LTW newsletter 64

Welcome warriors!

Wow its cold.

Proper cold…

Deep freeze. Deep Freeze Mice. The Freeze. Evil Blizzard. The Chills. Arctic Monkeys, Celtic Frost and a million other icey band monickers Fookin’ cold! A tingling rush iof names just to remind you of the tundra like conditions in the great outdoors.

Whilst most sensible mammals have retreated to their lairs for the winter hibernations, we are somehow still running around like well wrapped up mammalian maniacs chasing and documenting the high decibel and musical highs and lows and amongst the many things we have found for you this week here are a hot and toasty collection of slightly burned chestnuts in a too quick ripped paper bag.

Being that time of year again we look back at the adventures of the fast slipping away previous months and have culled together the Louder Than War albums of the year. As ever, its a hotly contested list and there has been much wrestling in the office over the final result but democracy has won out, and the full list is meticulously constructed here and presented here…

Also very much part and parcel of this time of the year is the calendar and Louder Than War have got one photo each from our photo team to create our own 2024 Louder Than War calendar of startling and stunning live shots. We are rightfully very proud of our tog team and their standard of work has remained high all year with so many brilliant photographers.  Featuring 13 stunning images (Yes, there is an extra one on the full year page!) The calendar is A3 size – each print is A4 with the month below. Make notes, book tour dates, never forget a gig – old school analogue style!

It’s been a sad week yet again with losing two more of the key figures from the post punk and beyond period. The loss of Shane MacGowan saw him elevated to a uniquely national treasure with it being a big story everywhere. Lots of stuff about his anarchic life that often overlooked his brilliant talent and his stunning poetic romanticism and sensitive poetic beauty. The folk singer Shirley Collins once told me her music came from the soul of England - the same can be said of Shane, except his came from the soil and soul of Ireland.

We were also shocked to lose one of the great guitar architects - Kevin ‘Geordie’ Walker from Killing Joke. His guitar sound was utterly unique and its textures and riffs were part and parcel of our lives for decades. What a unique band! What a unique guitar player!

They were like no other and Geordie was a key part to this originality.

There has been a surge of books about the post punk period and many of them celebrating the great scene in Liverpool. Will Sergeant’s two books have been brilliant and his former school pal and fellow traveller in the musical scene in Liverpool at the time with his band Wild Swans, Paul Simpson has stepped up with a brilliant book detailing the scene and its cast of characters that fills in many gaps - it’s great read and gives you a complete sense of scene and place.

Another book sees a detailed account of The Stranglers in an extensive overview of the Stranglers golden years and their discography from 1977 to 1990, till their collective mirror cracked.

The best new band in the country at the moment are Heartworms, who are built around the singular talent of Jojo Orme who creates this spell-binding Goth post-punk that is the right balance of melancholic shapeshifting and drum machine-driven dance floor adventures - they are very very good.

The resurrected Prodigy have been back out playing their biggest shows since the tragic loss of their iconic ace face Keith Flint. The band, of course, sound as great as ever, mixing those unlikely worldwide huge punk electronica anthems with new flavours.

It's been a long time but it’s great to hear Julianne Regan and Tim Bricheno from All About Eve back with a new project. Their two crystalline and perfect covers of two trad winter songs is a mesmerising and atmospheric work and hopefully a harbinger for more musical action.

The Jesus And Mary Chain have re-emerged with a stunning new single, ‘Jamcod’ and news of an upcoming album and a tour.

When they first appeared, I doubt anyone thought there would be any longevity in the band; they were very much built to explode into smithereens and capture an anarchic moment in the post-punk meltdown, but they have made for a great long-term band who seem to improve like a fine wine as the years inevitably roll by.

Queens Of The Stone Age have just done a majestic short run of arena dates to remind us that rock music in the right hands is still a potent and powerful force with a ‘joie de vivre that finds Queens of the Stone Age and Josh Homme himself full with a love of life and playing some of the best rock music out there…’

Hot Milk with support from Witch Fever both played a big homecoming show in Manchester… Our reviewer typed furiously ’It’s incredible really that you can hear Sonic Youth and Yungblud simultaneously, echoes of the new and the never ageing. Encoring with Glass Spiders, by the time the band leaves, the whole room looks like its experienced an extinction level event with them as the only survivors, dancing until the last dawn.’