Sub Pop US Schallplatten & CDs

Review: Canadian noise-rock trio Metz deliver their fifth full-length LP for their home label Sub Pop. Expressing an exponential graph of maturity, that has grown over their decade or so of recording and releasing, Metz' sound on Up On Gravity Hill veers more towards an almost black-metallic atmosphere, to counterpoise their originally stark, rageful sound. Conceptually, the album's change in sound matches its thematic content, with the band having found more peace in contrast, and the life-promising realisation that one can only experience its most joyful moments on the sole condition that one has also suffered its worst vagaries - there is no paradise without the fall. On the likes of '99' and 'Entwined', we're met with a driving, repetitious howl set against a sludgy axe-y backdrop, as vocalist Alex Edkins performatively laments and celebrates the ways of the world at the same time.

Review: Seven long years on from the Lydia Lunch/Arthur Rizk produced, genre-mangling opus that was 2017's Why Love Now, Pennsylvania hardcore noise-rock auteurs Pissed Jeans make their filthy return on the fuzzy, feral and vehemently pissed off Half Divorced. Aged, seasoned, and peppered with hate, this 30 minute concoction of bruising riffs, anthemic hooks and positive nihilism hits like an old friend who still greets with a gut-punch, while frontman Matt Korvette succinctly presents the project's mission statement as "Half Divorced has an aggression within it, in terms of saying, 'I don't want this reality'. There's a power in being able to say, 'I realize you want me to pay attention to these things, but I'm telling you that they don't matter.' I'm already looking elsewhere." Well, in that case, the elusive elsewhere appears to be wherever we find our means of peace in an ever-unpeaceful world, and this grinding soundtrack to scoffing at the end times couldn't land a minute sooner.

Review: 'The Essential Radio Birdman' compiles the most integral, anthemic and hard hitting of the Sydney proto-punk n' roll heroes' definitive first three albums (long out of print and costly to accumulate), and delivers them on newly pressed wax.

Underrated and ahead of their time, the writing partnership of Michigan born guitarist Deniz Tek and vocalist Rob Younger, led to a spree of surf rock leaning cynical, witty barrages that not only still stand the test of time, but deserve a major reappraisal with regards to the extent of their influence.