Preview Album Review: The Prodigy - The Day Is My Enemy - 18.03.2015

Electronic music instigators The Prodigy have just unveiled another new single ‘Wall of Death’ from their soon to be released album ‘The Day Is My Enemy’.

The first single from the new album, ‘Nasty’, unfortunately lived up to its name and failed to impress me.  The formulaic trademark disjointed riffs, grinding bass and brutal breaks were all there, but so were Keith Flint’s uninspired vocals based around the repetition of the word ‘Nasty’. It all seemed a little listless and – safe!

The hypocritical thing about ‘Nasty’ is that during a recent interview for Q Magazine, Liam Howlett denounced that “Dance music across all types has become formula-based, It's'here's your drum fill, here's your build.’ all that DJ bollocks and tutorialson YouTube shit.”  He then went on to say “This album is totally organic, pure violent energy." A bold statement that ‘Nasty’ failed to live up to.

With this in mind, I didn’t have high expectations for ‘Wall of Death’, but I tuned in and listened with an open mind. I was pleasantly surprised. The structure of the song isn’t massively different from anything they’ve released before, but I did start to feel that aggression and energy that Howlett had been promising us with the new album.

Whether or not ‘The Day Is My Enemy’ is going to surpass expectations and live up to its hype is open to question; but considering The Prodigy used to be pioneers of electronic music, in the centre of controversy with socio-political albums like ‘Music for the Jilted Generation’ and notorious 90’s anthems from ‘Fat of the Land’, I would say they have their work cut out. I can’t help wondering if they’ve left the release of this album a few years too many.

Live review: Marilyn Manson + Rob Zombie @ London's O2 arena 26.11.12

London’s O2 arena played host to the ‘Twins of evil’ tour last night, featuring two of the biggest names in Rock music.

The first evil twin to take to the stage was Marilyn Manson and it’s fair to say that Manson is one of the most controversial artists to come out of the 90’s. The self-proclaimed ‘Anti-Christ superstar’ sings about religion, politics and drugs amongst other taboo topics. He’s built a formidable reputation for himself based around shock factor, and his elaborate ‘grotesque burlesque’ stage theatrics.

Seeing him at the O2 arena a decade later, it seems Manson has got a little soft and fuzzy around the edges – especially his waist line! What was once shocking, and incited religious protestors outside his gigs or had audience members turning away in disgust now seems slightly passé.  Singing into a microphone rigged to look like a knife, or scattering ‘cocaine’ over the audience at the front before launching (predictably) into ‘The dope show’ and even the allusions to Nazism in ‘Anti-Christ superstar’ failed to slay them in the aisles.

However what we did see what a relatively stripped back, maturing performance, with less of the gruesome and sometimes distracting stage theatrics and more focus on the singing and performance. He still managed to move around the stage with bounds of energy and there were still one or two costume changes with fitting props.

Newer tracks such as ‘Slo-mo-tion’ seemed to get lost towards the back of the audience but the well-known favourites such as ‘mOBSCENE’ and ‘The Beautiful people’ got everyone fired up. I really enjoyed his set, but for such a big venue, and a man whose reputation precedes him; I doubt this performance lived up to everyone’s expectations.

The unmistakeable Rob Zombie completed the evil twin line up and he wasted no time taking charge of the stage, arriving on a huge robotic monstrous beast. It was evident that Zombie wanted to deliver a set straight from the fiery chasm of hell. What Manson’s set lacked in theatrics, Zombie’s more than made up for with fire, pentagrams, half naked women on overhead TV screens and huge robotic beasts – including a giant red devil.

Zombie really was a true showman; he completely immersed himself in each song and delivered all of them with an explosive energy.  Not fearing his audience he asked for everyone to loudly shout for a “Motherfucking zombie party” and even climbed down from the stage to walk around the edges of the audience and let them maul at him in a suitably brain-hungry zombie fashion.

The audience were fully charged all through the set, and although security kept a tight lid on people crowd surfing or behaving too wildly, songs like ‘Super beast’ and ‘More human than human’ still packed a powerful punch which had everybody singing and head-banging along. For me, his encore of ‘Dragula’ was simply breath-taking and seeing several thousand people doing the metal salute of approval is an impressive sight!

Both acts held their own and brought two different performance styles to the evening, in my opinion Zombie stole the show ever so slightly. It was a fantastic gig though and great to see two giants of rock’n’shock on the same bill. If you get the chance to see them, take it.

Eleanor Knight

Live review: BUCKCHERRY w/ Kobra and the Lotus + The Howling @ Northampton Roadmender 23.11.12

Northampton isn’t well known for its rock or even alternative music scene but 3 bands came to The Roadmender to show us; Rock’n’Roll’s not dead!

First on the bill was London quintet The Howling, I was really excited about seeing these guys for the first time because everyone I know is raving about them. As soon as they swaggered on stage it was clear they looked the part; 5 good looking guys with leather jackets, tattoos, and black skinnies all round…

Frontman Blacky certainly had that ‘cocky London attitude’ about him and to be fair it suits the bands new generation punk sound and brash in your face lyrics. Each song they played had fast and furious guitars screaming out big bold punk style riffs alongside thunderous drums and bass lines that added a classic rock vibe to their sound. They interspersed synths and samples throughout which really takes their music in a new direction. ‘Rock N Rolla’ really stood out for me.

I’ll be honest, I felt like I was missing something from these guys. For such hard hitting, energetic songs I thought their actual performance and on stage presence was a little bit lacklustre. This could be that the audience was very thin in numbers, or it could just be my expectations were too high. Either way, I think these guys have potential; I’d like to see them with a bigger crowd to see if that adds that little je ne sais quoi I was missing.

Next on was Canadian based Kobra and the Lotus, I was a little dubious about these guys because I knew they had a female frontwoman and even though we need more women who can rock, it’s seldom that a female voice actually has the power or presence to do just that. However my doubts were quashed when the vibrant Kobra Paige took to the stage, she looked like a Valkyrie warrior and she sang like one too!

The band were technically very tight and although not the most original song structures, big gutsy metal riffs and pounding drums were the order of the day; letting songs simmer just below the surface before they bubbled over and unleashed boiling hot, high energy metal on their audience. ’50 shades of evil’ and ‘Welcome to my funeral’ were both incredibly catchy and started the first of the hair flicking and head banging from the audience. Despite the slightly naff name, I really liked Kobra and the Lotus.

Thankfully the audience had filtered in from the bar by now and there were decent numbers just in time for the headliners Buckcherry to start! From the second heavily tattooed frontman Josh Todd walked on stage you knew he was going to own it; and he did.

The band weren’t scared to interact with the audience, although Josh awkwardly introduced ‘Lit up’ as the first time he tried… cocaine... *waits for audience gasp* (Which made him seem like a naughty 14 year old raiding their dads beer supply) It didn’t deter the audience from singing “I love the cocaine” in raised unison and by the time ‘Crazy bitch’ was played everyone was singing along. Even dashing guitarist Stevie D and formidable drummer Xavier Muriel were throwing picks and sticks out to the audience at regular intervals.

They played songs from their back catalogue which included all the audience favourites such as ‘Lit up’, ‘Sorry’ and ‘Crazy Bitch’. Buckcherry still sound as good and relevant today as they did when they launched in the 90’s, they’re not a band that cares about rules they just want to deliver a night of down-right dirty rock’n’roll songs for their audience, which they did - and more.  

3 very different bands played, but I enjoyed all 3 of them and would definitely go to see them all again. It was an immense night!

Eleanor Knight

Live review: YOUNG GUNS w/ We are the in crowd, Your demise + Marmozets @ Wulfrun Hall, Wolverhampton 12.10.2012

Young Guns

My first impression of the queue winding its way around Wolverhampton was how young everyone looked; my second was how many different hair colours there were! Although it was bloody freezing outside, being able to watch the anticipation build up, and hear the excited girly screams from fans really added to the atmosphere.

Opening up the show was young English based band ‘Marmozets’, and I’ll be honest their raucous, screamo metal, was not my cup of tea at all. It sounded like someone trying to sing over the top of a boeing 747 taking off! When lead singer Becca Macintyre sung normally she had a pleasant voice but unfortunately for me, those intervals were much too sparse. I can’t even rave about their energy because when they came on Becca told us she’d dislocated her knee, (ouch!) but it reflected in her performance, she seemed very subdued and possibly in quite a bit of pain. There was an awkward moment when it looked like one of the guitarists had attempted to climb on top of the speakers and got stuck mid-way and was left with legs flailing like an upside down beetle on the carpet, funny, but not very rock and roll. These guys are young and they’ve done incredibly well to get where they are by doing their thing, it’s just not my thing.

Following on was ‘Your Demise’, a hardcore punk band with similarities to ‘Bring me the Horizon’ and ‘While she sleeps’. When the bass and drums kicked in the room was literally vibrating, it felt like having a cardiac massage, these guys were brutal, or is that Br00t47?! I feel a bit hypocritical saying this, but these guys rocked! The lyrics were still fairly inaudible but the driving force of these guys took everyone’s breath away. ‘Scared of the light’ ‘MMX’ and ‘Forget about me’ in particular seemed to generate a lot of excitement from the audience, with circle pits and crowd surfing a plenty. What I liked about this band was the ease of which front man Ed McRae got the audience participating. At one point he had everyone crouched down on the floor ready to jump in the air when the beat dropped, it was seriously impressive. What’s more the guys looked like they were really enjoying themselves performing, and that energy was certainly infectious, it was great to see everyone really letting go.

Next on the bill all the way from America was fresh faced ‘We are the in crowd’. These guys were slightly softer, so the pace of the evening was slowed down just a fraction. With a glossy, well-polished and much friendlier rock sound they reminded me of ‘Paramore’. The band had a vibrant, fun air about them and the dual vocals from front woman Tay Jardine and guitarist/joint vocalist Jordan Eckes added a unique touch to their sound. The band certainly seemed in their element up on stage, and the crowd lapped up songs such as ‘Rumour Mill’ and ‘Kiss me again’. I liked these guys, and my ears were certainly grateful of the chance to recover a little bit.

Finally it was time for the much anticipated headliners ‘Young Guns’. They walked on stage to flashing lights, drumrolls and the entire audience screaming and cheering, it felt like something momentous was about to happen – I could feel it in my bones! I reviewed the album ‘Bones’ when it first came out back in February this year, and while I enjoyed it, I was concerned that it was very similar to their debut album ‘All our Kings are dead’, that opinion hasn’t changed, but what Young Guns do they do fantastically. Each and every song they played was packed with energy, feeling and sounded exactly as it does on the album, which is very rare. These boys are definitely at their best when they’re on stage performing to an eager and excited audience. They played all the favourites, including ‘Winter kiss’, ‘There will be rain’ and ‘Towers (on my way)’, my personal favourite from the evening was ‘You are not’ because I could really sense the emotion behind the lyrics. 

     One of the great things about Young Guns is even though they shot to fame in a seemingly short time; they’ve kept themselves very grounded. They’re still signing merch’, talking to fans and paying genuine interest to the people who are supporting them, it’s refreshing to see. I’ve not had the chance to have a chat with any of them yet, but I’m hoping that will change in the near future. I had a great time; and judging by the hordes of people coming out drenched in sweat with huge smiles on their faces, I wasn’t the only one.

 

Eleanor Knight

Album review: AuraliaSky - Tapestry of the heart

AuraliaSky - Photograph © Ade Glasgow

AuraliaSky are a new country rock duo hailing from Milton Keynes, comprising of singer/songwriter Michelle Myall and guitarist Gareth Warren. The duo are about to launch their debut album ‘Tapestry of the heart’, taking influence from artists such as Carrie Underwood and Miranda Lambert, the talented pair bring a fresh, sassy twist to their music.

Michelle’s rich, bluesy voice lends itself extremely well to the style of music; each song on the album feels like it’s sung straight from the heart with plenty of emotion and attitude to boot, combined with Gareth’s rhythmic and soulful guitar playing, this gives the songs an extra edge, providing a complimentary rock feel steeped with country grooves.

Songs to look out for include ‘Heart of glass’ which really shows off the quality and polished musicianship these guys are producing, ‘Ammunition’ as it highlights Michelle’s amazing vocal versatility and my favourite song from the album ‘Mississippi Queen’ because it’s fun, lively and has your feet tapping in no time.

The album is easy to listen to and they successfully expel any myths that country music is outdated or lame by singing songs with contemporary themes and injecting their own exciting, modern vibe into them. This is a great album so, make sure you check them out and catch them when you can!

Eleanor Knight

Link to AuraliaSky's facebook page