Ten reviews you might have missed

Reviews from Wednesday 17 October 2018

LIVE: Halestorm / Avatar @ Brixton Academy, London

Having sold out months in advance, Brixton Academy is filled to the rafters with 5000 eagerly excited fans, ready to celebrate Halestorm’s latest triumph. Following the release of their epic new album, ‘Vicious’, earlier this year, the American rock heavyweights return to London to deliver their biggest show yet.

Monday 15 October 2018

Hellions – ‘Rue’

Theatrics in music are most commonly found on the stage. Be it pyrotechnics, dry ice, CO2 cannons or Gene Simmons in a harness flying over your head, they’re a visual aid used to enhance the music. Every now and again, though,

Friday 12 October 2018

LIVE: Knuckle Puck / Tiny Moving Parts / Movements @ Electric Ballroom, Camden

When Knuckle Puck started out covering songs back in the cool autumn days of 2010, they probably didn’t think they’d end up releasing a split EP with Neck Deep and signing to Rise just a few years later – not to mention touring the world with original material. In

Wednesday 10 October 2018

mewithoutYou – ‘[Untitled]’

The growth of Philadelphian experimental rock troupe mewithoutYou over much of the past two decades has been fascinating to watch. From the direct and bracing post-hardcore of debut album Life, through embracing folk rock on 2009’s ‘it’s all crazy! it’s all false! it’s all a dream! it’s alright’,

Tuesday 09 October 2018

LIVE: Against The Current / The Faim @ O2 Forum, Kentish Town

It’s been two weeks to the day since Against The Current started out on the world tour for new album ‘Past Lives’ in Dublin, but tonight at the O2 Forum is a special one; not only is this by far the largest venue of the tour, it’s

Monday 08 October 2018

LIVE: With Confidence / Story Untold / Anavae @ King Tuts, Glasgow

It might be a dreary, chilly Monday in Glasgow (are there many other kinds of Monday?), but the buzz in King Tuts within just minutes of doors opening makes it feel more like a Friday night. This may well end in an unpleasant surprise for anyone forgetting they have

LIVE: Delta Sleep @ The Joiners, Southampton

Riding on the crest of math rock’s biggest wave this side of the millennium, and just a few weeks on from releasing their second album ‘Ghost City’, breaths are bated in the hope that Delta Sleep can radiate the cinematic beauty of their sophomore record live on

Friday 05 October 2018

Cursive – ‘Vitriola’

Cursive have never been a band to hold back, and their eighth studio album certainly doesn’t either. Through the lens of nihilism and desolation, ‘Vitriola’ sees the Omaha natives express their thoughts on modern society, comparing the artistic cycle of creation and destruction to that of society’s seemingly impending

Black Peaks – ‘All That Divides’

Brighton’s Black Peaks have set a very high standard for British rock. While other bands rely on backing tracks and aspiring to break onto daytime Radio 1, Black Peaks have spent the last few years focusing on writing some of the most interesting and visceral progressive music in the

twenty one pilots – ‘Trench’

“Welcome to Trench”, says a low, warped voice. Whether this statement is a threat or an invitation is hard to tell, being just two tracks into twenty one pilots’ latest conceptual venture: ‘Trench’. Openers ‘Jumpsuit’ and ‘Levitate’ run into one another, seemingly two halves of the same

Thursday 04 October 2018

LIVE: Muncie Girls / The Hard Aches @ Deaf Institute, Manchester

The first night of a tour brings with it a nervous tension for bands. Questions fly through the mind – will anyone turn up, will they like the new material, can we remember the older songs, are we going to actually sell any t-shirts? While bands have

You Me At Six – ‘VI’

Like most bands who have a solid grasp of the music industry in 2018, You Me At Six have acknowledged and embraced the need to develop their sound over the years, and their sixth album – unsurprisingly named ‘VI’ – is no exception to this trend. With each album, You

Wednesday 03 October 2018

Youth Killed It – ‘What’s So Great, Britain?’

London/Norwich indie-punks Youth Killed It seem to be completely incapable of sugar-coating. Their brutal honesty and often humorous approach to songwriting is a key component in making their music stand out, and their sophomore album ‘What’s So Great, Britain?’ is certainly no different. Self-produced and recorded at Crystal Sound

Tuesday 02 October 2018

Against the Current – ‘Past Lives’

Packed tight with stories of love, life and emotional struggles, ‘Past Lives’ marks the forthcoming sophomore album from Poughkeepsie natives and internet-born pop rock band Against the Current. Starting out the year with a support slot touring alongside Fall Out Boy, the acclaimed trio are still expanding their ever-growing

Monday 01 October 2018

Palaye Royale – Boom Boom Room (Side B)

It must feel like having the weight of the world on your shoulders when you’re relatively unknown on UK shores and are being thrust in every rock fan’s face as the ‘next cool thing’. Having been put on front covers and handed big festival slots off the back of

Sylar – ‘Seasons’

Some will tell you that nu-metal has had its day. They’ll tell you that it’s greatest moments have already happened. That the only bands still doing it well were those involved in the original movement. Others will tell you it’s creeping its way back in, with many rising artists

LIVE: Boston Manor @ Electric Ballroom, Camden

Boston Manor have caused quite a stir following the release of their new album ‘Welcome to the Neighbourhood’; an album that has seen the Blackpool five-piece take many risks, not just sonically but also in the way that all lyrics around a fabricated concept that questions the mentality of

Friday 28 September 2018

Anti-Flag – ‘American Reckoning’

For a band that has spent an almost 30-year career providing the soundtrack of the counterculture, the political climate of 2018 should be fertile ground. As the presidency of Donald Trump in the US and the toxic atmosphere around Brexit in the UK threatens to tear each

Thursday 27 September 2018

Living With Lions – ‘Island’

In 2011, Vancouver’s Living With Lions released their impressive sophomore record Holy Shit, and for a moment seemed ready to welcome in a much wider audience than they’d been used to since forming in 2006. Within a year, lead vocalist Stu Ross had departed; he himself had replaced Matt

Wednesday 26 September 2018

Beartooth – ‘Disease’

If ‘Disease’ says anything about Beartooth, it’s that they’re a band who can consistently put out one spectacular album after another. Back with their third – and another dose of that fierce Caleb Shomo honesty – Beartooth are further cementing themselves as a force at the forefront of their