Warriors…

It’s been quite the ramalama palaver of a week. One of those weeks that punk rock trained you for! I have spent the last ten days doing the Irish tour thing. It was good to meet some of you Warriors at the dates as I wound my way around the Emerald isle in the late summer/early autumn pouring sunshine and glorious rain.

Ireland is in a cultural high at the moment with all manner of great music coming out of the patchwork of towns and cities from Fontaines DC (whose debut single we nearly released on Louder Than War Records), Murder Capital (whose bassist was a special guest at my Letterkenny event), Cork’s Altered Hours who special guested the event in that city and a whole very varied family of bands like Mary Wallopers, Kneecap, Lankum and OXN and also Lifts who are really good but not I’ve not heard much about them since rave reviewing them about a year ago.

Hot footing it back off the plane after the tour, it was straight down to Manchester Academy to see a glorious, riotous righteous show from the newly reconstituted Sex Pistols fronted by Frank Carter.

Frank Carter and the Sex Pistols, or as they will hopefully be known, FC Sex Pistols, were a fantastic riot of sound and vision, and the gig was a sweatbox with hardly a naysayer. Of course, we wish Mr Rotten would still sing with his old chums, but this is very unlikely after recent court shenanigans. The band seems to have more fun in their present incarnation. Will there be more shows? Will there even be new material? We have a ponder in the live review.

The Cure have been trailing their upcoming album with a cunning promo campaign that saw a poster put up in the pub in Crawley where they played their first gigs and an image of the album cover beamed onto Blackpool tower (the town where Robert was born). These images ran amok over the internet before a short clip of the oncoming single ‘Alone’ found its way online…of course, it sounds glorious, and a return to the beautiful melancholy of Disintegration Cure…we await.

Spellbound.

Crows are a band not only with a great name but also a great sound and their post punk with a noisy edge and driving dynamic songs makes their new album an interesting proposition. Did they get the pitch right asks our reviewer…’Cleaner, catchier, heartier, but less memorable return from the post-punk Londoners.’ Says our reviewer.

We were sorry to hear of the passing of wonder drummer and producer Roli Mosimann who started his career with Swans then spread his concise and powerful drum sound and then punching industrial clank and grind production duties all over the console on some brilliant artists like Foetus, That Petrol Emotion, The Young Gods (a stunning sound collaboration that still cuts through to this day), The The, Celtic Frost, New Order, The Hair and Skin Trading Company, Faith No More, Skinny Puppy, Marilyn Manson, and more.

Indie-pop royalty Los Campesinos! bring their Mortal Joy tour to Manchester’s New Century Hall, their biggest headline show outside of London. Louder Than War’s Dave Beech was there to review.

Rats On Rats came out of Rotterdam a decade ago and sparked the current Dutch undergound scene that makes the country one of the music hotspots of Europe. Their wiry post punk allied with a melodic nous landed them somewhere between Wire and Teardrop Explodes but with their own twist. Established in the underground and wilful enough to cock a snoop at the mainstream, their new single could finally be their crossover release.

Dublin’s Meryl Streek is not only craftily named but also been dealing a great sound for the past couple of years that has seen his solo one man show acclaimed on LTW. He is back out there again with a new single which we celebrate here.

Watch This! Meryl Streek releases new single and video 'Dogs'! ‘Meryl Streek gives us another taster from his highly awaited second album Songs For The Deceased and he’s not going away quietly. As usual his videos are top of the bill and his incendiary delivery is as bile filled as ever, this time aiming his anger at us, the people, yet only the bad mannered ones! Read on… ‘

British Birds are a new and rising word of mouth wonky garage-psych band who have just released a wonderful EP called Sucking Funny that proves exactly why they are on the up and ones to watch.

Post punk still vaults into the far distance like the Voyager spacecraft ever exiting the Earth and on and on into deep space. Somehow and thrillingly there is still much to be said and done with the form though with Manchester’s The Cutter and Leeds band Polevaulter proving as they wreaked various forms of electronic and post-punk noise upon the appreciative audience of Manchester’s cosiest venue.