Upset, November 2018 by Upset

THE FAIM

MEWITHOUTYOU

SWEARINâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;

TOM MORELLO

STAND ATLANTIC

HELLIONS

LAURA JANE GRACE

November 2018 upsetmagazine.com

B ASEMENT YOU ME AT SIX THE FEVER 333 BEARTOOTH

To Holy Hell and back

NOVEMBER 2018 Issue 38

HELLO.

Architects haven’t had it easy. While much will be written about the tragic circumstances that frame their new album, though, it isn’t the reason they deserve the attention they’re about to receive on a wider scale than ever before. In ‘Holy Hell’, they’ve delivered a record which is capable of crossing divides. With a scene around them emboldened to hold the band up and make sure they get exactly what they’re due, they’re about to get the mainstream love they deserve. We’re delighted to welcome them to the cover of Upset as they embark on a new chapter that could change everything.

S tephen

Editor / @stephenackroyd

Upset Editor Stephen Ackroyd Deputy Editor Victoria Sinden Associate Editor Ali Shutler Scribblers Alex Bradley, Dan Harrison, Dillon Eastoe, Jamie MacMillan, Jenessa Williams, Josh Williams, Katie Pilbeam, Liam Konemann, Martyn Young, Rob Mair, Steven Loftin Snappers Adam Elmakias, Frances Beach, Jamie MacMillan, Ryan Johnston, Sarah Louise Bennett Cover photo: Sarah Louise Bennett 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

RIOT 4. I DON’T KNOW HOW BUT THEY FOUND ME 8. ATREYU 9. MAYDAY PARADE 10. BEARTOOTH 12. THE FAIM 14. SWEARIN’ 17. SONGS THAT SAVED MY LIFE 18. TOM MORELLO 22. THE FEVER 333 26. YOU ME AT SIX 27. CLOUD NOTHINGS ABOUT TO BREAK 28. CHASE ATLANTIC FEATURES 30. ARCHITECTS 38. MEWITHOUTYOU 42. BASEMENT 46. LAURA JANE GRACE 50. HELLIONS 54. STAND ATLANTIC REVIEWS 58. ARCHITECTS 60. BASEMENT 61. BEARINGS 62. DRUG CHURCH 65. HANDS LIKE HOUSES 66. TWENTY ONE PILOTS 68. BIFFY CLYRO 69. PALE WAVES TEENAGE KICKS 70. SHVPES

Riot_ EVERYTHING HAPPENING IN ROCK

THE FAIM

THIS MONTH IN ROCK

With a new EP here, and a worldwide audience thanks to a certain brand of ﬁzzy pop, we go inside The Faim’s latest release. p.12

SWEARIN’

Swearin’ have been gone for so bloody long, but after five years away, the group are back with a new album. Allison Crutchfield and Kyle Bilbridge fill us in on the goss. p.14

TOM MORELLO

Tom Morello is ﬂexing his solo muscles with an album that’s both challenging, and - with a string of unexpected collabs - a whole lot of fun. p.18

D’YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN?

DON’T CALL IT A THROWBACK For a while, DALLON WEEKES - he of Panic! ‘fame’ - and RYAN SEAMAN denied their new project existed, but with a new EP and another trip to the UK on the horizon, they can’t deny their existence anymore meet I DON’T KNOW HOW BUT THEY FOUND ME. Words: Ali Shutler.

“W

e live in a world where everywhere you look, there are people saying ‘follow me here’, ‘subscribe to this’, ‘check this out’,” starts Dallon Weekes.

Hype and hyperbole are in abundance, which is why I Don’t Know How But They Found Me wanted to do things diﬀerently. “Our initial approach when we started was to play in secret, and deny that we were even a band. We denied that this band existed at all. Fans, when they started finding out about what we were doing, would ask us and we’d say ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about’. “They would send us pictures of us playing shows, and we’d reply, ‘No. Handsome dudes, but that could be anyone’. “There was something about that that people gravitated to. They weren’t being sold something. They had to go out and find it. That’s a romantic idea that doesn’t exist as much anymore.” There’s romance and discovery throughout IDKhow. Their music is a glorious clump of theatrics, emo, glam, sincerity and glittering pop.

Their story is one of deliberate adventure and unexpected excitement. A decade ago, Ryan Seaman and Dallon played together in The Brokbeks. They reconnected properly when Dallon, “started making a record on my own in between Panic! At The Disco tours,” he explains. “I would bring Ryan in to play drums. We realised how much we missed playing music together. We missed hanging out together, so we’d book a show in secret and have a fun night playing these songs on our own, and it just snowballed. Who ever really knows why people grab onto something, but it caught fire on its own, and eventually it made sense to do it full time.” “It started out as a fun side project just for us to be creative,” says Ryan. “There was no pressure, no machine.” Now the band are signed to Fearless Records. There’s an EP on the horizon, (‘Extended Play’ is out 9th November), a monthlong US tour with Waterparks and a support slot with Deaf Havana at Brixton Academy. They’re already a long way from

“WE DENIED THAT THIS BAND EXISTED AT ALL” DALLON WEEKES

pretending the band doesn’t even exist. “The further in we get, the more fun it becomes,” Ryan adds. “It hasn’t stopped. Sure, it was pretty thrilling initially when we were doing it in secret, and we would deny it. That lasted for about seven months.” It’s “the next step,” starts Dallon, always the storyteller. “When we got started, we wanted to do it in a way that was honest and didn’t take advantage of the fans of the bands we were in at the time.” While you don’t have to look particularly hard to see the similarities between Panic! and IDKhow (reckless disregard for genre, a devilish blend of past and present and a love for all things that glitter), they’re still a world apart. “We try to be respectful of where we came from,” continues Upset 5

Riot_ Dallon. “We never want to exploit fans or any of bands that we were in beforehand.” There’s no escaping the fact that both Dallon and Ryan will be introduced as Ex-whatever band for a long time. “That’s always going to be part of the equation, and we knew that going into it. It’s one of the big reasons why we started the way that we did. It would have been easy to do a press release: ‘Hey, check out this new thing that we’re doing’.” But where’s the discovery in that? “The way that we did it was a little more honest, a little more sincere. Building credibility that way was important.” IDKhow aren’t like other bands. There’s a loose concept, for the moment anyway, of a group out of time and given a second chance. “Inspirationally, everything we’ve been doing has been inspired by the media when I was a kid,” oﬀers Dallon. “Back then, it was very limited the way you could discover things. You had record stores, thrift stores or just what was broadcast on TV. There was no internet, but I’ll never forget that feeling of discovery.” It might sound nostalgic, rose-tinted glasses looking back at a time where all this was still fields and shouting at clouds seems like a brilliant idea, but IDKhow are never cynical. There are no complaints about the internet, streaming isn’t seen as the enemy, and they never want to go back to a simpler time. They just like telling stories and they’d rather tell their own than the one involving other bands. “All my favourite bands I discovered on my own,” explains Dallon. “When you discover something on your own, it means something a little bit more to you. Bands like Sparks [an LA duo who formed in 1972, recently collaborated with Franz Ferdinand, and last 6 Upset

“WE’RE WORKING ON AN ALBUM, HOPEFULLY WE CAN GET THAT OUT EARLY NEXT YEAR” DALLON WEEKES

released an album in 2017] - I found them because I fell into some weird YouTube hole. That was a band that I didn’t know existed until two years ago. “Because of the internet, it’s easier to do that now, and I wanted to recreate that experience with our band, at least for this record. A band that people forgot about, that only now get to have a chance because of modern technology.” IDKhow have been doing this for a little over a year. “We want to get an EP out as soon as possible, then a record and then do this for as long as we can. As long as people care, we’ll be doing this band,” promises Dallon. “The songs we have right now, the inﬂuences come from everywhere. Not just David Bowie, T- Rex and Sparks, it also comes from movies, books on tape, vinyl and analogue media from years gone by. We’re working on an album now. Hopefully, we can get that out early next year.” Back in the present though, things are hectic for IDKhow. Signing to Fearless, releasing

new music and playing their first shows abroad. “It’s been a whirlwind but it’s all good problems to have, so I can’t complain. We’re trying to keep up with everyone, that’s been the difficult part. Keeping up with fans. When we started, we had a timeline. Let’s release this video here, this song there. It snowballed though, and we got steamrolled by fans pretty much. The fan attention was awesome, and that brought music industry attention.” Despite the storytelling, IDKhow came together organically. Two friends reunited by music, making the sort of songs that excited them and relishing the chance to hang out together, there’s an honesty in that, that can be found in everything they do. “It comes from a real place. It’s not watered down or filtered through anything. We wanted to avoid that. We want to operate this band the way music and fashion worked thirty years ago. The artist makes the art they make, and people decide if they like it or not. They don’t ask anyone what they want to hear; they just do what they do. You should make the art you want to make and be happy with it. People will either like it, or they won’t.” P IDKhow’s

EP ‘Extended Play’ is out 9th November.

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Riot_

EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT...

Frontman ALEX VARKATZAS tells us everything we need to know about their just-dropped latest full-length.

TEAMWORK MAKES THE DREAM WORK

JOHN FELDMANN’S NUTS!!!

THINGS WE LEFT BEHIND

4. DRACO MALFOY GETS

5. MUG MUG MUG

6. THIS IS OUR BEST RECORD

Internally it’s our most collaborative Atreyu record to date. Traditionally certain members handle certain songwriting roles. In this case, we all worked together on each other’s parts from the lyrics to the bass riffs!

WRITING CREDIT

Feldmann loves writing on Malibu beach at a pretty sweet country club. At one session, Draco Malfoy (Tom Felton) showed up to hang out while we were writing rock tunes. No wands were pulled out, and the magic still happened. A great experience. 8 Upset

Not literally his testes (I have stories about those too) just that he is a creative genius. He pushes himself and us to the creative limit. We drink lots of coffee and jam through lots of material. He has taught the band and me an invaluable amount about songwriting, musicianship, work ethic and fatherhood.

We consumed 700 cups of coffee and listened to The Descendants a lot. Or least we drank lots of coffee, and I listened to The Descendants a lot. We had an insane output because of it. We were getting two, sometimes three full brand new songs written and recorded in a day. And when the beans ran out, we just stopped for the day. For real.

The writing and recording of this record were done in two chunks, each around the time of the passing of Chris Cornell and then Chester Bennington. It was hard for us to see musicians we loved pass away. The impression they made will not be forgotten; they directly inspired a great deal of the emotion behind this record.

Ya I know, everyone says it, every time. However, this one really is. It will push our listeners and fanbase like it pushed our limits to make it. It’s a display of pure emotions captured across 12 different musical landscapes. We held nothing back. It’s the next level. I was lucky to be in the room!

Atreyu’s new album ‘In Our Wake’ is out now.

Mayday Parade and The Wonder Years tour the UK next year. FEBRUARY 16 O2 Academy Glasgow 17 Manchester Academy Manchester 18 O2 Academy Birmingham 20 O2 Academy Leeds 21 Rock City Nottingham 22 O2 Academy Bristol 23 Troxy London

FIND OUT WHAT YOUR FAVE BANDS TAKE ON THE ROAD. THIS MONTH... JEREMY LENZO FROM

MAYDAY PARADE

iPad I use my iPad for recording

ideas on the road, and it has become a valuable tool for demoing songs quickly. I also use my iPad to draw out pin ideas for my side business. It’s probably one of the more important things I bring on your.

READY TO TAKE ON 2019?

We’re kicking things off with The Great Escape’s First Fifty and a very special Upset night as a part of the three-day shindig. Taking over the Old Blue Last on 29th November, we’ve got three cracking names: SKYND, Sick Joy and Penelope Isles. See you there.

Nintendo Switch For the all the

Phillips Sonicare electric toothbrush When you’re talking

downtime in the bus, and when you’re too lazy to actually do something productive, you break out the Switch. Playing games on the Switch in the back lounge after the show is over is an everyday thing.

to people all day, you want to make sure you have good oral hygiene. I don’t think much else needs to be said for this one.

Canon 6d Mark II camera Having

Gillette fusion electric razor

CAN’T SWIM, WON’T SWIM

Can’t Swim have announced a new album, ‘This Too Won’t Pass’. “Problems haunt you, infect you,” Chris LoPorto says of the record’s themes. “Evil surrounds us and in time, becomes a part of who we are. Let this band be a reminder of that.” Cheery stuff. It’ll arrive on 16th November via Pure Noise.

a camera is a new addition to my tour necessities as I only got it recently. We normally have a photographer on tour with us, so I decided to get a camera to learn from our photographer while we are out on tour.

Being able to get a quick shave is pretty important when you live on a bus without a proper bathroom. Personally, I don’t like being cleanly shaven anyways, so an electric razor is great for that. Upset 9

9 UPSETMAGAZINE.COM

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Q&A

“YOUR MENTAL HEALTH IS EXTREMELY IMPORTANT” CALEB SHOMO confronts his demons head on with BEARTOOTH’s new record, ‘DISEASE’.

eartooth’s debut album ‘Disgusting’ was an inwards look at selfdiscovery and understanding depression. It put those voices under the spotlight and tried to find a way through. ‘Aggressive’ thrashed and raged outwards, those feelings of loss and confusion still haunting him while album three was always meant for Caleb Shomo to dive into those emotions and find a reason, even when it seemed meaningless. From the opening sidestep of ‘Greatness or Death’, through the questioning purge of the title track to the reflective search for clarity on ‘Clever’, ‘Disease’ sees Beartooth more open, more vulnerable and more on the edge than ever before. Relentless fury has been replaced with quiet moments of resolve as the band take the next step, despite the weight on their shoulders. Hey Caleb, what inspired this record?

The record is about trying to figure out mental health and what that means. Musically it has a bunch of inﬂuences from AC/DC and classic rock, to Slayer, Metallica and pop. It is just a Beartooth record. I don’t know any other way to put it.

Words: Ali Shutler.

“I’M WAY MORE EXCITED ABOUT THIS RECORD THAN I THOUGHT I WOULD BE” CALEB SHOMO

Does it feel like you’re at a point now where you can do anything you want with this band? When I first started, what was important to me was that there were no real boundaries on what this band was going to sound like. Whatever song comes out, comes out. The only boundary was two guitars, bass, drums. You can tell on this record; every song is diﬀerent. It’s got a lot of diﬀerent vibes all over it, and that’s what makes it special to me.

It feels like you had a pretty clear idea about what you wanted this third record to be? I had the idea in my head of how I wanted to do it and kinda what the subject matter was going to be, but I don’t think anyone knew how it was going to sound until it was over. There was a midpoint where I’d written a bunch of songs with diﬀerent people, and I didn’t know what to do, so I had Kamron [Bradbury], and Oshi [Bichar] come over to my house for a few days, and we listened

through everything; they helped get everything on track. I’m way more excited about this record than I thought I would be. It turned out a lot better than I was hoping for.

What do you want people to get from this album? I hope when they listen to it, they’ll take a little bit of time and think about themselves as a person and realise that your mental health is extremely important. If not, hopefully, they just had fun. Hopefully, it wasn’t a negative experience for anybody.

What’s next? You’ll be hitting the road? We’ll be hitting the road hard. We’ve got a US headline tour that’s the longest one we’ve done yet. 48 shows in 60 something days, it’s a whole fucking thing, but it should be good.

Why do you tour so heavily? It’s where we translate. The records are important, but the band is way more than the recording process. I make the records, write them and record them but live, that’s where the band happens. We’re trying to tour everywhere we can; we get real fucking bored otherwise. P

Beartooth’s album ‘Disease’ is out now. Upset 11

Riot_ TRACK BY TRACK

FAIM THE FAIM have just dropped their debut EP. Frontman JOSH RAVEN talks us through it, from front to back. Photos: Sarah Louise Bennett.

12 Upset

he buzziest upand-comers on the block, The Faim are stepping up a notch with debut EP, ‘Summer Is A Curse’. Out now, all the songs on the release were produced with the legendary John Feldmann, and serve as a prelude to the band’s first full-length album, slated for 2019. Josh Raven tells us the stories behind the songs. SUMMER IS A CURSE

The process of writing was one of the most ﬂuid and natural writing sessions we’ve ever had. It was the summertime in Los Angeles, nerves and pressure were always high, but the excitement, focus and passion were incredible. We wrote this with John Feldmann and Ashton Irwin. The special part of this song was that everyone was on the same page, everyone could relate. It felt like our one chance to make this dream of ours a reality. It was giving our minds, body and soul to these moments regardless of the consequence.

MY HEART NEEDS TO BREATHE Whether it’s friends, family, or partners everyone has been involved in a relationship that’s had a negative impact on their lives. It’s a big part of what defines us. Sometimes it’s the environment, the person, their commitment or even uncontrollable circumstance. I’ve had a variety of experiences like this, and I’ve always felt suﬀocated. Like your dreams don’t matter, your happiness is irrelevant or trapped in the guilt of trying to put yourself first. This song is almost like a conversation I had with an ex because as much as I loved them, I knew that I wasn’t truly happy. Pursuing your happiness is always worth the sacrifice.

A MILLION STARS At first glance, ‘A Million Stars’

comes across as the typical boyfriendgirlfriend scenario. Sharing that perfect moment in that perfect place. It’s a time in my life where I stopped appreciating the little things around me and moments like those were a wake-up call. In a world so full of distraction and “entertainment” it’s easy to lose track of the little things that make you happy. Beautiful roses, the stars in the sky, your family, friends, it could be anything.

I CAN FEEL YOU When you find your love for someone, it starts with an experience. I met my first love at a high school party, and that turned into years of dating each other. Plenty of great/terrible moments but the one things that was always perfect was laying down next to each other and just talking. This is one of my favourites to play live.

WHEN IT COMES We wrote this song toward the end of our trip in LA, and we were realising more than ever how hard it was to maintain a lot of our relationships. In our situation, it’s hard because not everyone wants to be around during the hard times. We’re away for months on end and sometimes way too busy to even contact anyone. This song was the process of us understanding that we needed to know, that when “when it gets heavy, are you gonna be with me? Because we can’t hide from this anymore.” From hearing those

answers, ‘When it Comes’ was born.

MAKE BELIEVE Every single human being has experienced the trap of a negative mindset. It’s easy to convince yourself there’s no way out when you try and work everything out in your head. I had dealt with confronting situations from a very young age, and I wasn’t sure how to handle myself. I’ve been through medications, therapy, isolation and the only thing that truly helped me was expressing myself. I learned that I didn’t want to live in my mind, I wanted to be bigger than the bullshit. When you live in your head, you convince yourself things that aren’t true. Thoughts like “you’re not worth it, you’re not good enough, there’s no way out, what’s the point?” Become realistic options when they’re in fact lies. That’s what the idea “I don’t want to be Make Believe” means to me. P The Faim’s

debut EP ‘Summer Is A Curse’ is out now.

Upset 13

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F**KING AWESOME

“THIS IS NOT A CASH GRAB REUNION” SWEARIN’ have been gone for so bloody long, but after ﬁve years away, the group are back with a new album. ALLISON CRUTCHFIELD and KYLE BILBRIDGE ﬁll us in on the goss.

and breakups are tricky. Sometimes it’s the only option as a group implode, sometimes it’s just one of those things, and there’s always that lingering, what if?

When beloved Philly punks Swearin’ disbanded in 2013, they left a nagging itch that just had to be scratched. Now, five years later the band are back, older, wiser and with a renewed sense of purpose. The Swearin’ that have returned with long-awaited third album ‘Fall Into The Sun’ sees their dynamic transformed. Now a trio and, following songwriters Allison Crutchfield and Kyle Gilbride’s breakup, based on opposite sides of the US, they came back together gradually but with new vigour to push themselves creatively. “The dynamic of this group is something special to me,” begins Kyle. “Making the third album was something I always wanted to do, and I don’t know if we ever necessarily thought we were going to get the chance to do it again. “There were times when it didn’t feel like such a priority, but there was definitely unfinished business. I’m psyched that we got together to do it.” For Allison, there was almost a sense of inevitability that something would happen, the question was how and in what

Words: Martyn Young.

“I FEEL LIKE I HAVE PURPOSE AGAIN” ALLISON CRUTCHFIELD

form. “Swearin’ was only inactive for a few years so I always hoped that we would do something again,” she says from her new home in California. “I don’t know that I ever thought that this record would exist in its context and the way that we’ve done it. I’m excited because it feels very specific to this set of circumstances.” She continues: “After we stopped playing together there was a clear divide in the band. I was doing my own thing, and everyone else was doing their own thing or in tandem with one another. We took a lot of space, both intentionally and circumstantial. I was travelling a lot and thinking about moving.” The gradual rebuilding of Allison and Kyle’s friendship came to a head as all the members of the band found themselves at the same show and confronted the elephant in the room head-on. “It took a little time for me and Allison to rebuild, to get our friendship on a good foundation where we could make it work,” says Kyle. “There was one

singular event when we were at [Allison’s sister Katie’s band,] Waxahatchee’s record release show in Philly, and we were all hanging out backstage and she was like, what if we played some shows? I was like, no! She was like, well, what if we made that record? And I said, okay, that’s interesting. I wouldn’t mind starting things up again if we got to make that record. “The band is an outlet for me that I haven’t tried to recreate in any other way since. It was cool to think about writing songs for it. I loved recording songs for this band.” Making that third album was the key driver. If Swearin’ were going to get back together, it had to be to make that record. This time though they had a different perspective on the band and what it meant to be Swearin’. “We had a very hardline view of what our band was supposed to be,” says Allison of the strong DIY aesthetic represented on their first two albums. “If we had stuck to that I don’t think we would ever want to do it ever again. It took us to say, what if we did this band, but we changed how we did it? If we didn’t have these self-implicated rules and did it a different way? How would that feel?” Allison and Kyle wrote their songs separately. “It was a little different this time,” says Kyle. “Allison and I used to collaborate quite a bit Upset 15

Riot_ more heavily on the phone. This time, she was over on the West Coast, and I’m over here in Philly and we both do what we do. We don’t need that kind of input at that stage any longer. I wrote my songs, and she wrote her songs.” Despite the separation, the themes of both their songs were largely the same. “We wanted to marry the themes a bit,” expands Allison. “We have very different writing styles and different perspectives. The two big things we tried to incorporate were distance and the idea of leaving home, just uprooting. That’s happened to me throughout my adult life. We were experiencing it while we were making the record with me being in California and the rest of the band on the East Coast.” It wasn’t just home that Allison and the band were leaving behind; there was a sense that they were moving on to a new phase, and the old ideals were being cast aside. The band were reckoning with where they stood in 2018. “The main theme is just ageing, especially as a member of a radical, counter-cultural community,” reflects Allison. “Not ageing out of it necessarily but growing up and having a different viewpoint. I’ve moved from being a DIY musician and being involved with DIY communities, and now I’m a professional, touring musician so it wouldn’t be right for me to claim DIY as a label because I’m not. It’s about being on the outside looking into something that was really important to me at a certain time.” ‘Fall Into The Sun’ contains some of the band’s very best songs. From Kyle’s brutally honest ‘Dogpile’ - “It’s for anyone who realises as they pull themselves out of a hole that they’ve been in a hole” - to Allison’s open-hearted love songs. “There are a lot of really 16 Upset

“I’VE NEVER ENJOYED PLAYING LIVE THE WAY I DO WHEN IT’S WITH SWEARIN’” ALLISON CRUTCHFIELD

pretty overt love songs that don’t exist in other records of mine,” she says. “I write about love and relationships almost exclusively but not in the way I have on this record.” One of the main influences in Allison gaining the strength to cut ties with what Swearin’ used to be was the experience making her solo album in 2016, ‘Tourist In This Town’. “It gave me a lot more confidence and self-assurance as a producer,” she explains. “It was such a big record instrumentally, very different from Swearin’ stuff. It was the first time as an adult that I’d gone into a recording situation without Kyle. That was important for me. “When Swearin’ were making the first two records, Kyle was recording everything, but also he and I were dating, so it felt different. How I relied on him as a creative collaborator were different because of that. “It boosted my confidence and made me feel a lot more capable as a producer. I feel like ‘Fall Into The Sun’ is truly co-produced by Kyle and myself whereas the

other ones were more produced by Kyle.” The new Swearin’ is realised in diﬀerent ways, maybe most overtly in the bright and vivid artwork, a stark contrast to the dark tones of the previous albums. “The more experience I’ve gained away from Swearin’ makes it easier letting go of the hard opinions about the aesthetics of our band,” explains Allison about this decision. “My favourite record covers are photos of the artist. I wanted it to be a photo of us and not be black and white. I wanted it to be diﬀerent from the past.” Now that they’ve finally made that third album it’s not clear where the band go next; Allison though is firm that this is not just a quick fi x. “We cherish the band and want to keep it preserved. This is not a cash grab reunion. I feel like I have purpose again. Playing in Swearin’ just feels like what I’m supposed to do as an artist, it’s the band I’m supposed to be in and the band I’m supposed to be writing for. I’ve never enjoyed playing live the way I do when it’s with Swearin’. It’s such a rush for me.” Kyle is equally positive: “We’re going to see how it goes but a future is something we believe in.” P Swearin’’s album

‘Fall Into The Sun’ is out now.

WHY YOU NEED TO LISTEN TO...

SONGS THAT SAVED MY LIFE

A new charity compilation for mental health awareness and suicide prevention, Songs That Saved My Life features your favourite bands covering songs important to them. We asked ﬁve of our faves why they picked the tracks they did.

AGAINST ME! cover ‘People Who Died’ (originally performed by Jim Carroll)

“Choosing to cover a song that is filled with death to be featured on this compilation seemed completely fitting to me. I’ve always thought music was about taking all the sadness, pain, fear and trouble that you have weighing on you and turning it into something life aﬃrming.”

Laura Jane Grace

DANCE GAVIN DANCE

cover ‘Semi-Charmed Life’ (originally performed by Third Eye Blind)

“We all connect with that song because we grew up around the time it was a hit, and that was one of the first times I bonded over a song with a close friend. It kind of became a point of shared reality with somebody else; it gave us a reason to appreciate art together.” Tillian Pearson

DAN CAMPBELL covers

TAKING BACK SUNDAY

“When we talk about mental health, there’s a misconception in the greater culture which understands depression to be this thing that comes from one specific catalyst event. ‘Broom People’ is a great encapsulation of everyday depression – just how diﬃcult it can be when you’re depressed to take out the garbage, to clean out the fridge, to vacuum, the little things that seem insurmountable. Songs can have these huge impacts on you and can do amazing things. But mental health is an everyday activity you have to attack it every day. It’s important to say that you have to actively take those steps, you have to go and talk to professionals about these things.”

“I always used to listen to the song kind of on the periphery, it wasn’t until 1999 that I started to identify with it. I went through a lot of struggles in high school, and it gave me a lot of hope. Soon I was playing bass in Taking Back Sunday and touring the world!” Shaun Cooper

‘Broom People’ (originally performed by The Mountain Goats)

cover ‘Bullet With Butterfly Wings’ (originally performed by The Smashing Pumpkins)

THE MAINE cover ‘Transatlanticism’ (originally performed by Death Cab For Cutie)

“I remember a lot of nights listening to it in my car; you’ll see chills on my arms when I hear it. It’s hopeful yet hauntingly ‘real’ songs that have always resonated with me. It’s imperative to realise that we’re all lost, and the point isn’t to be found it’s to keep going.” John O’Callaghan

‘Songs That Saved My Life’ is out on 9th November, benefiting Crisis Text Line, Hope For The Day, The Trevor Project, and To Write Love On Her Arms. Visit songsthatsavedmylife.com. Upset 17

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MACHINE HEAD

TOM MORELLO is ﬂexing his solo muscles with an album that’s both challenging, and - with a string of unexpected collabs - a whole lot of fun. Words + photos: Jamie MacMillan

“I

long for the day where I can make my album of love songs, but that’s not the case, is it?” Twenty-six years after Rage Against The Machine first took on the political establishment in a blitz of fiery guitar riffs and furious raps, Tom Morello is back, and he’s still burning with that same cold fury.

His latest, ‘The Atlas Underground’, is a bold attempt at something new for the iconic guitarist. Named after a combination of the character who carried the weight of the world on his shoulders and the clandestine organisation bent on making mischief (“That pretty much sums up what we’re doing here,” Morello laughs), it involves a wide array of guest stars brought together under one guiding ambition.

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Riot_ “I wanted to curate an album that brought together diverse musicians of different genres to create a sonic conspiracy,” is how he describes it in a West London hotel, smiling, knowing fully how portentous that sounds. “I wanted to make a record that is like the Hendrix of now.” Warming to his themes, he elaborates: “The reason we know him [Hendrix] is, yeah he was a flamboyant dresser and lit shit on fire, but he had hit songs that introduced the world to a different way at looking at music. This album combines my big riffs with crazy guitar sounds and huge EDM drops. It’s the sound of now.” Running through the record is a thread that will be no surprise to long-term Morello fans. “They are all social justice ghost stories,” he states. “It’s [for] the heroes, the martyrs, or even the unknowns, who were killed unjustly. They can speak through these songs in a way that can inform the struggles of the present.” Morello’s ability to straddle multiple genres brings with it a host of friends willing to pitch up and help out. No stranger to hip-hop with both Rage and Prophets Of Rage, it is no surprise to see the likes of Big Boi, Killer Mike, GZA and RZA pop up here. Even Marcus Mumford’s turn is not wholly unexpected when considering Morello’s turn as The Nightwatchman. Coining the phrase “email rock”, most of the record has been done at a distance. “I sent Knife Party a riff tape. Six fat guitar riffs and a bunch of crazy noises, told them to take it and put it into their oscillator. I let each of the songs develop in that way, back and forth.” Marcus Mumford’s track ‘Find Another Way’ was written over Skype sessions. Not all of the guests were previous acquaintances however, some 20 Upset

“IT’S FOR THE HEROES, THE MARTYRS, OR EVEN THE UNKNOWNS” TOM MORELLO

were new revelations. “Leikeli47 was incredible. When I got that back, I was like ‘Oh SHIT!’” he shouts excitedly. K. Flay’s appearance is down to a chance listen. “I heard her on the radio. I pulled over, text my people and told them to find her!” Even Killer Mike’s verse on ‘Rabbit’s Revenge’ was down to the rapper turning up unannounced at Morello’s studio, having heard of Big Boi’s involvement. Ambitious plans are underway to transform this all into a live performance in 2019, with some caveats. “I don’t think you can count on everyone being there for the shows, but we’re figuring a way to look at this like the glass is half full,” he teases, adding that famed Creative Director Sean Evans (Roger Waters) is involved in “finding a way to challenge conventions of what a traditional rock show is.” For an artist so fired up by the here and now, it is refreshing to also find a man happy and relaxed about his past. Conversation freewheels between his work with Bruce

Springsteen (“If ever there was a man that I could just be a sideman for, it’s him. He’s the greatest”), performing with Paul McCartney, and of course, Rage Against The Machine - his seminal band whose debut celebrated its quarter-century anniversary last year. Laughing uproariously when asked how often he gets asked about their reformation (“Every time man, every man”), his more serious response is instant. “If ever a Rage Against The Machine event breaks out, count me in. We were such a great band, and these are desperate times. Count me in.” But for now, Morello has plenty of current fights to win, and this latest step is only the beginning with at least half of a follow-up record in the bag already and a host of riﬀs waiting to find their platform. While his love album can wait, for now, he knows what he is here for. “While there is still injustice, as long as that bat signal is in the sky, I will feel compelled to combine what I do with what I believe.” Still fighting the good fight, you can’t help but believe that he will be there when the machine finally crashes and burns in the end. P Tom

Morello’s album ‘The Atlas Underground’ is out now.

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he Fever 333 played their first show in a Californian car park in the summer of 2017. Since then, there’s been a steady stream of confrontational, aggressive music that doesn’t mince words or waste time in getting to the point. ‘We’re Coming In’ was a burning flag statement of intent, their ‘Made An America’ EP bundled frustrations and fury. ‘Trigger’ stands its ground and pushes the conversation of gun ownership while a remix of ‘Made An America’ features both Travis Barker and Vic Mensa. This is a band dreaming big and acting bigger. We caught up with Jason Aalon Butler, Stevis Harrison and Aric Improta amidst their first run of UK shows.

FEVER PITCH

You’ve all been in bands before. Why now for The Fever 333? Jason: It has to happen

right now. The whole world is at this crazy boiling point, and we can all see what’s happening. It felt like this though this was the time for us as artists and activists to do and say something for us. Hopefully, it speaks to other people, and it seems like it has.

Why use quote-unquote aggressive music as the vessel for that message? Jason: Because that shit is

THE FEVER 333 are taking their message of change far and wide. Next stop? BRING ME THE HORIZON’s mammoth UK tour. Words: Ali Shutler. Photos: Ryan Johnston, Sarah Louise Bennett.

sterile and homogeneous as fuck. It’s fucking scared. What happened to being the movement that scared people into wanting change? What happened to being the movement that came out of subversion and adversity and struggle? When did Upset 23

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“IF WE PLAY A BIG SHOW AND I CAN OFFER 1% OF THOSE PEOPLE A NEW PERSPECTIVE, THAT’S 100 PEOPLE” JASON AALON BUTLER

we start packaging danger? When did we start making a commodity out of excitement? That shit is fucking crazy. Me and Steve are real big on hip-hop and rap music and Aric’s like a rock god, so it made sense. Motherfuckers need to stop being scared to take chances in a scene, in a world, that was built on pushing the envelope. When did we stop doing that and why? It’s just another reaction to the sterility of guitar music, that’s why we do what we do.

This feels like quite a reactionary band, how do you handle that going forward? Jason: If something comes up

that we need to write about, we all meet up pretty fast. Unfortunately, there’s always going to be something to react to, I’m not a pessimist, I’m not dismal, but there’s always going to be something to react to, even if it’s music becoming 24 Upset

stale again. I wanna say this now, and this will be a thread that goes through our entire career as a band, we’re gonna do what the fuck we want, and we’re gonna keep doing what we want, the way we want to do it, and we are very deliberate in what we do. We’re not being told to do anything and luckily (our team) are with us 100%. If anyone tries to tell us what to do and we don’t believe in it, we just don’t do it. We cancelled shows on our last tour because we found out that there were these accusations that would have challenged the safety of women at these venues. Some fans are getting upset going, why’d you cancel? and I reach out and say, because of this, and if you don’t understand that, then you don’t understand The Fever. You don’t understand what the fuck we’re doing and if you can’t see why we’re not going

to support a place that is aiding and abetting the assault of women, where it’s meant to be a safe place for children, then get the fuck out my face. If you don’t get that, then you don’t get what this is, and you probably shouldn’t be fucking listening anyway. Well, you probably should be because you need to understand that.

You’ve got the Bring Me The Horizon tour coming up. What made you say yes to that? Jason: I used to play in squats

to 25 or 50 people, 100% of those people were probably feeling what I’m saying, ‘cos we all believe the same thing. If we play a big show to 10,000 people and I can offer 1% of those people a new perspective or change their thoughts, that’s 100 people. We’re not trying to ostracise people; we want everybody to come through and try to feel something and express themselves. If we get a chance to play in front of a lot of people, we’re going to take that chance. We’ve ended up in places where people don’t agree with us, and we wanna be there. They’re the places we should be. I think it’s most important to speak with those people who have diametric and opposing beliefs to show them that you’re not

a conspiratorial fucking freak, which is what they think. You gotta go in and create an area where you can talk to those people, not just say fuck you, get out of my face; you’re dumb or whatever. If you do that, you’re foreclosing any opportunity to advance the conversation you wanna have by saying, I don’t want to talk to you. That’s just as damaging. It’s different sides of the spectrum but kind of the same problem. Aric: We talk about creating safe spaces wherever we go and when we see it happening it’s an amazing feeling for all of us. What we try and do at our shows is have a safe space for conversation that doesn’t end in fighting, shouting and bullshit. It just seems like it would go against our whole view to say no to a tour like the Bring Me one. And when the opportunity comes up to reach more people, our show doesn’t change. There’s nothing different, it’s just in front of more people, and that’s nothing to be ashamed of. Jason: It’s like that punk guilt. When you come from a punk rock background, you almost feel this inherent guilt when you start to move forward because they used to call it selling out. We are doing demonstrations by ourselves when promoters are going; we’re not gonna book you. We say ok, fine we’ll go somewhere else, and then we end up doing our own thing and it’s sold out. If you believe in something and you see it in your head, the possibility and the potential, there’s no reason you can’t at least try. That’s what we’ve been doing, and luckily we’ve had the privilege of seeing success and doing things the way we want to do them.

BAD SOUNDS ALL SHOWS

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25TH OCT TH

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THE DEBUT ALBUM

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INCLUDES WAGES & COULDN’T GIVE IT AWAY

CLASH *******

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AVAILABLE AT

A CHARITY COMPILATION FOR MENTAL HEALTH AWARENESS AND SUICIDE PREVENTION

What do you want people to take away from your music? Jason: Power. Always power. I want

people to feel power, I want them to feel empowered. They hold that power. People have been told for too long that they are feeding the top, that they’re just a cog in the machine. I want people to feel power from this music, and I want them to understand that whatever it is they want to be or whatever it is they are, they can do it. They have that power, and we can only hope to aid advocacy through writing a soundtrack to their power. P

The Fever 333 tour the UK with Bring Me The Horizon from 23rd November.

FEATURING

NECK DEEP • STAND ATLANTIC DANCE GAVIN DANCE • MOVEMENTS DREAM STATE • AGAINST ME! TAKING BACK SUNDAY • AS IT IS TOO CLOSE TO TOUCH • THE MAINE OCEANS ATE ALASKA DAN CAMPBELL & ACE ENDERS A V A I L A B L E N O V 9 TH SONGSTHATSAVEDMYLIFE.COM

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DEEP CUTS

YOU ME AT SIX Music’s not all about the big hits: bassist MATT BARNES introduces his fave lesser-knows YOU ME AT SIX tunes.

SPELL IT OUT

PLUS ONE

We didn’t really know where to put this on our last record ‘Night People’. It starts quite slow, and we found it wasn’t fitting the rhythm of the album, but we loved it so much that we found room for it towards the end! I remember when we heard the first mix of this song and it made all our hairs stand on end. It’s a very theatrical track, and I remember someone put on a Game Of Thrones trailer and played this track over the top and it worked so well (hint hint, Game Of Thrones…).

This is one of our rockier sounding tracks, but we never released it as a single, even though it’s a hard hitting 2 minutes and 34 seconds. We recorded it live in the room, and you can even hear Dan counting us in over the room mics, which adds to those special moments and vibe that can be captured when recording that way. Some people might try to cut that kind of thing out of a final mix, but we felt like it was part of the track itself and the feel, so we left it in.

FORGIVE & FORGET

GIVE

This track is off our fourth record ‘Cavalier Youth’ and again was a favourite while we were writing and recording. It’s quite a dark song, but still retains some of the more commercial side to our sound. The low vocal harmonies in the verse make it sound like nothing we would normally do and was one of the first times we started using additional production behind the instruments. 26 Upset

When we wrote this song, we had about three different versions and couldn’t decide on the best one. After getting the chorus right, the rest of the track fell into place, and I’d consider ‘Give’ as one of our best songs we have ever written. We didn’t release it as a single, but its a standout track on ‘Night People’ for all of us. P

You Me At Six’s album ‘VI’ is out now.

MILK TEETH ARE ON THE UP Em from Nervus is now a full time Milk Teeth member. The group have had a tough year, including a few line-up issues, which saw Em step in over the summer. “I’ve never been so excited,” frontwoman Becky explains.

SWS VS 2019

It looks like Sleeping With Sirens may have ﬁnished work on, y’know, ‘a thing’ - probably the follow up to 2017’s ‘Gossip’. The evidence? A tweet from frontman Kellin Quinn. “Well... that was fast... it’s a wrap! 2019 is gonna be a good year,” it reads. See?

WEIRDS NO MORE

Leeds four-piece Weirds are calling it a day. “For our own reasons and in our own ways, we have decided that it’s time for us to move in different directions,” they explain. They’ll perform one last show at the Brudenell Social Club on 1st November.

BURN BABY BURN

ANOTHER WAY OF LIFE CLOUD NOTHINGS’ new record sees the band get back to what they do best, with a new political slant. “It’s an insane way of working,” says DYLAN BALDI. Words: Jenessa Williams.

ylan Baldi is never not working. As he stands on the cusp of releasing his fifth album in seven years with Cloud Nothings, he’s already thinking about the next.

“I’m playing with some stuff for a kind of solo record, an acoustic thing,” he says. “And I do weird free jazz stuff here in Cleveland with some friends. I never finish anything unless there’s a clear deadline.” The eight days that Cloud Nothings gave themselves for recording ‘Last Building Burning’ is unsurprisingly brief when you hear the album. Eight fast and furious songs long, it marks a return to the traditional band formula that sees them practice intensely for a month, with Dylan only writing his lyrics once in the studio. It requires the sort of focus that would send most sane people over the edge. “For the record before this one [2017’s ‘Life Without Sound’], we took three years. I was all over the place; when we got back to make a record, I’d

“I’M PLAYING WITH SOME STUFF FOR A KIND OF SOLO RECORD” DYLAN BALDI

forgotten how,” he explains. “I’d lost familiarity with the parts of ourselves that I liked the most on the last record and I wanted to get that back. It’s a much more insane way of working because it makes you feel crazy, but I always feel better with the results.” ‘Last Building Burning’ sees the band step outside their lyrical comfort zone of selfdoubt and pent-up angst. In fact, it takes on altogether more political themes, inspired by the changing skyline of Dylan’s home city. “So many cool buildings in Cleveland have been knocked down because somebody wants to build a condo, and it’s just so sad, existentially,” he says. “A lot of the lyrics deal with

that feeling, seeing things change for the worse – ‘Echo Of The World’ and ‘So Right So Clean’ speak almost directly about that. It’s where the title comes from: it’s very greyscale, and that specific image just encapsulated that for me, the image of a building on fire.” Set to embark on an extensive European tour in support of the record, Dylan’s primed and ready to get out of the city, and indeed, out of his own head. “I know what I like best about this band, and it’s definitely the live show. There are a million things you can do redo about a record, but playing them live gives you the chance to do things differently every night. We’ve got enough of those elongated tracks now that we could literally do a set of just three long songs,” he laughs. “Just mostly obnoxious noise while everyone goes, ‘Well, I used to like that band’. I think I’d enjoy doing that every once in a while. P Cloud Nothings’

album ‘Last Building Burning’ is out 19th October. Upset 27

THE BEST NEW BANDS. THE HOTTEST NEW MUSIC.

28 Upset

WANT A NEW BAND CRUSH? CHECK OUT THIS LOT! >>>

AMYL AND THE SNIFFERS This Melbourne bunch are bringing mullets back to rock. Theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve just signed to Rough Trade Records, so expect big things in 2019.

IAN SWEET

Jilian Medford tackles everyday anxieties via fun songs about collecting holographic Jesus posters and the like. Her album ‘Crush Crusher’ is out 26th Oct.

TUSKY

Tusky are a Dutch foursome who are, in their words, “inﬂuenced by some cool 90s grunge.” Find them supporting Black Peaks on tour in Europe this autumn.

SO HOT RIGHT NOW

CHASE ATLANTIC

“WE WENT HARD, AND IT’S PAID OFF!” MITCHEL CAVE

Aussie newcomers CHASE ATLANTIC have been building hype online like nothing else. Buzzy sets at Reading & Leeds this summer see them ﬁnally landing in the UK. Words: Steven Loftin.

“T

he internet started all of this.” Backstage after Chase Atlantic’s debut UK appearance at Reading Festival, frontman Mitchel Cave hones in on why there was a feverpitch crowd awaiting them. “If the internet did not exist, then we would not be where we are.”

Consisting of brothers Mitchel and Clinton Cave, along with Christian Anthony, before Chase Atlantic they had a few YouTube channels between them, one of which was soon repurposed for the band. Mitchel and Christian even auditioned for the Australian X Factor in their former guise, What About Tonight and made it to the dizzy height of eleventh place. The three-piece amalgamate inﬂuences of hip-hop, R’n’B and rock, with tinges of glittering indie and shoegaze. Oh, and saxophone courtesy of Clinton. “At the beginning, we were copping a lot of ﬂack for sounding similar to The 1975,” Mitchel admits. “But we’re so far away from that now. It wasn’t even a conscious decision to

move away from that sound. We just grew out of it.” “I feel like we’re similar in the sense though that they do their own thing - and they still have a big following,” Clinton continues. “They pioneered their sound,” Christian muses, “and now a lot of people are trying to be like them. It’d be cool to have a similar thing, to pioneer our way.” The open darkness of their lyrics proves that, as a band, they’re incredibly self-aware. Chase Atlantic know how to be to the point while free falling into an industry that’s pretty treacherous. Single ‘Into It’ cracks open the new world they inhabit: from the dedicated crowds chomping at the bit halfway around the world to signing to Good Charlotte’s MDDN Records, Chase Atlantic are indeed ‘into it’. “From a lot of peoples perspectives it might look like an overnight thing,” Clinton starts. “But we’ve been touring - we’ve done like 110 probably shows this year. It’s a very gradual thing with everything we’ve released. Every show slowly moves

forward. It’s a very long process, but I feel like if you’re able to do it this way you’re able to stick around a bit longer.” Since the release of their self-titled debut in 2017, things haven’t always gone to plan, however. “We had a bit of a setback with business stuff,” Clinton reveals, “but it’s the industry, that happens. We’ve been set back a lot this year.” “We’ve got the hard yards out of the way,” Mitchel adds. “We could’ve waited and only played a few shows and kept making music, but we really stuck our foot in the door.” “We went hard, and it’s paid off !” Christian enthuses. “We get to travel the world; we’ve never even been to Europe before!” While the internet gave them their start and continues to bestow them opportunities, it does have its drawbacks. “There’s a lot of music being uploaded every day,” Mitchel exclaims. “There’s an album coming out every day. You’ve just got to have the confidence behind yourself to know that what you’re doing is pushing boundaries and being a little bit different.” P Upset 29

H O L Y

HOLY HOLY HELL HELL COVER STORY

TO TO TO TO

A A A A

N N N N

D D D D

B B B B

A A A A

C C C C

K K K K

Since the release of their last album, ARCHITECTS have been through things that would end most bands. Instead, new album ‘HOLY HELL’ sees them come back stronger than ever. Words: Ali Shutler. Photos: Sarah Louise Bennett.

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H O L Y

H E L L

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hrough ‘Lost Forever//Lost Together’ and ‘All Our Gods Have Abandoned Us’, Architects have been building a world around them. In it, they want to inspire. They want people to be the best they can be. They want everyone to be more empathetic and open in spite of the nonsense around them. ‘Holy Hell’ brings that world into crystal clarity.

“It feels like a natural progression,” starts Dan Searle. “We were alluding to this message in the past, but this is a more complete form that’s been brought into sharp focus following what we’ve been through.” “We do always want to encourage the best in people,” continues Sam Carter. “Empathy

32 Upset

and trying to encourage empathy is a massive part of what this band is about. But I don’t want people to think we’ve got it all figured out. It’s all a process.” Three months after Architects released ‘All Our Gods Have Abandoned Us’, Tom Searle, bandmate, twin brother, best friend and creative driving force, passed away from Melanoma skin cancer. Less than a month later, the band were back onstage supporting Bring Me The Horizon in Australia. Weeks after that, they were headlining their biggest ever show at London’s Brixton Academy. Every Architects show since we lost Tom has come with this indescribable but powerful energy. “It’s a magical thing,” smiles Dan. “That unity between band and fans, there’s that common

understanding of what’s happened, and it just creates this emotional threshold. That’s been a beautiful thing that’s come out of such a difficult situation. “It’s been hard to share those moments with the crowd, but we’ve enjoyed the opportunity to let everyone cry if they want to cry. It’s good to have a cry. It’s something we don’t do enough. That inability to show vulnerability is what stops us from creating real connections with one another. I hope people in the crowd have felt that and have had experiences that they’ll never forget.” ‘All Our Gods...’ took Architects from academies to arenas thanks to a “perfect storm of events,” he says. “It was a good album with poignant subject matter that intertwined with the real-life narrative that

surrounded that band. There’s an emotional draw there. “There are a lot of factors for why a band has success. We had a good team, good label, we have a good idea about what we’re doing and how we run the band these days, but there is no getting away from what happened with Tom being a factor in that. There’s something a bit sick, a bit gross and something that I don’t feel comfortable with about that. “The reality is that we dropped on a lot of people’s radars and it’s a situation that tugged on the heartstrings of many people because it is a tragedy what Tom went through. No one likes to hear of someone dying young from cancer. Everyone has fears of that sort of thing happening, and I think people’s hearts went out to us.

“NOT CONTINUING, NOT MAKING ANOTHER RECORD, IT JUST WASN’T AN OPTION” DAN SEARLE

“As weird as that is, it’s also been a beautiful thing that I don’t want to get too cynical about. People’s support has been amazing, and it has helped us.” People don’t really know how to talk about grief. Beyond the devastation of loss, there’s an uncomfortable loneliness that even though every single person experiences it, it’s never really spoken about. Architects know that silence doesn’t work. A brave face isn’t going to fix anything. It’s one of the reasons why

they returned to the road so soon. It’s why they’ve been open about the journey. It’s the catalyst behind eighth album ‘Holy Hell’. If people are listening, Architects are going to say something worth hearing. “[The record] is about a lot of things but essentially, it’s about working through pain,” starts Dan. “It’s talking about things that are hard to talk about, that we don’t talk about. Everyone loses someone, at some point. The first year or two that feels unbearable, and it feels neverending. It feels like there’s no end of sight. This album is a realistic demonstration of the full spectrum of emotions that you will inevitably feel having lost someone.” Architects don’t hold anything back on ‘Holy Hell’. “I’ve found over the past

Upset 33

couple of years that vulnerability is hard, but it’s always applauded. Whenever I’ve been open and vulnerable publically, people connect to it because they rarely see it. “There’s a part of us all that yearns to be open and honest about the way we feel. We’ve been conditioned, so it seems as if being open isn’t an option to us. It doesn’t feel like an option for me a lot of the time. It’s very difficult to be open about how I feel, but I also understand the necessity of it. “I learnt the hard way through not dealing with my grief, that there is a price to pay. It does catch up with you. There is so much to learn about life and yourself if we’re willing to look at our pain in the eye, acknowledge it, spend time with it and get to know it.” “I didn’t realise how difficult talking openly was until we started properly doing it on this album,” reasons Sam. “The first couple of interviews we did made me realise I really needed to talk about what was going on to a councillor. I realised that I’m not over what happened and that I needed to work through a lot of my grief. As difficult as it was at the start, I’m grateful for it because it helped me make a diﬀerence in my life.” ‘Holy Hell’ knows grief intimately. “The album was always going to be about Tom,” explains Dan. “It was going to be about losing Tom. It had to be. Imagine if we had written an album about politics following Tom’s death? It would have been outrageous and to be quite frank, I stopped caring about such things in the face of grief. You have to write about what you know, and pain is a catalyst for great art, or so I’m told 34 Upset

anyway, and I hope we’ve been able to utilise our pain to create something people really connect with. That was our mission.” Architects didn’t just have to find a way to put their thoughts into words though with ‘Holy Hell’. Every Architects record before was spearheaded by Tom. He was the heart and forward momentum of a band who always had both in abundance. Their headline show at Brixton

“THE ALBUM WAS ALWAYS GOING TO BE ABOUT LOSING TOM. IT HAD TO BE” DAN SEARLE

was a celebration of everything Tom had created, but it also asked questions about what, if anything, came next. The thing is, there was always going to be more from Architects. “There was never any doubt in it really,” promises Sam. “It’s our lives. All I can remember doing with my life is Architects. The thought of not doing it would be very strange.” “It was just a matter of whether it was possible or not,” adds Dan. “How could we possibly know whether we could make it happen? But right after that Brixton show,

we wrote a couple of songs with Josh [Middleton, the band’s new vocalist] and knew from there that the band had a future. “Prior to that moment, we believed we could continue but didn’t know how it was going to happen. It was up in the air for us, but to me not continuing, not making another record, it just wasn’t an option. It was a matter of we will find a way, no matter what. I can understand why people might have felt a degree of doubt over whether we can move forward. I see no end in sight for the band, and I hope we’re still here doing this in a decade’s time.” Those first two songs made it onto ‘Holy Hell’, but the band don’t want to say what they are. “I don’t want people to know what songs Josh wrote, what songs Tom wrote or what songs I wrote. People will start viewing songs through a different lens, and I don’t want that,” explains Dan, as Sam offers: “We’ve given so much of ourselves and this journey to everyone, it’s nice for us to have that stuff just for us.” “Making this album was so complicated,” Dan continues. “There’s so much tied up in it. We want to first and foremost write a great album for Tom, to do his legacy proud and to do him proud. This band is our entire lives, to keep it going means everything. It helps pay our bills, and Brighton isn’t cheap,” he adds with a laugh. “We desperately didn’t want to release something that was half-arsed or a pale imitation of Architects, that would be an absolute tragedy.” “We didn’t want to get Josh to just write riffs that sounded like Tom’s riffs,” continues Sam. “We didn’t want to do an imitation of

Last year at a festival, you called a bloke out for sexual assault, and the video got a load of attention. Have you spent much time thinking about how you can make your shows a safer place for everyone, but especially people who aren’t blokes?

Sam: That was the ﬁrst time I’d ever seen anything like that happen, that’s why I called out it. If a person sees something bad happen, you

call it out. I was surprised by the response because I didn’t realise it was so much of an issue within the metal community. I didn’t realise so many women had been affected by that sort of stuff; it was honestly really shocking. I think that’s why it took off; people were opening up and saying things that had happened to them. Since then, we’ve started working with Safe Gigs For Women and Girls Against, we try and have them at all our shows. We had them at Ally

Pally, and they’ll be at Wembley. For anyone that’s been affected by it, it’s important for them to feel like they can come to a show and feel safe and secure and know at an Architects show, that stuff doesn’t ﬂy. I’d like to think people that like our band wouldn’t do that. I wasn’t doing it for adoration; I was just saying what I saw. He was a piece of shit, and I’d like to think if anyone saw something like that, they would call it out. P

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our band, we wanted to take the next step in our songwriting, and that is very difficult. If it weren’t for Dan being the driving force behind everything, we wouldn’t have been able to do this album at all.” For Sam, “it took a lot to open up about how I was feeling and dealing with everything but Dan from the oﬀ, was very honest and open. The first few lyrics I heard blew me away, especially with ‘Doomsday’. That set the tone for where the album was going to go. “I was so grateful for how open and vulnerable he was with the lyrics. My role was to say whatever you need; whatever I can give to this record, I’ll do. If you need me to jump, I’ll jump as high as I can. We did a million vocal takes until we got it right because that’s what the album deserved. Everything had to be perfect. We’ve got as close as we can to that.” “The band is at an extraordinary level now,” adds Dan. “No one ever thought we’d be looking at arenas, but here we are. To create this new creative team that needs to produce an album that keeps consistent with the identity of Architects but at the same time moves forward and progresses the sound in the correct way, in our eyes, is a difficult and challenging thing. “We had a lot of people saying ‘hurry up’ and asking, ‘Where’s the album?’ ‘Is there even going to be another album?’ This album will be out two and a half years after ‘All Our Gods’. We lost our songwriter, found a new guitarist, wrote, recorded and released a new album. I’d say that’s pretty extraordinary, no matter what other people might say. “There was an enormous amount of pressure, but it was also an opportunity to write about what we’ve been through, and to help other people understand their grief a little more.” “The approach I had in my 36 Upset

“PAIN IS A GIFT IF YOU WANT IT TO BE” SAM CARTER

head was to write like nobody was reading, that way it retained its authenticity and vulnerability, but of course it’s hard not to have one eye on the idea that people will listen to this,” continues Dan. “I felt it was important to express the full range of emotions that grief brings but I was conﬂicted at times. Out of context, some of the songs are very bleak. There’s a line in ‘Hereafter’ that says ‘this is my own meaningless catastrophe’. “Now, Tom dying is not meaningless to me. The entire album is expressing the meaning of Tom dying in great detail, but there was a moment where it all felt fucking meaningless. I felt like everything was pointless.” To censor that would undermine everything the band were trying to do with ‘Holy Hell’. “I didn’t want to create a sugarcoated version of grief. I wanted to express the real deal,” no matter how uncomfortable

it got. “There are some lines, especially on ‘Seventh Circle’ where I say ‘maybe it’s better to never have been’ and ‘I don’t want to dream anymore’. “All this stuﬀ is really bleak, and I was concerned that people would take it out of context and I would validate their misery or depression. I don’t want to greenlight anyone feeling suicidal. This album is the opposite of that. “It was difficult, and I contemplated, questioned and deliberated many of the lines. Hopefully, people will listen to it and realise what I was trying to achieve. I feel like it’s important to live our lives to the fullest, while fully understanding the challenges some people are faced with.” ‘Holy Hell’, as a title, is “pretty literal,” explains Dan. “It’s about finding the virtue in pain. Being in hell, it has benefits if we’re willing to use it in the right way.” It’s never saying everything happens for a reason because there’s no control in that. ‘Holy Hell’ is all about taking

You’re now an arena band, is it time to start thinking about headlining festivals?

Dan: We’ve gone so far beyond all our hopes for the band. We used to hope one day that a thousand people would come and see us. We pissed all over that tick on the bucket list. Headlining festivals is next, I suppose. Headlining Download would be cool. I’m almost a little bit scared of hitting that point, because then what? I’d have to turn to religion or spirituality in a big way because I’m going to end up feeling very dissatisfied having no targets for the band after that. There’s still plenty of room for growth and to be a festival headliner, that is a big one. That’s no joke. Slipknot are a big band, but Guns’N’Roses are much bigger. There are bands that are comparable to us that are up there now, that we’re not far behind. I definitely see us headlining festivals in the not too distant future. P ownership. “Pain is a gift if you want it to be,” offers Sam. “You can just sit there and feel constantly sad and sorry about everything that’s happened, or you can try and take something from it. This album is us trying to take something from it.” “The whole sentiment that we can find benefit in pain is a really important one,” says Dan. “We are a culture that avoids pain at all costs. We medicate with alcohol and drugs; we work too hard, we do anything to avoid looking at our pain in the eye.

“I don’t want to sound like I’ve got everything figured out. I don’t by any stretch of the imagination. We can dwell in suﬀering, or we can learn about ourselves, work through the pain and be inspired to live better lives. “It’s a lesson that’s come to me time and time again over the past few years, and it was a lesson Tom very much endorsed when he had cancer. He felt as though it was a chance for him to become a better person. He referred to it as his guru. That’s a pretty weird concept to some people, and I’m sure people will push back on that sentiment, but I felt a duty to carry that message from Tom on as it resonated so much with me. I hope it resonates with other people.” It’s a matter of perception. “I could perceive my brother’s death as an event that makes me feel like I should kill myself,” Dan continues. “Or I can see it as an event that makes me think, right I need to live for my brother. I’ve got to live a great life. I’ve got to enjoy every moment. “It is hard to feel that way that at times and it is a process, but there is that light at the end of the tunnel, should we want to take that path. This goes beyond just grief though. We all go through various traumas in our lives, and there’s no easy fi x. “It is complicated, and it takes time, and we fall, and we get back up. The important thing is to have an open dialogue about it. It’s fucking hard, but you can get there, if you just keep going and get the right support, you can make it happen.” ‘Holy Hell’ roars, snapping this way and that as it tries to purge demons and find a way through. It’s hurt, furious, betrayed and lost. There’s also a quiet resolve and determined optimism. “Enough pressure will create a diamond,” promises ‘Dying To Heal’. “There is a holy hell where we can save ourselves,” sings the title track

before finding gold in the blue. It’s there again in ‘Doomsday’ as “The gold in the ﬂames burns brighter.” ‘Death is not Defeat’ promises the opening track. “To me, there is a really positive message in this album. There is this idea throughout that this can be okay,” oﬀers Dan. Originally this record was going to be a linear journey starting with “total devastation and despondency right through to feeling like things are alright now, but that’s a very unrealistic view of what grief is actually like.” It’s why ‘Seventh Circle’, the angriest track on the album, is so close to the end. It’s why the optimistic closer of ‘A Wasted Hymn’ isn’t all sunshine and rainbows. “I couldn’t have ended the album on ‘Seventh Circle’, it did need to end on some sort of hopeful tone, but there are still moments in that song where it is quite blunt. There’s still selfdoubt. It does feel as if there’s a sense of empty-handedness that I felt very strongly, especially in the first year after Tom died. I felt like if I gave enough, I could help him live. I felt like if I gave everything, he would still be here. I really believed it would happen. I came out the other end of it feeling like I gave everything and had been left with nothing.” The track repeats the mantra “all is not lost” as a constant reminder to everyone “that this is a nightmare, but it’s going to be okay. There is something beyond this. You’ve just got to keep taking every day as it comes.” Then it takes Tom’s question from ‘All Our Gods’ closing track ‘Momento Mori’, “Was your life worth dying for?” and asks it again. “Can you live a life worth dying for?” “That’s a reminder to myself,” explains Dan.” Just know you can live a great life. You’ve just got to find that will, that hope and that inspiration to keep going.” P Architects’ album

‘Holy Hell’ is out 9th November.

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FEATURE Cult faves MEWITHOUTYOU are getting on for twenty years in the game, and theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re still one of the most interesting bands around. Words: Steven Loftin.

Upset 39

fter taking a personality test, mewithoutYou frontman Aaron Weiss realised it was time to shake up his viewpoint.

“The [category] that I fit the most squarely was ‘the perfectionist’,” he admits over the phone after a long day fi lming a new music video. “Somebody who’s always trying to make something perfect, or trying to make the world perfect - make their world perfect.” Perfectionism for Aaron has always been high on the agenda. His lyrics over the course of mewithoutYou’s career are overﬂowing with intricacy; in the past, he’s even sung in Arabic (‘The Dryness In The Rain’) and has a song that utilises French to reference artist Rene Magritte (‘Dirty Air’). “In my case [it’s] write the perfect song, or be morally perfect and pure,” he says. “That may have its merits, but it can also be exhausting and have some negative repercussions. “The personality type that I was most interested in becoming was ‘the observer’, and that’s somebody who’s able to take a step back; watch and listen and try to learn about what’s going on. When I saw that one, I immediately aspired to be like that.” Seeking to change himself up, new album ‘[Untitled]’ is the equivalent of a journal; all the more cemented by the title. “It felt like there was nothing that did that in a way that was necessary,” he says of the naming process, “and so I just shrugged my shoulders and said, ‘I’m not going to give it a name, if anybody else wants to try, go ahead’. “To name something, you’re kind of putting it in this frame, or this context - trying to summarise the whole thing in 40 Upset

“I’D LIKE TO THINK THAT IT’S NOT TOO LATE TO START AGAIN” AARON WEISS

this bitesize phrase. This time around it just didn’t feel like there was such a thing, I just let it go.” Over their career, Aaron’s lyrics have been dug up, excavated and scrutinised by fans and onlookers alike. With some of ‘[Untitled]’’s tracks named with simple numbers - dates, and miles, to be exact it’s a fair assumption that this would open a world of intrigue. “There was an attempt to capture these moments in a naked, stripped back form, and just take a snapshot. Like, right now, I’m in a room, in an old abandoned school, with hardwood ﬂoors, and an alphabet on the wall and a crappy painting, and some cabinets. So if I just took a snapshot of that, it would just be there.” The journal aspect of what ‘[Untitled]’ has taken on means we’re all now privy to days of his life, those that are intimate and personal, but for Aaron, this is all a par for the course of giving everything he has to mewithoutYou. “If you’re not growing or changing, I’m not sure what the point would be in continuing to reiterate the same thing. And given that the lyrics feel like mostly my responsibility, that’s where I have to be more intent on developing my inner life - my mental life, and emotional life. “I certainly never want to just sit back and feel like I’ve arrived, or that the story is told and that there’s a period at the end of the sentence,” he muses. “Of course, I don’t expect to be making records forever. I don’t know how long that

will last, but as long as it does it’s going to reflect that ongoing process of the inner development and questioning and searching, and for me that’s just so thoroughly steeped in language that is generally associated with spirituality. “But honestly, it’s not even necessarily an explicitly spiritual pursuit, and of course, I’m not even sure what that word ‘spiritual’ means, to whoever might be reading this, or even the other guys in the band - or my own wife!” Aaron’s practical understanding, the constant personal development and seeking of grander notions holds itself as a backbone for a band who continuously err themselves closer to the unknown. Refusing to lay complacent, they’re on a voyage of discovery. “I’m almost forty years old, but I’d like to think that it’s not too late to start again,” he deliberates. “At least in some meaningful sense, that we’re able to step back form whatever patterns and habits, or thought or behavioural habits, and re-examine things and try to begin anew and just see what happens. “What would be the effect if I were to change my mindset and make a conscious effort to let go of certain practices, or at least to fess up to the negative sides of what I’ve become, and to ask for help?” With a tentative voice, he continues: “To ask other people in my life… well, to apologise fi rst of all; to the other guys in the band, or my wife, or my friends. Apologise for whatever burden I’ve been in who I have become, and then try to turn over a new leaf, and try on different perspectives, and see how it works? I don’t know. It’s still a pretty new process to me, but I think it’s been beneficial.” P mewithoutYou’s album

‘[Untitled]’ is out now.

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Changing FEATURE

42 Upset

Lanes

BASEMENT took a slightly extended break before their fourth album, ‘BESIDE MYSELF’ - and it’s resulted in their most exciting record to date. Words: Alexander Bradley.

Upset 43

“I

’m just reminding myself how to change a tyre because my girlfriend’s car got a flat tyre yesterday during a tornado warning,” Andrew Fisher begins with the same half-excited / half-nervous tone that any Englishman would have when in a country where tornadoes occur regularly. But, for the Basement frontman, there is no better fallacy for the whirlwind few months coming in support of their fourth studio album ‘Beside Myself’. From stretching out the summer with countless US festival dates, radio slots and listening parties then tours of both their adoptive and native homes soon after the release, Basement are just gearing up as the year winds down. It’s fair to say that despite the frenzy, the band are ready for it. “This is the most excited I think anyone has been for a release because it’s been such a long process,” says Andrew. And it’s true. After releasing their last album, ‘Promise Everything’, in January 2016, Basement signed to Fueled By Ramen who called for a “Deluxe” re-release of the album in March last year and in doing so slowed the pace on what is now ‘Beside Myself’. The decision to revamp ‘Promise Everything’ is somewhat diplomatically described as “a really nice way to understand how the label works, and it took the pressure oﬀ us, but the songs were already there.” Ultimately, that delay has resulted in Basement’s best album yet. With time on their side, ‘Beside Myself’ became more “complete” than anything Basement have ever done before. The themes introduced in ‘Disconnect’ (written now three summers ago) are cathartically, neatly, wrapped up in the closer. There are grungy reﬂections of their past albums and bold, bright, signals of where they are

44 Upset

heading alongside moments of frailty and that broader spectrum to this album is all the product of having more time and an open mind for how the album should sound. “With this record, I think everyone took a step back and let their own shit go to one side and be very open-minded to what everyone else wanted to make. And we’d get to the point with a fully finished song - even if someone didn’t really like it - because we were really like, ‘Lets look at the song and where we can get with it’, and not let our taste or idea of what we want to be [get in the way].” The album is in many ways closer to the first Basement albums as it’s more introspective and deeper than its predecessor, ‘Promise Everything’. “I’ve probably got better at writing because I’ve been writing for like two years. In those two years, a lot of things have happened to me. I’ve been reading a lot more, and I believe reading helps express yourself,” Andrew muses. “And time; having time to think about what I’m trying to say and how I’m trying to say it. In some cases, I would completely throw away what I had at the start because someone did something and it changed the song, and it’d be, okay I don’t want this to be about this anymore, so it’s diﬀerent. I have got better, so that has made it come across more personal and emotional.” It’s with hesitation that Andrew uses the word “mature” to describe that approach towards the album, but it’s clear that by their fourth full-length, Basement have got it down to a fine art. ‘Beside Myself’ is more emotional by design. It’s more diverse by design. The opening tracks are big rock numbers packed with emotion and guitars; a gateway to new fans and a reminder of their brilliance to the older ones.

“WE WERE VERY HARSH; WE DIDN’T WANT ANY FILLER” ANDREW FISHER

Delving deep into the plans behind ‘Beside Myself’, he says: “If I compare these songs to the ones we were writing six years ago then there is maturity in all forms. We’re better musicians for a start. We’ve thought about structure and arrangement in the songs and the album as a whole - not to say that we didn’t do that before, but we really tried this time. “We want songs to have choruses. We want to make sure the second verse is the same but is slightly diﬀerent and has something that picks up to keep you interested. We wanted the bridges to be important and to say something. “We were very harsh on all the songs. We didn’t want any filler, because we had that in the past: we wanted ten songs but only had eight so we just shoved two on. I think that’s mature in itself that we were as prepared as we possibly could be for this one.” In the end, it seems that the decision to push ‘Promise Everything’ further only helped, shaping the new one to become something of a masterpiece. They allowed this album to be scrutinised and scrapped and started again, while at the same time letting it explore and grow into something more ambitious than they’ve ever attempted before. Andrew, however, is determined that it won’t take as long to follow up. “I’m already writing new stuﬀ; we want there to constantly be creation as the drive for the band because that’s what keeps you excited.” P Basement’s album ‘Beside

Myself’ is out now.

Upset 45

GRA A N D T H E BI G G E R PI CT U R E

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ACE FEATURE

AGAINST ME!â&#x20AC;&#x2122;S LAURA JANE GRACE has temporarily binned off her band buds for an album that sees her experimenting with something new. Words: Liam Konemann. Upset 47

aura Jane Grace’s perfect day went down in Perth, Western Australia. It was Against Me! guitarist James Bowman’s birthday and the band were on tour in the most isolated city on the planet. Stranded there, at the edge of the world, Perth lends itself to surrealism, and a kind of dreaminess filled Laura’s day. After an early morning smoke, the band and crew visited Bon Scott’s grave to hang out with the spirit of the late AC/DC vocalist. Then they walked to the end of the street to go gokarting, had lunch, and rode carnival rides.

“It was like, the best day ever,” says Laura, “and afterwards I felt so guilty because I was so happy and I was like, ‘Yeah! Life rules!’ and then you look around, and the world feels like it’s falling apart. I feel guilty for having a good time, you know?” It’s a difficult balance, but a crucial one - to be mired in utter despair would be to lose all hope, for anything. So Laura turned the perfect day into the song ‘Apocalypse Now and Later’, the lead single oﬀ her upcoming solo album ‘Bought to Rot’. The album comes after a huge couple of years for Against Me!, in which the band put out queer insta-classic ‘Transgender Dysphoria Blues’, Laura wrote and released a book, and followed it up with another AM album, 2016’s ‘Shape Shift With Me’. As the tour cycle for ‘Shape Shift…’ was wrapping up, Against Me! found themselves at a crossroads. “We knew we were going to be taking a little bit of a break because we’d been hitting it so hard. So we started talking to labels and everyone we talked to, I was saying ‘Hey I think I want to do a solo record before we do the next Against Me! record, I’ve got these songs I’ve been working on, I’m 48 Upset

“I WENT IN AND WAS LIKE, ‘HEY GIVE ME A RECORD DEAL’” LAURA JANE GRACE

not sure they’re Against Me! songs and I think I want to do that’,” Laura says. “No one was that enthusiastic about it. People were like, ‘Just do another Against Me! record’ and I was like ‘Oh, okay…’ I got disappointed, but in the back of my head I was like fuck that, I’m gonna do a solo record.” It was a good time to focus on other projects. Things were changing in Against Me! as bass player Inge Johansson left after five years with the band, paving the way for long-serving former bassist Andrew Seward to return to the fold. Laura says that during any time of change you have to work to fi nd the positives, and it was good to have somewhere to direct her momentum. It also, she says, felt dishonest to use the songs she had been working on with Against Me! drummer Atom Willard and producer/bassist Marc Jacob Hudson to form the basis of a new full-band record. They were never conceived that way, and despite the difficulty fi nding a home for a solo album, she was determined to release it by any means necessary. It was crucial that the album be represented by the people who created it. “It kind of felt like me, Atom and Mark had a love aﬀair. Like me and Atom, as a unit, being half of Against Me, had an aﬀair with a bass player,” she says. One of the other central relationships behind the album is the one between Laura and her adopted hometown. After moving to Chicago in 2013, Laura says she struggled with the fact of living there, and the

inﬂuence the city could have on her work. “Historically I’ve been someone who’s written from the perspective of living in Florida, and it took me a second to feel the identity of where I was living,” she says. To embed herself further in the scene, and build a more Chicago-centric musical identity, Laura decided to join up with Bloodshot Records. It was a fortuitous match. “I’ve lived in Chicago for five years, and I don’t really have any community here. I wanted to feel like I have some community, so I thought it would be cool to work with a Chicago record label. I realised that their offices are maybe ten blocks from my apartment, so I went in and was like, ‘Hey give me a record deal, put out my record’,” she says. “I basically went in and applied for a job. I was like, ‘I want to work in Chicago, I want to have a record label here, so… can I have a record deal?’ and they were like ‘Uh... okay?’” Laura’s desire to build herself a community in Chicago and work with a local record label might seem strange, considering ‘Bought to Rot’ is unambiguous about her feelings towards the city. On the straightforwardly titled ‘I Hate Chicago’, Laura lays out a laundry list of all the reasons the place sucks, from shitty pizza (“I grew up in Italy, so Neopolitan style is the only pizza I will accept,” she says) to O’Hare airport, to the entire neighbourhood of Pilsen. Halfway through the track she stops, caught out, and admits, “Alright. Christ, you caught me. This is actually just another divorce song.” But, she points out, that doesn’t mean Chicago isn’t genuinely terrible. “Chicago as a city prides itself on being a hard place to live. A really unfriendly place. It’s like if you knew someone who was like, ‘Yep, I’m a real dickhead,

During Against Me!’s arena tour with Green Day, Laura spent a lot of time doing what she calls ‘artist studies’ - learning to play a band’s entire back catalogue, and figuring out how they construct their songs. When Tom Petty passed away, she delved into the Heartbreakers. “When you learn cover songs you start to realise, ‘Oh, they’re just using the same fucking chords that I use’. It kind of frees you mentally because oftentimes as a songwriter you’re like, I can’t just write another song that’s just G to A to C, but then you realise that all the greats are doing that,” she points out. Playing along to Tom Petty songs also had a knock-on effect on ‘Bought to Rot’, as she decided to use “this really old Fender Jaguar” throughout the entire record. “I was playing it along to the songs, like, ‘Oh this guitar sounds so good, it sounds like it could have been used on the record!’ Then I realised that it could have been. Because I bought this guitar off Stan Lynch, who played in the Heartbreakers. But he was the drummer of the Heartbreakers. So I’ve had this pristine ‘64 Jaguar for years that I’ve never played because I was worried it was going to get nicked or whatever, and he had it for years as well just sitting in its case. It’s a drummer’s guitar. “I developed this story around it in my head about how it was in all these amazing studios around this amazing band and guitar players but never got played. So if you’re a guitar, what do you want? You want to be played; you want to be on record, you want to be used,” she says. “So I liked the idea that this guitar was dying for its shot, you know? Like it just wanted its shot, and this is it, I could give the guitar its shot.” P

that’s me, I’m a fucking asshole to everyone I meet, that’s my thing”, and you’re like, ‘That guy’s an asshole’, and someone said, ‘Why are you calling him an asshole?’ It’s like, well he’ll tell you he’s a fucking asshole!” she laughs. “Chicago will tell you that it doesn’t like you and it thinks you’re crap and it’s willing to step on you. It’s a city that’s overrun with corruption, there’s horrible, horrible fucking gang violence. It’s a tough place to be. But also the song is a little bit tongue in cheek, you know. It would be anywhere I was that I was directing that hate. When you’re unhappy, you’re just unhappy all around.” Still, she says, it is cathartic to sing about how much the place sucks. “I remember the day that I wrote it I was in the new studio in Chicago, looking out the window like, ‘Oh what am I going to write about?’ and I was just like, ‘God damn; I fucking hate Chicago’,” she laughs. ‘Bought to Rot’ doesn’t necessarily take the position that Laura is right about, well, anything at all though. Album closer ‘The Apology Song’ has her holding up her hands and issuing a blanket repentance for any and all wrongdoing. Originally the idea came to her as a good way to close a live set, but felt equally fitting to wrap up the album. “It feels like a good thing to do, to apologise at the end of a record,” Laura says. “Like, ‘I had a lot of things to talk about, thank you for listening, maybe I’m not right about everything… I don’t know, I’m sorry. If there’s something I’ve fucked up about, I’m sorry. I am.’” She thinks about this for a second. “Seems like a good way to leave. Flip a table fi rst, then apologise.” P Laura Jane

Grace’s album ‘Bought To Rot’ is out 9th November.

Upset 49

50 Upset

FEATURE

MWAH MWAH HELLIONS’ new album ‘RUE’ is a brave record, for both the band’s heart-on-sleeve vulnerability, and their willingness to try something new. Words: Ali Shutler.

Upset 51

he opening 45 seconds of Hellions’ fourth album ‘Rue’ goes from bubblegum fairground rides and cabaret welcomes to Rage Against The Machine tension and the glam grandiose of Queen without blinking.

‘X (Mwah)’ is the perfect middle ground between arena rock and boy band excitement, complete with dance routines and beaming chorus, it’s impossibly fun while ‘Smile’ finds comfort on the run, letting unpredictable danger in, while promising open window escape at a moments notice. The rest of the album is equally scattergun, swinging between ideas, influence, genre and intention without a care in the world or trying too hard to be aloof in the face of anything goes. The band obviously have different tastes, but under the umbrella of Hellions, they’ve created something viciously unique and utterly theirs. It doesn’t matter how far they stray from their hardcore punk roots; the band take ownership of every bold colour and comic book adventure. Art as a weapon, they’re the sort of band My Chemical Romance probably wanted to inspire. “We’ve always had that aspect where we want to surprise ourselves,” starts Dre Faivre. “Hellions has always been a no barriers band. It’s exciting for us, and as long as you’re exciting yourself, then it’s always going to feel fresh.” Despite heading back into the studio a couple of times to change parts of the album, it “didn’t get any more pop or any harder,” he says. “We went in with those songs and just changed a little perspective. We respect each other a lot and each person had to physically put their forward and go, let’s do it, man. Let’s get everybody’s full influences. Let’s get what we’re listening to, and what we’re

52 Upset

hearing and represent it. “There was a lot of selfempowerment. It was a very self-aware record where we really found each other and found being cool in our own skin. We just great at being ourselves and I love that people can’t pigeonhole us.” 2015’s ‘Indian Summer’ was a furious record, shouting out at a world that refused to listen while 2016’s ‘Opera Oblivia’ took that betrayal hard, turning inwards and falling into the shadows. “We were shouting at ourselves, not the world,” starts Dre. ‘Rue’ toys with regret, “whether that’s regretting choices we’ve made or with each other, it also has that aspect of knowing it’s okay to regret things,” as long as you use it to move forward. “All our records have been very personal, but this one is deeper. We’re not judging ourselves, but we’re looking at how we carry each other and stuff like this. It still has that dark element, and it’s bittersweet and melancholy. It’s unfortunate but the pain is relatable. Everyone goes through pain differently, but it’s still the same in certain ways. This record is about our own experiences. We’re very hearts on sleeves people.” “There are some moments where we’re just saying, ‘this is us now’. That comes with being older, growing into your own skin, not following trends and not bowing down to other opinions. There’s a lot of selfcrisis within the record too. Songs like ‘X(Mwah)’ welcome the fact that during those moments of uncertainty, there are people going ‘We’re here to pick you up’. For me, that’s Anthony, Matt and Josh.” Hellions faced that head-on. After being “a powerhouse in pumping out albums” (three in as many years), the band wanted to take their time with ‘Rue’. While it allowed them

time to sit with songs and tweak the things that didn’t sparkle, it also took away touring, which was their means of escape. “Being home wasn’t a reality check, but it was a reminder that we want to do this. If you’re doing something for so long, that flame can get blown out. You see bands that grind and grind and then just end up quitting ‘cos they end up jaded. We’ve had our ups and downs, but we pick each other up a lot.” ‘Rue’ was created out of “togetherness and having that empathy with each other,” Dre explains. “In our camp that’s a massive thing. We freak out sometimes because we see other bands fight and that’s insane to us. We’re so close to each other; we’re like brothers. It’s having that aspect of respecting that togetherness. “This time, we let our guard down to properly understand each other. It was important to have the comfort to question what we’re putting on the album. So much is sonically out there that you can understand us as people by listening to one song. We’re very proud of that. As much as the world is on fire, all we have is each other. “The underlying message of the record is that there’s no problem with being yourself. I want people to walk away thinking ‘I’m cool as shit’. I want people to dance, and I want them to be very comfortable in their skin. I’m big on that idea. If you’re comfortable in your skin, people will love you regardless.” There’s also a powerful sense of togetherness. ‘Rue’ gives you a swagger. “Turning on the record, walking out of the house and believing I’m ready for the day and the day’s not ready for me. Not having to worry about what other people think, that’s important. If you’ve got that confidence, people are going to love you for who you are.” P

Hellions’ album ‘Rue’ is out 19th October.

“I LOVE THAT PEOPLE CAN’T PIGEONHOLE US” DRE FAIVRE

FEATURE 54 Upset

SKIN

Aussie trio STAND ATLANTIC are baring all on their new album, ‘SKINNY DIPPING’. Words: Steven Loftin.

NNY DIPPING

Upset 55

op-punk often gets a bum rap for being limited to angsty teens; for those going through an emotional development and needing a voice to help them out. Really though, it’s so much more - the genre offers escapism for everyone, cementing moments in time.

For Stand Atlantic singer and guitarist Bonnie Fraser, the band’s debut album ‘Skinny Dipping’ has offered up a chance to unpack herself on the quest to create this moment for others. “It was something that I just wanted to be as personal as possible,” she begins. “I went through some things in the past year that affected me; the only thing that I’ve ever known how to do is write how I feel.” Talking to Bonnie, who’s on tour in the US and currently pitched up in Richmond, Virginia, she holds a refreshing self-awareness for both her position and the genre that she and her band are rooting themselves in. “We don’t like going with the grain. We go against the grain in every kind of way,” she says defiantly. “From a personal point of view lyrically, there’s no way I’m ever going to sing about ‘getting out of my town’, and all that kind of thing. I just can’t stand it. “I can’t go and write a song about a friend and how they were crossing the road one time, and they saw a dead bird, and it upset them. I can’t go and write a song about that. “I can only go and write about what I feel, and so there’s always going to be a lot of emotion behind all the songs we have.” With ‘Skinny Dipping’, not only is it Bonnie’s unveiling of herself, but it’s an album that finds its backbone in the ethos of the genre - to get lost in a moment and to offer everything up. This sentiment rings true throughout the ten tracks, and more importantly, even down to

56 Upset

“WE GO AGAINST THE GRAIN IN EVERY KIND OF WAY” BONNIE FRASER

the record’s name. “When I proposed the title to the guys they were like, ‘Ohhhh it sounds lame, I don’t know’ - and that was my initial reaction when I first thought of it, like ‘Ugh, I don’t know it’s a bit weird’. “But it makes so much sense with what I was trying to say with all the songs. And the fact that the title is a bit weird, and kind of left of centre I feel like is something people will think that’s interesting.” The act of skinny dipping, Bonnie laughs, is “something that kids will do fun, or adults will do for a bit of naughty fun.” This vulnerable experience is parallel to the act of songwriting, delving deep into your psyche and offering yourself up - with as much comfort as a freezing body of water can offer. “Putting yourself out there can bring so much freedom, you can let shit go, you know what I mean?” she muses. “That’s the cool thing about music; it can be so scary to open up to people in real life, and have a conversation - ‘This is my soul, please don’t hurt it’, but in a song you can kind of say whatever you want and say how you feel, and express yourself that way. “And someone else, who’s not even related to you in any way, or not associated with your life can listen to and be like, ‘Oh I felt like that once!’ That’s the coolest thing. It’s scary, but once you let it go to the world, other people can then relate and build off there, and put their own experience in there.” Stand Atlantic’s road to this

full-length moment has been a few years in the making. After a couple of well-received EPs, breaking out of their Australian confines proved to be their biggest task to date. “We are definitely geographically challenged, and I hate it!” Bonnie’s voice suddenly piques. “We see the fact that we can go overseas as such a big push and it makes us work ten times harder. “Australia just isn’t a huge market for that kind of thing. We’re very lucky in that sense that we get a lot of bands that are willing to put in a lot of effort and a lot more hard work, and therefore we have better songs…” Pausing, laughs again. “Oh! Not that we have better songs. We work harder towards that and focus on that kind of thing, and in the end, we get a more eclectic mix of music.” Over the years, their fusion of pop-punk twinned with a lust to reach beyond their beachy shores has worked in their favour. Stand Atlantic, and their local peers are a part of a blooming generation that’s proof that a genre once upon a time resigned to the US is now prevalent worldwide. “All the bands that I was listening to were American,” she considers. “New Found Glory, Blink 182, Sum 41, and all that kind of thing. Now I feel like there’s such a strong mix of Australian, and UK. “The internet has a lot to do with that. I think that Spotify has opened so many doors, and granted that CD sales are plummeting, but just the fact that people can easily access music from all across the world, I think that’s cool. “I think if you’re not trying to break the mould, or do something different nowadays, then what are you doing? What’s the point? Dare to be different, you know?” P Stand Atlantic’s

debut album ‘Skinny Dipping’ is out 26th October.

Rated_ THE OFFICIAL VERDICT ON EVERYTHING

ALBUM OF THE MONTH

ARCHITECTS HOLY HELL EPITAPH

eeeee IF YOU LIKE THIS, YOU’LL LIKE... BRILLIANT BANDS GETTING THE ATTENTION THEY DESERVE. OBVIOUSLY.

58 Upset

rchitects have always channelled feelings of power.

They’ve always encouraged unity. Bellowing anthems for change while pondering mortality over shuddering breakdowns, they did it better than most. 2014’s ‘Lost Forever//Lost Together’ found them letting beauty in without apology, while 2016’s ‘All Our Gods Have Abandoned Us’ was an intimate look at a world that didn’t make sense anymore. In sharing their fear and fury, Architects found a voice. In those albums, so did their audience.

‘Holy Hell’ sees the band pick up the pieces following the death of brother, bandmate and creative driving force Tom Searle. For album eight, not only have Architects had to rebuild the way they write music, but they’ve also had to deal with the added pressure of being bigger than they ever dreamed. Rather than echo what’s come before, they’ve taken the baton and run with it. This is the story of what comes next. ‘Holy Hell’ finds Architects focused, their eyes looking dead ahead. Rather than toying with sonic flourishes and bending genre lines,

ACTIVE BIRD COMMUNITY AMENDS eeee

The mid-late 90s/ early 00s collegerock/slacker-rock boom ﬂows through ‘Amends’, making it a glorious throwback to a halcyon age. The likes of Nada Surf and Pavement serve as sonic touchstones, informing the laidback vibe that permeates every note and rough, slack-jawed, syllable. Throw in lyricism that could rival the great Ben Folds, and it’s a winning combination, ripe for repackaging for today’s modern audiences. These birds are ones to watch… P Rob Mair

AGAINST THE CURRENT PAST LIVES eeee

the record rages, rallies and cries out at the abyss. A testament to perseverance, an exploration in grief, ‘Holy Hell’ tries to find some sort of sense in suffering. The answer is a hopeful one, but rather than simply showing both sides of the coin, Architects send it spinning. ‘Seventh Circle’ finds them angry, tearing at themselves like a wounded animal; ‘Doomsday’, poignant and purposeful, has lost none of its sparkling importance, while the silver-lined ‘A Wasting Hymn’ is the record’s hopeful big finish. In mixing light, dark and the lines between,

Architects have confronted the shadows and lit up a way through. It’s messy, it’s painful, and it’s diﬃcult, but ‘Holy Hell’ is proof it’s possible. There are moments of uncomfortable bluntness, terrifying admissions and resolute promises to continue across ‘Holy Hell’. It’s deliberate in everything it does, and everything it shares. In being open, vulnerable and unafraid, Architects haven’t just lived up to their legacy. Forging unity and encouraging power in the absence of any, they’ve taken the diﬃcult next step. P Ali

Shutler

Against The Current know how to read a room. For their second album, the threepiece have added polish on top of their already sheenily finished exterior, lending further evidence to the theory than genre boundaries are all but dead. It’s beneath those external walls where the true heart of ‘Past Lives’ beats, though. In ‘Personal’ frontwoman Chrissy Costanza shows a rawness that turns that shimmer into a full blown shine. P Dan Harrison

ANTARCTIGO VESPUCCI

LOVE IN THE TIME OF E-MAIL eee ‘Love In The Time of E-mail’ is a good eﬀort from Chris Farren and Jeﬀ Rosenstock. The album is a solid collection of songs with catchy hooks, such as on ‘Kimmy’

and ‘White Noise’, and poppy sensibilities, but there is a nagging feeling that the album drags on a bit too long with a fair bit of filler towards the end. Nonetheless, Farren and Rosenstock have come together to create some really fun songs with the best moments coming when they turn their guitars up and let them roar. P Josh

Williams

ATREYU IN OUR WAKE e eee

Atreyu are back and on top form. A solid body of metalcore that finds inspiration from darkness, ‘In Our Wake’ is filled to the brim with depth that never leaves you feeling alone. Searing guitar lines keep on driving this new chapter forward. As brutal as it is melodic, the often underrated nature of Atreyu seems ridiculous when they can craft an album this direct and filled with purpose. While sonically it’s not pushing any boundaries, it’s an album that hones in on exactly what Atreyu are capable of, perfects it, and slathers it with a tangible emotive harness. P Steven Loftin

CLOUD NOTHINGS LAST BUILDING BURNING e eee

Just eight tracks long, ‘Last Building Burning’ is furious and focused, audibly indebted to the intricate, high-end guitar twiddling usually reserved for 80s hair-metallers. For the first few listens it’s almost impenetrably dense, but its poppier sensibilities soon unfurl. Dylan Baldi may have claimed in previous years that he doesn’t linger too long when constructing lyrics, but here he presents stories that are strangely comforting in their briskness. P

Jenessa Williams 60 Upset

BAE-SMENT As the title suggests, much of ‘Beside Myself’ follows Andrew Fisher searching for purpose and identity, but, actually, Basement’s fourth outing is their most assertive and definitive statement yet.

talks of the fear of failure, and ‘Ultraviolet’ is an impassioned tale of depression. Basement are at their most versatile musically on ‘Beside Myself’ too. From the focused The album is and fervent unmistakably lead single Basement; no ‘Disconnect’ one can do and its big raw emotion hooks to the like this. As breezy bop of always, the ‘New Coast’, centre pieces the frailty of BESIDE MYSELF are Andrew’s WARNER BROS. RECORDS / ‘Changing vocals and FUELED BY RAMEN Lanes’ or the e e e e e lyrics. The grungy ‘Be passion is Here Now’, unwavering, they find a and the balance between those flashes of singer’s ability to dissect his aggression and those moments darkest thoughts makes this of serenity. album their most personal work Basement have set their sights to date, but at times it’s diﬃcult high in this album. The goal to look directly in the eye. On seems to be alongside rock’s ‘Just A Life’ he cries: “There are elite and, in ‘Beside Myself’, times when I’m scared to be alive / but terrified to die / so they’re not far off. P Alex we just get by,” while ‘Stigmata’ Bradley

BASEMENT

A SHORT Q&A WITH

BEARINGS

Canadian pop-punk quintet BEARINGS have just dropped their ﬁrst full-length record, ‘BLUE IN THE DARK’. Vocalist DOUG COUSINS ﬁlls us in. Hey, Doug. What does “Blue In The Dark” mean? It’s the moon in the night sky.

Did your time on the road with State Champs and Four Year Strong impact the record?

It was great meeting those guys and seeing the work they put in. I got the opportunity to work on a couple of tracks with Alan, and it was great. The approach was very different in terms of the actual writing process. We are so thankful to have been on those tours as they put us in the right headspace concerning knowing where this record needs to be at.

Do you have any musician mentors helping you navigate the music biz?

Our manager Joe does a great job of looking after us. We are lucky to have a close relationship with him and to always have him in our corner.

Have you started to experience the trappings of being a little bit famous yet? Not yet, but any day now would be nice, haha.

“IT’S BETTER THAN TAKING PILLS EVERY MORNING” DOUG COUSINS

Lead single ‘Aforementioned’ is a reflection on the worst and best nights of this past year has life been a bit volatile lately for you? It’s always up and down when your head isn’t at where it should. I suppose it’s better than taking pills every morning though.

Why did you choose that song to introduce the album to everyone? It’s got a great indie rock sound. That’s the direction we are headed in, and though there are some pop-punk jams on the record, there’s also a lot of great indie stuff we haven’t tried before.

What’s your favourite thing

BEARINGS

BLUE IN THE DARK eeee Emotive Canadian rock bands are hardly the rarest beasts, but there’s a reason our chums from the great white North break through more often than not - they’re damn good at it. ‘Blue In The Dark’ rattles with a salted sweetness built on raw energy and songwriting smarts - a sure show of potential. P Dan Harrison

about being in Bearings right now? We get to tour with some great bands this upcoming month! Like Pacific, Roam, Story Untold, Ourselves and Between you and me! It’s gonna be a blast, and we’re looking forward to meeting some new friends on this one. P

Bearings’ album ‘Blue In The Dark’ is out now. Upset 61

A SHORT Q&A WITH

DRUG CHURCH

CUT AND RUN

Big choruses and social awkwardness, DRUG CHURCH’s new ‘un is an album we can get onboard with. Frontman PATRICK KINDLON tells us about the band’s third full-length. Hey Patrick. You’re on your third album, congrats - do your early days with the band feel a long time ago now? What’s changed for you since then?

I have the memory of a goldfish, so everything feels fresh to me. There’s a lotta times on tour when I’m adamant that we’ve never been to a city. Never played it. Definitely never heard of this venue. No, I don’t remember the guy you said talked to us for an hour outside. Can’t recall anything about it. And then we’ll get there and I remember it and then have to admit that we played it five months ago and I just have a terrible memory. So, I think it doesn’t feel very different to me. And one thing that has changed may be that whatever degenerative brain disorder I have appears to have worsened.

The album’s blurb describes it as your most accessible to date, was that intentional or just a by-product?

I am starting to suspect they all met without me and put together a plan to do something more likeable. But I can’t 62 Upset

DRUG CHURCH CHEER eeee

Described by their own press material as “a monument to accidental success”, Drug Church’s first full-length for new label Pure Noise is hardly a happy accident. Still, untamed by the careerist ambitions of their peers, it has a raw, uncompromising edge that sets it apart. Here’s to carefree brilliance. P Dan Harrison confirm that and certainly wasn’t aware when we started the LP. Those dudes love those big rock songs, so if there’s more of that on the record it was inevitable. Had to happen at some point. I don’t notice so much because I’m in the middle of it, so it just feels like a more expensive sounding Drug Church record to me. But, the choruses are big, so maybe it really is more accessible. I urge

everyone to buy it and decide for themselves.

‘Avoidarama’ is brilliant, is social interaction something you find a bit much yourself? How do you reconcile that with being in a band? It never used to be a problem for me, but each year I seem to be pulling inward more. Stuff like singing keeps me in front of people, and I think that’s probably good for my brain because if left to my own devices, I’d be at home or at least away from people as much as possible. And it’s not like I hate people or can’t talk, so I don’t know where this instinct to retreat came from. My girl says I should probably get therapy about it.

What do you think music’s most important job is in 2018? Same as ever. Be an honest expression of the artists’ sensibilities. Music owes no one a thing past that. P

Drug Church’s album ‘Cheer’ is out 2nd November.

HELLIONS RUE e e ee

Hellions don’t have time for boring. From the opening drama of the bite sized ‘(Blueberry)’, ‘Rue’ is a record that operates on maximum saturation at all points. With a ﬂourish that would befit a My Chemical Romance or Panic! At The Disco, it’s a day-glo antidote to the angry, testosterone soaked norm.’X (Mwah)’ remains a ray of ridiculous sunshine - if only every band was this much fun. P

Dan Harrison

ITOLDYOUIWOULDEATYOU OH DEARISM e e ee

Life can feel ‘a bit much’, especially for a generation becoming ‘adults’ in a world that feels helplessly unstable and beyond their reach; many are fighting daily battles to just keep themselves upright. However, by embracing and addressing the confusion of existence, itoldyou provide the perfect antidote. Sure, this album isn’t conventionally ‘perfect’, but nothing is. ‘oh dearism’ teaches us to be ambitious and to learn to love ourselves and those around us. itoldyou are a rare and truly special band, essential to the uncertain times we live in. P

Katie Pilbeam

KAGOULE

STRANGE ENTERTAINMENT e e ee Describing their first album ‘Urth’ as “an ode to grunge”, Kagoule’s frontman Cai Dixon has changed his inspirational focus while still keeping the band firmly entrenched in the sounds of the early 90s. Noticeably less heavy this time around, ‘Strange Entertainment’ (produced by MJ

Hookworms, mixed by tour buddies Spring King’s Tarek Musa), is much more of a ‘proper indie’ album than could have been expected. Most importantly, it shows a band that are very comfortable in their own skin, happy to remain unique rather than follow the crowd. Asking “Is it progression or is it deevolution?” on ‘Monsieur Automaton’, the answer for Kagoule is absolutely the former - though it will be fascinating to watch them evolve even further. P Jamie MacMillan

appearance on Paramore’s ‘After Laughter’, their audience is suddenly potentially widened. There’s no thought of smoothing oﬀ the edges, though. As weird as ever, Weiss’ instantly recognisable vocal is the glue that holds ‘[Untitled] together. Drawing from all corners of their sonic universe, opener ‘9:27 a.m., 7/29’ opens at pace, while lead track ‘Julia (or ‘Holy to the LORD’ on the Bells of Horses)’ finds a hugely satisfying groove. This is mwY at the peak of their powers. Breathe it in. P Dan Harrison

LAURA JANE GRACE & THE DEVOURING MOTHERS

PIJN

BOUGHT TO ROT eee

Taking a side-step from Against Me!, Laura Jane Grace has allowed herself to cut loose on her new solo project. Inspired by the late great Tom Petty, ‘Bought To Rot’ takes the punk energy of LJG’s day job and adds a ﬂourish of heartland American rock to the mix. If the songwriting is derived from the classics, the lyrics are straightdown-the-middle rants and ramblings, about life on tour, divorce and depression. While ‘Bought to Rot’ lacks some of the emotional impact of Against Me!’s finest work, it’s a side-project rather than an attempt at an opus, and we can forgive LJG for wanting to have a little fun. P Dillon

Eastoe

MEWITHOUTYOU [UNTITLED] eeee

2018 sees mewithoutYou standing on the horizon of a brand new dawn. It’s a weird way to frame a band who have no shortage of plaudits to their name, but after Aaron Weiss’

LOSS e e ee Considering there are only seven tracks on the debut full-length oﬀering from PIJN, its hour+ running time - with songs ranging from just over three minutes to just shy of twenty - should give you an idea of what you’re in for: you’re going need to buckle in. The rambling energy of opener ‘Denial immediately’ arrives with screeching strings and building crescendos, leading into a complex musical take on loss and mourning. The layers within are masterful, if somewhat challenging. P Steven Loftin

SAVES THE DAY 9 ee

Saves The Day’s 2013 self-titled album was a power-pop delight. In many ways, ‘9’ is a very similar beast, even if the concept – it tells ‘the history of Saves The Day’ – is ﬂawed: there is nothing duller than a band singing about being in a band. Closing number ‘29’ is the highlight; a 21:30 minute medley of songs. Its runtime is half of ‘9’, and it’s a thrilling counterpoint. It’s just a shame the first half is a lyrical and conceptual dud… P Rob Mair Upset 63

SHVPES

GREATER THAN eee SHVPES’ second album ‘Greater Than’ arrives earlier than expected after the fevered response to early single ‘Undertones’. It sees the Birmingham band continuing their exploration of musical landscapes far from their metal and post-hardcore origins, leaning further into hip-hop and beyond. That sense of adventure means that they may not get everything right here, but they show adaptability that few of their peers can boast of. P Jamie

MacMillan

SWEARIN’

FALL INTO THE SUN e e ee After a five year break-up, Swearin’ have returned with a lo-fi delight of an album that may be their best yet. ‘Fall Into The Sun’ carries with it an air of someone looking back at their recent past and being surprised at how far they’ve come. By dialling the volume and angst down a notch or two, the American band (now a trio) have allowed space for a new sense of identity to shimmer to the surface. It is pure joy, forming a celebration of a band who have, somehow, survived against all the odds and emerged all the stronger for it. P Jamie MacMillan

THE WILD THINGS YOU’RE REALLY SOMETHING eee

Raucous rock and roll is the order of the day for ‘You’re Really Something’, the debut album from London’s Wild Things. It’s vicious, controlling, demanding, and accessible: it never feels like you’re being left behind as they 64 Upset

rattle through a record that wears its heart on its sleeve. Elements of classic, punk and blues stoke the fire. With the power of a runaway train, The Wild Things aren’t breaking boundaries, or exploring new territory, but what they are doing is keeping a close eye on the six-string world and making sure there’s fresh blood keeping it well alive. P Steven

Loftin

TOM MORELLO

THE ATLAS UNDERGROUND eee His lengthy career has seen him wander down many strange avenues but on ‘The Atlas Underground’, Tom Morello goes down his most varied yet. It’s safe to say that never before have Marcus Mumford and GZA had to vie for space with massive EDM beats. An impressive roll call of guests (also including Portugal. The Man, Killer Mike, K. Flay and Rise Against’s Tim McIlrath) have joined Morello for this bold, but ultimately disjointed, record. There’s a fairly even split between tracks that work and those that don’t, though the scales ultimately come down (just) on the positive side. P Jamie MacMillan

WEAKENED FRIENDS COMMON BLAH eeee

‘Common Blah’ bristles with sharp-edged punk energy, honed in bars and clubs in Portland and Boston and beyond. There’s no filler here – instead, Sonia Sturino, Annie Hoﬀman, and Cam Jones have delivered a concise, high-octane debut that bubbles with eﬀervescence and provides easy hook after easy hook. It’s a consistently excellent album. P Rob Mair

YOU ME AT SIX VI eeee

If there’s one criticism of You Me At Six’s recent output, it’s that they seemed a band unsure of who they wanted to be. On ‘VI’, they’re still refusing to stick to a single, easily identifiable template, but it no longer feels like they’re blindly chasing that arena rock trophy with no real plan. From deep grooves to giant riﬀs, variety truly is the spice of life. P Dan Harrison

TRACK BY TRACK

HANDS LIKE HOUSES HANDS LIKE HOUSES run through their new record ‘-ANON.’ track by track.

KINGDOM COME

This is the opening track, and as it started coming together and being written, it felt more and more like that. It brings you in and carries this momentum and tension that build, but never fully explodes - its like a constant tease.

MONSTER

‘Monster’ is about feeling out of control - about saying, “I’m running from my problems and you probably should too.”

SICK

‘Sick’ is a bit of a cheeky middle fi nger to people who take emotional advantage of you.

OVERTHINKING

‘Overthinking’ is about moving on from someone who is bad for you - and getting caught in the cycle of selfdoubt, frustration, hurt and thinking yourself around in circles.

THROUGH GLASS

It’s so hard to choose a favourite song in the record

HANDS LIKE HOUSES -ANON. eeee

There’s a sweet spot for a band - a place where populist sheen and musical invention meet to provide the best of both worlds. On ‘-Anon.’, Hands Like Houses have set up camp on that prime real estate. Fresh, exciting and never boring, it’s anything but anonymous. P

Dan Harrison

but this song always comes up for me, it has so much emotion and feeling. This is a bit of a step into some uncharted territory for us.

NO MANS LAND It has a nice blend of rock and R’n’B, but then also has a very important social commentary on men needing to be more open about emotions and asking for help.

BLACK

This one went through the most changes during the writing process. It started off all centred around the riff but then one night I walked into our apartment and Coops was working on a section that was sounding so spooky and unsettling, it was perfect.

TILT

HALF- HEARTED

This was the fi rst song we fully wrote after ‘Dissonants’. It is very much a Hands like Houses song with a nice big riff and chorus to immediately get you headbanging and moving!

I guess this is the semi-ballad on the record. We wanted it to start off so raw and intimate and then explode into this huge wall, then draw you in again for the verses.

This song is pretty out there, but once that chorus hits if you aren’t stomping around and headbanging there is something wrong with you! P

BAD DREAM

Upset 65

Live_ ON STAGE. IN HERE.

HYPE REACHES BREAKING POINT AS RETURN TO BRIXTON ACADEMY Words: Ali Shutler. Photos: Adam Elmakias.

66 Upset

wo and a bit years ago, Twenty One Pilots played Brixton as their biggest ever headline show. Just months before, Shepherd’s Bush Empire held that title and six months later, they’d sold out Alexandra Palace. Twice. ‘Blurryface’ transformed Twenty One Pilots from cult to super-stardom, complete with radio hits (‘Stressed Out’) and movie soundtracks (‘Heathens’) but that connection between band and audience never got lost in the spotlight.

People found meaning in the music of Twenty One Pilots and there’s a good chance that feeling was mutual. It’s why their year away felt so long. It’s why their return came with such excitement. And tonight, that return takes to the stage as the band play their first live show in over a year. Hype, meet breaking point. There’s no space to shake off the cobwebs though, as

they launch straight into the thundering romp of ‘Jumpsuit’ before sidestepping into the crouched promise of ‘Levitate’. Polished and deliberate, the opening songs show off Twenty One Pilots’ toy chest. They’ve never simply been a rock band that’s dabbled with rap, or the other way round. They’ve always channelled a little bit of whatever takes their fancy, and made it their own. Success hasn’t forced them to simplify and our first four looks at ‘Trench’ sees a band gleefully taking risks and apologising for nothing. That bold underline can be felt throughout the show. Never standing still, never echoing the past and never trying to be anyone but themselves, the following hour is a master-class in just how fast the band can move. The ukulele is wielded like a weapon for ‘The Judge’, Josh play drums on top of the crowd for ‘Ride’, Tyler appears on the balcony for the end of ‘Car Radio’ and is at the barrier, being handed a yellow rose for ‘Holding Onto You’.

The band are constantly on the move and the show is littered with tiny moments that’ll last a lifetime. Twenty One Pilots inspire a fearlessness. People have been camping outside the venue for days and inside, everyone gives the band everything they’ve got without hesitation. It creates this bond, this energy, this bubbling, unstoppable force that binds the room together. Brixton used to be as big as Twenty One Pilots dared to dream but tonight, it can barely contain them. Onstage they announce a third night at Wembley Arena. It’s already sold out. “When we come back, we’re going to show you some things you’ve never seen before,” they promise. It’s not the only one they make tonight. As ‘A Complete Diversion’ comes to a close, Twenty One Pilots reclaim their spot at the top of the pile. Untouchable, unstoppable and we’re only at the very start. Welcome to ‘Trench’. P Upset 67

’S COLLECTION OF HUGE ANTHEMS TAKE ON A NEW LIFE AT THE ROYAL ALBERT HALL Words: Jamie MacMillan. Photos: Sarah Louise Bennett.

CUT AND RUN

here is a ringing in your ears that follows most gigs, an incessant and nagging tone that refuses to quit and leave your head. Not so following Biffy’s unplugged show at Royal Albert Hall.

Instead, that noise you can hear walking away from this famous old venue is the reverberations of your heartstrings being pulled ruthlessly throughout an exceptionally emotional and beautiful set from the Ayrshire band. As they prepare to move on to the promised-but-as-yetundelivered new albums, it’s a fitting way to close the book on the recent past. First, though, there is an equally stripped-back set from The Xcerts, whose Bryan Adams-influenced soft rock finds a natural setting in an acoustic set. “We’re just trying to get this shit done as quick as possible so we can watch Biff y,” 68 Upset

Murray jokes, but in truth their songs of heartbreak and resolution make a good fit for what is to come. As Biff y arrive on stage, sat under a tree fittingly shorn of leaves, they begin with big hitters ‘The Captain’ and ‘Biblical’. Ever playful, Simon Neil swivels and rolls around the stage on what amusingly seems to be a standard oﬃce chair, legs swinging up like a bored call centre worker. “This may be the last time that we ever do this,” he announces, as a percussive clap resonates around the venue to ‘Rearrange’. Stripped of their heavy sound, these anthems take on new life. ‘Black Chandelier’ hits hard, before ‘Folding Stars’ lays waste to the emotions of the room, made all the more powerful in its simple arrangement of Neil and Ben on percussion. The shift of gear as Neil sings “I am going home forever and ever more”

on ‘Different People’ finishes the emotional job. It’s almost as if the unplugged nature of the show has instead conversely powered the trio up, the band untethered and unrestrained, feeding off of the raw power emanating from the stalls. Amidst all of the fan favourites, a glimpse of new material is seen with two new songs. While ‘Different Kind Of Love’ has already been released in an acoustic form, ‘Adored’ is unknown to most. Obviously hard to pin down or define in this setting, it appears to be yet another poignant addition to the Biff y canon, Neil singing “I found the strength to run away, but this freedom is no escape.” By now on the home straight, mountainous versions of ‘Bubbles’ and ‘Many Of Horror’ are rolled out, the latter almost being taken away from the band by a deafening audience before a stunning, life-aﬃrming end to this chapter comes to a final full stop. P

ast year Pale Waves headed out on their first proper headline tour with nothing more than a handful of perfectly formed pop bangers. Full of intent but unsure of the spotlight, it was a run that only hinted at what was to come.

ARE FULL OF CONFIDENCE, COMMAND AND CONTROL AT SHEPHERD’S BUSH EMPIRE

Fast forward twelve months and the band have released both an EP (‘All The Things I Never Said’ and an album (‘My Mind Makes Noises’). Their back catalogue isn’t the only thing that’s grown though. Having spent the summer playing every festival going, the band take to the stage at Shepherd’s Bush Empire full of confidence, command and control. All that promise is fit to burst and tonight, they throw open the doors to the world of Pale Waves. Opening with the hysteria-inducing anthem of ‘Television Romance’, it’s chaos from the word go. A victory from the off, the band smirk and thrash through their shimmering slice of summer loving, all deliberate polish and unstoppable dance. The pendulum sway of ‘Kiss’ bursts with staggering want before ‘Eighteen’ sees the band dial up their dreams with a nostalgia-soaked lesson in losing yourself in love.

It’s not an all-out pop attack though. ‘New Year’s Eve’ dwells in loneliness and let down, ‘She’ crumples in front of the mirror and ‘My Obsession’ tumbles with slow-burn distance. Even in those quiet moments where beauty comes before bangers, Pale Waves hold the room completely. Shifting between chaos and comfort, despair and decadence, the band are consistently more than first impressions. ‘Noises’ is excited and sad. All bold colours, painted smiles and broken illusions, it swells from one voice shouting in the dark to a room full of people lighting each other up while ‘Red’ is the best Taylor Swift song you’ll hear all year, full of jagged edges and hardfought power. Pale Waves have covered a lot of ground and fast. But they’ve got no time to slow down, not even to indulge in their own success. By the time ‘There’s A Honey’ rings out to bring the curtain down on their biggest show yet, they’ve covered every inch of the stage and stretched their palette far beyond simple reds and blacks. As the song chimes out, familiar yet monstrous, you can see the flicker in the eyes of Pale Waves as they look to a future where anything is possible. This really is just the start. P

Words: Ali Shutler. Photos: Frances Beach.

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reminds me of summer days, getting driven home from school with my face buried in a pack of ice gems. Nostalgia central. It now forms the root notes of near enough every single melody I write.

WITH... SHVPES Everyone has those formative bands and tracks that first got them into music and helped shape their very being. This month, GRIFFIN DICKINSON from SHVPES takes us through some the songs that meant the most to him during his teenage years.

NIRVANA - SMELLS LIKE TEEN SPIRIT

I remember picking up a bass when I was about eight years old and one of my dad’s mates taught me how to play ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ (before I’d even heard the song). I went home that afternoon and played the opening riff for about four hours straight… Don’t think I ever learned the rest of the song… But I got a hi-fi system that Christmas and blasted this for years to come.

TLC - NO SCRUBS

Every time I hear this, it just

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LIMP BIZKIT - ROLLIN’

I found LB on one of those ‘Now That’s What I Call Music’ CDs I bought to my school disco. I’ve been listening to ‘Chocolate Starfish’ about three times a month ever since.

EMINEM - THE WAY I AM

I bought the CD single for this as soon as I got my hi-fi system at about 11. This song was a hidden gem for me, and I remember it just giving me this feeling like I was the biggest badass on the planet haha. It’s so heavy, yet it wasn’t guitar music. It really pulled me into hip-hop music.

CHRISTINA - DIRRTY (FEAT. REDMAN)

I used to get bullied at boarding school for liking metal. Slipknot posters would get ripped up; music would get turned off or drowned out by other kids blasting music etc. But everyone liked Christina. This was one of about

three songs I had on my iPod I could play, haha.

RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE - KNOW YOUR ENEMY

My ambition from about 12-15 was to be in Jackass. We used to make skateboard videos and jump off houses into cardboard boxes, trolleys into hedges, tie sledges behind mopeds etc. This was always the song we put over the videos.

TRIVIUM - PULL HARDER ON THE STRINGS OF YOUR MARTYR

I remember finding this song at 13 years old, watching Kerrang TV, it was the first time I’d heard screaming like that. It opened up a whole other world of music to me.

ATREYU - BLEEDING MASCARA

This song just reminds me of having 12 different versions of the same song, all downloaded with different ‘bL33dXNG m4$sCaRa’ stuff from Limewire and trying to talk to girls on MSN. The golden era, haha. P

SHVPES’ album ‘Greater Than’ is out 9th November.