Here’s the incendiary new single from the debut album Mental Illness For The Masses. The dark track features a music video that matches the songs eerie, primeval feel. A masterpiece in left-field rock music, which combines every technique under the sun, from buzzsaw guitar feedback to ghostly bass, drums played with hammers, and low-fi keys. Its a tidal wave of sound, linking everything that was unique about the Velvet Underground, Brian Jonestown Massacre & 80’s Jesus & Mary Chain and turns it up to 20!
Controversia band Paranoid Alice have just released a new psychedelic music video for their new song ‘Nirvana’ inspired by the Velvet Underground and Andy Warhol’s experimental 1967 trippy light show. The track is an exploration of the bands fascination with witchcraft, psychology, sexuality, poetry and cinema. Featuring a looping drum beat, hypnotic bass and even a narcotic sitar see-sawing into the listeners psyche.
Over the past month Paranoid Alice have been in Electric Fields studio with Chris White recording their debut ‘Mental Illness For The Masses’. After a tense first few days of inner band fights ”stop fucking smiling”, “more reverb!!”, trying to record haunted accordions, ‘5-6-7-8’ count in’s, and more cowbell’s, the album is a mix of dark psych/noise rock/punk and anthemic rock. Spidery psych guitars were whipped & wah-wah’ed, bass FX’s were pushed to 11, while killer drum heads were smashed. The band combines a wild guitar thrashing stage act with dark poetry, chemistry, and sexuality that delves into a twisted Alice In Wonderland cinematic dreamscape.
This album comes along as an exciting line of new rock bands such as Black Midi, Squid & Dry Cleaning have appeared; but Paranoid Alice is their psychotic glam sibling.
While band members Fab (guitar, sitar, vocals), Luca (bass, vocals), Mat ‘Krug’ (drums, screams) have been gearing up for more live gigs, heres what they have to say about the album so far:
Luca “This album is gonna be some of the wildest shit you’ve ever heard. Punk rock aggression, crushing riffs, blistering solos, whiplash genre changes… we just let our imagination run riot for 12 tracks. Some of the songs are deeply meaningful, some are just dumb stupid fun. Please keep your arms, legs, ears and minds inside the ride vehicle at all times.”
Fab: ”We’ve made a special unhinged schizophrenic album, I wanted one like Go Tell Fire To The Mountain, Nevermind The Bollocks, or the Velvet Underground where every song has the potential to be an anthem and to infest different genre’s, because some songs have catchy psych/grunge choruses and Oasis melodies, but others will rip your brain out like In Utero, or are experimental like Sonic Youth. We’re a gang and these songs need to be played at maximum volume. You’ll also hear new guitar sounds that have never been heard before cose I’ve been to the moon listening to Joe Meek, Delia Derbyshire & Martin Hammett productions, mixing them with electric ragas, reverse solos, and sound collages of dictators, plus an evil cat recorded in a graveyard.’
Mat: ”I’m so excited about this album. Its come together really nicely. To say that we set out on a tight budget, been hit back so many times because of COVID, it’s nice to see it all come into fruition! What really makes this album so good is that we all have such varied tastes, and influences, in our own personal style yet it all blends together so seemlessly! It’s time to get proper music back out on the scene and shift away from samey manufactured drivel that has plagued us over the last decade and we are going to rock, riding the crest of the wave, as we bring that back!”
After the Paranoid Alice gig at The Hairy Dog the internet exploded when video footage of the guitarist Fabrizio Federico destroying his axe to smithereens into the stage made its way onto Facebook & TikTok, creating a trolls paradise with rock fans & pop fans clashing over the validity of bands destroying their guitars in a cathartic moment. It has been a tradition in rock music since 1964 when The Who’s Pete Townshend smashed his first Rickenbacker into the ceiling and Nirvana, Jimi Hendrix, The Vines, Arcade Fire and Deep Purple all going ape shit onstage when the music takes them higher.
The hate got so bad online that many people were given 30 day bans from the platforms and generated a backlash towards vanilla mainstream artists who dont bring any passion to music anymore. Things didnt get any better when Federico said ”Im gonna keep doing it cose it feels so good. Guitars wanna be smashed when the time is right, its the ultimate sacrifice to the God’s of rock.” We’re not sure if anybody has been the face of guitar smashing over the last couple of decades but this band has now staked its claim as that face and its thrilling.
The rock band Paranoid Alice is preparing to go supernova with their huge songs celebrating stardom, black magic and tight jeans. The three-piece have declared that they have the best jeans in the music industry and that their music is so loud it creates an orgasm in the listeners pants.
”As soon as the Covid situation was over we wanted to go on the road and play everywhere, our last gig will be in Liverpool as a tribute to The Beatles who we have so much in common with.” The band have their sights on Hollywood and also want to create the soundtrack for Avatar 2 stating that their music is the future of rock, ”I’m a perfectionist and sonic auteur” says singer/guitarist Fabrizio Federico. Stay tuned for their album ‘Mental Illness For The Masses’ coming out in 2022.
A masterpiece in left-field experimental rock music, which combines every technique under the sun, from buzzsaw guitar feedback to ghostly bass, drums played with bananas, exotic sitars, and low-fi keys. Its a tidal wave of sound, linking everything that was unique about the Velvet Underground, Brian Jonestown Massacre & 80’s Jesus & Mary Chain and turns it up to 20!
Its five tracks each capture a distorted feel mixing the rumble of footsteps walking down a misty midnight alley and Jack The Ripper waiting in the wings to stick his knife down your throat. Opening track ‘Dreams Are Only Meant To Be Dreamt’ is exactly this. Drummer Mat Kenny hazely plays his drums using bananas as mallets, while bassist Luca Crews stalks the beat as it amps up. Guitarist Fabrizio Federico can be heard in the background playing spider web licks as the song dares to look into the sun until it blinds you.
Mixing psychedelic sounds, grunge, pop and classical avant-garde, the band are in a league with current bands pushing sonic bounderies such Black Midi, Empath, The Horrors, Gnoomes & Greys.
‘Morphine’ captures everything right about a band in the middle of a fist fight to break through each others eye sockets. The song speeds into an apocalypse of meyhem. ‘Pop Girl Of 1966’ has a seductive swagger as if its walking down a New York City street dressed in leopard print and Edie Sedgwick sunglasses.
As the album progresses the titles explain it all, experimental music has never been so outrageous and free as this. ‘Vietnam Underground’ is the sound of a plague of flies, voodoo feel to it, as the guitar phase creates a witchcraft sense of dread with a paranormal call and response between bass and drums similar to a Vietnamese napalm ridden jungle.
The albums closer ‘Angel Dust’ is the track that pushes the brains nerves to the absolute limits even incorporating sitar into the mix as each member dances into a tornado of supersonic future sounds leaving the listener bleeding.
PaRaNoid ALice 