Mustard Allegro

I was a bit stuck as to which was the greatest band in the world this week. My most recent CD binge yielded a near insurmountable heap of alt-rock from the 90's, suggesting more of a greatest genre in the world. Meanwhile, I finally picked up Diamond Eyes by Deftones; and rather predictably it's completely awesome, but I've already done them once this year...

But then I got suckered into going to a bar gig, where I saw these splendid chaps. As it turns out, it was guitarist Alex's birthday; which meant that all of the handful of people in attendance had to sign a card for him. It also meant that he had down a shot at the very start of their set, and then another after every three songs played. Unfortunately for him, Mustard Allegro songs tend to be frantic blasts of surf guitar seldom lasting more than a minute, and they played a lot of them. On the plus side, the music all has a somewhat room-spinning quality to it anyway, so nothing seemed out of place.

Merch was available from the Asda bag that the drummer kept with him.

My only complaint about the otherwise very excellent mini album Dwarf Shortage that I purchased is the title; if they had only called it Shortage of Dwarves, there might be a possibility of 'shortage' becoming the collective noun for dwarves.

Website: http://www.p4ft.co.uk/mustardallegro.htm

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

Wikipedia: nope

Pig Destroyer

Beauty is, musically speaking, in the ear of the beholder. Yet even I find it hard to find nice things to say about Pig Destroyer.

Brutal, fast, ugly. That's about it really.

But you cannot deny that they have a great name.

Also, nothing compares to the sighs of despair I hear when I tell my friends that I've bought a new Pig Destroyer record.

Website: http://www.relapse.com/artist/artist.aspx?ArtistID=10081

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

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

The Dillinger Escape Plan

Once you exclude all of the "Dillinger who?" and "What is that, some kind of plan?" people (which is admittedly the vast majority of people), you're left with two distinct emperor's new clothes-esque groups.

There are those for whom The Dillinger Escape Plan are inspired and genre-smashing virtuosos draped in robes of the finest silk.

And then there are those for whom they are a bunch of naked shouting jackasses that can't agree on what tune they should be playing; or even if they should be playing a tune at all.

This week I have been listening to their most recent effort Option Paralysis, and find myself firmly in the "hey, those guys are pretty snappy dressers" group. It's just fantastic; like being beaten around the skull by a screaming brick shithouse of a man with LOVE written on one set of knuckles and JAZZ on the other in a grimy trance club, only with weirder time signatures. But in a good way.

Website: nope

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

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

Aereogramme

Tricky to define, this lot. Defunct and Scottish are the easiest starting points, since Aereogramme are both of these things; but where to go from there?

They wrote gentle, twinkling little ditties about wishing extinction upon the entire human race. Their songs can be angry, mournful or upbeat; sometimes all three at once. Too raucous for the indie crowd, too gentle for the metalheads...

And yet despite the contrast, there is consistency; both in the sense that it all sounds unmistakably Aereogramme, and that it is all utterly wonderful. The angry bits will have you bellowing and smashing up furniture, the sad bits will have you curled up in weeping ball trying to gnaw through your own wrists.

They mellowed a bit as they got older, largely due to the fact that vocalist Craig B's throat was going to fall off if he carried on screaming.

Website: http://www.chemikal.co.uk/aereogramme.htm

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

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

Trash Talk

I don't normally go for punk that much, but these four jerks from Sacramento have completely taken a hold of me.

It's raw, urgent, violent and chaotic; and it's pretty much all I'm listening to at the moment.

This one's off their new record Eyes & Nines; it's called Explode. I think it's about stuff exploding.

Website: http://trashtalkhc.com/eyesandnines/

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

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

Tim Hecker

Kinda following on from last week, really. I don't really know much about Tim Hecker, and certainly don't listen to much of his music - although since it's all ambient shoegaze soundscape electronica (this is a good thing), chances are I will start fairly soon.

The reason he's here, and the reason this follows on from ISIS being the greatest band in the world ever, is that a few years ago ISIS released a 2cd "Remixes and Reinterpretations" record based on their timeless classic, Oceanic. All of the artists involved were handpicked by the band themselves, and as the title suggests they each remixed or reinterpreted a single track from the album.

There are two versions of Tim Hecker reinterpretations on there. I say reinterpretations, because as far as I can tell there is not a single element of the original song present.

I can only find one of these versions out there in the interwebs; but that's fine, because in truth they are both quite similar. It's the most lonely, desolate and peaceful piece of music I've ever heard. Puts me in mind of arctic seascapes, all cold and hard and white. So vast, so powerful it renders all existence and endeavour futile and meaningless.

Also, it's quite pretentious (in case you hadn't got that already).

Just for reference, here's the ISIS version.

Website: http://www.sunblind.net/

Myspace: (fan site) http://www.myspace.com/rainbowbloodx

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

ISIS

Sadly this is more of an obituary than a celebration, since ISIS recently declared that they would be calling it a day at the end of their current US tour. Their official statement read:

"ISIS has reached an end. It's hard to try to say it in any delicate way, and it is a truth that is best spoken plainly. This end isn't something that occurred over night and it hasn't been brought about by a single cataclysmic fracture in the band. Simply put, ISIS has done everything we wanted to do, said everything we wanted to say. In the interest of preserving the love we have of this band, for each other, for the music made and for all the people who have continually supported us, it is time to bring it to a close. We've seen too many bands push past the point of a dignified death and we all promised one another early on in the life of the band that we would do our best to ensure ISIS would never fall victim to that syndrome. We've had a much longer run than we ever expected we would and accomplished a great deal more than we ever imagined possible."

And you know what? That's cool. It is widely recognised that it is better to burn out than to fade away; and ISIS leave behind them an impressive musical legacy, having pretty much created an entire genre of music and then firmly established themselves as forerunners at the head of it. They have inspired and influenced countless other bands, they have never released a bad record, they have never compromised and they have never stood still. Bravo chaps.

Damn.

Website: http://www.isistheband.com

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

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