McFly – ‘Power To Play’

McFly are a confusing musical artefact, never quite making it and never quite disappearing.  Originally conceived as cash-calves to the chart-topping and tween-heart-stopping Busted, they were always squarely aimed at children but presented as being more ‘edgy’. They write their own songs, don’t you know. The band aimed →

LIVE – Codefendants / Melvinator / Get Dead @ The Old Blue Last

Let’s make one thing clear: this is not a NOFX show. That would come a couple of days later at the site of the mighty Slam Dunk South. Rather, this is a sampler of where the members of NOFX are heading now, a celebration of their strengths and chance →

Glass Casket – ‘GLASS CASKET’

Think back seventeen years and imagine what the world was like. Music was very different. Deathcore was very different. Glass Casket last released a record back in 2006 and after so many years of inactivity, you’d think they were dead and buried, but really they’ve been waiting →

LIVE: Stillbust Secret Show @ Out of Key Studio, Gloucester

Where did you spend your Saturday night? We spent ours on an industrial estate in Gloucester watching the return of local heavy punk misfits Stillbust. It’s been a decade since their last show and in line with their DIY attitude they decided that rather than playing a standard venue, →

American Nightmare – ‘DEDICATED TO THE NEXT WORLD’

Your hard work will get you nothing. No one is equal. Welcome to the American Nightmare. The idea of America as the land of opportunity is one anyone would want to buy into, but not this band from Boston, Massachusetts. They’re flipping that idea, inverting it, →

Avenged Sevenfold – ‘Life Is But A Dream’

Imagine a beach in Algeria. A white man in his thirties pulls out a gun without emotion and shoots an Arabic man dead with a single shot after a long standing disagreement turns to violence at a party. Calmly, he walks over to the body and shoots it another →

Wicca Phase Springs Eternal – ‘Wicca Phase Springs Eternal’

When Adam McIlwee announces a Run For Cover records Wicca Phase Springs Eternal album, it is a statement of intent. This is not a mixtape, like 2022’s ‘Full Moon Mystery Garden’, nor is this a split with a wildly contrasting artist, a foray into an adjacent genre or simply →

LIVE: Spanish Love Songs/SUDS @ The Lexington, London

Between the pandemic lockdowns and subsequent tours being nixed by multiple band members contracting Covid-19 itself, it’s been three years and an entire album cycle since Spanish Love Songs last played in the UK. Actually, it’s more like three years, three months, one week and four days. →

Rancid – ‘Tomorrow Never Comes’

You’d be forgiven for thinking that Rancid were a spent force. After ten studio albums, thirty two years in the music industry, an age-inappropriate marriage and occasional dodgy British accents, their last three albums have been disappointing to say the least. However, whatever they’ve been eating for breakfast since →

Phoxjaw – ‘notverynicecream’

Early 2020, despite being three short years ago, was an entirely different time. We could go out for as long as we wanted, meet in as big a group as we liked, and Phoxjaw had just released their debut album. ‘Royal Swan’ was a distinctly British first record which →

GALLERY: Steel Panther @ O2 Kentish Town Forum

LIVE: Steel Panther @ O2 Kentish Town Forum, London

There’s one question that pounces to mind before seeing controversial eighties larpers Steel Panther live: while their lyrics are comic, are they now a bit of a joke? They’ve won Loudwire’s ‘Live Act Of The Year’ award twice, but recent reviews have suggested that their whole ‘excessively crude’ schtick →

Incendiary – ‘Change the Way Think About Pain’

It’s been six years since Incendiary have released a full LP, and while the world has changed drastically, the Long Island hardcore outfit have not. Just as brutal, just as boisterous, and just as vocal about their displeasure with the state of things, the group have returned with their →

Heart Attack Man – ‘Freak of Nature’

When a band’s write-ups include the words “comedy” or “humour”, it’s enough to make you a little nervous.  It could be light-hearted gold or, equally as plausibly, it could be Fat Mike’s awkward drug clown character. Heart Attack Man’s humour is different, the kind that’s in the memes →

Sir Chloe – ‘I Am The Dog’

Touring with the Pixies and Beck, and being pals with Harry Styles (yes, that one) before the release of your debut album can likely be overwhelming, particularly when you’re already pulling in millions of monthly Spotify listeners. It leads to the question of ‘just how good is this band →

Sleep Token – ‘Take Me Back To Eden’

Claimed by masked frontman Vessel to be the mortal representatives of an ancient deity known as ‘Sleep’, Sleep Token evoke such acts as Ghost and Heilung, being part band, part performance art project. The air of mystery surrounding their members is as much a draw as their atypical approach →

The Used – ‘Toxic Positivity’

According to the WHO (The World Health Organisation, not the band), the global prevalence of depression and anxiety rose by 25% in the first year of the pandemic. Amongst those affected was Bert McCracken, vocalist and songwriter for The Used. In 2022, the band cancelled their Slam Dunk appearances →

INTERVIEW: Tigercub

→

GALLERY: Hot Mulligan @ The Garage

The Acacia Strain – Step Into The Light

Across 22 years and 10 albums, deathcore crew The Acacia Strain have established themselves at the top of the festering pile of unbridled aural brutality that they helped usher in. By this point, their pulverising brand of downtuned dissonance has become an unstoppable beast and time after time, they →