Artist
Loud Bomb
Loud Bomb is a music group. Their discography on Gatefold includes 1 record.
1
Albums tracked
1
In collections
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Since
Biography
Loud Bomb was less of a band and more of an expensive, 48-channel inside joke orchestrated by the staff at London’s Townhouse Studios. In 2002, the guys behind the glass—engineers and house technicians—decided to occupy the downtime between major sessions by crafting a record that sounded like a fever dream of mid-90s indie-rock. They weren't hunting for a hit; they were playing with the room’s massive SSL board and the kind of high-end outboard gear that indie bands of the era usually couldn't afford. What came out was ‘Coming Down,’ a project that essentially functioned as a tribute to the aesthetics of the 4AD and Creation rosters. It’s the sound of professionals trying to act like amateurs but failing because they were too good at mic placement and tape saturation. They dropped two releases through the short-lived Highwater label and then vanished back into the control room to mix other people's records. It was a blink-and-you-miss-it moment of studio staff reclamation.
The Arc of Loud Bomb
The pivots — what forced Loud Bomb to reinvent.
The Highwater Experiment
Between 2002 and 2003, the Loud Bomb project focused on the tension between high-fidelity studio sheen and the gritty, lo-fi songwriting tropes of the previous decade. Working out of Townhouse Studios allowed them to use the legendary stone rooms for drum sounds that were far too big for the melodic, fuzzed-out tracks they were writing. The result was a weirdly polished version of garage rock that felt like it belonged in a different year entirely. When Highwater folded shortly after, the incentive to keep the project alive disappeared, leaving only a handful of tracks as evidence of the session.
Influences
- My Bloody Valentine — The Loud Bomb track 'I Am The Clouds' borrows the 'glide guitar' technique Kevin Shields perfected on Loveless. You can hear the tremolo-arm manipulation and the heavy focus on mid-range frequencies that were a direct homage to the Creation Records sound. It’s a deliberate attempt to capture that 1991 wall-of-sound depth.
- The Breeders — The vocal delivery on 'Coming Down' mimics the dry, deadpan style Kim Deal used throughout Last Splash. The production choices lean into the same minimalist drum compression and jagged bass lines found on those early 90s 4AD sessions. It’s a clear nod to the way Deal and Steve Albini treated space in a recording.
- The Velvet Underground — The band’s cover of 'I'm Set Free' reveals the foundation of their melodic structure. They keep the steady, rhythmic chug of the original but layer it with the early-2000s studio gloss they had at their disposal. It serves as the literal blueprint for their songwriting approach.
- Dinosaur Jr. — J Mascis’s influence is all over the lead guitar work, specifically the habit of burying a searing, melodic solo under layers of fuzz. The Loud Bomb engineers were trying to replicate the 'overblown but catchy' vibe found on records like Bug. They wanted that specific sense of beautiful melody fighting through a wall of distortion.
- Pavement — The slack, almost disinterested vocal phrasing on their B-sides is a direct lift from Stephen Malkmus’s playbook on Slanted and Enchanted. You hear it in the way they intentionally crack notes or trail off at the end of a line. It was the standard currency for anyone trying to sound 'indie' in the early 2000s.
Discography
Their records — most-collected first.
Around the web
Follow every record they touch.
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