BLEEDING THROUGH- Declaration

What a disappointment. After all the great press, industry praise, and baited anticipation, after everything Bleeding Through endured to wrestle this album from their label, hell, after naming the thing ‘Declaration’, you’d hope there’d be a sniff of greatness about this record. But instead it’s just more of the same. Oh sure, that means more ominous darkness (‘Finnis Fatalis Spei’), driving metallic intensity (‘Orange County…’), and crushing hardcore heaviness (‘Seller's Market’) but, instead of adding up to anything classic or career-defining, it just feels faceless and kind of limp. Riffs warm up but never explode, drums rattle hard and fast but go nowhere, and there are some incredibly clichéd lyrics here. And, despite getting studio loon Devin Townsend in to twiddle knobs, the production, something that Bleeding Through have always had problems with, lacks any depth and leaves Brandan Schiepatti’s vocals itchy and scratchy instead of booming and dominant. Still, it’s no failure, there are enough riffs and roars here to carry Bleeding Through on to album number six, but it is far from the essential statement of intent it was cracked up to be.

MISERY SIGNALS - Controller

An odd thing this. ‘Controller’, the third full-length from Misery Signals, does as the band have done before, as many bands have done before in fact- combining hulking grooves and raw rage with metallic melody and atmospheric licks- but not for a second does it feel dull, recycled, or second-hand. Instead it sounds like a band on fire. Subtle touches help- Ryan Morgan and Stuart Ross adding sleek guitar tones to their juggernaut riff collection, frontman Karl Schubach finding a clean singing voice that’s both emotional and strong, and tracks like ‘Coma’ and ‘Homecoming’ giving real breathing room to the band’s more beautiful noises - but really it’s passion, precision, and a commanding power that sets this apart from the pack. It won’t work so well if you look at the separate pieces but Misery Signals have never ever been a singles act. Instead this is a mean, moody and emotional steamroller of a record that finds the band doing what they do best- playing metalcore but doing it with original strength, purpose and stunning skill. Excellent.

SHAI HULUD- Misanthropy Pure

Shai Hulud are always worth the wait. Despite a chequered history of hectic tours, record label wrangling, name changes, and a constantly revolving line-up (guitarist and metal mastermind Matt Fox is now the only remaining original member) the band have consistently, if not quite regularly, delivered the goods. And album number four is no different. Their Metal Blade Records debut, as well as the first appearance of new vocalist Matt Mazzali, ‘Misanthropy Pure’ is 10 tracks of terrifically good and terrifying metallic hardcore. From the faux-slow then fractious fast of opener ‘Venomspreader’, past the meaty melodies of the title track and a blistering new version of ‘Set Your Body Ablaze’, to the complex attack of closer ‘Cold Lord Quietus…’, this is record overflowing with energy, enthusiasm, and raw, gimmick-free passion. Still ‘Misanthropy Pure’ won’t grant Shai Hulud the widespread respect and record-sales they’ve much deserved for ages now, but it does find them once again inspiring, exciting, revitalising, and rising to the top of a genre they helped spawn.

ANTILLES- Beholder/Destroyer

Hardcore is ruined. In fact over the last few years the genre in all its forms has been ravaged, polluted, and perverted beyond repair- by now this much is absolutely clear. But just because the raw power, innovative aggression, and honest, naked emotions of the genre’s pioneers feel horribly absent, it doesn’t mean they’ve entirely disappeared. Ohio’s Antilles for one, joyously hark back to a scene established over a decade ago- loudly and lovingly tending to the sonic ghosts of screamo leaders like Saetia, City Of Caterpillar and Pg. 99- and their debut full-lenght sounds all the better for it.

Opener ‘Beholder’ is epic, almost ten minutes long and built layer upon layer upon layer, ‘Rumors Of An Apocalypse’ churns past rattled yelps, punk hooks and post-everything dirges like the band were actually pushed for time by the coming end of days, and the complex guitars, gunshot drums and bitter words of ‘Eulogy’ make for a fitting, fiery climax. For all the successes, superior moments, and thrilling suggestions that hardcore is alive and well here though, Antilles seem destined to burn brightly, burn brief, and fade away like their obvious influences. But then they probably wouldn’t want it any other way. Awesome.

TONIGHT IS GOODBYE- Castles

Now this is disappointing. About a year back New-Noise was heaping all sorts of praise on Surrey five-piece Tonight Is Goodbye. Sure the band looked a little formulaic, all tight jeans and fancy hair, but on disc they were brilliant. And not just decent for such young dudes, or better than average if you like that kind of thing, but damn near essential. Here on new mini-album ‘Castles’ though, some vital ingredient has been lost...

...Read on here.

FILTER- Anthems For The Damned

The last few years have not been kind to Filter. After becoming a global draw back in the 90s the band released continually more clunky records and suffered a commercial failure that sent frontman Richard Patrick into rehab. So it’s safe to say that no one was expecting them to return now, and especially not on any kind of form. ‘Anthems For The Damned’ though, leaves those problems far behind. Patrick and his voice (dude must have lungs like iron bellows) are still the central point for everything but he’s now teetotal and writing sharp, electric epics that soar down the same vein as big-hit ‘Take A Picture’ again. Sure these songs could have been written a decade ago but this is still a fine return from one of the turn of the century’s smartest rock bands. Now hands up who saw that coming.

THE POSTMARKS- The Postmarks

Like watercolour paints, schoolboy football, or milk chocolate, Miami trio The Postmarks are pleasant and nice and all but never really make that all-important big impact. Sure it’s great to hear some polite pop (in the very best sense of the word) every now and then, and just occasionally this one-girl-two-boy outfit muster up the sort of beautiful bop and sway that Brian Wilson must write in his sleep, but they haven’t found a way to ram it all home yet. More is to come, better too, that's for sure, but for now only the most dedicated indie kids will get excited by the mature melancholy here; everybody else will be too busy to bother listening.

CRYSTAL CASTLES- Crystal Castles

Crystal Castles are 100% bona fide Hot Shit right now. Not only have the Canadian boy-girl duo got online tastemakers and the indie world in a tizzy, they’ve also built up a loud enough buzz for the broadsheets, tabloids, and TV to tip them for the top in 2008 too. And hell, who are we to rock the boat. Debut ‘Crystal Castles’ is a glistening slab of techno-electro-core that glides, soars, crunches, punches, stabs and screams in equal measure. Like everyone’s been saying, it’s great.

Opener ‘Untrust Us’ is a hypnotic squish of gameboy bleeps, bass beats and alien vocals, ‘1991’ is a dreamy skit on nu-rave and if ‘Alice Practice’ shows what these two are capable of without even trying, their synthed-up cover of HEALTH’s ‘Crimewave’ illustrates the singular, spacey heights they can reach when they force all four feet down on the accelerator. Deeper in and ‘Love And Caring’ is a glam-rock pulse-rifle on overload, ‘Courtship Dating’ is so good that Timbaland stole it and sold it to 50 Cent (karma perhaps?), and ‘Black Panther’ is solid gold electro-pop- bound to make your mouth water whether you party hard, dance late, or stay home in front of a stereo. Seriously, this is much more than hip hoodies and trendy jeans. Believe the hype.

FUCK BUTTONS- Street Horrrsing

Pop-punk, chart rock and indie schmindie fans turn and run now. London’s Fuck Buttons- Andrew Hung and Ben Power if you were introducing them to your mother- are here to mess with your head. In fact, when the boys came together at the tail end of 04, they wanted to blow your brains clean out- the duo’s mission statement simply reading ‘make as much noise as possible’- but now the manifesto has changed. And ‘Street Horrrsing’, the band’s debut album, doesn’t just push up the decibels; this thing pushes limits everywhere.

For starters the ‘Buttons don’t rely on any formula or fashion. Instead they mulch up all manner of sounds, styles, elements and even entire genres to spit them out as waves of sound and walls of noise. Just check opener ‘Sweet Love For Planet Earth’, a near ten-minute electronic epic that feigns twinkling tenderness before a single slowly-distorting riff and indecipherable feral vocals turn it into something much darker and more destructive, or closer ‘Colours Move’- oddly alien but raw and muddy and sounding like the perfect thing for David Lynch’s next end credits too.

Hell, this could all be film soundtrack stuff. Sure, where ‘Sweet Love…’ could soar over some ambitious drama or epic battle scene, ‘Bright Tomorrow’ sounds like something from the outback sections of Crocodile Dundee, but there’s a hyper-intense and addictive raw power to every drum thud, feedback roar and unfamiliar noise. By virtue of that name the duo are never going to be as big as other similarly experimental acts, but ‘Street Horrrsing’ remains a galloping beginning and more than proves the Buttons, given some careful editing, could be capable of future world-shaking brilliance.

PNEU + Silent Front + Shield Your Eyes + Cassette Cassee + Wow! Pigeon Eyes. West End Centre, Aldershot. 29.02.08

From outside the West End Centre, tonight’s show must just sound like naked noise. And a quick glance at the clientele on their way in makes it easy to assume that all the mess is being made by weird beardy boys. But that would be a coward’s way out. Instead the brave and unbiased that enter find volume, sure, but there’s a friendly atmosphere, experimental charm, and truly beautiful sounds flying through the air too. Yeah, yeah, some of it might be weird, but it’s often wonderful too.

Looking and sounding like they’ve stayed up way too late drinking and listening to everything off of Steve Albini’s CV (yeah, even that Bush album) local trio Wow! Pigeon Eyes ruffle feathers first. And despite their more angular attacks the band make good on promises of pop music, combining their punk spit with some shining off-kilter melodies. Sure they’re sloppy and fuzzy and gloriously out-of-tune in places but they aren’t half satisfyingly loud and direct. And at least they ply their trade from an actual stage.

Next up see, Shield Your Eyes, Silent Front, and Cassette Cassee each stake a claim on a corner of the room and proceed to play a song in turn- kind of like Jools Holland without Jools Holland- and man does it work. Shield Your Eyes start, sounding raw and rusty even, but playing with a Kinsella-esque sense of abandon. Their more loose-limbed efforts suggest incredible things to come but their time is not now. Cassette Cassee are better, melding scything guitars, intensity, art, and drama to make the sort of noise At The Drive-In fans will start dribbling over. And of course it’s always good to have a frontman who spends more time yowling at an already disorientated audience than singing his lines.

Londoners Silent Front have a little more decorum. But just a little. Sounding like punk fans in a hardcore band playing Rage Against The Machine covers (also mixed with whatever else you need to make that feel really fucking good), the trio drive their tunes home with a goddamn hammer. ‘Misanthrope’ is a curling ball of rage, ‘One Off The List…’ prangs and roars like a jet engine and when the show finishes with frontman Phil bent double, screaming into his guitar, it’s clear that, if there has to be one, these three men take top prize from tonight’s tête a tête a tête.

The big win though, goes to Parisien two-man marauders, Pneu. Also forgoing a stage, the duo set up right in the middle of the room and tell absolutely no-one before launching into their grinding everything-core. They only know enough English to quickly thank the people crowding so tightly around them so spend the usual chat-time playing more songs that sound like exploding bombs, like Hella, back on the guided missile they hopped off before recording their last album, or like Death From Above 1979, only with more death. Hell, Mike Patton probably already has their phone numbers, Aldershot loves them too, and when Pneu screech to a halt tonight, everybody goes home happy. Beautiful after all then, but that thing about the beards was fairly accurate though.

I WAS A CUB SCOUT- I Want You To Know That There Is Always Hope

Ah, sweet relief, ‘I Want You To Know That There Is Always Hope’ is wonderful. Despite the major label and the expensive production team (man at the controls Hugh Padgham was responsible for this song) see, there was always a chance that I Was A Cub Scout were going to rush to their first full-length and dash all their early promise. But the Nottinghamshire duo, still barely out of their teens, have done nothing of the sort and instead this is an album that embraces indie, epic-pop and even post-rock to create something truly beautiful. Opener ‘Save Your Wishes’ bubbles and then bursts into life, its buzzing synths, swirling effects, gentle verses, and huge chorus all pointers to what is to follow. To things like the dynamic volume of ‘Echoes’ and the ambitious swell and stomp of ‘P’s and Q’s’. And sure, some of ‘…Hope’ was always guaranteed to please (previous perfect singles ‘Pink Squares’ and ‘Our Smallest Adventures’ are included), but if anything it’s the newer material here that’s most impressive. ‘Lucean’ slots in dreamy keys and a horn section to luscious effect, ‘Recommendations’ relishes in mixing dark lyrics with light riffing and party pop, and highlight ‘The Hunter’s Daughter’ drives dance beats through an orchestra pit, sounding far bigger than two skinny boys ever should. A wonderful record from a young British band with now obvious global potential then. But you never had a doubt, right?

MATT POND PA- Last Light

Matt Pond PA do pretty well by association. For almost ten years the band, behind the frontman from which they take their name of course, have toured alongside the likes of Ted Leo And The Pharmacists and Liz Phair, shared record labels with Braid and Hey Mercedes and online comparisons range from Owen to The Arcade Fire. ‘Last Light’ though, a full-band effort arriving almost ten years after Pond’s scaled-down debut, does nothing to deserve such rich connections. Instead the opening title track puffs up like Feeder or some shitty band from the soundtrack to the OC, ‘People Have A Way’ sounds like Mika and ‘Taught To Look Away’ is so languid it inspires no emotion at all. It’s not all awful, ‘Wild Girl’ messes around with some Beatles-eque melodies and when the band wake up they get a few neat ideas down, but nothing really comes from any of them. Hell, ‘Last Light’ doesn’t even go out with a bang, leaving charmless snooze-a-thon ‘Its Not So Bad At All’ to prove once and for all that Matt Pond PA are capable of none of the style or elegance of the groups named above. Still brilliant by association then, but absolutely ordinary otherwise.

LIVINGSTON- One Good Reason

As something of a taster for London quintet Livingston’s forthcoming debut album, ‘One Good Reason’ doesn’t seem like it’ll be all that sweet. The band share a record label with a bunch of nasty electro acts, the track has been worked over by the same people responsible for recent drivel from Feeder and Stereophonics, and worse, this thing starts off sounding like something your local funk rock outfit would cough up. Give it just a minute though and '...Reason' becomes all at once catchy, cool, emotional and powerful, takes flight like My Vitriol or even ‘Showbiz’-era Muse, and climaxes with a glorious wall of guitar feedback. Expect it to start crawling all over rock radio and the inside of your brain sometime soon then.

DEATH IN PUBLIC- Biometrics

Ok so they might not have buzzed loud enough to make this year’s hot lists but if Death In Public carry on like this we’ll all be cheering on tinnitus by next winter. Indie kids never fear, this isn’t blood-curdling thrash and the Lancaster band certainly aren’t any kind of volume over talent proposition, but- much like their previous efforts- this thing doesn’t half rumble and fuzz and overflow with energy. ‘Biometrics’ is like Editors if they embraced a little more raw power or maybe even The Smiths if Morrisey dug The Stooges just a little, and it’s got enough heart, substance and smoky melodies to impress anyone too- except maybe those who hang about in Topshop. B-side ‘Motion Sickness’ highlights even further why this band are so promising- combining post-rock guitars with a desperate urge to be catchy and concise. The coupling isn’t quite perfect but this is still dirty pop done right- lo-fi as fuck but brilliantly anthemic, memorable and imaginative too. Here’s to Death In Public then, and all the hearing loss they’ll bring.

SHIPWRECK AD- Abyss

Shipwreck AD are brilliant. Well, at least they are while ‘Abyss’ is playing and pumping out your speakers and moving you to mosh your bedroom to bits. Things change as soon as the disc stops spinning though...

...Read on here.

ELECTRIC SIX- I Shall Exterminate Everything Around Me That Restricts Me From Being The Master

From that bitter title you might assume Electric Six were fired up here, that they were back for their fourth album with murder and chart-conquering malice in mind. But you'd be wrong...

...read on here

SERJ TANKIAN- Elect The Dead

How much you’ll dig ‘Elect The Dead’ pretty much depends on what you think of System Of A Down. Yeah yeah this is a Serj Tankian solo effort but the dude has spent the last ten years as the mouthpiece of SOAD and has incorporated plenty of the meaty riffs, quirky vocals and original oddness from his day job here. If you were expecting European techno or Bay Area thrash, you will be sorely disappointed. If you’re after rock, roll and some smart ideas though, Tankian has got you covered....

...Read on here

PAUL HAWKINS & THEE AWKWARD SILENCES- The Bigger Bone

A not-so-pretty little ditty about wanting more, more, more in which Paul Hawkins sounds both pissed and pissed-off and the band behind him dredge punk riffs and grunge rock into shapes just ugly enough to match the sour words. This isn’t anywhere near as cute or catchy as Hawkins’ last single but it is ten times more infectious and deadly. If indie music is plagued with soulless rats then Paul Hawkins is the new pied piper. Except this guy doesn’t escort the vermin away but eat them up and spit them out. Acerbic aceness.

KIDS IN GLASS HOUSES + Tonight Is Goodbye + SaidMike. Zodiac, Oxford. 24.10.07

Tonight Oxford is all about the future. Even from a distance the Zodiac’s line-up is glowing with good prospects, get closer and there’s a fluorescent pink flood of promise and potential washing down the street, and once inside the building it’s impossible to move for the glare of a band who are going to be absolutely huge.

First on and Welsh wonders SaidMike may not have progressed a whole lot since supporting The Blackout over the summer but continue to impress nonetheless. In frontman Tom they’ve got a singer who can actually sing, in their nifty keys and synth tricks they’ve got everything they need to keep things interesting and in tunes like ‘Mind Over Muscle’ and ‘Heads Down…’ they’ve got songs that could take them supernova. If they would just lift their heads a little, and maybe consider a name change, this lot could take over the world.

Planet-beating is something that Tonight Is Goodbye have promised for a while now. They may already have some slick moves and stylish poses down pat but this evening they expand their pop-rock arsenal brilliantly- boosted confidence, a bigger sound and brilliant-sounding new tunes helping them make the leap from local charmers to headline contenders with ease. They finish with a riotous version of ‘Black Dress’, girls scream, boys sing, everybody dances like a loon and the future, as they say, is most definitely bright.

Kids In Glass Houses sound close enough to that particular light to explode any day now. Truthfully the band are still a toilet-tour proposition and without a full-length to their name but, from the first twinkling notes of their set to the final ballsy bounce of ‘Me Me Me’, the Cardiff quintet handle the pressure of such a stellar supporting cast with ease. Frontman Aled is a super-self-assured dynamo and the band behind him sound like Funeral For A Friend with their passion fully restored, like Angels And Airwaves boiled to down to atmospheric pop perfection and, much like the other bands on tonight’s bill, are clearly ready for rock’n’roll superstardom.

Tonight Oxford was all about the future. And in these days of retro rock, vintage riffs and much British music looking desperately to past glories, it’s been a very reassuring evening indeed.

TORCHE- In Return

People will feel this record before they hear it. The booming bass will shake the ground, the titanic riffs will channel up arms and legs and the hypnotic distortion will filter through brains from a thousand yards. But beardy Floridians Torche haven’t just created a mega-loud monster here though, ‘In Return’ is out for your dancing shoes too...

Read on here.

CUTTING PINK WITH KNIVES- Populuxxe

Another runner from the ever-impressive Holy Roar stable, Anglo-American skinny kids Cutting Pink With Knives kick out the sort of demented sixty-second jams that most folks dismiss as dreadful noise. But this isn’t yet more dull grind and is a million miles from metal’s current brutal death obsession. This is like a cartoon soundtrack being fed through a backfiring amp. It’s what Spandau Ballet would have sounded like with extra garbled yelps and doom synths. It’s less The Locust and more Genghis Tron throwing a chart-pop party. And if you’re still not getting it then the fact that ‘Populuxxe’ is listed as ‘children’s music’ on iTunes explains a lot. Mad. But highly recommended.

THE PLIGHT- Black Summer

Oh yes, now this thing rocks. Not in the way that Lynrd Skynrd or The Eagles actually rocked, or in the way every awful DJ would say Bon Jovi do, but in the sort of fashion that leaves you bloody, bruised and breathless but with a huge smile on your face.

The Plight are doing nothing wholly original- If you want fresh sounds and punk progress then there is nothing for you here- but from the off ‘Black Summer’ is a balls-out, huffing-and-puffing wonder. ‘Clarendon’ clatters in on some rollercoaster drums before exploding into some greasy dirt-rock riffs, ‘Ball And Chain’ is a howling, foul-mouthed anthem against the daily grind and ‘Lifestyle’ stomps the lines between Thin Lizzy, Motorhead and Every Time I Die into dust.

If the formula sounds familiar it’s probably because The Plight do things with much the same blistering intensity as their former tourmates in Gallows. Only one track here strays over the three-minute mark, none of them come within a million musical miles of a clean chorus and each and every one retains a fire and passion that hasn’t been present in hardcore for what seems like forever.

‘Black Summer’ even looks the real deal too- Dan Mumford’s amazing, eye-catching artwork making it feel like the output of a wealthy, seasoned act, not a Leeds rock’n’roll band with just two EPs under their collective belt. It’s the perfect topping to a disc that rocks like it can’t think of any other way to be and sounds like an absolute blast from start to finish.

PARAMORE- Riot!

Paramore put in the perfect preparation for this. The Texan band’s 06 debut was a super sugar-rush of pop and rock and girly-voiced melodies. There wasn’t a lot else to it but for cheap, easy, musical thrills, ‘All We Know is Falling’ was just right. All they had to do here was find an extra edge and (frontgal Hayley Williams aside obviously) perhaps a pair of balls and they'd definitely be on to a winner. Disappointingly they haven’t done that, you could even put ‘Riot!’ on right after its predecessor and not notice the difference, but of course they haven’t entirely lost the plot either. The lack of anything new means opener ‘For A Pessimist…’ flies by without making a mark and ‘Hallelujah’ is nothing but the wettest of fish. In other places though (‘Misery Business’, ‘Born For This’) they still get sweet, solid gold pop just right. ‘Riot!’ then is pop music pic’n’mix- pink, fluffy and fully appetising from a distance but too much, for too long, and your teeth will rot right out of your head and your brain will only get bored. More substance next time.

DARKEST HOUR-Deliver Us

For almost a decade Darkest Hour have been playing punk-powered hardcore metal; thrashing about when it wasn’t cool, then while it was, and still doing it now, as everybody else searches for the next big thing. But the Washington DC quintet have seldom received the recognition they deserve for such hard work. And, while ‘Deliver Us’, the band’s fourth album, is a monster, it highlights exactly why they’ve failed to boost beyond the circle pits of their ardent admirers and into the metallic stratosphere.

Read on... here

COPELAND- Eat, Sleep, Repeat

It would be easy to assume what a new Copeland record would sound like. Most folks already have the Florida band firmly slotted into the emo genre and the energetic pop rocks they’ve previously produced will only make that easier. But ‘Eat, Sleep, Repeat’, rounded out by fragile, breathy melodies, diverse flourishes and solid, sincere songwriting, actually sounds more like a straight-up indie thing than any fashion-conscious troupe struggling with a difficult third album. The subtle gear change means this record has massive potential outside the usual ‘scene’ channels too, offering fans of Coldplay, Radiohead and poetic lyricism just as much as it offers those of Brand New and Mae. ‘Eat, Sleep, Repeat’ isn’t going to take the world by storm, but, listening to the gentle, sleepy sorrow of ‘I'm A Sucker For A Kind Word’ it barely sounds like it wants to. It is too well-articulated, too well-rounded and just too good to ever be tagged as mere emo though. And, regardless of whether you’ve never heard Copeland, or have been a fan of their previously louder output for years, this is arguably their best work to date.

STRAYLIGHT RUN- The Needles The Space

Ahh, now this is great. And that’s true whichever side of the Taking Back Sunday divide you fell. If your heart went with John Nolan and Shaun Cooper when they left the New York quintet in a flurry of harsh words over four years ago, ‘The Needles The Space’ is exactly what you’ve been waiting for since. And if you always stuck with team TBS then you just don’t need to worry anymore. Straylight Run aren’t going to come out rocking, they aren’t even aiming for that rack in the CD store anymore, they’re never going to test your loyalties again.

Read on... here

BOSSK + Manatees. The Roundabout, High Wycombe. 09.06.07

Fuck the ambience, fuck the emotion, tonight is about music you can feel in your gut. In fact, when Kent quintet Bossk truly find their groove, you can feel it in your limbs, lungs, heart, eyes and crawling all over your brain. There’s barely a part of the body that their Mastodon meets Isis post-metal doesn’t bruise. But it’s not like this show doesn’t have emotion or atmosphere covered either. While Carlisle trio Manatees have a similar disregard for eardrums (Paul hits his drums like falling bricks and Alex’s bass rumbles so violently it breaks mid-set), they excel at moments of hypnotic calm and swirling, smoky drama too. And, as ‘iii’ builds from tribal percussion to a roaring metallic burn, it fixes to put you in the sort of bug-eyed trance that wouldn’t break for weeks. Luckily the headliners are on hand to snap you back to life. Because, while the Bossk boys clearly enjoy a few quiet, mind-bending moments of their own, it is the weight, power and goddamn monolithic presence of their music that truly impresses. Every level on the soundboard is scraping the red but the band are trap tight and make every twist and crunching turn look easy. By the time a bespectacled frontman sidles through the crowd to scream the end of ‘ii’ the speakers are working so hard you can feel the hot air at the back of the room and glasses are vibrating on the bar. High Wycombe hasn’t heard anything as loud since World War Two. And that’s booming praise indeed.

HEAD AUTOMATICA-Mean Fiddler, London. 28.05.07

Tonight has been a long time coming. This band have booked their tickets across the pond on three occasions now and every single time the anticipation here has been palpable but every single time Daryl Palumbo’s Crohn’s Disease has got the better of the man and his band. But finally tonight, London gets its beating heart (baby) kick-started by Head Automatica. And man does this thing begin like the greatest party ever.

The explosive riot-pop of ‘I Shot William H. Macy’, the hump and bump of ‘Laughing At You’ and the massive sing-a-long for ‘Solid Gold Telephone’ form an opening rally that could suck the sweat from this crowd’s pores were they not giving it up so freely. ‘Cannibal Girl’, ‘Lying Through Your Teeth’ and a storming ‘Graduation Day’ are given a particularly rabid reception but really every track is greeted like a long lost friend. It is however not all neon and glitter inside the Mean Fiddler.

Live, Head Automatica are a proper band; they spit and stomp and really put their instruments through it. And what comes out isn’t just candy-coated electronic tunes but genuinely bulging riffs and dirty beats. An amped-up version of ‘Please Please Please’ confirms that the boys onstage truly know how to rock, the blood-on-the-dancefloor shake-and scream of ‘Oxycotton’ wades with punk rock abandon through soul croons and hypnotic sludge and the people here for ‘Beating Heart Baby’ alone have already jammed their fingers in their ears by the time Daryl screeches through ‘K Horse’ like a demon.

No one really knows if the frontman is particularly on form, the capital hasn’t caught him onstage for years and years, but the stick thin singer is certainly ridiculously confident, a wildly animated, consummate showman and vocally deadly. And, while his giddy eyes and high-pitched giggles do suggest it’s something more than adrenaline powering him along, he is without a doubt the burning bright star of the show. If he does get better than this then the Glassjaw reunion tour can’t come soon enough.

With a closing cut of ‘The Razor’ Head Automatic are gone but London’s faith in them, England’s love for them is back. With a mighty vengeance.

SAOSIN. Fez Club, Reading. 24.05.07

“Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Saosin extravaganza,” shouts Cove Reber. And it’s just one more sign that the straggly-haired, skinny singer is a changed man. Last time Saosin hit the UK, Reber was sick, sad, and cripplingly shy. He couldn’t look his audience in the face and he couldn’t hit the high notes without hitting the hospital too. But not anymore. For every second of the hour-long show tonight, Reber is in fantastic form. In fact this whole band have grown; from slick pretty-boys into stubbly men who talk about drinking cobra blood and rocking the fuck out. And the fact that they’re rocking out here, in Reading, to barely 300 people, only a day after playing their biggest ever gig (and downing the snake stuff) in Jakarta, shows just how mature these men are. You can hear it in the songs too. ‘Voices’ roars louder than any music video, ‘You’re Not Alone’ no longer feels like a token ballad but begs to be played to the back walls of arenas and there isn’t one song, no matter how sharp and stirring ‘Seven Years’ is, that dominates the set alone anymore. What holds sway now is Reber; who doesn’t just look people in the eye but hands them the microphone and shakes and shimmies and screams in their faces, the band breaking sweat tenfold beside him, and the thrilling and emotional set that they’ve dan-near perfected.

Tonight- Reading. This time next year- the world. The extravaganza just got extra-special.

VANNA- Curses

Big breakdowns? Check. Shredding screams? Check. Awesome hair all-round? Quintuple check. You don’t even need me right now, you could review this with your eyes, and your ears closed, because there are thousands of stock words and phrases to throw at fourth-generation metalcore bands like Vanna. Except these five Boston dudes don’t care what you think, what i think, or what anybody thinks; they’re here to rock the fuck out.

Read on... here

CLUTCH- From Beale Street To Oblivion

Clutch are like ready-salted crisps. From the outside they look plain, maybe even a little boring and maybe you’re just sick of seeing their name all the time. But get a taste of them, however brief, and you’ll instantly remember how fucking good they can be. And ‘From Beale Street To Oblivion’ might just smack your head clean off.

Continuing their progression from bearded backwoods punkers to shit-kicking, rock’n’roll blues brothers (still bearded) this album finds the hell-raising spirit of Lynyrd Skynyrd and Led Zeppelin and doesn’t stop pulling. Opener ‘You Can’t Stop Progress’ feels like the driving campfire boogie these boys have been working towards for the past 15 years, ‘Power Player’ could be ‘Immigrant Song’ reinvented for the noughties and on ‘Electric Worry’ Neil Fallon sounds more like a leering, crazy preacher than ever. Fans of Clutch’s very first experiments in fuzzy noise might find ‘From Beale Street To Oblivion’ a little too simple, virtually none of the band’s hardcore roots remain, but for everybody else there’s a party going on.

Some moments here, the Hendrixian jam-sound of ‘Black Umbrella’ for one, do simply drift by rather than stroll up your driveway and kick your door in. But Clutch have damn-near perfected their modern-day blues-metal here and such is the overriding rock groove, the powerful sense of fun and the sheer volume of bolshy swagger present that every single note on ‘From Beale Street To Oblivion’ could be one of those salty reminders of Clutch’s persistent quality. Superior stuff.

KRUGER- Redemption Through Looseness

Swiss quartet, Kruger, have well and truly cut out the middle man here. By describing ‘Redemption Through Looseness’ as a mix between Breach, Neurosis and Tool they’ve perfectly condensed their third album, nailed their sound and made all the world’s music hacks redundant. Ok maybe they could have added Mastodon or Isis or screamo progenitors like Converge and Coalesce to the list but really, they’ve sewn this up.

‘Ammunition Matters’ is a dark and hypnotic bastard of an opener, ‘The Graveyard Party’ growls and snarls like some foam-mouthed caged animal and ‘The Cowboy Song’ is a potent brew of raw adrenaline, slurred distopian screams and intense post-everything ambience that draws more obscure comparisons to December Wolves, Daughters and Ed Gein.

So while it certainly isn’t pretty stuff (any hooks here are great ugly, rusted things rather than something sharp, shiny or precise), the concentrated and almost constant barrage does begin to warp into an addictive kind of chaos. This is the sort of noise that should could from the darkest corners of the deepest woods in the very best frightening fairytales of your imagination.

Perhaps arriving too late in the game, Kruger might never attain the cult celebrity or scene-starting respect of their acknowledged influences but they do make a damn fine rock and roll racket. And they definitely make a reviewer’s job easier. Ace.

DOPAMINE- Experiments With Truth

This won’t make Dopamine millionaires. But it should, oh how it should. The refined quality of ‘Experiments With Truth’, only the Caerphilly band’s second album proper, should mean they take straight to the big leagues. The simple and gorgeous songs here should appeal to fans of Foo Fighters, Jimmy Eat World, and the band’s fellow countrymen in Lost Prophets while the variety on offer should oust any mention of emo. The grand scale and slow-burning superiority of stuff like ‘The Ghosts In The Machine’ should make it impossible for Dopamine to return to mere local band status but the fact that the boys in the band have put their money where their music is and self-released ‘Experiments…’ should endear them to even the staunchest of scenesters. These songs should be all over your radio, this album should be huge, and all this should make Dopamine millionaires. It won’t, there’s too little money and too much smart class here, but it is simply, magically, blissfully brilliant stuff nonetheless.

BOLT ACTION FIVE. Oakford Social, Reading. 04.03.07

Soon you will know the name. Because if London youngsters Bolt Action Five keep playing shows like this everyone will be talking about them. There’s nothing amazing about the set up- guitars, drums, bass and synths and four skinny guys in skinny jeans. But when the band click into the ‘go’ position everything changes. Yeah they make a racket like Hadouken or The Klaxons or any other band keeping the corpse of Test Icicles warm do but there are blast beats here and half-second thrash riffs and songs so catchy people are whistling them outside in Reading’s shitty rain and they don’t even know why. Blessed with a frontman who dances and prances about the place like some bastard clone of Noel Fielding, Bolt Action Five play songs that shoot from the stage like lazers. Even when the power cuts out. Bolt Action Five are the band booked for the house party in heaven. Bolt Action Five do electronic power-pop without a hint of insecurity or trend-hopping (their blood surely runs in day-glo) and they should be massive. Go, spread the word. And soon everyone will know their name.

BLOC PARTY-A Weekend In The City

It’s a brave move for Bloc Party, releasing an album like this after such a short, sharp, success of a debut. Because ‘A Weekend In The City’ is an altogether darker, deeper, denser and just plain much more difficult affair. Ok, first single ‘The Prayer’ has a block rockin’ beat, pop hooks stolen straight out the Gwen Stefani handbook and some fantastic call-and-response vocals that will make the next tour dates a joy. But then there’s ‘Uniform’ which takes an age to get to its fantastic, metallic beating heart and ‘I Still Remember’ which never fully blooms, content to sigh and heave with understated beauty. And the risks don’t always equal reward either. The skittery, slimy ‘On’ wants to be U2 in a dark bedroom but amounts to airy nothingness and numbers like ‘Song For Clay’ and ‘Sunday’ struggle to come to any sort of peak at all. And that’s all before you add in Kele Okereke’s often empty, clunky lyrics.

This is a brave move for Bloc Party but, while the band are certainly still capable of magic (‘Waiting For The 7.18’ is blessed with a europhic final flourish and ‘Hunting For Witches’ does every single thing right), it’s one that all too rarely captures the edgy excitement of that sensational debut.

KLAXONS- Myths of the Near Future

New Rave is tosh. It just doesn’t mean anything. Especially when the band apparently spearheading the movement dismiss it as a big fat joke and sound like this. ‘Myths Of The Near Future’ is no rave revival; this is a pop record through and through. Ok so first big single ‘Atlantis To Interzone’ bumps and thumps with dance club power and the boys in the band dress like they’ve just tripped out of some 90s disco but there are far cleverer things than any disposable genre name here.

‘Forgotten Works’ is hypnotic lounge music, ‘Golden Skans’ is so full of hooks it will rest right in the front of your head for ages, the schizophrenic angry buzz of ‘Four Horsemen…’ will soothe the pain for anyone still mourning Test Icicles and ‘Magick’ pumps those pop sensibilities through psychedelic noodling with great effect. On top of that though, there are loads of vivid lyrical images of beautiful, odd and arty things like sequin-covered swans, mirrored statues and dying heroes to really trip you out.

This is a debut that tweaks the shouty, day-glo menace of the Klaxon’s first musical forays into a truly impressive form, pulling multi-layered, shape-shifting, dark and sultry songs from the colourful mess. It’s an album that constantly promises something special just around the corner and most of the time it pays off in style. It’s not new rave but it is really, really good.

THE SHINS- Wincing The Night Away

Blame Zach Braff for this. When he slipped thirty seconds of The Shins’ ‘New Slang’ onto the soundtrack of his film Garden State, he exposed the band to a level of attention they had previously only dreamed of. And, while some of the folks who dug those dreamy thirty seconds might not even realise the same band have a new record out, way more of them will have been ready and waiting for ‘Wincing The Night Away’ for the last two years. And chances are, it won’t disappoint.

For a good start, this is a record brimming with all the solid songwriting, odd charm and catchy quirks that have typified The Shins’ music to date. ‘Sleeping Lessons’ bubbles into view, echoing like something Disney dragged up from the sea, before getting its head down, ‘Pam Berry’ is a sawing fuzzy, interlude and ‘Sea Legs’ clicks and whispers like a cut up copy of The Postal Service. Despite all these peculiarities though, this is no kooky indie crazy train, not at all. Underneath (and in fact, and as a first for The Shins, mostly on top of) those old appealing eccentricities lie sure-footed and sober songs. ‘Phantom Limb’ twinkles like its been sprinkled with Brian Wilson dust, ‘A Comet Appears’ is a lovely American lullaby rather than a psychedelic daydream and ‘Australia’ is the sort of thing Keane might able to come up with if they cared about happy pills rather than musical mediocrity, cash and cocaine.

Really though The Shins, with all their pop experiments and smart rock abandon, remain a band in their own genre. ‘Wincing…’ is that fizzy, bubbly background music to your favourite dreams or that perfect kiss in that perfect film, it’s all-at-once innocent and clever and dark and cheery, and it’s bound to ensnare thousands more listeners too, with Braff on board or not.

TENACIOUS D- The Pick Of Destiny

Yeah it’s funny. Of course it is. If you’ve ever giggled at Jack Black’s rock-pomp and ridiculous slapstick before then there’s plenty here to laugh at here. But this is essentially a film soundtrack and, in ‘Break In-City’ and ‘Beelzeboss’ especially, it’s filled with tunes that work best alongside the boys pissing about on the big screen. For best results- See the film. Laugh. Listen to the album. Laugh more- Easy.

:(- First Blood

Somewhere between the melodic flair of the Fuelled By Ramen roster, the chirpy appeal of The Postal Service and the background music to your favourite Nintendo game lie online Aberdeen quartet, :(. The band, pronounced Colonopenbracket for the messenger-impaired, began as a one-man thing but, by the power of MySpace, quickly blossomed into the four-piece behind debut disc ‘First Blood’.

If you have heard a :( song before it might have been the upbeat growls of ‘Syntax’ or the gentle buzzing promise of ‘Gone’, both early efforts from frontman Mart, both indicative of a fresh sound full of promise but, neither included here. The addition of a real live drummer and a thicker, louder production means the quaint appeal of those first tracks is long gone but in its place is a big-time-party vibe and a powerful confidence.

Opener ‘Fake Blood’ has all the same 8-bit bleeps as before but now the mix kicks and screams to take your hand instead of politely asking to dance. It’s like Panic! At The Disco with square eyes and joypads instead of all the silly style and circus pomp. The melodic pulse of ‘Codes’ is destined to be sung back to these boys and gals by thousands, ‘Pre-Emoticons’ is electric indie brilliance and yes, this is all about having fun but if the forlorn rise and rise of ‘Heartache…’ doesn’t do something to the hairs on the back of your neck then you might just be dead inside.

Computer noise and retro chic may be all the rage at the minute but you’d be wasting your time looking for this sort of thing done better elsewhere. Bleeptastic.

Also appears at New-Noise.

...AND YOU WILL KNOW US BY THE TRAIL OF DEAD- So Divided

People used to be able to know this band was around by actually following the bloody trail of dead. They used to be hard-touring, hard-drinking, punk-rock renaissance men. They used to write records that felt as powerful as a kick to the brain and they could never play the songs live because they were too busy swapping instruments or breaking them over the edge of the stage. They used to sound like the next Sonic Youth. Now though, now they sound like Coldplay.

It’s not quite that bad. First song proper, ‘Stand In Silence’, marries the discord of old to the new-wave sass introduced on last year’s ‘Worlds Apart’ with some success and parts of the title track rock like an absolute bastard. For the most part though all the ear-splitting power has been replaced by folksy indie strum, all the raw vocal passion traded for mild-mannered melodies and in the place of that brain-pounding intensity is the stubbornly sedate pace of a band growing old. Ever so disappointingly gracefully.

Occasionally the softer touches work just as well as all the raggedy volume. ‘Naked Sun’ takes an age to get there but eventually turns into a swarming, orchestral highlight and a cover of Guided By Voices’ ‘Gold Heart Mountain Top Queen Directory’ is a gentle gem of a song. It’s flowery and nice but you can’t exactly smash a guitar to pieces with it. …Trail Of Dead probably behave like proper gentlemen when they play live now too. How dull.

Also appears at New-Noise.

VAUX- Beyond Vice, Beyond Virtue

Major label wrangling nearly killed Vaux. Which would have been a real shame because the band’s second full-length, ‘Beyond Vice, Beyond Virtue’, is amazing. This is an album set to vault the band behind it out of any emo discussion and towards the sort of greatness that Thrice and Thursday now toy with. There are songs that echo artists as varied and interesting as Muse, Radiohead, Refused and Rival Schools but Vaux stamp their own feel on everything. There are acoustic lows, spacey electronic highs and the ghost of some shadowy Wild West bar-band that would make this as dark and disquieting a thing as heard all year if there wasn’t Quentin Smith’s vocal angst and three (!) guitars grinding away here too. The fact that this record has been gathering dust in the Atlantic Records vaults for over a year is a filthy crime but when it makes Vaux megastars, and it bloody well should do, the success will feel all the sweeter. Buy ‘Beyond Vice…’ today and show the fatcats who the boss really is.

FROM A SECOND STORY WINDOW- Delenda

And you thought The Dillinger Escape Plan were noisy? Pennsylvania natives From A Second Story Window put those rowdy innovators to shame when it comes to volume of ideas, if not quite in the brilliant execution of them. Will Jackson’s vocals run the gamut from dinosaur roar to smooth croon to an inhaling noise akin to the devil clearing his throat. This is all spewing out over ten-ton-heavy riffs that stop and start at blinding speeds, spidery and frantic leads and warped post-hardcore melodies. Oh and there’s piano, marching drums and some unearthly bell chimes too. There’s no hope of taking over the world with these compositions, they’re too fucking venomous. There’s also not enough genuine quality here to have the Story boys taking on Dillinger for the spazzcore crown jewels just yet. What remains is a dizzying headache and a completely fresh metal experience.

SEEMLESS- What Have We Become

When a band contains former members of Shadows Fall, Killswitch Engage and Overcast you’re going to be onto a metalcore winner right? Wrong. Seemless might have a shred heavy history but the Massachusetts regulars incorporate elements of classic rock, grunge, stoner rock and the sort of swampy sludge you’d get if Queens Of The Stone Age invited Pantera on a 24-hour smoke-out into their sound. Members of whiny bores like Creed, Nickelback and Seether should be strapped down and forced to listen to killer tracks like ‘Numb’ and ‘Parody’ so it can be pointed out exactly what their bands might have sounded like with some heart, soul and a decent-sized pair of balls. Taken as a whole this is even a better album than any disc Audioslave have ever put their name to. Vocalist and former KSE man Jesse Leach sounds overwrought at times and some of the material he is hollering over is a little dry but ‘What Have We Become’ remains a solid album destined to settle in the bottom half of many critics end-of-year top tens. If you own more than one Soundgarden album you owe it to yourself to listen to this band now.

CATARACT- Kingdom

Well produced, snare tight and bulging with belligerence and hate, Cataract are crunching and razor sharp metal through and through. Although lacking some of the raw energy and fresh ideas that the likes of All Shall Perish and The Acacia Strain have recently injected into a somewhat creatively starved scene, these guys stick to what they know best and pile riff onto mosh-worthy riff. It’s a devastatingly perfect background for vocalist Fedi to kick and scream, vent his spleen and indulge in a little fantasy-metal warrior stuff over the top.
Bar that extra twist that would make these guys serious contenders there’s pretty much everything you could want from a heavy ass record here.

DEFTONES. Electric Ballroom, London. 12.10.06

Ok so tonight didn’t start in the best of ways. While waiting to get into this very special ‘secret’ show at the Electric Ballroom, 600 Deftones fans were witness to the best of London’s nightlife. A fight between drunken thugs armed with combat knives and broken bottles spilled into the queue and minutes later a dog attack added to the fun. The atmosphere was… a little tense.

Inside the venue things are much better. There is no support act tonight so nothing to pass the time until Chino and Co. arrive except sweaty-browed trepidation and vein-filling excitement. If you’ve read any music magazine or website at all this year you’ll be familiar with the Deftones’ patchy live record. Sometimes they’re sloppy, looking stoned and bored they have a tendency to mull around with songs until they sound like awful impersonations of the band everyone knows they can be. But sometimes they’re glorious, carving their tunes out of rock and flaying through them like cannon fire. Tonight they lean towards the latter. Tonight, Deftones are flawless.

‘Knife Party’ is a horribly relevant opener but it sounds extraordinary. To see this band this close is marvellous but to hear the way they play is even better. Stef is attacking his guitar, Abe and Chi are rifling through the ‘Tones inventive rhythms and Chino is singing, like an angel, with proper words and everything. This, in industry terms, is known as playing an absolute blinder.

They play a rare ‘Boy’s Republic’, a version of ‘Around The Fur’ that puts goosebumps on goosebumps and, at what was rumoured to be a show booked to work out any kinks in the new material, they play only two newies. One in the rousing, raring shape of ‘Hole In The Earth’ and another with a magnetic run through ‘Beware’. They play ‘Elite’, ‘Lifter’ and then a stunning version of ‘Seven Words’ with the whole Ballroom singing along. And then you look at your watch and an hour has gone by but it only feels like fifteen minutes. And if a part of you isn’t moved by tonight’s titanic version of ‘Change’ then you’re dead inside. Yes even you shirtless macho boys in the pit.

The band finish with ‘RX Queen’, an oddly quiet choice for such an intense occasion but then it’s difficult to decide what they should have played. This group have got such a perfect back catalogue, now one album bigger, that they could have played three more sets and each would have been just as sweet as this one. Book your seats for next year's proper tour now.

The Deftones then, officially better than street crime, dog fights and nearly every other modern rock band on the face of the earth.

LES GEORGES LENINGRAD- Sangue Puro

Les Georges Leningrad are Poney P, Mingo L’Indien and Bobo Boutin from Montreal. They all play synthesisers. But almost certainly not how you’re thinking they do. This is no all-night disco party. These guys (and one gal) tour with The Locust. This is what Hot Chip would sound like if they covered Slayer. This is a chaotic jumble called ‘petrochemical rock’

From tribal beats, monstrous chanting and alien whale noises to crashing computer sounds, wailing feedback and digital jigsawed beats, the Les Georges trio have been on a mission to mess with your ears for six years now. ‘Sangue Puro’ is their third album and it’ll take anyone who thinks they know about new-rave because they downloaded some Klaxons songs and turn them into a muddy puddle of piss and drool.

The slow-build darkness of the title track, the deformed accordion noise and potty-mouthed rap of ‘Sleek Answer’ and the stomping grind of ‘Lonely Lonely’ simultaneously excel as wild fun and wracked experiments in noise. Which is what makes it so disappointing when the trio stray anywhere close to normality. ‘Skulls In The Closet’ feigns accessibility before dissolving into distorted bass and wicked vocal yelps but ‘Mammal Beats’, even with its cacophony of lions, tigers and bears (oh my!), sounds positively Yeah Yeah Yeahs-ish.

Despite their newfound directness (don’t panic die-hards, it still sounds like a piano apocalypse) only the most warped minds and biggest masochists will get through ‘Sangue Puro’ in one sitting. But I bet it sounds like some sort of violent second coming when they repeat it live.

Also appear at New-Noise

POWERMAN 5000- Destroy What You Enjoy

There must be some credit given to Powerman 5000, if only for soldiering on. At the dreggy end of nu-metal the band’s action punk was a welcome energizer but time has moved on and even more virulent strains of rock have arrived. Instead of trying to play catch up, Powerman (now containing only two original…er, powermen) have resorted to going vintage. It’s not what the band are playing that’s the problem, Wolfmother and The Hives have proven that good ol’ rock’n’roll is still big business; it’s the way they play it. Songs like ‘Murder’ and the title track show promise but elsewhere proceedings are dry, dull and lifeless. With ‘Destroy What You Enjoy’, frontman Spider and co., move further away from the glam rock space-fever that made their name and ever closer to the front of the dole queue. Disappointing.

SHAI HULUD+ Parkway Drive+ Remembering Never. Underworld, London. 02.09.06

It's raining men. No, not like that. There's just a constant stream of bodies flying over the stage as Shai Hulud; hardcore vets returning after a lengthy absence, let rip with another twisted hate anthem. And it's fucking great to have them back doing what they do best.

Before the reformed greats shake off the rust though, another set of Floridians take the stage. Remembering Never have been around a while themselves but this is their first time to the UK and, with a set that relies heavily on new material, they were probably expecting the worst. Any doubts are immediately crushed. The band combine punk, hardcore and social commentary into a boiling mixture that spits out balls of rage like 'For Love Of Fiction' and 'Selma'. Inventive breakdowns and flashes of melody emerge from their wall-of-noise attack and the crowd respond to every note. They are the next heavy band you must hear.

Parkway Drive know a thing or two about heavy themselves. This is the Australians' third visit to the UK in a year and their solid metalcore has never been less than thrilling. So it's a surprise to hear the band misfire tonight. It might be down to a gruelling tour schedule, it might be the quality they're sandwiched between but from a breathless Winston McCall, huffing and puffing where his growl usually dominates, to an underwhelming finish, Parkway get a decent pit going but just aren't at top gear.

Shai Hulud know only one gear. And it's a fast one. While this constant velocity might be the reason the band has never captured a truly sizeable audience, they have clearly been missed. This sold out show, the last in a string of sold out British shows, is testament to their enduring importance. A crowd reaction that embarrasses that of most other hardcore gigs is testament to their unlimited kinetic energy and the electric heat coming off an opening run through 'A Profound Hatred Of Man' testament to the fact that this band can still slice a knife through the cool factor and deliver the goods.

Unlike Parkway Drive's insistent battering or Remembering Never's vitriolic punk, Shai Hulud's razor sharp time changes don't make for great mosh material. Where the headliners truly succeed isn't in providing music to fight to but endless fire, ire and passion. Something the people crowd-surfing and singing themselves hoarse in every corner of the venue knew all along. The shape of hardcore past, present and thankfully now, the future.

Also appears at RockMidgets.

ENSEMBLE- Ensemble

This particular Ensemble, rather ironically, is just one man. French-born Canada-resident, Olivier Alary, started working under the title way back in 1998 with a view to mashing together melodic noise and disjointed pop. He wanted to run delicate musical movements into walls of sound. Eight years later, he might have just perfected his art.

To call this pop music could be stretching it. There's no sugary-sweetness or genre clichés. Sometimes there aren't even hooks, melodies or choruses. Still, this is infinitely listenable stuff. There are waves of rising, mutating radio hiss, there's chirping electronica, almost-folk arrangements and sharp string movements. It all adds to the rising clank of an odd orchestra that should sound cluttered and messy but knits together like some forgotten minimal Múm or Sigur Ros B-side.

There are plenty of guest vocalists here to make up the numbers too. Mileece makes Avary's skipping beats sound awfully close to the summery slop of Zero 7 but the ghostly intonations of Chan Marshall (of Cat Power fame) are fantastic and when Lou Barlow whispers and croons over 'One Kind, Two Minds' it's as good as any of the more alternative material Sufjan Stevens has put his name to.Elsewhere, track-long expanses of wind whistling and wave crashing add satisfyingly safe elements to this ethereal noise that might otherwise threaten to never let you back to Earth again.

Also appears at Rock Midgets.

Watch where you point your finger...

...I Am Hollywood.

LISTEN TO HE IS LEGEND

Mad as a bag of spoons Americans on the verge of releasing 'Suck Out The Poison', their second long-player. They could be the band that put all this whatever-core to bed.
When they play live they steal shows with the cunning use of having fun- remember when shows used to be like that?
When they play in the studio they come out with all-at-once cute and crazy schizophrenic jams like 'The Seduction' or 'Dixie Wolf'. Hope and pray they tour the UK soon.

STATE RADIO- Us Against The Crown

Politics. With a capital P. The stuff is all the rage these days. What with Green Day and Fat Mike riding the ‘fuck Bush’ bandwagon all the way to the bank it’s clear that dipping a toe or two into the way the world works is now worth more than a clear conscience. There’s money to made in them there polls.

‘Us Against The Crown’ is most definitely a political record. There are songs about the ongoing war in Iraq, the importance of voting and the rights of the poor, elderly and disabled. For State Radio though, this isn’t about shifting units, it’s about trying to create awareness and make some changes. This isn’t marketable pop or headline-stealing spleen-venting punk either. The main sound of ‘Us Against The Crown’ is laid-back rock and reggae. Like Matisyahu recently, this band condenses their woes into soft-groove radio-fodder. It’s the sort of smooth-on-the-outside, hard-on-the-inside mix that will have people flicking through the lyrics booklet to double check they just heard such vehement comment amongst such laid-back music.

The sunny sound means this can’t possibly be all doom and gloom. And in fact, if you search a little deeper, there are a few looks towards the promise and potential of the future (presumably a future where everybody listens to State Radio) and even a song about love. It’s in these moments though that the band display their worst qualities, sounding as dull as Audioslave, like Rancid at their least effective or worse, like happy-happy-joy-joy chart-monkey Jack Johnson. These are defiantly vintage licks though. Which, while very warm and pleasant sounding and valiantly in line with the music’s age-old inspiration, don’t exactly inspire feelings of revolution. More like feelings of falling asleep in a hammock somewhere in the nice part of Jamaica.

There is room for State Radio to really blow up. Hell, if Rage Against The Machine were around today they’d be the biggest band in the world. But it’s Rage’s vitriolic, impacting and immediate messages and not this band’s quiet mumbles that are really needed. There’s nothing terribly wrong with State Radio’s sound but rebellion has never sounded so redundantly nice.

Also appears at Rock Midgets

ROSES ARE RED- What Became Of Me

Time was not on the side of Roses Are Red. Emerging in 2004 the New York five-piece had the much-lauded Trustkill Records stamp but garnered little acknowledgment. This was just another screamo band, never to be heard from again. At least that’s what most people thought. RAR frontman, Vince Minervino, had other ideas though. Back with a new line up the singer has helmed his band towards a new sound. Think Jimmy Eat World instead of Atreyu, Foo Fighters rather than From Autumn To Ashes. They still struggle to cement an identity of their own but with Minervino’s much improved voice and a penchant for emotional depth where hardcore hissyfits used to be, success is much closer for Roses Are Red. There’s no glaring errors here, no duff tracks, just a collection of solid rock songs. And, unbelievably, it’s easier to listen to than the latest Crash Romeo, Matchbook Romance or Eighteen Visions albums.

RAZORLIGHT- Razorlight

Jesus Christ, Johnny Borrell is a gobshite. But wait, take a breath, don't base your opinion of Razorlight's music on the delusional, self-obsessed ramblings of their lanky, smug frontman. Oh, alright go on then.

There are ten tracks here sure to appeal to the obedient indie masses but for everybody else the appeal of Razorlight will remain a mystery. 'In The Morning' has a chorus hook that's as welcome as 'flu but unfortunately just as catchy, next single 'America' does a mediocre musical impression of U2 at their most musically mediocre and there might even be a flash of a decent melody in 'Los Angeles Waltz' but that's really stretching. Everywhere else it's half-arsed guitar strum, spineless drive-time drang and sixth-form-poetry style rhyming couplets ahoy. This is dreary middle-of-the-road pub-rock that panders to every evil vice the radio demands. Horrible.

SUCIOPERRO- Random Acts Of Intimacy

Chemistry. One of those classes at school where the teachers always smelled funny but something essential to the making of a great band. Scottish quartet Sucioperro have chemistry. By the bucket load. After listening to 'Random Acts Of Intimacy' it wouldn't be a surprise to learn that they had regular group hugs or something like that. From first note to last here Sucioperro sound terribly together.

But don't get too comfortable. Impatience and audacity and talent butt serious heads throughout Random Acts.... It's not down to immaturity, but the knowledge that a little twist and a few turns make for a thrilling ride. All of which means while 'Wolf Carnival' and 'Dialog On The 2' twitch and fidget like Biffy Clyro or Minus The Bear, 'I Don't Hate...' and 'Tem V Com' are rock and roll belters. Then 'Grace And Out Of Me' does both, meandering down a gentle mathy road before exploding like prime Rage Against The Machine. It's the sort of songwriting skill that regularly leaves you wondering what the hell just happened, how the hell the band got away with and why the hell you so badly want to hear it again.

It might be too heavy for Franz fans, too fey for the hardcore fraternity, even too polite to turn top industry heads but that's their loss. Experimentation, drama, power, dexterity and that chemistry stuff abounds. On this evidence Sucioperro need just a touch more fire and maybe one more album to go over the edge into Muse-like realms of quality. That or medical help.

Also appears at RockMidgets.

KOUFAX- Hard Times Are In Fashion

Hard times may be in fashion but quirky spiky indie isn’t doing too bad for itself either. On this, their fourth release, Koufax harness the sort of new-wave pop prowess that has driven Hot Hot Heat and The Killers to the big time. They have the American accents, the skinny-legged style and even some talent; they can do smirking balladry and dancefloor rock with equal aplomb. There’s a piano in there too, but this is no Keane type thing, the tinkling actually adds a different accent to the usual lip-pouting hip-shaking mixture.

The ivories aren’t the only thing marking Koufax out from the pack either. The way ‘Five Years Of Madness’ puts the pedal to the metal will turn heads, the haunting, queasy drama of ‘Stephen James’ will turn them back again and is that a country twang hidden under lead single ‘Isabelle’. That there’s some meaty social and political comment bubbling away (and occasionally boiling over on ‘Blind Faith’) under such charming dark pop only makes it better. However while there’s familiar comfort in the Bloc Party bop of ‘Her Laughter’ or the Strokes style slacker banter of ‘Get Us Sober’ the songs here rarely take on a life of their own. And so it goes that after all that good stuff, there’s nothing to seal the deal.

Koufax probably throw some killer parties and god knows ‘Hard Times…’ would make decent background music to the next shindig at yours, but, with a noticeable lack of hit single material, the band need still more time to crack superstardom. It will come though, it will.


Also appears at Rock Midgets.

REGINA SPEKTOR- Begin To Hope

Regina Spektor used to actively repel any comparisons to chart-humping drama queens just by being Regina Spektor- her beautiful and clever yet naïve-sounding voice always running in different directions to the minimalistic music she made but fitting perfect all the same. Those days are gone. ‘Begin To Hope’ finds the Russian born New-Yorker caving in to whatever sort of pressure got to Alanis Morrisette years ago. ‘Better’ sounds like a Bon Jovi cast-off, there are Euro beats crashing into each other everywhere else and by ‘Edit’ it’s all starting to sound horribly similar. ‘Samson’ is the exception, sounding like a mainstream radio hit, a smoky backroom sing-a-long and a lonely confession all at the same time. And only ‘Fidelity’ retains the valuable majesty of before. You can mourn the quirks and out-of-this-world oddness that Spektor previously did so well but the biggest shame is the loss of her fantastic rainbow-coloured personality. Another one bites the dust.

BUILT TO SPILL- You In Reverse

Built To Spill singer/guitarist/all-round main man Doug Martsch has kept the world waiting five years for another BTS record. There were fears that his band’s Neil Young and Sonic Youth inspired sound might have become too slow and too snug to still matter but apparently 15 years in the game means you know a little something about the rules.

Martsch doesn’t hold back on any count. This isn’t a rowdy record but it does move in fantastically mysterious ways. There are great expanses of looping, overlapping instrumentation that go for minutes without vocals. When the words do arrive they are tender and memorable. There is a myriad of guitar sounds and quick, challenging sets of mood swings. It all adds up to some great tunes. It might clock in at eight minutes but ‘Goin’ Against Your Mind’ sounds like the neatest of jam rock. Up against the more muscular and distorted indie riffery sits the melancholy wonder of ‘Gone’, ‘Just A Habit’ and ‘The Wait’. At times the record feels half-hearted, drifting too far into dreary dream-pop territory but the gorgeous moments of ‘Conventional Wisdom’ and ‘Liar’ reel the whole thing back in.

If you fancy finding out where Death Cab, The Shins and Arcade Fire stole all their secrets from, you could do worse than start investigating here.

RUSSIAN CIRCLES- Enter

Officially nothing to do with Russia or its circles, the three Chicago natives behind ‘Enter’ deal in instrumental rock that fidgets and fits in the best of ways. That the six tracks here take more than fourty minutes to unwind points to the post-post-rock (where will it) end of things but there’s haste, speed and an amplified fire here that means the ‘Circles are much more than another Mogwai photocopy. These tunes go from the complex shimmy of early Tool to the gentle loveliness of Joan Of Arc to the sheer doom attack of Motorhead. Couple that with the straight up Will Haven-esque ‘Death Rides A Horse’ and you have the perfect example of instrumental music for people that don’t really like instrumental music. And a gem of a record for people that do.

Also appears at New-Noise

SILENT CIVILIAN- Rebirth Of The Temple

Johnny Santos spent six years fronting Spineshank. Though that band would never escape their ‘baby Fear Factory’ tag they did write some killer tunes. Santos jumped from the sinking nu-metal ship a couple of years ago but is now back in action with Silent Civilian and this new group are a heavier prospect all round. At the centre ‘Rebirth of the Temple’ is the sort of heavy metal that’s made Machine Head’s name. Unfortunately though, instead of concentrating on power, energy and writing defiant anthems, the ‘Civilian favour more of the fashionable metalcore flavours that have been heard already. By everyone. Everywhere.

It’s not terrible stuff. ‘Funeral’ kicks things off as neatly as anything from the last Trivium, God forbid or Caliban albums but therein lies the problem. There is nothing here that hasn’t already been done better somewhere else. The kick drums go into overdrive for the bludgeoning intro to ‘Divided’, there’s great Metallica-esque twiddly bits on ‘The Song Remains Un-Named’ and Santos’ knack for a vocal melody creeps through during ‘Bitter Pill’ and ‘Blood Red Sky’. But, there’s always that awkward feeling that the band have been reading over metalcore’s shoulder and stealing what they think are the right answers. And, at 13 tracks, some pushing seven and eight minutes long, it doesn’t half go on a bit. Hell, even Spineshank were smarter than this.

So, while there’s nothing really wrong with what Silent Civilian have done here, ‘Rebirth…’ is destined to sink without trace.

THURSDAY. Zodiac, Oxford. 26.05.06

It’s been nearly two years since Thursday were last in the UK and even longer since any new material. So after a lengthy wait the New Jersey sextet (now featuring keyboardist Andrew Everding full-time) return for a flying seven-stop run with cracking new album ‘A City By The Light Divided’ in tow.

With all that time off, new songs to learn and this being the first night of the tour, the band could be forgiven for sounding a little rusty but apparently Thursday have a point to prove. The gunshot drumming, buzzsaw guitars, layered vocals and Everding’s added dimensions mean the set sounds huge. Geoff Rickly looks healthier than he has in years and throws himself into tunes like crowd favourite ‘For The Workforce, Drowning’ and new single ‘Counting 5-4-3-2-1’ with equal reckless abandon. Quality levels don’t drop an inch throughout but it’s not until they play flawless renditions of ‘Cross Out The Eyes’ and ‘Jet Black New Year’ you realise how essential this band remain and just how much their passion and honesty is missed. And nobody here would swap this show for front row tickets to the next Aiden gig, not for anything in the world.

CITY AND COLOUR+ Jacob's Stories. Camden Barfly, London. 25.05.06

Dallas Green never even saw this coming. His self-confessed ‘soft songs’ were only supposed to be for him to play, to help him work through some issues or jam the kinks out of tunes for his day job in Alexisonfire. They weren’t supposed to be flown around the world and performed in front of awe-filled and attentive audiences. But that’s how it is.

Despite the early doors (enforced so that 65 Days Of Static, playing upstairs tonight, don’t thud the show to death from above) the Barfly is full. Which means plenty of people get to hear Stuart Lee’s Radiohead-ian brilliance. Alone on stage but armed with keyboard, drum machine and the Jacob’s Stories moniker, it’s the mantra piano of ‘A Night With Steve’, hypnotic chirping of ‘Unfinished Idea’ and lilting but commanding nature of Lee’s voice that deserve to make the man a millionaire.

None of this is about the big bucks though. When the headliner has to squeeze through the crowd to get to the stage and tune his own guitar, a Chris Carrabba-type confessional is clearly not on the cards. Green doesn’t even cut a very demanding figure once he’s up there; in fact he looks a little dazed, like he still can’t believe that people want to see him this way. It’s his songs that compel all the attention. In between digs at the British transport system and the LostProphet’s ‘interesting’ haircuts tunes like ‘Hello, I’m In Delaware’ and ‘Comin’ Home’ are transformed. Fragile ballads on CD are stretched out into powerful moving tales, infused with genuine heart and real tragedy. During ‘Save Your Scissors’ Green asks the crowd to sing but few people do, eager to get the man himself back to the microphone. That he can do this; talk to the crowd with good humour, modesty and respect, and never miss a beat during heartfelt performances of ‘Sometimes’ and ‘Missing’, is enchanting.

The city was London and the colours were vivid and sharp. Even if Green never meant it to be this way, tonight was simply breathtaking.

DEAD TO FALL- The Phoenix Throne

Much like Giant Haystacks, Chicago metallers Dead To Fall are very heavy, probably quite imposing in the flesh and capable of delivering all sorts of killer moves. Unfortunately just like professional wrestling there doesn’t seem to be any real feeling behind the violence of 'The Phoenix Throne'. ‘Chum Fiesta’ could be used to induce heart attacks and ‘Heroes’ is classic sweaty thrash but beyond the tough exterior this is a band only play fighting.

PROTEST THE HERO- Kezia

Kids these days. Forming in Canada at the tender age of 14, Protest The Hero have spent the last two years working on this, their debut album proper. Now 19 and with tours alongside Every Time I Die, The Bled and The Fall Of Troy under their belts and an upcoming UK tour and appearance at Download to look forward to they’re planning to make as much of a splash here as they have in their home country.

It’s easy to see why they’ve made an impact. This is a thrill-splattered combo of Coheed’s dizzying heights, As I Lay Dying’s numbing rumble, the murderous garage groove of new Every Time I Die and the breathtaking gallop of old Iron Maiden. The vocal inflections match all the musical madness too. Rody Walker’s high tone initially sticks out but soon seems like the only thing that would work, there are gang vocals, spoken and screamed back-ups and even a beautiful female croon.

Diversity like this is certainly striking, the musicianship is mind-boggling for some so young, but it’s often confusing. On first listen there is little here to really grab onto. ‘Nautical’ and ‘Blindfolds Aside’ are stuffed with memorable melodic hooks and ‘Turn Soonest…’ slows spectacularly from speedy metal thrashing to eerie spoken word passages to bruising metalcore to soft pop-like melodies and back again but elsewhere it gets too much. ‘Bury The Hatchet’ is crushingly heavy and ‘She Who Mars The Skin Of The Gods’ is impressive for sure but they ride too many genres, only settling down to create something memorable for moments at a time. The highlights here aren’t tracks but fleeting minutes and seconds.

It’s nowhere near a total failure though. You may need a degree in mathematics to keep proper time with it but ‘Kezia’ is a mighty fine first full-length and a solid sign of greatness to come. Protest The Hero remain paupers to the princes of Between The Buried And Me and The Red Chord but with time and this, a more dynamic and softer option, on their side, they could get very big indeed.

Also appears at Rock Midgets

WHIRLWIND HEAT- Reagan EP

Finished with the hype, over the half-minute punk noise and done confusing the hell out of White Stripes fans, Whirlwind Heat have managed to knuckle down and produce the ‘Reagan’ EP.

There is magic abound; Beck-like vocals simmer nicely, anybody using a kazoo nowadays deserves top marks, ‘I Fucked Up Reagan’ would sound great round a campfire and the drum punch drive of ‘Memory’ raises excitement levels a notch or two but there are bands in garages down your street that have produced more memorable work than the title track and ‘Macho Man’ here. Let’s hope this is less a taster for upcoming album, ‘Types Of Wood’, and more designed to lull the world into a false sense of safe indie security before Whirlwind Heat become the new Strokes.

LYE BY MISTAKE- The Fabulous EP

The first release on Lambgoat Records (sprung from the scene-leading website) will be Lye By Mistake’s second widely-available CD. Their first, ‘The Fabulous’ EP, clears up exactly why the fledging label decided this band should be their flagship. Intense, frantic and almost hysterical with content, the songs here bend, twist and melt from harrowing death rattles to eerie jazz segments to rippling thrash riffs. If the band on the Titanic were given crazy pills and electric guitars and broken amps they would have sounded like this. Incendiary.

PITCHSHIFTER+ Skindred. Astoria, London. 24.03.06

Ok, so Pitchshifter went on ‘indefinite hiatus’ rather than going the whole hog and actually splitting up but there’s surely only so many times they can do this reunion show thing and not have it become a joke.

Forgetting that particular hurdle for a minute and looking from the outside in the show looks like most other Pitchshifter shows; a varied crowd here to see a well-stocked line-up of all-British bands, support bands that the headliners have talked up themselves, and a line-up totally and absolutely refreshingly removed from anything emo or hardcore or metalcore or whatever you core it.

Despite, or perhaps because of, their schizophrenic sound (reggae-punk-metal-jungle-hip-hop anybody?) Skindred have spent years in the toilet-touring-circuit wilderness but are finally getting the attention they deserve. After slightly subdued receptions for Murder One and This Is Menace the crowd’s reception for the Welsh wanderers could have you thinking this is their headline show. Benji Webbe is a natural frontman but the band behind him also play with a massive self-confidence rattling through re-mixed and re-jigged versions of bouncing tracks like ‘Nobody’ and new single ‘Pressure’ with impressive flair. But that’s what breaking America does to a band.

After that Pitchshifter need to take off like a rocket but to start with the band are sluggish, nervous perhaps, but definitely mired in the awful Astoria sound. It takes almost three songs until a glorious rendition of ‘Eight Days’ clears the cobwebs, hell, it damn near lifts the roof off and from there on it’s business as usual.

The reason the band have hung around so long, the reason demand for them has never really dipped, is made fantastically clear in the songs they play. Running through their truly innovative and hugely varied back catalogue they supply favourites like ‘Microwaved’, ‘We Know’, ‘Hidden Agenda’ and ‘Genius’ alongside a crushing ‘Triad’ and the industrial smash and grab of ‘Virus’. Breakbeats skitter, guitars squeal and grind, bass rumbles, the drums sound fantastic and the show flies by with people singing and dancing (not beating the crap out of each other in the pit) all round the venue. A closing ‘W.Y.S.I.W.Y.G’ sums up the band; fast, loud and eight years after it was recorded, still sounding bloody vital.
There’s the usual showmanship from frontman J.S and whirlwind of headbanging from the rest of the band but where this could’ve been a joke Pitchshifter play tonight free from hyperbole. They don’t turn every song into a ceremony and there are no gimmicks, just another great gig. Hurdle leaped. Now don’t leave it so long next time.

Also appears at New Noise

EMBRACE TODAY- We Are The Enemy

There are so many good points here. Embrace Today’s second album holds 12 short, sharp songs that never outstay their welcome, there’s the ferocious drum-pounding of ‘Sing Me a Lullaby’, the ethereal female backing vocals on ‘Diamonds are Forever’ and the slower intensity of the title track. But, and it’s a big one, this is still generic straight-ahead hardcore. While it’s thankfully not be in any way ‘emo’ it does rant and rage about topics covered a million times over in songs that, if you own anything by Sworn Enemy, Champion, or Bane, will sound awfully familiar. Deathwish may well be a label that doesn’t need great strength in depth to succeed but when it comes to ET and ‘We Are The Enemy’ there just aren’t enough flourishes.

DEATH CAB FOR CUTIE+ John Vanderslice. Oxford Brookes SU, Oxford. 11.03.06

Oxford is about as far as you can get from the OC tonight; there are definitely no palm trees around, everyone's too wrapped up under scarves and gloves to work on their tan and it's bloody freezing. Seth Cohen would probably die instantly. But inside the Brookes University union Death Cab For Cutie only have two kinds of songs, love songs and summer songs- it's with that last kind that they bring California to the UK- great, catchy-as-all-hell, irresistible melodic slices of it. Tracks like 'Marching Bands' and 'Settling' simmer with the kind of heat you only get from sunstroke or a packed out gig.

But they're not the only ones that mess with the musical temperature gauge. On record John Vanderslice is another broken balladeer, moping lonely about suicide and fruitless dreams, but with the aid of a full backing band tonight his songs are transformed. They maintain their indie feeling but become the subtlest of guitar-pop, all breathy harmonies and handclaps, and every clever vocal or keyboard hook acts as the perfect warm-up for Death Cab.

The headliners have been on tour for six weeks now so they could be forgiven for forgetting what home looks like, let alone be able to sing about it, but for many of the collected emo faithful Death Cab are quiet, unassuming heroes and the greeting they get could inspire the dead. The band are on top form too, tight and hard, heavier than on record with frontman Ben Gibbard's voice cutting through the songs rather than floating over them. New single 'Crooked Teeth' gets a huge reaction, suggesting the bands' star is still on the rise, 'New Year' and 'Different Names' are emotional highlights and the seamless swapping of instruments and jokes with the crowd prove there is a sense of humour in there too.

Sometimes the band don't quite click, they've never looked or sounded like they should be playing in rooms this size. They never quite 'rock' either and stick to formula a little too often, including Gibbard's samey tone, which means songs mix into each other, but still there are thrilling highs and chilling lows. When Gibbard returns for an acoustic encore the room is totally silent except for those singing along, and it's moments like that, when the connection between band and audience is strongest, that Death Cab For Cutie make perfect sense.

CAVE IN+ Jacob's Stories. Zodiac, Oxford. 06.03.06

It's difficult to use up all of the English languages' positive adjectives in one review but here goes.

How often does someone chatting over your shoulder ruin a perfectly good gig? Well for Jacob’s Stories it kind of makes sense, if only because they are so fantastically, amazingly brilliant their ethereal and angelic tunes block every other sound out.

Having taken many forms in the past, all revolving around one Stuart Lee, tonight JS are a two person band with Lee's light but utterly captivating vocals augmented by his own beats and synths and accompanying violin player. They craft the stuff of egg-sized goosebumps, the sort of music that allows you to think that everything’s going to be OK. By the middle of their set, no one is talking within 15 miles of the Zodiac. Probably. Inside at least, everyone is listening.

After that, Cave In could have seemed brutish and clumsy. Well, after that, any band could, but although they inhabit the exact opposite end of the volume knob, Stephen Brodsky and company make music that appeals to the heart and the soul and for all the same reasons. Despite their near flawless evolution from hardcore screamers to drone rock balladeers and back again, Cave In remain criminally underrated. However, the chance to catch them and their moving, affecting songs this close up is a rare thing indeed. But rarity, it seems, is to be the norm tonight.

Cave In are ill. Brodsky's voice cracks and squeaks, he coughs his lines and stops to sip lemon juice. It shows but it doesn’t matter. They are a piledriver, a heady rock band but with a coach-sized spirit, a wealth of talent and a veritable treasure chest of songs to choose from. They jam riffs, thinking what they can play that might save some tonsils and they make up the set list as they go, advised by non-stop requests. They pick out gems like 'World Is In Your Way', 'Trepanning', 'Off to Ruin' and 'Dark Driving', songs that other bands would kill for, and toss them out to a steadily more receptive crowd. And when Brodsky’s voice finally blows out on ‘Big Riff’ and he asks Stuart Lee to the front the result is magnetic. Singer-less and sick Cave In are still magnificent

It may sound like clunky, karaoke, Spinal Tap-like hell but this was once in a gig-going lifetime stuff, the sort of thing that will never ever happen again.

Breathtaking. Exceptional. Perfect.

DOOMRIDERS+ November Coming Fire+ Shaped By Fate. Furnace, Swindon. 04.03.06

Self declaring 'the best band in the world', The Doomriders are in fact just plain not very good. What they do have is Nate Newton, and the promise of a member of Converge on show in close quaters like these is always going to sell a few tickets.

But before all that, let's get the quality musicianship out of the way.

After an unenthusiastic review of their debut EP, Shaped By Fate suggested their new material would make me eat my words, well, someone pass the salt. The band have always made a mockery of their recorded output with their live show and if their next release has harnessed the jagged energy flowing through the new songs aired tonight there will be simply no stopping them.

A departing crowd seems to suck the life out of November Coming Fire (but whether they leave to nurse SBF-inflicted pit-wounds or steer clear of the now terribly-unfashionable NCF boys is unclear). A shame because their music, once the stuff of many many other bands, has mutated into, admittedly mostly mosh free, but brilliantly dark riff-led noise. Now more Mastodon than Norma Jean they are infinitely inventive and thrillingly refreshing and therefore go down like a band without a MySpace account.

You can excuse people for walking to the front to take a picture of the Doomriders mainman and then buggering off back to the bar, especially when the band seem so amateur after what's gone before. They start and fuck up and start again but do nothing that you couldn't already find on any Black Sabbath or Misfits album. The thing is, unlike the band before them, Doomriders couldn’t give a shit what Swindon thinks and while they might not play their sludgy skate-punk rock-and-roll note perfect they do it with reckless abandon- an attitude and style that sucks people from the back of the room, throwing their fists and dancing like metalcore never happened.

Apparently there’s nothing like good, but possibly not very clean, fun to make the scene look utterly ridiculous.

VIATROPHY+ No Made Sense+ Outcryfire+ Embalmed Alive. Phatz Bar, Maidenhead. 02.03.06

From the outside in, Maidenhead looks alright. It's green, gracious and not exactly fast-paced but tonight it throws up four bands that seem more than a little pissed-off. What exactly is there to be mad about?

The fact that Embalmed Alive arrive onstage taking longer to introduce their songs than actually play them should only endear them to metal fans everywhere. Theirs is a furious mix of grind, thrash and hardcore that, when they work out how to make a proper show of it, could go down very well indeed on many bigger stages.

Outcryfirestomp and groove like vintage metal should, but quite how five teenagers manage to sound so damn, well… old, is remarkable. Some of their set hammers hard enough to grab the attention but elsewhere they find the gear marked 'plod' all too easily and take just a little too long to get the point of their songs across.

No Made Sense begin as a thrilling prospect but suffer almost the same pacing problems. They've fired their horribly fashionable lead singer and in guitarist Leo have a superstar in the making but the now three-man unit still churn out the same screaming metal without much change in tempo and wading through flowery minutes of widdling guitars and pointless sludge is never fun.

Viatrophy have all the right moves; the players are obviously talented and singer Adam is suitably violent, but their metalcore is equally difficult to enjoy as too often their fantastic, mammoth riffs are interrupted by attempted atmospherics. If they can reign in the desire to make every song a tribute to Unearth, start firing on all their own cylinders and their genre retains its bankable market, they have the ability to turn heads on a national scale.

Local scene shows can only go a few ways, occasionally throwing up real gems but normally producing self-conscious or self-important shit. Tonight fell somewhere in the middle, revealing nothing too special, but proving that there's enough rage, even in a conservative, middle-class commuter town like Maidenhead, to form the odd band, and get a few people to come along to a show or two. Wish you were here?