Melkbelly
There was an interview what we did once with a band called Meat Wave, in which they professed some love for a band called Melkbelly. Well, this is that Melkbelly, and I’m about to profess some love for them too. I don’t know what a Melkbelly is, but I do know what Melkbelly are, and that are is four Chicagoans who make one hell of a racket.
Noise rock noiseniks if ever there was four, formed from members of noise makers Coffin Ships and a drum duo called Ree-Yees, Melkbelly sure do come together in chaotic cacophony but it isn’t all ramshackle climaxes, because cutting through the crashes and the fuzz are blissful melodies sharp as knives. Melkbelly are as abrasive as they are accommodating, and it’s fucking grand.
Jonny Polonsky
Now new music isn’t always new, or rather, the music is but the makers behind the music might not be, but they can still be new to you. That would be the case with Jonny Polonsky, he’s certainly new to me, and his latest album is certainly new music, but to refer to Jonny Polonsky the entity, the artists, as new music would be to do a disservice to the career of a session multi-instrumentalist, singer, and songwriter with such breadth.
Polonsky has been self-releasing music in the shape of EPs and LPs since the mid-nineties, and recording with artists as varied as Donovan, Neil Diamond, Dixie Chicks, and Puscifer for just as long. This year though saw him release his latest album of his own making, playing all instruments himself, because why the fuck not, with production going to frequent David Lynch collaborator Dean Hurley, and that Lynchian vibe shines through by proxy. Perhaps, though, and more probably, its Polonsky’s panoramic, dark, broody, gothic, infectious, sexy, kind of Americana but kind of alien music would fit Lynch’s surrealist cinema perfectly.
Ghost of the Avalanche
I’ve always had a soft spot for the bass and drums only set up, and fair play to Ghost of the Avalanche, they set up those drums and bass well, and they do it noisily – just the way I like it. The duo hail from Bath and bring with them a raucous mix of noise and melody that can be seen to draw comparisons to Death From Above 1979, what with the prominent bass sound, but Ghost of the Avalanche are a far more prominently punk prospect than that famed Canadian twosome’s groove fixation.
Though, that’s not to say these two don’t groove, but it’s a far more angular and aggressive groove, taking their cues from your old school hardcore punk, your more modern fuzzy and weirdly melodic noise rock, and a genuine penchant for the poppy from time to time with some seriously catchy hooks. Allegedly a whole lot of raw power live too. Not hard to imagine from the chaos captured on record.
TORRES
What was I doing at 24? Well, I wasn’t releasing a seminal sophomore album to critical acclaim, that’s for sure. Though, okay, I get it, I’m laying on the early onset bitterness a little thick. I see that now. But seriously though, the exceptionally talented Mackenzie Scott has just released her second album under her TORRES moniker, and it is a corker to be sure.
Taking an evolutionary step from her more folk-rock inclined debut album, her newest sees her embracing a far fuzzier direction of a more heavier rock instrumentation and distorted experimentation, but all the while maintaining that passionate, intimate, flaming-and-bleeding heart-on-sleeve folk-rock as it’s driving force. Scott is a powerfully honest and expressive songwriter, capable of baring her soul for all to see while orchestrating both the emotive and the explosive.
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