Friday 18 December 2015

Throw Down Bones - Throw Down Bones

Article by KevW


Fuzz Club Records is a label that rarely, if ever, lets you down. With their determination to "excavate the European underground" they've uncovered some real hidden gems in the world of psych, shoegaze, krautrock and more, so when they say that their most streamed album of the year on iTunes is this eight-track collection by Throw Down Bones (which was only released this month), then we should really see what the fuss is all about. Having already wowed crowds at Liverpool Psych Fest and London's Fuzz Club Festival, future dates include sharing a stage with the awesome Parastatic. So there must be something good going on here.

To the possible envy of city bands who can barely manage to rent damp, former industrial spaces to rehearse and record in, this trio retreated to their Alpine studio in Italy's Piedmont region for a week of jamming which resulting in the nucleus of these eight instrumental tracks. With no songs under five-minutes in length and no vocals to be found, you really have to lock into a decent groove to satiate people's attention span, and fans would have got their first taste of the group doing just that on kraut-ish single 'Saturator' with its insistent beat, winding guitar line and flashes of sound effects which expand to include more distortion later on. The album's other single, 'Exposure', is built from much the same ingredients, which may seem monotonous on paper, but it's actually more atmospheric as well as being arguably more catchy thanks to a prominent bassline and shimmering production, not to mention spangly lead guitar that crops up to provide a focal point.

Throw Down Bones don't really break from their style, but neither do they lose their form, and while those two tunes have been picked as singles, others are perhaps even better. Take the classic krautrock of 'Our Home, The Holy Mountain' which is mesmerising from the outset, and the similarly motorik epic 'Inner Lights'. The bouncy 'Emitters' is even more propulsive. Less upfront and more ambient is 'A Premise To Action' which plays more on the atmospheric side of things, as does 'Bones' before is lowly comes into focus and takes off, bringing a little more psychedelia with it, and final track 'It's All Around Us' does likewise. It's surprising that this album has received the attention it has, not because it's not good enough, it certainly is, but maybe you'd expect something more commercial to be more popular. So surely the fact that 'Throw Down Bones' has done so well is a testament to the band, and to plenty of people with great taste.







Throw Down Bones' website

Buy: Throw Down Bones





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