
Stuart Pearce – Nuclear Football
Genre: Post-Punk, Indie Rock, Alternative Rock
Post-punk might just, once again, be the most exciting type of rock music being made at the moment. But don’t expect its biggest stars to get invited on late-night talk shows anytime soon unless they’re invited to join a panel debating what to do about the horrors of the London weather, the global housing crisis, or what to do about the increasing levels of pollution.
Post-punk people are a brainy bunch. They’re also damn cranky. But that’s part of the brand and of the appeal. If you see a famous post-punk musician enjoying a night out and smiling while using a glass of lager to slide down a vegan kebap, it will ruin any respect you have for them. They’re supposed to yell at you and make fun of the things enjoyed by the masses. Silly masses.
Back in England, nothing, except for blindness-inducing cider, is more popular than football. Silly masses. Stuart Peace, not the former football player, packs the anger and the humour in for the single “Nuclear Football.” It’s a zany, fast-paced single that should make you reconsider lending your support to any of the things that the general population enjoys. Silly people. Go read a book, grow a beard, and start a post-punk band. If Stuart Peace, the band not the football millionaire, are right, we’re all screwed anyway.
John in a Strange Land – Reckless
Similar artists: Pixies, Cursive, Foo Fighters, Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, DeVotchKa
Genre: Post-Punk, Grunge, 90s Rock
For some, the world is a dangerous and often ugly place. For a small minority, the real world isn’t quite as hideous as it should be. Guess who tends to write the better songs? Prophets who’ve shared visions of destruction and decay have always been known to be able to gather a crowd. The public is at the same time terrified, disgusted, and utterly fascinated by these characters.
But the music world, at least the quasi-respectable one, is missing such dark visionaries. There are, of course, those who pretend to be cursed with these kinds of images. They usually play in metal bands and can make a good living pretending. Then there are those whose visions are so powerful that they make their work almost untouchable for average music consumers.
John in a Strange Land’s “Reckless” is a terrifying yet bizarrely palatable song. It resembles some kind of Nordic dish where the ingredients were frozen and left in the ground for six months to ferment. The result is something that some will go gaga over, and most others will have their stomach turned by. This is a good way to get noticed, and John in a Strange Land’s knack of doing a Preacher Nick Cave kind of performance works well here.