True Special Romance: The Ian Thirkle Story - The Concept of Cash part 1.

The Concept of Cash part 1.

Electronic music is a fairly hit-or-miss genre for me, for every good artist there are a million more ready to copy them and dilute the genre with sub-par music. That is why an album such as this is a gift, a truely brilliant electronic album.

The album's sound varies, with moments of relaxation backed by ambient keyboard and mellow acoustic guitar sounds as seen in "Electric Psychadelic Funky Town Soul Jazz Revival" to faster paced drum and bass songs with harsher sounding synths like "Welcome to #U041a#U0430#U0440#U0430#U0447#U0435#U0432 (Karachev)", and moments sounding closer to chiptune music like Sabrepulse, and dubstep in the brilliant Leaving It Behind.

The sheer variety of sounds here really shows the skill diversity of its creator, to be able to adapt to various styles of electronic so easily in such a short space of time through a song, and to come out the other then with a finished and excellent sounding song.

The anti-capitalist messages of the album are indeed relevant to the present day situation of economic recession and financial greed, this attunement with the public mood will most definitley bring further aknowledgement of the brilliant music presented here, heres hoping to further music from this true artist known as Ian Thirkle.

10/10.

Rat Faced Bastard - Rat Faced Bastard EP

Rat Faced Bastard, an incredibly pissed off name for an incredibly pissed off sounding band. RFB play death metal infused with moments of pure grindcore in a similar fasion to early Bolt Thrower. The band aren't trying to reinvent the genre, instead choosing to just blast out some meaty chunks of furious metal, complete with some incredible riffs that demand some serious headbanging.

Songs go from the fast, to the super fast, intersected with mid paced groovier moments to get the head moving, with lyrics describing disgust at various parts of modern society all the way to descriptions of inebriated avian coprophilia in the aptly named Defiled, and the consumption of inhuman amounts of animal flesh in Meat Harvester.

Vocalist Jamie Brown, also of Plague Rider, sounds full of fury, a good quality in a death metal singer. Again, as with the Plague Rider demo, comparisons can be drawn to Martin Van Drunen's early days but despite this the vocals never become a complete clone of the Asphyx singer, with Jamie adding his own take on the sound.

Guitarist Rob Hindmarsh shows his skills across the songs here, with some absoloutley brilliant riffs, from the punked up Rat Faced Bastard to the Bolt Thrower worship song Crushing the Weak, occasionally adding a solo here and there to good effect in Branded Supremacy and the bands title track.

Bass work is handled by Angus Black, adding a thick backing to the songs to keep them nice and heavy, and even coming to the front in Meathead during the break in the music.

Ryan Tindale delivers some seriously good drum work on this demo, from the blast beats of the hilariously titled Gary Busey's Restraining Order to slowed down pace of the outro to Branded Supremacy, all the while showing his skills with added drum fills for good effect.

Overall the EP is short but sweet, delivering some perfect deathgrind, never once becoming boring or monotonous like much of the genre thanks to the variety of pace the songs show, a testament to the songwriting of the band. I look forward to hearing a full length!

Standout tracks: Branded Supremacy, Crushing the Weak, Rat Faced Bastard.



9/10

The demo can be heard in full at the bands Facebook page, with an upcoming CD release in the works.