Down I Go

I have been accused from time to time of being a "hipster".

I am of course far too cool to know exactly what this means, but from what I understand "hipsters" are the modern equivalent of what in my day were known as "arseholes". A key trait of the hipster - and the reason why such outrageous and baseless accusations of arseholery are levelled at me - is a love of bands that no-one else has ever heard of.

Exhibit A: Down I Go.

But listen. If I was actually a proper hipster/arsehole, I would have been into these guys from day one. I would then have loudly proclaimed them to be sell-outs as soon as they released a record, and banged on about how I liked them back before they started writing and playing songs, when they were just some sort of amorphous concept with a cool beard but you could tell they weren't trying to be cool and that's why it wasn't cool. Which is cool.

Instead, I am only just discovering their abrasive brand of educational hardcore at pretty much the precise moment that they go kaput. Which is a shame, because they're ace. They leave behind them a smattering of recorded material, which generally walks a very narrow line between intellectual and batshit mental.

Mostly I'm enjoying learning about Greek mythology, the world's most horrifying tyrants and history's greatest disasters (including the Great Boston Molasses Tragedy) through the medium of some bloke screaming over the noise made by a hardcore band falling down a very long and steep flight of stairs.

And if you want to know why these mighty heroes are calling it quits, click here for a noisy explanation.

Website: http://www.downigo.com/

Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/downigo

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/downigo

Wikipedia: nope

The Prodigy

This was the band that dragged me out of the guitar angst exile of my youth and made me realise that good music is good and that it should be listened to frequently, at high volume.

Of course it probably helped that my local metal club would frequently spin the likes of Poison and Out of Space; making it definitively okay for metal kids to like bleepy dance music, even before the crossover masterpiece that was/is Fat of the Land.

The sheer quality of their first three records has meant that The Prodigy have struggled at times to live up to their own fearsome reputation. Album number four Always Outnumbered... has some great tunes on it, but also a lot of filler; and whilst most recent effort Invaders Must Die is more of a return to form, it still doesn't set my world on fire (my favourite track is the dub-steppy Noisa remix of Omen on the bonus disc).

That said, it sounds fucking amazing through headphones; and although The Prodigy's inclusion on the line-up for this year's Download festival still isn't enough to make me want to buy a ticket, it means that I won't pity the fools that do buy tickets quite so much.

So in conclusion; festivals are rubbish, genre nazis are fools, The Prodigy are awesome.

Website: http://theprodigy.com/

Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/theprodigy

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Prodigy/18452288248

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Prodigy

Helmet

When it transpired that my shoddy work ethic had resulted in another five "missing" posts by the end of last year, I ended up cobbling together a collection of brilliant tunes from crappy outfits. But prior to that, I had very seriously considered putting together a post with a title along the lines of "Five of the Greatest Bands in the World That Quite Incongruously Haven't Featured on This Piece of Shit Blog Yet" - and Helmet would have been jostling for position at the top of the list.

I got into them around the time of their third album, Betty; so for me, that will always be their defining record against which all others shall be judged. But for most, Helmet's definitive masterwork is the previous 1992 release Meantime, for which they happen to be embarking on a 20th anniversary tour, for which I happen to have purchased tickets, which is largely why they have popped back to the front of my musical consciousness again.

Helmet were, and are, awesome. They are of an age that many modern bands are now citing them as a huge influence, and many have covered their songs - from Pig Destroyer to Deftones.

They are a seminal hardcore band, and you should most definitely give a massive shit about them.

Website: http://www.helmetmusic.com/

Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/helmetrocks

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/HelmetMusic

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helmet_(band)

Twin Zero

A little while back, the very excellent earthtone9 announced that they reforming to play some shows and put out a record and stuff.

And there was much rejoicing.

Sadly, before they could reform it was necessary for them to split up. This made me very sad, and for a while the world was a bleak and uninviting place. The only slight glimmers of hope came in the form of the various other musical projects that kicked off featuring members of earthtone9; but by and large these could all be filed under the heading "Not earthtone9". It's not that they were particularly bad; it was just hard to listen to stuff that sounded a bit like earthtone9 and not want to be listening to earthtone9 instead.

Twin Zero were the one exception. Even though frontman Karl Middleton's distinctive vocal was an obvious reminder of the earthtone9 glory days, the twin drummer twiddly guitar sprawling space prog of Twin Zero was quite a different proposition.

Twin Zero are apparently still a going concern, although little has been heard of them since the release of the epic The Tomb To Every Hope almost six years ago; and if there's one downside to earthtone9 reforming, it's that it may take even longer for new Twin Zero material to appear.

Website: nope

Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/twinzero

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twin_Zero