NEW VIDEOS AND SONGS FROM ISRAELI ACTS

   It's been a while since I've posted some videos, so I'm posting a few different batches of them, This one features videos and new songs by Israeli bands. Some of these videos are a few months old but still might be new to some of you.

Cain and Abel 90210 - HaMechonah (The Machine)

  Cain and Abel 90210 are one of the most mental bands in Israel. In this video for HaMechonah off of their latest Videodrome release, we see the weird humour and playfulness that the band is known for that we did not see in previous video for Lakach Zman (see here). As well as seeing the band aggressively rock out, we see the band bring back their masked alter egos. Due to the song being fairly long, there's quite a lot happening in this video but none of it is boring. The song itself is also a return to the band's groovy and mental alternative metal with humorous lyrics. Even if you don't understand Hebrew, you must check this band out for some weird yet catchy heaviness.

Wounds Never Lie - Elephant (Home)

    Elephant (Home) is the first single from the upcoming Exhausted Waves EP by Israeli metalcore starlets Wounds Never Lie. The song is a little more along the lines of what some people may consider "easycore", as it has some proper singing, melodic bits and an emotional sing-a-long chorus. The verses are still typical jagged and angry metalcore. It might not be ground breaking but it's certainly less irritating than some metalcore nowadays. 

   The video itself is actually well shot and pleasantly simple. Some people might find performance videos boring, but I actually like them. Here, we see the band playing in what looks like someone's living room, although not altogether. We see each individual member doing his own thing in pretty much the exact same spot in the room. It is shot in a sort of independent film style, which adds to the sentiment of the song. The lyrics are a little confusing to me, but the general gist I get from it is that it is meant to be a positive message about moving on through life's struggles. 
   The EP is set for release this month and another video for the song Executer is expected any moment now.

Bryan The Mage - Comfort Zone

   Bryan The Mage (seems to be a role playing reference with the misspelling of "Brian") are a young pop punk/easycore band out of Haifa. Comfort Zone is their first single and first video clip. The song has a very catchy chorus, some good grooves in parts and an electrifying guitar solo. When reading through the lyrics, there are some small spelling mistakes which, funnily enough, are not even the mispronounced words on the track itself. Ah well, it's the Israeli accent. What can you do? In the video, we see the band performing at what could easily be some sort of school prom. Typical school dance lighting shines upon kids doing their best push pit possible as the band rock out on stage. 

Shtuby - Mazeponia / 7 Arms

  The most electronic and out of character act for Punkalovich that I'll be posting today is the solo act Shtuby. Shtuby himself (Yuval) is an all-round musician whose small studio I used to rehearse in once upon a time in a band I drummed with. Since then, I ran into him at a show for a band called Golden Sheet who he was drumming for. Shtuby now has his own experimental act where he mixes different styles of music and uses instruments such as theremin and flute. The first video I saw from Shtuby was for a song called Mazeponia, where I saw Shtuby pretty much giving birth to his music by recording things such as kitchenware and a make-shift drum kit made from industrial metal amongst other things. 

    7 Arms is the latest offering, with a bit of a weird video where Shtuby is head to toe in a body suit which changes colour throughout, as does the background imagery. If you like experimental electronica, check this out. The live show is meant to be equally spectacular!

Skarate Kid - You're Not Alone / Skata 1

   Finally, I'll finish with another 2-in-1, this time for brand new ska band Skarate Kid, which features members from Israeli punk bands. Ska and 2-tone has been a bit scarce in Israel in recent years and now Skarate Kid have come on the scene to fill that void. 

   In the You're Not Alone video, we see the band simply playing in the Street Music studios in south Tel Aviv. The song is upbeat with a positive message, very much like the British 2-tone of the 70s and 80s. The instrumentation is superb. 

Skata 1 (audio only) is a more traditional sounding instrumental track similar to Symarip and Prince Buster, with the saxophone leading the track, accompanied by the odd "Pick it up!" "Huh!" and "chukka chak". I'm a sucker for ska, so if you are too, check them out!

Live Review: Photomat/The Dries @ Tachles Bar, Tel Aviv [23rd May 2015]

   OH MY GOD! Is this actually happening? Yes, that's right! For the first time in quite some months, I am reviewing a show that's not at Koro. SHOCK HORROR! Saying that, it still involves the Koro in a roundabout way.

The Driers

   Quite some time ago, apparently since the last time I actually reviewed The Driers, Ben (Mad Choice/Zaga Zaga/part owner of Koro) was recruited for drumming duties. As seen in recent times with Mad Choice, Ben's drumming has become more creative. Drumming for The Driers has given Ben a platform to really experiment and showcase his versatility. Even with songs which originally had a very simple rhythm pattern, he has used his techniques to allocate some complex yet still very suitable beats and fills.
    Tonight, the band is great as always. Bit of a weird set up on the stage, with Ben seated down left of stage (I believe that's what it is in theatre speak) instead of in the middle as is more common at shows, which kind of makes them all seem quite distant from one another. Other than that and the unfortunate technical hiccups experienced by bassist Tomer, the band and their songs are all on point. All the catchy songs that regular watchers of The Driers know and loves are here tonight, such as set opener Porchlight, the punky Fifty, the anthemic Lipstick Buds and the rave-inducing set closer Alarm. Guitarist Ronnie and bassist Tomer's vocal harmonies never cease to captivate me. The band also play a brand new song called Squeeze, which has an awesome groove in the chorus and made my face ache from smiling. 
    Even though the guys have been getting a slightly larger audience nowadays since their humble beginnings, it was really only myself and a couple of other friends of the band who were giving them any real support down at the front. Hopefully, those standing around at the back still enjoyed them and will see them again another time.
4/5

Photomat

    As well as coming here tonight to see The Driers (and to review a show somewhere new for a change) I wanted to check out a band I had never heard of before. That band is Photomat. I went into the show not knowing anything about them...and I still don't. 
   According to their bandcamp, their earliest recording, entitled Lekulam Yesh Ka'eleh (rough translation: Everyone Has Them/These) is from May last year but I still don't know how long they've actually been around. If their sound is anything to go by, they could have easily started in the late 90s/early 2000s. We've got here a girl bassist (Enav), a girl drummer (Noa), a guitar playing frontman with a trendy hairdo (Noam) and a samplist on the side (Alon) adding all the extra beats, keyboard melodies and other bits and bobs. That and the sound combined together had me thinking of the more electronic Britpop I used to enjoy. Actually, it sort of made me think of North and South, who I think only British people will remember from the TV show No Sweat that spawned the band.
   Photomat play electronic pop that has just enough edge to make it stand out form some of the other bands out here doing the same thing. Normally, I'm not a massive fan of Hebrew singing bands because I can't always fully understand when watching live, but that doesn't matter tonight. The melodies and the groove of the songs was enough to have me bopping along.  After checking bandcamp, the songs which really got my attention were Hakol Chutz M'ken (Everything But "Yes") and Hilacht Alay, Kesem (rough translation: You Walked All Over Me, Magic Woman). The former is an upbeat and catchy singalong (at least melodically for me, at the time) whereas the latter took the night's atmosphere down a notch to a sultry little number which beautifully built-up throughout the song.

   The band definitely have a few fans in tonight, who are standing at the front swaying and making up dance moves, but a few things bug me about this performance. Is one of them that the frontman forgot his words a few times? No. That's happened to me. Is it that he made a big deal about ruining the song? Yes. Although some people may have noticed, the most professional thing to do is just carry on. Luckily, the band continued and repeated themselves so that he could get back into it. Is another issue being the samplist? No. I even tried to introduce samples into Woolly Boy but haven't yet mastered it. Is it that the samplist was using beats which in comparison made the drummer look like she wasn't really doing anything? Yes. She seems like a very competent drummer, listening to the band through headphones and managing to hold the backbeat. However, she did just seem to be playing a simpler version of the electronic beats already provided. As a drummer myself, this just had me focusing on that a good amount of the time.
   The band in general were a nice surprise and definitely made this Britpop kid remember his youth. On further inspection, some of their lyrics are actually quite clever and relatable, which is always good. Whether this sort of thing really goes down well nowadays, I'm not too sure, but playing what you like to play is the most important thing. 
3/5

Review: The Prodigy - The Day Is My Enemy [2015]

 

    Although I may have been briefly previously aware of tunes such as Out Of Space, No Good (Start The Dance) and Poison, it was really when Firestarter came out that I, and I'm sure a whole bunch of others, really started to take notice of British ravers The Prodigy. It was Keith Flint's new punk look that intrigued me as a 10 year old already interested in a little bit of 70s/80s punk rock but mostly 90s Brit pop and Brit rock. Whereas he was once really only a long haired dancer along with the giant Leeroy Thornhill, Keith was almost seen here as a frontman. It happened again with Maxim, although already been at the forefront of previous tracks, in the Breathe video, leaving brains of the outfit Liam Howlett quietly enjoying the success of his songs from behind the controls. This escalated The Prodigy from being a DJ led rave act to an innovative rock band of sorts. On top of that, the music was guitar sample led and quite heavy. Both Firestarter and Breathe especially can be considered by many musicians today as songs that got them into heavier music.

  Over the years, the album that spawned those singles, Fat Of The Land, is still considered a classic and an almost revolutionary masterpiece. The band have kept their position as one of most beloved dance acts as well as a proud British export. Both ravers and rock fans alike have been able to enjoy the amazing live spectacle that is The Prodigy both at their Headlining shows and at festivals across the globe. Although later albums Always Outnumbered, Never Outgunned and Invaders Must Die did not manage to beat Fat Of The Land's global success, they both reached number 1 in the UK. Tracks like Spitfire (which, at least when I was at University, was being played in rock clubs everywhere along with Pendulum's Tarantula), Omen and Invaders Must Die still kept longtime fans happy and gained them new ones. Everyone was of course awaiting new material and eventually 6 years later the full album has arrived and also hit number 1 in the UK. So....was it worth the wait and the hype?

   Followers of the blog will be aware that I have been quite excited about this new release and already shared my thoughts on some of the tracks that were already released with lyric videos and/or actual videos. The title track and album opener The Day Is My Enemy is a great track to start off the album and a really good track in general. It starts off with some heavy thumping courtesy of Swiss drumming group The Top Secret Drum Corps which then gets used throughout the tracks while singer Martina Topley-Bird (known for her work with Tricky and Gorillaz in the past) sings the lyrics "The day is my enemy, the night my friend", inspired by Ella Fitzgerald's version of All Through The Night. The track has a slow pace and is generally quite reminiscent of Spitfire. Topley-Bird's vocals fit the sentiment of the lyrics perfectly and also compliments the dark mood of the drumming and main riff.
    Tracks like Nasty, Rebel Radio, Get Your Fight On and Wall Of Death are the most rock-like tracks on here. Nasty starts off with a twangy riff which is so reminiscent of something it's killing me. It sounds like something you might hear in a martial arts movie, almost as if it's played on a Pipa (traditional Chinese lute). The track itself literally sounds "nasty", with Keith snarling the lyrics as per usual, heavy beats and some dirty fuzzy synths. There's a bit in the middle of the song where you hear someone say either "I ain't no tourist" or "I ain't no Taurus". I'm not entirely sure.That's going to bug me... Rebel Radio, after its robotic intro, is based upon guitar stabs along with synths, electronic bleeps and whatnot. Every now and again, you hear an uplifting calling of "That's the rebel radio sound" which makes you want to throw your fist in the air.
  Get Your Fight On has some ringed out guitars played over some funky breakbeat for a majority of the track, accompanied by the lyrics "Get your fight on...here's something to bite on". Not really deep and meaningful, but catchy, nevertheless. The synth parts remind me of Invaders Must Die...but then again, synths would do that. This is definitely a song which will get your feet moving whereas the others are more for throwing shapes and jumping up and down.
  Wall Of Death starts off with a riff that keeps tricking me into believing I'm about to listen to something by Lamb Of God or something. Then the heavy pounding electronic beats come in and we're back on track. This is pure Prodigy, with Keith proclaiming "Fuck this and fuck the cash! Fuck you and your heart attack!" Not totally on board with the latter remark. Who would you say that too? Although not lyrically challenging, the track itself is a slight return to Fat Of The Land and therefore a hit.
  Despite also having guitar parts, the heavy synths and characteristically Prodigy beats on Destroy take us back and forth between the ...Jilted Generation era and what has been more common from them in later years. Rhythm Bomb similarly mixes guitar stabs with simple old school dance techno beats. The female vocal samples bring to mind No Good, which isn't a bad thing at all. Roadblox begins sounding a bit like an 80s new wave ballad of sorts, until we get to a little glockenspiel/music box melody which then leads to pure drum and bass beats. I love a bit of drum and bass so this perked me up a lot more while listening. I can see this track being a total floor-filler in the near future if it isn't already.
   Both Wild Frontier and Rok-Weiler (this will soon be a whole new breed of dog) both have intros that make me think of classic computer games. Wild Frontier has already been released to the masses via it's creepy animated video but as a song it doesn't really do anything for me. Rok-Weiler, on the other hand, is a bit more up beat and has that slight drum and bass edge to it. Still, it reminds me of when I used to play something like Hi-octane back in the day.
  For me, Roadblox and Rok-Weiler could be considered album highlights along with Ibiza, Medicine, Invisible Sun and even iTunes bonus track Rise of the Eagles. Ibiza, upon first listen, was just a total delight. With help from Sleaford Mods, the track has that proper British swagger and Prodigy snarl, with the "Eye-Beefa" mantra and "What the fuck is he doing?" parts burying themselves deeply in your brain. Despite written to be poking fun at the simple DJ culture of Ibiza, it musically has the magic to get people pumped on a night out. Medicine, which could in a way be considered the sister song to classic track Poison, has an Eastern feel through parts of it due to a flute melody. It might be slow paced like the title track but the "A spoonful of sugar just to sweeten the taste..." chorus, along with guitar stabs and hype parts, all make the track a pleasure to listen to.
  Although Beyond The Deathray is also a very unexpected track, with no beats, just an atmospheric soundscape, Invisible Sun stands out as being almost like a slow rock jam. I can imagine lighters aloft as people sway along to this. Beyond The Deathray has grown on me on further listening but did just feel like album filler. Rise of the Eagles is most possibly my favourite of the whole album despite only being a special bonus track. It has that feel to it that reminds me a little bit of Walk Like A Panther by All Seeing I mixed in with Cobra Style by Teddybears Sthlm.

   On first listen, I wasn't taken to the album straight away. Maybe it was because of the mood I was in at the time, but some of the slower paced ones just didn't do anything for me. I felt at times that I had heard it all before; same old synths, noises and beats. I kind of felt that Liam Howlett had run out of ideas. Nevertheless, the more I listen, a majority of the songs still hold up on their own. Ibiza and Wall of Death especially are future classics. If you ever had a fondness for The Prodigy but haven't hear this album, I suggest you do but you will have to listen a few times for some of the tunes to really sink in.
4/5