My Dying Bride
The Manuscript
Peaceville Records
13 May 2013
by Daniel Cairns
Whilst peers like Paradise Lost and Anathema have gone through a litany of musical changes, experimenting with Depeche Mode style electronics and glorious anthemic rock songs, My Dying Bride have mercifully continued to wallow in their Keats-meets-Castlevania misery, writing melodic dirges for those moments at four in the morning when you’re not miserable enough for Khanate, but still feel a bit naff anyway.
Dir En Grey
The Unraveling
Firewall/SMEJ
03 April 2013
By David Keevill
The Japanese metallic monolith that is Dir En Grey have had a fairly minimal penetration into the tight-knit UK music community considering the number, and calibre, of their records over the course of the last sixteen years. 2013 sees the release of an EP called The Unraveling, a seven track record that, despite increasing momentum into a metal scene dominated by Western publicity machines, is more a retrospective consolidation of their swollen discography than a push towards a greater consciousness.
The Physics House Band
Horizons / Rapture
Blood and Biscuits
15 April 2013
by Ollie Connors
As I’m sure a lot of you out there were pretty bummed out earlier this year when The Mars Volta called it a day. While they never reached any kind of consistency or accessibility through their 12-year lifespan, they were always able to produce jaw-dropping moments, and the first two full-lengths are still utterly astonishing pieces of music. It’s with extremely apt timing, then, that Brighton trio The Physics House Band bring out their debut EP, Horizons / Rapture, as this couldn’t sound anymore like The Mars Volta if the cover was wearing an afro wig.
Let’s Talk Daggers
Fantastic Contraption
Tangled Talk
25 March 2013
by Gavin Lloyd
Every band wants to class themselves as something fresh, unique and exciting. However despite many claiming this nine out of ten times your average band are going to be another metalcore or pop-punk shaped piece of conveyor belt crap dropped in front of us for mass consummation. But when Let’s Talk Daggers claim they “make music that doesn’t fit into any particular genre”, they may be one of the few bands that can genuinely back up such bold claims.
The Arteries
Restless
Specialist Subject
18 March 2013
by Tom Doyle
Punk isn’t dead, but it is very self-conscious these days. Yet, if you are prepared to seek them out, there are plenty of bands doing it the right way: Write some songs. Get in the van. Play some shows Get in the van again. Record some songs. Live your life. Write more songs. Make the songs mean something. Make them honest. Make them count.
Gnarwolves
CRU
Tangled Talk/Day By Day Records
16 July 2012
by Alex Andrews
Although Gnarwolves’ Fun Club tape has been doing the rounds for a few months now, the first introduction to the Brighton band for many will have been via the endearingly shoddy video for the excellent ‘History Is Bunk’. Presumably filmed on an iPhone and set in the confines of a living room, the video features all three members of the band (who don’t even have the decency to remove their hats) gurning into the camera, lip-synching the lyrics and swinging bottles of Stella in the air.
Lets Talk Daggers
Winter
Tangled Talk
12 March 2012
by Tom Doyle
Who are the most underrated band in the UK? It’s a hard question isn’t it and one to which everyone will have their own answers (hell, why not send us your suggestions, one of you might even be right). Well, with their new EP, Winter, Eastbourne power trio Let’s Talk Daggers are throwing their hat into the ring for the crown of “best band you should’ve heard but ain’t”. This is, after all, a sparky, chaotic and genuinely diverse little record which takes the tired cliché ‘we try and take aspects from all our influences’ and actually, y’know, does it.
Coilguns
Stadia Rods
Dead Dead Dead Music
15 March 2012
by Hugh Platt
One of the most maddening things about people’s reactions to side-projects – particularly those involving members of their favourite bands – it’s that people get the huff when said side-projects don’t sound like the band that they’re a side project of. So if you’re expecting Coilguns, a splinter faction of half the current members of The Ocean, to release records that mirror the deep, pulsating progressive post-metal/math experimentalism of their parent band – music that require contemplation, chin-stroking, and overly-wordy genre description on two-bit metal blogs – then you’re going to be disappointed.
Stadia Rods isn’t that kind of record. This isn’t so much an EP as it is an exploding pressure valve.
The Quarry
We, The Disease
Self-Released
20 February 2012
by Tom Doyle
With a name like The Quarry, we all hoped that this London quartet would sound like ‘Gravel Pit’-era Wu Tang Clan. Sadly for RZA fans everywhere, there is precious little similarity to be found, but fortunately for lovers of harmonised guitar parts, moshing and denim vests, We, The Disease is a powerful statement of intent for a band with a penchant for cutting the crap and focussing down on what makes people want to smash empty cans of Stella Artois into their foreheads.
Pelican
Ataraxia/Taraxis
Southern Lord
10 April 2012
by Ruth Booth
I’ve got a straw man here, and my thumb’s got an itch only a zippo can scratch. It all started with the press release for this EP. It states that with the members of Pelican now spread out across the country, and resulting changes to the ways in they record and write, “the EP represents a new chapter in the band’s evolution”. While all that maybe true – sorry Trevor, but say what?