Upset, July 2022

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Petrol Girls

Dune Rats

Momma

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MNYS

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My Chemical Romance Alexisonfire Joyce Manor

Nova Twins.

“We want people to feel like they can take on the world”

JULY 2022 Issue 78

RIOT 4. MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE 8. MOMMA 12. BABY STRANGE 16. MNYS 18. GREG PUCIATO 20. THE GREAT ESCAPE ABOUT TO BREAK 22. MINT GREEN 24. THE BLSSM FEATURES 26. NOVA TWINS 34. ALEXISONFIRE 40. PETROL GIRLS 44. JOYCE MANOR 48. DUNE RATS 54. NERVUS

Upset Editor Stephen Ackroyd Deputy Editor Victoria Sinden Associate Editor Ali Shutler Scribblers Alexander Bradley, Dan Harrison, Jake Hawkes, Jasleen Dhindsa, Kelsey McClure, Linsey Teggert, Rob Mair, Sam Taylor, Steven Loftin Snappers Bernhard Schindler, Dan Monick, Em Marcovecchio, Frances Beach, Indy Brewer, Martyna Bannister, Patrick Gunning, Rory Barnes, Sarah Louise Bennett, Skyler Barberio, Sophie Hur, Vanessa Heins P U B L I S H E D F RO M

W E LCO M E TOT H E B U N K E R.CO M U N I T 10, 23 G RA N G E RO A D, H A S T I N G S, T N34 2R L

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. Disclaimer: While every effort is made to ensure the information in this magazine is correct, changes can occur which affect the accuracy of copy, for which The Bunker Publishing Ltd holds no responsibility.

The opinions of the contributors do not necessarily bear a relation to those of Dork or its staff and we disclaim liability for those impressions. Distributed nationally.

HELLO. There’s nothing especially revolutionary about suggesting Nova Twins represent the best of what louder music can be.

Since their 2020 debut album, they’ve stunned with their ability to draw from across the sonic divides, creating rock music that refuses to simply be what it says on the tin. Rammed with attitude, swagger and earned confidence, their new album ‘Supernova’ has all of that in spades. It doesn’t feel that long ago that we operated in a scene obsessed with men pushing towards retirement, repeating

their same old tricks. Now, in 2022, we’re blessed with a vibrant raft of new voices, not only riding the zeitgeist, but leading it, influencing wider pop-culture once more.

Finally making their bow on Upset’s cover, Amy and Georgia sit at the head of that charge. We’re delighted to have them.

S tephen

Editor / @stephenackroyd

Riot.

THIS MONTH >>>

EVERYTHING HAPPENING IN ROCK

The Big Story

My Chemical Romance are (finally) back!

After pandemic sponsored delays and a whole load of anticipation, My Chemical Romance are back in the UK, and ready to inspire a whole new generation. We headed to glamorous Milton Keynes to welcome them back.

Words: Alexander Bradley. Photos: Frances Beach.

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Fresh off supporting buzziest-bandon-the-planet Wet Leg, Momma are offering up something special with their new album ‘Household Name’. p.18

Glasgow’s Baby Strange are back with a new album, ‘World Below’, and they’re not hiding from the big stuff. p.12

MNYS - AKA Nick Cozine - made his name over a decade working on other artists’ projects. Now, he’s pushing out alone with a brand new EP. We asked him to run us through it, front to back. p.16

T APPEARS TO BE UNCOMMON KNOWLEDGE that the tenth circle of hell is, in fact, Milton Keynes. That’s what all the roundabouts symbolise. It’s also why it is so difficult to leave.

And it’s precisely why it was the ideal place for My Chemical Romance to make their triumphant return.

It’s a comeback that’s been a long time in the making. Sure, the pandemic pushed it back twice, but what’s another two years when we’ve waited 3,348 days?

The time spent waiting is evident in the crowd. The “elder emo” is out in force.

The fringes have receded, but there are still plenty of wristbands, eyeliner and hairspray present as nostalgia for the mid-00s fills the air. There’s the new generation, too - kids not old enough to have ever known MCR as an active band are here in hand-me-down tees in the same way previous ones wore their older siblings’ Iron Maiden and Metallica shirts back in the 90s. Side by side, young or old, My Chemical Romance have always been the gospel choir for outsiders. For three nights, this stadium is their church.

A low, industrial, static grows in the distance. Is it happening? Is this it?

Smoke blankets the front of the stage and envelops the first few rows of fans who have stood waiting for this moment.

Oh God, it is happening! There is a brief National Geographic segment on rat infestations in India. What the fuck? Is this part of the show?

They step forward. Frank Iero. Mikey fucking Way. Ray Toro. Gerard Way. It’s them. It’s happening. They’re actually here.

All those old memories and emotions swim back into focus.

But they’re not here for the sentiment or to relieve the old days. That static which has been rumbling for minutes now crackles into My Chemical Romance’s monumental new track, their flag in the soil, ‘The Foundations of Decay’. It’s hardly starting with a bang. Instead, they unfurl like a monster awakening Upset 5

from a long time dormant, with the submerged, disrupted vocals raging and cracking before the breakdown arrives like a sledgehammer. They’ve still got it; the drama, the theatre of the new song is a teaser and a warning: this is not a funeral. This is the resurrection.

As the last note rings out they flip the coin and burst into ‘Na Na Na (Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na)’.

Cue absolute chaos and a sea of limbs in the crowd.

Playing stadiums usually comes at the expense of that connection, but this isn’t just another show - it’s somehow intimate and feels completely real. Here is a band that is present and having fun, and it shines through. Three songs in, and Gerard is feral and scratching around on the floor in his handmade t-shirt that reads ‘Vinegar’ (Frank completes the double act as his reads ‘PISS’). It’s not quite the get-up we’re used to from MCR, as they resemble real humans, not characters in a bigger thematic album-wide

story. Somehow, that’s more disarming as Gerard snarls into his distortion mic something about rats gnawing and biting.

It’s as if the grubby lens of tireless touring the world for years on end - the same clothes, drugs, alcohol and mental degradation - has been cleaned, and My Chem are seeing their show for the first time again.

“We’re playing in a way we’ve never played before,” Gerard declares. “This feels alive.”

That energy is shared amongst the baying masses who seem to be on puppet strings to every hand movement and request to jump, scream, wave or sing along on demand. The secret seems to be having such instantly recognisable hits. In a moment of total darkness and silence, one single piano note rings out, and an entire stadium full of people collectively goes berserk. ‘The Black Parade’ marches on with the same purpose and significance that it has ever had.

That bounty of hits are carefully scattered through

the set-list. ‘Helena’ comes early on. A country-tinged, rocking and rolling rendition of ‘Teenagers’ lights up the middle, wedged between another pair of classic emo bangers. Separating them - hits that most bands would be happy to have just once in a lifetime - there is a peppering of rare gems and cult classics. ‘Mastas of Ravenkroft’ and ‘Boy Division’ are in there for the die-hards, and the sunnyside-up optimism of tracks from ‘Danger Days’ blunt the razor-sharp edges of ‘Thank You For The Venom’ and ‘The Ghost of You’.

It’s a perfect cocktail of uppers and downers equally spaced to keep the show shifting gears.

By this point, time seems to have lost all meaning.

The night seems to have crept up from nowhere, the hits keep rolling, and the band show no signs of flagging. Gerard keeps checking in with the crowd between songs full of giddy, goofy energy, and, with what feels like the end in

sight, he takes aim at social media, our mobile phones, and its impact on art and creativity. “Just don’t give those bastards everything.

Keep some for yourself and the people you love,” he urges the crowd before finishing his stream of thoughts on the poignant message of “Embrace the absurd”.

The upside of all those mobile devices, though, is the sea of lights created for an intimate, stripped performance of ‘Cancer’.

In the song’s first airing in 10 years, it’s given an extra serenity with only the twinkling torches.

Returning for an encore and throwing it way back to ‘Headfirst for Halos’ before bringing the curtain down on the anthem ‘I’m Not Okay’, they strike the perfect chord to end on.

We’re not okay. We haven’t been okay for a long time now, and we don’t know if we will be okay in the future, but we are sure glad to have a band that understands that back once more.

HOUSEH NAME 8 Upset

HOLD ES.

Fresh off supporting buzziestband-on-the-planet Wet Leg, Momma are offering up something special with their new album ‘Household Name’.

Words: Sam Taylor. Photos: Sophie Hur.

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rooklyn-via-Los Angeles duo Momma have had an exciting time of late, with a set of dates supporting band-of-themoment Wet Leg, and their first-ever trip to the UK. Dual vocalists/guitarists Etta Friedman and Allegra Weingarten take a break from watching true crime on TV in their London hotel to spill the beans on their upcoming new album, ‘Household Name’ - a record inspired by ‘the rise and fall of the rock star’.

Hey guys, you’re currently in the UK for a few live shows - is there anything you’re particularly keen to experience while you’re over?

This is our first time in the

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UK. We’re super excited to explore London and do all of the touristy stuff tomorrow, like The National Gallery and Buckingham Palace.

went to school in New Orleans for four years and then came to Brooklyn after graduating. It just seems like the best city to be in to do music.

You’ve just played some dates with Wet Leg, right? Any fun stories from the road?

The Wet Leg dates were fun! We got super drunk with a bunch of old Portland indie-heads. We overheard them talking about Guided By Voices, so we ended up hanging out with them for a while.

How are you settling in to New York, do you already have lots of musician friends there?

We’re very settled! We’ve got a good amount of musician friends, but also normal friends.

When did you make the move from LA to Brooklyn? What prompted you to relocate?

Etta came to Brooklyn for college in 2017. Allegra

Where do you like to hang out?

You can basically find us in any Bushwick bar with a pool table.

When did you start work on your new album, ‘Household Name’?

We started working on ‘Household Name’ in

“We’re big music nerds” Momma August 2020 right after Allegra moved to New York.

We were just super, super eager to write and demo as much as possible. It was still pretty locked down in New York, so we didn’t really have much to do besides write music.

Did you have any specific goals for what you wanted to achieve with the release, going into it?

We wanted to make a really big sounding record that was also super polished.

We just wanted every song to be thoughtful.

There are no filler tracks. Every second of every song was on purpose.

How did having a theme - the rise and fall of the rock star impact the release?

Did you research lots of famous rock stars for inspiration?

We didn’t really have to do much research; we’re big music nerds, so we had pretty good insight going into it.

Even though this theme was overarching, it’s definitely not a concept record in the sense that there are plenty of songs that don’t really fit that theme. I guess the whole rock and roll theme wasn’t just lyrically-based, but sonically-based too.

Who’s your favourite rock star?

Kurt Cobain.

What’s the dynamic like between the two of you when it comes to creating your music?

We have a really harmonious relationship when it comes to writing lyrics or guitar parts together. Sometimes it starts with us jamming in the same room, or one of us will bring a chord progression to the other person to flesh out the rest of a song. Lyrics are typically always written together.

Do you already know what you want to do next musically, or will that take a bit of time?

I think it’s gonna take a bit of time. We haven’t even started demoing for the next album yet, but we definitely have seeds of some songs! ■ Momma’s new album ‘Household Name’ is out 1st July.

NEED TO

KNOW

THE LATEST NEWS YOU HAVE TO HEAR. Cassyette is hitting the road this September

Cassyette has booked a UK headline tour for autumn.

The dates - which kick off at Glasgow’s Cathouse on 9th September, and include a night at London’s O2 Academy Islington - follow the release of three new tracks, and the news that she’ll release her debut project later this year.

Vukovi have confirmed a new album, ‘Nula’

Vukovi have announced a new album. Titled ‘Nula’, it’s set for release on 7th October via LAB Records, and is a concept record that follows the adventures of Nula in a sci-fi world - vocalist Janine Shilstone explains: “I think about what’s happening in the world too much. The way the rich are getting richer and the poor getting poorer. The greed. The cruelty. There’s a lot of that on the record, and in Nula’s story.”

Deaf Havana have booked a UK tour

Deaf Havana have announced a new UK headline tour in support of their upcoming sixth studio album, ‘The Present Is A Foreign Land’, which is set for release on 15th July.

They will kick off at Cardiff’s Tramshed on 8th November, before stopping in Nottingham, Manchester, London and Glasgow.

Panic! At The Disco have announced their new album

Panic! At The Disco have announced their new album ‘Viva Las Vengeance’. Set for release on 19th August via Fueled By Ramen ahead of a world tour, the news arrives alongside the title-track. “’Viva Las Vengeance’ is a look back at who I was 17 years ago and who I am now with the fondness I didn’t have before,” Brendon Urie explains of the track, which pays homage to upset-vertical_74x210mm_2mm-bleed.indd 1 his hometown.

2022-05-

NEW WORL ORDER Glasgow’s Baby Strange are back with a new album, ‘World Below’, and they’re not hiding from the big stuff.

Words: Sam Taylor. Photos: Rory Barnes.

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lasgow foursome Baby Strange’s second album ‘World Below’ is both of its time, but also somewhat timeless, ruminating on some of today’s most pertinent and universal issues - mental health, class divisions, and poverty. Vocalist and guitarist Johnny Madden tells us how it came to be.

You’re about to release your second album, ‘World Below’ - when did you begin working on it? What was the timeline like?

We started writing it at the start of the first lockdown, we started just building demos up on my laptop, sending them back and forth, and once we got a rough idea of the direction we were heading, we managed to book out a couple of Airbnbs to stay in together to write and do more demos. We loved doing that, just totally in our own bubble.

What lessons did you learn from your debut that you put into practice for this one?

We’ve learned a lot since then. We’ve grown so much as a band and as people. A main thing we took away is not to get too ahead of ourselves, it’s really easy to get overly excited when things are going well, but you never know what’s going to happen. There have been a lot of ups of downs in this band, but we’ve come out the other side stronger than ever before.

Did you know what you wanted this record to be from the outset, or did it reveal itself along the way?

We had a rough demo of the title-track for a while, actually, and there was just something about it that we loved. That song really opened our eyes to what this record could become. It sounds bold and

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exciting, we wanted to push ourselves with this album, and I think we’ve done exactly that.

Do you write songs about social issues because it’s cathartic, or because you’d like to impact change? What’s the main motivation for you?

Both reasons, really. It changes from song to song, but a lot of the times when I feel like it’s something cathartic, it’s me trying to break down something that’s happened in my life that has had a big impact on me. There are parts of the record where I write about my mental health, and I hope from being open and transparent about past struggles with anxiety and depression that it can normalise these feelings to whoever’s listening.

Another thing is that lockdown hit us all hard; that was a big reason why we wanted to create this place called ‘World Below’ with this album; it’s about escapism, even though the place you’re escaping to might not be the prettiest.

The collaboration with Hayley Mary from The Jezabels was fun, how did having a collaborator influence the way ‘Only Feel It When I’m With You’ came together?

Cheers! We’ve always wanted to collaborate with someone but could never find the right song or person until this track. Her voice suits this song so well, we can’t wait to play it live with her. We met Hayley a few years back when she was living in Scotland; she was introduced to us by her fiancé Johnny Took who plays in DMA’S. They’re both great people.

Do you have any other musician pals you’d like to collaborate with?

One of my oldest friends Salv who goes by the musical name Sega Bodega; we’ve been mates for over

“There have been a lot of ups of downs in this band, but we’ve come out the other side stronger” Johnny Madden 15 years and have never done a track together, so I think doing something with him would be really fun. His newest album ‘Romeo’ is outstanding; saw him play live in Glasgow last week, and he blew me away.

Did you have any tracks that nearly made it onto the album, but you held back? How did you decide what to include?

There were a few. It simply just came down to what songs excited us the most. We had all 10 tracks decided pretty early on, though; it wasn’t too hard for us.

Where do you hope this album takes you?

We want to play around the world. There are a lot of places we’ve never been

to that we’re dying to visit.

We’re looking at America for next year, hopefully, and we have a load of European dates this year that we’re really buzzed about.

What else do you have coming up?

We’re in the middle of planning some really exciting album release shows. We want to take it back to basics with these gigs and throw some parties; that’s what we were known for when we first started. Our first gig was in someone’s flat, so we’re looking at doing stuff like this again. It’s always wild doing shows like that, and we love it. ■ Baby Strange’s new album ‘World Below’ is out 17th June.

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TRACK BY TRACK

MNYS ...Before The Internet

MNYS - AKA Nick Cozine - made his name over a decade working on other artists’ projects - most recently ‘Thought It Was’, written for Iann Dior featuring Machine Gun Kelly and Travis Barker.

Now, he’s pushing out alone with a brand new EP. We asked him to run us through it, front to back.

Photo: Skyler Barberio.

GARDEN STATEMENT

I think it’s important to know that I’m originally from Paterson, NJ but now live in Los Angeles, CA. Growing up, I had the most supportive parents and family - but we really struggled financially. I’ll spare all the details, but I remember going to a friend’s house for a sleepover, and it would put into perspective just how little my family had.

I was always surrounded completely by love - but I knew that I needed to get out of my small town and chase something bigger; while in pursuit of that - I’ve lost friends and a piece of myself.

I moved to LA in 2019 and quickly realised that everyone is just trying to impress other people with stuff that doesn’t even matter. I find myself able to afford a cup of coffee whenever I want, yet surrounded by people who don’t care about anything other than their status.

‘Garden Statement’ is about navigating these different personalities throughout my life, reminiscing about how New Jersey carries some of the best memories in my heart.

BACKSEAT

While I’ve been fortunate enough to move across the country and chase a dream, I never expected how it would affect my relationships with friends. A lot of them were once musicians or creatives and have since given up the dream. I’ve worked countless jobs - from coffee shops to the corporate world - all while pursuing music. I would work all day and then run to any session I could get my hands on to make sure I was still putting in the work. There are obstacles that you have to overcome if you pursue anything in this industry, especially the illusion that one song or connection is going to change your life.

Maybe that happens for some, but the reality lies in the hundreds of songs and numerous hours of talking to people you don’t even know that you get to see even a little progress.

“Backseat” was written once I understood how it all worked - I gained confidence and now just ignore the noise.

PANIC AGAIN

Sometimes I feel like I’m falling without a parachute.

Spiralling out of control - it’s really overwhelming.

Oddly, I didn’t have my first panic attack until music became my full-time job.

I’ve worked full-time since graduating college and made decent money producing/ writing for other artists.

When I signed my first publishing & record deal - it was all I ever dreamt of to consider myself “successful.”

But the extra sense of pressure began to creep in “People are investing in you, Nick; you have to deliver!”

I’ve realised it’s very much a luxurious problem to have, but it’s a problem that I continue to struggle with.

‘Panic Again’ is about the only person in the world who can help me stop from falling: my fiancé.

EVERYTHING’S FINE

Nostalgia - it’s a funny thing. When something reminds you of someone or a memory, feelings can go either way. Especially if that person is no longer a part of your life. I wrote “Everything’s Fine” about loss - how sometimes that random memory can ignite certain unwanted emotions.

Grief can invade you; it’s uninvited and out of your control - but after a few moments, you pick yourself up, dust yourself off and continue moving forward.

As cliche as it is, I find truth behind the phrase, “Don’t cry because it’s over; smile because it happened!”

GREY

I went to Nashville for the first time in August of last year, and ‘Grey’ was one of the first songs I wrote. It’s about the gloomy feeling someone can leave you with when you no longer talk to them, growing apart and not really ever understanding why. There’s no ill-will, just distance. I’ve learned people grow apart from each other, and that is okay.

This music journey has been a rollercoaster, and I hope these songs do something for whoever is listening; I know it did for me. ■ MNYS’ new EP ‘... Before The Internet’ is out 17th June.

Upset 17

Riot.

Everything you need to know about...

Greg Puciato’s new album

Photo: Jim Louvau.

‘Mirrorcell’

Across his work with The Dillinger Escape Plan, Killer Be Killed and The Black Queen, Greg Puciato has been endlessly prolific. His second solo full-length, ‘Mirrorcell’ is a typically interesting release that came together with the help of a number of pals. Greg fills us in on some tit-bits from behind-the-scenes.

THE ALBUM WAS ORIGINALLY MEANT TO BE TWO SONGS

I hadn’t been done with ‘Fuck Content’ for too long, but I couldn’t stop writing. I told Steve Evetts that I wanted to track a couple songs, maybe for a single release, or an EP, but that quickly became three, then four, then five. He told me to leave and come back when I have an album.

THE COVER IS MY EYE

I’m not really big on trying to think

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about cover art; I just want it to come to me naturally. I was at an eye doctor appointment and saw my eye zoomed in on this screen, and instantly knew that was it. It makes sense with the title, which I already had. The doctor thought I was crazy when I asked him to send me the hi-res image for an album cover.

THIS WAS THE LAST THING RECORDED IN STEVE EVETTS’ LONGTIME STUDIO

Steve, who has recorded and mixed every Dillinger record and a lot of my other stuff, he’s really my longest working relationship. We’ve been tracking together since 2003. The studio he had been working out of, we started tracking there for 2007’s ‘Ire Works’, for which I moved to California and never left. This record was the last one he recorded there, after which he moved back to New Jersey.

‘LOWERED’

Reba and I met briefly backstage when Code Orange opened of the final Dillinger shows. I was stuck on this song, and then

randomly had the idea for her to do a guest vocal. That unexpectedly turned into a full duet, and we ended up writing and recording all of the vocals in one night. Possibly my favourite song on the record.

JERRY CANTRELL

A lot of this was written at the same time that I was learning and rehearsing and sorta being constantly involved with a lot of Jerry’s output. That definitely crept into this, in terms of songwriting, vocal harmony, but mainly guitar tone stacking and wah pedal abuse.

WRITING

This was the most extensively I’ve ever demoed anything by far. Most times in the past, I have either not demoed at all or left them deliberately very crude. A lot of the demos for this are very, very close to the final songs, instrumentally. I still don’t ever demo vocals. ■ Greg Puciato’s album ‘Mirrorcell’ is out 1st July.

the new album - out 15th july

pre-order now

deafhavana.com

Live Report

The Great

Escape.

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Hundreds of new bands, one seaside extravaganza - here’s some of the stuff we saw at this year’s The Great Escape.

Words: Ali Shutler, Jake Hawkes Stephen Ackroyd. Photos: Em Marcovecchio, Indy Brewer, Patrick Gunning.

T CAN BE EASY TO see festivals like Brighton’s The Great Escape as the terrain of more generalist music scenes.

With hundreds of acts playing across three days, that certainly was the case at one point - but with genre consigned to a scrap heap and the influence of pop-punk, post-punk and louder sounds ringing heavy across the musical spectrum, 2022’s edition has never sounded better.

“I’ve got all these industry people wondering what the hell this girl did to get here?” starts SCENE QUEEN. “The answer is, I don’t know,” she laughs before launching into the heavy metal meets sugary pop rampage of ‘Pink Bubblegum’. What follows next is an energetic 30-minute set dripping in selfconfidence, as Scene Queen pulls from hip-hop, punk, pop and metal to create what she calls “bimbocore”. Despite only playing her first show a little over a week ago, she knows how to handle the crowd - poking fun at the people loitering nervously at the back of the room (“I’ve never had this many straight men in my crowd before and probably never will again”) and inducting three moshing fans down the front into her sorority Bimbo Beta Pi. There are plenty of jokes about needing to be “hotter than everyone else”, but the main purpose of the sorority (“it’s not a cult,” SQ promises with a wink) is to make sure other people feel safe and welcomed at all future shows. That sense of community is key to her chaotic, gleeful music. “If this show is proof of anything, it’s that you can be whatever you want to be, and it’ll work out.” (AS) Some bands turn up to The Great Escape and practically rip the floorboards up and throw them in the air. Enter CRAWLERS, whose set on The Beach stage is laser-focused on nothing

short of a revolution. It’s a thrilling punch of alt-rock, led by Holly Minto, who pulls early-day stragglers out of their chairs and forces them to get involved. New cuts and favourites like ‘Come Over (Again)’ and ‘I Can’t Drive’ are readymade to cause absolute scenes wherever they go, with The Great Escape feeling like an early treat before things go truly stratospheric. “I’ve got half hour to convince you to be the next big Crawlers fan,” Holly says early in the set - and she’s pretty successful at that. (JM) LAURAN HIBBERD arrives at The Great Escape like a shot of bubblegum tequila. Thriving through a set that takes those punky edges and turns them into giant pop bangers, it feels like a statement of intent at Chalk. ‘How Am I Still Alive?’ and closing track ‘Still Running (5K)’ stand as two big-time bangers, like a call to arms to throw away the seriousness and get involved in a big fun time like nobody else can. Ripping guitar hits meet choruses born for huge stages, and tonight feels like a signalling of a new chapter for Lauran: one aimed at turning every stage possible into a disco ball. (JM) Everyone’s favourite bisexual vegan punk band from the Faroe Islands, JOE & THE SHITBOYS play multiple times across the weekend, but it’s at 11pm in a venue under the train station when they really hit their stride. Frontman Joe is walking through the crowd shouting lyrics about eating your dog, mosh pits are so big that people are bouncing off the walls, and at one point Team Upset fall on top of each other and get kicked in the head. The sheer chaos of it is one thing, but the Shitboys also have armfuls of bangers. The call and response of ‘Life Is Great You Suck’ is enthusiastically taken up by the crowd, while the suitably unsubtle ‘Save the Planet, You Dumb Shit’ is as catchy as it is bonkers. By the end of their set, Joe is wearing a pair of sunglasses handed to him by a crowd member while parading around on someone’s shoulders. It’s sweaty, stupid, and very good fun indeed. (JH) If Brazillian alt-pop star ALISSIC hadn’t told the crowd at Revenge that

this was her first-ever show, they’d have never known. Walking onto the stage and staring at the crowd as the atmospheric backing track builds, she cuts a commanding presence that doesn’t let up for the duration of the gig.

Opener ‘Like’ is a folksy metal number, ‘Piano’ is a brooding pop banger with plenty of swagger, while ‘Superstitious’ takes influence from Shakira and Britney Spears. There’s an emo take on Klaxons’ nu-rave classic ‘It’s Not Over Yet’, and ‘Dead Inside’ is an arena rock smash that has Bring Me The Horizon’s Oli Sykes screaming the lyrics back from the crowd. Despite the different genres she toys with, though, Alissic clearly knows the type of artist she wants to be, and as a first glimpse into her world, today’s show is a tantalising introduction. (AS) After packing out their midnight show at Green Door Store early on Friday morning, ILLUMINATI HOTTIES take to the floor of The Hope And Ruin for another chunk of joyful chaos. Starting early and powering through tracks from 2021’s brilliant ‘Let Me Do One More’ alongside a few choice cuts from the gleeful rebellion of their ‘Free Illumanti Hotties’ mixtape, there’s an urgency to their fiery indie-rock that’s only stopped when vocalist Sarah Tudzin asks the “tall, strapping blokes” at the front to step back and make room for any girls who want to come forward. Once that’s done, they resume their frenetic anthems and don’t let up for the remainder of their set, which ends with Sarah standing on a table, screaming the lyrics to ‘Free Ppl’ and overseeing the good-natured carnage. (AS) There’s something genuinely joyful about NOAHFINNCE. From the word go, it’s a full-throttle blast of bright neon brilliance that dominates Club Revenge.

‘Life’s A Bit’ bounces off the walls like an energetic puppy, while ‘Underachiever’ is part classic Green Day, part selfdeprecating, self-aware serotonin shot.

At a festival where so many others are trying to be cool, NOAHFINNCE is definitely having fun - what’s cooler than that? (SA) Upset 21

About Break. to

NEW TALENT YOU NEED TO KNOW

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Boston, MA foursome Mint Green - Ronnica (vocals, guitar, songwriter), Daniel (drums, production), Tiffany (bass, production) and Brandon (guitar) - have just dropped their album, ‘All Girls Go To Heaven’. It’s a charming and relatable debut about finding yourself and learning how to break out on your own.

Hello Ronnica! What are you up to today?

Howdy! Today I’m getting new brakes for my 2011 Toyota Prius. Exciting stuff !

Have you lot known each other long?

Daniel and I have known each other for the longest amount of time. We met on Craigslist in October of 2015. I met Tiffany on Craigslist in November of 2019. I met Brandon on Twitter in April of 2020.

Mint Green has had quite a few line-up changes over the years; in fact, the LP that we’re releasing will be the first body of work that features this new line-up, as our two EPs were recorded with the original members back in 2016 and 2018. So that’s kind of what makes this first LP extra special.

It is a true representation of all that Daniel and I have been through and what we’ve been working on from 2018 to now. And we’re so happy that we found Tiffany and Brandon to join us because they’re in it for the long haul.

How did you hit upon Mint

Green’s sound? Are you all into similar music?

When I started Mint Green, I was pretty much exclusively listening to Turnover’s ‘Peripheral Vision’ album and Tiger Jaws’ ‘Charmer’ album. So I think our first EP, ‘Growth’, reflects that a bit. I would say that we’re all into similar music, but that similar music is super diverse! So, for example, Daniel’s favourite artists are Vampire Weekend, Kendrick Lamar, Blink-182, Radiohead, Billie Eilish, Soccer Mommy. I love Paramore, Charli XCX, Top 40s pop, Adele. Brandon is into hardcore, math rock, punk, and rap. Tiffany likes a lot of 80s and 90s stuff as well as indie-pop like Japanese Breakfast and Alvvays. So we definitely have a lot of overlap in the music and songs that we love, and I think because we all listen to so many types of music, there are no limits to what we can bring to Mint Green. We don’t feel pressure to fit in a box or a specific genre.

Are there any lyrical themes you’re repeatedly drawn to?

I feel like our songs can be sad but hopeful. They can be about both conflict and resolution. About accepting the truth. Standing up for oneself. There’s a lot of selfreflection and hindsight.

There’s longing, wishful thinking, and growing up.

What’s the best song you’ve written so far?

“Best” is hard to create a criteria for. But, I would say that the song I’m most proud of is ‘Body Language’.

“Our songs can be sad but hopeful.

There’s a lot of self-reflection and hindsight” Ronnica It was one of the first songs we made from scratch together with Tiffany and Brandon. I remember it being pretty tough to write, both instrumentalwise and lyrically. In fact, I didn’t have all of the lyrics until a few days before we recorded it for the album.

As the song came together, though, in the studio, it quickly became all of our favourites. But if you had told me back when we were writing it that it would be the first single off of our debut album, I wouldn’t have believed you!

At what point did you start pulling together your debut album? What was your starting point?

Technically speaking, one of the oldest songs on this album dates back to late 2017. And a few songs on the album we’ve been playing live consistently as a part of our set since 2018. But I would say that the real starting point was in the summer and fall of 2020. We knew that we had to have as many demos as possible by the end of the year to start pitching to labels. We ended up with six songs. Four of those made it to the album, and out of

those four, two were already ones we had been playing since 2018. So essentially, between summer of 2020 and summer of 2021, we had to finish or write from scratch eight songs for the album.

Releasing the album must be a huge high point for you; what’ve been some other highlights of your time in the band?

Opening for Tigers Jaw at a sold-out venue here in Boston was definitely a highlight for me. That was surreal because, as a fan, I had already seen them twice at that very same venue. Daniel and Brandon had also seen them live in the past. In fact, Brandon had already bought tickets to the very show we played before we even knew of the opportunity to open for them! So it was definitely a dream come true to share the stage with them at a venue where we had seen them just a few years back.

What else are you working on at the moment?

We’re writing new music! ■ Mint Green’s debut album ‘All Girls Go To Heaven’ is out now.

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The BLSSM

Newly signed to Fueled By Ramen, singer-songwriter Lily Lizotte aka altpop sensation THE BLSSM is building on the huge success of their 2021 single ‘HARDCORE HAPPY’ with the release of second EP, ‘PURE ENERGY’. Checking in from the van on the way to Boson - where they’re about to play a support show with American bedroom popster ROLE MODEL - Lily tells us a little about what they’re up to.

What first sparked your interest in music? Who were your first-ever favourite acts?

My dad is a musician and producer so getting into music was totally all from him. We listened to everything at home. I was really into Dipset, N.E.R.D, Elliott Smith, The Cure growing up. I can remember a lot of that playing at home.

How did you get into making music of your own?

Can you remember the first song you wrote?

I really just started writing poetry and then turning the poems into songs. I can’t remember as there wasn’t like one poignant moment... it really was a collage of building moments that started to push me into my obsession with music.

What were your first steps 24 Upset

to getting your music ‘out there’?

Sharing with friends was first, then uploading it to DSPs. But honestly just sharing it with a bunch of friends who cared.

How long did it take for you to hit upon your sound?

I’m always evolving my sound but ultimately I have a signature and consistent approach that doesn’t waiver…

All of my influences woven together into my own “pop sound” driven by hypermelodic songwriting.

You’ve just released a new

EP - how did ‘Pure Energy’ come together? What’s it about?

I recorded some of it at Shangri-La Studios in Malibu and American Songs Burbank. This is a really special EP to me, it’s a collage and time stamp of my life and it feels triumphant as much as it does cathartic and aching.

“PURE ENERGY” is the embodiment of the project.

It’s a maximum version of myself, chewed up and spat out.

Do you have a favourite song on the EP? ‘I HATE SUNDAY’.

What else are you working on at the moment?

Another project for sure in the works!

What would you most like to achieve during your time as a musician?

Just to have my project feel like someone else’s as much as it is mine.

Music aside, what do you do for fun?

I love to cook and go shopping, hunt for clothes... especially vintage! ■ The BLSSM’s EP ‘Pure Energy’ is out now.

Nova Twins aren’t just the future of rock, they’re the present too - and with their new album ‘Supernova’, they’re here to prove it.

Words: Jasleen Dhindsa. Photos: Sarah Louise Bennett.

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F YOU HAVE ANY CONSCIOUSNESS regarding the current climate of rock, then you’ll already be more than aware of Nova Twins.

As childhood friends, Amy Love and Georgia South have spent close to a decade building their name in the UK rock and punk scene. In 2020, they released their kinetic, supercharged debut album ‘Who Are The Girls?’ - an in your face declaration that has forged a muchneeded path. With no synths in sight and an adoration for guitar pedals, its incomparable composite of nu-metal meets electronic-tinged hardcore was both built in and made for the live environment. And then a global pandemic struck.

Nova Twins persevered, and despite not being able to feel the tangible fruits of their labour, they still managed to solidify their status as one of the most exciting, expectation-defying and pioneering bands around. They collaborated and toured with Bring Me The Horizon, picked up the accolade of Best Breakthrough Band at the Heavy Music Awards, and even gained a fan in Rage Against The Machine icon Tom Morello.

At the time of writing, the duo are

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“We suddenly became this band who went from doing loads of punk shows, to existing only online” Amy Love on tour with another rock zeitgeist, YUNGBLUD, Nova’s first proper tour of Europe, having only toured France a few months prior.

“This year’s been a great journey for us. We’ve never been able to tour this much,” Georgia explains. “It’s the first time we’ve been able to do a big headline tour across America and France and the UK. It’s been great to finally see our audience in person and actually see what our audience looks like. They look amazing. They’re so diverse and so lovely and welcoming to all our supports that we bring out. It’s been really good fun.”

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“Through thick and thin, we’ve always got to keep moving forward” Amy Love The band are currently promoting the ferocious follow-up to their debut, ‘Supernova’ - an empowering goliath that sees Nova Twins elevated and open to a stratospheric future.

“At first, we were worried and panicked like a lot of bands, but we persevered and carried on,” Amy says, reflecting on what it was like to promote their first album during the pandemic.

“You have to adapt in this industry anyway, so [we did that]. We suddenly became this band who went from doing loads of punk shows, to existing only online. We made the most of it and got to know our audience. We set them little challenges, we’ve done art together and made clothes together, riff challenges… it really helped the time go by, and of course, we got stuck into the album. We just adapted to our environment, and through thick and thin, we’ve always got to keep moving forward.”

‘Supernova’ came to fruition during lockdown “after watching loads of Netflix and wallowing in our own self-pity.”

Amy continues, “We just had to do something. The first song [was written] around Black Lives Matter, and a lot was going on with the marches. We did a few protests and made a couple of speeches at one of them.

We had so much to say and had a lot of feelings as well. After that, Georgia sent this incredible basis of ‘Cleopatra’ over, and I was just like, oh my god, this sounds so amazing. It’s 30 Upset

fresh, it sounds powerful, like the moment of what we were interacting with at the time. I sent it back with some lyrics on top, and then we to-and-fro’d it until it was the song we wanted it to be. Once we were happy with that, it gave us a new lease of life; a new energy to be like, even though we’re in this lockdown, we can still write, we can still move forward. And we did. It was the catalyst for the album.”

The duo used writing ‘Supernova’ to process the viscous atmosphere, not just in relation to the world but also in their own personal lives and journeys, a therapeutic exercise that

provided a space to explore and expand. The abundance of time in lockdown meant the process wasn’t rushed either, as Georgia explains.

“The first album was very much, this is who we are in terms of playing everything raw, how you’d hear us at a festival. ‘Supernova’ feels more intimate in a way because we did write in our bedrooms in a very small space. We had that time to play around with sounds, buy more pedals, and just really think about dynamics and not be afraid.”

Every inch of their new record feels fresh, reflected even as the band are able to promote it without restrictions. “Because we missed out on the first album, this feels almost like this could be our debut as well,” Georgia exasperates as Amy laughs alongside her. “It feels amazing that we get to do this one almost

from scratch again,” she adds.

Now two albums deep, the aptly titled ‘Supernova’ will surely see Nova Twins climb to even higher successes. Yet the journey up the ladder doesn’t seem to phase them at all, as their DIY community ethos is still at the core of who they are.

They’ve even continued with their various sociopolitically focused projects, including Voices For The Unheard, platforming alternative POC talent - created online, it now exists in real life as they bring the artists involved out on tour with them. It’s even led to one artist signing with Nova’s own publisher.

“For every band, no matter what position you’re in, there will always be obstacles. You’re always going to look for the next thing.” Amy says about her band’s trajectory. “I think because we’ve been a band

“We’re still DIY, we still make our own outfits. We’re still literally up to 5am the night before!”

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“We want people to listen to ‘Supernova’ and feel like they can take on the world” Amy Love for such a long time, we knew we had obstacles just for being who we are: women, women of colour, making rock music. The first time, it was definitely trickier, and now it’s nice to see the industry opening up more, opening up the conversation more, being a little bit more versatile in what can be what.”

“We’re appreciative of everything because we’ve been going for a long time.

We always had our mind set on being like, it doesn’t really matter [what happens], we’re always gonna go forward anyway. We made that decision, whether we’re huge, whether we’re going to be small - anything that comes now feels like a bonus. We understand the hard work it took to even get to this point.

It’s not easy for bands to keep moving forward in this climate, especially when [there’s] not that much money. It’s fucking pinching pennies all the time.”

Has the music industry always been receptive to a band so unapologetic? “I think the audience was, and I always say we’re a band’s band,” Georgia says. “The audience always accepted us. We came up in the punk scene through festivals, so it’s more the industry that had the confusion and kickback of like, where would we fit? What music is this?

They don’t look like what we’re used to rock looking like? That was the only pushback that we had. [Our] audience and community kept us going.”

“Even the deal we’ve done with Marshall [Records] is not your conventional deal.

It’s really artist-friendly, it’s 32 Upset

more of a partnership, so it’s like part brand, part label. It’s a deal that hasn’t really been done before. So we still make the decisions, and they give us advice if we need it, but they definitely let us just run with our thing,” Amy adds, with Georgia quickly chiming in, “We’re still DIY, we still make our own outfits. We’re still literally up to 5am the night before!”

Ultimately, Nova Twins want to continue to empower their fanbase and beyond with the same fervour that has led them to where they are now, having always had the odds stacked mostly against them.

“We want people to listen to ‘Supernova’ and feel like they can take on the world and do anything, because that’s what it was for us,” Amy concludes. “Whatever we were going through in lockdown, it really got us through, and is an honest reflection. It’s not always fucking rainbows.

It definitely gets dark inside the world of ‘Supernova’, but there’s always a sense of triumph and a way out of that.

“We hope that when people listen to it, they get that main character energy too. Seeing two girls of colour playing the kind of music we’re playing, and saying we can exist in this space - that means you can exist in any space. We’re starting to see the diversity across the board. When we first started, there was none of that. We’re finally getting that now. What we set out to do is materialising, and it’s such a beautiful thing to see.” ■ Nova Twins’ album ‘Supernova’ is out 17th June.

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ALL FIR ALL FIR ALL FIR ALL FIR ALL FIR ALL FIR 34 Upset

RED UP RED UP RED UP RED UP RED UP RED UP Back with their first full-length in thirteen years, Alexisonfire are a band reborn.

Words: Alexander Bradley. Photos: Vanessa Heins, Sarah Louise Bennett

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HERE ARE A THOUSAND DIFFERENT similes that could be written in countless different ways when it comes to Alexisonfire: “The dying embers from which they have returned...”; “the fire which still burns deep within the band”; comparisons with the phoenix and so on and so forth. They’re all easy parallels to draw because they’re also all true.

The match was struck on the Canadian post-hardcore scene when five guys from Ontario exploded onto the scene in 2004.

With their red-hot sound and incendiary live shows, they blazed a trail far and wide in a 10-year burst that exploded as dramatically as they first arrived. In 2011, following the departure of Dallas Green and Wade MacNeil, it was over. Ashes to ashes.

They were done.

But. Faintly, there was a flicker. Then another. And another. Then, in 2015, Reading & Leeds fanned the reunion rumours by adding them to their line-up, and a flame burst into life again. Flash forward another six years, and there is an inferno in the shape of a heart-skull roaring into life again. Alexisonfire are back.

And that’s how we arrive at ‘Otherness’.

13 years on from their last full-length ‘Old Crows / Young Cardinals’, it’s an album that acknowledges the difference but celebrates the refortified whole.

When laid out flat, the truth is, the band weren’t away for too long. Between a farewell tour in 2012, the odd reunion show, then a few more shows snowballing into a tour, ‘Familiar Drugs’, a few more singles and a pandemic, and here we are.

But the mindset has shifted during that time away. Dallas did City and Colour and became a folk star. Wade replaced Frank Carter in Gallows and started up Black Lungs and his alt-psych project Doom’s Children. Drummer Jordan Hastings has been helping out Billy Talent on a semipermanent basis. Chris Steele, the band’s bassist, travelled the world and took a well-deserved break. And, for George Pettit, the band’s focal point? He became a firefighter to only further extend the ease with which those similes and metaphors can be written.

“FOR A VERY LONG TIME, I don’t think Alexisonfire has had long term goals,” George admits. He is at his home fighting off the tail end of COVID, which has finally 36 Upset

“Change is sewn into the fabric of this band” George Pettit caught up with him after managing to dodge it from work colleagues, bandmates and near enough everyone else in the world for the last two years.

We are discussing how we got to this point of Alexisonfire’s return - not just playing their hits a few times a year, but back with a new full-length album.

In the space of a year that started with the release of ‘Familiar Drugs’, the band released three singles. The question that was volleyed back in response was whether this was the foundation for a full album.

Always, in one way or another, the answer was “no”.

“I don’t even think when we started writing this record that we thought it was going to be an album,” he says. “We were about a year into the pandemic, we were all living locally, and we felt like we were squandering this opportunity because we are usually to the wind - everyone is off somewhere else doing something else.

Getting us all in the same room is difficult, but the pandemic brought us all back to southern Ontario.”

“We made the decision to jam a little, and that’s as far as it went. At that point, it was “let’s just see if we can write a couple of songs”. Then we had four songs, and we were discussing whether we should do what we did with the last group of singles.

And then, I don’t know, we keep rolling with it. We had eight songs, and we were like, ‘this is a record’. Dallas invited us up to his cottage, and we sat and had the first real discussions about what this is about and what we were going to do with it.’

“That’s when we came up with the idea of ‘Otherness’, so it wasn’t until late in the game that we decided we were going to make another record. We were flying by the seat of our pants for a while there.”

Taking George at his word, it would seem there has been no master plan for the resurrection of Alexisonfire, just a lot of happy accidents. The singles were only ever singles, and the album came about as lockdown boredom hit. That said, when ‘Otherness’ is fully released in late June, the trio of singles that whetted the appetite might just be the stepping stones between the young cardinals of Alexis’ last album

and the…” older” crows they’ve become in their time away. The final single, ‘Season of the Flood’, a seven-minute masterpiece of a slow, controlled burn that unfurls into a deafening colossus, is representative of the Alexisonfire sound presented on this record.

Many of the band’s foundations are still intact, but skyscraper ambitions are fully imagined on this album. “I think change is sewn into the fabric of this band,” George comments. It’s true. Alexis have always had a creative forward momentum propelled by some of the most diversely influenced individuals you could possibly meet. But nothing that Alexis or their individual members have ever done could prepare you for ‘Otherness’. It’s almost as if all that time on huge stages around the world on their reunion shows has turned them from a rowdy underground bunch of punks into out-and-out rock stars.

And George feels it too. “You are seeing a different Alexisonfire if you come out to see us now than you were in 2006,” he reasons.

“That being said, I think this is the best era of Alexisonfire.”

PULLING TOGETHER THE STRANDS OF ‘Otherness’, the album opens with a war cry.

‘Committed to the Con’ bursts alive with a challenge of “Which side are you on?” The track came after guitarist Wade suggested the album “needed” a political song, something Alexis have never shied away from. The only problem for George was writing it. Despite being vocal about social injustice and politics, the singer has found “the message” is often detrimental to the song. “The second I try and sit down and write a song that’s about “something”, that kind of turns to dog shit pretty quickly,’ he concedes.

“So Wade had a few lines, and then he sent me the Woody Guthrie song ‘Which Side Are You On’ - a song about union versus management - which is something I deal with personally in my life as a firefighter.” The result is one of the most visceral moments on the album. It’s a straight to the point reminder of the line in the sand this band has drawn with their music. “Alexisonfire are hardline socialist lefties, and conservatism is a fucking con,” George declares. Just in case there was any doubt left.

By track three, following the soaring lead single from which the album takes its name, the record begins to shift. ‘Sans Soleil’ has Alexis baring their soul against the glistening flourish of bar chimes and bubbly riffs. George likens the track to ‘Rough Hands’ and ‘Burial’, but it does feel different. Wade wrote the lyrics, but Dallas takes the reigns on the track to pull the pain and beauty into full focus.

“Wade had some very real deal personal stuff going on his life that he felt he had to address, and that song became a vehicle for it,” George explains. “We were all taken about with how earnest the lyrics were. There was a lot of Upset 37

exposure on this record with people saying, ‘here are the things that are happening with me’ point-blank.”

When diving further into the album, that vulnerability comes to the surface more and more. ‘Survivor’s Guilt’ details George’s struggle in the fire service, while ‘Blue Spade’ finds Chris Steele stepping up to the plate to battle his demons. As the singer and previously chief lyricist, George describes the latter as “a really impressive and special moment in the studio for every one of us.”

“When that one was done, we walked outside of the studio, sat back and went, ‘wow, I can’t believe that really came out of us’,” he recalls. “That we are still capable of doing something like that, it’s a special song for us.”

There has been a lot of living done in the time that Alexisonfire have taken between albums, so maybe it’s understandable that there is a lot of emotion poured into ‘Otherness’.

“Lyrically, this is the most open we’ve ever been with one another,” George offers.

“I think there is something very private about writing lyrics. Like, ‘I’m writing down my feelings, and I’m going to show it to everyone’. There is something that feels weird about it, not necessarily in writing it but in the process of showing it. For years we were doing it very separately in our own little corners, our own little hidden spots, writing our lyrics then showing up to the studio to record them.

“With this one, we went to Dallas’s house in Toronto when we were recording the demos and walked through each song. We talked through the lyrics and what each song was about, and collaboratively we came to agreements on what the lyrics would be for certain songs. Nothing was off the table. It was a very open, collaborative, creative process that we have never really had lyrically. That’s 38 Upset

kind of where we’re at.

Alexisonfire is currently very in tune and very much in love with one another.”

The love-fest that took place seems vital to the end product. It lends itself to the respect, admiration and appreciation the five members of Alexisonfire have for one another. With many new hats being tried on in the studio, from different lyricists to George testing his singing chops in more equal balance to his screams and Dallas taking on the role of producer, there is a newfound confidence and trust in one another. It shows throughout the long, winding instrumentals that decorate the album as they all get a

whereas now it seems like what’s the point of limiting ourselves?”

“Our musical tastes are all over the map. We don’t draw from a small pool of musical tastes. We draw from across the board,” he adds before reeling off a long list of from ambient music to weird electronic, black metal and current hardcore bands that they were each listening to at the time of recording.

That’s the “Otherness” that makes the album. It’s all these different proclivities from music, film, art and fashion that pulled five kids from Ontario’s clubs and art spaces in search of “things that were a bit avant-garde and a little bit strange”. “I feel

“Alexisonfire are hardline socialist lefties, and conservatism is a fucking con” George Pettit

chance to flex their muscles.

Take a track like ‘Dark Night of the Soul’, which opens the record’s second half. The horizon seems endless, from the acapella opening that spirals in every direction with new wave synthesisers, blissedout guitars, an alt-psych influence on the bridge and a death march on the drums.

It feels like no ideas were off the table.

“There were some moments where we like, can we do that?” says George.

“A lot of the stops got pulled out on this record. Maybe we couldn’t have done that when we were making ‘Crisis’ or ‘Old Crows’. We would have stopped ourselves,

like we were paying homage to Rush with that song,” he concludes.

GEORGE STRUGGLES TO IDENTIFY WHY it is different this time around.

It’s easy to call it “maturity”.

He considers whether it’s the friends they’ve lost recently, the pandemic, general life experience or their individual struggles. Regardless, the camaraderie and good feeling between the band is clear to see and hear.

It certainly wasn’t this way when they called time back in 2011. It was well documented that the Alexisonfire split was not amicable. So, 11 years on, with their love for one

another stronger than ever, does George regret the way things ended?

“The break-up was absolutely necessary,” he states. “I don’t know if this record would have been made this way if we had slugged it out and had not stopped being Alexis for a while.”

It’s important to remember that Alexisonfire were teenagers when they started out and spent their entire 20’s making sweat drip from the ceiling of venues all around the world.

That’s bound to take a toll on anyone after a while, physically and mentally.

“That’s all we ever really knew. And it was good for me to step away from that, figure things out on my own for a while. In that, I found a different career as well, and that’s something that is another huge passion in my life. Now, when we come back to Alexis, it’s not this… you know,” he trails away.

George refers to ‘Otherness’ as “a creative pursuit”. This album isn’t a contractual obligation or something they need to do to join the dots between one world tour and another.

Instead, Alexisonfire are back on their own terms.

And with it, the excitement is back too.

“It’s important to step away. I’d been on the road for so long that I had made myself numb to it too. As much as Alexis were good live back in the day, I just did it,’ he reflects. ‘It didn’t make me feel anything anymore, and now I’m a bundle of nerves before we play. There is a bit of the fear there, and that keeps me a coiled spring. It’s easier to get to the place of performance than it was back then, when I was just present and “oh, it’s just another show, no big deal”. Now every show matters, and it’s good. I’m glad it played out the way it did.” ■ Alexisonfire’s album ‘Otherness’ is out 24th June.

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“It was a very deliberate intention to embrace playfulness with this record.

Allowing yourself to have fun and be silly is necessary and vital to sustaining a political life as either an individual or as part of a movement: punk’s power is in irreverence.

That’s not to say I’m not still furious about things; I’m still furious about plenty of things.”

Since forming in 2012, Petrol Girls have become known for their incendiary brand of math-rock inflected punk, with outspoken vocalist Ren Aldridge stoking the flames with her blasts of political rage. Yet after the release of 2019’s ‘Cut & Stitch’, Ren began to find the position she had placed herself in as the band’s mouthpiece to be unsustainable.

“Being a musician is incredibly challenging

For the band’s new album ‘Baby’, Petrol Girls’ Ren Aldridge is both tackling trauma and embracing all sides of her personality.

Words: Linsey Teggert. Photos: Martyna Bannister, Bernhard Schindler

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in its own right, but when you start adding to that the layers of being a woman in music, being a political band, then being a political woman who is outspoken about feminism, especially sexual violence... those layers add up,” sighs Ren. “I really don’t like any sort of holierthan-thou bullshit. I feel like none of us are perfect, and we have so much to learn from each other, but I know that being the one on stage holding the mic, it’s a delicate balance that can tip over into the sanctimonious and preachy. It’s hard because obviously, I believe very strongly in my values, but I definitely don’t believe I have more knowledge or that I’m more right about things.”

Compounded by the pressure she had placed upon herself to do and say the right things within the political punk community (“I’d overworked to be as fucking perfect as I possibly could be”), Ren found herself struggling with one of the worst periods of depression that she had ever experienced. Recovering a sense of fun and playfulness was vital to her well-being.

“I’m a really silly person with a stupid sense of humour - fart jokes kind of humour - but I felt so much responsibility and pressure in the position I was in that I was crushing the silly and childlike part of myself, which is really core to my creativity, and it was making me really unhappy.

“Of course, there is huge power and strength in sincerity, and that’s not something I’m going to drop - I can’t help that I care a fucking lot about things - but I can be lots of different things. This record is about allowing all sides of me and all sides of us as a band as well.”

With new album ‘Baby’, this attitude is represented musically with a more stripped-back, fun sound, which sees the crushing soundscapes of previous records replaced with spiky post-punk riffs and a focus on rhythm and groove.

Ren’s nuanced vocals also reflect this change, skipping between lines delivered with a knowing tongue-incheek lilt or a cheeky sneer, though there’s still plenty of visceral ferocity throughout.

It’s no coincidence that ‘Baby’ demonstrates a freer sound for Petrol Girls, given that Ren has tried to place less pressure and expectation on herself this time around. “When around you, people are being torn down for things that are honest mistakes or due to not knowing about something, it creates an atmosphere where I’ve felt 42 Upset

“I can be lots of different things. This record is about allowing all sides of me” Ren Aldridge very watched - it used to really mess with my head. Now I’m at a place where I’m like, ‘fuck it’. I know what my values are, and I know that I’m true to those values and that politics.

“I don’t want us to hold each other to perfection all the time. It makes us stagnant and stops us growing. When we demand a very detailed level of complete perfection from each other all the time, we stop seeing the bigger picture. We lose focus and start losing political power.”

It’s a complicated subject, but the idea that people who are involved in political activism and are fighting for the same cause need to be kinder to each other and try to acknowledge the complexity of situations is something which Ren explores lyrically throughout the record. ‘One Or The Other’ examines the way that binary ways of thinking, that someone is a ‘good person’ or a ‘bad person’, can actually be incredibly damaging: “Always one or the other, he’s a villain, or he’s your brother. Can’t be a victim and an abuser, if you don’t work then you’re a loser,” Ren spits over pummelling thrashy punk.

Similarly, in ‘Preachers’ Ren addresses those who call out others but don’t practice what they preach.

“There’s a lot of preachers here, but I don’t see no saints. Lot of fingers pointing, palms sweating under red paint,” she deadpans.

“We’re sometimes losing our grip on nuance and not thinking about what is actually going to help a situation of harm or conflict and ensure that it doesn’t happen again,” Ren muses.

“In a scene that’s very anti-police, it’s crazy that we spend so much time acting like cops to each other. At the end of the day, we need to be nuanced and kind to each other and ourselves.

Otherwise, what are we fighting for?”

While ‘Baby’ certainly is a more playful record than previous albums, Petrol Girls have by no means lost their ability to pack a punch right to the gut. ‘Fight For Our Lives,’ perhaps the most powerful track on the record, covers the difficult issue of genderbased violence and femicide. It’s the

topic that Ren is most active in, and something she regularly protests as part of a feminist group in Graz, Austria, where she relocated to from the UK a few years back.

“We started in June 2020, protesting every femicide that happened in Austria, but obviously got completely burnt out trying to protest them all. So now we do it every month, which is a statement in and of itself that we know that there will be femicides every month.

“When you’re constantly protesting femicide, you numb yourself to it in order to be able to deal with it, so with ‘Fight For Our Lives’, I was writing to process for myself the protesting of the really extreme peak of patriarchal violence.”

For the track, Ren knew she had to enlist activist Janey Starling, former vocalist of UK punk band Dream Nails and co-director of feminist organisation Level Up. One of their campaigns is to give dignity to dead women, which is directly referenced in ‘Fight For Our Lives’. In a horrible twist of fate, the trial of police officer Wayne Couzens for murdering Sarah Everard took place during the first week Petrol Girls were in the studio, which fed the anger that was directed into the record.

“I was so stoked to have Janey perform the verses on ‘Fight For Our Lives’. I just want to keep shouting about the work that she does and the media guidelines that she wrote. She just went to Italy to present them at a global journalism conference because the way femicide is reported has such a direct impact on how we as a society understand it.

If we didn’t live in this victimblaming culture that has ownership ideas about violence and romance, then this violence wouldn’t happen. I really believe Janey’s work in that field is outstanding and that she’s changing the world with what she does. She delivers those verses so well: I asked her to deliver them like she was on a megaphone at a demo, and she smashed it.” ■ Petrol Girls’ album ‘Baby’ is out 24th June.

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After a year of change and a risk of burnout, Joyce Manor are back as fresh and essential as ever with a new album, ‘40oz to Fresno’.

Words: Rob Mair. Photos: Dan Monick.

FEEL LIKE I’M ONE of those kids in the Make A Wish Foundation,” laughs Joyce Manor’s Barry Johnson. “Like, ‘What do you want to do, little buddy?’

‘Well, I wanna make a record with Rob Schnapf and Tony Thaxton.”

Little about the last four years has been straightforward for Joyce Manor. After losing drummer Pat Ware when he decided to go to law school, the group – completed by bassist Matt Ebert and guitarist Chase Knobbe – had to contend with burnout before finally reconvening for their sixth record, ‘40 oz. to Fresno’.

But with a drummer’s stool to fill, they needed a quick and productive solution. Step forward Tony Thaxton of Motion City Soundtrack, one of the best in the business and highly endorsed by Joyce Manor’s label boss, Epitaph’s Brett Gurewitz. Then, with a desire to reunite with ‘Cody’ producer Rob Schnapf – who helmed some of the group’s best songs, including the enormous ‘Fake I.D.’ and ‘Last You Heard of Me’ – Barry had acquired the necessary dream team to take the band to the next level.

Yet, there’s still a selfdeprecating humbleness to Joyce Manor. Barry jokes about being undeserving of such collaborators – even though the end results on ‘40 oz. to Fresno’ are yet another high-watermark for the Californian group.

Like all bands, however, the last few years have been challenging. For Joyce Manor – a group which had found comfort in a timetable that saw a new album drop every two years between 2012 and 2018 – the handbrake was something of a blessing and a curse.

While it meant everything related to the band ground to Upset 45

a halt, it helped give Barry the space he needed to write again. “I felt, around the beginning of the writing session for ‘Million Dollars to Kill Me’ that we needed a break,” he explains. “I don’t think I was feeling terribly inspired, and I was going through the motions a little bit. But there’s this feeling that you can count on us for a record or count on us to tour – and we’ve had that momentum – like perpetual motion – for almost 10 years.

“It was great, and it was a lot of fun. But it’s like if you write for a sitcom, you can’t say you’re gonna take a few seasons off. There’s a new episode next week, and you have to come up with funny stuff, so you always keep writing because it helps keep you sharp. So we thought it would be beneficial for the band and our career to just take a little break – and by a little break, I just mean six months. So, we did six months without any shows.

I had a fresh routine at home that had nothing to do with Joyce Manor. The guys were a little bummed, but they understood that it was good for the creative side of the band, and they respected that. So, my initial routine was to just listen to records, play video games, drink beer and smoke weed. I was having a great time. Then the pandemic happened.”

While Barry found himself doing some bartending for a time prior to the pandemic, when that bar closed – and when he’d grown tired of beer and video games – he found himself getting pulled back towards Joyce Manor and songwriting.

But the seed was only truly planted when he started collecting songs together for their compilation record, ‘Songs From Northern Torrance.’ Released in 2020, it was initially set to include ‘Secret Sisters’, 46 Upset

the closing track from ‘40 oz to Fresno’, which was a ‘Never Hungover Again’ b-side. But that would have meant an 11 song album – something that goes against Barry’s mantra that “no Joyce Manor record should have 11 songs.”

Yet ‘Secret Sisters’ – despite the bones of it being eight years old – is also spiritually linked to the album’s opening number proper ‘NBTSA’ - or ‘Never Be The Same Again’. The

changed the guitar solo, and it became ‘Secret Sisters’. Now, it’s not the same at all.

“I mean, there are one or two lines that are that similar. I felt the first line of ‘NBTSA’ – ‘Can I tell you a secret?’ – was a little bit obvious, but ‘Secret Sisters’, that’s a little bit weird, a little more cryptic.

Then in ‘NBTSA’, there’s the line ‘I don’t know why I want you to know’, and ‘Secret Sisters’ has the line ‘I want

“My routine was to just listen to records, play video games, drink beer and smoke weed.

I was having a great time. Then the pandemic happened” Barry Johnson

album’s second track, it follows on from a cover of Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark’s ‘Souvenir’, taken from a 2021 split single with Jawbreaker’s Blake Schwarzenbach.

“Those songs are a real good look into my process and how neurotic it was,” laughs Barry. “I wrote ‘NBTSA’ and decided it wasn’t good enough, so I reworked it completely.

I changed the chords, I changed the melody, I changed the lyrics, I

you to know’. I wasn’t sure if they should be on the same record, but it looks like they’re referencing each other. And that’s as close to a Joyce Manor concept album that you’re ever gonna get.”

But that doesn’t mean there aren’t some interesting ideas lurking behind the songs on ‘40 oz. to Fresno’. Sometimes these are obvious. ‘You’re Not Famous Anymore’ is the most “spiteful” Joyce Manor song ever, according

to Barry, as it details the fall from grace of a former celebrity. However, it’s also a cautionary tale with Barry turning the lens inwards as it discusses the fickle finger of fame, and the anxiety he feels about no longer achieving success.

“I had those hyped fucking hotshot indie bands in mind – you know, the types who thought they were heading towards the stars but who weren’t the most humble? Like, you might have been the shit in 2010, but by 2016 it’s time to get a job at Trader Joe’s,” he laughs.

‘NBTSA’, however, is far less obvious and highlights Johnson’s ability to write about some emotionally complex and interesting topics, wrapped up in a 100-second pop song.

In this case, it’s about somebody being abducted by aliens, but struggling with the way such an encounter would be disclosed to friends.

“I feel like ‘Aliens Exist’ by blink-182 kind of addresses that, but it’s not as angsty – like that song doesn’t really go into detail about how scary that would be,” says Barry. “If you got abducted by aliens, that would be fucking scary and traumatic. Have you seen Fire in the Sky? It’s super fucking slow and boring, but the end is fucking incredible and terrifying.”

Incredible and terrifying could both be equally applied to Joyce Manor. Yet again, they’ve produced an incredible record, and Barry’s ability to world build in 90 seconds remains a terrifying – and awe-inspiring – skill of songwriting and editing.

‘40 oz to Fresno’ is another addition to an exemplary canon and another fine collection of songs – even if little about its construction is straightforward. ■ Joyce Manor’s album ‘40 oz. To Fresno’ is out now.

A WHA A Dune Rats are never happier than when they’re on the road. With an enforced pause over, and a new album to play, they’re ready to get back on their game.

Words: Steven Loftin.

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ALE OF TIME.

Upset 49

OUR ALBUMS IN, and Dune Rats aren’t slowing down. If anything, they’re speeding up. For their latest outing, the Aussie trio are hitting breakneck speeds. Careening around corners a la Whacky Races, dust clouds in their wake, on ‘Real Rare Whale’ it’s a no holds barred frenzy.

Decamping to Eden in New South Wales, just the three of them – Danny Beus (vocals, guitars), BC Michaels (drums), Brett Jansch (bass) – they ended up leaving the session with “about sixty songs”, according to Danny.

Whittling it down to the final 10 that make-up ‘Real Rare Whale’ was a case of “whatever got us going,” Brett mentions.

“Not to say that the other ones were totally crap,” he adds. “But these ones seemed to all buddy up to each other as songs, and fill out the colour wheel for the album [which] should be an array of different colours that emote different things.”

A raucous reaction to the negativity of the pandemic, it’s Dune Rats doing what they do best – having a good time.

Those emotive colours range from nights out (‘What A Memorable Night’) to getting sucked into the telly (‘Dumb TV’), recalling childhood Hollywood crushes (‘Pamela Aniston’), and even a Dunies love song (‘Melted Into Two’). ‘Real Rare Whale’ is a rarity from a time that’s found most artists cradling their inner selves amidst droopy, droning sounds.

“I think there’s like one swear word on the whole album. There’s one drinking song, really, and the other songs are more like posi experiences that we have,” Danny chuckles. “Just having a good time. We had a couple of songs that

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didn’t make the album as it felt like we were just going to be sliding back into that narrative of another ‘Scott Green’ or another ‘6 Pack’.”

There’s even a spot of choreography in the video for the poptastic ‘Up’ - a song that almost didn’t make the cut. “At first, we were like, ‘Fuck, I don’t know if this song’s going to make it on the record’,” Brett says. “And then by the time it came out, we were like, ‘Fuck, dude, this is a pop song that rips!’”

To be blunt, ‘Real Rare Whale’ is chockfull of pop songs that do indeed rip.

It’s where it differs from their previous efforts, which were more rampaging yet lackadaisical, often threatening to fall apart. Fortunately, this time around, there’s even more raucous, fun-in-the-sun energy with a bite - and even a sneaky hint of ska on ‘Skate Or Don’t.

This new ground for the band is, in fact, a slight reach back to their early days when it was just the three of them doing it for a laugh. But even a laugh needs a little hard work. In particular, the aforementioned video for ‘Up’, where the trio dress up as baby-blue posties while spinning out enough moves to make even the most hardened pop star nod in respect. Packing in the time for dance rehearsal in-between a run of shows in Brisbane meant they had to forgo trips to the pub, but the results are more than worth it. It’s also proof that while the three-piece are always more focused on the bright side of life, they can also get stuck into the responsibility of being a band.

They’ve even done their fair share of collaborative writing over the years, each bearing its own particular fruits with no real negative connotations. But the bigwigs over in America weren’t ready

REAL RARE WARDROBE It turns out that being in a band on tour means your wardrobe skews from sociable to ‘whatever’s clean’. Brett and Danny laugh us through some of their more memorable “fuck-wit” clothing moments....

Danny: Those ski outfits that you guys wore…

Brett: What about the leather jacket that’s like, black and white.

Danny: Oh yeah! It had big ol’ studs on the shoulders, which were horrible. But I remember BC and Brett wore these matchingbut-not-matching ski jackets.

One was red, and the other was yellow. Like, you know in Dumb and Dumber when they go skiing?

[Laughing] They were mucking around in the van and filmed a little rap video, and fuck, that is just something that you don’t see every day.

Brett: I reckon BC would take the cake on this because he never brings anything with him, like, during snow, he’ll wear thongs and shit. He always picks up stuff and just runs with it.

Danny: We went to his house, and he comes down with fucking a backpack. He’s going away for two weeks, and this backpack didn’t have anything in it. He had the board shorts and the shirt that he had on. I think the backpack was just in case he needed to grab anything on his two-week adventure, but it’s shit like that.

So I can’t wait to see what he picks up.

I was watching the new Stranger Things, and one of the dudes has got a denim vest on, and I was like, fuck, man, I haven’t worn a denim vest in years! It usually takes you about a month into a tour, and you’ve got nothing else clean, and you’ve been doing a shot and all of a sudden, you’re wearing a fucking denim vest with a dog collar.

You’ve fucking got like weird arse fucking shorts on, and you just become this mongrel human until you have to go back home and face people that know you in the small town that we live in.

for the Dunies tornado, including one experience with a seasoned producer where they ate what they assumed to be expired acid jelly babies. “Turns out that it takes years for them to go off!” Danny exclaims, the pair bursting into laughter.

“And so we’d ate these little things and then to come down, we just needed to smoke a bong, and we were like ‘Can we smoke a bong in your bathroom?!’”

Now that they’re a few albums deep, it’s fair to say theirs is a career going well. So how do they balance ambition and expectation while pounding some bevvies and having fun with your mates?

“When you start your career smoking as many bongs as you can on fucking YouTube, people will have a certain expectation,” Danny cracks up. “But we have a pretty strong drive to keep doing this for the rest of our lives because we started the band after working years in jobs we fucking hated. So the ambition

probably isn’t to get a million awards and number one records in Australia.”

They’ve not done badly, considering they’ve bagged themselves two consecutive number one albums over in Australia (2017’s ‘The Kids Will Know It’s Bullshit’ and 2020’s ‘Hurry Up And Wait’), which Danny acknowledges with a cheeky wink. It would seem the key to success is to actually just have fun with it.

Similarly, chatting to both Brett and Danny is a lot like talking to two mates you’ve known your entire life. It’s this personality they carry with them wherever they go. It could be down to their Aussie upbringing, or just that they’re a bunch of guys indeed having the time of their lives, fully aware there are a lot of other options out there, but this is by far the best one.

Recalling tours over in the States, often while Dunies are drinking beers

at soundcheck, “having a good time”, everyone else takes things a bit more seriously. “Quite rightly so,” Danny adds.

“They’re putting out their art, taking it seriously, and that’s what they want to do. But for us, we’re stoked!”

“We’ve been on tour with bands where people will come backstage and be like, ‘Man, I can’t believe you fucked up that song’ or something like that,” he recalls. “And for us, that’s kind of super awkward. It’s like when a couple’s fighting in front of you. With us, touring has never really been about fucking nailing songs and making sure we’re the best band, but fuck, we’ll try and be the funnest band.”

Which leaves one burning question: what is ‘fun’ for Dune Rats?

“Man, stick me on the road for a million-date tour,” Brett smiles. “Maybe I’ll not say that after the 30th day, but like, I love the idea of just playing songs and travelling and playing shows, but it’s all the other bullshit in between that I reckon is just fucking classic,” his face erupting into a full-on beam. “We don’t let sitting in a van get boring, ‘ey! We fart around in there, like that shit is just pure fun because at the end, something rad’s just happened, and you go and do something that else that’s rad.”

“If you asked our partners, all of them say that we’re married to each other first and then it’s them,” Danny adds, as the pair burst out laughing again. “We just travel from city to city becoming fucking absolute fuck-wits,” he continues. “And then just move on to the next city, and we don’t have to face anything until we come back home. All of us just fucking get a big kick out of doing that, and we can’t wait to do that again.”

Their last show before the lockdowns began was a 4000 capacity date on their home turf. While it’s all up and running again, leading into this period – the one that caused the reaction of ‘Real Rare Whale’ – their headspace was far from long-term. “We thought we’ll just wait two months, then this whole fucking spicy cough thing will blow over,” Danny shrugs. But The Dunies being kept at bay means now they’re charging out of the gate, and good luck to any who stand in their way.

“We were writing these songs to go and fucking smash out live shows again, so we didn’t want to release it and just have to sit in our bedrooms and play live over the internet and shit like that,” he ends. “So being in this cycle again and getting ready to do this album live… it’s going to be fucking epic!” ■ Dune Rats’ album ‘Real Rare Whale’ is out 29th July.

Upset 51

Rated.

THE OFFICIAL VERDICT ON EVERYTHING

Nova Twins

Supernova ★★★★★

AMY AND GEORGIA’S SECOND ALBUM IS STRIDENT.

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THE IDEA THAT Nova Twins are blasting a trail at the forefront of louder music’s great and long-awaited renaissance is hardly a new one. For too long, it felt like rock was - rather than pushing ahead as a world of acceptance and community - running behind alternative music’s pack, obsessed with aging men of a previous vintage, never quite embracing the new, diverse, vibrant and genre-free talent in the way it needed to. Debut album ‘Who Are The Girls?’ made a thunderclap back in 2020, but 2020 was an odd year. A pandemic world where things happened, but did they really cut through on the other side? Short answer, yeah. They did. And ‘Supernova’ is the proof.

A rainbow of ideas, sounds, styles and expressions, Amy and Georgia’s second album is strident. Confident, assured and unrelenting, from the blast of ‘Cleopatra’ to the main character bang of ‘Antagonist’, it’s explosive stuff. ‘K.M.B.’ - that’s Kill My Boyfriend - mixes invention and threat to gold standard results, while ‘Puzzles’ drips with charged energy. Nova Twins stand proud amongst UK rock’s brightest talents, but don’t try to put them in any tightly defined box. This pair are writing the rules now. Follow, or else. Stephen Ackroyd

Alexisonfire

Otherness ★★★★★

Thirteen years is a hell of a time to wait for a new album, especially when dealing with a band as important to so many as Alexisonfire.

Reformations, returning live shows and spluttering sparks of new material have all burned a path to ‘Otherness’ - an album that shows that, though they’ve spent time away from the coalface of recording new music, they’ve also grown. One of post-hardcore’s most influential acts, this is no retread for a nostalgia band looking to maximise their quick buck. Opener ‘Committed To The Con’ thumps its way through the door, while ‘Sweet Dreams of Otherness’ has the air of a modern AOF classic, hypnotic in its havoc. The opening acapella of ‘Dark Night Of The Soul’ gives away to a fevered rattle and growl, and ‘Reverse The Curse’ puts all before it on blast to glorious results.

Proving themselves a band still deserving of the throne, if change really is as good as a rest, it’s no shock that - with both now under their belt - Alexisonfire sound fresher than ever. Dan Harrison

Below’ pulses with tension, echoing off the walls, while ‘Only Feel it When I’m With You’ drops the tempo, dragging the trio out of their comfort zone but onto fertile ground. Fired up and with fists raised, Baby Strange’s second album is a line in the sand that redefines them as a band, in the best possible way. Stephen Ackroyd

Greg Puciato

Mirrorcell ★★★★

Greg Puciato doesn’t stand still for anyone. Not musically, at least. From The Dillinger Escape Plan to Killer Be Killed to The Black Queen, he’s a musician that likes to flick between the dials, creatively satisfied at all times.

Since 2020 - yes, we all know what happened then - he’s been dropping solo material at pace, too. Putting a pin in second solo full-length ‘Mirrorcell’ is like pinning the proverbial jelly to the wall; there’s the sprawling ‘Reality Spiral’, the growling vibe of ‘I, Eclipse’ and the multi-faceted ‘Lowered’ - featuring guest vocals from Code Orange’s Reba Meyers. Variation in form doesn’t suggest an unwavering quality though. Consistently good, often great, why stick to one lane when you can race in all of them at once? Dan Harrison

Baby Strange

World Below ★★★★

You best be sure after two and a bit years of universal struggle, and a hell of a lot longer living under the crushing pressure of an unfair modern world, that bands have something to say.

Baby Strange definitely do. Coming out of Glasgow, refusing to back down from a fight, they’re a band on a mission.

Opening title track ‘World

Joyce Manor

40 oz. to Fresno ★★★★

It’s no surprise to see Joyce Manor’s ‘40 oz. to Fresno’ confound expectations at every turn. Opener ‘Souvenir’ – a delightful cover of an Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark hit – clocks in past the three-minute

mark – a bona fide epic given Joyce Manor’s svelte approach to storytelling, while ‘You’re Not Famous Anymore’ is an edgy takedown of celebrity culture and public failure.

In lesser hands such a number would be snarky and spiteful, but wrapped in Joyce Manor’s preppy poppunk, it’s a tongue-in-cheek dissection of fame, with the lens trained inwards.

‘Gotta Let It Go’, meanwhile, is a slow-burning midpaced number, followed up by the album’s sweetest, lightest, moment with ‘Dance With Me’. Of course, like all of Joyce Manor’s finest moment, eccentricities are never too far, and ‘NBTSA’ – or ‘Never Be The Same Again’ tells the story of an alien abduction and the terror of recounting the meeting to your nearest and dearest. It’s the sort of esoteric story Barry Johnson and Joyce Manor excel at, and here there’s eight further perfectly observed vignettes which fit perfectly into their back catalogue.

Remarkably – despite being six albums deep into their career – it proves that Joyce Manor’s purple patch shows little signs of fading.

Rob Mair

relatable and shockingly good. Dan Harrison

razor blades. Essential in a way so much music really isn’t, the message matters.

‘Baby’ delivers it perfectly.

Dan Harrison

Nervus

MNYS

...Before The Internet ★★★

Making a name for himself working with other musicians, MNYS - aka Nick Cozine - has already owned his chops elsewhere.

Under his own banner, that bubbling underdog energy is no less potent.

‘Garden Statement’ may clock in at just over two minutes, but its lo-fi charm sets the stage perfectly, cutting through with its simplicity when most would flood with aimless bombast. ‘Backseat’ mixes pop-sensibilities with the tone and poise of millennial rock, while closer ‘Grey’ shimmers and soars.

Polished, but not to the point it slips and slides out of view, there’s lots to like.

Dan Harrison

The Evil One ★★★★★

Nervus’ fourth album is different. Refocused from identity-based songwriting to wider vistas, it’s the sound of a band taking a period of enforced reflection to redefine boundaries and rework expectation. And it works.

‘The Evil One’ echoes with a sense of creative freedom. ‘Rental Song’ plays catchy, XTC vibes with a vocal appearance from Into It. Over It.’s Evan Weiss, while ‘Drop Out’ will relate to anyone who has pulled away from the expected path. ‘I Wish I Was Dead’ even takes a Stewart Lee joke and turns it into a rejection of individualist goal chasing.

In pushing away from the preconceptions of what things should be, Nervus have found a path that, ironically, feels both less certain and more assured than ever before. Better than that, it works. Dan Harrison

Petrol Girls

Baby ★★★★★

Petrol Girls have never been a band to back down from the stuff they care about. Important stuff.

Stuff that needs saying.

But new album ‘Baby’ is different. With a new edge, there’s no sense of sanctimonious preaching - more an injection of flat out fun, albeit one with an eye fixed firmly on the prize. From call out of call-out-culture ‘Preachers’ to the pro-choice rattle and thump of ‘Baby, I Had An Abortion’, it suits them well. Ren Aldridge sounds more engaged and alive than ever before, out for a good time while never losing the core of what the band represents. Obvious highlight ‘Fight For Our Lives’ stands out, though.

A manifesto of rattling, primal anger, verses from Janey Starling, co-director of feminist organisation Level Up and former Dream Nails lead vocalist, cut through like righteous

Soccer Mommy

Sometimes, Forever ★★★★

At times sun-kissed and at others sad, Soccer Mommy’s new album ‘Sometimes, Forever’ plays with genre without straying from its roots.

Second track ‘With U’ will have you floating in outer space with its intergalactic synth and clean, warm guitar tones, while the hypnotic ‘Unholy Affliction’, a moodier new wave gothic track, crackles with distortion like an incoming storm. It’s an album of laid-back indie splendour, and despite being her third full-length in just four years, Soccer Mommy is showing no signs of fatigue. In fact, it seems she’s just getting started. Kelsey McClure

Momma

Household Name ★★★★

Mint Green

All Girls Go To Heaven ★★★★

Starting delicately, ‘All Girls Go To Heaven’’s opening track ‘Against The Grain’ warns against the danger of playing it safe. Mint Green have no danger of failing to heed their own warning. An album of challenge and awareness both of self and others - it speaks loud and direct without ever needing to yell. ‘Body Language’, ‘What I’m Feeling’ and ‘Trying’ all hit the mark, but it’s five-minute centrepiece ‘Golden’ that really stuns. Atmospheric and emotional, it rings with grief for a broken relationship, processing those racing thoughts in real-time. Real,

For their second album - and first for new label Lucky Number - Momma mean business. Graduating from GarageBand to a fully realised world of dynamic, addictive alt-rock, ‘Household Name’ is the kind of record that never outstays its welcome.

Honouring the icons of rock past, it’s a melting pot of ideas served up with a splash of something fresh.

Stand-out ‘Lucky’ feels like a modern classic in its own lifetime, warm and enveloping in the beauty of the mundane, while the Pavement-referencing ‘Speeding 72’ knows how to draw lines to heritage without ever going stale.

An album to thrill on impact and then grow ever greater from there, Momma really does know best. Dan Harrison

Upset 53

EVERYONE HAS THOSE FORMATIVE BANDS AND TRACKS THAT FIRST GOT THEM INTO MUSIC AND HELPED SHAPE THEIR VERY BEING. THIS MONTH, EM FOSTER OF NERVUS TAKES US THROUGH SOME OF THE SONGS THAT MEANT THE MOST TO HER DURING HER TEENAGE YEARS.

FIVE KNUCKLE Not Like That

Scrappy hardcore from Bristol on Household Name Records.

One of the first times I ever got on stage was when this band played my local youth club, and age 13 I asked them if I could play it with them on guitar. For some reason, they let me!

DJ LUCK AND MC NEAT A Little Bit Of luck

UKG was absolutely huge when I was growing up.

This tune was literally everywhere and still goes.

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Saw them do a set at a bar in Hemel Hempstead, and it was exactly what you might expect that to be, in the best possible way.

DILLINJA

Twist ‘Em Out (ft Skibadee)

When I was 17, I learned to drive in my mum’s Renault Clio, and I had a DnB mix CD that had this tune on along with a bunch of Shy FX, Andy C, Pendulum, DJ Hype. In hindsight, the sound system in that car was absolutely rubbish, but I maintain that this tune sounds great

anywhere. RIP Skibadee.

HOWARDS ALIAS The Weekend Trip

Matt Reynolds from Salem used to front this weird ska/prog punk band called Howard’s Alias. Obviously, a mix of genres not to everyone’s taste, but the songwriting is undeniably excellent, and this CD got some pretty serious rotation.

SICK OF IT ALL Call To Arms

The title track off of my favourite Sick Of It All album.

I bought this record at CD

Warehouse in Watford, off of Paul, who plays keys in Nervus. This record ruled, but he also sold me a Soulfly CD, which was absolute shite.

PROPAGANDHI Fuck The Border

This band made an indelible impression on me as a kid, and remains very important to me as an adult. “I stand not by my country, but by people of the whole fucking world. No fences, no borders. Free movement for all. Fuck the border.”

Nervus’s album ‘The Evil One’ is out 24th June.

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