Figure 0.9. - Casket (based on a true story). Review.

If you've read any of my blogs before you'll probably be familiar with Crime and Punishment 2011. If you aren't then I'll give Figure 0.9. a bit of context. CPK were a short lived birmingham group who for little over two years terrified and confused basements across the country with their aggressive mix of grime inspired bars, heavy metal guitar samples, guttural screaming and quirky beats. Dan Carter was notable for spending much of these shows, jumping around, rolling about on the floor and getting into peoples faces. Dan's début album (which came out back in September, I'm late writing this), is both the closest thing the world will see to a CPK album and a bold step forward into being a solo artist.
When I interviewed Dan back in August he said that "A running theme of the album is believing in yourself and not really caring what other people think of you" and that "I’ve tried to make it as much like a proper album as possible". For an independently released début band-camp project 'Casket' is very much like a proper album. The production is clean, punchy and features a varied mix of sounds. There's few features, a few skits and it clocks in at 13 songs in 39 minutes. Casket is a far cry from the bloated, feature heavy mix-tapes most rap artists make their names with.
'Casket' begins with a short cocktail of trap beats, eerie piano melodies and white noise synths, while it may only be 50 seconds long it's a statement of intent, as Figure 0.9 points out that 'I'm not Dan Carter any more, I'm no longer broken, my name is Figure 0.9. and I'm about to split the earth open'. However Dan Carter does reappear on a guest verse on 'Killer MC' as Figure 0.9. cheers on his former self. Salem Witch Trials carries on the dark tone of the intro, with it's surprisingly catchy hook and white noise synths, backing track. Dan uses this track and many others to talk openly about his own mental health struggles, stating that 'the world has tried to kill me but I'm kicking back and screaming'. Dan uses the few skits on this album to casually discuss mental health, love, depression and his views on life in general. 'Dragon' and 'Reflecting' are also both dark grime tinged bangers, the former, featuring more sampled guitars and the latter a feature from his former bandmate Zero.

Amaryllis has another feature from another former CPK member Joe Jones. Who ditches his usual screams for an unsettling spoken word segment. While Dan raps from the heart about love and his girlfriend, while earlier tracks mix personal confessions with horror-core bravado, 'Amaryllis' features touching tributes to his girlfriend such as 'I know that you don't feel confident, but you light up the room believe it', over a burial style garage beat. Much of Casket shows Dan both growing as a person and honing his craft as an MC. Dan references this growth on 'treehouse' admitting that 'When I write I write about pain in my life'. Casket's closer and title track uses Placebo's 'Follow the cops back home' as a backdrop for a cathartic and emotional climax to an album that deserves far more attention.

Pay what you like here
https://figure09.bandcamp.com/album/casket-based-on-a-true-story

https://burminum.blogspot.co.uk/2017/08/interview-with-figure09.html
https://twitter.com/figure09x

The most disappointing albums of 2017

While many will write lists about the best albums of each  year and some will write about the absolute worst. 2017 produced a handful of albums which were neither. Some albums fell to short of the mark to make my best of or my honourable mentions, while not bad albums as such, these are the albums which fell too short of what I hoped they would be.

Arcade Fire - Everything Now.
Few albums have ever had such a huge impact on me and my musical taste as much as Arcade Fire's seminal masterpiece 'The Suburbs'. Where previous Arcade Fire albums had been concept records about death and religion, on 'The Suburbs' Arcade Fire wrote about their teenage years, lamenting the 'wasted years' of their youth and the uncertainty of their adult years. 7 years later all the subtlety that made Arcade Fire's music so engaging has gone. 'Everything Now' is also a concept album of sorts, looking at how technology has affected our world. The problem is that the Arcade Fire of old wrote songs that grabbed me by the heart, yet the songs on Everything Now (other than the incredible title track), simply annoy me with their smugness. I never expected or wanted to hear Win Butler singing bad chat-up lines over obnoxious 'big band' music or the frankly boring 'good god damn'. Arcade Fire's worst album is by no means a terrible listen, yet it falls a long way short of what they had already achieved.

Alt-J - Relaxer
'3WW' is the most gorgeous and beautiful tune Alt-J have ever put to tape. The simplicity  and  sparseness of the folky acoustic guitar opening and the devilish guest vocals of Ellie Rowesll make for something truly special. Which is why it's a shame that the rest of the album feels so unfinished and clumsy. 'Hit me like that snare' is an awkward attempt at Rolling Stones style raunchiness but the demo quality recording, grates next to the lushness of the rest of the album. 'Deadcrush' has a nice vibe but fails to live up to it's opening and the grating refrain of 'how green was my valley' on 'Pleader', nothing on 'Relaxer' lives up to the promise shown on '3WW'.

Stormzy - Gang Signs and Prayer
With Skepta and Wiley both having dropped some of the best Grime albums of their careers, I was looking forward to the crown prince of grime dropping his début. I was hoping for a dark, gritty and hard hitting album of grime bangers, and unfortunately I only heard half of one. While 'Mr Skeng', 'big for your boots' and 'return of the rucksack delivered on this, the other side of the album showed Stormzy shedding his rougher side for a gospel influenced sound, similar to that or Frank Ocean or Chance, the rapper. The ballads grate alongside the bangers, and while lyrically Stormzy bares far more than a grime MC usually would, the mix of styles is far too uneven to make for a satisfying whole album listen. At nearly an hour long 'Gang signs and Prayer' drags, and lacks the punch I was hoping for.

Noel Gallaghers High Flying Birds - Who built the moon? 
For a long time Noel seemed to have won a status as the nations favourite Gallagher. Yet in 2017 the tables turned with Liam finally turning in a decent back to basics rock album and winning back the affection of the Oasis fans who were disappointed by his Beady Eye projects. Meanwhile Noel decided to 'shake off the parka monkeys' with his most experimental album yet. Who built the moon? is an odd mix of epic stadium rock, psychedelia, and spaghetti western soundtracks. The only problem is he forgot to balance any of this experimentation with any decent tunes, and what's a Gallagher album without tunes?

The Big Moon - Love in the 4th Dimension. 
2017 has seen yet another wave of fantastic rock bands rise from obscurity. Creeper, Milk Teeth, King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard, Pumarosa and many more have gained deserved success this year. Yet the band who seemed to get the most attention was 'The Big Moon'. Their début is an enjoyably raucous indie rock album, remiscent of the much missed 'Palma Violets'. While it may be fun this mish-mash of 90's/00's indie rock is hardly original or memorable, and ultimately very mediocre. I feel that 'The Big Moon's success is a product of the UK music industry laziness. If they were boys or weren't from London no one would care. I am all for girl bands, but the industry needs to stop treating girls with guitars as a novelty, and find artists with more originality than this.

Dishonorable mentions 
J Hus - Common Sense
Gorillaz - Humanz
Beck - Colours
Bjork - Utopia
Skepta - Vicious EP

Creeper. Live at the Institute Birmingham review (4/1217)

The name of this tour 'The theatre of fear' left me wondering a lot about from my first time seeing Creeper. Would it be a circus style show with fire breathers, dancers and magic tricks (like the time I saw Bentley Rhythm Ace?) or something entirely different? Throughout all the supports (the only one I caught was Can't Swim- who were pretty decent) was a banner proclaiming the show to be a world fair from 50 years ago. 'The Theatre of Fear' began ominously with (spoiler alert) people walking around the pitch black stage shining torches, as the intro spoken on the PA became more and more distorted. The eponymous purple suited James Scythe was there to warn us all that not all was what it seemed, and that we should beware of the ghoulish figure haunting the fair, before the ghoul itself was revealed with its eyes shining bright white spotlights over the audience. The plot of all this was quite irrelevant of course as bells and whistles or not Creeper can still put on an amazing show. Maybe this wasn't the circus I imagined, but full credit is due to Creeper for putting the effort into making their shows that bit more special. I will remember this show in particular for the frenzied mosh-pits during 'Room 309' and the almost constant wave of crowd surfers that I had to lift over my head and the few accidental kicks I took to the head while doing it. Despite all the chaos Creeper fans are a loving bunch who are all happy to pick each other off the floor and saying sorry for kicking others in the head.
While Creeper are all great musicians Will Gould stands out as being a fantastic front-man. His voice sounding even better live and looking like the kind of Goth that all Goth's aspire to being. Keyboardist Hannah Greenwood had her own time to shine as her and Creepers guitarist led another sing-along of 'crickets' the fact that this acoustic ballad was a highlight of the show and not a low only further highlights the strength of Creeper's song-writing. The same was true for 'I choose to live' and after the inevitable encore 'Misery' as the whole audience belted out every word. '

There's a lot of fucked up things happening in this world' said Will towards the end. I think he was telling us to all be good to each other, yet I think he also highlights why bands like Creeper are needed. So we can have an hour or so of blissful escapism surrounded by like-minded souls.

9.2/10