Thomas creates his immersive music using contrabassoon, samplers, loop pedals and activated percussion. Audiences are taken on a Journey through dissonant rumblings undercut by cyclic rhythms breaking to moments of fragile beauty. Blurring the boundaries between electronic and acoustic sound production the compositions explore themes of ritual and presence.
A clean boost pedal is one of the simplest guitar effects, but many guitarists overlook them. The thinking goes that there’s nothing a clean boost pedal can do that a good overdrive pedal can’t do as well. While it’s true that overdrive pedals can serve as clean boosts in their lower gain stages, a clean boost…
Our favourite American tone reviewer and fellow soldier of rock, The Tone King, has reviewed our very own Angel of Blues Overdrive pedal. FILL YOUR EARS:
The Rooz are a sickeningly talented band, especially when you factor in how young they are. Mixing loud, old fashioned rock n roll guitar playing with pop hooks and catchy songwriting, the band have made a proper good job of 2014, culminating in the band staging a spectacular closing set at the 2014 Music For…
Soul Aside is a rock band formed in 2010 and based in Barcelona. Influenced by many musical styles and bands such as A Perfect Circle, Porcupine Tree, Oceansize or Explosions in the Sky, Sigur Rós and Deftones, the band has developed its own sound around rich and personal compositions.
Deaf Bridges’ own brand of noise, danger pop, is just as exciting and new as it sounds. Hailing from Nottingham, the band do away with anything even resembling pretentiousness and simply make amazing tunes with mind-bending lyrics and titles. You do have to love a band who make references to Krakens and Hulk Hogan on the…
Marc Constantine has a sound entirely of his own; ambient, acoustic chillout, all done through acoustic mics and electric guitars. Listening to his music really is a sweet experience, thoroughly relaxing yet stirring: Marc’s songcraft and expert delivery makes sure his songs are always calm, but never boring. Check his music out, have a green…
Overdrive Pedal vs Amp Distortion: The Grudge Match Second only to the buffered input / true bypass argument, the clash of overdrive pedal vs amp distortion arguments has been raging for years on various forums since the invention of shouting at people via the Internet, and in person at gigs since time immemorial (or, more…
Derby’s These Wicked Rivers bring old-style blues rock into the modern day, marrying old-school blues technical skill with the live intensity of an LA strip rock band. Get a copy of the band’s The Enemy EP if you’re a Bonamassa or Black Stone Cherry fan. These lads have talent, and soul, in spades.
Greeting tone chasers! The Tone King, YouTube’s premier independent guitar gear reviewer, has done us a massive favour (or, as he would say, favor) by reviewing the Little Horn clean boost pedal for us. No words! Let’s just video!
Something Loud This Way Comes We have been waiting an absolute age to drop this bomb. The Little Horn Clean Boost – the only guitar boost pedal you’ll ever need – is live. The Little Horn is something we’ve been working on for a long time, and we’ve spent that time carefully selecting exactly which…
An ABY Pedal can make you sound huge. There’s no doubt about it; splitting your signal and sending it to two separate amps can turn your tone from a nice, solid, good sound into a room-filling, bone-shaking, absolute monster of a sound. There’s several things you can do to experiment, and you don’t have to drop…
Hot Under Collar’s crazy sound can only be described (by us) as supersexyurban-funkcrush. We made that word up. Based in London, Hot Under Collar consists of four friends who came together to create a new sound consisting of the best elements of rock, funk, R&B and hip-hop. As a four piece, it’s tempting to believe that…
A graduate of the Academy of Contemporary Music, Matt is an accomplished musician with over 10 years experience both as a live player and as a studio musician. He is a specialist in Funk, R&B, indie and all round rock and roll. His influences are wide and varied: Clapton, Jamiroquai, John Mayer, Jocelyn Brown, Stevie…
The West Midlands’ premier Doom unit, with a host of influences which defy those who would characterise them as ‘just’ a metal band, Alunah’s powerful vocals and atmospheric feel has led to their upcoming third album being released on our favourite independent, Napalm Records.
Sadly split and sorely missed, The Sun Explodes were a singularly great prog band from Carlisle. RIP. We Are Of These Walls by The Sun Explodes
Swiss Rock and its very finest. Stämpf’s influences come from all over the place; you can hear crushingly heavy riffs in the vein of Volbeat, wah riffs inspired by Velvet Revolver era Slash, and even a little bit of first wave pop punk in the uplifting feel of the band’s songs. This four-piece are a proud rock band, just…
ROAM deliver anthemic, scream-the-chorus pop-punk. From the sunny shores of Eastbourne, ROAM’s catchy, pit-filling music has earned them critical acclaim, immense popularity, and a support slot on skatecore heavyweights Sum 41’s recent UK tour. ROAM’s album Backbone is chock full of fantastic party tunes with aggressive, angry production – get it, take an hour off, drink…
One of Britain’s longest-serving classic rock bands, Leaf Hound laid the blueprint for stoner rock. Not afraid to loudly proclaim their love of mind-adulterants, Leaf Hound have been cited as influences by both Wolfmother and Tame Impala. Since their 1971 debut Growers of Mushroom, one of the most collectible 70’s rock LPs in existence, the band…
Where once there was a solo artist, now there is a full band. Womps used to be the sole voice of Scottish wunderkind Ewan Grant – now it’s all about the visual viscera and aural onslaught of three lads going mental onstage. More versatile that a traditional grunge band, Womps’ influences are a who’s who of…
Ire Wolves’ music is, to put it bluntly, heavy. Heavier than osmium, or the dirty kebab drunken you ate last Friday night. These Minnesotan lads like it one way: slow, angry, powerful and pure. Don’t be fooled into thinking that their slower tempos make for simpler music, however – there’s both enough technical proficiency in…
Phaeleh, aka Matt Preston, has been releasing genre-spanning music since 2008. Tipping his musical hat to house, electronica, dubstep, and ambient, but never being over-faithful to any set genre of electronic music, Phaeleh’s releases have put him to the forefront of Bristol’s electronic music scene: one of the most hallowed and culturally relevant in the entire…
Burton on Trent’s Max Raptor have been creating a stir in the underground rock circuit thanks to three factors: punishingly catching songs, one of the strongest live sets any of us at Vein-Tap.com HQ have ever seen, and the uncanny ability to get an entire crowd on side though sheer enthusiasm and the love of…
Toffee Music were formed early in 2012 by Mike Lydiat and Dave Markam. Mike and Dave are both retired Primary school Head teachers who now perform Music Hall, Vaudeville and Standards of Yesteryear to raise money for Sheffield’s Weston Park Hospital Cancer Charity. They play in pubs, schools, street markets, private parties – anywhere that…
NEKO, a trio from the UK south coast, bring together big riffs, dance grooves and prog rock echoing the likes of QOTSA, Dinosaur Pile Up and Muse. Formed by Tom Brennan (guitar and vocals), Luke Knight (bass and vocals), and David Cassell (drums) while attending high school in Worthing, the band (which was originally called…
If you’re a funk band with an umlaut in your band name, you’re clearly our kind of people. Leeds-based, trans-European funk rock act Vinyl Cäsino has been described as a mix of Led Zeppelin and James Brown. Guitarist Harry uses a Skinny Little Switch Plus with a Hayden Mofo 30, and enjoys extra moist marble cake.
Sadly now split up, The Ghost Riders in the Sky built on centuries of real music for real people to deliver a welcomingly familiar, yet edgy, exciting and brand new sound. With an indie-pop jangle that owed a far larger debt to old Americana country music as it did to guitarist Stephen Carter’s old hardcore…
Alt metal / hard rock artist Jacob Messianic is not only a skilled rocker in his own right – he’s also a powerful producer and engineer of all his own work. A man so talented it’s almost upsetting – with a killer release history.
An absolutely huge sounding hard rock / metal project from Slovak muso Johny Štefecek, Poetry in Telegrams is yet another shining example of how only the most creative, loud, and crazy musicians put Vein-Tap.com gear on their boards. PiT’s single Juliet and Romeo includes numerous genres and influences in one sweeping sonic roundhouse. Melancholy (feat. Jørgen…
Sadly split and deeply missed, Freeze the Atlantic arose phoenix-like from under intense pressure to match the critical respect of guitarist Andy Gilmour’s other band (Hundred Reasons) and drummer Guy Davis and bassist Jon Pearce’s previous band (Reuben). The band’s three albums, all on Alcopop! Records, simultaneously silenced all critics and proved that, when done well,…