Tag Archives: Contemporary Rock

Venues – Aspire

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The heavy scene in Germany is real and a lot of amazing bands hail from the western European country. Venues, from Stuttgart, want to become a household name with their debut, Aspire (Aspiring Empires.)

With four years under their belt, Venues know what they are doing with this debut. At first listen, the vocals are soft, serene and then from out of nowhere they sucker punch your eardrums at full force. The different tones in the guitar work and how it parallels the drumming in first track ‘We Are One’ introduces you to the catchy heavy pop-rock vibes found throughout the album.Continue reading →


Save Face – Merci

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Save Face is the band from New Jersey that the emo scene has been missing. With just one previous EP under their belt, the quartet that includes frontman Tyler Povanda, guitarist Phil McGarry, bassist Chris Aveta and drummer Chris Flannery have created an album that Jimmy Eat World and Taking Back Sunday would be proud of. Continue reading →


Homesafe – One

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This is the part of the review where I’m supposed to dazzle you with my knowledge of a band’s history, to both set the scene and establish my credibility – the equivalent of the bit at work conferences that always go on way too long, where the speaker thinks it’s necessary to go through their CV, telling you all about why they get to speak to you, rather than telling you stuff you might actually need to know, or find interesting. Continue reading →


I, The Mapmaker – Searching EP

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Hailing from what is fast becoming the new metal hotbed of the UK, Southampton, come post-hardcore quintet I, The Mapmaker with their self-released E.P. Searching. Seeing that this was produced by Lewis Johns (Employed To Serve, Rolo Tomassi etc) I was already intrigued as to what the band would have to offer and knew that wasn’t going to be a generic by numbers band.Continue reading →


The Word Alive – Violent Noise

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The Word Alive is no stranger to a changing lineup. In 2016, drummer Luke Holland left the band to pursue other creative projects and last August veteran, Daniel Shapiro left for the same reason. But that didn’t stop the Arizona natives from carrying on. The now threesome has created Violent Noise (Fearless): a 12-track album that proves they are not close to calling it quits.

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