Exploring The Underground: The Swansea Hard Rock Scene

 I recently had the pleasure of getting to chat with Gethin Woolcock, the frontman of Swansea stoner rockers Prosperina, whose debut album Faith In Sleep is an album of undeniable brilliance with great passion put into their performance and as stoner grooves and frantic grunge riffing comes together to create adrenaline fueled rock songs and slower songs with a greater sense of grandness and beauty. When listening to this album, it made me realise that if stoner rock is the music of the underground, then I'd have to try and dwell there more often.
 So, Gethin and I recently became friends on Facebook and chatted a bit, before I was informed that Prosperina's residence of Swansea is full of similar bands with a similar style all with an underground dwelling. Needless to say, I had to know more, because when you listen to Faith In Sleep, it's pretty obvious that the band performing are going to know a thing or two about playing in the underground music scene and the other bands that play there, so we had a chat about such matters. Who the best bands are, what it's like to play to a devoted following of Swansea residents and thoughts on the music industry and the state of mainstream rock music. As we chat Gethin is waiting for Prosperina's first music video for their adrenaline packed Trees Have Eyes to be uploaded and giving me some bands to check out but suggests that we do a question-and-answer style chat so I can find out about life in the Swansea Hard Rock Underground Scene. And thus, what happens next is something that resembles the very first Ramblings of a Rock Fan interview.

You seem to know your way around the Swansea underground music scene pretty well. Would you say that Prosperina have become giants of the scene?

Gethin Woolcock: "Swansea seems to have a track record with hard rock, metal and doom bands and I could go into my opinions on why that is but I'll spare you! There were many that came before us, many alongside us and there's also a shed load of great bands coming up through the ranks. A list of some of the great bands the city has produced in fairly recent history might read in no particular order like this: Sigiryia, Goatboy, Taint, Tabularasa, Acrimony, Suns of Thunder, Lethargy (although they're technically from Neath down the road!) TOTSO, Bomb the Sun, Dead Wolves, .... Shall I go on?? There's just too many and I'll kick myself cos I've probably forgotten to include about 5 or 6! So in conclusion, Giants? No, I think we're just doing our own thing and working hard at it - There's a Welsh saying 'Dyfal donc a dyr y garreg' which basically translates to 'repeated smashing breaks the rock'... Prosperina has been through quite a lot of ups and downs in recent times but has managed to pull through somehow!"

Sounds really cool actually. So you clearly know the whole life of playing the underground scene. It can't always be fun and games though...

Gethin: "Any musician will tell you that it's never that much fun lugging 4x12 cabs around in the rain but the buzz I get from the show is so huge though that it beats any of the downers that go along with it! We're rocking a killer line up right now - it's very raw and aggressive on stage as opposed to the old line up which was a bit more layered and ethereal sounding - we're peddling more adrenaline nowadays!"

I noticed a truly ethereal and adrenaline-filled sound when listening to Prosperina's album. That must be amazing to play onstage at shows...

Gethin: "Yeah, it's getting better with every show too, Owen [Street, bass] and Yo Yo [Walsh, drums] are phenomenal. They've just both absolutely got it when it comes to ability. Owen pulls out every last ounce of aggression on stage and Yo Yo seems to have never-ending energy reserves which suits me cos I have to sing which means I'm glued to the mic stand for a fair bit of the set."

 At this point Gethin sends me a link to some music by fellow Swansea rockers Tabularasa. So I visit their Facebook page and check out Valley Run, so we talk a little about the music...

Me: Valley Run is awesome. It makes me thin of a lot of modern grunge bands only actually enjoyable. It's just really good hard rock!

Gethin: "Yeah Valley run is cool as fuck man- I think Devil woods is my favourite - Killer turnaround for the chorus - Undeniable!"

Some mad riffing in the song. I bet it's fucking killer live! Also their about section "RIFFAGE" is epic! Pretty much sums things up.

Gethin: "Riffage indeed! Yeah - they're great live. Super tight, I always joke that we're crossbred cos there's been loads of two-ing and fro-ing between us over the years with members leaving rasa for prosps and then vice versa."

Oh, cool. So that must mean there's no love lost between members if there's any kind of split...

Gethin: "We're all mates so it's fine..."

So does that mean that in the underground scene there's a real sense of togetherness, where everyone knows each other, just like in the kinda stereotypical image of the underground scene?

Gethin "Sometimes - it depends on how frequent the gigs are - a few years ago we used to play out loads together, there was a core of bands who were always out and about together - if my memory serves me it was always Us, Bomb the Sun, Suns of Thunder, Buffalo kings, Tabularasa, Lethargy, Dead Wolves and sometimes Screamin Eagle. It's kinda died off a bit lately but there's always hope for another spark to fly out of the fire and ignite it again. There's also lots of newer good bands (some of which contain members of some of the bands in our peer group) coming through like Buffalo Summer, TOTSO, 3 Piece Freaks and Nucleus (who are prob the youngest at around 17-18). Everybody knows everyone else, we usually frequent the same pubs so yeah I guess there is togetherness in a way."

So, as I hoped to hear from you the Swansea Underground scene is booming. When you said a lot of big Welsh bands suck at the moment [Something that we discussed before entering "official interview territory"] do you think that manages to put a lot of people off the Welsh scene at the moment?
In the same way that there's never really been that in-depth a look into the Scottish Underground scene because all we ever seem to do now is produce indie bands that sound the same.


Gethin: "I just think that the music infrastructure down here in Wales seems to have only really got as far as Cardiff which makes it tough for bands in Swansea and further West to get shows and progress in terms of getting their music out there and creating a buzz - there aren't many promoters and precious little venues that want to put on original hard rock - the ones that could do it are either too scared to take on the risk of having an empty venue if nobody turns up or they are busy touting the latest pre-packaged tour sewn up with the bigger agents. Not many of the locals bands would be that arsed about playing with any of the higher profile bands that get to Swansea because most of them are on a different wavelength to what's going on around here. You do get the odd one or two - we were lucky to bag hometown supports with Russian Circles (whilst they were on a UK tour with Tool) and Oceansize. They were nights to remember - the Oceansize one was the first ever Prosperina gig and I am a really big fan of them so it was a pretty good memory for me! The Swansea underground scene has some of the most talented individuals (I'm talking multi-instrumentalist guys with great taste and ideas etc) but it could really do with a little leg up somehow.. I think there's a despondency that develops from not being able to get decent shows. It's no secret that the music industry is totally fucked right now and while 'broken Britain' may be the perfect breeding ground for new and original talent it eventually needs some help to get out of the petri dish and into the playground."

  And with that, the interview was wrapped up. I really took in Gethin's words about life playing in an underground scene. About the kind of friendships made, the ups and downs of touring and performing and the hardships for musicians with a really genuine talent for creating very real hard rock with a genuine sense of soul and some recognition would really help to make things take off for them and get people more into the underground scene that has been hopelessly ignored. So, I decided my best choice was to take a look at some of the bands Gethin mentioned and see just how awesome the Swansea Underground hard rock scene really is. The answer? Extremely awesome. I found myself exposed to musicians with incredible talent making music that is essentially hard rock and stoner rock perfection. So here are some of the best. Some are still active, others are split up, all are worth checking out right now. Here are some of the best underground hard rock bands from Swansea:

Acrimony - Stoner doom sounding at it's most earthly, Acrimony are probably the best known groups out of the range of groups I listened to, having been nominated by Kerrang! for best newcomer award during the 90's stoner rock explosion and gaining something of a cult following. They deal specifically in epic, drawn out stoner grooves filled with spaced out grandeur with devilish riffs with influences from Tony Iommi and Brant Bjork identified all over the place, seen best on 1996's Tumuli Shroomaroom, it is truly the sound of stoner rock come to life. When they split in 2001, it was to the dismay of many fans, but these rockers were far from done, there was more that they could do together...

Sigiriya - ... And in 2009, members of Acrimony did just that by coming back together to make a new group. Named after the ancient rock fortress in Sri Lanka which is hailed the 8th wonder of the world, Sigiriya couldn't have come up with a more accurate moniker. The play with the monolithic force and heaviness of the ancient structure with as guitarist Stu O' Hara delivers pounding stoner grooves with an unforgiving force with wailing sonic guitars with a mission to deliver their relentless blasting as their astonishing sound is accepted as a true wonder of the world. Check out their 2011 album Return to Earth.

Goatboy - Though they split up some nine years ago, it's no excuse for Goatboy's eclectic mixture of blues, hip-hop, drum n' bass, soul and stoner rock to be ignored. Their debut Superlube and 2002 mini-album Dook of Oil displayed this mix of styles outstandingly. When asked to describe their sound, one unnamed pundit simply stated: "Goatboy sound like the Beastie Boys fucking Elvis in the ass with James Brown and The Propellerheads wanking in the corner." Not the most charming of reviews but accurate enough for us to settle with.

Taint: With their fiery explosion of the best of classic rock and the best of vigorous punk rock fusing together, Taint became dynamite on the early 90's D.I.Y scene across Britain. They may have split last year, but left an immense legacy on other underground acts in Swansea that had hardcore flowing through their roots as their two albums, 2005's The Ruin of Nova Roma, 2007's Secrets And Lies and final release All Bees To the Sea showed the group maintaining their hardcore integrity whilst venturing into more progressive territory. The combination is truly breathtaking.

Tabularasa - The ultimate thing that the rise of grunge and stoner rock taught us that if you keep things simple and just rock the fuck out, it normally has the best sound. It's something that Tabularasa have clearly absorbed as they just floor it and it is killer! And the best part is even in this very pure and unrestricted hard rock, they still manage to make music as gripping and atmospheric as any band that may rely on synthesizers or anything of the like. Nah, I'll have the gravelly vocals of Matt Williams and frantic groove riding riffs any day. Check out their latest release "Born in the Barn".

Suns of Thunder - As Oldman Haystacks opens with a mass buildup of spacey sounds before slick basslines of Chris "Bossman" James, fuzzy guitar shredding and grooves and the snarling rough vocals of frontman Greg "Peck" Bombroffe you come to realise this is one of the best combination of heavy metal, blues and pure rock and roll you may ever hear, as the performance of the group sees the venture through varying flowing structures, getting more of an alt metal respectability with thrashy shredding and even the odd breakdown. In terms of stoner metal, Suns of Thunder are the real deal.

Lethargy - Lethargy are sort of the odd ones out here as they reside not in Swansea but instead the small town of Neath, a small town where Admiral Lord Nelson once stayed and where former cricketer Richard Grant and pop star Bonnie Tyler were born. That's the most interesting things good old Wikipedia could tell me. And with a different area comes a different style as Lethargy's music has a much greater kick of adrenaline with a greater influence from traditional heavy metal, used to full throttling force. The talent of their latest album Purification has already been recognised by Classic Rock and Metal Hammer magazines, the latter stating "Lethargy deliver an exciting, emotionally charged performance promising great things to come!" And any publication featuring the mighty Dom Lawson can't be wrong.

Bomb the Sun - Of course, Swansea's music scene isn't without it's attitude of prolonged melancholy and the bluesy belting hard rock of Bomb the Sun provides it effortlessly. Sounding like Queens of the Stone Age on a downer, the group keep their sound chilled out and slow paced and it really characterizes the dirty trippy vibes that the underground stoner rock scene has to offer, even during the funner moments of off-piste jamming. Where can you go wrong?

Dead Wolves - Sadly departed in 2010 with lots of amazing memories behind them, Dead Wolves took everything that made classic heavy metal great, mixed with the ferocious growling that resembles classic black metal and given a psychedelic and doomier turn on it's head to result in a sound truly resembling of musical bleakness and their album Born Dead proves this effortlessly. Well, with their main description being "DOOM CRUNCH DOWNTUNED DRONE" their accuracy and belief in what they do cannot be denied in any way.

T.O.T.S.O. - The group's made up of former members of Tabularasa, Bomb the Sun and Dead Wolves, who were all looking for something to do and came together in their state of being dropped from a band and realised that they were The Ones That Slipped Out of their respective groups. And so, they joined together to use that irresistible stoner groove in a more rapid punk inspired style to deliver more upbeat nature with an influence from the best in mod rock and indie rock today with a result that is truly blissful and celebratory. Their EP Slippin' Out is promised for release soon, until then check out their songs Somthing Kinda Mexican and Wolf Whistle.




 So, what can I say? Listening to the works of underground hard rock and stoner rock bands of Swansea is a musically entrancing and overwhelming experience. These musicians operate professionally in distorted riffs, pounding drums and an ability to create grandness in their playing. I don't know if writing about them like this will bring in new fans to the groups but that would be really awesome for the groups if you did go and check out some of their songs, go like them on Facebook, tell them they're awesome, I don't know stuff like that, because music like this is the real sound of rock and roll, and though I am quite partial to a lot of the more polished mainstream Welsh rock and metal acts, bands like Suns of Thunder and Tabularasa blow them out of the water. So, if you're in an underground band from another region of you have a lot of other fellow bands by your side, let me know, because I always dig getting new bands to listen to.

 Thanks again to Gethin Woolcock of Prosperina for allowing me to interview him, your insights and knowledge and experience of playing in the underground rock scene is truly epic. Make sure you pick up Faith In Sleep which is out now via Maybe Records and be sure to check out what all bands and other bands on the scene have on offer. Keep on rocking Swansea! 

Review: Caliban - I Am Nemesis

 I was actually really surprised when I fist discovered how long German metalcore quintet Caliban had been around for. I first came across them when journeying through Youtube looking for new bands and found some of their songs gathered in with the likes of We Came As Romans, Capture the Crown and Spies Like Us. So I figured they probably formed together around 2007 or something and gone an opposite direction from their peers by choosing a more traditional manner of making metal rather than the whole inclusion of trancey synthesizers and auto-tune. But, it turns out they've been around since 1997 and have released eight albums, the latest of which I Am Nemesis is a continuation of group's more violent and brutal take on horror punk. So nothing new then.

 Nothing new indeed. Caliban have effectively managed to shape their own definitive style of playing and when listening to a lot new metalcore acts of this generation such as The Devil Wears Prada, The Word Alive and even (groans) Attack Attack! a similar musical style to the past works of Caliban, so it's seems unlikely that they would totally revolutionize their style now. Jeez, they're not Korn! But the seriously hard hitting and devastatingly brutal impact of their music cannot be denied and it's still more prevalent than ever on I Am Nemesis. And thus, meaty breakdowns from Denis Schmidt and Marc Görtz are found on... pretty much every track alongside the deliriously evil vocals of Andreas Dörner which are filled with astonishing amounts of crude and unrefined bile. So, while there isn't a song on this album that doesn't involve a display of unforgiving forceful breakdowns and relentless rage, sometimes we can find riffs to be more thrashy and straight heavy metal based than others like Edge of Black and Dein R3.ich featuring driving that also carry with them the group's greater punk mentality.
 So, the basic work of the album is simply a powerful array of pounding breakdowns and epic punk riffs delivered as brutally as possible, which is awesome. More interesting on this album are the kind of effects that go on beyond the metalcore. They manage to be some of the really captivating moments of the album. Moments such as the synthesizer usage across Broadcast to Damnation with it's trancey backdrops and usage of the effect where the music is slowed down before transcending into another breakdown. I don't know the technical terms for it. Bring Me the Horizon and Asking Alexandria make good use of the technique, which suggests that Caliban may have looked at the modern peers as an influence during the making of this album. The synthesizer usage also appears in the form of usage of samples, which leads to the album's highlight on Davy Jones, which takes place just past the three minute park, which is actually indescribably incredible to hear. I won't give away what happens but if you love heavy drops to come out out of nowhere, then you're in for a treat. This Oath contrasts from this using a genuine symphonic backdrop to their insanity-filled metalcore in a similar vein to Bleeding Through, who are very much their America's answer to Caliban.
 So, Caliban have brought nothing new to the table with I Am Nemesis, but there is still a truly epic metalcore performance to be found. The album is alive in it's sheer insanity and furious delirium with which these songs are delivered with lot's of additional moments that create a more atmospheric and grand approach to the listening. So, prepare yourself for absolute intensity as you listen to this album, but chances are you won't be too surprised by what's on offer.


 Caliban's I Am Nemesis is out now via Century Media.

Review: Tonight Alive - What Are You So Scared Of?

 This album's been available to listen to online for a few months now, but it feels right to actually give it a good listen because it's about to be released worldwide and there's a very high chance that as that happens, this band will become massive. Anyway, a recurring ocurrance has struck me again. A female fronted pop punk band has surfaced and I have looked at pictures of them and read interviews and come to the conclusion that I am probably going to despise them. Then I've made the choice to check them out only to discover that they are in fact pretty good then get with the immense hype surrounding them. It happened with VersaEmerge, it happened with We Are the In Crowd and it's happened again with Tonight Alive, whose general appearance I grew to despise me to a much greater extent with constant photo's of them doing fun stuff with sugary smiles all over their faces. Too much brightness! Let me feel doom and gloom in peace! So when the first picture of them that I saw featured the band members pushing frontwoman Jenna McDougall around in a shopping trolley (something which is particularly annoying for myself which relates back to my more tragic youthful days of 2008, when I was being 'obliviously bullied' which there's really no point in dwelling on.) I decided that their music would actually be suffocating-ly upbeat and sugary. But, of course, listening to some of their stuff, it turned out to work well and effectively serve as pop punk perfection. Now where's that massive hype? I have to get behind it.

 Of course, let's not deny their debut album What Are You So Scared Of? of what I'd like to be critical of. It's incredibly sugary and overly sweet in lots of places as tracks like Sure As Hell and Reason to Sing being filled entirely with a forcefully positive attitude and bubblegum poppy hooks. But, it's not really annoying, it doesn't make your skin crawl or anything. It's just a really catchy array of pop punk with adrenaline packed in chunky riffs from rhythm guitarist Jake Hardy and a growling bassline from Cam Adler, which both combine to really give the album an extra heaviness, something which is much more prominent in the angrier Fake It, a song which actually features playing in a style that resembles the kind of breakdowns that metalcore music has taught us to love. Basically, the band is perfect Warped Tour material. Worry not, they're confirmed to tour North America as part of this years proceedings.
 But, as basically just explained, this infectiously hooky, light/heavy exchanged pop punk sound isn't just used in a super-happy-fun way. The album has lots of more serene and melancholic moments from the opening Breaking and Entering as McDougall cries out "I'm burning up, I'm burning up/ I don't know the girl in the mirror now" Songs like this, Listening and the heartbreaking Amelia, a song about lost friendship and coming to terms with missing people reveal less desire to create bubbly pop punk, instead punk music with a little more emotional heaviness and an influence from emo pop peers like Weezer or Jimmy Eat World and more intricate details are found in  the groups style of playing can be identified as grand sweeping soundscapes are created at various moments, revealing an extra grandeur to what the group do. And in this emo pop manner, lots of tracks take a more bittersweet attitude to the lyrical messages and playing style, such as Thank You & Goodnight which features an impressive appearance from Blink-182's Mark Hoppus performing guest vocals. Although this doesn't really add any kind of extra depth to the song in any way, it's quite cool to here that they managed to get one of the two voices of Blink-182 to perform with them. That's pop punk royalty right there! This band clearly isn't just playing around.
 So, there are a lot of cool moments on What Are You So Scared Of? but it's not pure listening gold. Heavily played pop punk can only sound so fresh for so long and it's long before we get to the end of the album before listeners will start to find little that's keeping the songs dynamic and the tragically inevitable Paramore comparison comes to mind, a devastating blow for all female fronted pop punk bands.
 Overall, however, this is an extremely promising and talented effort from Tonight Alive. The album is filled with lots of moments that makes their undying mission to make fun and catchiness a mission accomplished, they manage to create an extra heaviness and extra emo influence in their pop punk, which is, as mentioned perfect for the Warped Tour generation who like hooks and heaviness (a scene band?) and manage to have an actual extra beauty lyrically and musically which defies the ways of their more mainstream peers. So, once again we learn that a book cannot be judged by a cover and just because a band likes to present themselves as annoying kids, it doesn't mean that they sound like it.

 Tonight Alive's What Are You So Scared Of will be available worldwide on 14th February via Fearless Records. The band are currently on tour of the UK with Young Guns and Polar.

Review: Halestorm - Hello, It's Mz Hyde

 If you're needing a dose of modern, hard hitting all-American hard rock with viscous and powerful female vocals to front the proceeding's then Pennsylvania's Halestorm are your best option to look at. Of course that description there of how they sound was quite detailed and was extremely specified, so if you are really needing all those intricacies in the music you need, perhaps you are troubled in some way and should seek some help regarding your... I don't know where I'm going with this. I was just trying to do a weird off-piste ramble in the style of Craig Ernest Kneale one of the best bloggers around today. Anyway, Halestorm with their combination of female vocals and hard rock with more of a metallic influence seen more typically by the likes of Shinedown and Black Stone Cherry makes the group pretty unique in their own right and has gained them a considerable amount of popularity and followers with the release of just one album. So, to entice this fanbase as they patiently wait for second album The Strange Case Of... the group have for us the fiery EP Hello It's Mz Hyde to get us prepared.

 This EP is very much alive and kicking in it's sheer fury and adrenaline as the vocal performance of frontwoman Lzzy Hale ("Andy, there's another typo in your blog. Surely you mean Lizzy?") is packed with an impassioned intensity on opener Love Bites (So Do I) as she tears out lines like "I've felt pleasure without pain/ My soul you'll never tame" and "That bitch can eat her heart out!" with the wild and untamed vigor that sees her come close to growling out the lyrics while the band's thrashy and furious performance just allows for all Hell to break loose.
 At times this performance can feel a little more refined and sound like something more crafted for American radio and with it's bouncy rhythms with clapping in the background Rock Show has something of a cringe-worthy quality about it, but Hale's sassy vocals and more shimmering work of guitar from Joe Hottinger and Josh Smith.
 And while the dark thrashy velocity is upheld across Daughters of Darkness there's a very pleasant and uplifting ending to the EP found in the Southern country influenced ballad Here's To Us. It's anything but sophisticated as we're treated to lines like "Here's to you, fill the glass/ Cuz the last few nights have kicked my ass!" and "If they give you hell/ Tell them Go fuck yourselves." but the passionate performance from the band and warmth in Hale's vocals brings the song together as a whole to make it a very charming and beautiful ballad.
 Overall, this EP is a very cool way to introduce listeners to what they may expect on the group's next release, with a downpour of wild emotion and intensity as the songs pack a serious punch and have a lot of heart within them. if the next album sounds weak in any way, the band can be thankful that they have this to fall back on.

 Halestorm's Hello, It's Mz Hyde i out now via Roadrunner. The band will tour the UK from 12th-17th of February with Shinedown.

Live review: Kaiser Chiefs, HMV Picture House, Edinburgh

 Is there any better way to celebrate events than visiting gigs? For most people I know, getting totally drunk and dancing to mindless techno music is sufficient enough, but my friends and I in our love of rock music and desires for something a little more classy, a gig is the best way to let our hair down, go a little crazy and have a full on experience of listening to music as it should be heard. And that's exactly what my friends Callum and Russell and I did last night. As a celebration of the hardship of prelims ending, and as a way to celebrate Callum's birthday and sort of my own despite it being just under a month ago and after being shunned the opportunity to see Mastodon, with the immediate conclusion being that going to the Glasgow Barrowlands would immediately result in me getting stabbed. So, I had a better idea, which was going to Edinburgh for the day and visiting the HMV Picture House to see the Kaiser Chiefs, one of the few bands that I still love from my youthful and more innocent days when the only music I was exposed to was whatever was in the charts and the magnificence of any kind of hardcore and metal music was to infect my veins. And after a stressful day of causing us all to get lost in Edinburgh, the gig was a perfect way to unwind, get rid of any stress and tension and go absolutely crazy.

 That being said, it does take a while for this insanity to commence. The last gig I was at was with Callum at December's monstrous Metal Hammer Defenders of the Faith III Tour which featured Rise to Remain, Ghost, In Flames and Trivium, all heavyweights in the world of metal, wether they have been confirmed legends or were up-and-coming bands that were on everyone's lips, so headbanging and moshpits were always guaranteed in each sets. However, tonight is an indie rock show, so the crowd is very different throughout with a lesser amount of headbanging and generally a shorter length of hair for the male audience to do it with. And with opening act Native Tongue having still having to release a debut EP, they find themselves performing to a small and relatively bored crowd. Still, their indie rock tunes carry a unique charm and their array of shimmering synthesizers and excessive cowbell usage is enough to make lots of spectators look up and pay a much greater attention.

Following this is Sunderland's Frankie & the Heartstrings, who I actually managed to listen to a little bit of before tonight's show. Their quirky indie pop songs like Hunger and Everyone Looks Better (In the Right Light) go down a treat, although the onstage prancing of frontman Frankie Francis is questionable at times, though it's quite fitting as the groups tunes are clearly crafted to be danced to with their influence from the pop songs of the 1950's and 1960's, but the audience aren't feeling like doing the twist tonight. Their lack of enthusiasm is further proved in Frankie's largely hopeless attempt to get the crowd to chant "WOOOOOAH" along with him. But this is early days for the group. The public love a good upbeat pop rock tune, so there's a good chance that 2012 could be their year.

But, lets be honest, we're all here for one thing tonight and the dramatic increase of audience members after Frankie & The Heartstrings proves this. There's a lot to be said about what has become of the Kaiser Chiefs in recent years. When they first released Employment in 2005 and Yours Truly, Angry Mob they were of wide mainstream appeal with singles appearing in charts and a new popularity brought to the influence of mod rock. Then 2008's Off With Their Heads was simply viewed as less substantial and the general public stopped caring for their efforts. By the time The Future is Medieval was released last year and became the first full album that I reviewed on ROARF, they seemed just as underground and unknown as many of the alt rock bands that are trying to make it in today's mainstream world of passing interests and shallow care with a new experimental sound that matched it. However, tonight's show sees the band acting with the triumph and swagger of millionaires who own the world and their pulsing and energetic performances of tracks like Everyday I Love You Less and Less and Ruby are an absolute delight as the audience chant along and an array of fist-pumping and and jumping is witnessed all around. These moments are the moments that make the night such as the chanting along from the audience of "We are the angry mob/ We're in the papers everyday/ We like who we like, we hate who we hate/ But we're also easily swayed" as frontman Ricky Wilson sings acapella before the rest of the band raises the roof with their almighty pounding raising the audience's sense of exhilaration with them. Wilson's performance is as equally breathtaking as the songs as he leaps around the stage, climbing on speakers, running into the balconies and standing on top of audience members during Everything is Average Nowadays. As the band close the night during the encore, they make the place go crazy with jumping, chanting and eventual headbanging with an explosive rendition of Oh My God, it's clear that the Kaiser Chiefs are a band that know the ways of rock n' roll and just because they're no longer a household name, there's no chance that they'll be slowing down any time soon.

 So, once again, tonight proved that gigs are the best way to party and the best experiences of one's life. Though alternative rock shows clearly don't have the same forceful impact as metal shows, there's still lots of fun and exciting moments to be had and when I discovered that many of my friends had celebrated ending their prelims by going to the cinema to see the awful looking The Grey, Ii sort of realised that having a passion for music and seeing it live ultimately leads to living life a little cooler and in a way that is more fulfilling that many others. Thanks to Callum and Russell for joining me in making it such an awesome evening.

Review: Dear Superstar - Damned Religion

 Dear Superstar are a rather awesome band, that deal in the sleaziest, dirtiest and heaviest hard rock, who deliver the sound of the rock n' roll sunset strip... from Lancashire. Yep, Hollywood hard rock from the county that invented the hotpot. Clearly, we are dealing with some classy stuff here, as their heavier more metallic take on glam rock, something we've seen achieved by the likes of Escape the Fate, Papa Roach and the groups most recent tour buddies, Glamour of the Kill, a group I like to think of as "the working man's Bullet for My Valentine." Make what you will of that. Third album Damned Religion hits listeners with force and proves that stepping down from all their Mancunian rock n' roll parties is not something that Dear Superstar are looking to do any time soon.

 On their website, the band make the claim that what they like to do is "combine their love for classic hard rock with the power and bile of modern metal." And yes, they are successful in doing just that. Their endless pack of relentless breakdowns and punching hard riffs packs a gripping and adrenaline packed rush of violent and furious heavy metal with a similarity to more modern mainstream practitioners like Atreyu and All That Remains, as tracks like Damned Religion and Change Yesterday tear speakers apart with frenzied grooves and violent shredding from Adam Smelthurst and Ben Grimsley. But when, this furious metallic rush isn't the full focus, an influence from a number of hard rock groups is present, classic and more contemporary. With their hook filled rhythms and massive choruses, Turn to Dust and Last Rites have the fun hair metal qualities of Mötley Crüe about them, whilst the more pounding and rapid Our City Sleeps has a greater reminiscence of the definitive modern sleaze rock group Buckcherry, which is obviously aided by the guest guitar solo from their Stevie D. to add to the mix. Meanwhile, tracks like Sirens and Tomorrow with a grungier vibe with the prominent rapid velocity contains much more a relation to many modern southern rock groups a la Black Stone Cherry and Shinedown. My final spotted similarity can be found in closer Crystallized which with it's surprisingly pretty shimmering lead guitar backdrops which reveal a talent within the group for creating textures made me think of some of the layers of various sounds and effects that were present on Bones, the latest album from High Wycombe's Young Guns. That's unlikely to have been viewed as influential though. Both albums were released on the same day y'know. However, the frenzied impassioned performance from Dear Superstar across the album reveals a clear attention paid to their fellow hard rock and heavy metal peers.
 Of course, if you know of Dear Superstar, there's a good chance you'll know about all the bands I've just mentioned here as well and you'll realise that all these bands really do have their similarities, so Damned Religion is on the whole pretty low on variation and tracks can blend into one at times with a lack of stand out moments or moments of true astonishment.
 So, this album gives Dear Superstar a chance once more to reveal their talent for mixing classic sleazy hard rock with the juddering adrenaline and fury of modern heavy metal but it shows that the band still has room for improvement and shows that their next steps are to come back with a bigger sound that they can truly adapt upon and call their own.


Dear Superstar's Damned Religion is out now via Demolition Records.

Totally pointless ramblings - The impact of departures and split ups

 I found myself looking through random news articles on Ultimate-Guitar.com the other day, because now that my prelims are over, I need to find some way to occupy my time. I ended up finding an interesting article published in December about Queen's Brian May and Roger Taylor stating that the legendary and influential was questioning whether he and Taylor should or shouldn't be performing under the moniker of Queen, having performed together on several occasions under the name following the death of iconic frontman Freddie Mercury and retirement of bassist John Deacon. The article made the suggestion that May and Taylor may work again making new music with a different band name perhaps with a chance to add newer elements to their sound. Of course, no visiting of a news article is complete without a thorough examination of the comments section. The general thoughts regarding this idea was that it was a good idea for the pair to do this. It would allow them to create new music and do whatever they want without any chance of ruining Queen's legacy and losing mass respect. After all, there have been recent things the pair have agreed on which has sparked backlash from fans, such as the album they recorded with Bad Company's Paul Rogers, which was pretty good, but may have worked better if the actual band wasn't credited as Queen. A better idea may have been to have used a different band name for that album, such as when the combination of three quarters of Rage Against the Machine and Soundgarden's Chris Cornell became Audioslave when they collaborated together. There were also many reservations from fans regarding We Will Rock You, a musical based on the songs of Queen written by Ben Elton. It's a musical that awesome comedian Frankie Boyle referred to as "The Queen musical that causes cancer." I have seen it twice. But, I have to say, I agree with the general beliefs of that comment board. May and Taylor are iconic enough and if they did some new music with a new name, perhaps an album featuring various guest musicians a la Slash's 2010 album, or finding a permanent singer who has become highly respected in modern hard rock circles a la Slash's decision to record a new solo record featuring only Alter Bridge's Myles Kennedy on vocals. I think it would definitely work out for the pair.

 The idea regarding the fact that changing their name would mean Queen's legacy would stay intact is an interesting one though. Because Queen are now such an iconic band with their music seen as widely influential and a place secured in any musical history books, it seems that now that the group can never be fully complete again, it should be left alone and not ruined by the risk of any crap albums that risk ruining the iconic legacy in a way that would be seen by fans as disrespectful to Freddie Mercury. And at this point, we're going to have to have an obligatory Metallica reference. Now, I  absolutely adore ...And Justice for All, The Black Album and am even partial to the Load material and was totally immersed by Death Magnetic but can you imagine just how much higher the levels of respectability and the legacy of Metallica would be if they had stopped performing under the name of Metallica following the tragic death of bassist Cliff Burton following the release of Master of Puppets? People would simply agree that Metallica were godly, full stop. There'd be no cynical references to them "selling out" for The Black Album or any references to 2003's St. Anger or the truly atrocious and mentally scarring Lulu, their joint theatrical concept album with Lou Reed. Needless to say, I'm extremely glad Metallica did go on after Burton's death, that's just the kind of thing I'm on about here.

 However, with Metallica, the death of a member would be no real cause for a full break-up. Obviously the sadness of losing a friend would get in the way, but with Metallica, it's the songs that are iconic rather than the personalities of the members, so in that sense it is easy to replace members. Jesus, that sounds incredibly harsh. Obviously the talent of Cliff Burton was incredible and his influence is undeniable, but when we consider someone who is culturally iconic like Freddie Mercury, his powerful vocals, true sense of onstage showmanship and flamboyance made him a person of legend, making him truly irreplaceable in Queen. And sometimes, when an iconic member is replaced, lots of respect and popularity is lost for the remaining members. Let us look to a band less famous than Queen but truly iconic in the world of metal as an example of this. With their influential pairing of elements of the new style of groove metal and elements of death metal in the 1990s, Sepultura were instantly recognizable and respected in all circles of metal for their new style of music heard on 1993's Chaos A.D. and the iconic frontman Max Cavalera. All fans of modern metal are familiar with Cavalera and his deathly growling which effectively accentuates his deep Brazilian accent. (Sepultura are also viewed as majorly influential for being one of the first South American bands to bring metal to the masses.) Unsurprisingly, with his status as a metal icon cemented, after he left Sepultura in 1996 following arguments with drummer and brother Igor Cavalera for reasons to complicated to get into now, and was replaced by American singer Derrick Green, most fans decided Sepultura wasn't going to be the same without Max and their 1998 album Against received much lower sales than the self-titled debut from Max's new band, Soulfly. Since then, Igor has also left the band and made up with Max and every now and then, the two get together and thrash things out in side-project Cavalera Conspiracy. And while Sepultura remain together, they are very much a shadow of the band they used to be and have very little relevance anymore.

 And of course, a better and more wide-spread example of loss of respect and credibility coming from replacing iconic members after their departure is in the form of Axl Rose's decision to release a new album after sixteen years under the name of Guns N' Roses, even though he is the only remaining original member, returning with a band lineup in which the reasonably well known members were keyboardist Dizzy Reed who had spent some time in the group during the Use Your Illusion era (because when we look back at classic G N' R songs, we always remember how awesome the keyboards were!) and guitarist Tommy Stinson who was best known for his work in punk band The Replacements. And when they came out with the collection of sub-par industrial rock songs that is Chinese Democracy, many people were outraged that the name of Guns N' Roses, a name that by all respects represents wildness, sleaze and Hollywood hard rock should come out with something like this, when the iconic figures that truly made up Guns N' Roses like Slash and Duff McKagan weren't even around in the group. As Kerrang! described the actions of Axl Rose in making the album and touring it, along with a stream of onstage hissy-fits in 2010, including their infamous set at Reading festival, involving turning up an hour late, played in a truly lazy and sloppy manner and desperately played with acoustic guitars and megaphones and tried to get the spiteful crowd to rally in protest after the festival organisers cut their set short, as actions that effectively "pissed all over G N' R's legacy." By the way, Chinese Democracy really should have just been an "Axl Rose and friends" solo project. Note how typing "Gins N' Roses 2008" into Google images brings up no pictures of Rose posing with any new band members.

 Sometimes, rather than having various iconic individuals in groups that effectively represents the bands name, as Freddie Mercury did with Queen (chuckles) it is instead the togetherness of a group which is something seen as iconic and to see them fall apart would mean the band would never be able to stay intact. This is pretty common in the world of metal, the perfect example being in the most respected metal band Pantera without a doubt. The togetherness of Phil Anselmo, Rex Brown, Vinnie Paul and the late great Dimebag Darrell makes Pantera less of a group of musicians and more of a solidified, strong brotherhood. (Which of course exists in a literal sense with Dimebag and Vinnie being the Abbott brothers.) But simply Pantera were brothers. They were partners in crime and in metal. They were the Cowboys From Hell! Therefore after Anselmo abandoned the group, the Abbott brothers broke up the group in 2003 realising that no one in the group could possibly be replaced. However, the members of the group found continuous respect for their music after playing together under different names with different musicians, with Anselmo and Brown finding much success playing in sludge-metal supergroup Down and Dimebag and Vinnie gaining much success continuing Pantera's groove metal sound in Damageplan. After the monstrous on-stage murder of Dimebag in 2004, Damageplan split up for similar reasons regarding the sense of brotherhood and inability to go on without someone as legendary as Darrell Abbott. Needless to say, Phil Anselmo has claimed that Pantera will never do a reunion, stating that it would be "disrespectful" to go on without Dimebag.

 Now, there is a point here that Damageplan and Down while gaining respect have never had the same amount of success as Pantera and there is a point to be made that many bands after losing a key member by any way, many bands should continue as they are with a new member because that band has a certain anthem or a large fanbase and they can never go on any other way, using such bands as Journey, Thin Lizzy and KISS as examples. As well as Van Halen, who continued following the departure of iconic frontman David Lee Roth with Sammy Hagar and at one point Gary Cherone, formerly of extreme. But doing this came at a cost. While they still had their anthems crafted with Roth intact the subsequent stream of albums were pretty awful. Until most recent offering A Different Kind of Truth, which is awesome. Because David Lee Roth is part of the group again. But this argument of keeping the band intact because of the departure of a key musician because you'll never successful otherwise is an argument I'm going to deny straight away solely due to the existence of the Foo Fighters. Rising from the ashes of Nirvana and the underground popularity of discovered demo tapes of then-former Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl, the band has risen to become the biggest rock band in the world today with Grohl becoming a true rock icon in his own right, and as there would be no Nirvana without Kurt Cobain, there would be no Foo Fighters without Dave Grohl.

 The only band that has replaced an iconic member with someone else that has been truly successful as a result that immediately comes to mind is Iron Maiden. Replacing former frontman Paul Di'Anno with the powerful melodically voiced Bruce Dickinson led to the release of the group's finest and most iconic work. Albums like The Number of the Beast, Powerslave, Seventh Son of a Seventh Son and Brave New World have all been created due to the iconic band fronting of Bruce Dickinson and bassist Steve Harris. The pair are now recognised as the faces of Iron Maiden whilst the only major recognition Di'Anno has received in recent times was when police recognized footage of him performing onstage without any signs of back pain that he claimed to have and was receiving benefits for. That's not cool in any way.

 The other time that replacing an iconic frontman with someone else... sort of worked with Black Sabbath from 1979 to 1982 after iconic frontman Ozzy Osbourne was fired for too much alcohol abuse and inability to come up with any new ideas for music and was replaced by Rainbow frontman, the late great Ronnie James Dio. With Dio, the band created the masterpiece Heaven and Hell, which saw the band drop their doom metal style for a more energetic upbeat take on the mainstream heavy metal style and had never sounded so alive on record before. But of course, there came the unavoidable protest towards this change of style from people who preferred the doom metal  they made with Ozzy. And as someone who is a massive fan of stoner rock and doom metal, I'll gladly state that I prefer the classic stuff with Ozzy, as amazing as their material with Dio is. Following reunions with Ozzy from 1999 to 2006, guitarist Tony Iommi and bassist Geezer Butler and then drummer Vinny Appice were asked about making a compilation collection documenting their years with Dio that the four got together and expressed a desire for making some new music together and decided to tour and make music together again until Dio's diagnosis and death of stomach cancer. This time no fans of the original Sabbath lineup were annoyed, as the group adopted the name Heaven & Hell and their music did not become part of Sabbath's legacy. Although it certainly was good enough to be part of the legacy without annoying anyone. But, like Pantera many fans of Black Sabbath view the original line-up as being something special because of the way in which it was the four of them that created heavy metal together. What everyone wants is to see Ozzy Osbourne, Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler and Bill Ward playing together while they still have the chance.

 Which effectively brings me onto more current events. Bill Ward has recently gotten into the way of chances of this highly anticipated but seemingly doomed reunion of the full original lineup that was promised to the world last November. An air of negativity first got into the way of Sabbath doing a reunion tour and making a comeback album when the devastating news that Iommi had been diagnosed with Lymphoma, an early sign of throat cancer had been announced. But every sense of positivity also revealed itself when studio updates revealing Iommi's brimming positivity about making the album and touring in spite of his ordeal were emerged. However, now drummer Bill Ward has displayed a negativity towards taking part in this touring and recording due to being offered a contract he that he has deemed "unsignable", claiming that signing it would ruin his dignity and sense of freedom as a performer. Following this shocking announcement, the band have announced that if needs be, they will tour without Ward, thus shattering the promise of a full lineup reunion that so many metal fans were promised. As a result, a sense of bitterness and disappointment has been revealed with many people claiming that there's no point in seeing them now, as it won't be the original lineup and it won't carry the same sense of wonder and awe that it would if the full lineup were around. Truly, the power of an intact lineup is a considerable factor in a band.

 So, these are some thoughts and examples I present to you regarding the issue of band line-ups and the kind of stuff that happens if key members are removed whether it be due to fall-outs or deaths of key members that are deemed irreplaceable. For the most part it seems that creating music without them ruins the group's legacy and makes them less desirable as a result. While in some cases the replacement of a lead singer has worked out well, in many other cases, it's led to a major flop in terms of respectability and popularity. Anyways, as always with these posts of mine that aren't reviews, this has taken a lot longer to read and is of much less relevance. So, I hope reading this has effectively put you off doing more important things with your life and has cured a significant amount of boredom in your lives. Thanks for reading!