Our weekly fix of the best new music as Julia Mason (aka The Decibel Decoder) brings us her reviews of new music with singles from The Murder Capital Can't Pretend To Know and belladonna EVIL EYE
Artist: The Murder Capital
Track: Can't Pretend To Know
The Murder Capital return with new single Can’t Pretend To Know. The track was recorded in Los Angeles earlier this year with producer John Congelton (St Vincent, Angel Olsen, Sharon Van Etten) and is a return to the urgency and edginess of their debut album When I Have Fears (2019).
It's an intense track which is driven by static fuelled guitar riffs and swashbuckling crashing drums. The energy in the soundscape is tinged with a tension, just listen to the guitars wailing.
Frontman James McGovern shares the following on the track: “Can’t Pretend To Know is a whip of a tune that we made to feel like a hurricane of colour and breathlessness. A surreal look at childhood innocence and all its replacers, those delicate bridges we burn as we move through the strangeways of our youth. Moulded by everything we come into contact with. Learning lessons from toys. Playing the parts that are asked of us.”
Along with the single the band have announced a short UK tour, they’ll be supporting Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds in Europe plus live dates in Australia and New Zealand. Welcome back to The Murder Capital.
The Murder Capital Live Dates 2024
October
13 - Budapest, Hungary*
15 - Zagreb, Croatia*
17 - Prague, Czechia*
18 - Munich, Germany*
20 - Milan, Italy*
22 - Zurich, Switzerland*
24 - Barcelona, Spain*
25 - Madrid, Spain*
27 - Lisbon, Portugal*
30 - Antwerp, Belgium*
w/ Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds*
* * *
Artist: belladonna
Track: EVIL EYE
belladonna is the project of Irish multi instrumentalist producer Ciaran Keenan. Growing disillusioned with the traditional 4-piece band Ciaran decided to turn to a Roland TR707 drum machine.
Taking inspiration from the likes of Suicide, The Jesus and Mary Chain, Einstürzende Neubauten and New Order, the drum machine provided the ideal repetitive, motorik bedrock to infectious, pulses of viola bass lines and layers of noise guitar.
Thus belladonna was born, the name taken from the title of a John Cooper Clarke poem. The debut single EVIL EYE now follows. What a statement of intent from this artist. Electrifying industrial techno beats layered over a distorted vocal which seems tortured and yet completely alive, energised by the hypnotic soundscape.
The single was produced by Chris W. Ryan (Just Mustard, NewDad, Chalk, Enola Gay) who worked with belladonna to creative this whirlwind of electro punk.
"I love it when I fly, love it when I’m comin’ down l, love it when I die" states Keenan exuding anguish and yet also a fire from within. Just what this Belfast artist will do next is a thrilling proposition.
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