Now it’s about progressive rock with the band Postures, hailing from Göteborg. They started out in 2009 and after a few years of forging their sound, they released the debut album “Postures” in summer. They write that the songs have taken their shape during their live shows and that they wanted to capture the energy from these shows on the album. Two of the songs, “Solipse” and “Quakes” are also recorded in live sessions and large parts of them are improvised. It’s an album which demands attention from the listener, but as such you are richly rewarded with their experimental rock excursions and large dynamics, shifting from the soft to the hard, which is further emphasized by the female vocals. I think they are at their best in these live recorded tracks, mentioned above, which may say something about their skills on stage. Here are a couple of songs.

Postures’ site – on Facebook – on Spotify – on Wimp – on Bandcamp

The band Chirping, which I wrote about in Spring, is releasing a new single today, “The Abyss”. Again we find them in this lightly melancholic, warm grand rock area with colleagues like for example The National. And they certainly know their way around here, this time with a softer song, a song they build up with a fine touch to the crescendo without taking it too far into the bombastic. It’s a song that somehow sticks and settles as a warm, comforting blanket over the ambience inside, as I look out into the growing Autumn darkness.

Chirpings site – on Facebook – on Spotify – on Wimp – on Soundcloud

Accustomed readers of this blog may be a little surprised  how I start this week, i.e. with some heavy thrash metal from Crowdburn, a band hailing from Umeå. Most often I’ve kept away from these domains of rock, but after having exposed myself to this metal energy during The Roskilde Festival this summer, it got to me, and my music menu is now even wider.

Crowdburn’s debut album “Ignition” is an excellent opportunity to express this new passion. It’s a splendidly raw rock album, but which also offers just the right dose of sweetness in the form of melodic smooth choruses. Add to that a fine variation and genre mixes and you’ll have an album that will keep you interested through all ten songs. Here’s a couple of songs from this raw beauty.

Crowdburn’s site – on Facebook – on Spotify – on Wimp – on Rara – on Soundcloud

MANKKU  [mancko] has been laying low when it comes to recordings since his “dogma”-sessions last year and the album “Festen har bara börjat” the year before that. He writes that he’s gathered quite a collection of new songs, which he hopes to start to record this winter. He has had the time, though, to translate and record his own interpretation of The Gun Club’s song “Mother of Earth”; a song he says that has been with him ever since it was released in the beginning of the eighties. And as you can hear below, he’s made something completely of his own with the song, like a kind of bluesy Americana with a backbeat, and an ominous pumping bass synth and bells that’s counting the time (that’s left). An interesting hint (I hope) of what his upcoming recordings will be like.

MANKKU [mancko]’s site – on Facebook – on Spotify – on Wimp

With three strong singles in their backpack from the last year, Honeymilk entered the studio this summer to record their first album, on their own. “Lean On Me” is the name of the album and is going to be released at the end of this month. To spice things up before the release they uploaded this track, “Light Entertainment”, a few days ago; a track with a suprisingly dirty sound, where they show that they’re not stuck in any song formula. If they continue like this I believe we can look forward to a fantastic debut album.

Honeymilk’s site – on Facebook – on Spotify – on Wimp