Zer0

Skywave
Skywave were a band which consisted of Paul Baker on guitar and vocals, Oliver Ackermann on bass and John Fedowitz on drums. They formed in the mid-90s and released a handful of albums and EPs towards the end of the decade. It wasn't until 2004 however when they released their masterpiece, and final album, Synthstatic. On Synthstatic Skywave perfected their sound, channeling the spirit of The Jesus and Mary Chain and The Telescopes to create a harsh and abrasive, yet deeply melodic noise-pop album. Shortly afterwards Skywave broke up, Paul Baker and John Fedowitz stayed together and formed Ceremony while Oliver Ackermann swapped his 4-string for a 6-string, recruited Dion Lunadon on bass and Jay Space on drums to form A Place To Bury Strangers.


Ceremony
Ceremony were pretty much a continuation of Skywave without Oliver Ackermann, with Paul Baker and John Fedowitz sharing instrumental duties among themselves and occasionally utilising a drum-machine. They pretty much continued on the same path of melodic pop songs wrapped in walls of guitar distortion and feedback albeit with a slightly more melodic sound than Skywave. They have so far released two full-length albums to date; Disappear (2007) and Rocket Fire (2010) as well as a 7-track EP Ceremony (2005) .


A Place To Bury Strangers
A Place To Bury Strangers have achieved far more success and critical acclaim over the past few years compared to Ceremony. Like Ceremony they continued Skywave's signature sound of harsh noise, yet pushing it to even more extremes and combining it with more psychedelic and post-punk influences to create a loud, abrasive and sometimes dark and atmospheric sound. They released their self-titled debut A Place To Bury Strangers in 2007 establishing a cult following of their own. In 2009 they released the follow-up album Exploding Head, which featured a slightly cleaner and better-produced sound yet still had all the abrasive intensity of their debut. Fingers crossed for a third album this year.

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