The horses without makeup are back, now with their debut album “Pt 1”. Last year we got to know their mix of grunge, punk and stoner rock when they ran us over with their first EP. Here on their first full length record the song “Sopsekt” has found its home among eight new songs, and if you liked them before, you won’t be dissapointed now.  This is pure rock energy which grinds you in 27 minutes and obviously they grinded themselves a bit during the recording sessions. They write that the singer and guitarist Martin overdid himself while they were recording and fainted among all the equipment. They wanted to keep everything from the session so they simply put this track at the end of the album, and you can hear the incident on the last track “Number 9”. For sensitive listeners I can report that Martin is back on his feet again. Here are two songs:

Horses Without Makeup on Facebook – on Spotify – on Apple Music

After an intense rehearsal with Martin Berglund & Stödorkestern a couple of members stayed behind afterwards to clean up the rehearsal room. Far into a corner, behind a half-empty bottle of beer, they found to their surprise a collection of guitar riffs scattered about on the floor. They were some quite dirty riffs, but they picked them up anyway and gave them a closer look. “Mm, they smell punk and grunge, but god damn’ how sweet they look. We can’t just throw them away, and Martin will never let us play them. What are we going to do?”

They grabbed the riffs and headed home, walking along the streets in the middle of the night, quiet and deep in thought. Just when they turned around a street corner they bumped into some members from Grand Minnows. The riffs fell out of their pockets and landed hard on the dark asphalt of the pavement. There in the glow of the street lamps the riffs glittered stronger than ever. They all looked at each other, puzzled and hesitating, until one of them said: “Let’s start a band and conquer the world!” Soon they were all smiling in agreement. “But what about the band name?” “Well, it should be something that directly tells something about our music, why not Horses Without Makeup?” Spot-on!” the others concurred.

Here below you can listen to the result of their endeavor, in the shape of a couple of tracks from Horses Without Makeup’s debut EP, “Just Like Home”, which was released in the end of October:

Horses Without Makeup on Facebook – on Spotify – on Apple Music

Culkin have released a taste of their upcoming album. It’s the song “Hernandez II” with cool grunge-tinged underground rock, and which is available on the label Kollektivet Record’s first mixtape. Listen here:

Culkins site – on Facebook – on Spotify – on Wimp

I wrote about Knut Svanholm and his brother’s trio Fleet of Clay a couple of weeks ago. His main project, though, is the rock band LOBST where he sings, plays the guitar and writes songs. In the beginning of the Autumn they released their new album “The Angry Kid”, the second one since the start in 2009.

On the album they create their own rock hybrid where I hear British hard rock from  Mötorhead to Saxon as well as grunge and post grunge from the nineties. It’s a dense, guitar riff loaded and raw sound which goes hand in hand with Knut’s almost punky vocals. An album full of adrenaline and guitar candy which grows with each time I listen. Listen for yourself in a couple of tracks here below.

LOBST on Facebook – on Spotify

Downward Slope
The Watcher

The Grand New Wrong, who I wrote about in Spring, have released a new single, “Hands of Time”. Two songs with smoking grunge-inspired rock, which I think take the band to a new level, both when it comes to the songs themselves but also when it comes to the production, which now is considerably sharper and breathes of determination and rock energy.

It deserves to be mentioned that all income from the single goes to  Made for Music, a local project in Alingsås, Sweden, which aims to help kids who can’t afford music school or buy their first instrument.

The Grand New Wrong’s site – on Facebook – on Spotify

No Name