End Reign/Alaska split 7"

Both End Reign and Alaska have had their demo’s reviewed on this blog before. I was kinda tough on End Reign and a little blunt about Alaska in parts too, may seem cuntish, firm but fair i like to think. That said, i was interested to see that both bands had teamed up to produce this split for Fist In the Air Records and stoked that Jamie who runs the label wanted me to have a listen, all things considered!

Alaska open their side up with Mark Of Life...leading in with an ominous feedback drenched sample, nothing quite sets the mood like creepy children talking about witchery does it? They then treat us to a dirty, big piledriving riff, taken straight out of the Cursed playbook before picking up the pace a little. They’ve gone more for an epic, desolate feel with this song, some nice subtle melancholic guitar work sitting comfortably underneath the singers hoarse bellow. Vocally this dude sounds (and i know i’ve said this before) a lot like Rise & falls vocalist, both in phrasing and throat..definitely works with what they are doing here though if they do a full length i’d like a little variation in delivery to see what else he’s got under the bonnet. Second track Gold Blood follows a similar course but with a great use of stop/start dynamics and dischordant riffing that only adds to the weight. I’m sure both tracks sound beastly live. Though i didn’t care for Alaska last time i saw’em, now they’ve got a year or so’s experience under their belt and a couple of releases in the can, I’m sure they are far more fearsome prospect to behold these days. Well crafted songs, solid mix. Good work.

The other side of this record is owned by End Reign from Durham. I’ve always had a soft spot for that part of the country and the bands it’s produced. Despite giving ER’s demo a so-so review a few months back, i saw a lot of potential in’em and I’ve been waiting to hear what they come up with next. Fucking hell. This is well good. First song Release The Wolves lives up to it’s name and comes tearing out the gates like a pack of rabid dogs. Geoff’s vocals are absolutely LIVID, sounds like he’s ripping the lining off his throat with every breath. It pleases me to hear this type of conviction in a frontman. If he’s not flailing around bloody eyed and snarling like a lunatic when they play this live, i’ll be disappointed!

Riffs wise, we’re talking Systems Overload era Integrity, hard as fuck with plenty of drive, and a nice Clevo crunch to the guitar tone too. Both songs sound massive and filthy. So much better than the demo, this is the kinda gnarly metallic hardcore that i wanted to hear and knew they were capable of. Outstanding. Second song Paradise is not too disimilar to Release.... but has a wicked buildup/breakdown in the middle. Again, sounds like Rise & Fall circa Hellmouth has been a big influence on these lads and they pull it off well. Two absolute bangers from End Reign, I hope someone has the good sense to give these fellas their own release now they’ve finally grown some hair on their balls.

Can't tell you anything about lyrics or artwork for this record because I wasn't sent any, sorry!

Props to FITA records though for taking a gamble on releasing work by two relatively new and un-hyped bands.

EDIT: This split is being released by both Fist In The Air AND Worthless Nights Records (who i'm not familiar with!)

Worthless Nights

End Reign

Alaska

Fist In The Air Records

Sometimes you eat the bar...

Sometimes the bar eats you....

What a lovely collection of mistakes we have here. Top shot is Touchdown at the Goldsmiths Tavern. Anyone who ever attended a show there will agree that sketchy dive would probably need an entire blospot of it's own to truly do it justice. That's the show where i blew my knee out goodstyle and had to finish the set in a chair as my kneecap had swollen to the size of my head. Lecky and Onion lifted the chair with me in it onto their shoulders as we closed with a cover of Burning Fight by Inside Out, people were acting nuts and i think someone dived off a speaker onto the chair and sent me flying. Haphazard motherfuckers. John Alcock up front with his electrical tape X's, he din't wanna ruin his chinos as i recall. After the gig the whole crew wound up in some abandoned flat in London and Squash Head got locked in a cupboard for the night. We had to ditch early in the morning cos someone called the cops on us for throwing eggs from the balcony at people going about their buisness.

Second picture is amusing for the fact that Duggan is wearing black nail polish and some awful shirt. Only sxe dude left from that band though so fair fucks holmes. Is that Darke Of The Covenant sporting an ITC shirt?

Third is an outtake from the pics we took for the age of kali demo 7". We were all fed up of having our picture taken and started dicking around, i guess we had just watched Anchorman or something.

Good times for a change....

Found a load more old pictures.

Top picture taken down Clifftonville, from a set of pictures that were intended for use on the iunreleased Age Of Kali 7".

Bottom picture taken from a set of photos originally intended for the OTI "Northdown Road" 7".

Alaska MMX (Fist In the Air Records)

My man Duggan’s been banging on about this band for a while and urging me to check them out. I’ve ignored him up until now because I caught the arse end of this bands set in Margate a year or so back and they seemed like gobby noobs and i couldn’t be doing with’em. Anyhow, FITA Records have seen fit to send me their new record so i figured i’d give it a fair crack of the whip. Alaska gets some props if only by virtue of the fact that they are doing something positive in Margate, and being intimately aquainted with the gnawing misery of that place, I can appreciate how hard it is to try and do your own thing there be it music/art/ skateboarding/ whatever whilst being surrounded by closed minded, bigoted pieces of human garbage.

Musically Alaska remind me of modern heavy hardcore bands like The Hope Conspiracy, Rise & Fall or Kentish local boys Santa Karla. The song Black Lake comes in hard and fast with the stripped down hardcore feel of early Terror, tense and dissonant build ups then weigh in with monstrous doomed out riffs. The vocalist has a strained and throaty voice which compliments the tone of the music perfectly, and he doesn’t sound like he’s trieing to be a hard man or anything which is good. The lyrics are dark and erudite if a little unimaginative, but these guys are starting out so I can overlook that.

Santa Karla’s throat Duggan lends his molten vocals to the brooding Initiation which starts out with a morbid chug intro that sounds like a cut from The Break In’s good record, the back up chant at the beginning could have come out cheesy as hell but its low in the mix and it works really well. The songs are all well written and there’s no clunky parts, the transitions flow really well. Nice production from Jason Frye that emphasises the weight of the songs without relying on a metal polish. Alaska are a band that, to me, sound like Canterbury Hardcore circa 2004. A solid first release for both band and label.

http://www.myspace.com/thealaskankings

http://fistintheairrecords.bigcartel.com/

Summer is a'coming in....

For a short time back in late 2001/early 2002, i was at a bit of a loose end and found myself with a lot of spare time on my hands. xCanaanx was going through some line up difficulties, Darren and Simmons had decided to split and form another band. So Dargs, Rich and I were involved in the laborious process of training up a new bassist and drummer. Anyone in a band will tell you that the loss of momentum, just when things are starting to pick up is one of the most infuriating things about being in a band. So I sulked off to lick my wounds and ended up hanging out with a few guys from Margate who were into black metal. We had a shared interest in maudlin, miserable music like Low, godspeed etc and a mutual fascination with The Whicker Man. They had a band called Like Herod, some great tunes but but no vocalist, and it wasn’t long before i stepped in to have a crack at it. The band had a few line-up changes but it was me singing and this dude Tom from local post rock band North By North West on guitar, a guy called Jimmy The Raven on the other guitar, Wilf on bass and Anton on the drums. We practiced out at this desolate garage facility in Margate. Anton was working for his Uncle on a small fishing vessel at the time and would come to band practice straight from work. The stench he bought with him was indescribable but it was akin to what i imagine Bigfoots dick to smell like. Jimmy had no real personality and it wasn’t long before he left and was replaced by Luke Hornus. Funny bloke, had some riffs, and he fitted in way better. Those guys wanted to sound like a blackened At The Gates or something and that was fine with me, i just wanted to scream my head off about something else other than straight edge for a while.

We practiced often and we soon wound up playing some local shows at the shitty Lido Bar. We opened for Darkest Hour a couple of times, though i think in total we played barely ten shows. Like Herod never really had it together live, and were sloppy no matter how good we got it sounding in practice. But it was fun and liberating to be playing new music with different people for to a more open minded crowd. Wilf had some crazy shit go down in his life and he and the whole tribe literally left town the night before we were due to record our EP. After that Burrows filled in but we were treading water. The band finished one night after a Bane show in Canterbury when drunken antics involving someones girlfriend went too far and a fist fight ensued. Someone got sparked out on his doorstep and that was that. It was a shit way to end things and i’m still bummed we never got to record our songs, because despite how this video portrays us, the songs were pretty good. Tom moved to London, Luke went to study somewhere, Anton formed The Break In and I went back to Canaan like a cheating husband returning to his long suffering wife after a grubby affair. I found this clip on youtube, go easy eh?