Review: A Bandcamp / Soundcloud Round-Up pt 2

OK, time for another rummage through my inbox and twitter feed to find some more musical goodies!

Hanging Tree are a group from Bristol who play 'Deep, Dark and Sexy Grungy Blues'. I'm always wary of bands that profess to play blues as either a. they don't play blues at all, or b. they're not very good! No worries on those fronts with these guys: it's blues and it's good! It's a dirty blues and reminded me a bit of Zeppelin turned down a tad (complete with a great 'baby,baby,baby,baby' wail from the singer during 'Small Talk'). Great stuff!



The Atomic Bells are an 'experimental instrumental' band from Mexico...don't know any more than that as I cannot read a word in Spanish - my bad! I do know that they play a neat little line in surf-guitar based twang. I love a bit of surf based twang (Man Or Astroman? have been faves of mine for a long time). The Atomic Bells do it well and mix it up with some spoken word excerpts, some cool farfisa, some straight up psych rock and some bits almost border on post-rock - it's an interesting mixture with no small amount of charm. The playlist on Soundcloud is obviously UFO themed, which is always a bonus. I'd be interested to hear if these guys have got any other material.



Landing are a well established band about whom I knew very little - to my eternal shame. Judging by their bandcamp site they have released a great deal of music in over a decade. The music is of a gentle shoegaze / dreampop variety but with some ambient post-rock thrown in for good measure; there is a lovely lilting Sigur Ros quality to some of the tracks which can't help but relax you. I feel as though I'm probably preaching to the converted a bit here, but if you haven't heard any Landing I would urge you to give them a listen.



Gorilla Pulp are a stoner/rock'n'band band from Italy who have a new LP - 'Hell In A Can' - out in March on the fantastically named Mother Fuzzer records. 'Stoner' bands are ten-a-penny these days - some good, some dreadful - and Gorilla Pulp are good. The noise they make is pretty standard fare at times - a bit of Motorhead, a bit of 80s NWOBHM, a bit of Sabbath - but they mix it up a bit with some pretty cool bluesy slide guitar (check out the intro to the vid below) and some interludes that verge on doom (and who doesn't like a bit of doom!)and this makes for an interesting listen....and the video's got a flying V ! Give a go!