Ten reviews you might have missed

Reviews from Wednesday 30 October 2024

Better Lovers – ‘Highly Irresponsible’

The opening gambit on ‘Highly Irresponsible’ feels like a sledgehammer blow to the eardrums. After a brief, understated instrumental piece, a maelstrom of low end chugging guitars, vocal yelps, and drums being viciously smashed comes together to create a wall of noise. It’s a real statement of intent that’s

Friday 25 October 2024

Chuck Ragan – ‘Love and Lore’

If we can count on one thing from a Chuck Ragan album, it’s honesty. The folk-punk multi-hyphenate, professional wilderness type and occasional Hot Water Music frontman has never avoided laying his soul bare through his music, and ‘Love and Lore’ is no exception. We haven’t had a proper solo

Wednesday 23 October 2024

LIVE: Mallory Knox / Call Me Amour @ Electric Ballroom

This show shouldn’t be possible. Mallory Knox split five years ago, but suddenly reformed for this year’s Slam Dunk festivals. Now they’re on a very limited run of sold out dates to celebrate arguably their best album, ‘Asymmetry’, on its tenth birthday in their original lineup. It’s a treat

Kids In Glass Houses – ‘PINK FLAMINGO’

Maybe you remember Kids In Glass Houses. Maybe you remember their first demos of ‘Flirting With Widows’ being uploaded to Myspace. Their first album. Their fourth. Maybe you attended their farewell tour. Maybe you’re glad they’re back after 11 years. Maybe you’re excited. Maybe you’re going to

Thursday 17 October 2024

LIVE: Snayx @ Village Underground

It’s rare that the ambience of a venue matches a band’s sound near perfectly, but Snayx and Village Underground are a match made, if not in heaven, then somewhere close to it. Raw, unadorned, vital and with a clear sense of where it all began, the Snayx sound batters

Thursday 10 October 2024

LIVE: The Dangerous Summer @ O2 Academy Islington

What’s the best way to end a UK tour? Most wouldn’t say “Sunday night in a venue tucked above an empty shopping centre,” but not The Dangerous Summer. O2 Academy Islington slowly fills with a crowd who meet the definition you’d expect at an all ages show; middle aged

Chrissy Costanza – ‘VII’

The artwork says it all. Chrissy Costanza’s debut EP is stamped with the title ‘VII’. Her photograph is blurred in such a way, she appears to have angel wings, an image that asks if you died, how would you see yourself? If you looked back on your

Wednesday 09 October 2024

Touché Amoré – Spiral In A Straight Line

What happens when grief finishes? That’s the question Jeremy Bolm of LA post-hardcore heroes Touché Amoré wants to address. After his mother passed from cancer in 2014, his band’s album 2016 album ‘Stage Four’ was a natural reaction, as was 2020’s ‘Lament’. But Bolm made a choice to move

Tuesday 08 October 2024

The Offspring – ‘Supercharged’

Dexter Holland and Noodles know who they are, what kind of music they make, and who likes it. That’s not surprising; the Offspring has been a staple in the US punk scene for over thirty years, so if they haven’t worked it out by now, they probably weren’t going

LIVE: Call Me Amour @ the Underworld

Here at the Underworld, things are decidedly… cool. Call Me Amour have dropped in for their one and only UK headline date of the year, which naturally sold out before you could snap your fingers, and we’re a little intrigued about what an evening with the guys could hold

Friday 04 October 2024

Trash Boat – ‘Heaven Can Wait’

Life is complicated, and Trash Boat have embraced the chaos. It’s been three years since we least heard from St Albans’ finest on record, and they’re continuing on the voyage of artistic self-discover that began with 2021’s ‘Don’t You Feel Amazing?’. The collectively-produced ‘Heaven Can Wait’ is one of

Chubby and the Gang – ‘And Then There Was…’

“Wake up, wake up, the gang is storming through”, was the battle cry when Chubby and the Gang broke through the glass ceiling in a Covid scarred world in the summer of 2021. The London hardcore scene regulars grabbed the mainstream by the throat as their sophomore record ‘The

Thursday 03 October 2024

LIVE: Boston Manor / Trophy Eyes @ O2 Forum Kentish Town

It’s a night of achievement, even though the O2 Forum Kentish Town feels rather too relaxed for a Friday night as the crowd meanders in. It’s Boston Manor’s biggest headline show to date, the last night of their Sundiver tour, and they’re in the mood to party. The second Trophy

Wednesday 02 October 2024

Mouth Culture – ‘Whatever The Weather’ EP

It’s become increasingly clear to everyone why Mouth Culture have been absolutely everywhere in the past year. From supporting The Blackout and While She Sleeps, up to sets at Download and 2000 Trees, they’re channelling a zeitgeist of pulling through the mire of nonsense we’re all stuck in and

Sugar Horse – ‘The Grand Scheme of Things’

It’s a cliché but creatives are often asked ‘Where do you get your ideas?’. Think about it, it’s a ridiculous question, but in the case of Sugar Horse it seems perfectly valid. They think outside outside the box. They have so many ideas that even writing about

Tuesday 01 October 2024

FEVER 333 – ‘DARKER WHITE’

FEVER 333 are determined to resist. Resist what? Pretty much everything that counts as a restriction. ‘DARKER WHITE’, their fourth full length outing, still perches outside genre definition, with the balance between hardcore, metalcore and hip-hop shifting between each song to prevent us even mentioning a “hybrid sound”. Somehow,

Thursday 26 September 2024

Heriot – ‘Devoured by the Mouth of Hell’

If you’re metal fan and you haven’t heard any of the deafening buzz about Heriot over the last few years, you’ve either not left your house, not been on the internet or just been wildly inattentive. Since the release of their first music back in 2020 they’ve dominated the

Rain City Drive – ‘THINGS ARE DIFFERENT NOW’

Back in 2020 there was a rebrand. That’s how Rain City Drive came into being. They were worried someone might take offense at their old name. Also, they were one of Johnny Craig’s old projects so maybe they were right to draw a line under that era.

Wednesday 25 September 2024

LIVE: Zeal and Ardor @ O2 Shepherds Bush Empire

Smoke and ambient soundscapes drift through the damp Empire as folk in the crowd place bets on whether Swiss metal trailblazers Zeal and Ardor will open with a new song or a classic. The only thing more crammed than the stalls is the band’s schedule, and they’re only in

Friday 20 September 2024

Nightwish – ‘Yesterwynde’

Nightwish aim incredibly high on their new album. ’Yesterwynde’, the (mostly) Finnish symphonic metallers’ tenth outing, “describes a feeling that cannot be found in any human language” according to keyboard player Tuomas Holopainen, but, perhaps fortunately, we aren’t getting any bogus consciousness expansion or some kind of mystic enlightenment.