Upset, November 2019

** Plus ** HalfNoise, Refused, Issues, Great Grandpa, Anavae, Lande Hekt, False Advertising, Stray From The Path + loads more

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November 2019 upsetmagazine.com

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NOVEMBER 2019 Issue 49

HELLO. If rock music is even slightly about a refusal to conform, then Poppy is quite possibly the most worthy of all.

Initially arriving as a hyperrealised pop project, recent times have seen her swerve left, cross-pollinating across the genre boundaries with heavier influence. From working with Fever 333s Jason Aalon Butler to ripping up Reading & Leeds earlier this year, it’s far from just a casual nod; it’s something way more exciting than that.

That’s why we’re delighted to welcome her to the cover of this month’s mag. In a world where so much can feel like the same parade of faces going round in ever-decreasing similar circles, Poppy is something altogether different; a giant boulder thrown into the calm waters of the status quo. The waves made are half the fun.

S tephen

Editor / @stephenackroyd

Upset Editor Stephen Ackroyd Deputy Editor Victoria Sinden Associate Editor Ali Shutler Scribblers Dan Harrison, Jack Press, Jamie MacMillan, Jasleen Dhindsa, Linsey Teggert, Paris Fawcett, Rob Mair, Sam Taylor, Steven Loftin, Tyler Kelly Snappers Gabe Becerra, Gingerdope, Jawn Rocha, Lindsey Byrnes, Oliver Halfin, Phoenix Johnson, Sarah Louise Bennett, West Smith 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

RIOT 6. HALFNOISE 10. FALSE ADVERTISING 12. REFUSED 16. LANDE HEKT 18. COUNTERFEIT. 19. ISSUES ABOUT TO BREAK 20. ANAVAE FEATURES 22. POPPY 32. WATERPARKS 36. DREAM STATE 42. JIMMY EAT WORLD 46. GREAT GRANDPA REVIEWS 50. WATERPARKS 52. PVRIS TEENAGE KICKS 54. STRAY FROM THE PATH

U N I T 10, 23 G RA N G E RO A D, H A S T I N G S, T N34 2R L

All material copyright (c). All rights reserved.

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It’s only

THIS MONTH IN ROCK

From scrappy garage recordings to a debut album False Advertising have come a long way. p.10

Refused are back, and they’re ready for war... p.12

Lande Hekt from Muncie Girls is ‘going solo’ with a brand new EP. p. 26

Following his departure from Paramore, Zac Farro began working on his own project; HalfNoise. What started off ten years ago as an exploration into dreamy indie music, has since evolved into sleek synth-pop.

Now as he releases his third album ‘Natural Disguise’, HalfNoise has blossomed into something more.

Words: Tyler Kelly.

Photos: Phoenix Johnson.

After the 2016 release of his full-length ‘Sudden Feeling’, Farro reconnected with his old friends Taylor York and Hayley Williams; subsequently spending two years on the road touring their album ‘After Laughter’. In between these tours, Farro was carving out a new path for HalfNoise by going into the studio and recording what would be ‘The

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Velvet Face’ EP and ‘Flowerss’ EP. As the Paramore tour was winding down, he realised that the time limitations placed on his own projects gave him the push to work on something longer. “I kinda wish I made those two EPs one full-length,” he explains. “I was itching for a whole completed thought.”

Getting to grips with older music helped Farro hone in on the sound he was looking for.

“I never really listened to The Beatles or The Stones or The Kinks, so I never knew where all that stuff came from – or Jimi Hendrix. I was drumming into that only a few years ago, and it had a huge impact on me.”

It was this exploration that crafted the more definitive sound that HalfNoise have extended to, today. “I was listening to Mardi Gras, African, afrobeat records from the 50s-70s that have crazy distorted guitar tones, and it was very sloppy and human.”

It was like a lightbulb going off in his head when he noticed that there weren’t many indie voices over afrobeat-inspired music. “I was trying to channel the energy of afrobeat and the energy of 70s Stones and The Kinks – songs like ‘You Really Got Me Now’.” This led to exploring a different path to what he has already known and pushing further ahead in his field.

There is a transformative stepup from HalfNoise’s eponymous debut EP, and this is something that Farro is well aware, and quite frankly proud of. “All this stuff just takes time. To hone in on your craft and your art; sometimes it takes a couple years to get there.”

“There’s a lot of music out there from HalfNoise,” he continues, “but I feel like all of that was just one big step to make this record. This is genuinely the first step into something HalfNoise is going to be forever.” There’s a significant shift in direction towards a more psychedelic sound that has been

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“I WANTED TO REALLY STRIP IT BACK AND BE AS VULNERABLE AS I COULD”

slowly creeping into the music.

With this jolt of energy into something new comes a juxtaposed sense of breezy control that has seldom ZAC FARRO been seen in HalfNoise.

‘Natural Disguise’ was recorded last September at Farro’s house in Nashville. This is the first record that he entirely wrote, recorded, and produced by himself. Farro says that being able to put his head down for a month was detrimental for letting the record just be what it is. “I’m a very extroverted person, and I was surprised at myself for locking myself away,” he explains. “It was a quick process, and I just felt like I got it all out.

It was something that I needed to do; I’d never recorded or produced anything on my own.”

By giving in to the isolation of it all, Farro felt fear and would constantly second-guess himself, but realised it would do nothing for his creative freedom “other than squashing anything potentially great” – so instead, he followed the songs rather than try to push them in any direction.

“The whole point about the record is not disguising yourself and trying to act like nothing is going on. I wanted to really strip it back and be as vulnerable as I could.”

Notably, Farro talks about stripping things back lyrically, as it feels like the songs are more amplified and sonically layered than ever before – from the psychotropic jam session of ‘Boogie Juice/Apple Man’ to the gloopy maracas and scratchy Hendrix-style guitar riffs of ‘Natural Disguise’.

A part of the reason behind the additional layers comes from trying to shed the simple

approach that Farro took with ‘Sudden Feeling’ – “I didn’t play drums on that record. It was mainly a drum machine. I guess being a drummer, I was like ‘I ain’t gonna play drums on my record, am I?’ I wanted to separate it.”

Going into the recording process with such a concise idea about what he wanted to achieve, but still allowing the songs to flow in whichever direction they needed to, made for some interesting cuts. ‘Natural Disguise’ opens with the whimsical ‘Woodstock Snap’ which is a lot more sonically grittier than anything we’ve heard so far.

Digging into 40s Rockabilly and old Southern rock influences, Farro’s intention was to open the album in a way that people would stop and say, what the hell just happened!? In a similar vein is ‘The Groove Is Divine’ – inspired by afrobeat artist Francis Bebey who speaks in French over old drum machines – which just oozes cool. The words “you can’t stop smiling / you look up at the sun, and the sun is looking down at you / and it is divine” transport you to a desert strip in the 70s. You can feel the heat reverberating off the synths, as the song increasingly gains volume before dissipating almost as quickly as it started.

The obscure moments in ‘Natural Disguise’ are what make it shine, and Farro finds it strange that there aren’t many people doing a similar thing. “We’re in 2019, and people are weirded out by records going to different places. Like, man, in the 60s and 70s [musicians] were going crazy and that was fine, yet now we’re playing it safer.

That sounds bogus to me.”

It’s the idea of façade that ripples at the heart of the album. “With this record, the main point is even if I’m writing a song about somebody acting fake, or they’re trying to act natural while acting fake; I have to hold that mirror to myself.”

As if being a multi-instrumentalist wasn’t enough, Farro is also an avid photographer and has dabbled in recording music videos. In a world where a lot of the time, the way we take in music is just via streaming apps on our phones, sometimes videos can feel redundant.

From Farro’s perspective, it’s more about creating an extension of the music rather than making a video specifically for people.

His intention is to make you think of the accompanying visual each time you listen to a song – “I think that’s the difference between a video and a visual extension. I feel like it’s a very visual record. I’d love to make a video for every song, but that’s not realistic. I’m excited to put this record out because I’m excited to sit back and see what people gravitate toward. I really hope this has a lasting power.” P HalfNoise’s

album ‘Natural Disguise’ is out now.

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Words: Linsey Teggert.

From scrappy garage recordings to tracking an album in one of the world’s most significant music studios, False Advertising have come a long way since their humble beginnings on the Manchester open-mic circuit.

The trio, consisting of Jen Hingley on vocals, guitar and drums, Josh Sellers on bass and Christopher Warr on drums, vocals and guitar, have garnered attention with their chaotic, instrument-swapping live shows and strong DIY ethic, but with the release of their new record ‘Brainfreeze’ via the brilliant Alcopop record label, it feels like the stage is set for much bigger things.

“We were 100% DIY in the way we wrote, recorded, produced and released for those first few years,” explains Jen. “Chris and I had worked together on music previously, and he was working as a producer at the time, so we formed a kind of agreement that he would produce the music, I would do the artwork and visuals, we’d both play guitar and drums and we’d both sing. We figured we knew enough between us to make it work, but we quickly realised there were things we couldn’t do on our own, for example, we needed a bass player!”

“Bear in mind that neither Jen or myself played drums when we started,” adds Chris. “When we wrote our first tracks we’d programme the drum parts, then learn those programmed parts.

We felt that being amateurs actually inspired us to try things a trained drummer wouldn’t necessarily do - we were willing to take risks. I like to think our craft has improved since then, though!”

Though DIY values are central to False Advertising as a band, they certainly weren’t going to turn down opportunities that came

their way, or as Chris puts it “we weren’t going to be DIY to the point of cutting our nose off to spite our faces.”

So when Luke Pickering, assistant engineer to leading UK producer Paul Epworth at The Church Studios, was looking for a project, it was an offer they couldn’t refuse. Thus, the band found themselves recording ‘Brainfreeze’ during studio downtime between Christmas and New Year 2017/2018, recording sessions after Mumford & Sons (who don’t work on a weekend apparently) and Madonna. “I used Madonna’s pink vocal booth!” laughs Chris.

The resulting record shows off False Advertising’s multi-faceted sound to its vibrant full potential.

While they fall under the ‘altrock’ umbrella, the band navigate along a wide musical spectrum that takes in everything from pop-punk, grunge, slacker-rock and Britpop. The record’s lead single ‘Influenza’ is a prime example of this, with Jen’s sugary yet self-assured vocals complimenting the bouncy rhythms and lurching hooks.

“We had more flexibility with how we could make things sound.

It allowed us to be broader with our structures and try things we wouldn’t have otherwise. We didn’t go into the studio thinking we were going to come out with an album that sounded like three people playing and recording in a garage! We wrote songs in the past knowing we were going to do that, and we were happy with the results even if they were simple and abrasive, because that’s what it was.”

It’s perhaps the initial ‘simple and abrasive’ approach that has led to the term ‘grunge’ being thrown around a lot in descriptions of the three-piece, which, given the scope of their sound, does them a disservice.

“I love a lot of grunge music, but personally I’ve never been a massive fan of Nirvana, and we

seem to get compared to them a lot. Though I’m a massive Smashing Pumpkins fan and I’m obsessed with the way Siamese Dream sounds, it’s one of the best sounding guitar albums ever,” muses Jen. “There’s so much in the grand scheme of alternative music to draw from, that I can’t help but think the grunge comparison is a bit lazy,” she adds. “I realise we’ve always played to the simpler side of how we present ourselves, but now parts of what we’re doing are presented in a much cleaner way.

I hope that people will see that we’ve evolved and we’re not just making scrappy grunge music!”

Speaking to Jen and Chris, it’s apparent that both are incredibly modest about their achievements thus far. The band have blazed their way through the underground scene, working tirelessly with a string of selfreleased demos, singles and EPs under their belt.

They’ve already reached some pretty incredible goals, including playing SXSW and South Korea’s Zandari Festa, and being invited

by The Cure legend Robert Smith to play his edition of Meltdown Festival. They’ve also found a loyal fan in Jamie Lenman, who invited them to play his ‘Lenmania’ gigs, with Jen even singing Reuben’s ‘Good Luck’ with Jamie.

“I should be more confident, but I’m still bewildered by the fact we got to record ‘Brainfreeze’ the way we did,” Jen admits.

“We’ve already done way more than we ever thought we could, and we feel so lucky. It’s taken incremental steps, but we’ve been prepared to work, and the more you put in, the more you get back.” With the release of ‘Brainfreeze’, it’s time for False Advertising to shine, and it couldn’t be more deserved. P

False Advertising’s album ‘Brainfreeze’ is out 8th November.

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This means

Words: Steven Loftin.

12 Upset

Nothing says punk quite like getting told to leave a hotel bar due to one of you eating a vegan burger from another restaurant.

But this is all just another day in the life of Refused.

Over a decade since they first emotionally departed, it’s as if Refused knew that 2019 was going to be a year that would need them. The day Upset meets frontman Dennis Lyxzén and drummer David Sandström in London, it’s uncharacteristically sunny, which marks a significant elephant in the room, as all across the globe climate change protesters take their stand.

A perfect enough coincidence given Refused have always been the wicker fuse for change; only ready to ignite when necessary. As plainly proven by the massive gap between their hiatus to 2015’s ‘Freedom’, and

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Riot_ now ‘War Music’. They were never going to do an album for the sake of an album.

“Since we started, it’s a different world. Some things are great, some things, some advances are fantastic for our lives,” singer Dennis reasons.

“But a lot of stuff is horrible. And I mean, especially the political climate has never been as bad.

The political discourse has never been as hollow.”

Of course, Refused being one of the premier punk bands retaining all that is good and holy about the genre - counter-cultural and a screaming voice that’s ready to champion any cause for good - means that eyes of the alternative world are upon them since they’ve never been ones to ignore what’s happening around them. “’366’ on the last record was about refugees in the Mediterranean,” David says.

“When we wrote that song, it was not being talked about. Within a year of the record coming out, [you had] the picture of that child that came out that suddenly they were doing like huge concerts with huge artists trying to raise awareness. But when we wrote that song, it was not on the news.

It was being ignored.”

While their return to the world came in an album called ‘Freedom’, their next move is one that’s not so seemingly peaceful.

Along with ‘War Music’, the two titles may have an on the surface effect of disjointed similarities, but when you’re a band like Refused, nothing is ever surface level. Well, not immediately anyway, as Dennis explains.

“It didn’t dawn on us until a while after we set the album title.

A lot of this is a reaction to both good and bad. It’s funny that we subconsciously named the record the complete opposite as well because it wasn’t the intention. It wasn’t like, ‘What’s the opposite of freedom? It’s war.’ It just fit with the music, fit with the themes of the song, the energy.

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‘We’ll call this ‘War Music’ because it has an urgency, has a feel. And then a couple of months after we were like, ‘Oh, yeah, that is the opposite of freedom!’”

David interjects, disagreeing.

“I like this narrative, but I don’t agree. I don’t think it’s the opposite. I think both words are inadequate.”

“Which is why we mean ‘Freedom’ is freedom,” Dennis says. “Yes. It was a mind fuck to people like, what does that mean?

What do you mean with that?”

“No one knows what it means!”

David adds.

“And on that record, we sing about freedom; I think four or five different places in totally different contexts every time. It’s definitely like chaos.”

“More frees you from accountability in the lower cases,” David continues. “So there’s a lot of freedom and more because you can get away with everything. Chaos. There’s a line on an early Bjork song she goes, ‘I thought I could organise freedom, how Scandinavian of me.’”

Indeed, the lyrical components to music are always most likely to be put under a microscope, in search of any deeper meaning.

With bands like Refused who hold a mirror up to the world, providing a look back at what’s going wrong, the parallels between groups that speak up, and the politicians who sought as the correct route to fighting the wrongs are palpable. “[But] we’re so unregulated,” Dennis says recognising the similarity. “So some of us lose our minds and become like [Bob] Dylan suddenly becoming a Catholic. We’re not institutionalised at all. We’re the least institutionalised people in the Western world. And so there’s a danger to that because you’re unmoored. You have the business of keeping yourself inline, and maybe your friends.”

The ability for Refused to “keep themselves inline”,

has been a gift granted by the vicious trials of time. After their explosive exit all those years ago, the issues stemming predominantly from the fact that it was just non-stop. “In the 90s, a part of the big problem was that Refused was our entire lives twenty-four-seven, three-six-five.

It wore us down,” Dennis admits.

“The nice part of Refused now is that it’s not all of our lives. But when we do it, you have to focus on it differently. We used to just show up and play - and that’s fine. But now when it’s time for Refused, you know, now I have to step up, and I have to get my shit together to fucking be ready for it.”

The critical factor of taking care of themselves, not just as a band, but as people, is the main reason Refused are gearing up to release a new album in 2019. The self-care is evident, but it’s also because they know they have a responsibility as a

band with a platform to develop themselves so they can truthfully establish the ideas that fall into a troublesome world.

“A big part of our job description is to walk around at home all day, thinking about these things that other people have no time to think about,” Dennis muses. “I mean, that’s the reality of the situation. With people; they work, they get home, they feed the kids, and then the day is done.

“My days should be walking around at home, thinking about the state of the world. Then it’s trying to get that into music and out to people. Because that’s a part of what we do as artists, it’s a very strange thing to do. And it’s a very strange thing to have to continually dive into words of the world, order the words of yourself because that’s what you do as an artist, and you make your own-” “Curriculum,” David interjects.

“And that is the positive aspect.

genuinely instigates change.

Bands are taking a stand, with the climate change protests that are taking place today being attended by a vast majority of musicians.

But the issues that can hit far closer to home will always be where any bands journey begins, and Refused have not only not forgotten that, but they’ve created an ode to it on ‘War Music’; ‘Death in Vännäs’. It’s not only about being an outsider; hence it being titled after Dennis’ hometown, but it’s also their origin story of sorts.

“It’s about having ended up in on the outside of things,” David explains. “The other kids listen to different music and then being able to have a band and start, you know, go on tour and play squats all over Europe and then making records and finally making make a pretty good record, and going on in this fashion.”

Perhaps more importantly, it shows that Refused are very much self-aware. They know that they hold a unique perspective, I have a few books ahead of me, one that helps their energised definitely a few books behind fury take form. me, but I want to go through “At a certain point, you’re just all of [British historian] Eric beyond the rescue. You’re forever Hobsbawm’s entire body of work. on the outside And, at some looking out,” point, maybe David ends. when we die, “And if there’s we have that to be a point part of the to people job. That’s like us being why we in society, have those it’s that we quotes in the have this booklet of perspective the record. that’s not the You vacuum, mainstream literature perspective. and What we read journalism and what we DENNIS LYXZÉN and more choose to and more read and what music.” we’re looking for; we can find It may all sound rather stuff there and bring it into what grandiose for something that we’re doing. Then there might be could be as simple on paper some point to our existence.” P like rock music, but it’s what Refused’s album ‘War Music’ is out 18th October. artist give back to the world that

“A LOT OF STUFF IS HORRIBLE; THE POLITICAL DISCOURSE HAS NEVER BEEN AS HOLLOW”

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“I WOULD REALLY LIKE TO RECORD AN ALBUM” Words: Sam Taylor.

Photo: gingerdope.

Recognise that face? It’s Lande Hekt, from Muncie Girls! Spreading her wings with a solo EP, the wonderfully-titled ‘Gigantic Disappointment’, her new batch of tunes saw her up-sticks to record in sunny Australia, where she braved the heat and kangaroos to try out writing, playing and singing very nearly every damn thing herself. The result is an intriguing new glimpse into one of our fave songwriters.

Hey Lande, what prompted you to put out a solo release, then?

I’ve wanted to make a solo record for a really long time. When I was in Australia earlier this year, my friend Ben from The Hard Aches offered to record some of my songs at his studio in the Adelaide Hills. It’s not an opportunity you get every day, so I took him up on it.

How does the writing process differ from working with Muncies?

Although I write the songs in Muncie Girls, there’s still a lot of collaboration, especially when it comes to arrangements and turning them into fullband songs. We’ve always had a particular style, and the songs we write inevitably sound like us.

This time I didn’t have input from anybody and the whole process was my own, so it was a really different experience. Apart

from the producer, Ben, there was no one there to tell me what sounded good and what didn’t. I think the result ended up being a bit similar to the initial demos that I record for Muncie Girls but with better production.

And how was your time in the studio?

With the exception of one guitar solo, a bit of cello and some percussion, I played everything on the record. So my time in the studio was tiring! I used to play drums in a riot grrrl band, but I haven’t done that in a while, so I enjoyed trying to remember how to play.

The studio is on top of a hill in the middle of nowhere, and at the same time every day, two kangaroos would come up to get some water and say hello. There were also koalas and a very nice sunset. Oh, and it was 37ºc every day!

Do you have a favourite track on the release?

I think my favourite song is the first one, ‘Wake Up’. I first demoed it with my friend Iona from Shit Present in her bathroom for reverb purposes.

Ben’s friend in Australia played some cello on it, which is the first time I’ve ever got someone in to play any strings.

Was there a reason you didn’t chuck on a couple of extra

songs and release an album?

I think at the time when I recorded it, seven songs were literally all I had and even they were kind of bare-bones. I had to finish writing some of them really last minute so there wouldn’t have been a way to record any more. Plus I think an album would have been a bit more pressure for me than an EP. It’s quite scary releasing songs on your own when you’ve only ever done stuff as part of a band.

I wanted to test the water with a shorter release before decided what else I wanted to do.

Are you going to do any solo shows around the release?

I’m doing a few shows with my friends from Exeter, Soot Sprite, right after the release in November. And I’m doing one or maybe two extra shows as well.

All the shows will be full band.

What are your future plans? Will there be more solo material?

Well, at the moment I do have a bunch of songs written, and I’m trying to figure out which ones are solo songs and which are more suited to Muncie Girls.

I would really like to record an album early next year, but I think I’ll see how it goes with this record first. P

Lande Hekt’s ‘Gigantic Disappointment’ EP is out 15th November.

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Plushy avocado He’s an emotional support animal that can carry the weight of touring, and he’s super cuddly. He was a gift from a fan in New York, and he’s now called Andrew. - Jamie Ever had to pack for a tour?

You’re gonna be spending weeks in a small, intimate space with several other smelly people and - for hours a day, not a lot to do.

You’re gonna need to be prepared.

That’s why we’ve asked our fave musicians for tips. This month, Counterfeit. let us inside their tour suitcase.

Creeper are back! The mischievous band - who appeared to split up on stage at KOKO the end of last year - will perform a sold out show under the moniker Fugitives of Heaven at Club 229 in London on 1st November.

Queen Zee have split up. The band announced the news in a statement posted online. “We are not mourning a loss, we are celebrating our time together,” they explain. Queen Zee released their self-titled debut earlier this year, via their own label Sasstone Records.

arture: “I am incredibly grateful and proud of everything we have achieved.

Slam Dunk has confirmed its first batch of bands for 2020’s festival, including Don Broco, State Champs, The Wonder Years, Mayday Parade, Four Year Strong, Knuckle Puck, Bayside, Issues, and Motion City Soundtrack. The event will be held in Leeds on 23rd May, and Hatfield the following day.

18 UPSETMAGAZINE.

COM 18 Upset

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

COUNTERFEIT.

Crystals They’re for energy; we’ll take all the positive energy we can get at this point. Was given to us by a family friend who used to Tour Manage Dire Straits and said it would be great for us to take out on the road. - Jamie Reusable water bottles Thankfully more venues are now supplying water fountains as opposed to bottled water; we try to cut down on our plastic waste wherever we can. - Jamie & Sam Counterfeit. tour the UK from 2nd December.

Settlers of Catan - Travellers edition The board game of all board games, Klaus Teuber struck gold with this, and thankfully it now comes in a travel edition. The fun never stops. - Sam Two-piece pyjama set A nice pyjama set has me feeling myself and is one of the main items that keeps me comfortable on the road and performing at 110% every night. - Roland Akai MPC Live The newest addition to the rig; batterypowered and standalone means that we can pass it around whenever the mood strikes and keep writing while we’re on the road. - Sam

Photo: Lindsey Byrnes.

Issues have returned with what might just be their most ambitious record yet, the widereaching ‘Beautiful Oblivion’. From battling personal struggles, to studio tips and a secret “baby love”: the band tell us more. jams set the tone for everything else, and we went from there.

The vocal in ‘Tapping Out’ is pitch-shifted. We struggled to

Everything you need to know about...

Issues’

new album

‘Beautiful Oblivion’

him down. Josh found him in The studio almost burned down while we were recording. We were a Wendy’s parking lot with an recording at Howard Benson’s studio in Calabasas during the wildfires in the summer of 2018, and we had to stop working and evacuate. The house we were staying at got evacuated and blocked off, so we had to find a back way in too.

Aj had a mental health episode and disappeared around the same time. The details are his

to tell, but he disappeared and drove to Vegas in the middle of recording, and we had to track

empty liquor bottle and a knife.

This spurred a big change in him, however, and he’s really been open about his struggles and what he’s going through to ease them. It got real dark, but we’re really happy he’s still with us!

We wrote 50 songs and cut out everything but our favourites.

Everything started when I went to LA and wrote ‘No Problem’ with Ivana from Van Jess and ‘Here’s To You’ with Jesse Boykins iii. Those two more RnB

find the right key for this song because any lower and the guitar didn’t sound right, and any higher the vocal sounded too anxious, so Tyler had the idea to record himself in the lower key and pitch shift him up to match the guitar in the higher key. This gives it a really airy, fluttery sound.

‘Downfall’ contains the lowest note we’ve ever recorded. The

bridge and ending of ‘Downfall’ is on a low C#, an octave under what people usually call drop C#, and my bass is an octave under that.

I don’t think I’ve ever heard a recorded note lower than my bass note, but if it’s out there, I need to find it. Good on my signature Spector for handling that tuning!

There’s a “baby love” somewhere on every one of our albums.

There’s one on ‘Beautiful Oblivion’ on a song that almost didn’t make it. Try to find it! P

Issues’ album ‘Beautiful Oblivion’ is out now.

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THE BEST NEW BANDS. THE HOTTEST NEW MUSIC.

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

DREAM NAILS These London-based “feminist punk witches” have a knack for saying what everyone else is thinking. Check out new single ‘Corporate Realness’ now.

DRY CLEANING Londoners Dry Cleaning probs wouldn’t describe themselves as punk, but with their wry-humour, they’ve a welcome edge.

GHUM Billed as a mix of “grunge, cold wave and post-punk”, Ghum’s debut EP went down a storm; catch them at Electrowerkz in London on 30th January.

ANAVAE “IT’S QUITE DIFFICULT TO SHOCK YOUNG PEOPLE”

FFO the kind of dark pop PVRIS excel in, Anavae’s debut album was a bit of a mission for Jamie Finch and Becca Need-Menear.

Thankfully they battled through, and the result - the bewitching ‘45’ - is bloody massive.

would have been enough to cause anyone to have a breakdown, but we both thought, “ha, well, of course, that didn’t work out.”

Hey guys - you’re based in London, right? Did you both grow up there?

How long have you been working on your debut album for? It sounds like it was a bit of a rollercoaster.

Becca: We’re both South East London babies.

Jamie: I grew up in Greenwich, but have lived in nearly every corner of London over the years.

When did you first realise you wanted to be musicians? Is it living up to the hype so far?

Jamie: I always thought that the cool part would be touring, playing shows and rocking out.

But it’s really not. The only real joy I get out of it now is seeing people’s reactions to the music we’re creating - and knowing that there are people out there listening to what we put out.

Becca: Making and releasing music happened quite accidentally for us. The early years were filled with free experimentation, imitation and basically, seeing what we could throw at a wall. I think avoiding grand expectation has made it easier to deal with many of the difficulties. Most recently, we didn’t receive a great deal of the money we raised through our Pledge campaign, which

Becca: The idea of a “debut album” ended up feeling like a phantom, or some dream that would never become a reality.

We’d often say “...oh we’ll finish that song when we come to do our album.” So being on the other side of that now is so surreal.

Jamie: Some of the songs on the album are five-plus years old.

Some were written at the very end of the recording process.

Looking at the tracklisting for the first time was a pretty daunting experience... seeing a large chunk of my life all slapped down into one place, ready to be burned onto a CD. I still can’t quite get my head around it.

Some of these lyrics are really abrasive, were there any lines or sentiments you were conflicted about including?

Jamie: Our manager called me after hearing ‘Human’ for the first time and said, “It’s disgusting... this will never get picked up by radio,” and I remember being really pleased

that it had pissed him off so much.

Becca: I think, for the most part, it’s quite difficult to shock young people. I think ours and the younger generation have been so bombarded with awful information daily, that we’ve become a little numb. I’ve always written about what I’m going through or what I’m feeling, and sometimes that does, of course, become characterised and conceptualised like in the song ‘Human’.

The songs are going to sound huge live, is that something you had in mind?

Jamie: “Huge” is definitely a word that takes over my mind while writing most of the time.

Somebody reviewed our track ‘Afraid’ when we first released it saying it was “too big”, which was a highlight of our musical journey for me. “I guess I’m good at making things sound big then... let’s see how big I can make them sound.”

Do you have big plans for 2020?

Becca: We’ll be playing tour dates across the UK in February, and then growing what we’re creating at St Pancras Old Church. We enjoy doing something a little bit different, so if it’s weird, we’re there. P

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22 Upset

Bored of the same old same old? Need something new to rip up the big rock rule book? Looking for someone who really stands out from the crowd.

Here’s...

Words: Ali Shutler.

Photos: Sarah Louise Bennett.

Upset 23

“Is she a girl? Is she a machine?

Is she humanity’s redemption, or its damnation?” asks the back cover of ‘Genesis 1’, a book exploring Poppy’s origin. The only answer offered is, “I’m Poppy”.

For two pop-tastic albums, the same questions have wrapped themselves around the music, as Poppy - a child of the Internet come to real life - has played the role of cyborg onlooker. The musical equivalent of Disneyland, requiring a touch of belief but still feeling like genuine magic, her world is one of mystery, different perspectives and exact detail. Her interviews preprogrammed, her persona absolute; if you wanted to get under her skin, you had to read between the lines of code.

But with the ‘I Disagree’ era, everything’s changed. “I think everyone plays a character. I’m not, not myself,” she reasons, taking off the metaphorical mask. Nowadays, “We are all children of the internet,” after all.

A few weeks ago at Reading Festival, we met the Poppy that’s demanded devotion, intrigue and millions of YouTube views. A performance artist and pop star, she’s distant but deliberate and functional as she sorta answers questions.

Today, we say hello to Poppy 2.0. Switching up the act, she’s fun. She shows emotion, she’s warm, inviting, welcoming and has bags of personality. She even tells jokes. We’ll be honest, Dear Reader, we expected this interview to go a lot differently.

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Poppy laughs at our surprise.

“I wouldn’t say I was dropping the persona, I would just say it’s evolving,” she explains in a photo studio in North London.

“It’s important to always be stepping into new territory that’s unchartered. If you stay the same, it gets boring.” And that’s one thing Poppy has never stood for.

Her new album ‘I Disagree’ is coming early next year and sounds like a musical revolution.

Somewhere along the line, she became the most interesting voice in heavy music, and we’re very much here for it.

The first two tasters of the record, ‘I Disagree’ and ‘Concrete’ follow on from the rage-addled crunch that drove her ‘Choke’ EP, but it’s a million miles from the bubblegum shine of debut album ‘Poppy.

Computer’. “That was more of an idea, and a sound bed to our YouTube videos,” she explains, that saw her in full Artificial Intelligence swing interviewing a plant or eating cotton candy. The follow-up, ‘Am I A Girl?’ sounded like Kanye West meets Madonna and was more emotionally driven and “teetered on straight-up pop”, but lyrically was anything but as she explored very real feelings of alienation, rebellion and doom. “Towards the end of the recording process for ‘Am I A Girl?’, we got closer to where we wanted to be.”

‘X’ was the true black sheep of that album; it starts like a child unwrapping a box of toys before it thrashes about a land of wailing guitars, guttural screams and angelic pop serenity. It’s a lot to take in, but that song was the turning point for Poppy’s world.

“That was the last song we wrote for the album. We turned everything in, the album was done, but some stuff happened, and we weren’t able to release one of the songs. So we went back to the studio. In five days, ‘X’ was

written, completed and a music video shot.”

“Frustration inspired it,” Poppy explains. “Working on pop music and working with certain people that are trying to compartmentalise you and your creativity is very painful.

I think ‘X’ is the first time my collaborative partners and I went into the studio and said, ‘let’s just make something that feels good and let’s just do whatever we want’.” From that moment, Poppy chased that freedom.

Eight months later she dropped her ‘Choke’ EP. “Titanic [Sinclair, her producer, co-writer and partner in crime] and I wrote that EP to get out of a record deal. That’s what it is. I’m proud of the songs, and I like them a lot, but that was my goodbye Mad Decent forever EP.” Still, it’s not a throwaway batch of songs. “Everything that I’ve ever chosen to release means something. It’s all part of the story and is relevant. All good music has meaning, whether that’s pop, metal, R&B or polka.

Then again, The Beatles said ‘Yellow Submarine’ doesn’t mean anything at all, and that’s a good song, so who’s to say?”

‘Scary Mask’, the lead single from ‘Choke’, was co-written with Fever 333’s Stephen Harrison and “came together in a very unexpected way,” Poppy reveals. Sharing a mutual friend in Zakk Cervini, they were introduced and quickly hit it off.

“Stephen came in and laid down the main guitar riff, and then Jason Aalon Butler got involved, and that’s where ‘Scary Mask’ came from.”

The original inspiration came straight after the 2018 American Music Awards. “I did the red carpet wearing a mask, and then went to the studio straight after. I wanted to write the song because everyone was taking lots of photos of me as if I was the first person to ever wear a mask on a red carpet. They were shocked, which was fun.”

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around everything in all my other interviews. I’ll be asked ‘tell me about the new music’, and I just say nothing at all - but I want to say everything.

“The new album is a sonic journey. It’s about burning down the music industry and everyone that has stood in my way. I can’t summarise it in one word, because it’s everything.”

The vision for it going in was “ultimate freedom,” she says. “I wanted to explore everything.

I was having a conversation with a friend about the music, and they said ‘it sounds like you created your own favourite band’, which Titanic and I agreed with.

The latex mask was worn because “they” didn’t want Poppy to talk about politics, but she won’t elaborate. “Just them,” she smiles. “I don’t like talking about politics because I’m an entertainer. That’s my job. I’m not a politician, and I would never want to be. But there are other topics that I look forward to exploring.” Like what? “Whatever I feel at the time.”

When she started out, Poppy was able to comment on music, fashion and pop culture as an outsider. Now she’s actively involved in all three, but she still doesn’t feel part of that world.

“Because I don’t feel like I’m accepted, I’m attracting people that have similar ideologies and ways of creating. With the new album, people are trying to define it whereas I’m not trying to define it. And I’m not trying to define my existence; I’m just trying to be. I don’t know how I got to this point, but I’m here.”

Back in the day, Poppy didn’t like doing interviews because it always felt like they were trying to get to the bottom of something, while she’d rather they stay near the surface. “For the most part I still feel the same way,” she starts. “But I think this is going well,” she adds with a laugh.

“It’s interesting to talk about the new album now because I can talk about it. I’ve been tiptoeing

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That’s the ultimate compliment.

Everything that we love, we put into the music. It was lifechanging being able to hide and make music as opposed to telling people, ‘hello, I’m going to make music now. Please wait for me’.

We just did it. And the songs are fun to perform, and they’re fun to sing and scream and other people like them, so that makes me happy.”

A blend of pop and metal, the likes of ‘Concrete’ (“wanting to be buried six feet underground inspired the song; we’re all going to turn to dust one day”), ‘Scary Mask’ and ‘I Disagree’ feel like

spiritual successors to nu-metal.

“That seems to be the reoccurring word or the terminology people are using. I haven’t decided what I want to call it, but it’s music,” she explains with a smirk.

“I am really into Limp Bizkit, Rob Zombie and Nine Inch Nails, though I don’t think they’re really nu-metal. Those three bands were very inspiring throughout making the album.

I think nu-metal is a funny term because when people are classifying music, the genre they use can be a turnoff to some people. Nu-metal does have a mixed perception, but I think current alternative music is also very confusing to me. I don’t think anything that is classified currently in 2019 as alternative is actually alternative. Alternative is counter-culture, not pop. It is against pop, but it feels like pop is just alternative and alternative is just pop.”

Do you want to be the alternative to the alternative? “I want to be The New Alternative, because we need to have our own classification.” “’I Disagree’ is about setting everything on fire and saying no,” explains Poppy. The target for her destruction? “The Music industry,” she smiles as she looks over at Titanic. “You said it, not me,” he laughs.

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“With ‘I Disagree’, I explore more in-depth my experience with the dark side of the industry because there’s a lot of things that I skated past in my time.

This is my third album and third record deal, and I got to witness a lot of people come up really fast and fall really hard. I got to be on my path but watch everything shine and burn really quick. That was never what I really wanted for myself, and with this album, I got to put some of that into words.”

Recently she’s felt like a warrior more and more. The threads of rebellion and change that carried itself through ‘Am I A Girl?’ are still there on ‘I Disagree’. “It’s like the wildfires in California, it’s more fertile after everything’s been destroyed and you’re ready to see beautiful things.”

Poppy avoided shining and burning by protecting herself. “I couldn’t give everything away. I couldn’t give all of myself away.

The shiny object sometimes is very appealing when it’s within your reach, but it takes a strong

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will to recognise within yourself what you think you were destined to be. It’s harder, but it feels better. I can sleep at night.”

“The music speaks for itself now,” she adds. “Previously, with the other two albums, I feel like the visual component was stronger. They are kind of synchronised at this point.”

Heavy music is notorious for craving authenticity, but Poppy has nothing to prove. “If I just make music that I like and people like it, cool. But if they don’t, I’m still gonna make it anyway.

That’s where I am.”

There’s no grand plan for saving the genre or making it more exciting and colourful, despite how it feels. “I just stay in my bubble. Everything outside the bubble is scary, and I don’t want to know what anyone else is doing. It’s a distraction, and it can make you second guess yourself. I’d rather run away and do what I think needs to be done.”

Instead, she’s happy to just see what happens, even if that means travelling in the opposite direction to the norm of heavy

bands going pop. “It’s all part of the plan. I can’t say how far ahead it’s mapped out, but it’s all there.”

People have always scoured Poppy’s art for meaning.

Something that complex must have a purpose, right? Her book ‘Genesis 1’ suggests it could mean anything from rebellion, revolution to mind-control.

“What is the point of your art,” someone asks as their world around them burns. “Oh, it’s fun!” Poppy replies. In real life, she explains: “Whatever they want, whatever they want to dissect and get from it. It’s there for them.”

From wearing the mask to being controlled, there are essays about Poppy highlighting the lack of value in women’s voices in music, but it’s not something Poppy feels. “I don’t like to view myself as a victim; at every opportunity, I rise to the occasion, and I am not intimidated by people or opinions or words or men. I think everyone’s equal. I would never view myself in such a way where I’m permissive to be weak

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or weaker than anyone else. I feel pretty strong.

“I think with a lot of great artists, people could learn a thing or two from observing what’s withheld as opposed to what’s in front of them.” Despite the pristine nature of the project, it’s never been overthought or over analysed.

Every decision comes from a place of excitement. “Titanic and I are at the core of it. Everything is about what we like and want to put out. Nobody’s ever said to us, ‘hey, you can’t do that’ and even if they did, sorry, but we’re doing it anyway. We are the decision-makers at the centre of everything.

“Storytelling plays into my world because I have a lot of ideas, and they need to be strung together. I wrote a book, and there’s going to be more of them.

I just like telling stories,” she reasons.

“Storytelling is fun. I’d like to be known as someone that encourages critical thinking. With Titanic and I, we’ve always encouraged that in the project. You can’t just blindly listen to everything everyone says. You can be critical of what I do as well, I welcome that, but I think it’s important to ask questions. Otherwise, you’re just kind of like an ant,” she explains. “I’m laughing at myself here.”

Poppy demands devotion. As with any artist that require such investment in their world, her fans are ride or die. From the outside, they can seem like A Lot, but Poppy is never critical of her seeds.

Does she think people take her too seriously? “No. I like how excited people are about Poppy and what we make.” Does she worry about people feeling ownership over her? “I don’t feel that, no. When I

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release things, I just push ‘em forward and turn around and make something else. I try not to pay that much attention to that.” How does she feel about her fans criticising her life choices, like posting a photo where she’s smoking? “You can’t make everyone happy. I think the photo’s cool, that’s all.”

The Church of Poppy started because “I don’t like any religion, so I created my own,” she explains. “If people need someone to look up to, they can look up to me. I think I’m a good person to look up to.

I think I’m nice and I wear cool clothes,” she says through a grin. “Hopefully my music means something to someone and it can help them in their lives.”

Her mantra of making the world happy, cute and loving everyone is still how she approaches everything, despite the aggression behind her new music. “I try my best, but that’s one of the challenges of life. It’s very hard to love people through things sometimes, but if you can, more power to you. I don’t think it’s hard to exist in this world. You’ve just got to be a nice person.”

Evolved and ready to face the world, Poppy’s bold, jarring pop-metal is a breath of fresh air. Fully realised and with nothing to hide, we still don’t know if she’s humanity’s redemption or its damnation, but she’s a lot of fun. All we know is that we love Poppy.

“I feel like my bubble has gotten bigger, and I can’t see anybody in my way now.

My bubble is so big, I can’t see outside of that, and that’s the way I like it,” she declares, laughing. P Poppy’s album ‘I

Disagree’ is out 10th January.

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FAN C 32 Upset

CLUB Words: Steven Loftin.

Photos: Jawn Rocha.

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In April 2018, chatting to Upset backstage at London’s Koko, Waterparks frontman Awsten Knight distilled the band’s sound down to being trojan horses; dressing up “all the sad shit” with “fucking poprock/electronic banger pop.”

And it would seem that for their third album ‘Fandom’, “God’s favourite fucking boy band” have taken this to the next level.

The first glimpse into what ‘Fandom’ would encompass came from ‘Turbulent’ earlier this year.

With a biting chorus cemented in the gloriously affronting “I’d un-fuck you if I could” - it seemed that Awsten had found not only a new, unharnessed energy, but he had a lot to say with it.

Which is why we’ve got him on the phone; however, it’s a far more subdued Awsten than Upset are used to. He’s pre-morning coffee, but ready to divulge the ins and outs of everything that’s led to ‘Fandom’, and all its cutting words.

The more he unfurls, the more he’s seemingly flicking a lighter intending to burn the words ‘Fandom’ to the ground. Awsten has had enough.

It’s easy to see why when you consider his past couple of years. He’s been through the wringer after a breakup - “I don’t wanna be dramatic, but [it was] traumatic,” he says openly - but this all went down while finding himself locked firmly in the perpetual television that is The

34 Upset

Internet.

“The constant input of people talking about things they had no knowledge of, or ideas or anything. It’s just such a suffocating feeling.

“So [on] the album, there’s a lot of that. It’s basically everything I’ve been dealing with, but while feeling like I’m constantly being watched, or judged, or whatever, by the internet, or by the fandom, do you know what I mean?”

That’s not to mention the constant barrage of commentary and opinion that understandably had ground him down. In his most honest form, he describes his view of the fandom itself as “Eh, it’s not a good thing,” with a deep sigh.

The social distortion that comes from being surrounded, constantly, by people who’re ready to lift you up, and, just as swiftly, knock you down can be brutal. Reality confuses itself.

“I don’t feed off it in a good way. I don’t like any input because it’s just not natural, and I don’t think anybody should experience that.”

It’s a lot for anyone to go through; divulging further, he says: “I can’t have it, even if it’s good. I don’t like logging on and seeing a ton of good things because it’s not healthy.

It doesn’t make sense, and it’s not real.

“If I put down my phone, that all goes away. I definitely hear it from both sides pretty often, and honestly after months and months - or years - of that, even if the effects are slow, I still think it can be very damaging.”

“Am I the boy you dream of, living in your subconscious?” is a question Awsten asks during ‘Dream Boy’; “Can you follow back because it’s my birthday?” he mimicks in ‘I Miss Having Sex…’ The level of fandom that Waterparks are attracting means queues hours before shows start, people vying for their attention, and it’s come

“PEOPLE ARE ALWAYS MAD ABOUT SOME SHIT” AWSTEN KNIGHT

with the realisation that there now exists many perceived versions of who Awsten is.

It’s why he turns to Waterparks’ music to work through this frustration. But while voicing his feelings - both towards the fandom and his past relationship - certainly delivers a few locked and loaded words, instead of lighting a fury filled musical fire below them, they’ve opted for their most explorative sound yet.

“Every song is so different and unique from each other,” Awsten explains. “More than anything we’ve done before, I’m [so] optimistic about it. I guess I can’t expect everyone to have the same vision that I do; I just hope they like it.”

“I go high school writer for a second,” he says, referring to the line “I said I love you to death, so I must be dead” from final track ‘I Felt Younger When We Met’. “But yeah, I’m excited to have things that are so sonically different thematically tie in with each other.”

As each Waterparks album progresses, it would seem that Awsten’s confidence with facing his problems head-on is growing, even if it leads to unforeseen consequences in the real world.

“Writing it may have made me more reserved in real life,” he reflects.

“Whenever I look at it, I’m like Jesus Christ; this is heavy shit. Oh my god, this is what this thing can make you feel, whether it’s a relationship, or a fan thing, whatever - the internet. If I step back and look at the lyrics, I’m like, this stuff affects you so much, oh my god. And naturally when you’re like ‘this affects me way too much’, you kind of pull back, so maybe it’s made me more reserved.”

Does he remember the first time the spotlight began to snapback at Waterparks?

“Let’s see…” he pauses. “Hmm, I’d say groups have always gotten mad at random shit here and there. I remember when we first started headlining people got mad, I don’t know why - people were just pissed about that. Man, honestly everything. Some people are always mad about some shit. It’s never coming from a malicious place, but I think people are just bored.”

No matter what, the world of Waterparks, now fuelled by ‘Fandom’, is going to keep on spinning, so the issues he vehemently spits about are going nowhere. Is he ready for that?

“No,” he cautiously chuckles. “I’m probably gonna quit.”

It might be the subdued, caffeine-starved nature in his voice, but it all feels real for a moment.

“We’ll probably do another album after this, and depending on how I feel… no, you know what, here’s whassup,” he jumps back into life for his selfserving wisdom. “We won’t quit, but I’ll probably have to be off the internet more.” P Waterparks’

album ‘Fandom’ is out now.

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Words: Jack Press.

Photos: Sarah Louise Bennett.

36 Upset

weavers

In a world where social media governs the young generation and mental health issues continue to spread like wildfire, it’s more important than ever before for the arts to offer more than just an hour’s escape from reality.

While governments go to war over borders, the younger population are being left by the wayside. The masses need a voice to champion their own.

Enter Dream State, Wales’ newest purveyors of post-hardcore ready and raring to take the world by storm as the people’s band. Melding pummelling post-hardcore with slabs of stadium-sized choruses and swirling synths, Dream State share their stories of struggling with addiction and mental health in the modern age. With the backing of big-boy label UNFD – home to the likes of Beartooth and Frank Iero – and a slew of critically acclaimed EPs, best British breakthrough awards and high-profile support slots, they’re finally taking the next step with their debut album, ‘Primrose Path’.

‘Primrose Path’ is the result of a year of blood, sweat and tears.

Born out of a band broken before they’d already begun, their desire to be both defiant and honest kept their heads above water, their

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pens on paper, and their music flowing. Their debut album is aptly named as the writing and recording of it truly took them down a primrose path of their own.

“On an emotional level, we felt a little bit lost,” sighs vocalist CJ Gilpin, reflecting on the recording process in a rare moment of peace. “We put ourselves in a box to begin with, we felt so stressed out with trying to fight, and nothing was flowing naturally.

I think we were afraid that it needed to sound like the EPs [2015’s ‘Consequences’ and 2018’s ‘Recovery’] and that it needed to sound like this or like this, and we ended up putting loads of walls up around us.”

With an EP to promote, a calendarsplitting diary of shows to play and mounting label pressure CJ drove the band crazy, pushing them into a creative crypt.

“We felt the pressure pretty hard going into Christmas 2018 because it’s such a big part of our career,” adds co-vocalist and guitarist Rhys Wilcox. “It’s arguably the most make-or-break moment for a band, the process of releasing their debut album.”

Juggling the expectations of a label and a fanbase with the realities of the real world was a testing time for the band. The pressures of simply affording to live were creeping up on them, and they needed to hit the ground running while making ends meet.

“We were flat out with work at the same time,” reflects Rhys.

“A lot of people might not be aware, but bands of our size are still scrambling to make ends meet. There were so many time constraints, we were just trying to

get our demos written as quickly as possible.”

CJ adds: “The second we remembered why we’re musicians in the first place, which is to constantly explore and to branch out and to evolve and change, was the second we took those walls down and lifted some of the pressure off of ourselves. We realised that it didn’t need to be anything, that there didn’t need to be any limits.”

When they rediscovered the reasons, they were making music together in the first place, the quartet took themselves to Newcastle Under Lyme where they locked themselves away inside The Silk Mill Recording Studios. They tapped into the wisdom of SikTh guitarist and renowned producer Dan Weller (Enter Shikari, Bury Tomorrow) and didn’t come out until they’d walked the Primrose Path and brought the album to fruition.

“We did so many late nights, getting back to where we were staying in the early hours of the morning,” remembers Rhys.

“One night I was in the vocal booth doing harmonies for about five or six hours on the trot that by the time we left, it was broad daylight.”

“Dan is on the same wavelength as us, and he gave me so much more confidence,” adds CJ admiringly. “He loved every song we wrote and having that input, and that validation gave us the confidence to push the album into more adventurous directions. Some of the stuff on the album is spoken word, and honest and candid, and I would reach out and say it’s not good enough, and he would wipe that fear away by saying it’s great, and

“I’VE HAD DARK PHASES, BUT THERE’S ALWAYS LIGHT AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL”

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don’t be afraid of your own ability, be as honest and as adventurous with it as you can.”

Being honest is a quality that comes naturally to the band. Since their formation in 2014, they’ve developed a fanbase that’s more of a family, built by the foundations of an honest relationship both onstage and off. It’s this notion of honesty that flows through the album’s veins, filling it with a raw

emotion few bands muster years into their careers, let alone on their debut album.

“When a song starts writing, I know there’s something I’ve got to address and get onto paper, especially when I go to the darkest points in my life. I believe in being truthful and open and honest, there’s so much strength in that.

We want to vanquish the stigma of fear and mental health issues.”

‘Primrose Path’, book-ended by the moving, towering five-minute opuses ‘Made Up Smile’ and ‘I Feel It Too’ is jam-packed to the rafters with songs sung straight from the heart about the very real and very recent struggles the band have experienced. For CJ, writing this album meant staring at herself at the mirror and confronting her demons head-on.

“It was scary, especially when

writing ‘I Feel It Too’. I was afraid of putting it out, I’m scared, because it’s so honest, but I know it’s important and it’s part of my journey, learning that you can go through a lot of pain and still come out the other end happy.

“When I put out music like that, I need our fans to know that my pain is no different from anyone else’s; everybody feels that weight in their chest and that feeling of hurt no matter what’s going on in their lives. It’s about not letting it completely swallow you and crush you and if anything, use it as a tool.”

For CJ, Rhys and the Dream State family, the process of writing and recording ‘Primrose Path’ has been a cathartic learning curve, where their perspectives were flipped upside down. Through the personal growth came battles through pain, with CJ going as far as battling addiction behind the scenes while on tour. It’s left a mark on her both personally and professionally, changing her outlook on life.

“There’s no such thing as peace, that’s one thing I’ve learnt, it’s the biggest truth. It’s the yin-yang balance of life, there’s no light without dark, no dark without light. I want people to know that whatever they’re going through, no matter how difficult it is, order always follows chaos. We were on tour with Amity Affliction while writing the album, and I was drinking a lot on that tour, pushing myself into a really dark corner and I found light at the end of the tunnel by recognising new demons in myself and confronting them.”

Each of the ten tracks that comprise ‘Primrose Path’’s tracklisting are stories written from the heart based on battles with the mind. From dealing with addiction and suffering with mental health issues to juggling the pressures of spending quality family time and preparing yourself for the journey of a lifetime; Primrose Path

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takes the listener on a journey through feelings not dissimilar to their own. The lyrical content compliments the musical direction.

‘Out Of The Blue’ is one of the album’s faster cuts, seeing the band kicking and screaming out of the start-gate with passion. It was made exactly as it sounds, through nothing but sheer blood, sweat and tears, as CJ explains: “I was screaming down the microphone at two in the morning, I felt like death and it definitely conveys, my voice is giving up I’m going that hard.

Rhys took the majority of the writing with this one and he was getting so stressed with the writing, literally screaming ‘I can’t write anything, it’s stressing me out!’ and then he just went ‘fuck it, fuck it. I’m just going to write something, I’m CJ going to say how I feel’, and it came right out of the blue.”

Finding themselves was at the heart of the recording process for ‘Primrose Path’. It was as transcendental for the band as it was existential. Breaking through the barriers of negativity their mental health put around them, Dream State found hope and embraced it. On ‘Are You Ready To Live’, CJ found her true self.

“It was to remind myself that no matter what’s going on in our lives, it’s just one big ride. It’s not something to be taken too seriously, and you’ll find you live more once you realise that, like take pain and suffering as experiences and jumpy parts of the ride, but it’s still a ride. It’s like saying, are you ready for it?

It’s going to be wild, it’s going to be full of colours, it’s going to be crazy, and it’s going to be painful, but it’s all part of it, it’ll be the ride of your life, this life, the ride of life, the song of life, everything.

That bit for me is the breaking

point of accepting it, and that’s where music breaks down into something else, and I felt like I was dancing, spinning around in a garden surrendering to it all.”

Having experienced this epiphany for herself, CJ has made it her mission and her duty to share her experiences and open her audience’s mind, not as a musician but as a human being.

“The world can be beautiful when you completely resolve everything within yourself, no fear and no regrets. I want to teach people that I’ve had dark phases, but there’s always light at the end of the tunnel. No matter how dark things get, I don’t want to die, I don’t want to give up, I still want to live and learn, whatever we’re here for is an experience, and everything happens for a reason.

“When you listen to some music out there, these kids are watching it, and they’re highly influenced by these artists; they become gods to them, and they worship, and they follow, and they do things. I want to make sure we reach out to the people walking on the edge, the people beating themselves up too much, and pull something good out of them.

“I had this awakening at a very early age where I was like ‘I’m alone’. We’re all really alone, even when we have friends and family; it’s still just ourselves at the end of the day. Kids these days, with social media and the pressures put on the younger generation, they need to remember that times can look so bleak, and that we’re so influenced by fear and the things we see on the news, but that it’s okay. It’s just a reminder for people to look within.”

Looking within was a difficult task for CJ, but one she’s ultimately made peace with.

Through reaching deep inside her own mind, she’s discovered a deep connection to pain, and how

“WE’RE NOT PERFECT, NOTHING’S PERFECT”

pleasure can come from it.

“I’m so grateful for pain. I tell everyone to be grateful for it because for me it’s been nothing but my muse. One of my favourite lyrics from Hellions, in the song ‘X (Mwah)’, they sing ‘a poet will find no use for peace’, and it’s so true.

I’ve faced so many battles in my life that now I just know it’ll make a great song. I’m not worried, I’m going to take it all in and be strong and ride through it, even though there are the days I completely break down and want to give up.

The voice that’s always got my back is always stronger than any other.”

Through making friends with pain and acknowledging peace, Dream State have taken their first steps down their own Primrose Path. By distilling that journey into their songs, they’ve created one of the most important albums of the decades. Dream State sing the songs and preach the perils of a generation who need a voice. For them, their experiences and their journey are lessons to be learnt by all.

“I think everyone is on the primrose path in their own way, whether it’s over-indulging in technology or addiction to drugs and alcohol; everybody seeks pleasure, and even though there are negative health benefits.

We must learn the worst part of ourselves in order to change, and that’s what the whole album means to me. The only way that I can change is to know these parts of myself and to be introduced to them, we’re not perfect. It’s understanding that we’re not perfect, nothing’s perfect. It’s a journey for the self, and understanding the self, and knowing it’s okay even when bad things happen or when you do things that don’t resonate with your true self, or they go wrong and you do them anyway. It’s about learning about yourself.”

P Dream State’s debut album

‘Primrose Path’ is out 18th October.

Upset 41

Words: Steven Loftin.

Photos: Oliver Halfin.

42 Upset

Blink, and you’ll miss it. The strides into realising you’re getting older, and life is outpacing you, can seem humongous and confusing. But it’s not until you’re distilling this notion, let’s say, to someone over the phone that it all kind of begins to make sense.

“A younger me would’ve listened to me now and thought I was just reading inspirational posters,” Jimmy Eat World frontman Jim Adkins chuckles. “With pictures of kittens on them with captions saying ‘Hold On’ or ‘Take it Easy’.”

This revelation has taken place at quite the milestone for the Jim and the band. Their tenth album, ‘Surviving’, is not just a monument to growth, understanding and reflection, but it’s also proof that Jimmy Eat World are unstoppable.

“When you’re younger, you just act.

You don’t quite understand it. You feel like it’s something you absolutely have to do, so you just do it,” he muses. “And [then] it’s out there. You don’t spend a whole lot of time on reflection because you’re onto the next thing that you just have to do.”

Having spent the best part of two decades crafting an arsenal of emo bangers that have soundtracked countless formative years, the Jimmy Eat World of 2019 are certainly showing no signs of slowing down. If anything there’s a newfound purpose to the moves they make, no moment wasted since nothing truly lasts forever.

“As you get older, you feel like ‘Why am I doing this?’” Jim posits. “’Do you have an answer for that?’ I feel like that’s important because you’ve made albums before. What, personally, do I get from making another album?

How many albums are there? Am I doing this to fuck around, or do I have

Upset 43

something to say here?”

“It’s important to know what you want to say. I mean yes, it’s important to explore, but if you’re going to put something out in the world and have your name on it - who are you?! It’s a way of exploring who you are and having something to say about that. That’s different, from being younger, where you’re just reacting to the feeling that you have to create something.”

And it’s all of this which has all led to ‘Surviving’. Littered throughout Jimmy Eat World’s back catalogue, there’s been a recurring theme - the idea of growing up. Sure, they’ve soundtracked many a heartbreak, disenfranchised youth and generally lost wanderers but it’s all rooted in growing. That’s why they’re on their tenth album.

That’s why it’s so timeless. We never truly stop learning.

As for how that’s affected a band like Jimmy Eat World, who’s more than aware of the impact they’ve had, along with the ever-growing pressures of being ‘A Band’ in the modern age; apparently, it’s just “a lot like the previous nine,” Jim smiles.

“Playing music is just part of who we are. It’s part of our foundation as humans. We love doing it, and I can’t imagine existing without it. You never really clock out.”

Over the years, Jim has learned a few things about himself. The biggest being that he can write a pretty good rock jam. But it’s the life lessons which have shaved down the cobbled road to make this path of his a perfect patchwork of understanding.

Giving him the ability to share this experience, which is the most pivotal.

When Jimmy Eat World began their journey back in 1993, Jim was just eighteen. Now fortyfive and with a family, he still “identifies sometimes as a fourteen-year-old metalhead guitar player guy”, but it’s the life he’s led which has afforded

44 Upset

him the ability to hold it all in retrospect with ease.

“I’m constantly asking myself questions. I’m constantly exploring ideas and feelings I have, and trying to reinterpret old expressions of feeling and thought. The experience of the band has definitely conditioned me to be more aware of things as they pop up. I can identify thoughts and feelings for what they are better now because of my environment. I grew up asking myself questions and exploring.

It’s a whole other story as to if I choose the right response to them - but I can identify them,” he laughs.

I

n every guitar chord, fervent beat and yearning emotional lyric, Jimmy Eat World’s DNA may have started as the four guys in a small room, but now it’s a nostalgia far bigger than them.

That’s not to resign them to

any yearbook status, to only ever be immortalised as the band that may have been playing in the background of a teen drama or emo club night. There’s a pulse that still beats deep within them.

One that keeps them at the core of the world they’ve helped build.

On ‘Surviving’ you’ll still find Jimmy Eat World, that’s for sure. But there’s more to delve into below the surface than on any other Jimmy Eat World album. ‘555’ is a dark, pulsating cut that harks back to Jim’s love for the music he grew up with, particularly eighties pop. Rattling off a list of obscure acts, this isn’t the only stop on ‘Surviving’ and its anchoring in Jim’s musical beginnings.

The first single ‘All The Way (Stay)’ felt like not only a rejuvenated Jimmy Eat World, but it also came out of leftfield with a sax solo. “I was listening to a lot of eighties music. If you

were a session sax player in the eighties, you were set. There were sax solos on everything! And [it was] a gag that we’d been talking about.”

“There has to be something you’re doing that makes you laugh a little bit,” he explains.

“You don’t wanna be sitting with an idea and be like, ‘Yep, that’s totally solid, that’ll fit right in with everything else!’ Sure, you might come up with something passable, but I think our best stuff is us pushing our self-perception a little bit.”

Self-perception is one thing, but as a band just as important is the outward perception. After all, it’s those hordes of ears that are glued to whatever noise you’re making that, quite brutally, are the decider between making it or breaking it.

When it comes to the Jimmy Eat World gang, the passage of time has not only gifted them

their mainstay status, priceless self-pity.” knowledge about growing, but Indeed, the level Jimmy Eat also the ability to now live in the World are at now may seem like moment. To take it all as it comes, it’s all set out before them. But no matter the weather. they still find the road a harsh “The judge even to this funny thing day. Recalling is though, playing Reading that’s what & Leeds, Milton you’re always Keynes, Jim doing,” Jim knows it’s just says. “Whether as important to you have years acknowledge and and years of respect the times experience, that they’d maybe or you’re just rather forget. getting going, “It’s [still a] JIM ADKINS all you have is total gambit of right now, and ups and downs. what you do in the next moment, But I think through it all unless that is a choice that’s yours. you’re maintaining a level of “I do feel that as I get older, gratitude that you are connecting it’s easier to find gratefulness with anybody, you’re just not in smaller and smaller things. gonna make it. Speaking about I see opportunity more than I people in bands specifically, if see struggle, and I definitely see things are going great, you might more gratefulness more than I see be popular, you can’t expect that that’s how it’s going to stay.

“You’ve just gotta take things as they come and be grateful for whatever happens because people liking you, people accepting you - you don’t control what other people think. The only thing you can really do is put out your work in a way that you feel proud of, and stick to your guns and be satisfied with that.”

“AM I DOING THIS TO FUCK AROUND, OR DO I HAVE SOMETHING TO SAY HERE?”

“In a lot of ways you’re still that lost kid,” Jim sings on ‘Surviving’’s titular euphoric opening track, and the retrospect

screams from these words, but this album is far more than what its title suggests.

“It’s seamless. I don’t often think of myself as the real person that I am right now in my forties,” he says. “You know, who has three kids and is in a rock band. I don’t think of myself as old as I was when I was younger and looking at older people.”

Far from a band merely surviving, it would seem Jimmy Eat World are thriving. P Jimmy

Eat World’s album ‘Surviving’ is out 18th October.

Upset 45

SOME G In 2017, Great Grandpa wowed us with their slacker-infused grunge-pop, but just two years later they’ve reset the clock and delivered a genuine album of the year contender.

46 Upset

ONE R E A T Words: Rob Mair.

Photos: West Smith.

Upset 47

“So much of this album is about destroying expectations and surprising people,” considers Great Grandpa’s Pat Goodwin.

It’s a bold claim, but one which ‘Four of Arrows’ more than backs up, confirming the group’s leap from grunge-flecked slacker punks to indie-rock darlings. An immeasurable and intangible shift, ‘Four of Arrows’ is a record that signifies personal and musical growth, driven by a desire to produce art that is emotionally powerful and universally relatable.

Yet such growth is not without its challenges, as a chat with the quintet’s Wisconsin-based duo Carrie and Pat Goodwin reveal.

“We knew we were going to probably lose a significant number of fans who really love that sort of garage rock,” says Pat, when discussing the pressure to follow-up ‘Plastic Cough’. A highlight of 2017, it’s an album that earned the then-Seattle based group (completed by Dylan Hanwright, Alex Menne and Cam LaFlam) tours with a diverse bunch of acts including Citizen, Diet Cig and Rozwell Kid, as well as placing well on numerous end of year lists.

But it was also something of a millstone for the group, written and recorded more than a year before its initial release. A stick in the ground, by the time it came out it no longer represented the group accurately – even if it was taken to heart by thousands of fans thanks to an irreverent sense of humour, a breezy attitude and songs about zombies and the munchies.

“It’s funny that it’s become this defining thing for the band for the next four years,” laughs Pat.

48 Upset

“Even by the time ‘Plastic Cough’ was released, we wanted to be the band that we are now, so it’s almost frustrating we’ve had to wait so long to get to this point.”

Yet ‘Plastic Cough’ also possess moments of emotional power and poignancy, which went overlooked when set against the record’s zany, primary colour immediacy. Yet, this emotional heft is front and centre of ‘Four of Arrows’, building on the foundations laid by its predecessor to create something far more ambitious – and intimate – than a basement punk record.

One of the main reasons for this was the Goodwins’ move to Milwaukee, principally for Carrie to go to graduate school. In Seattle, Great Grandpa lived and worked together, allowing the fun and light-hearted vibe to translate to the record. Finding himself isolated in Milwaukee, working remotely for an LA-based company and without many friends in an alien city, Pat’s lyrics became more considered, personal and introspective.

“For me, it was a really good thing to move away from Seattle for a while,” says Carrie. “I just needed to do something that was on my own. We’d been spending so much time together as a band, and we’d been touring so much.

Our lives were chaotic all the time, and it was nice to get a little bit of a routine back in my life and do something outside of music that made music feel exciting again.”

“Whereas I was sort of dragged along because we’re married,” continues Pat. “But it took me a long time to really build a community or find friends, like it does when you move to a new city. I was isolated and alone a lot because I was working from home, I had no co-workers here in Milwaukee and didn’t really have many friends for a long time.

And I think all of that had a big influence on the songwriting.”

Geographically removed from the rest of the group, Pat

was able to write more personal lyrics, and this, in turn, informed the contributions of Carrie, Alex and Dylan. Even though Great Grandpa worked collaboratively – and continue to do so – the collaborations are now much more subtle, rather than having one person write a song or a verse.

This time, Pat found himself writing most of the songs and lyrics, with Carrie serving as chief editor and co-writer. Dylan and Alex would then fill in gaps when needed, writing lyrics to a couple of songs and completing the album. While ‘Plastic Cough’ reflected the group’s idiosyncratic approach to songwriting, ‘Four of Arrows’ feels much more cohesive; the product of a principal songwriter and willing conspirators all on the same page.

“I think it’s hard to make

dictated that as well,” says Pat. art that’s really personal and “But then, we all also wanted to really introspective as a group,” make more considers serious music.

Carrie.

“I think “When you’re some of by yourself, that leaked you can get into Great the songs to Grandpa’s a place where earlier stuff you’re more because that’s comfortable what we all sharing ultimately them, and by wanted to do, that point, but we were you’re often CARRIE GOODWIN maybe afraid further along to explore in the writing in too much process. depth because, as Carrie says, “From the beginning, when that’s a hard thing to do in a group we set the tone for the band, it setting. It’s hard to be vulnerable was going to be something that when you’re trying to make music we didn’t take very seriously, and as a group in a band room or the more collaborative process

“IT’S HARD TO MAKE ART THAT’S REALLY PERSONAL AND REALLY INTROSPECTIVE AS A GROUP”

practice space.”

This move to a more emotional and introspective band certainly plays to the strength of vocalist Alex Menne, and it shows on the likes of gorgeous lead single ‘Mono No Aware’, the brooding opening track ‘Dark Green Water’ or vulnerable and honest ‘Bloom’.

The emotional heartbeat of the band, there’s a push and pull to Alex’s delivery that makes Great Grandpa arresting at the best of times. Here, there are moments of such power and potency ‘Four of Arrows’ feels like a landslide of emotions.

To wring every emotion out of the songs, Alex made the decision to record their vocals separately.

Pat and Carrie were stunned when they heard the results. “I cried a lot,” says Pat. “It’s just really special to hear the things that I’ve written, performed in a better way than I could ever hope to do it on my own,” says Carrie. “It was very powerful for me.”

The response to singles ‘Mono No Aware’ and ‘Digger’ reflects this too. While both Carrie and Pat admit to feeling more than a little apprehensive about debuting their new sound, their decision to back their art has been vindicated.

“We were worried that some people would be really vocal about the change of style, but everyone’s been very kind to us,” says Carrie.

“We were definitely expecting more negative comments from people who were expecting ‘Plastic Cough’ 2.0,” continues Pat. “I mean, there were a couple of those, but overall we were surprised at how many people were willing to go with us.

“I think that’s a testament to the fact that we made the music we wanted to make. And, you know, there might be some people who love this record and will go back to ‘Plastic Cough’ and be like ‘Oh no, I hate it!’” P

Great Grandpa’s album ‘Four of Arrows’ is out 25th October.

Upset 49

Rated_ THE OFFICIAL VERDICT ON EVERYTHING

ANAVAE 45 eee

WATERPARKS FANDOM e eee

W

e’ve all been there.

We’ve worked on something for a while, but it’s just not happening.

Something is wrong. At some point a wrong turn has been made, and now the whole project is pointing the wrong way down a one way street. So what do you do next When it comes to Waterparks, they trash the lot and start again. That’s what happened with ‘Fandom’, the band’s third full-length. Back in spring, leader Awsten Knight revealed on Twitter he’d wiped the whole thing from his laptop. In double-

50 Upset

quick time, they were back at work, laying down what would eventually become ‘Fandom’.

Spoiler alert: it was almost certainly the right call.

A genre-fluid collection of adrenaline rush emotion, it’s the kind of record which is always on edge. Built mainly around the break up of a relationship, it ties in fan culture, emotional uncertainty and the modern realities of being a band. Lead track ‘Turbulent’ isn’t selling anything short; it really is.

From the scene-skewering sabre of ‘Watch What Happens Next’ through the simmering bitterness of ‘Easy To Hate’, those harsh moments are wrapped in a saccharine shell bittersweet nuggets of extreme emotion. ‘High Definition’ swoons through the insecurity, while ‘New Bloom’ twinkles with telling barbs and self-doubt.

At times, Awsten’s vocals sound almost vicious - the sharp edges of broken dreams and emotional toxicity laid out for all to see - but that’s what ‘Fandom’ embraces best. Everything turned to maximum saturation, Waterparks remain rock’s brightest hope. P Stephen

Ackroyd

So the story goes, Anavae guitarist Jamie Finch was on the verge of packing in the music game part way through the recording of this, their debut album ‘45’. With nothing really working for him, he threw the dice one last time, putting down an idea he’d been musing on for a few years. Once that was sorted, he could be done, he thought. That song, it turns out, went on to be ‘Not Enough’ - the fizzing pop-rock gem that sits at the heart of the duo’s first full-length. A swaggering siren call, it was the catalyst for many more. It’s easy to see why, too. Kicking genre boundaries to the kerb, it’s a strobing bright light that serves as a wake-up call to those around it. Becca NeedMenear’s vocals cut through like a hot knife on ‘Human’, while ‘Night’ slips through the shadows effortlessly. Turns out that victory is always just round the corner after all.

P Dan Harrison

BABYMETAL METAL GALAXY eeee

Three albums in, and there’s still nothing quite like Babymetal. Though line-up changes may have switched their internal dynamic around for a while, razor-sharp riffs and bubblegum vocals still abound. If anything, ‘Metal Galaxy’ might be more gloriously mad than what’s come before, ‘Oh! MAJINAI’ is Babymetal do scandi-pirate metal, while ‘Brand New Day’ is more dry ice and R&B pop. There’s still a strong slice of

trademark full-throttle ridiculousness, though. ‘Da Da Dance’ is relentlessly everything, all at once, while ‘Pa Pa Ya!’ mixes both strands to full effect. Babymetal are still a prospect that’s divisive at the very least, but providing you’re still willing to buy into their ‘Metal Galaxy’, the party’s still going strong. P Dan

Harrison

BODEGA

SHINY NEW MODEL EP e e ee Returning swiftly after last year’s debut ‘Endless Scroll’, Bodega already look to be ushering in a new era. A natural evolution and progression, ‘Shiny New Model’ is a subtle yet distinct move on from those promising beginnings. There are so many ideas bursting out of the likes of the insistent ‘Domesticated Animal’ or the gorgeous ‘Realism’ that it would be no surprise to see these return in fuller form next time around. As if to prove that point, ‘Truth Is Not Punishment’ returns in a whole new format. A track that was short and punchy on ‘Endless Scroll’ is here sprawling and captivating, twisting and reforming just as it has on live performances since its inception. It’s an impressive diversion from one of the most interesting bands in recent years. P Jamie MacMillan

DREAM STATE PRIMROSE PATH e e ee

”I like to be real. I want people to feel connected... I can’t be fake, that’s just not in me. I can’t put on a façade.”

That’s the quote from Dream State

vocalist CJ Gilpin that comes alongside the band’s debut album, ‘Primrose Path’ - and it’s one that sums up the Welsh upstarts well.

There’s nothing filtered here.

Emotionally raw and dealing with life as it comes, they’re tapping into a vein of no holds barred rock that’s more than willing to draw from any and all directions. Mixing riffs and electronic wizardly, there’s more than one layer to their craft. ‘Are You Ready To Live’ is a direct hit, while ‘Open Windows’ skewers the insecurity and disconnection of a social media obsessed modern life.

As ‘I Feel It Too’ smoulders to a close - all spoken word and screaming emotions - there’s no doubting it at all; Dream State are the real deal. There’ s nothing fake here. P

Stephen Ackroyd

FALSE ADVERTISING BRAINFREEZE eeee

Here to provide another vital new voice in British rock, Manchester’s False Advertising aren’t messing around on their debut full-length. ‘Brainfreeze’ carries with it the mood of a band who won’t be content with playing in back rooms and support slots for long - this lot are already eyeing up the biggest stages, while the likes of ‘Personal Gain’ are already signalling

that there may be surprising diversions along the way. Not a perfect album, but the flaws are perfect in their own way. One seriously exciting start. P Jamie

MacMillan

GREAT GRANDPA FOUR OF ARROWS eeeee

On 2017’s fantastic ‘Plastic Cough’, the then Seattle-based Great Grandpa delivered some raucously entertaining grunge-tinged indierock, mixing pathos and sensitivity with songs about zombie attacks and early morning munchies. ‘Four Of Arrows’ is, therefore, something of an about-turn for the group.

Stripped of the rough edges, it’s a far more expansive and musically expressive experience, sitting comfortably alongside the likes of Hop Along or the much-missed Rilo Kiley. It’s gorgeous too, lifted by strings and textured arrangements that ebb like a tide; at turns a gentle swell, at others a tumultuous crashing. What’s most remarkable is that this has all been achieved without compromise.

‘Four Of Arrows’ exists in a space grounded in the constraints of humdrum reality, but brilliant enough to thrive in moments of magic and majesty. P Rob Mair

Upset 51

Rated_ with all the fire of classic Refused; huge riff, yelping vocals, a direct desire to knock the world off its axis. If we can’t save ourselves, we may as well burn it all down. P

Dan Harrison

STRAY FROM THE PATH INTERNAL ATOMICS eee

PVRIS

HALLUCINATIONS EP eeeee In 2019, there’s no room left for boundaries. Anyone sticking firmly to their lane is missing the point. A culture based on influence from all angles isn’t going to stay so staunchly tribal for long. That’s something PVRIS know better than most. With their third album on the way, their appetiser ‘Hallucinations’ EP sees the trio jump off the high board into a pool filled to the brim with technicolour pop. When mixed with their own shadowy hues, we’re left with something both seek and dynamic, but also capable of blasting through the noise. With a title track that stomps to its own beat, the strutting ‘Nightmare’ and sweeping ‘Old Wounds’, across five songs

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PVRIS prove they’re every bit a band for right now. In 2020, expect them to make bigger waves than ever before. P Stephen Ackroyd

REFUSED WAR MUSIC eee

Given the state of the planet right now - both ecologically and politically - it’s hard to imagine a more fitting point for Refused to emerge with a new record. 2015’s comeback album ‘Freedom’ was born of time in the studio - that period post their 2012 comeback but before their glorious return as a recording band proper.

‘War Music’, on the other hand, is forged in the fire of live performance. It shows. ‘Blood Red’ - the album’s clear standout - sparks

Stray From The Path are not mucking about, that’s for sure.

‘Internal Atomics’ is an album that sounds as explosive in name as it does in its raw aggression. With their inner engine running hot, it’s an album that isn’t pulling punches, either. “There’s a place in hell, for the bastards like you,” ‘Second Death’ screams to a close, showing teeth that bite hard throughout. But there’s a compassion beneath the fury too.

Closer ‘Actions Not Words’ inspired by a 2018 trip to Africa it’s a fitting tribute to a band living up to that billing. There’s no shortage of either, here, but it’s the former that really make the difference. P Dan Harrison

WHITE REAPER YOU DESERVE LOVE eeee

The rock underground is a fascinating place full of oddities and misfits, but White Reaper are far too catchy to remain hidden for long.

Single ‘IF’ unlocks the secret to the perfect indie dancefloor classic, sounding like it’s been stripped right from a mid-00s British club night. ‘Real Long Time’ is a proper guitar-rock anthem, with ‘Ring’ serving to remind that classic riffs can be modernised and take the genre forward. We should be proud to home White Reaper in our underground right now, and when justice comes, they’ll be lighting up arenas. P Paris Fawcett

“The perfect soundtrack with which to meet the apocalypse” KERRANG - KKKK

“Black Futures could do for British rock music what Daft Punk did for French EDM in the Nineties” THE INDEPENDENT

“Arguably the debut album of the year already” CLASSIC ROCK - 9/10

“Black Futures embrace sonic anarchy on their full-length debut” METAL HAMMER - 8/10

EVERYONE HAS THOSE FORMATIVE BANDS AND TRACKS THAT FIRST GOT THEM INTO MUSIC AND HELPED SHAPE THEIR VERY BEING. THIS MONTH, DREW YORK FROM STRAY FROM THE PATH TAKES US THROUGH SOME THE SONGS THAT MEANT THE MOST TO HIM DURING HIS TEENAGE YEARS. Photo: Gabe Becerra.

WITH...DREWYORK,STRAYFROMTHEPATH GREEN DAY When I Come Around

The first time I saw Green Day live, I was seven years old. This band is for sure the reason and the gateway into discovering myself and what I wanted to do with my life. My mom decided it would be a good idea to pack up the car and take me, my brother, and my cousin to Woodstock 1994.

We didn’t have tickets, we ended up sneaking in through a fence. I fell in love with punk rock music and culture.

BIG L The Heist

As I got a little older and started getting into skateboarding and its culture, I was introduced to rap/hip-hop. When I heard ‘The Heist’ by Big L, I thought it was the HARDEST rap song I had ever heard. I still bump that shit in my car. Big L is and will always be one of the greatest hip hop artists of all time, RIP.

GLASSJAW Siberian Kiss

It’s safe to say that Glassjaw has had the biggest influence on me as a whole. My guitar player Tom Williams actually introduced Glassjaw to me at a sleepover we had when were like 14 years old.

I had never heard anything like them before. It was punk, it was hardcore, and it had so much raw emotion. The whole aesthetic of this band is perfect.

TERROR Push It Away

When I was in the ninth grade, my friend handed me a gold CD that just said “Terror” on it.

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This was the most pissed off and aggressive band I had ever heard.

I remember walking around the hallways as a pissed off angsty teenager just blasting this record into my ears. I must have listened to ‘Push It Away’ like two hundred times that year.

EVERY TIME I DIE Logic of Crocodiles

The early two-thousands were a very influential time for metalcore, punk, and hardcore.

Every Time I Die are one of the most innovative bands in this culture. Keith Buckley’s voice really helped me learn how to scream. I never tried to sound like anyone, but Keith’s voice and his lyrics are a good guideline on how to not suck.

ALKALINE TRIO Private Eye

When I was about sixteen years old, I was introduced to Alkaline Trio. Something about the dark vibe of this band really intrigued me. They were a pop-punk band similar to blink and Green Day, but they had this dark and goth vibe. I thought that was so cool.

THIRD EYE BLIND Blinded

Third Eye Blind will forever be “the gods of summer”. They just have that summertime sound that makes you want to drive into the sunset with your best friends.

The first car I ever owned was a blue Mercury Sable, It was a decent piece of shit, drove like a boat, but I loved that car. I would blast ‘Blinded’ as loud as those speakers could handle.

BLINK-182 Josie

My stockings on Christmas Eve night consisted of candy and other bullshit like any other middle-class kid growing up until I was about 11 or 12.

One Christmas Eve, my mom put a VHS titled ‘The Urethra Chronicles’ in my stocking.

Man, I must have watched that fucking thing like one thousand times. I thought blink-182 was the funniest and coolest band of all time. P

Stray From The Path’s album ‘Internal Atomics’ is out 1st November.