Now Aversions are back with ‘Base Case’, the first glimpse of a much anticipated new full-length album. With a taut central rhythm and decidely nocturnal mood, the song unspools with the momentum and inevitability of a paranoid neo-noir thriller, every passing minute sinking deeper into a dangerous, miserable world. “All started things must end,” as Coll sings with fervid conviction. “I guess there’s a bit of the… / Flesh and blood brain box / Stuck in the silicon… / Sprayed like a crime scene! / Look for my fingerprints… / Dust of the infinite… / Nothing this limitless, / Works quite the way we…” Such a stream of statements and imagery is the backbone of the sound, and on the track goes, barrelling towards a conclusion that might not be the answer it is looking for, but a terminus all the same.

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‘List of People Buried at Arlington National Cemetery’ kicks things off with a bang, opening with emo/hardcore-style ranting delivery before morphing into the anti-folk territory of Defiance, Ohio. “I get so alone that I start to drink,” they shout, “I’m usually fine then I start to think / an atom bomb leaves nothing in its wake / do I survive for everyone’s sake?” The instrumentation is slightly off-kilter which, coupled with Lightning’s delivery, gives a sense of cathartic energy, as if the music is arriving to your ears unfiltered in its ferocity and strangeness.

“Purge me of my sins
now I’m friends with my demons
screaming, ‘it’s in my blood
it’s in my blood
it’s in my blood”
it’s in… ‘”

Sounding like Fugazi meets Young Jesus, ‘Wicked & Divine’ details slash-and-burn attempts to escape psychic pain, the ill-fated self-destruction-as-a-narcotic routine acting as a vicious circle from which respite can only be gained through further revolutions of the cycle. This self-aware entrapment triggers further feelings of self loathing and suffering, leading to further entrapment, then self-loathing, then entrapment etc. etc, so that while the narrator dreams of going back to reseed the charred ground, in reality they just keep on blazing the same earth over and over again.

“I can take the heat
Icarus got nothin’ on me
baby, we’ll burn out brilliantly
where’s the fun in fading out quietly?
As the sun melts our wings
your arms around me
I’ll kiss you goodbye as our bodies
plunge into the sea

It all starts out the same on Resolution Day
take me back to your room and say
‘kiss me, I want to feel right’
but I’m too busy getting high”

‘Fade to Black’ continues this idea (“The insanity of doing the same thing over and over til I collapse”) and, although the sound is more restrained, the sense of immediacy remains. A departure from the other two, the track unfurls into something akin to The Weakerthans meets Small Wonder, ending with a determined crescendo of militaristic drums that Titus Andronicus would be proud of.

“I started to tell you
you were in a dream I had
all our friends were in the backyard
everyone was wearing black
then right there you stopped me
you asked ‘did anyone have sex?’
I stammered ‘no I-I don’t think so.’
You sighed, ‘then keep it to yourself'”

With all this talk of pain and trauma and its inescapable bind, you might get the impression that this is a bleak record. The funny thing is, that couldn’t be further from the truth. What emerges in Lightning’s first lines (and in every word and note thereafter) is that the music is the very thing to break the Kekuléan knot they had gotten lost in. Survival punk is not a creative descriptor so much as an ethos, a way of life. CUTTERS exists so that it’s band members feel more alive. How can that be bleak? Bleak would be to sing happy songs about Hollywood love stories you could never believe. Bleak would be to say nothing at all.

As brief as it is brilliant, both//neither ends just as you get hooked, leaving you thrilled and short-changed and baying for more, like some musical equivalent of the best episodes of Lost. This feels like the beginning of something, so let’s sit and wait patiently.

You can buy both//neither now from the CUTTERS Bandcamp page, or grab a vinyl from Jam Eater Records.

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RIYL: Vagabon, Kissing Fractures, Cyberbully Mom Club

Favourite Songs:

You can download We Have No Future, We’re All Doomed now from the Soft Speak Records Bandcamp page, or grab a physical copy via their website.

The post Flash Review: Kississippi – We Have No Future, We’re All Doomed appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Molly Drag is the solo project of Ontario’s Michael Hansford, a member of London band The Raspberry Heaven. Deeply Flawed sees Hansford strip down his band’s emo sound to create something fragile and passionate and confused in a way that mirrors life.

‘Knee Highs’ is an example of this, starting an a simple emo strum-along before morphing with some hardcore-style screaming and eventually settling into an ambient track with spoken word delivery. The track successfully captures the spectrum of emotions faced by a typical young person, wistful angst interspersed with anger or terror and sometimes followed by a clear-eyed calm where even one’s own suffering can seem poetic. Hansford layers his tracks to mimic the mind’s habit of jumping from emotion to emotion, the human curse of feeling sadness and fury and outrage and vulnerability all at once.

This continues across the twenty tracks. ‘I Needed to See it Burn’ blends violence with brittle weakness, ‘Heirloom’ has a shoegazy coating of fuzz, and ‘The Ghost at Woodland Park’ and ‘Post-Nothing’ adopt an almost noise rock sound, the instrumentation playing like the Twilight Sad with the volume turned down. ‘Love Isn’t All You Need’ has a gentle ambient backing while ‘Sacrifices Speak’ uses synths and echoes and spoken word to create a track that sounds either primeval or spacey in a sci-fi way.

Each track is accompanied with forthright and earnest lyrics that come from numerous situations and points of view, admissions of weakness and misery paradoxically suggesting bravery or strength in a weak-to-be-strong sort of way. The whole thing is admirable and relatable and impressively moving, holding a flame to the inherent confusion and grief of being young in the twenty-first century. As Hansford sings on ‘Terrible Things’:

“You struggle with your body
with what you eat.
A slave to what is trendy
and who you meet.
Human, ‘cos this is it.
This is it,
but we move on.”

You can buy the album now via Bandcamp or grab a cassette from Hellur Records.

The post Molly Drag – Deeply Flawed appeared first on Various Small Flames.

[Disclaimer: I say this every year, but only because it’s important] Thanks to the generosity of these wonderful artists and indie labels, you can get all of these releases for free if you wish, but there is often the option to make a financial donation. For those of you that can afford it, a few pounds/dollars to reward all the hard work that goes into making a record seems like a fair deal. Plus, it really is a win-win situation as most of these independent bands put the funds they raise towards touring or making new music. So if you like an artist’s music, give a little something and they’ll make even more music for you to listen to, or even come to your town/city and play it for you in person.

That said, we know times are tough and albums many. Remember, money isn’t the only way to reward someone. If you like an artist and can’t afford to give them some money, why not write to them? Send an email or a tweet or whatever you can to say that what they’re doing makes you happy or sad (in a good way) and thank them very much for being so lovely/amazing. Better yet, spread the word too. Tell family and friends and strangers about them. It doesn’t take five minutes to write a nice message or share an album and you can really make someone’s day. Remember it feels really good to make someone else feel good – kindness makes the world go round after all.

We will be posting part of the list each day this week. As in previous editions, the music has been alphabetized by artist. In an attempt to reduce loading times and technical issues, we have decide against embedding a track from each release. But fear not, each post will include an 8tracks mixtape with a song from each artist, so all you need to do is press play and see what takes your fancy.

If you are an artist who makes great free music, or fan of an artist who you think should be included, why not get in touch? Perhaps we will decide to feature your music in the new year.

Part one – A – D
Part two – E – H
Part three – I – M
Part four – N – R
Part five – S – Z

The post Favourite Free Music of 2014 appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Check back each day in December to find a song we think you will enjoy.

1st – Ages and Ages
2nd – Ricky Eat Acid
3rd – Nate Connelly
4th – Jess Williamson
5th – River Tiber
6th – Damien Jurado
7th – Palehound
8th – Whirr
9th – Glass Vaults
10th – House By The Lake
11th – Lyndsie Alguire
12th – Fyfe
13th – Princess Reason
14th – Water Liars
15th – Frog Eyes
16th – Sirs
17th – The Pollyanna Band
18th – Kalle Mattson
19th – Netherfriends
20th – Wake Owl
21st – Beat Radio
22nd – Emily Reo
23rd – Donovan Woods
Christmas Eve – Polyvinyl Compilation

Merry Christmas!

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