AFI - 'Burials' review

Well, we've been a little quiet since the release of issue five, but that's not to say we haven't been hella busy; all being well, the new issue should be out early July with a nice little surprise, so in the mean-time, here's a review taken from the last issue, this time of AFI's latest effort, 'Burials'...

AFI - 'Burials' review

"Well, AFI were one of my favourite bands whilst growing up, this being during their 'The Art of Drowning' / 'Sing the Sorrow' era (of which I know Nat is also a big fan), and for me, especially the former, these are their two masterpieces, and though 'DecemberUnderground' had it's few moments of genius, I lost track after that, resigning myself to the expectation that said album would be the last that contained any such moments. So, in the meantime it appears I've missed an album, and have been lent this, their latest effort, and was I right? Well, at least for the time being, I reckon so, yeah, but that's not to say that this is bad.

As much as everyone will obsess over Davey, and as crucial as he obviously is to AFI as their founding vocalist, I've always thought that Jade is a bit of a genius; they went from being 'good' to being 'magic' when he joined, and, as evident here, he's still writing very interesting stuff, but for those that haven't picked up an AFI album in a while, it's now more NINE INCH NAILS than MISFITS; more LINKIN PARK than old OFFSPRING, and if that's how they prefer to go about things and express themselves these days, then I guess that's fine. So what we have here is 13 tracks of largely slow, heavily layered, distorted pop-rock that I guess leans closer to 'Crash Love' than anything they did prior. A lot of the orchestral / theatrical atmosphere has gone too, replaced by a kind of overpowering, digital distortion on the guitars, as you can hear in single 'I Hope You Suffer'. Some of it's pretty catchy, especially other single '17 Crimes', and 'A Deep Slow Panic' is upbeat and hooky, but yeah, admittedly I'm struggling to 'get into it'.

Most people reading this will already have an opinion on AFI, and will know whether they're going to get this or not. I'm kind of on the fence; this was a bit better than I thought it'd be, but if you love their old stuff, don't expect this to give you goosebumps."

xox

The Red Heroes - 'It Fills That Void For Me' review

The Red Heroes - 'It Fills That Void For Me' review

So, The Red Heroes from over in the States are putting an album out in September, and I got a lil' exclusive blast of the thing prior to release. Here's a lil' review of said album...

"So these guys play pop-punk in a very modern, Western style in the vein of bands like MAN OVERBOARD and THE WONDER YEARS, and despite being similarly and unashamedly saccharine both musically and lyrically (though there IS some pretty miserable subject matter), THE RED HEROES play in a more straight and direct fashion, with less of the flare and superfluity of such bands. However, such a statement shouldn't be perceived in a negative light; here we have twelve tracks (plus an acoustic version of one of the album tracks) that are bright and, though quite catchy on the first and second listen, have a surprisingly uncanny knack for sneaking into your subconscious, and popping up in your head on arbitrary subsequent occasions, especially on the vocal side, thanks to some really quite memorable vocal melodies in both verses and choruses, and some pretty sweet backing harmonies. It invariably strolls at a steady mid-tempo, but the varied song-structures, song-lengths, nice drum time-changes, and use of contrast between full drive and some quite lovely mellow, acoustic sections keep the whole thing interesting enough, and I must say, the bass on this is pretty sweet, jazzing it up with some awesome picking and licks that add a lot of life to the straight chord-work. Stand-out tracks for me on here are 'Letters to a Christian Nation' largely for the hooky drumwork, the rather amusing and snotty acoustic number 'Martha', and the wonderfully chorused 'Valentine's Day (Hannah)', but the key tune here has to be the second track, 'Untouchable'; killer bass, catchy melodies, and the most infectious chorus on the whole album, and as if that weren't enough, there's an acoustic version right at the end that is just beautiful, and whoever Meagan Smith is, she has a wonderful voice that harmonises with the male lead perfectly, and her additional lines are a real treat. A consistent release that fuses the tempo and drive of old-school DIVIT and the melody and pop sensibilities of THE RED JUMPSUIT APPARATUS and THE ACADEMY IS with the modern pop-punk stylings of MAN OVERBOARD; a pretty promising prospect."

You can find The Red Heroes in the following places:

http://theredheroes.bandcamp.com/

http://www.facebook.com/theRedHeroes

http://www.youtube.com/theRedHeroes

http://www.twitter.com/theRedHeroes

Cheers! :D

xox

Tegan and Sara - 'Heartthrob' review

Tegan and Sara - 'Heartthrob' review

So, after waiting a good few years for them to come back around, I saw Tegan and Sara for the first time last week, and they were, unsurprisingly, quite brilliant. In the wake of that, I figured I'd post the review I wrote of their latest album 'Heartthrob' in The Screever issue three:

"Ah, TEGAN AND SARA; these girls can literally do no wrong in my ears. I've yet to hear a song that I dislike by them, and on this album, though their sound differs slightly compared to that heard on previous albums, leaning far more into dance-pop territory, this collection of tunes also features no such thing. The opener, 'Closer' (to which the video is hilarious and wonderful), is a killer party-pop tune, as catchy as anything you're likely to hear this year, and it literally goes from strength to strength from there, flowing through a bunch of some of the catchiest and most infectious chorus driven pop songs you'll ever hear, that are melodically perfect, both vocally and instrumentally. There's little point listing favourite tracks when such an endeavour would result in largely writing out the entire track list, and though containing less variety than I'm used to hearing from them, this is probably T&S' most consistently brilliant release to date. If I had to compare this to anything, you could draw similarities to bands like METRIC, THE TEMPER TRAP, and ROBYN's better, catchier stuff, but as long as you like decent music, you should love this. An incredible achievement in song-writing, it's going to take some seriously magic releases to stop this from becoming one of my favourite albums of 2013; perfect really."

Tegan and Sara are on Facebook here:

https://www.facebook.com/TeganandSara

Cheers for reading! :)

xox