Today’s Track: Wet Leg – ‘Too Late Now’

February 12, 2022 — Leave a comment

Pictured: Rhian Teasdale (Lead Vocals/Guitar) & Heather Chambers (Lead Guitar/Vocals) (Photo by Frances Beach)

Good Morning to you! This is your resident 24-year-old independent music journalist Jacob Braybrooke reporting for duty with yet another daily track on the blog, because it’s always my day-to-day pleasure to write up about a different piece of music every day! If I quoted ‘Chaise Lounge’ to you in the street, the chances are that it would mean something to you if you already love your music and your radio. It is the name of the track that bought the Isle Of Wight indie rock duo of Wet Leg – Comprised of co-vocalists and co-guitarists Rhian Teasdale and Heather Chambers – to fame, having become a viral hit that earned millions of music video views and staggering streaming figures when it found an audience on the internet last year. The duo became as such when they studied at Isle Of Wight college together and became close friends, with the pair later signing up to Domino Recordings – the same eclectic label that has released material from high profile names like Arctic Monkeys, Franz Ferdinand, Hot Chip, Ela Minus, Georgia, Blood Orange and more. Nowadays, Wet Leg are being played all over the BBC with playlist rotation on BBC Radio 1 and BBC Radio 6 Music, and they have also performed on ‘Later With Jools Hollland’ on BBC Two, in addition to being shortlisted for BBC’s ‘Sound Of 2022’ award. They also began touring the US in late 2021 and the two currently have their debut studio album – a self-titled LP – slated for a full release on April 8th. Let’s check out their single ‘Too Late Now’ below.

“It’s about sleepwalking into adulthood”, Teasdale writes about the guitar-oriented track, ‘Too Late Now’, in her press release, explaining, “I never imagined that my adult life would look the way it does and I guess this song reflects on some of the pressures and pulls of life. Sometimes I get really inside my head and everything can feel very overwhelming. I think this song is about accepting that life can feel a bit s**t from time to time. Maybe don’t indulge that thought too much though”, in her own words. I can totally relate to some of the themes discussed in ‘Too Late Now’, with on-point lyricism about social media like “I don’t need no dating app to tell me if I look like crap/To tell me if I’m thin or fat, to tell me should I shave my rat” that are softly sardonic, but they retain honesty and order despite their gentle humor, with the pre-chorus spoken word refrains making some important points about heightening your own expectations when you leave adolescence and life simply goes on instead of truly flourishing. Other refrains like “I don’t need no radio/No MTV, no BBC/I just need a bubble bath/To set me on a higher path” have a broader commentary on influencer or celebrity status, and how simple acts of kindness to yourself can have an impact on your enjoyment of life through the smaller and more profound actions that you make. The chorus is more hook-based, with the rambling sequence of “I’m gonna drive my car into the sea/I’m gonna drive downtown while looking pretty ordinary” going for a somber but uptempo vibe that neatly contrasts the melancholic vocals with some more optimistic melodies. Instrumentally, comparisons to The Maccabees or Porridge Radio are likely to surface as the on-nature lyricism is paired up to the tune of rich, yet raw guitar melodies and muted bass that retains a steady pace throughout the track as the drums gradually kick into a more aggressive gear and there’s a light reverb on the guitar effects that hint towards a more Emo-driven sound without ever entirely traversing into ‘Scuzz Sundays’ gear with the genres that we recall on the blog with each Sunday post, and I liked the new track overall for it’s mix of hazy disorientation and quotable lyricism with commentary that Wet Leg’s peers are clearly connecting with. It remains to be seen whether Wet Leg are truly the ‘next big thing’ or another in a tough line of near-success stories like The Ting Ting’s or The Noisettes during the 00’s. However, there’s certainly potential for their careers to keep taking off because there’s talent in here. Personally, I would say that ‘Too Late Now’ is their strongest yet.

Pictured: Cover Artwork for ‘Wet Leg’ (Self-Titled LP) (Available from 8th April, 2022) (via Domino Recordings)

That’s everything that I had lined up for you today. Your support for the site is hugely appreciated, as usual, and ‘Scuzz Sundays’ will be making its natural way to the blog tomorrow as we recall the ghosts of Pop-Punk’s past for another week. This time, we’re listening back to a mid-00’s hit from an English indie rock group who are best known for their UK top ten singles ‘Golden Touch’ and ‘America’, (a #1 hit), from 2006.

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Scuzz Sundays: Boy Kill Boy – ‘Suzie’

February 6, 2022 — Leave a comment

Pictured: Cover Artwork for ‘Civilian’ (LP) (Released on May 22nd, 2006) (via Vertigo Records)

Good Morning to you! This is Jacob Braybrooke, and it’s time for me to pay another visit to one of Pop-Punk’s ghosts of the past with yet another weekly entry of ‘Scuzz Sundays’ on the daily music blog, given that it’s always my day-to-day pleasure to write up about a different piece of music every day! During the heyday of Scuzz TV, many of the most regularly featured bands were American with stateside favourites like Fall Out Boy, Bowling For Soup and Green Day proving popular with the station’s executives, and so we’re spicing things up by looking at one of the British hopefuls to rival The Killers from the time, but it sadly didn’t quite work out that way for Boy Kill Boy – a Leytonshire native rock band led by Chris Peck, who released two albums before splitting up in 2008, citing a host of issues regarding their label and some disappointing sales for their second LP – 2008’s ‘Stars And The Sea’ – as factors to their downfall. It started out promisingly for them, with the band opening the Radio 1/NME stage at Reading and Leeds Festival in 2005 and headlining NME’s New Bands Tour in 2006, as well as getting lots of support slots for Feeder, Maximo Park, Echo & The Bunnymen, The Cribs, The Automatic, The Charlatans, The Long Blondes and more throughout the UK, US and internationally. Their debut album – 2005’s ‘Civilian’ – also managed to do decent business despite largely ‘meh’ reviews from critics, with the band developing a cult following and it simply went wrong when their label did not see this band as marketable due to their very classically influenced guitar rock sound – according to Peck in subsequent interviews – but they struck a chord with audiences. Boy Kill Boy’s most well-known single is probably ‘Suzie’ as it is also their highest-charting. It reached #17 on the UK Singles Chart, while other singles like ‘Back Again’ and ‘Civil Sin’ also reached the Top 50. The band also performed ‘Suzie’ on an episode of BBC’s ‘Top Of The Pops’ back at the time. Let’s catch up with ‘Suzie’ below.

Lead vocalist Chris Peck started his own solo project when he teased ‘Riversong’ on YouTube in 2011 and keyboardist Peter Carr went on to play the keyboards in the backing band for Marina and The Diamonds in case you were wondering what happened to some of Boy Kill Boy’s line-up. They also reformed for two gigs at Oslo, Hackney, London in November 2016 to sold out sales and critical acclaim, but it’s unclear what has happened to them all outside of those few details. However, ‘Suzie’ represents the band at their peak period, with dimly dressed vocalist Peck squelching “This is not a movie, Things just ain’t the same as your favourite video” after the Synth-led intro that feels like The Killers. The Synths roll along suggestively, while the hyper guitars and drums boast a fast-paced workout with a feel that isn’t entirely commercial because the buoyancy feels quite ramshackle in delivery, and the vocals boast an unpolished sense of agitation, yet there’s some questionable accents put forth by Peck throughout the song when you listen attentively to his half Scottish and half Irish, somewhat laddish, type of croon at close attention. The structure feels catchy, with quick sections like “They said, don’t let me down again” being repeated a few times, as to wind up a live crowd and get them involved with the sing-along nature of the chorus, where Peck screams “Countdown to the disappointment” with a bitterness in his voice that is counteracted by the more blithe instrumentation where the keyboards are engaging and the Synths have a brightness to them. I enjoyed owning the full album for ‘Civlian’ when I was eight or nine years old – possibly younger – and when you listen back, it doesn’t feel outdated by a terrible amount as such. The issue is more that, at some points, you can hear them trying to recycle the laddish tropes of Kaiser Chiefs or The Ordinary Boys, and at some other times, you can hear Peck having a bash at being Maximo Park with his give-and-take live crowd-oriented delivery, and so you end up with something that feels like a re-hash of the tried-and-true tropes of peer groups from (around about) their contemporary time. That said, there’s a charm to the unpolished production with relatable lyrics about dealing with your own pessimistic spirit and how that shapes a relationship within that environment, as we all go through times like Peck’s issues with ‘Suzie’ where we think that things are going to be better than they really turn out to be. Moreover, there’s an anthemic quality to ‘Suzie’ that I feel, if we were living in a different world, could have put them more firmly on the map. As it stands, while some things aren’t quite as good as you remember them, ‘Suzie’ was certainly not a failure. It was just oddly sweet in knowingly fulfilling the London fashionista trends of 00’s ‘Indie landfill’ as the critics call it, rather than setting the world of guitar-driven rock alight for an extended period of time outside of initial success. It was only a slight disappointment.

Pictured: Chris Peck (Lead Vocals/Lead Guitar/Rhythm Guitar), Kevin Chase (Bass Guitar/Backing Vocals), Peter Carr (Keyboards/Synths/Backing Vocals) and Shaz Mahmood (Drums/Percussion) (2006) (Photo Credit: NME.com)

That’s all for now! Thank you for giving me a moment of your attention today, and I’ll be back tomorrow to kick off a new week’s worth of hyper-active blog posts, in daily succession, with a recent single by a non-binary rapper/producer from Philadelphia, Pensylvania who has been a member of Liberal Art, Third Eye Optiks and Indigold. They released their third studio LP, ‘CANDID’, on Les Fleurs Records last Wednesday.

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Today’s Track: HighSchool – ‘Frosting’

February 3, 2022 — Leave a comment

Pictured: Cover Artwork for ‘Forever At Last’ (Released on November 1st, 2021) (via Dalliance Recordings)

Good Morning to you! This is Jacob Braybrooke, of course, and it is time for me to get typing up for yet another quick daily track on the blog, because it’s always my day-to-day pleasure to write up about a different piece of music every day! A trio who spent a long period of over 200 days in lockdown together in their native hometown in the suburbs of Brunswick, Australia – HighSchool are a new Melbourne Post-Punk trio who were formed during 2020 and they have resurfaced after a year of writing and recording an extensive body of work to decent acclaim, with recent singles like ‘Jerry’ and ‘New York, Paris and London’ gaining airplay on BBC Radio 6 Music courtesy of Steve Lamacq’s ‘The New Music Fix’ programming during the early hours of Friday morning each week. Comprised of Lilli Trobbiani, Rory Trobbiani and Luke Scott, the band produces reverb-drenched rock that encompasses between genres like Noise-Punk, Industrial Rock and 00’s Post-Punk Revival in their atmospherically gloomy, but also slightly wistful and textured sounds. Known for their subversive Goth imagery, HighSchool have been finding popularity on Bandcamp recently with the release of their debut EP – ‘Forever At Last’ – which was released on November 1, 2021 via the British-based record label Dalliance Recordings. Check out the single ‘Frosting’ below.

HighSchool recorded their six-track EP project with Archie Shannon from Floodlights behind the decks and it compiles each of their singles to date including ‘De Facto’ and ‘Sirens’, plus the title track and three more, some of which songs have demo versions that date back to late 2020 in terms of their development stages. Opening the short-form release is ‘Frosting’, a Shoegaze-influenced jam that I have been playing on repeat personally, as it reminds me of The Smiths in quite a huge way due to the bittersweet qualities of the emotions and the melancholic sound of the simple guitar strumming that is accompanied by some edgy Goth-rock imagery during the official music video, while it also feels more Lo-Fi than your average Post-Punk act, with some fuzzy guitar riffs that remind me of the DIY Pop music that’s been coming out of the New York psych scene courtesy of artists like JW Francis, combining the moody aesthetics with a softer side that allows the radiant Soft-Rock to lay some emotional groundwork for the swooning lyrics and the sense of longing that is created by Rory Trobbiani’s lead vocals in the delivery. Lyrics like “The second I saw you dance/I was waiting on a love I never knew” and “You can’t win the war if you don’t know who the enemy is” feel contemplative and recall the angst-ridden undercurrent of bands like The Fall in the mid-1980’s, and they’re backed up by a soundscape of textbook Post-Punk where the drowsing guitar effects and the nostalgic Synth riffs, along with a briefly fluttering String sample section, provide an emotive backdrop to support the industrial Bass rhythms that are looped underneath. It feels polished and tidy, but the lead vocals are delightfully slathered in Jangle-Rock guitars that distort the clarity of the nuanced lyrics. Such lyrics recall particularly intimate seconds of time from the past, such as “Can’t say I don’t miss holding hands/And chasing afternoons”, that create more substance for the emotive qualities, as opposed to replicating some of their contemporaries that have been etched into the ‘Indie Landfill’ classification that becomes difficult to break away from. While the music is most reminiscent of modern Pop-Punk and wry Industrial Rock, it almost continues the tradition of bands like Slowdive and DIIV by the creation of the melancholic soundscapes that contain pretensions of stylisation and visual art, but it is more warmly delivered and it aims to uplift Rory Trobbiani’s vocals from a mood of longing to a more nostalgic one. They already sound like a more experienced act than they probably are, and that sounds really great as their music mostly leans on the gloomy side without simply pointing at trademarks of the key influences. Fantastic instrumentally and beautifully performed.

Pictured: HighSchool (aka Lilli Trobbiani, Rory Tribbiani and Rory Tribbiani) (2021) (Photo Credit: Hector Clark)

That’s all for now! Thank you for checking out my latest post, and, for the first time of the year, we seem to have a truly stacked line-up of new albums vying for your attention from tomorrow onwards, and we’ll be selecting one of them as a neat sampler for our ‘New Album Release Fridays’ post tomorrow. We’ll be previewing the newest album from a Missouri-formed indie rock band whose heavy music has been featured in advertisements for Apple, NFL and Bose. They have supported acts like Phoenix, Vance Joy, Joywave, and Cold War Kids on tour since autumn 2018 onwards.

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Scuzz Sundays: Amber Pacific – ‘Always You (Good Times)’

January 30, 2022 — Leave a comment

Pictured: Matt Young (Lead Vocals/Chief Songwriter), Will Nutter (Lead Guitar/Keyboard/Backing Vocals), Dango (Drums), Justin Westcott (Rhythm Guitar) and Greg Strong (Bass Guitar) (2010) (Photo Credit: Nicole Jordan)

Good Morning to you! This is Jacob Braybrooke, and it is time for us to pay a visit to one of the ghosts of Pop-Punk’s past for another weekly entry of ‘Scuzz Sundays’ on the blog, which fits in with my challenge of writing up about a different piece of music every day! A Seattle-based Alternative Rock band, Amber Pacific were first formed in 2002 as Follow Through while the founding members were still juniors in their high school and, although not really seen as a major name in the industry, they have sold over 150,000 records worldwide. The band have gone through a fair share of line-up changes, such as when rhythm guitarist Justin Westcott was replaced in 2006 by ex-Yellowcard member Ben Harper, who subsequently left by 2007, and Westcott went on to rejoin his colleagues again in 2011, however, Amber Pacific are still active on the live touring circuit and they have recorded new music as recently as 2014 for their fourth LP release – ‘The Turn’. They also had a memorable stint as part of the Victory Records label, having released two albums there. Amber Pacific were more-or-less the definition of Scuzz’s TV music video output, with a decidedly ‘Emo’ style that you could liken to The All American Rejects, Story Of The Year and The Audition. One of their best-known singles is 2005’s ‘Always You (Good Times)’, which was taken from their debut LP release – ‘The Possibility and The Promise’ – which arrived via the California-based independent label Hopeless Records that same year. It was originally included on their debut EP, but it was later heard by a mass audience when it was featured on the soundtrack for ‘Burnout 3: Takedown’, a popular mid-2000’s arcade-style racing video game created by Criterion Games in 2004. Let’s remember it below.

Amber Pacific’s music can also be heard on the soundtrack of the 2007 animated movie ‘TMNT’, a reboot of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise that used ‘Fall Back Into My Life’ during a few scenes. Their other single to be taken from 2005’s ‘The Possibility And The Promise’ – ‘Gone So Young’ – was also used for a TV spot to promote ‘Flicka’, a family adventure-drama film that spawned a little franchise in 2006. Musically, Amber Pacific continued to find success with the follow-up album – 2007’s ‘Truth In Sincerity’ – which reached #64 on the US Billboard 200 album chart. As for ‘Always You (Good Times)’, lead vocalist Matt Young delivers one of his most bittersweet and striking vocal performances in Amber Pacific’s library of releases with heartfelt lyrics like “Good times last forever/I’ll keep my heart with yours” and “For every minute I am gone/Swear you’ll never leave me” that sound romantic but declarative, while the chorus seems pleasant on the ears with the catchy refrain of “I’ll be there every time/In your heart and in your eyes” that is upbeat and immediately accessible to a wide pool of listeners who like their Pop and Rock to be kept straightforward and simple enough. The vocals or the lyrics never ascend to create any very memorable moments, but they are still solid enough in conveying the track’s theme of remembering positive memories in the past while you head towards a future that looks uncertain. It all feels very non-convoluted as a whole, with driving bass guitar riffs and scorching Drum melodies that keep the flow going at an uptempo pace, and Amber Pacific manage to pull off most of the goods despite there being a feeling of the band never really branching out of their genre’s comfort zone. The problem is that ‘Always You (Good Times)’ is quite generic, for the lack of a better term. There’s certainly nothing offensive or directly harmful here, but the songwriting is generally pretty bland and the chorus aren’t different enough, in comparison to their peer acts, for them to feel transcendant in any real way or stand out very much. That said, while it is not very original, everything is technically competent here. The musicianship is perfectly composed enough and the lyrics are logical enough, but the record is just perfectly adequate as opposed to truly great. Overall, I felt like Amber Pacific did a great job in creating some simple and straightforward Pop-Rock here. There’s little else to say, but it never really overstayed its welcome. Decent but cliche.

Pictured: Amber Pacific performing on their ‘Warped Tour’ (2007) (Photo Credit: John Kloepper/WikiCommons.org)

That is all for now! Thank you for checking out my latest post, and I will be back tomorrow to diversify things ahead of the new week as we review a single taken from a recent Hip-Hop album release that has found a wide audience through a steady set of acclaim from critics and popularity through its Bandcamp sales. It comes from a Chicago-born rapper, producer and songwriter who was a part of the alternative Hip-Hop collective Odd Future in the late-00’s – led by Tyler, The Creator – and he used to perform his music under the name of Sly Tendencies. He recently performed his new track, ‘2010’, on the latest episode of ‘The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon’ in the US.

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Today’s Track: Placebo – ‘Surrounded By Spies’

January 22, 2022 — Leave a comment

Pictured: Cover Art for ‘Never Let Me Go’ (LP) (Available from March 25th, 2022) (via Rise Records/Elevator Lady)

Good Morning to you! This is Jacob Braybrooke, and it is time for me to bring you some company for this barren January wasteland with yet another daily track on the blog, given that it’s always my day-to-day pleasure to write up about a different piece of music every day! A high-profile act formed in 90’s London who became widely praised for their androgynous appearances in their music and the media with lyrics that openly discussed taboo topics of the time like drug abuse, mental health and sexuality, it feels fitting that there is once again a gap in the market for Placebo, a London-based alternative rock/grunge band who have sold over 11 million records worldwide, to shed their skin. In their earlier years, Placebo collaborated with prolific names like David Bowie and Michael Stipe and, to date, each of the seven studio albums they have released have all reached the Top 20 of the UK Album Charts. Anybody who grew up in the late-90’s may recall the divisive single ‘Nancy Boy’ that was famous for it’s genre-blurring content. It has been 9 years since 2013’s ‘Loud Like Love’ was released, but the now-duo of vocalist-guitarist Brian Molko and bassist-guitarist Stefan Olsdal are about to follow that LP up with another – ‘Never Let Me Go’ – which arrives on March 25th via Rise Records and Elevator Lady. Following the first comeback single – ‘Beautiful James’ – the more recent track of ‘Surrounded By Spies’ was created using William S. Burroughs’ cut-up technique. Molko says that he used shredded pieces of written words to rearrange into a new text to piece together the track that lyrically envisions a society where every camera is fixated on the fictional narrator, forming a wise commentary on CCTV surveillance. Let’s give it a spin below.

“I began writing the lyrics when I discovered my neighbours were spying on me on behalf of parties with a nefarious agenda”, Molko explains about the source of the inspiration for his production techniques and the music video in a press release, later writing, “It’s a true story told through a lens of paranoia, complete disgust for modern society’s values and the deification of surveillance capitalism. The narrator is at the end of their tether, hopeless and afraid, completely at odds with our newfound progress and the god of money”, to his text description. The most die-hard of Placebo’s fans have noted how the music video has a few similarities with that of 2013’s ‘The Bitter End’, and the audio experience of ‘Surrounded By Spies’ similarly does not pull any punches as Molko charismatically repeats hooks like “The search for meaning is killing me” and “Dead fly on the national anthem” with a dark-natured heart over the top of some harsh instrumentation. While ‘Beautiful James’ – the preceding single – buzzed with some light-hearted Synths, ‘Surrounded By Spies’ feels starker and more brutal in contrast. The building guitar riffs are a subtle slow-burn, as Molko buckles under the weight of a lack of public privacy with blunt lyrics like “I saw you jump from a burning building” and “I’ve seen you move like Elvis set on fire” that conjure up some gothic rock-based imagery. The vocal delivery has a gentle air of Spoken word about it, as Molko recites a collage of dark-pop lyrics that touch upon paranoia and consent as key themes, with the half-way refrain of “I gave my heart, now I want it back” forming a key moment of soul for the song. It starts off with a backdrop of ethereal Organ chimes aided by fragmented percussion as the tension builds within the soundscape and the titular hook of “I am surrounded by spies” grows the intensity of the sound before an eventual payoff. The deft lyrical delivery portrays a claustrophobic mood in effective ways where the quiet-and-loud pace of the fluctuating sounds connects with the wry refrains throughout the track as the walls fittingly close in on the central character. It doesn’t really fit the feel-good direction of most late-90’s Pop Punk acts and so it subverts my expectations in a moving way, and the darkened Synth riffs relate to the sharp qualities of the songwriting nicely. All-around, it is a neat and cohesive package that continues to make Placebo feel like a band with a definite edgy sensibility to them. The vocals sound a little disorienting in the mix, but to be honest, I enjoyed how ‘Surrounded By Spies’ feels candid and casual instead of over-produced in any way. A poetic piece that feels dark while moving towards realism, this is a still strong offering by Placebo.

Pictured: Brian Molko (Lead Vocals/Lead Guitar/Keyboard/Percussion), Stefan Olsdal (Bass Guitar/Piano/Backing Vocals) and Steve Forrest (Drums/Percussion/Backing Vocals) (2003) (Photo Credit: Jamie Crossnan/NME.com)

As Placebo were a fairly prominent part of the 00’s Pop-Punk scene, they have also been subjected to my distinctive feature of ‘Scuzz Sundays’ before. You can revisit the sound of ‘Pure Morning’ from 1998 here: https://onetrackatatime.home.blog/2020/03/15/scuzz-sundays-placebo-pure-morning/

Pictured: Cover Artwork for ‘Without You I’m Nothing’ (LP) (Released on 12th October, 1998) (via The Hut/Virgin)

That’s enough privacy invasion for one morning! Thank you for joining me today, and I’ll be back tomorrow for another weekly installment of ‘Scuzz Sundays’ which, this week, features a unique Pop-Punk cover of Nena’s German 90’s hit ’99 Red Balloons’ by a California-based ska punk band who got their own version used in pop culture media productions like ‘Not Another Teen Movie’, ‘Our Lips Are Sealed’ and ‘Eurotrip’.

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Scuzz Sundays: Bullet For My Valentine – ‘Scream Aim Fire’

January 16, 2022 — Leave a comment

Pictured: Cover Artwork for ‘Scream Aim Fire’ (LP) (Released on 28th January, 2008) (via Jive/20-20 Entertainment)

Good Morning to you! This is Jacob Braybrooke, and it’s time for us to totally not ‘Jump The Gun’ with our weekly throwback to the Pop-Punk of the past for another installment of ‘Scuzz Sundays’ on One Track At A Time, given that it’s always been my day-to-day pleasure to write up about a different piece of music every day! Since forming in Bridgend in 1998 and later securing a high-stakes five album deal with Sony/BMG in 2002, the Welsh alternative rock outfit of Bullet For My Valentine have sold over 3,000,000 albums worldwide and they have made several appearances at top rock festivals like Download Festival and Kerrang! XXV over the course of two decades of cultural currency. Part of the Cardiff music scene, the band have also undertaken a US tour with Rob Zombie and have earned the distinction of being the most successful band in the category of ‘Best British Band’ given by the Kerrang! Awards with three wins. At the time when they were just hitting their crossover commercial peak, the Metallica-influenced rock band released the follow-up to their debut album – 2005’s ‘The Poison’ – which was certified as Gold by the RIAA in the US – in the form of 2008’s ‘Scream Aim Fire’. It was still a huge seller in the UK with over 1,400,000 copies sold there – but the style of the material was noticeably less scream-core related than ‘The Poison’, but had a harsher shine on the instrumentation that meandered towards Thrash Metal. The title track was the lead single and it is their highest-charting track globally. Let’s watch the Tony Petrossian-directed video below.

As you may have guessed by the images of conflict being displayed on the large screens throughout the video, which are cut between Matt Tuck’s vocal performance and the mostly pure band performance, the lyrics for ‘Scream Aim Fire’ were written about “going to war” as Tuck has explained during live sets, with the shouted refrain of “Over the top” mirroring a reference to the trench warfare of the first World War of the 1910’s. It was not expected to be a huge hit for Bullet For My Valentine, but Tuck reflected on the song’s success during a feature with LOUDER in 2020 by saying, “That moment in time was, looking back now, super-special, very vibrant, competitive and healthy. I didn’t realise it at the time, but looking back, it was an amazing time to be in a metal band” while also complementing the similar success found by peers like Bring Me The Horizon and Avenged Sevenfold. Going for a classic rock, very frenetic and thrash-like metal flair on ‘Scream Aim Fire’, Bullet For My Valentine immediately hit the ground running with a hyper speed concoction of highly frenzied guitar riffs and very technical drum notes that builds a platform for the more melodic vocals to come through clearly. Bleak lyrics like “Wounds are hurting, death is creeping for me” and “Hearts are pounding, chaos soon ignites” are interspersed with a hyperactive cocktail of In Flames and Slayer in terms of comparable sounds. Originality does take a backseat here, but the band settles into a more contemporary identity with the Chino Moreno-isms and the harrowing shed-fest of the main guitar solo in the latter stretch. It feels a little over-bearing, but it never comes across as far too ‘cheesy’ or ‘pretentious’ by any real means. While the formula is full of sounds that emit a lot of noise, the instrumentation is actually very technical and balances out the more customary feel of the blackened death-core arms race of the slightly ‘hokey’ lyrics. While the lyrics themselves may not say much outside of their surface value, they still create a sense of gloom that builds up some tension and atmosphere in the delivery. The mainstream influences are in here, but it certainly calls back to Metal bands like Queensrÿche and Iron Maiden with a decent sense of taste and conviction. Overall, while it’s not a complete home run for me, as the lyrics feel a little generic and there’s nothing really groundbreaking here, it hasn’t aged badly at all and the band carry an aura of poise and sincerity to them by delivering crowd-pleasing and high-energy speedcore that is technically rewarding and boasts some quality musicianship. It feels skillfully aimed towards pre-existing fans who were hungry for solid new material and not necessarily new sounds and in that sense, its tricky to fault what has been served.

Pictured: Matthew “Matt” Tuck (Lead Vocals/Rhythm Guitar/Synths), Michael “Padge” Paget (Lead Guitar/Backing Vocals), Jamie Mathias (Bass Guitar/Backing Vocals) and Jason Bowld (Drums) (2022) (Photo via Ticketmaster.com)

That brings us to the end of today’s breakdown about Bullet For My Valentine! Thank you for your time today, and I’ll be back tomorrow to start off a new week’s worth of posts. The first one features a London-based musician and street artist who is the founder of HIJINXX and she’s hosted radio shows for NTS Radio and Radio Primavera.

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Today’s Track: Bloc Party – ‘Traps’

January 8, 2022 — Leave a comment

Pictured: Cover Art for ‘Alpha Games’ (LP) (Available from April 29th, 2022) (via BMG/Infectious Records)

Good Morning to you! As you expected – this is Jacob Braybrooke, and thank you for spending a few minutes of your weekend by visiting the site for yet another daily track on the blog, given that it’s my day-to-day pleasure to write up about a different piece of music every day! Those of you who grew up in the 2000’s will probably remember when Bloc Party got their big break by sending BBC Radio presenter Steve Lamacq and Alex Kapranos (of Franz Ferdinand fame) a demo tape of ‘She’s Hearing Voices’ in 2003, and, since then, the band have scored multiple UK Top 10 album releases, UK Top 40 single chart entries and sold their way to a global tally of over three million albums worldwide as of 2012. Known for blending vivid elements of danceable House music and urban Electronica into their crossover-friendly brand of Punk-oriented Indie Rock music – Bloc Party are returning with their sixth studio album, ‘Alpha Games’, which is set for a release date of April 29th, 2022 via BMG/Infectious Music. The follow-up to 2016’s ‘Hymns’, the long-awaited new album by the Kele Okereke-led project is the first to fully feature new band members of Louise Bartle and Justin Harris who replaced the long-standing members of Gordon Moakes & Matt Tong by joining the group’s ranks in 2014. The comeback single – ‘Traps’ – is currently on the BBC Radio 6 Music daytime playlist and, as you may spot when you stream it, was noticeably produced by Adam Greenspan and Nick Launay who have produced music for Nick Cave, IDLES and The Yeah Yeah Yeah’s before, as the band dig into the archives of Bloc Party’s sound to recapture their roots with a modern twist on ‘Traps’. It follows solo releases by Okereke. See how it sounds below.

“From the moment we wrote ‘Traps’, we knew it had to be the first thing people heard from this album”, says the ringmaster Kele Okereke on the new single from this futuristic iteration of Bloc Party, explaining, “Playing it in soundchecks on our last tour before it was finished and hearing how it sounded in those big rooms and outdoors”, in a press statement as the band prepares to support the album on tour in the UK and Europe later during the new year. Mixing predatory lyrics with spinning instrumentals that connote a feel of horror, and the frenetic music video of ‘Traps’ showing Okereke performing in an adrenaline-fueled dance floor captures this dark tone. Reciting threateningly flirtatious lyrics like “You’re not making it easy for me, Strutting round here in those pum pum shorts” and “You’re so maverick, you’re a bit of me/You can get it anytime you want” over the top of some chugging bass guitar riffs and an angered pace on the drums that shows a return to Bloc Party’s popular dance-rock sound in the verses, but they are met with a sinister undertone that feels as though Bloc Party are adding their take on the Post-2020 punk sound that bands like Fontaines DC have found popularity through establishing where the lyrics are sardonic and the dance influences are quite aggressive. The chorus feels more familiar for casual Bloc Party fans, with some earworm hooks like “But you’re headed to a trap/Meet me in the boom boom room” that definitely feel playful. The track certainly has an aura that feels edgy and unusual to it as an overall modern pop/rock piece, however, and the lyrics seem to comment on masculine manipulation and the advances that some women probably have to deal with in a night club environment, and so it feels progressive for the band by mixing the new and the old, in terms of Okereke’s vocals and Bloc Party’s sound, in some exciting ways. I am not completely convinced the execution is totally on-key however, as lyrics like “There you go-go/Looking like a snack/Cute like Bambi” and “Lick, lick, lickety split” feel a little questionable for my liking. That removed, I felt like this was a fun and daring return from the band who bring some exciting guitar riffs and some intriguing new Post-Punk influences to their repertoire, although some of the songwriting stuck the landing a little roughly for me. Still, it flew by entertainingly enough and I’m quite interested to see what the new members of the group bring to the full album release.

Pictured: Cover Artwork for ‘Silent Alarm’ (LP) (Released on February 2, 2005) (via Wichita Recordings)

Funnily enough, not at all long ago, we revisited the previous incarnation of Bloc Party when we covered ‘Helicopter’ for Scuzz Sundays. Check it out here: https://onetrackatatime.home.blog/2021/11/07/scuzz-sundays-bloc-party-helicopter/.

Pictured: Kele Okereke (Lead Vocals/Rhythm Guitar/Electric Piano/Samples), Russell Lisack (Lead Guitar/Samples/Programming), Gordon Moakes (Bass Guitar/Backing Vocals/Keyboard/Synths/Glockenspiel) and Matt Tong (Drums/Percussion/Occasional Backing Vocals) (2014) (Image via whenthegramarphonerings.com)

That’s all for today, but ‘Scuzz Sundays’ is back on the docket for tomorrow as we remember one of the, sadly, few female-led groups of the trashy era of commercial Pop-Punk music forms. This Welsh rock band brought Cerys Matthews to mainstream fame in the late-1990’s and they were key pioneers of the 1990’s Cool Cymru music movement. They also performed at the opening ceremony of the 1999 Rugby World Cup on October 1, 1999 in the Millennial Stadium situated in Cardiff. I’ll find you there.

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Scuzz Sundays: Green Day – ‘Good Riddance (Time Of Your Life)’

January 2, 2022 — Leave a comment

Pictured: Cover Artwork for ‘Nimrod’ (LP) (Released on October 14th, 1997) (via Reprise Records)

Good Morning to you! This is Jacob Braybrooke, and the time has arrived again for me to see find out if a series of Pop-Punk style hits from between the 90’s and 00’s can match up to quality in the modern times for ‘Scuzz Sundays’ – not forgetting that it’s always been my day-to-day pleasure to write up about a different piece of music every day! When thinking about the bands who popularized heavier variations of Rock in the mainstream of the US during the specified period of the Scuzz TV days – bands like Panic! At The Disco, Feeder, Bowling For Soup, Weezer, All American Rejects and The Bloodhound Gang call to my mind for various reasons. However, it feels shocking that we haven’t covered Green Day to any extent for my feature, a very famous 90’s/00’s East Bay native punk rock band who have sold over 75 million records worldwide and released a new album as recently as 2020, before. That’s mostly because I can’t stand ‘Wake Me Up When September Ends’ at all because I had to perform it SO MANY TIMES for a music class in secondary school. However, one of their other most famous recordings – ‘Good Riddance (Time Of Your Life)’ – should subside in kicking off the new year with some solid familiarity. A single that showed a softer side to Billie Joe Armstrong, who was previously known for playing his edgy teen-angled music loud and proud, the band’s famous ballad of 1997 reached the top 20 of the charts in several countries including Australia, Iceland, the UK, Canada and the US. It has also been downloaded over 2.6 million times – and I should think it went some way in securing a Broadway stage musical spot related to the band’s other massive hit ‘American Idiot’ in sturdy fashion before the theatrical piece premiered in 2010. On that note – I hope you have the time of your life with ‘Good Riddance’ below.

You’ve probably heard ‘Good Riddance’ played in sentimental spaces like your wedding or a high-school prom night, but the original source of inspiration behind Armstrong’s anthem came from a heart of anger. He told Loudersound in 2016, “It’s about an ex-girlfriend who had moved to Ecuador. In the song, I tried to be level-headed about her leaving, even though I was completely p***ed off. So, I named it ‘Good Riddance’ just to express my anger”, before a late-night house party influenced him to write the material under an Acoustic music guise, a move that he told NME was stylistically different for the band and a risky choice at the time. On this record, Armstrong manages to be relatable and effective in this simplicity and, while seeing a band previously known for darker Punk material turn to a more reflective tone for a gentle ballad isn’t an unprecedented move and a fairly predictable deviation in the modern times, it’s still good to see that Green Day weren’t afraid to change their style up for the benefit of varied material to shape up their discography. Setting this scene with the opening of “Another turning point, a fork stuck in the road” and “Time grabs you by the wrist, directs you where to go” that trade raucous riffs for intimacy, the band are confident in backing up Armstrong’s restrained vocals with a fragile String section and a shifting series of warm vintage acoustic guitar strums. The memorable hook of “It’s something unpredictable, but in the end it’s right/I hope you had the time of your life” has an air of vengeance buried underneath the warmer delivery, but it comes across as heartfelt enough through the reflective vocals that refrain from auto-tune manipulation. While the song does sound very commercial, it was not over-produced. The vocals are a bit formulaic, but they are honest and packed with a small sense of genuine emotion and, really, Green Day are a decent band for being able to achieve these effects with such a radio-friendly recording. I think it’s the ubiquity of the sentimental value that transcends the immediate context of the songwriting that feels timeless and makes the song continually find new popularity with more passing generations and, really, that is still a solid achievement. Overall, this was an often misinterpreted little track that – while not revolutionary – has found a reason to be popular. Peaceful – if commercial – music with enough heart to stand the test of time.

Pictured: Cover Art for ‘American Idiot’ (LP) (Released on September 21st, 2004) (via Reprise Records)

‘Good Riddance’ may remain to be a frequent staple for the end of Green Day’s live performances, but the show must always go on here at One Track At A Time. Join me for the rest of a seemingly never-ending encore tomorrow with our first entirely regular track post in a short time. It comes from a now-solo English musician who was formerly a member of Spaceman 3 and, among line-up changes, his associated band won awards like NME’s Album Of The Year 1997 – beating Radiohead’s ‘OK Computer’.

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Today’s Track: The World Is A Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid To Die – ‘Queen Sophie For President’

December 29, 2021 — Leave a comment

Pictured: Cover Artwork for ‘Illusory Walls’ (LP) (Released on October 8th, 2021) (via Epitath Records)

Good Morning to you! This is Jacob Braybrooke, of course, and it is time to get your ears stuck into yet another daily track on the blog, because it’s always been my day-to-day pleasure to write up about a different piece of music every day! *deep breath* The World Is A Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid To Die are an emo Prog Rock band with what must be the longest band title in the business and, yet, in a digital age of streaming services and IP resurgences, they must also be applauded for ending their latest album on two epic pieces that total half of it’s near 70-minute duration. Their fourth LP record – ‘Illusory Walls’ – is the record in question, an underground release that took its inspiration from the infamously difficult ‘Dark Souls’ series of popular role playing video games. Bridging the gap between genres like Space Rock, Atmospheric Rock, Post-Hardcore and Post-Rock, the Emo collective have released a number of EP’s and Splits, including a memorable collaboration with Christopher Zizzamia, a Spoken Word artist, and they cite a diverse range of influences including Battles, Caspian, Godspeed You! Black Emperor and Explosions In The Sky for their fretwork-style material. A double album released via veteran Nu-Metal label Epitath Records, the new LP is the band’s first album since the death of founding member Tom Diaz and the departures of guitarists/vocalists Dylan Balliet and Tyler Bussey. Now, the members of the 5-piece are split between the bear-filled woods of rural Connecticut and the quarantines streets of Covid-ridden Philadelphia, and it is the band’s first project that recruits outside producers in the form of Greg Thomas (Misery Signals, End), the studio partner of lead vocalist/guitarist David F. Bello, who helped the rest of the band to remotely write and finish the ambitious record within the most part of one year. According to Bello, the new album’s title of ‘Illusory Walls’ “refers to a hidden surface that seems to prevent entry, but upon inspection is nothing more than a visual illusion”. Check out the third single ‘Queen Sophie For President’ below.

Elaborating on the LP’s development stages, Bello says, “The extra time gave the band time to manage the unexpected, such as Katie Dvorak sustaining an injury that meant she was unable to sing or talk for a couple of months at the end of 2020. Had they been on a normal recording schedule, she wouldn’t have been able to get her vocals done”, concluding, “Instead, she was able to channel what happened into her songs. Though ‘Queen Sophie For President’ is ostensibly about the tenacity of oppression, whether on a personal or political level, it is heavily influenced by her injury” in his press statement. While ‘Queen Sophie For President’ scales up the bombast, it also puts a twist on the band’s sad emo-style foundations of their sound by introducing vocals that feel lighter and nostalgic, thanks in part to the keyboardist taking on the lead vocal duties. Lyrics like “Impossibly persistent, waiting for the chance to take over” have a dizzying darkness to them and they blend into Chris Teti’s intricate guitar work with a pulsating 80’s rock sound. A wide array of evocative lyrics like “Never get better and never do anything” chime the chorus along with a feeling of urgency, while rapid-fire refrains like “It won’t burn with the oven off/That damn persistent slime, just burn the whole house down” owe more to Opera Rock with their haunting harmonies that permeate angst and anxiety, riddling the zoned-out Synths of the soundscape with a deep flavour of hard-hitting songwriting that is more anthemic. Instrumentally, the barreling guitar riffs and the percussive drum beats, topped off by a punchy lead guitar solo towards the end, retain their warmth and intimate nature while delivering highly technically proficient production all-around. Most of all, however, it is the fact that Dvorak’s increased involvement threatens to steal the show at times that makes it all more worth the while, and it is the very robust chemistry between Dvorak and Bello, on vocals, which clicks together and strikes the biggest chord with me – if you see what I did there. Dvorak’s sugar-coated vocals blend together with Bello’s emotional croon, as well as the fancy handiwork from guitarist Chris Teti, very cohesively. This creates some of the most enjoyable ‘Jam Band’ moments that you could hear in 2021. An extravagant piece of ferocious Jangle-Pop meets sophisticated Post-Rock, ‘Queen Sophie For President’ is a tour-de-force of feel-good indie and profound lyrical proportions that definitely gets my vote.

Pictured: David Bello (Lead Vocals/Percussion), Katie Dvorak (Keyboard/Synths/Backing Vocals), Josh Cyr (Bass Guitar/Backing Vocals), Chris Teti (Trumpet/Lead Guitar) & Steven Buttery (Drums) (2021) (Photo by Adam Peditto)

That’s all I’ve got lined up for you on the blog today – and I’ll be back tomorrow with the final part of my series shedding light on some of this year’s most unforgettable underground releases, before we go fully back to normal, with a post regarding a band who have made many year-end lists for 2021. Signed to Saddle Creek Records, the trio take their name from a Spanish Drama film of the same title released in 1973.

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Today’s Track: Calva Louise – ‘Euphoric’

December 28, 2021 — Leave a comment

Pictured: Cover Art for ‘EUPHORIC’ (LP) (Released on August 20, 2021) (via FRKST Records/300 Entertainment)

Good Morning to you! This is Jacob Braybrooke, of course, and thanks for joining me today as we fill up the awkward post-Christmas and pre New Year’s slot with some music that got a little underrated during 2021 with yet another daily track on the blog, since it has always been my day-to-day pleasure to write up about a different piece of music every day! Formed in 2016, Calva Louise are a Manchester-based indie punk and post-grunge band who take their influence from many variations of Noise-Rock and Synth-Punk between both UK and US outfits, while also getting in touch with their Latin Rock heritage throughout the two albums to their name so far. Fronted by the bold creative vision of vocalist/guitarist Jess Allanic – the trio have supported the likes of Razorlight, Highly Suspect and Albert Hammond Jr in their time together. Earlier in the year, they released the ambitious multi-media project of ‘EUPHORIC’, which was fronted by a concept album about the duality of being human and the different perceptions of reality. The band have stated that the lyrics detail episodes of the dreamer’s experiences in the form of an inner conversation with his other self – the counterpart of the human being – that seeks to experience freedom and have an encounter with the unknown. The sophomore album was produced and mixed by Bobby Bentham of Strange Bones fame. Moreover, the album was accompanied by a 45-minute Animation short film that was entirely created by Jess Allanic, who used software like After Effects and Blender to bring the Graphic Novel-inspired visuals of her band’s creative record to life. For now, let’s have a sample of the title track below.

Released digitally in late August and finally manufactured on physical vinyl copies in December by Blood Records, Calva Louise collectively say, “Our passion for audiovisual production is constantly intertwined with the concept of the album and that is why each new step to take becomes a new challenge, it is as if each completed experience gradually reveals the signs that guide us on our way”, noting, “The perception we have of this adventure shows us horizons that seem to be beyond our rational understanding as artists, and in order to see clearly we try to express these experiences through visual effects, as a complement to the music and the lyrics of the songs”, to their LP’s product description. ‘EUPHORIC’ feels like an expository title for the project, bolstered by a title track that is filled with meaty hooks and soaring melodies that hints about how you may feel after completely listening to the album in a single bingeable session. With eruptive drumming and partially processed vocal peaks, lyrics like “I wait in line, Your head is on fire, Ahead we cry in a simple way” and “When you and me are nothing, Only one of us will be euphoric” that set a fiery temper for the underground feel of the track, Allanic powerfully backs her vocals to some thrashing electronic melodies – including some gradually bubbling Synth riffs in the opening that become more acidic throughout the first verse – and some old-school Punk personality that complements the moody tone of the lyrics. The vocals are partially screamed at different intersections, but the pacing is fairly even, as Allanic uses some slower guitar notes towards the end to give the vocals just a little space to breathe. Meanwhile, the electronic production of the single goes heavy and hard by trading some twinkling keyboard riffs for a hefty amount of grit instead, with plenty of glitchy bass riffs that sweep in for a futuristic tone and Allanic concentrates hard on making her ferocious vocals feel as knife-edge as she can, and she even recites some non-English language lyrics towards the latter half to remind us of her Venezuelan upbringing, and the heavy dancehall influence of this particular touch reminds me of Arca in a few ways, especially with the audio-visual medium of the project hanging in the balance. Overall, while the more Noise-Rock based riffs get a little repetitive at times there is no doubt that Calva Louise explore decent ideas on this project altogether. It is very interesting to see the band expressing their ideas with intriguing ways by leaning into the sci-fi themes that audio-visual side projects can enhance for them. As well as giving them a unique selling point, it gives them more space to create their art, and I certainly like how there is more than just music to this. The sound, meanwhile, is an energetic one that becomes very unrelenting and combines qualities from Nu Metal and Prog Rock with dramatic results. Overall, this is an exciting band and a fresh project that, while not perfect, are certainly worth a look.

Pictured: Jess Eastwood (Vocals/Guitar), Alizon Taho (Bass Guitar) and Ben Parker (Drums) (2021) (Photo via PR)

That’s all for now – and thank you for reading about the euphoric melodies highlighted in today’s post. I’ll be back tomorrow with more content that concerns an operatic Conneticut-based indie rock band with one of the longest names in the business. Their discography includes a key collaboration with the Spoken Word artist Christopher Zizzamia – and their influences include Battles and Explosions In The Sky.

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