Breaking through the UK with their enchanting blend of alternative rock and metal, British quintet As Everything Unfolds continue developing their recipe for success with their sophomore album, Ultraviolet (Long Branch Records). The record’s name is inspired by a metaphor for gaining new perspectives on life and is an astoundingly fitting descriptor for the aural experience achieved by each track’s dynamic arrangements.
Hailing from Newport, Wales, noir pop and alternative rock quartet The Nightmares reveal their bleak yet breezy souls with their debut album, Séance, via Venn and Equal Vision Records. The record’s themes of death were inspired by the COVID pandemic putting a hold on the band’s touring plans, leading to experiments with seances during the writing process. As one could imagine, the mental and spiritual outcomes of this paid a great contribution to the music’s morbid concepts and haunting execution.
A great deal of today’s biggest metalcore fans consider the 2000s to the 2010s the golden years of the genre. Bands such as Michigan-based For The Fallen Dreams who have continued on since the MySpace era help to maintain the style’s raw spirit with their ever-evolving nu-metal twists – and their new self-titled album (Arising Empire) is no exception.
UK indie trio Amber Run has a song likely everyone has heard, whether realized or not. Their saturnine piano hit ‘I Found’ from their 2015 debut album 5AM has been used in several television shows, played immeasurable times over the radio, and of course, became a viral TikTok sound. With nearly a gargantuan 325M streams on Spotify alone, the timeless hit has covered unfathomable ground. Now with their fourth full-length album How To Be Human (TRIPEL Records) Amber Run kicks off a promising album with a short yet equally captivating piano-vocal intro with ‘Flowers (Interlude I)’.
Hot on the heels of last year’s four-track EP Nocturnal Youth, comes Pistols At Dawn’s latest album Ascension (JFL Entertainment). The Atlanta-based quintet’s sound is alternative-influenced hard rock, and their newest one Ascension is a promising if patchy, display of heavy grooves and soaring choruses with a brooding atmosphere. Continue reading
After making a name for themselves in the local Brighton scene playing the small venues and intermittently releasing fuzzy rock singles, Sick Joy are here to introduce themselves to the rest of the world with their debut album. Having been described as being one of “British rock’s most promising young bands”, there’s a lot to be proved in this release.
As the follow-up to the big debut, there is a lot on the line for any artist’s second album, but Mothica wasn’t afraid to jump the gun creatively with her concept record Nocturnal (releasing via her own imprint with Rise Records, Heavy Heart Records). While her last album Blue Hour explored the developmental period of becoming sober, Nocturnal dwells on the dark aftermath and search for a new meaning. With a whopping seventeen tracks including an introduction and three interludes, she took a risk with an unconventional album format – one that overall worked out in her favor.
For those not in the know, Grey Daze is not a new band. It was Chester Bennington’s band before Linkin Park.The Phoenix (Loma Vista Recordings) is a re-imaging of songs of unreleased material Chester and Grey Daze intended to released, including his bandmates and friends such as Sean Dowdell, Mace Beyers, and Cristian Davis with help from Dave Navarro, Richard Patrick, and Bennington’s children. Bennington himself wanted to release the music before he died, bringing it to a wider audience. The band did just that using Bennington’s original vocals.
For every rush of adrenaline there’s the eventual lull. For each euphoric high there’s the comedown to follow. Thunderheads (Aqualamb Recordings) — the debut record of LaMacchia — plays like the 3am winding down of a night of excess. Thrills and sensual desires wedded to a shadow of sadness and introspection.
For most styles of music, the word ‘generic’ gets used as a negative critique to discredit the artist’s creative ability and expression. However, in the last decade or so, the term ‘generic pop punk’ has become a shameless staple in a scene that values catchy hooks, relatable lyrics and sing-along choruses over all else. Now on their fourth album, Kings Of The New Age (Pure Noise), pop punk hotshots State Champs continue to freely put out the same kind of music they have always loved. Continue reading