The Areola Treat fan video

I had once blogged about the Areola Treat ep. This is one female-fronted band I do like. Not simply because it is indeed female-fronted but because they come across as genuinely honest, not pretentious or trying too hard to replicate other 'in' artists you hear of nowadays, and have a genuine sensibility and technique I can relate to with respect to other types of music I have in my collection. And surprisingly underground! Sure hope they plan on keeping it that way. They're what I would call a no-fancy-nonsense, no-lacy-polish act, just meaningful, yet playful.

I am posting a live gig video that was taken by a fan, presumably. Whoever took it should really have got them from the front though, however,but no complaints seeing this is a better quality video of theirs I could find. On first listening,  the vocals on the Areola Treat ep reminded me a hell of a lot of Siousxie and the Banshees, Patti Smith, Malaria, Hagen, Nico, sometimes hints of  karen O, (although not really a fan) as well as some other interesting female artists I'd heard and loved. A band to watch out for and see live.

Bat For Lashes - Two Suns

 

I had seen this band live in my hometown and they reminded me of a more ethnic Bjork-meets-cabaret wonderland. I enjoyed their performance and this album is the most polished i would go in terms of indie pop, since indie pop is no particular interest of mine. 

Natasha Khan, aka Bat for Lashes, incorporates and adopts varied melodies and instruments as used by the Indian community. She makes quirky, attention-grabbing music, counts Scott Walker, Björk and Thom Yorke as fans, designs her own sets and costumes and has collaborated with Alexander McQueen on clothing.  

Bat for Lashes first appeared on the musical horizon in 2006. In a British music scene blighted by a quagmire of blokeish indie bands such as Razorlight and the Kooks, Khan offered an appealingly enigmatic alternative. Soon afterwards she was likened to pop-esotericists Kate Bush and Björk: the latter described her as 'brilliant' following an early performance in London. Khan's debut album, Fur and Gold, which had a haunting, celestial beauty, was an immediate success with the critics, with Radiohead's Thom Yorke likening it to Grimm's Fairy Tales. Glastonbury followed, with Khan performing in the Indian headdress that was to become her trademark. But it was her Mercury Prize nomination in 2007 (Khan was outside favourite to take the prize ahead of Amy Winehouse and the eventual winners, the Klaxons), in addition to her two Brit Award nominations for Best Breakthrough Artist and Best Female last year that brought her to the attention of a wider audience.

1. Glass
2. Sleep Alone
3. Moon And Moon
4. Daniel
5. Peace Of Mind
6. Siren Song
7. Pearl's Dream
8. Good Love
9. Two Planets
10. Travelling Woman
11. The Big Sleep

Listen: 

Rapidshare.com

 

The Areola Treat , EP , 2008

 

I saw The Areola Treat live in a club in Brussels and was drawn to the vocalist right away (hah!). The whole band is good, and the drums and vocal work was art. Rare to find a female-led post punk band I actually care for these days.

The Areola Treat are a Maltese rock band, formed in Malta in 2007 by original band line-up Adrian Mizzi on guitars, Chris Busuttil on drums Lisa M.Grimaud on vocals, and Matthew Cuschieri, until the addition of Steve Shaw on bass in late 2010. Below is some relevant band info.

Inspired by UK-based, late 1970s post punk, punk and rock and roll, besides the burgeoning punk and post punk revival, The Areola Treat are arguably a definitive art punk or punk ensmble, mostly due to their richly detailed tightness in sound, their screaming and growling female vocals and punchy guitars in the first few years of the band being formed, and more recently with their punchy, yet somewhat more subtle and
situationalist political stance.

Their first self-entitled studio ep, The Areola Treat, was published in 2008 and met with enthusiasm, under the Belgian label Kinky Star.

The band has played in a handful of independent artists' clubs and venues, primarily in Italy and Belgium besides their home country.

The band's first studio album 'Pleasure Machines', to be released in April 2011, is a reflection of pathways the band has travelled down and alleys it has progressed through, both musically and physically, and a hint of a slightly noticeable change in direction and drive. The guitars are still loud and the riffs are still punchy, yet there is something strikingly different about the shape it's taken. Some tracks are moodier, perhaps slighly more sombre and harsher on the ears than the previously-recorded ep, while others are vibrant and bright, the guitars appearing richer and even more piercing and shaken.

The band is currently working on new material as well as playing gigs and shows. The new direction is once again darker, moodier, stripped down in parts and then enriched dramatically in bursts of energy and enhanced walls of sound.

Tracklisting:

1. 16

2. Sibbi
3. Kerouac
4. Booby Trap
5. BLV Werewolf
6. Disco party
7. Second Coming

Rapidshare Links:

http://rapidshare.com/files/282572251/The-Areola-Treat-2008-The-Areola-Treat.rar