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You Me At Six – Lived A Lie

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Having always had a great knack for penning incredibly catchy pop-punk songs, You Me At Six once again showcases with ‘Lived A Lie‘ a fantastic ear and ability for this sound with what is perhaps the band’s most impressive single to date. Josh Franceschi is a frontman that has really matured since the band first rose to fame with their ‘Take Off Your Colours‘ début album in 2008, and with ‘Lived A Lie‘ he shows just how far he has come over the past five years, a great tonal quality to his voice that is absolutely central to this track’s success.

With an extremely strong guitar intro, ‘Lived A Lie‘ is a track that grabs your full undivided attention right from the offset, maintaining it throughout with some excellent instrumental quality, brilliant vocals, and an absolutely incredible chorus. Like a lot of the band’s singles the past few years, ‘Lived A Lie‘ gets straight inside your head and has you singing along in no time as Josh Franceschi belts out the single’s anthemic chorus. The track is absolutely infectious, a piece of music that all of the band’s members can definitely be very proud of, and a single that should surely go down well with the band’s fan base as well as perking up a few ears of the as yet uninitiated.

Whilst You Me At Six went a little darker on studio album number three with collaborations with Bring Me the Horizon’s Oli Sykes and Parkway Drive’s Winston McCall, the band has never really strayed too far from that tried and tested pop-punk formula, and if ‘Lived A Lie‘ is anything to go by then this will continue to be the case with fourth studio album ‘Cavalier Youth‘, due for release later this year.

You Me At Six is a band has definitely improved a great deal since the ‘Take Off Your Colours‘ days, and this first single from ‘Cavalier Youth‘ definitely provides great hope and promise that the next album will mark another great leap forward as the band continues to progress, mature, and improve.

Hemlock Grove Season One Review

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With TV shows such as The Vampire Diaries and True Blood having enjoyed huge popularity in recent years, and also with the massive success of the Twilight franchise; Netflix decided to have its own go at the vampire/werewolf thing with its own series, Hemlock Grove, adapted from the Brian McGreevy novel of the same name.

Set in the fictional town of Hemlock Grove, Pennsylvania, the series hones in on the unlikely blossoming friendship of Roman Godfrey (Bill Skarsgård) and Peter Rumancek (Landon Liboiron) as the two begin bonding after Peter moves into town. With rumours spreading amongst the townsfolk that Peter is perhaps a werewolf, horrific murders begin to start taking place in the town every full moon, and Peter finds himself to be the chief murder suspect due to his outsider status and the murmurings of his werewolf status. With the wealthy Roman Godfrey as his main ally, Peter sets out to discover the true identity of the killer in order to bring an end to the murderous activities within the town and restore the townsfolk to their previous safety.

Eli Roth onboard as executive producer (and also as director of the pilot), Hemlock Grove is quite a slow paced serial that consists of 13 episodes and features notable stars such as Famke Janssen (of X-Men fame), Dougray Scott (who was originally to play Wolverine in X-Men, but ultimately replaced by Hugh Jackman due to a scheduling clash), and Bill Skarsgård and Landon Liboiron as the main heartthrob’s of the series. Despite some shaky acting, a very questionable transatlantic accent from Famke Janssen, and very little actually happening throughout the entirety of the first season, Hemlock Grove is actually a pretty enjoyable show that keeps you interested throughout and happily has you coming back for more.

With very little action actually taking place and the limited action that does occur all being fairly predictable, Hemlock Grove is a series that relies on the way that the characters interact with and relate to one another, and it’s very much the character interaction that is central to the show’s success. The relationship of Roman Godfrey (Bill Skarsgård) and Peter Rumancek (Landon Liboiron) is particularly interesting here, but it’s not just these two that are enjoyable to watch, it’s also the way in which a lot of the more minor characters are utilised within the series. There are very few, if any, characters that feel surplus; everyone seems to have their place within the series, each contributing to the overall flow and direction that Hemlock Grove takes.

The nice thing about Hemlock Grove is that it doesn’t seem to take itself too seriously; the scripting is sometimes slightly awkward and uncomfortable and the violence and bloodshed is ridiculously over the top, but it all rather adds to the charm of it. Eli Roth is connected to the show so you therefore feel that pastiche is an expected element of the series, and ultimately it’s a series that deals with the subject matter of vampires and werewolves, if it took itself more seriously then it probably wouldn’t be anywhere near as watchable and its flaws would probably feel far less excusable, too.

For all of its issues and flaws, Hemlock Grove is definitely a series that has a certain element of charm about it, and for those that love their gore there is definitely a decent amount of that on show here. The language is strong and some of the scenes definitely aren’t suitable for a younger audience, if you’re in your mid teens to mid twenties though then you may well find enjoyment in Hemlock Grove, and if you’re a campy horror fan of any age in fact then this is a series that is definitely well worth watching.

Hemlock Grove will return in 2014 for a second season, the second season all set to feature 10 episodes.

Red Crow – City Riser

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Originally started as a solo acoustic project by singer/songwriter Patrick Currier, Red Crow has ultimately grown into something far more than that, now standing strong as a fully fledged five-piece band.

‘City Riser‘ is the latest single from the band, a track that clocks in at just under the four minute mark and carries with it a huge amount of energy and excitement. With sound, this is a track that sounds every bit big enough to soar its way up the UK singles chart; the double bass sits powerfully in the sound, there’s a fantastic element of instrumental prowess, and vocally the band also has a huge amount to offer.

‘City Riser‘ is an incredibly catchy piece of music, the sound is incredibly tight, and I’d certainly be very surprised if this track doesn’t turn a few heads and gain the band a few new fans along the way.

Patrick Currier has an extremely hard-hitting voice and no doubt would have made a huge success of Red Crow had he stuck with his original plan to have this as a solo project, he’s certainly surrounded himself with some other very talented musicians here, however, and all of the band contribute strongly to making ‘City Riser‘ a huge success.

If ‘City Riser‘ is anything to go by, Red Crow is definitely a band to watch out for in the future, and it’s surely only a matter of time before this Banbury based band begins performing to sold-out venues on a very regular basis.

Red Lights Review

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Directed by Rodrigo Cortés, a popular upcoming director that also directed 2010’s Buried, Red Lights is a thriller set in England, filmed in Spain/Canada, and featuring a fairly globally representative cast. With fairly indistinguishable use of locations and the utilisation of a very international cast, there seems to be a great emphasis placed here on making the film as internationally marketable as possible, whilst on the surface it may be international audience friendly, however, at its core this is a film that’d struggle to find any audience whatsoever if it wasn’t filled with such star quality as can be found here.

With a plot progression so bad that it leaves you convinced by the end that you must have missed something, Red Lights is a film that is just far too preposterous for its own good. With the presence of actors such as Sigourney Weaver, Robert De Niro, and Cillian Murphy, the expectation level at the beginning of the film is therefore set pretty high, especially as the opening of the film is actually pretty promising, what we actually ultimately have here, however, is a film dealing with the subject matter of paranormal activity that is somehow even more ridiculous than most. There are a few plot twists along the way to try and throw you a few curveballs and inject a little excitement into the proceedings, the film fails to ever really shock or astound you, though, and the biggest twist of them all also happens to be the least convincing.

Cillian Murphy and Sigourney Weaver play their parts here as well as possible, the film feels very stiff with its insistence on taking itself so seriously, however, and may actually have benefited from a little more of a comic edge at times to accompany its many clichés. At just under two hours long, Red Lights feels even slower and more cumbersome than it actually is as a result of its extremely wooden nature, and although it does feature a flurry of twists as previously mentioned; some of the twists are just a little too predictable, and the biggest of them all just doesn’t really work all that well.

Sigourney Weaver, Robert De Niro, and Cillian Murphy have all been involved in some very high profile films throughout the years, all proving their worth on the big screen, appearing in films that have gone down in cinematic history; Red Lights will never be a film of notoriety for them, however, at least not for the right reasons.

The Catharsis – Romance

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It’s always a great pleasure for all of us to discover great new music. Especially, for me, when that new music is of the hardcore variety. However, in recent years hardcore has been dealt with its fair share of, well, rubbish. Lots of bands that sound like a copy of another band, whom are vaguely popular, leading to a fairly one dimensional wave of bands.

You do though get a select amount of diamonds in the rough, and 2013 has already seen the rise of one such case of this in the form of Palm Reader. Now we have another and the chances are that they may already follow you on Twitter! The Catharsis spent much of 2012 building up a passionate fan base on the internet, building excitement for their début full length release, ‘Romance‘.

Those of you who have been looking forward to this are certainly not going to be disappointed. Despite being dark and relentlessly aggressive, The Catharsis are managing to put the ‘good time’ element back into hardcore. This is one of the most instant albums you will hear all year, with catchy hook after catchy hook, after crushing breakdown. There’s absolutely no pissing around whatsoever on this album, and it’s such a refreshing change from the growing amount of mundane hardcore around today. ‘O’Recluse‘ and ‘Dead Man Talking‘ are definite highlights, but the track ‘Styx‘ sums this album up absolutely perfectly; aggressive yet ‘sing-a-long’ hardcore just meant to be played live in dirty, small, sweaty venues.

If you call yourself a hardcore fan and don’t yet own this album then there’s really something severely wrong. Listen to it. Love it. Tell all your friends about it.

Also, do make sure to catch The Catharsis live on tour with Heights and Black Dogs, they’re rather good (understatement).

EPISODE REVIEW: Breaking Bad – Blood Money

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Walter White and Jesse Pinkman - Breaking Bad Blood MoneyPhotograph: Ursula Coyote/AMC

After almost a year of waiting, the beginning of the end has finally arrived for AMC’s Breaking Bad with the airing of Season 5: Episode 9, ‘Blood Money‘. Directed by Walter White himself, the episode is every bit as brilliant as you’d expect from Bryan Cranston, beginning strongly and also ending with an absolute bang. With the end of the episode came the depressing realisation that there are now only seven more episodes of the series left until it’s brought to an end; things escalate very quickly from where we left off before the mid-season break, as there’s not long to go now, however, this is something that’s absolutely essential in order to fit in everything that needs to occur before the big season finale at the end of September.

Bryan Cranston is as excellent as ever as the despicable Walter White, Aaron Paul plays his part to absolute perfection in the role of a Jesse Pinkman who finally seems to be realising the sheer evil of his former high school chemistry teacher, and Charles Baker and Matt Jones return for a much needed element of comic relief with their superb double act of Skinny Pete and Badger. Although the end of the show is now almost here this is definitely not a drama that appears to show any signs of winding down slowly or having a happy ever after; there is that aspect of comedy with the aforementioned double act, at its core this episode is incredibly dark though, setting the tone for how things are likely to unfold in the remaining seven episodes of the series.

Walt’s cancer is back and he has also built up a lot of enemies; one way or another the end is surely very close for Walter White, and as Season 5 comes to a close it definitely feels like it’s building up to something extremely big. Walt and Jesse may have left their meth production days behind them, their past is far too dark not to come back and haunt them now though, and as Jesse deals with his own personal battles and feelings of self-loathing, Walter White would pray for the luxury of being his own worst enemy as he is now on the wrong side of many people that he has encountered and worked with throughout his time manufacturing methamphetamine.

‘Blood Money‘ is a Breaking Bad episode every bit as big and bold as we could have hoped for from the series; it sets things up strongly for the final seven episodes of the series, and over the course of the next seven weeks we’ll be getting gradually closer to the end of Breaking Bad and discovering everyone’s ultimate fate. It’s not going to be pretty as the drama draws to a close, it’s definitely likely to provide some absolutely incredible television though with the final frontier finally here for Walt, Skyler, Jesse, Hank et al.

Franz Ferdinand – Right Action

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When bands release a successful debut album, there are often two criticisms that are levelled against them as they progress forward; either they don’t evolve their sound enough, or they move things on too much and are therefore seen to have lost sight of the band that they were. Franz Ferdinand is a band that is now onto studio album number four, and on the basis of the ‘Right Action’ single (and ‘Love Illumination’ that was unveiled the same day in fact) their sound still remains very much the same. ‘Right Action’ is a track that could very much be mistaken for having been included on the band’s 2004 debut, it’s now close to a decade later and Franz Ferdinand’s music still has the exact same feel and vibe about it.

With a very simple driving bass line throughout and the unmistakeable vocal tone of Alex Kapranos, I don’t think there are too many people out there by now that’d listen to this track and not recognise it as a Franz Ferdinand song. ‘Right Action’ has the positive quality of familiarity about it, but this is also a key area for criticism as it marks out the bands lack of progression over the past decade and a lack of willingness to step out of their comfort zone. It’s an inoffensive piece of indie pop music that’d probably pass the time fairly adequately on a car journey, but then we already have plenty of tracks of this ilk from the band to choose from and ‘Right Action’ in no way improves upon what Franz Ferdinand has already presented to us many times over in the past.

If you’ve followed the career of Franz Ferdinand and been pleased with the band’s output thus far then ‘Right Action’ should be another track that’ll be right up your street, if however you became despondent with the band’s lack of willingness to take any risks with their music a while back then there’s nothing new here that’ll likely change your mind. ‘Right Action’ is an okay piece of music, but by now it all just feels a little too tried and tested.

Robbie Boyd – Painted Sky EP

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With an incredibly uplifting folk-pop sound and a strong social networking presence, Robbie Boyd is an artist that has already built up quite a name for himself complete with the backing of his band. They’ve performed twice on ITV’s ‘This Morning’, toured Argentina, Italy, France, Germany and the UK, and later this month Robbie Boyd and his band will even be performing at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park along with The Feeling and McFly. Having previously released a couple of EPs under the name The Robbie Boyd Band, the focus is now placed firmly upon Robbie Boyd in name at least with the ‘Painted Sky’ EP, the band does however in practise remain absolutely central to the sound.

With first track ‘I Want You To Stay’ there is more than a hint of the exotic, a tropical feel about the music as bongo drums are pounded, a smattering of saxophone is provided, and the music takes you away to a far away place. There’s a huge amount of positively about the sound; this is feel good music, absolutely no doubt about it, and a summertime release for this EP is most definitely absolutely fitting.

The music transports us away from the ocean with second track ‘Before It Falls Apart’, although the feel good factor absolutely remains. There’s a great emphasis on the bass here, and it’s bass guitarist Simon Fitzpatrick that really seems to hold the track together with his simple yet supremely effective instrumental style. Instrumentally the track feels a lot more stripped back than first track ‘I Want You To Stay’, allowing Robbie Boyd’s vocal display to really blossom. Robbie Boyd really does have an excellent voice, and with the focus placed far more upon Boyd you really begin to appreciate just how impressive his vocal tone truly is. Robbie Boyd’s voice is smooth yet strong, soothing to listen to and also hugely appealing. The band certainly has a huge part to play in the ultimate success of this EP, Robbie Boyd’s vocal display is absolutely cracking though, and with vocals this good Boyd and his band will surely go a long way.

‘Oh Alaska’ is definitely the standout track of the EP. There’s a great beat throughout the song and sensational sparing utilisation of the saxophone; this is a track that feels absolutely huge, a piece of music that could easily propel Robbie Boyd and his band to an even higher level of success with a single release. Any of the tracks present on this EP would surely make a successful single in fact, and with final track ‘Red Queen’ Robbie Boyd and his band further showcase their talent as they close out the EP with another absolutely stunning offering of music. The tone changes with ‘Red Queen’, there’s an excellent tempo shift to the track as it starts out fairly mellow and cranks up to another level at around the one minute mark. This is a song that should definitely go down well when Robbie Boyd and his band perform with The Feeling later this month, with Robbie Boyd’s vocal display here sounding quite similar to The Feeling’s own Dan Gillespie Sells.

There’s a lot to appreciate about Robbie Boyd’s ‘Painted Sky’ EP. With the high energy, extreme feel good factor of the music, this is an EP that will not only make a great soundtrack to the summer, but also no doubt provide a warming feeling when you listen to it on those cold, dark winter nights, too. It’s a shame there’s only four tracks to the EP really as you definitely feel that you want more, Robbie Boyd certainly displays here that he and his band are to be watched out for in the future though, and it should provide for a hugely impressive listening experience when they come to releasing a full studio album of music.

Erimha – Reign Through Immortality

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Erimha - Reign Through Immortality

In ‘Reign Through Immortality’, Erimha has released a symphonic black metal album that is more accessible than most, not through watering the genre down, but instead through its supreme storytelling quality and absolute instrumental excellence. ‘Reign Through Immortality’ is an incredibly heavy album, but it’s also far more than this.

Beginning with the instrumental ‘Enlightenment’, this is an album that feels absolutely massive from the offset, even when the sheer brutality of the music is yet to kick in. The first track serves as an introduction to the album, a gentle prelude before plummeting you into the symphonic black metal brilliance of the rest of the release. The first thing that hits you as the band kicks off into ‘Ascetic’ is the devastating power of the drumbeat as it’s made instantly clear that the instrumental quality here is going to be of the utmost quality. There’s an epic feel about the music here, a quality that continues throughout the entirety of the album. The symphonic element of the band’s sound has a huge amount of depth, always handled with absolute care and authority. Erimha hurtles through this album with a huge amount of quality; everything that’s included on this album feels as though it’s there for a reason, and you always feel as though the band means every single word and note that’s offered here.

Taking away the short instrumental introduction to the album, what we have here is nine tracks that each feel like an individual chapter of a larger story, cutting a path through a captivating tale that comes complete with some absolutely incredible guitar work and a truly impressive vocal display. Heavily influenced and inspired by the likes of Behemoth, Dimmu Borgir, and Keep of Kalesin, there’s more than a hint of death metal about the music here, an aspect of the band’s sound that they combine incredibly well with the symphonic black metal heart of the album. It’s difficult to believe at times that this band didn’t even exist five years ago, and also that ‘Reign Through Immortality’ is only the band’s second studio album; Erimha sounds like a band of far greater experience than its years, and given the quality that’s displayed on this release there’s every chance that in a few years time this is an album that’ll come to be regarded as an absolute classic of the genre.

With a thunderous display of drumming throughout the entirety of the album, the great power of Ksaos’ drum performance certainly has to be appreciated, and all four of the band’s members in fact contribute incredibly well to the band’s overall domination on this release. You could certainly put it to the band that they’re not necessarily doing anything new here, what you have to appreciate about Erimha however is just how well they do this sound; the band is confident, authoritative, highly skilled, and able to combine all of these incredibly impressive qualities with an extreme sense of storytelling excellence in an album that is both heavy and highly gripping.

Erimha is a band with a huge amount of personality, and as they continue to release more music it’ll be interesting to hear how the band progresses and evolves. This is a band that is already operating at an incredibly high level, and pushing forward into the future they’ll surely continue to grow and develop as a unit. ‘Reign Through Immortality’ is an incredibly impressive symphonic death metal album, but you also get the distinct impression when listening to this album that there’s still far more to come from Erimha in the future.

Rating
[Rating:4/5]

These Hearts – Yours To Take

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These Hearts - Yours To Take

When These Hearts released ‘Forever Ended Yesterday’ in 2011, it was very clear that this was a band with great potential. The clean vocals felt like they could do with a little work, the album had enough about it to suggest that this band could potentially grow into something rather special in the future, however, and with ‘Yours To Take’ the band continues to grow and to find itself.

With the album’s opening track ‘This Is Love’, These Hearts combines with Chunk! No, Captain Chunk!’s Bert Poncet and right from the word go here you can immediately tell that this is a band that has worked on tightening its sound. Instrumentally the band always had a huge amount to offer; the drumming was incredibly consistent throughout the entirety of the ‘Forever Ended Yesterday’ album and there was also some extremely impressive guitar work, with studio album number two the clean vocals also sound a lot stronger though with Ryan Saunders really upping his game here. The vocals feel a lot more natural, less nasal, less high pitched, and more under control, too.

Signed to Victory Records and with a similar musical format of providing a pop-punk/hardcore crossover, These Hearts is a band that will at times inevitably be compared to A Day to Remember, and when listening to the band’s ‘Been Through Hell’ in particular it’s really very hard not to think of their Floridian labelmates. ‘Been Through Hell’ sounds a lot like ‘The Downfall of Us All’ in places, it’s a very catchy track and a piece of music that most certainly has much replay value, it definitely feels like it’s been done before though, and although it’s a lot of fun it definitely doesn’t feel particularly high in originality. Whilst the band’s originality may be questioned, however, one positive quality that you can definitely draw from this release is the band’s ability to pen an incredibly catchy pop song. ‘Thinking In Terms of Two’ from ‘Forever Ended Yesterday’ was a track that hinted at the band’s supreme pop sensibilities, and this is something that is further showcased here with tracks such as ‘Birds Of A Feather’ and ‘Undecided Story’, the latter of which has an opening every bit as big as any single that 30 Seconds to Mars has ever released. As the band continues to develop in the future, turning to a more purely pop/pop-punk based sound is definitely something for These Hearts to think about, and given their artistic ability to produce tracks as infectious as these it’s definitely something to be given some serious thought.

Whilst becoming more purely pop based may be something to consider for These Hearts, another direction for this band to take in the future may be to delve deeper into the heavier side of their sound; featuring For Today’s Mattie Montgomery, ‘War’ is a very impressive track that heads very much down the metalcore route, a sound that seems to suit the band supremely. The band definitely shows on this album that they can do both pop-punk and hardcore very impressively, switching back and forth between the two styles within the same tracks however does at times leave the music open to feeling a little too predictable and contrived.

‘Yours To Take’ comes to a bouncy conclusion with final track ‘Never Mind Me’, providing further hope for the future of These Hearts. ‘Never Mind Me’ is an acoustically charged pop-punk track that brings the album to an impressive end. The track sounds very big, doesn’t ever descend into hardcore (even though you’re always half expecting it to), and it just really rounds the album off nicely with one final moment of promise. It’s this kind of a track that the band seems to do best, so it’s therefore nice to hear the band closing the album out in this style, leaving the listener optimistic that there may well be more of this to come in the future.

With their Victory Records debut These Hearts displayed in places great potential for the future, and with their sophomore release they definitely seem to have worked on suring up their sound and improving as a unit. They’ve shown here that they’re able to do both the pop-punk and the hardcore sound proud, for me it’s the band’s prowess in the pop-punk department that shines through most strongly, however, and if they were to focus purely on this side of their music with studio album number three then there’s every chance that it could end up becoming a real classic of the genre.

Rating
[Rating:3/5]