{"id":8250,"date":"2010-10-18T21:32:08","date_gmt":"2010-10-18T21:32:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thejoycollective.co.uk\/blog\/?p=8250"},"modified":"2014-09-05T18:14:23","modified_gmt":"2014-09-05T18:14:23","slug":"swn-preview-2-bastions-%e2%80%93-%e2%80%98island-living%e2%80%99-tangled-talkholy-roar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jonnyjaniero.com\/thejoycollective\/review\/swn-preview-2-bastions-%e2%80%93-%e2%80%98island-living%e2%80%99-tangled-talkholy-roar\/","title":{"rendered":"S\u0175n (P)review #2: Bastions \u2013 \u2018Island Living\u2019 (Tangled Talk\/Holy Roar)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Plenty is written by, and of, bands of young men proclaiming discontent, boredom and desperation at the background they’ve risen from and the grinding monotony that’s stifling their youthful creativity.\u00a0 Much of this is neutered, unspecific drivel unworthy of the attention of others.\u00a0 Occasionally, this despair will be articulated verbally, or musically, with such stunning clarity of purpose that it takes you aback.\u00a0 Guess which of the two Bastions’ new EP is?<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The Island of the title is Anglesey, Bastions’ home, and their first EP for the Holy Roar label (Rolo Tomassi, Dananananaykroyd, Gallops! etc) after a brace of self-released mini-albums crams a short life’s worth of furious antipathy into less than ten minutes’ pummelling hardcore.\u00a0 It’s really good.\u00a0 The title track bursts in on a galloping riff, breakneck drumming and throat-scraping vocals, drops out into breakdowns lined with controlled feedback, then sets off chasing Converge down dark alleys while noodly guitar lines snake around them.\u00a0 ‘Soar’ continues the raging pace, guttural roars stretching out the last syllables of each verse to excellent effect.\u00a0 Crunching stop-start riffs churn over a bellowed ‘soar on<\/em>‘ refrain as the song tempo-shifts manically, out of their control.\u00a0 ‘Ignorance breeds!<\/em>‘, Jamie cries, as it derails into a wall of feedback.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Flip the EP and find ‘The Great Unwashed’, epic by comparison, ominous and blackened.\u00a0 Downtuned guitars, sludgy bass distortion and slow, deliberate drums battering away like a persistent bailiff open out into a wall of post-metal noise more reminiscent of Mastodon than the earlier Dillinger-style rush.\u00a0 There’s palpable fear and loathing of the road ahead for the protagonist, eyeing up the hordes; “If I don’t get out, I’ll end up as you… the great unwashed<\/em>“.\u00a0 There’s a different kind of tension in these words, less raw, more pleading, and the music behind him is stripped back appropriately before tearing into a final realisation.\u00a0 “I can see myself in you, that’s what scares me the most<\/em>“.\u00a0 It’s undeniably effective and a pretty straightforward cry to the self; get me out of here or I will not forgive you.\u00a0 The sound is freezing at this point, a finely tuned sheet-metal noise, its chugging riffs echoing the cloaking stasis dragging him down.\u00a0 Bastions’ will should see them move beyond these limits swiftly and emphatically.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Island Living is available on 7″ and MP3 from <\/em>http:\/\/bastions.bigcartel.com\/<\/a>.\u00a0 Bastions play S<\/em>\u0175n this Friday 22nd October in the Chapter Arts Centre Stiwdio, 9pm – 9.30pm.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Plenty is written by, and of, bands of young men proclaiming discontent, boredom and desperation at the background they’ve risen from and the grinding monotony that’s stifling their youthful creativity.\u00a0 Much of this is neutered, unspecific drivel unworthy of the attention of others.\u00a0 Occasionally, this despair will be articulated verbally, or musically, with such stunning […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[747,459],"tags":[1607,1610,1608,957,1609],"class_list":["post-8250","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-releases","category-review","tag-bastions","tag-holy-roar","tag-island-living","tag-swn-festival","tag-tangled-talk"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonnyjaniero.com\/thejoycollective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8250","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonnyjaniero.com\/thejoycollective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonnyjaniero.com\/thejoycollective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonnyjaniero.com\/thejoycollective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/21"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonnyjaniero.com\/thejoycollective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8250"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jonnyjaniero.com\/thejoycollective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8250\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonnyjaniero.com\/thejoycollective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8250"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonnyjaniero.com\/thejoycollective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8250"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonnyjaniero.com\/thejoycollective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8250"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}