Hardcore is currently experiencing possibly the biggest boom period the genre has ever seen, with multiple bands exploding in popularity and visibility over the last few years. From Turnstile’s scene-transcending Glow On to Code Orange’s experiments with melody on The Above, some of hardcore’s standouts have been drawing in the masses by expanding their horizons and adding more melodic elements to their sound. Enter Knocked Loose, who are somewhat of an outlier. The bigger Knocked Loose get, the heavier they get. The more difficult they get, the more intense they get. The Oldham, Kentucky favourites have this week announced You Won’t Go Before You’re Supposed To, their first album since 2019’s bruising A Different Shade of Blue and first single ‘Blinding Faith’ is crushing, truly crushing, in every sense of the word. From lyrical darkness that criticises religion to genuinely nauseating breakdowns, Knocked Loose are unquestionably taking up the mantle as hardcore’s most brutal great white hope. – Jordan Aldridge
Rising from the ashes from their previous project Press To Meco, guitarists Jake Crawford and Luke Caley, alongside bassist Meg Mash and drummer Richard Rayner formed unpeople, an exciting new alt-rock band which takes the pair’s flair for chunky riffs and multi-part harmonies to a bold new level with more depth than ever before. On unpeople’s latest single ‘waste’ the quartet double down on the catchy melodies and unstoppable energy of their debut track ‘smother’ but with a ferocious, moshable breakdown reminiscent of bands like Reuben and Arcane Roots. If you like infectious grooves, soaring melodies and hard-hitting riffs then unpeople are a band to keep an eye on. – Tom Bruce
If you ever wanted to hear Dan Campbell say “fuck the tories” you’re in luck. Inspired by how the entirety of the band bar Aaron caught Covid during their 2022 UK tour, ‘Alone At St Lukes’ is a soliloquy on isolation delivered with swelling brass, pummelling percussion and full boisterous collective conviction. Granted, the tale of Aaron West and his escapades may be a work of narrative fiction, but here the band use the basis of reality – on how their actual last tour was almost scrapped due to an in-band breakout of the virus – as inspiration for their songcraft and storytelling. “I think sometimes constriction can be a catalyst for something special,” Dan explains. “When everyone else in the band got Covid during our UK tour in 2022, it became an indelible part of the story. Our best laid plans were immediately dashed again on the rocks of the pandemic, but this new narrative constriction forced a shift in my approach to the story that sent the record spinning in a new and better direction.” – Dan Hillier
The magnetism and intensity of Blackpool’s Blanket are things to be admired, especially as they proficiently offer both in buckets without being detrimental to hooks nor melody. Drawing influence from and earning comparisons to bands such as Basement, Failure, Deftones and Foo Fighters, Blanket are an intriguing mixture of post-hardcore and shoegaze, with ‘Nuclear Boy Scout’ proudly displaying their influences whilst highlighting their own impressive songcraft. On this track, the band expertly convey the loud-quiet-loud dynamics of some of shoegaze’s most revered names, all the while offering up hugely singable verses and chorus that demonstrate vocalist and guitarist Bobby Pook’s vocal proficiency. – Jordan Aldridge
Part of the increasingly fertile and devastating UK death metal scene, Essex boys Beyond Extinction mark their return with a frankly pulverising track in ‘Reverse Life Support’. So grimey and filthy you can almost feel your ears filling up with freshly shovelled dirt, they’re joined by Harbinger vocalist Dilan Alves who somehow manages to give it even more of an edge. The band’s first release since the passing of founding guitarist Zach Scott, this cements their status as a band on the rise, it’s part of a deluxe edition of the stunning Nothing More Wretched EP, due out at the end of March. The most disgusting and sickening track you’ll hear this week by a long way, it’s the best slice of British death metal since Celestial Sanctuary‘s 2023 effort. The band have also organised a stacked lineup in tribute to Zach, set for 17th August. Get your tickets for not only a great cause, but also more of this sort of festering goodness. – Chris Earl
The ever unstoppable and undefinable CLT DRP are back with their first material since the release of their phenomenal second record last year. Celebrating the joy of gender fluidity is ‘Until You Showed Me’, that track bares all the crucial touchpoints of the trio’s mercurial and unique sound whilst still sounding totally new and fresh. As Annie Dorrett addresses the inherent freedom that comes with unshackling oneself from a limiting gender role and binary, guitarist Scott Reynolds and drummer Daphne Koskeridou play with the kind of unrestrained dexterity that can only come from not restricting oneself to an arbitrary genre or limited sound. As always, ‘Until You Showed Me’ is the sound of the inspiration and liberation that comes with untethering oneself from the norms that rigidly bind existence for many. “Femininity is a word that has haunted me my whole life, whereas Masculinity is something that I’ve longed for”, states Annie on the track.‘”Until You Showed Me’ is a love song to my current partner for making my gender fluidity something that they nourish and make room for rather than dismiss or ignore. It’s no secret that a lot of people feel the need to lean into a gender role in order to gain respect or normalcy and if they mess with anything outside the binary it can seem threatening. Funnily enough I’ve found myself playing with my femininity a lot more now that I’ve found comfort in my skin again. This song is a little ode to the queers and anyone who strays from the binary in any way small or large. Break the wall from either side, that’s how we get ‘em to listen.” – Dan Hillier
Composed of Owen Lyons (vocals, guitar, trumpet, keys), Matthew Watt (guitar, vocals), Gareth Arnold (bass, vocals) and Henry Wilson (drums, vocals), Jumper Boy present an approach to indie, math and emo that’s effortlessly endearing. Yes, whilst it has to be said that many an act within the realm of this genre can also be presented with such an accolade, what makes Jumper Boy so brilliant is just how authentic and natural they sound. Organically amalgamating elements of twinkly math, midwest emo and home-brewed indie with a kind of intricate chemistry that can only come from close-knit friends inhabiting the same wavelength, the Sheffield quartet’s output is rich with a sense of intrinsic sincerity that can only come from full creative commitment to their craft. Whilst their 2019 EP Pictures From Your Birthday presented such a fact, it’s their most recent release Songs About Furniture that makes such a statement irrefutable.
Harkening thoughts of genre defining acts as Delta Sleep and TTNG whilst also enriched with the earnest charm synonymous with emerging acts in the vein of Toodles and the Hectic Pity and Slash Fiction, Songs About Furniture see’s the band addressing difficult times with inspiring optimism. Whilst the record may be on focusing on the rediscovery of oneself in the wake of trauma and grappling ones own dwindling mortality, here, Jumper Boy address such trepidations with a kind of warmth that’s illuminating and inviting. In fact, the record is positively aglow with kindred musical affection.
In fact, as the album yearningly glides from the carbonated math rock of ‘There Is No Lake At Camp Greenlake’ to the serene midwest emo longing of ‘Times New Roman’ prior to concluding with a sweeping eight plus minute chronicle with ‘Burnt Toast’, Jumper Boy’s personal ruminations become shared. It’s a record that address and accepts the woes that the human condition bestows upon us, but one that states that we don’t have to wander through the shadows of existence alone. As the band explore such fears with the kind of progression that can only come from a band birthed forth from the fertile soil of the Yorkshire scene, Jumper Boy ultimately come to pass to be the musical equivalent of a sympathetic shoulder to lean or a trusted hoodie to seek comfort in; always reliable, always understanding and always consoling.
With Songs About Furniture out now via Stereo Brain Records, we got in touch with Jumper Boy to discuss their approach to songcraft, their growth over the years and making warm wooly music.
Owen: “I’d say we’re an Emo, Indie and Math Rock band from Sheffield. We write stuff that tends to fit in the triangle between those genres but I think I’d struggle to pin one of them down as our primary genre. We’ve got a bit of fast riffy dance-y stuff, some twinkly stuff and unusual time signatures and some slower, more atmospheric stuff. Lyrically I guess a lot of our stuff is just about stuff that’s happened to me or things that I think about. I think our lyrics can end up being on the sadder side but I try to get some nice imagery and a bit of a positive spin every now and then.”
Owen: “I like to think of our influences like a big venn diagram. All of us individually have overlap but there’s actually very little that all of us listen to. I grew up with the standard mid 2000s emo and pop punk as well as a lot of music from the British indie scene like Bloc Party and Libertines. I think that stuff really shaped my sense of songwriting and lyrics. When I went to University I met the other guys in the band and then got really into the math rock that was happening here in the 2010’s with stuff like Colour, TTNG and Delta Sleep who I think are all big influences for specific things like chords, progressions and guitar lines.”
Matt: “I remember when Owen and I were trying to start the band in winter 2017/18 we’d just discovered math rock and got super excited about trying to get into that scene (when we could barely even play any of it!). I think because we were so new to it, we still brought a lot of our own preferences and sound though, which came out as a real mix of genres in that first EP. I think that continues now – if anything our individual tastes have branched out even further – so we’ll arrive at rehearsals with totally different ideas of notes and rhythms to fit around the songs we’re working on.”
Owen: “It’s been good yeah, there were a whole bunch of reasons why we had to take quite a long time to put anything out after our demo EP in 2019 but after gearing things back up in 2021 we wanted to take time to write songs and find a producer and sound that we were really happy with so it’s been a long process getting it released. We’re happy with the final result and the reception has been really lovely whether it’s from people who knew us or people who found out about us through the EP or our tour with Pillow Fort last summer.”
It’s fair to say that Mountain Caller are both a unique blueprint for and a terrific standout band within the realms of both sci-fi and fantasy, as well as the post-rock, prog and metal genre’s that their music inhabits. We couldn’t wait to sit down and talk with them about their ambitious new chapter and record, Chronicle II: Hypergenesis. Thankfully, we’ve come to know this band is nothing short of both forthcoming and detailed in their answers, and they kindly spilled all the glorious detail for us. It is our absolute pleasure to share these details with you now.
El: “So it’s the name of the closing track, which we actually wrote at the same time as the first album. It’s the process that The Protagonist in our story commences through completing this next phase of her journey, her quest, and is depicted actually, on the front cover of the album, where she is beginning her process of remaking the world in a small way, in this instance allowing her power to burst forth into the ground and building this new kind of slightly alien forest space around her with unusual flora and fauna, and interesting creatures and things. So it’s this rapid growth of a whole new part of the world.”
Claire: “Yes, we managed to get her again despite her busy schedule. It kinda needed to be, like for the the trilogy, we’re hoping to get her again, for… if there is a third one, no spoilers. But yeah, it kind of made sense for the continuity of it all, we were very, very pleased when she was able to squeeze us in. She’s done a cracking job again.”
El: “Well what the front cover kind of surrounds is the climactic moment in Hypergenesis that you also hear in in the track, when the tempo begins to go faster and faster, there are various kinds of phases of that song that where we’re trying to illustrate growth and creation in different ways, but the Mountain Caller part on the back, we have long held this idea that maybe he’s a benevolent helper, or maybe he’s a malevolent force. She’s not sure, but we have ideas about that. We love the idea that he’s constantly sort of present in her life in some way, whether it’s explicitly pointing something out or merging into the scenery, like growing himself out into a tree to observe her, and that he can just take all kinds of different spooky forms.”
Claire: “It’s kind of a deliberate thing of deliberate thing that we’re zooming in on her and zooming out on him a little bit as well, so the lens through which this album is told has sort of shifted a little bit.”
El: “It does follow on directly, there’s maybe a gap of a couple of days. At the end of the first record in Dreamspirals, we were trying to portray this scene in which, after her memory has sort of started coming back to her, triggered by some of the pressures in the events and the terrors of Trial by Combat, she finally finds a moment of respite in this kind of cave outcropping on a mountain and begins to actually deliberately weave her magic for the first time and has more confidence in who she is and what she’s got to do, she now has a much clearer purpose. We talked about this idea that these star charts would draw themselves out on her skin, and she would use those to navigate to where she’s got to go to next, so when you meet her again, in Daybreak, the first song on the new record, she is maybe a few days, a few weeks into that journey, traversing the landscape looking for her destination, using these star maps on her skin to navigate.”
Claire: “So with the first record, we were very much finding our feet as a band, so a lot of it was in the room trying to suss each other out. I mean, El and I go back a while, but we’d never written music together before at that point. But I think we’ve got quite comfortable with each other toward the end and you can see the progress with writing and the songs themselves. The first album was written in a very linear way, in fact all the way back to the EP, each track was written chronologically so Dreamspirals was the last track chronicling that first part of the story. So you know, that would have been a very exciting prospect to take into the room again for album two, and then COVID hit, and we were all locked down just as we were sort of starting to really get some ideas bubbling away for the next one. So we ended up doing a lot of writing in isolation, there were lots of WhatsApp ideas going around, we’ve got a folder on our Google Drive called ‘the riff bank’, it’s getting pretty full.
But the magic happens in the room where you take in an idea, and it’s, you know, you think you might have got something, or you think you might have nothing, and then you take it in, and you work it through with the group and it just takes on a whole new life and goes in different directions that you perhaps didn’t think it would originally. I think one of the things that was different was when you’ve sat with an idea, and you’ve been working it around to the point where you kind of almost like talking yourself out of it, having the confidence to take that into the room after a few months and work it out is different than just coming up with something on the fly in the room. So it was it was a very different process, but I think having got comfortable with each other in that first record, and understanding that dynamic a little better, just meant that when we did take those ideas into the room, it was quite quick in terms of taking it forward, whereas before with the first one, it was a bit slower with with the idea of progression. I don’t know if the lockdown was a good thing or not for our writing on reflection, but yeah, definitely a different approach than the first record.”
El: “It was different in terms of how we approach writing next to the story as well.”
Claire: “Yes, yeah, we had a bit of the story, but we were working backwords from Hypergenesis, like we knew where she left off and we knew where we were gonna end up, and we had some flesh on the bones of the story arc, but it was a totally different approach in that regard too.”
Ashley: “Alright, so, FOXCULT started in Boston, Massachusetts, as a band called Kuya. It was me and a bunch of other people, we wrote the original version of CHIPOTLE, GLACIER and HAUNTED, realised the band wasn’t going to work out so I put those songs in my back pocket and moved to Seattle. So then after like six or eight months, we decided to try again, but we weren’t super sold on anything until we found Audrey, who had replied to something completely different, but I heard her vocals and it just stuck, and we kinda just forcefully pulled her into the band.”
Audrey: “I volunteered, I heard the demo for HAUNTED and I was like oh, shit! This is like, the music that I’ve needed somebody else to write for me to sing to because when I start demos, I can’t finish a damn thing.”
Ashley: “Long story short, it’s really just been mostly formed on Twitter, and then we’ve all gotten together and done all the writing and recording and stuff.”
Audrey: “It’s a complete like nonfactor pretty much, as it goes, choosing a name is the most difficult process any band will go through, because nobody can ever agree on anything. So we’re all just out in the wild doing our thing, you know, finding ideas and pitching them. I was at the liquor store, I found a craft ale called red fox, and I suggested that I’m like, oh, red fox could be a cool name. It got vetoed on its own, but we’re like, let’s just try fox names until we get to something, or whatever. So we eventually got to FOXCULT and we were like alright, that’s cool enough, this’ll do, we all agree on this enough to know that we’re not going to agree on anything else more strongly, unless we take another two weeks.”
Ashley: “Yeah, it was literally just; good enough, let’s do it!”
Audrey: “And then we were like, you know what, this does actually look really sick when you type it out in all caps, and that gives it a sense of identity so it’s FOXCULT, all caps, non-negotiable. But yeah, it basically came from a can of red ale.”
Ashley: “THE INDIGO FAULT actually wasn’t even the name of the EP up until what, like two weeks, maybe even a week before we actually announced it. What was the original name?”
Audrey: “It was CHASM OF COLORS, and then we were thinking we were all in agreement on THE GLACIER CAMPAIGN but then me, I was like, no, that’s dumb, but then we got to THE INDIGO FAULT and it took forever for me to come around on it, because I got super pedantic about just certain meanings of certain words.”
Ashley: “And you’ll notice, if you if you ever looked at our Twitter, as we’re posting teasers of the artwork, the artwork kind of changed from this deep saturated black to slowly but surely getting more and more purple in the background. And that’s why.”
Audrey: “So it’s kind of a double entendre in terms of the meaning of the title itself, which firstly is just kind of a general metaphor for space in and of itself, and then it also refers to the original title, which was CHASM OF COLORS, which comes from the verse of GLACIER; (Audrey sings the line) “I followed that echo down, a chasm of colours” which basically is the idea of like, being on the glaciers of Neptune, finding where you need to go, and you find it because there’s basically Northern Lights blasting out of the ground. That’s how I like to write my lyrics, I’ll build a setting, a tangible space in which to set the perspective of the song and then I’ll use that to inform the imagery and the metaphors that I want to use, so it’s also referring quite literally to being a fault line spewing with all these colours, and the purply, indigo waters of Neptune below. I hated it at first, it took us like an entire day of bickering back and forth.”
Ashley: “It was bad, it was really bad.”
Audrey: “The two final contenders were THE INDIGO FAULT, or THE INDIGO FRACTURE. I wanted fracture, because using faults, another meaning to that could imply that some kind of mistake was made, which is antithetical to what the story is. But then everyone else was like, you’re overthinking this, and eventually, I’m just like, alright, you can have this one, so we went with THE INDIGO FAULT.”
Ashley: “I will say, I do still really like THE GLACIER CAMPAIGN, I think it’s a sick name.”
Audrey: “It’s very much a point A to point B, linear narrative, in this case about getting from Jupiter to Neptune, but each song doesn’t necessarily talk about like, oh, this is what’s happening now, it’s more of an analysis of certain moods and mindsets as as the character progresses. So, EMPTY SPACE deals with having to make a choice, CLIFFJUMPER has to deal with having made that choice and now realising that there’s going to be some sort of consequences to this and determining whether or not like it was the right thing. SILICONE DREAM is basically the regret side of it and being like ah shit, this was all a mistake, and GLACIER is the resolution to that. And then SYMETTRY is very much the reset point of like, okay, we got to where we’re going, now what?”
After previously announcing the majority of this year’s lineup, ArcTanGent Festival have just announced the final wave of acts for their 10th birthday bonanza and it’s big ‘un. Joining the already stacked lineup composed of the some of the best talent in the global post, math, prog and contemporary scene are progressive metal icons Baroness, metropolitan black metal enigmas Imperial Triumphant, Norwegian hellraisers Blood Command, London riff-mongers Urne, math-pop sweethearts Orchards and local legends Scaler, who will finally play the festival’s mainstage for the first time. They will also be joined by fellow newcomers MSPAINT, Silver Moth, Teeth of the Sea, itoldyouiwouldeatyou, A-Sun Amissa, Gloom Index, Nailbreaker, The Sad Season, Seneca, unpeople, Benefits, CAHILL//COSTELLO, i Häxa, Yard, FORT, Thank and THOT.
Truly celebrating their 10th birthday in style, ArcTanGent’s lineup for 2024 easily stands as their tallest. Originally going from a humble celebration of the national contemporary talent in the UK scene to arguably the planet’s most renowned festival for progressive music – one that draws punters from all four corners of the Earth itself – the event has become the de-facto mecca for connoisseurs of post, math, prog and generally cutting edge music. We’re over the moon to drop the full line up for ArcTanGent 2024 – we weren’t lying when we said our 10th anniversary would be the biggest event we’ve ever put together”, states ATG head honcho James Scarlett. “Baroness are another band we’ve been chasing around for years, we’re stoked to be able to bring so many bands to ATG for the first time to help us celebrate in style.”
As per usual, ArcTanGent Festival takes place at it’s home of Fernhill Farm, Bristol, between the dates of 14th – 17th August. Find remaining tickets here and peek the final lineup in all it’s glory below.
The musical embodiment of mysticism that is Alcest are back and what goods they bring. The first track to be taken from the band’s wildly anticipated new record Les Chants de l’Aurore – released June 21st via Nuclear Blast Records – ‘L’Envol’ is a blissful, euphoric and damn near ecstasy-invoking slab of progressive atmospheric shoegaze that collates the textures of Alcest’s early material, the warmth of outlier 2014 record Shelter and the sense of majesty found within 2019’s Spiritual Instinct. If anything, the track flawlessly encapsulates how this band exist as a vessel for ruminations upon spirituality and the realm that lies beyond the veil, something that Neige elaborates upon. “‘L’Envol’ is a musical return to the atmosphere of Alcest’s first albums”, states the Alcest frontman. “I wrote this song after an inspiring trip to Corsica, where I met amazing people and was surrounded by some of the most unique landscapes I have ever seen. It is about escaping from earthly reality to join a flock of mythical birds flying through the known boundaries of our world. All the tracks on Les Chants de l’Aurore are very different from one another, but we thought this one would be a great introduction to the overall atmosphere and themes of the album.” – Dan Hillier
Atlanta’s Microwave are a band whose sound is hard to pin down. They broadly live in the worlds of indie rock and emo but their releases up until this point have touched on post-hardcore, psychedelia and even R&B. This week sees them announce their upcoming fourth studio album Let’s Start Degeneracy and with it comes the excellent single ‘Bored of Being Sad’. Being a song that explores ideas of surviving as an artist in an unforgiving music industry, the band muse over the romanticisation of sadness, with vocalist/guitarist Nathan Hardy stating “It’s about learning to be happy and take care of yourself.” Clocking in around the three and a half minute mark, the song contains the dreamy guitar work the band have become known for, as well as a hugely infectious, Weezer-tinged chorus that will pop into your head at random for days after listening. – Jordan Aldridge
Some bands just riff harder than others. It’s a fact and there’s no shame in being out-riffed by the best of them. Gatecreeper are one of, if not the best of the new generation of bands who delight in creating massive, brutal riffs. ‘Caught In The Treads’ is a song that the band have been teasing live recently, which has now got an official release and it’s a gargantuan, stomping slab of modern death metal. Channelling their inner Bolt Thrower, the song is about “a supernaturally charged fleet of tanks that have been possessed by the souls of fallen soldiers. It’s about revenge and crushing your enemies” which is as amazing as it is ridiculous. Mixing old school death metal with a hefty modern production yet still sounding like a band indebted to their forefathers, you’ll be hard pressed to find a more straight ahead, fun death metal track this year. – Chris Earl
No bullshit, sludgy metallic hardcore is the order of the day when Mastiff come into town. New single ‘Void’ further cements their reputation as one of the UK heavyweights of the scene with a heady combo of d-beat, double kick and bullet storm guitar work. The soundscape is thick with sludge, and HM2 worship here, before a squealing static track backed only by the tar-thick bass guitar leads into a breakdown that could shatter tectonic plates. Mastiff just hit the mark, and they hit like a fifty kilogram sledgehammer landing on your big toe. – Rob Bown
Are you ready? Then you better get ready to bow to Philly masters The Wonder Years as they break it down with their outstanding new single ‘Year of the Vulture’, the official theme to WWE NXT’s grandest show of the year: Stand & Deliver. It’s been a hot minute since the release of their excellent album The Hum Goes On Forever and the pop-punk-turned-alt-rock maestros return with a song that impressively treads uncharacteristically heavy ground. The verses see frontman Dan ‘Soupy’ Campbell deliver arguably the most aggressive vocals of his career before the choruses explode with all of the gang vocals and festival ready singalongs fans have come to expect over the years. There’s even a breakdown thrown in to close the song out and if you ain’t down with that, The Wonder Years have got two words for ya. – Jordan Aldridge
