gig @ The Public, West Bromwich

The glorious sonic shotgun marriage of blues, psychedelia and stoned punk rock that is Guile finally breaks cover with a headline gig at the Midlands most remarkable venue, The Public in West Bromwich on Saturday 27th November.

It feels like Guile have been the best kept secret in the Midlands (or possibly the country, having played everywhere from Aberdeen to Brighton...) for far too long now.  Fusing dark country, white noise psychedelia and a passionate almost soulful reverence for a lineage that draws from Hank Williams, to the Doors, to the Sex Pistols, to Primal Scream and all points in between.

Yes, Guile really are that good.

In fact, think the Jesus & Mary Chain meet Spiritualized on steroids playing Johnny Cash and The Gun Club, throw in The Saints, with Chris Bailey's alcohol soaked delivery... and you’re halfway to Guile.

As if that wasn’t enough of an incentive, Saturday’s gig marks the release of the first fruits of Guile’s debut album in the shape of a limited edition single of title track ‘Alone On The West’.  A coruscating howl of isolation and alienation that has already become a signature part of the band’s live set, the single will only be available at Saturday’s gig, each copy coming with unique artwork as well.

On top of all that there’s the venue.  Twelve minutes out of Brum on the metro and probably the most controversial building in the Midlands, whatever you think of it, to have an opinion, it has to be seen! 

Packed with technology The Public is an ideal gig setting and is geared up for filming, so Saturday could well be recorded for posterity as well. But don’t wait for that... this Saturday West Bromwich really is the only place to be.

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