Music fans are brilliant. Less brilliant, however, are ridiculous ignorant fanboys who like and support a band only as long as that band is adhering to a preconceived set of rules and styles which is appealing to that particular person’s sense of ‘what this band is like’. (Please note: the difference between ‘fan’ a... Read more 10 Aug 2014 - 5 minute read
Converge and Martyrdöd and Okkultokrati, Club Academy, Manchester, UK, August 4, 2014 Okkultokrati are a Norwegian metal band who offer aggressive, low-tuned punk attitude with a level of startling complexity worthy of Psyyke. Their performance was marred slightly at the beginning thanks to a stunning feat of sound engineering (I mean, what... Read more 08 Aug 2014 - 5 minute read
Sometimes a record comes along that blows everything you believed about hardcore out of the water. For me, this is that record. Code Orange Kids' fantastic 2012 LP 'Love Is Love // Return To Dust' brings together elements of shoe-gaze, post-hardcore and all-out sludge metal war to bear in a 10-track, 30-minute experience that is at once compelli... Read more 28 Jul 2014 - 3 minute read
This is another review I never actually gave to anyone. This one was just for me but I'm sharing it here. If you've never heard of this band, get on it quick before they get huge and sell out. (A side note: Code Orange Kids recently changed their name to Code Orange, much to the chagrin of die-hard fanboys who threw hissy fits on Twitter about t... Read more 02 Jul 2014 - 4 minute read
This review was originally hosted on and written for Manchester Rocks, and is reprinted here with permission. Over the years, Canada has produced some absolutely brilliant punk. Propagandhi, Comeback Kid and Fucked Up have all taken the world by storm and remain some of the best-selling acts out there. There is, however, a small sub-section of t... Read more 02 Jul 2014 - 3 minute read