So this is a new little thing for us but by request we have put together a shortlist of our favourite EPs of 2019. Enjoy xoxo Sweet Peach – Sheer Existence (Ryan Wilkinson) With track titles like ‘what if we kissed at the kia summer sales event?’ and ‘Everyone Needs a Song Called Untitled’, one could be forgiven for assuming […]

As I sit down to write this, it is the third time I’ve made a last-minute record switch. It’s been that kind of year once again, hasn’t it? At first, I was determined to write about Death Is A Warm Blanket, and how Microwave made a truly incredible, unsettling record that can change your life, if your life happens to […]

“So, here’s another sad one.” This is how, through a knowing laugh, Laura Stevenson introduced the majority of her set when I saw her in Glasgow earlier this year. Sure, on one hand, it was a self-deprecating approach to break the tension of an emotionally intense set, the grounded humility of which established a rapport with those who had come […]

Received wisdom says that as you get older, you get more conservative. Sure, there are plenty of possible theories as to why that might be the case – accumulation and therefore protection of wealth, changing priorities, the idealism of youth wearing thin – but honestly, I think it’s all bullshit. This year, I felt more radical than ever. Maybe it’s […]

Dave Hause excels at observing the state of the modern world and identifying how it impacts the individual. His first masterpiece came with 2013’s Devour, which examined capitalism and the American Dream through the perspective of a person who feels lied to and cheated. The album focused on how one’s mental health and personal relationships are affected by financial stress, […]

As we reach the end of the decade, it’s with hardcore in an astoundingly healthy place. Earlier in the decade it seems the genre hit something of a lull, but over the past few years (perhaps thanks to the way Turnstile jumped onto the scene and immediately went stratospheric) incredible hardcore bands have been popping up faster than you could […]

When you’re brought up with punk music, gritty British drama and the lyrics of Gallows’ Grey Britain, it can be hard to grasp what’s meant by the American Dream. Hemingway, Fitzgerald and Steinbeck taught me a version I saw as men in suits using consumerism to fuel their greed and power problems – after all, for every man’s pursuit of […]

Famous for their surf-rock-meets-emo riffs and the cult status of their signature green hoodie, Prince Daddy & the Hyena have always been known as a ‘weed band’. Their latest album, however, tackles heavier substances. A concept record in three acts, Cosmic Thrill Seekers begins with the story of an acid trip before detailing the epiphany it brought on: the cyclical, […]

As of February 13 2020, heavy metal will officially be 50 years old. The crescendo of an almost two-decade arms race that had begun in the mid-50s when blues guitarists recognised the potential of electric guitars to create an unholy racket, the release of Black Sabbath’s eponymous debut marked the moment that noise went truly nuclear. Tolling bells and pouring […]

First off, a disclaimer: when Future Teens were squirrelled away working on their second album, they almost certainly didn’t envisage I’d be their audience. The other side of 30 (heck, I’m only this side of 40) and in the same relationship for nearly 13 years – modern-day dating is a story for other people. Yet here I am, enamoured with […]