I did Twitter (ugh) this on November 9th, but just in case you missed it: you can download the brand new Melissa Auf der Maur track, ‘OOOM’, for free on her official website. The video for the song will be live online from December 1st – so don’t miss that either. According to the website, it was shot on solar power with real fireballs and bleeding trees! It has also been announced that the eagerly anticipated Out Of Our Minds album-film-comic-web experience will finally be released in 2010!

This kind of music has never been featured on Soul Drift before, but I can’t help liking it! 8 Ball Aitken is a former banana picker from Far North Queensland and performs “uniquely Australian country, blues & roots anthems — contemporary honk, stomp, Aussie swamp tunes played on a big slide guitar”. The songs are really catchy and I love the guitar sound. His recent and third album, Rebel With a Cause, was released in 2008.

Recommended Listening: ‘Yellow Moon’, ‘Cyclone Country’ and ‘Riverside’

Official Site | MySpace | ReverbNation

The Unknownn are a mysterious rock-tinged trip-hop group from ‘the depths of the English countryside’. The project was born in early 2003 from a mutual love of all things dark. Rather than focusing on bios and the people in the group, they would rather the focus be purely on the music they produce. It seems that there is not a fixed group either, as they have said that they “use [their] talented friends to full effect, from violinists and viola players to local guitar legends… opening up different avenues musically.”

The music is best described on their Last.FM as ‘hauntingly beautiful and seductively dark’, the type of music to listen to late at night. The vocalist has a gorgeous ethereal voice and the music is kind of like Portishead meets Nine Inch Nails. They released their debut album in October 2005 and since then they have released many remixes and songs online. Up until last month all of their songs were available for free download on their MySpace and Reverbnation but they are slowly removing them. If you hurry, there might be some free downloads left for the taking!

Official Site | MySpace | ReverbNation

13th November 2009 at 02 Academy, Birmingham

Headliners: Alice in Chains
Support: Little Fish

I thought that we were going to miss the support band and wasn’t too fussed about seeing them, but we got to the venue in time and I was pleasantly surprised by them. Little Fish are a two-piece female fronted rock band, and I think they were very brave to open for Alice in Chains with their kind of music! I think the crowd warmed to them a little bit towards the end, but I really enjoyed them throughout and tried to make as much noise as I could for them after each song. I really liked Julia’s bluesy voice and punky/angry attitude, and I thought the drummer was amazing! I will be looking out for their debut album.

I was so excited about seeing Alice in Chains and I felt so happy when I saw them all come onto the stage. I liked that they did that pretty much at the same time, it annoys me when bands stagger it to get a bigger cheer for the lead vocalist or whoever’s supposedly the most popular. They launched straight into ‘It Ain’t Like That’ and the crowd went nuts. They didn’t give us any time to settle down either, as they played ‘Again’ immediately after.

After a couple of songs (it may have been after ‘Again’) they had to stop for a while because the mics kept cutting out. Jerry started messing with his guitar and joked with the crowd: “This is a new one, it’s called ‘Technical Difficulties’”, with Mike chiming in: “Yeah, we made it up on the spot!” They kept apologising for the sound all the way through the set, but I thought they sounded great! The only thing that bugged me were the people chanting for ‘Rooster’ all the way through (although it took me until Jerry said “you guys really f*cking want that song, don’t ya?” to work it out, I thought they were either chanting ‘new stuff’ or ‘you suck’ haha). It was obvious they would play ‘Rooster’… but maybe it was the only song they knew?!

They played a fair amount from the new album; six in total. I would have loved to have heard ‘Last of My Kind’, ‘When the Sun Rose Again’ and ‘Private Hell’, but the setlist was amazing, so I can’t complain!

Halfway through the set, they got out some stools, lit cigarettes and played a mini-acoustic set, which was so awesome. I’d had my heart set on them playing ‘Down in a Hole’ and I was SO happy that it was the first song of the acoustic part! The emotion I felt was overwhelming and I welled up, as well as singing my heart out. It was just amazing. As part of the acoustic set, they also played ‘Heaven Beside You’ and ‘Got Me Wrong’ – which were nice surprises – and they ended with the heartwrenching ‘Black Gives Way to Blue’ with a picture of Layne in the background.

Right after they finished the acoustic set, they played ‘God Am’ which was a massive surprise, I had no idea that they would play that song! William put a nice twist on it. In fact, I thought he was brilliant all the way through; I thought he was great with the crowd and also an awesome guitarist.

The encore began with the amazing ‘Lesson Learned’, followed by ‘Would?’ – another song I couldn’t wait to hear live. It was just fantastic. The last song was ‘Rooster’, much to the delight of the people who were chanting it all night! They played the video in the background, which added to the intensity of the song. I had chills when they sang ‘you know he ain’t gonna die!’.

It was one of the best gigs (if not THE best) I’ve ever been to. They all had amazing stage presence and were definitely one of the coolest bands I’ve ever seen; they just seem like genuinely nice guys. It was the first gig in a long time where I’ve just been totally into it, going crazy, smiling a lot and singing every word. I think it was probably the only gig I’ve been to where I’ve actually known every song and every word. I’m so glad I got to see them and hear songs I never thought I would live.

Setlist under the cut, courtesy of Setlist.FM.

Setlist

It Ain’t Like That
Again
Them Bones
Dam That River
Your Decision
No Excuses
Check My Brain
A Looking In View
Rain When I Die
Down In a Hole
Heaven Beside You
Got Me Wrong
Black Gives Way To Blue
God Am
Acid Bubble
Angry Chair
Man in the Box
Lesson Learned
Would?
Rooster

★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Regular readers of Soul Drift will know that Illuminatus were one of the local bands I took a shine to when I was at University. I think they are a fantastic live band, but I’d not heard any (good quality) studio versions of songs until now. Recently I have been loving Spotify, and I think it is great that the band have put their brand new EP on it to stream.

The EP has to be one of the most beautiful pieces I have heard in a long time, and I love the way that the artwork compliments the music perfectly (check out their MySpace to see the full piece). All three of the main songs are atmospheric and epic, which evoke strong emotions on every listen. You get your money’s worth as well, since all four tracks are over five minutes long. My favourite on the EP is without a doubt the title track. That’s not to say the others aren’t brilliant, but ‘The Rising Tide’ captured my heart when I first heard it live. The intro and the soundscapes throughout, accompanied by Julio Taylor’s harrowing screams, never fails to give me goosebumps. It is an incredibly powerful track and I believe it is the band’s masterpiece.

The EP ends with an amazing acoustic version of ‘Wargasm’, which first appeared on their Aborted Revolutions EP in 2005 (which is also available to hear on Spotify). It has a certain Spanish feel to it and really shows off Julio Taylor’s vocal talents.

Overall the EP is beautiful and brutal, thought-provoking and meaningful. I highly recommend it! As I mentioned above, you can stream the EP on Spotify but you can purchase it on iTunes and other digital download sites, or you can buy the limited edition CD version from the band’s official webstore.

MySpace