DOWNLOAD: Sea Bastard - Great Barrier Riff

Brighton four-piece granite-dense combo Sea Bastard lay down their debut demo, and it flat out destroys from end to end.  Formed from the ashes of two of Brighton's heaviest joints, Jovian and Funeral Hag, this reformed entity enhances each of their own pure elements of doom and groove respectively, through three tracks of monolithic pace-changing guttural demoncy, in the vein and through the timeline of Black Sabbath, Electric Wizard and on.  The vocals are sick - the higher-registered raspy nasty spiteful snarl in opener Aqua Vitae drops to a gut deep rumble in Taedium. The guitar riffs peal out of their bottom end up into squealing flourishes of solo squall - or in reverse; the epically held feedback swollen tone in Aqua Vitae morphs into a chugging buzzsaw riff that shoots bolts of lightning from it's peaks.  Not just beholden to moments, the lengthy tracks allow plenty of space for offering up a relentless procession of awesome shapes, not least the shift in the aforementioned Taedium which has a sinister groove that lifts the momentum but allows not a shard of light into the bleakness.  The half hour of torrential riffing is pinned to the floor by oppressively weighted drumming and peripheral synapse flooding bass from wall to wall.

In its rough recorded demo form there's every subterranean element you could want, but if this were to be given a thorough studio makeover it would have you gargling blood in awe.

Download for Name Your Price from their BANDCAMP and catch them playing live with Northern 'caveman battle doom' combo Conan Saturday 21 January, at the Cowley Club with Pus and Dead Existence.

VIDEO: ʄ≜uxmuℭica ft. c♦o♦c♦o ᴐaᴚᴃ☉ᵯᴃ - The Model

New video from the hazardously challenging ʄ≜uxmuℭica, taken from his re-booted covers album. On another plane of existance this used to be Kraftwerk's The Model.

VIDEO: Seahawks & Autre Ne Veut - Don's Rainbow

Seahawks' new 7" will be the first release on the newly minted Ocean Moon* imprint, and the teaser for their forthcoming live-band recorded full album Invisible Sunrise.   Don's Rainbow is the lead track and it features Autre Ne Veut on vocals, adding his dissociative nostalgic croon to this retro-cosmic outfit, adding another luminous guest-spot to his CV alongside an appearance on Ford & Lopatin's Channel Pressure.

*When I searched for Ocean Moon on Google I discovered this mildly disturbing Japanese doll designer's site.  Worth the visit.

REVIEW: Civil Civic - Rules

The debut full length album from UK/Australian instrumental duo Civil Civic has arrived and it's killer. After teasing the world with a couple of singles, Rules reveals the band in their full glory as an outfit to get even deeper into and obsessed with.  It's not just that the tracks are catchy or addictive - which they are, incessantly - more that subsequent listens continue to excite and surprise even though you know what's coming, a quality that marks a record out as some kind of classic. Familiarity often falsely lulls people into assessing an album as great over time, but the longer you spend re-spinning these tracks the more joyous they seem to become. 

Deadly serious riffs and rhythm shifts are shot through with a sense of humour, starting off with Airspray's bastardised daytime tv show theme softening you up for the drop into ten tracks of guitar vibration that shake your core into elation.  Run Overdrive lives up to its name with a freewheeling riff saturated in noise and an upward spirally melody. Urgency is they heartbeat of many of these tracks - Street Trap, Grey Nurse, Less Unless - all mid-to fast paced, none of them physically cantering along at breakneck hardcore paces, yet all of them carrying the momentum as if they were. It's the vapour trails of fuzz they leave behind that create the tangible illusion. Lights On A Leash sounds likes an Andrew WK party track minus the vocal exhortations to free-spiritness, but feel free to add the actions along too it. It's Krill displays the band's abilities at agile musicianship, built from sweeping melodies of danceably melancholic jangle it sounds undeniably like the kind of Smiths tune Morrisey's curmudgeonly outsider psyche forbade Johnny Marr to write. Mayfield presages the end with a small moment of distant countrified wide-blue-yonder stretching spacious calm before the gritty and somehow even wider-eyed Slack Year slowly, casually denoates and implodes slow motion stadium riffs one after the other, layering synths over guitars then guitars over synths in a sighing heap of cathartic resolution.

All funded by fan donations prior to pressing, the album is now out on digital d/l, 12" or CD all from their Bandcamp.  Yes, self-released and unsigned, but surely not for long.

VIDEO / GIG PREVIEW - Pure X - Surface

New video for the trail track from Pure X's album Pleasure released on Acéphale Records. Directed by Silent Diane mastermind Malcolm Elijah. This may have just missed Halloween, but the spirit lives on.

For all my Brighton  readers, know that Pure X and Sleep∞Over play at Green Door Store tonight. Be there, be scared.