Ken Wynne – Get In Her Ears

Connecticut art punks Perennial capture the spirit of post-hardcore with their ambitious sophomore LP In The Midnight Hour; an infectious, relentlessly noisy record, oozing ever-perennial punk energy and inspired by the eclectic sounds of their cultural New England surroundings. From watching post-hardcore arts-college/rec-centre gigs, like Q And Not U and The Blood Brothers, to indie record store discoveries like Nick Cave, Perennial absorbed and integrated an assortment of ideas, exploring and expanding their sound to deliver an unpredictable, complex punk album.

Following their debut EP Early Sounds for Night Owls (2015), their debut LP The Symmetry of Autumn Leaves (2017) and EP Food for Hornets (2019), multi-instrumentalists Chad Jewett, Chelsey Hahn and drummer Wil Mulhern – with encouragement from The World Is a Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid to Die’s Chris Teti – began deconstructing hardcore punk; maintaining their intensity, but emphasising a greater degree of creative expression. Opening with ‘The Skeleton Dance’, Perennial are loud enough to wake the dead, conjuring a whiplash-inducing combination of electronic instrumentation before diving headfirst into hardcore dance-punk anthem ‘In The Midnight Hour’, a worthy title track where the kinetic guitar riffs bite as hard as Hahn and Jewett’s haunting lyrics.

The angular art-punk attack continues with rambunctious groove on ‘Soliloquy For Neil Perry’, leading into the propulsive slam-punk-poetry of ‘Lauren Bacall In Blue’, an infectious, unapologetic track as alluring as its namesake. ‘Food For Hornets’ allows for further experimentation, with Hahn and Jewett trading screaming vocals over scuzzy post-hardcore guitar-hooks and aberrant effects. As Hahn chants “cut up the pattern, yeah,” the band do just that, descending into rumbling idiosyncratic melody.

Catch your breath during ‘Hey Eurydice’ because you won’t get another chance for the remainder of In The Midnight Hour. Conjuring the spirit of poet T. S. Eliot with abrasive, crushing rhythm and punishing percussion, ‘Tooth Plus Claw’ ends with a bang but not a whimper, whilst ‘Melody For A New Cornet’ follows with an equally aggressive performance from the atypical noise-rock trio, pounding basslines leading to the propulsive rhythm of ‘Hour Of The Wolf’. Narratively, ‘Perennial In A Haunted House’ is the ghostly quiet, long after the midnight hour has concluded, the haunted house of our own making. But musically, Perennial’s scrappy lead single couldn’t be louder! ‘I Am The Whooping Crane’ follows with an experimental blend of jazz-infused punk groove, poetic storytelling, and Motown flirtation (during its final seconds) before ‘Absolver’ closes the album with sonic ferocity.

12 songs, 22 minutes of erratic art punk for the nocturnal! Perennial’s unpredictable sophomore LP – “a punk album that doesn’t operate like a punk album” – rewards repeated spins, each track layered with enough weirdo punk energy and reckless abandon to keep the needle dropped.

Follow Perennial on bandcamp, Spotify, Twitter, Instagram & Facebook

Photo Credit: Omari Spears

Ken Wynne
@Ken_Wynne

Truly exemplifying the do-it-yourself band ethos, Bristol-based four-piece Shoun Shoun (‘shoon-shoon’) have released their debut LP of genre-defying noise, Monsters & Heroes – a fuzz-drenched, lo-fi excursion into don’t-give-a-fuck art-punk experiments.

Following the release of their 2019 EP A Hundred Trips – five tracks of dreamy garage rock – lead vocalist and guitarist Annette Berlin began working with an uncontrollable urge to connect with music. Finding intimacy with sound during a time when the UK was in lockdown, a result of the continuing global pandemic, Berlin fought isolation with creativity. The result is Monsters & Heroes, a record that rewards repeat spins on the turntable.

Opening with Giuseppe La Rezza’s crashing drum assault and Berlin’s distorted guitar grunge, ‘Did I Play Games’ disorients the listener with its loud-soft-loud dynamic, a juxtaposition of propulsive rhythm and delicate psychedelia recounting that one occasion a friend drunkenly slept on Berlin’s kitchen floor: “Just let me lie here with nothing to do / As long as I lie here everything will wait.” Next, the highly danceable punk groove of ‘Much Sweeter’ enters the chaotic spirit of Kim Gordon and Sonic Youth, before Shoun Shoun lowers the tempo for the monotone ‘Sway with Me’, Berlin’s evocative lyrics swaying in ethereal feedback – “Feel your way through time and space.”

Recorded in a garage and mixed in a loft, the frustration of lockdown is captured perfectly by Berlin on ‘Stuck’, a pandemic prompted coping mechanism. Her loneliness is confronted by infectious basslines courtesy of Berlin’s neighbour and literal garage rock guitar, whilst ‘Follow Me’ rumbles with a slow burn of unpredictable melody. Boris Ming’s abrasive violin strings stand out amongst a cacophony of idiosyncratic instrumentation, whilst Berlin delivers a vocal performance eerily similar to Björk, pre-The Sugarcubes.

Psych-monstrosity ‘Toxic’ allows for eccentric synth experimentation from Ming, who instinctively lets loose across a scuzzy bassline from Ole Rudd, before the mood shifts into the uplifting poppy alt-rocker, ‘My Daughter’. The lysergic wail of the violin pierces through the hauntingly atmospheric Nick Cave-like soundscape of ‘Refresh & Replay’ before Berlin shifts language for album closer, ‘Schwing Mit Mir’ (or Swing With Me), a droning melody building towards a crescendo of Deutschpunk.

Monsters & Heroes is a fractured collection of songs, reflecting a fractured period of time; two years of emptiness defied by experimental ingenuity. Ignoring genre conventions, Shoun Shoun have crafted complex noise that is uniquely their own, delivering an infectious lockdown long play without compromise.

Follow Shoun Shoun on bandcamp, Spotify, Twitter, Instagram & Facebook

Ken Wynne
@Ken_Wynne

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ALBUM: Perennial – ‘In The Midnight Hour’

ALBUM: Shoun Shoun – ‘Monsters & Heroes’