WE ARE KNUCKLE DRAGGER - THE DRONE (2013)
Absolutely brilliant, savage, aggressive and demanding noise-rock with a mixture of mathy hardcore and massive, bouncing riffs. Not a particularly easy listen but an enjoyable one. I picked it up at a gig of theirs a few weeks back, played it once, thought it was decent, then recently played it again and have been obsessing over it ever since. Cracking local band that have gigged and then gone on to support Meshuggah and Dillinger Escape Plan, play Reading and Leeds festivals, and work with Steve Albini and Ross Robinson. Robinson produced this one.
NARROW LANDS - POPULAR MUSIC THAT WILL LIVE FOREVER (2013)
Debut album from an Australian noise-rock band. From Sydney, this album is also absolutely brilliant. It offers up some of the same qualities as the Knuckle Dragger album in that its chaotic in its approach to being noisy as all hell, with some slow, droning riffs in places, at times some faster moments verging on hardcore, and a whole hell of a lot of feedback.
It was recorded in a shed, and it sounds like it. This is not a criticism. It's a quartet playing rock and roll, stripped back and very ****ing loud. Sometimes theres not much need for anything else. There was also, interestingly, a really confusing, strange sound that I couldnt isolate or identify when listening to it. So I googled it:
“We leaned a baritone guitar up against the (slightly detuned and old) piano, plugged the guitar through as many pedals as possible so that when you played the piano it reverberated through the guitar and made this big impressive rumbling sound".
Wonderful stuff.