If Scene Queen is the sound of Bimbocore, then BRAT is the sound of Bimboviolence. Marrying timeless OSDM with a pink-pilled approach to powerviolence, the NOLA bruisers are a crucial proposition in a genre known for pompous masculinity. ‘Social Grace’ is the group’s new single and their first release under the Prosthetic Records banner, with the track sounding akin to a bullet-belt donned Margot Robbie fronting Bolt Thrower. However, there’s no gimmickry here. In fact, ‘Social Grace’ sounds like it could bench press most of its contemporariness in the way it stays true to the hulking musical strength of the genre. With the band having already played shows with the likes of EYEHATEGOD, ACxDC and Maul, BRAT are here to violently pave the way for barbiegrind. – Dan Hillier
Elder emos rejoice, Alkaline Trio walk among us once more, bringing renewed life and energy to their familiar sound with new single ‘Blood, Hair, and Eyeballs’ off their upcoming album of the same name, released via Rise Records on January 26th 2024. With 6 years having passed since they released new material, Matt Skiba steps effortlessly back into harmony with Dan Andriano for this hit of nostalgia driven goodness. Full to the brim with more camp fun and spooky themes than any haunted mansion ride, Alkaline Trio are back to prove they haven’t lost their flair or their passion and do what they do best. – Zee Asher
Nottingham post-black metallers Underdark have unveiled the latest single taken from second album Managed Decline – out November 24th via Church Road Records – and it paints a bleak portrait of part of the overarching album narrative. According to the band, “Matrimony takes place in a certain part of the album’s story where a chance hookup at a party results in an unplanned pregnancy and hasty wedding. The couple, both heroin users, try to keep it together for the sake of their child. Addiction, unfortunately, is a bitch and the mother relapses in a fatal overdose.” The soundtrack to this bleak tale is just shy of 8 minutes of furious blastbeats married with gorgeous atmospherics, that continues to show a huge step up for Managed Decline. – Will Marshall
Released in anticipation of the approaching all hallows eve, ‘Witch’ sees alternative hip-hop artist Delilah Bon giving a voice to all those innocent woman murdered during the religious bloodlust of the witch trials of the 14th – 17th century. Directly addressing the parallels between violence towards women then and now, the track is arguably Delilah Bon’s most incendiary work thus far, with the righteous rage inherent only being amplified with the additional soundscapes of ALT BLK ERA. “I wrote this song for the forgotten women in history that were killed on suspicion of witchcraft during the 14th – 17th century witch trials”, states Delilah Bon. “If women were outspoken, if they challenged the church or the patriarchy, they would be forced to confess to being a witch under torture then hanged or burnt at the stake. All of it was fuelled by misogyny and the fear of women’s power. They wanted to silence and blame women, killing over 50,000 of them across Europe and America. I did a lot of reading about witches and couldn’t believe how barbaric and wide scale it all was, it only felt right to give these women a voice 300 years later.” – Dan Hillier
Yet another blistering track addressing how religious paranoia over witches led to needless suffering in the 15th century, ‘Bastard Of The East’ sees UK black metal standouts The Infernal Sea addressing one of the most barbaric witch-hunters of the 1500s. Taken from the band’s upcoming record Hellfenlic – released January 26th via Candlelight Records – ‘Bastard Of The East’ and the record as a whole harrowingly details the life, methods and much deserved downfall of Witchfinder General Matthew Hopkins, a man who led a reign of persecution over the UK throughout his life. Those loyal to the black metal scene should know how brilliant The Infernal Sea are, but here the band document the horrors of the subject in a way even more-so bleak than their previous work, ensuring their dismal approach to black metal is more suffocating than ever before. “This single delves deep inside the notion of how incredibly delusional Matthew Hopkins, the Witchfinder General was”, state the band on the track. “He was a brutal, sadistic murderer, who strongly believed that he was carrying out God’s work. He extracted false confessions out of many fearful innocent women, during a time of great paranoia within the Church. He believed demons were rampant, causing mischief, fornicating and spreading blasphemy. It was the Witchfinders’ mission to protect the church and the people from these ‘lies’.” – Dan Hillier
Going from strength to strength, Lonely The Brave release another new single from their upcoming album What We Do To Feel. Jack Bennett’s ardent vocals on ‘Long Way’ emanate a yearning that only heightens the dreamy, buoyant melody. The confidence put into their sound and their production at every level comes through loud and clear, Lonely The Brave are a band that know exactly what they’re doing and how to leave a lasting impact and you can’t afford to miss out. – Zee Asher
This institution of heavy grooves and howling shrieks needs no introduction: it’s Lamb of God. To celebrate the one-year anniversary of Omens, their ninth album, they release the single ‘Evidence’ originally available only on the Japanese CD version. It’s classic Lamb of God: extremely pissed off, groovy as hell, and unfairly catchy. If you get your dopamine from the vocalist roaring “go!” right before the instruments explode into the final stretch, this one should tickle your hypothalamus nicely. – Josiah Aden
The dim hallway stretches into the distance. It looks like it’s been abandoned for years. Somewhere, a spacey, repetitive guitar begins to plink a tense riff. Breathy vocals materialize as velvety black background sounds begin to hum. The hallway shrinks away as the vocals tear in and open a portal to a despairing hellscape. Full of Hell x Nothing’s collaboration ‘Spend the Grace’ is truly bleak. Nothing’s post-shoegaze heightens, rather than tempers, Full of Hell’s sonic horrors with their tense guitars and cold atmospheres. The guitars turn slow and ponderous for the middle section to buttress the blackened doomgaze climax. As the hellish vision recedes, a crackly, static soundscape refuses to let the listener return to life so complacently. – Josiah Aden
CHVRCHES lead singer Lauren Mayberry returns with her second solo single following September’s debut ‘Are You Awake?’ and with it brings a return to the more familiar electronic, synth-driven sound she has associated herself with over the course of the last decade. Offering a less aggressive sound than her band’s more recent material, ‘Shame’ takes a more upbeat approach with Mayberry’s dreamy vocals taking centre stage as she sardonically tackles themes of societal exploitation and female conformity, all the while ensuring that the song’s main hook stays in your head for hours after listening. – Jordan Aldridge
Birmingham outfit Cauldron love the sound of the 2000s; with every single from upcoming debut album Suicide In the City, they’ve showcased a reverence for that time period while addressing modern and personal ills. ‘I Forgot You Existed (Seattle 1)’ is brimming with snarling riffs while its soaring chorus shows a vulnerability amidst the carnage. Of the song, vocalist Frazer Cassling says “this song is about underestimating an issue or problem and thinking it’s solved before it actually is, which causes it to resurface later on in worse ways. The clean vocals on this song are some of my favourites on the album, and it was definitely a new challenge trying to write and record a chorus of cleans and make them catchy whilst still Cauldron.” – Will Marshall
Dream State have been through a lot. Returning earlier this year with a revamped lineup and new EP Untethered, they were re-embraced gladly by the scene, and they’ve worked tirelessly since then. Latest single ‘Still Dreaming’ comes from the newly-announced mini-album of the same name, and is very much in the vein of the melodic post hardcore they’re beloved for. This is the fifth new song we’ve heard Jessie Powell on and it feels like her confidence has only grown every time. A song close to her heart given the decade gap between last picking up a mic, as well as to the rest of the band for persevering through so much upheaval, ‘Still Dreaming’ is just as it suggests, as the band say “It symbolises not giving up on your dreams no matter what hurdles and obstacles life throws at you. Never let your dreams just be dreams! We hope it serves as a motivating anthem for anyone that listens, as it means a lot to us.” – Will Marshall
Want a song that sounds like getting mugged? END have that in spades, and with the latest single from their second album The Sin of Human Fraility, they’ve introduced industrial elements to make it even more unsettling. ‘Thaw’ has pulsing electronics that lend it an even more menacing atmosphere, along with guest vocals from Heriot‘s own Debbie Gough. The interplay between the two, or when they both truly go for the throat, makes this an unmissable onslaught of nihilistic, heavy hardcore. END were already one of the most vicious and exciting bands to pick up in the wake of bands like Nails, and ‘Thaw’ sees them finding their own take on the sound more than ever before. – Will Marshall
Taken from the band’s recently announced new record Take It Or Leave It – released February 16th via Alcopop! Records – ‘Do It Another Day’ is a zingy and irresistibly catchy ADHD anthem from one of North Ireland’s best pop-punk exports. Encapsulating the band’s brilliant ability to amplify the original feel-good properties of guitar pop whilst pushing pop-punk to new heights, the track wonderfully highlights how Cherym are swiftly becoming one of the most doted-on names within the genre. “I was diagnosed with ADHD earlier this year and for the first time in my life I realised that I wasn’t just a complete idiot and I actually had an illness that explained why I am the way I am”, states vocalist Hannah Richardson. “I guess the diagnosis also prompted creativity and so ‘Do it Another Day’ was born. Whenever we recorded it in the studio we just knew straight away that we wanted it to be the anthem for all the ADHDers out there who, like me, struggle with productivity and finding that initial bit of motivation you need to clean your room, or do laundry, or sometimes even get a shower…because that’s the reality of living with ADHD. If this is you, we really hope this song allows you to feel heard.” – Dan Hillier
2021’s UNMAKER challenged the standards of what heavy was with beautiful brutality. Textures that inflict piercing wounds to eardrums but moments later heal. It also successfully expanded on the conceptual worlds LLNN were imagining. Not just defined by the physical entities of pieces of wood and metal thrust with human force, the industrious post rock four piece have built soundscapes that are engrossing even sometimes overwhelming with their intensity. But before they birthed this magnum opus into the conscious of their followers vocalist Christian Bonnesen had already made his decision to depart sometime in 2022 to spend more time building his family and work on other projects.
Some bands crumble in the face of such a linchpin and key creator leaving, but not Rasmus and his fellow musical journeymen. They always had not just the next best thing but THE person who could not only do justice to Christian’s work but keep propelling LLNN into the stars of distant galaxies.
LLNN’s set at ArcTanGent showed Victor has had no problem settling into his prominent role within the group quickly but as he explains. “There’s still a few riffs I need to get completely under my skin, it’s not like I go on complete autopilot. Which I would prefer to do, but that is going to come. We have practiced as much as we could with our busy schedules…but right now we are mostly playing old material.”
Comprised of Anya Pearson (Guitar), Mimi Jasson (Bass), Ishmael Kirby (Vocals) and Lucy Katz (Drums), since their inception the queerpunk quartet have been a beacon of hope, joy and change. As seen within their 2020 self-titled debut, the collective harness the power of punchy and zealous punk to combat the injustices within our society and to offer resite from it’s horrors. However, the band and their art do more just merely highlight such issues whilst idly calling on one to take action alone.
Instead, Dream Nails actively invite listeners to join the community they have carved out, welcoming fans and listeners alike to partake in their celebrations of queer joy and righteous musical protests. This is what separates Dream Nails from their passive peers in the scene. They are more than just a band; they are a community for one and all, and Doom Loop is the invitation to join them.
Released via Marshall Records, Doom Loop see’s the punk collective expanding their musical horizons whilst reaching out their arms in fellowship. Across the ten tracks that form the record, Dream Nails offer ruminations on radicalisation, authoritarianism, cancel culture, masculinity and the viscous cycles that shape our existence – both mentally and societally. However, this is not a record of outright despair. Akin to the band’s ethos, this record is a life-affirming collection of songs that inspire one to the join the band in making the world a better place whilst finding joy and catharsis in collectiveness.
Truthfully, it’s a cordial and vibrant proposal to join the band’s hand in community and to fight against unjust patriarchal systems, rampant injustices and outdated social constructs together as one. And with that in mind, we got in touch with Dream Nails to breakdown Death Loop track by track.
Ishmael: “‘Good Guy’ is the fake ID used by men used to earn trust, to excuse, to placate. The song makes the point that toxic masculinity is systemic. The lyrics are “It’s not a lone wolf, it’s the whole damn pack. It’s not a bad apple, it’s the whole damn tree”. We see a ‘Good Guy’ a mask, a boys’ club, a dance, a game.”
Lucy: “Musically this song is inspired by Queens of the Stone Age and New York post-punk band Gustaf. It’s a bold statement of intent about this chapter of Dream Nails.”
Ishmael: “Ultimately this song started as a catchy hook; a trans daydream about the possibility of the power I could hold as a boy expressing femininity. It felt important that writing a song centring gender-euphoria comes from the same place as any other song does, just wanting to hum it on a summer’s day. Growing up in an environment that failed to nurture my trans-national queerness was tough, but I’ve used that pressure to write this song, to validate all the things about me that I couldn’t express back then. I’m so grounded in my gender euphoria these days, that the song is a celebratory revenge for me.”
Comprised of Chris Clarke (bass, vocals, synths) and Owen Gildersleeve (drums), Conditions Of Worth is Modern Technology’s second LP and sounds like the structural breakdown of the neglected machine that is British society. Conceived under the dark wing of the pandemic and finally recorded last year at London’s Holy Mountain Studios, Conditions Of Worth harkens the collapse of the decaying joints, neglected cogs and the now threadless screws that once held this nation together. As the granulating bass and synths of the record visualise the brittle rust of our broken down socio-economic system, the roars of Clarke sound perfectly alike to us as a collective neglected population screaming not in alarm, but in tired anxiety as the world disintegrates around us.
It’s impossible not to think of acts in the vein of Oxbow, Big | Brave, Melvins and fellow UK luminaires Thank, JOHN and Torpor in thanks to Conditions Of Worth’s suffocating atmosphere. But what separates this record from its contemporaries is both its vivid delivery and intertwined feelings of hope and anxiety. It’s our own children who who will be left with this broken and dying world, but hopefully, they will learn from our errors and revitalise the planet we ruined and abandon our callous economic order that currently stands as an act of sheer folly. Or perhaps they will be unable to carry out the task ahead of them. Such feelings of fear and hope intertwine as one on this album, but in contrast, to air such thoughts in such a visual way provides real catharsis.
Warm and inviting much like your favourite item of clothing, the latest track from Laura Jane Grace is a testament to the her unmatched ability to craft deeply personal songs that still resonate a sense of universal familiarity. Lifted from her forthcoming new record, ‘Dysphoria Hoodie’ is a timeless and tender ode to that trusted hoodie we all seek when fear and dysphoria begin to cooly creep in. Much like the rest of Grace’s work, it’s raw and unfiltered, but in times of inescapable anxiety, it’s a great comfort. “This is a song about gender dysphoria and your favourite hooded sweatshirt,” Grace says. “Any trans person out there knows what a dysphoria hoodie is — it’s the hoodie you wear when feeling low and dysphoric and you don’t want the world reading your gender. Hide your body shape, hide your head, disappear as much as you can. Wrap yourself up in it like a blanket anywhere you go. Make your flesh become cotton. Instant protection from the outside world. My dysphoria hoodie happens to be an Adidas hoodie, so yes, this is in fact really just a tribute song to my favourite Adidas hoodie.” – Dan Hillier
HEALTH make “sad music for horny people,” at least if you believe their merch. The industrial outfit have released two singles from upcoming album Rat Wars, the follow-up to 2019’s Vol4:: Slaves of Fear and both embody very different sides of them. The former, ‘Sicko’, samples ‘Like Rats’ by Godflesh and uses it to propel its disturbingly slick synths. The second, ‘Children of Sorrow’, features the ethereal vocals and machine-like drumming they’re known for, though the guitar riff is pure Lamb of God, albeit twisted into a new, HEALTH form – unsurprising when their guest is Willie Adler, the Virginia metallers’ guitarist. Both songs show the beloved band on particularly excellent form, which only makes the prospect of their new album, arriving December 7th, all the more enticing. – Will Marshall
Offering another glimpse of what’s yet to come, Seattle’s Foxcult make a strong case for fixing themselves a spot on everyone’s ‘ones to watch’ lists with their new single ‘Silicone Dream’, the second track taken from their hotly anticipated debut EP The Indigo Fault. Intricate and melodic post-hardcore noise from an all trans band, teasing sci-fi lore and a broader genre experience to come forms a fresh, captivating formula for a band already making waves in the heavy music scene, even despite this only being their fourth single since the band’s first release back in February of this year. Shoegazey overtones suffuse an intense fusillade of guitar, drumming and harsh vocals before giving way to a gorgeous, silvery chorus. Serving as a narrative prelude to the band’s prior single ‘Glacier’, ‘Silicone Dream’ carries a heightened sense of urgency and aggression, expanding the scope of what we can expect from the band in the future as they establish their name through their auspicious approach to musical storytelling. The Indigo Fault releases 17th November, and it’s set to kickstart the career of what could easily be one of the most interesting upcoming bands in the scene. – Elliot Grimmie
Last year’s Psychic Jailbreak continued to cement Canadian punks Cancer Bats as one of modern music’s gritty hardcore punk legends with their metal tinted riffs and ever-entertaining delivery. Even after founding member Scott Middleton’s departure they have rumbled on from Aberdeen to Milton Keynes spreading joy their live shows bring. New standalone single ‘Weird Punx’ celebrates their travels and journey as musicians over the years. A picture of young Liam and Jaye as the cover image showing how much they have grown but kept the essence of what makes Cancer Bats, a damn good time. – Adam Vallely
This may sound less of a gently meandering river and more of a riptide of noise, but the new track from Gozer is still host to the sense of ethereal majesty one would expect from a track with this namesake. The first cut to be taken from the group’s forthcoming EP The Path Always Leads To The End, ‘Celestial River’ sounds utterly gorgeous in the fashion in which Gozer combine corrosive sludge with ponderous post-metal, ultimately presenting itself as attack as dynamic and fluid as the most famous of waterways. The band may have established their finesse with their brilliant 2022 debut An Endless Static, but ‘Celestial River’ proves to be the estuary that that will surely lead Gozer to the ocean of spoils they undoubtedly deserve following the release of their new EP. – Dan Hillier
Headlining next year will be none of than Ohio post-rock legends If These Trees Could Talk, who will be heading to Portals next year for their first ever UK show. Confirmed to be an exclusive set, the band’s appearance at next year’s festival will their only set in the country for 2024 and will come almost two decades since their initial inception. Also joining If These Trees Could Talk are Taiwan’s Elephant Gym, Japan’s LITE and Irish math rockers Enemies. They will also be joined by Town Portal, Yama Warashi, Midas Fall, My Octopus Mind and Qariaq.
“If These Trees Could Talk have established themselves over the past two decades as one of the premier post-rock and post-metal bands in the world. Despite this, they have never previously performed in the UK”, state the Festival on the announcement “Their set at Portals Festival promises to be a sensational moment in UK experimental music history. We’ve been trying to book them since we started Portals in 2015 and are over-the-moon to finally be able to bring them to the UK.”
Originally starting as a humble all-dayer at New Cross Inn, Portals Festival has become one of the most crucial and celebrated events in the experimental music calendar. By previously hosting the likes of Bossk, Maybeshewill, ASIWYFA and MONO whilst simultaneously championing emerging talent of similar ilk, the festival has swiftly and rightfully garnered itself with a reputation as being one of the best festivals in the global post and math rock scene. Now with the festival’s new home at Hackney established, 2024 is looking to be the biggest year for the Portal thus far.
Portals Festival takes place at EartH, Hackney, on 25th and 26th May 2024. Find additional information and tickets here.
