ALBUM REVIEW: MILK TEETH - 'VILE CHILD'

You don't have to be all-knowing of the British underground scene to know that we are in the midst of a mass throwback to the tail end of the last century. Whether bands are taking a leaf from the book of early emo, or harassing their distortion pedals until you can't hear a single clean note, the landscape of new bands is awash with 90s alt-rock vibes, and while we have bands like Rain, Muskets, The New Tusk and Pet Grief to invest our faith in, it'll only be a matter of time until that energy becomes lethargic, and cookie-cutter bands start unjustifiably coming out of the woodwork.

That's why we have bands like Milk Teeth, and after two sensational EPs, Smiling Politely and Sad Sack, they have proved that, through transcending punk, grunge, shoegaze and pop, they are potentially numero uno on the list of most exciting British bands out there right now. Vile Child has been a long time coming, and although their debut album drops with a slight bittersweetness (following guitarist/co-vocalist Josh Bannister's exit from the band shortly before its release), it still makes for authentic, incredible listening...

Milk Teeth 2016, featuring covering guitarist Billy Hutton (centre right)

There's absolutely no denying that Vile Child is more of a nostalgic affair than watching back-to-back episodes of Kenan and Kel on the Trouble channel, chugging Panda Pops in your dungarees. It's 90s as fuck, and gloriously so, nodding retrospectively to the glory days of Sub Pop, but just because Milk Teeth are looking back here, it doesn't mean that they can't look forward in the future. 

Case in point: 'Driveway Birthday', the standout track on the record not only for its searing guitars on the chorus, not only for its very real lyricism tackling the very real issue of mental health ("Happiness lies in a dosage / How else do you fight when there's no cure?") but also for its shinier, shimmering production. There's something crisper and cleaner to it than you may initially associate with a band like this, but the clarity on the verses may just be the catalyst for even bigger things to happen for Milk Teeth.

Soon after 'Driveway Birthday''s fleeting moment of euphoria, 'Brain Food' thrashes around with a goofy garage-punk edge, but its lyrics take cues from early Best Coast and other bands of that ilk, detailing post-adolescent angst and ennui. 'Swear Jar (again)' is an even more outstanding example of Milk Teeth veering towards the lackadaisical vibes of reverberate noise-pop. No matter how many times that band record 'Swear Jar', its slack-jawed melody paired with Blomfield's alluring drawl will never fail in taking you to a whole new level of nirvana.

The sweet/sour contrast of Blomfield's and Bannister's voices are sadly less frequent than on Sad Sack and Smiling Politely (which makes tracks like 'Brickwork' and 'Leona' all the more worth savouring). Now unsurprisingly so, Blomfield is the leading lady vocally, proving her chops on the haunting solo foray that is ‘Kabuki’ (which my good friend George Garner at Kerrang! described brilliantly as Vile Child’s ‘Something In The Way’ moment), but credit where credit’s due to Bannister for bowing out with a string of furious performances. 

'Get A Clue' is a guttural punk rock riot which also sees the rhythm section of guitarist Christopher Webb and drummer Oli Holbrook at their most visceral and arse-kicking, while the aforementioned 'Leona' seethes with such bitter anguish, it's physically intimidating to listen to.

If 'Kabuki' is comparable to 'Something In The Way', then closing track 'Sunbaby' is Vile Child's 'Endless, Nameless': hopping between subdued, shoegazey tones and devastating breakdowns, it's a chilling but apt conclusion to this boundary-obliterating album.

The recording lineup for Vile Child, with now ex-guitarist/vocalist Josh Bannister (far right) - Photo by Martyna Wisniewska

Punk record? Grunge record? Pop record? Fuck knows. The only thing that's for certain is that Vile Child is a Milk Teeth record, and a superb one at that. The future of their sound is less-than-certain following Bannister's departure, but whether they're scrappy, snotty punk rock kids or wide-eyed starlets worshipping at the altar of 90s alt-rock, the almost effortless melding of genres remains as the framework of this band. 

Milk Teeth are not only a vital ingredient in keeping the nostalgic movement of late from becoming stale, but also a prime example of why it's a fucking amazing time to be alive in the UK punk scene right now.

TOP TRACKS: 'Swear Jar (again)'; 'Driveway Birthday'; 'Kabuki'; 'Brain Food'; 'Sunbaby'-- In fact, just listen to the whole thing.

RR RATING:

Vile Child is out now on Hopeless Records. Stream the album on Spotify below:

Danny



CATCHING UP WITH 2015'S LATE BLOOMERS: THE RETURN OF THE RR PLAYLIST

(Clockwise from top left) Turnover - 'Peripheral Vision'; No Devotion - 'Permanence'; Coheed & Cambria - 'The Color Before The Sun'; *sighs* Justin Bieber - 'Purpose'; Employed To Serve - 'Greyer Than You Remember'; Deafheaven - 'New Bermuda'

January. What a shit month. There's a five-week wait for payday because someone thought it'd be a good idea to pay you two days before Christmas after you'd finished your shopping, the only chocolates left in the Quality Street tin are the toffee pennies, and worst of all, there's barely any new music for you to spunk your HMV vouchers on. It's for that last reason (and maybe for the other two) that the first two to three weeks of 2016 are now always reserved for me to check back on some of the albums that I regretfully missed over the past 12 months.

2015 was a particularly rubbish year for me in terms of keeping up with new records, thanks to my dissertation, shift work in a hotel and plenty of life stuff keeping my mind occupied, and while finalising my top 10 records for the year was a toughie, I decided that Baroness, The Wonder Years, Neck Deep, Only Rivals, Milk Teeth, Frank Carter & The Rattlesnakes, Press to MECO, Creeper, Enter Shikari and, of course, Kendrick Lamar had made the best records of 2015. 

All of the above's records are still blowing my mind, and I heartily encourage you to check them all out, but in hindsight, there are a few bands who may have just made the final cut were it not for my prior ignorance, and it is those bands that we look at now as I re-introduce a favourite feature from the old blog: The RR Playlist...

First on the list is Turnstile, a band who I initially perceived as part of the next generation of pop-punk, after seeing their name on tour posters alongside New Found Glory and The Story So Far. That was before I pressed play on their debut album, Nonstop Feeling, and BAM! - 'Gravity' swaggers in, and instead I was met with stomping hardcore, old-school metal riffs and snotty nu-metal attitude. It's straight-laced, ballsy and simple, but with roots planted in a wide range of influences, from early Metallica to Pennywise to Rage Against The Machine.

If you think that's an audacious start to the playlist, then Employed To Serve are going to rip your ears clean off your face. From a burgeoning UK hardcore scene comes Greyer Than You Remember, one of the most unrelenting records of the last few years, but at the same time, it's well thought out and never overzealous. The title track is the sound of Employed To Serve at their most furious, led by guttural vocals and many, many beatdowns which are far less one-dimensional than the chug-chug-squeal-chug caricature of mainstream metalcore.

Although it didn't reach me until the very end of 2015, Turnover's Peripheral Vision quickly became one of my favourite albums of the previous year. On the surface, there's dreamy, slow-burning jams that you can get lost in for days on end, none more heart-warming than 'Humming' ("Show me why you're always smiling / Laugh again and make me fall in love"). Dig a little deeper into its emo sensitivities, and you'll hear the transformation of a band whose emotive yet insignificant post-hardcore efforts beforehand are gloriously a thing of the past.

One of the few other bands who had me at 'dreamy' with their hazy-days-at-the-beach sound are Best Coast, whom I fell in love with seconds into hearing their debut, Crazy For You, in a (**MASSIVE HIPSTER CLICHÉ ALERT**) Brighton record shop circa 2010 (don't say I didn't warn you). The next couple of releases didn't have me quite so weak at the knees, and I don't think I was alone in that, but California Nights is a gorgeous reunion with their surf-pop loveliness. 'Feeling Ok' may have more a polished sheen to it than the reverberate twangs and drawls that had me smitten in the first place, but its ambling chorus doesn't fill me with any less joy than on Crazy For You.

Not name-dropping here, but one of my favourite moments of 2015 was getting to interview Frank Iero for my university newspaper, The Galleon. One of the things that really stuck out from that interview was how he, formerly the guitarist of one of the most theatrically brilliant rock bands of our era, really connected with the "human element" in music, whether it's the sound of fingers sliding along a guitar neck between chords or a vocal note not being perfectly hit.

It's that same charming sentiment that sprung to mind when I first heard Tellison, a band who had crossed my ears but never my ears until I recently came across their latest record, Hope Fading Nightly. There aren't so many imperfections here, but even on a polished alt-rock record, Tellison appear to be fully aware of their limitations as humans, and tracks like 'Wrecker' resonate with a humane simplicity, but with plenty of punk rock bite all the same.

(L-R) Tellison - 'Hope Fading Nightly'; Best Coast - 'California Nights'; Desaparecidos - 'Payola'; Turnstile - 'Nonstop Feeling'

Desaparecidos are another band who I feel slightly ashamed to have not checked out until their long-awaited comeback with Payola, but unlike Tellison, their frantic alt-rock is driven by buzzing synth lines and futuristic sensibilities not too dissimilar from early Bloc Party. 'City On The Hill' is a superb example of the socially-minded, angsty garage rock that composes the majority of Payola; it just so happens to have one of the most irresistible sing-along choruses of the year just passed.

No Devotion's Permanence deserves not only to be cherished as one of the most tenacious comebacks in recorded history, but also to be admired in its own right. The influence from new wave's gloomier reaches (Depeche Mode, New Order, etc.) is outstanding, but it's the euphoric choruses that really leads Permanence to its heart-stopping peaks. Not merely brushing off their traumatic pasts so as much as they are embracing the promise of a brighter future, '10,000 Summers' is the sound of a band falling in love with playing music again.

While we're on the subject of euphoric choruses, let's talk about The Color Before The Sun, AKA the album which has sparked my love for Coheed & Cambria. Shaking off any signs of conceptual pretentiousness, it is arguably their most accessible work to date, and the sheer scale of tracks like 'Atlas' is simply stratospheric. Proving themselves as bona fide musicians has never been an issue for Coheed, but the soaring hooks, proggy intelligence and pop barminess of The Color Before The Sun might finally elevate them to the upper echelons of contemporary rock.

*Takes deep breath before discussing the next artist* I'm expecting a lot of flak for even mentioning the next artist on this blog, let alone including one of his tracks on the first RR Playlist since returning... Before I start, however, allow me to throw in my two cents about Justin Bieber: If there is one single person on this planet who best symbolises the neutered nature of contemporary pop music, and one person most likely me off on a Henry Rollins-esque rant ("WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED, YOU GUYS? WHERE'S THE BALLS? ARE THESE PEOPLE BORN WITHOUT TESTOSTERONE?"), it is Justin Bieber. As far as I'm concerned, that ignorant, drip-fed, pampered, insensitive, scummy little worm and everything that he stands for can get in the bin.

I feel like I managed to restrain myself from spiralling into a rage fairly well, considering the fact that the only thing about music and its surrounding culture that I probably hate more than Bieber is small-mindedness. With that in mind, I was recommended his latest record, Purpose, and found myself pleasantly surprised.

Especially on the first two tracks, 'Mark My Words' and 'I'll Show You', there is clearly plenty of influence from the neo-soul scene which I've been a sucker for over the last few years (see: The Weeknd's House Of Balloons, Frank Ocean's channel ORANGE and - dare I say it - The Reverend Justin Timberlake's The 20/20 Experience). In a fashion not dissimilar from Timbaland at his commercial peak, the utilisation of sounds is broad and often impressive.

Anyone who remains apprehensive, take note: Purpose is not a pop record. It would be a tad generous of me to say that I like it, and perhaps even a bit hypocritical, but it is far beyond the mollycoddled shite of 'Baby' and 'Boyfriend'. We shouldn't be so naïve to think that Bieber is anything more than an arrogant fuckboy, and with that in mind, the star performers in Purpose are the producers, of which there are obviously many (I counted 19, according to Wikipedia). Well done guys, you've actually made me appreciate a Justin Bieber record.

I feel like I spoke about that last one more than necessary, and obviously more than any of the other entries, so let's finish Volume I of The RR Playlist in a realm which could not be more different: black metal, or more specifically 'Blackgaze', a black metal/post-rock/shoegaze amalgam of a genre ushered in by the likes of Deafheaven. I'll admit, with the exception of Alcest's 2014 album Shelter and occasionally hearing Wolves In The Throne Room on Hassle Records' office stereo, my experience with black metal is severely limited. I can picture elitist black metal fans smirking at the aforementioned artists, but Deafheaven's latest album, New Bermuda, is so rich in melody and progression, full of soaring guitars and ambient passages that reach their peak on 'Baby Blue'. It's clearly far from Gorgoroth, but New Bermuda is the perfect gateway album for anyone wanting to broaden their horizons into black metal, having found a beautiful balance between crushing brutality and ethereal beauty.

In the hope that I've redeemed myself by putting Deafheaven at the end, that bring the 'first' edition of The RR Playlist to its epic conclusion. Because I'm extra lovely, I've set up a Spotify page for Randon's Reviews (don't get too excited, it looks pretty shite thanks to Spotify tying itself to Facebook's hip) so you can listen to Volume I of the all-new RR Playlist on there. Be sure to subscribe to the RR Spotify for future RR Playlists - believe me, there will be plenty of those to come...

See you next time, and please don't forget: I still fucking hate Justin Bieber.

Danny

RANDON'S BANDS FOR 2016

Yep, I know I'm jumping on the bandwagon a bit with the first proper post on this blog, but it's that wonderful time of the year where I get to talk about the bands that I think will be (for lack of a better phrase) BIG in 2016. Some you may have heard already making a racket on the underground circuits in the last couple of years, others are yet to emerge from house shows and bedroom demos, but all of them are set to prove their worth over the next 12 months in some brilliant way, shape or form...

FATHERSON

It still seems a crying shame to me that Fatherson's debut album, I Am An Island, didn't strike more of a chord in 2014, considering how near-perfect it is as a first album from a young group. Sharp and anthemic indie-rock choruses are one thing that make this Scottish trio ones to watch, but Ross Leighton's sonorous vocals, in terms of heart-melting clarity, are beyond anything I've heard from a frontman in the last few years.

MUNCIE GIRLS

I'm not really one who can craft a confident, informed opinion about current affairs, and with socially-minded music, it's always been more about less about the politics and more about the punk rock for me. Enter Muncie Girls, and suddenly the political sphere feels all the more accessible thanks to their insanely catchy power pop. Intelligent, infectious and important to the new generation of British punks.

MILK TEETH

As the grunge revival gravy train rolls into 2016, Milk Teeth will shine out from those simply attempting to recreate the fuzzed-out vibes of the early 90s, on account of them bringing more of an authentic edge to the equation. They are, as the guys on That's Not Metal say, "Sub Pop as fuck", but they've got more of an allure than just 'here's a Pixies riff played through a distortion pedal'. There's flair, there's fury and there's fuck-off-massive tunes that will make them unstoppable.

MUSKETS

I consider 2015 to be the year that I fell in love with punk rock, and with it came many discoveries, including my first house show. I wasn't sure what to expect when Muskets set up their gear in the kitchen of a Southampton student house, but what I did know was that their nods to college rock and slack-jawed hardcore have aligned to create masterful grungy-punk, best heard on the superb Spin EP (or through an amp on a kitchen worktop).

RAIN

Here's a band that instantly went on the list about 30 seconds into their track 'Slur' (thanks to my man Charlie Simmonds for posting out about this), and when it kicks in with those reverb-drenched guitars, you'll know why. Again, there's more 90s grunge vibes than you can shake a (pogo) stick at, but it's the vocal harmonies and sheer scale of melody that makes it vast and all the more interesting. Their debut EP, Symphony Pains, is out next month, and now a highly anticipated release for the year ahead.

TURNOVER

By sheer coincidence, Turnover are the only non-British band to make my list (which, if anything, is just testament to how great the collective British alternative 'scene' is right now), but I recently fell in love with the Virginians' second album, Peripheral Vision, and its shoegaze-y tenderness. Think The War On Drugs with more forlorn, emo feels in its gorgeous lyricism.

JERRY WILLIAMS

Seeing as I love to shake things up a bit, here's an artist that I worked with a few times when hosting a show on my university radio station. I have seen Jerry blossom from a young singer-songwriter writing twee, nice-as-pie acoustic nu-folk and belting out Johnny Cash covers, to crafting funky and witty indie-pop... And belting out R. Kelly covers.

SIGNALS.

You know that feeling when you check out the support act on a whim, and you end up going 'fuck, I wasn't expecting that'? Well, that feeling ten times over when I first heard Signals.. Intricate, well-crafted and sonically expansive, this is your new favourite band if you think that The 1975 have gone a bit wank with their new stuff. I certainly do anyway.

CHEAP MEAT

I have had the pleasure of working with the lads in Cheap Meat towards the end of 2015, as they announced their signing to Hassle Records. With interest aimed as ever towards the arrival of new Weezer material, and the rise and rise of college rock-influenced punk, I really feel like there's a special place in your heart for Cheap Meat; full of charm, good humour, and simple yet effective choruses.

PRESS TO MECO

I wrote a piece recently on Press to MECO comparing what they do musically to dunking your McDonald's chips into your chocolate milkshake: without repeating what I said so many times in 2015 amidst the release of their phenomenal debut album, Good Intent, their combo of huge techy riffs, batshit time signatures and poppy layered vocals really shouldn't work, but instead it has brought some of the most infectious listening of the last few years, and will continue to do so in 2016.

BLACK PEAKS

Progressive. Mesmerizing. Blisteringly fucking loud. These are all words that come to mind when attempting to describe just how phenomenal Black Peaks are, but none of them quite do them justice. The band (formerly known as Shrine) spent 2015 establishing their new identity, but 2016 will no doubt see them leaving a crater-sized mark on the mainstream, as their forthcoming debut record Statues is set to become a landmark British rock record.

CROOKS

It's taken them a bit of time over a few average EPs to iron out the creases in their emotional post-hardcore, but Crooks are on top fucking form as they enter the new year. Their debut album, Are We All The Same Distance Apart, had me picking up my jaw from the table when I first heard it (I was sat in a Starbucks as well so I must have looked like a right knob), and will no doubt be the album we look back at as the moment they honed their perpetual bursts of intense melody.

EMPLOYED TO SERVE

In a more visceral fashion than Marmozets (and Rolo Tomassi before them), Employed To Serve are going to tear the hardcore scene a new, gaping arsehole. Their debut album, Greyer Than You Remember, is unrelenting, unmerciful and un-fucking-fathomably heavy - its essentially the ideal soundtrack to slamming your wanker boss' face into a desk corner really. Fucking. Hard.

CREEPER

ANYONE who knows me knows that I wouldn't have been able to compile this list without Creeper, and I really have saved the best until last. They're quite possibly the best band in Britain right now (no joke), and if their new material is anything like last year's The Callous Heart EP, then 2016 will be their year. It's not just the killer punk songs that has me going 'FUCK, I LOVE THIS BAND SO MUCH', it's the sheer passion that they have poured into shaping their image without it being contrived, and the iconography that they have used to captivate their cult of a fanbase.

I don't think I've felt this way about a band since My Chemical Romance: listening to their gothic nuances and watching their life-affirming performances, I feel like Creeper are going to save people's lives.

So there you have it. If you think I've snubbed any bands from this list, hit me up on Twitter or on the Randon's Reviews Facebook page. Alternatively, if you think your band will pique my interest in the months ahead, you can send me your music at randonsreviews@gmail.com - I may even give you a good review.

Thank you as ever, and until next time, go away.

(But please do come back next time. I love you really)

Danny