With the resurgence of Classic Rock, bands like The Temperance Movement, Monster Truck and recently Greta Van Fleet, and the imminent release of the Bohemian Rhapsody film it is the perfect time for something new from The Struts. Formed in 2012, they are a four piece Rock band with an undimmed love for Queen, The Darkness and The Rolling Stones. Continue reading
While a career in music, in general, seems to be predicated on a fickle game of risk and reward, for my money no genre has it worse than Hard Rock (Metal, Punk or otherwise). You push too far into a musical extreme and you’re considered a niche product at best. Streamline the sound and introduce a melody, and pockets of fans are deriding you as sellouts before the first check is cleared. Dubai’s Jay Wud attempts to control the chaos down the middle with their new release, Transitions (self-released).Continue reading
Infamous vocalist Ronnie Radke is renowned for over-introspection when it comes to his music. His band’s direction on previous album Just Like You, was a throwback to his Escape The Fate days as he felt people were yearning for that nostalgia trip. Having gotten that out of the system, fourth album Coming Home (Epitaph) was about finding and defining a style, and staying focused to a conceptual thread throughout the music. And there’s something very interesting going on in the Falling In Reverse camp this time around.Continue reading
Rocking horse shit. That’s about the only thing as rare as a band nailing aesthetic, mystique, live shows, credibility, a groundswell of genuine interest, a devoted fanbase and SONGS on their debut album. Rocking horse shit. And Creeper’s Eternity, In Your Arms (Roadrunner).Continue reading
The Echo and Echoplex in Los Angeles, CA will be celebrating their one year anniversary for their Emo Night: Taking Back Tuesday on December 1, 2015.
Scheduled to perform are performances and DJ sets from Dashboard Confessional, Seahaven, Fakers, and Have Mercy, and DJ sets from Mark Hoppus (Blink 182), Jack Barakat (All Time Low), Mikey Way (My Chemical Romance), FIDLAR, Sugarcult, We Are The In Crowd, and more.
Other nights scheduled are posted below:
Dec 01: The Echo + Echoplex – Los Angeles, CA
Dec 08: The Marquis Theater – Denver, CO
Dec 15: Rickshaw Stop – San Francisco, CA
For the members of Illinois metalcore outfit Sworn In, the past four year’s worth of hard work and roughing it on the road has slowly paid off into their latest album The Lovers/The Devil seeing a release through Razor and Tie this past April 7th.
“We have a record before this [2013’s The Death Card] and two EPs [2011’s Catharsis and 2012’s Start/End]”, explained frontman Tyler Drennen, about their history. “It’s three or four years of solid shit eating and get where we need to get to, and biting the bullet to do the shitty shit. Being at the point where we’re doing [Rockstar Energy] Mayhem Fest and stuff like that, we’re grinding it out and doing whatever tours come our way, staying on the road and playing music.”
Like their previous recordings, The Lovers/The Devil is a concept album that sticks to a theme based on tarot cards. But aside from that, their songs are also built around personal stories relating to that theme as well, which became relatable to Drennen.
“For Sworn In, all of our full length CD’s are conceptual albums based on tarot cards. So this album combines two tarot cards into one. There’s the Lovers card and the Devils card. The whole idea is that it’s a two part CD – part one is songs one through seven, and eight through thirteen is the devil’s side. If you follow the story of the destructive relationship, with one character being the lover and one being the devil and on the CD it switches and the characters switch too. So it starts off as the lover and then the devils side starts up. It’s a long way of saying everyone has a lover and the devil side of them.”
He went into depth about how the songs tied into his own personal life. “I wrote all of the lyrics. It was a collection of observations that I made on love. My parents didn’t have a great relationship. I wasn’t in a great relationship while I was writing that CD. So there’s some personal stuff in there too.”
“I mean the entire time I was writing the record, I was dating a girl and we didn’t have a very good relationship. That was a lot of what I was thinking about while I was writing it.”
Musically, The Lovers/The Devil showcases a mix of heavier metalcore-esque tunes on the Devil half of the CD, while the Lovers side experiments with a darker yet melodic flavor less featured on past recordings. He talked about their wide range of musical influences that have been within the band and how tastes have changed over the years.
“The early days we were a lot heavier than we are now. We were listening to bands like Between The Buried And Me, Meshuggah, The Acacia Strain, Emmure and stuff like that. But we also have more mainstream-y influences like pop music. We all like rap music. I’m way into My Chemical Romance, Thrice and stuff like that. It’s a nice little potpourri of stuff we’re into.”
“We wanted the Lovers half of the CD to be a bit more straight forward and mainstreamy with singing and catchy choruses. We wanted the Devil’s side to be the same. So that’s what we did,” said Drennen.
At the time of the interview, the band just endured a minor dilemma when Drennen sat out a leg of their recent support slot with Chelsea Grin with throat problems.
He explained what exactly happened. “The day we left, I got strep throat and that led into bronchitis and straight into laryngitis. Then from there I went straight into some walk in clinics and they were worried that whatever infection I had got septic and got into my blood. So they suggested me to go see my primary healthcare physician, so I went home for a few days and he said it would take a few days of no talking with antibiotics. Long story short, after I stopped yelling every night I got better.”
“It was a matter of my larynx got super inflamed from a symptom of being sick. It got all swollen and was hard for me to talk and scream and do anything. Our merch guy Kenny was [filling in for those shows].
Sworn In will be spending this summer on the Rockstar Mayhem Fest across North America, sharing the side stage with Whitechapel, Thy Art Is Murder and many others. Drennen shared his thoughts on their upcoming summer touring plans.
“That was mind-blowing for us. One day we got a call from our manager and he was like ‘we got Mayhem [Fest]’ and we were like holy shit – can’t even believe it. We didn’t think we were going to get it and it worked out.”
He also shared what to expect from their appearance on the tour. “We’re going to play a couple songs off of The Death Card and the rest are going to be new songs. It’s going to be really cool. We’re working on some cool stage production so it should be an amazing show to watch.”
“I’m excited to see Slayer every night. It will be crazy. We’re really good friends with the guys from Thy Art Is Murder, so we’ll hang out with them a lot. I’m pretty stoked to see Code Orange every night.“
Matt Skiba is very busy these days. He’s fronted Alkaline Trio for close to two decades and also dabbled in side projects like Heavens and The Hell. In case you didn’t know, he’s also currently filling in for Tom Delonge in Blink 182.
And because apparently the devil makes good use of idle hands Skiba just released KUTS (Superball Music) with The Sekrets. The Sekrets almost being a supergroup for the Alternative Press crowd as it also features AFI bassist Huntar Burgan and My Chemical Romance’s Jarrod Alexander on drums.
Are you still with me? Good, because if you are a fan of any of those aforementioned groups then you are in for a pleasant surprise with KUTS.
The formula here hasn’t drastically changed. It’s simple, yet effective songwriting mated to a bright, but not overbearing mix. And that’s not to say that 2012s Babylon or Haven’t You EP weren’t good, but The Sekrets are starting to stretch their sound a little more as opposed to sticking with traditional pop-punk compositions. While there still are bits pf punk fire from time to time like on opener ‘Lonely and Kold’ and ‘She Said’ it seems that Skiba and his cohorts have been revisiting their The Smiths, The Cure, and Echo & The Bunnymen LPs.
This more post-punk approach really sets in on the second half of KUTS. Songs like ‘Way Bakk When’ and ‘Hemophiliak’ shift The Sekrets’ emphasis to melancholy as opposed to two minutes of aggression. ‘Never Believe’ and ‘Vienna’ close out the album and finds Skiba further channeling Johnny Marr with simple but haunting music to compliment his almost world-weary vocals.
Skiba finds a way to honor some of his musical heroes without it coming across as just a love letter to the late 70s and early 80s. But then again the man has time for what seems like 400 other musical projects. Not sure how he does it, but hopefully he won’t stop soon.
8.0/10
HANSEL LOPEZ
More artists have come up as part of the forthcoming Guitar Hero Live video game, out this fall.
Halestorm – “Love Bites (So Do I)”
Tenacious D – “Tribute”
Beartooth – “I Have A Problem”
Pearl Jam – “Mind Your Manners”
Rise Against – “Tragedy + Time”
Soundgarden – “Been Away Too Long”
Anthrax – “Got The Time”
Architects – “Gravedigger”
Chevelle – “The Clincher”
A Day To Remember – “Right Back At It Again”
Songs already announced for the game include:
Deftones – “Diamond Eyes”
Marilyn Manson – “Disposable Teens”
The Black Keys – “Gold on the Ceiling”
Blitz Kids – “Sometimes”
Killswitch Engage – “In Due Time”
Mastodon – “High Road”
Bring Me The Horizon – “Shadow Moses”
Of Mice & Men – “Bones Exposed”
Trivium – “Strife”
System of a Down – “Chop Suey!”
Black Veil Brides – “In The End”
Rage Against the Machine – “Guerrilla Radio”
Judas Priest – “Breaking the Law”
Pantera – “Cowboys From Hell”
Royal Blood – “Little Monster”
Vista Chino – “Sweet Remain”
Marmozets – “Move Shake Hide”
Red Hot Chili Peppers – “Higher Ground”
The Pretty Reckless – “Going to Hell”
Alter Bridge – “Cry of Achilles”
Ed Sheeran – “Sing”
Fall Out Boy – “My Songs Know What You Did in the Dark (Light Em Up)”
Gary Clark, Jr. – “Don’t Owe You a Thang”
Green Day – “Nuclear Family”
The Killers – “When You Were Young”
The Lumineers – “Ho Hey”
My Chemical Romance – “Na Na Na”
Pierce the Veil – “King for a Day” (feat. Kellin Quinn)
The Rolling Stones – “Paint it Black”
Skrillex – “Bangarang”
The War on Drugs – “Under the Pressure”
Sleigh Bells – “Bitter Rivals”
Alt-J – “Left Hand Free”
Broken Bells – “Leave It Alone”
The Guitar Hero video game franchise is relaunching its line this fall with a new installment called Guitar Hero Live, where it has been reworked to now feature a live action experience and focuses solely on guitars this time around. A new guitar peripheral has been announced to go along with the game and features two rows of three buttons to offer a different experience that will allow for basic chord patterns on higher difficulties.
Artists confirmed to be part of the game this time around include:
The Black Keys
Fall Out Boy
My Chemical Romance
Gary Clark, Jr.
Green Day
Ed Sheeran
The War on Drugs
The Killers
Skrillex
The Rolling Stones
The Lumineers
Carrie Underwood
Pierce The Veil
Blitz Kids
“Na na na na, I’m aware I am an asshole” chirps Ronnie Radke seconds into the perky title track of the third Falling In Reverse album, Just Like You (Epitaph); a relevant self-aware line for the people who find the former Escape The Fate frontman a hurdle to get over in and of himself. While some won’t listen to Megadeth because of Dave Mustaine’s crazy-ass bollock spouting (rather than the valid reason they haven’t done anything worthwhile for 25 years), liking Falling in Reverse shouldn’t mean forgiving or condoning his actions, as there has to be a separation between the man and the band.
Because, while Just Like You is not the album where Radke and his compadres grow up, it is the one where they produce a convincing, enjoyable slice of modern pop-rock fun and catchy metalcore.
‘Chemical Prisoner’, an energetic tune that recalls A at their best, kicks things off as the opening quartet of tunes of the album bring the sun and the fun, with staccato rock bouncing shoulder to shoulder with pop sensibilities. There are dashes of My Chemical Romance as spirited verses drop to half-time anthemic choruses, while English lead guitarist Jackie Vincent shines with a series of Yngwie-esque classical tinged solos. Some of the lyrics are dreadful, and the “OMG! You make me cum!” on ‘Sexy Drug’ will make parents the world over cringe, but the sugary swagger, the hook-filled rapid-vocal delivery in the verses and the festival-friendly chorus more than make up for it.
There’s plenty of looking to the big hitters for influence as ‘Just Like You’ could be Blink 182 jamming with Fall Out Boy while choruses throughout point to Def Leppard and Warrant albums in the collection. Elsewhere, ‘Guillotine IV’ and ‘The Bitter End’ showcase the other side of Falling… as they head back to beatdown town and out Asking Alexandria Asking Alexandria as they churn through the metalcore, but never at the expense of the chorus or the song. ‘My Heart’s To Blame’ is a slower, more considered number, not a million miles away from some of the more thoughtful moments of Sempiternal (RCA/Epitaph), and ‘Wait and See’ flits from Eminem to King 810 to Panic! At The Disco, further showing the diversity on offer.
What is interesting is that, while the grind of a track like ‘Die For You’ spices up proceedings and adds an impetus, where Falling In Reverse truly shine is when they cast off the trappings of trying to hang with the heavy, and let the pop rock bravado shine through. These guys can write hits, and while they could be a great rock band, they’re not much better than average when they do their metalcore thang – it makes you wonder if they’re trying to prove something that doesn’t need proving.
However, when all is said and done, Just Like You is a swag-bag full of new toys for their hordes of teenage fans to sing along and lose their shit to, and I have a feeling Ronnie and the boys are going to do pretty damn well out of it, thank you very much.
OMG.
7.5/10
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STEVE TOVEY