EP: ARXX – ‘Daughters Of Daughters’

Keeping the spirit of ’90s Riot Grrrl alive and well in the 21st century, ARXX are an exciting, energetic, garage punk duo from Brighton. Although only playing together since March 2017, when singer/guitarist Hannah Pidduck joined forces with drummer Clara Townsend, they have a big sound that packs a definitive punch with heart and soul. Debut EP Daughters Of Daughters showcases an eclectic range of sounds with subject matter ranging from toxic relationships, to cats, feminism, and addiction.

Throughout the EP there is a raw, unapologetic honesty. Opening track ‘Moments At A Time’ kicks off to the pummelling sound of thrashing guitar and drums, channelling female aggression, just because it can and should – “I’ll break your bones before I break the rules, I don’t really need you, I just don’t want to be alone”, whilst ‘Intervention’ explores misogyny – “this world is still a man’s world, and it still ain’t enough for a woman or a girl.”

 

Moments where we hear the full range of emotion and power in Hannah’s vocals occur when the music slows down, as on ‘Stuck on You’ and ‘The Cat Song’ – two searing, heartbreakingly catchy love songs (the cat’s miaow!). Finally, closing tracks ‘Tired of you’ and ‘Masters of Device’ deal with toxic relationships, fusing together energy and anger in an emotional powerhouse that you can thrash out to whatever way you want, in the kitchen or out of it!

Thirty minutes of listening, and a lifetime to love this band.

Daughters Of Daughters, the debut EP from ARXX, is out now. Catch them live (they really are one of the most exciting bands to see!) at the following dates:

8th March – The Prince Albert, Brighton
15th March – The Victoria, London

Fi Ni Aicead
@gotnomoniker

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Track Of The Day: Skating Polly (feat. Exene Cervenka) – ‘Queen For A Day’

Following 2013’s  Lost Wonderfuls, 2016’s The Big Fit, and last year’s New Trick EP, sibling punk-rock trio Skating Polly are now ready to release a brand new album. Marking themselves out as favourites when we caught them a couple of years back, putting on an immense live set at The Lock Tavern, Kelli and Peyton have since recruited Curtis on drums, to create an even bigger, high-octane sound.

Taken from the upcoming album, and featuring guest vocals from Exene Cervenka (from seminal punk band X), ‘Queen For A Day’ builds as honey-sweet melodies develop into a gritty climax of whirring, raging hooks and raw emotion. As scathing vocals are interweaved with lush harmonies, the trio exude their trademark seething energy and understated subtle power. Once again marking themselves out as going against the grain, with ‘Queen For A Day’ Skating Polly deliver an empowering sentiment, uniting anyone who doesn’t want to coincide with the confines of society’s limitations.

Accompanying ‘Queen For A Day’ is a tongue-in-cheek new video, Kelli Mayo explains:

“The lyrics for this song came from a conversation we had backstage with Exene about the old game show ‘Queen For A Day’.. The premise of the show was that women with tragic stories (sick children, dead husbands, poverty, etc) would compete against each other for applause from the audience… Months after this conversation Exene sent me lyrics in a text and we wrote the song around them. She’s singing on the second and third choruses too. We wanted the video to emulate the old show but also look like it was directed by John Waters.”

The Make It All Show, the new album from Skating Polly,, is out 11th May via El Camino Media. And Skating Polly will be supporting The Go! Team on a number of US tour dates (what a line up!).

Mari Lane
@marimindles

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Track Of The Day: Mesadorm – ‘Yours And Not Yours’

An urgent exploration of insecurity and doubt, London-based collaborative project Mesadorm have shared their latest single ‘Yours and Not Yours’. Released via Babylegs Records earlier this month, the track is taken from the band’s upcoming album Heterogaster, which will be released in Spring 2018.

Formed in 2015 by a group of long term friends, Mesadorm are a combination of each band member’s musical and artistic influences. Every individual is a performer in their own right, having written and/or recorded with such artists as Goldfrapp, MIKA, Paloma Faith, Rae Morris, The Magnetic North, John Metcalfe, The Unthanks, Hannah Peel and Frank Turner.

‘Yours and Not Yours’ is an amalgamation of each band member’s talent, collectively exploring an intense sense of doubt, ricocheting between security and unease with the help of an abrasive synth line and urgent, rich vocals.

“’YANY’ is a purging song for me,” vocalist & songwriter Blythe Pepino explains about the track.”It has something of the moment when self-doubt and doubt in everything around us collides. A special kind of doubt I think us ‘beneficiaries’ of the Western Capitalist model are now experiencing. The kind where, perhaps at a certain destabilising point in your life, the kind faces of friends and family and lovers melt into the smiles of the adverts forced upon you for addictive crap you don’t need. It has something of the taste of looking for home when everything you’ve been grown to enjoy carries the smell of burnt flesh and deceit. After that you must learn to look for what joy really is to you because the potential to fill yourself up with the other stuff is very real and very easy and all the while someone else is dying for your comfort on the TV screen.”

Listen to ‘Yours And Not Yours’ below, and follow the band on Facebook for more updates.

Mesadorm are: Blythe Pepino (Vox/Keys), Aaron Zahl (Guitars/Production), Daisy Palmer (Drums/Bvs), David Johnston (Bass/Bvs), Jo Silverston (Cello/Bvs).

Photo Credit: Sarah Cresswell

Kate Crudgington
@KCBobCut

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ALBUM: Weekend Recovery – ‘Get What You Came For’

“Get what you came for. Why don’t you give it to me?”

What would you get if you mixed the vocals of an edge-of-the-seventies punk band, an early ’90s riot fest, and a turn-of-the-century nu-metal outfit (but better)…? The answer is Weekend Recovery’s new album, Get What You Came For.

Riotous is the word from the Kent-hailing pop/rock outfit that has the vibes and energy of an early Paramore. The album opens with ‘Turn it Up’ and the catchy kind of guitar riff everyone enjoys in the vein of Jack Off Jill with dudes, whose influence is rife to the point of referential lyrics (“Can we pretend we’re Jack Off Jill?”) and a chorus reminiscent of Juliette & the Licks’ ‘Comin’ Around’.

These riffs can be found throughout the album, sometimes changing gear in the middle of the song to the joy you’d imagine coming as a surprise if you were to see the band live. “Is that the end of the — ” track, and the band plays on.

The majority of the album switches pace between fast, powerful, anthemic tracks like ‘Why Don’t You Love Me?’ and ‘Why Don’t You Stay?’, and the softer ‘Anyway’ and ‘All My Own’, harking back to times that, for a lot of us, felt simpler politically and personally; it’s easier to picture the band on the stage of The Bronze in Buffy the Vampire Slayer than it is with a guest spot on Riverdale (do they even have bands?).

Get What You Came For is the sort of album I would have looped to the death ten years ago, when my body and mind were both rife with existential, teenage-to-twenty-something angst, not because the music mirrors that but instead because it heals it.

Good albums are journeys and lyrically Weekend Recovery’s Get What You Came For is exactly that; a weekend recovery and a breath of fresh air, and it’s another piece in the puzzle I’ve been trying to put together forever: Riot Grrrl needs a comeback.

Maybe that time is now.

Get What You Came For is out now. Catch Weekend Recovery live at the following dates (full dates here):

2nd March – Aatma, Manchester
8th March – Tap n Tumbler, Notts
10th March – Maguires Pizza Bar, Liverpool
17th March – Get the Fear, Birmingham
22nd March – The Fulford Arms, York
23rd March – The Junction, Plymouth
5th April – Sebright Arms, London
6th April – Poco Loco, Chatham
7th April – Green Door Store, Brighton
18th April – Wharf Chambers, Leeds
28th April – Rock Bar Metro, Bolton

Em Burfitt
@fenderqueer

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