Punk

Fakers Release Toxic City

21st Feb 2023 — Leave a comment

The flames of punk wrath begin as a flicker between two burning twigs before becoming a forest fire.

Fakers

Fakers encompass this inferno, their guitar riffs ablaze, drumbeats petrol to the flames. Their track Toxic city speaks of destruction, a city buried under itself due to the disrespect and damage of its people. The weight of neglect, an internal rupture, it’s life in an environmental dystopia. The soul sliced into by the systems that sets boundaries, the loss of self, a wasteland of individualism. These cynical observations, the rhythm of rebellion, remind us that not all systems serve us, sometimes to scream is to survive, never surrender and never do so silently.

The essence of punk is the anthem of the individual, championing authenticity and self-expression. The desire for change, the defiance that leads to its birth is all brandished into the punk legacy. Denial of conformity, down with he established society, you become a ruler of anarchy. A contradiction of the force you are fighting, surely any structure is one that should be defied. You cannot disapprove of systems because this in itself is a system. 

“Ain’t no jobs to pay your way
Can’t get the hours to slave away
Sit and think, it’s a fucking bore
Start to stink, stewing in your sores”

Toxic City

Fakers keep the flames of punk burning, a booming beacon, a promise of better times prevailing.If you want to shake a bit of that system off, fight for your right to be who you are then head to their next gig supporting Republica at The Hairy Dog in Derby on the 25th of February. Get tickets here

The solipsism of punk, the world only exists if I am here to perceive it, may be refreshing to sip from if you are feeling anti-establishment. Protests, petitions, campaigns, a need for people to listen are all evidence of rage being redesigned for good. Wrath with no direction is madness, if you’re mad don’t throw a fit, take action, make change.

Tennov

30th Jan 2023 — Leave a comment

Otala’s lastest song Tenov is groundbreaking in its discussion about grief, the depseration one feels when someone they were devoted to dies. This loss of self in the loss of someone else and the onset of crisis this can become.

Otala

We are all haunted by the looming headstone of an empty grave,we have see friends and family fall, their demise a reminder that we shall one day join them. What do we let fade when we focus on what is gone? Those that sleep will surley stir again, eyes stark in the daylight, but what about those that stay shut?

Tennov is written in a 4/4 time signature to reflect the ongoing cycle of love,loss and grief. The beuaty of love is that it can be lost and it is perhaps with this knowledge that we should look after it, cherish it try to make it last. Just because someone has been buried, or burned or lost does not mean the love you had for them has to die too. Losing someone is a lonely place, you isolate yourself in an effort to immortalize them in your memory.

Tennov

As a punk quintent Otala really capture the anger and exhasution of grief in Tennov which explores themes of anger, denial, helplessness. Its narrrative offers a foreboding hand down a darkened path, the mind of death and darkness. This forest of forelonging crowds our vision and we are buried in the woods, pining for all that is gone.

Grief is a mutual experience, a loved one shielded in wood once stood tall now lies still. We are left to die without them by our side. Dorothy Tennov wrote about the expereince of being in Love, researching individual cases, we may all expereince different verions of love but we will all suffer the same loss. We are in debt to those we have lost, the love we shared, the lessons learned from each other. We pay not in our suffering, each tear cried is not a currency, but with our desicion to rejoice, celebrate life as if they were still living it so they can vicariously laugh and cry with you.

The lyrics that stick out to me in Tennov are:

“Sometimes I wonder what would be and what will be if you took my hand. Red and swollen it rests in my palm. An careless act of selfishness but it could never be a lie”.

Otala are really making their mark in the music industry, with up coming gigs on the 3rd of February in The George Tavern London, The Bodega in Nottignham on the 24th of March and april the 9th in the New Adelphi Club in Hull. Click here to buy tickets!

BLOODWORM leaves you ‘Alone In Your Garden’

2nd Dec 2022 — Leave a comment

Their latest single leaves you brave in the face of the unknown.

Though our dark and damp high streets may be lifted with twinkling Christmas lights and foggy with the smell of roasting chestnuts and melted chocolate,winter has not yet fallen upon us . Autumn tries to linger, clawed trees cling to the skies as stubborn as summer’s ghost, we are forced to watch as the final brown leaves fall through the veil. The gradual demise of a season as the year slowly comes to a close can leave us all feeling slightly forlorn as we reflect on the previous 12 months. This retrospective outlook we are gripped by is echoed perfectly in the gothic punk instrumentals of East-Midlands based band, Bloodworm.

Alone in your garden Bloodworm

Days fall short and shadows grow darker, this plummet into the inevitable unknown inspired the bands’s latest single ‘Alone in your garden’.Band members Chirs Walker, George Curtis ad Euan Stevens,perfectly capture an ear with an intro that echoes a train coming up to it’s station, a drum beat that promises you’re on track to your desired destination.

The foreboding doom and inkling of victory imbued in the melody lull a listener into themselves. We sit lamenting the loss of a longed for loved one, damning the inevitable burial or final wave as the train pulls away.But one must seek comfort in the potential of a garden. Amongst the trees and crowded shrubberies things are born while others are buried, there is grown in these leaves and defiance in the soil.

Inpirsed by greats such as The Cure and Siousxse and The banshees, Bloodworm protests for more punk antics. Heralding change and making space in the industry, perhaps the rebelliousness that punk breathes is what we all need as 2022 comes to a close.

The birth of Bloodworm began the band’s pattern of defying the odds when their identity blossomed in the unlikeliest of places; A shed, where originally, they started as a grunge band before finding themselves more fit for gothic punk.

From the shed the band have gone on to support acts such as the Lounge society and LIFE at sold out shows in Nottingham.They have headlined at The Bodega with support from OTALA and with 2023 promising more up coming support slots, (in January they are set to support household names The Cool Greenhouse,(tickets here) , it is no wonder why Dean Jackson from BBC Radio Nottingham said he “absolutely loved it” when he listened to one of their previous bangers’ Cemetry Dance”- listen and hear for yourself.