New Heavy Sounds is the new label-shaped appendage of a neighbour-bothering London club night dedicated to the celebration of the riff. With this compilation they go some way towards summing the myriad ‘heavy sounds’ bubbling away under the covers of the UK into one roughly cohesive scene.
As a snapshot of the current state of British hardcore and punk it does a fantastic job; introducing many groups you may have missed as well as several complete unknowns. Lucky for us most of them are stonkers.
Rock ‘n’ roll and the raw power encased within it has fascinated and intoxicated punters for much of the past half century. Yet the boundaries broken by electronic music over the past two decades have threatened punk’s position at the adrenal extremes of sound and excitement. Resting primarily on what can be done with a guitar, a bass and a set of drums; balls-out rocking-out can easily seem limp-wristed in comparison with a drum n’ bass cut entirely composed on a laptop.
Thankfully a generation’s worth of exposure to dance music and a cluster-fuck of all the right elements of metal, hardcore, math, post and noise rock has ensured that grotty musicians playing in a room maintain the edge in the 21st century. A song like Chickenhawk’s ‘Son Of Cern’ which opens NHS Vol.1, could only have existed today; so diverse are the reference points it distorts and subverts. Rolo Tomassi’s ‘Unromance’ hurtles through jazz-drum breaks, crazed hardcore and into smooth, organ-led prog without the slightest trace of self-consciousness. Meanwhile, on ‘Sport’, Kong flip the rhythmic tables on the listener relentlessly and incomprehensibly.
It is the wealth of imagination and musicianship displayed throughout these 19 tracks – light years away from the Year Zero, 3-chord mentality espoused by the icons of 70s punk – that makes them sound so fresh and exciting. New Heavy Sounds Vol. 1 satisfies and surprises in equal measure; a violent reassurance of what rude health the British music scene is in beyond the glare of the X-Factor studios and the pages of the NME.