Amyl and the Sniffers - Big Attraction (2017)

Every morning I wake up disappointed that our president isn't gone yet. Being on the west coast of the US, I feel the east coast has a good 4 hours to greet the sun, roll up it's sleeves, and take out the trash already. I'm sorry, that's an insult to trash. At least trash was, at one point, something we wanted.. something that was useful ... something we chose to own. This president is more like a stepped in pile of shit from someone else's dog, after years of picking up your own dog's shit.

Thank god for this release from Melbourne punk band, Amyl and the Sniffers. It's not too serious, but sexy and dangerous... just what rock music should be. I want nothing more to be in a sweaty club in Melbourne with a bunch of drunk punk Aussies watching this band tear the stage a new asshole.

These songs have some serious chops, played by musicians who have done their homework and gotten the sound down pat. It probably helps having Calum Newton in their lineup, a fucking awesome guitarist from Spacerockmountain favorites Lunatics On Pogosticks. But Calum keeps his guitar chops bottled up here, delivering chunky punk riffage, and offering his keen production skills to showcase the real star of the band: the sneering, bratty bite of Amy Taylor, a truly wonderful performer to lead this bunch of dirty, drunk and mulleted rockers from dewn undah.


Name your price. Not a clunker in the lot.

Sample song:

Bandcamp:
Amyl and the Sniffers - Big Attraction

Patient Barney Penrose - Kirilov (2014)

Not sure what it is but I've felt myself slowing down just a bit lately. That goes for most everything except what I'm forcing myself to keep up with for work. But I am getting out of bed later, drinking less beer and wine (you know, leaving some for another day), and enjoying slower, lyrical songs more than I had in the past. Knowing myself this is a brief stop on a cycle that'll keep spinning until I stop living, I've taken strides to take it all in. Thusly, Patient Barney Penrose's harmonious folk songs showed up at exactly the right time for me.

Kirilov has some genuinely beautiful folk songs. Rather stripped down sort of folk music, the type that seem like it was shyly thought up in a bedroom only later to be fleshed out into the melodic pieces presented here. The singer-songwriter is a Virginian living in Richmond and this is far from his first release but hardly the least notable. Indeed he appeared back in 2013 in a Grab Bag written by Elvis. There's no sugarcoating it, pilgrims, this is sentimental, one could even say sappy, folk. Yet, as I have always thought, anything but ska can be good if done well and this dude is real good. "Orchid's Song" has got to be my favorite, with the ambient sounds sprinkled in there that remind me of Mickey Newbury. Furthermore, the fiddle on "Wishbone" is capable of stealing the show. Check it out, it won't bum you out too much, rather to the just right bummed out mood.

To be had here:
Patient Barney Penrose - Kirilov