Pulse: New Music You Need #14

MAYDAY! MAYDAY! IT’S MAY MAYHEM!

Because isn’t May worth celebrating? And what better way to celebrate it than with excessive use of ‘may’? I’ll tell you what better way; this special bumper edition of PULSE: NEW MUSIC YOU NEED – more like, what better may, am I right?

No.

Anyhow, you might’ve found yourself unable to find a pulse here of late, and for long enough that you’d have to consider us irrefutably dead. However, you neglect the fact that we CULTURED VULTURES are right Lazarus/Jesus Christ motherfuckers when it comes to resurrections. We can hold our pulse like Superman can hold his breath. No, I don’t have a messiah complex. Why do you ask?

So, yeah, apologies for the disappearing act, but PULSE is back with a vengeance (because 13 WASN’T UNLUCKY FOR US) and here to help you celebrate it being May (again, because why not?) in as explosive a manner as it deserves with enough mayhem inducing music to see you through the whole thing.

MAYDAY! MAYDAY! IT’S MAY MAYHEM!

Cal Banda

This four piece from, in their own words, ‘sunny Birmingham’ are self-describedly ‘noise ridden’ and noise is, of course, absolutely necessary for any sort of going buck wild in the sunshine; or any other time for that matter, really, but god damn it, it’s almost summer and I insist on making everything about that.

The foursome thrash out a suitably raucous rendition of punk music by violently slamming chunks of noise rock, mathcore, hardcore, and the kitchen sink at each other, and putting it to tape. The collated results can now be eargested by you, the avid listener, via the debut EP the band just dropped, Another Minute Made Fiasco.

 

The Crotals

Fuel! Flames! Blast! – that my friend is the perfect three word distillation of what this edition of Pulse is all about, and it just happens to be the title adorned by The Crotals’ debut album – a three piece hailing from Switzerland, featuring current and former members of Favez and Toboggan, and bringing all kind of sludge madness with them.

You can absolutely hear the fuel, the flames, and the inevitable blast, over the course of the album, and even if you take it just one track at the time. Whether it be through the kind of distorted bass any mother would want to get in the bath for a good scrub down, noisy punk lead guitar akin to having a cat scratch the fuck out of you, or a dense, driven, and devilish doom groove.

You’ll like these if you remember when Mastodon were actually heavy and still played sludge.

 

Incarcerate

Stoke-on-Trent quintet, Incarcerate, might not have even released their debut EP yet, thought it cometh May 12th, but they are already making more than ripples or waves, as they positively get a moshpit going in the musical pond – it’s splashy as fuck in here, y’all.

For the release of the band’s self-titled debut EP, the five piece have recently signed to Boston-based, underground safe haven, We Are Triumphant Records, who themselves distribute through the legendary Victory Records. Alongside the fact they’ve already played alongside the likes of The Hell, Carcer City, For The Fallen Dream, High Hopes and Create To Inspire, and you see what I mean.

BIG riffs, breakdowns, and down-tuned grooves; they’re heavy and they don’t fuck about.

 

Steel Trees

Listening to Steel Trees, I get the impression that they’re trying to cut down the steel trees they derived their name from with riffs, because if there were riffs deserving of the description ‘buzzsaw’ it’d be those of Steel Trees. Scuzzy more than they’re fuzzy, but sharpened to shit, and of a calibre that they got asked out on tour, personally, by J Mascis to support Dinosaur Jr. If that’s not a seal of a approval, I don’t know what is.

The trio hail from a number of former pit towns in South Yorkshire, and haven’t been shy about bringing the muck and the mire with them, absolutely coating their manic tunes with it. It’s the sound of three grunge indebted punks absolutely losing their shit on some especially potent weed. Stoner-punk madness.