Nr. 1, 2009

Interviews with among

others MELEEH

Albumreviews!Interviews!

PESANTEUR, SUIS LA LUNE, IF FOOTMEN TIRE YOU, WHAT WILL HORSES DO?

livereview!

Set us Free Fanzine

Reviewing: Records

Marat “Songs From The Crypt”

Despite a pretty ugly recordcover, which I, thank God, watched after the review, these dutches actually delivers awe-some, and perhaps a bit postrocky screa-mo. It’s relatively slow, with a bunch of monotone riffs, and unfortunatly pretty lame screams. I Wouldn’t Be Caught Dead Here was quickly getting to be one of my favoritesongs of this record, the song catches my interest already from the start with the incredibly nice intro. They also manage to squeeze in some D-beat in that song, and for me, and old crustpunk, that is so fucking fun and cool to hear.

Kaospilot seem to be like one of the bigger bands in the Norwegian screamoscene, and here we got their second fullength “Shadows”, released 2009. The record starts with “Lunar”, a track containing acoustic feedback and ambient sounds. But soon we will

Kaospilot“Shadows”

be facing Kaospilots straggling and crushing soundwall, which is some-thing of the best stuff I’ve ever heard in modern screamo. It’s a hell of a mix between fast and slow, dissonant and harmonic, heavy and straggling, and Kaospilot uses all of these ele-ments with perfection. The song “Ad Infinitum” is a abrupt break in the re-cord with its slow and heavy groove, which only shows that Kaospilot even masters that element. A terribly cool interruption that leads to the song “Colossus” that ends the record in a very beuatiful way.

PDT“Död Mans Tacktal”

PDT is a swedish mariestadsband which name I have no clue about what it means. Anyways, “Död Mans Tacktal” (roughly translated; Dead Mans Thankyou-Speech) is a onetrackdemo-looking record, or so it looks. Nothing bad with that though! PDT’s got the whole screamopackage, they are what I would call a ocean of emotions, with almost totally different parts that is constantly following each other all through the five minute long song. It should feel wrong to review a onesongrecord, but PDT pulls this off superbly. The screams are although a bit lame, but that’s pretty much all I can say that is bad. On the back of the cover there’s a serie of texts written, which I assume are being screamed in the song, but I can only follow with the first text, then I’m lost. Anyways, PDT should really continue what they’re are doing and I hope I will see more of them in the future.

Just a short introduction!Set us free fanzine started as a idea when I was at a lesson in my school. We had Graphic communation (directly translated). I had finished all assign-ments, so I got a extra one, to make a frontside of a magazine. Since screamo dominates my taste of music at the mo-ment, and I just love music, the choice was easy; a music magazine. The front was made, and I got the highest grade. Back then it was named Have Heart Fanzine, but I switched name since I didn’t want it to be mixed up with the band that goes by the same name. I hade some interviews, a little bit of re-viewing material, a concert came at the right moment, and all of a sudden I had material for a smaller magazine. Since I think magazines are to be read in paper form I developed this fanzine to be printed. I can’t afford this although, but if I manage to I might print some copies by hand. Anyways, I made it a PDF on the internet instead. Mostly to reach out to international readers. So why do I do this? I love music. How cliché it sounds, I want to do everything I can for the music and the scene, of the dying genre that is called screamo. I want to lift forth the real music, not medias massproduced MTV-shit. I hope you enjoy my fanzine.

I also apologize for any eventual spell-ing mistakes.

/Emil ÅstrandLike, Editor?

Reviewing and Presenting:L’homme Puma “On Remplace Les Yeux Cassés”

Formed in January of 2005, l’homme Puma is an instrumental trio that can be described as ambient rock. With a meticulous use of electronics (sam-pling, speeches...), the Parisian combo crafts a sound that evolves from post rock to post hardcore, krautrock to noise or even dub.After more than 50 concerts through-

out Europe (France, Poland, Swit-zerland...), they continue to hit the roads of the Old Continent. They have shared the stage with numerous bands such as Impure Wilhelmina, Dominic (Sweden), La Quiete (Ita-lia), Aussitot Mort (France).L’Homme Puma released a first ten track EP in June of 2007 on the label Communication Is Not Words which has been widely reviewed on the web and in the paper press.

Diskography:2009: On remplace les yeux cassés (7”, 12”)Communication is not words + Things get worse (both FR)2007; 10 tracks EPCommunication is not words (FR)2006: 4 tracks split CD /w sugar-town cabaretPuzzle Records (FR), Desertion records (FR), Whosbrain records (Tyskland)

The Review:The french l’Homme Puma takes us for the sake of change on to a journey in the universe of instrumental post-rock. Or so it feels. Their weird mixtures of rockriff, electronica and acoustic guitars, and the typical post-rock riff plus the melodies makes me really think that l’Homme Puma is something above the normal. Dialogues and speeches is wildly sampled, and I think I recognize a part out of Kubricks phenomenous movie Full Metal Jacket on the song “Surtout dans les coins”, which is absolutely wonderful. If I should take another example of how cool mixes l’Homme Puma makes, then I must say that the intro on “Catherine Deneuve” is massive, crazy, and bloody heavy, to then change to something completely different. I’m already stunned, but the eight track “Plaisir D’offrir” makes me fall completely. I want to cry because of its beuty. The whole record is just one big earorgasm.

Sofy Major “Maxi”

Sofy Major is a Noise Hardcore band from Clermont-Ferrand (France). They’ve been playing for 4 years, and toured twice across Europe (one french tour and one Eurotour) play-ing aproximately 60 to 70 gigs in six different countries. The band released three records : an eponym 12” red transparent vinyl (CD version through Arghhh! Rds), a 10” split vinyl with One Second Riot (a noise band from Lyon) and a 7” split vinyl released by IFB Rds, only in the US with the american band Her Breath On Glass. Next release will be a tribute compila-tion for the french noise band Tan-trum (also starring Knut, Membrane, Cortez...).

Getting their influence through heavy and noisy bands such as Barkmarket, Neurosis or Unsane, the band wishes to convey the noise, rock and hardcore heritage of their french predecessors Condense, Hint and Portobello Bones.

Evolving through calming atmo-spheres, epic music, thunderous and incisive songs, the band shared the

stage with Boris, These Arms Are Snakes, Amen Ra, or Lack, in order to defend a sincere, ethic and powerful music.

The Review: Screamo has slowly, but safely be-come one of my favoritegenres. The energy, anxiety, and the rage is so perfectly balanced and in the end it becomes something so beuatiful. And now when my latest star, Sofy Major, has appeared in the picture it feels like screamo forever will be with me.

But enough about me. Sofy Major is a french Screamo-band that is very right on, unlike alot of bands in the scene that rather build up their songs and doesn’t release the anger until the end of the song. Sofy Major, on the other hand, always manage to keep the same energy throughout their songs, which results in a spray of rage and melody, that always succeedes to walk hand by hand. That is probably the reason that makes me love Maxi, there is always a wonderful melody beneath the rest of the nistruments,

and vocalist Bastiens shriek. It is so beautiful that I want to cry, but at the same time so rough that I just want to bang my fist to the wall. But I do not want to guide you in the wrong direction, or confuse you with saying that it’s too rough or too me-lodic. Read this last sentence and you will know all you need to know.It is wonderful.

Sam Nordmark(Translated by me, Emil.)

Interviewing:If Footmen Tire you, what will horses do?

From left; Andreas, David, Rickard. All pictures taken from www.myspace.com/iffootmen

If footmen tire you, what will horses do? is a pretty small screamoband from Örebro, Sweden, which consists of David, Rickard and Andreas. I felt that a insight in the bands life was required, so I made a little mailinter-view with them:- When I read the first blogentry; We assure you we are alive it seemed like you havn’t existed before? If so, can you tell us a bit why you “took a break”? - No, we have never taken any break. That blogentry was more like a confirmation on that we really existed as a band and not only had a myspace to air with. - Why did you start playing music?- It was a sort of impulse that made us cre-ate a band, there was a interest for it, plain simple. It turned out to be just that music because we all listen to the same kind of music and that’s why we have the same inspiration sources and starting points when we create our music.- How would you describe your own music?- That’s a tricky question to answer, it is very hard for us to describe or define what we are doing with our band. It is up to everyone else to decide.

examples on bands that uses swedish lyrics. - Is a fullength on the board in the near future?- That is also hard to say... We are working on new material, and we have some ideas about which way we’re going to go, but if it turns out to be a fullength, a EP or a split, or whatever, we will see. - Something I’m really curious about, what does your songwriting process look like?- Rickard writes the riffs, but we all works on the music together in the rehearsal room. We test different ideas we got and uses the stuff that we ourselves think sound good. We don’t try to force songs in a given form, they are shaped under the writing process. We all write the lyrics, it varies. - Tell me a bit about how it looks on the livefront! How much do you got booked? Where and when if so?- at the moment we got two gigs confirmed: One in Stockholm with Suis La Lune and Pesanteur, and one on a free-entrance festi-val in Örebro with a bunch of other bands. Hopefully there is more to come!- How do you feel about gigs?- It’s one the things that’s the biggest reason we play for; to play live is absolutely the funniest thing about playing in a band.- And I can’t do nothing more than agree.

- I have seen that you are about to release a new seven inch, how do you think it will differ from the demo re-leased in 2008?- We already now at this moment that the coming seven inch will be so incredibly much better than the demo, on all levels. First of all the songs are much better, and more thorougly worked out; they feel more like real songs that us ourselves could listen to. We’re also going into a real studio this time, which will most likely contribute to the sound/produc-tion on the seven inch so it will be much better.- With the title of the EP, called “Viskningar och Rop” (Whispers and screams), in mind, does this means that the lyrics will be in swedish? What do you think about the usage of swedish in screamobands? Does it suit? - No, but we had a vague idea about start-ing singing in swedish, or at least blend in swedish in the lyric. It didn’t turned out like that, not this time at least, the lyric will still be in english. The title will al-though reflect the music and the lyric, and then we all three think that it’s a fantasti-cally good title! Otherwise it’s a pretty good idea that can be performed well, Amalthea and Anemone are two good

Interviewing:MELEEH

Interviewing:

The lads in Meleeh started up in the summer of 2004, in their hometown Gävle, and was meant to sound something like the punkbands that was from there in the late 90’s, like Serene and Openmind-ead. Through many liveperformances, and a demo, they got very much attention. Meleeh feels like one of the bigger bands in the swedish hardcore/screa-mo scene today. They took their time for a short mailinterview:

- What was the key to your success? - The goal with the band was to play live and meet kids. We have had the privilege to do more than we could have hoped for. I think the answer is that we struggled like hell to get where we are today. We have always believed in ourselves and never cared about what others thought and said. It’s about the own feeling. To be satisfied with what you create. If you’re honest in what you do it use to be appreciated by yourself as well as the listener. If we’re big or successful is less important.

Meleeh has so far released two fullength CDs; “Another Low. A New Hollow” and “Heartland”, which were also released in Japan. This year they’re working on a third record. - Can you tell us a bit about it?- We’re are about halfway through now perhaps. Five songs are in principle ready. It went slow for a while, but now things start to roll pretty good. The goal is to release it under the coming winter.- Will you stick to the sound that you’ve had under the last two records?- You will absolutely hear that it is Meleeh but if you’re hoping for a recurrence of “Heartland” then you will get disappointed. There is no meaning to release products that are copies of each other. We have developed really fucking much during the last two years and together pulled at the same direction. More united. It sounds dark och heavy as hell. So if you like rough music you will get a nice fruitcocktail of hardcore and heavy metal. - Tell me a bit about your sound!- Feels strange and extremely hard to describe your own sound. Traditional hardcore with guitarwalls and awkward drumbeats perhaps?!

MELEEH

The interview continues with us talking a bit about the live-front of Meleeh:- How did you got the hultsfredsfestival gig? - They got in touch with our label and wanted us to play. Short and simple. - What are your expectations?- Free entrance all days on the festival, and 5 new kids in the audience that never heard or seen us. Sounds pretty reason-able. - How do you think this will benefit you more than that you get a cool gig?- No idea. The awesome thing will be that people that never heard or seen us maybe pops by and like what they’re listen-ing to. It may also perhaps give “rings on the water” that one so elegantly express it.

- Do you have plans on more gigs or eventual tours? If so, enlighten us!- We will do some scattergigs this summer, check out www.myspace.com/meleeh. No tours before the release of the new record is planned.

The future is nothing that troubles Meleeh.- We take day by day. The day we don’t feel for playing together anymore we disband immeadiatly.- What is your biggest goal with the band?- To be honest in what we do and maybe be able to affect directly or indirectly the kids to create bands, make them pep up on things and that they learn to be open and honest against themselves and other human beings. As long as you got a good feeling you just should drive on like hell. When the

Meleeh in all pictures, taken from www.myspace.com/meleeh

MELEEH

spark is gone. Don’t think about it very much, just go on.

- To get on a totally different subject, what do you think about todays swedish hardcore/screamo scene? - You can say that the scene is pretty scattered. But there are many good bands and many good people. Jesaiah for an example. Another Year and The eight arms around you to namedrop some. Jesaiah is soon releasing a new record on the same recordlabel as us. Björn has been helping with the recordings and he says it sounds awesome so we look forward to that. They will hit through hard this year. Guaran-teed. - Do you yourself think that you help keeping the scene alive?- That’s not really something we think about. But of course we contribute with something to it just like everyone else that is involved. People is coming to our gigs and that is just awesome.

And my last question will be the one that will round up this interview, and Meleeh get to ask themselves a question: - why does everyone think that Björn and Thomas look so much like eachother?- That is and remains a mystery.

So far Meleeh plays here:

27 June Summer in the city festival Finland, Turku08 July Hultsfredsfestivalen Sweden, Hultsfred

Interviewing:

Reviewing: Records Suis La Lune “Heir”

Suis La Lune has always been a screamoband to rec-ognize Sweden with, despite their french name, and they do not disappoint us this

time either. Teninch “Heir” contains four songs and already from the early start you can hear that this is Suis La Lune. With its peculiar

sound they craft passionate and beutiful screamo in a although traditional way, no bad with that, but now when they’ve found their sound I think that they should experi-ment a bit more.

Serena Joy “Ours will be a lonely battle”

Serena Joy is a bit more ex-perimental band from Great Britain. This debutrecord contains four songs, Move-ment I-IV. In my opinion

this band combines the best elements out of screamo, postrock, and ambient. This can only mean, that this band kicks ass. Movement

IV is a really beutiful spoken word song which ends in a as-tonishing sing-along, and this puts an end to Serena Joy for this time. This is a band that is really worth to keep your eyes on, so do it.

My Own Private Alaska “Self Titled”

Piano, drums and screams? This is something of the weirdast and coolest stuff I’ve ever heard in the screamo-genre, and at the same time

so fucking good. The feeling MOPA is delivering with the piano in such harmony with the screaming, together with the rockhard background, is

undescribeable. So interesting, and such a atmosphere, makes this band one of the most in-teresting bands in the screamo-scene today. I am overwhelmed. The favoritesong is “Will you die for me (if I say please)?”, which I can listen to over, and over again.

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep “adacta/preface”rock’n’roll screamo from belgium, with chaotic och swinging melodies and riff, but also a whole lot of clean singing, which they blend in with screams in a very good

way. For an example, in the song “Farewell...”, which is my favoritesong on the record, we can hear all of these element. These guys definetly makes you wanna

move your legs, but also to sing-along. Sweet basslines, wonderful dynamics, every-thing is nailed right where it should be and the band that took it’s name from a book really knows how to get things swinging.

The Hope and the Failure“The Lights Are On But This Dance Never Ends”

Again, a swedish band, which has only released this record. A shame it is. Extremely passionated screamo/emo, and espe-

cially the vocals are totally amazing. Not only that it is a woman that screams, she also sounds like she is crying and about to col-

lapse, which contributes alot to the feeling the album infuses. Besides it is very slow, and gloomy all through. It’s heavy, sad, and lifts the vocals up in a exceptional way. Terribly sad that they are disbanded.

German screamoband, with a sound that feels a bit french. Fast intro in the style of Circle takes the squares “Same shade as concrete”, which gives

me expectations, but no, not that chaotic. Many parts are although pretty rough and fast, and the band’s got a good spirit. What I could complain

on is, that the guitarists distor-tion would more fit a punkband. It easy gets a chainsawfeeling over the guitars as it sounds now. But that is just a matter of taste.

Mr Willis of Ohio“Eure Welt”

Sixwaysplit“Connections”

This is something I’ve never seen before, a sixway split, released on Moment of Collapse, and thats why I feel this review demands half a page! Arse Moreira opens the record with a calm and nice introsång, to then escalate in total chaos, and I think that was what I liked most about this band, the chaos brings my thoughts a bit back to Index for Potential Suicide. Even the songlengths re-minded me of them, when all songs except the intro was about 1 minute long. What’s more is that they play according to the traditional screamo-pattern, but nothing wrong with that. What I could want to change is the vocals, it is really too low mixed, you can’t really hear it. Eucalypt, second band out plays a somewhat alike Arse Moreira but not that chaotic, they unfortunatly recieved their lowmixed vocals too. otherwise they have very beautiful harmonics, and holds a good tempo. A little bit thin drums although. But very dynamic.Swedish Amalthea is out next, and I get happy. I personally love Amal-thea, and on this record they seem to have leaned more against screamo than emo, which I thought they were more like before. But that is just a matter of taste. I really enjoy the prominent bass. It feels good to hear that one too sometimes. The vocals are really good, and makes me think of Do Androids Dream of Electric

Sheep, which is even better. The cosy parts is incredible. Amalthea is really the ultimate mix.Over to Orbit Cinta Benjamin who does more emotional screams, which is pretty shrill, a bit same style as The Saddest Landscape I think. The sound itself is okey, many light, monotone riff that are used as harmonics. They also has a very cool part with doublevocals, which I really like.Dodewaard surprises me as fifth band, and I get happy because it was a long time since I last heard those. They play classic screamo with not too loud vocals. Not very fast either, some parts are very slow and heavy, almost a bit sludgy. French Hiro puts an end to this sixwaysplit with a cautious song, which mostly consists of a slow and calm act, with a mild singing voice. This passes later into a slow, screaming inferno. It is a shame that the soundquality is pretty shabby, but this is definatly a band too keep an eye out for. Only good bands in this split, so I command you: Buy for fuck sake!

Reviewing: Records

Isaïah “ils consomment, tuent et prient mais ne pensent pas”

I can only say one thing; Wow. French screamo at it’s best. What you can complain on is that they have a pretty thin guitarsound, and that is perhaps why their overall sound feels a bit lame on some parts, but other than that, Isaïah got it all. This is heavy, beautiful, slow, in-

creadibly emotionally loaded and I can only wish that I understood french, I think that would’ve contributed really much to the entirety. They have a good feeling for structure in their songs too. I myself think that the bass sound is awfully beautiful, but sadly it does not sound very “bassy”. This could also be a reason for their thin sound on some parts. The ending song “Enfants de l’apathie” is a perfect ending, the ending part consists of a french mono-logue blended with distant and ambi-entlike guitarsounds, which rounds up this record in a splendid way.

Dancing on Debris ... of our selfmade collapse

The german Dancing on Debris plays screamo the slow way, and I feels at some points very anxietyfilled. A mod-erate straight speed is kept through the whole record, with hoarse screams in deutsch, that actually sounds good. Thrashy but plump sound and the typical mixture of calmer parts with more speedy ones. What surprises me in a positive way is the vague idea of violin that I get here and then, on the second song Nachtlied it comes at both the beginning and the end, which is awesome, violin in screamo fits so extremely fucking well. The last song Till the end is a 35 minutes long song that almost only consist of something that crackles, it sounds like if you’re playing a empty LP or a tape. Here and then some music comes although. It’s a weird way to end a record with, and if I’m going to be honest I don’t think it works very well. Overall a good band, definetly worth to spend money on!

Reviewing: Records HARDCORE

Got onto I for Us records on-linestore, and damnit, they had a packageprice - Eleven CDs for 15 euros! “Cool”, I thought, and made a order. Then I thought; Why not review this? So that’s what I did. Here are some hardcorerecords, mostly, other stuff may occur. I did not had time to review them all although, but I hope it won’t make any bigger difference. First out is The Process.

Revive“Believes of an old past”

Revive is a french hardcoreband, with a very hardread handwriting in which they’ve written everything in their cover with, including the lyrics in the book, and that makes me stop even try to read immeadiatly. It’s just a small thing, but it surely bugs me. However, Revive plays straight hardcore in a bit newer way, they are fast and swingy, and have a real yummy snaredrum. The vocals are not screams neither singing, but a bit of a mixture, and the choruses occur often. They are not very innovative, but you cannot stop wanting to bang your head when you listen to them. The good thing about them is that they do not play same stuff over and over again, they give space for calmer parts, like “Flavour of Shame” which comes as a lovely break in the hard-core chuggah. Track 11, Interlude, is a beautiful instrumental piece with a acoustic guitar. Definetly OK!

The Process, which name I assume they got from Franz Kafkas book, opens their record with a heavy and pretty slow, groovy part, and I think for myself: Oh, how crustinflued. And as I suspected, the stringinstru-ment strike one last time and letting the notes ring, and the drums thun-ders alone, with the punks hallmark: D-beat. this is the beat that continues nearly throughout the record, with a bit variations and quick fills, except for the song “Vultures of Human Decay”, where they tryout something else. I love the sound The Process got, the almost “canny” sound on “Avsmak” makes me smile and think that this is fucking cool. The lyrics are anxietyfilled, but not as much right on that much punk is, they have formulated themselves in better ways, which is a great bonus. On the end, sadly, much falls. They really build up to a climax, that is very cool, and choses to finish it with a slow fade. Euw is what I say. Finish in a real way next time!

The Process “Vultures of human decay”

Gold Kids“Self titled”

Gold kids is something that I’ve only heard about a bit before, nothing I listened very much too. But after this self titled record I’m pretty sure; really good stuff! The band creates a very nice soundwall with alot of powermute and fast drumming, but it doesnt get to that point of heavyness as Dead Swans that is coming after this review. This might be perhaps more easy-going hardcore, if you now can say so. I’m although not all happy with the drumsound, it sounds a bit lame in some way. Thin perhaps. Gold kids also uses alot of choruses, very often in the refrains, which makes their sound strive a bit more to the oldschool hardcore like Sick of it All or Blood for blood. Samples occur sometimes here and then, especially in the song “All those nice dreams” is one cool part, where the singer screams along with the sample. A good band and a good record, I’m all happy.

Dead Swans“The Southern Blue”

Dead Swans is a bit like perfection in person. I’m totally speechless. It’s speedy, cool, chaotic, brutal, raw fucking hardcore with influences gathered from all around. Everything from D-beat parts to fast solos can oc-cur, but always in perfect harmony, or disharmony. “Tin Heart” is the song on the record that nearly makes me laugh of happiness when I hear the fantastically, rockhard chaotic intro. I thank my lucky star that I bought this record, and there will be more, I assure you that.

Reviewing: Records HARDCORE

Japanese Endzweck does a classic; sampled intro, then right on. It’s re-ally good, powermuteriff and heavy guitars which creates a soundwall together with the drums, and then let other instrument be able to cre-ate melodies and more. Their sound brings my thoughts very much back to Meleeh, which is very very posi-tive. But what happens then? Despite

Endzweck“The Grapes of Wrath

Daggers“Self titled”

Daggers, whom I have been friend with on myspace earlier but not really listened to yet, made me wake up for real. This is incredibly wonderful, speedy hardcore with a great access to a bunch of hardcorejumps. Sick vocals that makes me forget every other screams I’ve ever heard before. Besides the sound itself is fucking trashy, like they’ve recorded the CD

on tape, and that just makes the feel-ing in its entirety so much better. I think that you should do like every-one else, buy the fucking record, get it on the stereo and start practicing up “The Windmill” before the next Daggers-gig comes to you.

When We Fall“We untrue our minds”

When we fall is something that I would rather not put on again. Unen-gaging, new-hardcore that makes me think about the typical “MTV-Emo” that is played all over nowadays, which sound so mainstream that I can hardly believe it. They got everything that takes to draw small kids with

Outrageous“Self titled”

Outrageous plays som sort of coali-tion between hardcore and crust. D-beat and the regular hardcorebeat ovarlaps each other all the time, but there is still some space for more calmer parts. In the song “Adrift” there is, for an example a great load of nice exchanges between differ-ent parts. This is for me all good, I’m happy, but there’s isn’t anything

this, I loose my interest after just a few songs. It could rely on that no song is different from the other, it’s all the same on all songs. It doesn’t really work if you have a 12 track long CD. So, Endzweck, open your minds and let your creativity flow. You got the potential.

sidefringe. If we’re going to talk more about When we fall in the musi-cal way we can directly state that the bright clear vocals kills everything that is built up, the feeling and the en-gagement, which makes me so bored that I stop listening with the time. When we fall should definetly find a own sound. Although I read on their myspace that they have dissolved. Good or bad? Well. Your call.

that makes me think “wow” at all. Synopsis comes as cosy little break in all the roughness, but it isn’t quite enough. But if I am to choose a favorite song it would have to be “Endless”, because of the dynamics in it. Overall a totally OK record, and pretty good-looking that they’ve chosen to only have one word as bandname as well as song titles.

Long have I wondered about the music phenomenon known as screamo. The image media and the public have of this genre is make-up tears, drainpipe jeans and childish tales about heartbreak stories.Forget all that nonesense now. Don’t even think, just do it. Imagine this instead, imagine Per Gessle summer-hit”Här kommer alla känslorna” (roughly translated it becomes Here come all the feelings) in physical form. Hatred, love, sadness, joy. All of this compressed in a single package, there you have screamo.

The first band out was Örebro’s If Footmen Tire you, What Will Horses for? that has a very similar sound to early Cult of Luna. But I would never say that the band itself is a Cult of Luna 2, the band has a stockpile of aggression that the octet from Umeå miss, and they use it completely flawless. Quite wonderful melodic pieces are almost always present and the aggression completly spews from the speakers during songs like “Bound by a vow” and “I Have Become ... Convincing.” After the gig, batterist David tells me that this was their third gig ever. Third time’s the charm. [8/10]

Reviewing:If Footmen Tire You, What Will Horses Do?

Pesanteur, Suis La LuneLive @ Smedjan, Stockholm, 16 May

If the first band was Cult of Luna the second band, Pesan-teur, is definitely Converge. Never have I seen such a contact with the audience and stage presence as the vocalist Joakim exudes. It’s hard to imagine that this is the band’s first gig since they seem to have complete control of everything. The absolute best part, however, is undoubtedly the rythm divi-sion, where the band has recruited a temporary bassplayer, Ted as he is called. And the fact that drummer Robert plays on an acoustic drum kit that gives the music an incredible well-needed dept. As a final the band plays a cover of Indian Summers “Angry Son”. With this cover I am sure, I am quite sure that I have found something wonderful. I am sold, I’m knocked out. I am speechless. [10/10]

If Footmen Tire You, What Will Horses Do? Pesanteur, Suis La Lune

Live @ Smedjan, Stockholm, 16 May

Last Act suis la Lune will have to compensate for this loss. But, should we be honest the band wouldn’t have to put that much effort to heal our wounds. Imagine this evening’s opening acts in a mad jam and you have Suis la lune, it is pure mayhem in one moment, but so incredibly beautiful and harmonic the next. This was the first time I’ve ever listened to Suis la lune as a whole and I’ll probably never be able to fully enjoy the band’s material on the CD, because of the energy the band radiated on stage is not likely to be reflected by using a audio card, a CD player or a needle. I think it only can be experienced live. So please, please Santa Claus, God, Jesus, Vishnu, Freya, Oden and Thor. Make sure that this band is never forgotten. [10/10]

Sam Nordmark

During this evening there should have been two more bands playing on Smedjan’s minimal stage, but tragically, the third band, Meleehs, drummer Fredrik been affected by a sudden disease and the band have cancelled their gig. Let us hope for a quick recovery for Fredrik and his family.

Every photo is shot by either Cecilia Curcija or Malin Andersson

Participating bandspeople, and distrobutions

BANDS DAGGERSwww.myspace.com/daggersband REVIVEhttp://www.myspace.com/revivehxc ENDZWECKhttp://www.myspace.com/endzweck THE PROCESShttp://www.myspace.com/thepro-cessswe DEAD SWANShttp://www.myspace.com/thedead-swans GOLD KIDSwww.myspace.com/goldkids SUIS LA LUNEwww.myspace.com/suislalune PESANTEURhttp://www.myspace.com/pesanteur-perdu IF FOOTMEN TIRE YOU, WHAT WILL HORSES DO?http://www.myspace.com/iffootmen MELEEH http://www.myspace.com/meleeh SERENA JOYwww.myspace.com/sjoy MY OWN PRIVATE ALASKAhttp://www.myspace.com/myownpri-vatealaska DO ANDROIDS DREAM OF ELECTRIC SHEEP?http://www.myspace.com/dadoes666

MR. WILLIS OF OHIO www.myspace.com/mrwillisofohio

THE HOPE AND THE FAILUREwww.myspace.com/thehopeandthefail-ure ARSE MOREIRAwww.myspace.com/arsemoreira AMALTHEAwww.myspace.com/amaltheamusic HIROwww.myspace.com/hiromuzik EUCALYPTNo contact info found. ORBIT CINTA BENJAMINhttp://www.myspace.com/orbitcinta-benjamin DODEWAARDwww.myspace.com/dodewaard ISAÏAHwww.myspace.com/weareisaiah DANCING ON DEBRIShttp://www.myspace.com/dancingond-ebris MARAThttp://www.myspace.com/everybodyl-ovesmarat PDTwww.myspace.com/pdtscreamo KAOSPILOTwww.myspace.com/kosepilot

WHEN WE FALLwww.myspace.com/whenwefall

OUTRAGEOUSwww.myspace.com/outrageoushc

L’HOMME PUMAwww.myspace.com/hommepuma

SOFY MAJORwww.myspace.com/sofymajor

DISTROS MOMENT OF COLLAPSEwww.myspace.com/momentofcollapse

COMMUNICATION IS NOT WORDSwww.myspace.com/communicationis-notwords

PEOPLE

SAM NORDMARK San.Nordmark@hotmail.com

CAROLINA CURCIJAsixtydollarbill@hotmail.com

MALIN ANDERSSONblodnasir@live.se

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Thanks.