ALBUM: Pale Honey – ‘Devotion’

If you blend the vocals of Wolf Alice’s Ellie Rowsell and the Cardigans’ Nina Persson with clear electronics and hazy guitar riffs – you’ll end up with the sound of Gothenburg duo Pale Honey. The band released their second album Devotion earlier this month and it’s a cool, understated new offering.

‘Replace Me’ is a strong album opener, displaying the pair’s inherent ability to craft assertive, memorable indie-electronic tunes. It blends seamlessly in to second track ‘Someone’s Devotion’, which is an up-beat, fuzzy guitar-led rejection of love. ‘Get These Things Out Of My Head’ follows and just like the track’s name, you’ll struggle to get the buzzing synths out of your brain.

‘The Heaviest Of Storms (Devotion Pt. 1)’ smoulders for just shy of six minutes, making it the strung out and sultry highlight of the record, whilst ‘Lesson Learned’ is another coolly uncompromising tune that threatens “I will break you honey” with casual venom. ‘Real Thing’ is charged with “electric” “obsessive” energy, and ‘777 (Devotion, Pt.2)’ bookends the previous three tracks with quiet guitars and sweetly jaded vocals.

Penultimate track ‘Golden’is another charged tune that quietly, but defiantly champions independence, whilst ‘Why Do I Always Feel This Way’ closes the record on a note of uncertainty. There’s one thing we know for sure though, Pale Honey pack a powerful punch with their assertive indie-electronic offerings, and you should head down to their show at Old Blue Last on November 7th to hear their tunes in the flesh (RSVP here).

Follow Pale Honey on Facebook for more updates.

Kate Crudgington
@KCBobCut

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Track Of The Day: Onsind – ‘Immature’

“Do I sound like a teenager, When I say that you’ve infantalised our rage, When I say I want to put myself in danger, Do I sound immature?”

The first single to be taken from new album We Wilt, We Bloom, released next month on Specialist Subject records, Onsind’s ‘Immature’ is the perfect intersection of upbeat indiepop melody and down-but-not-out societal dissatisfaction.

Tackling the dissonance between the baby boomers who grew up cushioned by the welfare state and healthy economies, and the younger generations accused of “wanting it all on a plate” the track wraps scathing ironies in pop-punk jaunt. Amid jangling yet scratchy guitar the lyric brings forth the ennui of the disaffected, the numbing sense of futility punctured only by blooms of anger.

Not unsurprisingly given the shared members between the bands, the track shares melodic similarities with Martha, but where lyrically the latter tends to hang hope on the breadth of love, Onsind is a more overtly political beast. And it is so without the polarising spit and snarl of typical punk but with a more considered navigation of the often murky waters of society and class. When in ‘Immature’ they pit the haves of the older generation against the have nots of the younger, it is not with a binary outcome but rather a subtle entanglement that we are all at once both the winner and the loser in life.

Perfect pop in the sense you can sing along to the chorus saved from the everyday in the purity of voices raised together in song, or can find comfort in words which in a generously intellectual way resonate where little else seems to be able to make you feel. As a lead track it bodes well for a long-awaited album and is another moment of growth in this band which has been sharing our anger and our joys for a decade now.

 

‘Immature’ is out now. All donations made on this pay what you like track will be donated to Salvage Collective , an organisation supporting women (cis, trans & intersex), trans & non-binary survivors & activists who experience gender oppression, violence and abuse in UK activist communities. Find it on Onsind’s Bandcamp. 

Sarah Lay 
@sarahlay

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Track Of The Day: Nasty Little Lonely – ‘Ugly Vitamin’

Bristol Noise Rockers Nasty Little Lonely have released their belting new single ‘Ugly Vitamin’ via Liverpool based label Loner Noise, and it’s an incredible aural assault that seethes with menacing guitar riffs and filthy bass lines.

The band blend elements of industrial music and noise rock to create their dark and heavy sounds, and have supported the likes of The Wytches, Part Chimp, God Damn, Bo Ningen and Lydia Lunch. Recorded and Mixed by Wayne Adams of Death Pedals and Big Lad (formerly Shitwife), ‘Ugly Vitamin’ “bristles with muscular energy and a looming tension”.

Together, guitarist Ben Fisher, bassist Charlie B, and drummer Martin G perform with an intensity that has to be witnessed live in the flesh to be fully appreciated. Check out the new track below and follow the band on Facebook for future gig updates.

Kate Crudgington
@KCBobCut

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WATCH: Shamir – ‘Straight Boy’

I first fell in love with Shamir upon hearing the frenzied joy of 2014’s ‘On The Regular’, and my love continued to grow when I saw him live at Visions Festival the next year, and he gave me the sweetest of hugs when I told him I was a fan. And my love got even bigger when I watched the video for his new single ‘Straight Boy’.

A massive step away from the uptempo playful pop of his debut, ‘Straight Boy’ lays bare a heart-rending raw emotion, as the moving beauty of Shamir’s vocals and the delicate simplicity of the melody oozes an endearing vulnerability.

Asking what it is about straight boys that makes them act the way they do, Shamir explains of the single:

“(it’s) about how frustrating it was for me to have my whole identity picked apart at a young age just to see straight white men use it as an aesthetic choice. The video quite unequivocally depicts the process of white washing and the repudiation of the queer and people of color who pioneered.”

Watch the new video for ‘Straight Boy’ – a visual representation of the song’s meaning, as Shamir stands in front of a white backdrop, his image gradually being replaced by a white guy:

Shamir’s upcoming new album Revelations is out 3rd November via Father/Daughter Records.

Mari Lane
@marimindles

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