Like Junk

Dark and brooding atmosphere filled with appropriate piano and violin work. Vocalist Scott White encompasses the band's direction with his vocal delivery; a strong, yet deeply haunting production reminiscent of Metz and a little bit of The Cure. Real cool shit. - The Music (Perth)

LIKE JUNK-The Host (A Review)
Like who? Like what? LIKE JUNK, that’s who! Discordant and disjointed. Catchy and cacophonic. Dark and deep. Hypnotic and heavy. Frantic and furious. Throbbing and tuneful. Brooding and beautiful. That’s what! This 4 track E.P is a hurricane that blows away the stale and stagnant cobwebs and spiders of the manufactured music scene’s of today. Like Junk’s music defies categorization, but if you wanna stick it in a neat’n’tidy box and label it, then…. Post-Punk it is! though they have been described as “almost indescribable” and “ridiculously unique”
Like Junk come from Perth in Western Australia and have been in existence since 2007. The Host EP compiles tracks from a couple of singles they released in 2011 and is available from Scotland’s DIY Independent record label NewtOwn Products. This is impressive and powerfull stuff!! And well worth checking out. An album The Creatures Voice is gonna be released later this year. - NUZZ PROWLING WOLF

It's late and you're quietly sobering up as you walk home from the party.
You have no idea when it begins, but a creeping sense of unease starts to snatch at the edges of your mood.
It's silly and you shake it off to an extent, but there's no pretending that you're walking faster.
There's nothing out there in the dark you tell yourself. It's just the primordial fear of the unknown playing tricks with your mind.
The door to your home is well lit and in sight. Nothing to worry about.
The relief you feel as the key slides into the lock is short lived though.
A bag is thrust over your head and you are pulled off balance, spun around, lifted, pushed, spun around again, kicked, pushed, thrown to the ground, pulled upright and spun again.
The world is turned upside down as your arms are pulled behind you and bound.
A van doors creak open, you're cast in, and a van doors slam shut.
A weight presses on you and holds you to the floor.
The sound of the doors being pulled open fills your head and you are dragged out.
More noise. Scraping of a chair? A door?
Weightlessness as you are airborne for seconds, and then the punishing impact of stairs that lead to God knows where.
Left in the dark you jump at every noise.
Then the noises intensify and become aural torture.
Discordant crashes pound at you while the screeches of the demented sound like fingernails being dragged down blackboards.
This is what the Australia band 'Like Junk' sound like on 'The Hosts' EP that will be released by Scotlands own Newtown Products label, and I perversely like it.
It's an atmospheric nightmare of post punk lunacy that leaves you feeling psychologically drained and jumping at shadows.
Truly frightening, truly fucked up, and bound to keep you awake at night. Brilliant.
Out 31st May. - IT'S A XXXX THING

I kinda hate that this release comes on 3.15-inch floppy disc. It feels like indie-wank and ultimately pointless, but I get it, and it is thinking well outside the box, which can only be a good thing, right? It's a shame because the track itself is completely unabashed, rawkus, old school, anarchic punk-rock fun. And even though they've told me to fuck my Facebook on the disc, I'll probs add them anyway. If they'll still have me. - Drum Media Perth

Local lords of darkness Like Junk are proving harder and harder to categorise with every new release. One minute its lo fi piano pop, the next its droning guitarscapes and post-punk and now they give us the cryptically titled ‘The Snyth and Agabago’ – a loud, unnerving, yet comparatively polished and well produced three track EP which is virtually free of the bedroom melancholia they’ve dabbled with in the past.

On this release, the tortured vocals of pianist Scott White and drummer Anetta Nevin are pushed high in the mix and a grinding, distorted guitar tone is present throughout. However, what seems to tie it all together is the overall mood that Like Junk have managed to maintain regardless of the genre they’re working in. And this release has it in spades. From the opening stomp of ‘The Snyth’, the music conjures up the dark, confused mind of a malcontent struggling against a world he is barely able to comprehend. This becomes especially apparent in the seamless transition between the opening track and the Karnivalesque ‘Agabago’, where White repeatedly intones “He was a solitary man” before once again spiralling into a mess of screams and whistles.

The noisy but otherwise unremarkable guitar thrash of ‘The Host’ closes out the EP, resulting in what is probably their most accessible work to date. Another commendable effort from this local three piece. - Space Ship News

Like Junk came to the stage scattering flowers over the keyboard and on to the drum cymbals so that they would fly into the air as the band picked up the tempo. Their music was like being in a creepy old-fashioned horror film; combining intense deep vocals with shrilling screams from the female drummer. It was melodramatic and ridiculously unique, They merged post-punk ideals with indie and the decided key mashing, cymbal smashing and guitar shredding as though it completed them, which it did. They were eccentric, eclectic, terrifying and enticing and took you on the twisted journey of their music in the most satisfying way. - Faster Louder

The junkyard was dense, menacing; its towering heaps cast hot, sticky shadows. There, atop the midden, three silhouetted figures sifted through the filth to pry out gnarled, heaving chunks of crusty post-punk. LIKE JUNK are a rare breed these days – most rock bands are too scared of seeming pretentious to channel the untempered flamboyance of classic art-school avant-gardes. Like Junk’s setup includes contorted wire structures, flowers, decorated milk crates, all across a gristly musical landscape, but in its defiance of affected plebeianism, comes across as strangely earnest; all that junk aside, the trio’s music is strong enough to carry whatever demeanour they emit. Minimal, brooding, crumbly songs – often consisting of two chords – crawl desperately over taut drum beats, dripping with the low, venomous vocals drooled out by singer Scott White. It’s a lot more fun than it sounds, especially when White abandons his keyboard to bounce about to a more raucous, upbeat tune. The set shatters into a cloud of delightful fizzing noise-trash, and I wander on, already feeling a bit grubbier. - Cool Perth Nights

GLITTER AND ORCHIDS

I caught the closing song of Like Junk’s set, which was an anarchic punk number which starts off with Our Singer ditching the piano and ends up with him yellin’ more out of enthusiasm than hate in the faces of fans and airhumping from a horizontal position. Perhaps it’s a song which is out of step with the rest of their sound (which is in the tradition of These Immortal Souls and that entire family tree), but not out of spirit. They’re freewheeling, dirty, unsettling, confusing, brash, theatrical, experimental, Brechtian, howling, an acquired taste, and unafraid to test audiences. I think they like it like that; like the Steppenwolf, they hurtle headfirst through what seems like a valley of despair to find a strange macabre humor. Not for those who like middle 8ths or major chords. I left as the Ya-Yas barlady yelled at them to remove all them goddamn glitter and flowers off that thar stage. - life is noise

LIKE JUNK
The Snyth & Agabago

The Snyth kicks in with an off-kilter and unsettling loping dirge as the richly dark vocals recite over keyboards, strings and guitar that reach an unholy end amid distortion and flourishes of guitar noodling, all of which flows seamlessly into Agabago. The carnival-esque rhythm and an eastern-European tinge to the tracks main theme combine to a stunning auditory feast that accompanies the tale of a man named Agabago. Brief and frenetic, The Host is the B-side to this double A-side delight and it's a schizophrenic step sideways that's exemplary what's made this post-punk trio a favourite on the local scene. - Drum Media Perth

THE HORROR SHOP: MILE END & LIKE JUNK @ THE REPUBLIC, FRIDAY FEBRUARY 12

I remember first hearing about The Horror Shop in mid two-thousand-and-eight and feeling a bone-tingling anticipation. It seemed like somewhere in Perth was actually biting the silver bullet and hazarding something decisively different, something deliciously spooky and grubbily glamorous, an all-night monster mash that, while offering all the neon hazy crowded clamour of a dance club, actually featured live bands. A clanging chasm of steel strings, boots and shrieks, East Perth’s answer to Soho’s Batcave. I have no idea if this is how it turned out because, for reasons I can neither remember nor comprehend, I never made it to The Horror Shop nights back in their days at SHAPE. But when I heard tell that The Horror Shop would be creeping back into Perth, it seemed only reasonable to get my spook on.

I climb the steep crags of the stairwell, a jagged terraced tongue lolling from the rectangular mouth of The Republic. There, one is met with glowing nude-torso-mannequins and stripper poles and it’s more ‘Rocky Horror’ than anything else, but that’s ok. I recede into the mist, the dude with the cowboy hat and the poodle wanders in and, before long, I’m being handed a vial of bubble mixture by a member of opening trio LIKE JUNK, emblazoned with the band’s name, so as to produce soapy orbs during their set. A small gesture in itself, perhaps, but indicative of the band’s endearing ethic and aesthetic; they are not content with banal adequacy, instead seeking to lace every stale skeleton with Christmas lights and gold threads. You can hear it in their music, too. Minimal punk leaking venom and asphyxiated by feedback, it remains accessible, but is uncompromising. Little things can make all the difference, and in Like Junk’s case, the little things ferry them from forgettability to being a band with one fucktonne of presence and another of promise.

One dimly-lit alley stroll later and I was knee-deep in MILE END. I’d last seen them supporting Brian Henry Hooper in August and, though they’d put on a fine display, tonight it was like they’d been injected with a fresh batch of lemon zest, a few good pints of je ne sais quoi. Each note and slam bam seemed invested with greater purpose, confidence and electricity; Frizzymopped frontman Dean Anthonisz writhes and wails like his arse depends on it while bassman Cam hines bops ferociously back and forth like one of those drinking bird toys (only funkier). The juggernaut “Rumblefish” storms forth, an angry, hypercaffeinated axolotl with one leg shorter than the others, while the suave, hurtling ‘Vet’ races through the clouds sounding like a track that was omitted from ‘In Rainbows’ but oughn’t have been. The Radiohead comparison is inevitable, undeniable, and not necessarily regrettable, but ultimately Mile End sound like Mile End; and that’s heady, intense, epic, swirling, tenebrous and melodic.

This particular Horror Shop may not have been the intoxicating Hameresque sensory orgy I’d dreamed of a couple of years ago, but perhaps that was too much to ask, especially as the event begins to settle into its new loft home. More important right now than admittedly delightful ghoulish gimmickery is that bands have decent venues to in which to play and that music lovers have decent venues in which to see and hear them. With the harrowing demise of the Hydey, The Republic is one of a few venues helping to mitigate the tribulation thus befalling the local music scene. Its sound system, purported by some to be dubious, held its own impressively well, relaying the colossal tones of even Mile End with admirable clarity. The tin-roofed, peculiarly decorated space seems somewhat at odds with the grim chic of what The Horror Shop, by rights, ought to be. But in its way, it works; at any rate it’s an awful groovy start. - Cool Perth Nights

Noise complaints are the bane of live venues everywhere, and Manhattans in Vic Park has recently found themselves in the predicament that numerous live venues in Perth have faced before; turn it off by 10pm or be in a great deal of trouble. As venues become increasingly scarce, especially with the closing of the Castle and the Hydey, Perth cannot afford to lose another venue brave enough to support the original music scene. Bands are running out of places to play; a shame, considering the talent that is bursting out of the local scene.

Or, as Nagy put it, the battle to save Manhattans “is bigger than fucking Ben Hur!”

On Saturday night, four bands got together and took a stand by donating their door takings to help soundproof Manhattans.

Improv. noise merchants Nagy were up first and were a fascinating mixture of experimental guitar noise and beautiful synth. Beneath the rumblings of distorted guitar, droning bass and minimalist drumming was some gorgeous interplay with the synth, making for some moments of genius. They also did an interesting take on Bruce Springsteen’s Dancing In The Dark which was suitably apt considering the dark lighting of Manhattans.

Like Junk is almost indescribable. Eccentric, erratic, dramatic, epic, noisy – they leapt genres and turned their set into performance art. Drummer Anetta Nevin slammed the drums like a goddess of thunder, never letting up from beginning to end, while keyboardist/vocalist Scott White twisted his vocals into all sorts of strange and wonderful permutations. Waves of fuzzed-out guitar washed across the keyboards (sometimes being played by White’s head) but strangely, it all worked. They ended the set with White throwing himself around the stage, leading to him accidentally pulling the mic out. Overall, a very entertaining set.

Fear of Comedy came out with a set of new material that touched on the gothic at times. With charismatic vocalist Laith Tierny in control at the front, the band were a heavy, powerful presence. The only slight complaint was that they seemed somewhat repetitive towards the end. The band was missing that extra something that would have taken their sound away from their comfort zone. Perhaps they have found too comfortable a niche for their music?

“Do you fucking like this?” demanded Dominic Pearce from Injured Ninja, and the eager crowd lapped up the noise merchants with unbridled enthusiasm. The band threw themselves into the music with a short but frenetic set, bombarding Manhattans with their trademark confronting noise freakouts. Noisy Armageddons followed brief respites of calm, allowing both the band and the crowd a chance to take a short breath before launching into another whirlwind of noise. Steven Hughes and Pearce tossed themselves around the stage like whirling dervishes, and it was contagious with the crowd joining in at the front.

For a brief moment it seemed that Injured Ninja would give the council the middle finger and play on longer than their allocated time, but they only crept a little over the 10pm curfew by a few minutes.

Saturday night was a night of great music by some of the most interesting bands currently in the Perth music scene. It was an excellent fundraiser, with one particular punter donating $800 to the cause. Hopefully Manhattans will weather the storm and be able to continue to serve as a venue for bands such as these. - fasterlouder.com.au