Cold Years debut album Paradise Out Now
“Pissed off never sounded so righteous” - Upset
OCTOBER 2020 Issue 59
HELLO.
Will we manage one of these editor’s letters without talking about the dreaded COVID any time soon? Probably not, loyal reader, but we can but hope. Despite the mayhem that reigns supreme in the world of live music, at least we’re still getting some Really Very Good new releases announced and dropped to keep us going during ‘these difficult times’. Chief amongst them, there’s a much-anticipated album from the mighty Grandson, who takes the cover of Upset for the first time. There are also amazing records arriving from Knuckle Puck, Touché Amoré, IDLES, Yours Truly, Jamie Lenman and loads more. Every cloud has a silver lining, right?
S tephen
Editor / @stephenackroyd
Upset Editor Stephen Ackroyd Deputy Editor Victoria Sinden Associate Editor Ali Shutler Scribblers Alexander Bradley, Charlotte Croft, Dan Harrison, George Clarke, Jamie MacMillan, Jasleen Dhindsa, Linsey Teggert, Paris Fawcett, Rob Mair, Sam Taylor, Steven Loftin Snappers Anam Merchant, Brandon Lung, Faolān Carey, Georgia Moloney, Natalie Piserchio, Sarah Louise Bennett, Scott Charmers, Tom Ham P U B L I S H E D F RO M
W E LCO M E TOT H E B U N K E R.CO M U N I T 10, 23 G RA N G E RO A D, H A S T I N G S, T N34 2R L
All material copyright (c). All rights reserved.
RIOT 4. JAMIE LENMAN 10. PILLOW QUEENS 12. INTO IT. OVER IT. 15. METZ ABOUT TO BREAK 16. KID BRUNSWICK FEATURES 18. GRANDSON
30. YOURS TRULY 34. KNUCKLE PUCK 40. TOUCHÉ AMORÉ 44. SAD13 REVIEWS 48. DEFTONES 48. IDLES TEENAGE KICKS 50. LONELY THE BRAVE
Riot_ EVERYTHING HAPPENING IN ROCK
Those romantic, carefree days of 2019, with Jamie Lenman in his bold red suit belting out his reimagined version of Cyndi Lauper’s ‘She Bop’ or ‘Hey Jude’ by The Beatles seem like a lifetime ago. In ‘Shuffle’, the enigmatic singer scratched a creative itch which resulted in a unique record that included a scene from Taxi Driver, a reading from Moby Dick and a gargantuan retake of the Popeye theme tune. The album was, ultimately, a gamble that paid off as it seemed in equal measure that, as important as it was for Jamie Lenman to make, it was just as much fun for the listener to go on this weird and wonderful voyage into the fascinating mind of the man. Now, the mood has changed. In all the pictures it’s a black suit and a scowl that reads “no more Mr. Nice Guy”. The harsh light makes his cheekbones razor-sharp and, depending on the photo, his eyes are either a murderous stare or, worse, not there at all. For ‘King of Clubs’, Jamie Lenman is more than just a little irate. “I mean, we all have dark moments, don’t we?” he
4 Upset
THIS MONTH IN ROCK
Punching their way out of Dublin with a riotous come-join-ourgang enthusiasm, Pillow Queens are cheering up a miserable year. p.10
Thousands in debt, break-ups and more: Into It. Over It.’s Evan Weiss has readjusted his viewpoint for his latest album. p.12
Everything you need to know about Metz’ new album ‘Atlas Vending’, from the band themselves. p.15
HAIL TO THE KING Words: Alexander Bradley. Photos: Scott Charmers.
Upset 5
Riot_ reasons, when it’s pointed out that in person he is one of the most charming people you could ever have the pleasure of meeting. But, those “dark moments” are what ‘King of Clubs’ is all about though. It’s an eight-track mini-album on the surface but beneath its a furious pummeling of problems which are both wide-ranging global issues and wrestling against his own demons too. Like the album’s artwork, it’s in those “dark moments” where the shadowy figure of hate, the King of Clubs, is embodied. That title, in typical Jamie Lenman style, is a doublebladed sword; with one blade pointing forward and the other back at his own chest. On the one hand, where ‘Devolver’ wryly suggested his own musical disintegration, ‘King of Clubs’ is another selfdeprecating jab by the singer. “I’m never gonna play arenas. I’m gonna stay on the toilet circuit, so if I’m the King of Clubs, then so be it,” he jokes. However, on the other side, the brooding instrumental titletrack which closes out the minialbum was about Jamie himself becoming a bully as a child. The track was originally going to be named ‘King of Cruelty’ or ‘King Cruel’ and the lyrics are still printed in the album’s inlay, but once those lyrics were pushed out by the scope of the tense death march it made more sense to change the title. And from there, the ‘King of Clubs’ was born. “The track ‘King of Clubs’ is about the triumph of hate over love, it’s quite an upsetting piece of music for me to listen to,” he admits. “It’s really horrible, it’s the song that hatred sings when it wins. It could be Trump’s campaign theme. “And the horrible figure on the cover is most definitely not me, that’s supposed to be the embodiment of self-loathing
6 Upset
and all the negative thoughts that have swirled up out of this soup. Really, the King of Clubs is an incredibly negative figure that I don’t want to associate myself with and yet at times, I ally myself with it. It represents hatred and bad feelings, which is horrible, but that’s a part of all of us. Every now and then I feel particularly vindictive or gloomy, and that’s what bubbles up in me;‘King of Clubs’ is a distillation of feelings.” There is a sense that this album was just as necessary for Jamie as ‘Shuffle’ was. It’s not a “creative itch” needing scratching this time, but bubbling acid racing up his throat and needing to be spewed out. There is a myriad of different frustrations which come out in the eight tracks and, “It’s not always an outward-faced anger towards the politics of the day,” he reasons. “’The Road to Right’ is about a voyage of personal discovery that ends in revulsion at your own self and ‘Kill Me’ is about wanting to die because you’ve met someone that’s so attractive and ‘Sleep Mission’ is about vague, awful things that really get on your tits about the world and then astral projection but that was a bit of a misnomer. It’s all about uncomfortable feelings. I suppose the lightest one is ‘Like Me Better’, which is just about how you come around to liking things that you initially hate… but there’s still a negative emotion there somewhere, even if a positive one grows out of it.” It’s in the moments where the politics of the day are his gripe though, that Jamie Lenman’s most important moments come on this record. Whether it’s the exasperated screams of “The future is dead” in the opener or the deadpan “If you’re a dick when you’re drunk / you’re a dick all the time” in ‘I Don’t Wanna Be Your Friend’, Jamie seems to thrive when he
“WE ALL HAVE DARK MOMENTS, DON’T WE?” JAMIE LENMAN
confronts large scale movements for change. There is no secret of his apathy towards politics if you’ve ever heard ‘A Plague on Both Your Houses’ from ‘Muscle Memory’ or his post-Brexit ire in ‘Long Gone’, and both of these newer singles were perfectly timed for yet more political disillusionment. ‘Summer of Discontent (The Future is Dead)’ came out at the start of the year “just as the virus broke and our Government were being useless fuckwads but, you know, I wrote it months before that, because they’ve always been useless fuckwads” while ‘I Don’t Wanna Be Your Friend’ arrived shortly after the murder of George Floyd in America. “I’ve been very concerned with the inherent racism and sexism and homophobia in society for a long time and wanted to say something about it and actually, you know, that song is about more than that. It’s also about how I feel about anti-social behaviour in general, about drink culture and about internet culture and about the amazing bigotry that pollutes our society,” he explains. The singer is keen to explain that the line “If you’re a dick when you’re drunk / you’re a dick all the time” stems from drunk people occasionally trying to sabotage his live show during his last few tours, but the problem doesn’t lie with alcohol directly. He adds, “I’ve got no problem with alcohol and the drinking culture, but I do have a problem with dicks, so if no one was a dick, getting drunk wouldn’t be a problem. So, it’s dicks that I’ve got a problem with, not with alcohol.” With anger as the thread woven throughout, the target in his sights changes from track to track and so too does the approach. The more introspective ‘The Road to Right’ comes with a bad attitude and the sort of hearty chorus that is vintage Lenman. ‘Like Me Better’ is a story of growth and learning to love something but still contains the menacing whispers about how
Upset 7
Riot_
“THE KING OF CLUBS IS AN INCREDIBLY NEGATIVE FIGURE” JAMIE LENMAN
he “comes across like an arrogant prick” while ‘Kill Me’ is a blast of violent imagery like “I want your fingertips to separate me cell by cell / take me apart and show me every kind of special hell”. In the studio, working again with producer Space who has been onboard since ‘Devolver’, “nicety” was the sound they were looking for; a blend of nasty and nice. “We worked a lot on the textures to make sure the sounds are just right, everything covered in a sort of grease. We wanted it to sound dirty, but also every track should make you uncomfortable for a different reason.” Having been seven years since the (half) thrash metal (half folk) album ‘Muscle Memory’, this is by some way the heaviest work Jamie Lenman has made in a long while and he is first to admit that was relieved to find he still had it him in. “There were various bits, most of them are in the song ‘I Don’t Wanna Be Your Friend’, where I thought ‘oh that’s a bit like Reuben’, because the verse is quite Reuben, and then the big metal breakdown is like something I’d put on ‘Muscle Memory’. It was a joy to revisit those elements because I never stopped loving the three-minute punk song that we used to do in Reuben, and I never stopped loving the intense metal breakdown that was all over ‘Muscle Memory’. So, to find a way in which I could do those
8 Upset
again was really surprising and really enjoyable.” The pinnacle of that discomfort is in ‘Sleep Mission’, which is the fuzzy, industrialsounding, dirge that is unlike anything Jamie Lenman has ever released before. More akin to the most disconcerting Nine Inch Nails number, Jamie describes that track as “a real exercise in going the road less travelled and finding the awkward sound instead of the obvious things”, but that quest to break new ground is what keeps his music so hard to define. A lot of that confidence to continually push the boundaries of what he can get away with in his music, especially in the trilogy of albums that is the straight-up pop rock record ‘Devolver’ into the experimental and multi-faceted covers album ‘Shuffle’, to now with the clenched fist of ‘King of Clubs’, is down to the relationship between Jamie and Space, his producer. Between the two of them, they gave themselves the challenge of
recording a track per day for this mini-album. The process was, in his words, both “exhilarating” and “liberated” and ‘King of Clubs’ could easily have snowballed into a full album now they both have working together down to a fine art. But, it was Jamie’s commitment to not making a full album so soon after ‘Shuffle’ and to not just churn out another weighty album for listeners to digest. It’s that same artistic vision with which he approaches music that makes ‘King of Clubs’ his final collaboration with Space for a while. “I didn’t go into ‘Devolver’ thinking, right, we’ll make three records and then fuck off. I didn’t even know we were gonna make one record when we started making ‘Devolver’,” he admits. “I had a very definite plan for ‘Shuffle’ as an answer to ‘Devolver’. I wanted it to be a sister record, sounding sonically very similar. And then when I knew we were gonna make ‘King of Clubs’ - which was another
unplanned child because it was supposed to be a single and then it ballooned into an EP, and then it ballooned even further into a mini-album - I thought, well you know what, looking at the themes and looking at the artwork… “Which seems like a flippant thing to say, but for a designer, half my life is two-dimensional art and design. For me, an album is just as much, or it has become just as much, about the visual aesthetic as it is about the music on the wax. So, in terms of presentation, I knew I wanted it to be black and dark, whereas the other ones have been so bright. “And if ‘Devolver’ was all about sort of rhythms and ‘Shuffle’ was all about arrangement, then ‘King of Clubs’ is all about texture and sounds,” he continues. The possibilities for what Jamie Lenman does next are almost too much to comprehend, as he has consistently proven he can pull off anything but also wants to continually explore the uncharted expanses of his creativity. It’s a long way from his
days in Reuben where all anyone wanted was an album like ‘Racecar is Racecar Backwards’ again and again. Whether people have been beaten down from asking too much, Jamie says, “people have stopped asking for another ‘Racecar’ which I’m glad about,” optimistic that actually, that’s because people are invested in his unique sound and his commitment to keeping people on their toes. It’s a privileged position, and not one many artists can boast; Jamie Lenman can release a thrash metal album with folk tracks as a B-Side or cover Seal, then a scene from Taxi Driver within the same 5 minutes of an album. He can be pop, he can be metal, he can be fun, he can be deadly serious, he can throwback like in the synths on ‘Like Me Better’ or be at the cutting edge of new music with Illaman’s feature on the mini-album and people are behind him all the way. “I do feel privileged, but at the same time I’ve worked hard to get there, but, no matter how hard you’ve worked for that feather bed it’s still comfy when you flop down at the end of the day,” he philosophises. It’s true that a lot of people tried to dissuade him from doing ‘Shuffle’ and predicted it to be “career suicide” but, having come through the other side of that album unscathed, Jamie Lenman only seems more motivated to test his limits (and those of his fans). “I kept coming back to it [‘Shuffle’]. I was talking to a good friend from the music biz about it and he said, ‘the thing is, as a listener and someone who’s invested in you musically, if you made another ‘Devolver’ soundalike and it was a bit dull, I might go ‘oh well, that’s that then’. Whereas if you made ‘Shuffle’, regardless of how it came out, I would be so interested that even if I didn’t like it I would definitely listen to what you did next, because I would know that
you were following your heart. So, I suppose, even if you didn’t like ‘Shuffle’ then maybe ‘King of Clubs’ is your reward for hanging in there’. “That gave me a lot of strength and basically pushed me over the edge to demanding that I was gonna do ‘Shuffle’. I think even if people don’t like my records, people will still listen to the next one which is crucial because therem are a lot of bands that I don’t listen to their new record anymore because I’ve been so beaten down,” he reveals, before naming Weezer and Marilyn Manson as the two biggest disappointments he’s come to accept in the last few years. At the end of the day, for Jamie Lenman, it’s not about being relevant but about being exciting which drives him. “If you told me 20 years ago that one day there would be a Weezer record that I hadn’t even bothered to listen to, I would punch you in the face because I wouldn’t have believed you, but that’s where we’ve got to. And the same with Marilyn Manson, the same with quite a few artists who have just time and again delivered these dull records that I don’t believe in, to the point where I’ve stopped listening, and I’d be dismayed if anyone felt that way about me.” It’s safe to say that ‘King of Clubs’ is anything but dull and, better yet, there is something important to be said in it too. It’s a useful way for Jamie Lenman to compartmentalise everything currently pissing him off and not let the ‘King of Clubs’ consume him entirely. “You can’t eat your dinner if your fists are shaking so much that the sausage won’t fit in your mouth,” he astutely observes, referring to how he has learned to put aside his day to day discontent towards the government. It’s a helpful analogy to prevent negativity taking over our lives and a gentle reminder to spread love, not hate. P Jamie Lenman’s mini-album
‘King of Clubs’ is out now.
Upset 9
Riot_
“THERE ARE SONGS THAT’LL MELT YOUR FACE, AND THERE ARE SONGS THAT’LL MELT YOUR HEART”
Punching their way out of Dublin with a riotous come-and-join-our-gang enthusiasm, Pillow Queens are cheering up a miserable year with their fight against social injustice in the form of debut album ‘In Waiting’. Sure to be a low-key favourite come the end of 2020 (is it time for lists yet?), their spirited take on grungy, heart-on-sleeve punk is both of-our-time and timeless all at once - and has already seen recent single ‘Holy Show’ land in the Top 20 of the Official Irish Singles Chart. Beats Justin Bieber, doesn’t it?
Words: Charlotte Croft. Photo: Faolān Carey. 10 Upset
Hi Pamela, what’s your songwriting process like? PQ songs usually start their journey as a little seedling that consists of lyrics and a melody. Once we’re all in a room together is when cogs start working. Sometimes this process is quick, but a lot of our favourite songs have been scrapped, redone again, and made sound completely different over time. If we think there’s something to be made of a song, we’ll hammer away at it until we’re happy.
What or who are your main influences? I think all of us have quite different influences, though I think we benefit from the fact that we also share a lot of similar ones. We all really love the Pixies, and I think you can hear that in some of our earlier music. For this album, we were quite influenced by the likes of Manchester Orchestra and a lot of the different folk artists we listened to growing up.
‘Handsome Wife’ has been getting a lot of plays on the radio, which is great – how does it feel to hear your tracks on the airwaves? It’s such a good feeling hearing our songs get radio play. It makes such difference, and it’s also just a huge morale boost that these songs we’ve put so much work into are getting heard.
You create a real sense of community in your work – like a girl gang everyone wants to be a part of. How do you evoke this palpable positivity? It’s not something we have to try to do really, we’re just really enjoying ourselves and love making music together.
Who do you hope finds your music? We hope that people from all walks of life can enjoy and relate to our music. It’s easy to box us off into an all-girl queer band,
but in reality, our songs are about human experiences like love, loss, sadness, which everyone experiences.
It’s a very strange time at the moment in music, and we’re seeing a lot of artists trying to adapt to this new normal by sharing music with audiences worldwide across an array of digital platforms. How did you spend lockdown? Did you find it sparked creativity? We all had very interesting experiences with lockdown. Some of us had the time to explore new hobbies and endeavours, and some of us were working harder than ever. I think our experiences with being creative were different. I think some of us thrived with the time, but it’s also hard to make work when you put too much pressure on yourself. We had the chance to do some cool creative stuff together remotely, and we were sorting out our album mixes and masters, so it was great to have the space to listen to them to death. I spent a lot of lockdown cycling and exploring the hidden treasures around where I live.
How do you think the pandemic will affect the music industry going forward? It’s really hard to know, and I talk about the potential outcomes a lot. I don’t think a tangible way of having a lively show in a 200 capacity venue has been figured out yet. A lot of work around a have been focused on large capacity outdoor gigs and intimate sit down gigs. The online gigs have been amazing, but I don’t think it’s financially viable for touring bands and it’ll never beat the feeling of seeing music live. Some positives that may come out of it for Ireland, in particular, are that people might move out of Dublin and it’ll have the music not be so capital citycentric. It’s already something that was becoming exciting before the lockdown, and it’s a positive
for artists and punters alike I think.
Which records have you reached for most during quarantine? It wasn’t particular records, but I was really deep-diving into country music to deal with my yearning for social interaction. A lot of Gillian Welsch and luckily she released two albums this year.
What do you miss most about performing live? I miss belting my vocals. It’s a loudness I can only do when we’re playing a proper gig with an audience. It’s probably the freedom of performance that gets you a little looser. I do miss the social activities after a gig something terrible as well.
Which subject matters inspire you the most? It’s hard to say cos we can’t really control the feelings that lead to a song. I guess it’s just the most intense emotion you have at the time that spills over and becomes a song. The majority of it is love in all its different forms.
What can we expect from your debut album, ‘In Waiting’? I think you can expect some powerful songs that are the embodiment of the work we’ve done to get to this point. There are songs that’ll melt your face, and there are songs that’ll melt your heart. So we expect you to be melted.
What’s next for Pillow Queens? After the album is released, we delve into more of an unknown as before. What we expected to do was tour the album extensively as far and wide as we could. We still hope to do that when it’s safe to do so, but until then we’re gonna have to think on our feet and make a new path for the time’s we’re living in.
Pillow Queens’ debut album ‘In Waiting’ is out now. Upset 11
Riot_
FIGURE IT
Words: Rob Mair. Photos: Tom Ham.
12 Upset
OUT
”I don’t think there was ever a moment in my career where I had delusions of grandeur that I’d become famous, but there was certainly a sense of ‘I’ll do whatever it takes not to get a job’,” says Into It. Over It’s Evan Weiss, moments after clocking off from the 9-to-5. Yet 2017 was Ground Zero for the Chicago-based musician. After years of working through the write-record-tour cycle he’d found himself $40,000 in debt and, after fulfilling his contract, without a record label. Josh Sparks, his longstanding collaborator, had announced plans to leave, and less than a fortnight later he would split from his partner of eight years. To top it all, he found himself caught in the blowback of his manager’s misconduct, something Weiss concedes falls on his shoulders due to a failure in leadership. Since then, these incidents – the relationship breakdown, the band split, the debt, and the mismanagement – have seen Weiss re-evaluate his behaviour, outlook, and aspirations for the band. On a practical level, he’s reduced his reliance on touring as a means to survive, acknowledging that it can become an unhealthy space for bad habits and behaviours, while he’s also taking personal steps towards self-improvement through leadership classes and HR training. Unsurprisingly, however, the experiences of the
“THE THINGS THAT I WENT THROUGH WEREN’T ANYBODY ELSE’S FAULT. IF I WAS GONNA TURN THE PEN ON ANYONE, IT HAD TO BE MYSELF” EVAN WEISS
past four years sink soul deep into ‘Figure’, Into It. Over It’s fourth album. “It seemed like an appropriate moment to take a step back and re-evaluate what I was doing and why, and if these were good decisions,” he considers. “It was a chance to reconcile with some crappy behaviour and realise that touring hard and pursuing music that hard was not bringing out the best in me as a human.” In turn, this has led to something of a volte-face for Weiss, readjusting his viewpoint towards making music for the more straightforward, principled aim of finding enjoyment in creativity, rather than the desire to become as big as possible or to tour as hard as possible. Combined with the stable income provided by the day job, Weiss can now explore music creatively without needing to lean on it for survival. “Did I ever think that, when I was making ‘52 weeks’ and living at my parents’ house, I was worried about survival? Not at all. It was totally for fun,” he attests. “I can now look back on that moment rather fondly – like, yeah, some of the songs are good, but not all of them are – but that wasn’t the point. The point wasn’t to make money or become famous; the point was to fucking
write some songs. “I would definitely say that my outlook on being a musician is nothing like what it was four years ago. It’s a much healthier way of looking at it, and I’m a better person for it. “Now the difficulty is trying to balance pursuing music as much as I can while also having a 9-to-5. That’s a way different struggle to being literally starving or being so deep in debt that you have to play some crappy festival that’s sponsored by fucking Budweiser or something, just because you need to pay rent that month.” This desire to strip everything back and get back to the fundamentals of making music for more genuine aims also comes from the start of a new working relationship with drummer Adam Beck. The partnership started with the low-key objective of just making noise, with the duo collaborating for two days a week for the best part of two and a half years, first writing 30 songs, then whittling these down to just 12 – the songs that make up ‘Figure’. A deeply personal album, it is the first Into It. Over It record that Weiss is comfortable calling a break-up record. And that’s not just in the literal sense – although it plays a significant part on songs like ‘They Built Our Bench Again in Palmer Square’ – but conceptually, where Weiss is reconciling with a decade of bad decisions. It’s not necessarily a hopeful record, nor is it the triumphant return with the narrator declaring that he’s successfully battled his demons and is ready to move on with his life, but it instead weighs heavy with ideas of accountability, regret and chagrin. At times it finds an inner peace – a calm like when you first wake, but before the stresses of the day come into focus – yet such moments of tranquillity are fleeting. “The word Marcus [Nuccio] from Pet Symmetry chose was ‘reckoning’,” says Weiss.
Upset 13
Riot_ “I thought that was pretty accurate.” And it does indeed have all the hallmarks of a reckoning – only this time, Weiss has turned the anger inwards. “In hindsight, I noticed in my songwriting that I’d almost always be playing a victim; like, ‘It’s not MY fault this has happened, so it must be someone else’s fault’. I’d be writing these very stinging lyrics, and I felt that it was important not to do this because the things that I went through weren’t anybody else’s fault. If I was gonna turn the pen on anyone, it had to be myself.” Not that it means ‘Figure’ is a woe-is-me pity party – although Weiss accepts it might not be the ideal album for people who find themselves struggling with the pandemic – but there is a modicum of defiance within its make-up. It’s a record forged on its own terms, and this independence has given rise to creativity and collaboration – something that might have been stymied if made in less turbulent and more
“THE POINT WASN’T TO MAKE MONEY OR BECOME FAMOUS; THE POINT WAS TO FUCKING WRITE SOME SONGS” EVAN WEISS
traditional times. Weiss admits that there was no goal for the record and that Into It. Over It were free to write whatever they wanted. In turn, this led to greater co-operation – it’s the most workshopped Into It. Over It record to date, he says – and a reliance on community to get the job done, right down to enlisting friend Lynette Sage to help with the album’s striking artwork. As if buoyed by this grassroots level of creativity, Weiss has
established a new Patreon, Storm Chasers LTD, which aims to support his many vehicles, including Into It. Over It, Pet Symmetry and Their/They’re/ There, as well as the other acts his partners are involved in. Weiss sees such a move – as well as a further way to break the writerecord-tour cycle – as a chance to strengthen the standing of the local musical and artistic community. “At any moment, any person in our broad circle has the empowerment to promote what they’re working on or share some content of their own,” he says. “It’s like they’re a part of this larger thing that pays out based on people’s contributions to the product; it’s not just a singular artist promoting themselves. This is a way for us to build our intimate community into something much bigger than it is.” On the face of it, it’s doesn’t look groundbreaking – it’s tied to the name of Weiss’ record label after all – yet when set against the challenges of 2017, it represents a monumental step forward on a personal and professional level. Ultimately, it allows Weiss’ art to thrive independently, removed from the traditional methods of the music industry – methods which contributed to Weiss’ shortcomings. Reflecting on ‘Figure’ and the challenges of the past few years, he is appropriately restrained about what it means for the future. “This album is about a general emotional recovery. I was so beat up; actually, I shouldn’t say beat up, as that makes it sound like I deserve sympathy. I don’t deserve sympathy, I made mistakes, and I had to reconcile with those mistakes. “This album is about those reconciliations and hopefully coming out of it a better person than when I went into it.” P Into
It. Over It’s album ‘Figure’ is out now. 14 Upset
Everything you need to know about...
METZ’S
new album
‘ATLAS VENDING’ Billed as “the most dynamic, dimensional, and compelling work of their career”, the new album from METZ explores many of the difficulties of growing up. The band let us in on a few titbits from behind-the-scenes. During the recording of ‘Atlas Vending’, we lived at the studio (Machines With Magnets in Pawtucket RI). We only left
for coffee and to go to the bar. Hayden slept on the floor under a ping pong table (he did this by choice, there were many beds).
Pawtucket is home to the best dive bars in the USA, and Seth Manchester (Engineer, Mixer, rally car hobbyist, Karaoke singer) will take you to every single one whether you want to go or not. Peddler’s Inn is highly
recommended.
Yungblud has announced his new album ‘Weird!’, due for release on 13th November. “It’s a story of coming-of-age and selfacceptance and liberation,” Dom says of the record. “I hope it makes people feel like it’s okay to feel out of place or twisted or weird.”
The ‘Atlas Vending’ album cover photo was taken by Alex’s Dad. He also took the photos for S/T and II.
Dave Konopka, formerly of the band BATTLES, designed and arranged the text on the ‘Atlas Vending’ album art/credits. Chris makes a good pasta sauce. His short-lived American-Italian restaurant Sloraccio’s received rave reviews and was shuttered abruptly when he needed to record more bass guitar.
After Hayden’s drum tracks were completed (day 4 of 14) he had a revelation. “I like wine
at 3:30pm”, and grape-y boi was born.
We met Atlas Vending coproducer Ben Greenberg while his band UNIFORM opened for METZ on a US tour. He drove
around NYC in a gold Cadillac with a giant METZ bumper sticker emblazoned on the back, so it was pretty much love at first sight. P
Muncie Girls’ Lande Hekt has unveiled her debut solo album, ‘Going To Hell’. Due on 22nd January via Get Better Records, the record documents her experience coming out, and is preceded by new single ‘Whiskey’. “I’m no stranger to queer punk and queer politics,” she says.
arture: “I am incredibly grateful and proud of everything we have achieved. PUP are back with a very 2020 new EP, ‘This Place Sucks Ass’. The six-track release arrives on 23rd October, featuring their song ‘Anaphylaxis’, and cover of Grandaddy’s beloved ‘A.M. 180’. It’s also got three songs from their ‘Morbid Stuff’ album sessions, plus new ‘un ‘Rot’. 15 UPSETMAGAZINE. COM Upset 15
WANT A NEW BAND CRUSH? CHECK OUT THIS LOT! >>>
THE BEST NEW BANDS. THE HOTTEST NEW MUSIC.
Picking up radio plays and playlist spots like no one’s business, Kid Brunswick’s modern take on rock has already drawn comparisons to the likes of Yungblud. Addressing difficult, immensely personal themes like alcoholism, addiction and vulnerability, he channels heavy topics into angsty, out-all-night anthems. Only a few songs deep, he’s a new EP due before the year is out.
BOY DESTROY Swedish up-and-comer Boy Destroy is for fans of nothing,nowhere. et al, and is about to drop his debut single, ‘Warpaint’.
How’s it going, what are you up to today? I’m really good at the moment. I’m shooting and editing my next music video for a song called ‘4am’.
How did you get your start in music, then?
I got a scholarship to a very musical school where I was able to experiment with a load of instruments. I struggled with reading music, but I learnt the basics, I think this really helped me going forward to producing my own records. Eventually, I got kicked out of that school, and every school which I got accepted into asked me to leave shortly afterwards. After getting kicked out of college, I was getting high a lot, so I started making music as a hobby just to kill time. This just progressed further and further until I started writing lyrics for my own
KID BRUNSW
16 Upset
SNAKE EYES Fast approaching the release of their debut EP ‘skeletons’, Brighton-based “grit pop” trio snake eyes are making waves by the seaside.
beats.
“EVERY SCHOOL I GOT ACCEPTED INTO ASKED ME TO LEAVE SHORTLY AFTERWARDS” KID BRUNSWICK
What does being a musician mean to you?
In my opinion, it’s an opportunity to open up to people and show your true self.
How do you approach putting a track together?
It’s different every time. I could write a hook on a guitar, and it would just progress from there, sometimes this starts with chords, a hook, a synth or whatever I can find. Other times I could hear a sound out in public, record it on my phone to sample later. It’s genuinely different every time.
What do you most enjoy writing about, generally?
I enjoy writing anything. As long as the spiritual energy is right, and I’m connected to my higher power, the song will arrive, and every song is enjoyable to write.
We hear you have a new EP on the way, what can you tell us about it?
It’s not finished, I have no idea when it’s out, and I have no idea what songs are going to be on there. I’m just releasing singles at the moment.
WICK
MUCK SPREADER A fully improvised project that’s shared stages with the likes of Black Midi, Muck Spreader are an intriguing bunch.
Is it tough trying to put out music during a pandemic? Has it impacted you much? It’s been very hard, but it’s allowed me to completely rethink how to release music. I’m building a fanbase online, and eventually, I’ll be able to meet people in real life at shows, festivals or whatever. But for now, I’m able to speak to people on a daily basis and connect with people from around the world.
Music aside, what do you do for fun?
I play a lot of Warzone at the moment. Eventually, I want to stream on Twitch. I get very angry, so I think it would be an interesting watch.
What are your plans for the rest of the year?
Music, videos, merchandise, anything I can do to connect with people who listen to what I have to say.
Who do you think is the most exciting band or musician around right now?
Fontaines D.C.. They’re my favourite band at the moment, [frontman] Grian Chatten is a lyrical genius.
Tell us a secret about yourself? No. P
Kid Brunswick’s new single ‘4am’ is out now.
Upset 17
18 Upset
ties. ate balance of duali The world is a delic us ones - light and There are the obvio - then there are the dark, good and evil iness and sadness, more granular; happcase of Jordan Edward for example. In the e has appeared in his Benjamin, a new on d X. world: Grandson an Words: Steven Lofti
Osborn. n. Photos: Ashley
Upset 19
Where X usually marks treasure, a golden opportunity, for Grandson mastermind Jordan Edward Benjamin it means something else. It’s a way of dealing with the duality of being a human in the modern age. For the last few years, he’s been leading the charge of the young political voice. Few use their platform to say such blatant and unapologetic truths, but Grandson, garnering attention ever since dropping ‘Blood // Water’ back in 2018, has perfectly mixed a new generational sound - one as easily influenced by the blues as it is hip-hop and rock with aptly heated and targeted lines of rhythm and spit. Now it’s time for a full-length his debut grandstanding - ‘Death of an Optimist’. Leading to this point, after establishing his motives with a series of singles and EPs, including the A Modern Tragedy trilogy, this is a project that breaks the boundaries of Grandson. Four words that, put together, scream a charged atmosphere. That’s because Jordan’s not only spotlighting social and political issues, but he’s also facing another reckoning - himself. “I wanted to make an album that was still political, that was still mad, but that wasn’t naive,” he begins. “I think that this album, while remaining true to the themes of agency and power, it also speaks to my personal struggle with whether or not to continue to preach this sort of optimism in the face of such an overwhelming pessimism or cynicism in the world.” Continuing, he explains: “There are different topics relevant today, with songs that touch on greed, and doing the bare minimum on social media and thinking that that’s going to be enough. We speak about the politics of violence, but it’s all through the lens of whether or not I can continue to find the hope to stand on stage and
20 Upset
“THIS YEAR HAS TRIED AND TESTED THE OPTIMISM OR THE EXPECTATIONS OF ALL OF US AS A GENERATION” JORDAN EDWARD BENJAMIN
continue to tell you the dangers around the corner. This year has tried and tested the optimism or the expectations of all of us as a generation.” While the world’s optimism has been tested by the powers that be, Jordan’s pessimism was building with the same effect as fighting to the surface beneath a riptide rush for the first breath of air. “This project was my fight of where to look because I could kind of see both at the same time, and I wasn’t sure how I was going to sleep at night,” he says. “If I couldn’t believe that these things are still worth fighting for, at the risk of being the old man on stage with my potbelly, still making rock songs about change. “I have a song called ‘Left Behind’, and the chorus is saying; ‘I don’t want to move on, but I don’t want to get left behind’. I don’t want to move on from these sorts of idealism which fuel change and that will lead to a momentum for progress, but I don’t want to turn around and be fighting for a cause that everybody gave up on.” Which is where the central component of the album comes into play. The narrative of ‘Death of an Optimist’ is the duality between Grandson and this new
persona, X, who’s sneering stare personifies the other side of Jordan’s mind. “Am I going to continue to stand up here and tell you that you can do anything and be anything and that you deserve opportunity, you deserve to have your voice heard?” he questions. “Or am I going to be yet another idealist?” Hope lies in the realism of what the world entails these days - the barefaced truth that sometimes evil does win and stopping that happening doesn’t come in the form of some grand plan involving shooting down the Death Star, but in a gradual overcoming. Evil has settled in over hundreds of years of outdated ideologies and systems, but the hope is rebuilding as a generation. ‘Death of an Optimist’ battles with this understanding, and thus the importance of X being present reveals itself. It’s also, however, the darkness that lurks inside Jordan, the somewhat spectator to these two facets of himself battling it out visually and audibly. “The personification of my anxiety or my fears, or the system itself, lumping that all up and giving that identity and giving it a face and giving it a name. It
was, on the one hand, artistically liberating,” he explains. “Because I was able to, with more clarity and detail, have a conversation with that side of myself it was also liberating creatively because I had never acted before I had never gotten in front of the camera.” In his two recent singles ‘Identity’ and ‘Riptide’ - X’s personification lives in a cinematic imagining of Jordan’s ideas, those sneering eyes driving daggers into the optimistic hope of Grandson, a dishevelled suit and Jordan’s trademark curls slicked back, involved in burning school buses, ritualistic river baptisms. The privilege Jordan has being an artist isn’t lost on him. Knowing that having the “flexibility and to the permission to dig into these feelings,” that the majority of us don’t, at least on a full-time basis, puts Grandson in another unique position. “To do that uncomfortable work with yourself is a luxury. In doing so in a public space, I give other people a chance to reflect on how they relate to those songs, how they relate to these characters, whether they think I’m full of shit, whether they think that the bad guy should have won. I’m trying to engage
and be provocative, in the hope that it’ll be easier for somebody else out there.” On a personal level, Jordan’s voyage into this realm began in the form of trying to put the words together in a way that was both poetic and cutting. Add in getting stoned and messing around on his dad’s piano before he got home from work, he refers to those tender moments as “innocent” before he started to “take it more seriously, as I began to get more disillusioned with how I was going to be able to have a job and deal with people in positions of authority telling you what to do. “I found myself getting much darker. I was very lucky that I came from a family that encouraged art and writing as a cathartic outlet for these feelings because otherwise, they would have played out in who knows what ways. I’m grateful that I found music and storytelling to get these feelings out and confront them… and I hope that I can encourage other people to do the same.” There’s a darkness that swallows all of ‘Death of an Optimist’. Aside from his usual black and white world, the reality of visually seeing X take the stage is a major step forward for Jordan’s vulnerability and
“IT’S ALWAYS BETTER TO SHINE A LIGHT AT THE MONSTERS UNDER YOUR BED” JORDAN EDWARD BENJAMIN
understanding of himself. “I had never allowed those parts of my personality to rear their head because I’ve always been so terrified of the fear that they might be right,” he says. “Those negative thoughts that had or fantasies of suicide or addiction. I never want to give that side of myself the microphone or give them much of a platform. “Creating acts and being able to put on my makeup and glare at the camera, it’s been freeing, because it’s always better to shine a light at the monsters under your bed; always better to excavate those feelings. If you don’t, then you’ll push them deeper and deeper into your subconscious, where they’ll continue to wreak havoc over time.” The clarity of just who, or what X was, didn’t crop up until lockdown appeared. By this time Jordan has already written the majority of ‘Death of an Optimist’, but looking back on the penned tracks with this new frame of mind, he “was able to go back into those songs and make sure that that holds up.” “The introduction of the album and the interludes both give X a more clear microphone for a second - give him the chance to talk his shit. As dark as it was, and as scary as it might be for some of my loved ones to see me still comfortably settle into such adult concepts, it was frankly a lot of fun to do, and it was really freeing in some ways!” In the reality we all live in, it’s here that Grandson has found his footing. Spearheading the new generation of supercharged voices, so that beneath the shadow of benevolent politicians hell-bent on being succubus’ of power and wealth, people like Jordan are appearing. Building a new system of chaos in which an atom of hope and sanctity to gain an understanding of what the future could be. Grandson’s purpose has deftly built itself into serving the
Upset 23
“YOU DO WHAT YOU CAN, AND YOU HAVE TO BE PROUD OF THAT” JORDAN EDWARD BENJAMIN people. Every facet is to support, speak up for the marginalised, with the anger and ferocity that a musical platform can offer. It’s even been a way to push boundaries. In the video for last year’s ‘Oh No!!!’ he became the personification of a social experiment, subjecting himself to the whims of the anonymous human. The nature of his position means he’s in the public eye shouting against the fallacious popular opinion. He mentions that “there are days where it’s overwhelming, and I don’t want to fucking do that, it’s not what I signed up for when I was just getting stoned at parties and rapping in the back of the room… I never could have anticipated, years later, being in this position.” But Jordan subscribes to the ethos of “you do what you can, and you have to be proud of that.” “I do believe that I’ve taken up the mantle in some ways, but for me, you know, I think Rage Against The Machine was one of the most influential bands for a generation, and I hope one day to be able to make even a fraction of the inspiration of the anger that they help speak to.” Jordan is also looking for a legacy from all this anguish, one that elevates him away from just being an angry punk guy.
24 Upset
“But then I look at artists like Bob Marley, who were transcendent. Who had songs that were political, and that were angry - ‘Get Up, Stand Up’, ‘War’ - these very poignant, really political songs that also spoke to love and forgiveness and joy. Those are the artists that I think stand the test of time, and those are the artists that I want to one day be able to put my batch of songs up with and feel like I would have done them proud.” Even the future that awaits us on the other side of this bin-fire year is in question at the moment since everything has been
accelerated; culture, change, you name it, it’s been turned up to eleven. So, when everything begins to settle, and the flames have died down, what appears through the thinning smoke is a massive question that someone like Jordan has of course pondered. “What normal will we be getting back to? And who did that normal benefit and who did that normal come at the expense of?” he muses. “I think that those are questions that are coming up in 2020 now more than ever, and those are very destabilising. It’s very uncomfortable to recognise
the normal that I wish I could get back to leads to some people continuing to be marginalised.” Citing that we need to “look to the perpetuation of inequality, and growing wealth gap and lack of opportunity for young people and immigrants in North America”, and it comes down to accountability. “It’s all just a matter of what our priorities are, and what we demand from public officials and what the systems of accountability are when that social contract is violated,” he says. “When those cops do go way beyond, or when a politician
is caught blatantly breaking the rule - what the fuck are we going to do about it?” The echoing chasm that Jordan is shouting in to - and certainly making his own waves - can’t help but feel a bit empty. Something he’s also noticed, where X’s opinion on the matter comes into play before being swept away by the Grandson fire. “I look at other artists who are just seemingly choosing not to engage with these kinds of questions, and I go, ‘Maybe I should have just fuckin’ wrote break-up songs…’” he shrugs. “Ultimately, Donald Trump was
going to get elected in one way or the other, at least then I’d have had an extra zero in my bank account or something. But you can’t even indulge it. It’s just so self-loathing, and it doesn’t accomplish anything.” Recognising that these days, “you only have 10 seconds to get somebody’s attention,” Grandson’s leverage needs to hit to the point, but more pressingly, it’s all about the entry to that platform - how do you get people to listen when everything is so curated? “I understand that there are certain people that are only going to engage with it if they hear the ‘new Rage Against The Machine’, or, you know, ‘new Twenty One Pilots’, or whatever the fuck. I’ve heard all the things because my music doesn’t fit in any one category. My initial reaction to that was, there’s no one thing that you’re going to tell me to be. I started making music in the first place because I didn’t want people telling me what to do or who to be.” The sounds on ‘Death of an Optimist’ are just as important as the vocal daggers. Without the energy, that tangible raging heart, the message carries, but it doesn’t overwhelm to the point of wanting to stand up in your bedroom, raise a fist, and go do something instead of logging onto Twitter. But, as for piecing together such a barbed concept, dealing with the duality of optimism and pessimism, even that succumbed to some musing from Jordan. ‘Drop Dead’ - a song he collaborated on with blink-182, and all-round icon Travis Barker - came from an overwhelming tidal wave of optimism. “If I put it at the beginning, and ended on a more dark note, then it could be the story of a kid that grows up and has to deal with the harsh realities of the world,” he explains. “But, we put it as the second to last song. I wanted it to feel
Upset 25
“IT’S VERY UNCOMFORTABLE TO RECOGNISE THE NORMAL THAT I WISH I COULD GET BACK TO LEADS TO SOME PEOPLE CONTINUING TO BE MARGINALISED” JORDAN EDWARD BENJAMIN that despite all these examples in the world of injustice - despite all of that - I still feel that it’s worth doing. It’s worth fighting for because who knows, one kid could be inspired. And look at me, I was just a music fan, of all kinds of bands before me, who may have never anticipated that some song that they did would resonate with some kid in the crowd, who’s now gone on to lead a career and raise all this money for charity. That can all stem from a song!” Digging a bit deeper into the structure of ‘Death of an Optimist’, Jordan reckons “there’s a more broad commentary in there,” of us, as individuals being able to craft our own reality. “Take any of these unjust murders of black bodies by the hands of American police, for instance. Where you choose to read about it, where you choose to get your information, whether you go to Fox News, or you go to CNN, you are being given a different interpretation of what happened to fit the narrative that the dominant audience wants to hear. And so, I noticed myself doing the same thing with my outlook. “I read a quote that I think is really relevant to this album: ‘Whether you think you can, or
you think you can’t. You’re right.’ You can look at one headline and chalk it up as a win for Grandson, or you can read another one and chalk it up as a win for X.” That whitewater river gliding down the middle of either side features just as importantly on ‘Death of an Optimist’. “There are a lot of songs with titles like ‘In Over My Head’, ‘Riptide’, a lot of songs speak from within that tension - dead middle, really unsure of how this is going to pan out. And then there are a couple of songs that lean darker, or more positive, depending on my mental health that day in the studio. “If I’m going to contribute to the zeitgeist, if I’m going to give you an album and tell you to listen to it, what do I want you to leave feeling? Ultimately, I believe that I should merely be a messenger to deliver a positive message, or a message of change, or a message that you know, despite all that we’re up against I’m gonna go out there and do my part, whatever that looks like.” His standing as an artist is always in the back of Jordan’s mind, knowing that it’s his job, and doing it in a way “that feels the most fulfilling, or purposeful” is key, but it is a bit different this year for him, as it is a lot of people. “Finding purpose
in 2020 is definitely an uphill battle.” “For me, the ordering of the project, or leaning the project towards rooting for Grandson to overcome X and lead the resistance - who knows what that’s going to look like compared to what happens in the next year or two, but it felt like the most positive contribution that I could give to this audience that’s been there for years, and to these people that will hopefully be discovering these the first time. I just want people to leave feeling like they can do that thing that they’ve been holding themselves back from.” As with any platform, the power resides in who’s listening. Jordan’s awareness of this fact has matured over the years, going from being personally offended “when people would tell me that they just need my music to work out or hear my song in the background of some sports highlight reel,” to now “a lot of pride in the different dimension that this project can and will be engaged with.” “While I want to make as much substance and tell as real a story as I possibly can, I also am committed to making some music that fucking rocks, and that takes rock music into places that it just never gone before.”
Upset 27
After all, you can’t have smoke without fire, and the want to make ‘Death of an Optimist’ an album that speaks on platitudes because “some people are not going to care about what the songs are about. They don’t care about X. They don’t care about me. Whether that’s because they don’t have the luxury to, or because they don’t engage with music that way.” This issue with being pigeonholed, being restrained by any form of an authority figure, streams from every Grandson project - there’s a life that beats deep within simply because Jordan “couldn’t keep a job because I couldn’t have anyone tell me where to be.” But, being labelled the next Rage or Pilots will attract some people who may have otherwise missed his message. “I have to be beholden to the message; some people will only listen to it if it’s put in a context they already understand,” he says. “Hopefully I can then take that opportunity and build a connection with somebody who’s going to be there for me to ruminate on family or ruminate on change in my life as that happens because I definitely am proud of songs like ‘In Over My Head’ on this album. They take a much different tone and a much different perspective than any songs I’ve done before, but it doesn’t feel like I sacrifice of who Grandson is or what a Grandson song sounds like. I hope I can continue to do that and I’ll have a larger and larger platform to do so with.” At such a young point in his career, choosing to use his debut outing as a conduit for his own personal exorcism, as well as sewing in more seeds to help ignite change, is commendable. It’s a move that sets Grandson apart from the rest and continues his assertion that he’s a bit different than the crowd. “By [showing] my anxiety - this persona - I feel like I’ve
28 Upset
accomplished what I set out to. I hope that other people see it the same way. I hope that I have songs on this album that are successful, and I can get very flattering write-ups in cool magazines and take cool pictures for the cover shoot, but I can’t control any of that.” Referring back to his last year which he mentions “had some really low points”, after realising none of his output was matching that of his breakout single ‘Blood // Water’. “I was very frustrated by that and really hurt by it because I felt like I did the work and it came up short,” he says. “So with this project, all I can do is set my goals and my ambition to keep getting better, to keep growing, and to put music to this confusion or this disillusion. I’m not going to let anyone tell me whether or not I accomplish that because I feel like I did and I hope that you felt that you feel that too, and you hear it.” Relatable points from a relatable manner, X is the voice we all have in the back of our heads. Where Jordan’s deals with darkness only he knows, the more common relation to every person plugged into the online zeitgeist is the ease at which you can compare, and quickly despair, at the progress others are making in their lives. “If you look at somebody on Instagram, and you feel like everyone around you has it all figured out and you’re just barely treading water - that is how we all feel,” Jordan explains. “And that’s how your favourite artists feel. I sit here, and I get competitive with my peers. I wonder if I’ll ever be able to do what I’ve done in the past again, and I think the only real antidote for that is to look inward to find gratitude and perspective and to just, you know, fall in love with the process. “My favourite part of this album is when I’m sitting in the studio, and we have this eureka
moment where we can say a hard thing simply and engagingly. That’s what I hang my hat on. If I can take some of these complicated, specific feelings and make them simple - that is what I enjoy doing. Everything else after that is out of my control.” The future has never been more unwritten, and the changes that we can affect may not be immediate, but it only takes a glance to the past to see how far we’ve come as a society to keep holding onto some hope, as Jordan well knows. “You gotta hold on to that perspective, but it is certainly being tested right now,” he says. “More than ever, at least. Personally, for me, I’ve had days where it’s hard for me to continue to feel that way. “These are all really big problems, and I don’t think that I’m going to be the guy to solve them. But when I rely on knowing how much of a difference I can make with just one person in the audience at a show, or that I engage with online - I think about the residual impact that that person can have, and it does feel important. “I don’t see any realistic alternative that other than hope. Because otherwise, why don’t I just get high or kill myself, what’s the point? If I can’t hold on to the belief that what I think is important in the world is worth fighting for. And actually, that’s kind of the conclusion that this album leads me to.” Jordan ends with a resolutely positive quote that applies as equally to his career as it does the world of 2020. “Maybe the answer is to be patient and to lean into that ability that each of us has make a change with the person next to us instead of feeling overwhelmed trying to change the world.” P
Grandson’s album ‘Death of an Optimist’ is out 4th December.
“IT’S WORTH FIGHTING FOR BECAUSE WHO KNOWS, ONE KID COULD BE INSPIRED” JORDAN EDWARD BENJAMIN
30 Upset
Words: Steven Loftin. Photos: Brandon Lung. Georgia Moloney.
Upset 31
Aussie pop-punks Yours Truly have been making some serious waves since breaking through with their ‘Afterglow’ EP early last year. A bright collection packed with youthful energy and enthusiasm for self-improvement and pushing forward, it saw them firmly plant their flag as a much-needed positive force to be reckoned with. With numerous tours and festival slots under their belts including supports with the likes of scene-staples Sum 41, Senses Fail and State Champs - the time is now nigh for their debut. But, for Yours Truly to get to the point of ‘Self Care’ being ready for the world, they first needed to get over some anxiety. Falling victim to imposter syndrome, “so many bands that we are influenced by have amazing first albums,” vocalist Mikaila Delgado explains. “It comes in waves. I feel like some days it’s really exciting, and I’m super keen to get it out. And then some are like, ‘Oh, what if everyone hates the whole album? Or what if nothing happens with it? Blah blah blah.” There’s no doubt there’s expectation weighing heavily on their shoulders. “Your debut album is a snapshot of what you’re going to be able to do,” she continues. “If your first album sucks then you’re going to be able to do a second one... but are
32 Upset
people going to care about it?” For all that niggling voice’s persistence, Mikaila and co. have managed to turn it and as use it for good. “We’ve learned a lot from anxieties, especially for the next time we actually get to do an album, that you know, probably don’t need to stress so much. Everything’s a learning curve.” The soft, woven artwork adorning ‘Self Care’ is key to understanding what lies inside; a token artefact that’s made to represent something. It isn’t a grand statement of intent, it isn’t a place for Yours Truly to pick apart the world and reflect it back. Instead, it’s a band doing the purest thing a band can do showing their true selves to the world in the hope of helping those who need it. “We had this idea of ourselves, through ‘Afterglow’ and our previous EP before that,” she says. “But I think it was after a year of touring, and a year of growing up, playing music together, we had [a better idea]. You have 10 songs to really figure out who you are as a band, and I think that that’s exactly what we tried to do with this album.” ‘Self Care’ is jubilant but focused on reality; a quilt of stories and experience. “I feel like there are so many different sides of it and that’s purely just because of us trying to figure out ourselves,” Mikaila reasons. “And try to figure out what we want to
do next as well.” Growing up together, this unity of the Yours Truly four-piece completed by guitarists Teddie Winder-Haron and Lachlan
“YOU HAVE 10 SONGS TO REALLY FIGURE OUT WHO YOU ARE AS A BAND” MIKAILA DELGADO
Cronin, and drummer Bradley Cronan - is what beats through every soaring melody and in every bright, heart-on-sleeve lyric. As the personal aspect, touring extensively, and living a life they’d always dreamed of, set its path before them, a new facet was unveiling itself. “It just made us more into a unit,” she says. “We’ve always been really close, but it became the four of us, and that was it. We did everything together. We would come home, and we would do everything together. It was just the four of us living in each other’s pockets for so long.” “Writing this album really helped us open up to each other,” she adds. “We knew each other so well, but we got to know each
other on such a deeper level by speaking about life experiences. “When you’re on tour it’s all about having fun, and you don’t sit down and talk about the fact that you’re feeling shit, you just talk about how cool everything is. You create all these memories and just want to have a good time. But it was the first time we ever sat down and was like, ‘Hey, I kind of feel like shit and this is why… this is what happened in my life’.” It was a necessary conversation, given that while devoting yourself to your band - hitting the road for weeks, months at a time - everything else tends to continue without you. “When you’re busy, it’s hard to keep up a relationship with
friends and romantic ones.” Heading home to write the album threw a spotlight on what they were missing out on; realising that they now “don’t connect with the people that we used to connect with. None of us are in relationships because we don’t have time for it.” Adjusting to the realisation that “this is the way that life is, and this is just who we are now, and it’s not who we thought we were,” is certainly no easy feat. As for what self-care looks like for Mikaila going through all this, she says: “For me, it’s talking. I love to talk - I love to talk things through. I feel like if I can’t talk about things I’m gonna explode, that’s just who I am as a person.” Which is why writing the album from her perspective came naturally. “It’s just what comes out. If it comes out, it’s meant to come out,” she reckons. “I’m just gonna tell the story that I subconsciously want to tell.” She’s also taken on the huge responsibility of telling other people’s stories. “I have done that on this album. There are some songs for friends of mine, and that are about the guys and things they’ve gone through. It’s telling someone’s story, but doing it justice.” It’s been a challenge all of its own. “There are these three dudes that, as close as we are, I’m lucky if I get like any kind of like deep conversation with them!” she smiles. “We’ve got those deep conversations around the album, but usually everything is fun and games, so it’s nice. I don’t want to put them in the position of getting into a deep conversation - it’s kind of like ‘Oh that’s really nice. I appreciate you. Let’s move on!’” And luckily, the unity of Yours Truly is only getting stronger. “Everyone’s like, ‘Aren’t you sick of each other yet?’ and we’re like, nope!’ Mikaila laughs, with her band’s future lit bright ahead of her. P Yours Truly’s album ‘Self
Care’ is out now.
Upset 33
When Knuckle Puck returned with their first single ‘Tune You Out’ back in spring, the plan for the album was essentially “it’ll be out at some point this year” as a response to the coronavirus pandemic beginning to take a hold globally. But, from the band’s camp, it was all very laid back and relaxed...
20 34 Upset
VIS
Words: Alexander Bradley. Photos: Anam Merchant.
20
SION
Upset 35
“We were gonna release the album in June,” Knuckle Puck singer Joe Taylor starts. “It was gonna be all out already, and so when we were working on the album, we were trying to do a cool summer vibe album. Something that would come out in June and then people would be able to hang out with their friends and have a fun summer album to enjoy.” That was the plan for ‘20/20’, but 2020 had different ideas. Instead, the album is coming out in late September, and the feelgood summer vibe that Knuckle Puck aimed for doesn’t have the same impact, but the message of finding the positives in life still rings true. Since their headline US Tour was cut short in March, Knuckle Puck have steadily drip-fed almost half of the album and spread little glimmers of sunshine to brighten up these gloomy last few months. Not too derailed by their plans for 2020 and ‘20/20’, Joe has found ways to keep busy and creative. “I feel like I’ve been doing the whole normal, mowing the lawn and cleaning the house, all that random normal stuff, but in the last week I had a bunch of revelations of just, ‘dude, what have I been doing?’ I’ve just been living normal life and so literally one week ago yesterday I started working on some solo songs, and then two days later I was like, ‘I’m just gonna make an album’. So, I’m halfway through it at this point, and I’m trying to finish it in the next two weeks,” he reveals. It’s that positive mindset that comes immediately from ‘20/20’. It’s an album rich with positivity that shimmers into view from the textures provided by guitarists Kevin Maida and Nick Casasanto which are carried by the huge poppy hooks of Joe’s songwriting which decorate this album. The title track is a shining example of that flip of the switch as the chorus soars, “I can finally see clearly / as if my vision’s 20/20.” The vision for Knuckle Puck was to create the album they’ve been
36 Upset
“THIS TIME WE WERE LIKE, YEAH, WE DON’T KNOW WHAT WE’RE DOING, AND WE’RE GONNA LEAN INTO THAT” JOE TAYLOR
trying to make for 10 years. The plan was always to be positive and relaxed and this time the band “leaned into the grooves” and went with the flow of making an album. It’s not to say that Knuckle Puck were unhappy with their last two albums but, in Joe’s opinion, this is the one in which they realised their vision and executed it. “Our intention for ‘Copacetic’ was to make something that you would listen to, and you would go, ‘hey, everything’s okay’, but it definitely came out to be more of this emo album, and we didn’t really hit the mark on that,” Joe admits. And with the follow-up, ‘Shapeshifter’, he adds, “We had no idea what we were doing, we were just like, ‘oh well, we gotta make a second record and it’s gotta be good’, and that’s all we knew.” It shows that Knuckle Puck were more trepidatious in their sophomore record and Joe is first to admit there is a “weird ball of anger and frustration” in ‘Shapeshifter’ that was largely down to how the record came together. Now, older and wiser and with two albums behind them, Knuckle Puck arrived at their third album “seeing a lot of things more clearly as far as our intention for being a band in the first place [and] what’s gonna make us happy too
ultimately.” It’s not that there was some divine moment of inspiration but, for Joe, talking with Nick ahead of working on lyrics for the album encouraged him not to overthink what he wanted to say in ‘20/20’. “We were just talking like, ‘man, we have so much fun playing shows, and people have so much fun coming to our shows, why don’t we make something that’s fun?’ Me and Nick have always like been on a level with each other where we can really relate to each other,” he shares. “We’ve always had great conversations, and we were like, ‘dude, why don’t we put these conversations into songs and have it be like you’re talking to your best friend’. The song ‘Breathe’, we were talking about that song specifically, and we were like, ‘pretend like it was you giving your brother advice or your best friend some advice’. I would say, maybe our mentality didn’t change, but our intent changed.” The result is an album that is absolutely necessary this year; it’s the positive message we all need. None more so than in ‘Breathe’ which anchors the middle of the album and features long time friend of the band and Mayday Parade singer Derek Sanders. With its spiralling chorus of “If the
Upset 37
world has opened up beneath your feet / And you’re pushing daisies up from underneath / When all you need is just beyond your reach /Just don’t forget to breathe,” its the helpful, calming, lyrics needed for a world teetering on the edge of an anxiety attack. Getting to the point of making such a hopeful message in ‘20/20’ did start with ‘Tune You Out’ and ‘RSVP’ which both have a slightly more defiant - blocking out the haters - vibe but the remaining 9 tracks radiate goodness. To match their positive message, Knuckle Puck went
38 Upset
straight back to producer Seth Henderson to capture “that early 2000s MTV feel-good kind of thing”. Having spent some time listening to some Motion City Soundtrack, Box Car Racer, selftitled Blink-182 and Sum 41’s ‘All Killer No Filler’, Joe’s ambition for the album was to go back that “punk rock summer camp” sound rather than the super pop or emo pop-punk which has saturated the scene in recent years. Joe even revisited the older Knuckle Puck records and, whilst his favourite songs like ‘Untitled’ and ‘Plastic Brains’ utilise more
space, he found that they didn’t flow like an album should. “Listening back to our old stuff, it was very blocky. ‘Copacetic’, the first six songs you’re like, ‘alright, I gotta strap in because it’s not gonna stop’. “Before that, we were just making EPs, every time we’d go to make an EP we were like, ‘dude, every song’s gotta be a banger, every song needs to hit you in the face because we’re only gonna do 5 or 6 of them’. So, when we were writing ‘Copacetic’, we were almost still in that EP mentality of, ‘well, we can have a break at the
“WE’RE NOT WORRIED ABOUT EVERY SONG SMACKING YOU IN THE FACE AT ALL TIMES” JOE TAYLOR
halfway point, but it’s still got to smack you in the face all the time’. “And now we’re at a point where we’re more comfortable with exploring each song and exploring whatever we can do dynamically, because we’re not worried about every song smacking you in the face at all times.” Instead, ‘20/20’ feels much more about the journey rather than the destination. There are moments of serenity in ‘Green Eyes (Polarized)’, dreamy tones throughout ‘Into The Blue’ but also pulsating throwbacks in ‘True North’ and breakneck romps through tracks like ‘Sidechain’ to keep the album different at every turn. It turns out Knuckle Puck weren’t completely satisfied with what they had done before, but ‘20/20’ is the album they wanted to make. Joe states, “this time we were like, ‘yeah, we don’t know what we’re doing, and we’re gonna lean into that’.” But by embracing that unknown, Knuckle Puck have crafted a dynamic third album that propels them forward without losing any of their identity either. That means, for Joe, he gets the trilogy of albums he always wanted like his favourite bands Motion City Soundtrack and Taking Back Sunday. “All my favourite bands had that trilogy, I was always like, ‘yo, if we can do the trilogy I’ll be happy’. I feel like we did that. Here’s a cohesive discography of this band and it all sounds different but it all connects,” he explains. There is a real sense of accomplishment around this album that Knuckle Puck have never felt before. The album glistens with confidence from their refreshed outlook and a sound that is not only dynamic but overwhelmingly optimistic too. It would seem that we never really knew Knuckle Puck, but in ‘20/20’ they held a mirror up to themselves and found the band they want to be. P Knuckle Puck’s
album ‘20/20’ is out now.
Upset 39
THAT’ S
40 Upset
“’How are you?’ is such a leading question,” laughs Touché Amoré’s Jeremy Bolm, even before pleasantries have been exchanged or the tape recorder turned on. It’s a devilish response to a gentle exchange – but considering it is lunchtime in California, the day has a long way to go to hit bottom for the vocalist. Donald Trump’s already been up for hours warning about election fraud and whipping up followers into a frenzy about one nonsense or another. For people on America’s West Coast, who’ve found themselves “waking up to crazy” for the best part of four years, it’s no wonder Bolm jokes that such a gentle remark could be seen as entrapment.
AMORÉ Words: Rob Mair. Photos: George Clarke. Upset 41
“I’VE NEVER BEEN GREAT AT TALKING ABOUT WHAT I’M GOING THROUGH” JEREMY BOLM
Yet it also offers a telling insight into Bolm’s easy-going nature. He may have a reputation for grappling with weighty themes on record, but in person, the goodhumoured vocalist is a world away from the intense focal point in one of hardcore’s most exciting acts. While ‘Lament’ does away with the concepts which propelled 2013’s ‘Is Survived By’ (legacy and leaving a mark) and 2016’s Stage Four, where Bolm worked through the grief of his mother’s passing, it’s an album which shows his vulnerabilities in other ways. It’s not a record that came easy, either. Freed from the need to write a concept album – or even conscious of the fact that they didn’t want to write a concept album – ‘Lament’ instead tackles broad issues of the human condition, meaning Bolm has had to world-build from scratch in every three-minute song. Such a challenge contributed to the worst writer’s block of his career. “I’ve suffered writer’s block on every record but Stage Four,” says Bolm. “’Stage Four’ was the easiest record to write because there was an endless number of things to write about. I never found myself being like, ‘Well, what topics should I hit today?’ I look at ‘Stage Four’ as a necessary record in the sense of how I handle things. It wasn’t a fun record to write, but it was an easy record to write if that makes sense. “’Is Survived By’, I suffered with it pretty bad, but this record was the worst yet because I’d put myself in a hole where I felt like I had to do better. I know in my heart of hearts I’m never gonna write a record that’s more personal than ‘Stage Four’ – and to be fair,
42 Upset
I don’t want to. But it was tough because it was like, ‘Where do I even start from here?’” Part of the problem, Bolm says, goes back to the protracted process of writing ‘Lament’. Initially, the group had planned to write and record in early 2019 but then realised that coincided with the 10th anniversary of debut ‘…To The Beat of A Dead Horse’, which saw the group re-record the record as a deluxe edition. Although they had no plans to tour the record – “That record’s 19 minutes long – would it be worth anyone’s time?” jokes Bolm – internet clamour told a different story. A few demos for a new record were put down during the ‘Dead Horse…’ sessions, but plans to properly record were pushed back, moving the tentative release date to autumn 2019. Then tours with Deafheaven and La Dispute came along – tours that Bolm said helped the group out financially while also bookending this brief nostalgia trip. By the end of 2019, however, they were no closer to writing and recording a new record – not that Bolm was necessarily disappointed by the delay. “I was actually kind of satisfied with that idea because I was having such a hard time getting myself started when it came to writing,” he says. “It was also really jarring for the music writing process because we were writing in such small gaps in between all these tours. And I don’t think we’re unique with this problem that, unless we have a fire under our asses to be like ‘Hey guys, we need to write a record’, we’re all pretty non-committal about getting together too often.”
While collaborators Nick Steinhardt, Clayton Stevens, Tyler Kirby and Elliot Babin might have been happy to go with the flow, Bolm knew he needed to pull himself out of the hole and get refocused. To help, he asked friends and colleagues for advice, leaning on the network and talent that he’s befriended over the past decade to assist. One piece of advice – provided by Bad Religion icon Brett Gurewitz – helped unlock the process. “He said, ‘You don’t need to write a more personal record; you just need to write a good record’,” says Bolm. “And as simple as that sounds, it meant a lot because it’s true. I think I got buried by the idea that every record needs to have a theme. “That conversation allowed me to have a little bit of freedom. I took a step back and thought about everything in my life at that time, and then I was like, ‘OK, I think I could start slowly chipping away at it’.” It means ‘Lament’ focuses on a range of experiences – whether that’s political distress, being a focal point for other people’s grief or finding strength in the support of a loved one. Each song serves as an emotional and thematic reset, coalescing into a cohesive whole, rather than pushing the narrative through from first to last. It also means there’s far greater scope for experimentation, making ‘Lament’ the group’s most ambitiously sounding record to date. Opener’ Come Heroine’ possesses a monolithic post-rock build that finishes in the clouds, while the fiveminute-long ‘Limelight’ – an opus by traditional Touché
Amoré standards – soars thanks to a sterling contribution by Manchester Orchestra’s Andy Hull. It’s a similar story on ‘Reminders’, where a cameo by Julien Baker adds colour to the album’s outstanding ‘pop’ song. But ‘Lament’ doesn’t shine thanks to the strength of its collaborators. Take closing track ‘A Forecast’, which serves as a disarming insight into Bolm’s psyche. In it, he admits to still trying to work out the meaning of the song: ‘So here’s the record closer, still working out its intent,’ he ponders. It’s a candid moment which emphasises that, for all the weighty themes and well-constructed albums Touché Amoré have behind them, sometimes Bolm doesn’t have all the answers. “That last song is one of the most brutally honest songs that I’ve probably ever written – right to the point of where I’m secondguessing myself even saying those kinds of things. But I had to say all that stuff – I’d have been mad at myself if I didn’t,” he comments. This idea of second-guessing himself also comes through on ‘Feign’, where Bolm considers the concept of imposter
syndrome – something with which he suffers. “Put this on my tombstone; I don’t trust a single person who doesn’t experience imposter syndrome,” he says. “If you put yourself out there in any capacity, if you’re a woodworker or whatever, if you meet someone in that profession who is like ‘I’m fucking great at this’, they need to get knocked down a peg. ‘Feign’, is all about imposter syndrome. It’s me fighting through that. “I feel like, a lot of the times where I’ve maybe written something that connected with people, I’ve just considered it an accident. I feel very fortunate that anyone has ever taken anything we’ve done seriously.” Another reason ‘Lament’ hits a high watermark is the behindthe-scenes work of producer Ross Robinson. Synonymous with the rise of nu-metal, the producer also played a significant role in post-hardcore’s transition from underground sideshow to mainstream attraction around the turn of the century. “Before we even got in there to play, he got us all into a small room, and asked me to read the lyrics aloud to everybody and explain what every single line is about,” says Bolm. “It was really involved. “And for me, that
was uncomfortable; I’ve never been great at talking about what I’m going through, I’m better at expressing it through music and writing. So, having to do that and my brain feeding into it; I was like ‘The guys in the band don’t give a fuck what I’m singing about’. We all have trust, they’ve never questioned my lyrics, the way I’ve never questioned their guitar tone – we just know what each other does. Robinson’s knack for heightening emotion also destroys any notion that Touché Amoré are simply a hardcore band. Sure, it’s a record that speaks well to their core fanbase – and they’ll find plenty to love buried within – but it’s also sufficiently aggressive for progressive metalheads and has enough points of entry for curious indie-rockers. They may have been challenged by their label boss to produce a “good” record, but Touché Amoré have delivered so much more, concluding a legacy-building trio of records with one which should elevate them to an elite-tier of heavy bands. “I’m not unique being the vocalist of a band saying their new album is their best, but I genuinely believe this is our best album,” concludes Bolm. He’s not wrong, either. P Touché
Amoré’s album ‘Lament’ is out 9th October.
Upset 43
“I WAS FEELING A LITTLE BIT HAUNTED MYSELF” In the seven years since Massachusetts altrockers Speedy Ortiz released their debut, ‘Major Arcana’, it seems that frontperson Sadie Dupuis has never stopped creating. Words: Linsey Teggert. Photos: Natalie Piserchio.
44 Upset
Between Speedy albums and tours, Sadie found the time to release her first solo record, the electro-pop-oriented ‘Slugger’ under the name Sad13. An impressive feat in itself, but even more so when you factor in that Sadie has also written a critically acclaimed poetry book, founded her own record label, Wax Nine, taught at prestigious universities and established an online poetry journal, as well as working as an advocate for numerous organisations such as the Union of Musicians and Allied Workers and No Music for ICE. Yet after the release of Speedy Ortiz’s third record ‘Twerp Verse’, the prolific artist found herself unable to create new music. “It’s probably the longest stretch of time I’ve gone without making new songs,” recalls Sadie. “Partly because I got vocal chord nodules and I was afraid
Upset 45
to try recording again, so I had to make a bunch of changes to my routine and health even to be able to perform live. I was also dealing with some grief and mental health issues, and I wasn’t interested in working on a new project, it seemed really overwhelming to me.” In order to fall in love with the idea of recording again, Sadie had to make several adjustments. One of these was the decision to work exclusively with female sound engineers. “For someone who has a burgeoning interest in engineering and production and also wants to highlight the work of women in audio, it seemed weird that I hadn’t really worked with other women apart from Emily Lazar [Beck, David Bowie, Dolly Parton and hundreds more] who masters all my stuff. So I sought out women whose work I’d admired from afar and pencilled in time with them in between Speedy’s tour dates.” One of the women who can be credited with reminding Sadie of her love for being in the studio is engineer Erin Tonkon, who worked on David Bowie’s ‘Blackstar’. “I told Erin that recording a whole album seemed too overwhelming, and she suggested we just try a couple of songs. I did that first session with Erin and remembered that being in the studio is my favourite thing in the world. It was at that point I started to write towards an album. “I ended up tracking about two songs a month in between festival dates in different studios spread out a little over half a year. One of the things that is so overwhelming for me about this project is that because I play everything and tend to compose music that has lots of little bits and pieces, it’s a stupid amount of stuff to memorise for the studio. Just having to focus on
46 Upset
two songs a month was more than enough for me.” Given the time to really flesh out ideas and experiment with a whole host of new instruments, including marimba, lap steel, sitar and theremin to name but a few, the resulting record, ‘Haunted Painting’, expands upon the poppier, synth-led sound of 2016’s Slugger. ‘Haunted Painting’ is much bigger and more realised, or ‘maximalist’ as Sadie calls it. It’s more akin to ‘Lucky 88’, the oddball alt-pop anthem of Speedy Ortiz’s last album, only much glossier, melding sweet, squelching synths with math-rock dynamism. “With ‘Slugger’, basically my bedroom demos became the songs. While plugging my guitar straight into my computer was really fun, there are limitations on how big it can sound. I love stuff that’s overproduced - music that has a ton of layers and is really hi-fi.” Aside from altering the logistics of recording, there was something a little stranger that nudged Sadie towards Sad13’s second album, and also inspired the name ‘Haunted Painting’. Having realised those first two tracks were going to be part of an album, she came across a painting at the Frye Gallery in Seattle by German expressionist Franz von Stuck that captivated her. In fact, even the artwork for the record ended up being inspired by the painting, with Sadie asking her artist Mother to create a portrait of her in a similar fashion. “It’s a portrait of a dancer named Saharet, and there’s something very haunting about her. I didn’t know anything about her but was really drawn in by that portrait. The very basic terminology that stuck out to me in looking at it was ‘haunted painting’. I thought it was an interesting way to describe a
“I SOUGHT OUT WOMEN WHOSE WORK I’D ADMIRED FROM AFAR AND PENCILLED IN TIME WITH THEM” SADIE DUPUIS
document of a time in my life when I was feeling a little bit haunted myself.” Celebrated for her literary lyrics, Sadie is not one to shy away from writing about serious subjects, though her lyrics tend to gravitate towards the oblique. While ‘Slugger’ was heavy on themes of consent and sexual politics, ‘Haunted Painting’ finds Sadie musing upon death. “I think one of the main through lines is grief. I’ve lost a number of friends to drug overdose, not that there’s any silver lining to losing people, but I’ve become very involved in harm reduction work in the past two years, in terms of carrying Naloxone the anti-overdose medication, and advocating for venues to stock it and have people on staff able to distribute it. “A lot of the lyrics on ‘Haunted Painting’ are pertaining to me processing grief and dealing with mental health stuff that came up from grieving that maybe I hadn’t dealt with for a long time, I think that’s maybe a darker part of what I’m exploring. I had OCD as a kid pretty badly and didn’t think it was something I dealt with anymore, but in going back to therapy, I found I do still have it and death is a really big trigger for it, so, not fixating on death but writing
through it is really helpful to me as part of the grieving process.” Though ‘Haunted Painting’ serves as a tool for Sadie to explore her grief, it’s by no means morbid. Known for her off-kilter style and wry wit, she playfully explores her interest in all things creepy. No stranger to the strange, having named the first Speedy Ortiz record after an aspect of Tarot and experimented with the horrorcomedy genre in their videos, ‘Haunted Painting’ enables Sadie to lean into these creepy tropes and have some fun with them. Very aptly, the video for the album’s first single ‘Ghost (of a Good Time)’, a party song about not going out, sees her hanging out in a motel with a bunch of Scooby-Doo sheet style ghosts. Recent videos for ‘Oops…!’ and ‘Hysterical’ have seen Sadie play a prom queen vampire and witness her friends murdered by a vengeful spirit over a webchat. “I have a thing, and I can’t quit it, and it’s creepy stuff,” laughs Sadie. “I 100% believe in ghosts, and I’ve had a couple of experiences that would be hard for me to explain other than with some supernatural presence. I had a roommate who passed away about a decade ago in our apartment, he was really funny and had a dry sense of humour. There was an alarm system installed in the apartment that had never ever worked, but after he passed away the alarm would just start going off at tense times - I felt that he was messing with us, letting us know that things were okay. I hope ghosts do exist and they’re hanging out with us and laughing at all of us for how naïve and weird we all are about death.” P Sad13’s
album ‘Haunted Painting’ is out now.
Upset 47
Rated_ THE OFFICIAL VERDICT ON EVERYTHING
N
DEFTONES OHMS
eeeee
ONE OF THE STAND OUT ALBUMS OF THE YEAR 48 Upset
ine albums deep, most bands have no right to be this good. A next step
from a group who have never found themselves more than a stone’s throw from heavy music’s cold, beating heart, that ‘Ohms’ arrives in the midst of such a period of uncertainty and disruption only goes to highlight that long-held impression. Deftones are that one band you can rely on to deliver. Provocative and propulsive to the last, ‘Ohms’ is almost the perfect distillation of the band’s past, but filtered back through something that feels current, fresh and exciting. Chino Moreno’s vocals act like a puppet master’s strings, pulling back and forth at will. Opener ‘Genesis’ starts slow but builds to a cataclysmic end, while the record’s lead single and title-track burns bright and long - a textured, muscular reminder of everything that makes the band great. With a layered intricacy that sets them apart and delivers something new on every listen, ‘Ohms’ isn’t just Deftones at their finest - it’s one of the stand out albums of the year. P Stephen
Ackroyd
IDLES
ULTRA MONO
eeeee
There’s an immediacy to ‘Ultra Mono’ that hasn’t been felt before on an IDLES record; the tracks feel so instinctual, so primal and pure, while still remaining intelligent and attentive. Their no-nonsense guttural punk with a bitter bite endures, however the sonic palette has been expanded like never before - this is IDLES as more than just a punk band. ‘Grounds’ blares monolithic alarms that encompass a discern of the unknown, while ‘Kill Them With Kindness’ opens with a smooth jazz piano before vocalist Joe Talbot starts barking ferociously like a dog, capturing both the batshit and the beautiful. ‘Reigns’ is blistering and gut-wrenching, searing with cutting krautrock guitars. On ‘Ultra Mono’ IDLES push the boundaries of what has been expected from them with brazen confidence. This is a band who no longer need to prove themselves. P
Jasleen Dhindsa
INTO IT. OVER IT. FIGURE
eeeee
That ‘Figure’ exists at all is a minor miracle. In 2017, having found himself in serious debt due to constant touring, Evan Weiss also said farewell to long-time collaborator Josh Sparks and split with has manager following allegations of misconduct. It was, it’s fair to say, far from a banner year. But these three years away have served as an opportunity for Weiss to examine his behaviours and chart a different path forward. ‘Figure’ offers up no easy answers, nor does it serve as a triumphant return for the Chicagobased musician. Instead, it’s a sombre reflection on some heavy and bruising experiences. Walking a fine line between a hope for a better for future and a realisation that
actions have consequences, it’s a salutary lesson with few crumbs of comfort, but makes for a weighty, nuanced and deeply considered return. P Rob Mair
JAMIE LENMAN KING OF CLUBS
eeeee
’King of Clubs’ is as unforgiving as it gets for Jamie Lenman. Lyrically, his tongue is razor-sharp for his scathing assessments of the state of the world, and the sound which he marries with it is a fitting balance of industrial rock and his usual brand of unbridled chaos. Whether it’s huge, worldwide, frustrations or very personal annoyances, Jamie Lenman has the bit between his teeth in ‘King of Clubs’. The anger is familiar from ‘Muscle Memory’, and the frustration was rife in Reuben’s album but, again, the singer freshens up his sound and further carves out his own path where he can do whatever the fuck he wants. P Alex Bradley
METZ
ATLAS VENDING
eeeee
This album feels like a migraine attack straight away, and then it moves on from there. Yes, METZ, the noisy post-punk-andbeyond band that is every other noisy post-punk-and-beyond band’s favourite are back. But ‘Atlas Vending’ is far more than just a bludgeoning assault on the senses (though it is that), instead, it forms a gripping and intricate snapshot of a modern life. From the first incessant dial-tone smash of Hayden Menzies’ drums on opener ‘Pulse’, to the literal crash through the pearly gates on ‘A Boat To Drown In’, this covers all points inbetween. As ominous in its softer moments as it is damaging and devastating when the noise returns, ‘Atlas Vending’ is the sound of a band fully confident in itself and delivering its biggest and best work yet. P Jamie
MacMillan
PILLOW QUEENS IN WAITING
eeeee
For a debut album, Pillow Queens’ first offering is nothing short of remarkable. ‘In Waiting’ is a perfectly poised record - one with both important message and brilliant melody. From sexuality to religion, and sometimes the meeting point between the two, it’s not simply a case of having something the say - the delivery more than matches the task. In ‘Handsome Wife’, they’ve even delivered what could well be a modern classic in waiting. Can’t say fairer than that. P Dan Harrison
SAD13
HAUNTED PAINTING
eeeee
Sad13’s Sadie Dupuis is a stone-cold punk. Recently splitting her time between running a record label, writing a poetry book, working with No Music For Ice and fronting multiple indierock projects, she’s using her artistry to incite positive change. On ‘Haunted Painting’ the trend is continued as Dupuis scatters her punk values all over the glossy, poprock record. It’s full of synthy sweetness reminiscent of Slingshot Dakota and Charly Bliss, but combined with more dynamic experimentation, beaming with the fun it must have been to create. ‘Haunted Painting’ wears its worries on its sleeve and sparkles as Sadie Dupuis shows once again how vital her voice is. P Paris Fawcett
TOUCHÉ AMORÉ LAMENT
eeeee
Some four years after the groundbreaking ‘Stage Four’, where Jeremy Bolm worked through the death of his mother and the ensuing grief, Touché Amoré return with a
much more forward-thinking and outward-looking record. The aftereffects of ‘Stage Four’ are still prevalent, but this is a record more concerned about observations of the human condition which have been gathered over the last four years. The shift to a more traditional form is freeing for the Californians, with songs stretching into the fiveminute territory (‘Limelight), dabbling in post-punk (‘Lament’) or big swathes of melody (‘Reminders’). In relation to ‘Is Survived By’, such subtlety feels a world away. Yet, it also feels entirely natural, as if the shackles have been released. ‘Lament’ consequently feels like an assured breakout; removed from a concept, it’s a svelte and streamlined take on the tried and trusted. A through narrative may be missing, but it only means the songs – rather than the ideas – take centre stage. P Rob Mair
THE WYTCHES THREE MILE DITCH
eeeee
On ‘Three Mile Ditch’ The Wytches have crafted their most considered work to date. While the band built their name cooking up harrowing and noisy slices of sludgy garage rock, their third record shows that four years away have brought some welcome change. The cinematic desert rock of ‘Cowboy’ sets the tone of a record that feels instantaneously matured - a feeling ingrained in all ten tracks. While the band’s chaotic energy remains on ‘Meat Chuck’ and ‘Everyone’s Friend’, nuanced singer-songwriter elements are weaved throughout. What makes ‘Three Mile Ditch’ so arresting is that the band embrace both their signature scowling experimental grunge, and subtle sombre tones in the vein of indie folk heroes Elliot Smith and Jeff Buckley. Whether it’s one or the other (‘A Love You’ll Never Know’ exemplifying both), what we do know is that The Wytches’ exquisitely raw artistry will always excel. P Jasleen Dhindsa
Upset 49
EVERYONE HAS THOSE FORMATIVE BANDS AND TRACKS THAT FIRST GOT THEM INTO MUSIC AND HELPED SHAPE THEIR VERY BEING. THIS MONTH, LONELY THE BRAVE TAKE US THROUGH SOME THE SONGS THAT MEANT THE MOST TO THEM DURING THEIR TEENAGE YEARS.
WITH... LONELY THE BRAVE CRAIG DAVID Fill Me In
Jack: My brother would play a bunch of Craig David tracks on his decks in his room, and I just seem to remember gravitating towards the vocal runs and chord inflections. There are some jazzy chords on the acoustic guitar and seemingly effortless vocal runs, which I’ve always admired. The production is pretty minimal from artful dodger, and I just absolutely love the melodies.
BIFFY CLYRO Living Is A Problem Because Everything Dies
Jack: Can’t remember how I came across this track, maybe on the radio?! Just really like the driving verse after a long obscure intro. Definitely stood out and somehow made it onto mainstream radio, which felt refreshing at the time. Really liked the arrogance of opening with a sequence of stabs in an overly pretentious order, it’s just kind of funny and also incredible!
ERASURE A Little Respect
Gavin: Me and my mum used to belt this song out at the top of our lungs together during a rough time for the pair of us, and it always made us smile! We had it on cassette in her car back in the day. Such an amazing song that I still love to this day. Mummy’s boy and proud.
THE CARS Drive
Gavin: Must’ve been pretty young when I heard this song, but I’ve never been able to get it out of my head. I still put this song on the pub jukebox on a regular basis, much to everyone’s dismay. It may be sad, but it ain’t a downer for me. Deftones do a beautiful cover of
50 Upset
this. A+.
MEGA CITY FOUR Prague
Gavin: This song changed everything for me. Probably the reason I got into shoegaze and that type of stuff. I used to just skate around like an idiot with the album Sebastopol Road on my Walkman. Mega City Four still mean everything to me.
DINOSAUR JR They Always Come
Gavin: Anybody that knows me will be totally unsurprised that I’ve included a Dinosaur song in this list. I first heard them on an early skate video (Vallely, maybe?) around a friend’s house. I could’ve picked a tonne of their songs, but this is banger-beautiful.
DEUS Roses
Mark: I bang on and on about this song, but it changed music for me forever. I first heard it on a covermount compilation for probably NME or Q, can’t quite
remember which. From the first note, it was different from anything I had ever heard: remorseful, melancholy, disturbing and somehow still had this edge of lust and desire that I have never felt replicated in any other song. The build throughout like growing insanity until the collapse at the end. It’s life in a song for me. Still outstanding and still the barometer for a lot of music for me.
RADIOHEAD Planet Telex
Mark: Radiohead were (and still are) a great influence on me. I remember my sister blasting Pablo Honey through the wall that separated our bedrooms as kids. I remember hearing Planet Telex and thinking that it was just on another level to anything I had heard at the time: production, control and this panoramic ambience. What an opening to what is still a phenomenal album. P
Lonely The Brave’s album ‘The Hope List’ is out 22nd January.
Subscribe to Upset upsetmagazine.com