Review: Bleeding Through - The Great Fire

 Since 1999, Orange County's Bleeding Through have been viewed as one of the original bands to take elements of hardcore punk and play it with a greater heavy metal and death metal influence. Though they themselves despise the term "metalcore" being used towards their name, the influence they've shaped on bands of the genre is undeniable. They're respected enough in the metal and hardcore scenes and have a devoted enough following as a band and clearly have no bitterness in the fact that former guitarist Jona Weinhofen is now gaining major success and popularity now that he's tearing things up in Bring Me the Horizon. Instead, Bleeding Through have continued their mission to musically assault all their listeners on their latest offering, The Great Fire.

 This album sees Bleeding Through returning with their fiery brand of hardcore mixed with their death metal influence and symphonic backdrops giving the band the overall sound of Misfits-meets-Therion-meets-Suffocation delivered with astonishing force and brutality.
 The symphonic backdrops allow tacks like Goodbye to Death and Step Back in Line to gain that extra sense of epic grandness in it's melodic properties paired with it's darker characteristics of doom. Of course the performance of the band always works with this to allow for a relentless hardcore pounding, in the form of constant breakdowns the band provide which succeed in sounding intimate and as intense as they can, causing for a grander flow to take place with the sweeping symphonies. This ideal does allow a greater negative emotional impact to shine through the album but also allows for a more celebratory uplifting sound, namely on Trail of Seclusion. Maybe the band didn't intend for that actually...
 Bleeding Through also unleash their symphonic black metal influence onto this album effectively and tracks like Starving Vultures and Walking Dead have qualities that would be easy to identify on a Cradle of Filth or Dimmu Borgir album.
 More surprisingly alongside this are the more subtle but identifiable poppier techniques that sneak their way onto the album, such as the musical cutting effect heard on guitar parts in Final Hours that shows maybe they have been taking a good look at what their former axe-man's been up to in BMTH as well as the synthesized drum pounding heard at the start of Deaf Ears which only suggest that Bleeding Through are trying to be metalcore's Nine Inch Nails.
 So, The Great Fire pretty much ticks all the boxes for a definitive Bleeding Through. Relentless hardcore assault with death metal influences, dark symphonic backdrops and frantic riff-athons and breakdowns everywhere. Nothing more, nothing less. Understand? Good.

 Bleeding Through's The Great Fire is out now via Rise Records.

Review: Primal Fear - Unbreakable

  It's already been an overall strenuous day for me. Preliminary exams have just started at my school so the past few days have been and will continue to be stressful days filled with endless amounts of studying, with music reviews taking place in between so I have have a short break and not completely lose my mind to constant notes and quotes that I must learn. A lot of people around me are taking a "Fuck it! They're only prelims. They don't count for anything!" approach to the prelims, but I want to make more of an effort. This is supposedly the last year where prelims are going to allowed to be used as an appeal in Scotland in case people mess up really badly in their final exam, so I would quite like to take advantage of that before prelims simply become a way to just scare kids into learning more for the finals. And scare tactics are no way to make kids learn My god, this talk is so Rock N' Roll!!!!
 Anyway, I've come back home following a strenuous Advanced Higher English prelim, so I've been writing furiously about the works of Evelyn Waugh and have had the lovely task of writing a textual analysis on a piece of writing I've never seen before. So now that I'm home, clearly there is no better way for me to relax and unwind than by listening to some German power metal from Primal Fear.

 Primal Fear have had an illustrious history in the pages of European metal. Formed by ex-Gamma Ray vocalist Ralf Scheepers following his failure to replace Rob Halford as Judas Priest frontman in 1997, Scheepers took his influence and vocal talent elsewhere, starting up his own group and succeeding in delivering controversy, extra thrash elements and even a greater appreciation for hooks to the world of German power metal and on ninth album, Unbreakable, it's business as usual.
 Without trying to sound to overwhelmed and fixated, "Epic" is very much a keyword for this album. The grand scale of this album in it's orchestral backdrops and brash array of jagged riff-fests and widdly solos, which is seen from the very beginning with the maelstrom orchestral intro Unbreakable (Part 1) followed by the shredding Strike where the viscous guitar skills of Magnus Karlsson and Alex Beyrodt and the sonic battlecry vocals of Scheepers and bassist Mat Sinner give the song the same amount of power and ferocity as the orchestral opener but with more element on the kick-ass metal rather than the sophisticated classical ideals.
 And this powerful metallic performance is displayed across this album with greater emphasis on crafting an engaging melody and powerful display of hooks across their songs. It's seen in the extreme control that takes place on the atmospherically tragic And There Was Silence even though a powerhouse riff array is in action, as well as in the pouncing hooks that appear on Bad Guys Wear Black.
 But this mixture of melodically crafted songs with power metal, a genre that is characteristically off-the-wall is  nothing to fret about. It actually gives the song a very beautiful nature, seen best in the gripping Where Angels Die, which in it's emotional choruses and epic guitar solos is effortless in leaving a lasting impact.
 This combination of big choruses and supersonic-ally widdly guitar solos is also the perfect recipe for pure ecstasy on Unbreakable, with the intensity and uplifting nature of Unbreakable (Part 2) and Conviction  being a pure rush of power metal reaching new extremities.
  So, Unbreakable is an essential place to look if in search of traditional power metal in this modern day and age. Primal Fear are effective in making an album filled with strong heavy metal that contains strong emotion and a strong sense of passion while managing to serve as an intense rush of widdly guitar work sounding it's most hyper and most European. And it's quite obviously albums like that which are required after a hard day of constant writing for prelims. Maybe now I feel pumped up enough to start studying again.

Primal Fear's Unbreakable is out now via Frontiers Records.

Oh wow, I got over 10,000 pageviews

 In one of the biggest shocks ever, I've turned up unprepared to discover that I have as of today gained over ten thousand pageviews. This is awesome.
 I can't begin to describe how humbled I am to have gained such a massive amount of pageviews over the past few months of blogging and seeing that Ramblings of a Rock fan has now reached the high amount of popularity that the amount of pageviews has reached into the ten-thousands territory is simply astonishing. I remember the giddiness I felt when I reached 1000 views, so this is something else.
 Though I can't be too sure, I've apparently picked up a group of people who have actually come back to read this rather than just visit the site for one review and it's seriously cool and a little frightening to think that people have actually started to care about me as a writer as well as the stuff I have to say. I know that several friends from schools have become frequent readers of ROARF and the positive feedback I've gotten in the past from you guys is overwhelming.
 I've also had the much more awesome experience in blogging of getting to discover lots of new lesser-known bands and there is no feeling more humbling than seeing some of these bands use stuff I've written about them for publicity and getting to see bands like Turbowolf, Steak Number Eight, Prosperina, Amongst Carrion and Shot, Down South doing that has given me lots of pride to know that just maybe I've been doing stuff to help out bands that are truly deserving.
 Anyway, before this gets any more self-congratulatory than it already is, let me once again offer all my thanks to readers who have taken an interest in my thoughts on new music, all my friends who have read my stuff and actually started listening to new music as a result and to all the musicians and other music websites that have promoted my writing in the past. I'm trying to do a course in journalism once I get into university, so this has given me more than enough confidence to pursue this dream.
 Anyway, it's been an awesome ride getting to over 10,000 views and now I'll just have to try and get over 100,000. To celebrate this feat, I guess I'll take a break from studying for prelims for a few minutes and listen to Kyuss.
 Keep on rocking, fellow fans
 Andy

Review: Lacuna Coil - Dark Adrenaline

 The success of Italian gothic-metallers truly peaked in 2009, when they released Shallow Life, an album that got them into the U.S Top 20 Album Charts and sold over 225,000 copies worldwide. However, as the more streamlined and polished production from Don Gilmore (known best for his production work with Linkin Park and Good Charlotte and many more) was a move that gained the group more mainstream popularity and more fans, it inevitably lost them a lot of original fans who despised the slicker sound and greater emphasis on technical effects rather than traditional symphonic. Needless to say the claims that Lacuna Coil had sold out and become Evanescence came thick and fast. So, if you're one of these original fans who despise this new sound, I'd recommend staying away from new album Dark Adrenaline. If you like massive hooks and streamlined songwriting with class, then I'd recommend you stay on track because this album has a lot to offer.

 

 This use of hooks, chugging riffs and icy buzzing synthesizers has an obvious ring of mainstream radio metal-ness about it but Lacuna Coil, armed with their twisted gothic sensibilities and the near perfect vocal duo of Cristina Scabbia and Andrea Ferro use this to an astonishing effect and manage to introduce a few surprises along the way. Anyone who has a similar mindset to myself and heard the album's lead single Trip the Darkness will surely agree.

 Anyway, this mix of gothic drenched brains with meaty streamlined metal is present across the albums and the hefty slabs of riffing found in Against You and The Army Inside (the latter of which contains a spellbinding shredding solo from Cristiano Migliore) contain a powerful atmosphere of darkness and are fueled purely by... adrenaline. And thus the album's music lives up perfectly to it's title. We should see that happen more today. The last Nickelback album could have been called Repetitive Blandness with Embarrassing Lyrics. Anyway, songs like these bring a greater sophistication and passion to this polished metal sound and takes it to a level that Shallow Life could never reach.

  Obviously, as stated earlier the overall sound of the album does feature this more mainstream polish to the dismay of many fans and comparisons Evanescence have become more prominent. While tracks like Upsidedown and Intoxicated do contain a reminiscence to Amy Lee and crew, there is a much greater class and a lesser sense of whining provided by Lacuna Coil and the greater bursts of vocal energy from Scabbia and  Ferro allow these songs to carry their own avid personality. To contrast from this, the epic closer of My Spirit, with it's more doom-laden and bleaker atmosphere crafted by it's slow rhythms have a much greater reminiscence to the group's earlier work, which is surely a hopeful sign for some long-time fans.

 If the album has any weak spots, it is of course in the cover of R.E.M's Losing My Religion, the only really memorable song from 1991s Out of Time. Lacuna Coil's cover is a sloppy attempt to just recreate the original but the verse sections are very much slipped up on. The only saving grace of the song is the powerful performance from Ferro, Cristiano Migliore and Marco Biazzi during the choral "I though that I heard you laughing/ I thought that I heard you sing" sections. Other than that little is done to make it their own so it pales in comparison to the original.

 Apart from that, there's a lot to be found on Dark Adrenaline if you want to see a touch of cold gothic charm brought to a musical style that constantly carries the danger of sounding too repetitive with it. It's infectiously hooky but also allows for some seriously dark and gripping moments amongst this. It may take some time for die-hard fans of the bands older material to warm to this but if any album is going to unite fans old and new, this is going to do a much better job than Shallow Life.

 Lacuna Coil's Dark Adrenaline is out now via Century Media.

Review: Biohazard - Reborn in Defiance

 When we really consider their career in music, it's safe to say that Biohazard have never really gotten anywhere. In their heyday of the early 1990's, their mix of rap and heavy metal which formed the rapcore genre annoyed more people than it inspired and their streetwise sound was never really taken by anyone in an influential manner, with the subsequent rise of nu metal bands looking at Pantera, Sepultura and Korn for inspiration instead. However, the group have seen themselves gain an considerably large-sized following and when the original line-up reunited in 2008, the fans were delighted and eagerly awaited a new release, thus four years later, Reborn in Defiance gives the rapcore fans exactly what they want in astonishing form.

 

 Reborn in Defiance reveals Biohazard keeping up with what has made them so awesome in the first place, as the danceable rhythms of  Vengeance is Mine and chugging riffs that make up Reborn are played in a way that carries a streetwise groove and atmosphere of misery and unrefined anger. However, there's also evidence that the band have worked on this style and have really managed to sharpen it up.

 The group have also managed to perfect their music with a greater emotional atmosphere in their sound with the genuinely bleak feel that surrounds Killing Me and the sense of joy that is found as it can clearly be identified in his words that frontman Evan Seinfeld that he is fighting against this bleakness rather than dwelling in it. ("I gotta take myself away/ I gotta break myself away/ Fuck you and your disease/ It's killing me") The atmosphere of following track Countdown Doom has a much more wonderful victorious atmosphere with a very genuine fighting back message. ("They are the problem, we are the solution")

 It's also cool to see that a lot of the more rap-based moments of Biohazard's music have been sharpened up as well with Vows of Redemption and You Were Wrong creating ambient and clear backdrops to put more emphasis on the rapping, with choruses filled with crunching riffs to create an equal balance. Actually that description makes me think of Linkin Park's music, so imagine my description, but rougher and more awesome and that's what these tracks are similar to. The delicate ambient backdrop is also present in the melancholic closer Season the Sky and to great effect.

 Reborn in Defiance then, shows Biohazard making their finest and most definitive sound of their career and shows their comeback to be a triumphant and devastating one. At least it would be if it hadn't been for the fact that Evan Seinfeld has announced he will soon depart from the group once more to put more focus on his career in the porn industry. So it may be a while until we here any more pure and genuine rapcore music again.

 Biohazard's Reborn in Defiance is out now via Nuclear Blast. The band will tour the UK from January-February with Heights, Lionheart and Dripback.

Review: Abigail Williams - Becoming

 This has got to be the only band that I did not find out about through my love of similar bands. Instead I discovered the Los Angeles based trio through my love of the works of Arthur Miller and while searching for inspiration for an essay that I had to write about the character from The Crucible, whose main character traits were her powerful, manipulative personality and her extreme passion, which revealed her to have a rather monstrous personality, I came across a band with the exact same name and they were powerful, played with an extreme passion and had a sound that was monstrous in it's heaviness and overwhelming sense of gloom. Most importantly having gotten into them means that taking Higher Drama in my fifth year of school has actually paid off.

 The group's third album Becoming sees the group continue to focus on creating a more traditional style of black metal and moving away further from the symphonic black metal and metalcore influence of 2008's The Light of a Thousand Suns and instead giving listeners a far more recognizable outlook of utter doom and despair.
 The rough and rustic production of lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist Ken Sorceron makes gives Becoming a much more genuine unforgiving listening experience and as Ascension Sickness gently lures listeners in with it's peaceful intergiung acoustic led intro and even managable buildup of drums from Zach Gibson until Sorceron's subsequent riff-athon with it's constant exchanges between light and heavy or gleefully fast and painfully slow maintain this rough and rollicking experience that this album is.
 Througout the album this sense of doom and despair and general evil is kept up by Sorceron's punishing demonic growling, which sound like the groans of the devil waking up on a bad day with a headache. The anger, misery and overwhelming evil they contain are very real and unescapeable.
 An influence from black and doom metal acts is ever present on Becoming, whitht he exchanges between rapid-fire and monstrously slow carries the image of the band juggling Bathory and My Dying Bride records together and influence emerging as a result. Plus a very unmistakeable Metallica reference is heard every now and again, such as in Elestial which carries the same grimnesss and lead guitar techniques as Welcome Home (Sanitarium).
 Though not as present as on their debut, symphonic moments do make various appearances on this album and when they do, know that there is no way your life can get any bleaker. Even if your own younger sibling spontaneously combusted in front of your eyes at that moment, the music would still be the main cause for feeling depressed. The addition of instruments like violins and cellos on this album drags listeners down a new realm of gloom as the slabs of heavy ryuthyms become that bit more monolithic and chilling.
 So, if looking for a good portion of blackened doom metal, Becoming may leave you a bit full at times, but the group really have gone the extra mile here to unleash a new force of power and total devastation. I'd recommend this album but a severe downer will be required if you have any hope of getting properly into it.

Abigail Williams' Becoming is out now via Candlelight Records.

Review: Alcest - Les Voyages de l'Âme

 Since it's inception back in 2000, the musical project that is Alcest have succeeded in entrancing all listeners with their dreamy metallic charm, mixing the darkest of black metal styles with the otherworldly shoegaze styles of My Bloody Valentine. It's relentless sense of grace and wonder that makes up the fantastical musical mind of frontman Neige one of the greatest musicians to prove that heavy metal can in fact serve as a true piece of art. If you want to see if such a statement is true or not, look no further than their third album, Les Voyages de l'Âme.

 This awe-inspiring beauty is found right from the opening of Autre Temps as the lone guitar picking and gloomy backing vocals really conveys a sense of solidarity and melancholy before kicking into heavier riff based territory, which in it's dreamy flowing structure inspired by more-shoegaze based artist has the kind of etheral charm and beauty that makes Opeth look like Cattle Decapitation.

 And this ideal is prominent across Les Voyages de l'Âme with each track reaching a new era of beauty and artistic credibility, as the atmosphere of Là où Naissent les Couleurs Nouvelles present an atmosphere of anger and vulnerability with the results of listening being generally tear-jerking, similar to the hypnotic shoegaze guitar solo found in the album's title track.

 These dreamy soundscapes and metallic poundings also serve as a blazing force of warmth and positivity within the album with the rapid extreme metal riffing mixed with the indescribably beautiful backing vocals of Beings of Light being the happiest sounding piece of metal that has been heard in a long time along with the scorchingly sunny Summer's Joy, whilst the relentlessly victorious characteristic of Faiseurs de Mondes is guaranteed to lift the spirit of any listener and allow them to raise their head high into a sky of sweeping shoegaze.

 I honesty, it's difficult to reflect on why this album is so fantastic. Such etheral beauty and wonder is very difficult to describe in words, and I just know that that's the exact goal that Neige and Winterhalter are aiming for, in which case all that's left to say is... well done. You've achieved your goal. This album is an absolute masterpiece.

 Alcest's Les Voyages de l'Âme is out now via Prophecy Productions. The band will tour the UK in February with Les Discrets and Solor Dolorosa.

Review: Blessed By a Broken Heart - Feel the Power

 For what little people actually took the time to check the group out, the basic effect that Montreal quintet Blessed By a Broken Heart had was that they pretty much failed to impress and succeeded to annoy all those who listened to them when they started out. This is pretty understandable. Their mixture of weak metalcore breakdowns and dated sounding pop rock techniques left little of a lasting impression and they made themselves look like idiots in the process of making this music. This statement would be much more credible if I didn't enjoy Escape the Fate, Falling In Reverse and Black Veil Brides (Sorry people who lurk across comment boards throughout the internet.) but at least they managed to really have fun with their music and play with some strength. Blessed By a Broken Heart are just so, perfectly lame in their musical delivery and lyrical message and third album Feel the Power proves this without any great difficulty.

 So the general style of BBABH is a style that I do enjoy, but BBABH is not the band to hear it being executed well. The general reason for this is the same reason why Dragonforce will never gain any respect from true power metal enthusiasts. Their sound is ultimately too refined. When hearing Sam Ryder and Shred Sean creating breakdowns on Deathwish, it is a very light display of guitar  playing tat carries none of the depth that a good breakdown should offer. Even the album's best song Love Nightmare has the qualities of a watered down version of Atreyu's Bleeding Mascara.
 With the exception of that, Feel the Power is simply a minefield of cock-rock clichés that were wiped out after Nirvana got big. Throughout the albums tracks like Deathwish and Forever mix these weak thrash riffs and lead guitar shredding with the kind of thumping synth backdrops that I'd only enjoy hearing on a Children of Bodom album, while the attempts of making power metal on Shut Up and Rock and Holdin' Back for Nothin' with rapid riffs and packing the songs with bloated synthesizers and gang vocals which sound like they're being whispered make these songs sound like the most crafted-for-children metal songs I've ever heard since hearing some of the songs from The Thunderlords' Noisy Songs for Noisy Kids. (an album that features such classics as I Like Dirt and Old Man Olaf, which is basically a metal rendition of Old MacDonald's Farm. God, I'd rather be listening to that.)
 But when they're not trying to be Def Leppard with breakdowns, or in the case of worst song of 2012 so far, Rockin' All Night, just be Def Leppard full stop, BBABH try some other musical ventures such as the "charming" ballad I've Got You, which is extremely bland and soulless and sounds like it was written by Stock Aitken Waterman or... whoever writes songs for Westlife. Sometimes the group try and up their metallic credentials and at various points of Scream It Like You Mean It, they sound like they're trying to be Bury Your Dead. But they are seriously not Bury Your Dead and the subsequent onslaught of synth drums proves this.
 So, this album is a letdown in every sense. I have managed to enjoy various bands who have taken glam rock and done something more extreme with it over the past few years, but BBABH are not a band who have the capabilities to be extreme in any sense. If you want something like this, then I would to look to the three bands mentioned in the intro Escape the Fate, Falling In Reverse and Black Veil Brides or even look to the more tongue-in-cheek Steel Panther or of course just listen to more Def Leppard and Mötley Crüe. There is no real point in having Blessed By a Broken around. Their music is dated and irrelevant, there's little maturity in their music but there's also little fun to be had either. Basically this band have once again proved themselves to be as annoying and unnecessary as ever.


Blessed By a Broken Heart's Feel the Power is out now via Tooth & Nail Records. 

Review: Pulled Apart By Horses - Tough Love

 The first time I read about Leeds' Pulled Apart By Horses, the feature was being rather dismissive simply referring to them as a Biffy Clyro clone. At least I think they did. I've been getting Pulled Apart by Horses and Band of Horses mixed up and then Band of Skulls comes into the equation and mixes things up further. Now I'm confused and I'm already ill. Really I'm in no position to write at all.
 Anyway, listening to Pulled Apart By Horses' self-titled-debut showed there to be some similarities between them and the Kilmarnock trio, with the loose wildness of the album sounding closer to the weird and experimental post-hardcore sounds that made up some of Biffy's earlier work. Second album Tough Love keeps up the hardcore antics but is now fueled with a greater drive and a greater sense of very pure classic rock and roll.

 The heavy aqnd melodic guitar riffing of Tom Hudson and James Brown mixed with the wild unrefined screamingof Hudson throughout the album brings back warm memories of Queens of the Stone Age at their best when Josh Homme and Nick Oliveri worked well together. It makes tracks like V.E.N.O.M and Wildfire, Smoke and Doom alive in their sense of exhileration and deranged ecstacy.
 This wild rock and roll velocity is present across the album but it's delivered in two main differing manners. One is in the group's talent for making ferocious post hardcore punk songs, where the rapid-fire spiked riffing that makes up Some Mothers and Bromance Ain't Dead show the bands more active intense side off, while the more traditionally crafted hard rock that makes up Give Me a Reason and Degeneration show a more laid-back yet equally as direct element to their music.
 However, no matter what style the music is presented in, it's sound has the capability to hit listeners hard with every new song. The production throughout is anything but slick so, a sense of vigour plated in barbed wire emerges with every power chord. But classy production isn't required here. Brown's guitar licks on the part upbeat part chilling closer Everything Dipped in Gold and the atmosphere of evil that is effortlessly packed in Epic Myth with it's cool light-heavy chorus exchange is proof that Pulled Apart By Horses have the capabilities of creating an overwelming class and style through their performance alone.
 Essentiallyon this album, Pulled Apart By Horses prove on Tough Love that they are the number one drop off for people who are seeking the sound of classic rock and roll that has an extra spark and kick to it in it's extra heaviness and hardcore influence and in times of sickness, there's nothing better than relaxing to some in-your-face, loose and frantic post-harcore music with a rough soul. Actually, that kind of music is brilliant however you're feeling.

 Pulled Apart By Horses' Tough Love is out now via Transgressive Records. The band will tour the UK with The Computers.

Review: Lamb of God - Resolution

 We live in a world where the king of all metal styles is bold, in-your-face, rhythmic groove metal and in this world, the king of this style is Virginia's Lamb of God, who in their eighteen year musical career have delivered the kind of aggressive, rough and simply directly furious and pounding American heavy metal sound that all metal fans have been craving ever since. And that is something I am just fine with. Needless to say, this anger and passion is still very much prevalent in the band if seventh album Resolution is anything to go by.

 One of the most important things we will learn from this album is that anger and aggression are clearly human emotions that may never take a break because straight from opening intro track Straight For the Sun with it's dwindling doom-ish structure and the subsequent first proper song Desolation with it's violent thrashy shredding from Willie Adler are effortless in serving listeners a constant characteristic of very pure and unrefined rage. The deep and deathly screeching of Randy Blythe says it all. And of course Blythe's lyrics condemning liars, cheats and those with personalities spiteful. It's seen on The Number Six, where Blythe calls out:

 "You've dug your own grave with your spite/ You've dug your own grave lie by lie/ A cancer that needs to be cut out/ Sweet slander the razor to your throat/ Trim the fat"

 Of course, it goes without saying that such brutal and violent lyrics are nothing without a musical backdrop to go with it and Lamb of God are just the band to provide an excellent soundtrack to such aggression. The Number Six in particular has an excellent performance, being full on the kind of pounding in depth pounding breakdowns that made it's way onto 2006's Sacrament but without the kind of glossy sheen that messed up the band's reputation for a while. However, the sound of 2009's Wrath and 2004's Ashes of the Wake is much more present here, with Blythe's more melodic screeching being present on tracks like Invictus and To the End. While tracks like Invictus and Terminally Unique deliver Lamb of God's breakdown filled metalcore element, it's tracks like Guilty and The Undertow which instead present listeners with a more intense and sterile thrash metal section, where the rapid axe shredding of Willie Adler and Mark Morton contains the power to blow listeners away. Of course all songs here have the power to make listeners want to smash their heads off other people's faces and thus breaking them.

 So, needless to say, Resolution is classic Lamb of God. Brash, aggressive, pounding, take-no-prisoners heavy metal. While there's little variation on this, it's difficult to imagine any fan who would want anything more than that. However, if you are looking for something different from the band, listening to this album in it's entirety is worth it alone to hear the album's closer King Me.

 With it's acoustic, spoken sections and it's monolithic riff-fest backed up by a strings section and opera singer, King Me is Lamb of God's most atmospheric song and beautiful song and simply it is epic beyond belief.

 So, now that Lamb of God have a definitive sound, Resolution is a perfect chance for the group to demonstrate it to a kind of depth and brutality like never before, which shows a real mix that of all that has made them so great over their vast career. This is the first metal album of 2012 I've listened to and it has the serious potential to be the best.

Lamb of God's Resolution is out now via Roadrunner. The band will perform at the Download Festival at Donnington Park on the 11th of June.

Review: Secrets - The Ascent

 Before we start things off, I would like to congratulate the people at Wikipedia and several other web companies for their succesful 24 hour blackout yesterday in protest of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Protect IP Act. (PIPA) It was a very respectable act to take part in that conveyed the harrowing effect that the passing of these acts would have on the internet. The people in Congress who have created this act are more like the kind of people who should be taught how to use the internet, never mind try to control it, and they seem completely oblivious to the fact that their actions would result in the loss of thousands of jobs, would have a devastating effect on any underground act or independent game developer or various other wonderful people from getting their products or music spread to the masses and would reduce our widespread access to the knowledge of the world, something that Wikipedia managed to display yesterday. A lot of people I knew were whining about it, going "Meh, why are Wikipedia being stupid and doing this blackout?" But I was more respectful. Everyone should have been more understanding of the cause and be more grateful it's just happened for one day. It could be blacked out forever. Of course, I at Ramblings of a Rock fan am worried about the effects of the act as well. Blogger definitely runs the risk of being terminated and if I'm honest having all my reviews and writings go to waste just like that is somewhat frustrating.
 Everyone around me has been saying that the acts will never be passed. The mass petitions signed against it will cause Congress to change their minds and President Obama is otherwise likely to veto both of them and that gives me a little bit of faith. But if SOPA and PIPA were to be passed, well I'm pretty much screwed and if you're an avid enough internet user to be reading blogs, chances are part of your life will be too.

 Anyways, on to the music, as today I've been checking out Secrets, one of the many acts in the brimming world of hardcore/poppy-electronic bands from Rise Records. Their debut album The Ascent is a promising effort, proving them to be a cut above the rest of their peers (Although when one of your peers are Attack Attack!, that's not a particularly difficult task.) with a much clearer and streamlined edge to their music. Also, being produced by former A Day To Remember guitarist Tom Denney, the album also features a lot of moments that make them sound... exactly the same as A Day To Remember. There are a lot of highlights to be found.

 So while tracks like Melodies and The Best You Can't Be with their irresistibly hooky and adrenaline packed arrangements of jagged pop punk riffing does make ADTR comparisons unavoidable, there is plenty on this album that gives Secrets their own sense of malicious character.
 The identifiable sense of frustration and bile juxtaposed from the soaring emo-tinged choruses in the vocals of frontman Xander Bourgeois and guitarist Richard Rogers gives each song a sense of icy deadliness as their songs of hatred, being broken and their desire for that bitch to shut the fuck up are really brought to life by the crashing post-hardcore performance from Rogers, Micheal Sherman, also axe-wielding, Mark Koch on bass and Joe English on drums.
 This is seen in the juddering breakdowns that make up The Heartless Part and Blindside and it can also be identified in the hook filled slabs of metallic pounding that often forms the choruses best demonstrated in the fun and warmer 40 Below and You Look Good In Plastic. The slick and glossy production from Denney is effective in keeping a sense of sweetness and emo-influenced grace within the music which gives Secrets that bit more of a sense of civility in their sound.
 This sense of overriding slickness mixed with the pounding and ferocious nature of the music makes The Ascent an overall dynamic and captivating listen throughout from Secrets. The group's mixture of metalcore and more electronic poppy effects is one that is executed with more perfection and skill than various peers of theirs. The whole metalcore/mainstream pop sound mixture is a musical scene that is now very much bursting at it's seams filled with bands that are either hit or miss. On this album, Secrets prove themselves to be a band of the hit variety.

Secrets' The Ascent is out now via Rise Records.

Review: Attack Attack! - This Means War

 In the past, it hasn't been easy to speak of Ohio metalcore quartet Attack Attack! in a positive manner. Their apparently genius idea of combining (often-repetitive) breakdown filled metalcore with electronica elements including whiny synthesizers, ridiculous amounts of auto-tune in the vocals of Caleb Shomo and their "totally unique" performing which consists firstly of bouncing around aimlessly as though one is on a pogo stick during the verses and for breakdowns, the now iconic "crabcore" move which involves crouching down into a position akin to doing the splits and thus, looking like a crab whilst playing. Naturally the only positive reaction they seem to have found are from people who assume they are a joke and enjoy their music in the same way that someone may enjoy Tommy Wiseau's directorial debut (and only film) The Room. I know, I may seem a bit hypocritical since I like a bit of Asking Alexandria, Sleeping With Sirens and Woe Is Me every now and then, but Attack Attack! have taken things too far in the past and have a style that is just ridiculous.

 So with all this slander in mind and a preparation to put a negative review out there, I have instead found myself getting seriously into their third offering, This Means War. This album is very much a big step up for the band, which sees their sense of maturity, definition and overall heaviness increased to the max. With my rant on the previous paragraph in mind, the thing that makes This Means War more enjoyable is purely in the fact that the poppier elements are very much kept to a minimum. That's not to say they're not around. There are plenty of obligatory vocal-cutting sections and plenty of synthesizer backdrops to complete the songs, but they don't cause any real sense of botheration as they previously may have.

 Instead the metalcore and occasional groove metal element of their music is focused on in much greater depth with the force that the groups juddering breakdowns are delivered with greatly increased and intensified. Tracks like The Hopeless and The Confrontation are played with riffs that have the steel-plated force of Bury Your Dead and the pulsing breakdowns of The Betrayal are actually those that you wouldn't be embarrassed to be seen headbanging to.

 Even the poppier elements the band has on offer also manage to be enjoyable. The massive hooks that appear in the chorus of The Revolution and The Motivation (Seriously, what is with the series of titles beginning with "The"? Seems like the just copied the idea from Memphis May Fire's The Hollow.) manage to give the songs a greater sense of catchiness and a captivating punk fury that which the band is clearly desiring to make, even the use of auto-tune doesn't annoy in these songs. It's actually quite refreshing in it's contrast from the harsh higher pitched growls, which are effective in capturing the message of anger this album is wishing to convey. Even the electronic moments manage to be pretty cool. The synthesizer backdrops in The Betrayal and the minor dubstep arrangements of The Reality and The Confrontation are quite cool and convey an atmosphere of emotion and madness.

 However, there is room for improvement on this album. The previous criticism of the band sounding repetitive is very much prominent across this album and soon the constant repetitive breakdowns do get a bit wearing out after a while. It's what makes the poppy choruses so refreshing. Just hearing something that isn't a repeated chord pattern. The lyrical theme that the album carries of speaking from the point of view of a soldier in the war is also one that doesn't really manage to stay interesting, as they seem to spread the same ideas across each song. "Oh, Soldiers don't get enough respect, people died and we fought for you." The album is basically that repeated ten times. Not that I'm saying it's an irrelevant issue, before people start complaining, I just don't need to hear it over and over again.

 So, on the whole, while the group could do with diversifying their sound and lyrical themes a little more, there is a lot of potential and enjoyable moments across this album. It really shows that Attack Attack! are capable of making an album that doesn't cause them to get totally despised while keeping to their conventional sound. This album is a serious improvement for this band and proves that this band could potentially be... (gulps) good!

 Attack Attack!'s This Means War is out now via Rise Records. The band will tour the UK In January with The Ghost Inside, Sleeping With Sirens, Chunk? No, Captain Chunk! and Dream On, Dreamer.

Review: Tribes - Baby

 The rise of Camdem's Tribes is an innocent enough story just as the rise of any of their indie rock peers. Release a debut EP, have a single which is then obsessed over by Radio 1's Zane Lowe, play a bunch of festivals and support bigger indie bands. And now comes the time for their debut full length Baby to be released. And the ultimate response to this is to state that the album is good, but it's hard to find anything about it that truly makes it stand out.

 Not that I want to dismiss this album entirely, because the good moments do come thick and fast and it will be difficult for any listener to not find themselves headbanging or tapping their feet in anyway to the irresistibly poppy hooks that manage to create Whenever and We Were Children.  The entire album is effective in seeing Johnny Lloyd, Dan White, Miguel Demelo and Jim Cratchely all rhythmically managing to capture the dwindling and distortion fueled sound coupled with the sophisticatedly produced and more tranquil verses that made all alt rock fans fall in love with Pixies, demonstrated best in tracks like Himalaya, Nightdriving and Halfway Home, a song that sees this wall of beauty and distortion being built up from an atmospherically chilling serene opening before transforming itself into a warm heaven of indie riffing and fuzz.
 Moments like these also reveal an influence from Nirvana in their final stages when the raw frenzied alt rock riffs are considered. However, these harder hitting moments are more effective in conveying a sense of warmth within the album.
 Though, no matter what emotional state the group wish to create, the delicate vocals of Lloyd always manage to be fitting, as they manage to convey an melancholic atmosphere that shapes Alone Or With Friends so successfully, or more uplifting vocals which suit Walking In the Street much better, that song being the album's poppiest and most-radio friendly song, which still manages to be cool, due to the insanely catchy drumming from Demelo.
 So, while Baby is by all means a great album to listen to, with an extraordinary talent put into each song, which all succeed in being hook filled, chilled out indie rock tunes, listeners may be left wondering if they've heard anything that can be seen as groundbreaking and not having been done millions of times before and the answer is quite clearly, no. It's hard to think of anything on this album that couldn't be found on Pixies' Surfer Rosa, Nirvana's In Utero and perhaps Radiohead's Pablo Honey being done better. Still, this is no means to reject this band at all. As we continue to have new hit-and-miss mainstream indie rock surround us with every month, Tribes is definitely a band that are of the hit selection for now, and could seriously go on to turn that hit into a serious punch to pack.

Tribes' Baby is out now via Universal Island Records. The band will tour the UK in February as part of the NME Awards Tour 2012 with Two Door Cinema Club, Metronomy and Azealia Banks.

Keep it tight... and intricate!

 So the news that post-harcore heroes At the Drive-In and Refused are reforming and playing at the Coachella festival in California may be old news now, but I finally took it on myself to listen in full to both band's major albums Relationship of Command and The Shape of Punk to Come. Having already coe to love this style of music from the second I finished listening to Refused's New Noise in full, to hear these albums in full was a array of pure raw rock and roll insanity. The frenzied hardcore riffing of Jim Ward, Omar Rodríguez-López, Kristofer Steen and Jon Brännström are some of the wildest and most gripping pieces of guitar work in this modern age of music.

 As I got into these albums, I found out that I wasn't the only one who knew-about-the-bands-but-hadn't-heard-them-extensively-before-but-decided-to-so-I-could-get-to-know-them-a-little-better-following-the-widely-celebrated-announcement-of-their-runions. Realtionship of Command and The Shape of Punk to Come were also recently new listening experience to UltimateGuitar.com blogger Zach Pino. (By the way, I've always wondered if Zach has ever read any of my stuff before. We're friends on Facebook and follow each other on Twitter but he lives across the pond so we've never really chatted much. Either way, Zach, if you've ever read this blog which pales in comparison to It's The End Of The Week As We Know It, well... I'm honoured.) Anyways, Pino repoted on this weeks It's The End Of The Week As We Know It that he finally got to listen to these albums and also took great joy from these albums. (I also know this because he on Facebook he liked the message that I was listening to Refused on Spotify. Sorry, that's a weird thing to announce. I suppose in the world of bloggers, having that happen would be like getting kissed by your favourite actor or something. Anyways, I really need to stay on topic.) While reading the article, there was a point made that really made me think about metal and the styles in which it is most celebrated. It's when I saw that Pino had written this:
 "There’s something about the rawness of the music that’s inspiring and exciting, and although I’m traditionally a metalhead who usually gravitates toward tight and precise guitar riffs, I’m digging the looseness, heaviness and intensity of these two bands."

 Upon reading this I realised that there is very much some truth in this. When examioning the favourite groups of full-on metalheads, it is bands who generally have a very tight and intricate sound in their riffing and rhythms. This description could be used to describe bands like Machine Head, Lamb of God and DevilDriver, three bands who recieve overwhelming respectability to the world of modern metal and of course the one band that was a predecessor to all of these groups, Pantera. On it's 1990 release, Pantera's Cowboys From Hell changed the rules of metal and gave birth for a new genre known as "groove metal". All groove metal bands would adopt the mind-blowing combination of pounding heavy metal with the pulsing and more danceable rhythms more typical of funk and hip-hop music that featured across Cowboys From Hell and take it and transform it in their own twisted manners to give it their own sense of extremity, be it in Lamb of God mariage of the style with the kind of furious jagged riffing more characteristic of thrash metal or Sepultura's combination of the style with death metal which characterized their 1993 release Chaos A.D..

 However, in this modern age of metal, the band that has really gained the most respect when playing with such a tight, intricate and perfect flowing combination of furious crushing heavy metal and bouncy, moveable rhythms is without any doubt Machine Head. Also being blessed with the ability to give this music the greatest emotional impact that any of their other peers, Machine Head have released seven albums that have all been packed to the brim with what is heavy metal perfection and I can't be the only one who thinks this way.

 So when considering the fact that full-on metal fans like their music to have this intricate and tight sound where the pounding riffs flow together natrually, it really explains why most of them started to hate Metallica with everything released after and including the Black Album. While songs on the Black Album such as Holier Than Thou and The Struggle Within proved that Metallica were still capable of making fast paced adrenaline fueled thrash metal songs , this was no longer the main priority of the band and instead, monolithic slabs of riffing took centrefold on songs like Sad But True and Don't Tread On Me. This departure of intense thrash metal that so many loved is also the ultimate reason as to why 2003's St Anger is despised by everyone. Because it was the exact opposite of tight, precise and intricate. Listening to it there seems to be a greater influence from bands like At the Drive-In and Refused in it's sense of looseness and uncontrollability.
 So ultimately, what I guess I've proven is that in with it's sense of perfection, rhythmic neatness, and structured flowing pattern, it is the groove metal genre that is most widely cleabrated modern style by genuine metalheads. The people who celebrate groove metal do then seem to be the same people who are critical of the metalcore genre which sees the metallic element released in a slower and more dense form in it's array of insane breakdowns. This genre and all it's descendants. (deathcore, mathcore, synthcore, Nintendocore) This isn't really relevant to anything but I hope it's filled you with some knowledge and made your day.

Review: Enter Shikari - A Flash Flood of Colour

 After the politically charged hardcore assault of 2009's Common Dreads, it's quite clear that Enter Shikari had found themselves to be the UK's answer to Rage Against the Machine in their spreading of political and social concern to the masses. Although generations of punk acts like the Sex Pistols and The Clash stood before them in using music to talk of crisis and turmoil taking place on these shores, Enter Shikari revolutionized  hardcore music, with their hyper combinations of hardcore, trance and occasional dubstep combination, which came into full effect to make the music itself every bit as engaging as the band's message, similar to RATM's rap and metal combination which would then give birth to the ill-fated nu metal genre. In between the recording of Common Dreads and 2012's offering A Flash Flood of Colour, the UK's political and social state has continued to fall apart with uncontrollable rioting, spending cuts and materialism, drawing our homeland closer into the jaws of oblivion and total breakdown of society than ever before. A Flash Flood of Colour could not be more relevant and forceful.

 

Enter Shikari manage to face all the troubles of society, the oppressive government, the devastation of war and the destruction of the environment and natural resources head on throughout A Flash Flood of Colour and there's no way of softening their message at any point as the trouble's of our world and future our delivered directly and harshly, right from the album intro System... in which frontman Rou Reynolds tells us:

 "So this is an exciting time to be alive/ Our generation's gotta fight, to survive/ It's in your hand's now there's no time."

 The group's harsh delivery is also delivered effortlessly to our cannibalistic desires for oils and it's devastating environmental effect in Arguing With Thermometers with the wonderful and guilt inducing set of lines:

 "You know there's oil in the ice!/ You know there's oil in my eyes!/ You know there's blood on my hands!/ Yeah! We're all addicted!/ Yeah! We're all dependent!"

 The most furious moments of the album lyrically are found in the near psychotic ranting from Reynolds regarding... everything in Gandhi Mate, Gandhi. His sense of anger and bile in this song is really emphasized when the rest of the band stop playing to calm him down to stop him from truly kicking off, with the piece of advice: "Gandhi mate, remember Gandhi."

 However, the album's lyrical content does not simply concern itself with creating absolute doom and despair. Songs like Sssnakepit and Pack of Thieves carry with them an uplifting message of unity and fighting back the latter proudly proclaiming:

 "Don't be fooled into thinking that a small group of friends/ Cannot change the world."

 Some of the best set of lyrics are the emotional and joyful lyrics to the album's closer Constellations, the album's most delicate and uplifting song, which hopefully brings tears to the strongest of listeners with the wonderful lines:

 "'As the train bound for disaster chokes up up to the station/ I don't board it cause I decide it's the wrong destination/ But the train bound for sustainability is nowhere to be seen' 'And then I realise that/ We need to use our own two feet to walk these tracks/ We have to spread out and we have to watch each other's backs'"

 Well, moments like that certainly brought out the emotional and lyrically entranced softy in me. The lyrics for Constellations have the power to inspire a generation.

 So while the lyrics play a major role in this album, if you're here for the music, you will not be let down either. The entire album sees monolithic hardcore riffs and brutal metalcore breakdowns intertwine with rapid trance beats and pulsing dubstep breakdowns, all of which carry a genuineness to the actual dance genres rather than feeling like an add-on to the metallic elements. This all comes to astonishing effect with the central instrumental bridge of Search Party containing a reminiscence to Slipknot at their best and the synthesizers and intricate guitar work of Stalemate revealing a new sense of ethereal beauty to Enter Shikari's music.

 So on the whole, A Flash Flood of Colour is an album of complete mayhem and intensity with a real intelligence and a pulsing hear and soul. The band battles the future and this album is a clear sign that they could be the ones to save it, as their message is one that has the potential to bring down government, inspire a generation of hardcore rebels with a genuine cause to fight against, start a new revolution and... save the world.

Enter Shikari's A Flash Flood of Colour will be released on January 16th via Ambush Reality. The band will tour the UK in March with Young Guns.

 

Are record stores really doomed?

 I've been thinking a lot recently about a recent comment made by The Maccabees (who are doing very well for themselves right now, with the dreamy Given to the Wild earning them their first UK number 1 album) in an exclusive interview they took part in for NME.com. In the interview, guitarist Felix White and drummer Sam Doyle talk about the major decline high street retailer HMV experienced late last year, following "dissapointing" sales over the Christmas period, which saw an 8.1% decrease in sales across the 252 stores across the nation in comparison to the same period in 2010 and half-year losses of £36.4 million. In the interview, White spoke of the major chain store in a reflective manner, stating:
 "I've definitely bought a lot of albums from HMV and record shops in general. I think we're the last [generation] who would feel sentimentally towards that era but I would hugely miss record shops. That's still how I get music."
 And I do agree with what White has to say. The only generation of people who still have any care for record shops are people of the age range of The Maccabees and perhaps those at a younger age who have a greater passion for music and owning it... such as myself. I love nothing more than a timeless browse through shops like HMV and I've definately picked up some brilliant CDs in that shops and made effective use of the 2 CDs for £10 deal. It's where I've bought all my Metallica CDs, whre I bought the first three CDs that took me in the direction of listening to heavier music, Marilyn Manson's Mechanical Animals, Slipknot's self-titled debut and Avenged Sevenfold's City of Evil. Some of the best albums I own all come from there. However, as a fan of rock and metal music with an obession of buying full albums, there is no better place to spend time than browsing through a record shop, whilst everyone around me with their obsession with whatever single is lurking in the charts simply buys the one song from iTunes.
 I've goten used to this. Everyone around me has done it. Most iPod's I look through will simply contain one song from an album that I know and love all the way through. (The amount of times I've seen someone to have The Number of the Beast by Iron Maiden and then turn out to only possess Run to the Hills is unbelievable. Seriously, they will never get a chance to experience Hallowed Be Thy Name? It is sad.) This trend is something I've come to accept over time and it's unlikely to change any time soon. Now, I'm not going to bastardize the iTunes store in any way. It's got to be the finest creation that Steve Jobs came up with during the Apple technoligical revolution in the early 2000's the one creation that never goes out of date or can be replaced by a newer model. It's been a place where I can find music by more obscure bands that HMV don't happen to stock anything by and it's also effective in showing me the way to other great albums that listeners of some of my favourite albums have also bought. However, there is a lesser sense of musical soul and passion in doing this than there is with browsing in a music shop.
 I spend as much of my free time as possible in Dundee. It is generally the city where I spend most of my time these days, because I go to school there and my hometown Blairgowrie has... nothing. My time spent there browsing in HMV with friends brings back some pretty cool and happy memories. However, there are just a lot of people who just aren't as passionate about music as me and my friends and Dundee is a city that shows this off effortlessly. The massive stretch of shops that is The Murraygate serves as a happy home to Game and Gamestation, two major video game distributors and for a while, it used to be the same for entertainment distributors with HMV being a sort walk away from Virgin Megastores one of the main shops in the shopping centre The Wellgate. It was around for a good number of years, but somehow, it couldn't last the pace with HMV around and was closed down. A few months later, it was set up as the equally succesful Zavvi which again sold lots of good music when set up for two years. It's where I bought my first Trivium and Deep Purple albums. But once again HMV managed to out-do and it shut again. Once again, after a month or so, the shop was re-branded as Head. It still has a good selection of CDs, but it was not the place to go to buy anything new or up-to-date. Unsurprisingly it went out of business after only a year, only to be replaced by a pound shop. The only CDs it stocked were an overflowing amount of Terrorvision albums, which admittedly I should have taken advantage of at the time. However, that shop closed down after about four months and now no shops reside there. The area is assumend by many to be cursed.
 It proved that the general public of Dundee had little time for variation in their musical browsing and were just looking to buy new material. It was shameful that it proved that little time for purchasing and owning a physical copy of a claasic rock album or any peice of musical history. But before I prove Dundee to be a nevereding chasm of lack-of-musical-appreciation and misery, I'm happy to say that one place proves all this wrong. I am of course talking about Groucho's.

 Groucho's in the one shop I can think of that gives me faith in saying that a passion for music within the public is very much prominent. It is an independent record store, the most rock n' roll of sores, that has managed to stay standing while The Wellgate's musical shop has seen it's downfall. Whenever I go into that shop there is always a sense of warmth as CDs fill up the dusty shelves and the skinny browsers talking about bands with each other. I've bought some of my favourite albums from Groucho's for extrodinary prices, often under £5. It's where I bought the icy, emo laced-hardcore magnificance taht is Funeral for a Friend's Casually Dressed and Deep In Conversation. It's also where I bought Nirvana's In Utero, a relentlessly rough and intense grungey look into the twisted mind of Kurt Cobain prior to his tragic suicide and it's also where I bought one of my favourite albums of all time. Queens of the Stone Age's Songs for the Deaf, an album that makes the very best mixture of heaviness and melody which sticks up it's middle finger to the conventional stylings of mainstram rock in 2002 and instead gives us rock n' roll in it's purest form was an album I managed to pick up for just £3.99. And that's a wonderful thing to consider. I got an album that represents rock n, roll in it's purest form from a store that represents rock n' roll in it's purest form.
 So, if HMV does end up closing it's doors as a result of widespread musical downloading, I know it will be a sad day for fans of all music throughout the nation. After all, the original company His Master's Voice from which the store originates is a company of historical significance, with the two companies together having exsisted for a total of over a hundred years. It would be like watching a piece of history go to waste. However, there must be something said for the fact that independent stores like Groucho's which have managed to stay around for an extremely long time. I think, as a passionate fan of rock music, I'll do all I can to choose stores like these to purchase my music as opposed to taking the easy way out and using iTunes. That's my idea for now and I suspect I'm not the only one who thinks this way.

Review: Howler - America Give Up

 It seems that these days, whenever we see a list of new bands you need to check out at the start of each year we are presented with a bleak and ever-so-slightly irritating selection of alternative rock bands who are heavy on electronic elements and are crafted specifically for hipsters. Minneapolis' Howler is not this. Having featured in NME's list of Top 100 New Bands of 2012 the group have a good chance of earning themselves a few new fans this year, especially if debut America Give Up gets the reaction it's deserving of.

 Howler has a sound that totally sets them apart from the various other alt rock bands rising from the underground simply by playing a collection of short and sweet rock songs but with an extra sense of grit, grime and classic punk added to the mix, along with an influence from American garage rock, shoegaze and a touch of surf rock as opposed to bloated synthesizers and an intent to haunt listeners. Not that that's always a bad thing, but it means those acts can't sound like Howler, which is to sound effortlessly cool.
 While an influence from classic hard rock artists like Bruce Springsteen and The Rolling Stones can be found across the album, there are points where it seems like Howler have perhaps been paying attention to other contemporary alt rock acts, with Wailing (Making Out) having the pounding grunge and garage rock influenced riff attack with the relentlessness of The Joy Formidable and opener Beach Sluts having the definitive sound of Arcade Fire with the distortion levels set much higher. With that in mind, the gentle but captivating vocals of Jordan Gatesmith do carry a reminiscence to Win Butler.
 The frantic garage rock riffing means there's always a lot of thrills, spills and fun to be had, like the bouncy rhythms of Back to the Grave and the frantic America and Back of Your Neck, songs which are very much a modern update on surf rock, which allows for the genre to be much heavier and more pounding guitar-wise than ever achieved in the 1950s or 60s. Of course the pinnacle of this sense of fun and joy is in the simple punk rock charmer Told You Once which pretty much confirms Howler to be this generation's Ramones.
 Even in the darker moment of the album, the party is still going strong. The gothic wailing from Gatesmith and massive hooks of Pythagorean Fearem give the song an untrustworthy sense of evil, which still manages to fascinate and stay catchy and the stony and icy riffing of the most shoegaze inspired Too Much Blood will elevate listeners to a higher sense of awe and captivation in it's walls of sweet distorted sound.
 America Give Up is clear evidence that already rising bands are getting off to a flying start in the year, managing to be effortlessly impressive, especially if like Howler, they're getting down and dirty and making what is a very pure sound of American rock n' roll.

Howler's America Give Up will be released on 16th January via Rough Trade Records. The band will tour the UK from January to February.

Review: The Maccabees - Given to the Wild

 So this is the first album released in 2012 that I have to review. So to officially start 2012 off with a buzz of rapid energy, clearly there is no better act to do such a thing than a fresh sounding dynamic and fun indie rock band. A band like Brighton's The Maccabees who have charmed people with their upbeat and energetic indie anthems on their first two albums Colour It In and Wall of Arms. As enjoyable as their music is, there has been a temptation to think of the band as perhaps being "The poor man's Futureheads." So, with this in mind, third album Given to the Wild is a breath of fresh air for a group. They've dropped the straightforward indie rock, brought in some synthesizers and have something more dreamy on offer.

 

Immediately this means that the quirky fun that people are used to hearing from this band isn't so prevalent on this album, instead listeners are presented with more tranquil and ambient offerings. This may serve as an instant disappointment for many who wanted more definitive Maccabees music but if it leaves you intrigued, this is an album worth checking out. It shows the group venture in various territories of the more sophisticated side of alternative rock and doing it pretty well indeed. It's seen as sparkling and serene riffs parade in the background of Feel to Follow as buzzing synthesizers and the delicate vocals of Orlando Weeks take the forefront.

 This dream pop influence is easily used to broaden the bands range of emotion and personality of their songs and mass contrasts can be found between the uplifting Ayla which with it's massive hooks and fun horn-infused backdrops serves as a feel-good piece of music with a real sense of pleasant charm, and the slower less enthusiastic Forever I've Known which with it's dwindling basslines and soft vulnerable vocal performance carries a more melancholic artistic merit and a character of desolation throughout.

 The group use this space rock elements to combine their sound with various other rock genres. Pelican sees the ambient synth infused style mixed with the catchy and hooky funk rock of the Red Hot Chili Peppers with a truly psychedelic result and the synthesizer backdrops of Go sounds like a modern and more subtle take on the ska-influenced punk rock of the 1980s. Needless to say, it all comes to a stunning and spell-binding effect and leaves listeners hooked.

 In taking final consideration of this album, though introduction of this spacey more artful dream pop influence to their music as opposed to straightforward indie rock is a pure change for The Maccabees, whether it make truly more original is another issue. I wouldn't refer to this music as the music of "the poor man's Futureheads" but I may think of it more as the poor man's version of The Horrors' Skying, a truly brilliant display of dream pop. With that said it's still a pretty great album and very much worth checking out. Perhaps 2012 will be a year where more creative techniques of alternative rock crawls into the mainstream and art rock and psychedelia makes a stunning comeback. It's happened so far.

The Maccabees' Given to the Wild is out now via Fiction. The band will tour the UK throughout January and March.