Zulus Will Break Your Face - That Is Their Way

The playing field for discordant, disaffected post-punk raconteurs has certainly got crowded of late. We have been advocates of Copenhagen teens Iceage in the past, and others such as Total Control and Rank/Xerox have brought out stellar albums recently. Now add Londoners Zulu to the mix, whose fifteen minute annihilation of a cassette Way Of The Zulu raced out the Stroll On Records doors. That's what you get for tapping the vein of a zeitgeist and only making 100 tapes, I guess. It isn't as immediate or revolutionary as its contemporaries' offerings, yet hopefully there is enough going round to get some re-release thing up and running, because there are some killer tunes amongst these 9 songs. The Clash references thrown in their direction are not just because of the quintet's looks either, especially on 'We're Watching You'. it has been lambasted by some as losing some impetus due to its lack of variety - but this is fucking punk, people! Plus at under twenty minutes, its a heady non-stop session of eating glass. When your opening track is called 'Annoying Song' and begins with a lament that the band members themselves are "a bunch of pricks", and it sounds like he actually means it, you know that this is true DIY punk. Circa 79 too - this is more nostalgic than the other cream of the crop, and it works in Zulu's favour.

You can stream Way Of The Zulu below - we'll wait with bated breath to see if Stroll On push more of these onto the salivating public, or someone else picks up the slack. Either way, this is an exciting introduction.



Zulu - Sistine Chapel
Zulu - Annoying Song
Zulu - Bloody & Rare

Posting Rank/Xerox's Punk

San Francisco has to be one of the best places in the world music-wise right now, especially if you love your guitar rock dirty, dingy and fun. But not all is fine and dandy. One of the best albums of 2011 came not from a garage group but some disgruntled guys that, alongside The Men, Iceage and Total Control, proved that some of the best music comes from the darkest spaces - and that post-punk is far from dead, despite many fuckwits' attempts to make it so. Rank/Xerox's self-titled debut is acid-tinged angularity, acid saliva and discord. What's not to love? Nothing, for this album, just like those mentioned above, have distilled what the genre's progenitors (read: Wire, Gang Of Four, Mission Of Burma) gave birth to, and adding so much verve and venom that it refuses to be ignored. I'm a douche for not putting this out there sooner. Rank/Xerox is vital. (Plus the lead dude is an Aussie, and what with Liars still pushing hard and Total Control killing, says something, dontcha think?)

Rank/Xerox is out now through Ros Records.

Rank/Xerox - Cave Dweller
Rank/Xerox - Nausea

Total Control/Thee Oh Sees Split

What a delightful meeting of minds! San Fran crazy horses Thee Oh Sees are touring the States with Aussies debauched maurauders Total Control in tow, and have this split for you to ascertain how these two acts sound meshed together under one seedy sweat-stained roof. It is the usual spastic exuberance from Dwyer and co, whilst the four tracks from Total Control are embedded with seething disdain, a bizarrely corrosive counterpoint. Why it works I don't know. Maybe that cat that got it on with Paula Abdul is onto something...

And further good news is Thee Oh Sees will be playing in Brisbane at the turn of the New Year. Yes, they will be playing Woodland (after their show this time last year was cancelled due to the floods) on Jan 11. Maybe TC can make the trip northwards too?

Thee Oh Sees - Dead Energy

Total Control - Nervous Harvest

And for the live stuff?

Watch live streaming video from lepoissonrouge at livestream.com

Lose Total Control On The Henge Beat

To complete today's triptych of incredible Aussie rock releases, we have Total Control with their Henge Beat. I mentioned seeing Dick Diver last week - well, seeing as Al is from Total Control, it's important for you to see on the strength of the Dick Diver album why Total Control is still his day job. The Henge Beat LP is dark, dank and oh so seductive, a driving synth-punk behemoth that wallows in the flooded basements of Berlin, hiding the remains of the Birthday Party, Ultravox and Wire. You can see a correlation with another white-hot album of this year, Iceage's New Brigade, yet this is a little less brutal. The musical nous of founding member Mikey Young (Eddy Current Suppression Ring, UV Race) may surprise some, but it is clear he not only understands what makes garage rock tick (rather than poseurs), he can also pat Ian Curtis on the nape of the neck before giving him a donkey punch. Henge Beat is rabid, a little perverted, but also another release that seems unaffected by affectedness. This is a sound that pervades the participating members because they believe in this. And that is what makes Total Control a dangerously beautiful (albeit combustible) commodity.

I implore you (like I have with Royal Headache and Witch Hats) - get this now!

Total Control - One More Tonight
Total Control - Carpet Rash

Get Pleasured By Witch Hats

Today heralds in a few days' worth of posts devoted to some fantastic Aussie releases that I have been saving up, including ones by Royal Headache, Straight Arrows, Dead Farmers, and Total Control. Not all of them are this year's news, but are warranted another look in. This one though, is fresh off the presses, and is a veritable delight to boot.

Melbourne's Witch Hats have the guttural firepower and diseased charisma necessary to corrupt the minds of the masses. On their debut release Cellulite Soul the rawness and aggression inherent in their swagger suggested that style and substance weren't independent of each other, instead always wrestling for control. And in Pleasure Syndrome they really nail their MO to the wall. The beauty of this LP though is that the cohesion, the Araldite that grips a band into a fevered vortex of sonic elation and cosmic power, seems to have arrived. By the metric tonne.

Opening track 'The Bounty' is the perfect example of this. Frontman Kris Buscombe still sounds ready to double glass you at the drop of an ill-place syllable, yet there is a comfortable presence behind his lyrics now that suggests that such a glassing wouldn't be a violent outpouring so much as a graceful balletic manoeuvre that you would be in awed fascination by even as pints of blood pulses out of your split forehead. Such reigning in of the bountiful seams of sleazy abandon is what makes Pleasure Syndrome an infinitely better release, and possibly one of the best Aussie releases of the year (neck and neck with another that I will talk about very soon...) 'Mahoney' lends lyrics that sings to their previous incarnations, the S&M rife imagery as disturbing as it is titillating. 'Hear Martin' has taken references to serial shooter Martin Bryant, thrown together some Clash and Doors hubris and percolated it all with a sense of lackadaisical longing - something that shouldn't work, yet offers a slinky number that exudes originality and intensity. Closer Closing out with the suitably heavy 'Ashley', Witch Hats assert the notion that they are well-heeled rabblerousers with hearts of tainted pitch.

Pleasure Syndrome is out now through Longtime Listener.

Witch Hats - Hear Martin