Virginia Black

IF Refused were “the shape of punk to come”, you might wonder exactly where a collective formed by their ex-singer Dennis could take things next. The answer is to head back towards the very early days of punk, or pre-punk, depending on whose history you subscribe to. Instead of distorted vocals and raw noise, “Survival Sickness” has an overwhelming flavour of the `60s American underground, from hefty dashes of MC5 (politically as well as sonically) to something that could have made a good home on any of those “Nuggets”-style compilations. There’s a heavy underpinning of psychedelic keyboards and their liner booklet reads like an anarcho-situationist manifesto on a collision course with Marshall McLuhan. This could become addictive.

  Read Full Review >>

Ben Myers

Swedish soul-core from ex-members of Refused.

NOT SINCE be-suited punk propagandists Nations Of Ulysses exploded in the early ‘90s through Dischord records has a band so effectively created a sound as truly subterranean and utterly stylish as The (International) Noise Conspiracy’s second album.
Flirting with the imagery of far left politics while mixing garage rock with psychedelia , original r’n’b and hip wiggling hardcore, ex-Refused man Dennis Lyxzén has taken the sound of sex and nailed it down on plastic. Where many bands have attempted the same pale-faced, amphetamine-psychosis sound, it usually comes off as shamelessly image-based or lacks the true soul to be anything more than a garage band who’ve read a bit of existential literature.
“I Wanna Know About U” kicks things off, sounds like Fugazi playing “My Generation” whit Che Guevara on vocals and wears it mod and punk influences on its sleeve. From then on it’s relentless stuff as they jump through neo-Marx

  Read Full Review >>