Blessed End - Movin' On (1971)

I know I've been away for a while, walk it off you crybabies.
To make assistance for crybaby walking, here is downer organ psych gem. This record came out around about the time Jim Morrison died, and I'd say The Doors + the cold embrace of the grave is a pretty good formula for describing this record. Far less pretentious and flamboyant than Morrison and co, this has a gritty real people vibe and direct downer lyrics (this is PA not LA). Powerful vocal performance that reminds me of Sinatra's most downcast moments. No distortion or fuzz here but plenty of doomed, quasi-proto-goth atmospheres.

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Dryewater - Southpaw (1974)

Early 70s burnout rock with an appealingly murky soundscape that brings a cold, resigned atmosphere to the preceedings. The 60s were long dead by this point. Strong, bluesy vocals and adventurous but solid instrumentation keep things interesting for the most part, although there are a few lapses into bar-band mundanity. Opening "Winterground" lives up to its name with an atmosphere of icy detachment and dead trees, complimenting the bluesy vocals, and is my favourite track on the album. Lots of Who influence scattered throughout the record, as well as solid FM rock moves, but "Thunder" and "Revelation" play it hard and psychy, with some nice flanged guitar. Overall, a flawed but interesting listen that unfortunately doesn't live up to the promise of its opening track.

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Classic Youtube Misery

I will never get bored of black and white footage of miserable white guys and bridges and hospitals and shit:

American Music Club - Electric Light

Idaho - God's Green Earth

Red House Painters - 24

Codeine - Loss Leader
Low - Shame

And a classic from outside of the indie-rock world:

Coil - Tainted Love

The Index - The Index (1967)

This is what you'd expect the first Velvet Underground record to sound like if you'd only read reviews from the time: raw, depressive, smack-addled garage rock for a degenerate, anomic civilisation. This record is bathed in an unrelenting cloud of grey noise, 60s reverb-obsession taken to its anti-logical conclusion. Their version of "Eight Miles High" bears about as much resemblance to the original as Husker Du's, taken the sweet out of the Byrd's bittersweet rendition and facing the horrors of Vietnam with blank resignation. The wintry doombeat excursions of "Rainy Starlet" and "Fire Eyes" remind me of Joy Division, with ahead-of-the-curve hippie disillusionment replacing post-punk angst. These guys were from Detroit, an industrial city in decline just like late 70s Manchester. There's definitely a similar noise-loving impulse to The Stooges, those other detroit pre-punk legends, but The Index are about drug-addled introspection rather than Dionysian release.

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