Friday 15 October 2021

BEST AND WORST NEW TRACKS OF THE WEEK 15/10/2021: Black Country New Road, Luna Honey, Alvinos Zavlis and more...

It's mostly rock this week with a dark electropop song thrown in there too. Artists featured include Black Country New Road, Luna Honey, Alvinos Zavlis, Doctor Payne and Krooked Tongue. 

THE BEST:

‘Chaos Space Marine’ - Black Country, New Road

Chaos space marine? Warhammer fans, I see. I collected Warhammer figurines for like a week when I was 10 years old. I’m sure you’d like to hear many more fascinating stories from my youth, but for now let’s talk about this new BCNR single. The zany 7-piece rock band only just dropped their debut album earlier this year and they’re already throwing new material at us. Isaac Wood’s vocals don’t sound quite as unhinged here and the instrumentation isn’t quite as dissonant, but they’re still sporting a pretty unusual sound here. The violins and pianos are a lot more prominent. The vocals even get a bit Bowie-esque.

‘Intervention’ – Luna Honey

Halloween is around the corner, so let’s bring on the creepy songs. This track is the work of experimental rock band Luna Honey. It comprises of wailing guitars, eerie strings, a moody driving bass riff, witchy vocals and effects-slathered drums.  The result is enjoyably nightmarish post-punk track. It comes off the band’s new album Ballast, which features an array of unconventional instruments including ‘pitch-shifted harmonica, Marxophone, prepared piano, scrapyard finds, and unloved vintage drum machines’.

‘Darkness’ – Alvinos Zavlis

‘Darkness’, as the title suggest, is another dark and creepy song. ‘I used to sleep on my own and not feel alone’ sings the UK-based Cyprus-born singer/producer over a soundscape of gloomy synths. Distorted muffled vocals add to the unsettling atmosphere and I love the clickety snare sound and weird loopy bass.

‘Guilt’ – Doctor Payne

This carnivalesque rock track is the work of alt rock outfit Doctor Payne (formed by Brighton singer/producer Marlon Payne). It features a unique mix of fuzzy distorted guitars and cascading theatrical pianos. Despite packing in lots of twists and turns, it still makes room for a killer catchy chorus.

‘Swarm’ – Krooked Tongue

Fuck you til your brain hurts, while they drink champagne’. Lovely imagery! This Bristol-based band certainly aren’t subtle. On top of delivering some amusingly vivid lyrics, they also lay down some deliciously thicc distorted guitars. Vocalist Oli Rainsford meanwhile has a fantastic voice. The brief falsettos during the hook really add to the infectiousness.

THE WORST:

‘Boyz’ – Jesy Nelson ft. Nicki Minaj

The ex-Little-Mix-member's latest single is surprisingly un-catchy, plus I feel like there are way too many pop songs about wanting to get with ‘bad boys’. Stop glorifying toxic men. I won’t even get into the blackfishing controversy. Just an all-round problematic song.