***"Sad to say, there's not a lot of bands from the late 2000's small label vinyl rush that I feel the need to keep up to date with. Hue Blanc's Joyless Ones are very much an exception to that rule though. From my first encounter with their music I always thought they were a bit special. A band that has their own sound without resorting to any desperate posturing or gimmicks. A very rare thing in the post modern collage age. They haven't deviated from their initial template in any obvious, calculating way, and they didn't need to. They manage to cover a lot of territory, bouncing between something akin to the rough hewn power of the Thunders/Hell Heartbreakers and Zuma era Crazy Horse without ever aping anyone. Beyond such signposts they are always more themselves than anyone else. Vocals are split between Casey and Ted. Casey brings you the dark and unfiltered utterances of the loner who sits in the corner glaring, and Ted who is marginally more involved in the party. The back and forth between such songs as 'With all due respect' (with its fantastically atonal guitar solo) and 'Breakfast in the afternoon' is stimulating and never jarring. They're a slightly malevolent tag team with great tunes. The standout track for me is probably 'Negro Bordello' with its unexpected chord changes, rumbling rhythm section, stooge like sleigh bells and musings on such subjects as nasal soft tissue. That 'Woooo!' doesn't hurt either.
LP $22.95
03/04/2022
***"Adapting carbon for oxygen, Zurich Cloud Motors find lullabies in the sound of car crashes. A gaggle of Louisville, KY (via the Northeast) ghosthunters and aural manipulators keeping an ear out for the noises that can only be heard at the weirdest times after dark. Then they recreate based on what they can recall from memory. Layers of guitar whirl into many different psyched out directions yet serrate precisely. Voices whoop in reverberated Vega contrary and yell like an iconoclastic teen who won't give the mic back that they've just been handed it. Drums crash like stumbling thunder. They also swing motorik but like if it was raised on American child's breakfast cereal. Then things get twisted from there. Sometimes it resembles urchins after hearing Confusion Is Sex coming from the back of cave. Swell Maps comparisons have been brought up for the band having wobbly dissonance but a solid pop song hook when sifting down to the root. I've told a few people this week they're a blues band in the sense that Spacemen 3 and Jesus and Mary Chain were blues bands. Thanks for leading an ear."—Dale
LP $22.95
03/04/2022