Sister Iodine – ‘Hollozone’ (2023)
Sister Iodine is a French noise rock band operating since the 90s.
Their latest release, called ‘Hollozone’ has a sound which reminds me of early/mid 2000 US noise: Wolf Eyes circa ‘Burned Mind,’ Black Dice circa ‘Cold Hands,’ Nautical Almanac: low frequency analog synth and shewing on contact mics.
If you listen close enough, you can still hear songs in these tracks, but in a compact and reduced way. Makes you redefine what a song is. This is raw and dirty. At times, it sounds so heavy that it’s almost over the top, which is, for me, the link to metal, which I can only listen to by seeing it as a cartoon version of rock. Also: one could say that several tracks on the album are within the same sound era, but don’t see this as a minus. It makes the album coherent. It creates a whole, a bubble, the way Mouthus was good at it: leave away the references of melody, harmony and rhythm and create a full sound instead. Anyway, one could argue that Ramones, Mötorhead and Slayer wrote the same song for 200th times and those are great bands too.
And after all: wasn’t it Neil Young who said it’s all just one song? To come to a conclusion: Sister Iodine: great band. ‘Hollozone’: great album. Puts a smile on my face and makes me want to pump my fists in the air. Headbangers Ball.
Joeri Bruyninckx
Sister Iodine – ‘Hollozone’ (Nashazphone, out April 21st, 2023)
Contumace
