Mickey's Metal Morsels: Episode Three

Welcome back to a new episode of ...Morsels, which I’ve tried to mix up a bit more style-wise. Hope You enjoy it!

LOOSE SUTURES

Assembled in 2019 by four roughnecks, Loose Sutures plays classic seventies riffs with a pinch of modern punk attitude, conjuring a blend of stoner and garage energy and displaying an abundance of evil beats, venomous fuzzes, and raunchy lyrics. Loose Sutures’ music has been praised by fans and critics for evoking a dark and seductive atmosphere reminiscent of cult exploitation movies.

Depicting killer profiles and kinky love stories, the Sardinian group presented their self-titled debut LP in March 2020 via Electric Valley Records. They followed it up with the sophomore album, A Gash with Sharp Teeth and Other Tales, the following year; it later saw a Japanese edition in the Spring of 2022. Introducing the newly recruited Giuseppe Hussain (who replaced Gianpaolo Cherchi, guitars/vocals), the album is “a journey delving into lust with filthy guitars, stoned rhythms, and creepy voices escorting you deep inside the sticky core of what you fear yet desire at the same time.”

Loose Sutures again encountered a lineup change in 2022 when Hussain left the band, leaving the band to operate as a trio. It was a setback, but they refused to let it hold them back. Longtime fellow Marco “Grey” Manca joined to take care of the role of Giuseppe on the “High Heeled Barbarians Tour” around Europe the same year.

Sado Sex for Dummies, as the name hints, is a complete handbook to satisfy the needs of the pervs, sadists, and killers out there. An invitation to indulge in fuzz-drenched, punk-‘n-roll violence, this third record from Loose Sutures has no shortage of lurid stories. While there is a touch of evolution, the album has not strayed too far from the band’s established hard, fast, and crude sound. To add more spice to some songs, the album features a couple of guest musicians, including the legendary Nick Oliveri and Alain Johannes.

Get ready to be taken on a frenzied ride into the depths of your darkest desires!

DARKPLACE

Darkplace – nothing to do with the legendary Garth Marenghi, sadly – is an anonymous band that has recently emerged on the music scene. Their music is rooted in post-punk but incorporates elements of experimental rock, alternative, and a variety of other genres in their sound. The concept behind the album is centered around a grim future, or perhaps present, where the world is depicted through digital paintings in the accompanying music videos. The imagery is inspired by the bleak landscape of Stockholm’s Västerort, but with a unique and imaginative twist.

Most of the instrumental songs on About The End Of The World were written with a specific dramaturgy and story in mind, which shows in the cinematic short movie-like music videos. Darkplace gives us an intriguing insight to their creative process. “The first idea for an animation was [for first single] Arken Över Hesselby. We started creating the art before we had the music, so the piece is written as a soundtrack to the animation. Same goes with [new single] Fearmonger”.

The art is a multi-layered process that involves photography, sculpting, oil painting, digital editing, and animation. Darkplace elaborates, “For structures like Arken… [the sculpting and painting mobile application] Nomad Sculpt is used to form it, then the motives are exported in the specific angle each scene requires and is imported into Procreate [a raster graphics editor app for digital painting] to be painted there. We use oil paintbrushes and paint over the photo. It is layers upon layers, and it gets messy. Exporting gets even messier since we want depth in the scenes and need to export them in layered depths. A few scenes in this project have been animated frame by frame as well. This project has taken almost two years so far, so we try to kept it to a minimal.”

The band’s debut single Arken Över Hesselby, which translates to The Ark Over Hesselby, pointed towards an alternative version of the Stockholm suburb of Hässelby. Its video depicted a familiar cityscape, haunted by an unknown presence viewed form the sky. With Fearmonger, the story transports us to another part of the same daunting universe, to witness the fate of a lone foot soldier in the face of the mysterious Ark.

SIGH

Following the announcement of the band’s new live album, Live: Eastern Forces of Evil 2022, Sigh now give us the first experience what fans can expect in the form of the performance of Mayonaka no Kaii.

Taken from 2022’s Shiki album, Mayonaka no Kaii brings with it a spectral atmosphere which is no coincidence considering Mirai’s frightful experience that informed the song.

At exactly 00:00am Mirai was woken up and after a quick trip to the bathroom, quickly returned to his slumber. Yet, despite what felt like a few hours, he woke up and was faced once more with the clock face at exactly 00:00am. Thinking the battery in his clock was dead, he looked at his phone and to his surprise there it was, 00:00am as well… A truly otherworldly and inexplicable experience.

Mirai elaborates below: “Mayonaka no Kaii, which is based on my eerie experience, is my favourite track off the latest album Shiki released last year, and it’s been always on the setlist since it was out. It got all the elements Sigh have from hammond solo, shakuhachi solo, flute solo, vocoder and so on. Also it definitely is a fun-to-play song. The adrenalin starts to flow towards the ending!

He continues: “I’m not a person, who easily confuses dreams and reality. I clearly remember going to the toilet at the first alarm, and I took the watch out of the room after the second one, so neither of these was a dream. This was the first experience in my life which I cannot logically explain at all. It was SO scary. If you have a similar story, let me know.”

The video, taken from their live performance, matches the eclecticism of the band’s sound to deliver a theatrical clip that gives Mayonaka no Kaii a blood-drenched new lease of life.

With a title referencing the band’s original underground live release The Eastern Force of Evil released back in 1997, this new performance captured recently in Japan features the line-up of founder & mainman Mirai Kawashima on bass/vocals, Dr. Mikannibal on vocals/saxophone, Nozomu Wakai on guitar, and Takeo Shimoda on drums.

The CD/DVD edition of includes both audio and visual presentations of the show, and also features two extra tracks, including a cover of the Death classic, Evil Dead. The DVD also includes three additional promo video tracks in the shape of Mayonaka No Kaii, Satsui, and Shoujahitsumetsu.

THE COFFINSHAKERS

This September, coffins will shake and graves shall release their dead…

Rob Coffinshaker has long been abit of a fave around the Sentinel Daily Office so it’s great to hear that he’s back with a new album later this year…

While most bands quickly lose the spark, The Coffinshakers have stayed relevant – eternal like the undead. Though humour is their hallmark, there is also poignancy and something genuinely spine-tingling in their rugged, melancholy ballads. And this new offering shows them at the height of their baleful, campy power. They truly are a band that ages like fine wine – although vampires, of course, never drink… wine.

Much will be familiar to dedicated fans. Rob’s trademark malevolent chuckles still reverberate with sardonic glee, the deep rumble of his voice continuing to send all yellow-bellies hiding behind the barn. At the same time, his vocals have gained in both power and subtleness. The same goes for the guitar, bass, and drum work, now incorporating a broader array of classic Americana influences. These unholy badmen have drunk the blood straight from the neck of the authentic country, bluegrass, folk and other rootsy music of inbred US backwaters – and it has made their fangs sharper than ever.

And though The Coffinshakers still ride forth with tongue firmly planted in cheek, there is a new apocalyptic urgency to their third offering. From the marching drums of the desolate Graves, Release Your Dead to the echoing vocals of River of Souls and the cathartic cataclysm of Down in Flames, it all forebodes the imminent end of the whole dirty enchilada of existence. The band’s flippancy comes with a genuinely unsettling kernel of darkness – and black humor is always the most satisfying. Vampires may not cry, but we all know they laugh wickedly as they rise from the bone orchard.