Upset, September 2017 by Upset

INHEAVEN

THE DEBUT ALBUM OUT 1ST SEPTEMBER “INHEAVEN are set to become indie megastars” Dork UK TOUR ON SALE NOW

30th September – Newcastle – Think Tank? 1st October – Glasgow – King Tut’s Wah Wah Hut 2nd October – Leeds – Brudenell Social Club 4th October – Sheffield – Plug 5th October – Stoke-On-Trent – The Sugarmill 6th October – Liverpool – Buyers Club 7th October – Manchester – Neighbourhood Festival 9th October – Birmingham – Mama Roux’s

10th 11th 13th 14th 15th 17th 18th 19th

October October October October October October October October

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Leicester – The Cookie Bristol – The Fleece Nottingham – Bodega Social Club Cardiff – Clwb Ifor Bach Oxford – Bullingdon London – Scala Brighton – The Haunt Southampton – Joiners Arms

IN THIS ISSUE... upsetmagazine.com Editor: Stephen Ackroyd (stephen@upsetmagazine.com) Deputy Editor: Victoria Sinden (viki@upsetmagazine.com) Associate Editor: Ali Shutler (ali@upsetmagazine.com) Writers: Chris Cope, Danny Randon, Heather McDaid, Jasleen Dhindsa, Jessica Goodman, Rob Mair, Sam Taylor, Steven Loftin Photographers: Jordan Knight, Max Fairclough, Sarah Louise Bennett Cover Photo: Max Fairclough All material copyright (c). All rights reserved. This publication may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form, in whole or in part, without the express written permission of The Bunker Publishing Ltd. The opinions of the contributors do not necessarily bear a relation to those of Upset or its staff and we disclaim liability for those impressions. Distributed nationally. P U B L I S H E D F RO M

THE BUNKER W E LCO M E TOT H E B U N K E R.CO M

RIOT!

4 T H E B RO N X 6 RE A D I N G & L E E DS 9 JA M I E L E N M A N 10 CASS E LS 12 O F M I C E & M E N 14 M I L K T E ET H 16 TO N I G H T A L I V E 18 P L AY L I ST

ABOUT TO BREAK

20 I N H E AV E N 22 C U LT U RE A BUS E 23 F RES H 24 WA L L F LOW E R

FEATURES

26 38 42 46 50 52

PV RI S T U RN OV E R SA I N T E D E AT H F RO M A BOV E T I G E RS JAW P RO P H ETS O F R AG E

RATED

56 Q U E E N S O F T H E STO N E AG E 57 D OW N TOW N BOYS 58 PV RI S 59 T U RN OV E R 60 2000 T RE ES

EDITOR’S NOTE It’s taken us more than two years to get there, but a band has finally done it. PVRIS are the first act to score a second Upset cover, and with their new album ‘AWKOHAWNOH’ [Look, space is limited - Ed], they’ve earned it too. One of the most exciting rock-slash-pop-slashwhatever-you-want bands of our generation, they’re heading for the stars. Sadly, this month also saw Linkin Park’s Chester Bennington, another former cover star, pass away. RIP, Chester. You’ll be missed.

E V E RY T H I N G H A P P E N I N G I N RO C K

“IT “IT SOUNDS SOUNDS SUPER SUPER NASTY” NASTY”

THE BRONX ARE RARING TO GO WITH ALBUM NUMBER FIVE. IT’S THEIR MOST AGGRESSIVE YET,

E V E RY T H I N G H A P P E N I N G I N RO C K

SAYS FRONTMAN

MATT CAUGHTRAN.

veryone’s favourite punk rock party-starters The Bronx are back in town, and they’re finally ready to punch you in the ears all over again with their new record. The Los Angeles’ quintet’s fifth album, which is unsurprisingly titled ‘BRVNX’, is set for release in September, and frontman/lead hellraiser Matt Caughtran has already teased that it “sounds really fucked up”.

WORDS: DANNY RANDON.

“The record sounds super nasty,” he laughs. “The songs are fast and out of control. It’s a great record; we love it.”

“There are still choruses, but it’s more of an aggressive record,” he adds, following the bolder rock-oriented tones of ‘The Bronx III’ and ‘The Bronx IV’. That much can certainly be agreed upon hearing the first cut from the album, ‘Sore Throat’: it’s two-anda-half minutes of feral and scrappy

garage punk, fit for smashing a beer bottle against your own head before headbanging until you go dizzy, and then headbanging some more. It’s essentially The Bronx doing what they have done best for 15 years. It’s not only a sensational return from the band but a handsome payoff for the fans who have waited more than four years for the follow-up to ‘The Bronx IV’. “Of course the wait’s gonna be worth

it!” explains Caughtran. “It’s been a rough couple of years, and a lot of people in the band and the band in general have just been going through some stressful situations.” One of The Bronx’s biggest obstacles of recent was that ‘BRVNX’ is the first album that they will be releasing without founding Jorma Vik behind the drums after he departed from the band last year. Luckily, they’ve since partnered up with Social Distortion sticksmith David Hidalgo, Jr., who is on frantic form on ‘Sore Throat’. “We spent a lot of time finding the right direction for the record,” Caughtran continues. “We write songs, and we write songs, and we write songs until we feel like we know the identity of the record and where it is going. “In that sense, it’s a very meticulous [process], but once we figure that out, it’s just ‘go go go’, and once we actually start

recording, we fly through that shit.” Helping them ‘fly through’ recording this time around was producer Rob Schnapf, a man who first made his name in the 1990s co-producing the likes of Elliott Smith, Fu Manchu and Beck on his breakthrough debut ‘Mellow Gold’. More recently, he’s manned the production desk for Kevin Devine, Fidlar and Joyce Manor. “Rob’s a badass producer, and he’s just an awesome, sound guy,” says Caughtran. “On the second record, we took about a year [to record it], and we never want to do that again. Once you feel like you’ve got what you need to do, then you just focus on getting it done right, and then time just flies.” Although the last couple of years have been a period of uncertainty, The Bronx seem raring to kick-start their engines for another furious bout on ‘BRVNX’, and Matt Caughtran is especially stoked to be

creating music and generally ‘discovering stuff’ in today’s ever-changing world. “I’m excited about art,” the singer smiles. “I really enjoy the modern scope of things and how easily accessible other people’s art is, whether that’s music or painting or sculpture or anything. I love that you can sit on Instagram for a couple of hours and stumble upon this amazing artist that you’ve never heard of and they’ve only got around 1,000 people that know about them. “It’s one of the cool things about the modern era. Everything is at your fingertips, and if you wanna find some really cool shit or you’re doing some really cool shit, and you wanna put it out into the world, now’s the time. There’s just a lot of creativity going around, and that makes the world a better place.” P The Bronx’ album ‘BRVNX’ is out 22nd September. 5

IT’S THAT TIME AGAIN! AUGUST BANK HOLIDAY IS UPON US, WHICH MEANS READING & LEEDS. HERE’S A FEW OF THE BANDS YOU CAN CATCH AT THIS YEAR’S EVENT. CHECK BACK NEXT MONTH FOR THE FULL REVIEW, AND KEEP YOUR EYES ON UPSETMAGAZINE.COM!

E V E RY T H I N G H A P P E N I N G I N RO C K

COUNTERFEIT

So Jamie, do you have anything special planned for Reading & Leeds? Like always we’re gonna go in there and tear it up but we do have a few special things planned in terms of show elements that we’re adding because it’s Reading and Leeds! But I’ll be damned if I’m gonna be the “spoiler” guy (winky face). Is there anyone you’re particularly looking forward to seeing? Marmozets. Those guys are awesome

and I’m excited to see what they’ve been working on as they haven’t played in a while. Architects for sure, we got to see them this last weekend at Electric Castle, incredible live band. I’m keen to see Everything Everything as I love them. Billy Talent, we supported them last year at Budapest Park and aside from being an amazing band they’re also super nice guys so you’ll find me bugging them probably. But the whole line up is great there’s a real good mix of acts in there.

Which is your favourite of the headliners: Muse, Kasabian or Eminem? Hard to choose between Eminem and Muse. I’ve seen Muse a few times but never Eminem so I guess I’ll have to say Eminem. What’s the biggest festival disaster you’ve experienced? Flies down for a whole set. Only realising after. I’m sorry. Not quite a full on Lenny Kravitz but close enough. P

ONE OK ROCK

Hey Taka, do you have anything special planned for Reading & Leeds? Well, it’s our first time at Leeds, so we’re very excited. We want to make sure we’re all in good condition when we hit the stage. Which is your favourite of the headliners? Eminem for sure. I personally love Muse and I went to their

PALISADES

DEFEATER

What’s the biggest festival disaster you’ve experienced? At a festival in Japan years back, there wasn’t that many people in the audience – and not only that, they gave me the middle finger. P

Hey Aaron, how has your summer been so far? Our summer has been amazing. Right now we are a week into our tour supporting One Ok Rock in the US and it’s been one of the best we have ever been on!

there to find out what they are.

Do you have anything special planned for Reading & Leeds? We do have a couple of things up our sleeves. But you’ll have to be

What’s the best thing about Reading & Leeds? I really enjoy the diversity; it’s the perfect music lovers festival. P

Hey Derek, do you have anything special planned for Reading & Leeds? Nope, just arriving in a timely fashion and ripping the old rock gig.

Which is your favourite of the headliners? Oasis.

Is there anyone you’re particularly looking forward to? We’re missing our dear friends in Culture Abuse which is a pretty big bummer.

BILLY TALENT

Japan concert, but Eminem is what I grew up listening to. I also listen to Kasabian when I’m trying to get energized.

Hey Ash, do you have any onstage tricks that always go down well with a festival crowd? As a drummer, you can get stuck at the back a bit, so I like to have a stand up and roam around a bit. It just keeps things interesting. Is there anyone you’re particularly looking forward to? It will be good to catch up with the boys from Idles and Puppy.

Do you have any tricks that go down well with a festival crowd? We just go on stage, play our hearts out, and connect with the crowd as much as we can.

What was the last festival you went to as a music fan? This Is Hardcore in Philadelphia, PA. What’s the best thing about Reading & Leeds? Oasis and Pulp in 2000. P

Which is your favourite of the headliners? It’s got to be Eminem for me. Who’s the best band you’ve seen there previously? The only other time I’ve been is when we played in 2015. I managed to catch a few bands that festival. I’d say The Bronx or Bo Ningen were the best ones I saw. P

LENMANIA LENMANIA A NEW SINGLE, A NEW ALBUM, AND A VERY EXCITING EVENT CALLED LENMANIA - IT’S ALL GOING ON FOR JAMIE LENMAN.

E V E RY T H I N G H A P P E N I N G I N RO C K

Hey Jamie, we hear you have lots of news - where did the idea for a festival come from? Yes, lots of news. The festival is more like an all-dayer, I don’t know about in your area but when I was growing up lots of venues used to put on all-dayers, which is pretty much as it sounds – tonnes of bands play all day in one venue, and it’s completely awesome. I much prefer them to festivals cos you don’t have to go outside and they have real toilets. I’ve wanted to put one together for a long time cos I enjoy them so much, and there aren’t many around these days…

How much involvement have you had in the organising? Have you been hands-on? In some cases very hands-on yes, in terms of putting the line-up together. It’s been a joint effort between myself, my managers and my agent, trying to agree on all the acts that should play and then getting hold of them. Some of them I know personally, so it was a more informal thing, some of them I’ve never even seen them play. Is there anyone playing you’re especially looking forward to seeing? Everyone really, as I’ve only picked bands I personally like, but in particular I suppose it would have to be Employed

To Serve, cos I’ve only just discovered them and I missed their set at 2000trees. I’d asked about them, and we heard they might not be available which was a huge bummer but I bumped into them at Trees, and they were so into the idea of the all-dayer we managed to make it work, which I’m fucking thrilled about. It turns out they’re from ‘round where I live, they know all the same depressing clubs and pubs, and they got all my references, so it’s great to see someone you think is brilliant from afar and then make that personal connection. Do you have anything planned for Lenmania beyond bands? Or is it a surprise? We’d recommend a tombola… We’ve only just locked down the bands, so I haven’t yet turned my attention to the other details... a tombola is a good idea though. I could announce the numbers in my set, do the rhymes and everything. No wait, that’s bingo… How did you find the process of creating the album, did it come easily? I accepted a lot more outside influence on this one than I ever had before, in terms of asking my management and my producer what sort of record we should make, playing them my demos and asking them which ones they thought made a good set together, and then throughout the recording allowing my

producer more control than perhaps I was willing to give up previously, so in that sense it was very liberating. The people I made the record with are all close friends, so it was a very comfortable experience. What about the album are you most proud of? I think on this album, unlike any other I’ve made, there’s an element of risk throughout, artistically speaking. On every song there’s something that I’ve never done before, and in some cases it’s gone right against what I would naturally do either in terms of song structure, or how it’s performed, or instrumentation or whatever. On every track there is something new from me. How would you like it to make listeners feel? I’d like it to get their blood up; I’d like it to make them feel like they want to dance to it. I want to make them feel like they need to sing along, and I hope they will. Most importantly, and this is the case for all my records, I’d like it to make them feel like they know me better after they’ve heard it. P Jamie Lenman’s album ‘Devolver’ is out 27th October. Lenmania will take place at The Dome in Tuffnell Park on 11th November.

E V E RY T H I N G H A P P E N I N G I N RO C K

ART-PUNK TWO-PIECE CASSELS HAVE A NEW ALBUM ON THE WAY THAT SEES THEM COMMENT ON EVERYTHING FROM HAVING A SHITTY HOMETOWN, TO DEMENTIA. WORDS: ALI SHUTLER.

arlier this year Cassels’ bundled up everything they’d ever released, added a couple of new tracks, a metaphorical bow, and released it as a pre-album. The trailblazing format of ‘Foreward’ drew a line in the sand. “Everything up to now has been alright,” offer the band. “What we’ve got for you now is going to fucking kill.” And what they have for us is a debut album. ‘Epithet’ takes the sprawling chaos of the before and unifies it under a clearer sense of purpose. “We found our feet,” offers Jim Beck.

As with everything the band do, there was no messing around when it came to recording. “One of the tracks, ‘Where Baseball Was Invented’ is all first take. We played it once through and decided we weren’t going to play it any better, so that’s us. It’s only our debut album,” grins Jim, tongue firmly in check. “We got to a point on the last day where Jim was just coming up with stupid ideas,” adds Loz Beck. “Let’s have a twenty-minute pause and then an acoustic bonus track. Fuck off; we’re not that band. We’re not doing that.” “It’s just having time on your hands,” Jim explains. “This is what bands need to realise. If you give yourself two months, you’re going to come up with

all this nonsense. The album is a bit of a step up hopefully but at the same time; I’ve listened to it so much, it just sounds like a collection of random noises that don’t have any relation to each other.” “We’re not a big banger pop band, and we’re never going to appeal to that, which is something we’ve come to terms with. Hopefully, the album goes well; we think it’s pretty good. The first track ‘Coup’ was written in the lead up to Brexit,” starts Jim. “It’s about youth disenfranchisement with the political system and apathy in general. That’s kinda been bucked by Corbyn, but there are still a lot of young people not really engaged; there’s not much to engage with.

“WHAT “WHAT WE’VE WE’VE GOT GOT FOR FOR YOU YOU NOW NOW IS IS GOING GOING TO TO FUCKING FUCKING KILL” KILL” “I wrote the words for second track ‘Let’ the day after Brexit happened. [‘Coup’ ‘Let’, geddit? - Ed] My girlfriend told me in the morning, and I didn’t get out of bed all day. I found it so deflating. Then I got angry and wrote this tirade of shit about it. That one still stands. We’ve got a track about our hometown; we slag that off for a while. Loz wrote the lyrics to one song and sings it. It’s about him having dyspraxia and not being able to set up his drum kit. “Then there’s the happy song on at the end. It’s called ‘Chewed Up Cheeks’, and it’s self-referencing how people use music to get them through bad times. The idea was taken from ‘Cool Box’, ‘the you in this song is a real person’. At the end of the song the lyrics say, ‘this song is for you, the listener, use it to make yourself feel better’. I purposefully tried to suspend my cynicism for a minute. I’m going to write a track that if you’re feeling a bit down, you can listen to.

“There’s a song about my girlfriend’s nan. Her partner, who she’s been with for twelve years, has dementia and she goes and sees him every single day, and he doesn’t recognise her anymore and hasn’t for years. I thought that was heartbreaking, so I wrote a song about it. You know when something affects you so much, you end up writing a song about it?” That’s Cassels in a nutshell. “There’s one about that, one about divorce. We covered quite a few things. Standard Cassels really.” All the band’s songs are “quite serious”, but that’s where they draw the line. “I can’t be arsed with all the clichés and tropes of being in a band. We tried it for a while,” “I didn’t,” protests Loz. “I used to think, you know when you go and see bands, and they purposefully look very serious and miserable onstage? Oh, maybe that’s what you’ve got to

do to be taken seriously. We’re not miserable fuckers day to day, but we are in our songs. We played a few shows where I tried to get myself really worked up, but playing like that; it was fucking horrible. I was so tense. I realised actually, you enjoy it a lot more if you chill out. “You might think because it’s angry music, you need to be worked up and angry.” But that’s just not the case. “I don’t like all the clichés. It’s not very us. Some bands do it very well, but we’re not one of them. It means we’ll probably never be very successful, but are people not bored of all the same old shit? I like it when someone seems genuine, and they’re not really putting on a front. I like it when you can tell someone’s sincere and honest. That’s what we try and do, just be honest.” P Cassels’ album ‘Epiphet’ is out 6th October.

“WE’VE “WE’VE ALREADY ALREADY WRITTEN WRITTEN AN AN ALBUM’S ALBUM’S WORTH WORTH OF OF MATERIAL” MATERIAL”

Hey Valentino, how’s it going? We just rocked the Main Stage at Download. Who screwed up? Who put us up there? I can’t believe it’s done. It’s one of the first shows since the line up change, and it’s been awesome - I want to do it again. It’s a dream come true.

Yeah, it looked like you were all having the best time. One of our photographers was like, ‘Dude, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you smile so much’. He showed me all the photos, and I’m just up there cheesing because I never thought I could do that. I never thought I’d be on that main stage in front of that many people. It was unbelievable, and nothing can prepare you for that.

E V E RY T H I N G H A P P E N I N G I N RO C K

How’ve the past few months been for the band? We’ve been able to release some new music so people could get a

OF MICE & MEN DRUMMER VALENTINO ARTEAGA DROPS A FEW HINTS ABOUT THE BAND’S UPCOMING ALBUM PLANS. WORDS: ALI SHUTLER.

vibe for what the sound is and what we’re going to be doing moving forward. It’s still going to be Of Mice And Men. It’s still going to be the things you loved sonically, the feeling and the excitement. We were so overjoyed to see an overwhelmingly positive reception to ‘Back To Me’ and ‘Unbreakable’ because we’re just happy to be here. There was a point where we didn’t know if this would continue or if the fans would back us. We used our music to help us through that.

Playing the two new songs back to back today was pretty ballsy. For us, we want to stand behind those. Hey, we’re unbreakable and back to me, this is the sound of the band. But at the same time, we’re not afraid to play old stuff. It’s going to be different, but it was always going to be different. Who better than the four of us to do it, to really rise to the occasion. I don’t

think we could visualise bringing someone new into this. It was never about a replacement; it’s a change. Life happens. The four of us had to step up. Aaron has taken to it like a champion, Alan’s been doing a bunch of backup screaming, and he’ll probably scream on the album. We have to relearn our footing out here, and it really is a trial by fire. At the end of the day, we’re just playing our music together, and that is enough of a familiarity in itself to make us feel at home. We wanted to put out some music, get everyone ready for what they were going to be seeing and I hope everyone was surprised and excited because it just feels good to be playing music again. How much did you question Of Mice And Men going forward? ‘The best-laid plans of mice and men can often go awry’, and we live our band name. Tomorrow isn’t promised for any

of us, and in a lot of ways, Austin’s story is everything Of Mice And Men is about. Life goes on, and things happen but Of Mice And Men are still Of Mice And Men. We really felt like our fans need that. We need to be able to perform those songs because the band has grown to be so much bigger than any of us have ever imagined. We never expected to be on the cover of magazines or the Main Stage of Download. It was never a goal because it would never happen. There’s just no way. We were just going to write music and be who we’re going to be. Of Mice has always written honest music, and always used ourselves as the subject of what we talk about in our songs. The fact our fans can really grasp onto that, and that in turns help them with what they’re going through in their lives, all of our favourite bands did that for us. We’re not celebrities; we’re not rock stars, we’re music lovers. We want people to know; anyone can do this. What’s next? Where do you take it from here? Lots of shows, lots of writing. We’re hugely inspired by bands we’re out with, so there are already songs formulating. There’ll be new music, new tours and everything that you would expect from a band really. New songs have been released, but we just wanted to give people a demonstration of what to expect. We’re still here; music is still being made. The album’s going to come later, we don’t really have a release date yet, but we’ve already written an album’s worth of material, and we’re going to write more on this tour. We’ll see. For us, it’s about making that snapshot in the body of work. Every album is a piece of our history, and it’s what we were feeling and what we were going through at that time. This album is going to be a huge reflection on this time, where we’ve had to use this as a proving ground and show our fans that we’re still here. Inspiration can consistently happen though We don’t want to take things too fast, but not too slow either. We can talk about attention spans forever, but we’re making music, and we’ll hopefully get it out sooner rather than later because that’s always the plan. As soon as we have some new exciting music, that’s when we’ll do it. There are no definite plans, but they’re forming. P

CASE CASE STUDY STUDY FIND OUT WHAT YOUR FAVOURITE BANDS TAKE ON THE ROAD!

THIS MONTH...

MURRAY FROM

THE XCERTS Lemon and Ginger tea bags - I swear by these teabags in order to keep my voice in good shape. I’ve tried many different ways to maintain my voice but Twinnings take the gold. Frisbee - We very selfishly got these frisbees made a couple of years ago, purely because we thought it would be the coolest thing to have signature XCERTS frisbees and we now play regularly on tour. It gets us outside, it gets our hearts pumping, it’s a tremendous group activity and it’s not competitive which is healthy for all of us. Bose Soundlink Speaker - It’s crucial we maintain a good vibe backstage before we play and recently we’ve been blasting our 80’s mega mix through this little thing and the sound quality is fantastic. This speaker not only gets us pumped, it allows to work on our dance moves which we take very seriously in camp XCERTS.

Lighter - I feel like this is just a good life hack. Even if you don’t smoke, chances are very high you will come into contact with someone who needs a lighter. Who knows, it may very well be the love of your life.

Books - Whilst on tour there is an awful lot of downtime and what better way to pass the time than to read a good book? If we’re not playing frisbee or dancing, you’ll find us reading. The last book i read was Trouble Boys, the story of The Replacements. It’s so good and I urge everyone to read it whether you are a fan or not. The Xcerts tour the UK from 29th September. 13

“WE “WE WANTED WANTED THE THE EP EP TO TO BE BE A A NEW NEW ERA” ERA”

WITH A NEW EP OUT, AND A BIG SECRET TOUR ON THE WAY, MILK TEETH ARE COMING INTO THEIR OWN.

M E V E RY T H I N G H A P P E N I N G I N RO C K

ilk Teeth have released a greatest hits. It’s their ‘Be Nice’ EP. Everything the band have ever done is condensed, streamlined, polished, amplified, expanded and celebrated across those four tracks. It’s a bold answer to the broad question, ‘Well, what sort of music do Milk Teeth make?’

“We didn’t just want to do an EP that was four straight tracks. It’s never been us,” starts Becky. “That’s why the previous record was so varied; we’re not just one style. We have so many different influences; there’s not room to channel that into one avenue or one song. We need to have the freedom to have a bit of everything, some people get that, and some people don’t. It’s nice for us to experiment and see what we come up with.” The band have grown from shades of grunge, through the orange fire of ‘Vile Child’ and out the other side embracing something a whole lot more colourful. Watching them onstage, there’s a rainbow of emotions. On record, the same vibrant confetti rains down. “With

WORDS: ALI SHUTLER.

the new EP, we purposefully chose a super bright cover. We wanted it to be a new era because everything’s kinda been done. We’ve never wanted to be the same as everyone else. We wanted to come back, super colourful and super bright. We have our moments where we have our serious, and that’s super important to me, but we are a fun band.” Between releasing ‘Be Nice’, a headline tour, festival appearances, readying the second EP that’s coming later this year, and planning for album number two, Becky is keeping busy. “It’s tricky,” she offers. “My life often feels like a balancing act. I’m in a long distance relationship; I have the band, I have a social life, I work three different places, money is always bollocks and all that. I like the busyness of it all. Before I was practising because I felt like I had to, or writing felt slightly more forced. Now I actually want to sit down and spend a whole day writing music, which is why I think I’ve written a lot of songs recently. I got the excitement back.” And there’s plenty to fuel that excitement. “We have a tour booked, but I can’t tell you any more than that,” she teases. “It’s very big, and it’s very

exciting. It’ll be the biggest shows we’ve ever played, and that’s all I’ll say. We’ll be doing nervous poos before every show. It’s terrifying but exciting.” Alongside the big secret tour (which isn’t that catchy a name), the band have more new music to release. “We’ve just had the mixes come through this week for the second EP. It’s finally getting to a point where we’re all happy. I’m excited for people to hear it. ‘Be Nice’ was very focused on specific stuff that had happened, this one is more situations and tongue in cheek. It’s slightly more punk and more carefree. “It’s a continuation of ‘Be Nice’. It’s what we’ve done previously but at a better level. We’ve honed in on what we do and what our strengths are. It’s not like we did it intentionally when I write, I just write, and I don’t think about everyone else until afterwards. Weirdly we took more time with these eight tracks than we did with the whole of ‘Vile Child’. There was a lot more thought and care. Is this the best it could be?” It’s hard to imagine Milk Teeth any better. P Milk Teeth’s EP ‘Be Nice’ is out now.

THE NEW ALBUM

IN STORES 18 AUGUST FEATURING JUNE AND GUARDIAN CD • COLOURED VINYL • DIGITAL TIGERS JAW UK TOUR 18 AUG SOUTHAMPTON JOINERS 19 AUG BRIGHTON THE HAUNT 20 AUG LONDON GARAGE 22 AUG GLASGOW STEREO 23 AUG MANCHESTER DEAF INSTITUTE 24 AUG CARDIFF THE GLOBE 25 AUG READING FESTIVAL 26 AUG LEEDS FESTIVAL

IN IN THE THE STUDIO STUDIO

E V E RY T H I N G H A P P E N I N G I N RO C K

TONIGHT TONIGHT ALIVE ALIVE

TONIGHT ALIVE ARE EMBRACING THEIR WEIRD.

t feels like the past nine years have just finished,” starts Jenna McDougall, leaning back at Slam Dunk. “And now we start the next cycle. In numerology, a cycle is nine years long, and this band is about to turn nine in two days. It feels like a lot is behind us now and it just felt right to move forward. The older we get, the faster the spinning top gets.” Between now and then, Tonight Alive have been in Thailand recording

WORDS: ALI SHUTLER. PHOTO: JORDAN KNIGHT.

their new album. The songs were written first out the back of Jenna’s house, and then in Whakio’s place in Nashville. “It’s a real family of songs. We experimented and said, whatever happens, happens.” Since signing to Hopeless Records and UNFD, “We have a team around us now that supports that. Our label said, ‘Go and make the record you want to make’. We had to figure out what that was for a second, take a few rules out of the way and change how we had been doing things but it’s been really fun,” grins Jenna. “We got 20-something songs, and it’s

going to be hard choosing which ones go on the record and which ones don’t,” continues Whakio. “Our mantra is we just want to enjoy this one. We know what we need to do. We know how to do it. We just want to love it, and I think the album’s going to feel like that. It’s taking the best things we’ve learned from ‘The Other Side and ‘Limitless’ and making it into one mega thing. It’s going to feel like a mix of the two albums but with a cool twist.” The band have already given us a glimpse into the new cycle with ‘A World Away’. “People had a real

“I’M READY TO GO AND DO SOMETHING HEAVIER” ‘Limitless’ was a very polished, musical record and I love it for that, but it’s fun to return to the child. It’s just been cool going back to what naturally drew us to music in the first place.” ‘Limitless’ was a record about new perspectives in every possible way. “I wanted something more,” starts Whakio. “I wanted to delve and do something different, and that’s what happened with that record, but now I’m ready to come back and be a child again. I’m ready to go and do something heavier but with the message intact.”

emotional reaction to that song,” starts Jenna. “And I love the message behind that song. The future isn’t so far away; the future is a second away. It doesn’t have to be so unattainable. You are the creator; you are the designer. It’s about taking that power back, even if it’s from a past version of yourself. A lot of our fans are all on that path of evolving, self-development, self-improvement and healing the past. That’s very much what the record is going to be inspired by but with a different sound to ‘Limitless’. It’ll be wrapped in a different package.” Different, you say? “It’s heavier,” beams Whakio, as Jenna adds: “It’s chaotic, it’s erratic. It’s rock.

As much as Tonight Alive are heading forwards, there are elements of this new record that act as a bridge between ‘Limitless’ and ‘The Other Side’. Sonically, sure but Jenna has also “revisited things that I wasn’t ready to deal with three years ago. It’s about healing past pain. Looking back between those albums, there’s this big jump in lyrical style and content. [With ‘Limitless’], it was about being drawn to the light. I just wanted to keep evolving and learning about myself and learning about conscience lifestyle, awareness, becoming vegan, spirituality and all that drew me in. I’m very much still on that path, but a lot of that work needs to be the hard stuff. It’s not all exciting, beautiful, light, airy-fairy things. It’s a deep, dark rooted things that you don’t want to know about yourself. Once you get to a certain place, you realise you’re not healed from certain events in your life. I’ve voluntarily gone back to that place and, now that I see the worth in healing the past, I stayed there for a little while. I went to a place that wasn’t enjoyable, but I worked through a lot of crap. That’s really inspired this record.” “I never want us to become preachy, so it was about finding our story. ‘We’ve gone through this, and this is what we’ve learnt’. We do have such a strong message, but we never want it to come

off as ‘if you’re not living the way we’re living, then it’s wrong’,” reasons Whakio. Instead, “hopefully our story can help you. I always want to make everything universal. I want Tonight Alive to be different for everyone, and I want that to be in our lyrics as well. It was about delving deep into the darkest corners of us and being ok with that. Accepting our past failures or insecurities and not being scared of them. It feels fucking awesome to break through that. It’s about finding that balance. Now we’re okay with the dark and the light. ‘Limitless’ was us putting our toe into that, and through playing it, we really realised everything. That’s where we are right now. It feels like what we’re doing is our purpose and why we’re here. It’s just about accepting us and knowing that we’re changing all the fucking time. We want everything we do to have such a connection, and for everything we do to be special and to mean something.” More than ever before ‘Limitless’ had a fully realised vision. This time, “I just want to freestyle it,” says Jenna. “I don’t want to control it too much. I do think it’s important to have a vision and it’s still coming together, but we’ll probably go a little bit left of centre and try and do something we haven’t done before. I’m starting to realise how temporary everything is. What if we only make a few more records? We don’t know what’s going to happen, so I just want to do the weirdest, freakiest stuff that feels natural to us. It’s a world of opportunity. It’s a world of possibility. I’m trying to live in the yes. Just learn how to accept things a little more and remind myself that this is all for enjoyment and fulfilment. There shouldn’t be so much pressure for anything else. Nothing matters except for expressing ourselves, enjoying ourselves, and influencing people in a positive way. I’m trying to keep everything clear, cut the bullshit and enjoy my life. That’s my path.” P 17

PLAYLIST THERE’S A WHOLE UNIVERSE OF MUSIC OUT THERE TO LISTEN TO. HERE ARE TEN TRACKS YOU SHOULD BE LISTENING TO THIS MONTH.

ENTER SHIKARI LIVE OUTSIDE

Think you know Enter Shikari? ‘Live Outside’ might just be their catchiest, most danceable tune yet. Nice one. From new album ‘The Spark’, out 22nd September.

YONAKA

BUBBLEGUM

New single ‘Bubblegum’ was aired during a recent Maida Vale session, and is expected to land in September. From nowt, yet. They told Upset the other month that they have loads of new stuff on the way, though.

MALLORY KNOX SUGAR

A new ‘un ahead of their sets at Reading & Leeds, ‘Sugar’ is a one-off about feeling a bit lonely. Not having a good summer, you lot? From nowt, yet.

THE WORLD IS A BEAUTIFUL PLACE E V E RY T H I N G H A P P E N I N G I N RO C K

DILLON AND HER SON

A song about life: “It’s fun, but dangerous, and sometimes you have to stomp on some snakes,” says David Bello. From new album ‘Always Foreign’, out 29th September.

SEAWAY

SOMETHING WONDERFUL

Sunny, hook-filled pop punk perfect for summer. Not on-board with bourbon in yr coffee though guys, that sounds terrible. From new album ‘Vacation’, out 15th September.

CASSELS COUP / LET

Two parter ‘Coup’ and ‘Let’ are respectively about youth disenfranchisement and a “tirade of shit” about Brexit. Now you know. From new album ‘Epiphet’, out 6th October. LIS TE N

BULLY

TO T

FEEL THE SAME

HIS

Bully are back. Clocking in at just two minutes-ish, ‘Feel The Same’ is as immediate and vital as you’d expect. Wahey. From new album ‘Losing’, out 20th October.

METZ

DRAINED LAKE

A scuzzy slice of brilliance about “the constant struggle to know yourself”, you’d not expect anything less from Metz. We know, guys. From new album ‘Strange Peace’, out 22nd September.

DZ DEATHRAYS

SHRED FOR SUMMER

“For a long time I’ve wanted to write a song that is just about my love of playing guitar,” says Shane Parsons. We can’t be the only ones to hear ‘Foxy Lady’, right? From nowt, yet.

SLEEPING WITH SIRENS EMPIRE TO ASHES

The second track lifted from the band’s new record, it follows on from lead single ‘Legends’ and is about not giving up. From new album ‘Gossip’, out 22nd September.

NEW ALBUM

BULLS AND ROOSTERS OUT 25TH AUGUST

ABOUT TO

BREAK THE BEST NEW BANDS TH E H OT TEST NEW MUSIC

INHEAVEN

INHEAVEN ARE ONE OF THE MOST EXCITING UP-AND-COMING BRITISH BANDS AROUND. WITH FANS IN ALL THE RIGHT PLACES, AND A DEBUT ALBUM FULL OF 5* BANGERS, THEY’VE FINALLY ARRIVED. WORDS: JASLEEN DHINDSA.

rom creating their artwork, merch and music videos themselves, to becoming a favourite of The Strokes’ frontman Julian Casablancas, INHEAVEN are one Britain’s coolest bands. It all started when the brains behind the group, guitarist James Taylor and bassist Chloe Little met at a music venue in London. “Me and Chloe have been in different bands before, and we never really got anywhere,” starts James. “We met The Lexington, and realised we had all the same influences, like all the same movies, and we started making music together. It was the only thing we’d ever done that worked instantly, and the moment we put out what we had been doing, we got all these things

that we’ve always dreamed of.” “We made this website,” he continues, “and every week we were putting out self-produced music and video pieces. We’d post one once a week and then email all these blogs about it, and then we started to get picked up, and it was spiralling. We took everything down. It wasn’t until about a month later that Rory Attwell [who mixed the band’s demos] emailed me to say ‘Check this out’, and I scrolled down and I saw [Julian Casablancas’] Cult Records logo, and it said, ‘Who are this band? We really want to put out their first single in America’.” It’s no wonder The Strokes’ frontman wanted to work with them, their amalgamation of grunge, punk and Britpop is a revitalising ode to the eras when rock was at its best. “When I started writing the first few tunes, [those genres were] the style they

came out in. Me and Chloe were just huge fans of Creation Records [now defunct indie label home to the likes of Oasis, Slowdive and My Bloody Valentine] and Sub Pop [the label that popularised grunge], and that kind of scene. It came out naturally. I guess it’s a homage to our growing up and listening to angry guitar music, and we just wanted to recreate that. That was the music that struck us the most, and then as soon we came out, these other guitar bands in England came out at the same time. It seemed like a lot of people had the same feeling and vision.” “We just did it,” he says of their early success. “We did all of those things we were scared of, and people liked it. I guess it’s a validation and it by no means shapes what we do and the music we play. I can’t really ask for more; we seem to be ticking off all these things from our bucket lists day

by day. The Julian Casablancas thing… if someone told me that when I was 14 and obsessed with The Strokes, I would have just told them to fuck off,” he laughs. “That was a huge moment, and he was such a hero for me growing up.” INHEAVEN’s self-titled debut record is gargantuan and will let nothing stop its path. It’s an empowering record, and political themes that pop-up throughout. Take their music video for ‘Vultures’, featuring defaced images of Trump and the band snarling in front of the United States’ flag. “In this day and age, we are flooded [with news] from all around the world. You only have to look on Twitter to see the first trending topic, and usually, it’s to do with Donald Trump. A lot of the songs were written before he came into power. We were inspired by the late 60s rock’n’roll era of The Rolling Stones and The Animals, and all these bands speaking up about what was going on in their own countries. I guess it harks back to the flower power era, but we wanted to create our own sense of political awareness, and since we’ve been a band I think young people have become more politically aware, which is cool. I think if we can encourage that,

that’s what we want to do.” Even regarding how the band went about the recording their debut album, nostalgia lingered. “We had a very clear idea of how we wanted [the record] to be and how we wanted it to sound. [Early single] ‘Regeneration’ was one of our demos, it was more like getting in somewhere and recording all those parts to a much better audible standard. I guess we went from a lo-fi band to more of a hi-fi serious band. It was amazing to hear those songs at their full capacity. We worked with Tom Dalgety, and we really liked him as a person and the records he had done, like the Pixies. We just went for it. We did it Rockfield Studios, which has a lot of history of bands going mad there: Black Sabbath recorded there, ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ was recorded there, and it’s got this old school studio vibe. There’s nothing modern or new about it; it’s a real classic place.” Their style and DIY ethos also echo of the past, styling themselves in vintage clothes, photos painted with grainy filters telling of the 60s. Their aesthetics lie with punk too, in their handmade

merch that includes zines. “We’re just really hard to please,” James says of the band’s do-it-yourself nature. “When people did stuff for us, we never liked it, so it’s either my brother or Chloe’s sister or ourselves that take the photos. I design the artwork and Chloe does the fanzines, we both think about video ideas together, and Chloe will go off on one and make them. We just felt the only person who can do what you want is yourself at the end of the day. If you look back on bands, often a lot of them who created their own worlds are the bands that make more sense, whereas you can instantly tell if a band has been marketed by an A&R team at a major label, ‘cause it all looks the same. Also from all the bands we love, Smashing Pumpkins, Nirvana, they all had really strong aesthetics, and we wanted to recreate that. “We do everything ourselves. People think that’s bullshit, but we really do. Every part of our band is created by us, and we hope people can see that from the outside.” P INHEAVEN’s self-titled debut album is out 1st September. 21

“W

e’re just going with the flow of everything,” grins David Kelling. Since the release of debut album ‘Peach’, it’s been one hell of a trip for Culture Abuse. “It’s funny ‘cos it keeps going. It keeps coming, we keep getting offered cool stuff, and we keep going with what feels fun.” Culture Abuse formed in the constant churn of California’s music scene, friends of friends coming together to make music for themselves just to pass the time. “It was the band that brought us all together as actual friends. I always just tried to play music with people but it never felt right all the way, there was always something. When we started doing Culture Abuse, from the first practice, it felt like what we should be doing. It was easy.” Inspired by a whole lot of discomfort “Friends passing away, California going through the worst drought ever, going through an election and just life being overwhelming” - ‘Peach’ is a collision of different thoughts, feelings, emotions and influences. At its core is a band trying to make sense of it all.

“The record is just song by song; it’s about things that were going about that day or where we were living, we weren’t trying to think of this grand concept, it was, let’s just actually write some songs about what we were feeling and seeing and going through. It’s reflective of our outside world.” Since it dropped last year, ‘Peach’ has been a record that’s been passed around. Word of mouth, constant touring and heartfelt excitement, Culture Abuse are on the rise. “We were just doing it for ourselves, just writing. We went into it with a different feeling. It felt free and right. It’s still just going with the flow of everything.” That said, “I still feel like there are a million more people that need to hear it.” That isn’t going to stop them creating their own waves though. In between festival appearances in Europe, the band have started work on their next record. “When we write songs, if it comes, it just happens, it’s there. You don’t have to overthink it or force a square into a fucking round hole, that’s how it is. If it’s easy and it’s good, and we feel good, then we do it.” The first taste of post-‘Peach’ life is their first single for Epitaph. It captures

everything the band have been, and everything they are in a breezy blast of sunshine and lost evenings. As with everything in ‘Culture Abuse’, releasing ‘So Busted’ just felt right. “It’s a love song that acknowledges that shit is fucked up. Shit gets fucked up, but what the fuck else is there? What else are you going to do? I hope people blast it, laugh some shit off and keep going.” Culture Abuse have worked hard to get to where they are, “but it’s not a sad thing. No one’s bummed about it. We’re just doing it ‘cos that’s what we’re supposed to do.” They live on the road or in practice spaces because for them; there’s no other way. “What, we’re supposed to be sitting at home trying to do this? You do get crazy, but you also have to do what you love while it’s in front of us. We’re out; we’re going to keep doing it, keep going and believe that everything is going to go great. It feels great at times, but who the fuck knows what people are going to think tomorrow? That’s the cool thing about music though. It’s always there. It’s like the power of text and print; it’s like we’re leaving our mark, you know?” P Culture Abuse’s debut album ‘Peach’ is out now. They tour the UK from 20th August.

CULTURE CULTURE ABUSE ABUSE SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA GARAGE PUNKS CULTURE ABUSE ARE OVER THIS SUMMER FOR A LOAD OF LIVE SHOWS WITH TIGERS JAW, AND READING & LEEDS. MAKE SURE YOU CATCH THEM. WORDS: ALI SHUTLER.

ABOUT TO

BREAK

FRESH FRESH LONDON TRIO FRESH OFFER UP A NEW TAKE ON POP PUNK.

here’s a lot going on with Fresh’s self-titled debut. It’s an album about growing up, trying to find your voice, ignoring others and staying vulnerable. It’s angry, hopeless, determined and unmovable. It’s emotional and defiant. “It’s an album about being excited about music,” starts Kathryn Woods. She’d know better than most. The stories on ‘Fresh’ are hers. She started writing songs when she was 14, but it wasn’t until 17 that she wrote anything she liked. There have been a couple of EPs released between then and now, ‘These Things Are Not That Fun’ and ‘Gewingchum’, but it’s on ‘Fresh’ that those tales really come to life. “There was always the idea that you visualise the album, the artwork and you write towards that,” explains Kathryn. “It makes it more unified. This album is the first time I’ve taken songs to the band.” (George Philips and Dan Goldberg, who joined in early 2016 following a tour together and the fact “it just felt right.”) “And they’ve been completely changed up.” At first letting other people in was hard, “but I always love the songs more afterwards. They feel less mine, so it’s like I’m allowed to love them more, ‘cos

WORDS: ALI SHUTLER.

I’m not just loving my own songs.” “Teenage girls and young women are laughed at for doing anything. Anything they like or attempt to do, they’re laughed at, or it’s seen as cringy or embarrassing, so I find it hard not to be embarrassed by the art I make,” she continues. “When I write songs, I try really hard to suspend that self-consciousness.” The openness on the record is bold and fearless. “It’s confidence in yourself, and I don’t think I have all of that yet. I can never write a song when I’m feeling down. A lot of people write songs when they’re depressed, but I ‘ve never understood that. When I’m depressed, I don’t want to get out of bed let alone pick up a guitar and write a song. But a lot of my songs are about being depressed. It’s a retroactive look. I can only write a song when I’m feeling confident or happy, and usually that’s when my emotions are at their highest. With this record, you’re getting a glimpse of me at my most emotional. It would be exhausting if I were that emotional all the time.” Across ‘Fresh’, there’s a constant vulnerability. There’s this celebrated idea of strength through emotion. “The songs only work because you can tell I’m vulnerable. Vulnerability is great, but you need to be confident enough to display

it. It’s a balance of two,” she reasons. “I’m 20, but I feel like when I’m 25, I’ll be more confident. Some of these songs I wrote when I was 17, and I don’t think any 17-year-old is completely good in their own skin.” There’s power to be found in finding that voice. “I always thought it would be impossible to be in a band. I thought people in bands were from another universe, and they all sat around on gold thrones, but they’re the same. All you have to do is make some friends, pick up some instruments and write some songs. Anyone can do it. There’s not a huge gap between where you are and where you want to be. Once you realise how little there is holding you back, it’s so easy to go out there and do it. Your self-doubt and lack of self-confidence are the biggest barriers. I never thought I would get this far. I always thought if I were in a band on tour and releasing records, I’d never be depressed. I would never be anxious again. But that’s not how it works. I always just want to feel better. And when I do feel better, I’m scared I’ll feel bad again. But I just want whatever is going on right now to continue. I want to keep playing shows that are good and meeting lots of good people.” P Fresh’s self-titled debut album is out 18th August. 23

ABOUT TO

BREAK

WALLFLOWER WALLFLOWER THEY MIGHT HAVE STARTED OFF AS A BUNCH OF MISFITS, BUT ESTRONS HAVE QUICKLY FOUND A PLACE THEY BELONG. WELCOME TO THE CLUB. WORDS: ALI SHUTLER.

allflower are making up for lost time. They’ve been a band for a couple of years, but in the first half of their story, not much happened. They did little bits here and there, but it was sporadic. A lineup change last year brought Charlie Pollard into the fold and “since then, we decided to focus a lot more time and effort into this band. We’ve just been touring as much as we can,” starts Vini MoreiraYeoell backstage at 2000trees. “We did little things but nothing like this. The Boston Manor tour we did last year, that’s when Wallflower became a thing.” Once they started moving,

there was no stopping them. This year has already seen them play Download, tour with The Maine, Knuckle Puck, Decade and Milk Teeth and given them countless reasons to be excited. “Download was crazy,” explains Vinnie. “I’m pretty sure for most of us it was the first festival we ever went to when we were kids. I know it’s a cliché thing to say, but it was so overwhelming to be able to do that. That was a completely new experience for us.” “We went and had lunch after we played,” continues Sam. “We were sat in catering, and Chris Jericho was sat two tables over from us, ‘cos Fozzy were playing. That was wild; I never thought I’d be able to say that, it was

surreal.” And those wide-eyed stories have only just begun. The band are primed to release their ‘Where It Fell Apart’ EP, four-tracks of emotional catharsis, pretty melodies, rugged honesty and a soaring want for something more. “When we started this band, we had an idea about where we wanted to go eventually,” offers Vinnie. “It got to the point where we said maybe we should stop sorta putting it in the future and just go for it now. Stop trying to pigeonhole ourselves and try something new now. We started bringing in electronics and these different things. We’ve gone a lot heavier on the record, but there are

some much lighter bits as well. We’ve just taken what we’ve been doing in the past and tried to expand on it as much as we can.” “We just exaggerated every element of it,” adds Sam. “When we started, we wanted to have three guitars because a lot of bands we really liked had that big guitar sound. We did that on the first EP, but we got, not bored, but having it all come at you at once, after a while it gets a bit stale. We wanted to explore what we could do with dynamics and textures. We wanted just to try and be a bit different with guitar music. I wouldn’t be as bold to say that it’s a concept record, but there’s a theme it carries. It’s called ‘Where It Fell Apart’, it’s got some structure to the way it pans out, and we tried to reflect that with the artwork. We just wanted to make it a complete piece as much as we could.”

‘Where It Fell Apart’ is a solid block of a record. Fifteen minutes of doom-soaked struggle, transfixing adventure and tumbling rabbit holes. Across just four tracks, Wallflower tell a story of dissolve. It starts with “We’re so in touch with how out of touch we are with ourselves,” before grabbing you by the throat and leading you head first into a torrent of heartbreak, destruction and resolve. There’s always something happening, but the record still finds space to breathe. “With the first EP, we never played it live until it was out but these songs, we’ve been playing them for months. We got to know what was and wasn’t working, and where we could fit certain things in. Sometimes you realise something isn’t needed. Sometimes less is more. That’s definitely the approach we’ve taken to for this EP.” As for where they take it next, there are

more stories to be made on the road. “We want to be doing this for as long as we can milk it for. It’s one of those things where we’re just really grateful for people to have us on whatever is thrown at us.” They’d love to do a full-length record at some point, but there’s “no promises as of yet. We’re still working that out. Whenever we write something new, we never know where it’s going to go until we’re in a room and we start playing it. ‘Oh, I guess this is how it’s going to sound’. We’re going to figure out where we’re going with things in terms of music and the next direction. If you carry on doing the same thing, over and over, it can get boring. You want to try new things. You want to explore new places with where you go. It’s going to be as much as a surprise for us as it is for other people.” P Wallflower’s EP ‘Where It Fell Apart’ is out 18th August. 25

SENT PVRIS’ BRILLIANT DEBUT ALBUM

M A D E T H E M S U P E R S TA R S I N A

WORLD OF THEIR OWN DESIG N.

N OW T H EY ’ RE ST RI PPI N G I T BAC K

AND EXPOSING THE BONES

U N D E R N E AT H .

WORDS: ALI SHUTLER.

P H OTO S : M A X FA I R C L O U G H . 27

couple of years ago some friends made a weird little record. Wide-eyed, driven by a newfound belief in themselves and the want to create something they believed in, ‘White Noise’ was the start of the fairytale. Otherworldly, ignoring the rules and with an eye on dark escape, it took PVRIS around the world. Several times. Created with zero expectations it quickly morphed into something else. Lights shining, platforms raised and with their art embraced at every turn, it was a whirlwind that focused on the happy ever after. “We couldn’t have written a more ideal story,” offers guitarist Alex Babinski. “We got to tour with our favourite bands; we got to travel the world.” “We weren’t expecting anything from it. That’s not to say we weren’t happy with what we did but when us three just went into a room in Florida, we weren’t expecting to meet the people we met or see the places we’ve seen with that record,” continues bassist Brian MacDonald. “It’s still mindblowing. When we’re in it, we’re going day by day. We’re living in that moment and not taking a step outside of it and viewing it for what it is. Once we had time off, we got to decompress and look back on all the places we travelled, all the people we met, and wrap our heads around it. It truly was a fairytale; it was just an amazing experience we had.” And now they’re back with another fully realised block of art. ‘All We Know Of Heaven, All We Need Of Hell’ is fuelled by the same three friends. There’s still a belief in their abilities, a want to create something beautiful, and there are no expectations or pandering to their audience. It’s a different sort of PVRIS album, though. Darker and more exposed, it’s replaced the supernatural stories with something more intimate. It’s wrapped them into a turbulent new world. Existing somewhere between good and evil, right and wrong, it sees the band try and make sense of a universe that’s much more complex. Since the comeback of ‘Heaven’ introduced new shades of red to their world, PVRIS have continued to explore, change and grow. “It’s been crazy, but a good crazy,” smiles singer

Lynn Gunn. “I’m feeling stressed, just because we’re in the middle of tour dates and one-offs and festivals at the moment, between filming more videos and everything else that comes with the release. It’s all good work though; it’s all for the greater picture,” she promises. ‘White Noise’ was written when PVRIS were gazing out of windows at the endless horizon. Now they’ve seen what’s out there. It’s part of them. Instead of the daydreaming possible, ‘All We Know Of Heaven, All We Need Of Hell’ deals in reality’s touch. “We had great hopes when we made ‘White Noise’, but we had zero expectations,” offers Lynn. The thing about not expecting things is that there’s no time to prepare for what’s to come. No one who worked on ‘White Noise’ had a clue what to expect. “They had no idea what was about to come from it. It was honestly really confusing and just so overwhelming, it didn’t allow any of us to process what was going on until afterwards, and it was finished, and we had time off to fully process everything. I got pretty lost, especially towards the end of the record cycle, just in dealing with my own stuff.” That journey from being sure of yourself, to having the carpet ripped out from underneath as you’re swept up in a whirlwind of new demands and sudden exposure can be felt across PVRIS’ second album. There’s a pause, a sudden realisation of how did I end up here? Lynn’s found her answer. “I mean, I know how I ended up here. Over the past few years, all the chaos, stress and pressure of being in this band and the record doing so well and having to perform it for three years, I dug myself into a ditch. I became self-critical and put so pressure on myself. I became so attentive to the little details that anytime the little details were skewed or thrown off; it would throw me into a little black hole. I just really, really

became my own worst enemy over the past few years. I’m trying to work on that now and eliminate it.” But that doesn’t mean ‘All We Know Of Heaven’ is full of resolution and journey’s end. All that self-discovery, it’s still going on. “It’s interesting, as soon as we released ‘What’s Wrong’, I felt very, very vulnerable and very exposed and I got scared. I genuinely didn’t know what to feel, it was just this overwhelming feeling of being pulled in so many different emotions but none of them felt relieved or, ‘Okay, we can move forward now’. It felt really scary to put ‘What’s Wrong’ out. I didn’t think this was going to happen but a lot of the subjects on the record are still close to home. There are things I’m still dealing with and things I’m not ready to share or discuss yet. It’s going to be interesting when the whole record is out,” she offers. “The fact I felt really scared, vulnerable and exposed is good. When you do anything that scares you, that’s good for you. If you’re doing something that doesn’t scare you, you shouldn’t be doing it.” It’s easy to paint PVRIS as a gloomy band, all serious work, monochrome business and no play, but they wouldn’t hustle as hard or endure everything they have done if they didn’t enjoy it. “It’s all for enjoyment,” starts Brian. “We’re doing this with our best friends and we’re grateful enough to create music and put it out to the world with our best friends. It’s a fun experience. For Alex, Lyndsey and I, we take the image of the band very seriously, but we do love joking around with each other and being funny here and there. It’s a fun and amazing experience and we’re super grateful for it.” The three of ‘em are joined for life. Constantly impressed by one another and quick to make jokes, they’re musketeers and mates. “We all experienced tour differently,” reasons Lynn. “We all handle ourselves

“ I F YO U ’ R E D O I N G S O M E T H I N G T H AT D O E S N ’ T S C A R E Y O U , Y O U SHOULDN’T BE DOING IT” 29

differently, but it bonded us. Our humour and not taking everything too seriously gets us through everything that’s put in front of us.” Despite everything, PVRIS have never stopped working towards the new. The touring for their debut was a gruelling three-year trip. The break before heading into the studio for the follow-up was two weeks. “Times were ticking and that’s when we had planned to be there,” offers Lynn. “When ‘White Noise’ was still rolling, it was moving so rapidly that we wanted to keep that momentum going. We had to go straight into the studio to keep it going and have a release that was moving with that momentum. I was a little opposed to that because I don’t think anything we do should be rushed, especially in the creative process. There was a little debate in my mind at the time but it all worked out the way it was meant to and it was perfect.” “The studio was amazing,” continues Brian. “When we did the first record we didn’t have the same resources we did when we made the second record. When we first stepped into the studio in this church in New York, I remember seeing all these amps and looking over at Alex who was pointing at them saying, ‘I can’t wait to use this one, this one, this one. It was like a kid in a candy shop.” Teamed up once again with producer Blake Harnage, the band returned to someone they trusted as changed people. “The recording process was amazing. Blake was a breath of fresh air when we’re recording. He lets you step out of the box; he’s there to guide you through your musical talents, what you can achieve with a song, what you want to hear in a song and what you want to see with a song. He opens up the door for you. A lot of the time people feel like they’re boxed in and they have to record a certain way, but with him, he’s all smiles and let’s try this, let’s try that.” It’s easy to imagine PVRIS as a meticulous band. Yes, everything about their art is deliberate but there’s spontaneity to their music. The growth, the twists and the exploration on ‘All We Know Of Heaven’ weren’t meticulously planned, “It just happens,” Brian explains. “We don’t go into it overthinking or analysing it too much because that throws a wrench into the whole process of recording. We just went in and did it. It was just organic.

It happened the way it happened. It just panned out. There wasn’t any formula to it. It was just natural.” Take ‘Walk Alone’. It’s the most sonically outlandish song on the record. “I had that instrumental for such a long time and was just waiting to get to the studio to see how it would shape up,” says Lynn. “I didn’t have any vocal ideas for it so when it came to it, I took the vocals and melody of another demo that we didn’t end up using, and put it over this. It fit perfectly. This one was a funny Frankenstein one in a way. Little bits and pieces of everything thrown in, which I think gives it a left of centre feel.” “There’s no path we tried to take,” adds Alex. With new ideas and new toys on the table, there was a much wider world available this time around. Even with all the new directions it never went too far. “We got to showcase all our musical backgrounds. We got to play around with a lot of stuff. We did a lot of stuff I’ve never done before. Let’s just do it and if we like it, we like it and if we don’t, we’ll get rid of it later. It’s hard to get weird with us,” he reasons before Brian interrupts: “Because we’re already so weird. Experimenting is amazing. Listening to the full record and hearing it all, hearing how we laid out all three of our experiences through touring and living on the road in these ten songs, I’m so proud. It’s better than the record I thought we’d make.” ‘White Noise’ is a confident record, sure of its own voice and more than happy to deal in other people. ‘All We Know Of Heaven’ is much more insular. There’s discomfort, there’s intimacy and at times, it feels like there are parts of the band’s soul on the record. Created with the same intentions as ‘White Noise’, “there was no part of the record that was about trying to cater to any specific person or any specific situation. I was just trying to cope with very personal things and put them into some kind of song, and then some kind of collection of songs. Whatever people want to connect with is what they’ll connect to.” And despite the sparks of the songs coming from the deeply personal and bizarre trappings of life on the road, sudden superstardom and having your whole life exposed with little warning, ‘All We Know Of Heaven’ remains human.

“What I’ve gone through isn’t alien,” starts Lynn. “At the core of every emotion and every experience I’ve had, are the most basic and raw human emotions you can experience: sadness, fear, loneliness, anger. No matter what the circumstance or how my personal feelings came about, the core emotions are the most important thing and that’s what people will connect with the most. That’s what I tried to pull out of those experiences. The circumstances of everyone suffering are always going to be different and subjective but at the core of it are those very, very basic emotions that everybody feels.” This record celebrates those; it celebrates “being vulnerable and honouring your emotions.” PVRIS have been working on ‘All We Know Of Heaven’ since the release of ‘White Noise’ pretty much, writing on the back of buses, in dark backstage rooms at venues and in tattered notebooks around the world. It is a record that spans years. “We had 40 ideas total, a folder of some super short snippets, some full-length demos to choose from. We scrapped so many; we started so many new ones, it was a very freeing process of selecting the songs. It was really about following whatever felt right in the moment.” The thing about fairy tales is that they thrive on the make believe. Rose-tinted and glitter embellished, storytelling is easier when you can write about anything. PVRIS have never been about easier, though. The stories on ‘All We Know Of Heaven’ are Lynn’s. “It’s all me. That was the biggest thing with this record, stripping away metaphors and stripping away imagery to hide behind. It was coming forth with my feelings and putting them out there. Just being a lot more vulnerable. “With ‘White Noise’, we followed the paranormal, ghost theme throughout the record. With this record, there wasn’t any theme. It was just write whatever comes to you, write whatever feels good when you’re saying it. Write whatever scares you a little bit when you’re singing it. That was the internal compass I was following this time around, just vulnerability at its core. Even that, I still feel like I dress things up with certain metaphors and imagery but this was my effort to strip that away. Because the lyrics are not painted with any type of metaphor or imagery, they are heavier and darker because the feelings are staring them right in the face.”

“OUR HUMOUR GETS US THROUGH”

“WE’RE SO WEIRD”

All dressed up and with everywhere to go, ‘All We Know Of Heaven’ sees PVRIS get personal. At times it feels like a break-up record but instead of personal heartbreak, it sees the band break away from their whole world. “When I work on demos, I’ll do an intro, a verse, a chorus and maybe get to the second verse, and then I’ll just leave it until we get to the studio, so I don’t get sick of it or overdo it,” starts Lynn. “There are a few songs that you could label as break-up songs but ultimately, I don’t feel attached to those initial connections.” Instead, the initial flare is lit up, explored, left to die down, deconstructed and then reassembled into something new. “It seems like a break-up record but by the time I returned to the songs, I was so closed off from what they were written about. Normally the second verse tries to make that known and creates that disconnect. There’s a cool contrast that comes about through that. “It’s not a break-up record though it has quite a few songs where people might think that, or be curious who it’s about. But at this point, it’s not about anyone but dealing with my own self and trying to battle with self-love, selfdeprecation and everything in between that. I became my own worst enemy over the past few years and this record is mostly about that, and dealing with me trying to dig myself out of that.” Across the record, there’s a turbulence. ‘White Noise’ was a tightly wound record with all the parts moving in the same directions. The highs were high, the lows, low. Fast, slow, it moved as a unit. ‘All We Know Of Heaven’ is messier. The lines are blurred, the direction spinning. It’s heavy weather, undefined and the music does just as much talking. “I just let everything out. I wasn’t going for, ‘I need to let something specific that I’m working through out’. It wasn’t forced,” explains Brian. There’s personality in the music. Stories told without words. “Because Alex and I don’t sing, we can express how we’re feeling through playing. You can let out your emotions in the playing and in the style. You can hear from all three ends how we were feeling.” “It was just the biggest release I’ve felt,” continues Alex. “We’ve all gone through the same situations and got thrown into life all at the same time

and went through it together. We all understood where we were in our minds. With what Lynn was writing lyrically, it all made sense to us. She’s one of the best lyricists I’ve ever met in my life or heard; she’s so talented. The whole experience was a release getting to this record. It’s a cathartic thing and it felt refreshing to create again, to sit in a room, to talk music and have that be the only thing you have to focus on.” From the surprising chime and fall of ‘Walk Alone’, through ‘Same Soul’, with its eternity heartbreak and torn distance to Half’s building separation, there’s a sense of impending doom throughout ‘All We Know Of Heaven’. “That was a very overwhelming feeling,” starts Lynn. “It was very present throughout the past few years,” but rather than making a sweeping comment on The State Of Things, that connection “was personal. I didn’t realise this until after Trump got elected but a lot of the feelings on the record are very similar to what a lot of other people are feeling right now, all over the world. “Somebody asked me if this was record was going to be political. It didn’t come from that initially and everything I wrote about was before Trump got elected and before things started hitting the fan, but I believe people will still connect to it.” It wasn’t created as a mirror but there are reflections to be found. “When you strip it down, strip down these songs to their basic emotions, it’s anger, it’s sadness, it’s fear. It’s just general doom, I guess. Maybe doom is a little too serious but there’s really, really heavy uncertainty and that’s something a lot of people are feeling right now.” Just by being present, by creating, and by embracing emotions, PVRIS are offering an alternative. “With everything going on around us, politically and socially, we need to remember we are all just humans at the end of the day. We are experiencing human emotions. That’s what people want to connect with ultimately, no matter what it is. People want to feel connected. People want to feel vulnerable and like they’re not alone. Any type of art, whether it’s deeply personal or political, is needed right now. As long as it’s honest and it’s true to whatever the situation is, whether on a grand scale or the most internal, people need that.”

Hey Lynn, where did the vision for ‘All We Know Of Heaven, All We Need Of Hell’ come from? There were so many different ideas for this record. We had so many plans and things that we ended up not using. It ended up really natural, lining up with what I was interested in aesthetically. Over the past few years I got interested in past lives and reincarnation and trying to uncover those and trying to pay attention to specific interests and things I was drawn to. I noticed there were so many random interests I’ve had throughout the past three years. I slowly pieced them all together and they all tied into the Victorian era and the turn of the century, that became a huge obsession of mine. It was never something I wanted to incorporate into the record or the visuals; it was a personal thing but then, once we got into the studio and we had to start planning out visuals and concepts, it all started tying back to those interests. Everywhere we were, it was surrounding us. The studio was built in the early 1900s; the whole town was full of old Victorian mansions. It was like all of our surroundings were lining us up for it. It’s funny that with this record, which is so deeply personal, it’s the visuals you’re reluctant to share. That’s the irony of it. It wasn’t a fear of sharing it because it was too personal, it was more I didn’t think it would fit. I didn’t think it would match what we’ve done in the past because for ‘White Noise’, the visuals were very retro 80s with glitching analogue TV, so I had to ask, ‘Is this going to work?’ That was the debate. Rather than the personal thing, it was a matter of if it would work, and if it would be interpreted in the right way. Victorian imagery, especially with a darker tone or darker aesthetic, it can be read as vampires and horror movies, which isn’t the vibe whatsoever. It’s around that, but it’s not there. That was a big concern with following that sort of aesthetic but I feel like we’ve done our best to make it not seem like that and to really hone it into our own type of thing.” P

Sometimes when Lynn writes lyrics, there’s not an instant connection between head and heart. Instead, “it’s just ‘This is what I’m compelled to write right now and eventually it will manifest into something completely accurate or something to relate with. This is what it is for now’.” It happened a lot on the first record where the songs “weren’t drawn from anything deeply personal,” but instead captured an unspoken feeling that eventually grew into something much more. It was the same for ‘No Mercy’, which sees the bubbling feeling of uncertainty that sits under the record threatening to boil over. It sees the band at their most aggressive, their most vicious and, unsurprisingly, their most unapologetic. “When we went to write it I didn’t know what it was about at the time. I remember us pulling up that one part in Macbeth where Lady Macbeth has blood on her hands and she can’t get it off. I was obsessed with that section of the play. We built around that lyrically, we loosely followed the idea of blood on your hands, can’t get it off, and just being cynical, embracing pain and embracing whatever’s about to be thrown at you. It has this very post apocalyptical feeling to it, or pre apocalyptic feeling I guess, but we didn’t fully connect to it right away.” The band weren’t worried about that though. Things have a funny way of lining themselves up. “I always feel like the universe makes things connect naturally if you let it, and if you sit back on ideas sometimes. We’d finished tracking all the instruments for this song when we were in upstate New York at the church. We waited until we got back to Brooklyn in November to finish up a lot of vocal parts. The day after Trump got elected was the day I had to go and track vocals for ‘No Mercy’. I remember walking a couple of blocks down from where I was staying to Blake’s studio and I had my headphones in listening to the demo for the song. The city was so gloomy, it had this creepy doomsday atmosphere to it, nobody was out and I’d never seen Brooklyn so quiet. It was cold, it had a really creepy, post apocalyptic air to the day and so, walking through that and knowing what had happened the night before, knowing what was about to happen in the future, listening to that song, I realised, ‘This is what I’m connecting this song to’.”

Other times, one line can mean everything. On the soul-baring ‘What’s Wrong’, she spits “When did I get so pitiful? Just a goddamn corpse in a centrefold?” and she knows exactly what she meant with it. “It was pointed at being in the spotlight and people putting you up on this pedestal, and you don’t see yourself in that. It’s about having the perspective of ‘I should not be here’. It was another way of selfdeprecating, I’m nothing but a face on a centrefold, and that was a really big thing that I struggled with, especially during the past few years. And I still struggle with it, seeing yourself how others see you ‘cos you know yourself the best. It’s hard to see yourself in the light that other people do; especially if you’re in the position of being your own worst enemy and self-deprecating. It’s a heartbreaking thing but an interesting concept to write about for sure.” ‘White Noise’ focused on the intangible. Driven by feeling and the unknown, there was a shadowy presence to every turn. ‘All We Know Of Heaven’ is more physical. It’s gritty, leaves dirt under your nail and gets beneath your skin. There’s body, bones, blood and guts throughout. It’s a record you can feel, touch, fight. Deep breaths and visceral outpourings, “it’s a much more physical thing to be grasping,” starts Lynn. “I made this observation listening back; I reference the body a lot. There were a couple of demos for this record that didn’t make it that reference human anatomy. It was a common thread with a lot of the demos and a lot of things I wrote. I think it might have been because on tour; I really could physically feel everything. Your mental health, stress and pressure, as much as it can weigh on your mind, it’s equally noticeable on your body. Over the past few years, I hyper-focused on how I physically felt and how I looked in the mirror. I could see my face change. I was just fascinated with watching that happen and feeling those physical effects of mental stress. That subconsciously overlapped into a lot of the lyrics.” It gives the record a grit. It gives the band a vulnerability. It breaks them down into their basic parts. There’s no arrogance here; just skin stretched over bones. ‘White Noise’ was euphoric and every conflict had a resolution. ‘All We Know Of Heaven’ doesn’t do that. “Yeah,” agrees Lynn. “I’m trying to think if there are any songs on the record

where it resolves, even a little bit.” The closest we get is ‘Nola 1. “That’s one of my favourites on the record, which is a hard pick. That song was the first one I wrote when we weren’t finished playing shows, but it was our first extensive break we had from touring. I went to New Orleans with Blake and we posted up in an Airbnb for a week. It was the first time in two or three years that I had time just to breathe, exist and not have any type of pressure looming over me.” That space let Lynn start reflecting on everything that had happened for the first time in years. She started to dig into herself. “It was a very lost period for me. That song has the perfect blend of upbeat summer vibes with a very underlying sadness and melancholy, which is what that trip was. It was so relaxing, a breath of fresh air, but it was also very sad with that reflection. It offers the most resolution out of all the songs,” and takes the story full circle with its ghosts and mirrors. Normally when a band immerses themselves in as much sadness, loss, confusion and vulnerability as PVRIS do with ‘All You Know Of Heaven’, they offer plenty of shining lights for the audience. Explicit reminders that things will get better. Resolutions out of the suffering. There’s none of that here. “I never really think about that,” admits Lynn. Instead, “’Okay, this is the emotion you’re feeling. How can you get as deep, down and dirty with that feeling as you can? I never really think about resolutions. It’s just reckless abandonment with most songs.” It’s a brave stance, but Lynn isn’t convinced. “Is it? I don’t know,” she admits. It shows a belief in their story. An adventure behind the mask. A truth that music is art, and not just a tool. Of course, that wasn’t the plan going in. “With anything we do, we just want to be as real and honest as we can make it. Lyrically, we never really give resolutions for some reason. Sometimes it won’t help. Sometimes it won’t add to anything that people could take away from it.” Its power doesn’t lie in making everything fine; it’s in admitting that it’s not. Instead, PVRIS write the music they want to make. They tell the stories that need to be told. ‘All We Know Of Heaven’ is a record about balance. “Everything in life is about balance and honouring both ends of your emotional spectrum. Honoring the good just as

P U LL OUT TH ESE PAG ES TO G ET YOU R 2000 TRE ES POSTE RS. PVRI S â&#x20AC;&#x2122; C OVE R F E ATU RE C ONTI N U ES ON PAG E 35.

PH OTO: SARAH LOUI SE B E NNET T

PHOTO : SAR AH LOUISE BENNETT

PH OTO: SAR AH LOUISE BENNET T PH OTO: SARAH LOUI SE B E NNET T

PHOTO : SARAH LOUISE B E NNET T

“ I B ECA M E MY OWN WORST ENEMY”

much as the bad, and the bad as much as the good. Realising the importance of balance was a huge lesson.” Heaven and hell. Needing and knowing. “It’s like walking through the middle of that,” explains Lynn. “The boys and I deal with things differently. For me, the past few years on paper probably looked like heaven for a lot of people and something a lot of people would kill for but what I was going through internally was my own personal hell that I don’t think anybody would have ever known about. I was just standing between those two things. Dealing

with the most internal things and the utmost external influences you can have, and just standing in the middle of that and trying to navigate between the both of those at the same time. It’s less about heaven and hell and more about the weird paradoxes that could exist between those.” A couple of years ago some friends made a weird little record. Now they’ve made something completely different because their world is completely different, and that weighs heavy on their shoulders. As much as everything

has changed, a few things remain constant. “I’m still the same,” admits Lynn. “I’m still the ultimate perfectionist and really controlling of our art and trying to make sure it’s the best it can be. I still feel the pressure of trying to stay level headed and not get out of line and stay around good people, which happens naturally anyway but, I constantly feel pressure, mostly from myself. With this record, there’s been a lot of circumstances outside of our control, which has been a true test of

our patience integrity, but those have been held down for sure. We’ve done so much hustling, and so much work, just because that’s what on the cards ultimately but now the main intention is to stay inspired, stay vulnerable, really be present in the moments that we’re in and not get in my own way. It’s about the fine balance of being vulnerable, practising self-love and staying inspired.” There’s no happy ever after at the end of ‘All We Know Of Heaven, All We Need Of Hell’ because it’s not about escape,

it’s about confronting the things that scare you. It’s about finding peace in the chaos. There are stories to be told and lessons to be learnt through. There’s a heaven, a hell, and everything in-between. It starts with a loud admission of doom. It ends with a quiet whisper of hope. The opposing ideas weren’t planned. “That’s one of those things that the universe naturally let’s happen. I don’t think there are coincidences but sometimes things line-up.” Sometimes things work out. “I think we were cursed from the start,”

sings ‘Heaven’, a surrender to the end, but by the time ‘Nola 1’ rings out, there’s a flickering determination to carry on. “But I keep singing,” promises Lynn. It’s a message for no one but herself. As always though, that doesn’t matter. That whispering defiance resonates far beyond the walls of the band and carries forward. “That was the biggest thing of the past few years, to carry on. It’s going to get better; it has to.” PVRIS’s album ‘All We Know of Heaven, All We Need of Hell’ is out 25th August.

“A R T IS NEEDED

RIG HT NOW” 37

D O GO NATURE

T U R N OV E R PONDE R ONE OF LIFEâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S MOST IM P O R TA N T LESSONS : H OW TO BE HAPP WORDS: Y. JESS GO ODMAN.

“W

e’ve been a band since 2009. We’ve done a good amount of releases and touring. We had kind of gotten used to and conditioned to a certain mode of how things operate,” frontman Austin Getz considers. “’Peripheral Vision’ really shook everything up,” he proclaims. When they released their second record two years ago, the excitement and adoration surrounding Turnover shot to fever pitch. An album that gave voice to the turmoil and confusion that comes with coming of age, ‘Peripheral Vision’ is a vehicle of self-expression that quickly found its place in the hearts of audiences en masse. “I don’t think any of us went into it expecting people to care about it or feel attached to it as much as they have,” Austin acknowledges. “It’s been pretty rewarding. It feels good to help people in some way.” Touring around the world, performing their innately heartfelt songs to crowds hanging on to their every refrain, over the past two years Turnover have stood at the top of their game. Ever since, expectations and excitement for what might follow for the band have been at an all time high. But for the Virginia Beach outfit, there has only ever been one way to progress, and that is to evolve. “Every artist that I really like, and I think every great artist, has never really just stayed the same or done the same thing,” Austin deliberates. Surrounded by a world that’s constantly altering, drawing from influences that continue to shift and evolve, change has always been a part of the writing process for the band. “It’s nice as an artist when you know that you are affecting people. It feels like you’re doing something real,” the frontman enthuses. “There was a sense of not wanting to alienate people,” he admits, “but it was vastly overshadowed by the desire to remain genuine and do what we really felt at the time.” Putting themselves and their emotions front and centre in their music is part of what has always made the band’s music so easy to fall for. “I

“WHATEVER PEOPLE NEED, I HOPE THAT THEY CAN FIND IT HERE” think that part of being an artist is that you put a little bit - or a lot - of yourself into your art,” Austin states. “When we were writing ‘Peripheral Vision’ those songs were who we were as people,” he explains. “I think that’s a time of growth for anyone, being in their early twenties. You’re transitioning from being a child into being an adult. Along with that comes tonne of different stuff: your relationships with friends, romantic relationships, your relationship with the world, how you treat other people, selfishness and egocentricity...” It’s a lot to take in, and a lot to respond to, but two years on the group are taking it all in their stride. “We all had grown a lot in those years following ‘Peripheral Vision’,” Austin states, “but a large part of that is because of those songs.” Cue the release of third album ‘Good Nature’, a record that the frontman describes as “answering the questions that I had started to ask, and learning about what I feel about the world and myself.” Experiencing change at the same time as striving for it, ‘Good Nature’ is a portrayal of everything Turnover have grown to be. “Sometimes it can be hard to write about certain things in a poetic way,” Austin mulls. “It can come across as corny, as preachy, as whatever... More so when things aren’t often addressed in a song, so you don’t have a model of how to write.” Venturing into territories unknown, the result is a sound distinctly and characteristically the group’s own. “I think that ultimately the band is a really cool tool and a cool outlet for creativity in a lot of different ways,” he enthuses. “We just really tried to flex that opportunity on the record. We wanted to expand and do new things with the band, do things that we thought sounded cool or wanted to talk about lyrically.” Drawing together a range of influences and experiences,

‘Good Nature’ is Turnover at their most dynamic. “I felt that I had learned something that had made me happier as a person,” Austin enthuses. “I wanted to reach out and let other people hear those same things,” he offers. “Maybe it will help them. Maybe not. Maybe they will take something entirely different from it that I didn’t intend,” he shrugs, “but that doesn’t make it any less real.” It’s a powerful thing, to be able to communicate emotion, and it’s something the band continue to strive for in everything they do. “There have been people that have told me things they have got and things that have affected them from ‘Peripheral Vision’ that were not at all my intention,” Austin conveys, “and I’m sure I’ve felt things before from music that I’ve heard that was not at all what the artist was intending,” he adds. “What I would hope for someone to take might be something they don’t need at all in their life.” “That’s one of the beautiful things about music,” he illustrates. “When you listen to it, it does something so real for you as a person.” And that’s all Turnover want: sharing their experiences and their emotions on record, their only hope is that it resonates. “I put so much of myself, and so much hope that it really would do good things for people, into the record,” Austin expresses. “I’m just anxious for that magic to start to work and start to happen.” “The whole record is about learning,” he summarises. “Whatever people need, I hope that they can find it here.” Through love and heartache, confusion and resolution, ‘Good Nature’ is a venture through everything that makes Turnover, Turnover. Just maybe, there might be something that speaks to you too. P Turnover’s album ‘Good Nature’ is out 25th August.

L E T I T GO

TA Y J A R D INE PULL ED HERSELF OUT OF T H E DA R KNESS A S SAINTE WITH BR I L L I A N T LY VIVID POP TUN ES.

WORDS:

ALI SHUT LER

“

just want people to realise that life doesn’t have a rulebook,” starts Tay Jardine. Colouring outside the lines “doesn’t need to be destructive or a menace. You just need to trust your gut. Even if it’s not what the rest of the world is doing, just do it as long as it makes you happy.” She knows better than most her way around ripping it up, starting again and going your own way. For two very good albums, she led sugary pop-punkers We Are The In Crowd through the trials and Warped Tour tribulations of adolescence, all heartbreak, diary confessions and youthful determination. As they set to work on album three though, something felt strange. “It was this feeling that, as the songs were coming together, it was different. It naturally just felt like they came together differently. As that was happening, I looked around at everyone and asked, ‘What if we call this something different?’” That something different grew into Sainte, a solo vision backed by her bandmates. “Let’s treat it the way it should be treated, as growth.”

statement and fresh perspectives. For two years, Sainte has been working on those songs, perfecting them and trying to share them. “It just took so long to release. Between getting off of label and trying to do it DIY, that whole process takes way longer than I imagined. There have also been personal matters. I was fighting with myself and my issues with depression and anxiety. I had to balance that out. Sainte was my outlet to be happier and to release all of those anxieties into something positive. It took a long time, but right now everyone is happy, healthy and relieved.”

That embrace took Tay time. “I was afraid to let go of anything. I didn’t want people to feel like I was letting go of We Are The In Crowd,” but was something she needed. “I was just really learning to grow and break out of this shell, in a sense. I had just been changing over the past few years as a woman, as a girl growing up, and it just felt natural.

‘Eyes Are Open, the record’s curtain drop, is “about our group. It’s about just opening your eyes to what your surroundings are and realising what’s good for you, what’s not and then separating the two. It’s about just being determined enough to say, ‘Starting right now, we’re going to pay attention to what’s around us.’” Elsewhere there’s the fuzzy sparkle of ‘Technicolor’, all daydream escape and determination, the swaggering confidence of ‘With Or Without Me’ and the breakaway of ‘White Lies’. It’s a record bristling with belief. ‘Lighthouse’ is the story of how Tay got there.

“It is my vision and how I want to be perceived just as me. Mike [Ferri] and Cam [Hurley] are still part of this project. I still write with them, and they are the most supportive people. It was almost more their idea than mine for the project in the first place. ‘You have something you need to share, you should go do it, and we’ll be by your side’.” It started with ‘Technicolor’. “When we wrote that, we realised this is definitely very different, but it feels like the most natural thing in recent times. It felt so good, and we wrote it super fast.” That was May 2015. That feeling quickly grew into ‘Smile, and Wave’, a seven track EP of bright ideas, bold

‘Smile, and Wave’ is a record of vibrant positivity. From the title - “Smile and wave, see you next time or see you never. Let the negative things in your life go and move onto something more positive” - through the buoyant excitement that follows; it lives in the sunny side up. But there’s a weight to it that comes from knowing what’s on the other side. “I just wanted to get that positive sense out there, because I know that I needed it and I was lucky to find it in that for myself with Sainte.”

“I was going through one of my biggest depressing moments. It felt like I couldn’t get out of bed. I couldn’t move. I wanted just to stay there. Someone would have to shake me just to get up and eat breakfast. I just felt like nothing. I was

searching for something to come out of nowhere and to be my saviour. I honestly think Sainte is that. Sainte is my lighthouse. I could not be any happier about that right now, but it was a tough time for me. I had never realised the reality of it. I had always had moments where I felt sad about something and shrugged it off as being normal. This was physical. It was disabling in a way, and I just didn’t care about what happened tomorrow. I didn’t care about anything. I was very depressed. “Mike forced me to go into the studio that day to write it. ‘We’re going to get this out of you’. I actually walked out of the studio three times during that session. I couldn’t handle it. I was in and out; I was getting sad, then I was getting angry. ‘Why are you guys forcing me to do this? I don’t want to talk about it’, but they knew I really wanted to. That song probably means the most to me on the record. To anyone that struggles with anxiety or depression, it’s so important to find something that you care about and can put those negative thoughts into it and make it more positive.” Tay was worried about including ‘Lighthouse’ on ‘Smile, And Wave’. Dull colours don’t usually go with the bright. “Can we put this really depressing song on there?” she asked herself. “But the way I see it, that’s where the rest of the songs came from. It was written when I was at my lowest and said, ‘Okay, I need to look for my lighthouse and create

something that makes me happy.’ When I look back on it, I see these colourful videos I can remember, ‘I really am happy. I really do love what I do’.” Sure, ‘Lighthouse’ tells “how it all came together” but beyond the walls of Sainte, “it felt like it could be important to put a song like that on there to let people know I’m just as crazy as you are.” It’s a message echoed, amplified and thrust into the spotlight on ‘If You Ever Feel Alone’. “Through touring in the past, I had always been very, very impressed with how fans could come to me and say ‘I have all these problems, I get bullied, I’m depressed, I just got broken up with’. They would come to us with these issues as if I had gone to college to solve them. The only thing I can usually do is relate to them. I don’t have the answers, but I do have experiences where I’ve felt the same way. That’s where that came from; it’s a song for anyone that’s come to me with a problem and to let people know, I hear them. I’ve been there.”

say it right now and let’s not hold back. Let’s be very real about it,” she reasons. “I have such a vision right now that I’m anxious to get out. I wanted to get this EP out quickly and then ask, what’s next? I’m going to keep continuing to explore who I am and be honest about it. I don’t need to create something that sounds like

somebody else or be afraid to do that. Either one, I can do whatever makes me happy. That is honesty, and that shines through no matter what,” she grins. “Throw the rulebook out.” P Sainte’s debut EP ‘Smile, and Wave’ is out now.

Everything Sainte has done so far has been unapologetic and deliberate. “If you have something to say, let’s

“YOU NEE TRUST YOD TO U G UT” R 45

EV E

G N I H T Y R

! W O N

SKIPPING THEIR PR EVIOUS D ECA D E BETWEEN RECORDS D E AT H F R , O M A BOV E ARE MINUS A NUMBER, B U T R E A DY TO C O M B AT THE CHURN O N THEIR OWN TER WORDS: MS. STEV

PH OTOS:

EN LOFTI N. SARAH L OUISE BE

N N E T T.

eath From Above are back. Or at least as back as you can be when everything remains so clandestine. Returning out of nowhere in June with new single, ‘Freeze Me’, Sebastien Grainger and Jesse Keeler have always consistently found the right distinction between being the Death From Above we love, and the one we didn’t know we want. In classic Death From Above fashion, there’s of course been a new album hidden away. ‘Outrage! Is Now’ is an amalgamation of life, culture, and a classic bit of DFA angst. Keeping things so closely under wraps - so much, so that very few people even knew of its existence - Jesse opens with their reasoning: “You don’t want to give everything away, and we have experience with our band being a scarce commodity because we were not producing music for ten years. That has some excitement inherently built into to it - just being kind of slightly unattainable. It’s exciting to tease a few things out.” The duo are over in the UK to stir the waters around them and set the world to rights, remaining tight-lipped about the new record at first, but eventually opening up. Sebastien notes they’d be unable to simply “do a Beyonce”, to which Jesse responds, “Is that your way of saying when we have nine million Twitter followers we’ll just stop doing press and just start doing ‘link in the bio’?” The dynamic between the pair is extremely close. They complete each other’s sentences, bounce back and forth and make each other laugh a hell of a lot. Death From Above has certainly taken a winding road to get where they are now. After a decade apart, they returned in 2014 with ‘The Physical World’ - an album which blew any preconceptions out of the water. Getting to that point involved the pair doing what they do best - reinventing themselves and diving further into their own minds. Sebastien recalls the time leading up to that moment: “The first record [2004’s ‘You’re A Woman, I’m A Machine’] has a unique sound. When we went to follow that up, we had to kind of respect that uniqueness. This whole thing is ‘let’s do something that people haven’t done before’.” Jesse adds on “I’d say, at this distance, that includes ourselves. We

don’t want to just give people ‘Here’s more Death From Above!’ That would probably make it easier to sell, but much more boring for us.” Sebastien admits, “I kind of didn’t listen to ‘The Physical World’ after we finished it. [Once] we finished I was like ‘Oh god, I’m glad that’s over!’ Then we put it out, and it is a cool record.” Jesse concurs “I can never listen to it uncritically. There were a lot of different ways of dealing with it.” Not to discount it entirely, Sebastien carries on. “Eventually I will be able to listen to that and be like ‘oh that’s awesome’, but it’s too close right now.” “We worked really hard on that record. We enjoyed making it and love the songs, but it’s like we had to get that one out of the way. [Now] we’re back together, we’re playing, we want to make music together, we want to make records, so let’s just start doing them!” They aren’t ones to dwell on the immediate past too much, but they do enjoy delving into their beginnings and the conversation is as Death From Above as you can imagine. Sebastien jokingly starts, “I also have some regrets about my role in this band…”, to which Jesse interrupts, while adopting a mocking voice through a chuckle, “‘I could’ve been the singer… why didn’t we spend ten more minutes finding a drummer?!’” Dropping the voice he explains further, “we tried one drummer, very early on”, as Sebastien adds on, “and it’s not even that it wasn’t good, or it didn’t work out, it’s just that the next day he wasn’t there, so I just played drums.” The missing, mysterious drummer - a mere hour streetcar ride away, while Sebastien was simply upstairs - is what gave birth to the behemoth that became Death From Above. You may have noticed they’re now sans their post-fixed 1979; a decision that quite literally just happened. No planning, just a natural swap back to their original name, the core of the band tighter than ever. “We’ve always had the roles, like the responsibilities that we take on [for] whatever reason on tour” Sebastien starts, “I was always carrying all the cash, counting it and bringing it to the bank at the end, or talking to the cotton guy to get the right t-shirts.” Showing their reliance upon each other is a mutual factor that keeps them as close as they are. “I know that I don’t need to go line for line on our budget because that’s what Jesse is going to do, and he knows he can trust me to edit a

video or something. Even though there’s a certain ascendancy to the band we’re still doing a lot of the important stuff ourselves, whether creatively or behind the scenes.” “When we started we were in the last wave of bands before the industry went ‘what the fuck is going on?!’. Like people still bought CDs!” Sebastien continues, “that was still a format that wasn’t just vintage and cool, which is strange because when we were teenagers tapes were an absolute joke, but that’s how the industry operated. They just kept reinventing to make it sell the same things to you again and again.” Jesse marks this point by remembering the band didn’t have a MySpace until they’d broken up and they used paper maps on tour (“that should really hammer it home for everybody”). Perhaps unsurprisingly, he finishes through laughter, “I don’t know where things are going to go but apparently no matter how much things are changing we keep doing the same shit!” While they joke and laugh throughout, it’s clear that the pair are older and wiser. Sebastien nods toward this with a reflection, “We’ve realised increasingly that we’re in a very special position because this is what we do. We don’t need to go into a job for eight to ten hours a day, and so the way we spend our time is pursuing our interests sometimes philosophies, sometimes politics.” He also comments upon the immediacy of the modern world - a strong contributor to ‘Outrage! Is Now’. It’s a factor that comes across in every Death From Above track. “The economy is of attention now. Everything on your phone is designed to get your attention; it wants you to spend as much time in that world as possible. Twitter, Facebook, all those things. The way the refresh works like a slot machine - you pull it down, and it twirls, you wait and then ping! Three new messages. It’s the same psychology.” Death From Above know they’re from a different time. They’ve created their own legacy that managed to bridge the gap between their debut full-length and the follow-up a decade later. Who knows what the future for Death From Above holds, but right now they’re unique, they’re unstoppable, and most of all - as Sebastien laughingly notes - they’re “happy over here in our fiefdom!” P Death From Above’s new album ‘Outrage! Is Now’ is out 8th September.

“IT’S EXCITING TO TEASE A FEW THINGS OUT”

SPIN.

T I G E R S J AW A R E M A K I N G A R A R E T R I P T O T H E U K T H I S S U M M E R I N S U P P O R T O F N E W A L BU M , ‘S PI N ’. W I T H A F RES H A PPROAC H TO REC O RD I N G , A N E W REC O RD L A B E L , A N D T H E I R D E B U T S E T S AT R E A D I N G & L E E D S , I T ’ S A T I M E O F M A N Y F I R S T S F O R T H E P E N N S Y LVA N I A D U O . W O R D S : H E AT H E R M C D A I D .

iger’s Jaw have been through a number of changes, the most definitive of which came following the completion of 2014’s ‘Charmer’. Though no longer being a part of the band, former members took part in the recording of the album, before finally parting. Fast-forward to 2017 and Brianna Collins and Ben Walsh have continued the evolution of Tiger’s Jaw as a twosome with touring band members. The latest stop on this journey is ‘spin’, their new album. Not only were they discovering the dynamics of writing and creating as a duo on this record, but they were also given the time to do so. Instead of a whirlwind recording session, Ben and Brianna entered the studio for a whole month. “We worked very differently this time around,” recalls Ben. “It was such a luxury being able to have the full month to record. We tracked song by song; we would devote a day or two to laying everything – we’d start with the drums, and then layer bass and guitars and by the end of the day we’d be laying down the main vocal tracks. It was gratifying to start in the morning with nothing, and by the end of the night you’d have most of the elements of the song in place.” This pacing gave them the time to flesh out each song and get to know what they were creating, tweaking the finer details until it was just right. “It was cool doing it that way because when you’re a little more rushed, and you have to record everything in clusters – get all of the drums done on the first two days, and then get all the bass done, and so on. If you have the opportunity to record it song by song you can tailor

the performance, tailor the tone, tailor everything to the songs specifically. It worked nicely for us.” Given that they got to spend that extra time crafting the finer details of these songs, which would Ben say stands out to him most? “I think the song ‘Guardian’,” he says. “It is mostly a song about advocating for yourself and advocating for your own mental health. The message behind it is that sometimes we can neglect our own mental health and only focus on others or external things, and that stuff can really spiral out of control if you let it. Basically a song about how the little things, the little anxieties, can build up.” ‘spin’ marks a new phase for the band in many ways, beyond the obvious. It’s their first on Black Cement Records, where they get to work with Will Yip again. It’s also the first in which they are a band foremost. It’s an album of many new starts for the pair. “We didn’t have our focus split between school or jobs or anything like that,” notes Ben. “When we were writing for this album we were essentially just fulltime musicians and writing was a fulltime thing. It was amazing to have that flexibility to spend a lot of time trying different ways of writing and working at our own pace. Nothing ever felt forced; nothing ever felt rushed. When we started in the studio we spent the first day doing a rough acoustic guitar and vocal demo of each of the songs, going through them and taking a look at their structure of them, the keys, if parts felt redundant or needed to be added… That overview was a luxury, and they added to how cohesive the record became.” Refining the groundwork laid in ‘Charmer’, this has a much clearer feel for the direction of Tiger’s Jaw 2.0. While this new era has kicked off in America, with a Stateside release a few months

back, it’s time for the album to go international. “It is unusual,” admits Ben. “When we released the record [in America], it was the day our US tour started. At the beginning of the tour people were much less familiar with it, so it was an interesting experience – really cool to watch that grow. There have been a few things about the roll out of this record – for us it’s exciting. It’s cool that [the UK release] coincides with us coming over there for the tour. It just makes it feel a little more special that the tour’s around the time that it’s out.” While over in the UK, the band will also be joining the Reading & Leeds line-up for the first time. “I’m definitely feeling nervous,” he admits. “We haven’t played any festivals internationally before; Reading & Leeds is one that I’ve heard about for years and years and years, that it’s really important and a big festival for the UK. I’m excited! I’ve been talking to some of my friends’ bands who’ve played it, and they all have such wonderful things to say. I’ve loved doing the club shows that we’ve done in the UK, but I’m really excited to have a new experience to get there and play festivals.” Tiger’s Jaw have been making music for over ten years, but the era of Ben and Brianna is firmly here, and it remains a pleasure for all involved. “We’re so lucky that we get to continue to do this and to travel to places,” he beams. “The first time I ever left the country was to play music, the first time I ever flew on an aeroplane was to come to the UK and play music. I feel so fortunate to be able to see all these amazing parts of the world. The fact that people appreciate our music and enable us to do that is really special to me and our band. I’ll never take that for granted.” P Tigers Jaw’s album ‘spin’ is out 18th August. 51

A “THERE’S HERE T T U O E C I VO IS E N O O N T H AT O” T G N I N E LIST T

L AND DJ D, B-RE A K, CHUCK L I ND IN A A W D A E , BR F R AG . MERFORD PHETS O M O O AS EVER R C E P , V M I I D T N AT VO C W BA E L LO, E AS PRO P FOR NE TO M M O R R U ’ Y D E E H M T A , E TE TERMOIL L O R D H AV PE. O L I T I CA L CHRIS CO U E D BY P WORDS: I M E PL AG

he band was met with scepticism, but we’ve dealt with negativity in our careers since day one. All of us have come from very controversial bands. People saying that shit makes no fucking difference to me because the words of a couple of dickheads do not outweigh what we’ve been seeing out there.” Prophets of Rage vocalist B Real isn’t pulling any punches. The Cypress Hill man is relaxing backstage pre-show at the Copenhell Festival in Copenhagen, carefully sifting through his aromatic stash of weed. Sitting next to him is bassist bandmate Tim Commerford, who - alongside Rage Against The Machine peers Tom Morello and Brad Wilk, as well as Chuck D and DJ Lord from famed hip-hoppers Public Enemy - are getting well into the swing of things in their new group. They formed in 2016 to rally against the worrying state of US politics, months before fumbling businessman Donald Trump upset the odds to land the top job. But they’ve outlived their original message. After initially releasing an EP last year, Prophets of Rage will unleash their self-titled first studio album in September as they delve deeper into their socio-political angst. The twelve-song record was already in the can by the spring as the group teamed up with producer Brendan O’Brien, who had previously worked with Rage Against The Machine and their 2000s offshoot, Audioslave. “We had a lot of momentum,” Commerford says, reflecting on when Prophets of Rage first toured the US last year. “We were playing really good, and we went in and rode on that wave and recorded music. It was really fun and really easy. The record is super sick.”

the eager Rage Against The Machine fans pining for a new record from the iconic rap-rockers, who haven’t performed live since 2011 and who last hit the studio some 17 years ago for the covers record ‘Renegades’. Guitarist Morello, sticksman Will and Commerford last worked together on an LP as Audioslave in 2006, but the Chris Cornell-led project didn’t discharge the same raw, primal power as Rage. Expect to hear on ‘Prophets of Rage’ Morello’s idiosyncratic guitar wizardry, both in the wacky solos and riff sorcery, while the chest-thumping, potent rhythm section is in classically formidable form. But it dips its toes into some new territory too, with tracks like ‘Take Me Higher’ and ‘Legalize Me’ exuding some serious groove. “It’s all different types of music,” Commerford says. “It stretches into R&B; it’s heavy, it’s punky, there’s a lot of different things. It’s a really great record.” All well, then. But the group have faced, and will no doubt continue to face over the coming months, pointed jabs from dissenters who only want to see Rage Against The Machine fronted by original vocalist Zach De La Rocha. Although there are some Cypress Hill and Public Enemy nods, Prophets’ live set has so far revolved around Rage material - crowd-pleasing heavyweights like ‘Killing In The Name’, ‘Bombtrack’ and ‘Guerrilla Radio’. Cue criticism that the group is ultimately glorified Rage Against The Machine karaoke - but it seems the sextet isn’t going to listen to the detractors anytime soon. “You can’t please everybody, and we’re not trying to,” B-Real says. “If that’s what some of those haters think, then great. But if they came to the show, they wouldn’t fucking think that.

The band had no plans to actually record an album when they formed, but as they hit the road, things just fell snugly into place.

“There are some people that are purists. They want this band in the original form, and I can’t blame them. I was one of them too. But this is not Rage Against The Machine. Sure, we play Rage Against The Machine songs, but we also play Cypress Hill songs, and we also play Public Enemy songs.

It should go some way to satiate all of

“They’re not dogging us for playing

those songs, so it’s just those purists that love Zach so much that it’s hard for them to see anybody else doing it. I respect that, but I say that we are a different band, and when the new album comes out, I think all that stuff is out the window because now we have our original album. “And we still will play Rage Against The Machine songs, and we will still play Cypress songs and Public Enemy songs because it’s a part of who we are. It’s our background, it’s our three bands united, so how can we not? “So for those who love it - thank you, we appreciate that. For those who don’t, hey, fuck it. You got your opinion, you’re entitled to it, and I respect it.”

Like Rage Against The Machine, Prophets are undeniably angry but wholly engaged. Try the anti-racism anthem ‘Unfuck The World’, for instance. “Poverty hit home like a war zone,” rues B-Real. “Check America’s pulse, heard a death tone/Division hittin’ like a bullet to precision.” “People were hungry for somebody to come say something,” the rapper adds. “There’s a voice out there that no one is listening to. Here we are - we’re the bull horns for those people. I think we ignited a big base of people that had been forgotten about.” And it shows. The band have spent all summer performing to wild festival audiences intoxicated by the power of Rage’s riffs, and empowered by the fist-

clenching message.

seen.

Video footage of a fan in a wheelchair surfing the crowd in France quickly did the rounds, and it just about summed up the raucous feeling Prophets of Rage’s set inspires.

“None of us knew what to expect. We didn’t know what the expect doing the tour in the US - it was a big chance to take for all of us. People could have damn well shit on us more than they did, but as it turned out, there was a lot of people who supported what we’d done.”

It’s a unique feeling that looks set to do Prophets of Rage well. For how long? We don’t really know. But it’s all about taking advantage of the moment. “We’ve been doing this a long time, and we’ve seen some pretty crazy crowds in our time, between our bands,” B-Real says. “But some of the shit we’ve been seeing for this band, and for it being a new one… it’s been incredible. Truly, I didn’t expect some of the stuff that we’ve

“I’ve been here for all of it. All of Rage, all of Prophets of Rage, I’ve seen it all,” Commerford adds with a knowing smile. “But I”m seeing some shit at these shows on this tour that eclipses things that I’ve even seen in my entire career. It’s insane.” P Prophets of Rage’s self-titled debut album is out 15th September.

“ YO U CA E V E RY B O N ’ T P L E AS E DY, N OT T RY A N D W E ’ R E I N G TO”

D E T A R THE OFFICIA

ING. N EVERYTH L VERDICT O

QUEENS OF THE STONE AGE

TH E O F F I C I A L VE RD I CT

VILLAINS

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ou might not initially notice it, but Queens Of The Stone Age have always dabbled in controversy; from the drug-addled karaoke anthem ‘Feel Good Hit Of The Summer’ to that absurd video for ‘No One Knows’. However, the most recent act of boldness by Josh Homme and co. has proven much more divisive: the news that they were heading into the studio with none other than Mr Uptown Funk himself, Mark Ronson. Homme may have stirred the pot

further by citing the aforementioned radio, chart and ear-bothering track as a huge influence on album number seven, but you need not worry about a super-producer like Ronson making the Californian desert rock monarchs sound like Bruno Mars. If anything, ‘Villains’ has a deeper, dirtier, downtown funk lingering around it. Four years on from the sprawling art-rock masterpiece ‘. .. Like Clockwork’, this is a continuation from its predecessor as much as it is a departure. Opening track ‘Feet Don’t Fail Me’ starts with a dark, suspenseful swell before giving way rather playfully into a disco-driven

groove. The pulsating basslines in turn segue into the sharp, wiry guitars and 1950s-esque production of ‘The Way You Used To Do’, and that’s only the slightest of curveballs that are thrown over the course of 48 minutes. The devil perched on his shoulder on the album’s artwork is clearly having his wicked way with the frontman, but it’s the influence of Iggy Pop’s ‘Post Pop Depression’ - an album in which he and multi-instrumentalist Dean Fertita played a key role - which has really strengthened the rugged charm of Homme’s crooning. If ‘Villains’ has any footing in Homme’s beloved Californian desert, it’s at the ominous site of a UFO landing. It’s a superbly spaced-out, funkadelic odyssey of an album which will be hard for some to stomach, but even harder for all to resist. Danny Randon

FRESH

Specialist Subject Records

eeee Specialist Subject have previous when it comes to breaking underground bands, and the latest off their production line is London indie-punks Fresh. Fronted by Kathryn Woods, they’ve got a literate star in the making, and someone who can transform mundane moments into flashes of piercing insight. Like fellow 2017 stars Diet Cig, there’s a strong message of rebellion to Fresh’s tales of dissatisfaction. This is especially true on the raucous ‘Get Bent’, which recounts Woods’ experiences at high school. Here, where music taste is used as a badge of honour, she stresses her views are just as valid, important and relevant as the guys, and for anyone feeling marginalised due to their musical tastes in school it’s a riotous anthem of positivity. Yet, for these challenges, ‘Fresh’ is the tale of someone finding a way to thrive and doing so on their own terms. And it’s smart too. Cuts like ‘Goodbye Suckers’ and the summery ‘No Big Deal’ are simultaneously life-affirming and heartbreaking vignettes, fully-realised and intimate, but testament to the resilience of the human spirit. Even in its darkest moments – and there are certainly times where ‘Fresh’ cuts to the quick – the positivity that underpins the message can still be discerned. The result is a journey of self-discovery wrapped up in two-minute pop songs and, even in its quieter moments, it’s a blast. Rob Mair

INHEAVEN

PIAS

eeee Inheaven might have started off taking

DOWNTOWN BOYS COST OF LIVING

Sub Pop

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There’s nothing that beats a bit of good old fashioned punk rock action. That’s something that Downtown Boys know well. ‘Cost Of Living’ opener ‘A Wall’ has barely got out of the traps before it’s throttling listeners around the noggin, demanding attention. Up front, full

DOWNTOWN DOWNTOWN BOYS BOYS A SHORT Q&A WITH...

WITH THEIR THIRD ALBUM, NEW SUB POP SIGNEES DOWNTOWN BOYS ARE FIGHTING BACK.

Hey Downtown Boys, who are we speaking to and how are you today? Have you had a good summer so far? Ruiz: This is Victoria Ruiz I am the vocalist in the band. DeGeorge: This is Joe DeGeorge. I play saxophone and synths in the band. I am doing well. With the band, we’ve been a little dispersed this summer so far, but we’re preparing for three months of touring in the States and Europe! I will say that last week, we had a great time together watching our music video be made. There were a lot of children smashing piñatas. What have you lot been up to since your last album, back in 2015? Any major life changes? DeGeorge: I joined the band in a

throttle, it drips with attitude. Attitude and infectious brilliance. It’s an energy that blasts straight past the language barrier (Somos Chulas (No Somos Pendejas)’). Even when delivered at a more deliberate pace, on the slow building ‘Because You’, the slow tempo can only last so long before ripping down the doors. A shot of pure adrenaline, Downtown Boys are an antidote to the carefully posed, cynical window of modern life. No time for frills, they’re true to their core. Start the riot. Stephen Ackroyd

more official capacity. Previously I had done a few tours filling in for members when the band needed a bass or sax player, but now I’m playing sax and synthesiser in the band. Mary Regalado joined shortly after this last record playing bass in the group. Members that have left the group are running youth arts nonprofits, studying whales and producing popular podcasts. Joey and Vicky have been writing and editing Spark Mag working in conjunction with Demand Progress. Norlan, our drummer, graduated from MassArt and got a piece of paper. The band signed with Sub Pop for this new record, so now we have a larger support network to increase our reach.

What’s the most important message for listeners to take away from ‘Cost Of Living’? “A public cop? Fuck it. A private cop? Fuck it. A Wall is Just A Wall And Nothing More At All.” What’s your favourite thing about the album? DeGeorge: I like that Guy Picciotto gave us some great gossip from 1992 and taught us this dice game that Fugazi used to play on the road. He also didn’t let me do any overdubs on my sax solos. So it’s raw with the exception of one squeal. How did you guys hook up with Sub Pop? DeGeorge: Victoria tweeted at them, and they took her seriously. Also, I think Norlan took them bowling when they came to visit Providence, and that helped. P 57

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grunge, cutting it with shoegaze and giving it all a bit of sparkle but their glittering self-titled debut is far more colourful than that. Bigger and more powerful than their list of influences normally allows, ‘Inheaven’ is forwardfacing and with a list of demands. It’s vibrant excitement from front to back. The opening rattle of ‘Baby’s Alright’ kicks things off, all arms aloft, lungs emptied and hearts full, as the band conjures anthems for a confused youth. Twirling about the place but still maintaining an effortless cool, the group are looking up and out for the world around them. They want something more. Switching between fiery venom and reassuring calm, the gang are masters of the agile. ‘Vultures’ is about fighting back, with the blood pumping and belief raging, you can almost taste the freedom while ‘Stupid Things’ ignores the whirlwind that surrounds them and focuses on something more intimate, all swelling romance and budding apologies. It’s sprawling but everything the band light up feels important. From the end of the world and speaking up just to make sure your voice still works to the delicate start of something loving, ‘Inheaven’ soundtracks the little moments that make you feel like the centre of everything. Ali Shutler

THY ART IS MURDER

DEAR DESOLATION

Nuclear Blast

PVRIS

ALL WE KNOW OF HEAVEN, ALL WE NEED OF HELL

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D 58

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ebut ‘White Noise’ was a masterpiece of black and white brilliance. Fire, shadows and euphoria weaved between a world of flickering televisions and constant excitement. It kick-started a phenomenon. For its follow up though, PVRIS tore down everything they’d built and created something new. Rather than monsters under the bed and unnamed nighttime visitors, ‘All We Know Of Heaven, All We Need Of Hell’ focuses on what it can touch, taste and feel. It’s intimate and visceral. Lyrics bear the weight of this newly-realised world and tumble into gloomy rabbit holes of self-doubt, self-deprecation, discomfort and abandon.

‘All We Know Of Heaven’ tries to right itself amongst the chaos. The music is turbulent as Lynn, Brian and Alex make each of their voices, and their souls heard. There are moments of quiet beauty and calm reflection that quickly collapse into churning oceans of uncertainty. The fire rages uncontrollably, but the darkness still surrounds them. Despite the battle between heaven and hell, what you need and what you know, PVRIS still conjure mystery and marvel. They’ve turned inwards, refused to play up to their ever-growing crowds and come out more vibrant than ever. Rather than pretend happy, PVRIS have scratched around in the dirt, poured themselves into another exposing cinematic masterpiece and come out brighter than ever. Ali Shutler

eee A savage return from the Australian heavyweights, ‘Dear Desolation’ refuses to relent at any point, if anything it grows in brutality over its ten tracks. The instant, unmistakeable fury hits like a freight train. ‘Slaves Beyond Death’ signals the beginning of the onslaught to prove why Thy Art are a staple name in the deathcore. Chugging, brash and downright unforgiving at every turn, the vitriol with which the words are powerfully construed reminds you why CJ - back from his brief hiatus - is such an integral part to the Thy Art arsenal. Thy Art Is Murder are back on top form. Steven Loftin

TIGERS JAW

SPIN

Black Cement

eeee If ‘Charmer’ displayed all of the awkward growing pains of a band trying to find their way forward through adversity, then ‘spin’ is the return of a confident and elegant Tigers Jaw. In fact, it’s rare for a group’s major label debut to be so much better than their indie swan song, but ‘spin’ is easily

comparable to ‘Two Worlds’ or their 2008 self-titled effort, rather than the ho-hum ‘Charmer’. Of course, with only Ben Walsh and Brianna Collins remaining from those indie-punk days of a decade ago, ‘spin’ is considerably more muted – or mature – but successfully marries glorious pop to Tigers Jaw’s trademark sound, making an accessible and infectious record with subtle and deep lyrical depths. Indeed, it’s easy to forget that Tigers Jaw often tackle big topics – mental health is a theme that looms large throughout ‘spin’, for example – such is the group’s ability to pen singalong friendly anthems. Perhaps more than ever, ‘spin’ ensures the message is received clearly, and not lost in a breezy melody – even though ‘spin’ is overflowing with such moments. There’s still the odd awkward misstep, proving growth isn’t without its challenges; at times songs get stuck in a repetitious loop as they edge towards their conclusions, as if Tigers Jaw aren’t sure where to go with them. ‘Make It Up’, ‘Window’ and ‘Guardian’ are all guilty of this, and some sharper editing might have created a more streamlined album – and turned good songs into great ones. But this is a minor concern when compared to the pop brilliance of ‘Oh Time’ and ‘Follows’, and the sumptuous beauty of ‘Same Stone’. When Tigers Jaw are good, not many can match them, and ‘spin’ is a dazzling return to form for one of the US underground’s most cherished success stories. Rob Mair

TOGETHER PANGEA

BULLS AND ROOSTERS

Nettwerk

eee Now on their third full-length, Californian’s Together Pangea are back to show getting older doesn’t have to mean rebuking what got them here in the first place. Snotty punk that is rife with meaning and ear worm melodies, ‘Bulls and Roosters’ takes what they’ve built up so far and gives it a much more focused and forward thinking edge. The surf vibes are brazen throughout, but they’re twinned with more personal and reflective lyrics; such as ‘Kenmore Ave’ that has references to drug abuse. Together Pangea feel like they’ve found a stride that suits their move forward. The guitars are reverberant and filled with pleasing melodies, while the punk attack of the drums feels nowhere near lost. Keeping the earnest stylings alive, it feels as if growing up was necessary move so they could stay true to their beginnings; after all, there’s no greater inspiration than growing pains. Steven Loftin

TURNOVER

GOOD NATURE

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urnover’s second album, ‘Peripheral Vision’, was a record that split the opinions of few and won the hearts of many. Signalling a sharp right turn away from their emo revivalist persona of old, the Virginians became so much more than insignificant in their newfound state of shoegazing dreaminess. From its Attenborough-on-acid artwork to track titles like ‘Butterfly Dream’ and ‘Sunshine Type’ - even the name of the album itself - it’s no surprise how much of an influence Turnover’s two-and-a-bit years of globe-trotting has on ‘Good Nature’. Once again under the guidance of producer Will Yip, they have created another series of serene sonic landscapes brought to life

by delicate brush strokes of guitar. Paddling around in the pool of reverb that ‘Peripheral Vision’ was fully submerged in, the trio’s third record sounds organic from the opening sway of ‘Super Natural’, a timely ode to the end of summer. Hearing Turnover sound so at ease makes for a pleasant switch-up from their wistful and forlorn musings, and this sunnier outlook on life reflects so clearly in the lackadaisical delivery of ‘Good Nature’. Sure, this record is less likely to get you right in the feels in the same way that ‘Peripheral Vision’ does; there’s no longer a sense of selfloathing here that will lead to a jaded transcript of the lyrics on Twitter. But once it snuggles its way into your soul, ‘Good Nature’ is simply sensational. As we’ve learnt, change can be a wonderful thing… Danny Randon 59

RATED I T ’ S T H E R E A L LY R AT H E R L A R G E , Q U I T E B I G , O F F I C I A L LY G O O D R E V I E W . W O R D S : A L I S H U T L E R , DA N N Y R A N D O N . P H O T O S : S A R A H L O U I S E B E N N E T T.

“2000trees, I think we’re in love,” declares Dan from The Wonder Years. And it’s easy to see why. Upcote Farm is the sort of place you can lose your heart. Yeah, there’s a bunch of brilliant bands. Sure, the stages are laid out so you can see a majority of everything. More than that though, there’s an energy to the place. A quote/unquote vibe to the festival. Where does it come from, nobody knows. It’s not forced, there’s no gimmick to it. It is, and always has been, a place where music is champion. It’s probably why there’s so much to celebrate. Enough exposition though. Here’s our really rather large, quite big, officially good review of 2000trees.

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THURSDAY (THE DAY NOT THE BAND)

Since they last touched down in the lush fields of Upcote Farm, Puppy have worked intensely on both their bark and their bite, having released their outrageously hook-laden Vol II and fine-tuned their live show into a barrage of riffs, more riffs and – yes, you guessed it – even more bloody great riffs. Jock Norton never ceases to peel out blistering guitar licks for ‘Arabella’ and ‘Entombed’ while flexing his bizarre falsetto vocals, to which bassist Will Michael’s bonged-out doomy grooves are the perfect counterpart. Once you chuck drummer Billy Howard – arguably one of the UK’s most jaw-dropping musicians right now – into the mix,

you have yourself a pedigree display of devilishly indulgent rock. Let it be heard that this is the year of the shred. You may be safe from sunburn underneath the tent which houses The Cave stage, but even Muncie Girls’ singer/bassist Lande Hekt has to wear sunglasses to withstand the shine of the Exeter trio’s choruses. Today they are a band on fantastically feisty form, letting out bursts of socially-conscious indie-punk which somehow, thanks to the summery weather, sound even catchier than on record. ‘Nervous’ is delivered with a blunt message from Hekt in the form of ‘fuck off Tory MPs’ – obviously that is met with chants of ‘Ohhh, Jeremyyy Cooorbyn’ – but it’s brand new track

‘Locked Up’, about ‘funding cuts to prisons and that makes no sense’, that hammers the band’s agenda home in a swift and sharp fashion. It’s yet another landslide victory for Muncie Girls, especially in a climate where their songs are more important than you might think. As opposed to making their shows more polished and grandiose over the course of the last year, Black Foxxes have decided to send their alt-rock noise through as many distortion pedals as they can. The likes of ‘Slow Jams Forever’ and ‘Husk’ are sounding rawer than ever on The Axiom stage, coming from a band that thrive not only on massive choruses, but also on the conviction with which they unleash

them. Luckily, both of these qualities are in abundance at 2000 Trees, and by the time singer Mark Holley reaches his cathartic peak on the finale of ‘I’m Not Well’, these foxxes are sounding truly feral. You might want to start cherishing sets of such intimacy from Black Foxxes, because it may be the last time you see them anywhere but the main stage. One of the most brilliant things about 2000 Trees in recent years is its pledge to give the world’s finest rising bands the audience they deserve, but may not get at other summer shindigs. Such is the quality of these smaller acts that bands like Young Guns are given an exhausting run for their money. The likes of ‘Bones’ and ‘I Want Out’ are stratospheric summer bangers tailor-made for festivals, but there’s little more than half of a heart to this performance. Unfortunately it’s just not enough now for singer Gustav Wood to be undeniably charming, or even for the frontman to be flanked by his insanely accomplished bandmates; the name of this game is sincerity, and without that, Young Guns struggle to seal the deal. The quality that separates Mallory Knox from a lot of the other bands spearheading the next wave of guitar bands infiltrating the commercial camps is twofold: first off, they’re now at a point, three albums in, where their setlist sounds like a Greatest Hits compilation. Between ‘Shout At The Moon’, ‘Lighthouse’ and even the newer cuts of ‘California’ and ‘Wired’, there’s barely an ounce of fat on this array of anthems. The second thing that makes the five-piece such a joy to watch is the way they’ve never lost touch with their post-hardcore roots while performing. Behind all of frontman Mikey Chapman’s squeaky-clean charisma is a refreshing sense of urgency from a band who have worked hard to get to where they are – and they’ve not even reached the top yet. When ‘Better Off Without You’ brings the first night to a joyous head, it’s nigh impossible to argue that Mallory Knox haven’t earned their place here. FRIDAY Wallflower have spent a big ol’ chunk of the past twelve months on the road. And it shows. Tightly and intricately wound around one another, their music (a little bit of Brand New, a little

FRANK CARTER & THE RATTLESNAKES From the off, Frank Carter knows he’s got this. He walks out onto the Main Stage a champion and spends the following whirlwind proving everyone right. Gone is the raging ball of fury and in its place, an entertainer. There’s still demands for circle pits (around the sounddesk though) and a physicality to everything that happens but it’s smarter than a simple clenched fist. The music is made for dancing and from returning lost property, marching into the crowd to make sure everyone is alright and forcing a safe space that allows women to crowdsurf (and puts the responsibility on the men to make it happen), The Rattlesnakes are revolutionary, dangerous yet heartwarming. You can talk about punk all you want but the sort of inclusion Frank creates here is everything and more.

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that can withstand the magnitude of their choruses. Looking like somebody spliced Suicide Squad’s Harley Quinn and Gwen Stefani circa No Doubt’s hip-hop years, singer Janine Shilstone is a captivating personality from the thundering get-go of ‘Prey’. The rest of the glittery scot-rock hotshots might not be as instantly personable as their gyrating leader, but as soon as they lock in with one another, the searing synths of ‘Animal’ and ‘Weirdo’ make for some undeniable fun on a Friday afternoon.

bit of PVRIS, a whole lot of sparkle) cascades and hovers without warning. Running along a knife edge, it dances with claustrophobia, charges headfirst into new space and stacks idea upon playful idea. There’s a lot of moving parts at play but Wallflower are never overloaded. They’re on the brink, break ups and downs reign, but there’s a comfort in all the electrified ideas.

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The landscape beauty of Tall Ships is well known to 2000trees. They’ve ignited hearts on more than a few occasions and the trick they taught us about opening beer bottles with water is still impressing people. So today feels like more of a headline show than a festival appearance. Backed by new album ‘Impressions’, the shroud has been taken off and Tall Ships are a band now sure of their voice. The fuzzy rush of ‘Meditations On Loss’ comes into sharp focus while ‘Will To Life’ glistens with a tense urgency. The band still indulges in moments of lush romance, with ‘Ode To Ancestors’ as uniting as it is intimate but ‘Home’ sees them shoulder more weight, reaching further afield and giving a little more.

It’s only been a year and a bit since Black Peaks’ debut album was finally released. Today, they say goodbye to it as they head off into the sunset to work on its follow up. But before that, they’ve got some memories to create. Somewhere between then and now, Black Peaks got massive. They’ve always had an element of the huge to what they do, ‘Glass Built Castles’ has always been able to shake people to their very core, but today everything is a little bigger. The movements are exaggerated, the dynamics extreme and the reaction is total. A handful of new songs tease a direction that sees them heading up, complete with singing and

performance, and there’s a confident hunger that sees the band ready for the next step. Greywind are still relative newcomers when it comes to playing live. Sure, they’ve already ticked off Reading, Leeds and Download but today is one of less than thirty shows the band have ever played. A lot of their support comes from their recorded output, the cinematic fairytale of debut album ‘Afterthoughts’, but that doesn’t mean the band are here to echo what people know. Rather than copy-paste, the band infuses their songs with heavy personality. Lighting up on stage and expelling the demons within, the beauty is fraught with fire. There’s a flourish to ‘Car Spin’, a stomp to ‘Forest Ablaze’ while ‘Afterthoughts’ swings like a scythe. Showing little mercy in firing out neonflecked pop-rock bangers, it’s about time that Vukovi started playing on sizeable platforms like The Axiom stage

2000trees’ nifty staggered scheduling system gives you a greater chance of seeing more of the bands you love over the weekend instead of leaving you stuck with loads of gruelling clashes. It’s just a shame that, as a result of walking onto The Cave stage just when Black Peaks are about to crush the main stage, Employed To Serve are left with drawing the shortest of straws for their inevitable moment of glory. Of course, a sparse audience doesn’t stop the Woking noisemakers from wreaking sheer blinding havoc on all of your senses. If anything, it adds even more bile to fuel the seething delivery of ‘Greyer Than You Remember’ and filthy groove of ‘I Spend My Days (Wishing Them Away)’. Justine Jones is an absolute powerhouse, and when guitarist Sammy Urwin downs tools to scream the final refrains of ‘Beg For Rain’, you know that there’s no fucking around from anyone here. There’s nobody within a 50-mile radius of the Cotswolds who looks like more of a rockstar than The Dirty Nil’s Luke Bentham when he sashays out onto The Axiom stage. Wearing a red, white and blue starred shirt and a see-through guitar, the frontman walks

the walk, talks the talk, and indeed riffs the riff through some of the biggest beer-drenched party songs you’ll hear this side of Andrew WK. The personality of the Canadian trio, between Bentham’s bubblegum-blowing badassery and bassist David Nardi’s cartoonishly geeky demeanour, is only really overtaken by the panache with which they play songs like ‘Fuckin’ Up Young’, ‘Always High’ and ‘Wrestle Yü to Hüsker Dü’. Three really is a magic number, and it’s a big fat ‘nil point’ to boredom with a show you could quite literally watch 2000 times over. “Everything you’ve got left beating in that fucking chest of yours, leave it here.” The Wonder Years are a band that don’t ask for much but as they headline 2000 Trees, they get everything and more. Taking a break from taking a break, tonight isn’t part of an album cycle so the band focus on playing the best of their best. If you had any doubts about how great, rich and diverse The Wonder Years were, that ends here. Managing to evoke deep emotional responses from those who know every word, and those who know none, there’s a power in the people on stage that’s passed around. ‘Cardinals’ is euphoric, ‘Passing Through A Screen Door’ is a fire ablaze while ‘Coffee Eyes’ is a moment of quiet thanks before ‘Came Out Swinging’ demands hearts and souls. Beach Slang have always been a band that’s wanted to punch you in the heart and tonight is no different. Tearing through their set of rag-tag rock and roll, it feels like anything could happen. And it pretty much does. James stops and reads out a surprisingly long list of names that people have said he resembles (all while looking a lot like Batman), there’s a cover of Pixies’ ‘Where

Is My Mind’ before a few tantalising seconds of LIT and RHCP ahead of a ‘Wonderwall’ cover and then there’s all that glorious showmanship. Raised on a diet of the greats, Beach Slang aren’t afraid of bold moves and it enhances both the heartfelt sincerity and the ridiculous fun this band dance with. SATURDAY The organisers of 2000trees have developed quite the knack for booking a cult indie-rock band each year who are in the midst of celebrating a milestone: last year it was Ash on the 20th birthday of their brilliant first album 1977, the year before it was Idlewild, 15 years after the release of their seminal record 100 Broken Windows. In 2017, Lemuria still sound as bright and breezy as they did a full decade ago when they put out Get Better, a debut which they bring in its delightful entirety to the main stage. It’s not the most exhilarating of shows from the New Yorkers, but it doesn’t need

to be, especially when co-vocalists Sheena Ozzella and Alex Kearns sound cucumber-cool as they do on the likes of ‘Buzz’ and ‘Hawaiian T-Shirt’. It’s an album retrospective which starts Sunday just right for an audience too hungover to care about how old they feel. It’s not the hardest of tasks to find the beauty in Svalbard’s frankly disgusting brand of hardcore. Sure, the dual vocal assault from Serena Cherry and Liam Phelan is sonically capable of stripping paint, especially when they’re backed by an unrelenting rhythm section. It’s even more of an admirable effort when you find out that Serena is screaming with a stomach ulcer, and yet she still gives a blistering performance on The Cave stage. They’ve done their fair share of hard grafting on an underground level in the six years they’ve already been around, now is the opportune moment for them to emerge as one of the scene’s most promising propositions. Skipping between soul-searching pop and throw-off punk, The Winter Passing are a band that are ready to party and deal with the fallout. There’s a gleaming energy to way they attack their set, all giddy smiles and nervous laughter, but the songs twirl with a behemoth confidence. The likes of ‘Fever’ and ‘Double Exposure’ ignite with an instant joy. Swinging wildly about one another, it’s all too easy to get lost within the moment. But beyond that, The Winter Passing write songs that seep into your soul. In the moments of calm that follow throughout the day, they reappear, comforting, commanding and joyous. Twelve months ago Spring King released a gnarled debut album that dealt with questions of self, of surroundings and of isolation. Today the lyrics remain the same but there are 63

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answers in the people before them. More tightly knit than ever, the band wrap themselves around each other before spinning off into space. It’s forceful yet fragile and the group harmonies give them a gang swagger. The anxieties and insecurities about the world around them have quickly become anthems of the everyday. Today there’s a unity in the air. They’re the leaders of a new pack. No wonder our mates at Dork adore them so much. We don’t often get to use the word ‘barmy’ in reviews but thank god for Get Inuit. The dream-pop-come-indie-rock group are the sort of band who teeter on the edge of ridiculous on more than one occasion but know when to pull back. They indulge in the silly, at one point they ask everyone in the tent to freeze simply to confuse the people walking past, and bask in their own weirdness. “I know you guys are bloody rock stars but you can dance to this one,” promises Jamie Glass. “I know I’m going to.” More than simple stupid entertainment though, Get Inuit know how to write incredible songs. They can try and distract you all they want, the overblown wonder of ‘Barbiturates’, the frenzied grin of ‘Pro-Procrastinator’ and the untethered freedom of ‘All My Friends’ are sheer magic.

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The evolution of Rolo Tomassi tells a story of astonishing growth, with the Sheffield mob taking bold strides away from the scatty ‘nintendocore’ pigeonhole to become one of the most uncompromising bands in the world. The enigma that is Eva Spence still refuses to unravel on The Cave stage, as she lets out banshee-level squalls and hypnotic dance moves alongside her keyboardist sibling James, tearing through a setlist which draws almost entirely from their last record, Grievances. Rolo Tomassi’s third time at Upcote Farm isn’t necessarily charming, so much as it is chaotic and unsettlingly powerful. With a doom-laden new song ‘Rituals’ now under their belts and a fifth album on the way, this beast’s evolution is far from over.

As the sun starts to set on the final day of the festival, The Front Bottoms are right where they need to be. And it’s not just the New Jersey four-piece who are basking in the pleasant late afternoon atmosphere on the main stage, it’s their friends sat rather comfortably on the sofas at the back of the stage. Their guests throughout the set include friend and singer-songwriter Kevin Devine, who jumps up to sing vocals on ‘The Beers’, and most adorably, singer Brian Sella’s one-year-old daughter, who rightfully

MILK TEETH “I’m so nervous, there’s so many of you,” admits Becky Milk Teeth. It’s the closest thing the band have played to a hometown show in a hot second but they’re not ones for getting sentimental. Today is all about how far they’ve come, and how ready they are to continue. Gone is the furious orange or pastel pink, and in its place a rainbow of excitement. The old songs of scorn and fury are twisted into reasons to have fun while new track ‘Owning Your Okayness’ is an instant source of jubilation. All sugary sing-alongs and tug-of-war dynamics, it’s everything the band have been so far and more. ‘Be Nice’ is just around the corner but Milk Teeth are focused on being better.

receives a giant collective ‘awwwh’ from the audience. Upon brandishing their contemplative and folksy emo musings, The Front Bottoms bring new meaning to the word ‘#relatable’. But there’s more to the likes of ‘Cough It Out’ and ‘Au Revoir (Adios)’ than lyrics about getting stoned and falling in and out of love; there’s genuine musicianship here, and with every layer of brass, acoustic guitar and Mat Uychich’s awesome drums, The Front Bottoms edge ever closer to being your new favourite band. Of the 10 years that 2000 Trees has existed, The Xcerts have played six of them. There may as well be a Camp Macleod set up on Upcote Farm in honour of the Aberdeen trio’s beaming frontman, whose emergence on The Cave stage provokes a deafening roar of applause. As veterans of the festival, The Xcerts know what the score is by now, but somehow, the headfirst opening of ‘Live Like This’ never ceases to raise the cheesiest of grins. What follows is 45 minutes of shiny alternative rock which undoubtedly steals the weekend; an achievement which Murray and co. relish in the most victorious of fashions. To some surprise, The Xcerts decide to end their set with ‘Feels Like Falling In Love’; a vibrantly poppy song which, at that point, had only surfaced six days ago. Despite still being hot off the press, it inspires arguably the loudest sing-along of the entire festival. It’s not just time for The Xcerts to be the biggest band at 2000 Trees; it’s time for them to be the biggest band in the world. ‘This one’s for Mike from Love Island,’ says Mike Duce before Lower Than Atlantis start playing ‘Emily’. It’s a reference delivered with the cheekiest

of attitudes that may send many eyeballs a-rolling, but what you see with the Watford boys is what you get. As they step up to the headlining plate, the four-piece are very slick, and maybe just a tad safe, in pulling off some of their biggest choruses; from the suaveness of ‘Dumb’ to the bounce of ‘Work For It’. For the most part there are no fireworks, literally or metaphorically, as Lower Than Atlantis’ finally have a crack at being festival toppers, but when they cascade into ‘English Kids In America’ and ‘Here We Go’, it seems that the lads just want to have fun. And as they send their amps over the crowds’ heads and Duce swaps his busted guitar for an inflatable crocodile, why shouldn’t they be having a blast? It may be the height of summer, but under the tent of The Axiom stage, Oathbreaker send chill after chill up your spine with their wintery black metal. Caro Tanghe, stood front and centre in a flowing black dress with her face almost constantly obscured

by her long dark hair, is such an eerie and suspenseful presence throughout, delicately cooing ‘10:56’ before throwing you into a tortured barrage of caterwauling on ‘Second Son of R’. The Belgians have done a remarkable thing in making what may seem like a very exclusive genre palatable, enthralling even. As the four-piece move seamlessly between long, ambient passages and pummelling blastbeats, more and more passers-by are drawn into this immersive live experience. Bringing eye-watering heaviness and devastating beauty in equal measure, Oathbreaker are a storm which has been brewing for some time now but, to terrifying effect, it has finally broken. Before the chorus for ‘Good Things’ kicks in, The Menzingers’ Tom May takes a hearty swig from his plastic cup of wine, before punting it into the audience. It’s a rockstar move from the pogohopping guitarist/singer that sets such a fitting precedent for what can only be described as a euphoric finale on The Cave stage. In new album After The Party, the Pennsylvanian heroes have fashioned anthem after anthem and lyric after lyric for punk kids to belt their jaded little hearts out to, probably with a beer can in hand. With not a second of their hour on stage wasted, The Menzingers even take the time to polish some of their rarer gems by pulling out ‘The Shakes’. However, it’s the triple bill of After The Party’s title track, ‘House on Fire’ and ‘I Don’t Wanna Be An Asshole Anymore’ that scores a resounding home run for the band. May’s trade-offs with co-vocalist Greg Barnett are in full effect for a set which puts The Menzingers right at the top of the deck, and when they eventually brings things to a bittersweet end with ‘In Remission’, cloud nine is struggling under the weight of everyone. P

What ’s

EXCITING WE ASKED THE BANDS WHAT WAS FLOATING THEIR BOAT THIS MONTH.

“I’m very excited about a number of brilliant albums that are currently on the horizon from excellent bands like HCBP, Frauds, The St Pierre Snake Invasion, Loa Loa and Twelve Stone Toddler, to name a few. In many cases I know the people involved and I’ve been lucky enough to have had a sneak peek but in other cases I’ll just have to wait! I’m also excited to take my wife on our summer holiday on the Kentish coast, eat lots of food and hopefully go into the sea. Fingers crossed!” - Jamie Lenman “Writing more music.” Jamie, Counterfeit

“Being label mates with our friends in Culture Abuse.” Derek, Defeater “Right now we are on tour with One Ok Rock here in America and it’s been a blast. Everyone has been so great and seeing our fan base grow has been very rewarding. We just put out

You, ‘ The bands’? a music video for our song ‘Better Chemicals’ and we are so proud of it and the reaction it’s been getting. And of course we are so excited to fly to England to play Reading & Leeds!” Aaron, Palisades “We’re excited about the concert we’re just about to

perform! Lol.” - Taka, One OK Rock “Football season.” - Ash, God Damn “I think Wikipedia is exciting, possibly the best singular project humans have participated in. All the Universe compiled by the people for the people for free. I use Wikipedia every day. Also the momentum building around the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) is exciting.” DeGeorge, Downtown Boys “Game of Thrones and Rick and Morty!” - Jon, Billy Talent

#POGSEASON