Tag Archives: Alex Hurst

ALBUM REVIEW – Boss Keloid – Family The Smiling Thrush

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Following up a breakthrough album, such as Boss Keloid’s last opus Melted On The Inch (Holy Roar) which finished at #4 in Ghost Cult’s Album of the Year poll in 2018, is a challenging proposition. Stray too far from the magic formula and you risk undoing that giant stride taken forwards (even without being a band that has always taken efforts to ensure development and evolution of their sound is a given); repeat the previous approach and accusations of diminishing returns, or playing it safe, abound along with an invariably inferior product. Continue reading →


Boss Keloid- Herb Your Enthusiasm

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The warping chords opening The warping chords opening Herb Your Enthusiasm (Black Bow Records), the third full-length from Wigan wags Boss Keloid, are utterly suffocating. What the band has shown with previous output, however, is a basis in the Low-end rather than a reliance on it, and so this enthralling opening proves. As heavy as a rampaging mammoth yet chock-full of groove and Eastern influence, and with a guest holler from Conan’s Jon Davis, ‘Lung Mountain’ is as enlivening as a Clutch rampage.

The swaying, hypnotic growl of ‘Haarlem Struggle’ has many facets: an acoustic intro leading to portentous, snaking inflections, Jazz-infused passages and a pummeling coda. Alex Hurst’s vocal range helps the fluidity immensely, soaring from low roars toward that Davis-esque scream which appears more powerful with Hurst’s strong vibrato.

Paul Swarbrick’s string work is an unsung factor: not merely laying down riffs weighed with chains, it switches and skews with abandon, dictating those mystic patterns and dressing the brutal rhythms in fuzzed leads. Indeed despite the obvious Stoner references, there is an abundance of passion and variety here. The deep, barreling rut of ‘Axis Of Green’ is downright filthy: its ploughing furrows oozing sex and fizzing with a lazy, heavy Funk vibe; its three-quarter an impossibly long moan from Hurst issuing from a curious, medieval-flavoured key riff.

A blend of easy chants and Alice in Chains’ troubled melancholy, lends an almost balladic quality to the resonant yet subtle rhythms of ‘Lung Valley’. Whilst the band’s myriad influences roll together in the living, pulsating ‘Hot Priest’: a quirky Jazz organ bridging elements of knee-crushing, tortoise boogie, raw sexuality bleeding from the crunching verses, whilst more vocal versatility and harmony lead to an oscillating, howling finale.
That much of this album is a story of the Weed is not up for debate. Unlike many such offerings however, Herb Your Enthusiasm possesses true Soul and variation and this makes it a truly immersive, exciting experience. It’s debatable whether the UK Metal Underground has ever been in such rude health; Boss Keloid certainly hasn’t. Much like its subject matter this meaningful, rutting beast will continue to grow.
8.0/10.0

PAUL QUINN

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FESTIVAL REVIEW: NOIZ All-Dayer Live at Rebellion, Manchester UK

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He was so deeply huddled under a blanket that it took a while to locate the source of the voice hollering my name. Eytan Wineapple, curator of the rumbling beast that was the NOIZ All-Dayer, initially celebrated its second incarnation looking like death warmed up. After a long couple of days, with Wineapple escorting eventual headliners Dukatalon to Sheffield and back, they eventually bedded down in today’s venue. “They got here around 3 a.m., and I tucked them all in!” joked Rebellion manager and event collaborator Hayley. Five minutes later, the flat-capped Wineapple was bounding around like a madman: putting to serious shame Ghost Cult’s scribe who, twelve hours later, and still nearly three hours from the denouement, interviewed said host in a rather weary and addled fashion…

NOIZ is not your average festival. Displays of album-style art and guitars in various stages of completion (one of which is raffled off later in the day) stand beside the S.O.P.H.I.E. merch stall in the upper level of the club-style venue. A dedicated handful, meanwhile, witness the pulverising Industria of openers Khost: looking for all the world like a couple of local scallies bumbling about on a stage, yet laying waste with a mystical power which deserved a better slot and much more attention. The Birmingham duo’s ambient, crushing set, its implosive chords and guttural scours blending with a wonderful and passionate line in Middle-Eastern vocal samples, ended bang on time: a courtesy that some of the festival’s other performers could have tried harder to match.

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