Reviews

First Strike

Jailcell Recipes Artifact for an Empty Tank World LP

A reissue compilation encompassing the first two full-lengths and first two EPs from hardcore Wiganers JAILCELL RECIPES. The target for this collection was to clean up poor-quality old recordings to be introduced amongst a teeming new audience. Did it work? Yes, it did. The traversing collection starts with the band in their heavily YOUTH OF TODAY-influenced genesis and ends with the band’s LEATHERFACE-styled coda. Tons of material is crammed into this record sleeve, really everything there could be to know about these blokes.

Slutch No Way Out EP

Young (and I would like to emphasize “young,” as the bass player is only twelve years old) Mancunian band out via First Strike Records (their first new band signing in thirty-three years), a mythic label that Alan Woods of Alan’s Records started in the ’90s. So what is the fuss all about? Their music is very honest, a hard quality to have in this day and age, and it fluctuates between the aggressiveness of hardcore from the catalog of Dischord or SST and the guitar-driven noise experimentation of shoegaze and no wave. Opener “Will I Ever Leave” paints a dreamlike sonic picture that takes a page from MY BLOODY VALENTINE with its distorted guitars layered over dreamy vocals, and second track “Change Me” starts with a scream that could easily be on any DYSTOPIA record. There’s a sense of reckless abandon in their sound, yet it’s clear that every chaotic moment is crafted with intention. SLUTCH is a band that’s impossible to ignore, and No Way Out paves the way for a bright future ahead!