New Releases 26th May 2023

by Christopher Oakes May 25, 2023

Here is the list of vinyl records that will be released this Friday.

The Lurkers - First Ever Demos 1977 (Vinyl 7" Single)

1977. The band had been together for a few months, and we had some songs roughly worked out. I had managed to arrange a meeting with Miles Copeland (manager of The Police), and he wanted us to bring a demo tape. We didn’t have much money, but I found a very cheap studio in Hayes in Middlesex, which we booked for two hours. At that point I didn’t have my own amp but the man at the studio said not to worry because he had a great Fender amp which was all set up and ready to go. The studio was a very small, converted building in a back garden, it was a tight fit, and the Fender amp was actually a miniscule combo amp, with a very clean sound. It was a million miles from the overdriven noise I was looking for. Also, there was no proper headphone mix and I had to play guitar in the tiny "control room" to avoid sound spillage. This meant I could only vaguely hear the rest of the band. We quickly ran through our three songs. The man thought we were playing so fast because we were nervous, he wasn’t aware of punk rock yet. I told him it was meant to be like that. All three songs were recorded and mixed within the two hours. The following week myself and Esso took the tube up to Oxford Street for our meeting with Miles Copeland. He had a good listen to the three songs and appeared unshocked. He was well aware that punk was "happening" so he was friendly and took us seriously. He was mainly interested in what our ambitions for the band were, we should have said “we wanna be worldwide stars," or something like that but we didn’t. Pete Stride - November 2022.

Henge - Alpha Test 4 (Vinyl LP)

Intergalactic prog-ravers Henge launch Alpha Test 4. The album, the band’s third, is a collection of indescribable sounds garnered from far off worlds. Side A contains six blistering, energetic tracks designed to stimulate and educate - each one taking the listener on a brief, adventurous musical encounter beyond their wildest imagination. It features the single “Get A Wriggle On”, a joyous electro/prog banger calling for immediate action to tackle the climate crisis looming over Earth, along with a glitchy vignette about malfunctioning robots called “Self Repair Protocol”. Side A also contains squelching paeans for the virtue of discovery, both in the galaxy (“Wanderlust”) and the mind (“Altered State”), as well as a trippy tribute to one of the most resilient creatures known to humans, “Tardigrades”.

The mind-expanding Side B, meanwhile, sees Henge collate a batch of cosmic, melody-melting epics. Listeners will be taken on a psychedelic journey through the arpeggiated radiations of “Ra” to the Space Rock salute of Asteroid, arriving at the love letter to Earth that is “First Encounter”.

Henge have been delighting audiences across the UK and Europe since they landed on Earth seven years ago. Their music - known as “Cosmic Dross" - escapes definition, but occupies a space between rave and prog rock that nobody knew existed - going ‘where no band has gone before’. Ultimately, Henge spread a message of hope that leaves audiences feeling amused and uplifted in equal measure.

Panic Pocket - Mad Half Hour (Vinyl LP)

A new wave of indiepop is emerging in the UK, and Panic Pocket are at the forefront of it. Playful, tuneful, sardonic and sassy, Sophie and Natalie have been friends since childhood, know each other’s secrets - and probably know a few of yours too.

Formed in 2017, Panic Pocket soon became a DIY sensation, releasing debut EP Never Gonna Happen, with Reckless Yes in 2019. Their debut album has found a new home.

Amelia and Rob at Skep Wax Records fell in love with the mixture of punk-grrrl attitude and songwriting skill: “They reminded us of all our favourite bands rolled into one. Panic Pocket know how to turn anger and humour into brilliant pop songs.” Panic Pocket will be the main support band at Heavenly’s sell-out London shows in May.

Many of Mad Half Hour’s 10 indie-pop anthems are concerned with being at odds with life's accepted milestones, feeling alienated from the people you thought wanted the same things as you, while trying to forge your own path. So the top-down janglepop of ‘Boyfriend’ reflects on what happens when your best friend finds love…and insists on bringing it everywhere, and ‘Get Me’ answers claustrophobic questions about ‘settling down’ with a not-so-silent scream over some deliciously dirty riffs.

But Panic Pocket’s superpower is their sense of fun. On Mad Half Hour, you’re never more than a few seconds away from a monster hook, killer harmony or an acerbically witty turn of phrase worthy of the band’s heroes Aimee Mann or Liz Phair. From receiving a cryptic “frog emoji” from a long-forgotten one-night stand, to ‘Don’t Get Me Started’’s streetlit walk of shame “via Morrisons car park”, no memory is off-limits, no matter how painful.

If you want punkpop exuberance, lyrics that are so truthful they hurt, plus some very infectious tunes - then Mad Half Hour is exactly the soundtrack you need, right down to the minute.

Guardian Singles - Feed Me To The Doves (Vinyl LP)

New Zealand post-punk group Guardian Singles return to Trouble In Mind for their follow-up to 2021's debut with Feed Me To The Doves, a ten-track socio-political burner addressing our collective spiritual chaos that pulls influence from across the history of punk & permeates it into something decidedly Aotearoan & uniquely their own in ways that are both personal & universal. Feed Me To The Doves is the first album to feature the current, long-standing lineup of Thom Burton (guitar, vocals), Fiona Campbell (drums), Yolanda Fagan (bass), and Durham Fenwick (lead guitar). The band has been playing live together now for a few years & it shows. The songs herein vary from the deeply personal to sketches or postcards, as Burton says "…scribbled while watching the dregs of a delirious culture war play out through broken smartphones and praline vape clouds."

Expertly recorded at Neil Finn's Roundhead Studios in Auckland by engineer Steven Marr, who Burton says had a "great sense of being able to keep the urgency of the songs while adding lushness and keeping things sounding like they're about to break at any second". Marr helped turn the album's scrappy beginnings into something more cohesive and beautiful.

Chain Of Flowers - Never Ending Space (Vinyl LP)

For fans of The Chameleons, Bauhaus, Pink Turns Blue, Drab Majesty, High Vis

Welsh post-punk unit Chain Of Flowers return with their lofty and long-simmering sophomore full-length, rich with reckonings, reverb, and redemption: Never Ending Space. Despite some of the songs dating back a few years, the record first began materializing in earnest during the pandemic, by which point most of the band had relocated from Cardiff to London. Reunited and rejuvenated, they picked up where they left off, booking two multi-day sessions at Hackney hub Total Refreshment Centre with producer Jonah Falco. Singer Joshua Smith describes their headspace in the studio as both committed and questioning: “We were asking ourselves, ‘Does the world need this?’ With everyone going through such different shades of shit?” Thankfully they answered in the affirmative, channelling their kinetic chemistry into 10 full-blooded anthems of torn dreams, poetic delirium, and “hope stretched too far.” Musically, Never Ending Space skews notably more maximal than the group’s previous work, fleshed out with trumpets, saxophone, synth, percussion boxes, and spoken word. (Smith jokingly calls them The Chain Of Flowers Orchestra). Yet the songs still swing and soar with a charged heart, ripe with hooks and drama and ragged melody. Opener “Fire (In The Heart Of Hearts)” stirs to life on a tide of wiry guitar and defiant horns, facing down the embers of love that still glow in the wake of pain: “Peace came tumbling like a shower of bricks / The mind twists slowly till everything fits.” A tense energy ripples throughout – from the nocturnal rush of “Serving Purpose” and “Amphetamine Luck” to the bruised battle cries of “Torcalon” and “Old Human Material.” Outliers like “Praying Hands, Turtle Doves” hint at proggy possible futures, while instrumental vignette “Anomia” offers an intriguing glimpse at a lesser heard facet of the band: swaying, shadowy, subdued. The album’s title track is also its closing cut, a stomping, sparkling ode to “the wrong side of the night, where time goes to die.” Smith describes the scene: “Everyone’s talking and screaming, trauma bonding, but no one’s listening. Broken dialogue. Shouting over each other. You want to switch off, but everyone’s too fucked.” The guitars spiral and slide towards the oblivion of dawn, the chance to crash and do it all again. The song’s refrain captures the elision of time, spilling through the haze of days, from chaos to acceptance: “I can’t see the clock through the shrouds of smoke / Does it matter? / Common ground / In a never ending space.