Here is one of those bands you take a chance on with a random gig only to fall in love with them.

I caught Iress playing the Exeter Cavern to promote their album, Sleep Now, In Reverse.

Musically, it’s very post rock, a little bit doom and very much in the territory of A.A. Williams due to the amazing vocals of Michelle Malley.

While Williams voice is powerful and formidable, Malley’s vocals are just as strong but laced with an aching fragility.

In Mercy, the tension of the music is ratcheted up as Malley coos and murmurs about a disintegrating relationship but suddenly there is that cathartic release as she simply roars the word ‘bleed’ – An absolute goosebump raising moment.

Lyrically it’s dark, very dark and you really hope it’s not overtly autobiographical.

“You say you’re really bored, and it hurts to know you really are” (Lovely – Forget Me Not) or “Always waiting for you to call my name, you say you will, you won’t” (Falling).

Another favourite track is Sanctuary where the music is angrier and Malley rages against the world as she sees red

The album ends with an odd track, Deep. Mostly just a guitar picking out individual twanging notes while Malley breathlessly pleads with us to take it easy on her. 

Recorded the songs are more controlled, almost restrained at times whereas live it was a ragged, emotional maelstrom.

I would thoroughly recommend the album and the Solace EP from 2023, both are spectacular listens. 

 Another EP from Cruel Diagonals has arrived - Calcite

Only 4 tracks and 15 minutes but it covers the creation of the earth, it’s destruction by man and it’s collapse until only rock remains. Quite a weighty subject to cover in quarter of an hour.

Opener, Scintillation, is a like a classical piece of work being performed in a cave built on washes of synths whilst the wordless mezzo-soprano voice soars and swoops beautifully over the music.

After that the weirdness really set in. In Disobedience it sounds like someone tuning the oscillator on a large power plant and if you’re listening in headphones, it rumbles and vibrates through your skull.

The last two tracks take it even further into the unknown, Sounds are twisted, stretched and distorted until you’re not really sure if you are still realms of what could be described as music. It seems at this point a long time since the beautiful opening track.

It’s another beguiling by very challenging release from an artist you will either embrace or assiduously avoid

 Public Service Broadcasting return once more with their latest concept album, The Last Flight.

There are a few subtle changes in the world of PSB for this one. Previous albums have been many stories under one overarching concept (The blitz, space exploration, South Wales mining or Berlin) but this time it’s concentrated on one person’s story, Amelia Earhart, and one specific part of their life.

This is therefore a more intimate and personal album than before.

The second big change is there are no recordings of Amelia Earhart to sample so instead extracts from her diaries and letters have been read by Kate Graham and made to sound like contemporary recordings. It works surprisingly well as a technique.

The Fun of It see the vocalist Andreya Casablanca reunited with the band after her turn on Bright Magic. A joyously upbeat piece of pop music it’s almost impossible not to smile whilst playing it.

The first single, Electra bounces along in classic funky PSB style and the closest in character to the early hits. There is fun to be had spotting the samples from previous PSB songs such as Korolev, Spitfire and Everest near the end of the song

Monsoons is a dark and ominous piece with a teeth rattling bass section and some of the most strident guitar work that Willgoose has every committed to tape.

The near 9 minute string laden coda of Howland showcases all that the band learnt from their work at the BBC proms to produce a sumptuous, orchestral but poignant ending to the album

A much better album than Bright Magic and possibly their best work  since The Race For Space

 You never get much notice of a new Rosetta Stone album, it just sort of appears one day - And so it is with the latest offering, Under the Weather.

Let’s be honest here, I could repeat my review of the Cryptology album from September 2020, and it would all still be valid.

It’s uncanny, both albums 10 tracks long with only one being over 4 mins and in both cases, that’s the last track.

The drum machine and insistent, thudding bass are still in attendance topped with that very goth like vocals and a large dose of melody.

We Turned Away is probably my favourite track probably for the subtle changes in pace between verse and chorus which is unusual for a Rosetta Stone track.

If you like your goth circa the Sisters in ’85 then you will thoroughly enjoy this but it’s also likely to leave a lot of listeners indifferent to its unique charms

 Sometimes you catch a gig and immediately know the bad are definitely going to be better on stage than in the studio. I’ve always thought this about The Levellers and now I can add Vazum to the list.

We caught the American duo playing a fantastic gig at the Exeter Cavern and now the new album, Western Violence, is out

It’s good fun but not essential, the band claim to be ‘deathrock’ but inspiration from the British goth scene hang heavily in the air and there is definitely something about The Cramps about them

The track, Alien for example has a very pronounced Siouxsie feel in the chorus.

The contrasting male /female vocals keep things interesting even when the pacing on the tracks seem a little too similar at times.

My favourite track is Blush with its insistent melodic refrain and lyrics which are basically ‘we don’t like the cold’.

A band worth investigating but look out for live dates if possible.

 So, what’s in a name? This album could have been released under the All About Eve but in typical willfulness Regan & Bricheno have chosen not to trade on past glories.

Apparitions though is a truly Eve album regardless of the name – beautifully melancholic, wistfully nostalgic and a warm haze of both something recognisable but also something excitingly unfamiliar.

Julianne’s blissful vocals have never sounded better and it’s great to hear Tim’s chiming guitar one more.

Radium is currently my favourite track – an exercise in yearning which may be referencing the Great Gatsby (the green light, driving and dancing) though as with most of Julianne’s lyrics there is an ambiguity which means I may be totally wrong!

The tempo picks up Roses Round the Door which jangles along as the most distant cousin of those early eighties singles.

America deals with the disappointment and regret of never having the chance to crack the States as a band all those years ago.

The most interesting lyric appears in Dear Lonely Heart – The chorus line of “Someday a girl will come who doesn’t love guitars” sounds like a direct reference to Farewell Mr Sorrow which was (allegedly) written about Tim.

I know there is very little chance of these songs ever being played live but you also hope this is not the last we get from this wonderful songwriting duo

I don’t usually review singles, but this is pushing the definition of a single anyway.

NFD have returned to their 2022 EP, taken the lead track and expanded, remixed and added to it so that it now clocks in at giddy 13 minutes.

Surrender to my Will was already epic but in true Spinal Tap fashion the decision was made to turn the epic content up to 11 for the Between Oblivion and the Abyss version.

As with old great goth songs it’s OTT and has the full kitchen sink included – a slowly building intro, strings, piano, galloping drums….

Then there are the vocals. Bob White is clearly a man who listened to Carl McCoy from The Nephilim and thought: “I can do that. But more heroically….”    

Listening to it, the song builds to a climax, you think this is it and then it takes a split second breather before off we go again.

Love this track.