Festival Season

So Download announcement’s have started and as usual the internet is all excited. It’s become a worrying part of our festival culture, that the announcements now seem to actually get more hype than any of the bands themselves and personally I’d love Download to follow the model that Hellfest does, where it just released the majority of its bands in one go (check out that line up by the way!) That’s not what I’m going to discuss here however, but rather an interesting divide I have begun to see in festival announcement reactions. It’s one that to be honest confuses me and while this isn’t the first time I have noticed, it is becoming more and more common.

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18/11/2014 0

Black Veil Brides

Black Veil Brides have been called a lot of things in their career. Widely derided for being all style no substance, the band have risen up to be the latest whipping boy of the heavy metal community due to a perceived notion that their over the top rock and roll is a bit shit, most of which people on the internet have probably decided because of how they look. The truth is that Black Veil Brides have never been as offensive as people like to believe they are. They play pretty simple rock and roll, inspired by the likes of Guns ‘N’ Roses, but instead of sex, drugs and rock and roll, they instead embrace being different and how being so doesn’t make you alone. Much like other bands who have embraced that message, My Chemical Romance being the most obvious recent example, it has led to them amassing a huge teen audience (something else people seem to think is a bad thing) and they look well on their way to being this generations gateway band into the world of rock and metal.

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14/11/2014 0

A Look at Music Venues Via Ginger Wildheart

Sometimes I sit down to write a review and realise that there is probably not much point. Today was one of those days. On Sunday night I went to see Ginger Wildheart in Glasgow and had a rather fantastic night. However, me writing about how awesome Ginger is seems a bit pointless. If you wish to know my opinion on the man and his music you can find it here, here and here, as well as a few other places if you want to delve a bit deeper. I’m a huge Ginger fan and therefore repeating myself is now going to be that interesting. Of course it was awesome, he’s always awesome.

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04/11/2014 0

Playing the Blues

If you ask most people to describe what they consider the standard blues guitarist, they would probably go down the old, craggy man route. Someone who can damn well play, but is not exactly one of the hip young people the modern music world seem to have such an obsession with. However, if you dig below the surface, times are a changing and two albums I’ve checked out in the last week or so, are the perfect proof of that.

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29/10/2014 1

Defining Punk in 2014.

This article is inspired by a whole series of events. One of which is the newest Lower Than Atlantis album, which is self titled and another of which is Terry Bezer’s defence of pop punk, which you can find here. It’s not a secret that the defintion of punk has changed. The old punks have grown up and anyone who has been to see a punk band that broke in the heyday, will be used to the sight of people who look like they spend their day with office jobs, slipping into the old outfit for a night out. My Dad tells a story of going for a fancy meal in America and afterwards going to see the New York Dolls, where he was surprised to find the exact same people that had been at the restaurant.. To say punk is dead is harsh, but to say punk has changed, seems to just be the truth.

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14/10/2014 0

The Motherload and Heavy Metal

I’m slightly behind the times with this one. Mastodon recently released a video for the rather awesome “The Motherload”, one of the highlights of Once More Round the Sun, the album they released earlier this year. That alone is hardly worthy of a post, but the reaction to said video, which is a combination of traditional rock aesthetics and a collection of woman with rather large derrieres ‘twerking’ (as I believe the kids call it), is.

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08/10/2014 0

Weezer in 2014

A new Weezer album is a strange proposition in 2014. While there is no denying Rivers Cuomo and co can still bring it on occasion, you can’t hide from the factThe Blue Album feels a long time ago and while those songs still kick ass live, they were recorded twenty years ago. While that was followed by another two amazing albums and a few less amazing but strong in their own way releases, they have also released some trash. With their last few failing to hit the mark. Therefore, Everything Will Be Alright in the End has a bit of pressure on its shoulders, the question has to stand as to whether Weezer still have it?

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07/10/2014 0

Generic Music

Sometimes you listen to a band and you want to tell the world. You are desperate to have everyone know about them and cannot understand why people greet the mention of their name with blank faces. Other times you hear a band and wonder who actually cares? Who is spending their time and money supporting a band who while maybe not bad, are just so generic, that they are almost inventive through complete lack of invention. A band that very much invoke that feeling inside of me is Godsmack, who this year released 1000hp.

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03/10/2014 0

Malcolm Young

Few men will ever define rock and roll in the way that Malcolm Young has. The engine behind AC/DC is responsible for some of the most iconic riffs ever written and the news that has come out in the last few weeks about his retirement from the band, through illness, is one of the most devastating things I have heard as a rock fan. The further confirmation that that illness was dementia and his apparent lose of memory, makes the story all the sadder, as rock will lose one of it’s surest guardians.

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01/10/2014 0

Marmozets

Marmozets seem to be the latest buzz word on everyone’s lips and with their debut album, The Weird and Wonderful Marmozets, dropping this week, it looks likely that they are here to stay. Formed of two sets of siblings, Becca, Sam and Josh MacIntyre and Will and Jack Bottomley, Marmozets have been on the live scene for a while. I saw them supporting Feed the Rhino a while back and they impressed me then with their energetic show. Back then their sound was also a lot more mathcore, something that they have by no means lost on this release, but which they have honed and in many ways perfected into some cracking tunes.

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30/09/2014 0