With Will Haven vocalist Grady Avenell shooting over the pond to electrify the UK as part of The Grey last summer, and somehow finding time and emotional resources to moonlight with the likes of Hundred Year Old Man and Frontierer, the hardcore following Will Haven have established have been left wondering where the band stands today. Against that backdrop, Foreign Film’s emergence over the past few years feels at once entirely understandable and just a little bit ominous. On the brooding, explorative A Love Letter, we’re in the company of no fewer than four members of Will Haven and much of the requisite musical DNA, but before you put one foot out in front of you, bend at the waist, and prepare to separate your spinal column, be aware that this is a very different beast.
While Foreign Film share personnel with Will Haven, the musical language of A Love Letter occupies almost entirely different territory. Where Irwin so reliably steps to the plate with weight and abrasion in his playing, setting the table for Avenell to wreck house, Foreign Film trade in atmosphere, texture, and patient emotional release. Given their personal relationship and the influences they share, there’s something beautiful about the unashamed Deftones inflections in some of the guitar work and the atmospherics across the record. There’s also a rich vein of 80s influence that dovetails nicely with the contemporary stylings in sound and production. Layers of guitar, piano, keyboards, and carefully arranged instrumentation create something cinematic and immersive, often feeling closer to a dream sequence than a traditional rock record. It’s easy to imagine Angelo Bandalementi somewhere in the ether looking down and smiling.
Anyone who’s anyone in the UK’s thriving alternative underground is sure to be aware of Death Cult Electric and their wild, fuzzed-out live shows with appearances alongside acts like Pulled Apart By Horses, Coilguns, Mclusky and Haggard Cat. Now, on their debut double LP Cult Classic (Vol I) & (Vol II), the Welsh quartet transfer their wild stage show to an equally energetic hour of recorded material.
Drawing inspiration from British icons as far apart as Future Of The Left and Dr Who’s Daleks, Death Cult Electric blast through their fifteen tracks of ferocious, noisy alt-rock with the speed and weight of a Lancaster Bomber. The album’s first track ‘Deleter’ is a fantastic introduction to the South Wales foursome, throwing together buzzing guitar riffs with frantic, robotic vocals into a sweaty, lively fuzz-punk cacophony. Frontman Steffan Pringle (who eagle-eyed fans may recognise from his extensive production CV or his work with iconic Cardiff rockers Estrons) is a born frontman, confidently delivering witty lyrics and cutting, distorted guitar riffs.
As the album unfolds Death Cult Electric refuse to let the audience take a breath or stop to contemplate the assault of noise, instead throwing hit after fuzzy hit in their direction. The tracks ‘Wishy Washy’, ‘Moolah’, ‘We Are Not Bees’ and ‘Snakes And Their Children’ fly past with such glorious speed and power that the listener barely has a moment to consider the finer points of the distorted chaos. While Death Cult Electric have clearly put a lot of through into the production and humorous lyrics of their debut album the intricacies aren’t what make Cult Classic worth listening to, the broad strokes and unstoppable energy make this record a powerful sledgehammer rather than a delicate scalpel.
With multiple appearances at Arctangent and a co-headline tour with Peach already behind them, Sans Froid have cemented themselves as one of the UK’s most exciting experimental acts. On their debut album Hello, Boil Brain the Bristol quartet dove deep into clashing, discordant keys and guitars while their follow-up Back Into The Womb flirts with more accessible, groovy sounds without losing any of their experimental grit.
While previously Sans Froid leaned heavily into disorienting noise, their sophomore album starts off sounding surprisingly straightforward. Opening track ‘Go On’ forms around a grooving, overdriven guitar line with frontwoman Aisling Trafford’s vocals being allowed to lead the band on their own without competing with the band’s usual layers of clashing guitars and keys, once the track does explode into a maximalist, jarring art-rock cacophony the impact is far more pronounced in contrast to its subtle beginnings. Although Sans Froid’s debut presented a gloriously eclectic mix of sounds, their follow-up Back Into The Womb elegantly mixes these dissonant noises into a more focused, direct rock structure.
Arriving four years after its predecessor, Solstice reflects the confidence and ambition of an artist who continues to push herself creatively, pairing deeply personal songwriting with arrangements that run the gamut from understated and intimate to powerful and vast. Since first attracting attention with her debut EP back in 2019, Williams has toured extensively across the UK, Europe and beyond, sharing stages and artistic inspiration with the likes of Cult of Luna, Explosions in the Sky, and Russian Circles. Her two acclaimed albums Forever Blue and As The Moon Rests, alongside explorative projects such as Songs From Isolation and the orchestral reinterpretation arco, have demonstrated both her versatility and willingness to take risks.
With Solstice, she adds another compelling chapter to a career defined by artistic growth and a refusal to stand still or rest on her laurels. The vocal delivery on the record is characterised by the crisp enunciation that has become a calling card. Absolutely none of the regret, pain, or renewal dripping from this collection of deeply personal songs can be lost when there is this level of clarity in every syllable. The effect of moving through the world with this album in your headphones is profound, like an undercurrent that pulls you down while you look upwards towards the shrinking, distorted image of the sun.
The East London industrial trash rockers Saint Agnes, returns to fill the void left in the wake of their devastatingly enthralling sophomore studio LP Bloodsuckers, with what lead vocalist Kitty Austen calls their best sounding record to date. Your God Fearing Days Are About To Begin is the long awaited third full length addition to Saint Agnes’ discography of pure unadulterated chaos. Yes, it may feel like a mouthful, but it possesses the core of this intriguing album’s driving force, being that the Bloodsuckers eras deeply emotional reckoning, has now been turned upon the audience it confessed its sorrow to. Riding the line between societal retribution and appreciation of its healthiest influences, this latest album is testament to the band’s mission of Nine Inch Nails-esque production sensibilities fused with the sonic equivalent of Grant Woods’ American Gothic, all the while connecting with an audience of outcasts in such a way that it mentally transports them to their very own version of The Matrix’s Club Hel.
Diving head first into YGFDAATB, expectations run high with the opening rebuke of male privilege and those who uphold systemic exploitation with ‘Good Boy’. Of course being swept away by elements of online and kink culture, the term Good Boy also spins this track into a sort of verbal domination and psychological reinforcement, that Kitty is the ultimate figure of authority or dominating force. While ‘Good Boy’ is one of many examples of Saint Agnes’ masterful creation of sonic monoliths, remaining fierce in its unwavering pursuit of reprisal and collective expression of multi-generationally internalised righteous anger, ‘Gods of War’ is the slow burn censure of male fragility and unquestionable incompetence in positions of power, while ‘Get Them Out’ is a rallying cry of all those who have been systemically downtrodden.
