Hakan
Hakan II
Drunken Sailor (2016)
Hakan is an Italian garage-punk band in the vein of The Marked Men. Like, really in the vein of The Marked Men—MM’s Jeff Burke (also of Radioactivity) even recorded the record and it fits the aforementioned band’s style perfectly.At thirteen songs in twenty-two minutes, Hakan’s II fits the expectation of short, fast and to-the-point. Meanwhile the guitars are hyper fast and never let up while the bass gives powerful depth and the percussion blasts away in perfect time. It really fits that Denton sound well but it succeeds by mixing up the sound between within the thirteen songs present.I always find that Marked Men records blur together, one pop-fuelled blast of perfect melody after another. Hakan does a better job at making the individual tracks stand out. In part by switching singers on different tracks and, in part, by bouncing between melodic perfection and songs with a little more frontman punch. “I Drank Way Too much Kupnik” has a bit of singer swagger that adds nicely to the rhythmic guitar through its depth in inflection. Meanwhile, there are shades of Burke’s work in “Dental Love” (a standout) and “Discomfort.” Then, in a track like “Real Dumb,” the song gets a … Read more
Giraffe Tongue Orchestra
Broken Lines
Party Smasher Inc. (2016)
Another week another supergroup, right? Wrong. Nothing is expected on Broken Lines, the debut album from Giraffe Tongue Orchestra (GTO) … Read more
Real Numbers
Wordless Wonder
Slumberland Records (2016)
There are a lot of traps in music journalism. Some, like genre, are the same traps that artists fall into. … Read more
Darkthrone
Arctic Thunder
Peaceville (2016)
Darkthrone may have been around for nigh on thirty years, but it hasn’t stopped the Norwegian duo from consistently releasing … Read more
