The sandwich is possibly the greatest food-based invention. We need to be able to eat and post on Facebook at the same time. Sandwiches allow us to do this. The best thing about sandwiches, however, is that anybody can eat them. Vegetarian? Put some more salad in. Belly doesn’t like wheat? Use some gluten-free bread then! And everybody has a favourite sandwich. Even bands…

Issues just played Reading & Leeds Festivals to a lot of people but a long, long time ago, we asked them the ultimate question: What is your favourite sandwich? Clearly, Tyler Carter and Michael Bohn eat a lot of sandwiches because they were very indecisive.

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Bloody hell, there’s an awful lot of nonsense on the Reading and Leeds 2014 festival line-up, isn’t there? I mean, we know this isn’t a bona fide heavy music festival like Download and Sonisphere, but sweet flippin’ Jesus is there some pony stinking up the bill this year. That’s because it’s enormous – literally 100s of bands – but, as such, there are also a whole load of bloody excellent bands and this week’s Sunday Spotify Slaylist cuts through all that and brings you the very best of the heavy stuff that you can find if you sniff around the schedule a little bit.

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Camden Town smells. In the sunshine, it often smells very bad indeed. On Bank Holiday Weekends, it often smells even worse than usual, thanks to all the spilled cider and puddles of drying vomit. smelled something when he caught Of Mice & Men’s headline show there just before Easter, but was it the smell of success, or just the pong of stale hype? 

Six things we learned while watching Of Mice & Men in London…

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Issues
Issues
Rise Records
10 February 2014

by Gavin Lloyd

The once strong battle lines between pop and metal aren’t what they used to be. People are far less militant with their tastes in music. Rock club nights are as likely to play Skrillex as Limp Bizkit. It’s the reason why so many sub-par metalcore bands have turned their hand to bad dubstep. It’s no surprise that in certain quarters metal-meets-pop/R’n’B upstarts, Issues, are considered one of the buzziest new bands in the world right now.

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There’s a new (nu?) trend afoot in the world of emerging metalcore bands and that trend is similar in its makeup to nu metal when it came out. Instead of chug heavy riffs, we start with metalcore and instead of rap, we have RnB. Gavin Lloyd grew up with nu metal. Is this new trend as worthy or original, though? Hmmm…

I grew up during nu metal’s heyday and the likes of Limp Bizkit and Slipknot went a long way towards shaping my taste in music and making me the metal-loving scamp I am today. Nu metal was huge and had a mainstream crossover appeal that hasn’t been seen since in terms of heavy music.

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Last week saw R&B/metal crossover merchants Issues play their first London show at the Islington Academy, as part of a co-headline jaunt around they UK with Crown The Empire. Gavin Lloyd caught up with the band’s two front men Tyler Carter (he’s the one that sings the nice bits) and Michael Bohn (he’s the shouty one) to discuss their unique sound, their taste in music, their fans and twerking, obviously.

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