Dead Cherry – Libations
Genre: Post-Punk, Shoegaze, Alternative Rock
Similar artists: Fontaines DC, Warmduscher, The Fall
Punk-rockers are back in the mainstream consciousness, and they have a budget that they’re looking to spend. What will they spend it on? Mostly clothes, comfortable clothing, and drinks inside the bar that will provide the subject matter for their songs.
If this in any way seems to contradict the spirit of punk, you would need to address your complaints to all previous generations of punk. There’s no interest from mainstream media for bands that haven’t acquired the right clothes, the right slang, and the right opinions.
Fortunately, though punks are as angry as they’ve always been, and don’t let their fancy jargon tell you otherwise. Dead Cherry’s Libations is pub-poetry in the style of Mark E. Smith. It’s a long list of things that annoy the writer about the world at large. Yes, it’s angry, but not controversial. Punks are on the right side of history at the moment after all. Clever, confident, and distrustful, Dead Cherry knows where the big-time punks go to spend their money.
Hether – underground pleasure
Genre: Garage Rock
There are some bands excellent at cosplaying their own favourite artists. Their skill is in producing sounds that mimic a different group, from a different era to a tee. There’s nothing particularly wrong with this. However, there’s also nothing particularly exciting about what they’re doing.
Then there are some groups that take a method actor approach to their fascination. These groups don’t just sound like select albums from their record collections. They focus so much on those reference points that the immersion makes them sound as if they’re soundtracking movies from that era, or if some kind of time capsule has just spit them out.
Confident and understated, Hether’s underground pleasure is a shrine to the everything-goes attitude of the 1960s. This is confident, sinister music dressed down in tie-dye clothing. It’s the dream of all the cool, 60s-revivalists made real. Great production and an economy of playing make this a sparse, jewel of underground rock.
