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.