Retox
YPLL
Epitaph Records
27 May 2013

by Ollie Connors

Fresh from a rarer-than-rocking-horse-shit set of shows with former outfit The Locust, vocalist Justin Pearson gets back on the Retox wagon, with second full-length YPLL following on from their 2011 effort, Ugly Animals. The quartet have the same vein of frenetic energy as The Locust running through their music, but this is a far more concentrated, honed and incendiary approach to punk rock than Pearson’s be-costumed experi-mentalists could ever muster.

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Honningbarna
Verden Er Enkel
G-Records
06 May 2013

by Gavin Lloyd

In recent years Norway has slowly become a hot bed for some finest new punk talent. Alongside Kvelertak’s genre-twisting owl-wearing antics and Blood Command showing the world that not all female fronted bands are Paramore clones, the latest export looking to prove their peninsula has a lot more to offer than just high-brow BBC4 crime dramas are a bunch of teenagers going by the name of Honningbarna.

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Palm Reader
Bad Weather
Small Town Records
06 May 2013

by Tom Doyle

Palm Reader is an ambitious name for any band, isn’t it? The implication of being able to tell the future and the alluded to ability to therefore stay ahead of the game is a lofty claim for a quintet working in an crowded marketplace. Nevertheless, there is plenty of evidence on Bad Weather that these Woking lads have enough creative spark to, if not predict the future, then certainly to have a degree of success in it.

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Arcane Roots
Blood & Chemistry
PIAS Recordings
06 May 2013

by Gavin Lloyd

Ever since Arcane Roots started seeping into people’s consciousness, there has been one comparison that has repeatedly been brought up. A little band who have recently scored a number one album and completed a sold-out arena tour of the country by the name of Biffy Clyro. There’s no disputing the two bands have their similarities, with frontman Andrew Groves even looking pretty similar to Simon Neil.

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Cathedral
The Last Spire
Rise Above Records
29 April 2013

by Rob McAuslan

Lee Dorrian’s Cathedral are a British metal institution, or at least they were; The Last Spire sees the end of one of our all-time great bands. This is it folks, there are no gigs to support this record whatsoever. There was a lot of talk at the band’s final live shows about what this album would sound like, and even whether the band would release it at all. Those of you hoping for a return to the sequinned flares and mirrorballs of the ‘Midnight Mountain’-era, and there were definitely some of you, will feel a little let-down by this.

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Coliseum
Sister Faith
Holy Roar
29 April 2013

by Ollie Connors

Tracing the career path of Louisville, Kentucky trio over their decade-long career has been fascinating. From their beginnings as a ferocious metallic hardcore band, to the more darkened punk ‘n roll vibes of 2010′s House With A Curse, new full-length Sister Faith brings a new spectrum of influence into play, with a record that would sit at home in the collections of all and sundry; fans of post-punk/new wave, clangorous post-hardcore and even Torche/Baroness-worshipping stoner rock fans will all find something to love on Coliseum’s latest offering.

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Centuries
Broken Hymns
Halo of Flies/This Charming Man Records
23 April 2013

by Tom Doyle

In the ever clogged and crowded world of hardcore, one of the hardest tricks to pull off is being distinctive enough that your crowd prick up their ears whenever a record of yours starts spinning. Such tribulations are the mother of invention and have in the last 30 years lead to hardcore being plied in formats as multifarious as one could imagine. TRC to Title Fight, Cro-Mags to Cancer Bats. The flip side of that coin though is that just because you aren’t re-inventing the wheel doesn’t mean it don’t spin just as well as it ever did. Enter Palm Beach Florida’s Centuries.

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Sharks
Selfhood
Rise Records
29 April 2013

by Alex Andrews

Something that doesn’t add up about Sharks is how publications like this very website – usually concerned with the heavier end of the musical spectrum – have come to write about them. Support slots with Gallows, Fucked Up and erm, Lostprophets have seen the band cast by certain sections of the media as the fresh-faced saviours of punk’s true spirit, while they’ve gone on peddling something closer to the radio-ready mod revival spearheaded by bands like the Ordinary Boys (remember them?) at the turn of the millennium.

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HIM
Tears On Tape
Razor & Tie
29 April 2013

by Gavin Lloyd

My earliest memory of HIM was seeing the cooler older kids at school wearing the now infamous Heartagram hoodies. Naturally this perked my interest and upon hearing ‘The Funeral of Hearts’ for the first time it became abundantly clear what all the fuss was about. HIM were the natural successors to 90s dark pop pioneers Savage Garden. Similar to the likes of Refused and At the Drive-In, Savage Garden released very little material but became hugely influential, and while he list of bands who owe their existence to them is massive, but perhaps the band who owe the most to them are HIM. Therefore I decided the best way to tackle reviewing new album Tears On Tape is to not skirt around the issue but ask how does it compare to the Aussie trailblazer’s seminal debut record.

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Kaledon
Altor: The King’s Blacksmith
Scarlet Records
26 April 2013

by Daniel Cairns

There was once a time in my life where I thought power metal was absolutely worthless as a genre. I attended Bloodstock Open Air 2009 which was pretty power metal heavy, and the only fond memory I have of it is hearing some guy on speed in a stall selling shutter shades playing Stagger Lee by Nick Cave. It was the musical highlight of a festival largely full of fucking guff like Blind Guardian and Battlelore. I had a falafel wrap too, that was pretty nice.

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