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"They changed my purpose" singt ein melancholischer Mangan gleich im eröffnenden 'Offred', vor geloopten Soundchleifen und knisternder Elektronik, einem verträumt torkelnden Analog-R&B-Rhythmus und perlenden Gitarren, die sonst nur Vondelpark mit einer derart wunderbar schimmernden Unterwasser-Ästhetik von Radiohead adaptiert haben: 'Club Meds' nicht als Soloalbum des einstigen (?) Vorzeige-Neo-Folkis aus Kanada firmieren zu lassen, sondern seine Band mit aufs Cover zu holen, ist tatsächlich kein Lippenbekenntnis, sondern nur die Spitze eines stilistischen Paradigmenwechsels.
With Black Map, Mark Engels rediscoverd his joy in pure rock – as much is clear on every second of '…And We Explode': snappy riffs, a tightly fitting groove, and theoretically always in spitting direction of bombast.
Thou from Baton Rouge are the mightiest doom force on the planet for some time now, as their spotless, overwhelming discography impressivly proves. And still, 2014 will be remembered as a unprecedented peak in the bands history, with one stroke of genious after the other: 'Heathen' and 'The Sacrifice' and 'Released from Love', the first of two epic collaboration with The Body, which will find it's imposing continuation in 2015. And while a visit to Europe seems to remain a pipe dream for now, Thou do the honors and take care of day 24 in the Heavy Pop advent calendar: guitarist Andy Gibbs presents some of his albums of the year.
Thanks to Carla Bozulich her workshops and frenetically celebrated concerts Graz will remember 2014 as a great year. And of course there was 'Boy', her most accessible - and probably best – work to date. An impressive, skin-crawling spectacle in any case, which blurs the lines between avantgarde and pop (!) in an intense way. For day 22 of the Heavy Pop advent calendar, Bozulich told us which records left a similar impression to her.
Melt-Banana did not promise too much: with 'Longhena' Gridlink released the best grind record of the year, and maybe also the last act of their peaking carreer. Jon Chang not only found the time to tell us about his favourite records of this past year 2014 for the Heavy Pop advent calender, he’s also giving out presents left and right: countless demos from all phases of Gridlink are on his Dropbox – and his Facebook page is always worth a look.
Wer gedacht hätte, dass sich Oozing Wound erst einmal von dem letztjährigen rasenden Kraftakt 'Retrash' erholen würden müssen hat seine Rechnung ohne die überbordende Energie des Chicagoer Trios gemacht: 2014 schoss das Thrill Jockey Juwel nur eine grandiose Split-Veröffentlichung mit Black Pus sowie einer gemeinen Adult Swim-Single aus der Hüfte, sondern servierte mit einem nochmaligen Plus an Heavyness und hinter prachtvollen Artwork 'Earth Suck'. Wünsche bleiben da beinahe keine offen: Oozing Wound auch mal europäischen Bühnen zerlegen sehen zu dürfen wäre allerdings eine sehr feine sache.
Okay, what kind of reckless style amalgam ist he opening title track? The mercilessly slaying 'Schnaiserkitt'? How epic in scope is the wave breaking 'Valhalla'? Fjort actually need no more than these three songs to leave the listener speechless, but they do it another seven times. Close to nine months after the release of 'D’accord' we still marvel at This Charming Man for their 6th signing sense; at the enormous explosion in performance, that wasn’t to be expected in this magnitude after the very promising introductory-round of 'Demontage', or that this record has indeed been mangled out of their instruments by a three-piece wrecking ball.
First you may think: writing about Black Map of course means to write about Dredg, Far and The Trophy Fire, if only because „…And We Explode“ bears trademarks of the three other bands Mark Engles, Chris Robyn und Ben Flanagan are involved with. But it comes as a bit of a surprise, how effortless the three-headed powerhouse succeeds in combining the straight walk in direction of atmospheric alternative rock, the constant flirt with grounded stadium-sound and the steadfast traction of meaty hits. And yeah, in the end actually it works perfectly without even mentioning their other prominent playgrounds.
First and foremost, The Tidal Sleep made their homework in contemporary US-hardcore; though 'Vorstellungskraft' foreshadowed some of the things 'Keep You' succeeded in months later, but without the same radical break with their own past. On their second album, the Mannheim/Karlsruhe/Leipzig/
Their dynamic style of pop punk combined with fun, oldschool skate punk vibes make Gnarwolves one of the most interesting new bands the UK currently has to offer. On their first headline tour through Europe Thom (Guitar, Vocals) and Charlie (Bass, Vocals) met Heavy Pop at dasBach to talk about their debut album, skateboarding, and why their song 'Smoking Kills' isn’t really about smoking.
