For more than 40 years there's been a shadow hanging over the Liverpool music scene, a shadow with a mop top and a ready line in humorous scouse quips. Occassionally the bands and artists by the Mersey cast the shadow aside and make the world briefly forget the fab four ever happened. It happened in the early 80s with the emergence of The Bunnymen, Wah Heat, Dead or Alive, Orchestral Manouevres In The Dark and the Teardrop Explodes. It happened again towards the end of the 90s with the rise of Space, The Coral, The Zutons and The Rascals. Well it's happening again. As Liverpool council prepare to demolish Ringo Starr's birthplace it's fitting that the city's bands and artists are demolishing the Beatles legacy and creating their own history.
Thanks to Pete Guy of the excellent Liverpool website Get Into This for his help on this post.
First up is We Came Out Like Tigers who are just about as far from the Beatles as it's possible to be unless you happen to have a tape of John Lennon's primal scream therapy sessions. They're loud, ear achingly loud, battering you into submission with a musical assault that in an earlier age would probably have had them up on a charge of GBH. Strangely cathartic.
Go Try
Breathe in, though you barely believe in it by We Came Out Like Tigers
Hypnotic thunderous psychedelic grooves sprinkled with the space dust from a yet to be discovered galaxy. Dazzlingly creative and uncategorisable like the White Album taken to it's logical extreme with the benefit of 21st century technology.
Go Try
Technical Knowledge As A Weapon by MUGSTAR
Minimalist, ambient drone rock that sounds like Sgt Peppers Lonely Hearts Club band tuning up before the big event. Go Try
Mallet Guitars Two (Live) by Ex-Easter Island Head
Derek Achora's not the only scouser who makes a living out of haunting. Check out the ghostly Dry Chalk Bone from Sun Drums which sounds like the soundtrack to a seance with Grizzly Bear and Bon Iver. Go Try
Dry Chalk Bone (Unmastered) by SUN DRUMS
What is it with the new breed of Liverpool bands/artists and their love of haunting, chilled out dub? Rattling Cage drifts on the air like a call to prayer for the musically dispossessed.Go Try
Rattling Cage by Forest Swords
In a world of bleeps and glitches, of dub and drone it's good to stumble upon a band who doff their cap to the greats of the post punk era. If Autoson were a pie chart they'd be two-fifths Killing Joke, two-fifths The Sound and one-fifth REM and one-fifth Liverpool legends Echo & The Bunnymen. I know that doesn't quite add up but this is a music site. If you want mathematical accuracy you should head over to Stephen Hawkings site.Go Try
Sylvia - AutoSon by Liverpool Bands
Capac's panoramic electronica with a post-rock fringe throbs and pulses like a healthy heart after an amphetamine injection.
Go Try
Palindrome by Capac
With their neo psych ode to wardrobe pilfering Outfit occupy the space previously occupied by the Coral at their strangest.
Go Try
Every Night I Dress Up As You by OUTFIT
The Rialto Burns
Scouse classicists channel the dynamic moodiness and edgy romanticism of the great Liverpool bands from the 80s.
Go Try
The Rialto Burns - For the asking by Gung-HoRecordings
Oh and yes I do recognise the irony of frequently referencing the Beatles in a post about bands demolishing their legacy.
Scouse classicists channel the dynamic moodiness and edgy romanticism of the great Liverpool bands from the 80s. Go Try
The Rialto Burns - For the asking by Gung-HoRecordings
Oh and yes I do recognise the irony of frequently referencing the Beatles in a post about bands demolishing their legacy.