EDITOR’S NOTE
IN THIS ISSUE... RIOT! upsetmagazine.com Editor: Stephen Ackroyd (stephen@upsetmagazine.com) Deputy Editor: Victoria Sinden (viki@upsetmagazine.com) Assistant Editor: Ali Shutler (ali@upsetmagazine.com) Contributors: Alex Lynham, Christopher Jones, Heather McDaid, Jasleen Dhindsa, Jessica Goodman, Kathryn Black, Kristy Diaz, Phil Smithies, Sam Taylor, Sarah Louise Bennett, Steven Loftin All material copyright (c). All rights reserved. This publication may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form, in whole or in part, without the express written permission of The Bunker Publishing Ltd. The opinions of the contributors do not necessarily bear a relation to those of Upset or its staff and we disclaim liability for those impressions. Distributed nationally. P U B L I S H E D F RO M
THE BUNKER W E LCO M E TOT H E B U N K E R.CO M
4 S U M 41 8 YO U M E AT S I X 10 MEMPHIS MAY FIRE 11 P I N EG ROV E 12 KO RN 14 T H E D EV I L W E A RS P R A DA
ABOUT TO BREAK 20 KAMIKAZE G IRLS
30 25 YEARS OF RISE RECORDS 32 JOYCE MANOR 36 PWR BTTM 40 JIMMY EAT WO RL D
RATED 44 G RE E N DAY 47 S ET I T O F F 48 I P REVA I L
22 SHVPES
49 T R A C K S O F T H E MONTH
FEATURES
VS THE INTERNET
24 OF MICE & MEN
50. PIERCE THE VEIL
Ah, ‘Q4’. That magical time of year when the nights draw in, the temperature drops and the big guns come out to play. This year is no different. Not only are our cover stars Of Mice & Men packing a brilliant new album ‘Cold World’ as they hit the UK, but some of the most sizeable names in the genre are making moves. Green Day are back with a brand new album that’s, y’know, actually pretty decent. Sum 41 have returned with something to say. Jimmy Eat World have a ninth album out. Legends the lot of them. That’s not to say there are no new voices, though. PWR BTTM are a vitally important band, who you can read much more from this issue. Best get on with it, eh? x
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WE’VE BEEN LISTENING TO... JIMMY EAT WORLD - INTEGRITY BLUES
GREEN DAY SOMEWHERE NOW
There’s no other band on the planet quite like JEW. Nine albums in, they’ve still got it.
We’re pretty sure the first track on Green Day’s new album has a lyric about online shopping...
FRANK IERO AND THE PATIENCE PARACHUTES Frank’s new album drops just before Halloween because it’s scary good.
RIOT ING IN ROCK E V E RY T H I N G H A P P E N
“THERE WAS JUST SO MUCH NOISE IN MY HEAD.”
W
“
hen this record comes out it’s going to be our twentieth anniversary - that’s pretty fucking cool!” During their time as a band, Sum 41 have produced timeless pop punk staples that are still played with the same enthusiasm and excitement that they were fifteen years ago; ‘Fat Lip’ and ‘In Too Deep’ are time capsules for a generation that’s grown up alongside them. New album ’13 Voices’ marks not only two decades of the group, but their sixth full-length release - seeing the return of Dave ‘Brownsound’ Baksh after his 2006 departure, and also reaching into the past three years of frontman Deryck Whibley’s life, including his recovery from severe alcoholism that saw him admitted to an ICU in LA. “Early on in 2001, before ‘Fat Lip’ took off, when it was just on the brink of doing something, we performed at this MTV thing for their 20th anniversary,” Deryck recalls of the moment before his band were launched into the public eye. “We played ‘Fat Lip’ and then we went into some Beastie Boys stuff and then Tommy Lee came out and played drums and then Rob Halford came out and we sang ‘You Got Another Thing Comin’’. We just did this whole medley of stuff and it was really really cool, and the next day it was like we were a different band. People knew who we were for the first time, and then ‘Fat Lip’ started to get played on radio and everything took off from there.” With such a drastic ascension, focusing
on the time that was passing rapidly was never an option. “I wasn’t counting each year or anything, so it’s definitely surprising and it’s cool, but it’s also not surprising,” Deryck muses. “For your band when you’re 16-yearsold, you’re that young, you think this is going to last forever anyway because you’re that naive. Now that this has actually happened, I look back and it’s really not very common.” Over the years the band have lost and gained members, but they’ve now settled on being a five-piece with the addition of Tom Thacker (guitar/ vocals) and Frank Zummo (drums), joining Deryck, Dave and bassist Jason ‘Cone’ McCaslin. “The band sort of retains the same spirit that it always has, there are things that change within the band, the sound etc., but it still to me feels like there’s always a constant something.”
WHIBLEY D E RYC K SUM 41’S IVE. TO B E A L IS LUCKY S, HIS D D O E ALL TH AGA I N ST ING FIT T H G I F K E BAC BAND AR . M I N TOW EW ALBU WITH A N . N I T F O STEVEN L WORDS:
“I ACTUALLY THOUGHT AT ONE POINT I WAS GOING CRAZY.”
Part of the band’s endurance comes down to the relatability of their songs, but it’s not something that Deryck immediately focuses on during the writing process. “I don’t think about other people getting it,” he says. “I sometimes write and think I’m being so personal that how could this relate to anybody, and then I hear from fans that they do actually relate and it’s really cool.” After the release of 2011’s ‘Screaming Bloody Murder’, which concerned his divorce from Avril Lavigne, the then four-piece
found themselves approaching the end of an era. Although the album resulted in their longest but most fruitful tour, it came at a cost. By the end, drummer and founding member Steve Jocz had left the band and Deryck found himself in a crippled state due to alcoholism, not helped by three solid years on the road. This is where ’13 Voices’ comes in. Written during his recovery period - a long and arduous process over two years it’s almost chronological in its delivery. From opener ‘(A Murder of
RIOT
HARDCORE KORN KO RN M AY B E O N TO T H E I R T W E L F T H REC O RD, BU T FO R T H I S O N E T H EY STA RT E D F RO M
SC R ATC H , S E E I N G T H E M RET U RN AS A BA N D
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‘
he Serenity of Suffering’ is not like Korn’s recent electronica endeavours, but that doesn’t mean it is a complete return to their classic, relentlessly heavy and creepy sound. “I don’t feel like musically it was a struggle, although we were kind of hard on ourselves with writing material because we wanted it to be great,” guitarist James ‘Munky’ Shaffer reflects on the initial process that would manifest into material for the band’s twelfth album, something that frontman
RE N E W E D. WO RDS : JAS L E E N D H I N DSA .
Jonathan Davies struggled with.
“We wanted to make sure that we were delivering him great songs that were going to excite him and get him creatively moving in the same
“IT’S A RECORD FOR THE FANS.”
direction we were. I think it was kind of a challenging to get him in that creative place, and make him excited, and I think it could have been a combination of things. He was very much into electronic music, [so] it was kind of challenging to get him to see our vision that we wanted to make a heavy guitar-driven album. We wanted the songs to be great, and we wanted it to have a sense of melody, and get him engaged. We weren’t in a rush to start delivering unfinished songs, but there were some challenges.” “We have had some struggles in the past coming up with new material,”
he continues. “We can always go back to our default, which is just making a heavy album and then kind of wiping our hands clean and walking away, because we’re good at it, we know the formula. But we’re always trying to up the game for ourselves when it comes to writing creatively, which presents challenges for any writer when you’re trying to basically write sequels to a story that’s already been told.” ‘The Serenity of Suffering’, though bringing Korn into a fresh direction, has obvious connections with the band’s pre-electronica days because of the return to the heaviness that’s been missing with the band’s recent releases. “A lot of that has to do with [producer] Nick Raskulinecz. Nick kind of pushed us in a way, he said: ‘Hey, what happened to the songs? What happened to the band that I fell in love with?’ He wanted to hear these elements that were missing, and I think he was sort of the voice of the fans. He gave the fans a voice in the writing process. Once Roadrunner Records got involved, it was even more of a push to make it heavier. They have some of the heaviest bands in the world on their label, even the president said ‘you will never be too heavy for us’, which is amazing to hear from a record executive, it’s a refreshing thing to hear. So it is in a sense a nostalgia record, even though the songs are still very fresh. It’s hard not to see the personal endeavours that were met with ‘The Serenity of Suffering’, but this makes the record ever more one to resonate on new levels with the fans. “I think for Jonathan it was personal, lyrically it was something he needed to personally get out. For Brian and I, and the rest of the band, it was definitely a record that we hoped the fans enjoyed. We want to lose energy when we play these songs live; you don’t want to be out there having to fake it. With Nick in the room pushing us, and the energy level high on each song, [we] just imagine us in a live situation, which includes the fans so I would say it’s a record for the fans.” “A lot of us push each other to go out of our comfort zone,” he continues, on how Korn find new inspirations this far on in the band’s career, “because we could all have different influences, and sometimes we want to try and persuade each other in a direction that the others aren’t so comfortable with. “But after being a band for so long, you compromise - you want everybody to be happy, you don’t want anyone to be
bummed out. Initially, the first ideas that come into the amps or drums can not be great, but once there’s vocals and bass and it’s mixed, it’s like, ‘Wow!’ A lot of the ideas we think are terrible, always turn out to be our favourites because it feels so new and fresh. There was one song on the album Brian and I were thinking, ‘Jonathan is never going to go for this…’, and he listened to it and he didn’t like it, he even pulled me aside and said ‘Can you just get rid of that song?’ and I was like, ‘Well, yeah - are there parts that you don’t like about it? Maybe we can change the tempo?’ You know, I’m trying to offer compromise.” Compromises aren’t the only thing that the band have to face, the new breed of metal bands that are all seeming to explore a plethora of other genre influences also add a slight edge into the writing process. “I love what’s going on in metal [currently]. I’m just trying to stay up on it. We might be the old guys, but we still pay attention to what’s going on. You have to, especially in this industry - you have to know what’s going on in your genre. “You have to be really smart and know what you’re doing these days, because if you want to make music and make a living at it, you can’t be a fuck up - you have to have your shit together, you have to have a focus. The band has to have their shit together, everybody has to pull together to make that happen. I think people that really want to do this, have to have a real focus. Musically I see things reoccurring, history always repeats itself and art always repeats itself - art inspires art, [there are] circular patterns to song writing. Like Avenged Sevenfold sounds like old Metallica, it sounds familiar.” Yet there is still a band to be compared to Korn in the same way, because of the innovative approach to their songwriting, and always being the first band in the metal giants’ scene to reach uncharted territory - which after the dubstep era, is almost seemingly impossible to repeat. But somehow, ‘The Serenity of Suffering’ has achieved this after the struggles faced. The energy of the much-loved heaviness is back, with Jonathan’s signature nonsense vocals making a long-awaited appearance, too. Despite art repeating itself and the patterns in songwriting - the band have never felt fresher than today. P Korn’s album ‘The Serenity Of Suffering’ is out 21st October.
PANIC! GET UP TO STRANGER THINGS Panic! At The Disco have shared a creepy new video for ‘LA Devotee’, and it stars Noah Schnapp, aka Will Byers from Stranger Things – have a gander on upsetmagazine.com.
FALL OUT BOY TO RELEASE NEW LIVE DVD ‘The Boys of Zummer Tour: Live in Chicago’ was shot (unsurprisingly) at the Chicago date on FOB’s Boys of Zummer Tour. It’s out on 21st October, and follows their recent ‘Bloom’ project.
CHRISTIAN FITNESS SHARE ‘YOUR FAVOURITE BAND WANTS YOU DEAD’ The ‘not a solo project’ of Future of The Left‘s Falco has released a new song - check it out on upsetmagazine.com.
BLACK PEAKS PLAN BIGGEST HEADLINE SHOW TO DATE Following their co-headline tour with Heck, Black Peaks will perform at Concorde 2 in Brighton on 10th December, with support from Krokodil, Bossk and Press To Meco.
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ABOUT
THE BEST
B R EAK
TH E H OT TEST
TO
NEW BANDS NEW MUSIC
KAMIKAZE GIRLS I T ’ S O K AY T O B E S A D .
W O R D S : S A M T AY L O R .
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eeds/London duo Kamikaze Girls bleed DIY. It’s in their veins. From self-booked tours, to negotiating record deals, to their lo-fi slacker punk - nothing happens that isn’t entirely down to vocalist and guitarist Lucinda Livingstone and drummer Conor Dawson. “We got to a point in our old band where we weren’t getting a huge amount of enjoyment from the music we were playing,” starts Conor. The duo have played together before, but it’s with their latest project that things are really taking off, picking up fans as far flung as Paramore’s Hayley Williams. “It wasn’t what we were listening to and it wasn’t what we wanted to play. Kamikaze Girls grew out of the ashes of that.” The struggles they’ve faced to get to this point are key to their debut EP, ‘Sad’. It’s a release born from dealing with mental health, and it tackles difficult topics unashamedly. Opener ‘Hexes’ is about psychosis and figuring out what’s real, ‘Stitches’ considers anxiety towards settling down, ’Black Coffee’ touches on addiction, and ’I Hate Funerals’ is, well, pretty self-explanatory. Then there’s ‘Ladyfuzz’, about being rescued from an overdose by a super hero alter ego. “’Sad’ is written about the last two years of my life,” explains Lucinda. “I struggled with a lot of mental health issues. When I was at my worst Kamikaze Girls started, and I guess I ended up using all of that bad energy and issues I was struggling with and channelled it into our music. “One of the main things I was struggling with was Post Traumatic Stress Disorder throughout that time, so I wasn’t leaving the house often apart from to go to work or to jam with Conor. I’d never quite used music in that way to push myself through something. “I was getting medical help for this stuff, but having an outlet to vent to really helped. We weren’t originally going to call it ‘Sad’, but I guess there just wasn’t any other way to sum it up.” “After twelve years of playing in bands I finally found some confidence to speak about all of the awkward things no one acknowledged when I was growing
“IF WE CAN HELP RAISE AWARENESS, THEN WE WILL.”
up and playing shows in the UK,” she continues. “There’s so many bad attitudes towards women in creative industries, and there’s little awareness about getting support for mental health issues. “These are two things that have affected me hugely and at the point we’re at now I’d rather point it out and talk about these things instead of sweep it under the carpet. It’s not all that the band is, but if we can help raise awareness about issues in our scene and in the places we live then we will.” They’re currently part-way through a massive tour that has just seen them take on Europe and the UK, with the US next on their list. Dropping in on different cultures, and fans around the world not only helps them spread their supportive vibes, but it feeds into the pair’s music too. “I’m constantly on the move, even when I’m not touring,” laughs Lucinda. “Being able to see different things and meet different people is a big [inspiration]. I’ll write a lot about my personal experiences of different things in different places.” “We’re playing next to the Werder Bremen football stadium [in Germany] tonight which we get to visit tomorrow before we move onto Kiel,” adds Conor. “We got to play in an Anti-Fascist Ex World War II bunker in Aachen last night. Stuff like that will never not be amazing.” “We’ve had one single online and an old three-track for the last year and to actually have a record to tour has been great so far,” continues Lucinda. “We’re having people come up to us saying ‘Do you have records for sale?’ or ‘Where can I hear that song?’. I’m excited to not have to say, ‘Sorry we don’t have anything out yet’ every night!” P
PETROL GIRLS ANNOUNCE DEBUT ‘Talk of Violence’ is due on 18th November, and the band are previewing it with a new video for ‘Phallocentric’. Watch now on upsetmagazine.com.
VANT ARE OFF ON TOUR Vant are going to squeeze a tour of their own in between upcoming support slots with You Me At Six (October), and Nothing But Thieves (December). They kick off on 18th November in Bath.
CREEPER ARE DOING WEIRD THINGS ON THE INTERNET There’s been a “hack”, a hangman, a hunt around Southampton, some bloke called James Scythe... it’s all very strange.
FACT FILE
Band members: Lucinda, Conor Hometown: Leeds and London (UK) Formed: 2014 Did you know? Lucinda is one of the folk behind awesome creative collective Ladyfuzz. Find out more at ladyfuzz.co.uk.
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d l co
Baby, it’s WOR
E AT DS: H
HER
MCD
A I D.
e d i s t u o
O F M I C E & M E N H AV E B E E N T H R O U G H A L O T T O G E T H E R E , BUT WITH THEIR NEW ALBUM ‘COLD WORLD’ A TRIUMPH A N D A U K R U N T H I S M O N T H , I T ’ S B E E N W O R T H T H E F I G H T.
“It’s hard enough to record an album healthy…” f Mice & Men are real. ‘Cold World’ has had a little time to seep into consciousness, unfurling its intricacies bit by bit with each listen - they’re only four albums in, but their sights are set, holding themselves to the highest account, and then looking for more. They’re always fighting. The year is in one sense almost over, but for the band, it’s just starting. “At the beginning of the year I was doing a bunch of physical therapy and recovering from a couple of surgeries that I had,” explains frontman Austin Carlile. “We literally moved to an apartment in New Jersey for three and a half months, and kept doing my physical therapy and aqua therapy there, all while recording the record.” After dotting all over, then having a few weeks to lay low, they topped off their summer opening for Slipknot and Marilyn Manson, playing to audiences who often hadn’t heard them before. It was a challenge they thrived on. “It’s been a pretty busy year so far and we’re really just now getting into it,” he laughs.
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But now they enter their newest, and arguably biggest, era. ‘Cold World’ pushes them into places they’ve yet to tread as a band, and does so with a confidence many could only hope to have. It’s a game-changing album, and in the midst of Austin’s battles with Marfan syndrome, the surgeries and recoveries that come with it, it’s even more of a triumph. “It made it difficult,” he admits. “It’s hard enough to record an album healthy. When you’re recording it feeling like I did, going through what I was going through, you know, I technically shouldn’t have even been there in the first place. But we had a time schedule, we had stuff to do and I didn’t want to hold up the band any more than I had. We were actually scheduled to go into record before that and we pushed it back because I had to continue to heal I’m really grateful that the band stood by me for that. They stood by me through a lot when I was in the studio, and that was a big part of this record. “A lot of this record is what it is because of that, whether it would have been that I was in pain or because I was gone that day or because I didn’t feel well, whatever it may have been - that’s why ‘Cold World’ is another chapter in Of
Mice & Men’s book, and we always leave room to do more, we’re always thinking about the next step.” That next step for Of Mice & Men was letting multiple stories seep into the album as they toyed around in new styles. “We had to let each song tell the story itself,” says Austin. “They’re all about different things - it’s almost a concept album in a way. It’s the ‘Cold World’ - the imagery, talking about pain physically and mentally and emotionally and spiritually, that’s touched on in ‘Like a Ghost’ and in ‘Real’ and ‘The Hunger’ and stuff. There’s political issues, from the 1% to the wealthy Americans to the pharmaceutical companies like ‘The Lie’. ‘Transfigured’ is the inner battle that you deal with every day. ‘Away’ and ‘Down the Road’ is missing someone and trying to replace someone who you’ve lost before. “You know, each song has its own purpose for the record and its own story. It’s for the listener to take what they would or what they will from each song and personalise it to themselves.” These stories, personal to political, are woven through Of Mice & Men old and new, newly fearless and familiar all at once. “When we were writing the record, a lot of it revolved around what I clicked with and what I vibed with the most,”
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Joyce Cuts J OYC E M A N O R H A D TO L E A R N A F E W N E W T R I C K S F O R A L B U M NUMBER FOUR.
WORDS: STEVEN LOFTIN.
PWR UP! W ITH TH E I R D E BUT A L BU M A BOUT TO L A N D I N TH E U K, P W R B T T M A R E A L R E A DY L O O K I N G A H E A D T O T H E I R N E X T. WO RDS : J ESS I CA G O O D M A N .
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italising rock’n’roll with addictive hooks, radiant humour, and a seemingly never-ending supply of glitter, PWR BTTM are an outfit unlike any other. The duo – comprised of Ben Hopkins and Liv Bruce – make the kind of open-hearted music it’s futile to try to resist. Ripping up the rule book and tearing through gender norms, the band use their expression as a vehicle to permeate acceptance. “As a kid in America, I’d see a lot of queer artists not very well accepted here going over to the UK and being really well accepted,” Ben recalls. “It’s always been like, ‘Damn, if I ever get to make anything it’d be so cool to do that, to see the ways that people in other places understand it’.” With headline tours of the UK and Europe ahead of them, the band are about to do just that. It’s been over a year since PWR BTTM first released their debut album ‘Ugly Cherries’ into the world. From the storming self-affirmation of the title track through lingering heartache, whimsical ambition, and everything in between, the record is equal parts wide open introspection and echoing resolve. Questioning the world around them with a tenacious sense of self, the duo are screaming out until their words become real. Eternally striving to feel less alone – and to help others do the same – it’s of little surprise that the album was met with a wave of heartfelt
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J I M M Y E AT W O R L D A R E O N E O F T H E M O S T C O N S I S T E N T BANDS IN ROCK, HANDS DOWN - AND THIS MONTH THEY RETURN WITH THEIR NINTH ALBUM. WORDS: ALI SHUTLER. PH OTOS: PH I L SM ITH I ES.
“THERE’S A NEW JIMMY EAT WORLD ALBUM? GREAT, WHY SHOULD I CARE?” 41
RATED GREEN DAY REVOLUTION RADIO
Reprise Records
eeee
T
hese are strange times for Green Day. If you were in an argumentative mood, you could say they’ve not released a truly successful album since 2004’s ‘American Idiot’. In the twelve years since then, they’ve hardly bombed, sure, but ‘21st Century Breakdown’ couldn’t help but wilt slightly in the shadow of its predecessor. It’s 2012’s trilogy of quick-fire records that really put the pressure on: ‘¡Uno!’, ‘¡Dos!’ and ‘¡Tré!’ are perhaps most notable in quite how easily forgettable they became - definitive proof that quality is better than quantity. If a band with a back catalogue as shiny and laden with megahits as Green Day could ever need to prove themselves all over again, this could well be it. Thankfully, they’ve at least learned some of their lessons. Picking themselves up and getting back on their charger, ‘Revolution Radio’ is still very much post-’American Idiot’ Green Day, painted in prime political colours, all raised fists and aggression. Finding a strong footing in their latter day strengths proves a sharp move. While peers try 44 upsetmagazine.com
to rediscover the lightning that broke them through as spotty youths, Billie Joe Armstrong seems intent to recharge his imperial phase, spitting loud and proud over lead single ‘Bang Bang’. Their highest heights may remain off limits, but there’s enough to prove they’ve still got teeth. And that’s where the outside narratives start to take hold. In a world where Trump runs for the White House, Green Day’s smart vitriol seems like it’s needed even more than during the Bush years. More focused than at any point since, they’re a band rising to the challenge. “We live in troubled times,” Billie Joe sings. He’s right, but at least the soundtrack to the downfall is sorted. Christopher Jones
Green Day aren’t about to lose their political side with ‘Revolution Radio’. The clue is sort of in the title, right? Take lead cut ‘Bang Bang’. The track is “about the culture of mass shooting that happens in America mixed with narcissistic social media,” according to Billie Joe Armstrong’s interview with Rolling Stone. “There’s this sort of rage happening, but it’s also now being filmed and we all have ourselves under surveillance. To me, that is so twisted. To
get into the brain of someone like that was freaky. It freaked me out. After I wrote it, all I wanted to do was get that out of my brain because it just freaked me out. “I wouldn’t even say I was trying to understand it. I was just trying to figure out the character. I don’t know why someone would ever do something that horrific because I know I never would. It’s just sort of meant to also reflect the culture a little bit without sounding pretentious.”
DANGERS - THE BEND IN THE BREAK (eeee)
Topshelf Records Pissed off, sardonic hardcore. That’s one hell of a descriptor to live up to, but Dangers do it with ease. Then again, if you’d been playing “basements, garages, living rooms, squats, warehouses, banquet halls, high school auditoriums, Adriatic beach resorts, abandoned Soviet furniture factories, and public park gazebos” for the last decade or more (their list, not ours), you would be too. Sharp, smart, direct and in your face, Dangers sound dangerous, and there’s little better than that. Stephen Ackroyd
SO SO GLOS KAMIKAZE (eee)
Votiv Music “Something to read, fuck my newsfeed,” Alex Levine shouts. We’ve all been there. So So Glos are amped up and ready to go. Lead single ‘Dancing Industry’ shows it well - the sort of track that sets hairs on end, it’s not the only gear they have in their arsenal, but it’s a damn good one to settle on. Christopher Jones
BOSTON MANOR - BE NOTHING (eeee)
Pure Noise Boston Manor aren’t an unknown quantity - their excellent EPs made sure we were prepared for this, their debut album - but that doesn’t mean they can’t provide a pleasant surprise too. From the huge, anthemic heights of opener ‘Burn You Up’ it’s evident that Boston Manor belong in the top class of new UK rock icons. Unlike so many of their peers, they’ve got different gears too - as shown by the excellent ‘Broken Glass’. A band full of promise, delivering with interest. Christopher Jones
SHVPES
PAIN. JOY. ECSTASY. DESPAIR.
KEVIN DEVINE
INSTIGATOR
Search and Destroy / Spinefarm Records
Big Scary Monsters / Procrastinate! Music Traitors
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The debut release from SHVPES, formerly known as Cytota, wastes no time in introducing new frontman Griffin Dickinson. The savageness on display shows the band are ready to make a statement; ‘PAIN. JOY. ECSTASY. DESPAIR.’ is unrelenting, the occasional moments of respite only serving to enhance the brutality. They’re a force to be reckoned with. Steven Loftin
Kevin Devine has been busy in the last few years. Bad Books records, double albums and his Devinyl series of split 7” with the likes of Jesse Lacey and Meredith Graves are enough to keep anyone off the streets, but that doesn’t make ‘Instigator’ a distracted affair. Instead, he’s on prime storytelling form, tackling some pretty heavy subjects. ‘Freddie Gray Blues’ in particular delves deeper than most would dare. It’s what Devine does best. Stephen Ackroyd
AMERICAN FOOTBALL
AMERICAN FOOTBALL
Wichita Records
eeee
Seventeen years is a long time to have to wait for a second album. Thankfully, American Football are able to play the longest of odds with ease. Still just as introspective and intricate as they sounded back in 1999, frontman Mike Kinsella sums it up best: “We’ve been here before but I don’t remember a lock on the door,” he sings on album opener ‘Where Are We Now?’ A reintroduction to a familiar world, some places are worth revisiting again and again. Stephen Ackroyd
PWR BTTM
UGLY CHERRIES
Big Scary Monsters
eeeee
PWR BTTM are a dream. The NYCbased gender-defying punk duo’s debut album finally gets its UK release, with the addition of two new tracks. ‘Ugly Cherries’ is awkward, and unashamed of it; goofy, but serious when it needs to be. In the mix of the party, clap-your-hands pop rock nuggets of ‘All The Boys’ and ‘Dairy Queen’, PWR BTTM truly glitter in their ability to write hook-filled yet uniquely disjointed melodies, against wholehearted narratives. New additions ‘Projection’ and ‘New Hampshire’ feel like missing parts that weren’t immediately obvious; it’s as though the album comes full circle. Jasleen Dhindsa
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