Promote This: ETYEN, Violent Vickie and Holy White Hounds
Promote This is a long-running NadaMucho.com feature wherein we write about emerging and unsigned bands. Send submissions to @nadamucho with hash tag #PromoteThis.
ETYEN – “Autumn”
Before getting into the song itself, Lebanese artist E TYEN’s (pictured above) latest single is accompanied by a column of recommended tracks by Bonobo and Gold Panda, which is a telling sign that the music is deliberately spacy and cinematic. The track is inspired by ETYEN’s move from London to Beirut, and transmits an intentionally bittersweet notion of balancing gain and loss. While the song itself is little more than a twitchy beat and sweeping piano-lines, it provides a moment for reflection. – Cameron Deuel
Listen to “Autumn”
Violent Vickie – “Drugs” and “Fuck You”
Some electronic music here, pretty by-the-books beats and production. There’s no new ground being broken by Violent Vickie. “Drugs” is a boring litany of drug naming, bringing the song close to parody, but it’s not even as funny a bad skit on early 80s Saturday Night Live . A Gary Kroeger cameo in the video would have sealed the deal. “Fuck You!!!”, on the other hand, comes straight out of the Riot Grrrl days of simplistic guitar, drums and mostly screamed vocals. Again, the lyrics are mostly a list of people and things deserving of a middle finger, but in terms of sloppy punk rock energy, this song is the much more satisfying of the two. – Abe Beeson
Holy White Hounds – “Switchblade”
Holy White Hounds‘ “Switchblade” sounds like a B side from Beck’s The Information (2006); cool song structure with ancillary noises that do a nice job elevating the song out of the “typical tough guy rock song” category. The vocals are the only thing that makes me go …”meh.” It seems like this Iowa kid came up with a cool line about sucking on a switch blade and then quickly wrote down some prose that he eventually turned into lyrics. Don’t do that. If you have to rush in syllables just to stay true to what you think is so brilliant on the page then put your guitar down and switch to writing poetry. – TBASA
Going to have to respectfully disagree with your assessment of “Switchblade.” First time I heard it was when I saw HWH play it live at Wooly’s, and I was immediately hooked. These guys are crazy fun to watch live.