Just as you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, you shouldn’t judge a band by its name. When I first heard of Ocean Grove, I expected them to be a pop-punk outfit, a happy-go-lucky group of charming cheeky chaps writing songs about looking back nostalgically at teenage years full of good times, sunshine, girl problems, and probably either surfing or skating.
But, of course, expectations don’t always equal Read more…
When pop-punk bands write songs about getting older, they tend to put a negative spin on their ever-increasing accumulation of time on Earth. The assumption is that aging is a bad thing, that each passing year must bring with it a mandatory reduction in fun, joy, and happiness.
The Menzingers disagree – and After The Party is their on-record counterargument. Yes, the pressure may be on to “grow up” and learn how to adult – but that doesn’t mean you can’t have a laugh and keep your spirits up. After The Party is an album designed to be played in barroom jukeboxes, its songs intended to be belted out by rowdy crowds across the world as they party hard, decades be damned Read more…
For Deaf Havana, the past few years have been nothing if not chaotic. With 2013’s Old Souls, the Norfolk alt-rockers broke into the UK Top Ten, hit a new level of success, and even found themselves supporting Bruce Springsteen. On the surface, Deaf Havana had achieved almost everything any given rock band could possibly hope to tick off on their bucket list.
As we tend to expect when dreaming of the future, life should have been all roses from then onwards. But financial and interpersonal communication issues came close to derailing Deaf Havana, before they made some major changes behind Read more…
Since it first emerged at the turn of the 1970s, metal has been through so many evolutionary shifts that at this point, any given band has a vast wealth of influential options to cherry-pick from. Anything goes, and anything can happen. Only one rule remains: There are no fucking rules.
Betraying The Martyrs are the ultimate embodiment of that one and only rule. For their sophomore LP, 2014’s Phantom, these guys pulled out a fat and brutal cover of Let It Go – a key track from the soundtrack to Disney’s monster hit movie, Frozen. Naturally, Let It Go proved controversial and divisive – and so Read more…
Jamie Lenman is one of the UK’s greatest songwriters. The proof is already out there in the form of Muscle Memory, Racecar Is Racecar Backwards, Very Fast Very Dangerous, and In Nothing We Trust – the latter three released way back when Jamie Lenman fronted underground UK rock kings Reuben. Arriving post-Reuben, 2013’s Muscle Memory was a double album taking in everything from viciously intense mathcore to laid-back ukulele-driven folk Read more…
Although it’s 2017, the question of whether or not women belong in rock and metal remains an emotional trigger point for many fans. Despite its status as an all-inclusive genre that provides shelter for those used to being excluded by others, heavy music still harbours a perhaps small but nonetheless extremely vocal element set on rabidly tearing down any musician in possession of big riffs, buckets of attitude, and non-phallic genitalia.
With She Rocks Vol. 1, Favored Nations – the record label run by world-renowned guitar wizard Steve Vai – has set out a resounding rebuke that should by rights silence sexists and provide more open minds with plenty of great music on which to feast. It’s pretty sad that this release will prove controversial in some quarters, but oh well. She Rocks isn’t the kind of album that’s going to meekly turn tail and flee, and we’re not about to turn back the clock and embrace the gender-related values of the 1950s again.
Pop-punk may be a massively oversaturated genre, but good music remains good music nonetheless. Who could ever get tired of infectious songs that mix darkness with upbeat energy? While there are plenty of bands who stick to a formula in order to sell, there will always be a place for those musicians who use a given genre template to express themselves with raw passion, sincerity, and good humour.
WSTR made a huge impact with their 2015 EP SKRWD, a set of six sick tracks that got them deservedly noticed by fans-in-waiting. Now comes crunch time: Album One, Red, Green Or Inbetween. Read more…
Eclectic punk godfathers AFI are the kings of keeping going, progressing over more than twenty-five years from outsiders to insiders to chart-topping legends. At this point, they have little to prove – but AFI are not yet ready to settle back on their laurels and fossilize into a nostalgia act. They still have plenty left to give – and more than a few fans hungry for more music.
AFI – also known as “The Blood Album” – is precision-engineered to Read more…
Leave all thoughts of Beardyman and the Dream Team aside for a second, and visualise instead a steaming, stinking shit sandwich. Picture it plopping onto your breakfast plate, unwanted, unloved and unlovable. Had the person who birthed that turd known what was coming, he’d have held it in out of pure terror and shame before scuttling away to quietly top himself.
That’s how all sane humans feel about 2016 Read more…
Progressive metal bands are frequently accused of being emotionally void, occupying a stone-faced genre rammed with mindlessly twiddling automatons.
Pain Of Salvation do not fit that stereotype.
In the six years since this set of Swedish legends last unleashed a proper studio album (in the form of 2011’s Road Salt Two), frontman Daniel Gildenlöw has overcome a close brush with death and emerged from a period of intense illness laser focused on Read more…
