Alternative Three

Scientists have determined that the Earth’s surface will not be able to support human life much longer, due to pollution and overpopulation. In 1957, Dr Carl Garstein proposed three alternative solutions. The first was a drastic reduction of the human population on Earth. The second, the construction of vast underground shelters. Alternative three?

Howzabouts that new website eh? Looks good doesn’t it? It’s been twenty years since shitty Britpop, but unfortunately not twenty years since idiots stopped going on about it, the papers are packed full of dreary-eyed toss about a bunch of foppy northern twats more interested in intellectually dissecting their own farts at length in NME interviews than the artistry of music. Bury them in a shallow grave and move on. Anyone still listening to that dross twenty years on needs their head examined. And if you’re the sort of person who comments on YouTube videos saying variations on “they don’t make it like this anymore” then please seal yourself away in a rubber room before your terminal case of idiocy can get out and infect the rest of the population. It’s been a year since this column started, with a tirade against Record Store Day, and it’s rolled round again. As Edinburgh’s historic Avalanche records finally closed its doors only a few weeks ago and even my local HMV has given up the ghost, will Record Store Day finally be irrelevant when the eponymous record stores cease to be? Well for my part I bought some Buzzo*ven records I didn’t have, but I didn’t go near a record store. What did you buy?

If serpentine psyche rock is your thing, proceed in haste to The Very Wicked’s bandcamp page, where their brand spanking new album can be heard and got for seven of your earth dollars (or listen at the foot of this column if you prefer). The South African quartet are the closest we’re ever going to get to a post 9/11 Velvet Underground. You’re The Everything In Us has the same electric spark and other-dimensionality of their early work. You don’t even need a full album, seek out 'Baby Is A Parasite' and if you aren’t simultaneously chilled to the bone and jived right out of your armchair, check your pulse because you appear to have passed on. They’ve been an underground treasure for years, and they need YOU! Oh and if you haven’t had your fill of the otherworldly, Acoustic Wizard are your guys. Three EPs, all recent, all free, all full up with acoustic covers of doom legends Electric Wizard’s back catalogue. If you’re teaching a class on doom, you could do worse than this Blut Aus Nordisation of the old ‘Leckie Wizard tracks; by stripping them of their whale-blubber heaviness, it opens up a whole new world of musical understanding. How I didn’t come across this earlier is a mystery.

How to grab the attention of a music journalist, lesson #3. Call your band The Folie Diamond, and then call your album The Love Jihad, and if you want to keep our attention, you better make sure, like the above example, that you layer your record with wild temporally irreverent beats and winding noodly Morrison Hotel Doorsism. These Spanish astral plane surfers released two albums in the space of a month and they’re both sweet as hell. Oh and to seal the deal, they’re also totally free. You could do worse, and indeed usually do. You'll find it below beside The Very Wicked.

The Body, oh The Body. Does a month go by without me spinning a Body record and having my psychic pole smoked right down to the root? I don’t think so. Because after teaming with Haxan Cloak to produce the audio equivalent of anthrax, and now having joined forces with Thou (whose new album, Heathen is really something as well) for Released From Love I think they’re going to use it to demolish Red Road when the Commonweath Games roll around. Thou’s steady hand brings some recognisable edges to the otherwise Martian sounds usually produced by The Body, but as usual the collab is hopelessly one-sided. Stream it over on Brooklyn Vegan. Sick of me talking about The Body, and know that you don’t like inventive terrifying metal at the bleeding edge? Well try some equally excellent deathened black metal from Thantifaxath. Likewise their Sacred White Noise is below.

Looping tremolo-picked riffs like creeping frost, and equally as much thundering old-fashioned riffing. If you are at all interested in thoughtful, intelligent and prescient heavy metal, do yourself a favour and dash over to Descent Records’ bandcamp for a slice. Failing that, if you’re in a hurry, check out Iron Reagan and their latest Spoiled Identity EP, it’s fast, it’s fun, it’s good and it’s free. Get it here.

And another month slithers into the gaping maw of the past, and a whole new one is coming up, with records aplenty. What did I miss in the past? And what should I be looking forward to in the future? As usual, tweet, or send a carrier pigeon, which is really just old fashioned tweeting. And yes I know about the new Brody Dalle and it’s shit.

Act now, and you too could regret following me on twitter @stevendinnie