NO HEROES – ISSUE ELEVEN

CITY & COLOUR – I EXIST – CRUEL HAND – DOOMRIDERS – FRANK TURNER – KVELERTAK – TITLE FIGHT – TOUCHE AMORE – THURSDAY – SLEEPMAKESWAVES

ISSUE ELEVEN – SEPTEMBER 2011

“The point of this band at the start was to be really serious and then after like two shows we realised that we just like having fun and the band’s fun and the music’s fun so we just sort of thought the lyrics could be the same.”

- Aaron Osborne, I Exist p.34-39

ISSUE ELEVEN sleepmakeswaves ... p.8 Bands You’ve Never Heard Of: NZ ... p.10 Kvelertak ... p.12 Frank Turner ... p.14 Doomriders ... p.18 City & Colour ... p.22 Touche Amore ... p.28 Title Fight ... p.30 I Exist ... p. 32 Cruel Hand ... p.38 Thursday ... p.44 Bands You’ve Never Heard Of ... p.46 New Music ... p.48

The views and opinions expressed in No Heroes are not particularly those held by the publishers.

All content is Copyright to No Heroes 2011 For more information, email: info@noheroesmag.com www.noheroesmag.com

Editor-In-Chief: Sarah Petchell Photo Editor: Craig Nye Sub-Editor: Thomas Hill Music Editor: Oliver Cation All layouts by Cooper Brownlee and Sarah Petchell Words: Sarah Petchell, Lindsey Cuthbertson, Oliver Cation, Dave Drayton, Jem Siow, Thomas Hill Photos: Craig Nye, Ben Clement, John Hatfield, Alex Meagher Cover: City & Colour (Photo: Vanessa Heins) and I Exist (Photo: John Hatfield) This Page ‌ Photo by Ben Clement

Ed’s letter PHOTO: SARAH PETCHELL

I have just returned from my first trip to the US, the main point of which was to attend Sound and Fury and This Is Hardcore, two festivals showcasing the best of yesterday’s, today’s and tomorrow’s talent in hardcore. While seeing so many amazing bands was a truly great experience, the most gratifying and rewarding part of the festivals was being able to hear the great leaders talk about what hardcore has done for them and what it can mean for the rest of us. Bands spoke about how hardcore should be taken beyond the walls of the concert hall or youth centre and into the wider world. This got me thinking...

Hardcore truly has the ability to change lives. And for so many people, it has. I think about guys like Toby Morse from H2O who now works in schools, spreading his One Life Once Chance message talking about abstaining from drugs and maintaining a PMA. Or Ray Cappo from Youth Of Today who took the ideals he learned in hardcore, combined them with Krishna and reached a whole new level of understanding in life and is now a leading yoga teacher in the US. Or even Aram from Betrayed and Champion who started up his own record

label to uncover new bands and give them a platform to spread their message. Hardcore is full of these stories, people overcoming a bad start in life to achieve great things, and often more importantly help others through their music and their actions.

While the emphasis of the festivals was a celebration of the scene in 2011, there was an undercurrent of people suggesting that we need to go further. We get together in a room once a weekend and pat each other on the backs at what we have created and maintained for 30 years now, but with the numbers we have it should be our goal to help more than ourselves. All I know is that after the messages I was presented by a handful of wise men, I feel richer mentally and want to go out and see how I can spread the hardcore reality.

A full recap of the festivals will surface soon, so keep an eye out for it, because the fests were packed full of amazing bands, people and stories that I can’t wait to share with you. For now, Issue 11 stands before you and is easily one of the best we have assembled.

Our cover stars this month are City and Colour and I Exist, and yes, they were both so awesome we couldn’t choose between them. Both artists are making waves and both deserve the attention they are getting, we were lucky enough to grab some time from each of them.

We have a tour diary and interview with recent tourists Cruel Hand, who swept the country in late June and also the most hotly tipped band on the planet Title Fight and their upcoming tour buddies Touche Amore, whose tour starts next week in established venues across the country.

Doomriders dropped us some words, Kvelertak talked to us about Viking Gods and Frank Turner talked about being English. Just because we can, we are also squeezing in interviews with Thursday and Sleepmakeswaves.

How good is that? And of course, we have the latest Bands You’ve Never Heard Of... but really need to, and the latest reviews of what is tickling our fancy or making us hate life.

Excited yet?

Oliver Cation

sleepmakeswaves So for those who don’t know, tell us a little about who sleepmakeswaves are and what you guys do?

Alex: We are four Sydney guys who bonded over our love of Mogwai, Explosions in the Sky, Sigur Ros and ISIS. We like to think we’ve gone a bit beyond that but our music is basically still a bunch of love songs written for our delay pedals.

How does the writing process work for you guys?

Everything is so complex and layered, so how do you piece it all together?

Kid: I would have to say the writing process changes from release to release. For a bulk of the songs on our debut LP, the initial conception was by Alex (bass/synth). Alex is a bit

of a gun with all things musical.

Once Alex has a basic idea he will shoot it across to the rest of us and we formulate our own parts and work towards a more refined structure. Sometimes this works the other way around with Otto and I coming to the table with a collection of riffs and melodies which work well together and after some emails fly back and forth, we get something solid enough to take into a rehearsal studio.

Alex: As far as the complex layers go, it can sometimes be really hard to get every bit working together properly. We write songs slowly because of this. Usually we’ll write the bones of the song first – guitar, bass and drums. Then I’ll start thinking about programming that can build on that and we’ll

words: sarah petchell words:

spend months tweaking the details. It’s a bit OCD really.

You just released your debut full length ‘…and so we destroyed everything’. What are you the most proud of about it?

Kid: I think I can speak for all of us in that we are most proud of just having the thing completed! It has always been a major goal for sleepmakeswaves to release a full-length LP and to know that it is all done. Knowing people out there now have it in their hands is such a great feeling.

Alex: From a more purely musical perspective, I’m really proud of the variety of sounds on the record. There are homages to different styles and genres all through the record,

is highly recommended.

It is a bit of a change in direction for the band in that it’s not as heavy as previous releases. Why the decision to take a step back from the metal riffs?

Kid: I wouldn’t say we have abandoned the metal-inspired guitar riffs completely, but there has definitely been a maturing progression to our sound over the past two years which has led to less metal sounding guitar work. We still like to think there are ‘epic’ and chaotic ‘heavy’ moments on this record that can be achieved without stepping on distortion pedals.

but it stays pretty focused on the basics – melody, emotion and epic walls of sound.

I read somewhere that you recorded it in a house in Wingello State Forest. What was that experience like for you guys?

Kid: Recording in the middle of Wingello State Forest was amazing, perhaps the best week of my life. Eating, living, recording, sleeping and partying, with our producer and three of my best mates at this little gatehouse over the eight days. We had basically found this near finished house and got permission to convert it into a studio. It was during the start of February so we were battling 45 degree heat, power outages, electrical storms and a few days with no hot water (not necessarily a bad thing), but it was all worth it. Spending the day tracking songs and the nights around the campfire with acoustic guitars and a never-ending supply of booze

I mentioned already that there’s a lot going on musically, but you guys obviously also draw from a lot of musical styles as well. What bands and styles do you find the most inspiring?

Kid: Everyone in sleepmakeswaves have their own tastes in music all the way from Bjork to Dillinger Escape Plan. We are always recommending different bands and artists to each other. One group who greatly inspired a lot of the electronic sounds on our album are Telefon Tel Aviv. Squarepusher is another that comes to mind and you can hear it in sections in our songs where the drums and bass play against each other in more complex syncopation.

When we were writing for the album, guitar-wise I was going back through my CD collection and spinning a lot of Botch, ISIS, Pelican and Converge.

From memory Alexisonfire was pumping a lot in my car too, for example you can hear that on our track ‘now we rise and we are everywhere’. But a lot of inspiration for us comes from going out and watching local shows. We are all big supporters of the local bands in our circle.

Alex: Our new guitarist Otto got me into the sounds of Mark Kozelek, who records as The

Red House Painters and Sun Kil Moon. He does this thing that some folks call ‘slowcore’ and has been a big deal for both of us and will influence our music even more in the future, I think.

Personally, I’ve been inspired a lot by new wave and progressive rock from the 70s. Television and King Crimson are just two examples.

You guys had a fair chunk of cash and equipment stolen just before you went into the studio. What happened there? If you met the people that stole it in a dark alley, what would you do?

Kid: We had just withdrawn a large amount of cash to pay for some of our recording costs when my house got broken into and you can guess what they found. Alongside that, two of my guitars were also taken.

One of them being a custom made semi-hollow baritone by Twentytwelve Guitars in Melbourne. It sucked big time and really threw a spanner in the works.

If we met the person who broke into my place, I would probably drag them along to one of our shows and strap their head to the front of my guitar amp cabs so they could get up close and personal with their newly acquired stolen guitars. Did I mention our amps go to 11?

With the album out, what are your plans for the rest of the year? Could you let us in on some of sleepmakeswaves plans for taking over the world?

Kid: There are tentative plans to take up some tour offers in Europe, China and New Zealand next year, but for now we will concentrate on delivering our new live show to Australia.

We are all pretty busy for the rest of 201 so I don’t think we aspire to take over the world as such, we just want to make sure everyone gets a chance to hear us.

Bands You’ve never heard of ALL PHOTOS BY ALEX MEAGHER

NZ EDITION

THE BURIAL (Auckland) Website: http://www.myspace.com/theburialnz Everyone loves tough hardcore and Auckland’s The Burial are no different. However, what they’ve added to the equation is a healthy dose of metal solos and some double kicks to counterpoint the crushing breakdowns and the guitar riffing that will have moshpits moving. The reality is that this is straight up, tough, New York hardcore,: completely free of pretentious bullshit and heavy and fast enough to have audiences moving. Their demo is available for free download through their Facebook page, however there is also a fulllength available for purchase (titled Existence), not to mention that the band are currently in the process of writing for their next release.

CRAWLER (Auckland) Website: http://www.myspace.com/crawlerhc Hardcore and sluge metal are two of my favourite things in the world and Auckland’s Crawler mix the two oh so very well. Throw in some blackened metal style drumming and aggressive vocals and you have one of the toughest things I’ve heard all year. That being said, their recorded output is limited to one self-titled cassette and that is it. Songs range in length from barely 50 seconds to almost 15 minutes in length, allowing Crawler to fully display their skills as songwriters of heavy and chaotic music. Also did I mention that they have two bass players and no guitarist? Check them out!

ENTRAILS (Wellington) Website: http://www.myspace.com/entrailsnz I’m going to preface this bio by saying that Entrails are now dead. This however should not stop you from checking out their album, Laid To Waste, nor scoping footage of them on YouTube. Formed from the remnants of acts like Dial, Entrails quickly made a name for themselves in the Wellington hardcore scene with their aggressive and ferocious brand of metallic-tinged hardcore. And when I say “metallic”, I mean most types of metal as there are nods to black metal, thrash, sludge and doom throughout the entire release. Hit up their label, Negative Collective, to grab a copy of the record, sit back and prepare to have your ears assaulted.

LEECHES (Auckland) Website: http://www.facebook.com/leechesofficial Leeches are one of those bands where you look at the members and the other bands they’ve come from and go, “Oooooh, this is going to be good!” Formed in 2010, by member of the now defunct The Bleeders after they returned from a stint in Canada, the band play a very traditional brand of hardcore punk crossover (think like The Descendents) in their vision of returning to their roots. From there they’ve recruited Sam Crocker (Antagonist A.D.) and Little Dan (Brick Vs Face, Die Alone). One thing that is obvious from listening to the band (and has been confessed to by vocalist Angelo Munro) is that the whole point of the band is to have fun playing music. See for yourself with their self-titled EP. OLD LOAVES (Wellington/Auckland) Website:http://oldloaves.bandcamp.com/ A three-piece out of Wellington, Old Loaves are definitely a band for those that like things on the heavier side of the musical spectrum. But like most of the other bands one this page, this is another band that is all about mixing musical genres to create a sound that is authentic and original. There’s something here for everyone – from post-metal atmospherics, to parts that sound a lot like Converge, to vocals like Mastodon – and it’s all good.

They have an EP called Bad Prawns that is up for download on their Bandcamp, but there is also a 7-inch in the works, which features a new song that has been getting quite a workout live, as I understand it.

SPOOK THE HORSES (Wellington) Website: http://www.spookthehorses.blogspot.com/ Spook The Horses are a band that have been described as “one of Wellington’s best kept secrets”. And rightfully so, as this quite simply is well executed post-metal that is heavy, intense and brutal all at once. Why best kept secret? Because the band formed in 2009 and 2011 sees them leaving their hometown for venues across NZ for the first time. Like most post-metal bands they’re absolute gear nerds (check out the recording blogs on the above website) and this serves to make them more endearing. They have an album due out almost at anytime now, titled Brighter so stayed tuned for more details. In the meantime, their 2010 demos are available for download through their Bandcamp page.

Kvelertak WORDS BY SARAH PETCHELL

I’ve been sitting here for at least fifteen minutes trying to remember which came first – me seeing the distinctive owl artwork of Kvelertak’s self-titled debut (done by none other than John Dyer Baizley) or hearing the amalgamation of metal and some hardcore styles that makes up their distinctive sound.

Either way, Kvelertak (meaning “stranglehood” or “chokehold” in Norwegian) was the name on the lips of every heavy music fan at the end 2010. An almost perfect debut, coupled with great artwork and a European tour alongside Converge, scored them legions of fans across the globe. And rightfully so.

No Heroes spoke to vocalist Erland Hjelvik about the band, the album and what it’s like to make heavy music in Norway.

Kvelertak is a band that have risen up pretty quickly, so I

guess a lot of people don’t know that much about you.

Could you please give us a little bit of a brief history of where you guys came from?

“I’ll give you the easy version.

We started out in 2006-07, but I was living with Bjarte (our guitarist who writes all the songs) and we just got a bunch of friends together, really, and just started playing music. We didn’t really have anything else much to do at the time.

“We started playing live, realised we had something good going, had some lineup changes and I guess things just kind of took off for us when we played this Norwegian festival that’s the equivalent of South

By Southwest. We got a lot of attention, at least in Norway, from that festival and that’s where we’re at now.”

You’re debut album is out now, so what’s the thing that you’re most proud of with it?

“I think when it comes to the

individual songs, the one that I’m most happy with is ‘Ulvetid’ just because I got to work with Hoest from Taake, and they’re one of my favourite bands so it was great to work with him.

I’m also really happy with the sound and the cover art as well. I don’t think we could have had a better package.”

It’s cool that you mention the art, because John Dyer Baizley’s art is so great and distinctive. How did that collaboration come about?

“It was pretty coincidental actually. We played a festival in Holland called Eurosonic and one of the people from our label gave a demo to Baroness’ tour manager and John got a hold of it.

“So I guess when he heard that we were heading to Boston to record with Kurt Ballou he sent us an email saying that if we needed any art then to let him know. We obviously said yes because we’re big fans of

ever done only a few days in the studio before to just record a couple of songs.

“But we had a really good time there. Kurt is really professional and honest. He lets you know when something sounds stupid and how to make it better. it’s pretty easy to work with him.

“I was only there for doing my vocals. There weren’t many people in the studio. Bjarte was in the studio the whole time, but otherwise people just came in, did their parts and left. But it was pretty relaxed.”

What was it like recording the album in US away from Norway? Do you think you would have gotten a different result if you recorded it at home?

“Yeah, I don’t think that there are that many studios or producers in Norway that would make it sound as good as Kurt did.

“I think it was great to get away and record somewhere else. It was strange as well because You also mentioned just then we were living in a very small that you recorded with Kurt fishing town by the coast called Ballou. What made you guys Rockport. It usually doubles choose him to record with? up as Alaska in movies ap“Just because we were fans parently. But we just stayed of most of the bands that he there and it was relaxing. We had recorded in his studio. got obsessed doing big jigsaw Every single album that he puzzles – we would sit around has worked on has come out together doing these puzzles sounding really good. He was and drinking.” definitely at the top of our list.

Kind of like a mini holiday “Once I knew that he was gothen. ing to record us, I knew that “Yeah it was like being on holithe album was going to be day with the band. We had this great.” car that we rented so we took roadtrips to like Niagara Falls What was the recording pro- and New York as well.” cess like for Kvelertak, especially because it was the first Since the lyrics are all in album? Is there anything in Norwegian, what exactly are particular you would like to you guys talking about in do differently next time? your songs?

“I think it went pretty smoothly “Until now it has been mostly because we had eight weeks about old Nordic mythology, in the studio so we didn’t have like the old Norwegian Gods. to rush anything. This was the But there’s nothing deep about first time we had ever recorded it. I sing about things that a whole album. We had only sound cool to me. The thing his art. It’s fantastic.”

that is most important to me is that it sounds badass!”

You mentioned that that’s what the lyrics used to be like. Have you been working on new lyrics that take a different direction?

“No, we don’t have any new songs fully completed. I just know I don’t like to do the same thing twice, but I don’t know what I’m going to write about next. It will probably be something different but we will have to see...”

Your debut album has gotten a lot of positive attention all over the world. Does that make it hard when you start to think about what you’re going to do with the second album?

“Yeah, it’s hard to say, but there is the worry that people might not like it as much as the first album.

“But one thing is that it will probably sound more coherent because the second album will be made in a closer period of time. The first album is really just a collection of songs we had up until that point. Like the song ‘Mjød’ is from 2007 so that’s pretty old. And there are a few other songs on there like that.”

What sort of bands inspire you guys? Turbonegro is one name that gets thrown around a lot in reference to your sound.

“That would really be a question for Bjarte because he writes all the music. But I know his taste in music is really varied. He even has Marvin Gaye records in his car! He listens to everything from that to Burzum, so his taste is just weird!

“With the music I just write the lyrics and let the rest of the guys do what they want to do with the music. Most of the time, if I start off hating a song when we start working on it, it will end up being one of my favourites.”

Kvelertak is out now through Indie/RIOT.

frank turner words by sarah petchell PHOTOS BY CRAIG NYE

It seems to be the norm these days that the place you go when you don’t want to play hardcore anymore is into the realms of folk/acoustic/alt-country/ punk-tinged troubadour tunes. It’s a genre that lacks definition and includes such illuminaries as Chuck Ragan, Tim Barry, and the moustachioed Englishman that is Frank Turner.

His most recent album, England Keep My Bones, is perhaps his most personal record yet. On it he discusses the relationship that he has with his home country and all the baggage that comes with it, which is very similar to the contents of this interview really...

You started out in hardcore band, so I guess the first question has to be what got you into folk/alt-country/ whatever in the first place?

“There’s a boring answer to that, which is that I got older and my taste in music changed. That is a large part of it, but it does tie in with factors like that I had been in hardcore bands for such a long time and the last one that I was in came to a pretty unpleasant end, to the point that we were definitely not friends. But in the aftermath of that I knew that I wanted to keep playing music and I knew that I wanted to be on tour, but I didn’t want to be in a band with anybody. I just didn’t want to be in a band with anybody else for a while.

“So the logical thing to do was to play some shows on my own, and it was the kind of thing where I didn’t think it was going to be more than a couple of shows. But I did it and they just felt really, really good about it so I thought there might be something in there.

“It just was one of those things where it was the time and the place. It just felt like the right thing to do and I still feel like that, so I will keep doing it until it feels like the wrong thing to do.”

Right, and that’s one of the things that keeps coming up with you, that you do have fun doing what you do, otherwise you obviously wouldn’t be doing it.

“I think it’s completely, intellectually redundant to complain about being a musician because if it’s not good you can just not do it. It’s not the same as complaining about working a factory job, and there certainly are some easier ways to make money!

“I consider myself to be insanely lucky in the sense that I found a job that I enjoy doing.

And at the end of the day it is a job. I do my tax returns and I do my hours of interviews, but

it is a job that I massively enjoy and that makes me a lucky son-of-bitch.”

One of the other thing that cropped up during my research is that you don’t like the word “fan”. Why is that?

“It implies almost like a class division in a way. I just think that’s bullshit because when I’m not on tour doing what I do, I buy records, read music magazines, go to gigs, talk to people about music incessantly. And those are all the things that I did even before I was a professional musician, so I find it slightly insulting to refer to people that listen to your music as “the fans”. To me to use the word fan is to hold me above people in a way, so it gets on my wick.”

I guess coming from a punkhardcore background is going to be formative in that opinion as well.

“I think that if you’re Motley Crue, then referring to “the fans” is going to make a little bit more sense. But I remember the first punk-hardcore show I ever went to (which incidentally was the 18 December 1997 with Agnostic Front, Morning Again and Maximum Penalty) the thing that blew me away was that Morning Again had just finished and Maximum Penalty were up next, and the bands just hopped over the barrier as their set started or finished. Just the fact that I had been standing next to Agnostic Front’s bass-player the whole time blew my mind. No one was even bothered about the fact the bands were just chilling out in the crowd.

“And to me, punk is about that iconoclasm of no gods and no heroes and smashing through that kind of crap about rock stars.”

A lot of people in bands I talk to, describe the songwriting process as a necessary evil to be able to get out and tour. So how do you find the songwriting process?

“It’s a two-stage thing, with the cliche inspiration versus perspiration. And there is that moment where you kind of go, “DING!” that seems to happen in the shower quite often. But then there are times where you have to sit down and hammer it out.

“I love being on tour, it’s fun, and when I am playing shows I’m an entertainer. That’s how I describe myself and I’m very proud of using that word because it puts me in line with musical and vaudeville and travelling players: those people in society that exist to alleviate the awfulness of being human the other 23 hours of the day.

“But to me it’s two separate things. I’m loathe to call what I do on stage art, because it is more skill. Then there is art in the songwriting process, in that therapeutic part that happens. Like on the new album, the second-last song is called ‘Redemption’ and it was a really difficult process to write that song, which was in no way fun. It’s a song that’s about my failings in life, being a bad person to people that I care about.

So it wasn’t fun to write, but I’m glad I did because it was therapeutic to write it and I’m proud of the end result.”

I’ve got a cliche question about England Keep My Bones for you – what are you the most proud of about it?

“I’m tempted to say, “all of it”, which is a crap answer to the question, but I had certain aims when I set out to do this record and I feel like I achieved those with this record.

“My aims are more reactive, so things I wish I would have done retrospectively on Poetry And The Deed. And I will probably say the same about this record in two years time. But I have a habit of hating the last thing that I did, though the second last thing I did I’m totally down with.

“I think I pushed myself harder than I ever have before and I didn’t want to settle in ways that I had done in the past.

I wanted to make myself go back, take my pen out and try a bit harder.”

Looking at the title of the album, it’s pretty obvious that it has a pervading theme of Englishness, so what does being English mean to you?

“In a way, I don’t know, and that’s kind of the point. There is a slightly boring historical point in the sense that essentially English national identity was wrapped up in “Britishness” from 1707 until 20 or 30 years ago and the development of Scottish and Welsh independence movements means that for the first time in a very long time people in England are starting to call themselves English and are creating a own national identity where there wasn’t one before. Then the question is, what does it mean to be an Englishman.

“I don’t want the record to be in any way jingle-istic or flagwaving. There are many good things about English, like I’m very proud of the English tradition of standing up to authority. Not in the radical French revolutionary sense, but more in the, “Fuck off and leave me alone!” sense.

“That being said, we’re fucking terrible tourists and I’m not going to spend any time defending our national food. More to the point, I’m very saddened by the English obsession with class and background, and this overwhelming desire to judge people on where they come from rather than where they go. It seems tedious to me.”

The album title is obviously a reference from Shakespeare, so my question is what is your favourite Shakespearean play?

“Ok, I have to admit that I haven’t read King John where

the quote comes from. One of my friends is an English teacher and suggested the quote to me as an album title because I was struggling to find one.

“But I’m going to be boring and say Hamlet. It is a fucking phenomenal piece of work and a really quite harrowing deconstruction of the human condition.”

The album has a less obvious theme of mortality. Is that something that you struggle with?

“Here’s the thing: I’m slightly puzzled at myself for making a record about mortality because I don’t wander around everyday thinking about death.

Without sounding conceited, I feel quite good about my view of mortality in the sense that there’s an essential problem with the evolution of consciousness in that when you have a vantage from which to see the world, it becomes difficult to conceive of the world without that vantage point, that

is without you in it.

“One of the ways in which this record is a positive thing, is that it shows that the best thing you can do in life is to not shy away from your mortality but to pull it to yourself and almost rejoice in it, because then you can put it aside and move onto achieving things.

“If all you ever did with your three score and ten on this lump of rock was spend your time worrying about the little time you have, it’s a gigantic waste of time! It’s like working to deadlines in a way: don’t ignore it, realise it’s there and organise your time accordingly.

“But I feel reasonably kind of upbeat about my impending demise.”

In ‘Try This At Home’ you describe yourself as a “skinny, half-arsed, English, country singer”. Do you really feel that way about yourself?

“I actually feel quite fat at the moment... Depends on how far you want to get into this. English: yes. Country singer: yeah, sure, why not. Half-arsed: well, I try quite hard with what I do, but this is actually an “in-joke” in the sense that the guys in my band constantly mock me for not having an arse, and you are going to judge this right now in this interview. They’re like, “It’s your back and then it’s your legs”.”

you’re established as a musician to help nurture new talent?

“I was going to say no, but yes.

I’m possessed by a sense of injustice that there are some fucking amazing people out there who aren’t as well known as me and who are better than me. Ben Marwood, for example, is an English singer-songwriter that everyone needs to listen to right fucking now, who I think is equally as good if not better than me.

[Frank indeed has no arse] But most skinny dudes don’t have arses.

“But apparently in my case, more so than most other skinny guys. According to my band I am arseless. So the “halfarsed” reference is a compromise between their position on the matter and mine. I feel like I definitely have an arse.”

“In England right now, he will pull 100 people to a show whereas I will pull a couple of thousand, therefore he’s coming on tour with me until everyone wakes the fuck up and starts buying his goddamn, motherfucking record!

You ran the songwriter competition that got Isaac Graham noticed, so do you see it as a kind of duty now

“I’m not a mission to tell everyone what to listen to, I just think that mentions in interviews and supports slots are the way new bands get noticed.”

England Keep My Bones is out now through Epitaph/WARNER.

Doomriders Words: sarah petchell Photos: craig nye & John Hatfield

I remember the first time I saw the artwork for Doomriders’ first record, Black Thunder. It’s the type of thing that you look and you know straight away what you’re in for – Death riding a winged horse through a purple sky with fluro green bolts of electricity emanating from him.

Four years later, the follow up Darkness Comes Alive is released and somehow the band have gotten heavier, sludgier and groovier. And it’s good.

Then two years after that you finally see Doomriders live and it’s everything you expected it to be.

But you need look no further than the prestigious list of band members to evidence the fact that this band is made to be, in a word, awesome! This is the brainchild of Nate Newton of Converge and Chris Pupecki (Cast Iron Hike), who are joined by the rhythm section made up of JR Conners (Cave In) and Jebb Riley (Disappearer). Formed in the late-90’s this really is the fun side-project of guys with already busy musical schedules.

Right before they hit Australia for the first time, No Heroes spoke to Nate Newton about what it’s like to be a part of the Doomriders machine.

One of the things that I keep coming back to with you guys is that there aren’t really goals and expectations for the band, asides from a bunch of dudes playing music and having fun. Is that accurate?

“Yeah, it is 100 per cent accurate. We’ve never had any goals or aspirations with this band other than to just keep making music that we enjoy, play shows and have a good time. I think one of the reasons why we started the band was because the state of heavy, underground music at the time was very staunch and sterile in that there were all these selfindulgent, intellectual bands that weren’t really about entertaining or creating energy between a band and its audience.

“They were just about standing on stage and being admired and I’m not interested in doing that. I like seeing bands that engage the audience and create that energy that is all one.

All we wanted to do was get loud and help other people get loud.”

Isn’t that the point of hardcore? To have that unification between the band and the audience?

“I think, in general, that is what made punk rock and hard-

core so important. That was what drew me to it in the first place – that there wasn’t much difference between the band and the audience. It was all the same energy.

“That’s the probably the one thing that I strive for the most with the music that I’ve been a part of. That, and to write music that I myself would want to listen to.”

So it has been a couple of years since Darkness Comes Alive was released. Are you guys preparing at all for a new release?

“We’ve got some loose ideas, but we haven’t really had time to sit down and hash it out because I’ve been pretty busy with Converge and when Converge hasn’t been on the road, Doomriders has been on the road.

“So it’s really now (like after the Australian tour) that we’ll start writing and then hopefully early next year get into the studio to actually record the album.”

Are you planning on sticking to the plan and getting Kurt [Ballou] to record and Deathwish to release it?

“I don’t know. If they want to then perfect, because the relationship is so easy and convenient.”

That was going to be my next question: how much easier is it to keep it “all in the family” so to speak and stick with Kurt and Deathwish?

“It’s really easy, and mostly because Kurt and I have been working together for so long with Converge that we can work together really quickly. He understands where I’m coming from musically, and where Doomriders is coming from.

“And it’s the same deal with Jake [Bannon] and Deathwish.

And not just the friendship aspect, because the Deathwish office is 10 minutes from my house so if I need something done I can just go there and do it myself.”

Everyone in the band is involved in other projects, so how do you guys reconcile your priorities and decide what takes precedence? Is Doomriders just as important as the other projects?

“I think Doomriders is just as important to us in our lives, but there are certain things that have to take precedence.

Obvious things like Chris (our guitarist) his wife just had a baby so that’s definitely taking precedence.

“And the other guys all have career oriented jobs and for

me Converge is my first priority when it comes to being in a band. It’s not that it’s any less important, but it’s just that there are things that we have to think about first sometimes.

and so I think having grown up in the 80’s listening to Duran Duran and all that stuff when I was a kid, it influenced the way that I listen to music.

“Just, in general, it can be hard to schedule things with Doomriders because of how busy we all are with our other bands or with our personal lives. I think it makes us appreciate our time together in Doomriders more.”

“So when Doomriders are writing songs I’m always trying to look at things in the big picture and hear the entire song. I mean, I want to write a good song instead of just a bunch of riffs jammed together. I’m not interested in writing the heaviest, coolest riff, I just want to write a good song.”

How then does the songwriting process work for you guys? Is there a main songwriter, or is a matter of working collaboratively when you guys can get together?

“Generally, it’s collaboratively.

We do it the old-fashioned way by locking ourselves in a room, turning up the amps real loud and seeing what happens.”

It’s obvious that your influences are diverse and it’s well-documented how much of an influence Danzig is on your guys, but are there any influences people wouldn’t expect?

“No one ever believes me when I say this, but I’m really influenced by 80’s pop music.

Not anything in particular, but what I like about 80’s pop music is that it was all about writing really good, catchy songs

Personally, you’ve been doing bands for a fair while now. How does it make you feel when you look back on all that touring that you’ve done?

“I’m very, very thankful. I’m very fortunate and really, really lucky to be able to do this. I know I’m never going to be rich and that I’m never going to be a rockstar and famous. But I don’t want any of those things.

All I want to do is to just continue to be able to make music.

“It’s just amazing to be able to travel around and play music that I wrote to people that are actually interested in hearing.

Every time I think about that, it honestly really blows my mind.”

Darkness Comes Alive is out now through Deathwish Inc.

City&Colour

Words: Lindsey Cuthbertson

It’s a warm Canadian evening in the early throes of summer and while people are outside enjoying the weather, Dallas Green is parked on his couch fielding phone interviews. In front of him on the television, A Toronto Blue Jays game is playing out, letting Green overcome the awkwardness of opening oneself to a stranger on the telephone by rooting for his favourite team.

This is Green’s eighth straight interview and the process of talking about his new album Little Hell has almost lasted as long as the game of baseball itself.

“I don’t like talking about myself,” Green humbly says, before countering it with a positive buffer. “ The Blue Jays are on,” he proudly announces, “and they’re up 3-2 with an innings left to play.”

In just over 10 years Green has gone from a known music figure in the punk and hardcore scene to being a mainstream commodity all around the world. First with his band Alexisonfire, and then with three albums under the name of City & Colour (including 2005’s Sometimes and 2008’s Bring Me Your Love), Green may be the only kid from the hardcore scene who has gotten more popular as he’s gotten quieter.

But to understand Green’s solo work, you have to backtrack past the formation of Alexisonfire and even his band before that, Helicon Blue. You have to travel back to when, as teenager, his high school teacher coaxed Green into performing acoustic covers for his classmates.

Even before he captured the attention of thousands of music lovers the world over, Green was in his room writing songs on his acoustic.

With his third City & Colour album, Little Hell, Green’s profile in the music world will undoubtedly get even bigger.

More pronounced in scope, composition and execution, it is an album that sees Green cover new ground both as a songwriter and lyricist.

When he looks back and reflects on the albums that came before), he is able to see how Little Hell reflects a new chapter in his life.

Where its predecessor focused on how Green’s personality fit in with the world, Little Hell shines a light on his relationships with his wife and family.

Asked how they have reacted to being portrayed in song, Green insists that it has been with positive attitudes.

“It’s great. The way I deal with things is by writing songs about them. At face value ‘Fragile Bird’ is a fun, dancy rocking song, but at its core the lyrics are about how my wife has these really horrible nightmares and night terrors all the time that are quite shocking to be a part of.

“With the first record it was just a collection of songs that I had written from a young age up until the point that I recorded it. A lot of those songs had that sort of ‘woe is me/love struck’ attitude. When you’re young and going through stuff like that, it feels like it’s the end of the world,” he says.

“Musically I can write songs like that, but lyrically I can address serious situations in my life. ‘O’Sister’ is a song about my sister and the struggles that she went through a couple of years ago and how I wasn’t there to help guide her through it. How I dealt with it was by writing a song like that.”

And did it help the healing process?

“With Bring Me Your Love it was more about exploring, not necessarily the hard side of being in a relationship, but that in general: telling someone that you love them as opposed to saying, ‘I love you, why don’t you love me?’ There were also songs on that record where I was getting older and exploring the idea of mortality and analysing myself as a person.

“My sister loves that song and my wife loves ‘Fragile Bird’. At its core I’m writing songs in a relatable enough fashion that you can listen to it and apply to something in your own life, or something that you’ve been through with someone else, or know of.”

“At this point I started to look at different things. Songs like ‘The Grand Optimist’ and ‘O’Sister’ are about my family and the relationships that I have with them. There are songs about my wife, and then there are songs like ‘Silver And Cold’, which was just about a dream that I had. It’s all over the place in a way.”

While the songs on Little Hell can be easily interpreted into a listener’s own life, the same cannot be said about the album’s recording process.

In fact, there is a very good chance that many current musicians are in the same boat.

Green is avidly against the digital manipulation of music; in other words, studio trickery such as auto-tune, pitch cor-

rection and substituting a live musical instrument’s sound with a pre-packaged set from a computer program.

For Little Hell, there are no such elements occurring.

Green even went as far as recording the entire album straight to analog tape; a process that he admits was a lot harder and more frustrating than he originally realised.

“The tape machine we were using was very old; it hadn’t been used in a very long time and just kept breaking down.

So we had to sit around and wait and fix it, so things like that that you can get past using computers were the most frustrating parts,” he explains.

“But to me, the warmth and natural feel that you get with the music by recording it to tape far outweighs all the difficulties and frustrations that we went through.”

It’s not the first time Green has foregone studio shortcuts when recording his vocals, preferring to spend countless hours making sure that every note is perfect and every inflection and word placement is precise.

On Alexisonfire’s last album, Old Crows/Young Cardinals, Green spent six hours working on the one verse in their song called ‘The Northern.’

“Thankfully I’ve never banked on the fact that auto-tune exists. Even when using Pro Tools – with Bring Me Your Love I tried to make it sound as real and as organic as possible, although we were using Pro Tools. I’ve always prided myself on trying to get better with every record, as far as a player and a singer goes, so I have that way of working instilled in me going into the process. It amplified it.”

It’s easy to assume that this sort of attitude to song writing and recording leads to perfec-

tionism, but Green is adamant that this desire to push himself further as a musician is something that has always been a part of his personality.

Not only that, but he can happily sit back and appreciate the finished product of Little Hell, rather than focus on things that he wishes he could improve.

“I will always look at songs that way. As you get older you think of different things or you get more skillful at something and start to think, ‘I could have done that a lot better.’ As of right now I’m pretty happy with it, I’m proud of it, and I’m looking forward to hearing what other people think of it.”

So far the response from the public has been positive, particularly with how Green’s wide-ranging influences have begun to be better reflected in his music. Several years ago Green tipped his hat at his influences through his choice

of cover songs – Neil Young’s ‘Cowgirl In The Sand’, Rose Royce’s (and then later Madonna’s) ‘Love Don’t Live Here Anymore’. Nowadays, genres such as country & western, rock & roll, blues and folk make an appearance in many of his songs.

“A lot of that had to do with coming up with ideas in my head and demoing them at home. I just had a lot more time to try out different things demoing them in my basement,” Green says.

“Going back to technology, with GarageBand on my computer if I have an idea for a drum part, I can go to the drum set in my house and lay that down and build a song on the computer that’s in my head. In the past, I didn’t have that much time. If I wrote a song on an acoustic guitar, that was just about it.

“Having more ideas coming up and being able to work on

them for longer periods of time allowed me to build some of these songs into the bigger songs that they are.”

It’s interesting that Green uses the word “bigger” to describe the music on Little Hell. Compared to previous City & Colour albums, the musical palette is definitely bigger. But compared to Alexisonfire, whose Dog’s Blood EP last year was the heaviest release of their career; it’s not even close.

But as his two musical projects continue to move further away from each other, Green enjoys that he has an avenue to approach and pursue any musical idea that pops into his head at any given time. “ It depends on the mood I’m in.

Earlier today I was down in my basement playing my guitar really loudly and fooling around with my effects pedals. If I’m in that frame of mind then the chance of me coming up with

a riff or something really heavy is better than when I’m sitting quietly on my couch with my acoustic guitar. It just depends on the environment or mood that I’m in, and that depicts what type of idea I come up with.

“I still listen to aggressive music, I still listen to quiet music, I listen to hip hop, R’n’B…I listen to a lot of different stuff, so I never really know what’s going to happen when I pick up my guitar.”

For some people, 10 years feels like a millennium; for others, it passes by in the blink of an eye. To think that 10 years ago hardly anybody out of the St. Catharines music scene knew who Dallas Green was is hard to believe. Considering that a decade ago he was yet to make it as a musician, is the artist that Green is now the artist that he once hoped that he would be?

“...I’ve always prided myself on trying to get better with every record, as far as a player and a singer goes, so I have that way of working instilled in me going into the process...”

Green pauses before answering. “I’d like to think so,” he muses.

something to be said about somebody just writing songs and that’s it. That’s all there is to it.”

“For me, I’ve never really had that attitude of world domination that some people have. I never wanted to be the best or the biggest; I just wanted to write good, honest music and I feel that that is what I’m doing.

I hope that that is what’s drawing people to it.

And with that we part ways: for one of us, it’s to sit and reflect on the conversation that has just occurred; for the other it’s a chance to take a deep breath before taking part in yet another interview while watching his beloved Blue Jays.

“There’s something to be said about someone like Lady Gaga and having this persona and this huge production of the moment, but then there’s

Speaking of which, are they still winning?

“They actually just won,” Green proudly replies, “so we’re ok.”

TOUCHE AMORE WORDS: SARAH PETCHELL

“Hype” is a strange word. It’s a word full of negative connotations that seems to deride the band it’s applied to, to devalue the band’s work, rather than to allow them to the credit they’re entitled to. It denotes a passing fad, a fly by the night trend that will be gone by the morning.

In the case of Touche Amore the application of the word “hype” is unjust more than anything. Parting The Sea Between Brightness And Me is the band’s second full-length and it delivers on everything their debut promised. Moreover, despite their young age, this is a band that has been around for five years and has a recorded output that would put most bands of their longevity to shame.

But read for yourself and decide: are Touche Amore just another hype band, or a hardcore band with something truly special to say? Perhaps vocalist Jeremy Bolm has the answers.

So you’ve just released Parting The Sea Between Brightness And Me. Did you guys have a plan when you went in to record it?

“We didn’t really have a distinct plan. We got home from our tour with Envy in November and we knew that we wanted to try and have a record out by spring. We had about four and a half songs written. Once we got home, and because of the holidays we started to get together a lot more and try to write the record. Then when February came we drove out to Kansas and recorded it with Ed Rose. It went way better than we ever expected, so it was a good experience.”

In between your last release and this one you’ve had a few members leave and have

brought new people in. How have these changes affected the sound of the album?

“Going into the whole process we were a little nervous because going from the first record to this record we have a new drummer, our bass player moved to playing to guitar (as our other guitar player quit) and we have a new bass player. So that’s kind of like having two and a half new people in the band.

“But it actually worked out really, really well. Nick, who was playing bass but now plays guitar, has always been a guitar player first he’s an incredible guitar player who is extremely creative. That meant that he was one of the main driving forces of writing the record.

“Our bass player has toured with us a tonne before he was actually in the band. He’s also like the childhood best friend of our other guitar player, Clayton, so we’ve known him forever. And Elliot, he’s our new drummer, has been with the band since the splits we did with La Dispute and Make Do And Me, so he’s been in it for a while and has grown so much as a drummer.

“So overall, writing was a lot more natural that what we perhaps expected it to be with so many new people. ” I don’t want to use the word influences, but what were you listening to and taking in during the writing process as inspiration?

“I imagine that everyone was listening to different things, but I know for myself with lyric writing I was listening to a lot of Leonard Cohen and I’m very into The National. Their newest record still hasn’t left my stereo, so a lot of [Matt Berninger’s] writing style was a big

influence for me. If you listen to our new record, just the lyrics without the music, you can kind of hear his influence. Especially on the song ‘Crutch’.

“It’s so good to have outside influences like that and not typical punk or hardcore influences because that can be boring. I like to step outside the box and sort of get into more unexpected influences.”

You mentioned that you had songs written before the Envy tour and then wrote the rest when you got back, so does splitting the writing up into two chunks affect the flow of it at all?

“The songs that we originally wrote before tour, ended up changing a little bit anyway because when we revisited them they needed to be spiced up a little bit or have one or two things cut out. Funnily enough, these first couple of songs ended up being the first couple of songs on the record.

“But it was also nice to feel like we had a headstart, like when we started writing the second time it didn’t feel like we were starting from scratch.”

As the lyricist and vocalist, what are you hoping that audiences will get out of the record?

“In the past I’ve always written songs without the idea of them needing to be on a full album so it had always been about getting out what was bothering me at the time. But since this was all written in one spot at one time, it is a much more open record and as a lyricist I’m not really holding much back. It’s kind of a vulnerable record where I’m exposing a lot of myself.

“That’s what I wanted to achieve. I didn’t want to sugarcoat anything. I’ve always been really direct with my lyrics, but I feel like this is the most direct I’ve ever been.”

Is it a cathartic process for you getting all that out?

“Absolutely, it definitely helps.

I’m a very inward, introverted person where if I’m meeting someone or dating someone, a criticism that I get is that I don’t really let anybody know much about myself. I just don’t open up to people very easily. This is the one way that I do that without actually having to think about it. It’s a gateway to letting all of that out comfortably.”

The reactions from fans and media about the album has been very positive so far.

How do those reactions kind of hit you and the band?

“We’ve never set out to write songs that we know everyone is going to love. We just kind of writes what comes naturally and the fact that we’ve gotten such great feedback has been so overwhelming.

“At the end of the day it’s the best treat because when a punk/hardcore band writes a

follow-up record when their previous record got a lot of recognition, it’s a hectic process because you feel like you have to impress people and if you don’t they will forget about you. The fact that we wrote the record, that we’re proud of it and that it has gotten such good reviews, we just couldn’t ask for more.”

A lot of effort seems to have been put into the deluxe vinyl release of the album, so I have to ask are you guys vinyl nerds?

“I’m a massive vinyl nerd with a huge record collecting problem.”

What is it that you love about vinyl?

“There’s a much better feeling you get from holding a record and putting it on a turntable. It sounds better and it’s just feels much more like a piece of art than a CD or an MP3. It’s so important for our releases to have that same feel.”

In all the speakers they’ve blessed, basements they’ve graced, stadiums they’ve shook and halls they’ve quaked, engraved in the hearts and minds of every listener is a little heart-shaped memory spelt, TITLE FIGHT. Eight years on, a palm’s worth of EP’s and a single studio album, the Pennsylvanian quartet have locked their honest brand of punk rock as a staple within the diet of the global hardcore community.

But what is it about Title Fight that enchants us under their spell? Is it the breath of authenticity their songs exhale?

Their egoless youth, drawing

us to emotionally relate? Or the straight-up fun they revive in the soul of every kid to toughguy wannabe? From hardcore jock to emo nerd, punk misfit to pop teenybopper, it seems that the virus this band has become has transcended to an epidemic infecting the masses.

Strangely enough, I think this time around I’ll leave my medicine in the bottle.

“I don’t even know how to describe it… I mean, I can’t really think of another word besides flattering that everyone likes our music. We just make music we like playing, we like playing shows that seem interesting to us and through doing things that we choose to do luckily kids respond in a positive reaction. It’s awesome. We get to see the world and it’s just fun.”

“It’s very flattering. When we started this band a long time ago, I didn’t understand anything about being in a band.”

Guitarist and vocalist, Jamie Rhoden, struggles to muster an explanation to their overwhelming success.

Forming in the sixth grade, Title Fight are arguably the most resonant name in punk that Kingston, Pennsylvania has to offer. Since the release of the 7-inch, Kingston in 2008, Title Fight have grown and blossomed into for lack of a better word, ‘that’ band. Fusing

Title Fight Words: Jem Siow

their enthusiasm for touring and performing live. Coheadlining tours with Four Year Strong and H20, European runs with Basement, American Festival tour legs and supports from many US hardcore bands.

“Overall, everyone’s been really nice to us. I mean there’re always a few people that kind of have a different mentality. … But overall, more than half of those dudes are legitimately into what they do and actually a lot of them are into the music we play which is real flattering.”

Being a band of such diversity and in constant demand, the quartet has grown to a level they never expected. For Title Fight, at the end of the day it boils down to the essence of both what they do and why, and for this there seems no compromise.

conventions of pop/punk, emo and melodic hardcore into a fast and fun brand of raw energy, there isn’t any straight explanation for their widespread appraisal. Their method however, is simple: play it honest.

“We just like playing shows and seeing the world! I mean, we’re not at a level where we really make any money off of it or anything so it’s just kind of like an adventure I guess.

Someone’s just like, “hey, you wanna go see the world and play music?” It’s like, “duh… of course.””

Over recent years, Title Fight has played a huge range of mixed bills, clearly showing

“There’s been offers for tours that we’ve declined that would have had giant venues because of the things that we’ve heard from our friends about these bands,” Rhoden confesses. “We’re kind of picky.

We definitely only choose tours that we’re interested in. We don’t just leap at the first offer.

The music is more important to us than travelling, but it’s still a great experience to see the world and play music in general.”

At only 20 years of age, Rhoden and his comrades are still the same bustling kids on the bus of a class excursion as they were a few memories ago. Despite the commotion and gimmicks side-packaging their success, their roots have stayed true since day one.

“It’s cool to play in front of 2000 people that are interested, but

it’s way cooler to play in front of 100 people that really care. I like the smaller, more intimate shows.”

2011 boasts their debut 13-track treasure chest, Shed.

And from the gleams of gems, ‘Coxton Yard’ to ‘You Can’t Say Kingston Doesn’t Love You’ to ‘27’, there’s no doubting the honest direction they’ve taken through their re-invention of that 90’s emo/punk bite. Think Lifetime, Jawbreaker, American Football and Rival Schools.

Rhoden sheds a personal light, admitting, “To be totally honest, it was a natural progression for us. It sounds like Title Fight, but some kids seem to say it’s different than our previous stuff but I guess we released The Last Thing You Forget a pretty good amount of time ago so it seems natural that this is the way we took.”

For these four Pennsylvanian lads, Title Fight to them is an adolescence still being outlived. Whilst we nod ours heads, sing along and run amuck to their crafts, they’re still growing up and experiencing a part of their life that’s hung around and just never faltered.

“Playing in Title Fight, yeah I don’t know! It’s a big part of my life. I’ve been in this band for about eight years now; it’s basically my youth as I’ve grown up. It keeps me full of energy and makes me happy. I can’t even describe what I mean. It’s just one of those things that you can’t really put to words.

Title Fight to me I guess just means friendship and travelling, all together.”

Title Fight? Title Win.

I EXIST Words: DAVE DRAYTON Photos: craig nye & John Hatfield

Anonymous asked: What is the one piece of advice you would give to someone trying to start a hardcore band in Canberra?

“Start it and have fun. That’s all really, find people you are mates with/have common musical interests with and just go for it, it might take a couple of go’s at it before you get it right, but that happens with everything. And having fun with it is more important than anything, if you are bored/not happy with the band/people you are playing with, then bail on it, life’s too short.”

The reply comes courtesy of Aaron Osborne, guitarist and chief songwriter (riff captain?) of seven-sometimes-six piece Canberra outfit I Exist. The question from ‘anonymous’, one of countless people to have taken advantage of Osborne’s consistent updates and earnest replies on topics ranging from metal (“Fans

of Electric Wizard?”, “Dio or Ozzy in Sabbath?” ), to covers (“Alright, time for you cunts to cover Pantera ‘Strength Beyond Strength’.”) and even the band’s line up (“Can I play second bass?”, “I have 2 SGs. Can I join?”) on the I Exist blog.

“The point of this band at the start was to be really serious and then after like two shows we realised that we just like having fun and the band’s fun and the music’s fun so we just sort of thought the lyrics could be the same. But, you know, you gotta make it interesting.”

So why is the blog inundated with questions; Why is Osborne and his opinion held in high regard as though he were an online metal guru?

Having recently released their second full length album through Resist Records that’s exactly what the band are doing; using II: The Broken Passage to explore the ‘post-’ of I: A Turn For The Worst’s apocolypse.

I Exist’s appeal is wide – hardcore and metal riffs given a palatability with a strong blues and stoner influence – their commitment to and interaction with their fans is obvious, their merch hilarious (points to anyone who can incorporate Bill & Ted into their artwork) and their attitude – in contrast to that of many other bands in similar heavy genres – is not tough, serious or contrived. Though, as Osborne points out, it didn’t start as such.

“The last album and the artwork is about the world sort of getting fucked up by the four horseman of this weird nuclear holocaust thing coming together in one hit – we just sort of made up a story. So the last song on that CD this dude buggers off into space because the earth got all fucked up by this nuclear bomb. The Broken Passage is essentially about

him coming back to earth to try and find out what’s going on. He comes back to find the whole thing’s messed up and there’s monsters and weird shit’s going on and all these wizards are about now.

“The Broken Passage is talking about his trip across the earth that’s all fucked up and he’s gotta fight all these dudes and get through all these hard times. But, then again, there’s also some silly songs about smoking bongs and hanging out with chicks and stuff in there as well,” says Osborne.

While some of the lyrical content would appear contradictory, or perhaps just bizarre, when Osborne talks about the band’s current rehearsal space in suburban Canberra it seems a little less far-fetched.

Or perhaps just more in line with the band’s general approach to making music. A poster of a Native American

chief flanked by a wolf now oversees all their riffing.

“The Indian burial ground rehearsal room; for some reason Jake (vocals) went to America like a year ago and returned with a fascination about Cherokee Indians and he wears these silly Indian rings all the time – anyway, he’s an idiot,” Osborne explains with a laugh.

“I hadn’t been there in a while because I live in Melbourne, but I went back there the other week and they have this flag on the wall and Jake just goes, ‘We need to add a little flair because the room has just got carpet all over the walls’.

“Where we have band practice is a shed behind Murph’s (drummer) house, it’s just a garage. We used to jam at this warehouse in Canberra but the dude had to shut it down because of noise restrictions or something. When he shut it down he didn’t know what

to do with all the materials he had for the jam rooms he built so he gave them to Murph and Murph built a jam room in his backyard and it is the smallest room on earth. My head almost touches the roof,” Osborne says with mock disbelief.

“It was sick, the dude just had no idea what to do with the materials because when he closed the studio – like what are you going to do with a ton of wood and shitloads of insulation and carpet? He just had to either throw them out or give them to someone and Murph just took them and built this jam room and I guess his landlords don’t care…

“So there and then Jake decided it was an Indian burial ground when really it’s just a backyard in the suburbs of Canberra.”

There must be something about the space that is working, Cherokee or no, because

the band’s most recent reveals their progress further distilling the hardcore, blues, sludge, metal and stoner influences and honing their sound.

As with the first album, I Exist opted to record at Melbourne’s Goatsound Studios, which is owned and operated by Jason PC of Blood Duster fame. They did, however, step it up with their second stint there, enlisting Bill Anderson (Eyehategod, Red House Painters, Sleep) as producer and bringing him out from the states to join them for two weeks in the studio.

“The dude’s one of my idols and it was me and Josh’s – one of the other guitarists – idea to get him in to do it because both of us listen to all the records he’s ever produced and engineered. It was really, really good. It was really awesome,” enthuses Osborne, still clearly stoked on having worked with Anderson.

There was some initial trepidation from Osborne – perhaps just nerves – that was quickly quelled when the process began. “I’ve never worked with a producer before and I didn’t really know what to expect but I figured he’d done so much shit that I love that I wouldn’t get off it if he wanted to change something or if he had ideas,” says Osborne.

how they were before – he just recommended doing different stuff with the instruments and playing different parts differently. He had a lot to do with how Jake laid out his vocals as well.”

With Anderson on board with I Exist’s vision it presented no problem. “He knew what we wanted. He’d worked with bands that sound like all of the kind of things that we put together; he’s worked with doom bands and he’s worked with hardcore bands, so he kind of knew what we were heading for. Everything he had to put into the songs we were happy to accept and all our ideas he was happy to have a crack at.

Looking back on the experience, despite working to a reasonably tight timeline – “We had two weeks with Billy and we really wanted to use it as smart as we could. Myself, Murph and Alex, our bassist, laid down everything really quickly because, well, we played the best we could and it sounded great, but we had to do it pretty quick so we could have this time set aside for everyone else.” – the response was overwhelmingly positive: “It was awesome, he was really smooth, he’s a great dude and we think it came out real well.”

“He didn’t really change that much of the songs – the songs actually stayed very similar to

With a seven-piece band (completed by guitarists Josh, Sam and Kelly, yes there’s four

of them) there is an obvious interest in the writing process for the band (see the aforementioned blog for confirmation: “Anonymous asked: Do any of the four guitarists ever look around in the songwriting process and say ‘... I’m not really needed here, am I?’”), especially given the more prominent metal influence on the new record.

sound so I wrote songs that sounded like that idea,” Osborne explains. “But then as it grew basically everyone just said their favourite parts of the songs were the blues parts or the metal-y parts so I thought, ‘Alright, I’ll just keep writing them.’ Which is good for me, ‘cause that’s what I want to play anyway.

“When I started the band I had an idea for how I wanted it to

“I write pretty much everything.

I have ideas for how the drums should go, because I used to

play drums, but Murph, our drummer, writes all the drums.

He does shit I could never think of, so it’s awesome. For the most part I write the guitar lines.

“For this one Josh wrote all the harmonies, and he writes his own solos and stuff obviously.

Josh comes from a pretty much entirely metal background and he contributed a bit more this time guitar-wise. For the main part, most of the riffs

I wrote. There’s a couple of riffs that Sam contributed to or Josh contributed to, but they’re pretty much how I wrote them a year ago in my bedroom.”

they won’t amount to anything for a while. I guess we’ll just keep playing shows as they come and keep slugging out songs from this new record,” says Osborne.

With a recent tour with Doomriders wrapped up (which saw the band make their virgin voyage across the Tasman to New Zealand) the horizon sees new riffs and more shows, including a slot on the upcoming Bastard Fest, “Knowing me I’ll probably start writing more songs, but

In the mean time there is Osborne’s role of online metal guru to get back to. “I just set up the blog to put photos up when we were recording and then John (Hatfield), who takes photos of us sometimes and comes away on tour with us

and stuff, he helped me do it.

He told me there was a thing so I could answer questions on it, ‘cause I’ve never used it before. And he goes, ‘Answer some questions and I’ll put up some photos.’ People recognised after like two questions about metal bands that I do it and no one else in the band does. I like doing it. I hope I can show people the ways of some good bands that they should be listening to.”

Cruel Hand

Words: Thomas Hill – Photos: John Hatfield What is “The Cruel Hand” and who’s in it?

“At this point the band is me (Chris – Vocals), Nate (guitar), Cam (guitar), Seger (bass) and Derrick Kitagawa (Drums).

“We picked Derrick up at the start of this year, but we’ve known him for years. Derrick is always playing in bands and filling in. He used to play in Violation and Internal Affairs and at the moment plays in Minus. He was going to college, and then he graduated and went on to grad school. He was getting pretty sick of what he was doing. He’s been at school forever and never took a real break.

“We knew that things were getting to that point and we were like, “Dude if you ever want to join the band let us know!”, ‘cause we’d already been playing for a year without our original drummer, Jeremy, as he had to pursue real life stuff.

When he left we had Nate on drums, and we were a four piece, but we knew at some point we were going to have Nate back on guitar because he was very much part of that front. “ He writes a lot of the guitar?

“For Lock & Key he wrote a lot, so did Cam, and there was a lot of layering and lead guitar parts on the record that we couldn’t do as a four piece so we kind of kept bugging Derrick and he was like, “I’m done with school now” and he took some leave and so yeah, we’ve been doing this since January with Derrick.”

Other than Derrick does anyone else in the band have other bands that they do?

“Nate, Cam and Segar are

playing in this band with some of the guys from Wake Up Call, who are guys we grew up with them from our area.

They started this hardcore punk band called DNA and that stands for Darrel Nate Aaron, the three dudes in the band.

Cam started playing with them and so did Segar. They recorded a demo that was really cool, and they brought like 50 demos or something and we lost them when we switched vans on the west coast in California.

So they didn’t even make it to Australia.”

It’s your second time in Australia, what brought you back again?

“I mean, the country’s fucking amazing! The weather’s great, maybe not now, every time we come here it’s winter but still it’s really nice. The scene’s cool, the bands are awesome.

We want to play everywhere, as much as we can, wherever there’s a scene where we can play, we want to hit spots.

“It sucks that it took us two years to come back. I’d assumed that the kids had forgotten us. If that were the case I would have understood, just because there are always new bands and kids are always ready to jump on the new thing. We have a lot of friends here too; we don’t get to see them a lot. You know, I’d come here just to hang if I could.”

You said last night (Melbourne 18+ Show) that this is one of the best active scenes in the world. What do you see in Australian hardcore that some don’t anymore?

“It’s crazy that there are those 18 plus and all ages shows.

We don’t do that in the states,

it’s just everyone together and they’ve got a way of doing it so they aren’t serving alcohol to minors. But here it doesn’t matter! The kids come out to each show, even the 18 plus last night, the kids were going off, they were going crazy.

“I can understand the older you get you kind of want to chill watch some bands, nod your head and drink your beer.

Every show so far has been great, kids have been coming out and they go off.”

Lock & Key is your second release on Bridge 9, what did you do differently to Prying Eyes?

“We didn’t go too far. It was definitely a step up from the last record, but we didn’t go to outer space or anything. We took a lot of time in the studio with just our guitar sounds; if you listen closely they’re really different when you compare Prying Eyes to Lock & Key. So we took a lot of time with just the sounds on the album.

“There are a couple of songs with clean parts. When we practice, the band doesn’t really hear what I’m doing on vocals, I’m doing stuff and I’m reading through the lyrics but they don’t really know what I’m going to do until we’re in the studio. So when I was laying down some of those songs, I did the clean part of Lock & Key, everyone was like “What the fuck man! What are you doing?!” they were bummed out!

“I was willing to step outside the box. You know even from Outbreak, we went from that to Cruel Hand, which is different but not even that different.

It’s different types of hardcore

but it’s still hardcore. So I was willing to do something different and when we started doing it live, people were receptive to those clean parts.”

That was my next question, how has Lock & Key been received? Personally are you happy with the record?

“Yeah! Mainly because we got to do what we wanted, we got to take a little more artistic license. Instead of having a sound engineer kind of orchestrate the whole thing, as in what sounds good we got to do what we wanted. He’d say, ”Aw this sounds good” but like to us, listening to Prying Eyes we were like, “He said that sounded good, but to us it could sound better, it could sound different”. We were doing more of that using more of our personal taste.”

Where do you get your inspiration for your lyrics?

“I guess it just depends ya know. It’s pretty personal.

I mean Prying Eyes; I was coming out of some dark shit, with like a girl and all that sort of stuff. So when I wrote it, it just sort of all came out like that. It’s kind of a downer of a record when I listen back to it and even when we play songs live, it feels really personal like I was reading from my diary.

When people were singing the songs, it felt weird for a while, but now I’m in different place and it’s fine and it’s been fine for a long time. And with Lock & Key a lot of the songs are about how to come out of that stuff.”

Is that the basis of Lock & Key? “Yeah exactly, like breaking free. You’ve gotta break out of your own stuff.”

Lock & Key sounds like that step, lyrically and for the band.

“Yeah and it’s kind of weird, because I never looked at it like that until now but it’s true.

And in those couple of years between those records, people could tell that I was in a shitty place. People can tell, they wanted to help, but it is really just up to you to take the time yourself and figure out your own answers.”

Do you do much with Bridge 9 bands specifically?

“Not really no.”

It’s not a happy family?

“I mean we’ve always kind of been a DIY band. A lot of bands aren’t doing it, and can’t do it like that. They can’t function without a label or manager pushing them.”

Oliver (Strike Hard Bookings) said to me, “They [Cruel Hand] just want to do it – they want to sleep on floors, they want to rent a van and they want to drive.”

“That’s how it’s always been, but we’ve learned that from bands like Bane. Bands that we’ve always looked up to

and the way they’ve done it.

You don’t need these outside people who are taking a cut from everything you’re making, to get you there, to get you to the show or set up the shows.

“I mean we have a booking agent, I mean obviously you need someone like that. But that’s really it for us. We don’t really have any other outsiders because we want to do it ourselves and we can. It has worked so far and at some point you might grow out of that.”

This tour, has been pretty big, where were you before you landed in Australia?

“We flew out from Maine to the West Coast and did Rainfest.

We were on the West Coast for a week and then we did South East Asia, which was fucking insane. They’ve got something going on there.”

In the summer you’re playing This Is Hardcore and

Sound and Fury. Are you doing tours around that or just hitting those two festivals?

“We’re just hitting those festivals, we’re going to fly out for them just cause the summer in Maine is really awesome. We live right near the water, near the beach and it’s real outdoorsy. And we seem to miss summer a lot, being on tour.

So we want to be home.

“Some of the guys have girlfriends. Segar is going to be on the west coast living with his girlfriend and Derek lives on the west coast, Cam’s going to be with his girlfriend too. So we’re just going to take that time and recharge. Hang with our families and our friends.”

B9 Boston bands, like American Nightmare and Mental.

A couple of the guys from AN were from Maine and they moved to Boston to pursue Ten Yard Fight and be part of that whole thing.”

Is it a big town?

“No! It’s small, like it’s not really a city more like a small town, and there are no sky scrappers or anything like that.”

Yet obviously you’re all proud to be from there, it’s all over your merch.

“Yeah, exactly, because we’ve come from this little town in the middle of nowhere, Maine.

There’s not a whole lot going on but we’re doing something.

I hope that people can see Do you have much to do with that.” the Portland, Maine scene?

Is there a scene in Portland What else is going on in Maine?

America that we should “See that’s the thing, not really. check out?

I mean in the 90’s there was “Rotting Out – that shit is blowa scene for sure, and even in ing up. Like next level. We the early 2000’s, with the early were on the West Coast play-

ing with them. They did Rainfest and then we did shows in SoCal. They’re touring and working hard. They’re a great band, Walter is a great dude, and all the guys are cool.

“I keep saying Fire And Ice, I know they’re not as new as some of these other bands, but that’s a fucking great band, they’ve just got that sound, later Leeway kind of sound. And Dave Boots, on vocals man, I loved Iron Boots, It’s just like straight up Warzone, he’s a sick front man. Groater (Ryan Groat) from Down To Nothing, riff master. They’ve got it going on right now. I back them.

“Backtrack of course, and DNA if that ever ends up online. See if you can get a hold of that.”

Final words?

“Thanks for the fucking interview. Australia’s been fucking awesome, hopefully we’ll be back sooner than later. Hopefully we’ll be back next year or maybe sooner. Oh and shout outs to The Carrier too. They’re the towniest fucking Boston kids you’ll ever meet they’re wild. Shout outs to them.”

Words: Oliver Cation A tour is an unusual thing. Long periods of very little interspersed with chaos and quick bursts of activity. In the end you remember the entire experience. Here is my recollections of a tour with Cruel Hand across the east coast of Australia.

Starting the tour in Byron Bay on a Wednesday Night seemed to be an odd thing. The guys had flown from South East Asia to Perth over the weekend where they had crammed a couple of shows into a single day, before heading to Byron for a few days of rest and recuperation, taking in the sun and the local nightlife. Anticipation grew for the first show. It was the first chance to see a highly rated band show off their new album in a country they had only visited once before and only briefly.

Held at the Youth Activities Centre, the venue has hosted some legendary shows and it’s easy to see why. Byron Bay is a small place, but kids will travel from Southern Queensland and other parts of Northern NSW to experience the shows there. Local supports Shackles and Face Hate threw down some solid tunes and Third Strike brought pandemonium. Tour support Phantoms were up next, but it was clear everyone was waiting for the main event.

Cruel Hand took the stage with vigour, pumping out songs from across their entire discography, the crowd responding with enthusiasm, singing along and flailing.

Byron Bay hasn’t got the biggest population in Australia, but based on tonight’s show, it has a huge heart.

The Thursday morning was the final game of the Stanley Cup finals, an interesting prospect considering the Maine natives closest team, the Boston Bruins were taking on the Vancouver Canucks. Taking our places in a crowded bar that morning, it was evident that the US boys were outnumbered by a staggering amount of Canadians. This resulted in some of the most amusing, heated chanting and sledging I have witnessed. Luckily the Bruins won 4-0.

The rest of the day was spent celebrating and relaxing before making the short drive up the coast to Brisbane for Boys And Girls nightclub. The interior of X+Y Bar

is lavish. The hardcore show that went on between its walls was not. Hindered by a rail and security guards, the show was a stand off with spurts of movement. Once again Phantoms and Third Strike supported and Cruel Hand topped it off with a spirited performance despite the adverse conditions.

The following day, Cruel Hand were introduced to the locals of Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary. It will never get old seeing tattoo covered hardcore men nestling up close to a koala or kangaroo with wide eyed looks of wonder. Cruel Hand barrelled headfirst at them, shaking tails, scratching ears and spooning in the least inappropriate way possible. The group shot was taken with a particularly pungent Koala. As we left, Cruel Hand stumbled upon a sulphurcrested cockatoo who was more than willing to headbang along with the boys and exchange greetings repeatedly.

The show that night saw Cruel Hand take to the makeshift stage of Sun Distortion Studios, a warehouse space/rehersal studio and one of the last remaining all ages venues in the city. Its DIY feel and

a mixed bill of metallic hardcore, pop punk and youth crew gave the show an extra special feel, flying bodies and cramped conditions making it one of the more memorable shows.

An overnight drive saw Sydney on Saturday afternoon. A quick dumping of personal belongings at the accommodation and straight to the venue for load in.

Hermanns Bar in Sydney University would host the 18+ Sydney show of the tour. The crowd came out despite the chilled winter conditions, packing the venue from the first band. Cruel Hand took the low stage and delivered a set that was unrelenting and precise.

Each person that left that venue was drenched in sweat or had a story to tell the next day.

Western Sydney and Blacktown consumed the Sunday. An all ages show in another DIY setting and a floor show with spirited results. Support bands Avalanche, Pledge This and Renegade opened proceedings, a great chance for younger bands to play with musicians that have inspired them. Phantoms and Relentless then showed hometown domina-

core is alive and kicking hard.

The unusual venue for the show made for an unusual atmosphere, everyone equally uncertain about how to act, but they were there to party and enjoy a Friday night.

The reaction to Cruel Hand’s set that night was one of the best of the tour, the finale of ‘Dead Weight’ putting the bowling club in danger of serious damage as people threw themselves wall to wall with reckless abandon.

The seven hour drive to Adelaide, followed by a wander around the city. Seeing the city get ready for a Saturday night got us in the mood for one of our own. Black Market was the arena of combat this evening and combat it would be. Another nightclub and with rumours of a secret show the following day, the turnout lacked many of the kids ethically opposed to nightclubs. Adelaide is a weird town, divided distinctly between the metal and hardcore crowds. Both were in attendance tonight, but the dynamic could be felt and it made for an uneasy night. tion. Pulling out a slightly different set to the night before, Cruel Hand barrelled through a set catering for the heavy hitters in the crowd. Despite it being a floor show, kids jumped off speakers, each other and anything they could get hold of, grasping at the microphone and vocalist Chris.

Wyong and Canberra would present mid week entertainment, hitting more remote areas that most tours generally bypass, Cruel Hand were seeing the countryside….sort of. The shows were vastly different in feel, Wyong being in a large community hall with a stage and smoke machine, the Canberra show being in a small bar with flying glasses and an unusually placed light up dancefloor. Bunking down in Canberra on the Wednesday night, it was clear that Cruel Hand didn’t have off nights.

Melbourne and a Thursday night date at a nightclub. The show was at NEXT, an alternative nightclub populated on this night by a higher percentage of hardcore merch than normal. Once the music started hell broke loose, as supports Our Solace and

Warbrain warmed the swelling crowd for Phantoms and Cruel Hand to let loose the stagedives and pile ups, the small dancefloor being worked from every angle as the overage crowd took advantage of seeing Cruel Hand in a party space.

After the live music had ended, Cruel Hand vocalist Chris had a guest DJ set, taking the chance to spin all sorts of old hip hop and pop anthems as well as newer slammers, causing the rest of the touring party to hit the dance floor.

As the clock worked its way round and the dance moves became looser, it was a great relief that the next show would be close by, meaning time for rest and relaxation the next day.

The Friday night was a much different atmosphere from the nightclub. A bowling club in the middle of the city, populated by old people and Keno. But at 7pm, it was overrun by a few hundred kids getting wild. The regular club patrons were sent running as locals Outright, Warbrain and Iron Mind showed what Melbourne has to offer in 2011 and the crowd showed that Melbourne hard-

A local hardcore show at underground venue Animal House would be the site of the final show of tour, a final hurrah at a warehouse whose location was a secret. Arriving at the venue, it was evident that this would be special. The local line up consisted of some of the most promising bands Adelaide has to offer.

Craterface especially are a force to be reckoned with, their humour and speed a deadly combination. Phantoms and Cruel Hand mixed things up, playing some different songs and messing with the setlists for the final show. The kids who had heard of their special surprise performance showing their appreciation for seeing an international band in such an intimate venue.

As the tour came to an end it was easy to reflect on 12 days of good times and hard riffs, the amazing diversity in music on show in each city, and most importantly, the kids who turned up to each show, making the tour a success.

It wouldn’t have happened without Cruel Hand, it wouldn’t have happened without Phantoms, but most importantly, it wouldn’t have happened without Australian Hardcore in 2011.

Thursday Words: Sarah Petchell

There are very few bands that I can say with perfect honesty that every album they write is consistently better than their last. “Better” may be a completely subjective term, but for me, Thursday are a band that continuously grow and evolve in new and unexpected directions, and always for the better.

Now with album number six out, the evolution the band have undertaken between their first release, Full Collapse, all those years ago and today with No Devolucion marks them as a completely different band.

We spoke to vocalist, Geoff Rickley, to find out just how

much of a musical evolution the band has undergone.

matter of days, right?

“Yeah, especially for us. We wrote War All The Time in seven months, A City By The Light Divided in a year and a half and Common Existence in a year. So seven days was really different for us.”

You’ve talked in interviews about moving away from the punk and post-hardcore side of things, so is there a point where you do feel too old to be playing punk music or is it just that’s not the direction you want to take anymore?

“It’s a combination of things.

When I was younger I felt like you can’t play hardcore after 30, otherwise you’re a jerk. But I don’t really feel that different to what I did 10 years ago to be honest. The only thing that I find it surprising that the al- is different is that I’ve done five bum was written that quickly. records where I’m screaming Usually it takes weeks not a How important was it for you guys to evolve on this album, more musically than anything?

“It’s funny, because it wasn’t really something that we talked about. It just kind of happened. We didn’t really have time to think about it because we wrote the album in about seven days. I have to say, it was honestly a surprise to me when I heard it back.”

we got really lucky. We finished it, listened to it, and were like, “Holy Shit!” We didn’t expect it to be like that at all and it was really great.

You’ve mentioned in other interviews that the album has a theme of devotion and we’ve already talked about hopefulness, but what were you trying to get across lyrically with the album?

“To me, I was thinking about how many times people write break up records or first love songs. I just thought that no one ever writes about the ongoing feeling of being devoted to someone that you love. That was the way that the record started, and then it changed more to also encompassing like we’ve been together for 13 years as a band. That’s another type of love and devotion. It was a celebration of that feeling of sticking with something for a long time because it is so important to you.”

at the top of my lungs and I have some other thoughts that I want to get out.

“I wanted to make a record that would span the whole gammut of human emotion. That was a lot more exciting to me than focusing on one specific thing. Especially with hardcore bands, that usually is anger maybe mixed with hope, but it’s still a very specific feeling.

“With this record I’ve had people say it’s the most hopeful record we’ve ever done and people say it’s the saddest record. I think it just depends on which songs you’re grabbing a hold of.”

What are you most proud of with No Devolucion?

“I don’t really feel as proud of it as I should. I feel more like

Late last year you guys played a couple of shows where you played Full Collapse in full. What made you guys decide to revisit that older material on such a big scale?

“Before this record we all kind of felt Full Collapse was a high point for us. As a record it works really well for us and the whole reason that a lot of people like our band is that record. We liked that record and we felt like we never got it as right again as what we did on it. So any chance we had to go out there and celebrate that record, so 10 years made perfect sense for us.

“It’s so weird that we’re releasing this record 10 years to the day almost as Full Collapse because this time is the first time since then that we feel like we got it right again. Exactly what we were trying to do just happened.”

Is it at all weird playing songs that are 10 years old?

Do they still have the same

meaning and are they still relevant now that you’re 10 years older and wiser?

“The first few nights that we did the record back-to-back I felt like I was faking it and singing someone else’s music. But then it kind of clicked in, where all the kind of muscle memory kicked back in and we started playing it like we did 10 years ago.

“Then because I was so used to it, I would find myself skipping back in time, being in the younger me and thinking about all those things. It was a really incredible experience for me and I was really glad that we did it.”

One of the things that I think marks you guys as a band is that people either really love you or really don’t. So do you ever feel that you have to make music just for you, or do you still think about the people that do love your music?

“When you’re writing you have to do it for yourself It’s then when you finish it that you start to thinking about what other people are going to say about it, and go, “Oh shit, all the hardcore kids are going to hate this record!” Like you come to terms with the reality of it.

“For people who say they love the band and have Thursday tattoos, of course I want them to love the record, but you make a record that is personal to you and that’s how it has power. You have to listen to yourself first, and try and find what you do well and do it really well. Otherwise, if you’re trying to make a record for someone else, it’s just going to come off as fake.

“Whenever I hear someone say, “I’m Thursday’s biggest fan and this is how I feel,” I want to say, “Well I’m Thursday’s biggest fan.” I mean, I’ve sung these songs almost every day for the last 13 years, I think I’ve got them beat just a little.”

Bands You’ve never heard of ALL TEETH (California, United States) Website: http://www.allteethca.com Melodic and emotional hardcore has almost become a catch cry for bands wanting to ride the waves of hype. In fact they’re almost dirty words in hardcore circles. Dispel all these beliefs when you listen to All Teeth because this Californian five-piece are creating interesting heavy music that owes a great debt to The Nerve Agents and American Nightmare.

Their most recent release, the EP Young Love, is a call to arms for alienated youth. Musically intricate and heavy, while lyrically desperate, emotional and intelligent, honesty is the keyword here: honest music with honest lyrics made my honest dudes. Just no-bullshit, heartfelt hardcore. Sarah Petchell BACKTRACK (New York, United States) Website: http://backtrack.tumblr.com/ In the current crop of hardcore bands trying to make a name for themselves in the US, Backtrack is one streaking ahead. Coming straight out of New York, they have time on their sides, still young and fresh to the game but with experience beyond their years, having been on the road for three years now, playing alongside the who’s who of hardcore.

Now they are gearing up for the release of a new album recorded in Los Angeles with Nick Jett of Terror and to be released on hotly tipped Reaper Records. If you like your hardcore tough as nails, Backtrack might be something you enjoy. Oliver Cation

CRASH OF RHINOS (Derby, United Kingdom) Website: http://crashofrhinos.bandcamp.com/ I’m just going to start by saying Crash Of Rhinos are great! Formed in Derby in the UK in 2008, they’ve suffered geographic misadventures with their bandmembers, but have overcome them and the end result is their debut release Distal. Take some early 90’s emo, smash it together with some of the prettiest and melodic guitars, and the raucous group vocals round out the mix. Equal parts technical and emotional, the only word to describe the end result is exhilarating. This isn’t emo in the depressed way, this is emo in urgently uplifting, fist-pumping way, and damn is it good. Sarah Petchell

DARKWOODS (Boston, United States) Website: http://darkwoods.bandcamp.com/ I first found out about Darkwoods on a Massachusetts hardcore compilation I downloaded earlier this year. The track was called ‘Dread’ and it featured Pat Flynn (formerly of Have Heart) on vocals. But what drew me in was the nihilism of the lyrics (for example, their track ‘Bullshark’ ends with the repetition of the line “Go fuck God”) and the intensity with which they’re delivered. Then, of course, there are the superb riffs which back it all up. It was hard to find out much information about them. I’d like to think that they would prefer to let their music talk for them, but if you’re a fan of fast straight edge hardcore then this is absolutely for you. Sarah Petchell EVERYMEN (Fort Lauderdale, Florida) Website: http://www.myspace.com/everymensounds Everymen hail from Fort Lauderdale in Florida’s south. A city referred to by locals as Alligator City, and when you look at it like that, Everymen fit right in to this swamp city. Kicking out punk rock by way of blues and country these bearded and shaggy musicians are like nothing you have ever seen before. Like a cross between Gogol Bordello, Against Me and Johnny Cash the band sport washboards, banjos, double bass and all sorts of other instruments to create their blues laden rock. With a full length When Water Is Thicker Than Blood just released on Dead Truth Records, and a tour across the US in progress, this is a band you need to hear if you are a fan of moonshine and getting a bit dirty. Oliver Cation THE MATADOR (Brisbane, Australia) Website: http://thematador1.bandcamp.com/ It’s really obvious when a band’s influences are obvious, and in the case of Brisbane’s The Matador this is so. A progressive, post-metal outfit, their EP Descent Into The Maelstrom has hints of indie leanings alongside your typical post-metal influences (Isis, Cult Of Luna, and the like), but most surprisingly there is a Deftones influence to a lot of the groove of the songs, especially in the first track ‘Kingdom Of Glass’. All at once, there is chaos, sludge, atmosphere and a crushing heaviness that combines to create a mix of sounds that could only be devastatingly catastrophic in a live setting. The EP is available for free on the band’s Bandcamp, so download it and see for yourself. Sarah Petchell

new music When opening track, ‘Divine Illusion’ started I was throwing horns and windmilling like Hell’s portal had opened up right in front of me. By the time the third song ‘Procession Of Ashes’ had started, I was at the fridge looking for a mid afternoon snack. That could be because I enjoy eating or because All Shall Perish have delivered an album of stock standard metal that only the diehards will embrace. The rules are simple on This Is Where It Ends – play really, really fast, then cut it in half and maybe throw in a solo. Brian Posehn might call this metal by numbers and I would agree. I would like to love this album, but with 12 songs and half of them over the 4 minute mark, there isn’t enough grabbing me here. 2/5 Oliver Cation

This Is Where It Ends – All Shall Perish Nuclear Blast/RIOT! Balance and Composure spread worlds of colour upon the canvas that is Separation; a 12-track masterpiece redefining the strokes and swirls that characterise modern rock. That perfect balance between catchy and comical, that flawless consistency between passion and aggression, that precise measurement of harmonic growth and decay: Separation is a milestone coloured by a pallet boasting nothing but a refreshing and appropriate mixture of both bright and dark elements. An empowering adaptation of 90s emo and old school pop punk, what this band has crafted is a work reminiscent of past styles through a uniquely contemporary perspective. The result is a near faultless album perpetuating the distinct emotionally melodic sound they have ingrained within the hardcore/punk community. A debut effort? Yep. Album of the year? Quite possibly. 4/5 Jem Siow

Separation – Balance & Composure No Sleep/SHOCK Seriously, can Dallas Green do anything wrong? Ever since he burst into public consciousness with Alexisonfire back in 2002, Green has gone from album to album without losing any of his prodigious talent as a singer and a songwriter. In fact, Little Hell, Green’s third album under the City & Colour moniker, may be his most complete release yet. Continuing on from where 2008’s Bring Me Your Love left off, Little Hell fuses his acoustic balladry with country & western and rock influences. Green’s vocal performance is sheer perfection, ranging from haunting (‘O’ Sister’) to heartfelt (‘Northern Wind’), loving (‘We Found Each Other In The Dark’) to lustful (‘Fragile Bird’). Little Hell is an incredible album that cements Green’s status as one of the most creative and talented artists to come out of the punk-rock world in years. 4.5/5 Lindsey Cuthbertson

Little Hell – City & Colour Dine Alone/SHOCK I honestly can not think of another band in Australia that is mixing heavy genres in such a way that Coerce do. In its own way, it is borderline genius. Then to top things off, there is the way in which this four-piece creates a sound so epic in magnitude (a sound that is only amplified in a live setting). On Ethereal Surrogate Saviour everything just sounds huge! Just listen to the chorus of ‘Inking Ships’, the aural violence of ‘Rain Parade’ or the huge drum sound in the closing minute of ‘Ash White Smoke’. My one criticism has to do with the lyrics – there is something that I just don’t like about them. That being said, when the music is this perfect, the lyrics are not the reason that you need to listen to Coerce. And you do need to listen to them! 4.5/5 Sarah Petchell

Ethereal Surrogate Saviour - Coerce Capitalgames Records The main thing to remember when first playing this album is that this isn’t a hardcore album. Defeater’s second full-length release is a continuation from their last; unfortunately it’s hardly a step forward. They’re not at the top of the melodic hardcore game and they’re not at the top of the folk game but whatever genre you class them in (melodic-folk-hardcore?) they are doing it pretty well. The last four tracks of the album are completely dedicated to Defeater’s folk ambitions and to be honest it isn’t the worst way to end the album. I was hoping this album would start a new story, a new character and a fresh start but unfortunately they continue to develop the same character to the point where he just seems quite drawn out. It’s worth a listen if you liked their previous releases but do not expect to be floored by it. 3/5 Thomas Hill

Empty Days & Sleepless Nights – Defeater Bridge 9 Records Reviewing a new Earth Crisis album is a difficult task as they are one of my all time favourite bands and my neutrality may also be brought into question even more as I actually really enjoyed To The Death (it has a song about burning down meth labs, need I say more?). Neutralize The Threat is not a difficult album to listen to, unfortunately it has a bit of filler, yet these songs are still better than what most heavier bands are releasing at the moment. To lay your worries to rest, it is no more Nu Metal than previous albums and almost seems as if they are returning somewhat to the Earth Crisis of old. Stand out tracks for me were ‘Counterstrike’, ‘Raze’ and the opening riff on the album in ‘Raise’. They are still straight edge, they are still vegan, they are still playing and touring. It’s Earth Crisis. Don’t ignore this album. 4/5 Thomas Hill

Neutralize The Threat – Earth Crisis Century Media/EMI

new music Laid To Waste is the first release from New Zealand hardcore act Entrails and considering that they’ve taken on the ambitious task of making their first release a full-length, they have succeeded in releasing an album that is dirty, sludgy and downright gross, with enough metal thrown in to keep things very interesting. At one point the riffs spiral into a controlled chaos (‘Delusion’) while on ‘Robinson’ things slow down into a sludge ridden soupy mix of riffs and rhythms which cut through the sludge. But the best thing about the record is the fact that despite the change in tempos, and to an extent style, from song to song one thing that is never sacrificed is intensity. While this is not ten tracks of straight-up hardcore, it is definitely ten tracks of face-melting noise. 3.5/5 Sarah Petchell

Laid To Waste – Entrails Negative Collective Easily one of the most underrated bands and underappreciated releases of this year. The fact that this release hasn’t received the widespread recognition it deserves is an absolute travesty. Coming from Just Say Go and Connections Allen’s voice is completely unique in the Australian Punk Hardcore scene and has made the transition from Youth Crew to alternative/indie punk perfectly. Old Ghosts Never Sleep boasts some of the most inventive and interesting guitar sections that I’ve heard in a long time. Stand out tracks include the perfect transition of ‘Sometimes You Just Know’ and ‘Validity’ as well as ‘Ambulance’. After releasing In The Wake Of…, Fires of Waco have done what many bands seem unable to do, by following up a great first release with an even better full length. 4.5/5 Thomas Hill

Old Ghosts Never Sleep – Fires Of Waco Poison City Records Foundation’s When The Smoke Clears is right now and will be the best release of 2011. I cannot fault anything about this album; it is resonant of Buried Alive, has the sincerity of early Earth Crisis and holds the aggression of Reprisal. It has made the perfect lyrical progression from Hang Your Head, exemplified in ‘Devotion II’ and ‘Purple Heart’, where “who will march forward?” does not feel like a question but a brutal interrogation. I doubted whether Foundation could write a better song than ‘Fireproof’ and then I heard ‘No One Writes Protest Songs Anymore’. The album ends with a re-recording of ‘Never Stops Raining’ and the beating drum of ‘The Sound of Arson’. Words do not do this album justice, Foundation are one of the best bands in Hardcore at the moment and this album will cement them as one of the best for years to come. 5/5 Thomas Hill

When The Smoke Clears – Foundation Bridge 9 Records Despite their name, fucked up is definitely one thing that Fucked Up have not done on David Comes To Life.

In fact this sprawling opus is 78 minutes long and every second of it is pure genius and pure joy to listen to.

I’m not going to go into the specifics of the storyline, but it is as ambitious as any other Fucked Up storyline to date. The point is the music though. The straight up bashing and riffing dominates the album in the excellently executed punk aesthetic we expect from the band. There are jangly acoustic moments, like the intro to ‘A Slanted Tone’, that offer some respite, but for the most part the wall of sound and layered guitars are what you hear. To top it off, Abraham’s voice is the best it has ever sounded and the hooks are aplenty. Make way, make way because here comes a serious contender for the title of “Album Of The Year”. 4.5/5 Sarah Petchell

David Comes To Life – Fucked Up Matador/SHOCK Hollow’s latest release I, Destroyer is not your Sunday afternoon soundtrack. This album is dark, slow and fucking heavy. The Hollow have followed on from their previous releases and delivered another twelve tracks of Integrity inspired hardcore. The lyrics are easily the darkest thing about this album and are going to have you thinking about death, destruction and the end of the world. But it’s not all the same; specifically on tracks ‘Year Zero’ and ‘The Black Flame’ where The Hollow have incorporated prominent melodic guitar parts and even clean vocals. My favourite thing about this album is its tempo, which keeps you enraptured the entire time, changing from a slow drawling march to a frenzied pace that I don’t think anyone is meant to be able to keep up with. 3.5/5 Thomas HIll

I: Destroyer – The Hollow Dead Souls Records I Exist straddle the fence between hardcore and stoner metal, they appeal equally to both crowds while never aligning with either. This, their second album in as many years, does the same. The production value has increased, thanks in part to the recruitment of famed producer Billy Anderson to the desk and there are distinctive hooks creeping into the choruses of songs such as ‘Black Unicorn’, which will open I Exist up to even more listeners. That is not to suggest this is a sell-out album. There are still five minute weed instrumentals, songs about Kerry King and harsh vocals from the entire bands as well as a slew of guests such as Rohan from Extortion. This album may not appeal as much to a hardcore audience, its focus being more on rocking out than beating down, but there is still much to enjoy for an open minded music fan. 3.5/5 Oliver Cation

II: The Broken Passage – I Exist Resist Records/SHOCK

new music Scurrilous is demonstrative of Protest The Hero in fine form. Listening through this album you can’t stay still, as it will be difficult for you to find ten seconds of cohesive or straight music. Protest The Hero are the most frantic, ADHD-riddled band on the planet and that will make you either hate this album or love it more than any other. Previous albums Kezia and Fortress had amazing stand out tracks, and Scurrilous is the same, where ‘Cest La Vie’, ‘Tandem’ and ‘Sex Tapes’ all stand out. But this is a full album, and if your fingers can deal with air soloing for 45 minutes you will be rewarded with a full sonic experience. Everything about this album is joyful, or excruciating, depending on whether you have schizophrenia. 3.5/5 Oliver Cation

Scurrilous – Protest The Hero Underground Operations Pulling Teeth have done something extraodinary, in that they have written the same music as on previous releases, yet made it feel entirely different. Funerary is a very morbid album, dealing in part with the death of vocalist Mike’s father. All of the usual d-beat, hardcore, sludge is here, circle pits and headbutting things are still the suggested activities while listening to it. But it is the centrepiece of the album, the title track which is perhaps most crucial. ‘Funerary’ the song is a 10 minute mostly instrumental track which evolves from feedback to distortion to orchestration and overlaid with guttural cries. This is a song of pain and loss and it is gripping and tense. Following it up then is ‘At Peace’, a more tranquil acceptance of the loss, but still tortured and sad. When put in perspective, this is an exceptional album, one for any previous Pulling Teeth fan, but also an album for fans of heavy music in general. 4.5/5 Oliver Cation

Funerary – Pulling Teeth A389 Records Their fans still smell bad, they still look the same and they still hate religion. That is why Ringworm’s new album Scars is great. It is heavier, faster and angrier than anything else recent in its genre pool and exactly the reason why Ringworm are still at the top of the crossover hardcore food chain. The opening track ‘To The Grave’ sets you up for the next 35 minutes of unrelenting hardcore punk. The album is full of fantastic guitar work and makes it obvious why your long-haired friend likes to run around in circles at their shows. The six minute long title track honestly pushed my attention span but the tracks ‘Used Up Spit Out’ and ‘Angel Fuck’ sum this album up for me. Be sure, Ringworm are not going to be disappearing anytime soon. 4/5 Thomas Hill

Scars – Ringworm Victory/RIOT! Two songs into the new Set Your Goals album Burning At Both Ends I was ready to rip it apart, call it weak New Found Glory and sell out All Time Low, and then I found myself bouncing around and wanting to know the words. This is unadulterated pop punk now, gone are the hardcore roots of Mutiny, as it’s saccharine sweet and I have a tooth ache now. Even the song names, like ‘The Last American Virgin’ and ‘Unconditional’, are so sweet that you have to smile. This might be safe territory for bands now, anything this innocent sounding will have parents rioting to have their kids listening to this rather than the new D.R.U.G.S album, but when done this well that’s fine. Set Your Goals know their crowd and they play to their strengths. The production is crisp, the songs are catchy and you could do worse than listen to this on a Sunday afternoon with a cute girl. 3/5 Oliver Cation

Burning At Both Ends – Set Your Goals Epitaph/WARNER Post-metal or post-rock is one of those genres where the great bands are often mimicked but rarely in a manner that does justice to its forefathers. Sydney’s sleepmakeswaves have defied this. Yes, they nod to their influences, however on their debut LP …And So We Destroyed Everything, they have destroyed any misconceptions about this genre by stamping upon it their own creativity and musical ingenuity. At the one minute, songs will soar to the highest of heights, with tones that are joyous and uplifting, as on ‘To You They Are Birds…’. At the next, songs become heavier and more ominous, like ‘In Limbs And Joints’. Then they achieve all this and more on the album’s pinnacle, ‘A Gaze Blank And Pitiless At The Sun’. A truly magnificent piece of work that has me breathless, waiting for more. 4.5/5 Sarah Petchell

And So We Destroyed Everything – sleepmakeswaves Bird’s Robe Collective Wil Wagner cut his teeth in the crust punk/hessian scene; playing warehouses, house parties, parks and just about anywhere else there was a few eager listeners and an acoustic guitar to borrow. Enlisting The Smith Street Band the project grew, though some of the songs from earlier days make appearances here (‘Get High, See Mice’ or ‘When I Was A Boy…’) with full band arrangements. Where it works, it is perfect; Wagner’s penchant for ‘woah-ohs’ and sing-alongs made that much better with the added chaos and camaraderie that a five-piece brings. Elsewhere though – ‘Rooftops’, for example – some of the added instrumentation seems uninspired or tacked on. Driving it all is the passion and earnestness that has always made Wagner’s music so affecting. 3.5/5 Dave Drayton

No One Gets Lost Anymore – The Smith Street Band Poison City Records

new music If the cover art for Stolen Youth’s Dark Century hasn’t already got you extremely interested then don’t waste another second. Having not released an album in four and a half years, but irrespective of this these veterans from Adelaide (they have been around for ten years) have done an amazing job on this record. Stolen Youth have always released what they want, when they wanted no matter the hype that is the sound of the moment and this frankly, this is a breath of fresh air in a scene that can be incredibly repetitive. From the first song to the last, the word “filler” doesn’t even come into the picture. Easily one of my favourite releases of 2011 so far. 4/5 Thomas Hill

Dark Century – Stolen Youth Unsigned Six years since their formation, the irony still remains; Title Fight sit in a league of their own with no competitors to face. Hanging proudly from their shoulders is a 13-track belt, which boasts worlds of musical maturity despite their youth. Shed sheds the layers of their pop/punk past in cultivating a unique approach to both fast and slow elements of punk and emo, blending catchy licks, sing-alongs, down-tempo choruses and just under 30 minutes of raw melody. Standouts, ‘Where Am I?’, ‘Safe In Your Skin’ and ‘27’ shine on the new found inspiration they’ve gained from their old-school roots. Nonetheless, this is a Title Fight record, packed with stage-dive anthems and choruses upon choruses to drain our lungs and hearts to. 4.5/5 Jem Siow

Shed – Title Fight SHOCK At just over 20 minutes, Parting The Sea… is an album that barely builds momentum before it is over and as a result suffers. The individual tracks barrel from one to another with little respite between. This means that the tracks cannot distinguish themselves, and it feels like expanding the songs out to three minutes or five minutes would have done them more justice. That being said, this is a great album. The driving riffs, impassioned lyrics, and dynamic drumming oozes potential at the greatness this band could be. The opening track ‘~’ sets the tone for what is to come, while ‘The Great Repetition’ demonstrates how talented as songwriters Touche Amore actually are. Definitely an exceptional album worth listening to, just be prepared to be left wanting more. 4/5 Sarah Petchell

Parting The Sea Between Brightness And Me – Touche Amore Deathwish Records England Keep My Bones, Frank Turner’s fourth full-length, has been widely praised as his best effort yet. And I get it. At almost every level – musicianship, lyricism, energy – Turner has exceeded all of his previous work.

That being said, there is something I really don’t like about it. There seems to be a kind of sterility to the whole album that didn’t exist on Poetry And The Deed. I also don’t buy into the over intellectualised concepts of “what it means to be English” (the acapella ‘English Curse’) and the clichéd ideas of mortality. But it’s when Frank puts his heart completely on the line (as on ‘Redemption’ and ‘Peggy Sings The Blues’, a homage to his grandmother) and talks openly of his own faults and experiences where he excels. I wish there was more of that than his grandiose ideas. Perhaps then it would be a perfect album. 3.5/5 Sarah Petchell

England Keep My Bones – Frank Turner Epitaph/WARNER Unearth have delivered an Unearth record. No suprises there. The same monster riffage, same roar/talk/ roar/sing vocal delivery and the same 2005 metalcore feel. Once heralded as the forefront on metalcore, it never really happened and Unearth are still treading that same unrealised path on Darkness In The Light.

This is by no means a bad record, as there are enough solid songs to add to the bands greatest hits collection. There are also some more progressive nods to traditional metal influences, but overall it’s the same as their pinnacle record The Oncoming Storm. Unearth fans will lap this up once again and the casual observer will find much to enjoy here, especially if they weren’t around in 2005, but anyone looking for the next step in metal evolution or the missing link between metalcore and metal, this is a dead end. 3/5 Oliver Cation

Darkness In The Light – Unearth Metal Blade/RIOT! This album isn’t actually an album. It’s three separate EPs that Jim Ward (formerly of At The Drive In, now of Sparta and Sleepercar) wrote over the space six years. Written in between touring with his bands and spending time at home in El Paso, Texas, this acoustic album is such a down to earth representation of Ward’s life and experiences that one cannot help but be enthralled from first listen. He weaves tales of life on the road (‘On My Way Back Home Again’), his ten year marriage (‘Decades’) and his regret that he wasn’t speaking to his cousin Jeremy at the time of his cousin’s death (‘Mystery Talks’). Stripped back and acoustic, there isn’t much to talk about musically, but that’s not the point. This walk through Ward’s life over the last six years is what makes this album a genuinely intriguing work. 4/5 Sarah Petchell

Quiet In The Valley, On The Shores The End Begins – Jim Ward Stop Start Records/EMI