May Vice Reviews

May 2007 reviews for Vice magazine.

Static X
Cannibal
Reprise

1 Wow, it’s ’97, I’ve got my guitar tuned to a dropped H, my bassist has an 8 string, my jeans are so big John Goodman could wear them as his Sunday slacks and we’re about to go on the Family Values tour with Korn and Cold, it’s going to be rad dude!

Maj Boorland

Asobi Seksu
Asobi Seksu
One Little Indian

7 If this is ‘nu-gaze’ then it’s a lot more fun than most of those boring older-brother shoe-gaze bands ever were. Like Yoshimi from the Boredoms fronting the crunch and fuzz of MBV with dreamy Galaxie 500 bits. The front row will be full of those V-neck sweater, converse wearing university indie society guys with semis.

Withering Frights

Tiny Dancers
Free School Milk
Parlaphone

6 Sometimes you just know what you’re going to get from the cover. Wistful, earnest, melody-infused pop with big choruses albums always have these weird wobbly fonts. This is what Herman Dune would sound like if they had a secret Dexy’s fixation. The sort of thing Elton John will champion and then kill in the water before they’ve even had a chance. Oh wait, he already did.

Yellow Brick Choad

Supreme Vagabond Craftsman
Just You, Me & The Baby
Analogue Catalogue

7 Despite having a name which makes them sound like a Galliano side-project this is actually pretty good. It’s sort of like a folk version of the music that Aim forgot how to make ages ago but with likeable, funny lyrics about living in some asbestos ridden council flat in Sheffield or something.

Mikey Pressure

V/A
Soundboy Punishments
Skull Disco

10 Appleblim, Shackleton and Gatekeeper have quietly been pushing at the more minimal boundaries of Dubstep for a good while now, with nowhere near the credit they deserve, on a string of beautiful 12’s that are neatly collected here. There is a second disc that includes the extended Villalobos edit of Blood On My Hands that rumbles on for almost 20 blissful minutes and it’s all wrapped in their super-nice artwork that involves lots of err..skulls.

Gerneral Levis

James Yorkston
Roaring The Gospel
Domino

8 Where is this Fence Collective? I want to join. All these guys like Yorkston and Ali Robertson just seem to ramble around drinking loads and falling for maidens and singing about it in songs with names like Woozy With Cider and Blue Bleedin’ Blind Drunk. I think it must be in Scotland. They all sound Scottish. Kode9 has done a remix of one of Yorkston’s tunes that actually makes you feel like you’ve drunk ten pints and just done a bump of ket that was a little bit too big.

Roland Fall

Mats Gustaffson & Yoshimi
Words On The Floor
Smalltown Superjazzz

8 Mats Gustaffson has been blowing weird noises in free-jazz ensembles with guys like Massimo Zu and Jim O’Rourke for years and Yoshimi is the cute singer chick from the Boredoms so this was never really going to Radio 1 a-list fodder. Instead you get a haunting 45 minute work out of voice echoing made sound that’s intense to the point of being sinister and creepy.

Jazz Eye

Kammerflimmer Kollektief
Jinx
Staubgold

9 If I did a blind test with all these kids that claim that they are really ‘into’ free-noise and drone and played them, I dunno, like Changez Les Blockeurs and then something my little brother made just now with a broken contact mike and some delays they wouldn’t really have a clue which was ‘better’ or ‘good’. No matter though as this is a perfect peach of all the good bits of all that is avant. Staubgold is always a pretty safe bet though.

Jimmy Shite

The Broken Family Band
Hello Love
Track & Field

7 Where do bands like this go to die? Like a really solid, reliable dog these guys keep pedalling solid, melodic alt-country at an album every year or so like they could do it forever. Except no one will put them down because they are too nice. Maybe there is this pub somewhere and they hang out with St Thomas and Richmond Fontaine and guys like that and trade road stories. I don’t know.

Garth Hooks

Emily Haines & The Soft Skeleton
Knives Don’t Have Your Back
Drowned In Sound

7 Is there ever going to be an issue where we don’t have something in for review by a side project of some member of the Broken Social Scene?

Bee Haves

Municipal Waste
The Art Of Partying
Earache

9 I went to see the guys play a support slot at the LA2 (or whatever they’re calling it these days) last week. I turned up early and everything and still missed almost their entire set cos they run everything so early to get everyone out for G.A.Y. I was pretty pissed off. The two songs I did hear were perfectly formed blasts of Voivod-splattered thrash and good time lyrics. Maybe I just should have waited for this to turn up in the post as you get 15 of them on here. And Dave Witte plays drums. What more do you fucking want?

Budwaster Killgore