music reviews Buzzard WELSH RELEASES


The best music to come out of Wales in 2021 – in this reporter’s opinion, if you insist on that bit – is by Alice Low, who moved to Cardiff during lockdown and played her debut live show at October’s Sŵn Festival. That the music I’m referring to is a 14-minute, multiple-segmented song titled Ladydaddy is


nothing bad of Cry-Baby, its followup – which is ‘regular pop song’ length, suave and sexual lyrically, and its pianos and gurning rawk solos hark back to 70s auteur pop (Todd Rundgren or even Paul McCartney) on a DIY budget.


to say


Clwb Fuzz are playing in their home city’s Tiny Rebel venue this month if like me you’re curious as to whether they can replicate that sound live.


Buzzard Buzzard,


considerably, with a song like Fabricate rustling up a fair wigout even while a distinct tweeness prevails.


insular, yet global – ‘dungeon synth’


community. Unlike a lot of dungeon synth, Sunken Grove doesn’t seem to come from a black metal background; latest EP In The Shades Of Sleeping Leaves touts an aesthetic of rural folky ambience across five instrumental keyboard pieces. Permeating Visions Of Emerald Figures has the most fulsome title and a delicate precision not unlike Roedelius or other German synth pioneers.


Crypt Rot are a two-piece death metal band, with drums handled by a machine, who I think are based in Cardiff and are unrelated to the American death metal band also called Crypt


exist, guys! This self-titled, three-song cassette debut on the FHED label is good craic though. Tom Hughes’ guitars and bass are tuned way down, giving a hint of death-doom at times, while vocalist Kyle Shaun Thomas favours slam death-style gurgling unintelligibility a la Devourment and the like.


Rot. Search engines


Listening to a song like Sunkiss by The Mighty Observer


from the Cardiff/London band Melin Melyn), with its languid tempo and twinkly yacht-rock synth, it feels pretty middle of the road too, although in tune with a certain recent trend in indie sonics. Aros Am Yr Haul could have been a Balearic poolside DJ hit in another lifetime, and overall this feels more my bag than the Melin Melyn stuff I’ve encountered to date.


(Garmon Rhys


The best music to come out of Wales around the mid-2010s might have been Chain Of Flowers – at least, their ear-ringing, dramatic indie classicism with a hardcore punk sensibility was a real standout attraction, especially on bills of harder and faster bands. They’ve just released Flowers Everywhere (Vol 1: 2012-2017), a Bandcamp comp of songs from their early cassettes, thus an excuse to speak fondly of songs like Sleep, Clutching The Night and their cover of Spectrum’s How You Satisfy Me. (The single they released earlier this year is boss, as well.)


Major Label Debut, by Newport


Swansea indiepop icon Helen Love, longer- standing custodian of the programmed beat, trails her forthcoming 10th album with its title track, This Is My World, on the Alcopop! label. A Helen Love song can only sound like Helen Love, essentially, yet this is a curveball in many ways: synthesized strings and brass soundtrack Helen’s memoir- esque lyrical tack, unusually personal and melancholy and perhaps closer to, say, Erasure than this project’s best known, high-energy songs.


Spider Kitten, is in fact self-released, and shares its sarcastic title with a Screeching Weasel EP from the late 90s, a few years before Spider Kitten formed. Fronted by Chi Lameo, SK’s sole continuous member in what is currently a trio, their longevity has led them down many paths, wearing many stylistic hats, but the punked- up grunge thud – think the early Sub Pop roster, with Maladjusted’s riff distinctly resembling Nirvana’s Negative Creep – offered up here is perhaps the closest the band come to a default mode. There’s even a Wipers cover (Over The Edge) and a song called Self-Care (Makes Me Wanna Die) that sounds a bit like GG Allin, cos why not.


heavy rockers


When William J emailed me a link to a Soundcloud track of his some months back he described it as “Kurt Vile-esque”, and truth be told maybe that didn’t spur me to repeated listens. (I’ve enjoyed Kurt Vile in my time but tuned out at some point.) He sent two more, though, Wild West and Sunflower, and is calling them a single – and I’m into it. They both shimmer extensively, Johnson (that being his full surname) moving between trip-hoppy drums, goofy synth sections and freewheeling folk guitar. The second track’s my pick, for trying a DIY shoegaze suit on for size and ending up somewhere near Flying Saucer Attack and their 90s Bristol peers.


This six-piece post-hardcore band date back to the late 00s but are releasing their debut album, Hir Oes I’r Cof, this month. Something of a square peg in the Cardiff scene, singing in Welsh but with a heavier sound than most of their more indie-leaning Sin Roc Gymraeg peers, they’ve nevertheless found an appreciative audience. Frontman Steffan Dafydd answered questions at work in between organising October’s Sŵn Festival.


The press writeup for this album says you’re the first group from that Funeral For A Friend-esque mould to sing in Welsh… but to me Breichiau Hir largely sounds quite different to those bands. I think there are elements to the sound that we share, like the melodic bits and the heavy bits. That scene was part of growing up for me, and probably why I wanted to start a band when I was 16. By now, that’s evolved to something else entirely for me and the other members.


There are certain types of Welsh music that are nearly always sung in English. With the heavier stuff, I think part of the problem is the Welsh language scene. There’s a huge lack of Welsh language music festivals that aren’t family friendly. You don’t want to be screaming down a mic to kids in face paint with parents buying posh pizzas from a van…


What are the reasons for taking so long to release your debut album? We never had a collection of songs that would work together as an album. I don’t think we’ve put too much pressure on ourselves to record one – we’ve been busy without it and it’s not been right until now – but Hir Oes I’r Cof flowed out of us and all the songs were written with the other songs in mind.


NOEL GARDNER


Does it feel like it’s become especially easier or harder to do a band at this level since you began? It’s more difficult to get everyone together as much as we’d like – the older we get, the busier our lives get. But we have a great network of people supporting us, such as Libertino Records and our producer Phil Smith.


Another, newer, Cardiff band on a heavy-lidded shoegaze tip are Clwb Fuzz, whose latest digi-single God (Let You Lose) arrives on what seems to be a brand new label, Black Dog. There’s some form of social commentary in the lyrics but if you just get bowled along by the big crescendoing guitars, sort of like a goth-punk Spiritualized, that’s no crime. Produced by Tom Rees from


Remaining in Swansea, the second album by Lost Tuesday Society, Bee Skin Rug, favours a type of folk-rock that’s a bit cosmic and psych-y (one song is titled DMT, I note), but pretty accessible with it – some might say MOR, all things considered. Flute and violin parts elevate arrangements


Sunken Grove is a project by Ellis Green, based right on the Powys/Herefordshire border if my intel is right, and in the last 18 months seems to have made a name for itself in the – admittedly


You’re playing your album launch gig at Clwb Ifor Bach on Sat 20 Nov. Is this a case of you booking your own band at work for once? Haha! Yes, I was planted at Clwb years ago, and the plan is finally coming together.


Breichiau Hir’s Hir Oes I’r Cof is released by Libertino on Fri 19 Nov. breichiauhir.bandcamp.com


NOEL GARDNER 37


ONES TO WATCH: Breichiau Hir


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