Five albums into a career that has spanned 3 decades (and which imploded before their second album was released), Austin's Cherubs are making up for lost time with their Relapse debut. Noticeably more restrained than the band's Nineties work, Immaculada High sees the band layering shoegazing guitars on top of the noise rock sound they helped cultivate, cross-breeding two of the Nineties' least embarrassing styles. [$10]
Bringing together Yakuza saxophonist Bruce Lamont and Sonic Youth drummer Steve Shelley, Sick Gazelle's experimental bonafides are beyond reproach. The sedate Odum employs Lamont's sax t0 maximum droning effect, giving a jazzy dimension to atmospheric post-rock. [$10]
It's been years since there was a new Killing Joke album, so Jaz Coleman's collaboration with Italian duo Deflore was a welcome surprise. The three-song EP Party In The Chaos is not at all dissimilar from recent Killing Joke albums, being a bleak, bass-driven industrial rock affair that puts Coleman's dark prophecies front and center. [€2.50]
Nic Bullen, best known as vocalist on Napalm Death's Scum (Side A) returns with Rainbow Grave. Far from the ludicrous speed he pioneered with Napalm, No You is mid-paced, feed-back drenched, and largely improvised - more AmRep than Earache. But with Bullen's pedigree, any similarities to those widely revered (and stubbornly lo-fi) Hellhammer demos are probably not coincidental. [£5]
