Gary's Fantastic Music Reviews

INTERVIEW: Tubelord

2010-10-11T13:58:00.025Z

At the tail end of their UK tour, Tubelord were kind enough to give an interview just before their show at the Kraken Wakes in Portsmouth. Read on for musical insights, thoughts on playing live, and how to have a very, very good time at a gig.

GG: First off, I heard last night’s Water Rats gig was really cool. Was that one of your best?
Joseph (vocalist, guitarist): I think that was one of the best, you know. It was quite fun.
On the theme of live playing, do you enjoy playing live or the studio side more?
Joseph: I think I prefer the studio side… I don’t know. You’re always torn, aren’t you?
I think it was Jeff [Lynne] from Electric Light Orchestra who said he always preferred doing studio stuff instead of playing live. Obviously you get loads of takes recording, but if you make one mistake live you’re pretty much done for.
David (drummer): Jamie literally makes mistakes for fun.
Do you find that’s where most of your creativity comes from?
Jamie (Synth): It’s just instant gratification, you know. For the ladies.
David: We were talking about it today; that playing live and recording are two totally different things. We capture different energies onstage.
Do you find at a lot of your shows, the fans sing your songs back at you?
David: That depends where we are. With some crowds you get really, really reserved crowds; they’d just stand there, sing, and have a really great time but they won’t really rock out and it’s quite hard to engage with them. And with the crowds that go mental, I think you’re going to get a better performance out of us.

Are there any bands or performers that you try and emulate when you play live? Not necessarily musically, but in the way you move about the stage?
Tom (Bassist): I don’t do it, but I’m quite inspired by the guitarist from a band called Drool from Northampton. He literally does the best face.
A sex face?
Tom: No, this mesmerising face.
David: None of us will have as much fun as he has in his band. That’s just fact. We’ve all started taking on each other’s traits as well, and we’ve been touring with Tall Ships.
They supported you last night, is that right?
David: Yes. Matt [from Tall Ships] likes to do jumps. I saw him do four jumps in a row in Gloucester. That was great.

Obviously, you’ve got Alan [temporary singer] playing with you for a few shows. Does that change the make-up of the band, or is the essence still there? Does he bring anything else to it live?
Joseph: Loads, you know. In terms of live, I’m personally not on the microphone anymore, and before it would be quite frustrating when you just want to play guitar.
So you get to concentrate more.
Joseph: Yeah, you get to just dig the band and I’ve never heard us musically before. You get a lot of sound just stuck in your skull; it reverberates through, and this way I get to hear it really for what it is. Alan has given me that insight.
David: I’ve found that I can actually hear Jo’s guitar parts for the first time ‘cause always I’d obviously hear it just with his singing, but with someone else’s voice it’s weird. It’s like both the guitar and the voice are now two separate things. I can concentrate more on the guitar and bass, so now I feed off both of them.
Do you think it’ll remain like that once Joe’s voice gets better?
David: Yeah, but I think it’ll be one of those things where it’s kind of made us stronger as it now means that I’m listening out for a guitar part - so once Joe’s back on the vocals, I’ll still be hearing his guitar parts and his vocals, and it’s nice to hear these little intricacies on the guitar. You’d think, ‘ah that’s neat, I’ve never heard that before’.
So you’ll be able to hear your songwriting come through.
David: Yeah, it seems to have been a really positive thing.

Now, Twin Cities had four jumps. What’s the silliest thing any of you have done on tour?
Joseph: Silly?
Or stupid. Or just debauchery. Anything that you’d want to commit to tape, anyway.
Tom: Jamie poured a drink on my face.
David: Tell the whole story.
Tom: It was my birthday in Falmouth, and I got given a Goblet of Doom. They filled it with spirits. I drunk half of it whilst playing. We got to the end song, and the spirits had caught up with me and I ended up in the crowd, laying on my back still playing bass.
Good way to end your show.
Tom: Jamie was throwing the rest of the Goblet of Doom over my face; I looked back, and Joe wasn’t playing guitar anymore. He was lifting one of the Tall Ships boys up into a crowd surf – his first ever crowd surf – so it’s just Dave onstage playing drums. That was pretty good. But what followed that night in the bar remains a secret, but that was quite debauched as well.

Moving swiftly on, your first album is nearly a year old. Are you excited about the next record? Anything that you’re particularly proud of?
Joseph: You don’t get proud of your song. I think that true pride is something external, you know? If a friend or a close relative or someone I really care about is doing something in public [like a live performance] I get nervous for them. But when they get rounds of applause, I feel pride.
You’re coming back to Portsmouth next month, supporting Oceansize.
David: I’m excited; we’re all going to have to get colourful, ‘cause there’s going to be a lot of dark clothes.
Are you looking forward to the show tonight?
David: Yeah, though only half the PA works. We’ll give it double the show, I guess.

Tubelord are set to tour again next month with Oceansize and Asiwyfa.
Tubelord myspace

GIG: Oceansize - Koko, 1/10/10

2010-10-04T13:33:00.018Z

The gig's finished, and it's 9:45. Yup, it's an early one for Manchester's finest undefinable, but thank the prog gods it doesn't matter one bit considering the quality tonight.

Playing a lot of material from 'Self Preserved While the Bodies Float Up' which is still warm from the shelves, Oceansize do manage to drop in those classics. However, opener 'Part Cardiac' definitely sets the scene; brooding, technical, emotive are just some of the words you could throw about concerning the sound. Studio efforts in the past include some of the best work any band this side of the century has committed to tape; 'Music For a Nurse' in particular shines, its melody and sheer simplicity coming across poignantly in the midst of the more heavy tunes present. Speaking of which, 'Self Preserved...' is their most hard-hitting record to date, most apparent in the wild thrashings of 'It's My Tail and I'll Chase it if I Want To' and the utterly, utterly show-stopping coda of 'Silent/Transparent'. There are few times I've heard an audience gasp after a full-stop.

It all comes to a chest-beating, euphoric climax with 'Ornament / The Last Wrongs', and then the sombre encore 'Women Who Love Men Who Love Drugs'. The last five or so minutes are incredibly affecting: lead singer Mike Vennart is alone centre-stage, looping a guitar arpeggio for what seems an aeon, a frozen photograph of life in noise. As simple as it sounds, it's the perfect ending to a bravura night, the guitar eventually fading into the ether and replaced by loud applause. Starting and finishing early to make room for Club NME seems almost offensive, but at least they made the damn most of it.

8.5 / 10

GIG: Brand New - Wembley Arena, 23/01/2010

2010-01-27T13:14:00.008Z

Some bands have got it, others don't. It's that simple. When it comes to stepping up the act to arena-size proportions, the cracks really start showing. Unless you're fantastic. Unless you're Brand New.

Trudging your way through the incessant pitfalls of the music biz is not an easy thing to do, and less easy to make any success from it. But the real difficulty - the proper nut-buster - is coming out the other end with your integrity intact. Writing songs you want to hear, not what the label demands. It is a hard life, and obviously Brand New are one of the few groups out there who have made it to this size with said nuts hanging firmly in place.

But that's digressing. I seem to be good at that. Turning our attention the evening at hand, we have three bands on the bill (including headliners BN), all of which intelligently attract the same crowd. A veritable Mecca for the disenfranchised. Judging by their appearance, the audience most definitely all belong to a scene (and almost all are wearing checked shirts), but their passion for the music goes undimmed. First up we have Thrice, moody post-hardcore rockers who do well to whip up a snail tornado of gutfelt singing and shimmering, dirty guitars. Glassjaw fit the music nicely, but their drab sound mix deflates any real opportunity for headbanging. I hear you screaming down the mic, Daryl Palumbo, but not about the same thing I'm thinking right now.

'Welcome To Bangkok' was made for these cavernous venues in mind. This fitting ear-filler announces Brand New's arrival, with the following 'Sink' establishing proper touchdown. Their minimal stage set-up - a couple of retro lights, a white banner with monochrome images projected upon it - does well to suit the songs, and doesn't overpower the member's own onstage prescence which for the most part, is pretty low unless they're throwing their guitars in
the air or jumping around like maniacs. Which is awesome, by the way. Before you know it, they've rolled out sleeper hits 'The Quiet Things That No-One Ever Knows', 'Okay I Believe You, But My Tommy Gun Don't' to a crowd going apeshit, and those not even released as singles elicit an even deeper response ('You Won't Know').

Frontman Jesse Lacey is depressing at the best of times. So when he plays and sings solo through the majority of 'Limousine', a tune concerning the death of a seven year-old at the hands of a drunk driver, the clock is striking thirteen very, very loudly. The incredible moment when the rest join in en force toward the end, then, is bizarrely uplifting and powerful. Immediately afterwards we're treated to new album opener 'Vices', pouring out all the angst built up over the last few minutes. A set that flows so organically like this almost becomes a living thing unto itself, breathing in deeply for 'Jesus', the singalong ballad of the night, then taking the plunge for the utterly fantastic revisiting of their debut 'Your Favoirite Weapon'. 'Jude Law And A Semester Abroad' and 'Seventy Times Seven' never sounded so vital.

With the number 'Play Crack The Sky', its duality of downbeat lyrics and major key stylings serve for a perfect, satisfying close. There is no encore: at first I'm disappointed, but gradually realise 'what's the point?' When you've just dished out music of this emotional and technical calibre, what is the real point of saying everything you've already said, but with a little rehash tacked on the end? Rock and Roll stylings don't suit Brand New, and Brand New do not suit Rock and Roll stylings. Neither have they ever wanted to. They've shown to play Wembley friggin' Arena on your own terms is the real nut-buster.

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Rating: 9 / 10

GIG: Oasis - Wembley Stadium, 12th July

2009-07-15T09:58:00.009Z

The Gallagher brothers truly are the scum of the earth when it comes to their nazified opinions on music, and I would definitely like to have a go with a baseball bat. It's ridiculously annoying then, that they made Definitely Maybe and (What's The Story) Morning Glory?, albums which both stand the test of time, their universe-sized choruses and riffs standing up there in the pantheon of the greats. For this odd chemistry alone, I went along to see the forever maligned and worshipped band at their third date at Wembley Stadium.

First up though, is a support line-up that fits the billing very nicely. Reverend and The Makers have a great sound mix, but the songs themselves make sleep sound like a more interesting premise. Fuck off, Reverend. We now have The Enemy, who are fantastically shit on record but surprise me here live with their dogged confidence. The one mesmerising aspect of their show though is how incredibly ugly their frontman is; I mean, real fucking ugly, stupefiyingly so. Really though, jesus christ. I mean, come on. No-one should be allowed to have a face like that. It should be downright illegal. Erm, oh yeah - Kasabian. More Northerners taking to the stage, I know - but these have a massive live performance promise, and deliver that to a tee. 'Clubfoot', 'Empire' and 'LSF' are beasts from your worst musical nightmare, and echo around the stadium with the weight of their own cosmicness. Even new single 'Fire', which is shit, gets practically everyone in the place jumping like a madman with absolutely no prompting. Quite a feat, quite a feat.

This moment I like to call The Moment Of Truth. It's the point in a show when the artist has come onstage, looks around at the audience confidently, but hasn't yet sounded a single note, but instead just basks in the excited cheers coming his way. And when the actual music starts is when he'll be judged. So we have it, Oasis the Abbhored / Adored strut their stuff into the fray, Liam looking like an angry turtle with his massive green coat, Noel looking like a confused primate. The launch into 'Rock N' Roll Star' begins, and hey - it sounds good. Pheeeeeeeeeeew.
We're then treated to the likes of 'Lyla', 'Cigarrettes and Alcohol' and 'Roll With It' amongst other classics and newbies, with Liam sneering like he was back in the nineties and actually had something to be angry about. The real first mass singalong of the evening is the surprise acoustic rendition of 'Whatever', then even more so for 'Half The World Away'. Honestly, when Liam buggers off and leaves Noel on lone acoustic guitar, the whole show settles comfortably and allows itself to transcend the confines of its own self-shy, laddy pretensions. Or maybe it's just that Liam's a terrible singer.
'Songbird' sounds fantastic; 'Slide Away' is as moving as it's always been. Though it's 'Wonderwall' and 'Live Forever' that gets the nostalgia really flowing. Of course. These gigantic anthems are almost something more than what they actually are, and a packed venue of this size singing its utter heart out to these tunes, that don't lyrically mean a whole lot, is really testament to the power of not just live music but all music in general. While most of the crowd here tonight are rowdy fuckfaces who would tear each other apart on a whim on any other day, are now united brotherhood-style. And the really impressive thing is that the band who manages this are rowdy fuckfaces who tear each other apart themselves. They do it on a daily basis, however.
The encore opener is a hushed version of 'Don't Look Back In Anger': while it promises to crash in with the plomp of the original but sadly never does, it does allow the crowd's voices to be heard. Which is also a bad thing, because it's fucking defeaning. And the band's real crowning achievement, 'Champagne Supernova', simply sounds eternal. It's all frenzied up one last time in the form of The Beatles' 'I Am The Walrus', their version a nasty, heavy, LSD head trip. And it rocks. After the final glorious ruckus, the band leaves, and the crowd is left to an incredibly long, sweaty and achey ride home on the tube. Fucking Jubilee line closure.

So, it's been surprising. Oasis were actually good, and I'm thankful for that. And no powercuts either - the first night was besieged by them. Unfortunately there was no airing for Acquiesce, one of my personal favourites, but you can't have everything. Another nag was that by the time the band finished, even though they played for two hours, it was still light, so the whole stage set-up was never able to work its full magic. Still, it was fun. Not the greatest stadium show I've ever seen, but the band knew their stuff, Liam didn't have a tantrum and do a walkies, and the crowd were mad fer it. Sorry.

Overall - 8 / 10

FESTIVAL: Download Festival - 12th, 13th, 14th June

2009-06-17T12:31:00.014Z

It's that time of year again. Headbanging until your neck breaks, running around in circles like a complete loon, and throwing yourself into each other violently. Oh, and there's music too. This year's stellar line-up sees bands you thought you'd never see live (Limp Bizkit, Faith No More, Journey), to bands so ridiculous it's actually fantastic (Limp Bizkit, Faith No More, Journey. Ahem). So let the incredible weekend that is Download at Donington begin! Or rather, let me talk about it fervently. As before, ratings for bands are in Gs (G for Gary, geddit?? Ks can kiss my arse). It goes like this: G = Terrible, GG = Pretty poor, GGG = Enjoyable, GGGG = Very good, GGGGG = Incredible.

Friday, 12th June
The first band to kick things off on the Friday are Hollywood Undead (GG) on the main stage. Whilst their faux rapping does not impress, the way they get the crowd going does; how can everyone bopping their heads rap-stylee at a mainly metal festival not be enjoyable? Thankfully The Blackout (GGGG) kick it into rock mode. Sean Smith's performance is slightly compromised by being absolutely knackered by the looks of it, but that's soon overcome with their raucous Korn/Bizkit/Faith No More medley. Over on the second stage, A Day To Remember (GG) are alright enough, but do little to make me want to listen to them for more than two seconds. Sorry. Parkway Drive (GGG½) on the other hand are ridiculously tight for their type of music - deathcore? - as other bands with a similar sound usually fall into a mess live. Not true for these Aussies thankfully, but Dir En Grey (G½) truly aren't anything to write home about. Japanese shock-metallers, their hideous songs purely makes me want to rip my eardrums out and stamp on them repeatedly. Fucking awful. Whilst the songs aren't exactly revelatory, the way that Killswitch Engage (GGGG) handle the stage is blinding. Not only possessing a fantastic sound, their onstage banter is almost more entertaining than the music. At least if KSE go under in the music business, there'll be a job waiting for them in stand-up. The band that follows them are legends, for good and bad reasons. But today, the good definitely overshadows the bad. Limp Bizkit (GGGGG) blow me away with tightly performed hits like 'Break Stuff' and 'My Generation', amongst other fan favourites such as 'Nookie'. Wes Borland is a crazy motherfucker; the way he is dressed today is the same way my worst nightmare is dressed. Fred Durst sports his classic red cap, and raps in the classic Fred Durst way. The highlight would be 'Rollin' ' and closer 'Take A Look Around', but that award goes to Limp Bizkit actually being, surprisingly, fucking awesome. Korn (GGGG½), the nu-metal pioneers, put on another astonishing performance. Yet again the tightest band of the weekend, 'Freak On A Leash' and 'Here To Stay' invoke mass hysteria, but delve too far into the less well-known material, thus sacrificing the momentum a truly great festival performance needs. A brilliant rearrangement of 'Falling Away From Me' does stand out, however. It's up to Faith No More (GGGG½) to live up to the stupid hype the Download organisers have bestowed upon this headlining performance, and they surely live up to it. They arrive onstage as a past-it jazz lounge band, complete with Mike Patton leaning on a cane. Things, of course, erupt then on in, Patton's majestically trained vocals searing over the rest of the band's equally intense output. 'Easy', 'From Out Of Nowhere' and 'Epic' are heard in all their ludicrous glory, and while grey hairs tell the truth, Faith No More perform with all the slickness of youth. It's a shame, then, that pretty much none of the crowd know their fucking songs.

Saturday, 13th June
Ah, the main day of the festival. Devildriver's (GGG) Guinness-smashing circle pits are a ferocious way to start up the day on the main stage, followed up with Fightstar (GG½) on the second stage. They lack many great songs, 'Deathcar' and 'Pahlanuik's Laughter' being the exception, but put just enough energy into the actual performance to save it from being rather pedestrian. Down (G½) do not bring the goods unfortunately. Oh Pantera, how we miss you. Dragonforce (GGG½) lighten the mood, cutting the crap by launching straight into 'Valley Of The Damned', and closing proceedings equally astonishingly with Guitar Hero wankfest 'Through The Fire And The Flames'. Next, Pendulum (GGGG½) put on yet another stunning festival performance. Of course, it's naturally not going to be as off-kilter as their Download debut last year, but a rearranged setlist and segues more than make up for anything that may be a little unrevolutionary about today's show. Plus, 'Propane Nightmares' will always get any crowd moving. For a dance-rock mashup act winning over a metalfest, you'd have thought the God of Fuck himself could have mustered up a reaction. Not so. Marilyn Manson (G), please, just stop. The lamer-than-lame setlist choices are bad enough ('Disposable Teens' and 'Beautiful People' are the only big songs we hear today), but when you have to stop after every song to get a fill from an oxygen tank, you know it's time to fucking quit. You staggered off during the last song. You have nothing left to give to the world in your current state. Go home. After such a massive letdown, we have the best band of the three days to the rescue: Slipknot (GGGGG). Their live show has always been highly praised, and tonight, their long-awaited headline slot sums it all up. A purely riotous blast of '(Sic)', 'Eyeless', 'Wait and Bleed', 'Get This' and 'Before I Forget' tears Donington a new one, while 'Vermilion' 's schizophrenic refrains cement the fact that this is a band at the top of their game. Even the slightly duff 'Dead Memories' sounds gigantic, and is sung back at the nine-piece at the top of their lungs. Things really kick off though, during 'Duality', 'People=Shit' and 'Surfacing', topped off with probably the biggest 'sit the fuck down / jump da fuck up' Slipknot have ever had with 'Spit It Out'. And on that note, the performance to remember is over.

Sunday, 14th June
The final day is already here. Wipe those tears away though, for another day of music lies ahead. Sacred Mother Tongue (GGG½) rock the hell out of the second stage with their tremendous sound, the icing on the cake though is the bassist running off the stage and into the moshpit whist playing the song perfectly. Wow, that was impressive. Trigger The Bloodshed (GG½) do well putting effort into their set, but their muddy mix ruins what they have to offer. Suicide Silence (GGG½) are the band of the moment, and everyone here is excited to see them. Their huge-ass breakdowns are more than enough for me to enjoy greatly. Very different are classic rock - yet heavy - Black Stone Cherry (GGGG), who I don't want to give so many Gs to because they're basically a bunch of rednecks. But very, very good rednecks. Journey (GGGG) put on an alleviating performance from all the insert-tag-herecore, complete with the statutory 'Don't Stop Believin' '. Too fucking right. Dream Theater (GG), unfortunately, alienate everybody: due to the unbelievable length of their music, they play about three tracks then fuck off, the last just being a jam session. Surely incredible at their own gigs, and very enjoyable studio-wise, a festival appearance just isn't right. ZZ Top (GG) are just boring. And beardy. Very, very beardy. Cousin It has taken to the stage. I catch Sabbat (GG) who should die out, then afterwards new retro-rock sensation Steel Panther (GGGG) who are the natural successors to Spinal Tap. Hilarious stuff, but when the crowd are this excited about a new band who is drawing from the past, it makes you worry a little bit. Whitesnake (GG): ah even more classic cock rock! Brilliant. I fuck off over to the second stage for Papa Roach (GGG½), who are gladly on energetic form, throwing out the hits like 'Between Angels And Insects', 'Getting Away With Murder' and 'Last Resort'. Over at the Red Bull stage, Attack! Attack! (GGG½) rip it up with their vivacious pop-punk. Back on the main stage, it's time for Download Festival 2009 closers Def Leppard (GGGG½). For a band whose heyday was in the eighties, it's quite hard to see if it's died out at all since then. The answer I draw from the audience's reaction is, apparently, a big fat 'no'. Drawing from their last Donington appearance - Monsters Of Rock, their first performance since drummer Rick Allen's amputation of his left arm - it turns into a rather spiritual show, massive hits like 'Animal' and 'Let's Get Rocked' get an even bigger reception. Hair metal should rightfully die out, but I do have to say: this is great stuff.

GIG: New Found Glory - The Forum, 30th May

2009-06-04T08:48:00.010Z

'Pop Punks not dead' - the merch reads out a quite potent message. The skate-pop scene never really died out, at least when particular avenues led to bands like New Found Glory, who are testament to this fact. Going since 1997, the band have played London eight times - this being the glorious latest addition.

The bill includes Tonight Is Goodbye who, to be quite honest, are pretty out of place here. Their twitchy scenester fumblings do not impress, but Attack! Attack! bring it all the way back with their sheer likeability. Tight songs, tight stagecraft, tight everything - sounds like a night at the local S&M bar. Only difference here is that you're getting raped by music instead. After a damn energetic set, we have main support Bayside who are PP veterans themselves. It's quite surprising how good some of their songs are despite the typical trappings of the genre: catchy intro; angsty or somehow downtrodden verse; massive, I-don't-care-that-you're-a-girl-and-you-don't-want-to-go-out-with-me-'cause-I'm-shy-and-I'm-a-loser kinda explosion of a chorus; repeat. They mix in almost metallic heaviness, Ska-punk influences ala Less Than Jake, and gild it all with a generally bastardly singing style (of course, with the obligatory nasal whine). And the crowd love them. Bless.

New Found Glory, in turn, deliver a rollicking set worthy of the craziness it duly ellicits. 'All Downhill From Here' is a natural shot-in-the-arm opener, its stupidly good shoutalong 'and you keep pulling me dowwwwwwwwwn' simply gets everyone bopping. As if they actually need any prompting anyway: before the first note even sounds, I'm on the inner wall of a moshpit that seems to have opened up from underneath. Mmm, promising.
What ensues is NFG classic after NFG classic; 'Head On Collision', ''Dressed To Kill' and 'This Disaster' all spring forth from the band's exuberant characters. Jordan Pundik, lead vocalist, looks a little cream crackered now and then, but his energy picks up during the night, and by a quarter of the way through the show, he is on fire. Chad Gilbert, the band's outspoken guitarist, keeps the momentum going with s few scattered speeches, some silly, some meaningful, and some slightly pretentious. Most niggling of all though, is his guitar sound: it's too fucking quiet. Alas, it never gets turned up, so at points when he launches into a riff, I can only guess where the beat is and headbang as much in time as is possible. This is the aural equivalent of playing one of those Whack-a-Mole games, only the Moles never fucking appear.
The sweat never stops pouring, and neither does the whole crowd singing along. To every single line of every song. No joke. They should be getting paid for choir work at this gig. It's clear how long-reaching the legacy New Found Glory have, and the tunes certainly make a point of how undeniable that should be.

Ending their set, obviously but appropriately, with 'My Friends Over You', the crowd erupt once more, the band give it their all and they are done once more for the night. As Gilbert said earlier, 'what else would I want to do with my life, than play music in New Found Glory?', that question has now been answered: nothing, if it's as good as this all the time.

Overall - 8.5 / 10

GIG: The Blackout - The Forum, 29th May

2009-05-30T10:15:00.007Z

Little emo kids. Everywhere. I cannot escape them.
Bearing the correct fringe, I manage to blend in well enough to not attract attention to myself, but lordy - everyone looks the same.
It's my first time here at the Forum (sorry, 'HMV Forum' for you politically-correct whores out there), and amongst the mopey rabble is actually a very nice venue. It reminds me of the late Astoria, albeit smaller and with a nice sit-down area at the back. Yeah, like hell are you going to sit at this gig.

Unfortunately missing first band The Urgency, I am instead treated to The Hollywood Undead. What label thought these misfits were a good idea? If you're going to do the whole mask thing, don't do a below-par Slipknot rip-off. If you're going to do the whole rap-rock thing, have at least some decent songs. And if you're going to rap, please - by all means - rap. But don't mime. Let the sample play out naturally, don't pretend to be singing the obvious autotuned playback. Also: if you're going to do any of this at all, be funny about it. A few jokes about how ridiculous you are wouldn't go amiss. Scary though, that most of the audience know all the words. Stupid emos.
Silverstein fare much better, though are hampered by a pretty poor sound mix. Guitars just aren't loud enough, drums don't rumble as much as they should. However, they do manage to get the crowd going like crazy, and Shane Told's falsetto notes hit the right places. Surprisingly heavy for their generic screamo pigeonhole, by the end of their set they manage to rock the hell out of the place. So kudos to them, really.

Now for the main course: Kerrang! darlings, The Blackout. Delicious but slightly superficial, their music isn't groundbreaking, but sure makes for a succulent dining experience. I don't know what's with all the gastronomic references; perhaps it's simply the way they make me want to gorge myself with heavy riffs and scorching vocals. Yum, yum and yum again.
The last time I saw them, their tightness as a band was only matched by their own onstage humour. I'm glad to report they remain as jocular as ever, and have honed their craft to a very professional degree. Professional at sonically ripping your head off. The first few songs are incendiary (I love that word), but bizarrely the crowd don't seem as kinetic as they were for Silverstein. This is reciprocated (another great word!) by the band themselves, and so while their effort does not dip, the average happiness they exude remains relatively low. I calculate it like this:
Crowd energy = C
Band energy = B
Happiness = A
So, C + B = A. Both C and B can be hampered by D, which is any accountable thing such as the quality of their sound mix, etc. Whatever values the first two have, they both have to come together well for the band to be happy with the show they put on. It's a simple equation, but it's an important one. Also, remember to divide B by E; the number of piss bottles being thrown at them.
Nonetheless, they throw everything they've got in the form of mass singalongs, sit-down-jump-the-fuck-up shenanigans and the like. A floor-encompassing circle pit for 'I'm A Riot? You're A Fucking Riot!' is the highlight of my night. But a message to the emo mosher: mosh when there's something to mosh to. Don't come in on the completely wrong beat, it just kills it. Stupid emos.

All in all, a good evening of to-the-moment, hip rock music. Though the 'rock' is slowly being taken out and replaced with 'fuck', what with all the sleazy grooves and verbal parleys The Blackout offer through their set. This is definitely not the best I'll see them - give it less than two weeks, they'll be brewing up a storm at Download Festival. But even if I wasn't completely taken with the tunes tonight, at least I can become a true emo gig-goer: a tight-fitting T-shirt for a fiver outside completes my transformation. As long as my internal organs don't collapse under the sheer skin-hugging tautness, I'll be able to go to the next Hollywood Undead concert *choke*. Stupid emos.

Overall - 7 / 10

GIG: Wildcard - Monto Water Rats, 16th May

2009-05-20T13:07:00.005Z

Tonight was surprising. So much quality, when your usual six-quid ticket has the odd decent band amongst much more average outfits. Tonight was the other way round completely. (Oh, and the sound wasn't crap either.)

Water Rats, at the heart of King's Cross, is a bit of a centrepoint for upcoming bands to show their stuff in the nation's capital, and has also seen the odd bigger-band action - Skunk Anansie played here last month, for instance. All these expectations are lived up to when I walk into the same room that Revolution are playing. The most ambitious groove-rock coated in very self-conscious contemporaneous vibes, their wall of sound smacks me straight in my face and makes me feel very small indeed. They may want to rename themselves the 'Wow' factor. Up next are Welsh punk-poppers Kick Box Riot - and the professionalism simply oozes as much as the laughs. The amount of charm Mike and the lads convey is enough to win over any cynic, but it's the tunes that are at the core. Spiky, angsty, boppy, with added hip. Definitely one who could easily get big, so keep your ears open.
I have sympathy for any band to follow these two - and it just happens to be The Centrals. Damn it, they could be great. The songwriting is all in place, but the talent isn't. Get a hold of your chosen instrument, and learn how to play it. The last song is grand, mind. So it's left to The Involved to pick up the audience's and my own attention. Their cathartic, arcing music leaves behind any traces of lesser bands of a similar sound, leaving only their own awesomeness. Their onstage timidity only acts to emphasize the enormity of their songs, and after a corker of an ending we have The M anhattan Project. 'Tell that DJ to turn off that shit music'. Well, they've lost me already. Sounding like the baby of Kasabian and The Enemy neither wanted to keep, they truck on with their own annoying arrogance and tired sounds. They're Northern so they can't be considered as Mockney, so they can be Mockgood instead.

Thankfully, the much friendlier Shortfall come equipped with some great songs. The anthemic radio-rock and onstage charisma does much to raise my spirits. So now the relatively new guys Wildcard are here to put an end to this evening's long night of live music... and this is their first gig as a band. Something great must've been in the cards for their headline slot then, and that's revealed instantly when they explode into the first song. Classic riffs, lofty vocal harmonies, elevating guitar solos; put simply, they have their shit together. The set is as tight as a drum, and even includes a cover of 'Boys Of Summer' that threatens to combust toward the end. The massive, full sonic arsenal they possess have them firing on all guns, never letting up until they finish (aggravatingly). Wildcard definitely have something to bring to the table, and this is just the beginning. Terrifying, really.

Overall - 9 / 10

ALBUM: Green Day - 21st Century Breakdown

2009-05-16T11:40:00.004Z

This one's a bit of a biggie. Green Day, famous for setting the world alight with 'Basket Case' in 1994, then again in 2004 in the form of 'American Idiot', are pretty much members of the big league of rock bands. That's right, not 'punk band' - they're sonically just not one anymore. Sorry, die-hard fans. 21st Century Breakdown sees them become a showcase for classic rock principles, though the punk ideals do remain intact: their political commentary, no matter how vaguely researched and postulated it is, still contains the fire from the early days. Under all the pop, there's something that bites. Still, we had to wait five sodding years for it.

Billie Joe Armstrong, Tré Cool and Mike Dirnt represent the studio three-piece with Butch Vig at the helm. Producer of Nirvana's Nevermind, you know it's going to be an unabashed, ridiculously produced piece of overblown music from the off. That is one-hundred percent correct. Piano jingles open the album up, taken straight off 'The Joshua Tree', whilst the rest of the song unravels itself in three acts. This is the template of the entire album: three acts, all consisting of around five to six songs each, swapping musical motifs and echoing lyrics. This makes for a very complex listen, but sadly never really lifts off into the 'deep, enriching' kind. I just couldn't give a fuck about Christian and Gloria, the concept's main protagonists. The American Idiot, I loved to bits: he/she was a middle-finger to Bush, the Establishment, and while completely juvenile it still managed to invigorate a definite 'fuck you' in the throat. Fun yet relevant. The story presented on 21st Century Breakdown does not have that much of a plot, Billie Joe's vocals not clear enough to be heard properly. If he's not going to try, I'm not either.

The first act, Heroes and Cons, contains some gems in the form of '¡Viva La Gloria!', and even the warmly-received first single 'Know Your Enemy' sounds much better as a part in a greater arc. The pace never lets up, even going into the second act Charlatans and Saints. We have the first truly standout song with 'East Jesus Nowhere'. It's a biting remark on the fundamentalist, fanatic dogma of Christianity in America at the moment. This one's surprisingly very snide, and damn funny too given the subject. The Spanish-spiced 'Peacemaker' and anthem-fodder 'Last Of The American Girls' do little to ignite much in the soul but are catchy enough to be considered just above 'filler'. There are eighteen tracks on this LP after all, and the occasional pointless track does crop up but rarely is uninteresting enough to labeled as 'bad'. We do have 'Murder City' however, a nice flurry of rage fuelled vocals and filthy basslines. And the band seem to have nicked a bit from 'Boulevard Of Broken Dreams' (which is a fucking great pop song, by the way) in the solo section of 'Restless Heart Syndrome'. Naughty, naughty.
The final act - Horseshoes and Handgrenades - contains some stronger songs. The eponymous track is a more simplistic blast of pop-punk, which works for it in the context of the bigger tunes surrounding it. '21 Guns' has a great chorus, riveting guitar workout, and musically weighty guitar effects as a bookend. The album does suffer from closing on 'See The Light', which is very by-the-numbers, ending on a big enough bang but not the nuclear explosion the album promises.

You know what this album's problem is? Length. Not of the record as a whole (which clocks in at seventy minutes, which flies by surprisingly fast) but of the individual tracks. Sometimes they go on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and... you get the picture. There are at least ten songs on here that would benefit greatly from having their running time reduced. It seems that grandeur has pierced the trio's consciousness of making a tight song. I can imagine the conversation in the studio: 'this one doesn't have a guitar solo. Put one in! This one here, why is it three-and-a-half minutes instead of five? How are we going to beat Springsteen acting like this? Sort it out!' Green Day should realise they're already a stadium-devouring act. They don't need to inject false pretenses of epicness into the writing to feel more comfortable in the niche they've found themselves in 2004 onwards.

You may believe I have a lot of negative feelings towards this album. That's not true: I enjoy 21st Century Breakdown tremendously. While the tracks by themselves may not stand up to Green Day classics of old on their own, the album listened through as a whole makes for a colourful ride, abundant with energy and humour. A true work of a cartoon punk band (I did not come up with that term, but I wish to hell I did). Where the ride takes me, I have not a clue, but I enjoy it all the same. The question on every listener's lips, though dare none utter it, is was it worth waiting five years for?

Overall - 7.5 / 10

GIG: Madina Lake - Electric Ballroom, 8th May

2009-05-11T17:26:00.005Z

Hmm, Camden. My kind of place. Well, minus all the murder and drug-dealing. And the dangerous traffic. And the dirt etched into every single brick. Madina Lake, in this instance, is then a bit of a brief light in the dinginess. Waving the banner for punk-pop with new album Attics To Eden, tonight is a year on since their last visit to London, and even though they severely lack any real praise for their recorded efforts - I'm in that same boat myself - the live work-out is a bit of a powerhouse.

Deep in the heart of the Camden Electric Ballroom, I manage to catch the end of Flood Of Red, who make enough of an epic noise in their last tune to leave a good impression. Up next are the hip-and-they-know-it The Audition, who the mainly under-seventeen crowd adore. Performing their own soundcheck, it isn't looking good from the start (it may save money, but the result is usually sonic mush). Shockingly, they sound fucking banging. Each song is a sweat-ridden, moshworthy scene-stealer, tightly crafted, sexy, and as loud as lead singer Danny Steven's own confidence. After all, they have been going since 2003, practically making them veterans in a scene famous less for the bands themselves, and more famous for how quickly they disappear off the radar.
Thoroughly satisfied, the question that begs being asked is how can Madina Lake top that? Their Download Festival '08 appearance was less than incendiary, and plus - they're Madina Lake. That's pretty damn uncool. But the fact is, the instant they hit the stage they almost split it in half with energy. That's pretty damn cool.

Blasting their way through tracks from From Them, Through Us, To You and newie Attics To Eden, there is never a boring moment. The acoustics are great, the crowd's giving it some, the band never lets up for a second. The Leone brothers, Nathan on vocals and Matthew on bass, are never egotistical rock stars; though Nate does blab a little too much with his modest and honest remarks. There can be too much of a good thing, you know. The positive sincerity doesn't turn the gig into a gooey emofest though (we have all the ingredients here to make one, that's for sure), as the drums rumble, the falsetto vocals coalesce beautifully and the guitars belch out riffs any metalhead could appreciate. The heaviness is the real star of the show here, and unfortunately this is never really communicated on their albums. Also, you can hear the frickin' bass for once. Bass level at a Madina Lake gig is a rare occurence; their tech must've been swapped. Or shot.
'Here I Stand' and 'Never Take Us Alive' are the highlights: actually, so are black balloons filled with white confetti bouncing all over the place, with Nathan swimming in the audience every other song. Really, it's over almost before it should be, but nevertheless the show is just the right length. The main offender in Madina Lake's pathway to greater sucess is definitely a lack of amazing songs. Sure, there are a few singable tunes, but nothing that's brilliantly written. They're like a desert with a spare few oasises scattered around. Having said that, that hasn't really stopped Youmeeatshit, has it?

Having a new respect for the boys live-wise, I can see why they've gotten hardcore fans already. The loyalty from fan to band is astounding enough, but to actually have that reciprocated is rare. All warm and fuzzy inside, the crowd empties slowly into the ashy air, grey pavements and people trying to sell me hash. I'm already reminded how good a show it was: I managed to forget about this shithole for over two hours.

Overall - 8 / 10

GIG: Bob Dylan - O2 Arena, 25th April

2009-04-30T19:16:00.007Z

The Muso of Folk. The prime-time Boxer of revolution and change in the turbulent Sixties. The freakin' Governor. Though last Saturday night, Dylan showed England how to shit all over that legacy.

'8:00pm prompt' is what it reads on each and every ticket. Which is a bit wanky, but come on Bob; if you're not even going to show up until twenty minutes past eight, shut your beardy little yapper. When the lights finally go down, a brief moment of excitement is shattered when they launch into possibly the worst mixed performance I've seen in my life. It's firstly not loud enough, secondly the drum cymbals sound like they're under the fucking Thames outside the O2, and thirdly... actually, absolutely everything is awful. And this opening number, Maggie's Farm, could be saved by the picture everyone has of Dylan: a whimsical little sprite, with a world-worn wisdom and passionate voice. Unfortunately, that image is defunct. Utterly. The man on stage I see (barely, thanks to the production team for providing zero screens) is a decrepid, unmoving hermit, not once talking to the crowd who paid fifty big ones to be here tonight. And even all this could be forgiven, if he put any effort into his singing. His vocals sound like Bright Eyes covering Bob Dylan covering Bright Eyes, covering Scooby Doo. No shit. His voicebox sounds like the inside of a cement mixer. You can hear Shaggy making an embarassed 'zoinks' somewhere in the stalls.

After this, a ruinous version of The Times They Are A-Changin' confirms tonight is going to be shambolic from beginning to end. Bob Dylan and 'His Band' ('cause no-one else will fucking want them) rattle through the turgid set, which includes obscurer tracks among more well-known numbers like Highway 61 and... actually, I can't remember anything else. It was that boring.
There is no stage set-up: in all seriousness, I had a better set up for my college showcase. Even better lights. So there's nothing to look at while my brain slowly melts out of my ears. Having said all this, Dylan is nearly seventy after all; but don't go on the road if you can't bring the goods. You're obviously doing it for the money, there is no interest for you at all doing this. You are now an antithesis for everything you stand for. Cough - sorry, used to stand for.

Another cack-covered rendition of a huge song, Like A Rolling Stone, is the point where I decide to walk out. Oh, how I wish I had a sniper rifle to take out the engineer down on the mixing desk. I barely stay for the 'encore' that is a muddy All Along The Watchtower, and entirely missing the usual closer Blowin' In The Wind. At least I can get home a little earlier. The only reason this gets a rating of two and not a one, is because it's still mothereffin' Bob Dylan. And considering his current state, that's being generous.

Overall - 2 / 10

GIG: Jack's Mannequin - Knust, Hamburg, 8th March

2009-03-13T10:39:00.005Z

I've been to many big gigs. 'Big', pertaining to arenas, stadiums, large theatres, the like. I'm used to U2, Muse and Foo Fighters, so the word 'intimate' doesn't normally come into my vocabulary when writing about concerts. The truth is, I've never really been to a smaller gig that was as electrifying and connecting as one of these stadia events. That connection comes in a different package tonight, however: the difference here is that I can actually strike up a conversation with the singer inbetween songs.

Knust feels like a pub gig. There's the bar on your right, then immediately in front is the stage. It doesn't matter that everyone around you is speaking German; they're all generally nice people. Much friendlier than an English crowd by a long shot. There is no support band, so when the lights go down it finally hits you: Jack's Mannequin, fronted by Something Corporate's Andrew McMahon, have never played Europe before this tour. Hamburg is only their second date, so emotions are understandably running high at the prospect of finally experiencing tracks from 'Everything In Transit' and the latest record 'The Glass Passenger'. Grinning from the start, Andrew and the band inaugurate proceedings with the latter's opener, Crashin', tying into the head-noddingly good Spinning. They have a perfect sound; Bobby Anderson's guitar twinkles and screams, Johnathon Sullivan's basslines are clear, full; and the drums of Jay McMillan take the back seat, but forever providing the right momentum and power that the songs require.

So, from now on in, it's a night to remember (a cliché McMahon would probably dislike). The majority of the set borrows from 'The Glass Passenger', notably a rousing The Resolution and American Love, but there are plenty from the first album. Renditions of Holiday From Real, Dark Blue and The Mixed Tape are stupendous: little nuances such as a piano and vocal intro instead of the full band really draw you in, and it's with Kill The Messenger it hits its high point. The song's downcast refrain 'send a little rain' takes on a more epic potency with an extended outro, complete with crashing piano, rumbling drums and bass, and screeching guitar lines.
Despite all the fantastic musicianship, the show really lifts off the ground so far because of Andrew's refreshing take on the role of the frontman. Always bantering with the crowd, his smile's genuine: he really does want to be here. He throws paper aeroplanes over the crowd, trying to reach the mixing desk; he swigs some jagermaister after we egg him on; he reponds to anything one of us yells. The real deal here is that he's obviously learnt that letting go while playing live is damn important. For example, during I'm Ready's chorus, he grabs his second mic and swings around almost violently while standing, anchored to his piano by his right hand. Later on, he stamps on it, jumps off it, and does many other things which are probably too controversial for me to write about.

'Welcome to the encore, the biggest piece of bullshit in rock n' roll'. Thankyou Andrew. Caves, 'The Glass Passenger''s closing track, brings it all down a notch, and you can feel the atmosphere around you relax and transform into something wholly more satisfying. Up next we have a well-received Something Corporate cover, Me And The Moon. I don't know the words. Oops. Good thing I make up for it by singing my heart out for La La Lie then. A great piece of harmonica rock-pop, it ends the show on a high note. I feel like a better person after this gig.

So, roughly four years of fan's anticipation all pent up. Was it worth it? If you were disappointed by Andrew and co's performance, you have no happiness inside you. Fact. The only actual let-downs are the non-inclusion of Suicide Blonde, Miss Delaney and M.F.E.O., and 'Dr. J' Sullivan's occasional appearance of not being all that interested. But that is more than made up for by Anderson's outstanding vocal harmonies and thoughtful fretwork.
Jack's Mannequin's next date, at London's KCLSU, was sold out. Tickets, ebay and outside the venue, were going for some pretty hefty prices, and all to see this little band who should be massive by rights. So in that case, I'm going to enjoy them as much as I can while they're at this stage, especially when they visit the UK again in the summer. People may say 'but it's no Foo Fighters show'. I'll come straight back with 'and a Foo Fighters show is no Jack's Mannequin show'.
Big or small, it just doesn't compare.

Overall - 9 / 10

NEWS: 'This is it'. Apparently. Michael Jackson Returns

2009-03-05T23:02:00.006Z

The King of Pop they call him. That title may be a tad overblown, pretentious, or whatever you want to call it; but it's also utterly true. And now the half third Black, third White, third Alien is coming to rock your world at the O2 in July, over ten dates. Yep, that's right. Michael Jackson is playing live again.

At a press conference earlier with thousands of screaming fans, he stated that these shows will be his last ever. The 'This Is It' tour. The final curtain call. Yeahhhh, whatever. We'll see how much you make from it first (and how longer your silicone frame will hold out for).
I know I'm making quite a few jokes against his bizarre nature and / or lifestyle. But I still think he's an utter songwriting genius, a fantastic singer, and a blinding dancer. Truly what the real deal is made of. Perhaps this was more apparent in his eighties heyday, where Billie Jean and Smooth Criminal dominated the waves; yet sadly, he lost the plot. Completely. Did he touch kids? I don't know. No-one really does. The point is, he's still a fucking fruitcake. I just hope he doesn't blow it onstage.

Michael Jackson; The King Of Pop; Wacko Jacko. Whatever you want to label him, he still made Beat It. Your argument is now invalid.
(By the way, tickets go on sale 13th March.)

ALBUM: U2 - No Line On The Horizon

2009-03-02T11:50:00.008Z

Ah, a U2 review. Finally.

2004’s ‘How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb’ was their last studio effort, so it’s been a while. The usual subsequent stadium tour was the real star of the whole thing, of course – U2’s live show has always been unparalleled. Which is all fine and dandy, but come on your Irish fucks – the last good thing you did was ‘All That You Can’t Believe Behind’, and that was ten years ago for chrissake. Even that collaboration with Green Day was unexciting (also an obvious cash-in), so what do we have that is good from the twenty-first century ‘biggest band in the world’? Vertigo. Maybe City Of Blinding Lights too. That’s it, readers. Not great going from motherfucking you-two, is it?

This album’s poor. And bland. And a combination of the two which I like to call pland, or bloor conversely. It’s simply Bono going through the motions, and the rest of the band (‘pshh, what’s the drummer and bassist’s names again?’) don’t do much to help either. The opening title track is probably the best thing on here, but even though only because it sounds ever so slightly different. There are some nice little odd squeals from the guitar, the customary intelligent percussion layering from Larry Mullen Jr. (see, I remembered his name), and a lovely chord change which underpins the whole track. But unfortunately, it never really stands up to its own wannabe pretensions, instead opting for being rather boring for its entire four-minute and twelve-second duration. Magnificient, on the other hand, is rather nice, but again not a great song. It only gets going with a lovely falsetto leading into a simple guitar solo, but before you know it the damn thing’s over. Up next we have Moment of Surrender: there are definitely some great lyrics here, but alas! It drags itself out for seven whole minutes, none of which are particularly awe-inspiring, moving, or touching in the slightest. It won’t even make you fidget in your seat apprehensively. It’s that boring.

Okay – so far, not so good. Maybe the ongoing theme of rubbishness will let up? No dice, sadly. It’s another six-minute ‘epic’. By God, if some of this was more phatly produced – yes, I did just use ‘phat’ as an adverb – it wouldn’t be so bad. It purely feels empty; the Edge’s mildly clean guitar rattles over a void that’s now and then interspersed with a couple of unimaginative ‘whoa-oh’s. Brian Eno, while a genius, doesn't show it here.

Bono is generally a good singer. However, sometimes not the most tasteful. I’ll Go Crazy If I Don’t Go Crazy Tonight – yep, that’s really the title readers – sees Sir Paul David Hewson utilising some utterly useless head voice in some delusional eighties-sexiness. No, Bono. You’re nearly fifty. Don’t try and be Madonna.

And now the first single! The instant I heard this, Get On Your Boots, my positive feelings for the album prior to its realise were compromised. It does have an attention-grabbing Spanish flavoured chorus, however it should’ve been the pre-chorus. I’m waiting for that massive eight-bar U2 refrain, and it never comes. I feel like a lover stood up, waiting forever in the rain. Severely disappointing.

I don’t think I’m going to go through and shoot down the rest of the album. It kind of makes me feel bad. On the other hand, this is a really boring record. Not bad, not terrible, not abhorrently horrendous – simply boring, and that is it. White As Snow is its sole redeeming tune, and even then isn’t fantastic. You should also know, this is coming from a self-proclaimed U2 fan. ‘The Joshua Tree’ and ‘Achtung Baby’ are both fantastic pieces of work, especially the latter. The way they have managed to carry on with no line-up changes through their career since 1976 and change their sound on every release is impressive, especially noting the sonic metamorphosis between ‘88 and ‘91. Even if the quality of their studio efforts has declined since the close of the last century, their live performances have been getting nothing but more and more fantastic. And that’s really the only reason U2 still deserve a spot as big in the music biz as they have now: filled stadiums the world over singing back Where The Streets Have No Name, One, It’s a Beautiful Day and With Or Without You is pretty much the most epic thing you’re going to see and hear. But it is a shame that this group, who have now become such a titanic brand, can’t deliver the radio goods anymore.

Overall – 3 / 10

Get it? - I honestly don't feel anything for this album either way.

NEWS: Blink 182 do a 180

2009-02-10T01:51:00.002Z

'Blink 182 suck!'
Perhaps. Love them with all your joy-filled heart or abhor them to the depths of your being, Blink appear to be back this year, both to woo fans who never got a chance to see them, and to piss off the punk-pop naysayers one more time. Ahh, it's the tail-end of the nineties all over again.

Leaving much of the 14-16 crowd in a state of dumbfounded despair when they announced their break-up in 2005 (I was in Year 11 personally, traumatising stuff), they did leave behind their eponymous final album, showing an adult take on things; sombre, edgy, interestingly textured, 'Blink 182' was an absolute blast of an album, sitting comfortably on a mature pedestal next to the more iconic 'Take Off Your Pants and Jacket' and 'Enema of the State'.
Will we see an evolution of this later sound? Hopefully. Who wants to hear a band in their thirties sing about it being nice if your mother would give them a blowjob? Eww.

Summer, 2009. That's what it says on their site: recording a new album, and a planned tour. This comeback will either be utterly, utterly catastrophic, or simply quite pleasant. The only way this band will make a genuinely triumphant return is if they pull something very special out of the bag. Their songwriting, simple yet to the point (like all great pop-punk), will be the decider on whether they manage this.
After all, they do seem to like sodomising dogs.

THOUGHT: Astoria - We bid thee adieu. Rest in pieces.

2009-01-15T19:24:00.005Z

Dirty. Manky. Sweaty. Seedy. There’s also a bit of scum on the wall.
Yep; welcome to the Astoria. The interior is black, covered in posters and assorted clippings, and there’s a really sneaky step hidden just inside the standing entrance, making sure you trip over and hurt your knees. Or even worse, knock a bearded, bawdy metaller’s pint out of his hands. Yes, siree: I love this place. It’s real.

And now it’s gone. More planning works for London are the culprit. Whatever they put in its place, simply will not be as awesome as the Astoria. It was a residence where bands cut their teeth just starting to emerge as big acts, and also for huge groups to come back and play resonant, intimate shows. There’s a heap of memories attributed to the place. I know it’s up to the band really to create the atmosphere, but playing in a gritty little shit-hole like this does help.

I shan’t go on anymore about it, because you probably have the same feelings as I do. Plus, I swear I'll start bawling if I continue.
So farewell! Au revoir! I wave my figurative white handkerchief. There are still venues of this authenticity around, a lot of those disappearing too; but this is definitely one we’ll remember.

GIG: Coldplay - O2 Arena, 14th December

2008-12-23T20:47:00.006Z

I know what you’re thinking. ‘Why the hell did you go to a Coldplay concert?’ The reason becomes evident in actually seeing them. Turns out they were fucking awesome. Surprisingly.

Easily filling the space-age hangar that is the O2 Arena three times in a row, just because they’re Coldplay, does not mean they are capable of choosing decent support acts for this massive tour for the same reason. The Domino State are the single most run of the mill collection of jumbled-up sounds I’ve heard in my life. It sounds as if they’re treading very finely inbetween the definitions of ‘indie’ and ‘rock pop’, instead opting out for the safe mark of ‘boring as fuck’. It does pick up in the last song, but not enough to rescue them from the fate of being utterly forgotten. Sorry guys, but there’s no room in the long run if you can’t make a decent song.

But they really don’t compare to the wonderful Jon Hopkins. An ambient DJ set with another fellow on violin, busting out some heavy beats topped off with ethereal soundscapes. All this is accompanied by a large video screen, playing a cyclic series of images in beat and intensity to the soaring music. By the way, if you had a sarcasm detector, it should have already blown up. Jon Hopkin’s set is possibly the most turgid, unfocused, meandering, downright boring thing I have seen in my life. You could feel the entire arena squirm in their seats. This is up there with Dirty Pretty Things at Wembley Stadium, 2007. Yes readers, it was that bad.

Strauss’ The Blue Danube is an exciting (though somewhat overreaching) introduction to the main act that is Coldplay, and wickedly loud at that. The four-man band accompanied by playback knock out massive tunes like In My Place, Violet Hill and Clocks in the first ten minutes, and making sure everyone is on their feet by the time gigantic guitars plod out Yellow’s signature intro. A ludicrous number of balloons the same colour fall about the place, exploding with burst of confetti. At this moment, Chris Martin has us in the palm of his hand.

Halfway through the set, mammoth anthem after supersize anthem, you remember how many great songs Coldplay actually have, despite the imposed tag of lameness from the more snooty rock fan. We’re treated to a technosized combo of God Put A Smile Upon Your Face and Talk, a genuinely poignant solo-piano The Hardest Part, then a stupidly epic Viva La Vida. Not a particularly great song at all from my perspective, but the ‘whoa-oh-ohhh’ chorus is nearly deafening, and makes me all warm and fuzzy inside.

Take note: big places like the O2 have awful acoustics. Luckily I bagged some seats down on the floor near-centre, so had the luck to fully appreciate the band’s sound mix. Their blend is crystal clear: guitars glimmer and shine just like they should, the surprisingly fantastic and solid drumming pounds in your chest, and Chris’ vocals sit nicely above it all. He doesn’t quite cut it at the beginning: but bless him, his voice finally sits about a quarter in.

The band now reveal their imagination in stagecraft; along with the usual B-stages, the quartet make their way across the huge cavern to a tiny platform amongst the audience halfway up the lower-level of seats. Despite the premeditated intimacy, an acoustic Green Eyes is positively magic. With Simon Pegg randomly featuring on harmonica, which is always a bonus.

The battering piano and drums of Politik reignite the main stage in the most epic of fashions, followed by some more Grade-B pulp from their latest album, then they fuck off. Eloquently, of course, but I use that expressive term because they did not play The Scientist. The motherfreakin’ Scientist, people. Oh hang on, they’re back. Those familiar chords sphere outwards, and an utterly moving combination of gorgeous vocal hooks, whispered dynamics, and crunching guitars toward the end make for an experience worth its emotional weight in gold. Or maybe silver: you never know how far the credit crunch could reach.

A few thousand ultra-violet butterflies descend from the roof for the closer The Escapist, and we are finished. A truly incredible show: amazing in every sense, but tainted slightly with the entire staged crowd participation thing. Mr. Martin gets us to sing along Freddie style at every possible oppurtinity, which takes away from when it happens naturally. And his particular penchant for replacing lines in songs to refer to the crowd they’re playing to (example: ‘Went down to London Town’ instead of ‘Went down to Violet Hill’) starts off funny, becomes slightly funny, slightly annoying, then finally very, very grating. However, it’s all made up for by the fact the majority of the crowd bawl out the Viva La Vida hook at many different intervals, completely unprompted, for a whole five minutes each time. Seriously. Even out into the O2’s foyer area after the gig’s finished. Truly great stuff, if you ask me.

The setlist rousing and perfectly paced, even with the exclusion of Trouble and Shiver, and adrenalin-pumped showmanship, makes this author absolutely surprised but amazed. I thought Coldplay were meant to be middle of the road? Well, maybe they still are - though perhaps they’re straying off that road at least in terms of playing live. I came to this gig not knowing what to expect, and I got just that.

Overall – 8.5 / 10

THOUGHT: Hallelujah, it's Christmas.

2008-12-21T12:39:00.005Z

That was a pun, by the way. You think I'd actually be excited about Christmas?
Definitely not. But let's take a moment to reflect this year's ups and downs... the X Factor being one of the bigger downs.

Don't get me wrong. It's fantastic television: every utterly construed moment, from the 'conversation' between judges and contestants to the 'live' performances, has been written and planned the same way an episode of Eastenders is. Though this all has its place - if you can watch it with this already in mind, then that's fine. You'll be seeing it for what it is: mindless television. Always has been, and is great at being so. The real problem I have here is the music that comes out of the end. It's as if Simon Cowell ate a massive mince pie of people's fears and misconceptions, and took a three-and-a-half minute long dump at the end in the public's (figurative) toilet. It has been the same for the past few years now, with the X Factor being cleverly done at Christmas time to garner extra points and municipal awareness by always managing to spruce it straight to Number One. Another year, another X Factor turd sitting at the top of the chart while we open our presents. But will it be different this time round?

Alexandra Burke, the latest X Factor winner, is realeasing her own version of Hallelujah.
Now, covers are wonderful things. They allow another intrepration of a musical idea; sometimes they can be subtle redirections, sometimes they can be entirely different takes on the initial design, and sometimes they can even blow the original out of the water. And some, just some, are simply ill-conceived and conceited lumps of refuse, and in this case, an absolute cash-in.
You can hear it in her pointless bluesy vocal histronics. You can hear it in the quickly scraped-together guitar. You can even hear it in the massive backing choir, in a shockingly ineffectual yet ultimately vomit-inducing chorus halfway in.
In hindsight, it's not actually that bad. Just boring, boring, boring, and entirely devoid of any tangible emotion from Burke. Not her fault as she would've been speedily put through the motions in the studio to throw this all together, but the end result is the same.

And that's really what the song Hallelujah is all about. It's a track that's easily covered, and malleable enough for the singer to let their own personality be etched onto it. This is why it's been covered so many times: John Cale, Rufus Wainwright, Regina Spektor and countless others all have had their shot at the Leonard Cohen classic. K.D. Lang's Hallelujah is a prime example of how the emotion in the voice really is the centrepiece of this track. Yet, the 'definitive' version has for a long time been Jeff Buckley's go. This is probably because it's one of the most heartbreakingly beautiful / beautifully heartbreaking pieces of music of all time, and as most of you probably know it's going head-to-head with Burke's for the Christmas No. 1 spot.
Numerous facebook groups support this 'cause'. I think it'd be fantastic to hear something good on the radio for once over Christmas. But here's the real thought: why would you give a toss about the chart, singles or albums wise, in the first place? Essentially the chart never, ever is the decider of what good music is. It's a popularity contest: imagine all the most popular people at school. Does it mean they're mostly good people? I doubt it highly, and the chart is no different. The point is, why should we really care who gets No.1 at all? It's all a silly game anyway. But, as previously said, it'd be wonderful to hear a song like Jeff Buckley's Hallelujah over the holiday, and to garner even more of a following of his celebratory version.
But you don't really care for music, do you? I'm talking to you, Simon.

(The idea of this massive rant was inspired by, of all things, an NME article. Shock horror. It has loads of different versions of Hallelujah, very interesting.)

NEWS: Blur reunite

2008-12-16T19:14:00.008Z

Announcing a concert at Hyde Park for July (and a second date promptly added), a seemingly rejuvinated Blur appear to be back in business. But do we really need them?

Millions of years ago, back in the nineties, we had the phenomenon of Britpop (as I'm sure most of you remember). Countless bands both good (Pulp) and bad (Cast) populated the scene, all brought together by the holy duo of Oasis and Blur. And as you would remember too, these particular last two groups were at each other's necks in the papers twenty-four seven. Chart battle after chart battle, good review against equally good review; at the end of the day though, it was all media spin. Why on earth would Damon Albarn have anything in particular against Noel Gallagher? And Liam has a thing against everyone, so he doesn't count.
Back to the point: Graham Coxon, guitarist famous for those era-defining Parklife and Song 2 riffs, has finally been coaxed back to the band, but for what purpose? Blur were always the more socially commentative jewel of the Oasis-Blur crown, so maybe we've some new - yet essentially identical - thoughts on England today. Maybe hard-hitting truths about the credit crunch? Or maybe just summat about a Country House or woteva, innit.

But who's to say they'll be releasing any new material at all. At the moment it's a live reunion, so money's probably the first reason for getting back together. Even then, people will be seeing them just for nostalgia, or for people like you and me, it'll be the opportunity to hear many fantastic, fantastic songs in the flesh from a band who really had it going on ten years ago. Time will tell if they're still up to it.

GIG: Pendulum - Brixton Academy, 4th December

2008-12-14T15:50:00.004Z

‘Doo-doo-doo-dooooooo-doo-deee-doo-doooo-doo-daaa…’

‘What one’s that?’

‘Errr… dunno.’

It’s true. Pendulum riffs all sound the fucking same. But this isn’t supposed to be particularly cerebral music, and was never intended to be: it’s an amalgamation of metal guitars and drum n’ bass blast-beats, for heaven’s sake. But that does mean one thing: it’s damned fun music.

This isn’t the first time Pendulum have played Brixton: they performed a two-night stint back in May, and are now gracing the theatre one more time this year. It’s really a shame that InMe had problems getting to the venue tonight (or whatever other obscure reason), and South Central take their place. As DJs they should be ashamed; their mixes are badly thought-out, and nothing really cuts through the messy noise. The entire set’s momentum reminds me of fifty spinning plates – some are managed to be kept up, but most just smash on the ground into little pieces. Yeah, something like that.

Nonetheless, the crowd seem to love it. That’s probably because ninety percent of them are all young scene hipsters, some sporting glow sticks, some just here for the phad of Pendulum and not really the music itself. The other ten percent are chavs, pushing me about on their way past because they’re chavvy little chavs. At least they’re all up for it though, which sure beats a static crowd.

Of course there’s a rapturous greeting for Pendulum when they rocket straight into Showdown, followed by Fasten Your Seatbelt. And that is what they are: a band. Live guitars, basses, drums, vocals, even the synths. Of course there are samples, but really they have the same sonic get-up as a 2003 – 2004 era Muse concert. And they sound great.

After being treated to rocking performances of Blood Sugar, Propane Nightmares and 9000 Miles, it goes up a notch with the truly brilliant Hold Your Colour – probably the most tasteful song they’ve ever done. But that’s all shattered when Rob Swire and his merry band unleash a little bit of hell with a monstrous cover of Master Of Puppets (well, the first two minutes at least). A sly segue-way into university classic Slam cements their live reputation of being rather unpredictable.

Ben ‘the Verse’ Mount does a great job of getting the audience going and staying at fever pitch. While he comes off as a loud arrogant chav, without him a Pendulum show wouldn’t be half as good. I wouldn’t be caught in some of the worst crowd surges of my life, and thrown into sweat-drenched mosh pits. Hell, if you left the crowd participation up to any of the other members, it would be a rather silent and uninvolving night. So yeah, ‘open up those circles!’ Do what the scary man says.

(A moment for the mosh pits, please: if you’re going to be part of one, do it to the music. The whole premise of a mosh is destroyed if you open up the pit, but then start going crazy way before the mental part actually kicks in. It’s doubly aggravating when you orchestrate one yourself. Ahem.)

The atmosphere intensifies tenfold for the encore, when everyone realises that the sound currently hitting them in face is Tarantula. Cue a sheer uncultivated and untamed response from everyone watching, in the form of… well, just going fucking spastic. Granite wraps things up with its usual riff-tastic heaviness, and I’m just about to leave when they arrive back on stage, and announce the first live outing of the next tune. It happens to be The Tempest. After being amazed yet another time, satisfaction drips down my face along with the globules of sweat.

These guys can only get bigger if they play their cards right. More music to let loose to, and not have a worry in the world. And who knows? Maybe they’ll follow in the footsteps of The Prodigy and play Wembley someday. Nevermind if it’s still ‘doooo-dooo-deee-dooo-daaaaa’: I’ll be there in a flash.

Overall – 8.5 / 10

GIG: Slipknot - Hammersmith Apollo, 2nd December

2008-12-08T14:15:00.005Z

‘Welcome to Day Two in a series that I like to call: Slipknot completely fucking destroys the Hammersmith Apollo.’
Corey Taylor spits these words out with a calm knowingness, grinning beneath his trademark mask just before the crowd go crazy as Before I Forget’s mammoth riff fires up. But let’s pause there for a moment, and go back…
Quite a few years ago on the tour of their self-titled debut, Slipknot came to London and raised the Astoria to the ground. This legendary show included a crowd of hardcore fans going all out, the band themselves going equally spastic, and one of the members leaping from the upper balcony into the audience below. Crazy stuff, huh? That’s just traditional Slipknot, and the main question is would any of the shows of the three-night run at Hammersmith be even half as extreme as that? The answer is straight off a ‘no, of bloody course not’; and that’s from the instant tickets went on sale. But tonight was still spasmodically mental enough to warrant five tonnes of horse tranquiliser.

The support on this tour is strong: we have the Finnish Children of Bodom up first, and while their songs are complete rubbish, they’re much tighter than most other bands I’ve seen in that genre. Really though, the songs are terrible.
‘Machine fucking Head! Machine fucking Head!’ Oh, shut the fuck up. The fans are so annoyingly dumb it aggravates me to a point of a very slight thirst for their blood. Robb Flynn’s entrance onto the stage alone is pretentious enough to compare to the Queen’s own fucking outing at Buckingham Palace. But is has to be said: they warrant this all by blowing the shit out of us. Some great songs are aired tonight, and inbetween all the skin-flaking riffs there are moments of tasteful quiet, two-part vocal harmonies accompanied by a clean guitar… before exploding back into the riffs, of course. And the crowd are wild. The mosh actually spans almost the entire width of the Apollo at one point. And as Davidian rings out like a shotgun blast, you have to give it to Machine Head: they’re actually pretty fucking good, albeit arrogant knobs.

Will it be Gematria? Will it be (Sic)? Hell, maybe even The Blister Exists? These are possible openers for the ‘Knot I have rolling around my head, and I can’t decide on one. The lights down, a foreboding playback intro, and we’re at the moment of truth. As the disquieting guitar line for Surfacing pierces the ears, I know at that second Slipknot’s just going to keep us on our toes all night.
There is no time to breathe. No time to even comprehend it all. The band, in all their masked, dark, sadistic, fucked-up glory keep hitting us with fantastic song after fantastic, ear-bludgeoning song. These are in the form of Eeyore, Before I Forget, Disasterpiece and a truly skull-shattering performance of Eyeless. It’s great to hear a group who’ve been doing this for roughly ten years now, still put in the same amount of passion and conviction into their live set as before. You can sense some irritation, however: Chris Fehn, one of the three percussionists, has some costume troubles, and Clown has to help pull off a stage invader later in the show. Aesthetically, their stage set-up is akin to some sort of twisted playground in the 22nd century, an industrial circus for all mutated post-apocalyptic persons to gather. Sid Wilson hangs mid-air onto a rotating drumset (like a bored monkey at times, it has to be said), Paul Gray is constantly frequenting the ramps at the back with his rumbling bass tones, Craig Jones is minding his own business on the turntables. The nine-piece never look crowded onstage, which is some kind of miracle really.

Psychosocial is a sonic leviathan tonight: unfortunately I miss most of the action as I am just coming back from outside: I almost fainted / vomited with excitation / exhaustion. That and Dead Memories are the only two tracks aired from the latest album, luckily. I want to hear the good stuff.
Double-bass beast The Heretic Anthem and one-off Prosthetics are next, both sounding massive, before we get to the real reason eight-thousand people converged to Hammersmith Apollo tonight. ‘This is the part where you go down in history. And I mean go down in history.’ This is the band’s trademark live song Spit It Out, and when it falsely climaxes at the middle-eight, at Corey’s mark, near enough the entire standing area are crouch down to the floor, like a mass prayer towards the mecca of Slipknot. Roughly three-thousand crowd members ‘jump the fuck up’ in unison for the song’s freak-out; it’s like a friggin’ ocean of mosh. This is proof Corey and Co. really push the boat out live.

Classic Duality and the more obscure Only One close proceedings, before the encore of People=Shit and an outrageously nuts (Sic) knock us off our feet one more time. But do we really need any more convincing? No, but it’s good just to make sure.
This is the best sound I’ve ever heard for a metal band. In fact, the great mix is true for both Children of Bodom and Machine Head. So kudos to the sound guys, but also to the band: Jim Root’s unconventional choice of a telecaster gives the tracks a taut, refined roar, and when blended with Mick Thompson’s unyielding chugathon style of playing makes for a fantastic wall of heaviness. Also, Taylor’s vocals just keep getting better, and Joey Jordinson – he is the source of phatness in the band, no doubt about it. When he smashes those toms, the sound is akin to the building falling down around you, regardless of his novelty move of zero-gravity drumkits spinning round like a fucking catherine wheel.

I had been looking forward to this occasion for years. Literally, years. And now it has come and gone, do I feel disappointed at all? No: here’s a band who live up to the hype (despite the ridiculous stage antics and bizarre visuals). Now comes the agonising wait for the next tour... The way my ears rung after the gig is reason enough to wait.

Overall - 9 / 10

ALBUM: Guns N' Roses - Chinese Democracy

2008-12-03T20:42:00.011Z

Seventeen Years.

A lot can happen in that time. People are born and people die, civilisations are shook, wars are fought. Meanwhile, Axl Rose twiddles his thumbs in a studio somewhere.

This album is a joke. His joke, in fact, to millions of Guns N’ Roses fans – nay, to all music fans here, there and everywhere. That’s because this record, to be more frank than I’ve ever been in my life (and believe me that’s a lot of frankness), takes the phrase ‘polishing a turd’ to a whole new level.

First off, this isn’t a Guns N’ Roses album. That’s just what the name says. This is through and through an Axl W. Rose solo album, along with his jolly backing band of a thousand interchanging soulless musicians (apart from perhaps Buckethead. He's cool). The opener of this bloated 14-track trail of diarrhoea attempts to mimic Welcome To The Jungle so badly, it sounds like its whiny little brother, immediately in the shadow of its far superior sibling when the very first chords ring out. It tries to sound exciting. It really, really does. But alas; it’s as ineffectual to me as a smote of dust. A thousand miles away. Under the Pacific Ocean.

Shacklers’ Revenge? Awesome title, but not so awesome a song. Decent riff, but it quickly descends in quality when the chorus kicks in, and even more so with the ‘solo’. What the hell is the guitarist trying to do? Make love to Tom Morello’s axe? Better is up next, and… wait a minute. What a great vocal melody! A good verse, and Baby Jesus be blessed, a good chorus! What happened to the continuing theme of awfulness that the album’s so carefully maintained so far? Oh hang on, it’s the middle-eight. Now it’s awful again.

For the next song, Street Of Dreams, Axl’s vocals make me cringe so much my face nearly falls off. Skip.

Now the next two tracks, aren’t actually bad songs at all. Both There Was A Time and Catcher In The Rye have well-balanced chord progressions and changes, and even half-decent stabs at guitar solos. It’s just annoying that they discredit this by putting layer upon layer of sound in a kitchen-sink style of production, ruining anything the songs had going for them. Catcher does have an awesome ‘na na na’ hook, albeit.

The main gripe with 'Chinese Democracy' is the production: if this was recorded in say, six months, it wouldn’t have sounded half-bad, as a few of the songs themselves aren’t terrible as such: they’re simply drowned in a mess. Unfortunately, it’s been recorded over seventeen years and as a result of endless tinkerings, comes out sounding useless. However: compared to other contemporary records, it’s remembered the use of dynamics. Most albums around now are built for the radio and mp3 player earphones, so it’s actually refreshing to hear a bit of intelligence in that area.

But then I remember the sampled drumming. Oh my lord, the sampled drumming. The only song on the whole damn thing it suits is Better, but I’m guessing Axl was thinking ‘you know what’ll make this thing sound real cool? If we turn it into a nu-metal record!’ Yikes. And for the record, this must also be the first album I’ve ever listened to where it actually gets worse with each listen.

Will we have to wait as long for the next one? I hope there won’t be a next one at all. We don’t need another Chinese Hypocrisy.

Overall - 3 / 10

Get it? - Yes, for two reasons: 1 - if you want to experience a little piece of history. 2 - if you're completely deaf.

GIG: Sigur Rós - Alexandra Palace, 21st November

2008-11-25T12:48:00.008Z

Ah, the Ally Pally. Many things both good and bad I’ve heard of it, but upon stepping off the free bus service to view the grand hall in the starry night is an experience of grandness and, frankly, downright 19th Century awesomeness. Its position upon a hill offers a fantastic view of Greenwich and Canary Wharf in its London-at-night splendour, adding to the electricity of all pre-gig atmospheres. Sigur Rós are a band that fully warrants high anticipation; I've heard they always deliver on the night.

Walking through the main hall feels more like a waltz, given the lovely surroundings. The merch is a bit crap, so I tango straight on into the concert hall. I’ve already missed For A Minor Reflection, which is very annoying, but I’m here for the Rós. The four Iceland-borne walk on stage to rapturous (yet refined) applause, tonight and on every night of this tour without their string quartet. It’s just Jónsi Birgisson sweeping his guitar with a cello bow, Georg Hólm providing the plodding bass, Ágúst Ævar Gunnarsson keeping time on the drums at speeds so slow it numbs the mind; and finally Kjartan Sveinsson, filling it all in with his ethereal keyboard sounds.

The peculiar but familiar noise of a submarine-come-life support machine signals Svefn-g-englar, their ten-minute long masterpiece (well, one of them). A perfect sound and minimal lighting already creates an intimacy inside the 8,000 capacity Palace, before the heavy middle-eight blows us away, and bringing us back to an airy closing. Glósóli is the latter of an opening double-whammy, knocking me off my feet for the last 2 minutes in all its crashing, wailing glory.

The rest of the evening is more divine epicness and divine closeness, each helped massively along by Jónsi’s distinct otherworldly falsetto. At one point in the show, he holds a note unaccompanied for nearly an entire minute, garnering cheers for the technical prowess but also for the beauty of the dynamics this group has: one moment the loudest thing in the universe, another the most quiet, focused hum. Whatever Sigur Rós do here has only one effect though: it lifts the heart to high places. Whether that be from beginning to end, or dropping you into depressive depths first before raising you back up, it’s a quality that positively shines from them.

Only a handful of tunes from the new album are – thankfully – played in tonight’s set, but the ones aired are the strongest. Among them are Inní mér syngur vitleysingur and Festival, real standout songs, mingled with E-Bow from the untitled album ‘( )’ and fan favourite Hoppípolla from ‘Takk…’, which despite the lack of stings / fanfare, still manages to retain its spring-stepped wonder. Hafsól is included later on, the live version being even more magnificent than its studio counterpart: the climax is a crazy amalgamation of ever-increasing tempo, unexpected beats and drum fills, and a single flute going spastic in the background.
The real highlight of the concert, however, is Sæglópur. It’s always been a track I’ve never taken much notice of before… but how wrong am I. A clever orchestration of xylyphones, pianos and other percussive thingies is the introduction, played by all four members of the band huddling round the keyboard section. As the song progresses and the band have returned to their original places, Sigur Rós allow the impossible: they make it rain inside. A sheet of falling water drapes in front of the band, recycling perpetually from the bottom back up to the top of the lighting rig. Images of the band are played across the water, whilst they are clearly visible themselves through the artificial rain. All of this would be indulgence if the special effect didn’t go so well with the music. It is a heartbreakingly beautiful few minutes. ‘Nuff said.

The sole problem I have all night, is that the sound could have been louder, but that was fixed before the second half of the show. Also, there were lots of tall fuckers in front of me. Bastards.

Nevertheless, the best is saved for the final song, the last half of the encore. Popplagið (Untitled 8) is a fucking monster, and its name should be included in the dictionary definition of ‘Epic’, ‘Massive’, and ‘Bloody Hell’. It starts innocently enough, before half-way through plunging into the greatest build-up you’ve ever heard. Said build-up lasts approximately six minutes, including coalescing riffs, subtly intensifying drums and a haunting vocal hook you won’t forget anytime soon. The screen behind them drops to a desert yellow, their silhouettes cast out over the crowd. When the climax hits, it is sheer audience awe: it’s as if each crowd member is stunned into silence, including this one.

Lots of strobe lights and heaps of confetti later, leaving the Ally Pally with the sense you got far more than your money’s worth tonight, you remember two things that are distinct: the first is that for the first time at a gig, no member of the crowd utters a word. And if they happen to during a quieter song, they are actually hushed. They’re here for the music.
The second realisation, is that they’ve done what no other band I’ve seen before have done in a venue. In ways physically and emotionally, Sigur Rós made it rain and shine in the Alexandra Palace.

Overall – 9 / 10

GIG: Fall Out Boy - Wembley Arena, 22nd October

2008-11-05T21:20:00.013Z

(Apologies for the belated post. The continual attack of college and work are to blame.)

An arena tour was inevitable. Fall Out Boy are long overdue to tour this country carnival-style with all the pyro and confetti that goes with it, and tonight shows they can pull it off as good as the big guns.

Before they grace the stage, Surrey upstarts YouMeAtSix are first on the bill. Having not been impressed by their live outings in the past - and not even liking any of their songs - hopes weren’t particularly high. But a great sound and energy pours from the band, and I can’t deny them that at all; they’re bloody tight, and have a decent understanding of how to work a crowd. The only thing that stands between them and stardom now is, well, some decent songs.
Boys Like Girls. What a crap name. Guitar problems mar the first few minutes of an overall decent performance, including the obvious choice of last song, The Great Escape with a surprise guest appearance of Pete Wentz on bass. I’m not ashamed to say I was excited by it, of course.

The screams of the many teenage girls present tonight reach notes only dogs can hear, when Fall Out Boy satisfyingly make their entrance on a stage that is covered in a bizarre white veil. The first notes of Thnks Fr Th Mmrs dispatch the curtain, presenting the oddball band in all their glory. The great choice of opener gets things going, followed by a slew of Thriller, A Little Less Candles… and The Take Over, The Break’s Over, each greeted by increasingly piercing squeals from the female portion of the audience (bless their rushing hormones).
F.O.B. don’t seem daunted at all by the sheer amount of people before them; instead they revel in it. Wentz, love him or hate him, knows how to make chit-chat with who he’s playing to, with Stump adding in the brief – but humorous – remark. Despite his penchant of keeping to himself, this is made up for hugely in the quality of his singing. It’s just a sore shame to see mic stands where Wentz and guitarist Joe Trohman are rocking out, and not have them used by either when a backing vocal is crying out to be sung. Instead the vast majority of them are left out, much to my dismay.
Wisely, the band choose to play only one song from the upcoming album – I Don’t Care, which is already being lavished with much airplay. This is also where the show ups it a notch: a veil behind them the whole time is dropped revealing the band’s name, while the stage is pitch black. Come the chorus, however, and Stump, Trohman and Wentz’s guitars light up like neon signs, pulsing to the beat of the music. Novelty stuff, and it works brilliantly. Energetic performances of Grand Theft Autumn and the massive Sugar, We’re Going Down resonate around the arena, closing proceedings before the fantastic encore.
‘Open up a massive circle in the middle… bigger… bigger!... Now, moonwalk!’ This is the first instance of a moonwalk pit I’ve ever encountered. Dozens of people start getting their groove on to the opening beat of Beat It, the recent MJ cover. There is a sudden segue way into Dance, Dance (the best pit of the evening), before Fall Out Boy end the set the usual way with Saturday.

A fantastic show, a great performance from Stump and co., but a few things niggled me. A lot. First and foremost: the sound in places was abhorrent, notably the guitar mix in I’m Like A Lawyer…, and other times the drums were as muddy as a toilet that hasn't been flushed for nine years. However, it’s one of the few pop-punk gigs I’ve been to where you can actually hear the bass guitar, so that’s a plus at least. Also, it was simply too short. Between an hour and a quarter, and an hour and a half, is nowhere near long enough to properly get into a concert.
Nonetheless, the vigorous bouncing to genius pop tunes is enough for me. Fingers crossed, then, for more in Novemeber when ‘Folie à Deux’ is unleashed.

Overall – 8.5 / 10

NEWS: Actual release date for Chinese Democracy confirmed!

2008-10-11T12:42:00.003Z

Who really gives a fuck anymore?

(November 23rd if anyone's really interested.)

GIG: Metallica - O2 Arena, 15th September

2008-09-18T17:05:00.006Z

Oh, I am lucky with getting tickets.
Persevering the crash-a-minute online sale, I managed to bag some up in the heavens at the O2. Was I pissed about the nose-bleeding location? No, because I only paid £5 for each.

The evening is called a ‘party’, celebrating the very recent release of ‘Death Magnetic’ (which is surprisingly cracking, for those who haven’t heard it). Tickets are super-cheap, proceeds are naturally donated to charity, and only the person actually buying can get in – show your ID and credit card at the venue – so touts can't get their filthy, stinking hands on it. So an overwhelmingly positive atmosphere filled the cavern that is the O2, and things got stratospheric as the house lights shut off with the sound of a heart-beat pulsing from the PAs.

This is new album opener That Was Just Your Life, the playback intro giving way to loud, chugging guitars. Metallica have entered the in-the-round stage and are rocking the sheer fuck out. End of the Line swiftly follows, the end section of which evokes massive shouting in the crowd of ‘The slave becomes the master!’ and lots and lots of headbanging. The Thing That Should Not Be makes a welcome showing, already marking tonight’s setlist as something quite unique. This is furthered by Of Wolf and Man, Until It Sleeps, Wherever I May Roam (fuck yes), and Jump In The Fire, a ‘Kill ‘Em All’ favourite. Having said this, Frantic of their forever baited ‘St. Anger’ record is aired, and while it packs a punch live it remains absolute crap.

One is, as expected, awesome live. Lars Ulrich’s jackhammer fills toward the end are worthy of being one of metal’s finest moments. Their sudden crash into Master of Puppets is superb: that first guitar chord resounds akin to a thunderclap, greeted by twenty two-thousand cheers. Possibly the best couple of minutes of the night are during the song’s instrumental part: the whole audience put on their best head voices and whine along with Hammett’s famous guitar line. Insanely cool, and also fucking hilarious.

Amid the killing tempos and huge solos, the band themselves are having a fantastic time. They look as into their music and playing as they’ve always been to my eyes, which is a lot to say for the members are all in their forties – minus most recent recruit Robert Trujillo, who jumps about the place with a bass strung so low it must be hitting him in the balls every time he moves. Seriously. Their banter is great, too – Hetfield is a solid and talkative frontman, letting the crowd know exactly how he feels; whether that be telling people to put their camera phones away and just enjoy the freaking moment itself – amen – or getting the house lights turned on for their encore of Queen’s Stone Cold Crazy. The gig’s finished in tune to Seek and Destroy (check out that riff, damn!) and mass moshing erupts in the stalls as black beach balls marked with Metallica’s name fall from the rafters, in some kind of awesome fucked-up shindig.

Sadly, Sad But True, Nothing Else Matters and Enter Sandman do not get played. But it was a fan’s gig, so that can be forgiven. The main feeling I got from tonight was we were all there to have pure fun, along with Metallica themselves. They’re touring here in February: I think I may have to go.

Overall – 8 / 10

SINGLE: Biffy Clyro - Mountains

2008-08-28T12:13:00.004Z

What’s that… Iffy Lilo? Miffy Biro? … Wiffy Milo?
It’s Biffy Clyro, and the only thing stranger about this band’s name is their music. After a fantastic tour over the world, they’ve seemingly found time to release an inbetween-albums single, along with a shiny new video to go with it. Perhaps to just keep interest flowing, perhaps simply an instinctive output, perhaps the product of shutting their label up, pestering them for new material. Whichever reason, this song could be a hint of things to expect, or the final throw from the Puzzle canon – altogether, it’s ridiculously brilliant. This is Mountains.

As far as intros go, it’s a standard Biffy Clyro piano lament complete with the over-gilded multi-tracked vocals, the very same that suffocated their last album for me. As far as verses go, it’s another Biffy-by-numbers staccato affair but nonetheless, works fine. So what do we have for the chorus?
Imagine the wind blowing in your hair on a cliff. The earth rocking under your feet. The seas below crashing in five hundred-feet waves. Yep; that pretty much describes the heart of Mountains’ chorus. ‘I am a mountain; I am the sea; You can’t take that away from me’ – air-punching stuff, eh? This is what’s to be loved about Biffy Clyro: amid all the catchy time-signatures and dodgy bar lengths, their songs have a real soul about them. This track in particular is proof of that.

A jump into double-time brings the song excitingly into a simple, but oh-so-effective reversal in the lyrics: ‘You are my mountain; You are my sea’. Without taking another breath the guitars and bass plunges into a final chorus, the final half-bar in a capella. All these great ideas, executed with expert aplomb, carry this tune up into league with Biffy’s best songs, or at least the most well-written ones.

A few little niggles stop it getting full marks from me: above all, the fucking guitar is not loud enough. At all. Nope. Sorry. Not loud enough. The vocals suffer from this unfortunately; they sound too polished without the envelope a loud guitar provides. Also, as I’ve already said before, the singing in the introduction would have sounded best with one main vocal with a second half-volume. This would’ve gotten the same good effect, without the crappy sheen that identical vox make. Alas, I can’t be in the studio with them to point all these factors out: I simply don’t have the time, and they simply can’t afford me. That’s the price criticism comes at, readers. NME, take heed.

Mountains truly is a rocker of epic proportions, all contained in a neat three minutes-and-twenty seconds. If I could have been at Reading Festival (four-hundred quid a ticket!?), I would’ve jumped around like a maniac and damaged my lungs screaming every word of this back at them. This is an amazing song, an amazing band, and hopefully an amazing album on the way.

Overall – 9 / 10
Get it? – Yes. Mon’ the Wiffy.

THOUGHT: And now for something completely different...

2008-08-15T22:20:00.002Z

Well, actually, I lied – it’s not completely different. But different enough to be refreshing and thought-provoking enough for the two awesomeness-detectors on either side of your head.
Beat poetry, or ‘slam’ poetry as it’s more loosely known in the States, is the spoken word in the very purest way that language can be used. You just speak your lines with all the conviction, rhythm, and tone you can muster, which is why I’m talking about it on this blog: it is simply another form of music (or maybe music is another form of pure language?) and is too good to describe here; basically, it’s a personal thing you’re going to have to experience yourself.

This clip’s by a guy called Shane Koyczan. He’s extraordinarily talented as I’m sure you’re about to find out yourself, and he has chosen to ‘slam’ about a particular genius in the field of sound, Beethoven. Watch, and - hopefully - be moved, or at least impressed.

(I also recommend you watch / listen to ‘Apology’ and ‘Grandma’s Got It Going On’, by Shane too. And vote in the fucking poll, for fuckety-fuck’s sake.)

THOUGHT: An Infinity of Indie

2008-08-01T16:09:00.003Z

Ah-hah: another thing I can bitch about.
Perhaps ‘Indie’ is not the best way to describe the sort of bands that have populated radio for the last few years. Perhaps the best way would be ‘pure rubbish’. Not the most articulate description, but wholly accurate.

I won’t name names; not out of kindness, but because there are just too damn many groups out there who make a trend of sounding the same as each other, thereby trying to name them all would almost be as tedious as listening to one of their records. Jangly guitars, laddish vocals and bobbing white afros topping it all off, these topman tits have been a nuisance to me and many others since around 2005 (though I’m sure the labels were cottoning onto these bands before then). No words can truly convey my dislike toward this unimaginative music, which nonetheless fill venues over the country.

Now, I’ve said the phrase ‘Indie’ is not the real buzz word to tag it with. Indie has been part of music (here and over the Atlantic at least) since the eighties, when The Smiths came into being, along with the gothic-undertoned The Cure. After that, when Britpop exploded over here ‘Indie’ was attributed to Oasis, Blur, Suede and the rest of that crowd, before that turned into a fundamentally different style / genre entirely. Radiohead climb near the peak of their creativity with ‘The Bends’ and ‘OK Computer’ and they are ‘Indie’. So are Muse, Idlewild and Placebo who follow or accompany them. Now, you can see that the word ‘Indie’ gradually decreased in provenance to any particular style – usually any format of a guitar band seems to do. Anyway, ‘Indie’ really means ‘Independent’ – independent labels, independent music. Stuff which would not get much mainstream play – so essentially, Nirvana were indie (before ‘Nervemind’). Chaotic grunge against the more uniform and ‘nice’ ‘Indie’ we know today. The meaning of the label ‘Indie’ really does not exist, does it now? In all honesty, any alternative music could be labelled as Indie. And indie could be labelled as Alternative. It's a confusing cycle.

But back to the point at hand: any band who make songs about having 'the same jeans on for four days now' need to be hunted down, given an individual haircut and prescribed some songwriting lessons. Access to The Beatles back catalogue wouldn't be bad either.

This guy articulates my opinion much more than I can. Have a gander:

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/features/does-the-world-need-another-indie-band-870520.html

SINGLE: Slipknot - Psychosocial

2008-07-24T12:55:00.002Z

It’s been a long time coming.
2005 was the last time we saw Slipknot, obliterating stages across the world to the tune of ‘Vol. 3 – The Subliminal Verses’. Now finally, in 2008, we see the return of possibly metal’s most demented, psychotic, uncontrollable nine individuals, collectively known as Slipknot.

Despite them still wearing ever-so-silly masks, there’s no denying Slipknot’s passion (sic. tortured screaming, lyrical vehemence and absurd stage jumps) throughout their career, and now also their maturity. Not really a word you’d naturally associate with a group of people from Iowa wearing masks shaped like all your worst nightmares, is it? Nevertheless, this is none more so evident than on the last album, which was pecked with the acoustic explorations Circle and Vermillion Part 2. Both are surprisingly some of the best material Slipknot have produced, a long way from the rap-thrash of Eyeless or Spit It Out. The shiny new track from All Hope Is Gone – the album released the day after their Reading Festival slot on August 25^th – is titled Psychosocial, and perhaps could become the new Duality for this latest era of their campaign.

All great things start well, and Psychosocial is no exception. A pinch harmonic-edged riff slams into life, Joey Jordinson, Chris Fehn and Shawn Crahan begin their multi-layered percussion assault, and the verse kicks in like a mother. ‘I did my time!’ Corey Taylor screams over a tasty stop, all the while a steady beat pounds away underneath, giving the track a certain groove not unlike one you’d find on a Pantera song. Slipknot are known to have heavily melodic choruses, i.e. Wait and Bleed, My Plague; this is no exception, being instantly memorable and singalong-friendly. Corey’s vocals are noticeable different – he takes on a growl suited usually to Lamb of God, but he manages to pull it off in his own way. Another verse and chorus later, we are treated to a guitar solo.

Now, Slipknot guitar solos are not famous for being… well, any good whatsoever. That’s me being my frankest. The Des Moines nine-pieces are capable of writing tunes that are good enough without having to drop in some axe-twiddling to mask up any cracks. Vermillion (the electric version) is a superb example of a rubbish ‘Knot solo: it really does sound like dog shit for the ears, an aural fusion of Kerry King’s tunelessness and Tom DeLonge’s technique. Now, you don’t need me to tell you that’s an awful combination, do you? This is what makes it so surprising: the solo here is actually very listenable, and even worthy of whistling along to in some parts. A downright shame, then, when all the instruments tumble awkwardly into the sparse middle-eight. Joey does a fantastic job of keeping the bizarre beat (fooling you into thinking it’s multiple different time signatures at once) going, before the song builds back up a little with a bit of screaming here, a bit of guitar wailing there, bursting back into another short verse in time for a double chorus whip-around. Slipknot should be noted that their middle sections are generally amazing: check out Surfacing, or the aforementioned Duality and Spit It Out. Yet Psychosocial, sadly, outstandingly lacks in that department.

So, do we have an awesome return for Slipknot this Summer? I would conceive a very big ‘yes’ shouted from a high place, probably the Eiffel Tower - though a small hill somewhere will do. Psychosocial is a great song throughout, let down only by the senseless lyrics and breakdown. Hopefully it’s an indication that songs on the new album will be as good as, if not better, than this.
Hmm… I can’t stop the mental image of thousands headbanging to this at Reading creeping into my head. It’s going to be a good year for Slipknot.

Overall – 8 / 10
Get it? – Yes. Or Clown will throw a dead bird at you.

p.s. vote in the poll please! There’s a new one up.

ALSO! A Facebook group – join for updates, comment on articles, blah blah blah. Do it!

SINGLE: Kid Rock - All Summer Long

2008-07-20T23:59:00.004Z

Is it a cover? Is it a sample? I don’t know, and that confuses the hell out of me.
The video has girls wearing bikinis much too small for them, however. And that makes my rating go instantly from a diabolical 0 to a lukewarm 4. Woohoo.

Overall - 4 / 10
Get it? - If the video is included, yes.

ALBUM: Sigur Rós - Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust

2008-07-16T20:09:00.007Z

What a fucking mouthful. Anyway, apologies, readers – I haven’t written any reviews for a while due to pre-exam stress, the exams themselves, and the complacency that comes with post-exam relief. That’s my excuse, I’m sticking with it, here's the review so shut up:

The best way to describe the Iceland-borne Sigur Rós would be to use their very own portrayal: ‘a slow-motion rock band’. Very true, but it also leaves too much out – the Sigur Rós canon is a mixture of extremely long tracks, ethereal production and above all, an outstanding disposition toward wonderful melodies. Their music can be playful and nonsensical (sung in their ficticious language ‘Hopelandic’ or not), it can be galaxy-spanning and completely life-affirming, and sometimes it can compromise on some middle ground. After 2005’s ‘Takk…’ enjoyed some true mainstream success with Hoppípolla and Glósóli, latest album ‘Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust’ goes down pretty much the same route, but with a few interesting twists along the way.

Gobbledigook is cleverly the first track, purely for the reason that it makes you wonder if you’ve accidentally picked up some freaky dance-folk shit instead of Sigur Rós. Not the strongest song – in fact pretty poor – but it acts as an energetic opener, leading the way to the awesome Inní mér syngur vitleysingur with its catchy piano line and vocals. The subsequent three tracks blend into one another nicely but without a real sense of exciting individualism, before the middle-eight (in this case, middle-five trillion) of Festival kicks in. A captivating bass line bursts into life unexpectedly, a drum loop rises through the mix, all building to a satisfying climax of a coda. The group cheekily throw in a bit of the meta: a clip of a person whistling the tune to themselves when the music itself has stopped. A bit of humour like this goes a long way, especially when the track reaches the stamina-draining ten minute mark.

Suð í eyrum passes by without so much as a flutter really, a remarkably by-the-numbers Sigur standard. But hark! A touching cascade of piano underneath Jónsi Birgisson's trademark falsetto, a cute lil’ cherub singing about something I’ve no hope to understanding is the basis of Ára bátur. A choir and brass enter to move along proceedings nicely, but it’s not enough to save the remaining four tracks to be incredibly boring. Nice enough to listen to as background music, but Sigur Rós have always been more than that; unfortunately, these songs aren’t the best showcase for this.

Another apology: this album is no match for the others. ‘Ágætis Byrjun’ is a ten-thousand year journey atop an epic glacier; ‘( )’ is a spaceship ride through the unknown; ‘Takk…’ is a wood-side romance in the autumn. ‘Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust’ is an aimless stroll along an overcast Brighton beach by comparison. It’s a work to be relatively proud of, Sigur Rós – yes, I’m talking to you - but you are capable of greater, much greater things. I shall be seeing your live show in the Winter, however. Prove me wrong.

Rating – 6 / 10

GIG: Radiohead - Victoria Park, 25th June

2008-07-05T16:38:00.006Z

I was looking forward to this gig more than anything.

Last week, monsters Radiohead played a run of four massive concerts in the UK, two of them at Victoria Park in London. All this is off the back of them doing exactly what they wanted through their career, and fortunately getting a massive following with it. The Bends, OK Computer, Kid A and latest album In Rainbows are all masterpieces, each packed with great songwriting and an unnerving penchant for no compromises when it comes to direction.

Here, on this warm night in London, having arrived just in time for the band, everything is set in place for a fantastic show. Thom Yorke, Ed O’Brien, Phil Selway, and Jonny and Colin Greenwood make their way onto the stage, launch into Reckoner, and five songs later I’m still not feeling it. It’s a bizarre and tragic thing – here are an incredible band, playing with blazing conviction and proficiency, with a sound mix to die for. For reasons unknown to me, I am not feeling it. Even No Surprises does nothing to raise my spirits. A back-to-back whammy of Everything in its Right Place and Idioteque is undoubtedly euphoric, however.

A whopping seventeen tracks make up the first set, and I’m hoping for a lot more from the encores. Perhaps it’s Yorke and Co.’s annoying determination to stuff the whole of In Rainbows into the gig. It doesn’t stop there, sadly: the god-fucking-awful Bangers & Mash and Go Slowly perpetrate their way onto both encores, which mar awesome renditions of Karma Police, 2+2=5 and even closer Paranoid Android.

Despite the welcome surfacing of The Bends, the songs that are nowhere to be seen are Pyramid Song, Fake Plastic Trees, You and Whose Army?and yes, even possibly Radiohead’s greatest moment, Street Spirit. Oh, they left out Just too. What the FUCK is going on here?

When the show finishes, the 20,000-strong crowd cheer as if it’s the greatest thing they’ve seen in their lives. I just wish I could say the same thing.
Disappointment in its greatest form, readers. Be right back while I slash my wrists.

Rating – 6.5 / 10

FESTIVAL: Download Festival - 13th, 14th, 15th June

2008-06-17T20:50:00.006Z

‘Oh my god, another shitty line-up for Download 2008’.This is what I heard from a countless number of people for months, most of them egotistical rock ‘fans’ whose listening experience ranges from Metallica to Megadeth. Regardless of your stance, a music festival is a fucking music festival. No other place on Earth is as liberated, free and downright fun, and to criticise that is to criticise a hell of a lot. Needless to say, Download 2008 was again a fantastic time to be had. Here’s the run-down, with the ratings taking the form of ‘G’s (that’s ‘G’ for ‘Gary’) out of five. G = a whole G, . ½ = half a G. Let the sunburn, unhealthy food and four days of sleeping in a sweaty tent begin…

The weather doesn’t look too good on Friday morning. Hopefully a great band to kickstart the festival will alleviate the mood. It’s a shame that Black Tide (G½) are bloody rubbish. I am slightly impressed that they’re a three-piece metal band which is rather unusual, but they have no idea how to account for this mid-frequency gap when it comes to solos. Plus, the stink of Metallica wannabeism is overpowering. Stone Gods (GG½) fare much better, even though they have the shadow of previous band The Darkness looming over them. You wouldn't have thought it though, as their previous bassist takes on a great frontman disposition while Dan Hawkins tears it up on guitar. Up next are Black Dahlia Murder (GG½) who, while performing their own soundcheck, show a definite closeness with their fans. The fans go ballistic when they launch into their set, and the pits stay equally frantic for the remainder. A great show, but hindered in the first half by a low sound mix. When it is announced that Kid Rock will no longer be performing – greeted by many cheers – it is then stated that Disturbed will have a longer set in his place – greeted by many boos from me. Disturbed (G) are such a pile of poo, singer David Draiman almost appears as a six-foot turd. Awful songs, nearly all of which are started by an unnecessary playback intro, are played with all the conviction a mudfish would exude. A dead mudfish. Moving on from the negative vibes, I ditch Motorhead to see The Subways (GGGGG), the first truly awesome band of the weekend. Billy Lunn elicits a war-preparation response from the crowd; speaking honestly, scaling the rigs, and simply being tight as fuck with his army of three. They are a testament to how good live music can really be. Up on the main stage are the celebrated Judas Priest (GG) who a lot of people have been looking forward to. This is a bizarre one, as when the band plays it all sounds the way it should do: Rob Halford wails like he always did, the others rock out in a professional manner. Just there is no energy whatsoever, but I can’t really blame them since Halford and co. are so freaking old they look like they’re about to have a heart attack at any moment onstage. Geriatric metallers never fail to sadden me. Kill Hannah (GGGG) are basically the opposite of JP: energetic, a feminine-orientated crowd, and not a wrinkle between them. Their mix is a sweet balance of delayed vox, guitars and dancey drums, and while on record they lack a certain something, here they sound as full and sassy as they should. Small tents to big stages, Simple Plan (GGGG½) are possibly the most surprising band all weekend. I always have a disturbing penchant for pop-punk, but this group have always repelled me a bit as being too sugary and blatant even for that genre. Yet live, they’ve a wicked sense of humour and wit, holding the audience in the palms of their hands with ease. Oh, and they sound amazing. Kiss (GGGG) really are… erm, something else. As first headliner of the weekend they’ve a lot to live up to: they surpass it and then some. Besides the perfect 35 year-long drilled set and iconic make-up, perhaps this show should’ve been aired on Comedy Central. Toward the end, there are fireworks for every single song, including a fucking Catherine wheel on the closing Detroit Rock City. And after viewing Gene Simmons release gallons of fake blood from his mouth during a space-age bass solo, you can’t help but chuckle with glee.

Saturday sees grindcore enthusiasts Job for a Cowboy (GGG) make other bands tremble at the mere sight of their mosh pits. The band though are intensely tight, yet deny themselves any real crowd interaction. 36 Crazyfists (GG) are just boring as a day out with your nan really. Next. Madina Lake (GGG½), in a storm of confetti, balloons and hairspray put their heart and soul into the performance. An achievement, considering the bass guitar wasn’t working throughout the whole set. Built from the rubble of Creed, Alter Bridge (GGG) really are a friendly bunch. Towering vocals, guitar solos that fly in the blue above the clouds, and a wonderful singalong to Open Your Eyes, you just can’t help not to like them. Biffy Clyro (GGGG) seriously are the tightest band I’ve ever seen in my life. It really is stupendous. I just can’t get over it. Yet, they don’t play 57 so they don’t get the full five Gs treatment. Sorry, Biffy. Bullet for my Valentine (GGG½) follow up, and straight out of the blue, are actually good. In fact, not just good, but great. This is coming from someone who hates their music, by the way. They treat the audience like real friends, and emphasise this by demanding a massive wall of death. But probably the best band all weekend is Pendulum (GGGGG), whose atmosphere is incredible: you cannot beat an entire crowd going ‘doo-doo-doo-dooooooo-doo-dee-doo’ to one of their signature synth licks. The entire front half of the audience consists of six mosh pits (yes, I counted), each person having the time of their lives to Pendulum’s hard-hitting rave-rock. It’s annoying that Ash (GG½) don’t live up to them in concert. This is a strange performance, as each member looks as though they’re having the time of their lives, but don’t make the right noise that it should be complimenting. Since Ash lost Charlotte Hatherley and became a three-piece a couple of years ago, they don’t sound as if they’ve worked out the right parts to fit the hole she left. The Offspring (GG½) fare a bit better, but Noodles is the only one who really lets it rip energy-wise. Great songs, mediocre performance, minimal stage set-up, and a short performance. Although, Self-Esteem does sound brilliant.

Lethal Bizzle (GGG) is the first band on my agenda for Sunday, after having missed Fightstar. Why the absolute fuck is this group playing Download? It doesn’t matter, as the urban triplet Bizzle hold their own against the rap-hating mass’s bottles. Besides their performance being worthy of a good rating, the real fun to be had here is them fighting off the idiotic throng, much akin to My Chemical Romance vs. Slayer fans at Reading 2006. The highlight of semi-classical Apocalyptica’s (GG½) set is an appearance from latino maiden Christina Scabbia, who sings fine and looks even more fine. I believe it would’ve been a good choice to play one of two of their covers, so as to involve the crowd more - but it looks as if they want to do their own thing, which is cool. Just a shame there’s not a massive fanbase for cello metal. Hailing from Scandinavia also, there is no denying Within Temptation (GGG½) sound on fire today. Sharon den Adel hits and maintains those notes like a machine, as the band blaze through their decent tunes behind her. Kids In Glass Houses (GG½) have the songs but today, don’t have the edge. Frontdude Aled Phillips really looks like he doesn’t want to be here, and following closer Give Me What I Want, Elliot Minor’s (GG½) Alex Davies seems to feel the same way. Outwardly negative, he’s a polar opposite to Ed Minton, one of those guitarists who just go crazy wherever they are. Jimmy Eat World (GGG) sing their hearts out… well, at least the singer does. The others seem a tad bored, even when playing incredibly good songs like Work and Big Casino. Alas, they also suffer from a less-than-astounding mix. They finish on a celebratory The Middle which does eventually pick up the pace, but it’s not enough to save it from my run of the mill rating. Following Jimmy’s pretty pedestrian performance, the festival is closed by headliners Lostprophets (GGGGG). The way Ian Watkins can hold a crowd fits nicely alongside the other five members, who know how dynamics work and play their respective parts with passion. A well-paced set is the order of tonight, littered with a manic Fake Sound of Progress and a couple of new songs too. This show really hits home with the closing canon of Last Train Home, Shinobi vs. Dragon Ninja and Burn Burn (complete with the obligatory flames). The only niggle is that they are way too quiet to begin with, but that is soon fixed a few tracks in.

After a ritualistic session of showering, scrubbing and deoderising, I am now back into the swing of normal life. By heck though, going mental at a festival sure beats it. Go to Download next year; it will not disappoint.

Vote in the poll!!!

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Now playing: Daft Punk - Digital Love

GIG: Foo Fighters - Wembley Stadium, 7th June

2008-06-10T21:37:00.009Z

I’m one cynical bastard. I’m always looking out for ways to fault bands live: their sound mix, their technical performance, the energy… hell, even the crowd atmosphere I put down solely to the group’s doing. But following the Saturday night just gone, this writer was left absolutely speechless.

The Foo Fighters have been going strong for 14 years now: their rise in the UK has been gradual throughout this, each album spawning more and more Foo fans. After 2006’s laser-studded Hyde Park show, the next step was inevitable. Grohl and the boys had their eyes on Wembley for quite a while. Entering the stadium late afternoon is an event in itself; the sheer fucking size of the thing bowls most people over, the red sight of seats a kind of encircling, faraway horizon. The Futureheads and Supergrass are first up as support: the former having a better sound than previous times I’ve seen them, and the latter being not very involving until towards the end when they finally throw out great songs like Alright and Pumping on your Stereo (complete with a massive transparent snake wriggling over the throng, constructed from many plastic cups).

At this point it must be said that the stage is every synonym for ‘fucking huge’ under the sun. Dressed in luminous screens and numerous other lights and contraptions, it’s not unlike some sort of Temple of the Robots, sent from the future to astound us into submission. Thankfully, when the Foos eventually enter the pitch, it’s a case of music over set. The opening salvo of The Pretender, Times Like These and No Way Back is breathless, and the only let-up in the action is a well-deserved rest in the form of This is a Call (first single), morphing into an extended jam. A tumultuous Breakout (complete with a teasing false start for the mosh pit) and a mammoth Stacked Actors later, the screaming audience really don’t know what hit them, including me. Dave Grohl really is the perfect frontman, parading up the stadium-encompassing catwalk to entertain the fans at the back, grinning like a motherfucker the whole time. And while he’s off doing his thing, Taylor and the others keep the rock machine rolling, perfectly timed and executed with utter conviction.

But now this is where the concert gets really interesting: the stage begins revolving, acoustic songs Skin and Bones, Big Me and a reworked My Hero are played with additional virtuoso musicians, with the band facing a new portion of the crowd for each track. We get a triangle solo too. The amps are turned back up to eleven for an poignant Everlong, Dave positioned in the centre of Wembley during the verses, singing to the crowd with the same hushed breath and intimacy you would whisper to a lover. Low and behold, it begins raining – not heavily, but adding to the atmosphere a great deal. Monkey Wrench is truly special, as 86,000 people scream the middle-eight unaided. ‘Do you wanna dance?’ is the question Grohl postulates with the confidence of a million Genghis Khans. All My Life’s one-chord chug echoes around the arena, and boy do we dance when the riff hits like a sledgehammer. If this place had a roof, it would have been blown into space.

Currently, this is the best Foo Fighters show I’ve seen. But what catapults this from a merely ‘fantastic’ night to the realms of ‘mind-blowing’, is the encore. Introduced to the stage are Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones from none other than Led Zeppelin. Taylor Hawkins is on lead vocal duties with Grohl behind the kit as they explode into Rock N’ Roll, and leave an ecstatic, dumbfounded Wembley Stadium with Ramble On. The only way to follow that, readers, is what Dave asks the crowd next: sing a song, all together. Cheesy, yet effective. Best Of You is without a doubt the most epic closer I’ve seen at a gig, not one audience member leaving out the massive ‘whoaaaaa-ohhhhhhhh’s toward the end. A visibly emotional Grohl bows with his fellow band mates, fireworks illuminate the dark sky above, and that is that: two and a half hours of something extraordinary has drawn to a close.

It’s incredible that the Foos are actually tighter than ever. For that, someone should call Guiness or something. Their calibre when it comes to putting on a show is so high, it’s off the charts. I’ve got a feeling this will be one of those gigs where, in conversation between music fans for years to come, this question will be asked constantly: ‘were you there?’

Overall - 10 / 10

p.s. vote in the poll please!

SINGLE: Kids in Glass Houses - Give Me What I Want

2008-06-05T12:01:00.004Z

Scene but not heard? Not anymore for this band, who’ve just released their debut album after a while on the circuit from the valleys of Wales.

Unforgivable puns aside, I first saw Kids in Glass Houses supporting The Blackout! and they were awesome, then at Summer Breeze Festival (awesome too), and finally Reading Festival (not so awesome). One thing is clear: their image, their sound – the whole package really – attracts one crowd in particular. This crowd I would generally like to chain up and feed to sharks, and the music that goes with it too (cough, Youmeatsix, cough). Yet strangely, Give Me What I Want is a great song.

Originally called Me Me Me (obviously their label Roadrunner thought that listeners were too stupid to grasp non-linear titles), the track’s got a real sense of angst mostly attributed to the whole teenage unrequited love / sex blah-blah-blah. The lyrics are a bit style-over-substance (‘we take three steps forward, three steps back, she said / I don’t like the way you’re dressed’) but are lacquered in hookiness, which does this type of song justice. Instrument wise, the guitars really jump out at you during the verses with their edgy double stops, staccato phrases and intelligent harmonies. The band’s real strong point here, however, is the core songwriting – we’ve got a pre-chorus that smashes in half-way through a bar to great effect, a chorus with the most memorable melody for a long time, a middle-eight with cathartic falsetto, and an example of how to use the stale semitone-shift change in a slightly new, fantastic-sounding way.

The only real glitch I have is the feel of the recording: while I love the lighter, more indie-esque texture, I feel the live version is much more in-your-face, stimulating and, well, fun – like it sounds it should be. Nevertheless, they’ve definitely captured the song well, and testament to the fact that good things can come out of Wales.

Overall – 8/10

Get it? – Yes, then you too can wear skinny jeans, matching hoodies and say ‘sick’ all the time!

p.s. I've got a new article written over at musicouch. Please check it out! Also, vote in the poll (just to the right, a little up)! Cheers.

THOUGHT: Madonna - the Price is Right?

2008-05-22T23:08:00.005Z

Last week Madge, the ‘queen’ of pop, released tickets for a concert at none other than Wembley Stadium later this year. Quite a stinking massive gig: it’s a statement as an artist that you can sell out then successfully pull off a show like that. Madonna almost definitely has this quality: she's managed to maintain giant popularity since the eighties, changing with the times and music like a female David Bowie; turning out huge hits from every new album, every new image and reinvention. Hey, even her latest single got to number one, and that was a colossal turd. Her latest look isn’t very sexy at all, it has to be said, but hey – it’s still Madonna and she’s still going to sell out Wembley. I prophesize extra dates for her residency there too: the first performance is on a Thursday, clever and confident planning on her tour management’s behalf as the Friday, Saturday and Sunday could be filled following that.

But I digress: the point I wish to make is the absolute rip-off her ticket prices are. Do you wish to know how much a ticket for this event is? £160. Yes, that’s right. One hundred-and-sixty pounds of your hard-earned cash. Even U2 doesn’t charge this much. I saw Muse at Wembley last year for £40. Same for Foo Fighters this year. Metallica tickets were in that price range too. Hell, most arena gigs are around £30. Why so much, Madge? I’ve heard from a certain Elton John you sometimes don’t even sing live, you dirty bitch. Oh, another fact I haven’t mentioned is that the £160 tickets are just for seating. So I’m currently guessing that only Bill Gates will be able to get the privilege of standing in the Golden Circle.

Simply ridiculous.

Taking into account the revenue gained from merch sales - let alone her new album selling like hot cakes – would aptly fill any hole in poor Queenie’s pocket, and yet her and her management decide that if they can screw people for more money, they will. I apologise for my slightly more-than-normal rant level, but live music is something to be enjoyed for a cost that will make it worthwhile for the artist to tour in the first place, but also won’t bankrupt someone. I'll finish up here I think, before my head turns into a volcano. I’m going to leave you by putting this issue into perspective: my entire weekend at Download, three days of countless bands, is costing me £160.

ALBUM: Pendulum - In Silico

2008-05-19T14:09:00.004Z

Ooh, is it drum ‘n’ bass? Is it rock? Who really gives a toss?
Whatever niche you decide to place Pendulum and new album ‘In Silico’ in, it’s a genuinely captivating, exciting and at times heart-stomping ride through textured sonic landscapes, thick with guitars, synthesisers and rocky vocals.

Pendulum are a band (they play actual instruments live) hailing from Perth in Australia, before relocating to the UK in 2003. Two years later, they released their debut ‘Hold Your Colour’ with the single Slam filling the dancefloor in clubs over the country (Blood Sugar became an underground hit too, when the album was re-released with extra tracks). After leading an extraordinarily popular run on the university circuit, they garnered a substantial fanbase through word-of-mouth; here they are now, a top-ten single and a firm sitting in the mainstream – represented chiefly by their move to Warner from Breakbeat Kaos. Many music critics have deemed the new LP as leaving their drum ’n’ bass roots too far behind, but something I think they’ve missed is how good the damn thing is, regardless of musical direction. So low and behold, ‘In Silico’.

There’s no beating round the bush with first track Showdown. A healthy dose of shouting and hard rock guitar lines are the underpinnings, before giving way to a slightly more electronic passage. Resting for a sparse few bars, it builds all the way back up with the kind of bouncy riff Zeppelin would be proud of. This all-round great opener concludes with a splash of cymbal; Different follows up in similar fashion, bearing cleaner vocals, and the first showcasing of Pendulum’s trademark guitar-through-computer sound epitomised by earlier works. An important aspect I’ve noticed are the quality of the lyrics: the same level of gravitas a rock / metal piece would possess, while being as generic enough to not overbear on the hard dance styling. Up next is the fantastic single Propane Nightmares, a pastiche of mariachi trumpets, wailing guitars and a combination of melody and harmony that will stick in your head for days. While most tracks on the album – and the electronica genre at large – focus on hypnotising the listener through sheer length and repetition, Nightmares manages to hold together well enough as an actual song while retaining these elements. Visions, while being one of the less immediate moments present, nonetheless acts as a enticing bridge to Midnight Runner, a mammoth track which is listenable enough to begin with, but only really gets going toward the end with a mesmerising keyboard loop. The hushed air The Other Side begins with belies what is to come: a bloody wicked vocal hook, full on in-your-face production and sections which segue in and out of each other smoothly. Iron Maiden twin harmonies on the guitar are topped off by a Daft Punk wig-out (think Digital Love). Mutiny follows up this exceptionally fun tune, and doesn’t let you go with its head-nodder of a rhythm before dropping out to a jam on guitars, bass and drums. Aerosmith fans would definitely pick up on the senseless pentatonic noodlings and pinches. It bursts back into life, ending with a rousing climax of theremin and live drums. The predominantly instrumental 9000 Miles sets the mood with an acoustic six-string and sixteenths on a bongo. Chilled faux-strings reverberate underneath the elegant melody, spaced right out until the pace picks up in the second half. It feels less like travelling 9000 miles and more like 9000 light years. Next up: the already anthemic Granite. First released back in November, this is added as the second-to-last track and is very welcome in my eyes. The most mosh-worthy of Pendulum songs, the freakout proceeding the line ‘this is the new way!’ is when the shit really hits the fan. Thrilling stuff.

Now, we come to the last track of ‘In Silico’ – The Tempest. To describe how fucking epic it is, is scientifically impossible. It’s true: I’ve got an entire team of researchers working on it right now. The rain-riddled preface gives way to an almighty sledgehammer riff, the vocals increasing in intensity as the piece moves through stages of retrospective choruses and angry verses, and you know it’s going to go somewhere real interesting when the whole thing just stops. Rising from the silence and sounding like it’s coming straight from another dimension, a synth-line rises through volume and treble. A real Hacienda / Acid House fanboy’s dream, plus the amassed noise of Camden Lock – it lifts off in to space, with the double-time beat simply completing it.

Clocking in at just under an hour, ‘In Silico’ is concise whilst of enjoyable length (especially when compared to the full CD’s worth of ‘Hold Your Colour’). Pendulum’s sound is definitely unique no matter what enthusiast labels them as sacrificing their ‘roots’; from what I hear on this record they’ve retained their own style, while stepping out and trying something a little new. What I’m really surprised at though, is that this is one of my favourite albums of the year so far.

Overall – 8.5 / 10

Get it? – Oooooh yes.

SINGLE: The Offspring - Hammerhead

2008-05-14T19:48:00.002Z

Headlining the Saturday at this year’s Download Festival is testament to how established the Offspring's loud skate-punk has become over the past decade and over. Considered an ‘old’ band (Dexter Holland, singer, is now in his forties) by most, they’ve knocked out loads of great tunes over the years: I Want You Bad, The Kids Aren’t Alright, Hit That and All I Want to name but a few. Yes, you remember listening to them when you were ten. Don’t worry, it’s nothing to be ashamed of.

It’s regarded that all their work up to ‘Ixnay on the Hombre’ is their best, with music following that being not up to par – 2003’s Splinter shifted enough units, but fans were not best pleased as a whole. They have a new album to look forward to however, released at a later date this year, and Hammerhead is first single. After listening once, twice and a thousand other desperate times I have come to this undeniable conclusion: it’s really shit. Oh my, how long I’ve had it on eternal repeat to wrestle out something I like about it. Yet, there isn’t. For shame, Offspring!

Let me start with the structure. It’s so loosely based and flung out everywhere, at this moment in time I can still not tell you which part is the chorus. The bulk of the song is such a mess, I will not comment on it until we reach any point of distinction. Ah, that would be the ‘middle-eight’ (apostrophised because it sounds like a completely different stinking song), with the most stereotypical riff the band could conjure looping in a half-daze while Holland yelps out vocal hooks which - you can tell from his over-confident zeal - he thinks are the dog’s bollocks. All this plus the most inconsistent timbres the band has ever shat out, and the crushing disappointment of knowing this is the band which created Self-Esteem really is an unwelcome slap in the face. Knowing they almost definitely will play it at Download makes me hate it even more.

Note to Offspring: make a better song or I’ll never play Crazy Taxi again.

Overall – 1.5 / 10

Get it? – Titty-fucking Christ, no. Download ‘Ixnay on the Hombre’.

THOUGHT: Deserving Celebrities?

2008-05-12T19:35:00.003Z

It’s a big shame that the majority of our media revolves around gossip and fads. My number one problem is that stupid people get famous for just that: being stupid. People with a drug addiction get famous for their drug addiction. Above all, people with no talent get famous for doing absolutely fuck-all. But what about those who do possess great ability in their field of art, and yet fall into the ever-present hole where reporters point their fingers, flash their cameras and yell ‘look everyone! They’ve got problems! How wonderful!’

Amy Winehouse unfortunately comes under this banner, as everyone by now knows. Thankfully, there do exist some critics out there who regard her voice as sublime, powerful and the works. Which it indeed is… and her songwriting isn’t too sketchy either. All this, and yet she has been in the dark of her enormous drug shadow for quite a damn while, all because the fucking Sun-reading public are ‘interested’ in it. I can’t possibly conceive how someone could be more concerned with how much coke she’s stuffed up her nose than how great her latest tune is, or her fine voice. This is coming from someone who doesn’t even like her music that much, by the way.

I can’t stand up for Amy all the way, though: her last tour had some shambolic performances, with her completely being out of it onstage. Not professional, not pleasing to the ears; just abysmal. My hitch is much more with the papers, television and the dickheads lapping it up than her herself, though. She’s just a bit of a fuck-up, bless her. It’s an outright shame I can’t really say the same for Pete Doherty… if he writes an actual good song, I’ll go bail him out of prison myself next time he (inevitably) gets incarcerated.

My point: it is possible to be worthy of your own celebrity, just be careful that it’s for the right reasons.

P.s. I was going to stand up for Britney Spears as well as Winehouse, then I realised her troubles in this world brought to light Chris Crocker’s Youtube outpour. Glorious.

SINGLE: Coldplay - Violet Hill

2008-05-09T10:50:00.004Z

Middle of the Road? Surprisingly, Middle of someplace Very Different.

The latest single from Coldplay is perhaps the biggest release this year; well, at least until the new album comes out, that is. The long-winded ‘Viva a Vida or Death and All His Friends’ is out 12^th June, and if this single (and the album artwork) is anything to go by, it will be a somewhat different listen to their previous outings. Now I’m all for bands to do their own thing, try out new and exciting sounds for them – it’s what makes a group’s music truly great – but for god’s sake, do it at least by the second album and not the freaking fourth. That way you won’t lose about fifty percent of your fanbase. Hopefully, due to Coldplay’s stadium sized popularity and promise of many radio plays, they will gain new listeners, and if the album is actually good… well, I don’t see any real problem arising on that front. People will still pack out Twickenham for them. Even I would go and see them for sure: me and the rest of the crowd singing our hearts out to Fix You, Trouble, Politik and many others would be a tremendous experience. We'll have to see if the first release from 'Viva la Vida' is worthy enough to join the ranks of the others.

Violet Hill was released for a week as a free download, a trend picking up quite rapidly through the music industry and a great way for people to hear the song (‘what’s that, a free tune? Gimme!’). It would also help if the song was all that great to be perfectly honest, but it isn’t. I’ll start with Chris Martin’s voice: initially, it doesn’t sound like it fits in, perhaps a little too much confidence in the vocal department. Subsequently, a placid few bars of not much at all drift along in faux suspense: out of nowhere, a wicked bluesy passing section kicks in which leads excitedly into the bulk of the verse. Now everything has settled in, we’re getting somewhere.

I gladly present to you the chorus – wonderful falsetto, syllable changes on the offbeat which sound great, plus a post-section of air-punching wallops on the drumkit. My only niggle is that it just isn’t long enough. A dirty guitar solo, a first for Coldplay, takes us around the midrift of the song – it’s just a shame it’s crap. Tonally - acceptable, melodically: get a fucking imagination. After another whip-round of the chorus, it’s all over, and what an anticlimax that was. Despite this, there are definitely some great ideas chucked in there, that I will admit; and while it indeed sounds different for them, it still retains Coldplay’s sound. That is a very good mix, readers. If you don’t have your own sound nailed, how are you going to succeed in musical diversity without losing your identity? I simply hope this will save them in the long run. So from me, a thumbs up to them for that: they accomplish what they wanted (at least on this one song). But hey, it’s no The Scientist.

Overall – 6 / 10

Get it? – Yes, but only if it’s still free. Heheh.

THOUGHT: A toughie - What is a good song?

2008-05-06T19:11:00.004Z

A very, very interesting thought I have for you today…
It’s on the true value of songwriting. Effectively, how many songs can you think of that are rubbish? True - you may not like them in their current studio incarnation, but have you ever thought what that song would be like if it were done… differently?

A golden example of this in my head is the famous (or notorious) track Umbrella. Formerly performed by Rihanna, we all know the hook ‘under my umbrella-ella-ella-eh-eh-eh’ blasting out of passing chav-piloted cars, inside greasy nightclubs and on the radio twenty-four-allthefuckingtime. I suppose most who read this article hate it thoroughly.
Yet, read on.

Now, I do not like Rihanna’s version all that much: the main problems I have with it are her voice and the pointless Jay-Z intro. I do like the drumloop and synths, having said that. And that was that: I didn’t like Umbrella. Then I heard Biffy Clyro’s acoustic version soon after, and was vastly impressed. The dumb hook ‘ella-ella’ intact, and yet it was truly great. Hmm… how bizarre. Over the months up to now, many other cover versions have popped up somewhere or other (including a sparse piano take by Linkin Park). Very recently, Wale’s finest Manic Street Preachers have covered and released their own version of the song to coincide with something the NME have done (I shan’t research exactly what, because I fucking hate the NME). While everything else was a different perspective on Umbrella, this one in particular is very close to the original. The drumbeat is unchanged, and the guitars chiefly mimic the synth line. However, I absolutely love this cover even though it is simply a rocked-up clone. And that can mean only one thing, readers: the actual song is innately good! Gasp!

This brings up some quite dodgy, reasonably philosophical questions. Number one: do I like the Manic’s version because to my ears, it captures the song better than Rihanna’s studio effort? Number two: do I like it more because I prefer the rock element they put into it over the Rn’B of the original? Number three: do I like it more, purely because I’m a fan of the Manic Street Preachers?

I don’t think I can really answer this one myself. If you would be so kind, let me know your own ideas. Comment on the post and discuss! Or else I will rain down upon you like Great Odin's raven.

SINGLE: Weezer - Pork and Beans

2008-04-30T20:46:00.008Z

I’m going to put it like this: if you don’t like Weezer, something is wrong with you. Deeply, irrevocably and downright wrong.

Weezer are a strange lot, by my standards at least. Lead guitarist and singer Rivers Cuomo is quite the oddball, and they are the only group I can name of who have more than two self-titled albums (a third is to be released in June). First appearing in 1994 with The Blue Album and masterful songwriting of Say it Ain’t So and Buddy Holly, they've had many successes over the years with their unique sound. Hash Pipe, Island in the Sun and Beverley Hills are prime examples and have all been radio hits, whilst retaining the integrity of actually being fantastic songs.

Now in 2008, brand new facial hair and interesting hats are the new look as The Red Album looms – as mentioned before – and fans have had the chance to stream first single Pork and Beans over at www.weez er.com. First impressions? Superb. A simple yet unusual acoustic guitar line underlies the verse (a major seventh I believe), littered with strange noises, piano stabs and harmonies. Rivers completes the package with his trademark emotional-yet-uninterested monotone strain, speaking of things of some relevance and no relevance, all strung together with the theme of the big bad music business… or something along those lines. I’m not going to debate.

Chorus, big time: ‘I’ma do the things that I want to do, I ain’t got a thing to prove to you’ is less enigmatic, and gladly so. The double-tracked guitars thrash out a rollicking I-V-vi-IV progression, and on later choruses arrive some awesome vocal harmonies. The only nag I have is the length of the middle eight: it’s just way too short. It's got an unexpected key change, great chords; all you’re waiting for now is a massive solo or additional section to come after the euprhoric ‘I don’t care’s. But alas: it fires straight back into a final chorus. It still works fine - some extra development is all I would say it needs. Although having said that, the instrumentation is dazzling, the original ideas it includes sound excellent and above all – you can sing your absolute bollocks off when it comes to it. I’m looking forward to seeing this live sometime.

Overall – 9 / 10

p.s. Vote in the damn poll. Please.

GIG: Muse - Royal Albert Hall, 12th April

2008-04-29T22:04:00.012Z

Luck.
I say that, because that’s what I had bucket loads of when I managed to get tickets. The sheer number of fans trying to get theirs kept the websites on crash hiatus, thousands of fingers obsessively tapping the F5 key. Muse, who played two nights at Wembley Stadium last year, announced a relatively small-key gig in London’s Royal Albert Hall for the Teenage Cancer Trust, set up by Roger Daltrey. After finally nabbing a ticket twenty agonising minutes into the sale, I could look forward to what I had in store for me. The Victorian building in Kensington, just by Hyde Park, is steeped in rock tradition: the likes of Jimi Hendrix, Cream, Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd have played here over the ages. Now it was Muse’s turn to have a go.

Inside the Albert Hall, the elegant dome curves around you, populated by the inner circle of seats, private boxes, the upper circle and the gallery, adorned with fan-made banners requesting particular b-sides to be played (‘PLAY THE GROOVE!’). Much smaller than most venues Muse have played in the UK for the last few years now, it was extremely exciting for this rare chance to see them in such an intimate situation. I have to confess, however: while their Wembley shows were the peak of their live career so far, I felt their performance was not up to scratch the same way as they were on the Absolution tour, especially at Roskilde Festival in Denmark. Thankfully, they made a return playing as tight as a goldfish’s arsehole, and as exhilarating as one of those rides at Alton Towers. Faith restored.

After the Futureheads, who were pretty decent, anticipation runs at an all-time high for everyone present. The lights go down, and it reaches fever pitch as the standing audience surge forwards to the barrier to get a glimpse of Matt Bellamy, Dom Howard and Chris Wolstenholme as they fire up with opener Take A Bow. Everything afterwards is pure magic: the drums crash, the bass pulses and the guitar wails as if the sky was falling, the world was coming to and end… and it’s just a concert. A blur of hits new and old is the meat of their set tonight, Time is Running Ot and New Born performed with increased volition and a refreshing new turn of energy. Bellamy is literally leaping about the stage like a lunatic. Awesome. A major aspect of Muse’s live show is all the gargantuan screens, satellite dishes and squillions upon zillions of lights. But here, it is just them for the most part – able to show just how on-form and hard-hitting a live band they are at the core.

The inclusion of obscure track Fury is truly epic, epic, and some more epic, as is the surprise of Bliss: an extended rocket-blast of riffage blows the roof off the RAH, set alongside the raining down of giant balloons from the hallowed arches above. A complete show-stopper… until, when the final bars of Stockholm Syndrome decay into nothing, the colossal in-house organ – which fills a whole side of the hall – lights up. The atmosphere is absolutely electric – Bellamy strolls to the ancient instrument’s centre, noodles out a bit of Bach and launches into Megalomania. Origin of Symmetry’s closer, this is one song I thought I would never see in my life. It really is the highlight of the night: Chris and Dom down below on the stage playing rhythm, Matt Bellamy high above like some new-age Phantom of the Opera, with the chorus illuminating the organ in hell-red. I dribble now just thinking about it, so let’s move on. Proceeding a blistering jam between bass and drums, Mat returns to the stage and close their set with a double-whammy of Plug in Baby and Knights of Cydonia; the latter of which I bruise my leg badly in the biggest mosh all evening. The only niggle I had at all was that Citizen Erased was nowhere to be seen at all, whilst Feeling Good got the millionth airing of the past two years. A bit unfair, if you ask me.

After my limp had duly healed, I knew this was simply an incredible gig I’ll always remember, like the Foo Fighters at Hyde Park, or Led Zeppelin at the O2. An astounding performance, a fantastic crowd: that really is all you need.

Overall – 9.5 / 10

p.s. the point of the concert was to raise funds and awareness for the Teenage Cancer Trust (TCT), who run clinics throughout the country and have been growing since these gigs started. Have a look - https://www.teenagecancertrust.org/

NEWS: Phil Collins retires

2008-04-28T12:05:00.005Z

Look into his eyes... Sad stuff, in my book. When this veteran of the 80s discovered he could sing, his solo career away from Genesis spiralled up and up – he had hits like In The Air Tonight and Another Day in Paradise for christ’s sake, including a fabulous cover of You Can’t Hurry Love by The Supremes; a guy covering a very girly song like that takes a lot of balls. Pleasant enough music, very thought-provoking in a lot of ways, and now he has officially announced his retirement from the music industry. Whether you love him so much you want to give his gracefully aged face a big sloppy kiss, or hate him so much you’d like to gag him with gaffa tape and torture him Yakuza-style… you’ve got to respect this dude.

RIP Phil (I know he’s not dead, but you get the point).

GIG: Defenders of the Faith - Brixton Academy, 26th April

2008-04-27T19:59:00.008Z

Ah, Brixton Academy. A legend of a music venue, home to some incredible live concerts over the years. If you’re a band and you’ve managed to sell out this place, you’ve made it. A grand old theatre drenched in character, with the added bonus of wherever you are standing, you’ve got a good view. A favourite of mine, and seeing the biggest metal tour of the year here arguably demands a fantastic gig; especially for each long-haired metalhead wearing the customary shit-eating grin present tonight. A hell-load of expectation has preceded this tour. Opeth and Arch Enemy better put on a blinder of a show, or they’ll have to answer to the most muscle-bound, hairy, tall, pierced and tattooed crowd this writer has ever had the privilege to be part of.

The show kicks off, as such, with Three Inches of Blood: the less said, the better to be blatantly honest. The singer’s voice is… unique? Distinctive? Whatever word you attempt to tag it with, it still sounds like a fucking wolf having its balls squeezed in a vice. Let’s move on.
‘Devil Driver! Devil Driver! Devil Driver!’ is the name being boisterously shouted into my ear around the whole venue. These guys are, after all, famously known for their frequent attempts at beating the world record of biggest circle pit ever. Scary stuff. Gladly, they do produce the biggest mosh of the night, and are so ridiculously loud they hurt my ears. Just a little louder and I would have got tinnitus, a fact I was ready to make clear to their sound guys at the back. Dick-head.

Then it was time for the band I was looking forward to the most, Arch Enemy. Death Metal is a sophisticated subgenre, a blend of deeply melodic lines and subtle key change- LOOK OUT, PIT!!! They are just great: singer Angela Gossow, besides knowing how to scream as well as the best of her male contemporaries, is a perfect frontwoman. Sexy (when not roaring her lungs out), and truly making the stage her own. While Devil Driver may have ripped Brixton a new arsehole, Arch Enemy more than aptly fuck it sideways with their own breed of heavy-as-fuck. They complete their long set with an encore, in the form of some song I don’t know (S.S.I.D.K.) and a very teasing cut from Fields of Desolation, before taking about two whole minutes of drum crashing and guitar thrashing to finish. A rousing performance, and I believe they had the biggest applause of all bands there.

An aspect that is noticeable is the intervals between bands. Gigs I’ve attended at Brixton before have had the longest, most agonising length of time between sets… something which isn’t apparent tonight. Most likely a good idea… you don’t exactly want thousands of 7-foot tall Opeth fans rioting the place to the ground. The bigger of the two co-headliners, hailing from Sweden, Opeth are ready to make their appearance. They don’t make the greatest start, it has to be said. Mikael Åkerfeldt has sound problems with his guitar, strumming a few dodgy chords, keeping the audience in a still-hopeful awkward anticipation instead of simply launching into their first song. By song, I mean ten minute-long suite. Throughout the course of their headline set, Mikael is quite the captivating speaker – a well-paced, patient voice, not one sentence without importance or humour. At many points, their music rises to inspirational levels of complexity and volume and yet my would-be highlight did not occur: the bastard speaks of a cover of Right Said Fred’s I’m Too Sexy for My Shirt which everyone around me wants to hear, but instead they played one last song and fucked off without even an encore. Underwhelming, it must be said.

Marching out of the venue in the drone of whooping leather-clad fans into the refreshing cold night, the masses are pleased. A brutal gig, and quite influential gigin the veins of metal. Devil Driver and Arch Enemy gave it their all, while Opeth almost made the cut for me - but fell out on the last hurdle. A hard-working band capable of better things, something I believe many, many people would agree with.

Overall: 7.5 / 10

p.s. please remember to vote in my poll, I'm interested in what you think.

OH MY GOD! A NEW POST AHOY?

2008-04-25T22:33:00.003Z

It has been just over a year since the last post. I'm getting that warm, fuzzy feeling I get when I want to write a gloriously cynical article...

[cliché] Watch this space. [/cliché]

THOUGHT: Panic! It's Fall Out Boy... or is it?

2007-04-07T18:43:00.000Z

I hate people who are musically deaf.
Well I don’t hate them, they just annoy me. For instance, when there is a melody in a song which sounds like a synth but is actually a guitar (you can tell from its timbre), no-one but you can seem to pick it out: and they won’t hear the damn differences. This must be where a lot of people deem some bands as sounding ‘exactly the same’.

This is the case with Fall Out Boy and Panic! At The Disco. I’ll get the main difference between the two out first: Fall Out Boy are actually good. Not only this, but the guitar tone, drum patterns, instruments used (Panic! go for more unconventional ones), and song structure itself are all completely different. The only things they have similar about them is pop sensibility – what band now doesn’t have that, to be honest – and vocals: even then Patrick Stump’s voice is much more powerful than Brendon Urie’s, and more control over his falsetto. All this makes me think: WHAT THE HELL, PEOPLE!? Get some hearing lessons!

This rant is officially over. I’m not like this in real life, I promise.

ALBUM: Ludivico Einaudi - Divenire

2007-04-01T20:58:00.000Z

We are now enterting the realm of classical music. To anyone who doesn’t appreciate classical music… take this as a warning.
Ludivico Einaudi, the Italian contemporary writer, has been in business for quite a while now. Despite gaining international fame and credit with his mature songwriting, even playing a concert in London the previous year, you still need to actually listen to him to get what it’s all about. So I will waste no more breath…

Opener Uno wouldn’t be called the staple up-tempo entrance to any other album. Slow, some beautiful chords, occasional raindrops of electronica in the background, builds a picture. Not sure what the picture is to be honest, but a picture nonetheless. With lots of rain. The title track is next, and has an army of strings backing it up through its racing chorus sections, all beautifully complimented and brought to rest by the Big E’s keys. Quite rousing… in a pompous way.
Monday is a more standard Einaudi piece – mostly sombre throughout, abrupt modulations here and there, and a general harmony-over-melody style (with transitions with the harmony from set in bass clef to treble clef). Enough with the technicalities though, as the track is actually quite shit. Next please.
Andare: basically Monday Mark 2, but with bongos. Next.
Track number 5, Rose, is a much more positive-sounding piece. It relies a lot on reversed wah-effects, which gives the impression that our favourite Italian contemporary is jamming in random stuff to make the tracks more different. A decent listen nonetheless, although.
I am now imaging a snowy scene: that’s what the beginning of Primavera makes me feel. All snowy and fluffy. God, I hate Christmas. Strangely enough, these six degrees of separation don’t make me hate thee track. In fact, it becomes wonderfully epic at around the second minute, complete with spiralling violins on top of shrills. This would be a great Cradle Of Filth song, come to think of it.

Break-time: pause the album and go get some coffee or something. It is an hour and a quarter of toff music, after all, and you will need caffeine to keep your eyes open.

Back? Good. And now, the customary behemoth of a track. Clocking in at 11 minutes long, Oltremare really does portray the amount of patience needed to listen to not just this, but any classical music. (Patience is a virtue: you will be rewarded with repeated listenings.) Whilst this song may only be fully appreciated as apt background music, there are a lot of changes and no concurrent motifs – and ornamentation is kept to a minimum. And yet, it all gels.
Whoa, there’s a song here under 3 minutes and a half long. A speed record in classical terms. The only actual interesting part of it, is the long building note… rising and rising in volume… and resolves beautifully at its head.
Fly turns into an organised vortex at its end, as Einaudi finally embraces the electric guitar as another piece of his ensemble. We return to more electronic samples with a delayed hum on Ascolta – this works pretty well, but the song writing remains pretty much the same in terms of style as the rest.
Ritornare – not today thanks.
Here we are, at the end of our long journey. Svanire is a gorgeous composition, and a good note to end on (a happy one. I can finally breathe). Stressed violins weep with joy… the string harmonies hold notes entirely in the major key… and even though it has a respectably good enough melody going for it, it does get boring eventually. A first for Einaudi, however – as the piano acts only as harpsichord would here, i.e. complimenting particular notes.

After a number of piano-based albums, Einaudi has chiselled himself a spot in this particular style of music’s ever-vast, colourful wall. And rightly so: on some of his recordings, the single use of the piano gives his music a definite depth to it. For instance, works like Nuvole Bianche, Dolce Droga and of course Le Onde convey meanings so purely with excellent writing which encompasses not only structure, but an acute sense of timbre. However… this was also a downfall to his long players. The sole use of his beloved black-and-whites would make each track sound samey, basically. And on new album Divenire, he works on this and succeeds: now familiar with a wider array of instruments, Einaudi is starting to realise his full potential.
Overall – 7.5
Get it? – Only if you’re patient. If not, I suggest some amphetamine combined with listening to The Prodigy.

On a completely different note, I found a great video. Watch:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gCHSvOjLUXA

SINGLE: Sugababes Vs Girls Aloud - Walk This Way

2007-04-01T20:55:00.000Z

The title of the song should be renamed 'the reason why Sugababes and Girls Aloud should receive the death penalty'.

Listening to this song makes me imagine what kind of horror our soldiers went through in the WWII trenches.
Overall - 0 / 10
Get it? - ... I shouldn't even have bothered asking that question.

SINGLE: Good Charlotte - Keep Your Hands Off My Girl

2007-03-16T16:55:00.000Z

Oh dear.
Good Charlotte used to be a fun enough band, shovelling us fun enough pop songs in the form of Girls & Boys, The Young & The Hopeless and of course, Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous. But they decided to stray from the formula, which if you know what you’re doing will equal success. But they didn’t sound like they even knew what planet they were on, and produced the rubbish Chronicles of Life and Death. Perhaps the following album, Good Morning Revival, would return to the same pop-punk formula or do something different well?

The answer is in the shape of the first single, Keep Your Hands Off My Girl, and what you hear whilst listening is indeed the case of the latter option. But… they have no clue, unfortunately. The said track pumps into life with a stylish Nine Inch Nails bass riff, and is then killed by the most clichéd line spoken in the most unconvincing way: ‘let the record play’. Madden, I wish you an early grave.

The verse continues like this, with the worst possible lyrics before the chorus fires off – and for a second, and entire second, the record sounds good. This is in the form of a harmonised ‘ah-hah’ over a well-produced power chord run-up. ‘Keep Your Hands Off My Girl’ is the line which the chorus is hinged upon, and because of that it fails.

The production of the instrumentation itself is great – thick techno guitars, creepy synths. But the singing is not similarly inspired, with turgid metaphor for its lyrical content and neither any humour in the vocals itself. It entirely, and utterly, ruins the song which is a shame as its music has enough potential.

I do admire Good Charlotte for them having balls to try something away from their previous style. But instead of allowing this to happen naturally as artists, this track is indeed the sound of a band that has forced themselves out of a pigeon hole, only to have a substantial loss to the quality of their songs. If Keep Your Hands Off My Girl was the humorous floor-filler that it rightfully should have been, even standing with the overloading of lyrical hooks, and Good Charlotte would have had something to be quite proud of.
Overall – 3.5 / 10
Get it? – No. Fucking neck and chain.

THOUGHT: Michael, not Muse?

2007-03-07T17:10:00.000Z

It has been recently announced that George Michael, stratospherically famous former of Wham! and solo artist, is opening the new Wembley Stadium the week before Muse in June this year. George Michael is a great artist and has been involved in many good songs – Last Christmas, Freedom… wait, those are just Wham! songs. Either way, the guy is an incredibly good singer, he’s nearly in the same league as Freddie Mercury (bias, sorry) and John Lennon. For instance, the justice he did Somebody To Love during the former’s tribute concert was mind-blowing.
But the point is… should he really play the new stadium before Muse? George has much more history than the ‘space’ rockers, more well-known and more pleasing to the ear for more mature listeners.

But, and here’s a very big but: maybe Muse deserve it more. George Michael has played the stadium as a solo act before: perhaps it is time to let a newer act take the place. If Muse can sell out the entire stadium in 45 minutes, it goes to show how big a fan-base they have – and they’re doing it relatively quietly, too. They have worked long and hard from the smallest gigs in ‘toilet’ pubs, and built themselves up into the mainstream without losing any of their artistic integrity. George Michael may have done the same… but does he need to give the same ‘statement’ as he has done before by playing the first gig? The aspect that he isn’t English has also risen many an eyebrow of the public.

This writer cares a lot about the subject, as you as a reader can by now understand. This is simply to the fact that Wembley Stadium is a national heritage site, the stage of champions. To let Muse have the honour, I really do believe would have been fitting.
And now my friend’s view: ‘It’s crap. I don’t like it’.

SINGLE: Take That - Shine

2007-03-06T22:28:00.000Z

You'd never thought you'd read a Take That review on here, did you? Well tough luck.
The 90's supergroup have had a glorios rebirth (although with a Robbie Williams-shaped gap) within the last year, and rising from the ashes of camptastic hits like Relight My Fire and Could It Be Magic with melodic and mature No.1 Patience is quite a feat. It's similar to Green Day's revival in 2004 / 2005, and time has yet to see if Take That's new formation can reach the same scope.

Elton John piano stabs, Rainbow-equse guitar squeals. Shine is a new look camp for Take That, but a much more enjoyable one and more musically profound. The group really sound different here, and is probably the most diverse - along with Wooden Boat - on Beautiful World. The wonderfully bouncy track dances onwards with a joyous sense of freedom, which is mirrored in the lyrics also: 'so come on, come on, get it on' beckons a vocally-deft Mark Owen. Not exactly poetry, but when heard with the music the urge to skip along and pick up poppies and marigolds truly hijacks the senses. The middle-eight is where the song picks up: a wall of sound saluting britpop passages past, with a final chorus gliding into the sweeping harmonies. Vocal parts add an extra element - check out the 'ahhh's in the verse - small and squeaking electric guitar hooks, and a fantastic-to-listen-to descending scale of notes on the piano during the chorus. This writer is a self-confessed fan of essentially 'happy' and vivacious music (basically another way of saying 'camp'), and this track is one of them and it pulls it off well. What it could have done with though, is maybe an extra layer in the chorus to properly nail that punchiness... but I believe I may be nitpicking.

Boy band splits in 90's due to one member pursuing a solo career? Check. Boy band makes very welcome return to the pop scene? Check. Boy band has the tunes to pull it off? Check.
Take That, RW.
Overall - 8.5/10
Get it? - Shine a little love and buy this. Yes, I know that's from a different song. Bugger off.

SINGLE: Kaiser Chiefs - Ruby

2007-03-03T16:59:00.000Z

Warning: strong opinions lie ahead.
Along with the music scene becoming apparently more indie-based than ever before in 2005, the year spawned some terrifically awful bands. Amongst the same lines being sung in the exactly same way albeit on different songs being its main focus of artistic integrity, 'new wave' indie-'rock' showed us all the worst elements of british popular music - jerky bleating favoured over any decent melody, a mad-fer-it-manchester approach to vocals all the time, plus the bad fashion sense. The concept of laddism was revisited - people claiming to be 'the next Oasis', but these claims were cop-outs because the only thing alike Oasis these groups had was a poor imitation of the swagger.
Remember the 'oohs' and 'whoaaas' britpoppers like Pulp used to use to great effect and humour in their songs? Well, one particular group in the 2005 indie-rock scene by the name of Kaiser Chiefs (no idea what the name is about, and can't be bothered to research it to be perfectly honest) must have decided to themselves during song-writing, 'hey, that "whoooooooaaaaahhh!" we used in that song sounds so good, I think we should use it in every song of ours!'. Debut album from the Kaisers produced singles which worked well in the form of tunes, but simply floated amongst the turdy waters of new wave and thus made it somehow, piss-annoying. This, along with the 'whoaaas': there is one in Oh My God (first single), and roughly 8 million in I Predict a Riot. The latter track was played so many times on every single radio station, it was like chinese water torture - but without either the chinese aspect or the water. So it was purely torture, which is even worse.

Now, let's play a game called 'Spot The Bias'. The return of the Kaiser Chiefs to the radio is not a welcome one. But Ruby sounds like an exception the Chiefs rule: there are no 'whoaaassss' or similar build-ups of that fashion present. A relief to the ears - the song-writing is not actually bad either. A classic-rock riff introduces Ruby, and plunges into a quite dirty line, balanced cleverly with brief major chord flourishes. The verse sounds like typical Kaisers sung in a typical, downy Kaiser way. And the chorus, while absolutely fine and dare I say it - good - in a musical sense, it is hard to hear beyond it sounding like it was constructed for radio. 'Ruby, Ruby, Ruby, Ruby ... Do ya, do ya, do ya, do ya' is a refrain likely to be found on any mediocre pop song of the 60s, 70s, 80s or 90s. The decent writing of the song falters with the bridge, which is a remarkably unimaginative lump of quintissentially boring listening. Whereas most guitarists constructing a solo add at least a flavour of vibrato, or write a counter-melody to the underlying chords - it is instead simply dual guitars, set in 1-octave registers, doing exactly the same melody as in the rest of the song. Avoiding melodic expectation is a good thing, but not in such a placid manner.

Ruby has already performed triumphantly - at time of writing it's the UK no.1 single. While the buying public will find nothing challenging and everything inviting about this particular tune, there is no convincing it is a great song. Time and then new album will show what else the Kaiser Chiefs have been working hard on in the studio.
Overall - 5.5
Get it? - it's catchy...

SINGLE: Snow Patrol - Open Your Eyes

2007-02-28T21:02:00.000Z

Hmmm... where do the music lovers stand with Snow Patrol? Do they view their music as 'life-changing', or 'piss-annoying'? I believe them to have the capability of writing some blinding music: 'blinding' meaning the good sense and the bad. Since drinking from the goblet of radio-friendliness with Final Straw, the predecessor of Eyes Open, oppurtunities are wide open for them. Singles such as Run (one of the best songs of its year), Chocolate and How To Be Dead cemented them as indie-rock staples. The next LP, the aforementioned Eyes Open, is released 2006, and the first single (You're All That I Have) is vastly unimpressive. Chasing Cars followed: a fantastic record, but became stale due to extensive playing on all stations. The fresh new track which is now lifted, Open Your Eyes, is the 'title' track of the record... and hey, it sounds good.

A basic guitar strum is all the start of the song is - a while later a very irish-sounding vocal conjures up a well-realized melody. The guitar-and-vox duet carries on, a mild dashing of percussion is added, and first showing of the great chorus. The majority of the track continues in this simple style, but not losing its tension that something good will happen soon. And it does - in the form of cymbals and flanged electric guitars crashing up a joyous ruckuss. The explosion sounds good, and even quite moving. That's until you get into the five-trillionth bar of the fucking thing. When the section finally does end (gratefully for the listener), the final verse quietly hymns its hushed passage and Open Your Eyes completes its rites of 'Radio 1, here we come'. The track really suffers from its feel that it wants to be an epic, but simply isn't: the notion is apparent that Snow Patrol may have extended the entire electric guitar bridge just so the song tips over the five-minute mark. A shame, as the lyrics and singing are gentle and meaningful, both just on the right side of convincing.

I think it's fair to say that Snow Patrol are good songwriters, but wank about too much with grandeur and get drowned in their collective cum (a horrible metaphor, but true). Songs like these are what we want to hear; just not too much (I'm looking at you, radio).
Overall - 7/10
Get it? - It's good enough.

SINGLE: Fergie - Glamorous

2007-02-28T20:47:00.000Z

Rubbish.

SINGLE: The Killers - Read My Mind

2007-02-28T19:52:00.000Z

I'll start the article like this: Sam's Town is crap. And I'll continue like this: it's crap apart from two songs, and Read My Mind is one of them. I'm stumped at how the band enthusiastically states Sam's Town is 'the best record they could make', when their previous LP Hot Fuss seems to fill that claim's shoes snugly. Where did it all go wrong? What musical decision chose this path? Where did Brandon Flower's 'tache pop up from? So many questions, so many bad songs. Kudos for trying something a little new in the studio, but when the result is an almost unlistenable mash-up of keyboards and guitars: NO. On a lighter note, here's the single review...

Third single from the Las Vegas quartet's second album, it's a dance tune rolled into a ballad and a bloody good one at that. When the 80's synths hum into the fray, it sounds ok. When Brandon Flower's vocals make an appearance, things sound less ok. After the initial lull with the first part of the verse, a rather beautiful guitar and keyboard arpeggio arrives and make things sound so much better - the chorus of 'I / don't / mind' really does sound glorious, pushing the track gracefully into the stratosphere of the listener's endorphin levels (well, at least mine). A headrush of memories, good and bad; a yearning for something already past; both appropriate descriptions of the kind of music that's usually the most touching, and there is a heartful of it here. Bridge time: there is a decent enough solo - the tone of the guitar could have suited the song a bit more. A wonderful falsetto note of Flower's in the final few bars which completes the song's super-reflective mood well. The entire composition is a contemporary Human League hit, albeit less camp. Nah, strike that.

A brief history of the tracks chosen for radio so far from Sam's Town: When You Were Young - excellent. Bones - ruuuuuuuuubish. And this - excellent, again. A message to The Killers - recapture your muse again; it sounds clearly present on two tracks here. That muse should be two words: 'hot', and 'fuss'.
I'll finish the article like this: I'm warming to his moustache.
Overall - 8.5/10
Get it? - yeppety

SINGLE: Red Hot Chili Peppers - Desecration Smile

2007-02-27T17:53:00.000Z

Well, this one really flopped in the charts didn't it? Shame, for it's one of the best tracks off Stadium Arcadium. Stand-alone, perhaps it's a little too difficult to get into, or too slow, or too long for the casual public - though all the best Chili Pepper traits are present here. You'd think with the hard drug abuse and tragedy (many friends of theirs have died, including former guitarist Hillel Slovak) through the Red Hot's 24 year plus career , there would be no more Chilis to love - yet here they are, and with such good songs it can be really inspiring how much they are devoted to their music. For that reason alone, this single track would warrant listening to - but hey, it's amazing anyway.

DS opens up in morbid manner with yet another well-written bassline by Flea, overlying minor chords strummed by genius hobo Frusciante, and Chad Smith's inventive trinkety drumming is well in place. Keidis' vocals really shine here, though. Hitting high notes perfectly with his uniquely accented voice, over repeated listens it gradually becomes clear how well a put-together song this is. It is prevailent in the major chords placed during the pre-chorus and chorus itself, and little extras such as John's 'la la la' and 'na na na' harmonies. The electric guitar sound fits nicely also, its buzzing tune not overbearing over the acoustics but simply adding an extra layer of sombriety. The lyrics aren't bad either, and are free from AK's usual sprinkling of completely random lines (for instance, 'oral sex and bird migration' in 21st Century from the same album).

I really like this song. And if you get this song, I may even really like you.
Overall - 9/10
Get it - I think a 9/10's a yes

SINGLE: Bloc Party - The Prayer

2007-02-27T17:00:00.000Z

Silent Alarm? I wish it really was silent, then I wouldn't have to listen to the sound of a bunch of indie 20-somethings trying to act as intellectual as Radiohead everytime I turned Q on. If I'm speaking the truth, I really do not like / did not like Bloc Party first time around: Here We Are is a fine enough track in its own right, in fact I really quite liked it. Like many indie outcasts, the music's intention was to sound wise and progressive, but that got eaten up by the song's own forced complexity.
This new offering, yes, does still sound a typical Bloc Party on one of their typical gloomy days. Yet it sounds fresh. On this track alone, they more of less sound like they know what they're doing - although the wails of monks during the verse prove that they still believe they can pull it all off, the arrogant w*nks. The good points are many. The drums here are excellent, and along with Kele Okereke's stamping out of inarticulate vocals, it makes the verse convincly tribal. The stadium-circling synths of the magnificient chorus are where it's really at though: orbiting in and out of major and minor keys like confused planets, and yet they work. Carrying the vocal melody straight though, I can imagine huge crowds of people holding glowsticks aloft. Awww.

The music on show with this first track from A Weekend In The City, the new album, is infuriatingly clever. But this time the results are too good for even me to argue against their self-built sophistication.

I hated Banquet. The riff, although quite a clever piece of writing, annoyed the hell out of me. Sorry, just wanted to get that out of the way.

Overall - 8.5/10
Get it? - Go on then

THOUGHT: Queen recording a new album!

2007-02-27T15:38:00.000Z

When I heard from my guitar teacher that Queen, i.e. Brian May and Roger Taylor with the help of ex-Free singer Paul Rodgers on vocals, were recording an album... I think I nearly cried. My teacher saw the depression in my eyes and said no more.
'Why!?' is the main question that pops into my head. Queen (the Queen that was composed of the other original band members Freddie Mercury and John Deacon) have such a glorious history, it's not even funny. When you create global anthems of the likes of We Will Rock You, We Are The Champions and Bohemian feckin' Rhapsody, you don't need to 'carry on the flame'. I agreed with their 2005 world tour: Freddie stated that he wanted a replacement (Paul Rodgers was one of his first choices on a list) after his death, and wanted them to go on without him. Now that's all fine and well in my book... the actual point of my annoyance is that my guitar teacher said that apparently, the new album is sounding 'shit', 'really really bad, 'something your dad would write'. This is the fact that depresses me. At least don't use the 'Queen' moniker, then you're bringing Freddie's (and John's) legacy into it... eventually the reception the record will get, too.
If it turns out to sound good, or at least alright, I think I may be able to pass this one without much anger. But if it's bad: I am coming to get you, Brian May.

ALBUM: Fall Out Boy - Infinity On High

2007-02-26T22:25:00.000Z

It's been an eventful past year for Fall Out Boy. For the young pop-punks / punk-poppers, From Under The Cork Tree - released in 2005 - has sent them rocketing sky high on the radio-humping strength of singles such as Sugar, We're Going Down and Dance Dance. Since then their lives have supposedly been been filled with hardcore partying, internet exposure of particular band members' cocks ('lil Wentz'), and energetically-charged live shows complete with spin jumps and the like. But admist all of this, Patrick Stump, singer and song-writer in his band has obviously been hard at work writing some great songs. He's always been deemed to not warm to the rockstar life, and here his introverted cave-dwellings have paid off. (It is unclear, amongst all the free penis shows, where Pete Wentz found the time to complete his co-writer duties and actually write the lyrics.)

On Infinity On High, Fall Out Boy still sound like Fall Out Boy. But that's where an incredible advantage is. The songs here all have the Fall Out Boy sound, the Fall Out Boy poetry: but the writing has gone up a notch in terms of diversity. Opener Thriller (complete with track-producer Jay Z cameoing an intro and outro) hovers with guitar arpeggios and pounds like a heart pumped with steroids via metal-style drumming. Lovely vocal melodies soar with Stump's magnificient vox. The second track The Take Over, The Break's Over is commanded into play and struts off its funk flavoured riffage very convincingly, just like a girl whose clothes are very little and sense of formality even less. This Ain't A Scene, the recent single follows in a similar vein, and the only real down-point of the album is the chorus on I'm Just Like A Lawyer... 'Me and you, sailing in our honeymoon.' Seriously, was Wentz high on chick flicks, kittens and big flowery meadows when he wrote that?

The real fist-pumping gems here are Hum Hallelujah and Thnks Fr Th Mmrs. The former flows like any amazing song does. No similes or rubbish metaphors to describe it here, sorry. Reflective verses, anthemic choruses... but the middle-eight will make Jeff Buckley either proud, or turn in his grave - Leonard Cohen would too, but he seems to be still alive. The latter is simply fantastic - the spat-out refrain of 'thanks for the memories, even though they weren't so great' is memorable and warrants a moshpit to be honestly honest.

Golden and The (After) Life of the Party serve as effective balladry; counterpoints for the album - already you can hear that this album has a much better flow than its predecessor. Don't You Know Who I Think I Am? is roadtrip-cool, though the guitar is too high in the mix for it to sound 100% brilliant. Carpal Tunnel Of Love, Fame is less than Infamy are decent in their own right, but not compared to the rest. Track 11 is a treat - Bang The Doldrums - serving as sonic candy. Mmm, eat all the nice-tasting hooks up. It does suffer from a trip-up in momentum with the chords in the second half of the chorus despite, and the evil-sounding middle-eight (basically Pete Wentz screamo-ing his small intestine out). The final track (we'll excuse the bonus track because of its rubbishness) I've Got All This Ringing... is truly a fitting closer. Sounding slightly like a soundtrack befitting a Rocky film in the first few bars, which isn't a bad thing!, the chorus explodes: 'the truth hurts worse than anything, that I could do to you'. Deftly simple lyrics for FOB, deftly heart-breaking when used in this track.

In conclusion to the essay... this is a bloody excellent album. While I myself prefer individual tracks off From Under The Cork Tree (Sugar, We're Going Down, Sophomore Slump, A Little Less Sixteen Candles...), Infinity On High works as a better album and is in possession of many cracking pop songs.
Overall score - 8/10
Get it? - Yes