Upset, May 2021

** Plus ** Evanescence Manchester Orchestra Gojira Ricky Himself Destroy Boys August Burns Red + loads more

65

upsetmagazine.com

The Offspring While She Sleeps All Time Low

MAY 2021 Issue 65

RIOT 4. ALL TIME LOW 8. BABY STRANGE 10. STARS HOLLOW 12. CHAPEL 14. THE PALE WHITE 16. AUGUST BURNS RED ABOUT TO BREAK 18. BOY DESTROY FEATURES 20. LILHUDDY 26. MANCHESTER ORCHESTRA 30. EVANESCENCE 34. RICKY HIMSELF 38. THE OFFSPRING 42. WHILE SHE SLEEPS 46. GOJIRA REVIEWS 50. ROYAL BLOOD TEENAGE KICKS 54. DESTROY BOYS

Upset Editor Stephen Ackroyd Deputy Editor Victoria Sinden Associate Editor Ali Shutler Scribblers Dillon Eastoe, Edie McQueen, Finlay Holden, Jack Press, Jamie MacMillan, Jasleen Dhindsa, Jessica Goodman, Kelsey McClure, Rob Mair, Sam Taylor, Steven Loftin Snappers Daniel Blake, Daveed Benito, Gabrielle Duplantier, Giles Smith, Jeremy Deputat, Jimmy Fontaine, Nick Fancher, Nolan Knight, Olof Grind, Rushi Rama 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. Times, they are a-changing. Long gone are the days that the only route to rockstar fame was through a good, hard stint on the live circuit, a catchy song and a strong album behind it. Those ideas of selling out, authenticity and ‘real music’ are - thankfully - are being seen for the tired old nonsense they always were. While there’s nothing bad about paying your dues, and talent is vital - there’s more than one way to arrive at that end goal. Especially now, in an era of streams, videos, social networks and viral buzz.

So let’s get this straight LILHUDDY’s star power is undeniable.

Starting as a TikTok sensation, does his route to the top invalidate the music he makes? As he features on this month’s cover, we talk to one of the hottest new acts on the planet who has everything and nothing left to prove. One thing’s for sure, though - he’s happy being himself, ignoring any haters along the way. You can’t get more rockstar than that.

S tephen

Editor / @stephenackroyd Upset 3

Riot_ EVERYTHING HAPPENING IN ROCK

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THIS MONTH IN ROCK

Baby Strange are taking the difficult times and turning into something positive. p.8

It’s taken Stars Hollow five years to get round to releasing a debut album, but taking the more considered route is sometimes worth the wait. p.10

The Pale White have been building a reputation for a while - but now it’s time for a debut album. p.14

“YOU ONLY HAVE ONE SHOT AT THIS” I

After the weirdest year, All Time Low are back with a new pandemic penned single

f you rewind a year, what you would’ve seen in the All Time Low camp is a band getting ready for action. Having not long released their eighth outing ‘Wake Up, Sunshine’ - and after performing a couple of tiny shows in the UK, even gracing the cover of this very magazine - they were raring to hit the road with an album that was to be a celebration of the band they’ve poured so much love and energy into. Obviously, the world had different plans.

Fast-forward back to now, and it’s time for a brand spanking new single from our favourite Baltimore four-piece. Not one’s to hang about, ‘Once In A Lifetime’ is not, in fact, a cover of the Talking Heads bop, but comes fresh from the foursome’s pandemic writing sessions. A luscious burst of their signature bright pop-punk stylings swirled with a nod to the undeniable darkness that’s seeped into our world, it’s an Oreo of All Time Low proportions. Frontman Alex Gaskarth gives us the lowdown on what’s going on.

It must be nice to be back in the

swing of things again, even though you’ve not really stopped over the last year?

It’s felt amazing. The few opportunities that we’ve had throughout this to actually come together safely and do something as a band have been amazing. We just performed on Ellen, and that was really cool, [and] we went to Nashville and shot a music video for this new song. Obviously, we’re being very careful and conscious of how we’re doing it because while things are starting to feel like they’re opening back up, and we’re getting back to some semblance of normalcy, we still have to be really cautious travelling as much as we are and being around people - I’ve had a lot of things put up my nose lately... not drugs!

So, are we looking at the next chapter for All Time Low? What made you want to start up again?

It didn’t feel like we had much control over things; tour kept getting pushed back [and] there was no concrete evidence of when we’d be able to get back to a semblance of normal tour life. The one thing that

Words: Steven Loftin.

Photo: Nolan Knight.

we realised we can control in all of this is our creative stuff, even if it’s being done like this, remotely.

That was the one thing that we said: ‘Okay, we can still do this, and there’s still more stories to tell’. We don’t know what it’s all for; I don’t know if we’re making a new album or if it’s gonna be for a deluxe edition, but we just said ‘Fuck it, let’s keep writing songs’ and ‘Once In A Lifetime’ was one of the first ones that was born of that.

How has ‘Wake Up, Sunshine’ affected the band musically?

What’s amazing about where we are now creatively is that it’s allowed us to take the momentum that we’ve created with the album and what we learned because ‘Wake Up, Sunshine’ really felt like a celebration of what All Time Low was all about through the years.

Where it ended up leaving off was with ‘Monsters’ having the level of success that it’s had, and that being the standout song on the record in that it feels like that was where we were going - we progressed into that song as we made the album. Getting creative again has allowed us to Upset 5

Riot_ continue down that road and explore what we started tapping into. That’s how we ended up with ‘Once In A Lifetime’; it feels cut from the same cloth.

How have you been dealing with the success of ‘Monster’? It feels like you’ve been on every TV show in the US - did you see that coming at all?

It’s been wild. We absolutely didn’t know the level of success that it was going to have. The fact that it’s still going almost a year [later] is pretty insane, and we’re really grateful and appreciative. You always know that there’s a couple of songs on a record that you put your hands up, and you go ‘Alright, this one’s got something really special to it’, or at least you hope to have that when you make an album! That was definitely one whereas we were writing it, and once we wrapped it up - especially when we got Blackbear on the second verse - it was like we tapped into something that we’ve never done before as a band and could be pushing us in another creative direction for the future. That’s always really exciting, so I think we had a semblance of an idea that it was a special song, but I mean, what it’s gone on to do has been absolutely mind-blowing and very unexpected.

Did that success weigh in on deciding to release this new single?

It’s weird because, obviously, it puts a little bit of pressure on to follow up, but at the same time, we’re taking it a day at a time. ‘Monsters’ has been this very unique moment in our career. You don’t get a lot of those, so I’m just happy for what it’s done, and I’m trying not to let myself feel the pressure of having to replicate that or repeat it because I think you tend to become a little inauthentic when you chase in that way. It’s just been about focusing on writing music that continues to feel really true to us and this band and a celebration of this band; that’s kind of the phase that we’re in our career now.

Has experiencing the past year meant you’re writing from a different place than on ‘Wake Up, Sunshine’?

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“I think so. I mean, there’s a lot of self-reflection and a lot of reflection in general...that’s where this song stems from; it’s the idea of dealing with loss and coping with loss in a very general broad sense. Really the sentiment is you only have one shot at this, and all the things you can do to pull yourself out of the lows, so to speak, are important because you don’t get a second chance. It’s all been done with a lot of reflection in mind; everything that we’re writing right now is informed by the last year, and, honestly, a lot

of it has to do with planning for one thing and got something completely fucking different. I think that goes for everyone; we’re all in the same boat when we’re writing from that perspective.”

That makes sense since ‘Once In A Lifetime’ at first feels like your standard break-up song, but if you step back, it applies to so much from the last year.

That makes me so happy; that was entirely the idea behind that. On the surface, it can be as general as the

“I’VE HAD A LOT OF THINGS PUT UP MY NOSE LATELY” ALEX GASKARTH

commentary it says about myself and how All Time Low for me is this happy place - it’s almost my safety net. So in the chorus, when we talk about, ‘Till I hit an all time low’, it’s not necessarily about hitting rock bottom. Actually, for me, it’s about how when life feels like it’s getting away from you, this thing I have in the band is something that makes me feel like shit is gonna be okay.

And I think that extends to our fans.

It also harks back to where your name originates, a line in New Found Glory’s ‘Head On Collision’.

That was kind of the whole thing - for these little meta moments in the song. I think it’s fun to make statements and commentary about the trajectory of the band because ‘Wake Up, Sunshine’, and where we’re going now with the music. It’s been about going back and looking at our journey together and how we’ve gone through the ups and downs and all these twists and turns in an ever-changing music industry.

Somehow, we’ve survived and come out in some ways better and stronger than ever!

ending of a relationship, but I think we were reaching much deeper in this one, and for me personally, it applies to loss and family. There’s a funny line in this song that I’m sure we’ll touch on, but, obviously, we drop our own band name in the chorus, which is a bit of a fuckin’… I don’t know, like a heady, ballsy weird move for any band to do! When we wrote the song, I wrote the line down, and I went, ‘Oh no, I can’t get away with that, that’s terrible’. The more we mulled over it, the more I actually loved it because of the meta

What are the rest of the songs coming from these sessions sounding like?

It’s definitely forward-focused. At the end of the day, the crux of our songwriting is about energy and capturing what we love about our live show on track. The lens changes given the moments we’re writing about, and what the content of the song is but the music that we’ve written so far outside of ‘Once In A Lifetime’ definitely runs the gamut.

There’s faster songs, there’s heavier songs, there’s angrier songs... What I will say, is I look at ‘Wake Up, Sunshine’ as a very bright record and a very celebratory uplifting sound. This new stuff is a little bit

darker given the tone of everything and what we’ve just been through, there’s definitely some heavier subject material and a darker twist on things, but we’re working with the same ingredients, so to speak.

It’s impossible to ignore everything that’s gone on; it must seep in?

Yeah, I mean if you go ‘Hey, write a song for me right now’, it’s not like I’m writing like [mock singing voice] ‘It’s been a great time!’. 2020 has been absolute garbage. That’s the perspective we’re writing from.

There’s been a lot of heavy shit to deal with, looking from the inside out, so to speak, so I’m writing about things that I felt and things that we felt in the band, but also things I’ve observed in society and the shared human experience. There’s a lot of that getting touched on as well.

Looking back at the journey since the release of ‘Wake Up, Sunshine’, how does it all feel?

It’s great because getting to play our songs in any setting is better than not playing our songs at all. It feels like a big win in a lot of ways to just get to connect with people.

But I’ll never get used to sitting here, playing, and being able to see myself as I do it and a bunch of people watching - and then someone unmutes, and you hear them rustling around on their phone while you’re playing the song - it’s so bizarre!

But that’s life. We don’t always get to choose the cards we’re dealt; it’s just how you play the hand. That’s something I’m really proud of this band for. These times have been so strange, and I think we’ve done a really good job of rolling with the punches and adapting at finding ways still to make people feel good.

All Time Low’s single ‘Once In A Lifetime’ is out now.

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“WE’RE IN THE MIDDLE OF WRITING OUR SECOND ALBUM”

F

Baby Strange are taking difficult times and turning into something positive.

Words: Sam Taylor. Photo: Daniel Blake.

rom speaking out about the struggles of live venues, to a brand new clothing line, a very-nearly-here EP, the start of their second album, and an upcoming tour - Baby Strange are taking a difficult time, full of uncertainty and disruption, and turning it into something positive. Vocalist and guitarist Johnny Madden tells us more.

Do you have much new music done and raring to go?

The new album is starting to take shape. We’re still in the demo stage but we’re getting there. We’ll be heading into the studio soon to start recording. We’ve also recorded 2 tracks for Record Store Day that we’re putting out on vinyl. A song of ours and a cover, more info will be out on that soon.

Hi Johnny, how’s it going?

What are you on with today?

I’m doing not too bad; I’m currently getting prepared to go and play a live stream with the band for the Hospitality Health Charity.

When did you start working on your ‘Land of Nothing’ EP, how did it come together?

We actually had ‘More! More!

More!’ and ‘Club Sabbath’ already recorded before we started planning the EP. Having those songs ready to go was a great jumping-off point for us. The other songs were written when we stayed together in a house for a week. Staying together as a band was something we’d never done, so it was great to be creative 24/7.

What have you guys been up to since we last heard from you?

We’ve been super busy.

Last year we went out to Stockholm and signed with Icons Creating Evil Art! On top of that, we started working with a new manager and agent, so things have been full steam ahead since then. We’re currently in the middle of writing our second album, which we’re very excited about.

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Was it inspired much by events of the past year or so?

Parts of it, yeah. The EP title ‘Land Of Nothing’ actually came to me when I was walking through a street

in Glasgow that is usually full of people and life, but seeing everything boarded up with smashed windows and no people around gave me this shiver down my spine. I just wasn’t used to seeing Glasgow like that. The title automatically came to me then and there. There’s a track called ‘There’s Something There’ on the EP that I’m really proud of. It’s the first time I’ve ever written about my struggles with mental health in the past.

Getting this song finished was hard as I felt something inside of me telling me to scrap it, but I pushed through, and I’m glad I did.

I felt a weight lift off that I didn’t even know was there.

How has lockdown impacted your club night?

Do you know when you’ll be back?

Not being able to do Club Sabbath has been a massive blow to us and the music community in Glasgow. The club night is a place where people come to let off steam, dance, meet new people and discover their new favourite band. We have no idea when it’ll be back, but we hope at some point this year if it’s safe to do so.

What else are you working on at the mo?

We’ve started our own clothing brand with our manager Gavin called Pure Evil Clothing. We’ve always really been into clothes, so starting this made a lot of sense to us. There’s been such a great response to it. We’re currently stocked at Atika on Brick Lane in London, and soon the clothes will be available to buy at stores in Barcelona, Glasgow and Stockholm.

Do you have any predictions for later in the year?

We’re hoping some normality will return once everyone is vaccinated.

It’s been one year to the day that I last seen a band play on stage; I miss that big time. Our June tour has been moved to the end of the year too, we’re praying that happens as playing live is so crucial to what we do as a band. Playing in front of a packed room of people is something we’ll never get tired of, and we can’t wait to do it again.

Baby Strange’s EP’ Land of Nothing’ is out 30th April.

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STAR POWER It’s taken Stars Hollow five years to get round to releasing a debut album, but taking the more considered route is sometimes worth the wait.

Words: Rob Mair.

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I

t’s been quite the day for Stars Hollow’s Tyler Stodghill. Not only has he had to contend with this 40-minute chat, he’s also spent the entire morning being interviewed for a position in a counselling programme at graduate school. Life, as they say, comes at you fast.

“I think it went really well,” he says as we talk over Zoom. “I did well in undergrad, and I feel like I’m good at interviews – professionally, at least.

In these types of interviews, I tend to ramble because my brain’s going a million miles an hour. In professional interviews, though, I know when to shut up,” he laughs.

Appropriately enough, we’re here to chat about Stars Hollow’s excellent debut full-length ‘I Want To Live My Life’, a coming-of-age record about facing fears and having the courage to make life happen, rather than passively waiting for it to come to you. It feels like an appropriate title as Tyler tackles life on multiple fronts.

And while the Iowa trio are on an upward trajectory, the success of ‘I Want To Live My Life’ means Tyler could be forced to make some challenging career decisions as he tries to combine professional and musical ambitions.

Indeed, one reason why it’s taken them nearly five years to record ‘I Want To Live My Life’ can be found in the desire to grow away from music, as Tyler explains.

“My outlook my whole life has been that music is very secondary to me. I love it – and I love doing it – but it was drilled into me at a young age that making a career out of this is really hard, and it’s very competitive. I’ve put a lot of stock into what I want to do professionally, and I don’t regret that, by any means.

“But trying to write a record while also focusing on college, it was difficult.

We also decided to fund it ourselves so we could have a finished product to show labels – but that leads to roadblocks. COVID has been a huge one, obviously – I mean, we started recording in 2019, and we were hoping to finish in early 2020 – and that really messed with the timeline.

“And also, I am really slow at writing. I’m extremely critical, and I can mess around on the guitar and think something is cool, and then five minutes later, think that it sucks,” laughs Tyler.

Yet this attention to detail is evident throughout ‘I Want To Live My Life’. For

I WANT TO BE A BETTER PERSON FOR MYSELF AND FOR OTHER PEOPLE” TYLER STODGHILL

example, a gentle guitar line from the opening track finds its way through ‘…’ and closing number ‘But Better’.

Meanwhile, the same lyrical themes – of being afraid of making the step forward to seize the day – also carry through these tracks, highlighting the ideas of being scared and wanting to live a life of purpose and meaning. Indeed, taken as a triptych, the title of these three songs – I want to live my life… but better – spell out the meaning of the record perfectly. They’re even lyrics that can be found in their entirety in the closing song.

In draft versions of the record, a bomb under the bed served as a metaphor for the fear that stalks Tyler, but in the final versions, this was replaced by the much more intangible idea of a monster in the closet – something which everyone can shape to their own personal nightmare.

“The concept was pretty much the first thing that came about,” says Tyler.

“And I think a lot of the songs that came out are about the fear of living my life or being held back by things that have happened to me because I’m scared of them happening again or focusing on a personal pain that means you might never leave your house – or hardly leave at all.

“So, I started writing with all these themes in mind, but also the idea that I want to be a better person for myself and for other people, and I think that is crucial to the concept.”

Yet, for Stars Hollow to have any success at all, they’ve had to get on the road and make it happen themselves.

Des Moines, Iowa, isn’t well-known for its emo scene, but is well-placed for bands to reach other cities, lying almost equidistant to Minneapolis, Kansas City and Omaha, and only five hours’ drive west of Chicago.

Consequently, to hit the right radars, they’ve had to break out from their thriving local scene and tour the midwest hard.

“When Stars Hollow started, I was at the University of Iowa in Ames, and the scene was thriving. I had a Facebook memory today for four years ago, which showed I’d booked a show where Oso Oso, Ratboys, and Sinai Vessel were all playing in a basement, and they all now play huge rooms.

“For us, because we put so much focus on touring, I don’t feel like we put as much stock in our local scene, which I feel bad saying.

“What’s interesting now is we’re starting to see younger people coming to the shows, and because the younger kids are involved, they jump around and show you they’re having a great time, like when Origami Angel came through.”

Indeed, any success Stars Hollow may have could lie with today’s teenagers taking the band to heart.

Every six years or so, a new wave of acts rises up to take the place of the last, like Modern Baseball and The Hotelier picking up the baton from Algernon Cadwallader and Snowing, and so on.

Each wave brings with it their own record labels – Stars Hollow find themselves on the undeniably hip Acrobat Unstable, for example – and a sense that they’re ripping up everything that’s happened before and starting over for the next generation.

For Stars Hollow, this has meant seeing ‘I Want to Live My Life’ offered to an audience that has already bought into the label’s ethos – a “healthy hive mind,” as Tyler puts it. At the time of writing, the first press of ‘I Want To Live My Life’ has almost sold out on pre-orders alone, with discussions of announcing a second press at an advanced stage.

While Tyler plans for life away at grad school, the success of his band might put those plans on hold for a little while longer. We’re sure the irony of putting his life on hold as his band takes off isn’t lost on him… P Stars Hollow’s debut album ‘I Want To Live My Life’ is out 7th May. Upset 11

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“LOCKDOWN GAVE ME TIME TO BE REFLECTIVE ON MY LIFE”

Playful alt-pop duo Chapel - Carter Hardin (vocals/ guitar/keys) and Kortney Grinwis (drums) - are back with a new EP, ‘Room Service’; a lockdowninspired romp born from the constraints of being stuck at home.

Hi Carter, how’s it going? What are you up to today?

I’m doing good, thanks for asking! Today I’m just writing with a few people then probably going to watch Love Island with Kortney.

Your new EP is fun, have you been working on new music all throughout the pandemic?

Thank you! At the beginning, it was all we could really do, and now a year later, it’s still the only thing we do.

Is there an overarching concept to ‘Room Service’?

Yes, it’s all the songs we wrote while in lockdown.

We thought ‘Room Service’ would be a fitting title.

What’s the story behind ‘First Love’, did something specific inspire you to look back at that topic?

Being in lockdown inspired the song. It gave me time to be reflective on my life.

Especially relationships or friendships that didn’t work out. The song tells a story about one of those relationships.

How did you find making the accompanying video at home?

It was challenging for sure with deadlines and all that jazz, but it was so much fun. Kortney and I shot and edited three out of the four videos.

Do you have any more videos coming?

Yes! Each song will be getting a video.

How do you approach putting together an EP? Do you work around songs you already have, or do you start from scratch?

It’s kind of a mixed bag.

Sometimes you go back to the tracks that you didn’t know how to finish, and suddenly you figure it out.

Other times, it’s a random idea on the guitar and is fully fleshed out in an hour. Either way, it is so much fun.

What else are you working on at the moment?

Just working on the EP release and writing more songs!

Chapel’s EP ‘Room Service’ is out 23rd April.

The Bronx have announced a new album. ‘Bronx VI’ will be released on 27th August.

“We’ve known each other for a long time,” says vocalist Matt Caughthran, “and we’re such good friends and we’re so tight creatively, but we’re still learning stuff about each other. This is a really important record for us growth-wise because it kicked down a lot of doors that needed to be kicked down. I feel like now going forward the sky is the limit.”

Beartooth have announced a new album. ‘Below’ - the follow-up to 2014’s ‘Disgusting’, 2016’s ‘Aggressive’, and 2018’s ‘Disease’ - is set for release on 25th June.

You Me At Six have rescheduled their forthcoming UK tour to this September.

You can find all the details for the reworked run on upsetmagazine.com now.

13 UPSETMAGAZI COM Upset 13

A WHITER SHADE OF PALE A WHITER SHADE OF PALE A WHITER SHADE OF PALE A WHITER SHADE OF PALE A WHITER SHADE OF PALE A WHITER SHADE OF PALE A WHITER SHADE OF PALE Riot_

The Pale White have been building a reputation for a while, and now it’s time for a debut album.

Words: Finlay Holden.

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E E E E E E E

allows mature writing to shine through while also fleshing out more of a sonic climate than they’d aspired to previously. On ditching their focus on sheer volume alone, bassist Tom comments: “Sometimes you have to push the boundaries of what can be done in a rock band, because certain sounds have been done so much that you need to at least try to inject something new in order to keep things interesting.”

Their collaborations in the studio are what has enabled this progression. “Since our single ‘Medicine’, we’ve worked with Jolyon Thomas, who has produced Royal Blood, Slaves, U2… he’s a big deal!

That was the first time we heard one of our songs in such an HD form – the sound was just taken to the next level,” Adam describes. It’s clear to see the change across this trio’s career, and as drummer Jack adds: “If we hadn’t improved over the years, I’d be pretty worried!”

Production improvements are most obvious when you compare their recent single ‘That Dress’ with the original demo, which dropped five years ago. “I used to leather my guitar in reverb to try and mask the imperfections,” Adam reflects. “With vocals, our older stuff is double or triple tracked to try to hide issues rather than nailing one solid take.

Little changes like that add up and made rerecording that song worthwhile.”

It was much discussed whether this fan-favourite would make the album cut. “No artist thinks their first thing is the best they’ve done; you always want to be progressing and improving,” Tom declares.

“People form relationships with songs, and sometimes you shouldn’t fight that. ‘That Dress’ had never been released properly, and it seemed like a missed opportunity to not get it out to a wider audience.”

The alt-rock label which The Pale White operate under allows them to broaden their discography with pop-leaning songs as well as heavy rock bangers. “It doesn’t confine us to such a specific and limited spectrum of sound,” Jack observes.

The contrast between their poppy moments and the aggressive phases is what shows that this is a group

“THIS IS A RUTHLESS INDUSTRY; THERE’S NO ROOM FOR ERROR AT ALL” ADAM HOPE

with a lot to offer, and they’ve certainly embraced this recently.

Speaking on the fact that some fans idealise a raw recording style where the live elements are obvious, Adam responds that “only five per cent of people who hear your songs will ever get to see you live. It’s worth pushing the record as far as you can and worrying about figuring out the rest later.”

With creative decisions such as these being pivotal, it’s thanks to the chemistry between the three musicians that the collaboration is so effective. As Jack quips, “we’re hardly Oasis.” “There’s always going to be disagreements, and you have to be strong as a unit to get past them,” Adam continues, “but if you can’t get past that, don’t fucking bother.”

The group draw from a variety of musical influences, with the more notable and obvious being groups such as Nirvana, who Adam admits “opened the floodgates for us when we were younger. Jack is a music machine, always up for discovering new bands. I can’t tolerate that, I can only listen to music that is absolutely mega, so I find myself going back to the same records,” Jack retorts. “That’s a curse.”

The central theme of ‘Infinite Pleasure’ is how a constant chase for further fulfilment will always be fruitless as you pursue new highs and ignore the victories you do achieve. This crops up on moody single ‘Glue’, “a song about sheer motivation and not letting anything stop you from doing what you want to do and getting where you want to be; about trying to reach that fulfilment sociopathically,” Adam alludes. “’Take Your Time’ is about people that are stuck in that mindset too, describing the mundane routine

you might fall into along the way.”

The lyrics hidden behind their raucous flair have stepped up to the mark, as they are pushed to the forefront more than ever before. ‘Anechoic Chamber Blues’ is a sombre and melancholy break from the trio’s usual volume levels, fleshing out the record and exploring a relationship breakdown using a soundproofed room as a metaphor. “It’s a fascinating subject; if you spend too much time in those rooms, you can go insane,” Adam claims. “That’s actually the one song on the album I’m most intrigued to see fans react to.”

Anticipating fan reactions is not something the group fret on too much. Tom emphasises that they’re “really proud of the album – no matter what happens now, I genuinely believe it is great, and I’m really happy with it.” Such sayings are cliché for a reason, after all.

“We’ve found a more mature sound and really have a bit of everything on there, even a trumpet!” exclaims Jack.

Adam expands: “This is a ruthless industry; there’s no room for error at all. Sometimes you worry about taking certain risks because you could lose momentum, but we’re not looking to replicate successes we’ve had in the past here; we’re always looking forward. Our future as a band is a blank canvas; we’re going to keep doing what we want to do; it’s important to stay true to yourself and not do things for other people.

That keeps us in an artistically happy place. You can try to follow formulas that have worked before, but when you look back, those are never the songs you’re most proud of.” P The Pale White’s debut album ‘Infinite Pleasure’ is out 23rd April.

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Everything you need to know about

AUGUST BURNS RED’S new

‘GUARDIAN SESSIONS EP’

Featuring B-sides, covers, and reimagined tracks, August Burns Red’s new EP ‘Guardian Sessions’ is a fun one. The band’s JB Brubaker tells all.

GUARDIANS SESSIONS EP CONSISTS OF SIX TRACKS. The songs ‘Standing in the Storm’ and ‘Icarus’ are proper b-side tracks taken from the original ‘Guardians’ recording session. We had more than enough material to finish a full length, and while we liked both tracks, they were the oddballs that got chopped.

The other four songs were recorded during a separate session in a temporary studio location that we had never used before. That temporary studio is now defunct as shortly after we finished, a neighbour moved in next door and repeatedly called the police with noise complaints. So it goes.

THIS WAS OUR FIRST IN-PERSON PROJECT WE DID TOGETHER AFTER THE PANDEMIC BEGAN. We locked things down in March 2020, and my bandmates and I didn’t see each other again until June when we started working on the Guardians Sessions EP. Even when we 16 Upset

were “together”, the vast majority of the time was just Dustin and I working together in separate rooms with separate producers.

The whole thing was very strange, but it was also exciting to be out of the house and working on something in person with other human beings.

THE STUDIO WE RECORDED IN DIDN’T HAVE AIR CONDITIONING. Well, that’s not entirely true.

It had window units that were so loud that we had to either turn them off so we could focus on what we were doing, or turn them on to keep the temperature from being too unbearable. It was especially challenging when we recorded drums as our drummer Matt had to play without any cold air because the noise of the window unit would bleed into the drum mics. Good times!

THE WESTWORLD THEME SONG COVER WAS THE FIRST TRACK I

WORKED ON AFTER THE PANDEMIC LOCKDOWN STARTED. I had begun working on an ABR version of that song back in 2018, but it got put on the back burner for a long time.

When we got sent home from tour due to COVID, I found myself with an abundance of time and the need for projects to keep my sanity. I quickly wrapped up the Westworld theme and moved on to the ‘Chop Suey’ cover next.

WE CHOSE TO COVER ‘CHOP SUEY’ BECAUSE IT’S A SONG THAT HAS BEEN A LONGTIME STAPLE IN OUR LIVE SHOW CHANGEOVER SETLIST. Every night on tour before a headline show, the last song played over the PA before we started our show has been ‘Chop Suey’. It has a way of uniting a crowd and building anticipation. We always enjoyed listening to the crowd belt out the

words as we stood side stage, ready to play. COVID gave us the opportunity to tackle some things we wouldn’t normally have had time to do, and this cover was born as a result.

We’re really stoked on how it came out, and I’m especially proud of our singer, Jake Luhrs, and his singing performance. P August Burns Red’s EP ‘Guardian Sessions’ is out 16th April.

Slam Dunk has announced a bunch of bands for this year’s event. Headline sets will come from Sum 41 and Don Broco, with Crown The Empire, Escape The Fate, Hacktivist, Malevolence and Snuff new to the bill. Also playing are While She Sleeps, The Story So Far, We Are The In Crowd and more. The festival will take place on 4th September at Temple Newsam Park in Leeds, and the following day at Hatfield Park in Hatfield.

Architects have announced a new tour for February and March 2022. The run is in support of their justreleased Number 1 album ‘For Those That Wish To Exist’.

You can find the dates on upsetmagazine.com now.

Rise Against have announced their new album, ‘Nowhere Generation’. Due for release on 4th June, the full-length is their first in four years

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About Break_ to

EVERYTHING HAPPENING IN ROCK

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VLURE Glasgow five-piece VLURE have just unleashed their debut single ‘Shattered Faith’ via Permanent Creeps Records; a dancy, gothy, glam monster of a track.

TRAMP STAMPS With their own label (Make Tampons Free LLC) and a takeno-shit attitude, Nashville pop punks Tramp Stamps are a force to be reckoned with.

BOY DESTROY E In a genre-free world, Boy Destroy is just making good - and important - music.

Words: Sam Taylor. Photo: Olof Grind.

ver playful with genre boundaries, emo and altR&B Swedish newcomer Boy Destroy is unafraid to tackle deep and dark subjects like toxic relationships and difficult mistakes. His new EP, ‘Warpaint’, is undoubtedly the start of something big.

Hi Boy Destroy, how are you finding 2021 so far?

Are you doing well?

Hey! Well, I’m lucky in the sense that my life kind of revolves around my own creativity. So the year has kind of started the way 2020 ended, in a bubble of writing and a flow of releasing music.

When did you first realise you wanted to become a musician, did you have a musical upbringing?

I started playing nylon string, classical, guitar when I was like 7 years old or something. Then I got into jazz, these old cats like Django Reinhardt and Wes Montgomery, and played jazz guitar a lot. But I got serious about writing music myself in my teens when I discovered punk rock and indie. My first real obsessions. My dad was a guitarist for a punk

“I’M NO LONGER AFRAID OF TALKING ABOUT SUBJECTS THAT SOCIETY DEEMS UNFAVOURABLE” BOY DESTROY

band when he was growing up, and my brother makes music too, so it’s always been a prevalent force in the house where I grew up.

What were your first steps towards getting your music heard?

I played in bands during my teen years but nothing really serious. It took some years to find out what I was doing - both in life and in writing. Boy Destroy became this second voice for me when I finally took the lid of that wretched Pandora’s box I’d been carrying for so many years.

What have you been up to so far with Boy Destroy, have you any particular highlights?

Having people relate to what I’m talking about is the highlight of every day.

Fame and monetary claims are just in passing; love is eternal.

What do you most enjoy writing songs about? It sounds like you’re drawn to quite dark subjects?

I’ve put myself in some messed up situations during my sojourn here on Earth, and somehow that’s changed me. I’m no longer afraid of talking about a lot of subjects that society deems unfavourable. But yeah, anything really, anything that for the moment seems interesting is a good enough subject for a piece.

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

‘Lights Out’ on my EP, perhaps. ‘You Don’t Want Me When I’m Sober’ is really special to me too. I

remember walking home from the studio, meeting up with my girlfriend and playing the demo for her on my phone. The way she reacted to it, both pride and fear, as if this was somehow a turning point.

How did your debut EP ‘Warpaint’ come together?

I’m constantly in motion, writing and experiencing.

But these songs somehow feel like they fit together quite well. They paint a collage of a life half lived, a new life being discovered and a few other things. My struggles with sobriety and a sane mind, my struggles with luggage that I sometimes still carry. Twisted love stories, deception, faith, truth and lies.

What would you most like to achieve during your music career?

Connection. I think that’s the main word for any creative. You make things out of your own inability to connect to people around certain subjects and you try to grow, hopefully taking someone else along for the ride. P Boy Destroy’s debut EP ‘Warpaint’ is out 15th April.

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AMERICA SWEE As the world around us evolves, LILHUDDY represents a new breed of rock star - and he’s not backing down.

Words: Ali Shutler. Photos: Jeremy Deputat.

Fashion Director: Nicola Formichetti.

Hair: Johnny Stuntz.

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“I

’M NOT AFRAID TO SHOW OFF WHO I AM,” STARTS LILHUDDY. A bold declaration for most fledgeling musicians but for Huddy, there’s already a huge audience watching his every move.

Huddy, real name Chase Hudson, is a TikTok celebrity. He’s got over 30 million fans on the social media platform and helped found the Hype House in 2019 alongside YouTuber Thomas Petrou (who the 17-year-old Hudson needed to sign the lease).

This collaborative content factory was the base for 19 of TikTok’s biggest stars. Uniting under one roof, it allowed them all to elevate each other to new heights.

But now Hudson wants something more: he’s launched a music career.

“It’s crazy,” he starts over Zoom.

like a release of tension.”

New song ‘America’s Sweetheart’ is less anarchic. A heartbroken ballad, it sees Hudson sing “I get so depressed when I hear your name” softly over plucked acoustic guitar. “I’ve given it to people in a headbanging way; now it’s something raw, sweet and romantic.”

The singles form part of a debut album. It’s finished and coming this summer. “It’s gonna change everything,” Hudson declares. He seems excited about the idea of it surprising people and believes “it’s going to move people so much.”

“I can tell you that no one song is going to be like the next,” he says. Across the record, “there’s something for everything.”

The tracks tell stories of all the relationships he’s been, and they’re being told out of order. “It’s like a

“THERE’S SOMETHING DIFFERENT ABOUT ME; HERE’S SOMETHING DIFFERENT WITH MY CREATIVITY” LILHUDDY

“A lot of people have known me through social media for such a long time, and now they’re seeing me as this musician. It’s a whole different look.” One that he hopes will feel exciting for both his fans and himself.

Huddy’s first two tracks, ‘21st Century Vampire’ and ‘The Eulogy of You and Me’, are energetic slabs of angsty pop-punk. The former is a statement of intent that sees Hudson as a “little punk kid not giving a fuck, that’s just showing up to the scene to rock shit”, while the Travis Barker-produced ‘The Eulogy of You and Me’ was inspired “by a lot of my high school relationships.” Hudson never spoke to anyone about these troublesome breakups and kept a lot of stuff bottled up, he explains. “Even though it’s written about multiple people, this song is me being done with that high school bullshit. It felt 22 Upset

guessing game for everyone else,” he explains, aware people will be fishing for details about his ex-girlfriend and fellow TikTok star Charli D’Amelio.

“The emotion behind all my music is coming from a very real place,” Hudson continues before admitting that he’s “a very vulnerable person that’s not open with many people.

Being able to tell my story through music makes me feel good about myself. I feel like I can be open with everybody, and singing my heart out to this shit makes me feel good inside.”

Still, Hudson was scared about releasing music. He really took his time, “perfecting my art before releasing it to the world.” Now, he’s three songs into a career he hopes will last a lifetime. “The reaction, the love and the support that I’ve received have been super

comforting.”

H

UDSON, LIKE THE REST OF THE WORLD, JOINED SOCIAL MEDIA ON A WHIM. “It looked like fun,” he explains, and within a few weeks, had 1000 followers on musical.ly (which rebranded as TikTok in 2017). He figured if he kept posting, it could lead to something. “I’ve always wanted to entertain. Growing up, I loved singing.” But like many thirteen-year-old boys, he wasn’t comfortable with his voice, so he found an audience with lip sync videos instead. He didn’t take it seriously at first, worried his parents (both teachers) would stop him from pursuing a career online, but he still quickly amassed a fanbase.

“Why did people connect with me? There’s something different about me that you don’t really get from most people. There’s something different with my creativity. I’m such an emotional being, I have so much to tell, and I feel like people are just willing to listen.”

With his blossoming online fame making him the target of schoolyard bullies, and struggling to meet the various demands of sport, school and social media, Hudson couldn’t keep up with everything. “It was draining, and it made me depressed,” he remembers. So he switched to online school. “It was healthier, but it was also a lot more lonely.”

Over the next few years, Hudson became one of TikTok’s biggest stars, with The Hype House defining a new generation of influential figures. Away from the camera lens, Hudson was taking meetings with producers, co-writers and vocal coaches. “In the back of my mind, I’ve always wanted to be a musician. I lost my voice a little bit when I was going through puberty, and I didn’t really know how to sing but getting in the studio helped.”

LILHUDDY is the same person as @lilhuddy, with Hudson explaining: “I’m the same kid that people know; the only thing that’s different is where I’m putting my time. I’m focusing on music. I’ve always thought musicians are the coolest.

I don’t look up to actors, comedians or athletes. It’s always been music.”

The drive to become one “has really awoken in me in this last year.”

I

N EVERYTHING HE’S DONE, HUDSON’S MAIN PRIORITY “HAS ALWAYS BEEN TO BE AS AUTHENTIC AS POSSIBLE” but now he’s got a platform to actually tell his story and explore his more vulnerable side.

“People like to think that they know me. People have eyeballs on me and are watching me do me, but like, nobody’s actually hung out with me.

I’m more outgoing on social media, but I’m also this emotional kid that feels all these feelings but doesn’t say shit.”

If he spends too much time by himself, “I’ll get in my head, start overthinking shit and beat myself up.” He chooses to live with some close friends, so he doesn’t “go fucking insane.” Despite the millions of followers, he needs those homies around otherwise, “I’d be in a much more dark place.”

“It might be harder for some people to be honest once their life is so public, but I don’t give a fuck,” continues Chase. “When I’m releasing music, I just want people to take something from it or be inspired by it. I don’t care if you want to judge me or hate me because I’m just writing music about my life. What are you going to say, no? You can’t; this is the fucking story of my life.”

A

S WELL AS PULLING INSPIRATION FROM ACTS LIKE LIL PEEP AND TRAVIS SCOTT, HUDSON’S MUSIC IS PART OF 2021’S POP-PUNK REVIVAL. “When I was younger, pop-punk was always more interesting than anything else,” he explains. Growing up, he’d occasionally hear a track from Panic!

At The Disco or All American Rejects on the radio, but his mum wasn’t going to let him blare ‘Gives You Hell’ from the car. Hudson had to make do with borrowing his sister’s iPod Nano while she was busy with cheer practice.

In secret, he fell in love with Blink 182, Avril Lavigne and My Chemical Romance and their emotional lyrics.

“Being able to connect to music on a deeper scale is something that I really cherish. It’s one of the reasons I am where I am, because that’s what makes me LILHUDDY.” Now he wants to help “pass the torch from generation to generation.

Maybe kids haven’t heard that older stuff, but there are people like me, Machine Gun Kelly and YUNGBLUD Upset 23

doing it. Now we’re the people speaking to the youth.”

“A lot of people are just going through a shit time right now. I want them to take a little bit of comfort from my music. I want them to relate to it.” In the same way that those records by Blink, My Chem and Avril helped Hudson feel understood, he wants his music “to leave a mark.”

“I think this album is going to help a lot of people understand me and see that more emotional, vulnerable side, which is one of my goals. I want people to feel connected to me.”

Pop-punk, like TikTok, is an aspirational platform. As we saw in the 90s and 00s with Green Day and Sum 41, you don’t need anything but hard work and a few power chords to become one of the biggest bands going. Hudson knows he’s not there yet, “but I think over time, once more people start to hear what I have to say, they’re really going to get it. I don’t think I’m the biggest pop-punk artist in the world, right… I definitely think I could get there if I work hard enough, though.”

“This music career is going to be a lifelong thing. It’s not only the beginning, but it’s so far from the end.

I want to fucking take it to the ends of the earth. I want to tell the whole world about me.”

But would he be content if LILHUDDY never got bigger than basement shows? “I don’t think it’s ever going to be one of those small things. We’re just gonna elevate ourselves every time and then work our way up.”

Still, Hudson is yet to play a gig.

“How am I gonna feel like a rock star if I can’t feel that love and that presence?” he asks. “Right now, I have a couple songs people fuck with, and it sounds like people would kill for a live show. If I’m a rock star to them, I guess I’m a rock star.”

T

RAVIS BARKER IS AT THE CENTRE OF THIS POP-PUNK REVIVAL (“an icon, and no one can tell me different”), collaborating with artists like JXDN, Machine Gun Kelly, phem, Tyler Posey, YUNGBLUD and iann dior as well as fostering a community where these artists are constantly jumping on each other’s tracks. Barker also produced Hudson’s ‘The Eulogy of You and Me’, but his debut album will have no

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special guests.

“I’m talking about collaborations for later down the line, but right now, I really want to establish myself. I want people to know I don’t need anyone else to make my album better. I can rock this shit myself. I feel like it’s something people are going to respect me so much more for.”

It’s this self-belief that also explains why LILHUDDY is a solo artist. “There’s something super special to me that a band might take away from. Also bands, they break up. I want to depend on myself now.

I’ve had too many friendships and relationships getting fucked up; I’ve just got to a point where I’m like, fuck it. I need to, for once, depend on myself and not have to rely on anybody else to do shit for me. I want to show people that I can do it myself.”

You need “very fucking thick skin” to do what Hudson has done.

“So many people want me to fail.

The best thing has been people posting that they hate the fact that they like my songs and wish they didn’t. It feels like people really are praying for my downfall. They’re just waiting for me to have a shit song so they can make fun of it. They don’t have it yet.”

“There’s some pressure,” admits Hudson, “to keep coming up with good music. I’m always striving to better what’s come before.” But he’s got no fears about being known as a TikTok musician. “You’ve just gotta make sure that what you’re doing is more special.”

“I don’t think there’s anything wrong with it,” Hudson continues.

“People just have a weird view of it. They look down on TikTokers because we come from a place that’s viewed as corny. Some people fuck with it; some don’t. I don’t think there’s any shortage of people fucking with my music right now.”

And he’s got no time to worry about anyone else.

“I’m just gonna make my music.

If someone’s got something to say, go ahead and talk your shit.” Justin Bieber started as a YouTuber, Shawn Mendes started as a Vine Kid. “I don’t think there are any limits to being a musician. Anyone that thinks differently, whatever.” P

“I DON’T THINK I’M THE BIGGEST POP-PUNK ARTIST IN THE WORLD; I DEFINITELY THINK I COULD GET THERE IF I WORK HARD ENOUGH, THOUGH” LILHUDDY

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Six albums deep, and Manchester Orchestra remain one of the most wellloved and consistently great bands around.

Words: Dillon Eastoe.

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Orchestra’s meticulously plotted sixth album. “There’s a little bit of that,” suggests Andy Hull from behind his characteristic fuzz of facial hair. “But this actually probably for the first time ever felt like it was finished, which was great.

“We had tried everything over and over again on every step. It was more about refining how it all was going to fit together, how it’s a narrative,” Andy explains of the decision to put the lid on their latest opus around a year ago, even as the opportunity to release and it promote in their usual fashion rapidly receded from view. Having conducted press for their previous release over pints at London’s Lexington, we have to settle for a split-screen video call from MO’s base in Atlanta, Georgia.

Like its predecessor, the 2017 reinvention ‘A Black Mile to the Surface’, the new collection was again produced by Andy, guitarist Robert McDowell and the in-demand Catherine Marks (Alex Lahey, Frank Carter, The Killers). Once again, the trio stretch the band’s sound to its outer edges, layering vocals, tinkering with drum microphones and panning guitars wider and wider. Is this a continuation of the same project, then?

“We didn’t want it to sound like ‘Black Mile’,” Andy counters. “We wanted it to feel different, a bit more futuristic, and we wanted to explore different avenues sonically. It’s a wide record, and we liked leaning into that and sequencing it in a way that I don’t think we would have sequenced a record before where it really is like a journey that you’re listening to, and hopefully, the listener almost feels like they’re being laid down at the end of their experience.

“It was cool to feel the freedom to explore all that and have [heavier] songs like ‘Bed Head’ or ‘Keel Timing’ exist on a record with a [more stripped back] song like ‘Telepath’ or ‘Way Back’. They all felt connected as one thing, and we’re not really ones to shy away from trying out something different.”

That experimentation has the band, filled out by bassist Andy Prince and drummer Tim Very, moving from the choral intro to the towering doom of ‘Angel of Death’ before taking a halftime breather with ‘Annie’ and ‘Let It Storm’ taking the volume down. It can 28 Upset

be an overwhelming first listen, but after a few spins of the record, these pieces start to fall into place, and you’ll hear the instrumental flourishes that doubtless took hours of haggling over the position of various sliders on Marks’ mixing desk.

The varied terrain traversed across ‘Masks’ eleven songs are a far cry from the band that released ‘Cope’ in 2014, a squalling half-hour of grunge guitars layered ad infinitum after what Andy admits was too much time demoing tracks. Subsequently releasing a stripped-down version, ‘Hope’, of the same songs and then providing an a capella soundtrack to bizarre Daniel Radcliffe film Swiss Army Man, their past two Manchester Orchestra albums have seen the duo find more space in their increasingly proggy rock beyond cranking their Telecasters to 11.

“Thematically,” Andy later admits, there are clear similarities with ‘Black Mile’. “It certainly was tied into the ideas of generational effect and the circle of life and all that stuff I just seem to be obsessed with when I’m writing now. As a narrative theme, it was an idea of snapshots and detailed moments [in a life]. “’Black Mile’ is a record that takes place in South Dakota in a small mining town. But also it doesn’t at all.

In the same way, this record is about a guy talking to the Angel of Death, and also, it isn’t,” Andy explains. “It helps me to get a little deeper and find out my actual feelings and emotions and thoughts on things that are significant and hard. When I can borrow the shoes of another character, it allows me to dig deeper into my own psyche about issues that probably would be too raw to just sit and try to write about.”

The lyrics Andy was writing about life, death and the beyond were thrown into sharp relief when during recording Rob’s father passed away having suffered with a prolonged illness. “I feel like [making this album] brought us together emotionally in a way…” Rob says. “You can’t fix it; you can just be there with the other person and so being there, the other guys crying with me. Just your brothers being there. That’s the type of stuff that then when you carry that into an album, you have a closeness with them and a trust with them that allows a vulnerability to be open creatively because you’ve shared the worst parts

of your life already with them.”

“All of my intention for writing about this stuff was me also trying to grieve and go through a process,” Andy continues. “’Cause I was also very close with Rob’s father, and the album was hopefully honouring this man who had provided so much for us.

It was difficult to dance that line, but I think we had one of the more powerful

moments in our relationship. We were in LA, and it finally came up, when we were putting the record on. We were crying and hugging each other, and then once it was there, it just all felt like the right thing to do.”

“For me, it was a way to get through whatever was happening in my head,” Rob explains. “At least I know that what I’m doing right now has a purpose and a reason, so it was the line that I could pull myself through the quicksand to keep from unravelling.”

As the lineup of the band has

“WE HAD ONE OF THE MORE POWERFUL MOMENTS IN OUR RELATIONSHIP” ANDY HULL

changed over the years, Rob has been the only constant presence in Manchester Orchestra since Andy started the project in his bedroom in 2004. “The first time my mom heard the record, she’s like, ‘I think you’ve made a love letter to Rob’,” Andy remembers. “That’s what this record feels like to me; I’m here for my brother.”

The album’s emotional crux comes in the form of ‘Obstacle’, as an innocent, nursery rhyme melody wanders hospital corridors, birth and death lurking behind different doors.

Midway through, acoustic guitars

give way to an amped-up explosion recalling the group’s early records.

“That song was written the night before my son was born. I knew I was going to meet this dude and I… I wasn’t thrilled, which is an awful thing to say!” Andy laughs. “You get through that first baby because you’re just absolutely blown away at the wonder and miracle of life. And then the second baby, this is very hard, and I’ve also been through this already. I was just sort of trying to grapple with those feelings of, ‘man, what kind of monster am I that I’m not feeling the same way I was feeling before my first

child?’ Good news, I do really seem to love him now.”

Nowadays a proper family affair, the record features throughout snippets of Andy’s daughter telling the story of the Boy Who Cried Wolf, something he feels ties the whole record together in its examination of birth, family and grief. “I wanted that to reflect a theme that’s happening throughout the record, the innocence going away.

It’s welcome to the world, and also I’m so sorry for what you’re about to experience in your life. There’s going to be a whole lot of great stuff. There’s going to be a whole lot of bad stuff.

The idea is my daughter putting the pieces together about consequences; that story is about a boy who has a consequence for doing the wrong thing.”

Andy’s fascination with death and the grisly moments of life are nothing new; on Manchester Orchestra’s very first EP, he was having visions that “When my dad died/The worms ate out both his eyes/His soul flew right up in the sky/Cried myself to sleep”.

Accompanying the weighty lyrics, his bandmates have allowed him to evolve the band’s sound from bedroom indie, grunged-up howling and now a second album of expansive, shimmering prog-rock, all while carrying a devoted fanbase with them largely intact.

“We never want to make Part II of something,” Andy insists. “It always needs to be different, and we certainly wanted to top ‘Black Mile’ and do something different with it.” Whether ‘The Million Masks of God’ beats the acclaim and fan-fervour of its predecessor, only time will tell. Andy and Rob have exceeded its scope, intricacy and its attention to detail.

If all art must be abandoned by its creator, lest they forever be consumed by the pursuit of perfection, Manchester Orchestra walked away from the studio having created a challenging piece that takes listeners to the extremes of the band’s sound.

“I feel like this is a year where people are looking for healing, and this record to me is about healing.” The past year has been tough, hard to predict, and harder still to have any feeling of control. ‘The Million Masks of God’ doesn’t claim to offer all the answers, but for the band, it has been a light in the darkness. P Manchester Orchestra’s album ‘The Million Masks of God’ is out 30th April.

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“MUSIC KEPT

Evanescence’s first album of original music in a decade is a statement of perseverance and hope.

Words: Jessica Goodman. Photo: Nick Fancher.

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T ME GOING”

“I

’ve been really thinking about feeling,” Amy Lee explains. At her home after visiting a park “just so I could look at different trees” (“I’m so tired of being home,” she laughs), the Evanescence frontwoman is in high spirits. With the band’s first album of new material in a decade about to be released, the enthusiasm surrounding them is almost tangible. “Every time we’re about to do a [single] release, just a few weeks before it’s like, ‘okay, what’s the feeling? What is it that we can

share with people on a deep level?’”

A sense of connection is something it’s been all too easy to feel like we lack of late. Unable to get out and play shows, unable to meet up and record together in the same room, the group quickly found that the best way they could communicate and connect was the same way it always had been: through making music. “Through the last year, the music has become, again, this thing that I needed and relied on,” Amy portrays. “It kept me going and kept me sane and gave me a place to run to when I just wanted to Upset 31

“THE BIGGEST BITTER TRUTH IS THAT LIFE IS SHORT; WE’RE MORTAL, WE DON’T HAVE FOREVER” AMY LEE

scream at the top of my lungs.”

Driven by the innate need to give shape, sound, and voice to their emotions, no matter how many obstacles stood in their way, with their latest record Evanescence accept no compromises. “We just decided we weren’t going to let anything stop us,” Amy states. “That became this mantra – this idea that no matter what, I don’t care what happens, we are not waiting another day.”

Delicate chimes. An intricate soundscape. Soaring vocals and a rippling drum beat. These are the sounds that introduce ‘The Bitter Truth’. It’s a steadfast swell of emotion that builds until it erupts, guiding the listener into album standout ‘Broken Pieces Shine’. “I think something that I’ve learned over time with our fans is that our music represents a free place to allow yourself to fall apart,” Amy conveys. “[‘Broken Pieces Shine’] is a celebration of that. It’s about allowing all the parts of yourself to shine, and remembering and embracing the parts of your life that have been hard so that we can truly appreciate the beauty and not lose the things that we’ve learned.”

After spending two years breathing fresh life into the orchestral elements of their sound with their ‘Synthesis’ album and tour, with ‘The Bitter Truth’, the group stripped everything back to be who they are at their core: a rock band. “It’s not about strings and lusciousness and drama,” Amy distils.

“It’s about being real. It’s about heart.”

Finding their voice and determined to be heard, this is Evanescence at their strongest yet.

“I was listening to a song that we had written, listening to my own words, and in that moment I felt this heaviness in my heart of conviction,” 32 Upset

Amy recalls. “I looked up and I said to my producer, ‘is it… wrong? Am I wasting this? Should I be saying more? Am I doing something wrong by staying quiet?’” She pauses for a moment, thinking over the weight of her own questions and the gravity of their answer. “He looked at me and said, ‘well, you do have millions of people that will hear what you have to say…’”

The song to provoke this reevaluation was ‘Use My Voice’.

Released as a single last year, Amy was first inspired to put pen to paper and words to music for the track after reading the impact statement given by assault survivor Chanel Miller. “I just knew that I can’t say these words in a song and not do it in real life. I have to make it somehow more,” Amy expresses. Born out of anguish and desperation, and driven by determination and strength, this is Evanescence as they needed to be heard. “We were enraged – and feeling powerless, feeling like there’s nothing we can do,” Amy recalls. “We needed to use our microphone to encourage and empower and inspire people that their voice does matter.”

Determined to make a difference and work towards positive change however they could, Evanescence set about doing exactly that. When they released ‘Use My Voice’, the band partnered with Headcount on their campaign encouraging and empowering people to vote in last years US election. “To me, the biggest crime was trying to suppress the vote,” Amy states.

“To make people feel like their voice didn’t count when it was already so hard?” she questions. “To try to keep the people down?! How dare you.”

“For us to be able to use our music simply to help people, to guide people to get out there and vote, it felt like we could do something, you know?” she continues. “It felt like we could be a part of positive change.

That meant something to me that a song has never meant to me with Evanescence before.” Breaking new ground decades into their career, Evanescence have never sounded this alive.

Disillusioned and more determined than ever, this is the energy that drove Evanescence to create ‘The Bitter Truth’. “For me, the biggest bitter truth is that life is short,” Amy conveys.

“We’re mortal. We don’t have forever.”

On paper, these words might sound hopeless, but for Amy Lee, these words are what drive her. “Go for it,” she encourages. “If there’s something you want, if there’s someone you want to be, if there’s something that you are, don’t wait a minute. Do it now.

Don’t wait for the pandemic to maybe be over. Don’t be afraid to fail. Just do it. Go. Because we don’t know if we have tomorrow.”

At its core, that’s what this record is about. Inspired by loss, by feeling lost, and the inescapable need to want to have, to want to feel, to want to be better, ‘The Bitter Truth’ is a record seeped in hope. “I hope it’s empowering,” Amy expresses. “I hope

people feel that fire lit in them – that no matter what happens, no matter how low and dark it gets, that life is worth living. It’s worth the fight. And it does take a fight sometimes. We have to face that and admit that truth, but it is worth it: the beauty in life, what there is to experience and the love that there is to have… It is worth sticking around and climbing back out for.”

“That’s a much greater purpose than playing music in a band,” she conveys, “to be a light for somebody in a dark place – like music is for me.”

Enraged and empowered, with ‘The Bitter Truth’, Evanescence reach new heights, striving to be the change

they want to see. “It’s just music,” Amy describes. “That’s all it has to be. We’re not saving the world.” What Evanescence are doing is pouring their heart into the music they make, so that when those songs are heard, when their words resonate, for that person listening they might just have made something that matters.

“Those experiences that fans have shared with us about their personal experience through the music have become a big part of my life and my story too,” she explains. “It makes it better when it’s not just about me. It makes it something more.” P Evanescence’s album ‘The Bitter Truth’ is out now.

Upset 33

“BEING NORMAL AS FUCK IS THE WEIRDEST SHIT YOU COULD DO”

Spending his early days immersed in hip-hop, Ricky Himself is bringing a fresh approach to poppunk.

Words: Steven Loftin.

Photos: Rushi Rama.

34 Upset

P

op punkers in the studio with rappers. A common scene in recent years, but step back to 2006, to Fall Out Boy’s reappearance with ‘This Ain’t A Scene’. In the accompanying video, they’re set in a darkened room with a hot hip-hop producer and his entourage on the mock-quest to understand and push themselves beyond the success of 2005’s ‘From Under The Cork Tree’, to an almost successful result.

Ricky Cano has lived that. While his burgeoning breakout track as Ricky Himself, ‘I Know You Like Black Flag’ - a poised and primed satirical missile aimed at the poseurs and surface-level punks he sees around his native LA - is finding him gaining some attention, in actuality, he’s been kicking around the music industry in various facets for a fair few years now, predominantly under the wing of producer Hit-Boy (Travis Scott, Kanye West, Beyonce).

“To see it kind of just starting now is a bit odd because I’ve been around [music] for so long that it felt like it just might not ever start to happen,” Ricky softly admits, but something indeed appears to be happening. It would seem the world needs a laugh as much as it does the reminder that sometimes, what came before doesn’t necessitate how you’re perceived.

With hip-hop and the like undoubtedly embodying the renegade punk spirit more than its founding counterpart, Ricky’s seen first-hand “the real punk attitude through those artists - they’re breaking the rules over there!” he says.

“That’s how you get to the 5am sessions and guns in the studio - all that crazy lifestyle stuff, that’s so not me! I was around it every single day. Going to this world,” he says of his new pop-punk surroundings, “it’s so tame in comparison that it’s almost funny, which is what ‘Black Flag’ is poking fun at.”

Someone who’s confessed to being obsessed with pop culture, not only is his break out track littered with references, but our conversation pinpoints to various moments that have heavily influenced the world surrounding Ricky. This all makes him a rather apt candidate to properly take a look

“FOR THE MOST PART, IT WAS LIKE STARTING FROM ZERO AND LEARNING ALL OVER AGAIN” RICKY HIMSELF

at just what’s going on, and what’s helping Ricky pick out the road to travel on this journey he’s taking front and centre.

“That was my angle: where’s the humour in this?” He asks. “It’s just more fun to make music for me personally that way too, [especially] coming from a background in rap where it’s serious all the time.”

On his reasoning for why the rap game carried a heftier weight, Ricky reckons: “The stakes are a lot higher for a lot of the artists in that world.

So, even though the music might be upbeat, the real-life story behind the stuff creates a serious day to day energy - on top of that, they don’t ever want to leave the studio.”

Figuring out who he wanted to be as an artist involved Ricky heading back to square one, even if that’s proving a bit more difficult than anticipated. A victim to all-night sessions, and an impressively determined work ethic, is why we end up chatting at the reasonable 10am for Upset, but the ludicrous, sun-scratching 4am for Ricky, because he’s used to “hanging out until like 3am to get something done.”

“I’ve been in a room with a lot of dope, successful rappers and a lot of them work around the clock,” he explains. “Leaving at 7am, 8am, and then go right back and then do 10 hours again. They make like eight songs a day because they need to get out of where they’re coming from.

“That’s the total opposite of where I’m at now,” he continues.

“More established people, or younger artists being discovered earlier by a label - the people I’m coming in contact [with] more often - it’s just not as tense of a feeling in

those rooms. In some ways, I prefer that; in some ways, I don’t. I still miss part of the high stakes of feeling.”

Ricky’s seen a lot, but he’s now more keenly focused on Ricky Himself, a figure making his way in the new-pop punk world, where beats are as consistently prevalent as are four hyper-powered palmmuted chords.

“I don’t know how much of it crossed over because the worlds are so different that it felt like I couldn’t take much from it,” he mentions on what he’s bringing with him after leaving the hip-hop world behind.

“It almost felt like four years kind of thrown away.”

All wasn’t lost, however. “I got a lot of insight of how I could abstractly view my career through a different lens - removing myself from it,” he explains. “But for the most part, it was like starting from zero and learning all over again. All the producers I’m working with, and all the songwriters and artists I’m meeting, have their own experience and view of music in such a different way. I need to learn from these people even though I do have years of experience under my belt.”

In fear that holding onto anything on a conscious level too close would impede his progress, he mentions that whatever room he enters, his mindset is always: “let’s start at zero”. But there is something he can’t control.

Obsession is the world’s new obsession. With characters, TV shows, musicians; if you can think of it, there’s someone in some corner of the internet whose life revolves around it - but a strange facet that’s appeared over the years is an obsession with having people obsessed with other, regular people.

Upset 35

“I CAN’T REMOVE THE ENERGY OF FEELING LIKE THERE’S STILL MORE TO DO” RICKY HIMSELF

Mentioning those two hallowed syllables - TikTok - for an artist in 2021 is just as important as the next lyricism or melody.

“The algorithm is so good to where you can easily just like gain a following; that’s the perfect platform for right now. The way that music plugs into that as an outlet that’s never been there before. Trying to navigate that, I’m a little bit older in comparison to a lot of the kids poppin’ off, so it’s trying to figure out how to do what you’re talking about, getting people obsessed because that’s just the culture right now.

“Not being native to it fully because I’m just barely a year too old to fully naturally understand these platforms.” Mentioning his girlfriend, alt-pop songwriter Kailee Morgue, as having picked up TikTok “naturally”, whereas for Ricky, “I was like, ‘Dude, my head hurts trying to figure it out, but I have to’.”

It’s all these aspects of modern culture that make us circle back to ‘Black Flag’. “When we made that song, it was [thinking] the most punk thing in culture right now is that there is no subculture. Being normal as fuck is the weirdest shit you could do. If you’re the normal dude, you stick out way more than the person with green hair.

I mean, I have face tattoos,” he laughs, pointing to a cross on the far side of his right cheek. “But the stereotypical face tattoos in the rap spectrum.

“And then in the punk way, it’s the Instagram kids with pink hair or rockin’ 80s punk shit, but making 2000s pop-punk. It’s just this weird clash of cashing in on the punk attitude, which is so weird to me but has become a bit of a norm. I’m definitely going off on a tangent!”

Ricky might be on to something.

It’s just over two decades after the first mainstream surge of pop36 Upset

punk and alternative music, and the majority of acts in that era were just suburban kids wearing whatever clothes their parents purchased for them; and making music, skateboarding, or whatever else, to make sure they were rebelling against something.

“Mark, Tom and Travis [from blink-182], Good Charlotte - they were just the suburban kids who loved the Descendants and shit.

We’re re-living that as a culture in pop music right now where I think slowly, but surely, it’s turning into more and more artists reeling back on being punk visually, and [instead just] making cool shit.”

Being able to not only dive into this shapeshifting culture but to also survive is a facet that’s thanks in part to his earlier career, one that Ricky remembers on his thought train process. “I’ve always felt like the one thing I took from now that, circling back a bit - now that I’m kind of talking out loud - the thing I took most from starting in rap is like the fluidity of adapting to your environment.”

Of Ricky’s current offering on Spotify, there are elements of punk, of course, but the beats that flitter and flow, his languid vocals that err between rapping and singing, make for an intoxicating concoction that’s as laid back as it is urgent.

Black Flag’s follow-up single ‘Fucked Up But It’s True’ edges more into stereotypical relationship pondering, about friends not liking lovers but being unable to give them up.

“A lot of people would view it as just kind of hustling to the next thing every time, [but] it comes off like a slacker attitude with me - it’s not actually - it’s more of if ‘it goes that way, cool; if not, I’ll get to it a different way’.”

Ricky exudes that carefree

Californian breeze, the kind that is as comfortable coasting on a skateboard as it is chugging a guitar or just chilling on the beach.

Indeed, growing up in the City of Angels makes this a more natural appearance, but leaning into it has all been a conscious choice.

“It’s like I don’t care, but it’s more ‘well, if that doesn’t work, I’m not putting all my chips on that, and it’s not going to break my heart’,” he explains. “That’s why that

song [‘Black Flag’] is the spirit of whatever the EP ends up being. That song started because the attitude of it was exactly what I needed to snap into a new headspace to continue.”

On what that headspace is, he says: “For my mental health, it’s easier to just make a song like ‘Black Flag’ - maybe not do that every time - but take part of that attitude with me and download it and be like I can approach my career this with this attitude, like, it’s not that serious.

“If I flop, I flop, and if it goes off, then the joke’s on you guys. But if I take it too seriously... like this interview right now could be a make or break moment if I am too harsh on myself all the time, I can beat myself up for days about every individual thing that comes up. So when I wrote that song, it was more like, ‘Cool’,” he adds, shrugging. “[And] I can approach music and life that way.”

It would seem that no matter how hard he tries, however, Ricky’s

musical DNA is made up of the journey he’s been on. He’s in a unique position. Of the names in music, only one other comes to mind with a hip-hop facing introduction and breaking through the barriers to a successful venture into the pop-punk world, and that is Machine Gun Kelly.

“I identify a lot with his career arc in general, and respect it a lot because it is a true-to-form pop-punk project,” he says. “There needed to be that to re-lay the blueprint all over again. When I heard it, I was like, ‘Oh, you can do that?’

“Him doing it - and it working was important because it shows that it’s possible, and it sounds corny, but a year and a half ago, I don’t think people thought you could put that album out and still be looked at as pop as he is looked at.”

Ricky’s ability to seamlessly traverse hip-hop and punk gives the impressions of the ultimate ‘cool’ factor at play. It takes an understanding you simply can’t learn to be able to fire up in genres that, once upon a time, felt worlds apart, but in the heady, wild west of the 2020s, are closer than ever.

“At the beginning, I fit into that world [hip-hop] very seamlessly because of how I grew up,” he says of this effortlessness coming through in Ricky Himself’s game plan. “It was similar to a lot of the people I was meeting, rather than a lot of the people I meet in pop, rock and alternative. [But] I can connect with both very easily because I had a vast experience of the types of people I grew up around and the schools I was going to.”

Mentioning that even though he’s removed from those smoky studio scenes of hip-hop - where everything felt life or death - “the stakes are still high” for Ricky.

“I can’t remove the energy of feeling like there’s still more to do,” he muses as the sun begins to creep into his room. “I feel like a bit of a sore thumb in both worlds, so it’s hard. Neither totally felt like the right fit.”

Really, Ricky is just a kid “figuring out, like where do I fit right now,” and there’s nothing more relatable than that. P Upset 37

“PUNK ROCK TAUGHT US TO QUESTION EVERYTHING” With the world perpetually in a bit of a mess, Californian punk rock legends The Offspring are incredibly unimpressed.

Words: Steven Loftin. Photos: Daveed Benito.

38 Upset

“WE THOUGHT STUFF WAS MESSED UP BACK THEN, LITTLE DID WE KNOW - OH MY GOSH THAT WAS NOTHING” DEXTER HOLLAND

Upset 39

WHY DON’T YOU GET A JOB? The Offspring’s Dexter Holland, not content with penning some of the catchiest punk tunes still bouncing their way around every teen’s bedroom and beyond, is also someone who seemingly can’t sit still. Sure, the Offspring have been induced to “baking bread” and “learning to fly fish” over lockdown according to guitarist Noodles, but it’s their spiky-haired frontman who’s the jack of all trades, and, erm, master of them too it would seem.

“I CALL PEOPLE AN IDIOT ALL THE TIME ON TWITTER; IT’S ONE OF MY FAVOURITE THINGS TO DO” NOODLES

THAT’S DR DEXTER TO YOU...

A man of multitude; on one hand ‘Pretty Fly (For A White Guy’), the other, ‘ Discovery of mature microRNA sequences within the protein-coding regions of global HIV-1 genomes: predictions of novel mechanisms for viral infection and pathogenicity’ - erm, whatever that means. It certainly looks like it took some long hours in his laboratory...

FLYING SOLO In 2004 Dexter completed a 10-day solo flight around the world. After getting his pilot’s license in 1996, he ventured around the globe, subsisting on “Dorito’s and beef jerky”.

GRINGO BANDITO Dexter isn’t just a hot sauce hot head, he’s a purveyor of one of the finest available, in fact. Gringo Bandito - which has the frontman armed and ready adorning the bottles - comes available in four varieties, from original to ‘super hot’. Yikes.

SHARKNADO 6 That’s right - In ‘The Last Sharknado: It’s About Time’, Dexter and Noodles both have a brief cameo as ye olde British naval sailors during the American War of Independence which a Sharknado interrupts. We can’t believe we just wrote that, either.

STAMP COLLECTING According to a local newspaper back in 2007, Dexter was spotted hunting for some rare stamps on the Isle of White, which at first was denied, but later confirmed by his PR as an avid collector of stamps. Punk AF. CHARITY Also a good egg, Dexter’s, and dabbled in charitable work, including setting up his own foundation with ex Dead Kennedy singer Jello Biafra. He’s even completed the LA Marathon in support of The Innocence Project, along with previously auctioning off some sneakers.

40 Upset

On where the energy on ‘Bad Times’ - a directly palpable one that’s twice the vigour of some of their younger peers, mind you - comes from Noodles exclaims: “All I gotta do is turn on the news for five minutes!”

“I see us as observers, first and foremost, and the material that inspires us are things that are going on around us,” Dexter explains.

“It could be something local like our neighbourhood that was the inspiration for ‘The Kids Aren’t All Right’, or it could be more on a global scale, which I think we’re seeing now

for sure.”

Having never really gone away even during the pandemic, they hit the studio to record a couple of covers including Tiger King’s ‘Hey Kitty Kitty’ - The Offspring know there’s a crowd waiting for them, even after a near-ten year wait for a new record, and for whatever reason the faces seem to constantly get younger.

“I consider it very fortunate that we’ve had fans that have grown up with us, and stayed with us,” Dexter ruminates. “And yet, every time we go out on tour, we see young kids in

the very front, and I know they weren’t there last time we came around to play a show. I think it’s cool, and I’m really glad that, for whatever reason, it’s happening with us.”

“Thank god, knock on wood,” Noodles adds, laughing, frantically looking for something to rap upon.

that inspired us when we were kids.

I loved that it was energetic, and I loved it was rebellious. The things they were speaking and singing about were things that I could identify with - they didn’t seem sugar-coated the way a lot of popular music did at the time.”

He continues. “We didn’t invent the wheel necessarily, but we’re doing something that inspired us that still has that. I hate to use the word relevance, but it still has that attraction for young people.”

The pesky old internet is what keeps things relevant, and culture itself, in its cyclical nature, has stopped looking to future promise - after all, given the state of today, who knows what tomorrow will hold. So, it’s finding the new generations breaking through, reaching backwards, and grabbing at bits and pieces of yesterday, including The Offspring’s heyday - the 90s.

“My daughter, my 16-year-old, she’s walking around the house, I’m like, ‘Why are you singing [Semisonic smash hit] ‘Closing Time’?!’” Dexter chuckles.

“I’m gonna have to bust out my wallet chain again,” Noodles beams, “I still have that stuff.”

“My son plays in a band; he plays bass in this band, and they sounded like New Order, Bauhaus, Christian Death. I was listening to that stuff 35 years ago!” He adds, “I think it’s rad, but, yeah, it’s kind of like ‘I’ve heard this band before’. And what does that say about the influences?”

Knowing that the key to relevance in a world that chews up the metaphorical tarmac lies in not limiting yourself or your references - few Offspring tracks, bar their cultural significance, lend themselves to details or a specific moment in time. While that’s changed slightly now, especially on the leading titular track where they directly reference Trump quotes, it’s all still about a grander application.

“When you’re up on stage every night, “We wrote a song about Napster, jumping up and down, you do feed you know, 20 years ago. Now, people off the energy of the young people hardly know who Napster is,” Noodles upfront. They give it back to us, and says. “Although my son did find my we’re giving it back to them. [We’re] Napster t-shirt in my mom’s stuff of just blessed every day that we get all things. He stole my Napster t-shirt! that.”

He’s all stoked about that.”

On what they think the magic Another anecdote that pulls back formula is that gives them a pull to a to the idea of the past being far more new generation when there’s simply so alluring than whatever waits around much that can be consumed, Dexter the corner, it’s something that’s played posits that it all draws back to where on Dexter’s mind.

The Offspring came from.

“I’ve thought about this a lot. I can “We’re creating the kind of music drive down the street, and I’ll see a

kid wearing a Misfits t-shirt, right?”

Dexter starts. “And I’m like, ‘Fuck yeah, that’s cool’, and I think about the fact that that’s like 40 years old - if I was a kid in the 80s would I see someone walking down the street wearing a Benny Goodman [acclaimed US ‘King of Swing’ in the 1930s] t-shirt?

“There are several lifetimes that occurred from the 50s, 60s and the 70s, and the fact that some things are so steadfast in this day and age is really interesting,” he adds. “I don’t know if it means that music’s not evolving or there isn’t anything good to offer? I’m not sure, but I think it’s fascinating.”

An argument could be made for the above, but more than anything, maybe it just means everything that’s come before already evokes enough. Instead, it’s now about looking at what’s happening, and to question, as Noodles previously mused.

Undeniably, punk is now more of a feeling than angry, snarling guitars, but no matter how many lifetimes are lived, some things never change.

That emotion or energy comes out in different ways, and given The Offspring have seen a few things in their time, it only seemed right to pick their brains as to some of the most ‘punk’ things they’ve witnessed.

“The time that kid lit himself on fire to do a stage dive.” Noodles recalls, “We were playing somewhere in the mountains, it was this makeshift stage, a flatbed trailer was the stage, and some kid jumped up on stage, lit himself on fire and did a stage dive.”

“That was in like Oregon somewhere?” Dexter adds. “I remember at Brixton Academy a kid jumped off the balcony. I think he was just excited; it was like the ultimate stage dive.”

“A crazy crowd that night - they also stole my glasses and ripped my underwear,” Noodles says, baffled.

“I think they grabbed my wallet chain, [and] stole my wallet. So; stole my wallet, ripped my underwear underneath my pants, and stole my glasses at Brixton Academy.”

“It’s not all glamour!” Dexter exclaims as the pair break into more hearty laughter. Maybe things aren’t getting better, but sometimes you do just have to let the bad times roll. P The Offspring’s album ‘Let The Bad Times Roll’ is out 16th April.

Upset 41

BIG BIG SO BIG SO SO While She Sleeps bolster their reputation for being one of the most innovative bands around.

Words: Steven Loftin.

Photos: Giles Smith.

42 Upset

OCIETY OCIETY OCIETY Upset 43

it would seem, has made them more determined to be something bigger, not just for themselves, but for their fans too.

This yearning, however, is something that While She Sleeps noticed had become a counterpoint for bands like Bring Me The Horizon.

The push and pull between those holding the music that helps them survive close while causing negativity to follow when they try to elevate themselves.

Mentioning all of this, the day Upset chats with Loz, along with guitarist Sean Long, it’s a week to the day fellow UK metallers Architects scored their first number one album.

Proof certainly the landscape is folding into something new once more.

While She Sleeps are ready to continue their spearheading shenanigans with fifth album, ‘Sleeps Society’. An album dripping with not only positivity retaining to hope and overcoming, but also paying its respects to the fans. While She Sleeps have earned their stripes and want to offer something more.

“I feel like where we stand, we’ve worked hard to get where we are as a band, [and] that gives us a platform to say something positive,” Loz says. “I think the worry for us moving forward - for everyone in the music industry - is that we don’t really know where the current model of the industry is for bands.”

The centre point of this new chapter for While She Sleeps comes their own model. By offering fans a unique chance to support the band in return for a whole smattering of exclusive bits and pieces. In taking the support directly to the fans, While She Sleeps are continuing their bona fide DIY ethic and are ready to take it to the next level, delivering a new reality they want to spearhead. With that, though, comes the removal of any cloaks and daggers.

Years ago, bands were mystical creatures. They lived and existed in a realm that always felt so untouchable - divination from the gods that chose three to five people to help us traverse life. These days, those smoke and mirrors are removed. Does admitting that the financial help required from fans directly removes that even further, or is that even important now?

“There’s a bit of juggling the whole thing. You want to be a band that’s 44 Upset

“YOU WANT TO BE A BAND THAT’S GOT A BIT OF MYSTERY” LOZ TAYLOR

got a bit of mystery,” Loz says, “and to keep the fan base on its toes. We’re an exciting band, but then there’s also the matter of fact that if the demand is there for not just us, but for underground rock, metal, punk, or hardcore bands, then there has to be a change or a way of making it sustainable. You can’t expect [an artist of] any level to spend that time and effort working on their art form that then doesn’t make it sustainable.”

Getting too bogged down in the ins and outs of how to navigate such a fast-paced, ever-changing world - and setting an example to boot - is a tricky one. Sometimes it’s just easier to let the music do the talking, and since While She Sleeps are in the place of confidence and positivity, it’s also ripe for them to take a few more steps forward.

“We’re the minority in the heavy scene, but this day and age, it’s growing. Like, I love Justin Bieber,” Sean declares. “Give a flying fuck man, music’s music, and it’s not like metal and pop - I think that’s the way it’s going, to be honest.”

Getting to have chat with a stalwart metal guitarist about the banger nature of ‘Sorry’ or the heartwrenching chasm of ‘Lonely’ is what 2021 is all about. It’s undeniable music is a space we’ve all needed (certainly more than once in the last year), the stigma and shame that existed once upon a time has all but left certain circles, and While She Sleeps have no time for that nonsense now.

“I don’t think MySpace helped when it was like: grindcore/jazz fusion,” Loz adds, laughing. “That’s when everyone started getting hooked up on, ‘So, what are you?’ And it shouldn’t be like that, it should just be ‘This sounds good, that sounds bad’.”

Having managed to be one of the lucky ones who landed in the studio as the pandemic hit, meaning touring wasn’t on the cards anyway

for 2020, While She Sleeps set to work tinkering away in their DIY space up in Sheffield. An album that’s as powerful as any of their previous efforts while keeping its eyes focused on taking strides forward, with tender moments, electronic components and confidence in bounds.

“Every album we get better at knocking down these walls [down],” Sean states. “I feel more confident now that we kind of know what’s good.

It’s that attitude [that] creates good music, and not being scared about a little bit of shit for trying something new.”

This time around, they’ve also enlisted the help of Biffy Clyro’s Simon Neil and Sum 41’s Deryck Whibley, but the guest spots don’t stop there.

Even members of the Sleeps Society feature on ‘CALL OF THE VOID’, which appears a couple of tracks before Loz’s compassionate gratitude-soaked homage to those that support his band on finale ‘DN3 3HT’. It all comes together to sound like a band hitting their stride, and for good reason, according to Sean.

“I’ve been saying this a lot recently.

While She Sleeps, we seem to have a struggling album, then a really positive, easy album,” he explains. “’So What?’ was quite a hard one to make for multiple reasons; we were all in different personal situations. And then previously, ‘You Are We’ was like a redemption of ‘Brainwashed’, which was really hard on us because Loz had lots of throat problems, and I feel with ‘Sleep Society’ we’re back on the positive train again.

“When we have a bad time as people, it comes through the music, which I think is a good thing in retrospect, but I think [with] ‘Sleeps Society’ we’re firing on all cylinders.

We’re showing Sleeps at its best. We’re all healthy and happy, and I think you can hear it in the music. We’re showing off what we can do.”

“To be honest, as a group, we don’t

try and pre-empt too much of what to expect from a new record,” Loz says of any preconceived intentions when getting to work on Sleeps Society. “We like to stay very open-minded, and hopefully, it develops quite organically.

We’re not putting too much pressure on ourselves to, you know, write another ‘You Are We’ or whatever; this is all about the next chapter for us.”

There’s no doubt that While She Sleeps have cemented themselves as mainstays of UK metal. They’re grafters; fighters clawing their way into being something for someone.

Does it feel like the scrappily put

together pile-of-coats-goal has changed now they’re effectively in charge of their own small army?

“For me personally, it was always a case of just wanting to play music with my five friends,” Loz says. “The fact you know even from the early days that people liked it blew my mind. And the fact that people want to listen to me shout my mouth off still blows my mind!”

“When we dropped ‘The North Stands For Nothing’, we kind of got some traction with,” Sean continues, “I don’t remember feeling like we didn’t believe that fans like just our band.

Like, there are so many real bands out there. That’s a thing that I like to promote to the fans, too - we are those kids that think that we’re not a real band still.

“All the pros do - all the Foo Fighters and your Slipknots, they’re exactly the same. They’re just kids like us trying some shit, and it works, and that’s what people need to know: it’s easy when looking at Instagram and stuff to feel like there’s no point even trying. We’re just normal idiots, really.”

Speaking on the positivity-infused ‘Sleeps Society’, Loz reckons “a lot of that has come through [having] a bit of a punk rock DIY outlook on how we run things.

“We’ve worked with loads of different people through the band’s timeframe, and it’s backing up what we’re trying to say with the Sleeps Society - that stepping out on your own and being confident and positive you can make things happen for yourself without having to lean on other people.”

“Everyone has a lot more power than they realise, and sometimes it only takes a little bit of encouragement,” Sean adds. “A lot of what you need is within yourself, and people always think it has to be elsewhere; it must be in the pay rise; it must be in Thailand on a holiday; it must be on the tour bus. I like to think that we’re helping out with [realising] that maybe I do have the power to kind of solve this situation myself.”

“On top of that as well, we’re the perfect example of striving for where you want to get to. We’re not crazy businessmen or anything like that; luckily, we’re five dudes that are fully committed,” Loz affirms. “But other than that, we’ve not got any outside training so we can achieve what we want to achieve. That’s why we feel it’s important to give out in our message because we’re just dudes from run-down backgrounds. We needed the band at the time, and it gave us something to focus on.

“Thankfully, we’re in a position now where we have a bit of a platform [where] we can try and give a positive message out,” he ends. “If we can get [that] to a few people, then it’s definitely worthwhile for us to put the message out there. That’s what we want to achieve through these songs.”

P While She Sleeps’ album ‘Sleeps Society’ is out 16th April.

Upset 45

“GOJIRA IS MORE THAN A METAL BAND; IT’S A WAY OF LIFE”

46 Upset

With their new album ‘Fortitude’, Gojira are looking to the positives.

Words: Jack Press. Photo: Jimmy Fontaine, Gabrielle Duplantier.

Upset 47

A

t a time where a pandemic has pushed an entire planet of people outside of their comfort zones, politicians are outlawing protests, and social and environmental change are gaining significant momentum, it’s essential to do your bit.

“We’re in a position now where music is not enough for us, we really want to be active, and the way we want to exist in this world is to raise our fists and act,” enthuses Mario Duplantier, drummer and principal songwriter of technical death metal deities Gojira.

Coming live from the cosy confines of his car, the Frenchman pulls no punches in calling for change at a time when our climate and our culture are in crisis.

“We love music, you know, we are musicians, but we are also citizens of the world. We want to have a place in this world, and if you’re not part of the solution, you are part of the problem,” he continues, both bewildered and inspired by the trials and tribulations of our times.

It’s these trials and tribulations that we humans face that Gojira - completed by vocalist and guitarist Joe Duplantier, guitarist Christian Andreu and bassist Jean-Michel Labadie - paint a picture of positivity for on ‘Fortitude’, the follow-up to 2016’s breakthrough tourde-force ‘Magma’. Whereas ‘Magma’ spent time in solitary confinement, pulling apart the fabric of their skin to peer inside their minds following the death of Mario and Joe’s mothers, ‘Fortitude’ forages away in a forest of optimism, spreading the newfound hope they’ve found a home in to their listeners.

“When we were writing ‘Fortitude’ we felt great, way better than the year we made ‘Magma’. There’s been a real maturity for the four of us. We are not twenty years old anymore, we’re not struggling with the same problems anymore, and we feel way more balanced than before. We almost feel like normal people.”

Seeing life through the lens of the modern man, Mario and co. spent time away from the rose-coloured glasses that the life of a Grammy-nominated artist gravitates you too like a vice grip. Not only did they find themselves grounded once more, but empowered, too.

“It was something we wanted to hear for ourselves, as a mantra. If you

48 Upset

think ‘I will be okay, I will be okay, I will be okay’, you will be okay, you know?”

Mario muses, moved by their emotional epiphanies, adding: “‘Fortitude’ for me is encouragement of strength. We want to encourage people to not give up, to stay alive and express themselves. To act if they want the world to change.

Most of all, it’s an album to say stay strong, because there is a lot to despair in this world, but still, we think there is hope.”

Hope, in all its guises, is the driving force behind ‘Fortitude’. Whether it’s in the pop-structured post-metal odyssey of ‘Grind’, the sing-along stadium-metal of ‘Hold On’ or the tribal attack of ‘Amazonia’, Gojira’s hope for a better future seeps through into their soundscapes. Having built a career on crafting critically-acclaimed technical death metal, since ‘Magma’, they’ve been melting melody and clean vocals into solid gold and dripping it over their penchant for beautiful brutality. It’s a decision that their hope drives, and is key to their continued survival.

“It’s not about the people listening to the music; it’s about us, because it’s our lives. Gojira has become our life - we do tours, we write music, we do tours, we write music,” Mario asserts at any mention of their adventures in melodic waters. “Gojira is more than a metal band; it’s a way of life. We don’t have side-projects, any of us, so all our energy is in this band, and we are more mature now, so we need to push the boundaries and explore different things.”

In a scene as safeguarded by gatekeepers as heavy metal, Gojira aren’t afraid of embracing exploration in sound. They’re bleeding their personalities out onto the tracks tenfold.

“We want Gojira to stay as this huge monster, this brute force, but we also have this feminine aspect, and as people, we have very strong feminine parts. We are sensitive, but we have a lot of anger; it’s about balance. We’re not like Cannibal Corpse, and don’t get me wrong, we love Cannibal Corpse because it’s always 100% brutality, but for Gojira, that’s not the case; we need to express both parts of our personality, it’s super important for us.”

‘Fortitude’ is full of magical moments that take the gravity of Gojira to new heights. The highlight at the heart of the album is the enlightening and euphoric ‘The Chant’. Built around

the enchantment of the chant-based chorus, the track takes a trip around your eardrums. It’s as experimental as they’ve ever been and the furthest they’ve ventured into melodic territory, and for Mario, it’s more than just a song.

“I remember the day my brother played to me just a track of only his vocals with nothing else, and I was amazed because it was just this chant, where he’d recorded five or six voices together doing this melody, and I told my brother that it was beautiful. It’s not cheesy at all, and it’s very emotional, and you can feel something deep inside because of it.” That sentiment of hope and its warmth rears its head once again, as Mario adds: “It’s uplifting and relaxing and beautiful, so I told him we need to do a song with that chant, no matter what, and we started to jam and build everything around it.”

Building around the things they believe in, whether sonically or thematically, is something Gojira sticks to their guns with. Since they were young, they’ve had a deeply invested interest in the spiritualism of Buddhism. As they’ve grown older

and wearier of the world around them, they’ve developed an anti-consumerist approach to their thinking, which is drip-fed throughout the album.

“If you read a lot of books about it, they tell you that you don’t have to have all the things in your life, that you don’t have to buy so many things.

We need to simplify our life, and we need to have less possessions. We are always talking about it as a band, about how we have too many things in our lives. I’m trying to have less things, and for me, it’s a better way to prepare

your own death. That’s something spiritual but also on the concrete side of it, if you have too many things, when the day you will leave comes, it’s a fucking mess for the people still living with you.”

There’s a laughter that lingers in the air of our call for a moment, subdued somewhere in the seriousness of his spiritualistic suggestion. They may be artists at the top of their game about to take the spoils of their efforts, but they’re far more attached to their beliefs than lesser artists would be.

“WE WANT TO ENCOURAGE PEOPLE TO NOT GIVE UP, TO STAY ALIVE AND EXPRESS THEMSELVES” MARIO DUPLANTIER

This emboldened sense of confidence that comes with wearing their belief like a badge of honour lends itself to their continued efforts to envisage environmental change. On ‘Amazonia’, they channel the heartache that hit them after finding the Amazon rainforest on fire into a call to arms to create their own vehicles for the change the world so desperately needs.

“It was at the same time that we saw the images of the Amazon burning, and we just felt so much despair. We were so upset about the situation. We knew it was because of climate change and because of something political going on in Brazil, and although we didn’t know exactly what was happening, we wanted to write a song about the forest, so we tried to reproduce something we imagined would be the sound of a forest and Amazonia came to life. It was something primitive - it was a cry of despair of seeing the forest burning.”

Writing a song is simply one end of the spectrum for the quartet.

Unconvinced that their songwriting could summon up the change alone, they’re partnering with a number of key charities that work with the indigenous Guarani and Kaiowa tribes of Brazil to ensure proceeds from the track benefit them. For Mario, it all comes down to bringing about little moments of change in your everyday life that paints it into a bigger picture.

“It’s a complex situation, and I’m just a musician, you know? But I try my best in my everyday life to act. I would say that if you do something little, like something here and something there, that individual action will still be so important. For example, if you know that Brazil needs to burn the forest to have a huge field to feed the animals where they’re growing soya, if you then choose to eat less meat or you become pickier on the meat you’re buying, you’re already doing an action for the Amazon that’ll have an impact somewhere down the line.”

That’s what separates Gojira from the media-centric music industry they inhabit. They may be Grammynominated festival headliners, but they’ve not lost a single ounce of the humbleness and humility they’ve held themselves up on. If ‘Magma’ was their emotional epiphany, ‘Fortitude’ is their salute to strength. P Gojira’s album ‘Fortitude’ is out 30th April.

Upset 49

Rated_

Baby Strange Land Of Nothing EP

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THE OFFICIAL VERDICT ON EVERYTHING

Baby Strange have been a staple of the UK grunge scene for a few years now, and their ‘Land Of Nothing’ EP is a welcome return that proves their underground legacy. As bold as it is brash, static stop-start guitars clamour with commanding vocals, with enough hooky melodies that’ll get stuck in your head on a conveyor belt of doom. Baby Strange will have you dreaming about gothy neo-noir nights out, moshing about in your imagination. Jasleen Dhindsa

Chapel Room Service EP eeeee

Royal Blood Typhoons

eeeef EMERGING FROM UNDERNEATH A STORM THAT COULD HAVE SUNK THEM, ROYAL BLOOD HAVE INSTEAD PRODUCED THEIR BEST RECORD YET 50 Upset

So quick was Royal Blood’s rise to being one of the country’s biggest rock bands after their self-titled debut, in hindsight it’s perhaps unsurprising that trouble was soon looming on their horizons.

Alongside a more muted reaction to their follow up record, guitarist and frontman Mike Kerr was battling demons of his own. It would have been easy to imagine’ Typhoons’ then as a record wallowing in the depths of gloom and even more darkness. You couldn’t be more wrong.

It’s the soundtrack to a band shedding their skin, revealing a whole new glittering and confident outfit underneath.

If ‘How Did We Get So Dark?’ saw the duo wandering similar territories as their debut, this sees the Brighton guys pitch up in a whole new territory. It feels lighter on its feet, in huge

part due to its leaning on a more electro-based set of influences than had been previously explored.

Ben Thatcher’s drumming feels lithe and nimble, and while you can’t see them popping on the discarded Daft Punk helmets just yet, the whole record feels *alive* in a way that perhaps you didn’t see coming.

The highlights come thick and fast from opener ‘Trouble’s Coming’, all the way through to its contemplative low-key finale of ‘All We Have Is Now’. The journey that lies between the two is a celebration of life, of moving through it, and living it to the full.

Emerging from underneath a storm that could have sunk them, Royal Blood have instead produced their best record yet.

Trouble looks to be behind them once more. Jamie MacMillan

As the breakdown of genre boundaries finally becomes widely accepted, the opportunities for bands to experiment become all the more prominent. Finding a world between alt-pop, R&B, and anthemic indie rock, Chapel’s ‘Room Service’ EP is very much a record that belongs in 2021’s no rules, all vibes music scene. It works, too, dealing with complex feelings through a prism of nuanced, addictive melody.

Stephen Ackroyd

Devil Sold His Soul Loss eeeee

It would seem that the recent fate bestowed upon

American post-metal mainstays Devil Sold His Soul has certainly taken its toll.

Their fourth chapter - the aptly-titled ‘Loss’ - is not only them reckoning with the titular causation, but it’s also them treading down a path lugging with them their strongest effort to date.

Greater than just a collection of songs, ‘Loss’ a statement of overcoming. It’s in no doubt been a difficult journey for Devil Sold His Soul to embark upon, and ‘Loss’ deals pragmatically with its subject matter while purging raw upset in a way that breaks their boundaries. Steven Loftin

Dinosaur Jr. Sweep It Into Space

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After all of the turmoil of their early years, with band break-ups and albums that essentially became solo vehicles for J Mascis, it is almost a miracle that ‘Sweep It Into Space’ sees the original trio behind Dinosaur Jr. now firmly settled in a run of comfortable middle-aged lo-fi treats.

Co-produced by Kurt Vile, it cements their position as the *still* reliable elder statesmen of the alt rock scene once more. From the jaunty Tom Petty-esque ‘I Ran Away’ to the more muscular ‘I Met The Stones’, it’s the signature sound of a band that knows what they do well but still pushes gently at the edges of their world though things may begin to drift in the second half. Mascis’ guitar work is suitably *chef’s kiss* at points, wringing every emotion out of tracks like the soaring Barlowsung’ Garden’ or the classic squeals and flourishes that have defined his style for nearly forty years now.

Sometimes it’s tempting to dismiss a band that have been

around for this long, rather than celebrate their ability to still be crafting perfect fuzzy nuggets at this stage in their lives, and careers. Will’ Sweep It Into Space’ change the world? Course not. Is it still good? Damn right. Jamie MacMillan

Gojira Fortitude

eeeee

Gojira have been spinning solid gold since ‘Magma’, and on ‘Fortitude’, they steer their technical death metal further into stadium-metal seas. With their creative freedom fully at their control; the album recorded and produced by the band themselves, they spiral across the musical spectrum, whether it’s in the popstructured post-metal odyssey of ‘Grind’, the singalong stadium-metal of ‘Hold On’ or the tribal attack of ‘Amazonia.’ No matter where they wander, ‘Fortitude’ truly flourishes on its glistening centrepiece ‘The Chant’ - a dizzying display of melodic metal wrapped around one of this year’s most magical choruses. Gojira have gone from strength to strength on album to album, and on ‘Fortitude’, they’ve finally climbed the ladder and claimed the championship.

Jack Press

Greta Van Fleet

The Battle At Garden’s Gate

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‘The Battle At Garden’s Gate’ is a huge album, featuring over an hour of classic rock wanderlust. It

feels like glitter and sweat on skin under the desert sun. Track seven ‘Stardust Chords’ is a prime example of the at times cinematic nature of this record. The sound of warring drums incites goosebumps, causing the listener to mentally prepare for a grand battle. It is a brilliant showcase of Josh Kiszka’s vocal range. However, because this record is so long the songs have a tendency to meld into each other. Greta Van Fleet promised an “evolution” in their sound, and there’s a wonderful blending of new elements throughout the record. The band have moved on to a new chapter, while still remaining true to themselves. Kelsey McClure

Iceage

Seek Shelter

eeeee

Danish corner shop crusaders, Iceage, are back with their feverishly eclectic new album, kept in line only by the constancy of its beating punk heart. ‘Seek Shelter’ is violently animated with all the antagonistic guitar lines and venomous vocals that the band have explored in their previous records, but it stands apart in its coyness and silent sensitivity.

There’s a lightness to the way the album skips between influences, strangely contrasted with lead singer Elias Bender Rønnenfelt’s heavy, sullen vocal performance. Half menacing, half casual, the album is bound together only by a churlishly vicious intent and a continued restless edge. It allows the band and the listener space to assume the roles of the lover, the fighter, the villain

and the hero all in tandem as the songs barrel between different cinematic visions.

It proves that, with four albums already under their belts, the band aren’t about to slow down for anybody or anything. Edie McQueen

Manchester Orchestra

The Million Masks of God

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Excavating the pressures of fatherhood and the anxieties of legacy on 2017’s ‘A Black Mile to the Surface’, Manchester Orchestra continue to delve deeper on new album ‘The Million Masks of God’ as they explore the barrier between the end of a life and whatever’s beyond. Less lyrically abstract than ‘A Black Mile’’s story, the subject matter is still strongly conceptual, tackling very real grief and loss experienced by the band during recording.

Songwriters Andy Hull and Robert McDowell continue to expand the edges of their sonic palette, toying with folk guitar trills and processed drums around the edges of their increasingly proggy rock. ‘Keel Timing’ borrows the off-kilter indie harmony of their Bad Books side-project, ‘Dinosaur’ broods before exploding into cacophony, and album highlight ‘Obstacle’s innocent, nursery rhyme melody wanders hospital corridors, birth and death lurking behind different doors. More mellow and less urgent than the band who released the full-on guitar onslaught of ‘Cope’ in 2014, across their past two records Manchester Orchestra have carved their own niche in the alt-rock landscape. Dillon Eastoe Upset 51

The Offspring

Let The Bad Times Roll

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As we find ourselves in a bit of a pop-punk revival, The Offspring find themselves in the somewhat strange position of now being elder statesmen of their scene. On the one hand, it gives - living legends deserve a certain degree of reverence. On the other, it can take away. Acts of this vintage quite often end up sounding out of touch, left repeating their same old tricks to a dwindling audience until they finally call it a day - especially when surrounded by so many new, engaged voices. There’s so much raw energy to ‘Let The Bad Times Roll’, though, that any suggestion The Offspring are about to run out of steam seems somewhat ridiculous.

An album here for a good time, from a band who are sticking around for the long haul, there’s still life in the old dogs left. Stephen Ackroyd

The Pale White Infinite Pleasure eeeee

Moody title-track ‘Infinite Pleasure’ opens up the record with a slow-burn that twists into a heavy number, introducing overarching lyrical theme of constantly aspiring to new heights of fulfilment. This is something that is reinforced across The Pale White’s debut album, through previous singles and fellow bangers ‘Glue’ and ‘Take Your Time’. It is really the sonic direction that has stepped-up from their past

52 Upset

EPs though; the guitars in particular sound far more polished. The album closes as strong as it opens with seven-minute epic ‘Frank Sinatra’, an unexpectedly dynamic piece showing a new side to the group. It makes for a grand full-length experience to enthral past listeners and intrigue new fans alike. Finlay Holden

Remember Sports Like A Stone

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Boston’s indie upstarts Remember Sports are jinglejangling their way back into our lives on a giant sonic step forward of a third album, all without leaving the ramshackle sanctity of what made them such a special band in the first place.

Dealing with everything from desire (‘Pinky Ring’), to periods (‘Eggs’), vocalist Carmen Perry continues her whip-smart lyricism, but this team effort sees the band honing in and focusing on their craft - trading instruments and building each block carefully in the studio resulting in a tempestuously collaborative effort filled with equal parts heart-wrenching vulnerability and frantic, frenetic energy. They’re more than just a little bit special. Steven Loftin

Stars Hollow I Want To Live My Life eeeee

There’s a somewhat trite quote about life happening while you’re busy making plans. In lesser hands, this concept would have been a

somewhat mawkish idea on which to hang an album.

Stars Hollow – one of the brightest new emo acts out there – do not have lesser hands, however. After a stellar couple of EPs, the Iowa trio have fulfilled such early promise with an album bursting with wide-eyed optimism and a wildly infectious desire to thrive.

Combining the passion of The Hotelier, the poise of Into It Over It and the power of Free Throw, Stars Hollow’s gently-mathy, sprightly indie-rock will certainly feel familiar to anyone with even a remote interest in anything that has happened post emo-revival.

And, while the breakout success of Origami Angel and Dogleg has helped push the focus onto a new generation of bands picking up the emo baton, Stars Hollow could be the ones to serve as the accelerant for the whole scene. Life might wait, but don’t sit on this summer soundtrack… Rob Mair

Weezer Van Weezer eeeee

It’s probably not the accepted line to take on such matters, but while everyone is so keen to reminisce about Weezer’s first phase - those iconic first two albums that have become critical sacred cows - the period that came after had something about it too. Shiny, fun, often ridiculous - what the more polished, brighter albums between green and red lost in lo-fi charm, they found in their larger than life spirit.

That’s the energy that ‘Van Weezer’ basks in. Their second full-length in a matter of months, it’s a record planned from before the

pandemic but arrives as we (hopefully) start to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Starting with a satisfying crunch and several sideorders of textbook melody, it soon descends into a world of gigantic 80s hair metal riffs.

Always delivered with a wink and a smile, it may not be the Weezer you’d show off to your mates, but it’s almost certainly the one you’ll listen to for a much-needed serotonin hit. Stephen Ackroyd

While She Sleeps Sleep Society eeeee

Ever since Architects went to the top of the charts with ‘For Those That Wish To Exist’, it’s felt like the boundaries for heavy music might have expanded again. Sure, it’s currently easier to score a charttopping album than at any point in recent memory effectively now a one week snapshot of who has run the best pre-order campaign but it’s still a significant landmark for any band. Into that world, ‘Sleeps Society’ feels like the record that could once again level up the broader perception of While She Sleeps. Long since proven within their own world, it sounds perfectly poised for expanded horizons. It’s not just the appearance of gateway rock icon Simon Neil on the vital and honest ‘Nervous’, either.

Loz Taylor has never sounded this strong - able to handle melody and taut, controlled aggression with equal force. ‘Sleeps Society’ is a record that finds the perfect mix of all things. For a band already on the top of their game, it promises to be transformative. Stephen Ackroyd

THE NEW ALBUM

FEATURING

OUT 30TH APRIL

LIMITED COLOURED VINYL LIMITED PICTURE DISC CD • DIGITAL

GOJIRA-MUSIC.COM

ROADRUNNERRECORDS.CO.UK

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

WITH... DESTROY BOYS

FIDLAR Black Out Stout

Violet: One of my most consistent memories as a teenager was driving around Sacramento and sitting in random parking lots listening to music. FIDLAR defines those times for me. It was the perfect amount of angst for 16-year-old me.

THE DRUMS Money

Violet: This song is so near and dear to my heart. It’s a sweet romance song I used to fantasize about my crushes to, but it also inspired me to add more riffs to my songs as a guitar player. This was one of the first guitar leads I ever learned.

CRO-MAGS Hard Times

Violet: I was so pissed off the entire time I was in high school. I always had my headphones in blasting some punk shit, unless I was physically unable to have them in. ‘Hard Times’ was one of my favourite short bruiser songs for walking through the hallways, fuming about something silly.

SAY ANYTHING Wow, I Can Get Sexual Too

Alexia: I always thought my brother had cool taste in music. I remember him listening to Say Anything, and I somehow started playing this song for my friends Vi and Abby. Eventually, the three of us went and saw Say Anything with one of my other favourite bands a the time, Modern Baseball, at the Regency Ballroom in SF. It 54 Upset

was tight. The singer of Say Anything looked at me, and I felt like we had a moment. It was awesome.

NICO These Days

Alexia: I was pretty sad and felt lonely as a teenager. I’m sure most of us have that experience. I learned this song on guitar, and it remains one of the only covers I know.

‘These Days’ comforts me.

Nico’s deep voice assured me of my own unique sound.

I related and still relate to this melancholy track. The beautiful bleakness of it. This song reminds me of going through the motions, and not wanting to be where you are.

Like being in high school.

Jackson Browne wrote the original version, and I’m pretty sure he was sixteen when he wrote it. Being a teenager is fucking hard. It sucks.

THE CRAMPS Goo Goo Muck

Alexia: First Cramps song I ever heard. And I fell in love immediately. I can see myself in my friend’s room, with many other pals who were from a much cooler school than I went to. They were so alternative and guided me into punk. I remember hearing this song and loving the sleaziness of it. “I’m a teenage tiger looking for a feast” - ME TOO!! I never looked back.

ARCTIC MONKEYS From the Ritz to the Rubble

Narsai: I first heard this song when I was in middle school from my brother’s hand-medown iPod; everything I was listening to up until then was

stuff from the 60s through 90s. The fast spitting vocals was really cool to hear with the aggressive drums and guitar but also an oddly groovy bass. It was such a cool mix of sounds and definitely opened me up to more music like that later on.

THE POLICE Man in a Suitcase Narsai: This was the classic “it’s Friday after school on a nice day, time to go smoke weed in the park” song for me and my friends for the majority of high school, so it definitely holds those fine memories for me. I love this song for many reasons, one being that it’s one of those songs where everything about it is upbeat and happy, but the lyrics are actually kinda dark and sad when you

really listen to them, and I’m very drawn to those types of songs.

QUEENS OF THE STONE AGE No One Knows Narsai: Another middle school banger I discovered through my brother in, which I’m almost certain was the first song where the drums really grabbed my attention.

Even years before I actually picked up drums, I remember being on many school trips in a school bus with the row to myself listening to that song and thinking, “these fuckers will never know how good these drums are”. This song also taught me how to pick your places wisely in giving some drum flair to a song without being too over the top. P

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