Welcome to Pound Land
Welcome to Pound Land – self-professed purveyors of “post-industrial kitchen-sink punk-dirge absurdism for a dogshit-dull Britain”. They hail from the border region between the Midlands and the frozen north, with members scattered across Bolton, Derby, Stockport, Macclesfield and Stoke-on-Trent. The band started in 2020 as a duo of Adam Stone (words and vocals) and Nick Harris (everything else). The pair released a run of cassettes on Cruel Nature Records, before expanding their live line-up to include Rich Lamell on bass, Steve Taylor on drums, Jo Stone on saxophone and Jase Kester on guitar and electronics, all of whom feature on their full band debut, Mugged. Nick has semi-retired from the band due to ill health, but Pound Land continues very much in the vein he first cut with those formative cassette releases.
Pound Land’s music has been described as “monotonous” and “a horrible mess of noise that makes you physically hurt”. A remorseless lo-fi grind, one part noise-rock, one part No Wave, with squealing ejaculations of electronic noise and soprano sax punctuating Adam Stone’s bilious invective, as he channels the world’s most apocalyptic midlife crisis. Whether he’s railing at the lurid glister of the Golden Triangle’s Cheshire Set, or documenting a Hogarthian parade of shame on a late night kebab run, Stone captures the monochromatic bleakness of modern Britain, blighted by austerity and years of managed decline, and sets it to a soundtrack that seethes with roiling frustration.
After a clutch of cassettes, a lathe-cut 12″ and a split lathe-cut with Headless Cross, Pound Land are now poised to release their pressed vinyl debut, an ‘audiophile’ version of their magnum opus – Mugged. The new edition has been remastered from the original mixes by Pete Maher, whose credits include NIN, U2 and Snow Patrol.
“Taken in one sitting, Mugged is an intense, exhausting and oppressive experience. It’s also one of the most impressively uncompromising punk/ noise-rock records I’ve heard in some time. Every single note on this thing oozes bile and frustration. While other punk bands court the dancefloor, Pound Land have been ramping up the intensity with every release. The album is a dark yet unnervingly accurate reflection of the UK in 2024.” – Andy Brown, Louder Than War