Vice April Record Reviews

Vice April Record Reviews

The Shitty Limits
Espionage EP
Dire Records

9 Why does the best punk always come out of small, bumblefucknowhere towns? I guess ‘cos it’s hard to get pissed off past the age of 16 in any city big enough to have more than two pubs. Guildford really sucks. I know this because my Grandparents went there to die. It does have a habit of kicking out at least one great punk band every few years though.

Circle Jams

Martina Topley-Bird
The Blue God
Indipendiente

4 Do you think Dangermouse has a little red phone with Mikey Mouse ears that lights up every time an ageing forgotten about songstress is in need of career shock treatment? Kind of like the Batphone but more the Mousephone. Probably not but it’s fun to think of him and the fat one sliding down poles to save the latest underperforming diva in distress. Shame they don’t try half as hard here as they do on their own shit.

Dicky

Langhorne Slim
Langhorne Slim
Kemado

9 Langhorne Slim. Could there be a more perfect name for a good ole boy with the voice of a bourbon drenched cowboy angel ever? Inexplicably on a stoner rock label but don’t let that fool you. This is all the good bits of Americana that you used to love before it turned into Wilco.

Jeff Weedy

Isis
Holy Tears
Ipecac

0 ‘Post-Metal’. Is there anything in the world that could make your ears want to voluntarily perforate themselves quicker? Oh yeah, post-metal remixes!

Olaf Sonofason

Philip Jeck
Sand
Touch

10 Crazy old guy who fiddles around with even older record players all day or visionary sonic genius? If you missed out on his last one where he reconstructed the sinking of the Titanic via hiss and crackle from old Gramophones then this one is sure to convince.

Cyron Boley

Bilge Pump
Rupert The Sky
Gringo

7 At that ATP that Uncle Thurston curated a few years back the lanky fella himself was overheard muttering something along the lines of: “Bilge Pump? Those guys are still going? Radical!” while thumbing through the Gringo merch stall. That should pretty much tell you pretty much everything you need to know about this one.

Kid Bongo Flowers

Torche
Meanderthal
Hydra Head

8 While it looses a few points for the sleeve which looks like it was doodled by a 14 year old with a dungeons and dragons obsession on his first hash cake bender it regains them for being the best thing Hydra Head have put out in living memory. It isn’t quite the “best thing since Kyuss” everyone keeps going on about but it did make me go home and listen to Blues For The Red Sky again and get all misty eyed for what could have been.

Mu Fanchu

Flight Of The Conchords
Flight Of The Conchords
Warner Bros

5 This is funny. Like funny ha ha. I never really thought New Zealanders were that funny but these guys really hit my funny bone and push my giggle button. They even have these MC aliases where they call themselves Rhymenoceros and Hiphopoptamus. Ahahahaha. It’s still a comedy record though and those never last more than three play throughs.

Tall Dwarf

Asva
What You Don’t Know Is Frontier
Southern Lord

10 If Burning Witch hadn’t split up they would sound just like this. Because this is basically Burning Witch with a few less members and done a bit slower. And slow is kind of the whole point of doom right?

Crippled Juicifer

Thee Oh Sees
The Master’s Bedroom Is Worth Spending A Night In
Tomlab

8 Lurching so precariously between the garage, the fireside and the downright spooked it falls nothing short of knock your Sonics off great!

Johnny Fourteen Bands

Elf Power
In A Cave
Ryko

5 Elephant 6 bands always feel like home. Home isn’t always amazing but it is always nice and comforting and you sure know where you stand with it.

Deaf Magnum

A Place To Bury Strangers
A Place To Bury Strangers
Meal Deal Records

7 Nu-Gaze? Nu-Shoegaze? Ripping off a bunch of other guys? These chiefs even have a fella in the gang called ‘Jay Space’. I’d love to loathe them but they have the whole music bit locked down tighter than that slightly overweight singer guy out of Foals' Cheap Mondays.

Perv Driver

Skeletons & The Kings Of All Cities
Lucas
Ghostly International

9 Yet more fucking hippies. Everywhere you turn these days you are being assaulted by some guy in poncho yodeling about the sunrise or some other such nonsense. It’s getting a bit much. When you temper all the head shop babbling with some solid Fleetwood Mac hooks though you can really be onto something. Animal Collective manage it about once every three albums these days but this ridiculously named troop of goons somehow pull off ten out of ten tracks. Who’d a thunk it?

Terry Garcia