Johnny Punish – Ramshackled
It’s amazing to consider that there are pieces of, essentially, pop music that continue to provoke lifelong passions across the world. From Cobain to Prince, or, to Morrissey, there are people at this very moment leading their lives in accordance to those artists’ texts as if those were the gospel.
Scoff all you want, but it’s impressive that music made in a particular time and space could create such a connection and inspire lifelong devotion. The Morrissey phenomenon is, particularly, interesting. Say what you want about the man’s recent actions, but from the jangle-pop of the Smiths to the miserabilism of his solo work, few musical artists have created as fiercely a devoted global audience as this highly opinionated singer.
Johnny Punish, a veteran of the punk rock scene and a great fan of the Mancunian singer, as can be observed by this single’s artwork, quotes from the book of romantic poetry which Morrissey began writing a long time ago. Ramshackled fizzles with the kind of doomsday melancholy that feels particularly poignant for this moment. Frankly, it’s great to know that such therapeutic avenues of expression continue to exist and inspire others to do the same.
Black Pope – Demon Stomp
As rock n’ roll gets more sanitized than the hands of a brain surgeon, let us take a moment and recollect what we stand losing. Rock was initially a dance craze that attracted, especially, deviants, miscreants, and misfits. If you think that I’m lying to you, take a look at any biography written about any of the 1950s stars of the genre.
As time wore on, rock embraced and propelled the stranger variety of artistic trends. From Bowie dying his hair orange to black metal kids in Norway eating their neighbours (or something along those lines), we came to expect rock to shock us, or, at the very least, offer us the kind of cheap thrills we might receive from B-movie horror production. Alas, those days are gone as people become more easily offended and cast their attention towards safer alternatives.
Black Pope’s Demon Stomp is an unapologetic desert rock tune, from Ireland of all places, about what ol’ Mick Jagger might call “the special pleasure of doing something wrong“. It may be a tad nonsensical, but rock was never meant to solve complex problems. It’s cheeky, nasty, and highlights those electric guitar sounds like tobacco lobbyists pushing their agenda back in the 1950s. It’s all wrong, and we like it.
