Reviews: O.R.k, Brant Bjork, Gospelheim, The New Roses (Reviews By Matt Bladen)

O.R.k - Screamnasium (Kscope) 

Always worth their weight in gold for musicianship alone O.R.k's albums have have always been great workouts but never really carried over their songwriting prowess. That is until this third album Screamnasium, essentially what would happen is Soundgarden started to employ jazz bass and drums, Screamnasium has a massive vocal performance from Lef, where he comes close to being the much missed Chris Cornell on tracks such as the raw Unspoken Words. 

Screamnasium feels as if it's the culmination of a working relationship, one that hinges on the virtuoso rhythmn section of Pat Mastelotto’s expressive, inventive drum patterns and the undeniable bass prowess of Colin Edwin, anyone who has seen O.R.k or indeed King Crimson/Porcupine Tree will attest to the brilliance of these two men but here songs such as Consequence where Lef duets with Grammy winner Elisa who has worked with Ennio. Morricone and Quentin Tarantino (hope she was wearing sturdy shoes). 

The duet makes for such a cathartic moment the voices and the drums the biggest contributions but it sits as wondrous example of the 'new' O.R.k. With such a well respected, revered rhythm section, the guitarist can always be overlooked but Carmelo Pipitone's contribution is fantastic, riffing heavy on the rockers while also providing the layers acoustics that appear on numerous tracks such as Something Broke, where he also brings riffs, the guitars excellent on Lonely Crowd.

They've said about this album being purifying for them as a band as things close with Someone Waits which has Jo Quail bringing her spine tingling cello to close. Edwin calls this the album they've always wanted to make since their debut and if they were trying to create a stunning fusion of prog and grunge that blends technical expertise with hooks aplenty. 9/10

Brant Bjork - Bougainvillea Suite (Heavy Psych Sound)

Despite making his bones in the 90's desert rock scene with legends Kyuss, Brant Bjork's latest record is a proud homage to 60's rock n soul of the Woodstock generation. The PR mentioned Sky & The Family Stone, which can be heard on So They Say, but there's also some Booker T & The MGs, Cream, Iron Butterfly (Broke That Spell), Parliament and others, basically anything featuring Steve Cropper. 

This is apparently a bittersweet record for Bjork "saying goodbye to an era" as he puts it. The perennially laid back multi-instrumentalist, does so in a fine style, echoing the last time before the desert rock revolution his Southern Californian music scene was at the world stage, during the psychedelic 60's. I suppose you an also see it as the antithesis to his last project Stöner, which was much more like his history, featuring Ryan Güt and Nick Oliveri both of whom appear here, Güt on percussion and keys, Oliveri playing lead guitar on the choppy Bread For Butter. With the funky Ya Dig, the hip shaking Good Bones, the organ-led Trip On The Wine and Let's Forget which is built on tabla and a Velvet Underground-esque keyboard. 

Bougainvillea Suite is much more reserved and laid back, the kind of album you throw on when you're enjoying glass of wine from the burgeoning SoCal vineyards, spark up one of your favourite strains and just ease into it man. 8/10 

Gospelheim - Ritual & Repetition (Prophecy Productions)

Have you decided upon your Samhain/Halloween soundtrack yet? May I suggest Manchester gothic rockers Gospelheim? I shit you not this debut album is one of the most accomplished gothic metal records I've heard in years, I laughed when the spool accompanying it mentioned it could be referenced in the same sentence as the Beastmilk debut, but after one soon I knew this album was special. 

Scintillating, undulating synths are the foundation that most of these songs are built on, especially Hope Springs Infernal, the band building their melancholic, satanic, gothic metal on too of this the guitars and bass of Ricardo and Cook mixing as flawlessly as their vocals, Ricardo with a sneering low to Cocos more otherworldly melodies, their music is expansive and can adapt to many guises, just like the Lord Of Hell himself, meaning that Satan Blues goes a little country though with some black metal added for flavour. Praise Be comes from the brooding doomsphere the themes of the occult, existentialism and a generally goth aesthetic, the post-metal/blackgaze shimmer of Valles Marineris is cut from the same cloth as Pelican, Cult Of Luna or Alcest. 

It's the sort of album that make you want to shuffle listlessly in a corner as a cigarette burns away one minute and then throw wild eyed, Siouxsie Sioux-like shapes, scaring the normals, the next. Now rounded out by second guitarist Jordan and drummer Rob, the broad sound of this record can now hopefully be captured on stage, tracks such as Into Smithereens and it's industrial tinge, the chiming guitars of Pink Floyd meets Depeche Mode on Voyeuristic Schism while it's The Hall Of The Unconsumed that gives this record it's most cinematic moment as the extreme metal style is the most obvious. 

If Manchester clubs such as Pips or Cloud 9 were around today they'd be playing Gospelheim's debut in full, on repeat, this is the state of gothic metal in 2022 and it's wonderful. 9/10

The New Roses - Sweet Poison (Napalm Records)

As The New Roses continue their ascent in the rock scene their appeal to me diminished, I'll admit One More For The Road was a great record but since then they have become a bit more middle of the road, much like their fourth album Nothing But Wild, this fifth record is not groundbreaking but a decent rock record that still retains remnants of their AC/DC-like blues base but moves squarely towards arena recognition. 

Having toured with Scorpions, Saxon, Accept and Tremonti, track such as Dead Of Night are crafted to be sung back by large crowds which for a band who have been around for 20+ years is the sort of trajectory you want. These Germans have taken the Aerosmith approach by becoming more mainstream in their sound, with ballads such as the acoustic True Love and All I Ever Wanted, then 1st Time For Everything and The Usual Suspects are so smooth they would probably be waterproof. 

Therein lies the problem, there are multitudes of bands doing the more melodic rock thing, most of them on Frontiers Music, but The New Roses had some grit and groove to then now they just seem to have become part of the pack a little. Timmy Rough has a decent singer and if they had stuck to it they could have taken the place of The Temperance Movement as rootsy, rock n rollers but now there's plenty of sweet but very little poison. 5/10