Pagan Punx

A few weeks I started a project with Sam James Velde of LA's Night Horse / Bluebird / Cold Sweat Records. We wanted to start a project which would allow us to write predominantly about records, whilst also gifting us the platform to interview bands, post photos almost in a half-photoblog style, upload footage and generally create a cauldron for all our writing and enthusiasm to bubble away in.

So, we started pagan-punx.blogspot.com - already having spoken to Chris Eck of Shaved Women and IceAge. Sam is currently talking to Sam Bosson of Trash Talk, Scuba of Trap Them, Ryan from Coliseum, the guys from Deafheaven and plenty more with the intention of compiling a list of what everyone's favourite records are right now. Pretty excited myself to read that one. I had an interview yesterday with Pennsylvania Hardcore buzzmakers Slices, and that interview should be posted soon.

The purpose of this post is just to let my lovely fellowship of readers know that despite the posts on youngsouls being few and far between, there is a hive of activity going on over at Pagan Punx. Sam and I will be working frantically to expand this as much as we can, as it's already - in it's infancy - beginning to take the form of a webzine. It'd be great if you could check out whats going with my new venture, and perhaps drop us a comment or follow us. Thanks,

Josh

Cult of Youth - Cult of Youth

I’ve been listening to the self titled record by a band called Cult of Youth for the past hour. I’m having such difficulty in pigeon-holing them. They come from New York City and play a palette of folk, post punk, dirge and pop. They sound like an angry Robert Smith playing funeral music, with a delicate spoonful of thoughtful, folk arrangement fed into the mix. I’m struggling here, perhaps Cult of Youth’s derangement is too potent for me to pick apart in just one paragraph.

Track three, 'Monsters' bolts out of the gate in rampant style, stitching together up-beat guitar twanging with uncompressed vocals that seem to reach eternally skywards. Perhaps only by my own ear, but, I can hear jabs of Irish influence, native folk beat, and european Pagan influence. The slow march of 'Casting Thorn's' mourning song props up the spine of this record with it's plaintive utterings of 'When mercys our passion, we fall to our knees,' delivering peak after peak of poignancy and unblemished emotion.

Listen to this record and fall unregrettably in love with noise all over again. Download it here