ALBUM: Weekend Recovery – ‘False Company’

Fuelled by the fuzzy indie rock riffage of Jack White, and the anthemic pop melodies of Paramore, Weekend Recovery has evolved from a Kent-based punk-pop four-piece into a garage-rock trio from up t’North in Leeds; transcending genres through experimentation and their undeniable punk rock attitude. Releasing two EPs – 2016’s Rumours and 2018’s In The Mourning respectively – and their impressive debut LP, 2018’s Get What You Came For, Weekend Recovery return with their self-reflective sophomore album, False Company; ten tracks of infectious do-it-yourself rock and roll.

Opening with the crushing ‘Radiator’, lead singer and guitarist Lori Forster lays the groundwork for the rest of the album with the perfect unification of grunge-inspired guitar riffs and raw emotion (“Got to stay alive / We’ve got to eat you alive”), before tearing apart toxic friendships in ‘Night Creature’ (“Keep it together / Even though you know the truth”), and preconceived ideas of who the fuck Lori is in ‘I Can’t Let Go’.

Bassist Josh Fawn and drummer Marcus Webster instinctively let loose on self-reflective tracks ‘It Doesn’t Seem Right’ and ‘Going Nowhere’, with scuzzy pulsating basslines and thrashing drum beats bounded by Lori’s hook-laden guitar melodies. Lowering the tempo for their latest single – indie fuzz ballad ‘Surprise’ – Lori displays her pop sensibilities with impassioned multi-layered vocals. A deeply personal track conveyed through soft/loud/soft distortion: “If I knew what I knew now / Maybe it would have been different somehow”.

Everyone has suffered from insecurity at some point. Weekend Recovery drowns out this negative noise with the energetic, uplifting ‘There’s A Sense’; picking up the pace through a fusion of propulsive bass, rhythmic guitar, and ‘sing-song’ vocals that will thrive in front of a live audience. “You got to admit there’s a sense of insecurity / Get away, get away, get away, get away!”

Alternating between power pop melodies and raw, energetic rock and roll, the final three tracks – ‘Yeah?!’, ‘You Know Why’ and ‘Zealot’ – conclude False Company; an uncompromising, confident LP worthy of repeat listening, that oozes the DIY work ethic of garage rock/punk. And whilst it can be easy to draw comparisons to their predecessors – Lori, Josh and Marcus wear their influences on their sleeves – Weekend Recovery has crafted a darker, heavier sound that is uniquely their own.

False Company is out now via Criminal Records, and was produced by Ed Heaton and mastered by Joe Fisher of Rainy Daze Recording. Buy here.

Ken Wynne
@Ken_Wynne

Get In Her EarsLeave a comment

ALBUM: Anna B Savage – ‘A Common Turn’

An exquisite unravelling of the self, layered with melancholy, joy and wit; Anna B Savage‘s debut album A Common Turn is a compelling collection of deftly crafted songs that enrapture the ears. The London-born, Dublin-based songwriter has channelled her feelings of grief and insecurity into a confident and cohesive record, cauterizing the emotional wounds of her past and taking charge of her future.

Released via City Slang and produced by William Doyle, Savage’s debut LP is a raw yet polished affair that brims with her eccentric observations about love, growth, working “really fucking hard” and her admiration of birds. Having had a fascination with them since childhood, Savage uses them as a visual motif throughout the record, their recurrence acting as warnings, epiphanies or reassurances that eloquently shift Savage’s narrative perspective.

The skittish, evocative opener ‘A Steady Warmth’ bleeds into the congenial acoustic guitar strums on ‘Corncrakes’, her confessional lyrics bringing her vivid inner monologue to life. Savage admits she doesn’t “feel things as keenly” anymore and struggles to break relatable bad habits: “I want to text you / but it’d mean I’d thought about you.” Her willingness to explore this rocky emotional territory is epitomised on ‘Dead Pursuit’.

An affecting, defiant ballad that sees her tear herself “limb from limb”, Savage penned this track whilst grappling with imposter syndrome after the success of her 2015 debut EP, which caught the attention of Father John Misty and Jenny Hval, who she went on to tour with. It’s humbling to hear Savage lay her insecurities bare and comforting to see her desires for quick fixes – “I’m dying my hair and cutting out sugar” – didn’t stop her from fleshing out the sounds on her beguiling debut record.

The urgent line “I want us to thrive” is delivered with deft conviction on ‘BedStuy’, whilst the serendipitous creation of ‘Baby Grand’ and its forthcoming accompanying short film – which Anna worked on with ex-partner Jem Talbot – is “an exploration of the how and why some people just crawl into your heart and make a home there.” She displays the sheer power of her vocal range on ‘Two’. Raw guitar twangs and unexpected jagged electronics punctuate the track, as Savage sits in pensive reflection in her childhood bedroom, fearing she will “never amount to anything.” She lets the walls echo her doubts back at her, pushing her emotional resilience to the limit.

The album’s title track ‘A Common Tern’ is a brooding exploration of Savage’s need to be free from the shackles of a pernicious romantic relationship. The track shares its name with a seabird, the sight of which prompted Savage to re-think her relationship while on a fishing trip with her ex. These startling moments of realisation are tentatively placed throughout the record, with following track ‘Chelsea Hotel #3’ showing listeners just how empowering a break from your past can be. It’s an intense, exquisite celebration of female pleasure and how Savage has learned to dismiss the damaging tropes associated with it. Fans of Leonard Cohen will be familiar with the opening lyric – “He was giving me head on my unmade bed” – as it’s paraphrased from Cohen’s track ‘Chelsea Hotel #2’. Savage subverts Cohen’s storytelling, re-writing the narrative to rid herself of shame and confusion. When she sings “I will learn to take care of myself” it’s with genuine, unfaltering conviction.

Savage’s lyrics continue to ripple with an earnest beauty on ‘Hotel’. The image of the red foam left in her bloodied mouth after vigorously brushing her teeth is strikingly poetic. “I turn the big lights off / I put my headphones in” she sings, indirectly instructing listeners the best way in which to let her sounds sink into their consciousness. The stripped back, bare nature of closing track ‘One’ is a potent wish to be “strong and fine.” “Jesus I’m too insecure for this / for him to undress me then take the piss” Savage exhales, grappling with emotional sore spots and physical unease with ones self. She handles shame and melancholy with impressive tact and sensitivity, healing open wounds by confronting her vulnerabilities head on.

“For me, ‘a common turn’ is those moments of decision where you think ‘I’m not taking this anymore,” Savage explains about the title of her record. “Whether it’s the way someone else is treating you, or the what you’re treating yourself.” Her poetic refusal to be erased by the pain of her own experiences is what makes listening to A Common Turn so compelling. Savage’s patient, captivating sounds traverse intensely personal terrain, and what a privilege it is to be allowed into this vast, wildly honest territory of hers.

Listen to A Common Turn on bandcamp or Spotify

Follow Anna B Savage on Twitter, Instagram & Facebook for more updates

Kate Crudgington
@KCBobCut

Kate Crudgington1 Comment

ALBUM: Tamar Aphek – ‘All Bets Are Off’

Israeli artist Tamar Aphek arrives on the legendary Kill Rock Stars with an indie rock pedigree to rival some of the label’s most celebrated acts. After close to a decade playing wild guitar licks and fronting some of Tel Aviv’s most prominent rock bands, Aphek got a taste for the solo life and promptly moved to Paris to focus on her song-craft.

Stepping into her new role in style, she teamed up with fellow Israeli Yonatan Gat (ex-Monotonix) to record her first Tamar Aphek EP, Collision, released in the summer of 2014. She turned down the guitars, dipped back into the classical piano training of her youth, and started to explore the full range of her voice. Until that point she had considered herself to be more of a guitarist than a singer, though it’s hard to reconcile that fact with the confidently deadpan and sophisticated voice we encounter on All Bets Are Off. People will inevitably make comparisons with Nico but Aphek’s vocal style is less scorched and droning, though still dry enough to cut through even the knottiest of her tightly wound, jazz inflected songs.

Much of the recording for All Bets Are Off was completed some years ago with her original touring band, but Aphek has been in no hurry to release it. Instead, she has taken an intuitive yet purposeful approach to producing the album herself, re-sculpting and layering the instrumentation where necessary to best suit her stories of jealousy, injustice, anger and revenge. Take a moment to compare the Bandcamp demo of ‘Russian Winter’ (aka ‘The Second I Am Gone’, from 2013) with its stonking final form on the record to see how Aphek’s vision has paid off. Powering in on scuzzy guitars and precision drums and exiting with an out-of-nowhere farfisa final eighth, ‘Russian Winter’ sets the tone for an album that’s packed with sudden diversions and unruly intermissions.

Aphek is at her most aggressive on ‘Crossbow’, last year’s pummeling first single, boosting her villainous tale with motorik propulsion and a flashy guitar line that brings it all together. Her production skills come to the fore again on the strung-out funhouse-mirror funk of ‘Too Much Information’, turning a potential clown car of a song into a woozy mid-album set-piece of beautifully controlled chaos. Elsewhere, ‘Show Me Your Pretty Side’ is a discomfiting, sax-strewn, stalkerish track that goes heavier on the twang, recalling a more cynical Holly Golightly or early Eleni Mandell.

Aphek never wavers in her commitment to the rollercoaster approach she has adopted, though her tricks can start to wear a little thin on longer songs like ‘Beautiful Confusion’ and ‘Nothing Can Surprise Me’. For the most part, though, All Bets Are Off is a thrillingly cohesive ride that’s not afraid of ambiguities or of going to extremes. There’s a lifetime of musical experience at work here, more fully revealed with each repeated listen, confirming Tamar Aphek as one to keep a close ear on.

Listen to Tamar Aphek’s new album All Bets Are Off on bandcamp or Spotify

Follow Tamar Aphek on Twitter, Instagram & Facebook for more updates.

Alan Pedder
@_neverdoneing

Get In Her EarsLeave a comment

ALBUM: Goat Girl – ‘On All Fours’

With a renewed approach to structuring their songs and a fresh desire to improvise and enjoy the music they’re making, Goat Girl have channelled their joys and frustrations via electronics and FX pedals on their second album On All Fours. Released via Rough Trade Records, this new offering retains the band’s trademark cynical charm, whilst offering listeners a route to escapism through jazz-infused beats and soft vocal melodies.

Guitarist & vocalist Lottie Pendlebury’s calm delivery of mantra-like lyric “I have no shame when I say / step the fuck away” on opener ‘Pest’ epitomises the defiant, dancing tone of On All Fours. Inspired by the colonialist undertones of 2018’s tabloid newspapers who dubbed a storm that hit the UK as the “beast from the east,” the track laments western society’s dangerous habit of “othering” any issues it falsely believes it’s not responsible for – making it the “pest from the west” that Pendlebury sings of.

As with their 2018 self-titled debut album, Goat Girl’s left-wing sensibilities are at the forefront of their song-writing, but they’ve made space for carefree tunes on their new record too. The playfully named ‘Badibaba’ bubbles with jazzy electronics and eccentric time signatures, while ‘Jazz (In The Supermarket)’ showcases how the band’s jamming sessions have blossomed into organised, erratic sounds. The infectiously upbeat ‘Once Again’ and the swaggering rhythms on ‘Sad Cowboy’ and ‘The Crack’ punctuate the album with a light-hearted, but tenacious attitude.

While ‘P.T.S.Tea’ is a fun play on words, it’s underscored by drummer Rosy Jones’ distressing memory of being on tour in 2019. Jones was badly scalded after a random man on a ferry spilled tea on their arm, leaving Jones unable to complete the rest of the band’s dates. The man never apologised, so ‘P.T.S.Tea’ is an aural scald on male accountability and privilege, as well as an exploration of Jones’ own gender identity, reflected in the lyric “to say what I am / well I don’t have a clue.” Jones’ gaze was also fixed on the reversal of gender normative roles when they penned closing track ‘A-Men’ too.

The swirling sounds on ‘Closing In’ are a vibrant personification of Pendlebury’s own struggles with depression, while following track ‘Anxiety Feels’ gives a gentle insight into bassist Ellie Davies’ crippling panic attacks. Her lyrical musings on medication and dealing with negative thought patterns are delivered with tender sincerity. Both songs explore gruelling subjects with genuine charm and care.

The parasitic ‘They Bite On You’ bleeds into the explosively named ‘Bang’, on which Pendlebury extrapolates on the nature of her ego. The woozy sounds of ‘Where Do We Go From Here?’ were born from a weekend retreat where the band spent their time writing, drinking and mocking the intensity of such an ambiguous question. Sweet self-deprecating moments like this galvanized the sound of On All Fours. Goat Girl’s ability to make their second album feel like a light listen despite the contexts of their songs being rooted in difficulty, is a refreshing and admirable quality for band releasing new music in an already tumultuous new year.

Listen to Goat Girls’ new album On All Fours here.

Follow Goat Girl on bandcamp, Spotify, Facebook & Instagram

If you like the sound of Goat Girl’s new album, you can read more about what inspired them to make it in my interview with them for The Line Of Best Fit.

Photo Credit: Holly Whitaker

Kate Crudgington
@KCBobCut

Kate CrudgingtonLeave a comment