Greg Hyde
(He/Him)
As seen in:
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Clash,
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DIY Magazine,
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Echoes and Dust,
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and
Covers:
Music and film.
Freelance music and film writer and former media intelligence editor. COVID isn't over. Views my own. He/him.
Articles by Greg Hyde
Protomartyr : Hotel Usona
Over the course of seven albums and 14 years, Detroit post-punk quartet Protomartyr have carved out a distinct sound. Where their early albums carried a garage-rock rawness, they graduated to a more sophisticated sound, albeit one whose guitar riffs still had an abrupt, stabbing quality to them. Yet their most distinctive element is the foreboding and mournful sound of Joe Casey’s lead vocals, guiding their songs of urban alienation and post-industrial ennui.
The Deputy
Web Exclusive Amid the current “nepo baby” discourse, one type of figure has gone relatively unremarked upon: the nepo grandbaby. Great actors from the Silent Generation are now reaching an age at which they have adult grandchildren who may well be looking to follow in their footsteps.
Oasis: Don’t Look Back in Anger
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Dinosaur Jr. : There Near
Dinosaur Jr. are one of the most important and influential American indie rock bands of the last 40-odd years, having had a formative effect on artists as varied as Radiohead and Built to Spill. And it took them only about three years to hit a peak they’ve only occasionally dipped below. Where their 1985 debut as Dinosaur was a worthy initial demonstration of their songwriting abilities, it was a little lacking in firepower in terms of both its production and musicianship.
Film Review: I Want Your Sex | Under the Radar Magazine
Web Exclusive Gregg Araki has forged a career for himself out of making provocative, disturbing, and often graphically sexual and violent films about figures and practices at the margins of society. After wowing critics with Three Bewildered People in the Night (1987) and The Long Weekend (O’ Despair) (1989), he came to wider attention with The Living End (1992).
Fucked Up talk 20 years of debut album Hidden World
20 years ago this October, Toronto hardcore innovators Fucked Up released Hidden World, their debut full-length album.
Kim Gordon : PLAY ME
If you’re reading this, you probably don’t need me to explain to you who Kim Gordon is. As part of Sonic Youth, she became known as one of the defining bassists of her generation, thanks to a series of epoch-defining albums like Daydream Nation, Goo, and Washing Machine.
Hey Colossus : Heaven Was Wild
Hey Colossus have an admirable work ethic. Their geographically disparate positioning, with six members scattered across various far-flung corners of England such as Somerset and Nottingham, inherently makes the logistics of being in a band together challenging. Bassist Joe Thompson has documented this dynamic entertainingly in his excellent memoir of his successful balancing of touring the UK and Europe with life as an early-morning rural postman, Sleevenotes.
Nothing : a short history of decay
The music made by Philadelphia shoegazers Nothing has long been steeped in melancholia, a mood quite possibly informed by the considerable degree of ill fortune the band, and in particular frontman Dominic “Nicky” Palermo, have experienced. A year after the group released their critically acclaimed debut album, Guilty of Everything, in 2014, Palermo was brutally beaten by a group of men following a show in Oakland, causing degenerative brain damage.
Pelican : Ascending
Despite making music together for more than two decades, Chicago’s Pelican still feel like an underrated act in the sphere of post-metal. They may not have had the foundational influence on the genre as Neurosis or ISIS, or have taken it in as radical a direction as SUMAC, but they’ve proven themselves consistently capable of turning out records that combine the sonics of post-rock with solid metallic riffs as well as any band in the game.
Why Patterns : SCREAMERS
London noise punk trio Why Patterns are one of the standout bands on the roster of the esteemed Human Worth, a label that’s grown into a meticulously curated gallery of sludgy yet cutting noise rock that counts TORPOR, Remote Viewing, Cower and 72% as alumni. Why Patterns bassist Seb Tull also plays the drums for post-metal greats Wren, whilst drummer Daniel McClennan also drums for electronic noisemakers Warren Schoenbright, further connecting them to the broader community of UK cacophonists.
Slow Crush : Thirst
Since forming in Leuven, Belgium in 2017, Slow Crush have delivered some memorable and enjoyable shoegaze, by turns melodic and abrasive. The four-piece’s 2018 debut full-length album Aurora was characterized by thick, crunching riffs from guitarists Jelle Ronsmans and the since-departed Jan Jouck, but the sound of its 2021 follow-up Hush was somewhat softer and gentler, featuring a subtler, more melodic guitar sound and haunting vocal performances.
La Dispute: No One Was Driving The Car review - stay powerful
Forming as a high school band in Grand Rapids, Michigan in 2004, they made their full-length debut with Somewhere at the Bottom of the River Between Vega and Altair four years later. Whilst the band would subsequently move on to greater things, the album had a fairly unreconstructed 00s emo sound, and it remains a relative weak spot in their discography.
La Dispute: No One Was Driving The Car review - stay powerful
Forming as a high school band in Grand Rapids, Michigan in 2004, they made their full-length debut with Somewhere at the Bottom of the River Between Vega and Altair four years later. Whilst the band would subsequently move on to greater things, the album had a fairly unreconstructed 00s emo sound, and it remains a relative weak spot in their discography.
Hotline TNT : Raspberry Moon
Hotline TNT was conceived by singer, guitarist, and principal songwriter Will Anderson as a solo project. Their 2021 debut album Nineteen in Love was entirely self-recorded during lockdown, but in the aftermath of its release, Anderson assembled various live-band line-ups to promote the record. Enjoyably garagey and lo-fi in its sound, Nineteen in Love featured an energy and propulsion via a preponderance of fuzz pedals that recalled early Cloud Nothings.
Mclusky : The world is still here and so are we
When Cardiff trio Mclusky first resurfaced in 2014 to play a string of benefit gigs to raise money for venues at risk of closure like Le Pub in Newport and the Buffalo Bar in Highbury, fans of noise rock had reason to celebrate.
Tunic : A Harmony of Loss Has Been Sung
Miscarriage is an incredibly difficult subject to write about. I’m not a parent, but I can’t begin to fathom the feelings of loss, disappointment, and anger that must result from the expectation that one is going to produce and rear another person, only to have that expectation upended by the cruelest twist of medical circumstances.
GNOD & White Hills : Drop Out III
Since 2006, GNOD have developed a reputation as one of the UK’s most innovative and prolific psychedelic noise rock bands, as well as becoming my favorite British live band.
Deafheaven: Lonely People With Power review - peak powers
Although France’s Alcest were the first band to have blended these two genres, Deafheaven have been the most commercially successful at doing so. Whilst debut album Roads to Judah (2011) went largely unremarked upon, second album Sunbather (2013) was hailed as one of that year’s best albums by publications as varied as Time Out and Decibel, leading to the band being invited to appear at multiple decidedly non-metal festivals across Europe and the US.
The Last Showgirl
Web Exclusive Gia Coppola comes from a storied acting and directing dynasty. Though her father, Gian-Carlo Coppola, died at the tragically young age of 22 six months before she was born, she has had at least two distinguished directors in her family to look up to: namely, her grandfather, Francis Ford, and her aunt, Sofia.
Thirdface : Ministerial Cafeteria
In 2021, amid a slew of great hardcore albums that were released during the COVID lockdowns that put the world on pause, Thirdface delivered a particular highlight with the Exploding in Sound-released Do It With a Smile.
Buñuel renders a gritty reality
Only two years after Italian noise rock group Buñuel made their debut in 2016 with their striking debut album, A Resting Place for Strangers, bassist and founding member Pierpaolo Capovilla left the band. This left the band’s remaining lineup of former Oxbow vocalist Eugene S Robinson, Afterhours guitarist Xabier Iriondo, and Il Teatro Degli Orrori drummer Franz Valente, with the challenging task of enlisting a new fourth member.
Tropical Fuck Storm : Inflatable Graveyard
Formed in 2017, Australian post-punks Tropical Fuck Storm garnered early acclaim for their first two albums, A Laughing Death in Meatspace and Braindrops, along with a reputation for performing noisy and energetic live shows even more quickly. Their three studio albums have been both commercially and critically successful in their homeland, with the latter two both cracking the top ten there.
The Jesus Lizard : Rack
Appropriately enough for Treble’s ’90s month, and coinciding with the Oasis reunion that has generated all kinds of discussion and debate in the UK, September marks the return to recorded music for another band who were as central to ’90s noise rock as Oasis were to Britpop: The Jesus Lizard.
Jade Hairpins: Get Me The Good Stuff Review - game on | Rock
The band developed as a focal point for the considerable amount of electronically dominated songs the pair wrote for Fucked Up’s fifth album, Dose Your Dreams. Having recruited UK-based musicians Jack Goldstein and Tamsin M Leach on guitar and drums respectively, the band have, over the past four-and-a-half years, notched up enjoyable support slots supporting bands such as High Vis, Pissed Jeans, and Titus Andronicus at their London gigs, despite Haliechuk being based in Canada.
Melt-Banana : 3+5
Following on from the bittersweet artistic triumph of Shellac’s To All Trains earlier this summer, it’s now the point in the season for the return of another great, cacophonous group—one that played a key role in my formative enjoyment of noise rock in the smoking room of my best friend’s parents’ house.
Fucked Up : Another Day
Over their more than two decades as a band, Fucked Up have amassed an impressive discography. Although they have only seven full-length albums, they’ve released multiple EPs, concept singles, film scores and live albums in between, all of which have reflected their desire for innovation. While they originated as a hardcore punk band in early ’00s Toronto, it is only really their 2006 full-length debut album, Hidden World, that has borne the musical hallmarks of hardcore proper.
Bad Breeding : Contempt
Formed in Stevenage, in southeast England—a neglected satellite town of London—Bad Breeding have made a name for themselves over the past decade as one of the UK’s most blistering anarcho-punk bands. In keeping with their genre moorings, their music is driven in large part by their left-wing politics, which are front and center in their critiques of the policies of the UK’s (hopefully not much longer) governing Conservative Party.
Shellac : To All Trains
Few bands have had as deep an impact on my musical and personal development as Shellac. I was aware of them in the late ’90s, referenced semi-frequently (but not covered in any great depth) in the British music press as the Surfer Rosa/In Utero engineer’s band, but I didn’t hear them until the fall of 2000, when I met the man who remains my best friend to this day at a further education college in Leicester, England and he lent me their then-new album, 1000 Hurts.
Six Organs of Admittance : Time is Glass
Since emerging with its eponymous debut album in 1998, Six Organs of Admittance has primarily functioned as a solo project for guitarist and composer Ben Chasny. Although Six Organs’ music is rooted in American primitivist folk guitar styles, Chasny often incorporates electric guitars and drone effects into his songs, ensuring the “psychedelic” half of the project’s “psychedelic folk” genre foundation applies to it just as accurately as the “folk” half does.
METZ - Up On Gravity Hill
Up On Gravity Hill by METZ METZ on the web: Facebook | Bandcamp | Release date: April 12, 2024 Label: Sub Pop by Greg Hyde | April 9, 2024 | Reviews Since releasing their self-titled debut album in 2012, Ontario trio METZ have gained themselves a dedicated international fanbase by playing hard, fast, abrasive noise punk songs that have drawn comparisons with luminaries of the genre like Scratch Acid and harsher, heavier grunge bands like Mudhoney.
USA Nails: Feel Worse Review - fast pace | Punk
They have supported an enviable collection of internationally notable post-punk and noise rock acts, such as Mission of Burma, METZ, and Unsane, on their UK tours. As a band who, by their own admission, frequently prefer to play support rather than headline shows, it is impressive that USA Nails have built up such a dedicated fanbase over the years.
Pissed Jeans interview: A furious return
After 20-odd years of making music, Pennsylvania noise-punk quartet Pissed Jeans have turned out their least subtle, hardest driving and ostensibly angriest album yet in the shape of Half Divorced. After building a reputation as a churning noise rock band in the vein of Flipper, the group turns that around on their new album, which packs 12 hard, fast, loud punk songs into half an hour.
Pissed Jeans : Half Divorced
Over the last 20 years, Pissed Jeans have become one of the most prominent noise rock bands in America. That’s an accomplishment in itself, but it takes on greater significance when one considers that the band is a side hustle, with each of the members holding down demanding jobs in the insurance and retail industries. In a way, it is fortuitous that this has been the case, for the band’s working environments have provided inspiration for some of their most memorable and evocative lyrics.
Chelsea Wolfe: She Reaches Out To She Reaches Out To She Review - personal and sonic growth | Alternative
She emerged in 2010 with her debut studio album, The Grime and the Glow, which combined a deeply confessional lyrical style with post-metal and gothic folk musical influences. She then incorporated post-punk elements into the sound of its follow-up, Apokalypsis. Nascent trip-hop influences could be evinced on her third album, Pain Is Beauty.
J Mascis: What Do We Do Now Review - enjoyable if stunted | Rock
His solo studio full-length debut, Several Shades of Why (2011), was largely underwhelming, notwithstanding a couple of standout songs. His subsequent two solo albums, Tied to a Star (2014) and Elastic Days (2018), featured elements of the brio that characterise his guitar work for Dinosaur Jr., but to a severely limited degree. All of these albums were acoustic guitar-driven.
Dark Nights Of The Soul: Chelsea Wolfe’s Baker’s Dozen
Photo by Ebru Yildiz Chelsea Wolfe’s music has always been admirably vulnerable and honest, qualities that are in even greater abundance on her new album than they have been on her previous releases. The metaphysically themed She Reaches Out To She Reaches Out To She is dominated by loud guitars and feels incredibly abrasive, not least because it follows an album of acoustic folk songs.
Film Review: Cat Person
Web Exclusive Following the unanimous acclaim given to HBO’s Succession, there has been a considerable amount of interest in actor Nicholas Braun, whose performance as the cowardly Greg Hirsch was one of the show’s highlights. It is, therefore, interesting to discover that he’s been acting on TV since 2001 and in films since 2005’s Sky High.
KEN mode - VOID
VOID by KEN mode KEN mode on the web: Facebook | Bandcamp | Release date: September 22, 2023 Label: Artoffact Records by Greg Hyde | September 19, 2023 | Reviews On their eighth album, NULL (2022), KEN mode addressed the anxiety and depression that the COVID-19 lockdown caused guitarist and lead vocalist Jesse Matthewson.
Hey Colossus : In Blood
Hey Colossus are stalwarts of the UK’s vibrant psychedelic noise rock scene. Formed in London in 2003, and now based in various disparate corners of England, the band imbued their first nine albums with a sludge metal tint comparable to their friends and contemporaries in Camberwell bruisers Part Chimp. From tenth album Radio Static High (2015) onward, however, their music has taken on a more radio-friendly, post-punk sound.
Speedy Ortiz: Rabbit Rabbit Review - advancing with polished sounds | Indie
Having begun life as a solo self-release featuring lo-fi tape recordings of songs written by lead guitarist and vocalist Sadie Dupuis, the critical acclaim that greeted their debut full-length album, Major Arcana, two years later led to them being characterised as representing part of a “scene” consisting of other emerging US indie bands of the time such as Parquet Courts and Cloud Nothings.
Film review: Mob Land
Web Exclusive John Travolta’s lengthy acting résumé is filled with vicissitudes. Beginning with low-budget occult horror The Devil’s Rain in 1975 before moving on to the massively more successful Carrie the following year, he has experienced a number of peaks and troughs over the course of his film acting career.
The Strange World Of… Oxbow
Oxbow by Phil Sharp Bands love to describe their music as having an "unclassifiable" or "hard-to-pigeonhole" sound. In very few cases is this true. Oxbow are a rare example of these labels being accurate. Across a discography that spans 34 years, the band have incorporated elements of noise rock, art rock, post metal, blues, jazz, neo classical, and baroque pop into their recordings, but none of these genre descriptors come close to conveying what their music sounds like.
Oxbow - Love’s Holiday
San Francisco quartet Oxbow must be one of the longest-serving ‘part-time’ bands on North America’s art and noise rock scenes at this point. After releasing the often intensely personal opening triptych of albums, Fuckfest (1989), King of the Jews (1991), and Let Me Be a Woman (1995), all of which alternated between avant-garde and riff-dominated musical styles, they shifted to a preponderance of guitar-driven songs on Serenade in Red (1996).
Militarie Gun: Life Under The Gun Review - accomplished melodic fusion | Rock
Santa Cruz’s Scowl signalled an intent to tread this path with their recent Psychic Dance Routine EP. England’s own High Vis are having some success in embracing it. And now, LA post-hardcore quintet Militarie Gun are the latest band to espouse this fusion of complementary musical styles with their full-length debut album, Life Under The Gun.
Premiere: Mutoid Man - Siren Song
Metal trio Mutoid Man are a supergroup of sorts, comprising Stephen Brodsky from Cave In on vocals and guitar, Jeff Matz from High on Fire on bass, and Ben Koller from Converge on drums. Following their recent video, ‘Call of the Void’, the band have drawn inspiration from Homer’s Odyssey for the animated video for ‘Siren Song’, the second single from their forthcoming third full-length album, ‘Mutants’.
Film Review: Blackberry | Under the Radar Magazine
BlackBerry Studio: Elevation Pictures Director: Matt Johnson By Greg Hyde Web Exclusive In the early 2000s, back when being able to play Snake on your Nokia was considered a function rather than something kitsch and cute, there was a huge gap in the mobile phone market. Aside from the nominal access to the World Wide Web offered by WAP, you basically couldn’t get online if you were out and about. The BlackBerry was the device that changed all that.
Film Review: Master Gardener | Under the Radar Magazine
Master Gardener Studio: HanWay Films Director: Paul Schrader By Greg Hyde Web Exclusive Ever since his screenplay for Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver brought him to international attention 47 years ago, writer/director Paul Schrader has specialized in crafting tales of lone male outsiders leading separate existences from established society.
Benefits: NAILS Review - invective with power | Punk
Some heavily politically charged music from artists as diverse as slowthai and Bad Breeding has been written in response to the atmosphere of malaise that continues to permeate the country. In this year, however, I’ll wager that few artists will come close to recording musical protests against our ongoing state of misrule that are as angry as NAILS, the debut album from Teesside noise collective Benefits.
Track: Oxbow - 1000 Hours
Six years after the release of their last studio album, ‘Thin Black Duke’, San Francisco art rock quartet Oxbow have unveiled their first new music since then. ‘1000 Hours’ is taken from the band’s forthcoming eighth album, ‘Love’s Holiday’. The song boasts backing vocals from Roger Joseph Manning Jr. of early 90s power pop quartet Jellyfish and is accompanied by a solemn video directed by John David Levy. Check it out below.
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