The festival has been unveiling bands as part of a seven day advent calendar, announcing performances from Heilung, Pupil Slicer, ’68, Tokky Horror and Birds In Row for the 2023 line-up over the last few days. The World Is A Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid To Die are the treat behind door number six, bringing their wonderful blend of atmospheric emo to ArcTanGent for the first time.

The Connecticut group were founded in 2009, establishing themselves as a unique voice in their genre with debut album ‘Whenever, If Ever’ in 2013, setting them apart from the pack and earning critical acclaim. Fast-forward to now and they’ve got a whole host of EP’s, splits and collaborative works under their belt as well as four full length records, with their latest release ‘Illusory Walls’ displaying their most ambitious set of songs to date. The band are returning to the UK next year for the first time in five years, and their set at ArcTanGent serve as the perfect book-end to their long-awaited return.

Keep an eye on ArcTanGent’s socials tomorrow for the seventh and final line-up reveal!

ArcTanGent will take place at Fernhill Farm on August 16th-20th 2023. Tickets are available now and can be purchased here.

Due for release on April 18, the album has been described as being “sparked by colour theory and the notion that what each human eye sees as colour could be totally subjective” – a concept that resulted in front man and songwriter Jamie Stephen Hall addressing his own issues in a similar way.

The result is a deeply personal album that touches on global issues such as anxiety, depression and toxic masculinity, as well as more specific pain caused by the recent death of loved ones.

This new approach to songwriting has allowed him to touch on topics that have been previously out of reach:

“I never really felt in the past that I could talk about really personal things. I’d always used a mask. It’s quite easy to do that because you’re not exposing yourself in anyway. I’d always subconsciously tried to shy away from talking about myself,” he notes. “I didn’t want to do that anymore. I wanted this to be about me and process my emotions for the first time. I think that’s made us more genuine and authentic as a band”

Sonically, we can expect a range of sounds, from “progressive to the immediate, the gentle to the monolithic”, the second taste of which can be found in the newly released single ‘Stop Beating On My Heart (Like a Bass Drum)’ – a perfect example of the band’s ability to expertly execute a steady build up to the greatest of heights.

If this – and the album’s first single ‘Beauty’ – are anything to go by, this ten-track record isn’t one you want to miss.

Check out ‘Stop Beating On My Heart (Like a Bass Drum)’ and pre-order/save the album below.

Pre-order the album album today – available on CD, vinyl and on all major digital platforms.

The beautifully shot and incredibly touching video sees the band chatting about how this album came together, with B-roll of the recording process, as well as the band’s respective home regions of Cambridgeshire, West Yorkshire and Bristol, and cameos from other important members of their team.

While snapshots of the band’s familes (including their dogs) are indeed heartwarming, what’s most touching is the news that two of the band’s members, Mo and Bush, work for the NHS, playing vital parts in protecting the country against the pandemic. This mini documentary captures Lonely the Brave in such a way that suddenly we’re met with the stark reminder that the band isn’t just made up of musicians, but individuals with expansive lives outside of the music that we know and love.

“Keeper” was the first song the band ever wrote with new vocalist Jack Bennett, defining a new era of anthemic material that makes up ‘The Hope List’, while maintaining everything that has always drawn us to the band.

Bassist Andrew Bushen said the following about “Keeper”:

“Keeper was the first song we fully completed for the album and remains one of our favourites. It will always hold a special place as the beginning of the new chapter.”

It’s a chapter we’re very excited to explore.

YASMIN BROWN

Refusing to let the current circumstances break a five-year tradition, on Saturday 19th December, Small Pond are presenting Bad Pond Live 2020 – with a twist. This year, the festival is being aired as a free live stream event that will take place from 2:30pm until 10pm (GMT) with performances from some of your favourite artists.

You can watch it live here on YouTube

Headlining the event is Punktastic fave Jamie Lenman, performing alongside the likes of Saint Agnes, A.A Williams, Orchards, Gender Roles, CLT DRP, and Yumi and the Weather.

As has become par for the course with this festival, the line-up takes in all flavours of experimental and alternative music, with a gleefully heavy streak, from both world-renowned and newly discovered acts alike. There really is something for everyone.

Rather than try and sum it up, here’s what Sugar Horse frontman Ashley Tubb had to say about it:

“The idea for The Great Shame started just after we’d released DRUGS. We noticed a couple people mentioning how the EP was longer than some albums. A fact we do not deny. Unfortunately, with how slow all our songs are, if we wanna do more than just a verse and a chorus it’s gonna come in over 6 minutes. Try as you may, you cannot escape the trappings of time. Anyway, I thought it would be pretty funny to release a single, in the same year, that was as long as the EP. Just to really hammer the point home. As a band, we constantly make jokes about how all our songs are just one note played in slightly different rhythms for very extended periods of time. We ran with this too.

“Wouldn’t it be pretty funny to release a half hour long song, that’s just open A over and over.”

This turned from a sort of joke into a bit of a challenge in my head. Could I make this thing interesting, or would it be the height of tedium? I reckon we succeeded in the prior, but I’ll leave that up to everyone else.

The depths of lockdown provided me a tonne of time to mess around with instrumental passages of the song and get a general idea of structure. While I was working on this, Jake sent me a link to a short documentary on BBC iPlayer. It was called Heart Of An Angel. Directed and produced by Molly Dineen in 1989. It follows the working days of the Angel Tube Station staff for 48 hours, shortly before it’s closure and renovation in 1992. Prior to this the station had been open and operational for 100 years. You can see this age in the sheer dilapidation of the station itself. Things are broken beyond repair. Everything looks bleak and barely holding together, dusty traces of an old London are clearly visible everywhere. In this backdrop work a non-more juxtaposed group of staff. There’s the day shift, the old guard so set in their ways, they plough on regardless of consequence to the station or their own wellbeing. Characters like Derek the ticket seller dive headlong into long diatribes about how their life has ultimately been a pointless endeavour and Ray the foreman who longs for a place very different than this run down hole in the ground. Working next to them, but never actually seeing them, are the night shift. Younger (mostly) and new to London. They moved there for the chance of money and a more exciting life, instead they end up pulling human hair out of the railway tracks in the dead of night.

This film really rang true with the various mad things going on around the world at the time. A feeling of a huge change in the old guard. Destruction of old, long broken systems and the dissatisfaction of younger generations being forced to “work the night shift”.
The theme really stuck with me and I decided to make this the subject of the song, however after a short revisit of Adam Curtis’ (documentary maker Hypernormalisation, The Century Of Self etc) back catalogue and a late night viewing of Paul Wright’s Arcadia I decided to properly fuse the two ideas. Arcadia was made up of entirely archive footage of various festivals, ceremonies and celebrations from the British countryside. Somehow, with the help of editing and music, he managed to transform these silent little windows in time into a horror film and a truly terrifying one at that. It was this and the almost YouTube vlogger style of Adam Curtis that made me realise I can transform Heart Of An Angel into something different. Something about moving out of the past and into the future. Looking back on the past with scorn and learning from the mistakes of those old guard who were too terrified to change.”

IDLES have announced dates for their upcoming UK & Ireland tour, and with it, free tickets for key workers during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

The Bristol group, who insist they are “not a f**king punk band”, announced the tour over social media, featuring eleven shows including two nights each in the Glasgow Barrowlands, Vicar Street, Dublin, and the O2 Academy Brixton.

Alongside Live Nation, they are offering the tickets on a first come, first served basis from today until Wednesday to workers in any of the eight sectors set-out by the UK Government, “Health and social care, education and childcare, key public services, local and national government, food and other necessary goods, public safety and national security, transport, and utilities, communication and financial services”.

IDLES join a litany of musicians who have touted support for workers in the healthcare sector and beyond during the pandemic. Previously, Irish act Fontaines D.C. followed a similar trend releasing tickets for their UK tour to NHS staff and key workers, while acts like Liam Gallagher & Primal Scream, Fatboy Slim, and even Rick Astley offered free shows to health workers in April in response to the spread of the virus.

Tickets go onsale to the general public on Friday 28th August. Their third album, ‘Ultra Mono’ drops 25th September.

After a string of exceptional singles and an EP released shortly after the band’s emergence in 2018, fans of the Dallon Weekes led project can finally start amping themselves up for a full-length record.

With the announcement of the record, the duo, which is completed by drummer Ryan Seaman, have also dropped a brand new Bowie-esque single, ‘Leave Me Alone’.

Weekes explains the inspiration behind the track is that idea of  “when you’re in a toxic situation, the phrase ‘Leave Me Alone’ is the last civil thing you say before things get uncivil.”

You can watch the lyric video for the new single ‘Leave Me Alone’ below. And throw on your dancing shoes while you’re at it.

The announcement comes with the band’s latest single, ‘Dont Give Up Your Ghost’, and its accompanying animated video.

It’s been a long wait since the band’s last studio album, ‘Feel Something’, which was released in 2017, so this new material has certainly been a long time coming and if ‘Don’t Give Up Your Ghost’ is anything to go by, it’s going to be phenomenal.

Of the new single, the band has to say:

“It talks about depression and suicidal thoughts and tendencies,” says Miranda about the moody and introspective track.

“It’s told from the perspective of a person who is dealing with a friend who confides that he or she has attempted to kill him or herself. However, this person has been there as well and has even made suicide attempts, too. The person tries to console the friend and let him or know she’s not alone. It’s about not giving up when there’s so much more the world can offer. Even though you’re in a certain place right now, it doesn’t mean you’re going to be in the same place forever.”

Miranda elaborates further on the vibe of No Good Left To Give, saying, “At its core, the new record is what we’ve always been, which is emotional, real, and honest music. We all know each other very well and understand our respective styles. We’re discussing mental health, struggles with relationships, and relatable things from our lives. At the same time, it’s a little darker.”

Cressey echoes that sentiment, sharing, “The mood is a little heavier, for sure… We didn’t try to emulate anyone. It’s very pure.”

Listen to new single ‘Don’t Give Up Your Ghost’ and watch the animated music video here.

‘Hidden Mothers’ comes out on September 18th and will be available on vinyl and through digital platforms through UK label Surviving Sounds.

The band, who have been described as “snow screamo” – a genre that makes far more sense once you give the music a listen – are set to release “and emotional, dynamic, and hard hitting EP that captures the intensity and ferocity of their live experience, following from a string of successful shows supporting the likes of Inter Arma, Blanket, Coilguns, Wren and Planes Mistaken For Stars”.

If the first two singles are anything to go by, you can believe every word of this promise, and it only makes us even more anxious for September 18th to roll around.

While Hidden Mothers may for now be under the radar, with collaborations with the likes of Joe Clayton who mixed the EP and Scott Middleton (Cancer Bats) who mastered these tracks, and artwork design by Steve Myles (Cattle), it won’t be too long before this band becomes a household name in “snow screamo” and beyond.

Pre-order details coming soon.

FFO: MOL, Envy, Deafheaven, Oathbreaker, Black Peaks.