It’s becoming more and more interesting to watch the generations shift, different influences arise and get put to different uses. For example, though it was once the scourge of both the rock and the metal underground, grunge is in the process of coming full-circle in terms of influencing underground bands. To wit, British foursome Gouranga take the rudimentary, crusty approach that shoveled dirt into Nirvana‘s sound for their Bleach record and inject it with punkishly upbeat rhythms.

The result, on Gouranga‘s self-released Keep Your Colours EP (and one wonders if we’re keeping them because they’ve been bleached out), is nonetheless drivingly heavy. And true to the narrative that grunge was a reaction to the excesses of glam, so too is Gouranga‘s material simple almost to the point of minimalism. What’s most striking about it is the blending of hardcore punk with the filthy tonality that carries a song like “Rife Machine,” which, you know, was probably pretty striking the first time around too.

So, in the world where what’s old is perennially new again, Gouranga played their first show late last year and have their EP and t-shirts for sale on the cheap at their BigCartel store. You can also check out their tracks via their Bandcamp and get in touch with them on Thee Facebooks. Good to know they’re not stuck in 1991 when it comes to social networking, which I think would just involve mailing out a lot of home-dubbed cassettes.

Probably easier to just stream the tracks here:

Tags: Bristol, Gouranga, UK, Unsigned bands

This entry was posted on Monday, September 19th, 2011 at 3:57 pm and is filed under On the Radar. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.