Recorded during 3 May and 4 May 2019 at the Roundhouse in London, Live At The Roundhouse is the ‘debut’ album from Nick Mason’s Saucerful Of Secrets. Well I say ‘debut’ album but what this is a retrospective live release of Pink Floyd material from the man who has played on every single Pink Floyd release, drummer Nick Mason. When creating the project Mason wanted to re-discover those club shows that the band played before they went stratospheric with the seminal Dark Side Of The Moon. So as you can probably tell by the name this is a collection of songs from The Floyd’s early and experimental years from Piper At The Gates Of Dawn through to Obscured By Clouds, taking in Meddle and Atom Heart Mother on the way. So it’s not really a covers show (can you cover the music if you were instrumental in performing it in the first place?) but a project to celebrate the part of Floyd’s catalogue that is criminally under looked by the other two members of Floyd as well as the myriad of jukebox bands that sell out arenas playing Pink Floyd music.
Mason formed the band with guitarist Lee Harris, keyboardist Dom Beken, long time Floy bassman Guy Pratt and vocalist/guitarist Gary Kemp (Spandau Ballet). Kemp’s voice is perfect, he’s not trying to sound deliberately like any of the Floyd singers but manages to encapsulate them all with his London twang and edgy delivery. The performances as you’d expect are top notch, and due to the way this record is mixed the crowd noise is muted so it does sound more like a studio recording than anything else. What really makes this record shine though is the eclectic, amazing setlist that has been put together to flow into one long audio journey. Only four of the songs have actually ever appeared on any official love releases by any member of Pink Floyd so there is a lot of virgin ground here. While many will come for One Of These Days, Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun, Interstellar Overdrive and Arnold Layne it’s tracks like the bluesy Let There Be More Light, Green Is The Colour, If/Atom Heart Mother, The Nile Song and the wonderful Fearless that will keep you enthralled. Fearless actually, along with Lucifer Sam, Arnold Layne and Bike that were never performed by Floyd in the early years.
Listening to this at a terribly loud volume much to the disgust of The Look Of The Week’s Robert Robinson, is the only way to really digest this live record and make you feel as if you were there, the skilled band run through a 23(ish) song set list that peaks and dips in tone and pace throughout, from the quirky psych pop of the Syd-era, to the more experimental middle period where you can hear those sounds that eventually would shape their ‘best’ albums later coming to fruition. It leads towards its conclusion of the still terrifying Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun, which starts off the last salvo of the evening with Point Me To The Sky closing things out spectacularly. As a Floyd fan this is a must-buy but even a casual listener should pick it up to indulge in some of lesser known Pink Floyd songs that created the prog rock behemoth we know them as today. Mason has delivered a real treat here and I for one will be front row on the next tour (whenever that is!) 9/10
Kataklysm: Unconquered (Nuclear Blast)
Canadian death metal leaders Kataklysm return with their latest opus Unconquered a rip-snorting ride through the extremity Kataklysm have always been associated with. Much of this record was finished just before the world wide lockdown, recorded and engineered by long-time producer and guitarist JF Dagenais at JFD Studio in Dallas, TX. The mix was finished by Colin Richardson who came out of his retirement for this album and was assisted by Chris Clancy (Mutiny Within) meaning that Unconquered has a biting ultra-modern sound that balances Kataklysm's technical ferocity and sheer brutality. The Killshot builds from a slow opening before being unleashed with James Payne's double kick drums leading the way, unrelentingly destroying everything in its path. Although it's practically a ballad compared to the rampaging tornado of riffs that is Defiant.
Maurizio Iacono's iconic bark leads from the front, like a Centurion (though maybe more so in 3/4 of the line ups other band) his ferocious roar has been at the helm of Kataklysm since 1998 and is still delivering as good as ever. With what I think is probably the best production job the band have had, Unconquered is as sharp as a tack, huge grooves come through on Cut Me Down, Focused To Destroy You has a very modern, palm muted assault Jean-Francois Dagenais (guitar) and Stephane Barbe's (bass) in total unison with a riff that cracks at the ear drums like a jackhammer. It's pretty relentless, I wouldn't recommend it while doing your knitting, however the extremity never takes precedence over a great hook and while tracks such as Icarus Falling bring a massive hook in the chorus, The Way Back Home could be used to demolish your house but it's also got breakdown ideal for a does of head banging. Unconquered is Kataklysm's statement of defiance, that they are still the leaders of the Canadian death metal sound and they aren't going anywhere. 8/10
Alpha Wolf: A Quiet Place To Die (Sharptone Records)
I'm not sure what Alpha Wolf's idea of quiet is but from the sound of this record it differs a little from the sandy beaches and whale song that many will be accustomed to when trying to find their quiet place. All I'm saying is that it isn't the best record to play at a spa retreat. However if you want some mosh worthy, extremely modern metalcore then this second album from Aussie heavists Alpha Wolf, who took their name from the film The Grey, is certainly the place to find it. Clocking in at just over 35 minutes in length this record is a non stop ride through aggressive metalcore grooves fused with bristling modern soundscapes that add twitching electronic elements, and some djenty palm muted riffs.
With one full length and two EP's to their name, A Quiet Place To Die is their first full length since some allegations arose against their previous singer but they have moved away from that re-establishing their brand of crushing metalcore with some touches of nu-metal bands such as Korn on Creep and Golden Fate; Isolate while there is some industrial ambience on Bleed 4 You which is bang on trend in terms of what metalcore bands are doing at the morning and features Lizi Blanco of The Beautiful Monument adding some haunting additional backing vocals. For metalcore with it's finger on the pulse and a thumping heaviness then come to Alpha Wolf's quiet place. 7/10
Ewigkeit: XXIII (D.T.M Productions)
Ewigkeit is the experimental solo project from James Fogarty of In The Woods/Old Forest and his previous releases have been featured numerous times in these pages. XXIII is his latest EP and is made up of 5 new songs clocking in at 23 minutes in total. It's a conceptual piece that is a homage to the psyche-conspiracy adventure novel series the Illuminatus! Trilogy. A mad book about the Illuminati killing hippies by resurrecting a zombie army at a rock concert with only a travelling group of heroes who traverse the world in giant submarine trading cannabis for funds to fight the good fight.So a suitable mad concept for this 23 minute shot of trippy psychedelic weirdness that would be at home with bands such as Church Of The Cosmic Skull as James' crunchy guitars and drawled vocals on Bring The Eschaton also bringing an element of Corrosion Of Conformity and Monster Magnet. This influence continues on the hard riffing God's Lightning while the title track 23 takes a choppy riff that would be at home on a Disturbed record (at least it's not a cover ballad). Now the gumf that came with this album says it's 70's Trip-Rock in style but I'd actually say there is a 90's stoner groove cutting right the way through this EP. Fogarty shows he's a Space Lord Mutha on XXIII. 7/10
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