Unpiano | Music Blog

Lots of bands draw influence from the titans This Heat, but not many bands can claim to be anywhere close to their talent.  Haunted Horses is a band that really gets what made This Heat so exciting; they are funky and beat-driven, bizarre and experimental, with a sense of humor (but not in a novelty, jokey way). Above all, Haunted Horses sound genuine in their experimentation, separating them from so many bands doing “weird shit” just for the hell of it. The guttural screams that punctuate the drum-driven groove sections sound primal and the heavy reverb on the vocals set the perfect dark atmosphere. These guys deserve the same attention and accolades as Lightning Bolt, so we should all see them at small, wild shows while we can. You get an extra point if you see them at a house party and 10 more bonus points if the party is in a basement.

Haunted Horses – Medusan Sky
Haunted Horses – Desmond
Haunted Horses – Horizons

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With all the light, airy shoegaze-inspired pop that I’ve come across in the last few years, its good to see a young band wade further into the ocean of heavy distortion and white noise like No Joy does on their new Ghost Blonde album. Definitely pulling from Loveless-era MBV on this one, there’s almost enough murky drone here to turn the heads (away from the bong) of more recent Southern Lord fans.

No Joy – Heedless

Bonus:
No Joy – Hawaii (video)

The Whines have been on my radar for some time, with a wasted Karianne hopping in on drums for Eat Skull for all of ten minutes and their debut 7″ making rounds for the last year or so. Backed by alternating members of the aforementioned Portland faves, she recorded in stop-and-start installments until finally piecing together this fantastic first LP. Hell To Play is a collection of reverb soaked noise pop that would play more like a mix tape if it wasn’t for a layer of over-saturated tape hiss, as well as Karianne’s sweet-to-sad-to-sexy vocals, gluing the whole thing together. A dreary Portland Sunday with a hangover put to wax just for you.

The Whines – Cut Meat
The Whines – Straybird
The Whines – Down The 2 Tracks

I couldn’t post up all this fuzzy girl-punk without tipping a hat to the Primitives, who probably introduced me to this sound in 1988, as a freshman in high school tiring of American hardcore. This band got fucked over by their record company six ways ’til Sunday, but still managed to release Lovely, an LP of Shop Assistants-style fuzz drenched radio hits.

The Primitives – Spacehead
The Primitives – Crash

Whew.. you made it. Hopefully you can breathe a sigh of relief and know that you dodged whatever bullets you had coming in 2009. This year coming up is gonna be a great one, you just watch and see. Fucking magic. Anyways, here is to all my friends and here is to this amazing cover of Big County’s best known single. Montreal’s Tonstartssbandht have made a washed out, slow burning, distorted bedtime story that goes very well with a snow covered city and a New Year’s drink.

Tonstartssbandht – Black Country

I’ve been digging the new record by Little Claw lately, Human Taste is definitely a continuation of their first effort, but there are some solid jams on here. Dark, warbling pop soaked in lots of fuzz and reverb, sometimes spinning off into endless-jam/one-note-drone land but the handful of tracks that hold some sort of structure are pretty amazing.

Little Claw – Human Taste
Little Claw – Frozen In The Future

//photo by rick ele

Wow, Autumn finally kicked in full gear and nothing goes better with Fall weather than a drunk guy screaming in your face over a heap of distorted noise-punk. I was lucky enough to catch Portland’s The Hunches amazing live show a few times before they blew apart this last year. Luckily they offered up one hell of a parting gift with their final LP Exit Dreams on In The Red.

The Hunches – Fall Drive
The Hunches – Carnival Debris

This Night Control album was stumping me for a long time. I knew I liked it but I couldn’t figure out why and it just sat there for a while.. daring me to make it through the whole thing. Then one rainy, foggy night after being couped up in the house too long, I decided to take a walk down across town to the Mission. Suddenly everything just clicked and I realized that Death Control is the perfect album for ambling about in the foggy night weather of San Francisco. It’s dark, melodic and semi-brooding, not to mention unflinchingly drenched in lo-fi reverb, so that each step down the wet sidewalk is echoed in your ears. Hats off to Kill Shaman for finally getting some of Christopher Curtis Smith’s music onto a record. Who knows, maybe there will even be some more live shows this year.

Night Control – Star 131
Night Control – Star 129
Night Control – 20 Years Old
Night Control – Two Hard

//photo by jason fisher

Monterrey, Mexico has been kicking out some interesting noise-rock these last few years. From the Sonic Youth inspired Los Llamarada to the weird-punk of Ratas del Vaticano, this city and its surrounding area are breeding a hot new crop of bands you should watch for. Bass guitar and drum duo XYX are no exception, in fact after their stunner sets at SXSW (some of my favorite of the whole festival) you might even find them the cream of that crop.

XYX – Anel And Her Problem

Here’s another post-SXSW post, I’m trying to document the handful of bands that got a lot of attention before the fest. Per usual with SXSW, I missed most of the bands I wanted to see (I missed most bands period) due to trying to shuffle our stupid gear from one show to the next in a mob, while navigating Austin’s terrible freeway system, usually while drunk. Wavves were one of the bands I wanted to see, but since most trusted reports point to them being one of the worst live bands of the weekend, I’m not going to dwell on it. The records are pretty heavy with filler, but there are some interesting, blown-out pop gems buried under all this tape hiss that are growing on me.

Wavves – Wavves
Wavves – Side Yr On
Wavves – So Bored